Tudor Queens of England

by David Loades

  36 Only in one respect did Henry behave vindictively towards his ex-wife. He refused to allow any personal contact between Catherine and Mary. Messages, sometime apparently written in Spanish, passed to and fro, borne by trusty messengers, but even when her daughter was ill, the Queen was not allowed to visit her. By 1535 the King was aware that the daughter was potentially more dangerous than the mother. For all her obstinacy, Catherine would never countenance any armed opposition to the King’s will – but Mary was much less experienced and more suggestible. If rebellion was to stir as the King moved defi nitively to end Papal authority in England, it was only too likely that she would become its fi gurehead. She was just as recalcitrant as Catherine and unless or until he had a legitimate son there would be many who would continue to regard her as his lawful heir. In 1534 Henry’s fi rst Succession Act made it high treason to deny Elizabeth’s legitimacy, or to affi rm the validity of his fi rst marriage. An oath was imposed on all subjects to that effect but it was not administered to Mary and her mother. The King knew their minds well enough but had no desire t

  o cut their heads off.37 Towards the end of 1535 Catherine became ill and in January of the following year she died at Kimbolton, insisting to the last that she was the Queen of England.

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  Mary (to her great grief) was not allowed to come to her but her passing was exemplary in its piety and she was laid to rest with all the honours due a Dowager Princess, in Peterborough Cathedral. There were, inevitably, rumours of poison and Catherine had herself apparently feared no less. However, they were only rumours. If Henry had been willing to yield to the temptation to do away with her he would have done so long before. It would appear that the former Queen succumbed to a series of heart attacks. She was 51. Even if we accept the validity of Cranmer’s sentence, she had still been accepted as Henry’s wife for almost 24

  years – far longer than any of her successors. She was a highly intelligent and well-educated woman, who had been in her time a great patron of scholars and the recipient of many dedications. Vives is only the best known example. In her youth she had been not only attractive but light hearted and good humoured. Unfortunately neither her good looks nor her good humour survived advancing years and misfortune. Her strong-mindedness became the most infl exible and self destructive obstinacy and her piety, from being gracious, became obsessive. There is no doubt that in the last years of her life she courted a kind of virtual martyrdom and took a grim satisfaction from the fact that, in 1533, her daughter was similarly affl icted for her sake. For the fi rst ten years of her marriage she had devoted all her considerable infl uence to maintaining the alliance between her husband and her homeland but lost that battle eventually because of her father’s death and the rise of Thomas Wolsey. Paradoxically, it was the King’s attempts to get rid of her that revived that relationship in a different and even more potent form. Without really intending to be so, she became her nephew’s bridgehead into English politics and a pressure point that the Emperor found of great value in his dealings with the King of England. Despite spending more than 35 years in England and enduring both good and bad fortune, Catherine never forgot that she was of the royal blood of Spain. How dare a mere Tudor treat her so disrespectfully!

  If Catherine could be dubbed ‘the wife who never was’, the same title might be applied more realistically to Anne of Cleves. Henry had married Catherine because he wanted her and because she represented a long-standing alliance that corresponded with his present strategic needs. He married Anne because she represented a short-term solution to a pressing problem. When the problem disappeared, the marriage came down to a question of personal chemistry, which was soon found to be non-existent. The year 1539 was, or appeared to be, a dangerous time for England. The King had declared his independence of the Pope fi ve years before and stood excommunicate, which was standing invitation for any neighbouring prince to attack him in the name of the Churc

  h.38 As long as the Emperor and the King of France were at daggers drawn there was small 108

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  chance of that happening but on 12 January 1539 they came to terms in the Treaty of Toledo and each agreed not to come to any understanding with England without the consent of the other. There was talk of withdrawing their diplomatic representatives and the threat seemed to be real. Henry reacted in three ways. First he ordered musters up and down the country, mobilized his fl eet and commenced a series of fortifi cations along the south co

  ast.39 This had the desired, if not intended, effect of uniting the country behind its king. However unhappy some Englishmen might be with the drift of the King’s recent policies, they were not prepared to contemplate some foreigner interfering to put things right. Secondly he caused the Act of Six Articles to be passed. This was a reaffi rmation of Catholic orthodoxy on certain key theological issues, particularly the sacrament of the mass. Henry might have repudiated the Pope, dissolved the monasteries and authorized a vernacular Bible, but he had no desire to be thought a heretic and chose this method of distancing himself from the creeping evangelicalism that Cromwell and Cranmer had been promoting over the previous fi ve years. This apparently pulled the rug from under his third objective, which was to seek an alliance with the only European power that seemed reliably anti-papal – the Schmalkaldic League of Germany. Faced with the Treaty of Toledo, England was dangerously isolated and the League appeared to offer the only realistic option. The Leaguers, however, were insistent that Henry subscribe to the Lutheran Augsburg confession before they would enter into any formal agreement and that Henry was determined not to do. The Act of Six Articles reaffi rmed that refusal, and negotiations with the League broke down. Cleves-Julich, however, was not a member of the League. Its Duke was a Catholic of reforming tendencies who was perennially at odds with the Emperor. Cleves-Julich was not a major power but the Duke had his own allies and contacts among the anti-Habsburg German princes. Moreover, he had a sister available for marriage. Henry had been without a partner since the tragic death of Jane Seymour in October 1537, and a considerable number of options had been considered, including several French princesses before the Treaty of Toledo appeared to cut off that line of advance. For some time his preferred choice had been Christina of Denmark but that lady had eventually declined the honour, allegedly declaring that she would prefer to keep her head on her shoulders.

