DOMINIC SANDBROOK on how Henry married his older brother's Spanish bride

DOMINIC SANDBROOK on how Henry married his older brother's Spanish bride
DOMINIC SANDBROOK on how Henry married his older brother's Spanish bride

He began his reign as the dashing image of knightly chivalry. He ended it as a bloated, stinking whale, hated and feared across the land

He began his reign as the dashing image of knightly chivalry. He ended it as a bloated, stinking whale, hated and feared across the land

Henry VIII was one of the most magnetic characters in English history. Tall, handsome, charming and clever, a fine musician and a magnificent sportsman, he was also grasping, impulsive, suspicious and cruel.

He began his reign as the dashing image of knightly chivalry. He ended it as a bloated, stinking whale, hated and feared across the land.

But in his determination to preserve his Tudor dynasty, Henry changed England in ways that still echo today.

Succeeding his father in 1509, Henry ruled during one of the most revolutionary periods in European history — the Reformation, when rebellious thinkers were challenging the hold of the Roman Catholic Church.

At first Henry treated the new ideas with suspicion. The new books were burned in public and rebels against the Catholic Church, who were nicknamed Protestants, were dragged to their deaths.

But then events took an unpredictable twist. The great religious arguments of the day became mixed up with Henry’s tortured love life — and everything changed.

Henry’s father had won the crown on the battlefield after years of civil war. So for Henry, nothing was more important than maintaining his family’s grasp on the throne.

To do that he needed a son, as no woman had ever ruled England unchallenged.

And in his desperation, he worked his way through not one or two wives, or even three or four, but a record-breaking six.

As Henry’s wives came and went, from Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour to Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, England changed with them.

For the only way Henry could get rid of his first wife was by breaking the link with Roman Catholicism and setting up a new Church of England, with himself at its head.

It was a colossal moment in England’s history. For the first time, Englishmen came to think of themselves as a nation apart, separate from Europe, chosen by God to fight for freedom.

More than any other king in our history, then, Henry really made a difference. So too did his six wives, whose names have gone down in legend.

A girl child- but Henry wanted a boy Wife No.1: Catherine of Aragon

Background

Catherine of Aragon was born in 1485 in Alcala de Henares, Spain. She was the daughter of Ferdinand, King of Aragon, and Isabella, Queen of Castile, the most celebrated couple in all Europe.

Married when they were teenagers, Catherine’s parents dreamed of uniting their separate kingdoms into a single mighty realm of Spain. So little Catherine soon became used to life on horseback, accompanying her mother in her battles against the Moors.

Despite her royal blood and adventurous childhood, Catherine was a girl like any other. As a toddler she had a pushcart to help her walk, and she adored fruit jellies and a drink known as ‘rose honey’.

She spent her early teens in the Alhambra in Granada, the most spectacular of Spanish palaces, a paradise of marble courtyards and painted ceilings, crystal pools and fountains.

But when she was 15, it was time for her to leave. Her parents had promised her hand in marriage to Arthur, the heir to the English throne.

And so, one May morning, Catherine mounted her horse, took one last look at the palace she loved so much, and turned north towards her new life in England . . .

How they met

When Catherine first met Henry in 1501, he was still a boy. She was on her way to London to marry his elder brother, Arthur, and Henry was sent at the head of the welcoming party.

He saw a nervous girl of 15 with honey-coloured hair and blue eyes.

She saw a boy of ten years old, with reddish hair and narrow blue eyes. Henry had a round, broad face, which lit up when he grinned. Even in the saddle he was bursting with energy, like a dog straining to be allowed off the leash.

At first, neither of them thought anything of it. Catherine married Arthur, though at the wedding party Henry did his best to steal the show, ripping off his gown and dancing about like a madman.

Just a few months after the wedding, Arthur died of the sweating sickness, a kind of fever. That left Catherine a teenage widow, and for years she remained alone in London, sunk in depression.

Then the wheel of fortune turned again. In 1509 Henry’s father died and Henry became king. He needed a wife, and he knew just the person: Catherine.

Highs

Henry’s marriage to Catherine was easily the longest of his life, lasting for almost 24 years. And for most of it, the two of them got on well.

After they were married, Henry wrote to Catherine’s father, assuring him that he was head-over-heels in love.

He had ‘rejected all other ladies in the world’ to marry Catherine, and admired her more every day. Indeed, if asked to choose again, he would pick her before any other woman on earth.

In their early days, life seemed an endless whirl of fun and games. As Henry himself wrote, they spent their days enjoying ‘continual feasts’, as well as ‘jousts, birding, hunting and other innocent and honest pastimes’.

At tournaments, Henry loved jousting, where two men ride horses and try to topple the other.

He called himself ‘Sir Loyal Heart’ and wore golden hearts on his horse to match the decorations on Catherine’s pavilion. And the couple enjoyed court masques, in which Henry and his friends would dress in disguises.

