Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

Katherine certainly discussed religious issues with Henry,

but John Foxe, looking back from the

Protestant perspective of Elizabethan England, may have been exaggerating when he wrote that she

never ceased urging the King “zealously to proceed in the reformation of the Church.” Although he

enjoyed debating theology with his wife, Henry allowed her little political influence, and she never

actively involved herself in factional politics. Her family were content with their advancement and did

not seek to rule the King. However, since most members of her household and circle were all of the

reformist persuasion, she was identified with the interests of that party, and thus further incurred the

enmity of the conservatives.

In 1543, the King began building new lodgings for Katherine Parr at Hampton Court, in the southeast

corner of the Base Court. A new barge was constructed for her by a Lambeth shipwright. Katherine’s

life was not totally centred around scholarship and religion, and she pursued other, more traditional

pleasures. She loved clothes, especially in the Italian and French fashions. Most of the silk for her

dresses came from Antwerp, yet there were complaints that the Queen was often slow to pay for her

purchases. She was, however, less extravagant than the King’s previous wives: many of the gorgeous

bejewelled gowns made for Katherine Howard and kept in storage at Baynard’s Castle were altered to

fit her. But she had a weakness for shoes, and once purchased forty-seven pairs in one year. Among

them were velvet court shoes trimmed with gold at 14s (£210) a pair, six pairs of cork-soled shoes, and

“quarter shoes” which cost 5s (£75) a pair and wore out very quickly.

Katherine adored flowers: the chamber accounts record daily payments for floral arrangements for her

apartments and for “perfume for the chamber,” her favourite scents being juniper and civet.

She was

an accomplished needlewoman and produced exquisite embroideries, of which examples survive at

Sizergh Castle. She retained several fools, including a dwarf and a woman called Jane, for whom she

bought a red petticoat. She kept greyhounds and parrots as pets.

Katherine also enjoyed dancing and shared the King’s passion for music. She maintained an Italian

consort of viols, whose members received 8d (£10) a day. She once sent a letter to the Lady Mary by

the hand of a musician, who, she wrote, “will be, I judge, most acceptable, from his skill in music, in

which you, I am well aware, take as much delight as myself.”

Katherine doubtless appreciated the music of Thomas Tallis, the great composer, singer, and organist,

who had joined the Chapel Royal in 1542 after serving as a lay clerk at Canterbury Cathedral, having

been made redundant when Waltham Abbey, where he had been organist and master of the choristers,

was dissolved in 1540. The King had admired his work since hearing him sing at Waltham.

Tallis, who has been called the Father of English Music, was to enjoy a long and distinguished career in

the Chapel Royal until his death in 1585. Under his auspices, English church music would reach its

zenith. During Henry VIII’s reign he wrote five antiphons, three masses, the motet “Misereri Nostri,”

and—perhaps at this time—another Latin motet for forty voices, all in a restrained mediaeval style. It

was his later works, composed during the reign of Elizabeth I, that were his greatest achievement.

There was plague in London that summer, and the King issued proclamations forbidding either the

citizens to approach the court or the courtiers to go to the City.

In July, Henry left with his bride and

his elder daughter on a long hunting progress that would take them via Oatlands to the south and west

of England. After a short stay at Wulfhall, the court moved north to Woodstock, Langley, and Grafton,

then homewards via Dunstable and Ashridge.

This was the last time the King would ever venture so

far afield. In future, he would confine his travels to the Thames Valley and ensure that facilities at his

riverside palaces were improved and adapted to his increasing bulk and periods of restricted mobility.

During 1543, the King built “the Great Standing”—now known as “Queen Elizabeth’s hunting

lodge”—in a park called Fairmead in Epping Forest, two miles north east of Chingford. Of timber

construction, and L-shaped, it had an open gallery on the upper floor from which the King could shoot

game or just watch the hunt with his companions.

There was still plague in London in the autumn when the King returned from his progress, and

sometime between 7 October and 29 November it claimed the life of Hans Holbein. Holbein had

recently recovered some of the King’s former favour, and Katherine Parr had commissioned circular

portraits of Henry’s three children (of which only those of Edward and Mary survive). Holbein’s last

work, a vast painting of Henry VIII presenting a charter to the Barber Surgeons Company of London, a

commission that was obtained through the good offices of Dr. Butts, was left unfinished.

Holbein died

at his house in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft and was buried in the church of St. Catherine Cree.

