Henry (22 page)

Did they reflect that Erasmus’s flattering letters of dedication also gave them a link to Mountjoy, and through him to the heir to the throne and their master-to-be?

Next door, in the king’s private apartments, it was a very different story. If Hugh Denys knew of Henry and Mountjoy’s labours over Erasmian Latin, and – still more abstruse – Erasmian ideas, he would have dismissed them as sublime mysticism and nonsense. For Denys was a practical man who had risen from a modest West Country gentry background by getting his hands dirty. Indeed, it might be said he had got them very dirty, since, as groom of the stool, he had charge of the royal close-stool or commode, and assisted the king when he relieved himself on it.
15

The establishment of the secret chamber greatly expanded both the groom’s importance and his portfolio.
Denys became the head officer of the new department. He controlled access to the king. He assumed responsibility for the everyday necessities and the little luxuries that eased the royal burden – for Henry’s father, despite his soldier’s toughness, was a sensitive soul and loved his creature comforts. Finally, Denys became the king’s personal treasurer, running an account that later became known as the privy purse.

And this was most important of all, since Henry VII loved his money even more than his personal comfort.

Henry VII’s tight-fistedness was a family trait which he inherited from his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who was as grasping as she was pious. It was intensified by the penury of exile. And it was a wholly justified reaction to the chaos and inefficiency of the royal finances at the beginning of his reign, when, it may be recalled, he had had to plead with his own exchequer for the few tens of pounds needed to induct Henry into the Garter in proper style.

But in the last few years of his reign, avarice was erected into a policy. Polydore Vergil, the sophisticated Italian whom Henry VII himself commissioned to write a new-style history of England, dated the change, like so much else, to the earl of Suffolk’s bid for the throne.
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The bid had failed resoundingly. But, even in its failure, it showed how shallow was Henry VII’s hold on the loyalties of the elite. The king drew an obvious conclusion: he had repeatedly tried and failed to win loyalty by fair means; now he would compel it by foul.

The result was a reign of fiscal terror.

The means employed were two financial instruments known as ‘bonds’ and ‘recognizances’. Bonds and recognizances (the differences between them are technical and need not concern us here) are agreements with a penalty clause for non-compliance. They were used in a variety of ways. Some of these – such as to guarantee payment of a debt to the king or ensure the proper performance of an office – were more or less legitimate. Others were not. Most characteristic and objectionable was Henry VII’s practice of linking them to the imposition of fines. Individuals were fined, often astronomic amounts, for offences real or imaginary. A portion of the fine was levied immediately, and the remainder suspended. The victim was then required to acknowledge his indebtedness to the king for the full amount, and to enter into bonds to pay it if he broke whatever conditions the king or his agents might impose.

Thenceforward he was at the king’s mercy, and faced financial ruin if he stepped out of line.

These arrangements were assessed and enforced by a sub-committee or ‘by-court’ of the king’s council called the council-learned-at-law, whose dominant members were Sir Richard Empson, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and Edmund Dudley, who became the first president of the council. Denys, whose intimate attendance on the king meant that he knew better than most which way the wind was blowing, had been an early associate of the two lawyers:
they plucked plums of patronage together and picked up cheap the property of those who had been forced to sell by the king’s policies.

But in the autumn of 1508, Denys himself moved centre-stage. By this time, Henry VII had made an apparently full recovery from his serious illness of the spring; he had also, by a policy of rigorous quarantine, escaped the newly rampant sweating sickness. Rejuvenated by all this, he threw himself into the business of government with fresh enthusiasm. According to André, at this time ‘the king totally devoted himself to the approaching betrothal’ of Henry’s little sister Mary to Charles, son and heir of the Archduke Philip, and bought ‘many precious goods from Italian merchants’.
17
In fact Henry VII had other, much more serious, matters on his mind, as he had decided on a wholesale extension of his policy of fiscal terrorism.

Hitherto, the objectives of his policy had been as much political as financial. This meant that his victims had largely been limited to the elite, who had the capacity to make trouble: they were, Vergil notes, ‘not the poor but the wealthy, churchmen, rich magnates, even the intimates of the king himself’.
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Now Henry VII decided to cast his net much wider. The post of surveyor of the king’s prerogative was created, and charged with the rigorous, universal enforcement of the king’s rights as head of the feudal system. To make sure this happened, local commissioners were appointed under the surveyor, Edward Belknap, to enforce the policy on a county-by-county basis.
19

All the elements of an alternative system of taxation – permanent, nation-wide and exempt from either parliamentary authority or scrutiny – were now in place.

