From Henry VIII To Lola Montez Read online

  From Henry VIII To Lola Montez

  History’s Most Legendary Love Affairs

  A. G. Mogan

  BOOK 2

  Copyright © 2018 by A. G. Mogan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  From Henry VIII to Lola Montez: History’s Most Legendary Love Affairs, Book 2 / A. G. Mogan, 1st Edition

  Book Cover © 2018 by Alina Kodorova

  To learn more, please visit the author’s website at

  www.AGMogan.com

  Also by A. G. Mogan

  Historical/Biographical Fiction

  The Secret Journals of Adolf Hitler

  The Anointed - Volume 1

  The Struggle - Volume 2

  Nonfiction

  Love on Triple W: A Heartbreaking True Story About Love, Betrayal, and Survival

  Humorous History: An Illustrated Collection of Wit and Irony from the Past

  Mind Over Truth: An Annotated Collection of Interviews with Hitler's Closest Associates

  From Cleopatra to Hugo: History’s Most Legendary Love Affairs (Book 1)

  Contents

  1. Henry VIII & Anne Boleyn

  2. Lord Byron & Countess Guiccioli

  3. Napoleon & Marie Walewska

  4. Karl Marx & Jenny von Westphalen

  5. Queen Victoria & Prince Albert

  6. Pauline Bonaparte

  7. Marie Louise & Count Neipperg

  8. Lady Blessington & Count D'orsay

  9. General Houston

  10. Leon Gambetta & Leonie Leon

  11. Lola Montez & Ludwig Of Bavaria

  References

  Also by A. G. Mogan

  Thank you!

  About the Author

  To all men and women of every land, who are not afraid of themselves, who trust so much in their own souls that the dare to stand up in the might of their own individuality to meet the tidal currents of the world.

  Lola Montez

  1

  Henry VIII & Anne Boleyn

  Born on 28 June 1491 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, Kent, Henry Tudor was the third child and second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. He ruled England for more than thirty years and presided over extensive changes that carried his country into the Protestant Reformation.

  Henry received an exceptional education and became fluent in Latin, French, and Italian. Since Henry was not expected to become king, there was not much research done on Henry’s early life. In November of 1501, Henry was very involved in the ceremonies surrounding his brother’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. However, after only twenty weeks of marriage, Henry’s older brother, and heir to the throne of England, died.

  After Arthur’s death, Henry was forced to take over his royal duties at the young age of ten years old. Henry was named Duke of Cornwall in October of 1502, and just one year later, he was named Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. Because of Henry’s new royal status, his father was very protective of him and Henry was strictly supervised and did not make any public appearances.

  Henry had exceptional abilities in the duties expected as a member of an aristocratic society. When he ascended the throne in the year of 1509, people expected momentous things from him. As a powerfully tall and muscular athlete, huntsman, and dancer, the citizens of England felt the new heir promised joy and light.

  It wasn’t long after his father was buried on 10 May 1509 that Henry announced he would marry Catherine, his brother’s widow.

  Henry married Catherine on 23 June 1509. Catherine was twenty-three years old at the time and their coronation at Westminster Abbey commenced on the following day. It was a very elaborate ceremony. According to J. J Scarisbrick:

  “The king’s passage was lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth.”

  Following the ceremony, there was an impressive banquet in Westminster Hall. In a letter, Catherine wrote to her father:

  “Our time is spent in continuous festival.”

  Catherine and Henry conceived a girl not long after the wedding, but the child was stillborn on 31 January 1510. Catherine became pregnant again just four months later. On New Year’s Day 1511, their son was born and the couple was happy to celebrate this occasion after the devastating loss of their first child. As part of the celebration, there was a two-day joust known as the Westminster Tournament. Tragically, their son died just seven weeks after these festivities.

  Catherine had two sons, both of which were stillborn, in 1514 and 1515, but gave birth in February of 1516 to a girl they named Mary. Their daughter was later known as Bloody Mary. Due to the stress and grief over the deaths of their children, Relations between Henry and Catherine were strained, and Henry began to take mistresses. Elizabeth Blount was the most significant other woman in his life. Their relationship began in 1516 and lasted for roughly three years. During this time, Elizabeth gave birth to a son who was made Duke of Richmond. Many believed this was a significant step on the path to his legitimatization.

  Henry was very impatient with Catherine’s failure to produce a male heir and so he began an affair with Mary Boleyn, Catherine’s lady-in-waiting. There were rumors that Henry fathered her two children, but this was never proven and the king never acknowledged them.

  In 1525, Henry fell in love with Mary Boleyn’s sister, the twenty-five year old Anne, who was also a member of the Queen’s entourage.

  Anne Boleyn was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and Elizabeth Howard, who was the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. Anne and Mary had also a brother, George Boleyn.

