Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

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seated under a canvas canopy decorated with roses and green bows. The riverbank was crowded with

small craft filled with ladies and gentlemen, while two other barges conveyed musicians up and down

the river.

In 1539, Henry VIII created the vast Honour of Hampton Court, an enclosed royal hunting domain that

stretched across thirty-six square miles of the Surrey countryside, from Weybridge to Thames Ditton,

and from Battersea and Balham to Epsom, Coulsdon, and Mortlake. The first royal forest for two

centuries, it was intended to facilitate easier sport for the King, who was growing “heavy with sickness,

age and corpulency of body, and might not travel so readily abroad, but was constrained to seek his

game and pleasure ready at hand.”

The new Honour was centred upon Hampton Court Chase. Several

royal houses came within its compass, and there was provision for the days on which the King was

unable to ride. The deer were then driven through two lines of nets past a small timber-framed building

called a standing, which had a high gallery from which he and his companions would shoot them. The

ladies would often come to watch, and refreshments would be served. Henry had several of these

standings built in his later years. At the royal palaces, mounting blocks were raised so that he could

mount and dismount easily, and elsewhere bridges were built over marshland for his safety while

riding.

By 1541, the King owned eighty-five hunting parks and forests, and was to create two more: Nasing

Park, Essex, in 1542, and Marylebone Park (now Regents Park), north of London, in 1544.

Henry’s mania for acquiring property did not abate. Seven houses came into his possession in 1539,

three of them intended as residences for his children. Ashridge, formerly a thirteenth-century monastery

with a collegiate church, was renowned for its healthy air and was used frequently by Edward and

Elizabeth.

They also stayed often at Elsynge Hall, north of Enfield, Middlesex, which had been built

before 1524 by Sir Thomas Lovell and already had a suite of chambers for the use of the King. Henry

reconstructed the outer court, which boasted a covered gallery, and updated the royal apartments. There

was a well-stocked deer park, which bordered Enfield Chase; in the chase was a royal hunting lodge

called Camelot, but virtually nothing is known about it. The King came to Elsynge occasionally,

received ambassadors, and once held a Council meeting.

Nearby was the fourteenth-century fortified

manor house at Enfield, which reverted to the Crown on the death of Lady Wingfield. Henry created

apartments for all his children here, but they lodged more frequently at Elsynge, which was larger and

grander.

The King obtained Halnaker House, Sussex, by exchange with Lord de la Warre; he also purchased a

fourteenth-century hunting lodge at Bagshot, which he refurbished but rarely used,

and two houses in

the north, Hull Manor and the King’s Manor at York, which he intended to visit on a future progress.

“Nourishing Love”

The Duke of Cleves, eager to form an alliance with England, signed the marriage treaty on 4 September

1539. Later that month, his envoys arrived in England to conclude the alliance. During the eight days

they spent at Windsor, the King laid on feasts and hunting expeditions in their honour, then took them

to Hampton Court, where he ratified the marriage treaty on 8 October. After the envoys had left, Henry

began preparing for the arrival of his bride.

Cromwell, whose credit with his master had been somewhat restored as a result of these successful

negotiations, now turned his attention to bringing about major reforms to the royal household. The

Eltham Ordinances of 1526 had failed to eliminate extravagance and waste, and economy dictated that

more stringent measures be imposed. The Greenwich Ordinances that Cromwell drew up, which came

into effect on 24 December 1539, provided for the entire household to be placed under the control of a

Lord Great Master, to whom the Lord Chamberlain would be subordinate. Since the ageing Lord

Sandys was often absent from court, there was no danger of a power struggle, and when Sandys died in

1541, the office of Lord Chamberlain was left vacant for three years. The post of Lord Steward was

abolished; the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had occupied it since Henry’s accession, had just died, so this

was an opportune moment to make the change. The office of Lord Great Master was based on that of

the grand maitre d’hostel du roi of the French court, and the first to be appointed to it was the Duke of

Suffolk.

Cromwell also streamlined household administration and cut down numbers in every department but

the Chamber, where the King insisted on an increase in staff; his Gentlemen now numbered sixteen.

The Household servants were reduced from 500 to 230. Each person’s duties were laid down in writing,

along with comments about their performance, and records of attendance were strictly kept. Stern

measures were taken to keep out unauthorised retainers, beggars, boys, and animals, while tight

spending controls were imposed, each department being made accountable to the Board of the

Greencloth, which was presided over by the Lord Great Master assisted by four Masters of the

Household, the Cofferer, and the White Sticks. The emphasis was on efficiency and good service,

which the King prized very highly. So effective was Cromwell’s system that it survived, in essence,

until the nineteenth century.

