The Tudor Weddings

[marmi]

I was just wondering what people know about the tudor weddings. I'm thinking specifically those of Henry VIII, but there is no real reason to limit discussion to those weddings really.

The weddings are actually one of the aspects of the period which I know least about (well, of the aspects which I have an interest in anyway).

To start off with, Henry's marriages:
11 June 1509 - Catherine of Aragon
25 January 1533 - Anne Boleyn (2nd ceremony)
1536 - Jane Seymour (11 days after Anne's execution)
6 January 1540 - Anne of Cleves
28 July 1540 - Catherine Howard
1543 - Catherine Parr

 

[Attaining Grace]

This is a very interesting question, Marmi. I will see what I can find out!

 

[ysbel]

I don't know much about Henry VIIIs weddings except for the fact that Catherine Parr promised to be 'bonnie and buxom in bed' Buxom, in those days, meant obedient.

However, Catherine of Aragon was married to Henry's older brother, Arthur, at the doors of St. Paul's Cathedral and it was the most prestigious wedding of its kind in those days. Henry VIII was in the wedding party as Duke of York and sisters of the Queen, Elizabeth of York, carried Catherine's train.

This was the old St. Paul's Cathedral which was burned down in the Great London Fire.

Come to think of it, I have read more detail about Arthur's wedding than any of Henry's. I can't recall reading any detail about Henry's wedding to Catherine.

 

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi,

The wedding between Arthur and Catherine would have been a major affair in world relations.....

It would have cemented Henry VII's legitimacy to the English throne as now Spain was marrying one of its daughters to his son.
To have Ferdinand & Isabella recognize Henry as an equal entitled to marry his son to their daughter would have qualified such an extravagant wedding from a rather parsimonious man as Henry.
He had to 'put out' to save face, as it were!!

Larry

 

[ysbel]

Here's what I found on the Internet about Catherine's and Arthur's marriage.

A platform was built outside St Paul's cathedral so that the couple could be witnessed taking their vows by the people of London.
2 Oct 1501 Catherine of Aragon arrived at Plymouth. The noblemen of Devon and Cornwall quickly formed an escort to take her to Exeter where she was to stay.
16 Oct 1501 Messengers from the King arrived at Exeter. They brought a letter of welcome for Catherine and a delegation of the English court to escort her to London.
4 Nov 1501 Henry VII had planned to officially receive Catherine when she reached Lambeth, but, like his son, Arthur, he was impatient to set eyes on the young bride and rode to intercept the party travelling towards London.
9 Nov 1501 Catherine arrived at Lambeth Palace where she rested.
12 Nov 1501 Catherine made her formal entry into London. The streets were hung with tapestries and she was greeted along the way by pageants.
14 Nov 1501 Prince Arthur aged fifteen years and Catherine of Aragon, aged sixteen years, were married in St Paul's Cathedral. Catherine was 'given away' by Prince Henry who escorted her up the aisle. The ceremony was conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Deane, who was assisted by the Bishop of London, William Warham. The couple knelt to take their vows on a platform, draped with red cloth, six feet high which ran the length of the nave to the west door of the choir. The wedding banquet was followed by dancing and the couple were publicly put to bed as was the custom.
mid-late Nov 1501 The wedding celebrations lasted for two weeks and included daily jousts and banquets followed by pageants, disguising and dancing.

from Timeline - Catherine of Aragon

 

[ysbel]

The same webpage mentions that Henry VIII's wedding to Catherine of Aragon was a rather private affair.

11 June 1509 King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon were privately married by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, in the Church of the palace Friary at Greenwich. It was necessary for the marriage to be kept a very quiet affair because Henry was still in mourning for his father.

 

[Russophile]

I wonder if Catherine thought that Harry was rather dashing when she was on the way to the alter to marry Arthur?

 

[ysbel]

Well, considering he was only nine or ten...I don't think Catherine's taste went THAT young.

I can imagine Henry being a little jealous of the older brother's newfound wife. Can you just imagine? Arthur got the title, his father's love, and the beautiful princess and Henry was just supposed to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Methinks the green eyed monster was at play a bit.

 

[Russophile]

Well, considering he was only nine or ten...I don't think Catherine's taste went THAT young.

I can imagine Henry being a little jealous of the older brother's newfound wife. Can you just imagine? Arthur got the title, his father's love, and the beautiful princess and Henry was just supposed to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Methinks the green eyed monster was at play a bit.

His father didn't care for him?
Whoops! I had forgotten that there was that much age difference between them!

 

[Elspeth]

To the extent that Henry VII was capable of loving anyone, it makes sense that he'd love his heir more than the spare. He seemed to be a pretty calculating sort of person.

 

[ysbel]

Well Henry VII was known for being cheap and Henry VIII was just the opposite so maybe they had a clash of personalities.

 

[marmi]

Here's what I found on the Internet about Catherine's and Arthur's marriage.

