The story of Henry VIII and his six wives has long since passed from history to legend. It was told to children in the cradle and, in later times, was supposed to serve as a kind of cautionary tale. Adults are said to have found in it an explanation of the dangers that await those who wish to join the high nobility. The real story behind the legend, however, remained unknown to most, who remembered only the words divorce, execution, death and survival.
Royal marriages were the essence of high politics in medieval and early modern Europe. The fate of many countries depended on the fertility of monarchs and their wives and the mortality of royal offspring. The main purpose of these marriages was to produce male offspring, but female offspring were also desirable, as they were a kind of marriage stake that could be offered to eligible royal courts throughout Europe. Thus, daughters were sometimes betrothed ten times before marriage to various princes from European courts, depending on how the political alliances between the states were changing. Even illegitimate children were sometimes a suitable, if not always welcome, input in foreign courts. They were often used by the Habsburgs to secure the loyalty of powerful but unreliable vassals.
In the past, when there was no significant distinction between the state and the ruler’s private property, an heiress could bring the ruler possession of lands that until then had enjoyed a certain kind of autonomy. For a reigning prince or heir to the throne, marriage was therefore a very serious matter, and had to be approached with great deliberation, taking into account a number of political circumstances, not only the immediate but also their long-term consequences. Marriage in a domestic setting did not, of course, involve such a risk, but it did not offer any opportunities either, but it was a risk of a different kind. Edward IV thus chose to marry the widow of one of his barons rather than enter into a dynastic alliance with France. It is unlikely that this was a romantic decision. He had to make it clear that he was no longer under the guardianship of the Earl of Warwick, who was weaving a dynastic alliance with France.
Between 1415 and 1603, only one English monarch came to the throne married. Three monarchs died unmarried, three found a partner abroad and two married at home. Only Henry VIII married more than once, finding a bride twice among foreign princesses and four times among his own subjects. It was almost a rule that a foreign bride should come from a powerful and well-established dynasty, and although no one expected those involved to enjoy lasting political favour, the bride’s kinship often restricted the ruler’s freedom of decision. On the other hand, Anne Boleyn, for example, was constantly reproached for not coming from a sufficiently distinguished nobility.
Divorce was practically impossible in those days, but the ruler could still obtain an annulment for various reasons. Particularly convenient were, for example, failure to perform a conjugal duty or close blood relations. Most of the time, however, this was merely an excuse for political reasons. The sanctity of marriage was decided by the ecclesiastical courts, and challenging it was not easy, since even canon law did not give a clear answer, since it allowed for several types of binding unions.
A “per verba de futuro” betrothal was not a definitive commitment and was usually used when the prospective union was being discussed by diplomats and the newlyweds were still children. A “per verba de praesenti” engagement, on the other hand, was a very serious matter and could stop any other agreement if the parties did not agree that it was null and void. Such an engagement followed by consummation, i.e. the performance of a conjugal duty, was considered a valid marriage even if it was not followed by a marriage ceremony. If there was a marriage ceremony but no consummation, the marriage was valid but could be annulled with relative ease.
Given the complex and often time-consuming nature of arranging royal marriages, this has not infrequently resulted in the parties resorting to the ecclesiastical judiciary to clarify what was agreed in the first place. Negligence in such matters could have very unpleasant consequences.
As a rule, wives were at a disadvantage. Their relatives rarely risked a serious argument with their spouses, and it was clear that they would not take sides in the event of a quarrel or even a divorce. The Queen also had no right to complain about her husband’s infidelity, but if she were unfaithful herself, she would risk being disowned by her husband, thrown into prison or condemned to death. The reason was clear enough. Also, a ruler’s illegitimate children were no one’s concern and were proof of his potency, and any doubt about the legitimacy of a child born to a queen could disrupt and shake the succession order in the country.
Henry VIII was an expert in these matrimonial matters, having six wives.
Henry VIII and Katarina Aragonska
Princess Catherine of Spain came to England as a guarantee of the friendship between England and Spain and as recognition that the Tudors were equal to the Spanish royal family. She was 16 years old and had been betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, for as long as she could remember. As the youngest daughter of a Spanish royal couple, she knew that her parents were speculating on her fate, something that would not otherwise have happened to someone who had a better chance of occupying a throne. She was brought up carefully, not to rule, but to be the wife of a ruler. England was a distant and cold land for her, and the Tudors were not held in high esteem in Europe. But they were almost as pious as the Castilians, and that meant a great deal to her mother, Isabella the Catholic, who was also called “the crowned nun”.
