A HUNGER FOR ABSOLUTION

Henry VIII is incorrectly remembered as the king who chopped off all his wives’ heads. The myth is neat, dramatic, and easy to teach: six wives, six executions, a tyrant who devoured women as casually as he devoured banquets. The truth is messier. Only two of his wives were executed—Anne Boleyn, his second, and Catherine Howard, his fifth—both accused of adultery. The others were divorced (or rather, their marriages annulled), died in childbirth, or survived him.

But history prefers its villains simple. A king who killed two wives is complicated; a king who killed them all is monstrous, and monsters are easier to remember. Henry was not a saint. But was he the sinner he has been made out to be?

In his final, festering years, Henry was consumed by a different kind of hunger: not for food or conquest, but for a historical perspective he could survive, a past he could rewrite.

In his final years, His body was swollen, ulcerated, and stinking; his mind was clouded with paranoia and regret. The doctors lanced his leg to treat the gout, but they did not know they were inviting rot. It spread slowly — from flesh to pride, from pride to heart. He began to smell of death long before he died.

Yet each night he returned to the same small comforts: the letters Anne Boleyn had written him, the locket of her hair, the map of Europe pinned with the alliances he never made.

He would read Anne’s words aloud, his voice cracked and broken, as if the act could summon her back. He would press the locket to his lips—the flesh around his mouth yellow and ulcerated—the fragile strands worn thin from decades of his desperate, searching touch. He was trying to inhale a different timeline. He would stare at the map, tracing the borders with trembling fingers, whispering the names of countries that might have been bound to England if only he had allowed his children to marry.

He was not mad—he was haunted. Haunted by the knowledge that his father, Henry VII, had fought tooth and nail to secure the Tudor line, and that he, Henry VIII, had squandered it in resentment and stubbornness.

He could have been greater. He could have been bigger than his hunger for ambition. But he feared being outshone—by Catherine of Aragon, by Mary, by Anne. He feared weakness more than he feared God. And so he chose anger, again and again.

When Anne fell, he told himself it was necessary. When Catherine Howard fell, he told himself it was justice.

Catherine of Aragon:

I was no meek saint, no silent shadow at his side. I was hungry for legitimacy, for the survival of my lineage. I was a princess of Spain, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, raised to believe crowns were not ornaments but weapons. When I married Henry, he was still half-boy, half-king, eager to prove himself. I saw the boy and I shaped him. I gave him legitimacy, I gave him England’s alliance with Spain, and I gave him years of loyalty.

But I could not give him a son. That was my failure, though it was not mine alone. And when my body betrayed me, he turned his eyes elsewhere. He called it God’s will, but I knew it was his own insatiable ambition. He wanted Anne, and he wanted freedom.

They say I clung too tightly. Perhaps I did. I would have burned England to ash before I let another woman take my place. That was my fire, my flaw. In the end, I bit off more than I could swallow. He cast me aside, but he never broke me. I died still calling myself his true wife, because I was.

He thought he had won. But I left him with a daughter who would one day wear the crown. That was my victory.

He married his brother’s widow, and the rot began there — not in the flesh, but in the belief that God was watching and disapproving. That doubt festered. It hollowed his certainty, and he filled the space with rage.

Henry’s Interjection: To Catherine, he whispered in the dark: “You were my beginning. You made me a king. And I hated you for it, because I could never escape your shadow.”

Anne Boleyn:

They call me manipulative, a temptress, a witch. But what is manipulation, if not survival in a court where women are pawns? I was hungry for recognition, for an equal partnership, and I made him chase that hunger. I did not fall at his feet. I did not give myself cheaply. I held my boundaries, and I made him earn me. That was my crime.

I gave him wit, fire, and a daughter who would outshine them all. I gave him a new church, a new kingdom, a new way of seeing himself. And when I would not bend, when I would not become another Catherine, they called me dangerous.

Too many plotted against me. Too many whispered lies. He knew it was a setup. He knew the charges were smoke. But he also knew that if he spared me, he would look weak. And a king cannot look weak.

So he chose the sword. Not the axe. A French swordsman, swift and merciful. His anger demanded blood, but his love demanded precision. That was his apology, his recourse.

When the blade fell, I thought of Elizabeth. I thought of the daughter who would one day prove that my boundaries were not manipulation, but strength.

He loved me. I believe that. He loved me emotionally, spiritually. His soul was for me. And yet he killed me. That is the paradox of Henry.

He built a new church on my bones, but even that could not stop the rot from spreading.

Henry’s Interjection: To Anne, he whispered: “I loved you. I loved you more than I could bear. And when you cracked my armour, I killed you for it. I can’t undo it.”

