Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

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times; the room reputedly used by him has a ceiling decorated with royal badges and initials. Foreign

ambassadors rightly regarded Compton as one of the most powerful men at court, and heaped pensions

and rich gifts on him in order to secure his favour.

Another of the King’s boon companions was his distant cousin and Sewer

Edward Neville, brother of

George, Lord Abergavenny, and a relative of Warwick the Kingmaker. Like Brandon, he bore a marked

resemblance to Henry VIII. He and Henry were often mistaken for brothers, and although they were not

far apart in age, a persistent rumour had it that Neville was the King’s bastard; Elizabeth I later

mischievously addressed his son as “brother Henry”!

Neville also shared his master’s passion for

jousting.

Sir Thomas Boleyn, an Esquire of the Body, had been at court since 1501 and was made a Knight of the

Bath at Henry’s coronation; he would soon be appointed a Knight of the Body, Keeper of the Exchange

at Calais, joint Constable of Norwich Castle, and Sheriff of Kent. The Boleyns were a rising, socially

aspiring family. Thomas’s grandfather, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, had been a mercer who had prospered

sufficiently to become Lord Mayor of London in 1457 and had later purchased two fine properties for

himself, Blickling in Norfolk and Hever in Kent. His son, Sir William Boleyn, had made a brilliant

marriage with Margaret Butler, daughter of the Anglo-Irish Earl of Ormonde, and Thomas himself had

made another illustrious match with the Earl of Surrey’s daughter, Elizabeth Howard.

Since his father’s death in 1505,

Boleyn had resided at Hever Castle, his mother having inherited

Blickling. Now thirty-two, he was a shrewd, able, ambitious, yet miserly and unscrupulous man, greedy

for power, wealth, and advancement; he “would sooner act from interest than from any other motive,”

wrote a French envoy.

Not without personal charm, he soon proved to the King that he could be useful

and trustworthy; he spoke fluent Latin, and his French was better than anyone else’s at court,

which

led to his being sent by Henry, from 1512 onwards, on several important embassies, in the course of

which he displayed a sound talent for diplomacy. He was also well educated in the humanist tradition,

and was praised by Erasmus as being outstandingly learned. This, and Boleyn’s expertise in the tiltyard,

further endeared him to Henry.

Henry Guildford, “a lusty young man well beloved of the King,”

was perhaps two years older than

Henry; he was knighted in 1512 and remained in favour for the rest of his life, receiving several offices

and grants of land. Like Boleyn, he was a cultivated humanist, and regularly corresponded with

Erasmus. He also excelled in the joust and in court pageants. His brother, Edward Guildford, was

another of the King’s jousting partners.

William Fitzwilliam, Henry’s Cupbearer, had also been brought up with the King, who was a year his

junior, and shared his love of the chase. The two men always remained close: Fitzwilliam understood

his master’s “nature and temper better than any man in England.”

In 1511 he was appointed an

Esquire of the Body. He later became treasurer of Wolsey’s household for a short while, then returned

to the King’s service, in which he remained for the rest of his life in various household posts and on

active service on sea and land. He was a dependable, solid individual, who remained aloof from

factional politics and was refreshingly free from the rapacious acquisitiveness that typified most

courtiers.

Henry was also fond of John Pechy, another star of the tiltyard, who served him in various

administrative capacities and also invited him and Queen Katherine to hunt in his parks. Thomas

Knyvet, Boleyn’s militaristic brother-in-law, was another member of the young King’s circle, as was

his brother Charles Knyvet. Henry’s other intimates included Surrey’s son, Sir Edward Howard; Henry

Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire; Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, and his brothers, Leonard and Anthony;

and John St. John, a nephew of Margaret Beaufort, who had shared the King’s education and would

serve both of his daughters.

During these early years, Henry was very fond of his cousin Henry Courtenay, the son of his aunt,

Katherine of York, by William Courtenay, Earl of Devon. In 1509, Courtenay was only eleven; seven

years earlier, his father had been sent to the Tower by Henry VII on suspicion of treason, and Elizabeth

of York had taken the boy into the royal household to be brought up with the royal children. On his

accession, Henry VIII freed the Earl, who died in 1511, whereupon his son inherited his title and his

vast estates in the west country.

