The Six Wives & Many Mistresses of Henry VIII

by Amy Licence

  With their physical relationship blooming, the years of austerity were also quickly being forgotten. Catherine’s household and properties marked her new status as Henry’s queen and bedfellow, with 160 ladies and two palaces at her disposal, in addition to all the other royal residences. Baynard’s Castle, on the Thames, had particular associations for Catherine, having been the location of her wedding night with Arthur, but added to this was Havering Palace, also known as Havering-atte-Bower, a Saxon hunting lodge situated where the modern city of London spills into the west of Essex. Havering had been part of the queen’s dower since 1267 and sat in 16,000 acres of land, with views across the Essex marshes and good hunting, part of which now forms Havering Country Park. The palace no longer survives, having fallen into ruin by the seventeenth century, but floor plans surviving from 1578 cover an area of one hundred metres square. The main buildings included a great hall, presence chamber, two chapels and royal apartments overlooking the gardens and courtyard. The majority of Catherine’s time was divided between the royal residences of Westminster and Windsor, Greenwich and Whitehall, with Eltham, Richmond and Woodstock. There were also a number of other castles and houses in possession of the Crown, at which she would have stayed from time to time.

  The Tudor court was a huge, complex and peripatetic institution. Its nucleus was the king, supported by a number of departments above and below stairs, and it travelled wherever he went, occupying his properties and ensuring the wheels of royalty continued to turn smoothly, from the making of the king’s bed and preparation of his clothes, to those charged with the intimate tasks of dressing, shaving and washing him. There were those who supplied, stored, prepared, tested and served food and drink, those who swept, cleaned and lit fires, those in the exchequer who counted out the money and others who tended for the king’s horses, dogs and falcons. Others were employed to ensure Henry’s safety, or to enact his wishes, tend to his mortal soul, dispense his alms, or generally to ensure the smooth running of an establishment that could run to thousands.

  As queen, Catherine’s household was a separate body under the umbrella of the court. Assigned specific ladies and servants, it would sometimes operate separately in the interests of the queen and sometimes in conjunction with the main court, when Henry and Catherine were jointly in residence at one of the royal properties. The hub would have been Catherine’s set of royal apartments, preserved for her in each palace, usually comprising a bedroom, presence chamber and one or more other retiring rooms. She might dine there quietly, or entertain guests, or watch jugglers or musicians perform, or emerge into the main court; the architecture of Tudor palaces, with their clusters of rooms connected according to protocol, echoed and enabled the existence of separate cogs in the wider court machinery. It allowed a degree of privacy for the newly wed couple as well as providing the opportunity for them to retreat into their own spaces. Although they were assigned separate bedrooms, it was customary for the king to visit the queen, accompanied by his grooms of his chamber, who would light his way and announce his approach to Catherine’s ladies, whose task was then to ready her for his attentions. Thus, the bedroom doors might be closed and secured, with the ornate golden lock Henry carried from palace to palace, but the couple’s closeness in these early days would have been no secret. In fact, the exact timings and durations of their encounters could be measured as the grooms were required to wait outside the room until it was time to escort Henry back to his own bed.

  Among her household, Catherine retained a number of her loyal Spanish ladies, who had remained loyal throughout the past seven years. If Catherine was going to confide in anyone about her martial happiness it would have been Maria de Salinas, then aged around twenty, who had come from the royal court of Castile in 1503 to replace her cousin. The princess was reputed to love Maria ‘more than any mortal’.15 Maria’s sister Inez Albernos, then married to Juan Guevara, a Spaniard resident in London, may also have been among the queen’s retinue in these early years. There were also the sisters Isabel and Blanche Vargas, as well as Inez, or Agnes, de Venegas, the daughter of Catherine’s governess in Spain, then in her mid-thirties, who was also married in the summer of 1509, to William Blount. Blount’s young daughter from his first marriage, Gertrude, also became one of Catherine’s maids of honour, as did Anne Luke, Henry’s wet nurse back in 1491, and Jane Popincourt, who had been a French tutor to Henry’s sisters Margaret and Mary, later being attached to Mary’s household. She would also have derived comfort from the loyal service of her apothecary John de Soto, who would remain with her all her life, and the presence of her Spanish doctor Ferdinand de Victoria.

