Getting another divorce
As archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer must have been quite used to
marrying and divorcing on Henry's behalf (for more on Cranmer, see Chapter
6). This marriage was annulled on the grounds of non-consummation. London
couldn't believe it � most ordinary people believed Henry was a stud.
Anne rolled over for Cranmer's contention (something she clearly hadn't been
able to do for Henry!) and accepted the land given to her worth �3,000 a year.
Because this was the same amount thrown at Catherine of Aragon, �3,000 was
clearly the going rate for ex-queens in Tudor England.
Nothing further happened in the William�Mary projected marriage either and
Anne stayed in England, making no attempt to return home, until her death in
1557. She never remarried and sex may well have remained a dark mystery to
her until her dying day.
Lusting After Catherine Howard
Catherine was another mistake, but a very different one from Anne of Cleves.
Henry was on the rebound and very taken with the sexpot, who was actually
five years younger than his eldest daughter. Catherine was one of the enor-
mous grasping clan of the duke of Norfolk, and she was brought up in a huge
family home at Horsham in Sussex by her step-grandmother. She could read
and write but had no academic interests beyond that.
Catherine put herself about, probably under the influence of her older sisters,
and had her first affair at 14 with her music teacher Henry Mannox. (Why is
it always music teachers? See the earlier section on Anne Boleyn.) When she
got bored with Mannox, Catherine popped into bed with Francis Dereham, a
gentleman. Their affair lasted two years. After Anne of Cleves, Henry would
probably have welcomed an experienced girl, but the fact that she had been
to bed with other men would prove fatal for her.
Falling for a temptress
Catherine joined the royal Household at about the same time that Anne of
Cleves arrived. She probably learned quite quickly from Court gossip that
things weren't going well for Henry in the bedroom, and the king got inter-
ested in Catherine by March or April 1540. 96 Part II: Handling Henry VIII
Canoodling with Catherine
Henry was besotted. He showered Catherine Catherine's motto was `No other will but his',
with expensive gifts, jewellery and furs, most but Henry was 30 years older than she was and
of which he'd got from the estate of Thomas this physical fact probably became apparent
Cromwell (Henry probably felt his adviser pretty quickly.
owed him something after the Cleves fiasco).
Once Cranmer and the Church had annulled the Cleves marriage, Parliament
petitioned the king (which was standard procedure) to find a new wife for the
sake of the succession. Henry couldn't keep his hands off Catherine even in
public, and they were married at Oatlands Palace in Surrey on 28 July.
By March 1541 Henry became ill (see Chapter 3 for his medical ailments).
His leg ulcers became infected and he feared he may die. Far from an ardent
lover, Catherine now faced life with a chronic invalid.
Pushing the limits
There may have been no evidence against Anne Boleyn in terms of adultery,
but in the case of Catherine Howard plenty of proof existed:
While Henry was ill she took up with an earlier lover, Thomas
Culpepper, a member of the Privy Chamber who believed the king was
dying and Catherine was about to become a very rich widow. She wrote
him love letters � a huge risk as privacy didn't exist in the Tudor Court.
And she canoodled with Culpepper on a royal tour to York.
She appointed Francis Dereham as her personal secretary.
Henry seems to have been completely in the dark about all this, but the
Howards had many enemies. Cranmer was told and he felt duty bound to
tell the king. Henry couldn't believe it, snarling with fury one moment and
bursting into tears the next. But he couldn't ignore his wife's adultery, and
Culpepper and Dereham were arrested. Catherine was confined to quarters.
Reaching the end of the line
Cranmer interrogated Catherine at Hampton Court on 7 November 1541 in
the presence of her father. She cracked and confessed everything with much
screaming and wailing. A grief-stricken Henry threatened to torture the girl
to death.
Culpepper and Dereham were found guilty on 1 December of `conspiring the
bodily harm of the king's consort' (having sex with Catherine). Both men
were sentenced to die by the ghastly method of hanging, drawing and quar-
tering at Tyburn. Because of Culpepper's status, Henry commuted the sen-
tence to one of mere decapitation.
Not content with bringing Catherine down, Henry destroyed the entire
Howard family and they'd never again find favour at his Court. The ex-queen
wasn't tried, perhaps to spare Henry's feelings. The entire country now knew
he was a cuckold (a man whose wife was unfaithful to him) and his embar-
rassment must have been acute enough. Catherine was condemned by an Act
of Attainder (a parliamentary ploy to avoid a trial) on 8 February 1542 and
executed five days later, this time with an axe.
