Monday, October 17, 2011

a funeral, an accident and the twists of fate

On the day of Catherine of Aragon's funeral King Henry fell from his horse and lay unconsious for two hours. He developed a painful ulcer on his leg that never quite healed for the rest of his life. Some historians say the accident changed him and made him mean and paranoid. I think Henry was pretty nasty long before that but the amount of physical torment he was in couldn't have been good for anyone's temprement.  Anne Boleyn, upon hearing about the king's accident was seized with a terrible panic and she miscarried a son and thus sealing her doom. Six months later Henry signed her death warrant. I've sometimes wondered if this wasn't a case of the windmills of God grinding slow but fine or if it was just one of the weird but true quirks of history.