The Jacamo King With a Food Bin For A Leg | Henry VIII (Part 3/4)

Henry's back, and he's fallen off his lime bike. Henry VIII (Part Three) This episode of Fin vs History is brought to you by Surfshark. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code FVH for an extra 4 months at https://surfshark.com/fvh The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.  For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon ⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/fintaylor⁠⁠⁠ Chapters: 00:00 - Lime Bike Leg 03:35 - Prada Willy 06:38 - A Suckling Sumo Wrestler 07:26 - Dog Breath 11:35 - Cut It Off 16:34 - He’s A Feminist 20:43 - She’s A Hoarder 23:10 - Horrible Stew 27:31 - Quill Stuff 29:16 - The Cod Piece Enthusiast 36:28 - She’s Not A Laugh 39:41 - No Means No 43:52 - An Episode Of Scrubs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The wheel had roads, electricity had the grid. Innovation needs infrastructure. Plaid makes AI work in finance. Visit plaid.com/ai to learn more.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Finn vs History. I'm with Horatio Gould. Part three of the Henry VIII story. And Henry's getting fat.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  He's growing. He's growing at a frightening rate. He's sort, you're sort of a reverse Henry VIII.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  We hope.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  You're, we hope. It's Benjamin Button's Henry VIII.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  We hope that we're not currently in an anomaly, in an otherwise fat story. Henry has fallen off his horse.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Which has absolutely knackered his leg.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  He's sort of got a lime-like leg in the Tudor England. It's opened a wound. And Tudor doctors think that the wound needs to be kept open.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  In order for it to not fuck it. I don't know, I don't even know what the logic is for this.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  But this is why it's only even this story die.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Doctors know less about medicine than if you did nothing at all, basically.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  They're making it actively worse.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  You bring someone in.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Don't let it clot.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Make sure you have the exact same cut on his other leg so it dances out.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Yep. Poor maggots into it. Maggots in it. He did have maggots in his leg at all times, but we'll get to that. We're not, we're just sort of pre-maggot phase. This is the last bit where you can say, maybe he was attracted.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Well, live cultures are important in one's guts.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not in the leg.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  No, I guess, I guess a live culture. If the culture is maggots, maggot culture.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  If your thigh is a food bin, you're not doing well. Okay. To recap, Henry has broken from Rome because of this strumpet Anberlin, this upperty woman who keeps miscarrying.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Is he breaking chairs yet?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  How do you mean?

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Under his weight.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Not yet.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Not yet.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  But the, the starting gun.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  We need a fatometer.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  We do need, like a swingometer. Jeremy Vine watching the fatometer.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Where are we at with his fatness at the moment? So what year is this?

• 2:17Speaker 01

  By 1536, his waist is about 37 inches. So he's probably overweight or thick-set. Rather than, quote, truly fat.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Have you ever been, have you ever been truly fat?

• 2:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  No, I've been bloated. I don't know if that really.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  That's not, I find that very offensive.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  I find that incredibly, incredibly demeaning.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Try and muscle on your lived experience.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  You are minimizing my experience, which is a maximal experience.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Liver experience.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  So he was roughly, at this point, we think, about 109 kilos, maybe 120. His waist is between 35 and 42 inches.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  So we're getting to the upper limits of the M&S range. What is it, Charlie?

• 2:54Speaker 03

  He's closer to the build of a, of a man like Gordon Bamsley, apparently.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Gordon Ramsay. Okay, fine. But yes, we're not.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  He's bigger than Beckham, smaller than Ramsay.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Look, to place his weight, which I think we should do this episode. We should weight place. Not just on the podcast, I think just in everyday life, we should weight place women we see in the street.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  I met a girl last night, can you weight place her?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Who was this girl? She was before Michelle McManus, but after Scarlett Johansson. Okay. Yeah, fine. So he's fallen off a horse and his leg is opened, it's oozing.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  And Anberlin has given birth to a girl on the 7th of September, 1533. That is useless, put that straight in the bin.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Straight in the bin.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Straight in the bin.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Yes. But yeah, the most Chinese, British.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  This country ever is, under Henry VIII. Henley VIII puts a girl in the bin. Catherine of Aragon, crucially, she's still knocking about.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  So he can't get rid of Anberlin because if he does that, then there's probably going to be like, well, you've got to go back to Catherine because she's still knocking about.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  But she's even more broken than fucking Anberlin.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  So luckily Catherine of Aragon dies in 1536. In maybe, is this like a few months? This is sick. This is what Emmy's reacting to, sick. This is maybe a few months after the accident, something like that. And so now he can marry again.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Do you think he has Prada Willy Syndrome?

• 4:22Speaker 01

  What do, go on.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  It's a sort of an offshoot of Down Syndrome, but you cannot stop eating. So he might fall and off.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Like a Labrador.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  So I watched a documentary on Prada Willy and they have to be sort of kept in a home because if they're allowed out, they, there's just, you've lost your entire ability to stop eating. So I wonder when he fell off the horse, maybe that's what he got.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  Finn?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Excuse me?

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Charlie.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Charlie, you can't grow out of Prada Willy Syndrome. Why is it called something so demeaning? It has got a very fashionable penis.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  But it was probably found by someone.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  I've got a Prada Willy.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Charlie could not.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Charlie, yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  His eyes went like.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Well, it's always good to, it's always good to get Charlie. I got him with something that wasn't poo. That's a highbrow, highbrow Charlie joke, Prada Willy.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  He genuinely couldn't believe he has to do this for a living in that moment.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  What I will say though, is that, that, yeah, that, the photo we're looking at with the, sort of, the terrorist block over the eyes, that is a young, that is a sort of, maybe an eight, nine, 10-year-old Finn Taylor.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Really?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Well, no, because he looks about sort of five or six from the.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Before the great stretching.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that, that was, yeah, naked, the, the, yeah, no, it was bad. It was bad. I've been very, I've been very clear.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Harvey Price has Prada Willy Syndrome.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Does he?

