The reason for all this was not far to seek. At some stage, perhaps even before her marriage, although the timing is not clear, Mary Boleyn became the King’s mistress, supplanting Elizabeth Blount in his affections. Even before then, her reputation was notorious. She had gone to France with Mary Tudor in 1514,48 and stayed on at the French court, in the service of Queen Claude, after Mary Tudor left in 1515. “Rarely did any maid or wife leave that court chaste,” observed the Sieur de Brantôme, 49 and Mary was certainly free with her favours: among her lovers was Francis I, who, referring to the number of times he had ridden her, called her “my English mare”;50 even twenty years later he was describing her as “a great whore, the most infamous of all.” 51 Mary returned to England before 1520. Given her past, she was lucky to secure such a husband as William Carey, but the King’s interest in her may have been a deciding factor.
Henry conducted this affair with even more discretion than he had the last, so much so that there is hardly any contemporary evidence for it. We only know about it because, in 1528, Henry asked the Pope to give a dispensation for him to marry Anne Boleyn even though he had placed himself within the forbidden degrees of affinity with her by having sexual intercourse with her sister.
In 1523, the King owned a ship named the Mary Boleyn, but he did not name it after his mistress; in fact, he had purchased it from her father, along with another vessel called the Anne Boleyn.52 The complaisant Sir Thomas Boleyn’s elevation to the peerage in 1525 may have owed something to his daughter’s position, which he seems not to have scrupled to exploit, as might the substantial landed property granted to her husband in 1524 and 1526,53 and his appointment as Keeper of Greenwich Palace in 1526.
In 1524, Mary bore a daughter, Katherine, and on 4 March 1526, a son, Henry, who is said to have resembled the King in looks; in 1535, John Hale, Vicar of Isleworth, stated that a nun of nearby Syon Abbey had pointed out to him “young Master Carey” and told him that the boy was the King’s bastard son.54 Henry, however, who had already acknowledged one son and was sensitive about his lack of heirs, would surely have willingly admitted paternity of Henry Carey had the boy been his.
The affair was probably over before Mary bore her son in 1526, by which time Henry had fallen fatefully in love with her sister.
26
“The Eighth Wonder of the World”
The time was now approaching for Henry’s summit meeting with Francis I, for which Wolsey, at the request of both monarchs, was making all the arrangements. The Cardinal, with the assistance of Admiral Sir William Fitzwilliam, the Earl of Worcester as Lord Chamberlain, and the Bishop of Durham as Lord Privy Seal, was overseeing every detail involved in transporting five thousand people across the English Channel. Calais, England’s last remaining possession in France, was used as a storehouse and centre of operations. In Paris, England’s ambassador, Thomas Boleyn, was entrusted with the diplomatic negotiations.
It was agreed that the meeting would take place six miles from Calais in a place called the Val d’Or (Golden Vale) in the open countryside between the English-held town of Guisnes, where Henry would be based, and the French town of Ardres, where Francis would stay. Guisnes Castle was, however, deemed too small for the requisite display of magnificence; therefore it was decided that a temporary palace connected by a private gallery to the castle should be erected in the meeting place itself. An army of six thousand labourers and craftsmen was immediately set to work to get the palace and other facilities ready in time.
Built in less than three months, the “palace of illusions” was one of the lost treasures of Henry’s reign; an Italian observer thought that even Leonardo da Vinci could not have improved upon it.1 Designed on a 328-foot-square quadrangular plan with a gatehouse and battlements, it was built of timber on stone and brick foundations, and was covered with canvas painted to look like brickwork or masonry. The most impressive room was a dining hall with a ceiling of green silk studded with gold roses and a floor covering of patterned taffeta. There was a King’s Side, a Queen’s Side, a suite for Wolsey, and one for Mary Tudor, who was to play a prominent role as Queen Dowager of France; all had spacious chambers decorated with gilt cornices and furnished with gorgeous tapestries, hangings of cloth of gold (silver or green and white), Turkey carpets, chairs and beds of estate, and buffets laden with plate. The windows were glazed with diamond-shaped panes crafted by Galyon Hone, and the chimneys were of stone. There was an exquisite chapel, “painted blue and gold” 2 and hung with cloth of gold and green velvet; on the altar was a great gold crucifix, along with ten candlesticks and large gold statues of the Twelve Apostles, and many holy relics. Inside and out, the palace was skilfully decorated with Tudor roses, antique work, and heraldic devices painted by artists such as the King’s Serjeant-Painter John Browne, More’s brother-in-law; John Rastell; Clement Armstrong, “a famous designer of pageants”; 3 and Vincenzo Volpe. The pitched canvas roof was painted to look like slates, and many of the ceilings were gilded. The Scots poet and monk Alexander Barclay, author of the satirical The Ship of Fools, was commissioned to write mottoes and verses to be added to the decorative scheme. The palace had offices for the White Sticks, as well as its own service complex.
