Henry VIII: The King and His Court

by Alison Weir

  The palace stood in a two-thousand-acre park stocked with a thousand deer. To the southwest was a two-storey timber banqueting house, which had a viewing platform on the roof from which the King could watch hunts in the park. A little way off there was another, smaller banqueting house. The gardens of Nonsuch, laid out by French experts, became famous for their groves, fountains, rockeries, stone carvings, marble pillars, aviaries, trellised walks, orchards, and vines, and there was a maze in the privy garden.21

  Work on Nonsuch began in April 1538, with 520 labourers and craftsmen working round the clock and camping out in tents, but their task was complicated and demanding. The inner court was virtually complete by 1541, but the outer court was still unfinished at the time of Henry’s death. By then, he had outlaid £24,536 (about £7.5 million) on the project.22

  Not for nothing was Nonsuch called “the very pearl of the realm.” One Jacobean observer wrote: “Here, Henry VIII, in his magnificence, erected a structure so beautiful, so elegant and so splendid that, in whatever direction the admirer of florid architecture turns his eyes, he will say that it easily bears off the prize. So great is the emulation of ancient Roman art, such are its paintings, its gilding and its decoration, that you would say that it is the sky spangled with stars.”23

  52

  “A Sort of Knaves”

  In April 1538, the ever-simmering tensions at court erupted into violence. One of Lord Hertford’s retainers killed a man in a duel within the verge of the court, then fled to sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. In another incident, a courtier was found murdered, while soon afterwards a brawl between the servants of the Earl of Southampton ended with one being brutally slain. Then Sir Gavin Carew and one of his men picked a fight with a Serjeant of the Household and his Yeoman, which left the Yeoman dead and the Serjeant badly wounded. Cromwell’s own henchmen then weighed in against Carew, who was arrested, and the quarrel spread among the servants of the various lords of the Council, leading to a riot involving forty gentlemen and their retainers. 1 There is no record of what happened next, and no one is known to have been punished.

  This may have been due to a more urgent crisis intervening. In May 1538, the King fell desperately ill. The abscess or ulcer on his leg closed up and “the humours which had no outlet were like to have stifled him.” It appears that a blood clot from his diseased leg broke loose and caused a blockage in a lung, rendering him black in the face and speechless with pain. For twelve days, he was “in great danger” and his courtiers, expecting him to die, began to debate whether their allegiance would lie with the infant Edward or the adult Mary. Then the King suddenly rallied, and by the end of the month was well again.2 From now on, however, his physicians would endeavour to prevent the suppurating wound in his leg from closing.

  It was now more imperative than ever that the King remarry, and soon. Various brides were under consideration: it was thought that some of the highborn ladies of France might prove suitable, but Henry, who was proving particularly choosy, was taking no chances, and demanded that seven or eight of them be brought to Calais for his inspection. On the instructions of an outraged King Francis, the French ambassador, Gaspard de Coligny, Sieur de Castillon, replied, “It is not the custom in France to send damsels of noble and princely families to be passed in review as if they were hackneys for sale.” Why could not His Majesty send envoys to report on their appearance and demeanour?

  “By God!” retorted Henry, “I trust no one but myself. The thing touches me too near. I wish to see them and know them some time before deciding.”

  Castillon impudently responded, “Then maybe Your Grace would like to mount them one after the other, and keep the one you find to be the best broken in. Is that the way the Knights of the Round Table treated women in your country in times past?” The King had the grace to look ashamed: “he laughed and blushed at the same time,” then quickly changed the subject. 3

  Henry liked Castillon’s racy humour. In recommending Louise de Guise, the ambassador said, “Take her, she is still a maid, and you will be able to shape the passage to your measure.” The King laughed heartily, clapping Castillon on the shoulder.4