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Which makes sense, that's why he's, he's alarm, he's growing like our patron.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Alarming, alarming, alarming. And he can't see where it's going to end.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  It's going to end in tears, I'm sure.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yes, it is going to end badly. So he can't stop eating. So basically, Henry VIII, potentially, Charlie, can you find out if you can, can you contract Prada Willy Syndrome through blunt force trauma? If it's a chromosomal thing, then I, then you can't.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  I feel a bit more, it's nice we're discovering things because with Henry VIII, we know the story so well, it's nice to be kind of delving into new territory and finding new questions.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  But it is, but also I feel like I know the story in a kind of teetowel way. You know? I didn't quite understand, particularly when we get to next episode, I didn't quite understand the grimness of the end.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  And I will say now, just to soft trail next episode, it's Gaddafi-esque.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Yes, very much so.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  In terms of how he ultimately shuffles off this mortal coil. So can you contract it from blunt force trauma?

• 6:45Speaker 02

  No, it's genetic.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  No, you can't.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  But Henry is eating 5,000 calories a day.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, this, by the way, is what a sumo wrestler has for one meal. And they have two meals a day. I went to the sumo at the weekend, as I said, I got upgraded by a fan because that's the.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Which they thought you were a sumo wrestler.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  No. Oh, the musta is here.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  I was trying to get your autograph.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  The, the sumo Messi, as in, the young prodigy whose knees went. No, I, it was a fan, because that is the kind of event that I get upgraded at. It's never a business class on an Emirates plane, it's the Greenwich bounce of the London South East sumo experience. So.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, get to choose your fans.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  But we did, we don't, but I did meet the sumos afterwards and they were, they were terrific. Anyway.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  But it's now more and more sounding like you have Prada Willy Syndrome, you're going to meet celebrities.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  No, it was, what I will say is that we, I took my wife on a date night there, well, she took me there, it was her idea. But there is nothing better than watching two grass-fed fat fucks slam into each other. The noise is extraordinary.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  The big slap, oh god, sets me right, gets me going.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  It's a good spectator sport, did you get the rules? It's quite simple rules.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  It is simple rules, it's sort of like a schoolboy game, but what I will say is that you're, it's so viscerally gripping that I, I stood up, I said, I was like cheering, I saw beer in the air at the end.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess MMA, it's like the punches and the cracks can be kind of horrible, but the satisfying fat slap.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Slapping, yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  It's kind of like, it feels safer and softer and.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Also, the legs, the muscles on their legs is extraordinary.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Probably the most muscular legs I've ever seen.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  And yet the top half is so fat.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  A suckling sumo wrestler would be absolutely extraordinary. So let's see what they're eating, so 5,000 calories for one meal.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  I know exactly what they eat because I researched this on the way home. They have a big stew that's got fish, beef, tofu, everything in it. So they wake up, they don't have breakfast because that slows their metabolism down. They then have 5,000 calories in a stew. And then they'll have six pints of beer and have a nap.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Really?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they'll wake up, have another 5,000 calorie meal and go to bed. Because they're trying to gain fat. And not on the organs, not visceral fat, extra bodily fat.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Who's, which sumo wrestler has lived the longest?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Let's find out.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Because surely this is like, you burn bright.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  Uma Gattani Ai, who lived to 83.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Okay. It's a blue zone.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Not that old though.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  83 is pretty, pretty good.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  To be the oldest though.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Of all sumo wrestlers.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Doesn't seem that old.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  What's the average age of a, average lifespan of a sumo wrestler?

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Now, Henry VIII is eating 5,000 calories a day.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  60 to 65, yeah, it's pretty low.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  60 to 65, for Japan, that is, that's pretty.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  Very low.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  The wheel had roads, electricity had the grid. Innovation needs infrastructure. Plaid makes AI work in finance. Visit plaid.com/ai to learn more.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  So, so he's eating basically a sumo's breakfast every day. Now, he's been eating this before the accident, but he's been doing a lot of exercise. Now his leg is full of maggots and it's a food bin. He can't do the same.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  He's not getting his steps in.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  No. Firstly, he's, he is convinced that vegetables are not only a bad for you, but a moral sin. So this is like.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  This is Clarkson stuff.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  This is like if Clarkson was a toddler, basically. So he would be eating, 80% of his diet was meat.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  In the final years of his life, the kitchens at Hampton Court are slaughtering 14,000 large animals a year. He would be presented with a buffet of 15 heavy meat dishes, including spit-roasted beef, venison, veal mutton, pork, boar, whole-roasted peacocks, roasted swans, herons. On a Friday, you weren't allowed to eat meat in Christian traditions, so he'd eat fish, but by fish, he meant whales.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Whales, seals, beavers. He then would have 13 pints of ale a day. Is what I didn't get a day. Awful.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  He then, because in the 1540s, Britain and the Caribbean are doing quite a lot of stuff. So sugar comes in. So he gets obsessed with like marzipan and like orange pies drenched in syrup.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  A dish full of snow, which is like whipped cream and sugar and rose water. But then, so he, there's no dental care. So he's basically, his teeth fall out, which, and he's eating tripe. So he, but his breath is like a fucking dog.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Can't imagine.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  It's awful.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  The amount of different notes you're being hit with on the whiskey tasting wheel.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Rose water and tripe. That, that is like an air freshener after a shocking shit, isn't it? Rose water and tripe. Anyway, so we're getting slightly carried away, but he is, he's starting to really motor in his fatness. He's been freed of the handbrake of mobility and now he can just expand. So.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  It's territorial expansion.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Yes, it's Lebensraum. Catherine of Aragon finally dies in 1536, which means Cromwell can hatch a plan to execute Anne Boleyn. So what he does is he basically just confection this plot that he, she's been fucking her brother and, and everyone, it seems. And then a musician called Mark Smeaton, is that right? He gets tortured and confesses that he did rail her. And then also that maybe he saw her brother railing her as well. Anyway, she gets incest at this point is very, uh, has connotations of witchcraft because it's not a very enlightened age.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Right. Whereas now.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Well, well, in the future, I'm sure it will be, that will be the next thing.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Love is love.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  That'll be the, two heads of two heads, uh, six fingers of six fingers. That'll be the next letter in the acronym is incest. And so she's as a witch and then she's tried and her uncle gives the guilty verdict.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  That's awesome. Her uncle is amazing. Like watching the other Boleyn girl. That's a real good uncle. Proper, proper uncle.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Well, the opposite of creepy.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  So then you fucking showed your brother, you should be fucking killed, you fucking perv.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  You don't want your uncle to be judging you sexually. The trial outlined these details of the affairs, describing her relationship with her brother as a perverse passion, where a sister's tongue found her brother's open mouth and vice versa.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Jesus Christ.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Disgusting. Absolutely. Does this woman's sin know no end?

• 13:37Speaker 02

  But in the other Boleyn girl that we, we, we're talking about on the Patreon, they do try and show the scene where they almost go for it, but don't.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Well, she tries it on with it.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  She tries it on. They try and make it sort of sexy, a little bit. I mean, they're both quivering and crying, but I didn't like the way, she was undressing him. And I was like, if it's, the whole reason that she was sleeping with her brother is not because she had the hots for him, right? It's because, well.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Well, you may think so.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, yeah. Errol Massey.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Errol Massey, well, you may think so.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Her uncle was Errol Massey.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically. Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  But it was because she.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Large part of the world, marriageable ages 12.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  She wanted to get, um, have a, she wanted to have a, give birth to a son, but he didn't want it to be with someone else that Henry would be like, that doesn't look like my son. So it would just look like her, basically.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Also she'd had.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  It would look like her, it would look like two heads of her, basically.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Would look like her twice. Yeah. Well, she'd had a miscarriage and didn't want to tell Henry VIII. So it was like, well, why don't I fuck my brother?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Which is all, nearly all completely bollocks, but in the scene, I did think it was funny how they sort of tried to make it. I don't know how, she was like undressing him to begin with.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  And he's crying.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I'm like, I feel like you should come in naked and maybe do it like the Jewish people or do it fully clothed. Like you don't need to, you don't need to role play.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  I think actually the, the longer the foreplay is with incest, the more you want to back out. I think you've got a cold plunge. You've got just going to thumb it in.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  If you're doing it where you feel like your life depends on it, you're back to the corner.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  You might get something out of it.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Well, you might as well enjoy it.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Well, you might as well. You might as well. I'm here now. Let's make the best of it. All right?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Pull my hair and fuck it.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Spit in my mouth. All right. It's my spit basically, isn't it? Let's just spit in each other's mouths. Pull my hair. Show everything off my arse. Come on, come on. You might as well enjoy it. You might as well.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  We have to do it.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  I don't want to do it.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Well, I'm hard now. So fuck it.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  You know, I didn't want to go, if you go on holiday, you didn't want to go on. You're here already. You might as well have a good time.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  You're in a pub. Have a beer. What do you mean you're not drinking? You're here now. Come on. Whether they actually get down to it or not is, uh, is unknown. Uh, they probably don't, but you've got to be, you can't be too careful with incest. You've got to nip it in the bud. All right? So.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Head off, just in case.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Just cut a head off, just in case. So George, her brother, he's executed a cup in like May 1536. And then, yeah, he's a perv, had to go. Um, and then Anne, Anne is executed a couple of days later. And for, for this, what they do is Henry gets a guy in from France, a specialist executioner who's got basically like a French medieval samurai sword, it seems. Because normally the executions are done with axes and it's apparently very, very blunt. And the executions are drunk a lot of the time and it can be quite, quite a big slog.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Take a while.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Take a while, right?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  A long time in the crease.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Hacking away, singles.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  You don't want to do it in singles. You really want someone to come in and hit 36 off the over, really. He commuted her sentence from burning to beheading, which is, uh, I guess that's mercy, woke nonsense, perhaps?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  It's woke. So he's a feminist.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Well, you listen, I think you have to say he's a feminist. The amount of wives he has.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  The longest and most horrific beheading in English history is in 1541.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Margaret.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, who required 11 blows of the axe. Because her inexperienced executioner missed his mark on the first swing and struck her shoulder, the 67 year old count, 67 year old woman leaped from the block and had to be chased around the scaffold while the headsman repeatedly hacked at her.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  My god.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Benny Hill beheading.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  I mean, if you're going for beheading, is it kind of, you get more of your money's worth if it takes longer?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Oh, it's a real spectator sport. Now I understand why people will go and watch it happen. Because it's like, well, if I can see them like chasing him or her around.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's quite, it's a hard skill and you've got to really nail it under a huge amount of, it's a real.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  It's a penalty kick, really.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  So yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, if you're watching, that's the kind of, you're getting your money's worth with 11 blows of the axe. That's.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  But a French guy comes in and then she kneels down, blind, no, she's not blindfolded. She kneels down and then he just, um, with one blow of this massive sword, head off, apparently, uh, eyes are still blinking and her fucking mouth still going. Even at the end, her head falls off and she's still fucking chirping away.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Going, bang. Um, and the greatest villain in English history has been dealt with.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Yes. In Wolf Hall, they show it and I think it's quite historically accurate. But basically, so not only do they have the, the big sword, because he wanted to make it like a chivalric, like King Arthur sort of.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Supposed to an axe. Basically what the guy did to make sure that her neck was, uh, as relaxed as possible. He went.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Massage.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  He walked one way, whistled. She went like, she went like that.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  You're joking.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then he steps and chops her head off the other way.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Well, he went like that, look over there and then chopped her head off.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  He went, tapped on the shoulder. She went, what?

