Henry VIII (67 page)
In one camp were Hertford, Lisle, Paget, Denny, Gates, Essex, and other reformists; in the other were Gardiner, Wriothesley, Rich, Norfolk, Surrey, the ailing Browne, and their conservative partisans. The Seymour-Dudley party was easily the dominant faction, and Chapuys and others were of the opinion that no one was fitter or better suited to govern the Prince than his uncle Hertford,
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but the opposition was not giving in without a fight. Surrey, however, seemed to have his own agenda, and in some ways to have lost touch with reality: he struck Lisle, insulted Rich, and warned that Hertford would “smart” for usurping his command in France.
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He also fell out with George Blagge, who opposed Surrey's obsessive determination to gain control of the Prince after the King's death. In Surrey's opinion, Norfolk was the man best suited to be Edward's guardian. Blagge said he would rather stab Surrey than see the government in the hands of the Howards.
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Hertford was suspected by many, with good reason, of holding radical views, and in September 1546 van der Delft expressed concern about the number of his clients and supporters that were constantly about the King.
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Hertford was on poor terms with everyone except Lisle and Paget, and at particular loggerheads with Wriothesley, who had switched factions as soon as he realised the conservatives were losing ground. In October, Lisle struck Gardiner during a fierce dispute “in full Council meeting” and was expelled from the court, but in November he was back, unrepentant; soon afterwards he and Hertford were overheard using “violent and opprobrious” words against Gardiner and Wriothesley.
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The King struggled to maintain control over the warring factions, but his refusal to confront the issue at stake only exacerbated the tension. Each councillor was fearful lest his enemies should try to blind Henry's eyes with “mists” or calumny.
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The court began to seethe with mounting anxiety, which was tangible to both the French and Spanish ambassadors, who found their sources of information drying up as men refused to talk to them, fearing accusations of treasonable plotting.
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The last important state pageant of the reign took place in August 1546, when Claud d'Annebaut, Lord High Admiral of France, came to England with two hundred gentlemen to ratify a treaty of peace between England and France. Because of the King's infirmity, Prince Edward, with an escort of eighty gold-clad gentlemen and eighty Yeomen of the guard, rode out to greet the Admiral at Hounslow. The French were impressed no less by the boy's horsemanship than by his Latin speech of welcome, which radiated “high wit and great audacity.”
Having conducted the Admiral to Hampton Court, where he was received by Lord Chancellor Wriothesley and the Privy Council, Edward was to deputise for his father on several occasions during the ten days of receptions, banquets, masques, dances, and hunting trips that followed, and would also show off his skill on the lute.
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The Admiral's retinue were accommodated in tents of cloth of gold and velvet that had been erected in the palace gardens, where two new banqueting houses had been erected and hung with tapestries threaded with gold and jewels.
On the second morning of the visit, d'Annebaut was received by the King in the presence chamber and accompanied him to mass in the chapel royal. Another time, the King was present at an open-air reception, standing under a marquee, but observers noticed him leaning heavily on the shoulders of the Admiral and Archbishop Cranmer. He is said to have startled the Admiral by suggesting that “the mass in both realms” be changed “into a communion service.”
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It sounded as if the King was flirting with Lutheranism, but he was probably just being provocative. Alternatively the tale could be retrospective wishful thinking on the part of the man who wrote it, John Foxe.
At the end of their stay, the French were sent home with fine gifts of plate, horses, and dogs.
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Prince Edward then stayed briefly at Durham House, before taking up residence at Hunsdon, where he was to remain for much of the rest of the year.
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The King departed on his usual hunting progress, but he did not go beyond the Thames Valley and kept to “houses remote from towns.” He stayed firstly at Oatlands, where he shot from a standing as the deer were driven past him, and on one occasion rode with the hounds after a stag at Chertsey, shooting with darts and spears. For three days he was “always at the chase.”
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A ramp had been built at Oatlands to enable him to mount his horse with ease; at other palaces the mounting blocks had been raised.
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Later in August, Henry was hunting at Chobham, Surrey, where his courtiers were housed in tents.
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In September, he set out for Guildford, but his exertions had been too much for him, and he was forced to retire to Windsor. The progress was abandoned.
Wriothesley announced that the King had a cold, but van der Delft later discovered that he had actually been in “great danger,” and the royal physicians had given up “all hope of recovery.”
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Yet against the odds, Henry recovered once more. By early October, he was out hunting and hawking again, and as much in command of affairs as ever. He received van der Delft at Windsor and, on learning that the ambassador himself had been ill, offered him the services of his own physician. However, he was not well enough to give audience to the new French ambassador, Odet de Selve, and Paget had to deputise for him.