Cromwell’s reforms also extended to the King’s Council, where he designated nineteen of the most

active and influential councillors as the Privy Council, a name that had hitherto been used for those

councillors who were especially close to the King. The new Privy Council would, much later, evolve

into the Cabinet. Naturally, Cromwell dominated this privileged group, much to the chagrin of Norfolk

and other lords, but both the King and Cromwell held that promotion to it depended on merit, not birth.

Their views were enshrined in an Act of Precedence that ranked the eleven great officers of state and

household above the nobility, however ancient their title. However, as many of these offices were

normally held by peers, there was always an aristocratic majority on the Council, which increased

during the 1540s. Members of the Council were from now on to meet at court, rather than at

Westminster, and would enjoy the privilege of lodging there and dining in their council chamber.

The King’s own powers were now extended: his proclamations were to have the same force as an Act

of Parliament, and his authority was to encompass doctrinal issues. Thomas Wriothesley and Ralph

Sadler were appointed his joint Principal Secretaries of State early in 1540, Wriothesley acting as

Secretary to the Council and Sadler as Secretary to the King. The King had rewarded Wriothesley’s

good service with the dissolved abbey of Titchfield, which Wriothesley was busily converting into his

country seat. He easily dominated Sadler, and by 1542 it was being said that he “almost governed

everything.”

Ralph Sadler had graduated from Cromwell’s household and, having impressed the King

by his performance as an envoy in Scotland, was now embarking on a career as a politician and

diplomat that would span four reigns and make him one of the wealthiest commoners in England. In

1540, Henry granted him land at Standen, Hertfordshire, where he built a fine courtyard house.

The Gentlemen Pensioners were refounded in 1539, under the Greenwich Ordinances, as an elite guard

for the King, keeping watch in the presence chamber. Now numbering fifty well-born young men,

under the captaincy of Sir Anthony Browne, they were expected to provide their own weapons—a

poleaxe, a dagger, and a sword—and wear dark velvet doublets or a livery of red and yellow damask,

but were given a gold medallion of office which was worn on a chain round the neck. This may be seen

in the portrait of one Gentleman Pensioner, William Palmer, painted by Gerlach Flicke in about 1546,

and in Holbein’s drawing of William Parr, who was appointed their second Captain in November 1541.

So many gentlemen wished to join that the King later created a separate band of Gentlemen at Arms,

whose numbers had risen to forty-one by the end of the reign; there were then 150 Gentlemen

Pensioners.

Henry’s devoted fool, Will Somers, who enjoyed the status of a Chamber servant, remained untouched

by the reforms. Cromwell liked him, and had applauded the way in which he had, on many occasions,

jokingly drawn the King’s attention to the abuses within his household. Somers was that rare creature at

court, a man of integrity and discretion, who refused to become embroiled in factional politics and who

never took advantage of his privileged position. He remained one of the King’s closest companions

during Henry’s later years: an illustration in the King’s Psalter (c. 1540–1542) shows him listening

while Henry plays the harp.

Somers may also be the male figure standing on the right of the Whitehall

family portrait.

Somers was always on hand to offer comfort whenever the King’s leg gave him trouble and forced him

into tedious inactivity, as it did in the winter of 1539, when George Constantine confessed to a friend

that it grieved him “to see His Grace halt so much upon his sore leg.”

Henry was also suffering from

constipation at this time, which did not help matters.

But he was in high spirits, for his bride was at last

on her way to England.

Everything was ready for the arrival of Anne of Cleves. The Queen’s apartments at Hampton Court and

elsewhere had been redecorated and put in repair. Two of the King’s richest beds had been sent to

Rochester and Dartford, where the Princess would stay on her way to Greenwich. The King planned to

marry her there at the start of the Christmas season, and then enjoy twelve days of lavish celebrations.

Anne would make her state entry into London on 1 January, and be crowned at Westminster Abbey on

Candlemas Day, 2 February. Many courtiers had already ordered rich fabrics and garments for these

coming events.

The new Queen’s household was ready and waiting, with Rutland and Baynton restored to their offices

of Chamberlain and Vice Chamberlain, and Sir John Dudley as Master of the Horse. There had been the

usual stampede for places, more so because the King had limited the numbers to 126. The six ladies-in-

waiting, who were now to be called “the great ladies of the household,”

were Lady Margaret Douglas,

the Duchesses of Richmond and Suffolk, the Countess of Sussex, Lady Howard, and Lady Clinton—

the King’s former mistress, Elizabeth Blount.

Norfolk secured posts for his nieces, Katherine Howard

and Mary Norris, and his great-niece, Katherine Carey (daughter of Mary Boleyn), as maids of honour.

Katherine Howard was the daughter of Norfolk’s ineffectual brother, Lord Edmund Howard, who had

recently died after spending several unprofitable years as Controller in Calais. She had been raised, in

the company of several other well-born girls, in the household of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk at

Horsham in Norfolk and at Lambeth, where discipline had been so lax that she had compromised

herself with two young men—one her music master, when she was just eleven, the other her distant

cousin, Francis Dereham, with whom she had been more deeply involved. Now aged about fifteen, she

was tiny in stature, very pretty, and old in the ways of love.

Lady Lisle, having made certain of a post as maid of honour for Anne Basset, pleaded with the King to

find one for her other daughter, Katherine. Henry, who had recently presented Anne with a fine horse

and saddle, prompting rumours that she was his mistress, told Lady Lisle he had not yet decided how

many maids the Queen would need, but he meant to ensure that they were all “fair, and meet for the

room.”

The Mother of the Maids was the strict Lady Browne, wife of Sir Anthony, who would not

have allowed any levity, however fair the girls were.

The Princess Anne had left Cleves in November, but was delayed in Calais by fierce December gales.

Lord Lisle entertained her with banquets and tournaments, while Lady Lisle wrote to Anne Basset that

the new Queen would be “good and gentle to serve and please.”

Soon the Lord High Admiral, the Earl

of Southampton, arrived to escort Anne to England. With him were the Seymour brothers, Sir Nicholas

Poyntz, Gregory Cromwell, and a young member of the Privy Chamber called Thomas Culpeper, to

whom the King had recently shown special favour. Henry had instructed Southampton to “cheer my

lady and her train so they think the time short,”

so, with the help of an interpreter, since Anne had

little English, the Admiral taught her to play Sent and other card games that Henry enjoyed, with

Gregory Cromwell joining in.

After Christmas, the storms abated and the Princess of Cleves was able to cross the channel to Deal in

Kent, arriving on 27 December. The Duke and Duchess of Suffolk were waiting to receive her, and they

escorted her to Dover Castle, where she slept that night.

Anne brought with her a retinue of 350 Germans, of whom 100 were her personal servants, notably her

ladies, household officers, a cook called Schoulenburg, a physician, Dr. Cornelis, a secretary, a footman

named Engelbert, thirteen trumpeters, two drummers, and the artist Susanna Horenbout. Her escort was

formed of noblemen and ambassadors. It had been agreed that most of these people would return to

Cleves after the wedding.

The appearance of Anne’s twelve German maids caused great amusement

in Calais and England, for they “dressed after a fashion so heavy and tasteless that it would make them

appear frightful even if they were beauties.”

In charge of them was a formidable matriarch called

Mother Lowe, who effectively ruled the whole household.

On 29 December, Anne arrived in Canterbury, where she was welcomed by Archbishop Cranmer. After

a night in the new Queen’s lodgings in the former abbey of St. Augustine,

she rode to Sittingbourne,

and thence, on 31 December, was escorted by Norfolk to the Bishop’s Palace at Rochester. Here she

was received by Lady Browne, who was dismayed at what she saw. The King, she predicted, could

never love Anne, for there was in her “such fashion and manner of bringing up so gross and far

discrepant from the King’s Highness’ appetite.”

Anne had been educated by her mother at a cultural backwater of a court where it was considered

immodest for a woman to sing, play an instrument, dance, or be in any way learned.

Nor was it

thought necessary for her to speak any language other than German. Instead, Anne had been taught

reading, writing, and needlework; Nicholas Wotton noted that she spent most of her time sewing.

She

had never been hunting, and her preferred exercise was a sedate walk in the gardens. Now she would be

expected to preside over one of the most brilliant and cultivated courts in Europe. It is not surprising

that Lady Browne had reservations.

Yet Anne did have excellent personal qualities. “Her manner was like a princess,”

yet she was kind

and good humoured, and amiable without being overfamiliar. She was anxious to please the King: at

twenty-four, she was no giddy girl, and she had been trained to do her humble duty as a wife, although

she was entirely innocent of sexual matters. The Duchess of Cleves had not thought it necessary to

enlighten her.

