From the first, Katherine exerted a benevolent influence over the court. Not since the days of Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn had a queen patronised humanist scholarship so enthusiastically. Katherine welcomed men of learning to her court and drew extensively on her privy purse to fund the studies of poor students. One of the Queen’s chaplains, Francis Goldsmith, who owed his promotion to her generosity, declared that “her rare goodness has made every day a Sunday, a thing hitherto unheard of, especially in a royal palace.”6
In her religious observances, Katherine was outwardly orthodox, and her writings display a personal piety that had more in common with the teachings of Erasmus than those of Luther. Her prayerbook, dated 1534, is at Sudeley Castle. She owned a beautiful manuscript of the Epistles in Latin and English, as well as a French version of the New Testament; both were illuminated by William Harper, Clerk of the Closet.
Yet the Queen’s private views seem to have been as radical as Cranmer’s, and the members of her circle were mostly of like mind. As well as her ladies in waiting, they included Lady Elizabeth Hoby; Jane, Lady Lisle; and Lady Margaret Butts, all of whom held dangerously Lutheran opninions. The Duchess of Suffolk, who had enthusiastically embraced the new faith, dared openly to criticise the Catholic bishops, and mischievously named her pet spaniel Gardiner, taking pleasure in calling him sharply to heel.7
Katherine’s chamber became a haven for those with radical opinions. There were sermons by reformist preachers such as Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Shaxton, and readings from the Scriptures, which were often followed by impassioned debate. Much time was devoted to self-improvement and pious devotion, and Nicholas Udall, visiting the court, was impressed to see the Queen and her ladies absorbed in “virtuous exercises, reading and writing, and with most earnest study, applying themselves to extending knowledge. It is now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of vain trifling, to have continually in their hands either psalms, homilies or other devout meditations.”8 This all gave a tremendous boost to the cause of reform, but it was fraught with risks, not least because it aroused the resentment and suspicions of the conservative faction.
Katherine certainly discussed religious issues with Henry, 9 but John Foxe, looking back from the Protestant perspective of Elizabethan England, may have been exaggerating when he wrote that she never ceased urging the King “zealously to proceed in the reformation of the Church.” Although he enjoyed debating theology with his wife, Henry allowed her little political influence, and she never actively involved herself in factional politics. Her family were content with their advancement and did not seek to rule the King. However, since most members of her household and circle were all of the reformist persuasion, she was identified with the interests of that party, and thus further incurred the enmity of the conservatives.
In 1543, the King began building new lodgings for Katherine Parr at Hampton Court, in the southeast corner of the Base Court. A new barge was constructed for her by a Lambeth shipwright. Katherine’s life was not totally centred around scholarship and religion, and she pursued other, more traditional pleasures. She loved clothes, especially in the Italian and French fashions. Most of the silk for her dresses came from Antwerp, yet there were complaints that the Queen was often slow to pay for her purchases. She was, however, less extravagant than the King’s previous wives: many of the gorgeous bejewelled gowns made for Katherine Howard and kept in storage at Baynard’s Castle were altered to fit her. But she had a weakness for shoes, and once purchased forty-seven pairs in one year. Among them were velvet court shoes trimmed with gold at 14s (£210) a pair, six pairs of cork-soled shoes, and “quarter shoes” which cost 5s (£75) a pair and wore out very quickly. 10
Katherine adored flowers: the chamber accounts record daily payments for floral arrangements for her apartments and for “perfume for the chamber,” her favourite scents being juniper and civet.11 She was an accomplished needlewoman and produced exquisite embroideries, of which examples survive at Sizergh Castle. She retained several fools, including a dwarf and a woman called Jane, for whom she bought a red petticoat. She kept greyhounds and parrots as pets.
Katherine also enjoyed dancing and shared the King’s passion for music. She maintained an Italian consort of viols, whose members received 8d (£10) a day. She once sent a letter to the Lady Mary by the hand of a musician, who, she wrote, “will be, I judge, most acceptable, from his skill in music, in which you, I am well aware, take as much delight as myself.”12
Katherine doubtless appreciated the music of Thomas Tallis, the great composer, singer, and organist, who had joined the Chapel Royal in 1542 after serving as a lay clerk at Canterbury Cathedral, having been made redundant when Waltham Abbey, where he had been organist and master of the choristers, was dissolved in 1540. The King had admired his work since hearing him sing at Waltham.
Tallis, who has been called the Father of English Music, was to enjoy a long and distinguished career in the Chapel Royal until his death in 1585. Under his auspices, English church music would reach its zenith. During Henry VIII’s reign he wrote five antiphons, three masses, the motet “Misereri Nostri,” and—perhaps at this time—another Latin motet for forty voices, all in a restrained mediaeval style. It was his later works, composed during the reign of Elizabeth I, that were his greatest achievement.
There was plague in London that summer, and the King issued proclamations forbidding either the citizens to approach the court or the courtiers to go to the City.13 In July, Henry left with his bride and his elder daughter on a long hunting progress that would take them via Oatlands to the south and west of England. After a short stay at Wulfhall, the court moved north to Woodstock, Langley, and Grafton, then homewards via Dunstable and Ashridge.14 This was the last time the King would ever venture so far afield. In future, he would confine his travels to the Thames Valley and ensure that facilities at his riverside palaces were improved and adapted to his increasing bulk and periods of restricted mobility.