  40 A negotiation with Cleves had been suggested as early as June 1538, but it was only after the death of the old Duke in February 1539 and the succession of his son William, that offi cial feelers were put out. The original proposal had been for a match between the young Duke and Mary, now back in favour in England, but still illegitimate but this was quickly superseded by a negotiation for the King himself to marry William’s unassigned sister, Anne, then aged 24. The summer advanced and the

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  Franco-Imperial threat failed to materialize but Thomas Cromwell was keen to see the King wedded again and pressed on with the negotiation. One son was not suffi cient for dynastic security although Edward, Jane Seymour’s son, appeared to be a robust child just entering his third year. Hans Holbein was sent across to draw the lady’s portrait and his effort (which still survives) was suffi cient to convince the King of Anne’s charms. There was some discussion of a possible precontract but that had been disposed of by the end of September and the treaty was fi nally signed on 4 Oct

  ober 1539.41 What nobody disclosed, and the English envoys probably did not have the chance to observe, was that Anne was in many respects an extremely unsuitable consort. She was, admittedly, not a Lutheran, and was passably handsome, but she was almost completely uneducated, having been brought up in the domestic seclusion of the family castle. Whereas both Catherine and Anne Boleyn had been sophisticated young ladies, fl uent in several languages and accomplished in the courtly arts, and Jane Seymour had
received a respectable renaissance education, Anne was a bumpkin. She spoke no language but German, was ignorant of music and knew only the dances of her native land. For a man whose needs were not only physical but intellectual and who expected his consort to shine at court and to be a patron of the arts she was a disaster waiting to happen. For his part, Henry was compliant rather than enthusiastic. He professed himself satisfi ed with the arrangements, and prepared to greet his new bride, but this was unknown territory to him. In each of his fi rst three marriages he had known that he wanted the woman concerned, but in this case he had only a portrait to go on and knew that the match was primarily diplomatic. He was hopeful and confi dent that Thomas Cromwell had done his best, but no more. Anne set off on her journey to England – with what trepidation we do not know – at the end of October. She was honourably accompanied but no member of her own family came with her even part of the way. In the light of what happened subsequently it might be that domestic relations at home were not all that cordial and her brother may even have been glad to see the back of her. An unmarried sister of 24 could be an embarrassment. She came via Calais, the sea route from Antwerp being deemed too hazardous in the winter, and Lord Lisle received her there on 11 December. Bad weather then stayed her journey until 27 December, forcing Henry to keep Christmas on his own. So far, despite her leisurely progress, all seemed well. She made a very good impression on the Lisles. In spite of language diffi culties, she seemed gracious and sweet tempered, and passed her enforced stay in Calais by endeavouring to learn something of the English Court. Finally, on 27 December the wind changed and she was able to make a swift passage to England in one of the splendid ships that the King had 110

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  sent to escort her. Never having seen an ocean-going ship before she was more than a little awed.

  Henry meanwhile, his curiosity at last stimulated, decided on a quixotic gesture. He would intercept her in disguise on her journey through Kent. On 1 January 1540 an anonymous group of English gentlemen invaded the Princess’s apartments in the bishop’s palace at Rochester, claiming to bear a New Year gift from the King. Anne had not the slightest idea what to do. She spoke no English, or French, and probably feared that she was about to be abducted. Henry, who was one of the group, was profoundly disappointed. He had probably expected the kind of witty improvization that he would have got from Anne Boleyn, or the young Catherine and not this lumpish bewilderment. Realizing his mistake, the King withdrew and returned in his own proper person, with his companions abasing themselves in case any misunderstanding should persist. This time Anne could not fail to realize who he was, and somewhat numbly ‘humbled herself ’. They embraced and Henry withdrew but the damage had been done. Anne had appeared as a plain and rather stupid young woman, quite unable to rise to the unexpected. Henry returned to Greenwich, observing curtly ‘I like her not’

  .42 From this low point it was downhill all the way. Anne was received with formal splendour at Shooter’s Hill, presented with magnifi cent jewels and royal robes, and married to the King at Greenwich on Twelfth Night, 6 January, but none of this persuaded Henry to fi nd her acceptable. Since he had fi rst set eyes on her he had not ceased to complain, he was putting his head into a yoke, he had not been ‘well handled’ by his advisers and so on. A last minute attempt was made to fi nd a loophole in the agreement, but there was none. For the sake of public honesty the marriage had to go ahead, even although the Cleves alliance was by this time irrelevant.

