Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII

by Robert Hutchinson

  His trade sanctions were too little, too late.

  Support for ‘the king over the sea’ was growing at home and ominously, it seemed that the lethal contagion of treason was spreading even within the royal household. In January 1493, Sir John Radcliffe, First Baron Fitzwalter and the First Steward of Henry’s household, went over to the pretender. Two months later Henry VII’s step-uncle Sir William Stanley, his Lord Chamberlain, also tentatively declared for Warbeck, unwisely pledging that he ‘would not bear arms against King Edward’s son’.35 This was a humiliating setback for the king. Almost eight years earlier, Stanley’s last-minute decision with his brother Thomas (later First Earl of Derby) to support Henry Tudor was a decisive factor in the defeat of Richard III at Bosworth. It was all too clear that Henry VII had to snatch the initiative in what was becoming an increasingly serious threat to his crown.

  His immediate actions to counter the menace of Perkin Warbeck seem slight, if not insignificant. But if the king was habitually cautious, he was also shrewd. Arthur was already Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, and in 1492 the six year old was allotted the figurehead role of King’s Lieutenant – the ‘Keeper of England’ – when Henry was away in ‘remote parts’. In February the following year, the heir was granted powers to administer justice in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire and the Welsh borders.36 The prince could also raise troops to assist the king and to enforce Henry’s laws.37 His commissioners’ enthusiasm for enforcing Arthur’s feudal rights led to a small but troubling insurrection in Meirionnydd, North Wales, in 1498. 38

  Henry reasoned it was now time to exploit the appeal and status of the second son. On 5 April 1493 the king made the infant Henry Lord Warden of the fourteen Cinque Ports on the south-east coast of England and Constable of Dover Castle, that mighty fortress atop the white cliffs that guards the gates of England, facing the continent of Europe.39

  It was a highly symbolic act. Not only was a royal prince now nominally in charge of the realm’s defensive front line – a deputy, Sir Edward Poynings (another of Henry VII’s loyal cronies from his exile), was the day-to-day operational commander – but the appointment was also deliberately linked with a name of famous memory. This possessed almost magical power in the history of the English monarchy: ‘Henry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales’, later King Henry V, was Lord Warden in 1409 – 12.40

  Further prestigious offices followed: Earl Marshal of England and then, on 12 September 1494, his appointment as Lord Deputy of Ireland, the king’s personal representative in that unstable and disorderly island with control of the Irish government executive – although, of course, the faithful Poynings41 did all the hard work.42 Prince Arthur was the Tudor figurehead in Wales and its marches; his younger brother fulfilled that role in Ireland. Henry was firmly stamping the Tudor dynasty upon the administration of his kingdom and dominions.

  A more signal honour came just over six weeks later. Henry VII created his three-year-old son Duke of York and a knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. His intention was quite transparent. Here was no mere Johnny-come-lately imposter. What price the pretender’s claims when there was now a true Duke of York who was also a member of one of the most prestigious orders of chivalry of England? The king was determined to cut the ground from beneath Perkin Warbeck’s feet, so gaudily shod by Burgundian money. Ceremony, the glittering and awesome spectacle of a grand state occasion, was his chosen weapon.

  The toddler was confronted with a seemingly impossible test of infant nerve and stamina. He was to be at the centre of an unintelligible and interminable series of elaborate rituals, full of strange sounds and vibrant colours, and amid a host of strangers, all in the unfamiliar and intimidating surroundings of Westminster. We can only guess at the problems of coaching the little boy at Eltham in preparation for his ordeal during the twenty-seven days between 2 October 1494, when the writs for attending the initial ceremony of creating Henry a Knight of the Bath were issued by the royal household at Woodstock, Oxfordshire, 43 and the date Henry was scheduled to make his triumphant entry into the City of London as a curtain-raiser. What tears and tantrums there must have been as hour after hour he was patiently taught his oath of fealty and indeed, the most risky part – how to stand still and silent for long periods without betraying boredom or his pressing need for a pisspot.44 The fun of trying on his coronet and robes and playing with his tiny sword surely alleviated the tedium of this training, but the ladies of his nursery probably frequently despaired of his performance on the day and must have shown considerable perseverance.