But what is most interesting is the fate of Belknap’s profits. The terms of his appointment are silent on this, but it soon became clear that they were to be paid over directly to Hugh Denys as a kind of private royal slush fund. Where they were paid is interesting too. Some were handed over at Greenwich or Richmond. But the private
maisons de retraite
, Wanstead and Hanworth, figure largely too. And it was at either Wanstead or Greenwich that Henry’s mentor, Lord Mount-joy, found himself caught up in the toils of Hugh Denys and the surveyor of the prerogative when he was required to enter into bonds for
£
320 to repay an old debt to the king. The bonds were for more than double the original amount, which in any case Mountjoy had not borrowed from the king but from a third party who had subsequently been outlawed.
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Belknap handed over a further tranche of ‘fines assessed by the king’s highness’ to Denys at Hanworth at an unknown date in February 1509. Then, suddenly, his account book breaks off, unfinished and incomplete.
21

This time Henry VII
was
dying. And he knew it.

T
HE EXTENDED
C
HRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS OF
1508 marked a high-water mark for the Tudor dynasty, with the proxy marriage of Henry’s sister Mary, aged twelve, to the Archduke Philip’s nine-year-old son, Charles. The union, according to the printed English account rushed out by the royal printer, Richard Pynson, was ‘the most notable alliance and greatest marriage of Christendom’.
1

For once propaganda spoke no more than the truth, as Charles was heir to the greatest agglomeration of territories since his namesake, Charlemagne: from his grandfather Maximilian he would inherit the Holy Roman Empire and Austria; from his grandmother Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold, would come Burgundy and the Netherlands; while through his Spanish grandparents, Ferdinand and Isabella, he was destined to rule not only Castile and
Aragon, but also a rapidly growing empire in the New World.

‘If God send him life’, as the pamphlet noted with proper caution. It would also require something of a political miracle as well to bring such diverse and distant regions, each with its own distinct identity and traditions, to accept a common sovereign.

But for Henry VII the mere prospect was enough, and – with Prince Henry as the ever-dutiful son at his side – he pulled out all the stops to make the celebrations worthy of the event.

The festivities were divided, like the whole royal itinerary at this time, between Greenwich and Richmond. They began at Greenwich in early December, when the Burgundian ambassadors were splendidly received in formal audience. The king sat under a canopy of cloth-of-gold, with Prince Henry on his left hand at the head of the lay nobility. Complimentary speeches were exchanged; then the final terms were hammered out. There followed a few days’ interval as the court moved to Richmond for the proxy wedding. This took place on the seventeenth. Mary, schooled with the same teachers as her brother Henry, acquitted herself well, speaking her lengthy vows ‘perfectly and distinctly in the French tongue … without any bashing of countenance, stop or interruption’.

It was a performance which surprised many and – we are told – reduced not a few to tears. Then rings were exchanged and fanfares blown.
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* * *

Three days of jousting followed, after which the court returned once more to Greenwich to celebrate Christmas. But pleasure had lasted long enough. There was work to be done; fines to be levied and money to be lovingly counted and bagged. Above all, perhaps, there was Belknap and his new account. As soon as the twelve days of Christmas were over, the royal barge took Henry VII upstream once more. He stayed a day or two at Richmond, and then gratefully sought the privacy of Hanworth. And there, on 27 January 1509, Belknap handed over another instalment of ‘fines before assessed by the king’s highness’ to his colleague Hugh Denys. The king checked the figures and the cash and made a marginal note: ‘In hand paid
£
125 11 shillings 8 pence.’ Then he put his sign manual: ‘HR’.

All was well.

A week or two later illness struck the king again. At first he tried to continue as usual. He remained at Hanworth. He assessed more fines. And once more Belknap handed over the bulk of the cash to Denys.

But the king did not countersign. He was getting worse. And worse.
3

Ash Wednesday fell on 21 February in 1509. For the faithful, it was a day of solemn reflection which marks the beginning of Lent and its preparation for Easter. Henry VII had always been punctilious about the externals of religion. But now there was real, fearful urgency. His confessor was summoned
and the king made confession ‘with all diligence and great repentance’. Then, fresh from the sacrament of absolution, he made three solemn promises. First, he promised to make ‘a true reformation’ of all who administered justice, ‘that justice from henceforward truly and indifferently might be executed in all causes’. Second, he swore to give promotions in the church only to those who were ‘virtuous and well learned’. And third, he undertook to give a general pardon to his people.
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The king had felt the hand of death, and feared that God would judge him as harshly as he had judged others.

But his confessor comforted him and assured him that it was not too late – with the church’s help – to make amends. The king’s devotions now became more and more extravagant – almost indeed with an edge of desperation. When he undertook penance, ‘he wept and sobbed by the space of three quarters of an hour’. When he took communion, he removed his hat, knelt and crawled to receive it. And when he was beyond swallowing, he kissed the very foot of the monstrance in which the consecrated wafer lay, ‘with so many knockings and beatings of his breast’.
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Evidently, he felt he had much to repent.

