Royal Affairs: A Lusty Romp through the Extramarital Adventures that Rocked the British Monarchy

by Leslie Carroll

  In fact, every English monarch from 1461 on, including Elizabeth II, is descended from Katherine Swynford. Katherine’s descendants also include Winston Churchill; Diana, Princess of Wales; and five U.S. presidents—Washington, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, FDR, and George W. Bush.

  LANCASTER 1399–1471 AND YORK 1461–85

  EDWARD IV

  1442-1483 RULED 1461-1470 AND 1471-1483

  IN 1461, DURING THE WARS OF THE ROSES BETWEEN Edward III’s descendants, Edward, Duke of York, took the throne by force from the fanatically religious and half-mad Lancastrian king, Henry VI, defeating him in a skirmish at Mortimer’s Cross, near Ludlow, and proclaiming himself Edward IV. Edward’s reign was divided into two periods, because he lost the crown to Henry VI in 1470 and fled to the Continent. During this period of exile, known as the “Readeption,” Edward amassed an army and invaded England from Zeeland, recapturing his crown in 1471 and imprisoning Henry VI, who was quietly murdered in the Tower of London.

  The spectacularly tall and regally handsome sovereign was praised for his conduct on the battlefield, his willingness to listen to the voices of domestic opposition, and his concern with the solvency of the crown. But even his staunchest supporters believed that his ignoble and rampant womanizing marred his ability to rule effectively. Although—in an ill-advised love match—Edward had secretly married Elizabeth 53 Woodville, a widowed commoner with two children from her previous marriage, he had always been a rover and a playboy.

  According to Sir Thomas More, writing during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, The king’s greedy appetite was insatiable, and everywhere all over the realm intolerable. For no woman was there anywhere, young or old, rich or poor, whom he set his eye upon, in whom he anything liked, either person or appearance, speech, pace, or countenance, but without any fear of God or respect of his honor, murmur or grudge of the world, he would importunely pursue his appetite and have her, to the great destruction of many a good woman and a great dolor to her husband and their other friends.

  Edward was a great patron of artistic and cultural pursuits, including the newly invented printing press. But his appetite for cruelty (as well as for women) often overshadowed his more positive achievements. Politically he could be merciless, imprisoning and subsequently murdering one of his own brothers, the ambitious Duke of Clarence. And yet, for most medieval monarchs, this exercise of absolute power was more or less business as usual. “Use it or lose it” might as well have been the watchwords during these dark and bloody days of rebellion and counter rebellion.

  On April 9, 1483, the forty-year-old Edward IV died of a fever in his bed at Westminster. His ruthless younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, once Edward’s ally and seneschal in the north, imprisoned the late king’s two sons in the Tower and had them declared illegitimate. It is still popularly believed that he had them murdered. He then usurped the throne, and was crowned Richard III.

  EDWARD IV and Jane Shore 1450(?)-1527

  Mistress Shore, as she is known throughout English literature, did not become Jane until after her death, when in 1599 the Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Heywood so christened her, unaware of her actual biography. The name stuck.

  The real “Jane Shore” was born Elizabeth Lambert in London, the daughter of John Lambert, a prominent and prosperous City mercer and alderman. When she was still quite young, she was wed in an arranged marriage to another up-and-coming textile merchant, William Shore.

  From the start, however, there was trouble in marital paradise. In March of 1476, Pope Sixtus IV commissioned a panel of three bishops to decide the case of Elizabeth Lambert alias Shore, wife of William Shore, who was petitioning for an annulment of her marriage on the grounds that her husband was “frigidus et impotens” and that she desired to have children. The annulment was apparently uncontested by William.

  But by 1474, during Edward’s Second Reign—and two years before her annulment took place—Mistress Shore was already the monarch’s favorite paramour, though there is no credible account of how, when, and where they met. The closest we get to pinpointing a date that links Jane Shore with her tall, dark, and handsome sovereign is an entry on the Patent Rolls for December 4, 1476, that bestows the king’s protection on “William Shore, citizen of London, and his servants, with all his lands, goods, and possessions in England and elsewhere.”

