The King is Dead Read online

  Edward could have everything, but the price was total submission to the councillors whom Henry believed would continue to enact his will.

  To his daughters – technically illegitimate but still his nonetheless – Henry bequeathed ‘money, plate, jewels and household stuff’ to the value of £10,000 each (folio 24), although he left it to the discretion of his executors as to whether this should be a larger sum, or even a smaller one should his daughters fail to heed his councillors’ advice on whom to marry. In addition, ‘from the first hour of our death’ until their marriages – responsibility for finding them honourable spouses being given to the councillors – Mary and Elizabeth were to be furnished with £3,000 a year to live on (folio 25). This was a conventional bequest; Henry VII had made similar provision for Mary Tudor in 1509 (although he had left her a much more generous £50,000 for her dowry or if her planned marriage were not effected).5

  Provision was also made for his wife and queen, Kateryn Parr, as reward for her ‘great love, obedience, chasteness of life and wisdom’. She was to receive ‘plate, jewels and household stuff’ to the value of £3,000, ‘such apparel as it shall please her to take of such as she has already’, £1,000 in cash, and her ‘dower and jointer’ according to the grant made by Act of Parliament, which included the manors of Hanworth and Chelsea (folio 25).

  The next set of beneficiaries were Henry’s executors, who, ‘for the kindness and good service’ they had showed the king, each received some few hundred pounds. Wriothesley, Lord St John, Russell, Hertford and Lisle all received the most: money or lands to the value of £500 each. Paget, Denny, Herbert, Montagu, Bromley, North and the Wottons accrued £300 each. Archbishop Cranmer, who is mentioned first, was to receive 500 marks – so around £333; it is not clear why his amount was unique.6

  Those others who benefitted from Henry’s will were his trusted royal servants. He notes that his bequests were because of ‘the special love and favour that we bear to our trusty councillors and other our said servants hereafter’ (folio 26). To each of the assistants to the councillors, he left £200 – with one exception: Sir William Petre, one of his principal secretaries, does not appear to have received any bequest. As the assistants are named amid a host of other people, this may just have been an unfortunate oversight.

  Many of Henry’s legatees were his court favourites. Sir Thomas Darcy, Sir Thomas Speke, Sir Philip Hoby, Sir Thomas Paston, Sir Maurice Berkeley, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Thomas Cawarden, Sir Peter Mewtas and Sir Edward Bellingham were all Gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber, who had served Henry in war – mostly in the French campaigns of 1540s, but also in Scotland.7 All received sums of either £200 or 200 marks (£133 6s 8d). The only other person to receive this great a sum was Thomas Audley, who seems to have been the brother of the late Thomas, Baron Audley of Walden, Henry’s former lord chancellor.

  All ten witnesses to the will received bequests. Most of the gentlemen and grooms of the Privy Chamber – Henry Nevill, William Saint-Barbe, Richard Coke and David Vincent – and the three royal physicians – doctors George Owen, Thomas Wendy and Robert Huicke – received amounts of £100 each. John Gates, as a member of the Privy Chamber and one of the clerks responsible for Henry’s dry stamp, received £200; Edmund Harman, as a Groom of the Privy Chamber and the king’s barber-surgeon, received 200 marks. The servant, or possible apothecary, Patrick (‘Patrec’) received only 100 marks.

  A sketch by Holbein, showing the wise old John, Lord Russell (c.1485–1555), Lord Privy Seal. A member of Henry VIII’s Privy Council, he was also named by Henry as an executor and regency councillor to Edward. He was later created Earl of Bedford. Russell probably chose to be depicted with his left side facing the viewer, because his right eye had been damaged in battle.

  The remaining beneficiaries, most of whom also received 100 marks, seem to have been less elevated royal servants. Among them are James Rufforth, ‘Keeper of our House here’ at Westminster; Richard Cecil, ‘Yeoman of our Robes’; and Thomas Sternhold, ‘Groom of our Robes’ (folio 27). One of the most human aspects of the will lies in the fact that Henry could not remember everyone’s names perfectly: there is a blank space before Sternhold’s surname, as before Coke’s, and in the case of his apothecary, Thomas Alsopp, and four of his servants – John Ailef, Richard Ferrers, Henry Forrest and John Holland – Henry managed either the first name or the surname, but not both. Finally, after leaving £50 each to the ‘four huissiers [ushers] of our chamber, being daily waiters’, Henry instructed his executors to pay a legacy to any of his ordinary servants they thought ‘meet’ (appropriate) but whom he had not named (folio 27).

