Life of Elizabeth of York: (February 11, 1466 – February 11, 1503)

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Arthur Prince of Wales, Edward IV of England, Edward V of England, Edward VI of England, Elizabeth I of England, Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth Woodville, Henry VII of England, Henry VIII of England, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Kings and Queens of England, Mary I of England, Mary I of Scotland, Richard III of England

Elizabeth of York (February 11, 1466 – February 11, 1503) was the first queen consort of England of the Tudor dynasty from January 18, 1486 until her death, as the wife of Henry VII. She married Henry in 1485 after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which marked the end of the Wars of the Roses. Together, Elizabeth and Henry had seven, possibly eight, children.

Elizabeth of York was born at the Palace of Westminster as the eldest child of King Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville. In 1469, aged three, she was briefly betrothed to George Neville. His father John later supported George’s uncle, the Earl of Warwick, in rebellion against King Edward IV, and the betrothal was called off. In 1475, Louis XI agreed to the marriage of nine-year-old Elizabeth of York to his son Charles, the Dauphin of France. In 1482, however, Louis XI reneged on his promise. She was named a Lady of the Garter in 1477, at age eleven, along with her mother and her paternal aunt Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk.

Elizabeth of York, Queen of England

After the death of her father, King Edward IV, Elizabeth’s brothers the “Princes in the Tower” disappeared, their fate uncertain. Although the 1484 act of Parliament Titulus Regius declared the marriage of her parents, Edward and Elizabeth Woodville, invalid, she and her sisters were subsequently welcomed back to court by Edward’s brother, King Richard III. As a Yorkist princess, the final victory of the Lancastrian faction in the War of the Roses may have seemed a further disaster, but Henry Tudor knew the importance of Yorkist support for his invasion and promised to marry Elizabeth before he arrived in England. This may well have contributed to the hemorrhaging of Yorkist support for Richard.

Although Elizabeth seems to have played little part in politics, her marriage appears to have been a successful one. Her eldest son Arthur, Prince of Wales, died at age 15 in 1502, and three other children died young. Her second, and only surviving, son became King Henry VIII of England, while her daughters Mary and Margaret became queen of France and queen of Scotland, respectively.

In 1502, Elizabeth of York became pregnant once more and spent her confinement period in the Tower of London. On February 2, 1503, she gave birth to a daughter, Katherine, but the child died a few days afterwards. Succumbing to a post partum infection, Elizabeth of York died on February 11, 1503 which was also her 37th birthday. Her husband and children appear to have mourned her death deeply. According to one account, Henry Tudor “privily departed to a solitary place and would no man should resort unto him.”

Henry VII entertained thoughts of remarriage to renew the alliance with Spain — Joanna, Dowager Queen of Naples (daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples), Joanna, Queen of Castile (daughter of Fernando II-V and Isabella I), and Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Savoy (sister-in-law of Joanna of Castile), were all considered — but he died a widower in 1509. The specifications that Henry gave to his ambassadors outlining what he wanted in a second wife described Elizabeth. On each anniversary of her death, he decreed that a requiem mass be sung, the bells be tolled, and 100 candles be lit in her honour. Henry also continued to employ her minstrels each New Year.

Elizabeth of York had the distinction of being the daughter of a king (Edward IV), sister of a king (Edward V), niece of a king (Richard III), wife of a king (Henry VII), the mother of a king (Henry VIII), mother of two queen consorts (Margaret, Queen of Scotland & Mary, Queen of France), and the grandmother of two kings and queens (Edward VI of England, James V of Scotland, Queen Mary I of England, Queen Elizabeth I of England), the grand mother and great-grandmother of sovereigns (Queen Mary I of Scotland and her son James VI-I of Scotland and England) and so forth. Actually, many modern royals, including Elizabeth II, trace their line through her daughter Margaret.

Elizabeth of York was a renowned beauty, inheriting her parents’ fair hair and complexion. All other Tudor monarchs inherited her reddish gold hair and the trait became synonymous with the dynasty.

Catherine of Aragon: the bride of two brothers.

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Arthur Prince of Wales, Arthur Tudor, Catherine of Aragon, Henry VII of England, House of Tudor, King Henry VIII of England, Kings and Queens of England, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Prince of Wales

I missed this the other day. June 11th is the date my wife and I were married and it is also the date that Catherine of Aragon married King Henry VIII of England in 1509.

