Henry (24 page)

But not Henry. For the king could not see death – not even the death of a father.

At the centre of the procession was the late king’s coffin, surmounted by his life-size, lifelike effigy, crowned and robed and holding the orb and sceptre and carried on a funeral car drawn by seven great horses, also trapped in black. At the west doors of St Paul’s, the procession halted and was received by the bishop of London in cope and mitre. Then, amid clouds of incense, the coffin with its image was removed
from the car and carried inside the church ‘by twelve person of the guard, because of the great weight thereof’. There it rested overnight. The following morning, three masses were sung, ending in the mass of requiem. Then Bishop Fisher of Rochester preached his ‘notable sermon’ with its vivid picture of its subject’s last days and his struggle with death – and his conscience. ‘Ah! King Henry, King Henry,’ the preacher cried at the sermon’s climax, ‘if thou wert alive again, many a one that is here present now would pretend a full great pity and tenderness upon thee.’
7

How many of his hearers, including in particular Fisher’s fellow councillors and executors, squirmed a little at the charge of hypocrisy? If they did, the moment passed quickly – for, after all, they were politicians.

After a break for dinner, the coffin was replaced on its car and the procession re-formed for the final leg of the journey to Westminster Abbey. There the body rested overnight once more on a magnificent hearse or bier. Then, early on the morning of the eleventh came the funeral proper. Once more, three masses were sung, culminating in the requiem sung by William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by eighteen bishops and mitred abbots.

At the offertory there took place an extraordinary scene of divestment. Throughout the procession, the coffin with its image of the king in majesty had been accompanied by knights carrying the king’s armour, sword and helmet with its battle crown. Another knight, Sir Edward Howard,
second son of the earl of Surrey, had ridden in the king’s actual battle-armour, bearing his battle-axe reversed, with its head resting on his foot. Now the armour, sword and helmet were offered up in turn at the altar. Then Howard rode into the Abbey, dismounted and presented himself. Two monks stripped him of the king’s arms and armour, revealing him as himself, clad like the others in mourning black.

After the late king’s knighthood had gone the way of all flesh, his sovereignty departed too: the image was removed from the coffin and all its royal ornaments were stripped. Finally, as a mere man, the king was lowered into the vault alongside Henry’s mother, Elizabeth of York. Warham cast down earth, while Surrey as lord treasurer and the earl of Shrewsbury as lord steward of the household broke their white staves of office and threw them on the coffin too, followed by all the other head officers. Then the vault was closed and covered in cloth-of-gold.

The final scene belonged to the heralds. They took off their embroidered tabards of the royal arms and hung them on the hearse and cried ‘lamentably in French’: ‘The noble King Henry the Seventh is dead.’ Then, after a moment, they put their tabards back on and cried, also with a loud voice: ‘
Vive le
noble roy Henry le VIIIth
!’

God send the noble king Henry the Eighth long life!

A day or so later, Henry, who had passed the time by organizing a tournament in the Tower, quit its gloomy walls for his birthplace of Greenwich – and his reign.

I
T WAS NOT ONLY
H
ENRY
who had been marking time pending his father’s funeral. So had the whole operations of his government: apart from the general pardon and the fought-over exceptions to it, the only business transacted in April and early May was the formal reappointment of the judges and the law officers of the crown, the attorney-and solicitor-generals. But, with Henry VII safely interred, the floodgates of patronage opened.

Or at least they did for those who had been on the winning side.

First in the queue was Sir Henry Marney, who was made vice-chamberlain and captain of the guard on 12 May, the day after Henry VII’s funeral, and, in short order thereafter, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, steward of the duchy of
Cornwall, warden of the stannaries and, in reversion, steward of the duchy of Lancaster and the great honour of Clare.

It was an extraordinary accumulation of positions, which immediately turned Marney into one of the richest officeholders under the crown. Yet Marney had come more or less from nowhere. That at least is what Henry himself said when, almost thirty years later, he recalled Marney and others of his council at the beginning of his reign as ‘but scant well born gentlemen; and yet of no great lands till they were promoted by us and so made knights and lords’. A rather more substantial background is suggested by Polydore Vergil, who names Marney as a councillor both to Henry’s father, Henry VII, and his elder brother, Arthur. But his activity in these positions – if he ever held them – has left no trace in the records. Instead, he appears only as an Essex country gentleman, who was prominent in the government of his shire, and as a member of the household of Henry as prince of Wales – perhaps indeed its head, as vice-chamberlain to the prince.
1

