Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houses
From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers, Caitlin Blackwell Baines introduces us to the terrifying cast of phantoms said to dwell within the nation’s spookiest homes
1. Stirling Castle, Scotland From elusive sea monsters to shrieking banshees, Scotland is home to a host of supernatural beings – including, of course, ghosts. One of their best-known spectral celebrities is the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, who is said to haunt a staggering 10 properties, making her, perhaps, the best-travelled ghost in the nation. Among her main haunts is Stirling Castle, her childhood home in central Scotland. Perched atop a volcanic crag, surrounded by cliffs overlooking the River Forth, Stirling Castle was constructed in the early 12th century, originally as a military stronghold, acting as a strategic line of defence during the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1357). However, almost from the very beginning, Stirling was also a favourite royal residence. By the time a young Mary Stuart lived there in the 1540s, it was as much a palace as it was a fortress: her father, James V, had transformed it into one of the most opulent homes in Renaissance Britain. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Stirling-Castle-Bannockburn-1-8d83973.jpg" width="1200" height="960" alt="A large brown castle stands on a tree-covered hill, against a dark grey cloudy sky" title="Stirling Castle is one of several historic buildings said to be haunted by the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots – the ill-fated monarch who was imprisoned – and executed – upon the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I (Image by SpookyScotland.net)" /> Whatever happy childhood memories Mary may have had of Stirling would be tainted by the events of 21 April 1567. It was here on this day that the embattled queen would see her infant son (the future King James VI & I) for the last time. Soon after, she was forced to abdicate, flee the country, and eventually, in 1587, she was executed for treason under the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I. Perhaps it is for this reason that the melancholy monarch returns to the castle, perpetually searching for her long-lost child, even in the afterlife. She is said to be kept company by a dutiful servant – a young woman in green, who purportedly died in a fire while attempting to save her mistress. They are also joined by Stirling’s notorious ‘Highland Ghost’ – a mysterious man adorned in full Highland regalia, who is often mistaken for a costumed tour guide. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Raynham-Hall-ghostWHB5WT-f2f1e5a.jpg" width="4218" height="5059" alt="A black and white photograph of a staircase with a white ghostly figure in the middle" title="This photograph of Raynham Hall’s ‘Brown Lady’ – purportedly the ghost of former resident Lady Dorothy Townshend – caused a stir when it was first published in 1936 (Image by Alamy)" /> 2. Raynham Hall, Norfolk At its height in the Georgian period, Raynham Hall was nationally renowned for its innovative architecture, priceless art collection and powerful owner. Though originally constructed in the early 1600s, the stately red-brick manor we see today was largely the work of eminent early 18th-century architect William Kent, acting under the direction of Charles, 2nd Viscount Townshend, a leader in the House of Lords. Like the house he lived in, Townshend was an imposing figure, known for his fiery temper and blustering delivery in parliament. And rumour had it, his aggressiveness was not solely reserved for political opponents. His long-suffering wife, Dorothy, may have also been a target of his ire. The story goes that Lady Dorothy Townshend (née Walpole, sister of prime minister Robert) endured an unhappy marriage. Some say she was unfaithful, while others claim it was her extravagant spending that incurred her husband’s wrath. In any case, she purportedly died under mysterious circumstances and continues to roam Raynham’s halls to this day. Read more | Five shocking tales from Britain’s royal palaces Over the years, there have been numerous reported sightings of Lady Townshend – or ‘The Brown Lady’ as she has come to be known, on account of the colour of her silk brocade dress – but perhaps none so dramatic as the encounter of photographers Hubert Provand and Indre Shira. In the autumn of 1936, while on assignment for Country Life magazine, Provand and Shira prepared to take a photo of Raynham’s main staircase. Just as they were setting up the shot, they suddenly caught sight of an ethereal, veiled form floating down the stairs. Acting fast, they snapped their photo and captured what is widely considered to be one of the most famous examples of ‘spirit photography’ in history. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/50-Berkeley-SquareK07JMM-ffef8a3.jpg" width="743" height="1153" alt="A black and white photograph of a dark front door. Either side of it are iron railings, and there is an arch over the two steps leading up to it" title="Dare you open the door? Visitors to 50 Berkeley Square have been reporting strange goings-on since the mid-19th century (Image by Alamy)" /> 3. 50 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, Greater London With its elegant Georgian townhouses, luxury boutiques and Michelin star restaurants, the upscale district of Mayfair in central London may not seem like the natural setting for a ghost story. And yet, it is home to a property once christened the ‘Most Haunted House in London’. The offending structure can be found on Berkeley Square, a residential block first laid out in the mid-1700s by architect William Kent (the man behind Raynham Hall). From the outside, there’s nothing much to distinguish the townhouse at No 50 from its neighbours – but don’t let its staid, neoclassical façade fool you. The first reports of unusual activity at No 50 occurred in the mid-1800s. Nearby residents noticed strange sounds and smells, lights flickering in the windows at all hours of the night, and the noticeable signs of decay and abandon. Sceptics chalked this up to the eccentric habits of its owner, Thomas Myers, a recluse left heartbroken by the rejection of his fiancée. Nevertheless, rumours soon swirled that the house was haunted. View Green Video on the source website Some believed the ghost was a young woman who had jumped from an upper-storey window. Others claimed it was Myers himself, who had locked himself in the attic and driven himself mad. Still others maintained it was a preexisting entity that had possessed both Myers and the suicidal woman. Whatever the case, most Londoners came to fear and avoid No 50 – all save for a brave and foolhardy few. One such daredevil was Lord George Lyttleton, a Conservative statesman, who, in 1872, accepted a bet to stay a night alone at the house. Though incredulous of the stories, Lyttleton packed a pistol and was probably quite pleased he had done so, for when a dark, tendrilled apparition advanced towards him, he was able to defend himself. Firing a few rounds, he was certain he’d hit his mark. Yet, when the smoke settled, it revealed only spent shell casings and an empty attic. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Chillingham-Castle2BYB32Y-e4a1674.jpg" width="5081" height="3381" alt="A black and white photograph of a large castle with crenellated towers" title="This photograph of Chillingham Castle may be in black and white, but the building’s paranormal history is certainly colourful: its most famous ghoul is a boy in blue who appears to visitors inside a pink bedroom (Image by Alamy)" /> 4. Chillingham Castle, Northumberland Touted as Britain’s ‘Most Haunted Castle,’ Chillingham has a long and violent history. Once one of nearly 100 fortifications that dotted the bleak borderlands of England and Scotland, this 13th-century fortress served a pivotal role in the centuries-long rift between the two warring kingdoms. It was here, in 1298, that King Edward I launched his attack on William Wallace during the First War of Scottish Independence. Over the years, hundreds of England’s enemies were killed at Chillingham, many of them by torture in the castle’s dungeon and torture chamber – a cramped windowless pit located in a cellar beneath what is today a public tearoom. Strangely, however, these prisoners are not among the castle’s best-known ghostly residents. Instead, the most familiar phantom faces are those of women and children. There is the mysterious ‘Radiant Boy’ – an unknown child in blue who materialises before guests in the castle’s ‘Pink Bedroom’. And the legendary ‘Grey Lady’ – believed to be the ghost of Lady Mary Berkeley, whose husband, Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville, reportedly jilted her for her younger sister, leaving her alone and heartbroken in the castle. Modern visitors report the sounds of sobbing, the rustling of a heavy gown dragging along the castle’s corridors, and the faint aroma of rosewater. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Blickling-HallBPB4N5-54b2853.jpg" width="5637" height="3775" alt="A large red brick palace lit up from below by floodlights. Behind it, there are many trees in shadow and the sky is deep blue" title="Anne Boleyn is said to haunt several palaces and stately homes, including Blickling Hall near Norwich. The Tudor queen is thought to have been born at the manor that previously stood on the site (Image by Alamy)" /> 5. Blickling Hall, Norfolk Blickling Hall might be considered the English counterpart to Scotland’s Stirling Castle – though, on the face of it, they would seem to have little in common. Where Stirling is a medieval citadel looming over the gateway to the Scottish Highlands, Blickling is a Jacobean manor nestled in the heart of the Norfolk Broads. Just 20 miles east of Raynham Hall, one would think it would have more in common with its ‘haunted’ East Anglian neighbour. But as the presumed birthplace of Anne Boleyn, Blickling has a far stronger symbolic link to the childhood home of Scotland’s own tragic queen. Read more | Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before? The existing structure, built for Sir Henry Hobart in 1616, was erected atop the ruins of a Tudor manor house once belonging to Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire – whose youngest daughter had the unfortunate honour of becoming Henry VIII’s second wife. On 19 May 1536, after just three years of marriage, Anne Boleyn was beheaded for adultery and treason. Like her Scottish counterpart, Anne is thought to haunt a number of historic properties, including Hever Castle (another childhood home), Windsor Castle (a brief residence), the Tower of London (the site of her death), and, of course, Blickling. Here, she is said to appear every year on the anniversary of her death, in a carriage driven by headless horses. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Heol-FanogGettyImages-1281060558-a4fffad.jpg" width="6000" height="4000" alt="A black farmhouse stands on a hill, with a single light shining in the middle. The farmhouse has a chimney at either end of the roof and behind it, the sky is dark grey" title="A spooky farmhouse. One such building, Heol Fanog (Welsh for ‘Road to the Peaks’), gained notoriety in 2022 when it became the subject of hit podcast The Witch Farm (Image by Getty Images)" /> 6. Heol Fanog, Brecon Beacons, Wales A relatively recent entry into the annals of haunted historic Britain, Heol Fanog farmhouse in South Wales has gained contemporary notoriety thanks to the exposure of the hit BBC Sounds podcast, The Witch Farm (2022). The series focuses on the occupancy of the Rich family, who lived on the farm for a seven-year period from 1989, during which time they claim to have experienced a litany of terrifying events. From cold spots to disembodied footsteps, inexplicable power surges to noxious odours, and even full-blown apparitions and demonic possessions, the experiences of the Rich family have been likened to that of the Lutz family of Amityville Horror fame. While these stories are relatively new – and, indeed, the farmhouse itself is less than a hundred years old – legends about the isolated rural property have circulated for well over a century. The area’s strong association with witchcraft, occultism and Celtic mysticism, combined with the dark legacy of a gruesome local murder in the 19th century, have earned the property its nickname: ‘The Witch Farm’ or ‘Hellfire Farm’. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Hampton-CourtG37YX0-eab2b03.jpg" width="4458" height="2903" alt="Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, is supposedly one of Hampton Court’s many resident phantoms. Early 20th-century postcards depicted the queen’s ‘ghost’ using a crude double-exposure effect (Image by Alamy)" title="Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, is supposedly one of Hampton Court’s many resident phantoms. Early 20th-century postcards depicted the queen’s ‘ghost’ using a crude double-exposure effect (Image by Alamy)" /> 7. Hampton Court Palace, Greater London Historic Royal Palaces certainly have their hands full. In addition to managing some of the nation’s highest profile heritage landmarks, catering to some 4 million visitors each year, they also have ghosts to contend with. Several properties in their portfolio – including the Tower of London, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace – are allegedly haunted. And while it’s hard to say which one of them is the most haunted, Hampton Court is definitely a strong contender. Construction on the iconic Tudor palace began in 1515 under the direction of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York – Henry VIII’s chief advisor. At the time, Wolsey was one of the kingdom’s richest and most influential figures and he intended to build a home to reflect his position. In this he succeeded; however, within just a few years of his home’s completion, Wolsey had fallen from favour. Shortly before he died in 1530, he was ordered to surrender the palace to the king. Just 15 miles from London, the palace quickly became a favourite royal retreat. Read more | Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams While many monarchs have resided in Hampton Court over the centuries, the palace is indelibly linked with the reign of Henry VIII. As such, it should come as no surprise that the most familiar phantoms are members of the Henrician court. There’s Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, who died from complications of childbirth, and allegedly still holds a solemn vigil on the palace’s Silverstick staircase; Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, whose ghost is said to run screaming down the aptly-named ‘Haunted Gallery’, endlessly replaying a failed attempt to reach her husband to beg him to spare her from execution; and maybe even Old King Hal himself. Some believe it was the ghost of the king who was captured on the viral CCTV footage that made headlines around the world in the winter of 2003. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Treasurers-HouseTopfoto0780551-5b87db0.jpg" width="3442" height="2284" alt="A cellar with dirty brick walls. To the left, there is an empty fireplace with a dark tunnel, and on the right, there are two boxes stacked on one another" title="The infamous cellar at the Treasurer’s House, York. In 1953, a young plumber’s apprentice claimed to have witnessed Roman soldiers marching through a wall (Image by Topfoto)" /> 8. Treasurer's House, York, North Yorkshire Beneath the soaring spires of York Minster, scores of visitors amble along pedestrian thoroughfares lined with gastropubs, gift shops and historic buildings. The din of casual conversation is occasionally interrupted by the booming oratory of tour guides who lead groups of tourists down winding cobble-stoned lanes and narrow alleyways (idiosyncratically referred to as ‘snickleways’ by the locals). These merry little bands are on the hunt for haunted houses, and in York – reputedly the ‘Most Haunted City in Britain’ – they will not be disappointed. Dozens of properties compete for the title of ‘Most Haunted House’ in York, and while there is no clear victor, there is one property that can lay claim to what is, perhaps, the best authenticated ghost story in British history. That is the Treasurer’s House – a Grade I listed National Trust property with foundations dating all the way back to the early 12th century. Its best-known ghost story, however, has nothing to do with its medieval history. In 1953, an 18-year-old apprentice plumber called Harry Martindale was hired to install a boiler in the property’s ancient cellar. Working alone and in silence, Martindale was startled by the distant sound of a trumpet. The sound grew closer, and suddenly, what appeared to be a Roman soldier with a plumed helmet emerged from a wall, followed by a cart horse and a band of other soldiers, all dressed in green and carrying round shields. If this weren’t strange enough, the soldiers appeared to be cut off at the knees. Though Martindale’s claims were initially dismissed as hallucinations, the subsequent discovery of the Via Decumana, a Roman road lying about 15 inches below the cellar floor, gave credence to his story. What’s more, his description of the soldiers’ attire – originally deemed inaccurate based on existing historical knowledge – was later confirmed to be consistent with the regiment stationed at the Roman outpost of Eboracum (i.e. modern-day York). Caitlin Blackwell Baines is an art historian and author who specialises in Georgian art and architecture. She is the author of How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession (Profile Books, 2025) This article was first published in the Apple News October 2025 bonus issue
The lie of succession: did James I steal Elizabeth I's crown?
