BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 08:19 AM

Didn't they recently have another look at the bones of Richard 111, and find that he had scoliosis, but also that his right arm was deformed due to what they concluded was drawing bows from an early age?

What would you say, Raedwulf, would be the draw of a light hunting bow?
My husband's tribe, the Senofo, were hunters for centuries, using bows, and would be lightly-built men (speedy but not meaty!) Their prey would have been small antelope etc. Their bows were quite small.

My husband had never even seen a bow, but he recently tried one at the Norfolk Show (a composite longbow-type thing) and scored three bulls eyes one after the other. The chap was amazed and fetched his own bow for him to try. Same thing - perfect aim, although he found both bows heavy to draw.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 08:26 AM

Sorry, that should say 'Senoufo' if one is speaking French, or 'Senufo' which is the original term!

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Raedwulf
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 10:04 AM

Aha! I've often wondered why you are Senoufou. All is now revealed!! Ooo-err, missus... ;-)

Draw weight is a matter of what can you pull & what does the job you want. For a warbow, you have to have a heavy draw - you want to throw a heavy arrow out to the greatest possible distance. The most common form of modern archery is target (known in medieval times as 'shooting at the pricks' - amuse yourselves, as I'm sure you will... ;-) ), but there is a form known as clout. There is a short, stout stick stuck in the ground with concentric circles around it. Effectively, it's an archery butt laid flat, but rather larger. It's generally shot in the UK at 180y for men. It's the equivalent of 'war archery' - trying to drop a cloud of arrows on a particular body of enemy. For that, you need a powerful bow. I know that my 50lb ash with POC (Port Orford Cedar) arrows won't reach.

Which brings me onto technicalities... Sorry, but oi bin arsked, moi dears! Boasting that you can draw x lbs is fun, but it's boasting. From a purely pragmatic p-o-v, what matters is how efficient your bow is i.e. how much of your drawing power is actually transmitted to the arrow. If you are drawing 100lb but only at 20% efficiency, the archer who is drawing 'only' 50lbs, but at 60% efficiency will be laughing at you... Draw weight is also defined by distance. A modern laminated recurve will typically draw something in the order of 32-34lbs @ 30" draw i.e. the distance between your hands when at full draw. Draw less, you generate less power, draw more... Draw too much, you will damage or break the bow! But modern materials are more efficient - more of that 34lbs is transmitted to the arrow than...

Wooden bows, composite bows, oh my, here's a hornets' nest! What materials, what bow shape? Yew is the most efficient single piece of bow stave (when I say single piece, it comprises both heart & sap wood) you can get. Hence the English yew longbow (though we imported the stave wood; in fact there were laws - if you exported x bales of wool, you had to import so many raw staves). But a recurved bow i.e. one that, unstrung, looks like the proverbial RAF moustache, is more efficient than a straight stave. And then there's material & lamination. That different woods have different efficiencies, I have already implied - yew first, ash second, after that, I don't recall. Composite bows are made up of different materials. Typically, they include horn on the belly (nearest you), wood, and sinew on the back (away from you). And typically composites have been created by wood-poor cultures to improve performance i.e. efficiency. Which is also where recurving comes from.

Technically, a composite bow is a laminated bow. In the modern world, a laminate bow, as applied to longbows (all modern recurves are laminates), means a sandwich of different woods. Victorian-style longbows are laminated, medieval ones are not. Again this improves the efficiency - how much power is transmitted to the arrow. And then there are compound bows (sorry you asked yet? ;-) ), which are the ridiculously short things that have elliptical wheels at each end. Again, this increases the power on the arrow. I have a friend who is keen on them. He makes rude remarks about longbows; I reply with "Bent stick & a piece of string - proper archery; whyn't you just buy a rifle?!"

Short answer to the hunting question. What are you hunting? Deer are large targets that can be shot from a distance; rabbits & pheasants you have to get close to. Small prey you shoot with blunts (kill by concussion; sharps would mostly perforate the guts & spoil the carcass); large prey you would use a sharp on (not a modern bullet point, a broadhead; a bullet won't kill, it will only injure). So how close do you need to get to reliably kill? That's your guide.

