Three Books of Hours and a Roman Missal in the News

It seems lately that announcements about prayer books and their owners and provenance are attempting to inform us more about their owners and their significance. The fact that Queen Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn owned and prayed with copies of the same edition of the Book of Hours published in Paris circa 1527 by printer Germain Hardouyn has been the centerpiece of an exhibition at Hever Castle (Queen Catherine's copy was on loan from the Morgan Library in New York City).

More recently there was the news that Thomas Cromwell owned a copy of the same Book of Hours that's included in Holbein's portrait, as the Smithsonian Magazine reported:

Through her research, McCaffrey [Kate McCaffrey, who identified and researched the provenance of the two queens' books] learned of the existence of a third copy of the Book of Hours—one donated to Cambridge by Dame Anne Sadleir in August 1660. When Hever’s curatorial team viewed the copy, Palmer pointed out its resemblance to the volume lying on a green tablecloth in the famous portrait, which Holbein painted between 1532 and 1533.

Palmer, Emmerson and McCaffrey began searching for more evidence to confirm the connection. They looked into the Cambridge book’s provenance, tracing its ownership from Cromwell to Sadleir, whose husband was the grandson of Cromwell’s secretary Ralph Sadleir (also spelled Sadler). The trio then shared their research with leading experts like Borman, who examined their findings and came to the same conclusion.

Previously, researchers had paid little attention to the Cambridge copy, which was known as the Hardouyn Hours after its printer. As Emmerson tells Artnet’s Richard Whiddington, scholars studying this era tend to focus more on handwritten texts than printed books. Additionally, the book “has remained uncleaned for many decades, with dirt and tarnish masking the finer details of the silver-gilt binding.”

I wonder about the attempts to use the fact that two of Henry VIII's queens and Thomas Cromwell used the same edition of a prayer book as an insight into their relationships, as the same article from the Smithsonian website quotes two of the specialists involved:

“This book of devotional prayers is remarkable for its unusually grand binding, covered with velvet, jewels and highly decorated silver gilt borders, all of which date from the time it was printed and illuminated,” says Nicolas Bell, a librarian at Cambridge’s Trinity College, in the statement. “It has been enormously exciting to position this luxurious creation in the very center of the court of Henry VIII, where we know that both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn owned copies of the very same edition.” . . .

The newly identified prayer book “gives us a little window into” the everyday lives of three giants of Tudor history, Emmerson tells the Times. “We often see them as adversaries, but they were also in each other’s company. They had to get along for propriety’s sake. It’s a surprising connection between these otherwise warring individuals.”

I don't think it's that surprising at all: the Book of Hours was the prayer book used at the time by pious laity. Why would the three of them praying with the same book mean they were getting "along for propriety's sake"? Do the curators imagine them meeting in a chapel and praying an hour antiphonally? How common was ownership of this particular printed edition? Has that been considered while highlighting these connections? As the MET in New York City notes:

A century later, the invention and adoption of printing made books of hours even more accessible to a wider audience, and a press like that of the Hardouyn family (89.27.4, fols. 5v–6r) made copies by the dozen or more. However numerous and easy to produce, the widespread printed books of hours never attained the appeal of the finest handmade manuscript copies, each one not only a functional prayer book but a unique work of art.

More on mass-produced Books of Hours here.

Besides, as the Smithsonian story comments, the inclusion of Cromwell's Book of Hours may have a different, non-religious or devotional purpose: "The book’s inclusion in the Holbein portrait may allude to Cromwell’s recent appointment as Master of the Jewels [in April 1532]". And as the Tower of London website notes:

It was almost certainly to celebrate his appointment as Master of the Jewels that Cromwell commissioned Hans Holbein, the most celebrated artist of the age, to paint his portrait in around 1532-33.

It wasn't to show Cromwell's sentimental attachment to that Book of Hours, as Owen Emmerson avers: it was to announce that he was moving up at Court--he's not looking that jeweled book, he's displaying it!

Now comes the news that Father John Huddleston's Roman Missal has been identified and obtained for Moseley Old Hall in Staffordshire, stressing its connection to the relationship between the Benedictine priest who sheltered the then King of Scotland after defeat at the Battle of Worcester and King Charles II's deathbed conversion in 1685:

Father John Huddleston was a Benedictine priest who resided at Moseley Old Hall during the time that Charles II sought refuge here in 1651.

When Charles arrived at Moseley on 8th September 1651, Father Huddleston gave him shelter in his own first-floor bedroom and it is believed that during his time here, Charles consulted a collection of Father Huddleston's books, with the missal likely to have been one of them.

When Charles II returned to England as king in 1660, he made Father Huddleston chaplain to his mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, and then later to his wife, Catherine of Braganza. Father Huddleston was held in high regard by the king, so much so that in 1685, as King Charles II lay dying in Whitehall Palace in London, Father Huddleston was summoned to his bedside to hear the king’s confession, administer the Eucharist and receive him into the Catholic Church.

Whether or not King Charles II of Scotland was likely to have read or prayed with Father Huddleston's Roman Missal in 1651 seems uncertain to me. If Father Huddleston was using the Roman Missal for daily Mass, etc., it might not have been available to Charles to consult, unless he was attending the Masses. Father Huddleston might indeed have had this Roman Missal with him when he received Charles into the Church, but that detail/provenance is not mentioned.

As for Father Huddleston after that famous deathbed conversion, the old Catholic Encyclopedia has these details:

On the accession of James II, Huddleston continued to reside with the Queen Dowager at Somerset House. Shortly before his death his mind failed and he was placed in the charge of "the Popish Lord Feversham", one of the few persons present at Charles II's reconciliation to the Church, who managed his affairs as trustee. To this arrangement is probably due the unusual circumstance that the probate of his will was obtained the day before his funeral. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary le Strand (Parish Register, MS.). 

Image Credit (public domain) Holbein's portrait of Thomas Cromwell

Image Credit (public domain): Portrait of Dom John Huddleston O.S.B. (1608-98), after a portrait by Jacob Huysmans

May 19 in the Lives of Four Queens

On May 19, 1499, the 13-year old Princess Catherine of Aragon was married to the 12-year old Prince of Wales, Arthur Tudor by proxy.

On May 19, 1536, former Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded for adultery, treason, incest.

On May 19, 1568, Queen Elizabeth I of England ordered the house arrest of the former Queen of Scotland, her cousin Mary Stuart Valois Stuart Bothwell.

What a coincidence that three such momentous events occurred on the same date in the month of May!

Arthur and Catherine would not meet in England until November 4, 1501 and were married in person on November 14 in Old St. Paul's Cathedral. Then the Prince and Princess of Wales set off for Ludlow Castle to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches, residing at the Castle Lodge. They both became ill and Arthur died on April 2, 1502, while Catherine recovered.

