Which of Henry VIII's wives...

[ilyala]

i think henry still believed himself to be the young dazzling prince he once was. and i think that with catherine, for the first time, he realized he might not be. i mean, look at how the other women in her life were: catherine of aragon died of a broken heart because of him, anne i'm sure was taking good care of his ego (and i don't believe for a second henry believed she cheated on him), jane was so submissive and anne herself bowed to his will... catherine, though, preferred to go off and sleep with a younger man... ouch!

on the other hand, about catherine, sure, one can't blame her for wanting more than a 50 year old with an ulcerous leg, but on the other hand she must have known about what happened to anne boleyn, for example. anne was her first cousin! any smart person would have taken that as a warning: don't mess with henry. look at catherine parr afterwards. she wanted to marry thomas seymour but she duly agreed to marry henry because she knew that she would have brought on a lot of trouble had she not. catherine howard seems to have been completely unaware of the consequences of her actions.

[bell_the_cat]

i think henry still believed himself to be the young dazzling prince he once was. and i think that with catherine, for the first time, he realized he might not be. i mean, look at how the other women in her life were: catherine of aragon died of a broken heart because of him, anne i'm sure was taking good care of his ego (and i don't believe for a second henry believed she cheated on him), jane was so submissive and anne herself bowed to his will... catherine, though, preferred to go off and sleep with a younger man... ouch!

on the other hand, about catherine, sure, one can't blame her for wanting more than a 50 year old with an ulcerous leg, but on the other hand she must have known about what happened to anne boleyn, for example. anne was her first cousin! any smart person would have taken that as a warning: don't mess with henry. look at catherine parr afterwards. she wanted to marry thomas seymour but she duly agreed to marry henry because she knew that she would have brought on a lot of trouble had she not. catherine howard seems to have been completely unaware of the consequences of her actions.

It's not at all certain that Catherine Howard slept with Culpeper. Culpeper admitted that hey had had secret assignations but denied (under torture) that they had had sex (though he said that they had wanted to!).

I can believe this. It makes it more understandable to me why Henry felt he had to have them both executed.
If they weren't having sex, one of the things they must surely have been talking about was how to get rid of Henry. That's what I would have thought if I had been Henry. Catherine didn't just want to have sex with Culpeper - she wanted to marry him (as she admitted shortly before she was beheaded).

[ilyala]

It's not at all certain that Catherine Howard slept with Culpeper. Culpeper admitted that hey had had secret assignations but denied (under torture) that they had had sex (though he said that they had wanted to!).

I can believe this. It makes it more understandable to me why Henry felt he had to have them both executed.
If they weren't having sex, one of the things they must surely have been talking about was how to get rid of Henry. That's what I would have thought if I had been Henry. Catherine didn't just want to have sex with Culpeper - she wanted to marry him (as she admitted shortly before she was beheaded).

if she wanted to kill the king in order to marry a squire she's more stupid than i thought. you don't just kill the king unless you have a conspiracy behind you, people covering it up, people opening doors for you... even if you're the queen... it's too huge to do it, and especially not for such a trivial reason

[Kimberly]

I don't think she wanted to kill the King, I think she would hope that his increasing ill health would carry him off.

[bell_the_cat]

I don't think she wanted to kill the King, I think she would hope that his increasing ill health would carry him off.

Yes something like that. What about Culpeper though? Not being allowed to have sex with Catherine until they were married would have made him a bit impatient wouldn't it?

[ilyala]

i don't know if she actually slept with culpeper or not. but considerring that she had anne's example in front of her, anne who did not cheat and look what happened, she should have been far more careful. i don't know, maybe some people wanna justify her behaviour with 'she was in love, she wasn't thinking'. could be. whatever the reaason was (she was in love, she was stupid), she clearly wasn't thinking.

[Kimberly]

  I don't think she thought about much at all, bless her. I think she was the Tudor equivalent of a "celebrity airhead"

[ilyala]

u mean like a 16th century jessica simpson?  

