Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (41 page)

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Authors: Robert Hutchinson

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CHAPTER 1 : IN MY BROTHER’S SHADOW
1
Thomas & Thornley, p.254. A ‘courser’ was a large war horse.
2
Leland, vol. 4, pp.179 – 83.
3
See ‘Ryalle Book’, pp.304 – 6 and 333 – 8.
4
A coarse twill of linen and cotton.
5
Leland, vol. 4, pp.179 – 80.
6
BL Royal MS 2A. XVIII, f.30v. Henry’s birth is recorded, using the Roman calendar under ‘
IV Kalendar Julii
’. Lady Margaret recorded the precise hour of the birth of both Arthur and his sister Margaret – but not that of Henry. In the manuscript of the
Great Chronicle of London
, Henry’s birth was inserted some time after the event and was recorded under the wrong year. See Starkey,
Henry – Virtuous Prince
, p.373. Lady Margaret’s imprecision was normal in the late fifteenth century. John More, the lawyer father of Thomas More, noted the date of his son’s birth on a page in his copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Historia Regnum Britanniæ
as 1477, amended it to 1478 and then changed it back. It was probably 7 February 1478 (see Ackroyd, p.4).
7
Construction of the church began in 1482, and three years later Henry VII founded the convent of Observant Friars there with a warden and twelve brethren from this reformed Franciscan Order (see William Page (ed.),
Victoria History of Kent
, vol. 2, London, 1926, p.194). Images in painted glass of saints and of Henry VII, Lady Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York were inserted in its windows (see BL Egerton MS 2,341).
8
In January 1485, Richard III stopped Fox’s appointment to the vicarage of Stepney, north of London, because he was associated with the ‘great rebel, Henry ap Tudor’. Thirty-eight years later, Fox recalled his baptism of Henry (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 4, p.2,588).
9
Starkey,
Henry – Virtuous Prince
, pp.11 – 12 and Doran, p.19.
10
TNA E 404/81/1 – 31 December 1491.
11
The Launcelyn arms were
Gules, a fleur-de-lis argent
. Her grandfather John was Justice of the Peace for Bedfordshire in 1423 (see William Page (ed.),
Victoria History of Bedfordshire
, vol. 3, London, 1912, p.238).
12
Charles Cooper, p.35.
13
Frideswide may have been one of the five daughters of George Puttenham of Penn, Buckinghamshire, knighted in 1501.
14
The Tudors were always generous to their nursery staff. Katherine Gibbs, former wet nurse to Prince Arthur, was granted an annuity of £20 ‘from Christmas last’ on 28 April 1490 (
CPR Henry VII
, vol. 1, p.306). Shortly after her royal duties ended, Anne, widow of Geoffrey Oxenbridge, was granted the office of Bailiff of the town of Winchelsea, subject to a rent of £20 to the king, ‘beyond the £10 a year that the king gave the said Anne for her service, to hold so long as she shall continue the said payment’ (
CPR Henry VII
, vol. 2, p.11). On 5 March 1504 she and her second husband, Walter Luke, were granted an annuity of 100 shillings for life, paid out of the customs of Winchelsea ‘of boats fishing on the sea called “snares” [a type of fishing line] anchorage and … other small customs of woods, herring, barley, ale, salt, peas, cheese, timber and feather beds’ (ibid., p.345). Luke was also commissioned in July 1505 along with four others to investigate land ownership in Bedfordshire (ibid., p.422). He was later knighted and appointed a Justice of the Court of King’s Bench. Anne died on 9 September 1538 and Luke six years later. The couple have a Purbeck marble tomb, with brass plates depicting them both kneeling at prayer desks, in the chancel of All Saints Church, Cople. The inscription proudly declares that Anne was ‘nurse unto his … majesty’. The brass is illustrated in William Lack, H. Martin Stuchfield and Philip Whittemore’s
Monumental Brasses of Bedfordshire
, London, 1992, p.25.
15
The use of swaddling or ‘swathing’ bands went out of fashion in the seventeenth century, but apparently is now reviving, as some believe that restricting a baby’s movement lowers the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (see Alison Sim,
The Tudor Housewife
, Quebec, 1998, p.26). There are a number of monuments to children who died very soon after their birth depicting them in their swaddling bands, such as at Rougham, Norfolk, 1510; Stoke d’Abernon, Surrey, 1516; Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire,
c
.1520; and Cranbrook, Kent, of the same date. Anne Asteley (d.1512), at Blicking, Norfolk, holds two children in swaddling bands, one in each arm – a double tragedy. These are known as ‘chrisom’ monuments after the name of the child’s white baptism robe which was utilised as a shroud if he or she died within a month of birth.
16
‘Ryalle Book’, p.337; Leland, vol. 4, p.302.
17
Leland, vol. 4, pp.301 – 2.
18
Starkey,
Henry – Virtuous Prince
, p.63.
19
TNA E 404/81/3 – 17 September 1493.
20
She was the eldest daughter of John Jermingham and his wife Agnes (daughter of Sir John Darell), of Somerleyton, near Lowestoft, Suffolk. The couple had seven children, including three other daughters who all became nuns and were alive in 1473. Elizabeth married a John Denton and in 1517 became governess to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine of Aragon. She died a year later.
21
See Flügel,
Men and Their Motives
, p.277 and ‘On the Character …’, pp.124ff. Two of
Henry’s wives had been married or declared for close relatives – his first wife Katherine of Aragon had previously married his brother Arthur, and his last, Katherine Parr, planned to marry his brother-in-law, Thomas Seymour. See Hutchinson,
Last Days
, p.59.
22
Bentley, p.95.
23
On 29 May 1494, the king paid five shillings for ‘a hat for my lord Harry’; Bentley, p.98.