Then Henry VII decided to keep her (and her dowry) in England, so from 1502 to 1509 protracted marriage negotiations took place between Henry and Ferdinand of Aragon, her father (her mother Isabella of Castile died in 1504). Henry VII's wife and queen, the former Elizabeth, Princess of York died in 1503 and he thought of marrying Catherine himself. It was finally decided that she would marry Henry, the Duke of York, and Henry VII applied for a dispensation from the Pope, Julius II, with Catherine testifying that she and Arthur had never consummated their marriage, so there were no issues of affinity. Nevertheless, she was held almost as a prisoner in Durham House, London, the impoverished guest of the Bishop of Durham. When Henry VII died, Henry VIII married her on June 11, 1509 and she was crowned and anointed with him later that month on the 24th. She remained Queen until May 23, 1533 when Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, declared her marriage to Henry VIII null and void. She had been in exile from the Court since 1531 and would die in her final place of residence, Kimbolton Castle, on January 7, 1536 (after being moved six times in four years!) Henry VIII titled her the Dowager Princess of Wales; she accepted no title but Queen and true wife of the king. Although her last letter to Henry VIII is contested, authorities agree that this text expresses Catherine's attitude toward her husband and their daughter Mary and her rightful status as his wife and queen:

My most dear lord, king and husband,

The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles. For my part, I pardon you everything, and I wish to devoutly pray God that He will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.

Katharine the Quene

Another former wife and queen of Henry VIII at the time of her death (as Thomas Cranmer and Henry VIII agreed), Anne Boleyn of course was the woman who had replaced Catherine of Aragon. She and Henry had been married on November 14, 1532 (secretly) and that marriage declared valid by Cranmer several days after he'd declared Henry's marriage to Catherine null and void, on May 28, 1533. She was crowned on June 1, 1533--and was pregnant at the time with the hoped-for male heir, it was believed--in a sumptuous ceremony and celebration. She delivered a girl, however, on September 7, 1533 (named Elizabeth) and after two miscarriages, had failed to provide Henry VIII with the son for whom he had turned the world upside down (separating the Catholic Christians of England from the universal Catholic Church and the papacy, executing good men and true, making his daughter Mary a bastard, and changing the worship and devotions of Catholics in England, among other actions).

Catherine of Aragon having died on January 7, 1536, Anne and Henry had felt more secure, although there's a lot of debate about their reactions, public and private, to the news. Anne was arrested and taken to the Tower of London on May 2, 1536; Cranmer declared her marriage to Henry VIII null and void on May 14; she was tried and found guilty of adultery, treason, and incest (with her brother George) on May 15 and beheaded with a sword within the Tower precincts on May 19. Her last words:

Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.

With her head on the block, she repeated these words several times: "To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul." One stroke of the sword and she was beheaded and then buried in St. Peter ad Vincula (where two of the good men and true mentioned above, Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More had been buried a year before).

Mary, Queen of Scots, who had claimed her right to the throne of England as the queen consort of France before returning home to Scotland, had been forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son (James VI) on July 24, 1567 while being held in Loch Leven Castle. She escaped from that castle on May 2, 1568 and after defeat at the Battle of Langside on May 13, fled to England on May 16. Mary was soon under house arrest on May 19, held first at Carlisle Castle and then at Bolton Castle. Inquiry into her role in the death of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley in 1567, led to no conviction or finding of guilt, but she was imprisoned for the rest of her life, held in some comfort and at tremendous, unremunerated cost by her hosts, the Shrewsburys at their various estates, and then moved to Fotheringay Castle under close confinement on September 26, 1586 for trial (complicity with the Babington plot) and subsequent execution on February 7, 1587. Her last words, like Anne Boleyn's, were also repeated several times:  "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum" (Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit" Luke 23:46) and unlike Anne Boleyn, she was not decollated with one stroke of a fine French sword--the first blow hit the back of her head.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Image Credit (Public Domain) for Catherine of Aragon (Juan de Flandres)

Image Credit (Public Domain) for Anne Boleyn in the Tower (Edouard Cibot)

Image Credit (Public Domain) for Mary, Queen of Scots in Captivity (Nicholas Hilliard)

Queen Catherine of Aragon (and my father in WWII!) At Kimbolton

It's appropriate that I posted yesterday on the birth of Jane Dormer, lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon yesterday, because she was with the Queen when she died in Kimbolton Castle on January 7, 1536. The On the Tudor Trail Blog describes her last two days:

On the 6th of January all was well but that evening things took a turn for the worse. Catherine’s condition deteriorated and she knew her end was near. According to Giles Tremlett [in Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen], Catherine’s famous last letter that she is said to have dictated to her husband from her deathbed ‘is almost certainly fictitious’ (Pg. 422). He does though concede that the letter may have reflected what she was feeling in the early hours of the 7th of January. This is what was penned:

My most dear Lord, King, and Husband, The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you, to advise you of your soul’s health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh whatsoever. For which yet you have cast me into many calamities, and yourself into many troubles. But I forgive you all, and pray God to do so likewise. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her. I must entreat you also to look after my maids, and give them in marriage, which is not much, they being but three, and to all my other servants, a year’s pay besides their due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for until they find new employment. Lastly, I want only one true thing, to make this vow: that, in this life, mine eyes desire you alone, May God protect you.

Death now had a firm grip on Catherine and the bishop of Llandaff** administered extreme unction. Prayer had been Catherine’s companion all her life and now in her final moments it was her only consolation.

On the 7th January at approximately two o’clock, Catherine of Aragon, left all her worldly troubles behind. Henry’s Spanish Queen was no more and Henry’s court was left to celebrate.

Eric Ives claims that the news of Catherine’s death was greeted at court ‘by an outburst of relief and enthusiasm for the Boleyn marriage’ (Pg. 295). This seems very plausible considering that their great enemy was now dead and that Queen Anne Boleyn was pregnant with the heir to the Tudor throne.

At hearing the news of his first wife’s death, Henry cried, ‘God be praised that we are free from all suspicion of war!’ (Ives, Pg. 295). Anne was overjoyed and rewarded the messenger who brought the news to Greenwich a ‘handsome present’ – for the first time in her reign; Anne was now the one and only Queen of England.

**The bishop of Llandaff was George de Athequa, a Spaniard by birth, who had come to England with the Princess Catherine in 1501. He left England in 1537 and the former Gilbertine prior of Wattan, Robert Holgate, succeeded him.

Henry VIII did not allow their daughter Mary to visit her mother during Catherine's last illness. She wasn't allowed to attend her funeral either. 

Eustace Chapuys, who had visited her in the days before her death, did not attend the funeral when he learned she would be buried as the Dowager Princess of Wales, not the former (anointed and crowned) Queen of England.

In a strange coincidence, my late father was stationed at RAF Kimbolton during World War II as part of the Army Air Forces 379th Bombardment Group, flying in a B-17 ("Heaven Can Wait) as a gunner (nose turret and waist)!! Here is his record; perhaps I should send his photo to this organization!! (I'll check with my siblings).

