Category Archives: The Tudors

1486- an assassination attempt, plots and a prince

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henryviiKing Henry VII worked to secure his kingdom in a way that was different to that of his predecessors.  With the exception of William, Lord Catesby (the ‘cat’ in the couplet ‘the rat, the cat and Lovell our dog/All rule England under the hog) who was executed at Leicester on the 25th August 1485, three days after the Battle of Bosworth, Henry showed remarkable magnanimity to his foes offering them pardon if they laid down their arms.  Of course, not all of them did as is recounted by Seward in his book The Last White Rose.

As the timeline for the year shows Henry began by honouring the promise he made in Christmas 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York.  he continued the process of appointing advisors whom he could trust and he set about a progress to be seen in his kingdom.  It is perhaps significant that he headed north into Richard III’s heartland where men still retained loyalty to a monarch they regarded as a fair one.  It almost seems that he couldn’t quite believe that die-hard Yorkists would be so stupid as attempt another round of the vicious civil war less than six months after Bosworth.  As it is, it looks as though the majority of people were either worn out or fed up with the constant strife because the 1486 plot against Henry was decidedly lack lustre.

January 16- Papal dispensation for Henry VII to marry Elizabeth of York. They were third cousins so their match was prohibited within the four degrees of consanguinity.  In order to legally marry they needed the pope to agree.

January 18- Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York but she is not crowned.  He is making the statement that he is king in his own right.  He is not going to be Elizabeth’s consort and this delay in her coronation ensures no one forgets.  The delay will possibly also antagonise the Woodville faction.elizabeth of york

March 2- Papal dispensation is confirmed by Rome.

March 6- John Morton, Bishop of Ely becomes Henry VII’s Lord Chancellor.

March 10- Henry VII begins a royal progress to the north of England. He journeys to Waltham, Cambridge, Huntingdon and Lincoln where he spends Easter. He washes the feet of twenty-nine men reflecting his age.  Whilst he is at Lincoln, Sir Reginald Bray- Margaret Beaufort’s man-warns him that Francis, Lord Lovell (and Richard III’s right-hand man) is going to leave sanctuary at Colchester where he fled after the Battle of Bosworth.  He’s holed up with Sir Humphrey Stafford of Grafton and his brother Thomas.  Bray’s informant, Hugh Conway is summoned but Henry doesn’t believe him, not least because Conway won’t reveal who his informant is. The plot will become known as the Sanctuary Plot or the Lovell Rebellion.

April 20- Henry VII enters the city of York.  Whilst he is in York rumours of a Yorkist stirring up trouble reach the city.  The man is known only as  Robin of Redesdale.  He is raising support for the Yorkists in Ripon and Middleham – which is, in any event, a Yorkist stronghold.  The next rumour is that Lord Lovell and an army are marching on York.

April 23- There is an assassination attempt on Henry VII’s life whilst he is in York. In one source he is saved by the Earl of Northumberland. Henry  deals with the threat with seeming unconcern and promises of pardon all round.  Lovell ends up fleeing from Yorkshire to Broughton Tower in Furness as the rebellion fizzles to a stand-still but with King Henry’s men in hot pursuit.

There is also a Worcestershire rising led by Humphrey Stafford – there is very little support.  He and his brother quickly flee having spent rather a lot of time hiding in a wood.

May 5- Riots in London in support of Edward, Earl of Warwick.

May 11- The Stafford brothers arrive at Culham in Berkshire.  They claim sanctuary in the church which belongs to Abingdon Abbey.

May 13- The Staffords are dragged from Culham Church on the orders of Henry VII.

May 19- Lovell journeys under cover to Ely and from there he looks for sanctuary or a boat to take him to Flanders. He is probably hidden by the de la Pole family – the Duchess of Suffolk is Edward IV and Richard III’s sister.

June 20- Sir Humphrey Stafford appears before the King’s Bench and demands to be returned to sanctuary.  The Abbot of Abingdon is unamused that the ancient rights of sanctuary have been violated. Sharply worded notes are sent to Pope Innocent VIII who sends a Papal Bull in August validating Henry VII’s actions – not that it matters much to Sir Humphrey.

July 5- Sir Humphrey Stafford’s judges decide that from now on – including Humphrey- no one can claim sanctuary for treason.  He’s condemned to a traitor’s death.

July 8- Sir Humphrey Stafford is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn but Thomas Stafford is pardoned on the grounds that Humphrey being older must have misled him.

September 19-Prince Arthur is born at Winchester.

The birth of Arthur, symbolically born in King Arthur’s Camelot, the child of the red and white rose means that Henry has a male heir which strengthens his hold on the kingdom. However Francis, Lord Lovell who has been skulking around Cambridgeshire- presumably wearing a large cloak and false beard in order to avoid capture finally makes it to Flanders in January 1487.  Inevitably Henry VII’s crown won’t rest easy on his head for very long despite his best efforts to convince the population otherwise.

Seward, Desmond. (2011) The Last White Rose: The Secret Wars of the Tudors.  London: Constable and Robinson.

Wagner, John A. (2001) Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses. Oxford: ABC Clio

Henry VII – king of ‘spin’?

