Mary Tudor then joined her brother and his court and proceeded to Dover via Otford, where they were entertained by Archbishop Warham, and Canterbury. The royal cavalcade was one of the longest and most richly attired ever seen. The King and Mary rode side by side, followed by the Queen in a litter and a vast concourse of nobles and knights, accompanied by their wives and wearing cloth of gold and gold chains.10
On 2 October, “at the waterside” at Dover, Mary reminded Henry of their pact. He embraced and kissed her, then gave her his blessing, saying, “I betoken you to God and the fortunes of the sea, and the government of the King your husband.”11 Escorted by Norfolk, Mary embarked for France with a fleet of fourteen ships. She was married to Louis on 9 October at Abbeville and crowned at St. Denis on 5 November. The French King was very taken with her; after their wedding night, he boasted that “he had performed marvels.”12
The Duc de Longueville returned to France with Mary, bearing gifts worth £2,000 (£600,000) and the gown Henry had worn at the proxy wedding. Several historians have suggested that Jane Popincourt, left languishing at the English court, became Henry’s mistress, but there is no evidence for this. The £100 that Henry gave her when she did eventually return to France in May 1516,13 after Louis’s death, was almost certainly a reward for her years of good service to his mother, sister, and wife, and it is known that Jane resumed her relationship with de Longueville when they were reunited. Moreover, by October 1514 Henry had probably embarked upon an affair with another lady.
Typically, he was taking advantage of the Queen’s pregnancy, which seemed to be progressing well: on 4 October, the King issued a warrant to the Great Wardrobe for a cradle upholstered in scarlet, linen, and curtains “for the use of our nursery, God willing.”14 That same month, Suffolk, then in France, added a postscript to a letter to Henry, asking him to remind “Mistress Blount and Mistress Carew” to reply to him when he wrote to them or sent them love tokens. This implies that the King and Suffolk were on terms of familiarity with both ladies. Indeed, they may well have shared their favours.
There is no doubt that Elizabeth Blount became Henry’s mistress at some stage, because she later bore him a child which he acknowledged. She was one of the eleven children15 of Sir John Blount of Kinlet Hall, Shropshire, by Katherine Peshall, whose father had fought for Henry VII at Bosworth. Lord Mountjoy was a kinsman, and it may have been he who secured Elizabeth—or Bessie, as she was known—a post as maid of honour to the Queen in 1513, when the girl was fifteen at most.16 She was “a fair damosel, who in singing, dancing and all goodly pastimes exceeded no other.”17 She was also “thought for her rare ornaments of nature and education to be the beauty and mistress-piece of her time.”18
Elizabeth Blount featured prominently in a Christmas pageant at Greenwich. She, Elizabeth Carew, Lady Margaret Guildford, and Lady Fellinger, the wife of the Spanish ambassador, all dressed up as ladies of Savoy in blue velvet gowns, gold caps, and masks, and were rescued from danger by four gallant “Portuguese” knights, played by the King, Suffolk, Nicholas Carew, and the Spanish envoy. The Queen was so delighted with their “strange apparel” that, before they all removed their masks, she invited them to dance again before her in her bedchamber. The King partnered Elizabeth Blount, and there was much laughter when the identities of the dancers were revealed. Katherine thanked the King for “her goodly pastime, and kissed him.”19 It is not known whether Henry and Elizabeth were lovers at this time, but if they were, they were certainly being very discreet about it.