The King spent Christmas at Whitehall. The court was exceptionally crowded because so many people

had come to greet the new Queen, although Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward all kept the festival at

Hertford Castle. Because of the delays in Anne’s journey, the wedding had been deferred; it was due to

take place as soon as she arrived.

On New Year’s Day, Hans Holbein presented the King with a superb portrait of the two-year-old Prince

Edward, wearing a wide-brimmed bonnet and clutching a gold rattle. The Prince appears in a solemn,

mannerist pose, gazing steadily at the artist with all the gravity of an adult ruler, as the portrait was

intended to convey. Below the portrait are verses written by Richard Moryson, Cromwell’s

propagandist, exhorting the boy to “equal your renowned father in greatness; no man can wish for

more.”

A delighted Henry gave Holbein a silver-gilt covered cup made by Cornelius Heyss.

Later that day, having learned that Anne of Cleves was at Rochester, the impatient King left the

festivities and galloped off with a few gentlemen and a gift of furs to greet his bride and “nourish love.”

“Displeasant Airs”

When the King and five of his Gentlemen presented themselves at Anne of Cleves’s lodgings at

Rochester on 1 January 1540, they were all dressed alike in marbled coats and hoods. Henry did not

identify himself, but embraced Anne, saying he had come with gifts from the King. After he had carried

on this charade for a short time, he revealed who he was, much to her discomfiture: she had not the

English to greet him properly, but pointed to the window, outside of which a bullbaiting was taking

place. Henry took an instant aversion to her and left as soon as courtesy permitted, taking the furs with

him. On the way back to Whitehall, he complained to Sir Anthony Browne, “I see nothing in this

woman as men report of her, and I marvel that wise men would make such reports as they have done.”

It is clear from Wotton’s reports

that Holbein had made a good likeness of Anne of Cleves, but he

painted her full-face, making the best of her looks. Another portrait of her, attributed to Barthel Bruyn

the Elder and now in the possession of St. John’s College, Oxford, is a sideways view and shows her

long nose to disadvantage; recent X rays of the portrait reveal an even longer nose. The French

ambassador, Charles de Marillac, described Anne as “tall and thin, of middling beauty, with determined

and resolute countenance”; she was “not so young as was at first thought, nor so handsome as people

affirmed,” since her skin was pitted with smallpox scars. Nor did her charm of manner compensate for

“her want of beauty.”

Yet it was not just Anne’s looks that revolted the King: he later told Cromwell

she was “nothing fair and have very evil smells about her” and that he could “have none appetite for

displeasant airs.”

Back at Whitehall, Cromwell asked him how he liked his future Queen. Henry snapped, “Nothing so

well as she is spoken of. If I had known as much before as I know now, she would never have come

into this realm.” He was talking about not only Anne herself, but the fact that Francis I had recently

sent him a gift of boar pâté for Christmas—an indication that he wished to renew his friendship with

England, which would obviate the need for an alliance with Cleves.

On 2 January, a glowering Henry moved with the court to Greenwich, where the wedding was to take

place. Anne herself travelled to the newly converted Dartford Palace, where she spent the night before

riding in procession to Shooters Hill. Here, she was welcomed by her Chamberlain, the Earl of Rutland,

and the officers and great ladies of her household, who kissed her hand then escorted her into one of

several rich pavilions that had been set up at the foot of the hill. There she was robed in a round gown

of cloth of gold cut in the Dutch fashion without a train, a pearl-embroidered caul and bonnet, and a

partlet of rich stones, ready for her official reception by the King at Blackheath, which was to be the

last great state occasion of the reign.

On Blackheath, the Mayor and Corporation of London and the German merchants of the Steelyard

stood waiting as hundreds of Knights, soldiers, liveried servants, and the newly reformed Gentlemen

Pensioners arranged themselves into orderly ranks. At noon, to the sound of trumpets, the King,

attended by Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cranmer, rode through Greenwich Park towards the waiting crowds,

preceded by his household officers, the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, barons, bishops, earls,

foreign ambassadors, Lord Privy Seal Cromwell, Lord Chancellor Audley, the Kings of Arms, and a

host of lords and bishops. Henry was “mounted on a goodly courser, trapped in rich cloth of gold,

pearled on every side, the buckles and pendants all of fine gold.” He wore “a cloak of purple velvet

made like a frock, all over embroidered with flat gold of damask with gold laces and tied with great

buttons of diamonds, rubies and orient pearl. His sword and swordgirdle [were] adorned with stones

and emeralds, his nightcap garnished with stone, but his bonnet was so rich of jewels that few men

could value them.” He also wore, baldrick-fashion, “a collar of such ballasts and pearl that few men

ever saw the like,” while “about his person ran 10 footmen, all richly apparelled in goldsmiths’ work.”

