Six Wives of Henry VIII Read online

  This was not, however, to be a happy pregnancy, for by that time, the King had been forced to the realisation that he had been duped by his so-called allies, Ferdinand and Maximilian, who had made it very clear that they had not the slightest intention now of pursuing the war with France. Nor would the Council of Flanders accept Mary Tudor as a bride for the Archduke Charles. This was an insult, which, together with his humiliation over Ferdinand's betrayal, inspired Henry to an outburst of righteous anger against his father-in-law and the Emperor, calling down the wrath of Heaven upon them for having deceived him. The person who suffered most was Katherine, who had for years urged Henry to heed the advice of her father. This would now cease, he warned her icily, 'upbraiding the innocent Queen for her father's desertion', and informing her that 'the Kings of England had never taken place to anyone but God', according to the chronicler Peter Martyr. In future, he would govern his kingdom by himself, with the aid of Wolsey, and without any outside interference. One after the other, 'he spat out his complaints against her'. Katherine was distressed at the realisation that her husband and her father were now enemies, and that her own role as Henry's confidential adviser would in consequence be much diminished, and all at a time when Wolsey's influence was growing ever more powerful. It was doubtful if the King would ever listen to her again to the same extent, or trust her advice.

  Katherine's friends, notably Fray Diego before his dismissal and Maria de Salinas, now urged her to forget the interests of Spain and render her loyalty wholly to her adopted land, for only by doing this could she hope to avoid further censure by the King. Katherine accepted that this was the wisest option, for she dared not antagonise her husband further. Luis Caroz, however, felt that it would be catastrophic for Spain if her remaining link with England was severed. 'The Queen has the best of intentions,' he reported, 'but there is no one to show her how she may become serviceable to her father.' Maria de Salinas realised that Katherine's services on her father's behalf had brought her to this impasse, and she effectively blocked all Caroz's attempts to persuade Katherine to place Ferdinand's interests before those of her husband. As for the King, he behaved 'in a most discourteous manner' whenever King Ferdinand's name was mentioned.

  What Katherine, Caroz and Ferdinand had failed to take into account was the growing effect of regal responsibility upon Henry VIII, and his developing egocentricity; nor did they allow for the ever increasing influence of Thomas Wolsey, who was even now urging the King towards a French alliance. In October 1514, Henry married his sister Mary to the King of France, who now became his friend and ally, peace between the two kingdoms having been proclaimed with the signing of a new treaty in August. This was all Wolsey's doing, and naturally it was unwelcome to Queen Katherine, not only because of her inbred distrust of the French, but also because it meant that Wolsey's influence was unlikely to be dislodged, which could only be detrimental to her own interests and Spain's.

  It was essential that she regain the King's confidence, yet Henry never came to her now for advice on political matters, and she was obliged to retire into the background and settle for a purely domestic and decorative role. For someone who had, for several years, been at the centre of events, this was hard to take, yet take it she did, with patience and humility, never betraying her sense of isolation or her distaste for her husband's new allies. If she could bring him an heir, she might yet win him back, but in November 1514 her latest pregnancy ended with the birth of yet another prince who died within hours of his birth. In Spain, it was the general opinion that this tragedy had occurred 'on account of the discord between the two kings, her husband and father; because of her excessive grief, she ejected an immature foetus.' It was a bitter blow, and Katherine herself commented that the Almighty must love her to confer upon her 'the privilege of so much sorrow'.

  She was destined, however, to bear a living child. A fifth pregnancy was confirmed in the summer of 1515, and at four o'clock in the morning of 18 February 1516, Katherine gave birth to a healthy daughter. Although the baby was the wrong sex, the King was delighted with her, for she was 'a right lusty princess', and he named her Mary. Katherine's emotions when she beheld her 'beauteous babe' may well be imagined - even the news of the death of her father, King Ferdinand, which had been kept from her until after her confinement, could not dampen her joy. God, it seemed, had spoken at last, and - as Henry confidently said - 'if it is a daughter this time, by the grace of God, boys will follow. We are both still young.' The Princess Mary was christened with 'great solemnity' three days after her birth in the chapel of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. In accordance with tradition, neither parent attended the ceremony, and the infant was borne to the font by her sponsors, or godparents, under a canopy of estate.

