by Amy Licence
On Shrove Sunday, which fell on 20 February, Henry hosted a great banquet at Westminster that Catherine and her ladies attended. After leading her to her seat and ‘making chere’, Henry and his friends disappeared, to return in a series of disguises: as Turks in ‘bawdkin’, powdered with gold and wearing red velvet hats and swords; as Russians in grey fur hats and boots, carrying hatchets; as Prussians in crimson satin and feathered caps, accompanied by torchbearers with faces blackened to represent Moors. This was followed by a group of mummers, who usually performed comical or allegorical plays, and then the banquet ended. The tables were cleared away and ‘the quene with the ladies toke their places with their degrees’. Dancing followed and, while everyone ‘toke much hede to them’, Henry slipped away again and returned in a procession that followed a drummer and flautist, where all the men were dressed in multi-coloured costumes bearing the devices of golden castles and sheaves of arrows. Led by Henry’s sister Mary, the ladies wore kirtles of purple and crimson, embroidered with Catherine’s device of the pomegranate, their faces covered with fine black material, again in the semblance of Moors. More dancing followed and after ‘a certayne tyme they departed every one to his lodging’.6
Soon after this, on 28 February, Catherine entered confinement. The process was a formal, ceremonial one, timed to take place around three to four weeks before the expected date of delivery, to allow for miscalculation. After taking Mass, formally attended by lords and ladies of the court, she was accompanied into her great chamber, where she was served with wine and spices. Henry was absent from this ceremony, as his status would have outstripped hers, thus allowing Catherine to be the sole centre of attention. The party progressed to the inner chamber, where prayers were said before the beds, and the men were then formally asked to leave. Male physicians would have been on hand but only in the eventuality of emergency, and otherwise it was an exclusively female zone. Her ladies would have taken over the male roles in her household, collecting the necessary supplies, which were left outside the door.
Margaret Beaufort’s ordinances were followed again, with their specifications for the exact number, design and colour of the cushions, linen and bedding. The chamber was hung with heavy arras to keep out the draughts and light, although one window was left uncovered to allow the patient mother a glimpse of the world outside. Paintings and tapestries depicting alarming or violent images were removed, as they were thought to imprint themselves upon the character of the unborn child. A huge ceremonial bed, measuring eight feet by ten, was covered in crimson satin and used for the lying-in process, while the actual birth itself was intended to take place on a pallet bed. Likewise two cradles were prepared; one, of five-foot length and decorated with silver buckles and the royal arms, was for public display, while a smaller one of wood was intended for sleeping.
Catherine would have prayed before she entered her confinement and every day and night through it. Women did die in labour, even queens, as Elizabeth of York had proved. No doubt as a first-time mother Catherine was anxious about the degree of pain and danger she may experience, but, as a queen fulfilling her duty, this would have been balanced by the pride of the moment. Her religious comforts would have been close to hand: the rosary and prayerbook, icons and relics, including the famous girdle of the Virgin Mary, on loan from Westminster Abbey. Otherwise, the days of waiting would have passed slowly enough, in gentle pursuits like reading, listening to music, needlework and watching her ladies dance. Catherine knew that the outcome of her bodily changes were important dynastic news, awaited eagerly within her realm and further afield.
March became April but the queen’s labour pains did not arrive. She would have grown impatient and confused, praying for the onset of delivery and perhaps trying some of the herbal or dietary remedies thought to help, such as eating spinach and butter, drinking wine mixed with leek, rue and savin, or walking in her chamber in the hope that the motion would trigger her contractions. April became May. Her inflamed womb, probably the result of an infection, began to go down and her menstrual cycle recommenced in April. During that month, Catherine was forced to accept that the child she had miscarried in January had not come from a multiple pregnancy. There was no twin, no royal heir.
