The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracy, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant (44 page)

6
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.533.

7
See: LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, pp.394–9; Matthews, pp.172–3; and Bayles, pp.794–6.

8
Bayles, p.796.

9
First suggested by Brewer, pp.123–4.

10
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.534.

11
Dale, p.31.

12
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.535.

13
Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vol. VI, p.163.

14
Burnet describes Thirlby as a ‘learned and modest man’ but ‘of so fickle and cowardly a temper that he turned always with the stream in every change that was made’.

15
Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vol. VI, p.163.

16
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.537.

17
LP Spanish, Vol. VIII, p.542.

18
Some accounts say it was Sir Anthony Denny. This seems highly unlikely.

19
Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vol. V, pp.691ff., and Burnet, Vol. I, book iii, p.255.

20
NA E 23/4/1.

21
About £1,300 in the money of the time, or £324,450 in today’s values.

22
The bequest is worth around £165,000 in 2004 spending power.

23
The ‘Poor Knights’ was a charitable foundation created by Edward III for those of his followers captured during the French wars and bankrupted by ransom fees. It exists today as ‘the Military Knights’ and is open to any British army officer under the age of sixty-five. They are still provided with grace and favour accommodation in the lower ward of Windsor Castle and every year take part in the ceremonials of many state occasions. They claim to be the oldest military establishment on the
Army List
.

24
35 Henry VIII cap.1.

25
Starkey, ‘Inventory’, p.xi.

26
Starkey,
Henry VIII: A European Court
, p.131. Details of the ordnance, weapons, armour and munitions are provided in Starkey, ‘Inventory’, pp.102–63.

27
Some of the minor legatees waited a long time to receive their bequests; some indeed died before the bequests were paid.

28
See, for example, Smith, ‘Last Will’, pp.20ff.; Levine, pp.471–85; Ives, ‘A Forensic Conundrum’; and Houlbrooke.

29
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.408.

30
Wriothesley administered the ‘accustomed oath’ of allegiance to Seymour on that date at Westminster. See APC, n.s., Vol. I, 1542–7, p.566.

31
Ives, ‘A Forensic Conundrum’, p.786.

32
Ives, ‘A Forensic Conundrum’, p.784.

33
See H. Miller, ‘Henry VIII’s Unwritten Will: Grants of Lands and Honours in 1547’ in E. W. Ives, R. J. Knecht and J. J. Scarisbrook (eds.),
Wealth and Power in Tudor England: Essays Presented to S. T. Bindoff
, London, 1978, pp.87–106.

34
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.356.

35
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.360.

36
APC, Vol. I, 1542–7, pp.558, 562.

37
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.407.

38
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.434. On 27 January, he received another grant as Under-Steward and Clerk of the Forest and Clerk of the Swaincote Courts of Waltham Forest, Essex.

39
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, pp.406–8, and NA SP 4.

40
LP, Vol. XXI, pt.ii, p.420.

41
Identified by a grant of the rectory of Grayingham, Lincolnshire, on 30 April 1546.

42
Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vol. V, p.689, and Burnet, Vol. I, book iii, p.255.

43
Brewer, p.121.

44
Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vol. V, p.689.

45
Brewer, p.124.

1
Foxe, ‘Acts’, Vol. V, p.697.

2
See Cunich, ‘Revolution and Crisis in English State Finance 1534–47’, and tables at
www.le.ac.uk/ni/bon/ESFDB
.

3
Derived from the opening words of the antiphon of the first nocturn of the Office for Matins: ‘
Dirige, Domine, Deus Meus, in conspectus tuo vitam meam
’ – ‘Direct me, O God …’ – one of the three parts of the Office for the Dead. The origin of the modern word ‘dirge’. See Paul Binski,
Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation
, London, 1996, p.53.

4
NA LC 2/2, fol.87. See also Loach, ‘Function and Ceremonial …’, p.58. The Privy Council, meeting at the Tower on 2 February, approved payments of some of the bills. Warrants were addressed to Sir Edmund Peckham, Cofferer of the Household, and John Hales, Treasurer of the Privy Chamber.

