The Tudors for Dummies (AvaxHome Download) (14 page)

Hedging his Bess

We don't know exactly when Henry bedded Bessie Blount, but it was cer-

tainly before 1519 because that was the year she gave birth to Henry Fitzroy.

The birth of a healthy illegitimate son was like rubbing salt into Catherine's

wounds. She became more devout than ever, either as a sign of remorse,

an attempt to say sorry to God for failing Henry or even in the faint hope of

reversing her body clock.

Princess Mary wasn't acceptable to Henry for political reasons. The last queen

of England was Matilda in the 12th century and she'd made such a hash of

it that civil war had broken out. Nobody knew exactly how having Mary as

queen would work. If a woman married, the law said that all her property

became her husband's, so if Mary married a foreign king, England would

belong to him as the crown matrimonial. If Mary married a home-grown

nobleman, that could see the dynastic squabbles of the Wars of the Roses

(see Chapter 1) start all over again.

Henry married Bessie Blount off to Gilbert Tailboys and threw money and

land at them both, buying her silence. He had other fish to fry.

Getting Heady with Anne Boleyn

Henry probably had an affair with Mary Boleyn (see Chapter 3) in 1520 and

this brought him into the circle of her sister, Anne. Both Boleyn girls have

captivated historical novelists and film makers, always keen to have a slushy

love story centre stage.

Courting commotion

In 1513, when Anne was about 12, she was sent to the Court of Margaret of

Austria who ran the Low Countries (today's Netherlands). From there she

was sent to the Court of Mary (Henry VIII's sister), who was now queen of

France and not much older than Anne. When Louis XII of France died Mary

came home, but Anne stayed on, learning all the flirtiness and flightiness of

the French Court. 88 Part II: Handling Henry VIII

Artful Anne

Anne's portraits don't show her as a great (see Chapter 3 for details of Henry's admira-

beauty � and remember, they were painted tion for her two biggest assets) and held out

to flatter the sitter! � but she was sexy, clever against the king's amorous advances for over

and witty. She knew how to waggle her assets five years.

Caught between the charm of Anne, with her razzle dazzle, and boring

old Catherine, who was menopausal and increasingly judgemental, Henry

decided by 1527 that his marriage was illegal because of the disclaimer in

Leviticus. Catherine had to go.

Catherine, of course, had no such intention. She saw herself as queen of

England and her daughter Mary as the heiress to the throne. Knowing that

Henry needed the pope's permission to get the marriage annulled, she

dashed off letters to her nephew, Charles V, whose army was camped outside

Rome, to make sure that the pope didn't do the honours. Well served by her

legal team, Catherine won every round in this royal battle.

In Chapter 4 we explain that Thomas Wolsey lost his job because of his failure

to sort out the divorce. But another of Henry's advisers, Thomas Cromwell,

hit upon the answer. If the pope wouldn't play ball and grant a divorce, then

Henry could get Parliament to declare him head of the Church (see Chapter 6)

and then the king could sort it out for himself.

Getting his own way � to hell

Catherine refused to recognise Henry's jurisdiction. She was banished from

Court and given �3,000 a year and the title dowager princess of Wales.

The pope excommunicated Henry but the verdict was a paper tiger because

neither Charles V nor Francis I, the superpower leaders in Europe, paid any

attention to the pope. The only people who did were goody-two-shoes like

Thomas More and John Fisher who, as you see in Chapter 4, lost their heads

as a result.

Now events moved quickly. Henry gave Anne Boleyn the title of marchioness

of Pembroke and she went with Henry to France as the potential queen-in-

waiting the next year. She conceived on this trip, and because the child had

to be legitimate in the spring of 1533 Thomas Cranmer, as archbishop of

Canterbury, the top churchman in the country, annulled Henry's marriage to

Catherine. At the same time Parliament prevented Catherine from whingeing

to the pope by passing the Act in Restraint of Appeals. Chapter 5: Six Weddings and Two Funerals 89

Henry and Anne were married in secret in January and then, on 1 June, she

was crowned. Fifty barges, fluttering with flags and gold foil, brought the

royal procession along the river Thames from Greenwich to Westminster.

The lord mayor of London presented the new queen with 1,000 gold marks

(like she needed it!). Some of the crowd were quite subdued, however,

and some weren't very pleased at the obvious signs of pregnancy showing

through Anne's robes.

Although a number of top people boycotted the ceremony, the Boleyn family

were over the moon. Everybody else had the last laugh, though, because

the much awaited royal son in September turned out to be another girl,

Elizabeth.

D�j� vu

While Cromwell and Parliament were busy sorting out the details of the Royal

Supremacy (see Chapter 6), which would have the effect of dividing the coun-

try deeply, Anne was exerting as much influence on Henry as she could. She

was pregnant again by the spring of 1534, but miscarried in July. Henry must

have been distraught. He was putting his people through an unprecedented

upheaval and for what? In a way, he was back to square one.

