Bastard Prince Read online

  Henry VII made stalwart efforts to ensure the security of the succession.3 During the negotiations for Katherine of Aragon’s marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, the continued existence of Edward, Earl of Warwick, raised sufficient concern to warrant his execution, even though he was safely captive in the Tower. The offspring of Edward IV’s sister, Elizabeth de la Pole, were treated as a serious threat. When the question of who might succeed Henry VII arose in 1503, when Prince Henry was still a child of twelve, Sir Hugh Conway reported:

  It happened the same time me to be among many great personages, the which fell in communication of the king’s grace, and of the world that should be after him if his grace happened to depart. Then, he said, that some of them spake of my lord of Buckingham, saying that he was a noble man and would be a royal ruler. Other there were that spake, he said, in like wise of your traitor, Edmund de la Pole, but none of them, he said, that spoke of my lord prince.4

  The threat would not be extinguished easily. Henry VII secured the return from exile of Edmund de la Pole in 1506 and confined him in the Tower. However, his brother Richard remained at large and would be a thorn in Henry’s side for some years to come.

  In 1513, as Henry VIII prepared for war in France, Richard de la Pole persuaded the King of France, Louis XII, to recognise him as King Richard IV. Henry was sufficiently concerned by the danger that this represented to order the execution of Edmund before crossing the Channel. The Duke of Buckingham, whose own claim to the throne was derived from Edward III, profited little from this ominous example. Amid claims that he intended to usurp the throne, he was executed in his turn in 1521. Henry VIII was all too aware that the only way to secure the Tudor dynasty’s grip on the crown was to produce a viable male heir.

  That Henry VIII chose to make Katherine of Aragon his bride must be seen, at least in part, as a response to this pressing need. Although the couple had been betrothed since 1503, their union was by no means a foregone conclusion. The youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Katherine had come to England in 1501 to marry Henry’s elder brother Arthur, then Prince of Wales. After Arthur’s sudden death in 1502 Henry VII had decided that his interests would be best served by preserving this alliance. After some negotiation it was agreed that Katherine should marry the twelve-year-old Prince Henry as soon as he had completed his fourteenth year on 28 June 1506. Yet as that time approached, Henry VII became increasingly uncertain that this was the best possible match for his only remaining son and heir.

  In 1505 Prince Henry, at his father’s instigation, made a formal protest against the contract made during his minority. In 1506 Henry might describe his betrothed as ‘my most dear and well-beloved consort, the Princess, my wife’, but his father was looking at other possibilities. Once Henry VIII became king in 1509, several questions, not least the important matter of Katherine’s dowry and rival negotiations for a marriage to Eleanor, the daughter of Philip of Burgundy, were simply swept aside.5 After seven years of dispute and delay Henry VIII married Katherine of Aragon just six weeks after his accession.

  At twenty-three Katherine was ‘the most beautiful creature in the world’, still blessed with the fresh complexion and long auburn hair that had entranced observers at her arrival in England. She was also of an age to bear children, something that could not be said of the eleven-year-old Eleanor. Henry’s excuse that the marriage was his father’s dying wish was conveniently difficult to disprove. Shortly afterwards he wrote to his new father-in-law, ‘If I were still free I would choose her for wife above all others’. There can be little doubt that Henry was eager to marry Katherine and chose to exercise his new found authority to settle the matter.

  Henry and Katherine were wed on 11 June 1509 at the Church of the Observant Franciscans at Greenwich. Despite the difficulties created by Henry VII, it was a most suitable match. Katherine was descended from one of the most respected royal houses in Europe and her pedigree would do much to bolster the credibility of the fledgling Tudor dynasty. Henry VIII was fired with the desire to reclaim the English crown’s ancient rights in France; from the outset his attitude was clear. The policy of peace and security followed by his father would not be his, far better was the esteem and respect earned by success in campaigns and the glory and honour that came from dispensing the spoils of war. ‘I ask peace of the king of France, who dare not look at me let alone make war!’ he thundered. Katherine’s support, or more to the point that of his new father-in-law, seemed to place all this within his grasp.

