8 Jordan, p.4. Tytler, Vol. I, pp.15–16.
9 NA SP 10/1/1.
10 LP Spanish, Edward VI, Vol. IX, p.4. Van der Delft added: ‘I should like to have conveyed this intelligence to your Majesty before this, but that all the roads have been and still are, closed; so that in order to send the present letter a passport has been necessary.’ The ports were reopened by order of the Privy Council on 2 February. (APC, n. s., Vol. II, 1547–50, p.11.)
11 ‘Ordo de exeguiis regalibus’ in Legg, Vol. II, pp.734–5.
12 There has always been some debate as to whether both of the king’s legs were afflicted by fistulas. Henry mentions ‘a humour … fallen unto our legs’ in a letter to the Duke of Norfolk in 1537. See LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.27.
13 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.289.
14 Bayles, p.795.
15 Dale, p.30.
16 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.290. For a more detailed description, see Litten, pp.39–40.
17 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.i, p.17.
18 The mural, by Hans Holbein the Younger, is recorded as still being in the presence chamber in 1586. A smaller copy by Remigius van Leemput of 1667 is now in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace. The original was lost when the palace was burnt in January 1698 after a maid left her washing to dry before an open fire.
CHAPTER 1 A Dangerous Honour
1 LP, Vol. XVIII, pt.i, p.490.
2 Neville Williams, p.171. The following verses, translated from the Latin, were inscribed on her tomb, now lost:
Here a Phoenix Lieth, whose death
To another Phoenix gave breath.
It is to be lamented much
The world at once ne’er knew two such.
See Tighe and Davis, Vol. I, p.509.
3 LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.449.
4 She married him in May 1538.
5 His comment to the French ambassador Castillon at the end of December 1537.
6 Kaulek, pp.48 and 51–3.
7 LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii, p.111.
8 LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii pp.110–11.
9 Kaulek, pp.80–1, and LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii, p.28.
10 LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii, p.28.
11 Letter from John Hutton, the English ambassador in Brussels, to Cromwell, 9 December 1537. See SP, Vol. VIII, p.67.
12 LP, Vol. III, pt.ii, p.1188.
13 SP, Vol. VIII, p.146.
14 These words were reported in Wriothesley’s letter to the king, so high levels of sycophancy should be expected.
15 Neville Williams, p.172.
16 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.99.
17 Strickland, Vol. III, p.170.
18 Henry was impressed by the drummers and trumpeters – probably the only thing connected with Anne of Cleves that did impress him.
19 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.454.
20 As Henry was called by the Protestant reformer Philip Melanchthon.
21 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.455.
22 Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.457.
23 Later, the Greek traveller Nicander Nucius described her as ‘masculine’. See Revd J. A. Cramer (ed.), The Second Book of Travels, Camden Society, London, 1841, p.48.
24 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.457.
25 Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.455. Sun-tanned complexions were far from fashionable for women in the Tudor period.
26 Fraser, p.309.
27 Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxv.
28 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.452. The promise was never fulfilled. Such papers that were sent ‘not being authentic’ put the issue of the pre-contract ‘in much more doubt’.
29 Hall, p.836.
30 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.458.
31 Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxvi.
32 Goldsmid and Goldsmid, p.8.
33 Goldsmid and Goldsmid, p.10.
34 Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxvi.
35 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.458.
36 Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.459.
37 Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.461.
38 Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.461. Butts’ deposition to the commission is in Cecil Papers 1/22 at Hatfield House. Henry’s own account is in Cecil Papers 1/23.
39 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.462.
40 Ibid., Vol. I, pt.ii, p.460.
41 ‘Spanish Chronicle’, pp.98–9.
42 Robinson, p.32.
43 Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxvii.
44 Questions to be asked of Cromwell relating to the marriage are laid out in BL Cotton MS Otho C x, fols.241 and 246. The establishment of the commission inquiring into the marriage is at fol.236.
45 Burnet, Vol. I, pt.i, p.206.
46 Burnet, Vol. I, pt.i p.203. LP, Vol. XV, p.364.
47 LP, Vol. XV, p.377.
48 Richard Rugeley and David Phinsent of the king’s Department of Wardrobe of Beds and Nicholas Bristowe, its clerk, were paid for stripping Cromwell’s ‘stuff’ from his house in June 1540. Their charges were for conveying the loot ‘to the king’s wardrobe, [then] to the Tower of London, to Hampton Court, eleven miles with one cart, with two carts, four miles and two carts to the Tower and for bed ropes to the beds, and for all the charges by the space of six days at twenty pence a day each, on the vice chamberlain’s bill, 35s 5d’. See LP, Vol. XVI, p.187.
