Foreign brides, foreign fashions Tudor fashion

Henry’s first wife Katherine (married 1509-33) was a royal princess of Aragon and Castile in Spain and continued to reference her Spanish heritage in her dress throughout her life. However, dressing was a tool of diplomacy and the Queen was expected to dress in a more English fashion at times. While she adopted the English-style gable hood and dress to win over her new subjects, on some occasions she used style to express a political point. During the famous Field of the Cloth of Gold meeting in 1520, Katherine wore a Spanish-style headdress to show her displeasure at the alliance of Henry and the French King, Francis.

By contrast, Anne Boleyn (married 1533-36) had been brought up in the French court and when she came to England brought French fashions with her. Her distinctive style and glamour caught Henry’s eye around Christmas 1524, and the King courted her with gifts of satin, cloth of gold and jewels, as well as pretty words. However, Katherine fought back. Her ‘dress was … a weapon in this marital war,’ as Historic Royal Palaces’ curator Eleri Lynn writes in her book Tudor Fashions.

Katherine wore her richest dresses and spent more on her wardrobe as part of her aim to assert her queenly status over Anne. This was a visual representation of Katherine’s superior rank and her place in court above her rival. However, finding herself in competition with a newer, more fashionable and younger model in Anne, perhaps Katherine was also using dress to appear more attractive to her husband and regain his affections.

It was not all jewels and silks in the fashion battle between Henry’s wife and wife-to-be. Making a King’s shirts was traditionally the wife’s job, as a shirt was considered an item of underwear and therefore intimate. (Incidentally, this idea that a shirt is underwear is the reason why some establishments still insist on men wearing jackets.) Anne discovered Katherine was still sewing Henry’s shirts in 1530, but she kept this quiet, as it demonstrated that Katherine was still very much a wife to Henry. Instead, crafty Anne sent the King new shirts (although they were made by a professional shirt-maker and not by Anne’s own hand).

As Anne’s power grew, her clothing became more magnificent, so much so that in 1532 the Spanish Ambassador Eustace Chapuys reported to his king, Charles V (who was Katherine’s nephew) that ‘the Lady has been busy in buying costly dresses; not content with having given her his jewels, sent the Duke of Norfolk to obtain the queen’s [Katherine’s] as well.’ Katherine at first refused to give up her jewels but Henry insisted.

Henry and Anne married in secret in 1533 but it didn’t stay secret for long. Canny courtiers spotted Anne’s changed status through her clothes. Like her predecessor, Anne knew how to dress diplomatically. For her coronation that year she wore French-style fashions, but knowing she needed to show her English credentials, a medal made for her coronation shows her wearing the English-style gable hood more associated with Katherine of Aragon.

Meanwhile, Katherine had not given up the fight to remain queen and refused to recognise her lowered status in Henry’s eyes. She continued to buy new clothes and have them embroidered with hers and Henry’s initials, despite Henry putting his and Anne’s initials on everything from buildings to coins.

Anne’s primacy did not last long, by 1536 she was stripped of her finery and dressed for her final public appearance – on the scaffold – in a simple loose grey dress. Henry moved on swiftly and, in search of a longed-for son, married Jane Seymour (1536-37). The King gave Jane new clothing and jewels and also some from Anne’s wardrobe, to help her display her new status as queen at court. Jane’s diplomatic dressing style was to emphasise her Englishness, with touches such as embroidery featuring strawberry leaves. She even forbade her ladies-in-waiting to wear the French hood, which had been often identified with Anne Boleyn’s style.

After Jane’s death two weeks after giving birth to Prince Edward, Henry chose his next wife Anne of Cleves (married January 1540 – July 1540), the heiress of a German Duchy. Anne’s style was not a hit with the court, the French ambassador cattily reported that her ladies in waiting ‘were dressed so heavily and unbecomingly they would almost be thought ugly even if they were beautiful’.

Anne and Henry’s marriage was doomed from the start. When they met in 1540 Henry decided to play a prank and swapped clothes with one of his gentlemen, hoping that Anne would miraculously recognise her new husband and true love would see beyond the disguise. But Anne did not recognise Henry – she read the clothes, not the man. The real King Henry stormed out and unluckily for Anne, or perhaps happily for her considering the number of dead wives Henry left in his wake, the marriage was annulled six months later.

Catherine Howard (married 1540-42), Henry’s next wife, was gifted with clothes just as her unfortunate predecessors had been. When rumours of her affair with Thomas Culpepper, a Gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber circulated, Catherine was imprisoned in Hampton Court Palace and her jewels were seized, and she was reduced to wearing plain clothes to show her demoted status.

Henry’s sixth wife Katherine Parr (married 1543-47) appointed the tailor who had served all of Henry’s other queens, a smart move as she could be guided by his experience and ensure that she was always dressed appropriately, impressively and diplomatically at court.

https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/katherine-of-aragon/

https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/anne-boleyn/

https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/anne-of-cleves/