Great Harry
Page 24
The nightmare image of a peasantry out of control, turned loose to avenge generations of high taxes and subservience was no fantasy. In the territories of Charles V it was already coming true. At first groups of a few dozen angry villagers had taken to arms in many different areas. Then in only a few weeks' time the scattered rebels had joined together into regional armies thousands strong, marching unopposed against the forces of local rulers and eventually against imperial troops. Armed with pikes and firearms, they roved in bands through Swabia, Franconia and Thurin-gia and even through Alsace and the German-speaking Swiss lands, demanding time-honored manorial rights they felt they had lost and citing Luther's doctrines of Christian freedom and scriptural authority in justification of their revolt.
To European aristocrats whose world view was grounded in the idea of an ordered society, with lords and gentlefolk above and farmers and
peasants below, the reports of the German revolt were deeply disturbing. There had been rural uprisings for centuries, but never anything on this scale. In the past the murder and mayhem had been confined to at most a few dozen square miles, and the perpetrators had been quickly annihilated. But this conflagration covered huge areas of the imperial lands, and swept into itself tens of thousands of rebels; in Frankfort alone they destroyed thirty fortresses and sacked eighty monasteries, and every region had its share of the far-ranging devastation.
Accounts of the anarchy in the German regions reached every European court by May of 1525, along with rumors that similar catastrophes would soon engulf other realms. As they gathered strength some of the German peasants began to envision an apocalyptic transformation of Europe into a community of equals in which all distinctions between master and servant, king and subject would be abolished. Panic-stricken rulers glimpsed the same horrifying possibility, and in their eyes events in England were bringing the dreaded cataclysm closer. A Swiss cleric who had seen the rebels at their work at close range wrote to the imperial ambassador in Venice likening the rioting in England to the German rebellion. He had letters from English friends, he said, telling him that King Henry's subjects were everywhere turning against him and that no one could say where the unrest might end.^^
Such accounts of the protest against the Amicable Grant were exaggerations, yet they show the fear the tumult inspired. As it was happening no one could foresee its end, or judge its true scale. And in fact, had Henry decided on a harsh policy toward his impoverished, cantankerous and turbulent subjects instead of on leniency, large-scale rebellion might well have been the result.
As it was, collection of the grant proceeded, unsatisfactorily, for a while longer; the commissioners retreated when they were threatened and proceeded, through blandishments and coercion, to gather up at least some of what was owed as often as they could. "Fair words and the rough handling of one or two" villagers did yield some return, though in many places the amount owed had to be lowered or remitted altogether. Taken aback by the loss of his subjects' faith and esteem, and uncertain of his aims in the light of Charles V's defection, Henry gave orders that, if possible, his agents should "proceed doucely, rather than by violence" to bring therecalcitrant to pay.^^ Eventually he capitulated entirely, withdrawing tSe^^icable Grant and insisting that from the first he had known nothing about it. In place of the heavy burden of one sixth of all their goods he now asked only "such as his loving subjects would grant to him
of their good minds," and did not punish those who had risen against the tax. 13
Henry's clemency appeared to win back what favor he had lost, and the people went back to vilifying Wolsey as the true originator of the Amicable Grant. "In conclusion," the chronicler Hall wrote, "all people cursed the cardinal and his coadherents as subversors of the laws and liberty of England," and muttered to one another that Wolsey was secretly sending all the king's money to Rome.
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1 The future Henry VIII as a child, sketched by an unknown artist. (Bibliotheque de Mejanes, Aix-en-Provence; photo H. NicoUas)
2 Henry VIII's paternal grandmother Margaret Beaufort, a strong influence throughout his childhood and youth. Tomb sculpture by Torrigiano. (By courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
I
3 Henry VII in 1505, by
Michael SittOW. (National Portrait Gallery)
4 Death mask of Henry
VII. (By courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
Funeral effigy of Henry VIII's mother EHzabeth
of York. (By courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIITs chancellor and dominant figure of the first twenty years of his reign. Drawing attributed to Jacques le Boucq of
Artois. (Biblioiheque municipale d'Arras, Recueil de portraits, ms. 266; photo Giraudon)
''Wedding picture" of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, by Jan Mabuse. (By kind permission of the Marquess of Tavistock, and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates)
The young Henry VIII, date and artist uncertain, perhaps c. 1520. (National Portrait Gallery)
9 Torrigiano's bust ot the young Henry Vill, giving him an Italianate air. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
10 Miniature of Henry VIII at thirty-five. (Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge; reproduced by permission of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Cambridge)
11 Henry VIII, attributed to Joos van Cleeve. Date uncertain, but
conventionally dated 1536. (Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen; copyright reserved)
12 Mary Tudor, daughter of Katherine of Aragon and Henry VIII; succeeded to the throne in 1553. Sketched as a young girl, perhaps by
Holbein. (Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen; copyright reserved)
13 Henry VIII's natural son Henry Fitzroy. (BBC
Hulton Picture Library)
14 Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII; succeeded to the throne in 1558. Painted at age fourteen by an unknown artist. (Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen; copyright reserved)
15 Edward Tudor, son of Jane Seymour and Henry VIII; succeeded to the throne in 1547. Artist unknown. (Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen; copyright reserved)
16 Anne Boleyn by an unknown artist. (National
Portrait Gallery)
