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BL Harley MS 2,252, f.41.

BL Cotton MS
Cleopatra B V
, ff.64 – 95.

BL Harley MS 787, f.58.

Hall, p.549. Specific rules were laid down for the camp before Thérouanne governing the relations between English and German soldiers. The king ‘strictly charged and commanded that no Englishman intermeddle or lodge themselves within the ground assigned to the [Germans] for their lodgings or to give them any reproach or unfitting language or words by the which noise or debate might ensue, upon pain of imprisonment’ (BL Arundel MS 26, ff.56v – 57v).

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xvii, p.76.

Ibid., vol. 5, xvii, pp.16 – 17.

BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VI
, f.94.

BL Cotton MS
Vitellius B II
, f.51.

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xvii, p.78.

Ellis, 3rd ser., vol. 1, p.152. Katherine was about to lead reinforcements north as she wrote this letter. See also: BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VI
, f.93. Her instructions to muster troops in inland shires during her Regency are in Lambeth Palace MS 247, ff.58 – 60.

Cruickshank, p.127.

BL Cotton MS
Cleopatra B V
, ff.64 – 95.

CSP Milan
, p.395.

100

Chronicle of Calais
, pp.71 – 4; Gunn,
Charles Brandon
, pp.30 – 1.

101

CSP Milan
, p.405.

102

BL Cotton MS
Vespasian F III
, f.15. For a full account of the Battle of Flodden, see Hutchinson,
House of Treason
, pp.15 – 20. In a letter to Wolsey, Katherine described the battle ‘as a great gift that almighty God has sent to the king … This matter is so marvellous that it seems to be of God’s doing alone’ (BL Cotton MS
Caligula B IV
, f.35). James died excommunicate and Henry sought special permission for him to be buried with royal honours in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. This never happened. James IV’s body was eventually taken to the Carthusian monastery at Sheen where, wrapped in lead, it lay unburied for many years. The antiquary John Stow reported later in the sixteenth century that after the dissolution of the house in the 1530s, the corpse had been thrown into a lumber room ‘amongst the old timber and rubble. Since [such] time, workmen there, for their foolish pleasure, hewed off his head. Lancelot Young [Master Glazier to Elizabeth I] … brought [the head] to his house in Wood Street [London] where for a time he kept it for its sweetness. In the end, he caused the sexton [of St Michael’s Wood Street] to bury it amongst other bones, taken out of their charnel house’ (John Stow,
Survey of London
, 2 vols., Oxford, 1908, vol. 1, p.298).

103

BL Egerton MS 2,014, f.2. Reprinted in part in Byrne, pp.20 – 1.

104

Hatfield House MS CP 277/1, f.1.

CHAPTER 8: HOME AND ABROAD

Greenwich, 3 June 1516 (
CSP Venice
, vol. 2, p.305).

It was handed back to France in 1519 but captured by Imperial forces in 1521. For the English occupation of Tournai, see: Mayer, pp.257 – 77 and Davies, pp.1 – 26. Charles Brandon, now created Duke of Suffolk, led a 10,000-strong English army in August 1523 to initially capture the French port of Boulogne as a jumping-off point for a major military enterprise planned for the following year. His objectives were changed, however, and the army struck east, coming within fifty miles (80.47 km) of Paris before bad weather bogged down the troops and they retreated to Flanders (‘State Papers’, vol. 6, pp.221ff. and 233ff.).

A total of more than £1 million was paid out by John Heron, Treasurer of Henry’s Privy Chamber, between the king’s accession and 1518, of which nearly 70 per cent
was spent on preparations for war and hostilities. See TNA E 36/215/257ff. and Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII
, p.54.

Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII
, p.39. According to Venetian tittle-tattle, Charles was completely against marrying Mary, saying a little ungallantly that ‘he wanted a wife and not a mother’ (‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xvii, pp.23 – 4).

CSP Venice
, vol. 2, p.175.

