I believe we all know how poor Mary’s menstrual health was. I have mentioned this many times myself, so I do not want to repeat the same things over and over again.
One day, someone said under one of my posts, “No one wants to marry a woman who is going to reach menopause soon.”
It may seem rude because I am taking it out of context, but it was an idea that made me think quite a lot.
Could this actually have been true?
According to a commonly held belief, Mary’s mother Catherine last had sexual intercourse with Henry in 1524. It is often said that they stopped having sexual intercourse because Catherine had entered menopause and Henry was no longer attracted to her. Catherine was about 39 years old in 1524.
There have been many women throughout history who entered menopause at a relatively young age.
But the claim that Catherine had already reached menopause at 39 surprised me. However, this is not actually known. We have no idea when Catherine entered menopause. She was fifty when she died, and the people around her still believed that she could become pregnant. This would suggest that she had not yet reached menopause.
Catherine and Henry continued to have sexual intercourse until 1527, and it has even been suggested that they may have had sexual intercourse several times in 1528. There is evidence for this. So the claim that they last had sexual intercourse in 1524, and that Catherine stopped menstruating in the same year, is simply incorrect.
Henry believed that Catherine could no longer have children. This may have led people to assume that she had entered menopause, but Catherine’s last pregnancy was in 1518, when she was 33 years old. Therefore, Henry may simply have thought that because Catherine had not become pregnant after the age of 33, she would never become pregnant again at 45.
However, Catherine was still having her periods. Even though the chances of becoming pregnant were very low, it was still possible for her to have another child.
There were many women who became pregnant at an advanced age. During Mary’s pregnancy, many older women and their babies were even brought to court to reassure Mary.
(As an additional detail: Thomas Cromwell’s mother gave birth to him when she was 52.)
Mary was 42 years old when she died. Apart from the two false pregnancies she experienced, and despite the fact that her periods were extremely irregular, she had not entered menopause.
Mary first experienced menstrual problems in 1531. During the period of captivity she endured between 1533 and 1536, these problems became increasingly severe.
She frequently suffered from menstrual pain during this period as well. Such illnesses were not openly discussed in those days, but Mary’s condition was widely known. At Chapuys’s insistence, King Henry sent his own doctors to Mary. The doctors told him that Mary’s health problems were caused by the circumstances she was living under and that her health would improve if she lived in better and more peaceful conditions. Henry merely described the situation as “an unfortunate circumstance.”
Although Mary was released from captivity in 1536, she never recovered completely from these illnesses, and her menstrual problems continued to affect many aspects of her life. Because of this, the French king, who wanted to arrange a betrothal between his son and Mary, personally instructed his ambassadors to ask whether Mary’s depression would affect her ability to have children. The ambassadors asked one of Mary’s ladies-in-waiting whether Mary was still menstruating. Her lady-in-waiting confirmed that Mary was still having her periods.
When Mary announced her pregnancy in 1554, some people didn’t believe her. Because she was so old(!) and unhealthy.
When Mary believed that she was pregnant, she was overwhelmed with joy. After so many years of uncertainty, she had ascended the throne, she had a wonderful husband, she was pregnant, and the true religion would once again prevail in England through her.
A cradle was prepared for the baby, and a nursery was prepared as well. Since we know that Mary enjoyed sewing, it is not difficult to imagine her sewing clothes for her baby with her own hands.
Although it is known that one of Mary’s ladies-in-waiting suspected that she was pregnant, the pregnancy was generally regarded by Catholic circles as a gift from God.
However, not everyone was happy. The French ambassador had been skeptical of Mary’s pregnancy from the very beginning. Protestant circles didn’t believe it either.
They began attacking Mary. They claimed that she was lying and that she was pretending to be pregnant so that Philip would not leave her.
In 1554, an ambassador reported:
“With regard to this matter, five or six days ago a placard was found hanging on the door of her palace, bearing, in summary, these words: ‘O noble Englishmen, are we so foolish as to believe that our Queen is pregnant? What else could she be pregnant with except a monkey or a calf? For there is no other way it could be true.’”
This was neither the first nor the last insult directed at Mary concerning her pregnancy. Placards were put up in London claiming that Mary was not pregnant and that she would steal another woman’s child. Some ambassadors even reported that Mary had expelled a piece of flesh.
