Talk:Henry VIII/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 00:19, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review. Initial comments to follow in the next 1-3 days. Thanks in advance for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:19, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Initial comments

I've done some early work on the article, and so far it looks good. It's well written, well organized, and for the most part well sourced. The biggest issue is the six "citation needed" tags on the article. However, these seem like minor claims that could be filled in or, if necessary, removed, without much difficulty. I've noted a few smaller issues below as well. I've also done some minor copyediting for small MOS and grammar issues as I went; please double-check that I haven't accidentally introduced any errors into the article, and feel free to revert anything you disagree with. I've only done a close read of about half the article so far, so more will follow later today or tomorrow.

Thanks again for your work on this important figure! It's always exciting to see a key article nominated for GA. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:29, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Some other points I'd like your thoughts on:

• "his public image is frequently depicted as one of a lustful, egotistical, harsh, and insecure king" -- This sentence seems mildly redundant-- would it be sufficient to say "he is frequently depicted as..."? Or is the sense here really that the depiction/image of his public image is thus?

In my opinion,  Done. Rjensen might have some further suggestions or an alternative.

• "The problem was resolved with a shift in the League with the creation of the Holy League by Pope Julius II" -- this is a little murky--is it possible to explain more clearly how the League changed? Did one League become the other, or did one League undercut/oppose the other?

 Done I think this should now be clearer, although there were several silly errors with the grammar. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• "Before Henry began on the invasion, he had Edmund de la Pole – a prisoner in the Tower of London – executed, prompted by his brother Richard siding against the king" -- this seems like a confusing digression to this section--were these two involved with the war in France?  Done, moved to a more appropriate place
• "has claimed that Henry in fact had an affair with her sister Mary Shelton." -- better to avoid "claimed" here per WP:WTW--what would you say to "argued"?  Done
• "Henry's foreign policy had played second fiddle to " -- rewrite idiom per WP:IDIOM  Done
• A few ref harv errors to fix up: footnotes 8, 52, 77, 88, 95, 136, 140, 146, 147, 150, 152, 199, 200, 225 don't link to any citation. In the bibliography, Ashley, Bush, Churchill, Hibbert, Hutchinson, Moorhouse, Thurley, Trollope, Weir, and Whitley have no incoming links. (Note that this isn't a factor for GA status, though.)  Done
• Having three links to documents pertaining to Martin Luther in the external links seems a bit unnecessary; linking all primary source documents for Henry doesn't seem practical here, and I'm not sure that these are so vital as to need listing (they're not even mentioned in the article, right?). I'd suggest removing them, but it's not a factor for GA.
  • Three easy ones done. - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 21:24, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks! -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:19, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Citations done. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:41, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, here are some more points, most of them very small:

• "Henry used some of his reserves" -- is this financial reserves or reserve troops?

Financial - there were no military reserves since England's standing army was only a few hundred men.  Done

• "King's Great Matter" -- this header could use some referent in the text. Why is this called "King's Great Matter" and not a more self-explanatory header?

Changed the header to give a pointer at least. The term is very common (book chapter headings, for example) but I don't know way to include it without an awkward sentence dedicated to saying as much.

Now changed.  Done

• "A careful holding of the balance between extreme factions after 1540" -- I could be misreading, but this doesn't seem to be a complete sentence.

Changed  Done

• "This was accompanied, after a short delay, by a general visitation " -- what does this mean--Cromwell made a general visitation of church properties throughout England? Or he had others do so? Or am I misunderstanding? And does the "short delay" mean that this didn't happen in 1535 after all?
  • Clarified. - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 21:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
• The organization of the article appears to me to get a bit confused in the "Legacy" section. Rather than focusing on Henry VIII's legacy--effects of his rule after his death--this section appears to cover large chunks of his rule that simply didn't fit under the wife-by-wife schema in "Biography". In the "government" section in particular, I have very little sense of what the legacy of H's government was--the section mostly recapitulates Wolsey and Cromwell's rises and falls, which seems more a part of H's life than afterlife. The section on Ireland makes the changes between H7 and H8's Irish policy more clear, but still focuses more on H8's actual policies than the after-effects of those policies.

