Who are you?

Well, I was King Henry VII of England. I’ve been dead for, like, five centuries, but, through the magic of technology, time-travel, ghost-whispering, and make-believe, I’m here to talk about the award-worthy The History of Work Series. You see, my job was featured as the Second Best Job Ever, which is ridiculous. Can explorers divorce/murder their wives, establish their own religion and tax the crap out of the landed gentry? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

What do you do for fun?

Fox hunting. I also like to eat and drink. In your time, there’s this 120lb Japanese kid who wins all these hot dog eating contests, right? Well, I would eat four times as many wieners as he does in half the time and then wrap up the day by eating him, too. Look, I wouldn’t call eating people “fun,” I’m just saying that I did it before, okay? A lot of other kings liked horseback riding, but, truth be told, when you weigh 340lbs crushing the back of an animal is a bit mean-spirited and also made me feel like a bit of a fatty. In addition to eating in one afternoon what Northern England ate in a month, I also liked colourful robes, fancy hats and concubines.

What is your favourite community? Why?

I like the community of people that I locked in the Tower of London for treason because they remind me how great I am. There’s nothing like a huddled, scared group of Catholics, Spanish spies and non-Tudor-Kingmakers to make a guy feel pretty awesome about all the power at his disposal. Sometimes, I like to stand in front of their cells and eat big, huge legs of turkey while discussing the tenets of Anglicanism.

What is your superpower?

Largest human being on Earth in the first half of the sixteenth-century. How’s that for a synecdoche?

How do you use it to build community?

Perhaps the extended metaphor of my size allowed me to further establish the community of England by creating the nation state’s own church. Also, if I wasn’t so large there’s no way that people would’ve stood for me executing so many innocent people…like my wives.

My Three Favourite Things About Henry VII are…

[Editor’s note: we’d just like to make it clear that we have many, many, many least favourite things about Henry VII; for example, Godfrey and I are fundamentally against murdering our wives regardless of how much closer they bring us to an alliance with Spain. We also don’t care for overtaxing a taxed population – for Godfrey, especially the landed gentry – for militaristic purposes. Finally, gluttony isn’t a great thing at all and this man is a bit of a poster-child for eating more than we need to. Oh, one more thing, don’t let this get back to Hank, but we asked about 145 other people to be in “Get to Know Your Community” for the History of Work series and, well, they all declined to comment. This guy, though, well he isn’t shy about speaking his mind. To say the least…].

1. He let us interview him!!! While Kurt’s interview with Santa Claus certainly expanded our readership amongst disgruntled elves and children of wealthy countries that are influenced by American popular culture, the fact that we locked down Henry VII (who has in fact been dead for over five centuries) will play huge with the History, Reformation, divorcee, and giant-robe crowds. I mean, if this were to happen in his day, well, Godfrey and I would probably have been thrown in the Tower of London on the charges of slander and, certainly, treason.

2. Giant pants. I remember, a few years ago when I was living in England, standing in awe as I gazed upon Henry’s giant armour. Honestly, a man from the sixteenth-century being so big was pretty darn amazing. Such sheer greed and gluttony contained in one pair of pants was certainly an historical warning of what big fat white guys could – and would – do to the world. Henry was a messenger. We just missed the message.

3. Entrepreneurial Boat-Rocking. The guy had a vision and he stuck to it, which is pretty admirable. Sure, it was based out of selfishness and an ego the size of his pants, but he took on powerful enemies and didn’t flinch once.

– As told by Godfrey von Bismarck and John Horn