Henry VIII's Last Victim (12 page)

The wedding took place on the feast of Pentecost 1532, and was attended by various representatives of the nobility.
⁴⁷
Much of the ceremony took place outside the church door, where Surrey stood at Frances’ right hand, signifying that Eve was formed from one of Adam’s left ribs. The banns were read and the vows exchanged, with Frances promising to be ‘bonair [courteous] and buxom [obliging] in bed and at board’. Then the ring was blessed and Surrey, in accordance with the Sarum rite, placed it

upon the thumb of the bride, saying
In the name of the Father
; then upon the second finger, saying
and of the Son
; then upon the third finger, saying
and of the Holy Ghost
; then upon the fourth finger, saying
Amen
, and there let him leave it . . . because in that finger there is a certain vein, which runs from thence as far as the heart.
⁴⁸

The couple then led the congregation into the church and knelt at the altar under a bridal canopy of fine linen. Further prayers and blessings were followed by the Mass. Then the couple rose and Surrey, having received the pax from the priest, conveyed it to his bride, ‘kissing her’, as instructed by the Sarum Missal, which added that ‘neither the bridegroom nor the bride are to kiss anyone else’.
⁴⁹

It was probably with great relief, if their wedding portraits are anything to go by, that the couple went their separate ways after the ceremony. Although they had both reached the official age of consent – fourteen for boys, twelve for girls – Surrey and Frances were nevertheless deemed too young to have sexual relations and it would be three more years until the marriage was consummated. So Surrey returned to Windsor Castle, where the Court soon flocked with its usual fanfare. The record of Henry VIII’s privy purse payments at this time reveal that he indulged his love of hunting, while on one occasion fifteen shillings were given to ‘two poor folk that the King’s grace healed of their disease’.
⁵⁰
This miraculous ability to cure the sick simply by placing a hand on them was known as ‘The King’s Touch’ and was one of the many facets of majesty believed to be ordained by God.

This was not the only divine right of kingship that Henry VIII had been exercising lately. Ever since the summer of 1530, when the germ of the idea of the Royal Supremacy – that is, the supreme jurisdiction of the King of England over the Church in England – was first planted in his mind, Henry had been testing the waters of acceptance and attempting, through Parliament and the efforts of his new favourite Thomas Cromwell, to browbeat the English clergy into acknowledging his spiritual dominance. On 15 May 1532 he scored his first major triumph with the ‘Submission of the Clergy’, whereby Convocation was forced to accept Henry’s arbitration over all matters relating to the English Church. The next day the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, resigned in disgust.

In the country, Anne’s unpopularity showed no sign of abating. Throughout the summer progress of 1532, she encountered a barrage of ‘hooting and hissing’ from the crowd.
⁵¹
But she had invested too much to be put off by a few insults. The phrase embroidered on the coats of her liveried servants summarised her position:
Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne
– It will be thus, whoever grudges it. Despite Anne’s confidence, the Great Matter continued to be a complex and fragile affair. Foreign policy was crucial and Henry’s friendship with Francis
I of France, his only worthwhile ally against the might of the Empire, needed careful nurturing. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Henry had not entirely given up on the Pope, but only the backing of Francis I would enable him to exert sufficient pressure on Clement VII.

On Sunday, 1 September 1532, at a lavish investiture ceremony held at Windsor Castle, Henry VIII created Anne Marchioness of Pembroke. Surrey’s mother was supposed to have borne Anne’s train during the ceremony. The Duke of Norfolk had even arranged for her to have a robe of crimson velvet made for the occasion.
⁵²
But the Duchess refused to betray her Queen by honouring Anne, so Surrey’s sister Mary stepped in. Anne was dressed resplendently, ‘completely covered with the most costly jewels’,
⁵³
and along with the new title she received lands worth £1,000 a year.

At the same time, the Treaty of Mutual Aid with France, previously agreed on 23 June, was ratified and an interview between the two kings was formally confirmed. Anne’s investiture was no frivolous gesture of affection, but a deliberate move to raise her status and improve her respectability in advance of the French meeting. Months of meticulous planning had gone into the summit, which was to be conducted in two stages – the first at French Boulogne and the second at English Calais. Henry VIII demanded the attendance of his nobility, and Richmond and Surrey duly received their summons. Although they probably did not yet know it, their role in the ensuing events would be even more crucial than that of their peers. Once again, Surrey’s future became caught up in someone else’s plans.

^fn1
dukkys
: breasts.

^fn2
cusse
: kiss.

^fn3
Technically Henry VIII was seeking an annulment to his marriage, rather than a divorce, the latter word not being recognised by medieval canon law. However, both words were used interchangeably at the time (MacCulloch,
Thomas Cranmer
, p. 42, note 4).

^fn4
Henry VIII was persuaded that Wolsey had been in the pocket of the Pope, that he had deliberately set out to sabotage the divorce and that since his indictment for
praemunire
he had been intriguing with the King’s enemies. On 4 November 1530 Wolsey was arrested for high treason. He died twenty-five days later on his way to the Tower of London. Broken in body and spirit, he had just enough strength to utter his famous last words: ‘If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs’ (
Two Early Tudor Lives
, p. 183).

^fn5
Richmond had been Henry VII’s title before Bosworth while the Somerset title was even more significant to those who looked for signs of an imminent change in the succession. John Beaufort, Henry VIII’s great-great-grandfather, had been created Earl of Somerset in 1397. He had been born a bastard, but was subsequently legitimised. However, Henry VIII was always guarded about matters relating to the succession. At the same time that Richmond was sent north, Henry arranged for his daughter Mary to head up her own, even larger, establishment in Wales – the traditional training ground for heirs to the throne.

