tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52036046550933156632024-03-09T18:46:22.745-08:00Conor Byrne HistorianI am a historian of late medieval and early modern English queenship and PhD candidate. I am the author of 4 books including "Katherine Howard: Henry VIII's Slandered Queen" and "Lady Katherine Grey: A Dynastic Tragedy". I have presented papers at conferences and am contributing chapters for edited collections, and have written for a range of publications (both print and online) about my research.Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-78414003842318942142023-05-16T09:11:00.001-07:002023-05-16T09:11:39.643-07:00Was Jane Seymour Pregnant in 1536?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYJyj9EFNad9RV1RGEvWHcyXw93NMEpIMjvsekwvsreyTy8HZhBhsc5q-r6tdtJRJCQj4gu0ldXINbWEyRlcTnXW-74qsaU4xUSz9i7mOm8WBuo41ld0GQcSX5mHWQmJmJH85Ql9bTjuTwVmm4US6I3mMa-IOn2jnmJp_2TIlpw9vh-A34EoF5kZFZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="738" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYJyj9EFNad9RV1RGEvWHcyXw93NMEpIMjvsekwvsreyTy8HZhBhsc5q-r6tdtJRJCQj4gu0ldXINbWEyRlcTnXW-74qsaU4xUSz9i7mOm8WBuo41ld0GQcSX5mHWQmJmJH85Ql9bTjuTwVmm4US6I3mMa-IOn2jnmJp_2TIlpw9vh-A34EoF5kZFZ" width="208" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">A hitherto overlooked statement in the <i>Calendar of State Papers, Spain</i> offers intriguing information about Henry VIII's relationship with his third wife, Jane Seymour. Sometime in late 1535 or early in 1536, the king began a liaison with Jane - initially courtly in nature - and married her in May 1536, only eleven days after the execution of his second wife Anne Boleyn. Born in about 1509, Jane had served Anne but there is little evidence concerning her relationship with the king and the circumstances in which it began. It was only in February 1536, for example, that the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys reported the king's 'treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel [sic], to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents'.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">Thus, in view of the obscure origins of the relationship, the following report deserves attention. On 26 June 1536 from Rome, a month after the execution of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's marriage to Jane, Dr Ortiz informed Commander Molina that the king had married again, to 'a lady who was already in the family-way by him five or six months ago'. The 'family way' was a term used to describe pregnancy. For example, Chapuys reported in January 1534 that Anne Boleyn 'is now in the family way again, and in a state of health and of an age to have many more children'. Thus, if Ortiz is to be believed, Jane had conceived a child in December 1535/January 1536, several months before her royal marriage.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">The suggestion in this report that Jane was the king's mistress in the physical - rather than courtly - sense is interesting in view of her posthumous reputation as a virtuous and chaste figure, allegedly the antithesis of her predecessor, the flirtatious Anne Boleyn. However, other ambassadorial dispatches written shortly before Jane's marriage were similarly ambivalent about her virtues, indicating that Jane's moral, upstanding reputation was not necessarily as widely shared as is generally assumed. On 18 May, the day before Anne's execution, Chapuys wrote to Antoine Perrenot with information about the king's new love, commenting that Jane was of medium height, fair, and 'no great beauty'. He confided his doubts as to whether, having long resided at court, Jane really was a virgin. The ambassador cynically remarked that 'he [Henry] may make a condition in the marriage that she [Jane] be a virgin, and when he has a mind to divorce her he will find enough witnesses'. However, once Jane had become queen and had demonstrated her desire to restore the king's eldest daughter, Mary (daughter of Katherine of Aragon) to Henry's good graces, the ambassador's attitude towards Jane became markedly more positive and complimentary.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is highly likely, however, that Ortiz was mistaken. There is no evidence that Jane was pregnant as early as December 1535, and such a detail would surely not have escaped the attention of the perceptive, eagle-eyed Chapuys, who keenly watched for any sign that Henry's relationship with Anne was in danger. Ortiz's dispatches, moreover, contain many inaccuracies, based as they are on second- or thirdhand gossip and rumours about the English court; his account of the fall of Anne Boleyn testifies to his limited knowledge of actual events. This is perhaps unsurprising, writing as he was from Rome and thus not in physical proximity to the events he describes. As I have noted elsewhere, ambassadors serving in the royal courts were keenly interested in any sign of a queen's pregnancy. The references to the possible pregnancies of Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour in this blog post, reported by ambassadors, testifies to the envoys' interest in the subject. Similarly, when Henry VIII married for the fifth time in 1540, it was reported in September in Brussels by the Venetian ambassador Francesco Contarini that 'the new Queen Katharine [Howard] is said for certain to be pregnant', a report that echoed the claim of the French ambassador Charles de Marillac in July that Katherine 'is already <i>enceinte</i>'.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">Of course, Jane may have been Henry's mistress in the physical sense prior to their wedding in May 1536 and she may have conceived a child, but there is no other evidence to support Ortiz's claim and others, including Chapuys, surely would have reported a pregnancy if it was indeed the case. Chapuys only learned of their relationship in February 1536 and his dispatches suggest that the relationship between Henry and Jane was, at least initially, a courtly one, in which the king sent gifts and letters to his beloved but without the expectation of physical favours. By the spring, however, Henry was determined to set aside Anne and take Jane as his third wife. It is nonetheless interesting that several novelists have explored the idea that Jane conceived a child either before, or during the early months of, her marriage, but which resulted in a miscarriage or stillbirth. Whether or not that was the case, it is indisputable that she gave birth to the future Edward VI on 12 October 1537 at Hampton Court Palace, but the queen tragically died just days later, on 24 October, the only one of Henry's six wives to provide him with a surviving male heir.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p>Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-24903312203326486342021-09-24T04:33:00.000-07:002021-09-24T04:33:06.620-07:00Katherine Howard or Anne of Cleves?<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgm0nV9-ISbUsmpR-bd0mvsczPzM04E1Itm_SKMLO48xcbuuW_lRv87YmRiGwtUOnvGxFEBJkKYwwulfbMd_Fit-_GJhdFM0H5vw11VgShwRXMhXo8eYDyHLqBIs5RIKk0oA0tkHU5rw0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="302" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgm0nV9-ISbUsmpR-bd0mvsczPzM04E1Itm_SKMLO48xcbuuW_lRv87YmRiGwtUOnvGxFEBJkKYwwulfbMd_Fit-_GJhdFM0H5vw11VgShwRXMhXo8eYDyHLqBIs5RIKk0oA0tkHU5rw0/" width="242" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Above: Portrait of a Lady, perhaps Katherine Howard; Royal Collection Trust</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">A portrait miniature in the Royal Collection Trust, dating to circa 1540, has for some time been identified as a likeness of Katherine Howard, fifth queen consort of Henry VIII, who was beheaded in 1542. There are two versions of the miniature; the second version is held in the Buccleuch Collection, and was originally owned by Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel. The sitter has customarily been identified as Queen Katherine based on her jewellery; the necklace, in particular, appears to be the same as that worn by Jane Seymour, the king's third wife, in the portrait created of her in 1536-7 (see below). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueCjDJJBRldzdasQgjqhZ5CjV_wb19Ne8H9S3Pyb6odGlB-pQiIZmrq_I2PfSbVmhoCxkWLz6WmArNYZsjPkep7k7Ua7S6VJLUPrDtgCqR4gBFnstZk03Zfw-Pfo9Vcbhhyphenhyphengh8iuFFt8/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="298" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueCjDJJBRldzdasQgjqhZ5CjV_wb19Ne8H9S3Pyb6odGlB-pQiIZmrq_I2PfSbVmhoCxkWLz6WmArNYZsjPkep7k7Ua7S6VJLUPrDtgCqR4gBFnstZk03Zfw-Pfo9Vcbhhyphenhyphengh8iuFFt8/" width="238" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /> <br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>Above: Portrait miniature of Katherine Howard (?), Buccleuch Collection</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The item of jewellery in question also appears to have been passed to Katherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII, when she married the king in the summer of 1543. Given the jewel's appearance in portraits of the king's third and sixth wives, thus identifying it as property of the queen consort, it would make sense that the sitter in Holbein's miniature (and in the version housed in the Buccleuch Collection) was also a Tudor queen consort of England. In 1540, Katherine Howard became queen of England when she married Henry VIII at Oatlands Palace on 28 July 1540, in doing so displacing the king's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves - and yet Anne was also, briefly, queen consort in the year 1540, from January to July.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumJ16ZGsekcLZzdSRIPmP59OlseRz4jItnEkH-AlHKiaY_X4mg0ZfuilPV3j61kKDg12mmA6VMdv1_7hg91tDIotOe9E7Yfd3sa-RiFCVuYsmzk8xxtm3IPb1i7EwaTN1POvo6jSlSr4/s1117/6wives.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1117" data-original-width="456" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumJ16ZGsekcLZzdSRIPmP59OlseRz4jItnEkH-AlHKiaY_X4mg0ZfuilPV3j61kKDg12mmA6VMdv1_7hg91tDIotOe9E7Yfd3sa-RiFCVuYsmzk8xxtm3IPb1i7EwaTN1POvo6jSlSr4/w164-h400/6wives.png" width="164" /></a><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; text-align: left;"><i>Above: Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr, third and sixth wives of Henry VIII</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Holbein miniature in the Royal Collection Trust was described in 1660-61, during the Restoration, as 'A small peice Inclineing of a woman after ye Dresse of Henry ye Eights wife by Peter Oliver'. The sitter in the miniature, however, was not formally identified at that point. By 1735-40, however, the version in the Buccleuch Collection (above) had been named as a likeness of Katherine Howard, an identification subsequently associated with the miniature in the Royal Collection Trust. Interestingly, when the Buccleuch version was identified during the eighteenth-century, it was also mooted as a portrait of Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary Tudor, queen consort of France (1496-1533). The costume, however, which dates to the 1540s, clearly rules out Henry's sister - who was also the grandmother of Lady Jane Grey - as the sitter in the portrait.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Unfortunately, the sitter's age was not inscribed on the portrait, which might have been helpful in assisting modern identifications of the sitter's identity. While Katherine has been the most popular candidate for the miniature, other sitters have also been proposed: chiefly, Lady Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII and grandmother of James I of England, and Mary, Lady Monteagle, who served in the household of Jane Seymour.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Although Lacey Baldwin Smith, who published a biography of Katherine in 1961, did not discuss the miniature in his account of the queen's life, and thus offered no opinion as to whether or not it depicted her, Katherine's modern biographers have, by and large, accepted the miniature as a likeness of her, including myself, Josephine Wilkinson, Joanna Denny and Gareth Russell. Denny was, perhaps, the most strident; responding to Susan James' theory that the miniature depicts Margaret Douglas, Denny asserted that 'this does not explain why she [Margaret] is wearing the royal jewels.' Katherine's love of jewellery and fine clothing was recorded by contemporaries: the unknown Spanish author of <i>The Chronicle of Henry VIII</i>, for example, noted that 'the King had no wife who made him spend so much money in dresses and jewels as she did, who every day had some fresh caprice.' Alongside receiving jewels as presents from her besotted husband, Katherine made gifts of them to her female attendants and to her royal relatives, including her stepdaughters Mary and Elizabeth. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In his study of the six wives of Henry VIII, published in 2003, Dr David Starkey opined that the miniature is indeed a likeness of Katherine Howard, based on the inventory of her jewellery given to her when she married the king in July 1540. Starkey concluded that 'it can even be dated as a wedding portrait.' Specifically, the jewels given to Katherine that appear in the Holbein miniature include an 'upper biliment' or trimming for a French hood, 'of goldsmith work enamelled and garnished with 7 fair diamonds, 7 fair rubies and 7 fair pearls'; a 'square' necklace 'containing 29 rubies and 29 clusters of pearls being 4 pearls in every cluster' and an 'ouch', or pendant, 'of gold having a very fair table diamond and a very fair ruby with a long pearl hanging at the same'. The pendant also appears in portraits of Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr, as previously noted. Sir Roy Strong, at that time director of the National Portrait Gallery, also drew attention to the fact that the sitter wears the same jewel that appears in Holbein's portrait of Jane Seymour, thus suggesting that the miniature it is a likeness of Katherine Howard. Starkey may be incorrect, however, in suggesting that the portrait was undertaken in the summer of 1540; while she may have been misled in believing the miniature to be a likeness of Margaret Douglas, Susan James offered the convincing theory that the portrait was painted in the autumn or winter based on the style of the sitter's costume. Denny may, therefore, be more accurate in concluding that the portrait was 'very likely painted during her [Katherine's] first winter as queen'.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The costume itself, in which the sitter wears a French hood, may also lend itself to an identification with Katherine Howard. The French ambassador Charles Marillac, who observed the new queen while he was in attendance at court, wrote in September 1540, two months after her wedding, that 'she and all the Court ladies dress in French style'.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But was Katherine's portrait ever painted during her brief reign as queen? While I offer an extended discussion of her portraiture in my book <i>Katherine Howard: Henry VIII's Slandered Queen</i>, it is interesting to note curator and art historian Brett Dolman's suggestion that 'Catherine [Howard] left no documentary proof that her portrait was ever painted during her lifetime, and, perhaps, we are searching for the impossible.' In my book, I discuss other portraits associated with Katherine, including perhaps the most <a href="http://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/55183/portrait-of-a-lady-probably-a-member-of-the-cromwell-family?ctx=f961ca75-b03a-4033-bea8-10db6a585e8f&idx=5">famous</a>, now housed in the Toledo Museum of Art; it was formerly identified as a likeness of Henry VIII's fifth queen but is now generally agreed to be a portrait of Jane Seymour's younger sister Elizabeth, daughter-in-law of the king's chief minister Thomas Cromwell.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Dolman's recognition that Katherine may never have been painted during her brief queenship is significant in light of the recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/01/how-holbein-left-clever-clue-in-portrait-to-identify-henry-viiis-queen">suggestion</a> made by art historian Franny Moyle, that the Holbein miniature is not a likeness of Katherine Howard, but a portrait of Anne of Cleves, Katherine's predecessor, who, as noted earlier, was also briefly queen consort of England in 1540, the year in which the portrait seems to have been painted. Moyle's theory is based on several pieces of evidence. Firstly, she notes that Holbein mounted the miniature on the four of diamonds, a playing card that Moyle believes to be significant, since Anne of Cleves was Henry VIII's fourth wife. Art historian Roland Hui, however, has challenged this point, however, in noting that a five of diamonds card appears on the back of Holbein's portrait of Jane Small (now housed in The Victoria and Albert Museum). Hui also clarified that 'part of a king' served as the backing to a miniature of Henry Brandon, the short-lived son of Henry VIII's favourite Charles, duke of Suffolk. In and of itself, therefore, the four of diamonds on the back of Holbein's miniature would not seem sufficient grounds on which to identify the sitter as Anne of Cleves.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ExxxToDpT_UZ6oqMlr3HZ1cKOiYbZN9Nj_im1GMulxAHknmrRDf5i9pP-1coEnW4UmKKBCaueu9M28Jw9s0Su_Sa64Pua0akRirVapMIVUHVOFnPld8AH528LPPoLODBp_aa9Rn7cCA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="302" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ExxxToDpT_UZ6oqMlr3HZ1cKOiYbZN9Nj_im1GMulxAHknmrRDf5i9pP-1coEnW4UmKKBCaueu9M28Jw9s0Su_Sa64Pua0akRirVapMIVUHVOFnPld8AH528LPPoLODBp_aa9Rn7cCA/w320-h317/image.png" width="320" /></a><img alt="" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="331" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhnG_mMm_-EPOzPHCAnP_vMDkwFJmENso1ms9FEUqIRUCsXGLWoa3RZON03uLgPKB1RDweiUUNhRHZQzoFo7mybSyJBNIQGJ7nrgXae4Q-5bbRim-QmEac2Qr3nHVg6LZaXVW_HilVxIs/w320-h315/image.png" width="320" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Above top: </i><i style="text-align: center;">Portrait of a Lady, perhaps Katherine Howard; Royal Collection Trust</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i style="text-align: center;">Above below: Anne of Cleves, 1539</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i style="text-align: center;">Historian Franny Moyle believes that both miniatures show the same sitter.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i style="text-align: center;"><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moyle also argues that the sitter in the Holbein miniature shows an 'uncanny likeness' to Holbein's portrait of Anne (above), painted in 1539, shortly before her marriage to Henry VIII. Moyle draws attention to both sitters sharing a 'soporific expression', as well as distinctive heavy eyelids and thick eyebrows. Moreover, Moyle notes that the contemporary chronicler Edward Hall, who was an eyewitness to events at Henry VIII's court, described Anne the Sunday after her wedding as 'appareiled after the Englishe fassyon, with a Frenche whode [hood], whiche so set forth her beautie and good visage, that euery creature reioysed [rejoiced] to behold her.' Based on Hall's remark, Moyle suggests that, aware of Henry's initial lack of enthusiasm, Anne consciously set aside the - to English court observers, unfashionable - clothing that she had brought with her from Cleves and instead adopted the more stylish French dress favoured at court, in an attempt to please her husband. Taking this further, Moyle argues that the Holbein miniature was painted in the winter of 1540, perhaps in February, in order for the king to 'see a version of Anne that was more appealing.' </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As noted earlier in this post, Dolman concluded that there is no documentary evidence that Katherine Howard's portrait was painted during her short tenure as queen. Equally, there is no evidence that Anne of Cleves sat for Holbein in the early months of 1540 wearing a French hood in an attempt to secure favour from her unenthusiastic husband, who had thus far failed to consummate their union; indeed, the marriage was annulled just months later, in July, having never been consummated. While Moyle is correct that Anne is a credible candidate for the sitter in the Holbein miniature on the grounds that there were two queen consorts in 1540, of which she was one, other elements of Moyle's argument are problematic. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Firstly, Moyle suggests that the Holbein miniature is unlikely to depict Katherine because it 'doesn't look like a child bride'. Katherine's date of birth is unknown. My research, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of <i>The Royal Studies Journal</i>, and expands on the arguments put forth in my book <i>Katherine Howard: Henry VIII's Slandered Queen</i>, indicates that she was born probably in 1523 or 1524, making her sixteen or seventeen when she married Henry VIII in 1540, while recent <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anna-Duchess-Cleves-Beloved-Sister/dp/1398103268/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=heather+darsie&qid=1632479611&qsid=259-4943587-5090633&sr=8-1&sres=1398103268%2C1680883771%2C1472227727%2CB017WOPU9W%2CB08XLGJT6H%2C1985039737%2C0570247276%2CB089G85YD5%2CB08R73V4MS%2C1844179370%2CB0063FR85G%2CB0090U47KA%2C0570247292%2CB018K8I1AY%2C0570420679%2CB077XWWJYJ">research</a> suggests that Anne of Cleves was born on 28 June 1515, making her a few months short of her twenty-fifth birthday in January 1540 when her wedding took place at Greenwich Palace. Few historians today would characterise Katherine as 'a child bride', especially given how divergent early modern attitudes to childhood (and the life cycle, in general) were from modern perceptions of youth and adolescence. Interestingly, however, the unknown Spanish chronicler did characterise Katherine as 'a mere child', and the religious activist Richard Hilles identified her as a 'young girl' while describing the king's disaffection with Anne and his growing passion for Katherine. Either way, as noted earlier in this post, Holbein did not identify the sitter's age in the miniature, so it is impossible to ascertain how old the woman in the miniature was when she sat for the portrait. This arguably makes it pointless to speculate as to whether the sitter was 'a child bride' or not, as we have no way of knowing.