Henry VIII (24 page)

Eight Knights of the Garter stood on the King's right, and to his left were a number of prelates. Also present were six officers of the household, bearing gold rods of office, ten heralds wearing tabards of cloth of gold “wrought with the arms of England,” and “a crowd of nobility, all arrayed in cloth of gold and silk.”

After kissing the King's hand, Giustinian “delivered a Latin oration in praise of His Majesty, whom we extolled with all the eloquence we could command. This ended, we attended mass, which was chanted by the Bishop of Durham, with a superb and noble descant choir. Afterwards we accompanied the King to table, where he chose us to see the service of the courses, contained in 16 dishes of massive gold. As soon as he had commenced eating, he sent us with the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham into his [presence] chamber, where a very sumptuous and plentiful dinner had been prepared for us, and by the King's order a repast was served for all our countrymen and attendants. Having dined, we remained a good while with His Majesty, very familiarly.”
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Giustinian was deeply impressed by the splendour of the court, which “glittered with jewels, gold and silver, the pomp being unprecedented,” and also by the condescension and friendliness of the King, who on one occasion “embraced us without ceremony, and conversed for a long while familiarly on various topics in good Latin and French.”
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The foregoing describes a typical reception for a foreign ambassador,
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who would attend court only upon a summons from the King. European diplomacy as we know it was then in its infancy. For centuries, continental rulers had sent each other envoys on specific missions, but the concept of the resident ambassador was a new one, instituted by some of the Italian states in the fifteenth century. The first ambassador to be accredited to the court of England, in 1483, was from Venice.
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Ferdinand and Isabella sent their first resident ambassador in 1486, but there was no permanent French ambassador until 1528. From 1505, England maintained ambassadors in Spain and Rome.

Most ambassadors were of gentle birth, well educated and not easily intimidated. They were not usually assigned lodgings at court unless the King wished it,
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but stayed in accommodation nearby, which was provided for them at his expense. Giustinian and his fellows were lodged in the Greyhound Inn and three other houses in Greenwich.
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An ambassador was expected to maintain an appearance that reflected his master's status, but most monarchs kept their envoys chronically short of funds, and they often had to make up the shortfall from their own pockets. The King always presented home-going ambassadors with a set of plate for a buffet.

An ambassador bore heavy responsibilities: he had to look to his master's interests; keep him supplied with useful, often sensitive information in minute detail, usually in cipher; and sometimes deal with difficult situations calling for the utmost tact. Some ambassadors became intimately involved in the politics of their host country, and occasionally exceeded their briefs. Nearly all employed spies and informers to seek out state secrets or the skeletons in the closets of the mighty. Many became involved in court intrigues, and a few found themselves in very tricky situations, since diplomatic immunity was not always respected. Wolsey was the worst offender: he curtly ordered Giustinian to show him his dispatches before sending them to Venice, and later grabbed hold of a papal nuncio, Francesco Chieregato, and threatened to have him racked. In 1524, he intercepted the correspondence of the imperial envoy, Louis de Flandre, Sieur de Praet, placed him under house arrest because he did not like what he read, then had him recalled.
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There are frequent references to Henry VIII entertaining ambassadors at dinner in the presence chamber.
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Henry made a habit of taking foreign ambassadors into his confidence. His easy charm and unexpected familiarity ensured that some of them swallowed whole the intelligence he fed them. He once kept a Venetian envoy so long in conversation that the man had to excuse himself because he had developed a pain in his side while standing.
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In 1509, the elderly Badoer was ill for over a month because he could not adjust to the English climate; the King, not knowing this, summoned him, then “wept for very pity at my having come, it seeming to him that I had been taken out of my grave.”
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As he grew older, Henry became less familiar and more inclined to brag and bluster.

Pasqualigo described Henry VIII as “the handsomest potentate I have ever set eyes upon; above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick. He will enter his 25th year the month after next.”
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On May Day, 1515, there took place one of the most celebrated pageants of the reign. Pasqualigo, Giustinian, and the latter's secretary, Niccolo Sagudino, all left accounts of it, describing how, early in the morning, the King sent two noblemen to conduct the ambassadors to Greenwich, where they and the “chief lords of the kingdom” mounted on horseback and escorted the Queen, who was richly attired in the Spanish style, two miles into the country to meet the King. “With Her Majesty were 25 damsels mounted on white palfreys” with embroidered gold housings; the girls “all had dresses slashed with gold lame in very costly trim”; their “sumptuous appearance” made their mistress appear “rather ugly than otherwise.” She was now approaching thirty, and middle-aged by Tudor standards.

The cavalcade rode into a wood, where they found the King mounted on Governatore; he was dressed “entirely in green velvet, cap, doublet, hose, shoes and everything,” and surrounded by two hundred archers of his guard “in a livery of green with bows in their hands”; one of them was got up as Robin Hood, and by his side stood a Mr. Villiers dressed as Maid Marion in a red kirtle. A hundred noblemen on horseback were in attendance. “Directly we came in sight the King commenced making his horse curvet, and performed such feats that I fancied myself looking at Mars.”

After an exciting archery contest, Robin Hood asked the Queen if she and her damsels would like “to enter the good greenwood and see how outlaws lived.” The King inquired if Katherine would dare “venture into a thicket with so many outlaws.” Katherine answered that “where he went, she was content to go.” Henry took her hand and led her, to the sound of trumpets, through the wood to some carefully constructed bowers or labyrinths, decorated with flowers, herbs, and boughs and filled with singing birds “which carolled most sweetly.” Within these bowers, tables had been set for “what they call here a proper good breakfast.”

“Sir, outlaws' breakfast is venison,” Robin Hood informed the King, “and you must be content with such fare as we use.” Henry was happy to comply, and he and Katherine were served game and wine by the archers. “In one of the bowers were triumphal cars on which were singers or musicians, who played on an organ, lute and flutes for a good while during the banquet.”

