Henry VIII: The King and His Court

by Alison Weir

  Between March and June 1545, Henry was ill again. He had “a burning fever for several days, and subsequently the malady attacked the leg.” 5 He remained behind closed doors, and the true state of his health was deliberately not made public, but there was naturally speculation, and Gardiner expressed the fear that the King would not live until “my Lord Prince may come to man’s estate.”6

  When Henry finally did emerge, he told Chapuys that he had felt “ten times better in France” than he had since his return. The ambassador was shocked to see him “much broken down” and very depressed. He spent his days in his chair, locked in melancholy, dressing only to attend mass, and sometimes rousing himself to play cards with Hertford or Lisle. 7 Henry was having to come to terms with the fact that he would be a semi-invalid for the rest of his life—a bitter prospect for a man who had once been such an active and renowned sportsman. He lamented the fact that time “is of all losses the most irrecuperable, for it can never be redeemed for no manner price nor prayer.”8

  Exacerbated by inactivity and pain, the King’s temper became more irascible than usual, and he was “often of one mind in the morning and of quite another after dinner.”9 Yet soon his iron will asserted itself, and he would force himself to carry on as normal, riding out, hunting, hawking, and playing bowls as often as his health permitted, and moving from house to house with relentless frequency. Chapuys thought it remarkable that he could get about at all, since he had “the worst legs in the world” and was now of very weak constitution.10

  This is borne out by the fact that more and more apothecaries were employed to assist the King’s Gentleman Apothecary, Thomas Alsop, during the years 1540–1546. Sometimes apothecaries from outside the court were paid to make up medicines for the King. Expenditure on these preparations rose steadily.11 It was the apothecaries who determined what he should be given, rather than the physicians, whose role was now subordinate. The physicians’ role was to monitor Henry’s health, measuring his urine against his fluid intake and examining his stools. It is fortunate that none of his medical staff resorted to the drastic, painful, and usually useless remedies employed by some Tudor doctors, although it is clear that they could do little to relieve his symptoms. “At the last, by reason of his sore leg, the anguish whereof began more and more to increase, he waxed sickly, and therewithal froward and difficult to be pleased.” 12 When he was in this mood, those around him knew “it was high time for us to get clear of him, in order to avoid offending him or irritating him further, having regard to his malady.”13

  The King’s doctors, being so frequently in attendance, were now among the most influential people at court, and none more so than Sir William Butts, in whom Henry had special confidence. Butts was a great evangelical and perhaps a closet Protestant, and is known to have used his influence to protect others of like mind. Once, when Henry was determined to punish one Richard Turner, a young reformist, for inciting a Kentish community to antipapist demonstrations, Butts waited until the King was having his beard trimmed, and “with some pleasant conceits to refresh and solace” him, “pleasantly and merrily insinuated unto the King the effect of the matter,” after which Henry “so altered his mind that, whereas before he commanded the said Turner to be whipped out of the country, he now commanded him to be retained as a faithful subject.”14 Butts exercised vast powers of patronage, being sought out by clients who wanted their suits laid before the King, but he remained discreet and entirely trustworthy. During these final years, it was to Butts, Cranmer, and Somers, more than anyone else, that Henry confided his secrets and unburdened his mind.

  Chapuys was also in very poor health, due to gout, and had to be carried about in a chair. In May 1545, he told the King he would shortly be departing from England for good. Soon afterwards, as he sat enjoying the sunshine in the garden facing the Queen’s lodgings at Whitehall, Katherine Parr approached with her ladies and told him how sorry she was to hear that he was leaving, for, as Chapuys recorded, Henry had told her “that I had always performed my duties well, and the King trusted me; but on the other hand, she doubted not that my health would be better on the other side of the sea.” The Queen insisted on taking him to say farewell to the Lady Mary, whose champion he had been for so many years. During his retirement, Chapuys would keep abreast of affairs in England and write succinct and insightful commentaries on them.15 Soon after his departure, the Emperor replaced him with a new ambassador, Francis van der Delft.

