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The Six Beards of Henry VIII
By J. R. Salling
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While leafing through records of the Company of Barbers on another fun-filled
evening at my house, I stumbled upon an unusual ordinance issued by the City of
London in 1531, which denied the liberties and freedom to those with beards
longer than the King's. The discovery sheds light upon an ill-understood aspect
of the much studied realm of Henry VIII, the role of facial hair in fomenting
revolution.
For reasons that remain obscure, Henry grew no beard at all during his infancy
and early childhood. His grooming habits would change in a dramatic fashion,
however, upon the unexpected death of Arthur, his elder brother, the presumptive
heir to the throne. Henry, who desired to set a good Catholic example for the
kingdom, allowed his whiskers to emerge, unhindered by razor or errant joust.
Indeed, early in his reign, he saw eye to eye on matters of hair style with Pope
Leo X, both openly critical of the choir-boy look then espoused by Martin
Luther.
To the vexation of subsequent popes, once Henry noticed how Protestant-style
beards appealed to the young ladies at court, being a randy monarch, his hirsute
policies shifted again. He now favored the close-trimmed look, despite the fact
that it made his jowls more prominent. Relations with Rome broke altogether when
Henry proclaimed his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, citing her misguided
interpretation of the Samson and Delilah story, something to do with sausages.
Soon parliament moved to suppress all long beards, considered seditious, if only
for their ability to conceal daggers and papist relics, as well as the odd
herring. Sir Thomas More objected in the strongest terms. He argued that a
man’s choice of facial hair should be left between himself and his maker, as
interpreted by the Vatican Barbers. More was promptly beheaded.
While others rushed to swear an oath of fealty to the royal follicles, rumors
began to make their way to the king that his new wife, Anne Boleyn, had spoken
in admiration of mutton chops, then worn by Sir Reginald Dumfondet, Knight of
the Garter and Lord of the Dance. Under torture, Dumfondet admitted to having
fondled the royal shears. Both he and Anne were promptly beheaded.
Henry then married a hairdresser, Jane Seymour,
a match that proved most agreeable until she died in childbirth, thus unable to
complete his dye job. With such unfinished business, he wasted no time marrying
again, this time in absentia. Forewarned of the cut then favored by Henry, Anne
of Cleves arrived in England to greet her new husband with a proper mustache and
the hint of a goatee, but, ironically, with no Cleavage. The disappointed king
annulled the marriage right away, offering Anne the opportunity to return home.
She opted instead for an annual stipend for lip waxing and a furnished flat in
Chelsea.
In subsequent years, Henry experimented with perhaps his most unique style, the
Fu Manchu. It so amused his new wife, Catherine Howard, that she saved the axe
man considerable trouble by laughing her own head off.
Finally, less adventurous in his decline, Henry then adopted what he called a
Vandyke, out of his fondness for butch women of the Low Countries, a sixth and
final style, which managed to survive him. Although the beard fell out of favor
during the reigns of all three of his children, neglected in a Hampton Court
cabinet of curiosities, it eventually passed down to the second Stewart to
inherit the throne of England, Charles I, who sported the Tudor hairpiece in a
most reckless and cavalier manner. Needless to say, he was promptly beheaded.
And thus emerged a constitutional monarchy in the land of Great Britain like a
five o'clock shadow across the Channel.
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In the historical dialectic pitting the
proletariat against the bourgeois, J. R. Salling has not placed a wager. It
seems that Louis Phillippe closed the gambling houses some time in the 1840s,
which encourages him instead to write amusing captions for the pair-shaped
illustrations of the French king by Daumier. He is paid in bon-bons, laced with
a substance that makes him think it's the year 2004.
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