Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

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The choristers lodged with the Master, whose duty it was to instruct them in plainchant and harmony.

Since the choir did not have a regular organist, the “Children” often sang unaccompanied. There were

adult choristers, too, Gentlemen in Ordinary of the Choir, whose voices had survived the transition of

puberty; they played the organ in turns. Boys who were unable to continue in the choir when their

voices broke were found other posts or places at university. Every member of the Chapel Royal might

be required to take part in court entertainments, or turn his hand to composing. Most of the music sung

by the Chapel Royal was composed by its members, notably Robert Fairfax and Cornish, and later the

great Thomas Tallis.

There was to be friendly rivalry between the choir of the Chapel Royal and Wolsey’s choristers. The

King, or perhaps Cornish, devised a contest after which Henry declared that Wolsey’s singers had

“more surely handled it,” whereupon Wolsey felt obliged to release “young Robin,” the boy with the

“craftiest descant,” to his master.

The King employed twenty-five well-paid professional secular musicians and singers,

several of them

foreigners whom he had enticed to England. Their expertise set the musical standards for the court. The

King also retained a number of traditional minstrels, who were under the direction of Hugh

Woodhouse, Master of the King’s Minstrels. At least eighteen came from Flanders, Germany, France,

or Italy, and were paid 4d (£5) a day.

One minstrel, Robert Reynolds, was Welsh; another, Hans

Nagel, is known to have acted as a spy for the King in France.

All royal musicians were members of

the Chamber, but only a privileged few, who comprised “The King’s Musick,”

had access to the privy

chamber, where they entertained Henry in his leisure hours. The rest worked in the presence chamber.

A drawing attributed to Hans Holbein shows five royal musicians playing on a balcony: one blows a

trumpet, one a sackbut,

and the others three recorders.

Another contemporary illustration, from

Henry’s illuminated psalter of about 1540,

depicts a band of musicians playing a pipe and tabor, a

trumpet, a harp, and a dulcimer; such a group was known as a consort—an Old English word for

“concert,” meaning a band of usually four to six players playing in an ensemble. A whole consort was

one in which all the instruments were of one kind, such as a set of viols; a broken consort had different

instruments

and was the type preferred for indoor court entertainments.

Of approximately sixty musicians and minstrels on the royal payroll, sixteen were trumpeters,

and in

1509, a Mr. Peter was Marshal of the Trumpets. Philip van Wilder, Zuan Piero of Venice, and the gifted

Patrec were the King’s chief lutenists and “Blind More” his harpist, while one of his favourite singers

was James Hill, whom he kept always about him later in the reign.

The Dutchman Philip van Wilder was one of the most famous musicians of the period. In recognition of

his skill, the King appointed him a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and paid him a higher stipend than

any other court musician. Van Wilder not only played but wrote songs, looked after Henry’s musical

instruments, took charge of the other musicians of the Chamber, formed his own group of “singing men

and children,” and still found time to teach the royal children.

Many musicians resorted to the court in search of patronage, and not all were lucky. There was the sad

story of a Venetian, Zuan da Leze, who was skilled on the clavicembalo, a type of dulcimer. He was so

certain that the King of England would want his services and remunerate him appropriately that in 1525

he purchased the best instrument money could buy and travelled to England, where he got the

opportunity to play for the King. But Henry merely thanked him and sent him away with a small purse

of money. Devastated, da Leze committed suicide.

No other English king ever displayed such musical talent as Henry VIII. That he had real ability is

patently clear. He sang “fairly” (i.e., well)

in a clear, high tenor voice. This high voice was remarked

upon: in 1540, it was said that his daughter Mary “had a voice more man-like for a woman than he for a

man.”

In an age in which most people played music by ear, Henry “sang from the book at sight.”

once paid £20 (£6,000) to Robert Fairfax for a book of “prick-song,” or annotated music.

The King and his circle of amateur aristocratic performers would often while away their leisure hours

by making music in the privy chamber, but they do not seem to have performed in public, because “a

gentleman singing in a common audience appaireth his estimation.”

Among the most popular turns

were the King’s own compositions and the part-songs composed by Fairfax, especially “Behold the

Sovereign Seed.” It appears that vocal music was more favoured than instrumental music, and that

singers usually performed in groups, rather than alone.

In the British Library there is a manuscript

containing a two-part double canon written in 1516 in honour of Henry VIII.