  So it’s certainly possible that William Shore was not at all impotent, but reached an agreement with his wife to exchange her availability for royal favor, although he and Jane remained married for several unhappy years before she sought her ecclesiastical divorce.

  Edward IV’s lustful appetite was a legend in his lifetime; yet there was something about Jane Shore, above all others, that retained the king’s fancy and affection until his death, more than nine years after their affair began. Thomas More—who never met Jane—was fascinated by her. In his history of Richard III’s reign, written toward the end of Jane’s life, he was convinced that Edward IV had genuinely adored her. “For many he had, but her he loved,” wrote More.

  The king often said he had three concubines: one the merriest, one the wiliest, and the third, the holiest harlot in his realm. The “merriest” of these paramours was Jane Shore, “in whom the king took special pleasure,” wrote More.

  It was not so much Jane’s blond hair, round face, and fair complexion that captivated the king. Nor was it her exceptionally diminutive stature, for as Thomas More concluded, “there was nothing in her body that you would have changed, but if you would have wished her somewhat higher.” Jane must have looked like a tiny doll next to the king, for when Edward’s bones were disinterred in 1789, it was discovered that he stood six feet three and a half. In his prime, Edward IV was probably quite a handsome sight, a snappy dresser with soft dark hair, hazel eyes, and a straight nose.

  Evidently, Jane had ensnared the king with her effervescent personality! More wrote that Jane “delighted not men so much in her beauty as in her pleasant behavior.” At court she was an asset, witty and vivacious, and not at all grasping or avaricious in the manner of so many royal mistresses. Though she did use her influence in subtle ways, according to More, she “never abused it to any man’s hurt, but to many a man’s comfort and relief,” achieving only the smallest recompense for her pains. “In many weighty suits she stood many men in great stead, either for none or very small rewards, and those rather gay than rich.” She could also read and write very well, unsurprising for a respectable and successful merchant’s daughter who probably learned to take orders and keep accounts at her father’s knee.

  However, Jane’s ubiquitous presence at court vastly irritated the queen. The king’s attachment to his favorite mistress extended far beyond the merely carnal. Elizabeth Woodville had married her husband for love, and understood that passion all too well. But even the queen had to begrudgingly admit Jane’s finer qualities. At least Mistress Shore was entertaining, knew her place, and didn’t have her hands in the Treasury.

  During the last years of his reign, Edward IV had grown monstrously obese and was a slave to every kind of gluttony and excess, or “fleshy wantonness,” as his contemporaries graphically put it. Surprisingly, given Edward’s outsized libido, Jane Shore is not believed to have given her royal lover any offspring, although he sired children with other mistresses, and gave his queen ten of them, seven of whom survived him. But as Jane believed her ex-husband to be impotent, perhaps the problem really lay in her own biology; perhaps she was barren.

  Although their royal affair endured for several years, Edward made no arrangements for Jane’s welfare in the event of his death. So when the Duke of Gloucester usurped the throne upon her lover’s demise, crowning himself Richard III, Jane’s star dipped precipitously.

  Ricardian societies have attempted over the centuries to rehabilitate his reputation, but Richard’s reign has traditionally been characterized as one of lawlessness and terror. And he got plenty of political mileage by humiliating Mistress Shore. Ri
chard denounced Jane for sexual immorality; and in an event that unwittingly made her a folk heroine, he had the Bishop of London command her to parade through the streets in the manner of a penitent—clad only in her white shift and kirtle, carrying a candle and reciting psalms with a conical “dunce” cap perched on her head. This Jane did with as much dignity as she could possibly muster, much to Richard’s dismay. The king then imprisoned her at Ludgate on charges of sorcery and witchcraft that had contrived to aid and abet her royal lover—allegations that of course could not be proved. He even accused her of practicing the magic that had withered his arm!