Henry was followed by the Lord Chamberlain, the Master of Horse leading the King’s horse of estate,

the Pages of Honour, and the Yeomen of the Guard. He halted some way short of the pavilions, and

waited. Presently Anne emerged on a richly trapped steed and rode towards Henry, who “put off his

bonnet and came forward to her, and with most lovely countenance and princely behaviour saluted,

welcomed and embraced her, to the great rejoicing of the beholders.” Anne, in turn, “with most amiable

aspect and womanly behaviour, received His Grace with many sweet words and great thanks and

praisings.”

The royal couple then rode back to Greenwich, followed by their vast retinues. As they

approached the palace, they could see the citizens and guilds of London, rowing up and down the river

in gaily bedecked barges from which issued music and singing, “which sight and noise they much

praised.”

Henry and Anne alighted in the outer court of Greenwich Palace, where “the King lovingly embraced

and kissed her, bidding her welcome to her own, and led her by the arm through the hall, and so

brought her up to her privy chamber, where he left her for that time.” Meanwhile, “a great peal of

guns” was shot out of Greenwich Castle.

That evening, there was a sumptuous banquet in Anne’s

honour.

Henry had behaved impeccably, although he was still doing his best to wriggle out of the alliance with

Cleves. But it was too late to do that without giving great offence and provoking a hostile reaction, so

he unwillingly faced the fact that the marriage must go ahead. On the morning of 6 January, before he

emerged from his privy lodgings for the ceremony, he told Cromwell, “If it were not to satisfy the

world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.”

At 8 A.M., wearing

“a gown of cloth of gold raised with great flowers of silver, furred with black” beneath a cloak of

crimson satin embroidered with large diamonds, with a rich collar about his neck,

he summoned his

nobles and proceeded to the gallery that led to the royal closets. There he waited, having dispatched

some lords to fetch the Princess, whose bridal attire was “a gown of rich cloth of gold set full of large

flowers of great Orient pearl, made after the Dutch fashion,” with a jewelled collar and belt. Her long

fair hair was loose beneath a gem-studded “coronal of gold” with trefoils fashioned to represent sprigs

of rosemary.

Escorted by two German lords and preceded by the English nobles, she came to the gallery, where she

made three low curtseys to the King. Then Henry led her into the Queen’s closet, where they were

married by Archbishop Cranmer. Around the new Queen’s wedding ring was engraved the legend “God

send me well to keep.” Once the nuptials were completed, Henry and Anne proceeded hand in hand

into the King’s closet, where they heard mass. Afterwards, spices and hippocras were served, then

Henry went off to his privy chamber to change while Anne was escorted by Norfolk and Suffolk to

hers. She was still in her wedding gown, at 9.00, when Henry rejoined her in a robe of rich tissue lined

with crimson velvet. Then, “with her serjeant-of-arms and all her officers before her, like a queen, the

King and she went openly in procession” into the King’s closet, where they made their offerings.

Afterwards, they dined together. In the afternoon, Anne changed into “a gown like a man’s, furred with

rich sables” with long fitted sleeves, and a headdress encrusted with stones and pearls. Thus attired, she

accompanied the King to Vespers and supped with him. Afterwards there were “banquets, masques and

divers disports till the time came that it pleased the King and her to take their rest.”

There was no public bedding ceremony. The bed in which the royal couple almost certainly slept,

which bears the initials H and A and the date 1539, had an antique headboard adorned with erotic

polychrome carvings, one priapic cherub and one pregnant one, intended to inspire lust and promote

fertility.

But the King, who felt he had been ill advised by Cromwell and cheated by Southampton,

who had praised Anne’s looks, was in no mood to consummate the marriage. In fact, during the days

that followed, he appeared to take an almost peverse pleasure in proclaiming his impotence. He told

Cromwell that, although he had done “as much to move the consent of his heart and mind as ever man

did,” he had not “carnally known” the Queen because he did not like her body and could not therefore

become aroused. In fact, “he mistrusted her to be no maid, by reason of the looseness of her breasts and

other tokens, which, when he felt them, struck him so to the heart that he had neither will nor courage

to prove the rest [and] left her as good a maid as he found her”; nor could he tolerate her rank body

odour.