"Divided Loyalties in Tudor England"

Also from behind the History Today paywall, this essay on divided loyalties in families during the Tudor Era, which looks particularly at the Catherine of Aragon faction against the Anne Boleyn faction:

The role played by many noblewomen at the royal court, however, including many of the Howard and Boleyn women, made this more complicated than it might otherwise have been. They did not always follow the dynastic ‘party line’. Women who entered the queen’s household were required to take an oath of service, just as men were. This was in essence an oath of loyalty to one’s new mistress. Women took no comparable oath to the head of their family, but there is considerable evidence to show that their families expected them to fly their flag, promote their interests and seek patronage for their relatives. The dilemma faced by women when family interests and those of their mistress clashed is one that is rarely considered by historians, but it did sometimes occur and could cause anguish on all sides. Elizabeth Stafford/Howard, Duchess of Norfolk (c.1497-1558), is a prime example. The eldest daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, and Eleanor Percy, her first betrothal was broken in 1512 in favour of Thomas Howard, then Lord Howard, later 3rd Duke of Norfolk, whose first wife had recently died without giving him a son and heir. Though he was 20 years older than her at the time, Elizabeth’s own status was greater than his; the Howards had not yet regained the dukedom of Norfolk, so the highest title that her new husband could aspire to was the earldom of Surrey, whereas Elizabeth’s own father was a duke and her natal family, the Staffords, had royal blood. Howard was, though, a rising star at the royal court, as Elizabeth was herself. . . . 

It would be wrong to suggest that Elizabeth was alone in her support of Catherine at this point. Gertrude, Marchioness of Exeter, was described by Chapuys in 1531 as ‘the only true comforter and friend the Queen and the Princess have’ and she passed on information about Privy Council discussions. Maria, Lady Willoughby, rode through the night and then talked her way into Kimbolton Castle in order to be with Catherine as she lay dying in January 1536. Many noblewomen were among those who had listened to and encouraged the pro-Catherine, anti-Anne prophecies of Elizabeth Barton, the ‘nun of Kent’, in 1534, including the aforementioned Marchioness of Exeter, alongside Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, Anne, Lady Hussey, and Mary, Lady Kingston. All of these women were seasoned courtiers, like Elizabeth, and would no doubt have known one another well.

Read the rest of "Divided Loyalties in Tudor England" by Nicola Clark, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Chichester and the author of Gender, Family and Politics: The Howard Women, 1485-1558 (Oxford, 2018) while you can!

Catherine and Anne: May 10, 1533 and May 10, 1536

On May 10, 1533, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, began the process of declaring that King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon had never been married. The Anne Boleyn Files blog describes the sequence of events:

On 5th April 1533, Convocation gave its ruling on Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, stating that the Pope had no power to dispense in the case of a man marrying his brother’s widow, and that it was contrary to God’s law. This ruling led to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer being authorised to set up a trial to examine Henry VIII’s case for the annulment of his first marriage. This trial opened at a special court at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire.

On 23rd May 1533, Cranmer’s court ruled that the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon was against the will of God, and declared that the marriage was null and void. On 28th May 1533, Cranmer proclaimed the validity of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn after a special enquiry at Lambeth Palace.

Remember that the Catholic Clergy of England had renounced their spiritual loyalty to the Chair of St. Peter and the pope in 1532. Henry VIII was in control of the Convocation of Bishops. 

Catherine of Aragon had been banished from Court and was residing in Hertfordshire in one of the late Thomas Cardinal Wolsey's houses, The Manor at the More. She would receive the news in July of 1533 that her new title was Princess Dowager since Henry and she were never married, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury. She refused to accept that title.

Dunstable Priory, a house of Augustinian Canons, would be suppressed in January of 1540. The last prior, Gervase Markham--who welcomed Cranmer on May 10, 1533--would surrender the property, accept his pension and become a secular priest.

Three years after the opening of the Dunstable Court, another court met and decided the fate of Anne Boleyn. Giles Heron, son-in-law of the late Sir Thomas More, was the foreman of the Grand Jury of Middlesex meeting in Westminster Hall (where his father-in-law had been tried and sentenced to death). On behalf of the Grand Jury, Heron announced that there was sufficient evidence--presented by the injured party, Henry VIII--that Anne Boleyn, her brother George, the Court musician Mark Smeaton, and Henry's courtiers Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston and Sir William Brereton, had committed various crimes of adultery and treason against His Majesty and should be tried by jury.

Those trials would occur quickly and Anne Boleyn soon lost her title as Queen of England. Thomas Cranmer would declare that her marriage to Henry VIII had never taken place either. (Anne Boleyn had been in the Tower of London since May 2nd that year.)

For all his good service to Henry VIII, Giles Heron ended up accused of treason and executed in 1540.

Belloc in the Morning: Mourning Two Queens

Just a reminder that Anna Mitchell and I will talk about Belloc's views of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn as Characters of the Reformation this morning. Listen live here a little after 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern.

Here are Belloc's comments on Catherine of Aragon's death:

She did not long survive the tragedies which had been imposed upon her, and which she had borne with such steadfast courage. She died in January, 1536, too early to see the fall and disgrace of her rival, Anne Boleyn; and almost her last act was a letter still full of passionate love written to the King, who had not allowed her so much as to see him for now more than six years. It was then she wrote the famous phrase, "The desire of my eyes is to see you again." But the man had damned himself. 

They buried her in Peterborough Cathedral, not putting over her one of those great and splendid tombs of die Re- naissance, such as all her high kindred had throughout the West, but a plain slab of black stone on which there was not even an inscription till modern times. One may meditate with some profit on that simple and ignominious piece of masonry, the poor tomb of so good a woman who stood at the origin of such great and disastrous things.

It was widely believed, and on good authority, that her rival had caused her to be poisoned. It is equally probable, perhaps more probable, that she died a natural death; for we know from the autopsy that there was a small growth upon her heart which may have been cancerous. 

She died, as her daughter Mary was to die many years later, hearing Mass, the Mass that was said in her sick- room. She made the responses and received Holy Communion. And it is memorable, and typical of her Spanish rigidity and orthodoxy as well as of her training in Catholic things, that when her Chaplain and Confessor offered to say Mass for her before the Canonical hours lest she should die without it, she bade him, wait until the regular time had come — and she lived on the few hours sufficient to enjoy the fruits of her patience.  

(Image credit: the Queen's tomb in Peterborough Cathedral)

And Belloc discusses the issues of Anne Boleyn's guilt:

On Friday, May 19, 1536, she was beheaded with a sword within the precincts of the Tower of London, by the headsman from Calais, specially brought over for the execution. Was she guilty of the misconduct ascribed to her? It is one of the most fiercely debated points in English history. Standing as she does at the origins of the Reformation, the favourers of that movement have been hot in her defence. On the other hand, those who desire to exculpate Henry as much as they can exculpate that detestable character, like to believe her guilty, while for the defenders of the old Religion nothing was too bad to be put down to Anne. 

The accusations, especially that of incest, seem so monstrous that their very enormity is an argument in her favour. On the other hand, she was certainly unscrupulous in affairs of this kind, and she seems to have been quite unbalanced in the last year or two of her life. Some who have medical experience in these matters maintain that she suffered from a particular irresponsibility, which makes the charges credible enough. I have myself always inclined to accept them. But many good students of the period with whom I have discussed the matter are divided, and some urge the strong argument that the two gentlemen concerned did not confess, while the musician, who did, confessed only under threat of torture. Anyhow, they were all put to death as well as herself. 