  Katherine’s piety was also a desirable attribute in a queen, encouraging God’s blessings on the realm. When Henry was so determined to seek glory by waging war on his fellow Christians, always a complex moral issue despite appearances to the contrary, her devotional and charitable activities would help redress the balance. It is also clear that the couple themselves enjoyed a warm and mutually satisfactory relationship. ‘The Queen must see this’ or ‘This will please the Queen’, Henry would enthuse. In her turn Katherine bore Henry’s boyish japes with affectionate indulgence. However, it was widely acknowledged that ‘Princes do not marry for love. They take wives only to beget children’.

  The importance of fecundity was evident in Katherine’s chosen emblem. The pomegranate was not just a representation of her homeland, but also a symbol of fertility. Sir Thomas More had good reason to believe that she would be ‘the mother of Kings as great as her ancestors’: Katherine came from a family of five surviving children and her sister Juana produced a brood of six children. At first it seemed as if the queen would have little problem in fulfilling the nation’s expectations. Only four and a half months after the wedding Henry was able to advise his father-in-law that ‘the child in the womb was alive’. That this pregnancy ended with a stillborn daughter at seven months was a disappointment but not a disaster. Such things were not unusual. Katherine and Henry had at least proved their fertility and therefore it was only a matter of time before she conceived again. Indeed, when Katherine wrote to advise her father of the miscarriage, she was already pregnant again.

  It is perhaps no coincidence that the first indication of any infidelity on the king’s part occurs at this time. Sex during pregnancy was generally discouraged as being harmful to the health of the mother and the unborn child. While it is doubtful that every husband followed this recommendation, Henry had more reason than most to be careful of his wife’s condition. However, despite the rumours, it is by no means certain how far, if at all, Henry strayed. In 1510, the Spanish ambassador, Don Luis Caroz reported that one of the young, married sisters of the Duke of Buckingham had attracted the attention of the king. According to the ambassador, Sir William Compton, a favoured companion of Henry, had been seen courting Lady Anne Hastings. Perhaps because Compton was no fit paramour for a duke’s sister it was thought that he was acting on Henry’s behalf.

  The ambassador reported, with some glee, the dramatic scenes that ensued when another sister, Lady Elizabeth Ratcliffe, informed the duke of Compton’s behaviour. Buckingham quarrelled with Compton and the king before storming from the court. Anne was carried off by her husband to the safety of a nunnery and Henry ordered an emotional Katherine to dismiss Elizabeth for her meddling. Henry was clearly angry, but none of this makes it clear whether Compton or the king was in fact the guilty party. Garrett Mattingly suggests that the ambassador was relying on gossip fed to him by one of Katherine’s former ladies-in-waiting, Francesca de Carceres. If this was the case, neither of them was sufficiently close to the centre of things to know exactly what had been going on. Since Don Luis was primarily concerned with demonstrating how much Katherine was in need of his advice and counsel, he was probably all too willing to believe that the incident was more significant than it really was.

  It is possible that Henry did engage in a degree of harmless flirtation with the Lady Anne in the tradition of courtly love. In 1513 her new year’s gift from the king was a suspiciously extravagant thirty ounces of silver gilt. As the third most expen
sive present that year, it was ‘an unusually high amount to be given to one of the queen’s ladies by Henry’.6 The elaborate game of courtly love, with its exchange of tokens and protestations of undying devotion, was a popular pastime at the Tudor court. Enthusiastically played by all of the queen’s ladies and the king’s courtiers, it was not in itself evidence of a serious attraction. Like any game it had rules, which were supposed to be observed. Those occasions when the heartfelt sighs overstepped the boundaries into genuine emotion were cause for anger and recrimination, as Henry Percy found to his cost when his romantic pursuit of Anne Boleyn exceeded accepted limits.

  Although Katherine was exempt, since propriety required that the only man who romanced her was her husband, Henry was a keen player. Yet it is significant that none of Henry’s known mistresses came from families above the rank of knighthood. It was one thing to pay homage to a duke’s sister as an unreachable goddess, but quite another to seduce her. While Henry’s conduct may have encouraged suspicion among the gossips, subsequent events indicate that Sir William Compton’s attraction to Lady Anne Hastings was the genuine article. In 1527 Wolsey drew up a citation accusing Compton of adultery with Anne. Compton apparently took the sacrament in order to disprove his guilt. However, his will belies his protestations of innocence. Not only did he ask for daily service in praying for Anne’s soul, but also the profits from certain of his lands in Leicestershire were earmarked for her use for the remainder of her life.7