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Oh god. I absolutely hate falling for that.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  I mean, that, that, that's actually quite insulting to do that right at the end. Yeah, that's right. The whole point is that you're giving her more of a kind of dignified death.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, not go, oh, you look over there. Oh, fuck, you got. Or you go like, I got your nose and then you chop her nose off.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Well, you just chop my nose off. Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  So Anne Boleyn has fallen. And, uh, now a couple of days later, Henry is free to marry Jane Seymour, who is, uh, his third wife.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  So what's Jane Seymour's vibe? If Catherine Aragon's quite a strong willed, like first wife sort of vibe. Anne Boleyn is a sort of devious sexual terrorist. Jane Seymour, she's seen as the kind of soft, pure.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  A pure English virgin.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Lie back and think of England. She is gentle, obedient, conservative. She's a patriot.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Jane Seymour's a patriot, finally, third time lucky.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  I'm a patriot.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry, sorry.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  I think she's a patriot.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  A pure English virgin.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No greater patriot than an English virgin. They marry in private, what, two weeks after the, after Anne's beheaded?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Passing.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Thirty of May, fifteen thirty-six. It's just a private ceremony, no need to make a fuss.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  And it's, they make it sort of private, trying to avoid drawing attention to our, it's kind of one in and one out at this point. Now, Seymour is Henry's favourite wife, in his words.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  I think because she lived the longest, least of that time.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Well, he didn't, he, he, he, yeah, she did his work for her, for him.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  He barely, because he barely knew her.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Son, death, perfect.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  The perfect wife.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  That's, that is a trad wife.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Gives you a son, dies. So she, yeah, he ends up getting buried next to her, which is, I suppose, romantic.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Now, obviously, he's still hankering for a baby boy that's not, doesn't die after seven weeks.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Is that too much to ask, ladies?

• 20:45Speaker 02

  One job.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  You've got one job. So, in early fifteen thirty-seven, Jane Seymour becomes pregnant, and she's convinced it's a boy.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Because she is craving quail.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Pregnancy cravings.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Pregnancy cravings.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  In the Middle Ages.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  My wife was smashing quail.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Really?

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Second pregnancy, yeah. And she was pregnant with her son, couldn't get enough quail.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, whale, quail, pheasant.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Peacocks, herons. She just ate off my plate, to be honest. So, he imported quail from Calais and Flanders in order to feed Jane Seymour, and on the twelfth of October, she gives birth to a son. Finally, King Edward VI is born, Hampton Court Palace. I think he is quite a weak child. He, I mean, he won't live, he won't live that much longer, but crucially,

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Caesar's to death.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Crucially, he outlasts Henry.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So at least he can die.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Finally, he can die happy. A dynastic triumph.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  However, there is a footnote to the story, I suppose, in that the birth was quite difficult, and Jane falls ill with a fever then dies.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Passing.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  One in, one out.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  She dies two weeks later, twenty-nine years of age, supposedly because of an infection from a retained placenta. You want to get rid of that, love, I reckon.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  Don't retain the placenta.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Stop eating placentas.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  She's a hoarder.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  God, two whores and a hoarder, the Henry VIII story at this point. So, yeah, she has a placenta, I don't know if she's trying to eat it like Tom Cruise or something, anyway. Henry's actually devastated at this point, because he's like, finally, a family who's not broken.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  And then she dies. It's very unlucky, really.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Very sad story.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  She's the only, only, another victim, again, victim. She's the only of Henry, Henry's wives to receive a Queen's funeral.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Henry wears black in honour of Jane for three months, which, and,

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  It's during this widowhood that Henry, who is now forty-six, really begins to swell.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  So where, how are the maggots doing in his leg? Are they starting to proliferate?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Charlie, let's just check in with the food bin that is Henry VIII's leg at this point. You ever had to deal with maggots in a food bin?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh. That's a dad, that's a real dad job.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Oh my god. So they, then what they do is they would like cauterise it, so they'd, they'd constantly be heating it with like hot irons, so that it was, they felt that pus was good, because it was like, you're getting rid of,

• 23:17Speaker 02

  One of the humours?

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're getting rid of evil from the body. So, so just, they just kept it infected.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's constantly pus.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Constantly grandgrunus, pussing.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  And it, and it says that the saws generated a foul spelling discharge.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, but then they'd, they'd also put like nutmeg and fucking rosemary over the top of it.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  So it's just, it's just awful.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  That's a horrible stew.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Horrible stew.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  It's like a, what's that thing with the perpetual stew? It's like a perpetual stew.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is a perpetual stew. It's perpetual stew in your thigh.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  Oregano in there.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  What, you mean like those Jamaican pots, the crock pots?

• 23:51Speaker 03

  It's just like an infinite dish of bollocks.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's his leg.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  But it's in his leg, yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it's in the widowhood with the grief that he really starts to, to pile up the pounds.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Quite soon, he will be at an astonishing fifty-two inches.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Waist, which is,

• 24:08Speaker 02

  It's come so far.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  That's got to be Jacamo stuff.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  What is Jacamo, Charlie, can you find out what Jacamo's waist range is?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  What is the smallest Jacamo does?