One favourite court

song, “My Sovereign Lord,” celebrated the King’s prowess in the tiltyard. Henry was also fond of

duetting with Sir Peter Carew on “freeman’s songs” such as “By the Banks as I Lay” and “As I Walked

the Wood So Wild.”

The King was “a good musician”

who, according to Sebastian Giustinian, played “on almost every

instrument,” performing particularly well “on the lute and virginals.”

He also played the regal (a kind

of portable organ), the recorder, and the cornett,

and a picture in his Psalter shows him playing the

harp.

Henry practised on his instruments “day and night.”

His large collection was looked after by the

Keeper of the King’s Instruments. In 1515, Giustinian’s secretary, Nicolo Sagudino, was shown a room

“containing a number of organs, virginals, flutes and other instruments.”

At his death, Henry’s

collection included 5 cornemuses, or drones (bagpipes), 19 viols, 20 regals, 14 virginals, 2 clavichords,

26 lutes, 65 flutes, 7 citterns,

15 shawms,

10 sackbuts, and 154 recorders.

Some instruments were

adorned with precious metals and gems, and most had their own cases of leather or velvet. Henry was

fascinated by the technology of instruments, and was always eager to try novel ones. In 1542, he sent to

Vienna for a pair of Turkish-style drums that could be played on horseback, and he later acquired “a

virginal that goeth with a wheel without being played upon,”

which presumably worked on a barrel

and pin mechanism. The King was also a “fair” composer.

Thirty-three of his compositions,

comprising thirteen instrumental pieces and twenty three- or four-part popular songs such as “Pastime

with Good Company,” “Green Groweth the Holly,” “Alas, What Shall I Do for Love?” and “Whereto

Should I Express My Inward Heaviness?” were collated in the so-called Henry VIII Manuscript, where

each is inscribed (not in Henry’s hand, but probably by one of his gentlemen), “the King, H.VIII.”

The

manuscript was once in the possession of Sir Henry Guildford, Comptroller of the Household. All these

compositions are in the mediaeval tradition and probably date from the early years of the reign;

research has shown that a number of them, including the popular Flemish tune “Taunder Naken,” are

merely rearrangements of other composers’ works. Nowadays, opinion is divided as to their merit,

modern ears being more critical than those of Henry’s courtiers. Nevertheless, in their own time

Henry’s songs were applauded and enjoyed widespread fame; in 1521, Dr. John Longland, the Lord

High Almoner, used “Pastime with Good Company” as the text for a sermon.

The King’s “goodly masses” referred to by Edward Hall have sadly been lost. His only sacred work to

survive is a three-part motet, “Quam pulchra es.” It was once thought that Henry had written the motet

“O Lord the Maker of All Things,” but it was almost certainly composed either by William Mundy, a

Gentleman of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel Royal, or by John Shepherd, organist of Magdalen College,

Oxford. Nor did Henry write “Greensleeves,” which is probably Elizabethan in origin and is based on

an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.

From Windsor, Henry moved on to Woking, where “there were kept both jousts and tournaments.”

Henry VII had acquired the fifteenthcentury Woking Palace from Margaret Beaufort in 1503, and had

spent £1,400 (£420,000) converting it into sumptuous royal residence, which would be partially rebuilt

and extended by Henry VIII in 1515–1516 and 1532–1534. The house was designed on a courtyard

plan. It had a gallery with a cloister beneath, both facing the River Wey, a chapel, a gatehouse,

extensive royal apartments with bay windows, and a great hall built in 1508 with windows completed

by the King’s glazier, Bernard Flower, in 1511. There were privy gardens, orchards, and some fine

hunting in the surrounding park. A bowling alley was constructed in 1537.

“The rest of this progress was spent in hunting, hawking and shooting”;

it took the King into

Hampshire, and to The Vyne, the house of Sir William Sandys, near Basingstoke. Sir William, now

forty, was a popular and loyal courtier who had married the niece of Sir Reginald Bray, a staunch

supporter of Henry VII before his accession. Sandys was one of the King’s favourite companions of the

chase as well as being Keeper of the royal hunting lodge at Easthampstead, twelve miles away. Henry

obviously liked him because he made two return visits in later years.

From The Vyne, the King moved south to Southampton, and then east, in September, to the twelfth-

century Augustinian priory at South-wick, where he made an offering at the shrine of Our Lady. This

was the first of several pilgrimages Henry made to religious shrines, such as St. Thomas Becket at

Canterbury, the miraculous black cross at Waltham Abbey, Our Lady of Walsingham, St. Edward the

Confessor at Westminster Abbey, St. Bridget of Syon, and even the tomb of the uncanonised Henry VI

at Windsor. His Book of Payments records huge sums donated in offerings to these and other shrines.

