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Henry VIII: The King and His Court

Page 79

by Alison Weir


  Ibid.; L&P.

  Lancelot de Carles.

  Edward Hall; The Noble Triumphant Coronation of Queen Anne.

  Edward Hall; CSP: Venetian.

  L&P.

  William Roper.

  Cited by Bowle.

  Calendar of State Papers, Foreign . . . Elizabeth I.

  Charles Wriothesley; CSP: Spanish; L&P; CSP: Venetian.

  PPE; Lancelot de Carles.

  CSP: Spanish; Letters and Accounts of William Brereton.

  Muir; Thomson; Sir Thomas Wyatt; Letters and Accounts of William Brereton.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish; CSP: Venetian.

  History of the King’s Works; CSP: Spanish.

  History of the King’s Works.

  Ibid.

  L&P.

  Paul Hentzner, Travels in England.

  Ibid.

  The Paradise Chamber was demolished with most of the rest of these royal apartments in 1689–1691 by Sir Christopher Wren. The present Cumberland Suite occupies the site of Henry VIII’s privy chamber. Henry’s lodgings were replaced by the present King’s Apartments, built for William III.

  Paul Hentzner, Travels in England.

  Sunken gardens created in the 1950s in the Tudor style now occupy the site of the Pond Gardens.

  History of the King’s Works.

  Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.

  Cited in Windsor Castle: The Official Guide. The North Terrace was rebuilt in stone by Elizabeth I. Henry VIII’s private apartments at Windsor were extensively remodelled by Charles II in the 1670s, and again under George IV in the 1820s. The present State Apartments occupy the site.

  44 “The High and Mighty Princess of England”

  L&P.

  Now in the National Gallery, London.

  Holbein’s original portrait of Cromwell is lost. The best copy is in the Frick Collection in New York, and there are two other copies in the National Portrait Gallery in London. On one of the latter there is an inscription referring to Cromwell as Master of the Jewel House, which must date the sitting to 1533/4.

  After Holbein’s death, many of his drawings remained in the Royal Collection, but were sold in 1553 to Henry FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel. They passed in 1590 into the collection of his son-in-law, John, Lord Lumley, by which time they had been bound into a book. On Lumley’s death in 1609, the book was acquired by Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I. His brother Charles I later gave it to the Earl of Pembroke, who sold it to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, before 1642. The drawings were purchased by Charles II prior to 1675, and have remained in the Royal Collection ever since. In 1727, the book of eighty-seven drawings was found by Queen Caroline of Ansbach in a bureau in Kensington Palace. The pictures were then extracted and framed. George III had them rebound in two volumes, and in the nineteenth century they were moved to Windsor, where they remain today, remounted and preserved between acrylic sheeting. Eighty-five of the pictures remain, of which eighty are signed by Holbein; several have deteriorated and/or been retouched. Sixty-nine have been identified, but some are incorrectly labelled. In 1590, the Lumley inventory noted that the names on the pictures had been subscribed by Sir John Cheke, Secretary to Edward VI, who had first come to court in 1542 and may not have known all the sitters. It is unlikely that any of the existing labels are his: they were probably copied in the eighteenth century.

  Karel van Mander.

  See Derek Wilson, Hans Holbein.

  Holbein’s design for the cup is now in the Offentliche Kunstsammlung Kupferstichkabinett, Basel.

  L&P.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Lisle Letters.

  Ibid.; L&P.

  John Leland; Collectanea; Lisle Letters.

  CSP: Spanish; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  Lancelot de Carles.

  CSP: Spanish.

  One is in B.L. Harleian MSS.

  L&P; Edward Hall; Charles Wriothesley; CSP: Spanish.

  CSP: Spanish. A lace-trimmed christening robe, said to be Elizabeth’s, is at Sudeley Castle, but probably dates from the seventeenth century at the earliest.

  Lancelot de Carles.

