Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe: Progresses, Palaces and Panache (Routledge Research in Early Modern History) [1 ed.] 9781032255972, 9781032255989, 9781003284154, 1032255978

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Reconstructing Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe
Royal Itineraries
1 The Court on the Move: Problems and Perspectives
2 Progresses and Personal Monarchy in the Reign of Henry VIII
3 The French Kings on the Road: The Court’s Journeys in Renaissance France
The Logistics of Progresses
4 Preparing to Progress: The Great Wardrobe and the Royal Progresses of Henry VIII
5 On Display: The Role of Clothing and Livery on Henry VIII’s Progresses
6 Monastic Lodgings: Housing the King Before and After the Reformation
7 Anne of Cleves: Bound for England
The Spectacle and Symbolism of Progresses
8 Travelling Grooms: A Royal Progress or A Wedding Journey?
9 ‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy? Ladies and Gentlewomen at the Field of Cloth of Gold
10 Magnificence on the Move
The Political Culture of Progresses
11 Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England
12 Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures: The Field of Cloth of Gold and Tudor History Painting
13 Performing Power and Theatricalisation at the Field of Cloth of Gold
14 ‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’: Context and Consequences of the Field of Cloth of Gold
Index

Citation preview

Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe

Authored by a unique combination of university academics and heritage professionals, this book offers new perspectives on journeys made by Henry VIII and other monarchs, their political and social impact and the logistics required in undertaking such trips. It explores the performance of kingship and queenship by itinerant monarchs, investigating how, by a variety of means, they engaged and interacted with their subjects, and the practical and symbolic functions associated with these activities. Moving beyond the purely English experience, it provides a European dimension by comparing progresses in England and France. Royal marriage and the royal progress share common features which are considered through an analysis of the trans-European journeys made by future spouses, notably Anne of Cleves. Also, the book reveals the significance of the art and architecture of houses and palaces, and how the celebrated meeting of English and French kings at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 was part of a wider diplomatic performance full of symbolism including the exchange of gifts and socialising between the two royal courts. Drawing on contemporary art, material culture and surviving buildings, the book will be of interest to all who enjoy the intrigue and splendour of­ sixteenth-century courts. Anthony Musson is Head of Research at Historic Royal Palaces and currently leading an AHRC-funded research project: ‘Henry VIII on Tour: Tudor Palaces and Royal Progresses’. He was previously Professor of Legal History and Director of the Bracton Centre for Legal History Research at the University of Exeter. He has published extensively in the fields of political culture in medieval and early modern England as well as legal iconography and the legal profession. J. P. D. Cooper is Reader in Early Modern History at the University of York and Director of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He is Co-Investigator of the ‘Henry VIII on Tour’ network. He has published books on Tudor royal propaganda and the Elizabethan statesman Sir Francis Walsingham, and edited volumes on Henry VIII’s arms and armour and the architectural and political culture of the Palace of Westminster. He was Principal Investigator of the ‘St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’ and ‘Listening to the Commons’ AHRC-funded projects.

Routledge Research in Early Modern History

The Trial of Giordano Bruno Germano Maifreda A Genlis Education and Enlightenment Values Mrs Chinnery (1766–1840) and her Children Denise Yim Anti-Jacobitism and the English People, 1714–1746 Jonathan Oates The Eye of the Crown The Development and Evolution of the Elizabethan Secret Service Kristin M.S. Bezio Parliamentarism in Northern and East-Central Europe in the Long Eighteenth Century Volume I: Representative Institutions and Political Motivation Edited by István M. Szijártó, Wim Blockmans, and László Kontler The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c.1494 – c.1559 Edited by Alexander Lee and Brian Jeffrey Maxson Spain and the Protestant Reformation The Spanish Inquisition and the War for Europe Wayne H. Bowen Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe Progresses, Palaces and Panache Edited by Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Rout ledge-Research-in-Early-Modern-History/book-series/RREMH

Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe Progresses, Palaces and Panache Edited by Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Musson, Anthony, 1966– editor, writer of introduction. | Cooper, J. P. D. (John P. D.), editor, author. Title: Royal journeys in early modern Europe : progresses, palaces and panache / edited by Anthony Musson and J.P.D. Cooper. Description: New York : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge research in early modern history | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022023955 (print) | LCCN 2022023956 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032255972 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032255989 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003284154 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Great Britain—Kings and rulers—Travel—History— 16th century. | France—Kings and rulers—Travel—History—16th century. | Henry VIII, King of England, 1491–1547—Travel. | Field of Cloth of Gold, France, 1520. | Marriages of royalty and nobility— Europe—History—16th century. | Great Britain—Court and courtiers— History—16th century. | France—Court and courtiers—History—16th century. Classification: LCC DA28.1 .R6775 2023 (print) | LCC DA28.1 (ebook) | DDC 929.7/1—dc23/eng/20220623 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023955 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023956 ISBN: 978-1-032-25597-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-25598-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-28415-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Figure 0.1  The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50. Oil on canvas, 168.9 × 347.3cm, twentieth-century Tudor-style frame. RCIN 405794. Source: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Contents

List of Figures List of Abbreviations List of Contributors

Reconstructing Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe

ix xi xii 1

ANTHONY MUSSON AND J. P. D. COOPER

Royal Itineraries   1 The Court on the Move: Problems and Perspectives

9 11

SIMON THURLEY

  2 Progresses and Personal Monarchy in the Reign of Henry VIII

21

J. P. D. COOPER AND KEELY HAYES-DAVIES

  3 The French Kings on the Road: The Court’s Journeys in Renaissance France

33

ETIENNE FAISANT

The Logistics of Progresses

51

  4 Preparing to Progress: The Great Wardrobe and the Royal Progresses of Henry VIII

53

SEBASTIAN EDWARDS

  5 On Display: The Role of Clothing and Livery on Henry VIII’s Progresses MARIA HAYWARD

70

viii  Contents   6 Monastic Lodgings: Housing the King Before and After the Reformation

84

MAURICE HOWARD

  7 Anne of Cleves: Bound for England

98

VALERIE SCHUTTE

The Spectacle and Symbolism of Progresses

111

  8 Travelling Grooms: A Royal Progress or A Wedding Journey?

113

PATRIK PASTRNAK

  9 ‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy? Ladies and Gentlewomen at the Field of Cloth of Gold

127

JAMES TAFFE

10 Magnificence on the Move

139

TIMOTHY SCHRODER

The Political Culture of Progresses

155

11 Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England

157

LAURA FLANNIGAN

12 Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures: The Field of Cloth of Gold and Tudor History Painting

170

BRETT DOLMAN

13 Performing Power and Theatricalisation at the Field of Cloth of Gold

194

LESLEY MICKEL

14 ‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’: Context and Consequences of the Field of Cloth of Gold

207

GLENN RICHARDSON

Index

223

Figures

0.1 The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 1.1 Map showing Henry VIII’s progress of 1526 1.2 Map showing Queen Elizabeth I’s progress of 1575 3.1 Places where the presence of Francis I is attested in France during his reign 3.2 Journey of the court from Paris to Fontainebleau (11–27 March 1546) 3.3 Antoine Caron, The Court Leaving the Château of Anet, c.1570 3.4 Journey of the court from Fontainebleau to Bordeaux (15 December 1529–8 June 1530) 3.5 Catherine de’ Medici on her litter, detail of The Court Leaving the Château of Anet 4.1 King Henry VIII’s arrival at the Westminster Tournament of 1511 4.2 ‘Ralph Agas’ or Civitas Londinium map of London, 1561 4.3 The Family of Henry VII with St George and the Dragon, c.1503–9 4.4 Portable writing desk, with the royal arms and decoration attributed to Lucas Horenbout (c.1490–1544) 4.5 Marriage bed made for Duc Antoine de Lorraine and Renée de Bourbon, 1515 shown in a digital reconstruction with its documented upholstery of 1532 4.6 Drawing of a ‘chariot’ from the book of drawings of Queen Elizabeth I’s coronation in 1559, second half of the sixteenth century 5.1 Henry VIII on horseback, a detail from The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 6.1 Dartford Priory and cloister, with church, temp. Henry VIII 6.2 The fifteenth-century cloister of Lacock Abbey turned into the courtyard house for Sir William Sharington after 1540, with a new upper floor and mid-century windows 6.3 The surviving range of the Dartford Priory gatehouse at the south-western end of the nuns’ cloister, built for Henry VIII

v 13 14 34 37 40 41 43 55 56 61 63 64 66 71 85 89 92

x  Figures   6.4 The north- and east-facing façades of the surviving fragment of Dartford Priory   6.5 Details of the remains of Dartford Priory showing the use of both ashlar and rubble from Barking Abbey and fragments of flint   7.1 Queen Anne of Cleves, head and shoulders, in a rococo medallion; below, putti seated next to a crown   8.1 The portrait of Maximilian II by William Scrots, c.1544   8.2 The portrait of Maximilian I by Joos van Cleve, c.1508–09   9.1 Ladies and gentlewomen in a tent, a detail from The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 10.1 The cloth of gold tent, detail from The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 10.2 Cope, c.1509, bequeathed by Henry VII to Westminster Abbey (now at Stonyhurst College) 10.3 A royal tent with buffet of plate, from The Story of King David, tapestry, Brussels, c.1520 10.4 The St Michael cup (Antwerp, 1532), gold, enamel, pearls and precious stones 10.5 Tent design said to be for the Field of Cloth of Gold, c.1520 12.1 The Embarkation at Dover, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50 12.2 The Siege of Boulogne (1544), engraved by James Basire for the Society of Antiquaries of London, and published in 1783 12.3 The Meeting of Henry VIII and Maximilian I, AngloNetherlandish School, c.1513 12.4 The Battle of the Spurs, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1513 12.5 Proposal for a new harbour at Dover, attributed to Vincenzo Vulpe, 1532 12.6 The Field of Cloth of Gold (detail, infra-red reflectography) 12.7 The Banquet of Abraham, engraved by Etienne Delaune, c.1550–72 12.8 The Field of Cloth of Gold (detail, infra-red reflectography) 12.9 The Meeting of Charles V and the Bey of Tunis, Niccoló dell’Abate, c.1546–50 13.1 Henry VIII and Francis I seemingly engaged in a wrestling match, a detail in The Field of Cloth of Gold, AngloNetherlandish School, c.1520–50 13.2 François Ier, Roi de France by the school of Jean Clouet (1475/1485–1540) 14.1 Francis I, King of France, after Joos van Cleve, c.1530 14.2 Henry VIII by Joos van Cleve, c.1530–35

