Whether you know me personally or not, if you’re listening to the podcast you’re probably not surprised to hear I LOVE the Six Wives! I loved seeing the new musical SIX in London and in New York. I love the television specials. I fell in love with history and the Tudors and began my obsession with Anne Boleyn watching the BBC production from back in the seventies (rebroadcast on PBS here in the US). I am a big six wives fan.
It makes sense, then, that I wrap up my focus on books by looking at books about the Six Wives of Henry VIII. I decided to choose a book for each wife. The publication dates span more than 100 years, with the earliest book published in 1896 (!) and the most recent in 2014. Even 2014 feels like a long time ago, so I might have my next project identified!
My criteria was that the book focus on the wives instead of the husband—he makes appearances, of course, and inserts his larger than life body and personality into the books just as he did into his marriages. But for the most part, Henry is placed in a supporting role, the husband that brings this fascinating group of women together. So let’s meet the six wives through six authors’ views of them.
Amy License, The Six Wives and Many Mistresses of Henry VIII: The Women’s Stories (pub date 2014) and Katherine of Aragon
Amy License examines each of the Six Wives in detail. Where her book stands out apart from the others is in her focus on the mistresses. Contrary to the commonly held perception that Henry VIII was actually a bit of a prude and had only a handful of mistresses, License maintains that Henry had several mistresses and was simply good at covering his tracks. We know about Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn not because they were the only ones but because they had unique experiences: Bessie Blount bore the king a son, and he fell in love with and married Mary Boleyn’s sister. Otherwise, License maintains, we wouldn’t know as much as we do about them either
What did this mean for Katherine of Aragon? It means she spent more time than we thought knowing her husband was sleeping with other women. That means Katherine was dealing with that knowledge during all those tragic lost pregnancies. License looks carefully another event in Katherine’s marriage to show us a more complicated side of Henry’s first wife. Early in the marriage, Katherine became pregnant and then in January 1510 lost the baby at about seven months. But when her stomach remained round and full, Katherine allowed herself to be convinced she was still pregnant with the “other twin.” She went into confinement, only to emerge in public three months later with no baby but several weeks pregnant. So either she had sex against doctors’ advice and the church’s guidelines OR she knew she wasn’t pregnant and was actively deceiving her father, her people, and possibly her husband. Katherine was willing to take the steps necessary to make things happen. She was devout, and was a loving wife, and she was going to do anything she could to make sure she and Henry had a successful marriage and a son.
Karen Lindsey, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived (pub date 1995) and Anne Boleyn.
Lindsey’s book is a self-proclaimed “feminist reinterpretation” of Henry’s wives, so of course I’m looking at her descriptions of Anne Boleyn. After all, Anne Boleyn is the one most often labeled as a “feminist.” Lindsey applies her desire to open up our interpretation to all the wives, considering them not as victims or home wreckers but as lively, intelligent women doing their best to survive in a dangerous court and married to the most dangerous member of that court. Lindsey examines the way Anne Boleyn caught Henry’s eye and catches us in her spell as well.
Anne Boleyn is the most well-known, recognizable, loved, and hated of the wives. Her marriage to the king lasted just about three years, but it’s the time leading up to that where so many of the controversies arise. Lindsey shares a version of Anne as woman who was approached by the most powerful man in the country who wanted her to go to bed with him. He was stunned when she says no. She tried to walk away. He pursued her. She could not escape from his lust, so she turned it into a way of gaining power for herself. She was not the leader in Henry’s actions to find a new wife after Katherine was unable to bear him a son. Threatened by the king’s power, she was trying to protect herself. Lindsey describes Anne as ultimately successful even though she is sacrificed on Henry’s altar to himself: “Like the falcon she chose as her emblem, she was a wild creature, used, curtailed, but never truly tamed; she was a sexual woman whose vitality belonged only to herself. For years, Henry tried vainly to contain that vitality; finally, unable to mold it to his purposes, he killed her.”
Sarah Tytler, Tudor Queens and Princesses, (originally published in 1896; my edition pub 1993) and Jane Seymour
This book is certainly a throw-back, originally published more than 100 years ago. For a bit of context, Tytler’s book The Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen was written about her queen: Victoria. Tytler refers regularly to one of the benchmark publications about women in power, Agnes Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England from 1840. Tytler provides us an opportunity to see the way these remarkable women have been seen through history. Tytler includes chapters on Elizabeth Tudor, Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York, Margaret Tudor, and Mary Tudor. The ends the book with a chapter about Queen Mary I, the first crowned Queen of England. In between, she gives us a profile of the six wives.
In discussing Jane Seymour, Tytler points out that Henry VIII was remarkably unable to learn from his experience—once again marrying a wife’s lady-in-waiting. She points out the “unseemliness” in Jane’s marrying the king so quickly after the violent death of Anne Boleyn. But Tytler also raises the question of how much of Jane’s decisions were a response to “a royal tyrant’s despotic will, as well as the dread of losing his fleeting favor.” This way of explaining Jane’s willingness to become betrothed to the king the day after his previous wife’s death and to marry him before two weeks passed makes Jane herself more sympathetic. Overall, Tytler is extremely sympathetic to Jane Seymour, even repeatedly describing her as beautiful—an attitude not shared by her contemporaries. She reinforces the notion of Jane being Henry’s favorite and most loved wife by reminding us of his wish to be buried alongside her. Whether she was really his favorite wife or just died before she outlived his affection is something Tytler doesn’t consider.
Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, (pub date 1991) and Anne of Cleves
Alison Weir is a popular and prolific writer and Tudor times. Weir has stated that, as she has continued to research, she has drawn different conclusions from those reached in her earlier works. So she might not write today, as she did in this book, “Thus, we will see that Katherine of Aragon was a staunch but misguided woman of principle; Anne Boleyn an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance; Jane Seymour a strong-minded matriarch in the making; Anne of Cleves a good-humored woman who jumped at the chance of independence; Katherine Howard an empty-headed wanton; and Katherine Parr a godly matron who was nevertheless all too human when it came to a handsome rogue.” I include it because this determination to flatten the personalities and complexities of these women and reduce them into near stereotypical (and sometimes fully stereotypical descriptions) has shaped our understanding of them for years. The one description that allows for a wife to be an interesting human being is that of Anne of Cleves. So let’s see how she is portrayed here.
Weir unfortunately embraces the notion that Anne of Cleves was actually ugly, that Holbein had “cunningly mispresented” her, and that her ugliness meant Henry hated her on sight. This conclusion disregards the contemporary descriptions of the first meeting with Henry dressing up as a lowly messenger to surprise his future bride, bursting in on her and trying to kiss her. Anne thought the guy dressed as a lowly messenger was a lowly messenger and recoiled. Henry took this personally, was horribly offended, and never forgave her. By not including this version of the first meeting, Weir reduces Anne to her looks. Weir does recognize Anne’s good sense in accepting Henry’s terms when he decides to end the marriage. Anne was able to flatter the king about her personal loss in no longer being his wife while happily accepting the new role he offered her. Weir describes her conduct following Henry’s next marriage as “exemplary,” and it enabled her to remain in Henry’s favor until his death.
Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII (pub 1992) and Katherine Howard.
Lady Antonio Fraser has lofty British credentials: she is a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honor, Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She’s a very well respected author of biographies and other historical books, as well as novels and detective fiction. In taking on the stories of the wives of Henry VIII, she adopts a generally sympathetic view. She shares some of the less attractive features of the women, but with such fairness that it makes them more complete. Taking on the stereotypes that have shaped early discussions, including Betrayed Wife, Temptress, and so on, Fraser counters that “there are elements of truth, of course, in all of these evocative descriptions, yet each one of them ignores the complexity and variety in the individual character. In their different ways, and for different reasons, nearly all these women were victims, but they were not willing victims. On the contrary, a remarkably high level of strength, and also of intelligence, was displayed by them at a time when their sex traditionally possessed little of either.”
How does Fraser treat the youngest woman in the story, who had so little time to develop or display a personality? Katherine was from a lesser branch of the Howard family tree, and she had been brought up without advantages of education or good associations. When she came to court and Henry fell for her, it was Katherine’s entire family who decided that past indiscretions, whatever they were, should be left in the past. The king was besotted with his young bride and showered her with affection and gifts. Katherine was not in love with the king in a romantic way, but rather felt a “bedazzled reverence” for him and a gratitude for his generosity. The oft-reported image of Katherine and Anne of Cleves dancing together while the king stomped off to bed sums up the time: Henry was old, his new wife was very young, and he was not a good companion for her. She would have been better off sticking with partying with Anne of Cleves, but unfortunately she entered into some kind of relationship with Thomas Culpepper and her letter ending “Yours as long as life endures, Katheryn,” was enough to do her in. Katherine might have been a teenager at her death and was certainly no more than 20 or 21. Fraser treats this as a final act in a tragic young life.
David Loades, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (pub 1996) and Katherine Parr.
My final selection is the only one written by a man. I’ve read and really enjoyed several of Loades’s books. He was a professor at several British universities and was a specialist in the Tudor era, writing extensively about individuals, families, and religion. He even wrote Tudors for Dummies! He addresses Henry VIII’s reluctance to have a female heir, shared by his people, as a compelling and real problem of the time—and the driving force behind the marriages. Loades sees each marriage as a political and a personal statement—statements that became less personally powerful the king’s final years. By 1543, Henry was enormously fat and in terrible health. He was devastated by Katherine Howard’s betrayal. It’s not clear how he selected his final wife; as Loades points out, she certainly did not seek the king’s attention, as she was planning to marry Thomas Seymour. But the king had other plans, and Katherine agreed, once more, to marry for duty.
Katherine Parr was the most experienced wife to marry Henry VIII—he was her third husband. She wrote to Seymour that she felt God had directed her to marry the king, and she was determined to do God’s will. She had strong evangelical views, and she was willing to discuss and even debate them with the king. She was the first Queen of England to publish a book while queen: Prayers or Meditations. She also wrote a book with more radical religious views, Lamentations of a Sinner, but she did not publish it until after Henry’s death. Her religious beliefs concerned Gardner and Norfolk, who wanted to nurture Henry’s still Catholic-leaning inclinations. They tried to turn the king against his Katherine, but she found out, deferred to his wishes and his counsel, and rescued the relationship. Henry’s confidence in Katherine was so strong that he named her Regent when he tried one final time to conquer France—she was the first wife he named Regent since Katherine of Aragon. Loades sees a change in Katherine after her time as Regent, with her views becoming stronger and her religious beliefs becoming more pronounced. By Christmas of 1546, the king was ill so Katherine spent the holiday with his children at Greenwich while Henry remained at Westminster. He died at Whitehall in January 1547. Katherine was finally able to marry for love, which she did just six months after the king’s death.
I get the feeling that Henry VIII would describe his life with himself at the center, as the sun, with other people rotating around him, including these six women. But I think that in fact, the women had the real light—the intelligence, courage, determination, compassion, and abilities that created the power of Henry VIII’s reign. They were not just the power behind the throne, they were the power of the throne.
Thank you for joining me to consider six books about the Six Wives!