Mary Tudor (27 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
The man Mary viewed as her saviour was gone and with him her political anchor. Though she mourned Margaret Pole more, she had needed Thomas Cromwell for guidance. Only Chapuys and her own judgement were left to her now. Part of that judgement needed to be applied to her relationships with the two women who were briefly her father’s fourth and fifth wives.
Mary and Elizabeth attended the wedding of Henry and Anne of Cleves and both subsequently got on well with her. But Henry married her only with the most extreme reluctance.The causes of his aversion have never been entirely clear. He had found the celebrated portrait of her by Holbein pleasing, but the lady herself did not meet expectations. It was not love at first sight, but utter revulsion. Anne was unsophisticated and lacked small talk, and she committed an unfortunate blunder when she did not even recognise the king when he first came to meet her at Rochester. This was hardly Anne’s fault - Henry had indulged in his rather juvenile penchant for disguise and was dressed up as Robin Hood, probably not a well-known figure in Cleves - but it was a bad start.Yet it seems to have been her body odour as much as anything else which deterred him. As nobody else commented on this we can only assume that Henry had a very sensitive nose. After consulting with his ministers as to whether the marriage could be stopped, and being told it could not, he took the plunge and married her early on the morning of 6 January 1540. Preoccupied with his own situation, he was not going to give much attention to dealing with Mary’s marital prospects, even though he was being pressed by Philip of Bavaria. Perhaps he felt that one German match was enough for the time being.
Anne was a tall, slim woman with fair hair and a face described by the French ambassador as ‘confident and resolute’. Even allowing for some licence with the paintbrush, it is hard to understand, looking at Holbein’s portrait, why she unnerved - and apparently unmanned - Henry so. Whatever the cause, he could not consummate the marriage and even told his lords that he thought, because of Anne’s ‘slack belly and breasts’, that she was not a virgin.This ungentlemanly verdict sealed the fate of their brief union. By late spring Katherine Howard had been dangled in front of Henry and Anne was divorced, after some initial opposition, with a comfortable settlement. Once she was no longer in his bed, Henry seems to have got on rather well with her. There are varying accounts of whether Anne was happy with her divorce or not, but in view of what happened to her successor, any anger she felt must surely only have been temporary.
Mary remained on good terms with Anne of Cleves but her relationship with Katherine Howard began uneasily in the hot summer of 1540. Katherine may have been as much as ten years younger than Mary herself, an age gap that made her status as stepmother almost ridiculous. The young Elizabeth was given trinkets and petted by the new queen, but it was much harder to win Mary over. In the autumn of 1540, four months after her marriage to Henry, tension between the two women was high enough for the king to threaten the removal of two of Mary’s favourite maidservants. Chapuys reported that Katherine was offended because Mary did not treat her with the same respect as her two predecessors. This sounds perfectly plausible; it would be surprising if Mary did not have reservations about Katherine, who had been, up till then, an obscure member of a clan that Mary had no cause to love. But common sense prevailed.There was no point in feuding with Katherine Howard, and the queen was essentially good natured. Mary’s personal dislikes could be deep-seated, but Katherine must have won her over. By early 1541 any ill feeling was put behind them and Mary was finally given permission to reside permanently at court. In the summer she accompanied Henry and Katherine on part of their progress through the north of England. How much she enjoyed this we cannot tell, but its acknowledgement of her prominent place in royal circles must have been a relief. To Mary, like almost all those around the court, her father must have seemed blissfully happy with his young and lively wife. She - like him - knew nothing of Katherine Howard’s steamy past.
The revelation of the sordid goings-on in the household of the dowager duchess of Norfolk, where Katherine lived as a girl, were prompted by those who disliked the ascendancy of the Howards and the brake that had been put on further religious changes.There was also an element of settling scores, as Katherine had dealt rather heartlessly with some of the men in her past. But her behaviour as queen, when she conducted an intense relationship with Thomas Culpepper, was astonishingly reckless. Even more bizarre was the support and encouragement she had received in this liaison from Lady Jane Rochford, the closest confidante among her ladies.
