Was Henry VIII a Psychopath? Probably ... Not

I know more about Henry VIII than I do about psychopaths. Or at least I think I do. I'm under the impression that psychopaths don't feel guilty about the bad things that they do. They're not capable of it.

Example? Hmmm...well....Hannibal Lecter?  The serial killer who chews his way through Thomas Harris's novels Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal is supposedly a bona fide psychopath. And I've seen Silence of the Lambs--twice--and shudder whenever I picture Anthony Hopkins' cannibalistic fava-beans riposte or hear him saying, "Ready when you are, Sergeant Pembry."

This is why when the news broke that Henry VIII was in reality a psychopath, it gave me pause. King Henry famously sent two of his six wives to the chopping block and laid waste to a long line of courtiers, ministers and relatives. Still, I was having a hard time with him gobbling an annoying gentleman of the privy chamber.

But I repeat, my knowledge of the world of psychopaths is not extensive. According to Psychology Today, there is no diagnostic test that proves someone is a psychopath--there is a list of criteria, and if a person fits enough of the list, then the chances are good. On the list: uncaring, shallow emotions, irresponsible, overconfident, selfish, inability to plan for the future, and last but not least, violent.

So I decided it was time to, if you will, put Henry Tudor on the couch.

The 16th century was far, far different than our own. However, what's important to remember is that within the context of his time, Henry VIII was considered outrageous, puzzling, menacing and unpredictable. I'm not talking about his subjects but his peers, other monarchs whose views were communicated through ambassadorial letters.

Henry VIII: Psychopath?
This theory about Henry's mental wiring comes from Oxford researcher Kevin Dutton, who wrote The Wisdom of Psychopaths: Lessons in Life from Saints, Spies and Serial Killing. Although it might seem strange, this is, among other things, a self-help book. "Psychopaths have a lot of good things going for them," declares the book's website. "They are fearless, confident, charismatic, ruthless and focused--qualities tailor-made for success in twenty-first century society." And for the mid-16th century too? Instead of feeling repulsed by Henry's psychopathic side, should I be proud of him? When he consigned devoted ministers Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell to the Tower, he wasn't cold, he was charismatic. Way to be the boss!

Byron: Dangerous to know, but no psychopath

Still, I wanted to know how Professor Dutton diagnosed Henry Tudor. It seems that he used a similar list of criteria to what I found in the article in Psychology Today, ranging from emotional detachment to feelings of alienation, and 10 people considered "Britain's greatest" were put to the test. Only Henry VIII scored high enough to fit the definition: 174 on a spectrum that required a minimum score of 168 to make it to Psychopath. The nine who did not make it: Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Elizabeth I, Charles Dickens, Freddie Mercury, Lord Byron, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde. (Britain's Greatest. I love Queen, but Freddie Mercury?)

If you'd like to know more about the job requirements for being a psychopath, Professor Dutton has a quiz--or rather a "Challenge." Typical of the questions: "Cheating on your partner is OK so long as you don't get caught." Hmmmm. When I think of Henry's marital history, it seems that cheating on his partners was OK even if he were caught. Didn't the Tudor king inform his outraged second wife, "Close your eyes, as your betters have done before you"?

Perhaps Professor Dutton is on to something. But before I agree to lump Henry VIII with Ted Bundy, I thought I'd refresh my memory on what other psychologists and historians have said about Henry's psychological state. His outrageous reign has led to all sorts of speculation.

Young Henry VIII

Henry VIII:  Extreme Narcissist? A carefully argued article published in 1972 by Miles F. Shore in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (The MIT Press) found, after examining Henry VIII's behavior with a psychoanalyst's view, that the king exhibited "distinct behavior changes, and at least one depressive episode." The author blames a childhood swinging between "extravagant adulation and brutal discipline," as "exciting ceremonials and pageantry" came and went, replaced by "boredom and loneliness." This produced an adult who seemed confident, accomplished and flamboyant but beneath the surface was insecure, dependent and anxious.

