The Six Wives & Many Mistresses of Henry VIII: The Women's Stories

by Amy Licence

  Sixteenth-century medical opinion was divided over the merits of teenage sex. While many aristocratic marriages were forged before the children came of age, and required consummation in order to be legal, paradoxically, the pair was often permitted to spend the wedding night together then abstain for several years for the sake of their health. Sex was generally thought to be beneficial in physical and emotional terms, and the denial of natural urges was believed to foster wasting illnesses or lead to suffocation in accumulated reproductive fluids, but the timing was crucial. Too much too soon was considered highly dangerous. The love match of Catherine’s brother John, Prince of Asturias, and Margaret of Austria had lasted only six months in 1497, with contemporaries citing their overenthusiastic lovemaking as the cause of his decline. Two months into the marriage, observer Martire wrote that John was ‘consumed with passion’ and was looking pale. His doctors urged him to ‘seek a respite in the incessant acts of love’ and warned that his increasing weakness was compromising his health.5 He died at the age of nineteen. Perhaps with this in mind, Ayala agreed it would be better to retain Catherine in London while Arthur returned to Ludlow, ‘especially because the prince and the princess would more easily bear being separated and [their abstinence from] intercourse if she remained with him and the queen, who could alleviate her sorrow for being separated from the prince, a thing which it would be much more difficult to bear if she were to live in his house in Wales, adding many other reasons which the king himself had given me only a few days before for retaining the Princess during the next two years near his person’.6 In the end, though, he was overruled and the opposite decision was taken. Later, these concerns would come back to haunt the king.

  The days dragged on and the young pair remained at court through December. They celebrated the feasts of St Andrew and St Nicholas, then that of St John the Evangelist, with prayer, offerings and feasting. Perhaps they amused themselves with cards, chess and dice, of which the king was fond but not too good, frequently losing, according to his accounts, although Prince Henry’s gambling expenses were greater. The records also contain payments for dancing, players and the ‘setting’ of the royal clavichord. Henry paid the £2 wages of Catherine’s ‘stryngmynstrels’ at Westminster on 4 December, as well as making other payments to members of her entourage. The ‘mores’, or Morris or Mooresque, dancers that were given £1 13s in payment may have arrived in England with Catherine; she certainly brought her own African musician, John Blak or Blanke, who remained in England for at least a decade and is depicted wearing a turban in the Westminster Tournament Roll. Her exotic attendants, so different in appearance to their English hosts, would have excited attention at a court where those of unusual physical appearance were retained by way of curiosities. Another visitor at court that season was the Scottish poet William Dunbar, who received a payment of £2 from Henry.7 His poem ‘Of a Black Moor’, or ‘My ladye with the mekle [large] lips’ may well have been inspired by a member in Catherine’s entourage.

  Catherine’s sixteenth birthday came and went. Then, the decision having been made by Henry, with ‘show of great sorrow’, the prince and princess left London together on 21 December. Catherine caught her first glimpse of Ludlow Castle, on the Welsh borders, just before the year came to a close. It was a solid eleventh-century edifice, built adjoining the town on a high point overlooking the River Teme, a defensive and administrative position on the border between England and Wales. In the inner bailey stood a round chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene and fifteenth-century renovations had added new floor levels and larger windows in the keep. It had been home to Arthur’s lost Yorkist uncle, the elder of the Princes in the Tower, during his youth in the 1470s and 1480s. There, the future Edward V had been trained in the arts of kingship, much as Arthur had been.

  They had arrived at the bleakest time of year. The household would have been prepared for their arrival, with clean rushes on the floor and fires lit against the inclement weather. Sitting upon a rocky promontory overlooking the surrounding countryside, the castle had little shelter from the extremes of the winter. Catherine may even have arrived before her belongings. On 18 February, a man named John Wint was paid 10s for transporting the ‘Princesse stuff’ from Plymouth to Ludlow, although payments typically showed up weeks or months after the recipient had petitioned for them.8 After the crowds and luxury of the Westminster Court and the dazzling modern beauty of Richmond, Catherine must have found Ludlow life fairly basic, even lonely.