Catherine had died before her. Henry's marriage with Jane Seymour which took place immediately after Anne's death was therefore quite legitimate in the eyes of the Church, and quite probably there would have been a re- conciliation with Rome had it not been for Thomas Cromwell's having already launched the policy of confiscating church property, beginning with the monasteries, a policy which created a vested interest of great power against re-union.  

(Image credit: St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower of London (used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license from Wikipedia Commons).

How coincidental that both were buried in churches connected to the name Peter, since the See of Peter, the Papacy was the crucial Court affecting their marriages to Henry VIII!

Belloc on Henry VIII's First Two Wives

Tomorrow (a little after 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern) on the Son Rise Morning Show, Anna Mitchell and I will continue our discussion of Hilaire Belloc's Characters of the Reformation, looking at Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's first two wives.

One of the most interesting aspects of his analysis of Catherine of Aragon is that Belloc rejects the usual explanation of Henry VIII wanting to have his marriage to Catherine annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn--the desire for a legitimate male heir:

Now here arises an important point. To what extent was Henry influenced in the abominable thing he did by the desire for an heir? Did his wronging of Catherine have any excuse in his disappointment at having only a daughter to succeed him? 

The white-washers of Henry and the defenders of the great tragedy of the Reformation have argued with all their weight on that side. They have pretended in different degrees of sincerity that Catherine's ill success in providing him with an heir is the root of the affair. Not one who reads the contemporary documents of the time can believe that. 

The root of the affair was Henry's miserable infatuation with Anne Boleyn. But the first duty of the historian is to be just; and we must allow a certain weight to Henry's desire for a male heir. These things cannot be put in exact proportion or percentages, but if one attempts to put it thus and give the disappointment at the lack of an heir from one fifth to one quarter of his motive, one may perhaps roughly represent the weight which it bore. 

He was somewhat worried by not having a male heir because his throne was not too stable; his father had been a usurper and only captured the throne twenty-four years before his son's accession. It was in its way important to leave a son to carry on the dynasty; on the other hand the greatest thrones in Europe were handed on through women— Spain itself was a splendid example — and the little Princess Mary was so popular with everyone and would have been so thoroughly supported that there was no real danger. 

Put forward as the main excuse for the divorce, the pretence that the necessity for a male heir was the leading motive was falsehood and hypocrisy. When it was clear that Catherine could bear no more children, Henry gradually deserted her. He had several affairs ; he took up with a woman whom he had known in boyhood — one Blount — and had a son by her whom he called the Duke of Richmond. He also took up with the daughter of a courtier and diplomat of his called Boleyn, a young lady of the name of Mary, and when he was tired of her he married her off to one of his other courtiers with a portion which did no credit to his generosity. 

He probably ceased to live with his wife as early as 1521, when he was no more than thirty, and she, poor woman, still under thirty-seven. Even by his own admission (and he was a great liar) he ceased to live with her within the next three or four years.

And then Anne Boleyn shows up in 1522 and Belloc also has a different view of Anne's influence on Henry VIII's actions:

Anne, then, was neither the cause nor the inspirer of the first movement away from Catholicism. But she is what I have called her, the pivot figure. It is because she was what she was, and did what she did, that England is what England is to-day. 

It is, therefore, of the first importance to history to under- stand what this woman really was and the real place of her action in the whole scheme of the time. From her day to our own it has been taken for granted by all national tradition and by every historian that she lay at the origins of the English Reformation, but latterly there has arisen an effort to weaken or question this sound tradition and to explain in other ways the quarrel between Henry and Rome and the ultimate effect of it. This effort at supplanting true history by false is part of the general scepticism of our time, which is usually ready to accept anything new because new falsehoods sound more picturesque as a rule than well- worn truths. But there is here a more powerful motive, to make the origins of the change of religion in England look a littie less ignoble than they really are. That is why Professor Pollard, for instance, who is the chief authority on the details of the period in England, tries to maintain the fantastic theory that Henry's attempt to get rid of his wife was not connected with Anne Boleyn, but with larger reasons of State, and that he had had the policy of getting rid of Catherine of Aragon in mind for many years before he met Anne Boleyn. The idea is not only fantastic, but desperate; it has no chance of being accepted out of England, and I do not think it will be accepted even in England save by those who are very hard up for material in the whitewashing of Henry VIII's character. 

No, Anne remains and will always remain at the origins of dire catastrophe. It behooves us therefore to understand her and her effect as best we can. Anne Boleyn was a Howard. That is the first thing to grasp in connection with her, and it is all the more important to grasp it because historians have failed to stress as strongly as they should have stressed this capital feature in her position. She was a Howard through her mother, who was the daughter of that old Duke of Norfolk, the victor of Flodden, and who was the sister of his son Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, who played a great part throughout the whole of Henry VIII's reign. 

 
The Howards were semi-royal. . . .

And then Belloc comes to the Great Matter and Henry's intentions:

We have no documents; we can only judge by the nature of the case and by what followed. But it is fairly clear that some time before, or in the very early part of 1525, when Henry was thirty-four years of age, and Anne well over twenty, perhaps as much as twenty-three, there was some arrangement between them, and that Anne had already given Henry to understand that she would not be his mistress, but would envisage marriage if he could get rid of Catherine. In that year her father was raised to the peerage and given a new and more prominent position, and in that year we have also large gifts from Henry to Anne, and Henry interfering with her movements and saying where she is to stop. 

It does not follow that Henry had thus early accepted the idea of marrying Anne. He probably still thought she would become his mistress at last. To attempt the repudia- tion of Catherine, the niece of the Emperor of Germany and the King of Spain, the most prominent woman in the greatest family in Europe, would be a very serious business indeed, and Henry's hesitating and uncertain character would hardly come to a decision at once in the matter. . . . 

Fascinating, right? But does Belloc have it right? Tune in tomorrow!

A Funeral and a Miscarriage: January 29, 1536

In one of those incredible juxtapositions of history, Henry VIII's first wife Katherine of Aragon was buried in Peterborough Cathedral (correction!) and his second wife Anne Boleyn suffered a miscarriage on the same day, January 29, 1536.

Henry VIII refused at the end to acknowledge the validity of his marriage to Katherine and had her buried as the Princess Dowager of Wales, but it was a duly elaborate funeral. This blog, profusely illustrated, provides the detail from the state papers:

First, 16 priests or clergymen in surplices went on horseback, without saying a word, having a gilded laten cross borne before them; after them several gentlemen, of whom there were only two of the house, et le demeurant estoient tous emprouvez, and after them followed the maître d’hotel and chamberlain, with their rods of office in their hands; and, to keep them in order, went by their sides 9 or 10 heralds, with mourning hoods and wearing their coats of arms; after them followed 50 servants of the aforesaid gentlemen, bearing torches and bâtons allumés, which lasted but a short time, and in the middle of them was drawn a wagon, upon which the body was drawn by six horses all covered with black cloth to the ground.

The said wagon was covered with black velvet, in the midst of which was a great silver cross; and within, as one looked upon the corpse, was stretched a cloth of gold frieze with a cross of crimson velvet, and before and behind the said wagon stood two gentlemen ushers with mourning hoods looking into the wagon, round which the said four banners were carried by four heralds and the standards with the representations by four gentlemen.

