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This past weekend I watched Anne of the Thousand Days, a 1969 movie about the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn (and the life of Henry VIII). I'm not too sure how accurate it was, but the movie really makes Henry out to be kind of monster driven only by his desire to have a son. He is willing to run through people, an entire institution, and even his own soul as he is driven in his quest. At some point in the movie, even Anne joins in Henry's rampage as she seems to look the other way as people go to their death for refusing to adhere to the new oath to the Church of England. Anyone else here seen it?
I have not seen it but the depiction of Henry VIII as driven to have a son and heir at any costs actually sounds quite accurate. He was driven to see that his dynasty would continue and absent modern knowledge of genetics he adhered to the belief of the time that the mother determined the sex of the child.
I think he “driven only by his desire to have a son.” England had just emerged from a long period of civil war (War of the Roses) and his father, Henry VII—and the House of Tudor–had a very weak claim to the throne. Arthur, the older brother of Henry VIII, died or Henry would never have been king. England had never been successfully ruled by a queen; that had alway ended in civil war. I think Henry VIII feared–with good cause–that without leaving a male heir the nation would return to civil war. I think he actually wanted to play it safe by leaving more than one male heir.