At any rate, Marney’s connexion with Henry went back a long way, since he had been one of the twenty-two gentlemen who had been dubbed knights of the Bath at Henry’s creation as duke of York in 1494.
2
A William and Grace Marney, who may have been a son and daughter-in-law of Marney’s, appear as members of Henry’s household in 1503; Marney himself witnessed Henry’s protestation against his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1505; while Henry gave him a New Year’s Day gift in both 1508 and 1509.
3

* * *

All this is suggestive. But we can only guess at the qualities which led Henry to single Marney out for such accelerated promotion – or led Marney’s fellow councillors to acquiesce in it. Perhaps, as a greybeard (he had been born in about 1456–57) and a competent and conscientious administrator, he was the person closest to Henry who appeared as ‘one of us’ to Henry VII’s surviving ministers. Perhaps, since she appointed him as one of her executors, it was Henry’s grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who engineered his promotion.
4

But, finally, the clue to the enigma has to lie in Henry’s own personal favour. A dozen or so years later, Marney was still one of the handful ‘who … have great authority and credit with the king’. Henry also did him the rare privilege of staying with him at his house at Layer Marney in Essex, which was then abuilding. Even its architecture, with its soaring height and adventurous use of Italianate terracotta and early renaissance ornament, testifies to their close relationship.
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Henry liked Marney, and that was that.

Marney’s offices came from two sources: the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster was vacant since it had been held by the fallen minister Empson; but the vice-chamberlainship and captaincy of the guard were very much occupied. Indeed Thomas, Lord Darcy had been appointed to these offices barely a year previously; he also continued to discharge them throughout Henry VII’s funeral ceremonies. This meant he had to be eased out to make way for Marney. But it was done with great tact and careful consideration for both Darcy’s
pride and his pocket. On 18 May, at the first chapter of the Garter of Henry’s reign, Darcy was chosen as one of the two new knights; Darcy also received a stream of confirmations of existing positions and new grants of office which made him the dominant force on the eastern or Northumbrian march against Scotland – and this much to the chagrin of the earl of Northumberland, who regarded the wardenship of the East March as his by right as a family perquisite.
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But why were the vice-chamberlainship and the captaincy of the guard chosen for Marney? Partly, it was accidental. As the most recently appointed official of Henry VII’s council, Darcy, the current vice-chamberlain, was more vulnerable than his longer-serving colleagues: it was a case of last in, first out. But there was more to it than that: the combined offices controlled the king’s personal security; the vice-chamberlainship, with its requirement of more-or-less continuous attendance on the king, could also serve as the hotline between the king and his council. With a king like Henry VII, who was executive chairman of his own council, the role was scarcely necessary. But Henry, it was probably already clear, had much less appetite than his father for the hard graft of kingship.

Perhaps the older councillors hoped that Marney would coach his young master in the ways of business; perhaps, more realistically, they realized they had to find ways to mitigate Henry’s indolence, and saw in Marney a mutually acceptable means.

* * *

Now that Marney was satisfied and Darcy appeased, it seems to have become something of a free for all. On 14 May, George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury and lord steward, secured the valuable sinecure of one of the two chamberlain-ships of the exchequer; two days later, on 16 May, no fewer than four letters patent were issued, by which Henry confirmed his father’s multitude of grants to the earl of Oxford; the same day at Greenwich Henry affixed his signature or sign manual to a similar number of signed bills for the lord chamberlain, Charles Somerset, Lord Herbert, which confirmed his existing Welsh offices and added innumerable new ones; then, on 19 May, it was the turn of Henry’s own grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort.

