FinermanWorks

September 7, 1533:  Anne Boleyn’s Labor Day

Her father declared her a bastard and beheaded her mother, her half-sister imprisoned her as a traitor and nearly ordered her execution.  Elizabeth I would seem entitled to a psychosis or two, but she regarded these “episodes” as part of her job description.

Aside from the obvious dysfunction, the Tudors were unique for royalty:  they were intelligent and hard-working.  The Tudors actually earned the throne.

After 85 years of civil war, the English throne had become quite democratic: anyone could seize it. Henry Tudor was a middle-class Welsh adventurer who even lacked the distinction of being legitimate. His claim to royal blood was as the half-second cousin, once-removed, of Henry VI. The successful usurper, proclaiming himself Henry VII, sought immediate respectability by marrying the eldest daughter of the rival royal house. (He then made sure that the rest of her family disappeared: in convents, the Tower of London, you get the idea) The crafty king took nothing for granted. He certainly didn’t trust the nobles, most of whom had better claims to the throne than he did.

To control a restless aristocracy, Henry VII created a force that remains as terrifying now as it was then:  the civil service.  His bureaucracy remorsely taxed the nobility into a passive stupor: nobles could still afford all of their vices but not an armed rebellion.  In dealing with his other subjects–townspeople and small landowners–Henry had a novel approach:  good government.  The King had a most solicitous attitude.   Any proposal or project that would resolve problems and nurture prosperity had his support.  (That’s how the nobles’ taxes were spent.) 

Henry VIII had his father’s political shrewdness.  He may have been a serial husband but he maintained a monogamous romance with Parliament.  That English institution had been founded in 1265 by English barons who realized that the Magna Carta had left a few loopholes. Its assembly of gentry, clergy, and burghers formed a permanent council: no law could be enacted without its consent.  For two centuries, however, the Parliament had acted only like a notary public: approving and filing the royal decrees.

But to the crafty Tudors, Parliament was more than a bureaucratic eccentricity. Its members represented constituencies; the town burghers and small landowners were potential allies against the aristocracy and even the Catholic Church.  Henry VIII applied his seductive skills to wooing Parliament.  If a serenade of Greensleeves was insufficient, a knighthood on a status-starved burgher  or the deed to an estate (freshly confiscated from the Catholic Church) usually proved irresistible.  Of course, Henry’s approach also had an element of menace.   Imagine the choice confronting a member of Parliament: the King’s munificent patronage or being publicly disemboweled. Under those circumstances, you, too, might agree that the King was entitled to a divorce and that Thomas More was just being obnoxious.

If Elizabeth I could survive her family, she could easily contend with Spain, the Jesuits and her idiot cousin Mary.  She possessed all of the Tudors’ talents, few of their vices (just a bit of her father’s vanity), and a charm uniquely her own.  Unfortunately, a Virgin Queen is bad for a dynasty.

But the Tudors did save their best for last.  Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

In choosing Katherine Parr as his sixth wife, Henry VIII made a very sensible choice. By 1543 Henry’s libido was a subject of nostalgia. Her family was established but staid English gentry: no social-climbing Boleyns or power-mad Howards. And her resume was impeccable: she was a virtuous, affable woman who made of a career of being a wife.

Henry was her third husband. In her first marriage, she was a bride at 15 and a childless widow at 19. Apparently infertile and definitely unlucky, the widow was not considered a great catch, But her family found someone. At 21, she was married off to a man twice her age; he basically needed a nurse. (She was his third wife, and his first two marriages had produced an adequate number of children.) At 31, she was a widow again, but with a comfortable income. (Her stepchildren didn’t quibble over her allowance; she really was a nice person.)

Now the wealthy widow was being pursued by a handsome adventurer, Thomas Seymour. Seymour was the brother of the late Queen Jane Seymour and had stayed in the favor of his mercurial royal brother-in-law. However, that same brother-in-law also wanted a wife. Having the soul of a pimp, Thomas encouraged Henry’s interest in Katherine Parr; after all, she would be an even richer widow as Mrs. Tudor. So Katherine once again was a married nurse, dealing with the obese, gout-strickened and syphilitic Henry. However she wasn’t that good a nurse; Henry died four years later in 1547.

Now Katherine could finally have a handsome virile husband. And Mrs. Thomas Seymour died as the result of it in 1548: childbirth.

Queen Philippa of England, wife of Edward III, was in a constant state of pregnancy. That was a common situation among 14th century women. What was extraordinary, however, was that she and most of her children survived. This may have been gratifying for Philippa on Mother’s Day, but it also meant six princes and only one throne. This excess of underemployed but ambitious dukes would result in decades of dynastic war and eight Shakespeare plays.

The most conniving of her sons was born this day in 1340, in the city of Ghent. Given the English reluctance to correctly pronounce another language, the prince was known as John of Gaunt. Intelligent and brave, he would have been a promising king; but he was the third son in a healthy family. John had to find other outlets for his energies. Of course, there was always the French to kill. Furthermore, he demonstrated intellectual tendencies that might qualify him as a medieval liberal. At the time, the Catholic Church had become so contorted with politics that it literally had split in two. In the Great Schism (1378-1417), there were two competing Papacies: Rome and Avignon. Many Christians, including John of Gaunt, were so disgusted that they looked elsewhere and found spiritual satisfaction in a reformist movement known as the Lollards. With their emphasis on the Bible and a simplified approach to worship (none of Rome’s theatrical rituals), the Lollards may have been premature Protestants. (When the Church finally ended up the Schism, its first act was to crush the Lollards.) The leader of the Lollards in England, John Wycliffe, had a friend, patron and protector in John of Gaunt.

