Mary Rose (13 page)

The success of Suffolk’s diplomacy compensated to some extent for his
faux pas
over the marriage. In addition to paying the balance of the English King’s pension, as Louis had earlier agreed, Francis accepted an obligation to pay Mary £40,000 a year as her dower, and to repay the 200,000 crowns which she had brought with her in dowry. He also allowed her to take back to England all the jewels and plate which she had brought with her on her arrival in France, although not those which had been given to her subsequently. The fact that the Mirror of Napes had already been sent to England remained as a bone of contention, and nothing was said about the future of Tournai, which the French King had been keen to recover.
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These matters being settled, it was intimated to the Duke and his wife that the King’s anger was sufficiently mitigated to allow them to return to England, and they left Paris on 16 April. Before going, Mary signed receipts for 20,000 crowns in travelling expenses, 200,000 crowns for her dowry, and for the Mirror of Naples. The fact that she was required to sign a separate receipt for the latter indicates its importance as an unresolved issue. By this time Mary and Suffolk had undergone a second and more public wedding in Paris on 31 March, and Louise of Savoy noted in her journal that the Duke, ‘homme de bonne condition’ whom Henry had sent as ambassador to Francis, had wedded Mary, the widow of Louis XII.
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There could now be no denying the fact of their union, and Louise, no doubt with a sense of relief, noted their departure for England just over a fortnight later. Mary, however, was still sore that she had been required to seek the King’s forgiveness for an action which she believed he had sanctioned in advance. On 30 April, just before leaving Calais, she had written to her brother with some indignation, reminding him again that she had been ‘contented and agreeable’ to her marriage with Louis only on the condition that should she chance to outlive him ‘I might with your good will freely choose and dispose myself to any other marriage at my liberty’ without incurring his displeasure, ‘wherunto ye condescended and granted as you well know’. Whatever promises Suffolk had made, Mary clearly felt that the King was equally bound, and that his indignation was not conducive to his honour.
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Whether he was moved by her reprimand or not, when the couple landed at Dover on 2 May, the King awaited them at nearby Birling House, with a great and honourable retinue, and he graciously accepted her explanation that she had been entirely responsible for what had happened in France. The Howards, who had hoped to seize the opportunity created by the King’s rage to break Suffolk’s special relationship with Henry, were disappointed of their prey, and constrained to feign friendship, which probably deceived no one but was necessary to the harmony of the court.
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Wolsey, meanwhile, was anxious to take the credit for having smoothed the ruffled feathers of his indignant master. He had played on Henry’s greed, and set up a financial settlement with the Suffolks which placed them at the King’s mercy for the foreseeable future. Mary was required to pay £2,000 a year for the next twelve years, or until the sum of £24,000 had been discharged, while the Duke had to forfeit the wardship of Elizabeth Lisle, and they were jointly bound in the huge recognisance of £100,000 to give up all the plate and jewels which the Queen Dowager had received.
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The jewels were indeed surrendered, but the repayments of the debt were but slackly enforced. According to one account only £1,324 had actually been paid by 1521, which suggests that Wolsey was satisfied with having made his point, and was not anxious to pursue them.
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These matters being settled to the King’s satisfaction, the couple were then married for a third time in a formal ceremony held at Greenwich on 13 May in the presence of the King and Queen. Mary was now, in the sight of the court and of the world, the Duchess of Suffolk.

The man to whom she had committed herself had risen through the ranks of the aristocracy. His grandfather, Sir William Brandon, had been the first of his line to emerge from the obscurity of a Norfolk merchant family. He had done so in the service of John de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, who had died in 1476. The Duke had rewarded him with local offices, with a seat in Parliament, and with a marriage to Elizabeth Wingfield, the daughter of a more senior Mowbray servant. Before the Duke died, and presumably with his blessing, Brandon secured a place in the service of the Crown, first of Henry VI and subsequently of Edward IV.
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After Mowbray’s death, he remained in the royal service, and like most of the Duke’s affinity, did not move on to serve the Howards. Like many of Edward’s household retainers, he gambled on the overthrow of Richard III and his eldest son, another William, died fighting for Henry at Bosworth. Sir William himself enjoyed a trusted place in the local government of Suffolk until his death in 1491, when his second son, Sir Robert, inherited his East Anglian lands and influence.
