All language subtitles for Henry VIII & His Six Wives Documentary - 2024 - HD 1920x1080p

The Man known to history as King Henry

VII of England was born on the 28th of

June

1491 at Greenwich Palace just outside of

London his father was King Henry iith

the first Monarch of the House of Tuda

King of England and Lord of Ireland he

reigned from 1485 when he seized the

Throne of England at the end of the wars

of the Roses to his death in

1509 when he was succeeded by his second

son and namesake Henry Henry the8's

mother was Elizabeth of York the

daughter of king Edward IV who had ruled

England for most of the period between

1461 and

1483 as a yorkist princess her marriage

to Henry iith allowed reconciliation and

healing between the two great houses of

York and Lancaster after years of Civil

War she bore her husband seven children

before Henry was born a boy and a girl

named Arthur and Margaret had appeared

in 1486 and

1489 three daughters and another son

would follow after Henry though of these

only Mary born in

1496 would live long Elizabeth Edmund

and Catherine all died in infancy or for

their Early Childhood

years as the Second Son of his parents

Henry was never expected to be King

instead that Duty would fall to his

older brother Arthur the Prince of Wales

Henry consequently grew up as the Royal

spare rather than the heir he had

several tutors at the palace at Elum

where he was raised who taught him

grammar rhetoric history philosophy

logic arithmetic and languages including

French Spanish Italian Latin and Greek

Henry showed an equal facility for both

Athletics and music he was said to have

composed music of his own at various

times throughout his life and although

it is difficult to remember when

considering the obese individual with a

debilitating leg ulcer which he became

in later Life as a Young Man he was an

athletic individual the poet John

Skelton educated Henry in his moral

duties while he also developed a fairly

Pious Roman Catholicism his mother

Elizabeth taught him to write from an

early age something evinced by the

similarities in their handwriting styles

by the time he learned to write he

already held several major titles

including those of Duke of York Lord

lieutenant of Ireland Earl Marshall of

England and Warden of the Scottish

marshes he might not have been the heir

but Henry iith certainly honored his

youngest son with many

titles Henry was the subject of

exceptional admiration as a boy as some

of the most celebrated intellectuals in

both England and Europe including Sir

Thomas Moore the famed author of utopia

and the Dutch philosopher desiderius

arasmus the most celebrated scholar of

Northern Europe in the early 16th

century marveled publicly at his

intelligence and Charisma more wrote

about Henry in his poetry calling him a

savior and a new Messiah though Royal

flattery was a common place of the early

modern period both Moore and arasmus met

Henry as a Young Man in 1499 at Elum

Palace other than this Henry spent a

largely happy childhood surrounded by

his mother sisters and paternal

grandmother all of whom openly adored

him indeed some historians have

speculated that it was Henry's childhood

spent in the center of a circle of

adoring women which made him both an

individual who veered towards passionate

romance but one who was also possessed

of a severe petulance when he did not

get his

way on the 2nd of April 1502 Henry's

older brother Arthur died possibly of

tuberculosis or of the mysterious

sweating sickness a disease which

historians have speculated was either a

strain of influenza or a hunter virus of

some kind the death of the heir was in

many ways the defining moment in Henry's

life

it was absolutely vital that a smooth

succession occurred when Henry iith Died

he had claimed the throne after

defeating the yorkist usurper King

Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth

field in

1485 not long before this Richard had

seized the throne by imprisoning his

nephews and in all likelihood having

them murdered in the Tower of London

this brutal act on Richard's part had

ensured that many people in England were

happy to support Henry Tudor's cause in

1485 yet there also is no doubt that the

House of Tudor had a very tenuous claim

to the throne of England being descended

through a line of the great 14th century

King of England Edward III one which was

widely considered to be illegitimate as

it stemmed from Edward's son John of G's

marriage to Catherine in swinford and

the children born out of wedlock from

that marriage moreover the tutors were

also largely a Welsh family not

something which blocked their path to

the throne legally but hardly something

which the ancient Noble houses of

England would have viewed well

unsurprisingly there have been numerous

revolts against the tuders in the late

1480s and into the 1490s as Henry was

growing up for Henry iith it was all too

clear that a new rival for the throne

could emerge at any time and so it was

vitally important that a smooth

transition of power occurred when he

himself died thus the death of Arthur in

1502 was a major blow the succession now

rested on young Henry's shoulders this

concern for having a male Heir and

ensuring a smooth succession would hang

like a shadow over Henry's entire

life Henry iith now took the education

in Hand of his 10-year-old son who was

quickly anointed as the Prince of Wales

this was the beginning of a battle

between Father and Son as while Arthur

was still alive Henry had been somewhat

ignored by the king but now that Arthur

was dead and Henry was the prince of

Wales the DAR and forbidding Henry iith

became heavily involved in his son's

daily life this soon resulted in many a

tussle of Wills between the Two Chief

amongst which was a disagreement over

Henry's passion for jousting and other

martial Sports things which Henry iith

understandably prohibited him from

engaging in now that they could endanger

the life of the Future King young Henry

was IM ared at being restricted to

competing in unarmed training exercises

only whilst his friends were able to

both exhibit their skills and defend

their manly honor in the Jou on top of

this over the next few years Father and

Son drifted apart as Henry iith became

an increasingly unpopular ruler on

account of his financial policies and

his employment of a close cter of

secretive advisers who alienated much of

the political Nation from the King while

Prince Henry was looked towards as the

young king in Waiting who held out

promise of a brighter future while Henry

VII's prudent government might have

earned him the resentment of his

subjects he would ultimately put the

English State on a sound financial

footing and bequeath a large Surplus to

his son one

day another major feature of the years

after Arthur's death concerned his widow

and the issue of Henry marrying in 1501

before his untimely demise Arthur had

married Katherine of aragan the daughter

of King Ferdinand II of aragan and Queen

Isabella I of Castile whose own Union

had United the two major kingdoms of

Spain the marriage of Arthur and

Catherine had been designed to Foster an

alliance between England and Spain

Arthur's death seemed to Scupper this

though almost immediately thereafter

Henry iith had begun corresponding with

Katherine's parents in Spain about the

possibility of Katherine now marrying

Prince Henry the negotiations wound on

interminably through the 1500s or

throughout which time Catherine remained

in England the issues around it

concerned Catherine's dar or marriage

portion that would be paid to the

English crown by her parents and also

whether or not Catherine and Arthur had

consumated their marriage if they had

Henry could not marry Catherine

according to canon law the deliberations

about the proposed marriage were still

ongoing 7 years later when Henry iith

died on the 21st of April

1509 when when his father died the

Prince of Wales was immediately

proclaimed as King Henry VII of England

an atmosphere of Hope and joy prevailed

amongst the Nobles courtiers Gentry and

commoners alike throughout England and

many predicted the beginning of a golden

age for England as the tall athletic and

handsome Henry with his intelligence

charm and humor ascended the throne at

17 years of age he would soon be married

only 3 weeks after his father's death on

the 11th of June

1509 Henry married Catherine in a brief

private ceremony at the church of the

observant Friars just outside of

Greenwich Palace she was 6 years older

than Henry and there were lingering

issues about the validity of the

marriage in canon law but a Papal

dispensation was granted to allow it to

proceed despite how contentious it would

become in later years Henry and

Katherine's marriage was a happy one

initially he truly respected her

probably more so than any of his other

wives for her part Catherine was a

devoted wife even long after Henry had

ceased wanting her to

be two weeks after the royal wedding on

the 24th of June

1509 Henry and Catherine were crowned

king and queen of England in Westminster

Abbey the procession route from the

Palace of Westminster to The Abbey was

decorated with cloth of gold and

exquisite tapestries and both Henry and

Catherine were resplendent Henry in a

jewel decorated cloth of gold coat with

a red velvet ER trimmed robe and

Catherine dressed in a rich mantle of

cloth of tissue with a silk ciret of

golden pear on her head her long Orban

hair Unbound the Archbishop of

Canterbury William waram anointed the

royal couple with holy oil and crowned

them both to cries of thivat viat Rex or

long live the king it was the last time

that a joint coronation of a king and

queen would take place in England for

nearly two Centuries with most of the

six monarchs that followed being

unmarried at the time of their

coronation after the initial ceremony

two days of feasting and armed

tournaments followed including the

jousting Tes which Henry's father had so

disapproved

of the first years of Henry's Reign were

good ones the court was purposefully

modeled after those of the warrior Kings

of the medieval period and Henry and his

courtiers enjoyed both watching and and

participating in the frequent rounds of

jousts and tournaments unlike his father

the new monarch spent extravagantly on

clothing jewels and fine furnishings

while the richest Foods were served

daily often with as many as seven

courses served at meal times there also

seem to be good news immediately for

securing the line of succession with

Catherine visibly pregnant by the winter

of 1509

it was however the beginning of a

turbulent natal history at the very end

of January 1510 Catherine miscarried she

was carrying a baby girl one year later

in January 1511 Catherine gave birth to

a son Prince Henry who tragically only

survived for seven weeks before passing

away the cause of his death is unclear

to further children came and went in the

Autumn of 1513 and the early winter of

1514 both sons both being either still

births or children who died within hours

or days of their birth the information

is not entirely

clear Henry's famous reputation as a

tyrant might lead some to believe that

Catherine's initial failure to produce

an air for England may have been a point

of contention between the queen and her

husband in fact Henry and Katherine's

marriage continued in a seemingly warm

and supportive state for several years

Henry appears to have been both patient

and understanding with Catherine's

struggle to give him an heir there are

good reasons for this in 16th century

England child mortality was much more

common than it is today and a wife

especially her Noble or Royal wife might

have a dozen or more children to

compensate for the sad fact that many

would not survive infancy or their

childhood years depending on

circumstances between 1/3 and half of

pregnancies would result in miscarriages

still births or infant mortality and

whilst these occurrences were considered

tragic Catherine's demonstrated ability

to conceive easily was actually an

encouraging sign that she would

eventually give birth to a healthy son

and

Heir in the meantime the young royal

couple demonstrated impressive

collaboration in the governance and

management of England's Affairs Henry

forgave many of his father's dettor and

made efforts to bury the enity that

existed with those who had clashed with

his father his charm and magnanimity won

him the support of both the nobility and

the people as well as this Catherine was

beloved for her intelligence strength

piety and Devotion to the English people

when Henry launched a joint invasion of

France along with the Holy Roman Emperor

maximilan I in the summer of

1513 he left Catherine to serve as

Regent in his absence a clear sign of

the trust he placed in her the war had

come about as both an extension of the

Italian wars being fought between France

and Spain the dominance over the Italian

Peninsula and also Henry's desire to

reignite the 100 Years War which had

seen England try to conquer much of

France in the 14th and 15th centuries in

Italy Pope Julius II and King Louis I

12th of France were at War over the

Italian states ruled by the papacy

Pope Julius excommunicated Louie forming

a coalition of Nations to sway the young

Henry to join them in the league he sent

him barrels of Italian wine a gold

covered rose and a shipment of Parmesan

cheeses in England Archbishop waram had

preached for peace and against the evils

of War though eventually Henry had

decided differently in this he he had

the support of the Lord Chancellor

Thomas Woolsey a leading religious

figure in England and soon to be a

cardinal of the church he was also the

chief minister of Henry's government

throughout much of the 1510s and 1520s

and an immensely powerful figure on the

28th of June 1513 with the decision for

war already taken the king and queen

arrived at DOA Castle in Kent Henry

crossed the English Channel the

following day to join the fight against

King Louie of France for the first time

in nearly a hundred years since the

Glory Days of King Henry V and the

Battle of ainor an English king would

now seek to extend his Dominion on the

continent which after the losses in the

final Decades of the Hundred Years War

had been reduced to nothing more than a

small Enclave around Cal Henry's first

victory was a tan followed by a Triumph

at the Battle of the Spurs so named

because the mounted French Knights fled

the field so quickly using their Spurs

to push their horses onwards as quickly

as they could whilst Henry pursued his

dreams of English Marshal glory in

France Catherine was busy confronting an

invasion of England by the Scots The

Perennial Ally of the French under King

James IV within two months of Henry's

invasion of France King James invaded

England in support of his French allies

Catherine however proved equal to the

challenge in Henry's absence Catherine

was personally involved in the military

mobilization and strategy for England's

defense when the English Everly

represented by Longbow men and led by

Thomas Howard the Earl of su defeated

the Scots at the Battle of floden on the

9th of September

1513 at the battle the English forces

were victorious over a greater Scottish

force and James IV perished on the

battlefield along with as many as

177,000 of his 40,000 strong Army whilst

the English in contrast lost only

1,500 of their

26,000 strong host the queen in writing

to Henry after the victory praised him

for his successors abroad and sent as a

token of her own Triumph a shred of the

Scottish King's coat to add to the

king's banners as his army carried on to

take parts of Flanders as well as to

where Henry built a great Castle a

symbol of what he believed to be his

burgeoning Continental

Empire three years later and seven years

into their marriage Henry and

Katherine's patience was rewarded when

on the 18th of February

1516 Catherine gave birth to a daughter

Princess Mary the future Queen Mary the

first she would be the king and queen's

only child to live beyond infancy and

into adulthood England rejoiced there's

birth and survival seven years into the

reign contained the promise that a male

Heir might follow before long at the

time no woman had ever been Queen of

England in her own right although unlike

in countries like France where the salic

law prohibited female monarchs Mary

could theoretically succeed her father

one day and Henry appeared to treat his

daughter as a true Princess of Wales he

even sent her to live at Ludo castle

where she was established with her own

miniature Court as was the tradition for

the heir to the English Throne however

while Henry loved his daughter and

referred to her as my Pearl in the world

he still pined for a male air as the

years went by this would become an

obsession which clouded his judgment and

slowly turned the loving husband and

valiant king who had promised so much in

1509

into a tyrant who tore his own kingdom

apart in search of a

son during the course of the 1520s it

became apparent that Catherine would not

produce a sun and air she turned 40 in

December

1525 and thereafter her chances of

delivering any further children let

alone a boy who was healthy became

Slimmer and slimmer long before that

time Henry began to take Mistresses with

more regularity such Behavior was not

necessarily an indication of his waning

interest in his wife most Kings in early

modern Europe had one or multiple

Mistresses in June 1519 one of these

Elizabeth Blount a lady in waiting to

the queen gave birth to Henry's son the

king acknowledged the boy as his own

child and he was named Henry Fitzroy

Henry after his father while Fitzroy

literally means son of the King Henry

lavished attention and titles on his son

but under English law he was

illegitimate and could not succeed his

father still with the birth of Henry

Fitzroy Henry had proven that he could

father a son while the king never openly

blamed Catherine for her perceiv failure

to produce a boy the years following the

birth of his illegitimate son saw a

gradual decline in Henry and Katherine's

previously happy

relationship his dynastic troubles aside

the first 10 years of Henry's Reign

clearly reflected his ambitious Pursuit

Of Glory Henry set out to make England

the equal of both France and Spain in

wealth power and prestige

early on in his Reign he sponsored the

construction of dockyards warehouses and

shipyards in coastal ports and sourced

huge amounts of Timber from the forests

of Sussex and Kent for the construction

of a large Fleet Henry's father had

become king in the very infancy of

Europe's Age of Exploration not to be

outdone by the Spanish he had begun a

process of Naval expansion and sponsored

the first major English Voyages of

Discovery it is for example often

overlooked that it was a pilot in

English employee John cot who became the

first early modern European to reach the

mainland of North America in

1497 while Columbus was still island

hopping in the Caribbean but the English

Navy remained small by

1509 Henry VII set about changing this

and by the 1540s it had been expanded to

approximately 50

ships Henry also pioneered a revolution

in English International diplomacy in

1518 with the threat of a Turkish

invasion of Southeastern Europe looming

a prospect which alarmed all Christendom

Henry signed a non-aggression pact with

Charles I the new Holy Roman Emperor and

queen Catherine's nephew along with

Francis I King of France the agreement

was the beginning of several Summits

which took place over the next two years

between the three European powers

largely planned and orchestrated by

Henry's chief minister Cardinal Woolsey

the most impressive of these diplomatic

meetings was unquestionably the field of

cloth of gold which took place in France

near Cal from the SE to the 24th of June

1520 at the summit Henry and Francis

signed a pledge of Perpetual friendship

and peace Princess Mary was betrothed to

the Doan of France all in attendance

enjoyed a week of feasting drinking

entertainment and jousting contests amid

the Exquisite tents made from gold cloth

however despite the Pomp and ceremony of

the field of cloth of gold the alliance

between Henry and Francis would soon

collapse as shortly afterwards Cardinal

woy negotiated an alliance with Charles

I of Spain who declared war on France

later in

1521 starting the Italian war of 1521 to

1526 into which England was dragged the

second of three Wars which Henry would

fight with France

however the bulk of the fighting would

play out in Italy between the French and

Spanish

there Henry was determined to be

remembered as a prince of intellect and

virtue as well as one skilled at

statesmanship the growing ferari over

the writings of Martin Luther in Germany

from 1517 onwards and the Protestant

Reformation which it inspired soon

presented him with an opportunity to

demonstrate his learning Luther had

emerged as a grave critic of the papacy

in Rome and the wealth and power of the

church in general arguing that the

corruption within it needed to be rooted

out and a new form of Christianity

established one in which churches were

best stripped of their idolatrous wealth

the mass would be performed in the

vernacular tongues rather than in Latin

and people would be encouraged to

actually read the Bible themselves and

engage with scripture Henry was a

doctrinal Catholic who liked the power

ceremony and tradition of the Roman

Catholic Church in response to the

heresy emanating from Central Europe in

1521 he composed a text entitled

assertio sepm

sacrorum or the defense of the seven

sacraments in this Henry attacked

Luther's ideas defended sacred Catholic

practices and affirmed in all religious

matters the supremacy of the Pope over

the church in Europe Henry even

dedicated the text to Pope Leo I 10th

who in recognition of his service to the

church gave Henry the title fiday

Defensor meaning defender of the faith

whether Henry actually wrote all of the

defense of the seven sacraments remains

a matter of debate Thomas Moore might

well have aided him and certainly

commented on drafts of the

text by the mid 1520s Henry's marital

situation was becoming more strained he

was no longer the popular teenage King

but was still a relatively young man in

his 30s his thoughts had seemingly not

turned of their own accord to

potentially divorcing Catherine and

seeking to remarry to a woman that might

sire a son instead it took the arrival

of Anne berin to the Tudor Court at this

time to lead Henry down this path Anne

was a daughter of Thomas Bolin Henry's

former ambassador to France she had

recently returned from the French court

with her father and was much admired for

her Cosmopolitan Heir Her Style wit and

charm her year of birth is unclear

though it was probably

1501 making her a woman entering her mid

20s at the time Henry became infatuated

by her for the first few months of their

courtship there seemed to be no question

of Henry casting off his wife Anne knew

how to play the king though she refused

to become his mistress so long as he was

married insisting that she would only

commit in such a way to her future

husband over time Henry became more and

more obsessed and his letters to Anne

some of which survive are full of

passionate Declarations of his love and

desire for

her generally Anne berin has been

depicted as a grasping political climber

who usurped Queen Catherine's legitimate

place however there is no evidence that

she encouraged Henry's interest in her

initially rather she reportedly made an

Abrupt departure from court in the

spring of

1527 returning to her family's home at

hea Castle while some might accuse her

of playing a skillful game of

manipulation it seems unlikely that a

young woman like Anne from a respectable

but hardly powerful family could have

imagined that she would become anything

more than Henry's temporary mistress

There is almost certainly no possibility

that she imagined herself as Queen one

day when Henry started courting her

moreover a liazon with the king would

possibly compromise her own future

marriage prospects nevertheless after

her abrupt departure from Court Henry

continued writing to Anne and sending

her gifts in time Anne began to respond

to Henry with feelings of her own and

the two carried on their relationship

quite publicly at court after she made

her return there there is no way to know

exactly for how long Anne refused

Henry's sexual

advances However the fact that Anne did

not become pregnant throughout the

nearly seven years of their courtship

suggests she stayed chased while Henry

and Anne were intimate with one another

in other other ways the likelihood is

that they did not sleep together prior

to

1532 in

1527 a year or so after he began

courting Anne Henry decided to seek a

divorce from Katherine so he could marry

Bolin he and his counselors soon latched

onto a potentially legitimate reason for

seeking an annulment of his near two

decades old marriage when Henry had

first married Catherine he had done so

over objections that she had previously

been married to his deceased brother

Arthur and that their brief marriage had

possibly been consumated this would have

been IM breach of canon law as Leviticus

20:21

reads If any man should take his

brother's wife it is an unclean thing

they will be childless

in order to sidestep this issue it had

been argued back in the 1500s that

Katherine and Arthur had never actually

been together as man and wife thus

allowing Henry to marry Catherine now 18

years after they were first married

Henry very conveniently started to have

a fit of conscience it was soon being

argued in England that the marriage in

1509 had been a breach of natural

religion I law after all on these

grounds Henry began petitioning Pope

Clement iith in Rome for an annulment to

his first marriage whereby he could then

marry Anne the king would spend more

than half a decade pursuing what became

known at court and in English political

circles as his great matter he would

change English political and religious

history in the process the process began

with a direct appeal to Pope Clement II

it was not unknown for popes to Grant an

nments to marriages on rather dubious

legal grounds where the marriage was one

which had not resulted in a male air

this could avoid disruptive succession

disputes and

Wars however there was no possibility of

Clement doing so in this case right

around the time he began petitioning

Clement in

1527 the Spanish and Imperial armies of

Emperor Charles I Katherine of Aragon's

nephew had sacked and occupied the city

of Rome with the Pope a virtual prisoner

of Charles there was no way he could

agree to anull the marriage Henry then

turned to Cardinal woy who had never

failed him and who owed literally all he

had to the King woy was not born to the

nobility

the son of a butcher from ipswitch he

was originally an obscure chaplain until

under Henry's patronage he was made a

bishop then Archbishop and finally a

cardinal and Papal leot in England to

Woolsey would fall the task in the late

1520s of resolving the king's great

matter woy had not only been Henry's

Lord Chancellor he had also been his

mentor but in time his failure to

procure the sort after divorce would

lead to his ruin the Cardinal working

with Cardinal cedo a special legot

appointed by the pope set up a letin

court to determine Henry's great matter

but the court was unable to reach a

decision and instead ruled that the

issue should be decided by the College

of cardinals in Rome it it is unclear

whether Woolsey truly wanted to give

Henry his desire or if he saw the danger

of allowing the king to divorce his

famously Pious Catholic wife and Mary

