In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I (18 page)

Whilst Bessie and her son were to incur the stigma of illegitimacy, her royal connection raised her above open censure and afforded her considerable protection. There would be no awkward questions for her to answer, even from the church, as Wolsey took charge of all the relevant arrangements. As a result, it must have seemed that even God was sanctioning her liaison with the king and subsequent pregnancy. It is likely that the late spring and early summer days passed pleasantly enough in the priory, punctuated by visits from the king, staying nearby. Henry must have been especially eager to see the arrival of a son, even one not born to his wife. If nothing else, it proved his abilities to father a healthy child and shifted the perceived failings of his marriage firmly onto Catherine. It is unclear exactly when Catherine herself learned of the imminent arrival; whether before or after his birth, yet she cannot have been unaware of his existence once Henry started heaping him with titles and inviting him to visit the court. His presence must have been a constant reminder to her of her own dwindling fertility and the precariousness of her daughter’s inheritance. For Catherine, it may have seemed that everyone else was able to produce surviving sons. That spring, news had arrived at court of the birth of a male heir to Henry’s great rival, Francis I of France, and by June, ambassador Thomas Boleyn had written to Wolsey describing the boy’s christening and the reception of the English gifts presented to Queen Claude in Henry’s name, including a salt cellar, cup and layar of gold, which were much praised. It was the French king’s fourth child and second son. Francis was greatly pleased, and said whenever it should be the king’s fortune to have a prince, he would be glad to do for him in like manner’.
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The implied comparison cannot have but piqued the English king, as it was intended. Meanwhile, Bessie was counting down the days and making preparations for the arrival of her child.

Henry Fitzroy’s birth, probably in June 1519, was shrouded in secrecy. Initially the event had little impact at court. It certainly bypassed Venetian ambassador Guistinian, who wrote that ‘nothing new has taken place’ that summer. No record survives of any resulting court celebrations that Catherine may or may not have been required to endure. It has been suggested that a feast that August at the queen’s nearby manor of Havering-atte-Bower may have afforded Henry an opportunity to display or acclaim his son; such behaviour would not seem untypically tactless in the light of his later treatment of Catherine, but there is no evidence to support this either way. Henry certainly did not deny he was the child’s father. Thomas Wolsey stood as godfather, specifically stating the king’s paternity as he bestowed the royal name at his baptism. He would have control over the arrangements of this event, as well as Bessie’s churching, which probably took place in the adjacent church of St Laurence.

A new mother was not supposed to emerge from her lying-in chamber until around a month had passed, which meant mid-July for Bessie. Prior to this religious cleansing, a mother or ‘green woman’ was expected to remain inside, neither entering her community or church, nor looking upon the earth or sky or meeting others’ eyes, assuming childbirth to be a period of sinfulness, tainted by sex and delivery. Technically, she was supposed to refrain from sexual activity until the rite had taken place although conception intervals inferred from baptismal records show this was not always the case, although it must remain unclear just how much control women had over this: according to parish records, at least one Essex wife was already pregnant at the time of her churching. In order to re-establish her social and sexual identity, a woman was led from her chamber to the church porch, veiled, in a parody of marriage which seems ironic in its suggestion that the enforced abstinence of her lying-in induced a return to a near-virgin state. The veil also stresses the association of the mother with depictions of the Virgin as well as an extension of the privacy of the birth chamber until such time as her seclusion was publicly ended. In pre-Reformation days, the priest would be waiting outside in the church porch to sprinkle the woman with holy water before proceeding inside, where some churches had a special pew or stool for churching, although illness may necessitate churching at home. Payment for the ceremony was often the child’s chrism cloth, made from fine linen or its equivalent in money. The mothers of illegitimate offspring had to repent in front of the whole village and do penance before partaking in any religious ceremonies, although it is unlikely Bessie had to submit to this humiliation and quite possible her churching took place in seclusion, arranged by the Prior himself.