  Richard also accused Jane of carrying on illicit and passionate affairs with two of Edward IV’s kinsmen and supporters—Lords Dorset and Hastings. In a proclamation dated October 23, 1483, Richard denounced Dorset for harboring “the unshameful and mischievous woman called Shore’s wife in adultery.” However, Hastings, who some historians believe became Jane’s next protector, was not even in England during the time he was allegedly bedding her. In any event, Richard had Hastings beheaded in June 1483. The charges of harlotry with Dorset and Hastings were likely a smear campaign, one that bears the fingerprints of Richard’s cabal. The accusations are now considered baseless, but at the time, Jane’s countrymen and -women gave them credit and she was roundly denounced as a whore.

  Well, the royal whore was about to land on her feet. In an undated letter, possibly written in 1484, Richard told his chancellor, the Bishop of Lincoln, that he had heard that his “solicitor Thomas Lynom, is marvelously abused and blinded with the late wife of William Shore and intends to marry her.” If Lynom was indeed set on the marriage, Richard would issue his permission for Jane to be released into the custody of the bishop or someone His Grace would appoint, but the marriage itself was to be deferred until His Majesty came to London.

  King Richard was too canny not to have realized that he had no legitimate case against Jane, whether for witchcraft, lechery, or any other charge beyond being his brother’s lover. Nevertheless, to save face, Richard manufactured the propaganda that Jane Shore expired on a dung heap—fitting proof of her filthy lechery—and the lie soon became legend.

  The truth seems to be that Jane was released from Ludgate prison and soon after married Thomas Lynom. The solicitor managed to extricate himself from the service of Richard III and moved to the Welsh marches, where he sat on commissions and eventually became clerk controller to Henry VII’s son Arthur, Prince of Wales, in Ludlow Castle.

  So the manure story was just that. As Thomas’s wife, Jane more than likely lived in middle-class comfort for the remainder of her days. Thomas Lynom had died by the end of July 1518.

  Jane lived to a ripe old age, even for our own era; “lean, withered, and dried up,” according to More (but who doesn’t look like that at the age of seventy-seven?). Most historians agree that Jane died in 1527. Her effigy is at Hixworth Church in Hertfordshire, though she may in fact be buried at Eton.

  THE TUDORS 1485–1603

  MARY TUDOR

  1496-1533 Queen of France 1514-1515 and Charles Brandon 1484-1545

  IT TAKES A BRAVE WOMAN TO DEFY A KING, EVEN IF THE king happens to be your big brother and you’re his favorite sister. But that’s precisely what Mary Tudor did.

  Mary Rose Tudor, tall, graceful, and fine-boned, with the same red-gold hair as her brother, was considered one of Europe’s most beautiful princesses. She was also one of its greatest pawns. In 1507, Mary was betrothed to Archduke Charles of Austria, heir to both the throne of Spain (occupied at the time by Ferdinand of Aragon, the father of Henry’s queen, Catherine) and to the title of Holy Roman Emperor, held then by Maximilian of Austria. But the sands of political alliance were always shifting, and the wedding plans were scotched when Ferdinand and Maximilian went behind Henry’s back and signed a truce with France.

  On Henry’s behalf, his new Archbishop of York, Wolsey, negotiated their own arrangement with France. As part of their treaty, on August 13, 1514, Henry’s younger sister, Mary, “a nymph from heaven,” was married by proxy to Louis XII, the fifty-two-year-old French monarch.

  The Brandon family had an illustrious relationship with the Tudors. Charles’s father, Sir William Brandon, had been Henry VII’s valiant standard-bearer. He had paid the ultimate price for his service to the crown when he was killed during the Battle of Bosworth by Richard III himself.

  Charles Brandon, who was said to resemble Henry so much that some people thought he was the king’s “bastard brother,” was one of Henry’s favorite courtiers. In 1513, Henry made him a Knight of the Garter and Master of the Horse, and that same year created him Viscount Lisle. That summer, Lisle distinguished himself in battle during Henry’s campaigns in France.

  In 1514, Brandon was made Duke of Suffolk, and his rise through the ranks of the peerage had many nobles from older and more established families bristling. But Brandon had his fans as well. “A liberal and magnificent lord,” wrote a Venetian visitor to the court. “No one ever bore so vast a rise with so easy a dignity.”

