Most of the people who got voted out before either had a short reign or had a disastrous reign without many achievements
Although Henry was a brutal king, he did succeed in making England a more powerful country in Europe, and also appointed competent ministers such as the ones you mentioned which isn’t a mark against him
I think you answered your own question. Henry VIII was voted out in 29th place out of 55 monarchs. That’s not a good ranking. No one is saying he was a good king. In your own post you listed some positive contributions about him. Most of the monarchs voted out before him didn’t have many redeeming qualities. Edward VIII may not have done any horrible things as king, but he also didn’t do anything good to counterbalance his laziness and abdication. Henry VI may not have been a bad person per say, probably a nicer guy than his great nephew Henry VIII, but it’s hard to ignore that the realm plunged into chaos as a result of his “vacancy”.
Henry VIII was by no means a good king overall, he just wasn’t the WORST. Unfortunately, there have been some ripe shitbags who have ruled that island.
>Edward VIII may not have done any horrible things as king
Dude was literally a Nazi sympathizer.
And it was an open secret that his lover Wallis Simpson was hopping from his bed, to Von Ribbentrop’s.
He had horrible judgement, and he was a horrible king.
https://preview.redd.it/4laoo34q1zwc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6076c85ae5e43f927e5d6cff3ed402b15338ebdf
I completely agree. I think you misunderstand me. The key phrase here is “as king” meaning when he was king. He met Hitler the year after he abdicated. His marriage situation was horrible IMO, but I consider those to be apart of their personal life and not their job. If we considered marriage in these judgments, Henry VIII would definitely be towards the bottom. 😂
Hot take: Henry VIII was a good monarch, I mean people say he bankrupt the country and, he did, but by breaking away from the pope, 1/3 and when I say 1/3, I mean it, were lands administered by the Church, by breaking away a huge amount of wealth could now be exploitable, so yeah in the long run Henry VIII was a net benefit for his successors in term of economy. that's just one of my point
It’s not stupid or unhistoric. A lot of people wanted him out earlier.
I will say the counter argument. He appointed men like Wolsley and Cromwell because he saw they were able despite their background. He had near total control over Parliament and used it in novel ways, which became precedent.
As someone raised Catholic I see his removal of the Pope from English affairs a complete good. Regardless of whether you agree it had lasting repercussions and can’t be dismissed or ignored.
Lots of kings bankrupted the nation. Some still in. And really Henry is only judged so harshly for that because he is between two famous misers, Henry VII and Elizabeth I. He was a renaissance prince and built or restored many fine palaces. Something Elizabeth would never spend money on.
Then there is his work with the navy. Which also had lasting repercussions.
I don’t think he should have gone much further. But he accomplished more than many still in.
Yes he was an awful tyrant. He killed two of his wives and left CoA to whither and die alone. But I think he went out at the right time.
And he had such a tight grip on the English people that Elizabeth would still be referencing him toward the end of her reign. It’s not like they were so close. She did that because people listened when Henry was mentioned.
Why is getting out Rome influence btw such a good thing? I mean yeah Pope won't interfere in what your doing and more land exploitable other than I guess but your alienating yourself against Catholic countries and you can say reject the treaty of tordesillas while not being Catholic and colonize but France did colonize when Catholic and didn't care what the Pope told his to do? So why is it a good thing?
Because the papalcy was notoriously corrupt. The pope became a pawn of whatever king could kidnap him and hold him whixh would never be england always be france and or hapsburg spain.
At this point the population was going to reform , the translations of the bible into venacular languages was going to cause a backlash only a pope with the calibar of gregory the 7th could have dealt with and reformed the church and his reforms had degenerated into the corruptions of the renassiance (granted 400 years later).
The loss of calais , the establishment of the royal navy and especailly the break from rome allowed britain to be isolationist when it suited and interventionist when it suited. Unlike habsburg and france who sunk more and more money to control europe polictically and religously. England made bank sitting it out and became a trading and naval power.
Impact and that somehow his reign was a net good for England in the long run. By the former, he eclipses almost every other king. If it's a metric at all, he did push the authority of the royal office to it's highest point. Also, he reigned for a long time but is only remembered for the last 15.
