What Sports Did King Henry Viii Play

King Henry VIII Background. King Henry VIII was a British royal from the Tudor family who serves as king from 1509 until 1547. He had six wives and was responsible for separating England from the. Henry VIII wanted to promote the image of a warrior king, so he engaged in a wide variety of sports, including jousting, horseback riding, hunting and martial sports like fencing, archery and even wrestling. He played most of his favourite sports at Hampton Court Palace. King Henry VIII Married Six Wives. Richard II also tried to outlaw the sport in 1389, as did Henry IV in 1401. Despite ordering the first known pair of football boots, Henry VIII of England attempted a ban in 1540. As with the other laws, this was only a partial success. What sport did King Henry VIII play? Henry VIII Background. Henry VIII was the King of England and a Tudor monarch who reined from 1509 until 1547. Henry was married six times and was in conflict.

Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived! Is that what comes to mind when you think of the famous Tudor King of England? I imagine that his chat up line should have gone something like this: “Don’t worry; I won’t keep you for long!”

On a more serious note, probably a lesser known side to this colourful character of history was his ability as a musician and a composer! Born in 1491, Henry received an excellent education from the leading tutors of the day. As was expected of children born of the nobility, Henry was to become proficient in many skills such as hunting, fencing, jousting, archery, hawking, wrestling, dancing, writing poetry, singing as well as learning to play several musical instruments.

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Henry developed a life-long love of listening to, performing and composing music. He built an extensive collection of musical instruments over the years including some 78 flutes, 76 recorders, 10 trombones, 14 trumpets, 5 bagpipes and many others! He was well respected as a competent musician and singer, doing much to actively encourage the very best musicians of the day to attend court. Many of the finest musicians and composers were attracted to this centre of musical culture with some coming from faraway European countries! During his reign, much experimentation in combining different musical instruments together in ensemble playing contributed greatly to the developing Renaissance era. At the height of this musical community, Henry had almost one hundred musicians and composers at his beck and call! They were highly organised, taking shifts to provide the King with an almost constant soundtrack to his day. From his waking moments, appropriate instruments would entertain his seemingly insatiable appetite for music.

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Perhaps rather shocking is King Henry the VIII’s requirement for musical accompaniment whilst he entertained the ladies in his bedchamber! That must have been a very awkward working environment for those unfortunate musicians! And who dared defy the King? Heads were known to roll…

Henry the Composer

Most fascinating is the King’s compositional output. He wrote a great deal of music although sadly some of which has been lost including many of his masses and ballads. A testament to his ability as a composer is the popularity with which some of his pieces enjoyed, spreading from his court, across the realm and into Europe. And not only in his lifetime. Some of his songs have passed through the generations and are still performed by early music ensembles today!

For many years, the belief was that King Henry the VIII wrote the popular folk song Greensleeves. Much speculation arose about the subject of the song possibly being Anne Boleyn but scholars have rejected this claim. It is now felt that this piece was written in an Italian style of composition which only arrived on English shores sometime after Henry’s death, therefore dating it as Elizabethan.Did He or Didn’t He?!?

Henry VIII Songbook

An extraordinary collection of his music is today kept at the British Library in London; the so-called Henry VIII’s Songbook. This book contains over 100 secular compositions by contemporary Tudor composers, 33 of which were written by the King himself. Beautifully notated and illuminated by one of his inner circle onto parchment, this manuscript gives us an amazing insight into the developing composer, taking us from his early works when he was as young as eleven through to his extremely mature and complex compositions as an adult.

What Sports Did King Henry Viii Player

A Number One Hit!

Contained in this collection is Henry’s greatest success, a song written in 1509 shortly after his coronation entitled “Pastime with Good Company.” So popular was this catchy tune with its raucous lyrics, that it “broke out” of his court and quickly spread through England becoming a national hit. People sung it in the streets and in the taverns and before long it travelled into Europe! It also endured the passage of time, being handed down orally to later generations; Henry’s daughter Queen Elizabeth I, herself an excellent keyboard player, said that this was her most favourite song. Take a listen! (You will need to open up this article on the MTH website to hear the recording below. If you can read music, click on the original manuscript above or the modern version below to enlarge and follow along!)

Recording of Pastime With Good Company, composed by Henry VIII, recorded by Christ Church Cathedral Choir Oxford

“Pastime with Good Company”

Bearing in mind that you are following a score written 500 years ago, it is an interesting comparison to the sheet music we musicians use today, acting as a milestone in the constantly evolving journey of notation practice. The first thing you might notice as missing is a time signature or bar-lines; those concepts came later! Just a vertical line to mark the end of each verse. However the notes are recognisably written on a five lined stave (staff) with the lyrics underneath. As you look closely, the same rhythmic values that we use today are discernible; semibreves (whole notes), minims (half notes), crotchets (quarter notes) and breves (double whole notes) at the end of the first and last phrase/line of each verse. Also, at the start of every line, is an early C clef. If you count up from the line in the middle of the clef you can work out that the first note is in fact B flat! (You will notice that a flat is neatly positioned as a key signature at the start of every line).

