Great Harry
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356 " GREAT HARRY
saints, fasting and the keeping of the holy days—their fellow parishioners observed. When protests failed they turned to violence, seizing religious pictures and smashing them and breaking statues and crucifixes. One woman let it be known "that images in the church were devils and idols," and "wished the church and they were set on fire." A man boasted of "hewing in pieces" a statue of the Virgin Mary, and made a point of reading the Bible aloud to whoever would listen, including several women, thought to be least able to interpret it for themselves.
Many in Cranmer's flock were unconcerned with tenets of faith and practice, but used holy things, as their ancestors had for centuries, to work magic and promote healing. In thunderstorms the villagers of Northgate reportedly ran to their church for holy water to sprinkle in their houses to exorcise evil spirits. The vicar of Feversham recommended holy water and "other sorcery" as a remedy for piles, while in the parish of St. Mildred, an old woman with a grievance against a younger one spoke of using a holy candle to enchant her victim, to "make the cule [anus] of the said maid to divide in two parts."^^
If the investigation showed the uneven impact of the Reformation on the common people it also revealed their hostility to the king. The clerics who refused to instruct believers in the new doctrines, the individuals who refused to learn the Lord's Prayer and Creed in English, clinging to the Latin they had learned in youth, the staunch Protestants who rejected the royal injunctions because they stopped short of a thoroughgoing break with the past—all these people defied the king. There were even those who, despite the dangers of outspokenness, expressed their contempt for all to hear. When asked his view of the religious regulations sent down from London one Thomas Hasylden of the village of Elmstead remarked laconically, "A fart for them." "Why should I do more reverence to the crucifix than to the gallows?" he asked, and backed up his bitter words by throwing down the crucifix that hung above the altar of his parish church. Hasylden knew the punishment for what he did, and had no doubt that he would be reported to the authorities, yet so rancorous were his feelings that he could not contain them.^^
"If the king knew every man's thought," a Kentish man said to a friend, "it would make his heart quake. "^^ Hundreds of reports reaching the Privy Council gave substance to this chance remark. A Buckinghamshire man said in open court that the king was nothing but a knave whose crown was fit to play football with; another man called him a tyrant more cruel than Nero; another, told to keep the peace in the king's name, cried out "A turd for the king!"'** A gunner serving on one of the king's ships disparaged King Henry's royal blood. "If the king's blood and mine were both in a dish or saucer," he told a seaman, "what difference were between them, or how should a man know the one from the other?" His loyalty to the king was no greater than could be measured in coins, he added. If the Great Turk would pay him a penny a day more than Henry paid, he would gladly serve the infidel.'^
Yet no matter how much they maligned him—and examples of slanderous speech are very numerous—Henry's subjects had other feelings for their king as well. When he was on campaign in France they needed
little encouragement to repeat the official prayer for the safety of a monarch who "endangereth himself at war, and who, with his soldiers, *'bent himself to battle for God's cause and our defence. "^^ They came by the thousands to see him as he rode through the capital, or passed by on the river in his barge. Through some ancestral fellow-feeling beyond conventional sentiment they shared his hopes and griefs. For nearly forty years his awesome presence had overshadowed their lives, inspiring a unique tangle of emotions defying clarification. He was godlike yet infinitely manly, a prince of the church yet, in many minds, a very great sinner. He was as far above the common people as the angels were above mankind, yet at times he seemed no more remote than a distant relative, irascible yet beloved, who happened to hold the fate of the kingdom in his hands.
Great Harry had now become Old Harry to his people. For years some of them had wished him dead; now few among them expected him to live long. This urgent awareness of the king's mortality gave particular meaning to the speech he made to Parliament in 1545.
