Tudor (16 page)

Henry chose Perkin to act as his agent provocateur. The new black damask suit Perkin wore had inspired his hope of the king's favour, and this was reinforced when Perkin was transferred to comfortable rooms beneath those of Edward Plantagenet. Perkin duly made contact and the royal prisoner did not prove difficult to fool. Modern forensic
psychologists observe that those imprisoned as children remain childlike into adulthood.
²⁷
This was very evident with this long-term inmate of the Tower. Aged twenty-four he was querulous and so under-educated it was said he didn't even know the difference between a chicken and a goose.

In the summer of 1499 Perkin convinced his naive victim that he had a plan that would free them both and place one of them on the throne. Edward Plantagenet listened, rarely making any comment, but in failing to call a halt to the plans he had committed treason. On 3 August the ‘conspiracy' was betrayed to the king. Perkin was tried and, after a final confession that he was no Plantagenet, hanged at Tyburn as a common criminal on 23 November. Whatever his hopes of favour had been, he embraced his death ‘quietly'. The following Thursday afternoon the bewildered Edward was escorted to Tower Hill, and there the last male Plantagenet was beheaded. The Spanish ambassador crowed: ‘there does not remain a drop of doubtful royal blood; the only royal blood being the true blood of the king, the queen and, above all, of the Prince of Wales'.
²⁸
The marriage between Katherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur could now go ahead: a marriage which the bride later commented unhappily was ‘made in blood'.
²⁹

Henry had Edward Plantagenet buried in a family vault alongside his maternal grandfather, Warwick the Kingmaker.
³⁰
But nothing could disguise the brutality of his action. Even the Tudor apologist Polydore Vergil recorded how ‘The entire population mourned the death' of the last son of the House of York; ‘Why indeed the unhappy boy should have been committed to prison, not for any fault of his own, but only because of his family's offences, why he was retained so long in prison and what, lastly, the worthy youth could have done in prison which could merit his death – all these things could obviously not be comprehended by many.'
³¹
Vergil went on, however, to supply the answer: ‘Earl Edward had to perish in this fashion in order that there should be no surviving male heir to his family.'
³²
The House of York was now as defunct as that of Lancaster.

12

PUNISHMENT

‘T
HIS DAY
', M
ARGARET
B
EAUFORT WROTE
, ‘I
DID BRING YOU INTO
this world my good and gracious prince, king and only beloved son.' It was 1501, forty-four years since she had given birth to Henry at Pembroke Castle, and he was losing his most trusted councillors to old age, amongst them his uncle Jasper. Margaret Beaufort was in constant pain from arthritis, while Henry, only thirteen years younger and aged by a hard life, was also suffering physical decline. He complained to his ‘beloved lady and mother', ‘my sight is nothing so perfect as it has been, and I know well it will impair daily'.
¹
Others noticed that his teeth were ‘few, poor and blackish' and that he suffered recurring throat infections. In May, when Henry became seriously ill at a royal hunting lodge in Essex, courtiers began to discuss the succession.

Henry's eldest son, Arthur, aged fourteen, was the apple of his father's eye, studious and reserved. As Prince of Wales he already had his own carefully vetted council and household based at Ludlow Castle. His younger brother, the ten-year-old Harry, Duke of York, still luxuriating in the care of his mother and grandmother, was a livelier, more easy-going child. The previous year he had teased the famous scholar Desiderius Erasmus when he came to dinner, sending a note down the table challenging him to match the poetry the young courtier Thomas More had brought as a gift. The great man was sent
into a spin of anxiety, yet he also saw in the boy ‘a certain dignity, combined with singular courtesy'. They were sons Henry VII could be proud of, and the king ‘was full of paternal affection, careful of their education, aspiring to their high advancement, regular to see that they should not want of any due honour and respect'.
²
Nevertheless, an official at Calais reported that, as the king lay ill, his young sons were not mentioned as possible candidates for the throne.