This portrait is either Catherine of Aragon, Mary Tudor (sister of Henry VIII) or an unknown English noble woman.

Henry VII planned to marry Arthur to a daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon, in order to forge an Anglo-Spanish alliance against France. It was suggested that the choice of marrying Arthur to Fernando and Isabella’s youngest daughter, Catherine (b. 1485), would be appropriate and suitable. The Treaty of Medina del Campo (March 27, 1489) provided that Arthur and Catherine would be married as soon as they reached canonical age. Since Arthur, not yet 14, was below the age of consent, a papal dispensation (i.e., waiver) allowing the marriage was issued in February 1497, and the pair were betrothed by proxy on August 25, 1497. Two years later, a marriage by proxy took place at Arthur’s Tickenhill Manor in Bewdley, near Worcester; Arthur said to Roderigo de Puebla, who had acted as proxy for Catherine, that “he much rejoiced to contract the marriage because of his deep and sincere love for the Princess.”

One reason Catherine of Aragon was chosen was due to the English ancestry she inherited from her mother. England had recently completed a long dynastic struggle for the throne known as the Wars of the Roses. Henry VII, as the new King who had a weak genealogical claim to the throne sought to strengthen his hold on the crown through marriage. First Henry married Elizabeth of York to unite the two warring branches of the English Royal House of Plantagenet. Secondly he also desired to grant a strong ally in Catholic Spain, who also had a claim to the English throne.

By means of her mother, Queen Isabella I of Castile, Catherine had a stronger legitimate claim to the English throne than even King Henry VII himself through the first two wives of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster: Blanche of Lancaster and Constance of Castile. In contrast, Henry VII was the descendant of Gaunt’s third marriage to Katherine Swynford, whose children were born out of wedlock and only legitimised after the death of Constance and the marriage of John to Katherine. The children of John and Katherine, while legitimised, were barred from inheriting the English throne, a stricture that was ignored in later generations.

Because of Henry’s descent through illegitimate children who were barred from succession to the English throne, the Tudor monarchy was not accepted by all European kingdoms. At the time, the Spanish House of Trastámara was the most prestigious in Europe, due to the rule of the Catholic Monarchs, so the alliance of Catherine and Arthur validated the House of Tudor in the eyes of European royalty and strengthened the Tudor claim to the English throne via Catherine of Aragon’s ancestry. It would have given a male heir an indisputable claim to the throne. The two were married by proxy on May 19, 1499 and corresponded in Latin until Arthur turned fifteen, when it was decided that they were old enough to be married.

Arthur, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.

On November 14, 1501, the marriage ceremony finally took place at Saint Paul’s Cathedral; both Arthur and Catherine wore white satin. The ceremony was conducted by Henry Deane, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was assisted by William Warham, Bishop of London. Following the ceremony, Arthur and Catherine left the Cathedral and headed for Baynard’s Castle, where they were entertained by “the best voiced children of the King’s chapel.

What followed was a bedding ceremony laid down by Arthur’s grandmother Lady Margaret Beaufort: the bed was sprinkled with holy water, after which Catherine was led away from the wedding feast by her ladies-in-waiting. She was undressed, veiled and “reverently” laid in bed, while Arthur, “in his shirt, with a gown cast about him”, was escorted by his gentlemen into the bedchamber, while viols and tabors played. The Bishop of London blessed the bed and prayed for the marriage to be fruitful, after which the couple were left alone. This is the only public bedding of a royal couple recorded in Britain in the 16th century.

In March 1502, Arthur and Catherine were afflicted by an unknown illness, “a malign vapour which proceeded from the air.” While Catherine recovered, Arthur died on 2 April 1502 at Ludlow, six months short of his sixteenth birthday.

Arthur’s death thrust all his duties upon his younger brother, the 10 year old Henry, Duke of York. After a little debate, Henry became the new Duke of Cornwall in October 1502, and the new Prince of Walesand Earl of Chester in February 1503. Henry VII gave the boy few tasks. Young Henry was strictly supervised and did not appear in public. As a result, he ascended the throne “untrained in the exacting art of kingship”.

Henry VII renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance between England and Spain, by offering his second son in marriage to Arthur’s widow Catherine. Both Isabella and Henry VII were keen on the idea, which had arisen very shortly after Arthur’s death. On June 23, 1503, a treaty was signed for their marriage, and they were betrothed two days later. A papal dispensation was only needed for the “impediment of public honesty” if the marriage had not been consummated as Catherine and her duenna claimed, but Henry VII and the Spanish ambassador set out instead to obtain a dispensation for “affinity”, which took account of the possibility of consummation. Cohabitation was not possible because Henry was too young.

