The lecture discussed Holbein's Portrait of Henry VIII (1536-7) as a powerful display of masculinity.
Here's a much later engraving of Henry VIII by Peter Isselburg that appeared in 1646. Consider the representation of the king in this as well as in this extract from Henry's biography from ODNB.
'The most important consideration in this final decade was the king's increasing age and ill health. Henry was putting on an enormous amount of weight: his chest measurement reached 57 inches and his waist 54 and eventually he had to be moved around his palaces in a ‘trauewe’, a sort of carrying chair. He also suffered enormous pain from a chronic leg ulcer which produced dangerous attacks of fever. The cause was not syphilis (voluminous medical evidence proves that his doctors never treated him for this well-recognized condition) but either varicose veins or osteomyelitis, and the ulcer was made much worse by Henry's insistence on riding. He could become black in the face with pain.'
Here's a much later engraving of Henry VIII by Peter Isselburg that appeared in 1646. Consider the representation of the king in this as well as in this extract from Henry's biography from ODNB.
'The most important consideration in this final decade was the king's increasing age and ill health. Henry was putting on an enormous amount of weight: his chest measurement reached 57 inches and his waist 54 and eventually he had to be moved around his palaces in a ‘trauewe’, a sort of carrying chair. He also suffered enormous pain from a chronic leg ulcer which produced dangerous attacks of fever. The cause was not syphilis (voluminous medical evidence proves that his doctors never treated him for this well-recognized condition) but either varicose veins or osteomyelitis, and the ulcer was made much worse by Henry's insistence on riding. He could become black in the face with pain.'
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