The official website for BBC History Magazine
How Elizabeth of York paved the way for her granddaughters to rule
What changed between Elizabeth of York’s age and her granddaughters’ time that allowed them to rule in their own right? Leading historian Alison Weir explores the claim of the heiress of the House of York and how, though she was passed over to rule, she laid the groundwork for Tudor generations to come…
In January 1486, when Henry VII seized the throne of England, he married Elizabeth, the heiress of the House of York. He took care to be crowned before the wedding, so that it should not be said that he owed his kingly title to his wife. In fact, Elizabeth of York was the true heir with the better claim. Her father, Edward IV, had died unexpectedly in 1483. He left behind a male heir and a ‘spare’, but the ‘Princes in the Tower’ – as they would become known – disappeared in the autumn of 1483, after their uncle claimed the crown for himself, becoming Richard III. They and their siblings had been declared bastards, on highly dubious grounds. Many still regarded Elizabeth, their eldest sister, as the true heiress to the throne. Read more about Elizabeth of York: a Tudor of rare talent After Richard III fell at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, no one supported Elizabeth’s claim to the throne because she was a woman – her value was purely matrimonial. Parliament had already declared that Henry VII was king. (It was not until the 1530s that their son, Henry VIII, acknowledged that his title had come primarily from his mother.) But back in 1485, Elizabeth, however, had had other ideas. If we believe a contemporary rhyming chronicle, The Song of Lady Bessy, she declared: “Queen of England I must be.” On Henry VII’s accession, the courtesy and honour accorded to her must have given her cause to hope that she would soon be queen in her own right and rule jointly with Henry, as Ferdinand and Isabella did in Spain. She may have been disconcerted to learn that, despite Henry having pledged, in 1483, to marry Elizabeth to give legitimacy to his title, he had assumed the style of king in his own name on the battlefield at Bosworth, without any mention of her at all. Furthermore, when she reached London, she might have found it strange that there was no state welcome in the capital, or any celebrations to mark her arrival. These were the first indications that her marriage to Henry VII was not to be regarded as the means of his kingship. Had she processed through the city in triumph, it might have looked as if she herself was the rightful sovereign. There is evidence to suggest that Henry was in no hurry to marry her. It was his intent that no one should ever say that he owed his crown to his queen (although many did). He declared he would not be his wife’s “gentleman usher” and was resolved to be crowned and have parliament recognise his title before he married her. He could not wait to defer his coronation until he was married, yet a joint ceremony with Elizabeth might have sent out the message that they were equal sovereigns. And so there was no queen at his coronation, and the service was hastily amended to omit all references to one. Why didn’t Elizabeth of York assume the throne? Yet Elizabeth was the undisputed heiress of Edward IV. A political poem of 1487 acknowledged that Edward IV's title had “fallen to our sovereign lady, Queen Elizabeth, his eldest daughter; to her is come all the whole monarchy. The crown therefore and sceptre imperial she must have without division.” Undoubtedly, she had a better claim to the throne than Henry did, yet there is no record of her resenting Henry’s relegation of her to the role of queen consort. Although the Pope himself called her the undoubted heir of Edward IV, and there were those who thought that Henry and Elizabeth should reign as joint sovereigns, no one seriously considered that a woman could rule alone as queen regnant. On the contrary, her throne was the inheritance she brought to her husband. Traditionally, women could transmit the crown – the royal houses of Plantagenet, York and Tudor derived their claim through the female line – but not wield sovereign power. An enduring prejudice There was no Salic law in England that barred women from the throne, as there was in France, so there was nothing to prevent a woman from ruling – but memories of female misrule were long. People remembered how, in the 12th century, the haughty, overbearing Empress Matilda’s attempt to pursue her lawful claim to the throne had resulted in a civil war so bloody that it had been said that “God and His saints slept”. That experience had left the English with an enduring prejudice against female rulers. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/07/GettyImages-526751294-bb26c66.png" width="619" height="413" alt="A metal carving of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York lying side by side." title=""An enduring prejudice against female rulers," writes Alison Weir, made it challenging for Elizabeth of York to assume to rule in her own right. Here, a memorial places her next to her husband, Henry VII. (Image by Getty Images)" /> The notion of a woman wielding dominion over men was seen as unnatural and against the laws of God and Nature. As the Duke of Buckingham bluntly put it: “It was not women’s place to govern the kingdom, but men’s.” Women were regarded as weak, irrational creatures, unfit to lead armies in battle and interfere in affairs of state. In law, they were regarded as infants. Their primary purpose was to be wives and mothers, subordinate to their menfolk, in whose interests their marriages were arranged. Thus no one spoke out in favour of Elizabeth of York ascending the throne in her own right as England’s lawful queen. It would be left to the granddaughter who was named for her, Elizabeth I, to prove that a woman could rule successfully. Even so, there were those who felt strongly that Henry VII ruled only in right of his wife, and he remained unpopular “for the wrong he did his Queen, that he did not rule in her right”. How could Mary I and Elizabeth I rule, when their grandmother did not? Nearly 60 years after Elizabeth was passed over, her son, Henry VIII, placed his daughters in the direct line of succession after his son, the short-lived Edward VI. This is how England (after the short nine-day rule of Lady Jane Grey) came to be ruled by two sovereign queens, Mary I and Elizabeth I, between 1553 and 1603. Unlike Edward IV, who left two sons, Henry had just one male heir and was concerned to assure the succession of the heirs of his body. In 1485, there had been several male claimants to the throne with arguably strong claims. In 1544, when Henry VIII’s Act of Succession was passed, there were no other male heirs of the Tudor line, so Henry had no choice but to look to his daughters. Furthermore, by then, several European royal women – notably Isabella of Castile, Margaret of Austria and Louise of Savoy – had proved that women could wield sovereign power effectively. There remained a strong perception that reigning queens needed husbands to rule in their name. When Mary I came to the throne in 1553, her immediate priority was to find a suitable match, and she settled on Philip of Spain, a marriage that was to have disastrous consequences. It was left to Mary’s sister, Elizabeth I – the ‘Virgin Queen’ – to show that a woman could rule alone. Small wonder that Henry VII’s biographer, Sir Francis Bacon, writing in the early 17th century, expressed disapproval at the king passing over Elizabeth of York’s better claim to be England’s ruler and portrayed their marriage – incorrectly – as miserable. We can only wonder if, had Elizabeth been given the chance to exercise sovereign power, she would have been as successful as her namesake granddaughter. Alison Weir’s latest novel and the first in the Tudor Rose trilogy, Elizabeth of York: The Last White Rose is out now in hardback published by Headline (2022) View oEmbed on the source website
Matilda of Boulogne: Norman England’s warrior queen
The achievements of Matilda of Boulogne, wife of King Stephen, are often overlooked in favour of her enemy, Empress Maud. Alison Weir examines the woman who raised an army in the 1140s to defend the English throne...
