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

by Amy Licence

  Late in 1514, Elizabeth and another young woman were linked in a letter written to Henry by Charles Brandon, newly created Duke of Suffolk, which suggests that the duke had been indulging in flirtatious behaviour with one or both of them. At this stage, though, it was someone else’s flirtation and deviated little from the conventions of courtly love. Brandon was still in France, in the retinue of Princess Mary, soon to become Louis XII’s queen. He was clearly missing the attractions of the English court, though, writing to Henry, ‘I beseech your Grace to [tell] unto Mistress Blount and Mistress Carew the next time that I write unto them or send them tokens they shall either write to me or send me tokens again.’ The implication of these words is a dual flirtation between the two women, the handsome young widower Brandon and the king. Brandon’s letter invites Henry to get involved, to almost take his part during his absence, to be the bearer of a flirtatious message, to enter the game.

  Close to the king since their shared childhood, Brandon’s track record with women had been little less than scandalous, played out before the eyes of the young Henry. In his early twenties, Brandon had fathered a child outside wedlock with Anne Browne, to whom he was betrothed. However, he deserted Anne in order to marry her aunt, Margaret Neville, the niece of Warwick the ‘Kingmaker’, cousin of Henry’s Yorkist grandfather. The new bride was almost twenty years older than her young groom and Anne’s advancing pregnancy caused her family to take action. Later that year, the match was declared void in the archdeacon’s court and soon afterwards, early in 1508, Brandon married Anne Browne, who went on to bear him a second child, before dying in 1511. Henry’s biographer, John Matusiak, suggests that ‘every juicy detail of the whole sordid business was no doubt imparted to the eager prince, who then went on, it seems, to draw his own merry conclusions about the proper place of marriage in the affairs of young men of vigour’.4 The opportunistic widower then entered another betrothal, to Elizabeth Grey, another lady who appears in the records of courtly entertainment, but extricated himself around this time while seeking a more highborn bride and engaging in flirtation with more of Catherine’s waiting women. His marital history would become even more complicated in the coming years.

  On 7 November, Henry made a grant of £500 to Elizabeth’s mother, Lady Bryan, ‘to her marriage, which by God’s grace shall be espoused and wedded to Nicholas Carewe, son and heir apparent to Sir Richard Carewe, knight, before the feast of the Purification of Our Blessed Lady the Virgin’.5 Elizabeth and her mother both signed it. In fact, Elizabeth and Nicholas did not wait until Candlemas, the February date of the Purification; they married in December 1514, soon after receiving the grant, around the time Catherine entered her confinement. Henry attended the wedding and subsequently made the pair a number of expensive gifts, beyond what was expected for his wife’s ladies-in-waiting. Elizabeth received ‘many diamonds and pearls and innumerable jewels’ as well as lengths of velvet, cloth of silver and damask; in 1515, Nicholas Carew was given his own tilt yard at Greenwich, perhaps as a reward for turning a blind eye. Elizabeth remained a favourite as late as 1529, when the Privy Purse accounts show that she was given an emerald by the king and she would become a favourite with some of Henry’s later wives, predeceasing the king by a year.

  There is no concrete evidence that Henry and Elizabeth had an affair, but this pattern of gifts is reminiscent of similar items given by the king to Queen Catherine and later to Anne Boleyn, while he was wooing her. It is also significant that the second lady mentioned in Brandon’s letter, Elizabeth, or ‘Bessie’, Blount, is known to have become Henry’s lover, although this information only survives because she bore his illegitimate son. If Bessie Blount had never become pregnant, her story would have remained just as speculative as that of her friend. It is entirely likely that Elizabeth Carew ended up in the king’s bed, sometime before or after her marriage, as the situation is reminiscent of William Compton’s wooing of Anne Hastings on the king’s behalf, back in 1510. Perhaps Carew was now fulfilling the same role.