24
The portrait, inscribed ‘le Roy henry d’angleterre’ beneath the sketch, is in Bibliothèque de Méjanes MS 442 Res MS 20. There are doubts about its authenticity, particularly regarding the dress and style of hat, which look more appropriate to the fashion of
c
.1515 – 25. See Doran, p.17 and Hayward, p.89.
25
Tudor kitchen staff worked either naked or wore clothes smothered in grease. See Peter Brears, ‘Food and Drink at Henry’s Court’, in Rimer et al., p.85.
26
Edward IV had six illegitimate children by at least three mistresses, in addition to the ten legitimate offspring, of which only seven survived him.
27
Warbeck’s later confession said he was the son of John Osbek, Comptroller of Tournai. See S. J. Gunn, ‘Perkin Warbeck’,
ODNB
, vol. 57, pp.246 – 8.
28
Her crown, made in 1461, was adorned with enamelled white roses for the House of York set between pearls. It remains the only surviving medieval royal English crown and is held in the treasury of Aachen Cathedral in Germany. The remainder of the medieval English crown jewels were broken up after the seventeenth-century English Civil War.
29
The purple-red colour of mulberry, from the Old French
morée.
30
Wroe, p.141.
31
Frederick III died at Linz aged 77 during a botched attempt to amputate his left leg.
32
Wroe, pp.134 – 6.
33
Bernard André,
De Vita atque gestis Henrici Septimi Historia
, in ‘Memorials’, pp.49 – 52.
34
Henry wrote to Sir George Talbot, Fourth Earl of Shrewsbury, giving news of ‘the feigned lad called Perkin Warbeck [who was] born at Tournai in Picardy’. See Ellis, ‘Original Letters’, 1st ser., vol. 1, p.20
.
35
Bacon, pp.134 – 5. Stanley had earlier been disappointed by Henry VII in his claim to the Earldom of Chester: his ‘suit did not only end in denial but in a distaste’ according to Bacon. Prince Arthur was created Earl of Chester on 30 November 1489.
36
CPR Henry VII
, vol. 1, pp.407 and 438 – 9. Arthur was empowered to ‘array men-at-arms, archers and other fensible [militia] men’ in these counties ‘for the defence of his person and the resistance of ill-doers … and for putting the laws in execution’.
37
The town of Droitwich, Worcestershire, bought bows and arrows to arm newly recruited soldiers ‘sent when my lord prince went into Wales’ (Worcestershire Record Office, 261.4/BA1006/31b/319).
38
J. B. Smith, ‘Crown and Community in the Principality of North Wales in the Reign of Henry Tudor’,
Welsh History Review
, vol. 3 (1966), pp.163 – 71.
39
CPR Henry VII
, vol. 1, p.423.
40
Sir Edward Poynings succeeded Henry as Lord Warden in 1509. Later holders included the Duke of Wellington (1829 – 52), Sir Winston Churchill (1941 – 65) and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1978 – 2002). The post is currently held by Admiral the Lord Boyce, former Chief of the Naval Staff and later Chief of the Defence Staff, who was appointed in July 2004. The ports were required to supply fifty-seven ships and their crews for fifteen days’ service each year, either as warships or royal transports.
41
Poynings (1459 – 1521), soldier-administrator, led an expedition to subdue the Irish and impose English-style justice upon them. An Act (10 Henry VII cap. 9), which came to be known as Poynings’ Law, ensured that no parliament could be held in Ireland without the king’s prior consent. Only bills earlier approved by the Privy Council in London could be considered. His illegitimate son Thomas was also a loyal Tudor courtier.
42
LP Henry VII
, vol. 2, p.374.
43
TNA E 404/81/4; BL Cotton MS Julius B. XII, ff.91 – 110. Failure to attend incurred a fine.
44
With some prurience, one suspects use was made of the disposable earthenware urinals of the type we know were employed by members of Henry VIII’s Privy Council later in the sixteenth century so that their calls of nature did not interrupt proceedings. They were supplied at three pence each, according to his apothecary’s accounts. See Hutchinson,
Last Days
, p.207.
45
‘Dinner’ in the Tudor period was eaten around ten o’clock in the morning.
46
BL Cotton MS Julius B. XII, ff.91 – 110.
47
Thomas Grey, Lord Harrington, was the son and heir of Thomas Grey, First Marquis of Dorset, a stepson of Edward IV. Dorset was imprisoned during the Lambert Simnel uprising in 1487 and was required to make his heir a ward of Henry VII, together with proving guarantees of his loyalty to the Tudor crown. See T. B. Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English Nobility’ in
The Tudor Nobility
, G. W. Bernard (ed.), Manchester, 1992, pp.49 – 110.
48
Jocelyn Perkins,
Most Honourable Order of the Bath
, 2nd ed., London, 1920, p.7.
49
The two-storey chapel was completed in 1348 but was destroyed in the great fire of 1834. The lower storey, which was reserved for use by members of the royal household, survives as the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft. After 1547, in the reign of Henry VIII’s son Edward VI, the chapel was deconsecrated and became the debating chamber of the House of Commons, with the Speaker’s chair positioned on the old altar steps.
50
On 31 October 1494, Northumberland received a payment of £2 6s 8d for the robes of a Knight of the Bath, worn during the ceremony. See Bentley, p.99.
51
The last time this ritual was employed was during Charles II’s coronation in April 1661. It is perhaps somewhat apposite that the Order’s chapel is now the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey. Its Grand Master is Charles, Prince of Wales, who was appointed in May 1975 by Queen Elizabeth II.
52
Westminster Hall was completed in 1097 and at the time was the largest hall in England, if not in Europe. It measures 250 feet in length and 67 feet in width
(73 m by 20 m) and has a fourteenth-century raftered roof.

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