  On 27 October, Henry VII travelled downriver from his Palace of Sheen to Westminster, together with the queen and his mother. Two days later he sent messengers to Eltham to summon little Henry to the ceremonies. At three that afternoon, the toddler rode a mighty warhorse through London, surrounded by representatives of the nobility. His horsemanship impressed the mayor, aldermen and members of the livery companies as the cavalcade clattered through the cobbled streets and on to Westminster.

  The following day – Thursday 30 October – the child had his first taste of the ceremonial of being invested as a Knight of the Bath. At a small dinner45 in the king’s chamber at Westminster, he took part in the formalities of serving the king the main meal of the day. Happily, his was an easy task. Others tasted the food, brought in the dishes, poured the wine – Henry was involved in the simpler ritual of washing his royal father’s hands before and after the meal. Henry, Tenth Baron Clifford, held the heavy silver basin as John Bourchier, Third Lord Fitzwarren, poured in the warmed perfumed water. The king rinsed his fingers and his son bashfully offered him a white damask towel with which to dry his hands. The task done, the smiling father returned the towel to his little son, who respectfully bobbed his head and gingerly backed away, no doubt seeking instant reassurance on his performance and advice about what to do next.46

  His tribulations were far from over. Henry now had to undergo the rituals of his knighthood, which involved bathing in a wooden tub in the draughty king’s chamber before a long vigil during the dark, silent hours. This barrel was ‘royally dressed’ with linen and covered with thick mantles and carpets against the cold of the late October evening. Twenty-two other knights were being created that night, all with their own barrels lined up in rows in the Parliament Chamber, with the exception of the Lords Harrington47 and Fitzwarren who had theirs in the queen’s closet. Unlike their young fellow postulant knight, the others would have their ‘beards shaved and the heads rounded’ – their hair trimmed. All now had to be spiritually cleansed.

  After the naked Henry clambered awkwardly into the warm bath, John de Vere, Earl of Oxford and Great Chamberlain of England, stepped forward. Kneeling down, he read out the so-called ‘advertisement’ to the child – the formal creed or way of life that must be pursued by a new knight:

  Be ye strong in the faith of Holy Church, (steadfast and abiding in word, [a] manly protector unto Holy Church) and widows, and maidens oppressed relieve, as right commands.

  Give ye to each one his own, with all thy mind, above all things love and dread God and above all other earthly things love the King the sovereign lord, him, and his right defend unto thy power, and before all worldly things put him in worship … 48

  This was pure gobbledygook to a child aged just three: only years later would he grasp the full import of these stentorian words concerning a subject’s allegiance, loyalty and faithfulness to the wearer of the crown of England.

  Then, out of the gloom appeared his father, his lean, fine-featured face lit by the bright golden candlelight. The king dipped his hand into the bathwater and with his finger made the sign of the cross on his son’s right shoulder. He then bent down and kissed the mark. After a few reassuring words to the toddler, Henry VII departed to fulfil the same ritual for all the other knights, accompanied by Oxford.

  The child was taken out of the bath by his ‘governors’, put into an adjacent bed and gently d
ried. But there was no respite or slumber for the little boy. He was dressed in the coarse robes of a pious anchorite and conducted in procession, the footfalls echoing through the silence of the labyrinthine Palace of Westminster, to St Stephen’s Chapel49 to pray. Like the others, Henry must have been given a gold coin – a noble, worth 6s 8d (33 pence) – to hand over to the Sergeant of the Royal Confectionary in return for a spiced cake to nibble and wine to sip, as tradition dictated. There in the flickering light of the chapel with its colourful wall paintings in gold, vermillion and blue and the central images of the Adoration of the Magi below the east window, the knights kept vigil on their knees. Each one then confessed to one of the thirteen chaplains or canons attached to the chapel, received absolution and finally all heard a short Mass. They were then allowed to return to their cold beds for the few hours left before dawn.