  The war between England and France continued. Hertford had been left in command at Boulogne, and in January, using brilliant military tactics, had successfully repelled an onslaught by the French.16 Later that year, Henry was to replace him with Norfolk and give him a command in the north against the obdurate Scots.

  In July, French ships harried the south coast. The King went down to Portsmouth to review his fleet and oversee operations. On 19 July, as the French lay off the Isle of Wight, Henry was standing on the battlements of Southsea Castle, watching the “Great Harry” lead his ships out of the Solent to do battle. Suddenly, the Mary Rose, with all hands on board, keeled over and sank. More than six hundred men drowned, and their cries could be heard by the horrified King.

  “Oh, my gentlemen! Oh, my gallant men!” he cried, then turned to comfort Lady Carew, the wife of Sir George Carew, Vice Admiral of the Fleet, who had gone down with the stricken ship.17 The loss of the Mary Rose was a terrible blow to Henry, yet despite it the English fleet still managed to trounce the French and send them packing.

  Afterwards, Henry departed on a hunting progress, feeling so confident of the “valour and affection of his subjects” that he could safely leave the defence of his kingdom to them, having arranged for regular reports to be sent to him.18 He stayed three nights at Nonsuch, inspecting works he had ordered to be carried out in May, when he had complained that the workmen were making slow progress with completing the palace. This time, he was here with the court, and a forest of tents sprang up in the gardens to accommodate everyone, while furnishings and tapestries were brought from Whitehall to make the house fit for the King.

  Dwindling funds had brought to a halt the King’s passion for property acquisition. The last house Henry acquired was Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire, which he purchased from Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, in 1543.19

  On 22 August, while the court was at Guildford, the Duke of Suffolk, who had accompanied the King on progress, died unexpectedly. Henry was stricken at the loss of one of his oldest and most loyal friends, and arranged for the Duke to be buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, at his own expense. He told the Council that, for as long as Suffolk had served him, he had never betrayed a friend or knowingly taken unfair advantage of an enemy. None of those present could say as much, he added, his gaze bearing down on them. Young Henry Brandon, now eleven, succeeded his father as Duke of Suffolk, while the late Duke’s widow, Katherine Willoughby, continued to rule over his vast estates in Lincolnshire. William Paulet, Lord St. John, Chamberlain of the Household, was promoted to Lord Great Master in Suffolk’s place.

  Norfolk had taken over Hertford’s command in France, but quickly proved so incompetent that the King recalled him and gave him perhaps the most blistering dressing-down of his careeer, accusing him of acting “clean discrepant from our commandment,” and warning him that in future he must “study and seek our honour, herein somewhat touched, redubbed.”20

  Surrey was chosen to replace his father in France. For a year now, the Earl had been occupied with the building of a fine new mansion, Mount Surrey, near Norwich.21 In September 1545, he was appointed the King’s Lieutenant General in charge of all the land and naval forces in France. Once installed at Boulogne, he served the King with such ostentatious valour that both Henry and Paget felt obliged to rebuke him for putting himself at unnecessary risk.22 The Council were not so impressed by Surrey’s lavish overspending, nor the inefficiency of his administration.23

  On 6 November 1545, Katherine Parr published her first book, a de
votional work entitled Prayers or Meditations, wherein the Mind is Stirred Patiently to Su fer all Afflictions, which was printed by Thomas Berthelet. Although strongly evangelical in tone and content, it did not overstep the bounds of orthodoxy, and appeared with the King’s full approval. It was very rare in early Tudor England for a woman to publish a book: only seven other women did so during the reigns of the first two Tudors.24 Katherine’s book immediately became very popular, especially among her own sex, and went through nineteen editions in the sixteenth century. On the strength of its reputation, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge both asked the Queen to become their patron, an honour she took pleasure in accepting, and Nicholas Udall dedicated to Katherine his translation of the Gospel of St. Luke.

