Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII

by Robert Hutchinson

  Her first letter written to Henry VII after her marriage betrays just a hint of understandable homesickness. It also contains a flash of that very same Tudor teenage temper shared by her brother over the attention lavished on Surrey by her new bridegroom, who was paying scant regard to her charms:

  Sir, as for news I have none to send, but that my lord of Surrey is in [such] great favour with the King here that he cannot forbear the company of him [at] no time of the day …

  For God’s sake, Sir, hold me excused that I write not myself to your Grace, for I have no leisure this time, but with a wish I would I were with your Grace now, and many times more, when I would answer.19

  Meanwhile, what of Prince Henry? With his father’s fears for the succession still unabated, his life had changed markedly. Henry was now kept close to his father, above all for security reasons but also to learn the ways of kingship. In August 1504, the ingratiating Duke de Estrada reported:

  The Prince of Wales is with the king. Formerly the king did not like to take the Prince … with him, in order not to interrupt his studies.

  It is quite wonderful to see how much the king likes the Prince of Wales. He has good reason to do so, for the Prince deserves all love. But it is not only from love that the King takes the Prince with him: he wishes to improve him.

  Certainly there could be no better school in the world than the society of such a father as Henry VII.

  He is so wise and attentive to everything – nothing escapes his attention. There is no doubt the Prince has an excellent governor and steward in his father.

  The ambassador ended this litany of sycophancy with the comment: ‘If he lives ten years longer he will leave the Prince furnished with good habits and with immense riches and in as happy circumstances as man can be.’20 Behind these fawning words that paint a picture of familial harmony lay indecision and uncertainty about Prince Henry’s future. What was happening with his stuttering, syncopated progress towards married life with Katherine? Solemnisation in church of their nuptials was still firmly on hold until the missing half of her marriage portion arrived from Spain. Henry’s formal dissent from the contract for the marriage was obviously a mere gambit, played out in his father’s mystifying game of diplomatic chess. Therein lies something of a mystery.

  A few months before Henry’s repudiation of the marriage with Katherine was signed, a concerned letter was apparently dispatched to Rome, either by Henry VII or his heir, about Katherine’s fervent piety and its sapping impact upon her physical wellbeing. Pope Julius II wrote that although the Spanish princess commendably sought a spiritual life of fasting, prayer, abstinence and pilgrimage, this was without her spouse’s permission. He therefore granted his full authority to restrain her from ‘excessive religious observances which are injurious to her health’. Such religious zeal, emphasised Julius, could harm her body, jeopardise the maritalis consuetudo (marital intimacy or intercourse) and imperil her ability to have children. As Christian tenets taught that procreation was one of the most important purposes of marriage, the Pope would allow the prince to forbid Katherine from taking such devout vows and she should now be encouraged to engage in less arduous acts of piety as her confessor might suggest.21

  Although this interesting document is dated 20 October 1505, it is addressed to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Did the Vatican have that big a backlog in its correspondence? Arthur had been in his Worcester grave for more than three years when the letter went off to London. Or is this a case of a careless bureaucrat sending the letter to a prince whose name loomed large in a bulging and dusty docket entitled ‘papal dispensations for marriage’?22 Katherine herself denied her piety was damaging her body and blamed her poor health on tertian fever, a malignant type of malaria.23

  Even as the Vatican official was misaddressing this document, Henry VII was hawking his son and heir around the European courts in a search for an eligible princess to become his wife. First there was sustained interest in the suitability of Eleanor, daughter of Archduke Philip of Burgundy, a match initially mooted in 1501. She was almost eight, perhaps a more acceptable age than Katherine, as her aunt, stranded high and dry in London, was now twenty. Considerable diplomatic progress towards this marriage had been achieved by 1507.24

  Eleanor’s brother Charles might also do very well for Mary, the youngest surviving Tudor child, and the king himself had become mildly interested in the Archduchess Margaret, another aunt of the Burgundian princess, as his own new wife. Some of Henry VII’s council also suggested a French match – perhaps the prince should marry Margaret of Alençon?25

