by Alison Weir
33
“Master Hans”
Throughout the summer of 1526, “the King took his pleasure hunting,” 1 travelling leisurely from place to place, dispensing alms on the way, shooting venison for his hosts, and being entertained in the evenings by the jesters who accompanied him.2 In August, he made merry at Petworth in Sussex before riding on via Chichester to the mighty Arundel Castle, which he “liked much”3 and where the local gentry flocked to pay their respects. From there, ignoring the unceasing rain, Henry moved north via Winchester, Thruxton, Ramsbury, Compton, Langley, Bicester, Buckingham, and Ampthill to his new palace at Grafton in Northamptonshire, which had been built in time for his arrival on land acquired by exchange from the Marquess of Dorset, and stood near the parish church.
Half a mile away lay the old manor house of Dorset’s ancestors, the Wydeville family; in a nearby chapel, Henry’s grandfather Edward IV had secretly married Elizabeth Wydeville in 1464.4 During the years to come, Henry would be a regular visitor to Grafton, where the hunting was very satisfactory.
The year 1526 witnessed several comings and goings at court. Lord Willoughby died, and his widow, Maria de Salinas, returned to the Queen’s service. A far greater stir was caused by the parting of the Duke of Norfolk and his wife, Elizabeth Stafford, amid bitter recriminations. The Duchess moved into her dower house at Redbourne, leaving the Duke free to instal his mistress, Elizabeth, or “Bess,” Holland—the chief cause of the separation—in his palace at Kenninghall. Although the Duchess described Bess as “a churl’s daughter who was but a washer in my nursery eight years,” 5 she was in fact related to John, Lord Hussey, and was the sister of Norfolk’s steward. The liaison had been going on for years, much to the chagrin of the Duchess, who refused to have Bess in the house. The Duke retaliated with verbal abuse and by cutting off his wife’s allowance, while Bess had her own revenge: at the Duke’s instance, or so the wronged wife claimed, Bess and her friends tied up the Duchess so tightly that “blood came out at my fingers’ ends, and [they] pinnacled me, and sat on my breast till I spit blood, and he never punished them.”6 The Duchess also accused her husband of dragging her by the hair from the bed where she had just given birth and wounding her in the head with his dagger.
The affair was the talk of the court, and many sympathised with the Duchess. But Norfolk stoutly denied that there was any truth in what his “wilful wife” was saying, and accused her of slander. “He knows it is spoken of far and near,” Elizabeth Stafford wrote, but he was “so far in doting love that he neither regards God nor his honour.” 7 In fact, the marriage had been breaking down long before the advent of Bess Holland, and it is telling that the couple’s eldest two children, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, aged nine, and Mary, aged seven, both sided with their father. The Duchess remained bitter, and thirteen years later was still grumbling about her husband’s affairs with “that harlot” and other whores. “If I come home, I shall be poisoned,” she declared, adding, “the King’s Grace shall be my record how I used myself, without any ill name and fortune.”8
In December 1526, a new Spanish ambassador, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, arrived at court. A dignified man of integrity and astute judgement, he was one day to prove a good friend to his compatriot, the Queen. Mendoza had come to smooth over the troubled waters between Henry and the Emperor, but his arrival coincided with the King’s growing inclination towards an alliance with France.
