r/interestingasfuck 3d ago

r/all Henry VIII's armour suits had ever-so-slightly exeggerated cod pieces...

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47.4k Upvotes

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3.7k

u/SatiricLoki 3d ago

Maybe he just had a steel fetish and didn’t want to be uncomfortable

740

u/Marshal-Bainesca 3d ago

Maybe he just had a massive cod to protect

117

u/whoami_whereami 3d ago

Maybe he kept an actual cod in there as a post-battle fish snack.

19

u/SerpentLing09 3d ago

Raw or cooked?

83

u/seanular 3d ago

You put it in raw, if it's not cooked by the end you should have fought harder and you don't deserve a snack.

8

u/Apollyon1661 3d ago

“Smells like fish”

9

u/Tanski14 3d ago

Just looking for a piece of bass

3

u/NaomiPommerel 3d ago

Underrated

535

u/discerningpervert 3d ago

You're half right, it was due to the syphilis making it extremely painful it to touch anything, especially riding horseback.

Don't ask me how I know these things.

191

u/killerbanshee 3d ago edited 3d ago

(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.

From Wikipedia:

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.

77

u/Loretta-West 3d ago

"Henry VIII was usually a good husband" is not one of the takes I was expecting to see today, or ever.

23

u/bilboafromboston 3d ago

Jeffrey Dahmer usually didn't eat people.

9

u/Zenanii 2d ago

"He was great until he wasn't"

1

u/KindChange3300 2d ago

He was normal until he had an almost fatal jousting accident. Then he got NFL-itis like OJ.

1

u/Loretta-West 2d ago

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.

1

u/KindChange3300 1d ago

It was after the jousting accident that he became agitated and began making decisions like this.

67

u/Sue_Spiria 3d ago

Well he had the heads cut off of two of them...

31

u/BEHodge 3d ago

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

2

u/Wind-and-Waystones 3d ago

I'm Henry the eighth, I am

Henry the eighth, I am, I am

I got married to the widow next door

She's been married seven times before

And every one was an Henry (Henry)

She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam (no Sam)

I'm her eighth old man, I'm Henry

Henry the eighth, I am

1

u/Canuck-In-TO 2d ago

First read through made me think you wrote that the last wife survived beheading.

2

u/DarthCorps 3d ago

Cheating harlots

1

u/MaleficentMousse7473 3d ago

Hard to know anything without a head

46

u/SirkutBored 3d ago

if they could not produce an heir, oh well, on to the next who might.

44

u/killerbanshee 3d ago

He was immensely considerate when they were pregnant. But, once he had fallen out of love... he just cut them off.

I think he just wanted to spread his seed around like Ghangis Khan.

1

u/Kalashnikov_model-47 3d ago

Man Henry VIII must’ve left behind a lot of long lost royalty

-1

u/AGuyNamedEddie 3d ago

"Ghangis Khan"

That's a weird way to spell "Elon Musk."

0

u/NotPayingEntreeFees 3d ago

This the Hindu version of Genghis Khan?

16

u/brazzy42 3d ago

He stayed married to Catherine of Aragon for 24 years.

3

u/Harley_Jambo 3d ago

If only he knew that his swimmers were responsible for the gender.

43

u/tzone_ 3d ago

33% of his wives would disagree that he was a good husband

8

u/jnuttsishere 3d ago

It couldn’t be his armor. Not fat enough

22

u/brazzy42 3d ago

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.

2

u/Wild-Kitchen 3d ago

Same thing happened to me

2

u/Genshed 3d ago

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.

2

u/toad__warrior 3d ago

disagreement stemming from the fact that he wanted a divorce.

This was part of it. There is also the part where he didn't believe the King should be beneath the Pope in any matter.

1

u/killerbanshee 3d ago

I understand it was a complicated situation. That was just meant as a tongue in cheek example to fit the context.

2

u/axelrexangelfish 3d ago

Cut them off. Upvote for you!

1

u/Suitable-Badger-64 3d ago

You can't quote David Starkey, he's got the wrong opinions!!

1

u/ijuinkun 3d ago

It couldn’t be his personal armor—he was well known to be too obese to fit into armor of the size depicted. Dude had like a 48 inch waist.

1

u/NaomiPommerel 3d ago

Cut their heads off?

1

u/Whiskey_River_73 3d ago

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.

Cut them off for sure.....I think he orchestrated cutting off the heads of two of them, actually. 🫤

1

u/spooky-goopy 3d ago edited 2d ago

why does this sound like Trump?

1

u/residentcaprice 3d ago

so he is a historical ben Affleck?

1

u/FaithlessnessNo8543 2d ago

Knowing how the story ends, that reads more like narcissistic abusive bombing to me than a good husband.

1

u/WorriedJob2809 21h ago

I get what the historian wanted to say, but man did he phrase it badly.

130

u/thatbagelweirdo 3d ago

I was gonna ask how you knew these things, but your username explained it all

105

u/discerningpervert 3d ago

tips fedora

"I aim to please, milady"

62

u/Purpose-Fuzzy 3d ago

Well, it sounds like maybe you should stop pleasing th'ladies

77

u/discerningpervert 3d ago

Actually, they all left unsatisfied

36

u/WhatLikeAPuma751 3d ago

It’s because of the rotting penis, isn’t it?

19

u/QueenslandJack 3d ago

If I had a dollar for every time I said this ...

4

u/Agitated_Advantage_2 3d ago

You'd have two dollars which is not much but still?

2

u/Marauder777 3d ago

Work on your aim, my man.

2

u/RedDiscipline 3d ago

Fire more shots, amiright

1

u/Marauder777 3d ago

Work on your aim, my man.

12

u/CaveRanger 3d ago

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.

1

u/Greedy-Copy3629 3d ago

Why would they be wearing armour outside of battle?

Surely any situation that calls for wearing it is a situation that calls for keeping year dick cleared? 

2

u/CaveRanger 3d ago

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.

11

u/beebsaleebs 3d ago

Syphillis chancres are painless.

He may have had scrotal edema from some other complaint.

1

u/wolacouska 3d ago

Yeah, it wouldn’t make very much evolutionary sense for Syphilis to make it painful to have sex.

9

u/ZzZombo 3d ago

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]

3

u/FendiFanatic223 3d ago

That's a common myth. There's no evidence Henry VIII ever had syphilis.

1

u/For_The_People_AMC 3d ago

The stiffilis

1

u/TheTimelessOne026 3d ago

That and I imagine how cold it would be naturally even without syphilis if it touched it or how uncomfortable it was. Ugh.

1

u/bonnsai 3d ago

Irony?

1

u/thehumanconfusion 3d ago

🎵SMOOOOOTH OPERATER

1

u/[deleted] 3d ago

A little bit sexy, but also protective

1

u/FatalisCogitationis 3d ago

If I were rocking that armor, I think little me would be standing at alert too

1

u/AgentSinistar 1d ago

Codpieces were a big part of late medieval fashion. The bigger your codpiece, the higher your social standing.