According to the journal article:

"For Henry VIII, the first seventeen years of his reign had seen the acting-out of a series of grandiose narcissistic fantasies. His crisis came when these had to be modified in the face of real events: his injuries, his military and political disappointments, and his inability to have a legitimate male heir. Biological factors and the erosive effect of real events on his grandiose fantasies were the major precipitants of his crisis....compulsive attempts to remain young with hypochondriachal concerns, sexual promiscuity and possible real character deterioration."

Such analyses have deepened since the 1970s. In her excellent book The Creation of Anne Boleyn, author Susan Bordo probes the mind of Henry VIII to try to figure out how, after such an all-consuming and passionate love for Anne, he could callously sign her death warrant after three years of marriage. It's a question that bedeviled people in Henry's time and every century since. "In 2012, this kind of personality would probably he diagnosed as borderline or narcissistic," Bordo writes.

16th century treatment for syphilis

HENRY VIII: Syphilitic? Psychosis can result from untreated late-stage syphilis, which was first recorded in Europe in 1494. Ten to 30 years after infection, the sufferer experiences delusions, headaches, and impaired judgment. Because Henry VIII did exhibit these characteristics in the 1540s--and he was known to take mistresses in his 20s and 30s--syphilis was a theory tossed around for years. But recently, medical authorities have pretty much shut the door on this one. Henry did not exhibit the other physical symptoms of untreated syphilis: seizures, mania, ataxia. And he did not undergo any of the bizarre treatments used for syphilis. At least, not as far as the historical records reveal.

HENRY VIII: Brain damaged? Henry VIII was a serious athlete when young, suffering a few falls while relishing the dangerous sport of jousting. But several years ago a theory made the rounds that his most serious fall, in January 1536, caused a two-hour loss of consciousness. Did this injury to his brain transform him from affable and charming to cruel and paranoid?

The flaw with this theory is that Henry VIII exhibited cruel behavior long before 1536. This was a young man who executed two of his father's unpopular ministers shortly after taking the throne in 1509, and pushed through the arrest and execution of his cousin, the Duke of Buckingham, on flimsy charges in 1521. He didn't need to fall off a horse to commit acts of brutality.

Henry VIII's jousting armor, at the Tower of London

In her fascinating book 1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII, historian Suzannah Lipscomb argues that the jousting accident did have a profound effect on the king, in a number of ways. It aggravated his leg ulcers, which caused "recurrent and excruciating pain" for the rest of his life. No one in that kind of pain is in a good mood. And this fall affected him psychologically in other ways, forcing the king to face his mortality and weakening his sense of manhood at a time when, at the age of 42, he had no legitimate male heir.

HENRY VIII, Unrestrained? Henry VIII might have been psychotic, or neurotic, or perpetually pain-stricken, or depressive. We have no way of knowing, five centuries after his death.

Some people feel he was manipulated by others: his father, his wives, Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell. But biographer Jasper Ridley is one who vigorously refutes the idea that Henry VIII was manipulated by others, the vacillating victim of court faction. In his work, Henry VIII is willful, aggressive, selfish, ruthless. A tyrant.

It was Thomas More who is thought to have said of his friend, his master and his murderer, "For if the lion knows his own strength, then no man could control him."

Henry VIII, at his coronation at the age of 17, was anointed with holy oil. The sovereign thus formed a mystical connection to God, one that Henry and all three of his children took very seriously. It was a moment and an ensuing transformation that few of us can truly grasp in the year 2018. It goes beyond modern psychiatry and biography and deep into the mind of that ever-fascinating enigma, Henry VIII. What to us might look psychopathic, from the viewpoint of the Tudors, was expected behavior to one who was anointed, of sacred flesh, and, let's not forget, head of the Church of England.

