The Tudors for Dummies (AvaxHome Download) (9 page)

France Relations with France were fine at first (see the earlier section `Hanging out in France), but the French king Charles VIII had plans to move in on Brittany and that put something of a spanner in the works. Charles said that Brittany belonged to France; the duke of Brittany, Francis, said it didn't. Yes it did; no it didn't � you get the picture. 46 Part I: Encountering the Early Tudors

Henry VII (died 1509)

Henry VIII Margaret Mary

(died 1547)

marr.

marr. marr. marr. marr.

(1) Catherine of Aragon

James IV of Scotland Archibald, Earl of Angus (1) Louis XII of France (2) Charles Brandon,

Duke of Suffolk

Mary marr. Philip of Spain

(died 1558)

James V Margaret Lennox

(2) Anne Boleyn

Frances Eleanor

marr.

Elizabeth I (died 1603) Henry Grey,

Mary, Queen of Scots Henry Lord Darnley Duke of Suffolk

Figure 2-4: (3) Jane Seymour (died 1587) Margaret

Tudors, Edward VI (d. 1553)

marr. marr. Jane Katherine Mary

Stuarts and (4) Anne of Cleves (died 1554)

(1) Francis II of France (2) Henry, Lord Darnley

the Suffolk (died 1560) (died 1567) marr.

Guildford Dudley

Line Family (5) Catherine Howard

Tree. (6) Catherine Parr James VI of Scotland, I of England

(died 1625)

There was a punch-up at St Aubin in the summer of 1488 in which the French

thrashed the Bretons. Then Duke Francis died and his heir was a 12-year-old

girl, Anne. From then on, it could have got messy. In 1489 Henry signed the

Treaty of Redon with the Bretons, promising protection, and in December

1491 Charles called Henry's bluff when he claimed Anne as his ward and

married her. Henry duly took an army over to France in October 1492, but

the weather was awful, it wasn't the fighting season (which was May to

September) and peace was in the air. So Henry and Charles signed the Treaty

of Etaples, which was effectively Charles buying Henry off to the tune of

�250,000. Being paid not to fight was brilliant and characteristic of Henry's

clever diplomacy. Charles turned his attention to Italy, which resulted in over

50 years of on/off warfare.

Spain

Nobody realised it at the time, but Spain was on its way to becoming the

superpower of the 16th century. Henry was on the lookout for allies and `the

most Catholic of kings' Ferdinand of Aragon and his wife Isabella of Castile

had a 7-year-old daughter, Catherine, who would make a suitable wife for the

3-year-old prince Arthur.

All this suited Ferdinand and Isabella, who also wanted allies, so they all

signed the commercial agreement of Medina del Campo in 1489. This led to:

A marriage proposal between Catherine and Arthur

Acceptance of the Tudor dynasty by one of the oldest and most power-

ful families in Europe

A further trade treaty � Magnus Intercursus � in 1496 Chapter 2: Starting a Dynasty: Henry VII 47

Catherine and Arthur were married by proxy in Spain on 19 May 1499. Neither

of them was present at the ceremony, underlining the fact that this was all

about politics, not romance.

In October 1501 the real wedding took place when Catherine arrived in

London. Everybody pulled out all the stops � Henry spent a fortune, the bells

rang and all the toasts were for a long and happy life for the young couple.

But a long life together wasn't to be: Henry and Elizabeth were devastated

when Arthur died, probably of tuberculosis, in April 1502. Catherine was 17,

a widow in a strange land. When Elizabeth died the following spring, Henry

considered marrying the girl himself, but in the end decided on passing her

on to his remaining son Henry. This would mean:

Catherine would stay in England with her considerable dowry of gold

and silver.

Catherine would one day become queen of England.

The much dreamed of alliance between England and Spain was on

after all.

But there were complications. Isabella died in November 1504 and Ferdinand

couldn't inherit Castile. That went instead to the pair's daughter Joanna,

who was married to Philip of Burgundy, son of the holy Roman emperor,

Maximilian.

Henry now decided to throw in his lot with Joanna and Philip, who were

given a slap-up welcome when they visited England in January 1506. Philip

and Henry signed the treaty of Windsor in a spirit of friendship.

What's love got to do with it? Marriages between great families were That said, kings wanted to know in advance arranged for political reasons. Links between what they were getting. In Chapter 5 we explain England and Spain would make a huge empire that Henry VIII got Hans Holbein to paint a por- encircling the always rather dodgy French. trait of his fourth wife Anne of Cleves, so he Catherine was 7 and Arthur 3 at the time of their could check her out. And when Henry VII was betrothal, but don't be horrified at their ages; looking for a new wife after Elizabeth's death, he they didn't actually live together as man and asked his ambassadors to check out the queen wife, and anyway, no age of consent existed. of Naples, paying particular attention to any Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was only 13 facial hair she may have(!), the size and shape when she gave birth. of her breasts, the colour of her eyes, the size

of her nose and whether she had sweet breath. 48 Part I: Encountering the Early Tudors

Sponsoring Cabot

Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain famously empowering Cabot to claim any lands in the name

financed Columbus's trips in search of the of England. Because Cabot already had ships and

East Indies, giving Spain a vast fortune in land men, this was, in a way, the icing on the cake.

and silver in the years ahead. Henry � perhaps

Cabot reached the coast of North America in

rashly � turned Columbus down in 1489, but he

the summer of 1497 (if you're a fan of Murder

did back John Cabot.

She Wrote you'll be familiar with the mythical

Cabot was a Venetian (Venice was one of the town of Cabot Cove on the coast of Maine) and

best known ports in the world at that time) who claimed it for England.

wanted to find a more northerly route to Cathay

Cabot's return voyage in May 1498 was a disas-

(China) than the one the Spaniards had opened

ter. He vanished, presumably lost at sea, and

up. London was tied up with the Antwerp trade,

his son Sebastian went off to seek his fortune

so Cabot operated out of Bristol.

elsewhere. But importantly, Cabot set up what

Henry didn't give him ships or money, but he did was to become in time the British Colonies in

let him have Letters Patent, the official go-ahead America, still called New England.

Philip's sudden death in September sent Joanna off the rails and she took to

carrying the embalmed body of her husband with her wherever she went. So

Henry did a quick double shuffle and threw in his lot with Ferdinand again.

The marriage between Catherine and prince Henry was on the front burner

once more and duly went ahead (see Chapters 3, 4 and 5).

Figuring out finances

We've already bust the myth about Henry's tightness, but he was very good

at making money and unusually for a king � who had people for things like

this � he checked the accounts himself.

Here's the lowdown on Henry's finances:

Most cash came through the Chamber Treasury rather than the

Exchequer, so that Henry could check it.

He kept grants and payments to a minimum.

His new men, like Reginald Bray, didn't cost as much as the nobility and

the churchmen who worked for Henry were paid out of Church funds.

He kept military expenditure down (see the earlier section `France' for how

cheap the Etaples campaign was). The exception was fitting out new war-

ships like Mary Rose for �8,000 (for the end of the Mary Rose see Chapter 3).

He relied heavily on customs duties (taxes) via the Port of London.

These brought him in about �500,000 in 24 years.

Henry set up forced loans from the rich merchants of the livery compa-

nies (the equivalent of today's City brokers), especially in London. He

used this money to finance the invasion of France in 1492, for example.

He got cash from the rent of his lands.

In the first ten years of his reign Henry made about �10,000 a year

through tax. By 1504, taxation brought in �31,000.

The fact that Henry only once called Parliament in the last 12 years of

his reign means he was doing well financially. Later kings like the Stuarts

usually only called Parliament when they were broke.

Henry got good deals for his merchants wherever he could, like the pow-

erful merchant venturers, who watched world exploration carefully. In

the 1490s Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama were taking their

lives in their hands sailing east and west in search of new ways to old

worlds and ended up finding new worlds instead. Henry taxed the mer-

chants in return, but everybody made money out of deals like Medina

del Campo and Magnus Intercursus.

He set up a tax on the super-rich, which the nobility resented. Yet this

enabled him to control their wealth and helped give him an income of

�130,000 a year. This made Henry VIII's treasury very well off.

Henry VII was the last English king to die solvent for 200 years.

Meeting Henry, the Human

Henry's arranged marriage to Elizabeth of York seems to have become a

love match, but luck wasn't on their side. In an age of high infant mortality,

their youngest son Edmund died at just over 1 year of age in June 1500. Their

eldest, Arthur, on whom Henry pinned all his hopes, died in April 1502. The

following February Elizabeth died too, shortly after giving birth to a stillborn

daughter. Suddenly, the 46-year-old Henry was a widower with two daugh-

ters, Margaret and Mary, but only one son remaining � the 11-year-old Henry,

who would become king Henry VIII (see Chapters 3 to 6).

Francis Bacon said in the 17th century: `For [Henry VII's] pleasures, there is

no news of them.' And for 300 years historians followed this idea that Henry

was a grim curmudgeon with no sense of humour and a miser obsessed with

counting his cash.

But historians now know that Henry loved hunting, was highly superstitious (once

threatening to hang all the mastiffs in England because he believed them to be

unlucky) and spent heavily on lowbrow entertainments. He once lost �40 on cards

in one day, and how can we explain giving �30 to `the damsel that danceth', about

60 times the going rate for Court entertainers? We'll leave that one up to you!

Teaching the Tudors

Henry VII built up a royal library, adding to the the blind poet Bernard Andre, who went on to

one he'd `inherited' from Richard III. We don't write a biography of Henry VII. Classics were

know its contents, but Richard was something the trendy subjects of the Renaissance, which

of a scholar. Printing was still new, so it's likely was a movement that looked back to the great

that much of this library was made up of hand- days of Greece and Rome. Arthur read Homer,

written manuscripts. Vergil, Ovid, Terence, Thucydides, Caesar, Livy

and Tacitus (don't knock them till you've tried

The princes Arthur and Henry were brought

them!).

up in the humanist tradition (see Chapter 1) by

Henry liked his entertainments. He never went far without his minstrels,

harpists and pipers. He liked watching bear baiting and cock fighting (animal

rights activists look away now) and possibly had a mild gambling addiction,

betting on the outcomes of chess, archery and tennis matches. He watched

plays, Morris dancers, fire eaters and stand-up comedians.

The king also gave lavish presents to people and paid good money for pecu-

liar purposes. He bought an eagle and a leopard (for �13) for the royal zoo in

the Tower. He reimbursed a peasant whose corn had been eaten by the king's

deer. He rewarded harvesters. He bought gunpowder. Between 1491 and 1505

he spent over �100,000 on jewellery � it would be, after all, a portable form

of wealth if he ever had to relive his early life on the run. And he ate well �

eels and perch in aspic � and loved castles made from jelly. He once paid the

Dutch chef John van Delf �38 1 shilling and 4 pence for garnishing a salad �

none of today's celebrity chefs make money like that!

Henry also loved meeting foreigners � knights from Rhodes, a man from

Constantinople (today's Istanbul), a Greek with a beard and so on.

Passing On at the Palace

Henry's health was generally good throughout his life, but a recurring cough,

especially in the spring, was almost certainly chronic tuberculosis. By the

time he was 50 he'd lost many of his teeth, his hair had thinned, his eyesight

had deteriorated, he was suffering from gout and he had lost weight. He

died on 21 April 1509 in Richmond Palace, probably from tuberculosis, after

attending the Easter service the day before. Chapter 2: Starting a Dynasty: Henry VII 51 He was buried alongside Elizabeth in a magnificent Renaissance tomb in Westminster Abbey. Next time you're there, check out Henry VII's chapel and be amazed, very amazed. You can find out more in Chapter 19 on Tudor buildings that survive today. 52 Part I: Encountering the Early Tudors