The gateway was surmounted by a scallop-shell pediment, the royal arms, two large Tudor roses, and a golden statue of Cupid. On the lawn in front of the palace, beside a gilded pillar topped with a statue of the god of wine, Bacchus, there was a fountain “of ancient Roman work” from which flowed white wine, Malmsey wine, and claret, which would be free to all comers, day and night.4 Carved in the stonework was the invitation in archaic French, “Faicte bonne chere quy vouldra,” and chained to the fountain were silver drinking cups.5
The most important courtiers were to be accommodated in Guisnes Castle; the rest were supposed to occupy 2,800 gaily coloured tents set up at nearby Balinghem. But there were not enough billets for everyone: some ladies and gentlemen paid local famers to put them up, while others had no choice but to “lie in hay and straw.”6
In the Val d’Or, Richard Gibson, Master of the King’s Halls, Tents, and Pavilions, erected magnificent marquees for entertainments and banquets; three, for which the designs survive in the British Museum, were coloured green and white, blue and gold, and red and gold, and all were adorned with the King’s badges, beasts and mottoes.7 Henry himself had his own dining tent, of cloth of gold, which housed his privy kitchen. The whole camp was laid out according to the King’s wishes.8
Enormous quantities of livestock and foodstuffs were purchased, including 2,200 sheep, 1,300 chickens, 800 calves, 340 “beeves,” 26 dozen heron, 13 swans, 17 bucks, 9,000 plaice, 7,000 whiting, 700 conger eels, 4 bushels of mustard, mountains of sugar for the subtleties that were to be made to impress the French, and gallons of cream for the King’s cakes. 9 The food bill alone came to £8,839 (£2,651,700), of which £440 (£132,000) was spent on spices, while wine and beer cost £7409 (£2,222,700).10 A vast round brick bread oven was set up in the Val d’Or, next to cooking tents housing huge cauldrons, with serving tables outside. Some subsidiary kitchens, such as the Wafery and Pastry, were established in nearby houses. Extra kitchen staff were hired—among them twelve pastry cooks, twelve brewers, and twelve bakers. Numerous pots, pans, and spits were supplied by London cooks at a cost of £377 (£113,100).
As well as provisions, many other items had to be shipped abroad, including tapestries, furnishings, and everything needful for tournaments: fifteen hundred spears from the Tower arsenal, one thousand Milanese swords, and a great number of high-strung horses. The armourers’ steel mill at Greenwich was moved in its entirety to Guisnes, where it was set up alongside four forges for the repair of armour and weapons.
The French, jealously observing the English preparations from Ardres, had no wish to be outdone, but were not prepared to outlay as much money as their rivals. There was no prefabricated palace for the King of France; instead, the French court would be housed near Ardres in a little town of four hun
dred tents of cloth of gold and silver—the “Camp du drap d’or.”
The Cardinal made it his job to resolve the numerous disputes that arose and laid down the rules governing matters of precedence and etiquette. It was agreed that, in order to preserve the honour of both nations, neither King would take part in any joust or combat against the other. The terrain itself had been flattened so as not to give either side any advantage.
Queen Katherine, naturally, was unhappy when Henry regrew his beard in Francis’s honour, but more so about this new alliance with France, Spain’s traditional enemy. She had worked behind the scenes for a rapprochement with her nephew, the new Emperor Charles V,11 who had agreed to visit England on his way home to Spain after his coronation in Aachen, before Henry left for France.
