In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I

by Amy Licence

  Catherine was born 1512, probably at her parents’ Blackfriars house in London. Although they owned property further north, her mother Maud was an attendant on Catherine of Aragon and would have lived in relative proximity to the court during the periods of her employment. Catherine was first married at around the age of seventeen but some historical confusion about the identity of her husband, Edward Borough, has given rise to the idea that she was espoused to a much older man. The misidentification of grandson for grandfather during the Victorian era may explain this, although it does seem likely that her young husband may equally have been ill, as she was widowed in spring 1533 after only four years of marriage and bore him no children. Later the same year she took a step up the social ladder through a union with John Neville, Lord Latimer, a man of forty to her twenty. He already had two children by his first wife but a second short-lived marriage had produced no more offspring; Catherine was not to conceive during the decade she spent as his wife. Latimer’s son would produce only daughters and on his demise, the title would disappear until the twentieth century.

  Outside the monarchy, the upper classes were equally keen to secure their succession to gain and retain lands, titles and properties. Sons were essential; primogeniture, or the inheritance of the first born child of the entire estate to the exclusion of other siblings, applied only to men. Although Salic law did not prevent the inheritance of females in England as it did in Europe, Henry VIII’s struggle to produce a son indicates how undesirable the inheritance of females was to the Tudor mind. Large aristocratic families were the norm. Just as a fecund couple could multiply a dynasty, infertility, ill health and infant mortality could grind one branch of an aristocratic family to a halt. Such a turn of events threatened the stock of the Windsors and demonstrates the unpredictability of conception, despite the best of marital intentions. Of the eight children born to Andrew and Elizabeth in the 1490s and 1500s, only three went on to marry. The eldest, George, died at the age of twenty-four without having become a father; his wife Ursula remarried but did not conceive and died childless. The second son William had no issue by his first wife, so remarried on her death; his new spouse, Elizabeth, was twenty years his junior and would have three husbands in all, only bearing a daughter in her final marriage at the age of forty-two; that daughter had two husbands and no issue. The Winsdors’ eldest daughter Eleanor was widowed at the age of fifteen then remarried and bore three children, dying at the age of thirty-one in giving birth to a fourth infant, who shared her fate. Of her offspring, one son reproduced, so the Windsors only had two great-grandchildren, of which one was a boy. He went on to have eight children of his own, perhaps conscious that the lineage was dependent on him. For a Tudor family, such misfortune could only mean that God was punishing them. Some women in these circumstances might have resorted to desperate measures, such as in the life of Hugh of Lincoln, where a gentlewoman, desperate for an heir, feigned a pregnancy with pillows and adopted the child of a peasant.2 It has been estimated3 that in the seventeenth century, almost one in five noble families died out from infertility or infant mortality.

  Shortly before her husband’s demise Catherine became aware of the king’s interest. Her first recorded meeting with Henry probably occurred around 1540 when, amid his present marital trials, he may have noticed the short, pale-skinned red-head with a love of bright clothes. John Foxe later described her as ‘endued with rare gifts of nature, as singular beauty, favour and a comely person’.4 In February 1543, after being widowed a second time, she became a member of Princess Mary’s household and a regular face at court. A love affair with Thomas Seymour, uncle of Prince Edward, quickly developed. He was dashing, handsome, impulsive and had returned to court that January after a diplomatic mission abroad: they may have even planned to marry but the king intervened and Seymour was sent to Brussels. This was arranged in March, although he did not leave until May, which perhaps gives a framework for Henry’s proposal and Catherine’s acceptance. In many ways, Lady Latimer was a safe bet. After the death of Catherine Howard, it became illegal to conceal knowledge about a potential queen’s past; keeping quiet about previous relationships was a serious matter but Catherine’s marital history was known. By marrying a widow, Henry protected himself from any such revelations as had occurred in 1541. He knew exactly with whom she had been previously intimate! Additionally, her apparent infertility was less of a problem given his intermittent impotence, although he still expected a sexual relationship with her. Catherine was still only thirty-one and was privately reluctant to become his wife, although duty and desire to serve the king were engrained in the Tudor woman’s being. In February 1543, Henry paid a tailor’s bill for Catherine and her stepdaughter of ‘numerous items’ of cotton, linen, buckram, hoods and sleeves, Italian, Venetian, French and Dutch gowns, totalling over £8; he was already considering her as his next queen and his proposal must have followed soon after, probably in March or April.

