Was this the moment Henry VIII became a tyrant?
Before he was the monarch with six wives – two of whom he had beheaded – Henry VIII was a Tudor adonis: attractive and active. What happened?
As a young man, Henry VIII loved jousting. He was very active, also spending his time wrestling, hunting, horse riding, and dancing. He was renowned for his stature and physical strength.
But the king would never joust again after a serious accident in 1536.
This accident didn’t only change Henry’s attitude toward jousting though – many historians suspect that it also changed his personality and brain function, leading him to become the despotic, aggressive leader that he is often remembered as today.
Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Robert Liddiard, professor of history at the University of East Anglia, says that while there are other reasons Henry VIII may have changed so dramatically after 1536, “nonetheless it might be that his inability to stay on a horse did have some wider ramifications for his later reign.”
Henry’s jousting tournament in 1536
Henry had been injured in jousting tournaments before, but the match he rode in on the 24 January 1536 was to be his last. His opponent is unknown, but both were knocked off their horses and Henry’s rolled on top of him. This would cause injury to anyone, but Henry’s jousting horses were famed for being incredibly large and strong, and they wore hundreds of kilograms of armour, too, making it much worse.
Henry was left unconscious for two hours after the accident and suffered a gory wound to his leg – both of which, historians think, had long-term impacts on his health.
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After the leg injury, Henry developed ulcers, and his “sorre legges” caused him problems for the rest of his life.
“It opened up an existing wound on his leg that subsequently, it seems, never healed properly. It caused the king a lot of discomfort and it smelled bad,” Liddiard says.
And, since modern research shows that being unconscious for longer than 15 minutes can lead to moderate brain damage, many historians suspect that the accident may have had other, invisible effects on the king.
Did Henry’s behaviour change after the accident?
Many historians think there was a noticeable change between Henry’s character, behaviour, and way of ruling before and after 1536.
In the 1510s and 1520s, he was thought of as fun, accomplished, and well-liked, but he quickly became a “suspicious, ruthless tyrant” after 1536, historian Suzannah Lipscomb writes in her book 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII.
We can’t know for sure that these changes are solely due to brain injuries, but they do resonate with what is now known about the consequences of brain damage.
We know Henry experienced at least three major blows to the head in his years of jousting, horse-riding, pole-vaulting, and battle. And we also know that repeated impacts to the head can cause CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), which research suggests can lead to irritability, aggression, a lack of empathy, mood swings, impulsivity, and self-centredness.
Richard M Waugaman, a professor of psychiatry, also suggests that Henry’s obesity could also be evidence of brain damage. While the monarch was obviously not a usual case (because he had access to all the luxurious food he wanted), his level of obesity was incredibly rare in Tudor times, and his doctors encouraged him to stop consuming so much wine and meat. Waugaman suggests Henry may have struggled with compulsive overeating, which has been recognised as a consequence of a traumatic brain injury.
But these changes could have other contextual explanations. As with many things in history, there could also be a variety of other factors at play.
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“You could say that 1536 was a big year anyway,” Liddiard says. “So, we shouldn't just necessarily focus on this one accident.”
He points out that 1536 was the year that Anne Boleyn was tried and executed. Sources say that she also lost a baby boy during pregnancy after hearing about Henry’s accident, which “in the febrile Tudor court, is the sort of terrible event that then becomes the source of political rumour, intrigue, and so forth,” Liddiard says.
Henry’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, who had been made Duke of Richmond and Somerset in a possible attempt to legitimise him, also died in 1536 at the age of 17.
The stress of losing two possible male heirs – something we know he was desperate enough to spark the English Reformation to achieve – plus condemning his wife to death for rumoured adultery could have also contributed to Henry’s hardened attitudes.
As could dealing with the political upheavals of the time. With the beginning of the dissolution of the monasteries, 1536 brought unrest and rebellions to England. Most notable were the 22,000-strong Lincolnshire Rising and 40,000-strong Pilgrimage of Grace in October that showed that Henry’s subjects were deeply unhappy with his recent taxation policies and the religious upheavals.
Could the changes have been natural progressions in his character?
Some historians have suggested that Henry’s personality changes started much earlier than 1536.
Liddiard points out that “if you're looking for evidence for Henry VIII being a bit of a despot before this accident, you will certainly find it.”
He gives the examples of Thomas More, Henry’s chief minister and friend who he had executed in 1535, and Edward Stafford, the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, a cousin of Henry’s whom he condemned to death in 1521.
So it can be hard to pin Henry’s evolution to a specific event, considering that he may have naturally changed due to the unique stresses he experienced as a monarch. But the events of 1536, including the jousting accident, almost certainly expedited it.
Robert Liddiard was speaking to Spencer Mizen on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Authors
Serafina Kenny is a freelance journalist specialising in the history of health, relationships, and social culture