Catherine had to pretend she didn’t recognise him. Then, when he took off his mask to reveal his identity, her job was to gasp and smother him with kisses.

Lows

If Catherine and Henry had had a son, England’s history would have been very different. She did have a baby boy in early 1511, but he died after less than two months.

After that, she had a daughter, Mary. But Henry was desperate for a son to follow him as king — and no son came.

This was hardly Catherine’s fault. But as the years went by, an idea took root in Henry. Perhaps God was punishing him. Perhaps it was a sin to marry his brother’s widow.

Then something momentous happened. In the late 1520s Henry fell for a younger woman, Anne Boleyn. She wanted to marry him — which meant Catherine had to go.

But Catherine didn’t go without a fight. She refused to withdraw to a nunnery and insisted that she was still the rightful queen. She even appealed to Rome, asking the Pope for support.

To punish her, Henry imprisoned her daughter Mary in a succession of country houses. But Catherine was a brave woman, and the English people loved her for it.

Even as her health collapsed, she refused to give in. And it’s a sign of her character that as she lay dying in January 1536, she prayed not for herself, but for Henry.

Love affair that went sour Wife No.2: Anne Boleyn 

Background

Born in Norfolk in 1501, Anne was the daughter of accomplished diplomat, Sir Thomas Boleyn. He had a gift for languages and so the King sent him as his representative to court foreign princes.

Because of this, Anne spent much of her early life abroad. When she was 12 she went with her father to Brussels. Months later she was sent to Paris and became a maid of honour to the French queen.

She spoke French, learned French music and dressed in the French style. She read French Bibles and absorbed Protestant ideas.

Nobody ever described Anne Boleyn, with her thick black hair, sallow skin, long neck and oval face, as a great beauty. But she had personality. She was well-read and was never afraid to argue. She danced, sang and played the lute. She was sharp, with a flashing wit and waspish tongue.

She had a temper, and could be vindictive. But to her admirers, she seemed spirited.

How they met

Henry and Anne may have first met in 1522 at the fabled Green Castle in London.

The castle, besieged by attackers, fired its guns and missiles roared. It was terrifying. Or it would have been, if the battlements had not been made of foil, and if the defenders had not been young ladies of the court, including Anne.

The castle had been made for a pageant held to entertain envoys sent by Emperor Charles V.

Soon afterwards, Henry became smitten. He wrote Anne love notes, unusual for a king, and often left them in books. And sometimes he sent her coded messages:

‘B.N.R.I. de R.O.M.V.E.Z.

v. n. A. 1. de A. o. na. v. e. r.’

Even today, centuries later, nobody knows what they mean.

Highs

Henry’s romance with Anne was charged with passion. And all the time she drew him on, knowing when to tease and toy with him, and when to push him away.

By 1532 she was recognised as the King’s first lady, even though Henry had a wife. He took Anne to France, and the French king gave her a diamond as a gift.

The following January, after Henry made himself head of the Church and ended his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, he and Anne were wed at Whitehall palace.

And on June 1, 1533, Anne reached the summit of her desires, and was crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey wearing a purple and crimson robe trimmed with fur and bedecked with jewels.

Among the crowds outside, a banner read in Latin: ‘Queen Anne, when thou shalt bear a new son of the King’s blood, there shall be a golden world unto thy people.’

But would she give Henry the son he craved?

Lows

In an age when ladies were expected to say little, Anne Boleyn had a sharp tongue. She was not popular with ordinary people, who called her ‘a goggle-eyed whore’ and a witch. Even with Henry she could be very fiery.

Mind you, Henry was no model husband. When Anne told him off for flirting with other women, he snapped that ‘she must shut her eyes and endure as those who were better than herself had done’.

Most importantly, Anne never gave him a son. Although she did give birth in 1533, the baby was a girl, the future Elizabeth I.

That made Anne vulnerable. Three years later, Henry’s chief adviser, Thomas Cromwell, decided it was time for her to go.

Cromwell claimed Anne had been plotting to kill the King. It was a fantasy. But Henry believed it, and Anne’s world fell apart.

Dragged to the Tower of London, she was tried for treason, sentenced to death and beheaded on Tower Green.

People claimed they saw hares in the fields. The hare, they all knew, was the symbol of the witch.

Gentle Jane who died in childbirth Wife No.3 Jane Seymour 

Background

Growing up in the Wiltshire countryside, Jane Seymour never dreamed of marrying a king. Sir John, her father lived quietly with his family at Wolf Hall.

Born in about 1508, Jane was good-natured. One ambassador wrote she was ‘of middle height and nobody thinks that she has much beauty’, but like everyone, was impressed by her character.

She was kind. She was nice. She was ordinary. In other words, she was unlike Anne Boleyn.

How they met

In the summer of 1535, Henry and Anne stayed with the Seymours at Wolf Hall. The following spring, while Jane visited the palace at Greenwich, Henry sent her a letter and a purse of sovereigns.

But Jane returned them. She was, she

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