  In August 1517, Queen Katherine was again supposed to be pregnant, but it was either a rumour or a false hope. Her sixth and last child was conceived in February 1518, when she was thirty-two, well past her youth by contemporary standards, and possibly aware that this might be her last chance to present Henry with an heir. 'I pray God heartily that it may be a prince, to the universal comfort and security of the realm,' wrote Richard Pace, the King's secretary, to Wolsey; sentiments echoed by the Venetian ambassador, who hoped God would grant the Queen a son, 'in order that his Highness, having a male heir to follow him, may not be hindered, as at present, from engaging in affairs of the moment'. This was a veiled reference to Henry's reluctance to lead an army against the Turks, who were encroaching upon Eastern Europe.

  The forthcoming birth was announced in June as 'an event most earnestly desired by the whole kingdom', and in churches throughout the land prayers were said for Katherine's safe delivery. She herself was then at the old palace of Woodstock, and could there take the air in gardens where Henry II had once courted his mistress, 'Fair Rosamund' Clifford, and perhaps see traces of the maze built for that lady. Here, too, in 1330, another beloved queen, Philippa of Hainault, had borne a son, the Black Prince. All seemed well when, in July, the King visited Woodstock; Katherine greeted him at the door of her chamber, proud to show him 'for his welcome home her belly something great'. Then before all the courtiers, she told him that the child had stirred in her womb; Henry was so delighted that he gave a great banquet to celebrate, and fussed around his wife to ensure that she took good care of herself, for - as he wrote to Wolsey - he knew by now that a happy outcome to her pregnancies was 'not an ensured thing, but a thing wherein I have great hope and likelihood'.

  Tragically, his hopes were to come to nothing yet again, for on 10 November Katherine had a daughter, 'to the vexation of as many as knew it. Never had the kingdom desired anything so anxiously as it did a prince.' The baby was very weak, and died before she could be christened. The Queen found this latest disappointment almost too much to bear, and openly wondered if the loss of her children was a judgement of God 'for that her former marriage was made in blood'.

  The Queen had conceived six, possibly eight, times, yet all she had to show for it was one daughter. She had borne her losses with amiability, resignation and good humour, yet the burden of failure was great. In the patriarchal society of Tudor England, blame for stillbirths and neonatal deaths was always apportioned to the woman, and some were of the opinion that Henry had made a grave mistake in marrying a wife older than himself. 'My good brother of England has no son because, although young and handsome, he keeps an old and deformed wife,' was the King of France's cruel comment at this time. It was true that Katherine had begun to show her age, and that her figure had been ruined by her pregnancies. Her youthful prettiness had gone for ever, while Henry, at twenty-seven, was approaching his physical peak. Yet, to his credit, he did not once reproach Katherine for his lack of a male heir, although he was himself desperate for a son, and beginning to wonder why this one crucial gift should be denied him.

  By 1519, with no sign of another child on the way, the succession had become the King's most critical problem. Although his throne was based on firmer foundations than h
is father's had been, he still had to contend with a legacy of stray Plantagenets, and, though at present these descendants of the House of York appeared to be behaving themselves, one could never anticipate what they would do if the King died suddenly, leaving a three-year-old girl on the throne. There would, without doubt, be factions formed and a return to civil war; Mary's very life might well be threatened. Of course, the Queen might yet conceive, but that was a possibility which seemed more remote with each passing year. Henry later hinted that she suffered from some gynaecological trouble, possibly as a result of her last confinement, and that this made intercourse with her distasteful to him. At any rate, he ceased to have sexual relations with her in 1524, by his own admission, made seven years later, and by the spring of 1525, it was well known that Katherine was 'past that age in which women most commonly are wont to be fruitful'. There would be no more children.

