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Authors: Robert Hutchinson
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Meanwhile in Cornwall, discontent was mounting over the additional taxation levied on the population to pay for a planned retaliatory war against Scotland. Disgruntlement morphed into insurrection in mid-May 1497 and a Cornish host, totalling around 15,000, marched towards London via Salisbury, Winchester and Guildford. This may have been a fearsome sight, but a tactician would have wryly noted their lack of any cavalry or artillery.
Even so, something akin to panic swept the streets of the capital at the approach of the rebel army. Edward Hall recorded that there was ‘great fear through the city and cries were made, “every man to harness, to harness” [armour]. Some ran to the gates, others mounted the [city] walls so that no part was undefended.’
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Henry had journeyed with his mother from Sheen on 6 June to stay at his grandmother’s London home, ‘The Coldharbour’ in Thames Street, as a discreet precaution. Six days later he and the queen were hustled off to the nearby Tower of London for safety as the rebels passed south of the Thames and concentrated their forces at Blackheath, only a few miles to the south-east and near both Greenwich and Eltham Palaces. It was Henry’s first experience of the acrid stench of rebellion and one, as a six year old, that he was never to forget.
Continual watch was kept by the city’s magistrates ‘lest the rebels, being poor and needy, would descend from their camp and invade the city and spoil, and rob the riches and substance of the merchants’. It was ever thus – the city was seemingly worried more about its wealth than providing patriotic support for the government of the day.
As they nervously awaited battle with the royalist forces, many Cornishmen deserted, fearful of Henry VII’s vengeance if they were defeated. When the 25,000-strong royalist army under the king attacked on Saturday 17 June 1497, the Cornish were quickly surrounded by Henry’s three ‘battles’ (or battalions) of archers and armoured men-at-arms
on the battlefield alongside the River Ravensbourne. It was no contest and all over within hours. Hall recounts how
on the battlefield alongside the River Ravensbourne. It was no contest and all over within hours. Hall recounts how
there were slain of the rebels which fought and resisted, 2,000 men and more and taken prisoners an infinite number and amongst them Michael Joseph, surnamed ‘the blacksmith’ one of the captains of this dung hill and draught-sacked ruffians.
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The royalists lost about three hundred men in the fighting.
The king rode through the streets of the City of London in triumph at two o’clock that afternoon. The leaders of the Cornishmen were executed, but most of the rebels were allowed to return home unmolested.
A few months later, Warbeck decided on his final throw of the dice. He landed on the broad, flat sweep of Whitesand Bay, near Land’s End in Cornwall, on 7 September, with the three-hundred-strong remnant of his force, pledging to the restless and still truculent Cornish that he would halt Henry VII’s tide of taxation. This time he received an enthusiastic welcome and was proclaimed ‘Richard IV’ by his new supporters on Bodmin Moor before he tried unsuccessfully to capture the city of Exeter at the head of an army of 8,000. After several costly assaults on the city’s walls and gates, Warbeck and his Cornish supporters headed for Taunton in Somerset.
Henry VII now had the measure of the pretender and knew that he could finally quash the threat he posed to the Tudor crown. The king claimed to be ‘cured of those privy stitches which … had long [been] about his heart and had sometimes broken his sleep’
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and he lost £9 coolly playing cards while he awaited his forces to muster at Taunton.
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Despite his bravado, Queen Elizabeth, again accompanied by Prince Henry, was quietly packed off on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, five miles (8.1 km) from the north coast of Norfolk, well away from any likely fighting.
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and he lost £9 coolly playing cards while he awaited his forces to muster at Taunton.
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Despite his bravado, Queen Elizabeth, again accompanied by Prince Henry, was quietly packed off on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, five miles (8.1 km) from the north coast of Norfolk, well away from any likely fighting.
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But when Warbeck heard that advanced elements of the royal army were sending out scouting parties, he panicked and fled with three companions to the Cistercian monastery of Beaulieu – possibly hoping to escape from England by a small boat from one of the many little
creeks splintering that part of the Hampshire coastline. He had a bounty of 1,000 marks (£666 – or £357,000 at today’s values) on his head. There he was found and seized by royalist forces on or about 5 October, either by violating the sanctuary offered by the monks, or by luring Warbeck out of it with tempting yet specious offers of a free pardon.
