The Miscarriage of Anne Boleyn

On the same day that her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon, was laid to rest, Anne Boleyn miscarried. The Imperial ambassador reported the miscarriage to his master, Charles V:-

“On the day of the interment [Catherine of Aragon's funeral] the Concubine had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3½ months, at which the King has shown great distress. The said concubine wished to lay the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, saying he frightened her by bringing the news of the fall the King had six days before. But it is well known that is not the cause, for it was told her in a way that she should not be alarmed or attach much importance to it. Some think it was owing to her own incapacity to bear children, others to a fear that the King would treat her like the late Queen, especially considering the treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel, to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents.”¹

On the 25th February, Chapuys mentioned the miscarriage again:-

“I learn from several persons of this Court that for more than three months this King has not spoken ten times to the Concubine, and that when she miscarried he scarcely said anything to her, except that he saw clearly that God did not wish to give him male children; and in leaving her he told her, as if for spite, that he would speak to her after she was “releuize.” The said Concubine attributed the misfortune to two causes: first, the King’s fall; and, secondly, that the love she bore him was far greater than that of the late Queen, so that her heart broke when she saw that he loved others. At which remark the King was much grieved, and has shown his feeling by the fact that during these festive days he is here, and has left the other at Greenwich, when formerly he could not leave her for an hour.”²

It is clear from Chapuys’ reports that both Anne and Henry were devastated by the loss of their son adn with hindsight we can see that this miscarriage made a huge impact on Anne’s future, that she had “miscarried of her saviour”³. However, Chapuys is prone to exaggeration and Eric Ives points out that his reference to Henry VIII pretty much ignoring Anne for three months just is not true for “Chapuys had forgotten his own report of the king’s behaviour after Katherine’s death”⁴. Also Chapuys reads far too much into the King leaving Anne at Greenwich to celebrate Shrovetide at Whitehall – Anne had just had a miscarriage, surely she needed to recover!

Catholic recusant, Nicholas Sander, who was in exile during Elizabeth I’s reign, wrote of how Anne Boleyn had blamed her miscarriage on catching the King with Jane Seymour on his lap, and Jane Dormer (Duchess of Feria and lady-in-waiting to Mary I) also wrote of this and reported that “there was often much scratching and bye-blows between the queen and her maid.”⁵ Eric Ives calls such reports “late embroidery”⁶ because there is plenty of evidence of Henry making “determined efforts to persuade Europe to accept Anne as his legitimate wife” and concludes:-

“The miscarriage of 29 January was neither Anne’s last chance nor the point at which Jane Seymour replaced Anne in Henry’s priorities. It did nevertheless make her vulnerable yet again.”⁷

But what about the deformed foetus story?

The Deformed Foetus

“The Other Boleyn Girl” book has Anne miscarrying a “monster”:-
“In the midwife’s bloody hands was a baby hardly malformed, with a spine flayed open and a huge head, twice as large as the spindly little body.”⁸
This idea comes from Nicholas Sander’s report that Anne miscarried “a shapeless mass of flesh”⁹, but Nicholas Sander was only around 6 years of age in 1536 and he was purposely trying to blacken Anne Boleyn’s name when he was in exile during her daughter’s reign. His report of this deformed foetus is not backed up by any other source and don’t you think that Chapuys would have gleefully reported it to Charles V if this had happened? Both Chapuys and the chronicler Charles Wriothesley simply state that she miscarried a male child of around 15 weeks in gestation.

Was Anne Boleyn’s miscarriage responsible for her fall?

You can read my article on this at “Was Anne Boleyn’s Miscarriage Responsible for her Fall?” but I agree with Eric Ives – it made her vulnerable but it did not cause her downfall. A successful pregnancy resulting in a boy would obviously have saved Anne Boleyn but we cannot pin her downfall and execution on the events of the 29th January 1536.

The Death of Henry VIII

By late December 1546, it was clear that Henry VIII was gravely ill. In these last days, the King’s Council met and the decision was made to arrest Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and his father, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Surrey had unwisely boasted about his Plantagenet blood and said that when the King died, his father would be “meetest to rule the prince”3. Allegedly, Surrey had plotted “to kill the Council, depose the king and seize the young prince”4 and also persuade his sister, Mary Howard to become the new king’s mistress. If that wasn’t enough, he had also had the audacity “to quarter his own arms with those of Edward the Confessor”5. Surrey was tried, found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. He was beheaded on the 19th January 1547.

