Didn’t Henry also have a son with Mary Boleyn, Anne’s sister? I thought that they had at least two children together, and one was a boy. But I could be misremembering.
Warning: I may be off when it comes to the regal numbering here.
Henry VIII did have a son (Edward…VII I believe) who reigned after he died, but Edward died relatively young and had no children, so the throne passed to Henry’s daughter Mary who likewise had no children, so then to Elizabeth who also had no kids (you see a theme here). When Elizabeth died, the throne went to King James V (?) of Scotland, who then became King James I of England. This happened because even though King James was rather distantly related to Elizabeth, he was still the closest relative who could inherit the throne of England (Jame was a direct descendant of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister and Henry VII’s daughter).
James I/V’s son Charles was the one who was regicided by Cromwell. His son James was likewise deposed by William, a Dutch prince, ending that dynasty. If you’ve heard of the Jacobites, they were (and still are) a political movement dedicated to restoring the Stewarts to the throne. Following strict inheritance rules, the true inheritor of Henry VIII today is I believe Franz, Duke of Bavaria, not Elizabeth II.
Note: I’ve never even seen the show. I just like talking about this stuff. Sorry if it’s too off topic.
Mary was married to William Carey, and had two children at that time, Catherine and Henry. At the same time, she was having an affair with the king, and there’s a chance that Catherine, at least (and possibly Henry, but less likely), might have been Henry’s, but she was never recognized as his daughter, and officially, at least, was Carey’s daughter.
His only recognized bastard was Henry Fitzroy, who died at 17.
This originates I believe with the author of “The Other Boleyn Girl” and has been widely criticized as extremely unlikely by historians.
The hypothesis that Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary had an affair with Henry VIII may be extremely unlikely, but it certainly didn’t originate with Philippa Gregory’s “The Other Boleyn Girl”. Norah Lofts’s 1963 historical novel about Anne Boleyn, The Concubine, makes the same allegation (see p. 4 in the link, for example).
ETA: Oh, but the claim that Mary Boleyn bore the King children might well be of later date.
Yes, that that is exactly the claim that I commented on. I don’t think the proposal that Mary was one of Henry’s mistresses is very controversial.
And frankly, it makes no sense, especially given what we know about Henry Fitzroy. If Mary Boleyn’s children had been fathered by Henry, there’s no reason he wouldn’t have acknowledged them.
It makes some sense, because he was trying to marry Anne Boleyn at the time. So, even though the Mary Boleyn affair was public knowledge around the court, publicly recognizing Catherine would have been embarrassing at best, especially because she was just a girl and couldn’t be his heir anyway.
Plus, Mary Carey was also married at the time of their affair, whereas (as far as I can tell) Bessie Blount wasn’t. Or didn’t seem to be, at least. Wikipedia says that Blount married in 1522, three years after her son’s birth in 1519.
It seems to me that even though everyone might have known that Mary’s children were Henry’s (if this was even speculated about), the fact that she was a married woman was enough to put down too much outrage - her children wouldn’t have been illegitimate as they would’ve been William’s children legally (I think). But Blount was unmarried - this might have been seen as a greater scandal, requiring Henry to acknowlege the child.
The only think I can think of would be opium.
Uh … so what? Bloody Mary and Elizabeth were shuffled back and forth from “legitimate heir” to “damned bastard” enough times to make their little heads spin. If Henry had any reason to believe that Mary Boleyn’s children were his, they would have been put through the same changes. To the extent that his marriage to Anne Boleyn was a hindrance, that ended with Anne’s conviction and execution.
[Her name was Mary Carey! Hah!]
And alcohol. Ice was also used to numb pain. There were also some other, mainly really toxic, plants used as painkillers, like hemlock, henbane, and black nightshade.
Its HIGHLY unlikely that Mary’s children were Henry’s or even rumored to be Henry’s. If they were, they wouldn’t have survived Mary’s reign as easily as they did, nor would they have been as invisible during the reign of Elizabeth. Had they - particularly the son - generally been believed to be Henry’s children, someone would have created a conspiracy to put Mary’s children on the throne.
Exactly. If anyone believed that they were Henry’s children, they would have been pulled into family intrigue and most likely would have been found their fate and the hands of the executioners of one of Henry’s real children.
Because at the time of Anne’s death, Catherine was 12, and it’s one thing to acknowledge a new born as your bastard and another as a 12 year old girl. Besides, as was mentioned, Mary was married at the time, and while it’s one thing for everyone to know that the King is having an affair with a married woman, it’s another to make that official.
I don’t see why the idea that Catherine Carey might have been Henry’s daughter is so hard to believe. We know that Henry VIII was having an affair with Mary Boleyn/Carey at around the time that she was conceived, and not having any way to test paternity at the time, how can you rule it out?
Catherine Carey/Knollys (she married Sir Francis Knollys) and her husband were Lutherans, and had fled to Germany during Mary’s reign. And she wasn’t exactly invisible during the reign of Elizabeth. She was Elizabeth’s Chief Lady of the Bedchamber, and her husband was Treasurer of the Royal Household, and one of the guardians/gaolers of Mary, Queen of Scots when Mary was in English exile.