So Catherine arrived in London in 1501 with a splendid entourage. Her fiancé, Prince Arthur of Wales, was only fifteen years old on their wedding day, and the question of the wisdom of marriage became a first-class political issue. The young couple were sent to Ludlow for a few months to see what would happen, but there Arthur contracted pneumonia and died, leaving his young wife, probably still a virgin.
King Ferdinand of Spain, however, was in no mood to renounce his alliance with England, as he was already deep in a war with France, and the dowry issue was still unresolved: Ferdinand still owed England a considerable portion of the dowry, and as the ageing King Henry VII needed money, a new agreement was quickly reached. The young widow was betrothed to Prince Henry, then only 12 years old. It was this arrangement that caused much later embarrassment, as it stipulated that the consent of the Pope had to be obtained for the marriage to be valid, given that the betrothed were in the first line of consanguinity.
The wedding is to take place when Henry turns 15. Catherine remained in England at the Durham House residence, on a monthly income of £100, surrounded by strict English overseers. In 1504, Pope Julius II finally gave his consent and thus permission to marry.
At that time, people were dying very quickly, including kings and princes, alliances were being made and broken, the position of the Spanish princess was sometimes better, sometimes worse, and when King Henry VII of England finally died, a few days later the Spanish ambassador was summoned to the court and told that the new King Henry VIII looked on Catherine with affection. The problems with the overdue dowry, which had been negotiated for months, were suddenly gone, the Archbishop’s doubts about the validity of the six-year-old papal permission to marry were rudely put aside, and on 11 June 1509 it was the turn of the wedding.
The bride was five years older than Henrik, still beautiful, though ailing, and Henrik was a sturdy man, tall and muscular, a skilful tennis player and a champion doubles player. Catherine had achieved her goal and was convinced that this was God’s will. They were a harmonious couple. Henry had no experience of the affairs of state, but he was careful enough not to dismiss his father’s advisers, even though he trusted no one. It was in 1512, however, that the rise of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey began, and he became the king’s chief and most important adviser. The void that Henry had created around his person was perfectly filled by Catherine’s advice. Although she did not know the affairs of state in England well, she was intelligent and had a good eye for judging people.
Catherine quickly became pregnant, but in January 1510 she gave birth to a stillborn girl many weeks prematurely. This happened often in those days, and no one took it too seriously, because she became pregnant again soon afterwards and gave birth to a son on New Year’s Day 1511, to the joy of everyone. The boy died seven weeks later. Catherine turned to prayer in despair, and Henry began to wonder what he had done to make God punish him so. The infertility and deformities of the newborn were then attributed to the wife, but the death of the child was always the result of sin. But the result of what sin?
The King recovered from the blow faster than the Queen, and it was then that rumours began to spread that he liked to party with the ladies of the court. Although this may not have been true, the rumours had a certain significance. The royal couple’s marriage was no longer idyllic and it took more than two years for the Queen to become pregnant again. If Henry VIII liked to jump over fences at that time, he was very careful not to leave any illegitimate sons behind.
Politically, those years were not good for Henry. Constant negotiations with King Ferdinand of Spain on a joint action against France proved fruitless, as each looked only to his own interests and therefore did more harm than good, and the engagement between Henry VIII’s sister and King Ferdinand was broken up. The marriage between Henry VIII’s wife, Mary, and the grandson of the King of Spain. It was because of these two events that Catherine’s influence over her husband began to wane.
And then an even bigger accident happened. In September 1514, Catherine was pregnant again, and in January the following year she gave birth to a son, sadly dead again. The parents felt a great pain. Catherine was already thirty years old and her beauty was beginning to fade and her piety was becoming downright tormenting. How Henry reacted to this blow of fate is unknown. In February 1516, Catherine was again on the maternity bed, and this time she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, who was baptised as Mary. Thus she proved that she could be a mother. Everyone was sure that she would get pregnant again, but she knew that her time was running out. She became pregnant only once more at the beginning of 1518.
Meanwhile, her father, King Ferdinand of Spain, died in 1516 and her role as unofficial ambassador of her country to England came to an end. Now she was left to look after her husband’s laundry and raise their daughter Mary. She was rarely seen in public, although she still danced and went hunting, still dressed exquisitely. Under her royal dress, she wore coarse monk’s shirts as a reminder that she was a sinful creature. “Old and worn out”, commented the Venetian ambassador.
In 1525, Henry VIII was faced with a difficult decision. Catherine had failed in her duty and had not given him a son. So will his daughter Mary, then nine years old, succeed to the kingdom, and if so, what will his role be? At least five years will have to pass before Mary can marry, and then at least 18 more before her son, if she has one – under Henry’s watchful guidance, of course – can sit on the English throne. The thought of Princess Mary’s future husband, who will no doubt be a foreigner, on the English throne made Henry sick. England would then lose its Tudor dynasty and its independence.
