Many kings had more wives than mistresses and Henry VIII has mistakenly been considered among them. Monarchs including Henry’s father, were famed for their fidelity; Edward the Confessor refused to touch his own wife as he felt it was too sinful. Henry also had at least six mistresses that we are sure of, enough to at least equal his string of wives – Lady Anne Stafford, Bessie Blount, Mary Boleyn, ‘the handsome young lady’ of 1534, William Webbe’s lover and Mary Shelton. One can confidently add to that list Étiennette de la Baume, Elizabeth Amadas and probably Jane Popincourt, Elizabeth Carew and Margaret Skipwith. There were undoubtedly many, many more.
When Henry died, he was a far cry from the young man who had made the maids of honour swoon. His impressive height remained, but his fifty-four-inch waist made him nearly as wide as he was tall. The former inexhaustible athlete now had to be carried around in a sedan chair. He was in constant pain from a variety of chronic ailments; he may have suffered from impotence and he was probably infertile. But this was only in the last ten years of his life.
Readers often forget this dangerous and irritable old man was once described as ‘the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes on’. He was clever, cultured, good-looking and charismatic. He has been portrayed as an unpredictable character, eager to remove the heads of his friends and wives as soon as they displeased him. There are elements of truth in this caricature, but he was also a devoted lover, providing for some of his mistresses well after their liaison had ended and moving heaven and earth to be with the lady he loved.
It has often been repeated that around Francis I’s deathbed, some courtiers were jubilant, declaring that ‘the lady-killer is going’.1 Henry was not judged so. His subjects were in fear of him, but also loved him. He remained popular throughout the country, loved for his childlike enthusiasm and
nor would any of them endure hearing any thing disrespectful of the King, through the honour they bear him; so that the most binding oath which is taken by them is that by which ‘the King’s life’ has been pledged.2
He was also, despite his numerous affairs, not considered a ‘lady-killer’ as he was reasonably discreet.
He seems to have, in the latter half of his reign, mistaken his attraction to a woman for a legal right to marry. He married five of his wives mainly because he was attracted to them. When they no longer appealed, he felt that his conscience was telling him that he was not truly wed. In an age where marrying for love was considered madness, a prince was expected to have a dutiful wife and beautiful mistresses, and Henry did so for the first eighteen years of his reign. Yet he felt that without love, or at least the possibility of it, there was no marriage. He was a devout man who seems to have considered adultery to be sinful, but believed that his actions were beyond fault; therefore if Henry wanted another woman, it was probably his wife’s doing. Blaming the queen made him feel less guilty about his actions.
Edward Hall reports Henry as saying that ‘if I know a man which liveth in adultery, I must judge him a lecherous and carnal man’.3 Yet Henry VIII conducted many affairs throughout his first two marriages, until he was forty-six years old. One criticism that has been levied at Henry time and time again is ‘hypocrite’. He condemned his sister Margaret for divorcing her husband to marry the person she loved, yet he did the same soon afterward. He was an idealist who expected immediate gratification, but he also genuinely believed himself to be right in almost all matters.
We have no evidence of Henry feeling that he had ever committed a sin; all the tragedies of his life were God’s punishment for somebody else’s offences – the Pope for giving permission for him to marry his brother’s widow, Anne Boleyn for bewitching him, his ministers, each in turn, for implementing his policies yet not always succeeding. His famously flexible friend, his conscience, seems to have disliked the idea of adultery. All sex outside marriage was against the law of the Church and the laws of the land, yet it was the norm at court. He executed two of his wives on suspicion of a crime he had committed: adultery.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely – which is an apt description of Henry as a king and as a lover. Initially, in his first relationship with Katherine of Aragon, he was eager to please, was loving and chivalrous, but he changed over time. He became well aware of what he was able to achieve, and ‘Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, “What doest thou?”’4 This left his queens and his mistresses concerned for their positions. And annulling his marriage to wed his wife’s servant – three times – certainly gave a new spin to the term ‘lady-in-waiting’ and changed the dynamics of the court.
