Queen Mary I's Wedding to Philip II of Spain

July 25, 1554 was a monumental day for England's first queen regnant, Mary Tudor. On the feast of St. James at Winchester Cathedral, the English queen married her cousin Philip of Spain. At thirty-eight years of age, Queen Mary was no longer the radiant beauty of her youth. Her famously beautiful golden-red hair was now streaked with gray, while the first lines were beginning to mark her earnest face. Notwithstanding this, the queen was attired magnificently in 'rich apparel', including a golden robe and a gown of rich tissue embroidered upon purple satin (purple being the colour of royalty) set with pearls and lined with purple taffeta, and a kirtle of white satin embroidered with silver. Mary was accompanied by loyal members of the nobility. Her soon-to-be husband was also splendidly attired in gold. The earl of Derby carried the sword of state before her, while her train was borne by the marquess of Winchester. Notable attendees included the bishops of Winchester, London, Ely, Durham, Chichester and Lincoln.  

The wedding was attended by vast numbers of observers, who 'gave a great shout' of joy upon witnessing their sovereign's marriage. The queen's absence of close male relatives meant that she was given away by the marquess of Winchester and the earls of Derby, Bedford and Pembroke. Following a nuptial mass, Philip and Mary proceeded to the bishop's palace under the canopy of state. The couple spent several joyous days in Winchester following their summer wedding. They then departed for Windsor and then to London, in order for the capital's inhabitants to welcome their queen and new king. Several weeks later, it was confirmed that the queen was pregnant. This could rightly be viewed as the happiest period of Queen Mary's tumultuous life. Sadly for her, however, she did not prove to be with child, and her 'pregnancy' ended in humiliation in the late summer of 1555, when it was confirmed that the queen had instead suffered from 'long-standing menstrual problems and a great deal of wishful thinking' (Weikel). 

Although Mary had joyfully anticipated her wedding to Philip, it proved to be a volatile marriage that was marked by the queen's love and loyalty to her husband on her part and restlessness and exasperation on his part. It is questionable whether Philip ever loved his wife. Almost certainly ambition played a greater role in his decision to marry the queen of England. At her death in the winter of 1558, he remarked that he felt only minor regret. Their marriage was marked by frequent absences from one another, and tragically for both king and queen, their union was never to be blessed by the birth of an heir with which to inherit the crowns of England and Spain.

16 July 1557: The Death of Anne of Cleves

Only weeks before her forty-second birthday, Anne of Cleves died at the manor of Chelsea on 16 July 1557. The second daughter of Duke William of Cleves, Anne had famously been queen of England for only six months, from January to July 1540. She had spent the remaining seventeen years of her life residing at one of her many properties, which included Richmond, Bletchingley and Hever Castle, the childhood home of her predecessor Anne Boleyn. Anne's final years were marked by obscurity, so much so that we cannot be sure of the cause of her death. 

In popular culture, Anne continues to be thought of as the 'Flanders mare', the ugliest of Henry VIII's wives. However, contemporary evidence indicates that she was a beautiful, charming and pleasant young woman, rather than a frumpy, unattractive and dull matron. Even the French ambassador, who wrote disparagingly of her costume and manners, reported that she possessed 'middling beauty' and was 'of very assured and resolute countenance'. She was reputed to be kind, sweet-natured and polite, qualities which were borne out by the care she showed towards her stepdaughter Elizabeth Tudor and the interest she took in her servants' lives. Indeed, so popular was Anne as queen that an ambassador at court spoke of the widespread regret felt among her subjects that they were to lose 'the sweetest, most gracious and kindest queen they ever had or would desire'.

Although nowadays Anne of Cleves is regarded as the luckiest of Henry's unfortunate queens, she might not have agreed with this verdict herself. It is clear that she regarded the annulment of her marriage with humiliation and shame, and on more than one occasion she attempted to persuade the king to consider remarrying her. In the wake of Katherine Howard's downfall, Anne and her brother, the duke of Cleves, unsuccessfully pressed Henry to remarry her. She greeted Henry's final marriage to Katherine Parr with disapproval, and became depressed when the king did not communicate with her. Henry continued to treat her kindly, and the two appear to have enjoyed a warm relationship following their failed marriage. He subsequently granted her three manors in Kent (Kemsing, Seal and Hever) and continued to assist her financially. She was welcomed at court in 1543 and 1546, but following her former husband's death she desired to return home to Cleves.