Anne who was rumored to be sympathetic

to the small but growing community of

Lutheran Protestant reformers that had

emerged in London Oxford and Cambridge

whatever his intentions the failure of

the leaton Court led to wolves's

downfall as Henry commanded his arrest

and imprisonment citing the treasonous

tone of letters woy had written to

Vatican

officials however the Cardinal in fact

died of natural causes on his way to

London before Henry could ever have him

executed Henry also took possession of

Hampton Court The Fabulous Palace which

Woolsey had personally transformed from

a modest Country House setting it up as

a royal residence

thereafter following the Cardinal's

downfall Henry did not sit idly by

waiting for the pope to change his mind

instead he began to Canvas the opinion

of theologians at Europe's universities

asking them to study deliberate and

pronounce a verdict on the merits of his

case for divorce however Henry would be

disappointed twice more as the ma

majority of University theologians and

later the College of cardinals would

decide in favor of Queen Catherine

declaring the King's first marriage

valid in law it is unclear when Henry

first began to consider repudiating the

Pope's Authority in England thus

removing the obstacle to his divorce and

Berlin's influence as a Lutheran

sympathizer and reformer is entirely

plausible as is the influence of Thomas

Cromwell a figure who had risen as a

servant of woles but who survived the

Cardinals downfall and inv vagled his

way into Henry's confidence around

1529 he would come to dominate the

government in the

1530s alternatively the key figure in

the king's move towards splitting from

Rome was an otherwise little known

clergyman and theology Professor from

Cambridge by the name of Thomas cranmer

according to cranmer who was at that

time a moderate Lutheran but would

become a more radical calvinist in years

to come Kings were anointed by God and

answered only to God therefore Henry

should not have had to pursue his

divorce through legal channels he

certainly did not need the permission of

the Pope to divorce his wife this

emboldened Henry to formerly break with

the Roman Catholic church and pursue a

claim to be the Supreme head of the

Church of

England it would take nearly two years

for Henry to achieve this over the

resistance of both Parliament and the

English clergy but by

1532 Henry secured his wish and was

forly acknowledged as the Supreme head

of the church in England after being

browbeaten Parliament had legislated a

full break with the Pope stopping

virtually all payments of ecclesiastical

dues to Rome Henry made Thomas cranmer

the new Archbishop of Canterbury the

most powerful ecclesiastical appointment

in the country empowering him to oversee

enforcement of the new Supremacy and the

split with Rome then in May of

1533 Archbishop cranmer finally declared

Henry's marriage to Catherine invalid

and granted the king his long desired

Divorce by that time Henry had already

been remarried for 4 months having wed

Anne berin in a secret ceremony on the

25th of January

1533 Anne was pregnant by then though

she and the King probably did not know

this on the day of their Union as on the

7th of September 1533

just 7 and a half months after their

marriage Anne gave birth to their first

child though Henry expressed his Delight

he cannot but have been disappointed

that it was a baby girl they named her

Elizabeth after Henry's long deceased

mother Henry well understood the

enormity of what he had done and he

moved swiftly to consolidate his new

powers there were two issues firstly

Catherine of aragan was still widely

popular and the majority of the English

people sympathized with her cause and

that of her and Henry's daughter Mary

who was now being legally excluded from

the succession secondly the majority of

the English people were still staun

Roman Catholics and viewed figures like

cranmer suspiciously as clerics who were

Now intent on expl exploting the king's

marital drama to impose a Protestant

Reformation in England Henry knew he

would have to establish control quickly

his answer was the act of Supremacy

which he proposed following his marriage

to an and which parliament passed in

1534 the ACT required all the king's

subjects to swear an oath recognizing

Henry as Supreme head of the church and

affirming the legality of the king's

marriage to anolin refusal to swear the

oath would be considered treason and all

officeholders and political figures

would be required to swear it many

refused Chief amongst them Henry's old

friend and Mentor Sir Thomas Moore Moore

had largely retired from court and

public life in general in

1532 dismayed at the drift of political

events though he had had been quite

happy to exploit wool's downfall to

become Lord Chancellor a few years

earlier as of

1535 he remained one of only a few of

Henry's prominent subjects who still had

not taken the oath his refusal to do so

soon resulted in Moore being imprisoned

in the tower at his trial when it was

clear that he would be found guilty he

loudly affirmed the authority of the

Pope and rejected Henry's Supremacy over

the Church of England for this he was

sentenced to death for treason a crime

which carried the gruesome penalty of

being hung drawn and courted it is a

small Testament to his remembrance of

Moore's friendship and service to him

that Henry commuted his sentence to

beheading the punishment was carried out

on the 6th of July 1535

before which Moore declared in a loud

clear voice that he died quote the

king's good servant and gods

first Henry had finally removed all who

seemed openly opposed to the New Order

the death of Katherine of aragan from

natural causes on the 7th of January

1536 appeared to remove the last barrier

to the legitimacy of Henry and ANS

marriage but a dark cloud still hovered

Anne had become pregnant two more times

in quick succession following the birth

of Elizabeth yet both pregnancies had

resulted in

miscarriages as this occurred Henry and

Anne's relationship was growing

increasingly strained due to the Queen's

perceived failure to adjust to her new

role of wife as Henry's mistress she bed

been allowed a certain amount of License

to speak and act as she pleased her

prolonged refusal to sleep with Henry

likely put her in a rather dominant

position as well however as Henry's wife

and as Queen she was expected to act in

a different fashion roles to which she

did not easily adjust all of this took

place against the backdrop of her

miscarriages and the fact that Henry's

second marriage was proving no more

successful in terms of producing a male

Heir than his

first in the spring of

1536 after another miscarriage

accusations of an's alleged adultery

abounded at court Henry chose to believe

them private interrogations of the

Queen's household elicited fantastic

claims of her degeneracy with several

indiv indviduals accusing her of

conspiring against the king adultery and

even incest with her own brother George

at a speedy trial that was cobbled

together which Anne was not permitted to

be present at she was found guilty and

on the 31st of May

1536 Anberlin was taken to the scaffold

and beheaded with dignity she spoke

briefly and movingly of her love for the

king her sins of Pride and her desire

that the people would pray for her the

exact circumstances of her trial have

been widely debated and even half a

millennium later there is no agreement

as to whether or not the charges against

her were completely or only partially

fabricated in order to remove her from

the scene as quickly as possible what we

do know is that within 24 hours of his

second wife's execution

Henry was already betrothed to one of

Anne's ladies in Waiting Lady Jane

Seymour she soon became his third wife

while Lady Jane like her family had

sworn the oath of Supremacy she was a

Pious Catholic as a result many people

expected that now with anolin gone Henry

would back track on some of his radical

religious policies however the reform

reforms if anything accelerated and

Henry ordered Thomas Cromwell to begin

the dissolution of England's monasteries

around this

time in

1536 abies shrines and monasteries

throughout England and Wales were

suddenly taken under State ownership the

dissolution of the 800 or so monasteries

was undertaken for two reasons first

firstly the Protestant reformers who had

managed to acquire positions of power in

England during the early 1530s

undercover of aiding the king in his

great matter were opposed to monasticism

in general Protestants viewed the

religious orders as worldly

organizations that had helped the pope

corrupt the word of God and argued that

monasticism had no basis in religious

Doctrine second secondly the King was

convinced that dissolving the

monasteries was a good idea because it

would lead to an absolutely enormous

Financial windfall as their precious

books gold chales and other valuables

were sold off along with their lands

with this money Henry speculated he

could clear his debts and initiate a new

war with France the rightful duty of any

English monarch the dissolution was not

implemented without resistance in the

Autumn of 1536 a massive Uprising broke

out in the north of England this became

known as the pilgrimage of Grace Henry

only quelled it through attempts at

appeasement followed by brutal

reprisals Marching In The Name of the

King carrying banners depicting the Five

Wounds of Christ the rebels demanded the

restoration of the ab is the Revival of

sacred Catholic ceremonies and the

dismissal of the king's devious

ministers that had led him astray in

recent times the rebels numbered an

incredible 40,000 strong the largest

army yet seen on English soil in Tudor

times to appease the mob Henry initially

promised them pardons if they dispersed

and ended their Rebellion however

when further disturbances broke out

Henry Unleashed a brutal repression and

hundreds of Rebel leaders were arrested

and executed indeed even his own family

were not spared Henry's WTH as when the

wife who replaced anolin Jane Seymour

begged him on her knees to restore the

abies he exploded

withe get up do not presume to meddle in

my my Affairs remember

an the desecration of the monasteries

continued a pace for four more years the

confiscated wealth briefly made Henry

one of the richest monarchs in Europe

while internationally England was viewed

as a pariah state by many a country

which had adopted the hated Protestant

Faith the emergence of which was leading

to religious wars and inquisitions all

all over Europe Henry was unperturbed

though instead the king resolved to use

his newly appropriated Fortune to build

up the country's defenses ordering the

construction of hundreds of forts and

gun imp placements along the English

Coast the materials for which often came

from the monasteries and abies

themselves making England a veritable

Island Fortress in the process which

combined with the growing English na

formed the blueprint for English

defensive and offensive strategies for

many years to

come between 1536 and

1539 Henry was also convinced by crma

and others to pursue other avenues to

reinforce the new religious life of

England for instance the 10 articles of

Faith were published in

1536 an English translation of the Bible

appeared in

1537 as well as the institution of the

Christian Man colloquially known as The

Bishop's book by 1539 it was clear to

Henry that the theological and doctrinal

differences between Catholics and

Protestants had hardened and the

situation had grown even murkier Henry

realized that preserving his Supremacy

and securing peace in religious life was

going to require fire uniformity if he

could not simply Proclaim it he would

have to impose it by law thus Henry

first established a special Committee of

clergymen to deliberate on six doctrinal

questions the answers to which would

form the basic articles of faith for the

Church of England naturally the

committee knew what was expected of them

and they produced six articles of Faith

which essentially preserved the Catholic

doctrines and observance with which

Henry and many other conservatives in

England were comfortably familiar

English Protestants were crushed and it

seemed that the only aspect of Catholic

Doctrine which the six articles had left

out was allegiance to the pope this was

what the henrician Reformation was all

about creating a Catholic Church where

Henry instead of the Pope was the the

leader these religious shifts and turns

require some further

explanation here in 1539 and 1540 there

seemed to be a tilt back to Catholicism

the reason for this was that Henry was

never a Protestant a doctrinal Catholic

he had allowed some Protestant reformers

to acquire positions of authority within

the English church in the early 1530s as

they had facilitated his divorce then he

had allowed them to continue introducing

a moderate form of Lutheranism in the

mid 1530s as they enriched him through

their proposal to dissolve the country's

religious houses but by the end of the

decade as the Protestant faction had

nothing left to offer him he reacted

against the earlier reforms and

essentially reimposed Catholicism or be

it while maintaining the split from Rome

and his own Supremacy over the Church of

England this final shift in 1539 and

1540 would be the last major one of the

henrician Reformation henceforth the

church remained doctrinally Catholic

down to the end of the Reign and a more

thoroughgoing Protestant Reformation

would have to wait until the next

Reign all of this was over seen by a

monarch who appeared increasingly

tyrannical in the

1530s Henry was widely appreciated as a

generous and goodh humored Monarch in

his early days but later in life he was

often regarded as a bully with a hideous

temper there is a fairly concrete

explanation for this change of

temperament which is that Henry was in

almost constant pain with an ongoing

disability on the 24th of January

1536 2 days before Anne Bolin miscarried

her last child and 5 months before her

execution the still vigorous 45-year-old

Henry suffered a terrible accident in

the jousting lists when he fell from his

horse the heavily armored horse then

fell on Henry nearly crushing his leg

and he was unconscious for several hours

when he awoke he would find that his

life had changed forever his accident

had opened an older wound on his leg

which over time became ever more

ulcerated part of the problem was that

16th century Physicians believed that

wounds should be left open to allow the

P to continue draining from them the

buildup of which according to the

humoral theory of medicine that

prevailed at the time could cause

illness

many of the treatments Henry was

subjected to over the remaining 10 years

of his life probably did more harm than

good causing increasing infections and

inflammation in an age before effective

pain relief his health issues led to a

more D obese and ill-tempered Monarch

with the King drinking more to dull the

pain in his leg and also gaining a

dramatic amount of weight dis speculated

he weighed well over 300 later in his

life and had to be carried around Court

in a reinforced

litter Henry's marriage to Jane Seymour

later that same year and her pregnancy 7

months later likely brightened Henry's

hopes for the future Henry and Jane had

only been married about 15 months when

she gave birth to Prince Edward this

seemingly set the steal on all of

Henry's Lon held Ambitions for a male

Heir but tragically Jane would only live

for another two weeks dying of pual

fever after Edward's birth while

Overjoyed at the birth of a son Henry

was crushed by Jane's death whether it

was because she had given him the male

Heir that he had so long desired or

because they had not been married long

enough for Henry's love to to fade the

king went into deepest mourning and

seclusion he would not marry again for

more than two years however both Henry

and his courtiers understood that just

one son was not enough to guarantee the

security of the throne after all Henry

had himself become king as his older

brother had died prematurely thus people

soon began urging him to remarry again

and produce a spare

air Henry's fourth wife was an of

cleaves a German princess and sister to

the Duke of cleaves marriage

negotiations were entered into as part

of efforts to end England's

International isolation by negotiating

an alliance with the schmal calic league

an association of small Lutheran

principalities in Germany Henry

commissioned the great Tudor court

painter Hans holine to go to Germany and

paint Anne's portrait when he received

hine's depiction of her Henry admired

Anne's Beauty and Poise but when she

arrived in person to England Henry

expressed intense disappointment

screaming abuse at Thomas Cromwell and

exclaiming I like her not yet because he

had already alienated predominantly

Catholic Europe Henry did not wish to

offend his new German allies and so he

duly married an of cleaves on the 6th of

January

1540 but as the Catholic reaction

against the Protestant reforms continued

in the weeks that followed Henry

immediately began to seek Avenues to

have the marriage annuled she has evil

smells about her Henry insisted after

the wedding night seemingly ignoring his

own stench from his UL ated leg he also

claimed that the quote looseness of her

breasts and other tokens indicated that

she was not a

virgin within 6 months Henry had his

marriage to Anne aull on the grounds of

her supposedly binding pre-contract to

marry the son of the Duke of Lorraine an

faed better than most of Henry's wives

she accepted the analment with Grace and

Henry gifted her an estate and an annual

income she would live the remainder of

her life in England Henry then

imprisoned his Lord privy seal Thomas

Cromwell in the tower for his

mishandling of the king's marriage

Cromwell was beheaded on the 28th of

July

1540 on the same day enry married the

niece of the Duke of Norfolk 17-year-old

Katherine Howard likee Anberlin

Katherine Howard has been depicted

poorly her behavior does however tell us

much about the marriage to the King

Henry was 51 years old when he married

Catherine and growing older sicker and

heavier all the time there were rumors

also of his

impotence some historians have

speculated that such sexual problems

might have formed the basis of Henry's

failure to consumate his marriage to an

of cleave as well under these

circumstances it is hardly surprising

that the teenaged Catherine found her

new role as Queen tedious unrewarding

even lonely she began an affair with

Thomas kuler one of the royal Grooms

arranging clandestine meetings writing

him love letters and sending him gifts

rumors of her behavior soon began to

circulate and it eventually came to

light that she had also engaged in a

sexual relationship with her private

secretary Francis Derham before marrying

the king Catherine would pay the

ultimate price for the mistakes of her

tragically short life as she was

beheaded on the 13th of February

1542 at the age of 19 the day after the

executions of both C pepper and

darham the political shift and turns of

the Reign were not entirely confined to

England Henry for instance Incorporated

Wales more fully into the English State

through legislation passed in the 1530s

and early

1540s more substantial still were

developments in Ireland the English

lordship had first emerged here owing to

a partial conquest of the island in the

12th and 13th centuries but the Civil

Wars of the 15th century had weakened

English rule though Henry had

contemplated leading an army to Ireland

at various points in the 1510s and 1520s

he never did so ultimately considering

any money spent in Ireland to be wasted

he had no choice though but to act when

the son of the Earl of kildair revolted

in

1534 in the aftermath of this a cery of

officials in Dublin convinced the

government that a more interventionist

program of gradual conquest of the

independent Irish Lordships was

desirable to reaffirm English Power in

Ireland hence in

1541 Henry became the first English king

of Ireland when an act for the kingly

title was passed through the Irish

Parliament all his predecessors had held

the inferior title of Lord of isand this

ensured a commitment to expanding

English rule on the island and a major

program of conquest and colonization

would be entered into from 1546 onwards

with huge consequences for the course of

Irish

history on the 12th of July

1543 Henry married his sixth and final

wife Katherine par she was attractive

twice nice widowed educated and highly

intelligent the 31-year-old Catherine

seemed a good match for Henry she was a

mature sensible woman who made a marked

effort to be a mother to Henry's three

children and encouraged a much closer

family environment it was at this time

that Henry decided to reinstate his

daughters Mary and Elizabeth whom he had

previously declared to be illegitimate

to the line of succession after his son

Edward Henry and Catherine seemed to

enjoy both a cooperative and

companionable marriage and when Henry

launched yet another Invasion of France

in

1544 he made Catherine Regent in his

absence a clear endorsement of his trust

in her while they were a seemingly good

match they did Clash over religious

matters Katherine p was a committed

Protestant reformer she published no

less than three books all of which

testified to her religious convictions

her second book prayers and meditations

published in

1545 was the first book published by an

English Queen in her own name her

writings did not endear her to the more

conservative religious elements at court

many of whose prejudices Henry himself

shared head Catherine did not publish

her third book The lamentation of a

sinner until after Henry's

death the final major Act of Henry's

Reign was his new war with France this

was again a part of a wider war between

the Spanish and Austrian habsburgs and

the French it also became the most

substantial of the three Wars Henry

fought against King Francis I to France

there were two key aspects to this

firstly Henry squandered basically the

entire enormous Financial windfall he

had received from the dissolution of the

monasteries in sending an army to France

one which achieved nothing other than

capturing the town of bolog south of Cal

it would be governed as a new English

Enclave there for a few years before

being handed back to the French the

second element of the war which was more

substantial in some ways became Henry's

efforts to bludgeon the Scots into

making their infant Queen Mary the who

had succeeded her Father James I when

she was just a weak old in December

1542 marry Prince Edward Henry's goal in

pursuing what became known as the rough

wooing was to try and unite Scotland

under England by having the children of

Edward and Mary one day rule over a

United Britain the war with the Scots

was still in full swing when Henry died

and the rough wooing would eventually

fail like virtually every other element

of Henry's foreign policy during his

long

Reign by late

1546 Henry had become increasingly ill

and after making a few final adjustments

to his will he withdrew from public view

into seclusion at whiteall Palace his

condition deteriorated steadily over the

month of January

1547 yet Henry's Physicians feared to

inform him of their strong suspicion

that he was dying on the evening of the

27th of January

1547 Archbishop Thomas cranmer was

summoned to hear Henry's last confession

by by the time granma arrived he found

that the king's condition was such that

he was unable to speak granma comforted

the King by asking if he trusted in God

in reply the king squeezed cranmer's

hand Henry died in the early hours of

the morning of the 28th of January

1547 at 55 years of age it was in many

ways a fitting end to his life and the

strange religious changes that occurred

during his Reign the Catholic Monarch

being given the last rights by a

Protestant

Archbishop with the king's passing his

son by Jane Seymour became King Edward v

6 clearly as a 9-year-old he would be

unable to rule in his own right for

several years in the interim his

government would be dominated first by

his Uncle Edward Seymour Duke of

Somerset as Regent until early 1550 and

then by John Dudley Duke of North

umberland thereafter the boy King was

surrounded by Protestant reformers and

in the late 1540s a much more thorough

Protestant Reformation was entered into

one which saw English churches stripped

of their wealth and idolatrous

adornments the Bible made widely

available in English and a new book of

common prayer issued as a way for

English men and women to engage with

God's word directly Arch Bishop cranmer

who Henry had raised to such Heights in

the 1530s was the architect of much of

this ultimately it was a short-lived

effort at a radical calvinist

Reformation as Edward died in the summer

of 1553 at just 15 years of age a brief

effort to install lady Jane gray a grand

niece of Henry VII as Edward's successor

by the Protestant party at court in the

two weeks following the death of Henry's

son proved

unsuccessful with this Mary Tudor

Henry's daughter by Katherine of addan

came to the throne those present as

Queen Mary was crowned at Westminster on

the 1st of October

1553 must have wondered what Henry's

actions had all been for here Was His

Daughter by Catherine of aragan being

crowned as Queen of England after all

yet 5 years later it made a kind of

sense when Mary died too and her half

sister Elizabeth daughter of Anberlin

ascended as Queen Elizabeth I a

Protestant though a very moderate one

she oversaw the creation of an Anglican

Church that her father would have

probably approved of

Henry's life and Reign was a fascinating

mixture of both the best and the worst

of kingly behavior in early modern

Europe his Reign held out High Hopes

initially and started well with a happy

marriage to Catherine of aragan and

efforts to reassert England's place as a

major European power on the continent

after the decline brought about by the

walls of the Roses in the 15th century

Guided by figures like Cardinal woy and

Thomas Moore Henry was a revered king

and a defender of the Roman Catholic

Church the Turning Point came in the mid

1520s as it became clear that his

marriage to Catherine would not produce

the desired male Heir Henry's father's

Shadow must be considered in all of this

Henry the 7th's presence from the grave

ever warning his son to ensure the

preservation of the of Tudor's

precarious hold on the throne by having

a healthy legitimate son over the next

decade Henry VII tore England apart in

pursuit of this goal splitting from Rome

and allowing the Inception of an English

Protestant Reformation even though Henry

himself remained a doctrinal Catholic

his worst inclinations were being

followed by the 1530s with the dis

olution of the monasteries being entered

into purely for financial reasons

inciting a massive popular Revolt in the

North in the process one wife was

divorced two were executed and another

was cast aside almost as soon as Henry

laid eyes on her one Jane Seymour

finally delivered him the son he had

always sought though it cost Jane her

own life the tragic irony of it all

was that the son in question Edward v 6

would only live for 6 years after Henry

himself a half a century of female rule

followed and England did just fine

without a male

Monarch what do you think of King Henry

VII was he a brutal Tyrant or was his

concern for producing a male Air at all

costs understandable given the Civil War

which had racked England for so long in

the 15th century please let us know in

the comment section and in the meantime

thank you very much for

[Music]