  In 1544, Roger Ascham had completed his brilliant satirical treatise Toxophilus, which was ostensibly about archery—“a pastime honest for the mind, wholesome for the body, fit for every man, vile for no man”— yet also contained a pithy summation of the state of the realm and a plea for English to replace Latin as the language of humanism. Ascham had long hoped to present his work to the King, but the French war had intervened, and it was not until 1545 that he obtained—probably through the good offices of his friend and patron Sir Anthony Denny—an audience of Henry, who received him in the gallery at Greenwich and “did so well like” the book that he immediately awarded Ascham a pension of £10 (£3,000), thus opening the way to further court patronage.

  Henry—and the reformists—lost another supportive friend in November 1545 when Sir William Butts died. Dr. Thomas Wendy replaced him, but he lacked the intellectual stature of Butts, whose ministrations were greatly missed when, in the winter, the King suffered yet another bout of illness. Van der Delft reported on Christmas Eve that Henry was “so unwell that, considering his age and corpulence, fears are entertained that he will be unable to survive further attacks.” 25

  Nevertheless, on that same day, the King went to Westminster and addressed Parliament for what was to prove the last time in his reign. With unusual humility, he thanked the Speaker for his speech reminding him of his duty as sovereign, “which is to endeavour myself to obtain and get such excellent qualities and necessary virtues as a prince or governor ought to have, of which gifts I recognise myself both bare and barren. But for such small qualities as God has endowed me with, I render to His goodness my most humble thanks.” After complaining that “that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is now disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern,” he exhorted his subjects, “Be in charity one with another, like brother and brother. Love, dread and serve God, the which I, as your sovereign lord, exhort and require you; and then I doubt not but that love and league shall never be dissolved nor broken between us.”26 His speech had a profound impact on his listeners: one M.P. commented, “To us that have not heard him often, it was such a joy and marvellous comfort as I reckon this day one of the happiest of my life.”27

  In 1545, so as not to weary the ailing King with routine business, a “dry stamp” bearing his signature was brought into use, in order to validate official documents.28 The stamp left an imprint of the royal signature, which was inked in by persons authorised to forge it, namely Sir Anthony Denny, Sir William Herbert, Sir William Paget, Sir John Gates, and William Clerk, all trusted members of the Privy Chamber. Only three of these men were permitted to use the stamp at any one time, while the other two were designated to act as witnesses. Initially, the King himself kept the stamp, but he later gave the stamp, in its black bag, to Gates for safekeeping.29

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  “Painful Service”

  On 1 January 1546, the antiquary John Leland presented Henry VIII with “A New Year’s Gift”—a written summary of his researches into the treasures of England’s religious houses and the antiquities of England. “I have conserved many good authors,” he wrote in his dedication, “the which otherwise had been like to have perished; of the which, part remain in the most magnificent libraries of your royal palaces.” Henry had already rewarded Leland with ecclesiastical offices, but Leland preferred to stay in London and preserve his links with the court while writing up his notes. Sadly, his mind gave way under the strain of his work and he became insane. Death came mercifully quickly the following year.1

  Another of Henry’s New Year’s gifts was the Lady Elizabeth’s elegant translation into Latin, French, and Italian of Katherine Parr’s Prayers and Meditations.

  That January, the King appointed Cranmer to head an ecclesiastical commission to examine the validity of certain church ceremonies, himself recommending that several time-hallowed rituals be abolished as superstitious and smacking of papistry, among them the ringing of bells on the Eve of All Souls and “the greater abuse of creeping to the Cross on Good Friday.” However, after Gardiner wrote a long letter to Henry protesting about the changes, the King changed his mind. When Sir Anthony Denny presented the final list to him for signing, Henry declined to do so. “I am now otherwise resolved,” he said.2 To the end, he would uphold his own brand of orthodoxy.

