Henry

by Starkey, David

  The more immediate effect of the campaign, however, fell on the already overburdened shoulders of Henry’s elder brother, Arthur. When, seventeen years earlier, Henry’s grandfather Edward IV had invaded France in a similarly brief and inglorious campaign, he had made his eldest son Edward, prince of Wales, lieutenant and governor of the realm (that is, regent) during his absence. Predictably, Henry VII did the same, and Regent Arthur, aged six, found himself holding the same resounding powers as Regent Edward, aged five, had done. He was sent to Westminster, perhaps to preside over meetings of the council and certainly to ‘attest’ or give formal sanction to certain of its acts.9

  Arthur’s regency lasted only a few weeks, until his father’s return to England on 17 December automatically brought it to an end. But it had evidently been deemed a success, and it emboldened Henry VII to take the next and crucial step in his son and heir’s career. Edward, prince of Wales had been only three when he was sent to receive his academic and political education as head of a devolved administration in the Welsh Marches. Now, in the course of 1493, Arthur, aged six, followed in his wake and, wherever possible, in his footsteps. He too took up residence at Ludlow, the great castle which Edward IV had rebuilt for his eldest son; the powers of Arthur’s council were closely modelled on those of Edward’s, and some of the personnel were the same. The boys even shared the same physician, Dr Argentine, who was the last person known to have seen the dethroned Edward V, as he then was, alive in the Tower.10

  Arthur’s departure for the Welsh Marches was also the turning point in his relations (or rather lack of them) with his younger brother. Henry was now developing fast. In the summer of 1493 he was weaned, and bade farewell to his wet-nurse Anne Uxbridge, who was described as ‘late’ nurse to Henry early the following year. In 1494 he learned to ride and (less confidently) to walk.11

  But Arthur was not there to see it. Instead, he became the brother that Henry scarcely knew. They met only on high days and holidays at their parents’ court. There is no evidence that they ever exchanged letters or even tokens.

  Did they, I wonder, spend more than a few weeks in each other’s company?

  Instead, Henry’s world was shaped by his sisters, his mother and her women. And it was as feminine as Arthur’s was male: cloth and bedding was brought for Henry and his sisters; linen was purchased to make shirts for him and smocks for them.12

  Once again, the war of 1492 was pivotal in defining this separation between the experiences of the two boys. Just before his departure for France on 2 October, the king, Bernard André reports, spoke feelingly about his family to the lords of the council, and ‘carefully provided for his most noble queen and most illustrious children’. Arthur, we know, he had made regent. But he entrusted Henry and his sisters to their mother, who remained with them at Eltham, near Greenwich, for the duration of the war. Thence she bombarded her husband with letters, and, André claims, her ‘tender, frequent and loving lines’ played a part in his decision to return home speedily.13

  Elizabeth of York’s feelings we should take at face value; her husband’s reaction to them with a grain of salt. But, more importantly, how are we to take André’s statement about Henry VII’s provision for his family? My guess is that it represented a fairly formal settlement. And at all events, it became so over the next year or two.

  Hitherto contemporaries had applied the name ‘nursery’ only to Arthur’s youthful establishment, which, as we have seen, had followed Yorkist precedent and was run by ex-Yorkist personnel, like the ‘lady mistress’ or head officer of the nursery, Dame Elizabeth Darcy. Arthur’s departure for the Welsh Marches and the public stage left this royal nursery empty. It was soon taken over by Henry and his sisters. Their little establishment was first called ‘our nursery’ in 1494, and within a couple of years the term became common form.14 At about the same time, a head officer, the ‘lady mistress of our nursery’, was appointed. But it was not Dame Elizabeth Darcy. Instead, one of the queen’s ladies, Elizabeth Denton, got the job. Moreover, Mrs Denton continued to serve and be paid as one of Elizabeth of York’s attendants even after her appointment as lady mistress.15

  This would point to the closest possible connexions between Henry’s nursery and his mother’s household; it also suggests that the two were usually physically close as well. Which is perhaps why Eltham, where Elizabeth had stayed with her younger children during her husband’s absence in France, seems to have been the principal site of Henry’s upbringing. It was next door to his birthplace and Elizabeth’s favourite residence of Greenwich, and conveniently close to London. The short journey was safe for the youngest royal infant, and ladies of the queen’s household could come and go at will. As could the queen herself.

