Henry VIII (87 page)
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
At the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII, his virtues were extolled by those who served him. How does the adulation the young King initially inspired of the court compare to the subsequent attitudes his courtiers held toward him? In which ways was he burdened by unrealistic expectations? How did the King manipulate his early reputation to his advantage?
It's an adage that a man can often be judged by the company he keeps. How did this prove true of Henry VIII? How much choice did he have over who comprised the court, and how much of it was determined by external factors (for example, tradition, custom, blood ties, or the influence of others)?
How did the rich physical appearance of the court and his various palaces reflect the way that Henry VIII felt about himself and his place in the world? Why were opulent surroundings, including innovations in architecture, so important to him? How did the physical arrangement of the King's palaces establish the hierarchy of his courtiers?
What characteristics of a courtier do you think that the King held in highest regard? Which characteristics were undesirable? Can you apply these to advisors of leaders in modern times? In your opinion, which of the King's courtiers was most successful in serving Henry VIII? Who was the most successful in advancing his own personal interests?
How did the itinerant nature of the court and its constant movement from place to place affect its makeup? How might it have been differentâboth physically and politicallyâif it had been permanently situated in one spot?
The Privy Council and the Privy Chamber formed the most elite core of Henry's courtiers and advisors. Was this similar or different to the setup of the King's father, Henry VII? What were the differences between the two groups? How did these individuals wield their influence? How did Henry VIII's mistrust of the gentry shape the court, and how did it prove less constrained by a strict social hierarchy than the outside world as a whole at that time?
At the time of Henry VIII's kingship, the ideas of the Renaissance were flourishing. Which of these ideas were most influential to the King and his court? How did influential humanistsâfor example, Petrarch or Sir Thomas Moreâshape the thoughts and policies of the King? How was the King's warlike spirit at odds with the opinions of his humanist friends and confidants?
Thomas Wolsey enjoyed a spectacular rise to power, becoming a cardinal who was considered as powerfulâor even moreâthan his master, Henry VIII. Which attributes make him indispensable to the King? How does he arouse antipathy from the others around him? What role does his background, breeding, and personal ambition play in his rise and eventual downfall? What purpose did Wolsey serve for both his friends and his enemies?
How could the King's favorâor displeasureâtoward a courtier affect their fortunes? Examples to discuss could include Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, Archbishop Cranmer, Sir Thomas More, the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Nicholas Carew, and Fray Diego Fernandez.
Henry VIII's love for Anne Boleyn changed not only the court, but also the path of England. It led to the King's “Great Matter”âhis desire to nullify his marriage to Queen Katherine of Aragon. How did this issue factionalize the court? What issues do you believe it eclipsed, and which did it bring to the forefront? How did the religious climate of the time, and Luther's 95 Theses in particular, also affect the question of religion?
Anne Boleyn positioned herself as a paragon of virtue and morality. How did this contrast with her ascent to the throne and some of her own personal characteristics? How did her influence compare to that enjoyed by Katherine, and how did pomp and patronage play into her reign? How did the opinion held of her by the courtiers evolve, and how did that compare to public's view of her? What attributes that initially attracted Henry to her proved to be her undoing?
Thomas Cromwell was the second powerful figure to take precedence in the court of Henry VIII. How did he compare to Wolsey? In which ways did Cromwell wield more influence on the King and on the policies of England than Wolsey? Why? How was his downfall similar to that of Wolsey? How was he merely the victim of his adversaries?
How did the question of succession shape not only Henry VIII's marriages and liaisons, but also the court in general? How did the birth of Prince Edward affect this? What type of relationship do you believe that Henry's children by three different mothers enjoyed with one another? In particular, how did the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth thrive? What restrictions were placed upon it?
How did the lavish spending on coronations, palaces, queens, and wartime activity affect the later years of the King? How did he react to the constant scourge of plague and illness?
How was the Reformation of Henry VIII a dividing point between the conservatives and the radicals of his court? How was the Act of Six Articles, which established the doctrine of the Church of England as law, received by both groups? What elements of the Act most reflected Renaissance thinking?
How did Henry's advisors use the King's faith to their own advantage, often in ousting their enemies? How did his position of head of the Church influence the King and his way of thinking? In your opinion, how much of his faith was motivated by personal desires (for example, the nullification of his marriages)?
How did the various wivesâparticularly Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleynâwield power and influence? How were they employed to advance the interests of particular courtiers, especially in regard to alliances with other countries? Which causes were advanced by each Queen?
How were at least three of the wives removed from power by the maneuverings of the King, the court, or both? Do you think that the influence enjoyed by women in Henry VIII's court was unusual based on the gender attitudes of the time? Why or why not?
At the close of his life, Henry VIII had grown quite ill. How did this affect the day-to-day workings of the court and the King's advisors? How would you characterize the management style of the King? Would you say that Henry VIII was by nature a laissez-faire manager, or was he merely forced to become one because of his failing health? Why or why not?
Read on for an excerpt from Alison Weir's
Mary Boleyn
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The Eldest Daughter
B
lickling Hall, one of England's greatest Jacobean showpiece mansions, lies not two miles northwest of Aylsham in Norfolk. It is a beautiful place, surrounded by woods, farms, sweeping parkland and gardensâgardens that were old in the fifteenth century, and which once surrounded the fifteenth century moated manor house of the Boleyn family, the predecessor of the present building. That house is long gone, but it was in its day the cradle of a remarkable dynasty; and here, in those ancient gardens, and within the mellow, red-brick gabled house, in the dawning years of the sixteenth century, the three children who were its brightest scions once played in the spacious and halcyon summers of their early childhood, long before they made their dramatic debut on the stage of history: Anne Boleyn, who would one day become Queen of England; her brother George Boleyn, who would also court fame and glory, but who would ultimately share his sister's tragic and brutal fate; and their sister Mary Boleyn, who would become the mistress of kings, and gain a notoriety
that is almost certainly undeserved.