Catherine must have been crushed by the confusion arising over her pregnancy and the humiliation of the weeks of waiting. She finally confessed to her father that she had miscarried a daughter and explained the delay by informing him it was the result of English belief that this was bad luck. According to her letter, she and Henry remained cheerful and she thanked God ‘for such a husband’.7 Fray Diego wrote to Ferdinand with the truth, saying that he had been forced to keep the secret from him for fear of annoying Catherine and that ‘all the physicians deceived themselves until time was the judge of truth’. Ironically, the headdress she had vowed to St Peter the Martyr in January, in the hopes of delivering a healthy child, had never reached its destination. The Spanish treasurer had kept it for himself, an act which a superstitious Catherine must have deplored.
However, it seemed that Catherine and Henry had broken one of the fundamental cultural and religious rules of the lying-in process. During the spring months of her confinement, when the queen was supposed to be sequestered away, Henry had visited her on at least one occasion. Convention dictated that pregnant women, especially those in an advanced state of pregnancy, should refrain from sex, as it could harm the unborn child and was for purposes of fornication rather than reproduction. Often a blind eye was turned when a husband sought solace elsewhere during this time but it is clear that Henry desired Catherine and, in spite of her religious convictions, she either desired him also or was persuaded to sleep with him. During this controversial encounter in the lying-in chamber, surrounded by the paraphernalia of imminent birth, she actually did conceive. By the time she emerged in public, late in May 1510, she was several weeks pregnant. Catherine could entertain hope again, but she was also fighting against a scandal that signified the end to the long honeymoon between her and Henry.
PART TWO
The Queen’s Rivals
13
Anne, Lady Hastings, 1510
The first point is to love but one alone,
And for that one, all other to forsake
For whose loveth many, loveth none1
With his wife in confinement, Henry threw himself into sport as a distraction from temptation. He would ‘exercise himselfe dailie in shooting, singing, dancing, wrestling, casting of the barre, playing at the recorders, flute, virginals, in setting of songs, and making of ballads … in hunting, hawking and shooting’.2 On 20 May, it was acknowledged that the early summer months were a particularly quiet time that could breed the idleness that led to vice and it was said that ‘disportes’ should be practised ‘to eschew idleness, the ground of all vice, and give honourable and healthy exercise’.3 At Greenwich, an artificial green tree was set up bearing a white shield on which those who accepted the challenge should write their names. Then, every Thursday and Monday for a month, gentlemen would ‘meet all comers’ at the barriers, ‘casting spear and target and with bastard sword from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m.’. If these games were intended to keep Henry out of mischief, they did not work.
Among Catherine’s ladies were two sisters of the Duke of Buckingham, Elizabeth and Anne. The elder, Elizabeth, then aged around thirty, was the wife of Robert Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, and the mother of at least two young children by 1510. As such, she would have been well placed to share in Catherine’s excitement about her pregnancy and offer advice about the process to an inexperienced queen. Radcliffe had also been in the household of Prince Arthur and attended Catherine’s first marriage so, after his marriage in 1505, his wife was probably known to Catherine. The childless younger sister Anne, in her late twenties, had been married for a second time, on 2 December 1509, to George Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon. Henry and Catherine probably attended the ceremony, with the king making the standard offering of 6s 8d. Perhaps the bride also caug
ht his eye.
The siblings had a controversial descent. Their mother had been sister to Queen Elizabeth Wydeville, whom Henry’s grandfather Edward IV had married in secret, after falling for her renowned blonde beauty. This meant that the sisters were first cousins of Henry’s own mother, Elizabeth of York. Their father, Henry, Duke of Buckingham, also had his own claim to the throne via his descent from John of Gaunt, a claim he believed was equal to, if not stronger than, that of the king. He had been the close friend of Henry’s great-uncle Richard III before leading a rebellion against him and losing his head as a consequence. Anne had been born the year of her father’s execution, making her eight years older than Henry. Her first husband had been an illegitimate son of Walter Herbert, who had been the guardian of Henry VII as a boy. Her second husband, Hastings, was the grandson of one of Edward IV’s close friends who had been executed by Richard in the days leading up to his succession. Their histories were closely bound up with those of Henry and, although no portraits of them survive, there is a good chance they had inherited some of the legendary Wydeville beauty. Anne’s attractiveness created a scandal in Catherine’s household when she was wooed by an influential man. His identity, though, remains in question.
