by
Damien F. Mackey
“As early as 1530 Saint
John Fisher began to preach that he was willing to die like Saint John the
Baptist in defense of the sacrament of matrimony. You’ll remember that John the
Baptist received martyrdom for protesting King Herod Antipas’ adulterous marriage
to Herodias.
Henry VIII was the new
Herod
Ann Boleyn was the new
Herodias
John Fisher was the new
John the Baptist”.
Introduction
Why is it
that the Tudors so frequently call to mind for scripturally-minded scholars,
and for historical enthusiasts, well-known biblical characters?
This is
especially the case with King Henry VIII, as partnered with Anne Boleyn.
The pair
have been considered in terms of:
Henry
VIII as Ahab, Anne Boleyn as Jezebel
(4) Henry VIII as
Ahab, Anne Boleyn as Jezebel
More
fruitful, though – and very much at the forefront of this present article –
will be the scriptural pairing of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn with,
respectively, Herod Antipas and his paramour, Herodias.
Less common
is the comparison of Henry VIII with King Hezekiah of Judah.
Hezekiah was
a great reforming king, a fact which no doubt calls to mind for some Henry’s
vital rôle in the English Reformation.
There is even
an uncanny ‘preview’, roughly 350 years earlier, of the illicit situation
involving Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, when King John divorces his spouse in
order to take as wife a young woman whose name rhymes almost perfectly with
Anne Boleyn, Isabella of Angoulême. As I wrote in my article:
Anne
Boleyn almost rhymes with Angoulême
(5) Anne Boleyn
almost rhymes with Angoulême
quoting Rebecca Starr
Brown:
“Henry
VIII was not the first monarch to divorce their spouse from the throne.
That
auspicious honor goes to none other than King John, who, upon ascending
the
throne in 1199, divorced his wife, Isabel of Gloucester, and married the young
Isabella of Angouleme. There are a few reasons why this divorce is of less
fame, though it was its own 13th century scandal at the time.
For one, this would be
John’s
only divorce and he stopped at two wives. …. Which brings us to
Isabella
of Angouleme, who had one notable characteristic in common with
Anne
Boleyn – they were both wildly detested by the public”.
Both Angoulême and Anne
Boleyn were known as “Jezebel”:
Isabella
of Angoulême – ‘more Jezebel than Isabel’
(5) Isabella of
Angoulême - 'more Jezebel than Isabel'
New Testament comparisons
Jesus, who
had warned his disciples regarding King Herod Antipas (Mark 8:15): “‘Be careful
…. Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod’,”
would also say of King Herod (Luke 13:32): ‘Go tell that fox that I will keep
on casting out demons and healing people today and tomorrow; and the third day
I will accomplish my purpose’.
‘… that fox
…’!
There was no
lack of foxes in the days of King Henry VIII.
There was:
“Edward
Foxe (c. 1496 – 8 May 1538) was an English churchman, Bishop
of Hereford.
He played a major role in Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine
of Aragon,
and he assisted in drafting the Ten Articles of 1536”.
There was:
Richard Fox,
called by King Henry (just like Herod Antipas), “a fox indeed”:
Richard Fox, Bishop of
Winchester (c.1448-1528) [Richard Foxe]
“The
accession of Henry VIII made no immediate
difference to Fox's position. If anything, the substitution of the careless
pleasure-loving youth for Henry VII increased the power of his ministry, the
personnel of which remained unaltered. The Venetian ambassador calls Fox "alter
rex" and the Spanish ambassador Carroz says that Henry VIII trusted him
more than any other adviser, although he also reports Henry's warning that the
bishop of Winchester was, as his name implied, "a fox indeed".”
The striking
parallels between King Herod, Herodias, and John the Baptist, on the one hand,
and Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and John Fisher, on the other, are well known, and
have often been commented upon.
I touched on these in e.g.
my article:
John
Fisher and John Baptist parallels
(7) John Fisher
and John Baptist parallels
Here is a sample of that:
I have already shown parallels between John the Baptist and Bishop John
Fisher, in:
Chewing over the House of Tudor
(4) Chewing over
the House of Tudor
which article I opened with the exclamation: “Talk about parallel
lives!”
And I have just found something similar here from Dr. Taylor Marshall,
Dean of Fisher More College in Fort Worth, Texas:
The Parallel between St
John Fisher and St John the Baptist - Taylor Marshall
Saint John Fisher
was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, England in 1469, the eldest son of Robert
Fisher, a modestly prosperous merchant of Beverley, and Agnes Fisher. He was
named after Saint John the Baptist.
