David Starkey - 'Henry VIII: The First Brexiteer?'
Henry VIII, like a colossus, bestrides the history of our country. He invented the idea of British uniqueness; in fact, the Reformation could be defined as the first Brexit, when his ministers devised the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. In this talk David Starkey draws on his unique knowledge of Henry’s reign to examine his tumultuous personal life, which pitted religion against politics as brutally as in our own age of Isis, through to the Grand Tourists who bought European culture with British money, all offering so very many parallels with the Brexit situation we find ourselves in today.