I spent the afternoon in Hampton Court Palace, the home of big, fat, wife-killing, monastery dissolving king, King Henry VIII. And some other less interesting kings as well, who never even had the idea of killing their wives or starting up their own religion with them as the head. I'd like to be King Henry VIII. He was cool. And it might help me overcome my fear of marital commitment if I knew I had the get out clause of state approved beheading. After he'd done Anne Boleyn in you'd have to have a pretty iron constitution to marry the fella. "Are you sure you're not going to behead me like that second one?"
"No,no. That was just a one-off. I really love you."
Fair enough you might fall for that if you were Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves or Catherine Howard. But once he's also chopped the block off of that last one, you might be a bit more suspicious. "So you've been married five times and three of your ex-wives are dead. One in child-birth. Oh I feel sorry for you and that makes me want to sleep with you. What happened to the other two?"
"Um there was sort of a couple of accidents, one involving an axe and her neck."
"Oh you poor man, and what about the other one."
"That accident also kind of involved an axe and her neck. It's just an awful coincidence. But look at it this way there's a two out of five chance that you'll live and I'll just divorce you."
Katherine Parr was a fucking idiot. Still her gamble paid off and she survived. Though Henry had the last laugh from beyond the grave as she also died in childbirth a couple of years later. No-one hated women and wanted them to die more than Henry VIII. Though you show me a man who says he doesn't want to marry six women, two of whom he beheads and I'll show you a liar. Thank God we're not all kings.
I thought Hampton Court was a little overpriced to be honest. It was £11.40 each to get in and they also charged me £3.50 to park there. This seems a bit rich to be honest as whoever owns Hampton Court Palace has clearly got a lot more money than me.
For that kind of cash I expect a few fairground rides, or at least some kind of mechanised travel through some historical dioramas. It is a big palace, with an impressive garden (which we didn't really want to walk in in the rain) and a maze (which is currently closed, though apparently if we want to return in a few weeks our tickets will still be valid, but only for the maze. We'll have to pay again to see the house. Personally I would have preferred a discount.
But I don't think it's THAT good. Not £11.40. Mind you it cost £15 to see me in London recently and I am not a massive building, full of treasure and works of art. But at least you get to sit down when you're looking at me. It's swings and roundabouts.
Old houses always faintly depress me. Looking at all the paintings of the proud looking nobles and their children who have been dead for hundreds of years just makes me aware of my own mortality. All their wealth and fine clothes did them no good. They are all just dust in the ground now. Along with the millions of people who lived at the same time, but had no money to get their painting done. The pomposity and ostentation of the rich seems to heighten the sense of our ultimate worthlessness. "Oooh yes mate, you look all proud in your painting if you like, but when I get to look at it you'll be just a few dry bones under the ground.... and when my great-grandchildren look at it then I will be just some bunrt dust blowing on the winds. And when their great-grandchildren look at it.... oh what's the fucking point?"
I do quite looking in the old mirrors though and thinking about all the other people throughout history who have also looked at their own reflection in there (safe in the knowledge that I am also the best looking. Have I learnt nothing?)
It's cool to have that connection back through history. That my reflection and King Henry VIII's reflection have been in the same place. So whilst I may never have the balls to see through my fantasy of beheading all women, I have at least cast my image in the same place as a man who was brave enough to start trying.
I believe that mirrors are magic and that everyone who has ever been reflected in a mirror will live forever inside it, with all the other people who've been reflected in it. So now my image is probably having a big banquet with King Henry and all his wives (images hold no grudges... and anyway they weren't beheaded when they looked in the mirror, so they don't know what's going to happen to them) and all the other people whose reflection has been cast in there. Of course now they're letting in the hoi-polloi the standard of guest at the banquet is rapidly declining and there's an awful lot of Americans there. But the English nobility keep themselves to themselves and only dine with the pick of the bunch. And even when our actual bodies have died and there are only pictures remaining, our reverse images will live as long as the mirror remains intact. And even when it breaks that will just multiply us all to however many pieces of glass are created. We will live forever, infinitely reflected back and forth.
That's what I believe anyway. It's no more stupid than any other theory of the after-life and makes up for the unpleasant realisation that our lives are ultimately both doomed and worthless.
