The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracy, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant (26 page)

As to what we have written in commendation of the son of our cousin the duke of Norfolk for his eagerness in learning the arts of war, he is shown such an excellent example of your men that he cannot fail to profit thereby.

All of our side respect … his person and deservedly so, the courage of the father and the noble nature of the son.
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He also distinguished himself during Henry’s campaign in France, being badly wounded in an assault, under artillery fire, during the siege of Montreuil in 1544
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and after convalescence in England, in September 1545 he succeeded his father as commander-in-chief of the English land and naval forces in France and captain of the captured town of Boulogne. His frequent, overly optimistic dispatches home impressed Henry, now back in England, with his courage and continually nurtured the king’s hopes of both military glory and victory in France.

But Boulogne was an expensive place to defend, the exchequer was rapidly running out of money and Henry’s hard-pressed Council in London were now anxiously seeking any method to abandon the town without losing face – or, more pertinently, without antagonising the glory-seeking king. Wily Norfolk warned his son:

Have yourself in await [beware] that you animate not the king too much for the keeping of Boulogne, for who so doth at length shall get small thanks. Look well to what answer you make to the letter from us of the council. Confirm not the enterprises contained in them.
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Surrey’s martial fame was short-lived, however. On 7 January 1546, he intercepted a large French resupply force of 3,000 foot soldiers and 600 cavalry at St Etienne, near Boulogne, and was roundly defeated, largely through his own incompetence and impetuosity, losing fourteen of his captains amongst the 205 English dead (including his own second-in-command) and, shamefully, a number of standards or flags.
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He instantly fell out of Henry’s favour and two months later, when he wrote seeking permission for his wife to join him on campaign, he received a peremptory ‘no’ – the king pointing out, with some asperity, that ‘time of service, which will bring some trouble and disquiet, [and] not meet for women’s imbecilities, [now] approaches’.
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On 21 March, he was relieved of his command as lieutenant-general and Captain of Boulogne, being replaced by the Earl of Hertford (the former Viscount Beauchamp) of all people. Sir William Paget, the king’s secretary, wrote helpfully to Surrey:

The latter part of your letter, touching the intended enterprise of the enemy, gives me occasion to write to you, frankly, my poor opinion; trusting your lordship will take the same in no worse part than I mean it.

As your lordship wishes, so his majesty wants to do something for the damaging of the enemy and for that purpose has appointed to send over an army shortly and that my lord of Hertford shall be his highness’ lieutenant general … whereby I fear your authority … shall be touched.
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Wise Paget urged Surrey to seek another appointment to regain Henry’s favour:

In my opinion, you should do well to make sure by times to his majesty to appoint you to some place of service in the army, as to the
captainship of the forward or rearward [forces] or to such place of honour as should be meet for you, for so should you be where knowledge and experience may be gotten. Whereby you should be better able hereafter to serve and also to have … occasion to do some notable service in revenge of your men, at the last encounter with the enemies, which should be to your reputation in the world.
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The choice of Hertford as the new military supremo could not have been more unfortunate. Surrey had long nurtured a deep grudge against the Seymours, whom he regarded as hardly of noble blood and mere loud upstarts. This disdain had not prevented his earlier foolhardy attempts to woo, despite her vigorous objections, Anne Stanhope, wife of Sir Edward Seymour, then Viscount Beauchamp, now Earl of Hertford and a brother of the dead queen. This incident, which lay behind the unseemly fisticuffs at Windsor described earlier in this chapter, merely poured fuel on the fire of hatred burning deep within Surrey’s heart, flames that were again fanned by Hertford’s brother Thomas urging harsh punishment upon him when he came up before the Privy Council in 1543 for his nocturnal jolly japes in the streets and alleys of the City of London. To cap it all, after Hertford’s appointment in France displacing Surrey, Hertford announced allegations against Surrey of corrupt misuse of office in Boulogne and immediately purged many of his appointees.
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‘There are in Boulogne,’ Surrey wrote, angrily denying the claims, ‘too many witnesses that Henry of Surrey was never corrupted by personal considerations and that his hand never close[d] upon a bribe.’ Those slights and prejudices were still uppermost in Surrey’s mind and he rejected Paget’s helpful advice and returned home in June 1546, vengeful and full of angry spleen.