Jane Seymour:

They call me meek, but meekness is a word men use when they cannot be bothered to look closer. I was not meek. I was brief. I was hungry for security, the quiet peace of being the one who provided the Son.

I gave him what he wanted most: a son. That was my triumph, though it cost me my life. He declared he loved me, but what he loved was the gift. He loved the silence in his head when he saw the boy’s face, the way his anxiety softened for a moment. I was the balm, not the cure.

I was not without ambition. I knew the stakes. I knew that giving him a son would secure my family’s fortunes, and it did. But I also knew my body was breaking. I felt it. And when I died, I left him with both triumph and grief.

The birthing chamber smelled of wax and blood. The silence after the boy’s cry was not peace — it was warning.

I did not have time to shape him, nor to be shaped by him. My death spared me the bitterness that consumed the others. Perhaps that was mercy. Perhaps that was my luck.

But I know this: he mourned me. He buried me beside him. And in that choice, I became the wife he wanted remembered. Not because I was his great love, but because I was his great relief.

He thought a son would cure the rot. But it was already in the walls — in the court, in the crown, in the silence that followed the boy’s cry.

Henry’s Interjection: To Jane, he whispered: “I loved the son, not you. But I buried you beside me, because I wanted to believe I had loved you. You gave me peace, if only for a moment.”

Anne of Cleves:

They mocked me as the Flanders Mare, as if my worth could be measured by his disappointment. But I was not foolish. I saw the tantrum before it came. My hunger was for survival, for the long game, even at the cost of pride.

Why risk the axe when I could offer him an exit? I gave him annulment, gave him peace, and in return I lived. Sister, not wife. Survivor, not victim.

I played the long game. I accepted humiliation in the short term, because I understood the stakes. He could kill me, yes. But he could not kill my logic. I gave him what he wanted most: a way out without blood.

And so I lived. I lived longer than most of them. I lived to see him rot, to see his kingdom fracture, to see the myth of his power outlast the man himself.

They call me clever. I call it survival.

Henry’s Interjection: To Anne of Cleves, he whispered: “You were the only one who outplayed me. You saw the tantrum, and you gave me the exit. I respected you for that. Perhaps I even envied you.”

Catherine Howard:

They call me foolish. They call me reckless. They call me slut. Perhaps I was all of those things. But I was also young. I was hungry for adoration, for laughter, for the thrill of being loved, too young to be tethered to a man who was already rotting from the inside out.

I loved jewels, laughter, the thrill of being adored. I thought I could dance through the fire without burning. I rattled the cage too loudly, and the court heard every clang.

Henry was old, ulcerated, paranoid. He wanted loyalty, devotion, the illusion of youth. I gave him none of it. I gave him giggles and whispers, and those whispers became knives in his pride. And pride was the one thing he could not forgive.

I was careless, yes. But I was also used. A girl pushed forward by ambitious kin, dangled before a king who should have known better. My folly was mine, but my youth was their weapon.

He could have exiled me. He could have stripped me of everything and sent me naked through the palace gates. But he chose the axe. Not because he loved me, but because he didn’t. Not because I was dangerous, but because his pride was.

I was not Anne. I was not Catherine of Aragon. I was not clever enough to play the long game. I was a girl in a gilded cage, and I rattled the bars until they broke.

I was the illusion of youth he clung to, hoping it would mask the rot beneath his skin.

Henry’s Interjection: To Catherine Howard, he whispered: “You were young. I should have known better. But I was too proud, too broken, too desperate to believe you could love me. I punished you for my own folly.”

Catherine Parr:

I outlived him. That is my victory. But survival is not silence. I was hungry for impact, for faith, and for the chance to shape the minds of his children.

I wrote. I argued. I pushed him. My words caused storms between us, and there were moments when I thought I might follow Anne and Catherine Howard to the block. But I did not. He let me live.

Why? Because by then he was too broken, too tired, too human. He needed me. I was nurse, companion, caretaker. I was the one who soothed his ulcers, who listened to his rages, who reminded him he was still a man, not just a crown.

They say he was a tyrant. I saw the man who whispered regrets in the dark. I saw him clutch the locket of Anne’s hair. I saw him stare at the map of Europe, pins marking the marriages he never allowed. I heard him murmur, “I don’t know how to fix this.”

I saw the rot up close — in his legs, in his letters, in the way he whispered to ghosts.

He was not a saint. But he was not the sinner they needed him to be either. He was a man who made choices, and I was the woman who outlasted them.