Then followed seven ladies, as chief mourners, upon hackneys, that of the first being harnessed with black velvet and the others with black cloth. After which ladies followed the wagon of the Queen’s gentlemen; and after them, on hackneys, came nine ladies, wives of knights. Then followed the wagon of the Queen’s chambermaids; then her maids to the number of 36, and in their wake followed certain servants on horseback.

Meanwhile, back at Court, Anne Boleyn suffered a catastrophic miscarriage that may have contributed to her fall and execution. Henry VIII had pursued her and married her, divided England from Christendom, abandoned his first wife and daughter all because he expected Anne Boleyn to deliver a healthy baby boy who would survive infancy, and she failed again. This blog describes the repercussions of that miscarriage, as recounted by Eustace Chapuys, the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador:

On the day of the interment the Concubine had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3½ months, at which the King has shown great distress. The said concubine wished to lay the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, saying he frightened her by bringing the news of the fall the King had six days before. But it is well known that is not the cause, for it was told her in a way that she should not be alarmed or attach much importance to it. Some think it was owing to her own incapacity to bear children, others to a fear that the King would treat her like the late Queen, especially considering the treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel, to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents.

I think that Katherine of Aragon would have felt grief for the loss of another little baby, as she had lost several herself to miscarriage, stillbirth or death during infancy.

Mistress Semel was Jane Seymour, who would be Henry VIII's third wife. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Yet Another Victim of Henry VIII: Anne Boleyn's Lapdog!?

Now, I'm really upset with Henry VIII! It isn't enough that he beheaded two queens, a saintly bishop and a holy layman, dissolved the monasteries, friaries and convents of England, sent many hundreds to their deaths in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace, martyred the Carthusians of the Charterhouse in London and Observant Friars of Greenwich, mistreated his first wife and daughter, etc, etc,--he defenestrated Anne Boleyn's dog!

According to this blog:

On a December day in 1534, an often-overlooked victim of Henry VIII met a sad end. But this was no overblown nobleman, crowing about his claim to the throne, no broken-hearted wife, turning over the past to see where she had gone wrong, and no devoted councillor unable to fulfil the King’s latest scheme. The death of little Purkey, or Pourquoi, Anne Boleyn’s beloved lapdog was to prove a foreshadowing of her own tragic decline. In the beast’s quaint tilted head and appealing eyes, Anne’s own dark orisons were echoed. In its plaintive bark, Henry heard shades of her winning laugh, and when the creature begged, elegantly dancing on his hind legs, it brought the King to mind of Anne’s graceful steps. So why exactly did the canine have to die?

Purkey was the gift of Honor, Lady Lisle, to the new queen in the winter of 1533. Having remarried to Arthur Plantagenet, illegitimate son of Edward IV, Honor was keen to advance her daughters from her first match. She accompanied Anne to France in the autumn of 1532 and was hopeful that such a gift would encourage the queen to place Katherine and Anne Basset in her household. Anne however, accepted the gift but kept the pretty girls at arm’s length, perhaps recalling her own rise to power from within the service of Catherine of Aragon. Anne adored little Purkey, keeping him often at her side and feeding him titbits from her plate; she was heart-broken when she learned of his death. A year later, in December 1534, he supposedly fell from a window and the King was charged with breaking the terrible news to his wife. In fact, this was because Henry himself was responsible for the animal’s execution. Imagining the scandal if he sent a dog to the block, let alone the practical difficulties, Henry solved the problem with a simple act of defenestration.

Henry VIII determined that Pourquoi or Purkey was a trained spy and thus had the dog destroyed by having it tossed out the window. Obviously, Anne Boleyn was upset:

Anne grieved Purkey’s loss. She had been preparing a special gift for him for New Year, a silver collar hung with dog biscuits fashioned from gold and studded with pearls. In the intensity of her emotion, she ruled that when New Years’ Day arrived, it should be devoted to the memory of her pet, requiring all her ladies in waiting to wear a similar collar and even insisting that Henry too should sport such an item. At first, Henry complied out of guilt, but by the following year, his relationship with Anne had changed so completely that he did not feel obliged to. On January 1 1536, Anne’s ladies wore the silver collars for the second time running, while the Queen spent the day on her knees, as masses were said for the soul of the beast. She was reunited with Purkey a few months later and Henry ordered the silver collars to be melted down and returned to the royal treasury. This was one New Years’ Custom he was not prepared to continue.

There might be some issue with that story, however, since England at that time celebrated the New Year on Lady Day, March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation following the Julian Calendar. More about poor Pourquoi here.

"For Which the Queen Prayed": Claude of France's Prayer Book

In The Wall Street Journal, Barrymore Laurence Scherer reviews an important exhibition of Queen Claude of France's prayer book and book of hours at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City:

The illuminations in Claude's prayer book are imbued with richly layered symbolism not just relating to holy writ, but to the queen herself, especially to her persistent anxieties about bearing healthy sons. The central example of this symbolism is the book's only full-page image without text, a glowing painting of the Holy Trinity. "The Trinity," on the left-hand page of the opening, is complemented by an illumination of adoring choirs of angels on the right-hand page. Images of the Trinity usually depict the Dove of the Holy Spirit hovering over a white-bearded God the Father and Christ the Son either on or with the cross or bearing the stigmata of his Crucifixion. This one differs significantly—wearing identical purple robes, the Father and the Son resemble youthful twins. Moreover Jesus (on the left) bears no stigmata. This is the Christ who has not yet assumed flesh on Earth via the Immaculate Conception, explains Mr. Wieck, author of the splendid exhibition book (which includes a contribution by conservator Francisco H. Trujillo). The Father, steadying a golden-clasped book on his lap, gestures in benediction. Christ, with eyes lowered, places his left hand on the book, raising his right hand in affirmation. The implication here, explains Mr. Wieck, is that Christ will obey his Father's command to descend to Earth to suffer for humanity's sins. And in the blue cloud below the figures, an almost microscopic vignette of spires and towers represents the unredeemed world at that moment.

The symbolism extends further: Although the prayer book's other illuminations are all rectilinear, "Trinity" is oval. And it is framed differently than the others. Nearly every image in the book is framed by a cordelière, a rope motif adopted as an armorial device from the rope belt worn by Franciscan monks. Most pages are framed by Queen Claude's personal cordelière, running a rectangular course around each page and tightly knotted at the top, bottom and sides. But the cordelière framing "Trinity" is arranged in open loops—King Francis's armorial device. Thus the complete symbolism of this single page is that as God bestowed his Son upon mankind, so may he bestow a son and heir upon Francis and his queen. Even the painting's oval shape possibly symbolizes the fertility for which Claude prayed.

Queen Claude was Francois I's first wife. Both Mary Boleyn and Anne Boleyn had attended her as they remained in France after Louis XII, Mary Tudor's first husband, died. (This Mary Tudor was Henry VIII's favorite sister). Queen Claude and Catherine of Aragon met at The Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Queen Claude died when she was 24 years old after bearing Francois seven children, including his heir, who would reign as Henri II. Francois remarried after Claude's death, becoming betrothed to Charles V's sister while he was held prisoner in Spain after the Battle of Pavia.

