The Last White Rose (32 page)

He ruleth all the roost

With bragging and with boast …

At the Common Pleas

Or at the King’s Bench,

He wringeth them such a wrench

That all our learned men

Dare not set their pen

To plead a true trial

Within Westminster Hall.
¹⁰

He was just as overbearing outside the courts.

In 1515 Polydore Vergil wrote to a friend at Rome that Wolsey had grown so tyrannical and so heartily disliked by most Englishmen that he could not last much longer. Vergil’s letter was intercepted by the cardinal’s men and he spent several months in the Tower until Pope Leo interceded for him. Other critics received similar treatment. No one loathed Wolsey more than the old nobility, who detested the way he lorded it over them. But Wolsey was able to discover exactly what his master wanted and make it happen. For nearly two decades Henry VIII would not hear a word against him.

The king was glad to have a strong man at his side. The cardinal was more than just a wise adviser. Not only did he relieve Henry of chores and business, but his network of spies watched for the slightest signs of disaffection. Here was someone who could be relied on to keep Henry safe from the White Rose and Richard de la Pole. Yet Wolsey knew he must produce some sort of result if he was going to soothe the king’s chronic insecurity. His own future depended on it. While he might not be able to eliminate Suffolk, he could at least demonstrate his loyalty and ingenuity by inventing another ‘great traitor’ and then destroying him. Providentially, a perfect candidate for the role played into his hands.

Despising Wolsey as an upstart, the Duke of Buckingham was infuriated by his pretentious behaviour, grumbling at having to be ‘subservient to so base and uncivil a fellow’.
¹¹
Nor did he bother to conceal his disapproval of the cardinal’s conduct of foreign affairs, unaware that these were in fact the king’s own policies. He complained bitterly about the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, where Henry met Francis I: not only was he opposed to an alliance with France, but he took a violent dislike to the French king – a dislike that was reciprocated. He also begrudged having to spend so much money on equipping his retinue. He was embittered, too, that a great noble such as himself should not be allowed more influence in the royal council. There were rumours that he wanted to assassinate Wolsey.
¹²
However, despite having friends who shared his views, Buckingham was in no way the head of a faction.

Such an alarming state of anarchy existed in Buckingham’s Welsh lordships that the king became concerned that the crown had lost control of the region. In 1518 Henry sent the duke a formal rebuke, complaining that bonds for good behaviour were not being enforced because of ‘your default and negligence’. As a result, ‘many and divers murders, rapes, robberies, riots and other misdemeanours have been of late and daily be committed … to our no little displeasure’.
¹³
The situation was so bad that English fugitives from justice, often violent criminals, were taking refuge in the Welsh Marches.

The splendour of Buckingham’s hospitality at Penshurst in 1519, which cost him the enormous sum of nearly
£
1,500, was another reminder of his semi-regal pretensions. The scale of the princely entertainment offered to the guests may well have irritated King Henry, who in any case must have felt unhappy at seeing the royal arms of England quartering those of Stafford so prominently displayed, whether carved over gateways or on the stained-glass windows – a public statement of the duke’s Plantagenet descent. This was the same year that Buckingham’s son Henry married Ursula Pole,
Clarence’s granddaughter, which brought Yorkist blood intothe family.

The old aristocracy’s exclusion from office and hatred of Wolsey would have made many of them welcome a conspiracy led by the duke. They knew how popular he was
¹⁴
and that, if he wanted, he might perhaps bring down the cardinal and even King Henry. The magnates sensed the Tudors’ vulnerability, aware that more than once it had looked likely that the de la Poles might replace them. But Buckingham’s pride, touchiness and difficult character made it impossible for him to be a leader.

A firm believer in the curse brought upon the Tudors by the Earl of Warwick’s execution, Edward Stafford thought it highly probable that one day he or his son would be king. Yet it is extremely unlikely that he ever thought of speeding up the process. This can be seen from the record of a meeting he held with some of his council at Thornbury after dinner (late in the morning) on 26 October 1520. Those present were Master Thomas Wotton, dean of his chapel; Mr George Poley, his almoner; Dr Jenyns, his surveyor particular; Thomas Moscroff, his counsellor in physic; Mr John Delacourt, his chaplain; and Thomas Cade, his receiver-general.

