All language subtitles for The Absent King

By April 1510,

Henry viii had been king
for a year.

So what had he done
in those first 12 months?

Well, the chronicles
are revealing.

He went hunting, Hawking,
practiced archery

and took part in tournaments...

Anything that gave him pleasure.

But what about
the affairs of state,

his duties as king?

Well, he didn't really do those.

Rather than agonizing
over the minutiae of government

as his father had done,

Henry viii was going to
prioritize his own pleasure,

and the weighty affairs of state

would be delegated
to the king's men.

I'm Dr. Tracy borman,

and this the story
of england's most famous monarch

not through the king's wives,
but through the king's men

who influenced him
throughout his life.

Some well-known, others
mere footnotes in history.

But as Henry elevated these men,

making them the most powerful
in england,

little did he realize

that they would soon start
making him.

A little over three years
after they were married,

Henry viii's second wife,
Anne boleyn,

was found guilty of adultery
and treason and was executed.

Just how did
the once fun-loving prince Henry

evolve into a brutal king

who would execute the woman
he once passionately loved?

On the 19th of may 1536,

Henry had his second wife,
Anne boleyn,

beheaded here
at the tower of London.

It was one of the most brutal
acts of the reign

and has been seen as a sign
of his tyrannical nature

that he executed
one of his wives

for failing to give him
a son and heir.

But that's not the whole story.

In fact, Anne was partly framed

by the men surrounding Henry
for their own personal gain.

The conditions
for this to happen

were created by Henry himself.

His desire to pursue
his own pleasure

led him to have
an unconventional relationship

with his government

and created opportunities
for the king's men

to acquire great power.

His court grew into a hotbed
of division and intrigue.

Nigel in contrast
to his father, Henry vii,

the young Henry viii
did not really relish

spending laborious hours
and days with his council;

he preferred Hawking,
hunting, jousting, music.

He preferred all those things.
He was a lusty young man.

The business
of government was undertaken

by the men of the privy council.

But since Henry didn't want
to deal with them directly,

a vacuum was created
right at the heart of power.

It was a gap for somebody

who would serve the needs
and facilitate the lifestyle

of a pleasure-loving king.

The man who filled
that gap was Thomas wolsey.

Thomas wolsey
was the son of a butcher

in Ipswich in Suffolk.

He took the career path

of many intelligent and bright
but low-born boys in his day

and entered the church.

Due to his innate abilities,

wolsey Rose quickly, and soon
after ascending the throne,

Henry appointed him
as his almoner,

responsible for the king's
charitable giving,

but his power soon grew.

What's important about it

is that it gives him a seat
on the royal council,

and it's from that position that
he begins to have an influence

and play an important role
in Henry's reign.

In contrast
with much of the council,

wolsey was far more willing
to facilitate Henry's demands,

however controversial they were,
and as the pair grew closer

the king stopped dealing
with the council directly

and used wolsey as a go-between.

Wolsey is able to use

this apparently convenient
position

to become at first
an interlocutor

between what the council advises
and what the king is suggesting,

but pretty quickly he becomes
able to understand

what it is the king wants.

Wolsey had relieved
Henry of his duties,

but he soon began to seize
the opportunities

his new position
had brought him.

Henry was intelligent
and well-educated,

but he also had
a short attention span

and was easily bored.

This meant that he was
easily manipulated.

Wolsey got the measure
of his king pretty quickly.

He could go to the council

and tell them his own opinions

as if they had come
from the king himself.

He could then go
back to the king

and tell him what the council
had decided

but twist things
to his own advantage.

If he secretly disagreed
with the council,

he would explain to Henry
why that was an unwise decision

and suggest his own
personal alternatives.

But Henry was satisfied

because wolsey was content
to overrule the council

and deliver what the king
most desired.

Inspired perhaps by the books
he'd read as a child

about Henry v and his
glorious victories in France,

Henry wanted war.

Henry was always
chomping at the bit

for glory in Europe

and he wanted to take it
to the French king.

By 1512, 1513,

wolsey was in the background
making this happen,

organizing the troops
and all that was needed

to get the English army over
the channel to the continent.

In 1513,
Henry invaded France

and achieved victory
at the battle of the spurs.