Isabella’s death in 1504, and the ensuing problems of succession in Castile, complicated matters. Her father preferred Catherine to stay in England, but Henry VII’s relations with Fernando had deteriorated. Catherine was therefore left in limbo for some time, culminating in Prince Henry’s rejection of the marriage as soon he was able, at the age of 14. Ferdinand’s solution was to make his daughter ambassador, allowing her to stay in England indefinitely. Devout, she began to believe that it was God’s will that she marry the prince despite his opposition.

Henry VIII, King of England. Age 18 in 1509.

Henry VII died on April 21, 1509, and the 17-year-old Henry succeeded him as King Henry VIII. Henry would turn 18 on June 28. Soon after his father’s burial on May 10, Henry suddenly declared that he would indeed marry Catherine, leaving unresolved several issues concerning the papal dispensation and a missing part of the marriage dowry. The new king maintained that it had been his father’s dying wish that he marry Catherine. Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I had been attempting to marry his granddaughter (and Catherine’s niece) Eleanor of Austria to Henry; she had now been jilted.

Henry’s wedding to Catherine was kept low-key and was held at the friar’s church in Greenwich on June 11, 1509. On June 23, 1509, Henry led the now 23-year-old Catherine from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey for their coronation, which took place the following day. It was a grand affair: the king’s passage was lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth. Following the ceremony, there was a grand banquet in Westminster Hall. As Catherine wrote to her father, “our time is spent in continuous festival”.

Henry VIII: What did he really know and believe. Conclusion.

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Anne Boleyn, Arthur Prince of Wales, Catherine of Aragon, hantavirus, King Henry VIII of England, Pope Julius II

I think my background in psychology is helping me understand Henry VIII during this crucial time in history. I will not bore you with the psychoanalysis but I will mention some of what I think is at play for Henry. Henry VIII certainly was a man for his times. A stated in my initial post on this subject, the way women were seen and treated played a large role in the circumstances. What really surprised me about the role in which women played not only at court but in all society at the time, which was a rigid social hierarchy, was that they too bought into the belief system that they were the inferior sex and that their place in life was divinely ordained. The truth is all saw that their station in life was divinely ordained. So if you were a man or a woman, a Pauper or a Prince, you were obligated to function in that role as a means of carrying out God’s ideal of an ordered and civilized society.

I think this did shape and form much of Henry VIII’s worldview and thinking. In the hierarchy of civil society the King was there on his throne by the Will of God. That is why, centuries later, the killing of King Charles I was such a cultural shock and a demonstration that people’s thinking was changing. With Henry at the top of the proverbial food chain he was not answerable to his subjects but to God only. It does seem that Henry did have strong religious convictions. He also saw his role as being King be the Grace of God and ultimately he was only answerable to him. This is what placed the king in a quandary.

The politics of early to mid 16th century England was that of a country still reeling from the results of the Wars of the Roses, a civil war for the throne of England. Although he had a daughter, the future Queen Mary I, he was still convinced that a woman was not strong enough to rule England. He needed sons to secure the succession and to stabilize the Tudor family on the English throne fearing that without a son the country would quickly relapse into a civil war. Henry also had quite the eye. Breaking his marriage vows and having a mistress was easily justified. Justification and denial are classic defense mechanisms which Henry employed. With women viewed as property they were there just for Henry to use as he pleased. After all, he was the King.

Although I do not blame Anne Boleyn for her execution, she certainly does seem like a victim of Henry’s authority, I do place some responsibility on her for the divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Anne was not content, like her sister, Mary Boleyn, to be Henry’s mistress. Anne did have higher ambitions. However, that does bring me to one of those unanswerable questions of history. Would Henry have divorced Catherine had Anne agreed to be his mistress? In many ways this question is unanswerable, however, my opinion is that the divorce would have happened anyway because the ultimate goal for Henry was to beget sons. Anne just provided the motivation to pursue the divorces

In the end Henry saw that his kingly duty to God and his country was to provide for a stable throne and to secure a peaceful transition of government upon his death. He was a man of his times and acted in accordance to those beliefs that many in society held at the time. This divorce can also been seen as the first step in the downward spiral of Henry VIII. Prior to that he was the embodiment of an early Renascence King. However, as he grew in power that power corrupted him to be come the bloody tyrant known to history.