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, who is the kind of,

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Jacamo's not for you.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Yes, who's the thinnest Jacamo guy?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Jacamo goes up to sixty-four inches. Wow. Jacamo offers a highly inclusive member.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  It's thirty-two inches, so that's me on a skinnier day, I could do thirty-two.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Sixty-four.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  So I can get in, maybe I should start shopping at Jacamo, just at the bottom end.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  No, no, Jacamo, Jacamo's not for you. Jacamo, you, you, you walk into Jacamo, like, everyone instantly feel very, very sad.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  You know?

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Have you been to Jacamo?

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Ask me, ask me, ask me where my parents used to take me, aged twelve, to get my clothes.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Where did your parents used to take you, aged twelve?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  High and mighty.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  High and mighty, yeah, I know High and mighty.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Great branding that is.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  What does it?

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Not fat and sad.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Not fat and sad, High and mighty.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  And it didn't really work as well, so they had a branding.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  No, we got the fat and sad catalogue through the door, we said, no, thank you, I want to go to High and mighty for my socks and my trousers, right, my vests.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  For socks?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yep, big feet, big fat feet.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. But what's the vibe in the shop like?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  It's, it's sad.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, big game hunting, sort of?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  What, the shop assistants are coming around, I got one!

• 25:34Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's a sad vibe in High and mighty. It is sad.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  What's the people behind the counter?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Because when you, when you're like,

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Packing heat?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, the shop assistants, I suppose they're, they're maybe fuller in figure than,

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Other shop assistants, I say that, I feel like shop assistants is kind of its own class of people, really. Much like train employees, ticket inspectors, you know, they're a different, different breed, really, aren't they?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Different race.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  They are a different race, shop assistants.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Different, uh, species.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  They are, they should be treated as such. But, no, I guess the real, the real issue is when you're in a High and mighty, and you, they get everything out, and you go, I don't like any of these pieces, but I am confined to them. Because of my decisions and my Prada Willy syndrome.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  So, I guess I have to just wear that.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yes, I guess there's a determinism to the clothes, almost.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yes, I had waistline determinism.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  You know, when you're too fat, even for your red Quicksilver Hawaiian shirt, you know, with the palm trees on it.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  You have to say goodbye to that.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  I'm not saying goodbye to that. What moment did Gavin Plum behind Emma Watson in now? You're taking my Hawaiian shirt. You know, that was my fun shirt. Now I've just got to wear fucking beige Jacamo shit. Anyway, so Jane Seymour dies, Henry starts to swell, and this just renews the constant instability that is in England in the fifteen thirties. Now, meanwhile, Cromwell, or Thomas Cromwell, he's in his like flow state.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  This is the montage.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  He's dissolving, dissolving monasteries.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  But it's all like quill stuff.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Move on up.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  And you're down, baby, it's burning a roof, chasing lads, ah!

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Cromwell's in a flow state, he's dissolving monasteries, he's benefiting personally, I mean, he, he like takes over hundreds of, like, church lands.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  A hundred mans and estates. And now this doesn't seem very Cromwellian, but he keeps exotic pets.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did not know this about him.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Like leopards and greyhounds, and he would gift them to the king.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  He is new money, though.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Yes, he is. I suppose he is. But I'm trying, trying to find a thread between this Cromwell and Oliver Cromwell. It's hard to,

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could, you, there's a lot of similarities.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  I guess, yeah, smashing the monasteries and stuff. Anyway, the court starts to die down because Henry's sad, and he's just fat, and he's got maggots in his leg.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  And so Henry does not remarry for over two years, which, you know, it's good to have a break, you need to know yourself, don't you, before you enter into a relationship?

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Yes, you can't just go from one relationship to another, you need some time to be single, you need to work out who you are on your own before, because otherwise you'll bring the baggage of the last relationship.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Yes, and he's in danger of being termed a serial monogamist.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd hate that.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Which I would not want him to have. He's also got an actual waist site in his leg.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  So, I don't know how eligible you'd say he is.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  However, Cromwell immediately starts trying to find him a new piece. But Henry is mourning, you know, his one true love who gave him a son, blah, blah, blah. But what Henry does, right, maybe try and make himself feel better about how fat he is and stinky and how his leg's got maggots in it, is he devotes himself to codpieces. And so perhaps it would be now worth doing a little side quest on the history of the codpiece.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  He devotes himself to codpieces?

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Yes, he's a codpiece enthusiast. So, a codpiece began as a piece of fabric to conceal a gap in the men's hose.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Whereas Henry begins to weaponise it as a symbol of virility and power and fertile.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  So did he bring that into the, the fashion world? What was it, so the codpiece fashion was,

• 29:26Speaker 01

  So, and now obviously, if you, if you're being kind of Freudian, he's a man who's insecure about his fertility.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  And so he is trying to have obscenely large codpieces to try and sort of project.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, it's a bit on the nose, though, isn't it?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Your one is very opportu, I must just say.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  It's sort of brown and fleshy, I was complaining about my one.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  If you're only, if you're only listening, we have been in costume the whole time, and a ratio as, as,

• 29:51Speaker 02

  I've just got a tanned curved knob just sticking out.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  I'd say that is quite offensive, actually, it's quite.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  And I complained to our researcher who got these costumes, but she insisted that this is a normal codpiece. And I feel like there's normally some fabric around it, it's meant to blend into the rest of your outfit.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Well, you, you did ask for a small one.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  I did not ask for a small.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  This is not a small one, it's the same size as yours. That's nice, because that blends in, that's fabulous. But this really looks like I'm a lecherous man on the bus.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is hard, it's hard not to seem creepy, especially wearing that hat, it's hard not to seem creepy. But this, my one just sort of looks like balls, I guess. What have you found, Charlie?