93 94 100 119 121 128 141 142 144 146 151 171 175 176 177 180 181 182 184 187 199 200 210 211

Abbreviations

BL The British Library, London CSP Ven R. Brown et  al. (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 38 vols (London, 1864–90) EHR English Historical Review HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission LP J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R. H. Brodie (eds.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols (1862–1910) ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online) OED Oxford English Dictionary (online) REED Records of Early English Drama TNA The National Archives, Kew

Contributors

J. P. D. Cooper (University of York) Brett Dolman (Historic Royal Palaces) Sebastian Edwards (Historic Royal Palaces) Etienne Faisant (Université Paris Nanterre) Laura Flannigan (St John’s College, Oxford) Keely Hayes-Davies (University of York) Maria Hayward (University of Southampton) Maurice Howard (University of Sussex) Lesley Mickel (University of the Highlands and Islands) Anthony Musson (Historic Royal Palaces) Patrik Pastrnak (Palacký University, Olomouc) Glenn Richardson (St Mary’s University, Twickenham) Timothy Schroder (Independent Scholar) Valerie Schutte (Independent Scholar) James Taffe (Durham University) Simon Thurley (Institute of Historical Research/Gresham College)

Reconstructing Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper

In the early summer of 1522, 500 years before this book was completed, King Henry VIII and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V undertook a spectacular joint tour around the south of England. The sight of early modern royalty leaving their palaces and travelling with an extensive entourage through the countryside or approaching a city would doubtless have been astonishing to behold and a memorable experience for those who witnessed it in person. Such royal journeys were captured in various contemporary drawings and paintings, as well as in the dramatic accounts of observers, who often describe events in elaborate and picturesque detail. Perhaps, the most well-known artistic impression is that commemorating the diplomatic meeting of the kings of England and France at the Field of Cloth of Gold outside Calais in June 1520, a dual royal progress on the grandest scale (see frontispiece). The movement of the court according to season and circumstance remained a fundamental feature of the Renaissance monarchies of England, France and the Habsburg territories, articulating a common diplomatic language of pageantry, religious ritual and the exchange of gifts. But if the display and panache can look strikingly similar, the purpose of royal journeys and progresses differed markedly between the princely states of Europe. The government of sixteenth-century England was increasingly focused on London and Westminster, with a corresponding reduction in the range of royal tours by comparison with those undertaken by later medieval kings; Henry VIII travelled to York just once, Elizabeth I not at all, and neither contemplated visiting Cornwall or Cheshire or Ireland, as their forebears had done. The rulers of France and the Holy Roman Empire, by contrast, were more fundamentally peripatetic. As Etienne Faisant points out in his contribution to this volume, the English concept of a summer ‘progress’ is effectively untranslatable into French, even if the pursuit of hunting was essential to both Francis I  and Henry VIII. Such distinctions of meaning made encounters like those of 1520 and 1522, when European monarchs travelled to meet each other or toured in tandem, all the more significant as moments of political and cultural exchange. This book examines how early modern royal journeys and progresses were perceived and defined, the purposes for which they were undertaken and aspects of their logistical and material history. Chapters are grouped into sections addressing royal itineraries in England and France, the administrative and spatial dimensions DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-1

2  Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper of progresses, questions of spectacle and symbolism and the political culture of royal journeys in terms of theatricalisation memory and the performance of justice. Recurring themes throughout the book include the importance of gender as a category of analysis (the exercise of queenship on progress, the masculinity implicit in the royal hunt); elements of unpredictability and royal agency; the challenges of reading source materials (financial accounts, architecture, descriptions of ceremony and etiquette) to recover what actually took place on royal journeys; and how historians of different specialisms can establish a common set of approaches to a diverse topic spanning multiple territories and cultures. While defining a royal journey may seem like semantics, there were perceptual and logistical differences (so John Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies argue) between what English contemporaries regarded as a ‘removing’ and a ‘progress’, which go some way towards explaining how the scope and intention of royal journeys were changing during the first half of the sixteenth century. Aside from the geographical extent of a progress, some difference is also discernible (Maria Hayward observes) in what Henry VIII chose to wear  – a distinction which would have been immediately evident to those involved but has been less noticed by historians. The precise nature of a removing or progress determined how much baggage, and what particular possessions, the king took with him. For instance, the practice of royal piety continued on progress but took a different form as the king’s riding chapel separated from the main body of the chapel royal and temporarily took in local singers to sustain the liturgy surrounding the monarch – a practice that continues in Britain to this day. Of what benefit were progresses to the monarch and the monarchy? As the chapters collected here demonstrate, there could be a spectrum of reasons for embarking on a royal journey, but they normally comprised a mixture of business and pleasure and were linked to particular seasons in the year. Sport and other leisure pastimes (especially hunting) figured largely on the agenda, notably for Henry VIII and Francis I but also for the Stuart kings. However, royal journeys were undertaken for distinct ends in themselves, whether for military purposes or as part of a diplomatic mission (to prevent war), on pilgrimage to religious shrines, in light of impending nuptials or to nip potential rebellion in the bud. They could also offer a means of escape: from the stench of London or unsavoury politics, even (in the case of marriage journeys) to start a new life. While the royal party’s location and schedule were often proclaimed in advance, the duration and venues on the king’s itinerary were nevertheless subject to the mood and whims of the royal person, be it a preference for following the deer, a decision to meet a particular host or a sudden change of plan to avoid the plague. Royal journeys were extremely complex enterprises involving hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. Organisation was thus key to their implementation, requiring close communication between the court and the localities on the venues to be visited, purveyance of supplies, accommodation arrangements and performed activities (whether hunting parties, liturgies, plays and tournaments or dispensing royal justice). The logistics of ensuring that the monarch got from A to B, safely and with everything that he and his entourage needed, was dependent

Reconstructing Royal Journeys  3 upon careful arrangements made by officials to prepare for the king’s arrival (harbingers in England, fourriers in France) and physically to transport the personnel of the royal household, their servants and a vast accumulation of baggage. As Sebastian Edwards demonstrates, to maintain levels of splendour the king needed either to buy or to bring along many of his own necessaries rather than rely wholly on his hosts, even when staying with members of the nobility. The role of the royal Wardrobes is remarkable in this respect, in the carriage and protection of precious items as also in the repair and replacement of commonplace and more valuable objects, from various grades of royal bed and ornate tapestries to carved desks and delicate musical instruments. Accounts of royal journeys, both contemporary and modern, naturally tend to emphasise the power and the glory. For the royal party itself, however, travel could be wearisome and dangerous, with risk of disease or inclement weather – especially if voyaging by sea. For brides in particular, the trials of the journey could be offset by the opportunity to study and acclimatise to new roles, languages and customs. As Valerie Schutte demonstrates, Anne of Cleves used her protracted progress towards England to acquire knowledge of English speech and card games enjoyed by her intended husband Henry VIII and to learn a little of English politics. The logistics of a royal progress themselves could have gendered aspects. On a bridal journey, as James Taffe notes, a princess would be accompanied by a whole court of women. She may nevertheless have lacked choice or discretion as to who it was that accompanied her, it being a matter for her parents or royal officials. This leads to important questions, only some of which can currently be answered, about the presence and role of women on progress: among the royal entourage when queen consort Katherine of Aragon undertook a religious pilgrimage, for instance, or attending Mary I when she travelled to wed Philip of Spain at Winchester. What made royal journeys special or exciting to observe and experience? Progresses and royal tours were performances and at times were actively choreographed, especially during formal entries into cities. Their visual impact was increased by the procession of household officers on horseback, accompanied by the royal baggage carts (in Henry VIII’s case painted with a gilded livery of royal shields, Garter, imperial crowns and supporters), wending their way through the countryside and led by heraldic banners of St George. The theatricality of a progress was further enhanced by the clothing worn by participants, including brightly coloured liveries (usually scarlet, for those meeting the king and queen) and chains of office. Both king’s and queen’s costumes were carefully coordinated and intended to show off their masculinity and femininity respectively, while changes of clothes were similarly stage-managed. As Taffe indicates, the attention to detail and extravagance in dressing the queen and her ladies for a diplomatic encounter provided a gendered form of competition, contrasting with the masculine physical competition of wrestling and jousting. Clothing could also form the substance of a wedding gift; as Patrik Pastrnak points out, some continental brides controlled their prospective husband’s appearance by sending him a series of different robes or forms of attire each day as a prelude to their nuptials.

4  Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper Performance equally involved cultural display that was integral to a Renaissance ruler’s self-fashioning. In addition to the sight of gold gowns (as worn, for example, on a journey by Princess Mary, Henry VIII’s sister), audiences at progress events witnessed a public spectacle of opulence in the form of the king’s jewels and plate. As Timothy Schroder explains, it was not just at banquets that such treasures were revealed: chapel services and tournaments equally provided stages for these arrays of gold and silver plate. Considerable human ingenuity and labour was required to create such magnificent displays. Portable palaces and tents erected as temporary accommodation for the court provided sleeping quarters for the household, but some also functioned as receiving areas for the king. As Glenn Richardson contends, the wooden palace at Guînes, with its monumental gateway and huge scallop-shell pediment flanked by English roses, though purely a temporary structure (later dismantled, stored and repurposed), was in itself an exhibition of English bravura in the style and talent of the workmanship on show. It was testimony, on the one hand, to its own magnificence (analogous to the Crystal Palace of 1851) but also in a broader vein a reflection of Henry VIII’s personal prestige and the glory of England. A performance requires an audience. It is important to consider to what extent responses to royal journeys were also crafted, and what the impact would have been on ordinary people who participated in or simply observed the occasion. Many local people watched or took part in civic entries. The journeys of royal brides and grooms deliberately incorporated a number of staging points, so that festivities could take place at various towns along the way. This enabled public celebration of the dynastic union but also (by including ordinary people in festivities) the engendering of goodwill for the future. Civic entries also enabled the local elite or nobility to position themselves within social hierarchies and to promote their communal and individual causes with the crown. Royal journeys were equally an auditory experience, a soundscape that included the pealing of church bells and musicians playing as well as cheering crowds. The procession of Anne of Cleves, for example, was announced by the sound of trumpets and the firing of cannon. Royal journeys were above all displays of kingship and queenship, intended to enhance public perceptions of the monarch and to project an image of power beyond the principal palaces such as Hampton Court and Fontainebleau. It follows that a progress was not simply about being seen; it was also about engaging with nobles and courtiers in their home regions, as well as the civic and ecclesiastical authorities who hosted or met with the royal party. In this respect, both hunting and feasting were significant ways of bringing people together, combining pleasure with business (‘soft power’), elements of competition and physical prowess mixed in with conversation and communal dining. As part of ‘functioning’ queenship both English and French consorts had formal roles on state occasions but also provided informal support by their presence at tournaments and hunting parties. As Taffe argues, the drinking and carousing by their gentlewomen attendants at the 1520 joust was very much part of the diplomatic endeavour.