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creeks splintering that part of the Hampshire coastline. He had a bounty of 1,000 marks (£666 – or £357,000 at today’s values) on his head. There he was found and seized by royalist forces on or about 5 October, either by violating the sanctuary offered by the monks, or by luring Warbeck out of it with tempting yet specious offers of a free pardon.
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Warbeck was now safely in Henry’s grateful hands – as was his wife, Catherine, captured as she hid in the Church of St Bryan, near Marazion, Cornwall. The king, after admiring ‘her beauty and amiable countenance’, dispatched her to London to his queen ‘as a true and undoubted token of his victory’.
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The most serious threat to Henry VII and his dynasty had at last been neutralised.
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The most serious threat to Henry VII and his dynasty had at last been neutralised.
Like his Tudor descendants, the king was not altogether magnanimous in victory. He brought Warbeck back to London and subjected him to the derision and taunts of the mob. He also appointed
certain keepers to attend on him which should not (the breadth of a nail) go from his person, to the extent that he might not neither convey himself out of the land, nor fly any[where], nor yet … be able to sow again no new sedition nor seditious tumult within his realm
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although he did manage to escape custody. He was eventually thrown into the Tower and kept ‘with the greatest care’ in a cell ‘where he sees neither sun nor moon’.
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A fellow prisoner was that other claimant to the throne, Edward Plantagenet, Seventeenth Earl of Warwick, who had languished as Henry’s prisoner since the king’s accession after Bosworth, when the earl was aged just ten. Warwick had grown into a handsome youth, though sadly somewhat mentally impaired.
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He was held in a room above Warbeck and Warwick knocked a hole through the floor to communicate with his fellow pretender, who was chained securely by the leg to the wall. ‘How goes it with you? Be of good cheer!’ the earl called merrily through the opening.
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A fellow prisoner was that other claimant to the throne, Edward Plantagenet, Seventeenth Earl of Warwick, who had languished as Henry’s prisoner since the king’s accession after Bosworth, when the earl was aged just ten. Warwick had grown into a handsome youth, though sadly somewhat mentally impaired.
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He was held in a room above Warbeck and Warwick knocked a hole through the floor to communicate with his fellow pretender, who was chained securely by the leg to the wall. ‘How goes it with you? Be of good cheer!’ the earl called merrily through the opening.
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In February 1499, another claimant appeared to tax Henry VII’s depleted store of patience. Ralph Wilford, the nineteen-year-old son of a shoemaker who traded under the sign of the bull in London’s Bishopsgate Street, also declared himself to be the imprisoned Warwick. He was
swiftly arrested, tried and hanged, as was the priest who promoted his cause from the pulpit.
swiftly arrested, tried and hanged, as was the priest who promoted his cause from the pulpit.
Furthermore, Edmund de la Pole, the Sixth Earl of Suffolk and a surviving nephew of the Yorkist kings through his mother, fled England for France that July after being indicted for murdering Thomas Crue, in the parish of All Hallows next to the Tower, a man involved in litigation against him in the King’s Council.
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Another potential claimant was therefore on the loose in Europe and Henry ordered that he should be persuaded to return, or at worst, be brought back forcibly.
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Another potential claimant was therefore on the loose in Europe and Henry ordered that he should be persuaded to return, or at worst, be brought back forcibly.
Henry VII was told by a priest that ‘his life would be in great danger’ throughout that year and the tension created by this prophecy and the strain of putting down seemingly constant rebellions was beginning to tell on him. The Spanish ambassador in London reported: ‘Henry has aged so much during the last two weeks that he seems to be twenty years older. The king is growing very devout. He has heard a sermon every day during Lent and has continued his devotions during the rest of the day.’
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Wilford may have been the last straw for Henry Tudor, who by now had had more than his fill of impersonators. If the king sought divine guidance, he received it. In August, Warwick and Warbeck were accused of trying to escape from the Tower. It may have been that Henry had shrewdly manufactured the ideal excuse to rid himself finally of these politically sensitive prisoners. On 12 November, a sixty-strong meeting of his council advised the king to impose harsh justice on this unlikely pair of prisoners.
Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn
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beyond the western walls of London on Saturday 23 November, after reading out a carefully worded confession on the scaffold that duly confirmed that he had impersonated Richard, First Duke of York.
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beyond the western walls of London on Saturday 23 November, after reading out a carefully worded confession on the scaffold that duly confirmed that he had impersonated Richard, First Duke of York.