Matters were made worse in April when Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of

Kent, prophesied loudly and often that Henry would die a villain's death if he

stayed married to the queen. She was hanged at Tyburn, west of London, the

traditional execution place for common felons.

Old wife's tale During her banishment Catherine was afraid life were supposed to take to recognise Henry that she would be poisoned, and reportedly, she as head of the Church (upon penalty of death), had her food cooked by her own servants over a didn't apply to Catherine or his daughter Mary. fire in her chamber. She needn't have worried.

In any case, Catherine solved the problem Ruthless as he was in some ways, Henry didn't

for him by dying, probably of a series of heart stoop to such methods. He made sure that the

attacks, at Buckden in January 1536. Oath of Supremacy, which all people in public 90 Part II: Handling Henry VIII

Meanwhile, Henry's relationship with Anne was passionate and intensely

physical. Anne wore her sexuality on her sleeve. She was feisty and if she

didn't like what Henry was doing she told him so. They had furious fights

and many make-ups, but the techniques that Anne had used during their

courtship didn't work so well after marriage. Henry began to find his wife

annoying.

Falling out of love: A losing game

By the summer of 1535 Henry and Anne's marriage blew hot and cold. The

death of Catherine the following year meant that Henry could never go back

to her and Anne was pregnant again. Then Henry had an accident while joust-

ing and was knocked out for several hours. So worried was Anne that she

miscarried.

The story spread years later that Anne's miscarried baby was deformed.

Because of that Henry became convinced that the child couldn't have been his

and that Anne must be playing away from home. But this story wasn't current

at the time and is probably one of those annoying bits of fiction that tend to

grow up around royals in every generation.

Henry began to brood. He wondered whether the dazzling girl at his elbow

had bewitched him. He watched every gesture, read another meaning into

every word. The dead child wasn't his. So whose was it? How about Anne's

own brother George, Lord Rochford? After all, he was hanging around her all

the time. In Henry's paranoid mood, it all seemed to fit.

Punishing Anne: Off with her head!

Henry didn't rush to judgement, but over three months in the spring of

1536 he became convinced of Anne's infidelity. Two things pushed him over

the edge:

Thomas Cromwell changed sides. As you see in Chapter 4, Cromwell

was loyal to Henry and could pick up intuitively on the king's moods.

Henry confided in him and Cromwell now used his considerable powers

to remove Anne.

Anne made a silly remark to Sir Henry Norris. He was a gentleman

of Henry's Privy Chamber and Anne, no doubt as a joke, told him that,

should anything happen to the king, she knew Norris fancied her. The

malignant Cromwell made sure that Henry heard of this in the worst

possible light and Anne and Norris were arrested on charges of adultery.

Because Henry was king, the crime was also treason. Chapter 5: Six Weddings and Two Funerals 91

Anne couldn't believe this was happening. She'd done nothing except carry

on in the same flirtatious way she always had. Henry had made up his mind,

however, and as well as accusing the queen of witchcraft (see Chapter 4)

Cromwell produced a bundle of dodgy evidence to `prove' that Anne had

slept with four men:

Sir Henry Norris, who denied it.

Francis Weston, who denied it.

William Brereton, who denied it.

Mark Smeaton, who confessed to it. He was a lowly music teacher and

was almost certainly tortured.

The trial was a mockery, even by rigged Tudor standards, and on 10 May

1536 Anne and all her `lovers' were found guilty.

Meanwhile, the archbishop of Canterbury hit upon Henry's affair with Mary

Boleyn as an excuse to dissolve the royal marriage. After all, a consummated

relationship outside marriage was the same as one inside (if it suited Henry's

purpose).

Anne was beheaded on 17 May 1536 (see the nearby sidebar `Losing her

head, keeping her cool' for the grisly details).

Losing her head, keeping her cool Anne went to the block on 17 May. She was who hacked through it with a single horizontal no longer queen, marchioness nor wife. Her sweep of his two-handed sword (her choice � brother died days earlier not far from her cell the cut would be cleaner). in the Tower of London. She walked the 50

Rumour had it that Henry waited for the cannon yards to the execution place on Tower Green

signal that Anne was dead before he rode out wearing a plain grey dress and spoke to the

to hunt. This is faithfully shown in Anne of the waiting crowd. She prayed that God would

Thousand Days and the camera lingers on save the king, `for a gentler, more merciful

little Elizabeth who, aged 3, is still learning how prince was there never, and to me he was

to walk in her heavy dresses and doesn't ever a good, a gentle and a sovereign lord.'

understand the significance of the cannon fire Her cloak and headdress were removed. She

she hears. had the nerve to joke about her little neck to the specially imported, masked headsman

Marrying Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour, Henry's third wife, was the calm after the storm. The daugh-

ter of Sir John Seymour of Wulf Hall in Wiltshire, she was a bit dumpy and

a bit plain. At 27, she was unusually old to be a virgin, especially because

she'd already been knocking around the Court for a while in the entourage of

Queen Anne.

