The Six Wives & Many Mistresses of Henry VIII: The Women's Stories

by Amy Licence

  10

  Coronation, 24 June 1509

  Then he brought the king’s son out and put the crown on him and gave him the testimony; and they made him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands and said, ‘Long live the king!’1

  Catherine and Henry’s wedding was probably concluded quickly to allow for a joint coronation, but the bride was not about to complain. When it came to this ceremony, though, no expense was spared and all the correct protocol was followed, in line with the Ryalle Book, produced in the reign of Henry’s grandfather. Two weeks of preparations followed, in which Catherine’s ladies were fitted with scarlet, fur-lined costumes,2 feasts were planned, speeches written and London braced itself for the sort of pageantry and display it had not witnessed since her arrival in 1501. Secluded away with Henry in their Greenwich idyll, absorbed in each other’s company and the glow of their newfound passion, Catherine must have been ecstatic. In many ways she and Henry made an ideal pair; both being conscious of their royal dignity, devout and learned, with a taste for the finer things in life, they could as happily dispute points of theology and Latin texts as take part in the hunt in Greenwich Park or dance late into the night. Together, through those heady summer days, a bond was forged of trust and intimacy that married duty and desire, personal and dynastic. As Catherine wrote to her father, she was ‘well married’.

  On Saturday 23 June, at about 4 p.m., a procession set out from the Tower of London. Henry went first, beneath a golden canopy, resplendent in a robe of crimson velvet furred with ermine, a jacket of raised gold and placard studded with gems. Around his neck was hung a collar of rose-red Afghanistan rubies. His horse was draped with damask gold and ermine, flanked with knights in red velvet and followed by nine children of honour, dressed in blue powdered with gold fleurs-de-lys. Catherine followed, carried in a litter drawn by white palfreys draped in white cloth of gold. She wore white embroidered satin, with her hair hanging long and loose, topped with a coronet ‘set with many rich orient stones’. Her ladies followed, either riding on palfreys or drawn in chariots, in embroidered cloth of gold or silver, tinsel or velvet, according to their status.3

  Also listed among her retinue were her controversial confessor Fray Diego, the newly knighted Thomas Boleyn, and the close companions of Henry VIII, Charles Brandon and the Duke of Buckingham, resplendent in gold and diamonds. The streets of London were sanded and railed to keep back the expectant crowds and houses were hung with rich tapestries and cloths of arras and gold, all along the route to Westminster Abbey. Yet not even the king could control the weather. As they rode through Cornhill, approaching a tavern called the Cardinal’s Hat, a sudden shower drenched Catherine and almost destroyed her silken canopy. Bedraggled, she was forced to shelter ‘under the hovel of a draper’s stall’ until the weather cleared.4 No doubt, in the minds of superstitious onlookers, such rainfall on Midsummer’s Day was a grave omen indeed for their new queen. And so, as chronicler Hall recorded, ‘with much joy and honour’, they reached the safety of Westminster Palace, where the royal couple dined before passing the night in the Painted Chamber.

  The following morning Catherine and Henry processed from the palace into the abbey, where two empty thrones sat waiting on a platform before the altar. A contemporary woodcut shows them seated level with each other, looking into each other’s eyes and smiling as the crowns are lowered on to their heads. It is a potent image of the occasion, intimate in spite of the crowds behind them, suggesting a relationship of two people equal in sovereignty, respect and love. In reality, the positioning of Henry’s throne above hers, and her shortened ceremonial, without an oath, indicates the actual discrepancy between them. He had inherited the throne as a result of his birth; she was his queen because he had chosen to marry her. Above his head the woodcut depicted a huge Tudor rose, a reminder of his great lineage and England’s recent conflicts; Henry’s role was to guide and rule his subjects. Over Catherine sits her chosen device of the pomegranate, symbolic of the expectations of all Tudor wives and queens: fertility and childbirth. In Christian iconography, it also stood for resurrection. In a way, Catherine was experiencing her own rebirth, through this new marriage and the chance it offered her as queen, after the long years of privation and doubt.