  For the christening, see Edward Hall; L&P.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Suffolk renovated and modernized Grimsthorpe, and some of his works can still be seen there.

  Both are in the Royal Collection.

  Cronica del Rey Enrico.

  CSP: Spanish.

  In 1573, Beaulieu was granted by Elizabeth I to the Earl of Sussex, who rebuilt it. The north wing of his house still survives. The only remains of Henry VIII’s palace are in the cellars, apart from an oriel window which is now in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster. Beaulieu was largely rebuilt in the eighteenth century, and in 1798 became a Catholic convent school. It was badly damaged by enemy action in 1943, but the Elizabethan façade has been restored.

  L&P.

  Ibid.; CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid.

  State Papers; L&P.

  L&P.

  Ibid.; Lisle Letters.

  B.L. Arundel MSS.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid; L&P; quote cited by Bowle.

  45 “The Image of God upon Earth”

  Lisle Letters.

  She had probably conceived in November 1533: her pregnancy was reported in Rome on 23 January 1534, the news having been presumably conveyed by her uncle, Lord William Howard, the newly arrived English ambassador.

  L&P; Lisle Letters. The New Year’s gift roll for 1534 survives in the Public Record Office and lists all the gifts given and received by the King.

  Lisle Letters; L&P.

  Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.

  Letter of Sir Thomas More, cited in Reynolds, The Field Is Won.

  William Roper.

  Only one example of this medal survives, in the British Museum. The nose is somewhat mutilated, yet the face shape is recognisably Anne’s.

  Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; PPE; History of the King’s Works.

  PRO; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.

  L&P.

  Now in the possession of the Dean and College of Windsor.

  Foister; Dynasties.

  Now in the Royal Collection.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish.

  History of the King’s Works.

  Strype.

  PRO.

  The Catholic Church today recognises fifty Henrician martyrs, among them More, Fisher, Margaret Pole, thirty-three monks, and eleven priests.

  L&P.

  Ibid. It was commissioned in 1535.

  John Stow. The Survey of London; PRO.

  John Foxe. This preaching place was demolished in 1649 under the Commonwealth.

  L&P.

  Ibid.; William Latimer.

  Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.

  This seal is now in the Public Record Office.

  An example is in the British Museum.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Polydore Vergil.

  Stephen Gardiner; De Vera Obedientia (1535).

  L&P.

  Ibid.

  Now in the Royal Collection.

  Now in the Royal Collection. Henry also owned portraits of Francis I and Eleanor of Austria by Joos van Cleve, which are still in the Royal Collection.

  Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  L&P; Lisle Letters.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish; Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies.

  L&P.

  Ibid.; Lisle Letters.

  Lisle Letters.

  46 “That Thin Old Woman”

  Now in the Public Record Office.

  William Latimer.

  John Bale, The Laborious Journey and S
earch of John Leland for England’s Antiquities (London, 1549).

  Ibid.

  CSP: Spanish. William Latimer identifies her as Mary Shelton, who married Sir Anthony Heveningham in 1546 and is the subject of a portrait sketch by Holbein (Royal Collection).

  CSP: Spanish.

  William Latimer.

  Ibid.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish: Warnicke, The Lady Margaret.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P; Henry Clifford.

  L&P; Tudor Royal Proclamations.

  William Latimer; Nicholas Bourbon; L&P.

  Nicholas Bourbon.

  Cited by Anglo; Loades, Tudor Court.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish.

  Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.

  L&P.

  More and Fisher were both canonised in 1935.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  Ibid.

  Chobham Park was sold by Mary I to Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, in 1558. Nothing remains of the house today.

  The manor of Hackney was later granted by Edward VI to Sir William Herbert.

  Parts of Henry’s house were incorporated into the present Petworth House when it was built at the end of the seventeenth century.

  The fireplace, doors, and cornice were replaced by Wren in 1700, and the original roundels were replaced with copies in the nineteenth century. The stained glass in the oriel window dates from 1841.

