MARY BOLEYN : ALISON WEIR BOOK EXCERPT : KING HENRY VIII

page 147 (Who is the father of Katherine Carey?)

"Given that Henry probably did not begin pursuing Mary until 1522, we could hardly expect to find William Carey (her husband) refraining from intercourse with his wife in the first two years of their marriage. During Mary's second marriage, she is known to have born only one child in nine years. This suggests that, like her mother and sister, she suffered miscarriages or gave birth to unrecorded children who were stillborn or died young - or that, if she was as fertile as her who offspring, who had twenty-eight children between them, she resorted to some form of contraception... Certainly Henry was still sleeping with the Queen, hoping to conceive an heir, during his affair with Mary. He continued to have sexual relations with Katherine until 1524, and even after 1525, by which year she was "past the ways of women," he still shared her bed on occasions.