Did James I ‘steal’ Elizabeth I’s crown? Tracy Borman considers evidence that the transition from Tudor to Stuart dynasties may not have been quite as seamless as we’ve been led to believe
Richmond Palace, 22 March 1603. Elizabeth I – the self-proclaimed Virgin Queen who had ruled England for 44 years, seeing off the Armada, healing religious divisions and creating a court so magnificent it was the envy of Europe – lay dying. Her anxious advisers clustered around her bedside, urging her to do the thing she had resisted throughout her long reign: name her successor. Rousing herself from her stupor, the 69-year-old queen declared: “I will that a king succeed me, and what king, but my nearest kinsman, the king of Scots?” Wanting to make completely sure, her chief minister, Robert Cecil, asked whether that was her “absolute resolution” – to which she irritably retorted: “I pray you trouble me no more, I’ll have none but him.” That “kinsman” was James VI of Scotland, son of Elizabeth’s old rival Mary, Queen of Scots. Her closest surviving blood relative, he had emerged as the front runner in the race for the English crown. He had the support of Cecil and most of his fellow privy councillors, who had been working behind the scenes to smooth James’s path to the throne. The queen, too, had shown him favour, sharing the pearls of her monarchical wisdom during their 20-year correspondence, as if grooming him as her successor. But she had always flinched from actually naming him as such. Now, almost with her last breath, she had. Elizabeth died two days later – and the Tudor dynasty gave way peacefully to the Stuarts. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-544183312webready-e7c6f5b.jpg" width="3727" height="2485" alt="A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. She had the strongest blood claim to Elizabeth's throne, but her son would go on to be the next monarch (Image by Getty Images)" title="A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. She had the strongest blood claim to Elizabeth's throne, but her son would go on to be the next monarch (Image by Getty Images)" /> This dramatic depiction of Elizabeth’s last-gasp naming of the Scottish king as her heir is based solely on an account by the contemporary historian and antiquarian William Camden. He had begun writing his monumental work Annales: The True and Royall History of the Famous Empresse Elizabeth (first published in Latin in 1615) during Elizabeth’s lifetime. Camden was close to some senior members of the queen’s court, and had access to the voluminous state papers of her reign, so historians have relied on his manuscript as one of the most important and accurate sources for the period. However, none of those present at Elizabeth’s deathbed testified that she had spoken the words Camden quoted in his account, only that the dying queen had raised her hand to her head when James’s name was mentioned – an ambiguous gesture at best. Rewriting history Now, groundbreaking new analysis of Camden’s original manuscript by a team at the British Library has revealed that key passages were covered over and rewritten after Elizabeth’s death to make them more favourable to her successor. No fewer than 200 pages have been pasted in, 65 of which replaced original text with a new version. The use of imaging technology has enabled researcher Helena Rutkowska to see the words underneath for the first time in 400 years. Among the findings are that Elizabeth’s naming of James as her heir was a work of fiction, designed to make his accession appear more predetermined than it had been. In fact, she had been the only monarch in English history not to make provision for the succession. Read more | The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love If this had been more widely known at the time, it might have had profound repercussions for the Stuart dynasty. Rather than welcoming James as the king to whom ‘Good Queen Bess’ had given her blessing, the people of England might have refused to accept him. After all, England and Scotland had been bitter enemies for centuries, with fleeting periods of peace cut short by the clash of arms or threat of invasion. And James was by no means the only candidate with a strong claim to Elizabeth’s throne. Holding on by his fingertips Camden had first been commissioned to write his history of Elizabeth’s reign in 1596 by William Cecil (Robert’s father), Lord Burghley – Elizabeth’s most trusted advisor, whom she dubbed her ‘Spirit’. It was not a task that the author had embraced with any alacrity, grumbling about the “piles and heaps of papers and writings of all sorts” that had been placed at his disposal. He made only a faltering start during Elizabeth’s lifetime and, as soon as she died, he quietly set down his quill, hoping that the idea would be forgotten. Fast forward to 1607 and James VI & I had been on the English throne for four years. The initially peaceful transition from Tudors to Stuarts had given way to turbulence and uncertainty, conspiracy and persecution, witchcraft and gunpowder. With the accession of England’s first Stuart monarch, everything had been transformed – from court culture to royal ceremony, religious tolerance to parliamentary authority, morality to witch-hunting. Two countries that had been fierce rivals for centuries were now forged into an uncomfortably united kingdom. The fleeting popularity that James had enjoyed as the “bright star of the north” had been extinguished, and he was holding onto his new crown by his fingertips. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/William-Camden-MMTP8W-a7d2cb2.jpg" width="938" height="1302" alt="A painting of a bearded man dressed in dark clothing with a grey ruff, sitting against a black background" title="A portrait of William Camden, based on a work of 1609, the year after James ordered him to finish his history of Elizabeth’s reign (Image by Alamy)" /> It was at this moment that James heard about Camden’s stalled biography of his predecessor, and spied an opportunity. To have a published account of Elizabeth’s reign – and, in particular, the succession – written by one of the most esteemed historians of the age would help silence any whispers of usurpation. If, that is, the author was prepared to write it to the king’s satisfaction. It was with good reason that Camden expressed reluctance when first approached by the king to restart his history of Elizabeth. Quite apart from the heavy burden of research it entailed, writing the history of a queen who, even in death, was eclipsing her unpopular successor was fraught with difficulty. Camden knew that James would not want an unbiased appraisal but one written in his favour. Only the previous year, the king had ordered an account of the gunpowder plot to be rewritten so that it was even more complimentary towards him. Restarting the history of Elizabeth was the very definition of a poison chalice, and Camden tried everything to avoid drinking from it. But James gave him no choice. At the king’s command, work on the book resumed in 1608. Camden was his subject to command, and the succession was his to rewrite. Reviving the queen By the time Camden again took up his quill, rewriting sections to James’s benefit, the cult of ‘Gloriana’ was already in full swing. Elizabeth’s former subjects were quick to forget that they had grown tired of “an old woman’s government” and had longed to have a king ruling over them. One contemporary reflected that, a few short years after Elizabeth’s death, “when we had experience of the Scottish government, then… in hate and detestation of them, the queen did seem to revive. Then was her memory much magnified.” It was not long before praising the last Tudor queen became a powerful weapon used to attack her Stuart successor. Donning their rose-tinted glasses, her former subjects harked back to a halcyon time when England had enjoyed decades of peace and prosperity, triumphed over the might of Spain, and was presided over by a glorious queen and her court. The anniversary of Elizabeth’s accession day, 17 November, began to be celebrated each year with “joyful ringing of bells, running at tilt, and festival mirth… in testimony of their affectionate love towards her”. Read more | Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts? But this sentimental reverence masked the intense uncertainty that had been generated by the persistent refusal of ‘Good Queen Bess’ to name her heir. It’s worth revisiting the history of this reticence and the concerns it had fomented among court and populace. On 10 February 1559 Elizabeth had told the first parliament of her reign that “in the end this shall be for me sufficient: that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin”. She then declared that God would provide for the succession and would name an heir “peradventure more beneficial to the realm than such offspring as may come of me”. This was all very well but, without the wisdom of hindsight, Elizabeth’s subjects had no idea that she would reign longer and more successfully than any of the other Tudor monarchs. Her three predecessors, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey and Mary I, had reigned for six years, nine days and five years, respectively, and there was no reason to suppose Elizabeth would escape the ill health that dogged the Tudor dynasty. Indeed, nearly four years into her reign she almost died of smallpox. This catapulted the succession to the forefront of people’s minds and, once there, it would not be forgotten. “Now all the talk is who is to be her successor,” reported the Spanish ambassador, Bishop Álvaro de la Quadra, in 1562. Elizabeth’s determination not to name her heir was born of direct experience. Being heir presumptive during her sister Mary’s brief, bloody reign had placed her in great jeopardy, including a spell in the Tower under threat of execution. “I stood in danger of my life, my sister was so incensed against me,” she told a delegation from parliament in 1566 that had been sent to persuade her to settle the succession. Elizabeth feared that, as soon as she named her heir, the individual chosen would be the focus of plots and rebellions, just as she herself had been during Mary’s reign. “Think you that I could love my winding-sheet?” she demanded to an ambassador, likening a named heir to a shroud. Fierce rivalry In remaining tight-lipped about the succession, Elizabeth gave rise to fierce rivalry between the blood claimants to her throne. Principal among them were Mary, Queen of Scots and her son James VI; his cousin Arbella Stuart; Lady Katherine Grey and her descendants; Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon; and the Infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II of Spain. As Elizabeth’s reign progressed, most of the rival claimants fell by the wayside, either through natural death, disinheritance or execution. In the race for Elizabeth’s throne, it was less a case of ‘who dares wins’, more ‘survival of the fittest’. In 1600, the English government official and keeper of records Thomas Wilson opined: “This crown is not like to fall to the ground for want of heads that claim to wear it.” Although he admitted that it was “straightly prohibited” to discuss the succession, he went on to give an account of at least 12 people with some kind of claim to the English throne who, in his words, “gape for” Elizabeth’s death. Of these, eight were home-grown candidates and four were from overseas. James VI might have emerged as the odds-on favourite, but his accession was by no means certain. As her long reign wore on, Elizabeth showed through her subtle, steady guiding of the king of Scots that he was, if not her ideal candidate, then at least the best of a bad lot. In the years leading up to her death, she did as much as she could to secure the succession without placing herself in danger by naming an heir. For all the anxiety, intrigue and rivalry that this engendered, the wisdom of her policy was proved by the fact that, to her last breath, her personal power in England had not been challenged by any “rising sun”. But the ultimate success of Elizabeth’s plan depended on James following the advice she had drip-fed him over the years. And that is where it fell apart. It soon became clear that the king had paid only lip service to Elizabeth’s guidance, and proceeded to flout it altogether when he took her throne. He refused to “play the king”, as she had urged, by investing in the magnificence of his court and public appearances, and instead spent most of his time in private with just a handful of favourites. Parliamentary revolt More ominously, James had no intention of sustaining the delicate relationship between crown and parliament that had been the cornerstone of Elizabeth’s success. Instead, he stood firmly by the Stuart belief in the divine right of kings, which in his view gave him the right to ride roughshod over the wishes of his people and his parliaments. This soon sparked resistance from his new English subjects. After a series of bad-tempered exchanges, parliament refused to agree to James’s plan for a formal union between his two kingdoms. Undeterred, he announced that a shared currency would be issued – a 20-shilling piece known as the ‘unite’ – and commissioned a new flag, the ‘Union Jack’ (for Jacobus, or James). Thereafter, rather than working in partnership with his government, he abandoned it altogether, spending his days hunting and cavorting with his favourites. One contemporary noted that this was “the cause of indescribable ill-humour among the king’s subjects, who in their needs and troubles find themselves cut off from their natural sovereign”. Read more | King James VI and I: your guide to the first Stuart monarch of England Meanwhile, growing popular resentment against the king erupted in numerous conspiracies to remove him from the throne. In June 1603, just three months after his accession, the ‘Bye’ plot came to light, involving a group of Catholics who planned to kidnap the king and secure concessions for the practice of their religion. More serious was the ‘Main’ plot to oust James and replace him with his cousin Arbella Stuart. The most dangerous conspiracy of all came in 1605, when a group of Catholics led by Robert Catesby schemed to blow up the king and his parliament. It was only thanks to an anonymous tip-off that Westminster was searched by the royal officials, and Guy Fawkes was discovered with a huge cache of gunpowder beneath the Houses of Parliament just hours before he was due to light the fuse. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-51245104webready-cdc8473.jpg" width="2844" height="1896" alt="A black and white woodcut shows a young man kneeling down, being embraced by an older man, who is the king. Behind them, there is a group of men and" title="Prince Charles is welcomed by his father, James VI & I, in a 1623 woodcut. The second Stuart monarch of England took seriously the divine right of kings, and alienated his people and parliament (Image by Getty Images)" /> Lessons not learned All of this might have made James pause to consider that perhaps he ought to follow his predecessor’s advice after all. Instead, he doggedly continued his preferred style of monarchy, no matter the cost. Worse still, in preparing his son and heir, Charles, for the throne, James passed on none of the lessons that Elizabeth had tried to teach him. Charles would be a king in the mould of his Stuart father, not his Tudor predecessor. He took his divine right to even greater extremes than his father, and dissolved parliament whenever it refused to carry out his will. As Charles’s turbulent reign wore on, the spectre of uncertainty over the Stuarts’ right to the Tudor throne – uncertainly that, we now know was all too valid – was thrown into sharp relief. By 1642, he had pushed the supremacy of the royal will too far on both sides of the border. The kingdom was plunged into bitterly fought civil wars that culminated in Charles’s execution and the destruction of the monarchy. In the space of half a century, the crown that had glittered so brightly on Elizabeth’s head had been consigned to the flames. CONTENDERS FOR THE CROWN There was no shortage of people with designs on Elizabeth I’s English throne. But who had the best chance of success? The Scottish thorn Mary, Queen of Scots had the strongest blood claim to Elizabeth’s throne. She was the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland. As a Catholic, she enjoyed considerable support among those in England who opposed their queen’s Protestant faith. But Henry VIII’s will had barred his Scottish relatives from inheriting the crown of England. Furthermore, a law passed in 1350, during the reign of Edward III, decreed that “aliens” (those not born on English soil) could not inherit any land there. Nevertheless, Mary campaigned tirelessly to be named heir, and was executed for trying to take the English throne by force. (Contender rating: 6 out of 10) The front runner James VI of Scotland, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, succeeded to his mother’s throne when she was ousted from it in 1567. He also inherited her claim to Elizabeth’s throne, though Mary’s execution in 1587 threw that into jeopardy, because those related to a convicted traitor were tainted by association. In his favour was the fact that by the time of Elizabeth’s death he had a proven track record of ruling a kingdom and, even better, was male. He also enjoyed the strongest support within the English government, and the tacit support of Elizabeth herself – though Henry VIII’s and Edward III’s statutes meant that James’s accession in 1603 was technically illegal. (Contender rating: 7 out of 10) The arrogant orphan Like James, Arbella Stuart was the great-granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret, but had the advantage of being born on English soil. Team Arbella was also bolstered by the efforts of her two indomitable grandmothers, Lady Margaret Douglas (Henry VIII’s niece) and Bess of Hardwick, who promoted the claim of “poor orphan Arbella”. Arbella, though, was her own worst enemy. Haughty and arrogant, she alienated Queen Elizabeth, and her unstable temperament made her ill-suited for the throne. During James’s reign, she secretly married another blood claimant, William Seymour, grandson of Lady Katherine Grey (see below), and spent the rest of her life a prisoner in the Tower. (Contender rating: 5 out of 10) The marrying type Henry VIII had decreed that, in the event that his three children died without issue, the crown would pass to the descendants of his younger sister Mary. This gave Katherine Grey (Mary’s granddaughter) and her descendants the strongest legal basis for their claim, strengthened by the fact that Edward VI had made the Greys his primary heirs. Katherine sought to boost her chances further by secretly marrying Edward Seymour, the nephew of Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour. But this backfired: Elizabeth condemned Katherine to life behind bars, and had her two sons declared illegitimate. However, they and their descendants continued to be seen as strong contenders for Elizabeth’s throne for years afterwards. (Contender rating: 6 out of 10) The "nearest in blood" Lady Margaret Stanley was the daughter of Eleanor Brandon, younger daughter of Henry VIII’s sister Mary. Margaret alleged that her cousins were debarred from the succession because of Lady Jane Grey’s treason, leaving her next in line by Henry VIII’s will and “as the nearest in blood… legitimately of English birth”. Also in her favour was the fact that she had two living sons, Ferdinando and William. She was, though, Catholic. (Contender rating: 4 out of 10) The uninterested Yorkist Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon was of the old Yorkist line. His great-great-grandmother was Lady Margaret Pole, niece of King Edward IV. His grandfather had for a time been a close personal friend of Henry VIII. In stark contrast to all the other contenders, though, Hastings showed no interest in the crown, and spent his life in loyal service to Elizabeth. Still, she didn’t trust him, and it was only after years in the political wilderness that she finally appointed him to office. (Contender rating: 5 out of 10) The Spanish princess When his own attempts to seize Elizabeth’s throne by force failed, Philip II of Spain promoted those of his daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. She was said to be “of the ancient blood royal of England” through her mother, Elisabeth of Valois. As such, she was a legitimate descendant of John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III, whereas the Tudors were descended from his illegitimate line. But the people of England were notoriously xenophobic, viewing even James of Scotland as an “alien”, and unlikely to ever accept a Spanish queen. (Contender rating: 3 out of 10)
