The Six Wives & Many Mistresses of Henry VIII
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Anne would also live in the households of Jane Ashley, who was then married to Peter Mewtas, and Joan Champernowne, the wife of Anne’s distant cousin Anthony Denny. However, as John Husee wrote in December 1537, Henry was fond of Anne and promised her a position in the household of any future wife he might take: ‘The king is good lord to Mrs Anne, and has promised she shall have her place whenever the time comes … It is yet unknown what his Grace intendeth, but it is judged she shall come out of France.’18 He also sent her the gift of a horse and saddle, perhaps to facilitate them meeting as if by chance while out riding. By June 1539, Anne may have entered the household of Princess Mary as, according to John Husee, who enquired of Peter Mewtas, she had her ‘board and charges’ taken care of, as ‘she was there at the king’s setting … I think they look for some pleasure. As the king set her there, I know the charge will be requited, yet some remembrance may not be forgotten.’19 Anne would continue to be high in the royal favour and resurfaced again as another candidate for queenship later in Henry’s reign. In October 1539, Henry took an interest in Anne’s health as ‘it was the king’s grace’s pleasure’ that she visit her cousin Jane Denny, who had ‘fair walks and a good open air’ and ‘the physician doth say that there is nothing better for my disease than walking’.20 By this time, Anne did not consider herself to be in line for the position of Henry’s wife, if she had at all, writing to her mother that ‘I trust in God that we shall have a mistress shortly … which I hope to God will not be long.’21
On 3 January 1538, John Husee mentioned yet another lady of the court on whom Henry’s gaze had alighted. ‘The election lieth betwixt Mrs Mary Shelton and Mrs Mary Skipwith. I pray Jesu send such one as may be for his Highness’ comfort and the wealth of the realm.’21 Mary Skipwith was, in fact, Margaret Skipwith, the daughter of Sir William Skipwith of Ormsby, Lancashire. During 1538, when she was around eighteen, she was rumoured to have been a mistress of Henry. Perhaps he helped arrange her marriage to George, the eldest son of Bessie Blount and Gilbert Tailboys, which was being planned in April 1539, but, as John Husee wrote to Lord Lisle, ‘please your Lordship to keep secret until you hear more’.22 Was this secrecy essential because of Margaret’s connection with the king? It would be entirely possible that Henry was marrying off his paramour to a pliable, complicit young man. After all, this would only be repeating the pattern established by George’s father, Gilbert, and his wife Bessie Blount.
The Tailboys marriage only lasted a few months, though, with George dying on 6 September. By that point, arrangements for Henry’s fourth match were well underway and Margaret had missed any chance she may have had of becoming queen. She remained at court for the next couple of years and Henry’s interest in her is demonstrated again with his intercession of 1546 to persuade her to marry Sir Peter Carew. With Henry aware of his worth on the international marriage market and keen to secure a diplomatic alliance against the new peace between Charles and Francis, it is probable that he considered a brief liaison with ladies of the court to be a diversion before a foreign bride was secured. Like the others, Margaret would have been pleased to be singled out by the king, as it meant she would receive significant material advantages, in the shape of gifts, accommodation and expenses, but whether or not she was a willing participant in the game of love is another matter entirely. Perhaps Mary, Margaret and their fellow ladies were doing their duty and enjoying the perks of the job; perhaps they were actually enthusiastic players, jostling for the position of Henry’s next wife.
The year 1538 marked the height of Henry’s bachelor years. He was out of mourning and not yet committed to an alliance; he could simply enjoy himself with whichever women happened to take his fancy. That April, he began work on a new pleasure palace in Surrey. The fairy-tale palace of Nonsuch would become Henry’s greatest building project, intended as a hunting lodge, but which grew on an epic scale until it was large enough ‘to receive the nobility of the king and horsemen in great numbers’.23 Designed to rival the most magnificent castles of Francis I, Nonsuch was surrounded by a huge park, although it was the details of its garden that made it an ideal place for the king to woo women. Around the banqueting house, where the king could feast and party late into the night, were dells and hidden paths, concealed jets of water to surprise guests and a grove of Diana, where a statue of the huntress could be glimpsed in her bath. Henry also established similar pleasure gardens at most of his palaces, with tennis courts, heraldic beasts, bowling greens and archery butts overlooked by fruit trees, fringed arbours and hedged walks.
