The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracy, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant (38 page)

the large leaden coffin of King Henry VIII lies in the centre … in a condition of great dilapidation.

The king’s skull, with its very broad frontal, his thigh bones, ribs and other portions of the skeleton are exposed to view as the lead has been extensively ripped open, apparently, to judge by the fractured edges, owing to the action of internal forces outward.
⁶⁴

It seems chemically highly unlikely that after more than three centuries, in the words of one later report, Henry’s coffin had been ‘split open by the fumes of decomposition’,
⁶⁵
particularly as the king’s bowels had been removed during the embalming process. And dropping Charles’ coffin into the vault probably did not cause the buckling and breaches, as it had been laid on trestles. Perhaps the leaden coffin was damaged when its own supporting trestle collapsed. Or maybe this damage confirms the grisly tradition of it breaking open at Syon in fulfilment of the monk’s fateful prophecy. Alternatively, did the coffin’s fall there cause a fatal weakness in its lead casing?

Today a brass-letter inscription marks the black marble slab, measuring 42 in. by 76 in., that covers the vault. Such an epitaph had been requested by the Prince Regent on 21 March 1818 and the Dean and Chapter ‘dispensed with the former order of Chapter dated November 4 1789’ banning new inscriptions and agreed to the proposal.
⁶⁶
Strangely, however, the grave remained unmarked until 1837. It reads, simply and starkly:

Many visitors to the chapel today casually walk over the slab, unaware of the vault’s regal contents as they stand mesmerised by the sight of the wonderful carved woodwork of the stalls behind them and the colourful banners and heraldic plates of the Garter Knights.

Truly, how are the mighty fallen!

For all his power and might, for all his pride and vanity, for all his grandiose plans, Henry is now commemorated only by the plain, bare essentials – his name and date of death – in humble brass letters set into a slab in the pavement of the choir, walked over heedlessly by thousands of tourists every year.

Henry’s vainglorious ambitions for his tomb have been thwarted by history. In the end, it all seems rather sad.

1
LP Spanish, Edward VI, Vol. IX, p.36.

2
The title was defined by statute, 35 Henry VIII cap.3, 1543. See C. H. Williams, pp.474–5.

3
The time of death is provided by a letter of 31 January 1547 written to his wife by Henry Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, quoted in Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.i, p.118, from BL Cotton MS Titus B ii 25, fol.51.

4
Extrapolated from reports of executions from available monthly county assizes throughout the reign and those who were killed for treason or heresy, or who died during insurrection and other civil disturbances. The population of England and Wales in 1547 was 2.7 million. The chronicler John Stow believed that the total was 72,000 and has been accused of hopeless exaggeration. See also: BL Add. MS 27,402, fol.47 – ‘A list of such were executed in Henry VIII’s time’ – for some state executions.

5
The average male life expectancy during this period was around forty years.

6
He apparently liked the liquor ‘marvellously well’. Chamberlin, p.379.

7
Ellis, ‘Eminent Men’, p.14. Letter from Ascham in Brussels to Sir William Cecil, 23 March 1553, in which he reported Denny’s comment, made several years before.

8
Jordan, p.4. Tytler, Vol. I, pp.15–16.

9
NA SP 10/1/1.

10
LP Spanish, Edward VI, Vol. IX, p.4. Van der Delft added: ‘I should like to have conveyed this intelligence to your Majesty before this, but that all the roads have been and still are, closed; so that in order to send the present letter a passport has been necessary.’ The ports were reopened by order of the Privy Council on 2 February. (APC, n. s., Vol. II, 1547–50, p.11.)

11
‘
Ordo de exeguiis regalibus
’ in Legg, Vol. II, pp.734–5.

12
There has always been some debate as to whether both of the king’s legs were afflicted by fistulas. Henry mentions ‘a humour … fallen unto our
legs
’ in a letter to the Duke of Norfolk in 1537. See LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.27.

13
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.289.

14
Bayles, p.795.

15
Dale, p.30.

16
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.290. For a more detailed description, see Litten, pp.39–40.

17
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.i, p.17.

18
The mural, by Hans Holbein the Younger, is recorded as still being in the presence chamber in 1586. A smaller copy by Remigius van Leemput of 1667 is now in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace. The original was lost when the palace was burnt in January 1698 after a maid left her washing to dry before an open fire.

1
LP, Vol. XVIII, pt.i, p.490.

2
Neville Williams, p.171. The following verses, translated from the Latin, were inscribed on her tomb, now lost:

Here a Phoenix Lieth, whose death

To another Phoenix gave breath.

It is to be lamented much

The world at once ne’er knew two such.

See Tighe and Davis, Vol. I, p.509.

3
LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.449.

4
She married him in May 1538.

5
His comment to the French ambassador Castillon at the end of December 1537.

6
Kaulek, pp.48 and 51–3.

7
LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii, p.111.

8
LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii pp.110–11.

9
Kaulek, pp.80–1, and LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii, p.28.

10
LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii, p.28.

11
Letter from John Hutton, the English ambassador in Brussels, to Cromwell, 9 December 1537. See SP, Vol. VIII, p.67.

12
LP, Vol. III, pt.ii, p.1188.

13
SP, Vol. VIII, p.146.

14
These words were reported in Wriothesley’s letter to the king, so high levels of sycophancy should be expected.

15
Neville Williams, p.172.

16
LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.99.

17
Strickland, Vol. III, p.170.

18
Henry was impressed by the drummers and trumpeters – probably the only thing connected with Anne of Cleves that did impress him.

19
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.454.

20
As Henry was called by the Protestant reformer Philip Melanchthon.

21
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.455.