Shooting from 100y is easy; hitting, let alone killing, is not. How well can you stalk? If you can get to 10y (unlikely, whatever the prey) hitting is easy & you won't need much power, regardless of your bow's efficiency. Loosing from 50y... You want the arrow to fly as flat as possible (makes aiming easier), and as fast as possible (so the prey doesn't have a chance to react / evade).

Sorry, but you did ask! ;-) Now, I do wonder, please make hubby read this. I wonder how much of this resonates with the knowledge he has from his tribal upbringing?

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 01:17 PM

Goodness Raedwulf, thank you for that excellent explanation! Very informative and interesting!

The prey would have been small rodents (northern Cote d'Ivoire and southern Mali are essentially savannah-type terrains) and small antelope/deer. They would probably have stalked the creatures then fired arrows into them and followed them until they dropped dead (the animals, not the men!)

The tools would have been fashioned from wood (I think there were more trees around then) and possibly hide strips for the bowstring.

In the ancestral village (Nafamadougou) where his grandfather still lives, life is very traditional, but sadly they no longer hunt. My husband was born in the sprawling city of Abidjan yet he seemed to have the skills of bowmanship in his blood! He just kept firing arrows at the bullseye at the Norfolk Show (and also at our village fete last year, where he did the same thing) I was amazed.

In Aylsham (not far from us) there is a long narrow car park called The Butts, where bow practice used to take place regularly among the young men.
When he gets in I'll translate your lovely post to my husband and ask him if he knows any more stuff about it. (But The Match will be occupying his attention for a bit!)

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 01:56 PM

I'm going senile. His grandfather's been dead for donkey's years! I meant to say his grandfather's descendants (many cousins-several-times -removed)
Funnily enough, he is absolutely fascinated by Henry VIII, and knows more about him than I do!

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Raedwulf
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 03:29 PM

Lol. I look forward to his response, especially if he has any memories of his rural relations. From the sound of it (and this is about what I would expect), the bows would be relatively light. Drawing a bow uses some very specific muscles, mostly in the shoulders (if your arms get tired first, your technique is poor!). If you are living an agrarian sort of life, you will have a lot of general fitness & strength. A 50lb draw should present no problems at all to such an individual; guessing a bit, only at the 75-80lb range would I expect that type to begin to struggle. And I'm presuming that hunting is an occasional, rather than frequent, occupation. The Liangulu of Kenya were known for hunting elephant with 100-130 lb bows (& poisoned arrowheads!). But those that did so were, as far as I can tell, 'professional' hunters, so in constant practice.

As for hubby's accuracy, I'm guessing that his shooting has been at short range. '6 arrows for a quid' type of things typically shoot at 10-20 yds. There isn't space for longer ranges & the organisers like you to think you're surprisingly good so you have another go... ;-) Which is not to say that hubby's performance isn't very good for a novice archer, but a lot depends on the size of the target face & the range. The 'have a go for a quid' things typically use full size faces - 122cm that covers almost all the boss - at the above very short range. Grouping your arrows is the entire 'purpose' of archery; if you can group them in the gold, so much the better. But if you can group them anywhere... You only have to shift your point of aim a bit!

If he is fit & has reasonable hand / eye co-ordination, hubby ought to be a decent shot at short range. Grouping everything within the red at 60y... With a longbow & wooden arrers? Now there, you're a damn good shot! I could do it only occasionally, and I used to be a good shot. Just not damn good!

P.S. The bowstrings would not be leather. Leather stretches. Surprisingly, perhaps, the last thing you want your bowstring to do is stretch. The bowstring is the one inflexible part of the bow - the power comes from the bow, not the string!

P.P.S. Thing is, bows and arrows aren't simple. Their design takes into account the local environment, materials available, and intended use, and a lot of clever bowyers have independently come up with similar solutions for thousands of years. I found that looking for something about the Liangulu. It's an excellent summation of archery in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 06:08 PM

One thing which I think hasn't been mentioned that much is the effect of Henry's excommunication after the break with Rome.

