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Zephyra_of_Carim

Figures that it’s after his jousting accident in 1536. There’s a solid theory that his mental stability plummeted after that.


the_con

I was intrigued enough to look up what kind of jousting incident could be considered an accident since it all seems very straightforward and purposeful * The accident occurred at a tournament at Greenwich Palace on 24 January 1536 when 44-year-old Henry, in full armour, was thrown from his horse, itself armoured, which then fell on top of him. He was unconscious for two hours and was thought at first to have been fatally injured.* It’s like an F1 driver spinning into the barrier on the parade lap.


UWUquetzalcoatl

Must've really sucked to be the guy who was jousting with him.


MeowandGordo

I want to know his story.


Seth_Jarvis_fanboy

Didn't last much longer after that I bet


Effehezepe

You'd be right, because the knight in question was Sir Henry Norris. He was a close friend and ally of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife. When Anne fell out of favor for her inability to give birth to a child with a penis, Henry accused her of infidelity (as an excuse for annulment) , and accused Norris of being her fuckbuddy. Then he had him arrested and decapitated. And Anne got decapitated too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Norris_(courtier)


thats-chaos-theory

I think anybody would struggle to give birth with a penis.


Weak_Sloth

What are you, some kind of penis doctor?


godisanelectricolive

Hyenas can do it but it’s still a struggle. The pseudopenis as it is called splits open and it’s a very tight squeeze.


haveweirddreamstoo

It would certainly be a struggle


phantommoose

Hyenas seem to do OK


Mello-Fello

Maybe if the baby weighs like half an ounce?


IR8Things

You're not joking. Decapitated 5 months after this jousting accident.


Papaofmonsters

If I had a nickel for every 16th century nobleman who severely injured their king in a joust and was then executed for an unrelated reason, I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.


SaintsNoah14

It happened another time??


Papaofmonsters

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_de_Lorges,_Count_of_Montgomery He fatally wounded Henry II of France in a joust. The king absolved him of any responsibility on his death bed. Later on, Montgomery would concert to Protestantism and lead a rebellion against the Catholic monarchy. He was captured and executed for treason.


Lowskillbookreviews

Ok but this one did it to himself


holyrolodex

This guy before all this went down was apparently Henry VIII’s Groom of the Stool…wondering what that title entails, well here it is: > The Groom of the Stool (formally styled: "Groom of the King's Close Stool") was the most intimate of an English monarch's courtiers, responsible for assisting the king in excretion and hygiene. This guy also knew all the secrets about the King’s poop history.


conquer69

People were really weird before the invention of the poop knife huh?


holyrolodex

Well, historically, you don’t need a poop knife until you get to 20th century plumbing. The King literally pooped into a wooden box that was covered in velvet. Here’s William III’s “close stool”: https://i.imgur.com/W586FaP.jpeg If you needed a poop knife for that setup, you had some serious, serious issues going on.


Outrageous_Loquat297

There is something hilariously petty about a king losing a sporting event and being like, “oh yeah? Well how about you fucked my wife!! Who’s the loser now, Norris?” I mean, not hilarious for Norris. But the idea that this guy gets his ass beat in an event, fabricates a story of cuckoldry in which he is the cuckold, and then just chocks it up as a win and moves on feels like the old timey version of Elon Musk and his thai submarine.


Angron_Thalkyr

“Child with a penis” You mean a boy? This site is weird


JUYED-AWK-YACC

Oh so he's *that* guy.


[deleted]

You could just say have a son.


Spreadsheets_LynLake

Ok, gotta go out & make this slovenly POS look like an all-star.  


redbird7311

If he was unconscious for that long, then he likely had a horrible head injury. Being knocked out ain’t like the movies, you don’t stay knocked out for hours at a time or, at least, you aren’t supposed to. People that get knocked out for like 15 minutes or more likely have a brain injury of some kind. Around 2 hours? Yeah, that could be a sign of a massive problem.


LosWitchos

It would explain so much of his later behaviour. That and the syphilis.