For more than half his reign, Henry was a faithful son of the Roman Catholic Church. His piety was

conventional, his charitable works legion—his annual alms amounted to £156 (£46,800)—and he

enjoyed the imagery, ritual, and liturgy of his religion. His rosary, made of box-wood with carved

beads, one of which bears his arms, survives at Chatsworth.

Like every sovereign from Edward II to Queen Anne, Henry VIII “touched for the King’s Evil”—a

healing ritual believed to cure the skin disease scrofula. The divine powers conferred on an anointed

King were also called into play every Good Friday, when he would bless “cramp rings” made from the

coins he had offered that day in chapel, which were then distributed to those suffering from cramp,

epilepsy, palsy, labour pains, or rheumatism, in the belief that the sovereign’s benediction would effect

a cure. On Good Friday also, “the King’s Grace crept to the Cross from the chapel door upwards, and

so served the priest to mass, his own person kneeling on His Grace his knees.”

His attendants would

smooth his path by laying down cushions.

On the day before Good Friday, the King would take part in the Royal Maundy ceremony, which dates

from the Dark Ages and is first known to have been performed by King John in 1210. In imitation of

Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, Henry, armed with a towel, a basin, and a nosegay to guard against

infection, and wearing a voluminous white apron, would kneel to wash, dry, sign with a cross, and kiss

the feet of a number of poor persons equal to the years of his age; to ensure that the royal nose would

not be offended, the same feet had been previously well scrubbed by the Yeoman of the Laundry. The

King would then give their owners gifts of bread, fish, wine, and clothing, and distribute red and white

purses of money. Present at the ceremony were the Lord Chamberlain, the Gentlemen of the Chapel

Royal, and the Yeomen of the Guard. Cardinal Wolsey often attended. The word “Maundy” derives

from the mandatum that Christ gave to His disciples, commanding them to love one another. Henry’s

queens also distributed Maundy charity in their own right.

Possessing the most sensitive of consciences, and wishing to set a virtuous example, Henry was

assiduous about the welfare of his soul. He was “very religious and heard three masses daily when he

hunted, and sometimes five on other days,” and he usually joined the Queen for Vespers and

Compline.

These services were conducted by his chaplains in his private closet; the King only took

part in services in the chapel royal on Sundays, when he received the Eucharist,

and feast days; during

daily services, which he usually attended, he worked there, secluded in his private pew.

In an

arrangement dating from the time of Henry III, this pew was usually set in a gallery above the body of

the chapel, facing the altar, and had a winding staircase at one end or leading from an adjoining

“holyday” closet, which Henry could use when he wished to go down and participate in services.

the Black Book of the Garter (1534) there is an illumination of the King at prayer in his closet, kneeling

before an altar on a cushioned prie-dieu beneath a canopy of blue and gold.

Henry was strictly orthodox. Always fierce against heresy, he had no qualms about burning those with

subversive views. Nevertheless, he loved theological debate and discussion. Erasmus, who dedicated

his New Testament in Latin to Henry and Katherine,

tells us that “whenever he has leisure from his

political occupations”—and presumably from hunting—“he reads, or disputes with remarkable

courtesy and unruffled temper,” never standing upon his royal dignity.

Sometimes, however, Henry

gave the impression that he thought he knew better than his bishops in matters of doctrine and

interpretation of the Scriptures. Indeed, he was more than a match for them, being “the most learned of

kings, not only in theology, but also in philosophy.”

He was well read in the Church Fathers and other

pious works, and could cite texts; the extensive marginal notes he made in his books may still be seen

in those that survive.

The responsibility for religious observances and services at court belonged to the Chapel Royal, which

was not a building but an institution comprising twenty-six chaplains and clerks, twenty Gentlemen, the

Clerk of the Closet (who was responsible for preparing for private services in the King’s closet),

the

Serjeant of the Vestry, a Gospeller, an Epistoler, two Yeomen of the Chapel, thirteen minstrels, a

watchman, and the twelve choristers and their Master.

It had first been established in the twelfth

century as the King’s Chapel, or the Household Chapel, its function being to provide for the spiritual

welfare of the monarch, and from 1312 it was under the rule of a dean, who answered directly to the

Archbishop of Canterbury. The Chapel Royal performed daily services for the royal household in the

royal chapels, and when the King travelled on progress or to a lesser house, a small core of its members

always went with him. It cost him £2,000 (£6 million) a year to maintain the Chapel Royal.