He also vowed, as he had not quite given up on this world, to turn over a new leaf. He moved from Hanworth, with its associations of covert jiggery-pokery, back to Richmond. He said repeatedly to ‘his secret servants … that if it please God
to send him life they should see him a new changed man’. And, as an earnest, he began to detach himself from some of his most notorious agents of extortion. Denys, for instance, suddenly found himself frozen out: his funds dried up and his accounts stuttered to a halt. He might even have been suspended from his post as groom of the stool.
6

Instead, Richard Weston appears to have taken over as acting head of the secret chamber. He was well known to Prince Henry, having frequently borne his father’s gifts to him. He was an enemy of Empson – or at least could be relied on to try to frustrate his schemes – and a friend of Warham, Foxe and ‘Mr Guildford’ – that is, most likely, Henry Guildford, who was one of the carvers and cupbearers in Henry’s princely household.
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Were these alignments a portent of things to come?

The king’s final agony lasted – it was reported with grim precision – ‘by the space of twenty-seven hours together’. It started at about 10 p.m. on Friday, 20 April. As soon as ‘he well perceived that he began utterly to fail’, Henry VII summoned his confessor once more to administer the last rites. Slowly and painfully, ‘as he might for weakness’, he offered every part of his body to the saving touch of the holy oils. He heard the mass of the Blessed Virgin, ‘to whom always … he had a … special devotion’. He adored the crucifix, embracing it and kissing it. Finally, overcome with pain and fear, ‘with all his might and power, he called upon the name of Our Lord’.
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At some point, he also summoned Henry. ‘He … gave him fatherly and godly exhortation, committing unto him the laborious governance of this realm.’ No doubt. But reports of the specifics of what Henry VII said to his son vary – especially in the matter of Catherine of Aragon. Or rather they directly contradict each other. Two members of the council informed the Spanish ambassador that ‘on his deathbed Henry VII had assured his son that he was free to marry whom he chose’. However, Henry himself tells the opposite story. He ‘was charged’, he informed Margaret of Savoy in June 1509, ‘by [his father], on his death bed, among other good counsels, to fulfil the old treaty with Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain by taking their daughter Catherine in marriage’.
9

Whom to believe?

In one sense, it does not matter. For Henry VII’s power, which alone gave force to his words, was almost over. ‘At 11 o’clock in the night’, and after a final struggle, he died on Saturday, 21 April.
10

From that moment, Henry was king. At least, he would have been if anyone outside the inmost circle of the court and council had been told that his father was dead.

Instead, the death was kept a profound secret for the next two days. During this time, the rituals of the court continued as though nothing had happened. On 23 April, St George’s Day, the heralds cried the customary ‘largesse’ in the name of ‘King Henry VII’, while Henry went to evensong and
supper, ‘all which time he was served and named as prince and not as king’.

Such secrecy was possible, of course, only because of the establishment of the ‘secret’ or privy chamber. This had created an inner world in which the king might live – or die – unobserved by all but the select few. This also meant that the staff of the privy chamber had a crucial role to play in events – as was shown by the extraordinary charade enacted in the early afternoon of St George’s Day in the king’s presence chamber at Richmond.

This starred Richard Weston, groom of the privy chamber and probably its acting head. The door of the privy chamber opened and Weston came out. ‘With a smiling countenance’ he summoned William Warham, the archbishop of Canterbury and lord chancellor, and certain other lords ’to come to sp [eak] to the king’. They entered as requested and ‘remained in the king’s secret chamber a good pause’. Then they emerged, also ‘with good countenance … showing no great manner of mourning that men might perceive’.
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What was going on? Thomas Wriothesley, Garter king of arms and author of this account of Henry VII’s death and funeral, states that the delay in announcing the king’s death was to allow time for the leading councillors to gather – for ‘the substance of the lords [to be] assembled’. That was part of the story, no doubt. But it can hardly be the whole truth.
Instead, it seems certain that the king’s deathbed had also turned into a fight to the death among the king’s councillors.

Within the next few hours, the issue was decided. Barely had Henry finished eating his supper as prince of Wales than his father’s death was ‘published’ at court. Immediately, preparations for the king’s funeral began. They were supervised by a high-powered team of councillors headed by Lady Margaret Beaufort, who had hurried to court as soon as it was clear that her son was failing, while Wriothesley supplied the necessary expertise and knowledge of precedents.
12

The following day, Tuesday, 24 April, the ordinary forms of the ending of one reign and the beginning of the next were gone through with. Henry was proclaimed King Henry VIII in London in the morning, and after dinner at Richmond (that is, about noon) he left for the capital to take up residence in the Tower of London.

There was no need to use the royal barge, as had been the practice under the invalid Henry VII. Instead, in the bloom of youth and energy, Henry rode the dozen or so miles to take possession of the Tower – and his kingdom.
13

But not everything had changed. Residence in the Tower was indeed traditional at the start of a reign. But it could also provide cover, as it had done so often under Henry VII, to trap an over-mighty subject or a suspected traitor.

And it did so once more. ‘By a politick mean’, according to one account, or by an ‘early in the morning’ arrest, according
to another, Empson and Dudley were brought to the Tower, where they were imprisoned on charges of treason.
14

The coup round Henry VII’s deathbed had achieved its first aim.