The once carefree prince has become a paranoid king suspicious of everyone around. He has divorced his first wife, executed his second, and his third wife had died after the birth of his only son. Now he is alone. Henry VIII: Endgame, Channel 5 2020
Recent research suggests he suffers from a rare condition that affects his mental health. ibid.
His painful leg ulcer has transformed the highly active King into a man who even struggles to walk without assistance. ibid.
A religious uprising in the north of England known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. ibid.
Despite five failed marriages, Henry only has one legitimate son. So he embarks on his sixth marriage. ibid.
Despite plunging England into bankruptcy, Henry’s military ambitions do have some benefits. ibid.
1579: A new age of piracy … Francis Drake. Mankind: The Story of All of Us VIII: Treasure, History 2012
Enough to pay off England’s entire national debt and fund its government for a year. ibid.
At the heart of the royal regalia the King’s State’s Crown. Solid gold and bedecked with four hundred precious stones. The Golden Orb inlaid with six hundred jewels and the solid gold Sovereign’s Sceptre. Days that Shook the World s2e4: Grand Heist, BBC 2004
They had cost a staggering £32,000. ibid.
After Charles II was reinstated in 1660 Cromwellians like Blood quickly lost favour. He began to plot against the new royalist regime. ibid.
April 1671: Blood was disguised then as now as a parson. ibid.
9th May 1671: As soon as they are near the jewels Blood and Parrot attack. ibid.
The three principle conspirators are all in jail. ibid.
King Charles considers Blood’s appeal ... He signs Blood’s pardon. ibid.
In the summer of 1693 Isaac Newton was having a catastrophic nervous breakdown. He had always suffered intense bouts of depression and mania. Tristram Hunt, Great Britons: Isaac Newton, BBC 2002
When he was still a young boy his mother left him ... Isaac had to stay behind at Woolsthorpe. He was effectively abandoned. ibid.
His favourite book was The Mysteries of Nature & Art. ibid.
A lonely schoolboy was laying the foundations of modern science. ibid.
He then drew up a list entitled Some Problems in Philosophy. Under forty-five different headings he identified what he saw as the great unanswered questions of science. ibid.
The image of the lone scientist in his garden unlocking the mysteries of the universe resonates through history ... Rather than developing a full theory of Gravity he put it to one side and rather focused his mind on a completely different branch of science: Optics. ibid.
Knowledge to him was something sacred and solitary ... He made the world’s first reflecting telescope. ibid.
His sense of betrayal and injustice was overwhelming. ibid.
Instead became obsessed with the Bible. It seems an extraordinary chance of tack. ibid.
Unknown to others he had been consumed by alchemy ... The Lucasian Professor had become the sorcerer’s apprentice ... He wrote over a million words on alchemy. ibid.
He decided to write a definitive guide to the workings of the universe ... At a stroke Newton had changed everything: the cosmos had become knowable, mathematical; it was a staggering achievement. ibid.
Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica ... One such first edition was recently sold at auction for £2,000,000. ibid.
He was concerned with motion ... Newton was able to devise the three laws of motion. ibid.
He left us ideas, ideas that allow us to control the forces of Nature and change our world. Ideas that will always be with us wherever we go. ibid.
Only a year after Henry’s coronation in 1400 the Welsh rose up against English rule, but the greatest threat to England came from within England and from the family which had been his own strongest supporters – the Percys. Monarchy by David Starkey s1e6: Death of a Dynasty, Channel 4 2004
No heir to the throne had served a more distinguished apprenticeship … He fought bravely against Hotspur … this led the English to victory … but suddenly at the age of 35 Henry caught dysentery and died. ibid.
Everything would depend on Henry’s son – the nine-month-old … Henry [VI] was also named King of France … The government of England and France was divided between the King’s two uncles … French resistance couldn’t be suppressed. ibid.
By the time Henry was 30 he’d lost everything his father had won. Only Calais remained in English hands. ibid.
Now York turned the tables on the House of Lancaster … Henry would remain King whilst he lived and York would succeed only after his death, but everybody reckoned without Queen Margaret’s ferocious mother-love … She led her forces against York; Margaret was victorious. ibid.
He seized the throne and ruled as King Edward IV; Henry was captured … But then his own followers started to quarrel … A total and final defeat for the House of Lancaster … Henry VI was dispatched with a blow of the head. ibid.
Civil war and revolution: politics fused with religion first strengthening the monarchy, then bringing it to its knees. In this revolutionary period the monarchy acquired a potent new symbol: an elaborate outsized crown made for the Tudor dynasty. Monarchy by David Starkey s2e1: The Crown Imperial, Channel 4 2005
Henry [VII] was a man who should never have been King at all; he seized the throne against all the odds … His enemies, three brutal brothers, tore themselves apart through murder and betrayal. ibid.
By the mid-1470s Elizabeth had presented Edward [IV] with five daughters and crucially two sons. ibid.
He was crowned King Richard III at Westminster on July 6th with the full blessing of parliament … Opposition to Richard was growing. ibid.
The two sides came face to face at Bosworth in the Midlands … Henry was crowned Henry VII two months later promising to restore the glory days of his namesake King Henry V. ibid.
Arthur, Henry’s son and heir, died. ibid.
On 24th June 1509 Henry VII’s son, Henry VIII, was crowned … No-one could have guessed how radical even revolutionary it would prove to be. Monarchy by David Starkey s2e2: King and Emperor
His brother Arthur died suddenly of a fever followed soon after by his beloved mother. ibid.
One of Henry’s first acts as King was to marry his brother’s widow … six years his senior. ibid.
Rome instead was the obstacle that had delayed his divorce for five long years. ibid.
More refused the oath and he was imprisoned. ibid.
Through the rule of a minor, and two women gave England a sort of stability; but it also ushered in profound political turmoil as well. Monarchy by David Starkey s2e3: Shadow of a King
In their camp outside Exeter the rebels drew up a list of demands for concession by Edward’s government. ibid.
In the winter of 1552 Edward started to cough blood … The young King was dying. ibid.
For Mary was Edward’s legal heir: she would succeed as Queen and supreme head. ibid.
With her pregnancy exposed as a delusion power started to ebb away from the Queen. ibid.
Matters came to a head in the parliament of 1556 which attempted to force Elizabeth to name a successor and by implication to exclude the claim of Mary, Queen of Scots. ibid.
The first to move against her was Rome. ibid.
23rd November 1658: this ruler was not a king, he was instead a regicide, a king killer: his name was Oliver Cromwell. Monarchy by David Starkey s2e5: Cromwell the King Killer
After a dozen battles and thousands dead the war had bogged down: for the parliamentarian the stalemate provoked crisis and soul-searching. ibid.
1645: The New Model Army: this was England’s first truly professional fighting force. ibid.
Charles characteristically overplayed it rejecting the astonishingly lenient terms he was offered by Cromwell and the other army leaders in order to guarantee religious toleration. ibid.
Cromwell was invested with a royal robe of purple velvet lined with ermine, a gilt bound and embossed Bible, a golden hilted sword, and a massive solid gold sceptre. He swore a version of the coronation oath. ibid.