How I uncovered Victoria's secret love: Historian Fern Riddell explains all
There have long been whispers of a romance between the queen and her Scottish servant John Brown, but nothing concrete to support them. Now Fern Riddell, author of an explosive new book, reveals how she turned sleuth to track down evidence of their secret passion
The story that’s consumed my life for much of the past few years has it all: family dysfunction, political intrigue, royalty, the rewriting of our national history. A secret hidden for generations. These are the sort of things historians can get carried away by. When we’re undertaking historical research, it often becomes clear that the relationship between fact and fiction can be a murky one. There’s often a gap between what we want the truth to be and the reality of the lives that have been lived. So it was with my latest project. After four months of research, I couldn’t quite believe what I’d uncovered. I’d been tracing the footsteps of both historians and historical people, and I was finally convinced that what I’d found came close to representing irrefutable proof of a remarkable secret – one offering an answer to a 160-year-old question. But making the breakthrough didn’t come without risk – one faced by nearly every historian who had got so far before me, and who turned back at the final hurdle, unable to bring their research to light. WATCH | Fern Riddell on her quest to discover the secrets of Victoria's later love life View Green Video on the source website So, before I pushed ahead, I called a trusted friend and mentor to discuss what I thought I’d discovered. “I’ve found it,” I exclaimed. “I’ve found the lost archive of Queen Victoria and John Brown.” Royal inspiration Towards the end of 2021, my agent, Kirsty McLachlan, had set me a challenge. “You need a new project,” she declared. “What can you say about Queen Victoria?” “I don’t do the royals,” I retorted, instantly rejecting the suggestion. “Anyway, most royal historians face censorship the moment they find anything interesting.” My focus has always been on the stories of ordinary people – what we call ‘history from below’. These are the lives that fascinate me, not those of the wealthy and powerful. Victoria felt like a lost cause. After all, what could be left to discover about one of history’s most famous women? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/TOPFOTO-hip2652872-2webready-c8032de.jpg" width="1500" height="916" alt="A painting shows Queen Victoria dressed all in black on top of a black horse. To the left, John Brown, dressed in black with a kilt, stands holding the horse's reign. By him, two dogs lay on the ground. On the far left, two women, dressed in blue and beige are seated on a bench. In the background, there is a large yellow manor house" title="A painting of Victoria and John Brown at Osborne House, her private family home on the Isle of Wight, in 1865. Brown began accompanying the queen more frequently after Albert’s death, first joining her at Osborne in 1864 (Image by TopFoto)" /> But there has always been something fascinating about Queen Victoria. She is an enigma: a woman who became the cornerstone of an empire, a queen, a wife, a mother and an icon of an entire age. Her life with her husband, Prince Albert, has been the subject of multiple dramas and documentaries, as has her grief-stricken widowhood after his death in 1861, aged only 42. But what this passionate mother of nine did for her own comfort in the lonely decades that followed has only been whispered about, until now. There have long been rumours surrounding Queen Victoria’s relationship with her Scottish Highland servant, John Brown. Were they lovers? Did they marry in secret? Did they even have a child together? However, no one had been able to establish the truth. This, I decided, was something that piqued my curiosity – a thread to pull and see where it led. John Brown is often relegated to a footnote in Victoria’s history, glossed over as a servant, or awkwardly portrayed as ‘just a friend’. Yet for almost 20 years he stood at Victoria’s side as her “strong right arm”, her “best friend” – and, as I discovered, her “beloved John” and her “true and devoted one”. But as I carefully set out on my research, I had little comprehension of the journey I was about to take, nor the astonishing secret it would reveal. Read more | “There was a general perception that Queen Victoria’s mourning was neither normal nor acceptable” Searching for sources With the thought of perhaps writing about Victoria’s mid-life, I ordered every book ever written about John Brown. Modern historians have long believed this to be a pointless effort, knowing that most of John’s original documents – his diaries, letters and more – were destroyed by members of Victoria’s court after his death in 1883. But I felt sure that something must remain somewhere. I started with Queen Victoria’s John Brown by EEP Tisdall, which was published in 1938. It’s gossipy and fun, but entirely devoid of references or sources – useless for my purposes, except for insights into how John was seen 50 years after his death. Next up was Tom Cullen’s The Empress Brown: The Story of a Royal Friendship, released some three decades later. This turned out to be a goldmine. In its pages are a series of letter facsimiles from Victoria, the original documents faithfully reproduced for readers. They showcase such a tenderness between Victoria and John, as well as his family, and I felt an itch – a historian’s twitch – that there was much more to this history than I had been aware of before. While combing Cullen’s acknowledgements, I saw a reference to John’s descendants, and a brief mention that they held a family archive. This is also hinted at by Raymond Lamont-Brown, author of John Brown: Queen Victoria’s Highland Servant (2000). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-514896440webready-5a9d214.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of Victoria and Albert. He sits on the left, dressed in a black suit and bow tie, with one arm leaning on the back of the seat and the other holding a scroll. Victoria, dressed in a long white dress, sits on the right, looking slightly away from Albert and the camera" title="Victoria and Albert in 1854, some 14 years after the queen married her first cousin. By the time this photograph was taken, she had already borne eight of the nine children they would have together (Image by Getty Images)" /> That was when things started to become interesting. Although rumours of a family archive, kept safe by John’s surviving relatives, have long swirled, no one would say where it was held or if it still existed. This felt like a mystery I wanted to solve. These letters must be real, I thought – more than one person claimed to have seen them – yet only Cullen provided evidence. No historian since had been able to bring them into the public eye. Had they been destroyed? Lost? Or were they still out there, waiting to be found? I started by tracing John’s surviving family: the descendants of his brothers James, Donald, William, Hugh and Archie. Hugh and Hilda Lamond, grandchildren of John’s second-youngest brother Hugh, appear in historians’ acknowledgements more than once, and I became convinced that they must have been the guardians of the family archive. But their own descendants emigrated to the US in the 1970s, and I had no idea how to contact them. I reminded myself that modern historians need to be able to utilise many different tools and skill sets for our research. One of the most powerful resources we have today is the internet, providing access to digitised records. In the space of a single afternoon, using the gigantic global databases available via Ancestry and Scotland’s People, I mapped out John Brown’s entire family – including his brothers and cousins – through births, marriages, deaths and census records. This led me to Minnesota, and a burning question: did John Brown’s great-great-great-nieces still hold on to their family’s precious collection, packed carefully in moving crates, carried down the generations and now possibly on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? Long shot At that point, the pandemic continued to hold the world in its grip. How was I to get in touch with Brown’s relatives some 4,000 miles away in the US? Genealogy can get you only so far, and I had no up-to-date contact information. And yet… might they be on Facebook? It seemed like the longest of shots but, as I typed their names into the search bar, a result flashed up instantly. A connection to the descendants of Hugh Brown – the only people who might, just possibly, hold the keys to the John Brown family archive – was right in front of me. I opened up Facebook’s messenger app and began to type, unsure if I would get a response. Eventually I hit send – and sat back to wait. Days and weeks went by, with no response from Minnesota. So I returned to the documents I could access – those letters uncovered by Cullen more than 50 years ago – for hints that some of John Brown’s papers must have survived somewhere. On a whim, I typed lines from the letters into Google – and, to my shock, a link to an archive in Aberdeen appeared. Suddenly, there it was in high definition, staring back at me: an original letter, kept safe by Aberdeen City Archives. As I gazed at the screen, the realisation slowly dawned on me that I could confirm for the first time the existence of part of the John Brown family archive. Surely it couldn’t be simply sitting there, waiting to be discovered? But I learned a long time ago that, with a history and a nation as diverse as ours, and with correspondingly bulging archives, answers are often to be found sitting in plain sight. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain Within an hour I found two more letters in the archives, digitised and perfunctorily labelled. There was nothing to give away their significance, no indication of their importance. But if I could confirm that at least some of the archive had survived, then might that prove there was more out there to find? And why, after John Brown’s family had kept this secret for so long, was some of it now available in a public archive with little information and no fanfare? I booked a research trip to Aberdeen. Meanwhile, I began the forensic work of raking through the city’s entire online library, collections and archives. I realised that references to John Brown, both artefacts and letters, are scattered across Aberdeen’s new Treasure Hub, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Town House archive. On my first research trip to the city, I held the original letters in my hands, reading in Victoria’s own handwriting her memories of John: “So often I told him no one loved him more than I did… and he answered, ‘nor you than me, no-one loves you more’.” I was awestruck by this powerful declaration between Victoria and John. In Town House, the team allowed me to rifle through the collection of the writer, artist and historian Fenton Wyness. I’d found a passing reference that this included some material on Brown, but what I found there astonished me. At some point in the 1950s or 1960s, Wyness – a local Aberdeenshire historian – decided to write about John Brown. Like Tom Cullen, he was given access to the John Brown family archive, which he then proceeded to photograph in its entirety. Now, in the archive in Aberdeen, I realised that a record of the letters, documents, cards and gifts from Victoria to John and his family was sitting in boxes all around me. It’s an incredible resource to study – a reference collection that is utterly unmatched. Pieces of the puzzle Over the three years that followed, as I travelled to Aberdeen and to other archives and private collections across the country, Victoria and John’s life together began to unfold. And the story is vastly different to the one we have been told before – as I reveal in my new book, Victoria’s Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen. The documents I unearthed and studied provide undeniable proof of an intense love affair and, I believe, evidence that John Brown and Victoria did indeed marry – as well as of a determined and ongoing campaign to eradicate him from her history after their deaths. The language Victoria used in her letters to describe her relationship with John deepened as the years went by. She called him her “darling one”, “faithful and devoted”, while describing herself as his “true and devoted one”. Cards she sent him, recorded in the John Brown family archive, are printed with the words “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” and poems such as “I send my sewing maiden / with new year’s letter laden, / its words will prove / my faith and love, / to you my heart’s best treasure, / then smile on her and smile on me, / and let your answer loving be / and give me pleasure.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/08/Alamy-3BJNGW8webready-262dc4c.jpg" width="1500" height="1911" alt="A man sits facing the left. He has a thick beard and brown hair and has a blue collared jacket" title="Norman Macleod, Victoria’s Scottish chaplain, portrayed in a posthumous painting. He reportedly confessed on his deathbed to marrying the queen and John Brown (Image by Alamy)" /> Also revealed in Victoria’s Secret is the possibility that Victoria and John had an ‘irregular marriage’, a legal marriage under Scottish law that involved an exchange of vows and potentially rings, the evidence of which sits in portraits and photographs of John from 1873 onwards. Add to this the fact that Victoria’s Scottish chaplain, Norman Macleod, confessed on his deathbed to marrying them, and that Victoria went to her grave wearing John’s mother’s wedding ring – a point that was hidden from her children at the time – and it feels to me like solid, irrefutable evidence of their relationship. Floored by photos Although I tried to remain clinical and dispassionate as I weighed the material that I was collecting, a couple of objects floored me. In Treasure Hub sits a photographic album Victoria dedicated and gifted to John’s mother, Margaret Leys. It is bursting with pictures of both Brown’s family and her own, side by side – a record of all of the people who mattered to them. But nothing prepared me for the revelation that, in the week after John’s death, Victoria had his hand cast and then carved in stone. The photograph of this object in Fenton Wyness’s collection – the tender placement of John’s hand on a pillow, the importance given to a signet ring that he wore every day from 1873 onwards – felt like a gut punch. Finally, there is a pair of four-leafed clovers that Victoria and John collected, and which he dried and taped into a scrapbook, their stems crossed over one another for eternity. In the Victorian language of flowers, this has a singular meaning: Be Mine. I still had unanswered questions, though – and the only people who might have been able to help answer them were thousands of miles away in America. Fortunately, at that stage Angela, one of Hugh Brown’s descendants whom I’d attempted to contact via Facebook, got in touch. She is bubbly and forthright – and, with the agreement of her family, was happy to discuss their history and the stories she had heard while growing up. Read more | Queen of spies? Inside Queen Victoria’s secret intelligence network Over a series of calls, emails and texts, she slowly began to trust me with a secret her family had kept for a very long time. Not only do they have the final remnants of the John Brown family archive, including original documents, such as Victoria’s own investigation into John’s family history, but they also guard a story that is fantastical and amazing. Angela was sanguine, telling me that “it’s just what I’ve always been told – I don’t know if it’s true”. Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder: could this be the final missing piece of the puzzle for which I’d been searching so long? Throughout my research, and across John’s life, one of his siblings featured more prominently than all of the others: Hugh, whose family became the guardians of John and Victoria’s legacy. As I was writing and researching, it became increasingly clear that, though all of John’s brothers and their families mattered to Victoria, Hugh and his wife, Jessie, were most dear to the queen. Unusually among John’s extensive clan, they had only one child – a daughter, Mary Ann, Angela’s great-grandmother. According to Angela, Mary Ann was the secret child of John Brown and Queen Victoria. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-1450268872webready-5502a62-e1753974720717.jpg" width="1488" height="1010" alt="Victoria pictured with her children and a bust of Prince Albert, 1863. Beatrice was the last of her babies officially recorded – but did the queen later give birth to another daughter, fathered by John Brown? (Image by Getty Images)" title="Victoria pictured with her children and a bust of Prince Albert, 1863. Beatrice was the last of her babies officially recorded – but did the queen later give birth to another daughter, fathered by John Brown? (Image by Getty Images)" /> Whispers of a love child have swirled since the 1860s, but historians have always been quick to dismiss such rumours. They claim that Victoria was unable to have more children after the birth of her last acknowledged daughter, Princess Beatrice, in 1857, as she suffered from a prolapsed uterus. However, this condition was only discovered after the queen’s death in 1901. None of Victoria’s doctors reported any evidence that she suffered it in the aftermath of Beatrice’s birth. As a prolapsed uterus is common – nearly half of women over 50 will experience some form of pelvic organ prolapse during their lifetime – I believe this ‘fact’ has become historical misinformation, used to discredit any chance of a child between Victoria and John. Moreover, as I discovered during my research, although Victoria was advised not to have more children after Beatrice, it had no connection to her physical health. After her repeated battles with severe post-partum depression, including hallucinations and possibly even psychosis, Victoria’s doctors were terrified that another pregnancy would send her mad. This was the reason why she was advised against having any further children. But there is even evidence to suggest that she was planning to have another baby before Prince Albert died in 1861. “Mama so longed for another child,” her eldest daughter, ‘Vicky’ (Victoria), wrote after Albert’s death. So it is perfectly possible that Victoria could have had a child with John in 1865, the year of Mary Ann’s birth. The queen was healthy, fertile and only 45. Many of John’s female relatives – indeed, Victorian women more generally – had children into their mid- to late forties. Journey of discovery It was not the end of the story, of course. But that discovery set me on a long journey to try to separate family memory from historical fact. My research took me from the glorious glens of the Scottish Highlands to the wildness of 1860s Otago in New Zealand’s South Island, and back again. The reality of Victoria’s secret was long buried by panicking politicians, government campaigns, cowardly courtiers and family rebellion. Without DNA evidence, we may never know the truth – but, every time I speak to Angela, I find myself surreptitiously looking for any resemblance to Victoria in her face. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/10508806webready-4fb264a-e1753974815126.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="A statue showing an man with white hair, dressed in a jacket and kilt" title="A statue of John Brown at Balmoral. “The revelation that the queen chose the son of a Scottish crofter as her second husband, and potentially had a child with him, would have rocked Victorian society like a nuclear explosion,” writes Fern Riddell (Image by Mary Evans)" /> The revelation that the queen chose the son of a Scottish crofter as her second husband, and potentially had a child with him, would have rocked Victorian society like a nuclear explosion. Her world did not believe that a common man could look at a king as an equal, let alone marry a queen. Yet, based on the evidence I’ve found, I believe that this is exactly what Victoria did. Far from remaining the grieving widow for the rest of her days, she spent her passionate mid-life privately joined to a man who saw her as “his only object in life”. Now it is time for John and his family to take their rightful place in history once again. Dr Fern Riddell’s new book, Victoria’s Secret (Ebury Press), is out now in hardback. The book has inspired a Channel 4 documentary, Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage, Secret Child?, which is available to stream now This article is in the September 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love
In 1579, the queen embarked on a romance with a French duke she affectionately dubbed her “frog”. The pair seemed destined for marriage. Yet, writes Elizabeth Tunstall, the people of England had other ideas…
On 17 August 1579, a ship sailed up the Thames and dropped anchor in Greenwich. Moments later a duke emerged, dressed in the finest clothes that money could buy, and conversing with his entourage in French. The prince’s nationality might have provoked the suspicion – if not the outright hostility – of many residents of Tudor London. Yet this Frenchman was about to be welcomed into the heart of Richmond Palace. There he would be entertained lavishly, wined and dined at parties and balls. And all with good reason. For this Frenchman was being lined up to marry Queen Elizabeth I. Over the centuries, Elizabeth’s romantic travails have become one of the great soap operas of English history. When Elizabeth ascended the English throne in 1558 as a 25-year-old, it was widely expected that she would find herself a husband and produce an heir to carry on the Tudor dynasty for another generation. However, while the queen had several suitors over the years, each proposed match hit the rocks before she could be tempted to offer her hand in marriage. From English earls to Scandinavian kings, none quite fitted the bill. And so, by the time the party of Frenchmen disembarked in Greenwich in the summer of 1579, Elizabeth was well on her way to securing her place in the history books as the ‘Virgin Queen’: the woman who would, so we’re told, sacrifice her heart for the good of the nation. Yet she wasn’t done with trying just yet. As her 46th birthday closed in, Elizabeth would embark on one final bid to find a husband. And this one would take her closer to marriage than perhaps any courtship yet. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/FFWM82-cmyk-WL-0294cdd.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A cow stands in the middle of the image, being ridden by a man in a dark cloak and hat. Behind the cow, a man wearing light pink holds its tail, while another man milks the cow. In front of the cow stands Elizabeth I, dressed in white and another man dressed all in black" title="his painting, dating to the 1580s, depicts the fraught diplomatic backdrop to Elizabeth I’s courtship with the Duke of Anjou. The queen feeds a cow (representing the Dutch Provinces), which defecates on the duke (left). Philip II of Spain attempts, in vain, to ride the cow away, while Dutch leader William of Orange holds the animal steady by its horns (Image by Alamy)" /> So who was the Frenchman who almost changed the course of English history? And why – as she entered the embrace of middle age – was the queen considering marrying him now? The suitor’s name was François de Valois, Duke of Anjou, fourth son of King Henri II of France and Catherine de’ Medici. Anjou had begun life as a royal also-ran, with little prospect of ascending the French throne. Yet, by the early 1570s, he found himself heir to his childless brother, Henri III. The duke was now odds-on to succeed his sibling as King of France. That made him a figure of immense importance. Read more | Elizabeth I's accession day celebrations Anjou was also eager to make his mark on Europe by campaigning against Spanish forces in the Netherlands. And it’s this last fact that brought him into Elizabeth’s orbit in the late 1570s. With England becoming increasingly isolated from Europe – and relations with Spain deteriorating fast – Elizabeth’s advisors were desperate to forge enduring ties with allies across the channel. What better way to achieve exactly that than by suggesting a match between Elizabeth and the French duke? The union had been proposed as early as 1572, but it wasn’t until 1579 that Elizabeth herself fully committed to the courtship. At the outset, the queen’s interest in Anjou was purely the product of political necessity, for a marriage alliance with France would help stave off the growing military threat presented by Spain. But, as the two got to know one another in August 1579, the relationship became personal, the first courtship to do so since the queen’s flirtation with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester two decades earlier. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/BAL106934cmyk-WL-17415c0.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A portrait of Elizabeth I in c1575–80. The middle-aged queen was 21 years older than her French suitor (Image by Bridgeman Images)" title="A portrait of Elizabeth I in c1575–80. The middle-aged queen was 21 years older than her French suitor (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> French connections While Anjou was not a physically impressive figure – possessing bandy legs and a scarred face from a bout of smallpox – Elizabeth undoubtedly grew fond of him, calling him her “frog” on account of his appearance and his gravelly voice. He was highly attentive, which she very much enjoyed. The two conversed in French, as it was the only language they shared. And, despite the fact that Anjou was 21 years younger than the queen, they found plenty to talk about. Also playing to the duke’s advantage was the fact that he had made the journey to England at all. Throughout her many courtships, Elizabeth had stuck to the firm position that she “would never marry with any person whom she should not first herself see”. Her demand to meet a potential husband before committing herself to marriage was viewed at the time with astonishment. Royal courtships were long-distance affairs in the 16th century – to such an extent that even the marriage itself could be carried out with ambassadors standing in as proxies for the bride. Through each courtship Elizabeth had held her ground, yet no suitor had chosen to make the journey to her court. All that changed with Anjou. Read more | Anne Boleyn's youth: how her years on the continent made her a match for Henry VIII Violent opposition The duke could not stay in England for long and, on 29 August, sailed back to France. His visit had, to all intents and purposes, been a diplomatic and personal success. Yet there was a catch. And it was a major one. This had been a trip that the English government had attempted to keep secret. Anjou had travelled to London under a pseudonym: Seigneur du Pont de Sé. However, it didn’t take long for the true identity of the queen’s guest to seep beyond the confines of the court – and, once it did, it triggered a firestorm of opposition. But why? In short, Elizabeth was a Protestant; Anjou was a Catholic. And in a Europe riven by the Reformation and religious war, marriage between two people of differing beliefs was, to most, simply unthinkable. Within one week of Anjou’s visit, England was awash with a public outcry against the match. London preachers decried the marriage from their pulpits. Popular ballads made their rounds. Anonymous verses and pamphlets lampooned the match. Threats to meet French attention with violence began to appear in public spaces. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/J2WF3A-WL-ce28264.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The English court laid on lavish dinners and balls at Richmond Palace (shown in an engraving) to impress the duke during his 1579 visit (Image by Alamy)" title="The English court laid on lavish dinners and balls at Richmond Palace (shown in an engraving) to impress the duke during his 1579 visit (Image by Alamy)" /> It was into this tumult that John Stubbs, a lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn, published a pamphlet with the catchy title ‘The discovery of a gaping gulf whereinto England is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banes, by letting her Majesty see the sin and punishment thereof’. Stubbs’ work argued that the clandestine nature of Anjou’s visit demonstrated a “very strange this unmanlike, unprincelike, secret, fearful, suspicious, disdainful, needy French kind of wooing in monsieur”. It wasn’t only the French duke who Stubbs pursued in his work. He also questioned why Elizabeth would consent to marry “an imp of the crown of France”. In his view, and many others, at Elizabeth’s age any pregnancy would likely result in her death. If a child was born it was feared that it would result in England becoming a vassal state to France rather than securing an independent future for the Protestant realm. Upon learning of Stubbs’ pamphlet, Elizabeth was furious. For her, the matter of her marriage was deeply personal and a matter of royal prerogative. And it didn’t escape her notice that Stubbs’ arguments mirrored those that had also been raised against the Anjou match within her Privy Council. Could her own councillors have leaked information to the wayward lawyer? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/HIP2806978WL-d5e2fa6.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A man with a ruff collar and wearing a black hat with a feathered embellishment on the left of it stands against a black background" title="A portrait of the future Duke of Anjou from 1572. The prospect of Elizabeth I marrying a Catholic Frenchman triggered a firestorm of hostility across England (Image by TopFoto)" /> It wasn’t long before the authorities attempted to suppress public opposition to the match. Stubbs was tried for seditious writing and taken to the public scaffold in the marketplace of Westminster on 3 November. There his right hand was removed with a cleaver before an unusually silent crowd. It was not only the wider public that challenged Elizabeth’s proposed marriage to Anjou. Sir Philip Sydney, the courtier and poet, wrote a letter to his queen that circulated in the court, and though he did not face the same punishment as Stubbs, he shared much of the same fears over the match. He argued that, should Elizabeth marry Anjou, her people’s “hearts will be galled, if not alienated, when they shall see you take to husband a Frenchman, a papist, in whom, howsoever fine wits may find further dangers or painted excuses, the very common people well know this: that he is the son of the Jezebel of our age”. To Sydney, Anjou represented the worst possible suitor, a Catholic Frenchman who would only lead Protestant England to ruin. A name but no power Despite the ferocity of these objections, the marriage negotiations continued. In late November, a delegation of Elizabeth’s Privy Council, led by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, worked with Anjou’s representative, Jean de Simier, to create a draft marriage contract. This document was based on the union of Elizabeth’s sister, Mary I, with Philip II of Spain, and would see Anjou granted the title of king but little real power in England. But it did have one new clause: it gave Elizabeth the right to withdraw within two months of signing the contract. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/RCXA6Xcmyk-WL-c6aab09.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A painting shows Elizabeth I being carried through the streets, surrounded by a large crowd of courtiers" title="Elizabeth I surrounded by her courtiers. The queen’s Privy Council ploughed on with marriage negotiations, even when it was clear that the public despised the idea (Image by Alamy)" /> And sign the contract is exactly what Elizabeth did. Now, with 1579 drawing to a close, the queen was further along the road to marriage than she would be at any point in her reign. Yet she wasn’t married yet. And such was the continuing strength of the hostility towards the match that within a few short weeks she felt she had no choice but to turn back. She wrote to Anjou that “I do not want this negotiation to trouble you thus any more”, but still hoped “that we may remain faithful friends and assured in all out actions”. Her contractual get-out clause was duly activated. Elizabeth’s change of heart would, you might think, signal the end of her courtship with Anjou. But it was revived on one more occasion. In April 1581 a French delegation arrived in England to discuss once more the prospects of a marriage alliance between the two kingdoms. Elizabeth herself had turned away from the courtship, but – with Spain still threatening English security – she allowed the negotiations to recommence. Those negotiations reached an impasse and would have faded away – but for the return of Anjou to England. Read more | “Elizabeth I was in charge of her fate. Perhaps that’s why Catherine de Medici despised her” On 31 October 1581, the duke arrived at Rye and then travelled onwards to Richmond Palace. In contrast with his first visit, he moved openly and spoke more of alliance than marriage. Both the duke and queen were fully preoccupied by the issues of their nations’ finances and conflict with Spain, but the question of marriage had not disappeared entirely. Three weeks after his arrival, as Elizabeth and Anjou walked along a gallery, they were approached by the French ambassador. The ambassador asked the queen what he could tell his king about the chances of her marrying. In response Elizabeth smiled and replied: “You may write this to the king: that the Duke of Anjou shall be my husband.” She then proceeded to give Anjou a ring from her finger, accompanied by a kiss. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/T1ME64cmyk-WL-72572d1.