He left money for the maintenance of two bastard children, whose mother had perhaps also been a

victim of the plague. There was nothing for the family he had abandoned in Basel. Holbein’s many

drawings were left in his studio at Whitehall and appear to have passed into Henry VIII’s art collection.

No one could replace the genius of Holbein. Lucas Horenbout’s grant of office as King’s Painter, which

referred to the King’s long acquaintance with “the science and experience” in his “pictorial art,” was

renewed in 1544, but he died soon afterwards in London. In 1547, his wife Margaret received a

payment of 40s (£60O) for a portrait of Katherine Parr; whether she painted it herself, or whether the

payment was in settlement of an outstanding debt to her late husband, is not known.

Henry’s Serjeant Painter, Andrew Wright, had died in 1543 and was succeeded in the post by Antonio

Toto, who was to remain in office until the next reign. Toto was the first foreign artist to be appointed

Serjeant Painter, and undoubtedly the most competent so far.

The King now began to seek out new artistic talent. Several of those who worked for him cannot now

be identified, such as the master who painted the Whitehall family group portrait, executed around this

time, but others became famous. Holbein’s most important successor was the gifted Hans Eworth, who

came to England from Antwerp in 1543 and is said to have finished off portraits that Holbein had left

incomplete. Eworth attracted the patronage of Katherine Parr, who commissioned from him miniatures

of herself and the King that cost 30s (£450) each. Another follower of Holbein—identified only as

“Master John”—is known to have painted portraits of Katherine Parr (full length) and the Lady Mary,

which were picked out in gold leaf.

Perhaps the most prominent artist in Henry’s last years was the Dutch master Guillim Scrots, who had

been chief painter to Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, since 1537. In the autumn of 1545,

the King persuaded him to come to England with the inducement of a high salary of £62.10s (£18,750).

Scrots introduced novel Renaissance elements into English painting, such as classical statuary, putti,

masks, and heraldic escutcheons. These are evident in the masterful full-length portrait of the Earl of

Surrey, painted in about 1546 and attributed to him. Scrots also introduced into England the northern

Renaissance obsession with costume detail, which he painted with consummate skill while making

little attempt to convey the character of the sitter. This style was to dominate English portraiture until

the early seventeenth century. One of Scrots’s most famous works—and the only one signed by him—

is the anamorphosis, or distorted perspective, of Prince Edward (1546) which was hung in Whitehall

Palace and was the kind of novelty appreciated by Tudor courtiers.

Many paintings have been

attributed to Scrots, but few can be said with certainty to be his original work. He is thought to have

painted the three-quarter-length portraits of the Prince of Wales and the Lady Elizabeth which are still

in the Royal Collection and date from about 1545–1546.

John Bettes the Elder, whose work suggests that he was trained in Holbein’s studio, was a competent

painter, miniaturist, and engraver. He had worked on the mural depicting the coronation of Henry VIII

at Whitehall in 1531–1533, and had also painted decorative heraldic pictures for the palace. Katherine

Parr paid him £3 (£900) for miniatures of herself and the King and six other pictures in 1546–1547, and

he is also known to have painted the likenesses of several courtiers.

Sadly, none of his miniatures can

now be identified.

Henry VIII also employed a female artist, Levina Teerlinc. She was the daughter of Simon Benninck,

one of the foremost masters of the Ghent/Bruges school of illuminators and limners. Levina, who was

married to George Teerlinc of Blankenberg, entered Henry’s service in 1546 and was granted an

annuity of £40 (£12,000);

her husband was made a Gentleman Pensioner. Teerlinc is thought to have

been influenced by Horenbout, but her work is known only through later miniatures, which are poor in

quality and draughtsmanship, and portray sitters with disproportionately tiny bodies and stick-thin

arms.

The obscure John Shute also painted portraits of courtiers. Another artist who was on the fringe of the

court was Gerlach Flicke, who came from Osnabrück in Germany and settled in London around 1545.

His most famous work is his portrait of Archbishop Cranmer,

but it is of mediocre quality, and

although he received commissions from courtiers, he did not attract royal patronage.

Katherine Parr was a kind and supportive stepmother to the King’s three children, who all came to love

her. She was already close friends with the Lady Mary, who was only four years her junior, and she

now declared that it was her pleasure rather than her duty to establish affectionate relations with

Edward, now six, and Elizabeth, who was ten.

