Henry VIII

[Tantum_ergo]

All fair enough, but they wouldn’t have known that back then, particularly since their society was so male-dominated.

Oh, I know that THEY would not have known, but the point is that we DO know, and the phrase is still tacked on in all the dang books. The LEAST that reputable historians (and that includes the ones who write textbooks for students) could do is to point out that 'according to the knowledge of the time, it was felt that Catherine could not ‘give the King a son’ as an 'excuse; however, we know that this was not the case; males determine the sex of infants, and in fact, Catherine did give the king many children, only one of whom survived infancy, so the ‘excuse’ fails doubly. Furthermore, several contemporary realms had quite successful Queen Regnants including Catherine’s own mother, Isabella; and Henry did have at least one illegitimate son PRIOR to his ‘intrigue’ with Anne Boleyn who could have been made legitimate.

Ask the average person why Henry divorced Catherine and you’ll still hear 9 out of 10 parrot, "Well, she couldn’t give him a son and he NEEDED one.’

Now just don’t get me started on an even worse lie . .the one that accuses Richard III of murdering the princes in the tower!!!

 

[Brendan]

And how were they supposed to know that in the 1500’s? Actually, it is both the male and female who determine the sex. But back then popular belief was it was the female. .

Not true actually.

The prevelant belief, based on Aristotle, was that the man provided the complete ‘seed’ and that the woman was merely the ‘garden’ in which the seed grew.

So it was presumed that the seed that man provided determined the sex of the child. What they did NOT know was that the mother provided genetics as well.