The Other Tudors (9 page)

On 1 January 1511, a son was born to Henry and Catherine – Henry, Prince of Wales, Duke of Richmond and Somerset. The 19-year-old father was thrilled with his son and heir, and took him to Walsingham, in East Anglia, to give thanks to the Virgin Mary for so great a gift. The baby was immediately given a household of 40 persons, and Henry made gifts to those who had already or in the future would serve his son most closely – £10 to the midwife who attended the Queen, and £30 to his nurse, Elizabeth Poyntz, sister of Henry’s great friend, Edward Poyntz. Louis XII of France, and Margaret, Duchess of Savoy were invited to be the baby Henry’s godparents.
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To celebrate Catherine becoming the mother of the future king of England, a great tournament was held in her honour, and ‘The Knights of the Savage Forest’ jousted for her pleasure. Sir Valiant Desire, Sir Good Valour and Sir Joyous Thought were joined by a tall and skilful knight who took the title Sir Loyal Heart (
Coeur Loyale
) – none other than Henry himself. Sir Loyal Heart was, of course, victorious, not just because he was the King, but because he was a superb jouster, with excellent skill. According to the 1511 Tournament Roll, held by the College of Arms, the knights were King Henry:
Coeur Loyal
(Sir Loyal Heart); William, Earl of Devonshire:
Bon Vouloir
(Sir Good Valour); Sir Edward Neville:
Vaillant Desyr
(Sir Valiant Desire) and Sir Thomas Knevett:
Bon Espoir
/
Joyeule Penser
(Sir Joyous Thought).
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On one evening of the celebrations a masque was held during which Henry appeared as one of six knights, incognito: they were named Good Courage, Good Hope, Valiant Desire, Good Faith, Loyal Love and, of course, Loyal Heart. They were all dressed in purple, their clothes stiff with gold embroidery, featuring appliqués of the linked initials H and K in solid gold. When the dancing had finished, Henry tried to give the gold initials on his doublet to his fellow dancers. The guests, seeing him apparently giving away these valuable trinkets, fell on the King and his friends tearing their rich clothes off them, stripping them to their shirts and stockings. The King chose to take it as a great joke (thereby earning his nickname of Bluff [jovial] King Hal); when the ladies were threatened with a similar fate, he took Catherine’s hand and they adjourned to a happy and noisy party in his private chambers. They must have appeared to be the most fortunate couple in the world.

Sadly, the baby prince, so much desired, lived only a few months, dying in March. Catherine had a further stillborn boy; then in 1513 a living son was born, although he died within a few days. However, Henry and Catherine were young. Infant mortality was very high in Tudor England, but Catherine was fertile and, God willing, she would soon give birth to a healthy son.

In 1512, Henry organised his first campaign in France, a disastrous invasion of Gascony that ended in retreat. Henry had entered the war in support of his Spanish father-in-law, Ferdinand, supposedly to seize Aquitaine for England (this had been an English province during the time of the early Plantagenets). In fact, Ferdinand only wished to invade Navarre on his own behalf and in the name of his wife; when he had taken Navarre, he pulled out of the campaign. This left Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, to make his best way home, with a sick and resentful English army.

In 1513, however, Henry himself led his army on his first campaign abroad, with slightly more success. Henry invaded France, this time with papal approval. Pope Julius II had been opposed to France since Louis XII had ordered a General Council of the Church in 1511 in direct opposition to the Pope, and now he denied Louis XII’s papal title of Most Christian King. The Pope agreed to bestow the title on Henry, if he conquered France. Julius II also gave papal blessing to Henry becoming king of France, providing his army could achieve this.

On 30 June 1513, Henry arrived in Calais to lead an army of 40,000 men. He learned that part of the army was already moving on Thérouanne, in northern France, under the command of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Henry’s army spent three days at Arques and on 1 August they marched to Thérouanne. The army moved slowly since Henry had gone to war accompanied by a village of tents, including one made of cloth of gold, a portable wooden palace in easily assembled sections and almost 1,000 personal servants.
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After the ill-fated attempt by the French to resupply the besieged Thérouanne on 16 August, known as the Battle of the Spurs (said to have been given this name by the French because the turning point was their numerically superior cavalry turning tail and fleeing, spurring their horses to greater speed), the town capitulated on 23 August.

All of the high-ranking prisoners belonged to the King. Two of the most distinguished captives were the chevalier de Bayard and Louis d’Orléans, duc de Longueville. Bayard, a soldier famous for his skill and his adherence to a knightly code of honour, was sent to visit a number of Flanders towns (to keep him out of the war) for six weeks. The duc de Longueville, on the other hand, was sent to England where he stayed, as a guest of the Court, until the war was over. He lodged for a time in the Tower, chiefly because Catherine of Aragon, who had been told to entertain him, was concentrating on the threat of a Scottish invasion of England, but Longueville was no common prisoner. During his time in England, Louis XII used him as an informal ambassador. It was Longueville who did most of the negotiating, on the King’s behalf, for the hand of Princess Mary, Henry’s sister. When Longueville eventually returned to France, he wrote a charming letter to Catherine asking to be remembered ‘to all his fellows, both men and women.’
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After Thérouanne, Emperor Maximilian persuaded Henry to go on to Tournai, a city which lay close to the Low Countries (which he ruled), and which he wanted to add to his territories. Maximilian’s daughter, Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, was Regent of the Low Countries (the Netherlands) for his young grandson, Charles. The Council of Tournai were in a quandary; on one hand, Louis XII was insisting that they held the city for France (even though they had few soldiers and their defences were quite ruined), and on the other hand, Maximilian and Henry were threatening to attack if they did not immediately agree to place themselves under Imperial rule. They tried appealing to Margaret of Austria to act as mediator, but she had no influence with Louis XII, and little, if any, on her father and Henry (who wanted to win a glorious campaign).