But his plan to push on
and take the rest of the country

was scuppered when
his allies abandoned him,

wanting peace
rather than further war,

and so wolsey came up
with an alternative:

To make an ally of the enemy.

Wolsey decided,
well, hang on, if everybody

is now in favor of peace,
let's be in charge of it.

In other words, if you can't
make magnificent war,

then make peace
in a magnificent way.

And so wolsey
concocted an alliance

between the old enemies
england and France,

sealed by the marriage
of Henry's sister Mary

to the French king, Louis xii.

Wolsey encouraged Henry
to view himself

as the powerbroker of Europe.

But less than three months
later, Louis died.

His successor, Francis I,
was a very different man.

There was huge
rivalry between the two men.

It began probably as soon
as Francis I came to the throne.

If you look at the two
famous portraits

of Henry viii and Francis I,

you can see a great similarity
in the two men.

They're both
very broad shouldered,

they're very athletic-looking.

They present,
as it were, power

in their expressions
and their stance.

Immediately there
was a great personal rivalry

between this slightly younger
king and Henry.

Francis' achievements
on the battlefield

had also made Henry jealous,

so there's no doubt
his next endeavour

must have left the English king
green with envy.

Francis ordered the construction

of one of the greatest palaces
the world had ever seen:

Chateau de chambord.

Set in grounds
as vast as inner Paris,

chambord was the embodiment of
modern renaissance architecture

and a bold statement
from the new French king.

Henry is
very conscious of Francis,

not just as a military figure

but also as a patron
of architecture and art.

And he's very much aware

of the palaces and the chateaux
that Francis is building,

particularly
the chateau of chambord.

The reason that Henry
knew about chambord

was because Francis
made sure of it.

He showed Henry's
ambassadors around,

knowing that the king's men

would tell Henry
of the magnificence

and make his English rival
jealous.

It worked.

But Henry fought back
in the only way he knew how:

On the tournament field.

He shows off
to other ambassadors,

for example,
the venetian ambassadors

who are in england at the time,

he wants to joust in front
of them very spectacularly

because he knows that they
will go back to France

and give reports of him
to Francis I.

Francis, the man
who was so well-connected

he had the Mona Lisa
in one of his palace bathrooms,

had really got
under Henry's skin.

But if the English king didn't
want to be outdone in France,

he certainly didn't want
to be outdone at home.

One man was about to test that.

32 miles from London

is the country estate
penshurst place,

where Edward Stafford,
the third Duke of Buckingham,

lived in opulent style.

But Buckingham was a man

whom Henry would grow
to see as a rival,

especially after an incident
at a banquet with the king

in August 1519.

Today the heir to the estate
is Philip Sidney.

The place
would have been full of people;

not only the retinue
of Buckingham

but the retinue
of Henry himself.

It would not have come cheap.

And Buckingham's accounts
for 1519

also show two tumblers,
two Egyptians,

and four French actors
doing a dumbshow.

And so it was quite a shindig.

Buckingham's
magnificent banquet

may have been intended
to impress the king,

but it would turn out to have
the opposite effect.

He made a series of errors,

whether they be calculated
and deliberate ones or not.

So, for example,
one of his servants

wore Buckingham's own livery
in the king's presence

when in fact the servant

was a member
of the king's household,

so in other words he was
displaying apparent allegiance

more to the Duke of Buckingham
than to the king himself.

By dressing the king's
servant in his own colors,

Buckingham was
crossing the line.

But he hadn't merely made
a mistake;

something else lay behind it.

What do you think Buckingham
was like as a character?

Well, he was called
the proud Buckingham,

which gives US a clue
as to the sort of chap he was,

and his aristocratic lineage

meant that he had something
of a chip on his shoulder.

The reason was simple.

Buckingham was descended
from Edward III

and so had a claim
to the throne,

a claim that some
would have considered

stronger than the king's own.

The Duke of Buckingham

was increasingly frustrated,
perhaps, in his own ambitions.

He knew of course that he did
have this claim to the throne

and that he was the preeminent
noble in the kingdom

and he should be
treated as such.

He felt threatened

by not only the new tudor family
but also upstarts like wolsey,

the new men that wolsey
was surrounding the king with.

Buckingham is part of the old
aristocracy of england.

He wants to cement his status.

