How fat was Henry VIII?
Studies of suits of armour belonging to Henry VIII – and now at the Tower of London – show how the Tudor monarch went from being a tall, handsome and decidedly thin young man to someone who would now be considered clinically obese. The king, who ruled from 1509, ballooned from a 32in waist in 1512, aged 21, to a 54in waist just 33 years later. It is calculated that shortly before his death in 1547 – aged 55 – Henry VIII was nearly 30 stone. In his final years, the king could barely walk. Instead, he had to be carried around on specially constructed sedan chairs. After he died, he was placed in a vast elm coffin which took 16 Yeomen of the Guard, “of exceptional heights and strength”, to manoeuvre. Historic records show perhaps why Henry VIII was quite so large. At Hampton Court, the royal home that he “acquired” from his doomed Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey, archaeologists discovered 55 kitchen rooms, requiring a staff of around 200, who made twice-daily meals for a court of 600. In on
