The result of this historical process is that the marriage laws affecting later rulers – for example the Stuart king, Charles II (reigned 1660–85) – were not the same as those that had impinged upon Edward IV and Henry VIII. And, as we shall see, by the lifetime of George IV (born 1762, reigned 1820–30) specific new complications had been introduced, in the form of the Royal Marriages Act and other legislation.
The evolution of marriage law has led to some significant changes, and if attempts were made to apply the modern rules retrospectively to historical cases this might produce bizarre results. For example, the canon law of the Anglican Church – which arose as an independent ecclesial body from the dispute over Henry VIII’s petition for nullity in respect of his marriage to his late brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon – now permits marriage to a deceased brother’s wife without requiring any dispensation.21 Thus under modern Anglican canon law Henry’s marriage to Catherine would unquestionably be regarded as valid. On the other hand, despite the fact that Catherine of Aragon, in the sixteenth century, considered the question of whether her first marriage had or had not been consummated as a key issue, modern Catholic canon law now specifically decrees that ‘affinity arises from a valid marriage, even if not consummated’.22
In modern Catholic law it is also now the case that if a marriage is declared null and void, any children born of the annulled marriage are regarded as legitimate.23 Had this rule also applied automatically in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries then Parliament might have thought twice about offering the throne to Richard III, and Henry VIII could not have declared his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to be bastards. However, the key point to remember is that at those periods the rules were different. From this we can see how important it is for historians to understand precisely which marriage laws were in force during the period about which they are writing.
2
MEDIEVAL
MARRIAGE PRACTICE
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GROOM: I … take thee … for fairer or fouler …
BRIDE: I … take thee … to be bonny and buxom at bed and at board …
Extracts from late medieval marriage vows
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Throughout the medieval period, then, marriage in England (and indeed in the whole of Western Europe) was a sacrament of the Catholic Church. This sacrament was self-conferring – that is to say all that was required was the free consent of a man and a woman to live together as husband and wife, mutually expressed firstly in the form of a vow or promise and secondly in the form of sexual intercourse. A formal wedding service did exist, which could be conducted by a priest, with witnesses and other guests present. Possibly there would be musical accompaniment to the ceremony, together with the offering of gifts to the marrying couple. However, this ceremony was not obligatory – though the Church certainly preferred it and increasingly encouraged its use.
Of course, the man and woman had to be free to marry. Most importantly this meant that they could not already be married to someone else, although there were also other rules governing the degree of kinship which was permitted (see below). They had to be old enough to be able to express their free consent in words. No actual age of consent for marriage was specified, and in practice children as young as four took the vows on occasions. However, they were not permitted to proceed to the second stage – sexual intercourse – until they reached the age of puberty. ‘Sixteen was the normal age for the consummation of a marriage in which one (or both) of the contracting parties had been a minor’.1
The requirement of being ‘free to marry’ also comprised rules governing the degree of blood (or other) relationship which might exist between the couple, and these rules were very precisely laid down by the ecclesiastical authorities. A couple was not free to marry if the two parties were related within the so-called ‘prohibited degrees’. At the fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, Pope Innocent III limited this prohibition to the fourth degree of kinship. Broadly speaking, this refers to third cousins – individuals who share at least one great-great-grandparent – and closer relatives. Previously – dating back to the time of the Norman Conquest of England – the prohibition had been stricter, extending to the seventh degree of kinship: this earlier and wider prohibition having been formally established by Pope Alexander II (1061–73).2
In practice, of course, the royalty and nobility of medieval Europe – and also the medieval peasants living in a small village – were probably quite often related within the prohibited degrees. Therefore this rule of prohibition was not absolute. The Church could grant a dispensation, allowing a marriage within the prohibited degrees, and this practice was not uncommon. At times, however, the granting of such a dispensation could give rise to problems, as we shall see later. It was also the case that sometimes the bride and groom were either genuinely unaware that they were related within the prohibited degrees, or they chose to pretend not to know. Occasionally it subsequently suited one of the two parties to ‘discover’ a relationship of which they had previously pretended to be unaware, in order to end a marriage which was no longer viable (see below: annulment).
Although there was no formal requirement for marriage vows to be witnessed, in practice a witness was certainly a good idea, because there were many cases of disputed marriage, as the records of the medieval English Church courts testify. If the formal Church wedding service was used, the ceremony would probably be celebrated at the west door of a church, in the open air, with guests present as witnesses. It was probably in the late fifteenth century that marriages began to move inside churches. Ms Royal 14E. IV, f. 284 depicts the wedding of Richard II’s cousin, Philippa (i) of Lancaster (the daughter of Richard’s uncle, John of Gaunt), to King John I of Portugal. The wedding took place in 1387, but the illustration was painted about 100 years later, probably in the Low Countries. It shows the wedding taking place inside a church, before the high altar, so by about 1490 this must have been a normal venue for a wedding. However, Ms Royal 20E. VI, f. 9v depicts the 1420 wedding of Henry V and Catherine of France as taking place in a church porch. This picture was painted in 1487. Ms Royal 15E. IV, f. 295v shows the 1308 wedding of Edward II and Isabella of France taking place outside a church. This picture was painted in about 1475.