He was the only
bishop in England who faithfully defended the Pope against the
adulterous tyranny of King Henry VIII. All the other English
bishops apostatized. John Fisher, even more valiantly than
Thomas More, defended the valid marriage of Henry to Catherine of Aragon and
vehemently opposed Henry VIII’s assumption of the title “Supreme Head” of the
English Church.
As early as 1530
Saint John Fisher began to preach that he was willing to die like Saint John
the Baptist in defense of the sacrament of matrimony. You’ll remember that John
the Baptist received martyrdom for protesting King Herod Antipas’ adulterous
marriage to Herodias.
Henry VIII was
the new Herod
Ann Boleyn was
the new Herodias
John Fisher was
the new John the Baptist
When John Fisher
was convicted of “treason” he was, of course, sentenced to death. Henry, as
Head of the Church” had already defrocked John Fisher and deposed him of his
bishopric. Pope Paul III responded by naming John Fisher as a cardinal of the
Catholic church.
This infuriated
Henry VIII who said that the Bishop of Rome did not need to send the cardinal’s
hat to Fisher – Henry would instead send the Fisher’s decapitated head to Rome!
Accounts say that
Fisher was sentenced to die on June 23 or 24. However, June 23 is the vigil of
St John the Baptist and the 24th is the feast of Saint John the Baptist.
Englishmen began to snicker at the irony. John Fisher truly was a new Saint
John the Baptist and would even share a feast day with him.
Henry VIII
panicked and had the sentence moved up to June 22 so that the parallel would
not be obvious. This is the day of Fisher’s glorious death for the sake of
Christ.
Saint John Fisher
is a saint of our time. He is the only cardinal who was also a martyr.
Moreover, he died defending the liberty of the Pope and the sanctity of Holy
Matrimony. What better saint for our time!
Saint John
Fisher, pray for us.
What makes all of this even more weird are the historical problems
associated with the House of Tudor (see above article) and with the regal
members of this House. ….
Saint Thomas More
Once again,
also, there is a ‘preview’, referring to what I wrote above: “There is even an
uncanny ‘preview’, roughly 350 years earlier, of the illicit situation
involving Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn …”. This time, though, I am talking about
the parallels between Thomas Becket and Thomas More, also roughly 350 years
apart:
Parallel Lives - Thomas Becket and Thomas More
(7) Parallel Lives - Thomas Becket and Thomas More
Suffice here to recall from this article what I
quoted Kristina Glicksman writing about:
Telling
them apart: Thomas Becket and Thomas More | Salt + Light Media (slmedia.org)
Telling them apart: Thomas Becket and
Thomas More
Kristina
Glicksman
Sunday, December 29, 2019
In our Catholic Christian tradition we’ve been blessed with many
role models for holiness in our saints. But sometimes it can be difficult to
keep them all straight.
In this series, “Telling
them apart,” I am presenting some side-by-side comparisons
in order to help us keep track of commonly confused saints.
Why is it that the memories of Mass which seem to stick most in our
minds are not powerful spiritual insights or moving homilies or beautiful
liturgical moments but the ones that are most human – the time your brother
made you laugh out loud or the altar server dropped the book or the lady
fainted during the Easter Vigil?
One of my most enduring memories is of a homily preached at a
weekday morning Mass on December 29th one year when I was home visiting my
parents for Christmas. The celebrant chose to educate us about the saint whose
feast we were commemorating that day: St. Thomas Becket.
As he began the story, which was fairly familiar to me, I was
surprised to hear details which I knew belonged to the life of St. Thomas More.
Apparently, my mother recognized them as well because she shook her head
through the entire homily, but unless he was telepathic, I’m not sure what the
poor priest was supposed to do with that.
It’s not just that he mistook one Thomas for the other, but he
moved so fluidly between the 12th century and the 16th, the archbishop and the
politician, that he created a kind of super saint with all the most memorable
details from the lives of each.
And as painful (in an empathetic way) as it was at the time and
amusing in hindsight, it is really not at all surprising.
They are two Thomases who were Chancellors of England and close
friends of kings named Henry who had enormous egos and vile tempers. Both were
embroiled in controversies which straddled the Church/state divide and put them
in opposition to their former friends who ordered their deaths. Who wouldn’t
get confused? ….
