Henry VIII

I

Introduction

Henry VIII (1491-1547), second Tudor king of England (1509-1547). One of the most indefatigable and physically imposing kings of England, he has exerted a continual fascination for historians. The son of Henry VII, he was content to rule through his leading counsellors for over ten years, but asserted his will in the later 1520s, and broke with the papacy in 1533 in order to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragón. A year later, he was declared by Parliament to be 'supreme head' of the Church of England. He dissolved the monasteries in 1536-1540, but largely dissipated the proceeds in his later military campaigns. Despite the break with the Catholic Church in Rome, his personal theology was conservative, and the progress of Protestantism was checked until his death.

II

Childhood and Early Life

Henry was born at the royal palace of Greenwich on June 28, 1491. He was the second of Henry VII's four sons by his queen, Elizabeth of York, and the only one who survived to adulthood. He quickly received the recognition due to his status as a royal infant. Honours and offices were bestowed on him from the age of two. In 1493, he was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports. Shortly afterwards, he became Earl Marshal of England. In September 1494, he was made Lieutenant of Ireland, though he was not expected to travel there and the work was undertaken by Sir Edward Poynings, who was appointed Deputy-Lieutenant. The following month, Henry was dubbed a Knight of the Order of the Bath and created Duke of York. Traditionally, the dukedom of York was reserved for the king's younger son. However in this case Henry VII was especially concerned to discredit the Pretender, Perkin Warbeck, who had impersonated Richard, Duke of York, the younger son of Edward IV, who had been murdered in the Tower of London in the reign of Richard III, but whom some former Yorkist supporters in the Wars of the Roses claimed was still alive. Further titular appointments followed: he was given the wardenship of the Scottish marches, and installed as a Knight of the Garter at Windsor Castle. On November 14,1501, he made his first major public appearance when he played a leading role in the festivities for the marriage of his elder brother, Arthur, to Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabella of Castille. When Arthur died of consumption in April 1502, Henry was created Prince of Wales and betrothed to his brother's widow. A dispensation for this match was granted by Pope Julius II, and was sent to England by Ferdinand in 1504. Henry was expected to marry Catherine after his 14th birthday, but the wedding was postponed by Henry VII's diplomacy, which focused on demands for the payment in full of Catherine's dowry and on alternative plans for alliances by which Prince Henry would have married either Eleanor of Burgundy or Margaret of Angoulême. These negotiations ended with Henry VII's death.

Henry's childhood was strictly regulated. Perhaps because Henry VII feared losing his second as well as his elder son, Henry was not sent to the marches of Wales to learn the art of government, but kept at court, where he was not allowed out except through a door which led into the privy garden. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the 17th-century historian, reported that Henry VII intended his second son to enter the Church and become Archbishop of Canterbury. Independent evidence is lacking, and the pattern of secular appointments given to Henry contradicts it. His mother, Elizabeth, and paternal grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, had surveillance over his upbringing. Their influence was pervasive and included a strong emphasis on reconciliation between the Tudors and those former Yorkist noble families who had been proscribed during the Wars of the Roses, and on piety and religious devotion. These concerns were significant. Early in his reign, Henry VIII sought to reinstate at court those members of his family with Yorkist affiliations. Again, his mother and grandmother were patrons of the Order of Franciscan Observants and of the Carthusians, and were devotees of the cult of the Holy Name of Jesus. This stimulated Henry's interests in theology. Furthermore, when neither his former Yorkist relations nor the Carthusians would support him at the time of his suit for annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragón and remarriage to Anne Boleyn, he pursued them with an extreme vengeance that signified his belief that he was betrayed by his own family and dependants.

Henry was intellectually gifted and care was taken over his education. Erasmus, who visited the royal nursery in 1499, admired his precocity and literary accomplishments. He studied grammar and classical literature in the humanist tradition: his tutors included John Skelton, the Latin scholar and poet laureate who had translated Cicero's letters while at Oxford University. Henry became fluent in Latin and French, and acquired a basic knowledge of Italian, Spanish, and (later) Greek. He was adept in mathematics and enthralled by astronomy. Sir Thomas More later complained that Henry woke him in the middle of the night to gaze at the stars from the roofs of the royal palaces. He was an accomplished musician who sang at sight and played the lute and virginals.

As his reign unfolded, Henry's interests turned increasingly towards theology. In 1521 he wrote, largely unaided but with advice from a panel of theologians, a book entitled Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, which attacked Martin Luther and defended the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The book was a bestseller. Pope Leo X granted Henry the title 'Defender of the Faith' as a reward. After the royal supremacy was proclaimed in 1534, Henry saw himself as the architect of the Church of England. His library was vast, and his knowledge of theological and juristic texts impressive: works from which he could quote lengthy passages from memory included the Bible and the Institutes of Justinian.

