Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (6 page)
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Authors: Robert Hutchinson
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The Spanish ambassador Don Pedro de Ayala reported that Henry was disliked by his subjects ‘but the queen is beloved because she is powerless. The king looks old for his years but is young for the sorrowful life he has led …’ Henry was also ‘much influenced by his mother [Lady Margaret Beaufort] and his followers in affairs of personal interest and in others. The queen … does not like it.’
Then there is the issue of his legendary and notorious meanness and love of money. The envoy added:
The King of England is less rich than generally said. He likes to be thought very rich because such a belief is advantageous to him in many respects. His revenues are considerable … [with] great impoverishment of the people by the great taxes laid on them. The king himself said to me that it is his intention to keep his subjects low, because riches would only make them haughty …
He spends all the time he is not in public, or in his council, in writing the accounts of his expenses with his own hand.
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He also handled the cash himself. In his own handwriting, he itemised the moneys delivered in one day to John Heron, the treasurer of his chamber: ‘sov[er]eigns of gold … diverse coins of gold … old weighty crowns … good crowns … [Venetian] ducats’ and ‘Spanish gold’, all amounting to several thousands of pounds.
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A year later, de Ayala sneered that if ‘gold coin once enters his strong
boxes, it never comes out again. He always pays in depreciated coin … All his servants are like him; they possess quite a wonderful dexterity in getting other people’s money.’
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On just one day – 5 February 1509 – the king paid eleven individuals a total of £5,000
all in pennies
, amounting to 1.2 million coins weighing more than 1,800 lbs (837 kg), which posed an immense and laborious task in counting it out.
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Did he miserly begrudge the payment of every coin?
boxes, it never comes out again. He always pays in depreciated coin … All his servants are like him; they possess quite a wonderful dexterity in getting other people’s money.’
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On just one day – 5 February 1509 – the king paid eleven individuals a total of £5,000
all in pennies
, amounting to 1.2 million coins weighing more than 1,800 lbs (837 kg), which posed an immense and laborious task in counting it out.
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Did he miserly begrudge the payment of every coin?
Aside from regular taxation, Henry VII collected money through a pernicious system of written legal obligations and recognisances imposed on many subjects, both high- and low-born, to guarantee their absolute allegiance to the crown. These were administered by two notorious royal servants, the lawyers Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. If any suspicion surrounded the victims, no matter how flimsy the evidence, they were forced to pay substantial cash penalties to the crown or face imprisonment. Many suffered both.
This insidious process of wealth generation accelerated after 1502 to the extent that of the sixty-two families in the English peerage that survived the butchery of the Wars of the Roses, forty-seven were at the king’s mercy, either by living under attainder
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or forfeiting substantial sums to the crown to guarantee their good behaviour. Only fifteen noble families were entirely free of this regal financial coercion.
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or forfeiting substantial sums to the crown to guarantee their good behaviour. Only fifteen noble families were entirely free of this regal financial coercion.
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Some bonds or recognisances were imposed on what seem to us today to be absurdly slim pretexts. A one-time royal favourite, George Neville, Third Baron Abergavenny,
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was liable for the remainder of his life under a bond for £5,000 should he ever enter the counties of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire or Surrey without the king’s permission. This was on top of existing recognisances for £100,000 that he faced for unlawfully maintaining retainers and to assure his loyalty to the Tudor crown. Richard Grey of Ruthven, Earl of Kent from 1505,
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had a £10,000 bond imposed on him to make no sale, lease or grant of any land, offices or annuities without the king’s explicit consent. He also had to be seen in the king’s house at least once a day and could not leave court without a royal licence, except for an agreed eight days away every three months.
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was liable for the remainder of his life under a bond for £5,000 should he ever enter the counties of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire or Surrey without the king’s permission. This was on top of existing recognisances for £100,000 that he faced for unlawfully maintaining retainers and to assure his loyalty to the Tudor crown. Richard Grey of Ruthven, Earl of Kent from 1505,
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had a £10,000 bond imposed on him to make no sale, lease or grant of any land, offices or annuities without the king’s explicit consent. He also had to be seen in the king’s house at least once a day and could not leave court without a royal licence, except for an agreed eight days away every three months.