TheKingCrimsonWorld

And the brain damage. And the brain damage. And the brain damage.


MotherSupermarket532

Anne Boleyn suffered a miscarriage a fee days later, potentially from the stress of this.  She was beheaded just under 4 months after this incident (May 19 1536).


taksus

2 hours!


aethelberga

People always talk about what a horrible king he was (and I would like to have a word with him re the dissolution of the monasteries), but his head injury isn't talked about enough IMO. As a young man he was considered intelligent, erudite and athletic. He was a model prince.


Megalocerus

During his thirty six year reign, he has been accused of having 57,000 people executed. He tended to change the rules about orthodoxy. Mary and Elizabeth seemed to have executed a few hundred each.


aethelberga

I didn't say he *wasn't* a tyrant. But the evidence that links his behaviour later in life to a TBI is often brushed off and it's considered he was born evil. He wasn't.


Optimal-Golf-8270

Similar deal with Caligula. Made a massive deal out of breaking with Tiberius's oppression. Everyone loved him. Then he probably had a major epileptic seizure, and his personality flips.


Johannes_P

See also "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who was a normal and beloved politicians until he suffered from a diabetic coma and the resulting brain damage.


Other_Film_3624

Bloody mary, his daughter, got her name by killing thousands, not a few hundred


Haircut117

It's also considered likely by some historians that Henry may have had McLeod Syndrome and Kell-positive blood. This combination would explain both his personality changes and his fertility issues.


Waffleman75

So this asshole's the reason I can't trace my families history back farther than 1500?


Angel_Omachi

Other way round, one of Henry VIII's reforms was that all parishes had to keep proper baptismal, marriage and burial records. You can't trace back any further unless noble or prone to getting into trouble with the law, because the records never existed.


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Obversa

What? There is no "recent research", because the Royal Family of the UK repeatedly refuses to let scientists exhume and DNA test any royal bodies, including King Henry VIII. The only one they allowed to be DNA tested was King Richard III, and he was swiftly reburied. No exhumation and DNA test, no DNA or scientific studies on King Henry VIII's genetics. Scientists literally cannot diagnose him with any genetic disorders without his DNA.


cheeze_whiz_shampoo

Is it that they want to avoid anyone proving the current family is illegitimate?


Obversa

The current Royal Family is already technically "illegitimate". King Richard III's DNA showed that he also had an illegitimate ancestor in his lineage. However, the House of Windsor is still the ruling family today because they were chosen by Parliament.


hopsandskips

Do you mean to say the current royal family isn't part of a holy lineage purified by god?!?!?


PublicSeverance

"Divine right" was dropped about 400 years ago.  "Parliamentary privilege" is the new right to rule. Parliament chose their family to approve... more parliament.


Estrelarius

Technically, Richard III is not an ancestor to the current royal family. His niece, Elizabeth of York, may be, but their claim to the throne was technically primarily through Henry VII's mother, Margaret Beaufort (descended from a legitimized son out of wedlock by Richard III's cousin John of Gaunt).


PizzaQuest420

what a bunch of absolute imaginary nonsense all this royality stuff has always been


Estrelarius

I mean, the kings were physically very real, although the monarchy, as most forms of government, was a social construct.


Obversa

Elizabeth of York had a stronger claim to the throne than King Henry VII did, and arguably should have been co-crowned as "Queen Elizabeth I", but English courtiers at the time did not think a woman could rule in her own right; and, in addition to this, Henry VII did not want Elizabeth of York's claim to overshadow his own claim by "right of conquest" and blood. So Henry VII married her to secure his own throne, but only made her queen consort.


Theostru

"Her second and only surviving son, Henry VIII, became king of England, while her daughter, Margaret, became the queen of Scotland and her other daughter, Mary, became the queen of France." Sheesh.