During 1543, the King built “the Great Standing”—now known as “Queen Elizabeth’s hunting lodge”—in a park called Fairmead in Epping Forest, two miles north east of Chingford. Of timber construction, and L-shaped, it had an open gallery on the upper floor from which the King could shoot game or just watch the hunt with his companions.15
There was still plague in London in the autumn when the King returned from his progress, and sometime between 7 October and 29 November it claimed the life of Hans Holbein. Holbein had recently recovered some of the King’s former favour, and Katherine Parr had commissioned circular portraits of Henry’s three children (of which only those of Edward and Mary survive). Holbein’s last work, a vast painting of Henry VIII presenting a charter to the Barber Surgeons Company of London, a commission that was obtained through the good offices of Dr. Butts, was left unfinished.16 Holbein died at his house in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft and was buried in the church of St. Catherine Cree. He left money for the maintenance of two bastard children, whose mother had perhaps also been a victim of the plague. There was nothing for the family he had abandoned in Basel. Holbein’s many drawings were left in his studio at Whitehall and appear to have passed into Henry VIII’s art collection.
No one could replace the genius of Holbein. Lucas Horenbout’s grant of office as King’s Painter, which referred to the King’s long acquaintance with “the science and experience” in his “pictorial art,” was renewed in 1544, but he died soon afterwards in London. In 1547, his wife Margaret received a payment of 40s (£60O) for a portrait of Katherine Parr; whether she painted it herself, or whether the payment was in settlement of an outstanding debt to her late husband, is not known.17
Henry’s Serjeant Painter, Andrew Wright, had died in 1543 and was succeeded in the post by Antonio Toto, who was to remain in office until the next reign. Toto was the first foreign artist to be appointed Serjeant Painter, and undoubtedly the mos
t competent so far.
The King now began to seek out new artistic talent. Several of those who worked for him cannot now be identified, such as the master who painted the Whitehall family group portrait, executed around this time, but others became famous. Holbein’s most important successor was the gifted Hans Eworth, who came to England from Antwerp in 1543 and is said to have finished off portraits that Holbein had left incomplete. Eworth attracted the patronage of Katherine Parr, who commissioned from him miniatures of herself and the King that cost 30s (£450) each. Another follower of Holbein—identified only as “Master John”—is known to have painted portraits of Katherine Parr (full length) and the Lady Mary, which were picked out in gold leaf.18
Perhaps the most prominent artist in Henry’s last years was the Dutch master Guillim Scrots, who had been chief painter to Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, since 1537. In the autumn of 1545, the King persuaded him to come to England with the inducement of a high salary of £62.10s (£18,750). Scrots introduced novel Renaissance elements into English painting, such as classical statuary, putti, masks, and heraldic escutcheons. These are evident in the masterful full-length portrait of the Earl of Surrey, painted in about 1546 and attributed to him. Scrots also introduced into England the northern Renaissance obsession with costume detail, which he painted with consummate skill while making little attempt to convey the character of the sitter. This style was to dominate English portraiture until the early seventeenth century. One of Scrots’s most famous works—and the only one signed by him—is the anamorphosis, or distorted perspective, of Prince Edward (1546) which was hung in Whitehall Palace and was the kind of novelty appreciated by Tudor courtiers.19 Many paintings have been attributed to Scrots, but few can be said with certainty to be his original work. He is thought to have painted the three-quarter-length portraits of the Prince of Wales and the Lady Elizabeth which are still in the Royal Collection and date from about 1545–1546.
John Bettes the Elder, whose work suggests that he was trained in Holbein’s studio, was a competent painter, miniaturist, and engraver. He had worked on the mural depicting the coronation of Henry VIII at Whitehall in 1531–1533, and had also painted decorative heraldic pictures for the palace. Katherine Parr paid him £3 (£900) for miniatures of herself and the King and six other pictures in 1546–1547, and he is also known to have painted the likenesses of several courtiers.20 Sadly, none of his miniatures can now be identified.
Henry VIII also employed a female artist, Levina Teerlinc. She was the daughter of Simon Benninck, one of the foremost masters of the Ghent/Bruges school of illuminators and limners. Levina, who was married to George Teerlinc of Blankenberg, entered Henry’s service in 1546 and was granted an annuity of £40 (£12,000);21 her husband was made a Gentleman Pensioner. Teerlinc is thought to have been influenced by Horenbout, but her work is known only through later miniatures, which are poor in quality and draughtsmanship, and portray sitters with disproportionately tiny bodies and stick-thin arms.
The obscure John Shute also painted portraits of courtiers. Another artist who was on the fringe of the court was Gerlach Flicke, who came from Osnabrück in Germany and settled in London around 1545. His most famous work is his portrait of Archbishop Cranmer,22 but it is of mediocre quality, and although he received commissions from courtiers, he did not attract royal patronage.