This was all easy money: Dudley alone brought in nearly £219,500 to the royal coffers from sureties guaranteeing these bonds in the period
1504 – 8 – worth more than £113 million at today’s prices. Henry VII knew full well how to not only keep his nobility submissive, but also how to squeeze the last silver groat
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out of their depleted purses and those of his other hapless, complaining subjects.
1504 – 8 – worth more than £113 million at today’s prices. Henry VII knew full well how to not only keep his nobility submissive, but also how to squeeze the last silver groat
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out of their depleted purses and those of his other hapless, complaining subjects.
Vergil alleged that:
[Henry] began to treat his people with more harshness and severity than had been his custom, in order … to ensure they remained more thoroughly and entirely in obedience to him.
The people themselves had another explanation … for they considered they were suffering not on account of their own sins but on account of the greed of their monarch …
[Henry] gradually laid aside all moderation and sank into a state of avarice.
Empson and Dudley realised ‘they had been given the job by the king not so much to administer justice as to strip the population of its wealth without respite, and by every means fair or foul, vied with each other in extorting money’. Moreover, Vergil added, ‘they devised many fresh ways of satisfying their king’s avarice while they were eagerly serving as the ministers of their own private fortunes.’
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Historians have debated long and hard over whether Henry VII was truly guilty of charges of rapacity and avarice,
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but documentary evidence suggests strongly that the king was responsible personally for many of the decisions to extort money and Dudley, years later, acknowledged that the king’s chief aim was ‘to have many persons in his danger at his pleasure’.
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This was state blackmail, pure and simple.
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but documentary evidence suggests strongly that the king was responsible personally for many of the decisions to extort money and Dudley, years later, acknowledged that the king’s chief aim was ‘to have many persons in his danger at his pleasure’.
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This was state blackmail, pure and simple.
At Henry’s death, most of his abundant treasure was held ‘in secret places under his own key and keeping’ at his new riverside palace at Richmond, Surrey.
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Potential revenue from recognisances during the king’s reign has been estimated at £954,790 – or £495 million at 2011 prices – which was over and above the £142,000 the royal coffers received annually in later years from more traditional sources of income under the wise guidance of the Lord Treasurer of England, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.
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This grossly swollen exchequer was an extraordinarily rich legacy to Henry’s son and heir, who all too diligently learnt at his
father’s knee the delights of sequestering cash and property from those who fell victim to kingly power.
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Potential revenue from recognisances during the king’s reign has been estimated at £954,790 – or £495 million at 2011 prices – which was over and above the £142,000 the royal coffers received annually in later years from more traditional sources of income under the wise guidance of the Lord Treasurer of England, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.
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This grossly swollen exchequer was an extraordinarily rich legacy to Henry’s son and heir, who all too diligently learnt at his
father’s knee the delights of sequestering cash and property from those who fell victim to kingly power.
Much of the king’s revenues was consumed by an ambitious building programme begun in the 1490s, which was designed to emphasise shamelessly the prestige of the new Tudor dynasty. A disastrous fire on 21 December 1497 at the old palace at Sheen destroyed a ‘great substance of richness, as well as jewels and other things’
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along with most of the wooden buildings. The blaze
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along with most of the wooden buildings. The blaze
about nine of the clock began suddenly … within the king’s lodging and so continued till midnight. By violence whereof … [a] great part of the old building was burnt and much more harm done upon costrings [curtains] and hanging beds of cloth of gold and silk and much other rich apparel with plate and manifold jewels belonging to such a noble court.
How well loving thereof be to God [that] no living creature was there perished.
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Divine intervention had indeed truly shielded and protected the Tudor family. They had gathered at Sheen for the Christmas festivities but fortunately the king, his wife and mother, together with ‘my lord of York [and] my lady Margaret’ all escaped from the fire unhurt. What excitement for the young Henry: hustled away from his warm bed into the cold darkness of the night, amid the crackling flames and flying sparks piercing the night sky and the panicked shouts and confusion of the royal household. His father may have feared the fire was the prologue to another attempted
coup d’état
; his son probably saw it as an adventure after the well-ordered serenity of his nursery at Eltham Palace.
coup d’état
; his son probably saw it as an adventure after the well-ordered serenity of his nursery at Eltham Palace.