  Sir Thomas Boleyn was quite ambitious. According to Antonia Fraser in The Six Wives of Henry VIII:

  “Thomas Boleyn wanted Mary and Anne to learn to move easily and gracefully in the highest circles and to acquire all the social graces, to speak fluent French, to dance and sing and play at least one instrument, to ride and be able to take part in the field sports which were such an all-absorbing passion with the upper classes, and to become familiar with the elaborate code of courtesy which governed every aspect of life at the top.”

  Sir Thomas Boleyn had high hopes that his daughter Anne would become maid of honor to the new queen. Anne was granted that honor in 1526. With her musical talents and her intelligence, Anne was a very successful maid of honor.

  Even though Anne was not considered a traditional beauty, she had many other desirable qualities. According to Antonia Fraser:

  “Anne Boleyn demonstrated a particular brightness, sufficient to convince her father that here was a child worth backing — some kind of star, in terms of parental hopes. She was, for example, a very different character from her giddy sister Mary; far more intelligent and far more applied.”

  One member of the court wrote:

  “[Anne was] not one of the handsomest women in the world” she had a “swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact had nothing but the king’s great appetite, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful and take great effect”.

  Anne’s biographer, Eric William Ives, wrote:

  “Her complexion was sallow and she was noted only for her magnificent dark hair, her expressive eyes, and her elegant neck.... The reason why she was such a sensation was not looks but personality and education. Having been brought up in the two leading courts in Europe she had a continental polish which was unique in the provincial court of Henry VIII. She could sing, play instruments, and dance and she led female fashion. One member of court claimed that no one would ever have taken her to be English by her manners, but a native-born Frenc
hwoman.”

  King Henry was quite smitten with the woman who was sixteen years younger than him.

  Hilary Mantel, the British novelist said:

  “We don't know exactly when he fell for Anne Boleyn. Her sister Mary had already been his mistress. Perhaps Henry simply didn't have much imagination. The court's erotic life seems knotted, intertwined, almost incestuous; the same faces, the same limbs and organs in different combinations. The king did not have many affairs, or many that we know about. He recognized only one illegitimate child. He valued discretion, deniability. His mistresses, whoever they were, faded back into private life. But the pattern broke with Anne Boleyn.”

  Anne and Henry began exchanging love letters that emphasized how the two felt about each other. In 1526, he wrote to her:

  “Seeing I cannot be present in person with you, I send you the nearest thing to that possible, that is, my picture set in bracelets ... wishing myself in their place, when it shall please you.”

  And then:

  “I send you this letter begging you to give me an account of the state you are in... I send you by this bearer a buck killed late last night by my hand, hoping, when you eat it, you will think of the hunter.”

  But Anne was a bit more sensible regarding her relationship with Henry as she believed that withholding affection would arouse Henry even more. And she was right.

  Philippa Jones, author of Elizabeth: Virgin Queen said:

  “Anne frequently commented in her letters to the King that although her heart and soul were his to enjoy, her body would never be. By refusing to become Henry’s mistress, Anne caught and retained his interest. Henry might find casual sexual gratification with others, but it was Anne that he truly wanted.”

  Christopher Morris, The Tudors argued that:

  “Henry found her not easily tamed, for it is clear that she had the strength of will to withhold her favours until she was sure of being made his queen... All the same it must remain somewhat surprising that sexual passion should have turned a conservative, easy-going, politically cautious ruler into a revolutionary, head-strong, almost reckless tyrant. Nothing else, however, will account for the facts.”

  Meanwhile, Henry declared to the Pope Clement VII that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was invalid and his reasoning was that she had previously been married to his brother. Henry relied on Cardinal Thomas Wolsey for an annulment so he could finally marry the woman he loved.

  However, the Pope forbade Henry from marrying Anne until a decision was made in Rome. At Anne’s prompting, Henry was convinced that Wolsey’s loyalties lay with the Pope and not England and her king. In 1529, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was dismissed from office.

  There were rumors about Henry’s plan to divorce Catherine for the purposes of marrying Anne. According to Cardinal Jean du Bellay in May of 1529, Catherine had the support of the majority of women residing in England. The people of England had a lot of love for their queen and were infuriated at Henry’s plan. Anne became a public enemy of the queen’s subjects because of these rumors and an attempt was made on her life. Lodovico Falier, in his report to King Charles V, wrote that:

  “[…] more than seven weeks ago a mob of from seven to eight thousand women of London went out of the town to seize Boleyn’s daughter, the sweetheart of the king of England, who was supping at a villa on a river, the king not being with her; and having received notice of this, she escaped by crossing the river in a boat. The women had intended to kill her; and amongst the mob were many men, disguised as women. Nor has any great demonstration been made about this, because it was a thing done by women.”

