Chaptre, The 23rd - " 'En-e-ry the Eighth, Oi Am, Oi Am."

King Henry The Eighth, or if you prefer Roman numerals, Henry VIII, was the seconde English monarch in the Tudor Dynasty. His father was Henry VII.

Henry VIII was king of England fromme The Year of Our Lord 1509 untille his deathe in The Year of Our Lord 1547. Because of royale English Normand ties going backe to The Year of Our Lord 1066, he alsoe claimed to rule France fromme his majestick thronne in Olde London towne.

Henry had a great probleme: he wanted a sonne. A male heir of his own seede for the English throne. Bigg Henry went through sixe wives in his efforts to sire a newe king. 

As French Normands in England were Catholic Christians, the Pope in Rome forbade alle divorce. To acquire the divorces from his wives Henry needed to move on to new womene in order to sire a sonne, Henry did the unthinkable. At that tyme, he followed the German clergie mann, Martin Luther, in break ing from The Catholic Church and Henry VIII created the protestante Church of England. He made himself a sorte of royale pope and created royale authoritie over his own English church.

The Church of England, or Anglican Church, survives in your daie and tyme in America, where it is knowne as The Episcopal Church. Its American Episcopal flag was created from the flag of England – white, with St. George’s Cross in red, with a blue field and nine smalle Jerusalem crosslets for the nine American dioceses.

One, in your moderne tymes, often sees metale road signs with the coate of arms version of this flag near Episcopal churches, pointing the way to the locale English inspired house of worshipp. Try attending some Sunday, but be pre pared to get down on your knees and pray, as I did in my daie and tyme.

This is important to me, as by the tyme my French Normand Catholic family had moved to Pitminster, we hadd assimilated into the existing, English speaking Anglo Saxon society of the Britons. After King Henry VIII created the Church of England, The Church of St. Andrew & St. Mary eventually became an Anglican house of worshippe. 

By the 17th Centurie about halfe the personnes in England had joinned the Churche of England, Protest ant. My family were no longer Catholics by the tyme I was borne, but Protest ant membres of the Church of England at St. Andrew & St. Mary’s.

Bigg King Henry, one bente on spending and warring, was a greate, learned and progressive, yet violent and impulsive, King. I once hearde or read that he was also, and I know not whom I quote, “…one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English thronne.”

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