The King was to take with him to Guisnes a large retinue of 3,997 persons—including 114 peers and princes of the Church, among them Wolsey, Warham, Buckingham, Suffolk, and Dorset, as well as his Secretary, Richard Pace; 12 chaplains; the staff of the Chapel Royal, among them Robert Fairfax and William Cornish; all his Kings of Arms, heralds, and pursuivants; 200 guards, 70 Grooms of the Chamber; and 266 household officers, each with his own servants. Queen Katherine’s retinue of 1,175 was headed by the Earl of Derby and included the Bishop of Rochester, the Duchess of Buckingham, 6 countesses, 12 baronesses, and all their servants. Mary Boleyn was one of the Queen’s female attendants.12 Wolsey had his own train of 50 gentlemen, 12 chaplains, and 237 servants, more than were allowed Buckingham or Warham. In total, 5,172 persons and 2,865 horses were to go to France. 13
In May 1520, leaving Norfolk and Bishop Foxe (who had briefly come out of retirement) in charge of the government of England, and the Princess Mary keeping royal state at Richmond, where she entertained some Venetian envoys by playing on the virginals, the King and his vast entourage left Greenwich and proceeded through Kent towards Dover, where they would embark for France. They stayed first at Warham’s palaces at Charing and Otford, then, on 22 May, at Leeds Castle, before arriving in Canterbury three days later in readiness for the visit of the Emperor. Henry lodged in Archbishop Warham’s palace, which had been specially refurbished for the occasion. 14
On 26 May, the Emperor’s ships docked at Dover to a thunderous salute from the English fleet waiting in the Straits of Dover. Charles walked ashore beneath a canopy of cloth of gold emblazoned with his badge, the black eagle, and was met by Wolsey, who conducted him to Dover Castle for the night. Informed of his arrival, King Henry arrived in haste the next morning, which was Whitsunday, and greeted Charles as he came downstairs.15 Then Henry escorted his nephew to Canterbury, where the citizens, who hated the French, gave him a warm welcome.16
After the pomp and ceremony of high mass in Canterbury Cathedral, the King and the Emperor knelt in prayer at the shrine of Thomas Becket and were shown the saint’s hair shirt, his broken skull, the sword that had pierced it, and other holy relics, which they devoutly kissed. Afterwards, on the marble staircase of the palace, the Emperor was presented to the Queen, who was robed in ermine-lined cloth of gold with ropes of beautiful pearls around her neck, and who wept with joy at the sight of her nephew.17 Dinner was a private affair, attended only by the King, the Queen, the Emperor, and Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk. The Duke of Suffolk had the honour of presenting the basin, Buckingham that of removing it. Later that day, Germaine of Foix, Dowager Queen of Aragon, King Ferdinand’s beautiful young widow, arrived in Canterbury with a train of sixty ladies. At a banquet that evening, the three queens sat with the King and the Emperor at the high table, and there was much merriment. The Spanish Count of Cabra got carried away and “made love so heartily” to an English lady that he fainted and had to be carried out of the room.18 Even the elderly Duke of Alva entered into the spirit of the occasion and led the company in some Spanish dancing. Henry danced with his sister Mary, but Charles just sat and watched.
During his visit, the Emperor, who would have preferred Henry to make an alliance with him rather than his rival Francis, set himself to charm everybody, in particular Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he gave a handsome pension and a promise that, when Pope Leo died, he would help him secure the papacy. The King, who wanted to keep all his options open, agreed to meet with Charles again, on imperial territory at Gravelines, after he had seen the King of France.
After Charles had departed for Sandwich on the Tuesday evening, the King and his train rode to Dover, where on 31 May they embarked for France in a fleet of twenty-seven ships. The sea was calm, and they arrived at Calais at noon that day.19 On 3 June, Henry set out with his retinue for Guisnes.
The summit meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I later came to be known as the Field of Cloth of Gold, in commemoration of the lavish display made there; some even called it the eighth wonder of the world. It cost Henry an estimated total of £15,000 (£4.5 million). It took the French ten years to pay for it.
