Henry VIII: The King and His Court

  Dr. Crome had named several members of the Privy Chamber, and in June, Gardiner had them all arrested, namely Surrey’s friend, the poet Sir George Blagge; a page, Master Wourley; a Sewer, John Lassels, who had been instrumental in bringing about Katherine Howard’s fall; and one William Morice. The King was “sore offended” when he learned that Blagge had been arrested without his knowledge and sentenced to burn for heresy, for he had a great affection for the young fool, whom he had nicknamed his “pig.” Summoning Wriothesley forthwith, he berated him “for coming so near him, even to his Privy Chamber” and made him draw up a pardon there and then. When he next saw Blagge, Henry cried, “Ah, my pig! Are you safe again?”

  “Yes, Sire,” answered Blagge, “and if Your Majesty had not been better than your bishops, your pig had been roasted ere this time!”8

  The conservatives next attempted to accuse Sir Anthony and Lady Denny of heresy, but without success. The Queen was another matter.

  Early in July, Henry was again in low spirits. On the fourth, “although dressed to go to mass, he did not go, nor did he go into his gardens, as his habit is in the summer.”9 Two days later, he moved from Greenwich to Whitehall, then fell “ill with colic.”10 Since the conservatives were now in the ascendant, he had with him Gardiner, Wriothesley, Norfolk, Paulet, Petre, and Sir Anthony Browne.

  According to the Elizabethan writer John Foxe, who is the only source for what is said to have happened next, the Queen angered Henry one day by becoming too opinionated while they were debating a theological matter. When Katherine had gone, Henry grumbled to Gardiner that it was “nothing much to my comfort in mine old days to be taught by my wife.” Gardiner sympathised, then took a great risk and ventured to suggest that the Queen might be harbouring views of which Henry would not approve. The King gave him permission to investigate further; the books in Katherine’s closet were examined, and her ladies questioned. They gave away nothing, so Wriothesley obtained Henry’s signature on a warrant for Katherine’s arrest, in order for her to be questioned also. Fortuitiously, the warrant fell from the pocket of a councillor’s gown, and was found by a member of the Queen’s household, who took it straight to her. Horrified at what it portended, Katherine took to her bed and began screaming in panic. In his apartments, the King heard her hysterical cries, and sent his physician, Dr. Wendy, to discover what was wrong. When Katherine told him, he urged her to compose herself and dress, then go to the King and plead for forgiveness.

  Katherine took his advice. She told Henry that, if she had dared dispute with one whom Nature had so patently formed for superiority, it was only to divert him in his illness. “Is that so, sweetheart?” asked a mollified Henry. “Then we are perfect friends again.”

  The next day, as the King and Queen sat together in the privy garden, Lord Chancellor Wriothesley arrived with a detachment of guards to arrest the Queen. Henry rose angrily, soundly berated him, and beat him about the head, shouting, “Arrant knave! Beast! Fool!” The Chancellor made a hasty and somewhat undignified exit.11

  Foxe’s tale sounds contrived, yet it was characteristic of Henry to behave in this way, testing the loyalty of those around him and playing them off against one another, much as he had done in the past with Cranmer and Gardiner.

  Katherine Parr was safe, but Anne Askew and John Lassels were not so lucky. On 16 July, they were burned at Smithfield.

  The collapse of the plot against the Queen, and the return to court of Hertford in June, signalled the end of the conservatives’ brief period of ascendancy, and also brought to a halt the witch-hunt for heretics. Soon afterwards, Hertford formed a powerful alliance with Lord Lisle. Their ultimate aim was to secure control of the government after the King’s death, and to this end they took care to lean “neither on one side or the other” of the religious divide.12 Both owed their power to their military achievements, while Hertford was in a strong position as the uncle of the future King. Supported by the influential and efficient Paget, who until the summer had appeared to favour the conservative faction, 13 they formed a formidable coalition.

