Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (46 page)

BOOK: Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII
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BL Cotton MS
Vitellius B XII
, f.123v – deposition of Nicholas West, Bishop of Ely, relating to Katherine’s marriage with Henry. He recalled a disagreement between Warham and Fox about the legality of the marriage.
68
Lambeth Palace MS CM 51/115. The parchment is sadly torn at its right-hand edge and has thirteen holes.
69
TNA SP 1/1/43 – Ferdinand of Spain to Katherine, Princess of Wales, 18 May 1509.
70
Starkey,
Henry – Virtuous Prince
, p.281. Thomas had previously been in the service of Prince Arthur, also as Groom of the Privy Chamber. He was clearly a new favourite of Henry’s; on 17 May he was appointed Keeper of Ockeley Park, Shropshire, and the same day appointed ‘troner and pieser’ in the port of London. This official oversaw the weighing of produce – rather like a modern-day trading standards inspector (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.29). The following year, he was made Keeper of Netherwood Park, Herefordshire (ibid., p.276).
71
Mattingly, p.97; Antonia Fraser, p.49.
72
TNA SP 1/1/45 – formal words pronounced at wedding of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon.
73
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 6, p.169;
CSP Spain
, Supplement to vols. 1 and 2, p.450.
74
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.20.
75
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., pp.48 – 50.
76
BL Cotton MS
Tiberius E VIII
, f.100v.
77
Hayward, p.43.
78
Ibid., p.44.
79
Jones & Underwood, p.236.
80
Thomas & Thornley, pp.339 – 40.
81
My italics.
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.54.
82
Hall, p.508.
83
Ibid.
84
The London chronicler described her crown as a ‘circlet of silk, gold and pearl about her head’ (Thomas & Thornley, p.340).
85
Hall, p.508.
86
Thomas & Thornley, p.340.
87
Neville Williams,
Henry VIII and his Court
, p.15.
88
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.42.
89
Ibid., p.38.
90
The Coronation Chair was made on the orders of Edward I in 1300 – 1 to hold the captured Stone of Scone (on which Scottish kings were crowned) beneath its seat.
The Stone was removed to Scotland in 1996. For coronations, the Chair is placed in the sacrarium, facing the abbey’s high altar.
91
‘Rutland Papers’, pp.14 – 15. This relates to the coronation of Henry VII, but the ritual of that day was closely followed for the crowning of his son, doubtless also in the wording of the oath.
92
BL Harley MS 6,079, f.21v.
93
BL Cotton MS
Tiberius D VIII
, f.89.
94
A vassal owing feudal allegiance and service to their sovereign lord.
95
BL Add. MS 6,113, f.72.
96
Hayward, p.44. During the coronation, she donned two sets of crimson and purple robes.
97
Antonia Fraser, p.50.
98
Miller, p.93.
99
Thomas & Thornley, pp.341 – 3.
100
Cheyneygates was originally part of the abbot’s house of the Benedictine monastery. During Edward IV’s reign, his queen Elizabeth Woodville probably lived at Cheyneygates when she sought sanctuary at Westminster. Later in Henry VIII’s reign, Sir Thomas More was detained there before his removal to the Tower. The rooms were badly damaged by German bombing in 1941 but have since been rebuilt.
101
BL Add. MS 12,060, f.23v.
102
H. F. Pearce, ‘The Death of Lady Margaret’ in Rackham, pp.15 – 20.
103
BL Add. MS 12,060, f.23v and Jones & Underwood, p.237.
104
Pole, vol. 4, pp.94 – 5. Pole said Henry boasted that ‘no other prince had in his kingdom a bishop so endowed with learning and virtue’ as John Fisher. The bishop himself said he was more bound to the king than others because Henry was born in his diocese and he had been confessor to his grandmother. Henry VIII still had Fisher beheaded for treason on Tower Hill on 22 June 1535.
105
‘Fisher: Works’, pp.291, 301.
CHAPTER 6: A GOLDEN WORLD
1
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.27.
2
Addressed to the ‘most serene and most mighty, Lord Ferdinand, by the grace of God, King of Aragon, Sicily and Jerusalem, our most beloved Father’ (
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.20). Henry sent a similar account of the coronation to Cardinal Sixtus della Rovere that July, describing the ‘incredible demonstrations of joy and enthusiasm’ over the event (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.56).
3
BL Egerton MS 616, f.43. Endorsed: ‘pro Johanne Style’ – to be delivered by the English ambassador to Ferdinand.
4
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.118.
5
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.20. Henry begged the king to assist in obtaining a legacy left to Mountjoy’s wife by Queen Isabella: ‘She has sent a power of attorney to some of her relatives.’