A poem written by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, gives a description of the pleasures of one such spot at Windsor:
When Windsor walls sustain’d my wearied arm;
My hand my chin, to ease my restless head;
The pleasant plot revested green with warm;
The blossom’d boughs, with lusty very [spring]-spread;
The flower’d meads, the wedded birds so late
Mine eyes discover.24
These outdoor rooms, rather like the early Italian Renaissance gardens in their playfulness, facilitated an intimacy and sense of high-spirited games among Henry and his courtiers. It was a ‘privy palace’, built for Henry’s personal entertainment, lavishly decorated, for an elite group of his most intimate friends.
Now in his late forties, Henry had always been strong and robust, taking a keen interest in his health and medicinal cures. In his youth he had survived smallpox and malaria, as well as injuries sustained in jousting, riding, vaulting and playing tennis, after which he was forced to wear a black slipper to lessen the pain of a wrenched tendon in his ankle. He also endured sore and painful legs, which had become ulcerated by 1538, possibly as the result of one of his accidents or the tight garters he wore. In May that year, they were to give him a powerful reminder of his mortality. The fistulas in his legs were usually kept open to allow the noxious matter to be drained, but on this occasion one closed over, sending it into his bloodstream, which either triggered or contributed to a potential blood clot. After writhing in agony for ten days, black in the face, he recovered quickly and proved just as determined to throw himself into a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure. Those who had proclaimed his death across the country were publicly whipped for spreading false, treasonous reports. He would fall ill again the following Easter, attending church on his knees as the pain in his legs was so great. Yet, each time he recovered. There was life in the king yet; life enough for three more wives.
Henry passed the Christmas of 1538 and New Year at Greenwich, with his Privy Purse expenses recording that he made an offering of 33s 4d on 6 January and a further 100s to the heralds-at-arms. The wages paid to members of the king’s court showed that his focus was still on pleasure and entertainment. Trumpeters might receive either 12s or 8s daily, lute players Philip and Peter Welder were paid 66s and 31s respectively, players of the rebeck might get 40s or 20s, a harper was worth 31s, a minstrel 20s 8d,the small drum and viol 33s, minstrels and players of sackbuts between 20s and 55s. A writer with the French-sounding name Maurice Dufresne was paid 33s 4d, probably for interludes or plays composed for the festive season. Paul Freeland, a feather maker, received 22s 2d, probably for the ‘new feathering of liverey sheafe arrows in the castle of Windsor and for making of new bowstrings, and for drawing, heading, and burning of spears called demi launces’, and the artist Lucas Horenbout was paid 55s 6d. A number of payments were also made to falconers, keepers and grooms of the crossbow, and 20s went to a priest named Sir John Wolfe for devising the arbours. It would appear that the seasonal festivities had been no less splendid for the absence of a queen.25
In the summer of 1539, Henry organised a trip for some of the ladies of his court to see his fleet at Portsmouth as part of his royal progress. On 1 July, he and his retinue left London for Beddington, once the home of Nicholas Carew, then on to Hampton Court until 8 July, from where he travelled south, arriving at the coast on the following day, where he signed various papers.26 A
mong the women who accompanied him were Jane Ashley, now Mrs Mewtas, Margaret Skipworth and Anne Bassett. On 12 July, Richard Graynfeld reported to Lord Lisle that Henry had gone hunting and that Graynfeld’s ‘cousin Anne [Bassett] is merry and I was so bold as to bring her to my wife, whose bedfellow she was four or five nights when I was in court. I visited her in her lodging, with Mrs. Metas [sic] who was very kind to her.’27 On 4 August, ten ladies of the court, including Jane, Margaret and Anne, wrote to Henry thanking him for arranging the trip, as the ships were ‘so goodly to behold that in our lives we have not seen (excepting your royal person and my lord the Prince your son) a more pleasant sight’.28 Also present on the Harry Grace à Dieu that day were Mabel Southampton, Margaret Howard, Alice Brown, Margaret Tailboys, Jane Meows, Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, Anne Knyvett, Jane Denny and Elizabeth Harvey. The trip may have had another purpose, though, as, while the women danced and feasted, Henry was examining the ninety warships that he had assembled in the case of a French invasion. With diplomatic relations across the channel turning sour, he sought a new bride from northern Europe instead.
