Henry VIII Before the Six Wives: The Untold Story | Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things

[00:00:00]So, Kate, what have we got coming up on the show today?

[00:00:03]>> Robert, we've got a young king smashing his way [music] into the throne, forming a legacy, and we've got his wife, who I'd say is one of the most undervalued, underappreciated queens in British history. She would have been a much better monarch than him. Yes, it is him. It's [music] the big kahuna, that gigantic king himself in every way. It's Henry VII.

[00:00:33]Hello and welcome to another episode of Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things. I'm Robert Harbin, Daily Mail columnist and royal biographer, and I'm joined as ever by Professor Kate Williams, royal biographer, author of the new book, Regina. Kate, hello.

[00:00:49]>> Hello, Robert. And today we are going to embark on uh territory that might sound familiar but hopefully will throw up all sorts of interesting new things. We are going to look at arguably the most famous king uh not necessarily monarch but king in British history Henry VIII and we are looking at him because it's 500 years ago to this year that he really started getting serious about an as a result of that. It changed everything. It changed our religious constitutional history. It changed the landscape of this country. who was a huge moment. Um, but before we get to the uh this this this seismic love affair uh that caused so much damage uh to everything, um Kate, why don't we go right back to the start because this is your period, not mine. But let's go back to the birth of uh Henry VII uh in June 1491.

[00:01:51]Um and let's remind ourselves he wasn't born to be king, was he? Henry VIII, the big kahuna, one of the most famous kings in British history. And what we're going to say is, is he just famous for those wives? If he hadn't had six wives, would he be so talked about? Would he be considered? If poor Katherine of Araggon had had that son, he'd never have divorced her. Well, anul the marriage, never have gone to Amberlin. So, all of history could be different. But certainly I think without those six wives, without those ladies, we wouldn't find history and Henry so fascinating.

[00:02:28]But yes, he's born 1491, the third child of Henry and Elizabeth of York. There's Arthur who's number one. He's the heir.

[00:02:37]And then there's Margaret who will later marry into the Scottish royal family.

[00:02:40]And then there's Henry. So our boy Henry is the spare.

[00:02:46]>> He's the original insurance. He is the insurance. Arthur is set to be king. Now Henry VIIIth, our man is a tuda. He's I mean it's a very shaky claim to the throne. He seized the throne on the battlefield against Richard III. And you know I always like the ladies, but I'm going to say it now. It is his wife Elizabeth of York. She should the one she should be queen begant. She is the sister of the princess in the tower, the sisters of the rightful king. and no one is cheering on a female monarch. So Henry VIIIth legitimizes his battlefield win by marrying the rightful I would say Queen Regnant Elizabeth of York and she becomes a very successful consort and has these children with him. So Henry VIIIth is creating a dynasty and he calls his eldest child Arthur because he's thinking about Arthur and the round table. And you'll see the tutors doing this over and over again. The >> Welsh, isn't he? So, he's trying to sort of buy into the whole kind of English national narrative.

[00:03:51]>> Henry comes from Katherine Navalis, widow of Henry V who married her steward Owen Tuda. That's the line that is Henry VIIIth and they are Welsh and so we have the Arthur visualization. So the idea, the dream of Henry VIIIth is to have a next King Arthur. So he names his son Arthur. And Arthur gets all the wonderful education, the great tutors, the scholarship. He's the golden boy.

[00:04:18]Everything everyone thinks he's marvelous. He's going to marry Katherine of Araggon, the great daughter of that power pair, Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile. Henry Arspair is I'm not saying ignored, but he just doesn't have that much attention paid to him. He is, I'm afraid to say, Robert, destined for a career in the church.

[00:04:42]>> Well, he sort of did manner of speaking, but but he still had a very good education, didn't he?

[00:04:48]>> He had a not as good as a feminine education.

[00:04:50]>> Not as good as Arthur's.

[00:04:51]>> Yeah. But Arthur was being trained with sort of swords and how to be a king and stuff, whereas Henry, correct me if I'm wrong, but Henry was having a rather more what we might today call a conventional education. He was learning languages and poetry.

[00:05:02]>> So does Arthur. So both of them learn languages. Henry, they're both taught to be Renaissance princes. Henry particularly loves horses, hunting, and sword fighting. That's what he really, really loves. And he does have more sort of more feminine influence. Uh, spends more time with his mother than Arthur.

[00:05:20]But overall, both of them are raised as Renaissance princes. But Henry, yes, he is supposed to go into the church. No glittering marriages in the same way are talked for him. He's, you know, something of an afterthought.

[00:05:34]and he knows that. And then his brother marries Katherine of Aragan and Henry assists at the wedding. He's 10 and he assists at the wedding and I think he's dazzled by this beautiful, fashionable Spanish princess. Arthur and Katherine of Aragan are married.

[00:05:53]>> They go off and they're in Lello in in Wales and there it's 20 weeks after the wedding. There Arthur dies of we believe that fatal fatal illness that swept 16th century England. It was the sweating sickness. So he died of the sweating sickness. You know >> what do you think the sweating sickness was? By the way, >> interesting. Robert, I've seen recent research that suggests that sweating sickness could have been the Her virus.

[00:06:18]It's a version of the Her virus. But one thing we do know about the sweating sickness is that once you've got it, there's very little the doctors can do.

[00:06:26]I mean, the doctors are pretty lacking in power anyway in the 16th century, but all you can do is just hope that the sufferer will get through it. And Arthur dies. Arthur dies when he's 15. And that changes everything. Henry, just 10, is now the heir to the throne.

[00:06:49]Katherine of Araggon is a teenage widow.

[00:06:51]Arthur is dead. Henry VIIth is mourning.

[00:06:54]And our little man Henry is now the heir to the throne. And everything changes overnight.

[00:07:01]>> He he is now well he's now Prince of Wales. He is now Duke of Cornwall which is very important in terms of revenue.

[00:07:09]Uh it's interesting that even when he was very little um his father Henry the 7th did give him quite a lot of grand titles. I think mainly to stop other people getting that.

[00:07:17]>> Oh yes he had he was the warden of the sink ports and constable of do castle age. Very effective.

[00:07:24]Yeah, I mean great I mean night of the bath. I think marvelous to have a 2-year-old in charge of Dober Castle.

[00:07:29]Very effective. As you say, Henry VIII didn't want to give out too many sweeties to the aristocracy because he was going to keep that aristocracy firmly under the thumb. Something that his son also learned about.

[00:07:41]>> So you Henry Henry VIII to be young Prince Henry. He's already got a pretty, you know, impressive cluster of titles.

[00:07:47]Now all of a sudden Arthur's dead as you said and he is head of the throne. He's Duke of Cornwall. Everything's coming his way and presumably he's now got to start thinking about um getting a wife of his own.

[00:08:00]>> They Well, he's too young to marry strictly speaking, but betroal is now being discussed. And also, one big change that's made is that Henry VIIth panics. He has one son. He doesn't want any of those girls going on the throne.

[00:08:15]He has one son. And so, he wraps him up in 16th century cotton wool. Henry is told, "No more of that riding, no more of those rough sports, no more jousting, you know, wrestling, none of that.

[00:08:29]>> Not going off to war."

[00:08:30]>> No, you are now going to be protected.

[00:08:33]And this is something that Henry finds very annoying. And as we'll see, the adult Henry, he wants to keep jousting and jousting, and even when he shouldn't really be jousting, he's too old, he's still doing it, I think, in reaction to being restricted from it. So now the thing is we have Katherine of Araggon very powerful princess couple of years Henry's senior and she has come over from Spain with a gigantic dowy 200,000 crowns absolutely massive now strictly speaking she's a widow she should go back to Spain go back on the marriage market but Henry II we know he likes the pennies he didn't want to send her back so he really wants to keep her and the money and her parents Ferdinand and Isabella, they sort of ascent with this because they don't want her back in Spain either. They want her in England because they want her to marry the king of England. And if it's not Arthur, it's going to be Henry. So, they want her married to Henry.

[00:09:35]>> Do we know what Katherine thinks about this at this stage, Kate? I mean, there she is. She's widowed. Um, she probably guesses she's being steered towards this sort of pipsqueak of 10-year-old. uh and she's sitting there with a vast fortune um but somewhat powerless.

[00:09:51]>> The vast fortune is not given to her.

[00:09:53]Henry VIIth keeps it himself and Katherine of Araggon actually says she hasn't got any money at some points.

[00:09:59]She's often not at court. She's sort of put outside in separate houses. So she lives a pretty miserable limbo life. It's actually rather awful for her. Her parents say, "Oh no, we don't want her back. She must stay." And Henry VIIIth treats her well, not particularly well, I would say, and takes the money. So, Katherine's rather miserable. I mean, it just epitomizes what it's like being a woman on the marriage board on a a porn on the marriage board because that's what she is. So, I think she does hope to marry Henry VII. I I think that when when when he has a prime role at her wedding, I think she thinks he's rather a sweet younger brother. She likes him. And so I think it's possible. But so for Katherine of Aragan, she is in this sort of rather miserable limbo, not having much money. And there's also this sliding doors moment that after the death of Elizabeth of York, Henry VI's mother, Henry the 7th's wife, Henry the 7th thinks of marrying Katherine of Araggon to keep that diary for himself.

[00:10:59]>> And Isabella of Castile, her mother says, "Oh no, how awful. I can't bear the thought of it." I mean, there are plenty of, you know, daughters being married off to goodness knows who in her family. She wants Katherine to marry the prize future Henry VII. And I just think that Katherine of Araggon, what a great life she'd have had being Henry VII's dowaged widow. She would have been queen. He wasn't going to unull or divorce her. She'd have been Henry VII's stepmother and then lived in palatial splendor. Hopefully, >> no need no need to sire any children either.

[00:11:33]>> Exactly. No need to sire any children.

[00:11:35]It was all sorted out. So that is a sliding doors moment. But no, everything was set for her. Now what we start to see as Henry VII grows older is other possibilities of a marriage alliance made that aren't Catherine because when her mother Isabella of Castile dies, suddenly she's much less powerful because she's the daughter of the king of Araggon, but her sister Joanna becomes queen of Castile and it's badly treated. But that's another story. So Katherine loses power there and Henry VIIth starts to think, "Oh, maybe not."

[00:12:08]But when Henry VIIth dies, one of the first things Henry VIII does is says, "You know what? My father said I should marry Katherine of Araggon." Probably not true, but Henry VIII is determined that one of the first things he does on the throne is marry that poor princess who's been languishing with no money. He wants to marry her. And that is the sum of all her parents' ambitions, all her ambitions. She's got what she always wanted. But as we know, Robert, sometimes you get what you want, and it's not a good thing, is it? Well, it's certainly not going to be in her case.

[00:12:50]So, yeah, we've got to have the second kind of key date if you like. So, 1502, uh, Arthur, the golden boy dies. Little boy Henry, age 10, is the head of the throne. 159, 7 years later. Uh, here we have the moment. Henry the 7th is dead and Henry is now Henry VII. Young Henry is now king.

[00:13:11]>> 17 years old. He's now the king and >> and he knows he's going to need a queen.

[00:13:16]>> Well, that's it. So people say why did he choose Katherine Aaragan? I think he liked her. He'd always been fond of her.

[00:13:23]I think he saw himself as a night in shining armor rescuing her from her situation. And also the other possibility for his marriage was too young for him to marry and start siring heirs. He wants to get on with business.

[00:13:36]She's in her early 20s. He's 17. He wants to start siring heirs, having children, being king. And she's perfect.

[00:13:45]She's absolutely perfect. They have What happens to that money by the way? I mean, you know, his father was very keen to hang on to the 200,000 crowns that were her diary. Um, has all that disappeared by now? Is Henry VIIth use that up or does Henry VII inherit it?

[00:13:59]>> Good question. So, good question. Henry VIIth does save lots and lots of money.

[00:14:04]Henry VIII comes to a throne which is replete with money. There is money flowing out of every spot in the court.

[00:14:14]And Henry VIII is going to spend it. He is I know they accuse Marian Twinet of being spend thrift, but Henry VII is the superstar in the whole of British history and the whole of world history, I'd say. So Henry comes to the throne. He's very wealthy. He marries quickly. It's a small second marriage. So the marriage is quite small with Katherine, but they have a gigantic grand bling. You can imagine it coronation. You know, London's flowing with wine and everyone's got to cheer Henry V forever and ever and ever. It's the hugest coronation.

[00:14:48]>> Catherine rides home, doesn't she? That it's this one long festival.

[00:14:51]>> One long festival. And she I mean, she's done everything that her parents wanted.

[00:14:55]Her mother's now dead. Everything that her parents wanted. She's fulfilled their expectations. She is now queen.

[00:15:01]And I do think it's very interesting because we often it's a rather, you know, it's very, I think, very trashy way of looking at an Katherine saying Anne's glamorous and Katherine's not.

[00:15:12]And apart from that being very sexist, Katherine is seen as this rather glamorous. She's gorgeous. She's popular. It's a perfect perfect marriage. And you know what else Henry VII does when he gets to the throne?

[00:15:23]Apart from spending money, he also executes two of his father's most trusted advisers who are seen as financial sort of vice twisters. It's a popular move getting rid of these two advisers, but it's an extreme move executing them rather than just depriving them of all their estates and chucking them into exile. This shows us that even the 17-year-old Henry sees execution as a solution.

[00:15:50]>> So, they don't waste any time getting on with duty number one of a monarch, which is to produce an heir. And it's not long afterwards that Katherine is pregnant.

[00:15:59]Is that right?

[00:16:00]>> Katherine is pregnant quite soon. And it's just so sad because Katherine has a stillborn girl and then she falls pregnant again and a little boy is born, a healthy little boy who is called Henry and there are jousts and festivities and all the parties and then he dies and >> goes within weeks, doesn't he? I mean it's January uh I think >> January the 1st. Yeah.

[00:16:23]>> He I think he's born on >> 1511.

[00:16:25]>> January the 1st. He's born on New Year's Day. So very auspicious moment.

[00:16:29]>> Yeah.

[00:16:30]>> And >> February he's dead. February he's dead and there are a series of miscarriages, still births and then Mary is born in 1516. Healthy little girl. Mary is born but that is it. And Henry doesn't want a female heir. And Katherine, she's seen her mother Isabella of Castile be such a powerful queen. She thinks look at my daughter. Mary's intelligent. She's very clever child. She's brilliant at music and dancing. And this dancing is important. It shows you can pick up instructions quickly. She she is the sort of epitome of a well- educated little girl. She's seen as perfect. So why can't she be queen? But Henry doesn't see it that way. And you know, Katherine, you know, she it's very interesting. All of Henry VII's wives are all descended from Edward the First.

[00:17:19]Katherine has a weak, not great, but weak claim to the throne herself. Would have been a great Queen Wegnant. She is diplomatic. She's devoted. She's supportive and also she is a much better war leader than Henry. Henry is hopeless at war. I mean that not everyone agrees with me but he goes out there you can just see it foldable. He goes there like one big giant well I was going to say one big giant panda but I like a panda.

[00:17:44]I don't know one big giant you know you know dragon saying marvelous look at me everyone I'm so great and keeps losing.

[00:17:51]And while he's on one of his, I would say failed efforts in France in 1513, he makes Katherine into his regent. And while he's away, Scotland, James IVth of Scotland, says, "I'm going to invade."

[00:18:05]And Katherine fights back hard. Now, I'm a big pro- Scots person, so I don't like to support beating up the Scots, but she did beat up the Scots.

[00:18:13]>> And they were trying to invade England at the time. Well, well, still Henry Henry I say Henry provoked them and she James IV was killed and Henry >> Yes. It's important to say the king of Scotland um goes into battle against the English and is killed >> is killed >> and that that English army is nominally being led by uh Katherine and she's obviously not in battle but um she's she's been left in charge of the country because at this point Henry has gone off to fight a less successful war in France. finally decided, right, I'm I'm king now. Um, you know, I've got I'm I'm married. Um, I've got to sort of show my um kingly marsh.

[00:18:51]>> I know. I'll go and beat up the French.

[00:18:52]>> I'll go beat up the French. Yeah. And and and it doesn't really um amount to row beans, but um back back home um as you say um under Katherine uh and her troops um Scotland are vanquished. The king of Scotland is killed. That's the end of the Scottish threat for a long time. Catherine gets the king of Scotland's blooded coat and sends it to Henry so he can use it in battle to wave around saying, "Look, I've killed one king." So, and she actually couches her victory in very diplomatic language, you know, saying, "Well, Henry, you know, it's nothing compared to what you do, darling." She's everything that a consort should be.

[00:19:32]She's the perfect wife. She creates a a virtuous court. She's religious. She's powerful. She's good with the diplomats.

[00:19:39]The only thing she doesn't have is a son. And if Katherine of Araggon had had just one son, there would never be everything that we know of for Henry VII. There would be no anulment of her marriage. And Berlin would maybe have been a mistress, maybe not because she'd have continued resisting. There would have been no break from Rome. I I think there would eventually people ask me, would there would we still be a Catholic country if it wasn't for no son to Kathine of Arag?

[00:20:07]I think probably we would have the Protestant Reformation was inevitable.

[00:20:10]It was coming, but it would have taken a very different form, I think, to what we saw.

[00:20:13]>> Yeah, as we'll discover, Henry was no fan of the the Lutheran insurgency at all. But so, uh, well, this is fascinating, Kate. We But we've already come across two, I think, really great whatifs. Firstly, what if uh Henry VIIth had married um the widowed uh wife of his son Arthur? Secondly, what would have happened if poor little um Prince Henry born uh right at the start of 1511? If he'd actually lived on um what would have happened? Henry VII would have had the the long for son and heir.

[00:20:46]>> Henry Henry the 9th.

[00:20:47]>> Uh we could exactly.

[00:20:51]And so Kate, we've we've had this sort of constant power struggle going on across Europe. You've got the very very powerful um Spanish uh element. You've got the king of France. uh you've got Henry uh King of England and and and they're they're sort of constantly, you know, fighting each other and having alliances with each other. Uh and as we've already discussed, Henry's had one fairly inconsequential um war with France. Um and he decides, okay, let's let's let's try let's try peace. Um and that leads to one of the most famous summits in history. If you were writing a book about the greatest diplomatic summits in history and the most significant ones, one of them would be the Field of the Cloth of Gold. It's basically this field in the middle of nowhere in northern France and Henry VII and Francis I of France turn it into this gigantic diplomatic summit and they build their own portable palaces essentially large tents. But it's not glamping. This is not glamping. This is not, you know, not a nice motor home.

[00:21:58]This is gigantic, you know, 10,000 m square tents and they have fountains which are running with wine and there are, you know, huge amounts of banquetss and foods. The whole point is these places look like Hampton Court transported into the middle of the French countryside. So, what the lost French peasants thought of it, I I can't imagine. They'd all be invicted. And Henry and Francis are rivals. They're both similar ages. They're both very powerful. They both see themselves as great ladies men. And so it is something of well, let's be friends. But it's also they're both trying to outdo each other with bigger banquetss, bigger celebrations, and there's a slightly awkward moment when Henry challenges Francis to a wrestling match. And because Francis says yes. And let's face it, you know, when you're a king, people don't always beat you, do they? They they let you win. So I I think Henry thought he was perhaps a little better than he was at wrestling. Bar says, "Oh, let's let's wrestle you and me, Henry."

[00:23:04]And Francis gets Henry down pretty quickly in the wrestling match. He wins.

[00:23:08]>> A bit like Donald Trump's birthday, doesn't it? Sort of world leaders celebrating. Let's have a >> wrestling Donald Trump.

[00:23:13]>> Well, no, but he he like to have a wrestling match on the White House lawn.

[00:23:16]I'm just thinking, you know, at moments of great, you know, national uh celebration, um bring out the wrestlers.

[00:23:23]And in this case, as you say, it's um two kings.

[00:23:26]>> Two kings and someone's got to win. So Francis wins. This is a little bit awkward, but overall it's it's a successful meeting. And what Woosey, Cardinal Woose, who has really masterminded a lot of this, he's trying to create a diplomatic meeting because it's hard to understate that really, much as we might like to think it, it's a bit of a tinpot country. France and Spain are superpowers. And you know, Henry V, where is that random place? And where's it Katherine Aragon gone to again? It's not the prime diplomatic spot that everyone wants to go. Nobody wants to go to London. But who is at the field of the cloth of gold attending on the French queen, the wife of Francis the first, a very beautiful, very powerful, very significant consort herself, Queen Claude. It is Anne Berlin. Anne Berlin is in the train of the French queen at the field of the cloth of gold. Sir Henry would have seen her there.

[00:24:23]>> He doesn't fall in love with her there.

[00:24:25]>> Right. Well, we're going to come on to when he does fall in love with her, and that's going to be a few years later.

[00:24:30]So, Kate, does all this Bonomy last?

[00:24:33]>> Bonomi, the Bonomy does not last. The field of the cloth of gold is the most expensive thing you can possibly imagine with all the palaces and the wine. And in fact, there's a a dragon apparently goes to the sky, which I think is a giant pyrochnic being dragged by a cart.

[00:24:47]It doesn't last. Henry and Francis are at war again, not very long after. And what does that mean? It means that Anne Berlin who's been waiting on the French queen now is sent back to England and she will go into the service of Kathine of Aragan.

[00:25:06]>> So we've we've come to uh quite a happy point in Henry's life. He's had his diplomatic triumph with the field of the cloth of gold, although that's not going to last. Uh he is married to Katherine.

[00:25:19]um great sadness with the death of little prince Henry, but they've had uh baby Princess Mary um and no doubt they probably think the prospect of more children to come. So uh at this point as relations with France sour um a certain lady in waiting gets sent home from the French call as you said one an comes back home uh and that's going to have ramifications um but for now I think we leave England and Henry in in a reasonably strong position don't we >> I think Henry is riding high is now seeing himself as this great powerful king the fulfiller of his father's legacy But yet more, he sees himself now as King Arthur. He's better than his brother. He's come out of his brother's shadow. There is a round table in Winchester.

[00:26:11]>> You can still see it, can't you?

[00:26:12]>> He can. Now, >> I'm afraid to say it's not the real thing. They said it was the real thing.

[00:26:17]Uh, it's been dated to the 13th century, so it's not the real thing, >> but Henry had it repainted for a diplomatic meeting, and he had the TUDA rose colored in looking really good on there. And also King Arthur was painted on there. And King Arthur looks just like to me Henry VII. So Henry feels he's Arthur. He's got everything. He's got power. He's got money. He's got advisers doing his bidding. He is in control of the country. And the one thing he doesn't have is a son. That's what he wants.

[00:26:50]>> And that is what we'll come back to next time. But for now, uh we leave our tutors um riding high. That's all we have time for. So from me, Robert Hardman, >> and me, Kate Williams, >> goodbye.

[00:27:03]>> Bye.