HENRY VIII BECOMES KING OF ENGLAND
Henry was a king who hadn’t been expected to rule, he only became heir because his older brother Arthur had died….
When Henry VII died on the 21st April 1509, a 17 year old Henry VIII ascended to the throne, his maturity level was that of a young man.
He lived to play, and work came inbetween.
Most mornings he didn’t get up until eight o’clock.
Once he was out of bed, he preferred hunting or hawking over the business of governing.
When his outdoor activities ended, Henry could find time to meet some of his obligations, but work had to be completed quickly – his nights were usually filled with dancing, gambling or playing cards.
Henry did meet regularly with his secretary and ambassadors, and he had a prodigious memory that helped him make an array of kingly decisions.
But while ruling the land, he also made sure he found time to enjoy himself.
Not only did Henry rule a kingdom, but he was also tall, over six feet, in good shape, thanks to his love of hunting and jousting, and had beautiful reddish-gold hair.
He was an accomplished musician who sang and played instruments such as the recorder and the lute.
He composed and arranged music himself.
His work includes “Pastimes with Good Company,” but, contrary to rumor, he wasn’t the man behind “Greensleeves”
Henry was a healthy young man, but he was still paranoid about getting sick and dying.
There were plenty of illnesses around, for him to worry about, but two particular concerns were the sweating sickness, and the plague.
When a severe wave of the sweating sickness hit in 1517-18, Henry left London for nearly a year.
Precautions against the plague and the sweating sickness helped keep Henry safe from those diseases, but he wasn’t able to protect himself entirely against ill health.
As he grew older, particularly once he entered middle age, Henry put on a massive amount of weight.
Henry weighed nearly 400 pounds when he died in 1547.
In his later years, the king also suffered from painful ulcers on his legs and had trouble standing and walking.
Was Henry’s blood responsible for his difficulty in siring a male heir?
In 2011, bioarchaeologist Catrina Banks Whitley and anthropologist Kyra Kramer shared their theory that Henry was a member of the rare blood group that is positive for the Kell antigen.
This means that if the king impregnated a woman, and the baby inherited Kell-positive status, the mother would build up Kell antibodies.
Though that first pregnancy would likely not be affected, future Kell-positive fetuses would be attacked by those antibodies.
The fact that Henry’s first wife Katharine of Aragon, experienced many miscarriages and the loss of children soon after birth fits this theory.
Their one surviving daughter, Mary, although not the result of a first pregnancy, could have been Kell negative, then her mother’s antibodies wouldn’t have affected her.
While Anne Boleyn had a healthy firstborn in Elizabeth I, her subsequent pregnancies ended in miscarriage.
Henry’s other known children — Edward VI and the illegitimate Henry Fitzroy — were also first pregnancies for their respective mothers.
Obviously the science to prove or disprove this hypothesis didn’t exist in the Tudor era, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it had… anyone who tried to tell Henry that he was the real problem would’ve been risking their head……
Although Henry’s been dead for several centuries, researchers and biographers still wonder how to explain the paranoia, volatility and tyrannical behavior he demonstrated in later years-
Henry had syphilis…….
This speculation is highly unlikely, and has been credibly debunked.
If Henry had been given mercury, the go-to treatment for syphilis at the time, it would’ve been almost impossible to hide the side effects.
It would have been mentioned on the Kings medical records.
There has been no record found of the King having been administered Mercury.
The King’s medical records would have been meticulously written down, incase of mis-managed medication, overdoses, adverse reactions etc…
A jousting accident left Henry with brain damage……
The king did have a serious jousting accident in 1536, but he didn’t display a sudden personality change afterward, so this theory is also questionable.
Henry had McLeod syndrome……
This syndrome could account for Henry’s later mobility issues, and it also results in cognitive impairment.
Lastly, it’s tied to the Kell blood group, so the pregnancy problems experienced by Henry’s partners are another indication in its favour.