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Secondly, Moyle indicates that the miniature, which apparently does not depict a beautiful woman, is more likely to portray Anne of Cleves, who was described by contemporaries as being 'of medium beauty', rather than Katherine Howard, whose beauty was said to be 'ravishing'. Conceptions of beauty in the sixteenth-century were, of course, very different to those prevalent in the twenty-first century Western world. Perhaps more to the point, surviving descriptions of both queens' physical charms are more complex than Moyle's belief would suggest. In the quotation of above, the chronicler Hall specifically drew attention to Anne's 'beautie and good visage'. The Cleves envoys, when arguing against a sea voyage to England in 1539 in the midst of preparations for Anne's wedding to the king, warned that a sea voyage would harm Anne's 'young and beautiful' appearance. While visiting Cleves, the English ambassadors reported widespread praise of Anne's beauty 'as well for the face, as for the whole body, above all other ladies excellent.' It was said that her beauty excelled that of Christina, duchess of Milan - another candidate for Henry VIII's hand in marriage - 'as the golden sun excelled the silver moon.' In December 1539, the lord admiral reported from Calais that he had heard reports of Anne's 'excellent beauty', which he perceived 'to be no less than was reported in very deed'. Clearly, then, it is somewhat misleading to suggest that Anne's beauty was widely reported as only 'medium'.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Likewise, reports of Katherine Howard's physical appearance were rather more complex than has been suggested. There is a widespread assumption among historians that she was the most attractive of Henry VIII's six consorts; her biographer Baldwin Smith noting in 1961, for example, that 'legend has it that she [Katherine] was Henry's most beautiful queen.' The unknown Spanish chronicler recorded that Katherine 'was more graceful and beautiful than any lady in the Court, or perhaps in the kingdom.' In his <i>Metrical Visions</i>, George Cavendish, who served in the household of Cardinal Wolsey, asserted that Katherine was 'floryshyng in youthe with beawtie freshe and pure'. By contrast, the French ambassador Marillac, who had described Anne of Cleves as being 'of medium beauty' and being neither as beautiful nor as young as everyone had been led to believe, depicted Katherine as a woman of mediocre beauty when he met her in the autumn of 1540. As Retha Warnicke has argued, 'a reasonable inference is that he [Marillac] considered Anne at least as pleasing in appearance as Katherine.' Arguably, it is problematic to identify the sitter in the Holbein miniature on the basis of differing, and somewhat contradictory, reports of the respective physical appearances of Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKOSA-btc0vDfC7Nfx0VVWtOcgWPC0ZYTttsLGFjvWtypqEpoYIi6gItxvUW0pnmzkgSqQFIQ4AaFYu3TP0fwSWFWDI2CTqp9Nq6rEa0Nm5q7aaijpE0i4Iivxyx85TCyClmnw1U0AB0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1433" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKOSA-btc0vDfC7Nfx0VVWtOcgWPC0ZYTttsLGFjvWtypqEpoYIi6gItxvUW0pnmzkgSqQFIQ4AaFYu3TP0fwSWFWDI2CTqp9Nq6rEa0Nm5q7aaijpE0i4Iivxyx85TCyClmnw1U0AB0/" width="168" /></a></div><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><i>Above: Mary, Lady Monteagle (1510-before 1544) c. 1538-40, Royal Collection Trust</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Finally, Moyle's belief that the sitter in the Holbein miniature is the same as that in Holbein's portrait of Anne created in 1539 due to shared physical features is also questionable. While both sitters do possess heavy eyelids and thick eyebrows, Anne does not appear to have had a double chin, while the sitter in the Holbein miniature does. It is also uncertain, mostly because Anne is facing the viewer, whether she shared the unknown sitter's nose. Perhaps most importantly of all, Anne's hair was described by the chronicler Hall on her wedding day as follows: 'hangyng downe, whych was fayre, yelowe and long'. The unknown sitter in the Holbein miniature does not have blonde hair, as Anne was said to have; instead, the colour can be described as auburn or light brown. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The portrait above is a likeness of Mary, Lady Monteagle (1510-before 1544), and is held by the Royal Collection Trust. The daughter of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk by his second wife, Anne Browne, Mary served in the household of Queen Jane Seymour, who presented her with gifts of jewellery as a sign of favour. Before 1527, Mary married Thomas Stanley, 2nd Baron Monteagle. On the basis of jewels given to her by Jane Seymour, it is sometimes asserted that the sitter in the Holbein miniature is Mary, Lady Monteagle, especially given notable similarities between her facial features and those in the Holbein miniature. Arguably, there are greater similarities between the sitters in these two portraits than there are between the Holbein miniature and Holbein's portrait of Anne of Cleves. If one were to position Mary's portrait next to the Holbein miniature, a case could be made that they display one and the same sitter.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnUxz6j2BvRb82ssk5bhxSy8w3e7zGd7zniHGOt2XvFiY_RJmdaQGAEorXgN1a15dtyxrI8g8H6oX5M1p7FBCVxr77Gs5-45DsBdDYJJmDNJjd0p8j3zS90ILpdgQogkrsJiu06whyBC8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1031" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnUxz6j2BvRb82ssk5bhxSy8w3e7zGd7zniHGOt2XvFiY_RJmdaQGAEorXgN1a15dtyxrI8g8H6oX5M1p7FBCVxr77Gs5-45DsBdDYJJmDNJjd0p8j3zS90ILpdgQogkrsJiu06whyBC8/" width="165" /></a></div><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The above portrait is now thought to depict Elizabeth Cromwell, sister of Jane Seymour and daughter-in-law of Thomas Cromwell (who was executed in 1540), but it was identified as a likeness of Katherine Howard in 1898 and received support from historians including David Starkey; in recent decades, however, its identification with Katherine has been convincingly and overwhelmingly challenged by historians. Nevertheless, on the basis of the sitter's jewellery and physical appearance, some writers continue to believe it depicts Katherine; for example, Alison Weir suggests that the portrait is 'probably of Katherine Howard, by Hans Holbein, at Toledo, Ohio'. While the sitter in the Toledo portrait does not necessarily display the heavy eyelids or thick eyebrows in the Holbein miniature, some have perceived similar physical features between the sitter in the Toledo portrait and the sitter in the Holbein miniature. Yet these alleged facial similarities are ungrounded if the portrait depicts Elizabeth Cromwell.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To conclude, the Holbein miniature of c. 1540, displayed at the top of this post, almost certainly depicts a queen consort of England in that year, of whom there are only two candidates: Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard. Some historians have posited reasons for identifying an alternative candidate as the sitter - for example, Lady Margaret Douglas or Mary, Lady Monteagle - but these theories are far less convincing. Moyle's belief that the miniature is a likeness of Anne of Cleves undertaken in the early months of 1540 is interesting, but further research is necessary before it can be conclusively identified as a portrait of Anne during her six-month tenure as queen consort. The arguments given in this post, however, indicate that Moyle's theory is somewhat problematic. While, as Dolman recognises, there is no documentary evidence that Katherine Howard's portrait was painted during her queenship, there is also no evidence that Anne sat for a portrait wearing a French hood in the period after her wedding. The physical charms of both women were described by contemporaries in more complex ways than is sometimes recognised, and both women were described as wearing French attire, which in and of itself is insufficient to use as evidence for the sitter's identity. Perceptions of beauty, both in the sixteenth-century and now, are subjective, and perceived similarities in facial features between the Holbein miniature and Holbein's portrait of Anne undertaken in 1539 are also subjective, especially since the unknown sitter in miniature has also been thought to bear similarities in appearance to other sitters, notably Mary, Lady Monteagle and (probably) Elizabeth Cromwell. Perhaps the greatest drawback to the argument favouring Anne as the sitter, however, is the chronicler Hall's statement that Henry VIII's fourth queen had blonde hair: the sitter in the Holbein miniature clearly does not. The weight of evidence, then, would seem to lean more in favour, even if slightly, of Katherine Howard. </span></span></div></div></div></span></div><p></p>Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-37119566069085902322020-11-14T07:26:00.003-08:002020-11-14T07:27:43.703-08:00The Tudor Consorts 1485–1547<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimXUv1r7GKe_CJ0NzDBy8xzxp0T3x_jA87TLhHsIv-Ov93IZDS4ZsjTI2MrmjOS81bnZdmYW5tChGPhtTTMJsyZ5KY7_89dGXRTImvhbHEqdE7V9JIL_d_jm4B6PwboN37WxScZ0XFgR4/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="450" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimXUv1r7GKe_CJ0NzDBy8xzxp0T3x_jA87TLhHsIv-Ov93IZDS4ZsjTI2MrmjOS81bnZdmYW5tChGPhtTTMJsyZ5KY7_89dGXRTImvhbHEqdE7V9JIL_d_jm4B6PwboN37WxScZ0XFgR4/" width="187" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Seven women held the office of consort in the period 1485–1547, one of whom as the wife of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, and the following six as the wives of his son and successor, Henry VIII. The consorts are Elizabeth of York, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr. These women have long fascinated scholars and the general public alike, with articles, books, films, television shows and even a musical about their dramatic, and in some cases tragic, lives. This article sets out to provide a brief overview of each consort, with further reading included for those who wish to learn more about the life in question. Briefly, however, it is worth noting that Retha M. Warnicke's <i>Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-Law </i>(2017) is the only extant study of Tudor queenship in this period, and provides an illuminating and in-depth study of Tudor queenship in the period 1485–1547, offering facts not usually available in other works. Alison Weir (1991), Antonia Fraser (1992), David Starkey (2004) and David Loades (2010) have all written works about Henry VIII's six queens.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqkj9twxhkk6TxYicGu61QC2ZXiRoQDmGaPEBkS4z9EnkiKdTMZJoHMT6e0rptDLyDUoPMsMMPp4fKoR3ljD-qA8SElvUClABQAylEeT6PuZi89vv6sXtfGy3LuXqZFVjHXNon3TDkoM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="350" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqkj9twxhkk6TxYicGu61QC2ZXiRoQDmGaPEBkS4z9EnkiKdTMZJoHMT6e0rptDLyDUoPMsMMPp4fKoR3ljD-qA8SElvUClABQAylEeT6PuZi89vv6sXtfGy3LuXqZFVjHXNon3TDkoM/" width="168" /></a></div><br /><b>Elizabeth of York, consort of Henry VII</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Born: 11 February 1466, Westminster Palace, London, England</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Died: 11 February 1503, Tower of London, London, England (aged 37)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Father: Edward IV </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mother: Elizabeth Wydeville</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tenure as queen consort of England: 1486–1503 (17 years, 1 month)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Coronation: 25 November 1487</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elizabeth of York was the eldest child of the first Yorkist king, Edward IV, and his consort Elizabeth Wydeville. She was born on 11 February 1466 at Westminster Palace, but had no expectation of ruling England in view of prevailing attitudes to female succession alongside the birth of a number of sons to her parents, including the eldest, Edward (born in 1470). During her childhood, she was briefly betrothed to the Dauphin Charles, son of the king of France, but the marriage did not take place. In 1483, Elizabeth's father died and her uncle, Richard of Gloucester, seized the throne resulting in the deposition of her brother. He and his younger brother, also named Richard, were placed in the Tower of London but their subsequent fate remains a mystery. Elizabeth and her sisters sought sanctuary alongside their mother, but resided at their uncle's court when he reached an agreement with their mother, the dowager queen. Rumours circulated that King Richard intended to marry his niece Elizabeth, in view of reports that Queen Anne was unable to bear children and was in poor health. Some evidence suggests that Elizabeth may have been interested in this match, but the king publicly denied it. Instead, Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, who possessed a somewhat obscure claim to the English throne, schemed with Elizabeth Wydeville for the marriage of Henry to Elizabeth of York. Beautiful, virtuous and pious, Elizabeth became queen of England in January 1486 when she married Henry following his defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Historians have shown that there is no evidence for later allegations of conflict between Elizabeth and her somewhat domineering mother-in-law Lady Margaret. The king and queen had several children, but only four survived to adulthood: Arthur, Margaret, Henry and Mary. Arthur died in April 1502 at the age of fifteen and his mother died ten months later, on her thirty-seventh birthday at the Tower of London, shortly after giving birth to a short-lived daughter Katherine. She was buried at Westminster Abbey and was joined there by her husband when he died seven years later. Elizabeth's only surviving son, Henry, succeeded his father as king of England in 1509 and her two surviving daughters Margaret and Mary became queen consorts of Scotland and France, respectively.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Further reading:</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Amy Licence, <i>Elizabeth of York: the Forgotten Tudor Queen </i>(2013)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Alison Weir, <i>Elizabeth of York: the First Tudor Queen </i>(2013)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Arlene Okerlund, <i>Elizabeth of York </i>(2009)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJg5T9-I49xQEIvdYyGB1WIHi3ia6_2pE00qgm185z462-6oUZlZufKOFp-X6jtggW5I-peu8i25JLR0V_OmMslmAbOR34rtansTtj9hRz1VyVBOWllQ3LZpI_QFmexelo_BdgY-xP_I/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="193" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJg5T9-I49xQEIvdYyGB1WIHi3ia6_2pE00qgm185z462-6oUZlZufKOFp-X6jtggW5I-peu8i25JLR0V_OmMslmAbOR34rtansTtj9hRz1VyVBOWllQ3LZpI_QFmexelo_BdgY-xP_I/" width="177" /></a></div><br /><b>Katherine of Aragon, first consort of Henry VIII</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Born: 16 December 1485, Archiepiscopal Palace of Alcala de Henares, Alcala de Henares, Kingdom of Castile</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Died: 7 January 1536, Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire, England (aged 50)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Father: Ferdinand II of Aragon</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mother: Isabella I of Castile</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tenure as queen consort of England: 1509–1533 (23 years, 11 months)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Coronation: 24 June 1509<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The youngest daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, Katherine (born in 1485) was betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, in childhood and was thus educated as befitted a queen consort of England. A devout Roman Catholic, Katherine studied a range of subjects including philosophy, theology, history, arithmetic and classical and canon law, and learned languages such as French and Latin. She also acquired experience in domestic skills such as embroidery and sewing. In the summer of 1501, the fifteen-year-old Katherine travelled to England to wed Arthur and their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in November. Whether the young couple consummated their union or not has remained a subject of controversy for the last five hundred years. Tragically, Arthur died the following spring at Ludlow Castle on the borders of Wales, where Katherine was residing with him. Subsequently the English and Spanish monarchs arranged that Katherine would marry Arthur's younger brother, Henry, now heir to the English throne. Ferdinand's procrastination over paying the remainder of his daughter's dowry, however, led to the marriage being postponed while Katherine lived in difficult conditions at Durham House in London. When Henry VII died in 1509, his eighteen-year-old son elected to marry Katherine and the couple were crowned at Westminster Abbey in June. Katherine presided over a court of culture and learning and was appointed regent of England when her husband went to war with France in 1513. When the Scots invaded that year, the queen ordered Thomas Lovell to raise an army in the Midlands and the English army triumphed at the Battle of Flodden. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During her marriage, Katherine was pregnant at least six times but only one child survived, Mary (born in 1516). Like many of his contemporaries, Henry doubted whether a female could successfully rule England and by 1527 believed that his marriage to Katherine had displeased God by virtue of their lack of surviving sons. He was also in love with Anne Boleyn, who served in Katherine's household. The king argued that Katherine's marriage to Arthur in 1501 had been consummated, thus making her subsequent union with Henry invalid according to Biblical law. The queen, however, claimed that she and Arthur had never consummated their marriage. The struggle for an annulment of the Aragon marriage endured for six years, but in 1532 or 1533 Henry married Anne Boleyn in secret and in May, Archbishop Cranmer pronounced the Aragon marriage null and void, rendering the queen's daughter Mary illegitimate and unable to succeed her father. By then banished from court, Katherine resided in a range of residences including The More, Ampthill Castle and Buckden Towers, before spending the final years of her life at Kimbolton Castle, where she died on 7 January 1536, perhaps of cancer, having never accepted her husband's decision to annul their marriage. She was buried at Peterborough Abbey (now Cathedral); her daughter Mary became England's first queen regnant in July 1553.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Further reading:</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Garrett Mattingly, <i>Catherine of Aragon </i>(1941)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Giles Tremlett, <i>Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen </i>(2010)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>- </i>Amy Licence, <i>Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True Wife </i>(2016)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOT5EokARiEZUKcv6H7LKgzBQAU6CQh4NRZ4Kmc1QIYEdMlzJv_GHlkJaS_3Z_e4rWd-iAYLIglvKCuTQzt4YfDi0oU6_52C3mQtx0AbVmBw8NF6blvLXMkb4cu7PZptcNrn3SnvEVQ2s/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOT5EokARiEZUKcv6H7LKgzBQAU6CQh4NRZ4Kmc1QIYEdMlzJv_GHlkJaS_3Z_e4rWd-iAYLIglvKCuTQzt4YfDi0oU6_52C3mQtx0AbVmBw8NF6blvLXMkb4cu7PZptcNrn3SnvEVQ2s/" width="239" /></a></div><br /><b>Anne Boleyn, second consort of Henry VIII</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div>Born: Between 1500 and 1507 probably at Blickling Hall, Norfolk or Hever Castle, Kent, England</div><div>Died: 19 May 1536, Tower of London, London, England (aged 28–36)</div><div>Father: Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire</div><div>Mother: Lady Elizabeth Howard</div><div>Tenure as queen consort of England: 1533–1536 (3 years)</div><div>Coronation: 1 June 1533</div><div><br /></div><div>The most famous of Henry VIII's six wives, Anne Boleyn was born between 1500 and 1507. The majority of modern historians favour a birth date of circa 1501, but evidence from her daughter's lifetime supports the later birth date, especially in view of prevailing court customs that decreed that maidens of honour did not receive instruction in languages. It is also questionable why the ambitious Thomas Boleyn would have been content for his daughter to remain unmarried between 1523 and 1527 if she were as old as twenty-seven in the latter year. Anne is thought to have been born at Blickling Hall in Norfolk or perhaps Hever Castle in Kent, although some of her later relatives believed that she had been born in London. Whether she was older or younger than her sister Mary and brother George continues to remain controversial. If born in 1507, Anne was probably the youngest surviving child. In 1513, she was sent to the court of Margaret of Austria in the Low Countries; traditionally thought to have served as a maiden of honour, as noted earlier it was not the custom for maidens to receive an education while they were fulfilling her duties. The following year, Anne wrote a letter to her father in poor French, indicating that she could not speak the language and so would not have been capable of fulfilling the duties of a maiden of honour. Perhaps she initially resided in the royal nursery and served as a maiden at a later date. In 1514, she attended Henry VIII's sister Mary when she married Louis XII of France and later served Claude of France, wife of Francois I. Anne acquired a thorough knowledge of French culture and developed her talents in dancing, music and singing. Her evangelical faith may also have originated in France. In 1521 or 1522, she returned to England to wed James Butler to settle a dispute between the Boleyn and Butler families concerning the earldom of Ormond, but the marriage never took place. Anne fell in love with, and hoped to marry, Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland, in 1523, but the couple were prevented from marrying due to the wishes of the king and Cardinal Wolsey and Anne was banished from court, remaining at Hever until 1526 or 1527, when she returned probably in the capacity of maiden of honour to Katherine of Aragon. </div><div><br /></div><div>Contemporaries described her as being of medium height, with long dark hair, brown or black eyes and a swarthy complexion. Her detractors slandered her as being deformed, while others noted her beauty and elegance. In 1531 she was described as being both 'young' and 'good-looking'; such references to Anne's youth in the late 1520s and early 1530s provide further evidence of a birth in 1507, rather than as early as 1500/1. In 1527, Henry fell passionately in love with the sophisticated and charming Anne, and proposed marriage to her. The couple, however, wed only in late 1532 or early 1533 on account of the long struggle to annul the Aragon marriage. Anne was crowned queen on 1 June 1533, already pregnant, and gave birth to her only surviving child, Elizabeth, on 7 September. Two further pregnancies resulted in a probable stillbirth (in 1534) and in a miscarriage (in 1536). The king and queen's relationship was stormy, punctuated by periods of bitter quarrels and subsequent reconciliation. Many of the king's subjects refused to accept Anne as queen and she was regularly slandered as a whore or prostitute. The marriage was also never recognised in Europe as valid. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anne exerted significant influence at court, especially in advancing the evangelical faith, and was outspoken on political and religious matters. Despite her influence, the royal couple's lack of a son endangered Anne's security. The queen's precarious position worsened in early 1536 when her husband fell in love with her attendant Jane Seymour. In May, four months after a miscarriage, Anne was accused of treason, adultery and incest with five men, including her brother, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Historians continue to debate the reasons for the queen's downfall; suggestions include that a coup was masterminded by Thomas Cromwell to remove Anne and her 'faction' from power; that her husband had grown to hate her and was desperate to marry Jane; that she actually was guilty of the charges; that she gave birth to a deformed foetus, convincing her husband that she was a witch; and that her own incriminating behaviour and conversations in the spring of 1536 created a climate of suspicion and distrust of her loyalty to the king. Irrespective of the reason, most historians believe that she and the men accused with her were not guilty of the charges. All were found guilty and the men were executed on 17 May, the date on which Anne's marriage to Henry was annulled, probably on account of his earlier liaison with the queen's sister Mary. Anne was beheaded within the walls of the Tower of London two days later, the first English queen to suffer execution, and her remains were interred at the Tower chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Her daughter, Elizabeth, became queen of England in 1558.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Further reading:</i></div><div>- Eric Ives, <i>The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn </i>(2004)</div><div>- Retha M. Warnicke, <i>The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn </i>(1989)</div><div>- G. W. Bernard, <i>Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions </i>(2010)</div><div>- Susan Bordo, <i>The Creation of Anne Boleyn </i>(2013)</div><div>- Alison Weir, <i>The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn </i>(2009)</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AeiQC4963HwUexHsDJdBasskyfF9l-HmsSDh40f8ZOEqY84G-3tQKi8HCqDIudkJ87ifVVLzmK855Pwqc10xBXaZ7GJU1ZtcuxZOZ2Zd-sm9dApwuDHvpZI9EREAWWQcZEU1rI-PydM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AeiQC4963HwUexHsDJdBasskyfF9l-HmsSDh40f8ZOEqY84G-3tQKi8HCqDIudkJ87ifVVLzmK855Pwqc10xBXaZ7GJU1ZtcuxZOZ2Zd-sm9dApwuDHvpZI9EREAWWQcZEU1rI-PydM/" width="241" /></a></div><br /><b>Jane Seymour, third consort of Henry VIII</b></div><div><div>Born: About 1509 probably at Wolfhall, Wiltshire, England</div><div>Died: 24 October 1537, Hampton Court Palace, London, England (aged about 28)</div><div>Father: Sir John Seymour</div><div>Mother: Margery Wentworth</div><div>Tenure as queen consort of England: 1536–1537 (1 year, 5 months)</div><div>Coronation: Never crowned</div></div><div><br /></div><div>On 30 May 1536, Jane Seymour became the third wife of Henry VIII when she married him at Whitehall Palace in London. The eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth, Jane was probably born in about 1509, for twenty-nine female mourners are alleged to have participated in her funeral procession, suggesting that when she died, she had been in her twenty-ninth year. The imperial ambassador also described her as being over 25 in 1536. Jane is thought to have served Katherine of Aragon as a maiden of honour, but the evidence is patchy and it is uncertain when she arrived at court. She later attended Anne Boleyn, although she is thought to have remained loyal to the former queen. There is little, if any, evidence for the oft-repeated assertion that Jane revered Katherine of Aragon and later modelled her queenship on that of Katherine's. She received a traditional education as a child, in which she learned skills such as embroidery, housewifery, sewing and needlework, but she was never described as possessing linguistic or musical ability. Jane may have been betrothed to William Dormer, but if so, the marriage took place and by early 1536, at the age of twenty-seven, Jane remained unwed. Henry VIII began courting her that year, perhaps with a view to taking her as his mistress, but Jane, who seems to have been coached by her family, refused the king's proposal. The turbulence of the Boleyn marriage, and the king's lack of sons by the queen, coupled with his interest in Jane, sealed Anne's fate and led to Jane becoming queen of England in May 1536. She was described as being pale and fair, but not beautiful, and while some observers praised her good sense and placid nature, others thought that she was haughty. Jane was never crowned queen due to an outbreak of plague in the capital. Her household was conservative in dress and behaviour, and she exerted little political influence, although she did intercede for the king's daughter Mary and father and daughter were reconciled in 1536. When Jane did attempt to speak out for the abbeys, which the king planned to dissolve in order to seize their revenues, she was brutally warned not to meddle in political matters if she wished to avoid the fate of her predecessor. </div><div><br /></div><div>In early 1537, the queen conceived a child and on 12 October, at Hampton Court Palace, she gave birth to the king's much-desired son, who was named Edward. Tragically, Jane died twelve days later at the age of about 28, perhaps of puerperal fever or an infection from a retained placenta. She was buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor, and her husband was interred there next to her when he died in 1547. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Further reading:</i></div><div><i>- </i>Pamela Gross, <i>Jane, the Quene </i>(1999)</div><div>- Elizabeth Norton, <i>Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love </i>(2009)</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy2YcQPtJP7rPrQBoKa4jl13FcDEQiSORxHriYBUVxzyl5kSZD54MC7DtPF2lyHOR50ymqNKCjhyphenhyphenUJg8oZW2gELH0Pbax_pKfMwJcsxAr7v10SeAdHEOrcTESoNIyZN88gCtblz46kUkU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="331" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy2YcQPtJP7rPrQBoKa4jl13FcDEQiSORxHriYBUVxzyl5kSZD54MC7DtPF2lyHOR50ymqNKCjhyphenhyphenUJg8oZW2gELH0Pbax_pKfMwJcsxAr7v10SeAdHEOrcTESoNIyZN88gCtblz46kUkU/" width="244" /></a></div><br /><b>Anne of Cleves, fourth consort of Henry VIII</b></div><div><div>Born: June 1515 in Dusseldorf, Duchy of Berg, Holy Roman Empire</div><div>Died: 16 July 1557, Chelsea Old Manor, London, England (aged 42)</div><div>Father: John III, duke of Cleves</div><div>Mother: Maria of Julich-Berg</div><div>Tenure as queen consort of England: 1540 (6 months)</div><div>Coronation: Never crowned</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Jane Seymour's death in 1537 led Henry VIII and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell to seek a bride from one of the royal houses of Europe. Various candidates were proposed, including Marie of Guise and Christina of Denmark, but the king's desire for an alliance with Cleves - in view of England's isolation and the threat from France and Spain, who were then allies - led him to favour a match with Anne, daughter of John III, duke of Cleves. Anne had initially been betrothed to Francis of Lorraine. Her education was traditional in nature, but she does not seem to have acquired instruction in music and was not viewed as being sophisticated. She was described by observers as attractive, with long fair hair and with a tall, slim build. In 1539 she departed for England in readiness for her marriage to Henry, whom she met for the first time at Rochester Abbey on New Year's Day 1540. The king and a few of his attendants adopted a courtly love convention in which they visited Anne in disguise. Henry was disappointed with Anne, perhaps because she had allegedly 'regarded him little' since she may not have known who he was on account of his disguise. The king also complained that she was 'nothing so fair as she hath been reported', but it is a myth that he described her as a Flanders mare, a claim which dates from a later period. The couple married at Greenwich Palace on 6 January 1540, but the marriage was never consummated and Anne was never crowned. By the spring of that year, Henry was passionately in love with Anne's maiden of honour, Katherine Howard, and international politics, namely the renewal of conflict between France and Spain, meant that the Cleves alliance was no longer welcome or necessary. The king believed that Anne was not legally his wife on account of her earlier precontract to Francis of Lorraine. The marriage was annulled in July and Thomas Cromwell, who had helped to arrange the Cleves marriage, was executed for treason. Anne received a generous settlement; her properties included Richmond Palace and Hever Castle. It is a myth that she was the luckiest of Henry VIII's six queens, for she would not have viewed the situation that way: Anne hoped to be reinstated as queen and when Henry married for the final time to Katherine Parr, she was described as being disappointed and disparaged the new queen's appearance. In some sense Henry was Anne's protector and, after his death, her life became increasingly complicated. She experienced conflict between her servants in her household and confided to her brother that she felt like a stranger in England. When her stepdaughter Mary became queen of England in 1553, Anne congratulated her and participated in the queen's coronation procession. She seems to have lost royal favour the following year on account of her close association with her other stepdaughter Elizabeth, who was implicated in Wyatt's Rebellion, and because she was thought to have intrigued on Elizabeth's behalf during the rebellion. Anne died on 16 July 1557 at Chelsea Old Manor, probably of cancer, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Further reading:</i></div><div>- Heather Darsie, <i>Anna, Duchess of Cleves: The King's Beloved Sister </i>(2019)</div><div>- Retha M. Warnicke, <i>The Marrying of Anne of Cleves. Royal Protocol in Early Modern England </i>(2000)</div><div>- Elizabeth Norton, <i>Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Discarded Bride </i>(2009)</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfNaYJ13L3ZgEeQ61bXRmLETPWHHKy2LWEJZ0h7k7b9DPoDrGhs6GoFDAxPAnn1PwYAFT3579nD2yGK430OENGEeKHNj0Lp3zyZaSlwdUvhd_nqXRS-cS_yWK84J_embrYAVNEcyQW2Fg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="205" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfNaYJ13L3ZgEeQ61bXRmLETPWHHKy2LWEJZ0h7k7b9DPoDrGhs6GoFDAxPAnn1PwYAFT3579nD2yGK430OENGEeKHNj0Lp3zyZaSlwdUvhd_nqXRS-cS_yWK84J_embrYAVNEcyQW2Fg/" width="193" /></a></div><br /><b>Katherine Howard, fifth consort of Henry VIII</b></div><div><div>Born: Between 1523 and 1525 probably in Lambeth, London, England</div><div>Died: 13 February 1542, Tower of London, London, England (aged 17–19)</div><div>Father: Lord Edmund Howard</div><div>Mother: Joyce Culpeper</div><div>Tenure as queen consort of England: 1540–1541 (1 year, 4 months)</div><div>Coronation: Never crowned</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Katherine Howard was the youngest wife of Henry VIII. She was a younger daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, and was the granddaughter of Thomas, second duke of Norfolk and a niece of Thomas, third duke of Norfolk. She and Anne Boleyn were first cousins, for Anne was the daughter of Edmund's sister Elizabeth. Katherine's date of birth is unknown, but contemporary - albeit fragmentary - evidence indicates that she was born between 1523 and 1525. Certainly she was a teenager when she captivated the ageing king in late 1539 or early 1540. At some point between 1531 and 1536, Katherine was sent to reside in the household of her step-grandmother Agnes, dowager duchess of Norfolk. She began receiving music lessons in 1536, perhaps with a view to serving as maiden of honour to Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour. That she only began receiving music lessons that year is a further clue to her age, for if born as early as 1520/1 these surely would have taken place earlier with a view to acquiring a place in the queen's household. In the midst of these lessons her music master Henry Manox seduced her, although the two did not have sexual intercourse. She later noted that Manox had beseeched her to grant him sexual favours 'at the flattering and fair persuasions of Manox, being but a young girl'. By 1538, Katherine was involved in a liaison with Francis Dereham, a secretary to the dowager duchess, and rumours circulated in the household that the two hoped to marry. Dereham, born between 1506 and 1509, was then aged between twenty-nine and thirty-two, and Katherine was aged between thirteen and fifteen. It is possible, though uncertain, that Dereham coerced her. By 1539, however, their relationship had ended on account of Katherine's appointment to the household of Anne of Cleves. </div><div><br /></div><div>An unknown Spanish chronicler later described Katherine as the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. She was elegant, charming and generous, although other contemporaries described her as willful and imperious. Upon her arrival at court, Henry VIII fell headily in love with the teenaged Katherine and the two married on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace. Katherine fulfilled her duties as queen successfully, acting as a patron and intercessor on a number of occasions, and court observers described the king's hope that his new queen would bear a son. Rumours circulated throughout Katherine's queenship that she was pregnant, but if so, she never gave birth to a living child. Like Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, Katherine was never crowned, although it was rumoured that she would be crowned in York during the royal couple's progress to the north of England. By the spring of 1541, however, Katherine's life became complicated. Her former suitor Dereham arrived at court, hoping to serve in her household, and soon began boasting of his former relations with the queen. Dereham's aggressive and possessive attitude towards Katherine placed both individuals in danger. At the same time, Katherine began secretly meeting with Thomas Culpeper, a favoured courtier, with the aid of Lady Rochford, sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn. Culpeper was described as handsome but he had a dark reputation as an alleged rapist.</div><div><br /></div><div>Traditionally, the queen and Culpeper are thought to have had a sexual affair, but both parties denied it. A letter written by Katherine to Culpeper probably in July 1541, usually described as a love letter, instead indicates that she desired him to keep his promise to her, but it remains uncertain what she was referring to. Perhaps the couple were in love, but it is also possible that in a climate of tension and intrigue at court, in which Dereham had recklessly boasted of his former liaison with the queen, that Culpeper had learned of Katherine's background and used it against her in order to win favours and attention. In support of this theory is the fact that Katherine gave him gifts and met with him regularly while chaperoned by Lady Rochford. It is possible that the promise which Katherine referred to in her letter concerned Culpeper's promise not to reveal her past to the king. She also warned him to beware revealing their meetings during his confessions to priests in case Henry VIII, by virtue of his position as head of the Church in England, somehow learned of their liaisons. Irrespective of the nature of their meetings, Katherine behaved recklessly since contemporary customs warned women not to meet secretly with men who were not their husbands. It is also questionable why she did not learn from the experiences of her cousin and predecessor Anne Boleyn, whose allegedly indiscreet conversations had led to her downfall and execution in 1536.</div><div><br /></div><div>In November 1541, Archbishop Cranmer learned of Katherine's past when John Lascelles, whose sister Mary had resided in the dowager duchess of Norfolk's household alongside Katherine, revealed that the queen had been involved with two men prior to her marriage to the king. The queen and her household were subsequently investigated and the privy councillors eventually learned of her secret meetings with Culpeper in the spring and summer of that year. The distraught king refused to see Katherine and moved away from court. In December, Dereham and Culpeper were executed for treason and in February of the following year, Katherine and Lady Rochford were beheaded at the Tower of London, having been found guilty of treason by an Act of Attainder, thus denying them the right to stand trial. Contrary to popular belief, the queen was not found guilty of adultery but was indicted for intending to commit adultery with Culpeper, which constituted a treasonous offence. Both women were praised for their godly conduct on the scaffold, in which they praised the king and beseeched onlookers to pray for them. After the executions, their remains were interred at the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Katherine was aged seventeen to nineteen years when she was executed. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Further reading:</i></div><div>- Conor Byrne, <i>Katherine Howard: Henry VIII's Slandered Queen </i>(2019)</div><div>- Gareth Russell, <i>Young and Damned and Fair: The Life and Tragedy of Catherine Howard at the Court of Henry VIII </i>(2017)</div><div>- Josephine Wilkinson, <i>Katherine Howard: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII's Fifth Queen </i>(2016)</div><div>- Retha M. Warnicke, <i>Wicked Women of Tudor England </i>(2012)</div><div>- Lacey Baldwin Smith, <i>A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard </i>(1961)</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewwu-_eubVmcqYJNQpiBekVICcR0vD8aHuaElxfH53P3l8P2ztr7U4PvMGnmQGpUYv7xRArtJii0vQe1xFAq0X-5XyCmexA6oFNzYtcGF13REYMvovKHLtN9dXRghYzNy8AT110-zM2s/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="165" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewwu-_eubVmcqYJNQpiBekVICcR0vD8aHuaElxfH53P3l8P2ztr7U4PvMGnmQGpUYv7xRArtJii0vQe1xFAq0X-5XyCmexA6oFNzYtcGF13REYMvovKHLtN9dXRghYzNy8AT110-zM2s/" width="122" /></a></div><b>Katherine Parr, sixth consort of Henry VIII</b></div><div><div>Born: 1512 probably in Blackfriars, London, England</div><div>Died: 5 September 1548, Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, England (aged 36)</div><div>Father: Sir Thomas Parr</div><div>Mother: Maud Green</div><div>Tenure as queen consort of England: 1543–1547 (3 years, 6 months)</div><div>Coronation: Never crowned</div><div><br /></div><div>Katherine was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Parr and Maud Green, and was probably born in the summer of 1512 in Blackfriars, London. Her father was a favoured companion of Henry VIII and her mother served in the household of Katherine of Aragon, for whom Katherine Parr was probably named. Katherine acquired an excellent education, which included the learning of languages such as French and Latin, and in 1529, aged seventeen, she married Sir Edward Burgh of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Her husband died in 1533 and Katherine probably resided for a time at Sizergh Castle in Westmorland with the Dowager Lady Strickland, the widow of Katherine's cousin Sir Walter Strickland. The following year, Katherine married for the second time to John Neville, Baron Latimer, and acted as stepmother to his two children John and Margaret. In 1537, during the Pilgrimage of Grace, Katherine and her stepchildren were held hostage by the rebels at Snape Castle in Yorkshire. Her husband had been compelled the previous autumn to join the rebellion, and had been threatened with violence if he refused. However, Latimer's involvement in the rebellion led the king and Cromwell to suspect him of being a traitor, and it is possible that Katherine's brother William and their uncle (also named William) intervened for his life as a result. In 1543, Latimer died and at the age of thirty-one, Katherine was once more a widow.