  Although the majority of her Spanish retinue had been dismissed back in November, Catherine retained a core of ladies about her from her home. She must have derived the most comfort from the presence of her compatriot women, including the teenaged Maria de Rojas, daughter of the Count de Salinas, who is not to be confused with Maria de Salinas, who took her place in 1503/04. Also among her entourage were Inez or Agnes Venegas, Kateryn Montoya or Mountoria, Maria and Kateryn de Gavara, Katerina Fortes and the wife of John de Quero. Still struggling with English, Catherine must have sought refuge among these familiar faces.

  It was during this time that Catherine’s lifelong friendship with Margaret Pole began. The daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, and sister of the Earl of Warwick, executed for treason in 1499, Margaret was a reminder of the old Yorkist regime. Aged twenty-eight and already the mother of three children, she became one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting, while her husband was Arthur’s chamberlain. Religious, intelligent and educated, she would later be a patron of Erasmus and was a suitable motherly figure to support the new princess in her role as a future English queen, in a way that her Spanish Dona Elvira could not. Also present in her household were members of the Blount family, with the young couple Sir John and the ‘remarkable and forthright’ Lady Catherine, of nearby Kinlet, being frequent visitors. The pair were probably in their early twenties9 and had been married at the Yorkist manor of Bewdley, or Tickenhill, now in Arthur’s possession and a frequent destination for his role in administering local justice. With Kinlet lying fifteen miles to the east of Ludlow, and just five miles north-west of Bewdley, it is likely that the Blounts were the closest aristocratic neighbours to be suitable companions to the princess. Catherine may have met their infant daughter, the golden-haired and blue-eyed Bessie; perhaps she imagined herself soon becoming the mother of a young family.

  Catherine probably spent most of her time with her ladies. Her young husband was frequently engaged in the administrative duties that had accumulated during his absence; a diminutive boy-man, thin, frail and standing less than five feet tall, riding off to preside over the Council of the Marches. Typical of royal households, Catherine and Arthur had distinct spheres within the house, physically separated by occupying the different suites of rooms befitting their status. This created a gender division among their staff. Arthur’s establishment was headed by Richard Pole, with John Arundel as chancellor and Richard Crofte as steward, while their female relations formed Catherine’s circle. The one figure who united them may have been John Nele, the dean of their chapel. Not all meals were taken together, with some households eating in separate chambers and only coming together for the celebration of key calendar dates. Catherine later reported that they kept to their separate bedrooms, only sharing a bed on seven nights in the entirety of their marriage.10

  There was little opportunity for the marriage to get established before it was over. By many accounts the weather remained terrible and, based on the letters sent by Catherine and Dona Elvira Manuel, Isabella christened it ‘that unhealthy place’.11 In spite of this, according to the Receyt, Arthur continued ‘upholdyng and defendyng the pore … repressing malice and unlawful disposicion, amplifying and increasing the laws, and the service of Almighti God’.12 His tenure was brief, ‘from the Fest of the Natyvite of Criste … unto the solempne Fest of the Resurrection’.13

  Less than five months after their wedding, at the end of March 1502, Arthur and Catherine both fell ill. The sweating sickness had been raging in the local a
rea, causing fever, burning thirst and rapid death. While she recovered, he worsened. The epidemic may have been the catalyst that complicated an underlying weakness in Arthur, perhaps pulmonary or testicular tuberculosis. Catherine’s doctor diagnosed his condition as ‘tisis’, or ‘phthisis’, a general term for a wasting condition, which could include many possible diseases. This ‘lamentable and … moost pettiful … sikeness’14 claimed his life on 2 April 1502. Having believed herself destined to be Queen of England since she was three years old, Catherine found herself a widow.

