The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracy, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant (41 page)

8
Meaning in the sense of establishing a quorum or check in the process of raising money.

9
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.i, p.552.

10
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.i, p.553.

11
Oyer and terminer comes from Norman French, meaning ‘to hear and determine’. It describes the commissions, or assizes, in which a travelling judge tries cases alleging felonies and misdemeanours that have been committed in the specified counties. Now an obsolete legal term, replaced by Crown Courts in England and Wales.

12
BL Add. MS 32,655, fol.100.

13
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.i, p.572.

14
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.i, p.573.

15
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.i, p.606.

16
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.ii, p.18.

17
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.ii, p.113.

18
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.ii, p.127.

19
BL Add. MS 32,655, fol.168.

20
BL Lansdowne MS 1,236, fol.9. Also see Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, p.33, appendix.

21
Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland
, new edn., Vol. II, London, 1586, p.964. A painting of the siege of Boulogne was at Cowdray House, Sussex, until it was destroyed by fire in 1793. See ‘An Account of Some Ancient English Historical Paintings at Cowdray, Sussex’,
Archaeologia
, III (1786), pp.251–61. An engraving of this painting, published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1788, clearly shows the angled artillery mount towering over the Boulogne defences, buttressed with gabions, or earth-filled basketwork, to add strength and protection against counter-battery fire. Henry, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, can be seen directing operations from his command post.

22
A method used to bring down the walls of fortifications. The besiegers employed miners to dig under the foundations, propping up the tunnel roof with wood. Combustible material would then be packed into the mine and set alight. The roof would then fall in, bringing down the wall above.

23
Lady Margaret Douglas.

24
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.ii, p.110.

25
Hall, p.861.

26
LP, Vol. XIX, pt.ii, p.119.

27
Hall, pp.861–2. Henry spent the next two days riding around the town and arranging for its future defence. He commanded that the Church of Our Lady of Boulogne should be defaced and ‘plucked down’ and an earthwork thrown up on its site ‘for the great force and strength of the town’.

28
A beautiful sword, especially made for Henry and now at Windsor, had an illustration of the siege of Boulogne and a poem about the victory inscribed on its blade. See Claude Blair, ‘A Royal Swordsmith and a Damascener: Diego de Çaias’,
Metropolitan Museum Journal
, 3 (1970), pp.149–98.

29
Muller, ‘Letters’, pp.185–6.

30
Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.156.

31
50 metric tons.

32
The English Admiral Lord Lisle had 160 ships and 12,000 men at sea.

33
The accidental firing of a gun on board ignited a firkin of gunpowder, killing three sailors instantly, burning four others who later died, while another drowned after he jumped into the river. See Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.157.

34
LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, p.7

35
LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, p.516.

36
2,000 French soldiers did arrive in Scotland.

37
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.104.

38
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.106.

39
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.109. These incidents may figure in a letter, dated 23 June, from the Bishop of Ajaccio in Caen, in which he reports that the Chevalier de’Ans, ‘captain of the galleys which have been made here, was lately at anchor off Boulogne when six English ships, aided by the tide, came upon him so unexpectedly that he was forced to cut his cables with great difficulty’. See LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, p.492.

40
They had been alerted of the French approach by English fishermen.

41
The ship, technically a four-masted carrack, was the first purpose-built warship and was named after Henry’s sister, then aged thirteen. Laid down at Portsmouth in 1509 with a sister ship, the
Peter Pomegranate
, she fought against the French off Brest in 1512. The
Mary Rose
was refitted in 1536 to carry a greater load of ordnance and so increase firepower. After her loss, two Venetian sailors were immediately hired to salvage the ship but the unsuccessful operation was abandoned about a month after the sinking. The hulk was raised in the autumn of 1982 and is now on display in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, together with a host of recovered artefacts revealing what life and combat were like aboard a Tudor warship.

42
Pollard, p.279.

43
Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.158. The main propulsion method of the French galleys was oars, so they could manoeuvre without the wind. Each galley had a small gun mounted in the bows.