Everyone had been ordered to attend “in their best manner, apparelled according to their estate and degrees,”20 and Hall thought it impossible to describe “their rich attire, their sumptuous jewels, their diversities of beauties.” Bishop Fisher, appalled by the extravagance, wrote, “Never was seen in England such excess of apparelment before.”21 The courtiers on both sides had nearly ruined themselves buying rich materials and accoutrements. King Henry was his usual peacock self, and would appear each day in a series of increasingly spectacular costumes, which are all described in detail by Edward Hall; for months now the King had been importing great quantities of rich fabrics, including 1,050 yards of velvet. Many lengths of cloth of gold, satin, velvet, and damask had been bought for the Queen, and she took with her a variety of headdresses, including a Spanish one that left her long hair hanging loose over one shoulder and drew admiring comments.22 Mary Tudor invariably appeared “superbly arrayed” and looked “scintillating in her saddle.”23
On 7 June, the Feast of Corpus Christi, as the cannons boomed simultaneously from Guisnes and Ardres, the two Kings, accompanied by a host of courtiers, rode from their respective headquarters to meet each other.24 Each side secretly feared that the other would attack, so they came in battle array. Henry VIII wore cloth of gold and silver, heavily bejewelled, with a feathered black bonnet and his Garter collar; he rode a bay horse hung with gold bells that jangled as it moved, and he was attended by the Yeomen of his Guard. Francis I, in cloth of gold and silver encrusted with gems, and sporting white boots and a black cap, was flanked by his Swiss Guards. At the perimeter of the Val d’Or, the Kings paused, then, to the sound of trumpets and sackbuts, they galloped alone towards each other, doffed their bonnets, and embraced while still on horseback.25 After dismounting, they linked arms and entered Francis’s sixty-foot-long pavilion of gold damask lined with blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys and guarded by a statue of St. Michael.26 Here, “they greeted each other like truly well-intentioned people, and then with evident satisfaction talked together in friendly fashion until evening,”27 sipping hippocras. Outside, their respective retinues were drinking toasts to each other: “English and French: good friends!”
On 10 June, the King of France came on a mule “to salute the English Queen” at Guisnes and during the banquet given in his honour was entertained by the choir of the Chapel Royal. Afterwards, 130 English ladies were presented to him and he kissed them all, “saving four or five that were old and not fair.”28 Henry, meanwhile, had gone to Ardres to pay his respects to Queen Claude. He appeared “entirely at ease.” His beard was “very becoming,” but an Italian observer thought him “rather fat”—although this is not borne out by the waist measurement of his new armour, which was thirty-five inches.29 At the end of the day, the Kings returned home, “meeting one another on the way.”30
There then followed two weeks of courtesies, feasting, jousting, dancing, and “midsummer games,”31 in which the two courts vied for supremacy. “Everything resounded with happy voices, but it was possible to observe that not all the English viewed the French
with happy minds.” Francis, observing this, half-jokingly commented to Henry, “I fear the English even when they bring gifts.” 32 “These sovereigns are not at peace,” commented a Venetian. “They hate each other cordially.”33
Italian observers admired the wealth of gold chains worn by the English, but thought the French more elegant in dress.34 The English were of the opinion that the dress of the French ladies was too revealing and “singularly unfit for the chaste,”35 while the Mantuan ambassador thought the English ladies badly dressed and overfond of alcohol.36 The visitors “soon began to adapt the [French] mode, by which what they lost in modesty they gained in comeliness.” 37
Between 11 and 22 June, three hundred contestants took part in the tournaments that were held in the huge tiltyard, which measured 900 feet by 320 feet; the original design had been Henry’s, but Worcester had tactfully persuaded him to modify it, since, among other flaws, the lists were too far from the viewing gallery.38 The jousts were organised by Suffolk and Admiral Bonnivet, and the rules of protocol agreed upon by a committee of English and French knights. Only blunted swords and lances were used, and even the design of armour had been agreed beforehand by the two Kings. 39
Two trees of honour thirty-four feet high, bearing Henry’s emblem of the hawthorn and Francis’s raspberry leaf, were set up on a rise at the end of the lists, and each day the challengers hung their shields on it. Henry insisted that his shield and Francis’s be placed on the same level to demonstrate their equality, and the two monarchs contrived to run the same number of courses—although not against each other—and broke the same number of spears. Their combat was so fast and furious that sparks flew from their armour40—the suit worn by Henry is almost certainly that surviving in the Tower armouries41 —and on one occasion the King caused the death of his own horse. He himself sprained his hand, while Francis sustained a black eye. One French knight died of wounds received in the lists from his own brother. Many Englishmen, notably Suffolk and Carew, gave gallant performances.