The Supposedly Strange Funeral of Henry VIII

Picture Henry VIII.  Fat guy with a beard, right?  I always picture Robert Shaw from the movie, A Man for All Seasons (a movie I highly recommend, even if the depiction of Henry as he is trying to divorce Catherine of Aragon is a little off).

At the time, Henry was clean shaven, slim, athletic, and rather tall.  No one is exactly sure how tall, but when his skeleton was measured in the early 19th century it measured 6’ 2”, while his custom suit of armor used for jousting was made for a man 6’ 4”.  That is just one of the many misconceptions about Henry.  Take that beard for instance:  There is a persistent legend that frequently shows up in history books that Henry, perennially short of money, imposed a tax on beards in 1535–a tax that Queen Elizabeth later tried unsuccessfully to increase.

Great story, but it never happened.  There are quite a few more completely false legends about Henry.  Take the one about his being fat.  (Well, late in life he had a 52” waist and easily topped 300 pounds, but that certainly wasn’t the case for most of his life).  Henry spent so much time playing tennis, hunting, jousting, and engaging in other athletic pastimes that he was forced to turn over almost all affairs of government to his advisors, chiefly Cardinal Wolsey.

In 1536, the king was jousting when he took a hard hit from a lance.  Not only was the monarch unseated, but the horse fell onto his legs, badly injuring them.  For the rest of his life, the king’s physical activities were greatly reduced.  Unfortunately, he continued his other great hobby:  consuming over 5000 calories a day.   

If you search the web, you can find quite a few sites that will inform you that Henry VIII killed all, or almost all, of his six wives.  This is a blatant exaggeration, for the kindhearted king only had two of them executed.  There is pretty good evidence that he even loved at least two of his wives (although not the ones that he had beheaded, of course).  There is a handy rhyme to remind you the eventual fate of his wives: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.

Supposedly, on his deathbed, Henry muttered, “Monks, monks, monk” as his dying words.  This was supposedly indicative of a guilty conscience for all the monks and priests the king had executed after he banished the Catholic Church.  (As if a man who had married his brother’s spouse and had two of his wives beheaded had a conscience).

In reality, as Henry lay dying of renal failure, a physician told the king that he would likely die soon.  The king asked to see the Archbishop of Canterbury, then said, “I will first take a little sleep and then as I feel myself I will advise on the matter.”  When the archbishop arrived, the king was asleep and never woke up.  As dying words go, those suck.  (My favorite dying words come from Pancho Villa.  After being ambushed, he lay dying in the street, but still had the presence of mind to say, “Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something important.”)

Of all the nonsense myths about Henry VIII, the strangest and most persistent is about his funeral.  According to the legend, his burial was so delayed that during the funeral, his rotting corpse exploded due to the hot weather, and feral dogs lapped up part of the bloody mess.  Evidently, the moral of the story was that even the high and mighty among us eventually still end up as worm food.  (Or, in this case, Alpo).

The legend is nonsense, of course.  Henry VIII died in January, when it certainly was not hot.  His body was embalmed and sealed in a lead coffin with a wax likeness of the king placed on top of the casket.  In accordance with his will, he was placed in a vault alongside his deceased wife, Jane Seymour.   The king’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, the Dowager Queen, loyal to the end, attended the funeral.   Henry’s will allocated enough funds from his estate for masses for the late king to be held daily in perpetuity.  About a year after his death, the government found other uses for the money, evidently deciding that if the late king hadn’t made into heaven yet, it was a lost cause.

Henry’s will also stipulated that the vault containing both his body and that of Jane Seymour was to be only a temporary resting place and that eventually, both bodies were to be placed inside a magnificent memorial and chapel that Henry had helped design.  A brass statue bearing the king’s likeness was cast and polished and golden candlesticks were made in preparation.  Unfortunately, after the King’s death, the country was more or less constantly at war with somebody (usually France), so the treasury was always short of cash and construction of the memorial was delayed repeatedly.  Eventually, the statue was melted down for the money and the golden candlesticks were sold to a church in Belgium. 

Over time, due to the limited space in the church, other bodies were added to the vault, including that of King Charles I and one of the children of Queen Anne.  Somewhere along the line, the church just forgot where Henry’s body was located.  After the Battle of Trafalgar, the marble sarcophagus (originally meant to hold Cardinal Wolsey but appropriated by Henry) was removed and used as the base of Lord Nelson’s tomb in St. Paul’s.  About a decade later, the church realized just who was in that vault, and the coffin of King Charles was relocated.  Finally, a bronze slab was laid over the vault indicating both King Henry VIII and Queen Jane Seymour were located there.  

So, where did the urban legend of Henry’s body exploding and being partially devoured by dogs come from?  Surprisingly, it started while King Henry was still alive.  When the Pope declined to give the king a divorce from his constantly faithful first wife, Catherine, Henry broke with the Catholic Church establishing an independent Church of England.  This started a religious civil war within the country, pitting the pious against the opportunistic clergy.  

On Easter Sunday in 1532, a Franciscan delivered a sermon denouncing the King’s lack of faith, using as his text chapter 22 from 1st Kings.  The story from the bible recounts how King Ahab died from wounds he received in battle and was buried in Samaria.  His battle chariot was then washed in a pool where the prostitutes bathed and dogs licked the king’s blood as the chariot was being washed.

From this single sermon, the legend grew and over time was embellished endlessly.   Finally, the “official” version of the event was created by Agnes Strickland when she published her twelve volume magnum opus, “The Lives of the Queens of England” in 1848.  According to Strickland, a buildup of gases within Henry’s coffin burst the coffin open and a plumber was called to repair the breach in the lead plating.  While the Church waited for the plumber, blood and gore oozed from the coffin, being lapped up by feral dogs.  

It's not too late to build that memorial for Henry VIII.  It’s been 475 years since the government of England stole those funds from the king’s estate.  With interest, that should amount to quite a sum by now if the treasury were forced to pay it back.  While there are no living direct descendants of Henry VIII, King Charles III claims to be distantly related to the Tudor royal family.  Since he has no apparent real job, he should take up the family cause and finish the memorial.