Henry had only two options. One was to legalise his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, born to him in 1519 by his mistress Elizabeth Blount as a confirmation of his fertility. The other was to disown his wife Catherine of Aragon and remarry after 16 years of marriage. Either idea, however, would have required the Pope’s approval. “It will be difficult either way, and the Pope will want something in return,” Henry mused.
In 1525, to Queen Catherine’s horror, her illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy was created Duke of Richmond. Was Princess Mary’s position threatened? So who will be King of England when Henry VIII is gone? Despite such concerns, Henry showed no signs of remarrying at the time.
Ana Boleyn
The Boleyns were a court family and Anne Boleyn’s father was also a diplomat at the court of Duchess Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands. His connections enabled his daughter Anne to become one of the Duchess’s companions in Brussels in 1523 at the age of twelve, and then to spend several years at the French court until 1521. There, according to the story, she learned to sing, dance and behave beautifully. In 1522 she finally appeared at the British court. She was first seen in public when, together with her sister Mary, she took part in a procession in honour of a knight’s tournament.
Anna was not a special beauty, nor was she cute, but she was very attractive and stood out everywhere she went. She was tall and had beautiful wavy black hair, and something inside her that is hard to describe, which was called animal magnetism at the time, but today would be called sexual attraction. She was already 24 years old and marriageable, yet her father had not yet found the right suitor for her. She was in no hurry either, for sometime in the winter of 1525/26 she began seeing Henry VIII. Henry was then in his prime and had already had many short-lived affairs with ladies of the court, although he kept very quiet about it. By 1526, it was clear that their relationship was more than a passing affair and Anne realised that things were getting complicated. Unlike the easy-going French court, the English court was one of dignity. And a semblance of morality.
But the Tudors were known for always getting their way, one way or another. And if Henry wanted Anne Boleyn to be more than a short-term mistress, it was only a question of how he was going to achieve it. In the beginning, the king was interested in her mainly because he had been sexually abstinent for a long time and felt no desire to marry. It is difficult to say what was really going on, because these two things were happening almost simultaneously. Henry had been struggling with the question of a successor for ten years.
Since the birth of his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy in 1521, he had been convinced that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was not in God’s will and that he had therefore not been given a male heir. He was convinced that this was because he had taken his brother’s widow as his wife and that this curse could not be lifted even by the Pope himself. Of course, he also had a daughter, Mary, who, although healthy, was of a tiny stature. In September 1527 he was already seriously considering remarriage, but he was unable to make up his mind and was unaware of its political consequences.
But Cardinal Wolsey, the King’s adviser, was encouraged and suggested that he confess his sin of sharing a bed with his brother’s widow for 18 years. Henry hesitated, needing some more advice on the strength of his arguments for annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. But lawyers and bishops had different opinions about this doubt of his. They all agreed that such a union was sacrilegious, but they could not agree on the question whether a mere papal dispensation would be sufficient to break it.
Meanwhile, Pope Clement VII was imprisoned in the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, as rebellious soldiers rampaged and pillaged the city. There was no way he could annul the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The royal adviser Wolsey, who was plotting against Catherine, hid his intent, but the impulsive Henry could not hold his tongue and spoke out against his wife. He could not have made a worse mistake at a worse time.
Catherine reacted violently, then decided to fight the repeal of the law by all means. Before Wolsey and Henry knew it, she had already secretly sent one of her few remaining Spanish servants to the King of Spain. The messenger managed to evade all ambushes, handed over the letter and the King of Spain immediately assured Catherine of his support. He also put pressure on the Pope not to allow Henry VIII to divorce her.
But Henry VIII did not stand idly by and proposed a strange combination to the Pope. The Pope was to issue a papal bull allowing him to marry any woman, including those to whom he was related in the first line, even if that line of descent was illegitimate, but the Pope would have to declare Henry’s first marriage invalid. This proposal was, of course, to ensure that he could marry as soon as possible. His adviser Wolsey was loyal to him in principle, but his concern for the monarchy was already turning him towards the French court, where there were enough princesses worthy of marriage. French marriage did not appeal to Henry.
Pope Clement was initially reluctant to make such an unusual proposal, but changed political circumstances forced him to choose a middle path, which Henry was not happy with. He decided that Henry could marry any woman he wished once he was free, but he did not allow the first marriage to be annulled. Catherine of Aragon felt secure and behaved in public as if nothing was happening. Her attitude towards Anne Boleyn, who was a lady-in-waiting, was friendly, so that it is quite likely that she did not even know who her rival was.
