NOT LONG AFTER his triumph at Tournai, Henry journeyed to Mechelen in Flanders to visit Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy and sister of Philip the Handsome, whom the English king had so admired. He took with him his favourite companion, Charles Brandon.
Margaret had already heard of Brandon’s influence with Henry. Her agent, who had been stationed with the English army, reported that Henry’s favourite was a ‘second king’.1 When she met him in person, she was left in no doubt of his strident self-confidence. Brandon flirted with her so openly that it sparked rumours of a betrothal. When Henry made his friend Duke of Suffolk on 1 February 1514, speculation intensified – so much so that bets were placed in London on the likelihood of the marriage. A joust held in May set the rumours flying once more. Henry and Brandon appeared clad in white and black armour respectively, both holding staves on which was written: ‘who can hold that will away’. Edward Hall was in no doubt that the display ‘was judged to be made for the duke of Suffolk and the duchess of Savoy’.2
When she heard the rumours, Margaret was deeply shocked. As princess of Asturias, Duchess of Savoy and Regent of the Netherlands on behalf of her young nephew, the future Charles V, she was one of the most powerful women in Europe and her pedigree was impeccable. Brandon might be one of the highest-ranking members of Henry VIII’s court, but his rise to prominence had been entirely due to the king’s favour, rather than his own credentials. Moreover, his womanising ways were notorious. Margaret therefore demanded that Henry put a stop to the rumours and cancel Brandon’s planned visit to the Netherlands to raise troops for the following year’s campaigning. The English king complied with her wishes, but he refused to order his favourite to marry Elizabeth Grey, Lady Lisle, as Margaret wished. He was not prepared to sacrifice his friend’s happiness to Anglo–Imperial amity.
Margaret was not alone in her scornful view of Henry’s closest favourite. Always quick to discredit any rivals to his influence with the king, Erasmus ridiculed him in a satire of Persius. In a not very subtle reference to Brandon’s position as Master of the Horse, he quipped that the king had turned his favourite from a stable boy into a nobleman. In a similar vein, Polydore Vergil noted that ‘many people considered it very surprising that Charles should be so honoured as to be made a duke’.3
If he heard such jibes, Brandon could afford to brush them off. Whereas during the first three years of the reign, he had shared the limelight at court with the likes of Thomas Knyvet and Edward Howard, their deaths in the French war left him increasingly alone at the centre of their circle. As a result, he played an ever more prominent role in the king’s entertainments. In the revels, for example, he began to be the only participant dressed identically with the king, and in the jousts he was Henry’s sole partner as the pair challenged the rest of the court.
Although many at Henry’s court resented Brandon’s rapid rise to power, one man who did not was Thomas Wolsey. This may have been because the two men dominated different spheres of Henry’s life – Brandon the private and military, and Wolsey the political and ecclesiastical. Each neatly counterbalanced the influence of the other, and it was therefore in Wolsey’s interests for Brandon to remain in power. He could not risk his being replaced by a man who sought to trespass into Wolsey’s domain.
However, a diplomatic move by Wolsey inadvertently led to his colleague’s disgrace. In the summer of 1514, he brokered a peace between Henry and the ageing Louis XII of France. To seal the bargain, the English king’s beautiful young sister Mary was offered up in marriage. In August, Brandon journeyed to France to take part in a tournament staged in celebration of the marriage, which took place in October. He was accompanied by the king’s favourite jouster, Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, whom Henry never missed an opportunity to show off. But while Dorset performed his part to perfection, Brandon would soon plunge himself into disgrace. It is likely that by the time he reached France, Brandon had struck up a dangerous flirtation with the bride-to-be. Even before he had left England, he had talked to Henry about the potential of a marriage. Although he was already betrothed to Elizabeth Grey, he evidently had a different lady in mind. Princess Mary had also raised the subject before she set sail for France, asking her brother if she could choose her second husband for herself if Louis died.
