Tudor Mirror World: Henry's Wives

This series follows on from the Henry VIII Enigma post. Primarily it will point out parallels, mirrors (coincidences I guess you could call them) from the Tudor period of history. Further to this there may be some speculation on alternative explanations for these mirrors.

Before we begin though I should point out that I have a 'many roads' attitude when it comes to history. It's not that I believe this or that, more that I believe this and that. Then ascribe (somewhat vague) probabilities to the varying options. So, in this case, it's not that I'm necessarily saying the official version of Tudor history is wrong. I'm 90% certain it's right. It's just that there's a 10% inkling that it could be wrong. If I find more evidence in favour of this then the balance might move to 80/20%. And so forth.

Again, these are just vaguely assigned numbers, for the purpose of illustration. In reality it's much more complicated ..plus there may be more than just two potential versions of history. The point is, you can entertain multiple possibilities in your mind, as long as you're not dogmatically invested in one particular version to the complete exclusion of all others.

And even if you're 99.9% certain the official version of history is correct you can still have a little bit of fun and adventure exploring that 0.1%.

Anyhow.. back to Henry

This is an easy one. In this post we're just going to point out how Henry's first three wives mirror his second three.

So, the first three - the ones that gave us our subsequent Tudor monarchs - are perhaps the more well known ones. Or at least the ones more prominent in dramatizations of the period.

1) Catherine of Aragon

2) Anne Boleyn

3) Jane Seymour

Then we have the second three:

4) Anne of Cleves

5) Catherine Howard

6) Catherine Parr

Interestingly, the two triplets parallel each other in narrative.

Firstly, Anne of Cleves and Catherine of Aragon were both foreign, and they were both divorced, in essence. Neither were killed, and both lived out the remainder of their lives in England.

Then, Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn both committed adultery and both had their heads cut off. Not to be blunt.

Thirdly, Catherine Parr and Jane Seymour both died following childbirth. However, here the parallel breaks down somewhat. As Jane died after giving birth to Henry's heir, Edward VI. Whereas Catherine Parr died after giving birth to a child by her subsequent husband, Thomas Seymour (after Henry VIII had died). Though Thomas Seymour was Jane Seymour's brother (!), so we have a weird spider's web of mirrors in a sense.

Needless to say, we see the same pattern repeated twice. Though the first three women each provided Henry with a single heir (Mary, Elizabeth and Edward). Whereas the second three provided none.

[I'll finish this post with the following portrait of Anne of Cleves. Not to add any further information, but just because I like it, and it tends to go underused. Though she does look somewhat unimpressed in it. Like most the women I meet.]

Next up we'll begin with another painting.