• 30:28Speaker 03

  People would hide oranges in their codpieces and then play, we'd pull them out to give to ladies.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Ah, sort of like boiled egg behind the ear kind of thing, orange out the codpiece.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  I had a question, which was, if, obviously it's not good to have massive balls and a tiny knob, right? But if you have, is there a limit to where, even if your knob is so tiny, if your balls are like the size of like,

• 30:52Speaker 03

  The bath, or if you have like the world's biggest balls.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Like the Indian guy we found in the Gandhi series.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, is there, is there any way that it kind of goes full circle and actually becomes kind of um?

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Sexy again.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  No.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I don't think having balls the size of the bath is sexy.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Well, in some cultures, maybe.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Maybe, but not this one.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  It's a sign of virility.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Is it? I mean, I guess it's a terrifying bust. You could probably put out a house fire with that.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's got to be a woman, there's got to be a woman on earth who's like.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Fire truck.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  There's got to be a woman on earth who's just like. There's got to be at least one woman who's just, you know, catching his eyes, her eyes out the side going, fuck.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  What with the biggest fanny in the world.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Oh my god, look at the size of those, the size of those balls. Christ.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  The wheel had roads. Electricity had the grid. Innovation needs infrastructure. Plaid makes AI work in finance. Visit plaid.com slash AI to learn more.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Um, anyway.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Back to the codpiece.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Back to the codpiece. Uh, Henry, in, by the 1530s, he had popularized bejeweled codpieces.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I guess this is sort of male bejazdling in a way.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Maybe we should bring back the bejeweled codpiece.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Is it, it feels, there's something kind of more aspiration about the codpiece. It's not about the, the piece you've been given, it's about how you bejewel and customize the sort of.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  It's an expression of personality.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  You can express yourself.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but also.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  It's less deterministic of your, the size of your piece.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  But also, you know, we talk about the female gaze. Would it not be nice for the ladies to open the foreskin and find some jewels down there? They like shiny things.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  That shit, yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  You know, yeah, like um.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Croc gems.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Like croc gems.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  They're called widgets, I believe.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Croc widgets. Yeah, we could all have little Simpsons widgets underneath our foreskins. So anyway, um, the trend peaks in 1540 when Henry commissions oversized metal codpieces for jousting and siege armor. Uh, at this point, his waistline is 52 inches.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Now, Elizabeth I would sort of fade away this trend and it would give way to a sort of new padded style that shifted the focus of fashion.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  First with the way, I guess it's because it's like, you find, everyone finds their dad sort of embarrassing.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  With a massive fake cod.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  It's just more like, sorry, that reminds me of my dad's fake knob that he used to wear around the house. And I'm already embarrassed that my dad popularized the fake massive knobs. Can we just like tone it down?

• 33:14Speaker 01

  It is a weird thing to walk around with a huge strap on those kids all the time.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Your dad's the one who came up with it. It's weird.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  But it'd be funny, it'd be, I mean, fashion trends are circular, aren't they? It's cyclical. It could come back around.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Big jeans, skinny jeans.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  You know, no codpiece, codpiece, it's the same sort of cycles. It's been a while since the codpiece has been back.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  It has been a while. It is due a renaissance.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  So by 1540, Cromwell has found, uh, he thinks, Henry's next piece. Uh, this is, uh, my favorite of the wives.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Uh, friend of the pod, Anne of Cleves. Uh, now she is from a wealthy German family and I think by this point, uh, that German family is still Catholic. Are they Protestant? I'm not sure. Cromwell finds some kind of.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  It must be Protestant if Cromwell's founder.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, Cromwell finds basically a politically convenient, theologically convenient, uh, noblewoman in order, yes, she is.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  And is this during the second, is this a German during the Second Reich?

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Uh, this, no, the First Reich, please.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  This is the First Reich.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Please, we're still in the First Reich.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  We're nowhere near Bismarck yet.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, can we find out why Cromwell picked Anne of Cleves even though she was Catholic? That does feel weird, the character.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  No, I think it's because Cromwell by this point is trying to, um, calm things down with the papacy. And so he finds a German family that are still Catholic.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  In order to try and smooth ties over.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  But he's, because he's genuinely Protestant and believes a lot of these things, so it does seem.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  No, but Cromwell's actually just legalistic. He's, he's a more opportunist. I don't think he believes in.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  He really believes it.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  No, because Anne, Anne's a reformer and he fucking gets rid of her. And he actually had often sparred with her about the Reformation. I don't think he is.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  How hardcore Protestant was Cromwell's actual beliefs? Yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  It says, hard and supportive Protestant Reformation.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think he was. He was pretty involved in the Reformation. He was having secret meetings with a lot of the Protestant guys.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  But he picks Anne of Cleves to build a strong diplomatic alliance and prevent isolation from the Catholic powers of Europe.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  But build a strong diplomatic alliance with the Protestant German states.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  But she's Catholic.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  So I don't quite understand that.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Is Cleves Catholic?