  Westminster Abbey was a riot of colour. Quite in contrast with the sombre, bare-stone interiors of medieval churches today, these pre-Reformation years made worship a tactile and sensual experience, with wealth and ornament acting as tributes and measures of devotion. Inside the abbey, statues and images were gilded and decorated with jewels, walls and capitals were picked out in bright colours and walls were hung with rich arras. All was conducted according to the advice of the 200-year-old Liber Regalis, the Royal Book, which dictated coronation ritual. The couple were wafted with sweet incense while thousands of candles flickered, mingling with the light streaming down through the stained-glass windows. Archbishop Warham was again at the helm, administering the coronation oaths and anointing the pair with oil. Beside her new husband, Catherine was crowned and given a ring to wear on the fourth finger of her right hand, a sort of inversion of the marital ring, symbolising her marriage to her country. She would take this vow very seriously.

  The coronation proved popular. Henry wrote to the Pope explaining that he had ‘espoused and made’ Catherine ‘his wife and thereupon had her crowned amid the applause of the people and the incredible demonstrations of joy and enthusiasm’.5 To Ferdinand, he added that ‘the multitude of people who assisted was immense, and their joy and applause most enthusiastic’.6 There seems little reason to see this just as diplomatic hyperbole. According to Hall, ‘it was demaunded of the people, wether they would receive, obey and take the same moste noble Prince, for their Kyng, who with great reuerance, love and desire, saied and cryed, ye-ye’.7 Lord Mountjoy employed more poetic rhetoric in his letter to Erasmus, which stated that ‘Heaven and Earth rejoices, everything is full of milk and honey and nectar. Our king is not after gold, or gems, or precious metals, but virtue, glory, immortality.’ In his coronation verses Thomas More agreed with the general mood, explaining that wherever Henry went ‘the dense crowd in their desire to look upon him leaves hardly a narrow lane for his passage’. They ‘delight to see him’ and shout their good will, changing their vantage points to see him again and again. Such a king would free them from slavery, ‘wipe the tears from every eye and put joy in place of our long distress’.8

  Now the people, freed, run before their king with bright faces. Their joy is almost beyond their own comprehension.

  They rejoice, they exult, they leap for joy and celebrate their having such a king. ‘The King’ is all that any mouth can say.

  The nobility, long since at the mercy of the dregs of the population, the nobility, whose title has too long been without meaning, now lifts its head, now rejoices in such a king, and has proper reason for rejoicing.

  The merchant, heretofore deterred by numerous taxes, now once again plows seas grown unfamiliar.

  All are equally happy. All weigh their earlier losses against the advantages to come.

  Now each man happily does not hesitate to show the possessions which in the past his fear kept hidden in dark seclusion.9

  There was clearly a mood of exhilaration in the air in 1509, the very real sense of a new age dawning. No doubt Catherine shared it. After the final, difficult years of the widowed Henry VII’s reign, this young and attractive couple must have literally seemed like a godsend.

  The feasting continued. In Westminster Hall, the new king and queen sat down to a three-course feast, ‘whiche was sumpteous, with many subtelties, strange devices … and many deintie dishes’. The order of service was ‘admirable’, with ‘cleane handelynge and breakyng of meates’ and ‘plentifull abundance’.10 It was all accompanied by the usual court rituals: the Duke of Buckingham riding into hall to announce the arrival of the food, followed by the defence of the new king by his champion, Sir Richard Dimmock, who then called for drink, t
o signal his shift from defence to enjoyment. After all the proclamations and oaths, Henry was served with wafers and hippocras, a drink of wine mixed with sugar and spices, in a gold cup.

  Two days after her coronation, Catherine was not too bound up in her own celebrations to forget the needs of others. On 26 June, she wrote to her father from Greenwich regarding their servant Calderon, who had borne a letter to her. As he had proved his worth and was no longer ‘at a fit age to serve as a quarter-master’, she asked that he be given ‘an office which he may hold as long as he lives, since he deserves it so well, in order that he may have a rest’.