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In October, Sir Anthony Denny succeeded Sir Thomas Heneage as Groom of the Stool. Heneage had served the King for twenty years, and the reasons for his dismissal are unclear; he appears to have left court under a cloud.
Now in daily close proximity to the King, and in overall control of the Privy Chamber, the secret lodgings, and the dry stamp, Denny became the dominant influence during the closing months of the reign. Whichever faction Denny supported was likely to gain control of the regency, and Denny was a close ally of the Seymours.
Denny's job was no sinecure. After Henry's death, Paget referred to his “painful service,”
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indicating that his dealings with the ailing King had not been easy or pleasant. But Denny had the support of his brother-in-law, Sir John Gates, who carried out his orders and bullied the rest of the Privy Chamber into submission. Gates was also Keeper of Pyrgo Park at Havering, where he resided, when not at court, in regal luxury. Gates's subordinates were William Clerk, who also had authority to use the dry stamp, and an accountant, Nicholas Bristow.
Paget, Hertford's friend and mentor, was also enormously influential. As Principal Secretary to the King, he controlled all the letters and information entering or leaving the privy lodgings, and was in overall control of the government when Henry was ill. It was Paget who helped forge the alliance between Denny and the Seymour faction, which made Hertford, the potential future ruler de facto, the most important man at court. Paget boasted of his confidential relationship with the King, asserting that Henry “opened his pleasure to me alone in many things.” However, Denny and Sir William Herbert insisted that Henry would always, “when Mr Secretary was gone, tell us what had passed between them.”
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This was yet another example of Henry's policy of divide and rule.
The conservative faction was dealt a blow in November when Gardiner, who as recently as August had been described by van der Delft as one of the King's chief advisers,
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incurred Henry's displeasure by refusing to exchange some episcopal lands with him. When Henry refused him entry to the privy chamber, Gardiner concluded that Hertford had been working against him, and blamed him for his exclusion. He asked Paget to intercede for him, but the King refused to grant him an audience.
In the middle of November, Henry moved to Whitehall to take “preparative medicine for certain medicinal baths which he usually has at this season.”
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Gardiner haunted the outward chambers of the palace, but Henry still would not see him, and he was reduced to ensuring that he was seen in the company of councillors who were in favour, so that people should not know of his disgrace. On 2 December he wrote to the King, craving an audience and offering to agree to the exchange of lands after all, but a terse note in reply informed him that His Majesty could see “no cause why you should molest us further” and instructed him to arrange the transfer of property through government officials in London. The letter bore the sign manual and was witnessed by Denny and Gates.
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Gardiner would probably have been correct in concluding that his enemies were working to destroy him.
Soon afterwards, Henry went to stay at Oatlands.
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There were rumours in London about his failing health,
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but he was out taking exercise on 7 December. However, it would be for the last time.
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“The Rarest Man That Lived in His Time”
On 10 December, while he was still at Oatlands, Henry was laid low with a fever, and for thirty hours his doctors battled to keep him alive.
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To their relief, he rallied, and when van der Delft next saw him, he told the ambassador he was completely recovered, but van der Delft could see from his appearance that he was a sick man. His face was ashen, his body “greatly fallen away,” and although he was up and dressed, he was very weak. Norfolk had told the ambassador that Henry “could not long endure.”
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“In case any light bruit may rise to the contrary,” the Council instructed English ambassadors abroad to give out that the King's fever had been merely the result of “some grief of his leg”; they were to stress that he was now, “thanks be to God, well rid of it, and would be better of it [for] a great while.”
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With their ambitions about to reach fruition, the Seymour faction moved to destroy their enemies, the Howards. Van der Delft had no doubt that Hertford and Lisle were the prime movers in the plot against them,
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and Gates was certainly active in the matter.
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Norfolk was no real threat to Hertford's supremacy: he was ageing, he had failed to live up to his reputation as a military commander, and he had alienated so many councillors by telling tales about them to the King that they had used their influence to have him excluded from the inner circle of the Privy Council. Surrey, however, was a real danger, for he had made no secret of his determination to secure the regency and the person of the Prince on the King's death.
Yet this was not all. Surrey's former friend Sir Richard Southwell had betrayed him by laying before the Council evidence about the Earl “that touched his fidelity to the King.” The Duchess of Richmond had revealed that her “rash” brother had said of the Seymours that “these new men loved no nobility, and if God called away the King they should smart for it.” Then she added the most damaging testimony of all, that Surrey had replaced the coronet on his coat of arms with a crown, flanked by the initials
H. R.
âfor Henricus Rex. Government agents searched Mount Surrey and found armorial glass, paintings, and plate bearing the arms of Edward the Confessor, which Surrey claimed he bore by right of descent, even though Garter King of Arms had ruled “that it was not in his pedigree.”