To this end, she encouraged all three to come to court,

whenever circumstances and their father permitted, and maintained a warm correspondence with them

when they were absent; Edward wrote to her in Latin, and Elizabeth, on one occasion at least, in Italian.

She exchanged gifts and kindnesses with them, worried about their health and welfare, gave them

money, bought clothes for them—Edward received outfits of crimson velvet and white satin—and

encouraged them in their studies.

It was Katherine who, in 1544, encouraged Mary to translate Erasmus’s Paraphrases of the Gospel of

St. John into English. Mary made a good start, but made little further progress because of intermittent

ill health, so the Queen called in Nicholas Udall to finish the project, and also met the costs of

publication.

Mary, who now came to court more often than ever before, already had lodgings in several of the royal

palaces, but it was not until Henry married Katherine Parr that Elizabeth was allocated any; they were

next to the Queen’s own apartments at Greenwich and Whitehall. Both princesses had their own

chamber servants. Edward, like his sisters, had his own establishment, but as the King feared his

risking infection by coming to court often, Katherine saw less of her stepson that she would probably

have wished. However, she did sometimes arrange for the family to be together when she and the King

visited one of the lesser houses, such as Hanworth, and in 1543–1544 Henry created a lodging for the

Prince with a bedchamber next to his own at Greenwich.

The King was fond of all his children, although Edward, the precious, long-awaited son, was naturally

his favourite. Edward was small for his age, with one shoulder higher than the other, and was

shortsighted, but he was an attractive child with blond hair and grey eyes. His early portraits show an

elfin face with a pointed chin like his mother’s, but his resolute, direct gaze was his father’s. As he

grew older, he consciously aped the King’s mannerisms, and posed for artists in the classic Henrician

pose, feet firmly apart, hand on hip or dagger.

It was drilled into the Prince from birth that he must “satisfy the good expectations of the King’s

Majesty”

—a lesson he learned so well that, in a letter written later to his father, he vowed he would

be “worthy to be tortured with stripes of ignominy if, through negligence, I should omit even the

smallest particle of my duty.”

When, in 1546, Henry presented his son with jewels from the

suppressed monasteries, Edward took it as a sign of the King’s great love for him, “for if you did not

love me, you would not give me these fine gifts.” When he wrote to Henry, the Prince addressed him as

“Most noble Father and most illustrious King.”

Although Henry was an affectionate father, he was

also a distant and awe-inspiring one.

As soon as he was six, Edward was breeched, taken from Lady Bryan and his nurses, who were

pensioned off, and given into the care of male tutors. For a long time, historians believed that it was

Katherine Parr who took the responsibility for his education, but recent research suggests that it was in

fact the King who made the decisions and arrangements. Katherine’s role was to encourage and support

the boy in his studies.

Edward now began a rigorous classical education under renowned humanists, who were all followers

of Erasmus, Vives, and More. He was to learn languages, including Latin and Greek, Scripture,

classics, philosophy, astronomy, and “all liberal sciences.”

It was fortunate that the boy was highly

intelligent and loved books. His studies were supplemented by more traditional lessons in

horsemanship, archery, fencing, tennis, music, and dancing, all of which he much enjoyed, although he

was never to be a sportsman like his father. So that he should not learn in isolation, the King founded a

select palace school, choosing fourteen aristocratic boys to share his education: they included Suffolk’s

son, the learned Henry Brandon; Surrey’s son, Lord Thomas Howard; Lord Lisle’s son, Robert Dudley;

John, Lord Lumley; Lord Mountjoy; Henry, Lord Hastings; and Barnaby Fitzpatrick, a sprig of the Irish

nobility, who was unfortunate enough to be appointed the Prince’s whipping boy, yet became a close

friend. It is also possible that the prodigious Lady Jane Grey shared Edward’s lessons.

The men who were given responsibility for the Prince’s education were among the most brilliant

scholars of their day. Dr. Richard Cox, Edward’s former almoner, who had worked with Henry on the

King’s Book and later became Provost of Eton and Bishop of Ely, was the Prince’s first tutor. Although

he did his best to make learning enjoyable, and resorted less frequently than most Tudor teachers to the

rod, he is known to have beaten Edward on occasion.

John Cheke, the first ever Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge and one of the most outstanding

minds of his day, joined Cox in 1544, having been probably recommended to the King by either Sir

William Butts or Anthony Denny, who were both his patrons. Edward became very fond of Cheke, who

soon took over from Dr. Cox as senior tutor.