</div><div><br /></div><div>She seems to have fallen in love with Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of the late Queen Jane, but while residing at court, she caught the attention of Henry VIII and the couple were married at Hampton Court Palace on 12 July of that year. Katherine's later correspondence indicates that she had not willingly agreed to marry the king, but felt that God had called her to be queen of England in order to advance true religion. It is a myth that she acted as a nursemaid to her ageing and infirm husband. Katherine was an educated, cultured and elegant queen consort who was known for her love of art, music and fashion. Like Katherine of Aragon, she was made regent of England in 1544 when the king left England to campaign in France. Katherine became close to her three stepchildren Mary, Elizabeth and Edward, and scholars have conjectured that her influence on Elizabeth, in particular, was significant. Katherine possessed a devout religious faith and wrote a number of religious works including <i>The Lamentation of a Sinner </i>(published after her husband's death). She enjoyed reading and discussing scripture with the ladies of her Privy Chamber. However, her adherence to the reformed faith led the conservatives at court, masterminded by Bishop Stephen Gardiner and Lord Wriothesley, to plot against her. Her own outspoken views increasingly alienated the king, and rumours began circulating that Henry planned to marry for the seventh time to the queen's friend Katherine, duchess of Suffolk. Whether there was any truth to these rumours remains uncertain.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the summer of 1546, shortly after the burning of the heretic Anne Askew, who was thought to have links to some of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, a warrant was drawn up for the queen's arrest on charges of heresy. Fortunately for Katherine, a servant caught sight of the warrant and warned her in time. She convinced the king of her loyalty by claiming that she had only discussed religion with him as a distraction from the suffering caused by his ulcered leg. Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547 and his wife, now queen dowager, retired from court. The queen's swift remarriage to Thomas Seymour, probably in that spring, caused a scandal. In particular, her stepdaughter Mary was reported to be displeased by Katherine's actions. The dowager queen also experienced conflict with the Lord Protector on account of her jewels, since he and his wife argued that Katherine was no longer entitled to wear them. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the spring of 1548, Katherine conceived a child for the first time. However, her husband's reckless behaviour with her stepdaughter Elizabeth, who was residing with her stepmother, created a scandal in the household, and Elizabeth was dismissed as a result. On 30 August, the dowager queen gave birth to a daughter, Mary, but Katherine died only six days later from puerperal (or childbed) fever. Her daughter is thought to have died in infancy. Katherine was buried at St. Mary's Chapel in the grounds of Sudeley Castle, and remains the only English queen buried on private ground. Thomas Seymour was executed for treason the following March.</div><br /></div><div><i>Further reading:</i></div><div>- Susan James, <i>Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen </i>(1999)</div><div>- Linda Porter, <i>Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr </i>(2010)</div><div>- Susan James, <i>Catherine Parr: Henry VIII's Last Love </i>(2010)</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Tudor Consorts</b></div><div>This article has sought to provide a brief biography of each of the seven Tudor consorts, alongside offering a list of recommended works for readers interested in learning more about them. Their lives continue to remain fascinating for modern audiences.</div><div><br /></div></div><p></p>Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-25489437050003259712019-01-22T12:18:00.001-08:002019-01-22T12:19:14.321-08:00Katherine Howard: History Press<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am delighted to announce that The History Press are publishing my biography of Henry VIII's fifth wife in April 2019, with the title "Katherine Howard: Henry VIII's Slandered Queen". It presents my years of research into Katherine's brief life and offers additional content to my 2014 biography. You can preorder the book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Katherine-Howard-Henry-VIIIs-Slandered/dp/0750990600/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548188227&sr=8-1&keywords=katherine+howard">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was very fortunate to offer my thoughts about Henry's youngest wife on The History Press website. You can read the thoughts <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/ask-the-author-conor-byrne-on-katherine-howard/">here</a>, in which I note that</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "merriweather" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.4px;">Every piece of surviving evidence we have indicates that, contrary to traditional perceptions, Katherine was a conscientious queen who fulfilled her ceremonial duties aptly. I argue in my book that Katherine’s style of queenship may have been directly shaped by Henry VIII’s changing expectations about the queen’s role. Too often it is assumed that she was uninterested in fulfilling her royal duties, but it is barely ever considered that perhaps her husband had a direct say in the way that Katherine responded to her role. Had Katherine given birth to a male heir and had the king never discovered her pre-marital past, then I do believe she would have been regarded as a very successful queen consort.</span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-52043041100179366272018-01-29T12:02:00.000-08:002018-01-29T12:02:28.333-08:00On The Tudor Trail - Anne Boleyn's Life, 1521-1527<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I have recently written an article for the website <i>On The Tudor Trail</i> about Anne Boleyn's life in the years 1521-7, a period that remains frustratingly shadowy. In this article, I discuss Anne's return to England from the French court in late 1521; her anticipated marriage to James Butler, heir to the earldom of Ormond; her probable appointment to Katherine of Aragon's household in 1523 and her liaison that year with Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland; her dismissal and probable return in late 1526. My approach is closely informed by the extant evidence concerning Anne's age and the Boleyn family goals and ambitions, in which it was anticipated that Anne would be ennobled as the countess of Ormond. As is well known, of course, the marriage did not come to fruition and Anne instead captured the heart of Henry VIII by 1527, four years after her affair with Percy, who inherited the earldom of Northumberland in 1527. You can read the article <a href="http://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/2018/01/25/lost-to-history-anne-boleyns-life-1521-1527/">here</a>.</span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-89781521612634475842017-06-08T14:04:00.000-07:002017-06-08T14:04:56.581-07:00Katherine Howard's Age<img alt="Related image" height="318" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/74/5d/67/745d671f6dd7271d316328378e6e657a.jpg" width="320" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Five years ago, I published a <a href="http://conorbyrnex.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-birth-and-childhood-of-katherine.html">blog post</a> about the date of birth of Katherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII. In the course of researching and writing about her life, I became increasingly aware of the influence that misconceptions about her continued to play in historical writing. Two years after that blog post, my <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Katherine-Howard-History-Conor-Byrne/dp/8493746460/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496953579&sr=1-3&keywords=katherine+howard">full-length study</a> of Katherine's life was published. In that book, I argued that Katherine was almost certainly the second daughter of Edmund and Jocasta Howard: her older sister Margaret was born by 1518, and her younger sister Mary was probably born by 1525. We know for a fact that all three girls, and their three surviving brothers Henry, Charles and George, were born by 1527, according to Edmund Howard's own correspondence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Since that book was published, I have continued to research and reflect on Katherine's probable date of birth. Undoubtedly, when she was born is highly important, for it influences our interpretation of her adolescent relationships in the household of her step-grandmother, the dowager duchess of Norfolk. It also influences how we perceive her relationship with Henry VIII, whom she married in 1540. It is worth thinking about Henry's own marital and sexual preferences, a much-debated issue that perhaps, strangely, neglects the issue of age. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Henry VIII was not yet eighteen when he married Katherine of Aragon, who was twenty-three, in 1509. Sixteenth-century women could legally marry at twelve years old, but it was rare for them to marry at so young an age. Women from the lower classes married, on average, at twenty-five or twenty-six, and even among the nobility, women tended to marry at about twenty, or in their late teens. Anne Boleyn's mother, for example, was probably married by the age of nineteen or twenty, and Jane Parker, wife of George Boleyn, was about nineteen at her marriage. During his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, Henry was involved in liaisons with Bessie Blount (who was born by 1500, if not before, and was therefore nineteen when she gave birth to the king's son in 1519) and Mary Boleyn, who had probably been born by 1501 and was therefore in her early twenties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In 1527, Henry fell passionately in love with Anne Boleyn, younger sister of a previous mistress. Anne was probably six years younger than most historians assume. In 1527, she was <a href="http://conorbyrnex.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-stereotyped-six-wives-two-dangerous.html">probably </a>twenty years of age. A variety of palace officials, servants and the likes of Cardinal Reginald Pole all characterised her as young. Gareth Russell has also <a href="http://garethrussellcidevant.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/age-of-anne-boleyn.html">pointed out</a> that not once, during the six arduous and time-consuming years in which Henry fought to secure from the Pope an annulment of his first marriage, was Anne's age queried as a barrier to marriage. Undoubtedly, had she been as old as thirty or thirty-one during Henry's courtship, questions would have been raised as to whether she was a suitable partner for childbearing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When Anne married the king in late 1532, she was probably twenty-five, and according to an attendant of her stepdaughter Mary, the disgraced queen was not yet twenty-nine when she was executed in May 1536. Her successor Jane Seymour was, according to the Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, a little over twenty-five when she became Henry VIII's bride in 1536, suggesting that she was about twenty-six or twenty-seven. At her funeral the following year, there was a female mourner for every year of Jane's life: twenty-nine in all. Probably, according to the contemporary tradition of marking one's age, this referred to Jane dying in the twenty-ninth year of her life, rather than having died at the age of twenty-nine: therefore suggesting that she was born in about 1509.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In 1540, Henry married Anne of Cleves, a twenty-four year old German noblewoman. It was rumoured before his marriage to Anne that Henry had been romantically interested in Anne Basset, a former maiden of Jane Seymour. Mistress Basset was born in 1521 and so would have been sixteen or so when the king's eye fell on her, however briefly. Before the negotiations to marry Anne of Cleves, Henry had expressed an interest in marrying the seventeen-year-old Christina of Milan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Plainly, Henry's preference was for women in their late teens or early twenties. Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn, his two most well-known mistresses, were in their late teens, Mary perhaps her early twenties. Katherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves were both in their early twenties, while Henry first became interested in Anne Boleyn when she was about twenty, although she was in her mid-twenties when they married. Jane Seymour, on the other hand, was probably twenty-seven. The glaring exception to this rule was Katherine Parr, who was thirty-one when she married Henry VIII in 1543, but she had already been married twice previously and there does not appear to have been any expectation on the king's behalf that she would provide him with children, unlike all of his previous marriages. It was highly unusual for a noblewoman to remain unwed by her late twenties or early thirties. Indeed, so anomalous was the as-yet unwed Jane Seymour's position in early 1536 that the Imperial ambassador openly questioned both her virginity and her morals. Jane, at twenty-seven, was still unmarried.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When Katherine Howard caught the king's eye in late 1539 or early 1540, contemporary observers not only praised her attractiveness, but they also commented on her youth. According to Richard Hilles, she was a 'young girl', while the French ambassador referred to her as a 'young lady'. The anonymous author of <i>The Chronicle of Henry VIII</i> expressly stated that she was about fifteen when Henry fell in love with her, and also referred to her as a 'mere child'. George Cavendish, in his verses about Katherine's life, mentioned youth ten times. Plainly, the implication was that Katherine's youth and beauty were noticeable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the late twentieth-century, modern historians assumed that Katherine was born in 1520-1 because of a portrait housed in the Toledo Museum of Art, with versions also at the National Portrait Gallery and Hever Castle. The well-dressed sitter is, according to an inscription in the painting, in her twenty-first year. Quite why this portrait was identified as a portrait of Katherine remains unclear. The notion that it is an image of the hapless queen has been <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Young-Damned-Fair-Tragedy-Catherine/dp/0008128278/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1496954968&sr=8-4&keywords=katherine+howard">comprehensively debunked</a>. Recently, it has been suggested that the sitter may plausibly be identified as any one of Frances Brandon, Eleanor Brandon, Margaret Douglas or Elizabeth Cromwell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">By contrast, a portrait housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York depicts a magnificently dressed young woman aged in her seventeenth year, according to the inscription, and it has been dated to c.1540-1545. A number of historians, including myself, Gareth Russell and Susan James, have suggested that Katherine may well be the sitter in the painting. Although the identification is speculative, if it is true then it would suggest that she was born in 1523 or 1524, assuming that the painting was painted in 1540-1. This identification, however, remains tentative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When she was appointed a maid of honour to Anne of Cleves in late 1539, Katherine joined her cousin Katherine Carey and Mary Norris, who were born in 1524 and 1526, respectively. Undoubtedly, had she been born as early as 1520, Katherine's family would have attempted to arrange for her to serve Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour in the years 1533-7. There is no evidence that they did so. It is probably significant that she only began receiving music lessons from Henry Manox and Master Barnes in 1536, when she was likely in her early teens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">However, the French ambassador commented that Katherine had been intimately involved with Francis Dereham from her thirteenth to her eighteenth year, thus suggesting a five year relationship. Modern historians have usually taken this comment as evidence that she was born in 1520-1, for the relationship probably ended in early 1539. I am persuaded by Retha Warnicke's <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wicked-Women-Tudor-England-Aristocrats/dp/0230391923/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496955416&sr=1-9&keywords=retha+warnicke">argument</a>, however, that the ambassador was probably unaware of Katherine's earlier liaison with Manox, which took place in 1536-7. In the wake of Katherine's downfall, it became apparent that she had appointed Dereham to her service and, it was rumoured, had met with him in a return to their previous relationship. If Katherine was about thirteen in 1536, then she might have been eighteen in 1541 when she confirmed Dereham's appointment to her household, therefore explaining the ambassador's reference to the ages of thirteen and eighteen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The contradictory comments of the French ambassador and the unknown author of <i>The Chronicle of Henry VIII</i> clearly indicate that there was a degree of confusion about Katherine's exact age; possibly neither man knew for certain when she was born. However, Cavendish's ten references to her youth in his verses is probably significant, as are the other reported remarks about her young age when she became queen. That she was not born earlier than 1523 is a reasonable assumption in view of the ages of her fellow maids of honour, the date at which she began receiving music lessons (probably in readiness for her anticipated appointment to the queen's household) and the evidence of her grandparents' wills. In 1524, her grandfather John Legh's will did not refer to Katherine or her younger sister, but her grandmother Isabel's will, which was written three years later, referred to all three Howard girls. Whether this is evidence that Katherine and Mary were born between 1524 and 1527, however, is unclear, but at the very least it seems to suggest that they were either not yet born or were very young when their grandfather's will was penned. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The traditional argument that Katherine was born as early as 1520-1 has been proven to be shaky and based on a dubious portrait identification. Most modern historians now believe that the portrait is not of the queen, but probably depicts one of the king's nieces or Elizabeth Cromwell, younger sister of Jane Seymour. It is probably significant that the three most recent biographers of Katherine - myself, Josephine Wilkinson and Gareth Russell - all advocate a later birth date. Wilkinson agrees with Joanna Denny that Katherine was born in 1525, probably the latest possible date for her birth. Russell suggests 1522 or 1523. The evidence available, in my opinion, seems to suggest a birth date of 1523. Sixteenth-century children were occasionally named for the saint on whose feast day they were born; St. Katherine's Day is 25 November. Whether this suggests that Katherine Howard was born in November 1523 is impossible to say, but the considerable evidence available to historians probably indicates without a doubt that she was born no earlier than 1523 and no later than 1525. This would mean that she was about seventeen when she married Henry VIII and had probably not yet attained the age of nineteen when she was executed in early 1542. </span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-20860521673678440212017-05-19T02:58:00.000-07:002017-05-19T08:38:50.671-07:0019 May 1536: Anne Boleyn's Execution<img alt="Related image" src="http://retrobazar.com/newsimage/880_8287big.jpg" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We have no way of knowing whether Anne Boleyn was greeted by warm sunshine and birdsong as she took her final steps out of the queen's apartments and towards the scaffold within the Tower of London. Likewise, it is impossible to say whether the queen and her attendants were showered with rain, or whether blustery winds tugged on the trains of their gowns. Films and television often portray Anne's execution day as beautifully sunny and warm (think <i>Anne of the Thousand Days</i>; <i>The Tudors</i>; <i>Henry VIII, </i>etc.), but contemporary writers writing about that momentous day were uninterested in the finer details of the weather, and it is questionable whether Anne Boleyn herself was all too concerned if her final moments were spent in brilliant May sunshine or unseasonable damp and cold. 19 May 1536 was the date on which an unprecedented act would take place: the execution of an English queen consort, the first of its kind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Four days earlier, she had been tried and found guilty of adultery with five courtiers, treason and plotting the death of her husband, Henry VIII. Two days later, her marriage had been annulled (probably on the grounds of her sister Mary's liaison with the king a decade earlier) and her co-accused had themselves gone to the scaffold, including her brother George, lord Rochford. Anne's tortuous imprisonment in the Tower had been, understandably, emotionally charged for her: she had experienced hope, despair, confusion, sorrow, anxiety and humour. Sir William Kingston, the constable of the Tower, had been baffled by her behaviour: one minute she seemed ready and willing to die, he reported, but the next minute she would collapse in a fit of weeping. Archbishop Cranmer, who had received patronage and support from Anne and her family, had provided Anne with hope that she would be permitted to spend the rest of her life in a nunnery, but that hope was nothing more than a cruel illusion. As May 19 dawned, the queen was aware that her life would indeed end within the walls of the Tower, rather than behind the walls of a nunnery, but at least her death would be caused by decapitation, a relatively quick form of execution, rather than by being burned at the stake, as was originally feared.