He poured out his woes first to Anthony Denny, then to Dr. Chamber, claiming that Anne’s body was so

“disordered and indisposed” that he “could not overcome the loathesomeness” of it, “nor in her

company be provoked or stirred to that Act.” Dr. Chamber soothingly advised him “not to force himself

” in case he caused an “inconvenient debility” of the sexual organs. The King then sought out Dr. Butts,

confiding to him that, although he had not been able to do “what a man should do to his wife,” he had

had two wet dreams in his sleep on his wedding night and thought himself “able to do the Act with

other than with her.” Butts was told to make this known at court, to counteract growing rumours that

the King really was impotent. In fact, as Chamber and Butts suspected, there was probably nothing

wrong with him:

the logical conclusion is that he had purposefully avoided consummating the

marriage so that it could be annulled when the time was ripe.

Henry and Anne shared a bed every night for four months, but never achieved “true carnal copulation”;

in fact, after the first four nights, Henry gave up all pretence of trying,

and made it known he had

never even taken off his nightshirt. Anne herself was so innocent that she did not realise there was

anything wrong. Having revealed to her ladies that all the King did was courteously wish her goodnight

and good morning, she reacted with alarm when told that there must be more than that if she was to

bear a Duke of York, and said she was happy she knew no more.

Anne did her best to please Henry. Although her brother was inclined to Lutheranism, she dutifully

observed all the rites of the Church of England

and gave the King a German Book of Hours dedicated

in his honour.

She learned English rapidly and well. She began wearing gowns in the English fashion,

mostly of black satin or damask so that she could show off her jewels to greater effect. Some of those

jewels were designed by Holbein, and featured the entwined initials H and A.

The King, however, did

not lavish jewels on her as he had done his previous wives; Anne herself purchased one of her richest

pieces, a diamond brooch with miniature scenes from the life of Samson.

Anne was given Baynard’s Castle only for her jointure, Havering having been reserved for the use of

Prince Edward. She used both the ducal coronet and the swan of Cleves as her badge. Her very

presence in a court that had not had a queen for over two years enabled her to attract “a great court of

noblemen and gentlemen,”

all avid for her patronage. Eleanor Paston, Countess of Rutland; Jane,

Lady Rochford; and Winifred, Lady Edgecombe were high in her favour, as were the only two of her

German maids who had been allowed to stay in England, Katherine and Gertrude. However, when the

King’s dislike for Anne became known, many people deserted her chambers.

Although she never learned to sing or play, Anne soon came to share the King’s love of music, and

employed her own musicians to entertain her. Among them were several members of the Jewish

Bassano family, who Cromwell’s agents had discovered in Venice, where they were hiding from the

Inquisition. Offered asylum in England, they arrived at court in the spring of 1540. The Bassanos were

skilled recorder players, and they and their descendants would faithfully serve the Crown until the reign

of Charles I.

Anne’s other pleasures were chiefly domestic. She took a delight in the palace gardens, and rewarded

the gardeners generously for their services. She spent hours at her needlework, working in a form of

cross-stitch called opus pulvinarium on cushion covers and mats, and was responsible for introducing

some German Renaissance designs into England. She enjoyed gambling with cards or dice with her

ladies in her privy chamber, or watching the feats performed by a visiting acrobat. She is known to

have owned a parrot, and is said to have introduced the liver-and-white toy spaniel into England.

On 11 January, Henry and Anne presided over a tournament in honour of their nuptials, the Queen

appearing for the first time in English dress, with a French hood.

The King had already abandoned plans for her coronation, but he did arrange for her to make a state

entry into Westminster on 4 February, sailing with her in the royal barge from Greenwich, attended by

the nobility and guildsmen in a flotilla of smaller barges. The new Queen received a thunderous salute

from the Tower guns as she passed, and the banks of the Thames were crowded with cheering citizens.

At Westminster stairs, the King helped Anne out of the barge, and they walked in procession to

Whitehall Palace.

Nearby, the state apartments of St. James’s Palace were now finished, and the chapel royal nearing

completion. Its magnificent ceiling, painted by Holbein, and probably inspired by the décor of the

ambulatory vault of St. Costanza in Rome and the entrance hall to the Palazzo de Té in Mantua,

commemorates the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves, whose initials, badges, and mottoes,

with the date 1540, were incorporated into the design. Tapestries hung beneath the clerestory windows,

and the high altar was lavishly adorned. The new chapel would from now on be the official home of the

Chapel Royal.