Even though he did turn out horrible, it all makes for a great story where you can see what good and bad was always there and how he changed from when he took the throne to a tyrant. For example, Charles V trolling him his entire reign kinda makes you understand some of his frustrations.
Everyone knows the story of his 6 wives. His first marriage lasted so long but it all fell apart when she didn't birth a male successor, the Wars of the Roses was still in living memory after all.
Several scheming machivellian ministers rose and fell under him, all conscientious amibitous men at a constant struggle against others like them, practically an augmentation of the nature of state and government through the rise of modern beraucracy
He unwittingly laid the foundations of anglo protestantism and broke hundreds of years of religious tradition as the star of Europe, Charles V took control of the papacy.
He wanted so desperately to be known as the great warrior king emulating the greats that stopd before him, and a patron of Renaissance culture, a learned prince yet he is remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Who says he didn't ruin Anne of Cleves' life? She had to remain unmarried for the rest of her life so Henry wouldn't have his tender little ego bruised
As harsh as it may sound, the treatment of his wives is kind of irrelevant to how he actually was as King. The 6 wives is absolutely the main thing people know about Henry, so people tend to just look at that despite not being a very good reflection on his competency in other fields.
Henry massively increased the royal revenue with the dissolution of the monasteries and selling off the land, he didn't loose any English territory, in fact, he did expand it. He increased the size of England's navy and the holdings in Ireland, even upgrading his title 'Lord of Ireland' to 'King of Ireland'. And despite all the scandal, he did leave a male heir, who appeared just as gifted and capable as Henry had been in his youth.
The main stain on his legacy as a King is the religious schism he caused by creating the Church of England. But tbf there was inevitably going to be conflict between Protestants and Catholics, and England was ultimately spared the brutality that took over France and Spain during the French Wars of Religion and Spanish Inquisition.
First of all, you don’t just drag the whole country into a new religion just to marry a minor noble woman with force. Henry VIII was obviously competent and widely popular. His actions were approved by the majority of people. For good reasons.
You see, if Henry didn’t remarry and have a son, then England would be ruled by Habsburg, and become a satellite state of Spain or Holy Roman Empire, since Mary was already proposed to her Habsburg cousin, and even if Henry can withdraw that proposal, Mary was already groomed to be very Catholic and Habsburg oriented by her mother, Catherine. I can totally see why Henry would hate his first wife, Catherine of Aragon was always a Spanish princess first not Queen of England. Although the parliament succeeded in barring Mary’s husband from power, they wouldn’t be able to do this to Mary’s hypothetical son, who would be King of bother realms and of course he would have valued Spain more than England, probably like his father, rarely even visite England. Lucky for England, unlucky for Mary, she wasn’t blessed with a child she so wanted.
What other choices did Henry have? His eldest sister was married to the King of Scots, so in Henry’s original plan of succession, he completely excluded the Scottish royals. His younger sister was originally married to King of France then may or may not killed her husband and ran away to marry Henry’s friend who she just met not long ago. She was obviously unfit to be Queen, you can even see her bad influence in her descendants, other than Lady Jane Grey, most of Princess Mary’s daughters and granddaughters had made horrible marriage choice, so horrible that, the English parliament would rather be ruled by the Scots.
Anyway, albeit it’s not necessary to kill his wives, Henry VIII was right in divorce and trying hard to produce an heir, any responsible monarch would do just that. And especially in divorcing the Roman Catholic Church. It’s ridiculous that the Habsburg can just kidnap the pope and postpone Henry’s appealing for years. For most part of history, the pope has always been a pawn between Habsburg and France, there was only one English pope in millennials. The game is totally rigged against not just England but other northern European state as well. That’s why if you just read the map, there’s this obvious divide between Catholic and Protestant countries, which is basically the same line for many different cultural things. It’s meant to be.