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It seemed clear that the Earl had schemed to be King, but it is more likely that he was underliningâin his usual foolish wayâhis superior claim to head the regency; he had already asked Paget to be Lord Chancellor in his government.
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Nevertheless, the Council were satisfied that Surrey had conspired to murder them all, depose the King, and “take possession of the kingdom.”
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On 12 December, Norfolk was arrested, and Surrey followed him to the Tower the next day, having been apprehended at Whitehall during dinner.
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While Henry had good cause to proceed against Surrey, “his inexcusable severity” to Norfolk was hardly justified, but Hall imputes it to the effects of illness and pain.
From his prison, Norfolk protested to the Council, “I have always shown myself a true man to my sovereign,” and added, “I think surely there is some false man that have laid some great cause to my charge, or else I had not be sent hither. I have had great enemies.”
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With the fall of the Howards and Gardiner's disgrace, the conservative faction was finished, leaving Hertford's party in a position of unchallenged dominance, both on the Privy Council and in the Privy Chamber. Van der Delft was in no doubt that “the custody of the Prince and the government of the realm” would be entrusted to Hertford, who had “obtained authority with the King.”
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It was significant that during December and January, Council meetings would be held at Hertford's London house rather than at court.
Once he was able to travel, the King moved in slow stages to London, lodging on the way at Esher, Nonsuch, and Wimbledon, before arriving at Whitehall. After making short visits to Ely Place in Holborn and Hampton Court, he stayed at Greenwich for the last time on 22 December, then finally returned to Whitehall, plainly very ill. Whereas, in August, he had paid less than £5 (£1,500) for medicines and sickroom comforts, in December the bill rose to £25 (£7,500).
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This included purchases of perfume to sweeten his chambers and sheets, “two pairs of slippers newly devised to warm feet,” and a new close stool upholstered in black velvet edged with a black silk fringe, with arms and a lifting seat.
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The treatments prescribed by Henry's doctors included applications of rose water and “eyebright water,” ointments for haemorrhoids and the stomach, comfits of cinammon and green ginger, and regular blanket baths by the barber-surgeons.
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On Christmas Eve, the Queen and the King's daughters left Whitehall on his orders, to spend Christmas at Greenwich. Prince Edward was at Ashridge, and at New Year Katherine sent him a double portrait of herself and the King, urging him to “meditate upon the distinguished deeds of his father” whenever he looked at it.
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The Prince wrote Henry a letter in Latin, assuring him he would strive to follow his example “in virtue, wisdom and piety.”
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It is unlikely he was aware of how ill the King was.
Henry spent the festive season in total seclusion; the court was closed and only “a handful of councillors and three or four Gentlemen of the Chamber” were allowed access to the King.
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They kept at bay those who might exert undesirable influence over him, and ensured that little information about his condition reached the outside world, with the result that we know very little about what was happening to him during these final weeks. Nevertheless, van der Delft, and many others, guessed that Henry was dying: he was said to be “in great danger,” and his physicians were in despair.
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Before he left for Boulogne in the summer of 1544, the King had drawn up his Will, in which were enshrined the provisions of the recent Act of Succession. On the evening of 26 December, he summoned Hertford, Paget, Lisle, and Denny to his chamber, and asked for the Will to be read to him. He then drew up a list of sixteen councillors of the reformist persuasion to serve on a Council of Regency, but made it clear that this was to be an equal coalition and that no one man was to wield power. Hertford, Dudley, Paget, Sadler, Cranmer, and Russell were included, but Henry refused to have Gardiner because “he was a wilful man and not meet to be about his son,” and of so troublesome a nature that no man but himself could rule him.
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In choosing the rest, Henry, unwittingly or not, prepared the way for the establishment of a radical Protestant government.
Of course, the King's arrangements for the regency ran contrary to Hertford's expectations. Paget, who was “privy in the beginning, proceeding and ending of the Will,” wrote it out himself, and although it was said to be signed “with our own hand in our Palace of Westminster” on 30 December in the presence of eleven witnesses, the dry stamp was used, as Paget later admitted,
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and it must have been used after 23 January, because it refers to Sir Thomas Seymour as a privy councillor, and he was not admitted to the Privy Council until that date. The Will is said to have been given to Hertford on 30 December for safekeeping, but it appears that Paget had it in a box and Hertford kept the key.
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Henry, therefore, did not sign the Will at all; in order to retain control over his councillors, he may have deferred doing so until the last possible moment, and then left it too late, leaving his councillors with no choice but to use the sign manual. It is also possible that, without the King's knowledge, they altered the Will before the dry stamp was applied, but dated it to a day when the King had been well enough to sign it.
