A Brief Overview of the Wives of Henry VIII-Catherine Howard-The Midlife Crisis Queen

If we were to introduce the wives of Henry VIII a la Great Comet, we would sing 'Catherine was young', because Catherine 2.0 was very young, most likely a teenager when she married Henry. The exact date of her birth was never recorded (The Howards had a lot of kids, alright?), but it is estimated to be around 1521, making her barely more than twenty when she was executed in 1542.Catherine was, by all accounts, pretty, flirtatious, and full of energy. After Anne of Cleves, Catherine would have been a fresh breeze through Henry's life. However, contemporary accounts also agree that she was silly, poorly educated, and somewhat free in her *ahem* "affections", which made her a piss poor choice of a wife for Henry.

Catherine as painted by our dude
 Hans Hoblien

Catherine had been raised in the household of her grandmother, the Duchess of Norfolk, who had more grandchildren on her hands than she knew what to do with. Catherine's childhood was largely unsupervised, leaving her almost completely uneducated. She was vulnerable to the sexual advances of her music teacher, the much older Henry Mannox. Catherine swore that their relationship was unconsummated, but said that:

"I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require..."

By modern standards, what Henry Mannox did would be considered, at the very least, statutory rape. While the standards of the 1500s were different than today, Henry Mannox preyed on a young girl who was physically and emotionally vulnerable.

Following Mannox, Catherine later took up with Francis Dereham, with whom she had something of an understanding. There was nothing written down, but they had a verbal pre-contract to marry, and, like many couples of the era who intended to marry, they engaged in sexual relations. Dereham later left for Ireland, and Catherine changed her mind about their arrangement. This would come back to haunt her when Dereham extorted her for a position in her household.

Henry was nearly 50 at the time he married her, which is a little late for a midlife crisis, especially given the life expectancy of the 1500s, but if Henry lived today, not only would he have married Catherine, but he'd also probably be losing weight and buying a motorcycle, or a shiny red sports car. Catherine was a dramatic departure from everything he'd ever valued in the women in his life previously. To explain, I made you a crappy Ven Diagram

Gosh I love Ven Diagrams.

So, if you're looking at this and wondering what on earth Henry and his advisers were thinking, well, I am too. Catherine was completely unsuited to become queen. She was immature and reckless. She hadn't been raised in the English court, so she hadn't seen the rise and fall of Henry's first two wives. Catherine was completely out of her depth. There's only two really good reasons for why she married Henry. They are:

1. Catherine was the granddaughter of the Duke of Norfolk, and Norfolks would kill for power.
2. Henry was a horny, lecherous old man, who should have known better, but decided to ignore all common sense and marry her anyways.

Given the evidence I've provided, I think we can all agree that marrying Catherine Howard was a HUGE MISTAKE. A mistake Henry grew to regret.

See, Catherine was, as I mentioned, young and flirtatious. She liked the king, sure, but he was old and fat, and possibly very bad in bed (see the history headlines article below). Can you blame a teenage girl for wanting to hang out with someone her own age? Someone who didn't have an ulcerated leg, and a bad temper?

Horny, lecherous, old man who should know better.

Catherine certainly didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with entertaining a bit of stuff on the side. She started up an affair with Thomas Culpeper, who was, by all accounts, a terrible person. They carried on for quite a while, to the point that the entire court knew, but Henry was willfully ignorant. He refused to see any of Catherine's shortcomings, referring to her as his 'rose without a thorn'. There's no doubt that he idealized Catherine, and this blinded him to reality. He might have spent the rest of his life in ignorance, except the Protestant faction at court (who hated the Catholic Catherine) shook Henry by the shoulders, and made him see reason (just kidding, they slipped him a letter in church. I do not recommend touching Henry VIII without his consent.).

Henry was devastated to the point that he was ready to kill Catherine himself. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, and Catherine was merely placed under arrest.

Here's another instance where Catherine's youth and ignorance worked against her. She was under arrest, and had no idea what to do. Her family were distancing themselves from her, and she had no advisers. And though Thomas Crammer, the archbishop who interrogated her, did his best to point out that her pre-contract with Francis Dereham could potentially save her life, she just didn't quite get it. She ended up confessing to sleeping with Dereham.

This is the image used on the Catherine Howard
page for PBS' 'Six Wives of Henry VIII'. I feel
like some vital pieces of history, like age
may have been misunderstood in the
casting process.

What comes after that mirrors what happened to her cousin, Anne Boleyn. Catherine was taken by barge to the Tower of London, and later beheaded.

Catherine was the shortest lived of Henry's wives, probably no more than twenty when she died. She was completely and totally unfit to be queen, and this wasn't entirely her fault. She had no idea what she was getting herself into, and, as a victim of CSA, was already predisposed to risky sexual behaviors. Her greatest legacy is her alleged haunting of Hampton Court . She was just a blip on Henry's marital radar, and her story is, perhaps, the saddest of all.

Part One  Part Two  Part Three  Part Four  Part Five  Part Six   Part Seven   Part Eight

Sources

Englishhistory.net

Tudor Place

Tudorhistory.org
History and Headlines

A Brief Overview of the Wives of Henry VIII- Jane Seymour, the One Who 'Got It Right'

Good Queen Jane looked a bit like Mrs. Nunez, my eighth grade algebra teacher. There, I said it. I've been thinking that for nearly ten years now, it's about time someone knows. Everyone says I'm crazy, but if it wasn't seriously uncool, I'd put pictures of them side by side to prove it.