For now, though, everything proceeded according to Wolsey’s plan. Brandon returned to England after the jousts, and his master’s twenty-year-old sister was married to the fifty-four-year-old French king at Abbeville. But within three months, Louis was dead – worn out, it was rumoured, by the exertions of the marriage bed. The unsuspecting English king sent his chief favourite, Brandon, back to France to accompany Mary home. It was an ill-advised choice. Although he was well aware of the consequences, Brandon’s desire for the king’s sister was so strong that he married her in secret shortly after his arrival. The news soon reached the English court. ‘A report circulates, and it is said publicly, that she [Mary] is married again to the English Duke of Suffolk,’ reported the Venetian ambassador Giustinian, ‘which, if true, is important, and very surprising.’4
This was the greatest scandal of the reign to date, and there was widespread outrage that Brandon had so overreached himself. ‘Ye have failed him which hath brought you up of low degree to be of this great honour,’ Wolsey upbraided him. It was a telling remark and one that revealed a little, perhaps, of how Wolsey viewed his own relationship with the king.5 For all that he loved to flaunt his newfound wealth and magnificence, Wolsey knew that without the king’s favour he was just the son of a butcher. He could ill afford to be so condescending to Brandon, who was of considerably higher birth, but Wolsey was ever a man to exploit his advantage.
Henry himself was furious at his favourite’s betrayal. He had trusted Brandon utterly and had courted criticism by heaping honours upon him during the previous five years. But no matter how high he had raised him, he did not see Brandon as being of sufficient status to marry his sister, a princess of the blood. Polydore Vergil’s claim that he had made Brandon Duke of Suffolk ‘to enable him more properly to be related to the king in marriage, this future development being already decided upon by Henry’, is highly unlikely, given his fury when he heard the news.6 The other men who vied for Henry’s favour rejoiced that Brandon had destroyed his standing at court more swiftly – and completely – than they could ever have done.
Frantic with worry, and no doubt regretting his hasty action, Brandon wrote to his royal master, giving his side of the story and pleading for forgiveness. Mary, he said, had gone out of her way to seduce him, and insisted: ‘she would never have none but me’. Fearing that she would be married off to another foreign husband, she had sworn to Brandon that she would ‘rather … be torn in pieces’, and had proceeded to burst into tears. ‘Sir, I never saw woman so weep,’ Brandon assured his master, and begged that the only way he could comfort her was to agree to marriage. He ended with a protestation of his utter subservience to his royal master. ‘Your Grace knoweth best I never sought other remedy against mine enemies but your Grace … for it is your Grace that has made me … and holden me up hitherto, and if your [pleasure] be so for to do, I care not for all the world.’7
Brandon also wrote to Wolsey, pleading with him to intervene on his behalf. The two men were united by their desire for an alliance with France, and in trying to persuade Wolsey to support him, Brandon claimed that Francis I had approved the match. He also reminded Wolsey that, together with the king, they stood alone against ‘the council as all the other nobles of the realm’ in promoting an Anglo–French alliance.8 Wolsey assured Brandon that he was his ‘firm friend’ and that he would do everything possible to bring the matter to a ‘successful conclusion’.9 He added the warning, though, that he alone was fighting Brandon’s corner and that his enemies were using the controversy as an excuse to destroy his relationship with the king. Brandon knew this all too well. A few days before receiving Wolsey’s letter, he had heard that one of Norfolk’s appointees in Mary’s household had urged her ‘to beware of me [Brandon] of all men, for he knew that you [Wolsey] and I had meddled with [the] devil, and by the puissance of the said [devil] we kept our master subject’.10 Back at court, meanwhile, Thomas Howard was playing an altogether deadlier game by producing evidence that Brandon was in league with the French king and demanding that he be brought back to face treason charges.
Although Wolsey was willing to help Brandon when he thought that his only – admittedly serious – misdemeanour was a clandestine marriage, when Brandon admitted the extent of his misconduct, the chief minister was appalled. ‘To be plain with you,’ Brandon wrote, ‘I have married her heartily and lain with her, insomuch [as] I fear me that she [may] be with child.’11 Wolsey knew that this was too great a sin to be swept aside by his master, and angrily upbraided his ally. His fury was partly due to the fact that it was down to him to break the news to Henry and thus take the brunt of the royal wrath. This was predictably severe. ‘Cursed be the blind affection and counsel that have brought ye to [this],’ Henry ranted. ‘Such sudden and ill-advised dealing shall have sudden repentance.’12
The king was momentarily distracted from his anger at his favourite’s betrayal by the advent of Louis XII’s successor. Aged twenty at the time of his accession, Francis I was three years younger than Henry. By rights, he should never have got anywhere near the French throne, being only the first cousin of the king. But Louis’ lack of direct heirs made Francis a serious contender. He had jousted at Louis’ wedding to Princess Mary, and the ageing French king had been heard to remark: ‘Ce grand jeunehomme, il va tout gâcher’ (‘That big lad – he’ll ruin everything’).13
Like Henry, Francis was the archetypal Renaissance prince: cultured, well educated and a great patron of the arts. Before long, it was said that he presided over the most cultured court in the world. Tall and athletic, he excelled at jousting, hunting, archery, falconry, tennis and wrestling. Striking rather than handsome, Francis had brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His most notable feature was his enormous nose, which earned him the nickname ‘le roi grand-nez’. Irresistibly charming and renowned for his sexual prowess, he kept a string of mistresses and fathered numerous children – including seven children by his wife Claude, which was a source of particular envy for his English rival. It was obvious to everyone that this young man, who was very much ‘given to pleasure’, revelled in every aspect of his life as king.14 Like Henry, he was something of a mummy’s boy and allowed his indomitable mother, Louise of Savoy, to act as regent whenever he was away.