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henryviiHenry VII’s claim to the throne was weak – and that’s putting it mildly. There was only the thinnest of Plantagenet threads running through his blood. Even that had to be legitimised in 1397 by Richard II who issued Letters Patent to that fact when the children of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford (they’d finally married the previous year) were bought into Parliament along with their parents to stand beneath a canopy of State. Pope Boniface IX had already issued a papal dispensation legitimising the Beaufort clan. However, Henry IV added a note into the legal record in 1407 stating that the Beauforts were not to inherit the throne. It might not have been strictly legal but it weakened Henry’s already weak claim.  In addition to which England did not have a salic law prohibiting women from the crown so technically the aftermath of the Battle of Bosworth should have seen the crowning of Queen Margaret.

 

Henry was able to make a play for the throne simply because by 1483 there weren’t many Lancaster sprigs left – the Wars of the Roses took a terrible toll on the aristocratic male population who counted themselves as having direct male descent from Edward III whether they were for York or for Lancaster. George, Duke of Clarence’s son, Edward – the young Earl of Warwick, was a child. The Duke of Buckingham claimed Plantagenet blood but like Henry Tudor’s it came from the Beaufort line and a junior one to Henry’s. There were others descended from female lines including the de la Poles who would be regarded as a key threat to the Tudors.  After Henry came to the throne as well as demonstrating prudent fiscal policy Henry also demonstrated a dab hand at pruning the Plantagenet branches still further – as did his son, to ensure that the Tudor dynasty continued.

 

DSCF2105.JPGWhatever one might think of the twists and turns of the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485, not to mention the Stanley turncoats, the fact is that Richard III’s army gave way to Henry’s and Richard lost his life. Henry became king of England on the battlefield by conquest and thus by God’s will – Divine Right – working on the principle that God had given Henry the power to overcome Richard III. Yes, I know that some of the readers of this post are going to mutter about treachery but the view is a valid one when one takes account of the medieval/early modern mind set. The badge to the left of this paragraph is in the keeping of the British Library and it reflects this fact.  Henry wasn’t shy about reminding people.

bosworth-windows.jpgThere were also ballads entitled ‘Bosworth Field’ and the ‘Ballad of Lady Bessie”.  The earliest printed version (well – a summary) dates from the sixteenth century and there is some question as to whether these ballads are pure fiction, their reliability is questionable. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that Henry would have encouraged ballads like this in order that ordinary people heard about the fact that someone who was really very obscure had taken the crown on the battle field.  According to the ballad – in a king on king struggle to the death Henry was personally victorious…history is after all the winners version and does not necessarily take all the facts into consideration. Double click on the image on the right to open a new window linking to the American branch of the Richard III society and a version of the ballad.

 

Henry was equally swift to ensure that the written word reflected not only the Tudor right to rule but how much better they were than their immediate predecessors.  Polydore Vergil arrived in England in 1502 to collect Peter’s Pence but as a humanist scholar Henry VII was keen to have him on board.  It is thought that he began writing the Anglica Historia in 1505, although it wasn’t published until 1534. Double click on the title to open a new window and the online version of Vergil’s unashamedly pro-Tudor writing.  In this excerpt we see Vergil extol Henry’s virtues as he took up the reigns of office:

 

His chief care was to regulate well affairs of state and, in order that the people of England should not be further torn by rival factions, he publically proclaimed that (as he had already promised) he would take for his wife Elizabeth daughter of King Edward and that he would give complete pardon and forgiveness to all those who swore obedience to his name. Then at length, having won the good-will of all men and at the instigation of the both nobles and people, he was made king at Westminster on 31 October and called Henry, seventh of that name. These events took place in the year 1486 after the birth of Our Saviour.

 

There were other contemporary chronicles, principally The Great Chronicle of London and the Chronicle of Calais as well as later chroniclers including Edward Hall who wrote The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke, more commonly known as Hall’s Chronicle – Hall was born in 1497.  Sir Thomas More wrote about the reign of Richard  III – he was four in 1485. And, of course, there was Holinshed’s Chronicle which heavily influenced Shakespeare. It made its first appearance in 1577. All of them were vehicles for the Tudor State one way or another.

gold medal.jpgBack to Henry – having driven home the message that he was king by Divine Right and because he was better (yes, I know its Tudor spin) than his predecessors because he paid attention to the country and didn’t murder small boys he also needed to make it clear that the Tudor dynasty was a fresh start. The pope had been so glad that the English had stopped slaughtering one another that he didn’t hesitate in signing the dispensation that allowed Henry to marry Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York. He  was swift to honour his pledge to marry her, once the stain of illegitimacy had been revoked by Parliament. A medal was struck commemorating the marriage in 1486. This rare survivor is in the hands of the British Museum.  Double click on the image to open a new page with information about the medal. Elizabeth wasn’t crowned until the Tudor dynasty looked like becoming a certainty. Henry did not want to be seen as Elizabeth’s consort. He wanted it to be understood that he was king in his own right.

marriagebed + henry tudorBizarrely Henry VII’s marriage-bed came to end up in a car park in Chester.  However, since it’s identity has been verified the magnificent carvings can be used to tell the story that Henry wanted to tell in his union with Elizabeth of York Double click on the image to open a window and find out more.

 

DSC_0002Which – brings us back to the dodgy bloodline.   Henry got around the problem by simply using a much older legacy. He claimed that he was descended from the ancient British hero Cadwallader, and produced pedigrees to prove it.  He fought under the red dragon at Bosworth and a red dragon was swiftly added to the permitted armorial supporters before his coronation. Cadwallader was reflected on his coat of arms as shown in the first image in this post. The white greyhound is the Richmond greyhound but the red dragon, which flew on Henry’s banner as he marched through Wales from Pembroke belonged to the ancient king. Other images show Henry’s coat of arms also bearing a portcullis. This came from the Beaufort armorial bearings.