But the Seymours struck first. Now or never, they had to make their bid for absolute power and finally eliminate the threat posed by the conservative faction at court, led by Norfolk and Surrey since Gardiner had been neutralised. It was the earl’s scarcely suppressed ambition to become protector of Prince Edward after Henry’s approaching death and to restore the nobility of England to its rightful place next to the
throne that had to be smothered. With Henry ailing and his end clearly not far off, it was time to make a move, but still utilising the king’s failing power and ruthlessness. As reformers, they were unlikely to use the charge of heresy to silence Surrey. The means was found in Sir Richard Southwell, an MP for Norfolk and former crony of Cromwell’s, who told the Privy Council on 2 December that he had information about Surrey ‘that touched his fidelity to the king’.

Why Henry acted so suddenly now against Surrey and Norfolk remains something of a mystery. A seventeenth-century writer pointed out that ‘it was notorious how the king had not only withdrawn much of his wonted favour, but promised immunity to such as would discover anything concerning [Surrey]’.
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Henry’s desire to destroy him had become passionate and despite his deteriorating health, he took an avid personal interest in the proceedings against father and son (if not directing them), sometimes from his sickbed. Possibly it was a combination of the veiled threat posed to the Tudor succession by the Howards’ royal ancestors and the allegations that they would seek the regency of the kingdom after his death that stirred Henry’s dark suspicions, awakened fears about what his young son would face after ascending to the throne and led him to listen attentively as the poisonous rumours were whispered in his sometimes fevered ear.

The inevitable arrest came a few days later. Henry ‘very secretly’ ordered Sir Anthony Wingfield, Captain of the Royal Guard, to seize Surrey as he was coming to the Palace of Westminster:

The next day, after dinner, [Wingfield] saw the earl coming into the palace whilst he was walking in the great hall downstairs.

He had a dozen halberdiers waiting in an adjoining corridor and approaching the earl, said: ‘Welcome, my lord, I wish to ask you to intercede for me with the duke your father in a matter in which I need his favour, if you will deign to listen to me.’

So he led him to the corridor and the halberdiers took him and without attracting notice put him into a boat.
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Surrey was taken to Ely Place, Wriothesley’s house in Holborn, on the western edge of the city, for interrogation, initially about a letter written by him to a gentleman that was ‘full of threats’, according to Francis van der Delft, the Spanish ambassador. Southwell was also being held there – the hot-headed earl said he would fight him ‘in his shirt’ over his accusations – before Surrey was moved publicly through the streets, under close guard, to the Tower of London on Sunday 12 December. During that painful journey, his escort pushing aside the crowds, he was reported – understandably – to be ‘much downcast’. Norfolk, who was out of London when Surrey was arrested, hastily wrote letters to Westminster to establish why his son had been taken into custody. These were naturally intercepted and closely scanned for possible evidence against him. He did not have long to wait for an answer. A death warrant was plainly writ large on the walls of the Tower for him, too.

Norfolk was duly summoned to court and later that Sunday also committed to the grim fortress on the eastern side of London. He was taken by river, after suffering the humiliation of his Garter insignia and white staff, or wand of office, as Lord High Treasurer being ceremoniously removed – ironically the same disgrace he had inflicted on Thomas Cromwell more than six years earlier. The duke ‘both in the barge and on entering the Tower’ publicly declared ‘no person had ever been carried thither before who was a more loyal servant [of the king] than he was and always had been’. His vociferous pleas were politely noted but pointedly ignored.

