The King is Dead Read online

  Sir Richard Southwell, painted by Holbein. A friend of the Earl of Surrey and a conservative in religion, Southwell (1518–64) may also have been responsible for Surrey’s denunciation and subsequent arrest. He was appointed in King Henry’s will to be an assistant to Edward’s regency council.

  Norfolk, however, was saved by the bell. Destined to be executed on the morning of 28 January, another death – the king’s – during the night saved his neck. Had his downfall had been the result of a reformist coup, it could be expected that Norfolk would have been quickly dispatched by the new regime, especially during the few days when Henry VIII’s death would remain a secret. Instead, Norfolk lived on, left to rot in prison until Mary’s reign, when, after his release, the old conniver went on to die peacefully in his bed at the age of eighty. It had been Henry’s vengeful will alone that led Surrey and (almost) Norfolk to the scaffold; once his hand had been lifted, there was no further pressure to ensure Norfolk’s death.

  ‘The king,’ wrote Gilbert Burnet, ‘who never hated nor ruined anybody by halves, resolved to complete the misfortunes of that family’.49 Throughout his life, Henry reacted with vehement vindictiveness towards those who fell short of his expectations. The changes that Henry made to his will to remove Gardiner and Norfolk were a product of his dogged determination, not the effusions of a doddering old man whose course was determined by others.

  It says something of Henry VIII’s character that he retained both his mental acumen and force of will despite his physical condition. For, while he could maintain a grip on his mind, he was fighting a losing battle with his body. In 1546, his perennial attacks of ulcer-induced fever became more frequent. In March, he was febrile for two or three days.1 Three months later, in early July, when the Askewe affair was playing out, he was noticed to be in a fit of melancholy and sick all night with colic.2 He was in good health in the late summer, with the French ambassador commenting in September that ‘the King of England is always in the fields enjoying hunting’, but in late October he was indisposed again.3 In November, he appeared to be gearing up for a new war with the Scots, and Ambassador de Selve thought that a report of the king having a cold was just an excuse to avoid an audience with him as ‘the fact is that he is as well as usual and goes daily to the fields’ to hunt.4

  By late December, however, soon after he arrived at Whitehall on the 23rd, Henry became seriously ill, enduring an intense 30-hour onslaught of fever that left him weak and wasted. Van der Delft wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor that ‘the king is so unwell that, considering his age and corpulence, he may not survive another attack’.5 Henry, too, sensed something terminal in this latest assault, and on the evening of 26 December, St Stephen’s Day, he called for a number of his closest councillors, including Paget, Hertford, Lisle, Denny, Sir Anthony Browne and Sir William Herbert – Kateryn Parr’s brother-in-law – and told them that he urgently wanted to make some changes to his will.6

  An engraving of ‘Henry VIII, King of England’, dated 1548. The Flemish artist was Cornelius Matsys. His depiction of Henry, made soon after the king’s death, seems to show the very image of a calculating tyrant.

  Denny was dispatched to find the existing testament. Although the first will that we know of had been drawn up in 1544, just before Henry went to war with the French, there may have been two versions of Henry’s will prior to this point. For, when Denny returned, Henry dismissed the copy he read out and instructed Denny to look for one ‘of a later making, written with the hand of the Lord Wriothesley, being secretary’.7 Wriothesley ceased to be secretary in 1543, so this will of ‘later making’ cannot date from any later than that. The 1544 will must have been, then, at least the third version.8 This may explain why, when Denny returned with a second, apparently later, will, Henry ‘seemed to marvel that some were left out unnamed in it, whom he said, he meant to have in, and some in, whom he meant to have out’.9 Perhaps even the second time, Denny had returned without the most recent iteration.

  Either way, the existing will was not satisfactory and Henry required Paget to draft a new will, and to put ‘in some that were not named before, and to put out the Bishop of Winchester’s name’.10 What Henry was referring to was adding to or subtracting from the list of executors of his will, who were simultaneously charged with forming a regency council on Henry VIII’s death to act for his son during his minority, as specified in his Acts of Succession. These were the people in whom, Henry states in the will, ‘we put our singular trust and confidence’, and whom he charged ‘as they must and shall answer at the Day of Judgement, truly and fully to see this my Last Will performed in all things with as much speed and diligence as they may be’ (folios 18 and 16). They were people with extraordinary responsibility, in whom Henry was investing all his faith for a smooth transfer of power and the efficient functioning of his son’s regime.

