‘Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.’ The familiar mnemonic for remembering the six wives of Henry VIII also reminds us that it is the women in his life who have defined him. The fact that he married more times than any other monarch in British history has superseded every other aspect of his larger-than-life character, and his turbulent reign.
Remarkable though Henry’s marital history is, it is not what defines him. Far more influential than the women in his life were the men with whom he was surrounded. Although he was raised in a predominantly female household, the overbearing, often suffocating, presence of his father Henry VII dominated his early years. The sudden death of his elder brother Arthur at the age of just fifteen propelled Henry into the limelight, and, once king, he gathered around him a coterie of high-spirited young men to keep him entertained. During the course of his thirty-seven-year reign, he would attract some of the brightest minds of the sixteenth century: from omnipotent councillors such as Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell to the renowned scholars Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus, and the arrogant, ruthless members of the aristocracy, such as the dukes of Buckingham and Norfolk. In his private domain, meanwhile, he was attended by an array of different men: servants, barbers, physicians, fools and other lesser-known characters whose job it was to attend to Henry’s every need, to entertain him and to listen to his confidences. It was these men who shaped Henry into the man – and monster – that he would become. And he, in turn, dictated their fates.
Henry formed numerous close attachments to men throughout his life. A few were stable and enduring, but most burned brightly and were quickly extinguished. The king’s favour was notoriously fickle. Indulged in childhood, he had little patience for anything that displeased or bored him, and in later life his growing paranoia made him even more unpredictable. The Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, who spent more time with Henry than any other foreign envoy, once observed that he despaired of forming ‘a judgment, considering the changeableness of this king’. The Spanish Chronicle agreed that ‘when the King took a fancy to anyone he carried it to extremes’, but that he could withdraw it just as suddenly.1
This book will tell the story of England’s most famous monarch through the lens of the men who surrounded him: relations, servants, ministers, rivals, confidants and companions. It will follow a chronological structure based upon Henry’s life, drawing in the many and varied characters at appropriate points in the narrative. As such, it will provide a fresh perspective on this much-studied monarch: a biography from the outside in.
Henry’s relationships with the men who surrounded him reveal much about his beliefs, behaviour and character. They show him to be capable of fierce, but seldom abiding loyalty; of raising men only to destroy them later. Many of his closest companions were drawn from the noble classes, but the fact that he vested most power in men of humble birth suggests a deep-seated insecurity about his own position. He loved to be attended and entertained by boisterous young men who shared his passion for sport, but at other times he was more diverted by men of intellect, culture and wit. Often trusting and easily led by his male attendants and advisers during the early years of his reign, he matured into a profoundly suspicious and paranoid king whose favour could be suddenly withdrawn, as many of his later servants found to their cost. His natural generosity and gregariousness was offset by the fact that he was used to getting his own way by the time he became king, which made him intolerant and impatient when he considered that he had been ill-served by his men. His cruelty and ruthlessness would become ever more apparent as his reign progressed, but the tenderness that he displayed towards those he trusted proves that he was never the one-dimensional monster that he is often portrayed as. In short, Henry’s personality is revealed in all its multi-faceted, contradictory glory by his relationships with the men who made him.
The story of these men is played out with a cast of hundreds, if not thousands. To include all of the men in Henry’s life would require a multi-volume study, which in turn would dilute the central themes of this book, notably the king’s character and tastes, the motives for his decisions and the impact of his actions, the creation and evolution of his image from Renaissance prince to tyrant, and the legacy that he bequeathed to the men who survived him. I have therefore focused the narrative upon those men who wielded the greatest influence upon Henry’s life, or who illustrate different aspects of his character and reign.
That is not to say that the men who do not feature are not worthy of further study. They include William Reskymer, page of the chamber, and Sir John Godsalve, administrator and MP, both of whom were immortalised by Holbein during his years at Henry’s court. The seasoned courtier Anthony Knyvet, who was also lieutenant of the Tower of London, and Richard Gibson, deputy Master of the Revels, who from 1510 until his death in 1534 was actively involved in the production of every major tournament and revel at court, also have fascinating stories to tell, but are beyond the scope of this narrative.
In their place is a dazzling and eclectic cast of characters: some ‘mad’ (Sir Francis Bryan, the so-called ‘Vicar of Hell’), some ‘bad’ (the arch-schemer, Stephen Gardiner), but none as ‘dangerous to know’ as Henry VIII himself, who dominates the narrative as he did his times. There are also the men whose stories have, until now, remained in the shadows: Sir William Butts, Henry’s favourite physician, Will Somer, his fool, and Sir Thomas Cawarden, who superintended some of the most spectacular entertainments of the later reign, reminding Henry of his glorious younger days. It is these men who helped to shape the character, opinions and image of their king, and whose hidden history lay behind the Tudor throne.