Cheke is said to have brought from Cambridge two men of high reputation to help with Edward’s

education. The humanist Sir Anthony Cooke, who, like Thomas More, had four learned daughters, and

whose translation of St. Cyprian’s treatise on the unity of the Church was dedicated to Henry VIII,

may indeed have tutored the Prince, although the evidence is conflicting. Roger Ascham, later

schoolmaster to the Lady Elizabeth, taught Edward penmanship. In 1545, the eminent William Grindal

was brought in to help with the teaching of Greek. There was also a German tutor called Randolph;

there is no evidence that Edward ever learned German, so perhaps Randolph taught another subject.

Edward’s tutors were mostly Cambridge men, committed scholars imbued with Erasmian teachings; all

later emerged as Protestants, as soon as it was safe to do so, although there is no evidence that they held

such views during Henry’s reign. Cheke, for one, was no religious fanatic. The King would never have

allowed anyone tainted with the merest hint of heresy near his heir. The Prince’s tutors gave Henry no

cause for suspicion, and succeeded well in teaching Edward what they were employed to teach. The

fact remains, however, that as soon as Edward came to the throne, he embraced the Protestant faith

with alacrity, which suggests that there had been a degree of subtle indoctrination.

In 1546, a Frenchman, Jean Belmaine, was engaged to teach French to Edward and Elizabeth.

Belmaine was a follower of John Calvin, a Swiss reformer who preached an extreme form of

Lutheranism, but knew better than to make his opinions known at the English court.

Edward, who, like all his race, loved music, was taught to play the lute by Philip van Wilder. There is

little evidence to support the claim that the renowned composer Christopher Tye, choirmaster of Ely

Cathedral, was the Prince’s music master.

Elizabeth had received her early education from her governess, Katherine Ashley. The princess was

bright, sharp-witted, and old for her years; she showed early signs of fulfilling Wriothesley’s

prediction, made when she was six, that she would be an honour to her sex. As well as rapidly

becoming proficient on the lute and virginals, she proved so precociously able in languages and the

classics that the King, perhaps at the behest of Katherine Parr, arranged for her to be taught by William

Grindal. From about 1545, Roger Ascham, then based in Cambridge, acted as her educational mentor.

After Henry’s death, he became her tutor.

It was probably due to Katherine Parr’s influence that the King invited all three of his children to spend

Christmas at court in 1543. The festivities began on 23 December, when William Parr was solemnly

created Earl of Essex, and his uncle made Lord Parr of Horton, in a glittering—and now rare—

ceremony in the presence chamber at Hampton Court. Having been robed in the pages’ chamber off the

great watching chamber, the two men were invested by the King, who was enthroned under the cloth of

estate.

Later that day, Henry convened a chapter of the Order of the Garter and admitted Sir John

Wallop to the Order, “to the joy of all present.”

The court then moved to Greenwich for Christmas.

At New Year, Anthony Denny presented the King with a clock salt he had commissioned from Holbein.

Henry loved technical novelties, and this exquisite piece, fashioned in the Italian Renaissance style,

was not simply a combined clock and saltcellar, but cunningly concealed an hourglass, two sundials,

and a compass. Nicolaus Kratzer assisted Holbein with his design.

Elizabeth gave her new stepmother her own 117-page translation, from French verse into English

prose, of Marguerite of Navarre’s lengthy devotional poem, The Mirror, or Glass, of the Sinful Soul, for

which she had also embroidered the blue binding with a knotwork pattern in silver thread,

encompassing Katherine’s initials.

She warned the Queen that she might have to “rub out, polish and

mend the words, which I know in many places to be rude,”

but Katherine doubtless appreciated the

hours of work that had gone into the making of the gift. It was a measure of the impact her kindness

had made on three motherless children.

“The Enterprise of Boulogne”

Henry VIII’s final years were overshadowed by financially ruinous wars with France and Scotland that

would leave England crippled with debt. By 1544 relations between England and France had

deteriorated sufficiently for the threat of war to become a reality; the King had built a ring of defensive

castles along the south coast in anticipation of a French invasion, and was now planning to invade

France himself.

In February 1544, Parliament passed a new Act of Succession, so that there should be no disputes over

who was to succeed Henry should he not return alive from France. The Act settled the succession firstly

on Prince Edward and his heirs, secondly on the Lady Mary and her heirs, thirdly on the Lady

Elizabeth and her heirs, and finally on the heirs of Henry’s younger sister, the late Mary Tudor,

Duchess of Suffolk.

