Henry VIII of England was a good king (3)

Round 3Thanks hatshepsut for your argument. I must admit, I am somewhat frightened to be debating the greatest queen of Ancient Egypt. However, much like the Hyksos, I must ruthlessly attack my opponents arguments!I concur with my opponent that Henry VIII was not necessarily the most conservative of money spenders, especially during his early reign. Generally this is not an admirable trait for a king, or any political leader, to have. However, Henry's situation is unique due to the fact that when he died in 1547, England still had a large sum of money and certainly was not on its way to economic crisis. This is due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536 and 1541 [1]. The Dissolution of the Monasteries began when Henry VIII split from the Church of Rome, and essentially converted England to Protestantism. Due to his new church's quasi-Lutheran views keeping the extravagance of the monasteries around obviously contradicts their cause. Therefore Henry VIII saw a huge opportunity to gain a huge sum of money, and by dissolving the monasteries it is estimated that he gained approximately £1.3 million pounds [2]. Obviously this is not to much nowadays, however in the 1500's this is an enormous sum of money. While I will agree that they Dissolution of the Monasteries was one of Henry VIII's less admirable acts, as it destroyed much of England's art in records, it is hard to argue that it did not help Henry VIII's rule, and by extension, England. Now for the arguments about Henry's early wives. The divorce with Catherine of Aragon may not have been... chivalrous. However the end result-- the splitting of England from the Roman Church-- eventually proved to be a very successful move for England. The reason for this is that it gave Henry near-absolute rule. While modern day Americans may wrinkle their nose at the proposition of an absolute monarch, considering the time period of Henry VIII's reign, it is clear that absolutism was for the greater good of the country. Due to the fact that England, along with the rest of Europe, was stuck in a feudal system for the vast majority of the middle ages. This feudalistic government caused countries to become decentralized, meaning that the feudal rulers had more power over their people than the king did. In essence this means that countries were more like separated states that were barely united under the myth of the power of the king. However, now that Henry VIII was both King of England and Head of the Church of England none of the feudal rulers were willing to object to his rule and therefore the country became more unified. Also, the "unification" of England allowed technological and humanist ideas to spread easier and therefore I would argue that Henry VIII played a large role in entering England into the Renaissance [3]. As for the beheading of Anne Boleyn, it was obviously an immoral and probably unnecessary act, however in all honesty the execution had little effect on England. I also agree that Henry VIII was not a colonialist king, and in some ways this harmed his kingdom. However their are many reasons for this. For one, when Henry took the throne he had to be careful with his actions due to a possible war with the Yorks and it would have been most wise to keep his entire navy in England as opposed to discovering the New World. Also, given that Henry VIII left his successors in a relatively stable, financially and politically, situation, it allowed Elizabeth to proceed with the colonization's of Virginia and eventually the rest of the 13 colonies [4]. Also, owning colonies does not necissarily guarentee success for a country. A prime example would be Hapsburg Spain under the reign of Philip II. When Phillip II ascended to the throne after his father, Charles I (also V) resigned in 1555, Spain was the most powerful nation in the world. They had huge colonies in the Americas and the Carribean and was producing huge amounts of money. However, this caused massive infaltion withing Philip's empire and when imports of silver began to fautler, Spain collapsed entirely. One blemish with Henry's reign which was pointed out by my opponent was his failure to convert his daughter Mary to the new Anglican faith. I agree that this was a major flaw, however it too can be justified. Due to the fact that Henry VIII assumed that his son Edward, would succeed him, he payed to majority of his attention to him. Henry did not have the ability to see into the future and therefore could not possibly know that Mary would eventually ascend to the throne. ConclusionI have displayed that Henry VIII was both responsible for unifying England under his authoritarian rule and by extension both stabilized and strengthened England. While I will admit that Henry VIII did have a few issues with his reign, if you consider the situation that he was placed in and the end result, it must be concluded that Henry VIII overall had a positive influence on England. Thanks for the fun debate!Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] https://answers.yahoo.com...[3] http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com...[4] http://www.history.com...