Henry VIII wants to divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon because he thinks the Habsburgs are going to kill him and take over England using his wife as a Manchurian Queen.
All the other explanations are bullshit.
🧵1/
Why do I think the Habsburgs are trying to take over Tudor England by planting agents in the Tudor line of succession?
Because they LITERALLY DO take over Tudor England using a planted agent in the Tudor line of succession from 1553-1558, five years after Henry VIII dies.
2/
Look at these maps. That’s Habsburg imperial territory from 1282 to 1556. They do that with *one weird trick* which is they marry into a royal family and then betray and murder and bribe whoever it takes until THEIR guy is the one who takes over the throne.
3/
Some people get confused about who is siding with who because there are a lot of marriages and weird titles. I can make it simple. This is a picture of Ferdinand I and Charles V. They are brothers and both are Habsburg Emperors.
Catherine of Aragon is their mummy’s sister.
4/
Now, for hundreds of years this one funny thing happens in kingdoms after a Habsburg marries into the line of succession. People DIE suddenly, or go CRAZY, or the succession laws change and then a Habsburg becomes king… weird!
5/
In any case, Catherine of Aragon (the auntie of the two Habsburg Emperors from before) marries Arthur Tudor the heir to the throne of Henry VII. Then all of the sudden this crazy thing happens: Arthur Tudor, who is 15, DIES of a made up disease.
What!?
6/
The “disease” Arthur Tudor dies from is called the sweating sickness. It has the same symptoms as ARSENIC POISONING and only affects rich politicians and only in Tudor England. It is the figgiest historical fig leaf imaginable for assassination.
7/
England has a succession crisis. The Habsburgs want their girl to be the heir. But the Tudors and Habsburgs appear to reach a settlement where in exchange for HUGE amounts of money, Henry, Arthur’s younger brother will be allowed to mary Catherine and become Henry VIII.
8/
One of the most common official explanations for Henry breaking with the Catholic Church is he wants a male heir and believes Catherine is for some reason biologically unable to give him one.
One problem with that.
It’s not true.
9/
Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon have AT LEAST three male children together.
They go:
Baby Girl - dies with doctors
Baby Boy - dies with doctors
Baby boy - dies with doctors
Baby boy - dies with doctors
Baby Girl - Bloody Mary
Baby Girl - dies with doctors
10/
For Catherine of Aragon to wind up with 5 dead kids and one surviving FEMALE heir is extremely advantageous for the Habsburgs. It legitimizes their royal line, but does not create a challenger to Catherine’s claim to the throne in the event of Henry’s death.
11/
If you are thinking THIS IS A CRAZY PLOT!!!
This is the AGE of plots. There are dozens of plots way crazier than this that we know about from this time period.
Ever heard of Machiavelli? He wrote the prince during the reign of Henry VIII.
12/
But more than that, this plot actually WORKS. When Catherine fails to take the throne because of the eventual divorce, the surviving Habsburg daughter Bloody Mary KILLS her half Brother King Edward VI and THEN kills his successor Queen Jane and takes the throne in a coup.
13/
So what does the Habsburg Mary do when she gets on the throne? Oh she weds the son of the Habsburg Emperor and burns all the Tudor supporters to death on a stick. The picture below is of a medallion the Habsburgs made for her in 1555 to commemorate all the burnings.
14/
In any case, the bar here isn’t whether YOU believe the Habsburgs killed Henry VIII’s kids and his brother. The bar is whether you think HENRY believed it. Bear in mind, his dad Henry VII was FAMOUSLY paranoid.
15/
Let’s walk through the competing theories here.
Henry VIII risked war, ditched his wife, and cleared out the church because:
A) Horny
B) Sexist
C) Born Again
D) He thinks the Catholic Church has been compromised by the Habsburgs and if he doesn’t they’ll kill him.
16/
The contemporary view tends to be that Henry is motivated by a combination of HORNY and SEXISM. My view is he is influenced by paranoia and philosophical Machiavellianism.
The prince is actually a popular book in Henry VIII’s court, especially among its dissidents.
17/
Once you see it, it’s hard to unsee. What becomes clear is that there is a Tudor-Habsburg conflict in England starting around 1488 and ending around 1588 when the much more powerful Habsburgs finally give up playing politics and send in the Spanish Armada.
/18
Despite being a gripping story, the fact that there is a Habsburg coup in Tudor England isn’t even the most important takeaway here. The important part is how Henry’s actions affect Europe after his death, and why modern historians have a hard time seeing the story clearly.
/19
The structure of the Catholic Church in Tudor England is almost exactly the same as the international university system today. It is an unaccountable international oligarchic bureaucracy. It answers to no master, and is master to all.
/20
Of course historians hate him! They identify with the church. They hate Henry for FIRING the teachers and Liquidating the universities. They will be naturally inclined to treat his enemies graciously and his allies unfavourably.
/21
But this bias clouds their ability to see the significance of Henry’s actions. In making himself head of his church he creates a new kind of organizational structure - an accountable bureaucracy - and it is wildly successful.
/22
Henry’s accountable bureaucracy is the common ancestor of two modern organizational structures. The sovereign nation state and the Joint Stock corporation. It may not be possible to overstate how important these structures are to the subsequent development of the modern world /23
Henry VIII’s accountable bureaucracy leads to Westphalian Sovereignty, Nationalism, Napoleon, even Hitler. But it also leads to the Virginia company, the east India trading company, the founding of America, the British Colonial Empire. It’s the structure of the modern world.
/24
The Tudor-Habsburg conflict is as foundational to us as the story of Romulus and Remus was to Rome. So why haven’t you heard it before?
/25
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