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Read Nancy Bilyeau's newsletter for more links to nonfiction stories about history and for first look at new short stories, giveaways, and the first chapter from Nancy's upcoming spy novel set in the 18th century: The Blue. To subscribe to the monthly newsletter, sign up here.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the award-winning historical trilogy The Crown, The Chalice and The Tapestry, published by the Touchstone imprint of Simon & Schuster. The protagonist is Sister Joanna Stafford, a Dominican novice. In The Tapestry, the executions of Cromwell and Hungerford are part of the story. To learn more, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

Historical Novel Society: Announcement of My 18th Century Thriller

I'm so pleased that Historical Novel Society, in it quarterly publication Historical Novel Review, released the news of my upcoming novel, The Blue. I'm moving from the 16th century to the 18th century with this book, which revolves around a woman artist, a French Huguenot living in London, who gets caught up in a spying conspiracy to steal the formula for a new shade of the most beautiful color in the world.


The publication date right now is Fall 2018. Exact date to follow!

From HNS:

"Endeavour Ink, a new imprint of Endeavour Press, has bought Nancy Bilyeau's fourth novel, The Blue, a suspense novel set in the porcelain-workshop race for supremacy in 18th century England and France, for publication in the UK and US in print and digital formats." :):

2018 is going to be exciting. I will be sharing all sorts of things for the rest of the year--an extra chapter of The Tapestry that was cut from the book, one that contains Princess Mary; a prequel to the trilogy I've written; and special advance tidbits of The Blue. I'll release all of the information on how to get the goods through my newsletter, so if you haven't already, please sign up here. It will take just a minute. :) 

And stay tuned!!

The Truth About Elizabeth I and Torture: "The Rack Seldom Stood Idle"

By Nancy Bilyeau

In 1588, more than halfway into the reign of Elizabeth I, a man named John Gerard, English by birth, returned to his homeland, setting foot on the coast at Norfolk. He was arrested six years later, in a London house he had rented. The government officials did not believe Gerard’s story that he was a gentleman fond of gambling and hunting. And they were right to do so. Gerard was actually a Jesuit priest, educated in Douai and Rome, and leading a covert and highly dangerous life in Protestant England.

Father Gerard was conveyed to the Tower, accused of trying “to lure people from the obedience of the Queen to the obedience of the Pope.” His interrogators demanded to know who had assisted him in England. He refused to name names.

In a book Father Gerard wrote years later, he reports being one day “taken for a second examination to the house of a magistrate called Young. Along with him was another… an old man, grown grey.” Young began the questioning—what Catholics did Father Gerard know? “I answered that I neither could not nor would make disclosures that would get any one into trouble, for reasons already stated,” says the Jesuit.

Young turned to his silent colleague and said, “I told you how you would find him.” The older men looked at Father Gerard “frowningly” and finally spoke. “Do you know me?” he asked “I am Topcliffe, of whom I doubt not you have often heard.”

Sir Richard Topcliffe then led the interrogation, and Father Gerard was tortured by use of manacles for more than six hours. A friar said, ‘Twice he has been hung up by the hands with great cruelty…the examiners say he is exceedingly obstinate.”

Topcliffe, a lawyer and Member of Parliament, began serving the queen in the 1570s and seems to have reported to Sir Francis Walsingham. He hated Catholics with great intensity and boasted of having a chamber in his home containing devices “superior” to the ones in the Tower. The government allowed him to make official use of this home chamber. When a prisoner must be "put to the pain," it was time to send for Topcliffe. His favorite methods: the rack and the manacles.

Of all the mysteries of Elizabeth I, few are as baffling as the humane queen’s favor toward the inhuman Sir Richard Topcliffe, chief torturer of the realm. An undoubted sadist, he was the dark blot on her golden age.

When researching an earlier blog post on “Little Ease” in the Tower of London, I came across the 1933 book The History of Torture in England, by L.A. Parry.  The 16^th century was when torture reached its height in England. “Under Henry VIII it was frequently employed; it was only used in a small number of cases in the reigns of Edward VI and Mary. It was while Elizabeth sat on the throne that it was made use of more than in any other period of history.” Parry quotes the historian Hallam: “The rack seldom stood idle in the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign.”

