by Henry VIII live at Breakneck Comedy Aberdeen: the full set on the prenup that would have saved Europe
Aberdeen! Granite. An entire city of granite. Grey, cold, impossible to demolish, and it sparkles in the right light. You have built my third marriage, and I mean that as the highest compliment I can pay a building material.
Now, the history. Let us clear the air. My family’s record with Scotland was… mixed. I once tried to arrange a marriage between my son and your infant queen, and when Scotland said no, I sent the ARMY to change her mind. Historians call it the Rough Wooing. The Rough Wooing, Aberdeen. The single worst dating profile name in the history of these islands. I have come to apologise. And to explain that the whole disaster could have been prevented by tonight’s subject: the prenuptial agreement.
The Document That Would Have Saved Europe
One document. Follow me here. ONE document, with a clause about what happens if this does not work out, and there is no Reformation. No schism. No dissolved monasteries. No six of ANYTHING. Catherine and I sit at a table, two lawyers between us. We divide the plate and the tapestries. She keeps Spain. I keep my temper. And the continent is spared a century of religious war because two young people did the PAPERWORK. Marry for love, Aberdeen. But file for contingency.
I have drafted the settlement I should have signed. Would you like to hear it? She gets the abbey. I keep the navy. She takes the jewels her mother sent. I retain the ones I confiscated. Provenance is a matter for the appendix. Custody of Mary alternating, Christmases negotiated annually, and the Pope listed, formally, as a third party with NO STANDING. Forty pounds and a signature. Instead I paid with England’s soul and both my knees.
And your divorce lawyers! I employed Thomas Cromwell. Most feared fixer in Europe. Dismantled a thousand-year church to end one marriage. I have now sat with a modern divorce solicitor, and I promise you: Cromwell would not survive a WEEK at that firm. He broke a church. They break SPIRITS. And they bill for the breakage in six-minute increments, which is a cruelty even I never codified. I priced torture by the session, like a gentleman.
Conscious Uncoupling And Other Fictions
I have learned the phrase conscious uncoupling, and I have QUESTIONS. All of my uncouplings were conscious. Deliberate, even. Planned at length. Executed precisely. Announced by proclamation. What you mean, I think, is AMICABLE. And there I bow. Amicable was the one settlement I never achieved. Unless we count Anne of Cleves, who was amicable the way a lottery winner is amicable. On the way out of the building. Waving.
Alimony is civilisation’s finest invention and I will not be argued with. You pay a monthly sum, the marriage ends, and BOTH parties remain alive to complain about it. Do you understand what a technology that is? The complaint is the POINT. A marriage that ends in maintenance payments produces decades of material for both sides. Mine ended in silence. And silence, Aberdeen, does not do well at dinner parties.
And this city, of all cities, understands the dowry. You struck oil and married the entire world economy overnight. Now the fields decline, the lawyers circle, everyone is consulting the agreement, and THERE IS NO AGREEMENT. Hear it from me first, Aberdeen: get it in writing. The North Sea will not return your calls.
Your weddings now cost twenty thousand pounds. TWENTY THOUSAND. I had six, at state expense, with cloth of gold, fountains of wine, and in one case a jousting tournament, and adjusting for everything, several of mine came in under your venue hire. And here is the actuarial point. You spend twenty thousand on the launch and nothing on the voyage. I OWNED A NAVY. Believe me when I tell you which one sinks.
Counselling
We did try counselling once. Catherine and I. True story. The counsellor was the Archbishop of Canterbury. And the process felt entirely fair, right up to the moment you recall that I appointed him, I paid him, and I had recently invented his JOB. He found in my favour, Aberdeen. He found QUICKLY. If your couples counsellor arrives in vestments you personally commissioned, you are not in therapy. You are in REHEARSAL.
And hear this, you men of the sea. I am told your rigs stand out in water that would kill a man in minutes, and that you fly out to them in all weathers to keep the whole arrangement running. I once called MYSELF brave for crossing the Channel in October. Aberdeen commutes through it. If I had possessed one platoon of Aberdonians in 1544, the Rough Wooing would have been a SMOOTH one, and Scotland, I say this with love, would be paying me maintenance.
A Word From Our Sponsor
Tonight’s sponsor is The London Prat, which offers every newlywed couple a wedding announcement and, for a small supplement, the retraction. Pre-drafted. Get it in writing, says the paper that always does. Bohiney Magazine has vetted a firm doing group rates on prenups. Terms at the back. Granite hearts welcome.
The encore goes out to every couple in this room who ever merged assets in good faith. The bravest people in any century. Goodnight, Aberdeen!
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