All services were of course in Latin, and the only permitted version of the Bible was the Latin Vulgate.

The calendar was full of saints’ days, which were observed with various degrees of solemnity or

festivity. The Church recognised seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, marriage, ordination,

penance, the Eucharist, and viaticum (the last rites). Its bishops wore splendid vestments—such as the

gem-encrusted mitre shown in Hans Holbein’s portrait of Archbishop Warham—and lived in princely

style.

To confuse matters, several of the royal chapels were known as the chapel royal, notably those at the

Tower, Westminster, Eltham, Greenwich, Hampton Court, Whitehall, and St. James’s Palace. Each

household chapel was beautifully decorated, with brilliant stained glass windows, wall paintings,

statues of the Virgin and saints, and a rood screen bearing a large carving of the crucified Christ; the

screen separated the nave from the chancel, which only the clergy were allowed to enter. On the altar,

which was draped with an embroidered frontal, stood a crucifix and perhaps sacred relics in bejewelled

reliquaries, while above hung a case called the pyx, which contained the Host. Most of the royal

chapels had splendid organs, in which the King, who was fascinated by their workings, took an active

interest. From 1514, he employed an organ-maker, William Lewes,

and later set up a workshop for

him at Bridewell Palace.

It was probably Lewes who made the organ for the chapel royal at Hampton

Court in 1538.

“The Holy Innocent”

The Queen’s second pregnancy progressed well, and in September 1510 preparations were made for

“the King’s nursery.”

A Lady Mistress, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Poyntz, was appointed to take

charge of the birth and care for the new baby, and the room assigned her was decorated with new

hangings. A purple velvet bearing pane (a strip of cloth) with a long train was made for the infant.

Following earlier precedents, Margaret Beaufort had laid down strict ordinances to be observed

“against the deliverance of a queen,”

and these were faithfully observed throughout her grandson’s

reign. “Her Highness’s pleasure being understood in what chamber she will be delivered in, the same

must be hanged with rich cloth of Arras, sides, roof, windows and all, except one window, which must

be hanged so as she may have light when it pleaseth her.” These tapestries were to depict innocuous

scenes from romances, so that neither the Queen nor her newborn infant might be “affrighted by figures

which gloomily stare.” The floor was to be “laid all over with carpets” before the great bed was

brought in. This was made up with a mattress stuffed with wool, a feather bed, a bolster of down, sheets

of fine lawn, two long pillows and two square pillows, all filled with fine down, and a counterpoint

(embroidered quilt) of scarlet furred with ermine and trimmed with crimson velvet and cloth of gold.

The tester and curtains were to be of crimson satin embroidered with golden crowns and the Queen’s

arms, the tester being edged with a silk fringe of blue, russet, and gold. An altar was to be placed in the

chamber, and a cupboard, covered with tapestry, for the birthing equipment. The “rich font of

Canterbury” was to be brought in specially for the occasion, in case the child was weak and needed

immediate baptism.

About four to six weeks before the delivery, the Queen was to “take to her chamber” and retire into

seclusion to await the birth. On that day, she would hear mass in a chapel “well and worshipfully

arrayed,” and then host a banquet for all the lords and ladies of the court in her “great chamber,” which

was also to be hung with rich tapestries and furnished with “a cloth and chair of estate and cushions,”

so that the Queen might “stand or sit at her pleasure.” “Spices and wine” would be served, and then two

high-ranking lords would escort the Queen to the door of her inward lodgings, which opened into the

antechamber to her bedchamber, where she would take formal leave of the courtiers and her male

officers. As she left, her Chamberlain would desire all her people to pray “that God would send her a

good hour.” She would not be seen again in public until after the birth.

“Then all the ladies and gentlewomen to go in with her, and none to come in to the great chamber but

women; and women to be made all manner of officers, as butlers, panters, sewers, etc.” No man would

be allowed in, not even the King, until after the delivery. Everything that was needed would be brought

to the door of the great chamber and there given to the temporary female officers.

As the birth

approached, the Queen’s chaplains would hold themselves in readiness for an urgent summons, as

would the messenger appointed to convey news of the birth to the King.

Childbirth was a hazardous

business, for both mother and child, and around a quarter of newborns were lost. The future of the

Tudor dynasty hung upon a happy outcome.