It was the day before Christmas, and Parliament was assembled to hear the lord chancellor speak for the king, as custom required, before the session ended. To the surprise of all present Henry indicated that on this occasion he meant to speak in his own behalf, "to set forth his mind and meaning, and the secrets of his heart."^^
He began by thanking "his well beloved commons" for their subsidy in support of the war, and for putting at his disposition (to be dissolved) more church property, chiefly private chapels or chantries where masses for the dead were performed. He went on to speak of Boulogne, "that fortress which was to this realm most displeasant and noisome, and shall be, by God's grace hereafter, to our nation most profitable and pleasant." But these were only preliminaries. He warmed now to his main theme.
"Now since I find such kindness on your part toward me," he went on, speaking, one observer noted, in a tone as fatherly as it was kingly, "I cannot choose but love and favor you, affirming that no prince in the world more favoreth his subjects than I do you, nor no subjects or commons more love and obey their sovereign lord than I perceive you do me." He would not spare either his treasure or his person to defend them, Henry said, and his recent exploit gave weight to his words. Yet this "perfect love and concord" which bound ruler and subjects was marred by conflict among the people themselves. "Charity and concord is not amongst you," Henry said reproachfully, "but discord and dissension beareth rule in every place."
Here Henry became a sententious, if paternal, preacher. He preached to the clergy: "Behold then, what love and charity is amongst you, when the one calleth the other, heretic and Anabaptist, and he calleth him again Papist, hypocrite, and Pharisee? Be these tokens of charity amongst you? Are these the signs of fraternal love between you?" He accused them of preaching against one another, of refusing to compromise their views, of lacking forgiveness and understanding, so that "all men almost be in variety and discord, and few or none preach truly and sincerely the word of God."
He preached to the laity then, reproving them for failing to keep ''good order and Christian fraternity," and for slandering priests and bishops, and ''rebuking and taunting" preachers in their pulpits. They took it upon themselves to judge the clergy by the sole light of their "phantastical opinions and vain expositions," and turned their newfound knowledge of the Bible to use as an anticlerical weapon. "Although you be permitted to read holy Scripture," Henry told his Commons, "you must understand that it is licensed you so to do, only to inform your own conscience, and to instruct your children and family, and not to dispute and make Scripture, a railing and a taunting stock against priests and preachers." He had given the people the Bible in their own tongue to enlighten them; instead "that most precious jewel the word of God is disputed, rimed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern." What had been offered in fatherly kindness was being abused by wanton children.
The speech was having its effect. The hardened men in the Parliament chamber were moved by the king's words, and by the sight of their aged sovereign, his body enfeebled yet his eyes as animated as ever in his fleshy face. He mingled blame and fondness with the skill of a loving parent, and those who were not accustomed to hearing him speak were deeply affected by the power of his presence. "To us, that have not heard him often," one member wrote, it "was such a joy and marvellous comfort as I reckon this day one of the happiest of my life." Many in the audience were in tears, among them the king's closest advisers, as he concluded:
"Therefore, as I said before, be in charity one with another, like brother and brother; love, dread and serve God (the which I, as your supreme head and sovereign lord, exhort and require you) and then I doubt not but that love and league that I spake of in the beginning shall never be dissolved or broken between us."
In that rare moment, by the force of his sincere affection, Henry succeed
ed in creating the unity he sought. But the moment passed, the Parliament was dissolved, and before long the old king himself began to wear toward his end.
In erthly things there is no surete, For unstabil and transitory they be; But for a tyme to the they ar lent, To forsake them thou must be content, For here thou may not allway remayne, Vanitas vanitatum all that is but vayne.
Henry VIII spent the last months of his Hfe in a rather small room. The privy chamber in each of his palaces was of modest size, with tapestries on the walls, a carpeted floor, and a chair of estate for the king to sit in. Other furniture was rather sparse. The privy chamber at Greenwich had a walnut breakfast table, two other tables, one covered in black velvet, a cupboard for dishes and goblets, a few chairs and some musical instruments. At Hampton Court the furnishings were exactly the same, with the addition of a black leather desk, a clock stand and a pair of fire irons, and a "thing artificial" set into the wall, enshrining an alabaster fountain.^
Here, served by two dozen gentlemen and grooms, his barbers, his page and his physicians, Henry lived out his days. He dressed, ate and transacted business in the relative privacy of the small chamber, as outside in the vast, high-ceilinged presence chamber with its splendid brocade throne dozens of courtiers and suitors waited to see him or to present their petitions. It was in the privy chamber that Henry talked with his ambassadors and advisers, and with the queen; more than likely he compounded his medicines here as well, and underwent the treatments prescribed for his ailments.