Anne continued to feature in important public ceremonies, including the coronation of her former stepdaughter Mary Tudor in the autumn of 1553. However, her later life was marked by hardship and conflict with the government. Edward VI's Privy Council confiscated several of her properties, and an unpleasant household dispute between her servants reached the attention of her powerful brother. It is also possible that her previously close relationship with Queen Mary was damaged by Anne's rumoured involvement in Wyatt's Rebellion in 1554. The Imperial ambassador alleged that Anne 'was of the plot and intrigued with the Duke of Cleves to obtain help for Elizabeth', and whether or not this was true, the former queen was never again invited to court after 1554. Alternatively, this may have been because of Anne's failing health. She spent the last stage of her life at the manor of Chelsea, the former residence of her successor Katherine Parr. She bequeathed her jewellery to her former stepdaughters Mary and Elizabeth. On 4 August Anne was buried at Westminster Abbey, the only consort of Henry VIII to be interred there. 

Anne was praised by Thomas Becon for her 'accustomed gentleness', while the chronicler Holinshed described her as 'a ladie of right commendable regards, courteous, gentle, a good housekeeper and verie bountifull to hir seruants'. Although she spent most of her life following the annulment of her marriage as a private person, she would have preferred to be remembered as queen of England, however briefly she occupied that position. 

12 July 1543: Henry VIII Marries Katherine Parr

On 12 July 1543 at Hampton Court Palace, King Henry VIII of England married for the sixth and final time. His bride was thirty-one year old Katherine Parr, the eldest daughter of Thomas and Maud Parr. Unlike Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour or Katherine Howard, Katherine Parr had not spent time in royal service, although both her siblings had operated in court circles for a number of years. Known as the most married queen of England, Katherine was marrying for the third time.

Although she was not rated for her beauty, Katherine's intelligence, charisma, and deep-rooted passion for the Protestant religion were to become well known at court. She reigned until January 1547, when her mercurial husband died aged fifty-five. Katherine was not the dull, dowdy figure of Victorian historiography. She was not only a devout Protestant but an author, a literary patron, a lover of fashion and a patron of the arts. She enjoyed warm relationships with her three stepchildren and was particularly influential on her stepdaughter Elizabeth.

I recently wrote an article exploring whether Katherine Parr could be said to have espoused feminist ideas in her written works. Of course, it is anachronistic to interpret these opinions as feminist, but Katherine certainly believed with some conviction that women, as well as men, could play indispensable roles in advancing the Protestant faith. You can read the article here. 

6 July 1553: The Death of Edward VI

Above: King Edward VI of England.

July was usually a joyous month in early modern England. Before the advent of the Protestant Reformation, communities across the country participated in joyous summer pastimes that included village ales and games on the green. Edward VI's Reformation, of course, had swept away remnants of England's Catholic past. Yet, to those who remained superstitious, if the weather was anything to go by the early days of July 1553 were not fortuitous. Unseasonably chilly weather augured ill for the welfare of a kingdom that was already precarious. Those in the capital would have been privy to vague reports circulating of King Edward VI's alarmingly 'thin and wasted' condition. Although modern historians have convincingly dismissed the traditional view of Edward as an individual that was sickly from birth, forever close to death, it cannot be denied that the last year of the teenage king's life was agonising and painful. 

Early in the year, the king had fallen ill with a fever and cough that worsened with the passing of time. The imperial ambassador reported: 'He suffers a good deal when the fever is upon him, especially from a difficulty in drawing his breath, which is due to the compression of the organs on the right side'. Although the king's health briefly improved in April, by June his doctors were openly voicing doubts that he would ever recover from what they called 'a suppurating tumour'. Edward's legs became so swollen that he had to lie on his back. He allegedly informed his tutor John Cheke: "I am glad to die".