watching the woman known to history as

Katherine of aragan was born on the 16th

of December 1485

in the Palace of Alcala dearis on the

outskirts of Madrid her given name when

born was Catalina although she is widely

known today by the version of her name

which she adopted in England the country

where she would spend her entire adult

life her father was King Ferdinand II of

Aragon one of the two constituent

kingdoms of Spain at that time

ferdinand's domains were in the north

and east of the Iberian Peninsula

centered on cities such as bar Colona

zartha and Valencia while the aragones

had also carved out a small

Mediterranean Empire in the late middle

ages including the baleric islands

Sardinia Sicily and much of southern

Italy including the city of

Naples Katherine's mother was Queen

Isabella the of Castile the ruler of the

other part of Spain Castile encompassed

the greater part of Mainland Spain had

extended from the northern Coastline

South through Madrid and Toledo towards

the south of the country though by the

time of Katherine's birth in 1485 a

small Enclave around Granada in the

extreme South of the country remained in

Muslim hands and it was not until 1492

that her parents completed the

reconquest of Spain and expelled the

last Muslim powers back into North

Africa Katherine's parents had an

unusual Arrangement whereby Isabella

effectively ruled Castile and Ferdinand

governed Aragon the terms of their

marriage s stipulated that their

jurisdictions remained separate during

their lifetimes it would not be until

the early 16th century that Spain would

be ruled as one nation by a single

Monarch Catherine's descent and early

Family Life were peculiar and related

two subsequent events in her life on her

mother Isabella's side she was descended

from the House of Lancaster of the

English royal family in Katherine's case

from John of gaun the third son of King

Edward III who had ruled England between

1327 and

1377 in 1371 John had married Constance

of Castile linking the English royal

family with the royal family of the

kingdom of Castile as a result Katherine

was distantly related to the English

Royal Line and as befitted a young

princess who was a member of two

European Royal dynasties she received

her education from a number of esteemed

Scholars including two Dominicans

Pasqual the UDA and Andres de Morales

and the Italian humanist brothers

alesandro and Antonio geraldini emphasis

was placed by them on Latin texts but

Katherine was also educated in European

languages as befitted the daughter of a

king and queen who were known throughout

Europe as the most Catholic of monarchs

there was a heavy emphasis on placing

any learning she received in a Catholic

Christian context and the Bible and

other lurgical texts were studied from

early on she evidently excelled in all

of these and many years later Catherine

was praised for her learning by none

other than arasmus of Rotterdam the

foremost scholar of the early northern

Renaissance Catherine might have been

born in Spain but the infinitely more

significant events in shaping her later

life would be played out far to the

North in England in the Years prior to

and following her birth since the

mid-5th century that country had been

plagued by Civil Wars brought about by

the psychological collapse of King Henry

V 6 in the early 1450s 30 years of

unrest followed as Richard third Duke of

York and then his son Edward tried to

assert their claim to the throne Edward

finally succeeded in this and became

King Edward IV but when he died in 1483

his brother Richard usurped the throne

and became Richard III then a new

Pretender arose by the name of Henry

tuder a descendant of a Welsh family

with a very tenuous claim to the throne

of England in 1485 Henry landed in

England with an army and won a famous

battle against Richard at Bosworth field

in the English Midlands on the 22nd of

August 1485 Richard was killed that day

and Henry was proclaimed King as Henry

iith but Henry never lost sight of the

fact that his family's claim to the

throne was weak and a new Pretender

could Arise at any time indeed several

did but unsuccessfully thus he would

need to form alliances with some of

Europe's leading royal families and he

would also need to impart to his

children the absolute necessity of

securing the Tudor line and protecting

the family's claim to the English Throne

a sign of the English King's obsession

with doing so was evident already in the

late 1480s in September 1486 when

Katherine in Spain was still shy of her

first birth birday Henry iith and his

wife Elizabeth had their first child a

boy called Arthur by the end of the

1480s despite Katherine and Arthur still

being toddlers in their respective Royal

households in England and Spain Henry

was already intent on entering into

negotiations with Isabella and Ferdinand

to bring about a marital agreement

between young Arthur and Catherine by

the spring of 1488 Rodrigo Gonzalez

debla a doctor of Law and Spanish

Diplomat was in England to negotiate the

terms of such a union both sides were

anxious at this time that an alliance

would be cemented as Spain's rivalry

with neighboring France was growing in a

way which would soon see both Nations

vying for dominance of the Italian

Peninsula and an agreement seemed to

have been near completion in 1489 but

negotiations broke down over a

disagreement regarding the size of

Katherine's dowy and how her household

will be maintained in England through

English crown funding nevertheless these

negotiations did result in the signing

of the Treaty of Medina Del Campo

between England and Spain in 1489

whereby the two Nations allied with each

other and while the marriage was not

fully agreed to at this point it

remained viable in the meantime

Catherine was growing up she continued

her education which broadened as she got

older to include arithmetic law history

philosophy and some basics of heraldry

and genealogy the latter being an

obsession of Europe's Royal dynasties

and noble families as they tried to

ensure the continuity of their lines an

issue which would become Paramount in

Katherine's life in later years and she

traveled widely as all of this was being

imparted to her her parents Queen

Isabella and King Ferdinand were anxious

to make their presence felt across Spain

as they United the two kingdoms of

Castile and Aragon and they spent time

in each of the provinces as the Royal

Court m mained a wondering existence in

the 1480s and 1490s as a result

Catherine was present at the fall of

Granada in 1492 when the Muslim Emirate

there finally fell and Spain was brought

fully under Catholic rule curiously

although she was still just a child at

the time Catherine seems to have

remembered the episode and she later

chose the pomegranate known as the

Granada Apple in Spain as her personal

emblem somewhat ironically the

pomegranate was a fertility symb symbol

in early modern times she cannot have

been aware at the time she first used it

as a symbol how much her life and all of

England would be impacted by the vexed

issue of her

childbearing in the mid 1490s

negotiations resumed yet again between

Henry II's government in England and

Katherine's parents government in Spain

concerning the proposed Union between

her and Prince Arthur Henry's hold on

the English Throne had been questioned

in the intervening period by a pretender

by the name of Perkin warbeck who

claimed to be king Edward IV's son

Richard who had almost certainly

perished in the Tower of London at the

hands of his uncle in the mid 1480s

warbeck was at large in various places

on the continent and then in Ireland

between 1491 and 1497 before he was

finally apprehended and imprisoned the

whole episode had revealed two things

firstly it indicated how tenuous the

hold of the tutors on the English crown

was and secondly it showed Henry that

the Spanish monarchs was certainly the

right choice for a marriage Alliance

while a host of the European powers had

been very willing to support warbeck's

cause in order to undermine England

Isabella and Ferdinand had been

incredulous at the idea that warbeck was

the deceased Prince and had worked with

the English king to expose the fact that

warbeck was actually an upstart from the

low countries and so as warbeck was

heading towards his arrest renewed

intensity was lent to the negotiation

over Catherine and Arthur's proposed

marriage eventually a new agreement was

reached between the respective

governments of England and Spain on the

1st of October 1497 the marriage would

go ahead but since neither Catherine nor

Arthur were yet even teenagers it would

not take place until Arthur reached the

age of 14 at which time Katherine would

be 15 a Papal dispensation would still

be required even at that stage for the

wedding to take place because they were

so young and that would be sought from

Pope Alexander V 6 a DIY of 200,000

escudos would be paid by the Spanish to

Henry iith in return Catherine would

receive revenues from the lands which

Henry had assigned to Prince Arthur for

his use these would be used to pay for

Catherine's household and Affairs in

England until such time as she became

Queen with this revised treaty in place

Ascent was finally given to the proposed

marriage which had first been moted

nearly a decade earlier it was ratified

in January 1498 although some doubts

remained about whether it would go ahead

these were finally elate in May 1499

when a proxy wedding was held in England

while Catherine was still in Spain

further bickering over some of the

financial specifics continued in the

months that followed but at last in the

Autumn of 1501 Katherine set off from

Spain to England she would never return

to her home Homeland Catherine landed at

Plymouth in the southwest of England on

the 2nd of October 1501 there Then

followed a 5we long procession through

Southern England during which she was

joined by King Henry and her soon Tobe

husband Prince Arthur before they

arrived to London on the 12th of

November here elaborate pageants and

banquets were held before Arthur and she

were married at St Paul's Cathedral on

the 14th of November exactly what

followed would become a matter of

extensive debate years later but

Catherine was to later claim that

although she and Arthur shared a bed on

several occasions over the next few

months they never consumated their

marriage the other facts of what

followed are uncontested within weeks of

their marriage Arthur who was Prince of

Wales set out for lllo Castle to provide

ceremonial governance of the

principality and Katherine went with him

but in Wales they both quickly

contracted the sweating sickness a

mysterious illness which was most likely

caused by a rodent born Hunter virus

Catherine survived but Arthur did not

and when he died on the 2nd of April

1502 Catherine was left as a 16-year-old

Widow in a foreign land the long-planned

marriage which had been the subject of

negotiations throughout the entirety of

Catherine and Arthur's young lives had

lasted less than 4 months news was

quickly sent concerning Arthur's demise

to London and from there dispatches were

sent by King Henry's govern government

to Spain to inform Katherine's parents

that their daughter was already a widow

and these same dispatches were quickly

responded to would it be possible

Isabella and Ferdinand wondered for

Catherine to now marry Henry's Second

Son also named Henry after his father

the boy was only just about to turn 12

years of age but if they waited a few

years he and Catherine could wed and the

anglo-spanish alliance could be

continued when this proposal came to

England it was received positively both

sides were anxious for the alliance to

be secured and as such they quickly

worked out the new agreement by

September a draft treaty was prepared

with many of the financial Arrangements

continued from Catherine's marriage to

Arthur to her new proposed one with

Henry the formal treaty was finalized in

the summer of 1503 and it was agreed

that it would be solemnized following

receipt of a fresh papal dispensation

and once Henry reached 15 years of age

what is interesting is that neither side

seems to have been overly concerned at

this time about whether Katherine and

Arthur had consummated their marriage

and it was simply assumed that they had

no major objections were raised to Henry

marrying his sister-in-law from a

marriage which had potentially been

consumated while all of this was

proceeding in England the international

situation was in a renewed state of flux

Katherine's mother Queen Isabella died

on the 26th of November 1504 because the

terms of her marriage arrangement with

Ferdinand many years earlier had

specifically stated that he could not

rule Castile and Isabella could not rule

Aragon in their own rights Isabella was

now succeeded by her older daughter

Katherine's sister hanana hanana had

married arch duuk philli of the Austrian

Habsburg some years earlier Philip's

family ruled Austria and The Burgundian

inheritance of the low countries and

parts of Northeastern France while they

also had held the position of Holy Roman

Emperor for several Generations

consequently the union of the Spanish

Royal dynasty of the trust maras and the

Austrian hapsburgs was Now set to create

a dynastic Union which would unite large

sections of Western and Central Europe

under one house this would eventually

occur in the shape of hanana and

Philip's son Charles who would play a

major role in his Aunt Katherine's life

later on but for now the situation in

Spain was that hanana became Queen there

however her own father Ferdinand was

soon trying to establish himself as the

all but ruler of Castile arguing that

his own daughter was mad all this was

playing out as Katherine's marriage to

Henry was being

negotiated The Diplomatic unrest in

Spain had a direct impact on Katherine

and the marriage negotiations in England

King Henry iith was now having second

thoughts he and his counselors

speculated that perhaps it would be best

to support hanana and her husband

Phillip against King Ferdinand in what

was turning into a polarizing issue in

Spain bordering on Civil War within

Castile accordingly for a time in 1505

and early 1506 it seemed as though the

marriage agreement would be renounced a

development which seemed all but assured

when King Henry sent over

£100,000 to Arch Duke philli in the low

countries to Aid him in his and his

wife's clash with Ferdinand the English

Monarch at this stage was unwilling to

tie his son and Heir into a marriage

with Catherine which would become

politically useless if Ferdinand was

defeated by hanana and Phillip as had so

often been the case though in

Katherine's Affairs fate intervened

Philip died suddenly in Spain in

September 1506 and the way was now

cleared for Ferdinand to establish

control over Castile and so he

effectively had his daughter confined to

house arrest on the grounds that she was

insane thus with Ferdinand secure in his

control of Castile Henry yet again began

to consider marrying his son to

Catherine but the uncertainty would drag

on for several more years we might ask

where exactly was Catherine during this

long period of uncertainty in England

and what was she doing as the Widow of

the Prince of Wales the Spanish princess

had been granted Durham house the

residence of the bishop of Durham in

London as her own residence here she

maintained an almost entirely Spanish

Entourage and was visited frequently by

the Spanish ambassadors to England she

was learning English although was still

far from fluent by 1505 by which time

she had been in the country for nearly 4

years it is a sign of her Reliance on

her Spanish companions that she was

still not fully versed in the native

tongue after so long in England

unfortunately she had also been ill

regular probably with tiian egg a kind

of mild form of malaria but the greater

problem for her was her financial

position as the penny pinching Henry

iith had consistently failed to abide by

the terms of her marriage arrangement

with Arthur and provide adequate support

for her household her allowance was even

revoked altogether for a time in 1505 as

Henry lost interest in the new marriage

negotiations additionally concerted

efforts were made to ensure that there

was little contact between her and and

Prince Henry her proposed marriage

partner as such it was a difficult time

for Catherine in the mid

1500s a distinct change in Catherine's

fortunes occurred in February 1508 that

spring a new Spanish Ambassador gutier

Gomez de fena arrived in England

specifically charged with finalizing the

long-running marriage negotiations

though these dragged on for more months

the alpass was broken on the 21st of

April 1509 when King Henry iith Died the

new King Henry VII Katherine's

long-proposed husband summoned fuaa just

over 2 weeks later and declared that one

of his father's dying wishes had been

for the marriage to proceed it is

unclear if the Old King had actually

said this or not but the result was the

same in any event on the 11th of June

1509 7 years after the marriage of

Katherine and Henry had first been moted

the couple were married at the Fran is

church at Greenwich Palace she was 23 he

was just a few days shy of his 18th

birthday and less than 2 weeks later on

midsummer's day the 24th of June 1509

Katherine was crowned as Queen of

England at Westminster Abby next to her

husband who was anointed the same day as

King Henry VII after nearly 8 years in

England Katherine's persistence had paid

off it was a clear sign of the tenacity

she would show many years later when

Henry became determined to end their

marriage C Katherine held a considerable

amount of influence over her husband and

consequently over England's political

Affairs in the first years of Henry's

Reign the political climate of these

years for England was similar to what it

had been for well over 200 years Henry's

enemies were France and Scotland and the

King viewed himself as a monarch along

the lines of his medieval predecessors

dating back to the days of king Edward I

in essence then his duty was to make war

on France and make it clear to the Scots

that England was the predominant power

in Britain thus after briefly flirting

with a possible amiable approach to the

French he quickly discarded that

possibility and he would spend much of

his long 38-year Reign spending vast

sums of money to try to restart the 100

years war with France which had its

Heyday during the reign of Edward III in

the 14th century he also had

responsibilities elsewhere notably

across the Irish sea where the English

lordship had declined to a point where

only Dublin on the east coast and a few

of these surrounding counties such as

meth and kildair were effectively under

English rule overall there was a more

than fluid situation facing England on

the international stage when Henry and

Catherine became king and queen in

1509 Katherine's influence over her

husband was manifested quickly within

weeks of their marriage she ensured that

the Spanish Ambassador was recalled home

and for a Time thereafter she actually

acted as her father ferdinand's official

line of communication in England and

while a new Ambassador Don Lu Kosta vut

eventually arrived in 1510 Katherine

continued to play a prominent role in

representing Spanish interests in her

adoptive Homeland this was significant

as in 1511 Henry effectively turned his

back on on any offer of friendship from

the French and allied with Ferdinand as

well as the papacy and the Holy Roman

Emperor maximilan the against France as

part of the war of the league of cambre

a conflict which primarily played out in

Italy having done so Henry then

assembled the large military force which

was sent to the bar country in

northeastern Spain with a goal of Henry

and Ferdinand launching a joint military

campaign to conquer guen in Southwestern

France for England Henry would no doubt

have been disappointed by the outcome

his own troops Mutiny while Ferdinand

used the rump of the forces to conquer

the small panan principality of NADA for

Spain despite this setback clear signs

of Katherine's prominent role in English

Affairs was seen the following year in

June 1513 Henry launched his own

campaign to France which he led in

person across the English Channel to

land in the north of the country in the

weeks that followed he campaigned in

northeastern France in association with

the Austrian habsburgs in his absence

Katherine served as governor of the

realm and Captain general of England

during the late Summer and Autumn of

1513 it was a critical period on the

22nd of August King James IV of Scotland

who was acting in defense of Scotland's

traditional Ally the French invaded

Northern England a large English army

was quickly gathered much of the

logistical work being carried out by

Catherine and the government senior

ministers as a result when the Earl of

su Thomas Howard commanded an English

Army against the Scots at floden on the

9th of September they won one of the

greatest victories over the Scottish

ever achieved by English arms Katherine

had been gathering together a reserved

Force to Aid Su and was heading north

with it when news of the victory at

floden was received she also learned

that King James and several of his

senior Nobles had died on the field

writing to Henry she stated in this your

grace shall see how I keep my promise

sending you for your banners a king's

coat yet as much as Katherine's

prominent role in the politics of the

early 1510s indicates the influence she

held at this time there were already

signs of future trouble Brewing the

queen quite infamously had a difficult

gynecological history she was reported

to be pregnant on numerous occasions

during the first 10 years or so of her

and Henry's marriage some of these

instances are based on ambassadorial

reports which featured mere Rumors in

the Royal Court but there are more

concrete details of some of Katherine's

natal history she became pregnant with a

daughter very soon after her and Henry's

wedding but she miscarried in January

1510 and this was followed within a few

months by a fresh pregnancy this time

she gave birth to a baby boy on the 1st

of January 1511 who was named Henry

after his father and grandfather and had

anointed as Prince of Wales but he died

7 weeks later on the 22nd of February

it's possible that there was another boy

born in September 1513 just days after

the battle of floden but if this is so

he died within hours or days at the most

another son was certainly still born in

the early winter of 1514 it was not

until a girl Mary was born in February

1516 that a child survived but England

had never never had an Undisputed Queen

and as the years went by Henry would

Pine ever more for a son to secure the

succession and Tudor rule the full

implications of Katherine's natal wo

would not become clear until the 1520s

in the meantime the international

situation was entering a more fluid

state England had made peace with France

in 1514 as part of which it had been

agreed that Henry's 18-year-old Sister

Mary would marry King Louis the 12 of

France Louie was 34 years older than

Mary but happily for the bride he died

just a few months later and was

succeeded by his cousin Francis a member

of a Cadet branch of the valoir royal

family and the following Year Katherine

may have been influential yet again in

getting Henry to agree to a renewal of

the alliance with Spain but when Old

King Ferdinand died himself in 1516 he

was succeeded by his grandson Charles as

successor to his mother's Spanish

Kingdom and his father Philip's hapsburg

inheritance Charles I would become the

most powerful Monarch in Europe

simultaneously ruling Spain Austria the

low countries and much of Italy as well

as serving as Holy Roman Emperor from

1519 onwards The Diplomatic map of

Europe was now profoundly altered and

when Henry decided he wanted to end his

marriage to Catherine several years

later he would be impeded by her nephew

the most powerful ruler Europe at for

several

centuries this diplomatic realignment

led to a curious experiment in diplomacy

being undertaken towards the end of the

1510s by one of Henry's senior ministers

and an individual who would play a large

role in Catherine's Affairs in later

years Thomas woy had risen as the king's

armer in 1509 to become the Archbishop

of York and then to be made a cardinal

of the church in 1515 by that time he

was also Henry's leading Minister and

handled an immense amount of government

business and in 1518 he determined to

try to get the major Western and central

European powers to agree to renounce

making war on each other for some time

in order to present a united front

against the expanding Islamic Ottoman

Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean

though England France the papacy and

Spain all agreed to the Treaty of London

it was soon discarded as Henry yet again

looked to make war on France in the

early 1520s nevertheless it is an

interesting episode in wo's rise to the

position of European Statesman he would

soon be acting inadvertently as one of

Katherine's supporters in her fight to

resist Henry's desire for an annulment

of their marriage the causes of the

king's later wish to end his marriage to

Catherine were dynastic as Katherine

suffered still birth after miscarriage

in the early 1510s Henry had taken a

mistress as early as 1514 and there were

several more in the years that followed

and in 1519 one of these Elizabeth

Blount gave birth to a boy the king

acknowledged him and he was named Henry

after him with the addition of the title

Fitzroy meaning the son of the king

however while this new child was

acknowledged by Henry he was still

illegitimate in law and could not

succeed to the throne and what was

increasingly at issue was Catherine's

age she had been over 5 years older than

Henry when they married in 509 in 1520

she was 35 this was certainly not so old

that Catherine couldn't possibly become

pregnant again or even still have

multiple children but her complicated

and arduous natal history with its many

miscarriages and still birthed did not

Inspire confidence in anyone at the

English Royal Court that Catherine was

likely to give birth to the legitimate

male Heir that Henry so desired and as

the months and years ticked past in the

early 1520s this concern turned more and

more to a certainty as it did Henry

would seek to end the marriage we should

pause here to ask who exactly was the

woman who had become so Central to

English political Affairs in the 1520s

because of later events Katherine has

sometimes been depicted as merely a

shadowy presence in England a distant

figure who eventually led her husband to

begin tearing England apart but she is

often a personality-less figure in all

of this in reality Katherine was a

tenacious individual one who expressed

her mind forcefully throughout her adult

years in England often to the annoyance

of the sitting Spanish Ambassador at the

Tuda Court a Pious Catholic like her

parents she was heavily influenced early

on in her time in the country by her

Confessor Diego Fernandez and she was a

major supporter of the observant

Franciscan movement in her adopted

Homeland but despite her forcefulness

she could quite effortlessly perform her

role as Queen presiding over Court

Gatherings next to Henry and dispensing

patronage where appropriate to the

church and others attached to the court

yet her direct influence on England's

politics was minimal and Catherine did

not wish for any greater involvement

moreover she retained her Spanish

identity throughout her years in England

and while she learned to speak English

fluently within her own private

apartments and household there was a

largely Spanish staff and Catherine

continued to confess in Spanish even

several decades after leaving her

Homeland Katherine was also a noted

patron of Scholars she was already

fluent in Spanish French and Latin when

she arrived in England and although her

progress was slow at first she

eventually did become fluent in English

in her adult years she excelled in her

Latin learning beyond what would be

expected of a European Royal in the 16th

century she patronized both the

University of Oxford and the University

of Cambridge as Queen visiting both and

interceding directly with Henry over

issues and benefactions relating to

Queen's college and St John's College in

Cambridge she also patronized several of

the most prominent inter uals of England

in the 1510s and 1520s notably the

antiquarian and poet John Leland the

humanist and physician Thomas liner and

the religious reformer and Diplomat

Richard Pace she is best remembered

however for urging the leading Spanish

humanist scholar Juan Luis BS to come to

England for a period in the mid 1520s

here BS finished some work on the Church

Father Augustine but his English sojourn

is most notable for having composed the

education of a Christian woman a highly

Progressive Treatise which argued for

the universal education of women the

work was written as a guide of sorts for

the princess Mary and was dedicated to

Catherine it points to the centrality of

learning and education to the Queen's

worldview shortly after BS completed his

educational treaties the princess Mary

was sent to Ludo Castle in 1525 to begin

maintaining her own household and to be

educated by tutors such as Katherine's

former chaplain and the noted Catholic

scholar Richard featherston but even as

this was occurring Henry was proactively

seeking ways to ensure that a male Heir

would arrive to supplant Mary as the

next in line to the throne in 1521 Henry

had yet again allied with his wife's

Nation when he and Charles I agreed to

go to war again against France four

years of conflict followed before Henry

effectively decided to go his own way

and made an independent peace with King

Francis and in the months that followed

a remarkable shift in Affairs occurred

as Henry now began to nail his colors to

the mast in favor of the French against

the hapsburgs though most of the

fighting in the war of the league of

conac which followed occurred in Italy

as part of the conflict between France

and Spain for hemony there England

played a slight role too for her part

Katherine disp sped in private in the

mid 1520s that she was no longer

consulted by her husband in these

matters and she rarely heard from her

nephew Charles in the way which she had

during her father's lifetime when it

came to Spanish Affairs if cine was

increasingly sidelined by her husband in

the determination of England's place on

the international stage it simply

reflected her position at court

following the birth of Henry Fitzroy in

1519 the king had entered another Affair

this one with Mary Belin the daughter of

Sir Thomas bin who had caught Henry's

eye on her wedding day of all days in

1520 Mary was a somewhat scandalous

figure who had spent time at the French

Court in the late 1510s while her father

was serving as England's ambassador to

France she was ordered home to England

in 1519 for having engaged in several

affairs with French courtiers including

King Francis himself now following early

with Henry it was rumored that she had

borne the King two sons in the early

1520s but if she did he did not

acknowledge them perhaps because the

exact parentage of the children could

not be determined yet Mary was

ultimately to become a peripheral figure

rather it was her sister who would take

center stage in the 1520s in 1526 Henry

began a new affair with Anne bin Mary's

younger sibling and this time Henry was

more committed to his new mistress and

by 1527 he was determined that he would

obtain a divorce from Catherine in order

to marry again and hopefully produce a

legitimate male Heir what was to become

known as the king's great matter his

goal of achieving a divorce from his

wife of nearly 20 years would eventually

turn every aspect of English political

social and religious life upside down

Henry first alerted his wife in the

early summer of 1527 that he was looking

into the possibility of a divorce

because after 18 years of marriage his

Scruples had suddenly been challenged by

the chance that their marriage had been

unlawful all along the argument being

pursued was that because Katherine had

married Henry's brother artha and

because that earlier marriage had been

consummated Henry had effectively

married his own sister in 1509 and this

was in intolerable in religious law

therefore an annulment had to be granted

for the marriage this was hypocritical

of Henry in the extreme to suddenly

claim that his Scruples around this

issue had suddenly been felt 18 years

after the event however Katherine's

family background complicated the matter

for Henry she immediately wrote to her

nephew Charles I to inform him of the

situation as luck would have it

Charles's forces in Italy had recently

captured the city of Rome and with Pope

Clement iith effectively Charles's

prisoner there Henry would not receive

an annulment to his marriage anytime

soon with the possibility of an

annulment being quickly granted dashed

Cardinal woy now became a central figure

in events and in July 1527 he was

dispatched to France where he envisaged

the possibility of setting up a council

of cardinals who would run the Roman

Catholic Church while Clement was

incapacitated in Rome such a council

would be able to quickly Grant Henry his

divorce in Tandem and without wo's

knowledge Henry also dispatched the

Diplomat William Knight to Rome to seek

a dispensation from Clement to at least

allow Henry to marry again if the

divorce could not be granted straight

away effectively this was a request from

the King of England whose Scruples were

now severely affecting his judgment that

the pope would sanction him to commit

bigamy and have two queens at once

thinking better of this particularly

crazed request Henry quickly sent a

messenger after Knight who caught up

with him somewhere in France and

rescinded the order in any event both

Woolsey and knight's missions would

produce nothing and in England Henry was

beginning to assemble a collection of

church Scholars and lawyers who could

provide him with legal justifications

for the annulment of his marriage as he

did the great matter would come to

Dominic Court life in England during the

late

1520s as the months went by the

situation altered somewhat in Rome Pope

Clement was released from captivity by

Charles I in December 1527 but the

Spanish still controlled the city and

his freedom of action was still heavily

curtailed he eventually consented to

send a Papal leot in the shape of

cardinal Lorenzo cedo to England in the

Autumn of 1528 to deliberate on the case

with Cardinal woy sec ly cedo had orders

to delay the situation as much as

possible and to look for an alternative

solution to the problem having arrived

there he and woy had an audience with

Catherine on the 24th of October 1528

following which she requested cedo to

hear her confession on the 27th at this

she related to him that although they

were married for several months in late

1501 and early 1502 and that she and

Arthur had shared a bed on several

occasions during that time the marriage

had never been consummated as they had

not had relations on this issue hinged

the entire legal argument which Henry's

team of lawyers and churchmen had been

devising if Katherine had never had

relations with Arthur their argument had

no substance to it and no divorce would

be

forthcoming eventually in late May 1529

the legatine court assembled Katherine

quickly appealed for the hearing to be

adjourned and for her case to be heard

in Rome on the 21st of June both she and

Henry spoke before the court as did woy

for such a significant moment in English

political and religious history there is

a frustrating lack of detail in the

available sources as to what each of

them actually said that day but we do

know that Katherine at one stage knelt

before Henry and protested that she had

been his lawful wife for 20 years and IM

immediately after this she left the

court despite the calls for her to

remain as a result campeo had to send

word to Rome that Catherine was now

refusing to cooperate with the

proceedings by the time the message was

sent to the Vatican and a response was

formulated the summer recess was nearing

in London on the 23rd of July woy

convinced cedo to close proceedings for

a time but it was clear when he did this

that there was no intention of resuming

activ ity in the Autumn having exhausted

the possibility of coming to an

agreement with Rome and Pope Clement

Henry's ministers officials and advisers

would increasingly look to find an

alternative way of obtaining his divorce

and bringing an end to his great matter

throughout this tense period Catherine

and Henry had understandably seen less

and less of each other it should be

noted that Henry maintained a clear

fondness for her and even at the height

of a Affairs in late 1528 he is recorded

by the Contemporary chronicler and

historian Edward Hall as having stated

if I were to marry again if the marriage

might be good I would surely choose her

above all other women yet while she had

