Great Harry

by Erickson, Carolly, 1943-

  Though many of them deplored the closing down of the religious

  houses the poor did not hesitate to share in the plunder. "The poor people thoroughly in every place be so greedy upon these houses when they be suppressed," an observer wrote, "that by night and day, not only of the towns, but also of the country, they do continually resort as long as any door, window, iron, or glass, or loose lead remaineth in any of them." Nothing went to waste, not even the books from the monastic libraries, whose pages could be used to light fires or scour candlesticks or rub muddy boots clean. Book pages had a more mundane use as well, as "a common servant to every man, fast nailed up upon posts in all common houses of easement."^^

  The king's efficient laborers tore down in a matter of days monuments to piety that had taken generations to erect, and the sight of such sudden, irreversible destruction was a wounding reminder of the extent of Henry's newfound power over his subjects' lives and faith. In Lincolnshire, where the number of smaller monasteries was unusually great, ruined cloisters marred the landscape, and underscored rumors of further tyrannical measures. It was said the king meant to introduce "Lutheranisms"—a suspicion arising from the conspicuous presence in London of representatives of several Protestant German states—and that the parish churches would soon be despoiled of their chalices and relics and ornaments just as the monasteries had been. More fantastic fears were expressed: that Henry intended "to have all the gold in the hands of his subjects to be brought to his tower to be touched, and all their chattels,'* and that before long no one would be allowed to eat pork or goose or capon, or even wheat or bread, without a royal license.^®

  These alarms, coupled with the presence of more than one set of royal commissioners in the north parts in 1536, were a backdrop to the revolt that engulfed the region in October. Many causes united the rebels. A great number wanted a return to the traditional religion, with the restoration of the abbeys and priories. Some sought redress against rapacious landlords, others lower taxes, still others reforms in parliamentary elections and restoration of Mary as heir to the crown. Many of the rebels simply followed their lords—the gentry and old feudal aristocracy—who summoned them to fight, and throughout most of the north it was noted that, where the men of substance backed away, the commons' resistance ended.

  But if the underlying purposes of the rising were political, its tone was that of a millenarian peasant revolt. The name by which it came to be known, the Pilgrimage of Grace, had an archaic ring, and conveyed a poignant nostalgia for all that was passing in the rapid metamorphoses of the 1530s. The watchwords of the rebels too belonged to another era, though their urgency was as fresh as ever. "All commons stick ye together, rise with no great man [till] ye know his intent," one proclamation read. "Keep your harness in your own hands and ye shall obtain your purpose in all this North land. Claim ye old customs and tenant right to take your farms by a God's penny, . . . then may we serve our sovereign lord king Henry the Vlllth. God save his noble grace." "Wherefore now is time to arise," another manifesto read, "or else never, and go proceed with our Pilgrimage for Grace, or else we shall all be undone: wherefore,

  forward! Forward! Now forward in pain of death, forward now or else never!"^^

  The insurgents' staunch assertions of loyalty to the king were deceptive as well, for though they swore to preserve Henry's ''person and issue," and took as their motto "God save the king, the church and the commonalty," they went out of their way to assault nearly every royal representative they could find. The bishop of Lincoln's chancellor, a former servant of Wolsey's, taken to be a spy for the king, the cook of one of the monastic visitors Dr. Legh—all were murdered for their connections with the court. Two of Cromwell's servants were dispatched with particular relish. One was hanged, the other wrapped in a bull skin and baited to death by dogs, the latter a punishment the rebels would have preferred to confer on the lord privy seal himself. ^^

  At court the rebellion seemed ominous indeed—"the dangerest insurrection that hath been seen." A feudal revolt was one thing, but a rising of "persons of no reputation" threatened to unleash the nightmare of complete social disorder. What was more, the rebels were only fifty miles from the capital, and might well come south in force before adequate defenses could be prepared. Defense had already proven to be a troublesome issue. When the Pilgrims descended on Pontefract Castle in the first days of the revolt its defenders despaired, and sent word to the king that they were "in great danger and saw no means of resistance." The castle's well was dry, its bridge in disrepair, and its walls and ramparts "much out of frame"; there were few bows and arrows, no gunners and no powder, and in any case none of the guns was fit to be fired.^^

