William Warham (?1450 – 1532). Appointed to the Mastership of the Rolls in February 1494 and Keeper of the Great Seal in August 1502. Consecrated as Bishop of London the following month and appointed Lord Chancellor in January 1504. He was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in March 1505. He never enjoyed cordial relations with Henry VIII and was probably dismissed as Chancellor in December 1515, although Thomas More believed he was very pleased to leave politics.
Sir Richard Empson (c.1450 – 1510). Appointed Attorney-General to the Duchy of Lancaster in 1478 but lost this position under Richard III. He was reappointed by Henry VII and was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in 1491. In 1505 he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and, with Edmund Dudley, was responsible for the king’s policy of extortion. Arrested at the accession, Empson was executed with Dudley for treason on 17 August 1510.
Edmund Dudley (?1462 – 1510). Appointed Speaker of the House of Commons in 1504 and two years later, President of the Council. With Sir Richard Empson, was responsible for Henry VII’s policy of extortion through the imposition of bonds guaranteeing good behaviour. Like Empson, Dudley was arrested at the accession and executed for treason on 17 August 1510.
Thomas Wolsey (?1473 – 1530). Son of Robert Wulcy, an Ipswich, Suffolk, butcher, innkeeper and cattle-dealer. Appointed chaplain to Henry VII in 1507 and in February 1509, royal almoner and dean of Lincoln. Created Bishop of Lincoln in 1514 and Archbishop of York in September of same year. Cardinal (September 1515) and succeeded William Warham as Lord Chancellor on Christmas Eve 1515. Papal Legate May 1518. Indicted under Statute of Praemunire, 9 October 1529 and property confiscated. Died 29 November 1530 at Leicester after being arrested for treason.
Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535). Son of a prominent judge, Sir John More. Helped Henry VIII to write his book on the Seven Sacraments against Martin Luther. Speaker of the House of Commons, 1523 and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1525. Lord Chancellor after fall of Thomas Wolsey. Refused to take Oath of Succession. Executed 6 July 1535 after perjured trial on treason charges.
Thomas Cromwell later Earl of Essex (?1485 – 1540). Son of a Putney, south-west London, innkeeper, blacksmith and fuller. Legal adviser to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey; lawyer and money-lender. Later, Lord Privy Seal and Vice-Regent for religious affairs. Earl of Essex and Lord High Chamberlain of England. Beheaded for treason, 28 July 1540 on Tower Hill.
THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD
Sir William Stanley (c.1435 – 95). Younger brother of Thomas Stanley, later First Earl of Derby. The intervention of the two brothers at Bosworth secured the crown for Henry VII and William was appointed Lord Chamberlain. According to the historian Polydore Vergil, Stanley ‘was more mindful of the favours he had given than those he had received’. In 1495, he was convicted of treason and executed for his vocal support of Perkin Warbeck, the pretender to the English throne.
Sir William Compton (?1482 – 1528). Son and heir to Edmund Compton of Compton, Warwickshire. Page to Prince Henry after 1501. After Henry VIII’s accession, their close friendship continued with Compton being appointed Groom of the Stool in 1510. He continued in royal service until 1526 and was frequently charged with the most sensitive and discreet missions by the king – including acting as go-between in Henry’s affair with Anne Hastings and the arrest of Buckingham. Compton was knighted after the capture of Tournai in 1513 and was dispatched by Wolsey to the Scottish borders a decade later. In 1526 he was appointed usher of the receipts in the exchequer and obtained a licence that entitled him to wear his hat in the king’s presence. Around 1519 he became involved with Anne Hastings and was cited in an ecclesiastical court for living with her in adultery. He died of the sweating sickness in 1528, leaving provisions in his will for Anne.