continued to preside over much of Court

life as Queen She and Henry rarely DED

together by 1529 except on major Court

occasions where the absence of one would

set tongues wagging at court Henry was

also often absent increasingly in the

company of Anne bin and her growing

Court faction somewhat bizarrely

throughout this period Henry continued

to have Catherine sew his shirts for him

something which infuriated Anne and for

her part Katherine tried to act in as

dignified a manner as possible at court

despite her precarious and embarrassing

position she wrote frequently to Charles

I and Pope Clement and pressed her

nephew's new Ambassador eustus ch voice

to implore Rome to categorically refuse

to sanction any divorce however Clement

did not oblige her in this and stated

simply that he would not agree to

resolve the case unless the parties

appeared in Rome as Clement delayed

Henry grew more desperate and the Berlin

faction which included Anne's powerful

Uncle Thomas Howard third Duke of

Norfolk increasingly argued that woy was

the main impediment to progress as the

most powerful Churchman in England and

one one of the two leats appointed by

Rome to decide the case it was in his

power to advance the divorce Henry who

possessed the peculiar combination of

being both a coward and a tyrant did not

wish to destroy his most trusted servant

and adviser but felt powerless to resist

the growing calls for Woolsey to be

supplanted eventually he began revoking

the Cardinal's powers and stripping him

of his properties and wealth he was

however permitted to remain as

Archbishop of York and so he set out for

the north of England to his dasis in the

Autumn of 1530 during which Journey he

died but while woy was now gone his

removal did not provide a solution in

and of itself to the king's great matter

that would only come through the

intercession of one of wo's protes a

rising official called Thomas Cromwell

Cromwell would become one of the

critical figures in the months that

followed in the new line of argument to

obtain the divorce this held that the

English church was not under the

jurisdiction of Rome and that the

English crown held supreme authority

over the English church as such Henry

could Grant himself a divorce much of

what followed in the course of the early

1530s was intimately connected to the

religious termoil shaking Europe the

Protestant Reformation had begun in

Germany led by reformer Martin Luther in

1517 and in the years that followed it

swept through central western and

Northern Europe as individual uals

questioned every type of received

knowledge about the church and how it

was run it was in this climate that the

scholars and lawyers which Henry had

assembled to obtain his divorce began

arguing that the Kings of England held

Supremacy over the English church this

was the line which was followed from

1531 onwards Cromwell became Central to

pushing it through as he coerced

England's leading churchmen to accept it

in the process the establishment of

Henry's Supremacy would create

opportunities for new church figures

with Protestant sympathies to gain High

office and in the act of acquiring his

divorce Henry's actions at this time

inadvertently also initiated the English

Reformation but to Henry in 1531 and

1532 that would have seemed somewhat

immaterial or at least the lesser of two

evils the greater one being his

inability to get a divorce thus Henry

threw his full support behind

establishing the supremacy in the early

1530s in order to finally resolve his

great matter Catherine must have known

that her time as Queen of England was

limited when in February 1531 a clerical

convocation affirmed Henry's position as

Supreme head of the Church of England in

Rome Pope Clement responded to this by

offering to allow the case concerning

his divorce to take place on neutral

ground somewhere outside of England or

Rome but there would be no such case

heard now on the on the 31st of May 1531

a deputation of 30 of Henry's leading

officials and counselors met with

Katherine in order to work out a

compromise given that the King was

determined to proceed she tenaciously

resisted defending both the supremacy of

Rome over the English church and the

validity of her own marriage yet again

stating that she had never consummated

her marriage with Arthur 6 weeks later

on the 11th of July 1531 she met with

Henry for the last time thereafter she

was ordered to head north to the Moore

Palace in herfordshire effectively being

banished from the site of the Royal

Court she was also to be cruy separated

from her daughter Mary was still the

Royal heir and would reside at Windsor

Castle though she can't have known it at

the time that she left London in the

summer of 1531 Catherine would never see

her daughter again the bitter separation

was entering its last

stages at the mo Palace Catherine was

allowed to make maintain a considerable

household but she was prohibited from

returning to London in the late Autumn a

further deputation of Henry's officials

came to visit her the Hope was that

Catherine would give up her objection to

a trial being held in England to

deliberate on the validity of her

marriage if she appeared at such a trial

there was no doubt that it would be stag

managed in such a way as to back up

Henry's argument since 1527 that the

marriage was invalid and an annulment

would follow in due course Catherine

refused but by now the matter was out of

her hands and by the late summer of 1532

Anne Berlin was presiding over the Royal

Court as though she were effectively

Queen and in the Autumn of that year she

accompanied Henry on a royal visit to

France in November she and Henry were

married in secret a more formal wedding

took place in January 1533 by that time

Arch Bishop Thomas krmer a supporter of

the supremacy had been installed as

Archbishop of Canterbury and finally in

May 1533 he convened a special clerical

court at dunable priy which declared

Henry and Katherine's marriage to be

invalid and annuled 5 days later he

retroactively sanctioned Henry and an's

marriage at last after 6 years Henry had

obtained his divorce from Catherine what

would Catherine do now for the second

time in her long English Odyssey she

found herself cast a drift in a country

where her purpose was now clear on the

first occasion she had been a young

woman with the vague Prospect of a new

marriage to Henry being worked out in

the aftermath of Arthur's death but this

time there was no such Prospect yet a

return to her native Spain was out of

the question she had not been there in

over 30 years and she had few ties to

her Homeland anymore her sister hanana

was still there though still living

effectively under house arrest since her

father had accused her of Madness

decades earlier her son who had

effectively usurped her position as

ruler of Castile had left her under

house arrest at toras the Two Sisters

had not exactly fed well in a world run

by men for Catherine if Spain held no

attraction for her England offered the

only reason for her to reside anywhere

her daughter Mary was there and

Catherine would have to fight to

maintain Mary's position in the new

dispensation which had effectively

sidelined her with the annulment of

Katherine's marriage to Henry as such

the conclusion of Henry's great matter

early in 1533 did not bring Catherine's

own personal struggle with her husband

to an end at first Henry attempted to

Plate Catherine with an offer of the

title of Princess Dowager Katherine

refused and she was Consulting with the

Imperial Ambassador eustus chapuis

around this time to try to have him

press the papacy to issue a definitive

condemnation of Henry's renunciation of

his marriage to her simultaneously it is

clear that there was widespread public

support throughout England for Catherine

and her cause this was exhibited most

publicly in the Prophecies of Elizabeth

Barton Barton who is variously

remembered as the holy Maid of Kent and

the Mad Maid of Kent had gained a

reputation throughout England in the

1520s as a prophetes who had Visions she

had even met with Cardinal woy and Henry

in 1528 but despite their earlier

acquaintance Barton was preaching in

1532 that if Henry remarried he would

die soon afterwards she even claimed

that she had seen the place in hell

where he would be sent her public

appearances gained large crowds which

expressed support for Catherine and

vilified Anne thus although Barton

herself was eventually arrested tried

and hanged at tyburn on charges of

treason the episode points towards how

much support Catherine enjoyed from the

common people of the country over which

she had been Queen for more than 23

years conversely Anne had been received

in a tepid fashion by the London crowds

during her

coronation as 1533 turned into 1534

Katherine's position became more and

more Awkward for Henry in March of that

year the papacy finally issued its

pronouncements on the divorce and

surprisingly they were entirely

supportive of Catherine's position then

in May Katherine refused to swear an

oath which the government was asking

people to subscribe to which would

recognize any children which an berin

would have by the king this would Place

Anne's children ahead of Mary in the

royal succession and Katherine was

unwilling to accept it she wrote to Mary

advising her to refuse the oath as well

at the same time she was forced to move

to kimbolton house in Huntington Shire

and her household was much reduced to

match her more limited financial means

those who remained primarily consisted

of about two dozen Spaniards the core

group being her Confessor her Maids

several stewards and some Grooms here

she insisted on continuing to be

addressed as the queen whatever her

aspirations were though her life was

increasingly restricted she had to get

permission to receive visitors and even

when Mary was Ill in late 1534 and early

1535 Henry refused Katherine permission

to be allowed to visit her the concern

was that if Catherine and her daughter

managed to escape together to the

continent they could later press Mary's

claim to the throne with the backing of

Charles I and the papacy in the

intricate European politics of the 16th

century this was not an entirely

unfounded fear Catherine remained

defiant to the last throughout 1535 she

continued to pursue various channels to

request that the new Pope Paul III

should issue a declaration stating that

Henry was excommunicated from the church

as a result of his dis oying the

papacy's directives with regard to their

marriage however these efforts were

sabotaged by her own nephew Charles I

Was preparing to go to war again with

France and the last thing he needed was

an announcement from the papacy which

would push England into supporting the

French in the new conflict which

eventually broke out in

1536 thus Catherine would never lived to

see her husband condemned fully by Rome

her health had been deteriorating in the

the Autumn of 1535 and by December when

Ambassador chapuis visited her she was

very ill she worsened further in the

first days of January and died at

kimbolton at 2: p.m. on the 7th of

January an autopsy of sorts afterwards

revealed that her heart was damaged and

black throughout it is likely that this

was a secondary condition caused by a

melanotic carcinoma rumors that she had

been poisoned are very unlikely to have

been accurate she was buried at peterb

Abbey although no Monument was erected

to Mark the site as being the grave of

the woman who had been Queen of England

for nearly a quarter of a century the

England that Catherine departed from in

1536 was just beginning to enter a vast

period of change which was closely tied

to Henry's quest to divorce her the

drive to establish Henry as Supreme head

of the English church had seen religious

figures such as the new Archbishop of

Canterbury Thomas cranmer obtain control

over much of the church throughout

England in the years that followed these

individuals began reforming church

practice and introduced a version of the

new Protestant religion just as

Katherine left the world the hundreds of

monasteries and naries which had dotted

England for centuries were being shut

down while in churches all over the

country altars were being stripped back

to more aere Interiors in line with

Protestant practice though there would

be Catholic reactions and periods of

more radical protestantism in the 20

years that followed nothing in the end

could turn back the tide of religious

and social change which was initiated

through efforts to find a resolution to

Henry v8's great matter perhaps Henry

would not have mind it in October 1537

he got his wish when a legitimate male

Heir called Edward was born to his third

wife Jane Seymour yet that son for which

Henry had strived for so long would only

rule for 6 years after Henry himself

died in

1547 thus Catherine's daughter Mary

became Queen of England after all in

1553 Catherine of aragan is one of the

most curious figures in English

political history in a great many

accounts of the tumultuous events of the

late 1520s and early 1530s she is

regularly mentioned but comes across as

a personalist key char character she is

usually presented as the roadblock which

prevented Henry VII from marrying Anne

Berlin but Henry and Anne other the

Personalities in these accounts and

Catherine is an important but shadowy

figure in the background of which

nothing is ever usually said except that

she had to be removed this does her a

disservice Catherine was a proud

tenacious woman who overcame a

considerable degree of adversity after

being cast a drift in a foreign land as

a teenager during a time when women of

her background were often mere bartering

Tools in international diplomacy as

Queen she acted as a progressive patron

of Scholars and supported the education

of women in England and then when her

troubled natal history eventually LED

Henry to try to dispense with her she

doggedly fought to maintain her own

position and more importantly her

daughter's position as heir to the

throne of England all of this stands

considerably in her favor

curiously enough perhaps the greatest

Testament to Katherine's character was

provided by Henry VII himself of Henry's

other Five Wives there were two he did

not dispense of his third wife Jane

Seymour died owing to postnatal

complications after giving birth to the

Future King Edward I 6 while his sixth

and final wife Katherine par outlived

Henry by a year however the other three

were not treated kindly his marriage to

his fourth wife an of cleaves was

quickly annulled in 1540 after Henry

stated she is nothing so fair as hath

been reported his fifth wife Katherine

Howard was beheaded after she was found

guilty of having committed adultery

while Anne berin the woman for whom

Henry spent so many years trying to

divorce Catherine in order to marry her

was found guilty of treason on quite

possibly spirous charges in

1536 and beheaded as well just 3 years

after after marrying Henry by way of

contrast Henry who probably respected

Catherine more than any of his other

wives allowed his former Spanish consort

to live on in England after he had

finally obtained his divorce though her

Liberties were restricted at a time when

there was a very real fear that Charles

I would declare war on England over the

divorce at least cathine kept her head

which is more than many others who got

in Henry's way could say

what do you think of Katherine of aragan

do you think she was right to resist

Henry's attempts to divorce her so

strongly and for so long please let us

know in the comment section and in the

meantime thank you very much for

watching the woman known to history as

an Bolin was born in or around

1501 at blickling Hall in Norfolk

although sometime in her early childhood

the family would move to what would

become their principal residence which

was hea Castle in

Kent her father was Sir Thomas Bolin

intelligent well-educated and fluent in

French he was also very ambitious

promoted by Henry iith to Deputy warden

for Customs at Cal he was an influential

courtier an's great-grandfather was the

Lord mayor of London in 1457 Sir Jeffrey

Bolin a successful Merchant who bought

the family seats of both blickling Hall

and hea Castle and's mother was

Elizabeth Howard daughter of the Earl of

su who would latly become the second

Duke of Norfolk Elizabeth Howard was a

noble woman who served as lady in

waiting to Katherine of aragan during

the early part of the reign of Henry VII

the Howards could rightfully claim to

move in Royal circles not least because

Anne's Uncle the third Duke of Norfolk

had married the daughter of Edward IV an

of

York Anne was educated to a high

standard along with her siblings by

members of her household and it was Anne

and her brother George who were the

better students the two also sharing a

particular closeness as brother and

sister an would have learned the

traditional lessons of the time such as

reading and writing as well as languages

and music but she would also have been

taught the traditionally feminine

lessons of needle work dancing and

singing only two of Anne's siblings

survived into adulthood they were George

and Mary however their ages and even the

order of their birth is a point of

contention although the probable order

was that Mary was the oldest as per Lord

Hunan's account and that Anne was the

middle child born before George who was

born in either 1504 or

155 making Anne's probable birth date

sometime around 1

151 Anne was considered the less

attractive of the two sisters and rumors

abound that she was born with physical

marks of a large mole on her neck and an

extra finger on one hand attributes that

would have arose SS I that she carried

quote marks of the devil an took care to

hide these marks and they did not appear

in her portraiture she also had black

hair and dark eyes not the conventional

picture of Beauty at the time but

despite the unusual marks on her body

and the fact that she was not the oldest

Bolin girl her intelligence meant that

her ambitious father Thomas Bolin chose

Anne to send into Service as a lady

waiting at the court of Margaret of

Austria Regent of the Netherlands and so

she left England for the first time in

1513 entering the household of Margaret

of Austria in

Brussels she would have set out for

Brussels with a contingent of her

father's servants beginning the journey

with anticipation and excitement at

taking up such a sorta position as well

as with her father's words in mind to

make sure she made the best of herself

as the representative of the family

abroad at one of the most cultured

courts in Europe she quickly made a good

impression at the Dutch court and

Margaret of Austria wrote to Thomas

Bolin stating how pleased she was to

receive his daughter Anne made good

progress in learning the French language

and wrote a long letter in French to her

Father which is the first example of

an's own voice in original sources after

the king of aunts Louis I 12's wife died

in

1514 he requested of Henry VII the hand

in marriage of his sister Mary tuder who

traveled to France to become Queen by

this time Anne's fluency in French had

become well known and her father was

asked to send her from Brussels to

France to serve under Mary Tudor this

would have been a difficult request for

Thomas Bolin to ask of Margaret of

Austria as the were r rumors that

Margaret herself may have been the

likely candidate for marriage to King

Louie and Sister Mary Bolin traveled

with Mary Tudor to France as she was by

now part of Mary's household and

traveled directly from Brussels to

France and joined the French court and

was also reunited with her sister there

and when after their marriage King Louie

sent many of Mary Tudor's attendants

home to England Anne and her sister Mary

were two who were spared and so they

would have been quite close confidence

to the new Queen however when King Louie

died only three months after their

marriage most of Mary Tudor's attendants

return to England with her in May

1515 but Anne and Mary berin decided to

stay at the French Court in the new

Queen claude's household Anne had most

likely acted as an interpreter between

Mary Tudor and her stepdaughter Claude

when Louie was still alive and so the

relationship they formed must have been

a good one since Anne stayed in Queen

claude's service for the next seven

years whilst Queen claude's Court was

quiet and amure that of her husband

Francis I was much more debed and

frivolous and both Mary and Anne would

on occasion visit the king's Cor in the

course of their duties during this time

Mary Bolin gained quite a reputation for

being generous with her sexual favors

even earning the nickname of the English

mayor and becoming the Mistress of both

Francis I and several other French

courtiers when he discarded her and when

word reached Mary's family in England of

her behavior she was sent for to return

home ending what must have been an

embarrassing time for for Anne at the

French Court whilst stne was at the

court of Queen Claude she would have

spent much of her time doing needle work

and playing music but also during this

time she met with the sister of Francis

I margarit angulam who may have

influenced Anne with her reformist views

Anne would also have had the opportunity

of seeing her father during her time at

the French Court as Thomas Bolin took

part in several Court visits from

England one of which was for the

christening of Francis I and queen

claude's son Henry Duke of oon in

1519 she would also probably have met

him at the famous field of cloth of gold

meeting between Francis I and Henry VII

in

1518 although not recorded as such Anne

would almost certainly have been present

at the famous meeting between the Kings

as one of the ladies in waiting to the

French Queen Queen and this would

probably have been the first time that

she set eyes on her future husband King

Henry VII who was 30 at the time and in

his prime as well as the first time that

she would have seen Katherine of aragan

the king's older wife an would return to

England after nearly 9 years abroad in

1522 after her father requested her

presence in late 1521 and by February or

March 1522 she had become a member of

the household of Catherine of aragan in

Greenwich Anne's Presence at court

caused a stir she was seen as somewhat

of a fashion icon as well as being

possessed of considerable Poise Grace

and charm even her detractors at the

time wrote of the magnetism of her

demeanor in March 1522 Anne was chosen

to take part in a play or mask at court

in which eight princesses dressed in

white satin would portray various

virtues Mary Tuda would portray Beauty

whilst Anne's Sister Mary would portray

kindness and Anne was chosen to portray

perseverance by the time Anne returned

to court in England her sister Mary was

mistress to King Henry VII an

involvement that would last for several

years despite Mary's marriage to William

carry in

1521 which was thought a cover to

protect her reputation should she fall

pregnant by the king Mary's relationship

with Henry could also be the reason for

Thomas bolin's progression as he was

made controller of the household in 1520

and treasurer of the household in

1522 as well as being made vicount

Rochford in

1525 however Mary received little from

her relationship with Henry after she

was discarded in 15 25 this treatment

May well have warned Anne to hold out

for what she wanted when looking for

marriage and love and this she would

make sure she did what Anne hadn't

realized when she left France was that

she was being summoned home in order

that she should be married Thomas Bolan

and Cardinal Woolsey in talks with King

Henry had arranged for Anne to be

married to the eldest son of s's Butler

James to avoid a succession disagreement

over the rightful ownership of the title

of the Earl ship of orand over which

Thomas Bolin had a claim as did the

Butlers it seems that Anne was not keen

on the match between herself and James

Butler her delaying tactics eventually

proved successful and the marriage idea

dwindled and never in fact happened

despite having the approval of the king

an wanted an advant cont agous marriage

for herself and was also known as a

willful character she defied the

conventions of the time and arranged a

marriage for herself her chosen partner

was Henry Percy heir to the elom of

North umberland it was a very good match

for Anne and Henry Percy immediately

fell deeply in love with her it has been

speculated that following their

engagement they may have actually

consumated their relationship as an

would have been eager to ensure her path

to becoming Countess of Northumberland

this fact could also have been known by

Lady Wingfield who Anne wrote to quite

humbly before her later marriage to

Henry probably hoping to keep the matter

a secret however the marriage never in

fact happened as the king heard of their

plans and instructed woy to put a stop

to it he summoned Percy to him

forbidding the marriage on the grounds

that Anne was beneath him in in terms of

rank Anne was furious at this decision

and held a grudge against Cardinal

Woolsey for the decision Henry Percy

pined for Anne and was almost

continually ill until his death in his

early

30s following her failed engagement Anne

returned to hea Castle and became

reacquainted with her next love interest

her neighbor Thomas Wyatt whose family

was well known by Thomas Bolin as

Wyatt's father Sir Henry Wyatt had been

created a KN of the bath along with

Thomas Bolin at Henry VIII's coronation

and they shared the office of conable of

norch Castle from 1511 Thomas was a

handsome athletic figure as well as a

poet who was well respected at court the

only downside was that Wyatt was already

married and so their relationship

remained merely a flirtation which

continued when Anne was called back to

Katherine of adan's court in

1525 however Wyatt's writing made it

clear that he was highly attracted to

Anne and did in fact love her with some

sources suggesting that their

relationship may have actually been more

than platonic however Anne's feelings

for and extent of relationship with

Wyatt is ultimately

uncertain several sources claim that

Anne was not at all chased and virtuous

and that Thomas Wyatt was allowed into

her bed and that she may have even

entertained other lovers as well with

one writer claiming that the first was

her father's Butler when she was a girl

of only 15 another more salacious anti

Bellin rumor stated that Henry VII who

had found Anne's Mother Elizabeth Howard

attractive had fathered Anne however

this is highly unlikely as Henry would

have been only 16 at the time and still

under the protection of his father Henry

V

7th the accounts of her carrying on an

affair with Wyatt also seem unlikely as

there were several other likely

candidates she could have chosen who

were not married and as well as this she

would hold back from sleeping with the

King until they were eventually married

both arguments point to the inaccuracy

of of the Wyatt Affair being anything

more than simple flirtation by the mid

1520s Queen Catherine of aran's failure

to produce a son and Heir would have

made King Henry more and more impatient

and because Katherine was more or less

constantly pregnant for the first decade

of her marriage Henry was used to taking

Mistresses even fathering an

illegitimate son whom Henry acknowledged

as his own child the boy was named Henry

Fitzroy literally meaning son of the

king he was born in June of

1519 his mother Elizabeth blunt one of

the Queen's ladies in Waiting Henry had

proven that he could father a son and

while Henry never openly blamed

Catherine for her failure to produce a

boy it is likely that the continued

absence of a legitimate Heir some 10

years into his marriage stoked

resentment

as well as anxiety in him especially as

Henry was now 27 years old and Catherine

was 33 and so the time left for her to

conceive was growing short and within a

decade Henry's attempts to address the

absence of an heir would change the face

of England

forever culturally Henry was a devout

Catholic and evidence suggests that he

essentially remained so throughout his

life however his commitment to the

Pope's right to govern the church would

present him with perhaps his greatest

dilemma when his views conflicted with

both his desire to remarry and his

increasingly desperate need for a son

and air the one thing that seemed to be

out of his reach by the mid 1520s the

situation became even more strained

Henry was no longer the popular teenage

King but was still a fair young man in

his early 30s and never having abandoned

his athletic lifestyle and Pursuits he

had kept his trim handsomeness and vigor

Catherine however was nearing 40 and had

gained a great deal of weight in the

years since her marriage as well as this

six pregnancies in 9 years had wre havoc

on her body and Catherine now past

childbearing age was losing both the

love and interest of of her

husband when Anne Bolin came to the

Tudor Court in 1525 as a lady in waiting

to Queen Catherine having recently

returned from the French Court of Queen

Claude she must have been a breath of

fresh air to the king she was much

admired for her Cosmopolitan Heir her

style wit and charm and still in her mid

20s she was fashionable and attractive

with dark hair and eyes an commanded ATT

attension at court and Henry longing for

a younger more vivacious wife who might

give him a son fell deeply in love with

her the affair of Anne's sister with the

King ended before 1526 and so on her

return to court Anne was seemingly

available and King Henry was on the

lookout for another mistress Anne

continued her flutatious behavior with

Thomas Wyatt at court Thomas at one

point taking a jewel from an which he

kept on his person presumably as a

reminder of her during this time both

Henry and Wyatt vied for the attention

of an before Wyatt realized just how

serious the King was about winning her

hand Henry also took a ring from Anne

and began wearing it on his little

finger at this time the first indication

perhaps that his feelings for her were

deepening and in 15 28 King Henry made

Wyatt Marshall of C perhaps to make sure

Wyatt was absent from court to clear the

way for Henry to secure his relationship

with Anne initially for the first few

months of their courtship there seemed

to be no question of Henry casting off

his wife he frequently begged an to

become his mistress which she refused to

do as although she was flattered to

receive the attention of the king she

insisted that she would give her

virginity only to her husband Henry's

letters to Anne from 1526 and

1527 some of which survive are full of

passionate Declarations of his love and

desire for her Henry continually

commissioned new jewels and trinkets for

her and publicly showed her favor and

affection in historical terms Anne Bolin

has been given the reputation of The

Other Woman at worst a grasping

political climber and conspirator who

usurped the place of a legitimate wife

and queen much loved by the English

people however there is no evidence that

she encouraged Henry's interest in her

initially indeed she reportedly made an

Abrupt departure from court in the

spring of 1527 returning to her family's

home at hea Castle and the letter that

Henry wrote to Anne soon after her

departure conveys the impression that

she might have left simply to avoid

Henry's ardor and avoid turning down a

king who held power over the livelihood

and lives of the entire court the letter

from Henry reads quote in turning over

in my mind the contents of your last

letters I have put myself into great

Agony not knowing how to interpret them

whether to my disadvantage as you show

show in some places or to my advantage

as I understand them in some others

beseeching you earnestly to let me know

expressly your whole mind as to the love

between us two it is absolutely

necessary for me to obtain this answer

having been for above a whole year

stricken with the dart of love and not

yet sure whether I shall fail of finding

a place in your heart and

affection while some might accuse her of

playing a skillful game of manipulation

it seems unlikely that a young woman

like Anne from a respectable but not a

powerful family would imagine that she

could be anything more than Henry's

temporary mistress it is difficult to

believe that Anne might be presumptuous

enough to think that she could take

Henry from his legitimate wife or that

she might emerge Victorious from a

battle with the Queen of England at the

time Anne was still set on arranging a

high ranking marriage for herself and

may have seen the status that the king's

attention gave her as a distinct

advantage in the marriage Market making

her seem all the more worthy to Woodby

sutors the alternative account that she

set out to take the king from his wife

is unlikely but her mixed messages

confused and frustrated the king until

he became boted by this alluring

seemingly unobtainable woman however it

is true that air liazon with the king

would have no doubt placed her marriage

prospects and future Prosperity at Great

risk and so it is likely that she came

to love Henry as he loved her after her

abrupt departure from Court Henry

continued writing to Anne in his own

hand and sending her gifts and in time

an began to respond to Henry with

feelings and Gifts of her own and the

two began carrying on their relationship

quite publicly at

court there is of course no way to know

whether Anne and Henry maintained their

abstinence as Anne had insisted she must

However the fact that Anne did not

become pregnant throughout the nearly

seven years of their courtship suggests

she stayed chased methods of

contraception were available at the time

but were extremely unreliable so while

Henry and Anne were likely intimate with

one another there is no evidence which

suggests that they slept together prior

to late

1532 at the earliest their intimacy is

attested to in their letters to one

another in one of which Henry mentions

that he misses an's duckies an informal

term for her breasts by 1527 a year

after Anne's arrival at court Henry had

proposed marriage to Anne and she had

after much thought accepted Henry

decided to seek a divorce from Katherine

so he could marry Anne Henry's rationale

for the divorce has been argued by some

to illustrate the fundamental flaws in

his personality a tendency towards cold

abandonment and indifference towards

those he had no more use for as well as

a willingness to interpret facts to suit

himself when Henry had first married

Catherine he had done so against

objections from all sides because he

loved her the pope issued a special

dispensation to allow Henry to marry

Catherine since she had been wed first

to Henry's brother Arthur and Henry and

Catherine's marriage according to

Catholic Doctrine could otherwise have

been considered incest based on a

provision in Leviticus

2021 If any man should take his

brother's wife it is an unclean thing

they will be childless and so when the

teenage Henry had wanted to marry

Katherine of aragan he readily accepted

both the Pope's dispensation and

Katherine's claim that her six Monon

marriage to his brother Arthur had never

actually been consumated due to to

Arthur's continual ill health and it was

not until years later when Henry had

fallen in love with am and the

possibility of having a son had become

realistic again that Henry decided that

Katherine and Arthur's marriage may not

have been consumated he reasoned that

the pope had overreached his own

authority and that the very reason he

had no son was because his current

marriage was a sin against God for which

divorce was the only remedy Henry's

ambition for love and an heir changed

everything the king would spend the next

few years pursuing the great matter of

his divorce he began with a direct

appeal to Pope Clement iith hoping that

his noted Devotion to the Catholic

Church would secure him an analment a

prospect which at the time was not as

outrageous a request as it seems today

as for little Lally centuries various

successive popes had dissolved literally

dozens of Royal marriages even marriages

of relatively long duration which had

already produced children most of which

were annulled for political reasons

although official annulments always

cited some biblical or doctrinal

explanation for the dissolution of these

marriages however Henry was about to

find his dreams of a quick and easy

divorce dashed when in

1527 Emperor Charles I sacked Rome and

took the pope as his prisoner in

addition to being arguably the most

powerful man in Europe Charles was also

Queen Catherine's nephew and by this

point even if the pope had wished to

Grant Henry his divorce he would have

been unable to Henry then turned to

Cardinal Woolsey who had never failed

him and who owed literally all he had to

the king Thomas woy was not born to the

nobility like most clergymen of the day

who became archbishops Cardinals and

Papal legats woy was the son of a

butcher from ipswitch originally an

obscure chaplain until under Henry's

patronage he was made Bishop Archbishop