Penn’s acclaimed book about Henry VII demonstrates the lengths that Henry went to in order to secure his kingdom and his dynasty.  An article published in The Guardian in 2012 notes that Henry didn’t just use the red dragon he also made use of the red rose of Lancaster – a somewhat obscure symbol at that time- which was then united with the white rose of York to create the Tudor Rose signifying the union of the two houses and the end of the thirty years of conflict.  He then proceeded to plant his roses everywhere: on architecture, on pre-existing manuscripts and on new documents. Double click on the image of Henry’s banner to open a new page with the full article.

 

Another well used symbol locating Henry’s right to be king in conquest is the image of that crown perched on a wild rose bush. This was a reminder that Henry had won his crown on the battlefield. In an age of low literacy it was important for there to be symbolism that people understood. Henry was a master of propaganda, right down to the Tudor livery of green and white. White symbolised purity whilst green represented renewal.

DSCF2103Henry also looked to the legend of King Arthur.  Unsurprisingly Henry simply claimed him as an ancestor and reminded folk of Merlin’s prophecy that Arthur would return with the union of the red king and the white queen.  It probably isn’t co-incidence that Malory’s Morte d’Arthur was one of the first books off Caxton’s printing press in England. Elizabeth of York went to Winchester which Malory claimed was Camelot in order to have her first child.  Prince Arthur was duly born and baptised in Winchester.  The Italian humanist, Petrus Carmelianus wrote a poem to celebrate the birth and the end of the civil war.  One of the illustrated pages shows the royal coat of arms being supported by two angels (back to Divine Right). It might also be worth noting that Petrus went on to become Henry VII’s Latin secretary and chaplain.  Double click on Petrus Carmelianus to open a new page with an illustration of one of the pages from his poem. Henry also reinstated Winchester’s round table which dates from the reign of Edward III.  This together with a small number of King Arthur related tapestries and images, according to the article on the subject by Starkey, is all that remains of Henry’s arthurian public image strategy – one which he’d borrowed, it should be added from earlier Plantagenet kings including Edward III and Edward IV.roundtable.jpg

In other respects Henry simply took up long established traditions such as being portrayed in manuscripts as a king, including one where he was depicted as a classical hero and issuing coinage which showed a very lifelike looking Henry.

The most easily accessible online image in a manuscript of Henry as king can be found in the British Library. The book called Henry VII’s book of Astrology shows him sitting on his throne in royal regalia receiving the book of astrology as a gift. Obviously Fate and the stars were on Henry’s side when he became king. Double click on the image from the manuscript to open a British Library article about the imagery in the text.  The manuscript itself has been digitised and pages can be viewed on the British Library website Astrology was a ‘proper’ science. All the Tudors had court astrologers – the most famous being Dr John Dee during the reign of Elizabeth I.

henry vii receiving book.jpgHenry VII’s astrologers appear not to have been a particularly able bunch.  One predicted that Elizabeth of York would live until she was eighty whilst William Parron’s 1503 manuscript predicted that young Prince Henry would grow up to be a good son of the Catholic Church. Parron had originally found favour by predicting that all of Henry VII’s enemies would die…

 

 

 

 

 

Doran, Susan. The Tudor Chronicles. London:Quercus

Penn, Thomas. (2012) Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England. London:Penguin

Starkey, David, “King Henry and King Arthur,” in Arthurian Literature XVI, ed. James Patrick Carley, 171-196. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 1998.

 

 

 

 

The face of Henry VII

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henry7manuscript2I’m delivering a session on Henry VII tomorrow so this is by way of a warm up for me. I thought it would be quite interesting to look at the way we perceive Henry through his portraits. The one to the left of this paragraph shows a very young man receiving the book in which he is illuminated (Henry VII’s book of astrology).  It could be any medieval  monarch- apart from the fact that his robe is embroidered with roses – I’m not sure whether its the red rose of Lancaster or the Tudor rose.  It should be noted that the Yorkists and the Lancastrians did not make as much of the roses as history and novelists would perhaps like.  It was Henry Tudor who sought to use the red and white rose unified to weld together a new royal house through its symbolism.

According to the National Portrait Gallery there are sixty-four portraits in its collection of Henry Tudor – most of these are, of course, reproductions of a few images dating from the Tudor period.

Most of us, me included, think of the arched portrait of him in middle age against a backdrop of blue, leaning out of the frame holding a rose in one hand. There are several versions. There’s the version in the National Portrait Gallery by an unknown artist from the Netherlands copied from Michael Sittow which has him holding a Tudor Rose and wearing a collar for the Order of the Golden Fleece (founded by Philip of Burgundy. Henry was elected to the order in 1491). Michael Sittow was a Flemish painter who worked, largely, for the courts of the Hapsburgs and Isabella of Castille.  In that particular version of the portrait – which was destined for abroad rather than home Henry holds the Lancaster rose.

