THE 2020 WIVES OF HENRY VIII!
We Name six sexy New spouses for the Randy Tudor Monarch!
2 020 marks the 500th anniversary of the twelfth year of the reign of King Henry VIII, the fiery Tudor monarch who changed the face of Britain forever. Although he was responsible for the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the 16th century religious schism that drove a wedge between the Holy Roman See and the Church of England, Henry is best known as a serial fanny rat who married 6 times. His wives were drawn from a fascinating variety of countries, cultures and backgrounds, and each one illuminates a different fascinating aspect of Tudor history. But if Henry were on the throne today, who would he choose as his six wives? It’s time to take a look at the half dozen modern day celebrities to whom Henry VIII would plight his mercurial troth, if he hadn’t been dead for 473 years.
Wife Number One
BACK in 1509, the young Henr married Catherine of Aragon, Spanish-born widow of his dea brother Arthur, and mother of “bloody” Mary, Queen of Scots. This was the Tudor monarch’s longest marriage, lasting nearl 24 years until Henry divorced the staunchly religious Cathe ne just three weeks short of the couple’s silver anniversary So for the King’s twenty-first century opening marriage, he will be looking for a familyorientated, aristocratic homemaker with whom to establish his modern Tudor dynasty.
Henry could do much worse than taking Chan
Location presenter KIRSTY ALLSOPP as his first ide. Daughter of a some Duke or other, Kirsty has the blue blood that a Tudor monarch like Henry is looking for, and her ability to craft household decorations on a shoestring – as seen i shows such as Kirstie’s Handmade Treasures, Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas and Kirstie’s Celebrity Craftmasters – would prove an invaluable asset in Henry’s royal household, meaning hat the profligate monarch wouldn’t have to raise taxes every time he wanted a war with the Fre h or a new palace.
However, such a marriage of royal convenience may well begin to falter over the years, as Kirsty’s TV commitments filming shows such as Kirstie’s Fill Your House for F ee tempt her to spend more and more time away from the marital four-poster, and Henry may well feel jealous of the time his consort spends with her on-screen partner Phil Spencer. Just as it did with his 16th century wife Catherine of Aragon, his marriage to TV’s Queen of Crafting would inevitably hit the rocks and end in an acrimonious divorce.
Wife Number Two
IN 1533, following his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Henry took his second bride Anne leyn. Anne’s father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was an ambitio social climber who did much to engineer the liaison, eeing his daughter’s royal marriage as a way to enhance his standing in Tudor society. And in many ways, US presid nt Donald Trump is a twenty-first century equivalent of Sir Thomas, a vain moron, keen to promote his dullard offsprin to presti ous positions of power.
Once installed on the throne as the lovestruck Ki g’s consort, QUEEN IVANKA would attempt to meddle in politics, making political enemies just like her predecessor did in the sixteenth century when she attempted to undermine Henry’s Lord Chamberlain Thomas Cromwell. Ivanka would sit in on meetings about subjects that were beyond her intelligence, and barge her way uncouthly to the front as diplomats and statesmen posed for photographs, a trick learned at her boorish and charmless father’s knee.
Eventually, the narcissistic King would tire of playing second fiddle to suc a shallow, attentionseeking consor t and would seek a divorce from Ivanka. Although she wo d fare slightly better than her beheaded 16th century predecessor, in the same way that Thom Boleyn sided with Henry at his disgraced daughter’s rigged trial for treason, the US president uld similarly throw
s own ug er un r s. n a ser es o y spe e ungramma cal tweets, the smallhanded POTUS would point out what an “unbelievable guy” the Tudor mo arch is, and how he has been treated very badly by his “no good loser Queen. SAD!”
Wife Number Three
HENRY’S third consort was Jane S who had caught his eye as lady-inwaiting to his two previous wive ane gave Henry the son and heir hat he craved, and the King was thro nto despair when she tragicall died just nine days after giving his sickly heir, Prince Edwa d. And in an ironic twist of fate, the front runner to be the late Queen’s 21st century counterpart as Henry s third wife shares exactly the same actress JANE SEYMOUR!