The heirs of his elder sister, Margaret Tudor, who had died in 1541, were passed

over because Henry had no intention of uniting England and Scotland under Stewart rule, but was still

aggressively pursuing his intention of marrying Edward to the little Scots Queen. The arrangements

made in this Act reflect the fact that Henry’s authority was now so absolute as to override the long-

established laws of primigenitural succession. They may also reflect the benign influence of Katherine

Parr.

In February, as preparations for war went ahead, the King’s leg swelled up and laid him feverishly low

again, confining him to bed for eight days, and leaving him “a little indisposed” for a while afterwards.

In order to nurse and cheer him, the Queen had her own bed moved into a closet leading off his

bedchamber,

and she was seen sitting with his bad leg on her lap. Her accounts show payments to the

royal apothecaries for suppositories, liquorice pastilles, cinammon comfits, plasters, and sponges.

When Henry eventually emerged from his privy lodgings in March, he was “so weak on his legs that he

could hardly stand.” Chapuys believed that his “chronic disease and great obesity” were putting his life

at risk and should be urgently remedied, “yet no one dares to remonstrate with him.”

On 17 February, while the King was ill, there arrived at court the Spanish Duke of Najera, a special

envoy from Henry’s ally, Charles V. The Duke was graciously received by the Queen and the Lady

Mary, to whom he was conducted by Chapuys. Najera’s secretary, Pedro de Gant, left an account of the

visit. He describes Katherine’s rich gown of crimson and cloth of gold with a golden girdle and a train

two yards long, which was set off by two crucifixes and a jewel set with magnificent diamonds, all

hung about her neck; there were “a great number of splendid diamonds in her head-dress also.” The

Lady Mary looked splendid in cloth of gold and purple velvet.

After the Duke had kissed the Queen’s hand, she led him into another chamber where he was

entertained for several hours with music and “much beautiful dancing.” Although the Queen was

feeling unwell herself, she danced “very gracefully, for the honour of the company” with her brother

Essex, while the Lady Mary partnered Lady Margaret Douglas and then paired up with some gentlemen

of the court, one of whom, a Venetian, danced galliards “with such extraordinary activity that he

seemed to have wings on his feet.” As the evening drew to a close, the Queen summoned a Spanish-

speaking nobleman to present her gifts to the Duke, then rose and offered Najera her hand to kiss. “He

would have kissed that of the Princess Mary, but she offered her lips, and so he saluted her and all the

other ladies.”

A day or so later, Najera received a summons to attend upon the King in his privy lodgings at

Whitehall. “Before the Duke arrived at the King’s chamber, he passed through three salons hung with

tapestry, in the second of which [the watching chamber] were stationed in order on either side the

King’s bodyguard, dressed in habits of red and holding halberds. In the third salon [the presence

chamber] were nobles, knights and gentlemen, and here was a canopy made of rich, figured brocade,

with a chair of the same material. Here, the brother of the Queen and other noblemen entertained the

Duke for a quarter of an hour until it was announced that we should enter the chamber of the King [i.e.,

the privy chamber].” Pedro de Gant was mortified when only two Spanish nobles were permitted to

accompany Najera “and no one else, nor did they permit us even to see the King.”

As the future King’s uncle, the Earl of Hertford was one of the most important men at court, but he

lacked the qualities that made a good political leader. By 1544, he had alienated many: Norfolk,

Gardiner, and Wriothesley had long been his enemies, but he had also managed, through his high-

handedness and lack of tact, to incur the enmity of most members of his own faction. In March, he

quarrelled with Lord Russell, whom he accused of failing to act in his interests with the King,

concluding that Russell, “a feigned friend,” must bear him “malice or grudge.” Thanks to the efforts of

Paget and Wriothesley, a reconciliation was effected, but resentments still simmered beneath the

surface.

It was as well, therefore, that, in the spring, Hertford—on Norfolk’s recommendation—was given joint

command with Lisle of the King’s armies and sent north to force the Scots to agree to the proposed

marriage alliance; after they had sacked Edinburgh and ruthlessly laid waste the Scottish lowlands, the

campaign became known as “England’s rough wooing.”