Surrey’s father, the Duke of Norfolk, had apparently been making secret visits to the lodgings of Marillac, the French ambassador, under cover of darkness, and when he was arrested in December 1546 he was questioned about his use of a secret cipher and whether he was loyal to the Royal Supremacy. In his biography of Henry VIII, J. J. Scarisbrick6, writes of how it is hard to know whether it was Surrey who dragged his father down, or the other way round, and also whether the attack on the Howards came from a faction in the Council or from a “suspicious, ruthless and fearful old man who was determined to be master of his own kingdom even unto the grave.”7 Fortunately for Norfolk, although he had been found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, the King died the day before he was due to be executed and his sentence was commuted to imprisonment. He was released in 1553.

But let’s get back to Henry VIII…

When an ill Henry VIII returned to Whitehall from Oatlands, via Nonsuch, it was to an empty court. His wife, Catherine Parr, had been sent away to Greenwich for Christmas and the court had been closed. Only the King’s Privy Council and trusted attendants were present. Although his council were spreading the news that the King had been suffering with a fever caused by his leg and was on the mend, the truth was that the King was dying and that his last will and testament were being drawn up. Scarisbrick writes of how, on the night of the 26th December 1546, Dudley, Hertford, Paget, Denny and two other men were called to see the King. Henry ordered Denny to fetch his will but got mixed up and brought him the wrong one, an earlier one. Denny then found the correct will, one drawn up by Wriothesley, and read it out to the King. The King was surprised at its contents, saying that he was not happy with the list of executors and councillors, so Paget made the corrections ordered by the King, one of which was removing the name of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester – “a wilful man”8, according to the King. Four days later, on the 30th December, Hertford, Paget and Sir William Herbert visited Henry and the will was signed, witnessed and sealed with the King’s signet ring.

On the 3rd January 1547, the French Ambassadors, De Selve and La Garde, wrote to Francis I telling him that they had been told by the King’s Council that the King was now well, after they had not been allowed to see the King on the 1st January due to his illness9. On the 16th January, Henry had improved enough to receive the French and Imperial ambassadors and De Selve and La Garde reported that the King “seems now fairly well”10. It is unclear when the King suffered a relapse but on the 27th January the King was too ill to be present at the commission which agreed on the Duke of Norfolk’s attainder.

By the evening of the 27th, it was clear to Henry VIII’s doctors that he did not have long to live, although they refrained from doing so in case they were accused of treason for foretelling the King’s death. Sir Anthony Denny was the one who advised Henry that he must prepare himself. Scarisbrick writes of how the King “began to think on his past life and its shortcomings, saying, ‘yet is the mercy of Christ able to pardon me all my sins, though they were greater than they be.’ “11 When Denny asked the King if he wanted a church man to minister to him, the King replied that he would like Cranmer there but “I will first take a little sleep and then, as I feel myself, I will advise upon the matter.”12 The King slept for a couple of hours and then asked for Cranmer who had to travel from Croydon. By the time Cranmer got to Whitehall, Henry was unable to speak, and was slipping in and out of consciousness. Cranmer asked Henry to give him some sign that he trusted in God and Henry “holding him with his hand, did wring his hand in his as hard as he could.”13 Henry VIII died in the early hours of the 28th January 1548, although his death was kept secret until the 31st January, giving his Council time to discuss what was going to happen.

The King’s embalmed body was taken by chariot to Windsor Castle on the 14th February. On the 16th February, the “wilful man”, Stephen Gardiner, presided over Henry’s funeral mass in the Castle’s St George’s Chapel. Henry’s body was laid to rest in a vault between the stalls and altar, the grave where his third wife, Jane Seymour, had been buried. Although Henry had planned for he and Jane to be laid to rest in a magnificent tomb in the Lady Chapel, a tomb which Cardinal Wolsey had actually had designed for himself, the tomb was not finished. In 1646 Parliament ordered that the ornaments of the tomb should be sold and the sarcophagus ended up being the tomb of Lord Nelson (1758-1805) and standing in St Paul’s Cathedral. Not what Henry wanted at all and it seems that he did not get his way regarding the reign of his son, Edward, either. Henry VIII had appointed executors and councillors to help his son rule, yet one man, Edward Seymour, became the Lord Protector. Henry could not do anything about it except roll in his grave.

“The King is dead. Long live the King”. Henry VIII was dead and gone and his young son was now King Edward VI.

Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/a-tale-of-two-henrys-the-birth-of-henry-vii-and-the-death-of-henry-viii/8224/#ixzz1CMxot1iG

Facts about Lady Margaret Beaufort

Facts About Lady Margaret Beaufort
Here are some facts about Lady Margaret Beaufort:-

•Margaret was born on the 31st May 1443 at Bletsoe Castle in Bedfordshire.
•Her parents were Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe and John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, grandson of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his mistress (and eventual wife) Katherine Swynford, and Margaret was their only child.
•Although a 1397 act of Parliament legitimized the children of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, but in 1407 Henry IV, while recognising the legitimacy of his Beaufort half-brothers and sisters, declared that they could never inherit the throne.
•Margaret was married four times: c 1450 to John de la Pole, a marriage which was dissolved in 1453 (some say that the marriage never happened and was just a betrothal); 1453 to Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, eldest son of Owen Tudor and Catherine of Valois and half-brother of Henry VI; 1462 to Henry Stafford, son of the 1st Duke of Buckingham; and finally in 1472 to Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby and the Lord High Constable and King of Mann.
•Margaret had just one child, Henry VII. She gave birth to him at the age of 13 and his father was Edmund Tudor.
•Margaret was a powerful lady and was a key figure in the Wars of the Roses between the Houses of York and Lancaster. She actively supported her son Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne and was able to persuade her then husband, Thomas Stanley, and his brother to swap sides and support Henry at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry defeated Richard III and became Henry VII of England.
•Margaret and Elizabeth Woodville co-plotted the marriage of Henry, Margaret’s son, and Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth Woodville’s daughter by Edward IV.
•Margaret was the Countess of Richmond and Derby but, after her son’s victory at Bosworth, was referred to as “My Lady the King’s Mother” and refused to accept a lower status than the queen consort, Elizabeth of York.
•David Starkey writes of how Henry VIII inherited his grandmother’s Beaufort looks: hooked nose, hooded eyes, bags under the eyes and a slim build.
•She took an active interest in education and she established the Lady Margaret’s Professorship of Divinity at Cambridge University, refounded and added to God’s House, Cambridge, turning it into Christ’s College, and her estate founded St John’s College, Cambridge. The Queen Elizabeth’s School, formally Wimborne Grammar School, came about as a result of her intention to build a free school in Wimborne, Dorset.
•John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was Margaret’s friend, political and spiritual adviser, and executor of her estate. He was eventually executed for treason by her grandson, Henry VIII.
•The Beaufort motto was “Souvent me souviens”, “I remember often”.
•Lady Margaret Beaufort’s resting place is at Westminster Abbey in London, in the south aisle of Henry VII’s Chapel. Her tomb was sculpted by Pietro Torrigiano and features a portrait effigy of Margaret dressed in traditional widow’s dress, her head resting on two pillows decorated with the Tudor badge, her hands raised in prayer and the Beaufort family crest at her feet. The Latin inscription, written by Erasmus, translates as “Margaret of Richmond, mother of Henry VII, grandmother of Henry VIII, who gave a salary to three monks of this convent and founded a grammar school at Wimborne, and to a preacher throughout England, and to two interpreters of Scripture, one at Oxford, the other at Cambridge, where she likewise founded two colleges, one to Christ, and the other to St John, his disciple. Died A.D.1509, III Kalends of July [29 June]“.


Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/lady-margaret-beaufort/5849/#ixzz1CMwejKIG

St. Erkenwald's Day

Although we know that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn officially tied the knot at a secret wedding ceremony on the 25th January 1533, the Tudor chronicler, Edward Hall, records that the couple actually got married on Thursday 14th November 1532, St Erkenwald’s Day:-

“The kyng, after his returne [from Calais] maried priuily[privily] the lady Anne Bulleyn on sainet Erkenwaldes daie, whiche mariage was kept so secrete, that very fewe knewe it, til she was greate with child, at Easter after.”¹

Eric Ives, in his book, “The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn”, points out that St Erkenwald’s Day was the day after Anne and Henry returned to England after their successful visit to France.

Nicholas Sander, the Catholic recusant who wrote of Anne Boleyn during the reign of her daughter, Elizabeth I, also recorded the marriage date as the 14th November and Protestants latched onto this date, rather than the January date, because it meant that Elizabeth, who was born on the 7th September 1533, was conceived within wedlock. It may be that the couple got married in January 1533 but that they made some kind of formal commitment on St Erkenwald’s Day, so much so that Anne Boleyn finally allowed Henry to consummate their relationship and Elizabeth was conceived.