Apart from the unfinished palace of Nonsuch, which the king visited rarely, Whitehall was the chief royal residence, and the privy chamber at Whitehall was in a block of apartments running parallel to the river. In the guard chamber nearby fifty gentlemen pensioners were in constant attendance, their poleaxes at the ready, should anyone try to disturb the king. Outside in the presence chamber a shadow court held sway. Reverence was paid to the empty throne; steaming dishes of meat were served at the empty dining table, and then respectfully removed. In deference to the king's symbolic presence courtiers and servants alike went bareheaded, and in every other way behaved as if their master's eye were upon them.
In the 1530s Whitehall had been almost unimaginably grand. Its long, elegant galleries had ceilings "marvellously wrought in stone and gold," and wainscots of carved wood "representing a thousand beautiful
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figures." The high windows looked out over blooming gardens and orchards, the tiltyard, and the river. Inside, beyond magnificent hangings and gold-fringed furnishings the palace held ''many and singular commodious things, pleasures and other necessaries," as Henry ordered, *'most apt and convenient to appertain only to so noble a prince, for his singular comfort, pastime and solace."
By the 1540s, however, the grandeur was tarnishing. The tiltyard had grown over with weeds, the privy kitchens were in a sad state of disrepair, and the queen's apartments were in need of renovation. In the indoor tennis courts the tapestries that lined the walls were worn and motheaten, and had to be taken down, while in the palace itself the hangings had become "foul and greasy" at the ends and had to be replaced.^
Much had been made new when Catherine Howard became queen, yet a stigma hung over the palace. Among the new furnishings were many confiscated from the estates of executed traitors. Load after load of goods *'from sundry persons attainted" was delivered to the king's receivers, who distributed their contents among the royal residences. There were purple velvet bedcoverings trimmed in cloth of gold from Nicholas Carew, embroidered cushions that had belonged to Lord Montague, bedchamber furnishings from the estate of Edward Neville. Robes from the wardrobe of the marquis of Exeter now came to his royal cousin, and rich goods that had been Cardinal Wolsey's, many of them still bearing his arms, were everywhere.
Whenever he left the privy chamber Henry was surrounded by reminders of the past, reminders of the men he had outlived. In recent months more deaths dismayed him. Thomas Audley, an uncommonly loyal servant and since 1533 lord chancellor, died in 1544. The commander of Boulogne, Lord Poynings, died the following year, as did Henry's longtime physician Dr. Butts. More wounding was the death of Charles Brandon, who succumbed while his lifelong friend the king was away from court on progress.^
Henry himself was sinking unwillingly into the semi-retired life of an elderly invalid. The intervals between his bouts of disease were becoming shorter, his periods of convalescence longer. He refused to compromise with his infirmities, shaking off illness as quickly as he could and driving himself by sheer force of will to keep up his accustomed pursuits. But more and more often sickness overcame him, and he was forced to keep to his bed or at least to his privy chamber, where he passed the time playing cards with Edward Seymour and John Dudley and the chamber gentlemen until he was well enough to resume his regular pastimes. In Chapuys' view it was remarkable that he could get about at all, for he had *'the worst legs in the world," and was in far weaker condition than other men who were permanently bedridden.^ He could no longer walk up and down stairs, and kept to the lower floors of his palaces; even there he had to be carried from room to room in a "tram," or traveling chair, when his legs were weak. An inventory of Henry's houshold furnishings listed two of these trams, one upholstered in gold velvet and silk, the other in russet, each of them complete with two embroidered footstools for the king to rest his legs on.^
Much of the time now Henry's life was in thrall to his physicians. They were always to be found around him, easily distinguishable from the courtiers by their long, fur-sleeved gowns and black velvet caps, and by the bladder-shaped flasks they carried for inspecting their patient's urine. This they did frequently, measuring carefully the amount eliminated against the amount of liquid the king drank to make certain the two remained in balance. They inspected the contents of his "close stools" or portable toilets as well, and gave him enemas to counteract fever and purge his bowels.
Henry seems to have been fortunate in his doctors. The methods of many Tudor physicians ranged from the exotic to the brutal. "Fustiga-tion," or beating, was a ubiquitous remedy of the age; other cures were often so harsh they led to new disorders. One doctor, Richard Smith, did such harm to his patients in the 1530s that they made an official complaint against him to Cromwell. Smith gave one man a purge, telling him it would cure him within two days; it made him so sick he was in bed for a month and a half. Smith demanded a large fee to cure a woman of three "impostumes" which he said would kill her otherwise. When she told him she had only five shillings he took that, gave her a potion to drink, and sent her home. She collapsed on the way, and it was six months before she walked again. Another case was reported posthumously. Dr. Smith examined a sick man and, setting his mind at ease about his condition, told him to drink a special preparation and all would be well. Four days later the patient was dead.^ The court physicians attending the king avoided such drastic remedies, as they did the sort of occult or magical cures adopted by one Cambridge doctor reputed to do wondrous things with a "quintessence" which made old men young again.^
The physicians were if anything subordinate to the apothecaries, who increased in numbers and importance at court toward the end of the reign. Additional men were hired in 1540 and again in 1546 to assist the gentleman apothecary, Thomas Alsop, and from time to time professional apothecaries from outside the court were brought in to prepare concoctions for the king. One summer in the late 1530s a man was commissioned to harvest roses at the peak of their bloom to use in preparing medicinal compounds: oil of roses, vinegar of roses, rose water, conserve of roses, syrup of roses, julep of roses, and half a dozen more.^
These aromatic elixirs were doubtless a good deal more appealing than most of the potions and plasters Henry used. He was given eyebright, caprifoil water, and rhubarb pills. He took "pills of Rasis" to fend off plague, gargled with "gargarisms" for his throat, used unguents for his belly and "fomentations for the piles." He was provided with herbal mixtures sewn into bags to be applied to the head or neck or
feet or spleen—wherever it hurt—and for internal disorders the apothecaries cooked drugs and spices into "dreges," or medicinal comfits. They made up a mixture of herbs, musk and civet for the baths Henry was accustomed to take, particularly in the fall, for his sore leg, and they probably supplied the herbs and other ingredients he used in preparing his own ointments and decoctions.^
Among the king's personal contributions to the apothecarial art were a
plaster "to ease pain and swelling about the ankles," an ointment "to dry excoriations and comfort the member," and another "to take away itch," and some thirty other medicines. One, "the Kinges Majesties Own Plaster" for sore legs, was made from marshmallows, linseed, oxide of lead, silver, red coral and dragon's blood mixed in oil of roses, rose water and white wine. This mixture was to be "boiled in a pan," then, when cooled, made into "rolls" and wrapped in parchment. "This plaster resolves humors where there is swelling in the legs," the recipe concludes.
Yet another of Henry's plasters "to heal ulcers without pain" called for a mixture of pearl and "lignum guaiacum"—a hard wood from the New World also called lignum vitae, still used as a remedy for chronic sore throat and gout.^^ Guaiacum had been introduced into Europe in the early years of the sixteenth century as a cure for syphilis, but was known to ease nonvenereal leg pains as well. The wood was ground into sawdust and drunk, mixed with water. It was very widely used; Charles V took it for his gout, and Francis I was known to be taking either guaiacum or a similar substance called "Chinese wood" for a septic groin infection which his physicians believed to be syphilitic. An English surgeon who recommended it for Henry swore he had "known divers in England healed with it," and indeed had never known it to fail.^^