Courtenay was one of several aristocratic companions of the King. At Henry’s accession, there were

forty-five hereditary peers: one duke, one marquess, twelve earls, and thirty-one barons. Between them,

they owned up to 70 percent of England; however, their power had weakened since the Wars of the

Roses, when several old families had died out.

Henry VII had mistrusted the nobility and created only five new peers. He restricted the numbers of

liveried retainers they might keep and forced them to enter into bonds with ruinous penalties should

they prove disloyal. Nor, being a peace-loving monarch, did he give them much scope to exercise their

natural aptitude for war: since feudal times, the nobility had served the King in a military capacity as

tenants in chief. Hence when Henry VIII came to the throne, with his grandiose ideas for reconquering

England’s lost lands in France, the aristocracy hailed his accession with enthusiasm. “Now the nobility,

long since at the mercy of the dregs of the population, lifts its head and rejoices in such a king, and

with good reason,” wrote Thomas More in his coronation panegyric. In many ways, their expectations

would be satisfied.

However, Henry VIII, like his father, was suspicious of the nobility, some of whom had royal blood and

might be potential dynastic rivals. He therefore kept them busy with political and administrative affairs

at court and in the shires, and rewarded them handsomely, in order to keep them faithful. Their loyalty

was vital to his security, so he was careful to identify their interests with his own.

The nobility were jealous of their time-honoured right to act as the King’s chief political advisers, but

as far as Henry VIII was concerned, good service was as important as high birth, if not more so, and

where power had once been the privilege of the landed peerage, it was now beginning to devolve upon

men who had risen through their own abilities and education rather than their pedigrees. “We will not

be bound of necessity to be served with lords, but we will be served with such men of what degree

soever as we shall appoint,” Henry once stated.

The chief officers of the household might happen to

be nobles, but their prominence at court derived from their offices rather than their birth. Like his

father, Henry was also concerned with reestablishing the dominance of the Crown over the nobility,

which had been weakened during the Wars of the Roses.

Nevertheless, the nobility remained a caste apart; they sat in the House of Lords, and their status was

reflected in their dress, entourages, and lifestyle. Their servants wore their livery and badges, and their

heraldic emblems were emblazoned on their country houses. Their privileges were enshrined in Magna

Carta, and over the centuries had been further defined by tradition and sumptuary laws. For example,

only a duke could sit by himself at table with the King; an earl had to have another earl with him, and

his robes had one less row of ermine than a duke’s. Peers surrounded the King on state occasions, their

illustrious presence enhancing his majestas. Precedence governed all, and was an accepted fact of court

life.

The sovereign was the fount of all honour, and only he could create peers. Henry VIII created thirty-

seven. But noblemen were well aware that he could also unmake them, through the parliamentary

process of attainder, and that their status and wealth depended on his goodwill and their good

behaviour. Neither could they marry without his consent. Having set a precedent in magnificence, the

King encouraged his nobles to copy his extravagant example—in an age that valued outward show,

they needed little persuasion—and so distracted them from the warmongering to which they had been

bred. The effort to keep up with their monarch led many to financial ruin and the consequent erosion of

their power and independence, which further restricted their ability to become involved in the kind of

subversive activities so feared by the King.

Henry made it clear that the court was the place to be if the nobles wished to fulfil their traditional

ambitions and take their rightful place in society. Their scramble for attendance upon the King, as well

as their enthusiastic attempts to emulate him, indicate how successful Henry’s controlling measures had

been.

The older nobility were disparaging and resentful of those whom the Duke of Norfolk scathingly

termed “new men,” men such as Charles Brandon and Thomas Cromwell, whose titles and lands were

bestowed by the King as rewards for good service; the peers believed the King ought only to pay heed

to themselves, who were his “natural counsellors” by virtue of their birth.

The “new men,” who were

mostly from the gentry and merchant classes, only fuelled the peers’ fury by flaunting their new

position as landed aristocracy and affecting the manners, dress, and lifestyle of the older nobility. The

King had his work cut out to maintain the peace between the old elite and the nouveaux riches at court.

Yet what now defined a gentleman was not just the ability to “live idly and without manual labour,”

nor was it purely the traditional knightly virtues of military prowess, liberality, hospitality, honour,

courtesy, and chivalry. In Henry’s reign, the definition was widened.

