Erasmus’ Prescription for Henry VIII: Logotherapy

Abstract

An encounter at Eltham palace between a wandering scholar and a prince prompted an engaging gift of verse from the visitor. ‘For the present I have dedicated these small gifts to you as toys for your boyish age, intending to bring richer offerings when virtuous manhood, increasing with your years, shall furnish me with richer themes for my verse.’ So wrote Erasmus of Rotterdam, anticipating that eight-year-old Henry would illuminate good literature with his distinction, protect it with his royal authority, and encourage it with his generosity. A quarter of a century later Erasmus was to reminisce about this visit with the royal child: how Thomas More had embarrassed and angered him by offering a composition to the prince while he lagged empty-handed; how the boy had passed him a note during dinner, challenging something from his pen; how he had promised to send a token and had hastened back to Lord Mountjoy's estate to compose one hundred fifty lines of verse in three harried days.