Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

by Candace Fleming

We know much about Henry…but what of that discarded wife? And the five who followed her? Too often, the six queens are seen only in their relationship to a forceful, mercurial king. Katharine of Aragon is the old battle-axe; Anne Boleyn, the seductress. Jane Seymour is the good wife; Anna of Cleves, the ugly frump. Catherine Howard is the giddy bubblehead; Kateryn Parr, the stoical matron. But these women had lives of their own. They had dreams and hopes. Ideas. Opinions. Ambitions. They were fighters. Thinkers. Politicians. Strategists. They led troops into battle and hunted on horseback. They read, danced, intrigued, and sewed. They had children they loved. Pets they adored. They gave money to the poor and supported artists and scholars. They ate peacocks and swans, wore pearls in their hair and diamonds on their sleeves. They defied expectations—Henry’s, and our own.

We’ve come to know the ghosts. We’ve asked them many questions. And they’ve deigned to answer. This book holds their stories. The ghosts, in turn, forever hold pieces of our hearts.

A princess must preserve the dignity of her rank no matter what the cost.

It had pained Him to take my child, grieved Him to leave me alone in my sorrow. But this was not punishment for my sins. Rather, my trials had served His purpose. Like Job, who was left on the ash heap, I had been stripped of all I held dear. By suffering these trials, I had proven my faithfulness and demonstrated my wholehearted love for Him. My endurance had made me worthy.

“Where to begin? Words hold such weight and consequence. I have not always been mindful of my tongue, and it has cost me. For if given the choice, people will believe the worst of you, not the best.”

Jane is now the King’s tender rose petal, and I have become only that which stabs and causes him pain. But perhaps Henry forgets that a rose without thorns, a flower severed from the branch, smells sweet and looks pretty but withers fast. My dear King, pas d’amour existe sans douleur. No love exists without pain.

Ma petite, I pray that I take all the bad parts of me and your father to the scaffold today, and leave for you, in you, only the good.

Thomas Cromwell stared up at me from the mud. The smoke from books of monkish lore blew over us. He spoke apologies, mewled for mercy. But we glared into each other’s eyes like men who have ruined each other already, and who only wait to make the full disaster known.

There is blood. Blood everywhere. Blood on the sheets, blood between my legs. It is thick and red and sour. There is blood on my hands, too.

I don’t want to leave Wulfhall, out here in the west country, far from the drama and intrigue of court. I know what awaits me there. Lechery, secrets, and deception. I want nothing to do with it. And I certainly do not want to leave my beautiful home, the warmth of my mother’s and sisters’ company. Even my brothers’ teasing. I know exactly who I am: unwanted and undesirable Plain Jane, timid and meek as a mouse. How will I ever survive at court?

How the courtiers love to fight amongst themselves. They divide into ever-shifting factions that then manoeuvre against the others until the next division seems more powerful. It is a constant game of strategy, conflict, and quiet wars.

“Jane,” he says, “are you troubled by something, by the unfolding of events?” He looks at me carefully. This is a test, I think. And I must pass it if I hope to achieve anything. If I hope to spare Anne a meaningless death. “I am only troubled by how all these matters upset you, my lord,” I answer. “I wish only to aid and serve you in whatever way I may.”

Fucking spineless.

“Plain girls can prosper. We can make our lives our own. We can go about our business without so many lewd words. Without so many slobberings and gropings and hands up our skirts.”

“I made my face a mirror when it should’ve been a mask, and what the King saw there terrified him. He hated me for it, and never, ever forgave me.”

“Above all, Anna, remember what I’ve always told you: Life deals the cards—” “—but it is up to us how we play them,” I finish.

I look back, desperate for a last glimpse of my mother. I spot her. The rest have rushed forwards to send me off. She stands back, alone. Her face is resolute, but her cheeks are wet, and I know then that I will never see her again.

I was a woman alone, yet never lonely. I was enough for myself. Nay, more than enough; I was a feast.

Had Henry known, I would surely have gone to the block. To be happy without him was the highest of treasons.

