HENRY VIII History in an Hour
Simon Court

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

The ‘Virtuous Prince’

Jousting and the Heraldic Past

The King of England and of France

The Field of Cloth of Gold

The ‘King’s Great Matter’

The Break with Rome

‘The Goggle-eyed Whore’: Anne Boleyn

A King is Born

The Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries

The ‘Fat Flanders Mare’: Anne of Cleves

The Gruesome End of Thomas Cromwell

The ‘Lewd and Naughty’ Catherine Howard

Death and Succession

Personality as Political Policy

Henry Tudor: Psychological Post-mortem

Appendix 1: Key Players

Appendix 2: Timeline

Copyright

Got Another Hour?

About the Publisher

Introduction

The life of Henry VIII was extraordinarily rich and eventful, starting with high hopes but ending, as he himself would have seen it, in abject personal and therefore political failure, with the premature death of his only son and heir, Edward VI. We have been invited to view Henry’s life and personality as, in effect, a tragic ‘game of two halves’: the first starring the idealistic, athletic and ‘virtuous prince’; the second embarrassed by the bloated, disillusioned tyrant who had been corrupted by events which were largely outside his control. And though it may be expected that his personality therefore fundamentally altered for the worse, it is evident that the characteristics which comprised this complex, yet essentially coherent, man were present throughout his life, and the decisions he made. For, possibly more than any other English monarch before or after him, Henry VIII defined every aspect of political life during his reign: indeed we can say that his personality became political policy.

Henry was, to all outward appearances and certainly as portrayed by the court artist Hans Holbein, the perfect model of a successful king. Tall, well built and intelligent, he commanded the stage of his court.

Yet who was the real man those portraits depict, with his fleshy yet mean-lipped face? We will trace the diplomatic ambitions of the young prince, inspired by the ‘Arthurian myth’ of the English monarch and his empire, and desiring to emulate the military triumphs of Henry V to become King of France as well as England; and the consequences of his continued failure to produce a legitimate male heir, leading eventually to the permanent ‘break with Rome’ and the Roman Catholic faith. We will also see how his underlying insecurity led to an excessive attachment to his advisers who, once rejected, were brutally abandoned and often beheaded for their betrayals (whether real or imagined). We shall discover a man whose violence, self-righteousness and ruthlessness were certainly consistent with a severe egoist, and perhaps even – some have suggested – with a psychopath.

The ‘Virtuous Prince’

Prince Henry was never meant to be king. Born on 28 June 1491 at Greenwich Palace, he was the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, the first son being Arthur, Prince of Wales. Henry received a first-rate classical and theological education from private tutors, and became fluent in Latin and French. He was also taught to play a number of musical instruments and later composed music (although the long-held belief that he wrote ‘Green Sleeves’ is probably false). In 1501, Arthur, aged 15, was married to Catherine of Aragon, almost 16 years old, the youngest surviving child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. But disaster struck within a year when Arthur, who was not of robust health, died of pneumonia. Their marriage was probably never consummated.

This tragedy propelled the young Henry, who was only 10 years old, firmly into the spotlight, as the sole male heir to the Tudor dynasty. His father protected him from performing many duties or making public appearances, and he must have been relieved when his second son grew into a fit, athletic young man, standing head and shoulders above his contemporaries. Henry became a skilled horseman, jouster, tennis player and dancer, and possessed great skill in archery and hurling the javelin. By 1508 he was to be seen at Richmond practising tilting for many hours.

Henry VII died on 21 April 1509, and the young Henry, aged 17, became king. In deference to his parents’ wishes, he immediately announced that he would marry Catherine of Aragon and, in spite of their six-year age difference, they initially made a happy couple. Catherine conceived within a few weeks of their marriage but, in what proved to be an ominous portent, she was delivered of a stillborn girl. Within four months, however, Catherine had conceived again, this time giving birth on New Year’s Day 1511 to a boy, named Henry.

The nation rejoiced at the news, and the king celebrated by jousting under the name of Coeur Loyale (‘loyal heart’) and laying his trophies at his lady’s feet, as befitting a gallant knight.

Catherine of Aragon watching Henry VIII of England joust, College of Arms, early sixteenth century

Yet tragedy struck again seven weeks later when the baby Henry died. Catherine, a devout Catholic, retreated into her devotions; Henry, after a bout of self-doubt and self-pity, turned his energies towards war against France. He knew that the best way for a young ruler to establish his international power and prestige was through warfare, so it was natural for him to pick on one of the two traditional enemies of the English, namely the Scots or the French. But behind this public foreign policy lay a set of deeply held personal beliefs about what it was to be a ruler of men.

Jousting and the Heraldic Past

Henry’s love of jousting was not just the enjoyment of the sport; it was an expression of his fundamental belief in the moral virtues of chivalry as personified in the medieval knight. Henry was steeped in the chivalric tradition, believing that it was the duty of every nobleman to display prowess in the joust. Jousting evolved from the practices of medieval battle, where ransoms were sought, and serious injuries inflicted, but by the fifteenth century this had become the tournament in which knights competed for honour and the favour of a lady.

