House Of Treason: The Rise And Fall Of A Tudor Dynasty (46 page)

42. While in Ireland, eighteen of his bored soldiers planned to steal a ship and engage in a little lucrative piracy in the Irish Sea. Surrey was disappointed to discover that legally he could not hang them. ‘If I shall make a proclamation, upon pain of death, as it shall be needful many times to do, I have no authority to put any of them to death that shall break the same,’ he complained. Eventually, this authority was granted to him but those of noble rank escaped capital punishment. See
State Papers
, vol. 2, pp. 42-5.

43. For example, between April 1523 and January 1524, he spent only twenty-three days at home. See Childs, p. 27.

44. Skelton was born c. 1460 and died on 21 June 1529 and was buried in the parish church of St Margaret’s Westminster, alongside the Abbey. He was tutor to Prince Henry when he was Duke of York and later rector of Diss in Norfolk, when he enjoyed the patronage of the Norfolks, particularly that of Agnes, second wife of the second Duke of Norfolk and the countess’s mother-in-law. The
Garland
poem is more than 1,600 lines long. He also wrote a poem praising the Earl of Surrey after his military raid on northern France at the end of 1522. See Greg Walker,
John Skelton and the Politics of the 1920s
(Cambridge, 1988), p. 26.

45. Surrey was rarely a happy general. At this time he wrote of being ‘decayed in body as well as being worn out in purse by these four years’ of continuous military service.

46. His attacks on Wolsey are contained in his somewhat sarcastic poems
Speak Parrot
(c. 1521),
Colin Clout
(1521-2) and
Why Come ye not to Court?
(1522). See H. L. P. Edwards,
Skelton: The Life and Times of an Early Tudor Poet
(London, 1949), pp. 204-8, and Melvin Tucker,
‘
The More-Howard Connections of John Skelton’,
Moreana
, vol. 37 (1973), pp. 19-21.

47. See Walker,
John Skelton and the Politics of the 1920s
(Cambridge, 1988), pp. 29-30.

48. She would have been about twenty-six when the poem was written. She died on 18 September 1534.

49. The few remains of Bourchier’s monumental brass - an inscription in Latin, six decorative elbow-cops with Bourchier knots, and four shields - are in St Edmund’s chapel in Westminster Abbey. He was chief carver (‘
cironomon mense
’) to Elizabeth, the queen of Edward IV. The effigy, once depicted in armour, was stolen from his Purbeck tomb, probably during the Edwardian reformation in the mid-sixteenth century.

50. See
Gentleman’s Magazine
, new series, vol. 23 (1845), p. 261. Muriel is sometimes recorded as a sister to Surrey, but she died in 1513 at Lambeth and was buried at Greenwich.

51. The average male life expectancy during this period was around forty years.

52. Brenan and Statham, vol. 1, p. 109.

53. Tucker, p. 141.

54. Arundel Castle Archives, G¼, and Tucker, pp. 141-2.

55. National Archives, PCC, PROB/11/21. A certified copy is in Arundel Castle Archives, T1.

56. Martin,
History of Thetford
, Appendix VIII, p. 38.

57. Hearses in the sixteenth century were not the modern-day funeral vehicles but temporary structures beneath which the coffin rested while Masses were said for the soul of the departed.

58. A Middle English term for a pack animal, from the Old French
sometier.

59. Carlisle Herald was one of the earliest titles for an English herald, mentioned in Edward III’s expedition to Scotland in 1327. See Wagner, p. 20 and p. 177.

60. Robinson, p. 22, and Clare Gittings,
Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Medieval England
(London, 1988), p. 177.

61. Martin, pp. 122-3, and Tucker, p. 142.

62. A monumental brass to the second duke, showing him full-face in armour and Garter robes, with four shields, was laid over the grave. It is drawn by Lilley and is in Arundel Castle MS 1638 and is illustrated by Robinson, p. 14. It is now lost. Another drawing is in BL Add. MS 45,131, fol. 85.

1. Singer, pp. 68-9, and Routh, p. 205.

2. The indictment alleged that Wolsey ‘being not ignorant of the premises, had obtained certain Bulls from Clement VII by which he exercised jurisdiction and authority legatine to the deprivation of the king’s power established in his courts of justice’. Specifically, ‘he had given away the Church of Stoke-[next]-Guildford [Surrey] to one James Gorton ... to the contempt of the king and his crown ... and had caused the last wills and testaments of many ... to be exhibited and proved in his court and their goods and chattels to be administered by such as he appointed’. Wolsey also ‘made diverse visitations out of his dioceses and drawn diverse pensions from abbeys to the contempt of the king and his laws’. The court sentenced him as ‘he was out of the king’s protection, and his lands, goods and chattels forfeit and that his person might be seized upon’. See Cobbett, vol. 1, pp. 370-71.