  Henry named the following recipients of his confidence to be his executors and Edward VI’s councillors. Ten of them were already members of his existing Privy Council:

  THOMAS CRANMER, Archbishop of Canterbury

  THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY, Lord Chancellor of England

  WILLIAM PAULET, LORD ST JOHN, Great Master of the King’s Household and Lord President of the Privy Council

  JOHN, LORD RUSSELL, the Lord Privy Seal

  EDWARD SEYMOUR, EARL OF HERTFORD, Great Chamberlain of England

  JOHN DUDLEY, VISCOUNT LISLE, High Admiral of England

  CUTHBERT TUNSTAL, Bishop of Durham

  SIR ANTHONY BROWNE, Master of the King’s Horse

  SIR WILLIAM PAGET, ‘our Chief Secretary’

  DR NICHOLAS WOTTON, Dean of Canterbury and York

  There were few surprises here. In addition to the usual suspects of Wriothesley, Hertford, Lisle and Paget, Cranmer had been one of the king’s closest confederates since he had found the grounds for, and declared, the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon. Tunstal, born in 1474, was a scholar and statesman of long standing, a religiously conservative man of moderation and sound judgment who had been a close friend of Thomas More and had served the king as a diplomat, judge, Privy Councillor and bishop.11 Lord St John, too, had had a long political career, serving the king in numerous roles, including as Master of the Court of Wards, Lord Chamberlain of the Household and Lord President of the Privy Council. Despite often having to do Henry’s dirty work – telling Katherine of Aragon that her marriage had broken down, acting as a judge at the trial of Bishop John Fisher and Thomas More, and leading royal troops against the rebel Pilgrims of Grace – he did it with grace and kindness; Anne Boleyn described him as ‘a very gentleman’.12 Sir Anthony Browne had been made Esquire of the Body of Henry VIII in 1524, had been sent to accompany Anne of Cleves to England, and had been at Henry VIII’s side at the siege of Boulogne. Meanwhile, the elderly, serious and prudent Lord Russell, with his strong features, battle-injured right eye and full white beard, came from a dynasty of courtiers. His grandfather had served Edward IV and Henry VII, and Lord Russell had been appointed to the prestigious office of Lord Privy Seal in 1542.13 Finally, Dr Wotton was a theologian and career diplomat, and in 1546 was Henry’s ambassador resident at the French court. To a man, these were the king’s most senior, enduring and trusted servants.

  In addition to these ten, another six men who were not already Privy Councillors were appointed by Henry to Edward’s regency council:

  SIR ANTHONY DENNY, one of the Chief Gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber

  SIR WILLIAM HERBERT, also one of the Chief Gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber

  SIR EDWARD NORTH, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations

  SIR EDWARD MONTAGU, Lord Chief Justice of the Commons Pleas

  SIR THOMAS BROMLEY, a puisne justice of the King’s Bench

  SIR EDWARD WOTTON, Treasurer at Calais

  Sir William Herbert, painted by Hans Eworth. A dynamic soldier with a reputation for fiery behaviour, Herbert (c.1501–70) was a favourite of Henry VIII and one of the Ch
ief Gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber. He was named in Henry’s last will as an executor and regency councillor to Edward VI, who created him Earl of Pembroke in 1551. Herbert was also related by marriage to Henry – his first wife was Anne Parr, sister of Kateryn.

  Denny, Herbert and North were all obvious candidates. Of the others, Sir Edward Wotton, brother of Nicholas, was absent from the court in 1546 as Treasurer at Calais. He had gone with Browne to collect Anne of Cleves, was evangelical in belief, and a trusted, but not especially close, courtier. Sir Edward Montagu held one of the leading judicial offices in the land. Sir Thomas Bromley was Henry’s most intriguing choice, about whom little is known. Although a justice of the King’s Bench, he was not the most senior judge, as his title gives away: puisne, meaning ‘inferior in rank’, is pronounced ‘puny’ and is the origin of that word in English. It is unclear why this extraordinary honour fell on Bromley rather than, as would have been more normal, the Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, then Sir Richard Lyster.14 There is no evidence to suggest that Lyster, who would attest to the submission and confession of Norfolk on 12 January 1547, was out of favour, and his exclusion is therefore curious. Little wonder that the epitaph on Bromley’s tomb reads: ‘one of the executors of the king of most famous memory, Henry the Eight’.15

  Henry also named a further dozen men to aid and assist the councillors, and these assistants included nine members of Henry’s existing Privy Council – including men like Sir Richard Rich; Henry FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, Lord Chamberlain of the Household; Sir Thomas Cheney, Treasurer of the Household; William Parr, Earl of Essex, and Kateryn Parr’s brother; and Sir William Petre, second principal secretary after Paget (see Appendix II for the full list). To their number were added three non-Privy Councillors, including Hertford’s younger brother Sir Thomas Seymour and Sir Richard Southwell.

  It was these lists of honoured advisers that Henry wanted to fine-tune when he felt himself to be close to death, and it is at this juncture that Henry excluded Gardiner as being too wilful to be part of Edward’s government. Along with him, Henry overruled the suggestion of Thomas Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, to the ranks of the assistants, saying of him that ‘he was schooled’ by Gardiner.16 There was also, apparently, one other name at which Henry ‘made some stick’ but was persuaded to accept as an assistant. Professor Eric Ives has plausibly suggested that this might have been Sir Thomas Seymour.17 Such coaxing was also attempted on Gardiner’s behalf; we can surmise that his exclusion mystified and embarrassed the other councillors. In re-reading the new list, Paget tried to argue the case for his old mentor, but the king ‘would in no wise be entreated’. Later, Sir Anthony Browne raised Gardiner’s name once more, and Henry responded in anger and with threats: ‘Have you not yet done… to molest me in this matter? If you will not cease to trouble me, by the faith I owe to God, I will surely dispatch thee out of my will also; and therefore let us hear no more of this matter’.18 Gardiner was out on his ear, and Henry wasn’t having him back. There were also other sundry changes, alterations and additions: we know they were made, but not what they were. Changes made, the new will, in its final form, was given to Paget to write up ‘in a book of paper’.19

  Four days later, Henry VIII’s last will and testament – all twenty-eight folios drafted by Paget in gorgeous, clear, secretary-hand calligraphy – was ready to be signed and witnessed.

  ~

  William Paulet, Lord St John, in a portrait by an unknown artist. As Great Master of the King’s Household and Lord President of the Privy Council, Paulet (c.1485–1572) was a longstanding servant of the king. He was named as a regency councillor and executor in Henry VIII’s last will and testament. Seemingly flexible in religion, he was a great survivor through the vicissitudes of Tudor politics under successive reigns.

  Henry’s final will is dated 30 December 1546. It states: ‘we have signed it with our hand in our Palace of Westminster the thirty day of December in the year of our Lord a thousand five hundred forty and six’ (folio 28), and it bears Henry VIII’s signature, ‘Henry R.’, at the top and bottom, together with the signatures of ten witnesses. Many of these witnesses were drawn from the gentlemen and grooms of the Privy Chamber: John Gates (brother-in-law to Sir Anthony Denny), Edmund Harman (also Henry’s barber-surgeon), William Saint-Barbe, Henry Nevill, Richard Coke and David Vincent. Three of the witnesses were royal doctors – George Owen, Thomas Wendy and Robert Huicke – whose presence testified to the soundness of the king’s mind. The last witness, whose signature is the most childish and ill formed, is simply given as ‘Patrec’. The historian Lacey Baldwin Smith identified Patrec as the king’s flautist, but another likely candidate is Patrick Raynolde, appointed the king’s apothecary a month before.20 The will was then counter-witnessed and signed by a clerk, aptly named William Clerk (folios 1 and 28).21

