The Other Tudors (5 page)

Henry also led the bride to church, and after the marriage returned Catherine to the Bishop’s Palace for the banquet. After the feast, came the much disputed wedding night. Arthur contended that his marriage had been consummated. The morning after, he called ostentatiously for wine: He is reputed to have said, ‘I have this night been in the midst of Spain, which is a hot region, and that journey maketh me so dry.’
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This was later denied by Catherine. She maintained, when the question arose, that Arthur had wanted to appear more healthy and manly before his friends and servants. She said that she was sexually ‘as intact as when I emerged from my mother’s womb.’
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As regards Henry’s marriage, there appears to have been one tentative suggestion that he might marry Eleanor, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian, whose grandson Charles was promised to Henry’s sister, Mary. Was this to reduce the number of heirs and claimants to the throne and to keep Henry from having a son for whom he might grow too ambitious? If Prince Henry did marry, it should certainly be to a lady who had no aspirations to the English throne through her own family or to a foreign princess who needed a resident prince consort to dwell abroad.

Shortly after Arthur and Catherine’s wedding, Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, the son of Edward IV’s sister Elizabeth and a claimant to the throne, who had returned to England under the King’s promise of safety, again fled to France, taking his brother Richard with him. Driven by suspicion, Henry VII took immediate action against all those remaining who had any claim to the throne. In March 1502, William Courtenay (husband of Queen Elizabeth’s sister Katherine), William de la Pole (brother of Edmund and Richard) and James Tyrrell (Governor of Guisnes, near Calais), who had received Edmund de la Pole when he fled in 1499, were all imprisoned in the Tower of London. William Courtenay was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, but was merely imprisoned until Henry VII’s death, when Henry VIII released him. William de la Pole stayed in prison for 38 years, and died there. JamesTyrrell was executed in May 1502, having supposedly confessed, almost 20 years after the event, that he had arranged the murders of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, the Princes in the Tower, under orders from Richard III.

On a happier note, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York were delighted with their son’s bride. Catherine of Aragon was pretty and mature beyond her years, only a year older than her husband. She had been brought up to play the part of the Princess of Wales and later Queen of England. She was plump and graceful, with small hands and feet, long chestnut-brown hair and a flawless, fair complexion. She was well read, regal, dignified and pious, although she lacked spontaneity or humour, and was incapable of subterfuge or compromise. Her husband was tall and fair, with the family good looks. The question of his health does not seem to have arisen. As it would have been of great interest to the other European rulers if Arthur had been sickly, it would have been avidly reported; it is therefore safe to say that he enjoyed reasonably robust good health. However, in view of what followed, Prince Arthur may already have been showing the first symptoms of the illness that killed him.

The couple set up their household and spent their brief married life at Ludlow Castle. On 2 April 1502, Prince Arthur died there, after only five months of marriage. For most of this time, he had been ill with ‘consumption’ and the longed-for second wedding night never happened. The Prince’s ailment is usually diagnosed as tuberculosis, but it may very well have been pneumonia. Catherine herself was extremely ill, so much so that she was unable to attend Arthur’s funeral at Worcester Cathedral, and it was some months before she could be moved to London. Her mother-in-law, Elizabeth, sent a sombre, black-draped litter for Catherine to travel in slowly and safely to Durham House, on the Strand, where she set up her household and where Henry VII paid £100 a month to keep her in the style of Dowager Princess of Wales. Despite rumours to the contrary, Catherine showed no signs of being pregnant, wholly due, she would maintain, to nothing of a sexual nature having happened. She remained in England, waiting for her parents and father-in-law to decide what should become of her.

Henry VII decided that his second son, who was now Prince of Wales, should marry Catherine – chiefly so that he could maintain an alliance with Spain, and also, in no small part, so that he could keep her dowry. Henry VII’s reputation for meanness was, it seems, well founded. Prince Henry does not appear to have been unwilling, as he seemed to admire his brother’s bride and wished for the marriage.

The question of whether or not the first marriage had been consummated was ignored; a papal dispensation was issued that allowed Henry to have children with his brother’s widow, regardless of her state of virginity. Strictly speaking, this second marriage was against church law if Arthur and Catherine had had sex, and Arthur’s insistence that they had would later give Henry his grounds for divorce. The Catholic Church, basing its judgement on Holy Scripture, forbade a man to marry his brother’s widow if they had had a sexual relationship. At the time, political expediency overrode Church law and the Pope absolved all parties from any sin.