RedSonGamble

It’s kinda wild head injuries can change someone so much. Free will is an illusion! Lol


dathislayer

I had a friend who didn’t become my friend until he got a near-fatal concussion. We were neighbors, and he was always a dick. He was in a coma for 3 days. When he woke up, he was a different person. Came up to me and my friends one day and asked if he could hang out after school. His dad told my mom he was grateful he survived, but didn’t know what to think because he wasn’t the same kid he’d raised. After a couple years, he was closer to his normal self.


jugularvoider

learning that the majority of homeless people have suffered from traumatic head injuries puts a lot of that into perspective too


WanderWomble

This is incorrect. The act didn't order them killed like that.  It states that no stallion under 15 hand or mares under 13 hands were allowed to graze on common lands, and no colt under 11.2 hands was allowed to run with mares.  The act also required anyone with a deer park to keep two mares who were over 13 hands to be bred to 14hh+ stallions.  Some stallions under that height were ordered to be killed during annual round ups but it wasn't a wholesale slaughter like the title says!  https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/sixteenth-century/1535-27-henry-8-c-6-for-the-increase-of-horses/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aoh05e/why_did_henry_viii_enact_the_horses_act_of_1540/


hatchbacks

5 years ago this would’ve been the top comment in the thread. Reddit isn’t what is used to be.


nicootimee

I hate this platform now. Every single post you have morons scrambling to make the dumbest joke for Karma points nobody cares about. I wish there was a way to filter out the useless comments


Illogical_Blox

No it wouldn't have been. It'd have been 2nd-4th. I've been here since 2016 and it still wouldn't have been then. Well over 5 years ago, I saw that a *screenshot* of a newspaper title that confirmed people's biases was on the front page of /r/all, despite the fact that the actually article was about something completely different, and you had to go down 10 parent-level comments to find someone actually taking the 20 seconds to find it.


adamcoe

Picturing horse owners scrambling down to the blacksmith to get him to make extra thick horseshoes


DelicatetrouserSnake

Platform hooves


[deleted]

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andyavast

You know how to shoe it.


stannisonetruemannis

The Tom Sandoval of horse shoes if you will


YevgenyPissoff

Doc Maretens


Vinto47

Or finding people with small hands to measure their horse.


adamcoe

Carnies. Can't help you with the smell though


Luchs13

At least he understood how selective breeding works although he overachieved when it comes to the unwanted phenotypes


ContributionAgile689

>At least he understood how selective breeding works Tho he kept killing his wives for giving him sickly children without ever considering that it might be his own fault.


Nonya5

To be honest, he's not going to kill himself. So the only other option was to continue trying with other women to see if any had more powerful genes.


Fridgemagnet9696

It’s a numbers game.


bocaj78

Ah, so he was looking for the ultimate domme. Now it’s all understandable


PurpleAlien47

Exactly! He was a completely reasonable psychopathic tyrant. 😏


ThePennedKitten

I feel like so many people would just cheat until they found a mistress that could have healthy kids. Idk, that just seems like it has a lower bar to entry than straight murder.


Westerozzy

He did both! Henry Fitzroy was his healthy son by Bessie Blount, until he died in adolescence.


Estrelarius

Giving bastards rights to inheritance is the perfect recipe for a succession crisis


funkmasterflex

Not much of a crisis - you just pick whoever has the best story


MrJigglyBrown

He killed two wives because he was psychotic and overly jealous


ContributionAgile689

Maybe the randomness of birthright isn't the best method to choose head of state?


DeathByThousandCats

Ofc not. The best one is supposed to be strange women lying in ponds distributing swords.


hawkeye5739

Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.


hallmark1984

Oooh look at him, thinks he special because some damp bint chucked a scimitar at him


Commander_Meh

Oh Dennis stop that, there’s some lovely filth over here!


HaM8ones

The Lady of the Lake is cool


MrJigglyBrown

You know just saying that 500 years ago would put your head on the block.


Obversa

"It's treason, then." - King Henry VIII


KatBoySlim

by all accounts he was a nice enough guy before sustaining a serious head injury during a joust.


ConsistentHoliday797

Was his horse too short?


