Henry VIII (3 page)

Beyond his academic interests, Henry was creative and inventive; he loved novelties and enjoyed experimenting with mechanics and technology. He designed weapons and fortifications, and he took an active interest in building plans. He also had “a remarkable docility for mathematics”
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and was “learned in all sciences”;
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the cupboards in his privy lodgings contained various scientific instruments.
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Henry had a passion for astronomy. The reformer Philip Melanchton called him “most learned, especially in the study of the movement of the heavens.”
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Henry's astrolabe, bearing his crowned coat of arms and made by a Norman, Sebastien le Senay, is in the British Museum. As King, Henry would appoint as his chaplain the Oxford astronomer and mathematician John Robyns, who dedicated his treatise on comets to his master. The two men enjoyed many a discussion on astronomy. In 1540, Peter Apianus, a professor of mathematics from Ingolstadt, presented to Henry VIII his treatise Astronicum Caesareum on astronomy and navigation.
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Henry's interest in maps is well documented, and it prepared the ground for the eventual mapping of England in the late sixteenth century. The King owned many maps, most of them kept rolled up in cupboards and drawers in his chambers and libraries, as well as mapmaking tools, “a globe of paper,” and “a map made like a screen,”
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indicating that Henry himself was something of a cartographer. Elaborate maps hung on the walls of the royal palaces and were used in court entertainments or for political strategy. In 1527, a Venetian mapmaker, Girolamo Verrazano, presented the King with a world map which was later hung in his gallery at Whitehall, along with thirty-four other maps, and there were maps of England, Scotland, Wales, and Normandy in the gallery at Hampton Court.
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Later in the reign, the defence of the realm was a major preoccupation, and the King commissioned a plan of Dover from Sir Richard Lee, surveyor of Calais,
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as well as a map of the English coastline from the Dieppe mariner John Rotz, who was appointed royal hydrographer in 1542. The atlas he produced,
The Book of Idrography,
was dedicated to Henry. Henry also employed a French cosmographer, Jean Mallard, who produced a book containing one of the first circular maps of the world.
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Henry emerged from his education as “a prodigy of precocious scholarship.”
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But by 1508, for reasons that are not clear, the autocratic Henry VII was keeping his son under such strict supervision that he might have been a young girl.
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Unlike his late brother, the Prince was given no royal responsibilities, nor, it seems, much training in the arts and duties of kingship, apart from some sound schooling in history from the King himself.
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He was not permitted to leave the palace unless it was by a private door into the park, and then only in the company of specially appointed persons. No one dared approach him or speak to him. He spent most of his time in a room that led off the King's bedchamber, and appeared “so subjected that he does not speak a word except in response to what the King asks him.”
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It may be that, having lost his three other sons, Henry VII was overly concerned for the health and safety of his surviving heir. Another theory is that he was well aware of the Prince's capabilities, and did not trust him; he is said to have been “beset by the fear that his son might during his lifetime obtain too much power.”
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The Prince's cousin, Reginald Pole, later claimed that Henry VII hated his son, “having no affection or fancy unto him.”
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Once, in 1508, the King quarrelled so violently with young Henry that it appeared “as if he sought to kill him.”
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Perhaps Henry VII was all too aware of the boy's weaknesses, for he ensured that “all the talk in his presence was of virtue, honour, cunning, wisdom and deeds of worship, of nothing that shall move him to vice.”
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Nor did the Prince have any opportunity of indulging in licentious behaviour: the chances are that he retained his virginity until he married.

Henry's tutelage did not last much longer. In 1509, the King died, and this untried youth came into his own.

2

“The Triumphal Coronation”

A king's first duty was to marry for political advantage and produce a son and heir. Henry VIII chose to marry his brother's widow, Katherine of Aragon, to whom he had been betrothed since 1503. Six years his senior, she was the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, sovereigns of a united Spain, yet Henry VII had treated her most shabbily during her widowhood, keeping her in penury and refusing to allow her marriage to Prince Henry to take place. There were two reasons for this: the death of Queen Isabella in 1504 had relegated Katherine to the status of a mere princess of Aragon, and Henry felt that other, more advantageous marriage alliances might be found; more importantly, although the Pope had granted a dispensation for the match with Prince Henry, canon law forbade a man to marry his brother's widow. Katherine had sworn that her union with Prince Arthur had never been consummated. Nevertheless, Henry VII had not been satisfied that the marriage would be lawful. Prince Henry, however, chose to ignore his father's reservations.

Like Henry, Katherine had received a classical education from humanist tutors, among them Peter Martyr. She was as familiar with the works of ancient Rome as with those of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. Erasmus called her “a rare and fine advocate” of humanist learning, and recorded that she “loved good literature, which she had studied with success since childhood”; Henry VIII would often read with her, and he allowed her the freedom of his libraries. Katherine was especially well read in the Scriptures: Erasmus told the King, “Your wife spends that time in reading the sacred volume that other princesses occupy in cards and dice.” Her missal, dated 1527, may still be seen in the chapel at Leeds Castle, Kent.

An expert Latinist—her letters to Prince Arthur were described as being worthy of Cicero himself—Katherine also spoke fluent French, and she had no trouble learning English, although she never lost her Spanish accent, as is apparent from the phonetic spelling in her letters, where Hampton Court becomes “Antoncurt” and Greenwich “Granuche.”

Erasmus thought Katherine “miraculously learned for a woman.”
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She was highly intelligent and a perfect intellectual match for Henry VIII; in fact, Erasmus considered her a better scholar than Henry was. He was therefore very upset when, in 1516, she censured his Greek New Testament, translated from the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome.

“Why does Erasmus correct Jerome? Is he wiser than Jerome?” she asked.
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She was much more impressed by his book The Institution of Mar
riage
(1526), which she commissioned. “Her Majesty, the Queen correctly regards it as being of supreme importance,” commented Thomas More.

Katherine was small of stature and plump; her bearing was regal and dignified. Unlike most Spaniards, she had a fair and “very beautiful”
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complexion, grey eyes, and auburn hair “of a very great length, beautiful and goodly to behold.”
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In her youth she was described as “the most beautiful creature in the world,”
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with “a pretty and most healthy colour in her face.”
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A portrait of a demure, round-faced girl by Miguel Sittow, dating from 1505 and now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, is almost certainly of Katherine: the sitter's collar links the initial K with her pomegranate badge.

Katherine had learned patience and discretion during her troubled youth. Henry VIII was to call her “a woman of most gentleness, of most humility and buxomness [amiability],”
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while a Flemish envoy thought her “a lady of lively, kind and gracious disposition.”
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She “always had a smile on her countenance,”
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even in adversity. Of a more serene and serious cast of mind than Henry, she was a woman of firm moral convictions, “as religious and virtuous as words can express,”
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yet at the same time stubborn and uncompromising. Her outward submissiveness and graciousness concealed a resolute will and single-minded tenacity. Her great integrity, kindness, and shrewdness inspired devoted friendship and loyalty in many. She was, as Erasmus declared, “a brilliant example of her sex.”

Katherine's piety was deep-seated and orthodox, and probably had a considerable influence on the religious life of the court during the first half of Henry's reign. She spent hours at her devotions, kneeling without a cushion
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in her oratory before a Spanish crucifix and statues of St. Catherine with her wheel and St. Margaret with a crown and cross.
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The Queen studied the Office of the Blessed Virgin daily, and it was her custom to read aloud from pious works to her ladies after dinner. She rose at midnight to say Matins and again at dawn to hear mass, and fasted every Friday and Saturday, on the vigils of saints' days and during Lent. Luis Caroz, King Ferdinand's ambassador during the early years of Henry's reign, claimed that all this fasting led to Katherine suffering from irregular periods,
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and it almost certainly had an effect on her obstetric history.

The Queen confessed her sins every week and received the Eucharist on Sundays. Over the years, she made several pilgrimages to Our Lady of Walsingham, Our Lady of Caversham, and other shrines.
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She had a special devotion to the Franciscans. In later years, she wore the rough serge habit of the Third Order of St. Francis under her royal robes.
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For the present, however, she was a young woman delighted with the sudden change in her fortunes and happily anticipating the future.

In June 1509, the young King brought Katherine to Greenwich Palace, where they were to be married. Royal connections with Greenwich went back to the eleventh century, but the Thames-side palace, five miles down the river from London, had been built after 1433 by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, brother of Henry V. Humphrey had named it Bella Court; he also built a tower in Greenwich Park, on the site of the present Royal Observatory. Bella Court had been remodelled and luxuriously refurbished after 1447 for Henry VI's queen, Margaret of Anjou, who renamed it Placentia or Pleasaunce, and stocked the surrounding park with deer.

Between 1498 and 1504,
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Henry VII, probably inspired by reports of the palaces of the dukes of Burgundy at Princenhof and Ghent, virtually rebuilt Placentia around three great courtyards.
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He had the river frontage with its bay windows refaced in Burgundian-style red brick,
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and changed the palace's name once more, to Greenwich. It was thereafter one of the chief and most splendid residences of the Tudor dynasty, the scene of many important historical events. Excavations have shown that the palace stood on the site of the present Royal Naval College, and that the royal apartments overlooked the river. All around were beautiful gardens with fountains, lawns, flowers, and orchards.
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The design of Greenwich Palace was revolutionary. It had no moat, and although the royal apartments were stacked one above the other in a five-storey donjon, or keep, in the traditional castellar manner, there were no fortifications. This, like the Burgundian palaces, was first and foremost a domestic residence, and its design was to be repeated in many great houses of the early Tudor period.
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The donjon was situated between a chapel to the east and the privy kitchen to the west. Although there are several external views of the palace, notably those executed by Anthony van Wyngaerde in the 1550s, we know very little about what the interior looked like. The complex included a great hall, with its roof timbers painted yellow ochre, a great chamber, and a range of domestic offices.
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Henry's closet overlooking the Thames had murals depicting the life of St. John.
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Henry VIII loved Greenwich; it was his birthplace, and during the first half of his reign he spent more time there than at any other palace. He could hunt and hawk in the two-hundred-acre park, or watch his ships being built at the dockyards he established at nearby Woolwich and Deptford in 1513. London was easily accessible by barge. The King spent lavishly on improving the palace, and in the 1530s the antiquarian John Leland wrote:

Lo! with what lustre shines this wished-for place,
Which, star-like, might the heavenly mansions grace.
What painted roofs! What windows charm the eye!
What turrets, rivals of the starry sky!
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In 1478, Edward IV had established at Greenwich a community of the Observant Friars of St. Francis; Henry VII later built a similar friary beside his palace at Richmond. Henry VIII, like Katherine of Aragon, was deeply attached to the Observants “for their strict adherence to poverty, their sincerity, charity and devotion.”
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During the first half of the reign, the Order would benefit from royal patronage and provide several chaplains for the King and Queen. The Order's church at Greenwich, built after 1482 and linked to the royal lodgings by a gallery,
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was a favourite place of prayer for Katherine, who wished one day to be buried there.

It was at Greenwich, in the Queen's closet, that Henry and Katherine were quietly married on 11 June 1509, with William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiating. There were no public celebrations; nor does the traditional ceremony of putting the bride and groom to bed seem to have been observed. When Katherine had married Prince Arthur in 1501, the ceremonial laid down by Margaret Beaufort was followed: the bed was prepared and sprinkled with holy water before the bride was led away from the wedding feast by her ladies, and undressed, veiled, and “reverently” laid in bed. Her young husband, “in his shirt, with a gown cast about him,”
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was then escorted by his gentlemen and a host of merry courtiers into the bedchamber, to the sound of shawms, viols, and tabors. Then the music ceased to allow the bishops to bless the bed and pray that the marriage might be fruitful, and only then were the young couple left alone, with some wine and spices to fortify them.
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This is the only recorded instance of an English royal couple being publicly bedded together in the sixteenth century.

The queen consort's duties were to produce heirs to the throne, engage in charitable works, and act as a helpmeet to her husband and as a civilising influence over his court. She was not expected to play a political role, although most of Henry VIII's wives did, even if it was merely to secure the advancement of their families and supporters.

Until 1514, Katherine acted as an unofficial ambassador for King Ferdinand, and Henry respected her political judgement. But then her father tricked him, and he never again valued her advice as highly. Her influence was always greatest in the domestic sphere, overseeing the management of the royal household, administering her estates, presiding over the councils held by her chief officers, and attending to the charitable works that won her the love of the English people. Nor was she above sewing her husband's shirts, living up to her motto, “Humble and loyal.”

Katherine's badges, the pomegranate of Granada and the arrow-sheaf of Aragon, were soon seen everywhere in the royal palaces, entwined with Tudor roses, crowns, and portcullises. A queen was expected to dress the part, and Katherine always appeared sumptuously attired, often with her hair falling loose over her shoulders—a fashion permitted only to unmarried girls and queens—or adorned with a Venetian cap. It was she who introduced into England the Spanish farthingale, a petticoat of linen or canvas stiffened with ever-increasing hoops of cane, whalebone, or steel into a bell shape. This was worn under the gown and kirtle, and remained fashionable until around 1520.

Katherine's badges also adorned many items in her vast collection of jewellery, which included the official jewels handed down from one English queen consort to the next. Like many people, she believed that some jewels had supernatural powers: one of her rings was said to cure fits. She owned a pomander with a dial in it—probably an early watch—as well as very costly ropes of pearls with jewelled crucifixes and pendants of St. George, and exquisite brooches with pendant pearls for her corsage.

Katherine shared Henry's enthusiasm for hunting and elaborate court entertainments, as well as his intellectual interests. She loved music, dancing, engaging in stimulating conversation, and watching tournaments; the King always sported her favours when he jousted. In true courtly tradition, he wrote poems and songs for her—for example:

As the holly groweth green
And never changeth hue,
So I am, e'er hath been
Unto my lady true.
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Henry was fond of telling people that “he loved true where he did marry.”
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He wrote to Katherine's father: “If I were still free, I would choose her for wife before all others.”
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In Elizabeth of York's missal, which he gave to his wife, he inscribed: “I am yours, Henry R., for ever.” After each midday meal he was usually to be found in the Queen's apartments, discussing politics, theology, or books, receiving visitors, or just “taking his pleasure as usual with the Queen.”
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Often he took his supper there, and he always joined Katherine for Vespers. His chief desire was to please her.

Katherine adored him. She referred to him variously as “Your Grace,” “my husband,” or even “my Henry.” Soon after her marriage, her confessor described her as being in “the greatest gaiety and contentment that ever there was.”
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All that was needed to complete the royal couple's happiness and secure the succession was a son.

Henry VIII inherited a great fortune—which has been estimated at £1,250,000 (about £375 million today)—from his careful father. His kingdom, “this fertile and plentiful realm of England, at that time flourished in all abundance of wealth and riches, and grace and plenty reigned” within it.
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Under Tudor rule, the realm had come to enjoy the benefits of peace after thirty years of dynastic struggles.