Comments by "Pattie Rotondo" (@pattierotondo1108) on "David Starkey Talks" channel.

  1.  @robinlillian9471  It is not uncommon, especially in the "soft" sciences, that a professor will bias a grade against a student that doesn't hold the same opinions as they do. That is why, though I love history and would have enjoyed it in university studies, I majored in Chemistry. The answers to questions are far less subjective. History is a victim of this problem, but Literature is even worse. I was fortunate to have professors that were able to take their bias out of it, but not all of them did. I pity students of those instructors who can't accept ideas other than their own.
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  2. Personally, I find her more attractive than most of his wives, especially Anne Boleyn. Her face is more pleasing to modern eyes than the other women. I'm glad she found a way to make her unfortunate situation work out for her benefit. Also, Henry clearly knew that he hadn't been deceived about her looks. Hans Holbein was renowned for his "lively" - life-like - portraiture and Henry didn't claim that his painting of her wasn't accurate. He probably didn't like the sound of her voice since the Dutch/German language she spoke likely sounded harsh to him. He expected her to be learned and refined like the French women he admired and was shocked she spoke no other languages and wasn't musical. His loss. She was kind and generous to his children and her servants. She deserved better than him.
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  3.  @ruthspanos2532  That is why Henry should be remembered as a tyrant.
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  4.  @MarilynRB  Cardinal Fisher was also brave in the face of Henry's tyranny. It may have been easier for him, since he had no family for Henry to avenge himself upon. Better to die with the truth than to live his last years as a lie. More tried hard to avoid speaking out, but, in the end, he does so. I think he was trying to protect his family. If he had no family, he might have spoken sooner.
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  5.  @kelrogers8480  Stop it. We are discussing if Mary deserves the moniker "bloody" or not. That means she MUST be compared to others, especially her father. That IS the topic. For the record. there were about 300 executions during Mary's reign. Since her reign was about 5 years, that's about one every 6 days or so. Also, she tried very hard not to execute Jane Grey and didn't until Jane's father started another attempt to overthrow Mary. Contrast that with her father. Henry VIII was king for 38 years and executed about 72,000 people. Yep. Seventy-two THOUSAND. That is 5 people A DAY for his entire reign. So, tell me again why MARY is so bad. And keep in mind that Henry LOVED drawing and quartering those who defied him, including those he tricked into standing down during the Pilgrimage of Grace. You know what drawing and quartering is, including the part about being disemboweled ALIVE, right? Bloody Henry is a FAR more fitting and accurate name if you want to attach that moniker to a Tudor.
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  6. She was wiser than most of the people who came into contact with that crazy tyrant. Her plan of playing along with him and then getting as far from him as possible was how she kept her head. His treatment of her was vile, especially since, as you say, he was no prize himself.
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  7.  @bocus20  Katherine said the marriage to Arthur wasn't consummated, so that affinity could be excused by the Pope, which it was. In any case, Henry had had an affair with Mary Boleyn, which technically created affinity there as well, perhaps more so since Mary actually bore Henry a child. Henry did a lot of cherry-picking when it came to his morals.
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  8. It is good to see history, even of a person like Henry VIII, told well. As a lover of English history and England in general, I feel your pain. It's much the same across the pond.
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  9.  @skontheroad  The injury probably made it worse, but Henry seems to have always had the makings of a tyrant in him. He spent his life getting what he wanted and having people fall all over themselves to make sure he never dealt with unfulfilled desires. That made it really easy for him to fool himself into thinking that his midlife crisis was everybody else's fault but his own. He was married to Catherine for over 20 years and then just threw her away and expected her to go along with it. She was made of far tougher stuff than Henry due to the abuses she endured as a young woman in England. The dynamic between them is fascinating. Henry on one side, claiming that his "morals" were the cause of what he did to her and Catherine on the other, defending her own deeply-held religious convictions. It is painfully obvious that Henry's arrogance and self-importance was what drove him, not any sense of morality. He has probably been roasting over a slow fire for the last 500 years and will continue for far longer than that.
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  10. There was a trial. That would be evidence.
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  11. Dr Starkey is entitled to his opinion, just like you are. How about we get back to the point where we allow others to have an opinion without thinking we have a right to bully them if we don't agree? In the old days, we accepted that we don't have to agree 100% with people to get along or admire them. Maybe we should strive to return to that.
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  12.  @maryearll3359  On what evidence? More didn't have the power to execute anyone - Henry did. I sense some anti-Catholic bigotry here, not knowledge of history. Stating that heretics should be punished is not the same as doing it.
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  13. I don't think that would have changed the egotistical, spoiled and selfish person he was at the core. He concocted his plan to murder Anne Boleyn before he was so ill and his abuses of Katherine of Aragon predate his injury. The pain may have made it worse, but he was always a ruthless and cold person at heart.
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  14.  @s13rr4buf3  What difference do his personal opinions make to you? Are you implying he doesn't have the right to his own thoughts? That's silly.
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  15. I think of him as notorious rather than famous. His behavior toward the Pilgrimage of Grace was underhanded and disgusting. Only a self-righteous tyrant would act that way and Henry was certainly that.
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  16.  @dianeshelton9592  Where is your evidence? More didn't have that kind of power - Henry did,
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  17. The armor that resides in the Tower is a LOT bigger! I saw the armor at Leeds many years ago and also at the Tower. It is amazing how much larger he got.