  On New Year’s Day 1511 Katherine of Aragon was safely delivered of a son. At only her second attempt she had fulfilled her ultimate duty and provided England with a male heir. The child was ‘the most joy and comfort that might be to her and to the realm of England’. The baby was apparently healthy and there was no reason to suppose that the little prince would not be joined shortly by a host of brothers and sisters. Yet only fifty-two days later the child was dead. The grief and shock of both his parents at this bitter blow was echoed by the whole nation. It can have been of little comfort to Katherine that unlike a miscarriage or a stillbirth, which was universally looked on as the fault of the mother, infant mortality was seen as God’s judgment on both parents for their sins. To make matters worse, this time Katherine did not conceive again for another two years.

  The idea that Henry might have spurned his wife for the pleasures of other women seems an empty revenge for a man who was so desperate to secure a legitimate heir. If he did there is no evidence of it. In contrast to many of his contemporaries Henry was a model of restraint and discretion. Fidelity was not a prerequisite for a king, who generally married for financial and political advantage rather than for love. Nevertheless, Henry is only known to have had a handful of mistresses and never more than one at a time. Given Katherine’s indisposition during successive pregnancies, few would have rebuked him for occasionally seeking solace elsewhere. Exactly how Etiennette la Baume, a young lady from the court of the Archduchess Margaret of Savoy, extracted the promise of a dower of 100,000 crowns from the King of England can only be imagined. Yet until the queen was known to be with child Henry had every incentive to concentrate his attentions on his wife.

  Since Katherine was still only twenty-five, her age should not have been a bar to conception. Jane Seymour was twenty-eight and Anne Boleyn already in her thirties when they conceived. Unfortunately, his grief over the loss of his infant son may have proved too great a distraction. Henry’s relationships all suggest that he was a slave to his emotions. If his antipathy to Anne of Cleves was enough to ensure he could not ‘do the deed’, perhaps his shattered confidence after this devastating loss meant that, despite his best efforts, England still waited expectantly for the much-desired male heir.

  It was in the wake of this latest disappointment that Elizabeth Blount made her formal début at the court of Henry VIII. That she secured an entrée into the queen’s household as soon as she reached a suitable age was a testament to her more than average attributes. Although Henry had been King of England for just three years, his court was rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the most spectacular in Europe. It had long been established that it was the duty of a monarch to spend his money ‘not only wisely, but also lavishly’. Even the parsimonious Henry VII had realised the benefit of extravagant display to make a political point. It might take the young Henry VIII years to earn the kind of reputation enjoyed by seasoned monarchs like Ferdinand of Aragon, but in the meantime he would boast a court to rival the best in Christendom.

  Life was a round of music, dancing and entertainments, with elaborately staged tournaments, spectacular pageants and fashionable Italian masques. The revels were accompanied by some of the finest singers and musicians from England and abroad. The gold and silver on display, the many lavish clothes and the numerous sparkling jewels, were designed to impress. The beauty of the queen’s ladies was especially remarked upon. In June 1512 the ladies of the court, resplendent in red and white silk, danced in an elaborate pageant, featuring a fountain fashioned from russet silk to mark the jousts at Greenwich. At Christmas that year the festivities were capped by the appearance of a fabulous mountain from which six ladies, dressed in crimson satin and adorned with gold and pearls, emerged to dance. In the midst of such splendour it is perhaps no surprise that Elizabeth’s arrival caused no great impact. She was, after all, still very young and engaged in a very junior position. It is unlikely that she would have progressed this far unless it was intended that she would be granted a regular place in the queen’s service as soon as a suitable post fell vacant.

  Her success was probably primarily due to the influence of William Blount, the 4th Lord Mountjoy. Sometimes described as Mountjoy’s sister or his niece, Elizabeth’s exact relationship with him was rather more distant, their last common ancestor having died in 1358.8 However, the two branches of the family had a long history of mutual support and assistance. In 1374 Elizabeth’s ancestor, Sir John Blount, had conveyed a significant part of his inheritance to his half-brother, Walter Blount, the forbear of the Blounts, Lords Mountjoy. In 1456 Elizabeth’s great-grandfather, Humphrey Blount, had fought alongside Walter Blount, later 1st Baron Mountjoy, against King Henry VI’s forces at Ludlow. The present Lord Mountjoy was a trustee of Elizabeth’s parents’ marriage settlement and would be instrumental in ensuring that they were able to enjoy their rightful inheritance.