BL Cotton MS
Vitellius B II
, f.56.

Henry boasted vainly to the Venetian ambassador in May 1514 that he wanted to go to Jerusalem and ‘would take it with 25,000 men’ (‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xvii, p.139).

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,107.

The cap of maintenance is also called the ‘cap of estate’ or ‘cap of dignity’.

BL Cotton MS
Vitellius B II
, f.69.

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xviii, pp.302 – 5.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,184.

Allen & Allen, ‘
Opus Epistolarum
’, vol. 2, epistle 287. His ministers reported in January 1514 that ‘the king has been lately visited by a malady named the smallpox but is now recovered and out of danger’ (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,141). The doctor was probably John Chambre, listed as a member of the Privy Chamber in 1514 – 5 (‘Rutland Papers’, p.21).

Charles was ill in June 1514 and his doctors claimed the effects of the moon were prolonging his illness (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,303. His letter to Princess Mary of 18 December 1513 hardly bursts with affection: he asked a diplomat to inform him of ‘the state of your health, which is the best news I can hear’ (BL Cotton MS
Galba B XIII
, f.93).

‘Letters Louis XII’, vol. 4, p.335.

See L. G. Carr Laughton, ‘The Burning of Brighton by the French’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
, 3rd ser., vol. 10 (1916), pp.167 – 73.

Surrey reported to the King’s Council on 14 June: ‘I landed yesterday in Normandy, three miles west of Cherbourg and burned [four] miles west, three miles east and more than [two] inland as far as any house might be seen for great woods, leaving nothing unburnt but abbeys and churches. [We] burned many gentlemen’s country houses, well built and stuffed with hangings … of silk, of which neither they nor our men have little pr[ofit] for all or the more part was burnt.’ He had re-embarked without any loss (BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VIII
, f.246).

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xviii, pp.302 – 5.

BL Egerton MS 544, f.158.

BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VI
, f.121v.

BL Harley MS 3,462, f.142v.

BL Add. MS 15,387, f.25.

J. S. Brewer, vol. 1, p.10, fn. Elephantiasis grossly enlarged part of the body – usually an arm or leg – due to obstruction of the lymphatic system by filarial worms.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,325. Charles of Burgundy, when he heard the news of Mary’s jilting, told his councillors: ‘Well! Am I to have my wife as you promised me?’ They answered him: ‘You are young but the King of France is the first king in
Christendom and having no wife, [so] it rests with him to take for his queen any woman he pleases.’ Charles then took a young hawk and plucked its feathers and explained: ‘Because he is young he is held in small account and because he is young he squeaked not when I plucked him. Thus have you done by me. I am young, you have plucked me at your pleasure and I knew not how to complain. Bear in mind that for the future I shall pluck you’ (
CSP Venice
, vol. 2, p.201).

BL Harley MS 3,462, f.142.

TNA SP 1/5/230, f.266.

One of Henry’s warships, the 900-ton
Lubeck
, was wrecked on the French coast, and several hundred of the crew drowned.

‘Rutland Papers’, p.25.

Knecht, p.80.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 2, pt. 1, p.74.

CSP Spain
, vol. 2, p.248.

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xix, p.1.

BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VI
, f.149.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 1, 2nd ed., p.1,456 and
CSP Spain
, vol. 2, pp.243 – 5.

Hall, p.572.

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xx, pp.98 – 9.

BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VI
, f.176.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 2, pt. 1, pp.74 – 5.

BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VI
, f.184.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 2, pt. 1, p.75.

BL Cotton MS
Vespasian F XIII
, f.80.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 2, pt. 1, p.125.

BL Egerton MS 985, f.61v.

Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII
, p.76.

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xxix, p.20; Russell, pp.131 – 2.

‘Sanuto Diaries’, vol. 5, xxix, pp.71 – 9.

Russell, p.176. It was probably intended to be a Welsh dragon.

