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What is unappreciated today, even by serious historians, is Henry's wisdom and foresight in separating from the authority and commands of Rome. That is from str

What is unappreciated today, even by serious historians, is Henry's wisdom and foresight in separating from the authority and commands of Rome. That is from strategic point of view, as regards England's subsequent development vis-a-vis the mainland of Europe. It was a masterstroke, not to be equalled by the actions and strategic abilities of any subsequent kings or queens. It laid the foundations for the British Empire, which would have been quite impossible to create otherwise and at best would have ended up like the Spanish one. Compared to this, the endlessly hyped story of how many wives he divorced pales into insignificance. I even think that they were just a useful means to him of justifying this break with Rome, which was his prior primary objective.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
What a ridiculously stereotypical Whiggish view of the English Reformation.
ripb 12y ago
Wisdom and foresight or lust fueled selfishness?
- davidgerard 12y ago
  Try "observably greater success than you've ever had".
  - ripb 12y ago
    Wait, you're telling me someone born into extreme wealth and power, with an unrivaled network and level of influence throughout the world, who could just click his fingers and have something done and fund it from the vast amounts of money available to him, enjoyed more success than middle class, run of the mill me? No way, I refuse to believe it.
    - saiya-jin 12y ago
      And yet there are endless possibilities for us compared to such a monarch. You wanna go to Bali for a month and just hang around, doing diving, kite boarding, hike to active volcano and much much more? No problem. That monarch? Didn't even read about that place in books. Even on that Bali, appendectomy won't kill you. Got fungus infection on feet? Here is cream, in 2 weeks you are OK. And so on... Yes, I think many many people live now much nicer lives than medieval monarchs. In 2 months, I go to Mont Blanc on skis, and I'll propose to my girlfriend up there if we both make it. As for monarch...
  - Natsu 12y ago
    Actually, I think we do ourselves a disservice by forgetting how many things we have that he could but dream of. I can, in seconds, order items from the other end of the globe and have them shipped here in a day or two. I have luxuries, like electricity, modern transportation, communication, modern medicine and the like that he could but dream of. While it may be that he will have a bigger place in history than I do and that he had more authority, leaving you free to define a 'success' of some kind where that statement is true, I dare say that the day to day lives of decently well-off people in first world countries like myself are, in fact, far more comfortable than even the kings of ages past and we shouldn't forget that.
- bgilroy26 12y ago
  Neither. The tone of the first being laudatory, the second being contemptuous, academic history isn't in the business of telling readers how likeable historical figures were.
ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
" I even think that they were just a useful means to him of justifying this break, which was his prior primary objective." Probably not, since prior to his penis getting the best of him, his regime was impeccably orthodox-the title "Defender of the Faith" was bestowed by the Pope for defending Catholicism against Lutheranism (I believe in a book that was largely ghost written by Thomas More). Even after the Act of Supremacy, his regime officially remained orthodox in a way that ruffled the feathers of many more radical reformers. Despite the fact that Henry was a really bad catholic who skirted the bounds of heterodoxy, and laid the grounds for the more radical reformation of Edward VI.
- SagelyGuru 12y ago
  What I have tried to convey, perhaps not successfully, is that as a king he had to think strategically about his kingdom's interests, not about theological disputes. That is why even in those times it was understood that the king, as a worldly power, was separate from the church's power. By emphasising that separation, regardless the finer points of catechisms, he strengthened himself and his country. OK, you may argue as to whether this was his explicit intention but it undoubtedly was the effect.
  - ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
    You are still reading a very Whiggish, anachronistic view of history into what happened. With a corresponding value judgement that Catholic England wasn't worthy of survival, and that the great achievements of the Glorious Revolution and parliamentary democracy were a given at the time of the break with Rome.
    - SagelyGuru 12y ago
      No, it is you who is reading a Popish view into it. My judgement is based on informed comparison with countries like Spain and Portugal, and Bohemia, which either never attempted such separation or failed in it - and their relative importance compared to the British Empire.
ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
Ironically, I agree that the Reformation was a good thing in general, since it led eventually to a more secular Western Civilization. What I do disagree with is the disparagement of a thousand years of Catholic England, the iconoclasm and book burning of the Reformation, and its replacement by a dour, sober, severe Protestantism in many forms.
- SagelyGuru 12y ago
  I might agree with you there. Though I fail to see how you managed to imagine all those things in my simple statement which implied none of them.
- jwdunne 12y ago
  Hrm, I wouldn't say that. There were laws which discriminated against Catholics for centuries afterwards in England. It was only after the Emancipation act in the nineteenth century where things started to improve and even then it took until the 20th century for anti-catholic sentiment to really die down.
AnimalMuppet 12y ago
I don't think that was Henry's objective at all. His objective was a male heir, to avoid another War of the Roses (which was quite recent history to him). The break with Rome was just a price he was willing to pay to avoid setting the stage for another civil war.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  A male heir and a pile of cash: the Dissolution of the Monasteries gave Henry an excuse to fill his coffers and pay off some debts. It was a literal land grab. I doubt he was thinking strategically much beyond immediate gain. He was a competent diplomat, in the terms of the day, but doesn't seem to have been gifted with imperial prescience.
alricb 12y ago
Rome's "Authority and command"? We're talking about the late 15th century here. The Western Schism had only ended in 1417. Conciliarism had been strong throughout the 15th century. All the powerful monarchs of Europe were trying to consolidate their power, and wanted, as much as possible, to get money from the Church. The conflict between the papacy and the English king wasn't as harsh as that between the papacy and the French or Spanish king because England was far away from Rome, and the English had been left to do mostly what they wanted. Spain was ruined by the Hapsburg's wars, in which Catholic France (and its very-Christian king) allied with protestant powers to become the dominant continental power.
afarrell 12y ago
It also allowed them to more effectively colonize Ireland. As much as I am vehemently not a fan of the various colonizing events and the effects of the resultant economic control of Irish food supplies...it did strengthen the British empire.
SeanDav 12y ago
I think Henry's decision had very little to do with foresight and wisdom and a lot more to do with his gonads.
- smoyer 12y ago
  The Freudian perspective!
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    Surely the Freudian perspective would be something along the lines of him mourning the loss of his mother [1] and seeking to find a woman to replace her rather than really looking for a wife per se. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_York
- emmelaich 12y ago
  I think it had a lot to do with the blow to the head he got when he fell from his horse. Not that the decisions he made were all bad ones.
simonh 12y ago
> It was a masterstroke, not to be equalled by the actions and strategic abilities of any subsequent kings or queens. If England was the only European state to separate from Rome you might have an argument. Henry was a decent King as Kings go, but honestly his daughter Elizabeth was the most kick-ass monarch in the history of Monarchs. I'm struggling to think of anyone who even comes close.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

