by Alison Weir
There is a persistent but erroneous belief that Henry suffered from syphilis, a disease thought to have been introduced into Europe around 1493 from the newly discovered Americas; that his so-called ulcer was its primary sore, which would have healed spontaneously; and that his feverish headaches were symptomatic of the disease’s progress;1 if this had been the case, the headaches would have appeared at a later stage, not at the same time as the primary sore. It is true that, after Wolsey’s fall, his physician, Dr. Augustine Agostini, who was almost certainly a creature of the Boleyns, stated that the Cardinal, knowing that he had “the foul and contagious disease of the great pox,” yet “came daily” to the King, breathing in his ear and blowing upon him “with perilous and infective breath.”2 But there is no evidence that Wolsey had syphilis, and even if he had he could not have transmitted it to Henry in this way. It has also been claimed that a portrait of Henry VIII at Hever Castle shows him with the collapsed bridge of the nose that is a symptom of the advancing disease. This portrait is in fact a poor copy of a lost original by Holbein that was painted around 1543/4; better-quality copies of the same portrait at Castle Howard and in the National Portrait Gallery, and other later representations of the King, all show him with his familiar high-bridged nose.
No hostile foreign envoy ever claimed that Henry had syphilis. In all the detailed records of purchases of medicaments by the King’s doctors and apothecaries, there is not a single mention of mercury, which was the most effective treatment for syphilis, and which was administered over a period of six weeks with such unpleasant side effects that no ambassador could have failed to understand what ailed the King. Nor was Henry given the various remedies that were prescribed for Francis I, who did have what was known as the French disease. Henry did devise for himself a plaster made from “lignum guaiacum,” a hardwood imported from the New World that was ground into ash and dissolved in water for the relief of syphilitics; however, that substance was, and still is, a proven remedy for gout, sore throats, and pains in the leg.3 Henry never suffered the disfiguring rash and skin eruptions of the second stage of the illness, nor the blindness, paralysis, and dementia that are characteristic of its final stages: he was lucid to the end. Neither did his children show any symptoms of having inherited the disease.
The King was undoubtedly something of a hypochondriac. He considered himself an expert on diseases and ailments, and, as we have seen, was fond of devising cures for them. This concern was extended to his courtiers. When, in 1528, Sir Bryan Tuke, who had succeeded Sir Henry Wyatt as Treasurer of the Chamber, developed a painful kidney complaint, he confided in Wolsey, who in turn told the King. But somewhere along the line the information became garbled, and when Tuke next sought an audience with Henry to discuss secretarial business, the King “began to tell me of a medicine for a tumour in the testicles. I immediately said His Highness was not well informed of my disease, which is not there but in my kidneys.” Undeterred, “His Highness had me by and by, and gave me direct counsel, and showed me the remedies, as any cunning physician in England could do.”4
In an age without painkillers, Henry’s minor complaints alone could have accounted for his increasing tetchiness, even without his frustration at the delay in obtaining a decision on his marriage. For the Pope, anxious to play for time, had decided to send a legate to England to hear the King’s case, but the man he had chosen, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, suffered from gout and could travel only in slow stages. Henry, who was now determined to marry Anne Boleyn, was desperate with impatience.
Now Fate, it seemed, might snatch from him what he most desired, for in May 1528 the dreaded sweating sickness broke out again.5 In great fear, the King dismissed most of his courtiers and servants and left Greenwich for Waltham Abbey in Essex, taking the Queen and Anne Boleyn with him. When news came that there was plague near Pontefract, where Richmond was staying, a worried Henry ordered his son to move further north, and sent him remedies that he himself had concocted, in case he fell ill. Fortunately, the regular bulletins on his health that reached the King were all reassuring.6
This visitation of the sweat proved particularly virulent, with forty thousand cases in London alone, although not all of them proved fatal. “The term of Parliament was adjourned, and the judges’ circuit also.” 7 Eighteen members of Wolsey’s household died within the space of four hours, and two others succumbed after the Cardinal had sought refuge at the More.