This meant that the catholic monarchs of Europe were duty bound to try to depose the heretic King of England, and fear of invasion was ever present throughout the 1530s and 1540s.

Only the rivalry between France and the Holy Roman Empire prevented this happening effectively.

This gave Henry two choices - either stress your orthodoxy - I'm still a catholic but have just taken over the control of our religious affairs - (a bit like Brexit?) or make an alliance with the protestant powers in Europe - this was the policy favoured by Cromwell and led to the ill fated Anne of Cleves marriage.

After the execution of Cromwell Henry vacillated between these two policies depending on which faction at court held sway.

It also led to the bizarre situation where he burned three protestant "heretics" and hanged three catholic "traitors" on the same day

Firm but fair?

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 08:46 PM

...And provided much motivation for a move to the Colonies!

Great to see this thread back in action. So interested in the sidetrips to discuss the then state-of-the-art considerations to longbow technology. In fact, if they had the ability to print 'Bow & Arrow' as a magazine the way we have 'Guns & Ammo' we'd have articles like: "Affairs of the heart(wood)", "foreign-made arrows- hidden knots?", "Northern Yew versus Southern Yew: Our testers compare at the Faire", "What to do when your goodwife stores your spare wood below ground...", "Which will improve your aim, a dogwatch of practice, a talisman, a spell or a hex (we explain the difference)"

Meanwhile, I've watched the three part mini-series "Gunpowder" which I found just watchable and mostly dramatized non-historical events, though the depictions of drawing and quartering and pressing were memorable. And I watched a marvelous documentary called "The Book That Changed the World" which I found quite informative. In much less time than "Gunpowder" it provided vastly more background about King James, his education, reign, and significance. He is a huge counterpoint to Henry VIII. We should know more about him.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 18 - 01:42 AM

its safe to come back now

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: KarenH
Date: 12 Jul 18 - 06:54 AM

Nobody mentioned John Wycliffe and the Lollards. This predates Luther. Henry VIII would have known about this, surely?

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: DaveRo
Date: 12 Jul 18 - 10:52 AM

I wrote early in this thread: "David Starkey certainly knows a lot about Henry VIII...". I didn't know then that he wrote a biography of Henry in 2009 entitled "Henry: Model of a Tyrant": Currently available in hardback for £454, but quite reasonable as an e-book (link to Amazon).

'Tyrant' is an interesting word. I recall that last year BBC Radio broadcast Oedipus the King in a translation by Anthony Burgess. An accompanying talk discussed how Sophocles play Oedipus Tyrannus - Oedipus the Tyrant - had become Oedipus Rex - Oedipus the King - in Latin. (Fortunate for Tom Lehrer that it did.)

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Jul 18 - 01:15 PM

Wasn't Charles I put on trial for tyranny?
And wasn't his defense without all the fancy words: "Yeah, DUH! What's your point?"

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: DaveRo
Date: 12 Jul 18 - 03:27 PM

Wasn't Charles I put on trial for tyranny?

He was charged with ...a wicked design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power...
Mind you, there was little he wasn't charged with.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Raedwulf
Date: 14 Jul 18 - 04:34 AM

"Northern Yew versus Southern Yew: Our testers compare at the Faire"

Funny you should mention that. Further to my point above, I found this - The best yew in the middle ages came from Spain and Italy, where it is grown at high altitude resulting in slow growth which ensures that the wood has a close grain which gives an extra spring to the wood. At that time barrels of wine imported in England had to be accompanied by a tax of yew staves. What I was looking for was some info on the tariff. I'm less than certain that the foregoing is entirely correct. There may well have been an import tariff on wine as well, but I'm sure there was one connected with wool export. There is also this, which has a slightly different view of the matter (and is unspecific on the tariff). I suspect that the "right" answer has a target area about that of a clout target! ;-)

P.S. In the UK at least, there were at least two national archery magazines 15 years ago (whether either still survive into the digital publishing age, I don't know). I'd be astonished if there weren't US equivalents...

