Shortly after Anne Boleyn was arrested in 1536 on suspicion of committing adultery, the king discharged all of her servants from their offices, and a new queen\u2019s household was established for his third wife, Jane Seymour, within a few weeks <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Of course, with Henry marrying six times, the queen\u2019s household had to be discharged, its servants disbanded, and many careers cut short on five occasions from 1527 to his death in 1547. It is difficult to measure the impact of this on the lives of his queens\u2019 servants, as once they were discharged they often disappear from the record. Some retired to their homes, while others continued to seek preferment.<\/p>\n
Without the queen to speak on their behalf, few of Anne\u2019s kinsmen and women survived the scandal, though one exception was George Taylor, her receiver-general, who, it was observed, was \u201cmerry\u201d, for he had been given some assurance of his place. \u201cI trust the King\u2019s Highness will be good and gracious lord unto me\u201d, he remarked, \u201cand so I have a special trust in his Grace.\u201d He was not the only one. It was reported that \u201cthe King\u2019s Highness of his goodness hath retained, as is said, some of them\u201d who had served the late queen.<\/p>\n
Read more | Anne Boleyn\u2019s voice: lost to the past, or louder than ever?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Unlike Mountjoy, Anne\u2019s vice-chamberlain, Sir Edward Baynton, abided by the king\u2019s orders and cooperated directly with the Privy Council in the examination of her household in 1536. Tasked with extracting testimony from her servants, he reported that one of her maids, Margery Horsman, frustrated the efforts of the investigation.<\/p>\n
Baynton struggled to wrest a confession from her, suspecting that there was \u201cgreat friendship\u201d between mistress and servant. Although Horsman had shown herself reluctant to implicate Anne, she may eventually have turned king\u2019s evidence, as she went on to serve her successor, Jane, as did Baynton. Clearly it was pragmatic to remain, even if only outwardly, loyal to the crown.<\/p>\n
In need of a patron, or a way out?<\/h3>\n
When the household was reshuffled between queens, a patron, or lack thereof, could be decisive in determining who kept their office, and who did not. John Croft, who had served his cousin Jane, struggled to find a foothold at court for many years after her death in 1537.<\/p>\n
Wymond Carew, the late queen\u2019s receiver-general, wrote on his behalf to the king\u2019s privy chamber so that he might be appointed as a gentleman waiter (\u201ceven without wages\u201d) to Prince Edward, Jane\u2019s son and future Edward VI<\/a>. \u201cI am bound to do for this gentleman, Mr. Croft, all I can\u201d, Carew began, before reminding them that Croft had served Jane \u201chonestly\u201d and the queen \u201cdid favour him well\u201d.<\/p>\n
Unlike Croft, Jane\u2019s maid-of-honour Anne Basset was promised by Henry that she shall \u201chave her place whensoever the time shall come\u201d. Servants who kept in the king\u2019s favour were strategically well-placed to find preferment not if, but when, he remarried. \u201cI trust we shall have a mistress shortly,\u201d Anne wrote to her mother at the end of 1539, anticipating the arrival of Anne of Cleves<\/a>, Henry\u2019s fourth wife.<\/p>\n
Read more | Queens of bling: the importance of jewellery to Henry VIII\u2019s six wives<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Within six months of their marriage, Henry was seeking an annulment, with the contention that his union with Anne had not been consummated. To substantiate this, the king had Eleanor, Countess of Rutland; Jane, Lady Rochford; and Katherine, Lady Edgecombe, of the queen\u2019s privy chamber journey from Richmond to Westminster and sign a deposition relating a conversation with the queen.<\/p>\n
In that deposition, she is supposed to have remarked, \u201cwhen he comes to bed he kisses me, and taketh me by the hand, and biddeth me, \u2018Good night, sweetheart\u2019: and in the morning kisses me, and biddeth me, \u2018Farewell, darling\u2019. Is not this enough?\u201d It was the intimacy of their position as the queen\u2019s servants which saw many of them drawn inexorably into the king\u2019s matrimonial affairs.<\/p>\n
When Catherine Howard<\/a>, Henry\u2019s fifth wife, was alleged to have committed adultery in 1541, her chamberers Katherine Tylney, Margaret Morton and Maude Lovekyn, were all questioned \u201cwhether the Queen went out of her chamber any night late\u201d. Willingly, or reluctantly, they gave depositions that were incriminating enough to condemn their mistress to death. Sir Thomas Wriothesley, of the king\u2019s council, declared that Tylney \u201chath done us good service\u201d, indicating that she may have been offered a reprieve for her cooperation.<\/p>\n
Read more | Did Catherine Howard commit adultery?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Morton and Lovekyn were reappointed to serve Henry\u2019s sixth wife, Katherine Parr<\/a>. Their testimony placed them firmly on the side of the king. Servants of the queen may have rushed with indecent haste to demonstrate their loyalty to Henry, as the treacherous Jane, Lady Rochford, did so often in her career. Yet for her involvement in aiding and abetting the queen\u2019s alleged adultery, she too lost her head.<\/p>\n
The constancy of the king<\/h3>\n
Investigating the impact of Henry VIII\u2019s marital instability reveals that the fortune, or misfortune, of his queens and their servants were closely aligned. Yet careers in the queen\u2019s household were not inextricably caught up with the fate of their mistress. Henry\u2019s queens came and went, but the king was a constant. In the intervening periods when there was no queen, Henry himself maintained a privileged few of his queens\u2019 servants and kept them at court.<\/p>\n
When Catherine Howard\u2019s household was discharged at the end of 1541, the Privy Council declared that \u201corder must be also taken with the maidens, that they repair each of them to their friends, there to remain\u201d, further acknowledging that if there were any of the queen\u2019s servants unprovided for that \u201cthe King\u2019s Highness should have consideration\u201d.<\/p>\n
Relationships, both with the queen \u2013 their mistress \u2013 and with the king \u2013 their sovereign \u2013 were crucial for building and sustaining a career, but in surviving what Henry\u2019s wives did not, it was their relationship with him that truly mattered.<\/p>\n
James Taffe is a Tudor historian, specialising in the royal servants in the households of King Henry VIII and his queens. He is the author of Courting Scandal: The Rise and Fall of Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford<\/em><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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