Henry grew impatient, however, as Anne Boleyn cleverly evaded his desire to make her his mistress, and Catherine of Aragon slowly realised what her husband was up to. Will he send her to a convent so that he can marry Boleyn? Pope Clement, however, cynicised and postponed the decision, even though the king’s messengers were constantly travelling to Rome with new and new proposals, as well as cautious threats that England might decide to deny the Pope his jurisdiction over England and so sever its ties with Rome. The Pope found this so unbelievable that he did not even seriously consider it. “Henry is bluffing again,” he claimed.
Those who knew Henrik’s psychology better – and Wolsey was one of them – knew that this was not true. The same reasoning that had led Henry to believe that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was illegitimate now led him to conclude that the Pope had no right to rule on the matter. He searched frantically for legal, theoretical and historical arguments that would enable him to free himself partly, if not entirely, from the Pope’s jurisdiction. This would also mean that the King, not the Pope, would be the head of the Church in England.
Wolsey’s knowledge of the King’s intentions and psychology backfired on him, as he attempted a clandestine and inept reconciliation with Catherine, which led to his dismissal by an angry Henry VIII. He died alone and disgraced in November 1530. His removal from court was seen by many as a victory for Anne Boleyn. However, Catherine of Aragon remained Queen for the time being, with all the benefits, even though she had been excluded from political life. What is more, the King no longer allowed her to have contact with their daughter Mary, who was now 16 years old.
By the end of November 1532, Henry and Anne Boleyn were living together and a month later Anne found out she was pregnant. Henry, who had spent so many years trying to find a male heir, now decided to give legitimacy to his unborn child. In January 1533, they married in secret and in front of few witnesses, and now the formal divorce of their first marriage became virtually inevitable.
With the new Bishop of Cantenbyr, this was easy. The Synod of Bishops declared that Catherine of Aragon’s marriage was against God’s law and that no one could change it. Parliament then resolved that the English priesthood was the final arbiter in the spiritual affairs of the realm. This was the first time that the legal ties between England and Rome were severed. England was given its own Christian Church and no longer recognised the authority of the Pope. On the twenty-third of May 1533, the new Bishop of Cantenbury declared the marriage between Henry and Catherine null and void, and the marriage between Henry and Anne valid. Seven days later Anne Boleyn was crowned and anointed Queen.
Although Henry did everything he could to make Anne’s coronation a happy occasion, many of his close friends grumbled. Catherine of Aragon now had the formal title of Dowager Princess of Wales, and was housed in the palace of a bishop in the countryside. Catherine’s supporters also grumbled, but kept quiet because Henry promised them good jobs. Politically, however, Catherine’s minor daughter Mary, no less headstrong than her mother, from whom she had been separated, was more important than her mother. Henry’s envoys had to make several pilgrimages to her, warning her that “the King is saddened because he forgets his daughter’s duty and obedience, and arrogantly tries to put on the title of princess, pretending to be the legitimate heir …”.
Mary not only rejected such a sermon, but even warned her father that he was on the wrong track. She ended up under house arrest. Henry won a temporary victory, but it was not a solid one. Mary was not allowed to leave the palace without his permission, and there were always a few of the King’s agents around her, keeping a watchful eye on her every move.
In September, Queen Anne Boleyn gave birth – to the general disappointment – to a baby girl, who was named Elizabeth. But the girl was healthy and Henry believed that this would not be her last birth. In February 1534 Anne was pregnant again, but miscarried in high pregnancy. It has never come to light whether the foetus was male or female. Henry despaired, remembering the constant miscarriages of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Could it be that he was the one to blame for these misfortunes, perhaps he really resented God so much?
Anna Boleyn was now on thin ice. She did not have strong supporters from abroad and, unlike Catherine, she never kept quiet if something was not to her liking. Small quarrels ensued, which were settled by sex, but could not be forgotten. She was also frightened by the possibility that the King might one day grant his daughter Mary the right of succession, even though her parents’ marriage was invalid and she was now officially illegitimate; she had been born “in bona fide parentum”. Only a son being born could remove this danger.
Catherine of Aragon and her daughter Mary still had a lot of support among the nobles as well as the people, and Anne Boleyn could easily have been removed as soon as she lost the King’s favour. By 1535, however, events were already becoming dramatic. At the end of the summer, the King and Queen visited the estate of Sir John Seymour and, a little later, one of his daughters, Jane, became Henry’s third wife. It is very likely that Henry was already looking at young Jane by this time and that Anne Boleyn’s star was beginning to finally set. Even the death of Catherine of Aragon in January 1536 did not improve her position.
