All language subtitles for The Tyrant King

In 1536,

after more than 25 years

of magnificence, splendor
and glory,

the reign of king Henry viii
reached a turning point.

The worst year of his life
so far.

A jousting accident had left him

with a painful, debilitating
wound to his leg,

his second wife had failed
to give him a male heir

and been executed,

and he was about to face
the first open rebellion

of his reign.

In this single year,

Henry had cause to question
his mortality, his virility

and the loyalty of his subjects.

It was as if his world
was falling apart.

I'm Dr. Tracy borman,

and this is the story of
england's most famous monarch,

not through his six wives,

but through the numerous men
who were influences in his life;

some well known, others
mere footnotes in history.

To get through
this terrible year,

Henry would draw upon
all the men around him,

from advisors and ministers
to painters and physicians.

But the man who emerged from
these experiences had changed.

And as he grew more vulnerable,

Henry would increasingly turn
against the men around him,

and they would turn against him.

January 1547 was the last month
of Henry viii's life.

Overweight, bad tempered
and racked with pain,

his health slowly failed him.

On the 28th, the king
breathed his last,

and his 36-year reign was over.

The man who lay
on his death bed in 1547

was no longer
the athletic, vivacious king

who had ascended the throne
almost 40 years earlier.

He's intelligent, perceptive.

He speaks many languages.

He is almost a clich�

of the renaissance man

as the renaissance monarch.

But in 1536,
everything changed.

Make way for the king!
Make way!

A jousting accident
left Henry with a wound

that would plague him
for the rest of his life.

His second wife, Anne boleyn,
miscarried a child

that would have been his
long-sought-after male heir

and was executed.

His illegitimate son,
Henry fitzroy, had died,

and the break from Rome
had divided the country.

The effects these trials
and tribulations had

on the king's character
were profound.

The king becomes
slightly paranoid,

and that paranoia turns into
a sort of capricious sadism.

He enjoys frightening people,

he enjoys the whole business
of being unpredictable.

But Henry's
change in fortunes

coincided with the rise
of one of the king's men.

1536 had been a terrible year
for Henry,

but for Thomas cromwell,

everything was starting
to fall into place.

He'd persuaded Henry to get rid
of the dangerous Anne boleyn,

he'd been knighted
and made baron of wimbledon.

Acting as chief minister,
cromwell's role was arguably

the most crucial to steering
the course of Henry's reign.

But as well as serving
the king,

cromwell served
his own interests.

He was a commoner,

desperate to join the world
of royalty and aristocracy.

He wanted to be part
of the grand court...

The court to which
the nobility belonged

and had a place
by virtue of birth.

Cromwell is a member
of the middling gentry

as a result of rising
through the legal system.

Cromwell doesn't own
that position.

It was this combination
of low birth and high ambition

that made cromwell
a very dangerous man.

I think he was
ambitious and insecure

in a strange
combination of ways,

and that made him willing,
I think,

to go much further
than others would go.

And he was soon
to reveal his true colors.

With the country having broken
from the pope in Rome

to secure Henry's divorce
from Catherine of aragon,

nearly 900 religious houses,

from monasteries to abbeys
and priories,

were now under the control
of the king himself.

It's like
a vast nationalization.

It is as if a government
today came in

and nationalized half
of the wealth of the country

that was in private hands.

Cromwell spotted
an opportunity

to enhance his standing with
Henry by making his king rich.

With papal
jurisdiction out of the way,

it's as if the constraints
are gone.

Cromwell has a mandate
to do whatever he wishes.

And so across the kingdom,

cromwell began pulling down
religious buildings

and stripping them
of anything of value.

They're taking ornaments,

they're taking linen,
they're taking beds.

Vast amounts of books,
libraries of books are burned.

And then they're just
thrown onto a bonfire.

It's an amazingly disruptive
social moment

and sort of like an orgy
of stripping

and, you know, gutting
a great institution.

There's no precedent for it.

The devastation
that this wreaked

can still be seen to this day.

These magnificent buildings

had dominated the landscape
for centuries,

inspiring reverence and pride

among the people
who lived by them.

