This is a chat I had with James Boulton of the Queen of England and The Other Half podcasts about the Queen Consorts of the Tudor period. Which were his favorite wives? Let’s discuss.
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Rough Transcript of my chat with James Boulton on the Tudor Queens
Heather: (00:00)
Okay. Perfect. So we’re recording. Okay. So James Bolton, you have the famous Queens of England podcast, and now your other podcasts, the other half focusing on women throughout history, like you, we were just saying, not particularly narrative in chronological order and you dig really, really deep on some of these women. So, um, you seem to want to tell these stories of these women. I, I’m curious, just what, how did that come about? How did you get interested in that?
James: (00:28)
I was, I was really radicalized at university, so I went to university of St. Andrews and my final year of my undergrad, I did a course on Henry the first, who was the third Norman King. So 1100 to 1135, I believe. And that was like a year long course. So he really went in depth and I got really interested in his first wife, Matilda of Scotland for a few reasons. Uh, my lecturer was quite keen on that sort of thing. There was a really good book. Uh, and so I still got interested in Queens in that because I thought lots of people, it’s one of those areas of historical stay that there’s still a lot to do. It’s still quite new. It’s only really been going on since about the nineties, um, which in academic circles is quite recent. Um, so I got into that.
James: (01:16)
I did my master’s thesis on sort of queenship in Anglo-Norman England and I sort of thought I might want to be an academic. And then I sort of decided I didn’t want to do that because I found the world of academia to be like a shark tank, everyone, you know, it’s, it’s very, it’s quite vicious in many ways, um, because you’re not just criticized if you disagree with, so you’re not just criticizing their opinion, you’re sort of criticizing their life’s work. So people get, can get quite defensive. And so I decided that really wasn’t for me. Um, so I went out and got a real job, but I was really sort of, um, I missed academia. I sort of nest, um, you know, going into a lecture or going into a big library and finding out something new and using that sort of critical historical part of my brain.
James: (02:04)
I mean, I’ve known I’d want to do a history degree since I was about eight and so suddenly sort of, I wasn’t ready to lose it. So I basically decided why not do the Queens of England podcasts? I started listening to them, um, like nearly all historical podcasts. Mike Duncan has been my sort of inspiration, but also be like David Crowder and yourself as well. Cause you’ve been doing it for quite a long time. Uh, and so really my first few episodes were actually just essays. I did, I shamelessly plagiarized my own work. Uh, I thought it would take, you know, about a year or so, but one episode, two episodes each and then I’d know about three or four years later finished, uh, a thought I don’t need to go up to Elizabeth of York, but then I went all the way up to Mary of Moderna who was the last queen of England. But, uh, yeah, so that’s how it all started. I know lots of listeners were quite disappointed when I finished in 17, well for 1707, but I think by then it was time for a bit of a change. So that’s why I moved on to something new, which is probably the worst business decision I’ve ever made in my life. It was good for me, at least in terms of keeping me interested, which is the most important thing I think.
Heather: (03:15)
Yeah, well, yeah, definitely. You have to, you have to be able to dig in every week and be inspired every two weeks and do that research. So if you’re not feeling it, then you need to have to move on for sure. Um, all right, so let’s start with the queen. You just said, you thought you might stop with her Elizabeth of York, um, kind of the first tutor queen. And I think she’s often, it seems people kind of skip over her, um, for a couple of reasons, just because the story of under Henry the eighth were so much more dramatic, but also she was that kind of medieval queen who was gentle and didn’t fight that much. And all of that kind of stuff is the perception of her. Tell me what, tell me your opinions of Elizabeth of York.
James: (03:57)
Well, I think I sort of, when I did the series, I bracketed her not as a tutor queen in some ways, um, obviously she was, but I sort of think of them much more in as a war of the roses queen. I sort of, um, think Kenny deceptive, if you forget some dynastic thing, Henry the seventh fabric, very much more of a creature of the Wars of the roses than he is of sort of the cheetah reformation Renaissance type thing. And I think she’s very interesting. I was, again, I was revising this morning and I sort of looked, I remembered she’s really dissed. She spent her entire life as a sort of prospective marriage item. You know, she was at one point, she thought she was going to be the queen of France, then that didn’t turn out right. Um, then, Oh God, someone else coming through that was, and then, but, and then there’s all this uncertainty, you know, although she grew up in a sort of, uh, a relatively calm period in the Wars of the roses, it was sort of the, um, it was the fourth who was her father when he was King.
James: (05:01)
And it was apart from a brief period where he got overthrown. Um, it was like karma. So, so grew up in a fairly nice environment. And then of course it all went to hell, um, with rich, the third, um, whose she was sort of in principle semi imprisoned and sent away, her brother was, let’s say murdered, I’m sorry for all your rich, the third people out there that he was murdered. Um, and, but then she became queen and she’s sort of seen as this sort of unifying figure. And, and I think she really was, but again, she was this threat all her life. She was seen as both a unifier and the threat because she had a better claim to the throne. Then Henry did. I mean, everyone had a better claim to the throne then. Um, even Catherine of Aragon had a dedicated to the throne every day.
James: (05:56)
Um, so I was, she became queen, but she wasn’t, um, crowns for a long time. Uh, everything had to be put in place, but, and again, Henry the seventh rain is sort of divided really between when he was happy and the better than he was sad. And that when he was happy was really cool. Edward, this with York was a really great at being a queen, really. She didn’t brought up her life to do it, but she was an excellent queen. She gave the air and the spare and three daughters, but I think it’s pretty much the ideal number. Um, she was really great around the court, which was really great for dealing with foreign guests. Um, she’s a pet patronized, the arts she was seen as being very religious. And these are all sorts of the, the good things that you want to queen to do. You know, we’re all very excited and happy about the, the Queens that pushed the boundaries and became really powerful, but really that’s not what a queen was supposed to do. Um, but then she tragically died in childbirth, which was actually surprisingly unusual for time. Um, and then we can see really her parent, her influence in her absence really, because then
Heather: (07:12)
Would you say that was surprisingly unusual? Cause I think I wanna, I want you to explain that because I think it might confuse some people when they hear that, because you think like all these women died in childbirth. So tell me the,
James: (07:22)
I, she was only, I believe the second certain medieval queen of England to die in childbirth. I, uh, unfortunately I don’t know if I had them the other one. Um, no, I can’t remember, but so obviously infant mortality was incredibly common. Um, but maternal mortality is, is relatively rare, at least in Queens. Now that might just be luck. I don’t know how much this compared to, um, uh, to other Queens of other women at the time. I haven’t really studied it more broadly, but I was sort of come to this impression and thinking that women must die all the time in childbirth, in the diva period. And I’m sure for a different social classes, it’s very different, but actually for Queens, for whatever reason, it’s relatively rare.