Anne Boleyn was pregnant again at the time, but miscarried again. The foetus was male, which drove Henry to despair. She had been pregnant three times before and miscarried twice. Henry was convinced that she had seduced him into a marriage that God clearly did not approve of. According to some accounts, which may be false, the dead child was also physically handicapped, an obvious sign of God’s wrath. Such deformities were then associated with illicit relations, incest and witchcraft.
Henry was convinced that only a third marriage could save him. The quarrels over the succession between Catherine of Aragon’s daughter Mary and Anne Boleyn’s daughter Elizabeth drove him into a rage. A third wife could give him a male heir and all his problems would be solved. Jane Seymour was also well trained in the tactics used by Anne Boleyn. “My greatest wealth is my honour, and I would rather die a thousand times than lose it,” she used to say. And she was supported in this by her whole family, hoping to become more than just the Queen’s mistress.
The Queen’s enemies have now reared their heads and decided that the time is right to get rid of her. The plot was to be led by Thomas Cromwell, the Queen’s Secretary of State and Minister of State. The right opportunity presented itself on 30 April 1530, when Anne Boleyn publicly quarrelled with Sir Henry Norris, one of Henry’s closest friends, and accused him of wishing her ill. Two days later he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. Cromwell then ordered the arrest of Mark Smeaton, an unimportant court musician who had been fantasising about Anne. After terrible torture, he confessed to fornicating with the Queen.
Then came the story of the deformed foetus allegedly born by the Queen, the result of her incestuous relationship with her brother George. Henry went mad and ordered the imprisonment of both the Queen and her brother. All but the unfortunate musician denied guilt. But Anne Boleyn was buried by her own emotional instability. She denied any form of matrimony, but she said much about her former friendships. And so three more people were arrested. Except for the Queen and her brother, they were all tried and the jury was made up of the Queen’s own opponents.
The Queen and her brother were tried separately. Anne Boleyn saw what was in store for her, so she boldly and convincingly rejected all accusations. She was accused not only of adultery, but also of poisoning Catherine of Aragon, of plotting to poison her daughter Mary and of hatching a plot against the King himself. This was followed by a death sentence by beheading.
On 16 May, the court annulled the marriage between Henry and Anne Boleyn. This officially made her daughter Elizabeth illegitimate. When Anne Boleyn walked towards the morgue on 18 May 1536, she was no longer Queen, she had been stripped of all honours and titles. At the mortuary, she laid aside her ermine cloak and tucked her hair under her cap. She knelt down and one of her companions blindfolded her with a kerchief. She then straightened up and received the death blow with her head raised, the French way of execution. Her last words were, “Jesus take my soul, O God have mercy on me.”
She died bravely, unaccompanied by a priest, and before the axe cut off her head, she spoke of accepting death, of praying for the King, without a word about the judgment itself. She was a fearless, intelligent and independent woman who took great risks and used all her attractiveness, wit and sexual magnetism as weapons. As long as she could charm the king, her game was successful; when she could no longer do so, she was doomed to failure. She was buried in the Tower, close to where she was tried and close to where her head was cut off.
Jane Seymour
As soon as Henry heard that her head had fallen off, he went to the house on the Thames where he had put Jane Seymour a few days earlier. The next day, 19 May, they were married. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were dead, so the European courts, and especially the Pope, expected Henry to marry into one of the European courts, recognise the Pope’s supremacy, and then the Pope would forgive him for his rebellion and things would calm down. So everyone was surprised when he chose Jane Seymour.
She was not a beauty, she was of medium build, today we would say she was plain and stocky. She was still unmarried at the age of twenty-six, which indicated that she had not had many suitors, and that her father had had problems securing a dowry. She was neither passionate nor demanding, but she probably managed her husband well during their short marriage. For Henry, however, Jane was a real redemption, as he felt he had come from hell to paradise after two difficult and problematic marriages. Jane Seymour was calm and knew how to use common sense, qualities that Anne Boleyn never possessed. Moreover, she did not represent any ideology and was not involved in any party combination.
Princess Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, was also pleased with her father’s choice, as she did not see his third wife as a real rival. To her father’s anger, Princess Mary still refused to admit that her mother’s marriage to Henry had been annulled and that she was therefore an illegitimate child. As a fervent Catholic, she also refused to recognise her father as the supreme authority of the Church. She was convinced that, as Henry’s first child, she also had a right of succession over her half-sister Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn. Jane did not take part in these quarrels; moreover, she tried to bring Henry closer to Princess Mary.