Boasting considerable wealth, Francis created a building legacy every bit as impressive as Henry’s. Early in his reign, he commissioned the magnificent Château de Chambord, which was inspired by the architectural styles of the Italian Renaissance and may even have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Many more sumptuous palaces followed, including the Château du Louvre, which he transformed from a medieval fortress into a masterpiece of Renaissance splendour.
That his English counterpart was already jealous of the man who would become his greatest rival is evident from a conversation that he had with the Venetian ambassador, Sebastian Giustinian. ‘“The King of France, is he as tall as I am?”’ Henry demanded. ‘I told him there was but little difference,’ the ambassador recalled. ‘He continued: “Is he as stout?” I said he was not; and he then inquired, “What sort of legs has he?” I replied, “Spare.” Whereupon he opened the front of his doublet, and placing his hand on his thigh, said, “Look here! and I have also a good calf to my leg.” He then told me that he was very fond of this King of France,’ Giustinian concluded.15
Over the months and years that followed, Henry scrutinised his agents’ reports of his rival, and it is an indication of his insecurity that as well as boasting of his own accomplishments whenever the occasion arose, he also began to emulate Francis’s style and habits. For example, Giustinian noted that Henry wore his hair ‘straight and short, in the French fashion’.16 If he heard that the King of France had built a magnificent new palace, then Henry would do the same. He also tried to outshine Francis as a patron of artists, musicians, poets and architects, but there was little he could do to equal the visit by Leonardo da Vinci to the French court, or the fact that Francis kept the Mona Lisa in his bathroom. More significantly, neither could he match his rival’s ability to sire male heirs. Within four years of coming to the throne, Francis already had two sons. It must have been galling for Henry to stand as godfather to the younger of them, who was named in his honour. His claim, not long afterwards, that if he himself were to die without a male heir, he would leave his throne to Francis, is unlikely to have been genuinely made.
Francis’s feelings towards Henry are rather harder to discern. Certainly, he had less cause to feel jealous of his English rival. His kingdom dwarfed Henry’s, and with two sons already, his dynasty was a good deal more secure. Politically and militarily, he had much more to fear from Charles, son of Philip the Handsome and heir to three of Europe’s leading dynasties: the Houses of Valois-Burgundy, Habsburg and Trastámara. But even when he had come into his full inheritance, the physically ill-favoured Charles would be no threat to Francis on a personal level. The same could not be said of Henry VIII, who arguably excelled the French king in looks and intellect, who was his equal in chivalry and martial prowess, and whose court was challenging the pre-eminence of Francis’s in cultural brilliance and prestige. Moreover, the French king’s claim to his throne was much shakier than Henry’s was to his own. In short, although Henry’s jealousy of Francis might be better documented, the rivalry was by no means one-sided.
In the battle of one-upmanship that soon raged between the English and French kings, Henry drew upon the support of his childhood tutor, John Skelton. Still clamouring for an official role at court, the poet fired off a series of verses, all glorifying the bravery and prowess of the English king in France. Henry was delighted with them and gave Skelton enough hope of future work for him to take up residence in London on a more permanent basis.
As well as acting as the king’s propagandist, Skelton also assumed responsibility for entertaining the court. He wrote a number of satires during the early years of Henry’s reign, many of which served not only to amuse the king and his courtiers, but to poke fun at Skelton’s rivals. They included Sir Christopher Garnesche, a prosperous knight from East Anglia who had served Henry in France and subsequently been appointed his gentleman usher. Garnesche retaliated with a series of satirical attacks on Skelton, although none of these have survived. As well as singling out individual opponents, Skelton also took up a theme that he had rehearsed many times during the king’s childhood: that of the fickleness and backbiting of the court, which he attacked in ‘Against Venomous Tongues’.