Henry VII immediately began construction of a huge new palace on the site, renamed Richmond (after the family earldom), alongside the Thames – finishing the major phase by 1501. The royal apartments, rebuilt and refurbished, were still within the largely undamaged fifteenth-century donjon or keep, moated and battlemented. Evidently Henry continued to prize his security. Its opulence – it had a bowling alley and tennis courts – and the splendour of its furnishings led it to
be popularly nicknamed ‘Rich Mount’ by his more truculent citizens downstream in London.
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be popularly nicknamed ‘Rich Mount’ by his more truculent citizens downstream in London.
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In the same period, Henry rebuilt Baynard’s Castle at the confluence of the Rivers Fleet and Thames on the western edge of the City of London,
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constructed a fine new brick courtyard house at Greenwich Palace
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and undertook building projects at Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. The delight of designing and raising palaces was clearly part of the Tudor inheritance, as Henry VIII also became a prolific builder, first completing his father’s works at Hanworth, Middlesex; Woking, Surrey; Wanstead, Essex; Ditton, Buckinghamshire; and Leeds Castle in Kent, before embarking on his own grandiose schemes, beginning at Bridewell, off Fleet Street in London, Eltham Palace and Beaulieu in Essex. Many more were to follow.
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constructed a fine new brick courtyard house at Greenwich Palace
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and undertook building projects at Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. The delight of designing and raising palaces was clearly part of the Tudor inheritance, as Henry VIII also became a prolific builder, first completing his father’s works at Hanworth, Middlesex; Woking, Surrey; Wanstead, Essex; Ditton, Buckinghamshire; and Leeds Castle in Kent, before embarking on his own grandiose schemes, beginning at Bridewell, off Fleet Street in London, Eltham Palace and Beaulieu in Essex. Many more were to follow.
Some of those around Henry VII, such as Bishop Richard Fox, had been his comrades in exile and these, together with gentry from the king’s native Wales, found favour at his court. Fox, having been at Bosworth, was appointed Lord Privy Seal in February 1487. He was notoriously loyal to his master. Thomas More was told later that to serve the king, Fox ‘would not stick [fail] to agree to his own father’s head [being struck off]’.
Yet Henry remained a secretive, chronically suspicious king, frequently making notes during his conversations with courtiers, counsellors and diplomats and writing private aides-memoires to himself. One day his favourite pet, a spider monkey that lived in his library, ‘tore his principal notebook all to pieces. Whereat the court (which liked not these pensive accounts) was almost tickled with sport.’
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Aside from his shrewd, if not wily, administration of the realm, the king was not the dour, glum or dreary monarch that many have been taught to believe him to be. Far from it: he loved hunting, gambling and, from 1494, playing real tennis within a closed court. In June of that year, a payment of £4 was made to a ‘Spaniard, the tennis player’ who may have been the king’s private coach.
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(Tennis was to become another favourite sport of his second son, although like his father, his first passion was hunting.) In May 1499, the Milanese ambassador complained ruefully that Henry VII ‘attends to nothing but pleasure and
the enjoyment of the infinite treasure he has accumulated and continues to pile up’.
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In September 1507, the king was reported to be out ‘every day to hunt deer and other game in forests and in parks. Besides, he often went out hawking.’
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(Tennis was to become another favourite sport of his second son, although like his father, his first passion was hunting.) In May 1499, the Milanese ambassador complained ruefully that Henry VII ‘attends to nothing but pleasure and
the enjoyment of the infinite treasure he has accumulated and continues to pile up’.
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In September 1507, the king was reported to be out ‘every day to hunt deer and other game in forests and in parks. Besides, he often went out hawking.’
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Three months earlier, perhaps because of his deteriorating eyesight, he shot a farmyard cock in error with his crossbow at Chesterford, Essex, and had to pay four shillings to an aggrieved farmer named Whiting.