In conclusion, I’ve added the lyrics and a modern score to help you further in your studies. It is worth noting that the ‘9’ in the first line is an abbreviations for com as is also ‘c?’, in the 9th line.

In Tudor times sport was strictly controlled by the government. For example, only the upper classes were allowed to take part in tournaments. These involved two armoured knights separated by a four-foot-high wooden barrier. Each knight carried a lance and the objective was to knock your opponent off his horse as he galloped past.

Henry VIII was a skilled jouster. However, in 1536 he was seriously injured while jousting and was forced to retire from the sport. Henry also enjoyed playing tennis. In Tudor times tennis was played indoors and balls were made of leather shells filled with hair.

Henry was also a keen hunter. He often spent six hours a day hunting stags. Only nobles were allowed to hunt stags. Yeoman farmers could hunt foxes and everyone else hunted hares and rabbits.

It was important to the Tudor government that English people spent most of their time working. A law was passed in 1512 that banned ordinary people from a whole range of games including tennis, dice, cards, bowls and skittles.

In the early 1500s football became a popular sport in England. It was a very different game from the one played today. The two sets of goal posts were placed about a mile apart. There was no limit to the numbers that took part and players could kick, throw or pick up the ball in an attempt to put it between the opponent's goalposts.

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In 1531 the Puritan preacher, Thomas Eliot, argued that football caused 'beastly fury and extreme violence'. In 1572 the Bishop of Rochester demanded a new campaign to suppress this 'evil game'. In his book, Anatomy of Abuses (1583) Philip Stubbs argued that 'football playing and other devilish pastimes.. withdraweth us from godliness, either upon the Sabbath or any other day.' Stubbs was also concerned about the injuries that were taking place: 'sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes their legs, sometimes their arms, sometimes one part is thrust out of joint, sometimes the noses gush out with blood... Football encourages envy and hatred... sometimes fighting, murder and a great loss of blood.'

What Did Henry Viii Do

In 1540 people in England were banned from playing football. Two years later more games were banned including a new popular activity called shuffleboard (shove-halfpenny). However, there were some people who thought that football was good for the health of young men. Richard Mulcaster, the headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, wrote in 1581, that football had 'great helps, both to health and strength.' He added the game 'strengtheneth and brawneth the whole body, and by provoking superfluities downward, it dischargeth the head, and upper parts, it is good for the bowels, and to drive the stone and gravel from both the bladder and kidneys.'

The records show that young men refused to accept the banning of football. In 1589, Hugh Case and William Shurlock were fined 2s for playing football in St. Werburgh's cemetery during the vicar's sermon. Ten years later a group of men in a village in Essex were fined for playing football on a Sunday. Other prosecutions took place in Richmond, Bedford, Thirsk and Guisborough.

Local councils also banned the playing of football. However, young men continued to ignore local by-laws. In 1576 it was recorded in Ruislip that around a hundred people 'assembled themselves unlawfully and played a certain unlawful game, called football'. In Manchester in 1608 'a company of lewd and disordered persons... broke many men's windows' during an 'unlawful' game of football. It was such a major problem that in 1618 the local council appointed special 'football officers' to police these laws.

One pastime that all classes enjoyed in Tudor England was bear-baiting. Individual bears were chained to a post in a bear-ring. A group of dogs were then set on the bear. The dogs tried to kill the bear by biting its throat. A German visitor, Paul Hentzner, watched a blinded-bear forced to fight in London: 'The bear cannot escape from them because of the chain; he defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach... and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them.'

Henry VIII and Elizabeth both enjoyed watching bear-baiting. A ring was even built in the grounds of Whitehall so that the Tudor monarchs could watch bear-baiting from the windows of the palace. Queen Elizabeth went on her tours of England, towns put on large bear-baiting shows for her. When the House of Commons in 1585 voted to ban bear-baiting on Sunday, Elizabeth overruled them.

Elizabethans also enjoyed watching other cruel events, for example, bears-that had been blinded being whipped by five or six men. Another event involved donkeys and bulls being attacked by teams of fierce dogs.

People also paid to visit mental institutions like Bedlam Hospital in London, where they enjoyed watching the strange antics of the patients. Bedlam even hired out patients to appear as entertainers at weddings and banquets.