Routh, p.44. See A. J. Geritz, ‘The Relationship of Brothers-in-Law Thomas More and John Rastell’,
Moreana
, vol. 139 – 40 (1999), pp.35 – 48.

Routh, ibid. Rastell (
c
.1475 – 1536) served as coroner in Coventry from 1506 but two years later, possibly because of his Lollard religious beliefs, moved to London where he ran a successful legal practice in addition to printing and publishing mainly law books, although he was the first in England to print musical scores (see A. Hyatt King, ‘The Significance of John Rastell in Early Music Printing’,
The Library
, 5th ser., vol. 26 (1971), pp.197 – 214). However, Rastell fell foul of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1535 over his denial of clerical rights to tithes and died in poverty in the Tower of London.

Williamson, pp.94ff. and 248ff., and Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII
, p.124.

It is generally considered to have been discovered by John Cabot in 1497.

Balasses were rubies, coloured faintly red.

Granates were yellow-red prismatic garnets.

Hatfield House MS CP 245/5, ff.3v – 4r.

Hatfield House MS CP 245/5, ff.9v – 14r. Another copy is in BL Cotton MS
Vitellius C VII
, f.337v.

Rut (
fl
. 1512 – 28) was appointed master of the 800-ton Genoese carrack
Maria de Loreto
in 1512 after it had been seized in Dartmouth, Devon, for service in the French wars.

Built in 1524 and named after the wife of Sir Henry Guilford, one-time Master of the Horse and Comptroller of the Royal Household.

Andrews, p.55.

A league was reckoned to be the distance a man could walk in an hour and is roughly equivalent to three miles (4.8 km).

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 4, p.3,121.

Wright, pp.29 – 40.

Hayward, p.6. The average height for men during the Tudor period was around 5 ft 8 in. – although John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was the same height as Henry VIII.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 3, pt. 1, p.142.

BL Cotton MS
Caligula D VII
, f.158. Henry had sworn to grow his beard until meeting King Francis of France. His mother, Louise of Savoy, was puzzled by the sudden loss of facial hair and asked the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Boleyn, whether this was a slight to her son. Boleyn hastened to reassure her that Henry’s affection for Francis was greater ‘than [that for] any king living. She was well appeased and said, “Th[eir] love is not in the beards but in the hearts.”’ An illumination in the Chief Justice Rolls in the Court of King’s Bench in Trinity Term, 1518, shows Henry as young and clean-shaven, but this may have been a stock image of his father, Henry VII, adapted for the new king (TNA KB 27/1024).

Vespers is the evening office or service, beginning in the Latin rite: ‘O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.’ Compline is the final office of the day.

LP Henry VIII
, vol. 3, pt. 1, p.350.

Tennis had its dangers. On 10 July 1525, the city of Valencia gave a banquet to the Marquis of Brandenburg ‘after which he played at tennis and caught a fever by overheating himself and died in three days’ (BL Cotton MS
Vespasian CIII
, f.75).

Kybett, p.22. During dancing at a diplomatic reception, eight masked noblemen wore black velvet slippers ‘this being done lest the King should be distinguished from the others; as, from the hurt which he lately received on his left foot when playing at tennis, he wears a black velvet slipper’ (
LP Henry VIII
, vol. 4, p.clxxv).

A payment for 1,000 crowns was made in January 1519 ‘playing money for the king, Twelfth Eve’.

Hall,
Chronicle
, p.520. It is ironic that the Sheriffs of London prohibited the playing of ‘tennis, dice and other unlawful games, contrary to the statutes for the maintenance of archery’ in a proclamation published in December 1528. A case of one law for the rich and another for the poor? (See BL Harley MS 442, f.97.)

CSP Venice
, vol. 2, pp.557 – 63.

‘Dispatches’, vol. 1, pp.85ff.

Ibid., p.83.

J. S. Brewer, vol. 1, p.97.

CSP Venice
, vol. 2, pp.246 – 7.

Ibid., p.325.