Thanks to the rise of the printing press, Skelton’s influence soon spread well beyond the court. It made his works accessible to a much wider social spectrum, and thereby enhanced his value to the king as a propagandist. Skelton’s poems and texts acted as the press releases of the day, inspiring loyalty and devotion to this warlike young king.
The disgraced Duke of Suffolk and his new wife returned to England in early May 1515. Henry travelled to meet them at Birling in Kent as they made their way home. No record survives of their meeting, but it must have been uncomfortable, to say the least. The council had urged Henry to have Brandon imprisoned or executed upon his return to England. After all, marrying a princess royal without the king’s consent was, technically, treason. But Wolsey had skilfully played on his royal master’s lingering affection for his sister and favourite to persuade him that they should be let off with a heavy fine. Henry agreed, and the couple were charged with raising £24,000 – equivalent to more than £11 million today. Although this was a staggering sum and would have spelt bankruptcy for Brandon, it was to come from Mary’s dower lands in France and was spread over a twelve-year period.17 Henry was further mollified by the surrender of Mary’s jewels and plate, along with half of her dowry and the wardship of Brandon’s ousted fiancée, Lady Lisle.
It may have been at the king’s insistence that Brandon and Mary married in public shortly afterwards. Henry could not have tolerated any suggestion that their secret marriage was not valid – or, worse, that it had not taken place at all, and his sister was therefore Brandon’s whore. The ceremony was held on 13 May 1515 in Greenwich and attended by Henry and members of his court, a sign that the king had forgiven his favourite in public, if not – quite – in private. The Venetian envoy reported with some astonishment that Henry had ‘maintained his former friendship for the Duke, which would appear incredible, but is affirmed by the nobility at the Court’.18
The controversy was a clear demonstration that for the young king, personal considerations always outweighed political ones. No matter how damning the case might be against one of his men, if they had succeeded in winning his affection, then he was prepared to forgive them. Only as age and paranoia began to overtake him did the loss of faith in a one-time favourite prove both more permanent and more deadly.
Within a few short weeks, it seemed that Brandon enjoyed as great a level of favour with his royal master as he had always done. In August, Giustinian reported that the duke ‘governs, commands, and acts with authority scarcely inferior to that of the King himself’.19 But, as a relative newcomer to court, the Italian had missed the subtle shift that had occurred in Brandon’s status. In the years that followed, the duke spent long periods away from court as he worked to build up his private estates. A few days before their marriage, Henry had granted Brandon what remained of the confiscated estates of his predecessors, the Pole dukes of Suffolk. This was anathema to Brandon’s rival Thomas Howard, and set the two men on an even greater collision course as they sought to dominate East Anglia. Brandon proceeded to augment the Pole lands to their former level by buying out the grantees to whom Henry and his father had given many of their manors.
Henry clearly missed his old companion, and both he and Wolsey encouraged Brandon and Mary to attend court more regularly. The king needed his friend for more than just company, however. He was plagued with worry about the threat posed by Richard de la Pole, whose Yorkist blood made him a dangerous contender for the throne. In exile on the Continent, Pole had proved successful at whipping up support from Henry’s rivals, particularly in France. Henry therefore supported Brandon’s efforts to take ownership of the entire Pole estate, thus securing the loyalty of the local gentry. But Brandon never quite succeeded in either. Despite his standing with the king, he did not command the same respect in his estates as the Poles, whose pedigree had far exceeded his.
Brandon’s standing at court was also compromised by his new wife’s French connections. Even after Henry’s share had been deducted, Mary’s dower income from France amounted to some £4,000, which was larger than Brandon’s income from all other sources. French ambassadors therefore tended to treat him as being in their pay, and Brandon’s unflinching enthusiasm for Anglo–French amity resulted in his being excluded from policy-making when the tide had turned the other way. Moreover, Henry and Wolsey tended to use his chronic indebtedness to mould him to their desires. This rendered Brandon little more than a puppet of both the English and French kings, with only limited ability to express his own views.
