The Six Wives & Many Mistresses of Henry VIII: The Women's Stories

by Amy Licence

  Two more children were born into the Tailboys’ marriage, sons George and Robert, around 1523 and 1528. Bessie’s part in the elaborate masked dances of Henry’s court was taken by others.

  24

  The Proud Aunt, 1520

  I have been ready at your hand,

  To grant whatever you would crave,

  I have both wagered life and land,

  Your love and good-will for to have.1

  While her personal life was full of pain, the year 1520 offered Catherine the opportunity to take her place again in international politics. Following the death of Emperor Maximilian in 1519, his grandson Charles, Catherine’s nephew, had been elected to the post, beating his rival Francis I. This established an uneasy new triangle at the heart of Europe, replacing the old triumvirate of Henry, Louis and Ferdinand, but it would undergo just as much fluctuation of fortune in the years ahead. That May, Henry was in the last stages of planning the most expensive and opulent event of his entire reign, which would see him cement an alliance with the French king at the Field of Cloth of Gold. They would meet in temporary palaces where fountains ran with wine and the walls were adorned with precious stones, all torn down at the end of the two-week celebrations. Henry’s friendship with Francis was to prove just as temporary; before he crossed the Channel he had arranged a secret meeting with Charles.

  While the Earl of Worcester was writing to Henry from France regarding the measurements for the camp and tilt yard, the king was also receiving letters from Margaret of Savoy about her nephew’s delayed arrival in England due to bad weather. As Francis planned his jousts and suits, his opponent was snatching the opportunity to consort with his only enemy weeks ahead of their meeting. The queen’s response to the plan was reported by Charles’ envoys as ecstatic, ‘clasping her hands and raising her eyes unto heaven, gave laud unto God … that she might behold her nephew, saying it was her greatest desire in the world’.2 On a personal level Catherine would have been delighted to meet her sister’s son, but the move also supported her ultimate political aim to establish a Spanish future alliance for her daughter. She had been ‘gratified at his success’ and was opposed to forging a closer friendship with France, which went ‘against the will of the queen and all the nobles’, being, instead, ‘intrinsically in favour of Spain’.3 Soon, she hoped, he might become her son-in-law.

  On 21 May, Catherine left Greenwich at Henry’s side to travel down to Canterbury, where they were to await Charles’ arrival. It was still not clear whether the poor weather conditions that had hitherto detained him would disperse, enabling him to make the rendezvous before the English monarchs were obliged to leave for France. Arriving at the Archbishop’s Palace four days later, Catherine would have been aware of a city in readiness, with the streets being sanded, the city officials decked out in new gabardines, or cloaks, and the keys to the Westgate being tied with a new ribbon, in advance of being presented to Charles. Preparations were also taking place across the Channel. On 26 May, Francis issued one of many proclamations for the organisation of the Field of Cloth of Gold. Displayed in all thoroughfares and public places, it stated that all vagabonds must clear the appointed place within six hours, or else suffer death by hanging. No one was to be present at the meeting without a ticket signed by their master, and all were to pay homage to the English.4 On the same day, a ship slipped into harbour at Hythe, battered by storms, carrying the Holy Roman Emperor himself.5

  Wolsey had been dispatched to the coast to greet Charles as soon as he had been spotted on the horizon. The Imperial fleet had been conducted safely from Hythe to Dover by England’s Vice-Admiral, Sir William Fitzwilliam, ‘with six of the king’s shippes well furnished’.6 Henry followed swiftly on the heels of his chancellor, meeting the Emperor ‘under the cloth of his estate of the black eagle all splayed on rich cloth of gold’7 at Dover Castle, but Catherine had to wait until the next morning. She remained the guest of William Warham in the Archbishop’s Palace, with its fine wooden panelling, marble pillars, gardens and library, of which only an arched doorway remains. On 27 May, Henry and Charles arrived in the city and attended Mass in the cathedral to celebrate the feast of Pentecost before processing along a purple carpet into the palace, where they were greeted by twenty-five of the ‘handsomest and best apparelled’ court ladies and twenty of Catherine’s pages dressed in ‘gold brocade and crimson satin in chequers’. It was Charles’ intent ‘specially to see queen of England his aunt’. Catherine was awaiting them at the top of a flight of fifteen marble steps and wept as she greeted her nephew.8

