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nial occasions, but seemed oddly reticent and retiring. "He is so subjugated," Fuensalida wrote, "that he doesn't speak a word except in response to what the king asks him."
What kept Henry silent was fear of his father's uncontrollable temper. The king's frequent outbursts of anger were the talk of his court. Fuensalida found out from certain women who claimed to "know all his secrets" that King Henry was prone to childish spites and monumental rages, and a recent incident left no doubt of this. The arrival of a letter had triggered his wrath. His servants scattered; he sent for his daughter Mary and "fought with her for no reason." Nearly beside himself by this time, he sent for his son, and fought with him as violently "as if he sought to kill him" before shutting himself away for several hours to let his seizure , pass.^ The king's fits were clearly pathological. They sent him into a trancelike state—"his eyes closed, neither sleeping nor waking"—and they were not the only sign of a disturbed mind. Every night, it was said, the king got up out of bed, dressed himself, and went walking in his sleep.
Evidently King Henry's good relations with his son had gone sour as the boy grew into a towering, muscular youth. According to Reginald Pole, a kinsman of the prince who was in a good position to know, Henry VII disliked his son intensely, "having no affection or fancy unto him.'"*
In a sense the physical restrictions imposed on the prince were no more than a logical extension of his strict upbringing. Great care had always been taken to guard him from harmful influences of all kinds, to ensure 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." There were more pressing reasons for keeping him isolated. One was the sweating sickness. A lurking danger every spring and summer, in 1508 the sweat became an epidemic. It was a disease of the lungs accompanied by influenza, and it struck its victims without warning. They broke out in a heavy sweat; then, stinking horribly, they turned red all over and developed a high fever. In the last stage an infected rash appeared, and death soon followed. Only a few hours elapsed from the onset of the disease to the moment of death, and many of those who staggered through the London streets clutching their heads were dead soon after they reached their doorsteps.
The sweat had first appeared at the start of Henry VII's reign, and his critics said the disease was God's punishment for his harsh rule. Certainly the affliction did not spare the courtiers or royal servants, and fear of the sweat kept the king moving at intervals of only a few days from one country house to another throughout the summer of 1508. Driven from Wanstead when some of his servants showed the dread symptoms, he went on to Berking; again some of those around him fell ill, and he had to ride in haste to another house. He could not return to Greenwich or Eltham, for the household staff at both places had been infected. So from mid-August until, with the first frost, the danger of infection was past the king stayed in the homes of his nobles, giving strict orders that no one from London was to come near him or his son. Several of Prince Henry's servants were stricken with the sweat, and did not survive. For them,
"flight was not possible," the chronicler wrote, "since death conquered all."^
The other cause of the prince's seclusion was the king's health, and his councilors' preoccupation with the succession. For at least three years Henry VII had been outliving the pessimistic prognostications of his courtiers. "The king's grace is but a weak and sickly man, not likely to be a long-lived man," they had been saying, but until this year of 1508 he had continued to force himself into his litter to appear before his subjects on ceremonial occasions. He took longer and longer to recover from the attacks of illness that came every spring, though, and his capacity for mental effort was declining. His appetite was nearly gone: no matter what the cooks prepared the dishes came back to the kitchen nearly full. Finally his "disease of the joints" made even the shortest rides impossible, and his public appearances ended.^
A change of rulers could not be far off. The prince of Wales' life was the realm's most precious asset, Henry's advisers warned. He should be guarded securely against harm, and if possible married to a foreign princess—possibly Queen Joanna's daughter Eleanor, or the daughter of Duke Albert of Bavaria—so that he could beget a son. Cautious, befuddled, possibly fearful, the king did nothing. One court observer, the Spaniard Miguel Perez de Almazan, was to say later that Henry "was always beset by the fear that his son . . . might during his lifetime obtain too much power by his connexion with the house of Spain."^ If the thought of the Spanish marriage did indeed alarm him, probably any marriage for young Henry would have seemed threatening. The prince remained closeted in his chamber, restive and impatient in his enforced idleness.