Katherine Parr was a kind and supportive stepmother to the King’s three children, who all came to love her. She was already close friends with the Lady Mary, who was only four years her junior, and she now declared that it was her pleasure rather than her duty to establish affectionate relations with Edward, now six, and Elizabeth, who was ten.23 To this end, she encouraged all three to come to court, whenever circumstances and their father permitted, and maintained a warm correspondence with them when they were absent; Edward wrote to her in Latin, and Elizabeth, on one occasion at least, in Italian. She exchanged gifts and kindnesses with them, worried about their health and welfare, gave them money, bought clothes for them—Edward received outfits of crimson velvet and white satin—and encouraged them in their studies.
It was Katherine who, in 1544, encouraged Mary to translate Erasmus’s Paraphrases of the Gospel of St. John into English. Mary made a good start, but made little further progress because of intermittent ill health, so the Queen called in Nicholas Udall to finish the project, and also met the costs of publication.
Mary, who now came to court more often than ever before, already had lodgings in several of the royal palaces, but it was not until Henry married Katherine Parr that Elizabeth was allocated any; they were next to the Queen’s own apartments at Greenwich and Whitehall. Both princesses had their own chamber servants. Edward, like his sisters, had his own establishment, but as the King feared his risking infection by coming to court often, Katherine saw less of her stepson that she would probably have wished. However, she did sometimes arrange for the family to be together when she and the King visited one of the lesser houses, such as Hanworth, and in 1543–1544 Henry created a lodging for the Prince with a bedchamber next to his own at Greenwich.24
The King was fond of all his children, although Edward, the precious, long-awaited son, was naturally his favourite. Edward was small for his age, with one shoulder higher than the other, and was shortsighted, but he was an attractive child with blond hair and grey eyes. His early portraits show an elfin face with a pointed chin like his mother’s, but his resolute, direct gaze was his father’s. As he grew older, he consciously aped the King’s mannerisms, and posed for artists in the classic Henrician pose, feet firmly apart, hand on hip or dagger.
It was drilled into the Prince from birth that he must “satisfy the good expectations of the King’s Majesty”25—a lesson he learned so well that, in a letter written later to his father, he vowed he would be “worthy to be tortured with stripes of ignominy if, through negligence, I should omit even the smallest particle of my duty.” 26 When, in 1546, Henry presented his son with jewels from the suppressed monasteries, Edward took it as a sign of the King’s great love for him, “for if you did not love me, you would not give me these fine gifts.” When he wrote to Henry, the Prince addressed him as “Most noble Father and most illustrious King.”27 Although Henry was an affectionate father, he was also a distant and awe-inspiring one.
As soon as he was six, Edward was breeched, taken from Lady Bryan and his nurses, who were pensioned off, and given into the care of male tutors. For a long time, historians believed that it was Katherine Parr who took the responsibility for his education, but recent research suggests that it was in fact the King who made the decisions and arrangements. Katherine’s role was to encourage and support the boy in his studies.
Edward now began a rigorous classical education under renowned humanists, who were all followers of Erasmus, Vives, and More. He was to learn languages, including Latin and Greek, Scripture, classics, philosophy, astronomy, and “all liberal sciences.”28 It was fortunate that the boy was highly intelligent and loved books. His studies were supplemented by more traditional lessons in horsemanship, archery, fencing, tennis, music, and dancing, all of which he much enjoyed, although he was never to be a sportsman like his father. So that he should not learn in isolation, the King founded a select palace school, choosing fourteen aristocratic boys to share his education: they included Suffolk’s son, the learned Henry Brandon; Surrey’s son, Lord Thomas Howard; Lord Lisle’s son, Robert Dudley; John, Lord Lumley; Lord Mountjoy; Henry, Lord Hastings; and Barnaby Fitzpatrick, a sprig of the Irish nobility, who was unfortunate enough to be appointed the Prince’s whipping boy, yet became a close friend. It is also possible that the prodigious Lady Jane Grey shared Edward’s lessons.
The men who were given responsibility for the Prince’s education were among the most brilliant scholars of their day. Dr. Richard Cox, Edward’s former almoner, who had worked with Henry on the King’s Book and later became Provost of Eton and Bishop of Ely, was the Prince’s first tutor. Although he did
his best to make learning enjoyable, and resorted less frequently than most Tudor teachers to the rod, he is known to have beaten Edward on occasion.
John Cheke, the first ever Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge and one of the most outstanding minds of his day, joined Cox in 1544, having been probably recommended to the King by either Sir William Butts or Anthony Denny, who were both his patrons. Edward became very fond of Cheke, who soon took over from Dr. Cox as senior tutor.
Cheke is said to have brought from Cambridge two men of high reputation to help with Edward’s education. The humanist Sir Anthony Cooke, who, like Thomas More, had four learned daughters, and whose translation of St. Cyprian’s treatise on the unity of the Church was dedicated to Henry VIII,29 may indeed have tutored the Prince, although the evidence is conflicting. Roger Ascham, later schoolmaster to the Lady Elizabeth, taught Edward penmanship. In 1545, the eminent William Grindal was brought in to help with the teaching of Greek. There was also a German tutor called Randolph; there is no evidence that Edward ever learned German, so perhaps Randolph taught another subject.