Kristina Glicksman’s awareness that, when hearing about Thomas Becket in
that homily she was picking up”, as she recalls, “details
which I knew belonged to the life of St. Thomas More”, is the very same
sensation that I had experienced when reading through Graham Hancock’s book, War
God. Night of Sorrows, supposedly all about Hernán Cortés, but reading like
Alexander the Great:
Alexander the Great and Hernán Cortés
(DOC) Alexander
the Great and Hernán Cortés | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Following on from all of this, I have written of
several striking likenesses that I have noticed between Thomas More and the
Apostle, James the Greater:
Apostle James Maior and Sir Thomas More
(7) Apostle James Maior and Sir Thomas More
Just what is going on
here?
Queen Ellizabeth I
Although she
does assume the rôle of Jesus when washing feet, Elizabeth has been so often
likened to earlier, great biblical figures that I have written this about her:
Queen
Elizabeth I like an Old Testament character
(7) Queen
Elizabeth I like an Old Testament character
The litany of Old Testament
persons who emerge below are only some of those to whom Elizabeth has been
likened, with Judith being at the forefront of all of these: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/rest.12258
Elizabeth I as Judith: reassessing the
apocryphal
widow’s appearance in Elizabethan royal
iconography
…. Historians and
literary scholars have long noted and analysed the appearance of biblical
analogies as part of Tudor and Stuart royal iconography. Using the example of a
biblical figure, monarchs demonstrated the divine precedent for their
decisions, and subjects in turn could counsel their monarch to emulate the
actions of a divinely favoured biblical figure.
Queen Elizabeth I of England was the subject
of the greatest number of biblical analogies drawn in the early modern period:
analogies were drawn both by apologists and by Elizabeth herself throughout the
entire span of the queen’s reign, and for almost a century after her death.
….
Elizabeth’s comparisons with Deborah the
Judge, Queen Esther, Daniel the Prophet, King Solomon, and King David have all
received varying levels of attention in the existing scholarship: but the
analogy to Judith, the chaste widow of the Apocrypha, has generally escaped
detailed analysis. …. Judith was invoked in various ways throughout Elizabeth’s
reign, and the diverse analogies reflect the changing religio-political climate
of the time.
This article offers a re-examination of the
comparisons drawn between Elizabeth and Judith during the queen’s life. In
doing so, I argue that contrary to claims in some of the existing scholarship,
Judith was routinely and consistently offered to Elizabeth as biblical
precedent for dealing with Roman Catholics – with violence, not just diplomatic
rhetoric – and for the providential sanctioning of female rule; and that
Elizabeth, in drawing the parallel to Judith herself, inserted her own voice
into these debates. ….
Judith’s story can be found in the eponymous
book of the Apocrypha. A prophecy was brought, foretelling that Bethulia,
Judith’s city, would be lost to the invading Assyrians because of the Jews’
disobedience. Judith attempted to prevent this happening, and prayed to God
that he would give her a ‘sworde to take vengeance of the [invading]
strangers’. …. She and her handmaiden allowed themselves to be captured by the
Assyrians, claiming that they had deserted. The Assyrians took her to
Holofernes, the General of the Army.
Judith lied to Holofernes that God had
forsaken the Jews because they ate his offerings before the requisite time had
past, and that he would not defend them until the sacrifices were re-offered,
which would take many days to organize. Holofernes was pleased with this news,
and allowed Judith to stay in the camp. On the fourth night at the camp, after
a banquet, Holofernes passed out, drunk. His servants left the tent, and Judith
remained inside, alone. She picked up Holofernes’ sword, grasped his hair, prayed,
‘Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day,’ and then ‘shee smote twise
upon his necke with all her might, and she took away his head from him.’ …. She
stowed the head in her handmaiden’s bag, and the two left the camp. She
returned to Bethulia, and showed the head, saying, ‘Beholde the head of
Holofernes the chiefe captaine of the army of Assur .
. . the Lord hath smitten him by the hand of a
woman.’ …. Without their general, the Assyrian army fell into disarray, and the
attack was abandoned.
….
While I do not argue that Elizabeth was the
first English monarch to be paralleled with Judith … the examples assembled
here demonstrate that Elizabeth was both the first monarch to be compared to
Judith in a sustained and systematic way for religio-political purposes, and
also the first monarch to affirm the analogy in her own words. The importance
of these two facts is often sidelined in the scholarship that does discuss the
Judith analogy. Helen Hackett’s study of Elizabeth and the cult of the Virgin
Mary is excellent, but dismisses Judith’s longevity by claiming, ‘biblical
heroines like Deborah and Judith dominated early Elizabethan royal
iconography.’ ….