17 Katherine of Aragon in middle age, by an unknown artist. (National Portrait Gallery)
18 Miniature of Katherine of Aragon in later life, attributed to Horenbout. (National Portrait Gallery)
19 Thomas More in 1527.
(Copyright The Frick Collection, New York)
20 Torrigiano bust of an English ecclesiastic traditionally said to be John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, executed in 1535. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
21 Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, by Holbein. (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien)
22 Anne of Cleves; a portrait based on the famed likeness which brought about her marriage to Henry VIII. (Musee du Louvre)
23 Francis I of France, painted by Titian in about 1538. (Musee de Louvre)
ti> r«i
24 Engraved sketch of Henry VIII's encampment at Marquison, near Boulogne, in 1544; eighteenth-century copy of an original painting. (By
courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of London)
25 The Emperor Charles V a year after Henry VIIPs death, by Titian. (Alte Pinakothek, Miinchen)
26 Portrait of John Chambers, one of Henry VIII's doctors, by Holbein.
(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien)
27 Portrait of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, by an unknown artist. (National Portrait Gallery)
28 Chalk drawing of Henry VIII in old age, by Holbein. (Siaatiiche Graphische Sammlung, Munchen)
IV
^)6p<^ ^^^/w^
Dieu et Mon Droit
Youth must have some dall
iance, Of good or ill some pastance; Company methinks then best All thoughts and fancies to digest,
For idleness
Is chief mistress
Of vices all:
Then who can say
But mirth and play
Is best of all?
The torchlit presence chamber of Hampton Court had never been more resplendently decked than on the night of January 3, 1527, when a great feast was held there to celebrate the new year. At the long tables set up against one wall the chief nobles of Henry VIII's court were being served course after course of meats and fish and fowl. They were seated, as always at Wolsey's banquets, lord next to lady and gentleman by gentlewoman; the Venetian ambassador wrote afterward that he felt out of place beside his dinner partner, a "very beautiful damsel," until he realized that each of the diners had been assigned a companion as radiant as his. It was said there was never a shortage of alluring young women at the cardinal's entertainments, and this, plus the choice wines and gorgeous spectacles he offered his guests, made them glad enough to put aside their thorough hatred of him and enjoy themselves for an evening at his expense.
The cardinal had taken his usual pains with the banquet, sending his household officers out weeks in advance to search for the finest and most costly provisions and ordering carpenters and joiners and painters to repair the rooms of the palace and its furnishings. When these had finished, the yeomen and grooms of the wardrobe hung new hangings in the halls and put fresh silk coverings on the beds, while the sewer and his staff polished all the plate and displayed it in a massive cupboard that filled one entire wall of the presence chamber.
In the kitchens below, new cooks, the most expert to be found in the realm, had been working night and day alongside Wolsey's own excellent chefs to create subtleties, "strange fabrics in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth." The sixteenth-century cook addressed his calling with lusty vigor. In his long bespattered apron
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he stood by his pots, chopping and slicing and stirring and attending to a dozen things at once, bawling out orders to his servants and swearing at them when they worked too slowly to please him. It was said that a good chef needed a choleric temperament, with curses '*the very dialect of his calling." 'The kitchen is his hell, and he the devil in it," a contemporary wrote, and in the sweltering kitchens of Hampton Court an army of devils labored over their turning spits and shining platters on the night of Wolsey's great banquet, "interlarding their own grease to help the drippings."
Upstairs the cardinal, oblivious to these exertions, dined apart from his guests at a high table in the center of the hall, under his rich cloth of estate. His portly form was all but hidden from view by the heaping platters of delicacies spread out before him on the perfumed tablecloth. All around him stood serving men to refill his goblet and hold his napkin while he ate; still others waited attendance at his side and behind his chair, imposing reminders of his status.
Cardinal, legate, chancellor and indispensable servant of the king, Wolsey had reached the pinnacle of his power and wealth. Advancing age and sickness now weighed down his fleshy body, but had not dulled his mind; he was as capable as ever, and still transacted business with the single-purposed intensity that had first brought him to Henry's notice nearly fifteen years earlier. He had his wits about him tonight, as he was soon to play a central role in a little drama devised by the king to enliven the evening.
In the midst of the dining the guests were startled by the sound of many small cannons being fired all at once just outside the palace, "which made such a rumble in the air that it was like thunder." As they turned to one another in astonishment, asking what it might mean, Wolsey called on the royal chamberlain William Sandys and the revels master Henry Guildford to see what was happening. Looking out the window onto the river, they reported seeing some noble foreigners, possibly the envoys of a distant prince, arriving at the water stairs.