What a ridiculously stereotypical Whiggish view of the English Reformation.

ripb 12y ago

Wisdom and foresight or lust fueled selfishness?

davidgerard 12y ago
Try "observably greater success than you've ever had".
- ripb 12y ago
  Wait, you're telling me someone born into extreme wealth and power, with an unrivaled network and level of influence throughout the world, who could just click his fingers and have something done and fund it from the vast amounts of money available to him, enjoyed more success than middle class, run of the mill me? No way, I refuse to believe it.
  - saiya-jin 12y ago
    And yet there are endless possibilities for us compared to such a monarch. You wanna go to Bali for a month and just hang around, doing diving, kite boarding, hike to active volcano and much much more? No problem. That monarch? Didn't even read about that place in books. Even on that Bali, appendectomy won't kill you. Got fungus infection on feet? Here is cream, in 2 weeks you are OK. And so on... Yes, I think many many people live now much nicer lives than medieval monarchs. In 2 months, I go to Mont Blanc on skis, and I'll propose to my girlfriend up there if we both make it. As for monarch...
- Natsu 12y ago
  Actually, I think we do ourselves a disservice by forgetting how many things we have that he could but dream of. I can, in seconds, order items from the other end of the globe and have them shipped here in a day or two. I have luxuries, like electricity, modern transportation, communication, modern medicine and the like that he could but dream of. While it may be that he will have a bigger place in history than I do and that he had more authority, leaving you free to define a 'success' of some kind where that statement is true, I dare say that the day to day lives of decently well-off people in first world countries like myself are, in fact, far more comfortable than even the kings of ages past and we shouldn't forget that.
bgilroy26 12y ago
Neither. The tone of the first being laudatory, the second being contemptuous, academic history isn't in the business of telling readers how likeable historical figures were.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

" I even think that they were just a useful means to him of justifying this break, which was his prior primary objective." Probably not, since prior to his penis getting the best of him, his regime was impeccably orthodox-the title "Defender of the Faith" was bestowed by the Pope for defending Catholicism against Lutheranism (I believe in a book that was largely ghost written by Thomas More). Even after the Act of Supremacy, his regime officially remained orthodox in a way that ruffled the feathers of many more radical reformers. Despite the fact that Henry was a really bad catholic who skirted the bounds of heterodoxy, and laid the grounds for the more radical reformation of Edward VI.