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">According to Edward Hall, the lawyer and chronicler, Anne spoke these words on the scaffold:</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Good Christen people, I am come hether to dye, for accordyng to the lawe and by the lawe I am iudged to dye, and therefore I wyll speake nothyng against it. I am come hether to accuse no man, nor to speake any thyng of that wherof I am accused and condempned to dye, but I pray God saue the king and send him long to reigne ouer you, for a gentler nor a more mercyfull prince was there neuer: and to me he was euer a good, a gentle, & soueraigne lorde. And if any persone wil medle of my cause, I require them to iudge the best. And thus I take my leue of the worlde and of you all, and I heartely desyre you all to pray for me. O lorde haue mercy on me, to God I comende my soule. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mercifully, Anne's head was swiftly 'stryken of with the sworde', and she was buried at the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. Modern readers might wonder whether Anne's last words in praise of her husband were spoken with irony, or contempt, or humour: but her speech actually followed contemporary protocol in almost every sense. The condemned was expected to praise the king and the justice of his law; to speak out against it threatened infamy and ruin to the condemned's family, and might result in an even harsher mode of execution for the condemned. Whether or not Anne was thinking of her daughter, the infant Elizabeth, when she spoke these words is uncertain, but it is possible that she was desirous of securing as stable a future as possible for her soon-to-be motherless, bastardised daughter. Criticising Henry or questioning his justice in public would hardly achieve that. In asking those present to judge the best of her case, however, Anne left the events of her ruin open to question and open to debate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The unexpected accession of her daughter, Elizabeth, in 1558 meant that Anne's memory could be honoured and her status as queen of England celebrated, but had it not been for Elizabeth's accession, it is possible that Anne would have been confined to history as an unpopular and possibly adulterous queen. Her name was rarely spoken, at least in public, during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, and Mary I, who understandably blamed Anne for her harsh treatment during the 1530s, openly referred to Anne as an adulteress and heretic, and was desirous of preventing her half-sister Elizabeth from succeeding her. Even during Elizabeth's reign, moreover, a degree of ambivalence remained. Protestant writers, including John Foxe, dutifully celebrated Anne's piety and charity, but they refrained from discussing the events that led to her downfall and execution. To do so, perhaps, would cast doubt on Henry VIII's motives. Elizabeth herself, who gloried in her father's memory, rarely referred to her mother and, unlike her half-sister Mary (who had proclaimed her parents' marriage to be valid upon her succession to the throne in 1553), Elizabeth did not legitimise herself and did not declare her parents' union to be valid. In doing so, she left herself vulnerable to accusations of bastardy for the rest of her reign, and in Catholic Europe, her cousin Mary Queen of Scots was always regarded as the rightful queen of England, by virtue of both her unquestioned legitimacy and her Catholic faith.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Why Elizabeth did not restore the legitimacy of her parents' marriage is understandable: her father had approved the dissolution of his marriage to her mother and had sanctioned her subsequent execution on charges of treason and adultery, charges that called into question Elizabeth's parentage. To have retrospectively declared the marriage to be lawful, rather than null and void, would have effectively cast Henry VIII as a murderer. As mentioned earlier, Elizabeth fondly recalled her father's memory on several occasions during her reign, including at her coronation festivities. Her relative silence concerning her mother need not be taken as evidence that she was ashamed of her, for there is other evidence to suggest that, privately at least, she honoured her mother's memory. Moreover, the likes of Foxe probably encouraged Elizabeth to view Anne Boleyn, correctly or otherwise, as an important patron and supporter of the Protestant faith, a faith with which Elizabeth identified with increasing militancy as her reign saw the introduction of gradually harsher measures against Catholics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The silence that followed Anne Boleyn's death well into the reign of Elizabeth stands in stark contrast to today: as Susan Bordo notes, in modern times Anne is undoubtedly the most famous of Henry's wives. Countless biographies, novels, films, television dramas and documentaries are produced about her every year. She has been portrayed in virtually every guise, from revolutionary reformer to hapless victim, from scheming adulteress to feminist icon, from deformed witch to courageous intellectual. Everything about her is debated: her date of birth, her hair colour, her facial features, her religious opinions, her character, her sexual life, her relations with her siblings, her political activities, her relationship with Henry VIII and, most explicitly, the reasons for her downfall. She continues to make the headlines in newspapers, as witnessed recently with newfound theories about her portraiture. There is an insatiable lust and desire for all things Anne Boleyn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I recommend Susan Bordo's original and fascinating book, <i>The Creation of Anne Boleyn</i>, for an engaging analysis of Anne's status as an icon and her legacy, a legacy that transcended her brutal and bloody death in May 1536. Bordo also makes the important point - and one worth remembering - that "Anne Boleyn", in her many cultural guises, has by now largely overshadowed the historical remnants of the real Anne Boleyn. With so little documentary evidence for the historical figure - as noted earlier, even her date of birth is open to question - it is no wonder that historians, novelists and filmmakers alike delight in using their imaginations to fill in the gaps. It is the scarcity of surviving records that account for why Anne is such a polarising figure and why she has been portrayed in virtually every guise imaginable, even those of vampire and prophetess. </span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-67702206916629150852017-05-03T06:47:00.003-07:002017-05-03T06:49:00.223-07:00Kindle Countdown: Queenship in England<img alt="Queenship in England: 1308-1485 Gender and Power in the Late Middle Ages by [Byrne, Conor]" height="320" src="https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51YF46sV2mL.jpg" width="199" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">*Exciting Opportunity* If you own a Kindle, today and tomorrow, you can buy my book <i>Queenship in England 1308-1485</i> for only 99p on Amazon UK and 99c on Amazon.com. It's a great deal and well worth taking advantage of. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Amazon UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Queenship-England-1308-1485-Gender-Middle-ebook/dp/B01MT5OVGK/ref=la_B00MPFTO6E_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493819053&sr=1-2</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Amazon.com link: https://www.amazon.com/Queenship-England-1308-1485-Gender-Middle-ebook/dp/B01MT5OVGK/ref=la_B00K2QAHAU_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493819193&sr=1-2</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you don't own a Kindle, rest assured: you can still buy the book in paperback, but please note that the Amazon countdown deal doesn't apply to paperbacks, only to Kindle. I hope you think this a worthwhile deal - if you're looking for something to read, I'd love you to read (and review) the book!</span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-31161271408870230782017-04-23T04:32:00.000-07:002017-04-23T04:32:08.146-07:0023 April 1445: The Wedding of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou<img alt="Image result for margaret of anjou" height="305" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Vigiles_du_roi_Charles_VII_15.jpg/220px-Vigiles_du_roi_Charles_VII_15.jpg" width="320" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On 23 April - <a href="http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/12953?docPos=1">some sources</a> suggest 22 April - 1445, Henry VI married Margaret of Anjou at Titchfield Abbey in Hampshire. The king was twenty-three years old and his new bride was fifteen. Margaret, who was born in Lorraine, had arrived in England on 9 April and met Henry shortly afterwards. The marriage was expressly designed to achieve peace between the warring kingdoms of England and France, although Margaret's dowry was rather unimpressive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On her wedding day, the king provided Margaret with jewels, including a gold wedding ring. On 28 May, Margaret entered London and was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey two days later. The surviving evidence indicates that Henry and Margaret felt affection, possibly love, for one another, and the records demonstrate that king and queen cooperated on matters of policy during the early years of their marriage. However, Margaret's inability to conceive contributed to growing tensions at court and in the realm more generally. This childlessness, coupled with the perceived shortcomings of the Anjou alliance, meant that Margaret was unable to enjoy popularity among her subjects. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1453, eight years after her marriage, Margaret finally conceived and gave birth to a son, Edward, on 13 October. However, the birth of her child coincided with Henry VI's illness and compelled Margaret to take a politically active role at the centre of government. Her bid for the regency failed and the duke of York was made protector. As is well-known, Henry's incapacity and the ensuing crisis of kingship led to civil war. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In my book, <i>Queenship in England </i>- which can be purchased <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Queenship-England-1308-1485-Gender-Middle/dp/8494593773/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492946920&sr=1-1&keywords=conor+byrne">here</a> - I examine Margaret's controversial tenure as queen:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Henry VI’s incapacity created a crisis at the
centre of governance. Contemporaries feared the consequences of the king’s
infirmity: ‘the reame of Englonde was out of all governaunce… for the kyng was
simple… held ne householde ne meyntened no warres’. It
is not true that the queen was an avaricious, grasping woman determined to
enjoy power irrespective of the consequences; however, her husband’s collapse
placed her in an ambiguous and uncomfortable position. Indeed, it was
circumstances, including the collapse of her husband and growing discontent
among the nobility, that required the queen to play a more directly political
role after 1453, alongside her realisation that her son’s inheritance had to be
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-23182151709455794232017-03-16T03:39:00.000-07:002017-03-16T03:39:24.296-07:00The Execution of Lady Anne Lisle<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have visited Winchester several times. It is a beautiful and historic city with much to see for the history lover, including the grand and imposing Winchester Cathedral, where Mary I married Philip of Spain in 1554. However, I did not know that on 2 September 1685 a landed gentlewoman of the county was publicly executed in Winchester for harbouring fugitives after the defeat of the Monmouth Rebellion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Lady Alice Lisle was the last woman to be beheaded in England. The unlucky women that were executed by beheading in English history were mostly queens: Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and Mary Queen of Scots. Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, niece of Edward IV and Richard III, was beheaded at the age of sixty-seven. In 1685, Alice Lisle was of a similar age to the unfortunate countess. She is thought to have been born in or around 1617, and thus would have been about sixty-eight when she met her fate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In July 1685, shortly after the Battle of Monmouth, Lady Alice agreed to shelter the nonconformist minister John Hickes at her residence near Ringwood, in Hampshire. He was accompanied by Richard Nelthorpe, a lawyer and conspirator in the Rye House Plot under the sentence of outlawry. Like Alice, Nelthorpe was executed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In August 1685, the Bloody Assizes commenced at Winchester in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor. Five judges were appointed and were led by 'the hanging judge', Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys, who gained notoriety for his harsh sentences. The court progressed from Hampshire to Dorset and Somerset, and hundreds of executions took place. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i>Above: George Jeffreys, 'the hanging judge'.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Lady Alice pleaded that she had no knowledge of the seriousness of Hickes' offence, and confirmed that she had known nothing of Nelthorpe. It has been suggested that the harshness of the prosecution case derived in part from Alice's status as the widow of John Lisle, one of the regicides of Charles I. Perhaps, then, Alice's demise could be read as a process of revenge for the events of the mid seventeenth-century. She was convicted and sentenced to be burned at the stake, although the sentence was later commuted to beheading.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">On 2 September 1685, Lady Alice walked out of the Eclipse Inn, where she had spent her final hours, and was executed in the market place, and was recorded as having met her fate with dignity and courage. She was buried at Ellingham, Hampshire. For harbouring fugitives, Lady Alice was convicted and executed as a traitor, but she has been viewed as a victim of judicial murder; the contemporary historian and philosopher Gilbert Burnet referred to her as a martyr.</span></div>
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-1983345387147897702017-03-08T00:49:00.002-08:002017-03-08T00:50:10.432-08:00International Women's Day 2017<img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/MargaretAnjou.jpg" width="282" /><img alt="Image result for elizabeth wydeville" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/ElizabethWoodville.JPG" width="263" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Today is International Women's Day. My research to date has primarily focused on late medieval and early modern women, specifically queenship. Earlier this year, MadeGlobal published my book <i>Queenship in England 1308-1485, </i>the culmination of years of research and what I would like to refer to as historical discovery. In honour of International Women's Day, therefore, I would like to think about some of the women that inspired my research.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My first introduction to the indomitable Isabella of France, wife of Edward II, was not an especially positive one, for it was based on a book that was both inaccurate and misleading. By immersing myself in the extant primary sources and by reading a fascinating array of secondary material, I gained a fuller and more nuanced picture of this intriguing queen. In <i>Queenship in England</i>, I focused on the multivalent roles that comprised the office of queenship. Isabella was highly active in her household governance, her lordship, her intercessionary activities and her patronage. Her relationship with Edward, moreover, appears to have been close and loving for the first fifteen years of their marriage. But political tensions and the ascendancy of the Despensers fractured their relationship beyond repair. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Wydeville, like Isabella, have been similarly maligned or misrepresented, but the last few decades have witnessed several publications that have aimed to rehabilitate their reputations. My research indicated that Margaret was more politically astute and pragmatic than is usually suggested, and she sought to maintain a cordial relationship with the duke of York from early on in her queenship. In the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses, it was convenient for commentators to assign blame to Margaret for the conflict, but in assuming the role of leader, she was ardently fighting to protect the inheritance of her son and the honour of her beleaguered husband. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Elizabeth's personality and appearance have both been attacked by modern historians, who have condemned her as a cold, grasping and avaricious woman. Much of this results from a misunderstanding of court protocol. In her lifetime, Elizabeth was praised for her "womanly" conduct and, indeed, she appears to have actively distanced herself from the militant queenship of her predecessor. She was, in most respects, the ideal medieval consort, and demonstrated her suitability to be queen by bearing Edward IV several children, thus testifying to divine approval of their union. The events following Edward's death and the accession of Richard III, coupled with her questionable relationship with Henry VII, have perhaps obscured the fact that Elizabeth was one of the most successful medieval queens of England.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These three women are perhaps three of the most well-known of England's medieval queens, and they are certainly not the only ones who fascinated and inspired me during my research and writing. However, I was especially drawn to their experiences and stories, in demonstrating the rich opportunities for the consort to wield agency and, in some instances, power. Investigating the relationship between gender and power as it operated in the political sphere is an exciting exercise and one that continues to resonate, and be relevant to, today.</span></div>
