Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

  Henry himself was aware that his end could not be far off, and he now made plans for the inevitable regency that would follow his death, since his heir was only nine years old. He was determined to exclude all foreign influence from the regency Council, retaining to the end his mistrust of aliens. At the same time, he was perceptive enough to realise that the general trend was towards a radical reform of the Church, and he showed himself inclined to favour those lords who supported it. As for the Prince, there was little doubt in anyone's mind that he would come to embrace the Protestant faith, and Henry wisely accepted that there was little he could do to stem the tide in this respect. Perhaps some of Katherine's arguments had taken root in his mind. He may well have sensed that his own era was dying and with it the last vestiges of medievalism: a new age was dawning, and it was his duty to lay a solid foundation for it.

  But he was not dead yet; there still remained some life in that diseased body. The King's thoughts turned to his son, who had always been the chief delight in his life; now he sent the boy some presents, chains, rings, jewelled buttons, and other valuables, which prompted a stiff little note of thanks from the child.

  You grant me all these [wrote Edward], not that I should be proud and think too much of myself, but that you might urge me to the pursuit of all true virtues and piety, and adorn and furnish me with all the accomplishments which are fitting a Prince.

  December arrived. Despite the King's illness, a plot to get rid of the Queen and replace her with the King's daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Richmond (daughter of the impeccably Catholic Duke of Norfolk) was uncovered. It seems to have originated with her brother, the Earl of Surrey, who had instructed her on how to win the King's favour, 'that she might rule as others had done'. On being questioned, the Duchess managed to incriminate not only her brother but also her father the Duke. On 12 December, both men were arrested on a charge of high treason and taken to the Tower. The King was in no mood to listen to pleas for mercy; since the fall of Katherine Howard he had distrusted Norfolk, and welcomed this opportunity to rid himself of him: he had suffered enough at the hands of the Howards. They could stew in the Tower until after Christmas, then he would deal with them as they deserved.

  On Christmas Eve, Henry prorogued Parliament for the last time, and harangued both Houses on their attitude to religion:

  Charity and concord is not amongst you, but discord and dissension beareth rule in every place. I am very sorry to hear how unreverently that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every ale-house and tavern. And yet I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it so faintly and so coldly!

  Sir John Mason said afterwards that the King had spoken 'so kingly, so rather fatherly, that many of his hearers were overcome and shed tears'. It was obvious to everyone present that this would be the King's last public speech. A Greek visitor to England in the train of the Spanish ambassador reported that the English were 'wonderfully well affected' towards their monarch; they would hear nothing disrespectful about him, and the most binding oaths were sworn on his life. He was already a legend in his own lifetime.

  The court was closed to all but the Privy Council and some gentlemen of the privy chamber that Christmas, a sure indication that the King was now in a critical condition. The Queen and the Lady Mary were the only members of his family in attendance. Two days after Christmas the Spanish ambassador told the Emperor that Henry's physicians were despairing of doing anything to help their royal patient, who was 'in great danger' and 'very ill'. His leg was agony, and he was running a high temperature. Reports that he had died already were circulating in the capital.

  On 30 December, Henry dictated his will. He left his kingdom and his crown to Prince Edward, and after him to any posthumous heirs that 'our entirely beloved wife Queen Katherine' might bear him. Failing those, the succession should pass to the Lady Mary and her heirs, then to the Lady Elizabeth and hers, and finally to the heirs of the King's late sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk. His antagonism towards the Scots had ensured that he pass over the heirs of his elder sister Margaret Tudor. The King was adamant: Mary of Scotland should never rule England unless it was as Edward's consort.

  With the succession provided for, Henry now made provision for his widow. As token of his appreciation of 'the great love, obedience, chastity of life and wisdom being in our wife and Queen', he bequeathed to her 3,000 in plate, jewels and household goods for the term of her life. She could also help herself to as many of the King's clothes as she pleased, and they were worth a considerable sum. She would, in addition, receive 1,000 in cash and her dower and jointure, as decided by Parliament. Katherine would find herself a very rich widow indeed when the time came.

