brain injury, others aren't so sure. Historians, however, agree that Henry did sustain a terrible leg injury that plagued him for the rest of his life.

A fascinating theory states that Henry's leg ulcers were exacerbated by the accident. Thereafter, he was said to have been treated with medications that contained large amounts of lead. This presumably led to the drastic changes in Henry's personality. Previously a magnanimous, fun-loving individual, Henry became temperamental, violent, and dictatorial. He also became paranoid—his chief fear was that key actors in Parliament and the clergy were conspiring to deprive him of his power.

Henry had key allies like Thomas Cromwell executed, even though the latter played a key role in establishing Henry as the head of the new Church of England. Please refer to the links below to read more about the new laws that were enacted during Henry's reign and how they dramatically increased the English monarch's power.

Briefly, the new laws established Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Anglican Church, completely obliterating the power of the papacy in England. The English monarch became the sole authority in all religious matters. Henry's actions led to far-reaching political and religious consequences that represented the start of the English Reformation.

With increased power, Henry's authority became entrenched. To project this image of supremacy, Henry spent at least £3,000 on clothes every year. Historians estimate that he spent approximately £ 173,000 on sumptuous clothing during his entire reign (1509–1547). He also owned hundreds of pairs of satin shoes and leather boots. In 1519, he was known as the best-dressed monarch in the world.

So, to sum it up, Henry VIII's persona changed in two ways during his reign. First, he experienced a personality change due to a jousting accident, and second, new laws established him (the English monarch) as the ultimate authority in all religious and political matters.

During the reign of Henry VIII, the role of the monarch in England strengthened greatly. This was partially due to bureaucratic processes already in motion and partially due to Henry himself.

Taking power after the War of the Roses, Henry VII, Henry VIII's father, worked to centralize state power to counter the medieval duchies or fiefdoms that comprised England in that time period and often functioned as semi-independent kingdoms over which the king had little influence. Wanting to avoid another civil war, Henry VII began setting up bureaucracies that forced the nobility to work more through the central government to achieve their objectives.

Henry VIII greatly increased this centralization and concentration of power. Especially after he broke with the Roman Catholic Church and divorced his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, Henry ruled as the supreme power in his land. This was enabled both by economics and political theory.

When Henry took over the Catholic church in England as its head, he dissolved the wealthy monasteries throughout England and seized their wealth for the state—that is, for himself. This sudden influx of substantial funds, independent of taxing the nobility, gave Henry a great deal power over the aristocrats, as he didn't need to depend on them nearly as much for revenue.

Further, as more and more German princes broke away from the Roman Catholic church, they developed, based on Martin Luther, the concept of the divine rights of kings. This doctrine argued that kings did not need to be legitimized by the pope but were directly appointed by God and answerable only to him. This theory also included the idea that everything in a kingdom belonged to the king, who granted it to others to use at his discretion: this was a rationale for princes to commandeer the revenues that had been paid to the pope rather than have these taxes fall into other hands.

The divine rights of king doctrine helped legitimize Henry's power grab as he centralized the government, appropriated Catholic church assets, and made lucrative appointments and revenue streams entirely dependent on him. He relied less on the aristocracy, elevating talented commoners like Thomas Cromwell to help him centralize the government. In fact, in his classic work, The Tudor Revolution in Government, Geoffrey Elton argues that Cromwell was key to the radical changes in government that changed England from a collection of medieval fiefdoms to the beginnings of a modern nation state.

In sum, under Henry VIII, the monarch became much more powerful in England than previously had been the case.

During his reign, Henry VIII asserted his power over the population of England in a new way, as the head of the English Church. Let's look at how this happened.

Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon in 1509. He expected things to take their normal course and Catherine to provide him with a son and heir. That did not happen. Henry was concerned because he was only the second Tudor king and he needed to establish a firm dynasty if his family's line was to continue in power. That meant having a son. Catherine did not seem to be able to provide one, so Henry needed to find another way.

That other way, Henry thought, was Anne Boleyn, Henry's young mistress. However, to marry her, Henry needed to divorce Catherine, and since they were Catholic, he would also need an annulment to marry Anne in the Church. Henry set about getting the annulment, but he ran into trouble when the Pope, who had already given him a dispensation to marry Catherine, refused to grant it.

Henry decided that he would marry Anne whether the Pope gave him an annulment or not, and he made himself head of the Church of England, breaking off from the Catholic Church. Henry thus inserted himself into his subjects' religious lives. He proceeded to demand their allegiance to him as a religious leader, and even killed Thomas More, his chancellor, for his refusal to acknowledge Henry as the head of the Church.

As time went on, Henry used his new power to dissolve monasteries throughout England, using the proceeds from them to fund his wars and building projects. The monasteries were central to English life and learning, and Henry's wholesale destruction of them disrupted traditional ways, endangered English culture, and harmed many people.

Indeed, Henry VIII not only was a secular leader of his people but sought to be a religious one as well.