The Duke, however, still wanted to be King somewhere. He thought that there was a chance of becoming King of Castile. Its ruler, the memorably named Pedro the Cruel, was trying to maintain his throne against an ambitious half-brother. Pedro’s only legitimate heir was his daughter, and guess who decided to become his son-in-law? John’s plan might have worked if only Pedro had won the civil war; John was stuck with a wife whom he disliked. However, he did find solace–no, not in Lollardism–but in the comely governess of his children. In fact, he soon had a family with her, too. (That was his third brood; he had been quite prolific with his first wife Blanche of Lancaster, and reasonably virile with the Spanish princess.)

Although John would never get to be king, he did end up ruling England. Whether it was a disease or the medieval doctors, the Prince of Wales died before ascending the throne. His young son Richard II then succeeded grandpa. Uncle John was only too happy to assist his nephew in governing the kingdom. The Regency proved rather surprising; the Duke had many talents but competence was not among them. He was an abysmal administrator. His misjudgements incited a peasant rebellion that ravaged the country and even seized London. England barely survived John of Gaunt.

But ruling in his own right, Richard proved even more disastrous: he was both unscrupulous and incompetent. Furthermore, he turned out to be conspicuously “artistic.”  The next generation of Plantagenets would not be springing from his loins. He had a number of underemployed cousins (courtesy of the underemployed uncles) who were vying to succeed Richard. Henry, the son of the John of Gaunt, didn’t even bother to wait. He overthrew Richard and established himself as King Henry IV.

If not a king, at least John of Gaunt was the founder of the Lancaster dynasty. In fact, he is also the ancestor of two royal families that are still reigning. King Juan Carlos of Spain is descended from the John’s Castilian marriage. Queen Elizabeth is descended from John’s indiscretions with the governess, but you wouldn’t be rude enough to mention that to her.

Her father declared her a bastard and beheaded her mother, her half-sister imprisoned her as a traitor and nearly ordered her execution.  Elizabeth I would seem entitled to a psychosis or two, but she seemed to regard these “episodes” as part of her job description. 

Aside from the obvious dysfunction, the Tudors were unique for a royal family:  they were intelligent and hard-working.  The Tudors actually earned the throne. 

After 85 years of civil war, the English throne had become quite democratic: anyone could seize it. Henry Tudor was a middle-class Welsh adventurer who even lacked the distinction of being legitimate. His claim to royal blood was as the half-second cousin, once-removed, of Henry VI. The successful usurper, proclaiming himself Henry VII, sought immediate respectability by marrying the eldest daughter of the rival royal house. (He then made sure that the rest of her family disappeared: in convents, the Tower of London, you get the idea) The crafty king took nothing for granted. He certainly didn’t trust the nobles, most of whom had better claims to the throne than he did.

To control a restless aristocracy, Henry VII created a force that remains as terrifying now as it was then:  the civil service.  His bureaucracy remorsely taxed the nobility into a passive stupor: nobles could still afford all of their vices but not an armed rebellion.  In dealing with his other subjects–townspeople and small landowners–Henry had a novel approach:  good government.  The King had a most solicitous attitude.   Any proposal or project that would resolve problems and nurture prosperity had his support.  (That’s how the nobles’ taxes were spent.) 

Henry VIII had his father’s political shrewdness.  He may have been a serial husband but he maintained a monogamous romance with Parliament.  That English institution had been founded in 1265 by English barons who realized that the Magna Carta had left a few loopholes. Its assembly of gentry, clergy, and burghers formed a permanent council: no law could be enacted without its consent.  For two centuries, however, the Parliament had acted only like a notary public: approving and filing the royal decrees.

But to the crafty Tudors, Parliament was more than a bureaucratic eccentricity. Its members represented constituencies; the town burghers and small landowners were potential allies against the aristocracy and even the Catholic Church.  Henry VIII applied his seductive skills to wooing Parliament.  If a serenade of Greensleeves was insufficient, a knighthood on a status-starved burgher  or the deed to an estate (freshly confiscated from the Catholic Church) usually proved irresistible.  Of course, Henry’s approach also had an element of menace.   Imagine the choice confronting a member of Parliament: the King’s munificent patronage or being publicly disemboweled. Under those circumstances, you, too, might agree that the King was entitled to a divorce and that Thomas More was just being obnoxious. 

If Elizabeth I could survive her family, she could easily contend with Spain, the Jesuits and her idiot cousin Mary.  She possessed all of the Tudors’ talents, few of their vices (just a bit of her father’s vanity), and a charm uniquely her own.  Unfortunately, a Virgin Queen is bad for a dynasty.

Her glorious reign began this day in 1558. 

On this day, in 1399, the Duke of Lancaster decided to promote himself King of England (and an unwilling Wales). To become Henry IV, however, he first had to oust his cousin Richard II. But no one except Richard seemed to mind.

Richard II had the rare distinction of being both unethical and incompetent. The progressive nobles despised his blundering misrule. The conservative lords loathed his personal conduct; Richard was a bit too poetic and he practiced hygiene before it was fashionable. Someone was going to murder him, and the reformist cousin Henry struck first.

But then the conservative cousins in the dynasty, pretending to avenge Plantagenet family values, tried to wrest the throne for themselves. This struggle lasted for 85 years and 8 Shakespeare plays.

By 1485, the English throne had become quite democratic. Anyone could seize it. The surviving claimant Henry VII based his right to the throne on being the illegitimate half-second cousin, once removed, of Henry VI. (He was also the illegitimate half-nephew but that family connection was less prestigious.)