
An in-depth look at Henry VIII's first and second wives
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit with a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, Brilliant Rivals, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.
Eva Longoria
Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like, what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria.
Maite Gomez Rejon
Hi, I'm Maite Gomez Rejon.
Matt Lewis
Our podcast Hungry for History is back.
Eva Longoria
And this season we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history, saying that the most popular cocktail is the Margherita, followed.
Maite Gomez Rejon
By the Mojito from Cuba and the pina colada from Puerto Rico.
Matt Lewis
Listen to Hungry for history on the.
Eva Longoria
Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Matt Lewis
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Merry Christmas, everyone. It's that time of year when you may well be spending a lot of time in the kitchen, making preparations or wrapping presents, or traveling long distances to visit family and friends, or if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, settling down by a cosy fireside to while away the longer dark evenings. Here on Not Just the Tudors, we thought you might appreciate another chance to hear the special series from earlier this year in which we took a deep dive into the lives of the six wives of Henry viii when we revealed the rich stories and incredible lives of these women who who changed the monarchy and England forever. For the next three editions of Not Just the Tudors, we've joined two of those episodes together in turn to create bumper episodes so you can enjoy your Christmas preparations accompanied by those Tudor queens. So first up, we'll begin with Catherine of Aragon and the woman who replaced her in Henry's affections. Anne Boleyn. The exhibition we visited for the recording Six Lives, the stories of Henry VIII's Queensland at the National Portrait Gallery in London has now ended. But the stories in these episodes of course remain forever. Fascinating. Six wives, six lives about whom we think we know everything. But beyond their mostly doomed marriages to Henry VIII and in many cases tragic ends, he here were six women who shaped history in their own unique ways. The National Portrait Gallery in London is hosting a new exhibition called Six Lives, displaying the images that have shaped our perception of Henry VIII's queens. It was just the excuse I needed to bring together the most illuminating interviews about them from the not just the Tudors archives across six episodes. I'll also be exploring some of the latest research and speaking to the curator of the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition, Dr. Charlotte Bolland, to paint an even fuller portrait of each of Henry VIII's wives. First up, then the wife to whom Henry was married for twice as long as all the others put together. A woman much underrated and much maligned, Catherine of Aragon. In this episode we'll hear from doctors Theresa Ehrenfight, Emma Cahill, Meron, Michelle Beer, Sean Cunningham, Owen Emerson. Charlotte Bolland. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. And this is not just the Tudors. Of all Henry VIII's wives, his first, the one we know as Catherine of Aragon, was the one most obviously born to reign at the time of her birth in 1485. She was the fifth child of Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragon, an infanta or princess of the house of Trastamara. She was named Catalina. Catalina's parents were pretty fearsome. They were responsible for expelling the Jews from Spain, founding the Spanish Inquisition to deal with apostate Christian and after a decade long war conquering the final Islamic territory on the Iberian peninsula, Granada. They also financed Christopher Columbus. But Catalina's grand illustrious upbringing against the background of such warfare and religious tumult should not fool us into thinking that the young Catalina went unloved.
Eva Longoria
She got all of her mother's attention.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Dr. Theresa Ehrenfight.
Eva Longoria
She was an infanta. Her other sisters were beloved. Isabel, the oldest, was much beloved, but went off to marry quite young. And so Catalina watched her siblings get married. And by the end she was with her mother for the most of the last bits of her life before she moved to England in 1501, which is kind of a threshold moment for her. She learned at her mother's knee how to be a queen. She watched her mother and father as they persecuted Jews. The Spirit, Spanish Inquisition, the conquest of Granada, the Colombian voyages began. So she was there, even though she was probably too young to actually appreciate what was going on. But she got to watch all of this, so she was much loved as a child.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Catalina's mother, Isabel, was responsible for ensuring that her daughters were unusually well educated, as we can judge from the surviving sources, for example, Isabelle's household accounts, which tell us all sorts of interesting information. Dr. Emma Cahill Marron Just to point.
Maite Gomez Rejon
Out a nice examp of Isabel's commitment to her children's development is that sometime during Catalina's second year of life, her mother had a little cart made for her so she could learn how to walk. So they also trace important educational milestones like the assignment of tutors or the first books that they owned. The second group was the correspondence, and this is specific to Catalina, between Isabela and Fernando and the first permanent ambassador in England who negotiated the alliance between the Chudos and the Trastamaras. So amongst these diplomatic documents we find gems like Catalina's first signature as Princessa de Galiz, or Princess of Wales, dated on 1 January 1497. That marked her entering her 12th year, meaning that she was able to consent to marriage. And the important thing I think about this document is that unlike previous royal women anywhere in Europe, she could read Latin and understand what she was signing at just 11 years old. So I think that is very impressive.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Catalina became Princess of Wales because when she was just three years old, she had been promised in marriage to Prince Arthur, the eldest son of the new English king, Henry vii. Why did Isabel and Fernando broker this English marriage?
Maite Gomez Rejon
The answer is plain and simple, to isolate France. Fernando was a powerful king too. We already know he was King of Aragon and Castile, but he had an expanding empire in the Mediterranean and a big presence in Italy, where the French were very active too. He was King of Sicily, of Naples and of Sardinia. And he had an ongoing battle with the French king over certain territories he believed belonged to him. So his children's marriages became a long term strategy to gain allies that would help him neutralize France as the leading power in Europe. England was key in this alliance and very important in protecting the passageway to another crucial territory for his wife's kingdom, Flanders in the Netherlands. Both Isabella and Fernando were descendants of the House of Trastamara that had its origins in this northern territory that was flourishing with art and culture. There were a lot of important commercial and economic exchanges happening between both kingdoms. So England was a natural ally, especially if you wanted to protect the Dangerous trip from Casilda Flanders and vice versa if you were avoiding France. So the alliance with England was beneficial both to Castile and Aragon. So that's why it was decided that the best husband for Catalina would be the Prince of Wales.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
The marriage was agreed by the Treaty of Medina del Campo in 1489. We have some good evidence about what took place from the herald Roger Mercado.
Maite Gomez Rejon
The account we have was written by one of the English envoys sent by Henry VII to the northern Spanish town of Medina del Campo to sign a treaty with Isabela and Fernando to marry the Infanta Catalina to Arthur Trudeau. So after reaching the northern coast of Spain, they were received in Burgos by the merchants of the city. Burgos was vital in the important medieval wool market that was established between Castile and England. So an alliance with the Tudors was a reason to rejoice. The description is also rich in details pertaining royal protocol and magnificence and richness in the court of Isabel and Fernando in a pivotal moment in their reigns. On each occasion he saw the Spanish royal family together. The herald describes the protocol around them and pays special attention to their attire. The descriptions of the number of jewels that all the members of the royal family wore is impressive. But above all, the descriptions of the magnificence of Queen Isabel are the most detailed and remarkable. On one occasion, the monarch is dressed in full gold and adorned with jewels covered with precious gems. The herald confesses that he had never seen such an expensive outfit ever before. It is also the first time we catch a glimpse of the presence of the Infanta Catalina, who, at three years old and already addressed as Princess of Wales, was present at one of the audiences with the Spanish monarchs resting on her mother's waist.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What did it mean for the young Catalina to grow up in Castile and Aragon? How did it affect her worldview?
Eva Longoria
I think it gave her a cosmopolitan attitude, Theresa Ehrenfight. And it gave her a sense of the world as bigger than one single court. Because if you travel around the Iberian Peninsula, you run across at least 10 different languages when she was alive. Different landscapes, different customs, different ways of eating, whether it's ocean or the Mediterranean or the high plains or the mountains in the north. She really saw a world that was quite diverse. And because it was a crossroads of trade, she saw people coming back and forth. So there were Muslims, Christians, Jews, different religions. There were Africans, there were people from the East. She had a very expansive outlook because she traveled around. I could picture her, you know, how like little children are when they go to the Airport with their little rolly cart behind them. I imagine her sort of having a little bag that was just hers. The things that really, really mattered to her. That's completely fictive and imaginary. But I just imagine that one of her governesses would say, catalina, here's your little Maleta. Put your stuff in there. And then we're gonna put it on the cart, because she was all over the place. So she learned to eat different foods, speak to different people. And then the accounts tell us that whenever they would go to a new city, they would try to dress in the costume of the people in the city and eat the foods of those people. So she grew up with an open mind, which I think is a tremendous gift to give to your children. And I don't think it was intentional. I think it was just the way they lived. That was her normal.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Perhaps above all, her formative years shaped Catalina's religious outlook.
Maite Gomez Rejon
The biggest influence on Catalina's faith was her mother, Queen Isabel Emma Cahill Mehron, known for her piety and for always putting God first. She played a huge role in the introduction of the Devotio Moderna to the Spanish court. This was a spiritual movement that followed a premise to imitate the life of Christ in the case of men and in the case of women, to follow the example of the Virgin Mary. And this was a big deal for both mother and daughter. To prove this point even further, we must say that both queens belonged to the lay branch of the Franciscan order linked to this new religious movement, and that both stated in their wills that they wanted to be buried wearing the habit of the order. So in my opinion, I think that the Virgin Mary, her mother, and the Franciscan movement were the biggest influences in her faith.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
In May 1501, at the age of 15, Catalina left Granada to journey to England to meet her new husband and father in law. Even for one used to a peripatetic court, this was an enormous change. Theresa Ehrenfight, what did she experience?