  For the King, this was a bitter pill to swallow; it was galling in the extreme for a robust and virile man of thirty-four to face the fact that he would have no more legitimate issue of his body. It was almost a slur on his manhood. Sex with Katherine had long become just a means to an end, and when the Queen's menopause came upon her, it became glaringly apparent that Henry's desire for her had long since died; nevertheless, he would still visit her bed for some years to come, if only for appearances' sake.

  In August 1514, a curious rumour had been reported in Rome, to the effect that 'the King of England means to repudiate his present wife because he is unable to have children by her, and intends to marry a daughter of the French Duke of Bourbon.' Then in England, in September, it was being said that 'the King wishes to dissolve his marriage.'

  Did Henry, as early as 1514, seriously consider divorce? The main argument against these reports having any basis in fact is that Katherine was pregnant when they were written, and it is unthinkable that the King would have contemplated putting her away when he was hopeful of her bearing him an heir. Rome, however, was a long way from England, and a report of something Henry had said in June, when he was furious with Katherine because of her father's treachery, would not have reached Italy for several weeks, and may well have been embroidered in the process, as nowhere else do we hear this tale of a French marriage for the King. It is therefore, on balance, highly improbable that he seriously thought of divorce at this stage.

  He was, however, at that time enjoying a flirtation with fourteen-year-old Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount, a distant relative of the Queen's chamberlain, Lord Mountjoy. Her name was first mentioned in connection with the King's in October 1514, in a letter written to Henry by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, which implies that the King and Brandon were partners in flirtations with Elizabeth and another girl, Elizabeth Carew. The King was discreet about his love affairs, so we know very little about this one, except that it was what Fray Diego was referring to when he accused Henry of having 'badly used' the Queen in the autumn of 1514. Katherine, however, was by then growing used to her husband's infidelities, writing resignedly in one letter that 'young men be wrapped in sensual love'. Hence she kept her peace. The King's affair with Bessie Blount would last for the next five years at least, but it was conducted well out of sight of his wife. Thus, in 1519, Erasmus would still feel moved to extol Henry's virtues as a husband: 'What house among all your subjects presents such an example of a chaste and concordant wedlock as your own? There, you find a wife emulous to resemble the best of husbands!'

  Of course, unknown to Erasmus, Henry had been anything but chaste. He was rumoured to be still in love with Elizabeth Blount, who shared with him a passion for singing, dancing and 'goodly pastimes'. In 1519 Elizabeth disappeared from court for several months; Henry had arranged for her to go to 'Jericho', a house he leased from St Lawrence's Priory at Blackmore in Essex; it was a house with a poor reputation, where the King maintained a private suite. When he visited, he took with him only a few attendants. No one was allowed to approach him during his stay, and pages and grooms of the privy chamber were warned 'not to hearken and enquire where the King is or goeth, be it early or late', and to refrain from 'talking of the King's pastime' or 'his late or early going to bed'. Obviously Jericho was a trysting place where Henry could pursue his affair with Elizabeth Blount, and perhaps other women whose names are lost to history. Elizabeth certainly lived there for a time, for in 1519 she gave birth to the King's bastard son in the house. Henry was delighted to have a boy at last: here was proof indeed that he himself was not responsible for the lack of a male heir, though it must have seemed to him ironical that his only son should be born out of wedlock. He named the child Henry, and bestowed upon him the old Norman-French surname FitzRoy, which means 'son of the King'. News of the birth soon leaked out at court, and in due course the Queen learned of it, to her sorrow and humiliation. Henry's affair with Elizabeth Blount seems to have ended with the birth of her child, and he arranged through Wolsey to have her honourably bestowed in marriage as a reward for services rendered. Late in 1519 she married Lord Tailboys, although Wolsey was savagely criticised for his part in this, and accused of encouraging young women to indulge in fornication as a means of finding a husband above their station. Yet Elizabeth Blount would go on to make an even more impressive second marriage after her husband's death, to Lord Clinton, later Earl of Lincoln. She died in 1539. Her son by the King, Henry FitzRoy, was sent at a young age to live with a tutor, Richard Croke, at King's College, Cambridge, where he would receive part of his education.