<br />Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-53824615076870793502017-02-08T06:29:00.000-08:002017-02-08T06:29:03.766-08:008 February 1587: The Execution of Mary I of Scotland<img height="320" src="https://acastprod.blob.core.windows.net/media/v1/54c4621e-7d2a-4da0-b63f-de81b73d58d3/mary-queen-of-scots-after-nicholas-hilliard-iljl7og2.jpg" width="304" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Before the sixteenth-century, executing a queen would have been virtually unthinkable in pre-modern Europe. By 1587, however, executing queens in England was not a strange concept. On 8 February that year, Mary I of Scotland - or Mary, Queen of Scots as she is more commonly known - was executed at Fotheringhay Castle. She was the fourth queen to be executed in England since 1536, following Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Jane Grey, but unlike her headless predecessors, Mary was a Scottish queen regnant. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mary's life following her abdication from the Scottish throne in 1567 had been difficult. Although she has frequently been disparaged as a foolish, inept queen who placed too much emphasis on matters of the heart, more recently Mary has been reappraised as a conscientious and efficient monarch who was, nonetheless, undermined by contemporary expectations of gender. In a kingdom that was, at best, ambivalent to female rule, Mary was compelled to navigate not only the political and factional rivalries that held sway at the Scottish court, but also the religious tensions unleashed by the Reformation. It was to her credit that, as a Catholic monarch, Mary attempted to reach some form of compromise with her unwavering Protestant subjects.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mary had also previously been queen consort of France as the wife of Francois II, but her young husband's death meant that Mary was compelled to return to her native kingdom to commence the business of ruling. Like her cousin Elizabeth I, the Scottish queen was expected to marry and produce an heir to ensure the continuation of the Stewart dynasty. Eventually, in 1565, she married Henry, Lord Darnley, the eldest son of Lady Margaret Douglas and a grandson of Margaret Tudor. The marriage caused a degree of controversy and was not received well by Elizabeth I, but the collapse of the marriage and Darnley's murder in 1567 fatally undermined Mary's position. Whether or not she was involved in her husband's death - and most historians generally believe she was not - Mary made a gross misjudgement by marrying the chief suspect, the earl of Bothwell, shortly afterwards. Her decision was most likely due to Bothwell's rape of her, which meant that marriage to him was the only means of protecting her honour. While this decision can, from a modern perspective, be sympathised with, it was condemned by her furious subjects, and Mary's enforced abdication followed shortly afterwards. She was succeeded by her young son James, her child by Darnley.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above: Mary Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">During her marriage to Francois II, Mary had publicly stated her belief that she was the rightful queen of England, by quartering the royal arms of England with those of France and Scotland. This declaration was probably viewed with apprehension by Elizabeth I, who was generally regarded in Catholic Europe as a bastard and usurper. From a Catholic perspective, Mary Queen of Scots was the rightful queen of England, both because of her religion and because she was undoubtedly legitimate. After the abdication in 1567, Mary journeyed across the border into England in a bid to secure protection from her cousin and fellow queen, and perhaps hoped that Elizabeth would assist in her restoration to the Scottish throne. This decision, with the benefit of hindsight, was probably the worst that Mary ever made. Elizabeth made no attempt to restore her cousin to the Scottish throne and effectively had her placed under house arrest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mary's situation became more difficult over the years, as Catholicism became more closely associated with political insurrection and foreign intrigue, especially in the context of deteriorating Anglo-Spanish relations and escalating religious tensions, resulting in bloodshed, in France. The papal bull of 1570, which effectively released Elizabeth's subjects from their bonds of allegiance to her and actively encouraged them to kill her, could be viewed as something of a turning point in the queen's attitude to her Catholic subjects. During the 1570s and 1580s, a series of increasingly harsh laws were promulgated with the intent of enforcing conformity and ensuring obedience to the Protestant queen. Harbouring priests was made a capital offence, and priests who entered the realm with the intent of ensuring conversion could be executed, and many were. Perhaps acting out of desperation, Mary became involved in a series of conspiracies aimed at deposing Elizabeth and replacing her with the Scottish queen. Mary always believed that she was the rightful queen of Scotland, anointed by God, and only death could prevent her from enjoying that honour. By this point, however, she also coveted the English crown. So seriously were these conspiracies taken by the English government that in 1584 a document known as the Bond of Association was issued. It obliged all those who signed it to execute any person who attempted to usurp the English throne or assassinated Elizabeth. It was clearly aimed at Mary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1586, Mary was judged to have actively colluded in the Babington Plot, for her correspondence was said to indicate her consent to Elizabeth's assassination - an act that would lead to her succession to the English throne. In October, the Scottish queen was tried at Fotheringhay Castle, and defended herself with dignity and courage; she also questioned the right of the court to try her, a divinely anointed queen regnant. However, the verdict was never in doubt. On 25 October, Mary was found guilty. Elizabeth hesitated to proceed with her cousin's execution, perhaps because she feared the response of Catholic Europe. Mary's son, King James, diplomatically sought Elizabeth's mercy for his mother, but in reality he took very little action to assist Mary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above: The tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots at Westminster Abbey. Copyright Westminster Abbey. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the day of the execution, Mary proclaimed that she was dying for her Catholic religion, as a true woman of Scotland and France, the two kingdoms that she had governed. It took three blows of the axe to sever her head, but she was subsequently revered on the continent as a Catholic martyr, murdered by the ruthless and immoral Elizabeth. Although she was initially interred at Peterborough Abbey, when her son became king of England he had her reburied at Westminster Abbey. The iconography of her tomb, as Anne McLaren has stressed, celebrated her as the rightful heiress of Henry VII and, therefore, as the rightful queen of England. Her fertility and fecundity, as the mother of James I of England, was contrasted with the barrenness of her cousins, Mary I and Elizabeth I, who lay nearby. It is ironic that, shortly before her death in 1603, Elizabeth elected the son of her enemy to succeed her. In doing so, the English queen ignored the wishes of her father, Henry VIII, that the Suffolk line should succeed his children, if they all died childless, rather than the Scottish line, which he had barred completely. </span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-3551856119903790682017-01-27T04:56:00.000-08:002017-01-27T04:58:41.158-08:00Holocaust Memorial Day<img height="240" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3HKi5RWgAAQK1Q.jpg:large" width="320" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Holocaust, the genocide masterminded by the Nazis, took place between 1941 and 1945, at the same time as the Second World War was being fought. More than fifty years later, the horrors of this period continue to shock and continue to reverberate. Around six million Jews were murdered, while other victims numbered in the millions and thousands, including Soviet prisoners of war, the disabled, Jehovah's witnesses, homosexuals, Romani and ethnic Poles. These victims endured enslavement in concentration camps, imprisonment, torture and murder, and the testimonies of those who survived these horrors testifies to the dark depths of human hatred, intolerance and bigotry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Holocaust Memorial Day Trust's theme for 2017 is how can life go on? The survivor and prolific author Elie Wiesel, who died last year, explained that "for the survivor death is not the problem. Death was an everyday occurrence. We learned to live with Death. The problem is to adjust to life, to living. You must teach us about living." This year's theme incorporates issues including trauma and coming to terms with the past, displacement and seeking refuge, justice, rebuilding communities, and reconciliation and forgiveness. These issues continue to resonate today, and should be considered by each and every one of us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yesterday, I attended a memorial service at York Minster, and a beautiful Star of David was lit in the Chapter House using candles. The service was moving, and included a talk from a young man whose relative had perished in the Holocaust. Attending services such as that at York Minster always brings back memories for me of visiting Auschwitz in 2009 while at secondary school. While our teacher prepared us as much as she could for what we would experience, visiting the camp was something that I don't think any of us could forget. Emotions ran high that day, and subsequently, but how was it possible for any of us to imagine the suffering inflicted on those who walked through Auschwitz's gates, many of whom never left? How could any of us truly come to terms with the horrors inflicted at Auschwitz, and other killing camps such as Treblinka or Sobibor? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have included some photos taken from the trip. These serve as powerful reminders of how cruelty, intolerance and hatred can extend to unspeakable crimes and to loss of life. They remind us that racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ethnic cleansing, homophobia and prejudice are still with us today. These issues will always be important. They are inextricably tied to human nature, and remind us of what can happen when scapegoats are sought for perceived unfairness or problems in society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Recently, I attended an exhibition about one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust, Anne Frank, a diarist who died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of fifteen. The exhibition's title was 'A history for today'. It was incredibly moving to revisit Anne's story and to consider her legacy, but two photos, in particular, caught my eye and provided a startling reminder that, perhaps, we have not really moved forward since the dark days of 1941-45. Genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur - among others - are a testament to the unwillingness, or inability, of subsequent generations to learn from the horrors of the past. These two photos, I think, speak a thousand words. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hatred, intolerance, bigotry and prejudice are still very much with us, and there are still lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. </span></div>
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-49101836005727714622017-01-04T11:05:00.000-08:002017-01-04T11:16:42.246-08:00Queenship in England<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjk1A47BGSfBBnmwCXMgCVPWtdASzKdL2G6MzteuZOn3rHGnm5CeEQHQcN8AeQmnFawfkNnnA-pwjFUqbFsToqF6rzAn_hqDYh7da3fIoxcpWkASBrmm_2SVKvYRfRSLRQvnVIZ0kV6Jk/s1600/qie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjk1A47BGSfBBnmwCXMgCVPWtdASzKdL2G6MzteuZOn3rHGnm5CeEQHQcN8AeQmnFawfkNnnA-pwjFUqbFsToqF6rzAn_hqDYh7da3fIoxcpWkASBrmm_2SVKvYRfRSLRQvnVIZ0kV6Jk/s320/qie.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Happy New Year! I am delighted to inform you that my new book, <i>Queenship in England</i>, will be published on 12 January 2017 by MadeGlobal. The book is currently available on Amazon to preorder on Kindle, and will be available soon in paperback. You can preorder it on Kindle <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MT5OVGK/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483556443&sr=1-5&keywords=conor+byrne">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Queenship in England</i> is a study of the institution of queenship between 1308 and 1485, and examines the experiences of the nine women who occupied the position of queen during that period: Isabella of France; Philippa of Hainault; Anne of Bohemia; Isabelle of France; Joan of Navarre; Katherine of Valois; Margaret of Anjou; Elizabeth Wydeville; and Anne Neville. The book has been praised by Amy Licence, author of <i>Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True Wife</i>, as offering 'an interesting and accessible exploration of medieval queenship in relation to gender expectations', while Toni Mount, author of <i>A Year in the Life of Medieval England</i>, described it as 'very readable' and 'thoroughly researched'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was absolutely fascinating to research and write this book, and I hope you will enjoy reading it. </span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-26803702978077537142016-12-14T15:12:00.000-08:002016-12-14T15:13:34.075-08:00The Tudors and TV: Is There Anything New to Say?<img src="webkit-fake-url://8ab31e07-c2cc-4eae-90df-57f5730571ff/imagejpeg" /><br />
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<img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/1491_Henry_VIII.jpg/220px-1491_Henry_VIII.jpg" width="258" /><img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/HowardCatherine02.jpeg" width="257" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tudor enthusiasts greeted the news of Lucy Worsley's new BBC documentary about the six wives of Henry VIII with excitement. For those of us fascinated by the Tudor period, we cannot get enough of it; we read about it, we watch documentaries about it, we visit the buildings associated with it and, perhaps most of all, we love to talk about it. Admittedly, Henry's tumultuous marriages is a well-worn subject, but the enthusiastic Worsley promised to offer new insights and, for me at least, she has done so in what is, admittedly, a challenging medium: television.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">However, not everyone reacted as positively to Worsley's documentary as others. Last week, an article was published in <i>The Guardian </i>entitled: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/dec/07/six-wives-with-lucy-worsley-henry-viii-history">'Six Wives With Lucy Worsley: Why TV History Shows are for the Chop'</a>, and was written by Joel Golby. In it, he attacked Worsley's documentary as 'awful, tedious history' and 'Game of Thrones without any of the good bits', a rather absurd criticism that, nonetheless, exposes the difficulty that historians face in attempting to strike a balance between education and entertainment, when presenting TV documentaries. In one hour, Worsley was required to discuss and examine Henry's 24-year long marriage to Katherine of Aragon, her experiences of queenship and Anne Boleyn's rise to power, in a way that was both credible and engaging to viewers. Golby's scathing assessment indicates that she failed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Others voiced their criticism of another Tudor documentary on Twitter and in the comments section of the article, although some commentators were rather more positive. One praised Worsley's coverage of 'one of the most fascinating eras.' But Golby's negativity was mirrored in another article published in <i>History Today </i>on 14 December by the magazine's editor, Paul Lay. The title of the piece is <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/paul-lay/television-history-and-its-discontents">'Television History and Its Discontents'</a>, and featured a still from Worsley's documentary, in which she wears Tudor costume.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lay criticised <i>Six Wives</i>, for he suggested that it offered 'unconvincing, cheap looking, historical reconstructions', and because it 'says nothing that we do not know already.' I object wholeheartedly to Lay's criticism, which I believe to be both unfair and untrue. The documentary <i>does </i>offer new insights, and as a biographer of Katherine Howard, I wholeheartedly commend Worsley's decision to present Henry VIII's hapless fifth wife as a victim of predatory behaviour, a view that has only gained acceptance amongst historians in the last decade or so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before then, Katherine Howard tended to be perceived as, in Alison Weir's words, 'an empty-headed wanton', or even, to use the late David Loades's term, 'a stupid slut'. She has been derided for her 'promiscuity' and has been slated as a 'natural born tart' (Alison Plowden). Television documentaries and dramas tended to follow these interpretations: Tamzin Merchant presented Katherine as a nymphomaniac, even a prostitute, in the Showtime television series <i>The Tudors</i>, and even in Dr David Starkey's entertaining documentary about the six wives, Katherine was said to have shown more dignity at her death than she had ever displayed in life. An earlier documentary about the six wives produced this year also focused on Katherine as sexually adventurous both before and after her marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To my knowledge, Worsley is the first to present Katherine as an abused victim in a television documentary. In doing so, she has drawn on the theories of historians such as Retha Warnicke and Joanna Denny to offer a compelling, and more historically accurate, version of Katherine's life than previously seen ever before on television. From this perspective, Lay's criticism is absurd. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is true that there is an abundance of documentaries about Henry VIII and his wives, but is that really a bad thing? Many people are fascinated by the king and his queens, and read as many books as they can about them, as well as flocking to Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle every year, as well as to the numerous National Trust and English Heritage owned properties. I object to criticisms of new documentaries about the Tudors and, in particular, Henry VIII - for contrary to these views, such documentaries <i>are </i>offering new insights and are aimed at audiences who will appreciate these insights, because they are intelligent and engaged viewers who want to learn as much as they can about the period. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps, if the likes of Golby and Lay view such documentaries as redundant, because they offer 'nothing that we do not know already', then they should not watch them, since there are many who <i>will</i> watch them and will learn something new. If either individual can point me towards an older documentary that portrays Katherine Howard as a victim of sexual predators, then I might rethink my views. But until they can, I stand by why I argue in this piece: that even well-trodden subjects can offer something new, which can be documented on television in a manner that is both educational and entertaining. </span></div>
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-65001489964455033912016-12-08T02:48:00.000-08:002017-01-01T07:40:52.077-08:008 December 1542: The Birth of Mary, Queen of Scots<img height="320" src="https://englishhistory.net/images/tudor/maryqosbiographyblack.jpg" width="245" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On 8 December 1542, a princess was born to Scotland. At Linlithgow Palace, Queen Marie de Guise, consort to James V of Scotland, delivered a daughter, who was named Mary; she would be their only surviving child. Six days later, Mary became queen of Scotland, following her father's death on 14 December. It was rumoured that James had lamented that his dynasty 'came with a lass, it will pass with a lass.' It is, however, questionable whether this legend has any truth to it. Mary was the first queen regnant of Scotland since Margaret of Norway (1283-90), who died at the age of seven. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mary's early years at the Scottish court were tumultuous ones, for her kingdom was at war with England. Henry VIII was determined to secure the submission of Scotland, and engaged in what became known as 'the Rough Wooing', in which he sought to effect the marriage of Mary to his son and heir, Edward. The two kingdoms had signed the Treaty of Greenwich in 1543, which agreed to a marriage between Edward and Mary, but the Scots soon renounced it. Mary's mother, the dowager queen, favoured an alliance with France, rather than England, and it was to France that she looked with regards to her daughter's future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Above: Linlithgow Palace, where Mary was born in 1542.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1548, at the age of five, the Queen of Scots departed for France in the company of her four companions - all named Mary - and a sizeable retinue. She was betrothed to Francois, dauphin of France, and could thus anticipate a glorious future as queen consort of France, as well as queen regnant of Scotland. Mary was provided with an excellent education, in which she acquired expertise in dancing and music making, singing, needlework and horsemanship. She later became known as an accomplished poet. However, her language skills were somewhat rudimentary; certainly, she did not possess the linguistic talents of her cousin and rival, Elizabeth. As she grew to maturity, Mary was reported to be beautiful and charming. She was tall in stature, with auburn hair and dark eyes. Her love of France, and her French behaviour and customs, did not necessarily endear her to her Scottish subjects. Lord Ruthven, who was involved in the murder of her servant Rizzio, allegedly feared her wiles that she had developed while spending 'her youth in the Court of France.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mary was trained to regard herself as not only the queen of Scotland and France, but also the rightful queen of England and Ireland, in the event of her cousin Mary I's death. Henry VIII's will stipulated that, should Mary Tudor die without heirs, the crown should pass to her younger sister Elizabeth. However, Catholic rulers such as Henri II of France did not regard Elizabeth as the rightful heir to the English throne, on account of both her religion (Protestantism) and her bastardy (her parents' marriage had been annulled in 1536). From their point of view, it was Mary, Queen of Scots who had the right to succeed Mary Tudor. Naturally, as his son Francois was betrothed to the Queen of Scots, Henri was determined that she should be queen of England.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Mary's first two husbands: Francois II of France (left) and Henry, Lord Darnley (right).