Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

  Unlike his daughter Elizabeth I, Henry did not routinely seek lavish hospitality from his subjects, and his visits were never as financially ruinous to his hosts as hers were. Many of his lesser houses were progress houses, and he used them whenever possible. In the first half of the reign he lodged also in the guest houses, or in apartments especially reserved for him, at monasteries. At other times he stayed as the guest of one of his courtiers or some local worthy, becoming lord of the house for the duration of his stay, with his apartments taking on, as far as possible, the functions of the Chamber at court, and his servants having priority over the residents in the allocation of accommodation and billets.3 Those closest to the King were assigned the rooms nearest his. If there was not sufficient space for his retinue in the house, barns and stables would be pressed into service, or tents set up in the grounds.

  The Knight Harbinger was responsible for allocating accommodation to everyone; this was done strictly according to rank.4 When the King stayed at a private residence, one of his Gentlemen Ushers would go ahead to check that the house was structurally sound, that the roof did not leak, and that there were locks on all the doors.

  Progresses could last for up to two months; they usually took place between July and October, and were carefully planned in advance, with the itinerary being set out in detailed tables called giests. The King’s plans were altered only when plague broke out or the weather was bad. The Master of the Horse was responsible for organising the complicated travel arrangements required to transport the court on the move, and the Board of the Greencloth for the provision of food,5 although individual hosts would always lay on lavish hospitality for their monarch. Everything was done to make the King’s transition from one house to another as smooth as possible.

  Once the progress was over, the King would return to London or his palaces in the Thames Valley, where he normally spent the winter. Late in 1509, he and Queen Katherine, who was in her first pregnancy, removed to Richmond Palace by the Thames in Surrey for the festive season.

  Richmond was Henry VII’s masterpiece, a large, battlemented Perpendicular fantasy modelled on the ducal residences of Bruges and built—at a cost of £20,000 (over £6 million)—on the ruins of the mediaeval palace of Sheen, which had been destroyed by fire at Christmas in 1497. The new palace, built of red brick and stone between 1499 and 1503 and renamed by royal decree Richmond after the earldom held by Henry VII before his accession, was designed on a courtyard plan, and was distinguished by vast expanses of big bay windows, fairy-tale pinnacles, and turrets surmounted by bell-shaped domes and gilded weather-vanes. The palace was surrounded by an extensive deer park.6

  A contemporary described Richmond as “an earthly paradise, most glorious to behold.”7 There were fountains in the courtyards, orchards, and “most fair and pleasant gardens” set with knots and intersected by wide paths and statues of the King’s beasts. Around the gardens were novel timber-framed, two-storey galleried walks, and nearby was the recreation complex. In the stone donjon housing the royal lodgings, the beamed ceilings were painted azure and studded with gold Tudor roses and portcullises; there were rich tapestries, panel portraits, and murals by Henry VII’s painter, Maynard the Fleming, of “the noble kings of this realm in harness and robes of gold, as Brutus, Hengist, King William Rufus, King Arthur [and] King Henry . . . with swords in their hands, appearing like bold and valiant knights.”8 There was a richly appointed chapel and a library established by Henry VII. A “mighty brick wall” surrounded the palace; it had a tower at each corner, and in the centre was the main gate “of double timber and heart of oak, studded full of nails and crossed with bars of iron.”9 Above it were the arms of Henry VII, supported by the red dragon of Wales and the greyhound of Richmond.

  Henry VIII celebrated his first Christmas as king at Richmond. The occasion was marked by a joust before the palace gates, on what is now Richmond Green, where “many notable feats of arms were proved.”10 The festivities were directed by one Will Wynesbury, acting as Lord of Misrule, who impudently asked the King to lend him £5 on account. “If it shall like Your Grace to give me too much,” he added mischievously, “I will give you none again, and if Your Grace give me too little, I will ask more!” Henry thought this was hilarious.11

  Christmas in Tudor times was a twelve-day festival, with the celebrations reaching their climax on 6 January, or Twelfth Night, which was the Feast of the Epiphany. The Advent fast ended on Christmas Eve; then there were twelve days of feasting, banqueting, pageantry, disguising, and convivial merrymaking, all presided over by the Lord of Misrule, or Master of Merry Disports,12 with his train of heralds, magicians, and fools in fancy dress; at court, this was a time when rank took second place to revelry. Henry VIII also observed the mediaeval custom of appointing a boy bishop to take the place of his senior chaplain: at Windsor, he once rewarded a lad called Nicholas with 10 marks for taking this role.