Later, the ritual of churching came under attack. The main objection that arose during the Reformation was the proper performance of the purification rites and the Protestant rejection of the connotations of sin and uncleanliness in the mother. The medieval
Sarum Missal
, translated into English in 1526, contained a prayer for churching at the porch: ‘O God who hast delivered this woman thy servant from the peril of childbirth, and hast made her to be devoted to thy service …’ The priest then sprinkled her with holy water, saying, ‘thou shalt purge me O Lord, with hyssop’, before leading her inside with the promise of eternal life. Unscrupulous priests could also extract bribes and penalties from those women who had conceived out of wedlock by insisting on payment or offerings at the altar. When the Sarum rite was replaced by the Book of Common Prayer in the reign of Edward VI, churching ceremonies were forced to revise their rituals and definitions. The contrast is shown in Bentley’s 1582
Monument of Matrons
: ‘O My Lord God, I thank thee with all my heart, wit, understanding and power, for thou hast vouchsafed to deliver me out of this most dangerous travail and has sent unto this world, out of my woeful womb, this child, for which I am not worthy, to give thee condign thanks, praise, honour and glory.’ Emphasis has shifted from the priest to the mother, taking a more active responsibility for her own salvation in director communication with God. The importance of the ceremony was secular, as well as religious: it reminded the community of the enormity of this rite of passage: as mothers and attendants, women were engaged directly with the struggle between life and death. In the post-delivery euphoria, among those often living under hard conditions, a successful birth was a welcome occasion for celebration. For Henry, the arrival of a healthy son gave him food for thought: it may have been around this time that he concluded that his marriage to Catherine was unlawful but that God might bless him with sons by another woman.

Interestingly, Henry does not have appeared to have considered marriage to Bessie. Even after the onset of Catherine’s menopause, such a union would have allowed him to legitimize his son and any subsequent children. In fact, the timing for such an event was not in Bessie’s favour: in 1519, Henry’s divorce and remarriage to a commoner were still only theoretical, no matter what Bessie’s fertility had proved, and by the late 1520s, she was unavailable and a more formidable rival had appeared in the form of Anne Boleyn. Instead, a suitable match was arranged for her, to Gilbert Tailboys, first Baron Tailboys of Kyme, who was at court under Wolsey’s protection following the emerging insanity of his father. It is probable then, that Wolsey arranged the marriage as he had the lying-in and the christening. The timing of Bessie’s next pregnancy gives rise to doubts recently cast on the paternity of their eldest child Elizabeth, who appears to have been born before the couple appear in official records in 1522, perhaps as early as 1520. This would place her conception back in 1519.
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With the exact date of the ceremony unclear, such a brief interval of recovery between lovers invites the interpretation that Henry was in fact, the father of her daughter Elizabeth. But was Henry himself aware of this? Following the pride he felt in Fitzroy’s arrival, it seems likely he would have acknowledged or at least provided for an illegitimate daughter if he had been certain of her identity. Her gender made her less desirable in terms of succession but she may have been useful in future dynastic negotiations. Perhaps the arrangement of Bessie’s marriage was provision for mother and both children; Henry may have visited her bed again that August as he stayed nearby, resulting in Elizabeth’s birth in the summer of 1520. Significantly though, no mention was made of this possibility at the time and without knowing the date of the Tailboys marriage, definite conclusions cannot be reached. In the coming years, Bessie had little involvement with her son, Henry Fitzroy, who was raised in a separate establishment befitting the status of an illegitimate royal. In 1530, the French Ambassador remarked on Henry’s fondness for his good-looking, red-haired son; later he would be introduced to Francis I and represent the king in his absence. Bessie’s marriage resulted in the births of three more children before she was widowed in 1530, as did a second union around 1535 with Edward, ninth Baron Clinton. During Henry’s short-lived marriage to Anne of Cleves, Bessie returned to court as a member of the queen’s household but ill health probably dictated her swift retirement as she died the same year. Whilst not as significant as any of Henry’s wives, her importance lies in providing the king with proof that he was capable of bearing a healthy son: Fitzroy’s existence provided the justification Henry needed that the failure of his marriage lay with Catherine. Soon after his birth though, a new mistress would supplant his mother.