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk (c.1484 – 1545). Son of Sir William Brandon, Henry VII’s standard bearer at Bosworth, where he was killed by Richard III. Brought up at Henry VII’s court and became a great favourite of Henry VIII through his skills at jousting and was appointed Master of the Horse in 1513. Before February 1506 he married Margaret Mortimer, née Neville. but the match was annulled the following year. In 1508 he married Anne Browne (died 1511), daughter of Sir Anthony Browne, Standard Bearer of England. On 15 May 1513 Brandon was created Viscount Lisle, having entered into a marriage contract with his ward, Elizabeth Grey, Viscountess Lisle in her own right, but she refused to marry him when she came of age. That year he was marshal of the English army invading France and he was created Duke of Suffolk in 1514. In late February the following year he secretly married Mary Tudor, queen dowager of France, creating a rift with Henry VIII but this was healed after the couple’s payment of her dowry and surrender of Mary’s plate and jewels. In 1528 he secured a papal Bull from Clement VII assuring the legitimacy of his marriage with Mary, as Margaret Mortimer was still living. After Mary’s death in 1533, he married, for the fourth time, his ward Catherine Willoughby and by her had two sons, both of whom died of sweating sickness in 1551. Brandon commanded an unsuccessful English invasion of France in 1523 and commanded the army which again attacked France in 1544. He died at Guildford in Surrey on 24 August 1545 and was buried, at Henry’s expense, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
FOREIGN RULERS
Margaret of York, protector of Burgundy (1446 – 1503). Daughter of Richard Plantagenet, Third Duke of York, and sister to Edward IV and Richard III. She was the third wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who was killed in battle in 1477. Margaret subsequently ruled as dowager duchess as the marriage was childless and her stepdaughter Mary, who had married Maximilian I on 18 August 1477, died after a hunting accident in 1482.
Margaret of Austria, also called Margaret of Savoy (1480 – 1530). Daughter of Maximilian I and regent of the Netherlands 1507 – 15 and again in 1519 – 30. In 1497, she married John, Prince of Asturias, son and heir of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. However, John died six months later and she returned to the Low Countries early in 1500. A year later she married Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, who died in 1504. Both marriages were childless. She appointed her nephew Charles V her sole heir.
Philip of Burgundy (1478 – 1506). Son of Maximilian I who inherited the largest part of Burgundy from his mother and briefly succeeded to the crown of Castile as the husband of Queen Juana. Charles V was the second of their six children. Philip died, probably from typhoid fever, at Burgos on 25 September 1506 and his wife reputedly refused to allow his body to be buried, or to be parted from it, for a time.
Ferdinand II of Aragon, (1452 – 1516). Son of John II of Aragon by his second wife, Juana Enríquez. Married Isabella, half-sister and heiress of Henry IV of Castile in October 1469. Ferdinand succeeded his father as King of Aragon in 1479, ruling this and Castile with his wife. They conquered the kingdom of Granada, the last Moorish state in the Iberian peninsula, and fought a number of campaigns against the French in Italy. Katherine of Aragon was the youngest of four daughters. After the death of Isabella he ruled Castile in the name of his mad daughter Juana and married Germaine de Foix, niece of Louis XII of France, in October 1505.
Isabella of Castile, Queen of Castile and León (1451 – 1504). Daughter of John II of Castile and Isabella of Portugal. Her marriage to her second cousin Ferdinand was contested but Pope Sixtus IV granted them a dispensation.
Louis XII, King of France (1462 – 1515). Son of Charles duc d’Orléans and Marie of Cleves. As the four children of his cousin Charles VIII died in infancy, Louis succeeded to the French throne on his death in 1498. He married first Joan of France, the daughter of his second cousin, Louis XI, but this was nullified on his accession so he could marry Charles’ queen, Anne of Brittany. On her death in 1514, he married Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII. Less than three months afterwards he died.
Francis I, King of France (1494 – 1547). After death of Anne of Brittany’s son in 1512, styled ‘Dauphin of France’. Son-in-law of Louis XII. Crowned at Rheims 1515. In 1520, Edward Hall descr
ibed him as ‘stately of countenance, merry of cheer, brown coloured, great eyes, high nosed, big lipped, fair breasted and shoulders, small legs and long feet’. Died at Château Rambouillet, 30 miles (48 km) south-west of Paris and succeeded by his son Henry II.
Maximilian I of Austria (1459 – 1519). King of the Romans from 1493 but elected as Holy Roman Emperor in 1508. He governed the dukedom of Burgundy via his first wife, Mary (stepdaughter of Margaret of York) who died in a riding accident in 1482. Married Anne of Brittany by proxy in December 1490 but the contract was dissolved by the Pope two years later and she married Charles VIII of France. He finally married Bianca Maria Sforza in 1493 bringing him suzerainty over the duchy of Milan. He was notoriously frugal and Pope Julius II described him dismissively as ‘light and inconstant, always begging for other men’s money which he wastes in chamois hunting’.
Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor (1500 – 58). Son of Philip of Burgundy and his wife, the mad Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. As such, he was nephew of Katherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII. Acceded to Spanish throne in 1516. Abdicated in favour of son Philip (husband of Mary I of England) 1556. Retreated to monastery of Yuste, dying two years later.
James IV of Scotland (1472 – 1513). Supported Perkin Warbeck, pretender to English crown, 1496. Married Margaret, daughter of Henry VII, 1503. Signed a treaty of mutual military assistance with Louis XII of France against Henry VIII and invaded Northumberland whilst Henry was in northern France. Defeated by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, at Flodden Field on 9 September 1513 and was killed.
THE VATICAN
Innocent VIII (1432 – 92) was Pope from 1484 until his death. He granted the dispensation to Henry VII for his marriage to Elizabeth of York to ‘end the long and grievous variance, contentions and debates’ between England’s warring factions. The Bull also underlined Henry Tudor’s legal claim to the throne.
Julius II (1443 – 1513) succeeded Pius III in 1503 after a conclave lasting a few hours – the shortest in the history of the papacy. He was Pope until he died of a fever in 1513. On 22 January 1506 he founded the Swiss Guard as a security force to protect the pontiff. In November 1504 Julius issued the required dispensation allowing the marriage of Henry VIII with his brother’s widow, Katherine of Aragon – the validity of which was later challenged by Henry. In 1511 he promoted the ‘Holy League’ of Ferdinand, Maximilian, Henry VIII and the Venetians against France.
Leo X (1475 – 1521) occupied St Peter’s throne from 1513 until his death after an attack of malaria. He excommunicated the religious reformer Martin Luther for heresy on 3 January 1521 and awarded Henry VIII the honorific title of Defensor Fidei – ‘Defender of the Faith’ – on 24 November the same year for his book Defence of the Seven Sacraments which attacked Luther’s teachings. The title was intended for the king’s personal use but became inextricably attached to the crown of England.
Clement VII (1478 – 1534) succeeded the short-lived Adrian VI as Pope in November 1523 and saw Rome sacked by unpaid mutinying Imperial troops in May 1527. He fled to the castle of St Angelo and was held prisoner there for seven months, eventually escaping to Orvieto disguised as a pedlar. Clement returned to Rome in July 1529 and was confronted by Henry VIII’s demands for the annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. Papal prevarication resulted in the passing of the Act of Supremacy by the English Parliament in 1534 that established an independent Church of England. Clement launched a sentence of excommunication against Henry and declared Cranmer’s decree of divorce invalid. He died in September 1534 after inadvertently eating a lethally poisonous ‘death cap’ mushroom, amanita phalloides.
Paul III (1468 – 1549) was Pope from 1534 until 1549. He offered a cardinal’s hat to John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and after his execution told Francis I of France that Henry VIII ‘had exceeded his ancestors in wickedness’. Paul was compelled ‘by the unanimous solicitation of the cardinals to declare Henry deprived of his kingdom and his royal dignity’.
Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio (1474 – 1539) began in the legal profession in Bologna and Pavia. After his wife died in 1510 he went into the church, becoming a cardinal in 1517. He was made protector of England in the Roman curia and Henry VIII gave him the bishopric of Salisbury. After his abortive legatine hearings (with Wolsey) of the annulment of Henry’s marriage, Campeggio was deprived of the protectorate and the see of Salisbury.
NOTES
PROLOGUE: THE UNCERTAIN CROWN
1
LP Henry VII, p.239. As Prince Arthur was dead by 1503, this is a reference to Prince Henry.
2
PROME, vol. 15, p.93 and Crowland Chronicle Continuations, pp.194 – 5.
3
Cavill, p.23.
4
From King Henry IV, Part II, 3. 1. 30.