But if Brandon was unable to dominate the political arena as the ‘second king’, he still reigned supreme in the tournaments and other sporting entertainments. From 1517, he became Henry’s leading opponent rather than his teammate. Edward Hall describes how on one occasion, ‘The king ran at the duke of Suffolk viii courses, and at every course brake his spear.’20 Their friendship had begun at the jousts, and it was restored there too. From thenceforth, Suffolk’s name often appears in the descriptions of court tournaments and other entertainments. He was particularly prominent at the Christmas festivities at Greenwich in 1524, when he and Henry disguised themselves as knights besieging the specially built ‘Castle of Loyalty’. Only when they ‘threw away their robes’ did the audience recognise them, and were greatly astonished.21
Brandon’s disgrace – albeit temporary – had opened the door for Henry’s other companions to win greater favour. They included Sir Henry Guildford, who after spending several summers campaigning abroad had now settled back at court. In recognition of his loyal service, the king had granted him a range of new responsibilities. Foremost among them was that of Master of the Horse, one of the most sought-after positions at court, which the king bestowed upon his long-standing servant on 6 November 1515. The following year, Guildford was made a councillor. Ambitious though he was for Henry’s favour, however, Guildford does not seem to have been politically motivated, and the records show that he seldom attended council meetings. Instead, he remained first and foremost a personal servant of the king. This was made clear several years later when Guildford was undertaking another military commission in France, and Henry recalled him because he was short of attendants in the privy chamber.
By contrast, Thomas Wolsey had been busily accumulating even greater powers than he had enjoyed in the first few years of Henry’s reign. His political success had been mirrored by a series of rapid ecclesiastical preferments: Dean of York in February 1513, Bishop of Lincoln a year later, and Archbishop of York in July 1514. The crowning glory of his church career came in September 1515, when he was made a cardinal. According to Giustinian, this dazzling promotion had been thanks to ‘the suit of this most serene King [Henry], who, with might and main, is intent on aggrandizing him’.22 Little wonder that people began to whisper that Wolsey had ambitions to be pope. Within the space of just six years, he had come to dominate both the religious and political life of Henry’s kingdom. ‘English affairs thus daily prospered,’ observed Vergil, ‘and in this prosperity Thomas Wolsey gloried exceedingly, as though he alone were responsible for the great good fortune in that his authority was now supreme with the king.’23
Contemporaries were quick to recognise the fact. With more than a touch of envy, Erasmus observed that Wolsey governed ‘more really than the king himself’. The Venetian ambassador Giustinian, meanwhile, described him as ‘the right reverend Cardinal, in whom all the whole power of the State is really lodged’, and ‘who really seems to have the management of the whole of this kingdom’. He concluded that Wolsey was the only one of Henry’s men ‘who, for authority, may in point of fact be styled ipse rex’, and that ‘should it be requisite to neglect either the King or the Cardinal, it would be better to pass over His Majesty’. Another foreign envoy concurred that ‘the right reverend Cardinal of York … by reason of his most excellent qualities, governs everything alone, the King not interfering in any matter, but referring the whole to him, whether it relate to foreign or domestic policy, so that foreign envoys fancy themselves negotiating not with a Cardinal, but with another King’. The Doge of Venice told Wolsey that the world considered him to be ‘his Majesty’s second self’.24 Far from taking offence at such claims, Henry reinforced them. In 1515, he instructed Pope Leo X to ‘pay the same regard to what Wolsey shall say as if it proceeded from the lips of the King himself’.25 Shortly afterwards, he appointed the Cardinal Lord Chancellor, when Archbishop Warham resigned the post.
Realising that his pre-eminence was unchallenged, Wolsey soon set aside his former caution and grew dangerously arrogant. ‘Acquiring so many offices at almost the same time, [he] became so proud that he considered himself the peer of kings,’ observed Vergil. He went on to claim that the Cardinal was ‘more hated, not only on account of his arrogance and his low reputation for integrity, but also on account of his recent origin [i.e. appointment as Bishop of Lincoln]’.26 Eager to dazzle people into forgetting his humble origins, Wolsey surrounded himself with magnificence. In the same year that he was made Archbishop of York, he began building Hampton Court, a palace so opulent that it rivalled those of his royal master. Similarly lavish building projects were executed at Cardinal College, Oxford, St Bride’s (or Bridewell), York Place and at his country houses.
