ALL MY TUDORS...history chat

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We'll have no Nan Bullen!" they cried
And yet they grumbled when she died
Because, you see, they'd never seen
The execution of an anointed Queen

The King, he seemed as if in a fever
Riding fast & furious to Hever
Back & forth, & to & fro
The Lady Anne, she doth say no
Said it to the king, a lady chaste
Who saw no need to dally in haste
Your mistress, sir, I cannot be
Your Queen, you have one of those, I see
Alas! My lord, I cry your pardon
Said right there in Hever's garden
I will not be the Bullen whore
So come round here & bide no more

Dear lady, I find my conscience sore
Tis true, you ought not be my whore
But together we could have a life
If I could just get rid of my wife!
The King declared, in passion flushed
O no, my lord, I'll not be rushed
The Lady Anne replied firmly
My virtue, it belongs to me
Tis the gift I bring my husband true
And you, my lord, will just not do!

Fie! said the King, then give me hope!
I'll take my conscience to the Pope!
From Catherine he'll cut me loose
Take my head from this marriage noose
Then you, my Nan, in my marriage bed
I plight my troth, with this ring I thee wed!

And so it began with exchanging rings
The matter to concern all kings
To get an heir for England green
To rid the land of its barren queen

The King, he made it very plain
I'll have no interference from Spain!
In the Bible it doth state
I am not legally wed to Kate
I should not have wed my brother's wife
Tis why my sons can draw no life!
I'll take my case to the Bishop of Rome
And then, my Nan, we'll plan our home
I'll claim you as my lady fair
And we shall breed up England's heir!

And yet the lady stood her ground
While diplomats went round & round
While cardinals argued Henry's case
While Catherine stared him in the face
And said, my lord, I am your wife
Our daughter Mary is my life
I will not get me to a nunnery
You'll not be so easily rid of me!
I came to you a maiden true
You break our marriage, you will rue
The day you set eyes on Mistress Nan
You've insulted the entire Hapsburg clan!
I will not be the Princess Dower
No, not even if you send me to the Tower!

The Queen would not give up her right
And so the King dug in to fight
He banished her from Court, you see
And Lady Anne, she reigned supreme
So quick & clever, kept her head
And kept the King out of her bed
Our son will be heir to the throne
So Henry, do leave me alone!
There can be just no doubt, you see
Of the prince's legitimacy

For many years she kept him out
The King would rage & moan & pout
The Queen would tell her rosary beads
The Cardinal would chase down leads
The Pope would just prevaricate
Imperial troops outside his gate
The Emperor would threaten war
Invading England's verdant shore
O there was a plethora of angry debate
As the King tried to shed that Kate!

But through it all, her head held high
The Lady Anne watched all go by
Frustrated by the twists of fate
The object of the people's hate
Nan Bullen got the blame, of course
The King's Great Matter, the divorce
The scandal of all Christendom
Gossiped about beyond the kingdom
Trying to cultivate the French
Being dismissed as a common wench
Honors heaped upon her head
Just made everyone see red
We'll not have Nan put in the place
Of Queen Catherine's royal grace!

Finally a little secret wedding
And a little secret bedding
Lady Anne the heir conceived
Henry, he was most relieved
Thumbed his nose right at the Pope
Of a son he now had hope
Made himself the Church's head
Now he had the lady's bed
Swear allegiance to me, he said
Or I will just cut off your head!
Suddenly the priests did pray
For Good Queen Anne one bright May day
Had a splendid coronation
Cynosure of the entire nation
Settled in to eagerly await
A very special September date

But now that the deed was done
Anne the Queen she bore no son
Tilted England in a whirl
All for just another girl!
All upheaval went for naught
Anne did not do what she ought
The King's fair lady got the blame
And her name they did defame
All the years of waiting game
Elizabeth, princess, did proclaim
And there's still no male heir
O Queen Anne, beware, beware!
Yours is not estate for life
The King can get another wife!
Maids of honor on his knee
Close your eyes and do not see
Do your duty by the king
Live to see another spring
Henry he cannot be crossed
Vengeance his when sons are lost

For Jane Seymour he's an itch
Anne must be a total witch
Henry's going to make a scene
She's not worthy to be queen!
She cannot produce a son
Thousand days of reign is done
Get this woman out of my life!
We shall get a better wife
Languid days in Hever's bower
Count for naught when in the Tower
Henry needs a trumped-up reason
Says the Queen has done him treason
Committed acts of adultery
Practiced foul bewitchery
Suffer not a witch to live
Henry he will not forgive

Bright and sunny, fair May day
Anne the Queen needs go away
Take her out on Tower Green
On the date of May nineteen
Bring a swordsman in from France
Obliterate the King's romance
Take her out at nine o'clock
Lay her head upon the block
Slice it off with one clean stroke
Bonds of marriage are now broke
Shoot the cannon off so he
Rides to Jane a King so free
Mistress Seymour he will wed
Get a fresh queen in his bed
For sure now he'll get a son
Rid of the accursed one

Anne Boleyn, the King's sweet heart
Branded as a common tart
Defiled is her name full sore
Branded as the Bullen whore
No justice for this Tudor queen
Done to death on Tower Green.

Anne Boleyn

Queen of England

1507-1533

Sorry to disagree with you, Louise, but I think that much of Catherine of Arrogon's "hard times" by Henry was caused by her own stubborness. It was not unheard of for a Queen, past childbearing age, to "retire" and the King to "move on". Catherine refused every offer of retirement that Henry offered. She could have lived a luxurious life, had the company of her daughter AND England would not have broken with Rome!

Catherine claimed that the most important things to her were her church and her daughter, yet in the end she sacraficed both of them to try to keep her title of Queen (which by then was an empty word).

The only way for Henry to have "moved on" would have been if Katherine died or was divorced. As divorce was the prerogative of the Pope and you had to have a valid reason (something Henry obviously did not have) there was no way either could "move on". She was right to remain as Queen, for as the wife of the King that's exactly what he was.

I think Catherine should have taken the offers of Henry, after all she was approaching her latter years (for those times).

Naturally, Anne Boleyn is my favorite...So cunning and so smart, if she would have given Henry several sons she would have stayed in his good graces.

(Is this that "New Math"?)

I was sobbing so hard I couldn't see the calculator keys properly

Well, Eleanor of Aquitaine procured a divorce after 14 years of marriage that produced only 2 daughters, & there was some other Queen of France (names escapes me) who withdrew to a nunnery because she had no children, so it wsn't unheard of for a marriage to be dissolved for such reasons.

I don't think you could expect CAtherine of ARagon, a princess of Spain, to meekly let herself be shunted aside for the commoner Anne Boleyn. She believed in the validity of her marriage, and wasn't prepared to let herself be discarded like that. Why should she? I admire her for standing up for her rights.

While I do admire Katherine for standing up her and her daughter's rights, I think the European political system & the pope's cowardice had more to do with the prolonging of the Great Matter than Katherine did. One only has to look at H8's sister, Margaret of Scotland as well as Henry's friend & brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, to see that divorce was relatively easy to recieve for the nobility. Henry's bad luck was the sack of Rome and the power of Katherine's family was set against his desire for a new wife/living son.

Also, look at their family's history - Katherine saw her monther being a ruler in her own right, self-educated, and able to pass her right to rule to a daughter (even if it was poor mad Juana). Henry only had to look back 50 or so years to see the War of the Roses and the uncertainty it brought to England, and England's reputation in Europe. England simply had a tradition of MALE RULERS ONLY, preferably adult males! When Henry VII was first contracting with Ferdinand & Isabella for the marriage of their children, Spain saw England as a dangerous, unsettled and politically & socially backward place. While Henry VII's years of stability did a lot to change that opinion, H8 probably felt a great need to continue that stability. Having a daughter to inherit meant that England would become her dowry. England would become part of the Hapsburg Empire, or worse, part of France! Henry VIII would be remembered as the king who lost England's sovereignty. Katherine had proven herself incapable of bearing a living son. What else could he do but get a new wife, a younger wife, with the ability to bear sons? After all, he had Henry Fitzroy to point at, so in theory, Henry VIII could father sons, the problem must be with his wife.

If he had not become infatuated with Anne Boleyn, I think, in time Henry VIII would still have wanted to set aside his wife, perhaps for a French princess, because of his driving need to have a son. I highly doubt that Katherine of Aragon would have happily stepped aside for a French princess either.

I have to agree that anyone who suggests that Catherine of Aragon could have stepped aside for "the Bullen woman" is unrealistic. By all accounts, Catherine was immensely proud of her status as a princess of mighty Spain, the niece of the Holy Roman Emperor, and the queen of England. She had borne Henry many children; their marriage was consecrated by God; she was a devout Catholic; and she (apparently) believed that Henry was suffering some kind of temporary madness as a result of being "bewitched" by this low-class, uneducated, unmannered, scheming little baggage named Anne Bullen. And, to top it all off, she had her daughter's future to think of.

Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. But for that person at that time in that situation, I think her actions are perfectly understandable. And, if she'd lived long enough, she would have seen herself vindicated -- on the day Anne was executed.

As you no doubt have figured out, I have tremendous sympathy for Catherine. How might history have been different if Mary hadn't learned to mistrust and feel such bitterness at such a young age! Any thoughts on that, anybody?

I'm enjoying these discussions tremendously. It's so nice to "talk" to people who have the same interest in the Tudors as I do! Thank you all for being here, contributing, and allowing me to join in.

Whoops -- just realized I made a blunder. Catherine was the AUNT of the Emperor, not his niece.

If Henry had been a little more patient he could have married Anne, or anyone else for that matter, once Katherine had died in January 1536. But he wasn't to know she'd only live less than three years after their "divorce".

Apparently Nostradamus wasn't as big in England as he was in France

As Terrilee said, Margaret & Brandon's divorces were no big deal, Brandon's for consanguinity (his first wife, Margaret Mortimer, was the aunt of Anne Browne, with whom he had a precontract & later married anyway), Margaret's simply because she couldn't stand Angus LOL although I am sure she must have found a proper ecclesiastical excuse to use. Henry's request came at a really bad time for the papacy.

Had Catherine stepped down, Mary would not have been created a bastard. Neither Marie nor Alix, Eleanor of Aquitaine's daughters by Louis, were bastardized in the wake of their annulment, which was done because after 14 years of marriage Eleanor had failed to produce a male heir. This was a matter of more urgency in France due to the Salic Law, which if memory serves me correctly Henry actually proposed introducing in England after Edward's birth.

Pride doesn't produce sons. Catherine must have gone through an early menopause, as it was generally known that she could NOT produce another child. Certainly she failed to conceive any past 1518, which may or may not indicate Henry's lack of interest in sleeping with the queen. I think Henry actually showed admirable restraint in waiting nearly 10 years after the birth of Catherine's last child to even bring the subject up publicly.

Catherine's devout Catholicism ironically brought about its destruction in England & laid the cornerstone of the Reformation there. Even after Henry had broken with Rome, Catherine & Mary both refused to recognize their own roles in turning England away from the "true faith". Catherine may have been too proud to concede, but I wonder how she felt about being the instrument of destruction of the Catholic Church.

Off to the scaffold again.....

You know, at first even Wolsey thought he would go ahead & negotiate a marriage with Claude's sister Renee for Henry when his marriage to Catherine was dissolved (as Henry would've had to go with a French alliance having insulted Spain, so to speak). Everyone thought Henry was swiving Anne just like she was Bessie Blount & no one ever thought he seriously meant to marry her & that she wasn't his mistress. So in the beginning it really wasn't a case of proud Catherine being shunted aside for a "commoner" who was, as Elizabeth liked to say, "mere English". It wasn't until Catherine was ordered from Court & Anne for all intents & purposes took the queen's place that the penny dropped & everyone realized all this fuss was on Anne's behalf.

I don't think there is anything at all admirable about Henry's treatment of Catherine. She had given him the best years of her life, worn herself out bearing his children, and then he just wants to discard her because she couldn't produce a son. I don't see any reason why she should put up with that at all. A princess of Spain, the most powerful nation in Europe at that time, to be cast aside like that, all her years with henry made a mockery of. No, you couldn't expect her to put up with that.

And as the daughter of Isabella of Spain, who was Queen of Castille in her own right, it would naturally not occur to Catherine that there was anything improbable about her daughter inheriting the throne of England. If her mother could be a Queen Regnant, then why not her daughter?

Isabella didn't just wake up queen one morning. Her siblings (illegitimate half-brother, questionably legitimate half-sister) put up a good fight for the Castilian throne before she finally won, & she had to contract a marital alliance with Ferdinand to do so, basically giving up her sovreignity to him. Certainly there were no objections raised after her death when he basically ignored Joanna's claims & continued his unchallenged rule of Castile (plenty of mentally unstable precedents in ruling families, no reason she couldn't have done so). England was ripe for the same situation to occur between Mary & Fitzroy (not knowing of course that Fitzroy would only live to be 17). All the English had to do was point to Matilda & Stephen, & shudder. Henry himself probably didn't want to go down in history as the king who couldn't produce a son & started the Wars of the Roses revisted as a likely result. There was no assurance Mary's accession would go unchallenged (which it didn't; but by then there were no male heirs to be found save the Scots king), especially in the earlier days when there were still several valid adult male Plantagenet claiments alive & kicking.

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