Do you think Henry VIII loved any of his wives?

[TheCactus1]

Do you think Henry VIII was actually in love with any of his wives? I know marriages at this time were often not for love but more to secure wealth and Henry VIII seemed to view his wives as disposable, but do you think he actually ever loved any of them at any point? Some have said he genuinely loved Jane Seymour but I wonder if this was just because she gave him a son?

Sorry, I am not usually a pedant but fit some reason this is triggering me

Didn't he nearly have Catherine Parr arrested for treason at one point?

He also turned on long trusted and loyal friends such as Thomas More and Cromwell.

He was highly unstable and quite the scandal of Europe. It's easy to forget that having one's wife executed was every bit as shocking then as it would be now. People were horrified by him.

No one really knows the spellings of all the Catherine's / Katherine's / Katharine's - they spelled them all differently in different documents. Tudors weren't exactly grammar pedants.

And Catherine of Aragon was Catalina originally.

@BalloonSlayer yep for heresy when she argued with him regarding religion. she got wind of it and persuaded him that she only argued with him to learn from him and he was soothed but didn't cancel the arrest warrant. then made a whole song and dance when they arrived to arrest her

banisher, precisely! There is no point getting exercised about Tudor spellings.

In fact it's interesting that it's only relatively recently that people have tried to analyse Henry, in a "why did he do this?" way. The answer having been for centuries: because he was an appalling narcissistic psychopathic tyrant who cared for no one but himself.

Yes Iooked up Elizabeth of York - she was 37, but Henry was 11 when she died, so he lost his Mum quite young. The Wikipedia page I looked this up on has a picture showing the young Prince grieving for his mother...

Yes I think he loved Jane Seymour because as you said she gave him a son.
Ironically though it’s the other way round.
He gave her the son and Anne Boleyn the daughter that he didn’t want.

Sorry I am not trying to draw a parallel between Henry VIII and a more modern Henry, its just that the article I read years ago, and ireferred to upthread, did.

He was a vain manipulative narcissistic womanising liar who used his position of power to do some really shady stuff.

He changed his whole country's religion and had his marriage to his first wife declared invalid saying Catherine of Aragon wasn't a virgin upon marrying her (and saying she was and her marriage to his brother was unconsummated in order to marry her) and had his daughter declared illegitimate in order to marry Ann Boleyn and then had Ann Boleyn beheaded for adultery which was hypocritical as he'd begun their relationship via adultery and was already cheating with Jane Seymour;he got rid of Ann to marry Jane.

Did he really love any of them or did he simply love bomb the flavour of the moment?;you have to wonder if Jane Seymour lived would he have eventually disposed of her too?

Yes, 37. I think she'd just had a baby (another Katherine?) who also died.

Catherine of Aragon was already at court then, and had married Arthur and he'd died. She hung around in England for years until she and Henry were allowed to marry — she sold off jewels and all sorts to pay her household. She couldn't be seen as Arthur's widow, or she couldn't marry Henry, so she just had to hang on as best as she could and hope it would finally work out!

I think with Anne Boleyn it was definitely infatuation and the thrill of the chase — he'd had lots of mistresses, but always went back to Catherine. Anne wouldn't let him catch her, which just made him more desperate for her.

@clary

He probably had genuine love for Katherine of Aragon, as he fought to marry her (as his brother's widow, it was controversial); he was besotted with Anne Boleyn for sure, bewitched maybe, but the letters between them are really moving.

Katherine Howard I agree was more an old and unwell man's attraction to a bright pretty young girl.

Also interesting - which one of them would you choose to have been? I'm saying Anne of Cleves for sure.

Are the letters between them moving? I haven't read them, I just always assumed any letter like that back then we're all just for show - affected and melodramatic. Interesting to hear they may actually be genuine.

I would say Catherine of Aragon, if any of them. But agree that love / marriage was just different back then. Particularly for Kings etc and the lifestyle they led, different bed chambers etc.

I'd imagine the more humble, normal men of the day, living in one or two rooms with their wives and all their children probably had a much closer relationship with their wives.