All Wolsey’s residences were luxuriously decorated. Ambassadors reported that he owned enough tapestries to change his hangings every week. ‘Soon he began to use a golden seat, a golden cushion, a golden cloth on his table,’ reported another contemporary, ‘and when he went on foot, he had his hat – the symbol of his Cardinal’s rank – carried before him by a servant, and raised aloft like a holy idol, and he had it put upon the very altar in the king’s chapel during divine service.’27
Wolsey’s extravagance attracted widespread criticism. When the reformer Robert Barnes told him that the gold on his crosses would help many poor people, the Cardinal went on the defensive: ‘Whether do you think it more necessary that I should have all this royalty, because I represent the king’s majesty’s person in all the high courts of this realm, to the terror and keeping down of all rebellious treasons, traitors, all the wicked and corrupt members of this commonwealth; or to be as simple as you would have us?’28 Wolsey had a point. Henry’s preference for leisure pursuits meant that he was content for his chief minister to represent him at a whole manner of high-profile meetings with distinguished guests, including heads of state. It was important that Wolsey reflected the status and magnificence of his sovereign on such occasions. Moreover, his ecclesiastical appointments – most notably that of Cardinal – demanded a level of pomp and ceremony. That said, however, Wolsey undoubtedly enjoyed the finer things in life, and he also delighted in emphasising his superiority over the highly born noblemen at court who vied for the king’s favour.
According to Vergil, ‘several leading counsellors, when they saw so much power coming into the hands of one man, gradually withdrew from court’. They included the two most influential churchmen in the kingdom, William Warham and Richard Fox, as well as the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. Whether they were absenting themselves because they knew they could never aspire to Wolsey’s influence, or because they had lost respect for Henry for being so easily manipulated by this low-born minister, is not certain. Given the self-seeking nature of court life, however, it is more likely to have been the former, and this is supported by what happened next. Before they left, the men sought an audience with Henry and urged him ‘not to suffer any servant to be greater than his master: they borrowed this saying from Christ, who, in the gospel according to St John, says to his disciples: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord.”’ The king assured them ‘that he would make it his first business diligently to ensure that any servant of his was obedient and not autocratic’.29
But the Cardinal paid little heed to the growing ranks of his enemies, which made his position dangerously vulnerable as time went on. ‘Wolsey, with his arrogance and ambition aroused against himself the hatred of the whole country,’ claimed one eyewitness, ‘and by his hostility towards the nobility and the common people, caused them the greatest irritation through his vainglory … He was, indeed, detested by everyone.’30 Erasmus concurred that he was ‘feared by all and loved by few if any’, and Thomas More, who had been called a fool by Wolsey, quipped: ‘God be thanked the king our master hath but one fool on his council.’31
For now, though, Henry seemed to care little for his chief minister’s growing arrogance and was content to let him flaunt the advantages of his position. If he was troubled by the hostility that Wolsey was attracting among the other men at court, then he did not show it. The young king might have been easy to manipulate, but he was also pragmatic in his choice of advisers. For all his unpopularity, Wolsey was performing his duties far more effectively than any of his peers, and Henry had no intention of disrupting a state of affairs that was so entirely serving his interests.
Rather, Henry provided Wolsey with ample signs of his esteem. All of the king’s letters to his chief minister during these years are written with great affection and warmth. ‘Mine own good Cardinal’, he began one. ‘I recommend me unto you with all my heart, and thank you for the great pain and labour that you do daily take in my business and matters.’ In another, he assured Wolsey that he was able to confide in him ‘as heartily as heart can think’. Aware of how hard the Cardinal worked on his behalf, he urged him to take some rest so that he might ‘the longer endure to serve us’, and signed the letter: ‘with the hand of your loving master’.32
That he trusted his chief minister implicitly is obvious from a letter written shortly after Wolsey was made a Cardinal. In it, the king confided two pieces of news ‘which be so secret that they cause me at this time to write to you myself’. The first and most important of these was that: ‘I trust the queen my wife be with child.’33 Having had so many false hopes of an heir, Henry had learned to be discreet if ever Catherine showed signs of pregnancy. There is no evidence that he confided in anyone but Wolsey about this, the matter that affected him most closely.