Henry VIII: What did he really know & believe? Part 2

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Anne Boleyn, Arthur Prince of Wales, Catherine of Aragon, hantavirus, King Henry VIII of England, Pope Julius II

Last week I examined how Henry VIII justified his divorce from Catherine of Aragon from a Scriptural point of view. One of the issues hinging on that Scriptural point of view was whether or not Catherine’s marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales was consummated or not. For her entire life Catherine maintained that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated. I really do not doubt her much…however there are some questions I want to examine.

Arthur was 15 at the time of his marriage to Catherine in November of 1501. Catherine was one month shy of turning 16. After a 5 day wedding feast the couple were bedded together in which most of the court put the young couple to bed in an elaborate ceremony. The next morning Arthur is alleged to have said that he was “in Spain” that night suggesting that the marriage had indeed been consummated. However the marriage did not last long. Arthur died the next spring on April 2, 1502. The cause of his death is unknown but it has been theorized that he may have had consumption, diabetes, or the mysterious sweating sickness, which some modern theorists tie to a hantavirus a virus that has entirely been linked to human contact with rodent excrement.

Was Arthur too sick at the time to consummate his marriage? If not that first night than any of the nights over the next 5 months they were together? (Arthur’s illness)

Another question, and I apologize if this seems crass, wouldn’t Henry VIII himself know that his wife was a virgin when he married her? That is a difficult question to answer. Only Catherine and Henry truly knew. However, if Henry knew that his was, Catherine, was indeed a virgin, then that really paints a picture of his character. For if he knew, through personal experience, that Catherine was indeed a virgin then his lies and attempts to paint her as a liar are cruel and heartless.

Henry VIII: What did he really know & believe? Part 1

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Anne Boleyn, Arthur Prince of Wales, Catherine of Aragon, King Henry VIII of England, Pope Julius II

I have been reading a lot about the Tudor period of English history. It is a rich mine for historians to delve into. What has been very interesting to me are the circumstances surrounding his divorce of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. One of the major points that Henry used in justifying this divorce was that Catherine was never his legal wife because she indeed did have sexual relations with her first husband, Arthur, Prince of Wales, elder brother of Henry VIII. Even though Pope Julius II granted the couple a dispensation in December of 1503 (6 years before the actual marriage) Henry VIII stated that despite the Pope’s dispensation God was punishing him for marrying his brother’s widow, something forbidden in the Book of Leviticus. In Henry’s mind this punishment took the form of no sons resulting from the union and many miscarriages and still-births.

This justification from Henry has always raised several questions for me. Did Henry truly believe that God was punishing him, or was that just the excuse he needed to divorce his wife to marry Anne Boleyn? Catherine maintained all her life that she and Arthur never consummated their marriage. Would Henry have been able to tell if his wife was a virgin when they married? These are a couple of the questions I want to examine. Was it possible that Catherine was lying?

I will look at the first issue today: What were the religious beliefs of King Henry VIII? First of all, today we know that it is the male sperm that determines the sex of the baby. Henry blamed everyone but himself. I guess the ego of a powerful King of England would allow him to see that maybe he was part of the problem? Society was much more religious than it is today. In those days religious superstitions were more rampant as science had yet to supplant these age-old wives tails. Therefore attributing the lack of sons as evidence of divine punishment.

However devout Henry’s religious beliefs were, and I have no doubt he was a sincere Catholic, he does exhibit inconsistencies in his beliefs. Those inconsistencies are pretty easy to explain. Although devout as a Catholic and his faith in God it was easy for him to justify his affairs and his natural children because that was his right as a man and a king. Underwriting much of his beliefs were societies attitude toward woman and the need for social order. At the time Henry lived women were seen as inferior to men and their property with only the rights allowed them by men. Therefore this societal view gave Henry every right to use women for his sexual proclivities. As you go up in the hierarchy of society this behavior was not frowned upon..at least when it remained private.

Another important belief of Henry’s was the belief in social order and social structure. These beliefs also had divine origin. Henry was a supporter of the theory of the divine right of kings in that he was on the throne by the Will of God and that he was answerable only to God himself and not any man. Henry also believed that this belief lead to the stratification of society and that everyone was born to a certain station to fulfill God’s will and maintaining this social order was vitally important to the stabilization of a civil society.

