THE CORRUPTION OF HENRY VIII

How the Tudor king went from Renaissance prince to blood-soaked tyrant

- Emily Staniforth

Remembered as the monarch with six wives who broke away from the Catholic Church, Henry VIII’s reputation has been cemented as a result of his outrageous behaviour and bloody-minded approach to kingship. At the beginning of his reign, Henry embodied the ideal of an enlightened Renaissance prince who presided over a majestic court and could have taken England into a new golden age after years of uncertainty. So how did it all go wrong, and why did Henry VIII become memorialised as England’s most tyrannical monarch?

A HUMANIST PRINCE