  In 1546, thanks to the influence of Katherine Parr and John Cheke, Henry VIII finally gave his attention to the universities, which had suffered during the Reformation. At Oxford, he refounded Wolsey’s Cardinal College and renamed it Christ Church. The college, which was to teach theology, Greek, and Hebrew, was more richly endowed than any of its rivals, and its chapel was to serve as a cathedral for the newly founded See of Oxford. The first Dean was Dr. Richard Cox, Prince Edward’s tutor, and the King himself was to act as Visitor. At Cambridge, Henry founded and endowed Trinity College, replacing three mediaeval colleges, Michaelhouse, King’s Hall, and the Physwick Hostel. Henry’s statue may still be seen above the entrance gate to Trinity College. Back in 1540, he had endowed five regius professorships at Cambridge in Greek, Hebrew, civil law, divinity, and medicine.

  Henry’s courtiers, who had been covetous of university land since the Dissolution, “gaped after” the extent of the landed endowments that he gave to his colleges, but he rebuked them, saying, “I tell you, Sirs, that I judge no land in England better bestowed than that which is given to our universities, for by their maintenance our realm shall be well-governed when we be dead and rotten.”3

  Early in 1546, Surrey, acting with his usual rashness, lost fourteen of his captains and several English standards to the French in a skirmish at St. Etienne outside Boulogne. In a wrathful mood, Henry summoned him home and replaced him, to his bitter and loudly expressed chagrin, with his enemy, Hertford. Paget urged Surrey to seek a lesser post, in which he might redeem his honour, but the hot-headed Earl ignored this wise advice, and plotted instead how wreak vengeance on Hertford.4

  In February, the King was again laid low with a fever, which confined him to his apartments for three weeks. By 10 March he was out of bed and losing money at cards to Lisle and others.5 Soon afterwards, making light of his weakness, he announced that he intended shortly to visit the furthest parts of his realm, and when he met with envoys from Charles V on 22 March, he said that, although his leg was still a little painful, his strong constitution had aided his recovery. His face, however, bore the hallmarks of suffering, and the envoys concluded that his illness had been worse than he pretended.6

  The Queen spent these weeks nursing her husband; she may also have been writing her new devotional work, a 120-page book entitled The Lamentations of a Sinner, in which she depicted the King as Moses, leading his people out of “captivity and bondage.” Henry, she asserted, had shown her a holier way of existence and delivered her from “the ignorance of her blind life.” In placing the emphasis on personal faith, the Queen was edging dangerously close to the Protestant ethos, which may be why the book was never printed during Henry’s lifetime. Eventually published in 1548, it was to become Katherine’s most famous work.

  Katherine’s enemies in the conservative faction had long suspected her of heresy. Above all, they resented and feared her influence with the King and the Prince of Wales.
It was now becoming clear that Henry would not live to see Edward attain his majority, and the rival factions were girding their loins for a power struggle over the regency. Gardiner, Wriothesley, and their Catholic followers were determined to purge the court of heresy, and were even prepared to eliminate the Queen, just as Cromwell had got rid of Anne Boleyn when she became a threat to his position. In the case of Katherine Parr, the conservatives had no doubt that evidence of heresy could be found, if they were watchful.

  Matters played into their hands. During Lent, Norfolk’s younger son, Lord Thomas Howard, took exception to the orthodox themes of the sermons preached by the royal chaplains, and openly criticised them “in the Queen’s chamber and elsewhere in the court.” Hauled before the Privy Council, he was given a severe reprimand.7 In May, a fashionable court preacher, Dr. Edward Crome, who was also a leading member of a secret Protestant circle based in London, was arrested for heresy. Under interrogation, he revealed the names of his associates, among whom were several courtiers and a Lincolnshire woman, Anne Askew. Anne, a self-confessed Protestant, had connections at court and was acquainted with some of the Queen’s ladies, and the conservatives were convinced that she could give them useful evidence about Katherine Parr. When Anne refused to talk, she was put on the rack, and when she bravely maintained her silence and the Lieutenant of the Tower refused to torture her further, Lord Chancellor Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich themselves turned the wheel, but to no avail. Anne was returned to prison, her body broken but her integrity intact.