A spot of blood and grease on the history of England
Henry VIII was virtuous and devoted to the papacy - at least in his youth, finds John Hinton
7 November 2008

Portrait by Hans Holbein

Henry: Virtuous Prince by David Starkey, Harper Press £25

You can depend on David Starkey, the great broadcaster and academic historian. You could not, as he points out, depend on the subject of his latest work, Henry VIII - the King who changed from the virtuous prince who inhabits these pages to the bloodthirsty tyrant depicted in the recent BBC television series The Tudors.

For, as Starkey points out, while his fame may have been eclipsed by that of his daughter Elizabeth, there are two Henrys - the one getting older and fatter, haunted by his "legal" murders, the other young, quiet and pious. And they were very different.

Elizabeth may have changed as she grew older. Even so, she remained loved. Holbein's strutting monarch shows Henry in his last dozen years when, in Charles Dickens's glorious phrase, he was "a spot of blood and grease on the history of England".

This was the man who broke with Rome and made himself supreme head of the Church, who married six wives, divorcing two and executing two others.

Henry dissolved 600 monasteries, demolished most of them and shattered the religious pieties and practices of a thousand years. Drunk with power - not to mention the wine, women and song of his endless days of pleasure - he beheaded nobles and Ministers, some of them his closest friends, tortured to death rebels and traitors, boiled prisoners and burned heretics.

Awaiting their executions in the Bloody Tower, his victims spent their last hours in prayer and penitence receiving the last sacrament and hoping the axeman or swordsman would sweep them into the waiting hands of God with one swift blow.

Wait a minute, though - the young Henry was very, very different. He was not even born to rule, succeeding to the throne only after the sudden death of his elder brother, Prince Arthur, in 1509. As a virtuous and intelligent young prince, Henry's romantic disposition was nurtured and developed by his childhood surroundings.

As a "spare" to the throne, his early life was spent in a shared household with his two sisters and his adored mother who taught him to read and write.

Young Henry - and there have been no good accounts of him until this book, the first part of Starkey's new two-part history of the monarch - was meek, mild and obedient, eager to learn and to please. He looked more than promising - just the ticket for the difficult times.

He was a handsome prince: slim, athletic, musical. And he was bright and learned as no English ruler had been for centuries. Brought up in loving female company, he understood women and, Starkey believes, benefited from the softening effect of their company.

The young Henry VIII was also conventionally pious. He prostrated himself before religious images, went on pilgrimages and showed himself profoundly respectful of the Pope as head of the Church.

He even meant to be a faithful husband and there is no reason to doubt Starkey's admirable research on this. The prince excelled in Latin and mathematics and was determined to repair the ravages of the Wars of the Roses.

The virtuous prince described in these pages, "abominated his father's meanness, secrecy and corrosive mistrust". Instead, he modelled himself on Henry V, the greatest and noblest of his predecessors, victor at Agincourt.

Indeed, he might even be a new King Arthur, real not mystical, with a court which would put Camelot in the shade.

And so, for a time, it seemed to be. Lord Mountjoy, his companion of studies, hailed his accession as the beginning of a new golden age.

A new dawn was also sensed by Thomas More, then an up-and-coming young lawyer, who had known Henry since the young prince was just eight.

In astonishment and dismay, Sir Thomas was to become one of the Henry's victims, climbing the scaffold and later being made a saint. But earlier More had proclaimed in verses he penned to celebrate Henry's coronation that he was a new messiah and his reign a second coming.

How can More have been so wrong? Was his judgment flawed or did the young Henry somehow delude those close to him?

Neither, according to this prize-winning historian. "Mountjoy we can perhaps discount. But More was nobody's fool. If he saw these extraordinary qualities in Henry then they, or something like them, must have been there indeed."

Starkey has dug deep into previously unexplored original Latin texts to find some of the still elusive answers to the riddle of Henry. But the first difficulty he faced was one of image: the few panel portraits of the young prince can't compare to the blazing portrait by Holbein of the plump and self-satisfied Henry of later years.

To talk of two Henrys is, of course, only a figure of speech. Henry underwent a metamorphosis from virtuous prince into bloated tyrant. But he was the same man.

Call this the first volume of a new history of Henry VIII, but history moves relentlessly forward and the second volume will be in the bookshops after Starkey has signed off on it. And as Starkey freely admits, the older Henry is immediately fascinating in a way the young Henry is not. This volume covers events up to Cardinal Wolsey, whom Shakespeare has lamenting his transition from a "many summers on a sea of glory" when he ventured far beyond his depth, to the wretchedness of his fall. And all because he put his faith in the King. It is indeed a cautionary tale.

This is all terrific stuff from a master craftsman. Those who enjoy reading all the facets of Henry's life - timed to coincide with the 500th anniversary of his accession to the throne - will find it page-turning, to say the least.