Heather: (08:15)
It’s interesting because then you think about Henry the eighth and two of his wives died in childbirth, not Catherine Parr, not with him, but Jane Seymour and then Catherine Carter.
James: (08:25)
Yeah, it seems. And also, I mean, she does seem to have really well, at least Henry had really bad luck with giving, but I’ve, I’ve heard all sorts of reasons for it. Some people said it was the clothing that they had, the wall break, constricting clothing was the fashion, even when they were pregnant. That was a reason. Um, I, I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a doctor.
Heather: (08:49)
I wanted to touch on that. So sorry. So you talked about how she died in childbirth, which was unusual, uh, then the part of Henry’s reign, that was the sad part. Um,
James: (08:58)
Yeah. Well, I mean this, I grew up with an English education and so, um, you studied the tutors all the time, so maybe it’s just me that sort of grew up this idea of heading to seventh is this ma this mine is, it’s a mean person, this person who just wanted your tax money, who abused the Nobles, who had a very boring court, that’s really overly the case after Elizabeth died. Um, and so whether Elizabeth kind of was a moderating figure on him, um, or whether it was grief, it’s sort of difficult to tell. Um, I mean, Henry was always a very ruthless man. Um, he was, you know, not to say that he was a completely changed person, but I think you do see when you study Queens that the courts were women, there was no woman that their head tended to devolve into sort of, sort of imagined like men partying all the time, you know, a lack of culture, a lack of arts and literature was just about drinking and all that sort of thing.
James: (10:08)
And with Henry, he was always a suspicious man. He’s a paranoid man. And to be honest, it’s, you’re not paranoid if everyone really is out to get you. And they were, and I think it was once Elizabeth died, it was a really a case of his light. It’s great to, devil’s sort of dominating him and really, really he should have buried again, but unfortunately he did not. And so, uh, it was not an especially nice time to be around England in that sort of period and well, we’ll get, we’ll move on to captain America in a second, but she really suffered because of that as well.
Heather: (10:42)
Yeah. Okay. So then let’s, uh, let’s chat about her and um, like you said, she had a better claim to the throne, um, and her relationship, what her relationship was like with Elizabeth of York. Um, especially when she came back after Arthur had died. Um, maybe we can like start with that and then,
James: (11:02)
Well, again, Catherine of Aragon, if you look at her early life, I’m going to say, Hey, life really up until she married. Henry was really that as a dynastic poem, um, which is quite against really the rest of her life. She had a, a wonderful mother role model and Isabella of casts. Yeah. It’s about a habit. It’s about a Casteel. I sometimes get the two mixed up, um, who is this queen? Regnant incredibly powerful figure. Uh, she had a really, really good education, uh, almost sort of like education that you’d expect a, a boy to have a, a net thrown in terms of languages in terms of statecraft. Um, and then, but she had, unfortunately the really bad part is, you know, she was married into England first of dynastic reasons or means of isolating France, but then her mother died. And so she was had these two men really in control of her life after that the father Ferdinand and her father-in-law Henry, but both incredibly miserly, incredibly duplicitous, particularly Ferdinand.
James: (12:11)
It was just you plus this man I’ve ever come across, just basically double-crossed every single person he ever dealt with. And so she entered this sort of limbo where everyone was always fighting about the dowery. Everyone was always fighting about her role. Um, she married Arthur, but obviously Arthur died. Um, spoiler that and, um, and then, yeah, she was stuck in this bit in the middle where no one really knew what to do with her because England didn’t want to pay, give her dowery back. Um, and cause she would have been do all the money they’d been given, but also she was doing lots of land as well. Didn’t want to give back saucy land is the principle currency. Um, but, uh, so how do we didn’t want to give her up for that third name? Didn’t want to make a deal. Um, they still kind of needed England for doc foreign policy reasons.
James: (13:08)
So again, she’s in this limbo, she shoved off to the side and read the best thing that well, best thing that ever happened to her, one could argue is Henry dying. And, uh, Henry D coming across who really actually did want to marry her, they’d grown up together. She knew her. They seem to get on really well. And that was really the, the sort of the jumping off point. But really up to that point, her life had been just caught in limbo, which isn’t not that unusual for women at the time. They’re always sort of caught between these powerful men, their fathers, their husbands, and if they live outlive, their husbands, their sons really are legally in control of their lives a lot of the time.
Heather: (13:52)
Yeah. And is that, that period when she was still in limbo in England, um, she started to become so religious. Do you think that’s the kind of, what kind of influence do you think that had on her for the rest of her life, that period that she spent with? Um, uh, Henry the seventh?
James: (14:11)
I, I imagine, um, I think having her religion was always there and I think, you know, it’s very easy to doubt religious further and there’s that famous line in the past is a foreign country. No different people live there, they did things differently. And I think it’s so tempting to see, you know, where they live from a much more secular time. Did they really believe this? Is this all just a bit too convenient, but I think she was very religious woman. I’m not sure if she was like significantly more religious than many other people. Um,
Heather: (14:47)
I remember it was like around that time when she was doing all of fasting and she actually had a letter from the Pope telling her she didn’t have to fast so much cause she was like sick a lot. And there’s that story about that? She actually, like the Pope said, you know, you don’t have to so much.
