Read Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England Online
Authors: Thomas Penn
2. Terracotta portrait bust of Henry VII by Pietro Torrigiano.
3. Portrait of Elizabeth of York, Henry’s queen.
4. A laughing boy, thought to be Prince Henry aged about eight, by Guido Mazzoni,
c
. 1498.
5. Lady Margaret Beaufort, the pious and politicking mother of Henry VII, in characteristic dress and pose.
6. Portrait of Catherine of Aragon, aged about twenty, by Michael Sittow.
7. Richmond, ‘the beauteous exemplar of all proper lodgings’. Drawing by Antonis van Wyngaerde,
c
. 1562.
8. The ‘score cheque’ from the first day of the Westminster jousts of November 1501, celebrating the marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine of Aragon. The columns represent the two teams. Each combatant’s score is indicated in the box next to his name: strokes indicate blows to the head or body and, bisecting the horizontal lines, lances broken. Heading the ‘challengers’ team (
left
) is the duke of Buckingham; the ‘answerers’ team (
right
) is led by (
top
) the marquis of Dorset and includes (
second
) the earl of Essex and (
third
) Lord William Courtenay, all of whom were suspected of conspiring with Suffolk. Fifth down is a youthful Charles Brandon.
9. A group of plate-armoured jousters arrives at a tournament. These are the ‘venants’, or ‘challengers’, who take up the challenge issued on the king’s behalf. On the left, ladies of court look on from the royal pavilion.
10. Informer’s report by John Flamank, detailing the secret conversation among Henry VII’s officials at Calais, September 1504. The officials describe the king as ‘a weak man and sickly, not likely to be no long-lived man’ (
line 6
) and discuss a debate among ‘great personages’ at court over possible heirs to the throne: ‘none of them spoke of my lord prince’ (
lines 12–13
).
11. ‘They think he is a fox – and such is his name.’ Richard Fox, Henry VII’s lord privy seal and diplomatic mastermind. Portrait by Hans Corvus.
12. The death of Henry VII, ‘secretly kept by the space of two days after’. Drawing by Garter king-of-arms Thomas Wriothesley.