At Waltham, two Ushers, two Grooms of the Chamber, George Boleyn, and Sir William Fitzwilliam all sickened but recovered. When one of Anne Boleyn’s maids fell ill in June, Henry sent his sweetheart home to Hever, then fled in terror to Hunsdon, where he “strengthened” himself with medicines8 made up by his apothecary Cuthbert Blackden, and remained isolated in a tower with Dr. Chamber and his other physicians. 9 To begin with, he was so “much troubled” by fear of the sweat that he ordered Sir Francis Bryan to sleep in his bedchamber with him. However, as time went by and no one in the household fell sick, the King grew “very merry” with relief.10
He bombarded Wolsey with good advice, sent through Bryan Tuke: the Cardinal was to avoid any places where there was a risk of infection, and if any of his household fell ill, he was to remove with speed. “His Highness desireth Your Grace to keep out of the air, to have only a small and clean company about him, to use small suppers and to drink little wine, and once in the week to use the pills of Rhazis” (which were named after the Arab physician who had invented them). If Wolsey himself fell ill, the King had devised a posset of herbs that would bring out the sweat most profusely. Otherwise, the Cardinal was to look to his soul “and commit all to God.”11 Wolsey responded with news that the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk had had some success in curing a number of the sick: she made them fast for sixteen hours and stay in bed for a whole day and night, then kept them in isolation for a week, dosing them with treacle and herbs. 12
Soon afterwards, the King received the devastating news that Anne and her father had caught the sweating sickness, and in a fever of anxiety he sent his second physician; the kindly and urbane Dr. William Butts, who had formerly been in the household of the Princess Mary at Hunsdon, to attend them, with a letter to Anne “praying God that He may soon restore your health.”13 Butts was soon back at court with the cheerful news that Anne and her father had recovered. Soon, a relieved Henry was writing to tell her, “Since your last letters, mine own darling, Walter Welch, Master [John] Browne, John Carey, Urian Brereton and John Cocke the apothecary be fallen of the sweat in this house and, thanked be God, all recovered. As yet the plague is not fully ceased here, but I trust shortly it shall. By the mercy of God, the rest of us yet be well, and I trust shall pass it.”14
But the King’s hopes of the sweat abating were in vain, and “for a space, he removed almost every day, till at the last he came to Tittenhanger,” one of Wolsey’s houses, “where he prepared to bide the time that God would allow him.”15 The house was “purged daily by fires and other preservatives,”16 such as vinegar, and the King had the window in the Cardinal’s closet enlarged, so as to admit more fresh air. Fearing that the plague might be a sign of divine displeasure, and realising that he should prepare for the worst, he kept the Queen with him and followed a strict devotional routine, attending mass and taking communion more frequently than usual, and going to confession daily.17 His mornings were devoted to business, his afternoons to hunting.18 Wolsey, meanwhile, had gone to Leeds Castle, where he spent his time dealing with the rush of requests for the offices and property of those who had died.
Back in London, the Duke of Norfolk caught the sweat and survived, but it carried off three of the King’s most favoured Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber: Sir William Compton, Sir Edward Poyntz, and William Carey, the husband of Mary Boleyn. Compton, who had been “lost by negligence by letting him sleep in the beginning of the sweat,”19 left no heir; his servants stole his effects, and there was a stampede for his vacated offices. Even young Richmond wrote to his father urging tha
t some be given to Sir Edward Seymour, “the Master of my Horse.”20 Compton’s will bequeathed his wealth to Anne Hastings, and to the King he left personal mementos, “a little chest of ivory with a gilt lock” filled with jewels, a chessboard, and a backgammon set.21
William Carey died suddenly on 22 June, aged only thirty-two. The King granted the wardship of his son, Henry Carey, to the boy’s aunt, Anne Boleyn,22 and warned her in a letter that her sister Mary was in “extreme necessity”; in Henry’s opinion, it was her father’s responsibility to support her. At Anne’s request, he ordered Rochford to take her under his roof and give her succour. Later that year, at Anne’s further behest, Henry himself assigned Mary an annuity of £100 (£30,000) that had formerly been enjoyed by William Carey.23
Carey’s death left a vacancy in the Privy Chamber, which was filled three days later by Sir Francis Bryan,24 who was another of Anne’s cousins and had long desired to recover his former place. Anne’s good offices may have brought this about; certainly Bryan was one of her earliest supporters. Yet for all his brilliance, he—unlike Carew—had not been sobered by the advancing years; although he was now an established cipherer, diplomat, and courtier, he still behaved like the profligate libertine he had always been. He would now become highly influential, riding high in the King’s favour: he was Henry’s constant companion in the privy chamber, and his favoured opponent in gambling, bowls, and tennis.