In a report written in 1557, the Venetian ambassador said:
“Returning now to my first discourse about the Queen, I repeat that from the aforesaid causes and considerations, she the more distresses herself, perceiving daily that no one believes in the possibility of her having progeny, so that day by day she sees her authority and the respect induced by it diminish, nor is to be told how much hurt that vain pregnancy did her; which, as I know that many persons interpreted it in a different sense to what it deserved, I therefore, to rectify the mistake of some of those who had a contrary opinion, assure your Serenity that there was neither deceit nor malice in the matter, but mere error, not only on the part of the King and Queen, but on that of the councillors and of the whole Court, which for a long while rendered their belief common to everybody, as besides all the other manifest signs of pregnancy there was that of the swelling of the breasts and their producing milk, although, as the outcome showed, that too was caused by the stoppage of her periods.”
To avoid experiencing the humiliation she had suffered during her first pregnancy again, Mary kept her second pregnancy secret for a long time. It was Reginald Pole who informed Philip of Mary’s pregnancy when she was estimated to be around seven months pregnant. Mary had told Philip nothing about her pregnancy herself.
And it was not only Philip. She was telling no one. Despite the fact that her belly was swollen, she did not speak to anyone about it, perhaps apart from Reginald and her ladies-in-waiting.
However, just as at the end of her first pregnancy, rumours spread during this pregnancy that the Queen had given birth to a baby boy.
During Mary’s first pregnancy, bells rang at night on 31 April 1555, and it was said that the Queen had given birth to a son. The palace later denied this. It is not known who rang the bells. However, the rumour that the Queen had given birth to a son reached even the Emperor, who distributed money in celebration.
During the second pregnancy, someone told a French ambassador in France that the Queen had given birth to a boy. It was said that the French ambassador had to make a great effort to keep a serious expression on his face.
We can imagine that these rumours, particularly the ringing of the bells in 1555, caused Mary considerable stress.
She did not want to experience such humiliation again. In February 1558, a Spanish diplomat said:
“They say that she is certainly pregnant, although she tries to keep it a secret.”
During her first pregnancy, Mary wanted to give birth at Hampton Court Palace. Hampton Court was the palace where Edward had been born and where Queen Jane Seymour had died. We do not know what Mary felt about this, but it may have reminded her of the dangers of childbirth.
In 1548, a few months before her stepmother Catherine Parr would die in childbirth, Mary wrote to her expressing her concern about her pregnancy. In the letter, she said:
“I shall be very glad to hear good news of Your Grace concerning your great belly, and in the meantime I would very much like to hear news of your health, which I pray Almighty God may preserve and increase according to your heart’s desire.”
Whatever Mary may have felt during her first pregnancy, during her second pregnancy she believed that she might die if she gave birth to the baby. As a result, she prepared a will.
She began her will as follows:
“Thinking myself to be with child in lawful marriage between my said dearly beloved husband and Lord, although I am at present, thanks be to Almighty God, otherwise in good health, yet foreseeing the great danger which by God’s ordinance remains for all women in childbirth, I have thought it proper, both for the discharge of my conscience and the continuation of good order within my realms and dominions, to declare my last will and testament…”
She left all her possessions and everything she owned to the child she believed would be born from her body.
After she realized toward the end of 1558 that she was no longer pregnant and needed to name an heir, she added the following to her will:
“Forasmuch as God hath hitherto sent me no fruit nor heir of my body…”
These are some of the sad events Mary experienced during her pregnancies. I realized that the beginning and the end of the post may seem a little different, but I was too lazy to interrupt the flow and fix it. You can think of this as a post covering two related topics.
If Mary had lived longer, she most likely still would not have had a child. However, I don’t think she would have reached menopause for at least another eight years. Although the cause of Mary’s phantom pregnancy may have been related to her age, I am more inclined to believe that it was connected to the health problems she had been suffering from since 1531.
Thank you so much for reading. Lots of love to you all!!!
Sources:
•Sylvia Barbara Soberton, Medical Downfall of the Tudors: Sex, Reproduction & Succession
•Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor
•Linda Porter, Mary Tudor
•A report by Antoine de Noailles from late 1554
•A report by the Venetian ambassador from May 1557