Popular history has Mary Boleyn down as an ‘infamous whore’. Was she really either? Centuries of confusion concerning the identities and activities of the Boleyn sisters have added to the myths about both girls, intensified by film portrayals and fiction. The result has been a tangle of misinterpretation, gossip and romantic imagining. In fact, little is known about the elder sister who caught Henry’s eye as early as 1520. Traditional assertions of her reputation have recently been analysed and discredited, with Mary emerging as a far less lascivious or controversial character. Typically described as blonde, pliant, disappointing to her family and unintellectual, there is actually no evidence to suggest Mary was any of these. She may have had a brief liaison with Francis I of France whilst in the service of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, but this does not necessarily imply the disgrace she has been accused of. She appears to have received less education than her sister, who was sent into the household of Archduchess Margaret in her teens, yet the reasons for this are unclear. Descriptions of her beauty have compared her favourably and poorly with her more famous sister and surviving portraits are of dubious attribution. She may or may not have borne the king one or two children, although he did not acknowledge either. Little is certain about the role Mary played in Henry’s life; recent scholarship has overturned centuries of assumptions about her promiscuity with the suggestion that his attentions may even have been forced upon her against her will.
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Mary had been attached to the court of Mary Tudor for several years before she became Henry’s mistress. She had been born around 1499 at Blickling, Norfolk into the influential Boleyn/Howard family who were soon to acquire Hever Castle in Kent. Her father Thomas was well embarked on a diplomatic career, having escorted Princess Margaret to Scotland in 1503 and served as ambassador to the Netherlands and France. As a teenager, Mary had travelled to France in the retinue of the future Queen Mary Rose and remained in her service for the duration of that marriage: returning to England in 1515, in Mary’s household, she would have been required to attend her mistress at the Field of Cloth of Gold five years later, an event organised by her father. On this occasion, she was a newly-married woman, having become the wife of courtier William Carey that February, an event which the king attended. Mary would have been present in the specially erected banqueting house at the English camp in Guisnes, or else when the French king, Francis I, went to dine with Catherine of Aragon. No doubt Mary would have taken pride in the splendid temporary village that sprung up out of the fertile Norman fields; after all, her father had been responsible for its organisation. She may have taken refreshment from one of the two magnificent fountains decorated with flowers and topped with statues of Cupid and Bacchus, spouting white and red wine continually. Or else she was dazzled by the banqueting house, built with brick walls on stone foundations, hung with tapestry of gold and silver interlaced with white and gold silk. It contained four great rooms, eight saloons, chambers, wardrobes and a chapel in blue and gold with rich cupboards full of plate. A sea of smaller tents made up the English camp, coded by colour, fabric and design according to rank. Henry must have cut an impressive figure: still tall, fair and athletic as he departed to meet Francis, dressed entirely in gold, his mantle and sleeves set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and large pearls. Mary would have witnessed him take part in the numerous tournaments, jousts, masquerades, feasts and dances that took place over the ensuing days. The subsequent expenses betray the extent of the occasion’s opulence, including £1,568 spent on supplying drink, £1,374 on poultry alone, £22 on sauces including mustard, wine sauce, capers and verjuice, over £600 for wax and £344 for spices and subtleties. Total estimates for royal consumption that month reached over £7,400.
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While Henry may have been aware of Mary Boleyn during this month of festivities, it is unlikely that, as has been suggested, their affair began then. With so many activities and such a lack of privacy, the Field of Cloth of Gold would have hampered rather than assisted the beginning of any liaison; perhaps the attraction had begun, but Henry would have waited until returning home to pursue Mary more discretely.

Mary may have become the king’s lover before dancing in the Château Vert pageant in March 1522. If not, it is most likely that this was the occasion that drew them together. Dancing in the role of ‘Kindness’, Mary and the other women wore white satin gowns and Milan bonnets of gold, encrusted with gems, embroidered with their names. The occasion marked the betrothal of Holy Roman Emperor Charles to the six-year-old Princess Mary. As part of the festivities, Henry had taken part in a joust bearing the motto ‘she has wounded my heart’: now he followed William Cornish in the pageant, who danced as ‘Ardent Desire’. These may well have been indicators to a chosen lady that she had gained his affections. If it was Mary, she had already been married two years, dispelling the myths popularised in film and fiction that she was hurriedly wed in order to cover the liaison. However, this was the last recorded appearance of Mary at court for a number of years. As part of the Duchess of Suffolk’s entourage, she may have only been at court intermittently. If she was meeting Henry, it may have been at locations away from the royal palaces, at Jericho or the moated hunting lodge overlooking Greenwich Park. Perhaps Henry visited her at Hever when staying at nearby Penshurst Place, or they met at William Compton’s house in Thames Street or else she was conducted in secret into the king’s lodgings.