  Eight English women were selected as Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting. Their role was more permanent and intimate than that of the thirty-odd maids of honour that also served the queen, attending to her personal needs and witnessing her daily life as Henry’s wife. Two of them, Elizabeth and Anne, were the sisters of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and daughters of Katherine Wydeville, Henry’s great-aunt. Elizabeth Stafford, Lady Fitzwalter, was then aged around thirty and had been married for around five years to the Earl of Sussex. Her younger sister, Anne, had already been widowed once, when she married George Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, in December 1509. Catherine was also served by Agnes Tylney, Countess of Surrey, Anne Hastings, Countess of Shrewsbury, and Anne, Countess of Derby, as well as Elizabeth Scrope, Countess of Oxford, Mary Say, Countess of Essex and Margaret Scrope, Countess of Suffolk. They were the wives, sisters and daughters of the men in Henry’s household, with many bearing royal blood from three or four generations back; the new Tudor court was truly a family affair.

  The male names of some of Catherine’s household from 1509 give a sense of the different divisions within the establishment and its range. Above stairs she had two secretaries, the English Richard Decons and John de Scutea, her ‘secretary for the Spanish tongue’, and her almoner was Dr Bekensall. The Irish Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, became her chamberlain, with Sir Robert Poyntz as his deputy and, along with her confessor Fray Diego, six further chaplains tended to her soul. Those responsible for serving her at table included her carvers Alexander Frognall and Edward Knevett, her cup-bearer Edward Jernynygham, servers John Verney and George Bekonsall plus two more specifically for her chamber, Anthony Polen and John Morton. Her ushers William Bulstrode, Roger Ratclyff and Edward Benestede were supported by six squires attendant, sixteen Yeomen Ushers and a host of other grooms and pages of the chamber.

  Beyond her suite of rooms, in various offices in the bowels of the Tudor palace were John Adams, who ran her bakehouse; Richard Brampton and Nicholas Clyff, who had charge of her pantry; Thomas Astley, who ran her larder; and John Case, her master cook. The cellar, buttery and ewery were overseen by a total of eight men. The surviving Tudor kitchens at Hampton Court give a good idea of the scale of this below-stairs operation, being extended by Henry in 1529 to include fifty-five separate rooms devoted to the different processes of storage and preparation. From the huge main kitchens with their walk-in fireplaces where meat turned on spits, to the slaughter rooms, bread ovens and high ceilings stained with smoke, the kitchens were constantly alive with noise and activity. The nose would have been met by a mixture of smells, typically with the favoured Tudor mixture of sweet and spicy. Among them were the flesh, wet and dry larders, boiling rooms, spicery, confectionery and pastry house. Catherine’s stable was overseen by Sir Thomas Tirrell, her master of the horses, along with a number of grooms, clerks, saddlers, Yeomen of the chair, pages, fourteen palfreymen, men assigned to the bottles, the beds, the robes and the closet and a master of the aviary.

  The long party gave no signs of abating as the court moved between royal palaces that August and September. It must have been an idyllic time for her, in love with and beloved of this young and attractive paragon of royalty, at the heart of a new court, with all the privilege that could bring and the promise of happy years lying ahead. There was, inevitably, excitement at the start of a new
reign, when the character of the king dictated the nature of his court and rule, and, as More’s verses testify, Henry’s ascent signified a splendid new era for a world on the cusp of the Renaissance. The honeymoon continued for months, ending in October when the pair returned to Greenwich. For Catherine, only one thing could have improved upon her current joy and, as the summer wore on, she began to suspect that her happiness was to be complete. She was pregnant.

  12

  Pregnancy, 1509–10

  The same time that a man

  Knoweth fleshly a woman

  That seed in her root take1

  Catherine’s pregnancy was announced at court on 1 November. It seemed to validate the match and the dynasty, confirming that Henry had chosen the correct queen in the eyes of God. Henry wrote to inform Ferdinand that ‘the child in the womb was alive’, placing Catherine’s quickening around mid-November. Diagnosing pregnancy was not an exact science and the physical symptoms suggested by contemporary texts such as Hali Meidenhad could easily be mistaken for illness or overlooked altogether. The erratic nature of Catherine’s recent health, coupled with her fasting, may well have conspired to interrupt her menstrual cycle and, as Ambassador Caroz would later confide to Ferdinand, the queen’s periods were so irregular that it was difficult to know for certain whether or not she was pregnant. Even if her periods had been regular and then stopped, indicating that conception had taken place, pregnancy could not be diagnosed with any certainty until the child’s first movements in the womb, which usually took place between the fourth and fifth months for a first-time mother. This would have placed the moment of conception in July, just weeks after the wedding.

  One medical manual of the day, penned by a French doctor, contained the belief that the moment of conception could be easily identified by a pair of lovers. His explicit detail echoes the image of the hungry womb drawing in the seed it craved, then closing around it. A man should feel an ‘extraordinary contentment’ and a ‘sucking or drawing at the end of his yard’, which should not be ‘over moist’ once withdrawn. A woman should experience a sensation of ‘yawning or stretching’ in the womb, or a shaking and quivering not dissimilar to passing water, followed by a chill in the shoulders and back and a rumbling in the belly as the womb contracted.2

  Another medieval instructional text, Sidrak and Bokkus, gives advice about how quickly conception may occur:

  May a man get a child, by thy life,

  Everytime that he toucheth his wife?

  Man there is in this world non

  That might get his wife upon

  A child at every time and ay

  When he fleshly by her lay.3

  The author explained that pregnancy did not always occur and, of course, such failures were attributed to women, as they were ‘cold of seed’ and ‘cold to seed is no nurture’. They believed that male ‘kind’, or sperm, was gathered from every limb of the potential father and that the act of intercourse created a certain physical response in him that diverted the sperm from his body into his member:

  That he hath his deed to fulfill

  Maketh his body to sweat therewith

  Blood inward from every lith [bodypart]

  And that blood cometh full swiftly

  And to the ballocks goeth full hastily

  And from thence it issueth so

  When it cometh the pintil [penis] unto.4

  Exactly when Catherine became aware that she might be pregnant is unclear, especially because her menstruation had been erratic in the past. Contrary to contemporary medical texts, she probably did not notice the moment of conception, although she probably was hoping to fall pregnant fairly soon as a sign of divine blessing on her marriage. Secure in her position and Henry’s love, she would have confided her suspicions to him sometime in the early autumn. No doubt he was delighted and they enjoyed some form of private celebration.

  However, in spite of these physical details, exact conception dates were notoriously difficult to determine. This made it difficult to predict when the child would arrive. Catherine was surrounded by experienced doctors who would have been alert to possible symptoms, all eager to be the first to announce to the king that he was soon to be a father. They might have employed a range of pregnancy tests, including examining Catherine’s urine, or floating a needle in it to see whether rusting occurred. Other superstitious methods included waving a chicken wing across a woman’s belly or making her drink rainwater at night.

  Antenatal care was considered important, particularly an expectant mother’s behaviour. Catherine’s doctors would have been full of advice regarding her behaviour and diet. It was recommended that she eat bland food and avoid certain dishes. All meat from ‘animals that could beget’ was prohibited, along with old pork, fatty food, fish, salty and sweet flavours, certain fruits and vegetables. Likewise, old roebuck and venison were off limits as they led to melancholy, and peacock and crane created bad blood. Younger beasts were preferred, including milk-fed lamb, piglets and roast hare, although that was thought to cause a woman to urinate excessively. Rich women were advised to treat themselves to fat young turtledoves or pigeons. The recommended drinks were wine and beer. Ferdinand had his own advice to add:

  Her pregnancy is a great blessing, since she, her husband, and the English people have wished it so much. May God give her a good delivery. Will continually pray the Almighty to grant his prayers till he is informed that she has given birth to her child. Begs her to be careful of her health. During her pregnancy she must avoid all exertion, and especially not write with her own hand. With the first child it is requisite for women to take more care of themselves than is necessary in subsequent pregnancies.5