  Henry had learned from the scandal of 1510 and the reactions of Catherine and his courtiers. As was the case with his Yorkist grandfather Edward IV, he followed contemporary codes of courtly love, which favoured liaisons with married women instead of deflowering one who was yet unwed, thus affecting her chances of making a respectable match. A compliant husband could facilitate meetings, either in the couple’s home or one of Henry’s many hunting lodges. He would not attract shame or stigma, but would enjoy the protection Henry’s status could offer as well as the commensurate financial rewards. A husband would also provide a veneer of legitimacy if Elizabeth were to fall pregnant, as any child born to a married woman was automatically considered to be the offspring of the husband, unless he objected and stated otherwise. To do so would be a challenge to the king, a slur on his reputation, and required legal proof, so it was convenient for Henry that Anne Stafford, Elizabeth Bryan and later Mary Boleyn were married to men he could trust. As king, Henry could always bend the rules, as he would do with Bessie Blount in 1518, but navigating through the complex territory of public reputations and private desire could prove a difficult game. Bessie was also provided with a suitable husband once the king had tired of her.

  Henry’s reputation as a prudish king is something of a misnomer, having arisen from the secrecy he employed when it came to his affairs and his character later in life. The manipulative and ruthless figure of later years, relentless in his pursuit of his desires when it came to politics and women, did not suddenly appear overnight. He was just as wilful and determined in his youth when it came to pursuing women for pleasure, although his actions were less visible. The slenderness of the early evidence, often surviving only by accident, is the result of his need for secrecy, to maintain the youthful, chivalric ideal of Sir Loyal Heart and the mask of public dignity. Henry’s youthful reading, of French romances and stories about the Knights of the Round Table, filled him with the ideals of courtship, pursuit and surrender and, far from being prudish, the culture at the secret heart of his court was reflected in the marital scandals and liaisons of his companions, who were less well placed to conceal their antics, of which many stories survive.

  A neat cultural divide categorised women at Henry’s court; the wife, the dynastic equal and producer of heirs, was separate from the mistresses and casual flirtations. Virginity was less of a stumbling block, too. Young women might be flirted with, partnered in a dance under the cover of disguise, even seduced, before they became wives and retired into a life of loyal domesticity. A promise was sufficient to make a seduction legitimate, if the rakish minions required such a thing as legitimacy. Equally, men could and did love their wives but it was with a different kind of love; for Henry and the young bloods of his court these were the years to sow their wild oats, to gain experience, to pursue pleasure and excess. Henry was restless in his youth. He wanted it all. According to the Venetian ambassador, he was ‘never still or quiet’ but wanted to ‘have his feet in a thousand shoes’. Wolsey, who perhaps knew Henry the best during this time, commented that not even an angel descending from Heaven could change the king’s mind once it was made up.6 Henry was an absolute king, believing himself godlike in his egotism and birthright; the vows of matrimony were not about to compromise his desires.

  In later life, the king’s attitude towards women would change but his stubbornness and sense of entitlement would not. The big difference was that, before the mid-1520s, Henry was still hoping that Catherine would deliver a live son who would survive. As a result, nothing must be allowed to challenge his marriage or the status of the children born to his wife. The excessive secrecy, sometimes described as prudery, of his affairs, was partly the chivalric identity he had constructed and partly a conscious policy to separate short-term physical pleasure from what his marriage represented. This was not a simple case of love versus duty; Henry was still in love with Catherine in 1514. He was simply conforming to the standards of his times, just as his grandfather had done,
seeking the physical release which contemporary doctors advised, at a time when his wife was unavailable. In later years, the quest for a legitimate son meant that these amours moved into the public arena. Women who would previously have only been his mistress were considered for the role of wife, with the result that, from around 1527, his private life became public and is far better known.

  The weight of rumours, the comments made by those who knew Henry and the suggestive evidence all indicate that Henry did, in fact, enjoy a significant number of casual encounters and short-term sexual liaisons in these early ‘green’ years. In 1515, the French ambassador wrote that Henry cared ‘for nothing but girls and hunting’ and the king’s doctor, John Chambers, described him as ‘overly fond of women’ and frequently experiencing ‘lustful dreams’. William Thomas, writing shortly after Henry’s death, stated that ‘he was a very fleshly man … he fell into all riot and overmuch love of women’, while those hostile to Wolsey accused him of procuring women for the king, which is not implausible, given that he would organise arrangements for the arrival of Henry’s illegitimate son, as well as the christening, where he stood as godfather. In 1533, an anonymous writer in Rome stated that Henry’s forthcoming child would be weak ‘owning to [its] father’s complexion and habits of life’.7 Even considering the negative context in which some of these descriptions arose, they cannot all be dismissed as attempts to blacken the king’s character. The words of his own doctor must be considered persuasive.

