# What is King Henry the Eighth holding in his hand in this painting? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 20, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693 "2009-04-20T02:50:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/41 "2009-04-23T14:29:18Z")
I fail to see how the portraits of Edward IV depict a chinless man. If anything, his chin is unusually round and prominent. He has a little roll of fat underneath it (which gets progressively larger as time goes by) but other than that, in his early portraits at least, he looks youthful and handsome. [Here](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/HenryVIII_1509.jpg) is a painting of the young Henry VIII. He looks a little like Paul Dano, actually (unfortunate victim of Daniel Plainview’s bowling pin in There Will Be Blood.) Nothing at all like that guy who plays him on the TV show supposedly about “the Tudors,” which I have never watched but seen ads for online. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/42 "2009-04-23T14:43:09Z")
I didn’t say he was chin_less_. His chin is placed too far back. Draw a line from his forehead to his chin. That line slants back toward his body. The chin should be directly below or slightly forward of his forehead. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/43 "2009-04-23T20:43:08Z")
I think it’s just the angle of the portrait. It doesn’t really look that way [here.](http://images.npg.org.uk:8080/OCimg/790_500/6/2/mw91162.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/44 "2009-04-24T19:02:22Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I think it’s just the angle of the portrait. It doesn’t really look that way [here.](http://images.npg.org.uk:8080/OCimg/790_500/6/2/mw91162.jpg) Well - maybe. But his chin does look like a hiney. ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/45 "2009-04-24T19:44:13Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Didn’t Genghis Khan father children on something like 1,000 different women? I think I read that some huge percentage of men in central Asia (10 percent, perhaps?) are direct male-line descendants of Genghis Khan. I don’t think so. He had a few wives and and handful of sons (daughters generally unknown) and judging from the rest of his personality would not have cared about sexual conquest. (Note: a lot of what Westerners believe about GK is about as far off the mark as you can imagine.) It’s likely that many central Asians would claim direct patrilineal descent from GK but there’s no way to prove that – genes might show a connection but wouldn’t show unbroken male lineage. It’s likely that 10 percent of people on Earth today have GK as an ancestor, which would also be true of anyone who had four children and a dozen grandchildren that long ago – this link can explain the math. [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/412/2-4-8-16-how-can-you-always-have-more-ancestors-as-you-go-back-in-time](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/412/2-4-8-16-how-can-you-always-have-more-ancestors-as-you-go-back-in-time) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/46 "2009-04-24T19:52:33Z")
> [@palindromemordnilap](#): > > It’s likely that many central Asians would claim direct patrilineal descent from GK but there’s no way to prove that – genes might show a connection but wouldn’t show unbroken male lineage. My understanding is that there is a characteristic factor on the Y-chromosome, which can be passed only from father to son, that is connected to Genghis Khan. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/47 "2009-04-24T20:16:56Z")
I don’t think it’s the chin so much as the plane of the face itself that seems off. A little like John Lithgow. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/48 "2009-04-24T20:23:48Z")
> [@palindromemordnilap](#): > > I don’t think so. He had a few wives and and handful of sons (daughters generally unknown) and judging from the rest of his personality would not have cared about sexual conquest. (Note: a lot of what Westerners believe about GK is about as far off the mark as you can imagine.) [This](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-456789/Genghis-Khan-The-daddy-lovers.html) is the kind of information I think I’ve heard, but not from the _Daily Mail_. I think I heard it on public radio or the B.B.C. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/49 "2009-04-26T14:47:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Northern Piper** :After taking a look at Charles II of Spain’s family tree on one of those Wikipedia links, I’m not so sure on that score. [Holy Cow.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carlos_segundo80.png) No wonder the poor guy looked like a sideshow exhibit. If I read that tree right, there are three instances of a dude marrying his niece. ---
**Author:** ![diablevert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@diablevert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diablevert)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/50 "2009-04-30T07:21:11Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > [This](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-456789/Genghis-Khan-The-daddy-lovers.html) is the kind of information I think I’ve heard, but not from the _Daily Mail_. I think I heard it on public radio or the B.B.C. You heard it on Radio Lab. [http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/07/29/segments/81064](http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/07/29/segments/81064) They can’t be certain it was GK, as nobody knows where he’s buried and thus nobody’s got a DNA sample from the horde-meister. But basically you have the gist — it’s a unique mutation on the y chomosome appearing about 1000 years ago in an area congruent with the Silk Road/area of Mongol invasion ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2009, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693/51 "2009-04-30T07:54:39Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > [Holy Cow.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carlos_segundo80.png) No wonder the poor guy looked like a sideshow exhibit. If I read that tree right, there are three instances of a dude marrying his niece. Right. And notice that 21 of 26 ancestors are descendants from Philip and Joanna. The last time an external bloodline was introduced was several generations before Carlos’ birth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-king-henry-the-eighth-holding-in-his-hand-in-this-painting/493693.md?page=2)