Karma Exists, and Yes, She's a Bitch

So, Karma, the idea that what goes around comes around, payment for your sins, whatever you want to call it, you might argue that it doesn't exist, but maybe, just maybe this post will convince you otherwise.  Yes, all of my posts up until now have been about Henry VIII, and so is this one.  Karma really had it in for him, or maybe God did, either way, if you ask me, he got what he deserved. 

First, let's look at his treatment of his first wife.  Poor Katherine was "divorced" and exiled to Kimbolton Castle, where she was forbidden to see her daughter Mary and died in misery, probably of cancer at the age of 50, writing to Henry on her death bed that "mine eyes desire you above all things."  Henry hardened his heart towards her and persisted in his relationship with Anne Boleyn, not waiting until he was divorced, not accepting the church's verdict on the subject of his marriage.  He refused to accept that his marriage to Katherine was valid according to the Catholic church and demanded the submission of the clergy in England to his authority.  His brash behavior resulted in the excommunication of his entire country.  He basically said "to hell with that" and declared himself the representative of God on Earth in England.  Fine, he's head of the church.  His whole goal in this is to marry Anne and have a son.  Karma came back with a vengeance and denied him the son he desired as Anne only ever gave birth to a girl, the future Elizabeth I.  His relationship with Anne also deteriorated and his seperation with her ended in her execution.  Ironic that the woman he fought to marry he had killed.  Karma came for Anne too, bringing the same fate upon her that she brought upon Katherine, she became a spurned queen.

On the day that Katherine died, January 7, 1536, Anne and Henry celebrated.  They actually celebrated her death, the death of an "enemy." They paraded around, Henry wearing a suit of yellow satin and Anne wearing a yellow gown. Henry even hosted a tournament to celebrate. When Katherine was interred in Peterborough Cathedral several days later Anne miscarried the child she was carrying, a male child.  As Chapuy's said she "miscarried of her savior," needing a son to save her place as queen.  Anne's own death came just a few months later when Henry had her executed on May 19, 1536.  Once again Henry paid for this action when fate swooped in and his only living male child, Henry Fitzroy, a bastard child that had none the less been named the Duke of Richmond, died on July 23rd of the same year.  Though I would never deny a parent grief over the death of a child, an unimaginable loss, to this I can only say Ha, and Ha Ha.  He should have known better.  The saying is that you reap what you sow right?  If you sow violence and death, that is what you get back.  If you persist in divorce, which the Bible says that God hates (Malachi 2:16) not just mildly dislikes, but hates, then heartache will come back to you.  It seems pretty black and white to me.  You knowingly do wrong, you get a bad lot in life, really pretty simple right? 

The theory of reincarnation says that you must carry and repay your karmic debts throughout different lifetimes, such is the basis of the book "Threads" by Nell Gavin.  She writes about the reincarnations of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and their attempts to repay their karmic debt to one another, and her debt is learning how to forgive the husband who turned on her and brought about her murder.  Yes, murder, for the execution of the innocent is nothing less.  During her last confession she professed her innocence to Archbishop Cranmer and to quote William Kingston, the keeper of the tower, she  "took much joy and happiness in death."  At that point death was her only way out of a world that was falling down around her.  So, one might ask, what did she do to deserve that?  I don't know, she had already paid her dues several times over, but sometimes life is unfair.  Henry died with a wife who tended and took care of him, his sixth wife Katherine Parr.  How I wish he had died alone, writhing in the blackness of his nightmares with the ghosts of his wives taunting him on his trip to hell.  But then, who knows, God is good and he forgives, I suppose that's probably where I fall short.

Sources:
The Anne Boleyn Files http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/
"Great Harry" by Carolly Erickson