Henry The Eighth I Am!

For King Henry the Eighth,

if all the Patterns and Pictures of a merciless Prince

 were lost in the world, they might all again be

painted to the life, out of the story of this King.

 Sir Walter Raleigh

Forgive me while I go all academic here. I've been working on a pretty in-depth powerpoint project of the Tudor Monarchs of England this week and today has been devoted to the six wives of Henry VIII.

Good grief.

I remember learning in a history class many, many years ago this rhyme to remember the sequence of events that befell his many wives:

Divorced, beheaded, died;

Divorced, beheaded, survived.

Don't you know the wife at the end was the lucky one? She about got busted, too, due to some evidence that had surfaced that would have clearly shown her differences in opinion (from Henry's) regarding religion. Somebody in her court caught wind that the axe (no pun intended) was about to fall and she was able to sweet talk (my opinion only) Henry into believing that she only questioned him so she could learn from him. Quick thinking. Lucky for her he died before she could mess anything else up.

And then there's his first wife. She was married to his brother and future King of England, Arthur, for only six months before he died. Since she was young enough to remarry (lucky her!) and because she was the daughter of the King and Queen of Spain, the powers that be decided it would be good for her to marry Henry, and when his dad died (you keeping up here?) they were both crowned King and Queen of England during the same coronation ceremony.

Oh, to be a queen.

Of course, as history tells it, Catherine had a little problem in not producing a (living) male heir (and we all know it's the woman's fault, right?). Around this time another pretty young thing had caught Henry's eye so he did what any self-serving, egotistical man would do... he sought a divorce. Catherine had her title of Queen stripped from her and spent the remainder of her life in not-so-fancy castles probably wishing she could have lived her life as a peasant girl baking bread for the village blacksmith.

Wonder what she thought when she heard the axe had literally fallen on that pretty young thing's head?

Okay. I'll stop with that. It's not that I'm bored (although you might be). Trust me, I could go on and on for quite a while. History truly is better than fiction. No... I have to go because it's time to pick up my own little scholars from school. I hope they enjoyed their academic day as much as I did.

(Yeah, I can hear their snickering in the background, too).