The glamorous star of 80s potboiler TV Dr Quinn Medicine Woman is well known as th face of Max Factor cosmetics, and Henry is quite likely to demand that she gives up her showbiz career to become his full time Quee In this situation, Seymour will be faced with an uncomfor table choice betw n a life as a cosseted monarch or a life as a busy A-list star of top-rated s ows like Franklyn and Bash, The Kominsky Method and Here
Come the Double Deckers, and the King’s Royal edict to his third wife may well lead to a fullNot blown constitutional crisis.
only that, over her career Seymour has posed for raunchy photoshoots in top-shelf grumble mag Playbo three times, and her X-rated centrefold antics ould reflect badl on the House of dor. If a well-thumbed co of the magazine were to fall into the hands of her famously jealous 16th century husband, he might erupt into a violent rage, casting her out of his royal court and into shame and disgrace.
Wife Number Five
CATHERINE Howard was a busty and curv eous teenage saucepot when she caught the eye of the now ailing and bloated King Henry. After their hurried marriage, th King found himself unable to keep p with her insatiable sexual deman , and she quickly took a string of y nger, more virile lovers. The b ow to Henry’s pride proved too mu h, and Catherine and her string o randy paramours were sent to th block to pay the ultimate price f their impetuousness. Her place today could be filled by any of the astictitted women off LOVE ISLAND.
Any one of the low-rent show’s randy, sca ily-clad female competitors would surely catch the shal ow, sexstarved monarch’s eye and quickly accept his offer of rriage. However, on their wedding night, when faced with the wheezing, ague-riddled monarch’s pustulated legs and weeping sores, their thou ts would wistfull turn back to the hunky fellas - male models, oilrig workers and failed Hollyoaks actors - that they had left behind in their tropical reality TV paradise.
The affairs would soon begin, and when Henry saw the humiliating stories plastered across the covers of Chat, Heat and Take a Break, perhaps whilst opening a newsagents shop, his famous Tudor temper would explode, just as it did with Catherine half a millennium before. And this time there would be no stay of execution – the King would use his influence with ITV2 management to take an axe to the entire series.
Wife Number Four
IN 1540, after the death of his p evious wife, Henry sauntered up the a sle for the fourth time with German princess Anne of Cleves. The King ha never met his bride before the servi e, and he was reportedly so disap by her plain, horse-like app and bodily odours that the remained unconsummated; ndeed, it was annulled after just six
Half a millennium later, Bre Party MEP ANNE WIDDECOMBE is shoein to become Anne Widdeco Cleves, modern-day Henry VIII’ fourth wife.
On his wedding night, and indeed thereafter, he randy Tudor monarch would almost certainly be unable to occasion in the marital bed when faced with the musty, cobwebbed contents of Anne’s no-nonsense dunghampers. And if, by some miracle of mind over matter, he did manage o summon a roya eaca e n s codpiece, the famously chaste Widdecombe would almost cer tainly reject his amorous advances, probably delivering him a withering whack on the lid with a wooden spoon just to be on the safe side.
It would be clear to all Henry’s courtiers that his new marriage to the anti-European battleaxe was going nowhere, and the highly-sexed King would have no choice but to give up on his chaste new bride. His fourth marriage would be annulled by the Archbishop of Canterbury shortly afterwards, as surely as night follows day.
Wife Number Six
TWICE-WIDOWED Catherine Par was not so much Henry’s sixth wife as his nursemaid; the Queen’s principal duties in his bedchamber extende little beyond applying ointment o the weeping sores on the King s legs and changing his dressings. Indeed, so grateful was His Majesty for his wife’s gentle attentions that only threatened to have her be aded once or twice. And a modern day counterpart who could ably fil Parr’s courtly shoes is Coronation reet’s AUDREY ROBERTS.
Like Catherine, Audrey, played by actress Sue Nicholls, is a widow, after her husband Alf tragically died in chair at her grandson Nicky Tilsley’s eighteenth birthday party. And with her years of experience caring for a fat husband in his autumn years, Audr would make an excellent nursemaid for the ailing, overweight Tudor monarch. Indeed, back in 1984 Sue actually played the nursemaid in a TV production of Aladdin – alongside Johnny Morris and
Terry Nutkins as Widow Twankey and Wishee Washee.
This medical training should stand her in good stead when attending to her ailing royal husband, as open, pustulating sores will hold no horrors for her.
Audrey has appeared in Corrie on and off for the past 40 years, starring in nearly 3,000 episodes of the Weatherfield-based soap, so she’s clearly the kind of person who sees a job through to the bitter end, and it’s safe to assume that the same would be true of her Royal marriage. And when the King finally succumbs to his medical conditions brought on by years of over-indulgence, she would no doubt take the oppor tunity to hook up with a succession of elderly Coronation Street suitors, such as Nigel Havers, Johnny Briggs and Roy Hudd.