  Poor Anne could do nothing right. The Germans were ‘beggarly knaves’ – she was a heretic who would lead the King astray (which was not true), and she did not look the part. Cromwell did his best to soothe his master’s anxieties, and hoped for the best. However (not surprisingly) the wedding night was a fi asco. Anne was so innocent that she had not the faintest idea what was supposed to happen, and was not at all disconcerted when Henry failed to perform. ‘At this rate’, one of her English ladies observed, ‘it will be a long time before we have a Duke of York’.

  43 Henry, typically, blamed his impotence upon her lack of physical attractiveness – her breasts were the wrong shape, and so on. He even doubted that she was a virgin, which in the circumstances was ridiculous. Anne must have been aware of the chill that surrounded her splendour, but seems to have had no inkling of the reason for it. For the time being the public life of the court proceeded without disruption. The King and Queen proceeded by barge from

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  Greenwich to Westminster on 4 February, and a thousand rounds of ordnance were fi red from the Tower in greeting. The Queen’s household numbered nearly 130 men and women, including a number of German ladies and aristocratic English girls, one of whom was Catherine Howard. In April the parliament confi rmed the Queen’s dower lands. Anne was not crowned but that would not have been expected immediately in any case and superfi cially all appeared to be well. However, below the surface, there was furious paddling. Most of this concerns the fall of Thomas Cromwell and need not concern us here, except insofar as one of the charges brought against him was that he had manoeuvred the King into the Cleves marriage against his will, which was plausible but untrue. Henry had known perfectly well what he was doing even if he had come to dislike it. More relevantly, attempts were made to get the King off the hook by resurrecting the matter of Anne’s pre-contract, but that proved to be impossible. Finally it was decided to proceed on the grounds of non-consummation, which was undeniable if humiliating. The archbishop’s court secretly pronounced on this issue towards the end of June – a decision of which Anne seems to have been completely unaware. On 24 June the Queen went to Richmond, and there, on the following day, she was visited by the King’s commissioners who informed her that her marriage to Henry was invalid.

  The message was carefully delivered through an interpreter and was received with extraordinary composure. Anne may not have known what non-consummation meant, but she seems to have been hugely relieved at being discharged of a responsibility that she had found to be beyond her. She declared herself to be content with whatever the King might decide and signed her letter of submission ‘Anna, daughter of Cleves’. If Anne had decided to fi ght in the manner of Catherine, she could have made life very diffi cult for the King. She could have rejected the verdict of a schismatical ecclesiastical Court and insisted upon her contractual rights but she chose to do none of these things. Instead she accepted a generous settlement of lands worth about £3,000 a year – some three-quarters of her jointure – and decided to stay in England. The Duke her brother may have been chagrined at her rejection but in fact he had lost nothing and it may be signifi cant that he made no attempt to insist on her return to Cleves. Anne never married but she remained on the fringes of the Court, becoming friendly with both Mary and Elizabeth, although she appears to have been upset by Catherine Parr’s evangelical associations. After Henry’s death she made a rather half-hearted attempt to have her marriage annulment overturned in order to claim the full jointure of a Queen Dowager but did not persist when Edward’s council proved to be unsympathetic. In her later years she turned her household into a kind of miniature Rhenish court and her German servants 112

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  occasionally caused problems. She had no sympathy with Edward’s Protestant regime but (unlike Mary) it treated her with kid gloves. She returned to court at the beginning of Mary’s reign, and died after a long illness at Chelsea Manor on 16 July 1557, at the age of 42.

  44 As a Queen, Anne had been a non-event, and as a person she seems to have been better known for her good nature and charm than for any particular intelligence, wit, or talent. In the reign of Henry VIII, she was a diplomatic footnote, and is remembered best for her quite spectacular ignorance of matters sexual. The only remarkable thing about her encounter with Henry is that, in spite of his extensive experience with at least half a dozen women, he seems not to have
known whether she was a virgin or not.

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  The Domestic Queens: Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour

  and Catherine Parr Apart from the brief and disastrous experiment with Anne of Cleves, after 1527 Henry VIII found all his wives in England. They were chosen for different reasons at different stages of his career but each was his own subject and therefore did not have to be bargained for with any neighbouring dynasty. This did not usually correspond with the advice of his Council, which was conventionally inclined to marry the King for diplomatic reasons, but Henry knew his own mind in such matters, and (Anne of Cleves again excepted), always pleased himself. Anne Boleyn was by far the most signifi cant politically because the campaign needed to secure her forced the King into radical ecclesiastical courses and her fall shook the establishment to its foundations. Jane was signifi cant for quite a different reason, because she was the mother of his son, and perhaps the best loved of all his consorts. By the time that he married the second Catherine in 1543, Henry was physically a spent force, and the erstwhile Lady Latimer is best known as the nurse who coped with an increasingly irritable and irascible husband and gave him what little peace his divided and self-interested court could afford.

  Anne was born in about 1501, and was the younger daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife Elizabeth Howard, the sister of Thomas Earl of Surrey and subsequently Duke of Norfolk. Sir Thomas was a knight of good lineage and his wife came from one of the best noble houses in England.