III

Accession to the Throne

Despite his father's success in restoring stability after the Wars of the Roses, Henry VIII's accession was not straightforward. In his later years, Henry VII's fiscality and fears of conspiracy had soured the political atmosphere and his innermost courtiers wished to ensure not only his son's peaceful (and popular) succession but also their own survival. Henry VII died at 11 p.m. on April 21, 1509, but his death was kept secret until the afternoon of April 23, when it was revealed to the main body of counsellors and Henry VIII's accession was proclaimed. This delay gave those at the seat of power time to consolidate their position. A general pardon was issued that included treasons and felonies committed in Henry VII's reign, and Empson and Dudley, the two most hated fiscal agents of Henry VII, were arrested. They were imprisoned in the Tower of London for a year, and then executed on fabricated charges. This was a ploy to win popularity, and it worked. In all the excitement created by these events, no one seemed to notice that the majority of Henry VII's fiscal instruments remained firmly in place.

Precisely because Henry VIII had spent his childhood in relative seclusion, he seemed inexperienced to his father's counsellors. Ten weeks short of his 18th year at his accession, he was old enough to rule on his own account, but procrastinated over whether he should marry Catherine of Aragón. At one moment he expressed doubts over the propriety of marrying his brother's widow, at another he claimed that his dying father had urged him to marry Catherine and that he must obey. He eventually married her on June 11, 1509, and they were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on June 24 amid feasting, dancing, and rejoicing. Nevertheless, his counsellors did not yet allow him to enjoy full sovereignty. Archbishop Warham, as Lord Chancellor, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Surrey and 2nd Duke of Norfolk, as Treasurer, and Richard Fox, as Lord Privy Seal, held the three senior offices in the kingdom and exercised control over policy as well as patronage, generally running the country while the young king became accustomed to his role.

IV

Character and Appearance of the King

The young Henry had a dazzling personality and physique. He loved eating, drinking, gambling, and expensive clothes. He was witty and gregarious and, it would seem, capable of genuine warmth. He was a superb athlete, who excelled in the tilt-yard and at a multitude of sports such as hunting, hawking, archery, wrestling, and tennis. He was an indefatigable horseman. But he was egotistical, and ambitious for money and power. He craved admiration and brooded over petty slights. Passion rather than reason dictated his actions. He was emotionally predatory, and could become sullen for days if disappointed. Until around 1525, he was affable and willing to trust his counsellors. But as he grew older, he became devious, vindictive, and autocratic. He beat Thomas Cromwell, his second chief minister, around the head and swore at him. He called Sir George Blagge, a gentleman of the king's Privy Chamber, 'my pig'. By the end of the reign, Henry had deteriorated physically and mentally, becoming corpulent and immobile. He suffered from an ulcerated leg. Increasing pain made his temperament volatile. He was a hypochondriac and became paranoid, demanding service, but proving impossible to serve. For his unremitting demands of allegiance to the royal supremacy, More likened him to the Sultan of Turkey and the Roman emperor Tiberius.

Henry's good looks came from his mother. She had endowed Henry with many of the features of her father, Edward IV, who also had a charismatic personality and loved luxury. The Venetian ambassador, Sebastian Giustiniani, described Henry in 1519 as: 'extremely handsome. Nature could not have done more for him. He is much handsomer than any other sovereign in Christendom; a great deal handsomer than the King of France; very fair and his whole frame admirably proportioned. On hearing that Francis I wore a beard, he allowed his own to grow, and as it is reddish, he has now got a beard that looks like gold.'

His people regarded Henry as a patriot king. This owed less to his subsequent break with Rome than to his love of warfare and ambition to enforce his dynastic claim to the throne of France. Court chivalry had been revived under the Yorkists, and the most popular entertainments of the courts of Edward IV and Henry VII were the tournaments held in the summer. These were genuine, and dangerous, martial exercises. Henry first participated in 1507, when he defeated his opponents under the watchful eye of his grandmother. His prowess in the tilt-yard was crucial to his appeal, because it helped to make Henry popular with courtiers and the nobility.

Like Francis I, Henry postured as a roi chevalier. Rivalry between England and France was fundamental to his image. His accession inaugurated some two decades of martial sports in which the king not only participated but also carried away most of the prizes, and some three decades of (intermittent) warfare in France and Scotland, in which Henry consciously sought to emulate the victories of Edward I, Edward III, and Henry V. This was what popular opinion demanded. To a small minority of intellectuals such as Erasmus and Richard Pace, Renaissance warfare was costly and destructive. But to a wider opinion, 'honour' and the 'defence of the realm' were the cornerstones of aristocratic culture. Warfare united the realm. It created a sense of national identity, and, along with the impartial administration of justice, was the raison d'être of monarchy as defined in the coronation oath. In the political writings of the 15th century, for example, the term 'policy' had been construed almost exclusively to mean military policy.