Five days later, Warwick was beheaded on Tower Hill. It was only the second time he had been outside the gates of the Tower – the first being when Henry paraded him to scotch talk of his impersonation by Lambert Simnel in 1487. With that blow of the headsman’s axe, the last Plantagenet in the legitimate male line was judicially murdered. Perhaps even the weather gods were affronted by this palpably unjust act on
Henry VII’s part. That day there were ‘great floods, winds, thunder, lightning which did much harm and hurt in diverse places and countries in England’.
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Henry VII’s part. That day there were ‘great floods, winds, thunder, lightning which did much harm and hurt in diverse places and countries in England’.
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Henry VII could now afford the time to look overseas to seek spouses for his children and alliances to secure England’s rightful place in the cockpit of European diplomacy.
Already his heir Arthur had been betrothed to Princess Katherine, the fourteen-year-old daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, and they were married by proxy on 19 May 1499 at Bewdley in Worcestershire. The Spanish ambassador in London, Don Pedro de Ayala, told the Spanish monarchs: ‘There does not remain a drop of doubtful royal blood; the only royal blood being the true blood of the king, the queen and, above all, of the Prince of Wales.’
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The Milanese ambassador Raimondo de Soncino presented his letters of credence to Henry and Arthur at Woodstock in September 1497:
The king was standing and remained so until our departure.
There was also … [the] Prince of Wales, almost eleven years of age, but taller than his years would warrant, of remarkable beauty and grace and very ready in speaking Latin.
His majesty, in addition to his wonderful presence, was adorned with a most rich collar, full of great pearls and many other jewels, in four rows, and in his bonnet he had a pear-shaped pearl which seemed to be something most rich.
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No wonder the king looked relaxed and ‘in a most quiet spirit’. For the first time in fourteen years on the English throne, he could sleep easier at night. There remained only the still latent threat posed by the Earl of Suffolk.
Furthermore, Elizabeth of York had given birth to another son, named Edmund after the king’s father, on Friday 20 February.
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There were now three sons in direct line of succession to the Tudor crown.
THE SPARE HEIR
‘In the midst stood Prince Henry then nine years old and having already something of royalty in his demeanour, in which there was a certain dignity combined with singular courtesy.’
The Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus meets the royal children during his stay in England, 1499.
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A painted and gilded terracotta bust of a laughing child, just over one foot (31.8 cm) in height of
c
.1498 probably portrays a boisterous young Henry at the age of seven.
2
It seems to have been part of the Royal Collection since it was carved, and may have been the result of a special commission by Henry VII himself.
c
.1498 probably portrays a boisterous young Henry at the age of seven.
2
It seems to have been part of the Royal Collection since it was carved, and may have been the result of a special commission by Henry VII himself.
The bust (Plate 6) has been attributed to the Modenese sculptor Guido Mazzoni (1450 – 1518) who submitted designs and estimates for Henry VII’s grandiose tomb at Westminster Abbey. These were rejected
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and this commission may have been awarded as something of a consolation prize. It takes the form of the head and shoulders of a young boy dressed in a high-collared green tunic and a gold lace skullcap – originally it had a green glaze over a tinfoil layer to imitate a rich cloth of gold for the garment. But it is the face that instantly captures our attention. Here is a rumbustious, mischievous child, with dimpled, chubby red cheeks, his blue-grey eyes cast downwards to the left, seemingly pondering on what impish prank to indulge in next. He has a broad, knowing grin – as if he is well aware that he will always evade punishment for any transgressions, as Henry, sequestered within his adoring, tolerant female world at Eltham, would know and slyly exploit
all too easily. It is a charming sculpture, redolent of boyish high spirits and rude, youthful health.
3
and this commission may have been awarded as something of a consolation prize. It takes the form of the head and shoulders of a young boy dressed in a high-collared green tunic and a gold lace skullcap – originally it had a green glaze over a tinfoil layer to imitate a rich cloth of gold for the garment. But it is the face that instantly captures our attention. Here is a rumbustious, mischievous child, with dimpled, chubby red cheeks, his blue-grey eyes cast downwards to the left, seemingly pondering on what impish prank to indulge in next. He has a broad, knowing grin – as if he is well aware that he will always evade punishment for any transgressions, as Henry, sequestered within his adoring, tolerant female world at Eltham, would know and slyly exploit
all too easily. It is a charming sculpture, redolent of boyish high spirits and rude, youthful health.