  Catherine didn’t answer at once. She was allowed time to think about it but there was never really any question of refusal. The marriage licence was issued by Cranmer on 10 July and six days later, Wriothesley wrote to the Duke of Suffolk that the king was ‘married last Thursday’ to a woman of ‘virtue, wisdom and gentleness’ and was sure ‘his majesty never had a wife more agreeable to his heart than she is’. Sir Ralph Sadler claimed that news of the match had caused rejoicing at the ‘real and inestimable benefit and comfort which thereby shall ensure to the whole realm’.5 Later that month, Chapuys wrote that the king had ‘espoused the queen privately and without ceremony’. This was typical of Henry’s emphasis on the private rather than public aspects of his marriages, with only the ill-fated Anne of Cleves union beginning with a formal, public occasion: all others had been conducted in secrecy. Stephen Gardiner officiated and Anne herself had taken ‘great grief and despair’ at the news, as Catherine was supposedly not as beautiful as her and had ‘no hope of issue, seeing that she had none by her two former husbands’.6 Plague had again hit the capital that summer so the newly-weds spent an extended six-month honeymoon staying in Henry’s numerous manors and hunting lodges, although his increasing girth and ill-health meant that he was watching rather than participating in the hunt.

  Catherine was not needed to nurse Henry. He had a multitude of doctors, surgeons, physicians and intimate servants to ensure his bodily needs were being met. Perhaps they, or he, consulted the Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, published in 1542 by ‘physycke doctor’ Andrew Borde. Borde’s advice extended to diet, exercise and the arrangement and organisation of the household and daily life. His instructions on sleep give an interesting insight into practices of the time. After daily exercise, moderate rest was required in order to nourish the blood, ‘qualify’ the heat of the liver, restore memory and quiet all the humours. Excessive sleep was a dangerous path to sin, sluggishness and all sorts of illnesses; according to Borde’s application of humour-based theories, seven hours were sufficient for a sanguine man whilst a phlegmatic one required nine. A sick man was advised to sleep whenever he could, although it was best to do so at night and retain his natural pattern; if he must sleep in the day, he should do so in a chair or leaning against a cupboard! He recommended a fire in the chamber to rid it of foul pestilences and the foul air of man’s breath, while the windows should be closed. Sleepers should avoid old rooms where mice, rats and snails might creep in. It was important to lie for a little while on the left-hand side before rolling over onto the right for the ‘first sleep’; upon waking, a man should pass water then take his second sleep lying on his left side. The interval between was apparently the best time to conceive children. When they slept again, the head should be raised, in case recently eaten meat should rise, although pillows were considered a luxury and a night cap of scarlet cotton, flock or wool should be worn. Scarlet, originally a cloth rather than a colour, was thought efficacious in the prevention of scarring in illnesses like small pox, when hung in the windows. For the best sl
eep, a feather bed with white covering was needed. It is surprising, in medieval and Tudor depictions of bedroom scenes, how many times the colours red and white are used in bedding, yet these depictions are often imaginary or idealised; most of Henry’s subjects would have slept upon ‘pallets’ which were sacks stuffed with hay or straw, if they were lucky to have a bed at all. Upon waking, a man should stretch, cough and spit, make his stool, comb, wash, walk a couple of miles in the garden, hear Mass then take some light exercise before a modest meal. Henry may have taken this advice, although Borde’s recommendations against surfeit of meat eating, which could cause many illnesses, strangulation and sudden death, may have come too late.7