^fn6
fere
: companion.

^fn7
lief
: beloved.

5

A FRENCHMAN AT HEART

THEY SET SAIL
before dawn on Friday, 11 October 1532. Surrey, the first named earl in the official list, was allowed twenty-four servants in his train; his father and Richmond, both dukes, each had forty. In all, the party that accompanied Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn to France included almost three thousand noblemen, knights, esquires, bishops, heralds, courtiers, minstrels and servants.
¹
The Channel crossing from Dover to Calais was notoriously unpredictable, ‘specially in October,’ the chronicler Edward Hall noted, ‘when the seas be rough’.
²
If, as is often supposed, an anonymous painting at Hampton Court entitled
The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover
(plate 10) can be attributed to the journey of 1532, then the seas were indeed choppy on the day that Surrey sailed away from the white cliffs.
³
Fortunately, though, his first Channel crossing proceeded without incident and within five hours the battlements of Calais, the last English outpost in France, came into view.

The original plan had been for Henry and Anne to be entertained on French soil for the first leg of the interview, but it was soon apparent that there was no French lady of suitable rank willing to receive Anne. Eleanor, Queen of France, had been ruled out as she was Catherine of Aragon’s niece, but it was hoped that Francis’ sister, Marguerite of Navarre, would perform the honour. At the last minute, though, she pulled out, pleading ill-health, and Francis’ alternative proposal – that his own mistress greet Anne – was politely, but firmly, rejected. Thus it was as part of an all-male party that Surrey rode to Boulogne on Monday, 21 October. The next four days comprised one long jamboree. ‘As for the great cheer that was there,’ recorded one English guest, ‘no man can express it’,

for the King’s Grace was there entertained all at the French King’s costs and charges. And every day noblemen of France desired our nobles and gentlemen home to their lodgings, where they found their houses richly hanged, great cupboards of plate, sumptuous fare, with singing and playing of all kinds of music. And also there was sent unto our lodgings great fare with all manner of wines for our servants; and our horses’ meat was paid for; and all at their charges . . . And this continued with as great cheer and familiarity as might be.
⁴

On Friday, 25 October Surrey and the rest of the Englishmen escorted Francis and his train to Calais for the second phase of the summit. As they processed through the various towns of the Calais Pale, three thousand shot were discharged from the English guns, whereas at Boulogne, the English crowed, the salute had ‘passed not two hundred shot’.
⁵
This was the first of many attempts made by Henry VIII in the next few days to outshine his French counterpart.

Ever since New Year’s Day 1515, when Francis, duc de Valois, became King of France, a title to which Henry VIII also laid ancient claim, an intense rivalry had characterised the two kings’ relationship. ‘Is he as tall as I am?’ Henry had quizzed the Venetian ambassador in May 1515, to which he received the reply that there was little difference. ‘Is he as stout?’ The Venetian assured him that Francis was not, but Henry continued to fish for compliments:

‘What sort of legs has he?’

I replied, ‘Spare’.

Whereupon he opened the front of his doublet, and placing his hand on his thigh, said ‘Look here! and I have also a good calf to my leg.’
⁶

Four years later another Venetian ambassador noted that Henry VIII was ‘a great deal handsomer than the King of France’, but it is telling that ‘on hearing that Francis I wore a beard, he allowed his own to grow’.
⁷

The interviews in October 1532 brought back memories of the celebrated Field of the Cloth of Gold of 1520, when Henry and Francis had shone in magnificence. Both kings had spent enormous sums, but Henry’s extravagance had appeared obvious and gaudy in comparison to Francis’ easy style. Worse for Henry had been his defeat at Francis’ hands in a very public wrestling match, an ignominy not to be repeated
in 1532, when Henry wisely employed a team of Cornish wrestlers to represent him.

The interviews at Boulogne and Calais were not meant to be as ostentatious as they had been twelve years earlier. The levels of display and the numbers of attendants were limited according to strict protocol and only the kings and the ladies were permitted to wear cloth of gold and silver.
⁸
But Henry’s competitive spirit was not easily subdued. The French had already snubbed Anne; they would not, under any circumstance, be allowed to show Henry up again. ‘If the French King made good cheer to the King of England and his train at Boulogne,’ chronicled Hall, ‘I assure you he and his train were requited at Calais, for the plenty of wild foul, venison, fish and all other things which were there, it was marvel to see, for the King’s Officers of England had made preparation in every place, so that the Frenchmen were served with such multitude of diverse fishes this Friday and Saturday that the masters of the French King’s household much wondered at the provision.’
⁹

In all, Henry spent around £6,000 on the Calais interview. On Sunday, 27 October there was bull and bear baiting, followed by a banquet in a specially prepared chamber. ‘To tell the riches of the cloths of estates, the basins and other vessels which was there occupied, I assure you my wit is insufficient, for there was nothing occupied that night, but all of gold.’
¹⁰
After three courses, the first of forty dishes, the second of sixty and the third of seventy, Anne Boleyn finally made her entrance accompanied by seven of her ladies, all ‘gorgeously apparelled, with visors on their faces’.
¹¹
Anne danced with Francis a while until Henry could contain his excitement no longer and tore off her mask to reveal to the French King and all the onlookers the identity of his dancing partner. Then, as the guests returned to the dance, Anne and Francis retired to a quiet corner to talk.