The Six Wives & Many Mistresses of Henry VIII

by Amy Licence

  Dressed in crimson and scarlet, Prince Henry was dispatched to meet Philip and Joanna at Winchester and conduct them to Windsor. It was not until 10 February, almost a month after their arrival, that Catherine was summoned to the castle to be reunited with her sister. This in itself was ominous. The sixteen-year-old to whom she had bid farewell as a child was now twenty-six, scarred by her tumultuous marriage and the rigours of childbearing, as well as whatever mental health problems she may have been experiencing. Catherine must have longed to share her disappointments and privations with her sister, as well as their grief over the loss of their mother, and perhaps their feelings over their father’s remarriage. Finally Catherine would have an ally of her own blood, with whom she could converse in her native tongue. Perhaps she hoped Joanna might even champion her cause with Henry, on seeing the terrible living conditions to which her sister was reduced. Yet she was to be disappointed. The sisters scarcely had the opportunity to share any secrets, let alone speak in private. They spent a short time together during which they were closely supervised, before Joanna drew the meeting to a close for reasons which are unclear. Disappointed, Catherine was sent back to Richmond while Joanna headed to Falmouth to await her husband. The princess wrote to her sister of the ‘great pleasure it gave me to see you and the great distress which filled my soul, a few hours afterwards, on account of your hasty and sudden departure’.14

  It had been a successful visit for Henry, though, whose month-long entertainment of Philip had paid off. A treaty of commerce was signed, on favourable terms to the English cloth merchants, and in exchange for recognising Philip as King of Castile Henry received the assurance that the Yorkist Earl of Suffolk, Richard de la Pole, would be surrendered to him from his foreign exile. It was also a success for Prince Henry, who had been impressed by Philip’s regal behaviour and handsome appearance, modelling himself after the ‘talented, generous and gentlemanly’ figure and sharing his passions for chivalry and sports.15 In later life, he would hang Philip’s portrait in Greenwich Palace, in a room named after the archduke.16 While in England, Philip invested the young prince with the Order of the Golden Fleece. Perhaps Catherine was permitted to attend, or else heard about the occasion, while away at Richmond.

  The king managed to detain Philip with questions of trade and policy until the end of March. On 9 April Prince Henry wrote to him in Spanish, in the first letter that survives in his hand, expressing his ‘heart’s desire’ to hear occasional news of Philip’s ‘good health and prosperity’ and referring to Catherine as his ‘most dear and well-beloved consort, the princess my wife’.17 The archduke was still on English soil at this point, as further bad weather delayed his departure until 22 April. It was the last they would see of Philip. Five months later, news arrived at the English Court that he had died as the result of an infection at the age of twenty-eight. The pregnant Joanna was distraught. The news had been enough to tip her fragile mental state over the edge.

  Worrying reports followed concerning Joanna’s behaviour. Apparently she refused to part with her husband’s body and was travelling about the country with it at night so she, or he, would not be seen. Heavily pregnant, she was reputed to open the coffin and kiss him, as well as eating from the floor and failing to pay attention to her appearance, which became unkempt.18 She delivered her final child, a girl named Catherine, the following January. None of this was sufficient to prevent Henry VII from deciding she would make him a suitable wife.

  The king turned to Catherine for help. Somehow he managed to persuade her that he would make a suitable husband for her sister, or else she was convinced by her own desire to have Joanna close at hand, even as her own mother-in-law. It was the princess herself who wrote to Ferdinand, in March 1507, proposing the match. Their father replied, ‘It is not yet known if Queen Juana be inclined to marry again,’ but if she were, ‘it shall be with no other person than the King of England.’ Joanna herself was not to know of the suggestion, as ‘she would most probably do something quite to the contrary’.19 De Puebla reported that ‘no king in the world would make so good a husband to the Queen of Castile as the King of England, whether she be sane or insane’. Her mental health was not considered a barrier – ‘the English seem little to mind … the derangement of her mind’ – as it would not interfere in her producing children.20 In return for her living in England, Ferdinand was to retain the Castilian crown. Henry’s efforts to woo her did not yield results, mostly because Joanna herself was resolved never to remarry. She would remain a widow until her death almost fifty years later.