Finally, the news everyone has been waiting for. Queen Jane Seymour was pregnant and in the summer of 1537 everything seemed to be going normally. However, a uneventful pregnancy was followed by a difficult and long labour. The labour lasted two long days. Caesarean sections were unknown in the 16th century. What they did know was an operation that had been known since antiquity, namely the cutting out of a baby from the belly of a mother who was dying or who had just died. But they had never heard that in such a case, both mother and child would survive. But the delivery was, fortunately, normal and a healthy baby, Prince Edward, was born. The mother felt no worse than any mother after giving birth. Two hundred guns from the Tower announced the good news to the world.
On 5 October, the little prince was christened, with Princess Mary as godmother and four-year-old Princess Elizabeth attending the christening. Of course, no one mentioned that in the eyes of the Roman Church and the Pope, little Prince Edward was just as illegitimate as Princess Elisabeth and Henry’s third marriage just as illegal as his second. For Rome, Henry VIII’s only legitimate child was Princess Mary.
After giving birth, Jane Seymour’s health deteriorated rapidly. She developed puerperal fever, soon developed sepsis and on 23 October, she began to blaze. The next morning she was given the sacred last oil and died the same night. It is not known whether Henry was with her at the time. Princess Mary was as saddened as her father, King Henry, because the two women had forged a true friendship.
Henry’s mother, Elizabeth of York, was the last English Queen to die a natural death, and like her, Anne Seymour was disemboweled and embalmed, then her body was placed in a lead coffin and then a wooden one. On 13 November, the procession marched to Windsor. Traditionally, the King was not present, so Princess Mary led the funeral ceremonies.
Anna, Princess of Klevska
It was the first time Henry was without a female companion, and rumours of a new royal wedding soon began to spread. Henry’s First Minister, Thomas Cromwell, hurried off to visit before Anne Seymour was buried. One of the reasons for this was his belief that England needed a stable international alliance. So he turned his eyes to the French court. Henry VIII had married twice in succession to satisfy his carnal needs, and if it had happened a third time it could have jeopardised his position. He had no intention of allowing this to happen.
The French court was then full of young ladies of noble birth; there were Louise and Renee, both sisters of Marie Guiche, Marie of Vendome and Anne of Lorraine, and many others. Cromwell’s messengers ran after them, along with the famous painter Holbein, who drew their portraits to show to Henry.
Henry’s opponents, especially those in Rome, who managed to portray the English king as a “bluebeard”, did not rest in peace. His first wife was poisoned, his second beheaded and his third died because she was not looked after well enough. It was generally believed in European courts that the death of the first wife may indeed have been an accident, and that the loss of three wives must have been due to more than negligence.
Henry also overdid it when choosing his new wife. He demanded that all the candidates come to Calais to be seen by his envoys. The French quickly replied that their princesses were not brood mares to be bought at a fair. But Henry had other things to worry about besides the wedding. Pope Paul III was preparing to promulgate a papal bull that had been in a drawer for three years, deposing him and his subjects from allegiance to the King of England. The Franco-Habsburg coalition against England was taking clearer and clearer forms.
Henry feared that this coalition might attack England on behalf of the Catholic Church. So he began preparations to defend England against invasion, mobilising the navy and announcing an embargo on all foreign ships leaving English ports. Whether or not he would remarry was now Henry’s last concern. And Reginald Pole, the last English Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, travelled around Europe persuading rulers to impose a trade embargo against godless England. His efforts were in vain, the invasion did not take place, and all England stood firmly behind Henry, thus consolidating his power. To the English, the King was no longer a heretic, but a victim of unsuccessful foreign interference in England’s internal affairs. Henry now knew that he no longer had to look for a new wife at the French or Habsburg court to consolidate his power. He could choose as he wished, or as his First Minister Thomas Cromwell wished.
The Duchy of Cleves, which bordered the Dutch territories on the lower Rhine, roughly where Duisburg is today, was strategically important and the Duke had three daughters. The second daughter, Anne, born in 1515, attracted Cromwell’s attention. She was not particularly well brought up, as her extremely conservative mother had taught her modesty in both thought and expression. Nor could she sing or play an instrument, as was common in European courts at the time. She could speak and read only in the dialect of the Low German countries. She could dance, but only to the modest extent that was customary in German courts. At twenty-three, she was fearful, ignorant and humble.
None of this would matter if she were a beauty. But they saved that too, because the painter Holbein was able to paint her portrait – – it still hangs in the Louvre today – and somehow brighten up her gaunt face. Henry took no part in the negotiation of the marriage contract, but he was aware that his expectations had to be more modest this time than in previous marriages, so the marriage was a great diplomatic success for Cromwell.