Another Privy Chamber member who was well thought of by the King was the young page Francis Weston, a gifted lute player and a superb athlete, whom Wyatt described as a “pleasant” individual. Henry liked his company and often chose him to sleep in his bedchamber at night. 25 Anne also favoured him; he and Bryan sometimes joined her and the King for cards.26
From Tittenhanger, Henry moved north to the healthier air of Ampthill, where he began to complain of pains in his head, causing a momentary panic. He was still feeling poorly when he moved to Grafton, but there the pains disappeared. What began as a flight from the plague had now turned into a progress, but the King was careful to visit various shrines and religious houses for the health of his soul.
In high summer, the sweat began to abate in England, although it was rapidly spreading across Europe for the first time. Henry, on his way to Woodstock, was met by a messenger who warned him that one of the servants of the Duke of Suffolk, who had gone ahead to prepare for his arrival, had died of the sweat some days before. The King “could not a little marvel” that Suffolk had failed to warn him of this earlier; now the giests had to be changed at a moment’s notice, much to the King’s irritation.27 This resulted in his moving north to Old Moor Hall at Sutton Coldfield, where he stayed as the guest of John Vesey, Bishop of Exeter. While hunting in nearby Sutton Chase, Henry tracked down a rare boar, but it turned viciously on him, and his life was saved only by the timely intervention of a local girl who, being fortuitiously nearby with her bow and arrow, shot the beast dead.
In August, the King’s plans were altered again because there were still cases of plague nearer to London. A sojourn at the More was abandoned, and the King lodged at Tittenhanger instead.28 At every stage of his journey, his officers were sent ahead to check that each house was free from infection.29
Around this time, Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Bayonne, the first resident French ambassador to be sent to England, came to present his credentials to the King. Soon after his arrival, du Bellay noted that “Mlle. Boleyn has returned to court,” accompanied once more by her mother. It was not a long visit, but sufficient to further inflame the King’s ardour after the long weeks of separation. Together they rode out hunting daily, and du Bellay, whose master’s support both Henry and Anne were keen to secure, was often asked to accompany them, a mark of signal favour. “Madame Anne” set herself to charm him, bestowing on him generous gifts—a hunting outfit, hat, and horn, and a handsome greyhound—and telling him that everything she did was “entirely by the commandment of the King,” while Henry would often take him aside to discuss confidential affairs. The ambassador’s despatches reveal how flattered he was by this attention, but he was careful to say that it was really a sign of the King of England’s love for France.30 The King of France, no fool, would get the message.
36
“Back to Your Wife!”
The Great Matter polarised opinion among the elite and led to a vicious struggle for power. By 1528, three distinct factions were emerging at court, in the Privy Chamber and in the Privy Council: those who were adherents of Wolsey and supported the King, notably Sir John Russell; the aristocratic conservatives, among them Exeter, the Staffords, the Nevilles, the Poles, and the Duchess of Norfolk, who discreetly supported the Queen, but also wanted Wolsey out of power; and the Boleyn faction, which would soon be the most powerful and was led by Anne herself, Rochford, George Boleyn, and Sir Francis Bryan. The members of this group, who included Sir Thomas Cheney and his friend John Wallop, were determined to break Wolsey’s monopoly on power, and they seized every opportunity to poison the King’s mind against him.