Happy St Erkenwald’s Day and perhaps also a Happy Wedding Anniversary to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.

Notes and Sources

1. Hall’s Chronicle, Edward Hall, p794

Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/st-erkenwalds-day-1532-the-marriage-of-henry-viii-and-anne-boleyn/7387/#ixzz1C9OEZpJj

Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn

On this day in history, 25th January 1533, Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn. Alison Weir writes of their marriage in her book “The Six Wives of Henry VIII”:-

“Just before dawn, on the morning of the 25 January 1533, a small group of people gathered in the King’s private chapel in Whitehall Palace for the secret wedding of the King to Anne Boleyn. The officiating priest was either Dr Rowland Lee*, one of the royal chaplains, or – according to Chapuys – Dr George Brown, Prior of the Austin Friars in London and later Archbishop of Dublin… There were four, possibly five, witnesses, all sworn to secrecy: Henry Norris and Thomas Heneage of the King’s privy chamber, and Anne Savage** and Lady Berkeley, who attended Anne. William Brereton, a groom of the chamber, may also have been present.”

According to Eric Ives, the marriage was kept so secret that even the gossipy Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, did not hear about it until months after. Chapuys wrote to his master, Charles V, on the 31st March 1533, saying, “It is expected that the new marriage will be solemnised before Easter or immediately after, for all the necessary preparations are already in order, the royal estate of the lady is already made, and nothing remains but to publish it.” Little did he know that the couple were already married, that their union had already been consummated (probably on their trip to France or on their arrival home in November 1532) and that Anne was pregnant. What gossip he was missing!

St Erkenwald’s Day 1532

As I have written before, the 25th January 1533 is not the only date out forward as a wedding date for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the Tudor chronicler, Edward Hall, wrote that the couple actually got married on Thursday 14th November 1532, St Erkenwald’s Day:-

“The kyng, after his returne [from Calais] maried priuily[privily] the lady Anne Bulleyn on sainet Erkenwaldes daie, whiche mariage was kept so secrete, that very fewe knewe it, til she was greate with child, at Easter after.”

St Erkenwald’s Day was the day after Anne and Henry returned from their trip to Calais to see Francis I, a visit where Anne had been treated as Henry’s consort and the couple had been given Francis I’s blessing, and, as David Starkey points out, “To have gone back to England and chastity must have seemed intolerable – both to her and to Henry” after they had been living as King and Queen in France.

Edward Hall is not the only person to give this date for their secret marriage; the Catholic recusant, Nicholas Sander, also wrote, during the reign of Elizabeth I, that Henry VIII had married Anne Boleyn on the 14th November. Protestants during Elizabeth’s reign latched on to this date because it meant that their queen had been conceived within wedlock, after all, a birthdate of 7th September 1533 suggests a conception date of between 11th and 19th December 1532, although it does depend on whether Elizabeth was premature, which she probably was when you consider that Anne entered her confinement on the 26th August.

A Tale of Two Weddings

But both dates could be valid, as David Starkey points out in his book. He writes of how Anne Boleyn “wanted to make sure that her own title as Queen would be unimpeachable” and that she wanted to make sure that everything was done following the format laid out in “the bible of ceremony known as ‘The Royal Book’.” Starkey wonders if Anne saw herself as a foreign princess “sailing to English soil [from her visit to her former home, France] where soon she would be crowned”:-

“It was just as ‘The Royal Book’ prescribed. What more natural therefore than to marry Henry as soon as they landed? And ‘privily’ – as The Royal Book permitted and the fact that Henry was still married to Catherine required?”

So, the couple married in Kent on St Erkenwald’s Day, shortly after landing on English soil and Starkey points out that it must have been a proper marriage “with a priest, a ring and the exchange of vows” for Anne to surrender her virtue to Henry. Of course, the marriage made Henry a bigamist, but Anne had what she wanted and needed, a sacred vow and promise, and now Henry could get what he wanted too!

But why the extra January wedding?

Although the couple had been co-habiting since their arrival back in England, nothing was official, their wedding had been kept secret. The problem, in January 1533, was that Anne Boleyn was pregnant. Something had to be done!

