by Henry VIII reports from the front lines of modern romance and finds the swiping economy crueller than any Tudor court
Let me say at the outset that I am a romantic. Ask anyone. Ask several people, in fact, because individually my references are patchy.
A Widower Downloads An App
My manager, a young man called Dev who communicates entirely through a rectangle, insisted I join the dating apps for material. He set up my profile himself. Occupation, he wrote, former head of state, current head of comedy. Height, six foot one, because apparently everybody adds an inch and I refuse to be out-lied by accountants from Clapham.
Within an hour I had matched with a woman named Katherine. I unmatched immediately. Not going through that again. Then a Catherine with a C. Also no. Then a Kathryn. London, I am begging you, diversify.
The Rules Of Engagement
In my era, courtship was straightforward. You sent an ambassador, commissioned a portrait, and married the portrait sight unseen, which I admit produced mixed results in the Anne of Cleves situation. But at least the portrait did not have a filter. Modern profiles are all portraiture fraud. One gentleman I consulted for research showed me his photos and I said, sir, this image is a decade old, and he said everyone does it, and I said Hans Holbein was executed for less, which is not true, but it should have been.
The conversations are worse. A match spent four days sending me a single word at a time. Hey. Then nothing. Then, you good. In 1536 I conducted an entire treason inquiry faster than this woman constructs a sentence. I have annulled marriages with fewer delays than it takes to arrange a Tuesday drink in Shoreditch.
Red Flags, As The Youth Say
Dev taught me the concept of the red flag. He asked what mine were. I said I have a temper, I struggle with commitment past year three, and I once broke with an entire church over a custody-of-the-marriage dispute. He said maybe lead with liking dogs.
My matches had flags of their own. One woman said her ex was crazy. Madam, my ex said the same of me, and she said it in French on a scaffold, so I do not judge. Another listed her love language as acts of service. Excellent, I said, I once had a man draft the entire Act of Supremacy as a favour to me. She asked if that was a band. This generation.
The Ghosting
Then came the ghosting. A word I initially took literally, given my circumstances. A match named Jane, promising name, vanished mid-conversation and never returned. Dev explained she had ghosted me. I explained that where I come from, when someone disappears from court without explanation, you at least receive a formal letter and their lands revert to the crown. Here you receive nothing. Not even the lands. The apps have found a way to make abandonment less dignified than the sixteenth century, and I say that as the sixteenth century’s least dignified man.
So I have deleted the apps. I will meet someone the traditional way, at one of my gigs, across a crowded room, ideally in row three, because rows one and two get spat on when I do the Wolsey material. Romance is not dead. I checked. Death is temporary. I am living proof.
Anyone wanting the full accounting of how I arrived at this level of romantic caution can read the complete tally of my six wives at their leisure. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: London men listing their own dating red flags, a three person tenancy agreement that started as a quiet drink in Soho, the full eyewitness account of how I came back in the first place.