 

henryviiSittow painted other Tudors as well as Henry VII. There is a portrait in Vienna of a demure young girl. It is usually thought of as a youthful Katherine of Aragon following the death of Prince Arthur but in recent years it has been suggested that it might be Mary Tudor. Whoever the young girl might be the reason for the portrait is relatively straightforward – betrothal and marriage. It was a usual part of the diplomatic process of international marriage for portraits to be exchanged. Fitch Lytle dates the Sittow portrait to 1505 and a commission by Margaret of Austria when there were marriage plans in the air between Margaret and Henry (p135). The negotiations came to nothing but Margaret kept the portrait. It remained in her palace at Mecelen until her death in 1540.

 

The words that spring to mind are cautious and watchful. Note also the fur-lined robe embroidered with gold thread.  It actually looks remarkably like the robe from the first illustration in that there seems to be Tudor roses embroidered into the design.  The clearest one in the picture is to the right of Henry’s fingers.  Henry wanted his prospective bride to realise the King of England wasn’t a pauper. There’s also the rose. In the Sittow portrait it’s a red rose. Henry is a Lancastrian  after all- or else perhaps he was indicating that despite the fact that he’s a monarch in his middle years he’s still a passionate man; or possibly a martyred one! – a rose can mean many things in medieval/renaissance symbolism. In other copies – this one housed at the National Portrait Gallery for example- he is holding the red and white rose unified – and is much more straight forward to interpret.

 

holbeinmural

The other portrait I immediately think of isn’t taken from life but copied from elsewhere by Hans Holbein for the Whitehall Mural which is a piece of political propaganda for Henry VIII created in 1537. Looking at the portrait of Henry VIII the viewer sees a powerful renaissance monarch. It disguises the fact that Henry had experienced a disastrous tilt yard accident the previous year that would leave his leg increasingly badly ulcerated; that his subjects in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Westmorland and Cumberland had risen up against him in the Pilgrimage of Grace (the citizens of the West Country hadn’t been frightfully well behaved either); and most importantly that he was having trouble producing a brood of healthy sons, Jane Seymour had died after giving birth to his only son. Yet if you look at the Whitehall Mural you see none of that.

 

In the mural Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor dynasty, is overshadowed by his son. Henry VII is robed as befitting a king, medieval and stately- though possibly slightly chilly as he seems to twitch the robes more closely around him, but in the shadows. His son, dressed as a renaissance prince faces the viewer squarely in a dominant stance – a daring thing in a portrait of that time. It drives home the answer to the question that the inscription on the central plinth poses: ‘If it pleases you to see the illustrious images of heroes, look on these: no picture ever bore greater. The great debate, competition and great question is whether father or son is the victor. For both, indeed, were supreme’.  The answer quite definitely (in Henry VIII’s mind at least) is that Henry VII is outshone by his son. He may have founded the Tudor dynasty but Henry is majesty personified.

 

There are however at least three other contemporary (ish) images of the king as well as Polydore Vergil’s posthumous description of the monarch. Interestingly eye-colour and hair colour as well as general demeanour aren’t always in agreement. Polydore Vergil’s description comes from knowing Henry VII and being commissioned to write the Anglia Historia  in 1501 but wanting to please Henry VIII as the official history of England wasn’t published until 1534:

His body was slender but well built and strong; his height above the average. His appearance was remarkably attractive and his face was cheerful, especially when speaking; his eyes were small and blue, his teeth few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and white; his complexion sallow. His spirit was distinguished, wise and prudent; his mind was brave and resolute and never, even at moments of the greatest danger, deserted him. He had a most pertinacious memory. Withal he was not devoid of scholarship. In government he was shrewd and prudent, so that no one dared to get the better of him through deceit or guile. He was gracious and kind and was as attentive to his visitors as he was easy of access. His hospitality was splendidly generous; he was fond of having foreigners at his court and he freely conferred favours of them. But those of his subjects who were indebted to him and who did not pay him due honour or who were generous only with promises, he treated with harsh severity. He well knew how to maintain his royal majesty and all which appertains to kingship at every time and in every place. He was most fortunate in war, although he was constitutionally more inclined to peace than to war. He cherished justice above all things; as a result he vigorously punished violence, manslaughter and every other kind of wickedness whatsoever. Consequently he was greatly regretted on that account by all his subjects, who had been able to conduct their lives peaceably, far removed from the assaults and evil doing of scoundrels. He was the most ardent supporter of our faith, and daily participated with great piety in religious services. To those whom he considered to be worthy priests, he often secretly gave alms so that they should pray for his salvation. He was particularly fond of those Franciscan friars whom they call Observants, for whom he founded many convents, so that with his help their rule should continually flourish in his kingdom, but all these virtues were obscured latterly only by avarice, from which…he suffered. This avarice is surely a bad enough vice in a private individual, whom it forever torments; in a monarch indeed it may be considered the worst vice, since it is harmful to everyone, and distorts those qualities of trustfulness, justice and integrity by which the state must be governed.

Polydore Vergil, The Anglia Historia

 

henry7deathmaskThe three images that spring to mind are Henry VII’s death mask for his funeral effigy; his bust by Torrigiano and the effigy on top of the vault where he is entombed in Westminster Abbey. Henry died 21st April 1509. He’d suffered from gout and asthma. The death mask, which is exactly what it says it is, was made to form part of the funeral effigy which would have lain on top of Henry’s casket when it was transported to Westminster for burial. The wooden image would have been dressed, and looked exactly, as Henry looked in life. Westminster has a slightly macabre but hugely interesting collection of these effigies. Henry looks careworn and, unsurprisingly, ill.