That same month, Hans Holbein the Younger, the outstanding artist who was to define the Henrician monarchy, arrived in England. A native of Augsburg, born around 1497–1499, he had been trained in the workshop of his father, Hans Holbein the Elder. He had worked in Basel for several years, painting murals and architectural decorations, religious pictures, altarpieces, woodcuts, and portraits of local worthies, among them the humanist Erasmus, who became his friend and mentor. But with the advent of the Lutheran Reformation, commissions began to dry up, and Holbein was obliged to look around for new patrons. Erasmus suggested he try England, since Henry VIII had a reputation for encouraging foreign artists, and arranged for Holbein to lodge with Sir Thomas More at Chelsea, informing More, “He is an excellent artist.”9
More was impressed. “Your painter, dearest Erasmus, is a wonderful man,” he wrote, “but I fear he will not find England as fruitful as he had hoped. Yet I will do my best to see that he does not find it absolutely barren.” More was as good as his word. He began by ordering portraits of himself and his family from Holbein. These were so innovative that during the next two years More was able to secure the artist commissions for portraits of his humanist friends, among them Sir Thomas Elyot, Sir John Gage, and Archbishop Warham, who was already familiar with Holbein’s work, since in 1524 Erasmus had sent him one of the artist’s portraits of himself, and wanted to send his own portrait to Erasmus in return. 10
Holbein’s formative years had been spent in a city imbued with Renaissance culture. As an adult, he had travelled in Italy and learned from the masters there. As a result, his style combined the best traditions of the Northern Renaissance with Italian influences and a strong sense of perspective. Although a gifted artist in many fields, he is now remembered as one of the greatest portrait painters of all time, a reputation derived largely from the works he executed in England, which were the most realistic and sophisticated representations of humanity yet seen in that kingdom. Holbein’s skill recorded for posterity, with truth and precision, as never before, the men and women of Henry VIII’s court, and set a trend for portrait painting that would persist for centuries.
So exactly delineated are these portraits that it has been conjectured that Holbein used a tracing apparatus, perhaps with a peephole. It has also been suggested that he suffered from a degree of astigmatism that resulted in his portraying people as broader than they really were, yet this is at variance with the opinion of contemporaries who knew his sitters. “O stranger, if you desire to see pictures with all the appearance of life, look on these which Holbein’s hand has created!” wrote the French humanist Nicholas Bourbon, who visited the English court in the 1530s. And in 1529, on receiving a copy of the More family portrait, Erasmus was delighted to find that it showed him the whole family “as if I had been among you.” 11
To make up for the previous year, the Christmas of 1526, which was kept at Greenwich, was a spendid affair, with banquets, masques, dancing, and tournaments. On 3 January, Wolsey staged a feast which was unexpectedly interrupted by burst of cannonfire from outside. This heralded the arrival of a troupe of visitors wearing disguises. The Cardinal, invited to guess which one was the King, incorrectly identified Sir Edward Neville as his sovereign, much to the amusement of Henry and everyone else. Nothing discomfited, Wolsey arranged for his new guests to be seated at table and, astonishing those already present, who had eaten to satiety, signalled for another two hundred dishes to be brought to table, “to the great comfort of the King.” 12
By Shrove Tuesday, however, Henry was in a truculent mood. News had come from Scotland that, amid violent clashes, his sister Margaret had had her marriage to the Earl of Angus annulled on the grounds that, when it took place, Angus had been precontracted to another lady. Since Margaret had entered into the union in good faith, their daughter, the Lady Margaret Douglas, was deemed to be legitimate. Margaret, however, was now involved in an affair with her treasurer, Henry Stewart, Lord Methven (whom she would marry the following year), and her brother took a dim view of this. He pronounced the annulment “a shameless sentence from Rome” and sent indignant letters lecturing his sister on morality. 13
Fortunately for Margaret, Henry was soon preoccupied with negotiations for a new alliance with France, which was to be the occasion of some of the most magnificent court celebrations of the reign. At the end of February 1527, an important embassy arrived from Paris to discuss a “Treaty of Eternal Peace,” which would be sealed by the marriage of the Princess Mary to Henry, Duke of Orléans, second son of Francis I. Since Henry had no son, Orléans, it
was anticipated, would one day rule England as Mary’s consort. As far as the King was concerned, this was not a satisfactory solution to the problem of the succession, but it was the best he could think of in the circumstances.
The negotiations were completed by the end of April, and on 4 May the envoys made their way to Greenwich. Here, the King had ordered the construction of a grand banqueting house and a disguising house, or theatre, which were built at either end of the tiltyard gallery. These houses, based on similar ones erected in Paris in 1518 in honour of an English embassy, were plain structures that could be embellished with stage sets, hangings, and other temporary decorations that could be changed at will. Each measured 110 feet by 30 feet. “The windows were all clerestories, with curious mullions strangely wrought. At one side was a haut place for heralds and minstrels,” 14 lavishly embellished with a carving of the royal arms, antique busts, and trompe l’oeil paintings of mythical beasts.
Sir Henry Guildford, who had been appointed Master of the Revels in 1526, was put in charge of the project, and Sir Henry Wyatt, Treasurer of the Chamber, was made responsible for financing it. Among the craftsmen who worked on these houses was Nicolaus Kratzer, who designed a complicated cosmographical ceiling, and a “Master Hans”— almost certainly Holbein—who painted it. This was Holbein’s first royal commission, probably obtained through the good offices of Sir Thomas More, for which the artist received 4s (£60) a day, £4.10s (£1350) for one large painting, and £660 for designing two triumphal arches—in total, more than any other artist working on the project. To mark the occasion, Holbein painted portraits of those who collaborated with him—Kratzer, Wyatt, and Guildford.15
Giovanni di Maiano, John Browne, and Clement Armstrong, who made moulds, also worked alongside Holbein at Greenwich, crafting and painting decorative effects, which included a cornice of grotesque work. On 11 March, the King came in person to see how the work was progressing, and some of the unfinished decorations were temporarily put into place for him.
When the French and English envoys arrived at Greenwich on Saturday, 5 May, they were conducted along a gallery from the Queen’s apartments to the banqueting house, which was hung with tapestries depicting the story of David and had its timber ceiling covered with red buckram embroidered with roses and pomegranates. The room was illuminated by iron sconces and antique-style candelabra, and was dominated by a massive buffet seven stages high and thirteen feet long, and another cupboard nine stages high, with wonderful displays of gold and gem-studded plate.16 At the far end of the room was an “antique” triumphal arch designed by Holbein, above which was a large painting by him of Henry VIII’s victory over the French at Thérouanne, a rather tactless choice of decoration given the circumstances;17 when Henry VIII pointed it out to his French guests, they were somewhat offended. Holbein’s picture, which is lost, was perhaps the inspiration for the large-scale anonymous painting of the battle that was commissioned later in the reign and is still in the Royal collection.
The French envoys were “entertained after a more sumptuous manner than had ever been seen before.”18 On 5 May, after mass, they were formally received by the King in the new banqueting house, where the Treaty of Greenwich was signed, Henry swearing to abide by its terms. Watching with the Queen was his sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk; this was to prove her last public appearance at court.
The next day there was a splendid tournament at which the King wore a jousting costume of purple Florentine velvet trimmed with gold. 19 He was unable to participate, having injured his foot playing tennis. It was the Master of the Horse, Sir Nicholas Carew, who triumphed that day in the lists. Afterwards, Henry hosted a lavish banquet in the banqueting house, at which sixty huge silver-gilt plates of costly spices were handed round.20 This was followed by a recital by the Chapel Royal in the “disguising house,” which had tiered seating around three of its walls and a huge proscenium arch adorned with terracotta busts and statuary—another of Holbein’s designs. The floor was carpeted with silk embroidered with gold lilies, and above was Holbein’s ceiling, which depicted “the whole earth environed with the sea, like a very map”; 21 beneath this was suspended a transparent cloth, painted and gilded with the signs of the Zodiac and glittering with stars, planets, and constellations. “It was a cunning thing and a pleasant sight to behold,” enthused a rapt Edward Hall.
The recital was followed by two masques devised by John Rightwise, in one of which the King and his daughter Mary, who had returned to court in April and was “decked with all the gems of the eighth sphere,” 22 took part. As they danced, Henry could not resist pulling off her netted caul and letting her “profusion of silver tresses” fall cascading about her shoulders for the benefit of the French ambassadors,23 who were dutifully admiring. After the masque, the dancing went on until sunrise. Because of his injured foot, Henry was wearing black velvet slippers, and every male courtier had been required to follow suit, so that their sovereign should not feel out of place on the dance floor.24
The celebrations continued for several days. As her parents watched from their thrones under the canopy of estate, the Princess Mary, dressed as a Roman goddess in “cloth of gold, with so many precious stones that the splendour and radiance dazzled the sight,”25 took part in a pageant. Wolsey staged a play celebrating the alliance, which was performed by the Chapel Royal,26 and gave a feast for the envoys at Hampton Court; one of the many fantastic subtleties served was fashioned like a chess set, and the Cardinal magnanimously presented it to a Frenchman who had admired it.