  5

  The Young Widow, 1502–03

  Brittle beauty, that Nature made so frail,

  Whereof the gift is small, and short the season;

  Flowering to-day, to-morrow apt to fail.1

  Spring arrived at Ludlow, but it did not bring the usual joy associated with it by medieval poets. It took several weeks for Catherine to recover from her illness, breathing out ‘bad humours’ and pained by the terrible news brought to her on her sickbed. She was isolated in her Ludlow chamber with just her immediate household for company, dependent on her women and servants for news of the outside world. Her French-born apothecary, John de Soda, or Soto, who had accompanied her from Spain, would have prepared various medicines and treatments to aid her recovery.

  Catherine’s young husband was interred in Worcester Cathedral during her illness, with the members of his household lining up to symbolically break their white staves of office and cast the pieces into his tomb. The under-treasurer was reimbursed £566 by the king, but Catherine would have been unaware of the splendid carvings and ceremony that had been made in his honour. Even if she had been well, it was not customary for spouses to attend funerals and she was honourably represented by two Spanish gentlemen, perhaps including her chamberlain, Dona Elvira’s husband. There was another dynastic reason for her seclusion, too.

  The eyes of the court were turned in Catherine’s direction in expectation. It was customary, on the death of a married prince, to wait and see whether or not his wife was pregnant, regardless of the nature of their intimate relationship. The arrival of a posthumous heir, as Catherine’s family knew all too well, could significantly change the line of succession. Only five years previously, when her elder brother John, Prince of Asturias, died at the age of eighteen, his wife Margaret was pregnant, although her child was stillborn in December 1497. If Catherine had conceived, she would be carrying the next heir to the throne and her future would be secure. No doubt her Spanish ladies blushed as they were asked questions about her health and laundry, but they could not conjure up a baby out of thin air. Nor could Catherine.

  Mistakes could easily be made when it came to women’s bodies in the sixteenth century. The diagnosis of pregnancy was an imprecise science and the symptoms of other common illnesses could easily be mistaken for the usual indications that conception had taken place. In some cases, even experienced women were not certain of their condition until the first foetal movements took place, in the middle of the second trimester. Catherine’s doctors would have needed to be especially careful as her recent illness, with its accompanying sweats and dizziness, may have masked any signs that she was carrying a child. The delay in granting Henry the role of Prince of Wales was to ensure that there would be no male offspring of Arthur’s to claim the title. It was finally conferred on him on 22 June, almost three months after Arthur’s death, although his formal investiture would not take place until 1503. By that time, there was no question of an infant prince.

  But Catherine already knew that. Such a custom rested on the assumption that she and Arthur had consummated their marriage. With such private information remaining behind closed doors, the observation of the princess was a sensible political precaution, based on the balance of possibilities. However, only the princess herself would have known without question whether there was any likelihood that she may have conceived a child. In spite of the adolescent Arthur’s boast on the morning after his wedding that he was thirsty as he had been ‘in the midst of Spain’ all night, Catherine’s women reported how she had been subdued the following morning. It was later claimed by one of Arthur’s officials, Maurice St John, that relations between the prince and princess had led to a decline in Arthur’s health. Stating that they had lain together at Shrovetide, St John said the prince ‘began to decay and was never so lusty in body and courage until his death’,2 directly relating this to the consummation of the marriage. However, Catherine would later describe how, in all their four and a half months of marriage, the pair had only shared a bed on seven occasions, and at no time had Arthur ‘known her’. In fact, she remained ‘as intact and incorrupt as when she emerged from her mother’s womb’.3

  However, the question arises of just how well informed Catherine was about sex and the nature of consummation. Her later misreading of her own body in 1510 demonstrates a surprising naivety about the reproductive process, and even though she may have understood the concept in theory, the practice may have been a very different matter. Incredible as it may seem to a modern reader, it is possible that an inexperienced Catherine was herself unsure of exactly what had happened. Assuming Arthur had attempted to consummate the marriage, his teenage fumblings may have met with limited success. He may have not yet reached puberty or, as some historians speculate, he may have been suffering from testicular tuberculosis, or a similar condition that hindered his performance, but this does not mean he did not try. Nor is it clear exactly what constitutes consummation. Arthur’s comment suggested it did occur, while Catherine refuted it completely. It is possible that they were both correct.

  To address a sensitive situation directly, just how far was penetration required in order to constitute a successful consummation? If the pair indulged in some sort of foreplay, it is not inconceivable, given their youth, that both reached separate conclusions about their degree of success. Arthur may have achieved some shallow degree of penetration which was not sufficient to rupture Catherine’s hymen, leaving her still technically a virgin. Both were inexperienced, and lacked a common language as well as, presumably, a detailed knowledge of the anatomy of the opposite sex. Under such circumstances, their attempts at intimacy may not have gone smoothly. Catherine’s reported quietness the following morning might indicate the embarrassment and discomfort after a bungled effort rather than complete non-consummation. In later years, when she was forced to defend her virginity, she had the comparison of Arthur’s efforts with the wedding night she spent with the robust seventeen-year-old Henry. It is perfectly possible that Arthur thought consummation had taken place while his wife thought it had not. While Catherine kept her counsel in 1502, many at court made the assumption that the union had been consummated and the official waiting period prevailed.

  Swiftly, Ferdinand and Isabella tried to secure their daughter’s position. However, far away in Spain, it was not clear exactly how they could achieve this for the best. As early as 10 May they instructed the Duke of Estrada to conclude, in their names, ‘a marriage between their daughter Catharine and [the king’s] son Henry, Prince of Wales’.4 They also requested the return of 100,000 scudos, the half of her marriage portion that had been paid so far, and the settlement of her dowry lands. Yet Estrada was also issued with the conflicting charge to bring Catherine home to her parents as soon as possible. Two days later, the Spanish sovereigns had ‘heard that the Princess of Wales is suffering’ and asked that she ‘be removed, without loss of time, from the unhealthy place where she is now’, meaning Ludlow.5 They expected ‘confidently’ that King Henry would ‘lose no time in fulfilling all his obligations’ to her. Having heard reports of his lack of support, they declared they could not ‘believe him capable of exposing the princess, in this her time of grief, to want and privation’.6 It was not to be supposed that the ‘King of England would break his word at any time, and much less at present, while the princess is overwhelmed with grief’.7 Sadly, Ferdinand and Isabella were to be proved wrong.

  6

 
; Betrothal Games, 1503–05

  The vows you’ve broken, like my heart,

  O why did you so enrapture me?

  Now I remain in a world apart

  But my heart remains in captivity.1

  Catherine was initially installed at Durham House on the Strand, the London home of the bishops of Durham. Henry VII’s queen, Elizabeth of York, sent a litter of black velvet fringed with black valance and ribbon to carry her the 150 miles across the middle of England back to the capital.2 Durham House was considered a palace worthy of royalty, with its private apartments overlooking the river, large chapel and hall with marble pillars. It was mostly built on two storeys around a sizeable courtyard, with tall towers, a walled garden leading down to the river and a landing stage for Catherine to access court. In 1540, according to Stow’s Survey of London, it hosted the feast of the May Day revels, easily accommodating the king, queen and her ladies, the entire court, six challengers dressed in white velvet and forty-six defendants, the knights and burgesses of the House of Commons, the mayor and aldermen and their wives.3 That November, Henry paid Catherine’s monthly expenses, which amounted to £83 6s 8d. It was the equivalent to about ten suits of armour, or a similar number of good-quality riding horses according to late fifteenth-century prices. She would also have attended the court at Westminster, perhaps witnessing the disguisings and singing, music and costumes, tumblers and misrule that appear in the Privy Purse accounts. Perhaps, in January 1503, she visited the Tower to see the leopard presented to Henry VII for the royal menagerie.