and Cardinal in fairly quick succession

Woolsey had not only been Henry's Lord

Chancellor he had also been his mentor

as a young king still finding his way

but whatever the reason for wo's failure

to procure the divorce whether inability

or reluctance it would lead to his ruin

the Cardinal working with Cardinal

campeggio a special legot appointed by

the pope set up a letine court to

determine Henry's great matter but the

court was unable to reach a decision

with regard to the Merit of Henry's

claim for an analment and rulle that the

matter should be decided by the College

of cardinals in Rome it is unclear

whether Woolsey truly wanted to give

Henry his desire or if like his

ecclesiastical counterparts he saw the

danger of allowing the king to divorce

his famously Pious Catholic wife and

Mary Anne who was reliably rumored to be

a Lutheran reformer but whatever his

intentions the failure of the legatine

court was wales's downfall as Henry

commanded his arrest and imprisonment

citing the treasonous tone of letters

walsey had written to Vatican officials

however the Cardinal in fact died of

natural causes on his way to London

before Henry could behead him Henry did

not sit idly by waiting for the College

of Cardinals or the pope to decide the

fate of his marriage in instead he began

to Canvas the opinions of theologians at

Europe's universities asking them to

study deliberate and pronounce a verdict

on the merits of his case for divorce

however Henry would be disappointed

twice more as the majority of University

theologians and later the College of

cardinals would decide in favor of Queen

Catherine declaring the King's first

marriage valid after all it is un clear

when Henry first began to consider

repudiating the Pope's Authority in

England thus removing the obstacle to

his divorce an bolin's influence as a

Lutheran sympathizer and reformer is

entirely plausible as is the influence

of Thomas Cromwell another reformer who

was first Henry's private secretary and

later Rose to become the Lord privy seal

in fact there were quite a few reformers

in the English Parliament and at court

at the time time and anti-clericalism

was Rife among them but perhaps it was

his introduction to the little known

clergyman and theology Professor from

Cambridge Thomas cranmer which truly

planted the seed in his mind according

to cranmer who was a passionate reformer

Kings anointed by God answered only to

God and therefore Henry should not have

had to pursue his divorce through legal

means this atmosphere and these ideas

may have emboldened Henry to forly break

with the Roman Catholic church and

pursue one of the most radical bids for

power ever made by a European Monarch

the claim to the absolute powers of both

King and Pope it would take nearly two

years for Henry to establish the

Fulfillment of his will over both

Parliament and the English clergy but by

1532 Henry had what what he wanted he

was the Supreme head of the church in

England and Parliament had legislated a

full break with the Pope stopping

virtually all payments to Rome and

because he wanted his great matter

decided by the English church which was

much better from a public relations

standpoint than declaring it himself he

made Thomas cranmer Archbishop of

Canterbury empowering him to lead the

clergy to the right decision in other

words to vote in Henry's favor with

regard to his divorce in April of

1533 Archbishop cranmer declared Henry's

marriage to Katherine invalid but by

that time Henry had already been

remarried for 3 months having wed Anne

Bolin in a secret ceremony on the 25th

of January

1533 as well as this Anne had already

made her first appearance at fought as

Queen and had taken up residence in what

had been Catherine of adan's Apartments

also taking up the motto the most

happy however controversially some

historians suggest that when she came to

the altar Anne was already pregnant as

on the 7th of September

1533 just over 7 months after their

marriage Anne gave birth to princess

Elizabeth the the future Elizabeth I of

England the king once married had wanted

Anne to be crowned queen speedily due to

her burgeoning pregnancy as he wanted

his expected child to be born to a

consecrated mother and so plans went

ahead for Anne's coronation as part of

her procession Anne would take a barge

and she made sure that it was Katherine

of aragan barge that was commandeered

for the Royal procession reportedly she

had Catherine's coat of arms not only

removed from the barge but also

destroyed the festivities began on the

29th of May

1533 and lasted for 5 days the king

wanted an's ceremony to reflect that she

was every inch the Magnificent Queen he

wanted her to be seen as and so on the

31st of May an's procession left the

tower consisting of foreign ambassadors

and Nobles beded in purple robes ir and

other finery followed by Anne carried in

a litter accompanied by her ladies in

waiting also finally attired in

resplendant fashion all to a salute of

guns from the tower and pageants at the

roadside the sight must have been

astonishing for The Spectators lining

the route however when Anne noticed that

some of the crowd were not dothing their

caps and calling God Save the Queen an

had one of her attendants approached the

Lord mayor to complain of it he replied

that quote he could not command people's

hearts and that even the king could not

do so despite the blatant signs of her

unpopularity Anne was Resolute she would

be crowned queen and she was on the very

next morning in Westminster Abbey

by Archbishop

granma Anne was never a popular queen as

papers from the time attest to subjects

being taken to task over comments on the

marriage and rudeness to her personally

and in

1533 a priest was recorded as being

subject to investigation over calling an

a harlot and a and quoting a

prophecy that a queen would be burned at

Smithfield this and similar incidents

led to the king issuing a proclamation

that anyone who came forward with

information against those who spoke out

against his marriage would be offered a

reward despite the apparent loyalty and

favor the king showed to Anne this did

not translate to the marriage bed as

although the king had been faithful to

an during their courtship the same was

not true of their marriage and by

1533 Henry already had a mistress and

Anne Bolin knew of her this must have

struck Anne like a thunderbolt as until

she gave Henry his son her position was

Reliant only on his passion for her

which was perhaps waning when Anne

reacted angrily to the news of the

affair the king rebuked her with

righteous indignation not speaking to

her again for two or three days her

detractors at court must have reacted

gleefully at this first hint of a rift

in the Royal marriage and Anne decided

not to raise the matter until she had

given birth to her child who she fully

expected was to be a son on the 7th of

September

1533 Anne gave birth to a daughter to

both hers and Henry's great regret the

expected son had not arrived and the

Planned tournament to greet his birth

was cancelled but once their initial

disappointment waned the couple accepted

the new baby happily she was his Heir

after all until a son appeared and she

was happy and healthy and looked like

the king they named their daughter

Elizabeth the name of not only Henry's

mother but an's also baby Elizabeth was

christened and Thomas crma was named as

her Godfather and the Duchess of norfol

and the Martian of Dorset were named as

her godmothers and after her christening

the baby was proclaimed princess of

England as well as ays supplanting her

half-sister Mary in the line of

sucession as Queen an divided opinion

both at home and abroad some loved her

but many hated her some due to her lowly

Origins and some because Catherine had

always been such a popular Queen but

they hated her also because of Anne's

reformist religious views which were

alien to a great proportion of the

largely Catholic population one person

who spoke out against Anne and was a

thorn in both hers and Henry's side was

a young woman called Elizabeth Barton

who claimed to have been cured of an

illness miraculously by God she became a

nun and claimed to prophesize the future

telling Henry that she had seen a place

for him prepared in hell and that he

would stop being a king a month after

his marriage to Anne in November

1533 Henry had Barton arrested and she

confessed after questioning that all her

claims had been a sham she was executed

along with five of her Associates on the

20th of April 1534

as a reformist Queen Anne set an example

in her Court by reading the Bible and

entreating her courtiers to be both

Godly and Pious although she would have

had music and dancing at court she

demonstrated a degree of reformist

fervor and would read her Bible in

French as well as English she also did

charitable Works Distributing arms to

the poor and also supporting a Cambridge

scholar in her brief time as Queen Anne

also secured several Bishop Ricks for

reformist clergymen including Thomas

cranmer and Hugh Latimer who became

Bishop of Worcester she also offered

Sanctuary at court to foreign reformers

who needed it as well as this she had a

great love for her daughter as did Henry

and it must have been a wrench for Anne

when the princess was given her own

household in December

1533 as was usual for the time Henry

understood the enormity of what he had

done by removing the power of Rome in

order to marry Anne and he moved swiftly

to consolidate his new powers and impose

his will implacably upon the English

people Katherine of aragan was still

widely popular and her replacement Queen

Anne was widely resented but more

importantly the majority of the English

people still identified closely with

Roman Catholicism

Henry knew he would have to establish

control quickly before the foreign

influence and support of Catholic Europe

emboldened uneasy Catholic Englishmen to

act and his answer was the act of

Supremacy which he proposed following

his marriage to Anne and which

parliament passed in

1534 the ACT required all the king's

subjects to swear an oath recognizing

Henry as Supreme head of the church and

affirming the legality of the king's

marriage to anolin refusal to swear the

oath was considered treason the

punishment for which was death for

devoted Catholics the oath of Supremacy

was seen as a referendum on morality

most chose to swear the oath and escape

with their lives no matter how painful

the cost to their beliefs others like

Henry's old friend and Mentor sir Thomas

Moore would not Moore had largely

retired from court and public life in

general following the death of Thomas

woy Henry had named Moore Lord

Chancellor a post which he resigned from

only two years later in

1532 alienated and demoralized by the

erosion of papal Authority he had

witnessed at court he had never spoken

publicly against the king or against his

marriage to an but as of

1535 he remained one of only a few of

Henry's subjects who still had not taken

the oath Mo's refusal to do so resulted

in him being imprisoned in the tower and

at his trial when it was clear that he

would be found guilty he loudly affirmed

the authority of the Pope over all

matters religious and denied the ability

of parliament to declare the king head

of the church Moore was immediately

sentenced to death for treason a crime

which carried the penalty of hanging

drawing and

quartering Henry had already

demonstrated that he was not averse to

removing his subjects when they failed

to deliver challenged his power or acted

contrary to his will but perhaps it is a

small Testament to his remembrance of

Moore's friendship and service to him

that Henry commuted his sentence to

beheading on the 6th of July

1535 Thomas Moore went bravely to the

scaffold he jokingly asked the

Executioner to hold a moment while he

shifted his beard from the edge of the

block saying that after all it was he

not it that had committed treason and in

a loud clear voice he declared that he

died quote the king's good servant and

God Gods first as well as more Queen

Catherine and Mary also refused to sign

the oath which Henry and Anne saw as a

direct Act of defiance that Anne and

Catherine hated each other was no secret

and it could have been under pressure

from Anne that Henry demoted Queen

Catherine to the rank of princess dager

and had her move to a house further from

London the royal couple were probably

not best pleased to hear

that the crowds had cheered the old

Queen on her journey there in December

1533 Henry and Anne decided that

Catherine should move house once again

this time to sumam a house surrounded by

a moat and marshes and by reputation a

most unhealthy Place Catherine protested

at her forced moved and locked herself

in her rooms refusing the Duke of suffk

attemp to remove her Catherine had not

been allowed to see her daughter Mary

since the summer of

1531 when Henry had left Catherine but

she wrote to her daughter in September

1533 preparing her for possible troubles

ahead and warning her not to incur the

king's anger by this time Henry had

already replaced Mary's Livery on her

household coaches with that of his own

in effect declaring her illegitimate y a

delegation was also sent to her

requesting that she relinquish her title

princess of England and although it may

have been Anne who inspired this action

against his daughter it was ultimately

the king who ordered it carried out in

November

1533 Henry ordered that Mary's household

should be dismantled and that she should

be sent instead to serve as a lady in

waiting to her sister Elizabeth at her

Court Mary went to Elizabeth's household

but was defiant stating that she would

not call her princess of England but

sister instead just as she called Henry

Fitzroy brother Anne appointed her aunt

lady Shelton as Mary's Governor so she

would have a direct line of information

about what was going on at the court and

in particular of how Mary was behaving

an was also terrified that the king

would meet with his daughter Mary and so

when Henry visited Elizabeth's household

Mary would be confined to her rooms but

when on one occasion Henry saw Mary at

her window whilst leaving he waved at

his daughter but was bered by Anne for

doing so as Anne's attempts to make Mary

behave as she wished her to were not

working Anne tried instead to befriend

her stepdaughter in March 1534 whilst

visiting Elizabeth Anne asked for Mary

to be brought to her she offered her

reconciliation with her father in

exchange for her admitting that she was

illegitimate and that her parents had

never been married however Mary

defiantly refused angering Anne yet

again certain sources have stated that

Anne had told Henry Percy Earl of

Northumberland that she was planning to

murder her rival Mary

by administering her poison and that she

called Catherine and Mary Rebels and

traitoress deserving death but the truth

is this was probably more wishful

thinking and words spoken in Anger

rather than any real plot indeed there

is evidence from Anne's letters to Mary

to suggest that Anne did try to befriend

her stepdaughter in one letter in which

she refers to herself as Queen she

thanked Mary for curtsying to her after

a mass at Elum and says that she would

have done the same back if she had seen

her at the time however Mary's reply was

as defiant as ever stating that the

queen meaning her mother Catherine was

not present at the time and that she was

actually curtsying to The Altar and so

an's attempts to be kind to Mary seem to

have gone unheeded and this response

from Mary angered Anne

greatly another incident in

1534 involving her own family also

prompted Anger from Anne when her sister

Mary appeared at Anne's court and

announced that she had married one of

her servants William Stafford this so

angered Anne that she banished her

sister Mary from Court also cutting her

off from any financial support and

whilst it was known that the two sisters

were not close Anne's reaction could be

seen as quite harsh under the

circumstances apart from the Defiance

from Mary by

1534 Henry and Anne had finally dealt

with or removed all who seemed openly

opposed to the New Order and the death

of Katherine of agagan from natural

causes on the 7th of January

1536 appeared to remove the last barrier

to the legitimacy of their marriage

however a black cloud hovered an had

become pregnant twice following the

birth of Elizabeth but both pregnancies

had resulted in miscarriages

additionally some historians have

speculated that Henry and Anne's

relationship was growing increasingly

strained due to Anne's failure to adjust

to her new role of wife as Henry's

mistress she might have been allowed a

certain amount of License to speak and

act as she pleased her prolonged refusal

to sleep with Henry likely put her in a

rather dominant position however as

Henry's wife she would be expected to be

far more submissive but of course her

lack of submissiveness would likely have

been overlooked had she not committed

the terrible sin of failing to produce a

son following the misc Anne suffered in

the summer of

1534 King Henry had taken another

mistress when Anne complained to the

king about this situation his reaction

was very harsh he stated that quote she

had good reason to be content with what

he had done for her which he would not

do now if the thing were to begin and

that she should consider from what she

had come the King was clearly losing

patience with Anne as well as perhaps

regretting marrying her at all Anne

realized that without a son she was in a

very insecure and vulnerable position

exactly the position that Catherine had

been in ironically and she felt she must

act she took lady Rochford her

sister-in-law into her confidence and

conspired to have Henry's latest

mistress removed from Court however

their plan failed and only resulted in

lady rutford being banished from the

court by early

1535 Anne was becoming even more

isolated at court her Confidant was now

gone and she had alienated many others

through her outbursts of anger and even

her husband preferred the company of his

mistress it was during this time that

his daughter Mary started to come back

into favor with Henry also an must have

felt alone and isolated as time went on

however in the summer of 1535 a ray of

Hope appeared for Anne when the couple

were briefly reconciled an became more

accepting of the idea of Henry's

Mistresses if not completely silent

about them and Henry made a public

display of loyalty to Anne when in July

1535 he sent Sir Thomas Moore to the

scaffold for refusing to swear the oath

of Supremacy and after all if Henry

wanted a legitimate son as things stood

it was only Anne who could provide one

they began the Court's summer progress

of 1535 with a united front they visited

Salsbury and porchester first also

visiting Wolf Hall and Wilshire during

this time the family home of one of an's

ladies Jane Seymour reaching Windsor by

November and and when they arrived back

in London in late

1535 Anne was pregnant again for the

third time on hearing the news of

Katherine of Aragon's death in July

1535 Anne could not have been happier

her rival was now gone and she was

carrying another air for Henry there

were rumors of course that Anne had

arranged for Catherine to be poisoned

especially when on postm him Catherine's

heart was found to be blackened however

this is unlikely as if she had wanted

rid of Catherine enough to kill her she

would surely have done so earlier after

her mother's death Anne made one last

attempt to befriend Mary writing to her

to say that if she would put aside her

obstinacy and obey the king that Anne

would be the best friend to her and she

need not hold the train of Anne's down

on her return to court Mary again

refused and this would be the last time

that Anne would attempt a reconciliation

with her stepdaughter then on the same

day as Catherine's funeral Anne went

into labor prematurely and after only a

three and a half month gestation she

miscarried a little boy an's grief and

frustration must have been plain for all

to see as she wept following this

tragedy for her and for Henry however

the king's grief soon turned to anger at

Anne and the King confronted Anne in her

room stating that quote he would have no

more boys by her this was a direct

threat to Anne and she was devastated

and even more so when she heard the

rumors that the king felt that Anne had

been quote seduced by witchcraft to

induce the miscarriage and that he ought

to find a new wife Anne remonstrated

with Henry and blamed the loss of the

child first on the news she was given by

the Duke of Norfolk that the king had

fallen from his horse claiming the

consequences of his possible death had

shocked her to such an extent that it

had resulted in the miscarriage when

Henry dismissed her reasoning Anne then

claimed that her finding the king with

James Seymour sitting on his knee had

made her lose her child as it had been

such a shock to her to see for herself

that the king had feelings for others

King Henry took little heed of an's

reasoning although he did leave Jane

Seymour at her home during the next

Court's progress but with Anne isolated

at court after falling out with her Ally

Cromwell and with the King becoming

further infatuated with Jane SE more who

cleverly portrayed herself as the mirror

image of Anne in all things Anne was at

her Wit's

End the king's patience had also finally

run out and on the 24th of April

1536 a commission led by Thomas Cromwell

was set up to investigate Anne and by

May accusations of adultery were leveled

at her and Henry chose to believe them

the private interrog ations of the

Queen's household elicited fantastic

claims of her degeneracy accusing her of

incest and Witchcraft as well as

adultery Mark smen a musician in Anne's

household was held in the tower and

tortured until he confessed that he was

having an affair with Anne the king

himself questioned Henry Norris over a

possible affair with Anne after she

dropped her handkerchief to him as one

of the Jers at a tournament that she and

Henry attended and then lastly an Bolin

herself was arrested on the second of

May by her uncle the Duke of Norfolk and

was questioned over her behavior and

installed in the Tower of London

evidence was sought from her ladies in

Waiting lady Rochford and Lady Worcester

and from a deathbed note belonging to

Lady Wingfield whom Anne had previously

tried to silence concerning her premar

Ral Behavior with Henry Percy which

suggested that Anne was morally lacking

bromwell was rumored to have used all

means at his disposal including torture

and bribes to bring a devastating case

against an as well as this Anne's

sister-in-law lady Rochford was said to

have admitted that her husband George

Bolin and Anne would openly mock the

king questioning whether he was impotent

and whether Elizabeth actually belonged

to another

father as she was arrested an pleaded

her innocence and asked for the king but

she was denied she was said to have lost

her famous composure and collapsed to

her knees she asked if she would be kept

in a dungeon but was informed that she

would be kept in the Royal Apartments to

await her trial she reportedly

alternated between laughing and crying

and spoke openly about what had brought

her to such a position and her mention

of Francis Weston in her rantings meant

that he too would be arrested and

brought to the tower where her brother

George had also been taken the fact that

she spoke of Weston her brother George

smeton and Norris was used as evidence

that the crimes she was accused of were

true in addition to the men that Anne

spoke of William Britton a member of the

king's privy Council was also taken to

the tower along with Thomas Wyatt and

Sir Richard pagee all accused of being

Anne's

lovers on hearing of an's arrest her

Bishop Thomas cranmer sought to distance

himself from Anne which he did in a

letter to the king whilst privately he

may have had sympathy for Anne no one

was brave enough to show it and chance

the wroth of the king yet despite this

it was only ever smen who confessed to

the charges brought against the men who

had allegedly consorted with Anne it is

unlikely that Anne would have had the

time or the inclination to have slept

with so many men including her own

brother and the accusations were likely

conjured up by Cromwell and Henry to

secure Henry's freedom to marry Jane

more Anne went over everything in her

mind and prepared her defense although

she would have known in reality that the

outcome of the trial would be a foregone

conclusion on the 12th of May the

accused men were taken to court at

Westminster Hall smeen confessed to the

charges whilst the other men pled not

guilty as accused all four were found

guilty and were sentenced to be hung

drawn quartered as well as beheaded as

members of the nobility Anne and her

brother George were tried in the tower

and having known of the outcome at

Westminster Hall Anne would have fully

understood the ramifications for her own

trial which took place on the 15th of

May no Queen of England had ever been

placed on trial before and so a large

scaffold was erected in the tower to

house all the people expected to attend

the trial Henry Percy as well as Thomas

Bolin and Anne's Uncle the Duke of

Norfolk were all expected to attend as

members of the nobility although Henry

Percy had to leave George bolin's trial

partway through due to his ill health

Anne for her part had no counsel and

called No Witnesses but prepared her own

defense for the charges brought against

her which laid out specific dates and

times that Anne and the accused men had

enjoyed carnal knowledge of each other

she was also accused of conspiring to

kill the king so that she would be free

to marry one of her accused lovers Anne

stood and defended herself of all

charges eloquently however she was found

guilty by each of the Nobles who in turn

stood to deliver their verdict each had

having no choice but to go along with

the king's Wishes the final verdict was

read out by her uncle the Duke of norfol

that in a final twist he stated that the

queen should be either burned or

beheaded at the king's pleasure whereas

the usual punishment for treason was to

be burned at the stake at a church court

in Lambeth on the 17th of May Thomas

cranmer annuled the marriage of Anne and

the King based on the evidence of a

pre-contract that existed between Anne

and Henry Percy so that quote she was

never lawful Queen of England on the

same day five of the men accused were

put to death by beheading which was a

sentence commuted by Henry from the

usual hanging drawing and quartering

which was the fate of smen alone as a

commoner George Bolin Western Bron and

Norris did not confess to any crime on

the scaffold which Anne would have been

pleased to hear and smen's only comment

was that he deserved death an continued

to protest her innocence but prepared

herself for her certain demise with

composure she even joked with her captor

Kingston that she had but a small neck

laughing at the irony that she would

make The Executioner's job all the more

easy she spent her final evening

laughing and joking that she may well be

known to history as quote Queen Anne

lacad this was perhaps the last Act of

defiance open to her on the 19th of May

1536 Anne Bolin was taken to the

scaffold in front of the gathered Nobles

and dignitaries she held her composure

and w walked with dignity to face the

crowd and make the last speech of her

life she spoke briefly and movingly of

her love for the king her sins of Pride

and her desire that the people pray for

her good Christian people I am come

hither to die for according to the law

and by the law I am judged to die and

therefore I will speak nothing against

it I am come hither to accuse no man nor

to speak anything of that whereof I am

accused and condemned to die but I pray

God Save the King and send him long to

Reign Over You for a gentler nor a more

merciful Prince was there never and to

me he was ever a good a gentle and

Sovereign Lord and if any person person

will meddle of my cause I require them

to judge the best and thus I take my

leave of the world and of you all and I

heartily desire you all to pray for me

oh Lord have mercy on me to God I

commend my soul the king had sent for an

expert swordsman from Cal to come to the

tower to carry out the execution of the

queen she knelt on the scaffold as there

was no need for the block and with one

swift blow of his sword her head was

removed from her body and the first

queen of England to ever be executed was

dead and within 24 hours of his second

wife's execution Henry was already

betrothed to an's lady in waiting and

the woman who would become his third

wife Lady Jane Seymour in the aftermath

of Anne's death in

1536 abies shrines and monasteries

throughout England were purged of

religious relics such as true fragments

of the Cross and VI supposedly

containing the blood of Christ this

Statewide systematic clampdown was not

only undertaken for theological reasons

but also largely because the seizure of

church property brought in a colossal

amount of Revenue to the Royal

coffers following disturbances and a

March against the dissolution of the

monasteries Henry Unleashed a brutal

repression and hundreds of Rebel leaders

were arrested and executed after which

Henry proclaimed that quote our pleasure

is that Dreadful execution be done on a

good number of the inhabit ANS of every

town Village and Hamlet that have

offended in this Rebellion indeed even

his own family were not spared Henry's

wroth as when Jane Seymour begged him on

her knees to restore the abies he

exploded with quote get up do not

presume to meddle in my Affairs remember

Anne Anne is well remembered not only as

the second wife of Henry VII and a

leading figure in the Reformation but

also as the mother of Elizabeth one of

the most important monarchs to Grace the

Throne of England she died on the

scaffold with the grace and dignity

which had first drawn her to King

Henry's attention but more than this

even Anne was unique she was a

determined driven woman with a strong

personality who inspired love in a king

that bordered on Obsession a truly

exceptional woman of her time who no

doubt passed on her strong character to

her

daughter what do you think of anolin was

she a saintly figure who inspired love

and suffered because of it or was she an

ambitious sinner who manipulated her way

into the King's life for her own ends

please let us know in the comment

section and if in the meantime thank you

very much for

watching the woman known to history as

Jane Seymour the third wife of Henry VII

was born at her parents country estate

of Wolf Hall in Wilshire sometime

between October

157 and October

158 it is unclear why her exact date of

birth is not recorded but considering

that Jane was her parents seventh child

and first daughter her exact date of

birth was probably not considered to be

worth remembering neither is her early

life particularly well documented Jane's

father was Sir John Seymour the seymor

had served as caretakers of savan forest

and Wilshire for centuries and Sir John

himself served as the local sheriff and

Justice of the Peace his 1200 acre

estate provided a comfortable but by no

means impressive living by the standards

of the Contemporary nobility the most

complimentary term for the seymor in the

context of Tuda England would probably

be country Gentry Sir John had served

and fought alongside Henry VII in France

in 1513 and 1514 earning the young

King's admiration for his bravery and

loyalty much of Sir John's Social

Capital came from the Gratitude of his

King for his military service but also

from his marriage Jane's mother lady

Margaret Wentworth was a descendant of

Edward III lady margerie as she was more

familiarly known had a more aristocratic

bloodline than her husband making her an

impressive catch for the likes of John

Seymour she was reportedly a quiet kind

and gentle woman and Jane's biographers

speculate that she may have inherited

her notable decision

quiet dignity and compassionate demeanor

from her mother Sir John and lady

margerie had 10 children six of whom

survived to

adulthood the sedate and provincial life

of the Tudor country Gentry was not

suited to those with ambition and Sir

John made efforts to educate his Elder

sons and launch political and Military

careers for them in the King's Service

Jane's eldest brother Edward and her

third brother Thomas both Rose steadily

in consequence and esteem throughout the

reign of Henry VII Jane's education was

far less varied or academically rigorous

than that of her older brothers she was

not a noble lady gentle woman was

probably the most exalted term which

could be applied to her and the seymor

were not nearly wealthy or important

enough to Merit providing an Elite

Education for a daughter Jane was taught

to read in English and she could sign

her name but it is unclear whether she

was ever taught to write or how

welldeveloped her skills may have been

she could speak a little French and

seems to have had a nodding acquaintance

with Latin but this seems to have been

the extent of her academic training Jane

would have learned to dance and been

trained in the social etiquette of

polite Society she was said to be an

excellent horsewoman and enjoyed

following the hunt both as a young woman

and Years Later by Henry's side as Queen

Jane would have had opportunities for

amusements and social nities but much of

her early life and education was

probably designed to prepare her for

Gentile Domesticity she would have been

instructed in the duties of mistress of

the house including caring for the

family acting as Hostess planning menus

and supervising and directing servants

in all of the tasks required to keep the

house running on a fairly large

estate it is also quite possible that

Jane her mother and her three younger

sisters were more directly involved in

household work than one might suppose

their estate was entirely respectable

but the family did not belong to the

Leisure Class this distinction could be

clarified by how much or how little

housework was done by female family

members directly English Noble women

rarely put their hands to any domestic

task the Seymour daughters especially

Jane as the eldest girl may very well

have been taught to cook or been

expected to perform domestic chores it

is known for certain that Jane was well

schooled in sewing and embroidery two

skills at which she particularly

excelled the fine intricate and artistic

quality of her needle work was

apparently remarkable enough for samples

of it to survive for a cent and a half

on display in Hampton Court Palace

Jane's surviving tapestries were gifted

to the descendants of the Seamore family

in the 1650s next to household matters

it may perhaps have been Jane's

religious instruction which received the

most attention Sir John and Lady

margerie were devout Catholics as were

the majority of the English prior to

Henry's break with the Roman Church and

the seymor kept a priest in permanent

residence at W fall until the 1530s

Jane's continued attachment to

Catholicism and her noted sympathy for

persecuted Catholics during Henry's

Reformation probably stemmed from her

early religious

education Jane is described by multiple

sources as kind gentle Meek and rather

shy in company many historians suppose

that the portrait which Hans Hine

painted of her in 1536 is probably a

fairly good likeness Jane is painted

with a round face a pointed somewhat

pinched chin thin lips and a prominent

nose she was described as having had

very pale skin grayish blue eyes and

golden or strawberry blonde hair more

than one contemporary Observer suggested

that she was plain rather than beautiful

and one of her biographers has

considered it worth emphasizing that she

remained unmarried until her late 20s a

very late first marriage for a tudo

woman Jane's parents could not afford

much in the way of daries for their

daughters largely because educating sons

and launching careers for them was so

expensive with a modest or non-existent

doy a woman stood a better chance in the

marriage Market if she were pretty

Jane's younger sister Elizabeth who is

believed to have inherited her mother's

reportedly exceptional good looks was

married in her mid teens to an up wly

mobile young Knight there was some talk

of a betral in the mid 1520s between

Jane and Sir Robert Dormer son William

but her lack of a diary was a sticking

point with the Dormer family still

unmarried at 19 years old Jane was

finally able to secure a place as a lady

in waiting to Queen Catherine of aragan

through the influence of her cousin by

marriage the courtier Sir Francis Brian

it seems the primary objective in

sending Jane to the English Court was to

help her to contract the most

advantageous marriage possible no one

could have dreamed that her intended

would be the king and that within less

than 10 years of her arrival at court

the quiet plain unprepossessing mistress

Seymour would become Queen of

England Jane arrived at Greenwich Palace