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  18.  @starspike509  You seem to have missed what I said. Holbein did NOT "improve" on Anna's looks. Holbein's portraits were renowned for the fact that they were accurate to the appearance ("lively" or life-like). If, as you say, Holbein had not painted an accurate portrait, don't you think that Henry, who was quite vengeful and crazy at the time, would have punished Holbein? But Henry did no such thing. Holbein was told to make a "faithful" painting and that is what he did. Henry NEVER claimed the painting didn't represent what he got. Holbein might have "improved" on paintings of Henry, but that is an entirely different thing.
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  19. I would never call it a love story. If she had to be manipulated into it, then it's not really a love story. She seems to have decided to go along with it for the power she gained, but I doubt she ever loved Henry.
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  20. The Blue Boy is there. Quite a place!
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  21.  @thomasjones4570  That would be your opinion, not a fact. I will take Dr Starkey's word over a random internet poster any day.
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  22.  @sherlockgnomes8971  A vile racist? Nonsense. Someone on whom you are projecting your opinion? Absolutely.
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  23.  @somyod2u  There is plenty of bias the other way when More is written about by Protestants.
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  24. And it was HENRY who was responsible for the deaths of them both. More was following the faith and was punished for defying Henry.
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  25. It is sad. To do this to your family, then claim to be a victim, is beyond belief. I share my anniversary with Harry and MeGain. I happen to know that it is also the same day that Queen Anne Boleyn lost her head on the block through the pique of Henry VIII. It seems that Harry is intent on cutting his own throat by telling nasty stories about his family in public to garner sympathy for his "plight". Sorry, but I'm not buying what Harry is trying to sell.
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  26. There is something so sad and chilling about Dr, Starkey reading what Thomas More wrote on Henry's ascent to the throne, knowing that Henry would eventually murder More. Tyrant is absolutely the word for Henry.
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  27. Very true. The current vogue of historians judging history by modern standards is ridiculous. They even attempt to rewrite the facts to fit their narrative, rather than taking the facts and expressing their opinion of them. The current trend of people silencing dissent rather than making a strong case for their favored opinion and defending it is a sign of lazy thinking and arrogance - not a good combination.
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  28. Cromwell was a power-hungry spider who was ultimately caught up in his own web. He thought he could manipulate the crazy Henry because he got away with it a couple of times. He learned the hard way that trying to deal with an unrestrained crazy person can kill you.
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  29. Doubtful and many of the thousands of people that Henry murdered would have been spared, including John Fisher and Thomas More.
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  30.  @maryearll3359  Who are you talking about? More had no power to torture or execute anyone.
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  31. Henry put FAR more people to death. Mary is unfairly viewed as "bloody" when her father executed thousands more people. I think the only reason she gets that name is because they wanted to sully her memory because she was Catholic. That's what the "victors" do when they write history.
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  32. Maybe you should ask his wife, or his wife, or his wife....
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  33. All three of those children were affected by having that tyrant for a father. He tortured his daughters and, even though he doted on Edward, the child grew up to be as cold and heartless as his father. His persecution of Catholics and his heartless and unemotional comments when he records his execution of his uncle, Thomas Seymour, expose him as wanting in humanity.
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  34. Somehow, I doubt he would have accepted that fact.
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  35. Her father would have done the same to me.
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  36. Those who know how to listen will hear. Those who won't listen aren't capable of learning.
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  37. If you had survived marriage with Henry, I would think it would put you off marriage forever.
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  38.  @davidevans3227  That might have been Thomas More that said that. Which ever said it, they were right!
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  39. More like Biden.
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  40. I hope you are right. The only way we can be educated is by listening to EVERYONE and allowing the opinions to be exchanged. I hope that the new understandings about how flawed our actions for the last 3 years have been take hold. Too few people were given FAR too much power and they all broke their covenant to act in the best interest of the society. May enough people realize how we were all oppressed and used so that it never happens again.
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  41. It turns out that those who didn't vax are avoiding the stroke clusters that are now being seen by the CDC and FDA in people 11-21 days after the bivalent boosters. Maybe it pays to be a "blind, ignorant barbarian" after all. ;-)
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  42. He is expressing an opinion based on years of study. That IS within his realm of expertise.
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  43.  @brucealbert4686  Hence the ellipsis!
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  44. Henry's England would never have become part of the EU in the first place. He would never have tolerated the subjugation of the English people to the rule of a non-native body.
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  45. You don't have to agree with him, but you do have to respect his right to his opinions, just as you have a right to yours.
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  46. Barbaric? What about those under her father? Her father murdered thousands.
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  47. That makes no sense. Henry replaced a true religious structure with one based on the King, as if being King gave him any special authority under God. He made the Church of England the state religion and punished those with true faith. He murdered Thomas More, Bishop John Fisher and thousands of others because he saw himself as God on earth. And he did all of it because of his lust for Anne Boleyn and greed for the money that the Church used to feed the poor and the destitute. He was despicable person and will spend eternity smoldering in Hell for his selfish and murderous actions on earth.
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  48.  @Eris123451  I'm always amazed that people think of Mary as badly as you obviously do. Henry executed THOUSANDS more than Mary, yet you call HER a lunatic. Hardly a fair and unbiased assessment.
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  49. Spoken like a true bigot.
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  50. I agree. I have a measure of sympathy for her, but she stole another woman's husband willingly, so she brought a lot of it on herself.
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