Eva Longoria
How did that feel? To go from someplace that was warm and sunny and where there were oranges and almonds and figs. And then she gets to Ludlow, where there's no oranges, no figs, no almonds, no sunshine. But it is fascinating because they talk about the winter in 1501, 1502, the winter in Ludlow was particularly harsh. All the accounts say, wow, it rained all the time. It was really cold. And so when later biographers Mattingly and Tremolet and people like that talk about how she was sick that winter, they talk about she was just a frail girl. Maybe she had a hard time. I'm like, no, this is hard.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
On the way to England, she adopted the pomegranate as her heraldic device.
Eva Longoria
It was so important to her. It was part of her badge, part of her emblem. It shows up on her coronation odes. And the notion of fertility, the notion of that sense of fullness, health, the salubrious quality of a pomegranate, which we all know now is so important for things like our immune systems.
Maite Gomez Rejon
The pomegranate is also very important because we have art historians in England, for example, using it to date artistic works or like the elimination of manuscripts. And all those things go back to Catherine. It has the notions of fertility, it had notions of links to Christ. And also because I think it was a very foreign thing in England and she wanted to mark herself as someone new, as someone who was bringing in something different and exotic in a way.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Now the long determined plan by the English king, Henry VII to marry his son Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine, as the English called her, came to fruition. And Catherine had been well prepared for the role. As Dr. Sean Cunningham explains, the King.
Matt Lewis
Has negotiated this for a long time. Almost as soon as Arthur's born, these negotiations start with Ferdinand and Isabella. So the plan is always in place. When it comes to the personalities of the people actually involved, it's quite a contrast, isn't it? I think Catherine comes across as a very determined and well educated and confident teenager. Arthur, even at that moment, still seems a bit shadowy and we don't really know what he's like. He's confident in the ways we'd expect him to be. But I think Catherine comes with a lot more than possibly we appreciate in England, because I think that backstory of her Spanish upbringing is in contrast to Arthur's.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It was early October in 1501, by the time Catherine landed on English soil.
Matt Lewis
Catherine arrives a little bit later than she should have done. She arrives in Plymouth and not Southampton. London is already set up for a wedding, which then has to be delayed. So you can imagine the traffic chaos must have been awful. All these pageants were set up at various places, points in the city to go through a lot of the symbolism of the match, commentaries on cosmology and star constellations and Catherine as divine kind of representations of their earthly presence and all this. So it's very much the symbolism of lordship and power linked to God's selection of these young people to be rulers. So it's a bit of a breakneck journey for Catherine. Across the south of England, she's at the mercy of the local gentry, first of all. And you can see the letters and the payments in the royal accounts for getting members of the King's household down there as quickly as possible to begin this appropriate kind of escort for the princess to London. I think everyone is a bit caught out. There's a very much an element of the required components of these ceremonials. So there's the symbolism and the pageantry and the badges and the union of the two states. And then at the heart of this is the two teenagers who are, you would think, quite bewildered and overawed by this. Certainly for Catherine, the only common language they seem to have is Latin. I think Arthur doesn't really know much French and I don't know if Catherine does either. She certainly doesn't have any Spanish. And they try Latin and Catherine is kind of alarmed at the way Arthur pronounces his Latin. So they really can't communicate in that either. And they meet at the Bishop of Bath's palace at Dogmasfield in Hampshire about 10 days before their wedding in November. So it's a strange kind of encounter, I guess, in that there's been correspondence between between them. Some personal letters maybe, but certainly official letters and everything you could expect in terms of reporting and the proxy weddings and how the appearance of the prince is marvelous and he will be such a worthy son in law. But eventually it's two people meeting and actually trying to communicate with each other, getting a sense of who they are and how they're going to relate to each other and what their marriage life will be like. And the Herald's account is there at that time, and it gives us snapshots of kind of a reception and maybe some card playing and some dancing. It's quite an intimate little portrait of that first meeting. The King is hovering in the background as well, trying to orchestrate it. But at some point they have to be left getting acquainted with each other. And Arthur's arrived in his finest riding clothes. Catherine is being dragged across the muddy lands of southern England. I think she's probably quite exhausted. And the fact that she's having to speak in a foreign language and she has to have interpreters and she's got a whole entourage, possibly already been scattered by the kind of storm which delayed her and blew her into the wrong port. So there's a sense of reassembling the official Spanish embassy almost that she's very much at the forefront of, but it's moving towards this already pre planned and setup series of pageants in London. And at various points along the way, more and more senior nobles and figures of the regime are meeting her. And I think she meets Prince Henry outside of Croydon on the ride into the Bishop's palace at Croydon and then up through Lambeth to London Bridge only a couple of days before the wedding itself. So it's a breakneck thing. I don't think she has a moment to spare other than these overnight stops at the occasional inn and abbey. So her introduction to England is in no way stately or comfortable. It's the pressure of getting prepared almost as she's traveling for this wedding ceremony to fit into the very grandest of preparations for public spectacle, which is going to celebrate this extremely high level alliance between Aragon, Castile and England. It's the biggest public spectacle that they've seen in terms of a royal wedding, probably since the 14th century.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
The wedding at St Paul's Cathedral was glorious, but Arthur died only five months later and Catherine was left a widow at 16 years old. For the next seven years, living at Durham House on the Strand and later with Henry VII's court at Richmond, Catherine never knew what would become of her. She was promised to Arthur's younger brother, Henry, but their marriage was delayed by disputes over her dowry. Her father's payments came late and Henry VII retaliated by keeping the princess on ever shorter rations. Despite the profound difficulty and precarity of these years, Catherine did not let the grass grow under her feet. In her activity, first as princess and later as queen, we can see her acting on the Renaissance ideas learnt during her classical education.
Maite Gomez Rejon
Under her mother, she started doing things like something very new for a woman in England, like being an ambassadress.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Emma Cahill, moron.
Maite Gomez Rejon
She was the first woman to be ambassadors in history. So this is something linked to those Renaissance ideas, but also during this time that she was an ambassador before she was married to Henry, when Henry was just a boy, she was an artistic agent for Henry VII. In 1508, her secretary gets this commission from her to translate Chronicle of the Kings of England into Spanish. This is one of the first translations we have from English into Spanish, and it's certainly the first one commissioned by a woman and it's probably the first one carried out by someone from Spain. So Rodrigo de Cuero came with her in 1501, so he had to learn English during that time to the point where he could translate chronicle. So I think in a lot of the biographies, this time in Duran House seems like a very sad time. She's always Complaining, I think, was part of a plan to accelerate things with Fernand because she knew how he acted. But behind closed doors, there was a lot of things going on, a lot of things linked to Renaissance. So she's not only a Renaissance queen, she's a Renaissance Princess of Wales before she's even a Renaissance queen. And then when she's queen, she's the first patron of Torigliano from Florence. That came to change, arguably, sculpture in England forever, because he was the one to carve the tomb of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII that was commissioned by Henry viii. She was the agent who made it possible for Torrigiano to arrive.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
On 21st April 1509, Henry VII died and his son became King Henry VIII. Almost as soon as he acceded to the throne, he announced his intention to marry Princess Catherine. The couple were wed on 11 June and crowned together at midsummer. Catherine's fortunes had changed.
Matt Lewis
Walk.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What can we make of the relationship between Henry and Catherine in those early years? Here's Dr. Michelle Beer.
Eva Longoria
They had known each other since 1503. They get married in 1509. So we really are talking about two decades worth of marriage. And Catherine is a little bit older than Henry. She had a lot of political experience before she marries Henry, so she really understands sort of the political landscape of Europe at the time. And she becomes really an advisor to Henry in their early years of their marriage. Henry takes a lot of advice from her in regards especially to foreign policy, but she's also a very vibrant participant in the Tudor court. And we sort of tend to think of her as this kind of short, dowdy lady who kind of isn't very fun and is depressingly religious, but especially in, you know, the first decade or two, she's participating in all of the joys and the fun of the Tudor court and is really kind of a partner politically and culturally and socially. And that makes it sort of a really interesting dynamic to study. Certainly Henry and Catherine used the language of love to communicate with each other. They seem to have had a very positive relationship with each other. Very fond of each other at the beginning. But, you know, this is clearly also, you know, a very political, practical marriage as well. It is more than just two people getting married. It's two dynasties getting married. It's two political forces joining together as well.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
One of the many responsibilities Catherine had as a queen was to produce the next generation of the dynasty. After a stillbirth in 1510, she gave birth on 1 January 1511 to a son whom they named Prince Henry. Great were the festivities, but the boy lived for just seven weeks. The couple grieved together. The evidence suggests that in the immediate subsequent years, they were as united in love as ever. Dr. Owen Emerson introduces how one dynastic device made up of Catherine's pomegranate and the Tudor rose, testifies to the strength of that early union.
Matt Lewis
Here we have very potent symbol of their union. We don't just have their emblems together, but they're diminuated. They are literally spliced together. There's something very powerful about this representation of their union, and I think it's about stability and strength. This is the symbol that represents Catherine's strength and what she brought to the union. This is the promise of what is to come, isn't it? It is that crowning of hope, really. I think it's really dangerous, actually, to look backwards and not really focus on what were incredibly glorious years between Catherine and Henry.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Catherine now not only spoke Castilian Latin and French, but had mastered English, which came in useful when the Scots invaded England in September 1513. Emma Cahill, moron.