  Archduke Philip now paid an unexpected and unintended visit to England. He had set sail on 6 January 1506 from the Low Countries with 3,000 German mercenaries, bound for Spain to claim the crown of Castile, as he was married to the mad Juana (elder sister to Katherine of Aragon), who had succeeded to the throne on the death of their mother Isabella. His fleet of Burgundian ships had safely transited the English Channel but then were dispersed by a ‘mighty tempest of wind and foul weather’. Some vessels were lost and others remained ‘in danger of shipwreck’.26 In London, the huge brass eagle weather vane atop the tall needle spire of Old St Paul’s was blown off in the same storm (which lasted from noon to midnight) and ended up ‘three hundred paces away towards the east’ in the churchyard, destroying, in its fall, a bookseller’s sign on which a black eagle was painted. Some considered this an evil omen: ‘Since Philip was the son of Maximilian, emperor elect of the Romans, who carried an eagle in his coat of arms, all were convinced’ by this portent that the imperial family ‘would shortly suffer a grievous disaster’.27 Unknown to the superstitious Londoners, the majority of the archduke’s fleet was only driven back eastwards by the tempest, some anchoring safely in the port of Falmouth, in Cornwall, but the royal ship and two other vessels ended up in Melcombe Regis (now swallowed up by Weymouth) in Dorset.

  Philip ‘was little accustomed to the ocean waves’, which made him ‘exhausted in both body and mind’. No doubt he was also a little green around the gills from prolonged bouts of mal de mer. He and his wife promptly boarded a small boat and landed safely on English soil on 16 January ‘in order to recuperate’.28 Initially the Dorset gentry feared that a foreign invasion was underway and began to muster local forces to repel it. Then the truth emerged and when reports of the archduke being literally washed up on the coast reached Westminster, Henry VII was elated at this God-given opportunity for him to lay his hands on the Earl of Suffolk.

  A magnificently attired fourteen-year-old Prince Henry accompanied ‘by five earls and diverse lords and knights’ – a retinue totalling about five hundred – greeted Philip and his fellow orphans of the storm in Winchester and officially bade them welcome to the realm of England. Henry’s crimson glaudekin (a long riding gown) and jacket of red velvet edged with black lambskin had been hurriedly made by sweating tailors for the occasion.29 The next day the party rode on to Windsor and were chivalrously met by Henry VII and the Duke of Buckingham half a mile (0.81 km) outside the castle.30 The king welcomed Philip in fluent French, ‘with the greatest distinction, kindness and courtesy’. Juana, who had become obsessively possessive towards her husband,31 joined the royal party shortly afterwards, eager to see her sister Katherine for what turned out to be a very short reunion. The princess later wrote of ‘the very great pleasure it gave me to see you in this kingdom, and the distress which filled my heart, a few hours afterwards, on account of your sudden and hasty departure’32 back to Falmouth and the postponed voyage to Spain. At least at Windsor Castle, Katherine had enjoyed a decent meal or two, rather than scraping along on her father-in-law’s meagre allowance.

  The weather was terribly cold – ‘such a sore snow and a frost that men might go with carts over the [River] Thames’33 – and Henry and the archduke got down to diplomatic negotiations in front of roaring log fires at Windsor and at Richmond. The king wanted Suffolk delivered up to him, but initially Philip denied that he was able to achieve this,
‘and even if he was, he was unwilling to break his word and hand him over to his death’.34 Henry was loath to promise to spare de la Pole, but ‘upon the [archduke’s] earnest request’ agreed not to execute him in exchange for his return to England.