22
Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.457.

23
Later, the Greek traveller Nicander Nucius described her as ‘masculine’. See Revd J. A. Cramer (ed.),
The Second Book of Travels
, Camden Society, London, 1841, p.48.

24
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.457.

25
Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.455. Sun-tanned complexions were far from fashionable for women in the Tudor period.

26
Fraser, p.309.

27
Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxv.

28
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.452. The promise was never fulfilled. Such papers that were sent ‘not being authentic’ put the issue of the pre-contract ‘in much more doubt’.

29
Hall, p.836.

30
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.458.

31
Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxvi.

32
Goldsmid and Goldsmid, p.8.

33
Goldsmid and Goldsmid, p.10.

34
Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxvi.

35
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.458.

36
Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.459.

37
Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.461.

38
Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.461. Butts’ deposition to the commission is in Cecil Papers 1/22 at Hatfield House. Henry’s own account is in Cecil Papers 1/23.

39
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.462.

40
Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.460.

41
‘Spanish Chronicle’, pp.98–9.

42
Robinson, p.32.

43
Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxvii.

44
Questions to be asked of Cromwell relating to the marriage are laid out in BL Cotton MS Otho C x, fols.241 and 246. The establishment of the commission inquiring into the marriage is at fol.236.

45
Burnet, Vol. I, pt.i, p.206.

46
Burnet, Vol. I, pt.i p.203. LP, Vol. XV, p.364.

47
LP, Vol. XV, p.377.

48
Richard Rugeley and David Phinsent of the king’s Department of Wardrobe of Beds and Nicholas Bristowe, its clerk, were paid for stripping Cromwell’s ‘stuff’ from his house in June 1540. Their charges were for conveying the loot ‘to the king’s wardrobe, [then] to the Tower of London, to Hampton Court, eleven miles with one cart, with two carts, four miles and two carts to the Tower and for bed ropes to the beds, and for all the charges by the space of six days at twenty pence a day each, on the vice chamberlain’s bill, 35s 5d’. See LP, Vol. XVI, p.187.

49
32 Henry VIII cap.62.

50
Burnet, Vol. I, pt.i, p.204.

51
The commissioners’ report, signifying her full assent to the terms and conditions, is in BL Cotton MS Otho C x, fol.247.

52
SP, Vol. VIII, p.395.

53
BL Cotton MS Otho C x, fol.240.

54
Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, p.121.

55
LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.305.

56
Nichols, ‘Narratives’, p.259.

57
Henry chose a rose for her arms. See Strickland, Vol. III, p.122, note 2.

58
LP Spanish, Vol. VI, p.37.

59
His father destroyed the Scots army with the power of English artillery at Flodden Field in September 1513, killing the Scottish king, James IV, and many of his nobility. As a result, the title of Duke of Norfolk was restored to him in 1514 after losing it by attainder early in Henry VII’s reign.

60
Cited by Robinson, p.25.

61
Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, p.121.

62
A broadsheet issued after Cromwell’s death, now in the Society of Antiquaries of London Library (no.4, although a later copy), perhaps illustrates some of the crude propaganda of the time. The sheet carries sixteen verses of three lines each plus a refrain, beginning (in the original spelling):

Both man and child is glad to hear tell

Of that false Traytour Thomas Cromwell

Now that he is set to learne to spell

Sing trolle on away.

and ending

God save King Henry with all his power

And Prince Edward that goodly flower

With all his lordes of great honour

Sing trolle on away, Sing trolle on away

Here and how, rombelowe, trolle on away.

See Robert Lemon,
Catalogue of Printed Broadsheets in Possession of Society of Antiquaries of London
, London, 1866, and also LP, Vol. XVI, p.541. In his speech on the scaffold, Cromwell sought to deny the accusations of heresy against him. He said that he died in ‘the Catholic faith, not doubting any article of my faith, no, nor doubting in any sacrament of the Church’. Many had slandered him ‘and reported that I have been a bearer of such as have maintained evil opinions, which is untrue but I confess that like God by his Holy Spirit, so the devil is ready to seduce us and I have been seduced’. See Hall, p.839; Scarisbrook, pp.378–80.

63
He was also accused of employing magicians to predict the date of Henry’s death and of employing a chaplain who sympathised with the Pilgrimage of Grace. See Ridley,
Henry VIII
, p.342, and Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vol. V, pp.402–3. Hungerford was said to be ‘very unquiet in his mind and rather in a frenzy’ at his execution. Who can blame him? The account may be more suggestive of his insanity. See Hall, p.840.

64
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.282. The reference to ‘a staff’ means an Act of Attainder.

65
Cited by Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, p.123.

66
LP, Vol. XVI, p.148.

67
Kaulek, pp.236–7. This was not unusual practice by a king terrified by the plague. In 1532, during a visit to Calais, Henry similarly ordered that all plague victims should be dragged out of their houses, taken to a field outside the town and left to die. See Ridley,
The Tudor Age
, p.195.

68
LP, Vol. XVI, p.450.

69
Marble Arch in London, on the edge of Hyde Park, is the site of Tyburn.

70
Dacre was even more cruelly treated by hopes of a last-minute reprieve. As he left the Tower on foot, escorted by the two sheriffs of London, on his way to Tyburn, ‘Mr Heyre, controller of the Lord Chancellor’s [Lord Audley of Walden] house came and commanded, in the king’s name, to stay the execution till two of the clock, which caused the people to hope that the king would pardon him’ (Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.126). The prisoners waited hopelessly until three o’clock and then were taken to the gallows where they were ‘strangled as common murderers’ (Hall, p.842). Dacre was buried in St Sepulchre’s Church, near Newgate.