Some writers have suggested that they were not discreet enough, and that the Queen was growing suspicious, because on Twelfth Night, 1515, when the same pageant was staged once again, by popular demand, Elizabeth Blount did not appear: her place was taken by Jane Popincourt. 20 However, she featured in another disguising in the company of Sir Thomas Boleyn and his young son George.21
We will never know whether anxiety over her husband’s amours contributed to the loss of the Queen’s fourth child, which was “a prince who lived not long after,”22 who was born at Greenwich in February 1515. Although a silver font was loaned by Christchurch Priory, Canterbury, for the christening, the infant’s name is not recorded.23
Soon after Christmas, news reached England of the death of Louis XII of France and the accession of his cousin, the Count of Angoulême, who became Francis I. Henry’s nose was put somewhat out of joint by the knowledge that the new French King was three years younger than he and looked set to rival him in magnificence and martial valour. France had already achieved cultural ascendancy in northern Europe, and her new monarch was to establish a court that would rapidly outdazzle those of England, Spain, and the Empire. There was rivalry on a personal level as well: everything Francis did, Henry jealously copied. He could not bear to be outshone in any way, and took comfort from the fact that most people agreed that he was “a great deal handsomer than the King of France,”24 who had a dark, saturnine complexion and the long Valois nose. Henry was also considerably more virtuous, for Francis was a notorious lecher whose court was a hotbed of sexual intrigue. But when the new King of France won a brilliant victory over the Swiss at Marignano in September 1515, Henry could not contain his jealousy. At first he declared he did not believe it, but when Francis’s envoy gave him two letters in his master’s own hand, he had to. As he read them, “it seemed tears would flow from his eyes, so red were they with the pain he suffered on hearing of the King’s success.”25
For all his jealousy, however, Henry was to enjoy a genuine rapport with Francis. The two were much alike, “not only in personage, but also in wisdom, delighting both in hunting, in hawking, in building, in apparel, and in jewels.”26
Given Francis’s reputation with women, Henry was concerned for his sister, who, following the custom of widowed queens of France, had donned white mourning and retired into seclusion at the Hôtel de Cluny until such time as it was certain that she was not pregnant by her late husband. There were rumours that the new King was thinking of divorcing his pregnant wife, Louis’s daughter Claude, and marrying Mary instead, but Mary seems to have believed he had designs on her virtue. This is unlikely, given who she was and the fact that, some years later, he inscribed a drawing of her, “More dirty than queenly.”
What Francis did try to bring about was a marriage between Mary and the Duke of Savoy, but Henry felt that Mary could make a more advantageous match elsewhere, and in late January sent Suffolk to France to bring her home. Knowing how matters stood between Suffolk and Mary, Henry made the Duke promise that he would not propose marriage to her. But Henry had not counted on Mary using every trick in the book to get Suffolk to the altar, with the result that the couple were married in secret on 3 March. Once the union had been consummated, Suffolk panicked, and wrote to Wolsey confessing all and begging the Archbishop to solicit the King’s forgiveness. “The Queen would never let me rest till I had granted her to be married,” he explained, “and so, to be plain with you, I have married her heartily, and have lain with her insomuch I fear me lest she be with child.”27 Henry was furious.
When his precipitate marriage became common knowledge at the English court, there were many who were outraged at Suffolk’s presumption. The Privy Council, led by the Howards, urged the King to have him executed or imprisoned 28 since he had committed treason by marrying a princess of the blood without royal consent. Thanks to Wolsey’s intervention, and Henry’s genuine affection for both Mary and Suffolk, it was agreed that they should pay him a large fine of £24,000 (£7,200,000) in instalments by way of compensation. Mary also agreed to surrender to Henry all the plate and jewels she had been given before and during her marriage, and Suffolk relinquished to his master the wardship of Elizabeth Grey, Viscountess Lisle.29 Greatly mollified, the King graciously consented to receive the erring pair back into favour, but there were many who felt that Suffolk had got off too lightly.
In March, Francis I demanded of Mary the return of the Mirror of Naples, which was the hereditary p
roperty of the queens of France, but she confessed that she had sent it to her brother as a peace offering. When Henry refused to give it back, a diplomatic row ensued. Francis tried offering him 30,000 crowns for it, but to no avail. After that, there is no further mention of the Mirror of Naples in the records. There has been speculation that Henry had it recut or renamed, but descriptions of his attire in Venetian sources suggest that he wore it quite openly.
In April 1515, there arrived in England the new Venetian ambassador Sebastian Giustinian and his suite, whose members have left some of the most famous descriptions of the young Henry VIII and his court. The King wanted to impress the Senate, so on St. George’s Day he sent dignitaries to escort the envoy and his train in a barge fashioned like the Venetian bucentaur to Richmond, where the court was assembled. Giustinian and his colleague Piero Pasqualigo both left accounts of the occasion: “Though it was before mass, they made us breakfast, for fear we should faint; after which, we were conducted to the presence through sundry chambers all hung with most beautiful tapestry, passing down the ranks of the bodyguard.