  PRO; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Inventory. A lead leaf and a Tudor rose were found during excavations at Greenwich, and are now in Nottingham University Museum.

  CSP: Spanish.

  See Henry VIII: A European Court in England.

  The present Wulfhall is mainly Elizabethan, but incorporates some early sixteenth-century work. Tudor chimneys and mullioned windows may be seen in a house opposite, and may have come from Sir John Seymour’s house.

  L&P; Seymour Papers.

  L&P.

  Ibid.

  CSP: Spanish.

  A sketch of Jane by Holbein is in the Royal Collection at Windsor. His finished portrait is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, while what is thought to be a studio copy hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague. Holbein’s likeness is echoed in Lucas Horenbout’s miniature of Jane at Sudeley Castle.

  CSP: Spanish.

  L&P; Henry VIII: A European Court in England; Lisle Letters.

  CSP: Spanish.

  CSP: Venetian.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Polydore Vergil.

  CSP: Spanish; Edward Hall; Polydore Vergil; L&P; Lord Herbert of Cherbury; Henry Clifford.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  Ibid. Charles Wriothesley also says Henry “had no hurt.”

  Chiefly MacNalty.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid. There is no contemporary evidence to support Warnicke’s elaborate theory that the foetus was deformed. Chapuys’s sources gave him a detailed description of it, and he would not have hesitated to make political capital of any abnormality.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid.

  47 “Thunder Rolls around the Throne”

  CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid.

  L&P.

  Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Loke, Account of Materials.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish.

  Statutes of the Realm.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  L&P; Strype; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Otho; B.L. Harleian MSS.

  Charles Wriothesley.

  CSP: Spanish; State Papers; L&P.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  Thomas Wyatt: Collected Poems.

  L&P.

  Ibid.; Lisle Letters.

  For the indictment, see L&P. Warnicke has suggested that the men accused with Anne Boleyn were all known to have indulged in criminal perversions and thus were easily framed, but there is no real evidence to support this theory.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  L&P.

  Cited in Starkey, Reign of Henry VIII.

  CSP: Foreign, Elizabeth I; letter from Alexander Aless to Elizabeth I, 1 September 1559, now in the Public Record Office.

  L&P; Strype; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Otho; B.L. Harleian MSS.

  L&P.

  Ibid.

  George Constantine. Constantine was Norris’s servant, and had known Brereton since their youth.

  Ibid.; Chronica del Rey Enrico.

  Reports of Sir John Spelman; L&P.

  L&P; Strype; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Otho; B.L. Harleian MSS.

  George Constantine.

  Edward Hall.

  Ibid.

  Sander says that Henry left in a rage after Anne dropped her handkerchief to Norris as a favour. Norris’s use of it to wipe the sweat from his face was seen by the King as evidence of intimacy. No contemporary source mentions this incident.

  L&P.

  Ashmole MSS., Bodleian Library.

  L&P; Strype; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Otho; B.L. Harleian MSS.

  State Papers; George Constantine; L&P.

  Lancelot de Carles; Henry Clifford; Lord Herbert of Cherbury; Gilbert Burnet.

  Excerpta Historica.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  L&P; Lisle Letters; PPE.

  L&P.

  Ibid.

  Letters and Accounts of William Brereton.

  George Cavendish, Metrical Visions.

  L&P; Lisle Letters.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Ibid.

  Now the official residence of the Governor of the Tower. The Queen’s House is not called after Anne Boleyn, but is known as the King’s House or the Queen’s House according to the gender of the current monarch. The rooms occupied by Anne have been preserved; a carving of her first name is to be seen in the stonework of the fireplace in her bedchamber.

  Chronicle of Calais; Excerpta Historica; William Thomas; Charles Wriothesley.

  See Loades, Tudor Court.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Edward Hall.

  L&P; CSP: Spanish.

  L&P.