Catherine maintained that she and Arthur had never consummated their marriage. Catherine was extremely pious and it is unlikely that she lied about something as serious as this, even with a papal dispensation. Had she not been a virgin when she married Henry she would, in her own eyes, have been guilty of a mortal sin. Catherine’s later strength of conviction at the breakdown of her marriage to Henry VIII seems hard to imagine if she had known in her heart of hearts that her marriage to Arthur had been consummated. Catherine would not compromise as far as her religion was concerned and she would never tell a serious lie.

For the young Henry the change from Duke of York to Prince of Wales must have been an exciting one. He stepped into his brother’s shoes, presumably with a mixture of sadness and delight. He took on many of his brother’s officers of the Court. Skelton, however, lost his place as Henry’s tutor. It may have been because his writing was getting more scurrilous (for example, the
Bouge of Court
, which painted the court as corrupt and self-seeking) and vulgar (‘Womanhood, Wanton, Ye Want’), or because he had an arrogant, quarrelsome nature. In 1504, he was appointed rector of Diss, Norfolk, with a stipend and pension from the King. William Hone became Henry’s new tutor. Unlike the colourful Skelton, little is known about the worthy, dull Hone.

Still ruled by his tutors, the young Prince slept, ate, studied, worshipped and played games; he signed documents, but never attended meetings. He also now learned Italian, Spanish, medicine, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic. When Lord Mountjoy was in England, they read history together and worked on Henry’s Latin. Henry shared his lessons, in part, with his sisters, Margaret and Mary. He also shared lessons with the pages, who were his companions and personal servants. These included Charles Brandon, his best friend; John St John, his grandmother’s great-nephew; Edward Neville (so physically like Henry that they were sometimes mistaken for each other); and Henry Courtenay, son of Elizabeth of York’s sister.
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Just after Arthur’s death, Henry suffered another bereavement. Elizabeth of York died on 11 February 1503, after giving birth to a baby daughter, Catherine, who also died a few days later. Elizabeth was just 38 years old. Shortly after her death, Elizabeth’s children were taken to see her laid out in her robes of state. They knelt and prayed by her bed. Henry was just 12 years old, and was the King’s only son and heir. What thoughts went through the boy’s head as he gazed at the dead face of his beloved mother can only be imagined. To Henry, Elizabeth was a mixture of reality and myth – woman, queen and goddess – a child’s ideal of female perfection. The impact of her loss and that last farewell in the darkened room with candles flickering made a lasting impression on the young Prince.

The Court became far more serious and much less fun with the deaths of Arthur and Elizabeth. It has been suggested that Prince Henry and Queen Elizabeth had been particularly close, forming an alliance as they were both ‘powerless when compared with the King and Lady Margaret Beaufort.’
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Henry had already suffered the loss of his siblings Elizabeth, Edmund and Arthur, and now he had also lost baby Catherine and his idolised mother. He grew to fear illness, and that those he loved could be taken from him without warning. He learned not to care too deeply for anyone, to avoid the hurt.

Over the years, Henry perfected an image of his dead mother that he used to measure other women against. Every wife and every mistress was assessed against this impossible yardstick.

Who was he to love now?

In August 1503, Henry escorted his 13-year-old sister, Princess Margaret, north on her way to marry the Scottish King, James IV. Margaret was a bossy, self-obsessed little madam, and it seems likely that Henry felt few qualms about losing her. His only female contacts now were his sweet little sister Mary and his elderly 58-year-old religious, dominant grandmother.

Henry VII, however, had already enjoyed one good and fruitful marriage – why not a second? He began looking for a new queen. Despite plans for Catherine to marry the new Prince of Wales, Henry VII tentatively suggested that he should marry the princess himself! Catherine’s parents, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile vetoed the idea of this amended match. True, their daughter would be queen of England, but even if Henry VII gave her a son, the new baby would be unlikely to become king, with an existing and healthy Prince of Wales. Henry VII, at the age of 46, was already an old man by the standards of the day, and might die soon; Catherine would be a widow again, and this time would have no chance of marrying the next English king. Isabella described his suggestion as: ‘… an evil thing, the mere mention of which offends the ears, and we would not for anything in the world that it should take place.’
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If it had been expedient, Ferdinand and Isabella would have agreed to the marriage in a second. However, they saw a better chance of a lasting alliance with Catherine married to the future King of England.

