How Henry VIII Was Shaped By His Family

Mistress of Mourning by Karen Harper

Today’s post is a guest article about Henry VIII’s early life by author Karen Harper. Karen’s upcoming novel, Mistress of Mourning, will be released in the US on July 3, 2012 and is available for pre-order via Amazon.

Here is a little taste…

London, 1501. In a time of political unrest, Varina Westcott, a young widow and candle maker for court and church, agrees to perform a clandestine service for Queen Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII–carve wax figures of four dead children, two of her offspring lost in infancy and her two brothers, the Princes of the Tower, whose mysterious disappearance years ago has never been solved. Having lost a child herself, Varina feels a sympathetic bond with the queen. And as she works under the watchful eye of handsome Nicholas Sutton, an ambitious assistant to the royals, she develops feelings of quite a different nature…

Then news comes from Wales of the unexpected death of newly married Prince Arthur, the queen’s eldest child and heir to the throne. Deeply grieving, Elizabeth suspects that Arthur did not die of a sudden illness, as reported, but was actually murdered by her husband’s enemies. This time her task for Varina and Nicholas is of vital importance–travel into the Welsh wilderness to investigate the prince’s death. But as the couple unearths one unsettling clue after another, they begin to fear that the conspiracy they’re confronting is far more ambitious and treacherous than even the queen imagined. And it aims to utterly destroy the Tudor dynasty.

Welcome Karen Harper!

Henry VII

MISTRESS OF MOURNING, set during the reign of the first Tudor ruler, King Henry VII is the sixth historical novel I’ve written set in this era.  I’m a Tudormaniac and feel I know that famous and infamous family from years of study, teaching and writing.  Like most of us, I’ve concentrated on the two big ‘stars,’ Henry VIII and Elizabeth.  I tend to write about Bess Tudor in her early years, her childhood and early monarchy.  It bothers me that she became so eccentric and volatile in her later years.  I must admit the more I study Henry VIII, the less I like him.  So I was eager to see what his early family life was like, and that was one of the many challenges in writing this book:  I had never examined the young Henry before.

I taught English at university and then high school level for 17 years. That time of close observation of students served me well when I left teaching to write full time.  One thing that transferred well between careers was the knowledge that, in many cases, early family life, even birth order can make or break a person.  If I had a problem student, I always tried to schedule a meeting with the parents.  Often that gave me a window into why the child acted that way, so I could deal better with him or her. And so, as I studied Henry VIII’s parents (and his strong grandmother, Margaret Beaufort who was influential in his early years,) I came to better understand of the making of the man.

Arthur Tudor

MISTRESS OF MOURNING is a mystery which probes three murders: who killed the princes in the Tower (Henry  VIII’s uncles) and was Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales,  (Henry VIII’s older brother) poisoned?  My grasp of how Henry acted as an adult and king grew partly from these pivotal points.  The reasons for his adult tendencies to see women as whores or saints, his paranoias, many of his later actions I used in previous books became clearer as I wrote this novel.

Since Henry was born in June of 1491, he is only ten when MISTRESS OF MOURNING begins, yet we all know ten-year-olds, especially precocious ones, are of the age to show their inbred personality traits but also to be shaped by events—heredity mixed with destiny.  At that point in his life, Henry was in a family that had won the throne by might rather than right.  His parents felt their new monarchy was precarious, for they still had enemies who wished to bring them down—part of the plot of the novel. So although Henry was protected and coddled as a royal son, he sensed the unease in his parents, a rather stern father focused on his heir, Henry’s older brother, and a loving, warm mother, Elizabeth of York, whom he adored.

Elizabeth of York

She was able to give love to her children, because, as eldest daughter of her royal Plantagenet/Yorkist parents  (the other side from the Tudors in the Civil Wars) she knew she had been loved. However, Elizabeth of York had also been through tragedies and, no doubt, imparted a wariness and carefulness to her children.  Her father’s death had helped to trigger the Civil Wars (not called the War of Roses until much later); her brothers, the two young Princes in the Tower, had evidently been murdered.  After her father’s death, her family had been prisoners in the Tower.  Elizabeth had also lost two young children through early death.  Her impact on Henry was warmth and affection, but tempered by sadness and, perhaps, a certain nervous demeanor.

Of course, it was the queen’s duty to produce royal heirs to help solidify the new, “upstart” Tudor monarchy.  In the beginning of MISTRESS OF MOURNING, the Tudors have two sons, Arthur, Prince of Wales; Henry, Duke of York; and two daughters.  As shown in the novel, Duke Henry’s young world is turned upside down when his older brother dies mysteriously in Wales while on a honeymoon with his bride Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine of Aragon by Michel Sittow

Sidebar here:  Young Henry adored Catherine when they first met.  She was older than him and must have seemed exotic.  She was quite pretty and appealing then.  He was her escort the day she wed his brother.  But Catherine is another story.  I loved writing her in her youth when so many novels deal with her only as the heavy, infertile, rigidly Catholic, cast-off wife of the Anne Boleyn era.  And this novel shows that from the first there was controversy over whether Arthur had bedded his bride or not before his death, which was so important to Henry when he tried to divorce her.

So at his older brother’s death, Henry went from spare to heir overnight and was immediately treated far better by his stern, clever father, who had previously favored his eldest son, despite how comely and robust Henry was compared to sickly Arthur.  I believe at that time young Henry started “feeling his oats,” asserting himself in wily ways I portray in the novel.  As the only male heir, he began to know his power. Later, his loss of his sainted mother in childbirth deeply grieved him.  (When the Tudors heard of Arthur’s death, the queen immediately tried to comfort the king by assuring him she was not too old to have another child.)  Young Henry learned from the first that he needed male heirs; his later passion to produce a son started early.

Henry VIII was not the first or final son to adore his mother who also realized how important he was to his father.  Of course, it went to his head, though it did take him a few more years to realize his potential power, that his world (and its women) were now his, despite his religious upbringing.  There are exceptions to the old saying, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” but Henry isn’t one of them.  Sadly, as he ruled and aged, his paranoia to protect the throne his parents struggled to establish grew at the cost of noble families and innocent victims.  His adoration of his beautiful mother, known by her people as “Elizabeth the Good,” made almost any woman unable to come up to her standards—perhaps Jane Seymour did, especially when she died of childbed fever too.  Henry remained a hopelessly passionate romantic, never wrong in his own eyes.  I always found it ludicrous that it was treason to even think of King Henry VIII’s death—the thought police!  1984, Big Brother, Henrican style.

If you are interested in pursuing this topic in nonfiction, the best book I can suggest is THE MAKING OF HENRY VIII by Marie Louise Bruce.

MISTRESS OF MOURNING is full of passionate, devious Tudors.  The story is told through the eyes of the queen and the merchant-class wax worker, Varina Westcott, who helps Her Majesty solve the murders of her brothers and son.  Two romances are key to the plot.  But bringing young Henry to life was one of the fascinating parts of authoring this book.

MISTRESS OF MOURNING is published by Penguin USA.  In England, it is published by Random House UK (Ebury imprint), under the title THE QUEEN’S CONFIDANTE.  Harper’s other historical novels include THE LAST BOLEYN, THE FIRST PRINCESS OF WALES, MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE, THE QUEEN’S GOVERNESS and THE IRISH PRINCESS.

Visit Karen Harper’s official website here.