On 22 April, Lord Audley died. The following month, the able but unscrupulous Wriothesley was

chosen to replace him as Lord Chancellor, and was invested with the Great Seal of England by the King

in a ceremony in the privy chamber. Henry perhaps chose Wriothesley because he knew him to be

vigorously opposed to heresy, and because he hoped this would counterbalance the influence of the

powerful reformist party. His appointment came at a time when Gardiner’s supremacy was weakened

as a result of his having shielded his papist nephew Germain Gardiner from prosecution. After Germain

had been executed, Suffolk persuaded the King to proceed against Gardiner as a traitor, but the

Bishop’s friends in the Privy Chamber, “suspecting the matter, sent him word thereof.” Gardiner

hurried to the King, confessed all, begged for forgiveness, and was pardoned.

This is a typical example

of Henry playing off one faction against the other.

In 1544, the King conceived the idea of an English Litany (service book), and commanded Archbishop

Cranmer to prepare it. The ultimate result, which Henry did not live to see, would be the beautifully

written Book of Common Prayer, still used on occasions by the Church of England today. In May, the

Queen published a book of Psalm Prayers, selected and paraphrased by herself, which was printed by

Thomas Berthelet and bound with gilded leather. Her Almoner, George Day, was to use it on a regular

basis.

Henry was determined to lead the invasion himself, and as the time for his departure drew near, he

seemed to be invested with a new zest for life. There were a few details that needed to be attended to

before he left, however. At the end of June, he and the Queen were present at the wedding of his niece,

Lady Margaret Douglas, to Matthew Stewart, fourth Earl of Lennox, in the chapel royal at St. James’s

Palace. This marriage had been arranged because Lennox was one of the few Scots peers who

supported Henry’s plan to ally the two kingdoms under Tudor rule. After the wedding, Lennox returned

to Scotland to plot on Henry’s behalf, but was discovered, attainted, and exiled to England, where he

lived with his wife at Temple Newsham House near Leeds. Their first son, born in 1545, was named for

the King.

On 7 July, Henry appointed Katherine Parr Regent of England in his absence and settled upon her the

manors of Hanworth, Chelsea, and Mortlake.

Hertford, who would have preferred to make peace with

France, was to remain in England and serve in a subordinate role as Lieutenant of the Realm; he later

joined the King at Boulogne.

On 14 July, Henry sailed for Calais, having made detailed plans for the campaign and sent ahead maps

and instructions for his captains. His broad knowledge of fortifications, projectile warfare, and military

strategy would serve his armies well. His armour had been burnished to perfection by his Master

Armourer, Erasmus Kyrkenar.

The war was popular with his courtiers, many of whom had already

received knighthoods and prestigious military commands and so had a vested interest in it.

Privately briefed by Chapuys, Charles V had been certain that Henry’s bad leg and unwieldy bulk

would prove a drawback. But the King was feeling reinvigorated at the prospect of taking the field

again, and displayed much of his old energy, riding from Calais into French territory at the head of his

army, “armed at all pieces upon a great courser,” with a heavy musket laid across his saddle; behind

rode an officer carrying the royal helm and lance. Henry’s gun and lance were later displayed in the

Tower armoury, and those who saw them marvelled that any man could lift a lance of such huge

dimensions. At the siege of Boulogne which followed, Henry remained active from dawn until dusk.

Prior to his departure, Hertford had found him “merry, and in as good health as I have seen His Grace

at any time this seven year,”

while Chapuys confessed himself staggered by Henry’s unexpected

stamina.

From England, the Queen wrote, “I rejoice at the joyful news of your good health.”

Nevertheless, it was quite an operation to winch Henry, in full armour, onto his horse, and during the

siege of Boulogne his leg became so painful that his armour had to be cut away to relieve the pressure.

While Henry was in France, he exchanged regular and affectionate letters with Katherine Parr, who was

staying at Hampton Court with his children. She kept him up to date with news of their progress,

assuring him they were all, “thanks be to God, in good health,” and asked for his approval for the

replacement of certain ladies of her household “that cannot well give their attendance by reason of

sickness.” Henry felt that the substitutes she had suggested were in equally frail health and not really

suitable for royal service; yet, he wrote, “we remit the accepting of them to your own choice. You may,

if you think so good, take them into your chamber to pass some time with you at play or otherwise to

accompany you for your recreation.”