In 1509, few aristocrats went to university, nor did they dabble in intellectual pursuits such as music

and poetry; one lordly father said he would sooner see his son hanged than have him reading books.

“Before poets began to be in price,” wrote Sir Philip Sidney, “our nation hath set their heart’s delight

upon action and not upon imagination.”

If the upper classes did read, they resorted to works that

reflected the values of their caste, such as romances or books of courtesy.

In Italy, however, most men of rank were also men of letters; Henry VIII himself typified the Italian

Renaissance ideal of the multi-talented, accomplished gentleman. His courtiers’ desire to ape him,

together with the spread of Renaissance influences, ensured that attitudes changed rapidly. Humanists

now argued that true nobility lay in intellectual aspirations rather than in blood.

Before long, it was essential for any gentleman who wished to succeed at court to be literate, erudite,

and musical, and to have some knowledge of the law and theology. Sir Thomas Elyot, in his book The

Governor (1531), also advocated artistic pursuits such as painting and carving, so that a gentleman

might be able to discern “the excellence of them which in music, statuary or painter’s craft possesseth

any cunning.” Music in particular, declared Castiglione, was “not only an ornament, but necessary for a

courtier.” Most aristocratic children were therefore taught to play an instrument, and many noblemen

patronised musicians.

A gentleman was also supposed to conduct himself with dignity, elegance, and effortless refinement,

and “to use in every thing a certain recklessness, and to do it without pain.”

Honour compelled him to

make a brave show of his wealth, while affecting a certain nonchalance about it, since a preoccupation

with money smacked of trade. In all he did, a gentleman was obliged to show courtesy to others and

reverence towards God.

The premier peer of England was Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham. A descendant of

Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III, the Duke had a strong claim to the throne and his

lifestyle was that of a mighty mediaeval magnate. His father, the second Duke, had been executed for

treason in 1483 by Richard III, and his mother, Katherine Wydeville, was Henry VIII’s great-aunt.

Stafford had come into his great inheritance at the age of seven; he was the richest peer in the realm,

with an annual income of £6,000 (£1,800,000).

Buckingham’s wife was the sister of the powerful Earl of Northumberland, and he was allied by blood

and marriage to most of the older nobility. He owned vast lands in twelve counties, and had various

seats, including Penshurst Place in Kent, Stafford Castle, Maxstoke Castle, Kimbolton Castle, and

Thornbury Castle, a palatial residence he built between 1511 and 1521 in Gloucestershire, which was

said to have been modelled on Richmond.

Although Buckingham was a privy councillor, High Steward of England, and often at court, he never

became one of Henry’s closest advisers. Not only was Buckingham too near the throne for comfort, but

he was also “high minded,”

haughty, aloof, and not very bright. He enjoyed gambling, although he

lost frequently, and was a fine jouster, which was sufficient to guarantee him a place in the King’s

circle, but his overweening pride in his lineage and his tendency to “rail and misuse himself in words”

made him an uncomfortable companion. He lacked the bonhomie that Henry so appreciated in those

close to him, and he did not condescend to acquire it; it is possible he even thought the King a parvenu.

There were other nobles who were too near the throne in blood for Henry’s comfort. Several were

scions of the Plantagenet House of York, which had been overthrown when Richard III was defeated

and killed by Henry VII at Bosworth in 1485. There were those who believed that these “White Rose”

lords had a better claim to the throne than the Tudors, and for this reason Henry VII and Henry VIII

were ever-watchful of their activities. However, where Henry VII had been ruthless in suppressing his

unwanted relatives, Henry VIII treated them well until his suspicions were aroused. Henry VII had

executed Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Edward IV’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, but

Warwick’s sister Margaret, widow of Sir Richard Pole, was a now a close friend of Katherine of

Aragon.

Edward IV’s sister Elizabeth had married John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Their son, Edmund, the

present Earl of Suffolk, had been a prisoner in the Tower since 1506 on account of his nearness to the

throne, and his younger brother Richard, a notorious political agitator, had fled abroad. Then there was

Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who was as yet too young to pose any threat to the King’s security. In

fact, for many years Henry enjoyed good relations with Devon and Margaret Pole.

