"Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived."
This is a little rhyme that English children have learned for hundreds of years to commemorate the fates of the six wives of Henry VIII. He was the second monarch in the great Tudor dynasty, of which much can be said. But the word "boring" will seldom, if ever, enter the conversation, especially where the mistresses of the castle are concerned.
Henry married for the first time in 1509 at the age of 17. His bride was the six years older Catherine of Aragon, a beautiful, fair-haired Spanish princess, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the widow of the prince's older brother, Arthur. The union sealed an alliance between their two countries, but the teenage husband did not love the confused bride. Even so, for 24 years, she was a popular consort, renowned for her beauty and her lack of grandiosity. She also bore a daughter, Mary, but produced no male heir.
Then the young--and fertile--Anne Boleyn entered the picture, which did not bode well for her queen. This young woman (her age is uncertain) was intelligent, charismatic, and the sister of the king's mistress. She was a shining star at court, and it was inevitable that she too should attract his attention. But Henry was Catholic, and divorce was verboten. In addition, he had received a papal dispensation to marry Catherine. Things were getting complicated.
And the English world turned upside down. Anne introduced her lover to revolutionary thinkers, like Martin Luther. And when the Pope refused several requests to terminate his marriage. Henry eventually broke with the papal realm completely, creating himself head of the newly-minted Church of England. As such, he granted his own annulment. None of this went smoothly, for obvious reasons. It was a religious rebellion, and much political wrangling was involved. But in the end, Catherine was declared "our beloved sister," as per her marriage to Arthur, and she and Mary were shipped off to a convent in the countryside. A very pregnant Anne was declared wife and queen in June of 1533.
Despite her fertility, the young woman also failed to provide a male heir, and she most definitely lacked both serenity and submissiveness. While the first-born child would become the great Queen Elizabeth, Henry could not foresee this. He loved the mother well, but not long. After false pregnancies, miscarriages, and stillbirths, he lost interest, and his roving eye fell upon another.
In early 1536, the king declared that his queen was not only a witch--she was guilty of incest. True, she had a small growth, which was the beginning of a sixth finger, on one hand, and her clothes were cut to fit accordingly (thus Queen Anne sleeves). There were also rumors of a third nipple, and these things could be used against her in any accusations of black magic. But her relationship with her brother, George, could be viewed as no closer than that of any other siblings. In March the pair were arrested and convicted of incest and treason against their ruler. The following May, Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Having seen numerous executions become absolute butchery, she asked for a French swordsman, knelt upright as he instructed, and was murdered with a single blow.
Ten days later, the incredibly impatient Henry married a lady in waiting, Jane Seymour, who produced the longed for son the very next year (this would be Edward VI). But the difficult birth ended the shy and meek woman's life. With three wives dead, the monarch mourned only the bride who had given him a son, brief though their union had been.
In his search for a mother to rear the boy, Henry next chose Anne of Cleves, a small Protestant region considered important if there were war with Catholic Spain. Holbein had presented a portrait of the young woman, which depicted her as pleasing enough, and she and the ruler of England were married. But Henry felt no physical attraction. Calling the girl "The Flanders Mare," he soon filed for an annulment. She smartly testified that the marriage had not been consummated, as though it would have mattered, and the union was dissolved. Another "King's Sister" was given a grand estate as a parting gift. Thank you for playing.
Within weeks, hungry Henry was united in wedlock once again. That same year of 1540, he married a courtier and Boleyn cousin, Catherine Howard--his "rose without thorn." Here, he believed, he had found the perfect wife, intelligent but pure and submissive. But the rose dished it out better than her husband. The palace was filled with her lovers, former and current, including her secretary, whom she had originally planned to marry. And the brazen woman made little attempt to hide the affairs. She could have been no more than 22 upon her execution just two years after becoming the queen. Such was a dangerous occupation indeed, especially for a very prickly pear.
Now in his fifties, but already old, sickly, tired, and a bit chastened, Henry VIII married the widow Catherine Parr in 1543. She was much younger, but possessed of great intelligence and charm. Her maturity also made her quite capable of having a civil argument with anyone in court, including her willful husband. She was very liberal, but unlike Anne Boleyn, she did not change the political or religious views he espoused. The king had originally spotted her working in the manor of daughter Mary Tudor. Unbeknownst to him, she had already fallen in love with Thomas Seymour, uncle to the little prince, and it is likely that their relationship continued throughout the royal marriage.
But our Catherine was, this time, a survivor. Henry VIII died in January of 1547. He was 55 and a half years old, grossly overweight, extremely self-indulgent, possessed of a cruel streak, exceedingly childish, and rumored to be syphilitic. His sixth queen had reunited him with his daughters, and, while Edward VI assumed the throne first, all three of the Tudor children would reign successively.
So Parr escaped the marriage with her life, and Seymour became her fourth husband. This, however, was a misstep. She became pregnant for the first and only time in her 35 years, gave birth to a daughter, Mary, in August, 1548, and died a few days later of puerperal fever. Her widower had become involved in court intrigue, and most likely an affair with the young Princess Elizabeth, The result of all this was his execution the following year. Their little daughter soon disappeared from public records.
The moral of the story seems to be that if you survive the Tudor roundabout, get off and leave the fairgrounds. Had Catherine Parr retired to country life as a young widow, she might have lived a long and happy life. But the Tudor luck, or lack thereof, was contagious. Even in death, her body was disturbed several times before the early 19th Century, when she was interred in a final resting place.
Did she really survive? One might say yes, they all did, for they live in rhyme, legend, myth, and history. Then again, life as a mate of Henry Tudor was nothing less than a game of roulette.
VK
Brava Vista!! Loved reading this one!!! Keep 'em coming!
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