Tudors (History of England Vol 2) by Peter Ackroyd Read Free Book Online Page B

evidence of wariness or watchfulness. So many disparate reports exist of her character that it is impossible to form a true judgement. There can be no doubt, however, that she was resourceful and quick-witted; she could not otherwise have survived the life of the court. She loved music and danced very well. It has often been suggested that by charm and persuasion she managed to avoid intercourse with the king until she was certain of becoming his wife, but it is equally likely that Henry himself wished to make sure of a formal union that would render any children legitimate.
    All this was known or suspected by Katherine of Aragon, who asked Erasmus to write a treatise entitled
De Servando Conjugio
– ‘On Preserving Marriage’. She was aware of Henry FitzRoy, and was deeply offended when he was brought to court at precisely the time when it was clear that she could no longer bear children. Henry had in any case turned away from her. She was approaching the age of forty; all her early grace had faded, and the young king of France described her as ‘ugly and deformed’. As a consequence, perhaps, Henry no longer frequented her bed. Most importantly she had failed in her primary duty to bear a son and heir.
    Certain doubts had already entered Henry’s mind. He had read the text in Leviticus that prohibited any man from marrying the widow of a dead brother. It declares that ‘thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is thy brother’s nakedness’, for which the penalty will be that of bearing no children. He hadquoted Leviticus in his treatise against Luther, in which text he had also adverted to ‘the severe and inflexible justice of God’. What if his marriage flouted divine decree? In Leviticus itself God speaks: ‘I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague . . . and ye shall sow your seed in vain.’ God had perhaps denied him a royal heir as a punishment for his sin.
    In matters of succession Henry could be savage. He had already demonstrated that the wrath of the king meant death. In the event of the king’s own demise Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, was considered the favourite to succeed him; he was after all descended from Thomas Woodstock, one of the sons of Edward III. He was, therefore, an object of suspicion. In the spring of 1521 the king himself had interrogated the duke’s servants in order to find evidence of treason. It was alleged as the principal charge that the duke had consulted with a monkish necromancer who had told him that Henry would have no male issue and that ‘he should have all’. Buckingham had bought inordinate amounts of cloth of gold and cloth of silver. It was even stated by one of his servants that he had planned to come into the royal presence ‘having upon him secretly a knife’. He was of course found guilty by seventeen of his peers and beheaded on Tower Green. It was widely believed at the time that Wolsey – who was known to Londoners as ‘the butcher’ – had engineered Buckingham’s fall but Henry’s overwhelming need to preserve his dynasty was the root cause of all.
    He may have now rested all his hopes on his bastard son, Henry, but there was no precedent for an illegitimate heir to the throne except for the improbably distant Harold Harefoot in 1037. There was always Princess Mary, already given her own court, but there had been only one queen regnant in English history; and Matilda had in fact been known as ‘lady of England’. So a proper male heir would have to be found. Already, then, Henry was contemplating the possibility of a new bride.
    Mary could, in the interim, be put to other uses. At the age of two she had been promised to the son of Francis I but then, only four years later, she was formally betrothed to Charles V. What could be more fitting than to be the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor and sovereign of Spain? These were games of war, however, rather than of betrothal.
    In the