  The three attended Mass together, with Catherine having changed into a dress of cloth of gold lined with violet velvet, a headdress of black and gold decorated with jewels, and a string of pearls about her neck, in the centre of which hung a large diamond. Charles also had the opportunity to meet Princess Mary, then the Duchess of Suffolk and the mother of three children, who, but for the quirks of diplomacy six years before, might have been his empress. The Elizabethan chronicler Holinshed adds ‘peradventure the sight of the Lady Mary troubled him, whome he had sometime loved, and yet through fortunes evill hap might not have her to wife’. Charles would have been aware that the ‘evill hap’ was more down to Henry than fortune. The following day, Whit Monday, while the king led the dancing after dinner, Charles looked on, seeming to take little delight ‘in pastime and pleasure’. This was followed by a four-hour banquet and entertainments that lasted until daybreak. The festivities continued for four days. Then, on 31 May, Charles bade farewell to his hosts and departed for Sandwich, where he sailed to Flanders. That same day Henry and Catherine set sail from Dover, arriving in Calais at eleven o’clock at night. What followed would be magnificence on an unprecedented scale.

  An entry in the State letters and papers for 1520 gives an idea of the nature and opulence of Catherine’s wardrobe at this time, in advance of her diplomatic roles. During the months of April and May, a Louis Harpsifield had been paid almost £150 for providing her with two pieces of white satin at over eighty-six yards long, fifty-eight yards of green velvet, seventy-three yards of green Bruges satin, yellow and russet velvet, black velvet, crimson velvet and green cloth of gold. It seemed that Catherine’s servants shopped in London’s Chepe Street, parallel with the river, its very name deriving from the Old English term for ‘market’. Stow’s survey of London described it as the centre of the city’s wealth, with goldsmiths and merchants occupying houses that could rise to as high as five storeys tall. With their shopfronts filled with luxury goods, these traders attracted custom from the court. In spring 1520, Barker ‘of Chepe’ supplied the queen with more white satin and his neighbour, Barton ‘of Chepe’, sold her black sarsenet and green and russet velvet.9

  Catherine would not have gone to buy these items in person. Overseeing these purchases was an Ellis Hilton, who settled the bills and delegated purchases to other servants and traders. An agent named George Bryggus purchased 14s 4d worth of crimson velvet for her from ‘Colier of Chepe’, who also received an order for yellow damask from the Lord Chamberlain for the queen’s use. Her servants also shopped further afield. A John Norris in Friday Street supplied linen cloth, Master Smith of Watling Street provided red kersey and broad grey cloth was bought from an unspecified vendor at Blackwell Hall. New bedding was also bought for Catherine, perhaps in readiness for her departure to France, as on such occasions it was customary for royalty to dismantle and export their own high-status beds. Over seventy-seven yards of blue sarsenet was purchased to make bed curtains, perhaps in anticipation of being embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lys.10 On 10 May, the mercer William Lock had supplied the queen with cloth of silver for scutcheons and arms, red stain and yellow damask for lining her chairs, and violet satin for lining a gold valance, all ‘paid by me, Elys Hylton’.11

  Ellis Hilton also made a number of other purchases on behalf of his queen, including green cloth from a Mr Wilkinson in Candlewick Street to make coats for her guard; Catherine did not like them, ho
wever, and they were given away.12 Generally, the queen’s retinue were well catered for, with payments made for coats and doublets in the Tudor colours of white and green, and also for an embroiderer named Ebgrave to sew the motif of feathers on to their clothes and for crimson velvet to line their cloaks. Milan bonnets were bought for them from Gerard the capper, at 6s each; the account includes bucklers, swords, shirts and points, as well as orange-coloured boots at 4s 3d a pair, spurs at 6d a pair, coifs of gold for the queen’s ladies at 10s each, while eighteen shirts cost 8s each to be made.13

  Catherine’s travel arrangements are also recorded in detail for the month, with a Roger Brown being paid 20s for taking the ‘stuff’ of the guard from London to Canterbury, and a man named Parker receiving 53s 4d for painting the ‘close car’. More ‘stuff’ for her henchmen travelled by barge to Gravesend at a cost of 5s, then on to Canterbury by road at 2d per mile, for twenty-six miles. Her clothes and linen were likely to have been transported in the five spruce chests with hanging locks which cost 32s 8d and her tailor Thomas Kelevytt made garments for the queen’s use at a price of £28 3s 4d. Some of Catherine’s items were washed at Dover before she embarked for France, which cost 16d, but the carrying of the same items from the ship to her lodgings in Calais cost 14d.