Reconstructing Royal Journeys  5 If progresses were an opportunity to dispense and display good kingship, courting regional elites and making monarchy temporarily visible to the population outside the royal capital, one of the significant implications of being on tour was that it brought sovereign and people together face to face. This was not only true through the hosting of the monarch by subjects in their own houses, but also (as Laura Flannigan reveals) an opportunity for litigants following the royal train to seek redress of grievances by presenting a petition directly to the king. The publicfacing and performative nature of progresses, and the hosting of the sovereign by subjects outside the domain of one of his own houses, raised issues not only about security but to what extent conventional royal etiquette was adapted, compromised or even subverted while on progress. The daily rituals and ceremony normally surrounding monarchs could not be maintained in the same degree and were often curtailed or diminished. As Cooper and Hayes-Davies indicate, there were deliberate attempts to provide a degree of privacy by mimicking the separate king’s and queen’s royal apartments at the new wing of Acton Court and elsewhere when Henry VIII was on tour. However, as Richardson remarks, a ruler’s very presence beyond the confines of a royal palace meant they were more accessible to their subjects; to the nobles they visited or hunted with; and to the people more generally with whom they could interact, notably through the medium of gift-giving. Royal progresses could be enlivened by unscripted moments. In breach of protocol, the monarch occasionally deliberately evaded foreign ambassadors, his own officials and the public gaze. Henry VIII may have visited Bristol incognito in 1535, when plague disrupted plans for more conventional celebrations; four years later he went in disguise to view his new bride Anne of Cleves. Undercover assignations, unscripted visits and concealed identities were, as Lesley Mickel argues, a feature of the game of one-upmanship enacted in private by Henry VIII and Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold in June 1520, complementing the more public diplomatic stance adopted by the two kings. Francis’s impromptu visit, which found Henry VIII in a state of undress, was mirrored 18 years later when Francis came aboard Charles V’s moored galley while he was taking a siesta. These reveal a hidden side to the monarch’s travels: not only boldness in the breaking of protocol but also unexpected intimacy and forcible gift-giving to achieve a breakthrough in relations that ordinary diplomacy would not permit. What did royal progresses achieve? This is a difficult question to answer and, as Richardson points out, depends upon whether you are looking at the shortor longer term. The ephemerality of such ostentatious displays is symbolically brought home by the weather wreaking havoc on French tents at the close of the Field of Cloth of Gold. In addition to the social, political and diplomatic goals they might have met, there were cultural achievements in the form of paintings, textile and metalwork craftsmanship, literature, poetry and music produced for progresses. That Henry VIII himself felt the need to justify or validate his achievements on progress is, as Brett Dolman argues, borne out by the spectacle of military and diplomatic journeys commemorated in so-called history paintings, which formed murals and decorations in the royal palaces. This self-conscious

6  Anthony Musson and J. P. D. Cooper chronicling in art was envisaged not just in the form of the Guînes paintings (as they have come down to us) but on a more extravagant scale, involving large teams of painters and commissions from Netherlandish and Italian artists in particular. Beyond their logistics and aesthetics, royal journeys had ramifications for a nation’s economy and infrastructure as well as a significant impact on the landscape and built environment. The socioeconomic effect of this influx benefitted the regions by bringing ordinary and high-status consumers and much-needed employment to an area, albeit on a temporary basis. As Hayward points out, royal servants could be sent out shopping while on progress, and quality materials (such as silks and lace) were sometimes purchased to supplement the royal wardrobe. Innkeepers and shopkeepers but also those who provided services, from farriers and water boatmen to laundresses and musicians, could profit from the presence of the royal court. Enterprising merchants and traders (to say nothing of pickpockets and conmen) may also have followed the household train in the hope of taking advantage of the throng of people. Repairs to royal residences, or the remodelling of aristocratic houses, in advance of the court’s visit assisted stone masons, carpenters, painters, glaziers and others involved in the crafts necessary to adorn a country house. There was a knock-on effect on the national highway system and waterways as arterial routes were improved, as well as some amenity to towns visited where the civic authorities ordered roads to be mended and houses painted. The royal visit to York, in 1541, was particularly noteworthy in this respect. The influx may have been good for some economically while the royal party was there, but the sheer numbers may also have strained suppliers of food, ale and other commodities. When the king altered his route at the last minute, a community may have regretted the investment made in advance of a royal visit. What the underclass of a town, the homeless and poverty-stricken swept from the streets lest they create trouble or a bad impression, thought of a royal visit can only be guessed. The monarch’s own building plans in advance of a progress and subsequently had an enormous impact on the landscape. In England, this was linked particularly to the insatiable appetite of Henry VIII for new properties, but the preferences of later monarchs who favoured new residences (or abandoned old ones, on grounds of economy or taste) also need to be taken into consideration. The extraordinary expansion in the number of royal houses during Henry’s reign was partly down to the crown’s acquisition of forfeited aristocratic estates but even more significantly a consequence of the reallocation of land and franchisal rights resulting from the dissolution of the monasteries. As Maurice Howard demonstrates, while no former monastery became a ‘standing’ palace, nor was anything long-term in their use necessarily envisaged, the king’s architects and builders created temporary timber lodgings at monastic sites and reconfigured former ecclesiastical buildings to provide domestic living quarters that were comfortable and secure. Both Howard’s and Thurley’s contributions prompt us to think about the different purposes and logistics of royal palaces within a monarch’s domain. The decline of castles as residences and the removal of the monasteries as convenient accommodation affected the route of a royal progress but so too did their expense

Reconstructing Royal Journeys  7 and inconvenience. It appears that the choice of venue was exceedingly personal, in France as well as in England. While there might be some logistical reasons for using a certain residence (such as its convenient geography), the king’s decision could also verge on the capricious. A  greater willingness to visit the houses of courtiers, as demonstrated by Henry VIII and taken further by his daughter Elizabeth I, represented a simultaneous need to shift the burden of expense away from the royal purse while making a visit appear a positive thing. Collectively, the chapters in this volume demonstrate how the visibility of a ruler was paramount to personal monarchy, how royal journeys affected the socioeconomic environment and interaction with regional communities and how government and royal display functioned on tour. The evidence and arguments presented here underline the value of royal progresses and civic entries as offering a window on state and society in early modern Europe, providing an opportunity to consider not only what has been lost in terms of cultural heritage but also what might have been if historical accident had not intervened. As Thurley laments, Charles II’s death occurred before a magnificent palace in Winchester could be constructed by Christopher Wren while the great fire that destroyed Whitehall Palace shifted the balance of royal accommodation in the English capital. Sharing the findings of research by scholars from both the academic and professional curatorial worlds, this book also raises important questions that have yet to be answered and highlight the need for further investigation. Future work will need to continue the careful examination of archival and printed sources that underpins the chapters presented here, but also to embrace digital technologies and explore what the close study of architecture, archaeology and material culture can tell us about royal journeys. Considering Tudor and Stuart royal progresses, there is a need to evaluate which venues were reclaimed by the crown and courtiers after the dissolution of the monasteries, how the architectural works carried out mirrored what the king was doing elsewhere and the extent to which these buildings with their extensive lands became more accessible to communities. In a broader European context, this book moreover pinpoints the need for greater understanding of the political and performative roles played by queen’s consort and other members of the royal family on progress, to evaluate contrasting approaches to royal publicity and privacy during royal journeys and to connect these and other questions to the political cultures of rival Renaissance monarchies. Above all, this book emphasises the value of a comparative approach within (and potentially beyond) early modern European states and between the disciplinary studies of history, ritual and performance, art and architecture and archaeology.

Royal Itineraries

1 The Court on the Move Problems and Perspectives Simon Thurley

In February 1593, Queen Elizabeth I was in her new gallery at Windsor Castle and could not decide what to do. Should she move from the castle or not? One of the earl of Essex’s men, Anthony Standen, described the chaotic scene caused by the royal indecision as relayed to him by one of the carters who was loading up the Wardrobe carts with the royal baggage: Three times he had been at Windsor with his cart to carry away, upon summons of a remove, some part of the stuff of her majesty’s wardrobe; and when he had repaired there once, twice and the third time, [and heard] that the remove held not, clapping his hand to his thigh said these words ‘Now I see’ said the carter, ‘that the queen is a woman as well as my wife’. Which words being overheard by her majesty, who then stood at a window, she said, ‘what villain is this’ and so sent him three angels [gold coins] to stop his mouth.1 Over the last twenty years or so, historians have become acutely aware of the value of studying the royal itinerary – again and again it has proved to be a key tool in first understanding and then explaining events. Scholars working on the Tudor and Stuart period have come to realise that you can’t get anywhere without knowing where the court was, who was with it and why they were there. This applies to both the winter itinerant court and the court on formal summer progress. There are still gaps in our knowledge, and none of the Tudor or Stuart royal itineraries have yet been published. There are two scholarly itineraries of Henry VII’s reign, a quite old one for Henry VIII’s and several incomplete but serviceable ones for Elizabeth. We have Emily Cole’s superb scholarly itinerary for King James and the present writer has compiled itineraries, mainly from published sources, for Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Anna Keay has produced a scholarly itinerary for Charles II, and for William and Mary there is one from the newspapers. This is enough to give a general picture of the movements of the court, but other than for Henry VII and James I it is normally necessary to go to The National Archives to confirm the precise movements of the court.2 This chapter takes a view of the court on the move over the course of the Tudor and Stuart period from 1485 to 1703. The purpose is twofold: first to catalogue the geographical and architectural shifts of the monarchy, the skeleton of the royal DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-3

12  Simon Thurley itinerary; and second, to draw out some of the themes that are raised by a summary of a hundred years of royal movements suggesting avenues of future research. Apart from a couple of hours spent at Westminster Palace as a teenager in 1470, when he became king Henry VII had never been in an English royal palace, let alone lived in one. His schooling in the ways of the English monarchy was at the hands of his wife and mother, veterans of the court and palaces. His court, like that of his predecessors, was peripatetic and in the fifteen years up to 1500, Henry probably moved location around a thousand times. His most favoured place was Westminster, easily, and his average length of stay there was longer than anywhere else. Although there were lots of short stays in the winter, he could be in residence for a month before he had to move on to allow the palace to be cleaned. Then came Sheen, where he would stay on average for around ten days, rarely for longer. Third was Greenwich, and fourth was Windsor. These residences formed the spine of his existence. Outside London, Henry VII owned perhaps as many as eighteen other residences. The largest and most splendid, like Woodstock and Kenilworth, would be visited regularly; perhaps ten times in fifteen years, staying for a total of 100–120 nights in each. Other royal houses like Nottingham or Pontefract might only be visited a handful of times for a few nights. Most of the summer progress was made up of visits to the houses of courtiers, bishops and abbots.3 This pattern of royal movements hardly changed in the early years of Henry VIII despite the acquisition of a small number of new houses, such as New Hall in Essex. Henry’s itinerary, like his father’s, was initially reliant on houses owned by bishops and abbots. After 1530, it was radically redrawn because of the acquisition of Wolsey’s former houses, especially York Place and Hampton Court, but also, gradually, of most of the monastic houses that he had used before the dissolution. This meant that while, before 1530, around 65 per cent of the moves Henry VIII made were to houses he owned, after 1530, the figure was 91 per cent.4 The annual round of Elizabeth’s life was not materially different from her father’s. During the winter months the court was itinerant, oscillating between the standing houses in the Thames valley, although unlike her father she mainly travelled by coach between them. Whitehall was her most popular residence followed, in order, by Greenwich, Richmond and Hampton Court. If the queen was staying at these, she would choose to reside either in the west or the east; rarely would she travel from Hampton Court or Richmond directly to Greenwich or vice versa. Visits to Hampton Court, which were mainly autumnal, would often be combined with trips to Windsor or Oatlands. On twenty-three summers the queen made a progress. These, like her father’s, typically started in July and ended in late September lasting around fifty days. Her travels took her as far west as Bristol, east to Norwich, and as far north as Staffordshire. Yet most of her time was spent in the south, and in half of her progresses she barely moved out of a fifty-mile radius of London. Much of this was also the case with Henry VIII, but the key difference was that after 1530, Henry, on progress, stayed in his own houses most of the time; in contrast, Elizabeth preferred to stay with her courtiers  – around 80 per cent of nights on progress she was somebody’s guest. So, for example, in 1561, the

The Court on the Move  13

Figure 1.1 Map showing Henry VIII’s progress of 1526, starting at Windsor and proceeding through Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, in all a journey of over 300 miles.

14  Simon Thurley royal progress into Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire lasted sixty-eight days, during which Elizabeth visited eighteen private houses and two towns but stayed only at four royal houses. Although there was a hard core of Privy Councillors with whom she stayed regularly, in all some 420 of her subjects hosted their monarch for a night or more over the reign.5 In 1603, Sir Robert Cecil, with Henry Howard and his nephew Thomas, Lord Howard hoped that they could simply substitute one monarch for another and everything would carry on under James VI of Scotland more or less as before. But James was thirty-seven, and had been a king all his life. It was far too late to change the way he was. James was a profoundly different sort of monarch to his predecessor. The magisterial dignity of Elizabeth, built on an obsessively cultivated mystique and expressed in magnificent surroundings and pervasive panegyric, had no attraction for James. His style was homely, informal, anti-urban and private, a way of life developed in his long years in Scotland.

Figure 1.2 Map showing Queen Elizabeth I’s progress of 1575, one of her most ambitious summer progresses lasting some 139 days with 44 overnight locations.

The Court on the Move  15 This had a huge impact on the king’s houses, his itinerary and way of life. He didn’t like Kent, where he thought the hunting poor, and the former Tudor houses at Dartford, Canterbury and Charing were given away. The large house at Woking was also granted away, presumably as he already had several big houses in Surrey. His most acquisitive period were the four years between 1605 and 1609, when he bought houses in Newmarket and Royston, the mansions of Theobalds, and Holdenby, and a house in Thetford. In 1605, in a letter specifying the requirements for a new hunting lodge at Ampthill in Bedfordshire, James I drew a distinction between palaces of necessity, where he was accompanied by only those who were necessary for his immediate needs, and palaces of state where the full court would attend. This distinction between state and necessity existed informally under Henry VIII, who would visit smaller houses for hunting and pleasure with his riding household. Such an arrangement did not appeal to Elizabeth, but James I revived it both architecturally and institutionally. The new houses at Royston, Newmarket and Thetford were houses of necessity while Whitehall, Hampton Court and Theobalds were houses of state for pomp and gravity. Royston and Newmarket were a new kind of royal residence. Here James would stay for long periods transacting state affairs as necessary, but there was no state ceremonial; they revolved round the informality of royal life.6 While James loathed London, Charles I found it magnetic. Whitehall was by far and away his most favoured, and frequently visited, residence. In contrast to his father, Charles would move to Whitehall whenever he had the opportunity and the winter court season was extended at both ends to become a four- or (in the 1630s) five-month continuous residence. Like his father, during the summer months, he was there only for business, but then most of the aristocracy and the whole of fashionable society were in the country. Charles made a summer progress every year of his reign up to 1640. Since 1603, of course, the pattern of Stuart itinerance was Britain and not just England. Yet his itinerary was more restricted and conservative than James I’s, visiting a relatively small number of places on multiple occasions and these mostly close to London. It was again hunting that drove his summer’s activities and took him to both his own parks and those of his courtiers. The logistics of the Caroline progresses were no less formidable than those of the Tudors: the king travelled with some 400 carts, guarded by 100 yeomen of the guard and accompanied by more than 1,000 household officers from kitchen scullions to the noblest aristocrats. On an average two-month progress there would be ten to fifteen moves, and on the two extended progresses to Scotland in 1633 and 1639, there were three times that many.7 Protector Cromwell was entirely London-focussed and all the provincial palaces and hunting grounds were disposed of. Apart from Hampton Court and Whitehall, only Windsor Castle was in an even vaguely usable state in 1660. But in the first five years of the Restoration, this did not matter as Charles II barely left Whitehall. In fact, his was the longest more-or-less continuous stay at Whitehall of any monarch ever.

16  Simon Thurley What changed things was the plague. In June 1665, there was a general remove to Hampton Court and, from then on until February 1666, the court was on the hoof, strategically relocating to avoid infection. The seven months that Charles spent on the road highlighted the fact that, other than Hampton Court and Windsor, the crown no longer had any habitable domestic residences outside London. The following spring, determined to rectify this, Charles made a trip eastward to Saffron Walden and purchased Audley End, a house that had been designed from the first to host royalty, with matching king’s and queen’s sides round an inner court. Like many a spur-of-the-moment purchase, Audley End did not live up to reality. The court visited a handful of times but not at all towards the end of the reign. In the end, like his grandfather, he bought a site in nearby Newmarket on which he built a new house. Unlike its predecessor, that had deliberately been a house of necessity, Charles’s new house had much greater architectural presence and even some modest grandeur.8 The second factor that forced Charles II to redraw the royal itinerary was the exclusion crisis. In 1673, after the passing of the Test Act and the acknowledgement of the Duke of York’s Catholic conversion, Charles decided to move the court out of London, which was racked with political tension and unrest. They went to Windsor where the king resolved to make the castle his usual summer residence, commissioning Hugh May to undertake a thoroughgoing modernisation. Completed for the summer of 1678, the new Windsor was a residence entirely devoted to pleasure – when the council met, it did so at Hampton Court, as there was no council chamber at Windsor. Although the medieval curtain walls of Windsor kept the court secure from the disorder of London, rocked by the Popish Plot, it could not replace Whitehall. The political turmoil of the three exclusion parliaments, culminating in its meeting in Oxford, convinced Charles to move the court even further from the capital and it settled, in 1682, in Winchester. There he ordered Sir Christopher Wren to build a vast new residence: not just a hunting lodge but a fully equipped royal palace. It was the first entirely new palace built since the time of Henry VIII, and it encapsulated all the refinements in palace planning that had taken place over the past 150 years. The king’s death and James II’s disinclination to finish the palace robbed history of the opportunity to understand how it would have changed the royal itinerary and possibly remapped the political geography of England. Winchester was potentially an alternative capital, with the new palace invested with the history and infrastructure necessary for rule.9 James II was entirely focussed on Whitehall as the base for his crusade to bring about the re-conversion of England to Roman Catholicism. But his daughter Mary, and her Dutch husband William, came to the throne, like James I, with firmly developed personal tastes and preferences. Arriving in London, William disliked Whitehall and was eager get out to the countryside as quickly as possible. Orders were given for the court to remove from Whitehall to Hampton Court. The decision was met with horror. Keeping the court out of London was bad for the city’s economy and dreadful for the sanity of his ministers, all of whom

The Court on the Move  17 lived in or near Westminster. So, the king was persuaded to look for somewhere closer to Whitehall and quickly settled on the second earl of Nottingham’s house in Kensington. Just a month after the coronation of William and Mary, the Office of Works was busy rebuilding two royal houses for the joint monarchs. It was in this way that King William, within a matter of months of his accession, again redrew the pattern of royal habitation. Whitehall was now to be principally the centre of the national bureaucracy while Kensington was to be William and Mary’s normal town residence and Hampton Court the palace of state. This arrangement replicated their pattern of existence in the Dutch Republic and was also much more like that of James I than that of Elizabeth I or Charles II.10 The new pattern, like James I’s, might have been a temporary recasting of royal movements if it had not been for the fact that in 1698, a massive fire destroyed the state apartments at Whitehall, leaving the central offices of state camping in the former recreation complex in St James’s Park. The loss of Whitehall as the architectural and geographical nexus between monarch, court and ministers must have been felt by Queen Anne, who had seen first-hand how Charles II had bound the sinews of state together in the chambers and galleries of the great palace. But there was no way that she could afford to rebuild it. Anne used Hampton Court and Windsor as her country retreats, and in London she preferred the newer and more private metropolitan palace at Kensington to the official seat of power at St James’s. In short, St James’s and Hampton Court were for business, Kensington and Windsor for pleasure.11 Just over a century of court life in England saw a variety of personal preferences and a range of pragmatic solutions to practical and political problems, each of which affected the royal itinerary. The summary presented here is onedimensional because, apart from the reign of Elizabeth, there were the complementary and overlapping itineraries of members of the royal family who had their own houses and estates. The changes in preference and in geography were as significant for them as for the sovereign. We should also bear in mind the decline of the formal progress: Charles II went on a few summer tours early in his reign, William III went on one and Anne not at all. Yet the picture is clear enough to begin to ask what can be learnt from all this. What are some of the issues that need to be confronted in understanding the court on the move? The first must be the economic impact. Contemporaries were keen to complain about royal presence in their vicinity. Elizabeth I, who spent more than 40 per cent of the nights in her reign in Surrey, received a complaint from its residents that though it was the ‘least and most barren’ of counties ‘it is charged with continual removes and carriage of coals, wood and other provisions to the court . . . also by my lord treasurer for the repair of her majesties houses’. In the following reign, the residents of Royston tied a note to the neck of one of James I’s hunting dogs saying ‘please his majesty to go back to London, for else the country will be undone; all our provision is spent already, and we are not able to entertain him any longer’.12 It is certainly true that royal prerogatives of cart-taking, purveyance and impressment and the activities of the harbingers could be vexatious and costly. Yet