The end, when it came, came suddenly. Between eight and nine pm on the evening of 6 July at Greenwich Palace, the fifteen-year-old king's fragile life drew to a close. The martyrologist John Foxe later stated that Edward died in the arms of his Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Sir Henry Sidney, to whom he whispered: "I am faint, Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit". Historians have debated what it was that the teenage king died of. The Venetian ambassador had opined that Edward's cause of death was tuberculosis, a view which historians have generally agreed with, although Loach suspects that he may have died of acute bronchopneumonia, which led to a 'suppurating pulmonary infection'. 

Above: Lady Jane Grey (left) and Mary Tudor (right).

Several months earlier, in his "Devise for the Succession", Edward had stipulated that the crown was to pass to the male heirs of Lady Jane Grey, his cousin. As his health increasingly took a turn for the worse, and it remained apparent that Jane would not bear a son anytime soon, Edward altered the wording so that Jane herself could succeed him as queen following his death. Consequently, she was proclaimed queen in the aftermath of Edward's death. Four days after her cousin's passing, she travelled to the Tower of London in preparation for her coronation. It never occurred. Supported by the majority of the former king's subjects, Mary Tudor successfully took the crown and declared herself queen. On 19 July Mary was proclaimed queen by the Privy Council, and she was eventually crowned in October of that year.

Edward VI was king of England for only six years. Given his age upon succeeding to the throne, power was concentrated in the hands of the Privy Council and, more specifically, Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford and later duke of Somerset. Upon Somerset's fall from grace, the earl of Warwick (later duke of Northumberland) wrested control of the Council and was virtual ruler of the country until Edward's untimely death. Historians have debated whether it was Edward or Northumberland who masterminded the "Devise for the Succession", but more recently, it has compellingly been demonstrated that it was the determined king who commanded that his cousin Jane, rather than his sister Mary, should inherit the crown upon his death. In the end his wishes proved of no avail. Mary became queen and the teenaged Jane was executed alongside her husband in February 1554. Edward's reign is best known for the intensity of the Protestant Reformation. Had he lived longer, and wielded power himself rather than being controlled by the likes of Somerset and Northumberland (as he would have done in time), then Edward's reign might be remembered very differently. Instead, he remains one of the more shadowy of the Tudors, a boy king who died before his sixteenth birthday. 

25 June 1533: The Death of Mary Tudor, Queen of France

On a midsummer day in late June, the former queen of France lay dying at her residence of Westhorpe Hall in Suffolk. Mary Tudor, the universally acknowledged beautiful younger sister of Henry VIII, was only thirty-seven years of age at the time of her death. Fiery, charismatic and passionate, Mary is perhaps better known for being the beautiful duchess of Suffolk rather than queen of France, a position she occupied for only three months. The 'white queen', as Mary has sometimes been known, was surrounded by only a few attendants in the gentle seclusion of her Suffolk estate. It is entirely possible that her husband was not at her side in her last hours. 

In her youth, Mary had been described as 'a Paradise - tall, slender, grey-eyed, possessing an extreme pallor'. She was born at the palace of Sheen in March 1496, the youngest surviving child of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. When she was only six years old, her eldest brother Arthur died and her mother followed Arthur to the grave only ten months later. Mary appears to have been close with her brother Henry, later Henry VIII. He was to name his only surviving child after her, a princess born in 1516. 

Mary had been married to Charles, duke of Suffolk since May 1515. Their marriage had scandalised Europe and had outraged King Henry, who was furious with the couple's failure to secure royal permission for their marriage. The couple were fortunate to escape with a heavy fine: by the standards of the time, Henry's honour had been disparaged by his sister's actions, and her husband the duke could have been imprisoned or even executed. Although the king and his younger sister had traditionally been close, their relationship was further strained after 1527, when Henry pursued marriage with Anne Boleyn. Mary was close to his wife, Katherine of Aragon, whom she had known since her early years. As David Loades writes, Mary and Anne 'exchanged insults of a semi-public nature'. Henry's annoyance with his sister's behaviour means that he seems to have failed to mourn her death. He left no comment when informed of her demise, although this reaction is perhaps explained by the fact that he had just remarried and was spending time with his new consort. 