  Although she could not approve of the Princess Mary's marriage to King Louis of France, Katherine- wearing a gown and Venetian cap of ash-coloured satin - attended the banquet given after the proxy wedding ceremony at Greenwich in August 1514, and shortly afterwards rode with the court to Dover to say goodbye to her sisterinlaw, of whom she seems to have been fond.

  The 'amorous marriage' of Louis XII and Mary Tudor lasted less than three months; worn out with making love to his beautiful, giddy bride, the middle-aged Louis died of exhaustion at the beginning of January 1515, to Mary's great relief, and was succeeded by his distant cousin, Francis, Count of Angouleme. Francis I was just three years younger than Henry VIII, and already had a dire reputation where women were concerned. Henry was immediately distrustful of him, and not a little jealous. In fact, the strong sense of rivalry between the two monarchs would endure until their deaths, which occurred within weeks of each other. Henry's jealousy was rooted in the awareness that, until Francis's accession, he had been the youngest, most charismatic and most good-looking sovereign in Europe - all were agreed on that. But this new King of France might now be about to send Henry's star into eclipse, and Henry was determined that should not happen.

  Francis, who played a significant role in the history of Henry VIII's marital adventures, was far from handsome, being dark and saturnine with an over-long pointed nose, which gave him the look of a satyr and earned him the nickname 'Foxnose'. Living up to this epithet, he could be as devious as any of his predecessors when it came to politics. Yet he was also a true prince of the Renaissance, a lover of the arts, and the patron of Leonardo da Vinci. His court was at once a school of culture and elegance and a cesspit of vice and debauchery, his palaces without peer in northern Europe.

  Francis made ineffectual attempts to seduce Queen Mary during her brief widowhood, but he was pre-empted by Charles Brandon, newly created Duke of Suffolk, whom Henry had sent to convey her back to England. Unknown to the King, Mary had long cherished a secret love for Brandon, and the effect of his arrival in Paris was cataclysmic. She wanted no more arranged marriages, she told him, and begged him to marry her himself. Such was the pressure she brought to bear upon him that Brandon capitulated, and secretly made her his wife.

  Charles Brandon had since childhood been very close to the King. Born in 1485, he was the son of Henry VII's standard bearer, Sir William Brandon, who had been killed at the Battle of Bosworth. Young Charles had then been taken into the royal household to be brought up with Prince Henry, whom he mu
ch resembled in looks, build and colouring. A great favourite with the ladies, Brandon had already disentangled himself from two disadvantageous marriages. Now, realising the enormity of what he had done, he wrote at once to Wolsey, confessing that he had married Mary 'heartily, and lain with her'. When he heard, the King was furious - so furious he wanted Brandon's head. But thanks to Wolsey's intervention and his suggestion that the Suffolks make reparation by payment of a crippling fine, Henry forgave them, and allowed them to return to England, where he arranged a splendid public wedding for them at Greenwich. Afterwards, the couple retired to live somewhat frugally for a time in the country, where Mary bore three children, one of whom, Frances, would later become the mother of Lady Jane Grey.

  By the autumn of 1515, Henry VIII's anger against Ferdinand of Aragon had burnt itself out, and there was a renewal of friendship between them before Ferdinand's death in January 1516. He was succeeded in Aragon by his grandson, Charles of Castile, who was from now on effective ruler of a reunited Spain. Henry and Katherine welcomed Charles's ambassadors to England in March 1516, and entertained them with a banquet lasting seven hours, and a joust in which the King gave a practised display of horsemanship, 'making a thousand jumps in the air'.

  Peace now existed between the great European powers. By 1517, many foreigners had come to London to set up businesses or to see the sights; many were Spaniards. This created a certain amount of tension, for the English disliked the 'strangers', as they called them, and on May Day 1517, this resentment bubbled into hatred and boiled over, as fighting broke out between mobs of London apprentices and any foreigners who were unlucky enough to cross their paths. What made these riots so ugly was the fact that they were almost certainly premeditated.