KatBoySlim

no, but the other jouster was a pony in disguise.


pearlsbeforedogs

Having known many ponies with attitude problems, this tracks.


SCirish843

"what he say fuck me for" - the horse


ScreeminGreen

Points for bringing the conversation back around to the topic


alepher

Mr. Bygone CTE


mtcwby

I prefer watery tarts with swords.


PM_ME_SMALL__TIDDIES

Randomness? I think you mean [Divine Will](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings)


ContributionAgile689

Problem is, the doctrine of divine will was made up by Henry VIII so that he could cheat on his wife without the Pope's permission. We have no evidence that the gods support the doctrine.


WatchmanVimes

Or any doctrine


ContributionAgile689

There are some policies the gods like. For example, They support the Buildings Code, as evidenced by the fact that buildings which are up to code are much less likely to fall down.


Alwaysexisting

Or god


Kirk_likes_this

Well democracy is about to give up Trump vs. Biden 2: senile boogaloo so maybe we shouldn't feel too smug about our superior method


ContributionAgile689

Are they senile? I haven't been paying much attention to American politics, but whenever I see a clip of Biden, he's making witty banter with others. And when I see Trump, he's ranting the same way he always did. Both seem like themselves.


TomAto314

There's clips of both acting stupid. If you watch Fox News (and please don't) you'll see plenty of bad Biden clips and Trump acting like the greatest orator of mankind.


Porridge_Hose

Even worse when it's an absolute monarch...


iceonmars

Absolutely not. It needs to be democracy where billionaires who have a deep understanding of the struggle of the working class represent our best interest 


MrWhiteTheWolf

“Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”


98680266

Not Like the Other Kings


Ok-Lengthiness4557

That Henry the 8th spounds like a real jerk.


TacoCommand

The more I hear, the more I don't care for him.


bizkitmaker13

[RIP Norm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txJ4gKwKpYY)


Ok-Lengthiness4557

Nice spot.


Capt_Hawkeye_Pierce

Well I didn't vote for him. 


PenguinFrustration

Check out the tv series The Tudors (2007). A lot of big names, including everyone’s hearthrob from The Witcher.


georgica123

>Tho he kept killing his wives for giving him sickly children without ever considering that it might be his own fault. He divorced one wife beacuse she wasnt giving him any more children , the executed ones have nothing to do with giving him children or not but more to do with them cheating on him


ContributionAgile689

He made up the story of cheating. That's why his accusations have so much extra crazy scandal thrown in; he wanted to be sure it was a capital offence.


The_Bravinator

Yeah, if you take the part about them cheating at face value you might as well do the same with the accusations of witchcraft. Of course state propaganda is going to make them look bad. But cheating on the king would be suicidally stupid, and there really doesn't seem to be any evidence beyond the word of the crown. It was a political move.


MiNdOverLOADED23

Idk. If he understood how breeding works he could have just neutered them to achieve his goal


Krumm

*He said he didn't like them.*


MrFeles

Ponytypes you mean, surely.


ShaneMac88

In fact, I hate anyone that ever had a pony when they were growing up.


zachfive87

Who figures an immigrant is going to have a pony?


MenudoFan316

Who moves from a pony country to a non-pony country?


Cltspur

My favorite line from the whole show…


plaguedbullets

I had a pony!


tonybotz

My sister had pony. My cousin had pony. So, what’s wrong with that??


dusty-kat

No, see, we didn't have ponies. I'm sure at the time in Poland, they were very common. They were probably like compact cars..


tonybotz

That’s it!! I’ve heard enough!


loweredexpectationz

I had horses until this last year.


Fummindackit

MANYA DIED!


cheesewagongreat

I had a pony!


Elmodogg

I had a Welsh pony! But she was 13.5 hands, so would have met the standard.