One account of what happened in May 1510 is given by the Spanish ambassador Luis Caroz. He stated that Anne was ‘much liked by the king, who went after her’ while Catherine was in confinement. With medical teaching presenting regular sexual activity for men as essential to health, it was almost a convention that married men would seek a physical outlet while their wives were off limits. Under these circumstances extramarital sex was not considered to be a threat to the marriage, especially as many matches were arranged, but was viewed more as a bodily function that fulfilled a need, like eating or sleeping. Women’s bodies were demarcated according to class and function. Noblemen might frequent brothels or have casual encounters with women of lower classes, as their ‘base’ nature was considered more conducive to sexual satisfaction while the duty of a wife was procreation. This neat divide allowed a compartmentalisation of love and sex, but it was a disconnection that speaks volumes about the interaction of the classes and genders. It was also not so cut and dried in many cases. When it came to marriages like Henry’s, in which husband and wife clearly gave the appearances of being in love and deliberately employed the language, devices and behaviours of the courtly tradition, it was bound to cause heartbreak. Poems such as More’s ‘The Twelve Properties of a Lover’ advocated exclusivity. Some monarchs were quite open about their affairs, like Francis I of France, but perhaps it was Henry’s desire to maintain this persona of the devoted lover while taking a mistress that led him to keep his affairs as secret as possible and explains his reactions to their exposure.
There is no doubt that Henry would have made the first move. The cult of courtly love would allow him to act within the chivalrous tradition towards ladies of the court, paying compliments, being attentive and making gifts. But it was a discreet game. No woman could refuse the attention of a king; a direct rejection or coldness would be a slur to the king, a mark of disrespect and probably the end of a career. Thus it was a game of subtle flirtation, body language and inference. Anne was not inexperienced, having been married once before, and she may have caught Henry’s eye as early as the day of her second wedding, perhaps even before. It would have been an unthinkable and dangerous breach of etiquette for Anne, given Henry’s status and his marriage to her mistress, to have initiated an affair by making advances to Henry. However, as she danced with him, or sang, she would have made her willingness apparent by smiling, flattering and showing her appreciation of his attentions and person. With significantly more experience than Henry, Anne may well have noticed his attraction to her and decided to exploit it, taking the role of the older woman and encouraging her young suitor. It would have then been up to the king to find some discreet way of showing he was interested in taking the connection further, perhaps through gifts, whispered words, a caress, or the message of an intermediary like Compton.
Yet Anne’s behaviour did not go unnoticed at court. Whether the incident involved some harmless flirting or developed into a full-blown physical affair, Elizabeth Radcliffe was sufficiently concerned by her sister’s behaviour to take action. According to Caroz, a ‘very anxious’ Elizabeth called a meeting in her private chambers, summoning her brother, her husband and Hastings, to decide upon the best course of action. Then, while Buckingham was in Anne’s chamber, Sir William Compton arrived to speak with her, or, as Caroz says, the two ‘met Conton [sic] in her chambers’,4 suggesting he had interrupted a tryst. As Henry’s Groom of the Stool, Compton was probably closer to him than anyone, a fact recognised by the French ambassador, who suggested that no one had more influence with the king. After his father’s early death in 1493 he had become a ward of Henry VII, when he was eleven and Prince Henry was still a toddler, serving him as a page and developing a bond of trust. It is symbolic that the pair often shared the same disguise, causing confusion over their identities in the jousting of 1510 and subsequent pageants and games. Years later, a courtier named Elizabeth Amadas, who was arrested for treason and witchcraft, claimed that Compton and Sir John Dauncey would find willing women to introduce to Henry at his house in Thames Street. Although this evidence was given under duress and cannot be proven either way, it is certainly plausible in terms of the secrecy and arrangements such liaisons would have necessitated.