The fall of the house of Howard had been very carefully planned, timed and executed. That same Sunday, between three and four in the afternoon, Henry’s trusted courtiers – the brutish John Gates of the Privy Chamber and his brother-in-law Sir Wymond Carew – tellingly joined by a released Southwell, had departed London post-haste for Norfolk. Their mission was firstly to seek out damning evidence against father and son, and secondly the securing and careful listing of their possessions for later seizure by the crown. They arrived at Kenninghall, Norfolk’s richly furnished home set in 700 acres of deer park, at
daybreak on the Tuesday morning after a ride of about eighty miles via Thetford. Gestapo-like, they hammered on the doors of the sleeping household to gain admission to the great house. Their dawn arrival and their harsh, barked orders came as a terrible shock to the occupants: news of the incarcerations in the Tower had not yet reached Kenninghall. Gates reported to Henry that night:

As the steward was absent taking musters, we called the almoner and first taking order for the gates and back doors, desired to speak with the Duchess of Richmond and Elizabeth Holland who were only just risen but came to us without delay in the dining chamber.

We can easily guess the horrified reaction of Surrey’s sleepy sister and Norfolk’s tousled, blowsy mistress at the sight of the mud-stained and armed men standing breathless before them in this dawn raid, determined to extract incriminating information.

On hearing how the matter stood, the duchess was sore perplexed, trembling and like to fall down, but recovering, she reverently upon her knees humbled herself to the king, saying that although constrained by nature to love her father … and her brother, which she noted to be a rash man, she would conceal nothing but declare in writing all she could remember.

Gates advised her to use truth and frankness in her answers and, rather disingenuously, not to despair. The three men then examined her coffers and closet ‘but found nothing worth sending, all very bare and her jewels sold to pay her debts’. Norfolk’s long-time mistress was a different matter, however.

We then searched Elizabeth Holland and found girdles, beads, buttons of gold, pearls and rings set with many stones, whereof they are making a book [inventory].

‘Trusty men’ were sent on to other houses owned by the family in Norfolk and Suffolk ‘to prevent embezzlement’ and were told not to forget ‘Elizabeth Holland’s house, newly made’. The steward and almoner at
Kenninghall were made responsible for all the plate and ‘such money as remains of his last account’.
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In his next letter, Gates promised the king, he would report ‘further of these matters and also of the duke’s jewels and lands’. Tudor royal investigations were nothing if not thorough and searching.

Back in his room in the Constable’s lodgings at the Tower, a puzzled, frightened and lonely Norfolk wrote a grovelling letter to Henry the day after his incarceration, on 13 December. He complained:

Some great enemy has informed the king untruly, for God knows, he [Norfolk] never had one untrue thought against the king or his succession and can no more guess the charge against him than a child born that night.

The duke did not know against whom he had offended, ‘unless it were such as are angry with me for being quick against such as have been accused for sacramentaries’ (the religious radicals). And, whilst on the subject of religion,

I have told your majesty and many others that knowing your virtue and knowledge, I shall stick to whatever laws you make and for this cause many have borne me ill will, as do appear by casting libels abroad against me.

Significantly, then, he believed that his sudden incarceration stemmed from his conservative religious beliefs.
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Pathetically, Norfolk also begged that he should recover Henry’s favour – the king could now take all his lands and possessions – and asked to be told of the charges he faced.

His early suspicions must have been confirmed by his initial interrogation, which focused on politico-religious issues. As for the pope, declared Norfolk,

if I had twenty lives, I would rather have spent them all than he should have any power in this realm … And since he has been the king’s enemy, no man has felt and spoken more against him both here and in France and also to many Scottish gentlemen.
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The ghost of Cromwell and his horrible fate haunted the duke, sitting alone in the heart of the forbidding Tower: ‘My lords, I trust you think Cromwell’s service and mine are not [to] be like … He was a false man and surely I am a true poor gentleman,’ he told the Council. Time and again, Norfolk desperately repeated his plea to meet and face down his still unknown accusers, ‘for I will hide nothing. Never gold was tried better than [by] fire and water than I have been’.

He conjured up in his lugubrious mind the faces of all his many enemies during the long, turbulent reign of Henry Tudor. There was Wolsey, who ‘[for] fourteen years [sought] to destroy me’; Cromwell, of course, his great adversary; Edward, Third Duke of Buckingham,
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‘of all men living, he hated me the most’; Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, husband of his sister, who ‘confessed the same and wished he had found means to thrust his dagger in me’. Then there was the ‘malice borne me by both my nieces whom it pleased the king to marry’, a malice remembered by those still in authority in the Tower.
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