  Catherine’s loneliness did not abate. She wrote to Joanna from Eltham that she had suffered more attacks of fever, but was now in better spirits.21 Henry also expressed concerns about her health and offered her the use of a house at Fulham that had been set aside for the use of the Castilian ambassadors, if ‘it would improve her health to be so near him’.22 This might have been Fulham Palace, one residence of the Bishop of London, which had been recently renovated, with a new timber roof to the great hall installed in 1495. Catherine may well have accepted this offer, as it would have placed her only five miles to the east of the king and prince’s favourite residence of Richmond Palace, where she appears to have been a regular visitor during 1507. One question still preyed on her mind, though.

  Although they were now geographically closer, Catherine believed she and Prince Henry were being kept apart. She reported to Ferdinand in mid- April 1507 that, although they were under the same roof, she had not been permitted to see Henry for four months. Having previously been companions at court, the pretty Princess and the sixteen-year-old Henry may well have formed an attachment or even reached some personal understanding about their joint futures. The Spanish Ambassador de Puebla reported that there was ‘no finer youth than the Prince of Wales. He is already taller than his father and his limbs are of a gigantic size. He is as prudent as to be expected from a son of Henry VII.’23 The king’s response to her plight was again to deny any special relationship between the two young people – ‘he no longer regards himself and the Prince of Wales, as bound by the marriage treaty, because the marriage portion has not been paid’ – adding ominously that ‘other princesses have been offered in marriage to the Prince of Wales, with much greater marriage portions’.24 Having watched him develop into an impressive young man, Catherine felt the loss of Henry’s company keenly.

  Widows in the sixteenth century were the recipients of very mixed messages. On one hand, the church prized virginity as the highest of all states of womanhood, closely followed by the chaste life of widowhood. On the other, contemporary medical understanding dictated that such conditions could be injurious to women’s health and advocated a return to the marital state in order for the impulses of women’s sexually ravenous bodies to be properly satisfied. According to the theory of the four humours governing the body, it was believed that the womb was of a cold, damp nature, which craved the corresponding hot, dry seed of a man. Frequent references to Catherine suffering from fevers and being purged and bled, as well as her daily swings between ‘cold and heat’, would have been diagnosed in this light. Using her astrological sign of Sagittarius to suggest treatment, Catherine’s warm, dry and choleric nature would have been balanced with foods that were believed to possess qualities of coldness and wetness such as lettuce, melons and cucumbers. Abstaining from sex could lead to illness, melancholy and misbehaviour in women; effectively, the patriarchal medical system advocated sex as a means of control within marriage, to keep wives happy and in line. Distanced from her father and sister, having lost her mother, and now kept apart from Henry, whom she had anticipated marrying years ago, Catherine was about to cause a scandal by stepping out of line.

  8

  Princess of Scandal, 1507–09

  Ye be an apte man as ony can be founde

  To dwell with vs & serue my ladyes grace

  Ye be to her yea worth a thousande pounde1

  At this difficult point, Catherine turned to he
r faith. She had always been a devout Catholic, observing the rituals of prayer, Mass and fasting; her journey to England in 1501 had begun with a visit to the shrine of St James at Santiago de Compostela and concluded with offerings to St Erkenwald at St Paul’s Cathedral. Lonely and uncertain about her future, Catherine was now twenty-two, well past the age at which most of her peers were married, and uncertain whether her ambitions would ever reach fulfilment. The one certainty in her life was religion, and it is little surprise that she may have immersed herself in its practices.