  As befitted her status, Catherine took a large retinue with her to France. It was headed by Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, who was Henry’s cousin through their mutual descent from the Wydevilles. As his personal allowance, Derby had six gentlemen, three chaplains, twenty-four servants and twenty horses; his wife, Anne, also attended among the queen’s party of ladies. Catherine had three bishops accompanying her: John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester; Charles Booth, Bishop of Hereford; and George de Athequa, a Spaniard who had come with her to England in 1510, now Bishop of Llandaff. Each of the three had four chaplains, six gentlemen, thirty-four servants and twenty horses. She had four barons: William Blount, Baron Mountjoy, who had been married to the Spanish Agnes de Venegas, then deceased; William Willoughby, Baron Willoughby d’Eresby, the husband since 1516 of Catherine’s companion Maria da Salinas; Thomas Burgh, Baron Cobham, future father-in-law of Catherine Parr; and Henry Parker, Baron Morley, future father-in-law of George Boleyn. Each had a retinue of their own of chaplains, gentlemen and servants, as did Catherine’s thirty-one knights.

  The most senior of Catherine’s ladies accompanying her to France was the Duchess of Buckingham, Lady Eleanor Percy, followed in precedence by seven countesses – of Stafford, Westmorland, Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Derby and Oxford, as well as the Dowager Countess of Oxford – each of whom had seven servants. Among her sixteen baronesses were Elizabeth, Lady Fitzwalter, whom Henry had sent away from court after her interference in the affairs of her sister Anne, Lady Hastings, who was also present; also, Anne, Lady Grey, and Elizabeth, wife of Sir Arthur Plantagenet, an illegitimate son of Edward IV; Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, Henry’s future mother-in-law; and the wives of the barons in her company. Additionally, Catherine was served by eighteen knight’s wives, including Lady Compton, Lady Guildford and Lady Parr and twenty-five gentlewomen, among whom were Mistress Carew, Mistress Parker and Mary Boleyn, Mistress Carey. She had three chamberers, who were each entitled to take a servant, fifty Yeomen of the Chamber, with twenty servants between them and sixty people to take care of her horses.

  The king’s equally extensive retinue included Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Boleyn (who had masterminded the event), the Duke of Buckingham, ten earls, four bishops, twenty-one barons, three knights of the garter, a hundred knights (including his court favourites Sir William Compton, Sir Nicholas Carew, Sir Francis Bryan) along with Sir Thomas More. There were ten chaplains, two secretaries, two clerks of the signet, two clerks of the privy seal, twelve sergeants-at-arms, 200 Yeomen of the Guard, seventy servants of the king’s chamber with 150 others at their disposal, 266 members of the king’s household, assisted by a further 206, with 205 in the stable and armoury, and an unspecified number of minstrels and trumpeters. These figures give some idea of the vast scale of the operation, as well as the minimum numbers thought necessary to maintain the king’s dignity on such an occasion.

  Included in this huge retinue, already running into many thousands, were the ambassadors of Emperor Charles, with their twenty servants and twenty-three horses. It was a reminder that Imperial eyes were watching the whole time, and that Charles himself was awaiting Henry and Catherine in Flanders once the French festivities were over.