  Another candidate for the consort’s throne was Charles V’s niece, the beautiful Christina of Denmark, who had married Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, but been left a widow at only sixteen. She was said to have resembled Madge Shelton in looks, and Holbein was dispatched to Brussels to paint her portrait.5 The King was entranced, and began to act the ardent swain, ordering his musicians to play love songs deep into the night and having masques staged constantly at court, but his potential bride was somewhat less enthusiastic, despite being informed by Thomas Wriothesley that his master was “a most gentle gentleman, his nature so benign and pleasant that I think till this day no man hath heard many angry words pass his mouth.” If she had two heads, Christina declared, one of them would be at His Majesty’s disposal.6

  In July, Henry departed on his usual hunting progress, making a detour to the south coast “to visit his ports and havens.”7 Upon his return in the autumn, he staged an unprecedented public debate in the great hall of Whitehall Palace with a radical Lutheran, John Lambert, who had been arrested for heresy. Eager spectators crowded along the tiers of scaffolding that had been specially erected along the walls so that all might hear their sovereign defend the doctrines of his Church. The King, dressed entirely in white silk, was seated under his canopy of estate, flanked on one side by purple-clad bishops and on the other by lords, judges, and the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, as Lambert was brought before him, under guard. He spoke genially enough to the prisoner, saying, “Ho, good fellow, what is thy name?”

  Lambert told him it was John Nicholson, but that he was known as Lambert. The King, his “brows bent unto severity,” replied, “I would not trust you, having two names, although you were my brother.” When Lambert tried to flatter him, he interrupted, “I did not come hither to hear mine own praises!” and asked Lambert if he believed in the doctrine of transubstantiation. Lambert, after some prevarication, stated, “I deny it.” Henry warned him he would be condemned to the stake if he persisted in this opinion, but remained arguing with him for five hours in an attempt to save him. In the end, seeing it was futile, he asked, “Wilt thou live or die? Thou hast yet free choice.” Lambert would not recant, so the King, rising, told him, “That being the case, you must die, for I will not be a patron unto heretics.” Six days later Lambert was burned over a slow fire at Smithfield.8

  Ever since Reginald Pole’s attack on the King in 1536, the members of his family had been watched. Cromwell, who viewed these reactionary scions of the House of Plantagenet as an ever-present threat to the new order and his own position, had now accumulated a formidable amount of evidence against them, sufficient to convince an already suspicious King that his life and throne were under threat. Some of the most damaging information came from Lord Montague’s brother, Geoffrey Pole, who turned King’s evidence to save his own skin. There is little doubt that there was a conspiracy of sorts, and that its members were exceptionally incompetent and indiscreet, but it seems unlikely that they were as malicious and as organised as they were made out to be.

  In November 1538, Cromwell struck, bringing down the entire White Rose faction, all of whom were closely related to the King. Exeter was sent to the Tower on a charge of compassing Henry’s death and plotting to usurp the throne; Lady Exeter was arrested with her husband for carrying on a treasonable correspondence with Chapuys; Cardinal Pole’s brother, Lord Montague; their mother, Lady Salisbury; and Sir Edward Neville, the King’s former jousting companion and an enemy of Cromwell, were also imprisoned for conspiring with Exeter. Most had been in regular contact with Cardinal Pole. Even the innocent young sons of Exeter and Montague were confined in the Tower.9

  The King was fond of Neville, and had warned him against associating with Montague, but he was angered when he learned that Neville had been overheard making disparaging remarks about the Privy Chamber. “
God’s blood!” Neville had said, “I am made a fool amongst them, but I laugh and make merry to drive forth the time. The King keepeth a sort of knaves here, that we dare neither look nor speak, and if I were able, I would rather live any life in the world than tarry in the Privy Chamber.” This, apparently, was enough to convince Henry of Neville’s disloyalty.

  On 9 December, Exeter, Montague, and Sir Edward Neville were beheaded. Lady Exeter would later be pardoned, but her son, Edward Courtenay, and young Henry Pole remained in the Tower, along with Lady Salisbury, who with the rest of her unfortunate family was attainted for treason by Parliament in 1539.10

  The Christmas of 1538 was observed quietly at Greenwich. Soon afterwards came the news that Pope Paul III, shocked at the King’s treatment of his kinsmen, had ordered the Bull of Excommunication drawn up by his predecessor in 1533 to be put into effect. This effectively isolated Henry from his Roman Catholic neighbours in Europe, who were now called upon by the Pope to dethrone him. Ominously, on 12 January 1539, those former enemies, Charles V and Francis I, signed the Treaty of Toledo, agreeing to make no further alliances with England. Henry immediately took measures to resist an invasion, strengthening defences and ordering musters up and down the land.