James: (15:02)
That’s true. I, I I’d forgotten that, that that was, Oh, I do love, I do love things like that. I do a little bit of historical correspondence, but I think for me what that period taught her most was that, you know, she had to be in control of her own destiny. She had to fight very hard for her own beliefs. She had, you know, she knew that no one had her best interests in heart other than her. Um, and that, you know, never give in never surrender. And in some ways that, that it stood her well, but it was also the cause of her ultimate downfall. Really. I think, uh, she was described by someone in a latter. I think it was by someone right at the end. It was begging her just to give way in to describes the most obstinate woman. And I think I called one of my, that’s a title of one of my episodes that, and she was that in a, in a good way, but also in a bad way, you know, she given in, as she negotiated, if she’d been a bit more out of Cleves then maybe she could have entered her life in relative comfort, not as a queen, but not freezing to death, an old house, which is how it unfortunately ended for her
Heather: (16:14)
Terrible, terrible. Um, so yeah, that obstinance in that religious fervor, we had to talk about that once when we talked about her and Arthur did they, or didn’t they, and I remember we were chatting about how she swore up until the very end that they hadn’t and the level of credence, you have to give that because it was like, um, her, her soul or her Everleigh and, and what that would have meant to her. Um, so yeah, that’s in the obstinacy um, yeah. Where was I going to go with that? Okay. Well that kind of, that obstinacy kind of leads us in the not having agency over her, her life and her decisions. She had all of those miscarriages. It’s one of those kinds of funny. What if, if she had had a son that had lived not the Duke of Henry Duke of Cornwall, he lived for 42 days or something, um, would there have been an ambulance?
James: (17:08)
I don’t think so. I think it’s interesting. It’s a thing that you see all the time is that the queen is never secure in place until she has a son. And suddenly if you have a son, all things open up to you, there are very few secure Queensland rain for a long time that, uh, never had a son. Um, obviously Henry dispose of his Queens, like no one else before, but I think a lot of evidence in the life that they are very much in love that they were very close partnership. She was a very good queen. Um, she defended his defended England while he was off in France against the Scots. Um, she seems to have been quite good at having influenced, not being too influential, being too pushy, which is kind of a good way for a queen to try and have that power.
James: (18:00)
You don’t want to overplay your hand. Um, and really difficult is only really emerge when it starts to become more clear that she might not have a son might not have a child. You know, Henry always had a roving eye, you know, you always had, it was weirdly monogamous for this, Mr. Since he tended to only have one at a time, but there was always one at a time. Um, and I think if he had been secure with Catherine, I think they, she would have died a queen. I don’t know. I don’t really see why not. Um, and Evelyn was a very talented woman getting her own way, but getting rid of Catherine took an awful lot of effort and I don’t think he would have done that if it hadn’t been for this ultimate desire of having a son, it’s something he was obsessed. By
Heather: (18:51)
What role do you think Bessie blunt had with any of that? Once he knew that he could have a son?
James: (18:58)
I think that’s very true. So I’m sure everyone here knows that he had had a son Henry Fitzroy with Bessie. I did a guest episode on your show on her. I think I possibly, it’s always good to have that, um, sort of ultimate evidence. Yes. To look at me. It’s not my own fault, but I also think that Henry was an incredibly confident and arrogant man. I don’t think he doubt. I’m not sure that he doubted for a second, that he could have a son. I think it was helpful propaganda wise for the proof to have him there, this fine specimen of a man or find specimen of a baby, uh, that you know, to happen. But Henry, if you look at his conduct all the way through the great matter, all the way through trying to get the divorce, his is one of the reasons why he failed because he was so confident, so arrogant that he, um, in many ways played his hand quite badly.
James: (19:59)
He always, he, he tried to do things the right way, you know, going through the courts, going through all of this. And he always thought of every single point that he was just about to get his way, that everything was going to be fine. Everyone would believe him. Everyone would come around to his way of thinking. Of course, that didn’t happen. And that’s sort of why I come to this view. I mean, I can, it’s one of these things where obviously we can’t, so it’s always just going to be a reading of character and that’s sort of how I’ve always read him.
Heather: (20:32)
And then, um, I love the way you’re signaling here. So you talked about how ambulant always was, was used to getting her way, um, that overlap of these strong personalities, these women with such strong personalities, because Catherine of Aragon did have a strong in her way, um, different than ans that clash. Tell me what that, what, tell me about that clash and how that, how Ann ultimately triumphed over that.
James: (21:00)
Yeah. I mean, I think history sort of likes to put people in certain boxes and because ambulant has seen as that you said the ultimate mistress, you know, she’s seen as the ultimate schema, you sort of tempted to put the other woman Catherine in as sort of a doormat as the wronged woman, um, as someone who possibly was slightly weaker than Anne, and that’s just not the case at all. Um, and as we all know was very intelligent in the way that she, uh, went about her business. Um, she was, you know, one of the most intellectually capable, um, Queens, England had had to that point sheet, um, grown up in a quarter of Margaret of Austria and then also in France. So she had a great education in terms of culture, in terms of languages. She, um, was really more of a French woman than an English woman in many ways, in terms of her style, the way she can to herself.
James: (22:12)
Um, and she had seen when she was younger hub system, Mary, uh, had a bit of a reputation, shall we say in France. And then again in England, um, as being a bit, once in a bit too overt in her flirting, that’s she didn’t really play the Courtney love game where you sort of took things slowly. It was all very regimented and then staged. She was much more out there, shall we say, um, which I’m not cussing at versions in terms of how a modern person might think that, but in the tons of the time, that’s not the right way things were done. Uh, it certainly, if you had ambitions of, of sort of great status, because the blends were very much a sort of, um, an upstart kind of family, um, you know, Henry had to give and Berlin a title, um, the Marsh has a Pembroke just to sort of raise her up to being sort of, of the right rank to marry.
James: (23:15)
Um, and so the clash really was this two women who were very, uh, firm in their own conviction from, in their own beliefs and driven in terms of what that ultimate goal was. Um, and one, uh, in this watch, when, and in venture company, she did win in, in, in many ways, uh, for really from her own cleverness in the way that she played the game, you know, not sleeping with Henry famously, um, sort of using the right word here and there to nudge him along the way. Um, but it was bang on, it was about the sun. It was all about the sun. And, um, she had this wonderful possibility about her. You know, she always had left the possibility she refrained from sleeping with him. And until a few months before it all, all finally went down, she cultivated allies around her. She made sure that she still remained this sort of mysterious and exciting person to be around w compared to them, Catherine of Aragon, who by that time had sort of devolved much more to religious nature.
James: (24:30)
Obviously she was quite a bit older than me. She was six years older than Henry, and about at least 10 years older than Adam. Um, and so that’s how she eventually tried to it. Wasn’t a triumph for the looks. I mean, everything that we’ve I’ve ever read about and is that she was a fairly plain play in the sense of average looking woman. She didn’t comport to the idealized notion of what a beautiful English woman was, but then you had to be very pale. You had to be blonde. Uh, she was dark skinned and, uh, sort of olive skin and dark hair, which obviously right now is very, very fashionable. That’s basically all you ever see on a catwalk. Um, but back then, it wasn’t, she was, I think she had lots of moles, which was seen as very sort of devilish at the time. You had to be perfect and she, she wasn’t, but she played the game very well.
Heather: (25:27)
When did the six finger rumors start?
James: (25:31)
Just, I think so from what I remember, she had, um, this digital fingernail or something. Um, and I think it was something that was pointed out about her quite early on. Um, so it was, it wasn’t really a secret. Um, but it was that it came back at the time, obviously when you’re looking at things to throw at someone, um, it’s very easy. If someone, if a woman has any kind of imperfection and you’re trying to smear them, you never go too far wrong by shouting.
Heather: (26:05)
Yeah, sure. Of course. That’s a good, that’s a good go-to. Um, so there’s, you know, the perception always is that, and was this great woman to have as a mistress, but once she became a wife, she didn’t learn her place. And it that’s like the narrative general narrative of an, um, and it, what Henry liked as a mistress, he didn’t want as a wife. Um, what, what do you think about that? Does that stack up in your opinion?
James: (26:31)
Um, I, well, I think it’s interesting to look at what their relationship was built on. So, you know, love matches famously are very rare in, um, in overall history to be honest. Um, I’m not sure if you’ve been watching the crown on Netflix, but there’s a very about halfway through, but it’s a very interesting conversation that the queen has with Prince Charles just before he married a lady Diana. And she talks about the example of her grandmother who had absolutely nothing in common when he matched, she married Mary of tech and Mary was the fifth, um, nothing in common with him, but they worked assets and sort of love appeared. So in some ways that starting the relationship on the basis that love is kind of a nice, optional, extra add in Henry’s relationship was always based on passion. It w uh, I wanted to say last, I think passion is a better way of saying it so that it was always quite far, even when they were courting, they were having arguments.
James: (27:36)
And so, you know, don’t marry for last month for love. And I don’t think either of them loved each other in that way, they were afraid, passionate for each other. They both very interested in each other. Um, and I think that’s really where it all went down wrong, I think. And for her part, she didn’t change her behavior. When she became a queen, she was always on the attack. Um, they S they say, um, the problem with that, I’ve not going to go into the English politics or British politics, but you can’t be at camp. If you have lots of campaigners around you, rather than people who know how to govern, then you’re always on the attack. You’re always, you know, counterattacking any op uh, position. Um, you’re not trying to build bridges. You’re not trying to, uh, bring consensus. And wasn’t very good at that.
James: (28:31)
Um, and I think because she’d spent her whole life building up to a point she couldn’t change gear and try and bring some sort of unity, brings some sort of consensus. So that Elizabeth of York had been very good at. And then her rival was still alive. That didn’t help. Uh, but I think again, if she had a son, it may have been different. Um, if you look at how she fell, which is every time I think about it, I’m amazed at how quickly it all went down. No, she went from top of the world in January, 1536 to dead in may. It’s, um, it all comes down and it’s because she, she had enemies. She wasn’t very good at dealing with those enemies. And it’s because I think she did not know how to be a queen, or she, she hadn’t really thought about that. She didn’t have the example, she wasn’t bred for it. You know, she was one of the most more, the more common, uh, Queens, England of hatch, you know, she is a more high stakes than us with Woodville, but other than her, that she was probably the lowest born queen England has had since the conquest.
Heather: (29:48)
Yeah. And yet Elizabeth Woodville was successful, but she had sons, she had lots and lots of babies
James: (29:56)
Never, never underestimate the Woodville because they have a billion children.
Heather: (30:02)
Right. That’s funny. Um, so then the unifying figure with, um, Jane Seymour comes around, I suppose. And, you know, again, the kind of narrative of Jane Seymour is that she was this sort of wet mop that just sat there and didn’t really have many thoughts about things. And then she died, but she was, she was clever. Wasn’t she? And I will tell me, tell me what you think about that kind of narrative of her.
James: (30:27)
Well, the thing with Jane Seymour is if you literally only look at her life when she was chasing Henry and look at what ambulant did, they did exactly the same thing
Heather: (30:38)
Coached right. By some of the people.
James: (30:41)
Yes, exactly. So the CMOs were quite, uh, where a more, um, established family than the blends. Uh, she has been very much coached. Um, she wasn’t the rising, she wasn’t the great hope of the family. Great hope for the family was, was her brother Edwards, um, who eventually went on to become the protector, um, and, uh, her son. But again, I think Jane Seymour really did what Amber Lynn should have done. Really. She never should have came a lady in waiting. She caught the King’s eye. She did the same, literally the same things, exchanged letters, wouldn’t sleep with him. I don’t think she had a lot to be honest to do with ambulance fall. Um, I am very much in the blame Cromwell camp on that one. Um, but she was certainly a reason why Henry I think was keen, uh, to, um, Mary. I mean, I think they married almost instantly after Anne lost, um, uh, well lost her title and then lost their head, but so said she was very much a schema, like any of the others.
James: (31:56)
Um, she, wasn’t a sort of a powerful intellectual figure assigned, um, phew, Queensway. Um, but she knew how to play the game. She had been brought up to be an English noble woman. She was coached by her family in how, the best way to ingratiate yourself in. But then when she came in became queen, she became much more of a unifying figure. No, she began the process of rehabilitating, uh, marrying Elizabeth, um, which was sort of carried on by subsequent wives. Um, she, she tried to be a queen in the, sort of the old sense. Um, you know, she did the whole supplication thing where she tried to beg for mercy on behalf of some people, um, Henry wasn’t having any of that, uh, told her to, uh, to know her place.
Heather: (32:47)
And you’re talking about the pilgrimage of grace people.
James: (32:48)
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Um, so I mean, that’s a very, very normal thing throughout history for Queens to throw themselves on the floor and beg for mercy. It was a way for a King to appear merciful, but also powerful at the same time, because it just because like the weakness of his wife that he’s giving in, um, this seems to be a bit more spontaneous and Henry wasn’t a fan of it, you know, I’ve, um, this, this idea that Jane Sima was the only woman, uh, he truly loved. Uh, and that’s because she gave him a son. I think if she hadn’t, uh, she could have ended up maybe who knows like an out of Cleve style, um, sort of retirement or a Annabel in style beheading. I would imagine she would have played her cards a bit better than, than, uh, than handed. But I don’t think she necessarily would have survived a long if she’d not had Edwards. Um, of course we’ll never know because famously she died shortly afterwards and other childbirth death in quick succession from the, from the last one.