Instead, Isabella recommended Henry VII to consider marriage to Joan, the widowed Queen of Naples, the daughter of her husband Ferdinand’s sister. She was 26 years old and ‘particularly well-qualified to console him in his deep affliction.’ However, she lacked a dowry, and she only held the throne of Naples for her own lifetime. Henry might like her ‘comely neck’ and ‘womanly laughing cheer and good humour’, but he wanted more material benefit from a bride.
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While negotiations continued, Isabella of Castile died, and the political climate changed dramatically. Ferdinand of Aragon married again, to Germaine de Foix of Navarre, and Henry VII may have briefly looked towards France for a wife. The Portuguese Ambassador, Thomas Lopez, wrote a letter dated 10 October 1505 to his master, Emanuel I of Portugal: ‘Sire, the king of England is treating to get married in France to the daughter [sister – Margaret of Angoulême] of the Count of Angoulême, the Dauphin, or to his mother [Louise of Savoy] and he has sent thither for that purpose the Lord Somerset his ambassador.’
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Possibly to spite Ferdinand, whom he suspected of duplicity in the marriage negotiations, Henry VII suggested that he might marry Margaret of Austria, sister of Philip the Handsome, the son of the Holy Roman Emperor. Philip had married Joanna, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; when Isabella died, it was Joanna, her eldest child, and not her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, who inherited the throne of Castile. Ferdinand and Philip were at loggerheads over Joanna’s inheritance and any suggestion that Henry VII was planning to ally himself to Philip would have annoyed Ferdinand greatly.

Margaret of Austria had first married John, Crown Prince of Spain, in 1497, but he died only a few months later. In 1501, Margaret married Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, who died in 1504. Now Henry VII put pressure on Philip the Handsome, pushing him to forward this marriage. A treaty of friendship was signed between Henry and Philip in London, on 20 March 1506, one element of which promised Henry VII the hand of Margaret, along with a dowry of 300,000 crowns and an annual income of 30,000. In addition, Prince Henry was to marry Eleanor, the daughter of Philip and Joanna, and Princess Mary was to marry their eldest son Charles, who was heir to Spain through his mother and to the Holy Roman Empire through his father.

Neither side seems to have pushed the marriage; Margaret herself was opposed to the union. Late in 1506, however, circumstances changed. Philip the Handsome died suddenly on 25 September, and Henry immediately approached Ferdinand, asking for the hand of his newly widowed daughter, Joanna; she had had six children with Philip – Charles, Ferdinand, Eleanor, Isabella, Mary and Katherine – which boded well for new princes and princesses of England.

On 15 January 1506, Philip the Handsome and Joanna had been stranded in England by a storm when their ship was damaged; Philip was on his way to Spain to attack Ferdinand, who was refusing to give up control of Castile to Joanna, as rightful heir. Prince Henry was sent to Winchester to meet Philip who had landed at Melcombe Regis, near Weymouth, Dorset. Joanna had stopped at Wolverton Manor, Dorset, as she was suffering from a bout of illness.

Philip and the young Henry took to each other immediately and were able to talk in French. Philip the Handsome was everything the Prince thought a king should be – handsome, religious, brave, aggressive in war, fond of wine, women (he enjoyed a string of casual sexual encounters) and song. Henry VII met the pair just outside Windsor the following day. During the month of the visit, Henry and Philip were constantly in one another’s company. The King spent extravagantly to impress Philip and everything was sumptuous and exuberant. On 10 February Joanna joined the party at Windsor.

On leaving England Philip and Joanna went on to Spain. There they formulated a truce with Ferdinand who withdrew from Castile; however, when Philip died, on 25 September 1506, the cause was rumoured to be poison, administered on the orders of Ferdinand. Henry was devastated by the news of Philip’s death. The loss of someone he admired raised an interesting mention of his mother’s death and the effect that it had on the boy. He wrote to Erasmus on 17 January 1507: