Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (27 page)
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Authors: Robert Hutchinson
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In London, Ferdinand’s ambassador Luis Caroz was feeling the effects of Henry’s wrath, being treated like ‘a bull at whom everyone throws darts’ – a graphic Spanish simile. The king’s behaviour was now ‘most offensive and discourteous’ and ‘if God does not change [his] mind, he will really carry out what he intends – to do as much harm [to Ferdinand] as he can’. If the father-in-law did not ‘bridle this colt’ it would be impossible to control him, Caroz warned gloomily.
Katherine of Aragon’s surprising role as Ferdinand’s own envoy at Henry’s court had long since ended. It seems likely she was unaware of her husband’s thirst for vengeance on her father and with the continuing absence of a male heir, she probably would have been more worried about the fragility of her marriage. The Spanish ambassador bewailed the fact that her confessor, Friar Diego Fernández, had urged her that she
ought to forget Spain and everything Spanish in order to gain the love of the king and of the English. She had become so much accustomed to this idea that she will not change her behaviour unless some person … near her tells her what she ought to do in order to be useful to the king her father.
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Perhaps she had heard of the rumours circulating in Rome that Henry planned to repudiate her and put her away in a distant nunnery.
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Suffolk, supposedly in France to attend Mary’s coronation, caught up with the newly-weds at Beauvais on 25 October. He found Louis lying down, with Mary sitting shyly by the royal bedside. The French king embraced him ‘and held me a good while and said I was heartily welcome’. The duke said Henry ‘recommended himself to his entirely beloved brother and thanked him for the great honour and [love] that he showed to the queen, his sister’. Louis in turn reported that no queen had ever ‘behaved herself more wisely and honourably’ and had ‘a loving manner’.
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Suffolk handed over his secret letter and after due consideration, the French king promised he ‘was most willing to render all the services he
has in his power’. But with Louis, there was always a sting in the tail: in return for his help against Spain, he required an English loan of 200,000 crowns and military assistance to seize the duchy of Milan the following March.
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has in his power’. But with Louis, there was always a sting in the tail: in return for his help against Spain, he required an English loan of 200,000 crowns and military assistance to seize the duchy of Milan the following March.
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Mary was crowned Queen of France in St Denis just over a month later. Three days of celebratory jousts followed when Mary ‘stood so that all men might see her and wonder at her beauty’ but her husband was ‘feeble and lay on a couch for weakness’.
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On 1 January 1515, Louis XII died, some whispered, from eighty-three days of over-exertion on the marriage bed with his teenage bride. With the demise of this tired old roué died also any hopes Henry had for French military support in punishing Spain.
At the very hour of his death, Mary announced that she was not pregnant, so Louis was immediately succeeded by his son-in-law, the twenty-year-old Francis, Duke of Angoulême. He was ‘inexpressibly handsome and generous … he rises at eleven, hears Mass, then remains for two or three hours with his mother and afterwards visited his sweethearts or [goes] out hunting’.
The young widow sat in her quarters, ‘dressed all in black, with a white kerchief on her head and under her chin like a nun. [She] is never still [and] moves her head.’
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Patently her agitation suggested that she had other things on her mind than mourning a depraved, diseased husband.
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Patently her agitation suggested that she had other things on her mind than mourning a depraved, diseased husband.
Mary now felt liberated to marry Suffolk – given Henry’s earlier promise of her freedom of choice – but both inevitably feared Henry’s angry reaction. In March the duke wrote to Wolsey for help.
The queen would never let me [be] in rest till I had granted her to be married.
And so, to be plain with you I have married her [secretly] and have lain with her in so much [as] I fear … that she is with child.
Suffolk acknowledged he would ‘rather be dead’ than have Henry ‘discontented’.
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Writing ‘with sorrowful heart’, Wolsey replied that although Suffolk wanted to keep his letter secret, he had shown it to Henry.
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Writing ‘with sorrowful heart’, Wolsey replied that although Suffolk wanted to keep his letter secret, he had shown it to Henry.
The king would not believe it [and] took [the news] grievously and displeasantly – not merely for [your] presumption but for breaking your promise made … at Eltham. [He] would not believe your promise would be broken had you been torn with wild horses.
Cursed be the blind affection and counsel that has brought you here!
Wolsey added an ominous warning: ‘You are in the greatest danger that ever man was in.’
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Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Suffolk took his courage in both hands and wrote a pleading and contrite letter to his old friend and monarch. He begged forgiveness ‘for my offence in this marriage’ and prayed ‘for the passion of God that it may not turn your heart against me’.