Heather: (34:02)
Yeah. Another thing for Henry to, to have lost his must’ve been, so we’re talking about Queens, but for Henry to have lost his brother and then lost his mother. And then like, he just had a lot of, a lot of, I mean, I know it’s quite common, but I’m just wondering how that affected him. But anyway, um, moving on deal makers, we talked about, uh, if Jane would have played her cards better, somebody who did play her cards well was, uh, Anna cleaves. Um, because she kind of saw the way the wind was blowing and didn’t want to be like Catherine of Aragon. So talk to me about Anne’s faults and how she managed to, uh, to outlive everybody.
James: (34:38)
Well, it’s, again, without a click, it’s very difficult to get past the propaganda is the ugly one. Uh, you know, you’ve put them into a box. Um, she’s another woman, again, like Han who was very much, um, uh, when I, again, I don’t wanna say a victim because she only became queen because of the machinations of Thomas crown unwell and she fell and she ended up falling hard because of, well, she was both the reason for Thomas Cromwells falling, but also she fell because Thomas Cromwell, foul, um, she’s in a, she, she was from a fairly low, um, low ranked, um, family, but one that was relatively important. Um, it was considered important to marry some, uh, someone who wasn’t through the Catholic because the other Catholics wouldn’t marry Henry. And at the I’m always at Penn state Henry the eighth was no Protestant. He was a, he was CA Catholic without the Pope, certainly have a more reformist bent.
James: (35:48)
I think his faith was really, you know, he believed in God, he was a religious man, but at the same point, his actual firm belief in, in the particulars of, of Christianity duction, we’ve really benefited him at the time. But if you didn’t want to marry a Catholic one and marry someone reformist at that time, there were only a fairly small number of choices that you could have. Then if you take into account, you know, alliances and all that stuff. And if clears is one of the only options really out there, it’s difficult to say, you know, the truth of whether, you know, he truly believed that she was too ugly for him. I think certainly he was, she was oversold by the people around, I think chromo had become somewhat overconfident, his own position, which is never a good place. Um,
Heather: (36:42)
Interesting in the Wolf hall book ceiling, seeing his downfall, like after Ann’s death, he becomes this phrase, like, don’t mess with me. He’s like, you know, even people who are really high up in court trying to do, and he’s like, no, just like I’m crumble. Like what are you going to do? And they worked it out then.
James: (36:58)
And it’s, you know, you see it with, with advisors even now, politicians know, uh, English, British people out that will know who, I mean, by Dominic Cummings, you have these advisors who sort of forget, they’re not the one in charge. They think they can boss everyone around. They think, Oh, the prime minister, the president, whoever is sort of follows my advice, you know, really on the power behind the throne. And they sort of forget to remember who were, who they were, what got them there. And the only is with the favor of the people around the leader, the King or whatever that has them there. And you can’t always, you can never really stop protecting your own position. And so, yeah, I mean, Ann was, was a victim of, of those sorts of politics. It was not her fault at all. What happened to her?
James: (37:54)
Um, she, by contrast, almost everyone else plays her cards extremely well. She accepted what was going to happen. She did not dig in. I mean, I think it helped unlike Katherine ABAG and she hadn’t been married to Henry for 20 years. So she didn’t really have cards to play. You didn’t have the powerful foreign backing like she did with Catherine happy Charles, the fifth, the emperor. So she could have just gone home back to Germany and properly, you know, lived out her life in a sort of quarter of one of her family. But, you know, she negotiated herself, uh, a very, uh, very comfortable life. You know, if you’ve seen or heard the soundtrack of the meaning of the musical sex, you know, her song is I am the queen of the castle, get down, you dirty Roscoe. And so she managed almost to skip ahead in terms of how a powerful woman is. Usually a woman only becomes powerful after her husband dies because she then has the status. She doesn’t have to, um, give over power for herself to another man. Um, she often has a fairly nice position for herself and managed to skip away ahead. She got herself, a very nice country pad. She got herself, a very nice pension and she kept her head down. Uh, and that’s how you survive the tutor Corps. If you’re not tremendously ambitious, keep your head down. Don’t do anything too aggressive and you’ll probably end up. Okay.
Heather: (39:29)
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think it’s interesting, just you talking about her, her religion and things. Cause she, she was, it’s this interesting intersection of those two that, um, cause this was right when Henry had published the great Bible and said that everybody in England had to have a copy of this English Bible. It was Cromwell’s Bible. And then there’s also this idea that Anne wasn’t actually that Protestant, that she was still quite Catholic. Um, and just these two, I just always have thought it was an interesting mixture at that point in his life to have these combined.
James: (39:59)
I think the problem is the word Protestant doesn’t really mean much in 1530. Uh, you know, it’s very early in the reclamation. Um, and so, I mean, there’s no shortage of Harris’s of reformist views in the Catholic church. Some get accepted synopsis in France to the CC at one point was sensitive the heretic, um, by some people instead of Franciscan monks and Francisco and establishes became part of the mainline Catholicism. You have the LA arts in the 15th century, they were put down, but the odds were really a very Protestant ask institution. But for Anne, I can’t really label her as a person cause Parkinson’s, isn’t, this wasn’t an entrenched thing. It was still very much in its nascent stages. Um, so I, I, she was obviously very interested in the form of beliefs. She distributed Bibles and texts around. She shared them with Henry. So I find it difficult to believe that she wasn’t, uh, she wasn’t interested. She didn’t believe in a different view of how the Catholic church should be run. I don’t think it was just, um, self-interest cause she seems to have had these views before really it was considered important to break with Rome and your, the break with Rome happened as a, as a last resort. If Henry had wants to do that from the start, then he would have done it much earlier and set things up a lot of trouble.
Heather: (41:30)
And I’m talking about Anna cleaves. Oh
James: (41:34)
Yeah. Sorry. So you mentioned in sense of, uh, uh, um,
Heather: (41:41)
In 1539 was when Henry was still in his prime, he waffled back and forth so much. Um, any that he did the great Bible that year, but then there’s also, I know Anne of Cleves his family, the Hanseatic league and all of those guys were much more Protestant, but the story is that like Anne herself was, um, much more, uh, traditional and that’s why her and Mary got along so well. And it’s just interesting that she was brought into this marriage that maybe for this, these Protestant reformist re reasons, then maybe she didn’t even particularly believe in that much. What do you think about that?