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A man and a woman sit opposite each other, both dresses in orange and black. They are on a black and orange checkered floor with an orange wall behind them" title="Like Philip II (shown with Mary I), Anjou would have been called ‘king’, but given little power in England (Image by Alamy)" /> Elizabeth’s response to the ambassador sent her court into uproar. That night her ladies expressed their shock. The next morning saw members of her council advising strongly against the match, as it would undermine her relationship with her people. With doubts playing on her mind in the cold light of day, Elizabeth performed yet another volte face, withdrawing her offer to Anjou and telling him that she would be a better friend than a wife. Anjou left London for the Netherlands on 1 February 1582. However, he did not travel the whole way alone. Elizabeth accompanied him as far as Canterbury where she said her farewell to her final suitor. As the duke sailed away from England, he took with him the queen’s last chance at marriage. Anjou’s departure also closed the door on the queen’s youth: at 48-years-old, the games of courtship were no longer hers, and her unmarried state would now define her reign. Today, more than 400 years after these events, it’s tempting to assume that Elizabeth was always destined to be the Virgin Queen – and it was a role in which she revelled. But in the first half of her reign, she engaged in numerous courtships and came close to marrying twice. These two men – the Earl of Leicester and Duke of Anjou – found a special place in the queen’s heart, even when it was unwise for her to allow them that space. On each occasion it was the resistance of her people that prevented her from taking that final step towards matrimony. Elizabeth understood that without the support of her subjects, she risked deposition and civil war. It was this cold, hard reality that prevented her from taking a husband. So maybe it’s time to look upon the Virgin Queen in a new light: as the creation of the people rather than the queen herself. The image of an untouchable woman who preserved the state through her own person was crafted, it seems, not by an individual but a nation. It was a role Elizabeth committed to as she bid Anjou farewell. And it was one that she would play until her final days. Romancing the throne Three other men who were in the frame to marry the Virgin Queen The dashing favourite When Elizabeth took the throne there was some support for the queen to marry an Englishman. But while most looked to the peers of the realm, it was Robert Dudley who had caught both her eye and her heart. Indeed, she once commented that “she thought she could find no person with better qualities”. Dudley was made Master of the Horse shortly after Elizabeth’s accession to the throne, a position that allowed him frequent access to his queen. After Dudley’s wife, Amy, died in September 1560 it appeared that Elizabeth might marry her dashing favourite. However, the suspicious circumstances of Amy’s death made the marriage impossible. While their chance was lost, the two would remain close friends until Leicester’s death in 1588. The controversial Catholic After closing the door on marriage with Leicester, Elizabeth consented to the opening of a courtship with Archduke Charles of Austria, the third surviving son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I. For the English, the archduke was seen as a means of easing the escalating tensions with Spain (based on his family ties with the king of Spain), while providing some safety from France. This idea of the match was first raised in 1559 but was only seriously explored from 1563. As with so many of Elizabeth’s foreign courtships, the question of religion proved unresolvable. The potential marriage of Elizabeth to a Catholic caused unrest, leading her to observe that “two persons of different faiths could not live peaceably in one house”, even if that house was England itself. At the end of 1567 she turned Charles down. The eager Swede Elizabeth was first approached by Swedish ambassadors about a courtship with Erik XIV of Sweden in 1558 while still a princess. Erik presented fewer difficulties than many of her other suitors, being a Protestant – and wealthy. This courtship was also elevated by its timing, as leading members of Elizabeth’s Privy Council sought to use his suit to counter that of Dudley. Erik was highly persistent and offered to travel to England to meet Elizabeth in person. Upon hearing of Erik’s intentions, Elizabeth wrote to him, asking “that you be pleased to set a limit to your love, that it advance not beyond the laws of friendship”. Elizabeth was thoroughly unconvinced by the arguments in favour of the match, and it all came to an end in 1562. Elizabeth Tunstall is a visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide This article was first published in the July 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Mary I: your guide to the life and rule of Henry VIII's daughter – plus a timeline and 7 little-known facts
Mary I, aka Mary Tudor or 'Bloody Mary', was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The first queen regnant of England, she succeeded the English throne following the death of her half-brother, Edward VI, in 1553. But how much do you know about her? From her phantom pregnancy to her military accomplishments, we bring you the facts about her reign
For centuries, Mary Tudor has been known as a Catholic tyrant who burned nearly 300 people during her short, five-year reign. However, in recent years, historians have attempted to re-evaluate Mary’s reputation, and have argued that Mary deserves more recognition for her work than previously thought. Here, we look back at the queen’s life… Mary I: A brief biography Born: 18 February 1516 at the Palace of Placentia, London Died: 17 November 1558 at St James's Palace, London Remembered for: Being the first queen regnant of England, and for burning nearly 300 Protestant men, women and children during her reign. Ruled: 1553–58 Family: Mary's father wasHenry VIII and her mother was Catherine of Aragon. After Henry’s divorce from Catherine in the 1530s, Henry married five more times. Mary had one half-sister, Elizabeth, and one half-brother, Edward. She also had an illegitimate half-brother called Henry Fitzroy, and it is possible that she had other illegitimate siblings that were not publically acknowledged by Henry VIII. Mary married Philip of Spain (later King Philip II of Spain) in July 1554. The couple had no children, so Mary was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth. Mary I's childhood Born in 1516, Mary received an impressive education from a young age. She was able to speak Spanish, French and Latin, and contemporaries commented that she was a remarkable dancer, and often showed off her talents to ambassadors when they visited Henry VIII at court. When Mary was nine years old, Henry VIII sent his daughter to Wales with her own personal court to act as a royal representative. With this newfound position, many believed that Mary would succeed her father, despite being a girl. However, by the end of the 1520s, Henry VIII had become frustrated with having no male heir to succeed him. The king hoped to get his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled in order for him to marry someone else and produce a male heir. During her parents’ divorce proceedings, Mary was forbidden from seeing her mother. By 1533, Henry successfully divorced Catherine, made himself the head of the Church of England and married the noblewoman Anne Boleyn. As a result, Mary lost her title as ‘princess’, and was given the lesser title of ‘the Lady Mary’. After Anne gave birth to a baby girl called Elizabeth in September 1533, Mary was declared as illegitimate by an Act of Parliament and was removed from the line of succession. Mary was then forced to join Princess Elizabeth’s household, but frequently stated that she was too ill to attend court in order to avoid the new queen. View Green Video on the source website What was Mary's place in the line of succession? After Anne Boleyn’s fall from power and execution in May 1536, Mary was invited back to court. However, Mary, who was a staunch Roman Catholic, refused to accept her father’s position as the head of the Church of England. Eventually, Thomas Cromwell – Henry VIII’s chief minister – persuaded Mary to submit to Henry’s will and she returned to court during the late 1530s. Mary was then returned to the line of succession in 1544, where the Act of Succession stated she would ascend the throne if her younger brother Edward, who was born in 1537, were to die without issue. Read more | What was Mary Tudor and Thomas Cromwell's relationship – did they plan to marry? After Henry VIII died in 1547, Edward ascended the throne at the age of nine. Mary and Edward had a tempestuous relationship as they differed greatly in their religious views – Edward was a Protestant, while Mary was a Roman Catholic. Shortly before his premature death in 1553, Edward VI removed both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession in favour of his cousin, the Protestant Lady Jane Grey. After Edward’s death in July 1553, Jane was proclaimed queen in London. Despite this, many did not recognise her as such, and saw Mary as the next legitimate heir. Receiving the news of her brother’s death, Mary fled to Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, where she gathered her supporters and members of the local gentry. Mary then assembled troops and prepared to fight for her crown. In what many historians recognise as the only successful coup d’état of the 16th century in England, Mary demonstrated that she held great popularity with the public and proved that she was the legitimate heir to the throne. On 19 July 1553, Mary overthrew Lady Jane Grey and was officially proclaimed queen. Contemporary accounts state that people celebrated in the streets and bells were rung across the country. When did Mary I become queen? Mary was 37 and unmarried when she ascended the throne in 1553. She knew that in order to prevent her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth from succeeding her, she needed to marry and produce an heir to secure a Catholic succession. As a result, Mary and her closest aides quickly negotiated a marriage to the Catholic Philip of Spain – the heir to the Spanish throne. Read more | When Mary met Philip: a Tudor queen in love However, members of Mary’s council and the public did not approve of this match. Prior to Mary and Philip’s marriage, in early 1554, a group of rebels assembled in London to demonstrate their retaliation to the marriage, led by prominent Protestant landowner Thomas Wyatt the Younger. Mary refused to hide away from this rebellion, and confronted the rebels by making an extraordinary speech at the Guildhall in London. Mary rallied the rebels to support her and asserted her authority as their anointed queen. As a result, the rebels dispersed, and Wyatt was later executed at Tower Hill. Despite these protestations, Mary married Philip of Spain on 25 July 1554 at Winchester Cathedral. By the end of 1554, Mary was convinced that she was pregnant and preparations were made in the birth chamber at Hampton Court. In April 1555, bells rang and bonfires were lit around England as news spread that the queen had given birth to an heir. However, Mary was not pregnant. Despite this, she continued to claim that she was pregnant, and stayed in confinement until August 1555. After her physicians convinced her that she was in fact not pregnant, Mary eventually returned to court. Read more | Mary I's 'phantom pregancy' Why is Mary I known as 'Bloody Mary'? During her reign, Mary revived the heresy laws, which stated that a person who did not follow the faith of the realm would be burned to death. During three years of Mary’s reign, nearly 300 men, women and children were burned at the stake across England for not converting to Catholicism, including Thomas Cranmer, who had been the Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry VIII and Edward VI’s reigns. However, Mary did make great advances during her reign. She restored the navy, renewed the coinage and increased crown revenue, and also established new hospitals, improved the education of the clergy and increased the authority of local government. Despite this, many of her achievements have been overlooked. In 1557, England was dragged into a war with Spain against France. This was a disastrous campaign for Mary’s troops and England officially lost possession of Calais in January 1558, which was its last stakehold in France. Read more about Mary's reappraised reputation | Mary Tudor: brutal but brilliant When did Mary I die? Mary’s health deteriorated soon after the Crown lost possession of Calais, and she died, possibly from cancer, on 17 November 1558, aged 42. She was succeeded by her half-sister, who ruled as Elizabeth I. Mary was then buried in Westminster Abbey, despite claiming she wanted to be buried next to her mother in Peterborough Cathedral. King James V and I arranged for Elizabeth I to be dug up from elsewhere in the abbey three years after her death and moved into Mary’s grave. Timeline: Mary Tudor’s turbulent life 18 February 1516 Mary is born in Greenwich. She is the only child of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon (pictured above), to survive infancy 23 May 1533 Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine is declared invalid five months after he marries a second wife, Anne Boleyn. Mary is deemed illegitimate and stripped of her succession rights 28 January 1547 Henry VIII dies and is succeeded by his son, as Edward VI. Mary repeatedly defies her fervently Protestant half-brother by refusing to renounce her Catholicism 6 July 1553 King Edward VI dies, aged 15. Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant relation of Mary’s, is proclaimed queen four days later 3 August 1553 Having gathered a military force in Suffolk and outmanoeuvred her rivals, Mary rides into London in triumph, accompanied by her half-sister Elizabeth. Lady Jane Grey is imprisoned in the Tower of London 1 October 1553 Mary is crowned queen by her lord chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, at Westminster Abbey 12 February 1554 Lady Jane Grey is executed on Mary’s orders. Her fate is sealed by the so-called Wyatt rebellion against Mary’s rule, in which her father is implicated 18 March 1554 Mary has her half-sister, Elizabeth, imprisoned in the Tower of London, after it’s alleged that she too supported the Wyatt rebellion. Yet lacking firm evidence of her sister’s guilt, Mary refrains from ordering Elizabeth’s execution 25 July 1554 Despite the reservations of some of the most powerful figures in the English court, Mary marries Philip of Spain at Winchester Cathedral April 1555 Thanksgiving services are held in London after erroneous rumours spread that Mary has given birth to a son. Mary, it seems, has experienced a false pregnancy 21 March 1556 Thomas Cranmer, former archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake. He is one of more than 280 ‘heretics’ executed during Mary's reign 17 November 1558 Mary dies, aged 42, during an influenza epidemic. The English crown passes to her half-sister, Elizabeth 7 facts about the life of Mary I 1. Mary I was declared illegitimate by her father, Henry VIII The only surviving child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Mary I was effectively bastardised when her father divorced her mother in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII claimed that the marriage had been incestuous and illegal, as Catherine had been married to his late brother, Arthur. Following the birth of Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth I), in September 1533, an Act of Parliament declared the 17-year-old Mary illegitimate and removed her from the succession to the throne (though she was reinstated by the 1543 Third Act of Succession and by Henry’s will). Mary was denied access to her mother, who had been sent by Henry to live away from court, and never saw her again. Henry VIII’s six wives: your guide to the Tudor king’s queen consorts 2. Mary I remained a devout Catholic Mary was later named heir to the throne after her younger half-brother Edward – but only after she had agreed to recognise their father as head of the church. Nevertheless, Mary remained a devout Catholic. She and her brother had a tempestuous relationship as they differed greatly in their religious views. When, aged nine, Edward VI inherited the throne in 1547 and confronted Mary’s Catholicism, she declared that she would rather lay her head on a block than forsake her faith. 3. Mary was the orchestrator of an extraordinary coup d’état The first queen to rule England in her own right (rather than a queen through marriage to a king), Mary acceded the throne following her brother’s death in July 1553 in what Anna Whitelock describes as “an extraordinary coup d’état”. Edward had written Mary out of the succession and instead named his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey as heir to the throne, but Mary enjoyed widespread popular support and days later, on 19 July, she was proclaimed queen. Writing for BBC History Magazine, Anna Whitelock argued: “The scale of [Mary’s] achievement is often overlooked. Mary had led the only successful revolt against central government in 16th-century England. She had eluded capture, mobilised a counter-coup and, in the moment of crisis, proved courageous, decisive and politically adept.” The Tudors: 51 moments that shaped the royal dynasty 4. Mary I is remembered as a bloody queen Mary I is remembered for attempting to reverse the Reformation and return England to Catholicism. As her reign progressed, Mary “grew more and more fervent in her desire”: she restored papal supremacy, abandoned the title of Supreme Head of the Church and reintroduced Roman Catholic bishops. Mary also famously revived old heresy laws to secure the religious conversion of the country – heresy being a treasonable offence. Over the next three-and-a-half years, hundreds of Protestants – most accounts say around 300 – were burned at the stake. 5. Mary I suffered a 'phantom pregnancy' Aged 37 and unmarried when she ascended the throne, Mary knew that in order to prevent her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth from succeeding her, she needed to marry and produce an heir. Mary’s decision in July 1554 to marry Philip of Spain, who in 1556 was to inherit that nation’s throne from his father, Charles V, was “politically expedient”, says Anna Whitelock. In an article for BBC History Magazine, Whitelock wrote: “The marriage treaty was as ‘favourable as possible for the interest and security and even the grandeur of England’, with Mary’s legal rights as queen preserved and Spanish influence kept to a minimum.” In January 1554 Mary faced – and later defeated – a Protestant rebellion led by landowner Thomas Wyatt that aimed to prevent the match with Philip. Wyatt was later executed at Tower Hill. Mary imprisoned her half-sister Elizabeth at the Tower of London in 1554, suspecting her of involvement in Wyatt’s plot against her. Elizabeth was later released into house arrest in the country. A peculiar episode in Mary’s reign was her phantom pregnancy of 1555. On 30 April “bells rang, bonfires were lit and there were celebrations in the street, following news that Mary I had given birth to a healthy son. But in reality there was no boy, and eventually all hope of a child died out.” The marriage was childless and Philip eventually deserted Mary, spending most of his time in Europe. 6. Mary I was a highly impressive queen Historians have long focused on the negative aspects of Mary’s five-year reign, branding her a religious bigot and a military failure, but in recent years Mary has been largely reappraised. Anna Whitelock says: “Mary’s accession had changed the rules of the game, and the nature of this new feminised politics was yet to be defined, yet in many respects Mary proved more than equal to the task. Decisions over the details of the practice and power of a queen regnant became precedents for the future. In April 1554 Mary’s parliament passed the Act for Regal Power, which enshrined in law that queens held power as ‘fully, wholly and absolutely’ as their male predecessors, thereby establishing the gender-free authority of the crown.” Mary also restructured the economy and reorganised the militia, rebuilt the navy and successfully managed her parliament. By securing the throne, Mary ensured that the crown continued along the legal line of Tudor succession. Read more | Mary Tudor and her five stepmothers: what was their relationship like? 7. Mary I was not such a military failure Mary is remembered for her unsuccessful war against France that led to the loss of Calais, England's last possession in France, in January 1558. But before the loss of Calais, Mary enjoyed military successes. For example, in August 1557 English and Spanish forces captured Saint-Quentin, an action in which some 3,000 French troops were killed and 7,000 captured, including their commander Anne de Montmorency, the constable of France.
