“Come on, drop it. Stop acting like Henry VIII.” – Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead
“I can’t be an ‘eritic if I ‘ave me own church, eh gov’na?”
In a comment the other day, the idea was introduced that the history books would get it right, and regardless of our follies today, eventually the historians would sort it out.
I don’t think so.
I think some very fundamental parts of our history have been either been gotten entirely wrong, or, worse, subverted for a reason, especially history that matters.
One example of this was brought out by two brilliant posts from Robb Ludden-Joyer. Mr. Ludden-Joyer writes on X®, and you can find him at @rawbloodenjoyer. Yeah. With that sense of humor, I knew I was going to enjoy these posts. You can find them here (LINK) and here (LINK). I strongly encourage you to RTWT.
In these two posts (of which Mr. Ludden-Joyer says he’s working on at third) Mr. Ludden-Joyer looks at the life and times of Henry VIII of England.
Now, when I think about Henry VIII, the image that popped into my mind was of a portly dude who, when he didn’t fancy a wife, had her killed. This is the type of no-fault divorce I can get behind. Essentially, history has branded Mr. The VIII as an irresponsible, low-brow hedonist who killed his wives on whims. Ah, who says the old ways aren’t the best?
I’m not sure if that’s what you got out of your history class and popular media, but it’s certainly what I got out of World History. My World History class was “taught” by the varsity boys’ basketball coach. His teaching style was interesting – I had him first period, and he’d show up and start the film of the day. He had films for every day. When it was over (if it was a short one) he’d instruct us to start the second film. Five minutes before the period ended, he’d show back up, stop the film, and then say, “Let’s knock off for the day, class.”
But I did somehow letter. Coach said he had to pull a few strings.
One day we got rowdy enough that someone found him, and he marched back as mad as a varsity boys’ basketball coach could be, and gave us a speech worthy of a team that was both unable to dribble, shoot, or run. Then, after the impassioned speech?
“Let’s knock off for the day, class.”
Rob Ludden-Joyer has, however, given us another viewpoint on Henry VIII, so let’s reassess.
A very short version of Mr. Ludden-Joyer’s thesis is that Henry VIII may have had a much, much different incentive: keeping England under English control. When talking about Henry VIII, no one really mentions the Habsburgs.
Who were the Habsburgs? Well, they started sometime around the 10th century, and their primary strategy to gain power was marriage. When they wanted to gain a barony or some location, they’d marry off their children to Baron Whatshisname. Then, with the Habsburg connection, they’d make sure that the children of Baron Whatshisname married other Habsburgs. If Baron Whatshisname had a male heir, well, the best doctors were the Habsburg doctors, and, “Oh, my Baron, it’s a tragedy what happened to your son. But your daughter is just fine and healthy!”
If you watch the movie Jaws backwards, it’s a heartwarming story of a shark that helps disabled people put their lives back together.
But the Habsburgs were very, very good at not letting others use their tricks on them, and thus their family tree began to resemble a stump as they kept interbreeding to keep the power in undisputed Habsburg lines. Other countries expanded by war, but the Habsburg’s main weapon was the womb. And lots of poison, I’m betting.
Henry VIII’s first wife was . . . Catherine of Aragorn. Okay, it’s Aragon, but Aragorn is way cooler. Anyway, she was a . . . Habsburg.
So, Catherine had a child by Henry VIII, named . . . Henry. Henry “died suddenly with no recorded cause of death”. Then, another son, who lived for a few hours. Then, another son, who died shortly after birth. Once is a tragedy, twice is a coincidence, but three times is the Habsburg doctors killing Henry’s sons so he’d have to let her marry a Habsburg.
Finally, she had a single daughter with Henry (notice the pattern) named Mary. It is a bit of a spoiler to point out that she’s known to history as Bloody Mary, and not because of that horrible drink named after her. And she lived, just fine.
Hmmm.
One day I was looking at myself naked in the mirror and thought, “Whoa, I’m pretty sure they’re gonna kick me out of IKEA.”
Well, Henry VIII likely wanted to keep England under control of, you know, the English, and fought back by asking the Pope to rid him of this wife. Popes back in the day were generally fine with this sort of thing, but the Habsburgs had God on their side – and by God I mean the Habsburgs had the Pope in actual custody. Amazingly, the Pope agreed with the people who had a knife to his throat and said no, and this led eventually to the birth of Henry’s longest living heir – the Church of England.
Henry VIII also had a son, who was King Edward VI, until he was poisoned by the Habsburgs. That led to Lady Jane Grey becoming Queen, until Mary killed her. Bloody Mary married a Habsburg, but thankfully her inbred egg carton was empty, and she had no children with her Hapsburg cousin.
Thankfully, she died.
Elizabeth I was then queen, and Mr. Ludden-Joyer theorizes that her avoidance of marriage was partially intended to keep England ruled by the English.
Again, @rawbloodenjoyer’s ideas are fresh, and when I read them, they ring very true – a large part of Henry VIII’s motivation was about the ultimate control of England remaining in the hands of the English, and not merely him being horny.
It must be common to have headaches as a farmer. They keep talking about my grains.
Of course, I’ve skipped a lot of details because Mr. Ludden-Joyer has covered so many of them in his posts. I’ll take this a bit further, though. If you look at English history, the Habsburgs finally got there with George I of England, of the House of Hanover, whose mother was a cousin to the Habsburgs.
By then, however, the game had changed. As Thomas Jefferson (definitely not a Habsburg) said, “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
I think that the question now as we move forward is a simpler one, and it echoes Jefferson: “Who controls our money?” Our money is a meme at this point, and like Bitcoin or Trumpcoin, and masters of the money meme like George Soros can easily spend only $40 million and take control of the criminal justice system. When you look back at our history, the history of the United States, how much of that has been led by those who would use money to control?
A billionaire who hates America pulling the strings behind the curtain. How could that be bad?
And how much are they willing to subvert our history to hide their actions?
Let’s knock off for today, class.
That is a GREAT post!
I think its not just about subverting our history but subverting our present perception of reality. Billionaires like Soros are pikers in the grand scheme of things. The Federal Reserve is the entity that controls the money and says they have a goal for 2% inflation. This cuts buying power in half for an individual in 36 years, so right off the bat this is a stupid goal. The only reason the Fed has this goal is that it steals money from people slowly enough so they don’t really notice. But we have inflation greater than 2%. Inflation is fought by raising interest rates to reduce money in circulation. Logically the Fed should be raising interest rates. Instead they are generally focused on lowering interest rates. Insanity, but necessary to keep the payments on the Federal Debt under control.
Oops, that ain’t gonna work. Reality always wins in the end. Usually atop a pile of dead babies and wives – or a hyperinflating economy.
I am starting to wonder which is worse, not teaching history at all which seems to be the current trend in “schools” or teaching us lies, the preferred tactic when I was in school. The longer I live, the more evident it becomes that most of what we were taught was BS and often the precise opposite of what we were taught is the truth. This oddly becomes more prevalent as a historical event is given more importance.