  Then there is the account of Henry’s casual encounter with a ‘wench’ near Eltham. This story, lodged in the Privy Papers for September 1537, described the king installing an unknown woman, the lover of a William Webbe, in a property, in order to live with her in ‘avowrty’, or adultery.8 This was the only occasion when a slighted man ‘cried vengeance’ and openly accused Henry of adultery, but it was given no serious consideration and Webbe disappears from history soon after. It was a brave act, or perhaps a foolish one, and may be typical of other encounters where those involved felt unable to speak out. In the same year, another subject stated that ‘as for the king, an apple and a fair wench to dally withal would please him very well’.9 Henry certainly had the resources to keep his love life secret. The separation of the royal apartments into the king’s and queen’s suites, the use of country properties and those of the minions, coupled with Catherine’s retreat into confinement, would have facilitated discretion. In his youth, Henry went to considerable lengths, behind closed doors, to ensure that the heavily pregnant Catherine would not be upset again. The king was living a double life.

  19

  Labour and Loss, 1514–15

  It is most fair to men mortal to suffer labours and pain for glory and fame immortal.1

  If Henry had practised discretion to avoid upsetting Catherine with his amours, he may have been unable to conceal his annoyance when it came to the behaviour of her father. If certain accounts are to be believed, her ‘grief’ over the hostility directed towards Spain, and Spaniards in England, was directly responsible for her next loss. The queen’s pregnancy had progressed as expected but, in the winter of 1514, it resulted in the birth of a short-lived son, named Henry, like the child born three years earlier.

  Some confusion has arisen over the dating of this fourth loss, with various historians locating it as early as November 1514 and as late as February 1515, although a date in the earlier part of this timeframe looks most likely. This is confirmed by Wolsey’s letter to Louis XII on 15 November, stating that the queen ‘looks to lie in shortly’ and was pleased to hear that if she ‘bears a son, Louis will gladly be godfather’.2 Hall related that ‘in November the queen was delivered of a prince which lived not long after’.3 On 31 December, Peter Martyr wrote that ‘the Queen of England has given birth to a premature child’ and was in no doubt about the cause: ‘through grief, as it is said, for the misunderstanding between her father and husband. He reproached her with her father’s lack of faith.’4 There seems to be little ambiguity in this statement, which claims that Catherine miscarried through grief after being harshly treated by Henry, although Martyr was relying on gossip, as he was not on the scene to witness whether this actually took place or not.

  This confusion is complicated by a letter Catherine wrote to Ferdinand from Greenwich on 31 October 1515. In it, she describes how she gave birth to a child after Candlemas, which falls on 2 February. Assuming the translation and dating of this letter are correct, this discrepancy is difficult to explain, unless Catherine was again not being strictly accurate with her father. Ferdinand had been suffering from ill health, so it is possible that she was choosing the right time to impart the information. If she had miscarried late in December, it is too soon for her to have lost another child by early February, although it is not impossible that the Italian Peter Martyr, then resident in Spain, was the recipient of incorrect information. If she had miscarried in early November and conceived again almost immediately afterwards, it is just possible that this letter refers to a foetus which can only have been two months old. This seems barely long enough for her to have realised her condition given the imperfect diagnoses of the time, but it cannot be entirely ruled out.

  Pregnancy customs also suggest the child was lost in the winter of 1514 and not later. Catherine was recorded as being present at an entertainment and banquet held at Greenwich on Twelfth Night, 6 January 1515.5 As part of the festivities, a ‘fierce fight’ was conducted, to the sound of trumpets, when eight wildmen jumped out of a mock castle, ‘all apparelled in green moss … with ugly weapons and terrible visages’, and fought with knights. As it was widely believed that expectant mothers should avoid sudden shocks, loud noises and ugly scenes, which could imprint themselves on the character of the foetus and cause miscarriage, it does seem unlikely that such a display would have taken place before the queen if Catherine had still been pregnant at that point. At any rate, during the winter of 1514/15 Catherine lost her fourth child in five years. This cast into doubt her primary function as a queen: her ability to bear a healthy child.