SagelyGuru 12y ago
What I have tried to convey, perhaps not successfully, is that as a king he had to think strategically about his kingdom's interests, not about theological disputes. That is why even in those times it was understood that the king, as a worldly power, was separate from the church's power. By emphasising that separation, regardless the finer points of catechisms, he strengthened himself and his country. OK, you may argue as to whether this was his explicit intention but it undoubtedly was the effect.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
  You are still reading a very Whiggish, anachronistic view of history into what happened. With a corresponding value judgement that Catholic England wasn't worthy of survival, and that the great achievements of the Glorious Revolution and parliamentary democracy were a given at the time of the break with Rome.
  - SagelyGuru 12y ago
    No, it is you who is reading a Popish view into it. My judgement is based on informed comparison with countries like Spain and Portugal, and Bohemia, which either never attempted such separation or failed in it - and their relative importance compared to the British Empire.

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago

Ironically, I agree that the Reformation was a good thing in general, since it led eventually to a more secular Western Civilization. What I do disagree with is the disparagement of a thousand years of Catholic England, the iconoclasm and book burning of the Reformation, and its replacement by a dour, sober, severe Protestantism in many forms.

SagelyGuru 12y ago
I might agree with you there. Though I fail to see how you managed to imagine all those things in my simple statement which implied none of them.
jwdunne 12y ago
Hrm, I wouldn't say that. There were laws which discriminated against Catholics for centuries afterwards in England. It was only after the Emancipation act in the nineteenth century where things started to improve and even then it took until the 20th century for anti-catholic sentiment to really die down.

AnimalMuppet 12y ago

I don't think that was Henry's objective at all. His objective was a male heir, to avoid another War of the Roses (which was quite recent history to him). The break with Rome was just a price he was willing to pay to avoid setting the stage for another civil war.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
A male heir and a pile of cash: the Dissolution of the Monasteries gave Henry an excuse to fill his coffers and pay off some debts. It was a literal land grab. I doubt he was thinking strategically much beyond immediate gain. He was a competent diplomat, in the terms of the day, but doesn't seem to have been gifted with imperial prescience.

alricb 12y ago

Rome's "Authority and command"? We're talking about the late 15th century here. The Western Schism had only ended in 1417. Conciliarism had been strong throughout the 15th century. All the powerful monarchs of Europe were trying to consolidate their power, and wanted, as much as possible, to get money from the Church. The conflict between the papacy and the English king wasn't as harsh as that between the papacy and the French or Spanish king because England was far away from Rome, and the English had been left to do mostly what they wanted. Spain was ruined by the Hapsburg's wars, in which Catholic France (and its very-Christian king) allied with protestant powers to become the dominant continental power.

afarrell 12y ago

It also allowed them to more effectively colonize Ireland. As much as I am vehemently not a fan of the various colonizing events and the effects of the resultant economic control of Irish food supplies...it did strengthen the British empire.

SeanDav 12y ago

I think Henry's decision had very little to do with foresight and wisdom and a lot more to do with his gonads.

smoyer 12y ago
The Freudian perspective!
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Surely the Freudian perspective would be something along the lines of him mourning the loss of his mother [1] and seeking to find a woman to replace her rather than really looking for a wife per se. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_York
emmelaich 12y ago
I think it had a lot to do with the blow to the head he got when he fell from his horse. Not that the decisions he made were all bad ones.

simonh 12y ago

> It was a masterstroke, not to be equalled by the actions and strategic abilities of any subsequent kings or queens. If England was the only European state to separate from Rome you might have an argument. Henry was a decent King as Kings go, but honestly his daughter Elizabeth was the most kick-ass monarch in the history of Monarchs. I'm struggling to think of anyone who even comes close.