Maite Gomez Rejon
Catherine's English was so good by 1513 that she gave a speech in full armor to the troops as regent while Henry was fighting in France before the batten of Flodden Field. She appealed to national pride and divine providence that, quote, fired the soldiers into the biggest victory in Henry's reign. The death of King James IV of Scotland in this battle paved the way for Henry's later claim to the throne. So I don't know how Henry took this. Probably not well.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Henry's trust in his queen had made her a regent and she did not let him down. Catherine's forces achieved more at Flodden than Henry did in France, and she was not afraid to tell him so. Though she was Queen of England, she continued to remind spectators of her Spanishness whenever it was useful.
Eva Longoria
Michelle Beer it's really a very strategic deployment of something like this. It wasn't sort of a I'm always in Spanish dress. It was actually more impactful because she only did it at certain times. And this dress would have been very distinctive. Spanish dress, typically at this period would have had very distinctive sleeves that you would have noticed immediately that were sort of vertically slashed and then embroidered with gold around those slashings. They would have had a farthingale, which is sort of the large hoop skirt that we kind of associate with a slightly later period that is actually being brought in by the Spanish during this early time period and would have been very Distinct distinctive from what the other English style skirts would have looked like. And then the hair would have also been very, very different. Spanish style hair would have been a very long braid worn down the back, covered in a very decorative net. And this is incredibly different from the way in which English or French would have worn their hair, which would have pinned up above the shoulders and covered in a veil or a net instead. So we sort of say Spanish fashion, Spanish dress. It's also important to kind of realized that it would have been very distinctive and would have kind of stood out from the way everyone else would have been dressed at the time as well.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
For Catherine, the pomegranate probably signaled the same attachment to her homeland, but its other connotations would come to haunt her. Success in the political and military spheres was not matched by domestic bliss. She had been pregnant when the Scots attacked, but her child was brought to term dead. What a weight of grief she must have carried. Here's Dr. Charlotte Bolland.
Matt Lewis
I think it's so interesting of that idea of identity and the connections to Spain that's sort of such an overt kind of reference to her family and to Granada. And to think about what it would have meant to bring that emblem to then paste all over every kind of surface at court. And so that emotional resonance of it. And then part of the reason why it was happily taken up across the Tudor court because of its relation to fertility. So it then has this kind of awful, ever growing pressure associated with the pomegranate almost. And there's one incredibly beautiful iteration of it in a choir book that's in the British Library that has it combined with the Tudor rose. And so this is something that again, decorates all sorts of services at court. But you have within that decoration, which is an explicit plea to St. Anne in relation to the conception of children. And in the stamens of the floral decoration around the edges of the page, there are H&Ks in the stamens of the flowers. So it's all so explicitly relating to childbirth. And the fact that her pomegranate emblem could be used in that way, had that sort of double meaning, just does have this awful poignancy of the kind of pressure she must have been under continually, as people are like you are the pomegranate. That queenly responsibility of providing an heir.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Catherine probably coped by leaning into the faith she had learnt at her mother's knee. And we can see her faith infusing her practice of queenship in other ways too. Michelle Beer.
Eva Longoria
We do tend to think of Catherine as a pious queen. But we do tend to think of it in terms of staunch adherence to Catholicism, probably a little over reliant on the Pope when it comes to the divorce crisis, thinking that she's going to be able to get that taken care of through him. But really, this is something that is sort of baked into the everyday life of any queen consort, Catherine included, as part of the expectation that they be those moral leaders and exemplars for people. That is what a good queen needs to do, is to not only give alms, but also to be publicly seen giving alms. So it's not enough to be charitable, but you also need to set the example by making sure that everyone knows that you are charitable so that they will follow your example. And so she does this in a number of ways. She has an official who is responsible for her alms, called the almoner, who would be distributing her alms on sort of a very regular basis. So excess food from her household would go to the poor, for example. But we also have lots of records of sort of ad hoc gifts of alms, so gifts of clothing to poor friars, for example, and also donating and giving gifts to those who live on her lands, because she was also a property owner. So she would donate alms, maintain holy sites on those properties that she owned. And so all of these sort of almsgiving acts, they are exemplary for her people. They also do obviously cement in the popular mind her own piety, and, of course, also do benefit a lot of the people that she helped out in this way. And all of that kind of builds up her reputation as being a pious queen and a moral leader, which could then sort of translate into a reputation that could withstand something like when Henry comes after her for the divorce, she has that moral credibility to withstand a lot of the attacks that are being made on her during that period. Because of this sort of history of, you know, public moral leadership that we're seeing.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
In February 1516, Catherine finally gave birth to another living child. This was Mary. Catherine would go on to provide for her daughter the same quality of education that she had received as a child. We also see Isabel's example in the learning Catherine expected of and provided for the women of her court.
Maite Gomez Rejon
The person to decide where the ladies went when they went abroad was the queen, Emma Cahill.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Moron.
Maite Gomez Rejon
So if Catherine Aragon sent Anne Boleyn to Margaret of Austria, her friend who had taught her French in Spain, if she was sending someone there because she valued the education she could receive at that court, and the things they could learn there. So it's not just Anne Boleyn that appears in 1522. There's a lot of new women that are highly educated women that are doing this. It becomes like the court of Isabel of Castile because she has a lot of women involved in this Renaissance. But because it's a different time, there's new things because the world has changed. The world has become a very big place because now 1520 is the year that Mexico is conquered. It's a time where the world is changing very quickly. And the court of Catherine Vagon and Henry VIII is changing very quickly too, because it has become in the last 10 years, Central in Europe.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Together, Catherine and Henry created their own Renaissance court to rival the best courts and institutions of Europe, including that of her parents.
Maite Gomez Rejon
There's a lot of people who are coming to serve Catherine and Henry because they are both constructing the same court that in a way Isabella and Fernand were doing. We have to think that Henry, Catherine were extremely rich, but also they were extremely educated. So they're attracting all these people that are coming for the wealth, but also because they're encouraged to do the things they like, to explore the new ideas of humanism, to carry out cutting edge art because England needs it to. Because you can't have a Renaissance court without the works to prove it. The magnificence is built by having the things that are going to show the ambassadors when they come, that you are in tune with the latest things. And a good example is Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives, who had been studying Greek with Erasmus of Rotterdam for two years and was offered a job at the prestigious University of Akala de Nares after the founder of the Spanish language had just died. And he rejects them because he's already pensioned by Catherine and he's already said, no, I am going to go and serve the king, Queen of England. So we have to think in those terms of the attraction because of the money, but also because of the possibilities of the new things you could do at the court of Henry and Catherine.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Catherine's patronage as queen extended to artists. I asked Dr. Charlotte Bolland of the National Portrait Gallery what we know about the portraits of Catherine as queen.
Matt Lewis
Catherine has such a familiar image to us with this kind of dark gable hood, quite heavy looking clothing, and it's familiar from so many panel paintings, but they're actually all made after her death and proliferate in the late 16th century as part of portrait sets. And so trying to get back to the heart of an original encounter between an artist. And Catherine has proved much more challenging. There are actually a few paintings that do survive from Catherine's own lifetime and some of them have been misunderstood for years because they've been misidentified as the wrong queen. So there have been images of Catherine that have been caught Catherine Parr in lots of records. So as ever with the queens, you've got to unpick these layers of storytelling around their portraits and their kind of confused afterlives. But in that kind of focusing in the most interesting images of Catherine that are coming to light are the miniature portraits of her produced in the Horumbelt workshop, particularly because there are a number of them that survive. So that idea of how they might have been used and circulated at court, and also because there are two sort of distinct types, I think really speak to Catherine's self presentation. In the Portrait Gallery's collection, we have a small miniature of Catherine wearing a sort of red dress with puffed sleeves, drawn through slashes in the sleeves and a cap on her head, not the heavy gable hood. And she has an IHS jewel and her tow cross around her neck. And it's wonderfully inscribed identifying her as his wife. So clearly was intended to be paired with a portrait of Henry viii. And it's from this that we can date the portraits because there's a cluster of portraits of Henry by the Horembout workshop that give his age as being in his 35th year. And so they can be pinned down to this moment of 1526, 1527. And this image of Catherine was clearly intended to be paired with a portrait of Henry produced likely in his 35th year. Then the other portrait type of which the finest to survive is a kind of larger square format miniature in the Duke of Buccleuche collection shows Catherine almost at half length with a monkey on her wrist tied to a chain. And this question of this sort of dating in relation to the arrival of the Horembouts in England. And so it's possible that this might have been one of the earlier commissions, again in perhaps around 1525 or something like that. And I think it's really intriguing that the images produced by the Hornpouts all really tie to Catherine. The most interesting ones are of this large scale portrait in the Duke of Buccleuche's collection, a miniature of Henry VIII in the Fitzwilliam that has H and K imagery around it. Portraits of Mary produced in relation to her betrothal to Charles V. They're very Habsburg, very Catherine. And I do wonder if it's possible that she was the route by which the Horenbauch came to England because they'd worked at the court of Margaret of Austria, her former sister in law. And it's that kind of relationship because you always think about how do artists make their entrance at court, how does the door get open to them? I think it's interesting to think about whether it might have been Catherine that actually provided their first patronage in England.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Margaret of Austria had been married to Catherine's brother Juan, and as girls, the two women had been very close. It is therefore indeed plausible that it was the connection between Margaret and Catherine that facilitated the introduction of the Horembutes to England. Despite Mary's birth, all was no longer well between the royal couple. Catherine believed that her daughter could rule. But Henry was convinced that he needed a male heir. In 1519, his mistress, Elizabeth Blount, had given birth to a son who was named after his father, Henry Fitzroy. In the early 1520s, Henry had another affair with Mary Boleyn. But the real crisis point for Catherine came in the mid-1520s, when Henry had Fitzroy ennobled, suggesting that perhaps he intended to legitimise him and put him in the line of succession before Catherine's daughter Mary and when the king became infatuated with Mary Boleyn's sister Anne. Maybe something of Catherine's response can be seen in her commissioning of of the Horembut miniatures. In one, she wears Spanish dress and it is inscribed his wife. It may have seemed like an ideal moment to remind Henry of her royal status as a princess of the Trastamara Habsburg dynasty, with relatives in all the royal families of Europe, and to remind the world, as the miniature states, that it was she who was his wife.
