The Other Tudors. Philippa Jones
him – and those who were not. His first wife, Catherine of Aragon, obviously was, but Anne Hastings, Etionette de la Baume and Jane Popincourt were not.
Henry’s first big extramarital romance came in 1514 when he fell in love with Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount. She was his ideal woman: young, beautiful, intelligent, acquiescent, well raised, musical, an enthusiastic rider and a graceful dancer. While Catherine remained his wife and the future mother of his heir, Henry was no longer deeply in love with her. In a very short time, Bessie Blount came to mean everything to him and for five years they enjoyed each other, a physical relationship that only ended when Bessie informed the King that she was pregnant. A husband was quickly found for Bessie – a little late admittedly – but Henry publicly acknowledged their son, Henry Fitzroy (see plate 10), the future Duke of Richmond and Somerset – the only one of his illegitimate children that he did so with. The affair had been public, added to which the boy looked just like Henry and, perhaps more importantly, Bessie did not initially have a husband who could usefully take responsibility for the child. This affair and its outcome taught Henry a valuable lesson. From then on those ‘light-hearted’ mistresses had husbands that could ‘hide’ any child born to such a relationship.
Mary Boleyn (see plate 5), the first of the Boleyn women with whom Henry had sexual liaisons, was another such light-hearted lover. As soon as Henry declared his interest in her she was found a husband. Although some historians believe that Mary was a woman of loose morals – one who had been the mistress of Francis I of France – I do not believe that this is the case. Mary had sexual relations with only three men: Henry and her husbands, William Carey and William Stafford (discussed further in Chapter 5).
Henry’s affair with Mary lasted until she had her first child, who arguably may have been Henry’s. However, thanks to a compliant mistress and her even more compliant husband, no one needed to know. As the husbands of the King’s ex-mistresses, Gilbert Tailboys (Bessie Blount’s husband) and William Carey (Mary Boleyn’s husband) never had reason to complain. They acquired charming, agreeable wives with equally acceptable dowries and also the sincere gratitude of their monarch.
Perhaps it seems strange that Henry’s affairs with Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn lasted for years and only ended when the ladies became pregnant. Was it that Henry could not accept a mistress who was also a mother? Did he feel that these children were, in some way, a kind of betrayal or danger? From personal experience Henry knew that bastards could potentially threaten a weak king or one without legitimate heirs. His own claim to the throne came from two bastard lines that had resulted in his father Henry VII, a man capable of toppling a dynasty.
Another way in which Henry could have felt betrayed is if he thought the pregnancies were deliberate. Both Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn enjoyed five years of sexual intimacy with the King before they fell pregnant with their first children, suggesting that they were using some method of contraception. The experienced Catherine Howard is supposed to have commented, ‘a woman might meddle with a man and yet conceive no child unless she would herself.’3 Contraceptive methods existed, such as condoms, made of fine lambskin, known as ‘Venus gloves’4 but they were cumbersome to use and not always successful. The use of pepper as a spermicide was also unreliable. Anal sex was also recognised as an effective method of birth control. These methods, however, were considered immoral, if not illegal, between a man and woman as God had ordained sex as a means of procreation and to prevent it was contrary to the laws of God.
Although the pregnancies of Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn may both have been accidents, the pregnancies of Henry’s later liaisons with Jane Stukeley, Mary Perrot and Joanna Dingley may have been more the result of his carelessness. Perhaps he practised unprotected sex with them, not caring if he impregnated them or not? After all, Henry did not have to acknowledge any children or worry about them making any later claims to be his offspring. In an age without blood tests or DNA testing, claims concerning paternity were extremely difficult to prove or disprove. They relied on the characters of the parents, the physical appearance of the child and reports on the relationships of the wife. The wife of William Knollys, the grandson of Mary Boleyn and William Carey, finally had children after 20 years of childless marriage, when he was in his 80s. Suspiciously, his widow, Elizabeth, married Lord Vaux immediately after his death, but Knollys was no fool: his will did not acknowledge any children and he was officially recorded as having died without heirs. His ‘son’ was subsequently refused a place in the House of Lords on the grounds of ‘adulterous bastardy’.5
By the time the King met Anne Boleyn, Henry had fallen out of love with Catherine of Aragon. They barely spent any time together and even the pregnancies that failed to go to term or ended in stillbirths had stopped. Henry was ripe for a real love – a deep, honest, true love that would replace what he had once had with Catherine. Anne Boleyn was the woman he chose, but it didn’t stop Henry from continuing to enjoy other brief, light-hearted affairs. Jane Stukeley, Mary Perrot and Joanna Dingley, all of whom are discussed later in this book, belong to this group and it may be that there were others too. Each of these aforementioned ladies had a child whom contemporary records claim was fathered by the King. The boys, Thomas Stukeley (see plate 11) and John Perrot (see plate 12), were said to resemble Henry VIII rather than the husbands of their mothers. All three ladies were considered to be ‘safe’ by Henry: Jane and Mary were married, while Joanna was a recent widow and would soon marry again. At a time (1526–33) when Henry VIII was being put through emotional turmoil by Anne Boleyn’s refusal to become his lover and then by her increasing desire to become his wife, he must have found occasional passionate but meaningless episodes with beautiful, adoring, willing partners absolutely irresistible. None of these ladies would further complicate an already complicated situation by suggesting marriage.
Henry’s wives, on the other hand, were part of an elaborate political network. When Henry married Anne Boleyn and their relationship became increasingly strained, Margaret Shelton, Anne’s cousin, became his mistress for a short time. It may even be that Anne herself supported this move; if the King were to stray, much better that he do so with a member of the Boleyn–Howard faction (see page 102 – the Boleyn–Howard family tree) rather than with a lady belonging to some other great family reaching for power who would try and replace the Queen. When Anne finally fell from favour, it was Jane Seymour who used Anne’s own strategy to get her way; she refused to surrender her virtue and held out for marriage. She was supported by a rival Seymour-based faction trying to oust the Howards from power.
When Jane Seymour died, after having given birth to Henry’s son, the pattern changed. Having three illegitimate sons must have helped convince Henry to keep trying for a legitimate male heir with his wife, whoever she might be, and Edward’s birth lifted the major pressure of securing the succession from Henry’s life. Now his aims became different, as he looked beyond his own borders to select a queen for political gain. It was one of history’s great ironies that, when faced with Spanish, French and Italian beauties, he ended up with Anne of Cleves, the plain daughter of a German duke. History usually has Henry turning straight from Anne to Catherine Howard, but, in fact, once Henry had decided that the Cleves marriage must be ended, he took a little time to find her successor. He had access to the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, the usual hunting ground for a king in search of female interest. He had met Bessie Blount when she was lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon; Mary and Anne Boleyn both came to his attention through the same route, and Jane Seymour had been Anne Boleyn’s lady. Now from amongst Jane Seymour’s ladies, Henry showed interest in Anne Bassett, Elizabeth Brooke and Elizabeth Cobham, before finally settling on Catherine Howard, the most unsuitable lady of all. Catherine Howard had a loving nature and absolutely no self-control when it came to personable young gentlemen. She was devoid of any sense of self-preservation, actually bringing two ex-lovers into her household while she was Queen, one of whom she had previously acknowledged as her husband.
After Catherine Howard followed Anne Boleyn to the scaffold, Henry settled down to a quiet and contented old age with Catherine Parr, but old habits were hard to break. Whether he loved Catherine or not, it didn’t take long for Henry to become irritated with her extreme Protestantism, and in the last months