From ‘Bad King John’ and the debauched Gaius Caligula to the “useless” Mary, Queen of Scots, historian Seán Lang rounds up nine of the worst kings and queens in history…
History has no shortage of disastrous kings, queens, and other rulers; such a list could easily have been filled with the worst Roman emperors alone. Some have been homicidal, like Nero or Genghis Khan; simply incompetent, like Edward II; completely untrustworthy, like Charles I; or amiable but inadequate, like Louis XVI of France or Tsar Nicholas II. But who are truly the worst of the worst, and why? From maniacal medieval monarchs to Habsburg horrors, Dr Seán Lang makes the case against the 9 worst king, queens, and various other leaders from across history... The worst monarchs from history Gaius Caligula Pope John XII King John King Richard II Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’ Mary, Queen of Scots Emperor Rudolf II Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar King Leopold II of Belgium Gaius Caligula (AD 12–41) There are plenty of other contenders for worst Roman Emperor – Nero and Commodus for example – but Caligula's mad reign sets a high standard. After a promising start to his reign he seems to have set out specifically to intimidate and humiliate the senate and high command of the army, and he gave grave offence, not least in Jerusalem, by declaring himself a god; even the Romans normally only recognised deification after death. Caligula instituted a reign of terror through arbitrary arrest for treason, much as his predecessor Tiberius had done; it was also widely rumoured that he was engaged in incest with his sisters and that he lived a life of sexual debauchery, and this may well be true. The story of his making his horse a consul, meanwhile, may have been exaggerated, but it was not out of character. Caligula’s unforgivable mistake was to jeopardise Rome's military reputation by declaring a sort of surreal war on the sea, ordering his soldiers to wade in and slash at the waves with their swords and collecting chests full of seashells as the spoils of his ‘victory’ over the water god Neptune, king of the sea and by his failed campaign against the Germans, for which he still awarded himself a triumph. He was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard in AD 41. Caligula’s successor, Claudius, was an improvement but, despite the favourable picture in Robert Graves's famous book I, Claudius, not by much. Pope John XII (954–964) Even by the lax standards of the medieval papacy, John XII stands out as a disaster of the highest order. He was elected pope at the ripe old age of 18 as part of a political deal with the Roman nobility, and he inherited a conflict for control of Italy between the papacy and the Italian king Berengarius. John had the support of the powerful German emperor Otto I, who swore to defend John's title, but John himself was too taken up with a life of drunken sex parties in the Lateran to care too much either way. He recovered from his hangover enough to accept Otto's oath of undying loyalty and then promptly linked up behind Otto's back with his enemy, Berengarius. Understandably annoyed, Otto had John overthrown and accused, among other things, of simony (clerical corruption), murder, perjury and incest, and he replaced him with a new pope, Leo VIII. However, John made a comeback and had Leo's supporters punished ruthlessly: one cardinal had his hand cut off and he had a bishop whipped. Full-scale war broke out between John and Otto, until John unexpectedly died – in bed with another man's wife, or so rumour had it. Read more | The murderous history of Bible translations King John (1199–1216) The reign of King John is a salutary reminder that murder and treachery may possibly be forgiven in a monarch, but not incompetence. John was the youngest and favourite son of Henry II, but he had not been entrusted with any lands and was mockingly nicknamed John Lackland. He tried unsuccessfully to seize power while his brother Richard I was away on crusade and was sent into exile upon Richard's return. On his accession John had his own nephew Arthur murdered, fearing Arthur might pursue his own, much better, claim to the throne, and he embarked on a disastrous war with King Philippe-Auguste of France in which he lost the whole of Normandy. This singular act of incompetence deprived the barons of an important part of their power base, and he alienated them further with arbitrary demands for money and even by forcing himself on their wives. Read more | Was King John murdered? In exasperation they forced him to accept Magna Carta; no sooner had he sealed it, however, than he then went back on his word and plunged the country into a maelstrom of war and French invasion. Some tyrants have been rehabilitated by history – but not John. King Richard II (1377–99) Unlike Richard III, Richard II has good reason to feel grateful towards Shakespeare, who portrayed this startlingly incompetent monarch as a tragic figure; a victim of circumstances and of others' machinations rather than the vain, self-regarding author of his own downfall he actually was. Learning nothing from the disastrous precedent of Edward II, Richard II alienated the nobility by gathering a bunch of cronies around him and then ended up in confrontation with parliament over his demands for money. His reign descended into a game of political manoeuvre between himself and his much more able and impressive uncle, John of Gaunt, before degenerating into a gory grudge match between Richard and the five Lords Appellant, whom he either had killed or forced into exile. Richard might have redeemed himself by prowess in war or administration, but he possessed neither. Henry Bolingbroke's coup of 1399, illegal though it no doubt was, brought to an end Richard's disastrous reign. Richard II has his defenders nowadays, who will doubtless take issue with his inclusion in this list, but there really is very little to say for him as a ruler. Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about the houses of Lancaster and York Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’ (1547–84) Prince Ivan Vassilyevitch grew up at the hazardous court of Moscow, his life often in danger from the rivalry of the boyars – nobles. It gave him a lifelong hatred of the nobility and a deep streak of ruthless cruelty – aged 13 he had one boyar eaten alive by dogs. Ivan was Prince of Muscovy from 1533, and in 1547 he was crowned Tsar (Emperor) of all Russia – the first ruler to hold the title. He crushed the boyars, stealing their lands to give to his own followers; he also condemned millions of Russians to a permanent state of serfdom. Ivan took a vast area of Russia as his personal domain patrolled by a mounted police force with carte blanche to arrest and execute as they liked. Distrusting the city of Novgorod he had it violently sacked and its inhabitants massacred, and he embarked on a disastrous and ultimately unsuccessful series of wars with Russia's neighbours. Ivan beat up his own pregnant daughter-in-law and killed his son in a fit of rage. Ivan was in many ways an able ruler, but his ruthlessness, paranoia and taste for blood earn him his place in this list. Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–67) We are so familiar with the drama and tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots' reign that it is easy to overlook the blindingly obvious point that she was absolutely useless as queen of Scotland. Admittedly, ruling 16th-century Scotland was no easy task, and it was made harder still for Mary by the stern Presbyterian leader, John Knox, and her violent, boorish husband, Lord Darnley. Nevertheless, Mary showed none of her cousin Elizabeth I's political skill in defusing religious or factional conflict, and she headed into pointless confrontation with Knox and the Presbyterians. At a time when female rule was generally regarded with suspicion in any case, she played up to the stereotype by appearing to live in a cosy world of favourites – including her unfortunate Italian guitar teacher, David Rizzio. Read more | How did Mary, Queen of Scots fall from grace? Mary’s suspected involvement in the spectacular murder of Darnley on 10 February 1567 was a political mistake of the first order; her marriage three months later to the main suspect, the Earl of Bothwell, was an act of breathtaking stupidity. It is hardly surprising that the Scots overthrew Mary and locked her up. Having escaped, she was mad to throw away her advantage by going to England, where she could only be regarded as a threat, instead of to France, where she would have been welcomed with open arms. Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612) Some historians are kinder to Rudolf than in the past, but by any standards he was a disastrous ruler. He was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1576, though he was prone to long bouts of deep depression and melancholia and he spent most of his time dabbling in alchemy and astrology. A staunch Catholic, Rudolf tore up the religious settlement that for the past 20 years had kept Germany's Catholics and Protestants from each others' throats, and embarked on a crusade to eradicate Protestantism from Germany's towns and villages. On the podcast | Everything you need to know about the Holy Roman Empire When the Protestants formed a self-defence league, the Hungarians rose in revolt and the Turks launched an offensive, Rudolf shut himself up in Prague Castle and refused to speak to anyone. Eventually the Habsburgs had to agree to replace Rudolf with his brother, Matthias, who restored the religious peace in Germany and signed treaties with the Turks and Hungarians, only for Rudolf to fly into a rage and start up the Turkish war again. Rudolf reluctantly signed the letter of majesty granting freedom of worship to Protestants in Bohemia but then embarked on a programme of persecution. The Bohemians appealed to Matthias for help, and in 1611 Rudolf was forced to hand power over to his brother. He died a year later, having laid the foundations for the disastrous Thirty Years’ War that would tear Europe apart within six years of his death. Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar (1828–61) At a time when the Europeans were spreading their colonial holdings around the world, Queen Ranavalona was able to keep Madagascar free of British and French control, but she did so by establishing a rule so ruthless that it has been estimated that the population of her kingdom was halved during her reign. Queen Ranavalona maintained her power by retaining the loyalty of the Malagasy army and imposing regular periods of forced labour on the rest of the population in lieu of taxation. On one notorious occasion she organised a buffalo hunt for herself, her nobles and their families and followers, and she insisted that an entire road be built in front of the party for them all to advance to the hunt in comfort: an estimated 10,000 people died carrying out this particular piece of folly. Queen Ranavalona faced several plots and at least one serious coup attempt; as she grew more paranoid she forced more people to undergo the notorious tangena test: eating three pieces of chicken skin before swallowing a poisonous nut that caused the victim to vomit (if it did not actually poison them, which it often did). If all three pieces were not found in the vomit, the victim was executed. Having encouraged Christianity at the start of her reign, Queen Ranavalona changed policy and instituted ruthless persecution of native Christians. She survived all plots against her and died in her bed. King Leopold II of Belgium (1865–1909) Leopold's place in this list results not from his rule in Belgium, but from the crimes committed in the enormous kingdom he carved out for himself in Congo. He obtained the territory by international agreement and named it the Congo Free State; it was not a Belgian colony, but the king's personal fiefdom. The CFS was presented to the world as a model of liberty and prosperity, devoted to the elimination of slavery. Only gradually did the world learn that it was in fact a slave state in which the Congolese were ruled by terror. As Leopold raked in the riches from Congo's enormous reserves of copper, ivory and rubber, the Congolese were forced to work by wholesale mutilation of their wives and children, usually by chopping off their hands or feet. Mutilation was also widely used as a punishment for workers who ran away or collected less than their quota. Read more | How to be a successful monarch An investigation by the British consular official Roger Casement revealed that the Belgian Force Publique regarded the Congolese as little more than animals to be killed for sport. The king fought a high-profile legal battle to prevent details of his regime in Congo from being made public, and it took an international campaign to force him to hand Congo over to the Belgian government. Leopold's name is forever associated with the Congolese reign of terror, and that alone justifies his inclusion in this list.
Why did Henry VIII send Anne Boleyn to the block?
Was she ensnared by a conspiracy, the victim of her own loose tongue, or simply guilty as charged? Suzannah Lipscomb tries to unearth the real reason why Henry VIII sent his second wife, Anne Boleyn, to the block
On the morning of 19 May 1536, Anne Boleyn climbed the scaffold erected on Tower Green, within the walls of the Tower of London. She gave a speech praising the goodness and mercy of the king, and asked those gathered to pray for her. Then she removed her fine, ermine-trimmed gown, and knelt down – and the expensive French executioner that Henry VIII had ordered swung his sword and “divided her neck at a blow”. Her death is so familiar to us that it is hard to imagine how shocking it would have been: the queen of England executed on charges of adultery, incest and conspiring the king’s death. And not just any queen: this was the woman for whom Henry VIII had abandoned his wife of nearly 24 years, waited seven long years to wed, and even revolutionised his country’s church. Yet just three years later her head was off – and the reason for her death remains one of the great mysteries of English history. To this day, historians cannot agree why she had to die. Had Henry and Anne’s relationship gone into terminal decline, prompting Henry to invent the charges against his wife? Was Thomas Cromwell responsible for Anne’s demise? Or was she indeed guilty of the charges laid against her? Evidence is limited – but there is enough to appear to support several very different conclusions. A timeline of the days before Anne Boleyn's execution There are a number of undisputed facts relating to Anne’s fall. On Sunday 30 April 1536 Mark Smeaton, a musician from the queen’s household, was arrested; he was then interrogated at Cromwell’s house in Stepney. On the same evening the king postponed a trip with Anne to Calais, planned for 2 May. Read more | He was the court musician who condemned Anne Boleyn: but was Mark Smeaton telling the truth? The next day, 1 May, Smeaton was moved to the Tower. Henry attended the May Day jousts at Greenwich but left abruptly on horseback with a small group of intimates. These included Sir Henry Norris, a personal body servant and one of his closest friends, whom he questioned throughout the journey. At dawn the next day Norris was taken to the Tower. Anne and her brother George, Lord Rochford, were also arrested. On 4 and 5 May, more courtiers from the king’s privy chamber – William Brereton, Richard Page, Francis Weston, Thomas Wyatt and Francis Bryan – were arrested. The latter was questioned and released, but the others were imprisoned in the Tower. On 10 May, a grand jury indicted all of the accused, apart from Page and Wyatt. On 12 May, Smeaton, Brereton, Weston and Norris were tried and found guilty of adultery with the queen, and of conspiring the king’s death. On 15 May, Anne and Rochford were tried within the Tower by a court of 26 peers presided over by their uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. Both were found guilty of high treason. On 17 May Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne null, and by 19 May, all six convicted had been executed. Later that day, Cranmer issued a dispensation allowing Henry and Jane Seymour to marry; they were betrothed on 20 May and married 10 days later. What could explain this rapid and surprising turn of events? Theory: Anne Boleyn was guilty of the charges against her The first theory, argued by Boleyn biographer and scholar GW Bernard, is simply that Anne was guilty of the charges against her. Yet even he is equivocal, suggesting the Scottish legal verdict of ‘not proven’ – he concludes that, though the evidence is insufficient to prove definitively that Anne and those accused with her were guilty, neither does it prove their innocence. Anne’s guilt was, naturally, the official line. Writing to the bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, Cromwell stated with certainty – before Anne’s trial – that “the queen’s incontinent living was so rank and common that the ladies of her privy chamber could not conceal it.” Six Wives: A HistoryExtra podcast series Member exclusive | In this six-part podcast series, we’ll be peeling back the layers of mythmaking to take another look at these fascinating women, who shaped the course of Henry’s reign – and the history of England. Listen to all episodes now The key piece of evidence was undoubtedly the confession by the first man accused, Smeaton, that he had had sexual intercourse with the queen three times. Though it was probably obtained under torture (the accounts vary), he never retracted his confession. Unlikely as it was to be true, it catapulted the investigation to a different, far more serious level. All subsequent evidence was tainted with a presumption of guilt. Henry VIII’s intimate questioning of Norris, and his promise of “pardon in case he would utter the truth”, must be understood in this light: whatever Norris said, or refused to say, it reinforced Henry’s conviction of his guilt. Read more | George and Anne Boleyn: their real relationship explored Other evidence for Anne’s guilt is unclear – the trial documents do not survive. Her indictment, however, states that Anne “did falsely and traitoroysly procure by base conversations and kisses, touchings, gifts and other infamous incitations, divers of the king’s daily and familiar servants to be her adulterers and concubines, so that several… yielded to her vile provocations”. She even, it charges, “procured and incited her own natural brother… to violate her, alluring him with her tongue in the said George’s mouth, and the said George’s tongue in hers”. Yet, as another Boleyn biographer Eric Ives noted, three-quarters of the specific accusations of adulterous liaisons made in the indictment can be discredited, even 500 years later. Certainly, Anne maintained her innocence. During her imprisonment Sir William Kingston, constable of the Tower, reported Anne’s remarks to Cromwell. His first letter details Anne’s ardent declaration of innocence: “I am as clear from the company of man, as for sin… as I am clear from you, and the king’s true wedded wife.” A few days later, Anne comforted herself that she would have justice: “She said if any man accuse me I can say but nay, and they can bring no witness.” Crucially, the night before her execution, she swore “on peril of her soul’s damnation”, before and after receiving the Eucharist, that she was innocent – a serious act in that religious age. Anne was not alone in professing her innocence. As Sir Edward Baynton put it: “No man will confess any thing against her, but only Mark of any actual thing.” And even Eustace Chapuys, ambassador for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Anne’s arch-enemy, would finally conclude that everyone besides Smeaton was “condemned upon presumption and certain indications, without valid proof or confession”. Theory: Anne Boleyn was the victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by Thomas Cromwell Another set of historians have favoured the explanation that Anne was the victim of a conspiracy by Thomas Cromwell and a court faction involving the Seymours. This rests upon a view of Henry as a pliable king whose courtiers could “bounce” him into action and tip him “by a crisis” into rejecting Anne. But why should Anne and Cromwell, erstwhile allies of a reformist bent, fall out? Differences of opinion are thought to have arisen over the use of funds from the dissolution of the monasteries, as well as matters of foreign policy – seemingly slender motives for destroying a queen. It has been