He was also on excellent terms with many of the older nobility, including the Bourchiers, Nevilles,

Staffords, and Manners, all of whom were of Plantagenet descent. Most of the so-called White Rose

faction were members of the Queen’s circle: their high lineage and conservative outlook appealed to

her Spanish pride, and in time they came to be identified with reactionary opinion at court.

Thomas Grey, second Marquess of Dorset, ranked second after Buckingham; he had no royal blood, but

was the grandson of Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Wydeville, by her first marriage to Sir John Grey,

and therefore the King’s cousin. Dorset had inherited his title in 1501 on the execution of his father,

and had been the first patron of the young Thomas Wolsey. He was now forty, of middle height, with

blonde hair.

Although of no outstanding political ability, he was a hero of the joust. The King liked

him greatly, and in 1523 made him a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. Dorset’s wife was Margaret

Wotton, who was later drawn by Hans Holbein,

and his seat was at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire,

now famous as the birthplace of his granddaughter, Lady Jane Grey.

The most influential nobleman on the Council was the Lord Treasurer, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey,

aged sixty-six. The Howards had originally been East Anglian gentry, but thanks to a series of

advantageous marriages had inherited the dukedom of Norfolk. Surrey’s father, John Howard, first

Duke of Norfolk, had died fighting for Richard III at Bosworth, and Surrey, who had fought with him

and been wounded, had been attainted by Henry VII. The King had asked Surrey why he had supported

Richard, whereupon he staunchly replied, “He was my crowned king, and if the parliamentary authority

of England set the crown on a stock, I will fight for that stock. And as I fought then for him, I will fight

for you.”

Thanks to his integrity, his tenacity, and his abilities as a soldier and administrator, Surrey had

gradually clawed his way back into favour, had regained some of his lands—his chief seat was his

palace at Kenninghall, Norfolk—and been given responsibility for guarding the northern border; but he

had so far failed, for all his loyal service, to achieve his ambition of recovering the dukedom of

Norfolk.

By his two wives, who were both members of the Tilney family of Norfolk, Surrey was the father of a

large family and related through his children’s marriages to most of the English nobility. His eldest son,

Lord Thomas Howard, was set for a brilliant political career at court, while his second son, the martial

Sir Edward Howard, was one of the King’s intimates. A kindly, dependable man of modest tastes,

Surrey was a favourite of both the King and Queen, and very popular with the people of England. He

was, wrote Polydore Vergil, “a man of the utmost wisdom, solid worth and loyalty.”

“All Goodly Sports”

During the heady summer of 1509, Henry VIII and his courtiers embarked upon an unceasing

programme of sporting activities. The King was an energetic, vigorous man who revelled in frequent

physical exercise, an unmatched sportsman whose expertise won him golden opinions in an age that

valued such manly pursuits highly. Sport was, moreover, an interest Henry shared with most of the

gentlemen and nobles at court. Many of them, too, excelled at it, “but the most assiduous and the most

interested was the King.”

He hunted, jousted, played tennis, wrestled, could throw a twelve-foot spear

many yards, defeated all comers with his heavy, two-handed sword in mock combats, and could draw a

bow with greater strength than any man in England. The benefits of all this activity included a splendid

physique, robust good health, and sheer masculine strength. “When he moves, the ground shakes under

him,” observed a Venetian.

Most gentlemen “passed the summers in disports,”

usually in the open air. Many of their traditional

activities—jousting, riding, running at the ring, tilting at the quintain, and archery—were essentially

martial exercises, yet thanks to a revival of the classical interest in physical fitness for its own sake in

Italy, and Castiglione’s advocacy of the social importance of sport and the opportunities it offered for

the display of magnificence, attitudes were changing. In 1531, Elyot wrote: “By exercise, the health of

a man is preserved and his strength increased,” and in 1542 Andrew Boorde recommended moderate

exercise through “playing at the tennis, or casting a bowl, or pairing weights in your hands.” Sport was

also an effective channel for the aggression of large numbers of easily bored young male courtiers.

Nearly all sports were competitive. It was not done, however, to compete with one’s social inferiors.

Organised ball games, such as football, were played only by the lower classes, and Parliament passed

legislation restricting the playing of bowls, quoits, and tennis to the upper classes, within the privacy of

their estates.

The King’s subjects were rather to spend their leisure hours practising archery, which

would benefit the nation in time of war.