“We were ushered into a stately hall. At one extremity was His Majesty, standing under a canopy of gold embroidered at Florence, the most costly thing I ever witnessed. He was leaning against his gilt throne, on which was a large gold brocade cushion, where lay the long gold sword of state.” The King was resplendent in his Garter robes: “He wore a cap of crimson velvet in the French fashion; his doublet was in the Swiss fashion, striped alternately with white and crimson satin, and his hose were scarlet, and all slashed from the knee upwards. Very close around his neck he had a fine collar, from which there hung a round cut diamond, the size of the largest walnut I ever saw, and a very large round pearl [the Mirror of Naples?]. His mantle was of purple velvet lined with white satin, with a train more than four yards in length. Over this mantle was a very handsome gold collar with a pendant St. George entirely of diamonds. On his left shoulder was the Garter, and on his right shoulder was a hood with a border entirely of crimson velvet. Beneath the mantle he had a pouch of cloth of gold which covered a dagger, and his fingers were one mass of jewelled rings.”
Eight Knights of the Garter stood on the King’s right, and to his left were a number of prelates. Also present were six officers of the household, bearing gold rods of office, ten heralds wearing tabards of cloth of gold “wrought with the arms of England,” and “a crowd of nobility, all arrayed in cloth of gold and silk.”
After kissing the King’s hand, Giustinian “delivered a Latin oration in praise of His Majesty, whom we extolled with all the eloquence we could command. This ended, we attended mass, which was chanted by the Bishop of Durham, with a superb and noble descant choir. Afterwards we accompanied the King to table, where he chose us to see the service of the courses, contained in 16 dishes of massive gold. As soon as he had commenced eating, he sent us with the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham into his [presence] chamber, where a very sumptuous and plentiful dinner had been prepared for us, and by the King’s order a repast was served for all our countrymen and attendants. Having dined, we remained a good while with His Majesty, very familiarly.”30 Giustinian was deeply impressed by the splendour of the court, which “glittered with jewels, gold and silver, the pomp being unprecedented,” and also by the condescension and friendliness of the King, who on one occasion “embraced us without ceremony, and conversed for a long while familiarly on various topics in good Latin and French.”31
The foregoing describes a typical reception for a foreign ambassador, 32 who would attend court only upon a summons from the King. European diplomacy as we know it was then in its infancy. For centuries, continental rulers had sent each other envoys on specific missions, but the concept of the resident ambassador was a new one, instituted by some of the Italian states in the fifteenth century. The first ambassador to be accredited to the court of England, in 1483, was from Venice.33 Ferdinand and Isabella sent their first resident ambassador in 1486, but there was no permanent French ambassador until 1528. From 1505, England maintained ambassadors in Spain and Rome.
Most ambassadors were of gentle birth, well educated and not easily intimidated. They were not usually assigned lodgings at court unless the King wished it,34 but stayed in accommodation nearby, which was provided for them at his expense. Giustinian and his fellows were lodged in the Greyhound Inn and three other houses in Greenwich.35 An ambassador was expected to maintain an appearance that reflected his master’s status, but most monarchs kept their envoys chronically short of funds, and they often had to make up the shortfall from their own pockets. The King always presented home-going ambassadors with a set of plate for a buffet.
