I've just been watching a BBC 4-part documentary on Henry VIII by a fellow named Starkey: "Inside the Mind of a Tyrant" I was taken aback by the title- I knew Henry was a tough guy, but I'd always had an admiration for him for his achievements. This documentary had many fascinating bits of news for me, such as:

1) There is an incredible amount of contemporary documentation on Henry and pretty much everyone else of the time because there were detailed records kept of decrees by English courtiers and Henry himself.
2) There is an incredible amount of contemporary documentation on the English court taken down by European 'spies' who sent detailed coded dispatches back to their governments which are still available.
3) Henry not only took England Protestant but had a great deal of personal involvement in the new theological paradigm. He launched it because of his problems getting a divorce from Catherine, but also because Anne Boleyn was very much in favor of the new direction, and after her demise it turned out there were many others at least as radical as she.
4) Henry instituted the new religion, currently known as "Church of England" with a lot of blood and terror. The documentary did not go into numbers, but made it clear that Henry had people killed throughout England, making sure to include both Roman Catholics and too-radical Protestants. By making himself head of the Church, Henry was taking charge of his subjects' souls as well as their bodies.
5) One of the things I found most moving were cases where some of the important condemned people sent personal letters to Henry begging him for an execution that was merely 'death' as opposed to more exotic punishments for treason such as drawing and quartering.

The above does not change my opinion of Henry, but fleshes out what power really meant in the Europe of the past, and what it means in many parts of the world today. Henry was of course a ruler and person of his time, and he exercised his power in aid of definite goals.

Have any of you seen this documentary and formed opinions of it. Are we living in the world created by Henry VIII?