Note that for those of us who cannot go to New York City to see the exhibition, we can view the prayer book on line here.

Anne Boleyn's Execution: Why with a Sword?

Leanda de Lisle explains why, in The Spectator:

With his wife, Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, Henry VIII considered every detail of her coming death, poring over plans for the scaffold. As he did so he made a unique decision. Anne, alone among all victims of the Tudors, was to be beheaded with a sword and not the traditional axe. The question that has, until now, remained unanswered is — why?

Historians have suggested that Henry chose the sword because Anne had spent time in France, where the nobility were executed this way, or because it offered a more dignified end. But Henry did not care about Anne’s feelings. Anne was told she was to be beheaded on the morning of 18 May, and then kept waiting until noon before being told she was to die the next day. At the root of Henry’s decision was Henry thinking not about Anne, but about himself.

That last sentence is the key to de Lisle's explanation: she connects Henry's concern with his hurt pride and reputation, disclosed in the trials of his queen and her courtiers with the image of Camelot:

In Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, Guinevere was sentenced to death by burning. Henry decided Anne would be beheaded with a sword — the symbol of Camelot, of a rightful king, and of masculinity. Historians argue over whether Anne was really guilty of adultery, and whether Henry or Cromwell was more responsible for her destruction. But the choice of a sword to kill Anne reflects one certain fact: Henry’s overweening vanity and self-righteousness.

What do you think of her explanation?

Four Important Events on May 2

1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. She was taken to the Tower of London and to the very apartments she had used before her coronation:

As you know, Anne Boleyn was arrested on 2nd May 1536 at Greenwich Palace. Alison Weir writes of how Anne was accused of “evil behaviour” by Sir William Paulet, Sir William Fitzwilliam and her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, charged with adultery and informed that both Mark Smeaton and Sir Henry Norris had confessed their guilt. Anne denied these charges but it was no good, she was allowed to return to her apartments for her dinner, under guard, and then she was escorted by barge along the Thames to the Tower of London.

Although Traitor’s Gate is often pointed out as the place where Anne would have disembarked, Alison Weir points out that Anne, as Queen, was taken to the Court Gate in the Byward Tower, a private entrance. Here she was met by the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edmund Walsingham, who was Sir William Kingston’s deputy and then Anne would then have been escorted along Water Lane (in the Outer Ward), past the back of the Lieutenant’s House to the entrance of the royal palace where she was to be imprisoned.

It was ironic that Anne Boleyn was imprisoned in the same lodgings that she stayed in before her coronation in 1533 – the Queen’s apartments in the Tower’s royal palace.

But where are these lodgings?

In “The Lady in the Tower”, Weir describes Anne’s lodgings as lying “on the east side of the inner ward between the Lanthorn Tower and the Wardrobe Tower” and writes of how these apartments were renovated for Anne’s coronation, with Cromwell spending the equivalent of over £1 million pounds to make them fit for the new queen. These Renaissance style apartments were therefore a luxurious prison for Anne Boleyn but a prison is a prison. If you go to the Tower of London today, it is not possible to see Anne’s prison because these lodgings were uninhabitable by the end of the 16th century and demolished by the end of the 18th century. The present half-timbered Queen’s House which overlooks the green is not where Anne was imprisoned as these apartments were not built until around 1540, at least 4 years after Anne Boleyn’s execution.

1559 – John Knox returns from exile to Scotland to become the leader of the beginning Scottish Reformation. He was thus able to contribute to the revolution that overturned the regency of Queen Mary of Guise for her daughter Mary, the Dauphine of France and Queen of Scotland, draft the Scots Confession for the Parliament, and argue with Mary, Queen of Scots.

1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, escapes from Loch Leven Castle. She had been imprisoned there after the death of her husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and her abduction by and marriage to Lord Bothwell. Having lost the battle of Carberry Hill on June 15, 1567 before it even began, Mary was taken in custody to Edinburgh and then imprisoned in Loch Leven, where she miscarried and forced to abdicate. Then she escaped on May 2 and lost the battle of Landside eleven days later. By the middle of May in 1568 she was in England and in Elizabeth's custody.

1611 – King James Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker. According to the wikipedia article, things did not go smoothly:

The original printing of the Authorized Version was published by Robert Barker, the King's Printer, in 1611 as a complete folio Bible.It was sold looseleaf for ten shillings, or bound for twelve. Robert Barker's father, Christopher, had, in 1589, been granted by Elizabeth I the title of royal Printer, with the perpetual Royal Privilege to print Bibles in England. Robert Barker invested very large sums in printing the new edition, and consequently ran into serious debt, such that he was compelled to sub-lease the privilege to two rival London printers, Bonham Norton and John Bill. It appears that it was initially intended that each printer would print a portion of the text, share printed sheets with the others, and split the proceeds. Bitter financial disputes broke out, as Barker accused Norton and Bill of concealing their profits, while Norton and Bill accused Barker of selling sheets properly due to them as partial Bibles for ready money. There followed decades of continual litigation, and consequent imprisonment for debt for members of the Barker and Norton printing dynasties, while each issued rival editions of the whole Bible. In 1629 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge successfully managed to assert separate and prior royal licences for Bible printing, for their own university presses – and Cambridge University took the opportunity to print revised editions of the Authorized Version in 1629 and 1638. The editors of these editions included John Bois and John Ward from the original translators. This did not, however, impede the commercial rivalries of the London printers, especially as the Barker family refused to allow any other printers access to the authoritative manuscript of the Authorized Version.

Professor Eric Ives, RIP

You might remember that I reviewed Professor Eric Ives' book The Reformation Experience recently on this blog. Turns out that this book will be his last (unless he has a work close enough to completion for posthumous publication): he died on the 25th of September at age 81. This obituary comes from the BBC History Magazine online edition:

Eric Ives OBE, a leading Tudor historian and contributor to BBC History Magazine, has died. He was 81 years old.

Ives was emeritus professor of English history at the University of Birmingham and an expert on the Tudor period. He wrote a number of books across a long career, with perhaps his most famous work, Anne Boleyn, published in 1986. His most recent publication, The Reformation Experience, was released earlier this year.

Author and historian Suzannah Lipscomb said: "Professor Eric Ives's death is a sudden and profound loss to the historical community. He was a brilliant historian and one of the leading lights of Tudor history: his work on Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey is unsurpassed (and I say this even as one who disagreed with him on some points of interpretation!). It is deeply sad that The Reformation Experience will be his last book. But, even more importantly, he was also an exceptionally warm, kind, generous and courteous man. He will be greatly missed."

Anne Boleyn's Jailer Dies

Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, died on September 15, 1540. On 28 May 1524 he became constable of the Tower at a salary of £100 and when Anne Boleyn and those accused of adultery with her were brought to the Tower, he was in charge.

He met Anne when she was conveyed to the Tower and he reported on her to Thomas Cromwell, for example, when he had to tell her of a delay in her execution:

"This morning she sent for me, that I might be with her at such time as she received the good Lord, to the intent I should hear her speak as touching her innocency alway to be clear. And in the writing of this she sent for me, and at my coming she said, "Mr. Kingston, I hear I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time and past my pain." I told her it should be no pain, it was so little. And then she said, "I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck", and then put her hands about it, laughing heartily. I have seen many men and also women executed, and that they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge this lady has much joy in death. Sir, her almoner is continually with her, and had been since two o'clock after midnight."