  In London no time was lost: a counterforce was mounted, and orders were sent to every lord and gentleman to "be ready with his power." Disturbing word came back from some of the notables that they could scarcely raise a quarter of the men they had counted on. Defection diminished the ranks as well; one force of five hundred fighting men led by Bessie Blount's second husband Lord Clinton turned as one man on their captain and joined the rebels. The large numbers of "sanctuary men" in the capital--
  Weapons and harness and ordnance were taken out of the Tower armory for the use of the hastily organized levies. More armor was bought from the merchants of the city; still more came from storage at the Crowned Key in Southwark. Eighteen armorers were kept busy in the tiltyard at Greenwich scouring the rusty suits and fitting them with new leather, while laborers stood by day and night to load them into carts for the journey north.^^

  Two of the suits of armor were for the king, who was reported to be "in great fear" of the rebellion. In twenty-seven years on the throne he had not faced a popular revolt, and the Pilgrimage may well have stirred in him haunting childhood memories of his dark stay in the Tower during the dangerous rising of 1496. Publicly Henry boasted of the armed might he could put into the field against the rebels. He had enough men, he

  claimed, to form two great armies—armies so strong they could crush the Pilgrims and immediately afterward give battle to any royal army in Europe.^^ Privately he worried over whether to go north himself (Norfolk advised against it), over the excessive caution of his captains (whom he accused of being *'afraid of their own shadows"), over erratic provisioning and disorderly maneuvers.

  The handling of the ordnance had been particularly disorganized. Charles Brandon, who along with Norfolk was put in charge of leading the royal forces against the rebels, was promised artillery once he reached Huntingdon. He hurried his men eastward only to find that the needed weaponry had not arrived. The guns had indeed been found, but there were no horses to transport them northward. The lord mayor was ordered to provide some, but though he did his best to command the citizens of London to part with their mounts and draft horses—telling them, to forestall panic, that a foreign dignitary was arriving in need of horses for his retinue—he acquired relatively few. Some thirty-four cannon were finally loaded and dispatched, but before they had gotten far the horses began to founder and progress was halted. The cannon were unhitched, the teams reinforced, and twenty-one of the heavy guns rolled forward toward Huntingdon, leaving the thirteen others behind on the London road.24

  "This matter hangeth like a fever," one courtier wrote as the Pilgrimage of Grace reached its zenith, "one day good, another bad." There was no decisive confrontation, no dramatic victory to be claimed by either side. The royal forces were too few to crush the rising, so Norfolk, on orders from Henry, negotiated with the Pilgrims, first at Pontefract and then at Doncaster early in December. He passed on to the rebel leaders a promise of pardon, and gave them the king's word that a parliament would be held in the north to look into their grievances. In all probability these were meant to be fal
se guarantees; Henry was adopting the strategy of his medieval predecessors when faced with large-scale revolt—to delay indefinitely, until the initial impetus of the rebellion was lost and its adherents began to fall away out of frustration and weariness. As it turned out his good faith was not .put to the test, for with the beginning of the new year fresh insurrections broke out in Yorkshire. It was now possible to claim that the Pilgrims had not kept faith, and in response to the new unrest Norfolk was sent northward once again, this time with a sizable enough army to suppress the rebels.

  Sixteenth-century rulers were accustomed to punish rebellion with thoroughgoing savagery, but Henry's vengeance against the north country rebels was truly awesome. "You must cause such dreadful execution upon a good number of the inhabitants," he wrote to Norfolk, "hanging them on trees, quartering them, setting the quarters in every town, as shall be a fearful warning." In Cumberland, where a peasant mob six thousand strong menaced CaHisle in February, Norfolk followed his master's orders with a vengeance. Seventy-four of the rebels were hanged, some "on trees in their own gardens"; elsewhere dozens more perished, to a total of something less than two hundred.

  In the village squares, in churchyards and along the highroads of the

  north the corpses hung in chains from trees and gibbets. Many were poor men, some were rebellious monks and clergy whom Henry ordered slain **without pity or circumstance." Widows and other relatives came by night to steal the bodies away, burying them secretly in churchyards or in ditches by the side of the road. Some of the women kept their dead husbands wrapped in shrouds for days in their cottages, waiting to bury them until the firestorm of reprisal passed. While they waited, the putrefying corpses bred disease; when they were buried at last they left pestilence behind them.

  As the grim panorama of retaliation was unfolding in the spring of 1537 the king was made aware of a new and great hope. Queen Jane was with child.

  Nothing could have made for greater joy at the court, where talk of executions and quarterings gave way to happy anticipation of the birth of a prince. The queen's needs became pre-eminent, and to indulge her cravings Henry sent to Calais for quails—fat quails—by the dozen. The first few dozen arrived with record speed, sent by the king's uncle and governor of Calais Lord Lisle. They were tasty, but only moderately plump. Henry wrote again to say he and Jane were glad of them, "but would have them fatter." Lisle was to send to Flanders if need be for the choicest birds. Throughout the summer, as Jane remained at Windsor and Henry moved between his hunting lodges in the vicinity. Lisle continued to send quails, two or three dozen at a time. They were roasted on landing at Dover and rushed to the kitchens at Windsor in time for the queen's dinner and supper; she ate them along with the game sent to the castle from the royal hunt.^^

  But for his sore leg, which pained him a good deal, Henry was exultant as he awaited the birth of his child. "He useth himself more like a good fellow than a king among us that be here," one of his companions wrote, and his only anxiety appeared to be the danger to Jane from plague. To protect her he ordered that no one in disease-ridden London—where sickness was carrying off at least a hundred victims a week—could come near the court, yet his efforts did little to quiet Jane's fears. "Your Ladyship could not believe how much the queen is afraid of the sickness," Hussey wrote to Lady Lisle, in a letter sent to Calais along with a quail cage. When in September she retired to her apartments at Hampton Court to await her delivery Jane's proximity to the capital created fresh fears, and new orders were given to keep Londoners away from the palace. To reduce the household staff Henry retired to Asher, where he waited impatiently for news of the queen.^^

  After prolonged and painful labor Jane gave birth to a boy on October 12. He seemed lusty and comely, a child fit to grow and in time to govern. An explosion of pageantry and feasting was ordered to celebrate the birth, and in every church Te Deums of joyous thanksgiving were sung. Messengers were sent to all comers of the realm with this, "the most joyful news that has come to England these many years," but the greatest jubilation was in the capital. There the shooting of cannon and the ringing of church bells went on day and night, and in every street bonfires were made "in praise of God, and rejoicing of all Englishmen."

  My lustes they do me leave, My fansies are all fled; And tract of time begins to weave Gray heares upon my hed.

  On the day Prince Edward was christened the officers of court and household and other notables gathered at Hampton Court, in the presence lodging off the Council chamber, and took their places in the christening procession. Some had been staying in the palace since before Queen Jane's delivery; others came as soon as news of a livebom prince reached them. But the assemblage was deliberately kept small, for plague was still rampant in London and the king meant to protect his son. The lord mayor and sheriffs saw to it that no one from the city entered the precincts of the court. Only those with special royal letters were allowed to attend the christening, with a minimum number of retainers—six for the dukes, four for the bishops and abbots, only two for the knights and squires.

  Servants bearing lighted torches lined the way from the presence lodging through the king's great chamber and on through galleries and courts to the palace chapel. Here, on a raised platform, was the christening font of silver and gilt; the prince's three godfathers, the archbishop of Canterbury and the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, stood beside it awaiting their godson's arrival. Nearby four damask tapestries had been hung to form a traverse or withdrawing area within which the infant would be undressed and dressed again. A fire-pan of hot coals warmed this area, and basins of perfumed water kept it sweet-smelling.

  When all was in readiness the procession began. The courtiers filed into the chapel two by two, first gentlemen carrying unlighted torches, then the lower household officers, the abbots and bishops, the royal councilors and peers and ambassadors. The four accessories of the ceremony—basin, taper, salt and chrism—were borne in, the taper carried by Thomas Boleyn and the chrism by the four-year-old Princess Elizabeth. Next, under a miniature canopy of estate, came the little prince himself, carried by the marchioness of Exeter and wrapped in a fur-trimmed mantle of crimson cloth of gold. The long train of his mantle fanned out like the coronation robes of a king, and had to be held by two peers. Behind Edward walked the nurse and midwife who delivered him, then his godmother, his half-sister Mary, followed by all the ladies of the court in order of rank.

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  The archbishop christened the prince, and as soon as he finished the gentlemen lit their torches and the Garter King at Arms stepped forward to proclaim his title and style: "God, of his almighty and infinite grace," he cried out, "give and grant good life and long to the right high, right excellent, and noble prince Prince Edward, duke of Cornwall, and earl of Chester, most dear and entirely beloved son to our most dread and gracious lord King Henry VIII!"

  Trumpeters standing in the outer court began a fanfare, and continued to play throughout the singing of a Te Deum and on until the procession had reformed and wound its way back to its starting point. Then Prince Edward was returned to the king and queen, who were waiting in their palace apartments; they blessed him, and finally the king distributed alms to the poor men and women who had gathered in expectation of his largesse.^

  For the first time in a quarter century there was a legitimate male heir to the Tudor throne—if he survived. The privy councilors, the officers and diplomats, the nurses and midwife all held their breaths, waiting to see whether the king's good fortune would last. To their relief the prince seemed to grow stronger day by day, "sucking like a child of his puissance," until in time they ceased to be anxious about him, and began to worry about his mother.

  As Edward flourished Jane withered. She lay weak in her bed, unable to conquer the fever that attacked her soon after her son was delivered. In her delirium she threw off the warm furs that covered her and called for foods too rich for her delicate stomach. Overindulgent servants gave in to her whims; eleven days after
giving birth she suffered an "unnatural lax"—a violent attack of diarrhea—and sank rapidly through the night. On the morning of October 24 she received extreme unction from her confessor, and by evening it was clear she could not live long. Norfolk wrote in haste to Cromwell, who was away from court, urging him to return as soon as he could "to comfort our good master, for as for our mistress there is no likelihood of her life, the more pity, and I fear she shall not be alive at the time ye shall read this."^

  "If good prayers can save her," one of the saddened courtiers wrote, "she is not like to die, for never lady was much plained with every man, rich and poor." Despite the prayers of her loving subjects Jane died within hours of Norfolk's prediction, and the grieving king "retired to a solitary place to pass his sorrows," leaving the funeral in Norfolk's hands.

  The duke oversaw the elaborate ritual—the first of its kind since the death of Elizabeth of York three decades earlier. The chapel where Edward had been christened was now hung with black cloth and "rich images" as a backdrop for the royal hearse. Banner-rolls showing Jane's noble descent ringed the hearse, while the number and status of her attendants bore witness to her own high rank. Priests, gentlemen ushers and officers of arms kept watch over the corpse by night; by day the official mourners, led by the Lady Mary, guarded Jane's remains until, "in presence of many pensive hearts," she was conveyed to Windsor and

  interred in the chapel. So that those who had prayed for her recovery might commemorate her passing, Norfolk ordered twelve thousand masses to be celebrated in the churches of London for the queen's soul.^