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Henry VIII's wills: a comment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. A. Houlbrooke
R. A. Houlbrooke
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Abstract

Professor Ives has demonstrated the weakness of some of the grounds for thinking that Henry VIII's will was tampered with after 30 December 1546. But he has not mentioned Paget's later testimony suggesting that the ‘unfulfilled gifts clause’ was inserted in the will after 12 January 1547. Even if it was part of the will by 30 December, the gifts implemented by its authority resulted from later skilful and ruthless manipulation of the king. Henry's ‘unwritten will’ greatly strengthened Edward Seymour and his allies and gave William Paget, who was largely responsible for its final shape, the means of buying off potential objectors to Seymour's elevation to the protectorship.

Type
Debate
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 891 - 899
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Ives, E. W., ‘Henry VIII's will – a forensic conundrum’, Historical Journal, XXXV, 4 (1992), 779–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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18 Ibid. pp. 16–19.

19 Miller, , ‘Henry VIII's unwritten will’, p. 91Google Scholar, discussing draft list of grants in Public Record Office, SP 10/1/11.

20 Ives, , ‘Henry VIII's will’, p. 802Google Scholar, perhaps makes these promotions seem more deliberate and carefully planned than they really were.

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