by Alison Weir
Informal pleasures were often devised to break the tedium of courtier life and for “the eschewing of idleness, the ground of all vice.” 23 Apart from daytime pastimes such as hunting, sports, and tournaments, which will be discussed later, there would be dancing, gambling, board games, and the antics of court jesters to while away the evenings. Many courtiers enjoyed writing poetry or making music, and there was always the intriguing game of courtly love to help pass the time.
Dancing was a popular pastime at court, if only because it afforded one of the few opportunities for men and women to enjoy physical contact in a social setting. However, one Spaniard found the English to be “not at all graceful” and their dances to consist “simply of prancing and trotting.”24 Dancing was nevertheless an essential accomplishment for both men and women of gentle birth, and Henry VII had ensured that all his children were taught it well.
The dances favoured by the court were many and varied. Bransles, or brawls, were round dances of peasant origin that had been adopted by the aristocracy and had become especially popular in England. The basse dance was so called because the feet glided slowly across the floor and were hardly lifted. Sir Thomas Elyot refers to “bargenettes and turgions,” which seem to have been spirited measures. The most stately of all dances was the majestic pavane, from Italy; its slow pace was particularly appropriate to ceremonial occasions when the dancers would be encumbered with heavy robes and long trains. The passamezzo was a faster version of the pavane, and was often followed by a salterello, an early form of the lively, high-stepping galliard that became popular in Elizabethan times. Much Renaissance dance music survives to give us some idea of the diversity of the rhythms and forms of the dances of the period. It is clear that sixteenth-century dances were less stylised than those of later centuries and had room for improvisation; many dances were very energetic, there was much running and leaping, and in some dances—such as the ronde—the dancers sang. Nevertheless, all court dances began and ended formally with a reverence, with the dancers bowing or curtseying to the King and Queen.
Henry VIII was an expert and enthusiastic dancer. Aged ten, at the wedding of his brother Arthur, he energetically partnered his sister Margaret, and onlookers watched with delight as he flung off his coat and cavorted around in his doublet and hose.25 As a young man, Henry “exercised himself daily in dancing,”26 in which, wrote the Milanese ambassador in 1515, “he does wonders and leaps like a stag.” 27 He “acquitted himself divinely” on the dance floor, enthused one Venetian,28 while another, the envoy Sebastian Giustinian, commented that he danced well.29
Katherine of Aragon also liked dancing, and often danced with her ladies in the privacy of her chamber, but in these early years she was frequently pregnant, and so Henry was usually partnered by his sister Mary, whose “deportment in dancing is as pleasing as you would desire.”30
Not only the King, but the whole court, it seemed, was excessively fond of gambling: monarch, courtiers, and servants would bet on any pastime that had an unknown outcome—cards, dice, board games, tennis, dog races, and so on. All games of chance were organised by the Knight Marshal of the Household, who acted as a bookmaker, and the stakes would usually be high. Favourite card games—and there were many— included Mumchance, Gleek, Click-Clack, Imperial, and Primero. Chess, shovelboard, and tables (backgammon), were popular board games; in 1539, Henry bought new chess sets from “John the hardware man.”31
The King, who had been a great gambler since childhood32 would command the Knight Marshal to bring his cards and dice in a silver bowl, then play for hours, often with ladies of the court and sometimes with the Queen, who was especially fond of tables, cards, and dice. Giustinian states that Henry risked more money than anyone else at court;33 as King, he could have done no less, but it appears that he gambled away much of his inheritance. His Privy Purse Expenses record only his losses, and they could amount to hundreds of pounds daily; in January 1530, while playing with his Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, he lost £450 (£135,000) at dominoes and £100 (£30,000) at cards and dice; in 1532, he lost £45 (£13,500) at shovelboard to Lord Rochford. We do not know how much Henry won, but between 1529 and 1532, the only years for which records are complete, he lost a total of £3,243 (£972,900), and it is clear that thousands of pounds were routinely set aside for his “playing money.”34
Needless to say, moralists thundered against the evils of gambling. In 1511, there were complaints that the King had been cheated of large sums in wagers by some Italian bankers, who were immediately barred from court. In 1526 Wolsey tried to ban Chamber servants from indulging in “immoderate and continual play of dice, cards and tables,” especially in the King’s presence.35 In 1541, Henry himself forbade anyone with an income of less than £20 to “play any game for money,”36 making it clear he preferred such people to practise archery.