  Elizabeth of York, in short, may not have been a hands-on mother, but she was close at hand. And at moments of crisis she could – and did – take charge of Henry herself.

  But the choice of Eltham was probably impelled by sentiment as much as convenience. It had been a favourite residence of Elizabeth of York’s father and Henry’s grandfather, Edward IV, who had carried out extensive building works there including the great hall, with its magnificent hammer-beam roof, and the stone bridge. Nowadays most of Eltham is ruinous, though Edward IV’s hall and bridge survive. In Henry’s day, when Edward IV had been dead for only a decade, his grandfather must have been a vivid memory. Men who had been his servants probably still worked at Eltham; items of his household stuff were perhaps still in use.

  By the choice of Eltham, Elizabeth had made sure that her second son would be brought up in the shadow of the grandfather he so much resembled.

  In this little world of the nursery at Eltham, Henry was undoubtedly king of the castle. He was the real king’s second son; he was also, for almost all of the time, the only boy in a household of women, and as such was probably spoiled outrageously. But, despite his primacy, he was always aware of his siblings. His elder sister Margaret was a given in his life. Though slight in stature, like her godmother and namesake Lady Margaret Beaufort, she was (also like Lady Margaret) a formidable character and well able to secure her share of attention.

  Then there was the excitement, which Henry experienced at least three times, of the arrival of a new baby, with its nurse and rockers. Room had to be made for a fresh face in the circle and a new name had to be learned. Or, equally mysteriously, it must have seemed to Henry, a playmate would disappear. A temporary hush would descend on the noise of the nursery, and perhaps he would glimpse a black-robed procession bearing a tiny coffin.

  This first happened in autumn 1495, when Elizabeth, the then youngest child, suddenly sickened and died. Infant mortality was heavy under the Tudors, and the death of children was all too common an affliction. But this was the first time that Henry’s parents had had to bear it. They were deeply affected. The enormous sum of £318 was spent on the funeral of ‘our daughter Elizabeth, late passed out of this transitory life’. A monument was erected to her in the chapter house at Westminster Abbey. The epitaph spoke wistfully of her childish beauty.16

  Henry was then four years old. Old enough for the death of a pretty young sister to have made an impression, but too young for it to have been a serious blow.

  And in any case, a replacement soon arrived, as his mother was already pregnant with another child. She was delivered on 18 March 1496 of a daughter who was christened Mary – presumably in honour of the Virgin, to whom her father bore a special devotion. In the course of the next year, the wording of the warrants for wages for the staff of the nursery was adjusted to reflect the new arrival, and the name of ‘Mary’ replaced ‘Elizabeth’ as one of Henry’s two ‘sisters’.17

  Finally, on 21 February 1499, Henry at last acquired a baby brother, named Edmund, after his grandfather Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond. Edmund’s wet-nurse was Alice Skern, who had previously suckled Mary, the next youngest child. In 1499–1500 Alice, together with Edmund’s two rockers, duly figured in the list of wage-payments for the nursery, a
longside the attendants on Henry, Margaret and Mary.18 A younger brother would have had a much greater impact on Henry’s life than the arrival of another sister. He would have been a rival for attention in the nursery; he might have been a political rival when they grew up. But (as we shall see) it was not to be.

  Also important in defining Henry’s social world were the servants of the nursery, led by his wet-nurse and lady mistress. Nurse Uxbridge’s parting from Henry some time in the first half of 1493 was probably tearful. But it was sweet sorrow, as the success of Anne’s nursing led to a lifetime of royal patronage that was the making of her and her second husband. The patronage was started by Henry’s father, and was continued on an even more generous scale by Henry himself. Clearly he felt affection, even love, towards her. And while there is no record of reunions between Anne and her former charge during Henry’s boyhood, she was to have an honourable place at his coronation.19

  But his feelings for Anne seem to have been eclipsed by his regard for his lady mistress, Elizabeth Denton. Anne, after all, had left him while he was still only an infant and well below the age of memory. Elizabeth Denton, on the other hand, was the dominant figure of Henry’s early boyhood and beyond. This would not necessarily have been to her advantage. Henry, I would guess, was not always an easy child to handle: he was royal and knew it, yet Elizabeth was required to keep him in bounds. In the event, she seems to have got the balance right and Henry was to cherish an abiding affection for her, which he would show by rewarding her lavishly when he became king.20

  * * *

  But is there a darker side to the story? Was the scale of these rewards a sign that Henry, neglected by his parents, turned to the women of his nursery for the love that should have come from his own father and mother? Hardly. It was entirely conventional for a king to reward his former wet-nurse and the others who had looked after him in infancy: even Henry’s own son, Edward VI, who was the coldest of young fish, did so. Moreover, as so much depended on the royal offspring, their parents would have been mad to neglect them.