But the money
the dissolution made

went straight
into Henry's pocket.

The treasury swelled,

and cromwell's favor
with the king increased.

Both Henry and
cromwell were in for the money

when it came to the dissolution
of the monasteries.

It amounted to a huge amount
of wealth,

and cromwell wanted Henry to be
an independent, strong monarch,

and that required money.

But he was
not only trying

to increase his standing
with the king;

he had an ulterior motive.

Cromwell had spent most
of his formative years

traveling around Europe,

which had given him
a Cosmopolitan outlook.

But it had also exposed him

to some of the radical
religious ideas

that were taking hold there.

Well, when he'd helped
to secure Henry's position

as supreme head of the church,

cromwell spied his opportunity
to bring these ideas to england.

This put him dangerously
at odds with the king

because Henry, despite
appearances to the contrary,

was and would remain a catholic
to the day he died.

Nigel Henry, of course,
was conflicted,

but on the other hand

he desperately needed the money
that the church represented.

But if Henry
had his doubts,

so did the population at large

who were about to turn
against him.

The religious houses
represented a social system.

They supported the poor,

they were part and parcel
of the social fabric,

so it was seen by them
as an attack

on their whole way of life.

In October 1536,
Henry's subjects Rose up

in the first English rebellion
of his reign...

The pilgrimage of grace.

The large popular
rebellion occurred,

and it was not only
the lower orders,

it was the aristocracy,

the ancient feudal families
who ruled in the north as well.

They all Rose together
in a massive popular outcry.

Henry listened
to his loyal subjects

and promised to negotiate
to reach a peaceful resolution

if they would lay down
their arms.

But in reality
Henry had no intention

of keeping his promise.

When he'd effectively
disarmed them

and their large popular armies
had dispersed,

he then went in with the forces
that he had raised,

with the crown forces,

crushed them mercilessly

and executed virtually
all their leaders.

Although
there had been glimpses

of Henry's brutality
in the past,

his savage suppression of the
perpetrators of the rebellion

marked a turning point.

A line had been crossed.

The renaissance king
had become a tyrant.

While Henry had been able

to put down the rebellion,

it had profoundly shaken him.

The unquestioning loyalty
of his subjects

had been put in doubt
for the first time,

and a dangerous crack had
appeared in his relationship

with the chief advocate
of these reforms,

Thomas cromwell.

Henry did think twice
about going forward

in the reformist agenda that
cromwell was so committed to,

and that created

a split, really,
between the two men.

But it was not only
the king and cromwell

who were becoming divided;

Henry's entire court began
to split along religious lines,

and cromwell made enemies.

Chief among them
was Thomas Howard,

Duke of Norfolk
and uncle of Anne boleyn.

He resented cromwell
principally on two grounds.

He was a base-born upstart

who was offending
and threatening

the feudal rights of the old
medieval aristocracy,

and because he was a sympathizer
with the reformed religion,

and Norfolk was an ardent,

extremely conservative,
reactionary catholic.

They disliked
his religious policies.

They disliked the influence
that he had over policy making,

but that he also
wasn't one of them.

This discontent
that cromwell had sown

would soon come back
to haunt him,

and Norfolk would prove
to be a deadly enemy.

But for now, cromwell was able
to bring the king back on side

because he had a secret weapon.

He understood Henry's character.

Henry was a king
with a short attention span.

He was a king who
was not very often sitting

attending to the business
of government,

and so in order to get
the king's attention,

there was no point
waiting around at court.

You actually had to go
and find the king where he was.

And one of the best places

to have alone time with the king

was out in the pastureland
surrounding Leeds castle,

where Henry indulged in one
of his greatest pleasures:

Hawking.

Hawking was one of
Henry viii's great passions.

So, surprise, surprise,
it was also taken up

by his chief minister,
Thomas cromwell,

who knew the king well and
appreciated the fact

that Henry liked to mix
business with pleasure.

So, he would invite him
on Hawking expeditions

and get him to agree
to all sorts of business

while he was having fun.

He seemingly convinced the king

to not only continue
with the plans

but to intensify their efforts.

As a result, the dissolution
continued at pace,

and at its peak, monasteries
were being dismantled

at a rate of 50 per month.

