ENGLISH LIT PART TWO

Digital Image by S. Auberle

Moving along in English history, I've since fallen in love with the YOUNG Henry VIII. I know, he was a tyrant, a womanizer, a really bad guy in many ways. But he was once young and incredibly handsome, from what I've read--a shining, golden, prince of men. It really isn't fair to focus only on his later years, when he went so astray and became the horribly fat, repulsive looking man we see in all those pictures. Wherever he is now, I've no doubt he cringes everytime he sees one of those fat pictures and mutters, damn, couldn't they find a better picture than THIS?

I adored the BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. If you have any interest in this period, this is the piece to see--in six parts.

It is suspected that Henry was the mysterious author of that beautiful song--Greensleeves. Written, perhaps, to a young Anne Boleyn. However, there is also the Kingston Trio song about Anne:

With her head tucked

underneath her arm

she walks the bloody towers,

with her head tucked

underneath her arm

at the midnight hour...

It's doubtful Henry wrote that.

I once firmly believed in reincarnation. I've not completely given up on the idea, but with aging, though I would like to believe it even more, the doubts creep in. It may be, however, that given my passionate love of this time and place, perhaps I was Anne Boleyn. Not because I fancy myself a queen, but because still, after all these years, I'm not even CLOSE to getting my head on straight...