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

by Amy Licence

  21

  Begetting a Boy, 1515–16

  Hail, root, bringing forth stems of different colours from your shoot

  Along which one stands out, from whose top there gleams a scarlet rose

  Where peace and justice stand enclosed and harmonious.1

  As the autumn of 1515 passed and the New Year arrived, Catherine’s fifth pregnancy progressed according to expectation. This was certainly a comfort, although she had experienced few problems before with conception or the development of the child in her womb; time had proven that the critical period for her was the final couple of months. Awaiting her confinement, the devout queen would have prayed regularly and diligently, to God and the saints, in the hope that they would look favourably upon her through the coming ordeal. Catherine would have prayed to St Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth, and perhaps her own name saint, Catherine, but it was the Virgin Mary whose cult dominated pre-Reformation Europe, being the favourite intercessor of women hoping to become mothers, especially those who had experienced loss, as the saint had. No doubt she prayed to be delivered of a healthy child, and that that child was to be a boy.

  The determination of foetal gender was thought to depend on theories of the four humours, with warmth creating boys and coldness responsible for girls. By extension, it was believed that impurities cooled the blood, so purging and bleeding could rejuvenate its heat and, as a consequence, became popular treatments for women attempting to produce sons. China root, sassafras and sarsaparilla were also prescribed as blood cleansers. Catherine had proved herself able to conceive male children, although they had not survived, but the credit would have been given to the hot, dry seed of her husband. The right-hand side was also thought to be favourable, with the right testicle and right ovary cleansed by the right kidney before reaching the gonad. Thus, males were believed to be conceived when influenced by this bodily half.

  This translated into practical advice that involved keeping the right side warm, having sex lying on the side, or the woman rolling over immediately afterwards. It was also believed that the mixing of sides was undesirable: ‘If the semen which comes from the right side of the man falls in the left side of the womb, it produces a boy, but an effeminate one; whereas if the semen from the left side falls in the right, it makes a masculine girl.’2 It was suggested by one of Henry’s later physicians, Andrew Boorde, that the best time to conceive a child was between the first and second sleeps. This involved a common practice of the times, by which people woke during the night as a natural part of their body rhythms, and rolled over before returning to sleep on their other side. This would have involved an early morning visit to his wife’s chambers on the part of the king. He would have been accompanied through the dark corridors, past sleeping courtiers, to visit Catherine, before returning to his own bed. Protocol dictated that he awoke in the morning in his own rooms. One folklore suggestion for conception advocated a more direct method of intervention by strapping up the left testicle prior to the act. Catherine would have been no doubt that it was imperative that she bore a son. Perhaps she and Henry attempted to influence their child’s gender using one or more of these methods.

  Herbals offered a range of advice on the generation of sperm. The ideal aphrodisiac was considered to be any food that was warm, nutritious, moist and created windiness. Pepper, mustard seed, ginger and anise were used, as well as orchids for their supposed phallic resemblance. One broth recommended in a medieval text included nineteen birds’ tongues. The genitals of male animals were eaten or dried and used as talismen as they were thought to pass on their qualities of hot, dry masculinity, with the penises of oxen and stags featuring in such recipes.3 Henry was interested in medicine from an early age and kept a range of doctors, barbers, surgeons and other medical professionals such as astronomers and astrologers at his court. Comments made by his doctors later in his life showed that he was in the habit of confiding intimate details to them, so it would seem likely that he sought advice over conception and perhaps even gender, after so many failures.

  Since 1509, Henry had employed Thomas Linacre, an Italian-born doctor who had previously served Prince Arthur and Princess Mary, as his court physician, on a salary of £50 a year. Linacre encouraged Henry to pass the Medical Act of 1512, to help curb the trade in quack medicines, and to establish the Royal College of Surgeons in 1518. At various times he also retained the services of John Chambre, who replaced Linacre on his death in 1524, William Butts, George Owen, Walter Cromar, Augustine de Angustinius, Edward Wootton, Ferdinand de Victoria, Dr Wendy and others. On hand to treat the king whatever his ailment, or just for the general benefit of his health, they prescribed over 230 different remedies for him, including creams, lotions, balms, potions, plasters and enemas, made mostly from herbal sources. It appears that Henry himself contributed his own remedies, as he was a keen amateur apothecary, mixing up roses, pomegranate, bark and nightshade to balance the humours and wine, ginger and violet for a pain-relieving enema.4 Henry also employed a number of separate surgeons, with John Veyrier being his ‘chief surgeon of the body and to the heirs of his body’ from 1509 to 1516. Marcellus de la More was his surgeon on the field of battle, accompanying him to campaign in France in 1513 and receiving a lifetime annuity in 1516.5 His apothecary, whom he kept busy dispensing the necessary medicines between 1509 and 1527, was Richard Brabham.6