  A treaty of perpetual friendship was renewed between Burgundy and England, and after Mass was said on 9 February at Windsor, Henry VII invested the archduke as a Knight of the Garter. Exchange is no robbery, and Philip in turn made Prince Henry – who read out the oath in French – a Knight of the Golden Fleece. Again, special clothes had been ordered for him for the occasion – a doublet of cloth of gold, with scarlet hose and another jacket of russet satin.35

  Suffolk meanwhile had been transferred into the custody of Philip von Lichtenstein at Namur (in today’s southern Belgium) in October 1505. He now saw the writing on the wall. He independently sent messengers to London offering to come home if Henry VII would restore to him his sequestered lands and to royal favour. He pledged fealty to the king and after his death ‘to my lord prince, the king’s son’ and sought freedom for his brother William and those imprisoned for his sake.36 The earl was delivered into English hands on 16 March in Calais and by the end of April was in the Tower. Henry’s promises looked totally worthless.

  Prince Henry was impressed by the dashing Philip with something akin to hero worship. Later in his life he hung his portrait in one of his apartments at Greenwich which was ‘called Philip’s room after his name, which room I prefer to all the rest in my palace’, he admitted.37 Vergil described the archduke as being of ‘medium height, handsome of face and heavily built. He was talented, generous and gentlemanly’38 and something of a sportsman (he played tennis), as well as a chivalrous jouster nonpareil. Here was a role model in leadership, boldness and bravado that the heir to the English crown was to later emulate himself.

  On 9 April 1506, the prince wrote in French to Philip in Spain, from Greenwich Palace. His father’s secretary in the French tongue, John Meautis, may have helped him with the grammar, indeed may physically have written it – only the closing ‘Vostre Humble cousin, Henry Prince de galles’ and the signature are in Henry’s bold, angular handwriting. However, this earliest of Henry’s letters to survive is surely his own composition and is succinct, if not a little gushing. He begins formally: ‘Most high, most excellent and mighty prince’ and then continues more casually ‘I commend myself to you in the most affectionate and hearty manner that I can do’. Henry sought Philip’s favour in assisting Pedro Manrique in his business in Spain. He was ‘the chamberlain of my most dear and well-beloved consort the princess my wife’ – a description that belies Henry’s repudiation of the marriage less than a year before. Then the prince has a boyish request, hoping that the archduke

  will apprise me from time to time and let me know of your good health and prosperity which I particularly and with all my heart desire to be of long continuance as I would my own.

  And for my part, whenever I can find a fitting messenger I am determined to do the like to you.

  Moreover, on your intimating to me if there be anything here in which I can do you honour and pleasure, I will take pains to satisfy you in it with all my heart, by the good aid of Our Lord, whom I pray, right high, right excellent and mighty Prince, to give you good life and long.39

  His good wishes were to no avail. On 25 September Philip died at Burgos in Spain, aged twenty-eight. Henry’s striking hero was gone. The dark omen, provided by the falling weathercock, had been quickly fulfilled.

  Erasmus, staying in Venice, wrote to Prince Henry with his condolences on the death of Philip.40 On 17 January 1507, Henry replied in Latin in his own hand, and the elegance and style of his letter impressed and captivated the Dutch scholar. The prince headed his note with the pious cry ‘Jesus is my Hope’ and continues:

  I am much struck by your letter, most eloquent Erasmus, which is too elegant to appear composed on a sudden and so lucid and simple that it cannot be supposed to be premeditated by so dextrous an intellect …

  There is nothing I can compose in your praise which is worthy of that consummate erudition. I therefore pass over your praises, about which I think it better to be silent than to speak insufficiently.

  He then wrote of his loss in Philip’s death – and that of his mother, four years before – and asked Erasmus ‘to signify us by letter any news you have, but let your news be of a pleasanter kind and may God bring to a good event whatever may happen worth telling’.

