Henry VIII: The King and His Court

by Alison Weir

  Although he did not execute her lover, the King could not forgive her. Five months later, he was still complaining to his sister, Margaret’s mother, that “she hath behaved herself so lightly as was greatly to our dishonour.”5 As a result, Margaret Tudor threatened to disinherit her daughter if she did not obey the King.

  In the autumn of 1537, both Margaret and Howard contracted fever. The King relented a little and on 29 October released Margaret into the care of the Abbess of Syon. Two days later, Thomas Howard died in the Tower; in one of his poems, Surrey refers to his uncle as a “gentle beast” who ended his life “in woe” and willingly sought his death “for loss of his true love.” Soon afterwards, having written several times to assure Cromwell that her “fancy” for Howard was dead, Margaret, now recovered, was finally allowed to return to court.

  In July 1536, Cromwell was knighted and created Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon. He also succeeded Wiltshire as Lord Privy Seal and was appointed Vicar General and Vice-Regent of the King in Spirituals, with responsibility for the dissolution of the monasteries. His success was reflected in the marriage of his son Gregory to the Queen’s sister, Elizabeth Seymour.6 Cromwell was now in control of the major administrative departments, which enabled him to effect the sweeping reforms that would let the bureaucrats in the government secretariats function independently of the King and his household, thus freeing his grateful master from many of the chores of personal rule and laying the foundations of the future Civil Service. Thanks to Cromwell’s mastery, the office of Principal Secretary now embraced all aspects of the administration, while in the Council, his influence was paramount.

  Cromwell could not, however, have functioned thus without the support and approval of the King, whose wishes certainly prompted the reforms he carried out and whose authority was increased rather than reduced by them. Henry held the upper hand in the relationship, and he was no easy master. When he was in a bad mood, he told Cromwell that his birth made him unfit “to intermeddle with the affairs of kings.” In 1538, George Paulet, brother of William, wrote, “The King beknaveth him [Cromwell] twice a week, and sometimes knocks him well about the pate; and yet when he hath been well-pummelled about the head and shaken up as it were a dog, he will come out of the great chamber shaking off the bush with as merry a countenance as though he might rule all the roost.” On another occasion, the King “called my Lord Privy Seal villain, knave, bobbed him about the head, and thrust him from the privy chamber.”7 Cromwell bore this with unfailing humour and patience, knowing it was a small price to pay for his position, and that, for all his irascibility, the King liked him.

  Gardiner was another at whom Henry lashed out on occasion. 8 There was no love lost between Gardiner and Cromwell, and Gardiner strongly disapproved of the Secretary’s interference in church affairs. Theirs was not just a professional feud but an acrimonious personal conflict, and each was awaiting the chance to bring down the other. Gardiner, a religious conservative despite his acceptance of the royal supremacy, did not have much time for Cranmer either.

  In 1536, under the guidance of the King, Convocation (the official assembly of the English clergy) laid down the Ten Articles of doctrine for the Church of England, treading a middle road between the teachings of the Catholic Church and the more radical beliefs of the reformers. The Dissolution of the Monasteries began, and within four years every religious house in England—563 in all—would be closed and the inmates pensioned off, changing the landscape of England for ever. When the Queen begged the King to reconsider, he sharply told her to desist if she wished to avoid Anne Boleyn’s fate. In July 1537, however, when Jane was pregnant and he desired to humour her, he re-founded Bisham Priory as an abbey and established a convent at Stixwold, for his own soul and the Queen’s; neither survived the Dissolution.

  Cromwell, who masterminded the Dissolution, was assisted in his task by men such as Richard Southwell, an unprincipled thug who had been Surrey’s mentor in youth, risen at court, and become Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1534–1535. The fact that he had been convicted of murder in 1532, and later been pardoned on payment of a fine, hardly mattered. Southwell had been instrumental with Richard Rich, another of Cromwell’s acolytes, in securing Sir Thomas More’s condemnation. Rich, who was of merchant stock, was an ambitious lawyer who had married a wealthy wife, who bore him fifteen children. In 1533, he had been made Solicitor General. All in all, Southwell and Rich had proved very useful to Master Secretary Cromwell.