Henry’s Interjection: To Catherine Parr, he whispered: “You saw me. You saw the man beneath the crown. And you did not flinch. For that, I let you live.”

Henry’s father, Henry VII, had fought like a wolf to secure the Tudor line. He had clawed his way to the throne after decades of civil war, stitched together alliances, and ruled with caution. He knew the crown was fragile, and he guarded it with suspicion and thrift.

Henry VIII inherited that crown not as a burden but as a toy. He was young, golden, adored. He believed his power was unshakable. And yet, by the end, he knew how brittle it had become.

He was not raised to be king. His brother Arthur was the heir, the one shaped for rule. Henry was second best — until he wasn’t. And when the crown came, it did not come with guidance. It came with expectation. His parents died when he was still young, and the court raised him not with nurture, but with hunger.

It is now known that the brain does not fully develop until the twenties. But Henry was crowned in adolescence, and shaped by flattery, fear, and performance. He chased love, and when his wives grew less emotionally aligned, he chased validation through “trusted advisors.”

He was pulled and pushed, not guided. And when those around him learned how to use him — to flatter, to manipulate, to secure their own power — they did. The rot was not just in his leg. It was in the court, in the alliances never made, in the people who served themselves before the realm.

He should have married off his eldest daughter, Mary. He should have bound England to Europe with alliances that would have secured peace. But he did not. Pride stopped him. Pride, and the fear that Catherine of Aragon’s daughter might outshine him, might succeed where he had failed. To let Mary marry well would have been to admit that Catherine had won. And Henry could not bear that.

He refused Elizabeth too, though suitors came. A French match, a Spanish match—each could have secured England’s place. But Henry’s pride was louder than his strategy.

So he played with pretend power. He postured, he raged, he demanded obedience. But the alliances never came. The map of Europe remained a patchwork of pins that never connected.

And when he died, he left behind not stability but fracture. The Tudor line, so hard-won by his father, was left vulnerable. His son was a child, his daughters unmarried, his kingdom divided. The instability that followed was not inevitable. It was his legacy.

A Dream Away:

The Hunger for Progress And yet—what if?

Not a correction. Not a rewrite. Just a dream away. This was Henry’s final, unquenchable hunger: the knowledge of a progress he was too terrified to enact.

A world where men could admit weakness without losing their crowns. Where kings were allowed the language of regret, the vocabulary of self-reflection, the tools of emotional stability.

Imagine Henry VIII in that world. Not healed, not perfect — just less haunted.

Anne Boleyn might have lived. Not as queen, perhaps, but as exile. He might have whispered “I am grieving” instead of “I am betrayed.”

Catherine Howard might have been dismissed, stripped of jewels, sent away in disgrace — but not executed. He might have recognized that marrying a girl young enough to be his daughter was folly, not treason.

Mary might have been married off to secure peace. Elizabeth too. The map of Europe might have been stitched together with alliances, not left to fracture.

And Henry himself — might he have been happy? Was happiness even allowed for kings? Perhaps not. But in that world, he might have whispered not “I can’t undo it” but “I chose differently.”

In another century, he might have been diagnosed, not feared. Guided, not manipulated. Loved, not performed for.

It is not history. It is not prophecy. It is a dream of a different way, if only we learned to progress, not to repeat.

When Henry died in January 1547, they found the locket in his hand. Inside was a lock of Anne Boleyn’s hair, pressed to his lips as though he had been whispering to her in his final moments. The letters lay nearby, worn thin from years of folding and unfolding, the ink smudged by fingers that had once signed death warrants.

The courtiers spoke of his grandeur, his victories, his break with Rome. The people remembered his feasts, his rages, his wives. History would remember him as a tyrant, a monster who chopped off the heads of women as casually as he dismissed ministers. The rhyme—divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived—would outlive the man himself.

But the truth was more complicated. He killed two wives, not six. He exiled others, annulled marriages, buried one with honour, and was outlived by another. He loved, he raged, he regretted. He was not a saint, but nor was he the sinner that myth required.

In the silence of his last nights, he had whispered to the ghosts of his queens. He had admitted what no king could admit in public: “Pride and ego was my hunger.”

And perhaps that is the truest legacy of

Henry VIII—not the tyrant of legend, but the man who could not escape the consequences of his own choices. A man who clung to rituals of regret, who feared weakness more than God, who left behind a dynasty fractured by hunger.

He was the king of rot and ritual — and the rituals outlived the man.

And if you listen closely, you can still hear the chorus of queens, their voices overlapping his:

“We were not saints. He was not the sinner. We were all choices, and no hunger could be undone.”