  Brandon took part in the jousts that Henry had organized to celebrate the marriage of Mary to the King of France. It is not known for certain, though it is surmised, that although he was a dozen years her senior, Suffolk caught young Mary’s eye during the tournaments.

  Henry rejoiced in the match with the French monarch, but the bride was miserable at the prospect of being wedded to an aging, ailing man for whom she had no love. Henry was quite aware, as was Wolsey, of Mary’s unhappiness, but her feelings were of no importance when compared with matters of international politics. Yet she may have been canny enough to see a way out of her dilemma. Letters were exchanged among the parties wherein Mary had proposed a bargain, conveying to her brother that she had “consented to his request and for the peace of Christendom, to marry Louis of France, though he was very aged and sickly, on condition that if she survived him, she should marry whom she liked.”

  The wedding festivities in England proceeded as though the groom himself had been there. The young bride was placed in the huge bed of estate with a stand-in, the duc de Longueville. He “consummated” the marriage on his sovereign’s behalf by removing his red hose and touching one of Mary’s bare legs with his own.

  Then the great preparations began to send Mary across the Channel to France with her trousseau and her retinue—which included Thomas Boleyn’s two daughters, Mary and Anne. On October 2, about to sail from Dover, Mary Tudor reminded her brother of their agreement. Henry did not acknowledge her remarks, instead telling her quite formally, “I betoken you to God and the fortunes of the sea and the government of the King your husband.”

  And on October 9, in Abbeville, France, Mary Rose Tudor and Louis were married in person. She was crowned Queen of France at St. Denis on November 5. After that, Mary and Suffolk may have crossed paths at her own court, where Henry had entrusted him with diplomatic missions to Louis XII.

  Under Salic law, the French crown could only pass to a male heir, and although Louis was nicknamed Le Père du Peuple—the father of his people—he was unable to father any sons with his first two wives. Hope, however, sprang eternal in the king’s soul. In fact, after his wedding night to Mary, he announced that “he had performed marvels.”

  But on New Year’s Day 1515, less than three months later, Louis XII passed away, quite possibly during, or at least due to, his amatory efforts to beget an heir. Mary had never been happy in the marriage, and now she was free, only eighteen years old, and, she believed, with the rest of her life ahead of her to do as she pleased.

  Wrong.

  Mary’s rank as the English king’s sister as well as her youth and (assumed) fecundity made her a key player in international relations. Henry VIII was legally in control of her future, and it was important for him to see her settled in a second advantageous match.

  In late January 1515, after promising Henry that he would not propose to his sister, Suffolk was dispatched to escort Mary—now the dowager Queen
of France—back home, and to offer England’s official congratulations to the new king, François I. But rather than hurry swiftly home, Mary and Brandon remained in France, where they secretly married on March 3. Theirs was no mere elopement; it was an act of treason. A princess of the blood had wed without the consent of the sovereign.

  Suffolk had already been wed twice before. He had obtained an annulment of his marriage to his first wife, Margaret Mortimer; and his second wife, Anne Browne, had left him a widower in 1512. At the time he eloped with Mary, he was around thirty-one years old, a handsome, sophisticated man in the prime of life. He had risked his sovereign’s displeasure—and possibly his head—to marry Mary.

  Writing to Wolsey, the new bridegroom confessed, “The Queen would never let me rest till I had granted her to be married. And so, to be plain with you, I have married her heartily, and have lain with her insomuch I fear me lest she be with child.”

  Naturally, the cardinal went straight to the king. Henry was livid—not only with Mary but with Suffolk, who had given his oath to avoid this very situation. The king’s Privy Council (on which sat many peers who were jealous of Suffolk’s ascendance to wealth and power) urged Henry to make an example of the wayward couple and have them executed, or at the very least imprisoned. Henry was only six years into his reign, a mere youth himself at twenty-three. And perhaps because he was young and lusty himself he understood Mary’s passion, at least on an emotional level. He adored his sister, and would have suffered almost equally to see her immured within the Tower—or worse.

  So Henry finally forgave Mary and Suffolk—or claimed to—and welcomed them back to England. On May 13, 1515, they were officially married on English soil. Although the ceremonies were modest, it was a triumph of True Love.