In his youth, the King’s favourite sporting pursuits were jousting (which will be discussed separately)

and hunting. Hunting was a royal and aristocratic sport, almost as prestigious as warfare, and required

the same courage and skills as were needed in battle. It could also be very dangerous, as the King was

to find on several occasions, and sometimes embarrassing, as when he killed the wrong buck and had to

pay compensation to its owner.

The quarry, which was usually deer, was either shot with bows and arrows, tracked down by dogs, or

driven into nets called toils, ready for the ceremonious kill. Sometimes the deer were chased into an

enclosure and the dogs let loose upon them. It was a cruel and bloody sport, but the Tudor age was not

one for squeamishness.

The King was passionate about the chase. In 1520, Richard Pace told Wolsey that their master was

getting up “daily, except on holy days, at 4 or 5 o’clock, and hunts till 9 or 10 at night. He spares no

pains to convert the sport of hunting into a marytyrdom.”

Another observer reported: “He never takes

his diversion without tiring eight or ten horses, which he causes to be stationed beforehand along the

line of country he means to take, and when one is tired, he mounts another, and before he gets home

they are all exhausted.”

And another remarked that when the King “hath had good sport, he will talk

thereof three or four hours after.”

Invariably, hunting took priority over business: the King “was going out to have a shot at a stag,”

or his

huntsmen were waiting and “he must needs hunt them.”

He was delighted when, in 1526, the King of

France sent him some wild boar, which were almost extinct in England, and observed that “the hunting

was very pleasant, and a King’s game.”

It was also highly risky, for boar were notoriously ferocious.

In his youth, Henry went hunting with a huge entourage of courtiers, but in 1526 numbers were

restricted because the courtiers’ absence left the court “disgarnished” and, through their boisterousness,

“the King’s disports were hindered and impeached.”

After that, Henry took with him just a handful of

his intimates. His inventory lists numerous items of hunting and other sporting equipment, many

crammed in the cupboards in his privy lodgings. Two of his wooden knives, or hunting swords— one

etched with scenes of a boar hunt, the other damascened in gold— were crafted by the Spanish

swordsmith Diego de Çaias, and are still in the Royal Collection.

Katherine of Aragon also enjoyed hunting, and was still accompanying Henry as late as 1530, at the

height of their nullity suit.

Most of the royal forests, paled deer parks, and hunting chases had been emplaced before 1200, many

being annexed to royal castles, manors, and hunting lodges. Henry’s favourites were Windsor Great

Park, Richmond Park, Greenwich Park, Bushy Park, and Epping Forest, and he himself established

several more parks and chases, including Hyde Park, Waltham Chase, St. James’s Park, Nonsuch Park,

Marylebone (now Regent’s) Park, and the vast Honour of Hampton Court.

The royal parks and forests

provided the King not only with good sport, but also with venison for his household and a substantial

income from dues and fines: severe forest and venery laws imposed stiff financial or custodial penalties

on ordinary people who stole the King’s deer.

The hunting, or “grass,” season lasted from May or June until September or October. For part of this

period, the King usually went on progress, so that he could enjoy the hunting in other parts of his

kingdom. Each autumn, upon his return, he would personally supervise the restocking of his parks with

game and ensure that there was sufficient hay and oats to last the deer through the winter.

The King owned a fine stable of up to two hundred horses.

His favourites were nimble Barbary steeds

or light-footed Neapolitan coursers, which he imported from Europe at a cost of up to £40 (£12,000)

each. Several were gifts from princes who sought his friendship, like the bay courser sent by the Duke

of Termoli. In 1509, Queen Katherine asked her father “to send to the King my lord three horses, one a

jennet, the other from Naples, and the other a Sicilian, because he desires them much, and has asked me

to beg Your Highness for them, and also to command them to be sent by the first messenger that comes

here.”

In June 1514, Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, a famous breeder of horses, sent Henry a

splendid “bright bay” called Governatore and three brood mares. Henry watched “astounded” as their

trainer, Giovanni Ratto, put the mares through their paces, then asked his courtiers, “What think you of

these mares? I have never seen better animals.” After Ratto had ridden Governatore with an impressive

display of Spanish dressage as a compliment to the Queen, Henry declared that this was “the best

horse” and patted the bay, murmuring “So-ho, so-ho, my minion.” He could not have been more

pleased if the Marquis had given him a kingdom, wrote a watching Venetian. Afterwards, Henry asked

Ratto what the Marquis would like in return for his generosity. “Nothing but the King’s love” was the

reply.