After the instability of the recent past, an adult was preferred as the next king, and ‘many divers and great personages' put forward the claims of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. The first of these was the son of the duke who had turned against Richard III and rebelled in 1483. Buckingham had attended Henry VII's coronation procession as a boy, riding on a horse with a red velvet saddle. Now, he was a large athletic twenty-three-year old, and in Calais it was said he was ‘a noble man and would be a royal ruler'.
³
He would be long remembered by poets who called him ‘the beautiful swan', after the heraldic device of his Bohun ancestors, and as a prince descended from John of Gaunt's brother, Thomas of Woodstock.
⁴
The other candidate, Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, had been younger brother of the late Earl of Lincoln, who had led the Irish invasion against Henry with the boy pretender Lambert Simnel in 1487. Suffolk had worked hard to prove his loyalty since then, but Henry could never quite trust him.

To outsiders Henry's self-control gave the impression of ‘most quiet spirit', but beneath the surface his suspicious mind was ever at work. Henry had taken advantage of Buckingham's minority to nibble away at the duke's vast estates, and since then had deprived him of important office. Suffolk, perceived as the greater threat, was kept still more tightly bound, laden with humiliating debts, while being deprived of honours and income. It was fortunate that Henry had recovered his health by August 1501 when Suffolk finally lost patience and left England to claim the sobriquet of ‘the White Rose'. It was also a relief
to Henry that Arthur's long-planned marriage to Katherine of Aragon was poised to take place.

The king sent orders to every gentleman of substance in England, asking them to prepare to attend on the Spanish princess when she arrived. Margaret Beaufort recorded the great day, 2 October, in her Book of Hours, when, after a difficult sea voyage, ‘my lady princess landed' at Plymouth harbour. The English greeted a pretty fifteen-year-old with almond-shaped eyes and red auburn hair. She had been named after her great-grandmother, Katherine of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt, and if she did not as yet speak any English, this did nothing to dampen public enthusiasm for the marriage. A Spanish attendant wrote home, observing merrily that she ‘could not have been received with greater rejoicings if she had been the Saviour of the world'.
⁵

Katherine had arrived from the light and heat of Spain as the chill of an English autumn set in. Nevertheless she found there was much for her to admire in her new homeland. The land produced excellent beef, lamb and venison, its waters plentiful fish, seabirds and young swan, and they nurtured a tall, fair, good-looking race. The English were judged ‘pious' by an Italian visitor and he noted they put their money where their hearts were, with ‘Their riches . . . displayed in the churches treasurers', the buildings well maintained, with painted walls, exquisite stained-glass windows, and masterpieces of carved oak. Often this included a magnificent rood screen. These structures were solid to waist height with open arches above, and across the top a beam that supported the ‘rood'. Here were displayed the figures of Christ on the Cross along with his mother, the Virgin Mary, and his friend, St John.
⁶
They were used to divide the central section of the church between the area where the priest conducted Mass to the east, and where the congregation stood to the west.

In contrast to today, the priest said Mass in Latin facing away from the congregation, who would pray or read privately on the other side
of the rood screen. Many attended Mass daily, and the Italian visitor described women ‘carrying long rosaries in their hands', reciting the Creed, the Our Father and the Hail Mary in Latin, and also reading prayers in English (or being read to by a friend) ‘in a low voice after the manner of churchmen'. For Katherine, whose mother had fought to defend Christian Spain by expelling the Muslim invaders, this was pleasing to watch.

Yet if the church was part of the rhythm of daily life, the English were also interested in ideas. Unity on discipline under the Pope was not matched by unanimity of thought in the late medieval church. There were as many as nine identifiable ‘schools', and debates could be fierce. These often took place across dinner tables, for the English loved entertaining. Europeans were astonished by the freedom given to women in this regard: they could come and go to see their friends without their menfolk, and there was a high degree of physical familiarity. Erasmus described it as a ‘world of kisses' where your hostess would greet you lip to lip and girls expected to dance while held in a man's arms. With all this warmth and passion around her, the teenage Katherine of Aragon, who was by nature romantic, was surely all the more keen to meet her prince, and when she reached Hampshire she was assured she would do so soon. First, however, she had to meet his father.

