Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 9th November 1518 Katharine of Aragon, Queen of England, lost yet another child as her final pregnancy ended in either a stillborn daughter, or one who lived no more than a few hours. Since her marriage to Henry VIII in June 1509 Katharine had had at least five pregnancies – the first ended in a stillbirth in early 1510, the second, in the birth of a son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, who lived only a few weeks, a third came to nothing in 1514. There are hints in the records that there may have been other conceptions. The one pregnancy to bring forth a healthy baby had occurred in 1515, with a daughter, Mary, being born in February 1516. It does not appear that Katharine’s pregnancies were difficult – she was well enough to hunt during the early autumn of 1518, but, alas, the baby did not survive. Even in a time when infant mortality was high, Katharine and Henry were particularly unfortunate, and he did not have a better record with his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who lost at least two babies before term.

On 8th November 1576, the provinces of the Netherlands, regardless of their religious affiliations, signed an agreement whereby the whole of the Netherlands agreed to mutiny against the rule of Philip II of Spain, their hereditary duke. Philip’s great-grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, had inherited the lands from her father, Charles the Bold (or Rash, as he was sometimes termed). Mary had died young, falling from a horse, to be succeeded by her son, Philip, then her grandson, the Emperor Charles V. Charles had been brought up largely in Ghent and was therefore accepted as overlord, even though the day to day running of the Netherlands had been left first to his aunt, Marguerite, daughter of Mary, and then to his sister, Mary of Hungary. By the time Philip, born and brought up in Spain, succeeded, the familial link seemed very tenuous. By the 1570s around half the territories had converted to the Calvinist Reformed faith, whilst the southern areas remained largely Catholic. Whilst Philip came to terms with the leaders of the various provinces, peace did not last long.

The 7th November 1558 was a deeply depressing day for Mary I of England. Henri II of France entered Calais, which had been the last foothold of English occupation from the once vast Angevin Empire that had stretched from the Scottish Border to the Pyrenees. During Henry VIII’s reign, the English territory had expanded a little with the capture of Boulogne, but the reality was that, in the long term, England could not hope to hold territory in a France that was significantly wealthier and more populous. It was eventually agreed that Boulogne would be returned to France on payment of a 400,000 gold ecus and in 1550, the English departed. They intended, however, to hold on to Calais.

The costs of Henry VIII’s wars and the high inflation of the 1540s and 1550s meant that the English government in the late 1550s was close to bankrupt. One of the cost-saving measures was a failure to keep Calais properly provisioned, despite the complaints of the Governor, Lord Wentworth. When Queen Mary foolishly agreed to involve England in the endless Franco-Spanish wars at the behest of her husband, Philip II, the military situation was not good. An initial, almost overwhelming victory for the Anglo-Spanish troops at St Quentin was not followed up, and Henri II’s army made a daring swoop on Calais in January 1558. The King himself entered later in the year – some ten days before the death of Mary, who, apparently, said that when she was dead, Calais would be found written on her heart.