Could Catherine of Aragon have lied?

[ilyala]

first of all - henry didn't have that many mistresses. he married all the women he fancied and compared to all the other kings he was rather faithful. that didn't happen overnight and i'm sure that his ideal life was with a perfect wife rather than an acceptable wife and a mistress (as most kings did). i am absolutely sure that whatever experience henry had, it was limited, because henry 7th was not the type of dad to send his son to the 'women' (i don't think henry 7th thought anything of sex, so i'm sure it never occured to him that his son might want to have some) and because henry 8th himself i don't think wanted it so bad himself.  as i pointed out, he married all his important fancies.

second of all - i think henry's silence says something. it says that he didn't know for sure that catherine was not a virgin. had he been completely sure of it he would have indeed said so. however, he could have simply not known. and that says nothing of catherine's state at the marriage.

i believe theirs was a happy marriage until the child problem came along. now, imagine yourself happilly married to someone: do you really care if they were a virgin when you first met? you just wanna be married and enjoy your marriage and your love and you somehow don't think that someday you might wish you would have paid attention to whether or not that person was a virgin or not. you're greatly attracted to someone (and i think henry was - catherine was very attractive when she was young) and you simply want to - forgive my bluntnes - get it over and done with, so to speak. add to that that you're not that experienced, even if you wanted to, maybe you couldn't tell, but you don't want to. you're not actively looking for clues to tell whether or not your wife is a virgin or not.

and - besides - as with anne of cleves and catherine howard - even when he was much more experienced henry still believed whatever he wanted to believe anyway.

[helenazar]

i think henry's silence says something. it says that he didn't know for sure that catherine was not a virgin. had he been completely sure of it he would have indeed said so. however, he could have simply not known. and that says nothing of catherine's state at the marriage.

Yes, I agree - this is what I just posted (in different words). I don't think Henry knew one way or the other, and he didn't really know what to say. So basically his silence didn't mean anything one way or the other.

[Romanov_fan]

Henry was indeed very inexperienced at the time of his marriage to Catherine. She might well have known more then, even if she was a virgin. It was convenient for everyone at the time to assume that she was a virgin, whether she was or not. I am not sure it would have occured to anyone to raise questions that would only have been embarassing and unneeded at that point in time. She, in my view was a virgin, but no one tested it, and I don't think they could have. Perhaps Henry didn't know then or later, but as has been said, he could not admit that. I do believe he could not have told that she wasn't a virgin. Later, questions were raised by him, because it was convenient for him. If it hadn't been, they would have never been raised. Catherine truly could not win, one way or the other. People do lie, sometimes, but Catherine would not have simply lied, given everything.

[ilyala]

i think henry's silence says something. it says that he didn't know for sure that catherine was not a virgin. had he been completely sure of it he would have indeed said so. however, he could have simply not known. and that says nothing of catherine's state at the marriage.

Yes, I agree - this is what I just posted (in different words). I don't think Henry knew one way or the other, and he didn't really know what to say. So basically his silence didn't mean anything one way or the other.

yeah, i know, sorry... mainly wanted to explain my earlier post better

[Romanov_fan]

Sometimes I do that as well, although I try to say if it was me or somebody else that posted something, even if I agree with it. I do think Henry most likely didn't know, he just wanted to use whatever he could to support his position.

[umigon]

first of all - henry didn't have that many mistresses. he married all the women he fancied and compared to all the other kings he was rather faithful.

I disagree here, Ilyala. During his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon he had an affair with a Stafford sister, I wouldn't call that patience! Then we now for sure that he had the following mistresses: the Stafford sister, Elizabeth Blount, Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth Carew, Madge Shelton, Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard. That makes a total of 8. Then we have another 3: Elizabeth Bryan, Mary Berkeley, and Joan Dingley, who most probably bore him a daughter called Ethelreda Malte. That sums up to a total of 11 if he DID have an affair with ALL of them. But 8 were for sure, not to mention other women who maybe have passed anonimously through history.

In my opinion the repeated theory that Henry wasn't as lascivious as most of the kings of his generation (or, really, whatever generation!! ) is not true. I think he was as lascivious as Francis I or Ferdinand the Catholic, but much more discreet with his mistresses.