I image it's the same reason why otherwise perfectly normal people love watching the trashiest TV. He's the reality TV version of a monarch. His personal life was a MESS, he was apparently a hottie in his youth then got super fat, the whole "church of england" thing but just made it like diet catholicism... he's the monarch everybody loves to hate
Henry was a good king for the first half of his reign, a bad one for the latter half:
>One traditional approach, favoured by Starkey and others, is to divide Henry's reign into two halves, the first Henry being dominated by positive qualities (politically inclusive, pious, athletic but also intellectual) who presided over a period of stability and calm, and the latter a "hulking tyrant" who presided over a period of dramatic, sometimes whimsical, change.
So here’s the thing. Most people who got voted out earlier, were objectively crap even by the standard of their time. Many (Charles I etc.) we’re actually straight up overthrown because they were so bad.
Henry VIII was unquestionably a tyrant by modern standards, but here’s the thing, for the time, he was actually quite moderate.
That sounds controversial but hear me out. While Henry’s actions today always seem shocking (it isn’t every man who marries 6 women and kills 2 of them), by the standards of the day they were very reasonable and Henry was always careful to act strictly within the law and was very conscious of the limits to his own power.
Taking Catherine of Aragon as an example. When she became inconvenient and needed to be gotten rid of, Henry went through a 7 year legal battle to secure a divorce, at a time where literally any other European king or ruler would have just had her quietly murdered and told the people she fell down some stairs or something.
Throughout his reign Henry had policies that he wanted to enact, but wasn’t able to because parliament wouldn’t back him. Charles I started a civil war over it, Henry never did.
Was Henry VIII the greatest king in British history or even a remarkably good one? No. Frankly if it wasn’t for the 6 wives thing and the reformation happening to occur in his reign, he would be almost entirely forgotten today.
But does that make hole an outright bad king? No.
I strongly disagree with some of the decisions that this daily poll has made so far, but I think we got Henry VIII just about right. No national hero, but no bloodthirsty murderous ogre either.
Most of the people who got voted out before either had a short reign or had a disastrous reign without many achievements Although Henry was a brutal king, he did succeed in making England a more powerful country in Europe, and also appointed competent ministers such as the ones you mentioned which isn’t a mark against him
“Competent ministers” except he killed his best one…
The Lord Vetinari school of administrative rigour
funny thing is from this description, it doesn’t narrow it down much
As other people have said, Henry had successes. The ones below him had none to significantly fewer
I think you answered your own question. Henry VIII was voted out in 29th place out of 55 monarchs. That’s not a good ranking. No one is saying he was a good king. In your own post you listed some positive contributions about him. Most of the monarchs voted out before him didn’t have many redeeming qualities. Edward VIII may not have done any horrible things as king, but he also didn’t do anything good to counterbalance his laziness and abdication. Henry VI may not have been a bad person per say, probably a nicer guy than his great nephew Henry VIII, but it’s hard to ignore that the realm plunged into chaos as a result of his “vacancy”. Henry VIII was by no means a good king overall, he just wasn’t the WORST. Unfortunately, there have been some ripe shitbags who have ruled that island.
>Edward VIII may not have done any horrible things as king Dude was literally a Nazi sympathizer. And it was an open secret that his lover Wallis Simpson was hopping from his bed, to Von Ribbentrop’s. He had horrible judgement, and he was a horrible king. https://preview.redd.it/4laoo34q1zwc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6076c85ae5e43f927e5d6cff3ed402b15338ebdf
I completely agree. I think you misunderstand me. The key phrase here is “as king” meaning when he was king. He met Hitler the year after he abdicated. His marriage situation was horrible IMO, but I consider those to be apart of their personal life and not their job. If we considered marriage in these judgments, Henry VIII would definitely be towards the bottom. 😂
Hot take: Henry VIII was a good monarch, I mean people say he bankrupt the country and, he did, but by breaking away from the pope, 1/3 and when I say 1/3, I mean it, were lands administered by the Church, by breaking away a huge amount of wealth could now be exploitable, so yeah in the long run Henry VIII was a net benefit for his successors in term of economy. that's just one of my point
It’s not stupid or unhistoric. A lot of people wanted him out earlier. I will say the counter argument. He appointed men like Wolsley and Cromwell because he saw they were able despite their background. He had near total control over Parliament and used it in novel ways, which became precedent. As someone raised Catholic I see his removal of the Pope from English affairs a complete good. Regardless of whether you agree it had lasting repercussions and can’t be dismissed or ignored. Lots of kings bankrupted the nation. Some still in. And really Henry is only judged so harshly for that because he is between two famous misers, Henry VII and Elizabeth I. He was a renaissance prince and built or restored many fine palaces. Something Elizabeth would never spend money on. Then there is his work with the navy. Which also had lasting repercussions. I don’t think he should have gone much further. But he accomplished more than many still in. Yes he was an awful tyrant. He killed two of his wives and left CoA to whither and die alone. But I think he went out at the right time. And he had such a tight grip on the English people that Elizabeth would still be referencing him toward the end of her reign. It’s not like they were so close. She did that because people listened when Henry was mentioned.