When they sat down, the duke told them that while he had asked them to bring their ledgers, he did not intend to discuss business. Perhaps they were surprised to see him wearing a beard, he continued. It was because ‘I make a vow unto God that it shall never be shaven until such time as I have been at Jerusalem.’ If he could obtain royal permission to go to the Holy City, it would make him happier than if the king gave him
£
10,000. Mr Poley, Mr Delacourt and Sir William Curteys, his Master of Works, had promised to go with him. In his absence, the council would run his estates. But while he hoped to get permission for his pilgrimage fairly soon, he did not think he would be able to set off for another two years.
¹⁵

This scarcely sounds like the behaviour of a man who was plotting a rebellion.

19. 1519–Autumn 1520: The Duke of Buckingham

1
. Vergil,
op. cit
., p. 239

2
.
CSP Ven
,
op. cit
., vol. II, 1287.

3
. Some sources suggest the lady was another of Buckingham’s sisters, Lady Hastings.

4
.
CSP Sp
,
op. cit
., supplement to vols I and II, 8, 39–40.

5
. E.M. Thompson,
History of the Somerset Carthusians
, London, 1895, p. 281.

6
. C. Rawcliffe,
The Staffords, Earls of Stafford and Dukes of
Buckingham, 1394–1521
, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 244–51.

7
. Sir J. MacLean (ed.),
The Berkeley Manuscripts: Lives of the
Berkeleys
, Gloucester, 1883, vol. II, pp. 206, 215.

8
. B.J. Harris,
Edward Stafford, Third Duke of Buckingham 1478–
1521
, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1988, London, 1948 pp. 147–8.

9
.
CSP Ven
,
op. cit
., vol. II, 1287.

10
.
Complete Poems of John Skelton
, pp. 313–4.

11
. Vergil,
op. cit
., p. 263.

12
.
CSP Ven
,
op. cit
., vol. III, 209.

13
. C.A.J. Skeel,
Council in the Marches of Wales
, London, Hugh Rees Ltd, 1904, pp. 35–6.

14
.
CSP Ven
,
op. cit
., vol. II, 564.

15
.
LP Hen VIII
,
op. cit
., vol. III (i), 1284.

20

Winter 1520–Spring 1521: ‘A Giant Traitor’

‘There’s mischief in this man.’

Shakespeare, King Henry VIII, Act 1, scene 2

About the year 1520, when Henry VIII was just over thirty, a sculptor, probably Petro Torrigiano, made a painted, terracotta bust of him. The king has shaved off his beard, revealing a jovial, handsome face. Yet looking at it, one begins to understand Sir Thomas More’s comment to Cromwell, ‘For if the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.’
¹
Here is someone dangerously unpredictable, with all the unpredictable ferocity of a big cat lying beneath the leonine charm. Even those who knew Henry well did not know when he was going to pounce or on whom.

Shakespeare’s account of Buckingham’s downfall in
Henry
VIII
is in many ways surprisingly accurate. The play tells the story as a tragedy, which was exactly how contemporaries saw it – an innocent man becoming the victim of unjust suspicions
produced by a fevered imagination. But whether or not Cardinal Wolsey was responsible is hard to tell. Vergil, admittedly biased, says that, ‘boiling with hatred for the Duke of Buckingham’, Wolsey had been fanning Henry’s suspicions about him since 1518.
²
Branding the duke as a traitor would distract the king’s attention from the cardinal’s failure over Richard de la Pole.

Early in November 1520 one of Henry’s servants, Sir William Bulmer, came to court wearing a prominent ‘Stafford knot’ badge on his doublet which signified he had entered Buckingham’s service as well as the king’s. Enraged, Henry prosecuted Bulmer in the Star Chamber, although he was eventually forgiven. The king was no less furious with the duke, to such an extent that Buckingham thought he was going to be sent to the Tower. Always a prey to imagination, Henry, by now, had grown to hate him no less than did Wolsey. Still lacking an heir – it was clear Queen Katherine would bear no more children – he began to suspect Buckingham of having designs on his throne. He wrote to the cardinal, ordering him to keep close watch on the duke as well as on other peers.

In theory Buckingham could muster a private army of 5,000 men, although in practice he would have been hard put to find 500. At the end of November 1520, shortly after the Bulmer affair, he announced his intention of visiting his Welsh estates during the next year with three or four hundred armed retainers, in order to restore order: he also asked the cardinal for the king’s permission for his men to take ‘harness’ (armour) with them – to be worn only if needed. Plenty of people could remember how the duke’s father had gone to Wales when he revolted against Richard III, and while Henry may not have anticipated a rebellion, he was unsettled by the news. Then, towards the end of 1520, a letter, whose signature has disappeared, reached Cardinal Wolsey, suggesting there was a chance of plausibly charging Buckingham with treason.