In November, a tournament was held over several days, at which “the King broke more staves than any

other.”

Then the court moved to Richmond, where the Queen took to her chamber. At the end of

December she went into labour; no more is heard of the “groaning chair,” and it appears that Katherine

gave birth on “a fair pallet bed” placed beside the great bed in her bedchamber,

and wearing one of the

fine Holland smocks and double petticoats that were later found among the “necessaries provided for

what time she lay in childbed” at the Wardrobe in Baynard’s Castle.

There was no effective pain relief.

In 1512, Katherine sent the Abbot of Westminster to her pregnant sister-in-law, Margaret Tudor, with

the Girdle of Our Lady, a holy relic in the possession of Westminster Abbey but loaned out to royal

ladies in labour, whose sufferings were said to be relieved by its presence in the birthing chamber.

Perhaps we may assume that Katherine herself had found it efficacious.

In the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1511, the Queen was delivered of a prince, to the great jubilation

of the King and the court. A royal salute was fired from the cannon ranged along Tower Wharf, all the

church bells pealed out in celebration, Te Deums were sung by the clergy, and there were triumphant

processions through London. In order for his subjects to share in his joy at the birth of his son and heir,

Henry ordered that bonfires be lit in the streets of London and that the Lord Mayor arrange for the

citizens to be served with free wine to drink the Prince’s health. He rewarded the midwife with £10

(£150) and Mistress Poyntz with £30 (£450).

The royal infant must have looked very tiny indeed in his vast painted wooden cradle, which measured

approximately five feet by two feet and was trimmed with silver gilt and had buckles either side to

secure his swaddling bands. He lay there, wrapped up tight, under a cover-cloth fringed with gold and a

scarlet counterpoint furred with ermine.

Yet when he was displayed to important visitors, he was

placed in an even bigger cradle of estate, upholstered in crimson and decorated with gold fringing, with

his father’s coat of arms above his head.

The Queen had now moved to a bed of estate set up in her presence chamber, where, wrapped in a

round mantle of crimson velvet, she would receive guests and well-wishers. She would also write a

letter to her Lord Chamberlain and, perhaps other officers and nobles, formally announcing the birth.

It was customary for queens to lie in for up to thirty or forty days after the delivery, before being

purified in a special ceremony known as “churching,” after which they were no longer considered

unclean and could return to their normal routine.

Queens did not breastfeed; a wet nurse was engaged

for that, leaving the royal mother free to conceive another heir for the dynasty.

When he was five days old, the Prince was christened at Richmond, and given the name Henry. He was

also styled Prince of Wales. His godparents at the font were Archbishop Warham, the Earl of Surrey,

and the Earl and Countess of Devon,

his great-aunt and uncle, while his august sponsors were King

Louis XII of France and Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian I,

who both sent expensive gifts of gold plate.

Back in his nursery, the Prince was subject to an orderly regimen laid down by his great-grandmother,

Margaret Beaufort. Although royal parents visited their children, they did not undertake the daily care

of them; that was left to the nursery staff. Prince Henry’s Lady Mistress supervised his wet-nurse and

dry nurse, who were assisted by four chamberers known as rockers, whose chief duty was to lull their

charge to sleep by rocking his cradle. All nursery staff had to swear a special oath of loyalty before the

Lord Chamberlain, as did the Grooms, Yeomen, Panters, and Sewers who waited upon the nursery.

The wet-nurse had to be of excellent moral character, since “the child suckleth the vice of his nurse

with the milk of her pap,”

and all her food was assayed for poison. A physician stood by to supervise

every feeding to make sure that the baby was getting enough and was not being slipped any

unauthorised foods. Among the “necessaries as belong unto the child” there were “a great pot of leather

for water,” “two great basins of water,” and yards of “fine linen and blanket.” The nursery was quite

luxurious, with tapestries, eight large carpets, and two cushions of crimson damask, and great formality

was observed within it.

Royal children did not usually live at court, where the risk of infection was unacceptably high, but were

assigned separate establishments and households while still quite young. The King immediately

appointed no less than forty persons to serve his son, including a Clerk of the Signet, a Serjeant of

Arms, three chaplains, a Carver, Yeomen of the Wardrobe and the Beds, a Keeper of the Cellar, and a

Baker. Looking further ahead, he also designated a room in the Palace of Westminster as the Prince’s

council chamber.

That done, the proud father set off on a visit to the Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk to

give thanks for the gift of a son and heir.

