Famous Rulers in History English King Henry VIII Part 6

About the famous English King Henry VIII, history and biography, quotes and quotations from and about Henry.

Famous and Infamous Rulers in History

HENRY VIII

Quotes By: A conversation with the Venetian Pasquilio, in 1519:

Henry: The king of France, is he as tall as I am? (Pasquilio replied that there wasn't much difference.)

Henry: Is he as stout? (Pasquilio said no.)

Henry: What sort of legs has he? (Pasquilio said they were thin, whereupon Henry put his hand on his own thigh.) Look here! And I have also a good calf to my leg.

A poem to Anne Boleyn:

Now unto my lady,

promise to her I make,

from all other only,

to her I me betake.

From a letter to Anne Boleyn: "Myne awne Sweetheart, this shall be to advertise you of the great ellingness [loneliness] that I find here since your departing; for, I ensure you, me thinketh the Tyme longer since your departing now last than I was wont to do a whole Fortnight; I think your Kindness and me Fervence of love causeth it.... But now that I am coming toward you, me thinketh my Pains by half released ... in wishing my self ... in my Sweethearts Armes whose pretty Duckys [breasts] I trust shortly to kisse...."

"I content myself with my own. I wish to command only my own subjects; but on the other hand I do not choose that anyone shall have it in his power to command me."

In confirming that members of the House of Commons could not be arrested (1543): "We be informed by our judges that we at no time stand so high in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, when we as head and you as members are conjoined and knit together in one body politic."

Quotes About: Thomas More: Henry "has more learning than any English monarch ever possessed before him. What may we not expect from a king who has been nourished by philosophy and the nine Muses?" Later: "If my head could win him a castle in France ... it should not fail to go." And from the Tower: "Surely it is a great pity that any Christian prince should by a flexible council ready to follow his affections, and by a weak clergy ... be with flattery so shamefully abused."

William Blount, Baron Mountjoy, shortly after Henry became king, in a letter to the scholar Erasmus: "But when you know what a hero he now shows himself, how wisely he behaves, what a lover he is of justice and goodness, what affection he bears to the learned, I venture to swear that you will need no wings to make you fly to behold this new and auspicious star. Oh, my Erasmus, if you could see how all the world here is rejoicing in the possession of so great a prince, how his life is all their desire, you would not contain your tears for joy...."

Erasmus, who did come to court: "Heretofore, the heart of learning was among such as professed religion. Now, while these for the most part give themselves up to the belly, luxury, and money, the love of learning is gone from them to secular princes, the court, and the nobility....The king ... prefers the companionship of men like More to that of silly youths or girls or the rich."

Carlo Capello (1535): "Henry has rare endowments both of mind and body ... and it is marvellous how he has fallen into so many errors and false tenets."

Anonymous: "He spared no man in his rage and no woman in his lust."

Martin Luther: "Junker Heinz will be God and does whatever he lusts."

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