  The vast revenues of the abbeys were diverted into the treasury, doubling the royal income and commensurately increasing the King’s power and authority. They would finance, among other things, his building projects and acquisition of new property. Henry also appropriated wagon-loads of jewels removed from crucifixes, relics, shrines, and altar ornaments and a wealth of plate. Among the gems were the ruby donated by Louis VII of France in 1179 to adorn the tomb of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury—Henry VIII had it set in a thumb ring—and a great sapphire from Glastonbury.

  The Crown also took possession of monastic lands worth £120,000 (£36 million) a year, one-fifth of the kingdom’s landed wealth. The King redistributed a third of this land in order to secure the support and loyalty of influential men, and in late 1536 a new Court of Augmentations, under Cromwell’s control, was established to implement this policy. Richard Southwell was its first Receiver, then its Solicitor, and lastly its Chancellor. Most large grants of land went to important courtiers: 124 to the lords temporal and spiritual, 183 to knights and gentlemen, and 147 to household officers. The rest went to merchants, lawyers, doctors, and yeomen, enabling the rising middle class to become landed gentry, thus binding them to the King in gratitude and loyalty. Most beneficiaries had to pay for the privilege, although there were some free grants, mainly to Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. Most men of affairs were prepared to compromise their principles for the sake of gain, and readily identified themselves, through their new vested interests, with the royal supremacy; opposition to the King’s religious reforms, particularly in the south, was therefore minimal.

  There was hardly a peer who did not benefit from the Dissolution. Many converted monastic buildings into fashionable and showy stately homes, of which a number survive today, including Audley End at Saffron Walden, originally built by Lord Chancellor Audley,9 Battle Abbey, acquired by Sir Anthony Browne,10 and Woburn Abbey, initially leased by Sir Francis Bryan but later owned by the Russells, who built the present house. Some are in ruins, such as the abbeys of Beaulieu and Titchfield, converted by Thomas Wriothesley, the future Lord Chancellor; Waverley Abbey, the home of Sir William Fitzwilliam; Netley Abbey, the seat of William Paulet; Mottisfont Abbey, which Lord Sandys acquired from the King in exchange for the manor of Chelsea; and Leez Priory, Essex, owned by Richard Rich. Cromwell himself was granted St. Osyth’s Priory in Essex, Greyfriars in Yarmouth, and monastic estates in Leicestershire and Sussex.

  Henry kept only a small number of monastic properties for himself, and converted several into palaces. The most important were those houses conveniently situated on the route between London and Dover, in which the King had in the past maintained lodgings for himself. He now had them radically altered in order to provide both a King’s Side and a Queen’s Side, with the usual arrangement of outward and inward chambers. Henry acquired St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury in 1538, and it was ready in time for the arrival of Anne of Cleves in December 1539. The Abbot’s lodging was converted into apartments for the King, while a new range of brick and timber, overlooking a garden, was built for the Queen; the whole was to be called the King’s Palace. 11

  In 1538, Dartford Priory in Kent—where his aunt, Bridget of York, had been a nun—fell into Henry’s hands. He demolished most of it, and built a luxurious palace at a cost of £6,600 (£1,980,000). It too was completed in time for the coming of Anne of Cleves, and had a great court from which a processional stair led to the royal apartments, which were ranged around the old cloisters. The staircase was flanke
d by pillars supporting the Welsh dragon and the English lion, and paved with nine thousand tiles.12

  Other monasteries redeveloped by the King were on popular progress routes. In 1538, Henry acquired Dunstable Priory, Reading Abbey, and St. Albans Abbey. Henry visited Dunstable occasionally, but only minor works were carried out there.13 After the defiant Abbot of Reading had been hanged at the gates of his monastery, his lodging was converted into a palace “wholly reserved to the King’s use.”14 The Abbot’s house at St. Albans was kept in repair for Henry’s occasional visits. In 1539, three more important monasteries reverted to the Crown. A royal lodging with a garden, built at Henry’s own expense, already existed at the Dominican friary at Guildford, and the King now extended it, although he rarely visited.15 Syon Abbey was left virtually untouched until 1542, when it was converted into an ordnance factory. The London Charterhouse was used by the King as a store for his tents and garden equipment.