In the spring of 1141, as England suffered in the midst of a bitter civil war, Queen Matilda of Boulogne was in Kent, busily raising an army. Galvanised by the news that her husband, King Stephen, had been imprisoned by his vengeful rival and cousin, the Empress Maud (also known as Empress Matilda), the queen was utterly determined to march on London and ensure that the empress would never wear the crown she so fiercely coveted. It was rare in the 12th century for a woman to bear arms. Although the Norman queens of England had wielded considerable power as sharers in the royal dominion, it was now being eroded thanks to the centralisation of government administration at Westminster, over which queens often had less influence. Had it not been for the war, Matilda might have had a very different role. Read more | The Anarchy: how bloody was Stephen and Matilda’s medieval battle for the English crown? The only child of Eustace III, Count of Boulogne, and Mary of Scotland, Matilda was born c1103. She was one of the most desirable princesses in Europe, on account of having royal Saxon and Scottish blood, and the great inheritance that would come to her on her father’s death: the county of Boulogne and its lands – its ‘honour’ – in England. When Matilda was two, her uncle, Henry I of England, betrothed her to her cousin, Stephen of Blois, the grandson of William the Conqueror. In 1125 her father became a monk and ceded Boulogne and his English estates to Matilda. He died soon afterwards, whereupon Henry I arranged for her marriage to take place. It made Stephen the richest magnate in England. With Boulogne, he gained control of the shortest Channel crossing to England and, with it, merchant shipping. The marriage was happy, and there is much evidence for the couple’s affection for one another. Matilda v Maud A guide to the two royal women who battled for power in England in the 1140s... Name: Matilda of Boulogne Who was she? She became queen consort when her husband, Stephen, seized the throne of England in December 1135. She was crowned queen on 22 March 1136 in Westminster Abbey When was she born? c1103 Who were her parents? Eustace III, Count of Boulogne, and Mary of Scotland Who did she marry? Stephen of Blois, Count of Mortain (c1097–1154) Who were her children? Marie, nun, Abbess of Romsey Eustace, Count of Boulogne Baldwin Matilda William, Earl of Surrey When did she die? 3 May 1152 at Hedingham Castle, Essex Where is she buried? Faversham Abbey, Kent Name: The Empress Maud (or Matilda) Who was she? She was the sole legitimate heir of Henry I after the death of her brother in November 1120, and was acknowledged as such by the barons in 1127 and 1131 When was she born? 7 February 1102, probably at the palace of Sutton (Courtenay), Oxon Who were her parents? King Henry I and Matilda of Scotland Who did she marry? First marriage to the Roman emperor Heinrich V on 7 January 1114 at Worms Cathedral, Germany; second marriage to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy on 17 June 1128 at Le Mans Cathedral, Anjou Who were her children? She possibly bore one child to Heinrich, who died soon after birth She had three children to Geoffrey: Henry FitzEmpress (the future Henry II), Geoffrey, Count of Nantes, William When did she die? 10 September 1167 in Rouen Where is she buried? Abbey of Bec-Hellouian, Normandy; reburied in 1847 in Rouen Cathedral Breaking faith Henry I’s sole heir was his daughter, Maud; next in line came his nephews of Blois. Henry had constrained his barons, including Stephen, to swear oaths acknowledging Maud as his successor to the throne, but when Henry died in 1135 Stephen broke faith, seized the throne, and was crowned king on 22 December. Matilda arrived in England in January 1136. Her coronation was lavishly performed at Westminster Abbey on Easter Sunday. She proved a strong and resourceful queen – feisty, energetic and indefatigable in her support of her ineffective husband, whom she far exceeded in capabilities. Described as “a woman of subtlety with a man’s resolution”, she demonstrated sound judgment. She won praise not only for her unwavering loyalty to Stephen, but also for her courage, her honour, her diplomacy, and for having “a manly heart in a woman’s body”, as a contemporary chronicler observed. Matilda wielded great power. Her honour of Boulogne was centred largely upon London and Colchester, which gave her a strong territorial advantage. She was closely involved in government, for Stephen trusted her political judgment and relied on her support. Shared religious interests strengthened the bond between her and Stephen. They gave their daughter Marie to God as a nun, and founded abbeys at Furness and Faversham. Matilda established the Royal Hospital of St Katharine’s by the Tower. She was a benefactress to many religious houses and helped establish the Knights Templar in England. On the podcast | Catherine Hanley tells the story of Empress Matilda, whose battle for the English throne became known as ‘the Anarchy’ Meanwhile, the empress was battling to gain control of Normandy as a springboard for invading England and wresting the crown from Stephen. Her support-base broadened when her illegitimate half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, espoused her cause. In 1138, he sent his vassal, Walchelin Maminot, across from Normandy with an invading army, intending to land it at Dover, which he held. With his presence desperately needed to quell rebellion in the west, and with every confidence in his wife’s ability, Stephen deputed Matilda to regain Dover. She faced a huge challenge because Dover Castle, on its massive cliff commanding the sea, was a formidable stronghold, but she had considerable resources at her command. She besieged Dover with a large army on the landward side, and ordered her men of Boulogne to blockade it by sea. With a great fleet of ships, they closed the narrow strait to prevent the garrison receiving any supplies. Thanks to the strategy Matilda deployed, in concert with her kinsman Pharamus of Boulogne, Dover was surrounded, with Matilda herself commanding the men who laid siege to the castle. Maminot was forced to surrender to the queen. In 1139, Maud invaded England and civil war between her and Stephen broke out. Neither had superior strength, a situation that many unscrupulous barons took full advantage of, unleashing a period of oppression and lawlessness that became known as the Anarchy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded this as a time during which “Christ and His saints slept”. Queen Matilda proved a redoubtable opponent to Maud. She was as brave and determined as her rival, but never as arrogant or dictatorial, despite operating effectively as a female warlord. As a result, she avoided alienating those who disapproved of women breaking through the boundaries imposed on them by a male-dominated society. Read more | Alison Weir on England's Norman queens and the power they wielded A crisis came in February 1141, when Stephen was captured at Lincoln and imprisoned in chains on Maud’s orders. Galvanised to Herculean efforts to free him, Matilda surged through Kent, raising troops with the loyal William of Ypres, to oppose the empress. In the king’s absence, she took upon herself the royal authority. The Empress Maud was now carrying all before her, though. She secured the support of the church, through the good offices of Stephen’s treacherous brother, Henry, bishop of Winchester, and was acknowledged as ‘Lady of the English’ by most of England bar Kent, where the queen was entrenched. London strongly supported Stephen, and Matilda worked to secure its loyalty, promising its citizens riches once her husband was freed. However, Maud also needed to win over London to her cause, so that she could be crowned. Finally, its gates opened to her, but the mood was hostile. Stephen had granted the citizens privileges and liberties, and he and Matilda were well liked. Maud was not, and her arrogance and punitive demands for money angered the citizens. Matilda set about exploiting the unrest, never letting anyone forget that their anointed king languished in chains. She sent representatives to the empress, begging her to release her husband from his filthy dungeon. She offered herself as hostage in exchange, as well as castles and great riches. She even promised that, once Stephen was freed, she would ensure that he relinquished his claim to the throne. Several romantic paintings portray Maud haughtily turning down the supplicant queen, yet it is clear that they did not meet personally at this time, but instead communicated through envoys. London plundered Matilda now resolved to take up arms to achieve what her words had failed to. She marched on London at the head of an impressive army and, although she did not take part in the fighting, she ordered her forces to “rage most furiously around the city with plunder and arson, violence and the sword”, as described in a chronicle of the time. Londoners watched in impotent terror as the outlying suburbs were ravaged, bitterly regretting abandoning a bountiful ruler for the tyrannical empress. When Matilda’s troops laid siege to the Tower, the citizens sent messengers to reason with her – and then drove Maud from the city. As Stephen’s supporters congratulated each other joyfully, Matilda was warmly welcomed into London. A contemporary chronicler wrote: “Forgetting the weakness of her sex and a woman’s softness, she bore herself with the valour of a man. Everywhere, by prayer or price, she won over invincible allies. She urged the king’s lieges to demand their lord back to her.” Bishop Henry now abandoned Maud and, in retaliation, her forces besieged Winchester. Meanwhile, the queen had met with Henry, and was so persuasive that he vowed to forsake Maud’s cause and help liberate King Stephen. Matilda marched on Winchester, her army strengthened by a thousand angry Londoners. She arrived to find the bishop’s castle under siege by Maud’s forces, and herself blockaded the city, in effect the queen was besieging the besiegers. The siege lasted for nearly two months, until disease and starvation impelled the empress to escape. Her forces were routed by the queen’s army, and Robert of Gloucester was captured, which cost Maud her advantage. Without her chief mainstay, she could do nothing. Read more | Melisende of Jerusalem: the queen of a crusader kingdom Matilda did not have Robert fettered. Instead, she ensured that he was treated honourably. After tough negotiations, it was agreed that the king should be restored and Robert should be released. On 1 November 1141, Stephen was freed and he and Matilda entered London in triumph. In 1142, Maud occupied Oxford, and England was plunged back into the turmoil of civil war. Stephen besieged the city and Matilda raised reinforcements for him, but the empress made a daring escape, dressed in white, camouflaged against the snow. Her cause was lost, but still she would not give in. Only after Earl Robert died in 1147, and her other supporters lost heart, did she leave England. Her cause was taken up by her son Henry, who was determined to take the crown himself . In April 1152, Matilda was visiting Hedingham Castle, Essex, when she fell sick with a fever. Stephen was summoned, and was with her when she died on 3 May. She did not live to see the end of the war. In 1153 it was agreed that, on Stephen’s death, Henry would succeed to the throne (as Henry II). Stephen died in 1154 and was buried beside Matilda at Faversham. Matilda’s epitaph read: “If ever woman deserved to be carried by the hands of angels to Heaven, it was this holy queen.” This article first appeared in the October 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine
Elizabeth of York: a Tudor of rare talent
Elizabeth of York was the eldest daughter of the Yorkist king Edward IV, sister of the princes in the Tower, and niece of Richard III. Her marriage to Henry VII was hugely popular, for the union of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster was seen as bringing peace after years of dynastic war. She may not have sought the limelight as much as some of her contemporaries, but Henry VIII's mother was a Tudor of rare talent, says Alison Weir
In a richly illuminated manuscript, the Vaux Passional, in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, there is an illumination showing the presentation of a book to Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch. Behind the throne can be seen an empty black-draped bed, and kneeling beside it is a boy in a green tunic, his red-haired head buried in his arms. Almost certainly this image portrays the young Henry VIII weeping for his mother, Elizabeth of York, who died in 1503 when he was 11. This illustration suggests that Henry’s closeness to his mother was well known. We have his own testimony to his grief at her loss: four years later, in a letter about the untimely demise of Philip I of Castile – whom Henry had grown to admire when the two met in England in 1506 – the young prince wrote: “Never since the death of my dearest mother hath there come to me more hateful intelligence. It seemed to tear open the wound to which time had brought insensibility.” Elizabeth of York played an important role in the Wars of the Roses and the early Tudor story. Born in 1466, she was the eldest daughter of the Yorkist king Edward IV, sister of the princes in the Tower, and niece of Richard III, who had her and her siblings declared bastards so that he could claim the throne. The probable murder of her brothers in the Tower of London in 1483 meant that, in the eyes of many, Elizabeth was the rightful queen of England. Richard III himself contemplated marrying her, but in 1485 Henry Tudor, who claimed to be the heir to the House of Lancaster and had sworn to marry Elizabeth, came from France with an army and defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth. Thus was founded the Tudor dynasty. The marriage of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York was hugely popular, for the union of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster was seen as bringing peace after years of dynastic war. Elizabeth was intelligent and beautiful. A Venetian report described her as “a very handsome woman of great ability, and in conduct very able,” beloved for her abundant “charity and humanity”. The humanist scholar Erasmus described her in one word: “brilliant”. Did Henry VII love Elizabeth of York? That there was affection and tenderness between Henry and Elizabeth cannot be doubted. The pair shared what was apparently a happy marriage, giving each other little presents. The couple’s early years together may have been challenging, for Henry had to overcome his suspicions of his Yorkist bride and deal with her dangerous relations. Yet she was to leave him in no doubt as to where her loyalties lay. As time passed, Henry clearly grew to love, trust and respect Elizabeth, and they seem to have become emotionally close. There survives good evidence that she loved him, and a moving account of how they comforted each other when their eldest son, Arthur, died in 1502. A Spanish envoy claimed in 1498 that Elizabeth “suffered under great oppression and led a miserable, cheerless life”. Yet there are many instances of the king showing genuine concern for her health and her happiness; and on this isolated occasion Elizabeth probably appeared subdued because she was newly pregnant and unwell. In 1613 Sir Francis Bacon asserted that Henry VII was “nothing uxorious, nor scarce indulgent” and “showed himself no very indulgent husband, though she was beautiful, gentle and fruitful”. But there is little else to support his damning assessment of the marriage. On the podcast | Thomas Penn discusses the Wars of the Roses, the princes in the Tower and the start of the Tudor era as he reflects on the Yorkist dynasty Kings were not expected to share government with their queens, or to rely on their advice, and certainly they were not supposed to be influenced by them in political matters. Instances of Elizabeth using her influence probably went largely unrecorded, due to her intimate relationship with the king. It was accepted that she might be privy to matters of state, but contemporary advice – which she might have read – urged that her “wisdom ought to appear in speaking, that is to wit that she be secret and tell not such things as ought to be holden secret”. There are instances of Henry paying heed to her concerns, but it was not in his nature to be swayed by her. Elizabeth performed her queenly role to perfection, understanding exactly what was required of her, and conforming seemingly effortlessly to the late medieval ideal of queenship, which constrained her to a role that was essentially decorous, symbolic and dynastic. She was beautiful, devout, fertile and kind – the traditional good queen. In the past, historians tended to compare her favourably to Margaret of Anjou, that “great and strong laboured woman”. Yet today, in the wake of a revolution in women’s liberation, it is the proactive Margaret, vigorously fighting her husband Henry VI’s cause, who earns admiration, rather than the passive Elizabeth. Today, women forge their reputations through their strengths, and what they do. In the 15th and 16th centuries, however, queens were not expected to do very much beyond exemplifying the humane, feminine side of monarchy – interceding for others, being charming to foreign ambassadors, or winning popularity by their charities, their gifts to the poor, their pilgrimages and their pious example. Getting involved in politics and wars were steps too far. Unlike Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth never identified herself with factions at court; unlike her mother, Elizabeth Woodville, she did not promote a horde of ambitious relatives. Certainly she was not as politically inclined, or as politically active, as Elizabeth Woodville. Once she achieved her ambition to be queen, she interested herself chiefly in affairs that were her legitimate concerns: her household, her estates, her court and her children. But Elizabeth’s Plantagenet blood and her superior claim to the throne placed her in a difficult position, especially when Yorkist pretenders emerged to contest Henry VII’s throne. How she rose to these challenges we do not know, yet we can surely infer, from the emerging harmony of her married life, that she took care never to be controversial and always to place her husband’s interests first. Did Elizabeth of York have any power? From time to time, the king did involve her in diplomatic relations, mainly in helping to arrange their children’s marriages – a task that queens were traditionally expected to perform. It is often said that, apart from this role, Henry allowed Elizabeth no power at all. But evidently it was known that she exercised a gentle, unobtrusive influence on him, as is evidenced by the endless stream of gifts to her from powerful persons who clearly believed that her patronage was worth having. There are instances of her exercising authority independently of her husband, intervening in matters of law, and petitioning him on behalf of her servants, London merchants and others. When one of her Welsh tenants complained of the heavy-handedness of Henry’s uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, she did not refer the matter to the king but sent a sharp reproof to Pembroke herself, which apparently achieved the desired result. More amazing royal women in history: Queens at war: Elizabeth I vs Mary, Queen of Scots Catherine the Great: Hypocrite, reactionary, usurper, sex maniac? Margaret Beaufort: mother of the Tudors 11 podcasts about royal women from history to listen to right now Elizabeth I’s love life: was she really a ‘Virgin Queen’? Medieval royal witches In another letter Elizabeth rebuked John de Vere, Earl of Oxford in regard to the disputed ownership of a manor. Here we see her being firm, fair and concerned to right a wrong, and her influence must have been known to be effective, or Simon Bryant would surely not have judged it worth appealing to her for help. In February 1502 Elizabeth’s brother-in-law William Courtenay was imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of treason. Her accounts show that, a month beforehand, she had taken into her charge his young children, whom she would now succour with their mother, her sister Katherine. This suggests that Henry VII had come to rely on Elizabeth so absolutely that he confided his intentions to her, essentially entrusting her with a state secret of the highest level. How did Elizabeth of York die? Elizabeth died on 11 February 1503, a few days after giving birth to a daughter, Katherine, who died soon after. It was a shattering personal blow to the king, says Dr James Ross – her grand funeral was the public expression of this. It was also, however, a major political blow. Elizabeth’s bloodline was, in many eyes, superior to that of Henry Tudor himself, and her death robbed him of one prop to his dynastic claim, as well as ending hopes that he and Elizabeth could have more children: the dynasty’s future hung on the sole surviving prince, Henry – the future Henry VIII – aged just 11. Henry VII did engage in diplomacy to find a second wife, but did not in the end remarry Elizabeth’s legacy to the Tudor dynasty was her Plantagenet blood, which compensated for any deficiency in Henry VII’s descent. Her goodness shines forth in the records; she was greatly loved, and deservedly so. Certainly the sources show that she deserves a lot more credit for her political accomplishments than most historians have been prepared to give her – and that she was highly active within the late medieval queen’s traditional spheres of influence. It is also clear that, far from living in subjection to Henry VII and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, she enjoyed a good relationship with both. Elizabeth is often unfairly overshadowed by her successors, the wives of Henry VIII, but she was a more successful queen than any of them. For this, her integrity and her sweet, good nature, her memory deserves to be celebrated. Alison Weir is Britain’s bestselling female historian, and the author of 20 books. She has written biographies of Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and Henry VIII’s six wives. To find out more, visit alisonweir.org.uk This article was first published in the December 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine
Who was Lady Jane Grey? The tragic story of the 'Nine Days Queen'
Who was Lady Jane Grey? The Tudor queen reigned for just nine days, having been put on the English throne by her scheming father-in-law before being deposed by her power-hungry cousin and condemned to death by execution. The ‘Nine Day Queen’ experienced the swiftest rise and fall of any English monarch – but by her own admission, she didn’t have any desire to wear a crown. Historian Alison Weir answers key questions about her life, death and reign...