  These payments do seem to have been honoured by Edward VI’s new regency council, but they were not the only grants and gifts claimed by them.8

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  The instruction to Henry’s executors to confer rewards on his servants as they saw fit helps contextualise a clause in the will that (as discussed earlier) has been the source of much controversy:

  …we will that all such grants and gifts as we have given or promised to any, which be not yet perfected… as they ought to be… and all such recompenses for exchanges, sales or any other thing or things, as ought to have been made by use and be not yet accomplished, shall be perfected (folio 18)

  Known as the ‘unfulfilled gifts clause’, this instructed that any intended gifts, grants or payments, which Henry had promised but not realized before death, ought to be honoured. It was one of the sentences that some historians have thought must have been inserted into the will in order to give leverage to the Hertford clique – although, as shown earlier, it could not have been added after the will’s composition and re-drafting. It is also unnecessary to imagine such secret intrigue. Rather, the clause was a standard insertion in medieval royal wills, because the idea of failing to honour a promised gift brought shame and dishonour to the one who had pledged it.9 It is probably this clause that was evoked to ensure the foundation of Christ’s Hospital and Trinity College, Cambridge, both of which Henry endowed in his last months.10 There were also many other gifts of manors and lands granted by the king before his death – such as the grant of lands to Sir Thomas Cawarden and his wife, Elizabeth in December 1546, which included lands in Lingfield (in Surrey), a water-mill called Newland Mill, the manors of Hexsted and ‘Byllesherst’ (perhaps Billingshurst), an inn called the Green Dragon in Southwark, and many others properties besides – and this clause probably smoothed the way to their accomplishment.11

  The reason this clause has seemed suspect is because it also proved highly convenient to those in power after Henry’s death. It enabled Hertford to claim the title ‘Duke of Somerset’ and the position of Earl Marshal of England, and allowed the granting of peerages and baronies, offices and valuable gifts of lands to councillors and courtiers, including Lisle, Wriothesley, Seymour, Rich and William Parr, Earl of Essex.

  Nevertheless, there is reason to believe the story Paget told about the legacies in Henry VIII’s ‘unwritten will’. On Monday 6 February 1547, just over a week after Henry’s death, Paget reported to the assembled Council that after the arrest of Surrey and Norfolk in December, Henry had discussed with his secretary, in the presence of Sir John Gates, how to redistribute the Howard lands, ‘thinking it expedient that the same should be liberally dispersed and given to diverse noble men and others His Majesty’s good servants’.12 In addition, Henry had, according to Paget, reflected on the fact that the nobility of the country ‘was greatly decayed’ and, thinking to advance some to higher places of honour, had asked Paget to write a list of suggested names. This is plausible. Certainly, the Tudor nobility was looking somewhat depleted: there had been no Earl of Warwick since 1499, no Duke of Buckingham since 1521, no Earl of Lincoln since 1534, no Earl or Marquess of Pembroke nor Duke of Somerset since the deaths of Anne Boleyn – created Marquess of Pembroke – and Henry Fitzroy in 1536, no Earl of Northumberland since Sir Henry Percy’s death in 1537, and no Earl of Southampton since Sir William Fitzwi
lliam’s death in 1542. And Henry was just about to destroy the Duke of Norfolk too. The old king might well have considered the time ripe to swell the ranks of the English aristocracy.

  Paget states that he therefore prepared a list of those whom he thought meet, proposing Hertford to be a duke; Essex to be a marquess; Lisle, St John, Russell and Wriothesley to be earls; and ten knights, including Sir Thomas Seymour, to be barons. He also advised the king to accompany the titles with such liberality in the way of lands that the recipients might be able to uphold the honour of their new ranks, and redistributed the Howard offices of state. Paget suggested lands worth 1,000 marks (£666 13s 4d) a year for Hertford, £200 a year for Lisle and so on, and Henry instructed Paget to sound out the intended beneficiaries on the quiet to check that no one had any objections. Paget then recalled to Henry some others whom His Majesty ‘was minded before to be good to’, including Denny, whose ‘painful’ (painstaking) daily service Paget remembered to the king, and their names were added to the list.13