@thenewduchessofhastings

He was a vain manipulative narcissistic womanising liar who used his position of power to do some really shady stuff.

He changed his whole country's religion and had his marriage to his first wife declared invalid saying Catherine of Aragon wasn't a virgin upon marrying her (and saying she was and her marriage to his brother was unconsummated in order to marry her) and had his daughter declared illegitimate in order to marry Ann Boleyn and then had Ann Boleyn beheaded for adultery which was hypocritical as he'd begun their relationship via adultery and was already cheating with Jane Seymour;he got rid of Ann to marry Jane.

Did he really love any of them or did he simply love bomb the flavour of the moment?;you have to wonder if Jane Seymour lived would he have eventually disposed of her too?

He was a vain manipulative narcissistic womanising liar who used his position of power to do some really shady stuff.

You're not a fan then?

@SarahAndQuack

I don’t think it’s a myth that historically people of wealth were less personally involved in their children’s upbringing than they are now. In people’s own correspondence it can be seen, with children as young as 6/7 sent away from home to school and nannies employed full time to care for babies. In the book I mentioned I had read, I remember that Marie Adelaide (of Savoy) wrote in her own letters to family that she didn’t like to visit her baby son too much so she didn’t ‘become attached’ as he was with his nurse most of the time.

Are the philipa Gregory books any good?
Is this where people are getting their Intel?

Sure, people sent their children away then, just as they do now, and had nannies then, just as they do now. I don't think that changed much until very, very recently (and there are still people whose children go to boarding school from 6 or 7 and so on).

What's a myth is that people treated their children as miniature adults, or didn't care about them because they assumed most of them would die.

I didn’t say either of those things though. And yes some people still employ full time nannies and send young children to boarding school but it is hugely less common now. So yes that may be a myth but what I said (that it was more common not to care for children personally than it is now) is a different thing.

People often didn't want to get too attached in case the baby died. In Victorian novels, the baby is often just "it" or " the baby" - as if they didn't want to get too fond of it.

In Tudor times the new baby was sent away to a different location to keep it safe from germs.

What I mean is I didn’t say people didn’t care about their children because they assumed they would die. What I said is it was more common at that time for children to be raised by nurses/nannies rather than the parents personally.

Sorry I meant the Royal baby.

Sorry, I'm confused - there's a post you quoted and replied 'definitely this' that says

I know I’ve read before about how children were often viewed as little adults which has made me wonder if the parent/child bond in this period was quite different to what we recognise today

I would say 'miniature adults' and 'little adults' are the same thing, surely?

It was then @Popsicle438 who made the comment about infant mortality and expectations, but it's all part of the same trope, I think.

I was replying to the comment that the parent/child bond in that period was quite different to what it is now, then I went on to say I agreed with that.

@BalloonSlayer

I always think Anne must have had a horrible life in Cleves to have chosen to stay in England, with the constant risk of being executed on Henry's whim. She was very clever and played her hand well, she was also a lovely person and very popular.

She was the last of Henry's wives to die, good trick trivia question there.

I agree, she must've been extraordinarily clever.

A couple of years ago I watched a documentary called "The She-Wolves of England", and one of the things it brought home was how incredibly bright and cunning aristocratic women had to be just to survive in those days - they were little more than pawns. To not only survive but thrive was remarkable.

@BalloonSlayer

People often didn't want to get too attached in case the baby died. In Victorian novels, the baby is often just "it" or " the baby" - as if they didn't want to get too fond of it.

In Tudor times the new baby was sent away to a different location to keep it safe from germs.

I don't think Tudor parents sent new babies away to keep them safe from germs - they didn't have a germ theory of illness.

A newborn might well be wet-nursed, possibly outside the natal home, but quite likely the wet nurse would simply be part of the original household.

I don't think you can claim that calling a child 'the baby' is proof that people don't want to get attached - I call my DD 'child' or 'baby' all the time (and 'baby' is a term of endearment, too).

'It' used to be a much more common gender neutral term for children, too.

As in I don’t think that the parent and child relationship at that period of history was the same as how it is now.