Cecilia Ward developed this project under the instruction of Mills Kelly at George Mason University's Roy Rosenzweig Center.
Almost all events within this timeline have approximated dates. Tudor history is so far in the past that many of the exact dates of events are lost or debated among scholars. Therefore this timeline does not claim to have accurate, precise dating. Here are the general rules followed when assigning dates to events: If there is an accepted date range for an event, the event will bisect the range. For events without a specified "day" they will default to the 1st of a month. For events without a "month" they will either default to Jan 1st, or the 1st of the closest approximation of the chronology when possible. For dates without a "year" the best estimation of year will be used, often times it will bisect two events with known dates as to not mess with the understood chronology. Time of day is not specified in this chronology due to the complexity of pinpointing.
This timeline includes explicit information regarding sex, pregnancy, miscarriage, spousal abuse, and sexual assault on both adults and minors. Due to the nature of the content, it is nearly impossible to add individual content warnings, especially for spousal abuse which is a theme carried throughout nearly all events. Events with mention of sexual violence will be marked with (CW) in the event title.
Catherine of Aragon was the fifth child of Spanish rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella. This meant it was unlikely she would ever become Queen of Aragon. Her best chance at success was to be used in a political marriage to a crown prince of another kingdom.
Catherine’s education was impressive for a girl due to her status as a princess. She was taught manners, philosophy, needlework, Latin, and French. It is assumed she would have also understood some Spanish or Catalan, and eventually learned English from living in England later in life.
Fifteen year old Catherine is sent from her homeland of Spain to live in England with her fiance, Arthur, crown prince of England.
The royal wedding between Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine, Princess of Aragon, was one of celebration. The wedding was full of decorations, guests, music, and dancing. Arthur was easily exhausted by the events so it is unlikely they consummated their marriage that night or even later during their marriage.
Soon after their marriage, Catherine and her first husband Prince Arthur moved to Wales as part of an English custom followed by the Prince of Wales upon maturity. While in Wales, the couple and their entourage caught an illness that claimed Arthur, and the new bride was subsequently widowed.
Because Catherine and Arthur were married for such a short period, Henry VII was able to arrange papal approval for the dissolving of Catherine’s first marriage. Henry VII still wanted her dowry, however, so instead of sending Catherine back to her parents in Spain, Henry VII began to plan for her remarriage. One of the first options presented was that Henry VII could marry his former-daughter-in-law after his own wife had died in Childbirth, though this was denied by Catherine’s parents. Soon after, the question of Catherine marrying Arthur’s younger brother Henry (the future Henry VIII) was raised and accepted by all parties.
Anne Boleyn was born sometime in the first decade of the 1500s, to Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Elizabeth Boleyn. The Boleyn’s were a noble family, but not nearly close enough to the royal family to assume that a Queen would be among their ranks. Before Anne’s future marriage, the most royal thing the family had achieved was Thomas Boleyn’s appointment as Ambassador to the Low Countries, a French area that would include modern countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
In November of 1504, Catherine’s mother Isabella died, which followed a long string of grief from the loss of her husband two years earlier, her mother-in-law soon after, and sister-in-law who moved to Scotland. Losing her mother compounded her grief. Grief was not the only stress that befell Catherine at this point in her life. After news of Queen Isabella’s death, many feared the alliance between England and Spain was not as strong as before, leading many, including Prince Henry himself, to ask for the betrothal to be dissolved. These diplomatic quarrels, as well as growing financial problems, for the young princess, caused her much distress.
Catherine’s sister Juana, Queen of Castille, and her husband, Philip, were sailing and met a large storm that steered them towards England. Catherine noticed how unhappy and hysterical Juana was regarding her husband’s blatant adultery. Many people see this event as a sign that Catherine would not allow her future husband’s adultery to interfere with her own happiness. Soon after Philip would die, Juana could not continue to rule Castille from grief. Her father Ferdinand detained her and ruled in her place, claiming Juana was too mad to rule. This turn of events for Catherine’s sister may have also been an example to never show weakness when in a position of authority.
To help alleviate Catherine’s financial woes in England, her father came up with a plan to legitimately earn money without need to marry. He appointed her the Spanish ambassador to England, a position she would hold for many years even after she married Henry VIII.
Jane Seymour was born into an affluent family, but not much is known of her childhood. She was third oldest of Henry's wives by birthday.
After the death of her father-in-law, Henry VII, his son Henry was granted the title of king. Catherine and now Henry VIII secretly married while they sorted out the formalities of a public wedding and the respective coronations which occurred in June of the same year.
Catherine of Aragon was the first of two of Henry’s Wives to be coronated, an honor that was cancelled for Jane Seymour, and not offered to any of Henry’s wives after Jane Seymour. Her marriage and coronation were well liked by the English people, many people felt she was the perfect foreign queen.
Catherine did not wait long to become pregnant with her first child, but tragically this pregnancy, as well as many future pregnancies, was not viable. Her daughter was stillborn, which while tragic, was not seen as a bad omen, a belief that would change with future tragedies.
On New Year’s Day, Catherine and Henry joyfully welcomed a son into their family. Unfortunately, the son, named Henry, would die two months later.
Katherine was born into a fairly high ranking family in England, a family which would have been in line for the succession of the English throne, had it not been for Henry VIII’s father, Henry Tudor, displacing Richard III as king of England. When she was young, Katherine’s father died, and she was supported by her mother, who worked as a maid to Catherine of Aragon. Katherine Parr was educated alongside Princess Mary, who was only a few years younger than her. Despite being behind in learning according to her age, she got nearly an identical education to the princess: an education that would not only prepare her for eventually becoming Queen, like Mary would eventually do as well, but it also caused her to love learning and education, which she carried into adulthood.
Anne (Born Anna von Kleve), while one of the higher titles on this list (sometimes referred to as a German Princess, though her title would simply be “Lady”), does not have a well recorded childhood. She was raised to be a dutiful wife by German standards, not a maid. Her brother inherited her father’s title and became Duke of Cleves, running Anne, and her two sisters’ lives and marriages. Anne was the middle daughter.
As ambassador of Spain, Catherine had to help negotiate a joint war of the Spanish and English against the French. While the Spanish eventually removed their troops after a treaty in April 1513, England remained at war, even sending King Henry himself to help with the invasion. During this time, Catherine served as regent of England, a position equal to the king himself, during his absence.
Anne Boleyn, unlike Catherine of Aragon, was not a princess. Her education, while still among the best of Henry’s wives, was not designed to be the education of a Queen. Nevertheless, her father sent her to the Low Countries, where Anne learned about being a noble lady from the court of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. Some skills involved were court manners, French, fashion, singing, lute, and philosophy.
While Henry warred in continental Europe, King James IV of Scotland, an ally of France, decided to invade England, which he perceived weak without it’s King and army. Pregnant Catherine oversaw the domestic troops battling against the invading Scottish, and even rode horseback sixty miles north towards the fight before hearing the word of her victory, the Scottish troops were quelled and their king was dead. She sent a token from the dead king’s armor to her husband in France as a prize. Unfortunately, many believe her ride towards battle may have harmed her pregnancy, because she soon gave birth to a stillborn son.
Anne was likely only a few years older than Queen Claude, but the two sprung up an unlikely friendship as master and servant, as Anne had helped Claude when she was Princess communicate with Claude’s eighteen-year-old stepmother, Queen Mary of France, Henry VIII’s sister. This was important as there was a language barrier between Mary who spoke English and Claude who spoke French, that Anne, an English woman, educated in France, was able to bridge. Eventually when Mary’s husband died, she moved back to England, marrying a minor lord and made room for Claude and her husband, King Francis I.
Anne was not just a lady's maid, she likely viewed this opportunity to discover ways of bettering herself. She would have seen how King Francis I, was lead by his mother, Louise, who served a similar position as both Catherine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey in England. While there was a male figurehead, France was being guided by a woman’s hand, something that likely inspired Anne.
After many miscarriages, stillbirths, the death of her infant son Henry, and more recently the death of her own father, and last solid connection to Spain, Catherine gave birth to her only child that would live to adulthood, Mary. Mary would later become Mary I, Queen of England, or better known by the nickname, Bloody Mary, for her treatment of protestants during her reign.