44
New forts were afterwards built at Sandown and Yarmouth to protect against a repeat of the incursion.

45
Hastily gathered forces of English levies and gentlemen drove off the French. At Seaford, the invaders fled to their boats after a skirmish with militia led by a local magnate, Sir Nicholas Pelham (d.1559), whose monument in St Michael’s Church, Lewes, contains this tortuous pun:

What time ye French sought to sack Seaford

This PELHAM did repel ’em back aboard.

46
He was buried in the south choir aisle. The present inscription was carved in 1947–8. Elias Ashmole, in his
Antiquities of Berkshire
, London, 1719, Vol. III, p.131, reported that the duke’s achievements – his coat of arms, shield, helmet and crest – hung within the fifth arch of the aisle in the seventeenth century. The first inscription over Brandon’s grave had
disappeared by 1749 and a second was laid down in 1797 that survived until the latest addition was made. See Bond, p.23.

47
LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, pp.372, 464, 517 and 561, and LP, Vol. XX, pt.ii, pp.130, 168, 243–4, 250, 254, 263, 269–70, 278–9, 292–3, 304–5, 307–8, 331–2, 334, 358 and 431–2.

48
Cited by Ridley,
Henry VIII
, p. 388.

49
LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, p.372.

50
LP, Vol. XX, pt.ii, p.334.

51
£12,500, or £4.5 million in 2004 spending power.

52
Reiffenberg was last heard of in the defence of Augsburg against the imperial forces in January 1547. See LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.374.

53
LP, Vol. XX, pt.ii, pp.304–5.

54
LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, p.489.

55
Wriothesley, Vol. I, pp.159–60. Each coat cost 4s and each man was paid 2s 6d in ‘conduct money’ to fund the journey to Dover, where they would join the king’s payroll.

56
LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, p.43.

57
Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.156.

58
Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.157. The tempest was so vehement and terrible that the Parisians ‘thought the day of doom had come’.

59
LP, Vol. XX, pt.ii, p.71.

60
Cited by Scarisbrook, p.453. See: F. Dietz, ‘English Public Finance 1485–1558’,
University of Illinois Studies in Social Sciences
, 9 (1920), p.149.

61
Lehmberg, p.201.

62
LP, Vol. XX, pt.i, pp.44–5.

63
LP, Vol. XX, pt.ii, p.471. Beaton was assassinated by sixteen Scottish Protestant gentlemen on 29 May 1546 at his castle of St Andrew’s.

64
SP, Vol. I, p.840, and LP, Vol. XX, pt.ii, pp.338–9.

65
Cited by Lehmberg, p.232.

66
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.i, p.374.

67
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, pp.462–3.

68
Now called Campagne-les-Guisnes.

69
The Treaty of Ardres was ratified by Francis I at Fontainebleu on 1 August 1546; Francis even styled Henry ‘Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Church of England’. Diplomacy can sometimes mask many differences. See Scarisbrook, pp.463–4.

1
LP, Vol. XIII, pt.ii, p.317. Under the Treasons Act of 1534, it was high treason ‘maliciously to wish, will, or desire by words or writing’ or to ‘imagine, invent, practise or attempt any bodily harm’ to the king, queen or their heirs apparent. Montague was executed for these words. See Tanner, p.379.

2
Moriarty, p.13.

3
Although recent research has revealed the purchase of a pair of boots for playing football early on in his reign.

4
Kybett, p.22.

5
Moriarty, p.13.

6
Brewer, p.120.

7
MacNalty, p.67. Vicary, who died in 1561, was a member of the Barber’s Company in 1525, becoming master in 1530. He was appointed a governor of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in 1548, living in a house provided by that institution, and that year published his
Anatomy of the Body of Man
. Vicary is seen receiving the charter of the new Barber Surgeons’ Company from Henry in the cartoon by Holbein. See Furdell, p.33.

8
First suggested by the obstetrician A. S. Currie. See his ‘Notes on the Obstetric Histories of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn’,
Edinburgh Medical Journal
, 1 (1888), 34pp. The syphilis theory was also propounded by the gynaecologist and surgeon C. MacLaurin in ‘The Tragedy of the Tudors’ in
Post Mortems of Mere Mortals
, 1930, pp.50–102. He writes of Henry and his court (p.68): ‘The general atmosphere of lust, obscenity, grandiose ideas … and violence combined with cowardice especially about disease, is all very typical of syphilis, one might almost call it diagnostic.’

