mmoa_writes

One of the more common examples used as evidence of why old time monarchy was a very bad thing is the borderline psychopath that was Henry VIII. I've always wondered about this, not so much because I disagree with the sentiment, but because it goes hand in hand with another question of mine when it comes to his tumultuous reign and that is how the hell he managed to get away with it for so long.

Of course, I understand that to begin with, he was charming and handsome, intelligent and witty, so I'm sure he was very capable of fooling everyone if he wanted, but when things started to go awry (Katherine of Aragon, anyone?) I've never understood how and why he just... got his own way.

Now I know that the Pope at the time was held hostage by a close relative of Katherine, which, for those who theorise that the royal marriage could have been easily annulled, satisfies why the Pope did not grant Henry his wish, a wish that Henry either through sheer gall or quite legitimately, thought he would. When I say I don't know how he got away with what he did, I think I'm asking the question from a very amateurish (to say the least) perspective of the history of the British Monarchy.

The aristocracy (and I use this term very loosely as the definition will change depending on the societal model) seem to exist to keep a more direct check on the ruling power. There is no guarantee it will work, or that their existence won't lead to some other problem further down the line (I'm thinking the Bourbons, for some reason...), but certainly in English history - or so it seems to me - the nobility have been instrumental in making sure the King didn't forget his place which was all too often beholden to the whimsy of the aristocracy. In Henry's case, the English nobility seem remarkably - weirdly - indulgent and I find that interesting.

Some of it would definitely have been greed (get on the King's side, maybe get a share of the new wealth he would acquire from the Church) and I am sure there were more than a few sympathisers to the revolutionary Protestant ideas amongst the nobility, not to mention those influenced by the continental Renaissance ideas concerning the importance of the State, but even so, that's somehow dissatisfying.

But then I read about Henry VII and it began to make some sense.

Henry VII was a special kind of bastard, even for a medieval nobleman. He had won a bloody and ages long civil war between the noble houses of England and thus become King of England  although his own claim to the throne was spurious and only bolstered by his marriage to Elizabeth of York. One of the first things he did as King was to tax the nobility into submission. This made the Crown rich and the nobility dependent on the Crown. Their right to private armies was eroded away, denying them the method of choice for their forebears when dealing with an unsuitable monarch. By the time Henry VIII became King, perhaps the nobility, now dependent on the favour of the monarch in a way that may well have been rather embarrassing a century or so earlier, no longer had that spirit of grudging obedience. It was no longer a privilege that a monarch should be served without question by those of noble birth, but an unassailable right.

OK that is rather exaggerating (Henry VIII did not invent the 'Divine Right of Kings' after all), but in essence, a nobility that has no power or resources to do anything except to amuse and flatter the ruling power probably will let the rulers get away with just about anything.

Ah, history. Whenever it gets confusing, it helps me if I just remember that it's all swings and roundabouts really. I was browsing through one of my favourite history blogs that focuses on the Georgian era and I came across a fascinating discussion in which several theories for the wild swing in cultural norms that occurred when Princess Victoria became Queen were being discussed. One idea was that the Enlightenment era, with it's emphasis on individual freedom, also saw a new way of looking at human bodies and sexuality: as vehicles for pleasure as well as duty. With this came the licentiousness we've all come to know and love and with that came the proliferation of the STD such as syphilis and gonorrhea (one of my first lessons in the Georgian era was eavesdropping on a tour guide in some gallery or other with Hogarth and what have you every which way. "You see that beauty spot?" They would all too frequently stop at point out, "that's not actually a beauty spot; it's too big. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a syphilitic sore." I swear, you can do a terrific round of 'join the dots' on just about every other Georgian painting, particularly if they're depicting the 'common life'). By the time we get to the 'Victorian' era, a new understanding of bacteria and disease leads to a public discarding of the 'old' ideals in disgust and an increasing paranoia about sex, who has it, how and why.

Civil war is also a good excuse for bad behaviour on a national scale, I find. I never understood (as much as I might have enjoyed reading about) Charles II, his merrie court and Restoration England in general until I remembered that the people had witnessed their King being beheaded a generation earlier not to mention the now grown-ish nobles who had seen their parents humiliated or killed by republicans, and probably - like the Bright Young Things 300 years later - were suffering a severe case of arrested development.

That and they were just a bunch of self centred whatsits.

EDIT: I also find it ironic when we look askance at societies for having slightly odd priorities, as though we in the 21st century devote ourselves wholly to Reason (whatever that might be) or whatever it is we've decided must be the new measuring stick of all things Good. Take the ancient Chinese who made technological advances that wouldn't be seen for centuries in the rest of the world, nor - ironically enough - in China itself for even longer once the powers that be deemed it unfashionable. It certainly is strange in hindsight that they'd just stop, but I wonder if their reasons were actually every bit as reasonable as say, NASA's where, having actually landed on the actual moon, they just sort of stopped when it came to space exploration to the point where 50 years on, no one considers that especially odd.

Thatt's just life, man.