Of course, that0s just what I think...!

[Kimberly]

Yes but he married 3 of those ladies on the list

[Romanov_fan]

Well, he might not have been as bad as Francis I of France in the line of mistresses..he was pretty much in his own category there. The French court was infamous for that sort of thing. Henry was not faithful to one woman, because that is not how his era was. He might have been better than some though.

[ilyala]

Yes but he married 3 of those ladies on the list

exactly!

first of all, it is not proven that jane seymour and katherine howard slept with him before the marriage. anne boleyn did, but she did after about 6 years of waiting. henry was probably impatient, so anne thought she'd give him something. on the other hand her successors did not wait as much. how long did it take him to marry them? a few months? i sincerely doubt any of them gave in. after all they knew what they had to do, they had the example right in front of them - pose as a virginal creature, act completely innocent when king makes advances and say suggestive stuff like "before we do it, we must get through it" (to paraphrase "men in tights"  ). unlike anne, they didn't have that much time to "get through it", so i don't think they "did it" either.

and now compare henry to his contemporaries. there was, of course, charles 1st who was better (i think he has very few recorded mistresses), but then there's francis 1st and indeed ferdinand the catholic. and you can also check henry's brother in law, james 4th of scotland. and then henry's nephew, james 5th of scotland. all these kings had official wives that they maintained and respected officially but whom they cheated on constantly.

henry got to a simmilar point with catherine before 1520. when catherine had already had several pregnancies - was getting fat, was getting old (she was already quite older than him), suddenly other pretty young girls seemed quite attractive (henry was still quite young, barely reaching 30). but i don't think that happened before at least 5-6 years of marriage.

[umigon]

The rumours of Henry's infidelity with the Stafford sister dates back to 1510! This is something we will never agree on, but I still think he wasn't that much better than most of his contemporaries... Francis I, for example, had a lower number of known or presumed mistresses than Henry. He had lots more, no doubt about it, but I think that his way of making Madame d'Étampes his "maîtresse en titre" has many points in common with Henry's passion for Anne Boleyn, for example. I think there's only one difference: Henry had no sons by Catherine; Francis had three sons left by his dead wife. So, not only had he 3 boys to succeed him, but he was also a widow. Anne Boleyn would have probably never become queen of England if Henry's situation had been that way; she would have probably become his own "maîtresse en titre".

By the way, I thought C.Howard had given in to Henry before the marriage... There was some pregnancy rumour in April 1540 or something like that, wasn't there...

[Prince_Lieven]

I don't think the pregnancy rumours came till 1541, during Henry's progress to the north. 

[Romanov_fan]

All kings in that era had many mistresses. If they were lucky, they had an official wife, and healthy heirs. But that wasn't their main thing. They mostly married for dynastic reasons, and not personal ones. But however happy their marriages were, there was some cheating. I guess it was sort of natural. Henry was perhaps a bit better than some of his age, but he was never a glowing example of fidelity. He married many times, but he wasn't that faithful. Francis I of France was the example with the mistresses though. The French court was renowned for its decadence. Charles V, seemed not be a very passionate man. And we all know about Mary, Queen of Scot's father..

[umigon]

Yes, I guess the Scottish kings (James IV and James V) were the most passionate of all!!  The story about Charles V not very interested in women is untrue, he had relationships with, at least, 5 women apart from his beautiful wife. However, if he had any mistresses during his marriage to Isabel of Portugal (which would be very normal, considering the long times he was away from home in Europe), we don't know about them.

Going back to Henry, that's the point I wanted to make, although I might not have been expressing myself very accurately. What I don't agree with is the extended theory (repeated by many good historians) that Henry VIII was far less lascivious than most of the rest of the European monarchs. He might have been a bit better, but I don't think he cared that much about people knowing that he had mistresses. He married many of them!

[Romanov_fan]

Well, Charles V was better than most monarchs of his age, although no doubt by some standards, he was a passionate man.   Henry was no glowing example, you are correct. He might have been somewhere inbetween most monarchs of his era. He was among the most married though.. He, and many kings did not care of they were seen to have mistresses, it was expected. Perhaps Charles V liked to appear more serious though.

[zackattack]

Yes but he married 3 of those ladies on the list

Yes, but he also killed two.