5
Henry VII defeated the last remnants of the Yorkist party at Stoke Field, Nottinghamshire, on 16 June 1487, and Cornish rebels at Blackheath, south-east of London, on 17 June 1497. Henry VIII faced rebellion in Lincolnshire in October 1536 and the more dangerous widespread ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ insurrection throughout the North of England in January 1537. His son Edward VI eventually put down rebellions in the West, Norfolk and the South Midlands in 1549, but only with the assistance of German mercenaries and not without great difficulty. Henry’s daughter Mary I was threatened by rebels in 1554 who opposed her marriage to Philip of Spain. They fought their way up to the western gates of the City of London before being defeated. Finally, Elizabeth ordered repressive measures to punish those who took part in the abortive rising by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland in November 1569 and faced regular conspiracies against her by Catholic supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had a viable claim to the throne of England through her direct descent from Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret.
6
Margaret was the daughter of John Beaufort, First Duke of Somerset (1403 – 44), who apparently killed himself after being banished from the royal court. His father was John de Beaufort, First Earl of Somerset (c.1371 – 1409), who was the eldest of the four children of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Therefore, she was John of Gaunt’s great-granddaughter.
7
In Welsh, Owain ap Maredudd ap Tewdwr.
8
Hall, p.421.
9
Monuments to some of those who died on the losing side at Bosworth or during its aftermath display an unsurprising coyness about their part in the battle. For example, at Morley, Derbyshire, the monumental brass to John Sacheverell who was killed fighting for Richard III was only erected in c.1525, forty years after the battle. At Ashby St Legers, Northamptonshire, the monument to William Catesby (‘the Cat’ in the famous doggerel rhyme about Richard and his chief advisers) gives his date of death as 20 August 1485, two days before the battle. In fact, he was executed in Leicester three days afterwards. The brass was laid down under instructions in the will of his son George in c.1507. See Simon Payling’s ‘Rise and Fall of the Fifteenth-Century Catesbys’ in The Catesby Family and the Brasses at Ashby St Legers, Jerome Bertram (ed.), London, 2006, pp.12 – 13.
10
Paston Letters, vol. 6, p.82.
11
PROME, vol. 15, p.97. The Act, 1 Henry VII cap.1, laid down ‘by authority of this present Parliament that the inheritance of the crowns of the realms of England and of France … be, rest, remain and abide in the most royal person of our now sovereign lord King Harry the VIIth and in the heirs of his body lawfully coming perpetual with the grace of God so to endure and in none other’ (RP, vol. 6, p.270).
12
This was on the grounds of Edward IV’s pre-marriage contract with Eleanor Butler (d.1468), daughter of John Talbot, First Earl of Shrewsbury.
13
PROME, vol. 15, pp.133 – 4; RP, vol. 6, pp.288 – 9. See also Cavill, p.30. The new Act required the surrender of all copies of the Titulus Regius and their destruction by the following Easter on pain of i
mprisonment or fine at the king’s will. It declared that ‘the said Bill, Act and Record, be annulled and utterly destroyed and that it be ordained by the same authority that the same Act and Record be taken out of the Roll of Parliament and be cancelled and burnt and be put into perpetual oblivion’. However, the text remains in the Parliament Roll of 1484 (see PROME, vol. 15, pp.13 – 18). The remainder of the Parliament was spent reversing the attainders on the king’s friends and imposing new ones on the nobility who had supported Richard. See Anglo, ‘Spectacle’, p.18.
14
The betrothal had been agreed during Richard III’s short reign, by Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and Henry’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort.
15
He was already appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.
16
RP, vol. 6, p.278 and ‘Materials’, vol. 1, pp.209 – 10.
17
Leland, vol. 4, pp.196, 198. See also: Chrimes, p.66 and Cavill, pp.31 – 2. It was confirmed by Pope Innocent VIII on 2 March 1486 and it is obvious that the pontiff was wholly ignorant that the marriage had already taken place on 18 January.
18
The Bull was reprinted in 1494, two years later by Wynkyn de Worde and again in 1497. See Anglo, Spectacle, p.19.
19
He died on 30 March at his house at Knole, near Sevenoaks, Kent, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. He was thought too infirm to take the full role of the Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry’s coronation, other than anointing the new king and placing the crown upon his head, and Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London, conducted that service.
20
‘Memorials’, p.39.
Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII Page 32