As noted earlier, his mother, Elizabeth of York, probably taught Henry to read and write – as she did his sisters. When the boy was almost five years old, his father paid £1 on 2 November 1495 ‘for a book bought for my lord of York’,
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doubtless a simple reading primer, full of colourful pictures. Henry, Margaret and Mary’s handwriting all closely resemble one another’s, although later examples of the young duke’s letters are bolder, more deeply inscribed and angular, resembling the fashionable Italianate style.
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doubtless a simple reading primer, full of colourful pictures. Henry, Margaret and Mary’s handwriting all closely resemble one another’s, although later examples of the young duke’s letters are bolder, more deeply inscribed and angular, resembling the fashionable Italianate style.
5
In the seventeenth century it was claimed, without any evidence, that the king intended Henry to be a future Archbishop of Canterbury – a prince of the church, rather than of the realm.
6
If this is true, it would be characteristic of the king’s scheming and cunning persona. Perhaps Henry VII believed his dynasty should rule England both regally and ecclesiastically, with Tudor hands safely gripping the two main levers of power controlling his subjects’ faith, lives and finances, through tithes and taxation. Not for him a repetition of the catastrophic tensions between church and state suffered by Henry II with Thomas Becket in the twelfth century. One cannot help wondering what would have happened to the Reformation in England if Prince Henry had been in charge of Mother Church, given his devotion to the old liturgies in his later years.
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If this is true, it would be characteristic of the king’s scheming and cunning persona. Perhaps Henry VII believed his dynasty should rule England both regally and ecclesiastically, with Tudor hands safely gripping the two main levers of power controlling his subjects’ faith, lives and finances, through tithes and taxation. Not for him a repetition of the catastrophic tensions between church and state suffered by Henry II with Thomas Becket in the twelfth century. One cannot help wondering what would have happened to the Reformation in England if Prince Henry had been in charge of Mother Church, given his devotion to the old liturgies in his later years.
Around 1496, the king appointed his mother’s protégé John Skelton as tutor to Henry. He had been created Poet Laureate nine years before, entitled to wear the green and white Tudor livery, and he was now to teach his young charge English grammar and Latin – the international language of diplomacy, religion and scholarship – and instruct him in the standard classical works. He was a satirist, his views making him something of a loose cannon, and very fond of extolling his own skills and virtues.
One of the histories that Skelton is known to have used in teaching Henry was a fifteenth-century manuscript chronicle of France, the
Chronique de Rains
, now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
7
This was copiously annotated by the tutor – a bad habit acquired
by his pupil who later demonstrated a proclivity for writing marginalia in his own books and paperwork.
Chronique de Rains
, now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
7
This was copiously annotated by the tutor – a bad habit acquired
by his pupil who later demonstrated a proclivity for writing marginalia in his own books and paperwork.
Henry had a hard act to follow in his elder brother. His tutor, the blind poet Bernard André, boasted that before he had reached the age of sixteen, Arthur ‘had either committed to memory or read with his own eyes and leafed with his own fingers’ twenty-four books by the ancient Greek and Roman authors, including the favourites of the fashionable Italian humanist scholars: Guarino of Verona, Lorenzo Valla and Cicero.
8
Lady Margaret Beaufort gave her elder grandson a copy of Cicero’s
De Officiis
, printed on vellum at Mainz in Germany in 1465, for his private edification. This pinnacle of moral philosophy was personalised by the insertion of colourful Tudor heraldic badges, and on one folio there is a tiny illuminated initial containing a picture of Arthur, standing rather sheepishly in his red and ermine robes in front of his tutor who is seated behind his desk, surrounded by books.
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The prince does not look too happy – possibly he has stumbled over the words of his set recitation.
8
Lady Margaret Beaufort gave her elder grandson a copy of Cicero’s
De Officiis
, printed on vellum at Mainz in Germany in 1465, for his private edification. This pinnacle of moral philosophy was personalised by the insertion of colourful Tudor heraldic badges, and on one folio there is a tiny illuminated initial containing a picture of Arthur, standing rather sheepishly in his red and ermine robes in front of his tutor who is seated behind his desk, surrounded by books.
9
The prince does not look too happy – possibly he has stumbled over the words of his set recitation.
Perhaps in reaction to André’s bragging, Skelton was far from reticent about his own success in schooling Henry: one of his later poems boasted of his teaching skills with the little duke – notably with his spelling:
The honour of England I learned to spell
In dignity role that doth excel …
I gave him drink of the sugared well
Of Helicon’s
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waters crystalline
Acquainting him with the Muses nine.
