Is it true that Henry's blood got licked by a dog after he died?

Answer 1

When King Henry was in the process of divorcing Queen Katherine of Aragon, he went to a sermon at Greenwich and heard a sermon by Friar Peto. In this sermon, the fiery friar compared King Henry to Ahab and Anne Boleyn to Jezebel, the wife of Ahab who slaughtered the true prophets and had them replaced with others. This was bold stuff, as Anne Boleyn was known to be sympathetic to what Catholics believed were heresies (printing God's word in English for the masses, having the King be the supreme head of the English church and not the Pope). Friar Peto said if King Henry persisted in his course, then he would become like Ahab, and the dogs would lick his blood after he died.

When King Henry died in January, 1547, he was hugely corpulent, and his leg was covered by pussy sores which had given him agony for many years. The embalming process in Tudor times was not the same as we know today. The internal organs were removed usually, including the heart, and the cavity was stuffed with straw and herbs. I don't think the blood was actually drained.

King Henry died at Whitehall, and his body was conveyed to Windsor for burial. On the first night, the cortege stopped at Syon, and it was there, after hours of being jerked around on the primitive roads, the casket sprung a leak and the deceased King's bodily fluids leaked onto the floor. Sure enough, a dog came around and lapped at the blood. However, since dogs were a common and popular pet in Tudor times, and were particularly useful in gobbling up table scraps from the dinner tables, it would not have been uncommon for a dog to be at Syon. It just happened to be an eerie coincidence that a dog lapped the King's blood as had been prophesied