  Henry VII and Elizabeth of York were not mad. Instead, according to their own lights, they were conscientious and loving parents. If a criticism can be made, it is that they tried too hard, especially with Arthur. They were also bound by the conventions of their times. But these were less harsh than the more schematic historians of the family have assumed. For writers like Lawrence Stone, parental love was an invention of the eighteenth-century bourgeoisie: in earlier centuries and higher social classes it scarcely existed. Henry’s parents would have been astonished to hear this: the king’s feelings about his family entered into his calculations about the French war in 1492, and the royal couple’s grief for the death of their daughter Elizabeth in 1495 is palpable. And when their eldest son also died seven years later, they were nearly broken by the event.

  What really shaped their parents’ attitudes to the upbringing of Henry and his elder brother was not indifference or neglect, but precedent. As a usurper, Henry’s father was more than usually anxious to do the right thing. And the right thing was generally defined as what Edward IV, Henry VII’s most recent predecessor to be recognized as legitimate, had done. This is why, as has often been pointed out, the upbringing of Henry VII’s eldest son, Arthur, was so closely modelled on that of Edward IV’s first son, Edward, prince of Wales.

  Much less remarked on, however, is the fact that Henry in turn as second son was being groomed to follow the path blazed by Edward IV’s younger son, Richard, duke of York. It was almost, Henry must have felt as soon as he was old enough to understand such things, as though he had a ghostly mentor in whose steps he was fated to tread.

  But was Richard, duke of York, so young and handsome, and of whom memories were still so green, a ghost at all? Was he really dead? Or was Henry, and still more his father, stepping into shoes that rightfully belonged to another? Were they a king and a prince? Or a usurper and his whelp?

  These questions – and others just as inconvenient and seditious – were raised by the campaign of 1492. Henry VII had sent an army into France; the French would riposte by launching a pretender into England.

  Notes - CHAPTER 4: INFANCY

  1. TNA: E 404/81/1 (31 December 1491); for Anne and her first husband, Geoffrey Uxbridge, see CPR Henry VII I (1485–94), 212, 214, 242, 276, 281, 294 and CPR Henry VII II (1494–1509), 11. Anne was widowed between 1494 and 1496 and remarried Walter Luke by 1504 (ibid., 46, 345).

  2. AR I, 306, 336–7.

  3. AR I, 337.

  4. See above, p. 51–2; Collectanea IV, 250.

  5. TNA: E 404/80, warrants dated at Greenwich, 1 and 29 June and 3 July 1491.

  6. TNA: E 404/81/1 (31 December 1491 and 20 July 1492).

  7. Queens of England, II, 369–70, 436; PPE Elizabeth of York, p. lxxxv.

  8. TNA: E 404/81/3 (17 September 1493).

  9. CPR Henry VII I (1485–94), pp. 401, 407–8; M. M. Condon, ‘An Anachronism with Intent? Henry VII’s Council Ordinance of 1491/2’, in R. A. Griffiths and J. Sherborne, eds, Kings and Nobles (Gloucester, 1986), 228–53.

  10. CPR Henry VII I (1485–94), pp. 434, 438–9, 441, 453; F. Hepburn, ‘Arthur, Prince of Wales and Training for Kingship’, in The Historian 55 (1997), 4–9.

  11. TNA: E 404/81/3, warrants dated 17 September 1493 and 13 March 1494; LP Hen. VII I, 391, 393; Great Chronicle, 254.

  12. TNA: E 101/414/8, fos. 11, 32, 43; E 101/413/11, fo. 31.

  13. Memorials, 58–60.

  14. TNA: E 404/81/3, warrant dated 13 March 1494; E 404/82, warrants dated 12 April 1496, 29 July 1497 and 15 March 1498.

  15. TNA: E 101/414/8, fo. 27; PPE Elizabeth of York, 88, 99.

  16. TNA: E 404/82, warrant dated 26 October 1495; Queens of England II, 439; J. Stow, A Survey of London, ed. C. L. Kingsford, 2 vols (1971) II, 109.