After a while, the King came over to Pasqualigo and spoke to him in French in the most friendly fashion.

“Talk with me awhile,” he began. “The King of France, is he as tall as I am?”

Pasqualigo replied that “there was but little difference.”

“Is he as stout?”

No, he was not.

“What sort of legs has he?”

“Spare, Your Majesty.” At this, Henry beamed and, pulling aside the skirt of his doublet, slapped a hand on his thigh, saying, “Look here! I have also a good calf to my leg.”

Later that morning, the company proceeded homewards accompanied by “tall pasteboard giants” of Gog and Magog on a pageant car, and singing girls dressed as Lady May and Dame Flora in another car. The cars were “surrounded by His Majesty's guard” and “musicians sounding the whole way on trumpets, drums and other instruments, so that it was an extremely fine triumph and very pompous, and the King in person brought up the rear, in as great state as possible, followed by the Queen, with such a crowd on foot as to exceed, I think, 25,000 persons. On arriving at Greenwich, His Majesty went to mass,” having covered up his doublet with “a handsome gown of green velvet” and “a collar of cut diamonds of immense value.” Afterwards, “the ambassadors had a private audience.”
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That afternoon, the King, Suffolk, Dorset, and Essex were the stars of a tournament. Sagudino, watching, declared, “The show was most beautiful. I never expected to find such pomp, and on this occasion His Majesty exerted himself to the utmost for the sake of Pasqualigo, who is returning to France today, that he may be able to tell King Francis what he has seen in England, especially with regard to His Majesty's own prowess.”
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During the days of jousting that followed, Henry singled out young gentlemen such as Nicholas Carew and his brother-in-law Francis Bryan to support him in the lists, lending them horses and armour, “to encourage all youth to seek deeds of arms.”
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Nicholas Carew was an outstanding jouster who practised constantly and was renowned for his fearless daring. He became so famous that the King provided him with his own tilt at Greenwich, and a hut in which to arm himself and store his equipment. Carew was an expert at the manage; once, after a tournament, he entered the lists with his horse blindfolded, so that the animal should not rear in fright when three men carried into the tiltyard a tree trunk twelve feet long and balanced it on Carew's lance rest. Carew then rode the length of the tiltyard, “most stoutly” couching the tree like a lance, “to the extreme adulation and astonishment of everybody.”
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Two decades later, he was painted by Hans Holbein in full jousting armour, holding a lance.
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Henry knighted him before 1517.

Francis Bryan was a clever and versatile young man who was to gain a reputation as a rake and a hell-raiser. He became one of the King's closest companions, a fellow jouster, gambler, tennis player, and, it was rumoured, accomplice in extramarital affairs. He had come “to the court very young,”
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the son of Sir Thomas Bryan by Margaret Bourchier, a daughter of the scholarly Lord Berners. No portrait survives, so we know nothing of his appearance. Bryan was the typical Renaissance courtier, a poet
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and man of letters who was also to distinguish himself as a soldier, sailor, and diplomat. His irresistible charm disguised an incorrigible intriguer who was two-faced, manipulative, and promiscuous; once, on a trip to Calais, he demanded “a soft bed then a hard harlot.”
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He was full of pent-up energy, highly articulate, and viciously witty. Observers were astonished at the familiarity he used towards the King, both in speaking his mind and telling jokes.
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Bryan was no creature of principle: by altering his loyalties and opinions to conform to the King's changes of policy, he managed to remain in favour throughout the reign.

In 1515, Bryan's other brother-in-law, Sir Henry Guildford, was appointed Master of the Horse in place of Suffolk. Another rising young man was the King's cousin, Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who would become closer to him when Suffolk began to have responsibilities away from court.

The fate of Fray Diego Fernandez, the Queen's confessor, was, however, an example of what could happen to those who fell out of favour. When several members of Katherine's household went to the King to complain that the friar was involved in amorous intrigues with women at court, Henry summoned Fernandez and confronted him with the accusations. The friar angrily denied it, and pointedly added, “If I am badly used, the Queen is still more badly used.” This may have been a reference to Elizabeth Blount, but even if it was not it was still impertinent; the King, who was incensed, had Fernandez brought before an ecclesiastical tribunal, which found him guilty of fornication. Henry then had him summarily deported to Spain, with the friar indignantly protesting that “never, within your kingdom, have I had to do with women. I have been condemned unheard by disreputable rogues.”
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He was replaced by the Spaniard Jorge de Atheca, another Observant friar who, through the Queen's good offices, had been made Bishop of Llandaff. Atheca was a humanist and a member of Thomas More's circle.

In May, Mary Tudor and Suffolk returned to England, and were warmly received by the King, at whose insistence they were married a second time on 13 May in the church of the Observant Friars at Greenwich, before the whole court.
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But the celebrations were low-key “because the kingdom did not approve of the marriage.”
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There were those among the guests who had pressed for Suffolk's execution. Public feeling was evident in one of several copies that were made of a wedding portrait of Mary and Suffolk;
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it showed a court jester whispering to the Duke:

Cloth of gold do not despise
Though thou be matched with cloth of frieze;
Cloth of frieze be not too bold
Though thou be matched with cloth of gold.

 

Wolsey, by saving Suffolk's life through his intervention, had reduced his rival to the status of a client seeking patronage, and the Duke had to learn to cooperate and work more amicably with him. Yet now that he was the King's brother-in-law, “much honour and respect” were paid him, and, after Wolsey, he had “the second seat in His Majesty's Privy Council, which he rarely enters, save to discuss matters of importance.”
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He was often busy elsewhere, looking after the royal interests in East Anglia, which of course suited Wolsey very well.