Dismounting a mile away, at the Slipper Chapel, the King,

like all the other pilgrims, removed his shoes and walked barefoot to the Virgin’s shrine, where he lit a

candle and offered a costly necklace. He also arranged, at his own expense, for the royal glazier,

Bernard Flower, to make stained glass windows for the Lady Chapel.

His pilgrimage completed, Henry returned to Richmond. Then, “the Queen being churched and

purified, the King and she removed to Westminster,”

the Prince having been left in the healthier air of

Richmond.

It was now time to celebrate in style. On 1 February, there was a tournament at which the King,

Brandon, Neville, and Sir Edward Howard, all clad in “coats of green satin guarded with crimson

velvet,” tilted against Essex, Devon, Dorset, and Surrey’s son, Lord Thomas Howard. Henry’s

councillors were still trying to persuade him to watch rather than take part, “and spake thereof as much

as they durst, but his courage was so noble” that they had to give way.

On 12 and 13 February, perhaps the most lavish tournament of the reign was staged at Westminster in

honour of the Queen. The King took the role of Coeur Loyal—Sir Loyal Heart—and appeared in the

tiltyard, wearing his wife’s colours, with three other challengers on a pageant car drawn by a mock lion

and antelope of damask gold and silver. The car was decked out as a forest “with rocks, hills and

dales”; in the midst was a golden castle, and outside the castle was “a gentleman making a garland of

roses for the Prince.” When the car stopped before the Queen, the “foresters” on it sounded their horns,

and out rode the four challengers from the castle: the Earl of Devon was Bon Valoir, Thomas Knyvet

Bon Espoir, and Edward Neville Valiant Desire. All presented their shields to Katherine.

The next day, the answerers appeared. Charles Brandon arrived on horseback, attired as a hermit, and

received the Queen’s permission to accept the challenge. He then threw off his habit “to reveal that he

was fully armed.” He was joined by Henry Guildford, then the Marquess of Dorset, and Sir Thomas

Boleyn, “dressed like two pilgrims in black velvet tabards with pilgrims’ hats over the helmets, and

carrying Jacob’s staffs in their hands; and their tabards, hats and cloaks were decorated with golden

scallop shells,” as if they had come from the shrine of St. James at Compostela. Course after course

was run, with the Queen bestowing the prizes; there was great applause when the King won the

challenger’s prize. Even after the tournament had drawn to a close, Henry insisted upon running

another course with Brandon, “for the King’s lady’s sake.”

The Great Tournament Roll of Westminster, a manuscript now in the College of Arms, vividly depicts

the proceedings at this tournament. One scene shows Henry jousting in front of Katherine of Aragon,

who sits under a canopy of estate with her ladies in a pavilion hung with cloth of gold and purple velvet

embroidered with H’s and K’s, pomegranates and roses.

On the second night, there was great revelry in the White Hall, with “an interlude of the Gentlemen of

his Chapel before His Grace,” in honour of the Prince, and a pageant, The Garden of Pleasure, in which

Henry again appeared as Coeur Loyal, wearing a purple satin suit adorned with gold H’s and K’s.

Several people, including the Spanish ambassador, would not believe the letters were real gold, so,

during the dancing that followed, the King invited them to pull them off him to prove that they were.

Unfortunately, the general public, who had been allowed in to witness the festivities, mistook this as an

invitation to divest the King and his courtiers of their finery for largesse, and surged into the throng of

merry-makers, grabbing and pulling as they went. Henry was stripped down to his doublet and hose, as

were most of his companions, while poor Sir Thomas Knyvet lost all his clothes and, stark naked, had

to climb a pillar for safety. Even the ladies who had danced in the pageant, wearing gowns of Tudor

green and white, “were spoiled likewise, wherefore the King’s guard came suddenly and put the people

back.” The King passed the whole thing off as a joke, and “all these hurts were turned to laughing and

game.” The evening concluded with a banquet in the presence chamber, with everyone attending in

what was left of their finery.

After this, security was tighter at public events.

Ten days after these rejoicings, terrible news arrived from Richmond. On 23 February,

the little Prince

had died. The Queen was distraught, but the King, concealing his own grief, comforted her. No blame

was attached to the nursery staff, and Elizabeth Poyntz was rewarded for her service with an annuity of

£20 (£300).