6
BL Egerton MS 616, f.45. A jennet is a small Spanish horse, which was ridden by
light cavalrymen. Ferdinand was quick to respond: the English envoy John Stile reported in early September that ‘the king your good father has provided a certain goodly horse of this country’s jennets that he will send to be presented unto your highness’ (BL Cotton MS
Vespasian C l
, f.58v). The jennet and the other horses were sent by land (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.89).
7
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, pp.21 – 2.
8
Ferdinand to Katherine, Queen of England; Mansilla, 18 November 1509 (
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, pp.25 – 6.
9
Henry to Ferdinand; Greenwich Palace, 1 November 1509 (
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.23).
10
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,473. When Maria married Lord Willoughby, Master of the Royal Hart Hounds, in June 1516, Katherine allowed her to use Greenwich Palace for the ceremony (Neville Williams,
Henry VIII and His Court
, p.32).
11
Vives (1493 – 1540) wrote a commentary on Augustine’s
De Civitate Dei
(‘The City of God’) published in 1522, dedicated to Henry VIII.
12
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.24.
13
ibid., p.30.
14
Roper, p.11.
15
Allen & Allen, ‘
Opus Epistolarum
’, epistle 215;
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.27. Warham gave Erasmus a further £5.
16
Singer, p.79.
17
R. W. Chambers, p.169.
18
BL Cotton MS
Titus D IV
– quarto volume of 138 ff. The poems were published in print in 1518, as an addendum to the Froben edition of More’s
Utopia
; f.12v has an illustration with the Tudor rose, Katherine’s badge of the pomegranate and the Beaufort portcullis.
19
TNA E 36/228, f.7.
20
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 1st ed., p.30. It was increased by a further £20 a year from the treasury in July 1515. Luke was one of those gentry who were ordered to create an inventory of the disgraced Empson’s possessions in Northamptonshire.
21
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,444.
22
A tun of wine held 210 British gallons, or 954·68 litres. Was she a hard drinker or just a generous hostess to her guests?
23
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., pp.64 and 309.
24
Ibid., p.96.
25
Ibid., p.76.
26
Ibid., p.319.
27
Ibid., p.305.
28
Ibid., p.77; Greenwich, 25 July 1509. The following day Henry gave permission for the executors to found a perpetual chantry for one chaplain within the Collegiate Church of Wimborne, Dorset.
29
TNA SP 1/1/100. These estimates were drawn up during the last two years of Henry VII’s reign, but were endorsed by his son in December 1509. They were considerably less than the eventual cost of the work by Torrigiano.
30
Higgins, p.141. See also: R. F. Scott, ‘On the Contracts for the Tomb of the Lady Margaret Beaufort …’,
Archæologia
, vol. 66 (1915), pp.365 – 76.
31
Darcy (1467 – 1537) was later executed on 30 June 1537 for his role in the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion in the North of England, despite a pardon and his plea that he had ‘never fainted or feigned’ in his service, at home or overseas, to the king or his father in more than fifty years.
32
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 1st ed., p.29.
33
This is a piece of sixteenth-century black propaganda. Rhys ap Thomas (1448 – 1525) was a staunch supporter of Henry VII and is traditionally supposed to have killed Richard III at the end of the Battle of Bosworth. After his death, his tomb was moved from the Augustinian priory at Carmarthen at the Dissolution of the Monasteries to St Peter’s Church, Carmarthen, where it remains. His grandson, Rhys ap Gruffudd (b.1509), was beheaded by Henry VIII for treason on 4 December 1531.
34
Allen & Allen,
Letters of Richard Fox
, pp.43 – 4.
35
BL Cotton MS
Vespasian C XIV
, f.106.
36
Sir William Bulmer was rebuked in 1519 for wearing the livery of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, while he was in the king’s service, probably during the king’s visit to Buckingham’s seat at Penshurst, Kent, in August that year (Thiselton, p.12).
37
BL Cotton MS
Titus A XIII
, f.186. The force was reconstituted by Thomas Cromwell in December 1538 (BL Harley MS 6,807, f.25) under Sir Anthony Browne, later Master of the King’s Horse. These ‘Gentlemen Pensioners’ became the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms on 17 March 1834 and their forty members still accompany the sovereign on state occasions. Their captain is now a political appointment and is normally the government Chief Whip in the House of Lords (see Hutchinson,
Thomas Cromwell
, p.226).
38
CSP Venice
, vol. 1, p.5;
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.75.