  A few days later, the coronation jousts began at Greenwich. Catherine and Henry sat inside a wooden stand, which was fashioned into a castle overspread with Tudor imagery. Hall’s account gives a sense of the complexity of the design:

  a Castle, on the toppe thereof, a greate croune Emperiall, all the imbattelyng with Roses and Pomegranate gilded, and under and about thesaid Castle, a curious vine, the leaves and grapes thereof, gilded with fine Golde, the walls of the same Castle, coloured white and green lozenges. And in every lozenge, either a rose or a pomegranate, or a sheaf of arrows, or else H and K gilded with fine Gold.11

  Out of the mouths of ‘certain beasts’ and gargoyles, ran red and white wine, as the ‘fresh young gallants … gorgeously apparelled’ entered the field. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and his retinue echoed the castle’s design, wearing the Tudor colours of green and white, with beaten roses and pomegranates of gold, fringed with damask. Representing the ‘home team’, they were presented to the king and queen by Pallas Athene, Greek goddess of wisdom. The challengers, dressed in blue velvet, gold and silver, represented love. The mock battle, or tourney, that followed was concluded by the intervention of the king, as night was ‘commyng on’.12

  The following day, 28 June, was Henry’s eighteenth birthday. More celebrations followed, with the same knights joined by men dressed all in green, from cap to hose, blowing on horns amid a pageant of a park, where fallow deer and ‘curious Trees made by crafte’ were enclosed by a white-and-green fence. When the deer were released and killed by greyhounds, their carcasses were offered to the queen. The knights fought again, with love and wisdom unable to defeat each other, and prizes were distributed by the king ‘to every man after his deserts’, drawing the event to a close. The following day, Henry’s grandmother Margaret Beaufort died in the Deanery of Westminster Abbey. Having been an imposing figure at court since 1485, the final link with Henry’s childhood was broken.

  11

  Catherine’s Court, 1509

  Manhood I am, therefore I me delight

  To hunt and hawk, to nourish-up and feed,

  The greyhound to the course, the hawk to the flight,

  And to bestride a good and lusty steed—

  These things become a very man indeed1

  In 1510, Thomas More wrote a poem which he called ‘The Twelve Properties or Conditions of a Lover’. With the happiness of the newly wed royal couple evident to all, More explored the contemporary ideals of amatory behaviour, which included fidelity and devotion as well as the more specific examples of dressing, or adorning, oneself for the pleasure of the spouse, being frequently in their company and coveting the lover’s praise. It was also essential to ‘believe of his love all things excellent, and to desire that all folks should think the same’ and ‘to serve his love, nothing thinking of any reward or profit’.2 This accorded with the advice given to Henry in 1501, by his tutor John Skelton, to ‘choose a wife for yourself and always love her only’.3 With Henry soon to adopt the title of ‘Sir Loyal Heart’, his devotion to Catherine was beyond doubt.

  Henry had certainly grown into an impressive young man. According to Thomas More’s coronation verses, he had ‘strength worthy of his regal person’ and stood taller than his companions. There was ‘fiery power’ in his eyes, Venus in his face and ‘such colour in his cheeks as is typical of twin roses’. Yet he possessed other skills, too. He was skilled in the physical arts of war, with ‘his hand … as skilled as his heart is brave’ with ‘the naked sword, or an eager charge with levelled lances, or an arrow aimed to strike a target’. More also described how Henry’s virtue ‘shone forth from his face’ and his countenance bore ‘the open message of a good heart’. Wisdom dwelled in his judicious mind and his breast was untroubled; he bore his lot with modest chastity, his gentle heart was warmed by clemency and his mind far from arrogant. He deserved to rule for restoring laws to their ‘ancient form and dignity’ and his natural gifts had been enhanced by a ‘liberal education’, with his father’s wisdom and his mother’s ‘kindly strength’. Henry was also Catherine’s intellectual equal, having studied the Classics, French, Latin, Italian, theology, modern sciences and composing music, as well as playing upon the flute, virginals and recorder. His devotion was also commendable; the king usually heard Mass three times daily – and sometimes as often as five times a day – and it was common for him to hear vespers and compline with the queen in her chambers.4 This was the man with whom Catherine fell in love. In all things, he seemed to be her perfect match just as she was his.