  At some later date, the matter was reviewed, and it was found that, for three reasons, the initial list of promotions needed to be revised. Paget’s conversations revealed that some wanted to stay in their current ranks, while others complained that the money was insufficient. The Duke of Norfolk declared that he wanted his lands to go to Prince Edward, and Henry’s increasingly pressing sense of mortality drove him to favour some over others, for he wanted, said Paget, to ‘place us all about his son as men whom he trusted and loved above all other specially’. So an amended proposal was drawn up. ‘When I had made it and read it to him,’ Paget notes, ‘he took it off me and put [it] in his pocket, and upon my request was content I should declare unto every man what was by His Majesty determined… and so I did and all were pleased’.14

  The matter had been decided, but the king had then died before the changes could be driven through. So, knowing that in Henry’s will he had stated that ‘whatsoever should in any wise appear to his Council to have been promised by him, the same should be performed’, on 6 February Paget urged the assembled councillors to abide by this condition and grant the titles, offices and lands as laid out by the late king.15 The Council declared themselves bound in conscience to obey the will, and on 15 February the new titles were announced. The creations proceeded on the following day, and lands were distributed a week later.16

  Some historians have rather doubted Paget’s version of events. They have noted how very well Hertford did out of the proposals, and suspected Paget of manipulating Henry into offering advancements to Hertford and his supporters – those evangelicals who would support Hertford’s elevation as Protector – as ballast for their coup. If they do not believe that the ‘unfulfilled gifts clause’ was added later, they surmise that the king had little idea of the full significance or consequences of the clause when it was agreed.17

  Sir William Paget’s original list of thirteen peerage promotions, written in another clerical hand. Over this, a more spidery second hand – Paget’s own – shows his amendments, with crossings-through, interstitial additions and marginalia, perhaps made on the hoof as he sat talking with Henry.

  Yet, we have evidence to substantiate Paget’s testimony. In the State Papers in The National Archives, we have his first list, in a clear clerical hand.18 We can see Paget’s original tally of thirteen peerage promotions, more than half of them complete with grants of land, plus ten other appointments to offices vacated by the Howards.19 We can also clearly identify crossings-through, interstitial additions, marginalia, and other amendments and annotations in Paget’s own more spidery script. These are evidently the changes to the list that emerged from Paget’s conversations and Henry’s intervention: they have the scribbled feel of emendations made on the hoof as Paget sat talking with Henry. The documentary evidence seems to uphold Paget’s story.

  It is true that the list and the revisions did benefit Hertford and some of those close to him. To the lands worth £666 13s 4d for Hertford were added new land grants to the value of £1,100 a year. Sir Thomas Seymour’s acquisition of a barony and £300 a year was inflated to £500 a year. Wriothesley, who was to be an earl, saw the value of his land grant increase from £100 to £300 a year. Lisle’s money increased by £100 a year. In the margin, Paget had added the names of Denny, Herbert, Cawarden and Gates, with financial benefits attached to each. Yet, this is not the full story. The earldoms originally proposed for Russell and St John and the barony for Sir Thomas Arundel were scrapped. The offer of a dukedom for Hertford was also amended: rather than simply saying he would be made Duke of Hertford and his son Earl of Wiltshire, it now read: ‘Hertford to be… Duke of Somerset or Exeter or Hertford and his son Earl of Wiltshire if he be Duke of Hertford’. Hertford therefore had to choose: he could either have a dukedom with royal precedents – the last Duke of Somerset had been Henry’s illegitimate son, who had died at the age of seventeen – or he could have an earldom for his son: not both. It would be illogical to conclude that these changes were solely made to the benefit of those who would vote in the regency council for Hertford’s protectorate; of the regency councillors, only Russell, St John, Lisle and Wriothesley were proposed for promotion, and two of them lost out with the revisions.20 Moreover, contrary to the rumours that Van der Delft heard about future promotions, Paget himself received no title, grant or new office.21

  Rather than inferring that the amendments were made by Paget to garner support for his dear friend, Hertford, to be Protector, we should instead consider, given the evidential corroboration, that Paget was perhaps telling the truth: that Henry had oversight of this entire process and did fully intend these advancements, even if Paget had some influence over proceedings. The fact that Hertford was made to choose between his own higher prestige or a double peerage for his family smacks of Henry; as Professor Eric Ives put it, it ‘looks like Henry making his brother-in-law pay for his ambition’.22 It may be simply the fact too that Russell, St John and Arundel refused their creations as Paget reported, and that the size of the grants was increased (to a total of £2,266 13s 4d a year) because, as people said, they were previously insufficient to uphold the new ranks.23 We cannot be sure that Henry dictated Paget’s changes, but it seems very likely. Henry VIII’s ‘unwritten will’ seems intended by the king to reward those around him who would have care of the government of his son.