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The compensation culture, unfortunately all too familiar today, is nothing new. For example, in October 1496, Henry’s Privy Purse had to pay a man called Rede four shillings to replace his colt ‘that was slain by the greyhounds’, and in August 1505, 3s 4d was paid to a ‘poor man that had his corn eaten by the king’s deer’ near the hunting lodge at Woking, Surrey.
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The compensation culture, unfortunately all too familiar today, is nothing new. For example, in October 1496, Henry’s Privy Purse had to pay a man called Rede four shillings to replace his colt ‘that was slain by the greyhounds’, and in August 1505, 3s 4d was paid to a ‘poor man that had his corn eaten by the king’s deer’ near the hunting lodge at Woking, Surrey.
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But Henry VII’s hard fiscal heart did have some capacity for generosity. When one of his Esquires of the Body remained unpaid because he was absent due to his ‘great diseases’, the king ordered the annuities to be reimbursed immediately because of the courtier’s ‘long continued s[er]vice done unto us to our singular good pleas [u]r[e]’.
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Loyalty in that most turbulent of reigns was a virtue always worth rewarding as it sometimes seemed in such short supply.
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Loyalty in that most turbulent of reigns was a virtue always worth rewarding as it sometimes seemed in such short supply.
In September 1495 he must have suffered an attack of conscience – or, more cynically, made an attempt to appease or assuage continuing Yorkist resentment. Henry VII commissioned a tomb costing £10 from the Nottingham mason James Keyley
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to hold the mortal remains of Richard III. The alabaster effigy and tomb-chest were duly set up in Greyfriars, Leicester, where the deposed king was so contemptuously buried in the aftermath of Bosworth.
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to hold the mortal remains of Richard III. The alabaster effigy and tomb-chest were duly set up in Greyfriars, Leicester, where the deposed king was so contemptuously buried in the aftermath of Bosworth.
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During the evenings and idle moments, Henry VII gambled at chess, cards and dice – a favourite amusement also inherited by Henry VIII – and bet on the potential winner of archery contests and tennis matches. Whatever the pastime, he seems to have enjoyed poor luck and rarely won.
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Card games of the period have especially intimidatory names: Plunder, Pillage, Triumph, Condemnation, Cuckolding and Torment. There was also a game called
Totem Nihil
(‘All or Nothing’) in which a four-sided object was spun to determine the winner.
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Card games of the period have especially intimidatory names: Plunder, Pillage, Triumph, Condemnation, Cuckolding and Torment. There was also a game called
Totem Nihil
(‘All or Nothing’) in which a four-sided object was spun to determine the winner.
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The royal accounts from 1500 onwards record the king’s losses at gambling: for example, the 8s 4d paid in August of that year to [Richard] ‘Weston’, a Groom of the Chamber; the 24s 4d given to James Braybroke ‘for the king’s play’; and an additional forty shillings for the lucky Weston in September 1502 after losing at ‘gleek’, a three-handed card game played with a forty-four-card pack.
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Henry VII even lost 6s 8d at cards to seven-year-old Prince Henry on 23 May 1498.
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No wonder the child was depicted with a broad grin! Was this the king’s customary bad luck – or was this a doting father allowing his young son to win? One can almost hear young Henry’s boyish squeals of delight as the cards were dealt and turned over by a chuckling king. A total of 66s 8d was also paid ‘to my lord of York to play at dice’ in January 1502, but perhaps this was funding games over a length of time, as the considerable sum – equivalent to around £1,500 in today’s monetary values – might have annoyed the financially careful king if this represented his son’s gambling losses at a single session.
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Henry VII even lost 6s 8d at cards to seven-year-old Prince Henry on 23 May 1498.
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No wonder the child was depicted with a broad grin! Was this the king’s customary bad luck – or was this a doting father allowing his young son to win? One can almost hear young Henry’s boyish squeals of delight as the cards were dealt and turned over by a chuckling king. A total of 66s 8d was also paid ‘to my lord of York to play at dice’ in January 1502, but perhaps this was funding games over a length of time, as the considerable sum – equivalent to around £1,500 in today’s monetary values – might have annoyed the financially careful king if this represented his son’s gambling losses at a single session.
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