The participants
get 10 points deducted from their total score for a wrong answer such as
"Henry VIII had 6 wives".
In my day, you only got demerit points when you said Henry VIII had *8* wives (Henery the 8th I am, I am... <g> Remeber the song?); 6 was the correct -- and acceptable -- answer... It *still is*, IMO.
In fact he probably only had about 3 'wives' - the only reason I can remember for one not being a wife was because Henry married his brother's wife which was not allowed so they weren't legally married.
That was Catherine of Aragon, and they had the Catholic Church's dispensation (supposedly, her marriage to Arthur had never been consumated, therefore wasn't legal; thus opening the path for her -- *legal* -- marriage to Henry... when you're a head of state, a lot more "options" are available to you than there would be if you were a "Joe Schmoe" <g>)
And I *bet* the second "illegal" marriage was to Anne Boleyn; the marriage with Catherine had never been "properly" dissolved (by death, anullment, or Church-approved divorce)... Catherine was still alive when Henry married Anne, which would have made *that* marriage null and void. *From the point of viev of the Catholic Church*. Which England was *not* following by then...
I expect the 3rd "non-wife" was Anne of Cleves? He shed *her*, also, via a divorce (which, again, "wouldn't count", in Catholic Church, without a permission from the same) and married the next one (Howard?) before Anne died.
But the first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) was *legal* (with excuses <g>) in the eyes of the Catholic Church. And, by the time he divorced her, England was no longer Catholic; it was Protestant, with Henry as the head of *both* the state and the church. So, from the point of view of the "new! improved!" England (and its Church), both divorces were legal (he granted them to himself <g>), as were the subsequent marriages.
The arguments for only 3 of the wives being legitimate are *specious*, without any substance to bolster them. They apply different "rules" to different situations "as suits"; in the first case, they *ignore* the Catholic Church's ruling (even though it had been *the* Church at the time); in the second two, they *apply* it (even though it had been anathema *at the time*) ... Bending the facts in such a way has been commonplace both then and now (when you can get away with it <g>), but it makes the final "verdict" neither "right", nor *true* (read Orwell <g>)
In my -- never humble -- opinion...
Re fireworks (in Poole and elsewhere) that Jean's mentioned in another message... I have *just* realised that we (in US) vote them in on Nov 4, and y'all (in UK) blow them up the next day... *Not* a bad solution, all things considered... :)
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Tamara P Duvall
Lexington, Virginia, USA
Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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