  It would have seemed like a dream (or a nightmare) to such a small child. It is beyond belief that Henry stayed awake through those hours of cold, cheerless vigil unless there was an attendant alongside him to ensure that he did so, by means of a gentle, respectful prod at the appropriate moment. In the event, he enjoyed only a short nap before being woken by de Vere, the sixteen-year-old Algernon Percy, Fifth Earl of Northumberland,50 and Henry Bourchier, Second Earl of Essex, a member of the king’s Privy Council. They hurriedly dressed him in his shirt and robes.51

  Two by two, the new knights rode into Westminster Hall, led by Henry. A contemporary account describes the scene in that ancient raftered building:52

  The Lord William Courtenay bore the Lord Henry’s sword and spurs, the pommel [of the sword] upward and when he … alighted from his horse, Sir William Sandys [carried] him to the king’s presence.

  There, the Earl of Oxford took the sword and spurs and presented the right spur to the king [who] commanded the Duke of Buckingham to put it at the right heel of Lord Henry and likewise the left spur to the Marquis of Dorset.

  And then the king girded his sword about him and after dubbed him knight in manner accustomed, then set him upon the table.53

  His spontaneous action, born out of natural paternal pride, was Henry’s only public acknowledgement of the tender years of his second son. Perhaps it was also tempered by his relief that the ceremony had passed off so successfully.

  The next day, Saturday 1 November, was the Feast of All Hallows, one of the great red-letter days in the calendar of the royal court.

  It was the day selected for the creation of Henry as Duke of York and the king was up early, attending the religious office of matins in St Stephen’s at cockcrow before returning to his chamber to don his robes of royal estate. He then processed to the Parliament Chamber and stood waiting on a dais beneath a great canopy of cloth of gold, surrounded by a throng of prelates, wearing their mitres and pontifical vestments, and the premier nobility of the realm. Ranged down the sides of the chamber were the judges in their coifs and red robes; Richard Chawry, Lord Mayor of London, and his aldermen, and ‘a great press of knights and esquires’. Above, from a windowed chamber or closet, the queen and her mother-in-law looked down on the vibrant proceedings, probably in some anxiety lest the child now disgrace himself before all the spiritual and temporal peers and a host of commoners of England.

  Amid the shuffling of feet and suppressed coughing, a small procession approached the king. Sir John Writhe, Garter King of Arms and principal herald, stepped forward and, bowing low, presented the letters patent – the document creating the new Duke of York. Three other nobles accompanied him, one carrying a ‘rich sword’, the hilt uppermost, another the ducal rod or staff of gold and the third an ermine cap of estate with a duke’s coronet. Behind came Sir George Talbot, Fourth Earl of Shrewsbury, a veteran of the Battle of Stoke Field, carrying the toddler duke in his arms. He gently set him down, and the Marquis of Dorset and the Earl of Arundel helped the child walk through the chamber, halting him immediately in front of the king.

  Oliver King, now Bishop of Exeter and the king’s secretary, read out the letters patent, which included a handsome annuity of £1,000 a year (£538,000 in current values) to the holder of the dukedom. The king then solemnly invested his son with all the noble accoutrements of a duke – the sword, the cap and coronet and the rod of gold – and, the ceremony over, moved back into St Stephen’s Chapel for a solemn High Mass. Much, much later, when he ruled England, Henry VIII carefully amended the herald’s report of the ceremony, inserting a phrase demonstrating that he had, as a child, carried ‘his verge [rod] of gold in his hand’ and clarifying the difference in roles of John Lord Dynham, the Lord Treasurer of England, and Sir Thomas Lovell, now Treasurer of the Household.54 This could not be just mere pedantry. It was a conscious decision to call for the manuscript and check its contents. Perhaps Henry was anxious to demonstrate his royal bearing, even at an early age. Certainly that occasion spawned his later delight in gaudy pageantry and lavish ceremonial.