But to bring his people
back on side,

hans holbein, the most renowned
painter of the tudor era,

was commissioned by Henry
to revamp his public image

by painting a mural
for whitehall palace.

I'm heading to the national
portrait gallery in London

to meet curator
Charlotte bolland

and see holbein's
original design.

So, Charlotte, this is
quite an impressive

and, I have to say, intimidating
portrait of Henry, isn't it?

Charlotte bolland: Absolutely.

I think the word iconic
often gets used quite casually

but is really applicable
in this case.

This is a kind
of preparatory drawing

for an incredible mural
in whitehall palace

that is now lost,

so it's the only trace
that we have of it,

and it was painted in 1536,
we believe,

in order to celebrate
kind of the tudor dynasty.

Through this drawing,
holbein constructed

a radically new image
of Henry viii.

Bolland: This image of Henry
has become

not only the kind
of image of Henry

that's sort of branded
into the public imagination,

but also the image of what
a king should look like,

so it gets replicated
down the centuries,

this kind of stance
and this idea

of the sort of broad shouldered,
hands on hips

and that kind of idea
of power and authority.

But interesting
that increasingly

this public image is far removed
from the private reality

of how Henry actually looked.

He's grown more and more infirm,
he's gaining weight,

but thanks to holbein,
he remains just like this.

While only later reproductions
of the mural survive today,

they do capture the splendor
of what holbein created,

which would set the tone for
a host of subsequent portraits.

Holbein did more to shape
the king's public persona

than any other man
who surrounded him,

creating an image of the king

that would echo
down the centuries.

Henry's image as king
also received another boost

in the form of some
long-anticipated news.

On the 12th of October 1537,
here at Hampton court palace,

Henry's wife, Jane Seymour,
gave birth to a baby boy.

At a lavish christening
three days later

he was given the name Edward.

Henry was ecstatic.

The birth
of the long-awaited son

is a moment when he can show

unrestrained happiness
in public.

And it's like a flash of light,
a blinding flash of light,

and in that flash of light
he stands, perfectly justified.

500 years ago,

my office here at Hampton court
was Edward's nursery.

From the moment of his birth,

Henry lavished enormous care
and attention

on the upbringing
and the security

of his precious son and heir.

But Henry's happiness
was to be short-lived.

Less than two weeks
after delivering

Henry's long-awaited
son and heir,

Jane Seymour died
of complications

resulting from the birth.

The death of Jane Seymour
was devastating for Henry.

But as king he would need
to take another wife,

once again, opening him up
to the manipulations

of the men around him.

Thomas cromwell was first
to offer up his suggestion...

A young German woman
of noble blood

who fitted in with his own
religious agenda.

Cromwell convinced Henry
that Anne of cleves

was worth considering
as a potential bride,

so Henry dispatched hans holbein
to paint her picture.

He was so delighted
with the result

that Anne made her way
over to england.

Problem was, she didn't quite
match up to her picture.

When Anne arrived
in england,

it wasn't so much
that she was ugly...

She wasn't a flanders mare
at all...

But she was charmless, and she
also didn't get Henry's jokes

or Henry's displays
of courtly love,

and Henry just found he couldn't
go through with this marriage.

Henry accused cromwell
of deceiving him.

The Duke of Norfolk
now had a chance

to seal his rival's fate

by offering up his catholic
niece, Katherine Howard.

Here is this sweet,
not very bright,

coquettish girl.

And he is attracted to her.

So they know
exactly what they're doing,

they know what they're dangling
in front of the king.

Norfolk's plan
appeared to be working.

The passion the king felt
for Katherine Howard

intensified his dislike
for Anne of cleves.

But cromwell held his nerve,

claiming that he could not
get Henry

out of the upcoming marriage.

Now, I'm sure
cromwell could have

if he had put his mind to it,

but what worried him
was that Henry

was now attracted
to Katherine Howard,

and if Henry married her
and Anne was put aside,

then the Howards would come
back center stage

and cromwell's own position
would be endangered.

Cromwell got
what he wanted.

On the 6th of January 1540,

Henry had no choice
but to marry Anne.

