Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

by M. T. Anderson

  “Your Grace, the King has come,” said Maud.

  Forcing a smile, I went downstairs to the great hall to meet him.

  “Ah, so here is my wife, the little warrior,” he called out from his chair at the head table. He turned to his men. “Pray tell you hear echoes of her great acclaim?”

  “Aye, Your Grace,” came the reply.

  “And all of England knows of yours,” I said. “Welcome home, my love.”

  There was no mistaking the resentment I saw in his eyes as I leaned in to kiss him; no misinterpreting the brusque manner in which he helped me to my chair. As he tore into the meal, he was full of stories about towns captured and sieges won. Not once did he mention my victory at Flodden Field. When I rose to retire, he appeared relieved.

  So I was surprised when he came to my bedchamber that night. I did not tell him that I was not yet completely healed, nor object when he pushed me onto the bed. There had to be another baby. But Santa Madre, I was so exhausted from my last labour. When he lay atop me, I thought my bones would splinter.

  Once finished, he rolled to the far side of the bed and said into the darkness, “The child. It is a terrible disappointment for me.”

  A tear fell down my cheek. “It is a deep sorrow for us both.”

  He rolled over so he could look me in the eye. “You have been derelict in your most sacred duty, Kate,” he hissed. Then he turned his back to me.

  MAY 1514

  And so my husband lost faith in me. No longer did he say to his ministers, “Let us ask the Queen about that,” or “We must show this to Kate.” It made no difference that I had won the greatest battle England had ever seen against the Scots.

  It was Thomas Wolsey who had his ear now. Able, ambitious Wolsey. Daily his influence over the King grew.

  “Wolsey adjusts his beliefs to fit the King’s,” María reported to me one morning as we walked in the gardens at Greenwich. “He reads correctly what the King wants and adapts to it. Anything the King desires, Wolsey gets for him.”

  Added Maud, “All can see his power increasing. When first he served at court, Wolsey did the King’s bidding by saying, ‘His Majesty shall do so and so.’ But now he has commenced saying, ‘We shall do so and so.’ ”

  María leaned in conspiratorially. “There are many who claim Wolsey will soon be saying, ‘I shall do so and so.’ ”

  Santa Madre, where did that leave me?

  Placing my hand on my belly, I silently prayed, “Let it be so, Dios.” In my womb, the babe kicked. “Let it be so.”

  NOVEMBER 1514

  Another child born into death.

  Another Prince.

  “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Like Jesucristo, who cried out these words upon the cross, I whispered them as the midwife took my son’s tiny body away.

  My ladies huddled about my bed.

  Por Dios, could I not grieve alone?

  I pulled the coverlet over my face. My heart, shattered and sharp-edged, cut from inside.

  Santa Madre, ¿por qué? I knew it was a sin to question His unsearchable ways, but I could not understand why He would wrench this babe from my womb. Why would He be so cruel?

  Without removing the coverlet, I fumbled for María’s hand. I did not want her to see my expression as I said brokenly, “Please, send for the King. I must tell him his baby is dead.”

  MAY 1515

  Henry still visited my bed twice a week. But he no longer lingered afterwards. Rather, he performed his duties quickly, and without passion. I knew my body, sagging and shapeless from four pregnancies, no longer delighted him. In his eyes, I served but one purpose now. I was but a vessel, an instrument to produce his heir.

  “Stay with me, Henry,” I begged one night as he rose from my bed and pulled on his shirt. “Please, stay.”

  He looked at me with distaste. “I pray God we have conceived a male child this night,” he said.

  “I pray for nothing else, my husband.”

  “Yet your prayers go unanswered.”

  Silence stretched between us.

  Henry picked up his robe. “God has turned His face from us,” he finally said. “He is punishing us for marrying.”

  “No, Henry, it is not true.”

  “The proof lies before us, madam. Almost six years of marriage, sharing a bed, yet God has left us childless.”

  “We have had children,” I argued. “Three children.”

  “All dead.”

  “That was God’s will, Henry, not His punishment.”