Finally in March of 1509 the king sank into his last illness. He took the customary step of proclaiming a general pardon for criminals—thieves and murderers excepted—and in other ways put his affairs in order to end his reign. By March 24 he was reported to be in extremis. Prince Henry was at his bedside in the following weeks, until at the end the king struggled for some twenty-seven hours, "abiding the sharp assaults of death." He still hoped to strike an ultimate bargain with God. "If it pleased God to send him life." he swore aloud, he would be "a changed man." The plea went unheard. Henry VII died in his palace at Richmond on April 21, 1509.** Prince Henry, Henry VIII, was king.
My hart she hath and ever shall To by deth departed we be; Happe what wyll hap, fall what shall, Shall no man know her name for me.
Seven weeks after the old king's death the new king went to the church of the Observant Friars at Greenwich to be married. His bride was Katherine of Aragon.
What prompted him to marry Katherine—the nervous councilors, the existing treaty with Spain, or simply the immediate availability of a girl of suitable rank and acceptable appearance—is unknown. The only explanation Henry gave came in a letter to Margaret of Savoy, daughter of the Hapsburg emperor Maximilian. According to the letter, on his deathbed Henry VII had urged his son to fulfill his old agreement with Ferdinand and take Katherine as his wife; in accordance with these last wishes, Henry obeyed.^ A more plausible account, written by Fuensalida, told how the dying king had assured his son he was free to marry any woman he liked; this had so disheartened the Spaniard that he had already ordered Katherine's belongings packed when news of the planned marriage reached him.^
It would be interesting to know what, if any, influence Margaret Beaufort had on the new king's choice of a bride. Katherine was just the sort of girl she would have found acceptable. Learned, highly intelligent, like the Venerable Margaret herself she had preserved her dignity while enduring years of exasperating torment. Margaret's approval would surely have carried weight with her grandson. So too would the opinion of Archbishop Warham, however, whose view of the proposed marriage was unfavorable. His objection revived the issue of Katherine's previous marriage to Arthur, questioning the validity of the papal bull of dispensation. Katherine's confessor objected too, and the theological point was too well known not to have caused some raised eyebrows at court.
Katherine, who toward the end of Henry VII's reign had begun to believe that she would become queen after all once his son became king, was silent about the theological propriety of her remarriage.^ She renounced her dowry in favor of Henry, receiving from him in return a long list of lands and rents including the London palace of Baynard's Castle, and prepared for her wedding day. She was only too happy to smooth the way for the marriage any way she could. It did not disappoint her that the
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ceremony was to be a modest one, unlike the crowded spectacle of her first marriage. That it was held in the church of her favorite Observant Friars surely pleased Katherine, and as she looked up at the tall, handsome youth who stood beside her before the altar on the appointed day she must have thanked God that all her troubles were ending in joy.
All the bells of the hundred churches of London were set ringing on the day before the coronation. By custom the new king and quee
n rode in splendor from the Tower to Westminster on this day, through the narrow streets choked with shouting onlookers and brightened with tapestries and embroidered hangings and cloth of gold. Girls in white dresses holding branching wax candles stood in front of each of the dozens of goldsmith's shops, and members of each craft and guild stood rank on rank along the procession route, with the lord mayor and aldermen. All the clergy of the city arrayed themselves in their richest copes and had their great jeweled crosses borne before them; when the king and queen passed they swung their silver censers and blessed them.
There was no mistaking the king. Amid all the cloth of gold and silver, the embroidered velvets and the gorgeously caparisoned horses in the royal procession he stood out most resplendent of all. Like his gentlemen and household officers he wore scarlet robes, but his were of the richest velvet and furred with ermine. Sewn into his jacket of raised gold were diamonds, emeralds, pearls and other precious stones which flashed and sparkled in the sunlight, and across his chest he wore a baldric of outsize rubies. Even without his finery, though, Henry would have been unmistakable. His great height, his striking beauty and gracious manner betrayed his identity beyond question. 'The features of his body, his goodly personage, his amiable visage and princely countenance" were known to all his subjects, the chronicler Hall wrote enthusiastically, adding, '*I cannot express the gifts of grace and of nature, that God hath endowed him with all."^
Katherine too looked very splendid this day, drawn in her gleaming litter and dressed in white satin. Her most notable adornment was her thick red hair, "of a very great length." which hung to her waist; crowning it she wore a jeweled circlet. She was surrounded by the great ladies and gentlewomen of the court, some riding and some sitting in chariots, those of highest rank dressed in cloth of gold and silver, the others in velvet.