But there was one thing
the king refused to do...

Consummate the marriage.

What we have instead
is an unhappy king

telling cromwell
that she has bad breath

to be followed that he's worried

that he can't perform
any longer.

Now, why would Henry put himself
through that humiliation

if Henry wasn't already thinking
I need a way out of this?

Meanwhile, the war
between cromwell and Norfolk

turned personal,

as the dissolution had reached

somewhere very close
to Norfolk's heart.

Thetford priory.

Thetford priory is
the home of the Norfolk dynasty,

first and second Dukes.

So, all of the first lot
of norfolks,

the mowbrays are buried there,

and it's like
a family mausoleum.

So though it's a priory, it's
really almost to the norfolks

like their private chapel.

So, when the dissolutions come,

Norfolk tries repeatedly

to get thetford spared,

and cromwell refuses.

Thetford priory
was pulled down

a month after Henry
married Anne of cleves.

The rivalry between cromwell
and the Duke of Norfolk

was reaching boiling point,

and Norfolk was now even more
determined to destroy cromwell.

The Duke of Norfolk,
among others,

took their opportunity
to bring cromwell down

and accuse him of treason,

to accuse him of treachery

and proceeded to act against him

and convince the king,
of course, most importantly,

also to act against cromwell
in the most ruthless fashion.

I think
with cromwell and Henry,

there'd always been
a little bit of distance,

so if he has people in his ear
whispering about cromwell,

Henry chooses to listen.

Henry viii had always been
deeply loyal to his advisors

and those closest to him
right up until he wasn't.

It took little to ignite
the suspicions of a king

whose paranoia was approaching
that of his late father.

On the 10th of June 1540,
cromwell attended

what he thought was a routine
meeting of the privy council,

but it was to be his last.

The intensely personal nature
of the rivalry

between the king's
most powerful men

is revealed
by what happened next.

Norfolk strode up to cromwell

and seized the order of
St. George from around his neck,

as if by doing so he could
strip him of all the honors

with which this blacksmith boy

had tried to cover up
the shame of his birth.

Cromwell's highest honor,
his garter, was removed.

The beleaguered minister
was arrested

and taken to the tower of London
to await his fate.

The glee with which
at the arrest

they strip cromwell
of the garter

in front of everybody
on the council

and bundle him out
like a common criminal.

This is personal.

But the king
wasn't done with him yet,

as revealed by one
of the few documents

written by Henry himself.

You can see right
at the top of the page,

it's questions to be asked
of Thomas cromwell,

and the vast majority
of those questions

relate to Anne of cleves,

Henry's fourth wife,
who he's desperate to be rid of.

So, he's asking cromwell really
for evidence

to help his case
for an annulment.

Henry wants cromwell
to tell his interrogators.

He also in particular
focuses in here

on the question of Anne's
prior betrothal to somebody else

before she married Henry,

because this was
the crucial point.

This would get Henry out
of the whole sorry thing.

That's something that cromwell
had specifically said

there wasn't any evidence of,

but that's not good enough
for Henry,

and now clearly he is
applying the pressure

because cromwell has got
nowhere to go.

Cromwell finally gave Henry
all the evidence the king needed

to remove Anne of cleves
and begged for mercy,

but Henry's mind was made up

and the Duke of Norfolk
had the king

in the palm of his hand.

On the 28th of July 1540,

as Henry was preparing for his
wedding to Katherine Howard,

cromwell ascended the scaffold

and placed his head
on the block.

Unfortunately,
as very often happened

with executions
in the 16th century,

the executioner
made a botch of it.

It took several strokes
of the axe,

reducing his neck and head
to a pulp

before his head
was finally severed.

Cromwell's downfall
is very revealing

of Henry's character
by this time,

and in particular
his ruthlessness.

If someone was no longer
useful to him,

he would have them
airbrushed from history.

The Duke of Norfolk

had successfully removed
Thomas cromwell,

and his catholic niece
was now married to the king,

shoring up his religious agenda.

She was considerably
younger than Henry himself.

Henry described her
as his Rose without a Thorn.