near London sometime during the first

half of

1527 roughly around the same time that

Anne Bolin returned from France to serve

as a fellow lady in waiting to Queen

Catherine Jane spent the next 5 years in

the Queen's household watching events

unfold particularly those which led

Henry to divorce his first wife Jane's

quiet and Serene demeanor gave no sign

of what she thought about the very

public relationship between King Henry

and Anne Bolin her admiration and

Devotion to both Queen Catherine and her

daughter Princess Mary only increased

the longer she remained with them at

court her high regard for both mother

and daughter would become much more

evident later on Jane was almost

certainly discreet enough not to a her

opinions about Anne bolin's relationship

with Henry or about Anne's conduct

toward Queen Catherine and her daughter

if she had shown any open disapproval or

hostility it is doubtful that and Lyn

would have retained Jane as one of her

ladies in waiting when she became Queen

Anne Jane spent two years in Anne

Berlin's household and throughout most

of this period there is no evidence that

Anne was at all dissatisfied with her

service or her attitude and this tells

us two very intriguing things about Jane

Seymour first she may have appeared

mousy Placid and obliging but she

obviously kept her own coun

and played her cards close to her chest

secondly Jane's conduct toward Anne both

before and after Henry began to caught

her suggests that the woman whom most

people probably took for a doormat had a

vivid streak of

ambition it is not known exactly when or

under what circumstances Henry and Jane

first began to take a romantic interest

in one another they appeared quite

enamored with each other by Janu of 1536

but the affair quite possibly began

earlier Queen Anne became pregnant for

the last time Midway through the

previous October since sex during

pregnancy was believed to be dangerous

for the child Henry's notorious roving

eye may have wandered over to Jane as

early as November of

1535 in fact it had been whispered at

court that Henry had even been pursuing

yet another mistress this woman whose

name we do not know is mentioned in

several sources dated

1534 less than a year after Henry's

marriage to Anne on the 29th of January

1536 the day of Katherine of aran's

funeral the Imperial Ambassador Eustace

shapi claimed to have observed Henry

paying marked attention to mistress

Seymour and giving her gifts later that

same Afternoon Queen Anne was said to

have stumbled Upon a private meeting

between Henry and Jane flying into a

rage at finding one of her ladies

sitting on her husband's knee reportedly

Henry quickly sent Jane from the room

and attempted to calm Anne for fear that

her distress would harm their child this

account comes from Jane Dormer The

Duchess of FIA who many years later

claimed to have heard it during her

service as lady in waiting to Queen Mary

the first yet since it was recorded so

many years years after the event the

veracity of the story is

uncertain what is certain is that

roughly at the end of January perhaps

that very night of the 29th anolin

miscarried her last child in a letter

dated the same day Ambassador shapi

informed the Imperial foreign minister

that he had attended a secret meeting

with Thomas Cromwell Henry's chief

minister Cromwell had confidentially

expressed the king's wish for a renewal

of his alliance with Emperor Charles I

against the king of France Francis I

Cromwell also apparently related to

shapi a private discussion he had had

earlier that day with the king during

which Henry had supposedly confided his

belief that he had entered into his

marriage seduced by witchcraft making

his marriage invalid and that he was

resolved to take another wife Jane's

last few months in Anne's service were

no doubt extremely tense and difficult

for both women Henry was not nearly

discreet enough in paying Court to Jane

whose mistress the queen still had power

over her and's star was fading she knew

it and it made her anxious and highly

temperamental she was said to have

slapped Jane on multiple occasions for

perceived insolence or for flaunting

Henry's attentions before her mistress

it is unclear whether Jane actually did

behave in such a way or if Anne consumed

by jealousy may simply have been

watching her every move and venting her

frustration at every perceived

impertinence One account suggests a very

different image of Jane than her

traditionally meek and obliging one

sometime in February or March of 1536 J

reportedly received a gold locket from

Henry which contained a miniature

portrait of him The Story Goes that Jane

made a great production out of opening

and closing the locket in front of the

queen enraged Anne was said to have

savagely ripped the locket from around

Jane's neck cutting her own finger in

the process as infuriating as Jane's

presence was to Anne she did not dare

dismiss Jane from her service the queen

would was growing more insecure by the

day afraid to do anything which might

inflame Henry's wroth or motivate him to

divorce her as her power ebbed she was

said to have dwelt sorrowfully on her

treatment of Queen Catherine and

Princess Mary Jane's conscience on the

other hand seemed untroubled by what

would prove to be a complete and deadly

triumph over her rival traditionally

Jane Seymour has been portrayed as a

selfless compassionate kind even saintly

figure some of these Impressions

probably stem from Jane's actual conduct

and behavior in public which gave most

of her contemporaries an idea of her

character with which they could all

agree Jane was quiet gentle and

submissive but it strains credulity to

imagine that anyone could be completely

free of judgment bias or even cold

disregard especially toward Those whom

One Believes deserve judgment Jane quite

possibly despised Anne just as more and

more courtiers did throughout Anne's

tenure as Queen she became more and more

difficult to serve and to please as her

anxiety increased she had alienated a

growing faction of political players at

Henry's Court who viewed with suspicion

and hostility her attempts to influence

Henry's policies and blamed her for the

king's religious reforms the most

important considerations for Jane

however were probably her staunchly

Catholic faith as well as her love

admiration and pity for Catherine of

aragan and Lady Mary Jane's feelings and

principles might have made her resent

Anne above all for her Protestant

reformism and her callous treatment of

both Catherine and Mary far from being

the saintly and selfless woman that

liberated Henry from his cursed marriage

the real Jane Seymour was far more human

in fact it may be fair to say that Jane

captured Henry using exactly the same

Playbook Anne had used years before to

seduce him away from

Catherine two sets of circumstances

however are still unclear first whether

it was Henry or Jane who first attempted

to initiate a romantic Overture and

second whether the romance bloomed of

its own accord or was engineered by

those courtiers who were desperate to

see Anne removed as Queen the Protestant

reforms halted and Lady Mary restored to

the succession tragically and fatally

Anne herself had created the possibility

for her own eventual downfall when Henry

successfully divorced Catherine and

married Anne a Pandora's Box was opened

If Anne could be Queen why why not Jane

there were several courtiers who were

for various religious political or

personal reasons committed to Bringing

anbin Down including most notably the

Marquis a maranes of exitor the Duke of

suffk Sir Nicholas Karu Thomas Cromwell

Sir Francis Brian and Imperial

Ambassador shapi it is entirely possible

that such a powerful group may have

orchestrated The Affair by manipulating

events to help Jane catch Henry's

interest she was very likely coached and

guided in the king's likes and dislikes

by these individuals as well as by her

own family who would no doubt have been

ecstatic to see Jane capture the King on

the other hand the affair between Jane

and Henry may have begun more

organically and the conspirators may

have approached her after the fact Jane

does not strike one as the type who

would initiate a flirtation with the

king of her own valtion so perhaps it

was Henry who approached

her some historians have wondered how

Henry could spend so many years in love

with women like Catherine of aragan and

Anne Bolin and then fall for someone

like Jane Seymour Katherine and Anne had

both been highly educated witty Charming

articulate and conventionally beautiful

Jane could match Henry 's first two

wives in none of these qualities some

historians have suggested that Henry may

have fallen for Jane precisely because

she was Anne's polar opposite Henry had

admired Anne's sophistication wit and

passion but did not appreciate her sharp

tongue Anne had been a difficult and

demanding mistress and now that Henry

was growing older his declining health

no doubt made him increasingly impatient

and erasable with anyone who challenged

him he may have found Jane's quiet piety

Serenity and meek submissiveness

soothing and refreshing despite the

recriminations between Henry and Anne

however undoubtedly her worst sin of all

was failing to produce a son it is worth

noting that Henry did not ultimately

decide to pursue a third marriage until

after an's last

miscarriage sometime in February of

1536 Henry sent Sir Nicholas Karu to

Jane carrying a love letter and small

purse heavy with gold coins Sir Nicholas

later informed the king that mistress

Seymour had refused to accept either the

letter or the purse he claimed she had

held the letter for a moment placed a

reverent kiss upon the Letter's seal and

then handed it back to S Nicholas

without reading it she had returned the

gold also and for falling to her knees

before him she intreated Sir Nicholas to

beg the king's understanding that she

was a woman of good and moral upbringing

she would suffer a thousand deaths she

said rather than sacrifice her honor she

thanked Henry for his gift but requested

that he might retain it for now and give

it to her once she had contracted an

honorable marriage if true this account

is very telling Jane had been accepting

expensive gifts from Henry for months

which begs the question of why her

Scruples suddenly returned at this

particular moment some historians have

departed from the traditional image of

Jane by pointing out that her conduct in

this instance was straight out of an

bolin's Playbook and shows that Jane

herself followed a very similar strategy

respond to Henry's advances but refused

to be his mistress thereby forcing the

issue of marriage it worked on Henry

like a charm but then again it appears

that since Henry had no son by his

current wife he was more than willing to

be beguiled in returning his letter and

the gold Jane had behaved Henry said

most modestly and he resolved

thenceforth only to pay court to Jane in

the presence of one or more of her

relatives accordingly Henry promptly

removed Thomas Cromwell from his

Chambers which adjoined the Kings and

gave them to Jane's brother Edward

Seymour now he and Jane could continue

to meet fairly privately but still be

properly chaperoned to avoid any Scandal

attaching itself to her

reputation by early March some less than

complimentary gossip had already begun

to circulate throughout London about

Henry's affair with Jane and there was

some sympathy for Queen Anne who was

obviously out of favor with her husband

the King Henry had abandoned both Anne

and their collapsing marriage by the end

of February leaving her behind at

Greenwich Palace while he took up

temporary Residence at York place in

London he continued to discreetly Court

Jane throughout the month of March by

the 1 of April rumors of their meetings

in Edward Seymour's Chambers became more

widely known at court Henry then moved

Jane out of Greenwich Palace to a royal

residence in Chelsea a short distance

along the temps River from York place

this probably had less to do with

protecting Jane's reputation however

than with keeping her away from the ugly

process already underway at court the

campaign to accuse an Bolin of capital

crimes thus affecting her removal and

execution however Jane could not have

been ignorant of what Henry intended

even if she was most likely ignorant of

the finer details there is no account of

Jane in which she reacts with anything

other than her customary quiet Serenity

to the news that anol Lin's death was

imminent Henry visited Jane the very

morning that Anne was to be executed to

comfort her and assure her that they

would very soon be married the

traditional historical portrait of Anne

Bolin has often been that of the devious

grasping other woman while Jane Seymour

has often been portrayed as a paragon of

gentle unselfish compassion yet the fact

remains that Jane found it seemingly

easy as one historian put it to step

neatly over the dead body of her rival

right into Henry's arms and onto the

throne next to him just as Anne had

taken Queen Catherine's Place seemingly

without a quam

Henry and Jane were officially betrothed

the very next day following anol Lin's

execution and less than two weeks later

on the 30th of May

1536 the two were married in a small

semi-private ceremony in the Queen's

Closet at White Hall with the

religiously conservative Bishop Steven

Garder officiating Jane's well-known

sympathies for Catholicism and for the

Lady Mary made many anti-reform

courtiers hopeful that her influence on

Henry might help halt the March towards

protestantism in England ellin's emblem

as Queen had featured a crowned Falcon

with the motto the most happy Jane's

choice of emblem as Queen spoke volumes

hers was a crowned Phoenix her motto

bound to obey and serve the message

seemed clear through her faith and

Service as Henry's wife England would

rise From the Ashes after the confusion

and upheaval caused by the king's

divorce eustus chapiz was among the most

hopeful and he assured Emperor Charles I

in a letter that he would encourage the

new Queen to continue in her efforts to

restore Lady Mary both to Henry's favor

and to the succession in a subsequent

conversation between Jane and shap she

herself confirmed to him that she would

always show kind to Mary and seek to

reconcile her with her father Henry

quickly broke up this confidence perhaps

uncomfortable with the notion of Jane

exerting influence at his court on

behalf of the emperor at least

indirectly making sure that a Catholic

inherited the English Throne was one of

Charles I's principal foreign policy

goals from the 1530s to the 1550s should

Henry and Jane's marriage not produce a

male air then Lady Mary stood a better

chance of taking the throne with the

Queen's

support as Queen Jane did indeed

advocate for Lady Mary even before she

and Henry were wed she had asked him to

reinstate Mary as his Heir Henry had

scoffed gently at the idea advising her

that instead she ought to be advocating

for the inheritance rights of the

children that Jane herself would have

with Henry but her subsequent attempts

to interfere with the king's policies

were met with less and less patience

from him those who had hoped that Jane

might be more successful at influencing

Henry's decisions than either of her

predecessors were disappointed for Henry

regardless of his wife's entreaties

refused to reconcile with his eldest

daughter unless she repudiated the pope

acknowledged Henry as head of the church

Affirmed the illegitimacy of her parents

marriage and admitted her own bastardy

Henry via a letter from Thomas Cromwell

even threatened her with treason and a

death sentence should she refuse to

submit despite her failure to exert her

influence over Henry's decisions as head

of state and church Jane's seemingly

sincere dedication to her religious and

moral beliefs is one quality which

speaks in her favor she honored her

promise to shapi and treated Lady Mary

kindly and generously spending a great

deal of time with her at court she also

continued to urge Henry to reinstate

Mary to the succession this suggests

that even if she had not become pregnant

Jane was just as committed to the notion

of a Catholic Heir for England as the

faction which had helped to make her

Queen once she was on the throne there

was really nothing to force her to

continue pursuing a pro Pro Catholic

agenda except her own conviction this

might help explain her seeming

reluctance to reach out to Henry's

younger daughter princess Elizabeth Jane

showed no hesitation to treat Mary as

her stepdaughter and close companion but

did not extend the same to Elizabeth who

was not yet four years old when her

mother died perhaps Jane felt she could

not speak for Elizabeth without daring

the wroth of Henry who might very well

have bridled at any reference to his

late wife perhaps Jane's own dislike for

Anne Bolin made her hesitant to embrace

Elizabeth as her stepdaughter whatever

the reason Elizabeth's household and the

child herself were less and less

adequately provided for during the

months that followed her mother's death

within 6 months Elizabeth's servants and

caretakers were poaching game to keep

her household fed and no one seemed to

care that she had out grown all of her

clothes without the means to have new

ones

made it was Lady Mary who seems to have

advocated for her younger sister a

sister she had resented having to serve

but whom she had compassion for as a

child too young to understand how

dramatically her life and Status had

changed Mary may have had more to do

with Elizabeth's restoration to the

family fold and to Henry's favor than

her stepmother had Jane did appear to

have priorities however during the year

following her marriage Jane tried on

multiple occasions to persuade Henry to

Halt Protestant reforms and to show

mercy and understanding to those who

found the changes hard to accept during

the campaign known as the pilgrimage of

Grace when thousands of people in the

north of England Rose in Rebellion Queen

Jane begged Henry to restore the

monasteries which were being dissolved

Ed across England Henry reacted badly

offering Jane a harsh Warning by

reminding her what had happened to Anne

Bolin Jane became pregnant early in

1537 and by late spring she was

experiencing pregnancy cravings notably

the quail and quail's eggs Henry was

jubilant and set about making plans for

the celebrations that would accompany

the birth of his Heir and finally Queen

Jane's coronation which Henry intended

to be one of the most spectacular ever

staged for an English Queen Jane's

pregnancy was largely Placid and she

seemed contented and in general good

health throughout the queen entered her

confinement early in September of 1537

roughly 1 month before the expected

delivery she was accompanied by the few

women permitted to attend a queen during

the late stages of pregnancy in

including the now 21-year-old Lady Mary

Jane Seymour went into labor on the 9th

of October when Henry was informed he

excitedly ordered the preparations begin

for the ceremonial 2,000 gun salute for

T dams to be sung in every church for

free food and wine to be provided for

the people and for the bonfires to be

lit to celebrate his son's birth but the

hours passed then a full day then

another and still the Queen's labor

continued finally at 2:00 in the morning

on the 12th of October

1537 exhausted and wrecked with pain

Jane gave birth to Henry's long for son

and Heir the future Edward V 6th of

England the queen remained at rest for

several days following Edward's birth

before she was churched or purified and

thus permitted to leave her formal

confinement she appeared drained weak

and even paler than usual but it had

been almost a week since the birth and

most of the Court considered her to be

out of danger but on the 17th she came

down with a raging fever and lapsed into

delirium throughout the following week

Jane rallied briefly twice regaining

Consciousness and appearing to make

small improvements but rather than

making the hope for full recovery Jane

died quietly on the 24th of October

1537 at the age of 29 she had succumbed

to what most historians between the 18th

and 20th centuries believed was pepero

thever or childbed fever which resulted

from an infection contracted during

delivery perhaps from unsterilized

medical equipment however multiple

sources contemporary with the actual

event claim that Jane died as a result

of surgery attempted during labor

specifically a cesarian section The

Midwives and Physicians who had attended

the queen during her labor had begun to

lose hope of a safe delivery by the

morning of the 11th of October several

sources claim that one or more of them

approached Henry on the matter of the

child survival versus Janes should the

labor continue and a choice need to be

made some sources claim that Henry chose

Jane others that he chose the child what

these professionals were essentially

asking was whether Henry would allow a

cesarian section to be performed on The

Queen if it appeared that the child

might perish with her cesarian sections

were known in Tuda England but were

extremely taboo because they virtually

always killed the mother they were

therefore not typically performed on

living women but more often on women

after after they had died during

childbirth later historians tended to

suppose that the accounts which

described Henry's choosing to save the

life of the child were catholic

propaganda designed to discredit Henry

which is why they discounted the claims

that Jane underwent surgery yet some of

these sources were written by reformers

and Protestants and some claim that Jane

herself consented to the procedure based

on the descriptions of her symptoms

during her final illness Jane Seymour

almost certainly died of sepsis arising

from an infection sustained during

childbirth but the atmosphere of the

birthing chamber was so rarified and the

veracity of multiple accounts so

difficult to judge that we may never

know exactly why she died following

Jane's death more than two years would

pass before Henry Once Again found his

way to the altar in January of 1540 he

wed the 24-year-old German princess an

of cleaves a marriage that lasted only 6

months traditionally Jane has been

remembered as Henry's most loved most

favored and most revered wife and that

was certainly the impression that Henry

wished to convey Jane Seymour was given

a magnificent funeral worthy of the

Queen of England even though she had not

lived long enough to be officially

crowned queen Henry also requested that

he be buried next to Jane the portrait

painted during Henry's marriage to

Katherine par known as the family of

Henry VII shows Henry surrounded by his

children but instead of Katherine par

Jane Seymour is painted standing in the

place reserved for Henry's Queen the

fact that some histories have depicted

Jane as a rather Saint likee figure

probably has much to do with her overall

demeanor and personality but also

perhaps more important the manner of her

death what could be more selfless to

someone like Henry than to die giving

him the son he desired Above All Things

yet despite her traditional historical

reputation Jane was probably no better

or worse a person than anolin who has

more often been vilified for usurping

Catherine's place than Jane has been for

usurping an's historians still wonder

did Henry truly love Jane more than any

of his other wives or was it just that

she died before his love could fade was

it simply because she gave birth to his

son and why would he Revere for the rest

of his life a woman he had loved for

little more than a year yet also bad ban

all images and forbid all discussion in

his presence of the woman who had

consumed his life and heart throughout

the previous decade it speaks eloquently

of the guilt Henry almost certainly felt

about an that after her death he ordered

all of her emblems and all images of her

to be removed from Royal residences and

no one ever heard him speak of her again

what do you think of Jane Seymour please

let us know in the comments section and

as always thank you very much for

watching the woman known to history as

Anna von de Mar Duchess of cleaves was

most likely born at Swan Castle near

dorf Germany traditionally historians

have dated her birth to the 2 1st or

22nd of September 1515 but one recent

biographer has argued that a birth date

sometime between the 28th of June and

the 1st of July is more likely Anna's

father was Johan III Duke of cleaves and

her mother was Maria Duchess of ulberg

when Anna's parents were first married

they each ruled over their own separate

territories although Yan succeeded to

the ducal title associated with his

wife's lands it was Maria who actually

held the Reigns of

government Renaissance Germany provided

very interesting opportunities for the

political leadership and participation

of noble women and German dukedoms

principalities and city states were

frequently governed by women in the

absence of a son German noblemen dukes

and princes were usually content to

invest power in their da daughters

rather than any distantly related male

Heir Anna's mother Maria was just such

an heess as her father's only child she

acceded as Duchess and Regent of ulberg

after his death Maria governed her own

territories as Regent while her husband

Johan inherited the ceremonial title

associated with his wife's duche within

15 years of their marriage Anna's

parents had finally merged the

administrations of their separate ducal

territories until then Johan and Maria

lived rather separate lives for a

married couple the Duke and Duchess of

cleeves ulberg had four children

together their eldest daughter sibila

born in 1512 was three years older than

Anna and the two sisters shared a strong

bond throughout their lives continuing

to exchange letters even after Anna

departed Germany for for England two

younger siblings followed Anna only a

year apart the only son vilhelm was born

in 1516 and the youngest daughter Amilia

was born in

1517 because Yanna Maria each

administered different Regional and

political entities they were often

required to maintain separate residences

during the first several years of their

marriage Anna spent most of her

childhood at Berg Castle in singan with

her mother and her sisters her education

was extremely interesting in the context

of Renaissance Europe Anna sibila and

Amalia were likely instructed in

Regional property laws and customs of

Taxation how to manage finances on a

regional scale as well as how to

arbitrate disputes between and among

officials and civilians in addition they

learned how to run large Estates

including the management of largescale

farming and livestock interests Anna

came from a family with many generations

of strong women who played important

governing roles in their communities

because German Noble women could often

be expected to exercise full power and

responsibility in the absence of male

authority figures Anna and her sisters

received an education which their

English contempories would have

considered to be rather masculine in

character this should not suggest that

the three three young duchesses did not

also learn domestic responsibilities

which were the lot of all early modern

European women from Duchess to Peasant

the daughters of the Duchess of cleeves

yurg were all taught household

management which for German Noble women

seems to have been much more Hands-On

than it was for English French or

Spanish Aristocrats while Elite women

from England Spain or France almost

never performed domestic tasks

personally German Noble women were

frequently taught to cook to sew and to

make clothing all of this strikes The

Observer as eminently sensible since the

chatain of a larger estate could hardly

be depended upon to manage an estate

properly if she didn't really understand

what was involved the productivity and

profitability of their daily activities

earned praise for German Noble women who

were seen as equal contributors to their

marriages and families indeed sometimes

a noble woman's household economy might

yield more profit than her lands if

shrewdly

managed some aristocratic European women

had the opportunity to pursue a

scholarly and intellectual education but

this was probably not the case with Anna

she may have been taught to dance and

her parents dual establishments

regularly patronized musicians of talent

but Anna was not taught to sing or to

play any musical instruments she was

taught to read and write but only in

German and there is no indication that

she studied the standard Academia of the

Renaissance like rhetoric history or

philosophy most of her Early Education

was probably centered around the purely

practical literacy estate and household

management sewing and embroidery this

was not necessary because of Anna's

gender her father Johan a friend and

correspondent of the famed Dutch

philosopher arasmus was quite scholarly

himself and does not seem to have

discouraged intellectualism in his

daughters Anna's older sister sibila

proved to be quite a fierce intellectual

a friend and correspondent of Martin

Luther and a passionate and admired

Lutheran reformer however sail's

religious and political leanings were

likely infu influenced more by her

husband than by her parents soill was

married at the age of 15 to Prince Johan

Friedrich elector of Saxony the fiercely

Protestant friend and supporter of

Martin Luther and a thorn in the side of

Holy Roman Emperor Charles I Anna's

religious sensibilities are largely

unknown and the religious diversity that

prevailed both in Germany and within her

own family when she was growing up makes

it even more difficult to guess what her

actual beliefs might have been Anna's

mother was described as a strict

Catholic who personally never wavered

from her faith Anna's father Duke Johan

also remained a Catholic through the

early Reformation but openly

demonstrated Lutheran sympathies and

religious tolerance Anna's younger

siblings vilhelm and Amalia would spend

a significant proportion of their adult

lives at odds with one another over

religion vilhelm consistently maintained

friendly relations with the Protestant

schmal calic League led by his

brother-in-law the elector of Saxony

Wilhelm himself however remained a

Catholic all his life and insisted that

his sons be raised Catholic as well the

Lutheran sympathies of both Wilhelm and

his father before him might be explained

in part by their distrust for the Holy

Roman Emperor char I with whom both

Father and Son remained long engaged in

a protracted land dispute over

gelderland Anna's youngest sister Amalia

was as passionately committed to

Protestant Reform as her eldest sister

sibila Amalia never married or had

children and she is believed to have

spent her Elder years caring for and

educating her young nieces one anecdote

describes vilhelms anger at his sister

for instructing the girls in Protestant

principles this conflict reportedly

enraged him enough to Spur him to Chase

and threaten Amalia with a hatchet a

debarker which was ended by one of her

servants who slammed and locked the door

in the Duke's face considering all of

this it is impossible to say what Anna's

own beliefs were but exposure to such

religious fluidity in her early life may

have given her a broad perspective and a

sense of spiritual and intellectual

flexibility it may also have taught her

the value of both Conformity and

tolerance depending on what was expected

of her in any given

circumstance when Anna was 11 years old

she was betrothed to the son of the Duke

of Lorraine an unofficial Arrangement

which was nullified s years later one of

Anna's biographers noted that she did

not seem unduly distressed at the

cancellation of her betral despite the

fact that she was now 18 3 years older

than saila had been when she was married

Anna's attachment to her mother and to

her family's household seems to have

been one of sincere contentment at the

court of cleaves ulberg morning

activities were strictly gendered the

noble men attended to political and

estate matters in the mornings while the

noble women and their daughters attended

to Dom domestic tasks the men and women

of the Court then came together in the

afternoons for formal socializing and

entertainments Anna's typical day might

find her embroidering and making

clothing with her mother her younger

sister and other women in the family's

service in the FR Zima or women's room

during the mornings the young women of

the Court were only allowed to meet and

socialize with men during the afternoon

Gatherings or at the sumptuous dinners

of up to nine courses which were served

nightly to as many as 300 guests Anna's

family enjoyed entertaining themselves

and the court with music and Theatrical

entertainments hunting was another of

the family's favorite past times and

Anna was said to have been a fine

equestrian who loved to join the hunt in

1538 when Anna was 23 her father died an

event which made her CL all the closer

to her mother yet her time in Germany

was growing short and both her own

future as well as the future of her

family now rested in the hands of her

younger brother vill it was in 1538 when

Thomas Cromwell first made over teers to

the young new Duke of cleaves on behalf

of Henry VII who was now determined to

marry again persuaded by Cromwell that

the support of cleaves would help Henry

Henry defend himself against the emperor

Charles I without having to rely on the

equally changeable King of France Henry

sought to conclude the marriage

negotiations quickly Duke wihelm had

bulked for months at Henry's request to

allow portraits to be painted of Anna

and Amalia and for Henry's emissaries to

see the Duke's sisters impers frustrated

the English ambassadors had only been

allowed to see them in the voluminous

German Court dress with their faces

veiled to help conclude the marriage

treaty as quickly as possible Henry

finally offered to wave Anna's Dary and

offered the Duke the generous payment of

a 100,000 florins instead bhel promptly

accepted Henry's generous offer writing

that his sister looked forward eagerly

to her wedding in November of

1539 Anna departed Germany for her

Overland journey to Cal the multitude of

nobles attendants and servants who

traveled with her made it a long journey

which was further delayed by bad weather

on the channel following their arrival

in Cal which prevented Anna from sailing

for England for a few days she was

greeted and entertained there in the

meantime by the Earl of Southampton and

the Duke of suffk from the time she

landed in England Anna was a little less

homesick than she had been after saying

goodbye to her home and family she was

greeted with kindness enthusiasm and

admiration everywhere she and her escort

stopped with crowds of ordinary people

turning out to see her and wish her well

all of Henry's Nobles and ambassadors

wrote to him of her cheerful amiability

and assured him that she was as lovely

as the portrait painted by Hans holine

suggested this portrait depicts an in

Dutch style dress demure and Serene with

widely spaced and heavily lited eyes and

shapely lips sources describe her as

tall slim and blueeyed with light blonde

hair for reasons which are still not

altogether clear Henry was less than

pleased with his new bride to be hearing

that his future wife was delayed on the

road and that his wedding could not take

place by Christmas Henry resolved to be

patient until the 6th of January the

date chosen for the postponement

restlessness and anxiousness to meet her

proved too much for Henry however and

instead on New Year's Day 1540 he set

off to meet her earlier than originally

planned bearing a New Year's gift for

his intended Henry staged his entrance

in a highly theatrical manner in

Disguise he approached Anna without

hesitation kneeling before her to kiss

her hand unfortunately Anne was taken

aback by this Behavior not only for the

sake of her modesty but also because she

had no idea who Henry was there was no

way she could have understood the

mistake she had made unfamiliar with

English culture and therefore unable to

understand that Henry expected her to

recognize her socalled true love through

his disguise Henry was humiliated that

Anna appeared repulsed and attempted to

ignore him he abruptly left the room and

throwing off his disguise he returned in

a decidedly more kingly looking coat of

Royal purple deeply embarrassed Anna

bowed deeply before him and Henry kissed

her briefly before politely extricating

himself from the situation but the King

was louded in his dissatisfaction as

soon as he was out of earshot of his new

fiance he was so upset that he had

forgotten to give Anna the New Year's

gift he had brought a jeweled Sable

fur Henry returned to Greenwich in

sensed he remonstrated with courtiers

who had previously reported that Anne

was pleasing just as Henry seemed to

have believed Anna to be when he saw

hine's portrait he complained bitterly

to Thomas Cromwell that his intended was

nothing Fair as she has been reported I

like her not he stated emphatically and

demanded what could be done to

circumvent the marriage unfortunately