  The new government duly handed out the promotions and rewards in Edward VI’s name. Although entirely to be expected, it is notable that the tone of the proclamation reflects Paget’s account precisely and very much suggests that the preferments were Henry’s intention. It states ‘considering that divers of his counsellors and princes were not gratified and rewarded by him [Henry VIII] according to their worth’, ‘for the great zeal [and] tender love’ Henry had for them, ‘for the advancement of the common weal’, and to ‘maintain and advance the estate and degree of nobility’, the late king thought it best to honour a number of his councillors, ‘such personages as the highness intended to advance’.24 The scheme was Henry’s, one he was ‘minded resolved and fully determined’ to carry out. There is every reason why such a tone should have been employed in this proclamation even if Henry had no such intentions, and, of course, Paget represented the government; but the level of consonance between Paget’s story to the Council and this proclamation, and its repetition again in the Calendar of Patent Rolls, which notes the fulfilment of these grants, is striking.25

  John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, painted posthumously c.1600. Dudley (1504–54) was made Lord High Admiral of England under Henry VIII. He was created Earl of Warwick and, later, Duke of Northumberland under Edward VI. Dudley was one of the men in whom Henry VIII placed his faith in his last will and testament, and he became, with Edward Seymour, a leading figure of government under Edward VI. His attempt to install his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne would prove his undoing.

  William Parr (1513–71), Earl of Essex and Marquess of Northampton. This half-finished chal
k and ink sketch by Holbein shows the good looks of Kateryn Parr’s brother. He had grown up in the household of Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, and risen at court with his sister’s favour. In April 1543, William Parr was made a Knight of the Garter. A member of Henry VIII’s Privy Council, he was nominated as an assistant to the regency council to Edward VI in Henry’s last will.

  Many in the new government stood to benefit from the changes. From 16 February 1547, Hertford became not only Lord Protector, but also the Duke of Somerset. William Parr, Earl of Essex became the Marquess of Northampton; Lisle became Earl of Warwick; Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton; Sir Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and Sir Richard Rich, Baron Rich of Leeze. It makes sense that the minutes of the Privy Council from 23 February, when the lands were parcelled out, are replete with the language of duty and obedience to Henry VIII’s will, and especially to his clause about unfulfilled promises: the councillors are bound, they assert, to do what the will instructs, and loath to do any acts unwarranted by it.26 They exaggerate how beholden they are to Henry’s will – and the consequence is the enrichment of many of their number. At this stage, both reality and rhetoric combined in acquiescence to Henry’s will.

  Within a month, however, Edward VI’s government had thrown off the shackles of Henry VIII’s will and buried the testament along with their late monarch.

  Edward VI was crowned on 20 February 1547. Between his arrival at the Tower, at the very end of January, and his procession from the Tower of London to Westminster, on the day before the coronation, he had waited for three weeks, while ‘in the mean season the Council sat every day for the performance of the will’.1 Much of this enactment of Henry’s will involved the fulfilling of bequests, the arrangement of offices and the distribution of titles. During this time, the first minor betrayal of Henry VIII’s will took place: within five days of the king’s death, Sir Thomas Seymour had been advanced from his position as an assistant to the councillors and appointed as a seventeenth regency councillor. It was clear, nevertheless, to foreign observers, like Van der Delft, that there was a core to the Council who were really running the show: ‘there are four who… will take into their hands the entire direction of affairs’. Hertford and Lisle, Van der Delft thought, would enjoy the ‘honours and titles of rulers of the realm’, but Wriothesley and Paget ‘will in reality have the entire management of affairs’, for ‘without these two they can do but little’.2 As usual, Van der Delft was only half right. Very soon, one of these four would be toppled, and this ousting represented the first major and undeniable breach in the conditions laid out by Henry VIII’s will.