Henry VIII (1491-1547) and Wives

[Vasillisos Markos]

I've been reading about the dissolution of monasteries under Henry, and pondering whether he actually intended the desecration of tombs...

My dear PrincessKaimi,

I really must check my biographies on Henry VIII but I think the suppression of the monasteries took place in stages. Once Parliament passed the act which made Henry Supreme Head of the Church in England, he seized the monasteries, sold off possessions and transferred property to others. Then, I believe Thomas Cromwell railed against certain religious practices, such as venerating the shrines of saints, and the people often looted the graves and reliquaries in search of precious jewels and other artifacts. Of course, my account may be greatly simplified. I imagine there was some planned destruction as well as pillaging.

 

[Al_bina]

Henry VIII had a secret daughter who should have taken the throne before Elizabeth I, historian claims | Mail Online

 

[Vita]

You beat me to it. Read about it in The Daily Mail. That is pretty cool.

 

[Grandduchess24]

But Elizabeth I was born of Anne while Henry crowned her Queen and was not born a bastard while this daughter by Bessie was but his mistress and so she is a bastard child but could a bastard child inherit the throne? No ?

 

[NGalitzine]

I think even Henry VIII believe legitimate birth was required to succeed to the throne. He had other illegitimate children after all, including sons, but failed to place any of them in the line of succession.

 

[Baroness of Books]

This is interesting but not surprising that Henry VIII had another illegitimate child, but was certainly in no position to inherit the throne. Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, couldn't inherit the throne as well, being the illegitimate son of Henry VIII. Henry truly wanted this son to succeed him, but he couldn't because of his illegitimate status. The difference is that Elizabeth I was named in the line of succession.

 

[HM Queen Catherine]

What Henry VIII truly wanted was a legitimate son to inherit the Crown of England. But by 1536, he was 45 years old and had been on the throne for 27 years. At that age, he probably expected that he wouldn't father a legitimate prince.. so he began taking steps to legitimize the Duke of Richmond.

The Second Succession Act, which could have allowed Henry Fitzroy to become king, was in the process of being passed when Fitzroy himself died without issue in 1536. The Third Succession Act of 1543 finally returned both Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, even though both of them were legally illegitimate.

Either the Daily Mail or this historian, Ms. Norton, has something terribly wrong anyway.

Elizabeth Tailboys may have been the King's daughter, and indeed there seems to be circumstantial evidence that she was.. but..

• she had no chance of gaining the crown
• and she had no surviving children

We know she had no heirs because after the death of her brothers, she became the suo jure 3rd Baroness Tailboys and the de jure Baroness of Kyme in 1539. Legally, she was the daughter of Gilbert Tailboys and inherited his titles.

Elizabeth was twice married - first to Thomas Wymbish of Nocton and secondly to Ambrose Dudley, Lord Lisle (later Earl of Warwick). Upon her death however, circa 1560, the barony Tailboys became extinct, while the claim of the barony of Kyme passed to her uncle, William Tailboys.

Nevertheless, I do find it an interesting discovery that Henry VIII didn't necessarily discard his mistresses once they became pregnant - as many seem to believe - and finding his paternity of Elizabeth Tailboys may just further the interests of those that claim Henry VIII fathered Henry Carey, 1st Lord Hunsdon.

 

[HM Queen Catherine]

Henry's wives who were his subjects were in danger of being killed by him; but the foreign wives, Anne of Cleves and Katharine of Aragon, would be harder if not nearly impossible to kill. The reason Anne was treated so much better than Katharine was because she did not fight the king when he wanted to divorce her unlike Katharine who made his life miserable. Because Katharine didn't comply Henry made her suffer, because Anne did comply he rewarded her greatly.

There is a vast difference between Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves, but as the wife and consort of the king, they were still his subjects and he did have absolute power over them as well as the rest of his wives.

Henry was never above using false claims and accusations to get what he wanted, especially when it came to his personal life and the desperate desire for a son to follow him on the throne.

While I do agree that he would never have Catherine killed as he did Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, that was more to do with the fact that not only was she born a princess into the greatest European royal family of her time.. she was also the aunt of the Emperor.. so her political value was of greater importance than that of any of the others.

Catherine's challenge to the divorce was certainly justified. She had been Henry's wife and queen for 20 years, and she was a beloved consort of the English people. She was raised to be a queen and handled her role with dignity and piety, and without the consummation of her marriage to Arthur, by the laws of the Catholic Church, Catherine was his true wife. She felt she had every right to fight for her honor and position and that of her daughter - and because despite everything she did love Henry.