</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is this context that explains why 1558 was a crucial year for Mary, Queen of Scots. On 24 April, at the age of fifteen, she married the dauphin in a splendid ceremony at Notre Dame. Seven months later, Mary I of England died. The crown passed to her sister Elizabeth, but France did not recognise the new queen, at a time of war between the two kingdoms. Instead, Mary Queen of Scots and her husband quartered the royal arms of England with those of France and Scotland, in effect proclaiming themselves the rightful king and queen of England. It was a daring move, and it did not endear the Scottish queen to her cousin Elizabeth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Henri II's death the following year meant that Francois succeeded him as king; the sixteen-year-old Mary was now queen consort of France. However her husband, who seems to have been sickly from an early age, died the following year, and it was intimated to Mary that there was no place left for her in France. In August 1561, she returned to Scotland, determined to rule as queen regnant. Occasionally, Mary has been disparaged as a frivolous ruler uninterested in affairs of government or politics, but she appears to have frequently attended council meetings and, moreover, was eager to maintain religious stability. The tensions between Catholics and Huguenots in France were steadily increasing, and culminated in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572. Mary I of England, moreover, had persecuted her Protestant subjects - almost 300 were burned at the stake - while Elizabeth I was responsible for the execution of almost 200 Catholic subjects. Mary Queen of Scots, who had perhaps gained an awareness of the religious violence that threatened to undo France during her years spent there, was determined to secure a religious rapprochement in Scotland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Scottish Reformation had been highly effective, and Mary returned to a country that was embracing Protestantism. However, she managed to hear mass privately in her chapel at Holyrood, although she was criticised by the militant preacher John Knox for doing so. Alongside her religious compromises, Mary sought to secure the recognition of Elizabeth as her heir, should the English queen die without an heir. Elizabeth, who had been the focus of rebellion during her sister's reign, had learned of the dangers in selecting an heir during her lifetime, particularly when that heir was Catholic and the ruler of a neighbouring kingdom. She was also aware that many Catholics, especially on the Continent, refused to regard her as the rightful queen. In view of this, Elizabeth made overtures to Mary but never granted her the recognition that Mary craved.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a queen regnant of Scotland, Mary was eager to marry again. A variety of candidates were proposed, including Don Carlos of Spain, son of Philip II. Elizabeth, for reasons that continue to perplex modern historians, offered Mary the hand of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. The earl was rumoured to be the English queen's lover, and he was clearly greatly inferior to the Scottish queen in status. Moreover, he came from a family of traitors. Mary, offended, declined Elizabeth's offer. The English queen had stipulated that Mary could retain her friendship only by marrying Leicester or an English subject, or by remaining unmarried, and hinted that she might recognise Mary as her heir if she conformed to these conditions. In view of this, Mary's decision to wed Henry, Lord Darnley is explicable. Henry was the eldest son of Matthew Stuart, earl of Lennox, and Lady Margaret Douglas. He was, therefore, a grandson of Margaret Tudor and a great-grandson of Henry VII. He, like Mary, had a claim to the English throne, and it was perhaps in a bid to strengthen her own claim that Mary elected to marry her relative. They married at 29 July 1565 at Holyrood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Henry was at least three - possibly four - years younger than his wife, and events would reveal that he was immature, spoiled, vindictive and arrogant. The marriage was not popular. The English refused to recognise the marriage and declined to refer to Henry as the king of Scotland, a title he was most anxious to enjoy. Elizabeth was enraged by her cousin's activities, and it was reported that there was much 'jealousies, suspicions and hatred' between the two queens, where previously there had been 'sisterly familiarity'. By marrying Henry, a Catholic with a claim to the English throne, Mary had undermined the fragile amity between England and Scotland. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mary's remarriage placed her in a difficult position that was exacerbated by rebellion at home - known as the Chaseabout Raid - and by increasing tensions between her Catholic and Protestant councillors. Her new husband, moreover, was furious by what he perceived as his wife's refusal to grant him the crown matrimonial of Scotland, which effectively meant that his status as king of Scotland was a rather meaningless one. The reign of Mary I of England had evidenced the ambiguities and difficulties of authority and precedence when a queen regnant married. Moreover, Mary's friendship with her adviser David Rizzio, a Savoyard musician, enraged both her husband and the Scottish nobles more broadly. On 9 March 1566, Rizzio was brutally stabbed to death by several noblemen in the queen's own chambers; Mary herself was seized by her husband and was harrassed by Lord Ruthven. Mary was probably shattered by the experience, but her pregnancy meant that she had to focus on her health. On 19 June, she gave birth to a son, James, who would later succeed her as James VI.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mary's growing problems with Henry perhaps led her to collude in plots against him, although it is unlikely that she actively intrigued for his death. On 10 February 1567, her husband was murdered at Kirk o'Field, near Edinburgh. The murder scandalised Mary's subjects and was reported across Europe; Elizabeth I proclaimed herself shocked by what had happened, and quickly admonished Mary for her apparent closeness to the chief suspect, the earl of Bothwell. Mary has often been criticised for her behaviour, but she seems to have suffered a complete mental breakdown. Amid reports that she was depressed, perhaps suicidal, Mary was captured by Bothwell and incarcerated at Dunbar. Having abducted her, Bothwell then proceeded to rape her. In a bid to protect her own honour, as well as that of her infant son, Mary married Bothwell in May 1567. She argued frequently with her new husband and reportedly called for a knife with which to end her unhappy life. Her suicidal tendencies, coupled with her depression and anxiety that had been exacerbated by the abduction, are powerful evidence against the simplistic view that she, besotted by Bothwell, had engaged in a passionate love affair with him and then encouraged him to murder Henry. Eventually, Mary was seized by the confederate lords at Carberry Hill, abandoned by her husband, and was transported through Edinburgh as crowds shouted 'Burn the whore!' She was imprisoned at Loch Leven, and forced to abdicate in favour of her son, James.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Above: Mary's parents, James V of Scotland and Marie de Guise.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At Mary's birth in December 1542, Marie de Guise could never have imagined the turbulence that would characterise her daughter's life, which arose as a result of dynastic conflict, political instability and religious tensions. Nor could she ever have imagined that Mary would be the only monarch in Scottish history to die on an English scaffold, nor could she have envisaged that Mary would be the fourth British queen in a century to suffer that humiliating death. Mary, Queen of Scots' reputation has rarely been positive or even nuanced; traditionally identified as a scheming adulteress, who colluded in her husband's murder, she has also been regarded as a virtuous martyr for the Catholic faith and the rightful queen of England, executed by her barbaric and unnatural cousin, the usurper Elizabeth. Perhaps what should most be appreciated is the difficulties Mary faced in attempting to govern a turbulent kingdom, at a time when queen regnants were viewed with suspicion or were actively disparaged. Elizabeth I proved that a woman could rule successfully and actively, but the difficult experiences of her sister Mary I and her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots provided telling evidence that such success was neither preordained nor necessarily even expected by one's subjects. More recently, historians have come to view the Scottish queen sympathetically, with a more nuanced understanding of the religious, political and dynastic conflict that severely undermined her kingdom and affected her attempts - genuine attempts - to rule successfully. </span></div>
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-47039959088694008072016-12-05T03:01:00.000-08:002016-12-05T03:02:29.294-08:00The Death of Francois II of France<img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/FrancoisII.jpg" width="220" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On 5 December 1560, King Francois II of France died at the age of sixteen years old in Orleans.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> His reign had lasted merely sixteen months, having succeeded his father, Henri II, on 10 July 1559. Francois' health had deteriorated rapidly in the autumn and early winter of 1560. He suffered syncope and seems to have died from an ear condition, although mastoiditis, meningitis and otitis have also been suggested. Inevitably, there were rumours that the king had been poisoned, but these appear to have been unsubstantiated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Above: Mary Queen of Scots was left a widow by the death of her husband, Francois II.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Francois' premature death left his wife Mary Queen of Scots a widow. The former queen of France soon learned that there was no place left for her in the kingdom of her husband's family, and departed for Scotland in August 1561. She survived her first husband by twenty-six years, dying on the scaffold at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587. The teenaged couple had no children together, which meant that Francois was succeeded by his ten-year-old brother, Charles, who became known as Charles IX. The new king's reign was marked by religious turmoil, including the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, which witnessed the slaughter of thousands of French Huguenots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Only weeks after Francois' death, his mother Catherine de Medici, Queen Dowager of France, was appointed regent - or governor - for her young son Charles during his minority. Shortly after this decision, Catherine wrote to her daughter Elisabeth, queen of Spain: 'My principal aim is to have the honour of God before my eyes in all things and to preserve my authority, not for myself, but for the conservation of this kingdom and for the good of all your brothers.' </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Above: Francois II was succeeded by his younger brother, Charles IX (left), who reigned until his death in 1574. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>During Charles' minority, his mother Catherine de Medici (right) acted as regent. </i></span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-66817258308934881212016-11-28T01:19:00.000-08:002016-11-28T01:19:27.272-08:0028 November 1499: The Execution of Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick<img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/George_Plantagenet%2C_Duke_of_Clarence.jpg" width="256" /><img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Isa_neville.JPG" width="198" /><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above: Edward was the son of George, duke of Clarence (left) and Isabel Neville, duchess of Clarence (right).</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">28 November 1499 is one of the darkest days in Tudor history, for it witnessed the execution of Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick. The earl, who was only twenty-four years of age, was the only son of George, duke of Clarence and Isabel, duchess of Clarence. He was, therefore, a nephew of Edward IV and Richard III. After Henry VII's triumph at Bosworth in 1485, the ten-year-old Warwick - whose parents had died in 1478 and 1476, respectively - was incarcerated in the Tower of London. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Tudor dynasty was vulnerable in its early days, and Henry VII's reign was troubled by the emergence of pretenders claiming to be members of the House of York. The two most notable pretenders were Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard of York. Historians have puzzled over whether or not Warwick willingly became involved in Warbeck's conspiracy to seize the throne from Henry VII. Allegedly, both Warbeck and Warwick attempted to escape from the Tower in 1499. Both were tried and found guilty of treason. On 23 November, Warbeck processed from the Tower to Tyburn on a hurdle, where he was hanged.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Five days later, Warwick was executed on Tower Hill. His body was later buried at Bisham Abbey in Berkshire. Contemporaries believed that Warwick's execution was the result of pressure put on Henry VII by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, who were concerned about the situation that their daughter, Katherine, would face in England if she were to marry the king's son Arthur. Jane Dormer, duchess of Feria, an attendant of Katherine's daughter Mary, claimed that Katherine believed that her marriage to Arthur had been made in blood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1541, Warwick's sister, Margaret, was also executed, on the orders of Henry VIII. She was sixty-seven years old and was literally hacked to death by an inexperienced executioner. The Tudors were undoubtedly ruthless in their pursuit of dynastic security, and the actions of Henry VII and Henry VIII towards the Yorkists does not reveal either king in an especially flattering light. Elizabeth I exercised a similarly militant policy in regards to her royal cousins.</span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-37857692344274115452016-11-13T07:23:00.000-08:002016-11-13T07:23:33.508-08:0013 November 1553: The Trials of Queen Jane, Archbishop Cranmer, and the Dudley Brothers<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At London's Guildhall on 13 November 1553, five individuals were tried for high treason: Lady Jane Grey, the so-called 'Nine Days Queen'; her husband Guildford Dudley; his brothers Ambrose and Henry; and Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer was charged with helping to seize the Tower for Jane and of levying troops for the duke of Northumberland's expeditionary force against Mary I (Northumberland himself had been executed in August that year). The beleaguered archbishop allegedly 'openly confessed his crime', although he himself later clarified that he had 'confessed more... than was true'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Guildhall was the venue of several notable treason trials during the Tudor period. Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper, the reputed lovers of Katherine Howard, were tried and convicted at the Guildhall in 1541, while Anne Askew was tried for heresy at the same venue five years later. The five tried on 13 November 1553 proceeded from the Tower of London through the streets on foot to the Guildhall. Lady Jane - or Queen Jane; her exact title continues to rouse debate - was dressed in a sombre gown of black cloth and a black French hood. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The commission was headed by the lord mayor, Sir Thomas White. Eric Ives notes that the commission was 'overwhelmingly Catholic in sentiment', which was surely a calculated move on Queen Mary's part, as a sign of the new order that was to be a feature of her reign. The 'Nine Days Queen' was charged with taking possession of the Tower, alongside her husband, and 'signing various writings'. In short, she had unlawfully usurped the sovereign's authority. </span></div>
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<img alt="Image result for lady jane grey" height="320" src="http://www.ladyjanegrey.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Lady-Jayne.jpg" width="247" /><img alt="Image result for thomas cranmer" height="320" src="http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/images/Cranmer,Thomas01.jpg" width="245" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All five were found guilty of high treason. The four men were sentenced to suffer a traitor's death: hanging, drawing and quartering. Jane was sentenced to be burned alive or beheaded according to the Queen's pleasure. The teenager faced news of her sentence bravely; she was sustained during those bleak months of imprisonment by her devout reformist faith. No date was given for the executions, and it appears that Queen Mary was, at least initially, willing to show mercy to the defendants, with the exception of Cranmer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The outbreak of rebellion in early 1554, however, changed that. Whether or not she was pressured by the Spanish envoys, with the promise of marriage to Philip of Spain, or by her Privy Council, Mary elected to order the executions of Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey, for she feared that her security would be compromised as long as they remained alive and a focus for reformers. On 12 February, Guildford and Jane were executed. Both died bravely. Jane was subsequently represented in cultural works as an innocent victim of her scheming parents, or as a virtuous Protestant martyr. Guildford was viewed with sympathy by his contemporaries, but modern writers tend to depict him negatively as an abusive, weak-willed and vicious adolescent, a portrayal that is essentially fictional in basis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ambrose and Henry, Guildford's brothers, were more fortunate. Ambrose was released from the Tower in late 1554 and went on to serve Elizabeth I as her Master of the Ordnance. In 1561, he was created earl of Warwick. He died in 1590. His younger brother Henry participated with Ambrose in several tournaments held by Philip of Spain, as a demonstration of Anglo-Spanish amity. Henry participated in the Battle of St. Quentin in 1557, where he died. Archbishop Cranmer fared less well. He was tried for heresy in 1555 and went to the stake on 21 March 1556. </span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-72086901114043059872016-11-01T10:36:00.001-07:002016-11-01T10:43:18.283-07:00Women of the Italian Renaissance 1<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Women of the Italian Renaissance: Giulia Gonzaga (1513-1566)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Giulia
Gonzaga (1513-1566) was the daughter of Ludovico Gonzaga, lord of Sabbioneta and
Bozzolo, and his wife Francesca Fieschi. At the age of fourteen, Giulia was
married to Vespasiano Colonna, count of Fondi and duke of Traetto. Their
marriage was destined to be a short one, for Vespasiano died only three years
after their wedding. At the age of twenty-two, Giulia joined a convent in
Naples and was acquainted with the Spanish religious exile Juan de Valdés. Members
of the Italian nobility, including Giulia and her cousin by marriage, Vittoria
Colonna, were admirers of Valdés. Diarmaid MacCulloch has noted that this elite
support meant that ‘there was a ready entry to the courts and noble palaces of
northern Italy [while] Valdesian ideas in turn filtered into the lively world
of humanist discussion in Italian cities’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above: Gazzuolo, where Giulia was born in 1513.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Camilla
Russell has argued that Giulia was one of Valdés’ most prominent dedicated and
enduring disciplines. Her social position, her vast social links and her
personal influence means that she was one of the most important heterodox
figures in sixteenth-century Italy. Valdés’ ideas were appealing to members of
what has been called the <i>spirituali </i>movement,
which was active in mid sixteenth-century Italy. This movement is both
enigmatic and difficult to define. It sought spiritual and organisational
Church reform, and some of its members sympathised with reformed doctrines.
Several of the ideas embraced by the <i>spirituali,
</i>including organisational Church reform and the pursuit of a personal
relationship with God, were gaining currency across Europe. They were familiar
with, and were in some respects influenced by, the works of northern reformers,
including Luther and Calvin. Elements of Calvin’s <i>Institutes</i>, for example, can be traced in the anonymously published
<i>Beneficio di Cristo </i>(1543), which was
the most significant literary product of the <i>spirituali, </i>and has been described by Dermot Fenlon as ‘the most
revolutionary product of Italy’s unaccomplished Reformation’. The <i>spirituali </i>sought the abolition of
superstitious forms of religious practice, while abhorring the widespread
corruption and ignorance of the clergy. However, unlike the northern reformers,
most of the <i>spirituali </i>wished to
remain in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above: Vespasiano Colonna, husband of Giulia (left). Pietro Carnesecchi, Giulia's friend (right).</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Giulia
is also known for her friendship with the humanist Pietro Carnesecchi
(1508-67). Carnesecchi’s beliefs were undoubtedly heterodox, for he believed in
justification by faith alone and viewed the Scriptures and leading doctors of
the Church as the only authorities on matters of doctrine and spirituality,
while rejecting the sacrament of confession and the doctrine of purgatory.
Carnesecchi was investigated by the Roman Inquisition between 1546 and 1567,
and was eventually imprisoned, convicted and executed. The records of his trial
illuminate his religious activities, as well as those of Giulia, who
experienced ‘disquiet’ and ‘contradiction’, perhaps in relation to the
teachings of the Church and those of Valdés, who encouraged her to embrace ‘the
idea of Christian perfection’. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These records are useful, given that Giulia
wrote no religious reflections or treatises of her own (or, at least, none that
survive). She did not explicitly express religious sentiments in her letters,
which contain oblique, cautious references to her beliefs. Certainly Giulia
acknowledged that her beliefs were not orthodox. In June 1558, she wrote to
Carnesecchi saying that she needed to ‘watch out, otherwise she could fall into
the net’ of the Inquisition. Eventually, the letters between Carnesecchi and
Giulia were used as evidence against Carnesecchi during his trial for heresy.