On 10 September Maximilian sent in an ambassador – either the city proclaimed for him and became his vassal or it refused, which would be an admission of support for France, and Henry would attack and destroy it as an enemy. Henry and Maximilian stayed with Margaret at Lille, and she joined their conferences, trying to win some kind of compromise for Tournai. However, the negotiations dragged on, and Henry spent his time being entertained by Margaret and her ladies.

Henry was given a magnificent suite of four rooms and on the first night Margaret and her companions joined Henry and his gentlemen for dinner. Afterwards, Henry stripped to his shirt, and he and Margaret danced for hours. The next day he gave her a large and very valuable diamond. Late on the 13th September, Henry finally left to go back to his camp, although he and his followers made a gift of a mass of jewels and jewellery for Margaret and her ladies, in admiration of their entertainment (‘banquets, plays, comedies, masques, and other pastimes’
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).

On 16 September, despite the advice of the richer men of Tournai, the majority decided to declare for France; they displayed the Tournai banner and the fleur-de-lis, and manned the walls. Throughout the 16th and 17th, Henry’s guns pounded the virtually defenceless town. On 23 September, after a long bombardment and several days of negotiations, Tournai surrendered to Henry – as King of France!

On 25 September Henry rode into Tournai, heard mass at the cathedral, accepted the allegiance of the defeated people and returned to his camp. On 8 October he held a tournament at which Margaret was the chief guest. After jousting in the pouring rain, a banquet was held and then there was dancing into the night. The Ambassador from Milan tried to talk business with Henry, who fobbed him off, telling him to talk to the Bishop of Winchester instead, ‘And so I left his majesty talking with the damsels.’
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On 13 October, Henry and the bulk of the army left Tournai; Sir Edward Poynings and 5,000 troops remained behind to garrison the town. The war with France was short-lived, partly because Pope Julius II died in June 1513 and Leo X became Pope. He at once set about making peace with Louis XII, and the papal justification for Henry’s presence in France was overturned. In early 1514, Ferdinand of Aragon, then Maximilian, and finally Henry himself, all signed peace treaties with France. As part of the English agreement, Henry got to keep Tournai (which he eventually sold back to the French) and Louis XII married Henry’s sister, Mary.

There were rumours that Henry VIII had taken a Flemish mistress while he was campaigning abroad. The time he spent with Margaret and her ladies could mean that one lady in particular became the King’s ‘companion’. Whereas this might feasibly have been a real love affair, it also kept Henry occupied while Maximilian negotiated for Tournai’s surrender. The Milanese Ambassador wrote reports from Lille stating that he had a problem arranging a formal meeting with Henry, ‘as he was then in a hurry to go and dine and dance afterwards.’ Although the King left to continue the war, he seems to have been reluctant to leave Lille; five days later: ‘… the King of England came here … and so last night the King was here, passing almost the whole night in dancing with the damsels.’
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The one firm piece of evidence for an affair is a letter, dated 17 August 1514. It is written in French, and starts with the information that the lady concerned sends a bird and some roots ‘of considerable value’ to Henry. The reference to roots might seem a trifle odd for a lady to send a king, but Henry had an interest in medicinal plants. The letter then reads on:

The French historian, Père Anselme, suggested that the ‘G’ of the signature could be an ‘E’. He linked this to Etionette de la Baume, who married Ferdinand de Neufchatel, seigneur de Marnay, on 18 October 1514.
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Etionette was the daughter of Marc de la Baume, seigneur de Chateauvillain and comte de Montrevel. Her husband, Ferdinand, was born somewhere around 1452, so he would have been about 60 at the time of their marriage. He had had two previous wives, Magdalena von Vinstingen (married in 1468) and Claude de Vergy (married in 1497). Although Ferdinand had no son, he did have six daughters born between 1469 and 1500. Each of his first two wives gave him three daughters; Etionette, despite eight years of marriage, did not have any children, so there can be no suggestion that Henry VIII had a child by Mlle de la Baume.
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If Etionette caught Henry’s fancy, she would have been young, probably in her mid-teens, fair haired, extremely pretty and lively. She would have been an excellent dancer, played a musical instrument, sung like a bird, been well read and a good rider. The fact that she had been the mistress, however briefly, to a king would not have harmed her marriage prospects. As well as her connections to the Imperial Court, she came from a noble family and she also had Henry’s monetary wedding gift. Ferdinand de Neufchatel would have found her as charming as the English king had done.

Etionette de la Baume is referred to as the King’s Flemish Mistress (since Henry met her in Flanders). A second lady, Jane Popincourt, is also given this title, possibly as her family had connections with the Flanders region that covered southern Holland, Belgium and northern France at this time. The title ‘Flemish’ is a misnomer as, in fact, both were French.

The earliest reference to Jane comes from the Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York in 1498. At the time of the death of Prince Edmund in 1500, all the courtiers at Eltham, home to the royal children, were provided with black cloth for mourning garments, including Jane Popincourt. In June 1502, Robert Ragdale was hired to make and repair clothes for Elizabeth of York, her daughters Margaret (‘the Queen of Scots’) and Mary. The sum of 7d was spent on ‘mending of two gowns for Johanne Popyncote.’
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She must have started in the household of Elizabeth of York, but she was attached to the staff of the Princess Mary almost from the time of the Princess’s birth in 1496. Jane’s main responsibility was to teach her French. In 1509 Jane was still with Mary. Amongst court expenses are 50s paid to ‘Jane Popyncote.’
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