suggested that Cromwell’s court faction intended to replace Anne with Jane Seymour. Chapuys mentioned Jane in a letter of 10 February 1536, reporting that Henry had sent her a gift of a purse full of sovereigns, accompanied by a letter. She did not open the letter, which – Ives speculated – contained a summons to the royal bed. Instead, she kissed it and returned it, asking the messenger to tell the king that “there was no treasure in this world that she valued as much as her honour,” and that if the king wanted to give her a present, she begged it might be at “such a time as God would be pleased to send her some advantageous marriage”. Such a calculated reply is reminiscent of Anne during the days of her courtship with Henry. In response to Jane’s coyness, Henry’s love for her was said to have “marvellously increased”. Yet she was described as a lady whom the king “serves” – a telling word implying that he sought her as his ‘courtly love’ mistress. There is little evidence that, before Anne was accused of adultery, Henry had planned to make Jane his wife. Marriage to Jane was, surely, a symptom and a product of Anne’s downfall, not a cause. The pivotal piece of evidence for a conspiracy is a remark made by Cromwell to Chapuys after Anne’s death. In a letter to Charles V, Chapuys wrote that Cromwell had told him “il se mist a fantasier et conspirer le dict affaire,” which has been translated as “he set himself to devise and conspire the said affair,” suggesting that Cromwell plotted against Anne. Crucially, however, this phrase is often used out of context. The previous sentence states that “he himself [Cromwell] had been authorised and commissioned by the king to prosecute and bring to an end the mistress’s trial, to do which he had taken considerable trouble.” If we accept this account, it is impossible to dismiss Henry VIII from the picture – Cromwell claimed not to be acting alone. It has been proposed, therefore, that Henry asked Cromwell to get rid of Anne. David Starkey suggested that “Anne’s proud and abrasive character soon became intolerable to her husband”. JJ Scarisbrick, author of the authoritative volume Henry VIII, agreed: “What had once been devastating infatuation turned into bloodthirsty loathing, for reasons we will never completely know.” Evidence for this view is taken from the writings of the ever-hopeful Chapuys. As a Catholic and a supporter of Catherine of Aragon, he referred to Anne as “the concubine” or “the she-devil”, and had made bitter assertions about the doomed state of Henry and Anne’s relationship even at the height of their happiness in late summer 1533. But Chapuys himself recognised that Henry and Anne had always been prone to “lovers’ quarrels”, and that the king’s character was very “changeable”. True, Henry and Anne were direct with each other: they got angry, shouted and became jealous. But they were also frequently described as being “merry” together; it was an epithet still being applied to them during the autumn of 1535 – and one that was appended to their marriage more often than to any of Henry’s other unions. Bernard has described theirs as a “tumultuous relationship of sunshine and storms”. Read more | The downfall of Thomas Cromwell Theory: The belief that Anne Boleyn could never provide a suitable heir Some have proposed that the miscarriage of a male foetus suffered by Anne in January 1536 led inexorably to her downfall. Did it cause Henry to believe that Anne would never be able to bear him an heir, and thus to consider the marriage doomed? Certainly, the king was reported to have shown “great disappointment and sorrow”. Chapuys wrote that Henry, during his visit to Anne’s chamber after the tragedy, said very little except: “I see that God will not give me male children.” Henry then left Anne at Greenwich to convalesce while he went to Whitehall to mark the feast day of St Matthew. Chapuys, rather maliciously, interpreted this as showing that Henry had abandoned Anne, “whereas in former times he could hardly be one hour without her”. Clearly, the miscarriage was a great blow to both Henry and Anne – yet another four months were to pass before Anne’s death, so demonstrating a direct link between the events would be problematic. Another story, reported third-hand by Chapuys, quotes Henry as telling an unidentified courtier that he had married Anne “seduced and constrained by sortilèges”. That last word translates as ‘sorcery, spells, charms’, and has given rise to the suggestion that Anne Boleyn dabbled in witchcraft. Though this is regularly cited as one of the charges of which she was found guilty, it is not mentioned in the indictment. Ives, though, pointed out that the primary English meaning of sortilèges at this time was ‘divination’, a translation that changes the meaning of Henry’s comment. It could imply that he was induced to marry Anne by premarital prophecies that she would bear sons, or could refer simply to Henry’s earlier infatuation or ‘bewitchment’ by Anne. The idea that Henry had been “seduced by witchcraft” has become attached to another theory, which holds that the real reason for Anne’s ruin was that the foetus miscarried in January 1536 was deformed. According to Tudor specialist Retha Warnicke, the delivery of a “shapeless mass of flesh” proved in Henry’s mind that Anne was both a witch and adulterously promiscuous. But this description comes from a Catholic propagandist, Nicholas Sander, writing 50 years later; there is no contemporary evidence to sustain this salacious theory. Theory: A combination of gossip and indescretions An event in April 1536 suggests that, just weeks before Anne was executed, Henry was still committed to his marriage. In the early months of 1536, Henry was increasing the pressure on Charles V to recognise Anne as his wife. On 18 April he invited Chapuys to the court. Events that day were very deliberately staged: the ambassador attended mass and, as Henry and Anne descended from the royal pew to the chapel, she stopped and bowed to Chapuys. Etiquette dictated that he return the gesture – a significant diplomatic coup, because it implied recognition by the ambassador and, by extension, his emperor. It would, as Bernard has argued, have been extraordinarily capricious of Henry to seek to have Anne recognised as his wife if he already harboured intentions of ridding himself of her soon after. So was it not guilt, nor a court coup, nor Henry’s hatred of Anne that led to her downfall but, rather, a terrible combination of malicious gossip and her own indiscretions? A poetic account written in June 1536 by Lancelot de Carles, secretary to the French ambassador, relates that one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth Browne, was accused of loose living. She made light of her own guilt by stating that “it was little in her case in comparison with that of the queen”. These words reached Cromwell who, according to de Carles, reported them to Henry; the king blanched and, very reluctantly, ordered him to investigate. This certainly aligns with Cromwell’s own retelling of the events. De Carles adds a crucial, though unsubstantiated, clause, Henry telling Cromwell that “if it turns out that your report, which I do not wish to believe, is untrue, you will receive pain of death in place of [the accused]”. So Cromwell may have had reason to find evidence of Anne’s guilt. Given that Anne was accused of conspiring the king’s death (the only charge that actually constituted treason – consensual adultery was not covered by the treason law of 1352), it seems likely that the evidence used to demonstrate her guilt was a conversation she recalled – and William Kingston reported – with Norris. Anne had asked Norris why he did not go through with his marriage. He had replied that “he wold tary a time,” leading her to taunt him with the fateful words “you loke for ded men’s showys; for yf owth cam to the King but good, you would loke to have me.” Norris’s flustered response – that “yf he should have any such thought, he wold hys hed war of” – provoked her to retort that “she could undo him if she would,” and “ther with thay felle yowt” (“there with they fell out”.) It might seem that this overstepped the normal boundaries of ‘courtly love’ talk only a little. But the Treasons Act of 1534 held that even imagining the death of the king was treasonous, so Anne’s conversation with Norris was charged, reckless and, arguably, fatal – useful ammunition if Cromwell were looking for dirt. Was it, as Greg Walker (author of Writing Under Tyranny) has suggested, not what Anne did but what she said that made her appear guilty? When it comes to Anne Boleyn’s fall, historians give their ‘best guess’ answers on the basis of the available evidence – which is too sparse to be conclusive. For my part, it is the final ‘cock-up theory’ that convinces me. I believe that Anne was innocent, but caught out by her careless words. Henry was convinced by the charges against her; it was a devastating blow from which he never recovered. For Anne, of course, the consequences were far more terrible. This article was first published in the April 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine
All you need to know about Katherine Parr – the truth about the wife who 'survived'
The sixth and last wife of Henry VIII, Katherine Parr (1512–48) has gone down in history as the wife who 'survived'. But despite the common misconception that she was a middle-aged, pious 'frump', Katherine Parr was in fact the cleverest and most passionate of Henry VIII's six wives, says Derek Wilson
Of all the wives of Henry VIII, the one most often misunderstood, if not largely ignored, is Katherine Parr. Her story, as usually told – when told at all – lacks the romance of 'sex-bombs' Anne Boleyn or Catherine Howard; the heroic fortitude of Catherine of Aragon; the political intrigue surrounding the lives of Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. Wife number six is famous for 'surviving'. She was the twice-widowed, matronly bluestocking who patiently, submissively (and boringly?) tended the sick, aged, irascible king through the painful last years of his life and then disappeared from the 'front page' of history. The truth, however, is much more complicated. For my money Katherine was the cleverest, most devout and – yes – passionate of Henry VIII's bedfellows. Who was Katherine Parr? In 1543 when Henry proposed, Katherine was no middle-aged frump. She was probably 30 years of age, had been born into a courtier family and held a place in Tudor high society. She loved fine clothes, jewels and intelligent company. She was in many ways an excellent choice to be England's 'first lady' – or so the king thought, and he was, by now well experienced in such matters. Katherine also had about her the radiance of a woman in love – more of that anon. For the moment let us try to gain a clear impression of the woman who was coming to terms with a royal offer of marriage. Why was Katherine Parr chosen by Henry VIII? The first point to note is that Katherine Parr, aka Lady Latimer, was Henry's choice. Former spouses had been urged upon the king by politicians, diplomats and ambitious aristocratic clans: the Howards, the Boleyns, the Seymours and Thomas Cromwell had dangled their candidates before Henry and each had their own agendas. But there is no evidence of any faction pushing the recently widowed Katherine into the king's presence. Indeed, the common view in elite circles seems to have been that Henry would not risk a sixth disappointment. Then there is the issue of sex. Everyone knew that marriage number four had been a fiasco because Anne of Cleves failed to please the king in bed. It's not difficult to imagine the sniggering tales that would have been going around the royal court about the so-called ‘Flanders mare’ who was supposedly ugly and looked like a horse. By contrast, marriage number five suggested a different kind of challenge. Henry had felt rejuvenated by nights spent with the teenage Catherine Howard (whom he married in July 1540). Therefore, to accept the royal proposal Katherine Parr would have to match up to the sexual fantasies of an overweight invalid whose nights were often plagued by anguished insomnia. In this regard Katherine had been well prepared by her two previous marriages, both of which had been with men who enjoyed good health. Documentary evidence is scanty, but what there is suggests a woman who used clothes, milk baths, perfumes, chamber furnishings, food, drink and conversation to provide the right ambience when her husband came to her chamber. Katherine made a success of her marriage to Henry because she brought to it a combination of intelligence and passion – she spared no effort to make her marriage work. We might well argue that she had no real option: to turn Henry down could have had dire consequences for herself and her family. To say 'yes' would mean carefully avoiding all the pitfalls that had been the undoing of her predecessors. Her narrow career path lay before her and all she could do was walk it with cautious steps. But Parr was no mere pragmatist – she enjoyed all the obvious perks of her exalted position and was careful not to jeopardise that position by putting a foot wrong. We can make this bold assertion because, unique among Henry's wives, Katherine left a volume of letters and extremely personal writings that reveal, in detail, what she thought and believed. The passions of Katherine Parr These writings reveal, first of all, that Katherine embarked on her marriage to Henry at great emotional cost: she was in love with someone else. Thomas Seymour, the king's brother-in-law and uncle to Prince Edward, the heir to the throne, was in his mid-30s and one of the most dashing bucks of the Tudor court. Katherine later wrote to Seymour to tell him that as soon as her husband Lord Latimer had died in February 1543: “As truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent… to marry you before any man I knew. Howbeit, God withstood my will therein most vehemently for a time and, through his grace and goodness, made that possible which seemeth to me most unpossible… to renounce utterly mine own will and to follow His will most willingly.” Katherine asked Henry for time to consider his proposal and gave herself to earnest prayer. The modern historian runs into difficulties when explaining 16th-century attitudes to 21st-century readers. A secular age may find it difficult to understand Katherine’s zeal for her faith. In the spiritual autobiography Queen Katherine published for all the world to read, she declared: “Neither life, honour, riches, neither whatsoever I possess here… be it never so dearly beloved of me, but most willingly and gladly I would leave it, to win any man to Christ, of what degree or sort soever he were.” Did this last clause suggest that she hoped to win over the king to her way of thinking? We cannot wholly avoid speculation when we relate Katherine’s conscience-searching in the summer of 1543, but the country’s extremely tense religious situation must surely have played a part in her thinking. On 12 July 1543, Katherine Parr and Henry VIII were married quietly at Hampton Court. And Thomas Seymour? He was appointed to a succession of diplomatic and military positions that kept him out of the country for most of the rest of Henry’s reign. View Green Video on the source website What were Katherine Parr's religious beliefs? With the execution of Thomas Cromwell in July 1540 the Reformation had stalled. The reactionaries had regained the initiative and a major part of their campaign was the removal from office of those they considered to be tainted with heresy. At the very time that Katherine was weighing her options, a witch hunt begun in Windsor had brought to the stake members of the royal household. More importantly, a widespread plot was underway aimed at destroying the leading reformer, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. The intriguers had to tread carefully because the king was always wary of the purge getting too close to the court and his own personal attendants. Katherine, whose own sympathies lay firmly with the reformers, was well aware that, as queen, she would be entering dangerous territory. Several religious radicals looked to Katherine for patronage and were delighted to learn that she was about to become Henry's consort. One of them, Francis Goldsmith, compared her to Esther, the Old Testament Jewish heroine who became queen to the Persian King Ahasuerus and used her position to alleviate the sufferings of her people. It is not all that far-fetched to think of Katherine pondering the question put to Esther, “who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther, 4, 14). The new queen certainly turned out to be a veritable Esther. As David Starkey has pointed out, “Henry's sixth marriage marks a watershed in religious policy” because Katherine was “a woman with a mission”. During the crucial three-and-a-half years the pair were married the balance swung in favour of the reformers. This was not entirely due to Katherine – for example, the plot against Cranmer collapsed largely because the plotters (led by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester) overplayed their hand. However, without the day-to-day influence of the queen it would have been difficult (perhaps impossible) for the evangelicals of court and council led by Thomas Seymour's brother – Edward, Earl of Hertford – to have gained the controlling influence which proved decisive when Henry died in 1547. Broadly speaking, Katherine's contribution rested on two pillars: she proved herself to be an exemplary consort, and she used every means at her disposal to spread that brand of Christianity that, within a few years, would come to be called 'Protestant'. Katherine Parr as a stepmother In her relations with the king Katherine was young enough to interest him sexually and mature enough to perceive and cater to his other needs. Dressing his suppurating sores can't have been pleasant and diverting his attention from his pain with stimulating conversation must have been mentally taxing. But the queen went further – notably in reconnecting Henry with his children, whom he rarely saw. The future Mary I (who was 28 in 1544), Elizabeth I (11) and Edward VI (7) lived in various royal manors in the home counties. The girls had both been bastardised and were excluded from the court, while Edward, as the sole heir, was kept far away from the plague-ridden capital. Katherine set out to be a means of drawing the royal family together – within a few months she arranged for Henry's children to pay visits to their father and thus provide him with some semblance of the home life he had never had. Extant letters, written between 1544 and 1547, bear witness to a very warm relationship between the royal children and their stepmother. Whether sending a court musician to perform for Mary or correcting the Latin exercises of Edward and Elizabeth, Katherine took a keen interest in their wellbeing. The queen also played a prominent role in state affairs. When Henry was absent on campaign in France between mid-July and late September 1544 he left Katherine to oversee a regency council headed by Cranmer (who was now fully restored to favour). She attended assiduously to her duties, meeting daily with her advisers. And her loyal support for the military adventure was not confined to administrative activities in camera. A remarkable, recently-discovered religious anthem by the leading composer Thomas Tallis was written for a service at St Paul's aimed at uniting the nation behind the invasion. The words were written by Queen Katherine. None of Henry's wives played a more prominent and constructive role in the affairs of court and kingdom than wife number six. Katherine Parr, the author of The Lamentation of a Sinner Katherine's contributions to the spread of her faith was well in excess of that of her predecessors. Not only did she study the Bible and listen to favoured preachers with her ladies in the seclusion of her own chambers; and advance the careers of favoured clergy – all that was common enough. Katherine did something quite novel, something that women at the time simply did not do: she ventured into print. Her first forays, published in 1544 and 1545, were devotional books – prayers and reflections on the Psalms. Then, in 1546, she began an intensely personal testimony, The Lamentation of a Sinner, in which she chronicled her journey from the traditional Catholicism of the pope, the “persecuter of all true Christians”, to the justification by the only faith of which Luther spoke. The Lamentation of a Sinner was not published until after Henry's death in January 