  The court was always full at Christmas. The royal palaces, like many humbler homes, were decorated with “holly, ivy and bays, and whatsoever the season afforded to be green,”13 and the public were often allowed in to watch the “goodly and gorgeous mummeries.” 14 In the great hall or presence chamber, the mighty Yule log crackled on the hearth, and carols were sung and danced, “to the great rejoicing of the Queen and the nobles.”15

  Great feasts were served at court over Yuletide. On Christmas Day, there was always the seasonal favourite, seethed brawn made from spiced boar or pork, and perhaps roast swans; the first course, however, was invariably a boar’s head, which was served “bedecked with bay and rosemary,” according to the old carol printed in 1521 by the King’s printer, Wynkyn de Worde. For the sumptuous banquet that marked Twelfth Night, a special cake containing dried fruit, flour, honey, and spices was baked. The cake contained a pea or a bean; whoever found it would be King or Queen of the Pea or Bean for the evening. From payments made beforehand, however, it appears that at court the lucky recipients were often selected in advance, just to be on the safe side. At the void on Twelfth Night, the choir of the Chapel Royal sang as the wassail cup, which contained spiced ale, was brought in by the Lord Steward and presented to the King and Queen and then passed around the table.16

  Christmas was also a time for solemn religious observances. Each Christmas Day, the King would hear mass in his closet before going in procession to the Chapel Royal for matins, where he actually participated in the service. This was, observed a papal nuncio, a “very unusual proceeding,” since Henry usually attended to business during public services.17 The choir usually sang “Gloria in excelsis” on these occasions, for which the King once rewarded them with £2 (£600). On the Feast of the Epiphany, gold, frankincense, and myrrh were offered on behalf of the Queen.

  Presents were exchanged, not on Christmas Day, but on New Year’s Day. Not only the Queen and the royal family, but also every courtier and servant gave the King a gift. Each gift was presented to him by the donor or his representative in a glittering ceremony in the presence chamber, where the gifts—which might be gold or silver plate, jewellery or money—were afterwards displayed on sideboards or trestle tables for all to see. Each was then listed by the royal secretaries before being stored away. Great lords vied with one another to give the most valuable or novel items: Cardinal Wolsey regularly gave his master a gold cup worth £100 (£30,000). In return, Henry distributed gifts of plate, such as cups and bowls chased with the royal cipher, each weighted according to rank, to every person at court, even the most menial members of the Household.

  In January 1510, Henry staged the first of many disguisings. Early one morning, he and eleven companions dressed themselves as Robin Hood and his outlaws, donning short coats of green Kentish Kendal with hoods that concealed their faces. Then, armed with bows and arrows, swords and bucklers, they burst into the Queen’s chamber—at which Katherine and her ladies were much “abashed.” Nevertheless, they agreed to dance with their visitors, and only after the dancing was finished did the King an
d his fellows throw back their hoods and reveal who they were, to the astonishment of the ladies and the amusement of the men.18

  Henry VIII’s reign witnessed the Indian summer of the age of chivalry. Tournaments in the Burgundian style were hugely popular, and were staged at almost every court festival or diplomatic visit, and as regular events during May and June to provide “honourable and healthy exercise” 19 before the hunting season began. They were essentially an aristocratic preserve, intended to keep fighting men in peak condition in peacetime, since the King was “not minded to see young gentlemen inexpert in martial feats.”20 Tournaments had also become glittering social events that afforded Henry and his courtiers the chance to show off their wealth and prowess before foreign ambassadors. Success in the lists was a sure route to royal favour.