5
Strype, ’Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.290.

6
Dethicke was promoted from Richmond Herald to Norroy in January 1547 before Henry died and succeeded Christopher Barker as Garter King of Arms on 29 April 1550. (SPD,
Edward VI, 1547–53
, p.7.)

7
Sandford, p.493. Strype (‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’) gives a slightly different version.

8
The Vespers of the Dead, so called for the opening antiphon: ‘
Placebo Domino in regione vivorum
’ – ‘I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living …’

9
Muller, ‘Letters’, p.254.

10
Wriothesley, Vol. I, p.181.

11
Toto came to London in 1519 and received a £25 annuity in 1530–53. He was appointed serjeant painter in 1544. He was a resident of St Bride’s Parish in Fleet Street, dying intestate in 1554. See Auerbach, pp.56 and 145.

12
NA LC 2/2, fol.7.

13
Bannerols were banners of greater width used to display the arms of the ancestors of the deceased and their marriages.

14
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.296.

15
NA SP 10/3/7.

16
SP 10/1/9, 13 February 1547.

17
A few months later, it was to be granted to Edward Seymour, by then created Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of the realm. The coffin of Edward IV had rested at Syon overnight
en route
to his burial place at Windsor in 1483.

18
There are reports of only seven horses, but Sandford, John Stow in his
Annals
and the ‘Spanish Chronicle’ all talk of eight. See ‘Spanish Chronicle’, p.154.

19
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.298.

20
‘Spanish Chronicle’, p.154.

21
John Bruges, now the king’s tailor, was paid 13s 4d for making the robe of estate in blue velvet, lined with white sarsenet (a soft, silky material), for the effigy and John Benyns was
paid 4s for making a doublet of blue satin ‘lined with sarcenet and flamed and edged with velvet’. NA LC 2/2, fol.3.

22
Sandford, p.493.

23
The jewellery was supplied from the Jewel House in the Tower of London. See NA E 101/426/5.

24
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.299. It was more likely to be later: Sandford says the procession left at about ten o’clock, which would accord with the two-hour delay incurred while the procession was assembled.

25
There had been orders issued ‘to all men with baggage or carriage to remain at the appointed place out of the way’. SPD,
Edward VI, 1547–53
, p.5.

26
Eight banners used in the funeral were still hanging in St George’s Chapel in the seventeenth century. They are drawn in a collection of epitaphs and arms in BL Lansdowne MS 874, fol.49. The Chapel inventory, compiled later in 1547, lists ‘a hearse cloth of king Harry the viiith of cloth of tissue with black satin of Bruges’. See Maurice F. Bond:
Inventories of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1384–1667
, Windsor, 1947, p.185.

27
NA LC 2/2, fol.45. Missing from the procession were the senior judges. They were originally included but ‘the chief justices and master of the rolls’ were deleted from the list of attendees because they were ‘spared for the law in the term time’. See SPD,
Edward VI, 1547–53
, p.5.

28
Related by Burnet, Vol. I, pt.ii, p.298. The prophecy was made by Friar (later Cardinal) Peto, who escaped with only a rebuke from the Privy Council for his insolence. The incident was apparently seen as a divine judgement upon Henry for having ousted the Brigantines from their religious sanctuary at Syon. Burnet adds: ‘Having met with this observation in a MS written nearer that time, I would not envy the world the pleasure of it.’ Aungier (p.92) repeats the legend.

29
Strickland, Vol. III, p.255.

30
Pote, p.361.

31
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials’, Vol. II, pt.ii, pp.304–5.

32
Ibid., p.308.

33
NA SP 10/1/17.

34
Muller,
Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction
, p.143.

35
‘Surround me with your protection.’

36
‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes …’

37
Strype, ‘Ecclesiastic Memorials, Vol. II, pt.ii, p.310.

38
Henry’s funeral was the first for which heralds were paid an attendance fee. It was £40 for the whole office in 1547 and it remains the same today. See Wagner, p.113.