I will make good against all the world [to] die for it that ever I … did anything, saving the love and marriage of the queen that should be to your displeasure, [I p]ray God let me die as shameful a death as ever did man.
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Mary also wrote to her brother, begging him to remember his pledge to her. Since Louis was dead and because of Suffolk’s great virtues – ‘to whom I have always been of good mind, as you well know’ – Mary had married him ‘without any request or labour on his part’. She was now so ‘bound to him that for no earthly cause can I change’.
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Suffolk was frightened for his life and suspected that most of Henry’s Council – with the exception of Wolsey – wanted him executed. He felt hard done by – he had helped them all in the past but ‘now in this little trouble they are ready to destroy me’ he told the king. But the duke emphasised he was willing to undergo any punishment decreed by Henry.
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After keeping the lovers agonisingly on tenterhooks, the king eventually granted them his royal prerogative of mercy that May – in return for repaying him £24,000 for the expenses of her wedding to Louis and handing over all her plate and jewels.
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On 11 March 1516 a son was born to Suffolk and his royal wife, and at the christening the king and Wolsey were godfathers and Katherine of Aragon the godmother. The child was baptised ‘Henry’.
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On 11 March 1516 a son was born to Suffolk and his royal wife, and at the christening the king and Wolsey were godfathers and Katherine of Aragon the godmother. The child was baptised ‘Henry’.
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Louis was not the only European monarch to join his maker. Ferdinand died on 23 January 1516 and was succeeded as joint ruler of Castile and Aragon by his grandson Charles and his mother, the mad Juana, who was promptly locked away in a remote Spanish castle. After his paternal grandfather Maximilian died in January 1519, Charles became the Holy Roman Emperor with extensive domains in central, western and southern Europe, together with the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
Charles visited England briefly in late May 1520, breaking his voyage from Spain back to the duchy of Burgundy. He landed at Dover and with Henry went on to Canterbury, where, for the first time, he met his aunt Katherine of Aragon in the archbishop’s palace.
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It was only a brief visit as Henry himself was en route to meet Francis I of France – annoyingly still the ‘Most Christian King’ – for another summit arranged between Guisnes and Ardres, which was to become known as ‘The Field of the Cloth of Gold’.
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It was only a brief visit as Henry himself was en route to meet Francis I of France – annoyingly still the ‘Most Christian King’ – for another summit arranged between Guisnes and Ardres, which was to become known as ‘The Field of the Cloth of Gold’.
Both sovereigns tried to outdo each other in the magnificence and splendour of their entourages. Instead of fighting on the battlefield, it was a war of culture between the two traditional enemies. More than 5,000 courtiers and their attendants formed the English contingent. Wolsey had organised the erection of a huge temporary square palace for Henry, built of timber and canvas on brick foundations, at the designated meeting place, the Val d’Or. The sides of this valley had been laboriously excavated so that neither nation could enjoy the superiority of being raised above the other. The site today is marked by a granite stele on the busy D231 road near Balinghem, ten miles (16 km) south-east of Calais.
It was not all talk. The meeting opened with almost two weeks of jousting and sport. Henry managed to sprain his wrist and so ran few courses while Francis, who ‘shivered spears like reeds’, suffered a black eye and had to wear a black patch over the injury. On one day of bad weather there was wrestling – including a bout between the two kings, arranged as they were drinking in a pavilion. Henry, to his great fury, was hurled to the floor by Francis using a
touche de Bretagne
– a Breton throw.
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He jumped up from the floor, calling for a rematch, but was
refused with icy Gallic politeness. At least he had excelled at archery alongside twenty-four of his royal guard.
touche de Bretagne
– a Breton throw.
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He jumped up from the floor, calling for a rematch, but was
refused with icy Gallic politeness. At least he had excelled at archery alongside twenty-four of his royal guard.
The formal diplomatic extravaganza ended on Saturday 23 June, when Wolsey celebrated Mass in the presence of the English and French kings and queens. The theme was inevitably peace and a foundation stone was laid on the site for a church, to be called ‘Our Lady of Friendship’, endowed by both monarchs.
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At the start of the service, a firework, fashioned as a dragon, was floated over the camp at the height of a bowshot by the English.
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At the start of the service, a firework, fashioned as a dragon, was floated over the camp at the height of a bowshot by the English.