This latest pregnancy seemed to be progressing well, though, and on 18 February 1516, Catherine gave birth to a girl, Mary. She might not have been the son and heir that Henry had hoped for, but the infant princess was at least healthy and there was still the prospect that sons would now follow, as Henry himself rather tactlessly pointed out. Nevertheless, the news was greeted with a lukewarm response, mirroring the king’s own disappointment. The Venetian ambassador reported that he intended to offer congratulations on behalf of his master, but added: ‘Had it been a son, I should already have done so.’34 Wolsey, too, shared his royal master’s regret, but he could at least console himself with the fact that Henry had seen fit to name him as one of the godparents to the infant princess.
Henry’s mood darkened in the days following his daughter’s birth. After seven years on the throne, he still had no male heir, which meant that no matter how many treaties or wars he might successfully (and expensively) conclude, his dynasty was dangerously insecure. This seems to have provoked the king’s deep-seated sense of inferiority with regard to his late father, whose first son had been born within a year of his accession. When Giustinian sought an audience with him on 11 March, he was shocked to find him ‘more irritated than I could ever have imagined’. The ambassador tried to placate him by thanking him for being such a committed supporter of the Venetian Republic. ‘You speak the truth,’ Henry spat back, ‘for I have done more for you than my father ever did … Be assured, Domine Orator, that I have now more money and greater force and authority than I myself or my ancestors ever had.’ Perceiving that the king ‘seemed to wax wrath’, Giustinian tried his best to calm him, but to no avail.35 The ghost of Henry’s father always calm him at moments of crisis, reminding him of his inadequacies. As he did on this occasion, Henry always railed against it, venting the frustration that he had been unable to express when his father lived.
The year after Princess Mary’s birth, Henry’s chief minister fell prey to the sweating sickness. The king was aghast when he heard the news, and for a few anxious days, Wolsey’s life was despaired of. But the Cardinal was one of the fortunate few to survive the disease, and he swiftly resumed his duties, attending the celebrations to mark the conclusion of a defensive league with the Archduke Charles (the future Charles V). Henry had evidently been shaken by the episode, though, and remained solicitous for his health, writing in his own hand to thank Wolsey for his great pains and urging him to take some rest ‘to the intent you may the longer endure to serve us’.36
By 1518, Wolsey was back to full health and applied himself to Henry’s service with characteristic energy, negotiating a new alliance with France. By October, the treaty of Universal Peace had been agreed, whereby his master’s infant daughter was betrothed to Francis’s son and heir. This was a triumph for Wolsey and one that he was quick to capitalise upon, delivering an oration in praise of peace that was widely acclaimed.
Delighted though he was by this prestigious match for his daughter, by the time of her birth, Henry had already begun an affair with one of his wife’s ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth Blount. Courtiers had noted that he danced with the attractive young ‘Bessie’ at the New Year celebrations held at Greenwich the previous year. Quite when she became the king’s mistress is not clear. Although it was perfectly acceptable for him to seek sexual gratification during his wife’s many pregnancies, Henry liked to be discreet in his affairs. Before long, it was rumoured that he was ‘in the chains of love’ with Bessie, although he was careful not to show any outward preference for her.37
In autumn 1518, as the queen was preparing for her sixth lying-in, Bessie fell pregnant. It was a bitter pill for Catherine to swallow when, a few months after giving birth to another stillborn daughter, she learned that her lady-in-waiting had had a healthy boy. In case there was any doubt that he was the king’s, Bessie named this ‘goodly man child of beauty like to the father and mother’ Henry FitzRoy.38
Henry had employed customary discretion in dealing with his mistress’s pregnancy, and had instructed Wolsey to arrange her confinement at a suitable distance from court. The cardinal’s choice might seem surprising: the Augustinian Priory of St Laurence in Blackmore, Essex. But Wolsey knew that the brethren could be trusted to turn a blind eye to this latest inmate, just as they had to the other ladies with whom the king had consorted there in the past.
When Henry learned that he at last had a son, he abandoned his discretion and openly acknowledged the boy as his own. A christening was held and Wolsey was appointed godfather to the infant boy. FitzRoy might be illegitimate, but he had proved that the king was capable of fathering a healthy boy. With only a daughter and numerous obstetric disasters to show for a decade of marriage, Henry knew that his subjects and international rivals had started to whisper that the problem might lie with him. Now it was clear, to Henry at least, that his wife was to blame. Aged thirty-three, Catherine was considered to be nearing the end of her fertile years, whereas her twenty-eight-year-old husband was evidently still very much in his prime.
Henry’s infant son had not only restored his belief, and pride, in his virility; he had planted a dangerous seed in his father’s mind about the validity of his marriage.