  Back in 1494, his father stood in the dean’s pew in the choir stalls and organised the procession into St Stephen’s Chapel, but four of his noblemen, cursed with a frightful sense of timing, bickered loudly over their order of precedence, an unseemly argument swiftly resolved by a few short, sharp words from the king. Mass was then celebrated by Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Henry’s Lord Chancellor, assisted by eight bishops and a whole chant of mitred abbots.

  All then processed through Westminster Hall, the Earl of Shrewsbury carrying a desperately tired, if not overexcited, new Duke of York in his arms.55

  Substantial gratuities must have been provided to the heralds, for after the second course of a bewildering array of choice meat and fish dishes, Garter led his brother officers to thank the king. They also cried ‘largess’ for the generosity of the newly created duke – which naturally had been supplied by his father. In ringing tones, they then proclaimed young Henry’s new style and title for the first time in French – ‘the most high, mighty and excellent prince, second son of the king our sovereign lord, Duke of York, Lieutenant-General of Ireland, Earl Marshal, Marshal of England, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports’.56

  After the strain and exhaustion of all the official ceremonies, now came the reward of spectacular entertainment for the three year old. Celebratory jousts in his honour were held over three days at Westminster from 9 November – the first witnessed by the little boy.

  These had been delayed for two days by Henry VII’s decision to take advantage of the presence of most senior members of the English nobility to hold two impromptu council meetings, both attended by Sir William Stanley, even though the king was well aware of his suspect loyalty.

  When the jousts were finally staged, little Henry must have wriggled and squirmed with excitement as he sat alongside his mother and father in a grandstand richly hung with blue Arras cloth decorated with gold fleur-de-lis, watching the armoured contestants ride out of Westminster Hall, their horses trapped with the Tudor colours of green and white, tiny bells tied to the coursers’ manes. It must have been an especial thrill to see the challengers wearing the Duke of York’s new personal livery of blue and tawny brown.

  Henry’s five-year-old sister Margaret presented the prizes to the winning knights after three days of jousting, which included a diamond-studded gold ring to the leading challenger, Edmund de la Pole, Sixth Earl of Suffolk, younger brother of the rebel Earl of Lincoln who had been killed seven years before at Stoke Field.

  The thunder of the steeds’ hooves; the jingling of their harness; the splintering crashes as the competitors’ lances ‘shivered’ (broke) against shield, body or helmet; and the screeching clash of sword on armour: all must have thrilled the toddler – and imbued Henry with his future passion for the chivalry and spectacle of the tournament.

  The following month he was appointed the figurehead Warden of the Scottish Marches, covering the vulnerable border region with England’s sometimes truculent neighbour.

  That Christmas was spent at Greenwich, but less than a week afte
r Twelfth Night – 6 January 1495 – Henry VII moved back upriver to the Tower of London. Messengers had brought the startling news that one of Warbeck’s supporters, Sir Robert Clifford, had seemingly turned coat and held important information about the extent of the domestic conspiracy against the Tudor crown. In reality, Clifford – who had fought for Henry at Stoke and had been knighted afterwards – was almost certainly one of the king’s spies. The historian Polydore Vergil claimed the move to the Tower was to enable Henry VII to ‘imprison in that safe place any members of the plot whom [Clifford] might name’.57

  Stanley was ‘suddenly arrested and put under sure keeping’, as were a number of others, including William Worsley, Dean of St Paul’s, and William Richford, the Provincial of the Dominican Order of the Black Friars, ‘one of the most famous preachers at that time about London’. The last two were pardoned but died shortly afterwards.58 Stanley was arraigned on treason charges at the Court of King’s Bench in Westminster Hall on 6/7 February and was beheaded nine days later.59 The life of the former Lord Steward, Sir John Radcliffe, Baron Fitzwalter, was spared and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was executed in November 1495 in Calais after a failed escape. Clifford received an opportune royal pardon for his evident offences and £500 in cash for information received.60 He was later rewarded with the appointments of Knight of the Body and Master of Henry VII’s Ordnance.61 This fresh plot against the Tudor crown seemed to have been nipped in the bud, but Warbeck remained in Burgundy, a dormant threat beyond the reach of the king.