He wants to prove himself
as a powerful man.

There were even reports
that Buckingham dabbled

in suggestions and prophecies
about the king's death.

Henry's suspicions were ignited.

The British library in London
holds documents

that reveal Henry's paranoia
about Buckingham

and his faith
in cardinal wolsey.

Henry's trust for wolsey
is revealed by this document

perhaps more than any other
piece of evidence,

and it's a letter that Henry
writes to him in about 1519.

And in it he instructs
"mine own good cardinal,"

wolsey, "to keep close watch
on certain men at court."

But the real target
of Henry's suspicions

is the Duke of Buckingham,
a man with royal blood.

Henry suspects he's conspiring
for the throne,

and that's why Henry, really,
appoints wolsey

to spy on Buckingham,

and it really shows
just how close

the two men were at this point.

Clearly wolsey,
the son of a butcher,

was never going to be a threat
to Henry's position,

and so he was the perfect person
to spy on Buckingham.

But fortunately for Buckingham,

Henry was about to be
distracted.

Over in Europe,
his French ally Francis I

was becoming
increasingly concerned

about the new holy Roman
emperor, Charles v.

Charles v is supposed
to have once declared

"I speak Spanish to god,
Italian to women,

French to men,
and German to my horse."

And this actually encapsulates
in a perfect way

the complexity
of his inheritance.

He inherited Spanish kingdoms,

he inherited lands
in Germany, the Netherlands,

he had quite an incredible
royal pedigree.

Whereas Francis and Henry

are very enthusiastic
and ebullient

and like to show off
their physical strengths

and their splendor,

Charles is much more reserved.

But while Charles v

may have been reserved
in temperament,

he was not so in ambition.

And with Francis I becoming
increasingly concerned

about his growing supremacy,

he suggested that he and Henry
meet to formalize their peace.

The summit was scheduled
for June 1520,

in a field in neutral territory

in what is today
northern France.

In theory this was a meeting
at which Henry and Francis

could affirm their friendship,

and the end goal was
to conclude an alliance

between their kingdoms.

But the real reason was clear.

Henry wanted to show off
to the man whom he saw

as his fiercest
international rival.

He therefore set wolsey to work

in creating
a spectacular showpiece

known as the field
of cloth of gold.

40 miles southeast of London
is the magnificent Leeds castle.

A castle has existed here
since 1119,

but it had been substantially
remodeled by Henry

to become the favored residence

of his wife,
Catherine of aragon.

I'm meeting the curator here,
Catherine pell,

to find out more
about the king's journey

to the field of cloth of gold

and the painting that captured
the moment the king left Dover.

So this is Henry

and an entourage
of nearly 6,000 people.

6,000!

6,000 people
and 3,000-plus horses,

all their baggage, possessions

all going off on board
these boats to go to calais.

And this is the first meeting,
so it was a big occasion,

and Henry invited
the whole court

to come with him pretty much...

The royal household, the peers,
the barons, the knights.

It was quite
an eclectic mix of people.

Henry clearly
did not travel light.

It was on the 31st of may

that the events in the painting
took place

as Henry and his vast entourage
set sail for the meeting

with Francis
and the French court.

The entire diplomatic side
of the event

rested firmly on the shoulders
of Thomas wolsey.

Five centuries ago,
on these fields,

the most spectacular event
of Henry's reign unfolded.

Hundreds of tents
were assembled,

adorned with so much
cloth of gold

that the event
was named after it.

Wolsey was about to find out

if his careful planning
had paid off.

The field of the cloth of gold

was tudor glastonbury.

It was a campsite,
but not as we know it.

It was a campsite

of the most remarkable expense
and scale, size.

Wolsey had
stage-managed the whole thing,

and the opening
was pure theatre.

With thousands of spectators
from both sides looking on,

the two kings rode to the top
of opposing hillsides

before descending
into the valley below

and meeting for
the very first time.

The encounter had got off
to the best possible start,

just as wolsey had planned.

And soon the celebrations
of this new alliance began

with Henry's favorite sport:
Jousting.

The king even took part himself.

Henry did very well.

The score checks survive,

and it shows that he scored
comparatively well

compared to the other knights.

But for Henry, winning
the tournaments wasn't enough.

By now his French rival
had really got under his skin,

in part because of his
popularity with the ladies.