39
Starkey, ‘Inventory’, pp.197–8.

1
Paget, ‘Letters’, p.19.

2
Burnet, Vol. I, p.291.

3
The French ambassador Odet de Selve told Francis I of the heralds’ proclamation of Edward as king and wrongly ‘that yesterday Norfolk was secretly beheaded in the Tower’.

4
Machyn (p.45) reported that the duke ‘rode up and down’ Westminster Hall as part of the ceremony of Mary’s coronation dinner.

5
See Anthony Fletcher and Diarmaid MacCulloch,
Tudor Rebelli
ons, 4th edn, London, 1997, p.85.

6
Robinson, p.35. He was succeeded as Fourth Duke by his grandson.

7
His ornate tomb chest carries the last major display of overt religious imagery in six teenth-century English monumental art. His funeral is recorded by Machyn on 2 October as having been marked by an extravagant dinner: ‘For the furnishing … were killed forty great oxen and a hundred sheep and sixty calves besides venison, swans, cranes, capons, rabbits, pigeons, pikes and other provisions, both flesh and fish. There was also great plenty of wine and of bread and beer … both for rich and poor; all the country came thither.’ (Machyn, p.70.)

8
A later account is in BL Add. MS 30,536, Vol. 1, fol.194b.

9
BL Harleian MS 5,087, no.35, dated 8 February 1547.

10
Wonderful to report!

11
The title was to be Earl of Leicester, but this was deleted in the list of dignitaries drawn up on 15 February 1547. NA SP 10/1/11.

12
APC, n.s., Vol. II, 1547–50, p.16.

13
APC, n.s., Vol. II, 1547–50, p.17. ‘Painful’ in this context means ‘painstaking’.

14
APC, n.s., Vol. II, 1547–50, p.19.

15
APC, n.s., Vol. II, 1547–50, pp.14–22.

16
APC, n.s., Vol. II, 1547–50, p.20.

17
For a more sympathetic discussion of Wriothesley’s actions, see Slavin, pp.268–85.

18
Gammon, p.151.

19
H. Miller, ‘Henry VIII’s Unwritten Will’, in E. W. Ives (ed.), in
Wealth and Power in Tudor England
, London, 1978, p.87.

20
Paget probably meant the administration of justice without regard to rank or privilege.

21
Paget, ‘Letters’, pp.19–20.

22
NA E 23/4/1.

23
NA SP 10/1, fol.41.

24
Seymour is indicating how much he would value even a short letter from Katherine.

25
Seymour’s convoluted words of love indicate that the imagery of the picture would
increase his eager anticipation of his marriage with the dowager queen.

26
Bodleian Library, Ashmolean MS 1729, fol.4.

27
Dent-Brocklehurst Papers, D2579, Gloucester Record Office.

28
Nicholas Throckmorton, cupbearer in Katherine’s household.

29
Katherine had clearly instructed Seymour to burn all letters to avoid the risk of discovery of their affair.

30
NA SP 46/1, fol.14.

31
Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D.1070.4.

32
BL Lansdowne MS 1,236, fol.26.

33
Strickland, Vol. III, p.264.

34
LP Spanish, Edward VI, Vol. IX, p.123.

35
Somerset had let this property, belonging to Katherine, to a Mr Long.

36
Cecil Papers 133/2.

37
‘Spanish Chronicle’, p.160.

38
Strickland, Vol. III, p.260.

39
Tytler, Vol. I, p.70.

40
Cecil Papers 150/85. NA SP 10/6/21.

41
Cecil Papers 150/74.

42
Cecil Papers 133/3.

43
NA SP 10/4/14.

44
G. B. Harrison,
Letters of Queen Elizabeth I
, New York, 1968, pp.8–9, and Strickland, Vol. III, p.275.

45
Thomas Hearne (ed.),
Sylloge Epistolarum
, Oxford, 1716, p.151.

46
NA SP 10/5/2.

47
Tytler, Vol. I, p.140.

48
Cited by James, ‘Kateryn Parr’, p.333.