But Henry had no papal licence to allow him to take another wife. David Starkey writes of how Dr Rowland Lee demanded the licence from Henry, who replied that it was somewhere safe and he could not go and get it that early in the morning. When Lee pressed him further, Henry said, “Go forth in God’s name and do that which appertaineth to you and I will take upon me all other danger.” David Starkey feels that this altercation between the two men and, in fact, the whole wedding ceremony “was a carefully contrived performance”:-

“The first marriage in November had been designed to reassure Anne. The second, with its half-invocation of Papal authority was intended to reassure Henry’s subjects. When news of it leaked, which it quickly did, it would suggest that Henry had received the nod from Rome.”

As I have said already, the second wedding was also a secret affair, rather than the sumptuous state occasion that Anne may have been looking forward to, but David Starkey believes that news of this ceremony was purposely leaked so that the marriage was accepted by the people and Anne was accepted as queen.

David Starkey concludes that:-

“The marriage thus forms part of the great game of 1533 in which Henry decided to get his Divorce by deceiving everybody: Rome, his English subjects and even his French allies. The game was for the highest stakes and he played it well.”

Henry wanted a legitimate male heir and he wanted Anne Boleyn, nothing would stand in his way and he had waited too long already. He truly believed that his first marriage was not valid so his marriage to Anne, whatever the Pope thought, was valid and when Anne became pregnant so quickly, he must have thought that God was smiling down on them and blessing their union. However, just over three years later, Anne Boleyn was executed as a traitor and Henry was marrying for a third time.

Notes and Sources

• The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Alison Weir, Chapter 10 “Happiest of Women”.
• Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, David Starkey, Chapter 59 “Anne’s Marriage” and 60 “Archbishop”.
• The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives, p162-164
• Hall’s Chronicle, Edward Hall (d.1547), p794
• LP vi.296, March 1533
• Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, Nicholas Sander

*Historians like Alison Weir and David Starkey agree on Dr Rowland Lee being the most likely celebrant as he became Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield in 1534 and he is named in Nicholas Harpsfield’s “Treatise on the Pretended Divorce Between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon”, which was written during the reign of Mary I.

** David Starkey points out that Anne Savage later became Lady Berkeley, so Anne Boleyn, had only one attendant.

Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/henry-viii-marries-anne-boleyn-25th-january-1533/8155/#ixzz1C9MYSu8T

Gravity of Love

The Pscyhology of Henry VIII

According to Dr. David Starkey in the Sunday Times, Henry VIII was a real mama’s boy. Looking at handwriting comparisons (that of Henry, his mother, Elizabeth of York, and his younger sister Mary), Starkey draws the conclusion that he was emotionally dependent on women because of the close similarity of the samples. An exhibition opening in April at the British Museum will display the samples.

The Times quoted Starkey as saying “Henry was brought up very, very unusually, in a female household.” As we all know, Henry was merely the second son and during his formative years he was of little interest to the dynastically-minded father, Henry VII, who was consumed with establishing the questionable legitimacy of Tudor rule. Prince Arthur died at age 15, when Henry was only 11. Elizabeth died the following year, after attempting to give her husband another son.

During those early years Starkey says that Henry was tutored by his mother “both to read and, as we now see from the handwriting, to write, too”. The handwriting is described as bold, square and rather labored forms, unlike the writing of most men in the royal court. Starkey claims that his tutors and early role models, like Thomas More, have different handwriting styles. (Personally, I have to wonder if some unrecorded person, less prestigious than the tutors, taught both Elizabeth and her children. For example, my mother and I both had the same first grade teacher, thus accounting for some similarity in our handwriting.) Only a few exemplars of Elizabeth of York’s handwriting have been preserved.

It is known that Henry was very close to his sister Mary and they remained close, except for the brief times when she was Queen of France and then after she eloped with his best friend, Charles Brandon, later Duke of Suffolk (both in the portrait below). And he possibly named his first daughter after her, as well as naming his second daughter after his much-beloved mother.

Starkey says that “He could never be without women in his life and was always falling in love. He also married, at least when it comes to most of his six wives, for love. It is just that he would also fall out of love.”
Was Henry in love with being in love? We do know that, aside from the periods between his mother’s death and his accession and the death of Jane Seymour until the arrival of the maligned Anne of Cleves, Henry was never without a love interest. And nothing could upset him more than perceived betrayal or abandonment by those he loved.
And was the premature death of Elizabeth of York the cause of Henry’s unruly behavior?
It’s interesting to draw a parallel between Henry Tudor and modern princes saddened by the early death of an adored mother. Perhaps it’s a good thing William and Harry Wales don’t have ready access to the scaffold.

(the royal forum)