In the poetry of Henry’s day, Thames Street already had associations with wanton women. During the king’s youth, his tutor John Skelton had penned some verses dedicated to a woman named ‘Anne’ who lived at the Key in Thames Street. These were probably composed before 1504, but were published in 1527 and their tetrameter form suggests they were set to music like Skelton’s other poems, so were probably performed during the intervening years. The poem exploits the genre of courtly love and the convention of the available, sexually gratifying, lower-class woman. It takes the form of a dialogue, probably for one male and one female voice, with the man alternately praising his ‘praty piggesny’ (pretty sweetheart) and accusing her of having a sharp tongue and being promiscuous. She assures him he will not have to pay for her favours but criticises him for his pride. Her comment that her lover has need of her and others, coupled with the extended metaphor of his key being loose in any lock, implies that she was a prostitute operating from an inn, the Key, located in Upper Thames Street.
A map of Tudor London made in 1520 shows a number of inns accessible directly from this street, including Chequer Inn, Berkeley’s Inn and New Inn, but no Key Inn. This may be as easily explained as a change of name, or the reversion of the property to a private dwelling or other business. It may have stood on the south side of Thames Street, close to the many keys, or quays, that gave access to the river. Perhaps it was located near Stew Key, close by the Tower, reminiscent of the stews, or brothels, of Southwark. A block to the east, the aptly named Love Lane had been home to a ‘stuehous’ as early as 1428.5 Equally, the Key might have been the euphemistic name for a brothel, just as the poem puns on the use of the key in the lock. If so, it was considerably more subtle than some of the previous establishments in London, which could be found in Slut’s Hole, Codpiece Alley and Gropecuntlane.
Thames Street was well connected. It gave access to the Manor of the Rose, the London residence of the Duke of Buckingham in parallel Candlewick Street. This might have provided Henry with a venue for pursuing his amour with the duke’s sister and was served by many quays that led to the south bank. When night had fallen, trusted oarsmen may have carried the king across the river for the evening, just as they did when Henry installed Jane Seymour downriver and visited her under cover of darkness in 1536. From 1510, Charles Brandon’s ‘large and sumptuous’ mansion of Suffolk Place, surrounded by gardens, also provided the king with a safe, secret place to woo women.6 It was also conveniently close to the most famous stews of the city, overseen by the Bishop of Winchester, where
the prostitutes referred to as ‘Winchester Geese’ may have been brought into the seclusion of properties connected with the king. Just as Henry was an ardent devotee of the saints’ shrines he would destroy in the 1530s, he may also have enjoyed the attentions of women from the very stews he later attempted to close down in an attempt to redress divine wrath incurred by his youthful antics.
There were clearly some grounds for concern about Anne’s behaviour. Buckingham confronted Compton in his sister’s chamber, perhaps questioning him about his intentions and purpose for being there. Compton repeated the quarrel to the king. Henry then ‘spoke angrily to the Duke’, offending Buckingham to the extent that he left the court the same night ‘and did not return for some days’. The immediacy of Henry’s response suggests he was waiting for Compton to return with a message about a tryst. It is easier to understand Henry’s anger if the accusations were directed towards him, rather than one of his courtiers. Hastings also left, taking Anne with him and installing her in a convent sixty miles away. Was this an example of Buckingham’s well-known pride in action, taking umbrage at having been chastised by the king? It seems unlikely that he would have needed to leave court over the affair of a courtier in any other circumstances. It is also interesting that Buckingham acted to protect his sister’s reputation, rather than that of her husband, which supports the notion that he was compliant in the affair. If Henry had been above suspicion and devoted to the marital fidelity he appeared to be practising, he may even have welcomed the actions of Buckingham to expose an illicit liaison that posed a threat to a marriage he had personally approved.