  Henry then expressed his desire to be buried beside the body of 'our true and loving wife, Queen Jane' in the choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor, and left instructions for the raising of an 'honourable tomb' which would be surmounted by effigies of Henry and Jane, fashioned 'as if sweetly sleeping'.

  He rallied a little after making his will, and was well enough to leave Greenwich and travel with the Queen to London on 3 January 1547. When they were settled in Whitehall Palace, Katherine did her best to carry on as normally as possible, and tried to counteract rumours that the King was dead or dying. At New Year, she had sent her stepson portraits of Henry and herself, and on 10 january he wrote to thank her, addressing the letter to his most 'illustrious Queen and dearest mother'. He had no idea that his father was so ill, and the King and Queen were anxious to spare him the heavy knowledge that the burden of kingship would soon be his.

  On 7 January 1547, an Act of Attainder against Norfolk and Surrey was passed by Parliament. Surrey was tried at the Guildhall six days later, and condemned to death. He was executed on 19 January on Tower Hill, his being the last blood to be shed on the scaffold in Henry VIH's reign. Norfolk remained in the Tower, his fate hanging in the balance, while the King fought his last struggle with mortality. On 23 January, he announced the names of those men he had appointed to serve on the regency Council: Hertford was to be Lord Protector during Edward's minority, assisted by Cranmer, John Dudley, now Lord Lisle, Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, and others including the Queen's brother, the Earl of Essex, all of whom were known to be favourable to the cause of reform. When, however, someone suggested that Sir Thomas Seymour be one of their number, Henry cried out, 'No! No!', even though his breath was failing him. He knew Sir Thomas to be a self-seeker and a scoundrel, seeing clearly through the easy charm that so deceived others, and, of course, he had other, more personal reasons for resenting the man.

  What killed Henry VIII was probably a clot detaching itself from the thrombosed vein in his leg, and causing a pulmonary embolism. On 26 January, he realised he was failing fast, and summoned his wife to his bedside. Then (according to William Thomas, who wroteThe Pilgrim: A Dialogue on the Life and Actions of King Henry the Eighththat same month) he thanked God that, 'amongst all the happy successes of his reign' and 'after so many changes, his glorious chance hath brought him to die in the arms of so faithful a spouse'. Katherine was understandably overcome with emotion, for she had become attached to this complex man who was her husband, and whom she had so unwillingly married. In spite of his appalling matrimonial history, he had on the whole been very kind and generous to her, and she had no reason to doubt the sincerity of his affection for her. Now it was time to say farewell, and she began to weep. Henry spoke gently to her, saying, 'It is God's will that we should part,' then he gestured in the direction of the lords of the Council who were waiting near his bed and said:

  I order all these gentlemen to treat you as if I were living still, and if it should be your pleasure to marry again, I order that you shall have 7,000 for your service as long as you live, and all your jewels and ornaments.

  At this, Katherine broke down completely, and could not answer. Henry ordered her outofthe room, not wishing to witness or prolong her distress.

  On the follow
ing morning, the King saw his confessor, received Holy Communion, and commended his soul to God. He saw his daughter Mary and made her promise to be a kind and loving mother to her brother, whom he would leave as 'a little helpless child'. Mary, in floods of tears, begged him not to leave her an orphan so soon, but the King said farewell and dismissed her. On that same day, a warrant was drawn up for the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, but Henry was still incapable of signing it. Norfolk would, as a result, languish for six years in the Tower, before being released to serve yet another Tudor sovereign.