39
Neville (1471 – 1538), brother of George, Third Baron Abergavenny, was a close friend to both Henry and Katherine (Mattingly, p.160) and was an accomplished ballad singer. He occupied many positions at Henry VIII’s court – Esquire of the Body, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Master of the Hounds and Standard Bearer – but was beheaded for treason on 8 December 1538. Neville’s resemblance in looks created the unfounded rumour that he was a bastard son of Henry VII. During a masque at one of his banquets, Wolsey mistook Neville for the king (R. Sylvester, ‘Cardinal Wolsey’, pp.27 – 8). Many years later, Elizabeth I met Neville’s son Henry during a progress in Berkshire and greeted him jocularly with the words: ‘I am glad to see thee, brother Henry’ (Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII
, p.18, fn.).
40
Hall, p.513.
41
Kendal was a coarse woollen cloth, normally dyed green.
42
A buckler was a small round shield with a boss on the front and a handle behind.
43
Hall, p.513.
44
BL Add. MS 5,758, f.8;
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.156.
45
BL Add. MS 21,481; Stowe MS 146, f.3.
46
1 Henry VIII, cap.7.
47
1 Henry VIII, cap.11.
48
1 Henry VIII, cap.13.
49
1 Henry VIII, cap.14.
50
1 Henry VIII, cap.12. See Elton, ‘A Restatement’, pp.7 – 10.
51
Hall, p.513.
52
An alb was an ecclesiastical vestment, a long-sleeved linen tunic worn over a cassock but beneath a chasuble or cope by a priest or bishop.
53
A tippet was a short shoulder cape.
54
Hall, pp.513 – 14.
55
Among the knights chosen the next day was Sir Henry Marney.
56
Singer, p.79. The grounds of the house – an orchard and twelve separate pleasure gardens – stretched down to the Thames. The site is occupied today by Salisbury Square and Dorset Street.
57
In February, Sir Andrew Windsor, Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, was authorised to deliver ‘for the use of our nursery, God willing’ crimson cloth of gold to cover the baby’s cradle, and to provide ‘pillows, sheets, [counter]panes, swaddling bands, including beds for mistress nurse and the two rockers’ and hangings for the chamber of the Lady Mistress of the Nursery – probably Elizabeth Denton again, considering her recent preferments (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.178). The following month, payment was made for red say (a fine twill cloth) to cover the steps of a font, and six ells (seven and a half yards or 6.86 m) of linen for ‘aprons and napkins for four gentlemen and the sergeant of our vestry, according to the old use and custom’ of a christening (
LP Henry VIII
, ibid., p.184).
58
In mid-February, the Venetian ambassador reported Henry’s thanks for the Signory’s congratulations on the queen’s pregnancy (
LP Henry VIII
, ibid., p.167).
59
Also known as St Peter of Verona (1206 – 52), a thirteenth-century preacher in Lombardy, Italy. He was canonised by Pope Innocent IV 337 days after his martyrdom, the quickest recorded progression to sainthood. Before the new calendar of saints was introduced in the twentieth century, his feast day was 29 April, which may suggest that this was the date that Katherine was in labour.
60
She was listed as a member of Katherine’s household in 1500 (see
CSP Spain
, vol. 1, p.246) and wanted to become a nun of the Franciscan Order.
61
The nunnery, founded in 1293, had become impoverished. In 1515, twenty-seven of the nuns died from plague (‘Greyfriars Chronicle’, p.29), probably leaving only eight alive, and shortly afterwards the nunnery was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt in the 1520s but dissolved less than twenty years later.
62
Queen Katherine to Ferdinand; Greenwich Palace, 27 May 1510 (
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.38;
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.285).
63
Caroz to Ferdinand; London, 29 May 1510 (
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.44).
64
CSP Spain
, Supplement to vols. 1 and 2, pp.42 – 4.
65
Ibid.
66
Loades, p.22.
67
They were married in December 1509. Henry gave an offering of 6s 8d at the wedding. It was Anne’s second marriage; she had wed Sir Walter Herbert in March 1503 but he died in September 1507 and there were no children.
68
Emphasis mine. Caroz’s words have a flavour almost of the hunting field.
69
His creation as Earl of Wiltshire is described in BL Harley MS 6,074, f.54.
70
Anne and George Hastings clearly kissed and made up: they went on to have eight children.
71
Hart, p.25.
72
CSP Spain
, Supplement to vols. 1 and 2, pp.42 – 4. As we have seen, the confessor and Caroz did not get on. In December 1514, the confessor was urging Katherine to ‘forget Spain and everything Spanish in order to gain the love of the King of England and of the people’, which would not have endeared him to a Spanish ambassador (
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.248; Caroz to Friar Juan de Eztuniga, Provincial of Aragon).

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