²⁸
Charles, who was born in 1484, was the son of that William who had died at Bosworth, but thanks to the accidents of mortality inherited virtually no lands. His uncle Robert, who was by all accounts a quarrelsome individual, was little help to him beyond giving him an introduction into Suffolk gentry society. His mother had been an heiress, but her property passed on her death to her son by a previous marriage, and Charles’s attempts to recover that small proportion which should have come to him were unsuccessful. Neither in 1504 nor 1509 did he hold that £40 a year in lands which would have required him to seek the honour of knighthood. Charles owed his introduction to the court to his younger uncle, Sir Thomas, who had followed his father in the royal household. Thomas had become an Esquire of the Body by 1489, and in the 1490s had been an extremely active courtier, taking part in jousts and in the King’s revels. He became Master of the Horse in 1501, and in that capacity commanded quite a lot of patronage.
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One of the beneficiaries of this was his nephew, Charles, who attended on Prince Arthur in some unnamed capacity at his wedding, and shortly afterwards appears as a sewer in the royal household. By the time he was twenty-one, in 1505, he had become Master of the Horse to the Earl of Essex who was a prominent courtier, and played a leading part in the jousts which were organised in 1506. He was made an Esquire of the Body in 1507, and seems to have become friendly with the Prince of Wales at that point.
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Perhaps because of this, as well as his connection with Essex, when Henry VIII established his band of spears in October 1509, with Essex as Lieutenant, Charles Brandon became a member. This in itself was of no great significance, but by that time he had become close to two of Henry’s other favourites, Thomas Knyvett and Edward Howard, and the three of them featured prominently in the numerous court jousts which were organised between 1509 and 1511, usually jousting on the King’s side.
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By the time that his uncle Sir Thomas died in January 1510, Charles was well established in the King’s favour in his own right, and the death of his one-time patron made no significant difference to him.

The martial ardour of this trio probably encouraged the King in his pursuit of war with France in 1512, and certainly did nothing to restrain him, but the actual development of hostilities did not correspond with the chivalric dream. At the beginning of August 1512 Brandon and Sir Henry Guildford were entrusted with the command of troops for Sir Edward Howard’s attack on Brittany. However, the ship in which they were placed was unable to intervene when Sir Thomas Knyvett’s
Regent
was grappled by the
Cordeliere
out of Brest. The
Cordeliere
’s magazine exploded, and Knyvett, along with most of his crew were killed.
³²
He had been granted that command as a special mark of royal favour, and his death affected his companions deeply. Howard indeed vowed that he would never look the King in the face again until he had avenged him, a vow which led indirectly to his own death in action in the following year. He tried, with inadequate support, to take out the French galleys which were defending the Breton coast, and was thrust over the side and drowned.
³³
Henry was deeply distressed by the loss of two of his three chosen companions, but the consequences for the survivor were wholly beneficial. In the short term he was equally distressed, acting as executor for his ‘special trusty friend’ and receiving the chain which had held the Lord Admiral’s whistle until he had cast it away shortly before his death. However, with the departure of Howard, Charles had also lost the only man who consistently outshone him both in the court and in war, and it was natural that in consequence he should become the King’s closest friend. From 1512 to 1514 he took on the distinctive role which that position implied. No one took part in more disguisings or jousts than he did, and no one was so closely matched with Henry in apparel. It is significant that both Howard and Brandon were elected to the Order of the Garter on 23 April 1513, but because of the former’s continued absence at sea, he did not receive his award, and on account of his death in early May never achieved it.
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In both April and May Brandon received important grants from the King, and set the seal upon his now unique position. It would appear that he had already secured supremacy in the lists, because Howard’s failure to return to the court after Knyvett’s death had left him without a serious rival. On 1 June 1512 he and Henry challenged alone together for the first time, and this was to be repeated on numerous occasions over the next two years.
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Charles Brandon had first entered the lists as soon as he entered the court. In 1501 he was noted as performing well in the splendid tournament of that year. At seventeen, he must have been just about the youngest participant, and thereafter he went from strength to strength. The only esquire among the six challengers at the coronation jousts in 1509, thereafter he was a regular member of the team of three or four challengers led by the King, and was always at the centre of the allegorical displays which characterised these performances.
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So how good a jouster was he? Good enough, it would seem, to beat every opponent who came against him, except the King. Contemporary accounts need to be treated with caution, because their usual purpose was to glorify Henry, and Brandon seems not to have jousted against Sir Edward Howard, perhaps for good reason. Jousting is a sport in which the contestants need to be evenly matched, and in which it is quite possible for the skilful to fake a result. So we should probably conclude that Charles was adept enough to let the King win without sacrificing any of his credibility.
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This appears to have happened in February 1511, when in the last two runs he failed to score, leaving Henry with a victory which was apparently hard fought, and the glory which he always sought. During celebratory jousts at Tournai in October 1513, the King and Brandon wore identical costumes, ‘a remarkable thing’ as one commentator noted, and a clear indication that Charles now reigned supreme as Henry’s favourite.
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Another indication of the same thing was the number of well-paid and significant offices which he collected. As early as November 1511 he had been granted the position of Marshall of the Household, jointly in survivorship with Sir John Carew, and when Carew was killed alongside Sir Thomas Knyvett in 1512, Brandon was left in sole possession. A lucrative position, this also carried with it considerable influence in Southwark, where the Marshalsea court was situated, and a principal responsibility for the King’s personal security, a matter for which a good personal relationship with the monarch was essential.
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In April 1512 he was also given a life grant of the office of Ranger of the New Forest, and took part in the King’s hunts whenever his pleasure took him in that direction. This was also a position which carried a number of valuable perquisites. The following month Charles became Keeper of Wanstead in Essex, where the King also hunted, and his sister Mary was in residence from time to time, although how much advantage Brandon took of that circumstance we do not know. Then, on 6 October 1512, he was granted the prestigious office of Master of the Horse, his uncle’s old position which had been held since 1510 by Sir Thomas Knyvett. This carried with it the right to appoint to all the inferior posts within the stables, but only when they fell vacant, which tended not to happen very often as these were desirable appointments.
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Although not the most important of household positions, the Mastership carried with it special rights of access to the King, and a place close behind Henry when he rode in procession, which was frequently. The Master of the Horse was the King’s esquire, and this carried particular prestige in the Low Countries because the Burgundian equivalent was a much more magnificent personage.

Brandon’s prominence was reflected in May 1513 in his appointment to command an expedition against Brittany designed to revenge the death of Sir Edward Howard. Because of divided councils and administrative mismanagement the raid never actually took place, and Lord Thomas Howard, who had succeeded his brother Sir Edward as Lord Admiral, blamed Brandon. This was an unfair simplification of a very complex situation, but it led to a falling out between the two men which was to be of lasting significance.
⁴¹
Howard was, however, right in one respect; that Charles Brandon had neither the status nor the experience for such a senior command, which carried with it authority over such seasoned warriors as Sir William Sandys and Sir Maurice Berkeley. These had, admittedly, blotted their copy books during the Guienne campaign of the previous summer, and the need to redeem themselves may have made them amenable, but the fact remained that Brandon was a tyro.
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It was partly to compensate for this fact that Henry created him Viscount Lisle on 15 May, when his appointment was announced, but his ‘fire new stamp of honour’ would hardly have been current during the campaign, if it had ever happened. It stood him in good stead, however, during the expedition in which he did take part: the Army Royal which Henry led in person to Picardy at the end of July. There was no question of Brandon being in overall command on this occasion, but he did lead the vanguard of the King’s ward – a little over 3,000 men – and was High Marshall of the whole army, with responsibility for its discipline. His court sat thrice a week throughout the campaign, and had jurisdiction over all ranks, being particularly concerned with disputes between captains and their men. In this capacity he performed well, and the good discipline of the army was much commented upon.
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When he commended himself to Henry’s ally, Margaret of Austria, Brandon was described as the ‘second man’ of the army, and when Tournai was captured, Henry briefly handed it over to his friend to search and guard the city and to be responsible for law and order until Sir Edward Poynings took over as Lieutenant.
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