 

henry viit

By contrast the bust by Torrigiano (the chap who once broke Michelangelo’s nose) depicts a man clad in the fur lined gown and black Tudor style hat who looks as though he probably could win a battle if push came to shove.   Like his portrait’s there is something cool (and not in a modern slang sort of way) about the subject. He looks as though he is weighing up his options. Whatever it is that he’s looking at he doesn’t seem terribly approving but then king’s weren’t supposed to look merry or approachable – though being a shade more charismatic might perhaps have been helpful especially when you were a king trying to hold a country together in order to avoid another outbreak of civil war. It is thought that Torrigiano made use of Henry’s death mask and then knocked several years off. The bust which is made from painted terracotta is in the V & A.  This image comes from their website.

The bust was probably a preliminary to the gilt bronze tomb effigy. Incidentally Torrigiano wasn’t terribly impressed with the English. He described them as ‘bears’ and ‘beasts.’

Cooper, Tarnya. (2008)  A Guide to Tudor and Jacobean Portraits. London: National Portrait Gallery

Eds. Fitch Lytle, Guy and Orge, Stephen. (1982) Patronage in the Renaissance

 

 

Arthur Plantagenet -not quite royal and not a traitor.

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200px-ArmsOfArthurPlantagenet_ViscountLisle.jpgWho would have thought that Henry VIII had a maternal uncle  whom he loved very much. He once said that Arthur had the kindest heart of anyone he knew.

Arthur Plantagenet was Elizabeth of York’s illegitimate half-brother. His mother was Elizabeth Lucie or Lucy or possibly Wayte. Thomas More describes her as a naïve girl who believed Edward IV’s blandishments. There were other mistresses and other children. History has not provided a clear list of which children belong to which mother or how long Edward’s various relationships lasted or indeed whether he was pre-contracted to any of them before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville.

In any event, young Arthur was born in Calais and is mentioned in an exchequer account of 1477 – assuming that Edward didn’t have any other natural male sons kicking around Calais at that time, and then vanishes into historical mist and fog  for a time or, depending upon which source you read, is brought up in Edward IV’s court. He emerges after the difficulties of 1483-1485 in Elizabeth of York’s household. On her death he moved into Henry VII’s household. He then appears to have been inherited by his half-nephew in 1509. He became an ‘esquire of the king’s bodyguard,’ and was apparently much loved by Henry – a dangerous position to hold as poor Arthur came to recognize.

 

In 1511 he married Elizabeth Dudley the widow of Henry VII’s tax collector. The position of husband having fallen vacant because young Henry VIII had executed his father’s two foremost tax collectors in a move guaranteed to win friends and influence people. Elizabeth also happened to be the daughter of Edward Grey, Viscount Lisle (who just happened to be the younger brother of John Grey of Groby who was married to Elizabeth Woodville prior to his death at the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461- making for a very complicated family tree.)   Now would probably also be a good time to mention the fact that Elizabeth Grey is Robert Dudley’s granny – which just makes things even more incestuous when you consider Elizabeth I’s interest in that young man.

 

Back to Arthur:
 he turns up in the records on 8 February 1513 having obtained protection from his creditors- he seems to have been frequently troubled by there being too much month for his money- on the proviso of going to sea with an expedition to Brittany. The ship in which he sailed had a nasty accident with a rock and he was saved from death by something close to a miracle. Understandably he took himself off on a holy pilgrimage to Walsingham to give thanks for his safe return from the sea.

His experience didn’t stop him from returning to Europe where he joined his nephew on his European military adventure culminating in the Battle of the Spurs  which was more of a skirmish than a battle whilst the real action was taking place at home on the English Scottish Border – the Battle of Flodden.

By the following year Arthur, who was in Henry’s good books, was Sheriff of Hampshire and a captain on the vice-admiral’s vessel, the Trinity Sovereign. He turns up at the Field of the Cloth of Gold and was one of the king’s carvers. He also seems to have played an important role in the life of young Henry Fitzroy, Henry VIII’s natural son by Bessie Blount. In 1524 he became a Knight of the Garter.   As is the way of these things he became a widower and remarried in 1528 to Honor Basset nee Grenville.

 

On March 24 1538 he was made Deputy of Calais and then things started to go very wrong. In addition to personal debt; there were the shifting sands of the king’s religious preferences and the faith of the locals; keeping Calais’s garrison fed and watered; keeping the local elite happy- and they frequently weren’t very happy and spent a lot of time trying to stab him in the back; keeping Cromwell informed as well as providing him with a new pet dog (no I’m not making that up – it’s all there in Arthur’s letters) and then there was keeping his wife happy and ensuring his children received an appropriate education. Ultimately things did not go well – there were simply too many plates to keep spinning. Arthur was summoned back to London in 1540 and sent to the Tower whilst his wife and daughters were kept under house arrest in Calais.

Rumour had it that it was Honor who was the traitor rather than her unfortunate spouse – whatever the case it seems to be agreed by Bishop Foxe (who didn’t like her- suspecting that she was a closet Catholic) and another chronicler that she lost her senses and never fully recovered them as a consequence of  Arthur’s arrest and imprisonment.