  Norfolk, careful of his own interests and aware that his influence was dwindling, swallowed his pride and attempted to ally himself with the Seymour faction. But having obtained the King’s approval for a marriage between Norfolk’s daughter Mary, Richmond’s widow, and Sir Thomas Seymour, the Duke met with furious opposition from his son, Surrey, who also refused to countenance a match between one of his daughters and Hertford’s son. Nor was Mary Howard in favour of the marriage proposed for her. However, Surrey believed he could use it to his family’s advantage, and told Mary that, when the King sent for her to congratulate her on her betrothal, she should use her feminine wiles on him, become his mistress, and wield as much influence upon him “as Madame d’Etampes doth about the French King.” Mary was outraged and cried that she would “cut her own throat” rather than “consent to such a villainy.”14 At this, she and her brother fell out—a rift that was to have tragic consequences.

  Because of his failing health, the King now spent most of his time in the privacy of his secret lodgings, “and used seldom, being not well at ease, to stir out of his chamber,” unless it was to walk in his privy gardens. His temper was more volatile than ever; his legs gave him so much pain “that he became exceedingly perverse and intractable” 15 and was inclined to lash out on the slightest provocation. Apart from his Gentlemen and Chamber servants, the only persons admitted to see him were the Queen, selected councillors “by special commandment,” and, on occasion, foreign ambassadors. Henry did not want the world, or the courtiers who waited outside in the presence chamber, to think he was losing his grasp on affairs.

  But speculation about his health was rife, while those close to him wondered how many more physical crises he could survive. Yet he would not give in, “was loath to hear any mention of death,”16 and behaved as if he still had many years ahead of him, ignoring the pain in his legs and bravely driving himself to lead as normal a life as possible. Addressing the problem of mobility, he had two invalid “chairs called trams” made for him, “for the King’s Majesty to sit in to be carried to and fro in his galleries and chambers at Whitehall.” One was covered in quilted tawny velvet, the other in gold velvet and silk, and both had embroidered footrests and shafts like sedan chairs. They were kept with the King’s maps and pictures in his “secret study,” which now became known as the “chairhouse.”17

  According to Hall, “the King was now overgrown with corpulency and fatness, so that he became more and more unwieldy. He could not go up or down stairs unless he was raised up or let down by an engine.” Norfolk also claimed that Henry “could not go up and down the stairs, and was let up and down by a device,”18 and although there is no record of any mechanical pulley, hoist, or lift in any of his palaces, this does not mean that such a contraption did not exist.

  It was clear to his advisers that the King could not last long, and the power struggle for the regency intensified, with each faction competing for supremacy. According to van der Delft, self-interest and fear held men together.19 The conflict was bitter, and the mounting tension such that heated quarrels were liable to break out on the slightest pretext. Nor would the matter be resolved until blood had been shed.

  In one camp were Hertford, Lisle, Paget, Denny, Gates, Essex, and other reformists; in the other were Gardiner, Wriothesley, Rich, Norfolk, Surrey, the ailing Browne, and their conservative partisans. The Seymour-Dudley party was easily the dominant faction, and Chapuys and others were of the opinion that no one was fitter or better suited to govern the Prince than his uncle Hertford,20 but the opposition was not giving in without a fight. Surrey, however, seemed to have his own agenda, and in some ways to have lost touch with reality: he struck Lisle, insulted Rich, and warned that Hertford would “smart” for usurping his command in France. 21 He also fell out with George Blagge, who opposed Surrey’s obsessive determination to gain control of the Prince after the King’s death. In Surrey’s opinion, Norf
olk was the man best suited to be Edward’s guardian. Blagge said he would rather stab Surrey than see the government in the hands of the Howards.22

  Hertford was suspected by many, with good reason, of holding radical views, and in September 1546 van der Delft expressed concern about the number of his clients and supporters that were constantly about the King.23 Hertford was on poor terms with everyone except Lisle and Paget, and at particular loggerheads with Wriothesley, who had switched factions as soon as he realised the conservatives were losing ground. In October, Lisle struck Gardiner during a fierce dispute “in full Council meeting” and was expelled from the court, but in November he was back, unrepentant; soon afterwards he and Hertford were overheard using “violent and opprobrious” words against Gardiner and Wriothesley.24

  The King struggled to maintain control over the warring factions, but his refusal to confront the issue at stake only exacerbated the tension. Each councillor was fearful lest his enemies should try to blind Henry’s eyes with “mists” or calumny.25 The court began to seethe with mounting anxiety, which was tangible to both the French and Spanish ambassadors, who found their sources of information drying up as men refused to talk to them, fearing accusations of treasonable plotting.26

  The last important state pageant of the reign took place in August 1546, when Claud d’Annebaut, Lord High Admiral of France, came to England with two hundred gentlemen to ratify a treaty of peace between England and France. Because of the King’s infirmity, Prince Edward, with an escort of eighty gold-clad gentlemen and eighty Yeomen of the guard, rode out to greet the Admiral at Hounslow. The French were impressed no less by the boy’s horsemanship than by his Latin speech of welcome, which radiated “high wit and great audacity.”

  Having conducted the Admiral to Hampton Court, where he was received by Lord Chancellor Wriothesley and the Privy Council, Edward was to deputise for his father on several occasions during the ten days of receptions, banquets, masques, dances, and hunting trips that followed, and would also show off his skill on the lute.27 The Admiral’s retinue were accommodated in tents of cloth of gold and velvet that had been erected in the palace gardens, where two new banqueting houses had been erected and hung with tapestries threaded with gold and jewels.

  On the second morning of the visit, d’Annebaut was received by the King in the presence chamber and accompanied him to mass in the chapel royal. Another time, the King was present at an open-air reception, standing under a marquee, but observers noticed him leaning heavily on the shoulders of the Admiral and Archbishop Cranmer. He is said to have startled the Admiral by suggesting that “the mass in both realms” be changed “into a communion service.”28 It sounded as if the King was flirting with Lutheranism, but he was probably just being provocative. Alternatively the tale could be retrospective wishful thinking on the part of the man who wrote it, John Foxe.

  At the end of their stay, the French were sent home with fine gifts of plate, horses, and dogs.29 Prince Edward then stayed briefly at Durham House, before taking up residence at Hunsdon, where he was to remain for much of the rest of the year.30

  The King departed on his usual hunting progress, but he did not go beyond the Thames Valley and kept to “houses remote from towns.” He stayed firstly at Oatlands, where he shot from a standing as the deer were driven past him, and on one occasion rode with the hounds after a stag at Chertsey, shooting with darts and spears. For three days he was “always at the chase.”31 A ramp had been built at Oatlands to enable him to mount his horse with ease; at other palaces the mounting blocks had been raised.32 Later in August, Henry was hunting at Chobham, Surrey, where his courtiers were housed in tents.33 In September, he set out for Guildford, but his exertions had been too much for him, and he was forced to retire to Windsor. The progress was abandoned.

  Wriothesley announced that the King had a cold, but van der Delft later discovered that he had actually been in “great danger,” and the royal physicians had given up “all hope of recovery.” 34 Yet against the odds, Henry recovered once more. By early October, he was out hunting and hawking again, and as much in command of affairs as ever. He received van der Delft at Windsor and, on learning that the ambassador himself had been ill, offered him the services of his own physician. However, he was not well enough to give audience to the new French ambassador, Odet de Selve, and Paget had to deputise for him.35

  In October, Sir Anthony Denny succeeded Sir Thomas Heneage as Groom of the Stool. Heneage had served the King for twenty years, and the reasons for his dismissal are unclear; he appears to have left court under a cloud.

  Now in daily close proximity to the King, and in overall control of the Privy Chamber, the secret lodgings, and the dry stamp, Denny became the dominant influence during the closing months of the reign. Whichever faction Denny supported was likely to gain control of the regency, and Denny was a close ally of the Seymours.

  Denny’s job was no sinecure. After Henry’s death, Paget referred to his “painful service,”36 indicating that his dealings with the ailing King had not been easy or pleasant. But Denny had the support of his brother-in-law, Sir John Gates, who carried out his orders and bullied the rest of the Privy Chamber into submission. Gates was also Keeper of Pyrgo Park at Havering, where he resided, when not at court, in regal luxury. Gates’s subordinates were William Clerk, who also had authority to use the dry stamp, and an accountant, Nicholas Bristow.