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Raedwulf
Date: 14 Jul 18 - 04:49 AM

Further investigation produces this. And there's also "Bonus fact: This quirk of yew trees made them highly desirable for making bows in ancient times. The light coloured sap wood has great tension qualities so it's used for the outside face of the bow, allowing it to flex. The heartwood has great compression qualities, used for the inside face, it can store up a lot of energy. The demand for yew was so high that they chopped down most of the trees in Europe at the time. Only ones on consecrated ground, protected by the church, managed to survive the genocide. The supply got so low the king of England brought in rules that said if you were bringing anything to a port by ship, there was a tariff of a certain quantity of yew bow staves (which are the strips of wood which are hewn down to make the bow). Luckily the invention of the rifle was right around the corner. Lucky for the yew tree that is." That chimes with my memory, but again is non-specific about the tariff. My memory says there was, at one time, a link with wool (we used to export a lot to the Low Countries), but I can't find any evidence, so my memory may be playing me false!

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Jul 18 - 03:42 PM

"When they killed that nauga I sat down and cried!"

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: KarenH
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 02:19 PM

I have just found out that there appears to be a Child Ballad (no 170) about the death of one of Henry's wives, Jane Seymour and the birth of his first and only male heir, Edward. And this seems to be the thread on which to mention it.


And googling suggests that there are political ramifications to this song in terms of it being about a possible/alleged caesarian delivery, on which topic, it would appear, Catholics and (some) protestants disagree. But as far as I can find out, there is no evidence of an actual Caesarian and she survived the birth by 12 days, which I'm thinking would be unlikely after a Caesarian in those days.


Why, I wonder did Child decide to include this particular ballad?

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 03:35 PM

That's fascinating Karen. I shouldn't imagine that anyone could have survived a Caesarian section in those days. And it is indeed a strange topic for a ballad.
I see there are also versions of this in the Scots vernacular (Queen Jane is called 'Jeannie')
Even after all that, the poor lad (Edward VI) died at the age of fifteen from tuberculosis.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 04:04 PM

There's a lovely version of The Death Of Queen Jane by the Bothy Band. The tune to that version was composed by Daithi Sproule (excuse missing accents).

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 04:44 PM

After Joan Baez recorded a version - it was pretty standard stuff in 60's folk clubs.   Theres a version of it in the Inside Llewyn Davis film.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Gutcher
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 04:50 PM

In the Laird O Roslins Dochter {Captain Wedderburn} one of the riddles:-

{Q}   "A------------, a priest unborn"

{A}    "A wild boar ripped his mithers side
             He oot o it did faa"

It does not tell if the mother survived.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 05:02 PM

Steve you are never brighter than when you decry the 11th and 12th Pious Popes as the Jew killing fascist cowards that they were.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 05:30 PM

Well yes, but what has that got to do with the sad demise of Queen Jane?

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 09:52 PM

What does queen jane victimized by Dudley's ambition have to do with the holocaust and cowardly fascist sympathizers ?
Succession is played for keeps even if its only 9 days.
The 1941 questions are not that murky to Rabbis.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 18 - 12:05 PM

Different Queen Jane.

Lady Jane Grey was the one that they tried to get on the throne after Henry kicked the bucket in place of Bloody Mary - Henry's eldest kid.

Poor Lady Jane was executed after a reign of nine days. She was little more than a child.

The Queen Jane of the song who died after giving birth to Henry's male heir, Edward was Jane Semyour - Henry's third wife

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jul 18 - 04:30 PM

The 9 day queen Jane was only 16 and was totally set up.


Big Al how is your rapid fire Uke going?

My cello Uke is getting worthy of recording.

Subject: RE: BS: Henry VIII - The Mind of a Tyrant
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Jul 18 - 08:50 AM

not great - its a bit losing weight - you need to be single minded. as you get older. you try and cram it all in before the last knockings - but you've got less energy, and lets face it - theres no real motivation. its not going to be life changing whatever you do.

cos your life is largely over.