 

Unfortunately for Arthur  there was a plot. His chaplain, Gregory Botolph had come up with the idea of handing Calais over to the Pope in the person of Cardinal Pole, who was of course, a Plantagenet and Arthur’s cousin.  Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury styled Arthur ‘cousin’ in her correspondence a fact which Henry VIII must have been aware.  By now the Tudor monarch was ageing and vicious.  Being a Plantagenet had become exceedingly dangerous to one’s health as Margaret Pole was to discover.  Botolph managed to evade capture even though an act of attainder was passed against him. He evaded the king’s wrath, unlike his fellow conspirators – Edmund Brindholme, Clement Philpot and Adam Damplip- who presumably paid the full price for their treason – though I need to find confirmation of that.

 

There was no direct evidence against Arthur. So naturally he was released? Er, actually – no, he wasn’t. Arthur remained a prisoner in the Tower until 1542. It seems unfair that Arthur should have been rounded up as a consequence of Botolph’s misdemeanours as Arthur had spent considerable time and effort trying to get his chaplain a living, first in Lowestoft and then in Kettlebarston in Suffolk as demonstrated in his various letters.  It seems even more unfair that Arthur who had served the Tudors most loyally should have been so poorly treated. At the beginning of Henry VIII’s reign a family member could be looked upon with warmth, especially one who could never make a claim on the throne because of his illegitimacy but by 1540 Henry VIII had contemplated forwarding the claims of his own illegitimate son so the bar-sinister wasn’t the protection it had once been.  Arthur languished in the  Tower – Cromwell fell, Katherine Howard was married and discarded, her various lovers executed along with the erstwhile queen.

In March 1541 Honor Plantagenet, Lady Lisle and her daughters were released. Their jewels were returned to them and £900 made available to cover their debts and transport them wherever they wanted.  Honor ultimately returned to her home county of Cornwall where she died in 1566.

Arthur remained in the Tower, although he was allowed to walk upon the ramparts.  According to one story Arthur saw his nephew sailing along the Thames in the royal barge, shouted and waved at him reminding henry that he’d locked his uncle up and left him there.  As you might expect, this is anecdotal and not back by any concrete evidence.  Arthur must have thought that things were looking up when his collar of the Garter was restored to him. Two months later Henry VIII sent him a diamond ring via the person of his secretary Sir Thomas Wriothesley– Arthur was possibly so overwhelmed by relief “immoderate joy” was the way that Holinshed phrased it that he had a heart attack. He died in the Tower, of old age rather than a sharp pain in the neck, and was buried there, leaving his wife distraught with grief whilst he himself became a footnote in Ambassador Marillac’s letter to Francis I. “Lord Lisle, formerly deputy of Calais, being out of trouble and his Order, honour and goods restored, died a few days afterwards.” (4 March 1542)

 

Papers were seized in Lisle’s house at the time of his arrest – 3,000 of them. They were mainly letters to him and his wife, ranging in date between 1533 and 1540, from ambassadors, princes, governors of French and Flemish frontier towns: he knew them through his role of courtier, politician and Deputy of Calais. There were letters to and from friends and agents in England; including one which suggests that sending Anne Boleyn a pet monkey wasn’t one of Arthur’s better ideas. There was also letters between him and his wife during visits of one or the other to England.  Thomas Cromwell complained about Arthur’s letter writing. He said that Arthur wrote trivia that was of no political interest what-so-ever and to please get a grip on his meanderings.  Of course, so far as historians are concerned they couldn’t disagree more. The Lisle Letters are one of the most important collection of Tudor documents that we have available to us.  They can be purchased in six volumes or one abridged selection.

 

As an aside it is worth noting that Arthur’s daughter Frances was an ancestress of George Monck who famously, or infamously depending on your viewpoint, fought on both sides of the English Civil War

 

 

‘Henry VIII: March 1542, 1-10’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 17, 1542, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1900), pp. 62-71 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol17/pp62-71 [accessed 18 January 2016].

Notes and Queries (1926) CLI (aug21): 129-130. doi: 10.1093/nq/CLI.aug21.129.

Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families, 2nd Edition

David Owen – another Tudor

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david tudor.jpgDafydd ap Owen (in the Welsh style), David Owen or David Tudor was one of the men who accompanied Henry Tudor, Lancastrian claimant to the throne to Bosworth in August 1485.

 

King Henry VII having won the Battle of Bosworth and predated his reign to the day before the battle, did not after all have many relations so showed considerable favour to his illegitimate half-uncle by knighting him and arranging a marriage with the heiress Mary de Bohun of Midhurst. He was also one of the twelve knights who held the coronation canopy for Elizabeth of York. He acquired lands in Northamptonshire forfeited by the Yorkist William Catesby. He was the king’s carver between 1486 and 1529. Unsurprisingly he was one of Henry VII’s chief mourners in 1509.

 

David Owen made his own will in 1529. He ordered masses to be said for Henry VII, Edmund Tudor (Earl of Richmond) and Jasper Tudor (Duke of Bedford) as well as his parents and his wives. The baronet also gave orders as to what his tomb should look like and which wife should have her effigy next to his.  He had three sons with wife number one Jasper, Henry and Roger demonstrating that the Tudor difficulty of producing male heirs didn’t stem from Owen. He also had a daughter Anne who was married to Arthur Hopton. He left her a silver cup. However, it was wife number two he anticipated laying next to him for eternity in the church of the Priory of Esseborne. Anne Devereux was the sister of Lord Ferrers of Chartley. With her he’d produced two daughters . There may have been another wife but the sources are vague – if she was his wife,  Anne Blount was wife number two and Anne Devereux was number three.  There were other children including a further daughter, Barbara who is also mentioned in her father’s will– as is her illegitimate state.