An ambassador bore heavy responsibilities: he had to look to his master’s interests; keep him supplied with useful, often sensitive information in minute detail, usually in cipher; and sometimes deal with difficult situations calling for the utmost tact. Some ambassadors became intimately involved in the politics of their host country, and occasionally exceeded their briefs. Nearly all employed spies and informers to seek out state secrets or the skeletons in the closets of the mighty. Many became involved in court intrigues, and a few found themselves in very tricky situations, since diplomatic immunity was not always respected. Wolsey was the worst offender: he curtly ordered Giustinian to show him his dispatches before sending them to Venice, and later grabbed hold of a papal nuncio, Francesco Chieregato, and threatened to have him racked. In 1524, he intercepted the correspondence of the imperial envoy, Louis de Flandre, Sieur de Praet, placed him under house arrest because he did not like what he read, then had him recalled.36
There are frequent references to Henry VIII entertaining ambassadors at dinner in the presence chamber.37 Henry made a habit of taking foreign ambassadors into his confidence. His easy charm and unexpected familiarity ensured that some of them swallowed whole the intelligence he fed them. He once kept a Venetian envoy so long in conversation that the man had to excuse himself because he had developed a pain in his side while standing. 38 In 1509, the elderly Badoer was ill for over a month because he could not adjust to the English climate; the King, not knowing this, summoned him, then “wept for very pity at my having come, it seeming to him that I had been taken out of my grave.”39 As he grew older, Henry became less familiar and more inclined to brag and bluster.
Pasqualigo described Henry VIII as “the handsomest potentate I have ever set eyes upon; above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick. He will enter his 25th year the month after next.”40
On May Day, 1515, there took place one of the most celebrated pageants of the reign. Pasqualigo, Giustinian, and the latter’s secretary, Niccolo Sagudino, all left accounts of it, describing how, early in the morning, the King sent two noblemen to conduct the ambassadors to Greenwich, where they and the “chief lords of the kingdom” mounted on horseback and escorted the Queen, who was richly attired in the Spanish style, two miles into the country to meet the King. “With Her Majesty were 25 damsels mounted on white palfreys” with embroidered gold housings; the girls “all had dresses slashed with gold lame in very costly trim”; their “sumptuous appearance” made their mistress appear “rather ugly than otherwise.” She was now approaching thirty, and middle-aged by Tudor standards.
The cavalcade rode into a wood, where they found the King mounted on Governatore; he was dressed “entirely in green velvet, cap, doublet, hose, shoes and everything,” and surrounded by two hundred archers of his guard “in a livery of green with bows in their hands”; one of them was got up as Robin Hood, and by his side stood a Mr. Villiers dressed as Maid Marion in a red kirtle. A hundred noblemen on horseback were in attendance. “Directly we came in sight the King commenced making his horse curvet, and performed such feats that I fancied myself looking at Ma
rs.”
After an exciting archery contest, Robin Hood asked the Queen if she and her damsels would like “to enter the good greenwood and see how outlaws lived.” The King inquired if Katherine would dare “venture into a thicket with so many outlaws.” Katherine answered that “where he went, she was content to go.” Henry took her hand and led her, to the sound of trumpets, through the wood to some carefully constructed bowers or labyrinths, decorated with flowers, herbs, and boughs and filled with singing birds “which carolled most sweetly.” Within these bowers, tables had been set for “what they call here a proper good breakfast.”
“Sir, outlaws’ breakfast is venison,” Robin Hood informed the King, “and you must be content with such fare as we use.” Henry was happy to comply, and he and Katherine were served game and wine by the archers. “In one of the bowers were triumphal cars on which were singers or musicians, who played on an organ, lute and flutes for a good while during the banquet.”
After a while, the King came over to Pasqualigo and spoke to him in French in the most friendly fashion.
“Talk with me awhile,” he began. “The King of France, is he as tall as I am?”
Pasqualigo replied that “there was but little difference.”
“Is he as stout?”
No, he was not.
“What sort of legs has he?”
“Spare, Your Majesty.” At this, Henry beamed and, pulling aside the skirt of his doublet, slapped a hand on his thigh, saying, “Look here! I have also a good calf to my leg.”
Later that morning, the company proceeded homewards accompanied by “tall pasteboard giants” of Gog and Magog on a pageant car, and singing girls dressed as Lady May and Dame Flora in another car. The cars were “surrounded by His Majesty’s guard” and “musicians sounding the whole way on trumpets, drums and other instruments, so that it was an extremely fine triumph and very pompous, and the King in person brought up the rear, in as great state as possible, followed by the Queen, with such a crowd on foot as to exceed, I think, 25,000 persons. On arriving at Greenwich, His Majesty went to mass,” having covered up his doublet with “a handsome gown of green velvet” and “a collar of cut diamonds of immense value.” Afterwards, “the ambassadors had a private audience.”41