49 32 Henry VIII cap.62.
50 Burnet, Vol. I, pt.i, p.204.
51 The commissioners’ report, signifying her full assent to the terms and conditions, is in BL Cotton MS Otho C x, fol.247.
52 SP, Vol. VIII, p.395.
53 BL Cotton MS Otho C x, fol.240.
54 Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, p.121.
55 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.305.
56 Nichols, ‘Narratives’, p.259.
57 Henry chose a rose for her arms. See Strickland, Vol. III, p.122, note 2.
58 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, p.37.
59 His father destroyed the Scots army with the power of English artillery at Flodden Field in September 1513, killing the Scottish king, James IV, and many of his nobility. As a result, the title of Duke of Norfolk was restored to him in 1514 after losing it by attainder early in Henry VII’s reign.
60 Cited by Robinson, p.25.
61 Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, p.121.
62 A broadsheet issued after Cromwell’s death, now in the Society of Antiquaries of London Library (no.4, although a later copy), perhaps illustrates some of the crude propaganda of the time. The sheet carries sixteen verses of three lines each plus a refrain, beginning (in the original spelling):
Both man and child is glad to hear tell
Of that false Traytour Thomas Cromwell
Now that he is set to learne to spell
Sing trolle on away.
and ending
God save King Henry with all his power
And Prince Edward that goodly flower
With all his lordes of great honour
Sing trolle on away, Sing trolle on away
Here and how, rombelowe, trolle on away.
See Robert Lemon, Catalogue of Printed Broadsheets in Possession of Society of Antiquaries of London, London, 1866, and also LP, Vol. XVI, p.541. In his speech on the scaffold, Cromwell sought to deny the accusations of heresy against him. He said that he died in ‘the Catholic faith, not doubting any article of my faith, no, nor doubting in any sacrament of the Church’. Many had slandered him ‘and reported that I have been a bearer of such as have maintained evil opinions, which is untrue but I confess that like God by his Holy Spirit, so the devil is ready to seduce us and I have been seduced’. See Hall, p.839; Scarisbrook, pp.378–80.
63 He was also accused of employing magicians to predict the date of Henry’s death and of employing a chaplain who sympathised with the Pilgrimage of Grace. See Ridley, Henry VIII, p.342, and Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vo
l. V, pp.402–3. Hungerford was said to be ‘very unquiet in his mind and rather in a frenzy’ at his execution. Who can blame him? The account may be more suggestive of his insanity. See Hall, p.840.
64 LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.282. The reference to ‘a staff’ means an Act of Attainder.
65 Cited by Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, p.123.
66 LP, Vol. XVI, p.148.
67 Kaulek, pp.236–7. This was not unusual practice by a king terrified by the plague. In 1532, during a visit to Calais, Henry similarly ordered that all plague victims should be dragged out of their houses, taken to a field outside the town and left to die. See Ridley, The Tudor Age, p.195.
68 LP, Vol. XVI, p.450.
69 Marble Arch in London, on the edge of Hyde Park, is the site of Tyburn.
70 Dacre was even more cruelly treated by hopes of a last-minute reprieve. As he left the Tower on foot, escorted by the two sheriffs of London, on his way to Tyburn, ‘Mr Heyre, controller of the Lord Chancellor’s [Lord Audley of Walden] house came and commanded, in the king’s name, to stay the execution till two of the clock, which caused the people to hope that the king would pardon him’ (Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.126). The prisoners waited hopelessly until three o’clock and then were taken to the gallows where they were ‘strangled as common murderers’ (Hall, p.842). Dacre was buried in St Sepulchre’s Church, near Newgate.
71 LP, Vol. XVI, p.466.
72 Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.73.
73 LP, Vol. XVI, p.608.
74 A story recounted by a London merchant in a letter to Germany after Culpeper’s execution. See ‘Original Letters’, Vol. I, pp.226–7.
75 The rack was named after the fifteenth-century duke who introduced this method of extracting information into England during the reign of Henry VI. It was also known as ‘the brake’.