James: (42:12)
Okay. I’m going to, my ultimate jet house gets out of jail card. It’s difficult to say. I don’t know he was, I don’t think she was particularly interested in all that she wasn’t particularly fervorous in either direction. Um, which I think again, might be just a case of trying to keep our head down. Um, I think, you know, she came from a Protestant dentisty, but that caused a whole lot of, uh, Wars and troubles. Uh, it was, there was a comment, there was a league, it was the Hanseatic they contract remember all these things in their head. Um, uh, lots of very long named Wars going on at that point. Um, and so I think she was a very pragmatic person, I think in terms of her religious view, that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t a religious person. I think the belief in God was almost universal back then, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you believed in the religious structures of the time. I think she was pragmatic. She wasn’t dogmatic, unlike other people, unlike some of these other wives and like the Catherine’s Catherine’s.
Heather: (43:24)
Okay. Well then let’s talk about another, you, you once said that you thought Katherine Howard was actually like your favorite of them because she’s just fun. Like tell me about,
James: (43:35)
She’s just so different with Catherine, how it’s she gets labeled a lot of things, um, in the historical record. And the main problem that we have with her is that we don’t know when she was born. Um, no, this isn’t an unusual problem. Um, we it’s even with some Royal women, it’s difficult to know the day cause chronic has just didn’t bother to note it down. So you have to guess based off a series of things. Um, so with Catherine,
Heather: (44:05)
For ambulance birth too,
James: (44:09)
I think it’s about a six or seven year gap or something like that makes at least five year variance in when people fit in the Catherine Howard was born. And this has a huge bearing on what you think of her because, so she was born into a very, um, ambitious family. The Howard’s, uh, they were very much on one side of the argument in Henry’s, uh, rain, you know, if there’s a difficult courtier around in the sheeter period, you bet your life how it’s going to be involved somewhere. Um, and she was sort of brought up in this very strict regimented way, uh, in this sort of boarding house, like sort of girls dorm. And then she had all these sort of relationships with various men. And if you read any book on Katherine Howard, you can usually tell what their view is by how old they think she is, because you have some people who sort of label her as a, a once in a harlot, safe for want of a better word, a , um, because they think she’s quite a bit older and she was maybe 16, 17, 15 when she started relationships with her music teacher, with other people, um, you know, at the time sort of 14, 15 was considered an okay time for women to be having sex relationships, to get married, to give birth.
James: (45:38)
However, if you think of her birth date as being somewhat later, then you start seeing her having a relationship with her music teacher when she was 12. And so then you see the idea of Catherine Howard as a victim, as this person who was sort of abused as a child, um, you know, abused by her family, abused by the men in her life, um, who never really learned how to comport yourself, uh, for, for reasons. I can’t quite remember. I came down on the fact that she was probably, uh, uh, in the sort of the latest stage. I don’t, from what I recall again, I’ll have to really listen to myself, speak for a bit. Um, I think she, I think the abuse narrative is a little bit of modern sensibilities coming in to fruition. Certainly. Now, if you think of a, your music teacher coming onto you, you’re having a sexual relationship with you and you’re 15 years old, you would absolutely call that abuse both in terms of being a minority, but also the kind of position of power.
James: (46:45)
But at the time it wasn’t that unusual. Um, you would generally be a little bit more under the wraps about it. You wouldn’t flow into it about quite so much, but, um, why I love Catherine Howard is all the, these other women around all these other Queens, certainly all the family gate’s other wives sort of have these sort of, um, quite big personalities, but they they’re quite regimented even Amber Lynn to an extent. Whereas Katherine Howard was just a party girl because she came to the queen as a teenager. None of the other ones did. Um, I actually, I can’t remember quite hello, Catherine of Aragon was, but you know, Henry in general, didn’t go after young girls. He, he actually quite liked and more sort of mature women. He could have a conversation with, um, he didn’t tend to chase teenagers. Um, and I think it came to pass in his life. Maybe that was more attractive to him. Um, I mean, it’s not difficult to imagine why a bald fat, you know, man might want to go after an 18, 17 year old hover, or do you think she is, that was sort of being pushed at him by, by, by his courts. Um, Catherine was, again, very much like the CMOs coached into this role, but
Heather: (48:15)
Did she continue her relationship? Like what, what is the thinking about why she thought that she was going to get away with this?
James: (48:23)
I don’t know, but I think she just wasn’t. I think, I think she wasn’t very clever, clever isn’t I don’t think she had really imbibed the, the lessons that maybe have been taught to her. I don’t think she know her upbringing. She was sent to having it was her grandmother’s care. She didn’t have this quite the same quality of upbringing and how to be a queen that Jane Seymour has, or certainly you’ve been, I’m not sure if the CMOs plan first to be queen, but they certainly planned for her to marry very well. Catherine had no one had her best interests at heart at all. Absolutely. No one, no one has her back. Um, the, the North it’s we’re trying to, um, so continue their reestablishment back in society. You know, um, Catherine Howard was seen as being the vehicles do that. Um, but her whole candidacy as a queen was based around, but based around her being fun and interesting, but unfortunately she was too fun and interesting.
James: (49:32)
And she had no one in her court, no advisor, no person telling her, okay. You know, you need to behave like a queen. You need to calm down. And it’s again, it’s difficult to know exactly if she did was sleeping around with quite so many people, but even the utmost ardent, Katherine Howard apologists would say that she had relationships that would be considered inappropriate. She spent too much time with other men. And I don’t think you can really legitimately argue that she did not continue having flirtatious, probably sexual relationships to other people. And she did not have the upbringing, a court to know how things were done. She was brought up in a very different way. She was brought, you know, she w she was brought into court and court Henry’s I pretty much immediately. Yeah, yeah,
Heather: (50:28)
Yeah. Okay. Well, and then the, the successful one, Catherine Parr, um, while successful until Tom Seymour got his hands on her. Um, so why did Henry it’s interesting, cause Henry seems to go from like an ambulance to a Jane Seymour who seems kind of quite the opposite. And then he had Catherine Howard, then he went to Catherine Parr. Um, what do you think about those two women next to each other?