  While Catherine awaited her confinement, the long party continued. The royal couple spent their first Christmas together at Richmond, blending the feasting and jousting with the religious services and devotions of the season. Henry was in high spirits. Along with his gentlemen, he dressed up as one of his favourite folklore figures, Robin Hood, in a short coat of Kentish green complete with bow and arrows and, with his men’s faces hidden by hoods, burst into the queen’s chamber and insisted that she and her ‘abashed’ ladies join them in a dance. It was typical of the disguises, role play and identity games that he would enjoy throughout his life, although the timing was possibly a little thoughtless, given Catherine’s advanced stage of pregnancy and the advice of doctors that women in her condition should avoid shocks. Henry’s actions were in the tradition of misrule, which encouraged the subversion of social roles, tricks and revels and to which end William Wynesbury was appointed as the Lord of Misrule for the duration of the festivities, from Christmas until Twelfth Night. It all fitted with the air of exuberance and revelry that set the tone at the start of the new reign.

  One of the verses of the song ‘Greensleeves’, traditionally ascribed to Henry, adds further weight to the theory that this, and similar disguises, were used by the king to woo women:

  My men were clothed all in green,

  And they did ever wait on thee;

  All this was gallant to be seen,

  And yet thou wouldst not love me.

  The festivities continued into January, with jousting being held before the palace gates, on the present location of Richmond Green. It was the first time that the king had participated in public and all eyes were on him. Along with his close companion William Compton, he came to the field disguised, broke many staves and won many accolades, although his ability and physique made him unmistakeable and a cry of ‘long live the king’ exposed his identity. Compton, who had been Henry’s companion since his youth, fared less well, being ‘hurte … sore, and was likely to die’. Compton recovered, though, and was soon to play a significant role in the royal marriage.

  Henry and Catherine were excited about her approaching confinement. In accordance with ordinances set out by Margaret Beaufort, they made preparations by ordering a birthing or groaning chair. This was a sturdy chair with the central part of the sea
t missing and was commonly used at the time for seated deliveries. There was also a copper gilt bowl to catch the blood and placenta, and also sent was the silver font from Canterbury Cathedral, which was shipped up to Greenwich, where a suite of rooms was being equipped with heavy arras and carpets, cradles, bed of state, altar with relics and mountains of linen. The royal surgeon, Jehan Veyrier, was on standby, although traditionally the delivery room would be attended by women, except in the event that surgical intervention was deemed necessary. Veyrier was a native of Nimes, in southern France and had been part of Henry VII’s household, so would have been known and trusted by the king and queen. In December, the Great Wardrobe was instructed to deliver the surgeon some black chamlet for a gown. In mid-January, Henry was occupied with the opening of his first parliament, allowing Catherine to patiently await the arrival of her child.

  On the night of 30 January, when she was around seven months pregnant, Catherine experienced a little pain in one knee. It seemed innocuous enough but, the following night, her labour started prematurely and she miscarried a daughter. The pain was so intense that she made a vow to send a rich headdress of hers to St Peter the Martyr and entrusted it to a niece of the Spanish treasurer. According to Fray Diego, the secret was kept from the court, known only to himself, the king, two Spanish women and a surgeon, probably Jehan Veyrier. It was one of the sad ironies of contemporary medicine that the treatment used to help expel an unsuccessful pregnancy and the afterbirth contained pomegranate rind, the very fruit Catherine had chosen as a symbol of her fertility.

  However, over the next few days, the queen’s belly remained rounded and gave no signs of returning to its pre-pregnancy shape. This was enough to convince her surgeon that she was actually still pregnant and had only miscarried one of a pair of twins. It is little surprise that Catherine allowed herself to be convinced by those whose job was to read the signs of her body. The weight of her own hopes, coupled with those of Henry, disposed her to believe that she still carried a viable foetus, the fleshly embodiment of their marital and dynastic success, a sign that the long years of penury had been worth it. Thus she waited, expectant of delivering a second child in March. The court was none the wiser.