The Other Tudors. Philippa Jones

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ already suffered the loss of his siblings Elizabeth, Edmund and Arthur, and now he had also lost baby Catherine and his idolised mother. He grew to fear illness, and that those he loved could be taken from him without warning. He learned not to care too deeply for anyone, to avoid the hurt.

      Over the years, Henry perfected an image of his dead mother that he used to measure other women against. Every wife and every mistress was assessed against this impossible yardstick.

      Who was he to love now?

      In August 1503, Henry escorted his 13-year-old sister, Princess Margaret, north on her way to marry the Scottish King, James IV. Margaret was a bossy, self-obsessed little madam, and it seems likely that Henry felt few qualms about losing her. His only female contacts now were his sweet little sister Mary and his elderly 58-year-old religious, dominant grandmother.

      Henry VII, however, had already enjoyed one good and fruitful marriage – why not a second? He began looking for a new queen. Despite plans for Catherine to marry the new Prince of Wales, Henry VII tentatively suggested that he should marry the princess himself! Catherine’s parents, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile vetoed the idea of this amended match. True, their daughter would be queen of England, but even if Henry VII gave her a son, the new baby would be unlikely to become king, with an existing and healthy Prince of Wales. Henry VII, at the age of 46, was already an old man by the standards of the day, and might die soon; Catherine would be a widow again, and this time would have no chance of marrying the next English king. Isabella described his suggestion as: ‘… an evil thing, the mere mention of which offends the ears, and we would not for anything in the world that it should take place.’¹⁴ If it had been expedient, Ferdinand and Isabella would have agreed to the marriage in a second. However, they saw a better chance of a lasting alliance with Catherine married to the future King of England.

      Instead, Isabella recommended Henry VII to consider marriage to Joan, the widowed Queen of naples, the daughter of her husband Ferdinand’s sister. She was 26 years old and ‘particularly well-qualified to console him in his deep affliction.’ However, she lacked a dowry, and she only held the throne of naples for her own lifetime. Henry might like her ‘comely neck’ and ‘womanly laughing cheer and good humour’, but he wanted more material benefit from a bride.¹⁵

      While negotiations continued, Isabella of Castile died, and the political climate changed dramatically. Ferdinand of Aragon married again, to Germaine de Foix of navarre, and Henry VII may have briefly looked towards France for a wife. The Portuguese Ambassador, Thomas Lopez, wrote a letter dated 10 October 1505 to his master, Emanuel I of Portugal: ‘Sire, the king of England is treating to get married in France to the daughter [sister – Margaret of Angoulême] of the Count of Angoulême, the Dauphin, or to his mother [Louise of Savoy] and he has sent thither for that purpose the Lord Somerset his ambassador.’¹⁶ Possibly to spite Ferdinand, whom he suspected of duplicity in the marriage negotiations, Henry VII suggested that he might marry Margaret of Austria, sister of Philip the Handsome, the son of the Holy Roman Emperor. Philip had married Joanna, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; when Isabella died, it was Joanna, her eldest child, and not her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, who inherited the throne of Castile. Ferdinand and Philip were at loggerheads over Joanna’s inheritance and any suggestion that Henry VII was planning to ally himself to Philip would have annoyed Ferdinand greatly.

      Margaret of Austria had first married John, Crown Prince of Spain, in 1497, but he died only a few months later. In 1501, Margaret married Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, who died in 1504. now Henry VII put pressure on Philip the Handsome, pushing him to forward this marriage. A treaty of friendship was signed between Henry and Philip in London, on 20 March 1506, one element of which promised Henry VII the hand of Margaret, along with a dowry of 300,000 crowns and an annual income of 30,000. In addition, Prince Henry was to marry Eleanor, the daughter of Philip and Joanna, and Princess Mary was to marry their eldest son Charles, who was heir to Spain through his mother and to the Holy Roman Empire through his father.

      Neither side seems to have pushed the marriage; Margaret herself was opposed to the union. Late in 1506, however, circumstances changed. Philip the Handsome died suddenly on 25 September, and Henry immediately approached Ferdinand, asking for the hand of his newly widowed daughter, Joanna; she had had six children with Philip – Charles, Ferdinand, Eleanor, Isabella, Mary and Katherine – which boded well for new princes and princesses of England.

      On 15 January 1506, Philip the Handsome and Joanna had been stranded in England by a storm when their ship was damaged; Philip was on his way to Spain to attack Ferdinand, who was refusing to give up control of Castile to Joanna, as rightful heir. Prince Henry was sent to Winchester to meet Philip who had landed at Melcombe Regis, near Weymouth, Dorset. Joanna had stopped at Wolverton Manor, Dorset, as she was suffering from a bout of illness.

      Philip and the young Henry took to each other immediately and were able to talk in French. Philip the Handsome was everything the Prince thought a king should be – handsome, religious, brave, aggressive in war, fond of wine, women (he enjoyed a string of casual sexual encounters) and song. Henry VII met the pair just outside Windsor the following day. During the month of the visit, Henry and Philip were constantly in one another’s company. The King spent extravagantly to impress Philip and everything was sumptuous and exuberant. On 10 February Joanna joined the party at Windsor.

      On leaving England Philip and Joanna went on to Spain. There they formulated a truce with Ferdinand who withdrew from Castile; however, when Philip died, on 25 September 1506, the cause was rumoured to be poison, administered on the orders of Ferdinand. Henry was devastated by the news of Philip’s death. The loss of someone he admired raised an interesting mention of his mother’s death and the effect that it had on the boy. He wrote to Erasmus on 17 January 1507:

      ‘The news of the death of the King of Castile, my wholly and entirely and best-loved brother, I had reluctantly received very long before your letter … For never, since the death of my dearest mother, hath there come to me more hateful intelligence … because it seemed to tear open again the wound to which time had brought insensibility.’¹⁷

      When Henry VII had met Joanna during this visit to England, albeit for a few days, he had expressed romantic feelings for her: ‘If when she was in England I had acted as I secretly wished, I would by every means have prevented her leaving my court. But I was prevented by my Council.’¹⁸ He told the Spanish Ambassador that he believed her to be unhappy rather than mad. He said Philip the Handsome’s unfaithfulness obviously upset her. He, on the other hand, would love and cherish her.

      Joanna appears to have suffered some kind of nervous debilitation. Her symptoms were depression (partly brought on by her husband’s public infidelities) and a habit of forthright speech. The symptoms might indicate manic depression. Despite this, in England at least, the marriage was considered seriously. Dr Roderigo Gondesalvi de Puebla, the Spanish Ambassador in London from 1487, wrote to Ferdinand: ‘… the English seem little to mind her insanity, especially since I have assured them that the derangement of her mind would not prevent her from bearing children.’¹⁹

      Ferdinand kept Henry VII dangling, right up until his death in 1509. In March 1507, Ferdinand wrote to his daughter Catherine, whom he was using as a go-between:

      ‘She [Catherine] must tell the king that it is not yet known whether Queen Juana [Joanna] be inclined to marry again, but if the said Queen should marry again, it shall be with no other person than with the King of England … But the affair must be kept most secret; for if Queen Juana should hear anything about it, she would most probably do something quite to the contrary.’

      Catherine wrote to Joanna, despite his advice, in October 1507:

      ‘… the great affection he [Henry VII] had felt and still feels towards your Royal Highness from that СКАЧАТЬ