Henry therefore challenged
Francis to a wrestling match

in order to prove
his physical superiority

over this young French upstart.

But things didn't go
quite according to plan.

Henry lost.

The event was designed
to unite england and France

against the might of Charles v,

but by the time the summit
drew to a close,

the treaty was hanging
in the balance.

What the field of cloth of gold
shows US

is how deeply personal Henry's
rivalry with Francis truly was.

He had spent a colossal amount

in trying to prove
his superiority

over the French king,

and it had all been for nothing.

The pact with France
was broken,

and wolsey forged an alliance
between Henry and Charles v.

Wolsey's favor with the king
was at an all-time high,

and he'd moved into a rather
familiar palace west of London.

This is Hampton court palace,

the place most associated
with Henry viii.

But it was in fact
built for wolsey,

who by this point was
the richest man in the kingdom,

after the king himself,
of course,

and Henry was
utterly reliant on him.

And no wonder.

Wolsey had brokered
that alliance with Francis I,

delivered the field
of cloth of gold

and successfully forged
a new pact with Charles v.

And this butcher's son was now
living in the lap of luxury

at Hampton court palace.

But he still had one more
of Henry's issues to deal with.

Wolsey's view
of Buckingham

I think reflects
Henry's view of Buckingham.

They regard him all along
as a danger,

and they're nervous,
you've got to remember,

once again,
about the succession.

There is no male heir.

Without
a legitimate son,

the future of the tudor dynasty
was in doubt,

and a man with a claim
to the throne like Buckingham

was a very real threat.

On the 8th of may, wolsey had
him pulled in for questioning

on trumped-up charges
of treason.

Nine days later he was executed.

Henry's mind
is known to wolsey,

and wolsey does
what wolsey does best...

He delivers what Henry doesn't
even yet know he quite wants.

Nobody was too close,
nobody was too powerful,

to ultimately, if Henry feared
them and saw them as a threat,

for them to lose their position
and indeed lose their life.

With the Duke
of Buckingham eliminated,

wolsey was riding high
once more.

He'd been given
so much power by Henry

that he came to be known
as the other king.

But a storm was on the horizon.

Leeds castle was
a great favorite with Henry,

and he and his wife,
Catherine of aragon,

spent a lot of time here.

He clearly loved Catherine,

but the problem was she wasn't
giving him the male heir

that he so desperately needed.

Catherine of aragon,
who had borne Henry one child,

the lady Mary,
despite repeated pregnancies,

never succeeded in carrying
another pregnancy to full term

and giving birth
to a healthy male heir,

which Henry desired most of all.

To make matters worse
for his wife,

Henry had fathered
an illegitimate son,

Henry fitzroy,
with one of his mistresses,

so he saw Catherine
as solely responsible

for his lack of a male heir.

I don't think Henry
ever blamed himself

for the lack of male heirs,

but certainly the birth
of Henry fitzroy

just helped cement that belief,

that deep core belief
that he'd always had

that it could not have been
his fault.

He needed evidence,
and he got it.

Henry's troubles
with Catherine

were common knowledge
in the tudor court,

and one family in particular

thought they could use
those troubles

to their advantage.

A little over 20 miles
from Leeds castle,

the boleyns spied an opportunity

and began plotting here
at hever castle.

This was the location
where Henry's reign

took a new and bloody path,

for this was the home
of Anne boleyn...

The woman who has gone down
in history

for causing the break-up
with Catherine of aragon

and the break with Rome.

The status quo
both in the tudor court

and across Europe

was about to be turned
on its head.

But how much of what was to
follow was really down to her?

When we think of Anne boleyn
and Henry viii,

it's Anne who is the one
pulling the strings.

But in fact there was a great
deal more to it than that.

Her ambitious father, Thomas,

her powerful uncle
the Duke of Norfolk

and her brother George

were all making it happen
behind the scenes:

Pushing Anne in the king's path

in order to enhance
their own position.

George boleyn was already
a favorite with the king,

but his father, Thomas,
saw an opportunity

to increase his son's influence
further through Anne.

Whether she realized it or not,

she was about to become a pawn
for the king's men.

Thomas boleyn
is not the father

that most daughters
would desire.

