Henry VIII was a miserable piece of work. It was only the capable rule by his daughter Elizabeth which spared England from extinction as a nation. That was exactly where they were headed when she was crowned. Henry's father, OTOH, controlled substantial holdings in France when he turned over the crown.
During Henry's reign, roughly 70,000 of his subjects were executed for various offenses, most of them petty. England's population at the time was a mere 2.5 million, meaning roughly 3% of its people died doing the Tyburn jig or the cold block chop.
About 35,000 of those executions were of Cornishmen and women. They've been building a list on the internet ~ haven't looked at it in a good while but the idea is the English will not be allowed to forget who they killed.
Elizabeth was no slouch when it came to state butchery. Sorry, I despise both of them. And if England had gone exstinct, it would not have been the end of the world.