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.

The Death of Pope Clement VII, 1534

Giulio de' Medici, the former Giulio Cardinal de' Medici and Cardinal Protector of England, died in office as Pope Clement VII on September 25, 1534. He had reigned as the Successor of Saint Peter since November 19, 1523.

He was the son of of Giuliano de’ Medici but was raised by Lorenzo the Magnificent, and was also the nephew of Pope Leo X.

He was, of course, the pope to whom Henry VIII appealed for an annulment--a decree of nullity--of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

It's interesting to read the evaluations of his character in different sources. The British 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry, composed by Walter Alison Phillips, summarizes it thus:

Though free from the grosser vices of his predecessors, a man of taste, and economical without being avaricious, Clement VII. was essentially a man of narrow outlook and interests. He failed to understand the great spiritual movement which was convulsing the Church; and instead of bending his mind to the problem of the Reformation, he from the first subordinated the cause of Catholicism and of the world to his interests as an Italian prince and a Medici. Even in these purely secular affairs, moreover, his timidity and indecision prevented him from pursuing a consistent policy; and his ill fortune, or his lack of judgment, placed him, as long as he had the power of choice, ever on the losing side.

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia entry, written by Herbert Thurston, is a little more expansive:

In the more ecclesiastical aspects of his pontificate Clement was free from reproach. Two Franciscan reforms, that of the Capuchins and that of the Recollects, found in him a sufficiently sympathetic patron. He was genuinely in earnest over the crusade against the Turks, and he gave much encouragement to foreign missions. As a patron of art, he was much hampered by the sack of Rome and the other disastrous events of his pontificate. But he was keenly interested in such matters, and according to Benvenuto Cellini he had excellent taste. By the commission given to the last-named artist for the famous cope-clasp of which we hear so much in the autobiography, he became the founder of Benvenuto's fortunes. (See Cellini, Benvenuto.) Clement also continued to be the patron of Raphael and of Michelangelo, whose great fresco of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel was undertaken by his orders.

In their verdict upon the character of Pope Clement VII almost all historians are agreed. He was an Italian prince, a de' Medici, and a diplomat first, and a spiritual ruler afterwards. His intelligence was of a high order, though his diplomacy was feeble and irresolute. On the other hand, his private life was free from reproach, and he had many excellent impulses, but despite good intentions, all qualities of heroism and greatness must emphatically be denied him.

In his Characters of the Reformation, Hilaire Belloc agrees but adds another insight into these character evaluations:

He was a man of excellent morals, very great erudition, good manners, perfect refinement, if anything rather too much delicacy of mind and of taste, a splendid patron of the arts and a sure judge of excellence in them. He was also a remarkably hard worker, taking the tremendous duties of his office most seriously. Moreover he was as intelligent as any man in Europe. What he lacked was simplicity, also strength of initiative and power of direction. He lacked both those qualities which make for strong command through what may be called the "squareness" of a character, and those which make for successful command through the moral simplicity of a character. In the face of a difficult and involved position his policy became a tangle of secret and involved intrigues, and he had that fatal symptom of weakness which takes the form of always playing for time. There are, obviously, occasions when playing for time is wise, but Clement VII was one of those men who always play for time, and when they find a decision difficult, say to themselves that with sufficient delay anything may turn up in their favour, and who therefore create delay for its own sake. All his method, from the first mention of the desire for divorce expressed by the English Court up to the very last still hesitating and half tentative declarations against the actions of the English government, consisted in dependence on delay. For seven years he played delay as his only card.

As we look back on people from the past--PBS is airing another Ken Burn's documentary, this time on The U.S. and the Holocaust--and we're asked to evaluate what they did and what they should have, could have, would have done better, I think we have to be careful in our judgment and discernment. 

Who knows (God knows!) but that Giulio/Clement's personal virtues, efforts to do the right thing in difficult circumstances (the Sack of Rome! the conflict and contest between Charles V and Francis I! Henry VIII's Great Matter! the beginning of the Reformation!, etc!) may have won him greater rewards than the verdicts of historians would indicate. 

In other words, he may be a saint in Heaven. But we should still pray: Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord, and let Your Perpetual Light shine upon him. May the soul of Pope Clement VII, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. May Clement VII rest in peace. Amen.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Portrait of Clement VII by Giuliano Bugiardini (c. 1532)