 

The will went to probate in 1542 but by then saying masses for the dear departed was heavily frowned upon as Popish – so it is reasonable to assume he died before 1542 – startlingly he appears to have died seven years before the will was proved.

David’s grandson Owen – son of Anne Hopton turns up in the history books as the last custodian of Lady Katherine Grey at Cockfield Hall in Suffolk. He and his wife were responsible for keeping the increasingly ill Katherine confined and then organizing the quazi- princess’s funeral with a budget of £140 sent from London for the purpose. Owen, a Tudor cousin- albeit a distant one- when all was said and done to both Lady Katherine Grey and to Queen Elizabeth, went on to become Lieutenant of the Tower of London between 1570 and 1590 as well as being a member of parliament.

Double click on the effigy of David Owen to find out more about the church where he is buried – without an effigy of any of his wives by his side.

 

Breverton, Terry. (2014) Jasper Tudor Stroud: Amberley Publishing

de Lisle, Leanda. (2013) Tudor: the family story London: Chatto and Windus

Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1826) Testamenta Vetusta: Being Illustrations from Wills, of Manners ‪Customs, &c. as Well as of the Descents and Possessions of Many Distinguished Families. From the Reign of Henry the Second to the Accession of Queen Elizabeth Volume 2 London: Nichols and Son

 

Unlawful Games at Christmas…

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henryholbeinIn 1541, during the reign of Henry VIII, parliament passed the Unlawful Games Act). This law banned all dangerous sports on Christmas Day with the exception of archery. Males aged seven to sixty were required to practice their weaponry skills. Games of skills such as tennis, which Henry VIII excelled at during his youth, were prohibited as were the ever present menace of cards and dice. Presumably the modern equivalent would be trivial pursuit, scrabble and monopoly. Sadly anyone thinking of avoiding any of the above or even a turn at charades on Christmas Day can think again as the law was effectively repealed in 1948.

 

Henry Tudor…takes a festive oath

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elizabeth of yorkA Christmas romance – how lovely…

 

Edward IV died unexpectedly in April 1483. For Elizabeth Woodville this was a disaster, especially when her brother-in-law Richard became the Protector. Now is not the time or the place to look more closely at the possible permutations of what happened to young Edward V and his brother Richard in the Tower or what Richard’s plans and rationale were for claiming the crown himself; suffice it to say rather a lot of mud was slung at the time and has continued to be thrown since.

 

Elizabeth Woodville took herself, along with her remaining children, into sanctuary at Westminster. Whilst she was there she and Margaret Beaufort – presumably working on the principle of the enemy of my enemy is my friend in Elizabeth’s case- came up with a plan to marry their children. Henry Tudor, Margaret’s Lancastrian son and dubious claimant to the throne would marry Elizabeth of York the eldest daughter of Edward IV. There was the small issue of Edward’s possible pre-contract in marriage rendering the princess an arrival on the wrong side of the blanket but by this stage in proceedings there were no other Lancastrian claimants and it was Richard who was suggesting the legitimacy of his nieces and nephews was open to question in order to claim the throne for himself.

 

henryviiIt was against this backdrop – Jane Austen never came up with a romance like this one- that on Christmas Day, 1483, at Rennes Cathedral in Brittany, where he was in exile but writing and receiving lots of letters that Henry Tudor took an oath that he would marry Elizabeth just as soon as he got his mitts on the crown. The rest as they say is, er, history.

 

Mrs Jane Small and Hans Holbein

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Holbein,_Hans_(II)_-_Mrs_Jane_Small,_formerly_Mrs_Pemberton_-_Google_Art_ProjectIt’ll come as a bit of a shock if you don’t already know it but this portrait is only five centimeters in diameter. She’s a miniature or as the Tudors would have known it – a limming or limning.  The image is one of the first minatures produced in England and was painted by Holbein. She’s been painted on vellum and stetched over a playing card (Denyer-Baker: introduction) which can clearly be seen if the mount, a later addition, is reversed. The miniature was designed to be worn a bit like a jewel.

 

Mrs Jane Small, as we now know her to be, isn’t a great courtier. She’s the wife of a merchant, Nicholas Small. Originally art historians thought that Jane was actually Mrs Robert Pemberton from Northamptonshire, which was problematic. Mrs Robert Pemberton was a Throckmorton so she would have had links to the court but certainly it seemed unlikely that Holbein who worked from London would have painted her. Mrs Jane Small on the other hand, lived just down the road from Holbein.

 

The black gown she is wearing is wool but because her husband is prosperous there is a faint possibility it may be silk. She’s wearing a linen smock with collar and cuffs decorated in black work – another reason I like the image. Katherine of Aragon made blackwork, or Spanishwork, popular in England. She embroidered Henry’s shirts even after he sought a divorce. Expert stitchers ensure that the work is the same on both sides of the fabric. Women like Bess of Hardwick employed embroiderers (usually men) for important pieces of work but in this portrait it is likely that Jane embroidered the blackwork pattern on her own collar and cuffs, as a bride she would seek, perhaps, to demonstrate her prowess as a housewife and capability with the needle was an essential skill.  She would undoubtedly be wearing her best clothes for the occasion of the portrait.