Her only failure was producing a living son. Had she delivered the coveted heir, the rest of Henry's wives would have never followed her in the first place. Henry's marital position was certainly unstable enough after the divorce to prevent him from taking action against Anne Boleyn until after Catherine's death, when he certainly became a widower in the eyes of the Church. If Catherine of Aragon had lived a few more years, then I'm sure so would have Anne Boleyn.. and she could have been the mother of a healthy son.

Anne of Cleves, on the other hand, was raised in a very narrow religious environment and a far different culture than the princess of Aragon. German women were not educated nearly as well as their Spanish - or even English and French counterparts. Basically, Anne was ignorant because of her upbringing and barely even spoke English when she married Henry. Her choice was simple - accept Henry's offer of an annulment along with wealth and freedom in England, or be divorced and go back to her strict German brother to be married off to someone else.

I'd say she showed quite a bit of common sense by taking Henry up on his offer, as any level-headed woman would with a man who had already divorced one wife and executed another.

 

[XeniaCasaraghi]

Well after yet another rehash of history we already know...in relation to Elizabeth the term bastard is funny. Is being conceived out of wedlock make you a bastard, or do you have to be born out of wedlock? And if Katharine of Aragon was still alive, were her parents really married?! I don't know who I feel more sorry for, Elizabeth and the constant question mark over her head or Mary who was prevented from marrying because no one knew if she was going to be a bastard or Princess from one day to the next.

 

[Lenora]

A group of English noblemen threatened the Roman Catholic Church when they wrote to the Pope urging him to annul Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife so the king could marry Anne Boleyn, a letter on display in the Vatican has revealed.

Read more: Vatican exhibition: The threatening letter sent to a Pope 'asking' him to annul Henry VIII's first marriage | Mail Online

 

[Iluvbertie]

Well after yet another rehash of history we already know...in relation to Elizabeth the term bastard is funny. Is being conceived out of wedlock make you a bastard, or do you have to be born out of wedlock? And if Katharine of Aragon was still alive, were her parents really married?! I don't know who I feel more sorry for, Elizabeth and the constant question mark over her head or Mary who was prevented from marrying because no one knew if she was going to be a bastard or Princess from one day to the next.

A child has always been legitimate if born in wedlock - even if the parents marry literally minutes before the birth the child is legitimate. It is the state of the marriage at the time of birth not the time of conception that determines legitimacy.

To Roman Catholics the fact that Katherine of Aragon was still alive meant that Elizabeth was definitely a bastard as they still regarded Henry as being married to Katherine. There is also the question of the timing of Henry and Anne's marriage in relation to his divorce from Katherine with questions about whether or not they were fully divorced before Anne and Henry married.

Roman Catholics had no problem with Edward as by the time his parents married Katherine was dead and so his legitimacy was never questioned.

 

[Ruhije]

Anne of Cleves.

I am very interested in Anne of Cleves, and have done years of research and kept up interest in to her life and portraits particularly, and related research in her sisters - Amelia and Sybilla of Cleves.
I would love to hear from others who may be interested or have done their own research into her and related interests.
Thank you!

 

[Artemisia]

Queen Katherine Parr's love letters on show to public

Two books written by Queen Katherine Parr, King Henry VIII's last wife, have gone on public display at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. She outlived the King and went on to marry Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley. She moved to live at the castle in 1548. Katherine was the first English queen to have material published under her own name.

 

[Dman]

Video:
The making of Henry VIII's Crown - YouTube

 

[Mariel]

I read somewhere a study saying that Henry VIII had a metabolic defect which controlled which of his children survived, that is, if he married a woman who did not have that defect, the child survived, but if both he and the woman had it, the child died. I cannot even remember the name of the illness. I would guess that is possible that Henry VIII had the Tudor Porphyria gene which afflicted Mary Queen of Scotts and James I/VI. The ulcer on his leg could have been a Porphyria sore, since the royals seem to have the types of Porphyria which produce skin problems, and the Hannover relatives who died of supposedly the family disease often were taken very ill or died when exposed to summer sun (I read this in an article by Hunter and MacAlpine which Kataryn posted on another thread, very interesting). 50% of children inherit porphyria if one parent has, 75% on average if both parents have it.
But there are other possible causes of children's deaths among these wives of Henry VIII, particularly the unsanitary way in which mothers and newborns were handled.