  Cromwell now moved against other leading conservatives. His attempt to discredit Sir Anthony Browne failed because the King refused to hear any ill of his former minion. But Cromwell succeeded in ousting Sir Francis Bryan from his post as Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, to Bryan’s great distress, and having him replaced by his own candidate, Anthony Denny. The son of a London lawyer who was related to the late William Carey,11 Denny was a highly educated, serious-minded humanist with a “sincere affection to God and His holy word.”12 He lived in Aldgate, where Holbein, to whom he would be a generous patron, was his neighbour; Holbein painted Denny in 1541.13 Denny was ambitious and self-seeking: although he had begun his court career in Bryan’s service, he did not flinch at supplanting him. In time, he would make himself indispensable to his sovereign.

  The biggest fish Cromwell netted was Sir Nicholas Carew, who had already fallen out of favour with the King after a game of bowls, when Henry had made insulting remarks, only half in jest, to him, and Carew had rashly responded in anger.14 When Cromwell produced apparently treasonable letters written by Carew at Beddington, the King was easily persuaded that he had been involved in the Exeter conspiracy.

  Sir Nicholas was arrested on 14 February and executed on 3 March. Chapuys was of the opinion that it was his devotion to the Lady Mary, rather than any treasonable intent, that had brought about his fall,15 but it appears that the King coveted his estates in Surrey, where he was in the process of creating a vast hunting domain. Beddington Park also came to Henry on Carew’s death.16

  In March, Sir Anthony Browne was appointed Master of the Horse in place of Carew. Sir William Paulet, a privy councillor whose influence was rapidly increasing, was created Lord St. John of Basing, while Sir John Russell, now an important member of the Privy Council and the Privy Chamber, was created Lord Russell of Chenies. * * Regardless of the Pope’s censure, Henry VIII pressed on with his Reformation. In the spring of 1539, after a heated debate between Cranmer and Cromwell, on one side, and Norfolk and Gardiner on the other, Parliament passed the Act of Six Articles, enshrining the doctrines of the Church of England in law. The King had realised that his subjects were “more inclined to the old religion than the new opinions,” and the Act reflected this conservatism, boosting Henry’s popularity, but although it was meant to put an end to debate, it found no favour with the radicals, who referred to it as “the whip with six strings.” Two bishops even resigned.

  Although the new Act prescribed the death penalty for anyone denying the sacraments, it did authorise an English Bible to be chained in every parish church. For the first time in history, ordinary people would be able to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves, without fear of persecution—a new freedom that was to have the most profound effects on every aspect of daily life. The first authorised version was the Great Bible of 1539–1540, based on the translations by Coverdale and Tyndale. Its title page, by an unknown artist, shows Henry VIII enthroned, handing down the Word of God to his subjects, among whom Cranmer and Cromwell are prominent.17 This powerful image of the King as the fount of all secular and spiritual virtue and authority was the first example of mass-produced propaganda in England.

  Cromwell might have steered the kingdom through the Reformation and the turbulent politics of the 1530s, but by the summer of 1539 his work was almost completed and he was losing his ascendancy. He had made many enemies along the way and incurred the jealousy and resentment of many at court who coveted his power and sneered at his lowly birth, yet feared what he knew about them. Norfolk and Gardiner had already tried to bring him down in Parliament; the people of England hated him; and the King, dismayed at his support for religious radicals, was losing confidence in him. Cromwell’s only true ally, aside from the fawning clients who looked to profit from his patronage, was Cranmer.