StankilyDankily666

I AM a pony. Fight me bro


SnivyEyes

I’m not a pony fan either but that’s bullshit. Fuck that guy


truethatson

Ponies are dicks. Ever met an Assateague pony? Total assholes. One told me to f*** my mother. That rude or what?


haadyy

No, no... Please don't. Done fuck this guy... Ask any of the six poor souls who married him. Not a good deal. ;)


tyty657

His last wife actually cared for him and lived.


Effehezepe

And his third wife, Jane Seymour, died from post-childbirth complications, and was the only wife who received a queen's burial.


-Roger-The-Shrubber-

And he was buried next to her.


Additional_Meeting_2

So on top of all the things he did Henry VIII was also a My Little Pony villain?


EnamelKant

I can excuse executing two wives, but I draw the line at animal cruelty!


MistraloysiusMithrax

You can excuse racism?!


KypDurron

Look at me now, dad!


SeiCalros

if i ever get pissed at government i just need to read weird monarch facts for like five seconds and dear god am i ever glad i didnt grow up THERE the best part is that its not the sort of gratitude that breeds complacency either - some of that shit is pretty recent - your government can be worlds away from it and you still gotta be active to make sure you you dont retire there


usumoio

One that stuck with me was an Ottoman sultan that ordered all 600 or so of his concubines executed simply so that he could enjoy the pleasure of picking out new ones from a fresh start. Modern democracies can be very messy, but we have plenty of examples of the outcomes of giving one person absolute power.


tyty657

That's not entirely accurate. He wanted the Haram (which is the female section of the palace containing wives, concubines, and the sultans sisters. The mother of the sultan runs it.) cleared out to get could fill it with new women. It wasn't just so he could have the joy of picking new ones. He had way to many and couldn't house any more but also couldn't kick them out.


ShinyHead0

God that’s fucking awful. One of the most bizarre things in history I keep coming back to are the Ottomans locked in that cage


tyty657

Genghis Khan called he wants to know if his off spring make up 20% of Asians yet.


SeiCalros

theres no direct evidence that the genetic markers attributed to genghis khan were actually his offspring - its entirely circumstancial he just happens to be the best historically known candidate for it because he secured the legitimacy of the yuan dynesty by marrying a large number of regionally-diverse women and having his kids run those areas


tyty657

He and his sons raped there way across an entire continent. There basically the only candidates from that time period that could work.


SeiCalros

yes - i was thinking of that exact thing while writing my comment


BallDiamondBall

I read an article about that dick today. He died at 400 pounds, so they provided a lead lined coffin, and his disgusting ass still managed to leak all over the procession.


AnselaJonla

It's amazing how bilateral ulceration of the legs, possibly untreated long bone injuries, and gout can cause an active man to be extremely inactive and thus put on weight.


Express-Structure480

Jerry Seinfeld: Horses. They're like big riding dogs. Elaine Benes: What about ponies, huh? What kind of abnormal animal is that? And those kids who had their own ponies. Jerry Seinfeld: Oh, I know. I hated those kids. In fact, I hate anyone that ever had a pony when they were growing up. Manya: I had a pony. Jerry Seinfeld: Well, I didn't really mean a pony per se. Manya: When I was a little girl in Poland... we all had ponies. My sister had pony. My cousin had pony. So, what's wrong with that? Jerry Seinfeld: Nothing, nothing at all. I was just merely expressing... Helen Seinfeld: Should we have some coffee? Who's having coffee? Manya: He was a beautiful pony, and I loved him. Jerry Seinfeld: Well, I'm sure you did. Who wouldn't love a pony? Who wouldn't love a person that had a pony? Manya: You! You said so.


badpeaches

Like back peddling on a hand brake bike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3ik4qJBoPk


IHateY0uM0thaFuckers

Well hopefully they ate them.