Matt Lewis
That term has such potency at this particular moment. That is the case that she makes so forcefully and extraordinarily. And this perception of what it is to be a wife is so fascinating, comes out later in her defense of her marriage and this idea where she will continually defer to Henry. Everyone's always so slightly shocked that however she is treated, she still always refers to him as her husband. She defines herself as a wife. The one moment she will assert herself is when that's under threat of being taken away. That identity is the thing that she will define counter to her husband. But in all other things, she refers to herself as wife and him as husband.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Catherine's contributions to culture, her role as a Renaissance queen and her power and patronage have been lost in the story that is usually told of her. The One in which she is supplanted by her rival. Catherine was not just forgotten, as Emma Cahill Mehron notes, she is erased.
Maite Gomez Rejon
Let's think of her most personal symbol, the pomegranate. As soon as Henry wants to get rid of her, the first thing he goes is for the pomegranates. In the music book of Anne Boleyn, there's a famous depiction of falcon picking on pomegranates. Because it was such an exotic symbol, it represented so well Catherine in England that they say if we want to erase her memory, that's the first thing that needs to go. So a lot of those things were erased. The second reason, really, it's because she was a Catholic and there was an Anglican Reformation in England. So the same way that things were erased because she was a queen and they didn't want that evidence to be there anymore. A lot of the Catholic pieces of art and paintings, they were defaced. Books were burned. A lot of destruction around Catholic symbols. So there's a double problem. That's why it's so difficult.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
The end of her marriage to Henry has shaped the way that Catherine has been remembered. But as my guests have shown, there was much more to her than Henry or history has allowed. Without her by his side, the remaining third of Henry's reign was turbulent and volatile. Perhaps he came to rue what he had so callously thrown away. That precious apple of Granada. In a moment, I'll be exploring the life of Anne Boleyn. So don't go away.
Matt Lewis
I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings, and Popes who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History. Hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
To know who Amberlynn was, we first have to know her people. Anne Boleyn's parents were Sir Thomas Boleyn and Elizabeth, nee Howard. Elizabeth was part of a wealthy and influential family. Her father was Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. Later 2nd Duke of Norfolk. But the Boleyns too had been on the rise for decades. Three generations of Berlin men marrying well had produced an extraordinary social ascent. The last of these was Anne's father, Thomas. Dr. Lauren MacKay explains.
Eva Longoria
The Boleyn story is really the story of many families at court in that particular era. They rise generation by generation. And in fact, the story with the Boleyns really takes shape in a little town called Saul in Norfolk, which is sort of a one pub, one horse town, minus the pub with Geoffrey Boleyn. And Geoffrey Boleyn, who was Anne Boleyn's great grandfather, he actually elevated the family from simply a family who worked on the land to landowners themselves. And he formed the blueprint for this idea, for this mercantile family rising through the echelons of society. And what he did brilliantly was to marry into a very ancient and noble family. So he married an hou. This particular connection acquired more land and gentility and we wealth. Now their son, William Boleyn would go on to be a very well respected man of Norfolk as well. And he did the exact same thing. He married into the prestigious ancient noble butler family, which is where we see the earldom of Ormond. And their son, our Thomas Boleyn would do the same. He married into the powerful and noble and illustrious Howard family. So you have three generations building upon these foundations from generation to generation. That's really how they become a fixture at court. And crucially, by the reign of the first Tudor, Henry vii, they are already part of the social fabric of Henry VII's court. So we know that William Boleyn was a very well respected courtier. So Thomas's father, and Thomas Boleyn himself was actually esquire of the body under Henry VII's reign. So he had that personal intimate access with the king. And of course, this is the society upon which patronage is absolutely integral to your rise. So that connection with the king is vital to your success. So really the Boleyn story typifies this rise from a very modest beginnings to something that was quite brilliant. And this all took place before Anne Boleyn was even born.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
This steady climb continued with Anne's father, Thomas. Lauren Mackay warns us that we needn't imagine he needed his daughter in the king's bed to succeed.
Eva Longoria
Thomas Boleyn really began to rise at court under the reign of Henry VII. He makes his first appearance about the age of 20 in the King's army, of all places. He's alongside his father and they're putting down a rebellion The Cornish rebellion during one of the many riots during Henry VII's reign. I don't think the military was really his scene. So we actually see him sort of as a fixture at court. Now, I think Thomas Boleyn was very lucky because he grew up in a world of wealth and privilege. So far from being this scheming, Machiavellian man, he didn't need to have any of that because he was so well placed. So when Thomas Boleyn's a young man at court, he has these incredible connections. His grandfather is Thomas Butler. Now, Thomas Butler was Lord Chamberlain to Elizabeth of York, and he would also go on to be Lord Chamberlain to Catherine of Aragon in her early years as queen. That's quite a connection there. But he's also flanked by his father in law, the powerful Earl of Surrey, Thomas Howard. These connections offer this entree into court that very few young men actually would have enjoyed. So the young Thomas Boleyn navigates these spheres of court. He's part of the inner sphere for Henry vii. He's also part of the political side. He really gets his big break at the beginning of Henry VIII's reign. So in 1509, he's already been present at all the coronations and christenings and weddings and funerals, and there he is at Catherine of Aragon's arrival into England. And he's present front and center at Henry VIII's coronation as well, where he's made a Knight of the Bath. So all before Anne Boleyn is on the scene. But crucially, what happens in the first years of Henry VIII's reign is that he suddenly appears as a new face in the diploma. And it's odd because it really comes from nowhere. He has no history as an ambassador. He doesn't, as far as we know. And he's working all of a sudden, alongside real stalwarts of Henry VIII's diplomatic stable, so men like Thomas Spinelli and Richard Wingfield. And this really comes about because of these connections, his grandfather and his father in law, who both knew the architect of Henry VIII's diplomatic policy, and that is the one and only Richard Fox, who would of course, go on to mentor Thomas Woolsey. So that's where that interesting connection comes into. Now, I'm not going to go his entire life, but Thomas Boleyn obviously begins to ascend at court and to really cultivate this reputation. He's one of those new men because he doesn't necessarily have the noble lineage, apart from those few little insertions throughout the generations, but he Himself is not actually noble, but he has some. He has political acumen. There's something about him that recommends him to the power men of court. So I think that's very, very important. So by the time Anne Boleyn does burst on the scene in the 1520s, Thomas Boleyn is already one of the most well thought of respected, reliable, trustworthy men of court. He is an absolute fixture and he's powerful, he's influential, and he certainly doesn't need to rise any further on the back of his daughter.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What this intelligent, skillful diplomat did do, however, along with his wife, was to raise his surviving children, Anne, George and Mary, to ensure their own successful placements at the court in the fullness of time. Anne had probably been born at Blickling hall in Norfolk in around 1501, but she spent a large part of her childhood at Hever castle in Kent. Dr. Owen Emerson takes up the story.
Matt Lewis
We know that she probably moved to Hever around 1505, which is when Thomas Boleyn took ownership of the castle from his father. And although we don't have a huge amount of information about the early life of the Boleyn children here, we do have very good clues that they were located here, not least the graves of Thomas and Henry Boleyn Jr. Who were buried at Heverchurch and at Penshurst. The early years there was probably quite a lot of loss. Two of the Boleyn boys died, but I can imagine this being a place where Anne was educated. She would have begun her education here, and most likely her parents were involved in that education, particularly Elizabeth, her mother. Thomas Boleyn was a humanist. He educated all of his children well and he was a very keen and able diplomat and was able to secure really advantageous positions for his daughters at European courts. So I like to think that Anne's education and her passions began here at.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hever in 1513, when Anne cannot have been more than about 12 years old, she was sent to the court of Margaret of Austria. Although we know her, confusingly as Margaret of Austria, she had been Governor of the low countries from 1507. Anne joined Margaret at her newly built palace in Mechelen. The initiative to send Anne to Margaret to learn French and to receive training in corporations may well have come from Thomas Boleyn, who had met Margaret through his diplomatic career. Another possibility, though, is that it was the idea of Queen Catherine. Here's Dr. Emma Kihil Marron.