James: (50:53)
I mean, they’re completely different, aren’t they, like, it’s difficult to think of two more different people. You know, Catherine Powell was very much more of a kind of person that Henry tended to go after, you know, a slightly older woman, uh, in relation to him. I, I mean, um, so more his own age, um, obviously a very woman is very intelligent woman who was, um, who knew he was very confident her in place. No, she’d been with her twice by that point. Um, she knew what she was about. Uh, when I, when I was growing up, I remember I did a project on Henry the eighth and I was in about here eight. So for people who didn’t come from an English education system, that’s when I was about 10, 10, 11. And it was like a secret diary of Henry the eighth. And you’d do the whole thing and sort of back then, Catherine, Pal’s very much seen as the nurse, you know, how many wants to nurse to get them through the rest of his life.
James: (51:55)
And that’s a view that I think is only just really beginning to be dispelled in the, sort of the popular imagination. I think in some academic circles that was dispelled a long time ago, but in the sort of the, you know, the greater knowledge, if you ask a normal person has a broad notion of history, you might still say category, Oh, he was the one that like helped him to this end. And that’s really not who Catherine Powell was at all. I think it’s interesting that he decided to marry at all because he didn’t need to, um, it’s not unusual for a King not to remarry. Um, when, when that beloved wife died, that isn’t read the case of Catherine Howard’s, um, you
Heather: (52:35)
Probably knew he wasn’t going to have any more children. Yeah.
James: (52:37)
I mean, if he wanted more children, you wouldn’t have married her because you would marry someone a bit younger, uh, someone, you know, in more,
Heather: (52:45)
Twice a night ever had children, so she didn’t
James: (52:47)
Have, so I think she, but I think, I think she was, again, I think it was, I think just a sense of someone that he got on with. I think he likes having what he seems to be a man and very much enjoyed the company of women, which is not a normal thing. Now you see him as this awful, this beast, this ogre, and, you know, it’s not entirely incorrect, but he did have a respect for women. Um, he had a far greater respect for himself and, uh, acting in his own self-interest as one might expect, he was extremely ruthless with, with women as he was with men. In some ways it was very equal opportunities, even though he executed his best friends, as often as he executed as wives. Um, and I think that’s really what sort of attracted Catherine Parr to him is someone stabilizing someone nice.
Heather: (53:42)
And I think, you know,
James: (53:44)
It’s, it’s good to have a woman at court as well. It ha it adds a certain flavor to the, to, to the way things were done. And Henry obviously by Dow was, was very, uh, very sick, um, you know, in a lot, quite a lot of pain all the time. And I think she was quite a soothing presence at least sometimes.
Heather: (54:02)
And she was very intelligent and managed to get herself out of, uh, out of a scrape and, uh, by the skin of her teeth really.
James: (54:10)
I mean, people always think about Belinda’s thing. The really Protestant queen when really Catherine Parr was the real sort of theologian, the really sort of odd and Protestant in a way that really got her into a lot of trouble. Um, I think you see the depth of feeling that he had towards Catherine Parr, but when people went off to her, sort of accusing her, of being, being a heretic of, of being acting against them of, of not doing the right things, as they would say, he defended her, but also she helped herself. She she’d been around the block. She knew how things were done. She knew how to, um, be around Henry, how to play pushes buttons in the way that got her. Right. She was very lucky as well. I think, you know, she, um, she had, she got the information at the right time.
James: (55:04)
She had friends in the right places that had got her out of trouble. Uh, it’s very easy to imagine that I would be saying, you know, she was an interesting queen, but you know, again, it was her religious further that got the better of her and saw her lose her head. It could very easily have happened. Um, but I think what saves those, because if you look at what he did for his other wives, it was either lack of a child, or it was their own behavior without a please being somewhat of an anomaly. Um, whereas Catherine, that she wasn’t there for being a child bear and she was, she knew what to do to get herself out of trouble. Um, obviously again from impacts of musical sex, I’m wondering, I think now this field Catherine Powers of this sort of, um, sad woman who’s denied the person she wants to marry, um, to marry the King. And I think that is the case. I mean, Thomas Simo is a thoroughly reprehensible man, but there is no doubt that Catherine pub was in love with him that she wanted to marry him. Now she was on the brink of marrying him before she married Henry and she married him not long after. Um, it’s unfortunate that he was a bit of a bubble.
Heather: (56:23)
Um, okay. So we’ve now gone through all of the Queens and I want you to have a chance to talk about where people can find you and your podcast and stuff, but I do want to ask you a very controversial question and I want your opinion on it. Um, Jane Gray, should she be known as Jane the first?
James: (56:41)
Um, probably so I, I do count. So, um, in the sort of the world of controversial medieval monarchs, you have Empress Matilda from the 12th century, which is my favorite. Um, my favorite century, sorry, 16th century people, um, who one century, isn’t it? Yes, exactly. Particularly sort of history of sort of Britain and France has always been my sort of area and it’s a really fun time. Um, so my favorite, she’s my favorite. She’s my absolute fave. Um, so she was queen lady at the English, whatever you want to call her, uh, for six months. And I would say that she was for six months, she was the person in charge then you have, but I think if you don’t cool, Jane Jane, the first, then you can’t really call Edward Edward the fifth, you know, they, you know, they weren’t, you, um, you know, you do count Queens, the Kings and Queens that weren’t crown plenty weren’t at the eighth was never crowns as if the Fest was never crowns.
James: (57:54)
Um, so I think that’s somewhat, um, uncontroversial. I mean, it’s difficult because, you know, she was swinging for such a short period of time. I think if it had been free longer with the same claim, if, um, her faction had been a bit more paired and was more able to defend her, then I think it’d be a bit different. Then you’d end up with something more like the worst. The roads is like the anarchy where you have sort of two competing claims, the gets out of jail, free cars. We don’t number Queens that have only had, we only had one off. So queen queen Victoria, you know, Mary Mary’s called Mary queen of Scots even though had, should really be called Mary the first, um, about there actually was a second marriage for complex reasons because the later marries count. Um, so if we do in world, we will now be far distant future, have a second Jane baby. Then we can, there’ll be a longer argument, but I, I didn’t cut for her. I don’t, I don’t know. I didn’t why sorts of takes, I kind of marry. Um, so I think calling her Jane, maybe Jane Gray is a sensible thing, but I do think she probably should be getting the first. What’s your, what’s your offer? You can’t just put me on the,
Heather: (59:09)
Oh, no, I can do that. Cause I’m the interviewer. No, I, I, I think like you said, it doesn’t really matter right now, but yes. Um, if, if you’re going to call Edward the fifth Edward, the fifth and she needs to Jane the first, so yeah. Um, okay. So tell me where, tell me about your other show, your other half show. Um, people might know you from the Queens of England podcast, but you actually have another show too. And tell me about that and where people can listen and all of that.
