© Ambrosius Benson – Saint Louis Art Museum
Since the dawn of time, Kings have been allowed and even encouraged to take a mistress early on into their marriages and have numerous affairs, but it still doesn’t make it easy for their wives and Queens to bear the sight of their husband loving another.
It certainly was not any different for Catherine of Aragon when her newly wedded husband, King Henry VIII, was rumoured to have taken a mistress for the first time in 1510, just one year into their marriage and shortly after Catherine became with child for the first time.
This woman would unknowingly set the tone for the marriage, showing Catherine time and time again that her husband was an adulterous, lust-driven man who would never love her as loyally and with such devotion as her first husband, his older brother.
But who was this woman, you may ask—this woman’s name was none other than Lady Anne Hastings (formerly Stafford hence why we will refer to her as Anne Stafford throughout this post to deter any confusion) and her affair brought chaos and misery upon the marriage of Catherine and her Tudor King.
However, her claim to being Henry’s first mistress is also argued to belong to another, Jane Poppincourt, but we will be sticking to our guns and giving Anne Stafford the floor to discuss her case as why she should be known as Henry’s first mistress.
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Lady Anne Stafford (born in 1483) was the youngest daughter of the former Duke of Buckingham, (the title passed to her older brother, Edward) Henry Stafford, who was executed in November 1483 for rebelling against the then-King Richard III, and Katherine Woodville, the younger sister of Elizabeth Woodville, who was Henry’s grandmother, which made Anne a distant relation to the King. At the time of Anne’s affair with the King, she had just recently married George Hastings (who would become the first Earl of Huntingdon in 1529) and she was the King’s senior by eight years, making her twenty-six when she reportedly slept with him (and two years older than the Queen).
Anne was supposedly incredibly happy with her husband at the time of the affair as it was her second marriage and the two would go on to have eight children together. It is unclear whether the rumour of her being the King’s mistress had a negative effect on their marriage since it is still yet to be completely proven that she was his mistress despite Henry’s reaction to the rumour acting as an assurance that it did happen.
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An interesting fact before we explore the details of the affair is that most historians believe that at first, during his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the eighteen-year-old King’s interests were in women with experience rather than girls his own age who would have been maidens, meaning that he preferred either older women or women who were married. Which might have been a reason behind Henry’s choice in Anne Stafford, as she was not only eight-years older than him, but she was on her second marriage by the time she had begun to sleep with the King.
Nonetheless, let us continue.
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Whilst there are barely any facts about the details of Henry’s affair with Anne—most likely due to the fact that the affair is still being questioned as did it actually happen—(e.g. how long had the affair been going on or under what circumstances did Henry decide to take Anne as a mistress) but there are many facts known about the events taking place after the rumour of the affair begun to spread and to say tensions were high was an understatement.
It is obvious that the Queen would have been devastated over the news that her husband was sleeping with another woman (especially a Lady in her household) but no one could have been angrier and seeking justice than Anne’s own brother, Edward.
To hear that his noble sister had been degraded to a mere plaything by the King was more than he could handle as he believed it damaged her reputation just as much as his family’s. The thing was that the Staffords were one of the most nobliest, wealthiest families during this time and only second to the King’s family themselves. Even worse was the fact that Edward believed he had an even more legitimate claim to the throne as a direct descendant of the York family (who only lost the throne when Richard III was killed by Henry VII and married Elizabeth of York – you guessed it, Henry’s parents). It is recorded throughout history that Edward claimed Henry was a usurper and that the throne was rightly his.
There were also rumours that Anne was having an affair with a William Compton although it was never proved, Compton left Anne considerable land in his will and even asked his executioner to include her in his prayers. It was also rumoured that Anne was sent to a convent for her adultery, but this might have been another Anne Hastings as it was a common name (just like Anne Boleyn was).
Even after the affair was the court gossip in 1510, it is believed that the affair might have continued until 1513 when it was broken off for unknown reasons. Most likely because Henry had grown bored with her and had found another lover to entertain him.
Although Henry did nothing about Edward’s treacherous words at this point, it would not be a happy ending for Edward as he was executed nearly ten years later for his treasonous ways towards the King.
Sadly, not much is known about the rest of Anne’s life following her affair with the King other than her producing eight children with her second husband and that she would go on to be a serving member in the King’s eldest daughter’s household: the future Mary I of England. Anne would later die of unknown causes in 1544 at the age of sixty-one, a rather rarity in those days as many women died before they could turn fifty.
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What surprises me about Anne’s story is that she is believed to have been the first mistress of Henry VIII, although he might have been sneakier when it came to hiding his first batch of affairs from his first wife, yet she is one of his mistresses with the least known about her life. Of course, she is not as popular as his more well-known mistresses such as Bessie Blount or Mary Boleyn (both of which we will later explore in greater detail) but this does not lessen her importance.
I wonder if her affair with the King made Catherine either more cautious with how well she trusted her ladies-in-waiting (as Henry probably would have more than likely chosen a lady in Catherine’s household as his mistress because of his easy access to her) or whether it made her weary of her power over her husband. After all, whomever was sleeping with the King had the most power as the King would have been besotted over them and they could have directly influenced the future, just like Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour did with their families’ futures.
But, as we will learn, Anne was only the beginning of Henry’s adulterous ways and she paved the way for Henry’s next mistress, Étiennette de la Baume.
Next time, it will be her story to tell…
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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