18  Simon Thurley the scorecard was not so one-sided: the Corporation of Winchester bribed Charles II to come to their city and build his palace with lavish gifts of land, materials and plate, much to the dismay of the people of Newmarket who lost the economic benefits of the court staying. In the 1640s, there was despair amongst the luxury trades in Westminster as the court left London.13 It has been estimated that the expenditure of the court increased by £1,000 during progress time. Benefits to craftspeople and shopkeepers are worth a more detailed interrogation. The innkeepers, blacksmiths and brewers were major beneficiaries, as were suppliers of luxury goods, firewood and fodder. Questions about the growth and economic development of towns in the orbit of the royal itinerary are interesting to consider. More attention has been given to the political implications of itinerancy: the court did not travel alone, and the huge entourage frequently contained many of the Privy Council, various administrators and the occasional ambassador. The overlapping itineraries of royal ministers have been studied for Henry VIII’s reign but not for later reigns; they are crucial to the anatomy of power and the aristocratic geography of England. The earl of Arlington built his country house at Euston to be close to Charles II at Newmarket. A few years later leading aristocrats bought and built town houses in Windsor. Town house purchases and country house building both in their location and format were profoundly influenced by the royal itinerary.14 Government continued with the court on the move and instructions had to be issued, leading to the development of the post system between the king and Whitehall and between Whitehall and the south coast and Scotland. For Charles I’s progress in 1636, 150 horses were requisitioned for the royal messengers alone. This is one example of how, in considering the development of departments of state and administration, the peripatetic nature of the executive is an important force.15 The landscape legacy of royal movements is enormous. The infrastructure for hunting was immense: emparkment still defines much of the countryside today. Hare warrens at Royston and Newmarket kept royal coursing supplied, and rabbit warrens supplied royal tables. Restrictions on local people were fiercely policed, and those living round Royston were told to flatten their plough furrows to make it easier for the royal horses. During Elizabeth’s reign there was a revolution in royal transport with the widespread introduction of carriages which led to a drastic improvement in the road network around London and soon further afield. Winchester was only a possibility for Charles II because of the good road and excellent stabling in the city. Regular royal routes created arteries of rapid travel for others generating corridors of access and economic opportunity. A town like Guildford, a royal centre, and a staging post to Portsmouth, benefitted enormously from the frequent passage of the court.16 The hundreds of carts required by the court on the move were initially pulled by oxen, but when replaced by the horse put a huge strain on equine infrastructure, the studs and agriculture. On Edward VI’s first and only progress half his entourage had to be sent home after the first week because there was not enough fodder to sustain the 1,000 horses he had brought with him.17

The Court on the Move  19 Obviously, construction projects also had a huge impact, especially during periods of new build. We know quite a bit about the development of the brick and tile trade in Surrey, but domestic glass manufacture and lead production, both crucial after the 1580s, were also stimulated by royal building and fashions. Certain towns flourished due to the building trades. The growth of Reigate, for instance, must have owed much to the stone quarries so essential to the construction of the royal houses.18 Neither progress time or itinerancy was exclusively rural, and the mobile court had a big impact on towns. The progress of 1634 included a visit to Leicester. The town gates were repainted, while householders were required to paint the outside of their houses and pave the streets in front. The roads were laid with sand and gravel and the streets were strewn with rushes. New liveries were made for the mayor and aldermen and golden bowls with pictures of the king and queen were fashioned as gifts. The earl of Huntingdon, the Lord Lieutenant, was sent ahead to ensure that St Martin’s Church was properly arranged for the Sunday when the king would attend divine service.19 Impacts both short-lived and more sustained were stimulated by royal visits. All this is to say that the monarch and court moving round the country had important, deep-seated and long-lasting implications. Whether they were staying in their own residences or in those of their subjects, the sovereign presence made impacts, some of which were long-lasting and important. Many of these are yet barely investigated, but importantly they demonstrate that the study of royal itineraries is not just an antiquarian pastime; it is a very important tool in understanding economy, landscape, politics, architecture and urban development of England.

Notes 1 T. Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 2 vols (London, 1754), vol. I, 154– 5; E. Goldring, F. Eales, E. Clarke and J. E. Archer (eds.), J. Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources, 5 vols (Oxford, 2014), vol. IV, 210. 2 Henry VII’s itinerary is in L. L. Ford, ‘Conciliar Politics and Administration in the Reign of Henry VII’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of St Andrews (2001), 205– 83; Elizabeth of York’s itinerary, compiled from her Privy Purse expenses, is in A. N. Okerlund, Elizabeth of York (Basingstoke, 2009), 188; Henry VIII’s itinerary is in TNA OBS1/1419 and is analysed in detail in S. J. Thurley, ‘English Royal Palaces, 1450– 1550’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2 vols (1991), vol. I, 317–73, vol. II, Fig. 123; the only published itinerary of Elizabeth I is in E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols (Oxford, 1922), vol. IV, 75–130, an analysis based on this and some other sources is in Mary Hill Cole, The Portable Queen. Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony (Amherst, MA, 1999), 177–236; James I’s itinerary is in E. V. Cole, ‘The State Apartment in the Jacobean Country House 1603–1625’, DPhil thesis, University of Sussex (2010), 365–416. 3 S. J. Thurley, Houses of Power. The Places That Shaped the Tudor World (London, 2017), 35–6. 4 Thurley, ‘English Royal Palaces’, vol. I, 317–73. 5 Thurley, Houses of Power, 350–5. 6 S. J. Thurley, Palaces of Revolution. Life Death and Art at the Stuart Court (London, 2021), 37–52.

20  Simon Thurley 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14

15 16

17 18 19

Ibid., 159–60. Ibid., 317–23. Ibid., 333–9, 344–54. Ibid., 386–93. Ibid., 426–9. S. J. Thurley, ‘The Impact of Royal Landholdings on the County of Surrey, 1509– 1649’, in J. Cotton, G. Crocker and A. Graham (eds.), Aspects of Archaeology and History in Surrey (Guildford, 2004), 155–66; J. Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King James the First, his Royal Consort, Family, and Court, 4 vols (London, 1828), vol. I, 464–5. S. J. Thurley, ‘A Country Seat Fit for a King: Charles II, Greenwich and Winchester’, in E. Cruickshanks (ed.), The Stuart Courts (Stroud, 2000), 226–8. N. Samman, ‘The Henrician Court during Cardinal Wolsey’s Ascendancy c.1514– 1529’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales (1988); A. Barclay, ‘The Court, Civic Politics and Architecture in Windsor, 1685–88’, Court Historian, 25/1 (2020), 51–64; H. Jacobson, ‘Luxury Consumption, Cultural Politics, and the Career of the Earl of Arlington, 1660–1685’, The Historical Journal, 52 (2009), 295–317. M. Brayshay, Land Travel and Communications in Tudor and Stuart England: Achieving a Joined-up Realm (Liverpool, 2014), 247–50, 267–8, 272–304, 309–14. Kingston Borough Archives KG2/3 (1567–1681), 18; KD5/1/1 (1567–1637) 195 and 185, 196; TNA E 351/3203, 3217; S. Adams (ed.), Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586, Camden Society, 5th ser., 6 (1995), 273, 434; H. M. Colvin et al., The History of the King’s Works, 6 vols (London, 1963–82), vol. V, 459. Thurley, Houses of Power, 298–300. T. Tatton-Brown, ‘The Quarrying and distribution of Reigate Stone in the Middle Ages’, Medieval Archaeology, 45 (2001), 189–201. W. Kelly, Royal Progresses and Visits to Leicester (Leicester, 1884), 382–93.

2 Progresses and Personal Monarchy in the Reign of Henry VIII J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies

Everyone here knows that the King today commences his progress, which extends as far as York. . . . As the thing is new, nothing else is talked of. More than 200 tents are carried, artillery is sent by sea and river to within 10 miles of York, and the great horses are taken as if it were a question of war; all because the King, during his reign, has never visited these places, where, for his first entry and for the danger of the daily rebellions, he wishes to be well accompanied by men of these parts in whom he has more trust.1

Henry VIII’s status as arguably the most famous, if not the most loved, king in English history owes a lot to his skill in projecting an image of majesty. As implied in this despatch by French ambassador Charles de Marillac, the summer progresses undertaken by Henry VIII and his retinue were a motive force in that process, enabling the king to command the allegiance of his people and display his sovereignty on a moving public stage. Keeping pace with Henry, but also sometimes breaking away to conduct business on their own account, were his successive queens consort and their households, turning progresses into vehicles of queenship as well as kingship. Add in the many attendant councillors and courtiers, plus the clerks of the royal seals and the riding chapel and every other accoutrement necessary to government and majesty on the move, and a sixteenthcentury progress was a sophisticated undertaking, evidently deemed to be worth the huge investment of effort, time and money. If each of Henry’s progresses was distinct in tone and tailored to particular objectives, taken collectively they offer a cross-section of the early Tudor regime. And yet Henry VIII’s progresses remain an underappreciated feature of his rule; often cited in general terms as a means of cultivating allegiance, occasionally examined more closely for their relevance to broader political or religious contexts, but never until now studied in all their elements – political, religious, ceremonial, architectural  – as one of the repeating rhythms of the reign.2 Nor has there been a sustained effort to consolidate all the known or identifiable ­evidence – manuscripts in the State Papers and numerous other record classes, letters and chronicles, architectural and antiquarian evidence, borough and county archives, local memory – into a single itinerary of Henry’s progresses. That work DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-4

22  J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies is now under way, drawing on a network of researchers brought together by an AHRC-funded project, as a means of reviewing what is known and what may yet be discovered about this potent point of contact between court and country under Henry VIII.3 The current chapter is literally a work in progress, aiming to define key problems in the study of royal journeys and to comment on approaches and sources. But it also seeks clearer definitions of what made a progress, the range of political and religious considerations propelling Henry to travel beyond London, and above all the significance of going on progress within a system of personal monarchy. We also question the assumption that royal progresses were necessarily well received by the communities who hosted the king. If Henry VIII was sometimes met by uncertainty or even fear in the localities, then that needs to be factored into the history of a ruler whom not a few of his own subjects, as well as later generations of scholars, came to regard as a tyrant.4

