Marcus Aurelius is known as a great emperor, the last of the five great emperorors of Rome really, and his major screwup was letting Commodus be his heir. I've heard people say that we can't really blame him because his only other alternative was killing his own son. Henry VIII is pretty much the opposite. He was a fairly useless king, but unlike many I actually have a lot of sympathy for him setting aside Catherine of Aragon in order to secure an heir, after all he was the scion of a house that had finally settled the hundred years war, a massive dynastic war that was generations long. I can understand why he wanted to avoid that.... and how badly off would England have been if Elizabeth had never been born?