Cranmer, one of the prime movers against Katherine Howard, was discomfited when Henry at first refused point blank to believe the charges laid out against his ‘jewel of womanhood’. Further evidence, much of it acknowledged by the terrified queen herself, convinced Henry that he had married a promiscuous little strumpet who could not have loved him at all. Katherine was hastily removed to the convent at Syon House. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, she may have clung to the hope that she could avoid death but known in her heart, from the first moment of her interrogation, that she would not be allowed to live. As early as 11 November 1541, when details of the queen’s detention were seeping out to international observers, Marillac told Francis I: ‘The way taken is the same as with Queen Anne who was beheaded.’ Katherine’s exhilarating but brief reign as queen consort was over: ‘she has taken no kind of pastime but kept in her chamber, whereas before she did nothing but dance and rejoice, and now when the musicians come they are told that it is no more the time to dance’.
11
On 10 February 1542 Katherine was taken by river to the Tower. Knowing that this really did signal the end, she put up some resistance and had to be manhandled on to the boat. Three days later, subdued and proper in her final speech, she was executed with Lady Rochford.This sinister and enigmatic woman, who had a perverse delight in compromising others, had been on the fringes of Mary’s circle of friends. It was as well for Mary that she did not get any closer.
11
On 10 February 1542 Katherine was taken by river to the Tower. Knowing that this really did signal the end, she put up some resistance and had to be manhandled on to the boat. Three days later, subdued and proper in her final speech, she was executed with Lady Rochford.This sinister and enigmatic woman, who had a perverse delight in compromising others, had been on the fringes of Mary’s circle of friends. It was as well for Mary that she did not get any closer.
In 1536 the poet Thomas Wyatt the elder had written despairingly of the ‘bloody days’ that took the lives of Anne Boleyn and those accused with her. At least they had a trial; Katherine Howard was condemned by Act of Attainder. With her passing came to an end a period of three years that was bloodier still.
Henry decided it would be better to have Mary away from court while the proceedings against the disgraced queen were completed. She was sent to join Prince Edward, escorted on the journey by Sir John Dudley, a soldier and politician who had briefly served Anne of Cleves as her master-of-horse. Disappointed by the Cleves divorce, Dudley began to wonder whether his career at court would ever prosper. He may not have regarded accompanying the Lady Mary on this occasion as a significant step in the right direction. Neither could have anticipated that, 11 years later, when he was the most powerful man in England and she was a rebel, he would ride out of London to meet her again.
The king was very low for much of the following year, as he struggled to adjust to the knowledge that he had been so mistaken in Katherine Howard. But, as 1542 drew to a close, the ever-vigilant Chapuys noticed that he seemed to have moved on: ‘now all is changed and order is already taken that the princess shall go to court this feast, accompanied with a great number of ladies; and they work night and day at Hampton Court to finish her lodgings’.
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The imperial ambassador evidently believed that Henry’s desire to have his daughter with him for the Christmas season was a positive indication that he was better. He had clearly decided that Mary would help him forget the past, and this was a sign of her much-strengthened position. Perhaps the king did look forward to Mary’s company, to hearing her sing, watching her dance and entertain him with her musical talents. On the other hand, he may have been even more interested in the ladies who surrounded her. One, especially, caught his attention at around this time. This was Lady Latimer, the wife of a northern lord who had made up for being implicated in the Pilgrimage of Grace by fighting with the royal armies on the Scottish border in 1542. He was much older than his wife, and it was widely known that he was very ill, so ill, in fact, that he was unlikely to survive. When he died in February 1543 his wife, born Katherine Parr, became a widow for the second time. She had already determined to stay in London, at court, and appears to have joined Mary’s household shortly before Lord Latimer’s death. Suddenly, it was remarked that the king came at least once a day to see his daughter. Mary may have found this increased parental attention gratifying, but she may also have guessed that she was not actually the main reason for her father’s sociability. Henry was clearly interested in Lady Latimer.