Mary's widower, Charles Brandon, was left with three children: Frances (born in 1517; she married Henry Grey the same year); Eleanor (born in 1519); and Henry (who was to die the following year). Less than three months after his wife's passing, the duke remarried. His second wife was fourteen-year-old Katherine Willoughby. The thirty-five year age difference between the duke and his teenage bride did not pass without comment, but the marriage was a successful one.

In the story of the early Tudors, Mary tends to be overshadowed by her volatile brother and the drama of his six marriages. Yet she was a passionate, intelligent and charismatic woman who was a teenaged Queen of France and who caused considerable controversy when she decided to marry her husband's favourite without seeking royal permission. Two decades after Mary's death, her granddaughter Lady Jane Grey briefly became queen of England, an event that Mary could never have foreseen. 

A 'New History' of Katherine Howard

Writers must always be prepared for the fact that not all readers will enjoy their books, or agree with the conclusions that have been reached. While this can sometimes be difficult to accept, it is in fact inevitable. Historians, in particular, must reconcile this with the fact that history is a contentious discipline. The further one goes back, the more difficult it becomes to ascertain what really happened. It becomes more challenging to discover the truth of the times about which one is writing. Facts are often few and far between, meaning that opinion more than anything else mostly holds sway. 

My full length study of Queen Katherine Howard was published in the summer of 2014 and has proved to be controversial. Reviews of it thus far have been decidedly mixed. Detractors often questioned the appropriateness of the book's title: A New History. What was it about this book, they wondered, that rendered it a new history of Katherine Howard? How could it purport to be original, or innovative, or different? What new conclusions did it reach about this queen, and how did it challenge current thinking about her? Did it unsettle received opinion about her, as it had in fact hoped to do? 

I believe that the title A New History is an accurate one and I would like to set out my reasoning for this. Firstly, the biography is the first full-length biography of Katherine Howard that challenges the assumption that she was an adulterous queen, that is, guilty of the charges for which she was executed in 1542. The majority of modern historians have accepted that she embarked on an adulterous relationship with Thomas Culpeper during her reign as the king's consort. Even writers who questioned whether she was technically guilty of the charges, including David Starkey and Antonia Fraser, eventually concluded that she certainly possessed intent to commit what amounted to treason, in the eyes of the law. In modern times, Professor Retha Warnicke is the only scholar to have challenged this notion, in her recent study of notorious women in Tudor England. Elisabeth Wheeler's study of ambitious male courtiers at the court of Henry VIII argued that neither Anne Boleyn nor Katherine Howard were guilty of adultery, although her work has not marketed itself as a biography of either queen. Biographies published by Lacey Baldwin Smith, Joanna Denny and David Loades have all concluded that the queen was guilty of the crimes for which she died.

Secondly, my study questioned prevailing notions about Katherine's portraiture. It should be noted that I now doubt the accuracy of my belief that the above portrait (painted circa 1540) is not of Katherine, as expressed in the biography. I raised the possibility (thus giving credence to Susan James' theory) that the portrait might depict Lady Margaret Douglas rather than Queen Katherine. Since the biography was published, however, I have rethought this idea and concluded that the miniature probably is of the queen rather than her niece-by-marriage. The portrait of an unknown woman housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which features on the front cover of Katherine Howard: A New History, might portray Katherine during her queenship, but I recognise that this is only a possibility. Indeed, on her website Alison Weir noted that the portrait might date to as early as 1522, which would definitively rule out Katherine as the sitter. 

Thirdly, I challenged traditional beliefs about Katherine's actual character and achievements as queen. I dispelled the misleading theory that she was an empty-headed, promiscuous delinquent, and put forward evidence to suggest that she was rather more responsible, level-headed and intelligent than previously thought. However, she was young (especially given that Henry's other wives were, by the standards of the day, mature when they became queen), and might more fairly be considered to have been naive and inexperienced, rather than stupid or lacking in wit. I also indicated that her relationship with her stepdaughter Mary Tudor might have been less fraught than previously thought. Certainly, it cannot now be doubted that Katherine was an effective intercessor and sought to act as patron to her ambitious and large family. 