  Paget, Hertford’s friend and mentor, was also enormously influential. As Principal Secretary to the King, he controlled all the letters and information entering or leaving the privy lodgings, and was in overall control of the government when Henry was ill. It was Paget who helped forge the alliance between Denny and the Seymour faction, which made Hertford, the potential future ruler de facto, the most important man at court. Paget boasted of his confidential relationship with the King, asserting that Henry “opened his pleasure to me alone in many things.” However, Denny and Sir William Herbert insisted that Henry would always, “when Mr Secretary was gone, tell us what had passed between them.”37 This was yet another example of Henry’s policy of divide and rule.

  The conservative faction was dealt a blow in November when Gardiner, who as recently as August had been described by van der Delft as one of the King’s chief advisers,38 incurred Henry’s displeasure by refusing to exchange some episcopal lands with him. When Henry refused him entry to the privy chamber, Gardiner concluded that Hertford had been working against him, and blamed him for his exclusion. He asked Paget to intercede for him, but the King refused to grant him an audience.

  In the middle of November, Henry moved to Whitehall to take “preparative medicine for certain medicinal baths which he usually has at this season.” 39 Gardiner haunted the outward chambers of the palace, but Henry still would not see him, and he was reduced to ensuring that he was seen in the company of councillors who were in favour, so that people should not know of his disgrace. On 2 December he wrote to the King, craving an audience and offering to agree to the exchange of lands after all, but a terse note in reply informed him that His Majesty could see “no cause why you should molest us further” and instructed him to arrange the transfer of property through government officials in London. The letter bore the sign manual and was witnessed by Denny and Gates.40 Gardiner would probably have been correct in concluding that his enemies were working to destroy him.

  Soon afterwards, Henry went to stay at Oatlands.41 There were rumours in London about his failing health,42 but he was out taking exercise on 7 December. However, it would be for the last time.

  63

  “The Rarest Man That Lived in His Time”

  On 10 December, while he was still at Oatlands, Henry was laid low with a fever, and for thirty hours his doctors battled to keep him alive. 1 To their relief, he rallied, and when van der Delft next saw him, he told the ambassador he was completely recovered, but van der Delft could see from his appearance that he was a sick man. His face was ashen, his body “greatly fallen away,”
and although he was up and dressed, he was very weak. Norfolk had told the ambassador that Henry “could not long endure.” 2

  “In case any light bruit may rise to the contrary,” the Council instructed English ambassadors abroad to give out that the King’s fever had been merely the result of “some grief of his leg”; they were to stress that he was now, “thanks be to God, well rid of it, and would be better of it [for] a great while.”3

  With their ambitions about to reach fruition, the Seymour faction moved to destroy their enemies, the Howards. Van der Delft had no doubt that Hertford and Lisle were the prime movers in the plot against them, 4 and Gates was certainly active in the matter.5 Norfolk was no real threat to Hertford’s supremacy: he was ageing, he had failed to live up to his reputation as a military commander, and he had alienated so many councillors by telling tales about them to the King that they had used their influence to have him excluded from the inner circle of the Privy Council. Surrey, however, was a real danger, for he had made no secret of his determination to secure the regency and the person of the Prince on the King’s death.

  Yet this was not all. Surrey’s former friend Sir Richard Southwell had betrayed him by laying before the Council evidence about the Earl “that touched his fidelity to the King.” The Duchess of Richmond had revealed that her “rash” brother had said of the Seymours that “these new men loved no nobility, and if God called away the King they should smart for it.” Then she added the most damaging testimony of all, that Surrey had replaced the coronet on his coat of arms with a crown, flanked by the initials H. R.—for Henricus Rex. Government agents searched Mount Surrey and found armorial glass, paintings, and plate bearing the arms of Edward the Confessor, which Surrey claimed he bore by right of descent, even though Garter King of Arms had ruled “that it was not in his pedigree.”6 It seemed clear that the Earl had schemed to be King, but it is more likely that he was underlining—in his usual foolish way—his superior claim to head the regency; he had already asked Paget to be Lord Chancellor in his government.7 Nevertheless, the Council were satisfied that Surrey had conspired to murder them all, depose the King, and “take possession of the kingdom.” 8