King Henry VIII
- Mention King Henry VIII, and people tend to think of the stout middle-aged figure of the famous Holbein
portrait, liable to have a subject (or a wife) executed without a second thought. Yet in his younger days
he was a man of fine physique and excellent fitness. He was talented in riding, archery, jousting, hunting etc.,
as was expected of princes of the time, but also excelled at languages, music, and various other studies.
As well as tennis and wrestling, he was reportedly skilled at "casting the bar", which may have been done
with a hammer-throwing action. The biographer Robert Lacey claims that Henry "could throw a four-yard
javelin further than most" (how could he throw one of that length at all?).
Henry also indulged in Pole Vaulting, not for height but for crossing streams etc. (a well established
practice in the Fens of East Anglia). He was out one day hunting on foot with hawks, and needed to cross
a wide ditch. But his weight (even then) was too much for the pole, which snapped, leaving the monarch
stuck face downwards in deep thick mud, and only the prompt action of a servant stopped the king from
being suffocated. How history could have been changed!