  Prayer and fasting formed a central part of the Catholic faith, with the devout eschewing certain foods or abstaining entirely, rising before dawn to pray for hours on their knees. The prime occasion in the calendar was Lent, when forty days of fasting, meaning limited food, in imitation of his Jesus’ suffering, was believed to prepare a Catholic spiritually for the celebration of the resurrection. Likewise, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays the eating of meat was prohibited, offering an opportunity to individuals to contemplate their faith and draw closer to God. Recent studies into the lives of female medieval saints reveal the extent to which severe ascetic religious practices were common among women at the time, with a sort of ‘holy anorexia’ or non-eating to the point of starvation acting as a demonstrable sign of devotion.2 Many medieval women were denied any sense of autonomy in their own lives, in managing their marital states, fertility and property, so may have found an outlet in strict religious observation and control. The Venetian ambassador commented in 1513 that English women carried long rosaries, attended Mass every day and were generally very devout.3

  Catherine’s excessive devotions had already caused concern. Back in 1505, Pope Julius II wrote to Henry VII in an attempt to curb her habits in case they damaged her health.4 Later in her life, her devotion would reach a pitch of intensity that saw her rise for Matins at midnight and wear the shift of St Francis under her clothes as she knelt on the stone flags in prayer. The same year she had written to her father requesting that a ‘friar of the order of San Francesco de Obsservancya’ be sent to her, as she did ‘not understand the English language, nor how to speak it’ and it was a great inconvenience to not have a Spanish friar, ‘especially now to me, who, for six month has been near to death’.5 Her request took a while to be fulfilled. By 1507, Catholicism offered the degree of consolation and comfort she needed at a difficult time. It arrived specifically in the form of a young man who appeared in her household that spring.

  Fray Diego Fernandez was a young Observant Franciscan from Castile. He appears to have had humble origins, although he had somehow acquired a university education and worked his way up through the ranks. Little more is known about his origins and no portrait survives, but the new Spanish ambassador Fuensalida, who arrived in England in 1508, stated that he was young, ‘light, haughty and licentious’ and had succeeded in gaining the ‘confidence and affection’ of the princess.6 Fuensalida could find no personal charms in Diego, outlining his lack of learning, appearance, manners, competency and credit.7 Catherine, on the other hand, considered him to be ‘very competent’, giving ‘good advice and a good example’; in fact, she believed Fray Diego was ‘the best that ever [a] woman of my position had’.8

  Despite her poverty, she spent what little money she had on ‘buying books and other things for him’, causing more outrage among her unpaid servants. As Fuensalida explained, she had been forbidden to sell her jewels and plate, which formed part of her dowry, but ‘in spite of these injunctions she sold some plate, and would have sold more had she not been prevented by her servants, in order to satisfy the follies of the friar’.9 Her domestic situation was continuing to cause her great distress, following the reduction of allowances for her servants and the complete cessation of payments to her physician and Diego. Fuensalida reported that Catherine was so ill she could barely speak and was threatening to go on hunger strike, unless better provision was made for them; the ambassador reported that his own retinue ate better food than she did. That July, he considered that she was ‘seriously ill’.10

  The confessor was able to exploit a vacuum at the heart of Catherine’s own household in order to become closer to her. Since the departure of Dona Elvira, dismissed in ‘horrible hour’ for having conspired against Ferdinand, Catherine had relied more on Francesca de Carceres, the ‘most vivacious and spirited of her maids’.11 Francesca now incurred Diego’s wrath by meeting secretly with Fuensalida and talking with him about the confessor’s hold over the princess. When Catherine found out and was furious, Francesca accepted a marriage proposal from the Genovese banker Francesco Grimaldi, then living in London, and left her mistress’s employment.

  Diego’s influence began to alienate Catherine from the Tudor court. On one occasion, as she was preparing to attend a summons to Richmond, he counselled her to defy the king’s orders and feign illness. Catherine was placed in a difficult situation, as Princess Mary was waiting for her, having seen her in perfect health earlier in the day. When Catherine explained that she was quite well, and able to attend, Diego stated that it would be a mortal sin for her to go, ensuring her compliance. This episode resulted in a breach of three weeks between Catherine and the king and, when summoned to hear Henry’s response, she attended but ignored his reprimand.12 Even when Diego’s advice conflicted with her courtly role, she placed her spiritual over her temporal welfare. Her adoption of this course would later have massive implications for English history.