Defining a Royal Progress What constituted a progress in Henry VIII’s England? The location and composition of the sixteenth-century court varied with the time of year. Between autumn and spring, the full court of up to 1,500 personnel transited between the standing houses (those with a permanent collection of furniture, as distinct from properties fitted out in advance of a royal visit) as need dictated, according to the wishes of the king. The contemporary term for this was ‘removing’; historians have also characterised this as the ‘itinerant’ court. In the summer, the court shrank to perhaps half that size, a slimmed-down body more suited to ‘riding journeys and progresses’ (as described in the Eltham ordinances of 1526) and less likely to overwhelm the resources of the places where the king chose to stay.5 Henry VIII’s itinerary was significantly different from those of his royal predecessors, by dint of the greater stability of the English regions and the growing pull of a metropolitan court. The removing of the royal household or domus from one of the king’s houses to another was a fundamental feature of the medieval English monarchy, consistent with a crown estate centred on the royal duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster and the earldom of Chester in addition to its power base at Westminster. Making a regular circuit of their estates to gather rents and preside over manorial courts was a familiar practice for any later medieval magnate. In summer 1353, for instance, Edward the Black Prince responded to reports of unrest in Cheshire with a personal visit to redress grievances and grant a new charter, culminating in a banquet at Chester castle in honour of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The following year Edward received the homage of his tenants in Cornwall, and he travelled there again with his wife Joan in 1362–3, holding court at Restormel castle and gathering troops for his campaigns in France.6 The language of royal removing was still current two centuries later, as when the young Edward VI noted in his chronicle that he was ‘Removing to Woking’.7 Similarly, the inventory of Henry VIII’s goods lists the contents of the ‘Removing Guarderobe’ attendant on the king’s person ‘where the same for the tyme shall

Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII  23 happen to be’, including cloths of estate with the royal arms and tapestries featuring Hercules and Charlemagne – the portable backdrop of Tudor kingship.8 What was implied by ‘removing’, however, had changed a good deal as a genuinely peripatetic medieval monarchy had become more focused on its principal residences at Westminster and around London. By Henry VIII’s day, the tenor of court life had settled to a seasonal relocation between the standing houses along the route of the Thames including Windsor, Hampton Court and Oatlands, Richmond, Greenwich and Eltham, plus New Hall in Essex (renamed Beaulieu following its purchase from the Boleyns in 1516) and Woodstock Hall in Oxfordshire.9 Several of these were remodelled by Henry VIII, and all feature in his itinerary. The reason why one house was preferred over another is not easy to detect in the records; Simon Thurley describes the process as ‘random’.10 But it seems likely that the liturgical year, and especially the great feasts of Easter, Christmas and Epiphany, influenced the king in choosing where to keep his court. Christmas 1515, for instance, was spent at Eltham, perhaps the origin of the Saxon Kings painted panels now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries.11 The architectural history of properties owned by the king may be read as an index to their comparative significance at any given point in the reign. The ‘newe buyldings and reparacons’ undertaken at Eltham between 1519 and 1522, including a rebuilt chapel ‘with comely wyndowes most chapellyke’ and a new withdrawing chamber for the queen, created a space suitable for numerous further royal visits including another stay at Christmas in 1525/6: the occasion of Wolsey’s Eltham ordinances regulating the behaviour of the court, ostensibly on grounds of economy although a political motive has also been detected. What of ‘progresses’ proper? The Oxford English Dictionary gives a date of c.1450 as the earliest usage of the word in the context of an official tour by a monarch or person of high office; by extension, as cited in one of Archbishop Cranmer’s letters, a ‘progress’ in Tudor English could also mean a procession.12 The language of royal progresses may be traced in Edward Hall’s Chronicle, first published in 1548. Beginning with a reference to Henry VI’s progress into Warwickshire ‘for his health & recreacion . . . Hawkyng and Huntynge’ – according to Hall, a distraction manoeuvre contrived by Queen Margaret for political reasons of her own – Hall describes several of the longer journeys made by Henry VII and Henry VIII, including the 1486 progress to York to ‘wede, extirpate and purdge the myndes of men spotted & contaminate with the contagious smoke of dissencion, & prevy faccions’.13 Henry VIII’s early progresses were different in tone, an opportunity for the new king to put some distance between his own regime and the unpopular government of his father. Hall characterises a young and vigorous Henry passing the summer of 1510 ‘exercisyng hym self dayly in shotyng, singyng, daunsyng, wrastelyng, casting of the barre, plaiyng at the recorders, flute, virginals and in setting of songes’, a pageant of feasts and festivities to contrast with the rule of the winter king. The progress reached Shaftesbury and Corfe Castle in Dorset before concluding with jousts and tourneys at Woking, where Henry VII had built a new hall.14 Not everything was as carefree as this might suggest: Henry took advantage of the court’s absence from London to execute his father’s

24  J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies former ministers Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. But Hall was careful to make clear that the king was acting in response to petitions received on progress. In her study of Queen Elizabeth I’s travels, Mary Hill Cole reserves the term ‘progress’ for ‘those lengthy trips away from London that required, over a number of days or weeks, a series of hosts in several counties to provide hospitality for an itinerant court’.15 The attempt to define a progress is helpful, though the emphasis on private hosts translates less well to the reign of Henry VIII given the astonishing number of properties that he purchased, exchanged or otherwise acquired over the course of his reign. Henry owned more than sixty houses and hunting lodges by the time he died, more than any king of England and (in the judgement of Howard Colvin and John Summerson) ‘an obvious manifestation of a tyrannical and acquisitive personality’.16 The pressure that this imposed on the treasury was a major headache for Thomas Cromwell, who nevertheless knew better than to question a policy that was a reflection of the king’s character as much as a manifestation of his magnificence. If the majority of Henry’s property portfolio was concentrated in the south-east, then he also accumulated houses across a wider arc, including Petworth in Sussex, Ewelme in Oxfordshire, Grafton in Northamptonshire, and (from 1539) the King’s Manor in York: formerly the Benedictine abbey of St Mary, now ‘the Kinges Pallaice at York’ and headquarters of the reinvigorated Council of the North.17 Henry VIII’s provincial progresses were different from his daughter’s because he was less dependent on the hospitality of others, though when he did deign to stay with one of his subjects – William Lord Sandys at The Vyne or Sir Nicholas Carew at Beddington – it was seen to be all the more significant. Perhaps, the simplest definition of a royal progress is also the best: a summer journey beyond the king’s standing houses, mixing business with pleasure in varying proportions according to circumstance (but invariably involving ceremony and display, redress of grievances and dialogue, hunting and gift-giving, religious services and the distribution of alms) and requiring the court to reorder itself into a form appropriate for extended travel. A key difference between the two states of the court was whether the king ‘kept his hall’, enabling his retinue to eat at the crown’s expense in a tradition of hospitality dating back to the AngloSaxon kingdoms. Another marker was the chapel royal, at its full strength ‘for the administration of dyvyne service as appertayneth’ whenever the king kept his hall but reduced to six men, six children and the master while on progress; indeed, Kisby sees this as the key difference between the two states of the court. The usual repertoire of the chapel royal was cut back to a daily Lady Mass with an additional mass and anthem on Sundays and holy days, ‘for whiche purpose no great cariage of either of vestments or bookes shall require’.18 To our core definition of an Henrician royal progress, then, we should add the administrative and liturgical rearrangements which the court underwent. In the words of Susan Wabuda, Henry VIII’s progresses ‘displayed his fitness to rule’.19 In an age when the security of the body politic depended on the wellbeing of the body natural, making a play on the king’s health and strength was an act of state as much as a mark of Henry’s own ebullient personality. Hunting was

Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII  25 a core activity on any summer progress: an opportunity for the king to show off his horsemanship, to escape the press of business in the company of his closest friends and generally to embody a model of monarchy that was already old when it was praised by Bishop Asser in his ninth-century Life of King Alfred. Hall’s Chronicle for 1515 describes the mix of hunting and other activities typical to Henry VIII’s journeys out of London: ‘This Sommer the kyng tooke his progresse Westward, & visited his tounes & castels there, & harde the complayntes of his poore cominaltie, & ever as he roade, he hunted & liberally departed with venyson’.20 Royal hunting has received some scholarly discussion, though the subject deserves closer study in terms of its ritual and material history as well as the possibilities for access to the king that it provided.21 The chance to ride with the king for a day granted temporary membership of the court to a wider group than was able to participate in the jousts staged at Westminster or the procession to the chapel royal at Hampton Court, strengthening social ties between the sovereign and the political nation in the localities. Stag hunting yielded rich spoils that could be shared with followers and hosts. Already a high-status food, venison hunted by the king’s party had additional cachet, and its distribution evoked ancient ideas of royal liberality. In August  1526, Wolsey’s chamberlain William Fitzwilliam reported to the Cardinal on the king’s progress to Petworth, the Sussex estate still at that point in the ownership of the earl of Northumberland: the kinges highnes (our Lord bee thanked) is mery and in good helth .  .  . entertayning such gentilmen of the contrey as reasorted unto his persone in right famyllier maner and with good words, and also rewarded theym with venyson accordingly.22 Fitzwilliam’s references to the king’s ‘right good passetyme’ were not as bland as they might sound. If the king’s health was a matter of state, then his mood – as Wolsey knew better than anyone – was a political issue. A petition for a land grant or placement at court was likelier to succeed when Henry was full of the bonhomie of the hunt and a sense of obligation to his hosts. Were all interactions with local communities as positive as these examples imply? We should not be too quick to assume that royal journeys were successful simply because they happened. Studies of Tudor royal magnificence need to be alert to questions of audience and reception, as well as aesthetic quality and media of transmission.23 Provincial progresses might appear to be a Tudor equivalent of the more personal ‘walkabout’ style of royal tours adopted by the British monarchy following the 1970 visit to Australia and New Zealand. But there is a risk in imagining this kind of interaction between sovereign and public in the deeper past. Cliff Davies sounds a note of caution about Henry VIII’s visits to Cambridge, a ‘fairly low-key and incidental’ by-product of the king’s pilgrimages to the pre-Reformation shrine at Walsingham rather than the ‘dynamic exercises in royal theatre’ proposed by Wabuda.24 At times, Thurley also pictures a more private King Henry than has usually been assumed, removing by barge from one set of privy lodgings to another ‘without entering the public domain at all’.25 The

26  J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies financial implications of entertaining the king and his retinue may also have been a factor. Towns and courtiers welcoming Elizabeth I also fretted about the costs of hosting a queen not known for her largesse, and the same may have been true in Henry VIII’s reign.26 The impact of progresses on the functioning of government also needs to be considered. The king became accessible to a wider circle of advisors than would have been able to approach him in one of the royal palaces; his repeated visits to Wolf Hall, home of Sir John Seymour (father of Henry’s third wife Jane), are a case in point. When Henry travelled, the privy seal sometimes remained behind.27 Did this put more emphasis on the signet, the most personal of the instruments of Tudor government?