From what we actually know about Henry and the people that surrounded them, this degree of “discretion” seems entirely unbelievable.
Of course we can’t rule it out scientifically. But there are a lot of things that can’t be ruled out scientifically that can nonetheless be ruled out as a matter of practicality. If 400-plus years later, we can look at no other evidence except the timeline and wonder about it, you have to believe the question was seriously considered by people who were actually living at the time and who had a very strong interest in doing something about it. Together the Tudor monarchs made sure that anyone with a strong claim to the throne was dealt with. That’s why when Elizabeth died, there was no one left with any closer relationship to her than the king of Scotland.
If anyone at the time suspected that Henry had other children, they would have played a much more central role in the story of the Tudors than Mary Boleyn’s children did. If nothing else, there would have been a replay of the Queen Jane situation.
Yes, I know. That’s why I said “less invisible.”
The problem is, he probably WASN’T having an affair with her when Catherine was conceived. The details of the affair between Henry and Mary are scant, but most historians do not think it probable that it lasted until Catherine’s conception.
For those interested in pictures:
Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon (son of Mary Boleyn)
Henry VIII before the morbid obesity
I watched the first season of the Tudors and it made me cough blood because of the WAAAAAAY overkill historical inaccuracies. Basically if you’re going to merge Mary and Margaret into one person AND THEN kill her off before she reproduces (which gets rid of Jane Grey, James V & Mary Queen of Scots, and every monarch of England since 1603) then just do alternative history altogether: this time one of Katharine of Aragon’s kids lives OR she mounts a revolution (she led troops before when Henry was away, wearing maternity armor no less as she was visibly pregnant at the time).
I didn’t watch the later seasons until recently when I saw Season 2 on Netflix Streaming then ordered Season 3 as Netflix DVD. I was surprised by how much better it got- it’s actually pretty good about portraying things that are rarely done on screen- the Pilgrimage of Grace for instance, or just what a reign of terror the Dissolution and reformation became, and the body count piles up more terribly than in any 2 hour movie. The Six Wives of Henry VIII miniseries with Keith Michell is still the gold standard (miniseries, not the movie with Keith Michell- big difference) but The Tudors improves notably after Season 1.
EXCEPT…
Jonathan Rhys Meyers… WTF? Did they spend all the budget on actresses who’d show their boobies and have nothing left over for latex makeup or even gray hair spray? They haven’t aged him a day since the first episode unless you count giving him a goatee as aging. By the time he commences shagging Katherine Howard he still has washboard abs! In reality he was almost 50 and a lot closer to thisthan to this. His later wives were physically repulsed by him and while they mention his leg wound it’s way underplayed; it contributed to his obesity by limiting his activity (he’d always been a big eater but could no longer work it off plus middle aged spread happens to many naturally slim guys) and it’s even possible he was mostly impotent due to age/lifestyle/syphilis/obesity by the time of Katherine Howard. (The miniseries implies his repulsion to Anne of Cleves was in part due to the fact he couldn’t get it up which is possibly true in real life as well- and as in the miniseries he really did use his wet dreams as evidence there was nothing wrong with him.)
Henry Cavill who plays Brandon- same story- doesn’t age (and also can’t produce Jane Grey so who knows what happens when Eddie dies).
But I think the general characterization is fine, save the real Henry was probably more intellectual than JRM conveys. He was every bit the remorseless butcher and at the same time the total selfy pitying whiner of the series. I’m really surprised he’s remembered almost fondly instead of as a total bastard who you wanted to keep as far the hell away from as possible because he would love you and laud you and reward you to the rafters one moment and order your torture the next.
I’ve often wondered how many of his claims against his first two wives he really believed. Was he really troubled by the fact Katharine had been married to his brother or was it completely an excuse to divorce her (which admittedly was ordinarily a pro-forma matter anyway- not having a son was enough reason- but when her nephew had the Pope surrounded wasn’t an ordinary circumstance). Did he really believe all those women had been Anne’s lovers (especially her brother) or was it just a good way to get rid of her?
Even in the 16th century there was an outcry against torture as being not just inhumane but completely unreliable. (I can’t remember his name but one of the most vocal was a priest in the Spanish Americas who was appalled that the church did not condemn it absolutely because it was plain to see anybody would confess to anything.)
Anyway, Henry’s one of those people that make you hope there’s a hell just because if there is he’s there, with anywhere between 3 and 6 wives working him over with pliers and a blowtorch as we speak. (Katharine was the most wronged, Anne and K. Howard behind her- really only Anne of Cleves is the only one who had no real reason to dislike him since she’s the only one he made better off by marrying her; Cat Parr admittedly became a rich widow but only after having to do major tapdances for her life and then didn’t live long enough to enjoy it.)
The above should read “did he really believe all those men had been Anne’s lovers”. To my knowledge he didn’t get into lesbianism allegations (though he probably would have tried her for witchcraft next).