  That summer relations between England and Spain became a little friendlier, with Wolsey negotiating a treaty that would bury previous injuries in ‘oblivion’ and bind the two countries to defend each other. It was concluded on 19 October, and the following day Henry wrote from Greenwich to thank his father-in-law for the ‘splendid presents and jewellery’ that Ferdinand had sent to help smooth the deal. According to Catherine, these were a sword, horses in ornate trappings and a jewelled collar. In a very warm response, Henry wrote that ‘great as the value of the presents is, he values them principally because they show his [King Ferdinand’s] love and benevolence towards him. No one could send such presents who is not animated by the most sincere and tender love towards him.’ He saw ‘how much [Ferdinand] values and esteems him’ and loved him ‘as much and as sincerely as he ever did before, and even more’. He had ‘forgotten all the disagreeable things which have passed between them’ and begged ‘to be allowed to regard him as a brother or as a son, often [looking] at the presents, and every time he sees them, his [King Ferdinand’s] image is recalled to his mind’s eye’.7 Anti-Spanish feeling had been running high over the previous years, but with their antagonism set aside Catherine could feel more secure in her position and the reputation of her country at her husband’s court. Now, as the laces of her dresses were loosened, she could turn her attention to the coming birth.

  Henry and Catherine kept Christmas 1515 at Eltham Palace, watching a performance of Troilus and Pandarus, followed by a feast of two hundred dishes, which required the building of temporary kitchens. As a touching gesture of favour, Henry also wore his wife’s pomegranate badge while tilting at the ring in the New Year festivities. The queen was aware that her time was approaching; she had planned to lie in at Greenwich and a suite of rooms was prepared for her in her absence that festive season, ready for her formal confinement at the end of January. Around this time Catherine employed a new doctor, Peter Vernando, to whom she awarded an annual salary of £66 13s 4d, before she entered the confinement that would necessitate her leaving the men locked out of the room and relying upon the knowledge and support of her women. Many of them had already been through this process with her several times before.

  That January, news arrived at court of the difficult birth experienced by Henry’s sister Margaret in Scotland. Having delivered a daughter the previous October, she was still suffering significant sciatic pain in her right leg, with ‘no appearance of improvement, in spite of all the doctor can do’. Margaret had two physicians but was anxious for Henry to send her one of his, in the belief that ‘if the pain were abated, she would soon be p
ast all danger, and strong enough to stir. There seems to be no danger to life; nevertheless it would be advisable to send a physician immediately.’ In the meantime, she was able to eat little more than broth, almond milk, pottage and boiled or roast meat with jelly, but her appetite had been ‘destroyed’.8 This information was probably kept from Catherine so that it did not cause her to worry unduly about her own forthcoming confinement, but there was even more distressing news that was kept from the queen ‘on account of the expected delivery’.9 On 23 January, Ferdinand of Aragon had died in the village of Madrigalejo after falling ill on the way to Andalusia.

  Henry was back at Greenwich by the end of the month, which suggests that Catherine was expected to give birth around that time. On 13 February, he was negotiating a treaty of friendship with Ferdinand’s heir, Catherine’s nephew Charles, who was now King of Castile. The queen went into labour shortly after this, and bore a healthy child on 18 February, at four o’clock in the morning. A reward Henry paid to her Spanish doctor, Dr Victoria, suggests he was present and assisted at the birth. It was unusual for a man to be present, but this breach of protocol may have been due to Catherine’s previous experiences of losing children shortly after delivery. It was not the son they had hoped for, but a daughter, whom they named Mary. Henry’s hopeful response was that he and Catherine were both young and that ‘if it was a daughter this time, by the grace of God, the sons will follow’.10 A son was to follow, but Catherine would not be his mother.

  22

  The Quiet Queen, 1516–18

  And though a Prince

  And a King’s son he be

  It pleaseth him of his benignity

  To suffer gentlemen of low degree

  In his presence1

  Catherine appeared less and less in public. Through his years as Venetian ambassador, between 1515 and 1519, Sebastiano Guistiniani saw her ‘but seldom’, either in court events or in private. With her daughter’s nursery to oversee, her own religious devotion and the loss of her father, Catherine spent more and more time in her private apartments, still with the increasingly slender hope that she would conceive and bear Henry a son. Among those keeping Catherine company while she sat and sewed her husband’s shirts was her old friend Margaret Plantagenet, Lady Pole, along with the mothers of two of Henry’s future wives, Elizabeth Boleyn and Maud Green, Lady Parr. Among her ladies of the bedchamber, serving her on a more intimate basis, had been one of her original Spanish entourage, Agnes de Venegas, now Lady Mountjoy, but after her death in 1514 Mountjoy had remarried. His new wife was Alice Kebell, who served Catherine along with Anne Bourchier, Lady Dacre; Elizabeth, Lady Scrope; Margaret, Lady Bergavenny; Anne, Lady Percy; Elizabeth, Lady Maltravers; and Lady Ferrers. Of these women whose birth dates are known, with one exception, the majority were in their late thirties and early forties. Perhaps this was a deliberate policy, as their role was more confidential and personal than those chosen to dance in court entertainments. Sometimes the older ladies at court participated in revels, but increasingly these were the preserve of their daughters’ generation, with the young Lady Guildford, Elizabeth Carew, Anne Carew, Mary Fiennes Mabel Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth Grey and Elizabeth Dannett taking the key roles.