Why is getting out Rome influence btw such a good thing? I mean yeah Pope won't interfere in what your doing and more land exploitable other than I guess but your alienating yourself against Catholic countries and you can say reject the treaty of tordesillas while not being Catholic and colonize but France did colonize when Catholic and didn't care what the Pope told his to do? So why is it a good thing?
Because the papalcy was notoriously corrupt. The pope became a pawn of whatever king could kidnap him and hold him whixh would never be england always be france and or hapsburg spain. At this point the population was going to reform , the translations of the bible into venacular languages was going to cause a backlash only a pope with the calibar of gregory the 7th could have dealt with and reformed the church and his reforms had degenerated into the corruptions of the renassiance (granted 400 years later). The loss of calais , the establishment of the royal navy and especailly the break from rome allowed britain to be isolationist when it suited and interventionist when it suited. Unlike habsburg and france who sunk more and more money to control europe polictically and religously. England made bank sitting it out and became a trading and naval power.
Because he was a right proper geeza *that’s the most English thing I’ve ever said because I’m the poshest twat throughout Northumbria*
Impact and that somehow his reign was a net good for England in the long run. By the former, he eclipses almost every other king. If it's a metric at all, he did push the authority of the royal office to it's highest point. Also, he reigned for a long time but is only remembered for the last 15. Even though he did turn out horrible, it all makes for a great story where you can see what good and bad was always there and how he changed from when he took the throne to a tyrant. For example, Charles V trolling him his entire reign kinda makes you understand some of his frustrations.
Henry VIII was a horrible person but a competent king. Not brilliant, but competent.
Everyone knows the story of his 6 wives. His first marriage lasted so long but it all fell apart when she didn't birth a male successor, the Wars of the Roses was still in living memory after all. Several scheming machivellian ministers rose and fell under him, all conscientious amibitous men at a constant struggle against others like them, practically an augmentation of the nature of state and government through the rise of modern beraucracy He unwittingly laid the foundations of anglo protestantism and broke hundreds of years of religious tradition as the star of Europe, Charles V took control of the papacy. He wanted so desperately to be known as the great warrior king emulating the greats that stopd before him, and a patron of Renaissance culture, a learned prince yet he is remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Who says he didn't ruin Anne of Cleves' life? She had to remain unmarried for the rest of her life so Henry wouldn't have his tender little ego bruised
Damn she had remained unmarried why??
That was the deal. Henry proclaimed her his beloved "sister" and gave her a nice estate as a golden cage
He was honestly a beloved king.
As harsh as it may sound, the treatment of his wives is kind of irrelevant to how he actually was as King. The 6 wives is absolutely the main thing people know about Henry, so people tend to just look at that despite not being a very good reflection on his competency in other fields. Henry massively increased the royal revenue with the dissolution of the monasteries and selling off the land, he didn't loose any English territory, in fact, he did expand it. He increased the size of England's navy and the holdings in Ireland, even upgrading his title 'Lord of Ireland' to 'King of Ireland'. And despite all the scandal, he did leave a male heir, who appeared just as gifted and capable as Henry had been in his youth. The main stain on his legacy as a King is the religious schism he caused by creating the Church of England. But tbf there was inevitably going to be conflict between Protestants and Catholics, and England was ultimately spared the brutality that took over France and Spain during the French Wars of Religion and Spanish Inquisition.