Who was Lady Jane Grey? (1536–1554) Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England at only 16 years old. Famously, her reign was to last for just nine days. According to her tutor, John Aylmer, who stated in 1551 that she had just turned 14, Jane was born in 1537, when Henry VIII was on the throne. Her mother was Frances Brandon, the king’s niece, being the eldest daughter of his late sister, Mary Tudor. Frances had married Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset. Jane was the eldest of their three daughters, and was probably named after Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife. Although her sex was probably a bitter disappointment to her ambitious parents, they knew she could make a great marriage, for the royal blood of the Tudors ran in her veins. To that end, Jane's parents ensured she was well educated. She was bright, able, and an outstanding scholar; and she adored her tutor, John Aylmer, who taught her to love learning for its own sake. Lady Jane Grey: a timeline of her life 1536 Lady Jane Grey was probably born in the latter half of 1536, perhaps at Dorset House in London. She was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, later Duke of Suffolk, and Lady Frances Brandon. 28 January 1547 Henry VIII dies, leaving his nine-year-old son, Edward, as his heir. Jane is now officially third in line to the throne. Spring and Summer 1553 Edward VI draws up and makes several amendments to ‘My Devise for the Succession’, whereby he disinherits his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, naming Jane his heir. 25 May 1553 Lady Jane Grey is married to Guildford Dudley, the fourth son of the Duke of Northumberland, in a magnificent ceremony at Durham House. 6 July 1553 Edward VI dies at Greenwich Palace, and Jane becomes queen of England. 10 July 1553 Jane enters the Tower of London, from where she is publicly proclaimed queen. The same evening, a letter from Mary arrives at the Tower, declaring herself to be queen. 19 July 1553 Jane is officially deposed in Mary’s favour. As London erupts in celebration, Jane is escorted from the royal apartments to prison quarters, there to await news of her fate. 13 November 1553 Jane and Guildford stand trial at Guildhall. They both plead guilty, and are condemned to death. The couple return to the Tower. January 1554 Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, joins the Wyatt Rebellion against Queen Mary. 7 February 1554 The Wyatt Rebellion ends in disaster. Sir Thomas Wyatt and his supporters are captured in London and sent to the Tower. 8 February 1554 Dr John Feckenham arrives at the Tower. He and Jane begin a series of religious debates instigated by Feckenham in an unsuccessful attempt to convert Jane to Catholicism. Jane prepares to meet her end. 12 February 1554 Jane and Guildford are executed. Guildford is subjected to a public beheading on Tower Hill, while Jane is granted a private execution within the confines of the Tower. It has been disputed by some historians that her parents were harsh to her, but there is no reason to doubt Jane's own testimony to the renowned scholar, Roger Ascham – printed after his death in 1570, but written between 1563 and 1568. She told him: "One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me, is that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing or doing anything else, I must do it in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes, with pinches, nips and bobs, and other ways, which I will not name, for the honour I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time come, that I must go to Mr Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing, while I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because, whatsoever I do else, but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear and whole misliking unto me." It sounds like a cry for help made to a sympathetic listener. Ascham knew Jane's family and others in her circle, but he did not qualify what she said about her parents. Indeed, he wrote that he was reporting her words as "one example [of] whether love or fear doth work more in a child for virtue and learning". Clearly, he had believed what she said. The happiest years of Jane’s life may have been those she spent in the household of Katherine Parr, who encouraged this formidably intelligent girl in her studies. Henry VIII’s younger daughter, the future Elizabeth I (Jane’s senior by four years) was also in the Queen Dowager’s care, and the two girls had shared intellectual interests. Both readily embraced the Protestant religion, to which Jane stayed devoutly true all her life. How did Lady Jane Grey become queen? In 1553, the 15-year-old king Edward VI was dying of tuberculosis. Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, was dead, and John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was ruling England in Edward’s name. Edward, aided by Northumberland, was making anxious plans to stop the Catholic Mary from ever inheriting the throne. Northumberland wanted to remain in power, as mentor to a monarch who would bow to his rule. Jane seemed suited to that role. Yet she proved not to be the meek little maid he thought her to be, but a feisty, stubborn teenager, who was not afraid to stand up to him. Northumberland persuaded the Dorsets to agree to a marriage between Jane and his son, Lord Guildford Dudley. Jane “resisted the marriage for some time”, yet had no choice but to agree to it. The wedding went ahead, with great pomp and celebrations, and it seems that Jane did afterwards conceive some affection for Guildford, since she later described herself as “a wife who loves her husband”. Yet she would not agree to his being named king when the time came. It was Edward himself who, on his deathbed, drew up a new ‘device’ for the succession, setting aside the claims of his bastardised half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and leaving the crown to his Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey. Yet Henry VIII’s Act of Succession of 1544, leaving the throne to Edward, Mary and Elizabeth in turn, and then to the heirs of Frances Brandon (whose own claim was passed over), remained in force; Edward’s device lacked the legal force to overturn it. The monarchy with Tracy Borman Member exclusive | In this five-part series, historian Tracy Borman charts the changing fortunes of the monarchy, from the bloody Norman conquest of 1066 through the upheaval of civil war in the 17th century to the reign of Elizabeth II. Watch all episodes now After Edward died in July 1553, Jane was brought to Syon House near London and offered the crown of England. When she saw the assembled court waiting for her, she began to shake with fright. Northumberland led her to the throne and informed her, to her evident horror, that Edward had named her his heir. As everyone knelt to her, Jane fainted. When she came to, she rose to her feet and said, “The crown is not my right. It pleases me not. Mary is the rightful heir.” Her protest was ignored. Northumberland, her parents and Guildford pressed her to do their will, and in the end, she gave way. But she was not at peace with herself. She wrote later: “It did not become me to accept.” Jane was then brought to the Tower of London where, by custom, she would sojourn before her coronation. But her reign would prove the shortest in English history. How did Lady Jane Grey die? Jane’s execution took place on 12 February 1554. By her own account, she was prepared to die. “My soul will find mercy with God,” she wrote. On the day of her execution, she was first taken to a scaffold at the Tower of London, where she addressed the crowd: “Good people, I am come to die, by law. ‘The fact against the Queen’s Highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but, touching the procurement and desire thereof by me, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this day. I die a true Christian woman.” The headsman tried to help her unlace her gown, but she insisted on doing it herself. He knelt, asking her forgiveness for what he must do, which she readily gave. “I pray you do it quickly,” she begged, kneeling before the block. “Will you take it off before I lay me down?” she asked, meaning her head. “No, Madam,” he replied. Jane bound her eyes. Read more | Lady Jane Grey: why do we want to believe the myth? At this point, according to the contemporary Chronicle of Queen Jane and Two Years of Queen Mary, Jane groped for the block and found that it was not there. “What shall I do?” she is said to have cried in mounting panic. “Where is it?” Then someone guided her to it. The axe then descended – and one witness wrote that he had never seen so much blood. The headsman lifted Jane's head to show the crowd. “Behold the head of a traitor!” he said. Jane was buried in the chancel of the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, near Guildford. It has been called “the saddest spot on Earth”. What did Lady Jane Grey look like? There is no authenticated portrait or image of Lady Jane Grey. She was queen for just nine days, and there would not have been much demand for her likeness. Many Tudor portraits and engravings have at some time been identified as her, but in every case new research has led to the identification being rejected, while several, such as a fine portrait at Seaton Delaval Hall and one in the Earl of Jersey’s collection which was destroyed by fire, are now known, on the evidence of jewellery – notably a coronet jewel and an ouche pendant – to portray Katherine Parr. Even the famous engraving by Willem and Magdalena van de Passe, inscribed as IANA GRAYA, in Henry Holland’s Herwologia (1620), is Katherine. The jewel and the ouche pendant appear in an authenticated portrait of Parr in the National Portrait Gallery and in her three inventories; neither are recorded in the possession of Jane Grey. A portrait inscribed in a later hand ‘Lady Iane’ [4], which was discovered in Streatham in 2006, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery, dates from the 1590s. The inscription is almost certainly incorrect, as the sitter wears a distinctive pearl carcanet that appears in portraits of Parr, notably one inscribed Catherina Regina Uxor Henrici VIII. Thus the Streatham portrait probably also depicts Katherine Parr. A miniature by Levina Teerlinc of a girl, inscribed Anno XVIII (‘in her 18th year’) has been identified as Lady Jane Grey on the evidence of floral emblems said to be those of the Dudley family in the corsage (among them supposedly a gillyflower for Lord Guildford Dudley), and the identification of the brooch with two listed in Jane’s inventory. Yet Jane was born in 1537; she would not have attained her 18th year until after her death. This content first appeared in the February 2019 issue of BBC History Revealed
The lost heirs of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on Katherine of Aragon’s failed pregnancies
The first of Henry VIII's six wives, Katherine of Aragon was married to the infamous Tudor monarch for almost 24 years. But while she bore the king a daughter – the future Mary I – their relationship was plagued by multiple miscarriages and stillbirths. Unable to produce a male heir, Katherine was eventually cast aside by Henry in favour of her lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn. Here, historical author Alison Weir examines Katherine’s many pregnancies and the children she lost
While the truth about her marriage to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, would remain a mystery for centuries, there was never any doubt that Katherine of Aragon’s second marriage to his brother, Henry VIII, was ardently consummated on their wedding night in June 1509. To the 18-year-old, idealistic king she was a great prize, this princess from mighty Spain, who brought him a rich dowry and international prestige to the fledgling Tudor dynasty. He adored her: she was, we are told, “the most beautiful creature in the world”. She was 23, plump and pretty, and had beautiful red-gold hair that hung below her hips. Henry spoke openly of the joy and felicity he had found with Katherine of Aragon. The real history behind The Spanish Princess Arthur, Catherine and Henry: a story of early Tudor triumph and tragedy Katherine had already adopted the pomegranate – a symbol of fertility since ancient times – as her personal badge, and it seemed prescient, for she conceived almost immediately. On 1 November 1509 a proud Henry broke the good news to her father, King Ferdinand: “Your daughter, our dearest consort, has conceived in her womb a living child, and is right heavy therewith, which we signify to your Majesty for the great joy thereof that we take, and the exultation of our whole realm”. The public announcement of the queen's pregnancy gave rise to great rejoicing in England, for the birth of an heir to the throne would secure the future of the Tudor dynasty and remove the ever-present threat of dynastic civil war. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/Henry20VIIIs20coronation2C201509_0-e58d187.jpg" width="900" height="700" alt="King Henry VIII (1491 - 1547) and his wife Catherine of Aragon (1485 - 1536) are crowned at Westminster Abbey, June 1509. They are surmounted by Tudor Roses, one open, one in bud. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" title="Henry VIII's Coronation" /> The court was in residence at Westminster when, on 31 January 1510, Katherine, then about six or seven months pregnant, went into labour prematurely. Her infant, a daughter, was stillborn. Although not uncommon in those days, it “was considered in this country a great calamity”, and Katherine suffered a strong sense of failure because “she had desired to gladden the King and the people with a prince”. Katherine was profoundly shaken by her loss and tormented by guilt. She did not have the heart to inform her father, “or suffer anyone else” to tell him; and when, some days later, she was persuaded that he would like to hear from her, she begged him: “Pray, your Highness, do not storm against me. It is not my fault, it is the will of God. The King, my lord, took it cheerfully, and I thank God that you have given me such a husband”. Again, she repeated, as if to reassure herself, “It is the will of God”. Henry wasted no time in getting Katherine pregnant again, and on 25 May 1510 her confessor was able to inform Ferdinand: “It has pleased our Lord to be her physician, and by His infinite mercy He has again permitted her to be with child. She is already, by the grace of God, very large”. Katherine could only have been seven or eight weeks pregnant; assuming that she carried her child to term, the date of conception must have been between 6 and 14 April. Confusion has arisen because in late May there was a report in Spain that “some days before she had been delivered of a stillborn daughter”. That must refer to her loss in January, because the time frame rules out delayed-interval delivery of a twin. Soon after midnight on New Year's Day 1511, Katherine was “delivered of a Prince, to the great gladness of the realm”. In honour of the occasion, bonfires were lit in London and free wine flowed in the conduits, and in the churches Te Deum was sung. The infant was christened Henry “with very great pomp and rejoicing”. But “after this great joy came sorrowful chance”. Suddenly the festivities were curtailed. The king and queen had received the terrible news that their little son had died. Henry, “like a wise prince, took this dolorous chance wondrous wisely and, the more to comfort the Queen, he made no great mourning outwardly. But the Queen, like a natural woman, made much lamentation”. Henry spent a lavish sum on the funeral of Prince Henry, who was buried in Westminster Abbey. Alternate history: what if Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s first son had lived? On 30 September Thomas Wolsey wrote: “It is thought the Queen is with child”. Nothing more was heard of this, so it was either a false hope or Katherine suffered a miscarriage. She was pregnant again when Henry went to war with France in June 1513. When the Scots invaded England in his absence (in September), Katherine, heavily pregnant, travelled to Buckingham, where she made “a splendid oration” to the forces camped outside the town, urging them to the victory at Flodden that followed. But in October, while Henry was still away, Katherine was delivered of a premature son who died shortly after birth. One gains no impression that Henry was bitter about the loss of another son. He knew what Katherine had been through in his absence. By July 1514 she was pregnant once more. The chronicler Hall states that “in November, the Queen was delivered of a prince who lived not long after”, but in December the Venetian ambassador in England reported that she had borne “a still-born male child of eight months, to the very great grief of the whole court”. Late in December it was reported that Katherine had “brought forth an abortion due to worry about the excessive discord between the two kings, her husband and father; because of her excessive grief, she is said to have ejected an immature foetus”. Katherine was already out of favour because of that discord, and it was evident to others that Henry’s love for her had cooled. The loss of this son, who would have restored her to her husband’s good graces, was a doubly bitter blow, and she observed that God must love her to confer upon her “the privilege of so much sorrow”. Tragedy and stress had taken their toll. Approaching 30, she had lost her youthful bloom and her figure, and in 1515 was described as “rather ugly than otherwise”. Henry’s displeasure abated, and Katherine conceived again. On 18 February 1516 she gave birth to a healthy daughter – the future Mary I. The king was delighted with this “right lusty princess”. When the Venetian ambassadors congratulated him, he told them, “We are both young; if it was a daughter this time, by the grace of God the sons will follow”. Mary I: 8 facts about her life, death and legacy They didn’t. In August 1517 it was reported that “the Queen is supposed to be pregnant”, but no more was heard of it. Her last child was conceived in February 1518, when she was 32. “I pray God heartily that it may be a prince, to the surety and universal comfort of the realm,” wrote the king's secretary. The pregnancy was kept secret, but in July, when Henry arrived at Woodstock, Katherine greeted him at the door of her chamber, proud to display “for his welcome home her belly something great”, declaring openly that the child had quickened in her womb. Henry was so delighted that he gave a great banquet to celebrate, and wrote to Wolsey that he was “so loath to repair to London, because about this time is partly of her dangerous times, and by cause of that I would remove her as little as I may”. He knew by now that a happy outcome was “not an ensured thing, but a thing wherein I have great hope and likelihood”. Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? Katherine was then about five months pregnant. If this was a dangerous time for her, then there may have been at least one other pregnancy that had not been made public, because none of her children had been born at five months. It is possible that the pregnancy rumoured in 1517 had ended in a miscarriage at five months, and was fresh in Henry’s mind. There may have been another pregnancy in the two-year gap between Prince Henry’s birth in January 1511 and the conception of the son born in October 1513. On 25 October 1518 it was reported that “within a month, or rather more, the Queen was expecting her delivery, which was looked forward to with great anxiety by the whole realm”. Tragically, such hopes were to come to nothing yet again, for on the night of 9/10 November “the Queen was delivered of a daughter, to the vexation of everybody. Never had the kingdom so anxiously desired anything as it did a prince”. The baby was weak and died before she could be christened. Did Henry VIII acknowledge any of his illegitimate children? By the spring of 1525 it was well known that, nearing 40, Katherine was “long past the usual age of childbearing”. She had borne her losses with resignation, yet the burden of failure was great. In the patriarchal society of Tudor England, blame for stillbirths and neonatal deaths was always apportioned to the woman, and some were of the opinion that Henry had made a grave mistake in marrying a wife older than himself. “My good brother of England has no son because, although young and handsome, he keeps an old and deformed wife,” the king of France cruelly observed. To his credit, Henry never openly reproached Katherine for his lack of a male heir, although he was now desperate for a son and probably beginning to wonder why God should deny him this one crucial gift. Mary I’s phantom pregnancy So why did Katherine of Aragon suffer such disastrous losses? Fasting in pregnancy, which we know she did for religious reasons, cannot have helped. It has been suggested that she was anorexic, but a lot of evidence, including her gaining weight over the years, is against that. Poor medical care and hygiene could have been responsible, or any number of complications during the births of her children. Queries are often raised about Henry VIII's fertility, and why so many of his issue died in infancy or in the womb. One theory is that Henry suffered from McLeod Syndrome [a neurological disorder that occurs almost exclusively in boys and men and affects movement in many parts of the body], but the pattern of Katherine’s pregnancies doesn’t fit with that, or the fact that Elizabeth Blount bore him two children who grew to maturity. Henry suffered no sudden character change for the worst: it was a gradual progression and his increasing immobility was due to an injury. He suffered, not from ulcers, but almost certainly from chronic osteomyelitis [inflammation of bone or bone marrow], which could last for years, with repeated and very painful attacks, and it was probably this that culminated in multi-organ failure from long term sepsis. Could the problem have been genetic? Henry was one of seven children. Only four lived beyond infancy, which was not unusual in an age of high infant mortality. Katherine of Aragon also came from a family of seven: two of her siblings were stillborn. Thus there was a history of infant mortality on both sides, which may or may not be significant. Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn, became pregnant four times. She herself was born of parents who had a child “every year”, although only three lived to adulthood. Her first child was a daughter, Elizabeth I. Her second died at or near full term, and was almost certainly a son. Her third and fourth pregnancies ended in miscarriages, the latter of a son. That pattern of losses could be explained if Henry’s blood was rhesus positive and Anne’s rhesus negative: the first pregnancy is unaffected but during labour tiny amounts of the baby’s blood can cross the placenta into the mother’s bloodstream, and if the baby is rhesus positive the mother becomes sensitised to these harmful antibodies. In succeeding pregnancies the mother’s antibodies will pass through the placenta into the baby’s blood and, recognising it as ‘foreign’, will try to break down its red blood cells. The men who changed Henry VIII’s underpants Jane Seymour: Henry VIII’s favourite queen In Henry’s day this condition would invariably have resulted in subsequent stillbirths. Worse still for Henry and Anne’s dynastic hopes, if she had had this condition she could never have borne another living child. Henry had a son by Jane Seymour, and one acknowledged illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, by Elizabeth Blount. He almost certainly had three illegitimate daughters who grew to adulthood. This, then, was a man who fathered 15 children, eight of whom were probably sons, and seven of whom lived beyond childhood. On this evidence, it is not possible to say with any certainty that Henry's “lack of issue” was due to any condition he may have suffered, and – lacking other evidence – we can only conclude that the losses Katherine suffered were just tragic examples of what could happen in an age that did not perfectly understand childbirth. Alison Weir is the author of Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen (Headline Publishing, 2016). To find out more about Alison, visit alisonweir.org.uk.