Carnesecchi was certain that his and Giulia’s actions were correct. He wrote to
her in 1557 claiming that ‘there is no doubt that God permits everything, with
just (although to us obscure) reason, and that from everything he will draw his
glory, to the edification and profit of his elect’. The term ‘elect’, of
course, has reformed, specifically Calvinist, connotations. Giulia died in 1566 at the age of fifty-three, the year before Carnesecchi's execution. The timing of her death ultimately prevented her from sharing her friend's fate, or at the very least, a trial for heresy.</span></div>
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-40838083096334785012016-10-24T10:31:00.001-07:002016-10-24T10:31:55.473-07:00The Lost Heir: Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales<img alt="Henry Prince of Wales after Isaac Oliver.jpg" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f2/Henry_Prince_of_Wales_after_Isaac_Oliver.jpg/220px-Henry_Prince_of_Wales_after_Isaac_Oliver.jpg" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Everyone has heard of Charles I of England, who was beheaded in 1649 for high treason. Not everyone, however, has heard of Charles's elder brother, Henry Frederick. This 'faire and strong' Prince of Wales, as described by the prince's chaplain Dr. Daniel Price, was destined to be king of England, but his unexpected death in 1612 meant that the crown passed instead to Charles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Henry was born on 19 February 1594 at Stirling Castle. He was the eldest child of James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark. Nine years later, his father became king of England upon Elizabeth I's death. Henry grew up at Stirling Castle in the care of John Erskine, earl of Mar. The prince was legally separated from his Roman Catholic mother, which caused Queen Anne considerable anguish. Within a year of her son's birth, the queen began to fight the arrangements in place, but she was eventually reconciled both to her husband and to Mar. Henry remained at Stirling until the spring of 1603, the year he turned nine. When his father became king of England, Henry was made duke of Cornwall, to add to his titles of duke of Rothesay, earl of Carrick, baron of Renfrew, lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>Above: Henry's parents, James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">At the age of five, Henry was granted a tutor, Adam Newton, and the learned Sir David Murray was placed in the prince's bedchamber to assist Newton with the education of the prince. Henry soon proved gifted at sports and physical exercise. Upon his father's accession to the crown of England, Henry and his mother departed for England, where they arrived in June 1603; at Windsor Castle, Henry was made a knight of the Garter. This departure from Scotland had been accompanied by family drama. The pregnant queen had insisted that her son be handed over to her, and when she was rebuffed by Mar's mother and younger brother, her anger and despair were so intense that she suffered a miscarriage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Once in England, the prince's household was formed. Sir Thomas Chaloner was made governor, while Newton and Murray were retained as tutors. 141 men and youths resided in the prince's household. The Venetian ambassador was acquainted with Henry at Oatlands Palace in August 1603, and noted: 'He is ceremonious beyond his years, and with great gravity he covered and bade me be covered. Through an interpreter he gave me a long discourse on his exercises, dancing, tennis, the chase'. At the age of nine years old, Henry was already dignified and regal in his carriage. He seems to have been well aware of his glorious destiny as the future king of England, and was determined to demonstrate his suitability for the role.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Henry was interested in the cultural activities that were popular at court. He attended a masque at Winchester in the autumn of 1603 arranged by his mother, and attended her Twelfth Night masques in 1604, 1605 and 1608, as well as attending entertainments hosted by Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury. But his love of sports was renowned. The French ambassador reported in 1606 that, while the prince studied for two hours a day, he 'employs the rest of his time in tossing the pike, or leaping, or shooting with the bow, or throwing the bar, or vaulting'. He was also interested in both the military and navy, and encouraged his friends to send him secret reports on French fortifications.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Henry was also well known for his Protestant faith. The treasurer of the prince's household, Sir Charles Cornwallis, explained that Henry was 'a reverent and attentive hearer of sermons', and believed that financial aid should be given to the poor. He was opposed to Roman Catholicism and believed that recusants should be brought to justice. Somewhat ironically, in view of this, the prince was offered more Roman Catholic marriage proposals than Protestant. As heir to the throne, the subject of Henry's marriage attracted great interest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In June 1610, at the age of sixteen, Henry was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester at Westminster Palace. The ceremonies accompanying the investiture were lavish. James M. Sutton comments that 'this extraordinary quasi-sacramental parliamentary installation was surrounded by a whole year of court festivities that further demarcate 1610 as the signal year in Henry's short life'. The prince was a sight to behold. He was, according to a contemporary writer, 'tall... strong and well proportioned... his eyes quick and pleasant, his forehead broad, his nose big, his chin broad and cloven, his hair inclining to black... his whole face and visage comely and beautiful... with a sweet, smiling, and amiable countenance... full of gravity'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Installed at St. James's Palace, Henry was a major patron of the arts. His musical activities were noteworthy; his household musicians formed the first new group added to the royal music since Henry VIII's reign, and his musical patronage is notable for its Italianate interests, including the employment of the musician Angelo Notari. He collected mannerist paintings from northern Italian and Netherlandish artists, and after he acquired Lord Lumley's library in 1609, was an avid collector of books until his death. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">On 6 November 1612, at the age of eighteen, Henry unexpectedly died of typhoid fever, and was buried at Westminster Abbey on 7 December. His death occasioned widespread grief. Charles Carlton notes that 'few heirs to the English throne have been as widely and deeply mourned as Prince Henry'. The prince's younger brother Charles was the chief mourner at the funeral. Four years after Henry's death, Charles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. It was he, rather than Henry, who succeeded James as king of England in 1625.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>Above: Charles I, brother of Henry Frederick.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The prince's death was lamented by his chaplain, Dr. Daniel Price, in a number of sermons, in which Price stressed that Henry, 'while he lived, was a perpetuall Paradise', 'that blessed Model of heaven'. A large number of verses were written about Henry's passing, including by William Alexander, Joshua Sylvester and George Wither. Prince Henry's Grammar School in Otley (West Yorkshire) and Prince Henry's High School in Evesham (Worcestershire) were both named after the prince. </span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-2092491337202154432016-10-18T02:26:00.001-07:002016-10-18T02:26:39.591-07:0018 October 1541: The Death of Queen Margaret<img alt="Margaret Tudor.jpg" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Margaret_Tudor.jpg/220px-Margaret_Tudor.jpg" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On 18 October 1541, Margaret Tudor, Queen Dowager of Scotland, died at Methven Castle. She was six weeks shy of her fifty-second birthday. Margaret was the elder sister of King Henry VIII of England, and was the eldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. In 1503, at the age of thirteen, Margaret married James IV of Scotland at Holyrood Abbey. Only one of their six children survived infancy: the future James V of Scotland. Margaret's husband was slain at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. She married twice after his death. Her second husband was Archibald Douglas, sixth earl of Angus; by him, she gave birth to a daughter, Lady Margaret Douglas, in 1515. Her third husband was Henry Stewart, Lord Methven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above: Methven Castle. Margaret died here in 1541.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Margaret's last years were not necessarily happy ones. Her son, who became king in 1513, differed with her over foreign policy, for Margaret favoured close ties with England, her home country, whereas James elected to renew the French alliance. Margaret seems to have hoped that England and Scotland would unite in marriage, as she had done by marrying James IV. It was anticipated that her son would marry Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, and Margaret's niece. This was fated never to take place, and James V went on to marry Madeleine of France in 1537.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Margaret was particularly unhappy in her third marriage, to Lord Methven. She regularly wrote to Henry VIII complaining of Methven's love affairs and her debts. Margaret wished to divorce her husband, but she was blocked in doing so by her son. In late 1537, she attempted to escape to Berwick, but was intercepted. Madeleine of France had died earlier that summer, and James went on to marry Mary of Guise, by whom he had a daughter, Mary Queen of Scots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is clear that Margaret was lonely during her final years. She had little influence with her son, and her relationship with her husband was acrimonious. Henry VIII refused to invite her to England and was content to ignore her. At Methven Castle, the dowager queen suffered a stroke. She asked that her valuables should go to her daughter Margaret Douglas, but James ignored his mother's wish and her goods reverted to the crown. She was buried in St. John's Abbey in Perth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although Margaret's marriage to James IV, ultimately, failed to secure peace between the warring kingdoms of England and Scotland, her great-grandson James VI of Scotland's accession to the throne of England in 1603 brought the conflict between the two kingdoms to a close.</span></div>
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-75992983364555111272016-09-26T10:29:00.001-07:002016-09-26T10:30:38.222-07:00Almost A King: Lord Guildford Dudley<img alt="Lord Guilford Dudley.jpg" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Lord_Guilford_Dudley.jpg" width="164" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the duke of Northumberland, is not usually depicted positively either in fiction or non-fiction. Often, Guildford is presented as a weak-willed, snivelling adolescent who sobbed on the scaffold, or as an abusive sociopath capable of bullying his gentle wife, Lady Jane Grey. In her study of the so-called nine days queen, Hester Chapman described Guildford as <i>'a spoilt, conceited and disagreeable young man</i>', while in her novel <i>Innocent Traitor</i>, Alison Weir portrayed Guildford as a vicious abuser who mistreated Jane on their wedding night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Guildford, who married Jane in 1553, could have become king of England, had events turned out differently. Little is known of him, but it is likely that he was well educated and was brought up to favour the reformist faith. It is possible that he was younger than his wife Jane, who was probably born in the spring of 1537. The Dudleys had a newborn son in March 1537, while one of Guildford's godfathers, Diego de Mendoza, visited England between the spring of 1537 and the summer of 1538. Thus making it likely that Guildford was born in 1537 or 1538 and inherently probable that he was younger than his wife. According to Grafton, Guildford was <i>'a comely, virtuous and godly gentleman'.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the spring of 1553, Guildford married Jane Grey, the cousin of Edward VI. For the Dudleys, the Grey marriage was a notable triumph, for it allied them with the ducal house of Suffolk as well as to the Tudor dynasty. There is no evidence that John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, schemed to marry his son to Jane as part of his plan to have Jane made queen in the wake of Edward VI's death. Traditionally, it has been reported that Jane was bullied into marrying Guildford by her scheming family; some alleged that she had been physically beaten until she had submitted to the will of her parents. These stories are questionable. Certainly there is no evidence that she objected to Guildford on personal terms, although it could be said that the duke and duchess of Suffolk, Jane's parents, might have hoped for a more noble bridegroom for their daughter. After all, rumours had circulated in some quarters that Edward VI himself hoped to marry Jane. Once it became apparent that the king's demise was imminent, the Dudleys surely realised that Guildford might very well become king of England as the husband of Queen Jane, if the coup against Mary Tudor succeeded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above: Lady Jane Grey. After her marriage, Jane referred to herself as 'Lady Jane Dudley'. There is no evidence that she objected to the marriage with Guildford on personal grounds.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately for both the Greys and the Dudleys, Mary Tudor was highly popular in the country at large, and following Edward VI's death on 6 July, the displaced Mary immediately acted to ensure that she was accepted, and then crowned, as England's queen. Jane had arrived at the Tower of London shortly after the king's death, and she was presented with the crown jewels by the Marquess of Winchester. Reportedly, Jane explained that she did not wish her husband to be presented with a crown, because she wished to make him a duke, rather than honour him with the title of king consort. This was not because of personal feelings on her behalf, given that she was <i>'loving of my husband'. </i>Indeed, after her marriage Jane consistently referred to herself as 'Lady Jane Dudley'. On 19 July, the last day of her 'reign', Jane acted as godmother to a son born to one of the Tower guards. The child was named Guildford.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mary Tudor took the throne with triumph. Eric Ives and Leanda de Lisle have explained, in detail, how Mary seized the throne from Jane; whether or not she should be viewed as the rightful queen and Jane the usurper, or vice versa, continues to be disputed. On 22 August, Guildford's father, the duke of Northumberland, was executed. Three months later, both Jane and Guildford were tried and found guilty of treason, but the queen made known her wish that the two prisoners should be spared death. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion in early 1554, which involved Jane's father, sealed the fates of both Jane and Guildford. Both wrote letters to the duke; Guildford signed himself <i>'youre lovyng and obedynent son'</i>, while Jane described herself as <i>'youre gracys humble daughter Jane Duddley'. </i>On the day of their execution, 12 February 1554, it is reported that Guildford wished to see Jane one last time, <i>'desiring to give her the last kisses, and the last embrace</i>'. Jane refused, however, because <i>'their sight would increase the misery in both, and bring much more suffering</i>'. After their deaths, Jane believed, they would <i>'live perpetually joined in an indissoluble bond'.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Evidence suggests that Guildford, at the age of only fifteen or sixteen, went to his death with dignity. He made a short, unrecorded speech on the scaffold and prayed without losing control of his emotions. No mention, in this contemporary account, of Guildford's supposed sobbing in the moments before his execution. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lord Guildford Dudley has traditionally been viewed as a weak-willed, vicious adolescent, who was loathed by his gentle, victimised wife Lady Jane Grey. There is no evidence of this, and the couple's closeness and loyalty to one another emerges from the sources even during the last hours of their lives. Had the events of the summer of 1553 gone differently, had Jane been blessed by fortune, Guildford could have become king of England as the husband of Jane I. It was not to be, and history has not been kind to him in the centuries since his passing. </span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-77564159594437432462016-09-04T05:37:00.001-07:002016-09-04T05:38:37.973-07:0024 September 2016: An Evening with the Authors<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Madeglobal Contact Form" height="320" src="https://www.madeglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/madeglobal_keyboard-150x150.jpg" width="320" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An exciting event will be taking place in London on Saturday 24 September 2016. Made Global Publishing are hosting "An Evening with the Authors" at the Venue in Malet Street. Not only can you meet a wide range of authors who will be discussing their latest research and projects, but you can discuss publishing your work with Made Global Publishing. This event, therefore, is perfect for aspiring authors, particularly those writing history or historical fiction. Made Global Publishing, however, are also branching out and authors writing modern fiction are welcome to get involved.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There will be a professional photographer, breakout question and answer panels, and a bar available. For those unable to attend the event, it will be live streamed, with an opportunity to ask questions. However, if you live in the UK then definitely consider coming down for the day, it really is a once-in-a-lifetime event.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In all, nineteen authors will be involved. They are: myself, Adrienne Dillard, Alan Wybrow, Amy Licence, Beth von Staats, Clare Cherry, Claire Ridgway, Derek Wilson, Gareth Russell, Heather Darsie, Hunter S. Jones, Jane Moulder, Kirsteen Thomson, Kyra Kramer, Melanie V. Taylor, Philip Roberts, Sandra Vasoli, Sarah Bryson, Samantha Morris, and Toni Mount; as well as Made Global's CEO, Tim Ridgway. The authors have, between them, covered a wide range of topics relating to the medieval and Tudor era, including Henry VIII and his court; George Boleyn; Katherine Howard; the Borgias; Anne Boleyn; Thomas Cranmer; Edward VI; and Katherine Carey. Moreover, topics will also include Tudor art; palace architecture; historical fiction; and a live performance of Tudor music. There really is something for everyone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Image result for edward vi" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Edward_VI_of_England_c._1546.jpg" width="149" /><img alt="Image result for lucrezia borgia" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/1520_Veneto_Idealbildnis_einer_Kurtisane_als_Flora_anagoria.JPG" width="171" /><img alt="Image result for whitehall palace" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Palace_of_Whitehall_crop.jpg" width="200" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Image result for nicholas hilliard" src="http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/sites/default/files/2006ag3042_man_hilliard.jpg" height="200" width="161" /><img alt="Image result for wars of the roses" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Battle_of_Barnet_retouched.jpg" width="162" /><img alt="Image result for henry viii anne boleyn" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2eO7Q0pne2hf7coq5B5L5lXX05cc5_TlBcsi-7BGTxD1TgKf_y32NkvAQWenfq6iJgq5uLMJee4hILikXsV4sPRnUl3K-NrcM_ze0jo3FfEInfKNppM0DR5Lhih9YxO-dESQ7bc83BEU/s200/1959582_614322688647680_1182076981_n.png" width="189" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Above (from left): Edward VI; the Borgias; Whitehall Palace; Nicholas Hilliard; the Wars of the Roses; and Henry VIII and his wives are some of the topics that will be discussed.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tickets are still available and can be purchased <a href="https://www.madeglobal.com/meet/">here.</a> The event will begin at 7.30pm and is expected to finish around 10.30pm. You won't regret buying a ticket!</span></div>
Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5203604655093315663.post-36032775813362403412016-09-02T12:30:00.001-07:002016-09-02T13:20:39.460-07:00Anne Boleyn's Hair Colour in Portraiture<img alt="Image result for anne boleyn" src="http://www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/Anneboleyn2.jpg" height="320" width="237" /><img alt="Image result for anne boleyn portrait" src="http://i2.wp.com/royalcentral.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/3381033320_cfb6aa9dd6_b.jpg" height="320" width="230" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mystery surrounds Anne Boleyn's appearance. Contemporaries were ambiguous in their descriptions of the appearance of Henry VIII's second queen: either she was a slim and very beautiful, small-breasted Venus, or a grotesque, deformed creature who had lured Henry VIII into breaking from the Roman Catholic Church and marrying her. Controversy centres, in particular, on the colour of Anne Boleyn's hair. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is worth noting that no surviving portraits of Anne Boleyn date from her own lifetime. At the very earliest, they were painted in the reign of her daughter, Elizabeth I, and may have been based on lost originals; thus dating, at the earliest, fifty to sixty years after her execution in 1536. The standard portrait of Anne Boleyn, a copy of which is now housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London, depicts the queen wearing a French hood, black gown and pearls with a 'B' choker. In most of these portraits, Anne is portrayed with very dark brown or black hair. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When examining these portraits, it is worthwhile to bear in mind the now infamous description of Anne Boleyn put forward by the Elizabethan Jesuit, Nicholas Sander, in his <i>Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism</i>, published in 1585. Sander described Anne thus:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Anne Boleyn was rather tall of stature, with black hair and an oval face of sallow complexion, as if troubled with jaundice. She had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on her right hand, six fingers. There was a large wen under her chin, and therefore to hide its ugliness, she wore a high dress covering her throat. In this she was followed by the ladies of the court, who also wore high dresses, having before been in the habit of leaving their necks and upper portion of their persons uncovered. She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sander presented the queen as a witchlike figure who had cunningly seduced Henry VIII into abandoning his virtuous wife, Katherine of Aragon, and breaking with the true Church to marry her. Leaving aside the suggestion that Anne favoured high dresses - for which there is no other extant evidence - Sanders' description of Anne corresponds strikingly with the representation of the queen in the NPG pattern of portraits, two of which are provided at the top of the page. We can observe the queen's <i>'black hair</i>', her <i>'oval face of sallow complexion</i>' and <i>'pretty mouth</i>'. His description of her raven hair, in particular, corresponded closely to contemporary notions of a witch's appearance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No other contemporary author described Anne Boleyn's hair colour as black. The Venetian ambassador, whose description of Anne's appearance has been viewed as largely accurate, stated that she had <i>'a swarthy complexion</i>'. Simon Grynee, a professor of Greek at Basle, similarly noted that Anne was of a <i>'rather dark</i>' complexion. It is possible that she had black hair, of course, but as Susan Bordo suggests, the notion that Anne Boleyn had raven tresses belongs largely to the work of Nicholas Sander, an author unquestionably hostile to the queen and her daughter, Elizabeth. </span></div>
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<img alt="Image result for anne boleyn natalie dormer" src="http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/22200000/Anne-Boleyn-natalie-dormer-as-anne-boleyn-22238964-999-1500.jpg" height="320" width="213" /><img alt="Image result for anne boleyn claire foy" src="http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/37800000/Claire-Foy-as-Anne-Boleyn-wolf-hall-37890324-2856-4284.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Above: Often Anne Boleyn is portrayed in modern films and TV with black hair. Natalie Dormer (left) in <b>The Tudors</b> and Claire Foy (right) in <b>Wolf Hall</b>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anne Boleyn's hair was almost certainly dark. Cardinal Wolsey allegedly referred to her as <i>'the night crow</i>', probably alluding to her appearance, and as we have seen, at least two other individuals described her as possessing a dark complexion. But it does not necessarily follow that her hair colour was black, and it is possible that it was the influence of Nicholas Sander's hostile description that meant that she was portrayed in portraiture as having black hair. It is important not to underestimate how influential Sanders' work was at the time. As Retha Warnicke explains, it formed the basis for every subsequent Catholic history of the Reformation, and by 1628 it had appeared in six Latin editions and was translated into six other languages. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other portraits depicted the queen's hair as lighter, whether medium brown or even reddish. It is possible that these portraits 'beautified' Anne, so to speak, giving that queens were customarily depicted in artistic mediums with fair hair, because it was associated with fertility, virginity and goodness. But it is also possible that these portraits more accurately represented the queen's true hair colour. </span></div>
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<img alt="Image result for anne boleyn portrait" src="http://images.npg.org.uk/800_800/4/3/mw00143.jpg" height="320" width="244" /><img alt="Image result for anne boleyn portrait" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYn9Q2774p0hDeOxQoeKpfpfNo415CVQlfbTOprx7Ku7cbPBZNXhkcD374Pvn3cmT7l46Y_poE4Cumgcg702y5E9ybPhe_Z92Gh5SAmBeshtPhXtRt2sjo655gNHZ8RX7FiUIP6T3VEZM/s1600/anne+boleyn+9+-+Copy+-+Copy.jpg" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Above: Just how dark was Anne? Two reputed portraits of her that show her with lighter hair.</i></span></div>
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Conorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09815745211426638820noreply@blogger.com0