  It was Cromwell who pressed the King to marry Anne of Cleves. He believed that, to counterbalance England’s political isolation from the great European powers, an alliance with one of the Lutheran German states would be wise. William, Duke of Cleves had two unmarried sisters, Anne and Amelia. Anne, Cromwell had heard, excelled Christina of Denmark in beauty “as the golden sun did the silvery moon.”18 Envoys were duly dispatched to Düsseldorf, along with Hans Holbein, who had been commissioned to paint the two princesses. His portrait of Amelia is lost, or unidentified, but that of Anne is now in the Louvre. Holbein also painted a miniature of her, the only one of its period to survive in its original ivory box, which was in the shape of a Tudor rose.19 According to the English envoy, Nicholas Wotton, Holbein “expressed their images very lively.”20 The King liked what he saw, and he instructed Cromwell to proceed with the marriage negotiations.

  Henry was in jovial spirits that summer, and on 17 June he staged a river pageant at Whitehall with a markedly antipapal theme. There was a mock battle between two barges, “one for the Bishop of Rome and his cardinals, and the other for the King’s Grace,” which ended with the former being tipped into the Thames. None were drowned, for the chosen actors could all swim and the King’s barge lay nearby to pick them up. Henry and his courtiers watched the “triumph” from the leads above the privy stairs, seated under a canvas canopy decorated with roses and green bows. The riverbank was crowded with small craft filled with ladies and gentlemen, while two other barges conveyed musicians up and down the river. 21

  In 1539, Henry VIII created the vast Honour of Hampton Court, an enclosed royal hunting domain that stretched across thirty-six square miles of the Surrey countryside, from Weybridge to Thames Ditton, and from Battersea and Balham to Epsom, Coulsdon, and Mortlake. The first royal forest for two centuries, it was intended to facilitate easier sport for the King, who was growing “heavy with sickness, age and corpulency of body, and might not travel so readily abroad, but was constrained to seek his game and pleasure ready at hand.” 22 The new Honour was centred upon Hampton Court Chase. Several royal houses came within its compass, and there was provision for the days on which the King was unable to ride. The deer were then driven through two lines of nets past a small timber-framed building called a standing, which had a high gallery from which he and his companions would shoot them. The ladies would often come to watch, and refreshments would be served. Henry had several of these standings built in his later years. At the royal palaces, mounting blocks were raised so that he could mount and dismount easily, and elsewhere bridges were built over marshland for his safety while riding.23

  By 1541, the King owned eighty-five hunting parks and forests, and was to create two more: Nasing Park, Essex, in 1542, and Marylebone Park (now Regents Park), north of London, in 1544.

  Henry’s mania for acquiring property did not abate. Seven houses came into his possession in 1539, three of them intended as residences f
or his children. Ashridge, formerly a thirteenth-century monastery with a collegiate church, was renowned for its healthy air and was used frequently by Edward and Elizabeth.24 They also stayed often at Elsynge Hall, north of Enfield, Middlesex, which had been built before 1524 by Sir Thomas Lovell and already had a suite of chambers for the use of the King. Henry reconstructed the outer court, which boasted a covered gallery, and updated the royal apartments. There was a well-stocked deer park, which bordered Enfield Chase; in the chase was a royal hunting lodge called Camelot, but virtually nothing is known about it. The King came to Elsynge occasionally, received ambassadors, and once held a Council meeting.25 Nearby was the fourteenth-century fortified manor house at Enfield, which reverted to the Crown on the death of Lady Wingfield. Henry created apartments for all his children here, but they lodged more frequently at Elsynge, which was larger and grander.26

  The King obtained Halnaker House, Sussex, by exchange with Lord de la Warre; he also purchased a fourteenth-century hunting lodge at Bagshot, which he refurbished but rarely used,27 and two houses in the north, Hull Manor and the King’s Manor at York, which he intended to visit on a future progress.

  53

  “Nourishing Love”

  The Duke of Cleves, eager to form an alliance with England, signed the marriage treaty on 4 September 1539. Later that month, his envoys arrived in England to conclude the alliance. During the eight days they spent at Windsor, the King laid on feasts and hunting expeditions in their honour, then took them to Hampton Court, where he ratified the marriage treaty on 8 October. After the envoys had left, Henry began preparing for the arrival of his bride.