I went to see the Henry VIII Exhibition at the British Library yesterday. I was meeting Norma in town for the afternoon after not seeing each other for over a year, so really the exhibition was just an excuse for a destination - but we were both really impressed by it and we spent ages browsing the documents, books and some lesser known portraits on view.
I was particularly taken by the books owned by Henry and his family, which they had scribbled in the margins of - notably Margaret Beaufort's illuminated manuscript Book of Hours, with Henry's birth noted in her own writing in 1498. Amazing. (Picture below of a different page in the book.)
It was wonderful to see the surviving documents - a love letter from Henry to Anne Boleyn; letters of complaint to him from his sisters Mary and Margaret, and a book of precepts lovingly hand compiled for him by his first tutor - but not being a scolar of the secretary hand, I was grateful for the transcriptions supplied, and the curator (David Starkey's) notes. An excellent exhibition.
And an excellent catch up with Norma, who doesn't change, thank goodness!
jackfrost
Pro 
Henry VII in the title Henry the VIII in the text..am I just being a bit dull...did you see both??