The festivities were brought to an abrupt halt by the dreadful news of the sacking of Rome by uncontrolled mercenary troops in the pay of the Emperor. The Pope had fled and was now a prisoner. Accounts of the atrocities were horrifying.
Everyone was in shock. The French envoys quietly returned home. By the King’s order, the banqueting house and theatre were briefly opened to the public, who came in great numbers, then stripped of their decorations, which were carefully stored away.27 From time to time over the years, Henry would use them again, furnished appropriately for each festive occasion.
34
“Noli Me Tangere, for Caesar’s I Am”
For five years, the King’s ever-tender conscience had been troubling him over the validity of his marriage. He believed that he, good son of the Church that he was, had sinned by taking in wedlock his brother’s wife, and that their lack of a male heir was proof of God’s displeasure. According to Henry, the leader of the French embassy, Gabriel de Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes, had voiced doubts about Mary’s legitimacy, and although the King had been able to reassure him that Pope Julius had issued a dispensation for his marriage to Katherine, he was not sure that it was valid in canon law.
Henry unburdened himself to Wolsey. The Cardinal, foreseeing a solution to the succession dilemma in a French marriage for his master, convened with Archbishop Warham an ecclesiastical court to examine the King’s doubts; it met in secret at Westminster on 17 May. Meanwhile, Mary was sent with her household to Hunsdon, and Henry toyed with the idea of making his son Richmond King of Ireland, so as to make him a more desirable match for Maria of Portugal, Charles V’s niece. Suspecting that this might also be a preliminary to him naming the boy his heir, the Queen made very plain her disapproval. 1
But this was nothing compared with what was to come. On 22 June, the King came to Katherine’s chamber and told her bluntly that they must separate, and why, and that he had sent to Rome to ask the Pope for an annulment. This news plunged her into great grief, and drove her to seek the advice of Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, and the aid of her nephew, Charles V.
Thus began the cause célèbre that became known as “the King’s Great Matter,” the erroneously titled “Divorce” that was to be one of the most infamous nullity suits in history and the catalyst for revolutionary changes both at court and in the kingdom at large. For the next decade, the Great Matter would dominate England’s domestic and foreign policy and overshadow the life of the
court.
There was no open rift between the King and Queen. While awaiting the Pope’s decision, they appeared together in public, continued to dine and spend time together in private, and showed each other every courtesy. But Katherine knew herself to be watched; several of her women were Wolsey’s spies, bribed by gifts, financial inducements, and even sex, 2 and every letter she sent or received was scrutinised before it reached its destination. Each attempt she made to see Mendoza in private was blocked. It was not surprising, therefore, that she incorrectly blamed Wolsey for what was happening—her view was to be shared by many other people, notably Charles V. It was inconceivable to her that Henry himself could have instigated these proceedings.
Henry and Wolsey soon realised that the Pope, who was the Emperor’s prisoner, would be unlikely to offend Charles by annulling the marriage of his aunt. In July 1527, therefore, Wolsey went to France to seek Francis I’s support for the restoration of Pope Clement and the annulment and discuss the possibility of a French marriage for the King. As yet, the Cardinal had no idea that Anne Boleyn was anything more to Henry than his previous mistresses had been. He did fear that his enemies would be undermining his influence during his absence. In a letter to Sir William Fitzwilliam he inquired what the King was doing and who was with him. Fitzwilliam replied that the King was on progress. “He daily passeth the time in hunting. He suppeth in his privy chamber [and] there suppeth with him the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Marquess of Exeter and the Lord of Rochford.”3 Wolsey cannot have been reassured.