It comes … well [for] me to remorde [recall]
That creausner [tutor] was [I] to thy sovereign lord.
It pleases that [a] noble prince royal
Me as his master for to call
In his learning primordial.
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In dignity role that doth excel …
I gave him drink of the sugared well
Of Helicon’s
10
waters crystalline
Acquainting him with the Muses nine.
It comes … well [for] me to remorde [recall]
That creausner [tutor] was [I] to thy sovereign lord.
It pleases that [a] noble prince royal
Me as his master for to call
In his learning primordial.
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In August 1501 Skelton wrote a handy guide to proper princely behaviour for his pupil, entitled
Speculum Principis
(‘A First Mirror’)
12
which, to modern eyes, reads like a code of morality written for the estimable Boy Scout movement.
Speculum Principis
(‘A First Mirror’)
12
which, to modern eyes, reads like a code of morality written for the estimable Boy Scout movement.
It bulges with earnest, if not trite, maxims: ‘Do not deflower virgins; do not violate widows’ (reflecting the oath Henry took as a Knight of the Bath); ‘Avoid drunkenness’; ‘Above all, loathe gluttony’ (was Henry already prone to greediness?). Not much camera-fodder here for far future Hollywood scriptwriters!
Then there are the principles of conduct more pertinent to royal life: ‘If you want to excel all others in majesty and find glory you should lead in learning and virtue.’ Henry was also urged not to rely wholeheartedly on his councillors in adulthood – they will be ‘either learned or ignorant, either indecisive or weak’. True wisdom came only from books and the careful study of the past: ‘Peruse the chroniclers – seek out histories and commit them to memory.’
Finally, there was also an injunction that was to echo hollowly down the sad and sterile years of Henry VIII’s reign: ‘Choose a wife for yourself; prize her always and uniquely.’
All these – and more – the young prince probably learnt by rote, repeating them ad nauseam until Skelton believed they had been committed fully to his heart and mind. How much influence they had in Henry’s later years is more doubtful, judging by his many lapses from kingly probity.
Then there was the French language, taught by the Fleming Giles D’Ewes (later royal librarian), who also taught Henry how to play the lute.
13
Another musical teacher was ‘Guillam’, an expert in the playing of wind instruments such as the trombone-like ‘sackbut’ and the shawm flute, with its six finger keys and one for the thumb.
13
Another musical teacher was ‘Guillam’, an expert in the playing of wind instruments such as the trombone-like ‘sackbut’ and the shawm flute, with its six finger keys and one for the thumb.
A contemporary description of the royal children as they gathered in Edward IV’s great hall at Eltham Palace has come down to us. The compelling word picture was written by the Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who accompanied his former pupil William Blount, Fourth Baron Mountjoy, to England in the summer of 1499. Mountjoy had already been appointed a companion to Henry and had shared in his studies of Latin and history. He and Erasmus were staying at Sayes Court, near Greenwich, and one day the Dutchman’s new-found friend, twenty-one-year-old Thomas More (whom he called
mellitissime Thoma
, ‘sweetest Thomas’), visited them. The trainee lawyer
14
took the
scholar ‘for a walk as far as the next village [Eltham], where all the king’s children (except Prince Arthur) were being educated’. Years later, Erasmus recalled:
mellitissime Thoma
, ‘sweetest Thomas’), visited them. The trainee lawyer
14
took the
scholar ‘for a walk as far as the next village [Eltham], where all the king’s children (except Prince Arthur) were being educated’. Years later, Erasmus recalled:
When we came into the hall, the attendants not only of the palace but also of Mountjoy’s household were assembled.
In the midst stood Prince Henry, then nine years old [
sic
] and having something of royalty in his demeanour, in which there was a certain dignity combined with singular courtesy.
sic
] and having something of royalty in his demeanour, in which there was a certain dignity combined with singular courtesy.
On his right was Margaret, about eleven years of age … and on his left played Mary, a child of four.
Edmund was an infant in arms.
More walked across to the group, bowed low to Henry and presented him with some of his writings. This was the small beginning of a long and tumultuous friendship between prince and pious lawyer – More was already wearing a hair shirt next to his skin to mortify his flesh – that was to end tragically on the Tower Hill scaffold thirty-six years later.
