In which I tell the sad story of Henry VIII's wives through the perspective of reproductive health and highlight how the entire ordeal would have likely been avoidable with present-day medical tech
"If Henry VIII were allowed to have multiple concurrent wives, the chances that some of them would have had a healthy firstborn boy would have been much higher." I wonder if Henry ever considered changing that rule. Probably not--although he was pretty close to an absolute monarch, it was probably understood that this applied only as long as he operated within a certain traditional framework.
well he had to break away with the Catholic Church and plunge his country into religious and political turmoil just to be able to divorce one of his wives; Kings were absolute monarchs but had to operate within the socio-cultural paradigms of the time. I kinda explain this in the 2nd part of the essay where I go into how the Church gaining power over the Middle Ages basically made it impossible for Kings to be polygamous
"If Henry VIII were allowed to have multiple concurrent wives, the chances that some of them would have had a healthy firstborn boy would have been much higher." I wonder if Henry ever considered changing that rule. Probably not--although he was pretty close to an absolute monarch, it was probably understood that this applied only as long as he operated within a certain traditional framework.
well he had to break away with the Catholic Church and plunge his country into religious and political turmoil just to be able to divorce one of his wives; Kings were absolute monarchs but had to operate within the socio-cultural paradigms of the time. I kinda explain this in the 2nd part of the essay where I go into how the Church gaining power over the Middle Ages basically made it impossible for Kings to be polygamous