"I shall desire you," Wolsey then told Sandys and Guildford, "because ye can speak French to take the pains to go down into the hall to encounter and to receive them according to their estates, and to conduct them into this chamber, where they shall see us and all these noble personages sitting merrily at our banquet, desiring them to sit down with us and to take part of our fare and pastime."
The two men descended to the lower floor, accompanied by torch-bearers, and returned shortly afterward escorting a large company of curiously dressed maskers and their attendants, who came into the hall to the raucous sound of drums and fifes. They were dressed in garments with the simple cut of shepherds' tunics, though they were made of alternate stripes of crimson satin and fine cloth of gold; visors hid the maskers' faces, and artificial beards and hair of fine gold wire or black silk covered their heads completely. There was no sound but that of the drums and fifes as the mysterious visitors filed solemnly, two by two, past the banqueters and down the length of the chamber toward the table where
Wolsey sat alone. Even after they reached him and the musicians stopped playing the strangers did not speak, but merely bowed low in reverence.
Sandys spoke for them, explaining that they knew no English yet hoped to be admitted to the banquet to make the acquaintance of the many "excellent fair dames" in the hall, and to gamble and dance with them. Wolsey consented, and then a lengthy pantomime began. The maskers walked up and down the hall a second time, greeting each of the women in turn and appraising each for her beauty. Then, having decided which one was the loveliest, they returned to her and, placing a cup of gold coins before her, cast the dice. After a single cast they moved on to another of the women, and cast again, then to another and another until each had had her turn to win or lose against them.
Throughout the play the maskers continued to keep silence, with the only sound in the vast room the clatter of the dice and the clinking of coins into the cup as it filled with their winnings. Finally, when the last wager had been won, the strangers returned to the cardinal's table and poured out the coins before him, indicating that it was his turn to play. He bet them all on a single cast, and won.
At once the banqueters burst into noisy applause, sighing with relief and breaking the tension in the room. When the tumult had subsided Wolsey spoke.
'T pray you," he said to Sandys, "show them that it seems to me there should be among them some nobleman, whom I suppose to be much more worthy of honor to sit and occupy this room and place than I, to whom I would most gladly—if I knew him—surrender my place according to my duty."
Wolsey knew that the king was among the maskers, though when asked to point him out he had to scrutinize them all carefully and finally chose the wrong man—Edward Neville, the tall gentleman of the privy chamber who was Henry's near-double. When he saw the cardinal's mistake the king could not contain himself. He burst out laughing, pulling off his mask and reaching over to pull off Neville's as well. At the sight of his merry face the banqueters broke into delighted applause a second time, and Wolsey at once rose heavily to his feet and made his obeisance, motioning for Henry to take his chair. Instead of sitting down, though, the king left the room and went straight to Wolsey's bedchamber, explaining that he wanted to change his clothes. While he was gone every sign of the banqueting—every plate and goblet, every cloth and piece of cutlery— was removed and a new one put in its place. By the time he returned a second banquet was under way, more lavish and more sumptuous than the first.
That Henry made himself at home at Hampton Court was to be expected, for though Wolsey continued to use the splendid palace from time to time it had in fact belonged to the king for several years. Since the start of the reign, when the royal palace at Westminster was destroyed by fire, Henry had not had a residence befitting his majesty. He used the apartments in the Tower, the old Norman fortress of Baynard's Castle, and his new palace of Bridewell, but all were too restricting. Every year
as Henry's household grew larger his palaces came to seem smaller, while by contrast Wols
ey's monumental estabhshments at York Place and Hampton Court loomed princely and vast. In time the contrast became too sharp to be borne, and in 1525 Wolsey, ever eager to retain his master's good will, made Henry a present of Hampton Court.
The huge red brick structure had many advantages beyond its spaciousness and its imposing exterior. There were five large courts and two hunting parks, an herb garden where the king could grow his medicinal plants and a tennis court where he could wager with his courtiers. Fine Italian craftsmen and sculptors had been brought in to design the unique plumbing system that brought drinking water to the palace in leaden pipes and drained off wastes through brick sewers.
As remarkable as Hampton Court was, Henry had no difficulty devising ways to improve it. He added a tiltyard and ordered work begun on an elaborate great hall—an undertaking so large it took five years to complete. Still more marvellous was the large astronomical clock he added in 1540, designed by the German astronomer Nicholas Kratzer and built by the French clockmaker Nicolas Oursian. The intricate dial of this twenty-four-hour clock indicated not only the time of day (approximately, for sixteenth-century clocks had no second hand) but the positions of the moon and the constellations of the zodiac as well. In an age when the accurate calculation of time was an obscure art the great clock of Hampton Court was a monument of precision. Time was told differently in different parts of Europe. In England and Flanders, noon and midnight marked the beginning of two cycles of twelve hours each, but in Germany a single daily cycle of twenty-four hours began at sunrise. In Italy the twenty-four-hour cycle began at sunset, and as both sunrise and sunset varied from one town to another no regional synchronization of times was possible. But in the Hampton Court clock the English hours were brought into harmony with the heavenly bodies, an accomplishment so rare it never ceased to amaze visitors to the palace.