• 35:27Speaker 02

  We, we, he said yes, but yeah, he was definitely very Protestant.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Because it's geopolitical. In 1539, England faces the threat of invasion from a unified alliance of Catholic France and Spain. Cromwell aims to counter this by aligning with the Schmal, Schmalcaldic League, a powerful confederation of Protestant German princes. Although Anne's family was not Lutheran, they were politically aligned with the Protestant princes.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  So she was Protestant, basically.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Fair enough.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  For all intents and purposes, she was Protestant.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Um, so, uh, and then Henry, so Cromwell shows Henry, uh, this portrait that we're looking at now. Um, she does look very nice.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Looks fine.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, she looks gorge.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Um, uh, and so Henry thinks, brilliant, terrific, she'll do nicely. Uh, Anne of Cleves arrive, arrives at Dover, uh, in December 1539. And Henry, uh, the prankster that he is.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Basically decides to like, sort of fake ambush her with his boys.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  But I think he thinks he's much more attractive than he is. So in his head, he's still a young man. So he sees this as quite a dash of romantic thing. But I don't think being in disguise when you've got maggots in your legs and you're.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Gives you away somewhat.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  It's not like, and I'm here. It, it just doesn't really have the same sort of.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  About 10 minutes before Anne would have gone, what the fuck is that smell? It absolutely stinks. Because you could smell Henry from three rooms away.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Because he was sort of, he was like rotting.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Basically. Um, so he tries to intercept her at Rochester with his mates, but the meeting is a disaster because he storms her chamber with some disguised friends and Anne, quite rightly.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  His mates as well.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Fears that she's going to be abducted.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Which is, I mean, that is, yeah, I mean, fair enough. Uh, Henry is, uh, immediately thinks, oh, fuck, she's not a laugh.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  So is it that scene in The Office where Richard Gervais is going to meet the blind date?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this is Henry VIII, uh, waiting for Anne of Cleves.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  You know, um, she says to be wearing a white chiffon scarf to help me spot her. So, um, oh, fuck.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Henry VIII, Henry VIII meets Anne of Cleves. Um, quote, she is nothing so fair as she hath been reported. Calls her a, quote, fat Flanders mare.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  This is all the while he's literally like dripping.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  He's walking around like when you're carrying a fucking black bin liner filled with.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Crawling with maggots.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  And it's just got like, you know, the binges, as you're taking it to the bins, just dripping it through your kitchen. That's him just walking about.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  And he's going, oh, fucking hell, she's on the tracks. God, you could have got me a fit one. And he's seeping bin juice out of his leg. I mean, this is why I think Henry VIII is so English and so Clarkson.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  The, the entitlement, the toxic maleness of going, fucking hell, look at the state of your love while you've got maggots pouring out of your thigh. Um, on the morning of their wedding, right, because Cromwell insists that the alliance is too important, right? So they are going to get wed, married. Henry remarks that Anne had some, quote, very evil smells about her. From a man with maggots pouring out of his, something stinks in here and it's not me. Is that you?

• 38:46Speaker 02

  But yeah, it's the English mentality. The break from Rome Brexit is the same thing of just looking and saying, god, you guys are fucking weird.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Everything's a bit shit here. Is that, that must be your fault.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  You can't do that. Uh, he finds her malodorous, repulsive and thinks, well, she can't be a virgin because she stinks.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Kind of goaded from Henry's for sure.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, the, the blind hypocrisy of a man with, who's a walking bin juice.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  No, you're too stinky to be a virgin.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  You can't be a virgin. You smell awful. Uh, meanwhile, court attendants could smell Henry from three rooms away and they had to keep moving him from palace to palace because attendants couldn't stop throwing up.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  The cartoonishness on the noseness of Henry is also what's satisfying. There's so little to read between the lines. Even like, he was scared about his own virility. He like fucking sellotaped a giant knob to his, like, there's no. Oh, that's probably why you like this story. There's no subtext. There's no like interpretation. It's very clearly down the line what's going on.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't need a fucking degree in psychoanalysis to work out what's going on. The man who invented giant fake knobs walking around going, yeah, I'm a bloke.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Quite insecure about his masculinity.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. But also so funny to be seeping out of your leg with a giant fake knob and to be like, you're a munter, what the fuck? I can't have sex with you.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  And then the guy who got you the munter, you end up chopping his head off.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're like, what the fuck do you think I was meant to do? Have sex with her?

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Kill him.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Fucking hell, she's punching.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Anyway, so, um, reluctantly, Henry marries Anne on January 6th, the original January 6th, 1540.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Um, the wedding night is not a success with Henry confiding to Cromwell, quote, I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse. I don't know why he's speaking like Borat, um, but this is probably because Henry was impotent. Now I like her much worse. Um, he probably.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Probably his own smells, right? And he thought that was her smell.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Fucking hell, love, close your legs, love.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Yes, he probably couldn't get it up by this point. Couldn't consummate the marriage and so blames her plain face and rather than his maggot leg. It's awesome. It's so English. It's so Clarkson. The exceptionalism, the blind hypocrisy.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Rules that apply to you and no one else.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it really does all start here, I think. You don't really have this sense of Englishness before Henry VIII.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  No, because it's just sort of vaguely medieval Europe. It's not distinctive for Europeans, really.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  But also I think that's, this is something that you don't actually, when you learn about Henry VIII, you don't learn about. You don't dig into why he is so English. You just think.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Well, how his characteristics relate to ours now.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't dig into that. What you dig into is the kind of cartoonish nature of his wives. And also I think he is the sort of archetype of an evil megalomaniac king that then America uses to distance itself from that order. It goes like he's the tyrannical king. He's the despot king. So we want to make a sort of democracy.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  But do you think Henry VIII's reputation is of evil? For me, it's slightly more complicated than that. He doesn't seem to be like this completely agreed evil guy. It's more, he's just, he's more sillier than that almost. I don't know.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's an African dictator. You know, it would make more sense if all his quotes were in the same voice that we use for him.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Anyway, so Henry makes it through four months of marriage, saying that they've never fucked because she's awful and plain and smells. He argues that the marriage is invalid because he'd entered it without consent.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  So he got raped?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  He was, well, they didn't actually have sex, but every time she tried, he was like, no means no.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Anne basically cooperates and Anne immediately agrees to the annulment. I wonder why?