The royal weddings of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on what came before divorced, beheaded, died...
Henry VIII is England's most married monarch, wed six times between 1509 and 1543. But what were the Tudor king's weddings actually like, and do they bear any semblance to a wedding of today? Historian and author Alison Weir looks back at the six ‘happy days’ that preceded "divorced, beheaded, died..."
Today, we associate royal weddings with great public celebrations, a grand procession, a magnificent ceremony in Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral or St George’s Chapel at Windsor, and a public appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. The modern royal wedding, as we know it, dates only from 1840, when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert. Prior to that, royal weddings were usually private affairs, solemnised in the royal chapels with little public fanfare. So what would a wedding have looked like for England’s most married monarch, Henry VIII? Read on and find out... Katherine of Aragon Henry VIII’s six weddings were all private. When, not quite 18, he became king in 1509, it was a matter of political and dynastic necessity that he marry and beget an heir as soon as possible, to ensure the continuation of the Tudor dynasty. Surviving members of the rival House of York arguably had a better claim to the throne than Henry, and the spectre of the Wars of the Roses still loomed large. The new King’s councillors urged him to marry Katherine of Aragon, the Spanish princess to whom he had been betrothed since 1503 and the widow of his late elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. Katherine had a great dowry, and the prospect of war with France – England’s hereditary enemy – made an alliance with Spain all the more desirable. Her father, King Ferdinand of Aragon, was pressing Henry to marry her immediately, and promising him many political advantages if he did so. The lost heirs of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on Katherine of Aragon’s failed pregnancies The real history behind The Spanish Princess Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? But Henry hesitated. He was uneasy in his conscience, wondering if he would commit a sin by marrying the widow of his deceased brother, as such unions were forbidden in Scripture. King Ferdinand hastened to reassure him that the marriage would be perfectly lawful, as the Pope had given a dispensation for it. He felt certain that Henry would enjoy the greatest happiness with Katherine, and leave numerous children behind him. The Privy Council also put pressure on the King. “We have the Pope’s dispensation,” they said. “Will you be more scrupulous than he is?” Watch: Tracy Borman on everything you needed to know about the Tudors (but were too afraid to ask) View oEmbed on the source website Henry agreed that there were many good reasons for the marriage. Above all, he declared, he desired Katherine above all women; he loved her and longed to wed her. Despite her six years’ seniority, he found her attractive, with her long golden hair and fair skin, her dignity, lineage and graciousness. Everything about her proclaimed her a fit mate for the King of England. What Henry felt for her seems to have been love in its most chivalrous form, coupled with deep respect. And honour demanded that he marry her and, like a knight errant of old, rescue her from the penury in which his father had kept her, and so win her love and gratitude. It was a grand gesture that appealed vastly to the King’s youthful conceit. One day in early June, 1509, the King arrived at Katherine’s apartments in Greenwich Palace. He came alone, dismissed her attendants and, raising her from her curtsey, declared his love for her, and asked her to be his queen. Without hesitation, she joyfully agreed. They were married on 11 June, the feast day of St Barnabas, in the Queen’s closet at Greenwich, with William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiating. Katherine wore virginal white, with her long hair loose under a gold circlet. After the nuptials, the small wedding party proceeded to the chapel of the Observant Friars adjacent to the palace to hear Mass. There is no record of Henry and his new Queen being publicly put to bed together, as was generally the custom, but there was never any doubt that the marriage was consummated that night, for Katherine became pregnant immediately. Catherine of Aragon: Henry's greatest queen 11 key dates: Young Henry VIII, Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon 8 places associated with Henry VIII’s wives If, as the evidence strongly suggests, she had emerged from her first marriage virgo intacta, the chances are that Henry too was a virgin on his wedding night. There is no suggestion in any source that he was sexually active before his accession. He had led an almost cloistered life, closely supervised by his father and his tutors, and it is likely there had been no opportunities for dalliances with girls. The marriage of Henry and Katherine was proclaimed four days later, on 15 June. On that same day Katherine first appeared at court as Queen of England. She had adopted as her personal badge the pomegranate, a symbol of fertility since ancient times, and yet she failed to bear Henry the son he needed to ensure the succession. Of her six known children only one, the Princess Mary, survived infancy. At that time, it was unthinkable that a woman should rule England and wield dominion over men. By 1524, it was known that the Queen would bear no more children, and by 1526, Henry had fallen passionately in love with her maid-of-honour, the vivacious, accomplished and ambitious Anne Boleyn. In 1527, Henry began to voice doubts that his marriage to his brother’s widow was lawful, and asked the Pope for an annulment, only to be kept dangling in hope for the next seven years. By then, frustrated and alienated, he had broken with Rome and declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, and Thomas Cranmer, his new Archbishop of Canterbury, had declared Henry’s union with Katherine null and void, and confirmed his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Henry had not waited for the formalities. More on Henry VIII What was the Sweating Sickness? And how did Henry VIII ‘self-isolate’? Henry VIII: the boy who would be king 5 things you (probably) didn’t know about Henry VIII Anne Boleyn The precise date of Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn is a matter of dispute. A Milanese envoy in France thought that they had married during their visit to Calais in October 1532, but the chronicler Edward Hall claimed: “The King, after his return, married privily the Lady Anne Boleyn on Saint Erkenwald’s Day, which marriage was kept so secret that very few knew of it.” The feast of the translation of St Erkenwald fell on 14 November, the day after Henry and Anne returned to England, but it is highly unlikely that they wed while journeying through Kent towards Eltham Palace, especially in view of the testimony of two people who were much closer to events than Edward Hall. “The King’s marriage was celebrated, it was reported, on the day of the conversion of St Paul (January 1533),” the Imperial ambassador wrote on 10 May 1533, while Archbishop Cranmer stated, in a letter dated 17 June 1533, that Anne was “married much about St Paul’s Day last, as the condition thereof doth well appear, by reason she is now somewhat big with child”. Guilty or not guilty: why did Anne Boleyn have to die? The final days of Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn: a 16th-century feminist? Hall, who revered Henry VIII, would not have wanted to imply that the daughter Anne bore on 7 September 1533, had been conceived out of wedlock. His dating of the wedding to the previous November was either based on incorrect information or was a tactful, deliberate error. There can be little doubt that it was the discovery that Anne might be pregnant that prompted the King to pre-empt the Pope and marry her. Just before dawn on 25 January 1533, a small group of people gathered in Henry’s private chapel in Whitehall Palace for his secret wedding to Anne. “It has been reported throughout a great part of the realm that I married her, which was plainly false,” Cranmer protested, “for I myself knew not thereof a fortnight after it was done.” The officiating priest was either Dr Rowland Lee, one of the royal chaplains, or George Brown, Prior of the Austin Friars in London. Possibly the priest was informed that the Pope had sanctioned the marriage; a royal envoy had just returned from Rome, leading some to suspect that the Pope had given his tacit consent. As far as Henry was concerned, he had never been lawfully married at all and was free to enter into wedlock at will. The few witnesses were all sworn to silence. The marriage, and Anne’s pregnancy, remained strictly guarded secrets until Easter Sunday 1533, when, “loaded with diamonds and other precious stones”, she went “in royal state, openly as queen” to her closet to hear Mass, with 60 maids of honour following her. Having at long last won her King, she had adopted for her motto the legend ‘The most happy’. Her marriage lasted little more than three years. Her failure to bear a son laid her open to the machinations of her enemies, who did their best to exploit the King’s increasing interest in Anne’s maid-of-honour, Jane Seymour. Accused of betraying Henry with five men, one her own brother, and plotting to assassinate him, she was beheaded on 19 May 1536. Jane Seymour Henry VIII was at Whitehall Palace when the Tower guns signalled that he was a free man. Immediately, he had himself rowed to Chelsea, where Jane Seymour was waiting. Their affair had been gathering momentum since the autumn. The Privy Council had already petitioned Henry to venture once more into holy wedlock, pleading the uncertainty surrounding the succession, for both the King’s daughters had been declared bastards. A speedy marriage was both desirable and necessary, and on the day Anne’s head fell, Henry’s imminent betrothal to Jane Seymour was announced to the Council. At nine o’clock the next morning, they were formally betrothed at Hampton Court in a ceremony lasting a few minutes. Dan Jones and Suzannah Lipscomb discuss Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves In profile: Jane Seymour Henry VIII’s six wives in a different light Henry and Jane were married on 30 May at Whitehall Palace. The ceremony took place in the Queen’s closet, with Archbishop Cranmer officiating. Afterwards, Jane sat enthroned under the canopy of estate in the presence chamber. Some thought it strange that, “within one and the same month that saw Queen Anne flourishing, accused, condemned and executed, another was assumed into her place, both of bed and honour”. Jane died in October 1537, after presenting Henry with his longed-for son, Edward. He mourned her deeply, but ‘framed his mind’ to marry again for the good of his realm. Listen | Alison Weir discusses the life and tragic death of Jane Seymour, who bore him his long-awaited male heir Anne of Cleves But when he saw Anne, he knew he could never love her. He did everything he could to wriggle out of the contract, but in vain, and on 6 January 1540, he reluctantly prepared himself for his wedding at Greenwich Palace. “Is there none other remedy, but that I must needs, against my will, put my neck in the yoke?” he growled. Nevertheless, he dressed magnificently for his wedding in a furred gown of cloth of gold with great flowers of silver, “his coat crimson satin slashed and embroidered, and tied with great diamonds, and a rich collar about his neck”. Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's most successful queen? Henry VIII’s six wives in a different light When his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, who had arranged the marriage, attended him in his presence chamber, Henry muttered, “My lord, if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.” Informed that his bride was coming, he proceeded to the chapel gallery. At eight o’clock, Anne appeared, sumptuously attired in “a gown of rich cloth of gold set full of large flowers of great Orient pearl, made after the Dutch fashion round, her hair hanging down, which was fair, yellow and long; and on her head a coronal of gold replenished with great stone”. She was bedecked with sprigs of rosemary, which symbolised love, fidelity and fertility, and about her neck and waist were costly jewels. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2016/12/Anne-of-Cleves-2-ab4e021.jpg" width="800" height="800" alt="This portrait of Anne of Cleves, painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1539, delighted Henry VIII. Unfortunately, the king was far less impressed with his new bride when he met her in the flesh. (Photo by © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)" title="Portrait of Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1539" /> Preceded by Cromwell, and walking between the German envoys with a most demure countenance, she made three low curtseys to Henry, and together they proceeded into the Chapel Royal, where Cranmer was waiting to perform the ceremony. The King made no protest. Both he and Anne answered freely that they knew of no impediment to the marriage. On her finger, he placed a ring engraved with the motto ‘God send me well to keep’. After Cranmer had blessed them and wished them a fruitful union, Henry and his new Queen went hand in hand into the King’s closet to hear Mass. Cranmer gave the kiss of peace to Anne, upon which the King in turn kissed and embraced her. Afterwards, they were served wine and spices. Thus “passed that day honourably”. The newly wedded pair were ceremonially put to bed together to do their dynastic duty. The marital bedstead had an oak headboard with erotic carvings of priapic and pregnant cherubs, but they had little effect on Henry. The marriage was not consummated. The next morning, the King complained to Cromwell that he “abhorred” Anne. “Surely, my lord, as ye know, I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse, for I have felt her belly and her breasts, and thereby, as I can judge, she should be no maid, which so strake me to the heart when I felt them that I had neither will nor courage to proceed any further in other matters.” He made similar complaints to other courtiers, on many occasions. Possibly he was only saying what he believed to be the truth. Most likely he wanted an excuse for not consummating the marriage, so that it could be annulled without difficulty as soon as grounds could be found. As indeed they were, and in July 1540 it was dissolved. The downfall of Thomas Cromwell The Mirror & the Light, the eagerly-anticipated final instalment of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, focuses on the final four years of Thomas Cromwell’s life, from 1536–1540. This also happens to be one of the most dramatic periods in British history writes Tracy Borman... Read more Katherine Howard By then, Henry had fallen for a pretty 19-year-old brunette, Katherine Howard. She was a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, England’s premier Catholic peer. Norfolk and his party had put her in the King’s path because they wanted to see a good Catholic queen on the throne; Henry quickly became besotted and resolved to wed Katherine. Today, what remains of the Palace of Oatlands lies beneath a housing estate in Weybridge, Surrey. It was a favoured retreat of Henry’s, and he took Katherine there for their wedding, solemnised in private on 28 July 1540 by Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London. For ten days, absolute secrecy was maintained. Infatuated with his bride, the King wanted to spend time alone with her before showing her off to the world. At last, it seemed, he had found a wife who embodied the qualities he most admired in women: beauty, charm, a pleasant disposition and, he believed, virtue. He considered himself blessed. Whether Katherine was as elated is a matter for conjecture, for her husband was prematurely aged at nearly 50, with a waist of 54 inches and a putrid leg. Catherine Howard: The death of innocence Through foreign eyes: the forgotten ambassadors to the Tudor court But Katherine had a past of which Henry knew nothing, and it increasingly came back to haunt her. In 1541, evidence of sexual liaisons before her marriage, and adultery after, came to light. Henry broke down in tears in council, then called for a sword with which to slay her whom he had worshipped. She was executed in February 1542. The tragedy left Henry miserable and lonely, but in no hurry to remarry. That was as well, because, according to the Imperial ambassador, there were few ladies at court hastening to aspire to such an honour. Katherine Parr As time passed, and his spirits lightened, Henry began to seek a companion for his declining years, and proposed marriage to Katherine Parr, a comely, intelligent widow of 30. Katherine was reluctant to marry the King because, having been wife in turn to a sick boy and a sick man, she had looked to wed the gallant Sir Thomas Seymour, Queen Jane’s brother. Henry, sniffing a rival, sent Seymour abroad and claimed Katherine for himself. On 10 July 1543, Archbishop Cranmer issued a special licence for their marriage and, two days later, the wedding took place privately in the Queen’s closet at Hampton Court, amid much rejoicing. The King’s niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, was the bride’s chief attendant. When the King was asked if he would take Katherine Parr to be his lawful wife, he answered “Yea”, “with a joyful countenance”. Did Henry VIII love his last wife Katherine Parr? Katherine Parr: the truth about the wife who ‘survived’ Katherine proved an admirable queen, and a loving stepmother to Henry’s children, who were all fond of her. She was popular, and it was said that every day was like a Sunday at her court. Such was the King’s trust in her that, when he invaded France in 1544, he appointed her Regent of England in his absence. When he died in 1547, he left her a wealthy widow. Henry VIII’s matrimonial career shows that the outward trappings of royal nuptials were only half of the story - the velvet glove, rather than the iron first inside – and belied the fact that the celebrations attending his weddings would be remembered as the ceremonial cover for an unholy and sometimes brutal alliance. British royal weddings: a potted history 1100 The first royal to be married in Westminster Abbey was Henry I in 1100. It has hosted over a dozen royal weddings since, most recently that of Prince William and Kate Middleton. 1328 Edward III chose York Minster for his wedding to Philippa of Hainault in 1328, even though it was still being built and had no roof. The king got a white wedding of sorts, as it snowed during the ceremony. 1464 Edward IV kept his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville a secret, as she was a widow and commoner. The exact date of their 1464 wedding is still debated. 1503 Henry VII considered a marriage between James IV of Scotland and his daughter, Margaret – a five-year-old. She was bethrothed (by proxy) in 1502, when she was 12 years old. Margaret didn’t meet her husband until the following year. 1736 The teenage Princess Augusta really didn’t want to go ahead with the planned marriage to the Prince of Wales, Frederick, in 1736. While on the way to the ceremony, she pleaded with her mother, “Please don’t leave me”, and was sick immediately afterwards. 1816 The oldest surviving royal wedding dress belonged to Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV, who married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. It cost over £10,000 (around £400,000 today). 1840 We have Queen Victoria to thank for the white wedding dress. Although not the first to wear white, her wedding to Albert on 10 February 1840 set the bar that all other brides had to match. Before then, any colour could be worn, including the rather funereal black. 1923 The future George VI proposed three times before Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon agreed to marry him. The wedding took place in 1923, and it was made a public event to lift national morale in the wake of World War I. 1936 There has been no shortage of scandalous royal match-ups, but when Edward VIII announced his desire to wed Wallis Simpson, twice divorced already, it led to a constitutional crisis. In 1936, Edward abdicated the throne. 1947 Elizabeth II’s wedding cake was a towering nine feet high, over four tiers – enough for all 2,000 guests to have a slice. 1960 The first royal wedding to be televised was in 1960, when Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister, married photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones. 1981 Diana Spencer was so nervous at her 1981 wedding to Prince Charles that she mixed up his name during the ceremony, calling him ‘Philip Charles’. Alison Weir is a historian and bestselling author. Her latest book is Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets (Headline, 2019), the fourth installment in her Six Tudor Queens series This content first appeared in the May 2018 issue of BBC History Revealed
