Why did Henry VIII refuse Wolseys alternative case for an annulment?
I’d hazard a guess that the reason is because, in many ways, Henry never stopped being a willful child. Often, when a parent is lost at a young age (Henry was 10 or 11 when his mother died, and 17 when his father died and he became king), it’s as if a portion of the personality freezes, if you will, at that age. Henry, as you can see, was completely orphaned before his teen years were over. Granted, children of the medieval/Renaissance period were, as a rule, more mature than their counterparts today (especially royal children, who were often forced to grow up rapidly), but Henry was always, in a manner of speaking, a bit behind the power curve emotionally. Marrying a woman 6 1/2 years his senior probably didn’t help matters any; Katherine was, likely, at some level a mother figure to Henry. She indulged his appetite for childish pranks such as dressing up, with his courtiers, as Robin Hood and his band, or Saracens, and bursting into her apartments and ‘scaring’ her and her attendants