Blickling was where the Boleyn siblings' lives probably began, the protective setting for their infant years, nestling in the broad, rolling landscape of Norfolk, circled by a wilderness of woodland sprinkled with myriad flowers such as bluebells, meadowsweet, loosestrife, and marsh orchids, and swept by the eastern winds. Norfolk was the land that shaped them, that remote corner of England that had grown prosperous through the wool-cloth trade, its chief city, Norwichâwhich lay just a few miles to the southâbeing second in size only to London in the Boleyns' time. Norfolk also boasted more churches than any other English shire, miles of beautiful coastline and a countryside and waterways teeming with a wealth of wildlife. Here, at Blickling, nine miles from the sea, the Boleyn children took their first steps, learned early on that they had been born into an important and rising family, and began their first lessons.
Anne and George Boleyn were to take center-stage roles in the play of England's history. By comparison, Mary was left in the wings, with fame and fortune always eluding her. Instead, she is remembered as an infamous whore. And yet, of those three Boleyn siblings, she was ultimately the luckiest, and the most happy.
This is Mary's story.
Mary Boleyn has aptly been described as “a young lady of both breeding and lineage.”
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She was born of a prosperous landed Norfolk family of the knightly class. The Boleyns, whom Anne Boleyn claimed were originally of French extraction, were settled at Salle, near Aylsham, before 1283, when the register of Walsingham Abbey records a John Boleyne living there,
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but the family can be traced in Norfolk back to the reign of Henry II (1154â89).
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The earliest Boleyn inscription in the Salle church is to John's great-great-grandson, Thomas Boleyn, who died in 1411; he was the son of another John Boleyn and related to Ralph Boleyn, who was living in 1402. Several other early members of the family, including Mary's great-great-grandparents, Geoffrey and Alice Boleyn, were buried in the Salle church, which is like a small cathedral, rising tall and stately in its perpendicular splendor in the flat Norfolk landscape. The prosperous village it once served,
which thrived upon the profitable wool trade with the Low Countries, has mostly disappeared.
The surname Boleyn was spelled in several ways, there being no uniformity in spelling in former times, when it was given as Boleyn, Boleyne, Bolleyne, Bollegne, Boleigne, Bolen, Bullen, Boulen, Boullant, or Boullan, the French form. The bulls' heads on the family coat of arms are a pun on the name. In adult life Anne Boleyn used the modern form adopted in this text. Unfortunately, we don't know how Mary Boleyn spelt her surname, as only two letters of hers survive, both signed with her married name.
The Boleyn family had once been tenant farmers, but the source of their wealth and standing was trade. Thomas's grandson, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, made his fortune in the City of London as a member and then Master of the Worshipful Company of Mercers (1454); he was Sheriff of London from 1446â47; MP for London in 1449; and an alderman of the City of London from 1452 (an office he held for eleven years). In 1457 he was elected Lord Mayor.
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By then he had made his fortune; his wealth had enabled him to marry into the nobility, his wife being Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Thomas, Lord Hoo and Hastings, and she brought him great estates. Stow records that Sir Geoffrey “gave liberally to the prisons, hospitals and lazar houses, besides a thousand pounds to poor householders in London, and two hundred pounds to [those] in Norfolk.” He was knighted by Henry VI before 1461.
In 1452 (or 1450), Geoffrey had purchased the manor of Blickling in Norfolk from his friend and patron, Sir John Fastolf.
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The manor had once been the property of the eleventh century Saxon king, Harold Godwineson,
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and the original manor house on the site had been built in the 1390s by Sir Nicholas Dagworth, but it was evidently outdated or in poor repair, becauseâas has recently been discoveredâit was rebuilt as Blickling Hall, “a fair house” of red brick, by Geoffrey Boleyn.
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Geoffrey also built the chapel of St. Thomas in Blickling church, and adorned it with beautiful stained glass incorporating the heraldic arms of himself and his wife, which still survives today; in his will, he asked to be buried there if he departed this life at Blickling. In the event, he died in London.
Ten years later, in 1462, Geoffrey bought the manors of Hever Cobham and Hever Brokays in Kent from William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele,
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as well as thirteenth century Hever Castle from Sir Thomas Cobham. Sir Geoffrey now moved in the same social circles as the prosperous Paston family (Norfolk neighbors who knew the Boleyns well, and whose surviving letters tell us so much about fifteenth century life), the Norfolk gentry, and even the exalted Howards, who were descended from King Edward I, and at the head of whose house was John Howard, first Duke of Norfolk; the friendship between the Boleyns and the Howards, which would later be cemented by marriage, dated from at least 1469.
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When he died in 1463,
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Geoffrey was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry by the Guildhall in London. His heir, Thomas Boleyn of Salle, was buried there beside him in 1471,
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when the family wealth and estates passed to Geoffrey's second son, William Boleyn, Mary's grandfather, who had been born around 1451; he was “aged 36 or more” in the inquisition postmortem on his cousin, Thomas Hoo, taken in October 1487.
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