David Starkey – Henry VIII: the First Brexiteer

Talk at Whitley Bay Playhouse on 6th May 2018

• The first Brexit was the Break with Rome
• England was a pariah state – an enemy of Europe
• Henry VIII fortified the coastline which was the largest scheme of fortification

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• Cartography and maps became important
• Holbein’s image – the Whitehall mural shows Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour
• When Jane Seymour died it was the “smartest career move in history”
• Anne Boleyn was “brilliant as a mistress but catastrophic as a wife”
• The words in the middle of the Whitehall mural say that Henry VII was a good king ending decades of civil war but Henry VIII was better as he released England from papal bondage
• The mural was displayed in Henry VIII’s private rooms
• Appetite for fame
• Importance of Erasmus and education “virtue, glory, immorality”
• Foreign influence – Henry VIII’s astronomer was French, his painter was German and his armour came from Italy
• France = sex and sophistication, Anne Boleyn raised there
• Media revolution – printing, books, Caxton’s printing press

• In the early 16th century typography was introduced
• Representational painting explains why we are so interested in the Tudors – we knew what they looked like
• Images make things real
• Henry VIII is at the centre of England’s history – England different after Henry VIII
• The Reformation was the greatest change between the Norman conquest and the present day, Reformation partly undoes the conquest
• English Channel not a barrier but a means of communication
• Easy to invade England with her natural harbours
• Henry VII sailed from Honfleur in 1485 – French invasion with tactics, ships, money and army
• Was Henry VIII a great revolutionary? Least expected
• Nothing suggested he would do anything revolutionary
• The reformation began in Germany in 1517 with Luther and the 95 theses

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• God absorbed in human life
• Printing and painting – everyone knew what Luther looked like. He is the only non-royal everyone knew what he looked like
• “Legitimate use of the present to make us think of the past”
• Religion is a central element in the 16th century
• More and Cromwell were fundamentally the same with a religious difference
• Hilary Mantel takes her Cromwell and More from G.R. Elton
• Salvation = this world is short and unimportant, what matters is eternity
• Purgatory – purged of sins – money could buy you out
• St Peter’s Basilica was paid for out of indulgences, no biblical foundation
• Luther spreads the word – vernacular bible and destruction of cities
• Henry VIII horrified by Luther at first, brought up as a traditional Catholic
• 1513 war was a crusade – Louis XII of France got divorced and broke with Rome
• Tunstall at the diet of worms
• Luther wants to print in the vernacular and denies the 7 sacraments
• Assertio Septem Sacramentorum – Henry VIII writes his own book, named ‘Fidei Defensor’ (defender of the faith)
• Wolsey completes Henry VIII’s education = trained in theology
• Anne Boleyn and the divorce 1527
• “War of Henry’s willy” – love letters undated
• Katherine of Aragon had no sons – knew she wouldn’t have a son for a decade
• Woman in charge in a love affair, only changes in marriage
• Henry VIII thought the Pope would grant his divorce, until the sack of Rome when the pope moves to Orvieto in 1527
• Charles V is Katherine’s nephew
• Henry VIII spends 2 years arguing with Europe using money and jurisdiction
• Divorce requires the break with Rome
• Henry VIII creates a think tank and reforms the royal library
• Supreme head of the church = Henry VIII uses the same techniques as Luther, based on the Bible, no reference to Pope or clergy
• 1530 got ideas and parliament won’t do what he wants

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• 1533 marries Anne Boleyn and breaks with Rome
• WATERSHED
• Propaganda, re-inventing England, imperialism
• “Profoundly absolutely divisive”
• Pilgrimage of Grace 1536 – dissolution of the monasteries, Medieval art destroyed
• Thomas More executed 1535
• Unity of Christianity lost
• More condemned on false evidence – act of parliament illegal, act of parliament can’t declare Henry head of the church
• Parliamentary sovereignty invented under Henry VIII to break with Rome
• Resonate with Brexit – unconventional
• Head of the church “only under Christ”
• Quality and force of argument more explored in the 16th century than in the current Brexit referendum
• Break with Rome wouldn’t have happened without Anne Boleyn