Later that month Ratto informed Gonzaga that Henry was of the opinion he had never ridden better-

trained horses, and the King himself wrote an effusive letter of thanks “for your supreme goodwill

towards ourself, for those most beautiful, high-bred and surpassing steeds [that] have been sent from

the very best feeling and intention. We number Your Excellency and your most noble children among

our dearest friends. Farewell, with prosperity and happiness!” The next month he sent the Marquis

“some horses, saddled and harnessed in their full trappings” as a return gift.

Henry was also thrilled with the mounts sent by Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, in 1519 and the Spanish

jennets given him by the Emperor Charles V in 1520. His own courtiers knew that the surest way of

pleasing him was to give him a horse. In 1520, for example, Sir Edward Guilford gave him two horses:

one, a bay called Byard Hays, became one of his favourite mounts.

The King, according to a Venetian ambassador, was a “capital horseman.”

He would train for hours,

and he exercised his mounts regularly, praising them by rubbing them with his whip and crying, “Holla,

holla, so boy, there boy!” or admonishing them with a sharp “Ha, traitor! Ha, villain!” On the advice of

his Italian riding masters, he preferred to encourage his horses by kindness rather than use his spurs or

whip.

Riding and a knowledge of matters equestrian were essential accomplishments for gentlemen,

especially those of aristocratic birth, who were brought up to handle great warhorses while wearing full

armour. It was Henry VIII who introduced into England the manage, the new Italian art of dressage, at

which he excelled above all others. This involved putting a rigorously trained horse through a series of

spectacular movements by using light touches or commands. The horse might turn, rear, stop suddenly

after a gallop, weave between obstacles, or perform the astonishing capriole, or “great leap,” in which

all four of its hooves were off the ground at the same time. The King would show off his skills at every

opportunity, particularly at tournaments, where he would astound his audience by performing

“supernatural feats,” making a succession of horses either execute “a thousand jumps in the air” or “fly

rather than leap, to the delight and ecstasy of everybody.”

Katherine of Aragon was a competent horsewoman, although she used a Spanish sidesaddle, shaped

like a chair.

Henry also bred horses, and he was constantly improving his blood-stock. He founded royal studs on

the Welsh marches, in Nottinghamshire, and at Hampton Court to breed horses for hunting and even

racing. It was Henry VIII, rather than Charles II, who was the first English King to race horses. He kept

“geldings that did run” and employed “riding boys that ride the running horses.” Their livery comprised

satin and fustian doublets in the Tudor colours of green and white, “partihosen,” and black velvet riding

hats with gold buttons.

The King laid out a flat racecourse and tiltyard at Cobham in Surrey; the

racecourse, of which traces still remain, was a mile long, and stretched in a straight line to Leigh Hill.

The King himself enjoyed racing: in 1513, while campaigning in France, he and twenty-five

companions raced their horses around the outskirts of a town.

Henry was very attached to his horses. One of his favourites was Canicida, about whom his Latin

secretary, Andrea Ammonio, wrote some laudatory verses. In 1529, Henry made repeated visits to his

stables just to see his favourite Barbary horse (possibly Governatore), which was enjoying a

comfortable retirement. The King frequently stopped for a chat with his horse-keeper, Hannibal

Zinzano, and showed genuine concern for the health of his horses. His Privy Purse Expenses list

several homemade cures for their ailments, and also a number of payments of 7s. (£105) for “baths for

the Barbary horse.”

Henry’s horses were fed on bran from the royal granaries.

The Master of the Horse was responsible for providing the King with horses for riding, hunting, and

war, and was in charge of royal stables and conveyances as well as travelling arrangements. By virtue

of the nature of his duties, and his being the third great officer of the household, he was constantly in

attendance on his master, rode near him in ceremonial processions, and had the privilege of dining at

his own table at court. Sir Thomas Knyvet was Henry’s first Master of the Horse. The Queen had her

own Master of the Horse.

The Stables were a department independent of the court, and were responsible to the King himself.