The following day the people crowded around the palace gate, watching for Henry and Katherine to come out for the walk to the abbey. When they appeared the crowd gave ground before the royal couple, whose way was marked by a rich carpet of cloth leading to the cathedral. Once the cloth had served its purpose the people tore it to shreds, and waited for the sovereigns to emerge again into view.
They had many hours to wait. The coronation ceremony, enriched through generations of tradition, unfolded in layer upon layer of ritual— prayers, oaths, the anointing with holy oils and the crowning itself, the ceremony of homage from the clergy and nobles and the celebratory mass. At one point the spectators were asked whether they would take
I
Henry to be their king, and the fervent cheer of "Yea, yea" that went up in response left no doubt of their "reverence, love and desire" for him. They cheered again when late in the afternoon he came back to Westminster Hall for the coronation banquet, and they listened outside the hall for the trumpets that announced the arrival of each of the "sumptuous, fine and delicate" courses.
Crowning their anticipation were the jousts and tourneys held at Westminster to mark the opening of the new reign. A miniature castle had been built in the tiltyard where the king and queen would sit to watch the mock battles. Supported by gilded arches and turrets, the little castle had a fountain and, set into the low roof, a large plaster crown imperial, painted and gilded and surrounded by an intricate design of roses and pomegranates and the intertwined letters H and K. Gargoyles at the sides of the castle began to spout forth red, white and claret wine as Henry and Katherine took their places. The king did not take part in the jousting, but his friend Charles Brandon—whom he had recently rewarded by making him warden and chief justice of all the royal forests and marshal of the king's bench—was among the defenders, along with Edward Howard, lord admiral, and his brother Thomas Howard, heir to the earl of Surrey. The challengers, wearing gold helmets with huge feather plumes, included Edward Neville, a tall, strong courtier very like the king in build and coloring, and two other favorites, Edward Guildford and John Pechy. The defenders were declared to be knights of "Dame Pallas," the challengers knights of the huntress Diana, and on the second day of the tourney a hunt was staged in Diana's honor in the tiltyard, within an artificial park. Fallow deer were released, which were chased into the miniature castle by greyhounds; the dogs killed the deer, and their carcasses were trussed on poles and presented to the ladies. A dispute broke out among the knights over whether or not the victors in the combat should be awarded the greyhounds, but the king intervened with a solution that satisfied them all, and the jousts went on to their conclusion.
Time to pass with goodly sport Our sprites to revive and comfort; To pipe, to sing, to dance, to spring
with pleasure and delight To follow Sensual Appetite.
"Hunt, sing and dance," Henry wrote in one of his songs soon after becoming king, "My heart is set,/All goodly sport/To my comfort/Who shall me let?" It was as if he had pledged himself to make up for all the restraint and confinement his father had made him suffer in his last years. He threw himself vigorously into hunting, hawking, shooting and archery. He rode up and down in the tiltyard and practiced at the barriers and wrestled with the strongest opponents he could find. He ordered his revels master to arrange elaborate spectacles for the entertainment of his court, and hundreds of craftsmen and laborers were kept constantly at work at Blackfriars, where the revels stuff was built and stored, molding and painting and gilding the props and pageant gear. Thousands of yards of cloth were cut and sewn for costumes, and fashioned into trees and flowers; carpenters worked steadily constructing the wooden platforms on which the scenery was mounted, and the pavilions and castles which held the maskers.