Therefore in light of all of this Henry believed that it was the right of the woman to obey him in all areas including his desire to divorce. He saw his lack of thriving sons as divine punishment and he saw that it was his wife’s duty to step aside to allow him to sire healthy sons to continue the succession. For at the heart of this matter was keeping his realm stable. The Tudors had come to the throne after decades of civil war over who should possess the throne. Despite having a thriving daughter Henry feared that without a son the throne would be vulnerable for reigniting the War of the Roses.

Henry also believed in the sanctity of marriage…despite his affairs divorce was seen as a sin. Therefore he needed to find scriptural justification to divorce his wife. This justification was found in Leviticus 20:21 “‘If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.” Even though Pope Julius II gave the couple a dispensation to marry, Henry firmly believe that no man could undo God’s laws.  Therefore to Henry he was never his wife’s legal husband and he was free to marry.

There was one other related issue that assured Henry that Catherine of Aragon was not his lawful wife. For in order for the Levitical injunction to apply to Catherine and himself would be the fact that Catherine indeed consummated her union with his brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. If the union was never consummated, as Catherine claimed, than Henry and Catherine were legally wed. If the marriage had been consummated than Henry did have scriptural grounds for a divorce as he saw it.

This leads us to our next question which I will examine next week: Was the union between Catherine and Prince Arthur consummated?

Legal Succession: The Children of Henry VII

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4th Earl of Lennox, Arthur Prince of Wales, Battle of Flodden, Edward III of England, Elizabeth of York, Henry VII of England, James V, King Fernando II-V of Aragaon, King of Scots, King Richard III of England, Mary Tudor, Matthew Stewart, Queen Isabel I of Castile

With Henry VII on the throne and married to Elizabeth of York the dynastic struggle between the branches of the Plantagenet family came to an end. Henry VII marked the start of his reign as being the day before defeating Richard III at the battle of Bosworth Field. This enabled him to confiscate the lands of the nobles who fought for Richard III on the grounds of treason. He did spare the lives of some Plantagenet heirs, namely, John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln, and Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury niece of both Edward IV and Richard III. There were still skirmishes for the throne after Henry VII became king. The Earl of Lincoln was reconciled to Henry VII for a while. However, Lincoln was killed in the Yorkist Battle of Stoke Field on June 16, 1487 the last battle of the War od the Roses.

Although Henry secured himself on the throne succession issues would plague the House of Tudor and the repercussions would be felt in later generations. Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had 8 children, with only 4 of them living until adulthood. These four would play a role in the succession to the throne. The two surviving daughters, Margaret and Mary Tudor, both made dynastic marriages. Margaret first married James IV, King of Scots and they were the parents of James V, King of Scots. This gave the Scottish kings a good claim to the English throne as Margaret and James IV were both descendants of Edward III of England via the Beaufort line which had produced Henry VII’s claim to the English throne. James IV died in 1513 at the Battle of Flodden against the forces of his brother-in-law, Henry VIII. Margaret secondly married Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. Their daughter, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, married Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. They, in turn, had a son, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, who married his cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, the daughter of James V, King of Scots. All of these family ties secured the claims of the House of Stewart (Stuart) to the English throne.

The next daughter, Mary Tudor, also married twice., Her first marriage was to the aged King Louis XII of France which did not last long. Louis died about a year after the marriage and there was no issue. Mary then married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Their eldest daughter, Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, married Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk and became the daughter of Lady Jane Grey a claimant to the English throne.

Arthur, the eldest son, was created Prince of Wales in 1489 when he was 3 years of age. When Arthur was 15 he married Infanta Catherine of Aragon, daughter of King Fernando II-V of Aragon & Castile and Queen Isabel I of Castile, the two  monarchs that united Spain. Arthur died in 1502 ans left no issue. Fernando and Isabel wanted Catherine to return to Spain but Henry, not wanting to lose the Spanish dowry, kept her in England.

The next in line was Henry, Duke of York. Henry VII had plotted a career his second son as a priest in the Catholic Church. With the death of Arthur in 1502 Henry became heir to the throne and it became his father’s wish that he should marry, Catherine his brother’s widow. Henry, Duke of York was very reluctant to do so.

In 1509 Henry VII died at the age of 52 and left a sturdy crown and rich coffers to his son, Henry VIII of England. Nest week I will discuss the struggles for an hier and the many marriages of Henry VIII.