There have been several reorganisations of the article and several more that never left the drawing board. All the subsections do have "Legacy" elements so that's what I/we went for but I've never really been happy with it either. I think the "Legacy" major section could be retitled maybe "Issues" or "Themes of [Henry's] reign" (with or without "Henry's") or the section heading removed and the subsections promoted to sections. But I am loathe to choose between these options, so perhaps you can help there. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

What if "Legacy" was retitled "Governance" or some such and moved to be between "Biography" and "Death and Succession"? -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Tried it another way, worth another look. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:26, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

"Government" seems like a great header to me. I'd still suggest moving it above his "death" section, but that's not an issue for GA, so it's totally up to you. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• "Henry was weary of getting into drawn out conflict" -- should this be "wary"? Or is "weary" correct?

Wary.  Done

• "There had been a well-founded belief that Ireland was merely a fief of England from the Pope, so with the break from Rome came the assertion of Henry to the Kingdom of Ireland in 1541" -- this sentence loses me--can it be rephrased? Also, is "well-founded" NPOV?

Reworded. Should be  Done.

• " It began with the seminal work of historian A.F. Pollard" -- what is "it" here--historical evaluation of H? It's hard to believe that 1902 was the first time a historian discussed his reign.
  • The first modern historiography. In the end I went with "The traditional interpretation of those events was provided by historian". Of course one could have gone further back, but in the interests of space, I've chosen Pollard as the starting point (in line with much of the literature). - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 17:49, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
• Sebastian Giustinian seems like an incredibly minor link to include as a "See Also"-- is there something here I'm missing?

Removed unless other editors can justify.  Done

• The See Also link for The Rough Wooing seems like something that could be better integrated into the text. Given the depth of discussion about Henry's Irish policy, Scotland seems like it deserves a bit of space, too. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:28, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Expanded and reorganised a little. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick responses from both of you! This looks very close to GA now. There are still a few points left above that I'd like your thoughts on. Take a look and after that, I'll do a second readthrough and the final checklist. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Second round

Okay, all of the above seems resolved to me save one major issue: the six citation needed tags remain on the article. Once these are addressed, I'll give this a second readthrough to see if there's anything left. Thanks everybody for your work so far. I think this one is getting real close. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I would have addressed these before nomination, but in several cases I wanted a second opinion on whether the statements were "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, or counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged" as well as several statements in the article which are not cited nor tagged at the moment. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:04, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

That's fair enough. I didn't see anything on my first pass that struck me as needing citation that wasn't already cited, but I'll keep an eye out on my second time through. As for the tags, I agree that some of them don't seem to be terribly controversial statements, like "They were beheaded at Tower Hill, just outside the Tower of London" or "This final provision failed when James VI of Scotland became James I of England upon Elizabeth's death". But since I'm not sure why they were tagged in the first place, these statements may be controversial in a way I'm not aware of. "With Wolsey gone, Anne had considerable power over political matters", on the other hand, seems like the kind of potentially arguable statement that would benefit from citation.

Would you like to start a thread on the talk page of the article asking if it's all right to remove the tags? We can give it a week, and if nobody objects in that time, I'd say go ahead and de-tag those sentences. If anybody feels the tags are still needed, though, it's probably best to treat the information as controversial and provide a citation for each.

Alternatively, if you can find through article history who added the tags in the first place, you might be able to address specific concerns with them directly. A third option, of course, would be to go ahead and track down a citation for each now, but I realize that might be a pain. Up to you. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:25, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I've resolved all of the citation neededs; the only one I removed without citing was James I/VI. - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 22:34, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Terrific, thanks! What I'd like to do now is give this another top-to-bottom readthrough; that'll happen sometime tomorrow. There shouldn't be any major issues remaining at this point, but I'll let you know if any small fixes remain. More soon... -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:12, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

• "differenced by a label of three points ermine." -- I don't know my way around heraldry, so this is probably correct, but thought I'd double-check--is it right to italicize this, and to use the unusual phrase "differenced by"? -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:38, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe it's correct. On the formatting see WP:BLAZON (which I helped write a long time ago); as to "difference" it is indeed used as a verb in this way (see for example Cadency) - "differenced with" is an alternative but I imagine it's the verb that caught your attention. - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 13:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• " historian G. R. Elton famously argued that one such minister" -- the source that this claim is "famous" appears to be Elton her/himself. Could the word "famously" just be omitted here? -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:18, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The notability of Elton's thesis is discussed in the historiography section, but since this passage is in governance (and one might conclude from its very inclusion it had some significance) "famously" didn't add very much and I have removed it. - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 15:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)