Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England by Carol McGrath;

Author:Carol McGrath;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Sexuality (see also PSYCHOLOGY / Human Sexuality)
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC

Some is thought to refer to Anne Boleyn, a warning to be careful to avoid the Queen’s sharp eyes. The likelihood is that the couple would keep a look out until Queen Anne was not in her chambers and meet clandestinely. When their secret marriage per verba de presenti occurred, only two persons were party to the secret wedding, Lady Williams and Hastings, a servant to Thomas’s mother.

The situation imploded two months after the execution of Anne Boleyn. The pair were arrested because Margaret’s place in the succession had catapulted her into enormous political importance. That July, two months after Anne’s execution, Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, wrote in dispatches following the arrest of Margaret Douglas that a person of Blood Royal was also to die, but added that for the present this person was pardoned her life considering that sexual intercourse had not taken place. Had it done so she ‘deserved pardon seeing the number of domestic examples she has seen.’9 Perhaps this comment was Chapuys’s personal dig at the perceived raciness of Anne Boleyn’s court. The Spanish ambassador had no liking for Queen Anne.

Margaret’s relationship with Thomas Howard had unfortunately brought him into the realm of dynastic politics. Their relationship and secret marriage became perceived as a threat to the succession, one that Henry VIII was not prepared to tolerate. His own niece’s marriage was within his royal prerogative. England’s revised Treason Act during the 1530s meant that such dalliance was not at all sanctioned, and worse it was regarded as treason.10 An Act of Attainder on 18 July 1536 affected both Margaret Douglas and Thomas Howard, causing them to be placed in the Tower (the Act forbade the marriage of any member of the king’s family without the king’s permission).11 While imprisoned in the Tower, the romantic couple continued to write courtly poems which were later slipped into the manuscript. It is impossible to prove conclusively that Thomas wrote the prison poems later placed in the collection because there is a lack of attested example of his handwriting. His authorship cannot be disproved either. Margaret was treated leniently. After she fell ill, she was moved to Syon Abbey under the supervision of Syon’s abbess and she was released on 27 October 1537. Thomas, under sentence of death, was spared execution but he remained in the Tower, where he died on 31 October 1537.12

Many poems contained within this manuscript refer to the plight of imprisoned lovers who are unjustly torn apart. They are poignant love poems. Here are two examples:

For term of life thy gift you have

Thus now adieu my own sweet wife

From TH which no light doth crave

But you the stay of all my life.

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