12
The imperial ambassador evidently believed that Henry’s desire to have his daughter with him for the Christmas season was a positive indication that he was better. He had clearly decided that Mary would help him forget the past, and this was a sign of her much-strengthened position. Perhaps the king did look forward to Mary’s company, to hearing her sing, watching her dance and entertain him with her musical talents. On the other hand, he may have been even more interested in the ladies who surrounded her. One, especially, caught his attention at around this time. This was Lady Latimer, the wife of a northern lord who had made up for being implicated in the Pilgrimage of Grace by fighting with the royal armies on the Scottish border in 1542. He was much older than his wife, and it was widely known that he was very ill, so ill, in fact, that he was unlikely to survive. When he died in February 1543 his wife, born Katherine Parr, became a widow for the second time. She had already determined to stay in London, at court, and appears to have joined Mary’s household shortly before Lord Latimer’s death. Suddenly, it was remarked that the king came at least once a day to see his daughter. Mary may have found this increased parental attention gratifying, but she may also have guessed that she was not actually the main reason for her father’s sociability. Henry was clearly interested in Lady Latimer.
He was not the only one. Pleasing in appearance - to modern eyes she appears the most attractive of Henry’s wives - and warm in personality, Katherine Parr was a trim redhead with a considerable sense of style. Much has been made of the fact that she appealed to Henry because she was ‘mature’, but she was certainly not matronly. At 30, she was younger than Anne Boleyn had been at the time of her marriage to the king.There was also a passionate and impulsive side to her nature, for she had fallen deeply in love with the king’s brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Seymour. A rather disreputable charmer at whose feet sensible women seemed to swoon, Seymour was still unmarried at 34 and looking for a wife, preferably as high born and rich as possible. Katherine Parr did not fit into either of those categories; she was the daughter of a courtier from Kendal in Westmorland and the money she inherited from Lord Latimer was adequate rather than generous. As Thomas Seymour gave every appearance of reciprocating her affection, it must be supposed that he wanted her for herself. Unless, of course, he saw her as an entrée to Princess Mary. He had previously tried to woo the young Mary Howard, the duke of Richmond’s widow, but was rebuffed by the duchess and warned off by the earl of Surrey, her brother. The Howards were not keen to be allied with the Seymours, whom they considered upstarts.
It is possible that Seymour’s obvious courtship of Katherine Parr heightened the king’s own feelings, in a manner reminiscent of his brush with Sir Thomas Wyatt over Anne Boleyn years before. A rival in love made the lady all the more desirable. When she was told that the king wanted her as his sixth wife, Katherine’s reaction was, at first, despairing. The opportunity of a love match with a handsome, virile man was suddenly replaced by the contemplation of her name being added to the list of Henry’s wives.The precedents for surviving this dubious honour were discouraging, even if the unkind advance of the years suggested that the king would not, himself, see his dotage. Age had not withered Henry; instead, it had fattened him. Pain and ill health made his notorious temper still more unpredictable and his reputation as a husband was the talk of Europe. Unhappily for Katherine Parr, she could not afford the delicious quip attributed to Christina of Lorraine, once mentioned as a bride for Henry, who said she must decline because she would rather keep her head. Katherine’s desire to stay at court had come back to bite her in the most unexpected way. There was no practical line of escape. She must have known she could not turn him down. Her sister Anne had served most of Henry’s queens and her brother William was ambitious. Their lives, as well as her own, would be ruined if she did not acquiesce. After an agonising period, she also convinced herself that her marriage was the will of God. Already attracted to the ideas of the religious reformers, she decided she would use her position as queen to influence the king away from the conservatism of the Howards and their allies. So Katherine Parr, well educated, twice married and, though childless, an experienced stepmother of adult children, married Henry VIII in the Queen’s Closet at Hampton Court on 12 July 1543.The Lady Mary was one of only 20 people who attended the ceremony, and she looked on with pleasure.The new queen’s mother, Maud Parr, had been one of Katherine of Aragon’s ladies-in-waiting, and Mary must surely have remembered her. It is highly likely that Henry VIII’s first wife was godmother to his last. Finally, here was someone that his elder daughter could call a friend.
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