The manor of Woking in Surrey, which had been the principal Home Counties residence of the Beauforts, had been recovered by Lady Margaret at the beginning of Henry VII’s reign. But in 1503, in exchange for Hunsdon in Hertfordshire, she had surrendered Woking to the king her son, and Henry VII had spent considerable sums on rebuilding it. Now, faced with the softer touch of her grandson, Lady Margaret got Woking back, improvements and all.
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One lesser figure stands out among these coroneted suitors: Richard Weston, formerly groom of Henry VII’s secret chamber. Weston’s quick thinking and courtier’s smoothness had been vital in keeping the old king’s death secret; now he too had his reward, with a series of bills signed by Henry at Greenwich on 21 and 22 May. Like his betters, it was a case
of something old, something new: Weston secured Henry’s confirmation of his grants from Henry’s father, regained the old family office of captain of Guernsey and, as the plum in the pudding, was made keeper of Hanworth, the royal
maison
de retraite
near Richmond where his rival Hugh Denys had once reigned supreme in Henry VII’s confidence.
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By the summer, when Darcy had gone to take up his new position in the north and the dust had settled in London, the constellation of power around Henry was clear. Richard Foxe, bishop of Winchester and lord privy seal, remained, as he had been in the previous reign, the senior minister. But he had to share power – it was rumoured, probably incorrectly, unwillingly – with others: Lord Treasurer Surrey, Lord Steward Shrewsbury, Secretary Ruthall, Sir Thomas Brandon, the master of the horse – and, of course, Henry’s favourite, Sir Henry Marney. There was also, if we believe Darcy himself, an even smaller inner ring, consisting of Foxe, Ruthall and – again – Marney.
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These men were Henry’s councillors. But, overwhelmingly, they had been chosen by his father, and were accustomed to his father’s methods. On the other hand, Marney’s role shows that Henry, despite his youth and inexperience, was not a cipher: Marney was as much the king’s voice on the council as the council’s mouthpiece to the king.

And it was as his master’s voice that Marney – though the most junior member of the council – carried so much weight.

* * *

These May days also showed Henry, for the first time, something of the exhilaration of kingship. He had quit the Tower for the sights and scents of Greenwich, which was, and was long to remain, his favourite residence. And there, rather like W. S. Gilbert’s lord chancellor, he sat in his court all day, agiving agreeable girls – and lands and offices and titles – away. He signed his name dozens of times – more probably than in all his life so far – and each time he signed, he granted what was desired. Recipients promised eternal gratitude, and Henry basked in the pleasure he gave them – and himself.

It was intoxicating and – the council evidently feared – habit-forming. The result was that – having helped themselves and their friends to what they no doubt richly deserved – Henry’s councillors moved swiftly to control the flow of patronage for everybody else.

For Henry’s signature was only the first step in the making of a grant. The instrument that actually conferred the patronage was royal ‘letters patent’ (the plural form was always used). ‘Letters patent’ were a formal document, written on parchment, in Latin and with the massive, double-sided wax disc of the great seal hanging from the parchment on a strip cut partway along its bottom margin.

There were two routes to the issuing of letters patent: one long, the other short. In the short route, the ‘bill’ or letter signed by Henry acted as an immediate instruction or ‘warrant’ to Lord Chancellor Warham to have the letters
patent drawn up. His office prepared and wrote out the parchment and applied the great seal, whose matrix or mould (made of precious metal) Warham held
ex officio
. In the long route, on the other hand, two other royal seals, the signet seal, held by Secretary Ruthall, and the privy seal, held by Warham’s senior colleague Bishop Foxe, were interposed. This meant that the ‘bill’ with Henry’s signature now acted as a warrant only to Ruthall. Ruthall’s office then drew up another warrant, sealed it with the signet and addressed it to Foxe. Foxe’s office in turn prepared yet another warrant, sealed it with the privy seal and sent it to Warham. Finally Warham’s office, duly authorized, issued the letters patent in proper form.

The long route, in short, was long indeed. Viewed in one perspective, it was an extreme example of bureaucratic make-work, which cost suitors time and – since fees were payable at every stage – money. But it also had a real function, since it imposed two additional layers of scrutiny on the royal bounty. For this to work, of course, the lord privy seal and the chancellor had actually to read and note – and if need be query – what they sealed. We can guess that this was the case with Foxe, who seems to have read and remembered everything; we know it was with Warham. He ‘has sped’, Warham wrote to his friend Lord Darcy, ‘the commissions which Darcy sent to be sealed’. Warham had ‘sped’ or expedited them indeed: Warham’s letter was dated 25 March; the principal commission was issued under the great seal three days later, on the twenty-eighth.
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In view of this kind of scrupulous oversight, all that was necessary for the control of royal patronage was for the ‘course of the seals’, as it was known, to be enforced. Back in 1444, and faced with the prodigal patronage of another young king, Henry VI, the council had tried to impose the long route by conciliar order. Now Henry VIII’s council did the same thing – and very successfully. And even when signed bills
were
used, they tended to be counter-signed by a representative group of royal councillors.

The result was, in effect, to create a regency council behind the façade of a nominally adult monarch.
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Henry, used to doing what his father told him, acquiesced – for the time being at least.