  B.L. Cotton MSS.: Vespasian; Original Letters, ed. Ellis; L&P.

  L&P; Lisle Letters.

  48 “Bound to Obey and Serve”

  Statutes of the Ream.

  Charles Wriothesley.

  CSP: Spanish.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Edward Hall.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  L&P.

  CSP: Spanish.

  L&P.

  Ibid.

  CSP: Spanish; L&P.

  L&P.

  This tale was recounted by the eighteenth-century antiquary and art historian George Vertue, who had access to sources now lost to us, and is recorded by Horace Walpole in Anecdotes of Painting in England.

  L&P.

  Charles Wriothesley.

  Cited in L. B. Smith, Henry VII: The Mask of Royalty.

  Cited in Neville Williams, Henry VIII and His Court.

  Charles Wriothesley.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Ibid.

  Lisle Letters.

  CSP: Spanish.

  Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; PRO. Some of Anne’s emblems were too inaccessible to remove, or were overlooked: her initials, entwined with Henry’s, are still to be seen on the vaulted ceiling above the entrance to Anne Boleyn’s gateway at Hampton Court and in the roof timbers of the great hall, and her falcon badge survives on the rood screen in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.

  PRO.

  B.L. Additional MSS.

  Inventory.

  Now in the Royal Collection.

  Both sketches are in the Royal Collection.

  Lisle Let
ters.

  This cup was recorded in royal inventories until the reign of Charles I, who, in 1629, had it melted down to raise funds. Holbein’s preliminary design is in the British Museum, and his more elaborate finished presentation drawing is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

  Jane’s portrait is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Henry’s is in the Thyssen Collection at Lugano. The portraits may have formed a diptych: one of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour is recorded in the King’s Inventory. However, they are not a matching pair, and it may be that one or the other was part of the diptych, and that the corresponding portrait is now lost.

  More than 250 of his designs survive in the British Museum, in the Ashmolean Museum, and at Basel.

  See chapter 50.

  L&P; Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary.

  Suffolk Place was given by Mary I to the Archbishop of York in 1556. Few traces of the house remain today.

  Anne of Cleves died there in 1557. In 1639, Chelsea Palace was alienated from the Crown. Nothing remains of it today.

  Durham House was kept in repair throughout the Tudor period, but demolished in the mid seventeenth century.

  Copt Hall was given by Edward VI to Mary Tudor in 1548. It was rebuilt in 1758, but later destroyed by fire. Only ruins remain.

  49 “The Suppression of the Religious Houses”

  L&P; B.L. Cotton MSS.: Vespasian.

  L&P.

  Cited by Muir and Mason

  CSP: Spanish.

  Cited in The Hamilton Papers (ed. J. Bain, Edinburgh, 1890–1892.

  A portrait by Holbein of a lady thought to be Elizabeth Seymour that descended in the Cromwell family and is now in Toledo, Ohio, was in the nineteenth century incorrectly identified as one of Katherine Howard. A copy is in the National Portrait Gallery.

  L&P; State Papers.

  John Foxe.

  The present house is a seventeenth-century reconstruction on a much larger scale. Audley also converted an Augustinian friary in Aldgate into a London town house, but this has long since disappeared.

  Browne was also granted the Priory of St. Mary Overy in Southwark (now Southwark Cathedral), which he converted into a town house.

  Colvin. The gateway and ruins of the royal apartments have survived. In 1896, the Old Palace at Canterbury was built by Archbishop Temple using building materials from Henry VIII’s palace, which had been alienated from the Crown in 1612.

  Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library. Dartford was granted to Anne of Cleves on Henry’s death, and to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, in 1606. A brick gate and part of the outer court are all that survive.

  It was sold by Mary I in 1554.

  Letters to Cromwell. Reading remained in use as a royal residence until the reign of Charles I. It was mostly destroyed in 1643, during the civil war, but a few ruins remain in Forbury Gardens, while the gatehouse is used as a museum.

 

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