"Henry VIII was a golden and gifted boy who grew up to become a forceful, energetic and ambitious ruler — he was a majestic and ruthless monarch who created an ‘imperial’ monarchy by asserting English independence, defying Rome, breaking up the monasteries, promoting his realm’s military and naval power and his own autocracy, all ultimately enabling the triumph of Protestantism. Yet he became a bloated, thin-skinned tyrant who ordered the killing — on faked evidence — of many, including two of his wives, because of his own wounded pride. Both hero and monster, he was, in his paranoid cruelty, the English Stalin."
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Founders of religionsMusicians from EnglandPeople from LondonMonarchs from EnglandComposers from England
Original Language: English
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Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 145
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England
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Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII (June 28, 1491 – January 28, 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, including his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII about such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries,
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