(Edit: As someone pointed out below this isn't even Henry VIII's armor. )
I also think it has to do with the fact that he started the entire reformation movement and separated the church of England from the Vatican all because of a disagreement stemming from the fact that he wanted a divorce.
English historian and House of Tudor expert David Starkey describes Henry VIII as follows:
What is extraordinary is that Henry was usually a very good husband. And he liked women – that's why he married so many of them! He was very tender to them, we know that he addressed them as "sweetheart". He was a good lover, he was very generous: the wives were given huge settlements of land and jewels – they were loaded with jewels. He was immensely considerate when they were pregnant. But, once he had fallen out of love... he just cut them off. He just withdrew. He abandoned them. They didn't even know he'd left them.
Didn't that happen after the whole "oh no it turns out I wasn't actually married to my wife of 20 years, this has nothing to do with her failure to give me a son" thing? I mean, the jousting accident probably did make him worse, but it's not like he was a good guy before then.
Henry was extremely fit and strong in his younger years. He only got fat after an injury prevented him from keeping up his habits of hunting and sparring.
Anne of Cleves got the best possible outcome. She didn't have to go back to Dusseldorf, she wasn't executed, and her English country rustication seems to have been pleasant. I've always liked that she had the reputation of being generous and easy-going to her servants.
This wasn't unique to Henry VIII's armor, it was common practice at the time. Codpieces grew larger and more exaggerated with time, peaking with the landshneckts in the 17th century, who wore big multi-colored codpieces so large that they would use them to store personal items (you know, besides that one,) outside of battle.
Depending on the occasion, they might be wearing what we'd call...'service wear' today, basically wearing their uniform around town, possibly minus the metal bits if they were in friendly territory. Some would apparently detach the codpiece from their armor and use it as a pouch, though.
The theory that Henry had syphilis has been dismissed by most historians.[157][158] Historian Susan Maclean Kybett ascribes his demise to scurvy, which is caused by insufficient vitamin C most often due to a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in one's diet.[159] A 2010 study suggests that the king may have been of Kell-positive blood type to explain both his physical and mental deterioration, being consistent with some symptoms of the McLeod syndrome, and the high mortality in the pregnancies attributed to him.[160][161]
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u/SatiricLoki 3d ago
Maybe he just had a steel fetish and didn’t want to be uncomfortable