Henry VIII - Early Reign: 1509–1525

Early Reign: 1509–1525

Henry VII died on 22 April 1509; soon after his burial on 10 May the new Henry VIII suddenly declared that he would indeed marry Catherine, curtailing the causes of hesitation concerning Catherine – over the papal dispensation and a missing part of the marriage portion. The new king maintained that it had been his father's dying wish that he marry Catherine. Whether or not this was true, it was certainly convenient: the Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire had been attempting to marry his granddaughter, Eleanor, to Henry; she had now been jilted. The wedding was kept low-key and was held at the friar's church in Greenwich.

On 23 June 1509, Henry led Catherine from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey for the coronation, which took place the following day. it was a grand affair: the king's passage was lined with tapestries and laid with fine cloth. Following Henry's coronation by the archbishop of Canterbury, there was a grand banquet in Westminster Hall. As Catherine wrote to her father, "our time is spent in continuous festival".

Two days after Henry's coronation, he arrested his father's two most unpopular ministers, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley (grandfather of daughter Elizabeth's favourite courtier in later life, Robert Dudley). They were charged with high treason and were executed in 1510. This was to become Henry's primary tactic for dealing with those who stood in his way, as believed by historians such as Crofton. Henry also returned to the public some of the money supposedly extorted by the two ministers: "his executors made restitution of great sums of money, to many persons taken against good conscience to the said king's use, by the forenamed Empson and Dudley."

Soon after the coronation, Catherine conceived, but the child – a girl – was stillborn on 31 January 1510. About four months later, she again became pregnant. On New Year's Day 1511, the child – Henry – was born. After the grief of losing their first child, the couple were pleased to have a boy and there were festivities to celebrate, including a jousting tournament. Unfortunately, however, the child died seven weeks later.

It was reported in 1510 that Henry was conducting an affair with one of the sisters of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, either Elizabeth or Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. Her brother became enraged and Lord George Hastings, her husband, sent her to a convent. Catherine miscarried again in 1514, but gave birth successfully in February 1516 to a girl, Princess Mary. Relations between king and queen had been strained, but they eased slightly after Mary's birth. Henry had had very few mistresses; the most significant was Elizabeth Blount for about three years in 1516 onwards. Catherine did not protest, and in 1518 fell pregnant again with another girl, only for her to be stillborn. Elizabeth is one of only two completely undisputed mistresses, few for a virile young king. Exactly how many Henry had is disputed: David Loades believes Henry had mistresses "only to a very limited extent", whilst Alison Weir believes there were numerous other affairs, conducted in the king's river-side mansion of Jordan House. Blount gave birth in June 1519 to Henry's illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy. The young boy was made Duke of Richmond in June 1525 in what some thought was one step on the path to legitimising him. In 1533, FitzRoy married Mary Howard, Anne Boleyn's first cousin, but died three years later without any children. At the time of FitzRoy's death (July 1536), Parliament was enacting the Second Succession Act, which could have allowed Henry's illegitimate son to become king.