1547 and until then Katherine had to be very circumspect about her theology. Why did Henry VIII almost execute Katherine Parr? There was a time in the summer of 1546 when Katherine came within a whisper of being executed for her faith. Bishop Gardiner and his associates were growing increasingly anxious as the end of Henry’s reign drew nigh. Henry was a semi-invalid in constant pain from the festering sores on his legs, and was only able to move with the aid of servants. Everyone knew what no one dared say – that the king's days were numbered. Leading councillors and courtiers were discreetly making plans for the accession of a minor. If the prince's uncle, Edward Seymour, grabbed the reins of power, England would be carried farther along the road of religious reform. Gardiner and his conservative associates needed to prevent that at all costs. Thus a campaign was launched against the queen using a formula that had been well tried in the past. They brought to trial a notoriously outspoken heretic with court connections by the name of Anne Askew, subjected her to fierce and unprecedented torture and promised that her sufferings would end if she would but name members of the royal court (including the queen) who shared her heretical beliefs. Had they succeeded, Henry would probably have sanctioned a thorough search of Katherine's quarters, which might have revealed copies of William Tyndale's English New Testament and other banned books. But Anne did not break under pressure. Katherine was warned of the plot by her physician, Robert Huick, who 'found' a paper revealing the Catholic scheme. Or, perhaps, the discovery was engineered by Henry himself, who never lost his sense of theatre. Either way, the queen hastened to Henry's chamber and threw herself on his mercy, thus enabling him to make a great show of support and affection. For the traditionalists this was the last throw of the dice. Their failure left the advocates of reform in power when the Tudor tyrant eventually breathed his last. Katherine Parr, therefore, holds an important place in the history of the English Reformation. Katherine Parr's life after Henry VIII We may hope that Katherine was aware of this fact and took satisfaction from it, particularly because the brief remainder of her life was decidedly tragic. She was, at last, able to marry her true love, Thomas Seymour, but it did not bring her happiness. The wedding was a clandestine ceremony and one that provoked scandal: the Seymour clan tore itself apart in rivalries and competing ambitions. Thomas, having been granted no place on the regency council, tried to ingratiate himself with the young king and to undermine the influence of his brother, Edward, now Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset. The duke's wife bitterly resented Katherine's presence in the family, seeing it as a challenge to her own pre-eminence. The family feud escalated rapidly. In one letter to her husband Katherine confided about a meeting with her brother-in-law, Protector Somerset: “It was fortunate we were so much distant, for I suppose else I should have bitten him”. But the dowager queen's anger was soon turned against Thomas himself. She had brought the 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth to live with her but Thomas soon began indulging in intimate horseplay with the teenager and the behaviour became more outrageous after Katherine became pregnant at the end of 1547. He would visit Elizabeth, clad only in his nightshirt, and tumble with her on her bed. For a while Katherine was tolerant, even at times joining in the horseplay, but when on one occasion she came upon her husband and her royal ward embracing, she sent Elizabeth away. The death of Katherine Parr On 30 August 1548 Katherine gave birth to a daughter, Mary, but immediately succumbed to puerperal fever. Eight days later Katherine died. In her last moments of consciousness, she accused Thomas of poisoning her. It may well have been the delirium speaking, but Seymour was outrageously ambitious and it is quite possible that he entertained hopes of picking up his relationship with the princess where it had left off. This article was first published by HistoryExtra in September 2018
Anne Boleyn: your guide to the life and death of Henry VIII's second queen – plus 11 little-known facts
Anne Boleyn is the most famous of Henry VIII's six wives, queen of England from 1533 to 1536. Did you know that she nearly died of the sweating sickness, and was the second cousin of Jane Seymour, who became the king's third wife after Anne Boleyn's execution? Dr Elizabeth Norton brings you a guide to life of the Tudor consort, plus 11 facts surprising…
Anne Boleyn was born around 1501, in Norfolk, to Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. She was the second of three surviving children. Boleyn is known to history as the second wife and queen of King Henry VIII, who broke from Rome and created the Church of England in order to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry Boleyn. They went on to marry in secret on 25 January 1533. Boleyn was the mother of Elizabeth I, the second daughter of the Tudor king. She reigned between 1533-36, before being arrested for adultery and incest, taken to the Tower of London and later executed on 19 May 1536 at Tower Green. She was succeeded by Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife. Read more | Who were Henry VIII’s six wives? Your guide to the Tudor king's queen consorts Timeline: The rise and fall of Anne Boleyn Written by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb 1501 (or possibly 1507): Anne Boleyn's birth Anne is born at Blickling, Norfolk, to Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Elizabeth (daughter of Thomas Howard, later second Duke of Norfolk). Historians debate whether Anne was born in 1501 or 1507; the former is more plausible 1513: The first post Anne is appointed a maid-of-honour at the court of Margaret, archduchess of Austria; she later leaves to serve Mary, queen of France, wife of Louis XII (and Henry VIII’s sister). After Louis’ death, Anne remains at the court of the new French queen, Claude, for seven years 1521: The repatriation Anne is recalled to England by her father 1 March 1522: The court appearance Anne makes her first recorded appearance at Henry VIII’s court, playing the part of Perseverance in a Shrove Tuesday pageant. At that time, Henry was having an affair with Anne’s sister, Mary c1526: The object of love Henry VIII falls in love with Anne. A letter from him, dated to 1527, states that for more than one year Henry had been “struck by the dart of love” and asks Anne to “give herself body and heart to him” 1532/33: The royal wedding Anne marries Henry. The official wedding is held in January 1533, but they are probably married secretly at Dover in October 1532. Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon is not annulled until May 1533 7 September 1533: The birth Anne gives birth to a daughter, Elizabeth 29 January 1536: The miscarriage Anne miscarries a male foetus 2 May 1536: The accusations Anne is arrested and taken to the Tower, along with her brother George Boleyn, Lord Rochford 19 May 1536: The execution Anne is beheaded on Tower Green within the Tower of London How did Anne Boleyn meet Henry VIII? Anne Boleyn was educated in Brussels and Paris, before returning to England in 1522 to serve Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon. She caused a stir at court, captivating both the heir to the earldom of Northumberland and the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, who called her ‘Fair Brunet’. By 1526 the king was also interested in the dark-haired young woman. Anne had no intention of becoming the king’s mistress. Undeterred, Henry VIII bombarded her with letters, professing himself “stricken with the dart of love”. In May 1527 he began his long attempt to secure a papal annulment of his marriage to Catherine. Read more | How Anne Boleyn's years on the continent made her a match for Henry VIII Anne was soon queen in all but name. She was now a political figure, instrumental in the fall of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529. On 1 September 1532 she was created Lady Marquis of Pembroke, giving her sufficient status to accompany Henry on a visit to France the following month. She fell pregnant shortly afterwards, with the couple marrying in secret on 25 January 1533. But although finally married, Henry still needed to disentangle himself from Catherine of Aragon. Anne, understandably, was anti-papal. She brought Simon Fish’s anti-clerical The Supplication of Beggars to Henry’s attention. He put increasing pressure on the clergy, forcing them to accept him as ‘Supreme Head of the Church of England’ in 1531. In early 1533 Thomas Cranmer, a Boleyn family chaplain and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, repudiated his allegiance to the pope, before annulling Henry’s first marriage and crowning Anne. Read more | Want to live like a Tudor? Historian Ruth Goodman did, and here are five crucial lessons she learned How many children did Anne Boleyn have? On 7 September 1533 Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Within months of their wedding Henry was unfaithful, informing Anne that “she must shut her eyes, and endure as well as more worthy persons, and that she ought to know that it was in his power to humble her again in a moment more than he had exalted her”. When Anne miscarried a son shortly after Catherine of Aragon’s death in January 1536, he declared ominously that “he would have no more boys by her”. He had already fallen in love with Jane Seymour, and was soon looking to end his marriage. What did Elizabeth I think of her mother, Anne Boleyn? Tracy Borman explains View Green Video on the source website Why was Anne Boleyn arrested? On 30 April 1536, under torture, a musician named Mark Smeaton confessed to a sexual relationship with Anne. Two days later the queen was arrested for adultery and incest, and taken to the Tower of London. Anne, her brother, Smeaton and three other men were convicted on trumped-up charges, with the men executed on 17 May. That same day, the royal marriage was annulled. On 19 May 1536, Anne Boleyn walked to a scaffold on Tower Green. After making a short speech, she knelt as a French swordsman – sent for as a small act of mercy by the king – stepped up behind her and severed her head with one blow. Read more about the final days and death of Anne Boleyn The death of Anne Boleyn shocked her contemporaries. As well as her involvement in religious reform, her greatest legacy is her daughter, Elizabeth I, who became one of England’s greatest monarchs. 11 little-known facts about Anne Boleyn Her great-grandfather Geoffrey Boleyn was a hatter The Boleyn family had humble origins in the Norfolk village of Salle. Early ancestors were relatively prosperous peasants, with Anne’s great-great-grandfather, Geoffrey Boleyn, several times finding himself hauled before the manorial court for trespassing on his lord’s land, ploughing through field boundaries and taking water from the manor without payment. He was affluent enough to set up his younger son, another Geoffrey Boleyn, as a hatter in London in the 1430s. This second Geoffrey made a success of his career, joining the prestigious Mercer’s Company in 1435 and growing wealthy. In 1457 he served as Lord Mayor of London while his second wife, Anne Hoo, was the daughter of a baron. He also purchased the manor of Blickling in Norfolk, becoming a solid member of the gentry by the time of his death. Anne nearly married her Irish cousin, James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond Anne originally returned from France early in 1522 to marry her cousin, James Butler. Both her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, and James’s father, Piers, claimed the Earldom of Ormond, which had belonged to her great-grandfather. Anne’s uncle, the Earl of Surrey, suggested to the king that the dispute be settled by a marriage between Anne and James. The Boleyns were unenthusiastic, however, and the proposal was eventually dropped. Thanks to Anne’s relationship with the king, an agreement was finally reached in 1528 with Thomas Boleyn becoming Earl of Ormond and Piers Butler Earl of Ossory. Anne’s mother, Elizabeth Howard, was rumoured to have been Henry VIII’s mistress While it is well known that Anne’s sister, Mary Boleyn, was the king’s mistress, there were also contemporary rumours that their mother, Elizabeth Howard, had shared the king’s bed. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/10/MX1AK9-d74bad5.jpg" width="619" height="413" alt="The real Mary Boleyn remains an elusive Tudor personality, flitting in and out of the sources, says historian Lauren Mackay. (Image by Alamy)" title="The real Mary Boleyn remains an elusive Tudor personality, flitting in and out of the sources, says historian Lauren Mackay. (Image by Alamy)" /> In 1533 Elizabeth Amadas, who was the wife of a London goldsmith, declared publicly that Thomas Boleyn “was bawd both to his wife and his two daughters”, while Sir George Throckmorton told Henry to his face that “it is thought you have meddled both with the mother and sister”. Read more | Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with? Later in the 16th century it was claimed by the Jesuit Nicholas Sander that Anne was Henry VIII’s own daughter. Elizabeth was some years older than Henry, and it is improbable that she actually was his mistress, particularly since he denied it to Throckmorton, declaring “never with the mother” when challenged. Anne Boleyn nearly died of the sweating sickness The sweating sickness, which may have been a type of influenza, plagued Tudor England, and was notable for the speed in which it could kill an otherwise young and healthy victim. As Cardinal du Bellay, the French ambassador, put it, “it is the easiest in the world to die of”. Henry VIII was terrified of the disease and when, in June 1528, one of Anne’s ladies succumbed to the sweat, he fled 12 miles away, before ordering Anne home to Kent. Henry’s precautions, although unchivalrous, were sensible, since Anne did indeed prove to have been infected. Both she and her father became ill at Hever, with Henry sending his second-best doctor (since his first was unavailable) to treat her. Given the dangerous nature of the disease, Anne and her father were both lucky to survive – her brother-in-law, William Carey, died in the outbreak, as did many other members of the court. Read more | Did Anne Boleyn have six fingers on one hand? She was not the only Anne Boleyn at court Anne was a popular name in the Boleyn family, with her great-grandmother, Anne Hoo, being one of the first Anne Boleyns. Queen Anne Boleyn also had an aunt called Anne Boleyn, who married Sir John Shelton. She was close to her niece and with her sister Alice Boleyn, Lady Clere, was appointed to the household of Princess Elizabeth. As part of her role, Lady Shelton was also placed in charge of her niece’s stepdaughter, Princess Mary, who refused to recognise the royal marriage. In February 1534 Anne wrote to Lady Shelton to ensure that Mary no longer used her title of princess, telling her to “slap her face as the cursed bastard that she was” if she persisted. Lady Shelton lived in terror that people would think she had poisoned the elder princess if she fell ill, and she gradually began to befriend her charge. She and Anne had become estranged by the time of the queen’s arrest in May 1536. Six Wives: A HistoryExtra podcast series Member exclusive | In this six-part podcast series, we’ll be peeling back the layers of mythmaking to take another look at these fascinating women, who shaped the course of Henry’s reign – and the history of England. Listen to all episodes now Jane Seymour was Anne’s second cousin Surprisingly, Anne’s mother, Elizabeth Howard, was the first cousin of Jane Seymour’s mother, Margery Wentworth. The cousins were raised together at Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire, under the governance of Elizabeth Howard’s mother, Elizabeth Tylney, Countess of Surrey, who was the half-sister of Margery’s mother. While there, both Elizabeth Howard and Margery Wentworth attracted the attention of the poet John Skelton. He called Elizabeth “lusty to look on, pleasant, demure and sage”, while Margery was “benign, courteous, and meek”. There is little evidence for a relationship between Anne and Jane, although both were close to their mutual cousin, Sir Francis Bryan, who was responsible for first securing a court post for Jane. She came to blows with Jane Seymour early in 1536 Anne Boleyn was uncomfortably aware of the growing relationship between Henry and her maid, Jane Seymour, in the early months of 1536. As he had done early in his relationship with Anne, Henry gave Jane his picture, which she wore around her neck. When the queen saw this, she snatched it from her rival so violently that she hurt her hand. Jane Dormer, who later served Princess Mary, also claimed that there was often scratching and blows between Anne and Jane. Anne unwittingly caused the arrest of Sir Francis Weston Mark Smeaton, a musician in Anne’s household, was arrested on 30 April 1536 and interrogated. A series of arrests followed, with Anne taken to the Tower on 2 May, accused of adultery and incest. While there, she spoke unguardedly, mentioning conversations that she had had with Mark Smeaton and another of the accused men, Henry Norris – all of which was noted down and reported to Henry by the lieutenant of the Tower. Anne unwittingly also brought Sir Francis Weston into the investigation, when she claimed that he had once professed his love for her. Weston, who was a popular young man at court, had not previously been included in the investigation, but this was enough to ensure that he, and four other men, were executed on 17 May 1536. Anne was beheaded two days later. Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary, may have given birth to a daughter of Henry VIII Relatively little is known about Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary, though she was at the heart of the Tudor court. But we do know, explains Tudor historian Suzannah Lipscomb, that while married to William Carey Mary conducted a discreet affair with Henry VIII, and that years later, when her sister, Anne, was queen, she married a lowly man 12 years her junior for love, writing about him, rather pointedly, “I had rather beg my bread with him than be the greatest queen christened”. Reviewing Alison Weir’s 2011 book Mary Boleyn: 'The Great and Infamous Whore’, Lipscomb told HistoryExtra: “Arguably the greatest question about Mary is whether she bore Henry VIII’s children. Weir argues decisively that Henry Carey was not Henry VIII’s son, pointing out that this is based on just one fragment of malicious gossip from John Hale, vicar of Isleworth. Weir provocatively, though, asserts the ‘strong possibility’ that Katherine Carey was Henry’s daughter, although the evidence she provides confirms that it is quite simply that – a possibility.” More from us HistoryExtra members can explore this topic further with exclusive content from our archives “Margaret Beaufort wielded enormous power. She was a queen in all but name”: Nicola Tallis on the mother of the Tudors Alternate history: what if Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s first son had lived? Elizabeth Norton is the author of The Anne Boleyn Papers and Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession, both published by Amberley. You can visit Elizabeth’s website or follow her on X @ENortonHistory
The Elizabethan court, with Professor Tracy Borman
HistoryExtra Academy Elizabethans course
In the first lecture of the HistoryExtra Academy Elizabethans course, author, historian and broadcaster Tracy Borman takes us on a whistle-stop tour of Elizabeth I's court – from the glitz and glamour of her royal residences, to the courtiers desperate to impress the Virgin Queen
View Green Video on the source website Discover more content from week one of the HistoryExtra Academy Elizabethans course 7 things you (probably) didn't know about Tudor fashion – reading time 5 mins Where history happened: Tudor courtiers with Suzannah Lipscomb – reading time 13 mins Elizabeth I's personality: the unfathomable queen – reading time 9 mins In conversation: Tracy Borman on Queen Elizabeth I – watching time 16 mins Princely pleasures at Kenilworth: Robert Dudley's three-week marriage proposal to Elizabeth I – reading time 6 mins Elizabeth I's Accession Day Celebrations – reading time 7 mins Robert Dudley: Queen Elizabeth I's great love – reading time 12 mins