 

There’s a flower pinned to her bodice – the iconography is important. Holbein’s subjects often hold a carnation whether they’re male or female and this is the indicator that they have become betrothed. So Jane hadn’t yet married Mr Small, certainly the coat of arms, of a later provenance, that accompanies the trinket is that of the Pembertons. Jane Pemberton was in her twenty-third year and married in 1540.  She’s not important to Tudor dynasties, she hasn’t done anything particularly noteworthy but she is the face of an ordinary woman looking out at us from Holbein’s crisp blue background – she could be you and she could be me.  She reflects changing and growing affluence within society.  Ordinary people can now have their portrait painted to celebrate a special occasion – marriage.

 

But back to the iconography.  She’s depicted with two ears of corn and holding what looks like a sprig of lavender – they must have meaning but your guess is as good as mine as to what message Holbein is conveying. The corn could be representative of fertility. She did go on to have several children. Equally, though perhaps unlikely, it could be a reference to her virgin status. Yates references Elizabeth I being compared to the goddess Ceres be depicting her holding corn – virginal but fruitful (Yates: 78) Culpepper writing in 1653 saw lavender as good for colds and a symbol of virginity. In folklore lavender was supposed to be loved by the Virgin Mary.  The problem with foliage is that the meaning can shift depending upon the context.

 

Jane would marry again in 1567 after the death of Nicholas to another Nicholas called Nicholas Parkinson. She outlived him as well and seems to have reverted to the name Small.

 

Denyer-Baker, Pauline. Painting Miniatures

 

Yates, Francis A. (1999) Astraea – Yates London: Routledge

 

Erasmus and Holbein

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Holbein-erasmusErasmus and humanism go hand in hand. And it was through Erasmus that Holbein was able to make his way to England with a letter of introduction. He travelled from Basel to the Low Countries and from there to London and the household of Sir Thomas More. Later Erasmus would write that Holbein coerced the letter; outstayed his welcome in Holland; played fast and loose with the truth to gain admittance to More’s household.

 

Young Desiderius, a Dutchman, was born in1466 or 1467, the illegitimate son of a priest. In 1492 after both his parents died of plague and he and his brother were sent to a school that Erasmus remembered for its discipline rather than its nurturing of learning. Both Erasmus and his brother took monastic orders and then Erasmus was himself ordained as a priest before going to Paris to study.

 

As his reputation as a scholar became known he began to correspond with the likes of Sir Thomas More whom he’d met on his first visit to England in 1505 and Dean Colet. Letters travelled across Europe as ideas were shared. He challenged ecclesiastical abuses, drew on the classics to expand his humanist philosophies, wrote against Luther and he sent pictures to his friends – except in an age without the polaroid a competent painter was required if you wanted to send your likeness as a gift – not a new idea if you were a monarch but very new for an ‘ordinary’ person like Erasmus. Holbein was just the man, not least because Erasmus travelled to Basel and had been impressed by Holbein’s illustrations of the Dance of Death.

 

As a consequence of his illustration work Holbein received his commission to paint Erasmus.  His studies of Erasmus’s head and hands remain as does the portrait and many copies ‘in the style of.’ The most learned groups in Europe saw the picture and the drawings that Holbein executed. Holbein’s reputation became international and entry to the English court must have become much easier – after all Henry VIII was a Renaissance king…who needed a Renaissance artist.

Personally I love the fact that Erasmus is depicted with ink stained hands.  Holbein has also place some Greek in the picture as well as Latin.  Erasmus translated the New Testament into Greek.  There’s a reference to the classics and Erasmus’s use of the classics – which the monastery of his youth disapproved of- through the pillar in the background.

 

Archbishop Wareham

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Hans_Holbein_d._J._066William Wareham left Oxford in 1488 to follow a career in the ecclesiastical courts. His reputation was such that he was soon being sent abroad on diplomatic missions. In 1502 he became Bishop of London, then in 1503 he became Archbishop of Canterbury. The following year Henry VII made Wareham his chancellor.

 

In his capacity of Archbishop of Canterbury he crown Henry VIII and his new bride Katherine of Aragon. Initially he maintained his role of king’s advisor but Henry became increasingly reliant upon Wolsey who received his cardinal’s hat from Wareham in 1515. That same year Wareham resigned in part because he disagreed with Henry VIII’s anti-French policy but in 1520 he was part of the Field of Cloth of Gold where Henry and Francis I of France declared undying friendship.

 

Wareham was loyal to Henry even though he didn’t always agree with him. At the time of the King’s Great Matter in 1527 it was Wareham who was appointed to represent Katherine, which was not particularly helpful to the queen as he refused to give her any advice based on the principal that the king’s wishes should not be opposed. In fact he signed a petition to the Pope Clement VII requesting that the divorce should be granted. It was even suggested that as Archbishop of Canterbury he should try the case but fortunately for him this idea fizzled out. He was doing his best to maintain the Church in the face of Henry’s growing hostility towards it and the Pope.

 

In 1531 he was in charge of the Convocation that handed £100,000 over to Henry in order to avoid the charge of praemunire (obeying a foreign authority). He also accepted Henry VIII as the supreme head of the church with the caveat that allowed most men to accept the oath “so far as the law of Christ allows.” Perhaps he realised that Henry would never be satisfied and tried to pursue the rights of the Church but it was too late – he was old and tired. He died on 22 August 1532.

 

The painting of Wareham is after the style of Hans Holbein – a sketch of Wareham’s head by Holbein is in the Royal Collection which was executed (okay perhaps not a good word to use in the context of anyone alive during the reign of Henry VIII) during Holbein’s first visit to England in 1526-28.