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However, had this been done, one would have expected the provisions to be more heavily weighted in favour of Hertford's leadership, although the motive may have been merely to increase the size of individual bequests. Whatever the circumstances, no one thought to question the validity of the King's Will at the time.
Henry was stricken with fever again on 1 January 1547.
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On 8 January, there were rumours that he was dead, because, “whatever amendment is announced, few persons have access to his chamber.”
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Two days later, the ulcer on his leg had to be cauterised, an agonising process in the days before anaesthetics. De Selve commented, “Whatever his health, it can only be bad, and [he] will not last long.”
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On 10 January, Queen Katherine and the Lady Mary returned to Whitehall. Although Henry was a little better, they were not allowed to see him for the present;
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it is not clear whether it was Henry, or his doctors, or the Seymour faction who kept them away.
The Queen was not included in the Council of Regency, probably because Henry disapproved of women interfering in politics. However, he left her handsomely provided for, with £3,000 (£900,000) in plate, jewels, and furnishings, and £1,000 (£300,000) in cash, in recognition of “the great love, obedience and chastity of life being in our wife and Queen.”
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Surrey was tried at the Guildhall for high treason on 13 January, and spoke up vigorously in his own defence, but his case was prejudiced from the start because, the day before, Norfolk had formally admitted his guilt in concealing his son's treason. The King, although confined to his sickroom, followed reports of the proceedings closely, and noted on one memorandum, “If a man presume to take unto his arms an old coat of the Crown, which his ancestors never bore, nor he of right ought to bear, can he use it without offence?” Elsewhere he wrote, “If a man compassing himself to govern the realm do actually go about to rule the King, and should for that purpose advise his sister to become his harlot, what this imparteth?”
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It imparted, of course, that Surrey was guilty as charged, and his peers, on receiving a note to that effect from the King, accordingly condemned him to death. A triumphant Hertford was among them. On hearing his fate, Surrey shouted at him, “The King wants to get rid of the noble blood round him and employ none but low people!”
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After the trial, Henry's health improved a little. He ordered French saplings for his garden, evidently hoping to be around to see them grow into trees,
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and on 17 January he gave audience to both the Spanish and French ambassadors and said he was sorry that his incapacity had prevented the speedy dispatch of their business. When van der Delft and de Selve congratulated him on his recovery, he admitted that his suffering had been prolonged and severe. The ambassadors had been warned not to tire him, but he seemed “fairly well” and in good spirits, and spoke lucidly of international affairs, military matters, and a “closer amity” with France. However, he deferred frequently to Paget, who gave the impression of being better informed.
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This was to be the last time Henry would appear in public, and from henceforth access to his rooms would be severely restricted. Nevertheless, he was not yet at death's door, and on 19 January was planning Prince Edward's investiture as Prince of Wales.
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A Bill of Attainder against both Norfolk and Surrey was introduced into Parliament on that day; this would sentence them to forfeit not only their lives, but also their lands and possessions to the Crown. The King told Paget that these would be “liberally disposed and given to his good servants,” and he drew up a list of those who were to benefit, which he “put in the pocket of his nightgown.” But despite excited speculation in the Privy Chamber, it was never found after his death.
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On 21 January, Surrey, who had made a frantic yet abortive attempt to escape from the Tower through his privy,
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was beheaded on Tower Hill.
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After 19 January, Henry had had a relapse, and it was now obvious that he was dying. Even his musicians had been dismissed, and it was Paget who sat with him through the long winter nights, deep in conversation.
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Later, Hertford and other councillors took their turn.
Clearly, the King was losing his grip on affairs. On 23 January, when it was suggested to him that Sir Thomas Seymour be made a privy councillor, he cried out from his sickbed, though his breath was failing him, “No! No!” But Hertford pressured him into agreeing.
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Three days later, his strength ebbing away, Henry summoned the Queen to his bedside. “It is God's will that we should part,” he began, but was too choked to go on and, weeping, sent her from him.
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In a less sympathetic mood, he dictated a farewell letter to Francis I, who was dying of syphilis, and reminded him that he too was mortal.
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Even in extremis, the old rivalry simmered.
On 27 January, the dry stamp was applied to the Howards' attainder, the royal assent having been given by commission in the House of Lords, as the King was too ill to attend.
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Norfolk's execution was set for the following day. But the Duke was not to die, for the King had other, more urgent concerns, and may have decided that enough blood had been spilt. It is often said that Henry died before he could sign the death warrant, but his signature on the Act of Attainder would have been sufficient authority for the execution to go ahead. And if, as Odet de Selve later suggested, Hertford had applied the dry stamp without the King's knowledge, he would surely have seen that the sentence was carried out. So the likelihood must be that Henry ordered that Norfolk be reprieved.
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