In February, Lady Lisle sent a large bribe to Mother Lowe in the hope of getting her daughter Katherine

accepted into the Queen’s household, only to be told that the King had decreed that no new maids be

appointed unless one of the existing ones left to get married. Undeterred, Lady Lisle insisted that an

unwilling Anne Basset approach Henry himself, armed with a gift of his favourite quince marmalade.

Anne reported to her mother that “His Grace does like it wondrous well, and gave Your Ladyship

hearty thanks for it,” but added that she had dared not ask for a place for her sister “for fear lest how

His Grace would have taken it.” Later, when she did find courage to broach the subject, Henry told her

that Sir Francis Bryan and others had asked him the same favour for their friends, and that he would

“not grant me nor them yet.”

The following month, Lord Lisle was found to have grossly mismanaged

the King’s affairs in Calais, and was sent to the Tower, where he died two years later. Henry had a soft

spot for Anne Basset, and allowed her to remain at court, but there was no hope of her sister joining

her.

Any romantic feelings that Henry may have cherished for Anne were extinguished that spring when he

began pursuing Katherine Howard. By Easter, his passion for her was notorious, and the Catholic party

at court, led by Norfolk and Gardiner, hastened to capitalise on their good fortune. Norfolk, who

apparently knew nothing of her past, extolled his niece’s “pure and honest condition,” while Gardiner

“very often provided feastings and entertainments” for the King and Katherine at Winchester Palace in

Southwark.

Henry showered his new love with jewels and other gifts, and was rejuvenated by her

youth, her prettiness, and her vivacity. He was “so marvellously set upon [her] as it was never known

that he had the like to any woman.”

Charles de Marillac described Katherine’s countenance as “delightful,”

but there is no certain portrait

of her. Two almost identical miniatures by Holbein, thought to be of Katherine, survive today.

They

show a plump girl with auburn hair and the Howard nose, which bears out Marillac’s assertion that she

was “a young lady of moderate beauty but superlative grace, of small stature, of modest countenance

and gentle, earnest face.”

The miniature was first identified as Katherine in 1736, probably correctly,

given the rich clothing of the sitter and the fact that she is wearing the same pendant that appears in

Holbein’s portrait of Jane Seymour; the wide jewelled border edging the low neckline of her gown may

be the “square containing 23 diamonds and 60 rubies with an edge of pearl” that Henry VIII gave

Katherine in 1540.

A drawing at Windsor of a sitter with similar features may also represent Katherine

Howard, but was not called her until 1867. It has recently been suggested that Katherine was the model

for the figure of the Queen of Sheba in a stained glass window in King’s College Chapel at Cambridge,

which was crafted, probably by Galyon Hone, while she was queen; King Solomon bears a

resemblance to Henry VIII. A Holbein portrait at Toledo, Ohio, now thought to be of Elizabeth

Seymour, was erroneously identified as Katherine Howard in 1898.

In character, Katherine was frivolous, flighty, pleasure-loving, and sensual. Chapuys thought her

“imperious and wilful,”

which was perhaps the result of the King overindulging her. Although her

religious views were certainly orthodox, she was not noted for her piety.

Henry was now resolved to rid himself of Anne of Cleves, and by April was “declaring before God he

thought she was not his lawful wife.”

Apprised of the King’s wishes, Parliament petitioned him to

look into the circumstances of his marriage since they doubted its validity.

On 17 April, Cromwell was raised to the peerage as Earl of Essex and appointed Lord Great

Chamberlain of England, but while he was in London dealing with Parliament, Norfolk and Gardiner

had the King’s ear at Greenwich, and were busily poisoning Henry’s mind against him; Norfolk in

particular resented the fact that Cromwell had been given an earldom that had been held until recently

by the Bourchiers, who were descended from Edward III.

That month, the King held the annual chapter of the Order of the Garter at Windsor. Several of its

members had been executed for treason, mainly in the wake of the Exeter conspiracy, and it was

suggested that their dishonoured names be deleted from the register. Henry, however, did not wish to

deface the records, and ordered that the names should remain but that next to each were to be written

the words, “Vah, proditor!” (Oh, traitor!).

On May Day, the King and Queen watched the customary jousts from the new gatehouse at Whitehall.