  He knotted the tie of his robe and pulled his nightcap over his red hair. When finally he spoke, his voice sounded like a spoiled child’s. “I should be blessed. I am the King of England. It is not right that I do not have a son.” He shook his head. “It is not right.”

  JANUARY 1516

  I could not nap. My back ached, and the great swell of my belly made breathing difficult despite the many pillows propped behind me. Clumsily, I swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  “Your Grace?” said my lady Mary Norris.

  “I feel like walking,” I said.

  Mary stood, preparing to go with me.

  “I wish to go alone.”

  The last thing I wanted was to be in the centre of my giggling, gossiping ladies. I felt like an old woman among them.

  Outside my apartments, I paused a moment deciding on a direction. It was too cold to stroll in the garden, and I did not want to walk towards the great hall, where I would surely meet people. Perhaps, I thought with sudden longing, Henry was in a generous mood today. Perhaps he would play cards with me. Turning, I moved towards his apartments.

  The Gentlemen of the Chamber leapt to their feet and bowed low when I entered. “Your…Your Grace,” stammered one of the men.

  I approached Sir William Compton, who stood like a sentinel outside Henry’s bedchamber door. “I would see His Majesty,” I said to him.

  Compton shook his head. “I am sorry, Your Grace, but the King is not to be disturbed. He is abed.”

  “Abed? In the afternoon?” Worry seized me. “Is my lord ill?”

  I did not wait for an answer. Pushing past Compton, I flung open the door.

  My husband lay naked on the great bed of state. And my lady Bessie Blount was with him, head thrown back, her golden hair tumbling about her bare shoulders.

  I grasped the doorknob, feeling suddenly dizzy.

  Henry turned. Our eyes met.

  “Kate…,” he began.

  I shook my head. What could he possibly say? How could I bear to hear it? I stumbled backwards, head ducked so Henry’s men would not see the anguish and humiliation in my eyes. Then, gripping my belly, I heaved myself along the long gallery to my rooms and flung myself onto my bed.

  How long had it been going on? Bessie had come into my service not long after Henry’s return from France. With stunned clarity I realized she had been his mistress for years. Had I not seen him dancing with her most evenings, and riding out with her most mornings? Had I not seen the way he teased her and wrote her poems?

  I had seen it, but I had refused to acknowledge it.

  I longed to scream, threaten, pull out Henry’s hair. But it was not possible. He was the King of England.

  I recalled some advice my mother had given me long ago: “Remember, Catalina, your husband is free to take a hundred mistresses if he so desires. As King, that is his right. But he can take only one wife. No matter what he does, he is always your husband. And you are always his Queen.”

  “Always his Queen, but no longer his love,” I whispered. And muffling my sobs in my pillows, I wept.

  FEBRUARY 1516

  I clenched my teeth to hold back my shouts of pain. A queen, my mother had taught me, never cries out in childbirth. And so I twisted and strained and gripped my ladies’ hands, yet I made not a sound. There came an agonizing rending, followed by a warm rush from between my legs and then…¡Gloria a Dios!…a loud bawling cry.

  I sobbed. “He li
ves?”

  “The child is healthy, Your Grace!” exclaimed the midwife. “The child lives.”

  I wept with happiness. Freely. Openly. Before my ladies and the midwife and the wet nurse. At that glorious moment, I cared not a whit for queenly dignity. My son lived! He was healthy! He lived!

  “Give him to me,” I begged.

  Maud and the midwife exchanged glances.

  “Her,” said Maud. “You have a beautiful little girl, Your Grace.”

  A girl? No! The babe was supposed to be a boy. A boy to be heir. A boy to return Henry’s pleasure in our marriage. A boy to make him love me again.

  I wept, but no longer from joy.

  What would I tell the King?

  Maud placed the babe in my arms. “Daughters are a special gift,” she said, speaking from experience. Four years earlier she had been delivered of her own daughter, little Kateryn Parr, to whom I was godmother and who had been named in my honour. “You will see, Your Grace. There is a sacred bond between girls and their mothers.”

  In my arms, the infant snuffled against my breast, eager to feed. Not immediately gratified, she cried furiously, her face turning red and her little arms waving. I could not help but laugh. She looked so much like Henry.