76 LP, Vol. XVI, p.620.
77 LP, Vol. XVI, p.616.
78 LP, Vol. XVI, p.649.
79 LP, Vol. XVI, p.611.
80 Scarisbrook, p.430.
81 LP, Vol. XVI, pp.665–6.
82 Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, pp.178 ff.
83 LP, Vol. XVI, pp.670–2.
84 LP, Vol. XVI, p.610.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid.
87 Burnet, Vol. II, p.cccxci.
88 Ominously, he was also vice-chamberlain to Anne Boleyn at the time of her disgrace.
89 LP, Vol. XVI, p.610.
90 Wriothesley, Vol. I, pp.130–1.
91 LP, Vol. XVI, p.620.
92 LP, Vol. XVI, p.628.
93 LP, Vol. XVI, p.613.
94 LP, Vol. XVII, p.44.
95 LP, Vol. XVI, p.534.
96 LP, Vol. XVI, p.628.
97 LP, Vol. XVI, p.646. The pre-contract would have rendered any children she had with Henry illegitimate.
98 Smith, ‘A Tudor Tragedy’, pp.166–7.
99 Their heads were set on spikes on one of the turrets of London Bridge and were still there in 1546 when they were seen by the Greek traveller Nicander Nucius. See Revd J. A. Cramer (ed.), The Second Book of Travels, Camden Society, London, 1841, p.48: ‘The skulls are even at this time to be seen, denuded of flesh,’ he observed. See also Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.32. Culpeper was buried in St Sepulchre’s Church, Newgate, near the Old Bailey.
100 LP, Vol. XVI, p.677.
101 Concealment of knowledge of treason or treasonable intent.
102 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.409.
103 33 Henry VIII cap.21.
104 Lehmberg, pp.146–7.
105 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.472.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
108 Passed on 4 February. 33 Henry VIII cap.21.
109 Seven attended, absentees being the Duke of Suffolk, who was ‘indisposed’, and, significantly, the Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk’s son, the Earl of Surrey, was, however, amongst the crowd of noble spectators.
110 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.473.
111 Strickland, Vol. III, pp.84–5. They were reprimanded for their indelicate words. See also LP, Vol. XVI, p.655.
112 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.409.
113 LP, Vol. XVI, pp.678–9, and SP, Vol. I, p.716.
114 Mary of Guise.
115 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.ii, p.31.
116 Twenty-four Scottish guns were captured in the battle. Seventeen ‘Scottish guns of brass’ of various types were listed at the Tower of London in the inventory of Henry’s possessions made after his death. See Starkey, ‘Inventory’, p.102.
117 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.ii, p.223.
118 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.ii, p.224.
119 Her orthodox Catholic stepfather Lord Lisle, who had spent twenty months imprisoned in the Tower, had just been released and pardoned. He died shortly afterwards. His wife had gone mad in his absence. See Ridley, Henry VIII, p.363.
120 Herbert had the reputation of being a rough, rowdy soldier. In 1533, he was involved in a brawl and the murder of John Thomas, ‘one honest man’, in Newport, South Wales. See LP, Vol. VI, p.670. On 23 February 1533, while George ap Morgan was ‘uncoupling his hound … Herbert struck him in the arm [and] into the body so that he would have been in great danger had he not got into a house to save himself’. Four days later, Herbert, with ‘an inordinate company’, made a second assault on ap Morgan. During the mêlée, Thomas was murdered.
121 John Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, London, 1631, p.371. Sir William Dugdale, in his History of St Paul’s Cathedral, 2nd ed., London, 1716, p.48, records Latimer’s tomb as having been destroyed during the reign of Edward VI or Elizabeth. Probably it was a monumental brass.
122 It is also possible that she had been pregnant during one of her previous marriages. See James, ‘Kateryn Parr’, p.113.
123 An estimate based on the length of her coffin discovered in the ruins of the chapel of Sudeley Castle in 1782. See Nash, p.2.
124 LP, Vol. XV, p.243.
125 Dent-Brocklehurst Papers, D2579, Gloucester Record Office.
126 LP, Vol. XVIII, pt.i. p.418.
127 NA E 30/1,472/6.
128 This was an élite force of, initially, fifty mounted troops called ‘the spears’, founded in December 1539 by Cromwell and normally drawn from good families. They were responsible for the king’s personal security and with typical Tudor parsimony were expected to provide their own weapons – the ‘noble’ pole-axe and a sword. Their strength was later expanded to 150. On Sir Anthony Browne’s death in 1548, the Marquis of Northampton became captain.
