Tudor Queens of England (18 page)

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n February 1514 he became Bishop of Lincoln and in September was translated to York. Finally, in December 1515, he succeeded Warham as Chancellor. By 1515 Wolsey was unquestionably the King’s chief minister and adviser and in the process put the Queen’s nose badly out of joint. Although there was a reconciliation between Henry and Ferdinand early in 1515, Catherine did not recover her mediating position and her political infl uence dwindled. Her connections with Spain also became more tenuous in other ways. Her Spanish confessor, Fray Diego, was notoriously indiscreet and by the end of 1515 had been compelled to go home. At the same time the last of Catherine’s devoted band of Spanish ladies, Maria de Salinas, left her to become Lady Willoughby. She still had Spanish servants but they no longer had their former intimacy. Then in January 1516, her father died, and her relations with her 16-year-old nephew, Charles, who succeeded him, were for the time being distant. There are no signs that the Queen was particularly distressed by these changes. Apart from a passing qualm just before Henry VII’s death, she had never expressed any desire to return to Spain and was fully committed to her husband’s realm.

In the autumn of 1515, she was again pregnant, and in February 1516 – at long last – was delivered of a healthy child. The rejoicings were genuine but muted, for the child was a girl. A fi t piece to play on the diplomatic chess board but not a suitable heir. Henry was determinedly upbeat, ‘by God’s grace’ he is alleged to have said, ‘the sons will follow’. We do not know Catherine’s r

eaction.19 N
o doubt she was relieved to have done at least part of her primary duty but she knew better than her husband that her time was now getting short. It was not so much her age that was a problem but physical wear and tear. Henry did not give up and there is no suggestion that his pastimes kept him from her bed but it was early 96

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in 1518 before she conceived again. On 9 November she was delivered of a still born girl. The old curse had struck again and although the King persevered, at least fi tfully, for another four or fi ve years, Catherine did not conceive again. She was only 33 and probably did not reach the menopause for another six or seven years but she was worn out and her childbearing years were over. Meanwhile, Henry had at last taken a genuine mistress. Just when he started taking a serious interest in Elizabeth Blount is not certain and it is possible that the King was not sure himself. Bessy had been born in about 1500, and on the payroll of the court from 1512. She was a pretty and vivacious blond, not over blessed with brains but accomplished in the courtly arts. It is quite probable that Henry started playing courtly love with her at some time during 1516. By 1518 they were sharing a bed and late in 1518, ironically at about the same time that Catherine had her last still birth, she was found to be pregnant. At some unknown date in 1519, she was delivered of a healthy son, who was immediately acknowledged and named Henry Fitzroy. Thomas Wolsey, by now Cardinal, stood as his godfather. The birth of young Henry affected Catherine profoundly. In the fi rst place it was incontrovertible proof that she was at least sharing her husband’s affections with another woman. This was a situation with which Elizabeth Woodville had become very familiar but not any of the other queens we have been considering, as far as we know. More importantly, it appeared to demonstrate that her gynaecological misfortunes were her own fault. It was in any case conventional wisdom to blame the woman for still births and miscarriages but this demonstrated that, with another woman, Henry was perfectly capable of getting a healthy son. The agonizing implications of this hit the Queen hard, and may well have actually inhibited any further conception on her part. She increased her religious devotions, searching for some way of appeasing a God who was only too obviously displeased with her.

Like every other queen, she had been given a jointure on her marriage: lands to the value of about £3,000, which, if not generous by the standards of the recent past, at least gave her considerable freedom of action. Just how much of this was dispensed by her almoner or the stewards of her various manors in the form of charity we do not know but it was enough to gain her the reputation of a Lady Bountiful. This was not a social policy, or a hint to her husband that he had better do something about poor relief. It was a Christian duty and combined with the fact that she was a member of the Franciscan tertiaries, and was alleged to wear a hair shirt under her royal robes, served to give her a reputation for exemplary piety. In other words, Catherine began to be cast as a female role model and, although this was to become profoundly irritating to Henry in due course, it had its advantages. She was an ideal intermediary for all sorts of petitions,

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particularly from humble clergy and widows and orphans and, although she almost certainly did intercede for the Evil May Day rioters in 1517, it was a part carefully choreographed for her by Wolsey, even to the kneeling posture and the unbound hair

.20
All this was woman’s work, as her contemporaries noted with satisfaction – just as the Virgin Mary in heaven, so Queen Catherine in England. As 1520 came and went, and the Queen began to approach her fortieth birthday, she was compensating as hard as she possibly could for failing in her primary duty. There was not, and probably would not now be, a male heir. Henry was not rushing his fences, but he had to consider his options. His older sister, Margaret, had married in Scotland and was Queen Mother to the young King, James V. The fact that she was married a second time (to the Earl of Angus) and had produced a daughter was a mere distraction. James was an alien born and the king of a foreign realm. Could he be considered as the heir of England? His younger sister, Mary, betrothed as a child to the Archduke Charles, had eventually been traded for peace with France and had married the ageing Louis XII in 1514. She had, it was alleged, danced him to death in a few months and then, being a wilful wench, had forced herself on the (more or less willing) Duke of Suffolk, sent to bring her home. It was just as well that Louis had been too debilitated to leave her pregnant, because there could have been doubts about the paternity of any child born within a reasonable time after her marriage to Brandon. As it was, they had later produced only daughters, who did not count in this context. The real issue in the early 1520s concerned Henry’s own daughter, Mary, and her bastard half brother. Fitzroy would only have been a factor if he could have been legitimated and there was no prospect of that. The only recognized method of legitimating bastards was if the parents subsequently married and that was ruled out. Not only had the King’s relationship with Elizabeth Blount come to an end, perhaps even before the child was born, but by 1522, having withdrawn from the Court, she was married to Gilbert Tailboys, son and heir of Lord Tailboys of Kyme. The King may have toyed with the idea of getting some kind of special dispensation from the Pope but it was not pursued. His main attention focused on Mary. A daughter’s main use, as we have seen in other connections, was as a matrimonial bait, and Mary was fi rst used in that way when Wolsey was angling for the treaty of universal peace, which is known as the treaty of London in 1518. After Louis death, the 1514 treaty with France had rather fallen apart. His cousin and successor, Francis of Angouleme, was not particularly hostile but he was too like Henry, both in age and ambition, for their relations to be easy. Given that the King of Spain was the 18-year-old Charles of Ghent, who was having problems establishing himself in the south, the possibility of settling international relations for some time to come seemed to be too good to miss. By taking the initiative in 98