Sources and Interpretations The sources for Henry VIII’s progresses are surprisingly rich, if also scattered across a number of record classes and repositories. Historians are drawn inevitably to the State Papers and Exchequer records held in The National Archives, a familiar hunting ground for anyone interested in the functioning of the Tudor state. A hand-written itinerary, apparently reliable where it can be compared with other sources, may have been drawn up by the same R. H. Brodie who worked on the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII series for the Public Record Office.28 Major progresses were plotted and circulated in advance in the ‘gests’ that are a key source for the king’s itinerary, though not all have survived and Henry sometimes changed his plans once on the road; a practice also adopted by Elizabeth, one element in her strategy of ‘dislocating the court’ through progress as argued by Cole.29 Other relevant manuscripts include the records of the Office of the Tents and the Wardrobe, cofferer’s and comptroller’s accounts and the twin inventories of the king’s possessions in the British Library and the Society of Antiquaries, making it possible to trace categories of material culture and even individual objects. Chronicles and ambassadors’ reports supply details of what actually took place on progress while civic records show how the king was welcomed with ceremonial entries, religious services, drama and gifts. Some relevant secondary studies have already been highlighted. Focusing on the first half of Henry VIII’s reign, Samman assembles a plausible case for ‘ritualised splendour’ as a factor in strengthening links between the centre and localities. But his claim that progresses left a ‘lasting impression on contemporaries’ is more difficult to assess: how were royal visits, intense yet ephemeral, remembered by those who witnessed them – and who were those contemporaries?30 The importance of ritual on progress has been identified, whether the ‘liturgy of monarchy’ which (Thurley argues) was intrinsic to royal houses in this period or the more precisely sacred liturgy and music performed by the riding chapel. Earlier Tudor progresses are useful points of comparison, especially as a response to regional rebellion and a means of reconciliation between the crown and local communities. Henry VII’s progress to York in 1486 gave the city the chance to sue for the king’s mercy given its former support for Richard III; a second visit the following year readmitted York to royal favour following its stand against the Yorkist pretender

Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII  27 Lambert Simnel.31 Comparatively little is known about the provincial journeys undertaken by Edward VI and Mary I, making it difficult to plot how the culture of Henrician progresses changed on his death. But the rapid disposal of a number of the king’s houses must have had a bearing, as will the mixture of social unrest, sickness and religious persecution that afflicted the middle years of the sixteenth century. Building on our definition of a royal progress, we can hazard a summary of the purposes that they served and their value within a system of personal monarchy. At a basic level, removings and progresses freed the king and his court to find fresh hunting and a summer at leisure while escaping the contagion of the city and allowing for the standing houses to be scoured and cleaned. At their most sophisticated, as with the joint manoeuvres with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V or the 1535 journey westward, Henry VIII’s progresses pursued a more obviously political agenda, whether diplomatic (temporarily successful in 1522, a failure in 1541), religious (his courting of support for church reform in 1535) or focused on a show of power in the localities. Reviewing the fleet at anchor at Portsmouth, or the fortified harbours at Dover and Hull, presented Henry as a defender of his realm and the military equal of his European rivals.32 Overall, progresses were an opportunity for ceremonial dialogue between ruler and ruled; the point being that this was a mutual engagement, with an expectation that once Henry had been alerted to a problem he would then do something about it. In terms of future research, there are several priorities. The role of queens demands to be better understood, particularly where there is evidence of independent action as in the case of Katherine’s progresses during the 1520s. We need to know more about local responses to royal progresses, the building projects that they stimulated and any lasting legacies of royal visits. The material aspect of taking the court on tour is a subject offering a wealth of possibility, both for Henry and his wives. Progresses also offer a window into the religious devotions of a king who began his reign by going on pilgrimage and ended it by converting monasteries into homes for himself. Public piety had been a dominant motif of Henry VII’s progresses; in 1486 alone, he washed the feet of the poor at Lincoln Minster on Maundy Thursday, held a St George’s day Garter service and crown-wearing in York, and took part in religious processions in Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester and Bristol.33 How did Henry VIII follow or adapt his father’s model, especially once the Reformation had begun? We now briefly review two of Henry’s progresses from the second half of the reign, when both the theory and the practice of English kingship were facing unprecedented change.

Building Loyalty: the Western Progress of 1535 On 8 July 1535 – three days later than planned – Henry VIII and his ‘dere and entirely beloved’ wife Anne left Windsor for Reading Abbey.34 Their departure marked the beginning of one of the longest progresses of the reign. The royal party would travel to Gloucester, Winchester and Southampton before returning to Windsor on 26 October. The 1535 tour highlights recurring themes in

28  J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies Henry VIII’s progresses, including their responsiveness to circumstance – Henry diverted from the itinerary advertised in the gest to avoid plague at Bristol, and to deal with a naval incident at Portsmouth – and the elaborate preparations made by hosts: Nicholas Poyntz built a new east range at his manor of Acton Court in advance of the king’s visit.35 But an analysis of the king’s itinerary, in particular his choice of host and the presence of Thomas Cromwell, also reveals the specific intent behind the 1535 progress. Cromwell joined the court at Sudeley Castle, and on 26 July he accompanied the king and queen as they lodged in Tewkesbury. It was here that he met with his auditors, who would travel almost parallel with the progress throughout the summer, reporting their findings on the alleged abuses of monasteries and abbeys in Bath, Keynsham, Maiden Bradley and Glastonbury. The 1535 progress pursued a dual agenda: to gather evidence of monastic vice and ‘abomination of living’ which Henry and Cromwell would then set before Parliament; and to show favour towards gentry and clergy supportive of dissolution – Sir Thomas Seymour at Sudeley, Sir Edward Baynton at Bromham, Lord Sandys at the Vyne, Bishop Nicholas Shaxton at Salisbury, Nicholas Poyntz – or else persuadable, like Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Preachers accompanying the progress reinforced the message that Henry’s separation from Katherine and marriage to Anne was blessed by God, though imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys reckoned that the people would return to the truth ‘when there is any appearance of remedy’.36 An inventory of Acton Court in 1532 lists the kind of lavish furnishings welcoming Henry and Anne: tapestries and Turkish carpets, carved oak chairs and chests imported from Flanders, cushions of embroidered velvet, a four-poster bed with hangings. The house was well supplied with salts, goblets and apostlespoons in silver or silver-gilt. Archaeological excavations have discovered examples of Venetian glass and Italian glazed earthenware, perhaps purchased for the king’s visit and discarded when they got broken. A painted frieze in the ‘antike’ style brought Renaissance motifs familiar from the king’s palaces to the English provinces.37

Diplomacy and Dominance: the Northern Progress, 1541 Of all Henry VIII’s journeys into the further reaches of his kingdom, the northern progress of 1541 raises the most acute questions about the purpose and impact of taking the royal court on tour. This was certainly an impressive display of power. The French ambassador estimated between 4,000 and 5,000 horsemen and more than 200 tents leaving London ‘as if it were a question of war’; artillery was sent ahead by sea. Meanwhile, the Tower was ‘cleared’ of high-profile prisoners in a swathe of executions.38 Writing from York on 16 September  1541, Marillac describes the scene at the recently dissolved St Mary’s Abbey, where up to 1,500 workmen were ‘night and day building, painting . . . and adding tents and pavilions’ to make it ready to receive the king. Meanwhile the ‘richest tapestry, plate, and dress’ had been brought up from London, to recreate the splendour of the royal court in what amounted to a temporary palace.39 For nine days, Henry

Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII  29 and Catherine occupied apartments converted from the monastic west range and dorter as they waited – in vain, as it turned out – to receive his nephew James V, King of Scots.40 Why this militarised expedition to the north, ‘a radical departure from the ­established routines of the Henrician Court’?41 Three articles in Northern History have attempted to disentangle the threads of international diplomacy, regional ­English politics and Reformation contexts that came together in the 1541 progress. Though they develop different arguments – Richard Hoyle and John ­Ramsdale focusing on mutual provocation between the rulers of Scotland and England, Tim Thornton emphasising Henry’s ‘unalloyed humiliation’ of the city of ­York – ­historians agree that this was not a conventional summer progress, even if the king did manage some hunting along the way.42 Reports of an intended ­conspiracy in the ­Yorkshire town of Wakefield recalled the Lincolnshire and ­Pilgrimage of Grace uprisings five years earlier, though whether this was (as Christopher ­Sansom argues) a ­‘serious attempt to overthrow [Henry’s] regime’ depends on how much credit is given to Chapuys’s account of the ‘Wakefield conspiracy’.43 Henry received the homage of each town and wapentake in two groups, according to their loyalty in 1536; at York, the corporation and local gentry were compelled to kneel in ­submission at Fulford cross, a scene memorably fictionalised in Sansom’s detective novel Sovereign.44 For J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry’s entourage ‘resembled an army of occupation . . . to strike a decent fear, as well as love in the hearts of the querulous northerners’.45 Clearly, the atmosphere of the 1541 progress was tense. But was Marillac correct in his analysis of the ‘danger of the daily rebellions’? Henry VIII decided not to travel north in 1537, when a military tour of recently rebel territory might have made more sense; it is also worth noting that the Pilgrims of Grace consistently protested their loyalty to the king. Henry rode with a substantial number of soldiers (Sansom estimates between 1,000 and 1,500), as appropriate for one king meeting another in a context of a serious danger of war between their two nations.46 But the bulk of his retinue was made up of courtiers, officials and servants: the size of a battlefield army perhaps, but not arrayed as one. Henry also took his queen, much of his government and – for some of the way at least – his daughter Princess Mary. Would this have been wise if the conditions were as ‘hazardous’ as has been claimed?47 Henry has been depicted as intent on the ‘unconditional surrender’ of the north, which might have matched his temperament but would hardly have been a good policy in a region shouldering England’s defence against the Scots.48 The progress of 1541 may rather have represented a new accommodation with the north of England, where governance had been disrupted by the fall of the Percy family as well as the dissolution of the monasteries and the revolts of 1536. For Henry VIII’s sovereignty to be effective, he needed the cooperation of the local elite. A progress was an opportunity for both confession and absolution, a means for the compromised to be readmitted to royal service along the lines of his father’s visit to York in 1486. The king’s council in the north also acquired new premises at the King’s Manor in York: an administrative, legal and ceremonial complex from which the region continued to be governed for a hundred years.