  The statement that the will had been signed with the king’s hand was not, technically, true. The king had technically not signed anything with his own hand since September 1545. Instead, a system had been developed to save him from the tedium of inscribing his name on state documents. Three designated royal clerks had been given the authority to impress a facsimile of Henry’s signature on each document with a stamp made for the purpose, and then delicately to ink in the indentation that remained.22 Signature by ‘dry stamp’ was therefore a sort of officially sanctioned forgery, and the clerks involved – Sir Anthony Denny, John Gates and William Clerk – had to be regularly pardoned for ‘all treasons concerning the counterfeiting, impression and writing of the king’s sign’ and re-authorized for the months to come.23 This system was used to authenticate everything issued in the king’s name. Examples in 1546 include a licence for a widow called Alice Moore to marry Roland Hunt, a groom of the Privy Chamber; the wardship of two ‘lunatics’, Agnes and John Bury, to Paul Gresham in January; a life grant to the king’s laundress, Anne Harris; a warrant to the Great Wardrobe for two gowns and two kirtles for ‘Jane the Queen’s fool’ in June; and a licence to a yeoman called John Alen to bait bears in Southwark in December.24 But the dry stamp was also used for documents of far greater significance – everything from grants, bills, leases and pardons, to letters, licences, commissions and warrants. Around a hundred documents every month had been produced in this fashion since its inception, so by December 1546 something like 1,600 state papers had been signed by dry stamp. The condition for its use was that the clerks should record each document signed in this way in a schedule, which the king would endorse each month.

  On 30 December 1546, Henry VIII’s will received the same treatment as any other official state document: it was signed by dry stamp. According to the schedule of documents where the last will and testament was registered, written by Clerk, it was ‘signed above in the beginning and beneath in the end and sealed in the signet’ in the presence not only of the witnesses named above but also Hertford, Paget, Denny and Herbert.25 The will was then, according to Clerk, given into the safekeeping of the Earl of Hertford.

  Later in the sixteenth century attempts were made to challenge the authenticity of the will on the grounds that Henry VIII had not signed it himself.26 This was a mischievous and fallacious claim: if it had had any basis in fact it would have undermined the legality of all the documents produced in the last eighteen months of Henry VIII’s reign. But Henry’s government had been prepared for such eventualities, and applied a belt-and-braces approach to ensuring the legality of all documents produced in this way. Even signed by dry stamp, Henry VIII’s will was legal and binding.

  The real question revolves around the fact that the dry stamp, by definition, did not require Henry to be present to be applied. This made it open to abuse: it is theoretically possible that the will was not signed on the day stated, but at some later stage. This possibility is exaggerated when one considers that Henry VIII’s will, witnessed at the end of December 1546, was not registered in the schedule of documents stamped in December, but in that of January 1547, where it is
the penultimate item. Naturally, the hypothesis of a later stamping becomes particularly appealing if one is looking for evidence of a conspiracy, for it creates the possibility that Henry VIII was not the sole author of his own last will and testament. It means that some commentators, such as Sir William Maitland, Lord of Lethington and secretary of state to Mary, Queen of Scots, doubted the date of its stamping; much more recently, some historians have even argued that the will was tampered with or added to after its official witnessing on 30 December 1546.27

  For these historians, only a later doctoring of the will can explain two clauses they think Henry was unlikely to have written. The first (folio 18) stated: ‘we will that all such grants and gifts as we have made, 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’. In short, any intended gifts, grants or payments that Henry had promised, but not fulfilled before death, ought to be honoured. The second clause of concern (folio 21) was the one authorizing Henry’s chosen councillors to ‘make, devise and ordain what things so ever they or the more part of them… shall during the minority… of our said son think meet, necessary or convenient for the benefit, honour and surety’ of the realm: a sort of carte-blanche to act as they saw fit. As both clauses gave Henry’s executors great latitude to remake the post-Henrician world as they wished, they have been seen as ‘minimal and subtle forgeries’ slyly inserted into the will for that purpose.28