  In March 1540, Henry took possession of Rochester Cathedral Priory, where royal lodgings had been maintained since the fourteenth century for the benefit of regal travellers. The King converted one of the cloister ranges into a royal residence, which he first visited in March 1541.16

  The young Duke of Richmond died at St. James’s Palace on 22 July 1536, aged seventeen.17 The cause of death is thought to have been tuberculosis. His passing was deliberately kept secret: the King commanded Norfolk, Richmond’s father-in-law, to have the body wrapped in lead, hidden under straw, and conveyed with only two attendants in a farm wagon to Thetford Priory in Norfolk for burial.18 The secrecy was intended to avoid fears over the succession; opinion at court had long held that, despite his bastard status, Richmond, a male nearly grown to maturity, had a better chance of succeeding his father than either of Henry’s daughters, who had both been disinherited. Cromwell himself later confirmed that the King “certainly intended to make the Duke his successor, and would have got him declared so by Parliament.”19 But Richmond’s death left the succession open. Nevertheless, the news got out, and Chapuys was soon reporting that “the party of the Princess Mary is naturally jubilant at his death.” 20

  After the funeral, Henry had one of those alarming changes of heart that characterised his later years, and openly berated Norfolk for not burying his son with the honours due to him.21 When Norfolk heard later that he might be imprisoned or executed, he wrote angrily to Cromwell that he was “full, full, full of choler and agony,” and scornfully declared, “When I deserve to be in the Tower, Tottenham shall turn French!”22 Eventually the King’s anger dissipated. After the Dissolution, Richmond’s body was moved to Framlingham Church, where many of the Howards were buried. His widow, Mary Howard, whom he left a virgin, now faced a long struggle to obtain financial support from the King, growing increasingly bitter with her father, Norfolk, for his lack of support. Her brother Surrey keenly mourned the death of his friend, and wrote poignant verses in his memory.

  After Richmond died, Henry departed with Jane on his long-planned visit to inspect the defences at Dover, visiting Rochester, Sittingbourne, and Canterbury on the way. They stayed a week at Dover Castle, where Galyon Hone had just inserted stained-glass windows bearing “the Queen’s badge” at a cost of £200 (£6,000).23 Chapuys noticed that the King was depressed, not only because of his bereavement, but also because Jane was not yet pregnant.

  The King and Queen spent the rest of the summer hunting, enjoying “good sport.” On 9 August, they killed twenty stags.24 Henry’s spirits revived as he immersed himself in plans for Jane’s coronation, 25 which was to be either at Michaelmas26 or at the end of October.27 Chapuys was told that the King intended “to perform wonders.”28 Henry had already spent £300 (£9,000) and selected the furnishings he would provide for Jane’s sojourn in the Tower before her state entry into London, and his carpenters were hard at work preparing Westminster Hall for the coronation banquet. Then plague broke out in London, and the ceremony was postponed indefinitely. The court moved to Windsor for safety.

  In October, the Lady Mary returned to court,29 where she was accorded precedence as “the first after the Queen, and sits at table opposite her, a little lower down, after having first given the napkin for washing to the King and Queen.” 30 The latter would take Mary by the hand and walk with her as an equal, refusing to go first through a doorway. Jane persuaded Henry to assign Mary lodgings at Hampton Court (in the Base Court), Greenwich, and various lesser houses,31 but Mary did not live permanently at court, although she was to spend more time there in the next few years than at any time in her youth. Otherwise, she resided at Hunsdon, Tittenhanger, or Hertford, and was occasionally visited by her half-sister Elizabeth, of whom she was dotingly fond.

  The trauma of her parents’ “divorce” and her forced submission, and her frustrated desire for a husband and children, had made Mary increasingly neurotic and prone to vague but debilitating illnesses and menstrual irregularities. Her bastardy stood in the way of a grand foreign marriage, yet there was little likelihood that her father would allow her to marry a commoner, and Mary now faced the fact that while the King lived, she would be “only the Lady Mary, the unhappiest lady in Christendom.” 32

  Nevertheless, she could not but rejoice at the reversal in her fortunes. Whereas she had hitherto had to make over old gowns, she was now provided with the sumptuous clothes in which she delighted. She had money to dispense on charitable donations and rewards and gifts to those who had done her kindnesses. She could indulge her pleasure in hunting, gambling, dancing, and music. And Jane, her woman fool with the shaven head, made her laugh.33

  Mary was still an innocent where men were concerned. When Henry was told she knew “no foul or unclean speech, he would not believe it” and arranged for Sir Francis Bryan to test her virtue by using a sexual swearword while dancing with her during a masque. Both men were astonished when Mary, who had never heard it, failed to react34—a measure of how cynical the courtiers had become with regard to the virtue of women.

  Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, now nineteen, was a rising man. With his erudite talent, his expansive personality, his talent in the lists, and his aristocratic bearing, he was held by the King in high affection and esteem. Yet Surrey’s character was marred by fatal flaws: overbearing arrogance, instability, a hot temper, and an ungovernable wild streak. He had little political sense and no business acumen, being profligate with money. He had an inflated view of the Howards’ importance and status, and his actions were dictated by family pride. Through his mother’s Stafford blood, he had inherited Buckingham’s claim to the throne, and behaved, and was often deferred to, as if he were a prince of the blood. He commissioned more portraits of himself from Holbein than any other sitter; in a full-length portrait painted probably by William Scrots in about 1546–1551 and now at Arundel Castle, Surrey appears with a shield blatantly displaying the royal arms of England.35 The King was for years unusually tolerant of his vagaries, for Surrey had been much beloved by Richmond, and it appears that in some ways Henry’s thwarted paternal feelings found an outlet in this “foolish proud boy.”36

  Surrey had travelled in Italy, seen the glories of the Renaissance at first hand, and learned the techniques of Italian and French poetry, which he would later put to good use. He also returned to England “French in his living,”37 like his cousin Anne Boleyn, who in many ways he resembled.

  Like her, he had a talent for making enemies. He hated the Seymours, who he regarded as lowborn upstarts, but was not above paying passionate addresses to Lord Beauchamp’s wife, Anne Stanhope. His audacity caused much ill feeling, especially since his feelings were not returned and he had no choice but to withdraw, writing of his renunciation in a poem. By then, the damage had been done, and Seymour’s anger and jealousy, together with Surrey’s disdain and enmity, would fuel a bitter and lasting feud, sowing the seeds of a bitter harvest.

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  “The Most Joyful News”

  The great rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, a reactio
n to the King’s religious policies, broke out in October 1537 in Lincolnshire and the north, where the old ideas remained more entrenched among the gentry, to whom the court was a distant place. This was the most serious threat to his authority that Henry had yet faced, and he prepared to lead an army against the rebels. At Greenwich, the tiltyard was converted into a workshop, where his armourers were set to repairing his rusted old armour that had been in storage at the Crowned Key Inn in Southwark. However, as the rebellion spread, the King realised that he did not have sufficient forces to deal with it, and decided to play for time. He sent north an army under the command of Norfolk and Suffolk, with instructions to use conciliatory measures. The coronation of the Queen was again postponed.

  Fortunately, most lords rallied to the support of the Crown, demonstrating that the Reformation and the Dissolution had become largely populist movements. In December, a truce was reached, with Norfolk, in the King’s name, agreeing to all the rebels’ demands, among them a request that the Queen be crowned at York, and dangling before them a royal pardon which Henry did not intend to put into effect.

  Henry had remained at Windsor. Among his attendants was an upcoming young secretary, Thomas Wriothesley, who had entered the royal service in 1530 as a Clerk of the Signet. Wriothesley, now thirty-one, was a member of a distinguished family of heralds, whose father, William Wryth, York Herald, had changed his name, with a view to bettering himself, to Wriothesley (pronounced “Risley,” as his family relatives phonetically spelt it). Young Thomas had been taught law by Gardiner at Cambridge, but had left early to pursue a career at court, where he attracted the attention of Cromwell. His loyalties, however, would always lie with Gardiner. Wriothesley was able, enterprising, tenacious, and ruthless, yet insufferably overconfident and egotistic. Nevertheless Henry liked him, rewarded his diligence with substantial grants of monastic lands, sent him abroad several times as an ambassador, and affectionately nicknamed him “my pig.”