  There were different forms of combat: “barriers,” with opponents fighting on foot with swords across a waist-high wooden fence; hand-to-hand combats on foot with a variety of weapons, “in imitation of Amadis and Lancelot and other knights of olden times”; 21 the tourney, fought out on horseback with swords; and the dramatic tilt or joust between mounted knights with lances thundering towards each other at either side of a wooden palisade. In the tilt, competitors fought in pairs; in the joust, alone. Contestants had to be courageous and strong, with a good eye and a fine sense of timing because a high degree of risk was involved, and men sometimes did get killed or injured. Achieving honour in the joust was nearly as prestigious as attaining glory in battle.

  The tournament was the ultimate theatre of chivalry. Lavish pageantry and allegory attended these events, which were watched by spectators in covered stands. The participants would enter their names on a “Tree of Chivalry,”22 and they might arrive in the lists in fancy costume—Henry once appeared as Hercules—riding on pageant cars. Usually there was a grand procession to the tiltyard, headed by the Marshals of the Joust on horseback, followed by footmen; drummers; trumpeters; then lords and knights, two by two, all splendidly dressed and mounted; pages; the jousters, fully armed; and finally “His Majesty, armed cap-a-pie, surrounded by 30 gentlemen on foot, dressed in velvet and satin.” 23 Tournaments were often held over several days.

  Surviving score sheets, kept by heralds, show that marks were awarded on a bar-gate system according to which parts of an opponent’s armour were hit: the helmet scoring highest, closely followed by the breast-plate. 24 In the tilt, the ultimate aim was to unhorse an opponent or split his lance. Courtly love also had a role in these affairs. The winning knight would be proclaimed the champion of the day, and receive his accolade from the Queen or the highest ranking lady present. Jousts were usually held in honour of the ladies, who gave favours, such as scarves or handkerchiefs, to their chosen knights to wear in the lists.

  “The King, being lusty, young and courageous, greatly delighted in feats of chivalry.”25 When he was sixteen, he was reported to have exercised in the lists every day.26 On 12 January 1510, Henry tilted in public for the very first time. He and William Compton appeared in disguise in the lists at Richmond, but it was a furious contest and when Compton, in combat with Edward Neville, was “sore hurt and like to die,” Henry deemed it politic to leave the field. As he rode away, someone in on the secret cried, “God save the King!” whereupon he had no choice but to “discover himself ”—at which there was general amazement, for within living memory English kings had been mere spectators at such events.27

  Compton fortunately recovered, and Henry went on to enjoy an illustrious career in the lists, much to the dismay of the “ancient fathers” on the Council, who worried that he might injure or even kill himself. To placate them, the King began using specially made hollow lances to reduce impact. But he still took fearful risks, “having no respect or fear of anyone in the world,”28 and was nearly killed on two occasions, as we shall hear.

  Henry was literally obsessed with jousting. He trained regularly, often charging with his lance to dislodge a detachable ring from a post, or tilting at the quintain, a dummy on a revolving bar. His favourite opponents were Compton, Neville, Buckingham, and above all Brandon, who was soon being made jousting clothes to match those of the King his partner.

  As early as 1510 Luis Caroz observed, “There are many young men who excel in this kind of warfare, but the most conspicuous among them all, the most assiduous and the most interested in the combats is the King himself, who never omits being present at them.”29 A Venetian reported in 1515 that Henry jousted “marvellously.” That afternoon the King had invited this envoy and his suite “to see him joust, running upwards of 30 courses, in one of which he capsized his opponent, who is the finest jouster in the kingdom [Brandon?], horse and all. He then took off his helmet and came under the windows where we were, and talked and laughed with us to our very great honour, and to the surprise of all beholders.” 30 On another occasion, wearing “cloth of gold with a raised pile,” he “looked like St. George in person” as he entered the lists.31 Again in 1515, Giustinian watched enthralled as, for three hours, “the King excelled all others, shivering many lances and unhorsing one of his opponents.”32 A drawing of Henry armed for the tilt and on horseback is in the British Library.

  Thanks to the King’s personal involvement and enthusiasm, the English tournaments became renowned throughout Europe, where such events were regarded as crucial to a kingdom’s international prestige.