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Which means that she gets a generous settlement, which means she gets Hever Castle, which is the, I've been there with my kids. It's a great day out. Hever Castle.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  I hear it's amazing.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  It's not far from where we record, about an hour away in Kent. And so there's, yeah, she gets Hever Castle and their marriage is annulled on the 12th of July.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Beaver Castle.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Not Beaver Castle, Charlie, Hever.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  They've reintroduced beavers.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  They've called it Hever Castle out of what, they call it Hever Castle out of what the attendants would do when they were around. Henry's like, huh! So the marriage is annulled in 1540. We haven't placed anything. Should we place 1540?

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Yes, I guess this is, I guess it's after the invention of the codpiece and it's before the invention of the plug-in dildo. Mains. You know the mains dildo?

• 43:42Speaker 01

  I'm very aware of the mains dildo. Yeah.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  So this is, you can't, this can't be battery powered.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Battery powered doesn't touch the sides for me in my house.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  It's like one of those soakers you use on a car.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Pressure washer.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Pressure washer. It's a lawn trimmer.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  You know, these are things that you cannot have battery powered. It's just too.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Charlie, when is that invented? The 1880s. It's a fantastic time, the late 90th century.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  No, no plug-in. No, no, no. It's not the 1880s because there's no electrical mains in the 1880s.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  1960s.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  60s.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  The Hitachi magic wand. Our female researcher is nodding.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  She's having a religious experience back there.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Got it, yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Of course, it was in Japan and it plugs directly into the mains.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  That's proper.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  How can we, only the Japanese would think of that. How can we harness the power of the tumble dryer to make my wife bust?

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  So yes, that's when 1540 is now. The divorce from Anne of Cleves is a massive political embarrassment for Henry VIII. And so he's backed into a corner. Once again, can we stop cornering this man? Right? He's got a lot on and so as Cromwell, as the instigator of the marriage, is then basically forced to pay for it. And so Cromwell's enemies frame him as a man who had misled the king.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  He's a bit of a prick. He's not a people person.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  He's not a fun guy.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  And so.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  And everyone hates him because he's not from money. He's not a, he's not like a nobleman of any sort.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  And he's just come and he's now the most powerful. So they're waiting, they can't wait for his downfall, basically.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  So in June 1540, at a Privy Council meeting, Cromwell is arrested on charge of treason and heresy. He's imprisoned in the Tower of London and then he's then condemned without formal court proceedings. And he, you know, he really doesn't take it well. He writes letters going, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  I mean, he's a legal guy. He's a legislator as well. So for him to not even get any court proceedings, even a fake court is kind of crazy. But I guess this is where Henry's life is sort of quickening up, everything. He's been through all these, this stuff before. So everything now is just hurried.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Right, banished, done, head off next.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Henry will execute 72,000 people on his orders.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  How many?

• 45:58Speaker 01

  72,000.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  So he's like Stalin, basically.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but most of this is after the accident. So by this point, he really is a bit of a bloodbath.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  So Cromwell is executed on the 28th of July 1540. And as we were saying, it's kind of the opposite of Anne Boleyn in that the executioner is pissed.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  And had got, basically, I think one of, some of his enemies had got the executioner drunk the night before.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  But even now, it's like, it's barbaric what he did to Anne Boleyn, but like the transition, it's now getting even more ridiculous. And now you can look back on Anne Boleyn, it's like, God, that was, that was a much classier time.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  When he was just, because he was lobbing his wife's head off with a sword.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Single stroke, yeah. And now it takes.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Everything's become.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  It takes half an hour before his head was finally severed.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  So it's like a sitcom episode.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an episode of Scrubs.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  I mean, it's half, it's, we've been talking, how long we've been talking for? About 50, 50 minutes, something like that?

• 46:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I mean, basically half this episode, Cromwell's on a block going, oh, oh, oh, please, oh, God, please. Half an hour, head off.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Wait, so was it inexperienced teenager?

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a teenager, but apparently.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Hi!

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Hello, hi there.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  So it's like a guy who works like a view cinema with fucking acne.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Is the.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  I only know how to operate the slushy machine. I'm not sure I'm qualified for that. Yeah. And fucking half, I mean, he earned his money, fair play. Half an hour of chopping a head off.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess so. I guess you put it like that.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Anyway, the same day.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Is the executioner apologising or are they just like?

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Well, as he's, I'm so sorry about this.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Well, he's a teenager, so he's probably quite.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  He wasn't hung over. He's probably trying not to throw up.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  Is he kind of grumbling?

• 47:42Speaker 01

  He's probably just sweating and he's just like raining axes down.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  I mean, you've got to be getting in one straight. That's your job.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  On the same day that Cromwell is executed, Henry marries his fifth wife, the 17-year-old Catherine Howard.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Can I hear a woo?

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Now, that's a pretty bleak story, actually. We'll get into that in the next episode, which is already on our Patreon. The final part of this Henry VIII series where we'll get into his grisly end. And as I said, it is Gaddafi-esque stuff. We'll deal with his final two wives and we'll sum up on why he is probably the greatest king we've ever had. That's right on the Patreon for £3 a month. You get instant access to series and bonus episodes. And you know, you know where it is. Sign up.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Sign up.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  I don't need to give you any more reasons. Fuck it.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Fuck it.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  That's all from us here. We'll see you next time for the final part in our epic Henry VIII series. Goodbye.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Goodbye.

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