  An established figure at the Tudor court, Mountjoy had served Henry VII before being appointed Master of the Mint by Henry VIII in 1509. Since he was also the husband of Agnes de Venegas, one of the few Spanish ladies-in-waiting who had remained in England with Katherine of Aragon, he was well placed to smooth Elizabeth’s entry into the Queen’s service. In any case, his appointment as Katherine of Aragon’s chamberlain on 8 May 1512 must have been a significant factor in her continuing success. Since Mountjoy was now the chief officer of the queen’s household it was perhaps no hardship to see that his attractive and accomplished young relative was granted the next vacancy. From Michaelmas 1512 Elizabeth joined the ranks of the queen’s maids of honour, under the watchful eye of Mrs Stoner, ‘the mother of the maids’, at the full wages of 200s per annum.9

  In many respects Elizabeth was ideal mistress material: sufficiently well born to actually meet Henry, sufficiently accomplished and interesting to catch his eye, yet of a status where her prospects would be enhanced, rather than her reputation diminished, by a liaison with the king. Her family, the Blounts of Kinlet, were a cadet branch of an established and extensive family. Originally from Staffordshire, they still enjoyed estates in Balterley and other places in the county which they had held since the fourteenth century. Elizabeth’s great-greatgrandfather, who died in 1442, was described as ‘Sir John Blount of Balterley’. The family had acquired the Lordship of Kinlet in Shropshire through a piece of fortunate misfortune, when all four of the male heirs died without issue. In a grant dated 2 February 1450 Elizabeth’s great-grandfather, was described as ‘Humphrey Blount of Kinlet’.

  The Blounts of
Kinlet were county rather than court. They served their king as sheriffs, escheators and justices of the peace, occasionally representing Shropshire in parliament. However, the local nature of their offices did not make them immune from the tremors of wider concerns. Humphrey Blount earned his knighthood fighting to secure Edward IV’s throne at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. Yet none of Elizabeth’s immediate relatives ever rose above the rank of knight. Prosperous rather than wealthy, Sir Humphrey Blount’s will included a gold collar for his eldest son, Thomas, a gold cross for his second son, John, a gold chain to be sold to pay for masses for his soul and there were a few pieces of plate and several gowns, both furred and velvet, as well as a doublet of red damask. Yet while his two eldest sons both received gilt swords, the youngest son, William, had to make do, not with a sword at all, but a gilt wood knife. Similarly, his daughter Mary was allowed 120 marks towards her marriage. However, this significant sum was not available in ready cash, but represented money owed to him by the Bishop of Durham.10

  When Elizabeth made her début at the court of Henry VIII, the head of the family was her grandfather, Sir Thomas Blount. A man of some local eminence, he had first served as Sheriff of Shropshire in 1479 when he was twenty-three years old. He had earned his knighthood fighting to defend Henry VII’s title to the throne at the Battle of Stoke on 16 June 1487. Never much of a courtier, his appearances were confined to great ceremonial occasions, like the coronation of Elizabeth of York on 25 November 1487; his own interests remained firmly centred on the shires. In 1491 his lands in Shropshire were considered to be worth a respectable £108 10s and he would remain a significant force in county politics until his death in 1524.11

  However, in the winter of 1501, the Blounts must have felt that all the opportunities of the court in London had arrived on their doorstep. The heir apparent, Arthur, Prince of Wales and his new bride, Katherine of Aragon established their household at Ludlow in Shropshire. Sir Thomas Blount’s marriage to Anne Croft, the eldest daughter of Sir Richard Croft, one of Arthur’s principal officers, ensured the Blounts were welcome visitors. Regrettably, the chance was short-lived. On 2 April 1502 Prince Arthur died and Katherine was recalled to London. Yet many of Katherine of Aragon’s enduring memories of her initial time in England would not have been of the London nobility, but of the gentry who flocked to salute her at Ludlow. The Blounts may well have utilised this connection to smooth Elizabeth’s acceptance as a maid of honour in the queen’s household.