The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

Some historians have claimed that these figures are probably exaggerated. According to the historian, Raphael Holinshed, who wrote twenty-five years after Henry's death, 72,000 thieves and vagabonds were hanged during his reign. The punishment for poisoners was to be boiled alive. People found guilty of treason were hanged, castrated, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered. People found guilty of murder, rape, sodomy, arson, robbery, theft, forgery and coining were also hanged. For the third offence, he was to be hanged.

For a second offence a vagabond was not only whipped but also had to have a part of his ear cut off. In 1536 Parliament passed a new act to deal with vagabonds. He had been told that there were as many as 20,000 of them seeking help. Eustace Chapuys reported that legions of monks, nuns and the servants employed in the suppressed religious houses, were roaming the countryside, homeless and penniless, begging for relief. More and more people left their villages to look for work. As the monasteries had also helped provide food for the poor, this added to the problem. The closing down of the monasteries in the 1530s created even more unemployment. When large landowners changed from arable to sheep farming, unemployment increased rapidly. Unemployment was a serious problem during this period. If any able-bodied man or woman, who did not own land or carry on a recognised profession or was a trader in merchandise, was found outside his native parish and could not account for his presence there, the local JP was to send him to the nearest market town, where he was to be tied naked to the end of a cart and beaten with a whip. A law passed in 1530 stated that people who were too old or ill to work could apply to a local JP for a licence to beg but any vagabond who begged without a licence was to be severely punished. During his reign he told Parliament to pass several acts against vagabonds (people wandering around the country looking for work). Ridley's main criticism of Henry concerns his treatment of the poor.

In his book, Henry VIII (1984), the historian, Jasper Ridley, compared the crimes of Henry VIII with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. ▼ References ▼ Spartacus Blog Was Henry VIII as bad as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin?

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser