a night off.
But when the King returned to the fray, he found that nothing had changed — as Anne confirmed with charming innocence.‘When
he comes to bed,’ she told one of her ladies-in-waiting,‘he kisses me and taketh me by the hand and biddeth me “Goodnight,
sweetheart”. And in the morning[he] kisses me and biddeth me “Farewell, darling”. Is this not enough?’
We know these extraordinary details because, not for the first time, Thomas Cromwell was allotted the task of undoing what
he had done. A widely unpopular figure, he had pushed the reforming agenda too far for the tastes of many, and landing his
master with a wife that Henry disparagingly called‘the Flanders Mare’ proved the last straw. In June 1540 Cromwell became
the latest of Henry’s scapegoats, condemned for treason by act of Parliament and facing the dreadful penalties of hanging,
drawing and quartering. If he wished to avoid this particular fate, the minister’s final duty was to set down on paper the
circumstantial evidence that would make possible the annulment of Henry’s non-marriage to Anne.
Thomas Cromwell was executed — with an axe — on 28 July 1540; the paperwork he produced at the eleventh hour helped Henry
secure annulment of the Cleves marriage. Just ten days later the King was married again, to Katherine Howard, the twenty-year-old
niece of his fierce general in the north, the Duke of Norfolk. For nearly a year the traditionalist duke, a Catholic and a
bitter enemy of Cromwell’s, had been pushing the enticing Katherine into Henry’s path while plotting his rival’s downfall.
Unfortunately, the new Queen’s lively allure was accompanied by a lively sexual appetite, and little more than a year after
her marriage, rumours circulated about Katherine’s promiscuity. As an unmarried girl in the unsupervised surroundings of the
Norfolk household, she was said to haveromped with Henry Manox her music teacher and also with her cousin Thomas Dereham — whom she then had the nerve to employ
as her private secretary when she became Queen. In the autumn of 1541, during a royal progress to the north, inquiries revealed
that she had waited till Henry was asleep before cavorting with another young lover, Thomas Culpeper.
Henry wept openly before his Council when finally confronted with proof of his wife’s betrayal. Katherine was beheaded in
February the next year, along with Culpeper, Manox the music teacher, her cousin Dereham and Lady Rochford, the lady-in-waiting
who had facilitated the backstairs liaisons after the King had gone to sleep.
Henry was by now a gross and lumbering man-mountain,‘moved by engines and art rather than by nature’, as the Duke of Norfolk
put it. Arthritic and ulcerous, the ageing King had to be manhandled up staircases — a little cart was built to transport
him around Hampton Court. His apothecary’s accounts list dam-busting quantities of liquorice, rhubarb and other laxatives,
along with grease for the royal haemorrhoids.
What Henry needed was a reliable and experienced wife, and he finally found one in Catherine Parr, thirty-one years old and
twice widowed — which gave her the distinction of being England’s most married Queen. In July 1543 she embarked sagely on
the awesome challenge of life with England’s most married king, bringing together his children Mary, Elizabeth and Edward
to create, for the first time, something like a functional royal family household. Catherine was sympathetic to the new faith,
and her most signifcantachievement, apart from surviving, was probably to ensure that the two younger children, Edward and Elizabeth, were educated
by tutors who favoured reform.
When Henry died on 28 January 1547, the news was kept secret for three days. It was difficult to imagine England without the
lustful, self-indulgent tyrant who had once been the beautiful young sportsman-king. In moral terms the tale of his reign
was
But when the King returned to the fray, he found that nothing had changed — as Anne confirmed with charming innocence.‘When
he comes to bed,’ she told one of her ladies-in-waiting,‘he kisses me and taketh me by the hand and biddeth me “Goodnight,
sweetheart”. And in the morning[he] kisses me and biddeth me “Farewell, darling”. Is this not enough?’
We know these extraordinary details because, not for the first time, Thomas Cromwell was allotted the task of undoing what
he had done. A widely unpopular figure, he had pushed the reforming agenda too far for the tastes of many, and landing his
master with a wife that Henry disparagingly called‘the Flanders Mare’ proved the last straw. In June 1540 Cromwell became
the latest of Henry’s scapegoats, condemned for treason by act of Parliament and facing the dreadful penalties of hanging,
drawing and quartering. If he wished to avoid this particular fate, the minister’s final duty was to set down on paper the
circumstantial evidence that would make possible the annulment of Henry’s non-marriage to Anne.
Thomas Cromwell was executed — with an axe — on 28 July 1540; the paperwork he produced at the eleventh hour helped Henry
secure annulment of the Cleves marriage. Just ten days later the King was married again, to Katherine Howard, the twenty-year-old
niece of his fierce general in the north, the Duke of Norfolk. For nearly a year the traditionalist duke, a Catholic and a
bitter enemy of Cromwell’s, had been pushing the enticing Katherine into Henry’s path while plotting his rival’s downfall.
Unfortunately, the new Queen’s lively allure was accompanied by a lively sexual appetite, and little more than a year after
her marriage, rumours circulated about Katherine’s promiscuity. As an unmarried girl in the unsupervised surroundings of the
Norfolk household, she was said to haveromped with Henry Manox her music teacher and also with her cousin Thomas Dereham — whom she then had the nerve to employ
as her private secretary when she became Queen. In the autumn of 1541, during a royal progress to the north, inquiries revealed
that she had waited till Henry was asleep before cavorting with another young lover, Thomas Culpeper.
Henry wept openly before his Council when finally confronted with proof of his wife’s betrayal. Katherine was beheaded in
February the next year, along with Culpeper, Manox the music teacher, her cousin Dereham and Lady Rochford, the lady-in-waiting
who had facilitated the backstairs liaisons after the King had gone to sleep.
Henry was by now a gross and lumbering man-mountain,‘moved by engines and art rather than by nature’, as the Duke of Norfolk
put it. Arthritic and ulcerous, the ageing King had to be manhandled up staircases — a little cart was built to transport
him around Hampton Court. His apothecary’s accounts list dam-busting quantities of liquorice, rhubarb and other laxatives,
along with grease for the royal haemorrhoids.
What Henry needed was a reliable and experienced wife, and he finally found one in Catherine Parr, thirty-one years old and
twice widowed — which gave her the distinction of being England’s most married Queen. In July 1543 she embarked sagely on
the awesome challenge of life with England’s most married king, bringing together his children Mary, Elizabeth and Edward
to create, for the first time, something like a functional royal family household. Catherine was sympathetic to the new faith,
and her most signifcantachievement, apart from surviving, was probably to ensure that the two younger children, Edward and Elizabeth, were educated
by tutors who favoured reform.
When Henry died on 28 January 1547, the news was kept secret for three days. It was difficult to imagine England without the
lustful, self-indulgent tyrant who had once been the beautiful young sportsman-king. In moral terms the tale of his reign
was
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