He, in, with a sort of
dribbling senescent lust,

he regarded her
as a perfect little rosebud.

But Katherine Howard
would turn out to be

a less than reliable ally
for her uncle.

Rose she may have been,
but she also had thorns,

which pricked Henry
in the places

where it really hurt.

Cranmer was unhappy
with the situation

of there being a catholic queen,
especially as she was the niece

of the man who'd helped
bring down his friend and ally,

Thomas cromwell.

But he soon became privy
to compromising information

on Henry's new wife.

After just giving thanks
for his marriage

here at Hampton court
in the chapel royal,

archbishop cranmer
presented him with the news

that his wife
was having an affair.

Accounts of Katherine's
infidelity sealed her fate.

Katherine was executed
at the tower of London

on the 13th of February 1542.

In contrast to the demise
of his other marriages,

this one plunged Henry
into a deep depression.

Never again would he trust
any man to the same extent.

Now he would rule by fear.

Following Katherine Howard's
alleged affair

with a lowly member of court,

Henry's paranoia
reached new heights.

He would turn to an unlikely man
for comfort.

Will somer,
the king's fool or Jester.

Jesters were more than just
frivolous appointments at court.

The tudors believed
that laughter

was essential for health.

But somer's popularity with
Henry went further than that.

He became one of the few men

whom the king
could really trust.

I think Henry,
who certainly didn't have

much to laugh about
in the last years of his reign,

this dying, obese, unhappy,
unfulfilled man

employed the court Jester,
will somer,

to give him the bonus
of laughter.

Will somer was
a natural fool,

which meant he probably
had learning difficulties,

but such people were valued
by the tudors

because they were believed to be
closer to god.

And somer's natural honesty,

unfettered by political ambition
or guile,

meant that he was one of the few
men who Henry truly loved.

Somer represents
that form of ancient fool

that speaks truth unto power.

Because they have no family and
no affinity, no family interest,

they represent a different
ability to speak to the king,

and therefore there is
this bondedness

between the relationship.

Such was the closeness
of somer and the king

that he was depicted
in paintings

as if he was almost part
of the family.

They're part of,
not an extended family,

they're part
of the intimate family

and they represent
something honest.

Henry would remain close
to somer to the end of his days.

Meanwhile, the catholic faction
in court

was to be dealt a blow in 1543

when Henry married his sixth
and final wife,

Catherine parr,
a religious reformer.

Catherine was a recipient
of all the favors

that came with being queen.

Men like the Duke of Norfolk
were forced to watch

as members of her family
were promoted

to positions close to the king.

As always,
as happened with Anne boleyn

and as happened
with Catherine of aragon

in a sense that her friends
were pushed up,

when Catherine parr
becomes queen,

her brother and others
in her family are pushed up.

And with Henry
now married to a reformer,

fellow reformer Edward Seymour

came to dominate
the privy council.

But while the catholics and
reformers continued to clash,

the king himself became
increasingly ill and secluded.

Probably
because he was aware

that he was an increasingly
repulsive figure

both physically and morally,

he was more and more isolated
and lonely,

kept to his lodgings
in his palaces,

saw fewer and fewer people.

With it becoming
increasingly apparent

that Henry was not long
for this world,

the fighting among the factions
at court intensified

because the king's heir
was just eight years old.

They were all
jockeying for power

because the reign, the power

was going to be
in the hands of a child,

was going to be in the hands
of Edward vi,

who was still a very young boy,

so whoever controlled this child
would control the kingdom.

Henry realized that
without uniting the factions

he was going to pass on
a divided kingdom to his son.

And so he took matters
into his own hands.

With the country divided
and his end growing near,

Henry took drastic action.

On Christmas Eve 1545,

he addressed parliament
personally for the last time.

The speech he made
reveals a man worn down

by years of bitter infighting
between his courtiers,

by frailty of body
and by dejection of spirit.

It's interesting
that after decades

of promoting faction
and friction at his court,

nurturing these
factional intrigues,

pitting courtier and nobility
against each other,

Henry now called for unity.

He wanted them to follow
Christ's teachings

and love each other.

It may be
yet another sign

that at the end of his day,
he was having second thoughts.