  More’s praise for the new queen extolled her birth and qualities as qualifiers that made her Henry’s true equal:

  This lady, prince, vowed to you for many years, through a long time of waiting remained alone for love of you.

  Neither her own sister nor her native land could win her from her way; neither her mother nor her father could dissuade her.

  In her you have as wife one whom your people have been happy to see sharing your power, one for whom the powers above care so much that they distinguish her and honor her by marriage with you.

  In her expression, in her countenance, there is a remark-able beauty uniquely appropriate for one so great and good.

  It was you, none other, whom she preferred to her mother, sister, native land, and beloved father.

  This blessed lady has joined in lasting alliance two nations, each of them powerful.

  She is descended from great kings, to be sure; and she will be the mother of kings as great as her ancestors.

  Until now one anchor has protected your ship of state – a strong one, yet only one.

  But your queen, fruitful in male offspring, will render it on all sides stable and everlasting.

  Great advantage is yours because of her, and similarly is hers because of you.

  There has been no other woman, surely, worthy to have you as husband, nor any other man worthy to have her as wife.5

  The summer days passed happily. That July, Henry wrote to Ferdinand from Greenwich that he was diverting himself with ‘jousts, birding, hunting and other innocent and honest pastimes, also in visiting different parts of his kingdom, but does not on that account neglect affairs of state’.6 Catherine also wrote to her father that month, describing her happiness and that the ‘time is ever passed in continual feasts’. She explained that ‘among the reasons that oblige me to love him [Henry] much more than myself, the one most strong, although he is my husband, is his being the so true son of your highness’. She asked her father to send Henry three horses – a jennet, a Sicilian and one from Naples – ‘because he desires them so much’.7 The King of Aragon was ‘exceedingly glad to hear that she and the king her husband are well and prosperous, and that they love one another so much’. He hoped ‘their happiness will last as long as they live. To be well married is the greatest blessing in the world. A good marriage is not only an excellent thing in itself, but also the source of all other kinds of happiness. God shows favour to good husbands and wives.’8 Catherine and Henry do genuinely seem to have been in love. An early poem or ‘ballet’ attributed to Henry includes the line, ‘I love true where I did marry.’9 Even Fray Diego could see it, writing to Ferdinand that ‘the king my Lord adores her’.10

  Judging by the rapidity of Catherine’s conceptions in the early years of the marriage, their physical relationship was close. A surviving manuscript f
rom 1440, Jacob’s Well, outlines contemporary expectations for moderate, appropriate sex within marriage: ‘For wedlock truly knit, truly kept and used in order, is of such virtue that it keepeth their flesh from deadly sin. If you use your wife or husband as your sweetheart in intent, only for lust … not for love, nor the fruit of wedlock, nor to be honest, but as an unreasonable beast … beware of the fiend.’ The text also reminded married couples that foreplay could lead to impurity and sin: ‘When you feeleth or toucheth with mouth in kissing, with hand in groping, and with any member of thy body … that stirs you to lust and sin, then you enter into … wickedness.’ This was echoed in the Book of Vices and Virtues, which advised against any ‘use of one’s wife’ that went against ‘the order of wedlock’.11

  Even during these early days of pure enjoyment, Catherine would have been hoping to fall pregnant. The literature of the day suggests a fairly pragmatic and direct approach to sex, with an emphasis on the need for female enjoyment – within the correct religious lines – and far less prudish than might initially be supposed. It was considered imperative for a woman to ‘emit seed’ in order to conceive, so her husband was instructed to ‘smoothly stroke his lady, breasts and belly and excite her’.12 Another fourteenth-century text, written by Edward II’s doctor of physic, advised a man to ‘arouse a woman to intercourse’ by speaking, kissing and embracing her, ‘to caress her breasts and touch [her] between the perineum and vulva and to strike her buttocks with the purpose that the woman desires … and when the woman begins to speak with a stammer, then they ought to copulate’.13 Another technique suggested by a medieval advice manual was ‘froting’ or rubbing, ‘when a man hath great liking between him and his wife in bed’.14 With the imperative to conceive an heir, Catherine and Henry need have felt little guilt in attempting to achieve the Church’s primary concern of wedlock, whatever foreplay Henry decided to employ.