Anna of Cleves set foot on English soil in December 1539 and made quite a good first impression. But Henrikov saw her differently: “I don’t like her”, he said, but he knew it was too late now. Cromwell was disturbed and did everything in the hope that Anne of Cleves would satisfy Henry, at least in bed. But the wedding night was a fiasco. Anne was not only a virgin, she was also completely ignorant of bed matters, she didn’t know what to do, or even that there was anything to do at all. She rejected every piece of advice from experienced women with horror.
Her lover should have been gentle and attentive, but Henrik, who sometimes had problems with his potency and was insecure about it, was certainly not. The King later explained his incompetence on their first wedding night by her repulsive behaviour. “I didn’t like her before either, and I like her even less now”, he said of his new wife, who did not excite him. He complained that her body smelled bad and that her breasts were sagging. Anna Klevska confidentially told her online friend that when Henrik comes to bed, he just gives her his hand, kisses her on the forehead and wishes her a peaceful night. I guess Henrik had already resigned himself to the idea that sooner or later Anna would have to leave.
Untrained observers did not even know that anything was wrong. Anna Klevska was not crowned, but neither was Jane Seymour, and the royal couple appeared in public as everyone expected. Anne’s personal entourage consisted of 16 people, including several German courtiers and, of course, a German doctor. Henry insisted that all his wives should be beautiful, and so Anne of Cleves’ companions included Catherine Howard, niece of the Duke of York.
Behind the scenes, Cromwell’s people were already thinking of ways to unravel the unhappy royal marriage. Of course, Henry was convinced that someone must be to blame for this mistake, and since Cromwell had recently become heavily involved in Church affairs, this was reason enough to remove him. He was arrested in June and executed in July 1540. In those days, things like this and similar things happened very quickly. Today in power, tomorrow under the executioner’s axe.
In July 1540, Anne of Cleves agreed to an annulment of the marriage, and Henry cited as the reason for the divorce that he was not satisfied with her image, that he was not convinced that she was a virgin, and that therefore they had never truly enjoyed the full fruits of their marriage. Anna of Cleves received a handsome divorce settlement, several castles, and she and Henrik became and remained good friends. He called her “my beloved sister”, often invited her to court and favoured her above all other ladies of the court.
Katarina Howard
On the day Thomas Cromwell was executed, Henry married for the fifth time, to 19-year-old Catherine Howard. Catherine was not an innocent and inexperienced girl like Anna of Cleves. She had her first lover at the tender age of fourteen, a union that lasted two years. She was small in stature and of average beauty. It was probably her youth and vivacity that attracted Henry and, of course, her strong sexuality, veiled by the appropriate degree of vigilance required in the presence of Anna Klevska.
They were married on 28 July and Henry was so excited with passion that he could hardly keep his hands off his bride, even in public. She was something he needed, an important sexual stimulation for his waning energy and his desire for a male offspring. He was in a good mood, he got up early, he went hunting with joy and everything seemed to be in balance again.
Unfortunately, this picture was based on deception. He was convinced that his bride was a virgin flower, and it is not clear how he did not notice on the wedding night that Catherine was no longer a virgin. However good Katarina was as a bridesmaid, she had many weaknesses as a companion. She was as poorly educated as Anna Klevska. She was also arrogant and greedy and had no political upbringing. She ran a very expensive household in which many of her relatives sought opportunities. But she would have been forgiven all this if she had become pregnant. She didn’t. Perhaps it was her vanity that kept her from becoming pregnant by previous lovers, but more likely it was Henrik’s declining fertility.
For some reason, Henry’s fifth wife was never crowned, which is strange given how crazy he was about her. The true nature of her feelings for her husband was not easy to understand. It was an unequal partnership in every sense of the word. After a few months, it became clear that, at least in Henry’s case, his fading body could not keep up with the intense passion that Catherine Howard inspired in him. At 48, he was no longer able to dance all night and chase all God’s day, and he was becoming too fat, all of which was undermining his self-confidence. He became agitated and quarrelsome, and in March 1541 a chronic suppurative ulcer opened on his leg.
Catherine did not, or could not, stand by him in such difficult moments and renewed her contact with one of her former lovers. She then employed another of her former lovers as her private secretary. But neither of them could keep quiet and soon the whole court was talking about the scandal.