The Keeper of the Wardrobe supplied an elaborate hearse on which the tiny body was conveyed to

London. Dozens of wax candles burned around the hearse day and night while a round-the-clock vigil

was kept over it by black-clad mourners in Westminster Abbey, where the Prince was afterwards buried

late at night in a torch-lit ceremony.

His soul, wrote an observer, was “now among the holy innocents

of God.”

Henry made no further outward show of grief. That Easter, Pope Julius II bestowed on him a Golden

Rose that he himself had blessed, and which symbolised the flowers that preceded the fruits of the

Passion of Christ. Not only was this a great comfort, it was also a sign of high apostolic favour, which

in 1512 was followed by a Sword and Cap of Maintenance. It was also an inducement for Henry to join

the so-called Holy League, an alliance between the Papacy, Spain, and Venice against Louis of France,

who had aggressive ambitions in Italy.

May Day was celebrated as usual. “The King, lying at Greenwich, rode to the wood to fetch may,” and

for three days, he, Howard, Brandon, and Neville “held jousts against all comers. Many a sore stripe

was given and many a staff broke.”

During his summer progress of 1511, Henry travelled through the Midlands, visiting Nottingham and

Coventry, where he and the Queen watched part of the famous cycle of mystery plays, performed by

local guildsmen. The King also indulged himself in sports and gambling, but there were complaints

from his courtiers that he was “much enticed to play at tennis and at dice” by “crafty persons” who

“brought in French-men and Lombards to make wagers with him, so he lost much money.” Fortunately,

before too much damage had been done, “he perceived their craft” and sent them away.

Thereafter, he

would be on his guard against professional tricksters.

During the year 1511, Henry rebuilt Sunninghill, an old royal lodge in Windsor Forest, which he

intended to use as a hunting box. It was kept in repair for most of his reign, but has long since

disappeared, its exact location being now uncertain.

In October, the King joined the Holy League. As a sign of solidarity with the Church, he commanded

his courtiers to curb their extravagance and dress more soberly; he even forbade the nobility to wear

silk. Instead of wasting their money on outward show, they should be spending it on the weapons and

horses required for a crusade against the King of France. Henry himself put away his rich garments,

donning plainer clothes, and in December, when attending Parliament, he appeared in the House of

Lords wearing “a long grey cloth gown” cut in the Hungarian fashion.

This fad for austerity did not last long. The King spent Christmas at Greenwich “with great and

plentiful cheer in a most princely manner, where was such viands served to all comers of honest

behaviour as hath been few times seen.”

The King spent over £800 (£240,000) on New Year’s gifts.

On New Year’s Night, a pageant, The Fortress Dangerous, was put on in the great hall. It featured a

castle with towers and a dungeon, “garnished with artillery and weapons, after the most warlike

fashion”— there was a message here for Henry’s courtiers—and inside were six ladies wearing gowns

of russet satin “laid all over with leaves of gold.” Predictably, the castle was assaulted by the King and

five other knights; the ladies, “seeing them so lusty and courageous,” readily yielded, and came down

to dance with them.

For Twelfth Night, William Cornish had devised something novel: “The King with eleven other were

disguised after the manner of Italy, called a masque, a thing not seen afore in England. They were

apparelled in garments wrought with gold, with visors and caps of gold; and after the banquet [was]

done, these masquers came in with six gentlemen, disguised in silk, bearing torches, and desired the

ladies to dance. Some were content, and some that knew the fashion of it refused because it was not a

thing commonly seen. After they danced and communed together, and as the fashion of the masque is,

they took their leave and departed, and so did the Queen and her ladies.”

What caused all the fuss was that, rather than dancing with ladies they had rehearsed with, as in a

pageant, the men were choosing their partners from the audience. Masques, or “masks,” as they were

known in England, were a form of drama in which the plot took second place to disguises, poetry,

music, and dancing, and they were usually performed by amateurs. They began with a spectacular

entry, continued with a “presentation,” and ended with a dance, which was often very complicated and

required skill and agility. Like pageants, many masques had allegorical or political themes. The

introduction of this new form of entertainment into court festivities is an indicator that Italian influence

was beginning to be felt at the English court. The King’s growing preference for masques, in which he

could show off his talents to perfection, heralded the demise of the pageant, but that would not take

place for several years.

Henry was at Greenwich when, at the end of April 1512, the Palace of Westminster was largely

destroyed by a fire that broke out in the kitchens. Westminster Hall, the Painted Chamber, the crypt of

St. Stephen’s Chapel, and the Jewel Tower luckily survived, but the rest of the royal lodgings and the

service quarters were gutted. They were not rebuilt, although the hall continued to house the law courts

and the Palace of Westminster remained the official seat of government. The ruins of the old palace

were not finally cleared away until 1532.