It was the afternoon and Katherine was resting when King Henry arrived. Her ladies insisted she was on siesta, but Henry, ever controlling, was determined to ensure she was all he had hoped for his son. Katherine took this in good part, greeting him with ‘great joy and gladness'. She seemed to Henry the perfect princess: attractive, collected and gracious. An hour later Katherine was introduced to Arthur. Only just fifteen, he was formal and self-deprecating, of above average height though slightly built, very like his father as a boy. He greeted her in perfect Latin, before she returned the compliment. He ‘had never felt so much joy in his life', he wrote to her parents, as when he saw her ‘sweet face'.
⁷
Then they parted, to meet again at their wedding.

It was Friday 12 November by the time Katherine reached London, and prepared for her formal entry into the capital. The city walls were judged very ‘handsome' and foreign visitors were struck in particular by the magnificence of the Tower, and ‘a convenient and beautiful bridge over the Thames, of many marble arches, which has on it many shops built of stone, and mansions, and even a church of considerable size'.
⁸

The women of the Tudor family watched the procession together from a high room, ‘not in very open sight'. Margaret Beaufort, married from the age of twelve and never by choice, had used her power as the king's mother to take a vow of celibacy and insist on an amicable separation from her husband, something that was, given his lack of say in the matter, probably unique.
⁹
She now wanted to focus on her charitable and educative works and was about to embark on translations of religious works in French, achievements that would be followed by later royal women.
¹⁰
Alongside her stood Elizabeth of York. The queen had grown plump with the years, but happier. The tension evident in the early days of her marriage, when her husband was so sensitive about their relative status, was gone: Henry had come to love her deeply and her influence on her husband had grown to match that of her mother-in-law.
¹¹
The queen's daughters were also watching: Margaret Tudor, a tomboyish child of almost twelve, was dressed in cloth of gold, while the pretty golden-haired Mary, aged five, was in red velvet, a favourite colour.

Londoners had prepared pageants celebrating Henry's Lancastrian descent from John of Gaunt – the common ancestor of Arthur and Katherine – and the ten-year-old Henry, Duke of York, accompanied his new sister-in-law as the crowds cheered their welcome. He was huge for his age, with a casual artlessness that was quite in contrast to his father's and brother's formality. Later that week he would be seen ripping off his gown to dance freely in his jacket, full of energy and life. Margaret Beaufort had a particularly soft spot for him and had even asked the king's permission for her northern tenants to swear
their lives as retainers to ‘my Lord of York, your sweet fair son'.
¹²
But it was the fifteen-year-old Katherine of Aragon who was the centre of attention. Dressed in ‘rich apparel' and riding on a mule, she wore ‘a little hat fashioned like a cardinal's of a pretty braid' pinned on her long hair.
¹³
A witness commented that she ‘thrilled the hearts of everyone', having ‘all those qualities that make for beauty in a very charming young girl'.
¹⁴

Katherine spent her wedding eve with her future mother-in-law and the other women of the family at Baynard's Castle.
¹⁵
A programme of building had transformed the fortress into a pleasure palace which stretched between two massive octagonal towers and was crowned by French-inspired turrets. Katherine enjoyed a convivial evening of ‘good conversation, dancing and disportes' with the English ladies dressed in the latest French fashions.
¹⁶
The following day St Paul's was packed with people for the wedding ceremony. The walls of the cathedral were dressed with tapestries and gold plate, as well as holy relics hanging in their exquisite cases of precious metals and stones.
¹⁷
Platforms, covered with red cloth and tacked with gilded nails, had been built at head height so that the bride and groom could be seen above the crowded congregation. Amongst them was Owen Tudor's bastard son, Sir David Owen, who had his memories too of the marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.
¹⁸
Holding hands, Katherine and Arthur turned this way and that on the raised walkways to show themselves: Katherine dressed in white satin, her veil bordered with a broad band of pearls, gold thread and precious stones, and Arthur dressed alike, also in bejewelled white.
¹⁹