Catherine was only 21 when she died and many in the country felt her pun-
ishment was too harsh. Henry hadn't had their marriage annulled but her
betrayal shattered him, leaving him feeling old and full of self-pity.
Slowing Down with Catherine Parr
The king's last marriage was unlike the other five. Henry had grown old not-
so-gracefully (see Chapter 3) and Catherine Parr was 30 and had been mar-
ried twice before.
Becoming available
The new queen came from Kendal in Westmoreland and her father, Sir
Thomas, was a courtier who'd been a companion-in-arms to the young Henry
years before. Catherine was 17 when her first husband died and she married
John Neville, Lord Latimer of Snape, who was a widower. She became a busy
stepmother to his children and ran his estate in Yorkshire.
By 1543 Neville was dead. Now in their London town house, Catherine
became friendly with princess Mary, who was four years her junior. The
princess taught Catherine Latin, essential to cope with the snobs who hung
around Court, and the newly widowed woman attracted two suitors:
Thomas Seymour, brother of the earl of Hertford
Henry Tudor, king of England
No contest! 98 Part II: Handling Henry VIII
Growing up: Choosing a sensible wife
We don't know what drew Henry particularly to Catherine Parr. He sent her
a present two weeks before her husband's death, so perhaps he admired the
quiet way with which she coped with adversity.
It may have been Catherine's first instinct to jump into bed with Thomas
Seymour. She was still a young woman, he was a handsome buck and Lord
Latimer hadn't been active in the bedroom for years. By June 1543, however,
Catherine was seen increasingly around the Court and she told Seymour she
was going to marry Henry.
Cranmer and Co breathed sighs of relief when the wedding took place in the
private chapel at Hampton Court on 12 July.
Anything for a quiet life
Henry was well and truly past any sort of sex by now � he may not even have
consummated his marriage to Catherine. She was a born manager and made
sure that the king kept in touch with his children. Mary was 27 and could
look after herself, but Elizabeth was only 10 and Edward was 6. It may be that
the tutors Henry arranged for them, John Cheke and Richard Fox, who were
quietly Protestant in their views, were Catherine's choice and not Henry's.
Catherine may have secretly converted to Protestantism before 1547 but she
had to keep quiet about it. She certainly joined in theological chats that Henry
had with various advisers and Stephen Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester
who hated Protestants, believed the queen was a heretic. Henry actually drew
up a list of accusations against her, perhaps with a view to putting her on trial.
Catherine may have got wind of this list and may even have seen the charges
against her when a careless adviser dropped the list in a corridor(!) because
she had a queen-to-king meeting with Henry and charmed him so much that
he forgot the idea. When the lord chancellor arrived to arrest the queen,
Henry sent him packing with a flea in his ear.
Administering angel
Despite the fact that she was made regent when Henry was fighting in France
in 1544, all Catherine seems to have done was to compose a prayer for the
soldiers to use before battle. There was to be no sending of bloody shirts
for her (check out Catherine of Aragon's actions while Henry was off fighting
in Chapter 3). Chapter 5: Six Weddings and Two Funerals 99
Catherine's role was that of peacemaker. As Henry's physical problems grew,
she nursed him, soothed him, made him laugh when she could. It can't have
been easy.
When Henry knew he was dying in January 1547 he sent for Archbishop
Cranmer, not his wife. She wasn't there at the end and even had to watch his
funeral from behind an iron grid in the chapel.
Surviving Henry
After Henry's death Catherine was still only 35 and Thomas Seymour wasted
no time moving in. He was a councillor by now and a member of the Privy
Chamber and still as handsome as ever. He was opposed, though, by his own
brother, now lord protector to the new king, Edward VI. The boy king never-
theless gave Seymour his blessing and he carried off Catherine as well as her
lands and the princesses Mary and Elizabeth, who'd been living with her.
Sadly, Catherine died in childbirth of puerperal fever in September 1548.