  By the time of his last marriage, Henry himself was an experienced medical practitioner. He personally recommended cures to his household and was keen to source unusual (and even fictitious) ingredients such as unicorn horns. To Sir Bryan Tuke, he passed a remedy for curing a tumour in the testicles as ‘cunning as any physician in England could do’ and devised potions and salves of his own to ‘dry excoriations and comfort the member’. However, he was unable to cure the regular pain in his ulcerated leg. Borde urged such patients not to forget to empty themselves when the need arose and ensure they wore stays and that their shoes were not too tight. They should avoid their legs getting cold and not go wet-shod. Prohibited foods included beer, red wine and new ale, new bread, eggs, fresh salmon and herring, eels, oysters and all shellfish, beef, goose, duck and pigeon. Most importantly, they should not commit acts of venery on a full stomach.8 However, a 1545 Propre boke of new Cokerye,9 containing inventive and extravagant recipes which represented the height of mid-Tudor cuisine, probably depicted more accurately what was being served up in Henry’s kitchens. Boiled peacocks were re-stitched into their skin and feathers and made to ‘breathe’ fire using camphor, roasted chickens apparently sang and hens were presented in six different colours. Omelets were made to resemble flowers, meatballs dressed as oranges, almond cream eggs were served in real shells, as were cakes. No doubt Henry would have celebrated his marriage to Catherine in his accustomed style. In her turn, Catherine’s role was to be an ornament and companion, to divert him from his pains and labours and as she herself wrote, in her 1547 Lamentations of a Sinner, ‘to be a comely, good and obedient wife’. The marriage appears to have been harmonious, even surviving an attempt by Stephen Gardiner to attack the queen on religious grounds. By the end of 1546, as Henry’s ill health worsened, he retired to Whitehall and Catherine was not to see him again. On his death in January 1547, she found herself a widow for the third time and retired to her house at Chelsea on the coronation of the nine-year-old Edward VI.

  As the king’s widow, still young and well provided for, Catherine was a good catch. Her feelings for Thomas Seymour had not changed. Now she was free to remarry and represented, for the ambitious courtier, a far greater prize as the queen dowager than as Lady Latimer. Still, Seymour investigated the possibility of taking either Princess Mary or Elizabeth as his bride before he married Catherine in secrecy that May. The indecent haste caused a minor scandal at court when it was discovered. While enough time had elapsed for Catherine to be certain she was not pregnant with Henry’s child, the period of official mourning was by no means over. Her actions offended her stepdaughter Mary in particular, as well as the new king and his regime headed by Seymour’s brother, although in their case it was irritation at the over-mightiness of Thomas than with Catherine herself. It was a hasty and possibly foolish move but, for the first time, Catherine was married to a man she loved and she was happy.

  Catherine had considered herself infertile until falling pregnant in the winter of 1547. Passing the winter between her houses at Chelsea, Hanworth or Seymour Place in London, she must have conceived in early December and become aware of her condition with the approach of spring. As she experienced her first symptoms and physical changes, she may have been reluctant to confront a potential problem developing under her roof in the shape of her fourteen-year-old stepdaughter Elizabeth. Having experienced fluctuating fortunes under her various stepmothers, the slight, red-haired teenager had experienced something like a family life for the first time under Catherine’s care. Her last stepmother provided her with security and a Protestant education, with the result that a real affection had developed between them. Now, an attraction between Elizabeth and Seymour began as a form of horseplay, with dancing and tickling sessions, although the ambitious courtier had previously explored the possibilities of marriage with her in order to give him the position he believed that, as the king’s uncle, he deserved. With Elizabeth living under the same roof, he would enter her chamber early in the morning before she had risen and slap her familiarly on the back and buttocks, before trying to climb into bed with her. Abstinence during Catherine’s pregnancy may have provoked a relatively innocent situation to develop into something more serious but at some point in the early summer, after a bizarre incident when Catherine assisted Seymour in cutting the girl’s clothing with a knife, the ex-queen found her stepdaughter in her husband’s arms. Elizabeth was sent away that May but later, the hostile Catholic Jane Dormer would hint at the possibility of an illegitimate pregnancy: ‘there was a bruit of a child born and miserably destroyed … only the report of the midwife, who was brought from her house blindfolded thither … said it was the child of a very fair young lady’.10 This was the first of many rumours of illicit sex and childbirth to be attached to Elizabeth, whose denial of the traditional feminine role confounded the understanding of her peers. No proof exists for any of them and the balance of probability lies against the majority.

