July 28

I was very surprised to discover that Henry VIII was an actual King. I had always thought that he was the guy who wrote that rather innocuous song by Herman’s Hermits. Surprise, surprise, he was a real-life English monarch, amazing. Henry had the annoying habit of marrying and then killing his brides. Were you or I habituated to that sort of thing I think finding dates would become problematic. Henry, however, was never actually troubled by not having a date on Saturday nights. Being King of the British Empire apparently makes you a real babe magnet. It is however a full time job, so Henry had to remember to constantly review his day-planner. On the 28th in 1540 Henry was confronted with a scheduling conflict which posed both social and political problems for him. In what must have been a stroke of pure genius Henry marshaled all of on his multi-tasking skills and managed to put a check next to everything on his to-do list for the day. Hank started off by having Thomas Cromwell, the man largely responsible for Henry’s achieving the awesome power that he did, executed by beheading. With that bit of nastiness out of the way, Henry proceeded to marry Catherine Howard, the fifth of his six wives. Henry must have really liked Catherine a lot because it wasn’t until February 13, 1542 that he got around to executing her.