They employed a large staff of squires, stable boys, farriers, jockeys, and horse-keepers. The

headquarters of the Stables were initially at Holborn, but when they were destroyed by fire in 1534, the

department and its animals were transferred to the royal mews in Charing Cross, which normally

housed the royal falcons.

Horses used by the King and court were also kept in stables at the royal

palaces; some of these were built around courtyards, and a section was always partitioned off for the

King’s personal use. At Greenwich, there was one stable for his coursers and another for his stud

mares.

The King’s New Stable at Hampton Court, built in 1536, survives today as part of the Royal

Mews on Hampton Court Green.

The Kennels was a separate department responsible for providing and housing the royal hunting packs

of greyhounds, harthounds, buckhounds, and harriers. They came under the jurisdiction of the Master

of the Privy Hounds, Humphrey Rainsford, and their headquarters were those originally established in

the fourteenth century by Edward III on the Isle of Dogs on the Thames. There were kennels at some of

the palaces also, including a vast one at Greenwich. Hunting dogs were fed a diet of meat, milk, and

bread.

It was only as he grew older that Henry VIII grew to like hawking. His father had given him a hawk

when he was nine, but as a young man he had “no affection” for the sport, despite being coached by the

court’s resident expert, Sir William Tyler, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber. It was only when he

reached maturity that he acquired a taste for it. In the 1520s, Thomas Heneage of the Privy Chamber

reported to Wolsey from Windsor that “His Grace, every afternoon, when the weather is anything fair,

doth ride forth on hawking, or walketh in the park, and cometh not in again till it be late in the

evening.”

In 1533, Sir William Kingston informed Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle,

that “the King

hawks every day with goshawks, sparrowhawks and merlins, both before noon and after.” Hawking

provided good sport after the hunting season was over.

Hawks, notably gerfalcons, peregrines, tiercels, and merlins, were extremely valuable birds, and the

sport was strictly an upper-class pursuit, with the ownership of certain birds being dependent upon

one’s rank. Henry imported hawks from Ireland, or received them as gifts from fellow rulers such as

the King of France and Joachim I, Duke of Prussia. One of his hawk’s hoods, fashioned of leather and

what might have been embroidered crimson velvet or silk, is in the Ashmolean Museum, together with

his doeskin hawking glove worked with red and gilt thread. His accounts record payments for jesses

(red strings attached to the hawk’s legs), hoods, and bells.

The King’s hawks were the responsibility of the department of the Toyles, which was housed in the

Royal Mews at Charing Cross. There the hawks were trained and cared for by experts in falconry, who

fed them on sugar comfits, horehound water, and rhubarb.

One of the eleven falconers was Lambert

Simnel, who had in childhood been set up by Yorkist sympathisers as a pretender to Henry VII’s throne.

The rebellion failed, and Henry sent Simnel to work in his kitchens, whence he worked his way up to

the mews; he died in 1525. The Master of the King’s Hawks headed the department; this was initially

William Norris, who was succeeded by Robert Cheseman, whose portrait by Hans Holbein shows him

holding a falcon.

At Greenwich, Henry built a mews known as “the cage” right next to his privy lodgings; it had racks of

perches, and wooden lattices over the unglazed windows.

New mews were also built at lesser houses

such as the More and Hunsdon.

Other royal bloodsports included bearbaiting and even bullbaiting; the King had his own bear pit and

bears, in the charge of the Master of the King’s Bears. On Shrove Tuesday, Henry attended the

traditional cockfights, for which, in 1533–1534, he built new cockpits at Greenwich and Whitehall, the

latter being a curious octagonal structure with a lantern roof.

Both had tiered rows of seating, with a

special chair for the King and a viewing gallery for the Queen.

The fighting birds were kept in nearby

coops.

Henry occasionally went fishing: at Hampton Court, in 1530 and 1532, he fished in the Thames with an

“angle rod,”

and that same year he rewarded some men who had caught a prize fish at Greenwich.

He is also known to have fished in the moat at The More.

Bloodsports were not the only sporting activities enjoyed by the King and his court. Henry was

“extremely fond of tennis”

and may have been taught the game by the professional players employed

by his father;

he himself certainly retained a coach.

According to Giustinian, “it was the prettiest

thing in the world to see him play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture”;

while

playing, he stripped to his “slops” (drawers) and wore soft shoes, and after the game, he would don a

“tennis coat” of black or blue velvet to stop him catching a chill.