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these negotiations, Wolsey obviously hoped to please the Pope (who was always on the look out for peace settlements) but also to enhance his master’s and his own prestige. Part of the bait was a marriage between the 2-year-old Mary, and Francis’s even younger son, the Dauphin and, when the treaty was completed, that was one of the agreements. There could have been no more complete demonstration of the eclipse of Catherine’s political infl uence than the betrothal of her cherished only child in France, a country that she had devoted most of her life to opposing.

She dutifully accompanied Henry to the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, but appears to have played a purely passive role in those festivities. However, she may have been gratifi ed to notice that, far from sealing any friendship with the King of France, this meeting rather encouraged their rivalry. Within a few months Henry had abandoned Wolsey’s balancing act, and gone back to the Imperial alliance which had been embodied in the Holy League.

21 One r
eason for this may have been suspicion of Francis but mainly it was a consequence of the death of the Emperor Maximilian in 1519. The Holy Roman Empire was elective and three candidates entered the fi eld – Charles of Spain, Francis of France, and Henry himself. Nobody (except Henry) took the latter’s chances seriously at all and Charles had both hereditary infl uence and the Fuggers on his side, so he was duly elected.
22
This new alignment spelled the end for the optimistic treaty of London because France now had Habsburg territory on its three main landward frontiers, which meant that a renewal of the wars in northern Italy was almost certain – and Henry was in the strategic position of controlling the ‘fourth front’ – the Channel. If the King of England had really been keen on maintaining the balance of power he would have sided with France at this point but Henry was only interested in securing the maximum advantage for himself. So, partly to maintain good relations with the Low Countries (where Antwerp was London’s main trading partner), and partly hoping again to grab a bit of northern France, he sided with the Emperor. Charles visited England in 1521 and signed a new treaty of alliance, plainly aimed against France. He also met his aunt for the fi rst time, and allowed himself to be betrothed to his host’s 5-year-old daughter. The little girl danced for his pleasure and remembered their brief encounter for the rest of her life. Whether this about turn in English policy owed anything to Catherine’s infl uence is not clear but probably not. Henry had suffi cient reasons for his action and no particular need to gratify his Queen. However, she was certainly pleased by the turn of events and would very much sooner have had her own nephew as a prospective son-in-law than the Dauphin of France. It is probable that no one took the betrothal very seriously, because it was unlikely that the 21-year-old Emperor would wait for his child bride to

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grow up but it was a recognized way of sealing an alliance. More importantly, Catherine established a friendly relationship with Charles, which was to prove of great signifi cance when the hostile winds began to blow. Meanwhile, the King had taken another mistress. This time no marital pregnancy provided an excuse for infi delity, but Catherine in her late thirties was no longer the pretty girl he had married. ‘Rather ugly than otherwise’ sniffed the Venetian ambassador and no longer an exciting partner to a husband seven years her junior. Mary Boleyn was the daughter of Sir Thomas, an experienced courtier and diplomat, who had succeed in infi ltrating his elder daughter into the entourage that had accompanied the King’s sister Mary to France in 1514. On Mary’s return (as Duchess of Suffolk), her servant had remained at court. Mary Boleyn appears to have been physically attractive, but rather bland as a person. She replaced Elizabeth Blount in the King’s bed at some time in 1519 or 1520, a relationship that again grew out of the cavortings of courtly love. In 1521 she was married to William Carey, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, presumably as a precaution, but seems not to have slept with him until the King had fi nished with her. She did not become pregnant by Henry but immediately conceived as soon as she began cohabiting with her husband, which suggests that the King was no longer as potent as he had been in the early days of his marriage, because it was never suggested that there was anything platonic about his relationship with Mary. Catherine must have known about all this but she held her tongue as a dutiful royal wife was bound to do and concentrated on the education of their child, and her manifold pieties.

The year 1525 was eventful. Henry’s attempt to wage war against France had stuttered badly in 1523, and relations with his ally the Emperor had become increasingly strained. Consequently when, early in 1525, Charles won a great victory over Francis at Pavia, and captured him, he treated Henry’s plans for the exploitation of his victory with disdain. If the King of England wanted a piece of France, let him earn it for himself. Henry, hamstrung by the failure of Wolsey’s attempt to raise more money through the so called Amicable Grant in the spring of 1525, decided instead to settle with the French, and did so at the treaty of the More in August.

23
This effectively spelt the end of the Imperial alliance and the end of Mary’s betrothal to Charles. He married the more suitably aged Isabella of Portugal in 1526. Meanwhile, Henry had the succession very much on his mind. He had by this time given up on Catherine and accepted the fact that she would never bear him the legitimate son that he so desperately needed. On 18 June he created his bastard son Duke of Richmond and the choice of this royal title may have been signifi cant. He probably was not seriously considering trying to legitimate him but was rather sending out a signal that his options were still open. 100

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The following month Princess Mary was sent off to the Marches of Wales with a lavish entourage, but was not given the formal title that would have acknowledged her right to succ