There was another outbreak of plague in London that summer, so the Queen and her stepchildren

departed on a short progress, staying at Enfield en route for Oakham Castle, where they were the guests

of the Countess of Rutland, who was thrown into a panic at the prospect of their coming and begged

her father to send her fresh fish, “as here is small store, and the court is merry!”

No one who had been

in contact with the plague was permitted anywhere near anyone from the court, “under the Queen’s

indignation and further punishment at her pleasure.”

Fortunately, this was a mild epidemic, and

Katherine was able to return to Greenwich in August.

While the King acted as commander in chief, the redoubtable Duke of Norfolk, aged seventy-one,

served as lieutenant-general of the army in France, and Suffolk, now sixty, was given command of the

forces that besieged Boulogne, among whom were the Gentlemen Pensioners. John Dudley, Lord Lisle,

also distinguished himself during the campaign, enhancing his already formidable reputation as a

soldier. Surrey, who had seen active service in the Emperor’s army the previous year, and had rashly

exposed himself to enemy fire so as to boost his chivalrous reputation,

served as Marshal when

Norfolk besieged Montreuil, and again made a bid for glory, narrowly escaping death when he led what

was meant to be a decisive assault on the town. His rival, Sir Thomas Seymour, served as Lord High

Admiral. The artist Girolamo da Treviso was killed during the siege of Boulogne, where he was

employed as a military engineer.

Boulogne fell on 14 September, followed soon afterwards by Montreuil. A sword made for Henry by

the Spanish craftsman Diego de Çayas, in commemoration of his victory at Boulogne, is still in the

Royal Collection at Windsor.

The campaigning season over, the King returned in triumph to England on 30 September. On his way

home, he was reunited with the Queen at Leeds Castle in Kent and held a meeting of the Privy Council

there, at which the Emperor’s special envoys formally took their leave of him. His glazier Galyon Hone

had made decorative glass for the banqueting hall, private apartments, and chapel in readiness for this

visit.

Henry then spent what was left of the autumn hunting.

“The Worst Legs in the World”

Around 1544–1545, the Whitehall family group portrait, a masterful piece of dynastic propaganda, was

painted by an unknown artist. At the centre is the dominating figure of the King, enthroned in a

magnificent setting with a richly decorated battened ceiling, wall panelling and pillars embellished with

antique grotesque work, a painted floor, and an embroidered cloth of estate. Prince Edward stands at his

knee, while to the right sits, not Katherine Parr, but Jane Seymour, who had borne the King an heir; her

figure was probably copied from Holbein’s mural. On the far left stands the Lady Mary, and on the far

right the Lady Elizabeth. Through two open arched doorways to either side of the dais can be seen

tantalising glimpses of the Great Garden of Whitehall with the King’s Beasts mounted on columns, and

in the background the Lady Mary’s lodging with its grotesque decoration, the Westminster Clockhouse,

a turret of the Great Close tennis court, and part of the north transept of Westminster Abbey, as well as

the figures of a man and a woman, who are thought to represent Will Somers and Jane the Fool. The

picture was probably painted for the presence chamber at Whitehall, where it is known to have been

hanging in 1586–1587.

The image of the King in this picture derives directly from Holbein, and is intended to show a great

ruler at the zenith of his power. But other representations of the King dating from the last years of his

reign show a prematurely aged and bloated human being. One of the best-known portrait types from

these years is that at Castle Howard; it is one of several versions of a lost portrait by Holbein and is

dated 1542. The King faces forwards, in the pose adopted for the Whitehall mural, but his face is fatter

and he leans on a staff. Other versions are at Hever Castle, the National Portrait Gallery, and St.

Bartholemew’s Hospital, London.

Cornelis Matsys, who lived and worked in Antwerp, made an engraving of the King in 1544.

This is

one of the most famous yet grotesque depictions of Henry VIII in later life, with its slitted eyes and

heavy jowls, but it may not have been taken from life, since there is no record of Matsys ever visiting

England. A medal of Henry wearing a skullcap and bonnet, which is of more realistic proportions yet

still shows a bloated, ageing face, is perhaps a better representation.

The King had more leisure for his intellectual interests during his latter years, since his bad leg and

huge bulk did not permit him to indulge as frequently as hitherto in the physical pursuits he had once

loved. Confined more often to his secret lodgings, he read extensively and made prolific marginal

notes. His accounts record payments for books, calendars, almanacs, writing paper, and a globe.

now needed spectacles— known as gazings—for reading, and ordered ten pairs at a time from

craftsmen in Germany. The frames were made of gold or silver and clipped onto the nose, rather than

the ears, while the lenses, cut from rock crystal, came from specialists in Venice.