  17. The ‘Beaufort Hours’, 278, gives the date as ‘xv. kl Apr … 1495’, that is 18 March 1496 as the compiler of the calendar in the ‘Hours’ follows the usual practice of starting the new year on 25 March; TNA: E 101/81/4 (3 February 1495), E 101/82 (23 March 1497).

  18. The ‘Beaufort Hours’, 278, gives the date as ‘ix. kl Mar … 1498’, that is, 21 February 1499. The date is confirmed by the fact that the Canterbury font was sent for on 20 January 1499 (S. Bentley, ed., Excerpta Historica (1831), 120. TNA: E 101/83, warrants dated 20 December 1499 and 26 July 1500).

  19. CPR Henry VII II (1494–1509), 46, 345; LP I i, 82 (p. 38); I i, 132/39, 1221/18.

  20. See below, p. 331–2.

  5

  DUKE OF YORK

  IN NOVEMBER 1491 A YOUNG, French-speaking Fleming called Perkin Warbeck had an awkward confrontation with a group of townsmen in Cork, the major port on the south coast of Ireland. Not surprisingly, for he cut an exotic figure. Most people then, men and women alike, wore thick, drab, serviceable woollens. But Warbeck was clad from head to foot in shimmering silk. The clothes were not his own, but belonged to his master, a Breton merchant called Pregent Meno. Warbeck had just landed in Ireland with Meno, and was modelling the fine stuffs Meno had imported to sell to the Irish elite.

  Such details did not concern the crowd, who had eyes only for Warbeck’s impressive appearance. Wasn’t he the earl of Warwick, son of the executed George Plantagenet, duke of Clarence? they cried. They were so persistent that Warbeck could only shake them off by swearing on the gospels and a crucifix before the mayor that he was no such person. Next two men, one English, the other Irish, appeared. Surely he was the bastard son of Richard III, they said, ‘swearing great oaths that they knew well I was [he]’. Once again Warbeck answered, also ‘with high oaths’, that he was not.

  At this point the pair revealed their hands. They were Yorkist conspirators against Henry VII. If Warbeck would act as their figurehead, they would offer him powerful support. Reluctantly, he claimed, he acquiesced. Then his grooming began. He was taught English and ‘what I should do and say’. Finally, his assumed identity was changed: from Richard III’s bastar
d to Richard, duke of York, the younger of the two princes in the Tower.1

  Meanwhile, almost six hundred miles away at Eltham, at the other extremity of his father’s dominions, the six-month-old Henry lay in one of his grand cradles. His status too was denoted by magnificent fabrics and furs. And he also was destined by his parents to follow in the wake of his murdered uncle, Richard, duke of York. But Richard’s name, title and inheritance were now in contention. Who would gain them? Henry? Or Warbeck?

  The scenes in Cork were not spontaneous. In mid-November, Charles VIII of France had financed and equipped a Yorkist expedition to Ireland. This had landed at Cork just before Warbeck, setting the town on edge and creating the explosive atmosphere to which Warbeck’s dazzling appearance was the spark.

  But equally, Warbeck’s epiphany was the fulfilment of the wildest dreams of the expedition’s leaders, for in him they had found the most promising Yorkist impersonator yet. Others had tried before, but Warbeck was in a different league. Despite his relatively modest birth as son of a bourgeois of Tournai, he was handsome, literate and affable. He also had the right experience, being widely travelled, multilingual and familiar with the ways of courts from his time in service to the royal house of Portugal.

  The conspirators wrote to Charles VIII with news of their good luck. Charles responded by sending an embassy to ‘Richard, duke of York’. It bore a courteous invitation to him to take up residence in France, and was accompanied by a fleet to carry him there. Warbeck accepted, and landed in France in March 1492. Charles VIII ‘received [him] honourably, as a kinsman and friend’.

  Perkin Warbeck alias ‘Richard, duke of York’ had made his entry on to the European stage. And the stage would prove a broad and resonant one. As Warbeck put it himself, ‘thence [from Ireland] I went into France, and from thence into Flanders, and from Flanders into Ireland, and from Ireland into Scotland, and so into England’. It was also a saga that would twice seem to threaten Henry’s life and lead his mother to seek safety for her son, first in the Tower and then in the remote extremities of Norfolk.