Among the challengers was Henry’s new favourite, Thomas Culpeper, who had the misfortune to be

unhorsed. Lady Lisle, who, like many women, was susceptible to the charms of this “beautiful youth,”

had sent him her colours to wear, with a message that “they are the first that ever I sent to any man.”

Culpeper was ambitious, wealthy, and of good birth. He had been brought up in the privy chamber,

starting as a page and rising to the position of Gentleman, and now “ordinarily shared [the King’s]

bed.”

By 1537, his influence with his master was considerable enough for Lady Lisle to send him a

fine hawk in return for his patronage.

Yet there was a ruthless, violent side to Culpeper. In 1539, he

had brutally raped the wife of a park-keeper while “three or four of his most profligate attendants” held

her down at his bidding; he then murdered one of the villagers who tried to arrest him. The King, not

wishing to forego the young hothead’s company, pardoned him.

Culpeper was also greedy: he and his

brother, another Thomas who served in Cromwell’s household, were forever seeking to acquire grants

of monastic land, court offices, and pensions.

The tournament lasted five days, and when it ended, Henry and Anne attended a banquet at Durham

House, to which the public were admitted so that they could watch the victors of the jousts receiving

cash prizes and grants of houses from the King. This was Anne of Cleves’s last public appearance as

Queen.

Cromwell, the man who had helped to make her Queen, who believed he was at the pinnacle of his

career, was arrested without warning on 10 June. As he entered the council chamber at Westminster, the

Captain of the Guard apprehended him, and Norfolk and Southampton triumphantly stripped him of his

Garter insignia and seal. Shouting that he was no traitor, Cromwell was then hustled off to the Tower.

On 29 June, Parliament passed an Act of Attainder condemning him to death as a traitor and heretic: he

was said to have denied the Real Presence in the mass, a charge that was calculated to alienate the

King. He was also accused of presuming too far above his “very base and low degree.” Sir Richard

Rich was one of those who testified against him, and Norfolk was undoubtedly instrumental in his fall.

The King was so appalled by the evidence laid before him that he did not think to question it, and paid

no heed to Cranmer, who bravely ventured to ask, “Who shall Your Grace trust hereafter if you may not

trust him?”

Yet Henry did not put Cromwell to death immediately because, even now, he could prove

useful by providing information that would help secure an annulment of the Cleves marriage.

Cromwell readily complied, but it did not save him. Henry ignored his last letter, which ended with the

desperate plea, “Most gracious Prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy!”

Cromwell was beheaded on 28 July 1540 on Tower Hill, protesting that he died a faithful Catholic. The

people of England, who did not understand his worth, rejoiced in his death, and the King’s popularity

soared. Henry also acquired a convenient scapegoat for the failure of his marriage to Anne of Cleves.

The Catholic faction at court were jubilant. “Now is the false churl dead, so ambitious of others’

blood,” sneered Surrey. “Now he is stricken with his own staff.” He was referring to the process of

attainder, whereby so many of Cromwell’s victims had come to grief. Southampton, who had once been

Cromwell’s friend but had distanced himself from him after the Cleves marriage, now replaced him as

Lord Privy Seal, with Lord Russell becoming Lord High Admiral in his place. Cromwell’s fall also

represented a victory for religious orthodoxy, and drove many radical reformers underground. Even

Holbein, whose career had been advanced by Cromwell, fell out of favour and received no royal

commissions for two years.

Yet the conservatives’ victory was incomplete: many of those who had been Cromwell’s men remained

in post, and Cranmer, who held similar religious views to the late Lord Privy Seal, retained the King’s

confidence and could not be unseated. Although the influence of Norfolk and Gardiner increased after

Cromwell’s fall, neither was ever to achieve the political dominance he had enjoyed. Never again

would the King rely on any one minister, as he had on Wolsey and Cromwell. From now on, he would

rule alone, maintaining a balance of power between the rival factions at court.

On 24 June, Henry sent Anne of Cleves to Richmond Palace, ostensibly “for her health, open air and

pleasure.”

The next day, a deputation of councillors came to inform her that her marriage had been

found to be invalid. She made no protest, and in return was rewarded with a generous financial

settlement of £500 (£150,000) a year, Richmond Palace, Hever Castle, and Buckingham’s former

manor of Bletchingly, and the right to call herself the King’s sister, with precedence over all the ladies

in England after the Queen and the King’s daughters. She was also allowed to keep all her jewels, plate,