He's willing to lay down
both of his daughters

and ruin their reputations for
the sake of serving the king.

As Anne made
her advances on the king,

her brother George found himself
advancing in Henry's court.

In 1525 he was appointed

a gentleman
of the privy chamber,

a position close to the king.

The boleyns' plan was working,

but they were starting
to make enemies.

Their rise was coming
at the cost

of Thomas wolsey's influence
with the king.

So wolsey decided to fight back,
coming up with a plan

that today survives
in the UK's national archives.

Well, this enormous
document here

is known as
the eltham ordinances,

and it masquerades as a detailed
reform of the royal household,

but it has an altogether
different purpose.

Wolsey had the power to pick
the men who would serve Henry,

and he used this power

in an effort to cut out
the boleyns.

This was wolsey in an act
of self-protection.

The ordinances were put into
practice at the end of 1526,

but still his position
and influence with the king

were on the decline.

Wolsey's insecurity,
growing insecurity,

is marked by the fact that he
feels he needs to do something.

And I think this marks a sense
that both men have,

that the bromance
is coming to an end.

Wolsey decided to make
a dramatic gesture

to prove his loyalty
to the king.

He gifted Henry his beloved
Hampton court palace.

But it wasn't enough for Henry.

By now he had decided

he wanted his marriage
to Catherine annulled

so that he could marry
Anne boleyn.

Wolsey had no choice
but to make it happen.

To help him, he enlisted
the talents of Thomas cromwell.

Thomas wolsey
and Thomas cromwell

are both from similar kinds
of backgrounds,

artisan backgrounds.

One of course goes to university
and into the church,

the other one, cromwell,
goes through the law.

But both of them are
intelligent, articulate men

who work well together when
they meet in the mid 1520s.

Essentially,
wolsey's plan was to secure

the pope's permission
for an annulment.

This made a lot of sense;

the pope was, of course,
head of the catholic church,

so he was in a position
to give Henry what he wanted.

But the pope refused
to Grant the annulment.

Wolsey was
in a rather unfortunate

and uncomfortable position

in being both the king's servant
and the pope's servant.

He was the papal representative

who was the pope's man
on the spot

to represent him in england

at the time of the king's
great matter.

Wolsey found himself
caught between his two masters,

both of whom were
refusing to yield.

So wolsey
had to play it by the book,

and ultimately
it was the pope's book.

Thomas wolsey,

the man who had always been able
to give Henry what he wanted

had, for the first time,
failed his king.

The boleyns seized the
opportunity to get rid of him

and convinced Henry to have
his faithful servant arrested.

Henry had
certainly lost Patience

and increasingly lost confidence
in wolsey's capacities.

Henry decided that, regrettable
though it might be,

that he needed
to move wolsey aside.

Despite years
of loyal service and sacrifice,

wolsey's fall from grace
had been rapid.

But on the 29th
of November 1530,

before he could reach London

to discover what fate
awaited him,

he died, reportedly
of natural causes.

Henry had lost
his right-hand man.

The story of wolsey

is one of the earliest
and most dramatic instances

of Henry raising someone up
only to later condemn them.

But did he regret it?

Well, in public Henry showed
absolutely no remorse

at wolsey's death,

but in private it was
a very different matter.

One eyewitness
recorded seeing Henry

utterly distraught with grief.

I think it demonstrates

that no matter how close
you are to the king,

no matter how indispensable
you might appear to be,

if you disappoint him,
he always remains in charge

and you can be got rid of,
in one way or t'other,

quite rapidly,
and it's Henry that remains.

But wolsey's fall
had opened up an opportunity

for the man who had been
his prot�g�

and would now be his successor:
Thomas cromwell.

Cromwell had no ties
with the pope,

and so he tried
a radically fresh approach.

They sent agents through
university libraries, archives,

to present a case that the pope
was usurping royal power

in demanding to hear the case.

And in so doing, they came up
with a new theory,

which was a theory
of imperial kingship,

and that theory denied

that the pope had
any jurisdiction in england.

So effectively,
Henry granted his own annulment.

As well as freeing him from his
marriage to Catherine of aragon,

this created
unprecedented turbulence

in england's religious life.

So Henry's great matter
was finally solved.

It had taken years and
the efforts of the king's men

to push through the annulment.