Six wives frame by frame In The Private Life of Henry VIII Jane Seymour, the most gorgeous queen was Genevieve played by Wendy Barrie, is preparing for her Bujold and the funniest, in The Private Life, was wedding while Merle Oberon's Anne Boleyn Elsa Lanchester as Anne of Cleves. No film on is on her way to the block. Merle's headgear Henry's wives can fail, if only because of the and dress were faithfully modelled on the best- gorgeous clothes and the soap opera drama known portrait of Anne, but she didn't have the that they all lived through with Bluff King Hal. feisty, yet fragile beauty of Genevieve Bujold The most recent television series, The Tudors, in Anne of the Thousand Days. All the queens had an ageless Jonathan Rhys Meyers as were played by fine British actresses in Keith Henry with the wrong colour hair and not look- Michel's Six Wives of Henry VIII: Annette ing a pound over ten stone. The clothes were Crosbie was Catherine of Aragon; Dorothy Tutin good, so was the heraldry in the Court scenes was Anne Boleyn; Anne Stallybrass was Jane and there were lots of candles. If the king was Seymour; Elvi Hale was Anne of Cleves; Angela looking down at this production, he'd no doubt Pleasance was Catherine Howard; and Rosalie have been delighted by it all! Crutchley was Catherine Parr. For my money, 100 Part II: Handling Henry VIII
Building a New Church:
Henry and Religion In This Chapter
Heading up the Church
Quarrelling with Rome
Mixing with reformers
Milking the monasteries
Y ou can't understand Henry VIII's reign without talking about religion.
The fact that the Catholic Church was a political, money-making and
greedy organisation and that all Christian kings had to work with the pope
because he was `God's vicar [number two] on Earth' was bound to cause
trouble in a century in which the Reformation was taking place all over
Europe.
As we explain in Chapter 5, Henry's reason for breaking with Rome was
simple: he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne
Boleyn. At first, Henry saw the break as a personal spat between him and the
pope � what's God got to do with it? Well, rather a lot, as it turned out.
The break with Rome didn't affect ordinary people very much at first. Church
services went on as before, priests went on as before. Church buildings were
brightly painted with scenes from the Bible, and the mass was in Latin. In
short, same old, same old. Among educated people, though, deep divisions
and real concerns existed.
Catholic and Protestant: What's the difference?
Today's society in the Christian west is much Held services (the Mass) in Latin.
more secular than in Tudor times, and the dif-
Believed that priests shouldn't marry.
ferences between Catholic and Protestant
don't seem terribly important (although some Protestants in the 16th century
Catholics and Protestants would no doubt dis-
Didn't believe in transubstantiation.
agree!). To explain the differences would take
a For Dummies book in itself but, in a nutshell, Didn't accept the Pope as their boss.
16th-century Catholics
Believed that Heaven and Hell were real
Believed in transubstantiation, the miracle places.
of the communion bread and wine turning
Didn't believe in pilgrimage or self-sacrifice.
into the flesh and blood of Christ.
Used vernacular Bibles (for example, Bibles
Believed that the Pope, who ran the
written in English in England, French in
Catholic Church, was appointed by God.
France, and so on).
Believed that Heaven and Hell were real
Held services in the vernacular.
places.
Were quite happy with married priests.
Believed that going on pilgrimage and suf-
fering were vital to keep God happy. Bearing all these points in mind can be helpful
as you tour through the chapters on religion in
Used a Latin Bible.
this book.
Looking at Henry's Beliefs
Have a look at a modern British coin. You can see the queen's head (the
idea of putting the monarch's face on coins as a regular thing dates from
Henry VII, so everybody in the country knew what the king looked like).
Along with the date, the coin also has a lot of initials. The initials DG sum up
Henry VIII's hotline to Heaven � Deo Gratias (by the grace of God). FD means
Fidei Defensor (defender of the faith) and that's a pretty strong hint about
Henry's personal beliefs. It was a title given to him in 1521 by Pope Leo X,
for burning the books of Martin Luther, the German monk who'd dared to
attack the Catholic Church four years earlier and began what came to be
known as the Reformation. Chapter 6: Building a New Church: Henry and Religion 103
Heaven and hell were real places to the Tudors. So was purgatory, a sort of
halfway house in which sinners sins were purged (painfully) before they could
enter heaven. Hell was terrifying, staffed by legions of devils. And of course it
was St Peter (regarded as the first pope) who held the keys to heaven.