More recent historical works confirm this grim record. Prisoners were tortured and some were later executed. Anne Somerset in Elizabeth I said, “one-hundred and eighty-three Catholics were executed during Elizabeth’s reign; one-hundred and twenty-three of them were priests.” Elizabeth Jenkins, author of Elizabeth the Great, shudders over the “unspeakable Richard Topcliffe” and says, “The whole process of hunting down priests and examining them under torture was quite outside the domain of the law courts.”

How could the erudite Elizabeth who said she had “no desire to make windows into men’s souls” officiate over these horrors? Two people seem to have triggered this change in the queen. One was Pope Pius V who excommunicated the queen in 1570, branding her as a “servant of crime.” This act encouraged her subjects to rise up. 

The other was the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, a focus of possible rebellion the entire time she was held in the kingdom after she was driven out of her own land. Elizabeth's secretary, Walsingham, became her spymaster. The indefatigable Puritan was convinced that the Jesuits and other priests who secretly practiced in England were part of an international conspiracy to destabilize the realm and eventually depose the queen. Many of the interrogated priests, such as Father Gerard, insisted they were loyal to the queen, that they led secret lives because Mass was illegal. But some unquestionably were drawn into dangerous conspiracy against Elizabeth, such as the Babington Plot, which sought to replace Elizabeth with Mary.

In fact, the embattled queen, no doubt frightened as well as enraged, ordered that the guilty Babington conspirators be executed in ways so horrible it would never be forgotten. And so the first ones were. But the crowd of spectators, presumably hardened to such sights, were sickened by the hellish castratings and disembowelings. When the queen heard of this, she ordered the next round of traitors be hanged until they were dead.

Elizabeth realized she had gone too far. It’s regrettable that she did not realize that more often.

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Read Nancy Bilyeau's newsletter for more links to nonfiction stories about history and for first look at new short stories, giveaways, and the first chapter from Nancy Bilyeau's upcoming spy novel set in the 18th century: The Blue. To subscribe to the monthly newsletter, sign up here.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of an historical thriller trilogy set in Tudor England, The Crown. The Chalice, and The Tapestry, published in nine countries. For more info, go to www.nancybilyeau.com.

What Really Happened to Natalie Wood?

A month ago I wrote about the tragic death of Natalie Wood. Some startling developments in the case meant that it was time to update my story for The Vintage News today:

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators say Robert Wagner is a “person of interest” in tragic death of Natalie Wood in 1981

By Nancy Bilyeau

In a stunning development, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators said in an interview released on February 1, 2018, that actor Robert Wagner is now a person of interest in the mysterious death of his then-wife Natalie Wood in 1981, and investigators want to speak with Wagner about the circumstances surrounding that death. No charges were filed after Wood drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, 1981. Law enforcement ruled the death accidental, but in 2012 the case was reopened and Wood’s death certificate was amended to “drowning and other undetermined factors.”

“As we’ve investigated the case over the last six years, I think he’s more of a person of interest now,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant John Corina said in an interview with “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty. The full interview will air on the program “48 Hours” on February 3rd.

Hollywood mysteries have a way of seizing hold of us. To some, Marilyn Monroe’s death has contradictory, strange aspects to it, turning her 1962 demise into a cottage industry of books forwarding various dark theories. Unsolved crimes invite speculation, from the murder of silent-film director William Desmond Taylor to that of Hogans Heroes star Bob Crane.

But the death of actress Natalie Wood on November 29, 1981, is in a special category. When news broke that the 43-year-old was found drowned off California’s Catalina Island after being declared missing from their yacht by her actor husband, Robert Wagner, the world was horrified. Wood had been a star since she was a child, winning hearts as Maureen O’Hara’s daughter in Miracle on 34th Street in 1947. She dazzled in Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story, Splendour in the Grass, Gypsy, and other big-budget Hollywood pictures.

After an investigation by the Sheriff’s Department and an examination by Los Angeles’ Chief Medical Examiner Thomas Noguchi, Wood’s death was declared accidental. New images flooded the newspapers and TV news, of a devastated Robert Wagner, wearing dark glasses....

For rest of the story, please go to The Vintage News.