The king made himself the gaudy center of these entertainments, ordering his Flemish tailor Stephen Jaspar to make him doublets in rich stuffs that shone "like beaten gold" and robes of shimmering bawdkin and Venetian brocade. Clothing at Henry VITs court had been medieval; his son brought in the swaggering magnificance of the Renaissance. The old style gave way to a dozen new styles, each more exotic than the last. At one banquet Henry danced with fifteen others in German-style jackets of crimson and purple satin, at another in crimson velvet doublets open and laced with silver chains, with cloaks and hats trimmed in pheasant feathers "after the fashion of Prussia." At a feast for the ambassadors in the spring of 1510 Henry ordered long "Russian" gowns of yellow and white satin for two of his gentlemen. With them they wore gray fur hats and boots that turned up at the ends, and they carried hatchets in their hands. That same night the king and the earl of Essex appeared dressed as Turks in long gowns of bawdkin, with high turbans "with great rolls of gold" and armed with two scimitars.
in addition to these planned spectacles Henry delighted in impromptu
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disguisings and parties at odd hours. One morning the queen and her ladies were frightened when their chambers were invaded by twelve men dressed in the short cloaks and hoods of outlaws and armed with swords and bows. They demanded to dance and "make pastime" with the ladies, despite the early hour and the queen's condition—she was nearing the end of her first pregnancy—and would not leave until their whim had been satisfied. Had the leader of the band been anyone but the king the intrusion would have been unforgivable; as it was Katherine and her dismayed attendants swallowed their offended dignity and partnered the outlaws with a good grace.
All day and evening Henry kept himself surrounded by melody. Besides the dozens of household musicians—the "styll shalms," Blind Dick, the harper, the king's trumpeters, the sackbut and shalm players of the privy chamber—there were always traveling minstrels and other performers to amuse him. The names of foreign musicians appear often in the lists of payments—forty shillings to "Bonitamps, Petie John, Cokeryn and Baltasar, minstrels," eight pounds six shillings to "two women out of Flanders that did pipe, dance and play before the king"—along with those of entertainers whose skills were more obscure. In April of 1510 a reward of six pounds thirteen shillings was paid to "a long gentleman of Picardy."
Henry himself was the foremost amateur
musician, and when he was not hunting or riding in the tiltyard he occupied himself with singing and dancing and playing the recorder, flute or virginal. He set poems to music too, and wrote masses and ballets in the Italian style for several parts. And with a candor characteristic of him Henry wove into his songs the thoughts that weighed on him in these years.
His songs defended the carefree, good times of youth—the recreations and innocent sport of a boy and his friends. They were fresh, bracing songs, vigorous and direct. But at the same time they sounded a cry of the heart.
Youth will needs have dalliance, Of good or ill some pastance; Company me thinketh best All thought and fancies to digest,
For idleness
Is chief mistress
Of vices all;
Then who can say
But pass the day
Is best of all?
Behind the rousing verses was a plea for freedom and pleasure, and the argument, endlessly repeated, that innocent, "honest" pastimes counteracted the vices bred by idleness.
In part, this plea was a response to a chorus of critical voices. Although Henry himself insisted that his good times did not keep him
from attending to affairs of state, and there is considerable evidence this was true, his principal advisers saw him as httle more than an overgrown child. "He is young, and does not care to occupy himself with anything but the pleasures of his age," the Spanish ambassador Caroz wrote a year after Henry's accession. "All other affairs he neglects."* Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester, lord privy seal and the leading power in the Council, concurred. Fox, who had been a trusted adviser to Henry's father for more than twenty years, was at the head of things; to Badoer his authority was so great he seemed almost a king himself.^ Henry trusted Fox, but confided to Caroz that he did so "at his risk." "Here in England," the king told the Spaniard, "they think he is a fox, and such is his name."^ Thomas Ruthal, bishop of Durham, was another councilor who made his disapproval of Henry's behavior known. With Fox he sent a message to Henry's father-in-law Ferdinand of Aragon asking him to urge the boy to take more notice of his political responsibilities.
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