Shifting perspectives
At first, Henry accepted Catholic ideas fully, knowing that not to was heresy
and that a heretic would be excommunicated. Henry's book Assertio Septem
Sacramentorum (Assertion of the Seven Sacraments) was never likely to hit
the bestseller lists, but it spelt out his Catholic ideas pretty clearly and the
pope liked it.
Henry later came to believe in his own hotline to God and his
people expected him, as king, to show the way in religious matters as
in everything else.
Henry never doubted the thinking behind Catholic ideas (except purgatory �
he wasn't sure about that), but he did think that monks were a waste of time
and he questioned the role of the pope. After all, the man was just another
political leader (usually Italian), so Henry thought he shouldn't be seen in any
special light.
The seven sacraments The Church looked after people's spiritual Eucharist: Celebrating the mass in which needs by carrying out the seven sacraments: you take bread and wine that become, by
miracle, the flesh and blood of Christ.
Baptism: Dunking babies in holy water to
make them members of the Church. Extreme unction (last rites): Given by priests
for the remission of sins and the comfort of
Confession: Admitting sin to a priest with
the dying.
the idea of repentance and forgiveness.
Holy orders: Becoming a priest in the
Confirmation: Confirming the promises
Catholic Church.
made on your behalf by your godparents at
baptism. Matrimony: The act of marriage. 104 Part II: Handling Henry VIII
Read all about it
The clergy always said that only they could interpret the Bible, especially
at a time when few people could read and the book was written in Latin and
Greek. But Henry came up with the idea to publish an English Bible so that
ordinary people could understand it themselves. The Bible came out in 1536,
and after 1538 every church in the land had to have a copy available.
Henry was appalled at how casually people treated the Bible. In his last
speech to Parliament in 1545, he said, `I am very sorry to know how unrev-
erently that most precious jewel, the Word of God [the Bible] is disputed,
rhymed, sung and jangled in every ale house.' He tried to recall the Bible
so that only gentlemen had access to it, but that didn't work; the Bible was
everybody's.
Getting back on track:
The Act of Six Articles
Henry must have realised that in attacking the pope, breaking with Rome (see
the following section) and allowing the English Bible, he was beginning to
sound a little bit like Martin Luther, whom he hated. So he got Parliament to
pass the Act of Six Articles in 1539, which underlined the traditional ideas of
the Catholic Church:
Chastity: All priests were to remain celibate; no hanky panky.
Confession: Good for the soul.
Communion: Only bread could be given to laymen; no wine.
Private masses: Should be held for the souls of the dead.
As far as the mass went, Henry put it front and centre in the religious scheme
of things.
Transubstantiation was the Catholic belief that at communion the bread
and wine actually turned, by a miracle, into the flesh and blood of Christ.
Protestants were already saying the bread and wine were only symbols. Henry
tried to reverse their view.
The official title of the act was `An act for abolishing diversity in opinions'. Big
brother? You bet! Especially when Henry tried to include widows as a group
forced into chastity on pain of death. Chapter 6: Building a New Church: Henry and Religion 105
Rewriting The Bishops' Book The Bishops' Book was written in 1537 without So he issued his own version in 1543, stress- Henry's authority and he wasn't happy about ing the importance of Bible reading and it. What it said about the mass in particu- deciding that no non-priests could hold lar seemed to be far too Protestant. The First services or deliver sermons. Henry made over Commandment made it permissible to pray 100 changes to the bishops' version. On the to Christ, but not God the Father. The list of bit about all men being equal in God's eyes, `don'ts' in the book included `divination and Henry said this applied to the soul only. Nobody, palm reading, uncleanly and wanton words, in 1543, was ready for democracy! tales, songs, sights, touching, wanton apparel and lascivious decking'.
Putting religion into practice
How did Henry run the Church after breaking with Rome? He saw himself
as having potestas iurisdictionis (being the organisational head). He never
claimed (unlike the pope) to have any priestly role, but he did call the shots
as he made clear in the Articles of Visitation drawn up by Thomas Cromwell
in the autumn of 1536, which decreed:
English priests must now reject the pope. From now on, the pope was
just the bishop of Rome.
Lots of holy days (saints' days) were to be removed from the calendar.
Worship of images was banned.
Churches had to provide English as well as Latin Bibles.
Laying the foundation for
the Royal Supremacy
Henry believed his religious views were his own and he was answerable only
to God. He listened to conflicting opinions and could argue well, but in the
end his word was law.
In fact, English kings had often controlled sections of the Church before: