Tudor Women Queens & Commoners by Alison Plowden

Author:Alison Plowden
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: 16th Century, England/Great Britain, Royalty, Nonfiction, Women's Studies, History
ISBN: 9780752467160
Publisher: Sutton Publishing
Published: 2014-10-16T21:00:00+00:00

No one, of course, supposed for a moment that the King would put up with the unsatisfactory state of his marital affairs for long, and the only question in most people's minds was how soon it would be before he took steps to extricate himself. The presence of a queen, after a two-year gap, had brought the girls to Court again and, although Anne's household was somewhat smaller than most of her predecessors' had been, there was the usual vigorous scrambling for places. Mistress Anne Basset, already established as a maid of honour, was urged by her ambitious mama to recommend her sister Katherine for a post among the Queen's maids and sent ajar of her mother's special quince preserve to offer the King as a sweetener. His Highness was graciously pleased to accept the gift and 'liked it wondrous well', but he was evidently not in any very approachable mood. Anne Basset summoned up the courage to speak for her sister, but she hesitated to address the matter or to mention certain other favours requested by her parents (there was no point in having a daughter at Court and not making use of her to further the family's interests), 'for fear how his Grace would take it'.

Katherine Basset evidently had to resign herself to staying where she was, in the service of the Countess of Rutland; but among the successful candidates for preferment with more influential relatives to pull strings on her behalf was the Duke of Norfolk's niece, young Katherine Howard, a vivacious, ripely attractive teenager. By Easter it was public knowledge that the King's volatile fancy had once more been captured, and the stage was set for a palace revolution led by the formidable Howard clan.

The disposal of Anne of Cleves proved unexpectedly painless.

The fact that she had once been tentatively betrothed to the Duke of Lorraine's son offered a convenient toehold for Henry's conscience, and by midsummer enough legal confusion had been created over the exact nature of this pre-contract to provide grounds for divorce. On 9 July Convocation unanimously pronounced the King's fourth marriage to be null and void, and four days later an obedient Parliament ratified the judgement of the clergy. The Supreme Head of the Church could reasonably expect the cooperation of his own bishops, but two additional factors had helped to smooth his path: one being that the fragile truce between the two great European power blocs was already breaking up, thus relieving England's isolation and making the German alliance expendable; while the other was the helpful attitude adopted by the Queen.

Henry had sent Anne down to Richmond in the middle of June, 'purposing it to be more for her health, open air and pleasure', though he himself remained to seek his pleasure in the capital, paying frequent visits to Mistress Katherine Howard at her grandmother's house in Lambeth. The Queen would not, of course, have understood all the ramifications of the power struggle currently in progress at Court (they remain more

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