  Catherine had proven that she could conceive. The problems lay in her ability to carry a child to term and with infant mortality. Clearly there was something wrong, but no one at the time understood what. It wasn’t unusual for women to lose children at birth or soon after, as Catherine knew from the experiences of her own family; modern estimates have given a sixteenth-century pregnancy a 50 per cent chance of success, followed by a 2–5 per cent risk of the newborn dying. Superstition laid the blame firmly at the feet of the woman, for failing to observe the proper rituals or having lewd or inappropriate thoughts or being physically deficient. In religious terms, such a pattern of losses would be interpreted as a divine comment on the nature of her marriage or on Catherine and Henry as individuals or rulers. Medical opinion of the day viewed pregnancy and delivery as an entirely female issue, with a man’s role ending after the moment of conception: there was no understanding of the way in which male genes could affect the development and survival of the foetus and cause premature death or miscarriage months after intercourse had taken place. There is one plausible medical explanation though, developed in recent years, that might have identified the root of the problem.

  According to research undertaken by medical anthropologist Kyra Kramer, it was all in the blood.6 Henry VIII may have had a Kell positive blood type, an unusual occurrence which would lead to complications if his wife was of the more widespread negative type. In such a case, a first pregnancy usually resulted in the birth of a live child but, following this, the mother would develop a reaction to subsequent Kell positive foetuses and attempt to expel them by miscarriage. Henry’s children Elizabeth, Edward and Henry Fitzroy were all their mothers’ eldest children, and while Catherine may have lost her first child in 1510 for other reasons, her son Henry, born in 1511, may have been Kell negative and died from some other infantile illness. Likewise, her only child to survive, Mary, is likely to have been Kell negative also. The theory gains
greater credence when compared with the gynaecological record of Henry’s sister Margaret Tudor, whose first marriage produced six pregnancies and only one surviving child. Henry’s Kell positive status may also have led him to develop McLeod syndrome later in life, causing the personality changes and mood swings some historians have identified as dominating his final years.

  Other theories offer syphilis and diabetes as answers for Henry’s reproductive difficulties. Syphilis can be ruled out conclusively, as it was easy to diagnose and Henry was never treated by any of the common methods, such as mercury powders and guaiacum wood from the Caribbean, which appear frequently in the accounts of other kings known to have the disease. Diabetes is a more viable possibility, as both kinds can affect the development of healthy sperm and the damage to blood vessels and the nervous system can result in erectile problems, although this would have been more of a problem for the king later in life.

  Interestingly, one late medieval poem offers a lone voice about the role of the father in the debate about fertility. Phrased as a dialogue, the questioner asks:

  Why may not young men also get

  Strong children as old men do?7

  The answer given is that young men’s seed is green, or underdeveloped, and the passage of it through their body was difficult:

  And the passage in the body

  When that the nature shall pass by

  Is too strait, therefore the kind [sperm]

  No kindly issue may it find.

  And if that they any children get

  They shall never be strong nor great

  For it falleth in every thing

  Feeble seed, feeble all the spring [offspring].8

  The poem also covers what Catherine’s contemporaries would have taken as an explanation of the loss of a full-term foetus. Firstly there was the ‘suffrance of God’s will’, but there were also a number of things a pregnant woman was blamed for having done, including ‘feeble nourishing’ and ‘the fellness of wicked nurture’, that which denied her child a chance to grow in the womb. Another reason given was the inability of some women to bear childbirth, being insufficiently strong and not able to ‘suffer the pain of childing’ in the correct manner. This would cause her to ‘stireth her and turneth about, so that the child falleth out’. Either way it was considered to be Catherine’s fault, through her inability to nurture an heir or bear the pain of birth, or as punishment for offence she had given to God.9