Maite Gomez Rejon
Catherine. When she sent Anne to Margaret of Austria, it was because she valued the education that she would receive in the court of Margaret of Austria. And I think because she was trying to, to start this international court with Henry, she thought it was a good idea to send some ladies to the continent to learn things that they couldn't learn really in England. Probably knowing that she was very bright as a young person, she thought, she'll do really well somewhere else, she'll learn lots of things, she'll come back and we'll find her a good match. And that's how it really worked with many other ladies. So I don't think it would have been different at that time. She was another lady in waiting at the court.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Margaret described Anne as bright and pleasant for her young age. Anne was at Margaret's extraordinary court for a couple of years. But in 1515, Anne joined the court of the young French queen, Claude. Claude was wife of the new French king, Francois or Francis I. Natalie Gruniger gives us a flavour of what life at Queen Claude de France's court was like for Anne.
Eva Longoria
Anne was not in service to Francis, she was in service to Claude, his wife. Known for her piety, for her intelligence, for her morality. She was greatly loved, actually, by the people. And in the time that Anne was there, Claude was pregnant a lot of the time. In fact, she had seven pregnancies over a period of nine and a half years. And she preferred to spend time at her estates in the Loire Valley. And Anne, of course, would have been expected to conduct herself modestly and decorously and guard her chastity like a treasure. This is essential. So I think when you picture, you know, all the dancing and all the flirting, most days would have been completely different. They would have been spent doing activities that were well regarded for women at this point. So we can imagine Anne and Claude's other ladies sewing, embroidering, spending a lot of time worshiping. So private prayer, public prayer, reading devotional texts, reading scriptures, discussing scriptures, going to church or the chapel, perhaps singing psalms or something like that, charitable works that they would have done together, maybe taking a walk in the garden and practicing or playing an instrument or just chatting among the ladies, so possibly some games as well. Anne was known for knowing and being very good at all the fashionable games of the time, so cards, dice, all that sort of thing, but it's very different to what's often portrayed in films and books.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What Anne learned at Claude's court powerfully shaped her outlook.
Eva Longoria
Anne Boleyn experienced female power like no one before.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Dr. Estelle.
Eva Longoria
It was very clear that being a queen was better than being a mistress. Lands, wealth, giving Titles given, no problem. At the end of the day, the one who was sitting by the side of the King was important, was Queen Claude. And I think Anne Boleyn saw that really and must have impacted her in many ways.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
She may also have been influenced by the King's sister, Marguerite Dangouleme, who sought reformation within the Catholic Church.
Eva Longoria
There's something very mysterious about this relationship.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Estelle Perranc, again, I think that they.
Eva Longoria
Spent significant times together. So you're not going to have letters, you're going to have discussions. And it's not just about reformed ideas. I think they were just both very interested in education, especially of women. I'm not saying they're best friends. I'm saying that she probably learned most from Margaret of Anglim, especially when we see how she behaved ourselves towards religion.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It was only after seven years of service to Claude and nearly a decade away from England that Anne returned to join the court of King Henry VIII and Queen Catherine. Lest we think of the court as a static place, Owen Emerson explains, the.
Matt Lewis
Court is a very fluid thing actually. It moves from space to space. So we have the palaces of ritual, Greenwich and Westminster, and the court will be continually on the move. And Anne enters into what is quite a sophisticated court as Catherine's maid of honour. On a day to day basis, they are essentially Catherine's companions. They are praying with her, reading to her and also carrying messages and being a front facing sort of representation of the Queen's hand household, this was an incredibly colourful and sumptuous environment that Anne was going into. You can just get a flavour of that from the clothes that Catherine is wearing here. She's in red velvet and cloth of gold and she is completely bejeweled. This is a really glittering environment and it must have been really dazzling environment for the young Anne Boleyn to enter into.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Who was this Anne? To get a handle first on what Anne looked like, I talked to Dr. Charlotte Bolland, curator at the National Portrait Gallery, about Anne's portraiture. Charlotte, people will feel very familiar with portraits of Anne Boleyn, but caveat emptor, we should be wary of trusting them. Why is that?
Matt Lewis
We don't have a painted portrait produced during Anne's lifetime. A large scale painted portrait that's been identified with certainty. The most familiar images with Anne in a French hood, often against a green background with her bee pendant with all the pearls, is actually produced in the late 16th century. It is an Elizabethan image and it's so interesting to think about the way that image is constructed because it has long been wondered whether that image might itself be based on a lost painting produced during Anne's reign, which is very possible and plausible. But it is equally possible that it is a complete construction of the Elizabethan period. When an artist was confronted with the question of, in the celebration of Elizabeth and wanting to celebrate her mother, how do you make an image of Anne? And so that idea of. Is what's recognisable in that image of Anne, something that's familiar to us from portraits of Elizabeth, was an image of Elizabeth the starting point, but then going backwards. And so there is sort of constructed identity of Anne. And in that it's intriguing as to how she is referred to in the inscriptions. And this very conscious use of the bee emblem, we can know from the amazing inventory taken at Henry VIII's death of the way in which his initials were combined with his queens all over the place. HA emblems being everywhere. Or AR of Ana Regina everywhere. But a bee for Boleyn isn't actually really necessarily part of the way that she would present herself. But it's intriguing to think about how the Elizabethans needed to deal with what happened to her. Because while Elizabeth could never absolve her, as it were, legally, because to do so would imply that her father had murdered her mother, if Anne were completely innocent, nonetheless, Anne needs to be celebrated because she has had this extraordinary daughter. And so it's intriguing that as a Boleyn, that provides a helpful bit of distance, as it were, from the situation. And also they often explicitly identify her as wife rather than necessarily as queen. That has to be because Elizabeth has to be legitimate. But the queen element can be quietened down a bit in the iconography.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That's so interesting, because I have often wondered why a B for Berlin, because after 1529, she's going to be R for Rochford and then she's going to be P for Pembroke, and she becomes Marquess of Pembroke, and then she's Anna Regina in the Latin for Queen. There's only a very slim window where she would have been B for Berlin. Accept this amazing possibility you're presenting that it is posthumously that she's Berlin rather than anything else. What do we have then that dates from her lifetime?
Matt Lewis
The image of Anne that we have that's so emblematic almost of the conundrum of her reputation and her semi erasure and reconstruction is a portrait medal made in 1534 that celebrates her as AR and the most happy written around it. But it's in leading, which is very soft and it's been very worn and flattened. And there is only one that whether it was created in hope of great celebrations of the birth of a son in 1534, that didn't happen and was quietly put aside, never got made in great numbers. So you have that one sort of image of Anne that is very difficult to assess now. And we don't also know how much of a likeness it ever was, how close it had ever been to the queen in its original condition.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
There are other contenders to be an image of Anne produced during her lifetime. Here's just one of them. Previous scores of historians have not thought it was Anne, but that is changing Charlotte Bolland again.
Matt Lewis
The other image which is growing much more securely identified as Anne. Scholarship is sort of coalescing more about it as Anne Boleyn. Now is a drawing in the royal collection of a woman in a nightcap wearing a sort of furred gown, identifying the sitter as Anne Boleyn. The challenge with this portrait is that people have looked at it and thought, how is the status of this woman? This kind of incredible intimacy, this just can't be a queen. Why on earth would an artist have the access to produce this? Who is it for? How can it happen? There is that inversion of the question of saying perhaps only a queen could afford to have an image of that type made. And that the identities have been written on a number of the portrait drawings that are all in the royal collection from the great pattern book of physiognomies that hold. Holbein created that while applied at a later date to the drawings, the list of the identities of the sitters was from people who would have known Anne by sight. And that the vast majority of the identifications of the sitters in these drawings have been accepted. So why question this one of Anne? And there is also the great record of the fact that we have that crumb that Henry gave Anne a silk firle gown prior to their marriage. And so is this that kind of direct connection?
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
The person who would have known Anne Boleyn by sight and who identified Holbein's drawings was Sir John Cheek. Cheek was a tutor to Edward VI and he identified the sitters. In the 1540s, I met Dr. Kate Hurd, the curator of an exhibition on Holbein by the Royal Collection Trust at Buckingham palace, to discuss the drawing. We're standing in front of a preparatory drawing labelled and. And there's been lots of people over the years who have said that this wasn't Anne. I myself am fairly convinced that it is. And I Want to know all your thoughts and to talk about this particular picture and why it has been identified as Anne and why it hasn't.
Matt Lewis
I think there are all sorts of pieces of evidence you can bring to bear on whether this shows Anne Boleyn or not. And to me, again, personally, I agree it's Anne Boleyn, partly because of the weight of that evidence. All these little pieces of the jigsaw that come together, and the first of those is that inscription. And we've talked about these inscriptions a few times. Cheek would have known who Anne Boleyn was. So the fact that in the 18th century, based on the 16th century inscription, this was identified as Anne Boleyn, that's a good start. There's been some work on her dress, some really interesting dress history done, that's been tied to items of clothing that Anne Boleyn is known to have had. There are, for me, two very other interesting facts about the drawing. One of the reasons for debating whether it is Anne Boleyn is the colour of the hair. And the sitter in this drawing has brown eyes, but her hair is very light. We looked at it under a microscope as part of the preparation for the exhibition. And the drawing is a chalk drawing, like most of those in the exhibition. There will have been some rubbing of the surface. And what seems likely is that because we know that Holbein built up his hair colours in layers of different colours to create the tone he wanted. And he started with light chalks and then built up the darker chalks on top to darken the hair. Possibly quite a bit of that darker shading from the top has disappeared. So what you're seeing is probably a lighter hair color than she would originally have had. But I also find the back of the drawing very interesting because this is the only drawing in the exhibition that has something on the back which in itself is unusual for Renaissance drawings. Usually paper's expensive, an artist will use as much as they can. But this has the Wyatt arms on the back. I think it's really interesting that Henry Wyatt, who's one of Holbein's patrons, dies in November 1536, shortly after Anne's executed. And you start to wonder if this became a scrap piece of paper, it would have been known that no longer would any portraits of Anne Boleyn be commissioned. Unlike Jane Seymour. We've got the drawing of Jane Seymour next to it that was constantly used for portraits, but you can imagine Holbein turning it over and using it for a different project. At that point, it's Always up for debate. That's the excitement about Holbein, is there's lots of discussions to be had, but to me, this is a good candidate for Amberlynn.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
For centuries, we have built up this image of Anne as a beautiful femme fatale. Maybe we need to imagine a radically different iconography of Anne. Perhaps it's time to reckon with the idea that maybe Anne was not beautiful, she was just brilliant. Natalie Grueninger agrees.