  Catherine’s role as Henry’s wife was also changing. She had always wanted to be a mother and her devotion to her young daughter and her upbringing gave her a focus outside the marriage. Also, her father’s death had ended her position as the intermediary between Henry and Ferdinand. Spain was now being ruled by her nephew Charles, son of Joanna, and although Catherine would always be his advocate, it was no replacement for the position of trust she had occupied as her father’s informal ambassador. As Henry’s wife, she had also been his counsellor and advisor, discussing events of national and international policy and acting on the king’s behalf. Nowhere had this been clearer than during the aftermath of the disastrous 1512 campaign and her role as regent the following year. Now, Cardinal Wolsey’s rapid rise and efficient capability meant that Henry increasingly leaned on the older man for advice and that Wolsey took over more of the diplomatic business that the queen had once undertaken. In many ways this allowed her more time to devote to her daughter, but it marked a change in her relationship with Henry and in her role.

  The palaces that Catherine most regularly occupied during these years were Greenwich and Eltham, followed by Windsor and Richmond. A fire in the privy chambers at Westminster in 1512 had destroyed the ancient seat of government, which was only slowly rebuilt, and shifted the focus of the court elsewhere. At Eltham, Henry’s childhood home, the king undertook significant building work, extending Catherine’s suite of rooms in the west range and building a new chapel. In the coming years, her presence chamber, where she sat in state, was enlarged towards the north, along with her private withdrawing room. Greenwich was undoubtedly a favourite retreat, a reminder of the happier days Catherine and Henry had spent after their wedding. One public occasion at which Catherine played a key role was the festivities at Greenwich in May 1516 to honour the visit of Henry’s elder sister, Margaret Tudor. Two days of jousts were held ‘in the presence of the three queens’, Catherine, Margaret and Mary Tudor, after which Catherine hosted a banquet in her chambers. Margaret stayed at the English court through that year and must have been a welcome companion for the queen, being a similar age and having experienced a comparable record of losses in childbirth. She passed Christmas with the royal couple at Greenwich, watching a pageant called Esperance, or Hope, in the great hall, where an artificial garden was filled with roses and pomegranates made of silk and where six knights and ladies danced, followed by a banquet.

  It possible that Catherine withdrew more from public life so as not to witness the relationship developing between Henry and Bessie Blount. In her apartments, she could oversee the conduct of her gentlewomen and close the door literally and symbolically on whatever was happening elsewhere in the palace. Sometimes Henry would bring dances and masques into her presence in her honour, and she would venture out with her women to participate in feast days and full-scale court entertainments, but the chronicles show she was not always present, keeping to her rooms. However, this latest amour was more serious. If the king had previously taken lovers for entertainment, or indulged in flirtations with Catherine’s women, he now appeared to have fallen in love.

  Although it is not clear exactly how long Henry’s relationship with Bessie lasted, one later source was of the belief that it had been an affair of significant duration. Lord Herbert of Cherbury wrote of the ‘chains of love’ that bound Henry to Bessie, ‘which damsel in singing, dancing and in all goodly pastimes, exceeded all other, by the which goodly pastimes, she won the king’s heart’.2 He goes on to state that she bore him a son ‘at last’, which suggests more than a single encounter. Henry’s desire to father another child with Catherine would not exclude him from bestowing his affections and attention elsewhere. As one historian has suggested, the birth of Princess Mary was an incentive for Henry to remain faithful to his queen, but faithfulness was not the guarantee of a successful conception. Rather, to the Tudor mind, the regular engagement in intercourse and the relief of bodily fluids, would be more successful in terms of gynaecological health, especially during periods when Catherine was unavailable. Henry may well have still loved Catherine and been sharing her bed, but it is a misleading modern sentiment that this required him to abstain elsewhere. Especially as the months of 1516 and 1517 passed without Catherine conceiving, Henry himself would have seen no incompatibility between pursuing Bessie and impregnating his queen in order to beget a legitimate heir. The irony of this was that Henry’s male child was conceived by his lover, not his wife.

  Outside Catherine’s household, the world had a turbulent feel. Although Henry had made his peace with Ferdinand before his death, the mood of hostility towards foreigners in London had not diminished but escalated. In late April, a speech at St Paul’s Cross called on English men to defend themselves against the wealthy merchant
s and bankers, mostly Italian, who made their homes in and around Lombard Street. Some disturbances followed, which led to the imposition of a curfew. On May Day 1517, known as ‘Evil May Day’, gangs of apprentices defied the ruling and ran amok through the streets, causing damage to property and engaging in looting. Henry and Catherine were at Richmond, removed from the scene, but by quickly dispatching his troops the king regained control of the capital. Most of the hundreds of rioters were released without charge, but a sizeable number were brought before Henry at Westminster Hall, shackled together under the threat of execution. Among them were eleven women. Whether Henry had planned to send them to their deaths, or whether it was a carefully planned scene, it fell to Catherine to plead for their lives, on bended knee before her husband. ‘With tears in her eyes’, she asked for the people to be pardoned and was described by the papal nuncio who witnessed the scene as ‘our most serene and compassionate queen’. The king was magnanimous and Catherine had played a significant conciliatory role in the eyes of her subjects.