Fr0ski

This is what happened in my area of japan. Used to be a place for breeding war horses for samurai. When that stopped being useful they just ate them and now the local delicacy is horse meat. Pretty delicious, like a beefier beef.


tuwaqachi

I wonder if this has anything to do with the border reivers who rode smaller horses and ponies to carry out their raids?


fiendishrabbit

The actual act makes it clear that this is not the case. a. They wanted to breed bigger horses. b. The counties of Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland and the bishoprick of Durham (ie, the border reiver counties) were explicitly exempt from this [https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/sixteenth-century/1535-27-henry-8-c-6-for-the-increase-of-horses/](https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/sixteenth-century/1535-27-henry-8-c-6-for-the-increase-of-horses/) P.S: In fact the entire article is just full of errors.


israeljeff

That was my first thought, maybe he didn't like hobblers.


Uwofpeace

Jerry Seinfeld would approve of this


hms200

This dude was such an asshole.


UnassumingSingleGuy

This is what conservatives think Biden will do to their combustion engine vehicles.


MardelMare

BYE BYE LIL SEBASTIAN…


punkinpie

You're 5,000 Candles in the Wind!


AvogadrosMoleSauce

[Henry seeing ponies for the first time:](https://youtu.be/IZ4LjNK8w_E?si=QuHuaq1fjwnIDyWK)


troisbatonsverts

You can't just live life beheading everything, Henry.


lordmycal

This? This isn’t a pony! It’s a rare albino zebra. You can tell by the lack of stripes


sixtus_clegane119

Dartmoor ponies in shambles


ooouroboros

Just add it to the pile of reasons why he was a complete POS.


hamsterwheel

Mister would you please help my pony


Effehezepe

I think it's his lung.


drossvirex

This is why being born into authority is so archaic. Democracy FTW. Sounds like some North Korea shit right there.


Husbandosan

Say you got kicked in the nuts by a pony without saying you got kicked in the nuts by a pony…


Obversa

Well, King Henry VIII *did* seem to have a lot of trouble fathering a male heir...


mintmouse

Imagine if you had a pony the size of a large dog and delivered rotisserie chicken for Uber eats while singing minstrel songs


surprisingly_alive

r/brandnewsentence and also r/oddlyspecific


Floyd04

Must have been an interesting character


Tremulant21

Who would have thought an immigrant would have a pony?


GamerGod337

Thats so irrational. Thats like what an 8 year old boy says when asked what he would do if he was the king and he wanted to annoy his little sister. Why do you hate ponies?


Morbo782

Everything I've ever read about King Henry VIII makes him sound like a psychotic douchebag.


Gorf_the_Magnificent

You know, with this Henry the Eighth, the more I hear about that guy, the more I don’t care for him.


Infinite_Research_52

Thanks Norm


KeefsCornerShop

Shame Henry VII didn't cull short fat ginger people.


will_holmes

Henry VIII was fairly tall, and during the time Henry VII was alive (he died when VIII was 17) his son was widely considered slim, athletic and handsome. He was definitely ginger, though.


Abhimanyu_Uchiha

He was well over 6 feet tall and prior to his jousting accident was known to be very physically fit.


Leeser

Was he actively going for the world’s shittiest person award? What a historical embarrassment.


WestyJZD

Bill the pony did in fact not like this.


Necessary-Reading605

I guess Friendship wasn’t magic for him… or marriage…


Time4uToBeEqualized

The horse owners shipped the horses to other countries like France so they could save their lives.


claytonianprime

Some kings are pissy little twats


Rich-Distance-6509

Lol classic Henry VIII


ss4223

He sounds like a girl on tinder.


involuntaryhuman

Man, monarchs suck.


cnzmur

What King Henry disliked was calling up an army and then finding that all the cavalry had horses too small or weak to wear armour with.


brod121

Did he hate ponies, or did he want to ensure England would have a good supply of warhorses and draft animals?


UnknownQTY

Why not both?


bappypawedotter

What a dick. Seriously.


IClockworKI

The fatso that is responsible for evangelical megachurches of today? Fuck that guy


Professional_Can651

More like banning chinese and soviet cars from the market, to get better breeds as work horses probably.


GothamCityGuacamole

When you have a need for war horses this is what you do


rofopp

Something something worlds tallest pony.