  A sudden happiness filled me.

  This child was un milagro, the fruit of my prayers.

  Yet again, the Lord had poured out His grace upon me.

  I rubbed my cheek against my daughter’s downy head.

  “What will you name her, Your Grace?” asked Maud.

  “Mary,” I replied without hesitation, “after the Blessed Virgin, our most holy Mother of God, whose own name came from ‘Miriam,’ meaning ‘bitterly wished-for child.’ ”

  * * *

  —

  Henry took the birth of our daughter better than I expected. “She is healthy. That is what matters,” he said, although his smile did not reach his eyes. “And if it is a daughter this time, by the grace of God, it will be a son next time.”

  MARCH 1516–NOVEMBER 1518

  Next time…next time.

  Another boy.

  Another girl.

  Neither breathed.

  Seven children in all.

  Five boys, two girls.

  Six dead, one alive.

  This is how I numbered my pain.

  FEBRUARY 1519

  Gracias, Dios, for my little Mary. I poured all my love upon her. Love enough for seven children.

  How I delighted to see her toddling and chattering, tripping over her skirts as she tried to curtsey, giggling and clapping her plump hands together. Surely there could not have been a more enchanting child in all England.

  “Dance!” she commanded me one wintry morning.

  Obligingly, I whirled my squealing daughter down the long gallery, then hugged her close before setting her back on her little feet.

  “Dance!” Mary cried again.

  “Esperad, mi preciosa. Your lady mother needs to catch her breath,” I replied.

  “Dance!” She stamped her foot. “Dance, dance, dance!”

  How like her father she was. Her blue eyes flashed with anger, her tiny chin jutted out. And her voice! Although she was but a child of three, already she possessed an imperious voice, a voice that commanded authority, the voice…of a sovereign.

  “God has answered my prayers,” I whispered.

  In that moment of divine insight, I knew the truth with soul-deep certainty.

  O the depths of God’s wisdom, how unsearchable His judgements and untraceable His ways.

  I had fulfilled my sacred duty. I had given Henry an heir. Like the Virgin Mary herself, raised up by God to give birth to the King of Kings, I had been raised up to give birth to the next ruler of England.

  “Mama, dance!”

  Our little Mary, future Queen of England.

  The Lord needed only convince Henry.

  JULY 1527

  “Have you a vision for me?” I ask the prophetess. I am filled with a sudden, solemn dread. “Are you here to foretell things that will come to pass?”

  In response, her breath slows and the muscles of her face grow slack. Her eyes, fixed upon the altarpiece, take on a far-off expression.

  I cross myself and step closer to receive His word.

  MARCH 1519

  It is a terrible thing when a woman need tell her husband that her courses no longer flow. It is doubly terrible when that husband is Henry, King of England. It took heart and courage to tell him the hard truth: My fertile life had ended earlier than expected. There would be no Prince for England.

  At first, Henry said nothing. He just stood at my window, watching snowflakes swirl to the river below. When finally he turned to face me, his eyes were cold and narrowed, and his chin jutted out. “It is a cruel world for me, madam,” he said.

  “For me as well, my lord.” I reached for his hand. “We tried our best, but we have failed.”

  “We? No, madam, I have not failed. It is you who have failed. You have failed in your most sacred duty.”

  I shook my head. “That is not true. I have given you a daughter—a healthy daughter, heiress to the throne.”

  “A girl.”

  “English law does not prohibit the crown from passing to a woman,” I reminded him. “Why should your throne not go to our Princess Mary? Why should she not rule England as its Queen?”

  “And have my country pass into the hands of her husband when she marries? I will not have it!”

  “It is God’s will,” I told him.

  “But it is not mine!”

  JUNE 1519

  Oh, Santa Madre de Dios, when the news—that cruel, cruel blow—arrived at court, I fled into our Heavenly Father’s arms. From dawn to dusk I knelt in the quiet greyness of my private chapel. I prayed for Him to heal my heart. I prayed for Him to take away my anger. I prayed for the ability to accept and forgive. But above all, I prayed for understanding. “Dios, why do You torment me? Why give Bessie Blount a son—Henry’s son—but not me? Why grace my husband’s harlot with a healthy Tudor boy when I am no longer capable of doing the same? Is this Your plan? Is this Your punishment?”