And it had come at the expense
of Henry's favorite, wolsey,

propelled cromwell into
the heart of the king's favor,

and seen the boleyn family
achieve their ambition.

Their pawn became a queen
on the 1st of June 1533,

and the men of the family
Rose in the tudor court.

Anne's intelligence
and forwardness

had been attractive to Henry
during their courtship,

but now they were married,
she started to grate on him.

Two years into the marriage,
Henry went on summer progress

to the country estate
of the seymours, wulfhall,

and while there he spent time
with Jane Seymour.

History was about
to repeat itself.

The unraveling of
Henry's marriage to Anne

was an open secret
in the tudor court,

and the seymours
spied their opportunity.

And so with Henry
now falling for Jane,

Anne's position hung
by a thread.

Anne boleyn had spent
so much of her relationship

as the other woman.

She had had to be
so interesting,

she'd had to be chased,

she'd had to lead Henry on
for so many years

and keep him interested.

I think Anne struggled
to make that transition

from mistress to wife.

Meanwhile, events
at court took a dramatic turn.

On the 24th of January 1536,

the king fell heavily
from his horse

while jousting at greenwich.

It left him with a wounded leg
that would never heal,

and in time the injury
would transform his character.

But for now, the accident served
to remind Henry of his mortality

and intensified his need
to secure the succession

with a son.

Five days later, Anne suffered
a third miscarriage.

This time, the baby
would have been a boy.

To Henry, this was god
showing his hand:

He wasn't going to favor him
and Anne with a son and heir.

Cromwell spotted
an opportunity.

He and Anne
had frequently clashed

on matters of state
and religion,

but more than that,

he blamed her for the untimely
demise of his mentor.

This was his chance
for vengeance.

I think he wanted
revenge on Anne

for the downfall of his patron
and his friend, cardinal wolsey,

and Anne was held responsible
in cromwell's eyes

for wolsey's death.

And in that respect
Henry was manipulated.

The British library
houses the original documents

that reveal how
cromwell engineered

Anne's ultimate downfall.

When you think of Henry viii,

it's of a king
in absolute control.

But this letter here
in the British library

suggests otherwise, and it shows

just how much the men around him
were pulling the strings.

So Henry might or might not
have instructed cromwell

to get him out of his marriage.

I think it's likely he did.

But whether he had this in mind,
I think, is more debatable.

Perhaps Henry was thinking
of an annulment,

but cromwell was
getting rid of Anne

rather more permanently
than that,

setting up a case for adultery
with not just one but five men.

That's why he calls it
abominable here in this letter.

And this is what Henry himself
is going on.

This is the evidence
that cromwell presented to him,

and Henry seemed to believe it.

Certainly it suited him
to believe it,

and therefore the order for
Anne's execution went through.

This is really a piece
of tudor fake news

on the part of cromwell.

Cromwell had constructed a case
in less than a week

that had reduced Anne and
the boleyn family's reputation

to tatters;

even her own father
would turn against her.

Her name is to be
dragged through the mud.

She's going to be accused
of incest with her own brother,

and her father will sit
on the commission

that finds her guilty.

On the 17th of may 1536,
George boleyn was executed.

Two days later Anne boleyn
departed her apartments

at the tower of London
for the final time.

I think she really
struggled with cromwell.

It had to be one or the other;
Cromwell just moved first.

It was said by some
that she looked very serene;

it was said by others
that she looked nervous.

Ambition was
the boleyn vice,

and ambition, in the end,
brought nearly all of them down.

You don't know you're
even playing chess with cromwell

until he takes your queen.

Anne boleyn, the king's
second wife, was dead.

By making an enemy of cromwell
and failing to give Henry a son,

her downfall was inevitable.

But she had given the king
a daughter,

and he would never know
that she was destined

to be the greatest monarch
of the tudor dynasty:

Queen Elizabeth I.

Instead, his quest
for a son continued.

The day after Anne's execution,

Henry was betrothed
to Jane Seymour,

and her family gained
new influence at court.

The first part of Henry's reign

had seen the king
at his most malleable.

He'd been content to leave
the weighty affairs of state

to the men around him.

But it was
a dangerous game to play,

and as Henry entered
the last decade of his life,

his men would discover
that no one was safe.