Erasmus had brought nothing with him to offer the prince and was angry with More for not warning him that he would meet the royal children, ‘especially as the boy sent me a little note while we were at dinner, to challenge something from my pen’.
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Afflicted by a stultifying attack of writer’s block, Erasmus took three days to cobble together a suitable poem in Latin to send in recompense. The ten-page, rather tedious
Prosopopeia Britanniæ
(in which Britannia heaps praises upon her princes as well as immodestly on herself) bears the telling stigmata of its writer’s frustration and haste.
16
His covering letter, headed ‘Erasmus to the most illustrious prince, Duke Henry’, emphasises the lasting importance of poetry and learning and hints at Henry’s inspiring future:
Prosopopeia Britanniæ
(in which Britannia heaps praises upon her princes as well as immodestly on herself) bears the telling stigmata of its writer’s frustration and haste.
16
His covering letter, headed ‘Erasmus to the most illustrious prince, Duke Henry’, emphasises the lasting importance of poetry and learning and hints at Henry’s inspiring future:
We have for the present dedicated these verses, like a gift of playthings, to your childhood and shall be ready with more abundant offerings, when your virtues, growing with your age, shall supply more abundant material for poetry.
I would add my exhortation to that end, were it not that you are of
your own accord, as they say, underway with all sails set and have with you Skelton, that incomparable light and ornament of British Letters, who can not only kindle your studies, but bring them to a happy conclusion.
your own accord, as they say, underway with all sails set and have with you Skelton, that incomparable light and ornament of British Letters, who can not only kindle your studies, but bring them to a happy conclusion.
Erasmus ends: ‘Farewell and may Good Letters be illustrated by your splendour, protected by your authority and fostered by your liberality.’
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Henry VII may have been a distant, rarely seen father, but in his second son’s early years, he kept him well clothed in the manner of a prince. John Flight was paid 4s 4d for a tippet of sarsenet (thin, lightweight silk) for Henry in April 1498.
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It was followed by a green velvet riding gown lined with black satin and a crimson doublet. The new outfit came with knee-high tawny buskin boots.
19
A set of formal robes was made for Henry that November consisting of a long crimson velvet gown splendidly decorated with 2,800 ermine tails, together with another gown of black velvet, lined with sable fur. This grand ensemble was completed by crimson velvet bonnets and scarlet petticoats. The same month he received four pairs of knitted hose and two pairs of long hose to keep his chubby legs warm during the long winter nights.
20
18
It was followed by a green velvet riding gown lined with black satin and a crimson doublet. The new outfit came with knee-high tawny buskin boots.
19
A set of formal robes was made for Henry that November consisting of a long crimson velvet gown splendidly decorated with 2,800 ermine tails, together with another gown of black velvet, lined with sable fur. This grand ensemble was completed by crimson velvet bonnets and scarlet petticoats. The same month he received four pairs of knitted hose and two pairs of long hose to keep his chubby legs warm during the long winter nights.
20
So who was Henry VII – many of whose character traits were inherited by his second son? The king’s sombre portraits depict a dignified, haughty and driven man with a sallow complexion and aquiline features (Plate 1). Behind the sparkling brilliance of his blue eyes are hints of a certain craftiness, if not slyness, in his personality.
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The Italian-born contemporary chronicler Polydore Vergil described Henry VII as slender in body
but well built and strong, his height above the average.
His face was cheerful especially when speaking. His mind was brave and resolute and never, even at moments of the greatest danger, deserted him. He had a most pertinacious memory.
In government he was shrewd and prudent so that no one dared to get the better of him through deceit or guile.
Those of his subjects who were indebted to him and did not pay him due honour or were generous only with promises, he treated with harsh severity.
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Given his turbulent life and the repeated threats to his crown, it is not surprising that he was a self-centred king who kept his distance from those around him – indeed, a Milanese ambassador described Henry VII as someone who ‘has no need of no one, while everyone needs him … his majesty can stand like one at the top of a tower looking on at what is passing in the plain’.
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The security of his precarious crown must have consumed his thoughts almost daily throughout his reign. After the joy of the birth of his third son, Edmund, Duke of Somerset, in February 1499, the child’s death on 19 June the following year must have been a crushing blow.
24
But he still had two sons living and had good cause to hope that at least one would live to succeed him.
24
But he still had two sons living and had good cause to hope that at least one would live to succeed him.
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