This relationship was political as well as personal. By marrying an English

bride, Henry was signalling loud and clear that he wouldn't hitch his star to a

European alliance and have to bargain away his control of the Church.

Plain Jane

Because she didn't live long, figuring Jane out is difficult. Here's what we

know:

She had common sense.

She wasn't deeply religious but may have tried to persuade Henry not to

destroy the monasteries.

She came of good breeding stock � the Seymour family was huge.

She didn't have the ambition to lead a party made up of the Seymours as

earlier queens of England had done with their families.

She got on with princess Mary (Catherine's daughter), who accepted her

illegitimacy and was welcomed at Court in July 1536.

It's a boy!

While Henry was busy sorting out the Pilgrimage of Grace (see Chapter 4),

Jane's coronation was shelved because she was pregnant.

All the signs looked good. Astrologers who watched the heavens closely at

auspicious times told Henry he would have a son and he even had a new stall

created in the Garter Chapel at Windsor for the new prince of Wales.

The pregnancy was fine, but the labour and birth were difficult. Finally, on 12

June 1536 at Hampton Court, a boy was born, and he was christened Edward

three days later. Henry is said to have cried with joy.

Taking leave: A dying shame

Thomas Cranmer and the duke of Norfolk were the prince's godfathers

and princess Mary was godmother. Jane sat up in bed in the antechapel to

receive visitors. Then it all went pear-shaped. She developed septicaemia,

which was then called childbed fever, and 11 days after Edward's birth she

slipped into a coma, dying on the evening of 24 October. Henry went to his

Palace of Westminster and `kept himself secret a great while' and the Court

wore the black of mourning until Candlemas (2 February 1538).

Jane was gentle and biddable, perhaps the nicest of all Henry's wives. Above

all, she'd given him what his heart desired most � a son.

Tripping Up with Anne of Cleves

Henry was 46 and perhaps no longer really interested in marriage. But it was

a risk to pin all your hopes on one boy and the Council, urged by Cromwell,

suggested a new queen. Henry had a couple of options:

A French princess: That would do wonders for shaky Anglo�French rela-

tions, but Francis refused to allow a beauty parade of family talent for

Henry's benefit.

The Duchess of Milan: She was 16 and already a widow, but she didn't

fancy following Anne Boleyn to the block.

In fact, foreign policy pushed Henry in another direction altogether. Charles

V and Francis I became buddies again early in 1539, leaving England and

Henry out of the loop to such an extent that the king feared invasion. To

counter the Franco�Imperial alliance Henry could:

Join forces with the Schmalkaldic League � but they were Lutheran

princes and he was a Catholic.

Work out a deal with the powerful John, duke of the German state of

Cleves-Julich, one of Charles V's most bitter enemies.

Henry settled on the second option, and a double wedding to cement friend-

ship with Cleves-Julich was arranged: when Duke John died, his son William

proposed to marry Henry's daughter Mary, and Henry himself would marry

William's sister, Anne. 94 Part II: Handling Henry VIII

Making a big mistake

Anne of Cleves was probably frightened to death as she set sail for England

in December 1539. The weather was terrible and she couldn't get to Dover

before the 27th, leaving a fuming Henry to spend Christmas alone at

Greenwich.

When Anne got to the bishop of Rochester's palace on 31 December en route

to her new husband-to-be, Henry played a prank that Anne Boleyn would have

loved but that terrified Anne of Cleves. In masks, the king and his gentlemen of

the Chamber crashed into her bedroom, pretending to bring a token from the

amorous bridegroom. It all went horribly wrong, with ghastly silences, even

after Henry revealed who he was. `I like her not,' was his muttered comment.

Dealing with the fallout

Henry quickly realised he'd been had and Anne wouldn't make a handsome

match (see the sidebar `Not even a pretty face'). And very quickly the inter-

national scene changed so that the Cleves-Julich alliance no longer mattered.

But Henry was unable to wriggle out at this late stage, despite putting the

wedding off for 48 hours and hoping for a miracle. He married Anne in the pri-

vate chapel at Greenwich on 6 January 1540. The wedding night was a disas-

ter and Henry gave up trying to have sex with Anne after four nights. So much

for a spare to back up the heir!

On the surface, all may have seemed well. But Henry's adviser Thomas

Cromwell soon fell, partly as a result of his part in the Cleves fiasco.

Not even a pretty face

In the days before easy communication and sophistication or dazzle of previous wives. She

photography, royals saw the faces of pro- spoke, read and wrote no language other than

spective spouses via Court miniatures. The German and knew nothing of the facts of life.

brilliant and ever-reliable Hans Holbein did an She was tall and gawky with smallpox scars.

incredible job with Anne's portrait and Henry

On the other hand, she was good at needle-

fell for it. Anne was a bumpkin with none of the

work!