James: (59:38)
Yeah. So I mean, as I said at the top, um, I stopped doing the Queens, my great excuse for doing the quick stuff in the Queens of England in 1707, but the last been lasted, lived a little longer than that is that that’s when they stop in the Queens of England, they started being the King Queens of great Britain. So that was my, uh, and then future Queens, the United Kingdom. So that was my great excuse, but partly it’s because I’m, I’m like an ancient and medieval historian at heart. Um, and so I was keen to go back, but I was also keen to cover a wider range because the problem with taking one topic and doing it to death, like ideas that some of the Queens’s aren’t that interesting. Some of them, this is not a lot of information on, um, so you can pick and choose a bit.
James: (01:00:21)
So I decided for the other half to take a broadly similar approach, take a theme and then do, uh, like a bite individual biographical studies, which is basically the style I do. So I started off with, from Roman emphasis, starting with Livia, who is the wife of Augustus and went through the, sort of the Julia Codian dynasty, which was the first dentisty of Casa dentisty and dynasty in the same sentence. Um, so listen to too many Americans, um, uh, sort of that first of dynasty of, of emperors and empresses. Um, so did that for a bit. Then I sort of went back and did sort of, uh, mom, uh, sort of Queens again, but, uh, did the Dawson grant also queen Victoria that took me a lot longer than I thought it was going to. Um, but that was one of the periods I’m also very interested in as the first world war.
James: (01:01:13)
And I think it’s very interesting to see how the children of Victoria married into pretty much every noble house. Um, so you have Germany, Spain, Russia, uh, Greece, all of these places, um, that had a, an English or British, uh, woman or, or, or a descendant of one. And so you ended up, you know, in the first world war with the children, three children of, of Victoria were on the Thrones of Germany, Russia and Britain will grow up, that’s it? I meant grandchildren. And I didn’t say so. I found that very interesting. So that took a while and now, but that was a bit too modern. So by the end, I was like, Oh God, there’s so much evidence. I don’t like this. I prefer digging around and like trying to read a lot of source criticism on one thing amongst at once that’s much more my special place.
James: (01:02:04)
So, um, my, my current stage I’m in the middle of is, um, of so-called it folk heroines. And it’s the idea of these women that become, um, kind of, sort of, um, the surrounding sort of foundation myths of a nation whose sort of the stories are still held up as them in sort of a golden age or their ideals or their personalities, Pam, sorry. Yes. So I started off with her. So some of these people are real. Some of them are semi real and some of them are purely legendary. So, um, Boudica almost certainly was a real person, but we know almost nothing about her. Um, but I sort of used her as a case study of how the series would go because these people become different thing. These women have different personalities, different things read into their conduct, depending on when you come from, you know, same thing happened with ambulate.
James: (01:03:04)
And same thing happened with all these people, uh, you know, net right now, you know, ambulant went through phases of being, you know, a mistress, a harlot oversexed. And then now, you know, in the age of feminism sort of re rethinking her same thing happened with Catherine Parr. Um, and Buddha can happen in the same, you know, you see her as being a, sort of a, uh, idea of like Britain fighting back against the greater empire until present. They came the greater empire, and then somehow they managed to make her a hero empire, despite the fact that she spent, she died fighting one. Um, and then again, it’s sort of changed now that she she’s less revered, but you know, there’s a statue of her outside parliament, despite the fact that she tried to overthrow the state, which is a very interesting, uh, so it’s that sort of semi rail then have like full blown.
James: (01:03:55)
No, which was, I did Milan, uh, it’s a very interesting person to cover, but she is almost definitely a legendary figure. But again, the idea of her, um, you know, she was, uh, from ethnically, at least in the legend from the North of China, but now she’s seen as like a hero of the Han the, so the dominant, ethnic, and nationality of China, she said of a hero of them, despite the fact that she really wasn’t, uh, she was actually part of a kingdom that was opposed to them. Um, then I’ve done a few more, um, more in, uh, did, uh, went back into the middle ages. Uh, and now I’m doing gender Barack and Michelle I’m about to, after pretty much after I hang up this, I’m going to be recording episode one of her. And she is, uh, she is in many ways the prototypical folk heroine, because she is the person against which everyone is compared.
James: (01:04:46)
Like I was, I did some code tomorrow, Georgia, um, who was the best of legendary Queens and she’s the George and Joan of arc. Um, you have, um, that she going to do one, uh, uh, uh, Ronnie Johnson. Who’s a figure from 19th century India. She’s the Indian Joan of arc. Everyone’s the something Joan of arc. And she’s a person who, there’s an awful lot of evidence about. We know a lot more about her than almost any woman in medieval history because we have, we have a very, we have a lot of court minutes and they’re really fun to read if a little bit of choose. So I’m very much looking forward to that. So I’m going to be doing this series, I think for probably until the middle of next year, come back on the fortnightly schedule. Um, and so you can find it basically wherever you get your podcasts, it just look up the other half podcasts and your app. I unfortunately chose a name that ha there are other, other half podcasts, but it’s the one that’s blue and white with a circle. And, um, other half podcasts.co.uk is the website. If you just want to see it there and I would encourage you to do so because I’m incredibly vain, like my download numbers.
Heather: (01:05:54)
Perfect. Yes. Awesome. Well, James, you’ve been so generous with your time. I know we’ve gone over an hour here, so I appreciate you, um, having this discussion with me, it was super fun. Um, it’s always good to talk about Queens of England with you.
James: (01:06:08)
Well, it’s been a long time. I think we did. Um, I had a chat with you about Catherine of arrogant about three years ago now. And, uh, and did an episode for your show, I think a bit before we even that. So it’s been a while. It’s been too long. Let’s not wait another three years. Let’s yes, exactly.
Heather: (01:06:24)
Awesome. Hey, thank you so much. And I’ll let you know when this all goes out on my different feeds, if you want to link or anything like that. So. Cool. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Bye everyone. Bye.