  Meanwhile, there was still no decision by the Pope. After Henry discovered that Anne was pregnant, Henry decided he could not wait for the Pope’s permission. Charles V of Spain threatened to invade England if Henry married Anne, but Henry ignored him and decided to go through with the marriage despite the threats. The wedding was on 25 January 1533.

  Historians are unsure when exactly Anne yielded to Henry and became his mistress. According to Antonia Fraser:

  “The truth can never be known for sure. One can only say with certainty that Henry VIII made love to Anne — fully — some time before the end of 1532. All the rest is speculation. As to the act itself, was it a success after so many years (six)? Once again we have no means of knowing... As has been suggested, matters had probably been going in that direction for some years, with Anne the sole focus of the King’s lust, by whatever means she satisfied it.”

  But one thing people are sure about is that at the beginning of 1533, Anne discovered she was pregnant. Anne delivered a baby girl on 7th September 1533, and she was named Elizabeth, after the Henry’s late mother. Henry was livid about not having a son and he had already selected the names of Edward and Henry. He told Mario Savorgnano:

  “The Queen and I are both young, and if it is a girl this time, by God's grace boys will follow.”

  But alas, it was not meant to be. Anne’s inability to produce a male heir, combined with Anne’s possessive jealousy, proved to be her downfall.

  In March 1534, Pope Clement VII finally made his decision against Henry’s annulment, thus making his marriage to Anne Boleyn invalid. Henry declared that the Pope no longer had authority in England. In November of 1534, an act was passed by Parliament that gave Henry VIII authority as the new Head of the Church of England.

  This act did not endear Anne to her subjects as it made her even more unpopular. According to Eustace Chapuys, Henry wanted to give Anne a tour of his kingdom but was required to return as a result of the reaction of the people on his route.

  “The king was on his way to the northern counties where he intended to hunt ... when he suddenly changed his purpose and came back to town. The causes of his return are variously explained. Some say that for the last three or four days after he started on his journey, wherever he went accompanied by the lady, the people on the road so earnestly requested him to recall the queen, his wife, and the women especially so insulted the royal mistress, hooting and hissing on her passage, that he was actually obliged to retrace his steps.”

  Henry reacted to Anne’s unpopularity by insisting that the Parliament pass the 1534 Treason Act, which specified that all those were guilty of high treason who:

  “do maliciously wish, will or desire by words or writing, or by craft imagine, invent, practise, or attempt any bodily harm to be done or committed to the king’s most royal person, the queen's or the heirs apparent, or to deprive them of any of their dignity, title or name of their royal estates, or slanderously and maliciously publish and pronounce, by express writing or words, that the king should be heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel or usurper of the crown.”

  Meanwhile, Anne frantically trying to give Henry the male heir he so desired, but had two miscarriages. Anne was lucky enough to become pregnant again, but it was during this pregnancy that she discovered Jane Seymour on her husband’s lap. Anne was furious and this rage caused Anne to go into labor prematurely. She delivered a boy in late January or early February, 1536, but he was stillborn. In addition, the baby was badly deformed. The fact that the baby was deformed was made worse by the fact that Christians believed that a deformed child was God’s way of punishing the parents for their sins. Henry was afraid that people would think that the Pope Clement VII was right when he claimed that God was angry because Henry had disregarded the Pope’s decision regarding his marriage to Anne.

  It was either the fear of a revolt or the fact that a new mistress was now present in Henry’s life that made Henry decide to once again search for ways to get out of his marriage with Anne. Thomas Cromwell — his Chief Minister — decided to take this chance to remove the influence of Anne and her friends.

  According to Howard Leithead:

  “Anne Boleyn was well known for conducting herself with her courtiers in an informal and flirtatious manner, and Cromwell calculated that he could twist the language of courtly love to support an accusation of adultery.”


  With Thomas Cromwell as Anne’s enemy, her days were numbered. He proposed to Henry that he should claim that he was not the father of the deformed child. Believing this statement by Cromwell, the king told Cromwell to find out the name of the true father of the dead child. In April 1536, a Flemish musician in Anne’s service named Mark Smeaton was arrested. After initially denying that he was Anne’s lover, he eventually confessed, probably under duress.

  On 2 May 1536, Anne was arrested and transferred to the Tower of London. According to historian and author of The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives, it was likely that Anne may have entered through the Court Gate in the Byward Tower instead of the Traitors’ Gate. Anne collapsed in the Tower, and insisted to know the location of her father and “swete broder”, as well as the charges against her.

  She wrote to Henry saying:

  Sir,

  Your Grace’s displeasure, and my imprisonment are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing me to confess a truth, and so obtain your favour) by such an one, whom you know to be my ancient professed enemy. I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your demand.