Catherine of Aragon came from an inbred family which eventually became defunct because of really serious inbreeding. It is surprising that this was not observed to be true in those days, or did they just think that having royal blood was even more important than health?
James I/VI's Porphyria came from the Stuart family as well as the Tudors, from what I can make out. The Tudors may have picked it up from Katherine of Valois. Speculation, I know.
I have a Book of Common Prayer from 19th century England which forbids marriages within the "4th degree." By the 19th century they started to face this problem, but royals and nobles still violated the Church's rules and married their close cousins.

 

[Lady Deborah]

I have read that Catherine of Aragon was something if a religious zealot and fasted a lot. This MAY have led to or influenced the several miscarriages she suffered. Also, it is possible that Henry's 'swimmers' were either sluggish or not too plentiful. Although he sired henry fitzeoy on Lady blount and a child on mary boleyn-both sons- as he aged and grew fat(ter) any issues with non motile sperm or low sperm count would
Have grown worse. Add to this the now commonly known 'low t' or declining testisterone as he aged and it isnt surprising he didnt have many
Living children

 

[AnnEliza]

I always thought it likely Henry VIII had diabetes which is associated with obesity, and can cause impotence. Plus unhealing sores such as the one he suffered from on his leg in his later years.

 

[Lady Deborah]

I always thought it likely Henry VIII had diabetes which is associated with obesity, and can cause impotence. Plus unhealing sores such as the one he suffered from on his leg in his later years.

Yes that is quite possible as well!

 

[XeniaCasaraghi]

Do you think it would have been easier to get a divorce from Katharine of Aragon if he has just cited the need for a male heir? It was difficult to prove and insulting to Katharine to question if she had been a virgin when she married him. Also Katharine refused to state she had been living with a man who wasn't her husband and their child was illegitimate. Instead Henry might have just asked for a divorce based on needing a son and not trying to say he wasnever married to wife #1.

 

[Artemisia]

Under normal circumstances, it would have been difficult but not impossible for Henry to gain divorce because of a lack of son. Even though female Monarchs were technically allowed on the Throne of England, that had never happened before and the Pope would have been understanding to his plea (as previous Popes had been in similar circumstances). However, henry's timing was really bad.

Until Henry severed ties with Rome, the only person who could grand him a divorce was the Pope. The Pope at the time Henry started seriously thinking of and then actively pushing for a divorce was Clement VII. He was something of a puppet in the hands of Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles V was the son of Joanna la Loca - Catherine of Aragon's sister. The Emperor made it crystal clear he would not be "happy" if the legitimacy of his aunt's marriage was in any way question, and the fact is Clement was much more afraid of Charles than Henry. The latter was not, despite his own belief to the contrary, among the most powerful European Monarchs and he didn't stand even close to the mighty Holy Roman Emperor. Incidentally, the famous Sack of Rome took place just a year before Henry VIII asked for divorce - a really bad timing indeed.

So the fact is, whatever reasons and arguments Henry used, whatever he claimed or wanted, the Pope wouldn't grant him a divorce from Catherine. Not until her family remained the most powerful one in Europe, and that they did for many decades to come.

 

[XeniaCasaraghi]

Of course the Emperor wouldn't want the marriage to be declared non-existent; like with Catherine they wouldn't want it proclaimed she had never been his wife. But is it certain that Charles would have had the same problem if the marriage had been declared valid, Catherine not a whore and Mary legitimate but the marriage ending in a divorce. Perhaps Charles might have still been upset but is it possible he would not have been so vehemently against it.

 

[Artemisia]

That's the problem though: Charles V was vehemently against the dissolution of the marriage in any form, be it annulment (which doesn't not necessarily mean Mary would be declared a bastard; they had been precedents when the Pope declared children from a marriage legitimate even after he annulled it), or divorce.

The Emperor considered a possible divorce a grave insult against his family - the most powerful one in Europe of the time. And for it to come from a "mere" Tudor? A dynasty that had a grand total of two Monarchs? Unthinkable. Charles V made his wishes perfectly clear to the Pope, and the latter was just two afraid of him to disobey.

 

[Pranter]

And the reason the pope was his 'puppet' and 'afraid' was that he was being held a virtual prisoner at the time by Charles.




LaRae

 

[XeniaCasaraghi]

If Katharine refused to let Henry go so he could have a son do you think that perhaps makes her selfish. Lets just 86 the whole Leviticus thing; if Henry went to Katharine and told her he needed a male heir to succeed him and she said no would that make her less sympathetic? There is no Anne Boleyn instead Henry plans to marry a French princess instead.
Of course today we know about Elizabeth and Victoria and Catherine the Great, but in Henry's time the last time the English throne was left to a women it led to a long war. So his need for a son in real.

 

[Ish]

If Katharine refused to let Henry go so he could have a son do you think that perhaps makes her selfish. Lets just 86 the whole Leviticus thing; if Henry went to Katharine and told her he needed a male heir to succeed him and she said no would that make her less sympathetic? There is no Anne Boleyn instead Henry plans to marry a French princess instead.
Of course today we know about Elizabeth and Victoria and Catherine the Great, but in Henry's time the last time the English throne was left to a women it led to a long war. So his need for a son in real.

The last time an English throne had been left in a woman's hand was 368 years before Henry was born.

Henry's need for a son wasn't necessarily as pressing as he made it - it was born in part out of his own desire to see his family name continued (which is a legitimate cause, especially given as his family fought hard for it's position). Even if we allowed for the idea that women couldn't inherit, the War of the Roses showed us that it was acceptable for men to inherit through female lines when necessary. Around the time of Henry's divorce he had a nephew through his elder sister's line - James V of Scotland. Henry also had an illegitimate son (who didn't die until after Anne) who could have been set up as the heir under the precedence of William I.

 

[Kataryn]

Probably emperor Charles preferred a future queen of England with close family bonds to him to an English heir not related to him. Another reason he opposed a divorce and remarriage of Henry.

 

[Alison H]

The Tudors had a lot of bad luck with sons! I understand Henry not wanting to leave the throne to his nephew James of Scotland because of the bad feeling between England and Scotland at the time, but his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy died fairly young, and although he was married he had no children, and his sister Mary's son (Lady Jane Grey's uncle), who would have been a better bet as he was legitimate and not linked to any foreign power, also died young. His niece Frances Grey née Brandon had no surviving sons either, and when his sister Margaret remarried she had a daughter, Margaret, by her second marriage but no sons. The really daft thing is that by the time Henry married Anne, Mary was 16 - the same age Catherine was when she married Arthur. If Henry had found her a husband, he could have had a legitimate grandson the same age as Elizabeth. OK, Mary wasn't able to have children when she married Philip, but maybe if she hadn't had such a difficult life her health would've been better, and she'd have had more chance of having children at 16 than in her late 30s anyway. But Henry decided she was illegitimate, and threw away his chance of having a grandson as heir.

 

[Kataryn]

The Tudors had a lot of bad luck with sons! I understand Henry not wanting to leave the throne to his nephew James of Scotland because of the bad feeling between England and Scotland at the time, but his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy died fairly young, and although he was married he had no children, and his sister Mary's son (Lady Jane Grey's uncle), who would have been a better bet as he was legitimate and not linked to any foreign power, also died young. His niece Frances Grey née Brandon had no surviving sons either, and when his sister Margaret remarried she had a daughter, Margaret, by her second marriage but no sons. The really daft thing is that by the time Henry married Anne, Mary was 16 - the same age Catherine was when she married Arthur. If Henry had found her a husband, he could have had a legitimate grandson the same age as Elizabeth. OK, Mary wasn't able to have children when she married Philip, but maybe if she hadn't had such a difficult life her health would've been better, and she'd have had more chance of having children at 16 than in her late 30s anyway. But Henry decided she was illegitimate, and threw away his chance of having a grandson as heir.

Probably Henry didn't want her to marry abroad and didn't want to "raise" a rival in his son-in-law.

 

[Ish]

Henry actually entered into various talks about marrying Mary off, he just never followed through with the contracts. His focus seems to have been more on ensuring the birth of his son instead of a son through his daughter's line. He succeeded in marrying his illegitimate son off (who likely would have inherited had he survived), but not his daughter.

I think part of the reasoning behind Mary's lack of a marriage is more that Henry's alliances (and friends) were constantly changing. So he would make a contract with the King of France only to have that alliance end, so he would make a contract with Spain.

 

[Pranter]

Yes.... as I recall Mary was betrothed to the Dauphin of France for some time until Franco-Anglo relations cooled.


LaRae