Mrs. Nunez had the same shaped nose,
same chin, same sort of eyes. Jane was
reportedly a strawberry blond, so that's
different, but other than that, they could
be twins.

Aside from looking like my eighth grade algebra teacher, Jane was also Henry's favorite queen. Not only was her meek and amiable nature a refreshing change from the tempestuous Anne Boleyn, but she stayed out of politics, and gave him the thing he craved the most, a son.

Where Anne was passionate, witty, and outspoken, Jane was quiet and mild. Like Anne, she had an ambitious family who used her to rise socially; unlike the Boleyns, however, the Seymours were lastingly successful at it. During Edward's minority Jane's brother, Edward Sr., basically ran the country. But where Anne and her family were pushy and obnoxious, Jane and the Seymours were more laid back. They had the benefit of watching the Anne's catastrophic marriage, and Jane definitely learned from her predecessor's mistakes. Her motto as queen--Bound to Obey and Serve-- really says it all. If she had any strong political opinions she kept them to herself.

Family portrait of Henry, Edward,
 and Jane painted after Jane's death

Jane's tenure as Queen Consort was short, just seventeen months, as opposed to the 24 and 10 years Catherine and Anne had respectively. Arguably, her biggest non-childbearing achievement was reconciling Henry with his eldest daughter Mary. Jane didn't get involved in Henry's affairs much, and she didn't try to push him places he didn't want to go (after Anne's demise, can you blame her?), but on the point of the Princess Mary she remained firm. She pushed for a reconciliation, and she got it, paving the way for Catherine Parr to restore Mary and Elizabeth to the succession.

All in all, Jane's life was very short. She died at only 29 after complications from the birth of her son, Edward. Most historians speculate that she died from puerperal fever, not from a suicidal cesarean section as popular rumor claims. But for such a short lived queen, she had a deep impact on Henry. She was the only queen to be given a queen's funeral, she was painted into family portraits long after her death (even when Henry had remarried), and Henry is buried next to her.

Part One  Part Two  Part Three  Part Four  Part Five   Part Six   Part Seven   Part Eight

Sources
Biography.com
The Anne Boleyn Files

A Brief Overview of the Wives of Henry VIII-- Anne Boleyn, the Face that Launched a Reformation

Anne Boleyn was ambitious and smart, could probably have run England all by herself, and she knew it (But more about that later). Is it really a surprise that she was the first of the egomaniac Henry's wives to be executed? Anne was beautiful, refined, and skilled at political maneuvering. She played a major part in ushering in the English Reformation. If anyone can say that they were 'born in the wrong time', Anne Boleyn certainly could. Had she been born in an era where women could hold office and run a country, she would have been the Hilary Clinton of her age, except sexier. She's a sexy Hilary Clinton. Keep that image in your mind as you read the rest of this. ;)

Anne was born sometime between 1501 and 1507 to Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn. Thomas was a favored and talented diplomat, and because of that Anne received her formal education in the court of Margaret of Austria, and her not-so-formal education in the court of Queen Claude of France. She served as a maid of honor to both of those women, spending nearly eight years in Europe before returning to England.

Following her stay on the continent, Anne went through two engagements, which were later broken off. She was sent to the English court to be a maid of honor to Queen Catherine, and this is where she met Henry.

From there the story plays out just as how you remember. Boy meets girl. Boy falls madly in love with girl. Boy is already married, and embarks on a seven year journey to divorce his wife. Boy divorces his wife and marries girl. Girl had a baby. Boy becomes disillusioned. Boy comes up with reasons to behead girl. It's all terribly romantic, no?

No, it's really not romantic at all. Even if it didn't end with Anne being beheaded, there's several reasons why her and Henry's relationship was cringe worthy:

• Henry was somewhere between nine and fifteen years older than Anne.

• Henry had done the do with Anne's sister, Mary Carey nee Boleyn. Most historians agree that they even had a child together, Henry Carey, though King Henry never acknowledged his legitimacy.  
• Both Anne and Henry's treatment of the respected Catherine of Aragon from the time they first became an item until Catherine's death was absolutely terrible. Catherine was slowly forced from her place of prominence, as Anne eclipsed her. Both Henry and Anne were cruel to Catherine, and Catherine was, once again, forced into poverty and cut off from her friends and family.
• Anne used her position at court to secure political positions for her family and friends, to the point where the Boleyns were practically running the country. The Boleyns were not particularly magnanimous about this turn of events. 

Between her treatment of Catherine, quick temper, and open support for Evangelical ideas, Anne made a lot of enemies. And when Henry started to get irritated with Anne, those enemies pounced on the opportunity to discredit and replace her. Enter Jane Seymour, homewrecker. The Boleyn faction was slowly replaced by the Seymour faction, and Anne was put on trial and beheaded.

Anne's real legacy survives in not only the reign of her daughter, the famous Glorianna, but in the formation of the Anglican church. There's a big chance that Henry would have stayed a devout Catholic had he never met Anne Boleyn. Anne placed pressure on Henry to marry her, and, it is said, placed pamphlets in his hands that promoted reformation ideals. She and her family schemed and maneuvered until she was queen, and unintentionally brought in a reformation that would change England forever.  

Part One     Part Two     Part Three    Part Four  Part Five   Part Six   Part Seven   Part Eight

Sources
A Tudor Treasury by Elizabeth Norton

Henry VIII by Kathy Elgin

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey
The Other Tudors by Philippa Jones