3. Catherine had at least six pregnancies over the nine years 1509-18. A daughter was still-born on 31 January 1510; Henry, Prince of Wales, who lived just fifty-two days; another son, also called Henry, who lived for just a few hours after being born in November 1513; Mary, born in 1516; a still-born boy in the autumn of 1517 and a daughter also born dead, on 10 November 1518.

4. The child was also said to have been born in a building on the north side of the churchyard, formerly called ‘Jericho’ - a cover name for a ‘house of pleasure’ owned and allegedly utilised by Henry VIII. See the Revd Alfred Suckling’s
Antiquities and Architecture . . . of the County of Essex
(London, 1845), p. 27. He adds: ‘It is a very remarkable situation to have chosen for the purposes of debauchery as it not only abuts upon the churchyard but is actually within a stone’s [throw] of the residence of the monks.’

5. See Garrett Mattingly’s
Catherine of Aragon
(London, 1950), p. 173, and Scarisbrick, p. 152.

6. In 1533, Sir George Throgmorton (or Throckmorton) had a painful conversation with Henry, with Cromwell standing by. He related how he told the king, ‘I feared if you did marry Queen Anne [Boleyn] you [would] have meddled both with the mother [Lady Elizabeth Boleyn] and the sister [Mary Boleyn]. And his grace said “Never with the mother.” And [Cromwell] ... said: “Nor with the sister either - and therefore put that out of your mind.’” See
LPFD
, vol. 12, pt ii, pp. 332-3. Mary Boleyn had married William Carey (c. 1500-28) a Gentleman of Henry’s Privy Chamber, on 4 February 1520. He was the happy recipient of a number of royal grants of property from 1522, doubtless in return for his acquiescence in the affair.

7. Cavendish, p. 389.

8. There is probably no truth in the story that she had a stunted sixth finger on one hand. See N. Sanders,
Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism
(London, 1877), p. 25.

9. The castle, complete with battlements, was made of wood, covered with green canvas. From each end tower hung a banner emblazoned with ‘lovelorn hearts’. The entertainment was probably organised by William Cornish, Master of the children of the Chapel Royal, who died the following year. See Anglo, pp. 120-21.

10.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt ii, p. 1504.

11.
State Papers
, vol. 1, p. 278.

12. Wilson, p. 245.

13. Crapelet, pp. 102-5.

14. Crapelet, pp. 124-5.

15.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt ii, p. 1507.

16.
LPFD
, p. 2003.

17. Scarisbrick, p. 160. Did Wolsey try bribery to stave off disaster? On 4 October 1529, William Capon, Dean of one of the Cardinal’s new colleges, at Ipswich, leased the Benedictine priory at Felixstowe to Norfolk and others at a rent of £20 a year. See National Archives, E 24/23/27.

18. National Archives E 30/1456. Depositions taken at Stanstead and Thetford, 16 July 1528.

19. Scarisbrick, p. 247.

20. Years later, Chapuys was described by Sir William Paget, then one of Henry’s secretaries of state, as ‘a great practicer, with which honest term we cover tale-telling, lying, dissimulating and flattering’. See
State Papers
, vol. 10, p. 466.

21. Scarisbrick, p. 233.

22. BL Cotton MS Vitellius B, xii, fol. 171, and
State Papers
, vol. 1, pp. 343-4.

23. Cavendish, pp. 92-100ff.

24.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt iii, p. 2675.

25. Froude, p. 121.

26.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt iii, p. 2681.

27.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt iii, p. 2679.

28. Singer, p. 39.

29.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt iii, p. 2681; Chapuys to Charles V, 25 October 1529.

30. Singer, pp. 68-9.

31. BL Cotton MS Cleopatra E, iv, fol. 178, and Merriman, vol. 1, pp. 67-8.

32. ‘The same lord Cardinal, knowing himself to have the foul and contagious disease of the great pox, broken out upon in diverse places of his body, came daily to your grace [Henry, whispering] in your ear and blowing upon your most noble grace with his most perilous and infective breath to the marvellous danger of your highness.’ See MacNalty, p. 161.

33. Hutchinson,
Thomas Cromwell
, p. 35, and Merriman, vol. 1, p. 69.

34. Oedema, once known as dropsy, is a swelling of an organ or tissue through the accumulation of fluid, sometimes caused by heart or kidney disease.