Eva Longoria
We get this idea of, I suppose, what she looked like, which is a long oval face, quite a strong nose and a pretty decided chin as well. Eric Ives concluded that it's a face of Carrick, not beauty. She probably had dark, auburny hair colour. You know, a lot of people think black, that we actually only have one contemporary account of her having black hair, and that comes later in the Elizabethan period. So her allure was much more to do with her sophistication, her intelligence, her charisma, her wit, rather than, I think, her actual physical appearance.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
What, then can we make of Anne's character? Owen Emerson suggests that above all, we see evidence of her intelligence.
Matt Lewis
You can see that evidenced in a lot of her surviving written words. In her books of hours, she writes the most poignant and beautiful couplets. Everyone that knew her said how engaging she was, how sort of vivacious she was. She had a wonderful character and I would say a very keen intellect as well. I would almost argue that she was on a par with Henry in terms of being able to debate. And I think that engagement underpinned a lot of the turmoil that their relationship went through. It wasn't all sunshine with Anne and Henry. There were some storms, shall we say, where they would buck heads and make up. And I think underpinning that was her.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Amazing intellect in coming to the English court. What did Anne hope for? What were her ambitions? And did she have designs on Henry.
Eva Longoria
From a young age, 12? At least we've got evidence from a letter that Anne wrote. She is dreaming of serving Catherine. She wants to serve her loyally, diligently. She wants to be a really great, perhaps, lady in waiting to her one day. She wants to please her parents and she wants to please the Queen.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Natalie Gruninger.
Eva Longoria
She admires her, perhaps she even loved her. There's all these years that we kind of just skip over and we go to the juicy bits later. But Anne's at court from probably end of 1521, start of 1522. We know that she was in service to Catherine, Perhaps it was on and off, but she was definitely in service to Catherine. At some point, they would have spent time together, they would have eaten together, they would have worshipped together, they would have played games together. There was obviously a relationship there. We hear nothing until Henry's interest in Anne, which means that things are probably going really well.
Matt Lewis
I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan or Yannaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval From History. Hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
Eva Longoria
So I think when Henry does declare his intentions, it's a difficult decision for Anne. I think it must have caused her a great deal of distress. She's a pious woman. She spent time serving the queen. I don't think it's something that she just overnight decided, I'm going to go off with Henry. I'm going to steal him. That, I think, is ridiculous. I don't think it's true. And I think we can see there are 17 love letters that Henry wrote and some in English, some in French, they're in the Vatican. And one of them that's thought to be one of the sort of first letters, Henry says that he's basically wanting an answer from her. He's wanting to clarify what their relationship is, what it's about. And he says, having been for more than a year now struck by the dart of love, to me, this sounds like he has been pursuing her, you know, for at least a year and that perhaps Anne hasn't known how to react. Perhaps she felt guilty, you know, she was serving Catherine. Catherine was a beloved queen. At some point there's a shift, I think, and she feels like this is her path. But I don't for a second think that she was the aggressor, that she was the one chasing him, that she was trying to steal him, that it was a sort of plan of her family's or a plot to rise even further in status. I don't think so.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Although Anne is first recorded at the English court in March 1522. Henry's interest in her does not seem to have been kindled until 1526. At some point during the years 1527 and 1528, Henry wrote Anne a series of love letters. His first letters were written in French, a language that Henry and Anne shared, a language that was deliberately courtly, formal and elevated, as we've heard. In one, he declares that he has loved her for more than in a year, and he asks her to be his sole mistress. He promises that he will be loyal only unto her.
Matt Lewis
I'm turning over in my mind the contents of your last letter. I have put myself into great agony, not knowing how to interpret them, whether to my disadvantage, as you show in some places, or to my advantage, as I understand them in some others, beseeching you earnestly to let me know expressly your whole mind as to the love between us two, it is absolutely necessary for me to obtain this answer, having been for above a whole year stricken with the dart of love, and not yet sure whether I shall fail of finding a place in your heart and affection, which last point has prevented me for some time past from calling you my mistress. Because if. If you only love me with an ordinary love, that name is not suitable for you, because it denotes a singular love which is far from common. But if you please to do the office of a true loyal mistress and friend, and to give up yourself, body and heart, to me, who will be and have been your most loyal servant, if your rigour does not forbid me, I promise you that not only the name shall be given you, but. But also that I will take you for my only mistress, casting off all others besides you out of my thoughts and affections, and serve you only.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
At some point Anne consented to accept the title. Henry wrote to tell her of how he suffered in her absence. He begins, Maitre cet ami moi monc.
Matt Lewis
My mistress and friend, my heart and I surrender ourselves into your hands, beseeching you to hold us commended of your favour and that by absence your affection to us may not be lessened, for it were a great pity to increase our pain, of which absence produces enough and more than I could ever have thought could be felt, reminding us of a point in astronomy, which is, the longer the days are, the more distant is the sun, and nevertheless the hotter. So it is with our love, for by absence we are kept a distance from one another, and yet it retains its fervor, at least on my side.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Seeing as they cannot be together. He sends her the nearest thing to that, a miniature painting of himself, probably one of those that had been painted by the horembuts in around 1525, 26.
Matt Lewis
And seeing that I cannot be personally present with you, I now send you the nearest thing I can to that, namely my picture set in a bracelet with the whole of the device which you already know, wishing myself in their place. If it should please you, this is from the hand of your loyal servant and friend.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hr if it should please you. Henry says. Anne's letters to Henry, which we know once existed, no longer do. His survived through time by sheer accident, or perhaps by sheer design. They were almost certainly seized and taken back to Rome, where they remain in the Vatican Library. But Anne's letters to him were not. We should not imagine that she was silent. The words she was writing to him evidently moved and convinced him.
Matt Lewis
The demonstrations of your affection are such the beautiful mottos of the letter so cordially expressed that they oblige me forever to honor, love and serve you sincerely, beseeching you to continue in the same firm and constant purpose, assuring you that on my part I will surpass it, rather than make it reciprocal, if loyalty of heart and a desire to please you can accomplish this, assuring you that henceforward my heart shall be dedicated to you alone. I wish my person was so too. God can do it if he pleases, to whom I pray every day for that end, hoping that at length my prayers will be heard.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Henry was praying that God would endorse adultery. But he didn't see it like that. In September 1527, Henry's agents had been sent to Rome to ask for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. The business of getting that annulment, what became known as the King's Great Matter, would take another six years and could only be accomplished by the casting aside of Queen Catherine, the destruction of Cardinal Thomas WSI and the severing of England from the Roman Catholic church. Eventually, in 1533, Henry's new archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, proclaimed the marriage to Catherine null and void. He had already married Henry to Anne. Anne Big with child. Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. The child she was carrying was born on 7 September. It was a girl. They named her after both their mothers, Elizabeth. It was a disappointment and it was a setback and it was a bit.
Eva Longoria
Embarrassing, particularly for Henry, after everything he'd done to marry Anne.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Dr. Tracy Borman. But she had proved that she could.
Matt Lewis
Come through a birth.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
She could survive unscathed and so could her child, who was thriving.
Matt Lewis
So it wasn't a disaster at all. And what I really love, actually, is.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That Anne herself showed no regret, no disappointment. That was all Henry.
Matt Lewis
Anne doted on her child from the very beginning, asking that Elizabeth be placed.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Next to her on velvet cushions so.
Eva Longoria
She didn't have to be parted from.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Her, and even causing a bit of.
Matt Lewis
A scandal by expressing her intention to breastfeed her daughter, which definitely wasn't done in a royal wife, and she had.
Eva Longoria
To step down from that intention.
Matt Lewis
But she was proud of Elizabeth and made sure that everybody honoured her as.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
The heir to the throne that she was. Anne used her position as Queen to advance the causes that were dear to her heart, chief among them, reform. Tracey Borman. Again, Henry might have gone through the.
Matt Lewis
Break with Rome really sparked by the desire for an annulment, but for Anne, it was genuine.
Eva Longoria
She wanted to reform the Catholic Church.
Matt Lewis
And she certainly instilled her daughter Elizabeth.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
With the same kind of reforming zeal.
Matt Lewis
That would ultimately become known as Protestantism. She was enormously influential.
Eva Longoria
She took risks for her faith, importing banned heretical texts and actually showing some of them to Henry.
Matt Lewis
So she was always a great advocate for religious reform. And she was listed by one member.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Of Henry's court at the head of.
Eva Longoria
A group of four or five really.
Matt Lewis
Influential religious reformers, including Thomas Cromwell, her erstwhile ally. Of course, they would clash over religion.
Eva Longoria
And the dissolution in particular, with fatal results for Anne.
Matt Lewis
But we should, I think, focus more.
Eva Longoria
And celebrate more the influence that Anne.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Was able to have during her brief tenure as queen. Her tenure was brief because only three years into her reign, Anne was accused of adultery, incest and conspiring. The King's death. The last of those charges was treason. Within three short weeks in May 1536, she and the men charged with her had been tried and executed. The reason for these charges has long been a mystery. Did Henry want to get rid of Anne so suddenly? Was it a conspiracy against her? Was she guilty? Professor Jones, Joanne de la Neva, has studied a poem from June 1536, which was sent as a dispatch from the French Embassy in London to Paris within two weeks of this unprecedented and unfathomable execution of an anointed queen. The dispatch was written by Lancelot Descales, secretary to the French Ambassador to England, and it sheds some light on how these accusations arose.
Eva Longoria
Well, I think if you talk about it in journalistic terms, he delivers a scoop, which is, how exactly did the story of Anne Boleyn's adultery break? And that's his main claim to fame here because he frames this as a conversation or an argument that takes place between a close counselor, the king, and that counselor's sister, who he would like to admonish for her bad behavior. And so the sister responds with, well, if you think I'm behaving badly, basically, you should see what's going on with the Queen. And she makes the accusation that Anne has been sleeping with her brother George, and that Mark Smeaton would know all about it. So go talk to Mark and he'll tell you even more than I can claim. Now, of course, there are other sources that talk about the fact that these accusations may have arisen from her inner circle. But the thing that's distinctive about Carl is that he dramatizes this moment. He gives a dialogue of this conversation between the brother and sister, which has fatal consequences, of course.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So was Anne incestuous with her brother?
Eva Longoria
Anne and George had a very special relationship.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Natalie Gruniger.
Eva Longoria
They were incredibly close. I think they loved each other dearly. They were two peas in a pod. I think having the two of them in the same room must have been overwhelming. You know, they were just incredibly intelligent, captivating, witty. And I think in the end, this really graded on Henry. I think he felt somehow diminished in their presence. To be honest with you, it's pretty ludicrous. But the only evidence that is given at court, and this is Chapuy, Eustace Chapuy, the Imperial ambassador that's commenting on this. So this is a man that of course, is devoted to Catherine and to the Lady Mary. Every second he's trying to improve their situation. That's what he's there for. He's just totally devoted to that. He says that the only evidence of this incestuous relationship was that George had spent a long time with his sister. This is one occasion that apparently he spent a long time with her. That's it. There's no witnesses, there's no other testimony that we know of. That's the only thing. It is just farcical, really. That's all they could get. Whoever it was Cromwell and whoever thinking, what are we going to do here? Oh, yes, George spent a long time with Anne that day, because he did. He would come back from diplomatic missions and rather than going to the King, he would go to Anne. That's how close they were. That's how much he valued his sister and how much he believed in her right to rule by Henry. It's really touching and it's really moving and it makes this whole story all the more tragic, to be honest.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Another enduring myth is that Anne Boleyn was accused of witchcraft. The only contemporary reference that corresponds at all to this comes from a piece of gossip heard third or fourth hand, suggesting that Henry thought Anne had attracted him by the use of sot ileige. This was picked up later in the 16th century by a Catholic enemy of Elizabeth I, Nicholas Sander.
Eva Longoria
29Th of January, 1536. Quite a crucial date, actually.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Natalie Grueninger.
Eva Longoria
Eustace Chapuy reports on that very day, that morning that he's heard Henry has confessed some things. Henry's stressed something's happened. Chapuy doesn't know what it is at this point, but apparently Henry, in great secrecy, has confessed that he had been seduced and forced into this second marriage by means of sortilege and charms, and that owing to that, he held it as null. So this word, sortilege, there's so much confusion around exactly what Henry was talking about, if Henry ever said it, because let's remember, this is translated as well, and it's gone through about three different people, two different languages. So was the king implying that his wife was a witch? If he was, then it would appear to lend credence to another myth, which is that Anne gave birth to a baby that had malformations, because, of course, at the time, birth defects were associated with witchcraft and sorcery, as well as moral and theological and maybe sexual sins as well. But let's just go back to the witch thing. So Anne was not accused of witchcraft with any at her trial. This is not on the indictment. And Eric Ives actually says in his biography that the primary English meaning of the word at the time, sortilage, was divination. So he suggests that if Henry did in fact use this term, remembering all the people it's gone through, that he's perhaps referring to those promises that Anne had made him, the promises that she would give him sons, that their union would solidify the tutor reign, and they'd have a whole soccer team of boys or something like that. So it's possible that that's what he was referring to and that he felt that he had to unburden himself to one of his courtiers that then went and shared the gossip that Chapu gets. But it's Nicholas Sandra as well that picks up on this. He's painting the picture of a witch because people are using Anne's memories for their own political agenda. So people that want to curry favor with Elizabeth are of course honoring Anne's memory, and she becomes this sort of Protestant martyr and this saint, people that are trying to destroy Elizabeth and bring her down use Anne's memory in order to do that. So they try and blacken Elizabeth's reputation by saying all these crude things about her mother. So there's all that going on as well. But I think if she'd been accused of witchcraft, we would have heard about in the trial. People like Chapuis, who's talking about what she's accused of, would have mentioned it.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It was also Sander who perpetuated the idea that Anne gave birth to a deformed fetus.
Eva Longoria
There is absolutely no contemporary evidence to support Sanders theory.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Natalie Grueninger again.
Eva Longoria
And let's just remind everyone that Sanders at the time is around six years old, just in case you were wondering. So, you know, this is not something he's an eyewitness to, to or anything like that. He's obviously relying on things that he's heard. But at no point during Anne's life or Henry's lifetime, or during Edwards and Mary's for that matter, where there probably was reason to, you know, bring these stories out. Did anyone comment or remark on the appearance of that baby and claim that it was in any way unusual. Eustace Chapley comments on the fact that Anne herself thought she was about 15 weeks gone at the time. There is no comment that there's anything wrong with this baby, apart from obviously the reason why she's miscarried.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
In one copy of Lancelot Descartes poem at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, there are some additional verses that carry an important message about Anne's guilt or innocence.
Eva Longoria
I think that some of the verses are comparable to other verses that are found in different manuscripts. And why they're there and not in others, I'm not quite sure.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Joanne Delano but there are four verses.
Eva Longoria
In particular that read in the English translation. He's describing the moment of Anne's execution and how the witnesses to her execution are reacting to that. And he says that everyone, on the basis of her mightily steady end, judges her life to have been prudent and believes that they have committed a great offense in having thought so ill of her. And those lines are quite distinctive from anything else that he's written because they are the most explicit with regard to Carl's depiction of her guilt or innocence. And clearly by saying that she has been prudent, which he had said specifically earlier on, that he doubted that she was prudent, be sure wasn't following the path of the Prudent mistress Claude de France. Here he's saying her life had been prudent. And prudence is an important virtue according to Thomas Aquinas. It's the virtue that you need for holding the passions and the appetites in check. So if you know that, if you know your Aquinas, and clearly he as a cleric would have, and many people at the time would have, that's a really loaded expression right there. And it would mean that he is suggesting that not only had she repented of anything, but it's more than that. She probably was not guilty, and no one should ever have thought her to be guilty. And that's pretty astounding.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's so exciting because it means that Dikal is tying his colors to the mast. We can see what he thinks, and it's crucial that we can understand the meaning of the language that he's using in order to do that. And also because actually, Descartes, as you well know, has often been used, or particularly been used recently by my dear friend George Bernard to suggest that actually this is an indication of Anne's guilt and that the Descartes poem really testifies to that. But actually, what you're saying is something quite different. Right.
Eva Longoria
And it's understandable that other people might not have come to that conclusion so easily if they don't have access to these extra verses. So I do think that these verses are important for historians to consider in the overall picture. I mean, certainly early in the poem, Carl is not depicting Anne in a favorable light. He says all kinds of nasty things about her. He says that she was full of malice and evil. I mean, that's pretty damning. But then at a certain point, it shifts and he becomes much more sympathetic. And generally, people have thought, well, this is the moment towards the middle of the poem where she's already in prison and she turns her thoughts to God. That's what he says. And so it's because she realizes that her past has been bad, that she has not been living up to a good Christian standard. Then she's repenting. That's why Carl is now sympathetic to her, because she's repentant and worthy of our mercy as well. But I think this changes that because it's more than she's simply saying she has repented. It's saying she was never guilty. Her life has been prudent, and we have thought ill of her, and we have done her a great offense.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
On the 19th of May, 1536, Anne Boleyn, that intelligent, learned, reforming woman from A family in the ascendant, shaped by training on the continent, who had become like her erstwhile mistress, Claude de France. An anointed queen was beheaded at the Tower of London. Henry had destroyed her body, but he could not quench her memory. In her printed Book of Hours, now kept at Hever Castle, Anne had written, remember me when you do pray, that hope doth lead from day to Kate. McCaffrey discovered some other erased inscriptions in the same Book of Hours.