The Tudors (show) wiki has more detail about him here, including his letters to Cromwell about her behavior and her requests--for example, for the Blessed Sacrament and her confessor.

Henry VIII Marries AGAIN!

On May 30, 1536, Henry VIII married his third wife, Jane Seymour, eleven days after the execution of Anne Boleyn. (Since Cranmer had determined that marriage null and void, perhaps this was just his second marriage, after all! No, this would really be his first marriage, since Cranmer had declared Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon null and void too!) They had been betrothed the day after Anne's beheading after Henry had removed Jane from Court so he wouldn't so obviously be involved with her while his second queen was in the Tower of London.

When Cromwell announced the marriage to Parliament, he used terms indicating Henry's reluctance to marry again--yet for the good of the country, he would do so, hoping to provide the legitimate male heir so earnestly desired.

Since Jane fulfilled these desires with the birth of Edward on October 12, 1537, she was Henry's favorite wife. When she died on October 23, she was also his only wife to be buried as a Queen of England, even though she had never been crowned.

David Starkey analyzed Henry's reasons for marrying Jane on his BBC/PBS show, The Six Wives of Henry VIII:

It's not surprising that Henry, tired of the belligerent Queen Anne, would fall for the 27-year-old Jane Seymour. In contrast to Anne, Jane was amiable, gentle and quiet. It also helped that Jane's mother had given birth to six sons -- a sign that Jane would be capable of producing heirs. Jane had already been in court for six years as maid-of honor to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn when the king began to court her. When it became evident that Henry had fallen for Jane, the anti-Boleyn faction, led by Nicholas Carew, rushed to her side to help her further captivate the king. With coaching from Carew, Jane used the same tactics -- to remain chaste while welcoming his advances -- that Anne had used to capture the king. Henry once again fell for it. In one instance, Henry gave Jane a present of gold coins. Jane had accepted other gifts from Henry before but she refused the money and begged the king to remember that she was an honorable woman. She would "rather die a thousand times" than tarnish her honor. Henry was impressed, "She has behaved in this matter very modestly."

At first, the king had no intentions of making Jane more than his mistress -- after all, his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was still alive and to divorce Anne, his second wife and marry another woman would make him the laughingstock of Europe. But Catherine's death in 1536 made Henry, a widower -- since his only wife in the eyes of the Church had died. Anne Boleyn's miscarriage in 1536 and the king's conclusion that she could not bear him sons further convinced him to get rid of his second wife to marry Jane.

Anyone who favors Anne Boleyn among Henry VIII's wives waxes wroth at Jane Seymour. Viz this paragraph from the Luminarium biography:

Jane, being a woman of consummate art, and having already advanced to the very threshold of the throne, despised the threats, and disregarded the orders of her angry mistress. Aware that her star was in the ascendant, she scrupled not to obtain her elevation by the destruction of Anne and five unfortunate noblemen. Our historians laud her discretion, her modesty, and her virtue; but on what principles of morality it is difficult to conceive. She accepted the addresses of the husband of her mistress, knowing him to be such; and scrupled not to walk over the corpse of Anne to the throne. True, she retired to her maternal home, at Wolf Hall, whilst the tragedy which consummated the destruction of Anne was played out; but it was only to prepare the gay attire and the sumptuous banquet to celebrate her marriage with the ruthless King, whilst the blood was yet warm in the lifeless form of the ill-fated Anne.

Henry VIII doesn't come off that well, either:

On the morning of Anne's execution, Henry attired for the chase, and attended by his huntsmen, waited in the neighbourhood of Epping or Richmond—tradition points to both these places—and immediately he heard the boom of the signal gun, which was to assure him that she breathed no more, exclaimed in exultation, "Uncouple the hounds, and away!" and paying no regard to the direction taken by the game, galloped off with his courtiers at full speed to Wolf Hall, which he reached at night-fall. Early the next morning, Saturday, May the twentieth, 1536, and attired in the gay robes of a bridegroom, he conducted Jane Seymour to the altar of Tottenham church, Wilts, and in the presence of Sir John Russell, and other members of his obsequious privy council, made her his bride. From Wolf Hall, the wedding party proceeded through Winchester, by an easy journey, to London; where on the twenty-ninth of May, a great court was held, at which Jane was introduced as Queen. Feasts, jousts, and other entertainments in honour of the royal nuptials followed; and Sir Edward Seymour was created Viscount Beauchamp, and Sir Walter Hungerford received the title of Lord Hungerford.

Queen Jane evidently pleaded with Henry at some point to spare the monasteries, and she might have been a Catholic, which at this time in England could mean that although she accepted the king's supremacy in the Church she still believed in Catholic doctrines on salvation, the Sacraments, etc. Certainly her brothers adopted more Reformed religious ideas, for Edward Seymour would lead England in a more radical reformation as Edward VI's Lord Protector.

A Question of Influence: Anne Boleyn and the English Reformation

On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn was beheaded for crimes of treason, adultery and incest by a special sword-wielding executioner who was sent for before her guilt was determined in a court of law. Her brief reign as Queen of England was over, but she had tremendous impact on events in her lifetime (and beyond, since she was Elizabeth I’s mother). Just as her guilt or innocence of the charges that brought her to the scaffold is a contentious issue, so also her role in the English Reformation is hotly debated. I am not convinced that she was guilty; nor am I convinced by some arguments that she was a great leader of the English Reformation.

She played one crucial role in the English Reformation: she was a catalyst (although she certainly did not escape change). Anne caught Henry’s eye and refused to be his mistress as her sister Mary had been; she demanded marriage and coronation. Because Anne held out, and because Henry was desperate for a legitimate male heir, and because Pope Clement VII would not grant Henry the annulment he sought of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry took his drastic step—take over the power and authority of the Church for himself. Thomas Cranmer, his new Archbishop of Canterbury declared that Henry’s marriage to Catherine was null and void so that Henry and Anne could marry.

It is commonly thought that Anne also gave Henry the pretext on which to take that drastic step, introducing him to William Tyndale’s book The Obedience of a Christian Man. Tyndale argued that the monarch should have control of the Church in his land—and Henry liked Tyndale’s argument, adopted it, and proceeded, through Convocation and Parliament to gain that control.

If Anne Boleyn was committed to the reform outlined by Luther and his followers like Tyndale on the Continent, she most certainly failed to influence Henry in that regard. He never adopted the crucial doctrines of the Continental Reformation—sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia. Although he suppressed use of the word purgatory, Henry still wanted prayers and Masses said for his own benefit after death. Henry always upheld the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and condemned men to death for denying it just as he did men who denied his supremacy in the Church. He was never comfortable with common people interpreting the Holy Bible, with married clergy, or with other changes. Religious practices in England veered from Cromwell and Cranmer's incremental reforms in liturgy to Henry's more conservative and traditional views. When Tyndale was executed in Vilvoorde, Belgium he prayed that God would open the eyes of the King of England.

