Читать книгу Simple Stories from "Punch" - Arthur Hammond Marshall - Страница 8
ОглавлениеHENRY THE EIGHTH
When Henry the Eighth was young he was going to be a clergyman, but when his brother Arthur died his father who was Henry the Seventh said well you can't be a clergyman now because you will have to be King of England after me.
And he said oh I don't mind because now I shall be able to marry, I have always liked the idea of that.
So soon after he became King his Council came to him, and they said what do you think about marrying Katharine of Aragon?
And he said well I think I won't if you don't mind, and they said why not?
And he said because she is a little old for me and I have never cared much about the shape of her face.
But they said they thought it would be a good thing, and Henry the Eighth said oh very well I don't really mind and I suppose I shall get used to her in time.
So he married Katharine of Aragon and they had a little girl called Mary who was afterwards Queen of England, and they got on fairly well together because Henry the Eighth was busy suppressing monasteries and making arrangements for having battles and charging taxes and all those things with his great friend Cardinal Wolsey, so he didn't see too much of her.
Well that went on for some time and then Henry the Eighth thought he would marry Anne Boleyn because Cardinal Wolsey told him he ought not to have married Katharine of Aragon, it was a mistake, and anyhow he liked Anne Boleyn better.
But he thought he had better ask the Pope first, and the Pope sent Cardinal Campeggio to England to see about it, and he told Henry the Eighth that he wasn't to.
Well Henry the Eighth was angry at that and he said it was all Cardinal Wolsey's fault, and he would have cut off his head if he hadn't died before he could do it.
And he said I can't have the Pope interfering with me like this, it won't do at all, I shall be a Protestant and suppress all the rest of the monasteries.
So he did that, and then he married Anne Boleyn. And he got Thomas Cromwell to help him to do what he wanted instead of Cardinal Wolsey.
Well Anne Boleyn had a little girl called Elizabeth, and she was Queen of England too afterwards, but Henry the Eighth found he didn't like Anne Boleyn as much as he thought he would, and she didn't behave very nicely, so he had her head cut off and next week he married Jane Seymour.
And he liked her very much and she had a little boy called Edward, who was King of England afterwards, but Jane Seymour died, and he was very sorry because she was nicer than the other two.
So then he married Anne of Cleves, but she was very ugly like a horse, so he got rid of her at once. He didn't have her head cut off but he said it was all Thomas Cromwell's fault and he had his head cut off instead.
And then he married Katharine Howard, but she didn't behave well either, or at least he said she didn't, so he had her head cut off.
And then Henry the Eighth said well I am getting rather old and I have got to marry somebody, but it is becoming a little awkward because ladies don't seem to like me as much as they used to but I dare say I can find somebody suitable.
And he found Katharine Parr, and she had been married before so she knew how to treat him so as not to have her head cut off. And she was kind to his children though she didn't have any of her own, and soon after Henry the Eighth died himself and then she felt more comfortable.
Henry the Eighth was rather fat with little squiggly eyes and he liked dressing-up, you can see what he looked like from his photographs by Holbein. People who write histories used to say he wasn't very nice, but now they think he wasn't so bad after all and more religious than you would think. They say he did a lot of good really though some of it was by mistake. Perhaps he did have too many people's heads cut off but that was more the fashion then than it is now, and it isn't quite fair to blame him for having six wives because he never had more than one at a time, he would have been ashamed to, and he didn't cut off the heads of more than two of them.
And his people were fond of him, those whose heads he left on, and when he died they said oh well it might have been worse.
