Vanity of Henry VIII with Kate Lister

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With six wives, Henry VIII must have had something going for him, right? Was he handsome? Charming? Intelligent? Just plain powerful? In this episode, the tables are turned on Professor Suzannah Lipscomb as she becomes the guest of Dr. Kate Lister on our sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets. Together they discuss the vanity of Henry VIII, his sporting prowess, and his injuries. Listen to discover just how terrible this Tudor king smelt.

MORE:

Sex and the Tudors

Henry VIII's Billionaire Wardrobe

Hear more intimate stories that would make your history teacher blush, on Betwixt the Sheets: the History of Sex, Scandal and Society

Presented by Dr. Kate Lister. Edited by Tim Arstall and Amy Haddow. The producers are Sophie Gee and Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.
0:02.6	If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
0:10.5	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:16.0	including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release every week.
0:25.2	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:32.0	Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to not just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise.
0:46.8	Relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
1:04.6	When I say the name King Henry VIII, I'm pretty sure a particular visual image will jump into your head.
1:13.5	That broad-shouldered, huge man, hands-on hips, overweight, overbearing, scowling, tyrant to the man,
1:20.9	who wasn't very kind, to put it mildly, towards his wives.
1:25.9	Well, that wasn't always the case with Henry the 8th, in fact, for a good part of his reign.
1:30.1	The majority of his reign, he was quite the looker, and he was known for his charisma,
1:34.6	six foot two, broad-shouldered, slender around the waist,
1:38.4	orb and hair catching the sunlight, shapely calves, according to the sources,
1:42.4	the most handsome prince in Christendom.
1:45.6	We've talked before on not just the Tudors about Henry the 8th's billionaire wardrobe.
1:49.8	Do go back and have a listen to that episode if you haven't heard it recently.
1:53.8	But I was delighted to be invited by our fantastic sister podcast, Betwixt the Sheets,
1:59.7	to talk to the inimitable Dr. Kate Lister
2:02.5	some more about Henry VIII and in particular the question of his vanity.
2:07.8	This was a man who could enter a tournament field with a hundred men in purple and yellow at his
2:13.6	back and look every inch the storybook hero he thought himself to be.
	...

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