  Life was not all heroic pleasures. In January 1510, Henry went in procession to open his first Parliament at Westminster. He looked resplendent in his crimson and ermine robes of estate with their long train, walking beneath a canopy carried by the monks of Westminster Abbey, preceded by mitred abbots, bishops, heralds, Archbishop Warham, Garter King of Arms, the royal mace-bearer, and the Duke of Buckingham bearing the Cap of Estate; the Duke’s heir, Henry Stafford, carried the Sword of Estate. After sitting enthroned through mass in the Abbey, the King proceeded into the Parliament Chamber, where he put on the Cap of Estate. The Earls of Oxford and Surrey stood to the left of the throne as the Lord Chancellor addressed the assembly.33

  Henry was eagerly anticipating the birth of a son and heir. He ordered a new cover for the baptismal font and linen towels to be used at the christening, as well as a sumptuous cradle of estate padded with crimson cloth of gold embroidered with the royal arms, linen for the Queen’s bed, swaddling bands in which to wrap the baby, beds for the nurse and two rockers, and a “groaning chair” for the delivery. This was similar to a modern birthing chair, with a cut-away seat, but it was upholstered in cloth of gold and came complete with a copper-gilt bowl for receiving the blood and the afterbirth.34 But the Queen’s pregnancy had not gone to term when, on 31 January, she went into labour; her pains were so agonising that she vowed to donate her richest headdress to the shrine of St. Peter the Martyr in Spain in return for a happy outcome. Crushingly, she was delivered of a stillborn daughter. No public announcement was made, and it was four months before Katherine could bring herself to inform King Ferdinand of her loss. Despite God’s failure to answer her prayers, she kept her promise to send the headdress to Spain.35

  The King swallowed his disappointment. On Shrove Tuesday, he astonished his courtiers by publicly taking part in a revel for the first time, and thereby setting a new precedent. The occasion was a banquet held in honour of all the foreign ambassadors at Westminster. The King and Queen led their ladies and nobles into the Parliament Chamber, where Henry personally showed his guests to their seats before taking his place next to Katherine at the high table. He was soon up again, walking around the tables and chatting with his wife and the ambassadors. Then he disappeared with the Earl of Essex. Some time later they returned dressed up “in Turkey fashion,” carrying scimitars and accompanied by six gentlemen dressed as Prussians, and torchbearers blacked-up as Moors. After play-acting in these roles for a time, the King withdrew again, then reappeared in a short doublet of blue and crimson, slashed with cloth of gold. He and the other gentlemen then danced with the ladies, Henry par
tnering his sister Mary.36 From now on, the monarch was also a showman.

  The feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England and of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, fell on 23 April. Henry had been proclaimed King on that date, and he used it as his official birthday. St. George was his hero, and he had been a Knight of the Garter since the age of four. Every year on 23 April, the King held a chapter of the Order, not always at Windsor, but wherever he happened to be; during the thirty-seven years of his reign, twenty-four chapters of the Order were held at Greenwich.

  Founded in 1348 by Edward III, the Garter was England’s highest and most coveted order of chivalry, having been revived in imitation of the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece by both Edward IV, who had built St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, and Henry VII. Henry VIII, with his passion for ancient chivalric values and his policy of accentuating his own magnificence, would continue this tradition.

  The Order comprised the sovereign and twenty-five elected Knights Companions, who were only replaced upon death or disgrace. Vacancies were filled at the annual chapter meeting. Each chapter was marked with a magnificent feast; at Windsor, this took place in St. George’s Hall. The Knights wore “a blue velvet mantle with a Garter on the left shoulder, lined with white sarcanet, [and] scarlet hose with black velvet around the thighs.”37 Each sported a light blue38 silk garter with a gold buckle and embroidered Tudor roses round his leg—the garter being the oldest item of the insignia—and the rich gold collar introduced by Edward IV or Henry VII. Henry VIII decreed in 1510 that the collar consist of twelve Tudor roses set within blue garters, interspersed with twelve tasselled knots; from it hung a “Great George”—a jewelled pendant of St. George slaying the dragon. The Knights were allowed to wear their insignia only on St. George’s Day and the great feast days of the court, so in 1521 Henry instituted a smaller pendant, the “Lesser George,” for everyday use. This was suspended from a gold chain or a blue ribbon, and might be set with a rare cameo. The King is known to have owned three such Lesser Georges.39