  Now, Catherine focused on her advancing pregnancy. A reformist since her teens, her approaching labour would not have been relieved by any of the traditional superstitions of relics or appeals to Mary and the saints: instead she turned her attention to practical preparations, aware that at the advanced age of thirty-five, she was at risk as a first-time mother. She moved first to the relative comfort and seclusion of her house at Hanworth, while Seymour was caught up with court business. Near the present-day town of Feltham in Hounslow, the manor house then stood in a quiet village surrounded by heathland that was good for hunting. The months of waiting did not pass smoothly, either; she was sickly and unwell although she eagerly anticipated the child’s arrival. Seymour recorded their child’s quickening in a letter: ‘I hear my lettell man doth shake hys belle, trostynge, iff God shall geve hym lyff to leve as long as his father …’ Later he asked her to ‘kepe the litell knave so leane and gantte with your good dyett and walking that he may be so small that he may krepe out of a mouse holle’.11 The summer was unusually hot and drought-ridden, which must have added to Catherine’s discomfort, as did fears of the outbreaks of plague in the capital. In mid-June, with six weeks to go until the birth, they removed to Sudeley Castle, with a household of over a hundred, where a suite of rooms had been prepared for her lying-in on the south-east side of the inner quadrangle. A covered corridor linked these to the servants’ quarters and kitchens, so Catherine could anticipate being well looked after. On 30 August 1548, she delivered a daughter and appeared to be recovering. All was not as it seemed though; after a few days, she became seriously feverish and delirious.

  Midwives were aware of the dangers protracted and difficult births could create in recovering mothers. They also knew that even apparently straightforward births, like Catherine’s probably was, could conceal underlying problems that emerge days later. Preparations before and care during and after the delivery were vital. Before the birth, expectant mothers might soak in a bath of softening, smoothing ingredients like mallow, camomile blossom, maidenhair, linseed, fenugreek, dogs’ mercury: with many modern mothers opting for water births, the relaxing effects of submersion are still well known and used today. Lubricants were recommended to open the birth canal, including a slime made from quince seeds, linseed, dates or fenugreek, which was smeared on the genitals. Small women whose pelvic measurements were causing
concern should have their ligaments and joints anointed and drink oil of almonds, while weak and dainty women were to be fed with egg yolks tossed in wine and sugar and drink cinnamon water. Sometimes it was believed that the bladder may be lying in the way, preventing delivery so the midwife should, somehow, provoke woman to pass water. As with Jane Seymour, sudden flux, blood loss and convulsions were serious indicators of potentially deadly problems but appeared days after the birth, when the mother appeared to be out of danger. As these could kill a mother and child instantly, the midwife must see that all was done to soothe her and deliver the child as soon as possible; some physicians still advised bleeding the mother at this stage but medical opinion was divided and such a move was controversial. Others resorted to physical intervention, actually reaching in to pull out a child and treating the bleeding with vervain or cinnamon drunk with red wine or beer. Contemporary receipt books listed the healing powers of oak leaves to heal ‘all manner of flyxes in the wombe’, but Catherine was well past this stage. Difficulties in the delivery of the placenta could lead to gangrene, tumours, ulcers or flux of blood; this was treated with pills of myrrh, gentian and oil; also, pepper and cinnamon would encourage a mother to sneeze and expel the afterbirth, as would making her smell bad things such as old shoes and burnt partridge feathers. In the eventuality of tearing, Trotula of Salerno recommended the perineum be washed in wine and butter, sewn up with silken thread and covered with linen cloth before being doused in hot tar! If the mother survived this, the wound should be closed up using powder of comfrey, daisy and cinnamon. She must remain with her feet elevated for eight or nine days and neither wash nor cough.12 A further cause of difficult or prolonged deliveries was rickets. Deficiencies of vitamin D could deform the pelvis of a growing girl, which in some places was drastically anticipated by the breaking of these bones in infant females. Other fears covered breech birth and the presentation of a foetal limb, which would be sometimes cut off in order to facilitate delivery; some mothers were even shaken or held upside down in desperate attempts to harness the force of gravity.