Catherine was already a pious woman, but after losing another daughter soon after birth, Catherine began to take more interest in religion, including taking up fasting and wearing a hairshirt (an uncomfortable garment meant to remind one of their sins). While Catherine’s belief in God’s will strengthened, Henry believed that Catholocism was failing him and his need for a male heir. Henry was familiar with English history and knew that for each woman who solely ruled England there was a civil war, something that the Tudor dynasty, only tenuously in line for the throne and only having two kings thus far, could not recover from.
While the royal family should have been overjoyed over healthy Mary, three years after her birth, Henry fathered a son, Henry Fitzroy, with his mistress, Emily Blount. While it is likely that Catherine was aware of the affair, she believed it best to remain quiet and docile on the subject.
Anne’s father ordered Anne to return to England to marry a distant cousin in Ireland to solve a property dispute, but this marriage dissolved before it was ever made official. After this, Thomas Boleyn returned his daughter to courtly life in England, and she was given the position of lady's maid to Queen Catherine, a position that brought her to the attention of the Tudor family.
Katherine was born into the powerful Howard family, but she was not lucky enough to be born with a title. She was one of many nieces and nephews of the Duke of Norfolk, and a cousin to Anne Boleyn. From her upbringing, it was likely she could marry a nobleman, but as with many of Henry’s wives, she would not have considered becoming Queen had Henry not taken a shine to her.She was the youngest of all Henry's wives, younger than her step-daughter Mary by around 5 years, and is estimated to have had a shorter life than the duration of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
To entertain a visit from the Holy Roman Emperor, the Tudor court put on a pageant and assigned roles to two ladies in the court and six attendants. Anne was one of the lucky attendants to be picked for this honor, and was assigned the role of Perserverance. While this was a typical affair for courts to entertain using pageantry, Anne’s popularity propelled her to be part of these events almost as soon as she was a member of the court.
Henry Percy, who would eventually become Earl of Northumberland, grew enamored with Anne Boleyn in court. The two secretly promised each other marriage, but secrets didn’t last long in the Tudor Court: Cardinal Wolsey found out, informed Earl Northumberland, and sent Anne out of court. Anne vowed she would make Cardinal Wolsey as miserable as he had made her for breaking up her relationship with Percy.
Anne is only invited back to court after her former beau, Henry Percy, is forcefully wed to another woman. Historians have suggested this was not just for Percy’s own title, but because King Henry did not want anyone to stand in his way of getting to Anne, the sister of one of his mistresses.
Many young women from noble families were often sent to live together, where they could learn skills to succeed as a lady in Tudor society. While Anne Boleyn was sent to learn in France, Katherine was less lucky and was sent domestically within England to learn from the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and was not able to pick up any foreign mystique to her. While in this situation, Katherine was taught how to read, write, do needlework, perform music, and how to flirt and be sexually active with men, which would cause her some problems later in life.
Many of Henry’s “love letters” would seem violent or uncomfortable to a modern audience. One of which came with a dead buck Henry had killed, and the letter was filled with complaints that Anne was not responding to his letters. Though many of Anne’s own letters were destroyed after her execution, it is clear by reports of her actions that she did not want to be pursued by the King, but that she would continue to play her role of playful flirting in court and being politely aloof when she was not present at court. In many ways, it is likely Anne, herself, felt like the dead buck gifted to her by the king, hunted.
For months, Henry had been scheming and collaborating with theologians about the best way to remove himself from his now menopausal wife so he could remarry. While she had known about his plans for months, she was unhappy with this plan. She began scheming on her own to find allies who would block the divorce or annulment of her marriage, including her own nephew, who was the Holy Roman Emperor. She would not let Henry get what he wanted without a fight.
Jane Seymour joins the English royal court at a lady's maid to Catherine of Aragon.
One of the options for the end of Catherine’s marriage was to follow her pious heart and become a nun. Catherine loathed this idea, she believed that the children of God were given two choices: marriage or vocation. Since she had chosen a life of marriage, devoting her life and vocation to the church was no longer viable in her mind.