As suggested in this blog post, there are aspects of the biography that I now disagree with. But that is the point of working in the field of history: it is constantly open to reinterpretation and historians are happy to reconsider conclusions that they previously reached. I appreciate reviews and feedback on my work. I hope, in this blog post, to have put forward a compelling argument for why I believe my biography deserves its title of A New History. In the end, the most potent reason for this is because the traditional notion of Katherine Howard as an adulterous wife must now be challenged and, at the very least, doubted. As John Weever noted in his work of 1631, like her cousin and predecessor Anne Boleyn, Katherine was most likely a victim of 'false suggestions' that reached the ears of her suspicious husband Henry VIII, who was known to have been 'unconstant in his affections'. 

4 June 1550: The Wedding of Robert Dudley and Amy Robsart

Above left: Lord Robert Dudley, later earl of Leicester.
Above right: Portrait of an unknown woman, c. 1550, thought by some to be Amy Robsart.

On 4 June 1550, Robert Dudley married Amy Robsart at the royal palace of Sheen. The couple were both several days short of their eighteenth birthday, Amy celebrating her birthday on 7 June and Robert celebrating his on 24 June. Amy's father had made a marriage contract on 24 May with Robert's father John Dudley, earl of Warwick and later duke of Northumberland. In it, Robsart granted his daughter and her husband an annuity of £20 per annum until they inherited the Robsart estate after his and his wife's death. Warwick obtained for his son and daughter-in-law the lands of Coxford Priory. While Warwick might have hoped for a more ambitious marriage for his son, the marriage was beneficial in that it strengthened the earl's influence in Norfolk. As Simon Adams has written, 'the two estates combined would make the couple major figures in the county'. 

Born in June 1532, Amy was the daughter of Sir John Robsart and his wife Elizabeth. Her father was a Norfolk landowner and she was probably born at Stanfield Hall in Norfolk. Robert was the fifth son of John Dudley (1504?-1553), an ambitious nobleman who became earl of Warwick and later duke of Northumberland. Robert was reputed to be gifted at languages and writing and, after growing up in the court of Henry VIII, served as a companion to the teenage king Edward VI. He was handsome, charismatic, flirtatious, outspoken and charming. 

Historians have conjectured that Robert and Amy probably met during the campaign against Ket's Rebellion in 1549, when the earl of Warwick and his sons stayed near Stanfield, Amy's family residence. Evidence suggests that the young couple fell in love and decided to marry in their passion for one another. William Cecil disapprovingly remarked of the union: 'Carnal marriages begin in joy and end in weeping'. 

On their wedding day, the couple were honoured by the attendance of Edward VI, the twelve-year old king of England. Scarce evidence survives of their married life together. We do not know if they were happy with one another after the initial passion of their courtship. At the time of the young king's death in 1553, Robert and Amy were residing at Somerset House, the former residence of the disgraced Earl of Somerset. That year, Robert was imprisoned in the Tower of London by Mary I on account of the support he gave for Lady Jane Grey's usurpation. His father was beheaded in August 1553, but Robert was fortunate enough to escape this grisly fate. Amy is known to have visited him while he was incarcerated in the Tower. Only in 1557, with the death of her mother (her father had died in 1554) was Amy able to inherit the Robsart estate. 



Above: Elizabeth I acceded to the throne in 1558.

Elizabeth's accession in 1558, however, can be viewed as effecting a turning point in the Dudleys' marriage. As is well known, Robert Dudley was an intimate favourite of the new queen, and spent considerable time at court. Amy did not accompany her husband to court following Elizabeth's accession, but spent her time at Throcking, Hertfordshire. By December 1559 she had departed for Cumnor Place, Berkshire. Nine months later, on 8 September, she was found dead at the foot of a pair of stairs. Mystery surrounds the events of her death. It is still debated today whether she was murdered, suffered an accidental death, or committed suicide. According to contemporary evidence, Amy's death caused 'grievous and dangerous suspicion, and muttering' in the country.


Above: Engraving of Cumnor Place. 

On 4 June 1550, however, all of this was well in the future. Evidence suggests that Robert and Amy's marriage was a love match. Tragically, their marriage was not fated to be a long-lasting one.