  Old rivalries died hard. The King sent a message to Francis I, rumoured to be dying of syphilis - he died a month later - bidding him remember that he too was mortal. Yet Henry himself was loath to hear any mention of death, and as it was high treason to mention the death of the King, those about him were reluctant to advise him to prepare his soul for its last journey. At length, Sir Anthony Denny, one of the King's most trusted advisers, ventured to tell him that 'in man's judgement, he was not like to live', and urged him to make ready his soul for death: 'All human aid was now vain, and it was meet for him to review his past life and seek for God's mercy through Christ.' The King listened meekly, then replied, 'After the judges have passed sentence on a criminal, there is no more need to trouble him. Therefore begone.' At this, the physicians withdrew from the room. Henry spoke again: 'The mercy of Christ could pardon all my sins, though they were greater than they be.' His advisers and attendants said they doubted that so great a man could have any sins on his conscience, but Henry shook his head feebly. He refused Sir Anthony Denny's offer to send for someone to hear his final confession and administer extreme unction, saying he would have 'only Cranmer, but he not yet'. Presently, he dozed off.

  Shortly after midnight, the King woke and asked for his Archbishop, and a messenger was dispatched to Lambeth. Meanwhile Henry grew weaker, before heaving a sigh and whispering, 'All is lost.' But then, just in time, Cranmer arrived. Henry was now beyond speech, and the Archbishop, speaking gently, 'desired him to give him some token that he put his trust in God, through Jesus Christ'. The King's hand lay in his, and Cranmer felt him wring it hard, proof that his master 'trusted in the Lord'.

  The minutes ticked by as everyone in the room silently knelt in prayer. At two o'clock in the morning, on 28 January 1547, King Henry VIII 'yielded his spirit to Almighty God and departed this world'. He was fifty-five.

  It was the end of an era. England was now to be ruled by King Edward VI, a child of nine, although few as yet knew it. The old King's death was not announced for three days, although Queen Katherine, now Queen Dowager, was told of it immediately. She seems to have gone into seclusion for a while to mourn her husband, for there is no mention of her activities at this time in contemporary sources, nor did she attend the King's funeral, but that was for reasons of etiquette - women did not attend the funerals of kings. The new King was at Hertford Castle when his uncle, the Lord Protector, arrived on 30 January to take him to Enfield, where he found his sister Elizabeth waiting for him. The two children were then informed of their father's death, at which news they wept bitterly and could not be consoled. However, when Edward had calmed down, Hertford paid homage to him as his new sovereign lord, the other lords of the Council following suit. Then the little boy was brought to London, where, on 31 January, he was proclaimed king, while the Lord Chancellor, with tears in his eyes, informed both Houses of Parliament of the death of Henry VIII. Early in February, the Lord Protector ordered the Council to send a messenger to Anne of Cleves to break the news to her.

  On 14 February, the body of the late King began its last journey, conveyed in a coffin on a rich chariot covered with a pall of cloth of gold. Resting on the coffin was a wax effigy of the King dressed in velvet adorned with precious stones. The cortege was escorted by the lords of the Council, followed by a contingent of the King's guard. Behind the hearse trotted the King's riderless charger. Banners were carried aloft in the procession, but only two of the King's six wives were represented: Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr. Henry had not considered his other marriages worthy of commemoration.

  That night, the King's body rested in the ruined chapel of Syon Abbey. There the lead coffin, weakened by the motion of the carriage, burst open, and liquid matter from the body seeped on to the church pavement. A dog was with the plumbers who came the next morning to repair the coffin, and it was seen to lick up the blood from the floor, just as Friar Peto had predicted back in 1532: that if the King cast off Katherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn, he should be as Ahab, and the dogs would lick his blood. Those who were witnesses to this macabre scene were understandably shaken by it, for the prophecy was well known and it was a superstitious age.

  Two days later, Henry VIII's coffin was carried into St George's Chapel, Windsor, where a vast concourse of black-clad mourners awaited it. There in the choir lay the open vault containing the coffin of Queen Jane. Her husband's body was laid beside her amid 'heavy and dolorous lamentation'. Gardiner preached the funeral sermon, taking as his text 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord'; he spoke at length on the 'loss which both high and low have sustained in the death of so good and gracious a King'. As Sir Anthony Browne said afterwards, 'there was no need to pray for him, since he was surely in Heaven.'