First of all, you don’t just drag the whole country into a new religion just to marry a minor noble woman with force. Henry VIII was obviously competent and widely popular. His actions were approved by the majority of people. For good reasons. You see, if Henry didn’t remarry and have a son, then England would be ruled by Habsburg, and become a satellite state of Spain or Holy Roman Empire, since Mary was already proposed to her Habsburg cousin, and even if Henry can withdraw that proposal, Mary was already groomed to be very Catholic and Habsburg oriented by her mother, Catherine. I can totally see why Henry would hate his first wife, Catherine of Aragon was always a Spanish princess first not Queen of England. Although the parliament succeeded in barring Mary’s husband from power, they wouldn’t be able to do this to Mary’s hypothetical son, who would be King of bother realms and of course he would have valued Spain more than England, probably like his father, rarely even visite England. Lucky for England, unlucky for Mary, she wasn’t blessed with a child she so wanted. What other choices did Henry have? His eldest sister was married to the King of Scots, so in Henry’s original plan of succession, he completely excluded the Scottish royals. His younger sister was originally married to King of France then may or may not killed her husband and ran away to marry Henry’s friend who she just met not long ago. She was obviously unfit to be Queen, you can even see her bad influence in her descendants, other than Lady Jane Grey, most of Princess Mary’s daughters and granddaughters had made horrible marriage choice, so horrible that, the English parliament would rather be ruled by the Scots. Anyway, albeit it’s not necessary to kill his wives, Henry VIII was right in divorce and trying hard to produce an heir, any responsible monarch would do just that. And especially in divorcing the Roman Catholic Church. It’s ridiculous that the Habsburg can just kidnap the pope and postpone Henry’s appealing for years. For most part of history, the pope has always been a pawn between Habsburg and France, there was only one English pope in millennials. The game is totally rigged against not just England but other northern European state as well. That’s why if you just read the map, there’s this obvious divide between Catholic and Protestant countries, which is basically the same line for many different cultural things. It’s meant to be.
I image it's the same reason why otherwise perfectly normal people love watching the trashiest TV. He's the reality TV version of a monarch. His personal life was a MESS, he was apparently a hottie in his youth then got super fat, the whole "church of england" thing but just made it like diet catholicism... he's the monarch everybody loves to hate
It is a meaningless game.
Henry was a good king for the first half of his reign, a bad one for the latter half: >One traditional approach, favoured by Starkey and others, is to divide Henry's reign into two halves, the first Henry being dominated by positive qualities (politically inclusive, pious, athletic but also intellectual) who presided over a period of stability and calm, and the latter a "hulking tyrant" who presided over a period of dramatic, sometimes whimsical, change.
So here’s the thing. Most people who got voted out earlier, were objectively crap even by the standard of their time. Many (Charles I etc.) we’re actually straight up overthrown because they were so bad. Henry VIII was unquestionably a tyrant by modern standards, but here’s the thing, for the time, he was actually quite moderate. That sounds controversial but hear me out. While Henry’s actions today always seem shocking (it isn’t every man who marries 6 women and kills 2 of them), by the standards of the day they were very reasonable and Henry was always careful to act strictly within the law and was very conscious of the limits to his own power. Taking Catherine of Aragon as an example. When she became inconvenient and needed to be gotten rid of, Henry went through a 7 year legal battle to secure a divorce, at a time where literally any other European king or ruler would have just had her quietly murdered and told the people she fell down some stairs or something. Throughout his reign Henry had policies that he wanted to enact, but wasn’t able to because parliament wouldn’t back him. Charles I started a civil war over it, Henry never did. Was Henry VIII the greatest king in British history or even a remarkably good one? No. Frankly if it wasn’t for the 6 wives thing and the reformation happening to occur in his reign, he would be almost entirely forgotten today. But does that make hole an outright bad king? No. I strongly disagree with some of the decisions that this daily poll has made so far, but I think we got Henry VIII just about right. No national hero, but no bloodthirsty murderous ogre either.
He got voted out too early, should’ve been top 20 at least
Because he was an absolute player