This made Katarina very vulnerable. Not only was she unable to control her bodily impulses, but she also had many enemies. Some were convinced that she had brought about Thomas Cromwell’s downfall, and others, who knew unpleasant things about her, were convinced that she had not always been able to secure a suitable position at court. The pebble that finally triggered the avalanche that buried her, however, was called John Lascelles, and it seemed that his conduct was fuelled solely by religious zeal. He sought out the Archbishop of Canterbury and told him everything he knew about Catherine. His account was so extensive that the Archbishop knew it would cause a storm at court.
What Lascelles knew, however, related only to the time before Catherine’s marriage to Henry, and could not yet be used to accuse her of adultery. But it proved that she was no innocent flower when she married the King. The Archbishop discreetly reported all this to Henry, who refused to believe the rumours, but ordered an investigation nonetheless. Both lovers were imprisoned and questioned, and they confessed everything. A few more people were imprisoned and the story of the premarital adventures now became a story of adultery. So the King was a cuckold. He went wild and promised to torture his wife to death, and then he cried and started to self-pity. He was really hurt that way, and he felt old and tired.
Catherine was questioned and denied everything, then had a fit of hysteria. An unproven story also came to light that she had been married before the wedding, and that she was therefore a bigamist and her marriage to the King was invalid. The outcome of the hearing was clear; one lover was beheaded, the other hanged and their heads were impaled on a stake at Tower Bridge. Catherine Howard – she had already lost her title of Queen – was transported from the convent where she was imprisoned to the Tower, where she awaited her death, resigned to her fate and hoping for a quick and hidden death.
The first wish came true, the second did not. The night before her execution, they had to bring her a hangman’s bier to the dungeon, and she was taught how to lay her head on it. On 13 February 1542, the twenty-one-year-old girl, who could barely walk, had to be supported as she climbed on to the scaffold and laid her head on the crucifix. The robber chopped it off with an axe. Her last words were, “I die a queen, but I would rather die a Culpeper’s wife.” Culpeper was one of her many lovers.
These traumatic events almost completely drained Henrik’s emotional energy. But it was the war marches that kept his energy up for several years. He had enough enemies. There were the Scots in the north, but he had managed to defeat them militarily, so that he could now devote all his energies to the threat from France. Perhaps it was the subjugation of the Scots that had strengthened him, or perhaps he was becoming lonely, and the rumours of his remarriage for the sixth time were growing louder and louder.
Katarina Parr
His chosen wife is the wealthy widow Katarina Parr. What attracted him to her, we can only surmise. His passion was fading fast, his once so beautiful body a glorious ruin. In many ways, Katarina Parr was the complete opposite of her predecessors. Perhaps it was her dignity, calmness and control that attracted him.
At thirty-one, Catherine Parr, already a twice-married widow, knew exactly where she stood and, of course, no one expected her to be a virgin, so she was not afraid of the problems that had buried her predecessors. Not everyone was happy with the wedding. Henrik’s ex-wife Anna Klevska was furious, expecting that with the death of Catherine Howard she would have the chance to get close to Henrik again. This lack of understanding may also explain why she so readily agreed to annul her marriage to him a few years ago. She never seems to have understood her annulment, and no one was prepared to tell her.
Catherine Parr has been described by everyone as a lively, kind and gracious person who has managed to create a harmonious home for herself. Many years later, historians wondered why Henry, who himself held many orthodox Catholic views, allowed his son Edward to be brought up by Protestants. They concluded that it was probably the influence of Catherine Parr. This may also be explained by the fact that the boundary between Protestantism and Catholicism was sometimes blurred.
Katarina was also intelligent and educated enough to refrain from talking about serious matters, she enjoyed music and dancing more, and often gave the impression that only the simple things in life made her happy. She managed to befriend Princess Mary, who was then 27 years old and still unmarried, more because of her indeterminate status than because of the lack of suitors. Neither Edward nor Elizabeth, aged 6 and 10 at the time of their father’s last marriage, had much contact with their stepmother, the age difference being just too great.
Henry spent his last Christmas in London as a very sick man. In January, he was still able to carry out the business of state, although he was occasionally unconscious. Catherine, Edward and Elizabeth were not in London at the time, and when Edward realised that he was coming to the end of his days, there was no time to call them to him. Although she was the last of Henry’s wives, Catherine Parr always remained a controversial figure. She always adhered to the principle of being useful in everything you do, and her role in the upbringing of Henrik’s children was a practical example of this.
Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547 and was buried at Windsor. According to the King’s will, the country was governed by a regency on behalf of his 9-year-old son Edward, whose members were all Henry’s uncles, including Thomas Seymour, who had renewed his former love affair with Catherine Parr. They married the same year. Catherine became pregnant at the age of 37 and gave birth to her first child, a girl, the following year. The child thrived, but Catherine contracted puerperal fever and died shortly afterwards.