The loss of his chief London residence drove the King to look elsewhere for somewhere to lodge in the

capital, yet the two palaces available in the City, which the King immediately made use of, proved

outdated, too small, and insufficiently grand.

One was Baynard’s Castle, a battlemented, double-courtyard house with octagonal corner towers. It

was sited in Thames Street, between Paul’s Wharf and Blackfriars, with a frontage facing the north

bank of the River Thames. The first castle on the site had been built in the reign of William the

Conqueror, and was named after its custodian, Ralph Baignard, but it had been rebuilt in 1428 by

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and again in 1501 by Henry VII, who made it “beautiful and

commodious”

for the wedding celebrations of Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon, who spent their

wedding night there. Prior to that it had been the London residence of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York,

the mother of Edward IV and Richard III. It was now the Queen’s property, and used chiefly to store

her Wardrobe stuff. The King found that the site was cramped and that there was no room to expand.

His other London residence was, of course, the Tower of London. He used the lodgings built by his

father, and erected temporary buildings near the White tower for the officers of his household. He also

rebuilt the thirteenth-century Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, which had been damaged by fire.

But the

Tower was still too small.

Henry found that he had to compromise. If he could not live comfortably in London, he could live near

it in the style to which he had become accustomed, and so he based himself chiefly at Greenwich,

making use also of Richmond, Eltham, or Lambeth Palace, the London house of the Archbishop of

Canterbury.

Henry also began to take an interest in Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, Kent, a beautiful palace built on

two linked islands in the middle of a lake. Edward I had purchased it in 1278 for his beloved wife,

Eleanor of Castile, and after that it had been a dower house for the queens of England until the death in

1437 of Katherine of Valois, widow of Henry V and Henry VIII’s great-grandmother by virtue of her

second union with Owen Tudor. The Queen’s Gallery leading to the Fountain Court was probably built

for her. After her death Leeds had lost favour with royalty, but Henry VIII saw its potential. In 1512, he

made Henry Guildford Constable of the castle, and allowed him to live there. Henry himself visited

from time to time. He also commissioned certain works, which were completed by 1515. Guildford’s

job was to act as overseer.

Later, between 1517 and 1523, Henry spent £1,300 (£390,000) on Leeds. He installed bay windows in

the royal lodgings in the Gloriette tower and refurbished every room. The upper floor was fitted out for

the Queen; her bedchamber and withdrawing room, much remodelled, remain today, and her badges

may still be seen on a fireplace in her gallery. Henry also built the Maidens’ Tower to provide

accommodation for her ladies, and the splendid banqueting hall, which is seventy-five feet long and has

a polished floor of ebony wood and a ceiling of carved oak. The contemporary fireplace is French and

was installed in the twentieth century; Henry’s original chimneypiece is now in the room that has been

fitted out as the bedchamber of Katherine of Valois.

“A Galaxy of Distinguished Men”

In May 1512, William Blount, Lord Mountjoy,

a distant cousin of the King, replaced the Earl of

Ormonde as Lord Chamberlain to Queen Katherine. Blount was unusual among his caste in that he had

an international reputation as a humanist scholar. Having displayed an early brilliance, he had been sent

by his uncle and guardian, Sir James Blount, to be educated in Paris, where the great scholar Erasmus

was one of his tutors. The two struck up a friendship, and when Mountjoy was recalled to England in

1499 to consummate his marriage to the young heiress Elizabeth Say, he invited Erasmus to visit him at

his house at Greenwich.

Blount was a man of many parts: a wealthy nobleman, a soldier who had fought for Henry VII in the

Cornish Rising of 1497, and a man of culture. He was modest and high-minded, and he had little time

for gambling or idle pursuits. Erasmus held a high opinion of his learning, calling him an elegant

Latinist,

and it was probably for this reason that Henry VII engaged him in 1499 as an academic

mentor for Prince Henry; there is every reason to believe that Blount, with his powerful intellect,

exerted a lasting influence over his charge. It was Blount who took Erasmus and Thomas More to visit

the royal children at Eltham Palace in 1499. By 1505, Mountjoy had been made a privy councillor. His

friendship with Erasmus drew him into the humanist circle that included Thomas More, Thomas

Linacre, William Grocyn, and John Colet.