Bastard Prince Read Free Page B

informed the duke of Compton’s behaviour. Buckingham quarrelled with Compton and the king before storming from the court. Anne was carried off by her husband to the safety of a nunnery and Henry ordered an emotional Katherine to dismiss Elizabeth for her meddling. Henry was clearly angry, but none of this makes it clear whether Compton or the king was in fact the guilty party. Garrett Mattingly suggests that the ambassador was relying on gossip fed to him by one of Katherine’s former ladies-in-waiting, Francesca de Carceres. If this was the case, neither of them was sufficiently close to the centre of things to know exactly what had been going on. Since Don Luis was primarily concerned with demonstrating how much Katherine was in need of his advice and counsel, he was probably all too willing to believe that the incident was more significant than it really was.
    It is possible that Henry did engage in a degree of harmless flirtation with the Lady Anne in the tradition of courtly love. In 1513 her new year’s gift from the king was a suspiciously extravagant thirty ounces of silver gilt. As the third most expensive present that year, it was ‘an unusually high amount to be given to one of the queen’s ladies by Henry’. 6 The elaborate game of courtly love, with its exchange of tokens and protestations of undying devotion, was a popular pastime at the Tudor court. Enthusiastically played by all of the queen’s ladies and the king’s courtiers, it was not in itself evidence of a serious attraction. Like any game it had rules, which were supposed to be observed. Those occasions when the heartfelt sighs overstepped the boundaries into genuine emotion were cause for anger and recrimination, as Henry Percy found to his cost when his romantic pursuit of Anne Boleyn exceeded accepted limits.
    Although Katherine was exempt, since propriety required that the only man who romanced her was her husband, Henry was a keen player. Yet it is significant that none of Henry’s known mistresses came from families above the rank of knighthood. It was one thing to pay homage to a duke’s sister as an unreachable goddess, but quite another to seduce her. While Henry’s conduct may have encouraged suspicion among the gossips, subsequent events indicate that Sir William Compton’s attraction to Lady Anne Hastings was the genuine article. In 1527 Wolsey drew up a citation accusing Compton of adultery with Anne. Compton apparently took the sacrament in order to disprove his guilt. However, his will belies his protestations of innocence. Not only did he ask for daily service in praying for Anne’s soul, but also the profits from certain of his lands in Leicestershire were earmarked for her use for the remainder of her life. 7
    On New Year’s Day 1511 Katherine of Aragon was safely delivered of a son. At only her second attempt she had fulfilled her ultimate duty and provided England with a male heir. The child was ‘the most joy and comfort that might be to her and to the realm of England’. The baby was apparently healthy and there was no reason to suppose that the little prince would not be joined shortly by a host of brothers and sisters. Yet only fifty-two days later the child was dead. The grief and shock of both his parents at this bitter blow was echoed by the whole nation. It can have been of little comfort to Katherine that unlike a miscarriage or a stillbirth, which was universally looked on as the fault of the mother, infant mortality was seen as God’s judgment on both parents for their sins. To make matters worse, this time Katherine did not conceive again for another two years.
    The idea that Henry might have spurned his wife for the pleasures of other women seems an empty revenge for a man who was so desperate to secure a legitimate heir. If he did there is no evidence of it. In contrast to many of his contemporaries Henry was a model of restraint and discretion.