The earlier tradition of marriage in the open air may have had an impact on the question of whether or not a bridal veil was worn, and this point is considered in more detail below. Probably every couple would wear nice clothes if possible, but of course in the case of the medieval bridegroom this would have been neither a suit nor a military uniform. Likewise the modern white wedding dress was virtually unknown in the Middle Ages, and a dress of any colour might be worn by the bride.
The first recorded instance of a member of the English royal family wearing a white wedding dress was at the wedding of Philippa (ii) of Lancaster, daughter of Henry IV, at Lund, in 1406. Philippa married Eric, King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and for the occasion she wore white silk trimmed with squirrel fur and ermine. Curiously, the late fifteenth-century depiction of the wedding of her aunt, Philippa (i) (see above), while not contemporary with the event, also depicts that bride wearing a white dress trimmed with brown fur over a yellow under-dress trimmed with ermine. Possibly the painting was influenced by descriptions of the wedding dress of Philippa (ii). About sixty years after this picture was painted, in 1559, Mary Queen of Scots wore white for her marriage to the Dauphin of France, because it was her favourite colour. Her choice was remembered because white was the traditional mourning garb for French queens, and Mary’s husband proved short-lived, giving rise to the notion that maybe his bride had made an unlucky choice of colour.
Only in the eighteenth century did white begin to become normal for a wedding dress. In the royal family, Princess Charlotte, daughter and heiress of George IV, wore a white wedding dress in 1816, for her marriage to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (later King Leopold I of Belgium). Queen Victoria wore a white wedding dress in 1840, and during the nineteenth ce
ntury this custom gradually became more or less universal. Queen Victoria also introduced the custom of having her bridesmaids carry her train.
An old wedding rhyme still survives in England, which recommends for a woman at her wedding:
Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, something blue,
And a silver sixpence in her shoe.
It is not known for certain when this rhyme was composed, and some sources suggest that it is Victorian. However, the traditions which it represents are probably much older. A silver coin worth six pennies was first minted in 1551, so the rhyme as it stands today cannot date back as far as the Middle Ages. But the last silver sixpences were minted in Britain in 1946, so the rhyme must be earlier than that.3 The tradition of the coin in the bride’s shoe may have its origin in an old Scottish custom, whereby the bridegroom put a silver coin in his left shoe for good luck. If so then the verse as it now stands may well date from the nineteenth century, when things Scottish were cultivated and popularised by the royal family.
However, the reference to ‘something blue’ for the bride is almost certainly ancient in origin. Western Christian tradition sees blue as the colour worn by the Virgin Mary and this may explain the preference for a blue garment of some kind to be worn at a wedding. This custom was perpetuated for centuries in England, as a second traditional wedding rhyme clearly shows.
Marry in blue.
Lover be true!
Possibly, blue clothing, through its association with the Blessed Virgin, was thought to symbolise the bride’s virginity in medieval Christian society – just as the white wedding dress came to do later.
Even so, a blue dress was by no means compulsory for weddings in the Middle Ages. In the surviving coloured illustrations of English medieval royal and private weddings we can see an assortment of colours worn by the brides. Edward III’s daughter is shown wearing a pink dress. Eleanor of Provence is portrayed in a green mantle. One surviving version of the wedding of Henry V and Catherine of France shows both bride and groom in gold robes – though this picture was painted many years after the event (see above).
However, blue clothing is shown at the wedding of Edward II. The king and his bride, Isabelle of France, were both depicted wearing very splendid robes of cloth of gold, trimmed with ermine, while the artist gave Edward a fashionable fifteenth-century pair of pointed red shoes. Isabelle’s robe is of blue cloth of gold, and she is also holding up her robe to reveal a beautiful under-dress of royal blue and gold.4
Another point to consider is the question of the bridal veil. A bride who was to become a queen, and who arrived at her wedding a virgin, would not wear a bridal veil, though she did wear an open crown.5 Princesses might also wear crowns to their weddings, as Edward IV’s sister, Margaret of York, did in 1468.6 But there is some evidence that a royal princess who was not marrying a king might have her hair covered.7 In medieval Christian society, as in modern Moslem society, it was considered a sign of modesty for a woman to cover her hair in public. However, young girls and queens were both exempt from this veiling of the head, so that it may have been considered appropriate – and a further sign of the bride’s virginity – for her head to be uncovered at her wedding. Nevertheless, it was traditional for women to cover their heads inside churches. Thus, in the medieval period, when weddings (if the public ceremony was being used) normally took place outside the church door, a prospective queen would have had no need of a bridal veil. Later, however, when weddings moved inside churches, a head covering for the royal bride would have become essential.