In her study of Anne Boleyn’s fall and execution, The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir offers detail that indicates Anne and Henry agreed on some of these matters: before her execution, Anne availed herself of Catholic Sacraments: Confession and the Holy Eucharist. She asked for the Holy Eucharist to be brought to her apartments in the Tower of London soon after being imprisoned there; she asked Thomas Cranmer to hear her last confession, and she received Holy Communion.

This seems to demonstrate conventional Catholic beliefs in the Real Presence and of the efficacy of the Sacraments, unless Anne was cynically manipulating both Cranmer and Kingston, her jailer in the Tower, to prove her innocence. She made it clear that she did not confess as sins the crimes she was accused of and then pointed to her reception of Holy Communion as proving she had not committed those crimes. Receiving Holy Communion without confessing Mortal Sins (adultery and incest) would surely be condemning oneself to Hell! Anne seems to be a very conventional Catholic in these regards.

As Alison Weir notes in The Lady in the Tower, it was a fellow reformer who instigated the conspiracy leading to her arrest, trial, and execution: Thomas Cromwell. Anne and he clashed over the process of suppressing the monasteries as she thought any funds gained from their closing should benefit the poor. She was also more apt to argue for keeping some of the monasteries open in view of their service to the poor—at one point during her imprisonment in early May 1536, she hoped for refuge in a convent. Whatever role Anne had taken in the religious policies of Henry’s reign, evidently Cromwell was confident he could continue the process without her influence. (We should also remember that Cromwell seemed to regret some of his innovations as vice regent and vicar general; before his execution on July 28, 1540, he professed to die in the traditional religion.)

Of course, his king had to be convinced of his queen’s guilt if she was to be destroyed. Henry must have been unhappy with her since the only surviving baby was a girl; she had not fulfilled her main purpose. Anne was not prepared to be a queen and had been raised quite high by Henry. Her jealousy at his roving eye offended him and he told her so—mentioning her predecessor’s good behavior in that regard. Whatever her influence on him had been, it had clearly waned and another had caught his eye—one of her ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. If Henry was dedicated to reformation of the Church in England, he certainly believed he could do it without her.

Anne was also abandoned by another ally: Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was at first not convinced of her guilt, but learning that Henry VIII believed her guilty, and reading the accusations and evidence against her, Cranmer regretfully stifled any concerns he might have and commiserated with Henry about her betrayal of him. In obedience to Henry, he declared that Henry’s marriage to Anne was null and void before her execution, creating a logical problem: if Henry and Anne were never married, how could she have committed adultery? Her guilt was a foregone conclusion, as far as Henry, Cromwell, and the court that tried her were determined. If Henry wanted her found guilty and executed, issues like her influence on the continuing reformation of religion in England must be put aside. Henry had executed other influential Catholic reformers like Cardinal Fisher and Thomas More: if true reformation of the Church in England was really the goal, they would have kept their heads. If Cranmer really thought her indispensable in reformation matters, he should have stood up for her more steadfastly—especially if he knew her innocent after her confession in the Tower.

The betrayal by Cromwell, the rejection by Henry, and the defection by Cranmer persuade me that Anne Boleyn did not have such great influence over religious matters in England as some authors, like Paul Zahl (Five Women of the English Reformation) or Joanna Denny (Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England’s Tragic Queen) indicate.It is hard to argue that she died a martyr to the Protestant or even reformer cause, as some have, based on John Foxe's Acts and Monuments.The rejection by Henry is certainly most crucial, but Cranmer’s defection is most telling. Anne Boleyn was executed, as so many had been and would be, because Henry VIII wanted her to be executed!

These issues of her guilt, her innocence, her religious faith, her influence, her rise, her fall, her life, her death—they certainly demonstrate why Anne Boleyn is a constant figure of fascination in fiction, biography, historical study, movies, TV shows, websites, and blogs! For all the different ways that The Tudors series failed in historical accuracy, the dramatic presentation of Anne Boleyn's execution was very effective.

The Death of Katherine of Aragon

In the months before the death of Katherine of Aragon on January 7, 1536, both she and Mary her daughter had been very ill. They were both feeling the pressure of Henry VIII's anger and frustration with them because they were not cooperating with him. Cromwell told Mary that the very fact that she and Katherine of Aragon were alive was detrimental to Henry's relationships to foreign princes. She and Katherine were warned constantly against using the titles Princess or Queen for one another--the Princess Elizabeth and Queen Anne Boleyn owned those titles.

News of the executions of both John Fisher and Thomas More in June and July 1535 led mother and daughter to write to the Holy Father and the Holy Roman Emperor respectively, imploring them to do something about the religious changes Henry was making.

When Mary became so ill that Henry sent his own physician to care for her, Katherine begged him to send Mary to her, so she could care for her daughter--after all, they shared some of the same symptoms, sorrow and heartache. Henry refused.

When it became clear that Katherine was also very ill, perhaps near death, Katherine again begged him to let her see Mary one last time. Again, Henry refused.

Katherine died after speaking with Eustace Chapuys, Charles V's ambassador and delivering a heartfelt letter of love to her estranged husband. Henry and Anne responded by at first rejoicing at her death, wearing yellow, dining and dancing. He was relieved that the threat of war was lessened with her death.

Mary was not told of her mother's death until four days had passed. Katherine was buried in Peterborough Cathedral with a service befitting a Dowager Princess of Wales. Henry did not allow Mary to attend the funeral Mass either. Her tomb was upgraded with the marker "Katherine Queen of England" during the reign of George V.

May she rest in peace.

Peterborough Cathedral is planning its annual Katherine of Aragon Festival, to be held at the end of this month--more information here.

"Naked to Mine Enemies": Thomas Wosley, RIP

Henry VIII dismissed his Chancellor, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York on October 25, 1529. Henry held Wolsey responsible for the failure of the papal legatine court to dissolve his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, allowing him to marry Anne Boleyn. Also, Wolsey's diplomatic efforts had failed when France and the Holy Roman Empire made peace--Henry and Wolsey had attempted to play them off against each other so that England would have greater power on the Continent.

Wolsey offered and/or Henry took many of the Archbishop's great homes and lands. Henry had particularly coveted Hampton Court. As a Renaissance Prince of the Church, Wolsey had lived very well, especially in view of his middle-class birth.

Henry briefly forgave Wolsey, but finally had him brought from York to London to stand trial for high treason; Anne Boleyn's influence is often cited here. Wolsey died on the way (at a monastery!) on November 29, 1530 and Shakespeare adapted his last words:

Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my King, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies. (Henry VIII)

Shakespeare has Wolsey make this speech as he leaves Court in disgrace. Wolsey had many enemies among the nobility, not least because he had risen so high from lower birth. Wolsey had never been enthusiastic about Henry VIII's efforts to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon; at the end Anne Boleyn was such an enemy that he really hoped for their failure.

The most recent biography of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey places him in an international context: Cardinal Wolsey: A Life in Renaissance Europe by Stella Fletcher, published in 2009 by Continuum. One of the most available lives of Wolsey is Charles W. Ferguson's Naked to Mine Enemies, because it was part of the Time Reading Program and is still readily available in used bookstores (hopefully with both volumes together!)