Doomed Queens (28 page)

The rose too easily pruned.

Then came Catherine No. 2. No fancy European princess, Catherine Howard was a party girl newly arrived from the provinces. She was also cousin to Anne Boleyn, whose fate she would soon share. Unlike his first Catherine, this Catherine was young, giddy, and uncomplicated. Unlike Anne No. 2, Henry had no problems performing with her.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

I am faithful to the King and would never wish harm upon him. I will seek his mercy, but not by admitting to these treacherous lies.

Catherine Howard

The king was never so pleased with a wife. He affectionately called her “the rose without a thorn.” However, this rose could not be loyal to any gardener: Catherine’s past sexual history was known to be colorful. But Henry was so enthralled he never considered the origins of her bedroom talents.

By the time of Catherine and Henry’s wedding in 1540, the king had long lost any semblance of health. He was around thirty years older than his young queen and weighed more than 350 pounds. He had a pus-filled wound in his leg that required daily draining. Henry was no dreamboat a hot-to-trot woman barely out of adolescence would lust for.

Though Catherine was hardly innocent, she was shockingly unschooled in the ways of monarchy. She believed that, after a suitable interval, she could choose a lover more suited to her tastes; perhaps the pomp and circumstance of the throne enticed the young queen into thinking that she had the droit de madame to do as she wished.

Old habits die hard. It wasn’t long before Catherine indulged in a reprise with an old lover. The affair was quickly discovered, despite their attempts at secrecy. The king reacted with self-pitying fury, especially when he learned that Catherine’s numerous skills had been honed prior to marriage.

Catherine denied the allegations, but to no avail. The trial did not last long. Henry wept when he received her death warrant—but he signed it nonetheless. Catherine spent the night before her execution rehearsing how to place her head on the block. Presumably these efforts left her exhausted; her legs gave way as she climbed the scaffold and she had to be helped up.

Like a rose pruned prematurely, Catherine Howard was beheaded in 1542. She and Henry had been married less than two years.

CAUTIONARY MORAL

Don’t mess around on the king.

1554

ometimes survival is a matter of timing. Consider Lady Jane Grey—if she had been born just a decade later, she might not have been queen of England for only nine days. Instead of marching to the block at the tender age of sixteen, Jane could have hung out with Elizabeth I at court. Elizabeth would have championed the younger girl as they bonded over their dysfunctional families. They’d chat in Greek about philosophy, maybe even provide Shakespeare with a bon mot or two.

But this was not to be for Jane Grey. She was born too early and too closely related to the powers that be for a happy life.

Jane was the great-niece of Henry VIII and fourth in line to his throne, after Henry’s three children. She was born in 1537 to a family greedy for power and scant on affection. Ever politically minded, her parents named her for Jane Seymour, the much-married king’s then wife. Jane’s mother considered the girl too sensitive, so she beat her regularly. This encouraged Jane to retreat into the life of the mind; she easily mastered several languages and was judged a brilliant scholar. At the age of nine, Jane’s parents bundled her off to the home of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s widowed queen, where the girl lived happily for the first time. Henry’s daughter Elizabeth also inhabited this pleasant purgatory for inconvenient royals.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

The crown is not my right, and pleaseth me not. The Lady Mary is the rightful heir.

Jane Grey

When Henry died in 1547, he was survived by his sixth wife, Catherine; a Catholic daughter, Mary; a Protestant daughter, Elizabeth; and his young son, Edward. King Edward VI was fond of his cousin Jane. They were the same age and similarly devoted to his father’s new and improved Protestant religion. For these reasons and others, there was talk of marrying Jane to Edward, but it did not come to pass.

Edward also suffered from tuberculosis. Rapacious courtiers circled the boy king like vultures since upon his death the throne of England would be up for grabs—Henry’s many marriages, annulments, and divorces left Edward’s sisters’ rights of succession as easily manipulated as Play-Doh.

One such courtier was John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland. Dudley had been appointed by Henry VIII as one of the sixteen regents to guide Edward until he came of age; the duke used his position to seize as much influence as possible. Seeing that Edward was at death’s door, Dudley mercilessly worked the king’s hatred of Catholicism to convince him to leave the throne to Jane Grey, instead of Edward’s next-in-line sibling Mary or the matrilineally compromised Elizabeth. To complete the coup, Dudley proposed that Jane’s parents marry their daughter to his son, Guilford.

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Life After Henry

When Henry kicked the bucket, he finally had the male heir he’d thumbed his nose at Rome to gain. However, after Edward’s death, Henry’s six marriages left the rights of succession a mess. Poor Jane got stuck in the middle.