Found a cool history nerd thing: a map of all the monasteries Henry VIII dissolved. I don't know the source.
Tudor history is a personal interest & I had no idea there were even that many monasteries in England & Wales at the time, much less just how many Henry got rid of. I can't imagine the wealth he pilfered either. That's gotta be a lotta bling, even from the less wealthy houses.
I'm also into information design (used to be a graphic designer, earlier in my career) & this map is one of those examples of how effective visual representations of something can be. The sheer number of dots across the map is visually staggering. Gives a good, quick impression of the real impact of Henry's purge.
I took an info design class a couple of years ago & produced a timeline of Henry's marriages, mistresses & children as the final project. The project had to include the timeline, plus a chart or graph, a map, & a header line or area with intro text. After putting it together it was astonishingly clear just why Henry pulled all the shenanigans he did over his reign.
It's easy to look back at Henry & see his TBI & his tyranny & all the shit with his 6 wives & how he dealt with Cromwell & More & the various cardinals & think he was a power-hungry tyrant who couldn't keep it in his pants... & that isn't quite an accurate picture.
Truth is, Henry was born only 4 years after a major dynastic war in England, the Wars of the Roses. Europe was plagued with bloody, violent dynastic conflict all over the continent at the time, & Henry's father (Henry VII) did all he could to stabilize his realm & avoid even more bloodshed. He was putting down rebellions during Henry VIII's lifetime, when the boy was just a prince.
Henry wasn't even supposed to be king in the first place - his older bro Arthur was. Well, Arthur died, & instead of going into some kind of religious service, Henry got the throne. & underpinning everything he did was a very real fear that England would fall into civil dynastic war again. It doesn't mean he *wasn't* a tyrant, or wasn't power-hungry, because he was those things too.
So the prevailing thought at the time was that not only were women not really fit to rule, but if they did rule, the nation would fall into bloody chaos again. https://www.royal.uk/stephen-and-matilda
Ironically, of course, out of the next four reigns after Henry's death, three of them were women: Jane Grey (his great-niece), then his daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I.
Jane only lasted 9 days, as she wasn't supposed to be queen anyway. Mary started well enough but ended with a whimper, & Liz had a (mostly) spectacular 40+ years, as reigns go.
Lesson: history doesn't turn out how people might want or expect it to. History just turns out the way it does.
Also, history is NOT linear, with a constantly improving upward trajectory, but that's a thread for another day.
But if you put his actions in the larger context of what was going on in both England & Europe at the time, & what his father had to deal with as king, then it makes more sense why Henry himself was so desperate for an heir. And if you wonder why he needed a *male* heir, well - women weren't barred from inheriting a throne by law, but the last time that happened in England, there was another civil war.