Less contentious pleasures at court included watching the comical performances of the royal jesters. Henry employed fools called Martin, Patch, and Sexton, whose chief function was to make him laugh. They sang bawdy songs, made fun of anything and everyone with a nice disregard for rank or deference, and told outrageous jokes. A favourite opening line might be, “Sir, what say ye with your fat face?”37 Often, the King permitted his fools familiarities that no one else would have dared to attempt, and occasionally, as we shall see, they overstepped the mark.
Henry’s fools wore the traditional motley-coloured livery of jesters, with horned hats, and bells tied around their knees; they carried wands with jester’s heads or pig’s bladders on strings, which they wielded to good effect, and they sometimes dressed up in ridiculous costumes. In 1529, Henry bought a periwig for Sexton,38 and he also bought Patch some parti-coloured hose.39 When Sexton retired in the 1530s, he was replaced by a youth with a wickedly inventive sense of humour.40 Henry’s most famous fool, Will Somers, did not enter his service until 1525.
Many court pastimes were seasonal. On Midsummer Eve, it was traditional for a bonfire to be lit in the palace grounds: Henry paid 10s to his gardener for arranging this.41 In winter, the courtiers enjoyed snowball fights;42 in January 1519, the King joined in one, wearing a cap borrowed from a boy to keep his ears warm.43
There were also occasional novelties and diversions, such as the man who rode two horses at once, or the German who brought a lion to court, or the fellow whose dog was trained to dance.44 The court attracted acrobats, jugglers, performing monkeys, and even freaks, such as the “frantic man” who turned up at Woodstock.45 In 1510, the King staged a fight with battle-axes in Greenwich Park to entertain the Queen and the ladies, and at the same time impress onlookers with the military skills of his Gentlemen. Then there was the sinister-sounding pastime known as the killcalf, in which a hapless beast appears to have been slaughtered “behind the cloth.”46
The gentlest courtly pursuit was the art of poetry writing. The King having set the trend, there were several amateur versifiers, or “makers,” among the nobility and gentry, and poetry was one of the ways in which an accomplished knight could court his chosen lady. These poems were copied into manuscripts and circulated among the courtiers; some were later printed in Tottel’s Miscellany. However, little poetry of note was written in the early years of the reign; hardly any classical poetry found its way into England, the age of Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower was long gone, and even Skelton’s works, for all their satire, were little short of doggerel. Indeed, Skelton and other court poets were busy making money from writing poems that lovestruck courtiers could claim as their own.
The King himself summed up the early mood of the reign, and his love of innocent courtly pleasures, in his own verses:
Pastime with good company
I love and shall until I die,
Grudge who lust, yet none deny,
So God be pleased, thus live will I.
For my pastance, hunt sing and dance,
My heart is set;
All goodly sport to my comfort,
Who shall me let [forb
id]?
Youth must have some dalliance
Of good or ill some pastance;
Company methinks then best
All thought and fancies to digest;
For idleness is chief mistress
Of vices all;
Then who can say, but mirth and play
Is best of all.
Company with honesty
Is virtue, vices to flee;
Company is good or ill,
But every man hath his free will:
The best ensue, the worst eschew;
My mind shall be
Virtue to use, vice to refuse,
Thus shall I use me.
11
“New Men” and “Natural Counsellors”
"He is a wonderful man and has wonderful people about him,” a French ambassador once said of Henry VIII.1 The people most about the King, and closest to him, were the members of his Privy Chamber. The Privy Chamber was not just a room, or suite of rooms, but a household department, set up by Henry VII around 1495 to look after the private needs of the sovereign. Under Henry VIII, the Privy Chamber would become an elite and sophisticated power base rivalling the Privy Council rather than simply a private royal retreat.
There was rampant competition for places in the Privy Chamber. Its members were the only courtiers, apart from privy councillors, with a right of entry to the inward chambers, and they had daily contact with the King. They were not necessarily aristocrats—a high proportion came from the gentry—but men who could offer good service and congenial companionship to their master.
All members of the Privy Chamber had to have “a vigilant and reverend respect and eye to His Majesty, so that by his look or countenance they may know what lacketh or is his pleasure to be had or done.” They waited on him hand and foot and guarded his lodgings when he was absent, whiling away the time playing cards and dice. They were expected to be “loving together, and not to tattle about such things as may be done or said when the King goes forth,” and “they must leave enquiry where the King is or goeth, not grudging, mumbling or talking of the King’s pastime, late or early going to bed, or anything done by His Grace.”2 All Privy Chamber staff were expected to turn their hands, when required, to music-making, singing, dancing, and acting.
The Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber was the Groom of the Stool, who ran the department and was responsible for its staff and the safekeeping of furnishings, keys, and valuables; he was also Keeper of the King’s Privy Purse. As we have seen, he had the dubious privilege of attending his sovereign when he relieved himself, and for this purpose was always assigned a room in the privy lodgings; no one else had access to Henry’s bedchamber “or any other secret place,” unless by invitation. 3 The Groom of the Stool was usually a knight; by the end of the reign he was also a member of the King’s Council.
Next in importance were the twelve Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, of whom six were on duty at any one time; at least two of them had be in attendance on the King and sleep at night in the privy lodgings. These gentlemen were in a highly privileged and powerful position, able to advise, influence, and even manipulate the King, control access to his presence, and exercise patronage. Many of them were young men, “servants without office” 4 who were there for no other reason but that the King liked them; several had served him when he was Prince of Wales. The Duke of Buckingham once complained, not without reason, that the King “would give his fees, offices and rewards to boys rather than noblemen,”5 and it is true that these nonpolitical appointees did sometimes exercise more influence over the King than his more experienced ministers and nobles did.
There were four Esquires of the Body, proficient knights who watched over the King day and night, helped him dress, and informed the Lord Chamberlain “if anything lack for his person or pleasaunce. Their business is in many secrets.” 6
Four Gentlemen Ushers were responsible for ensuring that protocol was observed at all times within the privy chamber. They guarded the King’s door, ushered visitors into his presence, and watched over his valuables. 7 Ushers were instructed to be “courteous, and glad to receive, teach and direct every man,” and they had to know “all the customs and ceremonies used about the King.”8
The Yeomen of the Chamber acted as bedmakers and torchbearers, and kept the passage leading to the privy chamber “clear of rascals, boys and others” who often hung about there causing a nuisance. 9
Four Grooms of the Chamber carried out menial duties such as cleaning, making up fires, and laying out sleeping pallets; they were helped by four Pages of Honour, or Henchmen, of gentle birth, whose duties also included waiting on their superiors and walking near the King’s horse in public processions. Pages wore parti-coloured tunics with gold chains slung across the shoulder baldrick-fashion, and they carried green-and-white-striped staves on ceremonial occasions. Both Pages and Grooms slept in the presence chamber, or the pages’ chamber if there was one.
Lastly, there were six Gentlemen Waiters, three Cupbearers, three Carvers, two Surveyors, three Sewers, six physicians and surgeons, and Penny, the barber. The King’s secretaries were also members of the Privy Chamber. 10 Most Privy Chamber staff had lodgings at court, near the royal apartments.
Among the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber were the King’s closest friends, dashing gallants with whom he hunted, jousted, playacted, gambled, and made merry. In their company, he was more of a young man bent upon having a good time than a king, and he delighted in rewarding them lavishly for the good fellowship they gave him.
Henry’s favourite was Charles Brandon, the son of Sir William Brandon, Henry VII’s standard-bearer, who had been cut down by Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. Brandon, whose date of birth is unknown, was admitted to Prince Arthur’s household as a page and, after Arthur’s death in 1502, was brought up at court with Prince Henry, with whom he struck up a lasting friendship.
In 1509, Brandon was appointed an Esquire of the Body. He was the perfect companion for the King, whom he so resembled in looks and build that some people thought he was Henry’s “bastard brother.” 11 Handsome, brave, charming, and extrovert, he shared Henry’s love of competitive sports, and undoubtedly owed his meteoric rise to his “valiant” partnership of the King in the lists.12 Soon, Henry was showering him with offices, stewardships, receiverships, wardships, and licences, and in 1513 he made him a Knight of the Garter. Brandon was no intellectual match for his master, but an accomplished courtier, soldier, and diplomat, and a loyal and congenial servant who, by sometimes compromising his principles, retained Henry’s affection until he died.
As well as gaining a reputation as a womaniser, Brandon had already enjoyed a complicated matrimonial career. He had first become precontracted to Anne, sister to Sir Anthony Browne and a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth of York. Anne bore him a daughter, but in 1506/7 Brandon wriggled out of their uncanonical union and made a more advantageous marriage with her rich forty-three-year-old aunt, Margaret Mortimer. This match was quickly annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, and in 1508 Brandon abducted and married the long-suffering Anne Browne, who bore him two more daughters before dying in 1512. In 1513, he became betrothed to his ward Elizabeth, the nine-year-old heiress of John Grey, Viscount Lisle, and assumed her father’s title in anticipation of his forthcoming marriage. This betrothal was later annulled. Margaret Mortimer was still complaining that the annulment of her marriage was invalid, and it was not until the 1520s that the Pope finally declared it null and void. By then, as we shall see, Brandon was married to another lady.
The King’s first Groom of the Stool was the influential William Compton, a former ward of Henry VII who was nine years older than Henry VIII and had been his attendant since childhood. Compton came from a wealthy family and built himself a fine red-brick courtyard house, Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, which was completed around 1515 and still stands today. The King visited there several times; the room reputedly used by him has a ceiling decorated with royal badges and initials.
Foreign ambassadors rightly regarded Compton as one of the most powerful men at court, and heaped pensions and rich gifts on him in order to secure his favour. 13
Another of the King’s boon companions was his distant cousin and Sewer14 Edward Neville, brother of George, Lord Abergavenny, and a relative of Warwick the Kingmaker. Like Brandon, he bore a marked resemblance to Henry VIII. He and Henry were often mistaken for brothers, and although they were not far apart in age, a persistent rumour had it that Neville was the King’s bastard; Elizabeth I later mischievously addressed his son as “brother Henry”!15 Neville also shared his master’s passion for jousting.
Sir Thomas Boleyn, an Esquire of the Body, had been at court since 1501 and was made a Knight of the Bath at Henry’s coronation; he would soon be appointed a Knight of the Body, Keeper of the Exchange at Calais, joint Constable of Norwich Castle, and Sheriff of Kent. The Boleyns were a rising, socially aspiring family. Thomas’s grandfather, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, had been a mercer who had prospered sufficiently to become Lord Mayor of London in 1457 and had later purchased two fine properties for himself, Blickling in Norfolk and Hever in Kent. His son, Sir William Boleyn, had made a brilliant marriage with Margaret Butler, daughter of the Anglo-Irish Earl of Ormonde, and Thomas himself had made another illustrious match with the Earl of Surrey’s daughter, Elizabeth Howard.
Since his father’s death in 1505,16 Boleyn had resided at Hever Castle, his mother having inherited Blickling. Now thirty-two, he was a shrewd, able, ambitious, yet miserly and unscrupulous man, greedy for power, wealth, and advancement; he “would sooner act from interest than from any other motive,” wrote a French envoy.17 Not without personal charm, he soon proved to the King that he could be useful and trustworthy; he spoke fluent Latin, and his French was better than anyone else’s at court,18 which led to his being sent by Henry, from 1512 onwards, on several important embassies, in the course of which he displayed a sound talent for diplomacy. He was also well educated in the humanist tradition, and was praised by Erasmus as being outstandingly learned. This, and Boleyn’s expertise in the tiltyard, further endeared him to Henry.