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This great Renaissance occasion failed to eradicate one traditional national character trait, at least amongst some of the English. On the way home, Lord Leonard Grey, brother of the Marquis of Dorset, scornfully told a friend: ‘If I had a drop of French blood in my body I would cut myself open to get rid of it,’ and the other replied, ‘And so would I.’ So much for
entente cordiale
. The king had them arrested.
entente cordiale
. The king had them arrested.
Although Henry enjoyed a fascination for both foreign intrigue and naval power, he was curiously lacking in enthusiasm for exploration and exploitation of the new worlds across the Atlantic. In 1517, John Rastell, a lawyer and printer (and brother-in-law to Thomas More), planned a voyage of colonisation to ‘this new land found lately … called America’. Henry provided him with letters of commendation addressed to any indigenous potentates he might come across, but funding came from two London Merchants, with More acting as a guarantor.
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Rastell departed Gravesend on 1 March 1517 with two ships, one named the
Barbara
, but having reached Waterford on the coast of south-east Ireland, the crew decided that piracy was a more attractive option than distant, unfriendly coasts and abruptly put him ashore. They sailed on to Bordeaux and sold off his stolen cargo of flour, salt and tallow.
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Barbara
, but having reached Waterford on the coast of south-east Ireland, the crew decided that piracy was a more attractive option than distant, unfriendly coasts and abruptly put him ashore. They sailed on to Bordeaux and sold off his stolen cargo of flour, salt and tallow.
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In early 1521 the London guilds were invited to fund a five-strong flotilla of ships to seek the elusive North-West Passage through the Arctic wastes to the riches of Cathay (China) and the East Indies. A royal ship was to accompany these intrepid vessels in a plan endorsed by both Henry and Wolsey, but merchants were loath to risk their money on this venture into the far unknown. They were instantly summoned into the royal presence and told to stump up the cash – ‘His grace
would have no “nay” therein but spoke sharply to the mayor to see [the expedition] put in execution to the best of his power.’
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Several ships were funded but the flotilla never sailed.
would have no “nay” therein but spoke sharply to the mayor to see [the expedition] put in execution to the best of his power.’
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Several ships were funded but the flotilla never sailed.
The North-West Passage continued to fascinate adventurous Englishmen. In 1541 Roger Barlow, the renowned explorer of the River Plate (between today’s Argentina and Uruguay) considered that ‘the shortest route, the northern, has been reserved by Divine Providence for England’. In 1527 the Bristol merchant Robert Thorne, whose father claimed to be the first to discover Newfoundland in 1494,
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tried to convince Dr Edward Lee, Henry’s ambassador at Charles V’s court, of the immense wealth of the East, which was just lying there, waiting to be picked up. The islands, now known as the Philippines, were
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tried to convince Dr Edward Lee, Henry’s ambassador at Charles V’s court, of the immense wealth of the East, which was just lying there, waiting to be picked up. The islands, now known as the Philippines, were
In his nineteen-page letter Thorne tried to explain, interminably, how courses were plotted at sea: ‘Your lord[ship] knows that the cosmographers have divided the earth by 360 degrees in latitude and as many in longitude under which is comprehended the roundness of the earth.’
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Poor Dr Lee! The still fresh concept of the earth being round was difficult enough, without the mathematical complexities of maritime navigation.
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Poor Dr Lee! The still fresh concept of the earth being round was difficult enough, without the mathematical complexities of maritime navigation.
Ever the enthusiast, Thorne immediately proposed an expedition to the North Pole to Henry, urging that the North-West Passage could outflank the Spanish and Portuguese by cutting down the sailing time to the Far East.
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Although the merchant bought a ship for the voyage, there is no record of any response from the king.
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Although the merchant bought a ship for the voyage, there is no record of any response from the king.
The same year, 1527, the crown did support an English attempt to find the Passage. The leader, John Rut,
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was a king’s man and one of his two ships, the three-masted
Mary Guilford
, 160 tons,
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was a royal vessel.
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On 10 June he departed Plymouth but lost his other ship, the
Samson
, in heavy Atlantic storms. Braving icebergs, he reached the coast of Labrador. Anchored in the harbour of St John, Newfoundland, Rut wrote to Henry on 3 August 1527 – the earliest surviving letter written from North America:
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was a king’s man and one of his two ships, the three-masted
Mary Guilford
, 160 tons,
57
was a royal vessel.
58
On 10 June he departed Plymouth but lost his other ship, the
Samson
, in heavy Atlantic storms. Braving icebergs, he reached the coast of Labrador. Anchored in the harbour of St John, Newfoundland, Rut wrote to Henry on 3 August 1527 – the earliest surviving letter written from North America:
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