Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII by Robert Hutchinson Page B
Authors: Robert Hutchinson
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– the love of magnificence, ostentation, the rituals of ceremony, the excitement of hunting and gambling, and the design and construction of a range of grand new palaces. A brazen rapaciousness in seizing the cash and property of some of their subjects is immediately recognisable in both.
It is truly a case of like father, like son, down to their unusual height – both were tall, the son over six feet and this, together with their striking red gold hair, marked them out among lesser men.
But where the father was cautious, the son was impulsive. Where the father was often magnanimous in victory, the son was merciless. These dubious qualities were passed on, via the Tudor gene pool, to Henry VIII’s siblings, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
Two important drivers combined to dictate their course of action in almost everything the two king Henrys did. The first was an overweening dynastic pride and the second a chronic lack of assurance in their ability to achieve their ambitions of a long line of Tudor kings.
The nagging fear of losing the crown of England that gripped both father and son was born out of the uncomfortable knowledge that the Tudors’ claim on the throne was fragile in its legality, secured only by right of conquest on the field of battle in 1485. Hence Henry VIII’s immediate, angry reaction to any show of opposition, however insignificant, to his will.
His father’s defeat and destruction of Richard III at Bosworth terminated the Plantagenet dynasty’s hold on England, which had spanned fifteen monarchs and dated back to 1154. The Tudors planned to substitute their own line of succession, doubtless aiming to rule for just as long as their predecessors.
They needed a plentiful supply of male heirs to achieve this with any degree of certainty. Henry VII came close to losing everything when three of the four sons provided by Elizabeth of York died – most decisively Arthur, his sickly heir. When the Prince expired on Saturday 2 April 1502, she sought to comfort a stunned king by pointing out that ‘God has lent them yet a fair and goodly … young prince’.
Henry, as the ‘spare heir’, was never intended for the trials of kingship and the subsequent stifling protection of the teenager provoked his adolescent kicking of the traces after he succeeded to the throne in April 1509.
After those early glory days of feasting, jousting and fun, the continuing lack of a legitimate male heir runs like a thin line of poison through almost three decades of his reign and goes some way to explain his callous treatment of his first wife Katherine of Aragon (spelt with a ‘K’ incidentally throughout, as this is how she signed herself).
Henry VIII was the first English king to have insisted on the title of
‘majesty’ as a form of address. He may later have seen himself as God’s deputy on earth with direct communication to the Almighty at local rates rather than via Rome. But behind all that bluff and bluster, tantrum and tyranny, he felt just as vulnerable as the most miserable of his disease-ridden subjects.
Betrayed by his allies and unable to fulfil his military ambitions, much of what Henry attempted left him with the bitter aftertaste of failure.
This book strives to provide insights into what turned this happy, playful Renaissance prince into the tyrant of his later years when the golden age heralded so optimistically by his accession was slowly transformed into a bleak human tragedy.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Henry VII, c .1501, Society of Antiquaries of London.
2. Elizabeth of York, c .1502. Royal Collection © 2010. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
3. Lady Margaret Beaufort at prayer c .1500. St John’s College, Cambridge.
4. Arthur, Prince of Wales, painted c .1520. Royal Collection © 2010. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
5. Portrait of a boy, inscribed ‘le Roy henry d’angleterre’. (MS 442 Res MS 20) Bibliothèque de Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence.
6. Bust of a laughing child,
It is truly a case of like father, like son, down to their unusual height – both were tall, the son over six feet and this, together with their striking red gold hair, marked them out among lesser men.
But where the father was cautious, the son was impulsive. Where the father was often magnanimous in victory, the son was merciless. These dubious qualities were passed on, via the Tudor gene pool, to Henry VIII’s siblings, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
Two important drivers combined to dictate their course of action in almost everything the two king Henrys did. The first was an overweening dynastic pride and the second a chronic lack of assurance in their ability to achieve their ambitions of a long line of Tudor kings.
The nagging fear of losing the crown of England that gripped both father and son was born out of the uncomfortable knowledge that the Tudors’ claim on the throne was fragile in its legality, secured only by right of conquest on the field of battle in 1485. Hence Henry VIII’s immediate, angry reaction to any show of opposition, however insignificant, to his will.
His father’s defeat and destruction of Richard III at Bosworth terminated the Plantagenet dynasty’s hold on England, which had spanned fifteen monarchs and dated back to 1154. The Tudors planned to substitute their own line of succession, doubtless aiming to rule for just as long as their predecessors.
They needed a plentiful supply of male heirs to achieve this with any degree of certainty. Henry VII came close to losing everything when three of the four sons provided by Elizabeth of York died – most decisively Arthur, his sickly heir. When the Prince expired on Saturday 2 April 1502, she sought to comfort a stunned king by pointing out that ‘God has lent them yet a fair and goodly … young prince’.
Henry, as the ‘spare heir’, was never intended for the trials of kingship and the subsequent stifling protection of the teenager provoked his adolescent kicking of the traces after he succeeded to the throne in April 1509.
After those early glory days of feasting, jousting and fun, the continuing lack of a legitimate male heir runs like a thin line of poison through almost three decades of his reign and goes some way to explain his callous treatment of his first wife Katherine of Aragon (spelt with a ‘K’ incidentally throughout, as this is how she signed herself).
Henry VIII was the first English king to have insisted on the title of
‘majesty’ as a form of address. He may later have seen himself as God’s deputy on earth with direct communication to the Almighty at local rates rather than via Rome. But behind all that bluff and bluster, tantrum and tyranny, he felt just as vulnerable as the most miserable of his disease-ridden subjects.
Betrayed by his allies and unable to fulfil his military ambitions, much of what Henry attempted left him with the bitter aftertaste of failure.
This book strives to provide insights into what turned this happy, playful Renaissance prince into the tyrant of his later years when the golden age heralded so optimistically by his accession was slowly transformed into a bleak human tragedy.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Henry VII, c .1501, Society of Antiquaries of London.
2. Elizabeth of York, c .1502. Royal Collection © 2010. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
3. Lady Margaret Beaufort at prayer c .1500. St John’s College, Cambridge.
4. Arthur, Prince of Wales, painted c .1520. Royal Collection © 2010. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
5. Portrait of a boy, inscribed ‘le Roy henry d’angleterre’. (MS 442 Res MS 20) Bibliothèque de Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence.
6. Bust of a laughing child,
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