In the seven years prior to his death, Anne Stafford, Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn had all died. He had seen four of his wives go before him, including the two he had dispatched before their time. Mary Shelton, Anne of Cleves and Katheryn Parr had all survived him. Only the mistresses he did not choose to marry left Henry’s bed completely unscathed. Of all the kings in history, Henry VIII of England must have been one of the most dangerous to have fall in love with you.
Bessie Blount benefited hugely from bearing him a son, but does not seem to have attempted to secure power at court; Mary Boleyn had great opportunities after both her royal affair and his relationship with her sister, but does not seem to have been tempted to advance herself. Anne Stafford attracted scandal with her liaison with the king, but did not care much for her reputation either, later being prosecuted for adultery with a man who was low-born, even if he was very close to the king. Jane Popincourt was not averse to notoriety, continuing her relationship with a French duke after she had finished with Henry VIII. Mary Shelton continued to be linked to other men; Elizabeth Brooke, Anne Bassett and Katherine Willoughby seem not to have been affected much by his interest. Mary Howard and her family suffered for the mere suggestion that he would be attracted to her, when it was used as evidence against her father and brother; she was left to bring up the children of the executed earl of Surrey. Surprisingly, out of the lovers he did not go on to marry, only Elizabeth Amadas, the ‘witch and prophetess’ seems to have been left bitter, and this was probably due to her husband leaving her as much as to the king’s behaviour.
Those he wished to marry did not fare so well. Katherine of Aragon, arguably his first love, was rejected once she was no longer attractive. He had defied Christendom for Anne Boleyn, but she was dispatched for reasons which are still unclear. Jane Seymour also suffered death through her relations with Henry, although in the noble act of bearing a future king. Anne of Cleves was left with limited opportunities to marry or return to her homeland and Catherine Howard was executed, probably before her twentieth birthday. Katheryn Parr is seen as the triumphant survivor, but after three and a half years of trying to keep Henry’s love, she was drawn into the bitter factional fighting of Edward VI’s reign, dying in childbirth months before her fourth husband was executed. It was clearly better, if only in the reign of this English king and no other, to be a mistress than to be a queen.
King Henry’s treatment of women cannot have failed to influence his two daughters, both of whom grew up to have unhealthy attitudes to men. Mary lavished all her repressed and rejected love onto her husband, Philip II of Spain, leaving many deeply concerned that England would become a Habsburg province. Although dutiful, Philip did not reciprocate her strong feelings. Elizabeth never married despite the ambiguity as to who would succeed her, leaving the country in danger of civil war. After Henry’s treatment of their mothers and stepmothers, this is unsurprising.
Elisabeth-Charlotte, duchesse d’Orléans and sister-in-law of Louis XIV, wrote:
I believe that the histories which will be written about this court after we are all gone, will be better and more entertaining than any novel, and I am afraid that those who come after us will not be able to believe them and will think that they are just fairy tales.5
This sums up the court of Henry VIII well. His story has been portrayed in fictional television programmes, films and books many times with many embellishments, but there is no need for invention – the bare facts are enthralling enough.
Unlike a queen, a royal mistress had no clear status, no security and no guarantees about her future. She had to constantly work to keep her position – to be the wittiest and the prettiest, to keep her lover interested once the initial lust had faded. Everything in her life was dependent upon his whim and so she had to be sure that she pleased her king at all times. He was expected to have affairs and could choose anyone he wanted, so his lover’s position was under constant threat from others – but it was a prize worth pursuing. The influence of the women close to the king, both queens and queans, should not be underestimated. We are all swayed by the opinions of those we hold dearest.
However, it is not the political importance of these women that drew the author to write their stories, but their personalities and their own captivating tales. The women in this book, queens and mistresses, short-term pursuits or long-term lovers, were completely at the mercy of King Henry VIII. Despite this, many of them showed great resilience, determination and character and defied the conventions of their age. These ladies carved out extraordinary lives in a man’s world, and emerge clearly through the mists of time as individuals worthy of our attention. The mistresses of Henry VIII were learned or illiterate, plain or pretty, younger or older, spirited or submissive, but they were, without exception, worthy of the attentions of the most intriguing king in English history.