These combats were governed by the strictest rules of engagement and often involved artificial castles, ships or woodland grottos. The nuptials of Arthur and Catherine had been celebrated with such a tournament, and the young Henry had lapped it all up, wishing, like all gentlemen, to excel in the joust. Henry first joined in a tournament incognito in 1510 and he was soon participating regularly, most notably at Westminster in February 1511 to celebrate the birth of his son.

Henry believed that a king must be both a soldier and a man of learning. In promoting these two aspects of kingship – soldier and scholar – Henry was deliberately establishing a different type of identity for a king. His task was made easier by his remarkably varied skills and youthful energy. In addition to his linguistic skills he also had a good knowledge of the Bible, and was a student of mathematics, astronomy, geometry and cartography, and a talented musician with a strong singing voice. When he went on a progress in 1510, he occupied himself ‘in shooting, singing, dancing, wrestling, casting of the bar, playing at the recorders, flute and virginals … jousts and tourneys’. The king was depicting himself to his people as a perfect example of the dashing Renaissance prince, and they adored him for it.

The King of England and of France

How does Henry’s view of himself as ruler determine the public foreign policy of his war against France? He was fully aware of the previous triumphs of English monarchs during the Hundred Years’ War and their domination of large parts of France during that period. His personal hero was Henry V, and he yearned to recreate the glory of the Battle of Agincourt when, on 25 October 1415 – Saint Crispin’s Day – ‘King Harry’ and his troops killed up to 10,000 French, yet lost only about 110 of their own men. The English claim to the Crown of France had been dormant since 1453, but it had never been renounced and Henry sought to bring it back to English hands.

The opportunity to do so arrived early in his reign. The French were occupying parts of (what is now) Italy and Pope Julius II was trying to put together an alliance to drive them out. When King Ferdinand II of Castile joined forces with him in October 1511 to form the ‘Holy League’, Henry jumped at the chance to join it and during the following spring a joint Anglo-Spanish attack was made on Aquitaine with the intention of recovering it for England. The attempt was unsuccessful, but the Pope announced that King Louis XII should be stripped of his kingdom of France and of the title ‘most Christian king’, conferring both on Henry instead. Anticipating a coronation by the Pope himself in Paris, Henry sought to convert this papal pronouncement into concrete political reality.

On 30 June 1513 Henry invaded France. He led his troops down as far as Tournai (which is now in Belgium) and, after a successful siege, made a triumphant ceremonial entry into the town on 25 September. However, the victory was largely symbolic. He made no further inroads into France and had spent his father’s treasure in financing the campaign. He ended up being compelled to sign a peace treaty in 1514, and when Louis XII was succeeded by the 20-year-old Francis I, Henry was confronted by a French version of himself, which injected a new competitive dynamic into the Anglo-French relationship.

The Field of Cloth of Gold

Henry and Francis were too alike and too jealous of each other to be friends, but they recognized their mutual strength and avoided direct confrontation. The tense diplomatic stand-off between them was magnificently displayed when they met just outside the English-held territory around Calais in June 1520. This was called the ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’ – so named because of the silk and gold thread in the hundreds of tents and costumes.

A huge temporary palace was erected for the reception of Henry, where 30-foot-high walls made of canvas were painted to appear as brick or stone, with a slanting cloth roof giving the illusion of leaded slates. Outside, two fountains spouted red wine, and Henry’s following alone consumed up to 2,200 sheep in a month. Francis was greatly taken with two monkeys which accompanied Henry’s retinue, and insisted that they attend every banquet.

Although the Field of Cloth of Gold was supposed to secure a lasting peace in Europe, it actually achieved nothing. Both as a man and a king Henry remained frustrated. Foolishly, he challenged Francis to a wrestling contest and lost. This severely dented his pride, and soon afterwards the relations between England and France worsened, with Henry forming an alternative alliance with Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, who then declared war on France. The Field of Cloth of Gold ended up symbolizing the ultimate failure of Henry’s diplomatic ambitions – with France in particular, and also in general. Throughout the rest of his reign he continually and futilely switched allegiances between the major European powers, and finally in 1544, a last invasion of France succeeded in capturing Boulogne but at the cost of bankruptcy. Henry’s dream to emulate the glories of Henry V was never realized.

The ‘King’s Great Matter’

During Henry’s campaign in France in 1513 the Scots took the opportunity to rampage south of the border. Catherine had been left in control during her husband’s absence and oversaw an army which defeated the Scots at Flodden. King James IV of Scotland was killed in the battle, and Catherine was able to send Henry his bloodstained hauberk as a trophy. But the marriage was already in difficulties, mostly as a result of Henry’s mounting anxiety for a male heir. Catherine lost a child who only lived for a few hours in 1514, and although she gave birth to a healthy daughter, Mary, in 1516, she was always conscious that she was expected to produce a boy. She was now 30 years old, approaching middle age by contemporary standards, and as her beauty faded, Henry’s eye started to stray.

Portrait of older Catherine by an unknown artist, c.1525

It was probably during Catherine’s pregnancy with Mary that Henry took his first mistress, the 16-year-old Elizabeth Blount. The affair lasted three years, and Catherine was wise enough to conceal her feelings about it in public. Catherine’s Catholic faith supported her in 1518 through another (and final) delivery of a child who did not live long, and the birth of Henry’s illegitimate son in 1519, whom the king publicly acknowledged by naming him Henry Fitzroy (meaning ‘son of the king’).

Henry took the birth of Henry Fitzroy as proof that the problem of securing a male heir was all Catherine’s fault, and she became increasingly desperate. While she remained popular with the people and still performed her queenly duties (in 1520 she accompanied Henry to the Field of Cloth of Gold and entertained King Francis I to dinner), her personal relationship with Henry was failing. When she was 35 years old, even though Henry had ended his affair with Elizabeth Blount soon after the birth of their son, he quickly replaced her with another mistress, Mary Boleyn, who was Catherine’s lady-in-waiting. Thereafter Henry and Catherine drifted even further apart.

Securing the male succession to the Crown consumed Henry’s thoughts, had ruined his first marriage, and would eventually lead to the dramatic break with Rome and the Roman Catholic faith and the establishment of the Church of England. Yet the course which Henry eventually took was not inevitable at the beginning, for Henry was brought up as a devout Catholic. In 1521 he had defended papal supremacy by publishing Defence of the Seven Sacraments (Assertio), which had earned him the cherished title of ‘Defender of the Faith’ from Pope Leo X. Yet by 1527, with Catherine no longer capable of producing a son, he had formed the conviction that his marriage to her was unlawful in the sight of God. He grounded this belief on a passage in the Old Testament (Leviticus 20:21), which prohibited a man taking his brother’s wife. Henry interpreted the original Hebrew text to mean that such a marriage would be ‘without sons’, and convinced himself that Catherine’s prior marriage to his brother Arthur explained why they had no living male heir. So in the summer of 1527 he sent his secretary, William Knight, to Rome to argue that his marriage be annulled, but Knight’s mission was completely unsuccessful.

Was Henry’s ‘scruple of conscience’ about his marriage to Catherine genuine, or was it merely an excuse to allow him to annul the marriage and take another wife? We may strongly suspect the latter but cannot know with certainty. What is certain is that by 1527 he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, sister of his former mistress Mary, and his thoughts were turning towards a second marriage with Anne as a way of resolving the question of male succession. Anne likewise realized that the stakes were now so high (for Catherine would never give Henry the legitimate son he needed) that she could resist becoming merely Henry’s mistress, and hold out to become the future queen.

In 1529, Henry’s Lord Chancellor and chief adviser, Cardinal Wolsey, made further efforts to secure the divorce from Catherine, and was successful in obtaining the Pope’s consent to convene an ecclesiastical court in England, to decide the ‘Great Matter’ once and for all.

But despite protracted proceedings the case was adjourned. It is likely that Pope Clement VII never intended to allow a decision to be reached because he was at the time a hostage of Charles V, who was a loyal nephew to Catherine. Wolsey, who had staked everything on achieving an annulment for his king, was politically ruined, and unceremoniously removed from both his office and his magnificent residence at Hampton Court, which Henry appropriated. Wolsey died in 1530, a broken man.

So Catherine was still queen, and appearing as such for formal events, but Anne Boleyn was Henry’s constant companion and her family was gaining increasing political influence at court. This stalemate continued until July 1531, when Catherine refused yet again to accept the annulment, and Henry dismissed her from court. With Cardinal Wolsey dead, Henry became increasingly convinced by the arguments of Protestant advisers like Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer, and began to believe that the Pope had no right to interfere in England’s affairs at all. He took Anne with him to Calais in 1532 to try to obtain the support of King Francis (who managed to avoid meeting her), and it appears that it was on the trip home that Henry and Anne first slept together.

The Break with Rome

By February 1533 Anne was pregnant and secretly married to Henry, and in May the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, convened a special court at Dunstable Priory, which Catherine refused to attend, either in person or by proxy. On 23 May Cranmer found against Catherine, and pronounced Henry’s marriage to her null and void. Five days later he ruled that Henry and Anne’s marriage was valid and any future children legitimate.

Unsurprisingly the political fallout was enormous. Thomas More, a devout Catholic and supporter of Catherine’s cause, who had replaced Wolsey as Lord Chancellor, had already resigned. Catherine’s daughter, Princess Mary, refused to accept the diminished status of her mother as ‘Dowager Princess of Wales’ (in recognition of her position as the widow of Henry’s brother) or to acknowledge Anne Boleyn as the new queen. Pope Clement VII initiated the excommunication of Henry and Cranmer.

Anne gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, on 7 September 1533. Henry now had two daughters from different marriages but still no legitimate son, and it became necessary to establish what would happen to the succession upon his death. This was achieved by means of a new statute, under the skilful management of the new Lord Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell. The Acts of Succession of 1534 and 1536 established that the Crown would pass first to any male heir of Anne, or failing that, to her daughter, Elizabeth. Mary had no claim as she was declared illegitimate. Also the break with Rome was formally confirmed with Parliament declaring Henry ‘the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England’, thereby detaching the Church of England from any papal authority.

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