“A young princess, a mighty king, mirrors and masks…it sounds like a fairy tale,” Alice says. “It was. A very dark one.” Alice makes a face. “I do not like the dark ones. They tell of monsters.” “Yes, they do, child. But they also tell how to beat them.”

How can the moments of a life last forever, while the years go by in a heartbeat?

I tried to win Henry’s love, too. I studied English diligently. Played the card games he liked. I had my dresses remade in the French style that he favoured.” “Did the King do any remaking?” Alice asks, peering out of the window again. “Not a bit. He was the tailor, Alice. And we, the court, were his cloth. He shaped us to fit his fancy.” “Being Queen sounds exhausting,” Alice says.

“I was so naïve. Such a fool,” I whisper to the empty room. I had no idea what Norfolk was planning. I thought Henry would take Catherine to bed, not to wife. After all, I was his wife. We had been lawfully married before God, and what God joined together, no man could put asunder. But I forgot who God was. In England, God was Henry.

“Can you not put it atop your neck?” I ask him. “It’s disconcerting to address your crotch.” “Had you addressed your husband’s crotch, my head would still be atop my neck,”

Oh, how I prefer the honest violence of men, who will bash in another man’s skull and be done, to the thousand shallow cuts of women’s malice.

Henry hounded Katharine of Aragon to death. He murdered Anne Boleyn. These things he did to women he loved. What will he do to one he does not?

“What is a king without illusion? The illusion of limitless wealth? Of absolute power? Illusion is all that keeps his people in check and his enemies at bay. Wives disappoint. Sons die. Allies become foes. Illusion is a king’s only true friend.”

“Memory is a high palace containing many rooms. Some of the doors we rush to open; others we lock forever,”

I think of Henry. He was one man. A second son not meant to rule. The King of a small island only, yet he changed the world. I think of his daughter Mary, who proves every day that a woman can occupy a throne. I think of Cromwell and Luther, and how they stole God from Rome.

“By changing a life, just one life, you can change the world. It is the only way anyone ever has.”

Henry freed me and I have freed her. That was the debt to be settled. Maybe one day, Alice will help set a girl free, too. Maybe one day, the world will change so radically that girls will not need freeing.

They are dead now, those beautiful Queens, all dead. And the King is dead. All his men, too. And the precious son for whom he remade the world. But the ugly Queen? Ah, she lived, child. She lived.

I keep wondering what will happen when the Queen finds out. I ask the Dowager, who says that the Queen is too afraid of the King to ever confront me. Perhaps—but what if she does? It seems I’m not to worry about that puddle until I step in it.

I don’t understand that, because if God is Almighty and knows everything, then surely he knows English as well as Latin, so why should a Bible in English be such a dreadful thing? But I mustn’t say such nonsense—I mustn’t even think it. I don’t want to burn in Hell.

This isn’t the same as what I felt with Francis Dereham. That was a girl’s first awakening, new and green and tender. The girl has grown into a woman who knows what she wants and needs. For all the enjoyment my girl-self felt, she could never have dreamt the ravishment I know now.

But never once did I imagine what Lady Nan is implying now: that my fate is to be the same as that of my cousin Anne Boleyn.

For a long time, I thought I was brighter, cleverer, more beloved than these other wives. But I was wrong. In the end, I made the same errors. I forgot that in this kingdom no woman—not even a Queen—can be ambitious; she can never let down her guard. She can never show her own power, be her true self.

Thomas and I had not dared to say good-bye; letters would have been too dangerous. There had been one long look across a room; he’d lifted his shoulders ever so slightly. I’d turned away. All men must step aside for the King. And all women must bow to his will.

God…made me renounce entirely mine own will, and to follow His will most willingly… —Kateryn Parr to Thomas Seymour, 1547

“He’ll try to entrap you, Kate. Be ready, and don’t let yourself be drawn into his snares.”

I felt a sense of reprieve, but something else, too. For it seemed my husband could only be happy if I acted like a spaniel, lolling and looking up at him with doleful, begging eyes. No, King Henry could only be happy with unconditional love from a woman, like Queen Jane, who was meek and obedient—or at least, who acted that way all the time.

1545 Kateryn Parr publishes Prayers or Meditations. This is the first work by a woman published in England in English.