Henry VIII is notorious for his tyrannical acts and many of those acts were directed against members of the nobility. Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, had two of his nieces and his son executed and was almost killed by Henry too. Thomas Boleyn, the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, had his son and his daughter executed at the same time and his grandaughter disinherited. Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, was executed by Henry in 1521 and his family stripped of their lands and titles. The Marquess of Exeter, Henry Courtenay, was also executed by the King as were the Countess of Salisbury and Baron Montagu, both members of the de La Pole family. The Nevilles of Abergavenny had their lord, George Neville arrested for a year and his brother, Edward Neville, executed in a seperate incident. Even a close ally like the Earl of Essex, Richard Cromwell, found himself beheaded. That is without mentioning Henry's titanic break with Rome which doubtless made him many powerful enemies among the nobility.

Given all this, why was there no noble rebellion against Henry VIII? Why is there such a difference between Henry VIII's reign and the reigns of practically every other medieval English monarch? Other monarchs (including Henry VII and Elizabeth I) faced several noble rebellions and often for far less than what Henry VIII did.