since there seemed to be no way to

nullify his engagement without risking

the anger and emnity of cleaves Henry

went ahead with the wedding as planned

on the 6th of January 1540 he would

spend the scant six months of his

marriage to Anna attempting to to find

some Avenue to divorce her the morning

after their wedding night Thomas

Cromwell anxiously inquired of Henry how

he liked the queen Henry replied that he

now liked her even less than before he

declared that he had not consumated his

marriage because Anna had repulsed him

he claimed to doubt her virginity

because of the looseness of her belly

and breasts he also spoke with his

doctors confiding that he believed

himself self capable of Performing

sexually just not with Anna and the King

defended himself from the implication

that he might be impotent by claiming

that he continued to experience

nocturnal emissions what Henry seems to

have been doing is setting the stage for

an annulment based on non-c consumation

of the marriage and indeed within a few

weeks he informed his privy Council that

there must be some impediment to his

marriage because God would not allow him

to consumate it he requested that Anna's

previous betral to the son of the Duke

of Lorraine be examined once again to

ascertain whether the contract had

indeed been a binding one Henry's

counselors knew exactly what he expected

of them by February of 1540 Anna

understood that something was terribly

wrong in her marriage she tried hard to

make herself agreeable to the king and

Henry himself continued to dine

regularly with Anna and share her bed

nightly so she could have no cause for

complaint it is unclear how much she

knew about marital relations prior to

her wedding night but one account of a

conversation between Anna and her ladies

suggests that her ignorance of sex might

have been almost total her ladies in

waiting no doubt fishing for information

indicated to Anna that they hoped she

would soon be with child the queen

replied I know very well that I am not

how is it possible for you to know that

and lie every night with the King they

inquired Anna again insisted that she

was not with child I think your grace is

a maid still said lady Rochford George

Bin's Widow how can I be a maid asked

Anne and sleep with with the King every

night there must be more than this lady

Rochford replied treading on Dangerous

Ground but instead of taking offense at

lady Rochford X's impertinent suggestion

Anna patiently explained to her ladies

when the king comes to bed he kisses me

and takes me by the hand saying good

night sweetheart and in the morning he

kisses me and bids me Farewell My

Darling is this

not enough the Countess of Rutland tried

her best to make the queen understand

Madam she began there must be more than

this or it will be air long before we

have a Duke of York in other words a

second son for Henry no Anna was said to

have replied I am content with this for

I know no more this is a fascinating and

puzzling exchange the meaning of which

is still unclear Anna seems to imply

that she was not aware that there was

anything wrong in her marriage bed but

then she may have been feigning

ignorance for the sake of her own

reputation or for

Henry's we do not ultimately know

whether Henry and Anna did not consumate

their marriage it is possible that Henry

spoke the truth and that his

disappointment in finally meeting his

new Queen was so great that that he

could not frame his mind toward intimacy

with her however Henry was also 48 years

old at the time of his fourth marriage

he was already twice Anna's age he was

running to fat and the terrible sore on

his leg which would eventually kill him

continued to swell separate and stink

periodically considering the state of

Henry's Health in addition to his

obvious disappointment with his new wife

it is entirely possible that Henry may

have been experiencing impotence and

reacting badly to it by blaming his new

wife whatever the truth of the matter

between them poor Anna was Ill prepared

to address it she had arrived in England

married Henry and been proclaimed Queen

all in the space of a few weeks without

having yet learned much of any English

this not only made it difficult for her

to stay wise to events around her but

also prevented her from being able to

express herself to those who might have

been able to help what's more being so

new at Henry's court she could not have

known whom to

trust sadly for Anna Henry moved on

quickly and by Springtime the king could

be seen crossing the temps regularly in

the evenings headed for Lambeth Palace

and his latest mistress the 16year old

Katherine Howard a niece of the Duke of

Norfolk there grumbling and judgment

heard among the people of London

regarding Henry's infidelity to his

Queen was reminiscent of the sympathies

which have been similarly expressed for

Anne Bolin when Henry's affair with Jane

Seymour became known on the 24th of June

1540 Henry sent Anna away from court to

Richmond Palace ostensibly for her

health and safety from a plague in

London however Henry's feelings about

illness were such that he surely would

have also Departed the city if the risks

had been real Less Than 3 weeks later

Henry obtained the analment to his

marriage based on its non-consummation

and on Anna's pre-contract to marry the

son of the Duke of Lorraine the queen

was presented with Henry's grounds for a

divorce on the 10th of July should she

consent to it Henry assured her that she

would be treated kindly and provided for

Anna was utterly humiliated and gave way

to tears when Henry's request for

divorce was read she initially refused

to heed what was asked of her and

quickly summoned the Cleaves Ambassador

within a day however Anna had calmed she

had had time to think and no doubt both

embarrassment and fear had W with one

another in her mind should she accept

she would be disgraced and discarded but

should she refuse she could not say

whether the dangerously Mercurial Henry

would not do her harm to her credit Anna

was quick and Resolute in making her

decision and she followed through to

admiration Anna accepted her divorce

from Henry with Grace dignity and

amiability saying that she hoped that

she would still occasionally have the

pleasure of his company Henry was

shocked Anna had been fearful and ult to

deal with during the weeks since he had

taken Katherine Howard for his mistress

and he had expected her to resist to

threaten him with the outrage and

Vengeance of her brother the Duke of

cleaves because she readily gave Henry

what he wanted he was generous with her

on the 12th of July Henry wrote to

inform Anna that she was free to return

home however should she decide to remain

in England she would receive an annual

income of

£4,000 and the Estates of Richmond

bletchingly and hea Castle despite

Henry's earlier claim following his

wedding night he formally affirmed that

Anna was still a maid and said she might

marry again if she wished finally he

hoped she would be pleased to think of

herself then forth as the king's most

beloved sister and assured her that she

would always be welcome at court and

given precedence over all women in

England except for the queen and Henry's

own daughters

apparently Anne found this generous

indeed and readily accepted in fact she

went even further by assuring Henry that

he was welcome to view any

correspondence she might thereafter have

with her family in Cleaves before it was

sent it is possible that Anna might have

chosen to stay in England out of fear

one puzzling account claims that the

German princess implied that her brother

might do her harm if she returned home

Dishonored her arrangements with Henry

included Anna promptly wrote to her

brother to inform him of the Accord she

and Henry had reached and to assure him

that she was happy and content to live

out her life in England the woman who

had spent most of her life in seemingly

quiet and bitable obedience first in the

shadow of her mother and then in the

shadow of a king was now a free and

independent woman of

means like the strong female rulers who

were her ancest

Anna had found herself in control of her

own life what's more she had neither

husband nor Master to tell her what to

do Anna lived the last 14 years of her

life quite happily and comfortably on

her English estates and was described by

one chronicler as an eminently kind and

generous mistress to everyone who served

her she earned Henry's trust and

gratitude not only for her Conformity to

his will but also for her continued

Devotion to his children for whom she

had tried to be a warm and loving

stepmother indeed Anna maintained and

strengthened her relationships with

Henry's children and the years following

her divorce even Lady Mary came to care

for and appreciate her former stepmother

in the ensuing years despite what she

perceived as major religious differences

between them actually it is still

unclear whether the denomination of her

religion made any difference to Anna at

all she had embraced Henry's Anglican

faith without protest upon arrival in

England during the short and turbulent

Reigns of Edward I 6 and Mary the Anna

willingly declared her religious

obedience twice when the 9-year-old

Edward took the throne she affirmed

herself a Protestant when Mary succeeded

him as Queen Anna did not hesitate to

declare herself a Roman Catholic perhaps

she was being pragmatic but perhaps the

religious and denomination variability

she had been exposed to in Germany and

within her own family made her eminently

more flexible in a spiritual

sense an of cleaves remained highly

favored by Henry's children following

his death in 1547 she was often invited

to court during the Reigns of Edward and

Mary and she walked behind her former

stepdaughter Elizabeth in Mar's

coronation procession she got along well

enough with Henry's last two wives

although one cryptic comment she made

during Henry's wedding to Katherine par

gave the Imperial Ambassador Eustace

shapi the impression that she resented

Catherine Madame p is taking a great

burden unto herself Anna was said to

have remarked during the ceremony shapi

interpreted this statement as catty

jealousy from a woman whom Henry had

refused to marry a second time after the

execution of Katherine Howard however it

was her brother vilhelm who had

suggested that Henry take his sister

back not Anna it is possible that Anna

meant something entirely different when

she spoke of Madame P's great burden

perhaps she was thinking of Henry's most

recently discarded wife the disgraced

teenaged Queen Catherine Howard executed

for treason at only 19 years old Anna

remained in Royal favor until Wyatt's

rebellion of 1554 because Queen Mary the

first suspected that Anna might have

aided the rebels cause because of

protestant sympathies and love for her

sister Elizabeth she was no longer

invited to court and confined to her

Estates by the spring of 1557 Anna's

Health had begun to decline she grew

thinner and paler and lost her appetite

and historians believe she may have been

suffering the final stages of some form

of cancer an of cleaves died on the 16th

of July 1557 at the age of 41 or 42

despite the short duration of her

marriage she had come to be much loved

and admired by the English people and by

Henry's own family she was honored with

a burial in Westminster Abbey by Queen

Mary I who chose the site for Anna's

burial herself and ordered that vigil be

kept for her each night until her

funeral on the 4th of August the grave

of an of cleaves can be found today on

the south side of the aby's high altar a

plain Stone slightly above eye level

which features her coat of arms and

reads simply an of cleaves Queen of

England born 1515 died

1557 despite the pain and embarrassment

that her short abortive marriage must

have caused her Anna to use the German

version of her name arguably fared

better than any of her five counterparts

when her marriage came to an end

of all of Henry's wives Anna's Origins

tend to be the least well known since

from the English perspective their

marriage was little more than a blip in

the larger context of Henry's Reign but

upon close consideration of what little

is known both Anna herself and her story

strike the Observer as highly unique and

interesting what do you think of an of

cleaves please let us know in the

comments section and as always thank you

very much for

watching the woman known to history as

Katherine Howard was born a noble woman

sometime between

1518 and

1527 her father was Edmund Howard the

third son of the Duke of Norfolk and her

mother was Jaca K pepper also frequently

referred to as Joyce in documents from

the period Joyce K pepper gave birth to

11 children who survived to adulthood an

incredible occurrence in 16th century

Europe K pepper had five children with

her first husband sir Ralph Lee and six

more with her second husband Edmund

Howard of whom Katherine was the second

youngest Lord Edmund lived in a stately

but modestly appointed house with his

wife and children

their home was provided by Lord Edmund's

father and was located on Church Street

in Lambeth Parish Su Edmund often

bemoaned his aristocratic birth for the

financial pressure it brought he was one

of the Duke's younger sons and his

modest inheritant he claimed could never

support him much less his wife and

children in the style expected of the

Howards paid work of any kind was

considered vulgar for a tutor nobleman

lacking any other income Edmund served

as a local Justice of the Peace at

Lambeth and was later made controller of

Cal nonetheless found himself

continuously in debt he was also

terrible at managing the few Financial

Resources he did have and spent most of

his adult life borrowing money from his

friends ducking his creditors and

avoiding the anger of three successive

wives the date of Katherine Howard's

birth is uncertain and highly debated

with some historians dating it as early

as

1518 and others dating it as late as

1527 however a date in the mid-range

seems more likely in light of

documentary evidence the will of Joy's

former father-in-law Sir John Lee which

was probated in

1524 mentions Katherine's older siblings

Henry Charles George and Margaret but

not Katherine herself or her younger

sister Isabelle presumably because they

were either too young to be considered

or because they were not yet born

however the 1527 will of Katherine's

maternal grandmother mentions both

Katherine and Isabel therefore a date of

birth somewhere between 1522 and

1525 seems more plausible if we accept

this estimate then Catherine was at most

no more than 6 years old when her mother

died in

1528 by the following year Edmund Howard

had embarked on the first of two

subsequent marriages and according to

custom some or perhaps all of his

children by his previous wife were

placed in the homes of Howard's

relatives this was not as harsh an

action as it may appear today the early

modern English practice of putting out

young children was frequently undertaken

even if both parents were still living

and readily able to care for them many

children between the ages of 6 and 12

might be sent to a household outside of

their immediate family to complete

training or education or to begin

service this practice was considered

necessary for workingclass children

because of the economic value of a

child's labor to their families but

Gentry and noble families put out their

own children just as often some

historians believe they did so to keep

the children from being spoiled by their

parents who might indulge them rather

than impose much needed structure and

discipline even King Henry's son Prince

Edward was taken from his Governor his

nurses and his sisters at the age of six

and given into the care of a governor

and tutors to complete his education to

be king as a result of this widespread

practice of putting out of children

Katherine Howard probably did not get

the opportunity to develop very close

relationships with all of her many

siblings during childhood although at

least one of her brothers did initially

accompany her to her new household

Catherine welcomed the opportunity to

nurture her relationships with her

siblings later on however when she

became Queen sometime between 1529 and

1531 when she was probably between 6 and

8 years old Catherine was sent to live

in the household of Edmund's widowed

stepmother Agnes Howard the doer Duchess

of

Norfolk Catherine spent roughly the next

decade living either at chesworth the

country estate of The Duchess at ham in

Sussex or at Norfolk house in Lamberth

the daer duess was probably the most

prominent Noble woman in England

virtually no woman besides the queen

herself or Henry's daughters could claim

precedence over her so this was a very

advant agous household for any child to

be placed in one in which they were

certain to get an excellent education

and to meet the right people The Duchess

did indeed have many Wards there could

have been at any time as many as a dozen

children of varying age and Status

living in her household so Catherine

would hardly have been lonely she would

have spent most of her time in what was

known as the maiden's chamber which was

essentially a girl dormitory home to

both Wards and servants at first glance

such Arrangements might suggest that

there was little or no difference in the

treatment of more aristocratic children

and those of humbler Origins under the

duchess's care but the reality was

probably more

nuanced Catherine might have played

laughed argued fought eaten her meals

and shared her bed with any number of

children from diverse socioeconomic

backgrounds

but at the same time the Howard name her

Rank and Heritage likely gave her a

decided superiority one which makes it

unlikely that any of her fellow Wards

could have prevented her from having her

own way when she wanted it apparently

Katherine and her brother George were

the only Wards permitted to dine at

table with the duchess and Katherine

status probably gave her the authority

to control the activities and

Arrangements of the maiden's ch chamber

to a certain extent nonetheless the

boarding school style atmosphere

probably did much to shape her

personality few specific details are

known about Katherine's childhood but

many historians believe that she

experienced a rather lack and

unstructured upbringing for a noble ward

in an aristocratic

household documentary evidence does

suggest that The Dowager Duchess

neglected her duties as a caregiver and

supervisor

and that as a result her Wards often ran

rather wild to be fair to The Duchess

who was in her 7s and headed a household

totaling 100 people there was little she

could do to police the actions of

everyone residing under her roof

Katherine's contemporaries remarked on

the notable lack of reserve and dignity

in her behavior but many of the same

critics were willing to concede that she

also had a kind demeanor which was

immediately warm and engaging perhaps

her life in the duchess's household

among children from many different

backgrounds had made her less

pretentious unlike many Tudor

Aristocrats Katherine Howard less often

displayed the self-important Hess for

which the nobility were renowned still

her flightiness and lack of Reserve

would hardly have endeared her to those

who expected a noble lady or more

importantly a queen to act as one and

unfort fortunately the lack of

supervision and discipline in Agnes

Howard's household was to have

catastrophic and tragic consequences for

Catherine later on Catherine received an

education similar to that of other Noble

women of the Tudor era conduct an

etiquette would have been her first and

most important lessons as a Howard who

would undoubtedly have to appear at

court one day Catherine would have

learned how to properly walk stand sit

and Cur Cy as well as how to address

individuals according to their rank she

would have learned the rules of table

etiquette and how to make polite

conversation but also likely the virtues

of silence and obedience in women

Catherine probably received her most

extensive training in dance and was

described by many contempories as a fine

and graceful dancer she received music

lessons in the duchess's household

reportedly learning to play the virginal

a small version of the harpsicord piano

as well as the lute however it seems

that she did not maintain her interest

in music for very long between the ages

of 10 and 12 Catherine learned how to

read and write she seems to have not

received any academic training Beyond

basic literacy but this was not unusual

for the 16th century in fact the Tudor

princesses were some of the first early

modern English women to be as carefully

and as well educated ated as their male

counterparts learning history philosophy

geography and multiple languages as part

of their

education when Katherine Howard was

between 12 and 14 years old she began

taking music lessons from a teacher

named Henry manox a man at least 10

years her senior who soon began to make

romantic and sexual overtures towards

his adolescent pupil Scholars are divid

Ed on the nature of their relationship

with some characterizing it as sexual

abuse many modern observers would

readily agree considering Katherine's

extreme youth at the time of this

relationship but Catherine was also at

the threshold of sexual Awakening and in

The Tudor era Catherine was fairly close

to the age of eligibility for marriage

and may have responded willingly to

mano's advances it is widely agreed that

Katherine and manox had a relationship

which lasted several months but their

relationship did not cross the physical

boundary later Katherine was most likely

glad it had not according to a housemade

in service to The Duchess named Mary LEL

manox had admitted that while he had no

honorable intentions towards Catherine

he nonetheless boasted that he would

have her maiden head reportedly Furious

when she learned this Catherine broke

off her relationship with manox who soon

resigned position as her music teacher

our understanding of history is often

less heavily influenced by the events

themselves than by the scholars who

interpret and write about them

historians have traditionally denigrated

Katherine Howard as a morally loose and

promiscuous young woman but more recent

historians have shown different

attitudes most no longer view sexual

curiosity or experimentation as

inherently Wicked or destructive and

feminist interpretations of Henry's

ill-fated fifth wife have begun to

challenge the traditional indictment of

her character based on her sexuality

more than one recent biographer has

highlighted the overtones of abuse and

manipulation by a much older adult man

in a position of trust in her life no

more than a year after her break with

manox another young man named Francis

Derham came to join the house sold in

service to The daer

Duchess Francis darham began his

employment as secretary to The daer

Duchess of norfol in

1538 he was probably the same age as

manox in his mid-20s while Catherine was

probably 14 or 15 the two formed an

attachment which continued for at least

several months but may have lasted

nearly 2 years darham called Katherine

wife and she called him husband they

gave each other small gifts and love

tokens he gave her gifts of velvet and

silk flowers while she embroidered an

armband and a Friar's knot for him

Francis also entrusted his money to

Catherine when he went away on business

the argument for Catherine's control

over the maiden's chamber is a strong

one because it seems impossible that she

could have entertained darham there as

many times as she probably did for as

many months as she did without the

duchess finding out and unlike her

relationship with manox it seems fairly

certain that Catherine's relationship

with Francis Derham was fully

consumated to any casual Observer during

the Tudor period it would appear that

Katherine and Francis would eventually

marry in fact in medieval and early

modern Europe any two unmarried people

who had declared their intention to Wed

one another and who had already slept

together were considered precontracted

which was as good as married in the eyes

of the church unfortunately for the

young couple The Duchess eventually

found out about that Affair apparently

acting out of jealousy the rejected

Henry manox wrote To The Duchess an

anonymous letter exposing Francis and

Katherine's relationship and slipped it

onto her pew at church Furious The

Duchess was quick to send darham away he

left for Ireland promising Catherine he

would eventually return but by the time

he did Catherine would already be

married and would have risen to become

Queen consort of England it is

impossible to know if and How Deeply she

mourned her parting from Francis darham

in any event as the niece of the Duke of

Norfolk she probably would not have been

permitted to marry him or indeed to

choose her own husband at all darham was

better born than Henry manox but likely

still not good enough for the niece of a

Duke in the Autumn of

1539 King Henry VII Was preparing to Wed

his fourth wife an of cleaves anxious to

add a Howard lady in waiting to the new

Queen's chamber the Duke of Norfolk

decided that his young niece Catherine

should be sent to live and serve in

Queen Anne's new household Katherine's

father Edmund Howard had died just a few

month months previously and her uncle

the Duke promptly took advantage of his

new ability to control his niece's

Destiny soon after Catherine's arrival

at court she very likely met Thomas col

pepper one of the king's personal

servants member of the privy chamber and

a distant cousin of hers on her mother's

side it is not clear if their

acquaintance predates Katherine's

arrival at court but some historians

believe that an affection may have grown

between them well before Henry first

noticed her Catherine's apparent

affection for Co Pepper would eventually

prove disastrous for both of them by

January of 1540 it was abundantly clear

that the freshly remarried Henry VII was

already seeking to divorce his latest

wife it is not known exactly when Henry

first noticed Katherine but by March

there was already talk of how frequently

the king could be seen crossing the

temps toward Lambo to visit Norfolk

house and of the young lady whom many in

the capital believed was already his

mistress the fall from favor of an of

cleaves had left a power vacuum at court

religious conservatives like the Howards

anxious to dispense with this new Queen

who was assumed to be a Protestant saw

an

opportunity Catherine was very young

probably no more than 17 and not

terribly well educated as a result she

was a less than ideal choice for those

seeking a woman to help manage the king

she was however the woman of the moment

and for Henry that seemed to be enough

the King was nearing 50 and his

fascination with the teenage lady in

waiting speaks of a midlife crisis Henry

was clearly disappointed after his first

meeting with an of cleaves claiming that

her appearance was unsatisfactory and an

had also unintentionally and publicly

embarrassed Henry by not recognizing him

and thus behaving coldly toward him this

awkward encounter likely contributed to

Henry's initial dislike of her some

historians believe that advancing

impotence as a result of the King's age

and health problems may also have played

a significant role in Henry's failure to

consumate his fourth marriage Henry

certainly protested and assured multiple

parties of his potency and virility and

the weeks following his wedding night

almost in self-defense it might seem to

some observers winning the favor of a

beautiful young girl like Catherine

would doubtless have helped Henry feel

as if he was regaining some of his lost

youth and evidence suggests that

Katherine Howard was indeed lovely the

miniature painted by Hans Hine the

younger between 1540 and 154 2 is one of

the few portraits which most historians

can agree most likely depicts Catherine

although a few have pointed out that the

early date of

1540 indicates that the sitter and the

portrait might in fact be Anne of

cleaves an however was thought to have

had blonde hair not Orban like the

subject in the portrait nonetheless the

sitter's identity as Queen May

reasonably be inferred from the jewels

she is wearing Henry is is known to have

gifted the same Royal Jewels repeatedly

to his successive wives and The Jewels

worn by the subject are nearly identical

to those worn by Jane Seymour in her

Hine portrait in the portrait the

subject assumed to be Katherine Howard

has Orban red hair visible under her

jeweled quaff and her brown eyes gaze

softly and knowingly at the viewer as if

she is privy to some secret which The

Observer is not she has a full prominent

nose and an oval face with shapely lips

and eyebrows what can be seen of her

figure appears slim but there is the

slight suggestion of a double chin which

might suggest she had some curviness to

her figure another hind sketch roughly

dated from 1540 to

1545 known as portrait of a young woman

is also believed by several Scholars to

depict Katherine Howard in this sketch

the subject appears even younger with

similar but somewhat more exaggeratedly

delicate features than those in the

miniature unfortunately since Catherine

died in disgrace with her husband Keen

to forget her she has not been well

enough memorialized for us to be sure

which of the numerous tutor portraits of

unnamed ladies actually depict Catherine

for certain contemporary observers

described her as petite pretty Charming

and

high-spirited throughout the spring of

1540 Henry showered Catherine with gifts

expensive clothing jewelry and even

lands aware of the king's interest and

confident in Henry's ability to

eventually dispense with his current

wife the Duke and Dowager Duchess of

Norfolk carefully coached Katherine with

regard to how she should behave toward

Henry and how best to please him some of

Katherine's biographers believe believe

that she and Henry consumated their

relationship sometime in May when the

king began to noticeably escalate

efforts to divorce an of cleaves perhaps

the renewed urgencies stemmed from a

belief that Catherine might already be

pregnant on the 28th of July

1540 only 6 months after his wedding to

an of cleaves Henry VII married

Katherine Howard at Oakland's Palace

near wbr

in

s Henry's new Queen consort settled into

her new role fairly well to begin with

she adopted a badge featuring a crowned

Rose and the motto non

volen or no other will than his a

sentiment which could not have failed to

please Henry and the King was clearly

boted with his Young Bride his courtiers

and ambassadors remarked pointedly on

Henry's constant and openly affectionate

Behavior towards Catherine even in

public he could not keep his hands off

her and continue to spoil her regularly

with lavish gifts and honors Henry took

his bride on a six-month progress

throughout the south of England going

from one Royal Palace to another hunting

feasting being entertained and of course

doing what the newly married often do

because of Henry's advancing age and

declining health and because he had no

more children after the the death of

Jane Seymour some historians have

speculated that he was unable to

consumate any of his last three

marriages and that perhaps his last two

spouses Katherine par in particular were

Henry's nurses rather than his wives

other historians disagree strongly

however pointing out that sex between

16th century married couples was

heartily encouraged and was considered

normal and healthy for couples at any

age moreover men of mature years

regularly married girls as young as

Katherine Howard during the tutor period

and many of these unions produced

children there is evidence to suggest

that Henry anticipated on several

occasions throughout his marriage to

Catherine that she might be pregnant the

king seemed to have developed a policy

beginning with his third marriage not to

consider having a coronation for a queen

until she had produced an heir but

shortly before their

1541 progress to the north of England

tentative preparations seemed to have

been underway for a potential Queen's

coronation at York one which never

materialized since Catherine was not

found to be pregnant after all some

Scholars speculate that she may have had

a short pregnancy which ended in a

miscarriage in the spring of

1541 simply being the darling of her

husband's eye might not seem like much

of an achievement to most observers but

then Henry was by no means easy to

please as the trail of dead wives

friends courtiers and clergy in his past

could have testified Katherine therefore

deserves significant credit for

carefully intelligently and tactfully

navigating her new position as Queen

Henry's constant warning over her was no

doubt encouraged by Katherine's efforts

to lovingly conform herself to his will

the king had a pattern of responding

with anger and even threats when his

wives attempted to exercise political

power unless he himself deputized them

to do so as in the case of Katherine of

adan's Regency during Henry's campaign

in France an Bolin had stoked resentment

in Henry for her habit of being

outspoken on political and religious

matters even Jane Seymour mother of the

king's beloved Son was met with threats

from Henry when she attempted to

influence his policies toward those

involved in the

1537 pilgrimage of Grace in contrast to

most of her predecessors as well as her

successor as Queen Katherine Howard

almost never interfered in policy of any

sort or challenged what Henry viewed as

his kingly perogative on the rare

occasion she did attempt to exert

influence over State matters she did so

in ways that were socially acceptable

for women in Tudor

England like other queens cine sought

promotions and honors for her family and

household members but she also

interceded with Henry for imprisoned and

condemned Nobles she begged Henry's

permission to send warm clothing and

Comforts to the Countess of Salsbury

lady Margaret pole whom Henry had

imprisoned in the tower largely because

her son cardal Reginald pole was

carrying on a campaign abroad against

Henry's religious reforms in fact

Catherine's largest single household

expenditure during her time as Queen was

what she spent on Margaret Pole's

Comfort Catherine also interceded on

behalf of Sir John Wallop Sir Thomas

Wyatt and Wyatt's secretary John Mason

who were imprisoned simply for their

social proximity to the lak disgraced

and executed Thomas Cromwell Henry

softened by his wife's compassion

relented and granted Pardons and release

to all three men not only did Catherine

play her royal role well by keeping

Henry happy but she also set out to be

her most warm and Charming self with

those close to him including his ex-wife

an of cleaves now recognized as the

king's beloved sister Anne had begun to

be regularly received at court this was

a somewhat bizarre and unique social

arrangement for the Tudor age and most

observers would probably understand if

Catherine had behaved coldly toward Anne

but rather than keeping her at arms

length the new Queen treated Henry's

ex-wife with effusive Goodwill Katherine

famously and gay celebrated the new year

of

1541 by drinking and dancing with an of

caves and other members of the Court

long after Henry had retired from the

festivities she also presented Anne with

one of the puppies Henry had given her

as a New Year's gift Catherine was Keen

to cultivate warm relationships with

Henry's children as well Elizabeth and

Edward were still very young just seven

and four years old respectively and if

they could not have a mother's care they

were at least eager for a kind

stepmother which Catherine proved

herself perfectly willing to be the Lady

Mary however proved a much tougher a nut

to crack to begin with the Queen's new

stepdaughter was quite a few years older

than her Highly Educated deeply Pious

and rather serious Catherine no doubt

struck Mary as a silly and

pleasure-loving juvenile which perhaps

to a certain extent she was but what

else one might ask could one reasonably

expect from a 17 or 18yearold girl with

Catherine's background and upbringing

she had been taken from the maiden

chamber of the duchess's house and

within mere months had been placed at

the very Pinnacle of Honor adoration

wealth and luxury in English society

such a Cinderella Story might make any

young woman want to Revel in it all the

dancing and Amusements the beautiful

clothes and jewels no doubt it all

seemed shallow to Mary who had perhaps

traveled a tougher road than Catherine

in some respects forcing Mary to grow up

quickly she was also admittedly far more

dignified with seemingly more substance

than the teenaged Queen but this most

likely does not fully explain Mary's

seemingly intense dislike of her Mary

may have been projecting some of the

resentment she felt for her father onto

Catherine Mary likely found it

humiliating to be forced to rever what

seemed to her an artless young girl as

her stepmother and queen while Henry's

first wife and her own beloved mother

one of the most admired Royal women in

Europe had been left to die in pain and

disgrace she also probably resented that

Henry had cast off an of cleaves whom

she admired and cared for to marry

Catherine Mar's coolness and continued

disregard for her new stepmother

infuriated the queen and with an

uncharacteristic display of Spite and

haughtiness she removed two ladies from

Lady Mary's service for the lack of

respect they had shown in spite of this

Clash Catherine remained high in Henry's

favor but when her fall came it was both

sudden and

violent historians have traditionally

cited Katherine Howard's greatest

missteps as Queen as mainly sexual

however there is no truly firm evidence

that Catherine was ever actually

unfaithful to Henry during their

marriage one is tempted to see her

greater missteps as those she made with

manx and Derham before she ever came to

serve at court thought it was rumors of

these premarital relationships that

first led Henry to order an

investigation into Catherine's past yet

if these were indeed her only crimes

they turned Katherine Howard's life and

her marriage to Henry VII into the very

definition of a tragedy to be destined

for a terrible and ignominious end from

the very

outset until the spring of 1541 Henry's

Health had actually begun to show

promising Improvement following his

marriage the years of 1539 and 1540 had

seen him gain a great deal of weight all

at once largely due to enforced physical

inactivity on account of his constantly

ulcerated leg but he improved markedly

during the second half of 154 enough to

become something of his own active self

again during his extended honeymoon with

Catherine in December he even began a

doctor supervised regime to reduce his

weight but in April of

1541 the wound on the king's leg began

to pain him once again keeping him

confined to his Chambers for weeks at a

time Henry continually sent messages and

gifts to Catherine but refused to see

her throughout his illness presumably he

was anxious that his beautiful young

wife might see him as an ailing and

helpless old man it may have been the

boredom of life without Henry or the

worry that he might be tiring of her

that led Catherine into dangerous

territory while seeking comfort and

distraction some historians believe that

Catherine Howard's alleged affair with

Thomas C pepper began around this time

the full extent of their physical

relationship remains unknown as both

later denied that they had ever slept

together but they did secretly send

gifts and letters to one another and at

least one witness revealed under varying

circumstances of interrogation that

Katherine and K pepper had met secretly

and in private on multiple occasions

Jane Bolin the widowed lady Rochford who

was one of Katherine's principal ladies

in Waiting revealed during questioning

that she had many times served as a

messenger between the queen and C pepper

and that she had even stood guard

outside the door on multiple occasions

during their secret meetings one of the

most telling pieces of evidence of

Catherine's feelings for C peer is the

letter that she wrote to him in her own

hand perhaps during the early summer of

1541 this letter was found in Thomas C

Pepper's room in November or December of

15 41 and while it does not confirm any

infidelity on the Queen's part it is

highly suggestive of her romantic

feelings for him it is the only document

written by Katherine Howard that has

survived

intact Master C pepper it reads I

heartily recommend me unto you praying

you to send me word how that you do it

was showed me that you were sick the

Wich thing troubled me very much I never

Lo longed so much for a thing as I do to

see you and to speak with you the which

I trust shall be shortly now it makes my

heart die to think what Fortune I have

that I cannot be always in your company

my trust is always in you praying that

you will come when my lady Rochford is

here for then I shall be best at leisure

to be at your commandment I would that

you were with me now that you might see

what pain I take in right in to you

yours as long as life endures Catherine

historians have traditionally viewed

Catherine's appointment of staff to her

household as another example of her

major missteps as Queen but these are

fairly understandable in context when

Catherine became Queen the usual stream

of family members and friends were drawn

to the court seeking positions some by

invitation but some most likely as the

result of black M Catherine was glad to

promote the prosperity of her family

members when she became Queen her uncle

the Duke of Norfolk was higher in favor

than ever and the court seemed

inordinately crowded with Howards her

siblings all benefited from Catherine's

elevation including most notably her

eldest brother Charles who was made a

member of the privy chamber and her

younger sister Isabelle who came to

court to serve as lady in waiting but

among those recruited to the new Queen

's household were a few troublingly

familiar faces from her past Joan bulmer

and Francis Derham Joan had once served

The daer Duchess and had lived at

Norfolk house with Catherine for several

years Joan wrote to Catherine soon after

her impending marriage to the King was

made public and while the letter seems

respectful enough some Scholars have

suggested that a few lines might imply a

vague threat Joan said that she chose to

reply to Catherine because of the

perfect honesty that Joan had always

found in her and which Joan had heard

from others still remained in 16th

century English the words honesty and

Chastity were often used interchangeably

and it is possible that Joan was

reminding Catherine of just how much she

knew about her past I trust Joan wrote

that the queen will not forget her

secretary Catherine promptly installed

mistress bulmer in her household as a

lady in waiting in a seemingly more

risky move considering their previous

relationship Catherine also gave a

position to Francis Derham he applied to

Catherine using a letter of

recommendation from the doer Duchess of

Norfolk which is extremely interesting

Agnes Howard had known about Katherine's

premarital relationship with Dam and had

been Furious and disapproving enough to

separate them and banish him to Ireland

why would the duchess then take the

enormous risk of recommending him for

the Queen's service when it might not

only endanger Katherine's reputation but

her own as well this leads one to

suppose that daram might have

blackmailed both The Duchess and

Catherine in order to secure a position

for himself whatever the case Catherine

obliged and gave darham a position as

gentleman Usher strangely on the same

day that Henry ordered a mass of

Thanksgiving to be sa said in every

church for his beloved Queen the

Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas cranmer

delivered to Henry a letter detailing

accusations against Catherine for

premarital sexual impropriety the

informant was John lels a former client

of Thomas Cromwell and an Ardent

reformer anxious to see the religiously

conservative Howards removed from Power

John informed crma that he had received

troubling intelligence about Catherine

from his sister Mary lels who had served

as a housemaid for the doer Duchess of

Norfolk during Katherine's residence

there John had reportedly encouraged his

sister to apply to the queen for a place

in her household on the strength of

their previous acquaintance and Mary had

apparently declined claiming

disapprovingly that prior to her

marriage Catherine had been quote a

light young woman both in living and in

condition

Mary then revealed the Queen's previous

relationships to John Henry was utterly

shocked he ordered an investigation to

be conducted into the rumors but

initially seemed to doubt that any

corroborating evidence or testimony

might be found still he ordered his

Queen confined to her Chambers without

explanation until the allegations were

dismissed sadly they never were and as

the investigation progressed Catherine's

free freedoms and honors were

increasingly

curtailed during his interrogation Henry

manox readily admitted to his previous

relationship with Catherine but affirmed

that they had not slept together luckily

for him he was the only man accused of

intimate former acquaintance with the

queen who was eventually released

without charge Francis Derham however

was not so lucky Francis admitted to his

formerly romantic and ual relationship

with Catherine and insisted that they

had been precontracted but he vly denied

that they had renewed their Affair

following his arrival at court under

torture darham confessed that he had not

attempted to pursue Katherine again

because she had already embarked on a

relationship with Thomas C pepper Thomas

was then promptly arrested for

questioning as well Carl Pepper also

denied having slept with Catherine but

later admitted that he had intended to

do so and that she had intended the same

when Thomas cranmer came to question

Catherine herself she was in such a

pitiable state he wrote such as I never

saw in any creature she alternated

sharply between Terror of what might

happen to her and remorse for concealing

her sexual experiences before her

marriage to the king she confirmed the

testimony of Henry manox and to a

certain an extent that of Francis darham

as well however she denied that there

had been any pre-contract between them

or expectation of marriage many

historians have wondered at this for the

existence of a pre-contract prior to her

marriage to the king might have been

grounds for an analment if her marriage

to Henry had been declared invalid then

there would have been no grounds for

adultery charges in the case of a queen

adultery was considered treason since it

placed in doubt the legitimacy of

potential Hees to the throne Catherine

did not seem to understand that

admitting to a pre-contract could have

saved her life in a later interrogation

session Catherine reportedly changed her

testimony alleging that Dam had raped

her for reasons that are still unclear

perhaps she believed that by denying any

willing participation as well as the

pre-contract this might prevent the

imposition

of a death

sentence despite the fact that two of

her relationships predated her marriage

and both she and C pepper denied the

accusations of adultery she was

nonetheless condemned to death by Act of

attender in February

1542 the evidence of Katherine's guilt

was only circumstantial such as the

letters and Gifts exchanged between her

and culer under interrogation one of her

ladies in Waiting ad admitted she had

seen the queen look longingly at C

pepper and another testified that she

had not seen Catherine in her bed on

several nights lady Rochford could not

confirm that Katherine and C pepper had

slept together but claimed that they had

spent such a significant amount of

private time alone together while lady

Rochford stood guard that she said she

could not think it otherwise sadly lady

Rochford was found guilty of treason

right alongside her unfortunate mistress

Francis darham and Thomas C pepper were

sentenced to die by hanging drawing and

quartering but cul Pepper's sentence was

ultimately commuted to beheading

presumably owing to his Noble birth and

Henry's former fondness for him

Catherine Howard went to her own

execution with impressive bravery on the

night before her death strangely she did

not send for a Confessor but in in Stead

requested that The Executioner's block

be brought to her so that she might

rehearse the proper way to place herself

upon it this gives us a poignant picture

of Catherine at the end determined to

Bear her coming ordeal with calm courage

Grace and dignity the next morning on

the 13th of February

1542 Catherine was led out onto the

tower green she faltered for a moment as

she approached the the block and had to

be assisted to mount the scaffold but

when she faced the assembled crowd she

spoke clearly and steadily some sources

claim that Catherine said she wished she

had died the wife of C pepper but most

historians have dismissed this claim as

apocryphal Catherine's last words were

actually much more conventional she

asserted that she deserved death for her

crimes against the king exhorted the

crowd to pray for him and Obey him

begged that her disgrace not rebound

unfairly on the members of her family

who were innocent and ignorant of her

wrongdoing and affirmed her faith in God

this kind of final speech was highly

typical of those condemned to execution

and showed that Catherine was anxious to

protect those she knew she would leave

behind for the last words of The

Condemned persons were reported to the

king poor lady Rochford who had suffered

what seemed to be a psychotic break

during her incarceration promptly

followed her mistress to the Executioner

block Henry had actually pushed a bill

through Parliament to allow insane

persons to be executed for treason just

for the

occasion much of the historiography on

Katherine Howard has been called

misogynistic in more recent Works

traditionally she has been depicted as a

silly empty-headed pleasure-loving and

wanten temptress a teenaged F fatal

earlier biographers even 20th century

Scholars have used words like and

good time girl in academic print and

discourse to describe her more than any

other facet of her life Katherine

Howard's sexuality has been the central

focus of most historians who have

written about her this is somewhat

understandable since it was the central

focus of her downfall and historical

documents which tell us anything about

her personal experience or personality

are relatively rare recent scholarship

has argued that this trend of focusing

only on Katherine's sexuality has had

the effect of obscuring almost

everything else about her and that her

condemnation was an absurdly

hypocritical expression of double

standards looking past her supposed sins

is necessary to see something more

closely approximating the whole person a

girl who was impressionable susceptible

to flattery and adoration who seems to

have deeply revered and cared for Henry

but may have fallen away from him due to

a lack of confidence in his love for her

a girl who was compassionate to those

who were suffering Who Loved animals

especially dogs and who was happy to

help family members to become more

prosperous a girl who had perhaps made

mistakes but who some historians argue

was repeated ly exploited by much older

men whatever one's perspective Catherine

Howard met her end with a sense of

personal responsibility and with a

bravery that one cannot help but respect

especially in a girl of no older than 19

she was buried in an unmarked grave in

the chapel of St Peter advincula close

to the final resting places of George

and an Bolin her first cousins and

fellow Marty to King Henry's ego rage

and

ambition Henry was reportedly devastated

by Catherine's supposed betrayal he had

firmly believed her to have been chased

before their marriage which for him was

problematic enough but the fact that she

had taken Francis Derham into her

queenly household and spent time alone

with Thomas C pepper as well as writing

to him and sending him gifts was

evidence enough for Henry of her

unfaithfulness however circumstantial

perhaps the most humiliating thing for

Henry was not just the appearance of

being cuckolded but what it implied if

his beautiful teenaged wife whom he

doted upon had seen the need to look

elsewhere for sexual fulfillment it

imputed Henry's manhood by suggesting he

was too old and impotent to satisfy her

this inference May well have contributed

signif significantly to his decision to

execute her rather than divorce her or

anull the

marriage the suggestion of Henry's

impotence had pierced his pride and ego

the most dangerous of wounds this

episode may have also facilitated the

growth of Henry's attraction to

Katherine par who was more mature at 31

capable of more educated and intelligent

discourse and who promised a warm

companionship with someone closer to his

own age in some ways Henry's

relationship with Katherine par calls to

mind his first marriage to Katherine of

aragan for the king apparently found

much to admire in his sixth wife that he

had also admired in his

first what do you think of Katherine

Howard please let us know in the comment

section and in the meantime thank you

very much for watching

[Music]

the woman known to history as Katherine

par was most likely born at her family's

townhouse in Black Friars London her

exact birth date is unknown but it was

probably in the late summer or Early

Autumn of

1512 she was the eldest child of Sir

Thomas par and M green who had two more

children after Katherine's birth William

and Anne Sir Thomas was kned by Henry

VII in

159 and was much favored by him he held

several positions throughout his years

of service at Henry's Court including

comola to the king while his wife mud

served as a lady in waiting to Queen

Katherine of aragan the par family would

have been classified as Gentry rather

than nobility like the bins the par

family had risen in the world as a

result of several Generations of Royal

patronage and advantageous marriages by

the time of Catherine's birth they were

wealthy Northern landowners and

connected by marriage to some of the

most prominent noble families in the

north of England the pars divided their

time between their estate of Kendall at

Westland and their London house in Black

friers where they were readily

accessible to the Royal Court when Sir

Thomas died in

1517 he left his widow and children with

an ample estate

one that ensured that mud would not have

to remarry which she never did instead

mud poured her energy into raising and

educating her children luckily for

Catherine and her siblings their mother

was more Progressive and better educated

than most women of her background and

station and as a result Katherine and

her younger sister Anne received an

education as thorough and rigorous as

their brother William in addition to

being trained in courtly etiquette dance

and perhaps music as well all three par

siblings were instructed in history

French Italian Latin and perhaps

additional academic subjects as well in

fact M PA's household developed such a

reputation for dedication to scholarship

and learning that the parents of other

Noble and gentry families of her

acquaintance often appealed to her to

take in their children who needed to

finish their

educations The daer Duchess of norford

may have been one of the foremost women

in England but her Ward Catherine Howard

received far less attention or nurture

and a far inferior education than the

children in M PA's household received in

short M's home was a finishing school

par excellence and Catherine benefited

enormously from her mother's efforts

this should not suggest that mud

intended much more than a good marriage

for her daughters like any Tudor maton

she was concerned above all with

arranging the best possible marriages

for her children when Catherine was 17

mud arranged her marriage to Sir Edward

Berg the 21-year-old son of barenberg

earlier biographies have confused

Katherine's first husband with his

father who was also named Edward thus it

has traditionally been supposed that

Katherine's first marriage was to a much

older man which is not the case few

specific details are known about the

life of Katherine par between 1529 and

1543 when she married Henry VII but

these were no doubt formative years for

Katherine in an intellectual and

spiritual sense she was first married to

Sir Edward Berg in

1529 a marriage that became much more

contented when in

1531 the couple moved away from Edward's

Family Home and Catherine's reportedly

abusive father-in-law sadly sir Edward

died in

1533 following a short illness only a

year later the widowed Catherine who was

still a young woman at 21 married John

Neville third Baron Latimer a man more

than twice her age she may have met him

while visiting their Mutual relative

Catherine Neville dager Duchess of

Strickland Catherine's mother mud had

died by this time and so her second

marriage may have been largely by her

own choice it was certainly a

prestigious marriage Katherine became

only the second member of her family to

marry into the English peage and there

is evidence to suggest that they cared

for one another and enjoyed a happy

Union though their marriage produced no

children Catherine was a loving

stepmother to Lord Latimer's two

children John and Margaret and after his

death the baron entrusted the care of

his daughter and the management of her

finances until she married to his widow

Catherine until her own death several

years later Catherine kept among her

personal and sentimental possessions a

new testament which had once belonged to

her second husband inscribed with his

name Lord and Lady Latimer certainly

faced challenges together during the

1537 pilgrimage of Grace the northern

uprising against the abolition of the

monasteries and other religious reforms

was greeted with sympathy and support

from some Nobles and with horror and

reluctant acquiescence by others with

literally tens of thousands risen in

Rebellion the northern English

aristocracy and gentry were forced to

contend with their discontented

neighbors on their very own doorsteps

some made concessions to the rebels out

of fear of their numbers for no single

nobleman could call upon sufficient

forces to resist one of the largest

potential armies ever to be organized in

northern England Lord Latimer had

thoroughly disapproved of the king's

divorce from his first wife his marriage

to anolin and presumably the reforms

that had followed it is unclear just how

much the rebels had to twist Lord

Latimer's arm to persuade him to join

their cause but some sources claim he

quite publicly embraced it the true

commitment of any Noble household to the

cause however was more likely to be

manifest in its mistress the ladies of

Northern aristocratic households who

opposed religious reform showed their

support by providing resources sympathy

and verbal encouragement to the rebels

presumably at the sanction of their

husbands but though her husband seemed

to support the Rebellion even if he did

so under duress there is no evidence

that Katherine par did Katherine's lack

of agreement and cooperation with the

rebels may be inferred by the fact that

she and her stepchildren were held

prisoner in their own home by the rebels

perhaps to secure Lord Latimer's

cooperation Catherine's lack of response

to the pilgrimage of Grace might signal

that she had already formed or perhaps

was beginning to form her Protestant

reformist views when the Rebellion ended

Lord and Lady Latimer began to spend

more time near London and Henry's Court

presumably to remain close enough to

demonstrate their loyalty and reassure

the king that they had only collaborated

with the northern Rebels under duress

Catherine formed a warm and friendly

relationship with Lady Mary during this

period additionally Katherine's brother

William and their Sister Anne were both

high in favor at court Catherine's

relationships with these allies no doubt

helped to clear Lord and Lady Latimer of

any hint of collaboration or treason

with the

rebels it was in London in 1542 that

Catherine first met Sir Thomas Seymour

brother of Queen Jane Seymour it was

generally known at that time that Lord

Latimer was in ill health and likely to

die soon and the knowledge that

Catherine was soon to be a very rich

Widow may have sharpened Seymour's

interest Thomas was described by

contemporaries as very handsome and

Charming but also highly ambitious and

often unscrupulous in pursuing his aims

how much he truly cared for Catherine is

unclear but Catherine clearly fell for

him as one of her surviving letters to

Seymour testifies she claimed that she

had fallen in love with him and wanted

to marry him even before the king

offered her marriage and Henry most

likely knew that he had competition for

lady Latimer's hand as he seemingly

without warning offered Sir Thomas

Seymour a handsome promotion and sent

him to serve abroad in the Netherlands

once Lord Latimer had done died and

Catherine had emerged from her mourning

less than 6 months after Lord Latimer's

death Henry and Catherine were married

in the Queen's Closet at Hampton Court

Palace on the 12th of July

1543 why did she accept his proposal was

she afraid of what it might mean if she

refused the king this seems a likely

consideration in view of Henry's

character and reputation some of her

biographers believe that she accepted

Henry Henry's proposal as part of a

religious mission to facilitate the

advance of reform in England by being a

subtle but committed advocate for

Protestant values the warm relationship

she had developed with Lady Mary in the

previous few years may have played a

role as well Mary's mother Katherine of

aragan had stood as Katherine PA's

godmother and it was for Henry's first

queen that Sir Thomas and mud par had

named their daughter C

may have been motivated by a sense of

Duty to the young woman she had

befriended to the girl's departed mother

and perhaps to Henry's younger children

as well who were no less in need of a

loving mother figure in their

lives Katherine adapted to her new

position as Queen consort quickly and

well she and Henry embarked on a

honeymoon progress which lasted for most

of the latter half of

1543 Henry took pride not not only in

his new wife's virtue and intelligence

he also admired her beauty there are at

least three portraits that have been

confirmed to correctly depict Katherine

par the Melton Constable or Hastings

portrait a fulllength portrait

attributed to t a court painter Master

John and a half-length portrait

currently residing at the National

Portrait Gallery in London all three

depict a tall stately slender and

attractive woman in her 30s with orbit

red hair expressive brown eyes pale skin

and delicate features Henry and

Catherine seemed to quickly develop an

easy intimacy and companionable

relationship they were much closer in

age than Henry had been with his

previous three wives and were fairly

evenly matched in education intelligence

and rhetoric Henry's faith in Catherine

was such that he appointed her to serve

as Regent during his absence in 1544

when he led yet another military

campaign in France apparently another

attempt to recapture some of the glory

of his lost youth it was an affair of

absurd cost in men and resources with

virtually no tangible reward shortterm

or otherwise but Katherine offered Henry

her full support and encouragement in

his military Endeavors ably and

intelligently managed Affairs of State

as Regent and Faithfully kept Henry

informed of all developments while he

remained in

France she greeted the king's return as

that of a Conquering Hero and he in turn

commended her efforts and stewardship on

his behalf during his absence in a move

that shows real trust Henry did not seek

to Bar Catherine from his Chambers

during his periodic bouts of illness

largely centering around his old leg

wound the queen with willingly and ably

nursed Henry just as she had nursed Lord

Latimer through his final illness it

seemed Catherine could rise no higher in

her husband's favor and this may have

given her the confidence to pursue her

goals to influence reform more openly

her attempts to do So eventually placed

Queen Catherine in the same danger into

which both an Bolin and Katherine Howard

before her had fallen like all of her

predecessors Katherine par at first

exercised power rather minimally she

elevated her family members by

appointing them to positions in her

household including her siblings and

stepchildren her sister an lady Herbert

who had served both an of cleaves and

Katherine Howard was made principal lady

in waiting and her brother William was

made Earl of essic but more

significantly Catherine also made subtle

efforts to promote the cause of

protestantism by appointing reformers to

key positions including her personal

chaplain and the tutors assigned to

teach the Lady Elizabeth and Prince

Edward Henry who was as well educated as

his new Queen was impressed by her

learning and intellectual sophistication

and readily sought her advice on his

children's education but he was at that

point in time probably unaware of How

Deeply committed Catherine was to the

cause of religious

reform Henry knew that Katherine was

Pious and that she was no Catholic

sympathizer but it would not become

clear to him until

1546 how strongly his wife favored the

reformist cause but while Henry was in a

doctrinal sense more religiously

conservative than his wife his main

problem may have been with her

increasing habit of being outspoken and

of challenging him especially on

religious matters and on policy in

1544 Katherine anonymously published an

English translation of Bishop John

Fischer's Latin text Psalms and prayers

the following year she published prayers

and meditations under her own name and

her English translation sold remarkably

well Henry appreciated and admired ired

Catherine's learning and public virtue

and seemed to find her conversation

stimulating for the most part but her

growing popularity may have irked him

especially as she grew Bolder in her

arguments and challenges on religious

matters Henry might even have felt some

jealousy upon receiving as a New Year's

gift in

1546 a Latin translation of his wife's

enormously popular book from his

daughter Elizabeth who may have seemed

to Henry to admire her stepmother more

than she did her father Catherine's

increasingly bold speech eventually

produced open grumbling from him that he

should be lectured and condescended to

by his wife on matters that were

according to his own policy within his

power

alone when religious conservatives like

Bishop of Winchester Steven Garder and

Lord Chancellor and Earl of Southampton

Thomas re ly approached Henry with

allegations of the Queen's supposedly

heretical leanings which appeared far

more extreme than the act of six

articles allowed the king seemed fairly

well disposed to entertain their

suspicions he even permitted rley to

issue a warrant for her arrest and

interrogation luckily for Catherine the

warrant was never served the document

was first waylaid by means of an unknown

servant and delivered directly into

Katherine's hands instead panicked she

collapsed into weeping and resolved to

try as hard as possible to at least

appear to conform to Henry's will when

he confronted her about her temerity in

challenging him and her refusal to allow

herself to be instructed by England's

religious authorities namely himself

Katherine eloquently protested that she

had only argued with Henry in order to

benefit from his superior wisdom as well

as to distract him from the painful

trial Tri s of his recurring illness

which had been continually plaguing him

of late she then affirmed that her Duty

and her place was to honor and respect

Henry's

Authority interestingly these claims

were probably not just lip service from

Catherine or a clever ploy to save her

skin Catherine may have been considered

by some to be a radical in her own time

for her Protestant views but her

perspective on the role of women was

quite conventional for the Tudor period

this was made clear in the Queen's

religious treaties published after

Henry's death in

1547 Lamentations of a sinner which

though it strongly espoused reformist

doctrinal views was actually quite

traditional in its attitudes to women's

roles Catherine believed that women

should be taught to read and understand

the scriptures but simultaneously

exhorted them to remain silent and

obedient to their husbands in all

things Henry was generous to his wife

and his will bequeathing to her a lavish

annual income of

£7,000 as well as the right to retain

the Royal Jewels during her lifetime

following Henry's death and Katherine's

prompt retirement from Court Thomas

Seymour who had recently been made first

Baron Sudley reentered Catherine's life

almost immediately before she was even

out of mourning for Henry the two were

quietly married sometime in May

1547 Thomas's brother Edward who had

been made Lord protector during the new

King Edward I 6th minority was furious

with both his brother and the doer Queen

their Hasty marriage could have made it

difficult to judge the paternity of any

child Catherine might have within 9

months of Henry's death which had only

just occurred at the end of January

moreover Thomas Seymour's Act of

marrying the doer Queen in secret and

without the permission of the Regency

Council made them suspect and distrust

his Ambitions it also alienated Lady

Mary who considered the secrecy and

hastiness of their marriage to be both

indecent and an affront to her father's

memory and a rift developed between

Catherine and Mary which was never

healed such a risky approach to marriage

seems somewhat out of character for

Catherine but perhaps at 35 having

finally made what she believed to be a

true love match she decided to waste no

more time throw caution to the wind and

wed the man she

wanted the year immediately following

her fourth marriage was probably one of

the happiest of Katherine PA's life she

and her husband established Residence at

his seat of Sudley Castle in

gloustershire she responded to an appeal

from her former stepdaughter Lady

Elizabeth with an invitation to come and

live with her and Seymour where she

could continue to supervise Elizabeth's

education naturally Catherine's

intellectual reputation preceded her and

other noble families were soon applying

to the daer queen to take in other

daughters of the aristocracy who needed

a respectable place to complete their

education most notable among them was

Lady Jane gray granddaughter of Henry's

Sister Mary Tudor and Elizabeth first

cousin just as her mother had once been

Catherine was now a respected woman of

learning and culture sought after and

entrusted with the care and education of

the children of England's most

illustrious families early in the

following year of

1548 Catherine discovered she was

pregnant perhaps for the first time in

her life and at last her happiness

seemed complete sadly her calm content

contentment would be shattered several

months later when more than halfway

through her pregnancy she discovered

that her husband had been actively

pursuing an elicit relationship with her

own stepdaughter

Elizabeth it later came to light that

Thomas Seymour had been regularly

visiting Elizabeth's chamber in the

Early Mornings in a state of nighttime

undress and attempting to engage an

inappropriate and vaguely sexual horse

play with her the extent to which

Katherine was initially aware of the

behavior or understood the extent of it

is unclear some sources allege that

Catherine participated in some of

Seymour's acts but it is hard to picture

the pregnant doer queen as complicit in

such impropriety by the summer of

1548 she was resolved of all doubts when

she stumbled upon Thomas and Elizabeth

quote in an Embrace Catherine fromp sent

Elizabeth away ostensibly it seems to

protect her stepdaughter from her

husband but perhaps also to save her

marriage the apparent fragility of which

appears to have hurt Catherine

deeply when she went into labor in late

August her first experience of

childbirth proved very difficult and

taxing one contemporary Source claimed

that in the pain and stress of the birth

Catherine vent Ed her rage and despair

at her husband's betrayal accusations

which she seemed not to recall after her

daughter and only child Mary was born

Catherine lived less than a week after

her daughter's arrival the infant Mary

Seymour who was named for the daer

Queen's beloved stepdaughter lost her

mother when she was only 6 days old on

the 5th of September

1548 cther in PA died of pual fever

which was the Fairly common result of

unhygienic conditions during childbirth

she was buried on her husband's estate

at Sudley Castle when Thomas Seymour was

executed for treason less than a year

after his wife's death the infant Mary

Seymour was sent to live with

Katherine's friend and fellow reformer

Katherine Brandon nay Willoughby The

Duchess of suffk most historians do not

believe that Mary Seymour survived her

early childhood and suggest that she

most likely died by the age of two

Katherine par has traditionally been

credited with a broad and impressive

Legacy it had been partly her influence

that had led Henry to reinstate his

daughters to the succession her

contributions to the growth of

protestantism in England have

traditionally been celebrated by

reformers who continued to promote their

cause after her death she was one of the

most educated and respected women of her

age and class an impressive achievement

for a woman whose family had only been

nighted Gentry for three generations but

perhaps her most notable Legacy can be

seen in the lives and policies of Edward

v 6 and more particularly Elizabeth I

whose education ideology religion and

vision for for England's future had been

shaped more by Henry's sixth wife than

perhaps by any other person what do you

think of Katherine par please let us

know in the comment section and in the

meantime thank you very much for

watching for