[Kimberly]

Or a VERY Posh Spice

[bell_the_cat]

Or a VERY Posh Spice

Don't you think the clever thing about people like Mrs Beckham (and Catherine Howard) is that everyone thinks they are completely brainless, but somehow by accident they end up being worth 100 million pounds (or being Queen of England)?

Catherine was by all accounts not particularly good looking. She knew exactly how to be attractive to men by playing stupid. This is also a good way of eliminating the opposition - other women don't notice the threat until it is too late!

When she was being interviewed by Cranmer after the Dereham/Madox revelations she continued this act, and almost got away with it - Cranmer came away feeling genuinely sorry for the poor little thing. Unfortunately the Culpeper story then broke, which put an entirely different light on the matter. Henry could never trust her again.

Catherine, interestingly, admitted before her execution that it had been a "fair cop".

[imperial angel]

I think I would have wanted to be Katherine of Aragon least. Sure, she had the longest time in the sun, and her head wasn't chopped off, but it was particularly brutal for her because she had such happiness, and security, and then without warning it was all over. Not just her marriage,  but her whole world, her religion, her daughter. The whole cherished part of her life gone, and she had not done anything to deserve it. She had practically killed herself trying to supply a son, but either miscarried, or it was a still birth, or the son didn't live very long. She expected that Henry excepted the  facts, but then he goes and divorces her so he can have his male heir, by Anne Boleyn. And she never didn't use her wisdom like Catherine Howard, nor did she provoke enemies like Anne Boleyn. She did her best, but it wasn't enough for her, and she had to endure so much pain, and it lasted long.

So for these reasons, she is who I would like least to have been. And her daughter Mary I wasn't one of England's better queens, so even in posthousmous memory, she suffers. She is so often seen as old, dowdy, and boring as well, because people forget that she had a youth, and what she was like in it. As for who I would have most wanted to be, of Henry's wives, that's another post.

[ilyala]

you see, bell, i see jane seymour more like the woman you describe. because jane was not only smart enough to get where she did by playing stupid and meek, but she stayed there. i could bet you whatever i've got that had henry not gotten sick of jane (which probably would have happened eventually), she wouldn't have ended up executed. and even if he had, she gave him a son and i'm sure she knew how to use that.

catherine may have been smart to get there but she was not smart to stay there. which tells me she might not have been that smart after all. which makes me think that she did get there by chance and by heavy promotion from her relatives who knew how to use her...

[bell_the_cat]

you see, bell, i see jane seymour more like the woman you describe. because jane was not only smart enough to get where she did by playing stupid and meek, but she stayed there. i could bet you whatever i've got that had henry not gotten sick of jane (which probably would have happened eventually), she wouldn't have ended up executed. and even if he had, she gave him a son and i'm sure she knew how to use that.

catherine may have been smart to get there but she was not smart to stay there. which tells me she might not have been that smart after all. which makes me think that she did get there by chance and by heavy promotion from her relatives who knew how to use her...

Yes you're right that Jane had the better act - dumb + meek, the classic double-whammy.

I still think Henry must have been alarmed to learn that maybe Catherine wasn't as stupid as he thought she was (though still quite stupid !) .

[imperial angel]

Jane Seymour is rather a historical enigma because she seems like a good, rather boring girl who married the King, bore the long awaited male heir, and then died young. She was certainly cunning enough to get Henry, and she fulfilled her role, and died before anything ever got to her. Had she lived, we would know more of her chracter, and thus perhaps what might have happened. It is true that Henry might have gotten sick of her, as did he with most wives. But if she was quite innocent on the outside, but knew how to advance herself within, then she might have survived.

It seems she was this way, whereas Catherine Howard was very young, unfortunate, and not all that intelligent although perhaps more than she seemed. Personally, I woudn't have wanted to be either of them.

[bell_the_cat]

Personally, I woudn't have wanted to be either of them.

So it's down to three now!