9
Born 1519. Died in 1536 of tuberculosis, a disease particularly fatal to the Tudors, which also claimed the king’s eldest brother, Prince Arthur, in 1502 and his father, Henry VII, in 1509. Henry’s legitimate son, Edward VI, died in 1553 from a suppurating pulmonary infection and generalised septicaemia with renal failure, although Brewer (p.130) strongly suggests that the cause of death was pulmonary tuberculosis, aggravated by an attack of measles. See Moriarty, p.12, and Loach,
Edward VI
, pp.160–2.

10
For example, see Brinch.

11
Park, p.36.

12
MacNalty, p.161.

13
A letter from Augustine to the Duke of Norfolk, dated Ghent, 3 June 1531, reporting several audiences with Charles V and the discussions about religion at the English court, is in BL Cotton MS Galba, B x, fol.8.

14
MacNalty, p.161.

15
Brewer, p.129.

16
LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.27. Henry was explaining his reasons for postponing a visit to the restive North of England after the Pilgrimage of Grace had been brutally put down.

17
3 Henry VIII cap.11. See Bloom and James, p.1.

18
BL Sloane MS 1,047, a book containing 230 prescriptions in ninety-four pages, including contributions by Drs Chambre, Butts, Cromer and Augustine. See Blaxland Stubbs, ‘Royal Recipes for Plasters, Ointments and other Medicants’,
Chemist & Druggist
, 114 (1931), pp.792–4.

19
A brown-flowered plant of the genus
Sanguisorba
or
Poterium
.

20
A feathery-leaved herb,
Chrysanthemum parthenium
.

21
An evergreen shrubby plant,
Ruta graveolens
, used in herbal medicine as a cure for coughs, colic and flatulence. It is strongly anti-spasmodic and stimulating.

22
Juice or resin of the dragon tree,
Dracaena draco
.

23
A vessel holding two quarts or four pints of liquid.

24
‘Medicine for the pestilence of King Henry VIII which has helped diverse persons.’ Ellis, ‘History’, Vol. I, p.292.

25
See MacNalty, p.126.

26
Roberts, p.221.

27
Copeman, p.117.

28
32 Henry VIII cap.42.

29
Copeman, p.131.

30
Copeman, p.148.

31
Copeman, p.149.

32
Furdell, p.24. His accepted biography is William Osler’s
Thomas Linacre
, Cambridge, 1908.

33
Dugdale, p.56.

34
Furdell, p.25.

35
He was sent to the Tower in April 1534, but his crime is not known. His imprisonment may have been a result of his sympathies with Catherine of Aragon and Princess Mary. He retained friends in high places, however. Sir William Paulet, then Comptroller of the Household, wrote to Cromwell a few weeks later seeking Augustine’s release: ‘Be good to Mr Augustine that he may be relieved of his charge.’ See Hammond, p. 234.

36
LP, Vol. XII, pt.ii, p.340.

37
The Lord Privy Seal was now Sir William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, appointed in June 1540 in succession to Cromwell.

38
LP Spanish, Vol. VI, pt.i, p.285.

39
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, pp.285–6.

40
For a detailed account of Augustine’s mysterious life, see Hammond, pp.215–49, who suggests that permission was sought for Augustine to carry weapons with which to defend himself in Venice.

41
Butts’ tomb was an altar monument made from Purbeck marble close against the south wall of the chancel of Fulham Church, with a effigy in brass on top and his arms –
azure,
three lozenges gules on a chevron or between three etoils or
– and a scroll inscribed: ‘Mine Advantage.’ The inscription was three elegiac Latin verses written by Sir John Cheke, tutor to Prince Edward. The lost brass is engraved in Faulkner, p.78, and the inscription transcribed in BL Redgrave Hall Papers 40,061, fol.8. A small alabaster and black marble tablet was erected in the north aisle of the church in 1627 by a descendant, Leonard Butts.