Periodically, there is a lot of press comparing President Trump to a really bad person in history. Stalin and Hitler come up most often. As much as I feel that Trump is perhaps the worst president this country has ever had, I am not sure those comparisons are accurate. Stalin and Hitler both killed in the range of 20 million people. Hitler launched an invasion of Europe that led to World War II, and Stalin carried out the plans of Lenin by centralizing the Soviet economy and steamrolling over anyone who got in the way.
I have another comparison that I feel is much more accurate. As it turns out, it’s a probable ancestor of mine who lived 500 years ago. He ruled a European nation with an iron fist, and couldn’t help but let his personal problems dictate national policy.
Henry VIII of England.
Here is why. Henry started out as a good ruler with the promise of lifting England out of the Middle Ages, overseen by his cheap and suspicious father, Henry VII. When Henry VII died in 1509 Henry VIII was eighteen years old and raring to go. He married the widow of his brother Arthur, who would have succeeded their father had he survived.
Most know that Henry remained married to Catherine of Aragon for over twenty years, and in that time they had only one child to survived, who turned out to be a murderous tyrant, Mary I. One son survived birth but only lived a few weeks, and with the exception of Mary, the rest of her pregnancies ended in miscarriage or stillbirth. Henry became convinced that despite a papal decree, marrying his brother’s widow was a violation of Scripture, and by happy coincidence this revelation came about around the time that Anne Boleyn graced Henry’s court. The rest is well known. Henry fought with the Pope and members of his own court to have his marriage annulled so that he could marry Anne.
Here’s where the comparison of Trump and Henry comes in. Despite his marriage, Henry was a serial philanderer. He had a habit of drawing in a mistress, using her for a year or so until he tired of her, then pawning her off in marriage to a low level courtier. Sometimes an illegitimate child resulted. One son, Henry Fitzroy, was all but acknowledged by Henry, and had he survived past the age of 20 he might very well have become Henry’s heir.
My 12 great grandmother, Mary Boleyn, was another such mistress. Henry’s affair with her went on for awhile, and to cover his tracks Henry married her off to a courtier, William Carey, who obediently died of the plague. They had two children, Henry and Katherine. I am descended from Katherine. Many historians feel that Katherine is likely an illegitimate daughter of Henry. She bore a close resemblance to her cousin/possible half sister Elizabeth, with whom she was very close.
Henry did not use people very well. He treated women abominably, showering them with gifts until they got pregnant, when he sent them away. He was too cowardly to face people personally when they were about to get the ax. With the two wives that he executed (Anne Boleyn, #2, and Katherine Howard, #5), he had them hauled in, tried in his absence, and sent off to the Tower for execution, never seeing them again. Shades of using Twitter to fire someone?
As Henry got older he got worse. Historians trace this back to a jousting injury in 1536, in which his horse fell on top of him. He was unconscious for two hours and at the time was thought to be dead or nearly so. This aggravated a leg wound which never healed and plagued him the rest of his life. Some have speculated that a head injury at the same time may have caused a brain injury which changed his personality. To be sure, he was becoming more imperious before the accident, but it got worse after. It is well documented that a serious blow to the brain can cause a change in personality. Henry had a volcanic temper which he displayed in public on a regular basis, upbraiding members of court for one failing or another.
Henry saw the world as revolving around him, and in England it actually did. He changed the course of English history by separating England from the Roman Catholic Church. He was all consumed by the desire for a male heir. The Tudors were always looking over their shoulders because they knew that Henry VII had a very, very slim claim to the throne. We see this behavior in Trump, obsessing about voter fraud that didn't happen, Russian collusion which would seem to call the legitimacy of his election into question, and "Crooked Hillary" and Obama. He can't seem to get past this obsession with proving his election was legitimate.
Henry is known to have had a short attention span, and was more likely to be found gorging himself at a meal or hunting than attending to the business of the kingdom. Even though he laid plans for the modernization of England’s defenses and its educational system, and bringing the Church in England under the control of government, Henry was rather bored with work and spent a lot of time doing the 16th century equivalent of playing golf every weekend. Can anyone say Mar-a-lago?
Henry had a large but fragile ego and crushed anyone who crossed him. He regularly fired members of his Council who did not perform up to expectation, and even had Thomas Cromwell, a Chancellor (Prime Minister of sorts) executed because he didn’t like Cromwell’s choice of Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. How many heads have rolled in the White House lately?
Henry didn’t like it when someone said no to him. He was never intended to be King. Arthur was groomed for kingship from birth, but Henry was the second son who could well have become a bishop or a military commander. He grew up under his mother’s care, which would not have happened if he had been the first son.
Henry was a self-centered, impulsive ruler who frequently went through aides who always seemed to disappoint him. Any takers on this comparison?
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