They were joined by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, who, although they disliked Rochford and his family, had long plotted the Cardinal’s downfall, and saw in Anne Boleyn a means of achieving it.1 Norfolk was also motivated by self-interest, since Anne was his niece and her advancement could only benefit the Howards. Anne was a willing tool: George Cavendish says she was agreeable to the requests of her supporters because she had “an inward desire to be revenged upon the Cardinal” for the breaking of her affair with Lord Henry Percy and her subsequent banishment in disgrace, but her enmity is more likely to have been fuelled by her father’s removal from two very lucrative and prestigious offices.
Henry Norris, the Groom of the Stool and one of the King’s chief confidants, was a loyal supporter of the Boleyns but not committed to bringing down the Cardinal. Discreet and levelheaded, he did his best to strike a balance between opposing interests.
The Queen enjoyed the support of several churchmen, among them John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, the frail Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, who made his views clear before his death that year, and her brave chaplain Thomas Abell, who in 1530 wrote a treatise supporting her case, which Henry banned. William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, was also of the opinion that the royal marriage was valid, but compromised his principles by supporting the King.
Another person who deeply disappointed Katherine was her protégé, Juan Luis Vives, who also sided with Henry, as did many humanists, Sir Thomas More and John Fisher being notable exceptions. When Katherine asked Vives to defend her in the coming legatine hearing, he declined and left England for Bruges.2 The Queen stopped his pension.
There is no doubt that, thanks to the influence of Anne Boleyn, Wolsey’s power was declining. In August 1528, Jean du Bellay told Francis I that Wolsey no longer enjoyed the King’s fullest confidence, and that Henry was making decisions without his knowledge;3 three months later, Mendoza reported that the Cardinal was “no longer received at court as graciously as before.”4
In the past, Wolsey’s power had been such that he could easily neutralise emerging factions, who had never held much sway at court because of his overriding political dominance, but that was no longer the case. Now he had to jostle for supremacy with everyone else. As his grasp weakened, the Boleyn faction flourished, and his enemies prepared to destroy him. To counteract their influence with the King, Wolsey secured the appointment of his own clients to the Privy Chamber, among them Thomas Heneage, who was on good terms with Anne Boleyn, and the Cardinal’s former secretary, Sir Richard Page, who would soon switch his loyalty to the Boleyns. Wolsey also did his best to sweeten Mistress Anne with gifts and entertainments and by his strenuous efforts to obtain an annulment in the face of the Pope’s stalling tactics. He knew that Anne’s elevation to the consort’s throne would mean his own downfall, yet he had no choice but to do the King’s bidding. Relations between Anne and Wolsey were always outwardly cordial, but that deceived no one.
The King, meanwhile, had been reading as many authorities on canon and civil law as he could lay hands on, to perfect his case in readiness for the legate’s arrival. In one letter to Anne Boleyn, he claimed he was spending up to four hours each day poring through vast theological tomes, and suffering “some pain in my head” as a result.5 This new passion for study led to the acquisition of more and more volumes for the royal libraries, while some books were obligingly loaned to the King by the abbots of various monasteries. Henry even sent the humanist scholar Richard Croke to Italy to acquire or consult obscure works, giving him detailed instructions as to what to look for and transcribe.6 He had convinced himself that his case was sound, and he was prepared to go to astonishing lengths to prove it.
Cardinal Campeggio arrived in London in October 1528. The Pope had secretly instructed him to bring about a reconciliation between the King and Queen, but if that was not possible he was to persuade Katherine to enter a convent, thus freeing Henry to make another marriage. Campeggio soon saw that there was no chance of the former, and the Queen made it very clear that she had no vocation for the religious life: she insisted she was the King’s true wife, and nothing would make her say otherwise. As for the Cardinal, who took the opposite viewpoint, Campeggio had no more success with him “than if I had spoken to a rock.” Moreover, it soon became obvious to the legate what drove the King, and he reported to Clement: “He sees nothing, he thinks of nothing but Anne; he cannot do without her for an hour. He is constantly kissing her and treating her as if she were his wife.” However, he was quite certain that they had “not proceeded to any ultimate conjunction.”