England's Norman queens and the power they wielded: an interview with Alison Weir
Though often seen as companions to the powerful men of the Norman period, the queens of Norman England were fascinating, powerful figures in their own right, says Alison Weir. From Matilda of Flanders, trusted consort of William the Conqueror, to the Empress Matilda who battled her cousin Stephen for the throne of England, the historian and author shares the influence that these women exercised in a dangerous world – but warns that we need to keep their power in perspective
A 20th-century illustration of Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror. He relied on her implicitly, says Alison Weir. (Getty Images) The timeline of England’s Norman kings will be familiar to many, from William the Conqueror’s victory over Harold Godwinson’s army on 14 October 1066, to the deadly power struggle of King Stephen and Empress Matilda in the mid-12th century. Alison Weir’s latest book Queens of the Conquest reconsiders this timeline, centring on the lives and power of the five Norman queens of this period. Beginning with Matilda of Flanders (d1083), who supported William the Conqueror in his invasion of England, Weir then considers the two wives of King Henry I, Matilda of Scotland (d1118) and Adeliza of Louvain (d1151). The book concludes with the turbulent histories of the wife of King Stephen, Matilda of Boulogne (d1152), and his warring cousin, Empress Matilda (d1167), whom Weir calls ‘Maud’. As Queens of the Conquest is released, Alison Weir shares six revelations about the five Norman queens… A tale of four Matildas Four of the five queens that Weir considers in her volume are associated with the Norman name of Matilda, all using interchangeable variants of the name: Mathilde, Mahaut, Mald or Maud. Edith of Scotland changed her name to Matilda upon her marriage to Henry I, likely to please the Normans, explains Weir. “Henry I married her as she had Saxon royal blood. She was a princess of Scotland, but her mother was of the Saxon royal house. Henry thought his marriage would unite the Norman and Saxon peoples. But the Normans were having none of it; they sneered and called the king and his English wife ‘Godric’ and ‘Gogdifu’ [common Saxon names intended to disparage the couple]. “Edith of Scotland had been brought up in the great convents of Romsey Abbey and Wilton Abbey, where her aunt had made her wear a veil, like a nun. Though she didn’t want to wear the veil as a child, she did as a teenager, because Normans had a terrible reputation for raping and assaulting Saxon women and she would have felt very vulnerable. As soon as it became known that Henry I wanted to marry her in 1100, there was talk that she actually was a nun and he couldn’t do it. “The matter went to the highest ecclesiastical court in the land and the Archbishop of Canterbury himself said that she was free to marry. However, the rumours persisted right into the next century.” These women were no shrinking violets Weir: “If you read Agnes Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England, which was published in the 1840s, you may think that all of these women were shrinking violets, who might have been reclining at home like Victorian ladies. But these were tough ladies. They had to be to survive in that world.” Weir explains that before the Norman administration was centralised at Westminster, which happened gradually through the 12th century, Norman kings relied on their queens, because they had both a kingdom and duchy to rule. “When the king was in one place, the queen was usually regent in another. She would have been ably assisted by a council and deputies to advise her, but she would have had power and she would have exerted that power.” Matilda of Flanders took a proactive role, and she was regent of Normandy for William when he was in England. “He gave her a share in the royal dominion when the coronation liturgy was changed,” shares Weir. “She was not just his consort; she was a sharer in the royal dominion and he relied on her implicitly.” They had to learn how to be powerful women in a man’s world One of the five Norman queens came close to becoming the first female ‘king’ of England. After Henry I’s only legitimate son, William, drowned in the wreck of the White Ship in 1120, the king was determined to secure the throne for his own bloodline and named his daughter Maud as his heir. Yet her succession was by no means assured and Maud had to learn how to assert her right in the male world of military power. After the king’s death in 1135, many of his barons rejected the rule of Maud and instead backed the king’s nephew, Stephen of Blois. Stephen seized the throne and it wasn’t until three years later that Maud came to England to pursue her claim. Perhaps surprisingly, says Weir, none of the chroniclers particularly mention any sexist talk at the time which explicitly said that Maud couldn’t rule as a woman. “But clearly the feeling was there, because this is a military aristocracy in which countries are often at war with one another, barons are naturally quarrelsome, and a woman cannot lead armies. That would have been the main prejudice against a female ruler – apart from the fact that women are the ‘descendants of Eve’ and are supposed to be flighty, temperamental and totally unstable! “The other Matilda [of Boulogne, Stephen’s wife] was powerful, too. She was joint commander at the siege of Dover [during the conflict between Stephen and Maud]. While she wasn’t involved in the fighting, she was there directing operations. She was indefatigable in the interests of her rather weak and ineffective husband. She was a great stateswoman, but she got away with it because she was doing it in the interests of her husband, and not on her own behalf. At one point in the civil war, Stephen was imprisoned for several months and his wife did all she could to get him out, and because her efforts were for him, that was seen as laudable. “In the case of Empress Maud, when she came to England and made a bid for the throne, she alienated many people with displays of aggression and assertiveness that, in a man would have been accepted, but in a woman, were seen as totally unacceptable.” Much of what we know is either scandalous or saintly A lot of the information on these Norman queens has sadly been lost over the centuries, explains Weir, “even if it was recorded at all,” and a challenge that she regularly faced when researching was that the deeds of women were rarely recorded by the chroniclers of the time, “unless they were notably pious, politically important or scandalous”. “We’re seeing it all through the glass of – not misogyny, that’s not the word – but monks who were wary of women, because they believed that women were descendants of Eve, who had tempted man into sin. “Of course, there are huge chunks that we don’t know about these queens, but there’s more than enough to inspire interest. They’re intriguing to research because we have to get through layers of monastic chroniclers’ prejudices against women, romantic legends and myths that have built up over the centuries. All these have to be stripped away and then we can see what’s left.” The period had a number of fantastic chroniclers, Weir explains, naming Orderic Vitalis and William of Malmesbury among her sources. “Their work is incredibly rich in detail, and some of them actually knew the royal personages about which they wrote. We are talking about really primary sources.” The lives of these women were tough… The lives of aristocratic women during this period were beset by violence and hardship, as one tale of the ‘courtship’ between William the Conqueror and Matilda shows. “There’s a story of William the Conqueror that tells of when Matilda refused his suit because he was a bastard,” says Weir. “He rode hotfoot to her father’s castle and came upon her as she was returning from Mass. He knocked her to the ground and he beat her and rolled her. She was so badly hurt that she had to take to her bed. He stormed off and her father armed for war, and then suddenly Matilda said ‘He must be a man of high courage and daring and I want to marry him.’ The story usually gets a laugh from audiences, but nowadays it’s obvious that we would take a rather dim view of it. It’s probably not true, fortunately.” Two of the queens in Weir’s account may have been as young as 12 when they were married. “The church permitted brides to cohabit with a husband from the age of 12, boys from 14, so for us, that’s child abuse, paedophilia. But it wasn’t in the 11th and 12th centuries, because life was shorter.” A different mindset is required, says Weir, when considering the lives of these queens. “You have to do a lot of background research and I hope I’ve put a sufficient amount in the book to give a good picture of what life was like for aristocratic women of that time. You have to get into that mindset where you can look at it from a modern point of view, but you can’t judge them, because they should be judged on the values of their own day.” We need to keep their power in perspective Powerful as these women were, it is important to keep their influence in context, says Weir. “There has been such a surge in women’s history and gender study, it’s almost flooded the market with biographies and books on women. It’s sort of upset the balance a little, because David Starkey is quite correct when he says that most European history is made by white middle-class males.” Starkey told the Daily Telegraph in 2009 that to attempt to paint many women in history as ‘power players’ was wrong, saying: "If you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players, and to pretend anything else is to falsify." Weir added: “There has been a tendency to overstate the case in terms of how much power these women held. We are retrieving women’s histories in the wake of feminism and therefore we have to be careful and keep them in perspective. You need to have the context of how the men governed and how the kings ruled before you can see where the queens fit in to this. Then, hopefully, you can get some perspective on how much influence they actually wielded.” Alison Weir’s Queens of the Conquest is published by Jonathan Cape and on sale now. Weir will be discussing how queens throughout history fought to secure power – and succeeded in wielding it to their advantage – at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday 13 October.