by Danny Wayne Cotton (Notes) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 1:16pm
(I had a Prose Poem assignment, I did this)
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Catherine of Aragon was first, devoutly Catholic, got to keep her head. Henry’s all, “no son?–DIVORCE,” Pope’s all “from Ferdinand and Isabella’s kid? Dude, seriously?” so Henry’s all, pretty much, “English Reformation.” Pope’s all, “Motherfucker, I’m the Pope.” Henry’s all “Well, I’m the King,” Catherine’s all “Divorce pisses off God,” but Henry didn’t care he wanted to be on to Anne Boleyn.
Young, noble chick. Some folks called her a slut. A little unfair, but, hey, she’s the one Henry got all hot, bothered and divorce-y for. Had a girl, lil redhead (nobody thought THAT lil girl would amount to too much). But she miscarried everything with a y chromosome. That made Henry’s buddies kind of nervous, particularly Thomas Cromwell. Did I mention Cromwell thought she was a threat to his power? And that Ole Tom had, evidently, read Machiavelli’s new book. Anne was the first one that lost a head.
And Henry was already checking out Jane Seymour. She’s his (cough) fifth cousin (cough). Her Catholicism won Henry’s daughter Mary some favor. She has the boy child, Eddie VI. This was a B-F-D! Like, the whole reason Henry upset his apple cart with the Pope and cut Anne’s head off. Then, uh, she died. Childbirth was a bitch back then.
An acceptable bit of grieving, but a King needs a wife, so on to Anne of Cleves. Nice lady. German royalty. Not, however, hot. Henry had high standards relative to Hugh Hefner so their contract was all, “she smells like a 14th century German, he wants to fuck everything that walks, we didn’t consummate anything, wedding doesn’t count.” She got a castle, the title of King’s Beloved Sister and, since she was Lutheran, no Pope BS, so…all things being relative…worked out pretty good for Anne of Cleves, whom Henry left because he was ass over teakettle for Catherine Howard. Hot, twenty, Anne Boleyn’s cousin. Like most hot, twenty year old rich girls, not really into this whole “300 lb man twice my age” thing. There’s a lot of chatter over what she did-with whom and when-but everybody knows it’s something she shouldn’t’ve. After Parliament passes some “all up in the Queen Consort’s business” bill, they find some incriminating love notes, she goes to the Tower of London, the ax blade goes WHACK.
But somebody’s gotta take care of Henry’s big old ass so he found Catherine Parr, who, in a weird twist, was named after Henry’s first wife. Evidently, the chick was bad luck, she’d already been widowed twice before she got to Henry. Doesn’t matter much, he’s fifty one and, back then, that might as well’ve been ninety one. She does get him back in touch with his daughters. Hell, even gets to be in charge while Henry’s taking care of some shit in France. She outlived the legendary protestant glutton, married another guy a few months later, had a kid by him and sniped with the other royalty until she either died from childbirth complications or got poisoned by a man who wanted to marry her ex-husband’s little redheaded daughter.