  The reasons for Catherine’s attachment are obvious. Far away from home, grieving for her mother and alienated from the English court, she saw Diego as an ally, a protector and a conduit to the divine. Uncertain whether her marriage would ever go ahead, she was kept apart from Prince Henry and had been denied the affection and generosity the king had promised her parents he would extend to her. It is not surprising that she was drawn to an alternative male figure, especially one with the authority of the Church behind him, whose talk of eternal rewards acted as a panacea in the light of her continued suffering.

  Diego’s motives, however, are far more sinister. Likened by more than one historian to Rasputin for his emotional manipulation of Catherine, he certainly received what few resources she had to offer and may have anticipated serving her once she became queen, with all the rewards that could bring. Exploiting her loneliness and piety, he established an emotional connection based in their shared faith and its rituals, quickly becoming Catherine’s ‘greatest consolation’. When her favouritism provoked a response among other members of her household, Catherine defended Diego, feeling ‘quite desperate’ at the possibility of losing him.13 Was the princess in love? Perhaps unconsciously. She had certainly fallen under the spell of her charismatic confessor as a representative of Catholicism, perhaps as a father figure or as a friend. There may have been a degree of ‘romance’ about her desire for his company and enslavement to his word, but it was a relationship based on inequality and exploitation. Episodes such as the one where he forbade her from attending court raise the question of how far she was a willing victim.

  Given their social disparity and Catherine’s status and purpose, Diego would have been insane to initiate any sort of sexual relationship between them even if he had desired to do so. He would later prove himself capable of immoral liaisons, sleeping with a woman of her household and losing his position as a result. Did he have feelings for Catherine? In 1510, he described her as ‘the most beautiful creature in the world with the greatest gaiety and contentment’ but those may well have been the platitudes of a servant to a newly crowned queen. The most implacable obstacle was Catherine herself, deeply imbued with a sense of her position and the correct conduct it required. There is no possibility that she engaged in any sort of physical affair with Diego, and his continuance at her side implies he was not fool enough to attempt one. No doubt he was aware that she had developed an unhealthy attachment to him and derived satisfaction from the power he exercised over her.

  This did not go unnoticed. At
court, scandal quickly spread about the nature of the pair’s intense relationship. Fuensalida believed Diego to be immoral, exploiting Catherine’s vulnerable state and faith in order to control her: ‘The most effectual weapon in the hands of a priest is the belief of others that he is the dispenser of rewards and punishments in the future life. Of this, Fray Diego made a most unscrupulous use, declaring everything to be a mortal sin which displeased him, however innocent it might be.’14 Fuensalida described the confessor as ‘infamar’, a Spanish word that translates as ‘something more infamous than slander’.15 He saw Catherine was in danger of tarnishing her delicate reputation but his attempts to intervene led to a breach between him and the princess.

  Eventually, Fuensalida wrote to Ferdinand. It was a ‘delicate’ and ‘dangerous’ task but he could not allow the situation to continue unchecked. On 20 March 1509, he explained that Catherine was ‘so submissive to a friar … that he makes her do a great many things which it would be better not to do’.16 He added that Diego’s activities were bringing the princess and her household into disrepute, being ‘injurious to her reputation’ and leading her to behave ‘imprudently’.17 There was a ‘very great need to remedy these things of this friar, and to remove him from here as a pestiferous person, for that he certainly is’.18 Diego remained with Catherine ‘against the will of all the English, and especially against the will of the king and his highness’, referring to Prince Henry.19

  In response, the friar visited the ambassador and demanded an explanation, complaining of the ‘evil tongues’ and ‘slanderous imputations’, with all their connotations of an illicit affair.20 More powerfully for the princess, he threatened to leave her. Catherine urged her father not to credit ‘anything … written to him respecting her household, and especially her confessor’, who, she swore by her salvation, ‘serves her very loyally’.21 Writing on 20 March, she added,