  At the end of the service, the officers of the late King's household broke their staves over their heads and cast them after the coffin into the vault 'with exceeding sorrow and heaviness, and not without grievous sighs or tears'. Thus did they signify the termination of their allegiance and service. Then the herald cried,'Le roi est mort!Vive le roi!'

  Far away, the young King shed bitter tears. 'This, however, consoles us,' he wrote, 'that he is now in Heaven, and that he hath gone out of this miserable world into happy and everlasting blessedness.'

  It would be true to say that Henry's contemporaries saw him as something more than human. One called him 'the greatest man in the world', another 'the rarest man that lived in his time'. He certainly possessed exceptional qualities of leadership and a charismatic personality. No king of England has enjoyed such posthumous publicity as he, and no king before him or after him ever held such absolute power, nor commanded such respect and obedience. This is the measure of the man.

  In his capacity as a husband Henry's worst failings were glaringly obvious. The deepest, most abiding passion in his life was for Anne Boleyn, yet it was a destructive one, souring with the familiarity of marriage and leaving the King embittered. Her death was contrived for political reasons rather than emotional ones, and Henry did not scruple to get rid of her for the sake of expediency. It is possible to feel sympathy for him after his discovery of Katherine Howard's promiscuity, yet we must remember that his sorrow did not prevent him from executing an ignorant seventeen-year-old girl as a traitor. His marriages to Katherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves were both annulled, and Katherine was treated with appalling cruelty.

  The guiding motive behind his treatment, or ill-treatment, of these four of his wives was the King's very real need for a male heir, something that was always at the forefront of his mind. It should be remembered, in his favour, that Katherine Parr showed a very genuine grief at his death, and that - apart from one occasion, when it appears that Henry kept an open mind about Katherine's activities until proof was available - they were extremely contented together, as their letters prove. Nor did Jane Seymour find Henry less than a loving, if overbearing, husband. What turned the King into the ruthless tyrant of latter years was to some extent Katherine of Aragon's stubbornness and Anne Boleyn's ambition. Taking into account the ever-present problem of the succession, it is impossible to dismiss Henry VIII as the cruel lecher of popular legend who changed wives whenever it pleased him.

  His subjects certainly did not view him in that light. He never lost their affection, even during his worst excesses, nor did he ever cease to exercise that charm and common touch that came so easily to his dynasty. Out of the ruins of his marriages and the monasteri
es, he founded a new church and corrected abuses within it, a policy which certainly found favour with the English in the long run. Although he was a Catholic to the last and rigorous in stamping out heresy, he had the foresight to realise that religious developments in England would lead eventually to a Protestant state - there is proof of this in his choice of the men who were to sit on the regency Council. When he died, he was regarded by his subjects as 'King, Emperor and Pope in his own dominions' and as the 'father and nurse' of his people. For all his faults, he would be remembered with love by them.

  17

  Under the planets at Chelsea

  Katherine Parr was not given a place on the regency Council by Henry VIII. He had foreseen that, being a very rich, attractive, royal widow, the chances were that she would marry again within a short while, and that the advent of a new husband upon the scene might well create discord, especially if- as Henry suspected - he was called Thomas Seymour. Added to this, she was a woman, and Henry had never approved of female rulers. Indeed, Katherine had never sought power, and she had very little to complain about. She was well provided for and, at nearly thirty-five, free to order her life as she pleased. If she remarried, she could now choose for herself, and there was, perhaps, still the possibility of her having children of her own, something she had always desired.

  The only thing that pained her was that the Council quickly made it very clear that the young King was under its exclusive control; this meant that Edward was not allowed to see either his stepmother or his stepsisters, his guardians being jealous of any outside influences upon him. The boy missed their company, and consoled himself by corresponding with them, yet he was upset when he learned in early February that the Queen Dowager was planning to leave the court and retire to the Old Manor at Chelsea, one of his father's properties. 'Farewell, venerated Queen,' he wrote, knowing he would rarely see his stepmother in the future.