By all accounts, even allowing for a

degree of sycophantic flattery, he was a world-class player.

The game Henry played was not the sedate lawn tennis of today,

but the earlier, more aggressive

version known as royal, or real, tennis, or “palme,” which derived from the mediaeval French game of

jeu de paume and had become a popular aristocratic sport in France and Italy. It could be played

indoors or outdoors, and was a favourite winter diversion.

The enclosed hard courts, or plays, had nets of fringed cord

and galleries for spectators, and were

marked out with penthouses and chases. The walls were usually painted black and the window frames

red, the windows being covered with protective wire.

Racquets were a recent invention; until around

1500, the ball had been caught in a gloved hand. Henry’s balls were made for him by the Ironworkers’

Company in London; one, of leather stuffed with dog’s hair, was found embedded in the roof timbers of

Westminster Hall in the 1920s,

and another was found in the 1960s on the site of the King’s tennis

court at Whitehall.

There were two versions of the game—the quarre, or minor court, and the dedans, or major court

—

and the rules were sufficiently complicated to ensure that only educated men played. Castiglione

recommended tennis as “a noble exercise” because it afforded courtiers the opportunity to display their

physical dexterity and “nimbleness.”

Edward IV and Henry VII had built tennis plays, but Henry VIII was to build far more, notably at

Hampton Court and Whitehall. The Keeper of Tennis Plays was responsible for maintenance, scoring,

stringing racquets with sheep-gut, and coaching.

When the King was not playing, his courtiers were

allowed to hire the plays at a rate of 2s.6d (£37.50) a day.

Gambling on the outcome of a game was

common, and of course there were those who grumbled that tennis was “dangerous for the body and for

the purse.”

Since the fourteenth century, the longbow had been instrumental in England’s most renowned military

victories, and all able-bodied men were required by law to practise shooting regularly. Sir Thomas

Elyot declared that “shooting in the long bow incomparably excelleth all other exercise.” The King,

like his late brother Arthur, was a superb archer

and could outshoot even the crack shots in the

Yeomen of the Guard: in Calais in 1513, while competing with them, “he cleft the mark in the middle

and surpassed them all.”

Early in the reign, a new butts was set up in Tothill Fields, near Westminster,

and he was often to be seen shooting there; there were also butts at most of his houses, some of them—

rather alarmingly— indoors.

Henry also enjoyed the sport as a spectator.

Bowling was another sport favoured by the King in his later years, and again, he was very good at it.

There were brick-built bowling alleys, some over two hundred feet long, at several houses including

Richmond, Greenwich, Hampton Court, and Eltham,

most of them erected after 1532; where there

was no alley, a grass lawn could be used. The aim was to roll one’s wheel-shaped “ball” as close to the

jack as possible. The game was a very popular all-weather sport, and bets were always laid on the

outcome; in 1532, Henry, who was a frequent player, lost £21 (£6,300) to the Duke of Norfolk.

In his youth, the King was always game for a wrestling match, even though this was not, strictly

speaking, a sport for gentlemen. He was also adept at “casting the bar,”

which involved throwing a

heavy metal beam. No feat of strength was beyond him: he once even tried his hand at labouring,

sawing blocks of wood and fashioning cobblestones with steel hammers.

In his palace at Richmond, Henry VII had copied the Burgundian precedent of building a recreational

complex. In the lower end of the gardens there were to be found “pleasant galleries and houses of

pleasure to disport in at chess, tables, dice, cards, bil[liard]s; bowling alleys, butts for archers and

goodly tennis plays,” with space for spectators.

Henry VIII followed his example at many of his

residences; his first project was the building of a tennis play at Westminster. These complexes, which

also included tiltyards, served as sophisticated leisure centres for the King and his courtiers.

“Merry Disports”

In the summer of 1509, Henry informed King Ferdinand that he was about to visit different parts of his

kingdom.

We know very little about this first progress, save that it was fairly extensive and included

sojourns at Reading Abbey and the Old Hall at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, seat of Edward de

Burgh, Lord Borough, who later married Katherine Parr.

Henry went on progress almost every summer of his reign. His purpose was not only to see his realm

and be seen by his subjects, but also to enjoy the hunting that was to be had in other parts. At that time