Lady Joan Vaux and Queen Catherine of Aragon

While browsing the Medieval Manuscript Blog at the British Library website, I found this entry about a Book of Hours and its owner:

The British Library is home to hundreds of beautiful illuminated Books of Hours, prayerbooks that were hugely popular during the medieval and early modern eras, as they allowed lay people to develop and observe their own routines of personal devotion. These Books of Hours also provide us with significant insights into the lives of their patrons and owners, who often inscribed these manuscripts with their own beliefs, thoughts and recollections, details of significant events in their lives, and interactions with their most intimate circles of friends and family.

One such Book of Hours (Add MS 17012) stands out for the additions made for one of its female owners. Originally written and illuminated in Antwerp around the year 1500, it subsequently came to London, where it belonged to a prominent woman at the early Tudor court. The volume’s female owner used it not simply as her own personal prayerbook and set of devotions, but also as an autograph book, in which she collected signatures and expressions of favour from numerous members of the court, and even the Tudor royal family. . . .

That Tudor lady was Joan Vaux, Lady Guildford (c.1463-September 4, 1538), a courtier in the Courts of King Henry VII, King Henry VIII, and even (briefly) of Mary Tudor, the Queen of France, third wife (briefly) of King Louis XII. She served as Lady-in-Waiting to Margaret Beaufort, to the household of Queen Elizabeth of York, and as governess to both the Tudor princesses. She was present when Erasmus of Rotterdam met the Royal Family. (Depicted by Frank Cadogan Cowper (1877-1958): "Erasmus visiting the children of Henry VII accompanied by Joan Vaux")

According to the blog, among the messages in her breviary are:

. . . expressions of favour from no less than six members of the Tudor royal family. These appear most prominently on a single opening at the very beginning of the Book of the Hours, before its main collection of prayers. . . .

including this one:

I thinke the prayers of a frend the
most acceptable unto God and
because I take you for one of myn
assured I pray you remembre me
in yours.

Katherine the queen

According to the Wikipedia article on Joan Vaux, citing a book titled A Who's Who of Tudor Women by Kathy Lynn Emerson:

As a former lady in the household of Elizabeth of York, Joan was summoned to give a deposition as to whether Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon had consummated their marriage.[21] She reported that they had spent their wedding night "in together in the same bed", from her personal knowledge; and that she had heard from Queen Elizabeth herself that Arthur and Catherine had lain together "as man and wife all alone five or six nights after the said marriage".[22]

So part of her testimony, recounting what Queen Elizabeth, Henry VII's wife and Arthur's mother, had told her, was hearsay. It could not be corroborated since Elizabeth of York had died in 1503. And note that she did not say that they had consummated the marriage, just used euphemistic language. Evidently, there was no "bedding ceremony" after Arthur and Catherine's wedding, because that never seems to be mentioned in reports of their first night together. Sean Cunningham, in a BBC History Magazine History Extra blog post, "Prince Arthur, Catherine of Aragon, and Henry VIII: a story of early Tudor triumph and tragedy", explains:

In 1527–28, during the evidence-gathering for the annulment of her marriage to Henry VIII, she was adamant in her assertion that she was still a virgin at Arthur’s death. Shyness and exhaustion might have explained why nothing happened on the wedding night, but the couple had time to become intimate during a less-hectic life in Ludlow over the winter of 1501–02. . . .

Catherine’s testimony was a powerful factor. A solemn oath carried great weight, even if she was searching her memory of events at the start of the 16th century. Given the intensity of her first few months in a foreign country, it is unlikely that she would have forgotten such details.

The five months that Catherine and Arthur spent together in 1501–02 must have created intense memories for Catherine. For Henry VII’s other surviving son, Henry, Prince Arthur perhaps stirred different recollections. Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine was secured without the truth of events in his brother’s marriage-bed being established. . . .

Cunningham's last comment is intriguing as it indicates that Henry VIII went ahead with his Great Matter without Pope Clement VII's declaration that the marriage was null and void--that there had no marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon--and without real proof of the matter by proclaiming himself the "Pope" of England so his new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer had the power to resolve the issue in May of 1533.

But before that, the Legatine Court's drama of June 21, 1529, offered Catherine of Aragon the opportunity to speak to her husband directly:

. . . I loved all those whom ye loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, or whether they were my friends or enemies. This twenty years I have been your true wife or, more, and by me ye have had divers children, although it has pleased God to call them out of this world, which has been no default in me.

And when ye had me at first, I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid without touch of man; and whether it be true or no, I put it to your conscience. If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart, to my great shame and dishonour; and if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate, and receive justice in your princely hands. . . .

That seems the best testimony we can find these centuries later. Quite a challenge to the King's conscience and one historical records do not answer.

But back to the manuscript blog post: After describing other autographs and prayers, including one from the Princess Mary with a translation of a prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas, it continues:

The multiple expressions of royal favour throughout the Book of Hours speak to the prominence and reputation of its owner, and they also provide a fascinating insight into the changing dynamics of the Tudor court itself. This is particularly apparent in the treatment of the inscriptions made by Catherine of Aragon and her daughter Mary. In all these cases, vigorous attempts at erasure have been made. Catherine’s title as ‘quene’ and ‘wife’ to Henry VIII, and Mary’s title as ‘princess’, have been scrubbed away and subsequently overwritten to prevent them from being read. . . .

It is unclear whether Joan was forced to undertake the removal of Catherine’s and Mary’s titles in her own Book of Hours, or whether this was the work of a later owner of the book.

"Forced" to mar her own Book of Hours? Was it inspected by Cromwell to verify compliance? Brings up some sad scenes in one's imagination . . .

This post and the erasures and overwriting in Joan Vaux's breviary reminded me of Eamon Duffy's book Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240-1570, published by Yale University Press.