A platform was built outside St Paul's cathedral so that the couple could be witnessed taking their vows by the people of London.
2 Oct 1501 Catherine of Aragon arrived at Plymouth. The noblemen of Devon and Cornwall quickly formed an escort to take her to Exeter where she was to stay.
16 Oct 1501 Messengers from the King arrived at Exeter. They brought a letter of welcome for Catherine and a delegation of the English court to escort her to London.
4 Nov 1501 Henry VII had planned to officially receive Catherine when she reached Lambeth, but, like his son, Arthur, he was impatient to set eyes on the young bride and rode to intercept the party travelling towards London.
9 Nov 1501 Catherine arrived at Lambeth Palace where she rested.
12 Nov 1501 Catherine made her formal entry into London. The streets were hung with tapestries and she was greeted along the way by pageants.
14 Nov 1501 Prince Arthur aged fifteen years and Catherine of Aragon, aged sixteen years, were married in St Paul's Cathedral. Catherine was 'given away' by Prince Henry who escorted her up the aisle. The ceremony was conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Deane, who was assisted by the Bishop of London, William Warham. The couple knelt to take their vows on a platform, draped with red cloth, six feet high which ran the length of the nave to the west door of the choir. The wedding banquet was followed by dancing and the couple were publicly put to bed as was the custom.
mid-late Nov 1501 The wedding celebrations lasted for two weeks and included daily jousts and banquets followed by pageants, disguising and dancing.

from Timeline - Catherine of Aragon

Thanks for your contributin ysbel that was interesting! I hadn't realised that there was as much time between when she arrived in England and her marriage. Maybe I was a bit naive. I did know that Herny and Arthur rode out to meet her - I love that.

 

[ysbel]

You're welcome, marmi.

If you look at the weblink I provided, you'll see Catherine arrived at the port of Corunna on 20 July 1501 and had to wait a month for good winds till they set sail on 17 Aug 1501. The ships got caught in a storm and they had to turn back so she finally set sail for England on 27 Sept 1501.

So Catherine had been waiting from July of that year to meet her man. Once they got favorable weather, the trip only took a few days.

I'm afraid not much material was written about Henry VIIIs marriages. From what I could find, they were mostly private affairs.

 

[marmi]

I'll take a look at it tonight. Ive had a pretty crazy time lately but have marked tonight as a break; me time!!!

 

[ysbel]

Well I found an electronic copy of David Starkey's book, The Six Wives of Henry VIII here, and he claims that Henry VIII's weddings were private.

"With the sole exception of the service at Dover where Henry first went through some sort of marriage with Anne Boleyn, the location was the same. Anne Boleyn was married (for the second time) 'in the upper chamber over the Holbein Gate at Whitehall before dawn.' Jane Seymour in Whitehall, too, 'in the Queen's Closet'; Anne of Cleves in the same Queen's Closet at Greenwich where, thirty years before, Henry had married Catherine of Aragon; and Catherine Parr 'in the Queen's Privy Closet at Hampton Court'. The company was the same, with ladies and gentlemen of the King's and Queen's-to-be Privy Chambers predominating. The clergy, where they are known, were similarly confidential: Roland Lee, later Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, is supposed to have married Anne Boleyn; Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, married Anne of Cleves, and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, married Catherine Parr. All were intimate royal advisers.

So there were no crowds, no trumpeters and no choirs. The only wedding music, in fact, for this most musical of kings, was the sonorous Latin of the service. But even the Old Church, whose liturgy Henry kept to the end of his reign, put the marriage vows into English. Each of the couples, when asked if they wished to marry, said 'Yea'. Then, in turn, they made their vows. The King swore first.

'I, Henry, take thee to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part, and thereto I plight thee my troth.'
​

Then each of the Queens replied,

'I take thee, Henry to my wedded husband,' they swore, before making the same oath as the King with the additional, womanly promise to be 'bonny and buxom in bed and at board.' "

​

So it appears that apart from Arthur's and Catherine's wedding, there were no grand Tudor royal weddings. I've tried to find information on Henry VII's wedding to Elizabeth of York but I suspect that was a private wedding also.

Its possible that the big royal weddings are more of a modern invention rather than an ancient royal custom, at least in England.

 

[Warren]

Starkey's account of the whole wedding panoply of Arthur and Catherine is very detailed and well worth a read. Henry VII was well-aware of the propaganda value of putting on a magnificant display and his courtiers had the logistics skills to ensure that it was.

 

[Russophile]

Wow, after Catherine Howard, I'll just be very woman at court was keeping their distance from Great Harry and his roving eye!

 

[Grace Angel]

Part of the reason Henry VIII kept some of his weddings private was the following: the one with Anne for example, had to be secret because in the eyes of some he was still married to Catharine of Aragon, and also Anne was pregnant. He married Jane Seymour soon after the death of Anne, and having a public wedding wouldn't have been a good idea, he needed to be discreet. Also, none of his later brides was foreign apart from Anne of Cleves. Had more of his wives been foreign princesses married to seal alliances, there might have been more grand celebrations. Anne of Cleves I suppose wasn't important enough as her marriage wasn't politically important and it was his fourth marriage, too. What was Mary's wedding to Philip of Spain like again?

 

[hennybenny]

I wonder if Catherine thought that Harry was rather dashing when she was on the way to the alter to marry Arthur?

Phillippa Gregory imaginined an interesting relationship between the two at the time of Catherine and Arthur's wedding in "The Constant Princess".

 

[iowabelle]

PG must have a rather fertile imagination, given that Henry was just a pre-teen and Catherine must have felt very grown up at the time of her marriage to Arthur. Perhaps there might have been a brother-sister relationship between Henry and Catherine, but I can't imagine much more.

 

[marmi]

Gregory does write interesting books. But she has been criticized severly for her historical inaccuracies; one historian even publicly dissassociating herself from Gregory's work, after she was acknowledged in one of the books.
So unfortunately, I dont think we can put much weight on it here.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

November 14, 1501: Prince Arthur married Infanta Catherine

 

[An Ard Ri]

The marriages of Henry VIII'S nieces :
Mary Tudor ,Dowager Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk

The Lady Frances Brandon married Sir Henry Grey ,Marquess of Dorset in 1533
Lady Katherine Grey married twice firstly to the Earl of Pembroke and secondly (without permission) to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford
Lady Mary Grey married (without permission) to Thomas Keyes

Margaret Tudor ,Dowager Queen of Scotland
Lady Margaret Douglas married Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox