Henry VIII's Last Victim

I suppose one just notices these things when one is attuned to them.  Henry the VIII left his son a mess of a kingdom as he died, because he had debased the currency to pay for optional and unnecessary wars.  Jessie Childs rehearses very well what any casual student of Henrician England already nows.  But her book, out some 4 years, may be a very good introductory book.

First, Henry's last victim, the Earl of Surrey, was among the younger set of important players in Henry's reign, only coming to be a player himself in the last years of henry's reign.  But his biography, and tale from the center of the action, shows the essence of life in Tudor England.

Second, we esteem the advances in art and science of renaissance England, and this Earl as a latin scholar invented the sonnet and other literary innovations that Shakespeare and Milton etc used advantageously.

The Earl's family, the Howards, were deep in the intrigues of the wives of Henry the VIII, so we get inside views on all of that.  Later in his life the Earl advances the Kings private wars in France paid by public money, hoping to gain honor for himself and his family name.

This part is terribly interesting, for failing to work out, but also for how tenuous everyone's life was in Tudor England.  If not from diseases (largely bubbling up in times of elective wars) then for intrigues and false charges.  It is astonishing how quickly people turn their power over to another, and then scheme to gain power for themselves.  Heads roll.

Henry declared himself head of the Catholic Church in England, and the details of this are fascinating.  Henry was schismatic, not heretical. He believed all the Catholic Church taught, indeed was awarded a Defender of the Faith title by a pope for his defense of the Church against Lutherans.  FD (Latin initials) is still on every coin the British produce.  So you have this strange thing where the king likes neither those Catholics allied with Rome, nor protestants.

In overthrowing the Church rights, Henry wiped out monasteries and abbeys, and thus the social welfare system of his country.  The people in these institutions were cousins and siblings, and provided mediating entities who well knew their local circumstances.  All charity resided in these institutions, but once they had been seized and converted to private use, anyone in a jam had no where to turn.  The power elite is relentlessly uncaring about the masses of poor and working, something that eventually was addressed by Marx and others. Thus it was for centuries thereafter, feeding the destitute into seeking their fortune in war outside of England....

One pleasing aspect is the powers that be actually engaged in their follies. The cream of English society was wiped out one day in Boulogne in a battle gone bad.  Can you imagine hearing the news, that in taking on the Taliban in a direct attack, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Max Boot and Bill Kristol, breathed their last, with only Geo Bush making it back to tell the tale?  Somehow our system evolved to where those who would advance war take zero risk themselves.  Quite the contrary, failure increases power.  In those days failure increases Henry's power... everyone else trembled.  It may have been better under that system.

In any event, From ancient Rome to today, the game is the same... debase the currency to pay for war, disaster follows.

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