Between March and June 1545, Henry was ill again. He had “a burning fever for several days, and

subsequently the malady attacked the leg.”

He remained behind closed doors, and the true state of his

health was deliberately not made public, but there was naturally speculation, and Gardiner expressed

the fear that the King would not live until “my Lord Prince may come to man’s estate.”

When Henry finally did emerge, he told Chapuys that he had felt “ten times better in France” than he

had since his return. The ambassador was shocked to see him “much broken down” and very depressed.

He spent his days in his chair, locked in melancholy, dressing only to attend mass, and sometimes

rousing himself to play cards with Hertford or Lisle.

Henry was having to come to terms with the fact

that he would be a semi-invalid for the rest of his life—a bitter prospect for a man who had once been

such an active and renowned sportsman. He lamented the fact that time “is of all losses the most

irrecuperable, for it can never be redeemed for no manner price nor prayer.”

Exacerbated by inactivity and pain, the King’s temper became more irascible than usual, and he was

“often of one mind in the morning and of quite another after dinner.”

Yet soon his iron will asserted

itself, and he would force himself to carry on as normal, riding out, hunting, hawking, and playing

bowls as often as his health permitted, and moving from house to house with relentless frequency.

Chapuys thought it remarkable that he could get about at all, since he had “the worst legs in the world”

and was now of very weak constitution.

This is borne out by the fact that more and more apothecaries were employed to assist the King’s

Gentleman Apothecary, Thomas Alsop, during the years 1540–1546. Sometimes apothecaries from

outside the court were paid to make up medicines for the King. Expenditure on these preparations rose

steadily.

It was the apothecaries who determined what he should be given, rather than the physicians,

whose role was now subordinate. The physicians’ role was to monitor Henry’s health, measuring his

urine against his fluid intake and examining his stools. It is fortunate that none of his medical staff

resorted to the drastic, painful, and usually useless remedies employed by some Tudor doctors,

although it is clear that they could do little to relieve his symptoms. “At the last, by reason of his sore

leg, the anguish whereof began more and more to increase, he waxed sickly, and therewithal froward

and difficult to be pleased.”

When he was in this mood, those around him knew “it was high time for

us to get clear of him, in order to avoid offending him or irritating him further, having regard to his

malady.”

The King’s doctors, being so frequently in attendance, were now among the most influential people at

court, and none more so than Sir William Butts, in whom Henry had special confidence. Butts was a

great evangelical and perhaps a closet Protestant, and is known to have used his influence to protect

others of like mind. Once, when Henry was determined to punish one Richard Turner, a young

reformist, for inciting a Kentish community to antipapist demonstrations, Butts waited until the King

was having his beard trimmed, and “with some pleasant conceits to refresh and solace” him,

“pleasantly and merrily insinuated unto the King the effect of the matter,” after which Henry “so

altered his mind that, whereas before he commanded the said Turner to be whipped out of the country,

he now commanded him to be retained as a faithful subject.”

Butts exercised vast powers of

patronage, being sought out by clients who wanted their suits laid before the King, but he remained

discreet and entirely trustworthy. During these final years, it was to Butts, Cranmer, and Somers, more

than anyone else, that Henry confided his secrets and unburdened his mind.

Chapuys was also in very poor health, due to gout, and had to be carried about in a chair. In May 1545,

he told the King he would shortly be departing from England for good. Soon afterwards, as he sat

enjoying the sunshine in the garden facing the Queen’s lodgings at Whitehall, Katherine Parr

approached with her ladies and told him how sorry she was to hear that he was leaving, for, as Chapuys

recorded, Henry had told her “that I had always performed my duties well, and the King trusted me; but

on the other hand, she doubted not that my health would be better on the other side of the sea.” The

Queen insisted on taking him to say farewell to the Lady Mary, whose champion he had been for so

many years. During his retirement, Chapuys would keep abreast of affairs in England and write

succinct and insightful commentaries on them.

Soon after his departure, the Emperor replaced him

with a new ambassador, Francis van der Delft.

The war between England and France continued. Hertford had been left in command at Boulogne, and

in January, using brilliant military tactics, had successfully repelled an onslaught by the French.

Later

that year, Henry was to replace him with Norfolk and give him a command in the north against the