  25

  Field of Cloth of Gold, 1520

  Fame I am called, marvel you nothing,

  Though with tongues am compassed all round,

  For in voice of people is my chief living,

  O cruel Death, thy power I confound.1

  On arriving in France, Henry and Catherine had been lodged at the Exchequer in Calais and rested there until 4 June, when they progressed to the field between Guisnes and Ardres that had been designated as the meeting place. The well-known image in the Royal Collection, of Henry arriving at the camp, painted in around 1545, conveys a sense of the transformation that had taken place there in recent weeks and the expense that had gone into creating what was, in effect, a temporary city. The image simultaneously contains the highlights of the visit, with Henry’s entry surrounded by his retinue, with Calais, the Channel and a distant England behind; it has a panoply of tents set up in camps, some white, some decorated, some gold. There are fountains flowing with wine, a huge temporary palace and glimpses of Henry and Francis at key moments: wrestling, jousting and feasting. It was the zenith of both their reigns. Although Henry features as the central figure, the picture lacks a clear image of Catherine. She is definitely present to observe the joust, but so small that no detail can be identified, and she may also be the woman dining in one of the small tents, but a clear choice has been made not to place her in the initial procession alongside the king and Thomas Wolsey. It is a stark reminder that, by the time the picture was painted, Catherine had been edited out of Henry’s life.

  The Field of Cloth of Gold, as it came to be known, must have been dazzling to behold. Its centrepiece was a temporary palace, built by 600 English and Flemish workers, with foundations of stone and a framework of timber imported from the Netherlands. The windows were made of real glass but the walls and roof were of painted canvas. It was described by chronicler Hall as ‘the most noble and royal lodging before sene’, in the shape of a ‘quadrant’ 328 feet long. Before the entrance gate, on a green, stood a fountain of gilt and fine gold running with red and white wine, decorated with antique work and topped by a figure of Bacchus. On the other side of the gate stood a pillar wrapped in gold, decorated by the faces of lions and topped with a sculpture of Cupid, with his bow and arrows ready ‘to stryke the young people to love’. The arched entrance gate ‘of great and mighty masonry’ included windows depicting men of war, above statues of Hercules and Alexander richly lined with gold.2

  The gate led into a courtyard with bay windows on every side. From there, a range of doors marked the extent of the chambers within, which were ‘long and large and well proportioned, to receive light and air, with white floors and roofs made of silk. They were decorated with rich cloths of silver, knit and fret with cuts and braids, ‘like bullions of fine burned gold’ with roses set in lozenge shapes, so that ‘no living creature might but joy in the beholding thereof’. Each room was hung with cloth of gold, tissue and rich embroidery, with chairs covered in the same fabrics, decorated with golden pommels and great cushions from Turkey. Inside the palace was a chapel with two closets, or small private chambers, decorated in cloth of gold and tissue with roses, and an altar with gold candlesticks, three rich crosses and all the requirements for Catholic ceremony, in gold and pearls. The first closet was for the use of the king, with a crucifix, an image of the Trinity, an image of the Virgin Mary, two gold candlesticks and twelve other images of gold and precious stones on the altar. The second was for Catherine, with an altar ‘so richly apparelled that there l
acked neither pearls nor stones of riches’, with twelve great images of gold on the altar.3 These exquisite closets, glittering with gold and gems, serve as a reminder of the intense Catholic faith and ritual of the king and queen and its centrality to pre-Reformation life.

  The royal party were lodged in four suites inside the palace, one each for Henry, Catherine, Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, and Thomas Wolsey. There were also a number of administrative offices, for the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, Lord Treasurer of the Household, the Controller and office of the green cloth, wardrobes, jewel house and the offices of service, including the ewery, confectionery, pantry, cellar, waffry, saucer, buttery, spicery, pitcher house, larder, poultry and all other offices for the craft of ‘viands’ such as ovens, chimneys and ranges.4 The Rutland Papers contain more detail of the catering arrangements made for the occasion, with additional housing provided for the scalding house, the laundry by the mill, a hall for the makers of pastilles and subtleties, accommodation for the cooks and a large, circular oven which is shown on the 1545 painting.5

  Other officers and members of the court were lodged in a sea of tents sprawling out behind the palace. Surviving plans in the British Library depict a variety of complex constructions, echoing the layout of Tudor palaces, with a series of connected galleries leading to a number of private apartments, made up of large and small tents subdivided with curtains. Dressed in red and blue cloth, or green and white, they are fringed with mottoes, sewn and topped with gold, with ridgeboards on the roof bearing golden fleurs-de-lys and Tudor roses. The tent poles are topped with heraldic beasts, holding standards with crowns, royal arms and other heraldic devices.6 In total, tents outside the palace and small town of Guisnes provided lodgings for 820 people, ‘which was a goodly sighte’.7