Excuse a moment of historical outrage, but why did Henry VIII have to be such an evil, callous man?
Stuck for something to watch to while away the time in a foreign hotel room the other evening, I flicked through the channels and found the most wonderful period drama. I couldn’t understand a word of the dialogue, the film having been dubbed into the local lingo, so watched in silence as the two quite gorgeous leading ladies pouted their way through (so I guessed) the 16th century.
Things started to take rather a dark turn around ten minutes before the movie’s end, when one of the lasses was led onto a stage in front of the assembled crowd, and a mean-looking chap with a big sword appeared. Yes, dear readers, it was Anne Boleyn, and it was time for the “off with her head” moment.
As the closing credits rolled moments later, I realised I’d been watching “The Other Boleyn Girl”, starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. And that’s when I started to dislike old King Harry. For if he’d been somewhat less harsh in his sentence, we’d have seen Ms Portman taken before the onlookers, stripped, tied to the whipping frame and soundly flogged. And instead, he had to go and have her beheaded? It’s really not fair.
The answer to this question is one that the lawyers will appreciate: most tyrants subvert the legal framework that they inherit, rather than removing it.
With the death of Catherine of Aragon, Henry (or at least Cromwell) no doubt realised that the king could marry again and sire an heir with complete legitimacy – but only if the taint of his current disputed union with Anne were resolved permanently.
Thus we have the powerless court musician tortured, probably legally, into making a dubious allegation of high treason against Anne Boleyn, followed by what is essentially a show trial. And finally the legal master-stroke: Henry commutes the four men’s punishment from hanging, drawing and quartering to mere beheading, thereby ensuring their silence on the scaffold, lest the more dire sentences be reimposed.