35.
CDP Spanish
, vol. 4, pt i, pp. 449-50.

36. Cawood was a manor of the Archbishopric of York.

37. The
pallium
, a mantle, normally richly embroidered with three bands in the shape of the letter ‘Y’.

38. Vergil, p. 333.

39. Merriman, vol. 1, p. 327. Cromwell to Wolsey, 17 May 1530.

40.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt iii, p. 3013.

41. Pollard,
Wolsey
, p. 288.

42. See
London Topographical Record
, vol. 10 (1916), pp. 77-8. The house, opposite the parish church of St Mary Somerset, had originally been built in the thirteenth century by the Bigod family and was held by the dukes of Norfolk until the third duke sold the property to the Lord Mayor, Sir Richard Gresham. In 1542, John Cooke bequeathed ‘the Duke of Norfolk’s place’ to the Corporation of London. It was purchased in 1583 by Thomas Sutton, later founder of the Charterhouse charity.

43. For more on Dr Augustine and his role in Tudor espionage, see Hammond, p. 223, and pp. 225ff.

44.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt iii, p. 3035.

45. Wriothesley, vol. 1, p. 16. Wolsey’s body was placed in a wooden coffin, dressed in fine vestments, a mitre on his head and a crosier across his chest. The lid was left off and the mayor of Leicester was summoned to view the corpse ‘to avoid false rumours that might happen to say that he was not dead, but still living’. He was buried in the Lady Chapel of the abbey at 4.00 a.m. the next morning amid a terrifying loud and violent thunderstorm. See Cavendish, p. 395.

46.
LPFD
, vol. 4, pt iii, p. 3057.

47.
CDP Spanish
, vol. 4, pt ii, p. 263.

48.
CDP Spanish
, vol. 4, pt i, p. 630.

49.
CDP Spanish
, vol. 4, pt i, p. 734.

50. For details of the laws providing the foundation of the break with Rome, see Hutchinson,
Thomas Cromwell
, pp. 49-51 and 53-5.

51.
State Papers
, vol. 1, pp. 392-3.

52. Ellis,
Original Letters
, third series, vol. 2, p. 276.

53.
CSP Milan
, p. 557.

54. She was led from Westminster Hall to the Abbey by a procession of monks wearing golden copes; thirteen mitred abbots, followed by the choristers of the King’s Chapel Royal with two archbishops, four bishops and the lords wearing their ermined Parliament robes. Suffolk carried her crown and two earls her sceptres. The new queen walked under a rich canopy of cloth of gold, wearing a dress of crimson velvet powdered with ermine fur, beneath a purple robe, and the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk carrying her train. Afterwards there was a grand dinner in Westminster Hall, eating ‘delicate meats’ off gilt plates. See Wriothesley, vol. 1, pp. 19-22, and BL Egerton MS 985, fol. 48.

55. Suffolk was granted the far lesser office of wardenship of the forests south of the River Trent in recompense. At least Suffolk had the satisfaction of presiding over the coronation as Lord High Steward.

56.
LPFD
, vol. 6, pp. 357 and 682.

57. Byrne,
Lisle Letters
, vol. 1, p. 552. The cost of Norfolk’s frenetic journey was £333 6s 8d.

58. Embarrassingly, a surviving pre-written circular letter, addressed from the queen to Lord Cobham, her chamberlain, had originally announced the birth of a prince. The letter ‘S’ had to be squeezed in and added to the word to correctly report the sex of the child. See BL Harleian MS 283, fol. 75.

59. The other godmother was Margaret, Marchioness of Dorset. Gertrude Courtenay, Marchioness of Exeter, was her godmother at her confirmation that immediately followed. The next morning there were celebratory fires lit in the streets of London and free wine offered up at the bonfires.

60. Hall,
Chronicle
, p. 806.

61. A letter from Sir Thomas Vaux to Norfolk, on 18 April 1533, reported Catherine’s vehement protests about relinquishing the title of queen. See BL Cotton MS Otho, C, x, fol. 177.

62.
CDP Spanish
, vol. 5, pt ii, pp. 60-69.

63. Elton,
Policy and Police
, p. 278.

64. National Archives, SP ⅛2/151.

65. 26 Henry VIII,
cap
. 1.

66. Misprision - the crime of deliberately concealing knowledge of a treasonable act, from the Anglo-Norman
mesprisioun.

67. 26 Henry VIII,
cap
. 22. See Tanner, p. 383. A ‘schismatic’ is someone guilty of splitting a Church in two, from the old French
scismatique.