He was having regrets
for the violence,

the incredible violence
that had accompanied his reign.

He ended with a final plea

to live in charity
with one another

like brother and brother,

but he knew his words
had come too late.

He would live out his days
as an almost futile witness

to the struggles that were
tearing his kingdom apart.

The 27th of January 1547

was the last full day
of the reign of Henry viii.

When it became clear
that he was dying,

the king sent
for archbishop cranmer,

and by the time he arrived,

Henry was slipping
into unconsciousness.

At two A.M.
the following morning

with cranmer by his side,

the reign of Henry viii
passed into the history books.

It's telling that
in Henry's final hours

when he was racked by pain,

he refused to see
his wife and daughters

and wanted to be attended
only by his men.

That male heir whom Henry had
spent much of his life seeking

ascended the throne
as king Edward vi

at just nine years old.

But Henry viii's story
does not end there.

Buried deep
in the national archives

lies a document whose contents
and significance

continue to be debated
to this day.

James daybell: This is probably

one of the most
controversial documents

in all of tudor history,

and the reason being

was that about a month
before Henry viii's death,

this last will and testament
was produced.

So, this isn't
obviously in Henry's hand.

This is the secretary or...

Daybell: This is a scribal,
a scribal hand,

but then you've got
Henry's signature again

here at the end

and then below it,
in hierarchical order,

you've got all the names
of the ten witnesses

who witnessed
the signing of the will.

Now, the controversy, though,
relates to the signature here

because it is not
Henry's own hand.

Instead it is a dry stamp.

In other words, it's a stamp

that has been impressed
upon the page

and then a scribe
has taken a quill and ink

and very carefully written
Henry's name in

so that it looks
absolutely perfect.

Now, the problem there is
that if Henry isn't signing it,

what that does,
that device allows people

to be able to manipulate
the monarch.

The dry stamp was designed

to relieve Henry of the tedium
of personally signing documents.

He had placed a man
called William Clarke

in charge of the stamp.

Once a month, Clarke would give
Henry a list of documents

he had signed
on the king's behalf.

Daybell: Now, this will was made
on the 30th of December 1546,

and it's not until the night
before Henry's death

that we find William Clarke
putting this

on a list of documents
that have been signed.

With the stamp,
the men around Henry

had the means to manipulate him
to the end of his days,

potentially placing themselves
in positions

of unrivaled power,

using the king's signature,

all with the aim of controlling
the new young monarch.

So, who does best out of this
among Henry's men,

because it has been seen

that they're just manipulating
him right at the end,

kind of feathering their own
nests for the next reign.

There's somerset, obviously.

Daybell: There's somerset,
his brother, Thomas Seymour.

At the time of putting together
this will,

the Spanish ambassador argues

that when Thomas Seymour's name
was mentioned,

Henry said, "no, no, no!"

And so we know that Henry
was against him,

but yet his name is on,
among those of 12 assistants

who are going to play a part
in the minority government.

And so, Henry has been made
to put him back in.

The Duke of somerset

was a title created
by Edward Seymour,

who would go on to dominate
the reign of Edward vi

when he also appointed himself
lord protector.

Protector somerset
seizes power

and he manipulates the will
afterwards, it seems to me,

in order to try and retain
power for himself.

Whether the reformist faction

had indeed manipulated the king
after his death

is something that will continue
to be debated, but if they did,

it was merely the last
in a long line of manipulations

that Henry fell prey to
throughout his life.

The men who had
surrounded Henry

were absolutely instrumental

in shaping the king
that we have come to know.

They came from various
spheres of court.

They came from
the clerical spheres,

the personal spheres,
the political spheres.

They all played a part
in molding Henry

into the ideal king.

The last glimpse
we have of Henry

is as a king and a man
defined not by his six wives,

but by the men who had
entertained, advised,

angered and delighted him
for 55 years.

From the suffocating father

whom the young Henry
would rebel against

and the ministers that shaped
his kingdom for good or ill

to the man who created
an image of a king

that would last
through the ages.

By seeing Henry viii through
the eyes of the king's men,

his reign is revealed

in all its multi-faceted
contradictory glory.