During a formal wedding ceremony, vows were exchanged by the bride and groom. Then the groom would place a ring on the bride’s hand – probably in most cases on the ring finger of the right hand. The placing of the ring could be carried out in a little ceremony in which the groom said ‘In the name of the Father’ (touching the ring to the tip of the bride’s thumb), ‘and of the Son’ (touching the ring to the tip of the bride’s index finger), ‘and of the Holy Spirit’ (touching the ring to the tip of the bride’s middle finger), ‘Amen’ (pushing the ring onto the bride’s ring finger). The ring may have been made of metal – possibly a precious metal – but there were no rules about this. There is no evidence that a ring was given by the bride to the groom in England in the medieval period. No formal documents (such as marriage certificates) existed, or were signed, as part of the medieval church wedding. After the exchange of vows and the giving of the ring the couple would repair to their marital home or some other lay venue, accompanied by the guests, for a wedding celebration which culminated in the formal (and public) bedding of bride and groom.
Of course in cases where the formal religious ceremony was not employed, the situation was even more free and easy. A man and woman who were attracted to one another might simply make up their minds to promise to be husband and wife when they were alone together, maybe in a barn, where they could follow up the verbal promise immediately by making love to one another in the hay. Such an informal marriage might have no witness present at the exchange of vows. We know this because the lack of witnesses sometimes caused trouble later, if the marriage became a matter of dispute. Just like the formal church ceremony, an informal marriage had no accompanying paperwork to document it. The informal bride may not have been given a ring, or if she did receive one it might be merely a piece of hay or straw woven into a ring for the occasion: an ephemeral ring which would fall to pieces and be lost after a short time. Even metal wedding rings do not seem to have been worn permanently. Portraits of English queens consort rarely depict anything which can be clearly recognised as a wedding ring on either of the royal hands.
The Catholic Church has never countenanced divorce, so in the Middle Ages marriages which did not work, or which proved in some way inconvenient, could not be terminated in that way. The only means by which a marriage could be ended was either for one of the parties to die, or for the Church courts to rule that for some reason the marriage had never really taken place. The latter process is known as annulment. An annulment could be granted if one or both parties claimed that the marriage had never been consummated (i.e. sexual intercourse had never taken place). Alternatively the Church courts could set aside a medieval marriage on the grounds that the couple had not been free to marry. This might be because it was discovered that the man and woman were related within the prohibited degrees and had not obtained a dispensation for their marriage; because one of the two parties had previously married a person who was still living at the time when the second marriage was contracted, or because there had been constraints of some kind, forcing one of the parties to agree to the marriage. The Church’s laws on these points relating to the validity or otherwise of a marriage will prove to be extremely important in our investigation of the disputed royal marriages of Edward IV and his grandson, Henry VIII.
But before reviewing the evidence about any specific case of disputed English royal marriage, it will be helpful to examine other areas of background information. First, it is essential to understand something of the history of royal marriages in general, and to see what this can teach us. Second, we need to know what were the general expectations relating to the status of the marriage partner, both in terms of birth and social status, and also in terms of marital background. For example, were royal brides always expected to be princesses? Was it essential that they be virgins? We must also review the history of irregular royal sexual partnerships – involving mistresses, lovers and royal bastards – because of course, if any one of the cases of disputed royal marriage we shall explore here is judged not to have been a genuine marriage, it might belong instead in this category of irregular partnerships.
We shall now begin to assemble these key elements of background information by briefly reviewing the history of the marriages of English monarchs from the Norman Conquest up to the fourteenth century. This will help us to form an initial overview of English royal marriage practice. It will also allow us to observe whethe
r marriage practice was consistent over these four centuries, and if not, in what ways the practice might have varied. In subsequent chapters we shall go on to review expectations concerning royal marriage partners, and the history of illicit royal love affairs.
3
ROYAL MARRIAGES
1050–1330
* * *
Dammit sir, it’s your duty to get married. You can’t be always living for pleasure.
Oscar Wilde
* * *
Question marks over English royal marriages since the Norman Conquest are by no means rare. We might easily assume that royal weddings were always grand public occasions, and that the formal church ceremony was always used, but in fact this was not so. For example, in the case of the parents of William I, ‘the Conqueror’, no marriage ever took place. William the Conqueror is also known by the less complimentary name of ‘William the Bastard’, because his father, Robert, Duke of Normandy, had no legitimate children – only a son (and possibly also a daughter) by his mistress, Herleva, daughter of Fulbert of Falaise, a tanner.
Actually Robert was a usurper. He had seized the duchy of Normandy on the death of his elder brother – a death in which rumour suggests that Robert himself may have taken a hand. Robert’s seizure of the power and the title was at the expense of his young nephew, the legitimate heir to the dukedom, whom Robert forced to enter a monastery. But having seized Normandy, Robert proved incapable of providing a new legitimate heir to the ducal title. Thus even before it came to England the house of Normandy was familiar with the problem of a disputed and questionable inheritance.
Royal Marriage Secrets Page 3