129 Meaning yielding, polite and gentle.
130 LP, Vol. XVIII, pt.i, p.483.
131 See Flugel, p.277.
132 LP, Vol. XVIII, pt.ii, p.18.
133 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.ii, p.436.
134 The plague was so bad in London that the law courts were moved to St Albans in Hertfordshire for the Michaelmas Term. See Hall, p.859.
135 LP, Vol. XVIII, pt.i, p.498.
136 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.ii, p.447.
137 ‘Spanish Chronicle’, p.108.
138 LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.ii, p.447.
139 BL Add. MS 46, 348, fol.206. Inventory of jewels and plate of Henry VIII.
140 BL Add. MS 46, 348, fol.168b
141 Ibid.
142 BL Add. MS 46, 348, fol.169a.
143 Listed in Starkey, ‘Inventory’, pp.77–80.
144 James, ‘Kateryn Parr’, p.24.
CHAPTER 2 God’s Imp
1 ‘Imp’ is used in the sense of ‘outcome’. See Tanner, p.49, fn.
2 Burnet, Vol. II, p.lxxxvi.
3 Kaulek, pp.350–4, and LP, Vol. XVI, p.598.
4 Modern historians have rejected this version of a delicate child. See Hester Chapman, The Last Tudor King: A Study of Edward VI, Bath, 1958, and Loach, Edward VI.
5 Kaulek, p.302, and LP, Vol. XVI, p.396.
6 LP, Vol. XVI, p.598.
7 Kaulek, pp.408–10.
8 Cited by Loach, Edward VI, p.11.
9 Wriothesley, Vol. I, pp.66–7.
10 Margaret, Marchioness of Dorset, was due to have the honour of carrying the prince at the ceremony. She wrote to the king thanking him for her appointment to ‘bear my lord prince’ but apologising for being ‘banished from court by the sickness here [at Croydon]’. Clearly, that sickness – it was the plague – put paid to her role. See LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.317.
Gertrude, a devout Catholic, was imprisoned in the Tower in 1538 and attainted in July the following year. Her husband Henry was beheaded as an aspirant to the crown on 9 December 1538.
11 Great care was taken to guard the royal baby from dangerous draughts. Temporary barriers, draped with rich hangings, were erected along the route of the procession where there were no protective walls.
12 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.i, p.4.
13 The robe was still displayed at Hampton Court in 1600. See Thurley, ‘Hampton Court’, p.69.
14 The number attending was severely restricted by the household because of the risk of infection from the plague then raging in the City of London and the suburbs. The proclamation limiting the size of the nobility’s entourages warns of the king’s ‘most high indignation and displeasure’ for any breach of the stipulated numbers. The text of the proclamation is at BL Harleian MS 442, fol.149.
15 Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.i, p.6.
16 On the day of the christening, Mary received £100 from Mr Heneage of the king’s Privy Chamber, probably to recompense her for expenditure on her gift.
17 LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.319. See also BL Add. MS 45,716 A, fols.112–15, and BL Egerton MS 985, fol.33, for sixteenth-century accounts of the ceremonial for the christening.
18 They had been firm friends since Brandon was appointed an esquire of the body to Henry in 1509.
19 The debate continues as to whether or not Edward was born by caesarean section. No contemporary source mentions any such operation, let alone the conversation reported by Nicholas Sanders in 1581 that Henry, asked by his doctors whether the mother or child should be saved, chose the boy because he ‘could easily provide himself with other wives’. (See R. L. de Molen, ‘The Birth of Edward VI and the Death of Queen Jane: Arguments for and Against Caesarean Section’ in Renaissance Studies, 4 (1990), pp.359–91.) The story’s veracity is undermined by the sex of the child being known before birth, which would have been impossible in the sixteenth century. Indeed, Jane is believed to have come through the birth relatively well: John Husee (Lisle’s agent in London) wrote to Lord Lisle expressing the hope that the king would have many more sons (see ‘Lisle Letters’, Vol. IV, p.425). Loach (Edward VI, p.5) believes delivery by caesarean cannot totally be eliminated but that it ‘seems very implausible’.
The Last Days of Henry VIII Page 29