Henry VIII (14 page)

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.
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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.
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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,”
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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.”
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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.”
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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,”
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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.
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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,
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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.”
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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.”

12

“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.”
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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.
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Most gentlemen “passed the summers in disports,”
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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And another remarked that when the King “hath had good sport, he will talk thereof three or four hours after.”
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Invariably, hunting took priority over business: the King “was going out to have a shot at a stag,”
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or his huntsmen were waiting and “he must needs hunt them.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The King owned a fine stable of up to two hundred horses.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The King, according to a Venetian ambassador, was a “capital horseman.”
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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Henry's horses were fed on bran from the royal granaries.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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In 1533, Sir William Kingston informed Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle,
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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.
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