While a member of the Pope’s team was in London, Henry felt he could not ask for a proper dispensation to divorce his wife if Anne were there. So instead, he sent her to hide in her family home while trying to sort out his marital woes. It is unknown whether Anne approved this treatment or plan
While Anne was never Catherine’s lady's maid from this point forward, the two women lived in the same home alongside King Henry. Anne was given her own apartments in the palace. While many disagreed with their actions, this act was meant to show the king's intent to make her queen.
Catherine had to defend herself against divorce. Her strongest argument? She did nothing wrong, and she worded it so effortlessly: "...Sir, wherein have I offended you, or what occasion of displeasure? Have I designed against your will and pleasure; intending (as I perceive) to put me from you? I take God and all the world to witness, that I have been to you a true humble and obedient wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure, that never said or did any thing to the contrary thereof, being always well pleased and contented with all things wherein you had any delight or dalliance, whether it were in little or much, I never grudged in word or countenance, or showed a visage or spark of discontentation. I loved all those whom ye loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no; and whether they were my friends or my enemies. This twenty years I have been your true wife or more, and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them out of this world, which hath been no default in me..."
Since Katherine did not have a living father, her mother did her best to prepare Katherine for a prosperous future, including the teenager marrying a man nearly fifty years older than her, Edward Bough.
Catherine of Aragon is believed to have had a pet monkey. Not much is known about the monkey, which makes it difficult to determine its legitimacy. It may have been a gift from her family in Spain that they received from patronizing Christopher Columbus. Supposedly, while Anne Boleyn lived in the palace with Catherine and Henry, the monkey made its displeasure at Anne known, and from that point on we know that Anne had an intense distaste for monkeys. If the monkey existed, and what it might have done are almost only speculation. Some historians claim the monkey legend is a metaphor to show Catherine's displeasure with her husband "monkey-ing around" with another woman. Nevertheless, there is a famous portrait of Catherine with a pet monkey, with at least three variations. This seems to be a very elaborate metaphor if she did not actually have a monkey.
Jane wished to marry Will Dormer, a son of English peers, but their relationship was broken by Dormer’s parents, who believed Seymours were not a high enough rank to marry Dormers. The irony that both Anne and Jane had broken up relationships before marrying Henry is interesting, but more so that Jane was specifically broken up because she was not high enough rank, yet would later become queen.
Henry had previously banned William Tyndale’s "Obedience of a Christian Man," but Anne found a copy to read. The book was deemed heretical (against the teachings of the Catholic church), but Anne felt Henry would need to consider heresy to finally get the annulment and divorce from Catherine. In addition to "The Obedience of a Christian Man," Anne also read and lent Henry other heretical works, and likely was part of his decision to break from Catholicism and start the Church of England.
In Germany, the fashions were different than in England. Anne was brought up to wear German clothes, not the Italian clothes that were sweeping through other Western European countries. In addition, German ladies were not expected to learn other languages besides German, or to play music or sing. She knew embroidery and was thought to be talented at it, but she was still at a disadvantage compared to the skills English noblewomen could offer.
One of the methods Henry took to convince Catherine to give up and accept an annulment is by removing her from court to the late Cardinal Wolsey’s home, where she was not allowed to bring her daughter Mary. This was torturous for Catherine, as Mary was probably the person left in England she loved most after Henry, and she was already losing him too. Later, Henry’s advisors threatened her that if she did not give in, they would move her even further away. Catherine openly accepted, making her point clear: she would follow any order’s sent to her by Henry, even death, so long as it did not go against God.
When Catherine of Aragon was replaced as the primary woman of Henry's palace, most of her English staff were transferred to Anne Boleyn, including Jane Seymour.
Before Anne, there had been no Machionesses who did not receive their title from a Marquis husband. This also extended to Anne’s future children, so that all future sons would adopt the title, whether she was married or not.
Anne realized desperate measures were required to make her marriage to Henry happen. She knew that after all this controversy, if he grew tired or bored of her, her already poor reputation would sink further, especially since the king would not protect her. She convinced Henry to retrieve the Queen’s jewels from Catherine (success), she attempted to garner alliances with foreign queens (failed), and realized her last bargaining chip was to offer her virginity to the king and become pregnant.
Katherine Parr’s aging husband did not last long. When Edward Burgh died, she was a young, wealthy widow. Even though her mother died and did not force her into remarrying, she did soon after.
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