  Days later, Henry commanded the entire court, myself included, to attend the child’s christening at the manor he had bought for his mistress. The taste of sadness and humiliation was strong in my mouth as I watched my husband standing proudly at the baptismal font, the red-haired newborn cradled in his arms. The babe looked so much like our own, departed Prince Henry. I blinked back tears.

  “What is the name of this child?” asked the priest.

  “Henry FitzRoy,” declared my husband.

  I could scarce believe it. I knew there was a streak of cruelty in Henry’s nature, but how could he name this child Henry? And to heap on even more pain, he had given the babe the surname of FitzRoy, meaning “son of the King.”

  He turned and looked straight at me.

  No one could have mistaken his thoughts: See? I am not the problem. I can conceive a healthy son.

  JULY 1519–MARCH 1525

  In his writings, Saint Augustine tells us to close the door to our consciousness and place ourselves in the presence of the Creator alone. “Speak not,” the good saint writes, “lest it be for great necessity, or for great good.” Is this not wise advice? And so time and again, I gripped tight to my courage. I held my tongue. And I spoke not about Bessie Blount and the vast allowance Henry settled upon her and the favour-seeking duke to whom he married her off.

  I spoke not about Henry FitzRoy, who much resembled the King and was raised in the state of a great prince, with his own household and servants and men-at-arms. Henry even had the child brought to court, where he bestowed upon him a host of honours—the royal dukedoms of Richmond and Somerset, the Order of the Garter, the title Lord High Admiral.

  I spoke not about this most public snub to the mother of the King’s legitimate heir.

  Nor did I speak about Jane Popincourt, or Elizabeth Carew, or Anne Hastings
, or most recently Mary Boleyn. Henry singled her out just days after her arrival at court. Por Dios, I found her horsey laughter annoying.

  Above all, I spoke not about the Boleyn girl’s father, my steward, Sir Thomas Boleyn, who saw his daughter as a means to winning the King’s favour. Thus he served her up to my husband as if she were a plump chicken plucked and ready for his pie.

  No, I kept my peace.

  Sometimes, silence best serves His purpose.

  * * *

  —

  In those years, I appeared to the court as though made of stone, with no more feelings than the marble statues that stood in the garden. But love brimmed inside me. Love for my little Princess, my beloved Mary. Being with her almost made me forget my pain at the absence of Henry’s love.

  Oh, but she was exquisite. Small and dainty as a goldfinch, she daily grew in grace and intellect—evidence of her pure royal blood.

  I mothered her myself. Despite her having her own staff of the nursery—governesses and guardians, manservants, laundresses, maids—I was the constant guiding hand in Mary’s upbringing. Who else could teach her all that a queen should know?

  Court tongues, of course, wagged: “Queen Katharine acts as a commoner. She behaves like the wife of a sheep farmer; like a woman of market and midden.”

  I cared not. Mine was a holy duty. I was raising the future monarch of England.

  And I delighted in it. I taught my daughter her prayers, helped her sew clothes for her dolls, gamboled about with her in the garden, sang with her, and trimmed her coppery curls. When she was four, I hired the finest dancing and riding instructors. When she was five, I commanded she receive her own chess set and her first hunting falcon. And when she turned seven, I took up the task of teaching her the crucial skills of reading, writing, and Latin. After our lessons, as a treat, we shut up the books and snuggled together on the couch while I told her stories of myself as a little girl in faraway Spain.

  How I wished Henry took the same delight in our daughter. Certainly, there were occasional moments when he acted the part of devoted father. But he was not constant. He would ignore her for days, then swoop her up and carry her about, showing her off to the court and calling her his “dearest treasure.” He expected her to squeal with pleasure, to kiss his cheek and smile prettily. And Mary did. Oh, she longed to please him! But she was anxious, too. She knew she did not please him, no matter how she tried.