Eva Longoria
Sir John Gage probably is the most famous of the authors inside this book. He was very prominent politician in Henry's court and later through to the court of Mary I. And it's him and his wife who have both written inside it. Mary west was part of the the west family, who were the barons Dullawar and Elizabeth Shirley and Philippa Gage were both daughters of Sir Richard Guildford, who was a close friend of Henry vii.
Matt Lewis
So these are kind of people who.
Eva Longoria
Were known well at Henry's court, but they seem to have been mainly in the provinces in Kent, and especially the women who wrote in this book seem to have been mainly from this area.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
That's a phenomenal piece of historical detective work that you've done. What do you think it tells us about the memory of Anne? Is it that it's something provincial, that it becomes just a memory you keep in the county from which she came, or do you think it has something more to tell us about her status in people's minds?
Eva Longoria
It can tell us a lot in terms of how, despite these widespread attempts to discredit Anne in the years after her downfall, she was still cherished and held close by people who knew her or had a close connection connection to her. And I was able to discover a connection between these other owners and Anne, which comes through another woman, Elizabeth Hill, who was the wife of the sergeant of the King's cellar, Richard Hill. And we have some anecdotal evidence to suggest that they were close to Anne.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And I suppose we could imagine that this is a Protestant story in some ways. If they are very willing to cross out the Pope's name and if they're cherishing Anne's memory, those two things might be connected by their faith at the time. Do you think that's part of it?
Eva Longoria
I think certainly that is part of it, because as you said, we see in that kind of deletion of Thomas Becket and the Popes that there's at least a conformity or a compliance to the kind of evangelism at the time. But whether that's purely religion I think definitely is the personal connection to Anne. But with this personal connection comes just that maybe they were connected also in that religious way as well. And in these kind of Kent networks that were close to the Berlin family, it feels like perhaps that that remained in kind of similar religious circles as well.
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Anne was remembered and she still thanks for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors from History hit. And also thanks to my researcher Alice Smith and my producer Rob Weinberg. Next time on Not Just the Tudors, we'll be revisiting the sad, short queenships of Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, two women about which there's a lot more to be said than their brief marriages to Henry viii. We're always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects that we can cover. So do drop us a line at notjusttudorshistoryhit.com or on xotjusttudors. Remember that you can also listen to all of these podcasts on YouTube and watch hundreds of documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe it's well worth it. And if you'd be so good as to follow Not Just the Tudors on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, you'll get each new episode as soon as it's released. I consider it a Christmas gift. Thank you.
Eva Longoria
Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like, what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria.
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Hi, I'm Maite Gomez Rejon.
Matt Lewis
Our podcast Hungry for History is back.
Eva Longoria
And this season we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history, seeing that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed.
Maite Gomez Rejon
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Matt Lewis
Listen to Hungry for history on the.
Eva Longoria
Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Matt Lewis
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Podcast Summary: "Six Wives: Katherine of Aragon & Anne Boleyn"
Title: Six Wives: Katherine of Aragon & Anne Boleyn
Host: Professor Suzannah Lipscomb
Episode Release Date: December 23, 2024
Podcast Series: Not Just the Tudors by History Hit
In this engaging episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb delves into the intricate lives of two of Henry VIII's most influential wives: Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Drawing from an array of expert interviews and the latest historical research, the episode offers a comprehensive exploration of these women's contributions to the monarchy, their personal struggles, and their enduring legacies.
Katherine of Aragon, born in 1485 as the fifth child of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, was primed from birth for a life of royalty. Her parents, known for their formidable rule, had established the Spanish Inquisition, expelled the Jews from Spain, and financed Christopher Columbus’s voyages. Despite the tumultuous environment, Katherine was much loved as a child.
Eva Longoria [05:25]: “She was much loved as a child.”
Her education was exemplary, with her mother ensuring that Katherine was well-versed in languages and the arts, something that was uncommon for royal women in Europe at the time.
At three years old, Katherine was betrothed to Prince Arthur, the eldest son of King Henry VII of England, as part of a strategic alliance to isolate France and protect vital trade routes. The marriage was formalized by the Treaty of Medina del Campo in 1489.
Maite Gomez Rejon [06:25]: “She could read Latin and understand what she was signing at just 11 years old.”
In October 1501, at age 15, Katherine journeyed to England. Her arrival was marked by grand ceremonies and pageantry meant to symbolize the importance of the union between England and Spain.
Tragically, Prince Arthur died five months after their marriage in 1502, leaving Katherine a widow at 16. For the next seven years, she lived at Durham House and later with Henry VII’s court in Richmond, awaiting her marriage to Arthur’s younger brother, Henry VIII. Despite delays over dowry disputes, Katherine remained active and influential, serving as an ambassador and patron of the arts.
Maite Gomez Rejon [20:27]: “She was the first woman to be ambassadors in history.”
In 1509, upon Henry VII’s death, Henry VIII ascended to the throne and promptly married Katherine. Their marriage was initially harmonious, with Katherine advising Henry on foreign policy and participating actively in court life.
Katherine was a Renaissance queen who greatly influenced English culture and politics. She promoted religious reform and supported artistic endeavors, including bringing Italian sculptor Donatello to England.
Maite Gomez Rejon [32:24]: “Together, Catherine and Henry created their own Renaissance court to rival the best courts and institutions of Europe.”
She played a pivotal role in the military success at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513, where she served as regent and inspired the English troops to victory.
Despite her successes, Katherine faced significant personal tragedies, including the death of her only surviving child, Mary, in 1536. Her steadfast Catholic faith and inability to produce a male heir became focal points of tension with Henry VIII, ultimately leading to their separation and her imprisonment.
Maite Gomez Rejon [39:27]: “She is erased... a lot of them were erased.”
Katherine’s legacy, though overshadowed by her sister-in-law Anne Boleyn, remains substantial. Her role in shaping the Tudor court and her contributions to religious and cultural reforms are enduring aspects of English history.
The Boleyn family's ascent to prominence spanned three generations, marked by strategic marriages and alliances that positioned them firmly within the Tudor court. Anne's father, Thomas Boleyn, was a respected diplomat and courtier, known for his political acumen and influential connections.
Eva Longoria [42:34]: “The Boleyn story is really the story of many families at court in that particular era.”
Anne Boleyn was well-educated, spending formative years at the courts of Margaret of Austria and Queen Claude of France. Her experiences abroad exposed her to Renaissance ideas and female power, which profoundly shaped her outlook and ambitions.
Eva Longoria [53:05]: “Anne Boleyn experienced female power like no one before.”
Anne’s likeness has been a subject of historical debate. Contemporary portraits are scarce and often misattributed, but recent scholarship suggests that certain drawings previously thought to depict other queens may indeed represent Anne. These portraits emphasize her intelligence and charisma over physical beauty, challenging the traditional femme fatale image.
Matt Lewis [63:24]: “Perhaps we need to imagine a radically different iconography of Anne. Perhaps it's time to reckon with the idea that maybe Anne was not beautiful; she was just brilliant.”
Anne and Henry VIII shared a complex and intellectually stimulating relationship. Henry sought Anne’s counsel on matters of state, and their partnership extended beyond romantic involvement to political alliance.
Eva Longoria [22:24]: “They had a very positive relationship with each other. Very fond of each other at the beginning.”
Anne’s ambition and intelligence made her a formidable figure in the Tudor court. She played a crucial role in advocating for religious reform, aligning with Protestant ideals and influencing Henry’s break from the Catholic Church.
Despite her contributions, Anne's rise was met with intense scrutiny and opposition. By the mid-1520s, Henry VIII sought an annulment of his marriage to Katherine to marry Anne, leading to the infamous King's Great Matter. Anne’s failure to produce a male heir and the political machinations of court factions culminated in her arrest on charges of adultery, incest, and witchcraft.
Eva Longoria [78:54]: “Anne and George had a very special relationship...they loved each other dearly.”
The trial, laden with fabricated evidence and driven by Henry’s desire for a male successor, resulted in Anne’s execution in May 1536. Her legacy, marred by controversy, endures as a symbol of both royal ambition and the tragic costs of power struggles.
Matt Lewis [83:25]: “If Henry did in fact use this term, remembering all the people it’s gone through, that he’s perhaps referring to those promises that Anne had made him...”
Anne Boleyn's memory was systematically erased and distorted through Tudor propaganda and subsequent historical interpretations. Modern scholarship, however, strives to reclaim her legacy, emphasizing her political savvy, reformist zeal, and personal strengths.
Eva Longoria [89:30]: “Despite these widespread attempts to discredit Anne... she was still cherished and held close by people who knew her.”
Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, as Henry VIII’s first two wives, significantly shaped the course of English history. Katherine’s steadfastness and cultural contributions laid a foundation for the Tudor court, while Anne’s intelligence and reformist agenda facilitated the religious transformations that marked the era.
Their lives, filled with both triumphs and tragedies, offer profound insights into the complexities of power, gender, and legacy in Tudor England. This episode not only reaffirms their importance beyond their marriages to Henry but also challenges traditional narratives, urging a reevaluation of their true historical significance.
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and her panel of historians present a nuanced portrayal of Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, moving beyond the conventional Tudor narrative to highlight their individual strengths and enduring legacies. This episode serves as a testament to the profound influence these women wielded in an era dominated by male power, offering listeners a richer understanding of Tudor history.
To explore more captivating stories from this fascinating period, subscribe to Not Just the Tudors on History Hit, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other major platforms.