In June 1539, instructions were given to Henry’s ambassadors for their visit to Duren, in northern Germany, midway between Aachen and Cologne. Their task was to seek an audience with the Duke and Duchess of Cleves, with the aim of securing a marriage alliance between Henry and their daughter Anne. Interestingly, Henry told them to approach her mother first and use ‘all their wisdom and dexterity to kindle them to the desire of this matter’ and bring about a ‘speedy conclusion’.29 The ambassadors were to examine the appearance of both daughters of Cleves; Anne and her younger sister Amalia, and assess their personal charms. However, they were to be disappointed, as the customs of Cleves only permitted the ladies to appear heavily veiled. Still, it was reputed that Anne’s beauty eclipsed that of Christina of Milan ‘as the golden sun did the silver moon’ and that everyone at court ‘praised her beauty’.30 Holbein was dispatched again to capture another likeness but this controversial painting was to spark a process that incurred the king’s wrath and brought about the downfall of his chief minister. The portrait arrived back in England that August for the king’s inspection. He liked what he saw. The ambassadors from Cleves arrived in London on 16 September, and by early October the marriage contract had been drawn up. Anne of Cleves had beaten off all the competition to become Henry’s fourth wife.
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I Like Her Not, 1539–40
I am a woman right fair, as ye see,
In no creature more beauty then in me is,
And, since I am fair, fair would I keep me.1
Anne had been born in 1515, the second of the three daughters of John III and Maria, Duchess of Julich-Berg, and raised at the Schloss Berg, near Solingen. At the age of eleven she was betrothed to Francis, son of the Duke of Lorraine, which lasted almost ten years until it was broken off in 1535. It had, however, been commensurate with most of her education. Destined to become a duchess, it is not surprising that the instruction Anne received from her mother failed to prepare her to be Queen of England. She only spoke German and could not sing, dance or play an instrument; her knowledge of games and sport was very limited. The court of Cleves, with its heavily moral tone and Catholicism tempered by Erasmian theories, did not encourage the sort of merrymaking, masques and lavish celebrations which had set the tone of Henry’s court since his succession. More unforgivably, no one had instructed her about the marital duties of a wife and she arrived in England quite ignorant about sex, to the extent that she was not just virginal and inexperienced, but may have been unaware of the act itself.
A marriage to the king of England was a considerable victory for a daughter of Cleves. Anne set off overland to travel to Calais, so that a long sea voyage would not harm her complexion. Henry had planned to send his fleet to the Cleves-run port of Harderwijk, on the Zuiderzee, in order to avoid the necessity of asking Charles’ permission for her to travel through his territories. Cleves favoured the overland route, though; Anne had already survived smallpox but her mother was unwilling for her to risk a journey that not only threatened her life on the dangerous midwinter seas, but also might damage her complexion prior to her arrival in England. Anne’s servants, ranging from her ladies and translators to her horsemen and wardrobe, began to pack and prepare themselves for a journey of over 275 miles that would take them through the autumn into the winter.
Permission was granted from the Emperor and Anne set out with a retinue of 263 people but, as she did so, Charles and Francis met at Loches and rode together to the Louvre Palace, where they consolidated their new alliance with pledges of loyalty, feasts and talks. Thomas Wyatt was the king’s eyes and ears on this occasion, although he was made less than welcome, ‘in evil-favoured lodging and worse bedding’,2 sending a clear message that the English were not welcome. The new Hapsburg–Valois friendship was a blow to Henry, making the Cleves match all more important, as relations between the Emperor and Anne’s brother William, the new Duke of Cleves, were at an all-time low. Fearful of a French invasion, Henry needed a new European force at his side. It was a happy bonus that it also brought him an attractive young bride. He awaited her impatiently at Greenwich, pondering the Holbein miniature with its hooded eyes and serene expression, imagining the moment of their meeting.