  The scholar carried the prince’s letter in his pocket for some time to show to his friends but suspected that Henry had been given some assistance in writing it. ‘I knew the hand,’ Erasmus wrote years later, ‘but, to speak candidly, suspected a little at the time that he had had some help from others in the ideas and expressions.’ However, Henry’s companion and Latin scholar, William Lord Mountjoy, showed him examples of the prince’s writing which dispelled these suspicions and the philosopher endorsed a copy with the note: ‘the whole of the letter enclosed he wrote when a youth in his own hand.’41 Erasmus went on to Bologna to superintend the studies of the two sons of Henry VII’s Genoese physician Baptista Boerio. One of his pupils, Giovanni, inscribed two books written by ancient Greek orators and sent them as gifts to the Prince of Wales: a translation of Isocrates’ De Regno, and a copy of Lucian’s Calumniæ non temere credendum, a tract against believing lies and slanders too readily.42 In later life, however, Henry was not to pay much attention to these important lessons.43

  That hapless and benighted hostage to fortune, Katherine, Princess of Wales, meanwhile was still being kept in painful penury in Durham House. She begged Ferdinand in April 1506 to cover her debts ‘not for extravagant things, but for food. The King of England will not pay for anything, though I have asked him with tears.’ Henry, ever motivated by money, had retorted that the Spanish promises to pay the remaining half of the marriage portion of 100,000 scudos (about £25,000) had not been kept. Katherine was now

  in the greatest anguish. My people [are] ready to ask [for] alms and I myself [am] all but naked. I beg you to send me a confessor, as I cannot understand English and have been for six months near death.44

  Prince Henry, unlike his father, was more solicitous. But she very rarely saw him and, as she acknowledged to her father, she still did not understand English, so any intimate communication between them would have been problematic.45

  The Spanish envoy de Puebla visited Henry VII on the Wednesday of Holy Week in April 1507 and found him confined to his room ‘with a very severe illness’. An attack of the quinsy – a throat infection with symptoms similar to tonsillitis – had ‘prevented him for six days from eating and drinking. His life was despaired of, but now feeling better’, the king agreed to see the Spaniard.

  After ‘many unpleasant conversations’, de Puebla reported ruefully, Henry VII was at last persuaded to postpone payment of the marriage portion for five and a half months. In lieu of hard cash, he would generously accept gold and silver plate at face value, but gemstones and ornaments ‘for much less’ – at the price ‘he could get for them if he sold them in London’. The ambassador begged his master not to value ‘too highly the jewels’ as Henry would ‘resent it very much’.

  Despite his illness the king wrote to Ferdinand, pointing out, less than subtly, that ‘many other princesses have been offered in marriage to the Prince of Wales, with much greater marriage portions and even with a dowry twice as great as that of Princess Katherine’. However, Henry had not accepted these tempting offers because he loved and esteemed Ferdinand so much and therefore was willing to postpone the payment to 29 September, the Feast of St Michael the Archangel.46

  A few days later de Puebla wrote enthusiastically to Ferdinand about the prospects of the English king marrying his daughter Juana, Queen of Castile, widowed by the death of Archduke Philip. ‘There is no king in the world who would make so good a husband to the queen … as the King of England, whether she be sane or insane.’ Ever enthusiastic, de P
uebla believed ‘she would soon recover her reason when wedded to such a husband as Henry’ – perhaps his mania for the acquisition of cash would calm her troubled spirit?

  If the insanity of the queen should prove incurable, it would perhaps be inconvenient that she should live in England.

  The English seem little to mind … her insanity, especially since I have assured them that her derangement of mind would not prevent her from bearing children.47

  While he pondered on the wisdom of marrying a mad wife, Henry VII betrothed his ten-year-old daughter Mary to Archduke Philip’s son, Charles of Austria. Schooled by Katherine, she sang Spanish songs at the celebrations at court to mark the event. 48

  Ferdinand failed to meet the deadline for payment of the marriage portion but wrote to Katherine on 15 March 1507 promising to ‘arrange matters … [so] that ere long she will be comfortable with her husband in her house’. He begged her to ‘do everything to preserve the goodwill of Henry, the love of the Prince of Wales and the esteem of the people of England’. The king must be made to understand, added Ferdinand, that ‘he has no better chance of securing the succession of his son than by marrying him to you’.49