Anne would also have wondered about her betrothed. She must have heard some reports of his appearance, character and marital history, but these are likely to have been as flattering as those told to Christina of Milan by Wriothesley the previous year. She was twenty-four, ignorant of the ways of the world, heading to an unknown country to become the fourth wife of a man twice her age. There was plenty of time on the journey for her to contemplate her future, but at every stage she had a taste of what her life would be like as Queen of England. The first leg of the journey took her from Dusseldorf to Antwerp, where English merchants in velvet coats and gold chains conducted her to her English lodgings in the city. From there she travelled to Gravelines, where the town captain rode out to meet her amid a volley of gunshot. Local man Antonine Brussett wrote to Lord Lisle that he had ‘got her the best lodging I could in the town’ and requested the 100 quarters of malt he had been promised for such a service.3
Finally, on 11 December, Anne’s party rode into Calais but terrible weather prevented any plans for her to cross the Channel. She was lodged in the Exchequer, the residence used by Henry on previous occasions, and was the third of Henry’s Queens to have stayed there. Wriothesley was able to show her the ship prepared for her departure ‘trimmed with streamers, banners and flags, and men on the tops, shrouds and yard arms’,4 but two more weeks would pass before the storms subsided enough to make it safe to embark. While there, the Duke of Cleves sent presents to Wriothesley, asking him ‘to advise my lady as to her behaviour, to which he replied by expressing his satisfaction at the marriage and his intention to promote love and affection between the parties’.5 Also, Cromwell asked him ‘to cheer my lady and her train so that they may think the time short.’6 It was something of a delicate commission; Wriothesley responded by trying to teach Anne to play Henry’s favourite card game, ‘cent’. He related that she ‘played as pleasantly, and with as good a grace and countenance as ever in my life I saw noblewoman’.7 Wriothesley also had a quiet word with Anne’s steward Hoghesten and envoy Olisleger, to explain that it was Henry’s ‘most godly desire and affection to have more children’ in case ‘God fails us in my Lord Prince’.8
Anne was clearly conscious of a difference between the culture of Cleves and that of her adopted country. She requested that Wriothesley come to supper and ‘bring some noble folks to sit with her after the manner of her country’,9 wishing to observe ‘the manner and fashion of Englishmen sitting at meat.’10 Telling her it ‘was not the usage of our country to do so’, the earl complied nevertheless, taking George Tailboys, Francis Bryan, Henry Knyvett, Edward Seymour, Gregory Cromwell and others with him. Anne’s manner, he reported, ‘was like a princess�
��. Gregory wrote to his father a week later, informing him that ‘my lady Anne, my lord Admiral, and the rest are in good health’, but the weather continued to be ‘too bad to cross’.11 The admiral reported to be ‘in good health’ was George Carew, a relation of the Nicholas Carew to whom Henry had once been close. However, Cromwell also reported from Calais the same day that Carew’s wife, Thomasine Pollard, sister of Jane Stukley, had died in the night and was about to be buried in the town.12
At Calais, Anne was welcomed and entertained by Lord Lisle and his wife Honor. Lady Lisle wrote her impressions of the Princess of Cleves to her daughter, Anne Bassett, who was then at York Place awaiting the arrival of the new queen. Anne replied on 22 December, reassured about the character of her new mistress and her own ‘continuance in the king’s favour’:
I humbly thank your ladyship of the news you write me, of her Grace that she is so good and gentle to serve and please. It shall be no little rejoicement to us, her Grace’s servants here, that shall attend daily upon her, and most comfort to the king’s majesty, whose highness is not a little desirous to have her Grace here … He [Henry] likes so much the conserves you sent him that he commands me to write to you for more of the codynack of the clearest making, and of the damsons. York Place, Monday before Christmas day.13