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Conclusion: Henry VIII on Tour In his still authoritative History of the King’s Works, the architectural historian Howard Colvin observed dryly that ‘The history of the English court has yet to be written’.49 During the four decades since Colvin laid down that challenge, historians of Henry VIII’s court have brought to light a great many of the elements that contributed to the practice of his kingship, from the apartments where he lived and the officials who peopled them to the abundance of plate and tapestries, portraits and jewels catalogued by the ‘Inventory of Henry VIII’ project. Animating this image of royal magnificence has been an equally vivid reconstruction of the pageantry and ceremony that proclaimed Henry’s power in his own time and shape how we remember him today. Less evident, at least until now, has been any sustained effort to survey all of Henry VIII’s progresses. Writing in 1999, Fiona Kisby concluded that ‘knowing where the court was at any particular time and why it was there, is obviously essential’.50 As one of those who responded so effectively to Colvin’s call for a new history of the court, Kisby in turn set an agenda that it has taken more than twenty years to follow up. Now that agenda has been set in motion, in the form of a PhD thesis and a research network, and we hope further research to come. When complete, the first full itinerary for Henry’s reign will interact with the richly detailed inventories that have already been published to produce a new model of Tudor royal magnificence on the move. From our pilot project and research undertaken so far, what is abundantly clear is that royal progresses were taken seriously by all concerned: as a means of bringing the splendour of the court to the country but also as an assertion of royal agency and an expression of the priorities of Henry VIII and his queens. Personal monarchy still mattered very much in sixteenth-century England, and monarchy was never so personal as in the time of progress.

Notes 1 LP xvi, 941. 2 Two important articles were published in the 1990s, taking the subject forward and posing key questions, but neither resulted in the monograph-length study that the subject deserves. See N. Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII, 1509–1529’, in D. MacCulloch (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics and Piety (London, 1995), 59–73; F. Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary: A Study of the Peripatetic Household of the Early Tudor Kings, 1485–1547’, The Court Historian, 4/1 (1999), 29–39. 3 The authors would like to acknowledge the research of Dustin Neighbors, whose report for the ‘Henry VIII on Tour’ project and draft itinerary for Henry VIII have made a significant contribution to this chapter. 4 George Bernard, for one, is not afraid to admit that ‘more and more I have come to see Henry VIII as a tyrant’: ‘The Tyranny of Henry VIII’, in G. W. Bernard and S. J. Gunn (eds.), Authority and Consent in Tudor England (Aldershot, 2002), 113. Marillac’s despatches to Francis I anatomised what he saw as Henry VIII’s growing tyranny: R. J. Knecht, ‘Marillac, Charles de (1510x13–1560)’, in ODNB. 5 S. J. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life 1460– 1547 (New Haven, CT and London, 1993), 67, 70; Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 62; Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary’, 32.

Progresses in the Reign of Henry VIII  31 6 M. Jones, The Black Prince (London, 2018), 148, 266–7. 7 W. K. Jordan (ed.), The Chronicle and Political Papers of Edward VI (Ithaca, NY, 1966), 45. 8 D. Starkey and P. Ward (eds.), The Inventory of King Henry VIII (London, 1998), 354–5. 9 H. M. Colvin, The History of the King’s Works, 6 vols (London, 1963–82), vol. IV, 28–9. 10 Thurley, Royal Palaces, 67. 11 J. A. Franklin, B. Nurse and P. Tudor-Craig, Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London (London, 2015), 35–8. 12 ‘progress, n’. OED Online [accessed December 2021]. 13 E. Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke (2nd ed., London, 1548; STC 12722), ‘The trobleous season of Kyng Henry the sixt’, fol. 170; ‘The politique governaunce of Kyng Henry the. vii.’, fol. 4. 14 Hall, Union, ‘The triumphaunt reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII’, fol. 8; Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 344–5. 15 Mary Hill Cole, The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony (Amherst, MA, 1999), 22. 16 Thurley, Royal Palaces, 1; Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 2. 17 Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 356. 18 Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary’, 32–3, 35. 19 S. Wabuda, ‘Receiving the King: Henry VIII at Cambridge’, in T. Betteridge and S. Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Abingdon, 2016), 164. 20 Hall, Union, ‘The triumphaunt reigne of Kyng Henry the VIII’, fol. 57. 21 G. Richardson, ‘Hunting at the Courts of Francis I and Henry VIII’, The Court Historian, 18/2 (2013), 127–41; J. Williams, ‘Hunting and the Royal Image of Henry VIII’, Sport in History, 25/1 (2005), 41–59. 22 TNA SP 1/39, fol. 31r. For this William Fitzwilliam (as distinct from the more famous courtier of the same name), see G. Richardson, Wolsey (Abingdon, 2020), 158. In 1541, Francis I sent Henry VIII a diplomatic gift of game pasties, three of venison and three of wild boar, brought by an officer of the French royal kitchens; their (favourable) reception was watched closely by both the French and Imperial ambassadors. Richardson, ‘Hunting’, 139–40. 23 Examples of this more questioning approach to Tudor royal propaganda include S. Anglo, Images of Tudor Kingship (London, 1992); J. P. D. Cooper, Propaganda and the Tudor State: Political Culture in the Westcountry (Oxford, 2003); D. Shaw, ‘Nothing but Propaganda? Historians and the Study of Early Modern Ritual’, Cultural and Social History, 1/2 (2004), 139–58; T. C. String, Art and Communication in the Reign of Henry VIII (Aldershot, 2008). 24 C. S. L. Davies, review of Betteridge and Lipscomb Henry VIII and the Court, EHR, 129 (2014), 1483–4; see also Wabuda, ‘Henry VIII at Cambridge’, 163. 25 Thurley, Royal Palaces, 77. 26 Cole, Portable Queen, 72, 85–95. 27 Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 63. 28 TNA OBS 1/1419. 29 Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 62–3 and n. 12; Cole, Portable Queen, 40–1. ‘Gest’ (sometimes ‘giest’ or ‘gist’) meant a stopping-place on a journey or progress, a loan word from Old French: ‘gist, n.1’. OED Online [accessed December 2021]. 30 Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 59. By contrast Tim Thornton has argued that the north chose to forget the 1541 progress: ‘Henry VIII’s Progress through Yorkshire in 1541 and Its Implications for Northern Identities’, Northern History, 46/2 (2009), 242. 31 S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969), 21–8; N. Murphy, ‘Receiving Royals in Later Medieval York: Civic Ceremony and the Municipal Elite, 1478–1503’, Northern History, 43/2 (2006), 241–55.

32  J. P. D. Cooper and Keely Hayes-Davies 32 For Dover and Hull see Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 472–5, 729–53. 33 E. Cavell, ‘Henry VII, the North of England, and the First Provincial Progress of 1486’, Northern History, 39/2 (2002), 187–207. 34 D. Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (London, 2004), 559. 35 K. Rodwell and R. Bell, Acton Court: The Evolution of an Early Tudor Courtier’s House (London, 2004), 128. 36 LP ix, 58. 37 R. Bell, ‘The Royal Visit to Acton Court in 1535’, in D. Starkey (ed.), Henry VIII: A European Court in England (London, 1991), 123–5. 38 LP xvi, 941. 39 Ibid., 1183. 40 C. Norton, ‘The Buildings of St Mary’s Abbey, York and their Destruction’, The Antiquaries Journal, 74 (1994), 267. 41 R. W. Hoyle and J. B. Ramsdale, ‘The Royal Progress of 1541, the North of England, and Anglo-Scottish Relations, 1534–42’, Northern History, 41/2 (2004), 239. 42 Thornton, ‘Northern Identities’, 240. 43 C. J. Sansom, ‘The Wakefield Conspiracy of 1541 and Henry VIII’s Progress to the North Reconsidered’, Northern History, 45/2 (2008), 218. 44 Thornton, ‘Northern Identities’, 238; C. J. Sansom, Sovereign (London, 2006), 213–16. 45 J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1968), 427–8. 46 Sansom, ‘Wakefield Conspiracy’, 233. 47 Hoyle and Ramsdale, ‘Progress of 1541’, 240. 48 Thornton, ‘Northern Identities’, 242. 49 Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 29. 50 Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary’, 39.

3 The French Kings on the Road The Court’s Journeys in Renaissance France Etienne Faisant

Like the English court, and many other royal courts, the French court in the sixteenth century was itinerant.1 It experienced, in this respect, two rather different periods: the first characterised by incessant and lengthy journeys, the second – beginning with the reign of Charles IX and, more precisely, in 1566 – by a tendency to remain sedentary in Paris.2 However, neither the first nor the second of these periods saw the French court undertake what one might rightfully call a progress. Naturally, some of the court’s journeys had similarities with its English counterparts, but kings of France never instituted an annual progress. Very revealingly, the word ‘progress’ itself cannot even be translated into French, and the absence of a word designating this particular type of travel shows that its very idea was largely unknown in France. The comparison thus reveals something that may seem self-evident but may actually not be so obvious and must therefore be questioned. To put it another way, contrasting what was done in England, with what happened across the Channel not only puts things into perspective, but it can also lead to new questions. To enhance the analysis of the English monarchs’ progresses offered in this book, this chapter proposes to examine different aspects of the journeys of the French court in the sixteenth century and, more particularly, during the reign of Francis I (1515–47). Serving as a counterpoint to the studies gathered here, it will not attempt to make direct comparisons. Rather it will enable the reader to appreciate that, even if both the Tudor and the Valois courts were always on the move in the early sixteenth century, their customs and practices were not the same.

A Nomadic Court Stays and Journeys The itineraries of Francis I and of the other kings of France in the sixteenth century as reconstructed by historians show that the French court regularly set out to travel from one venue to another, thus journeying through large parts of the kingdom (see Figure 3.1).3 This observation is perfectly in line with what is indicated in a 1539 letter from the bishop of Saluzzo to Cosimo de’ Medici, namely that DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-5

34  Etienne Faisant

Figure 3.1 Places where the presence of Francis I is attested in France during his reign.

the reason for this habit was the hunting resources of the lands the court travelled through: When the court descends on one of these hunting lodges, it stays there as long as the herons last that are in this area and kites. . . . Then it chases the stag twice at the most, it hunts once at the canvas enclosure, and then it moves on to another venue.4 Under Francis I, many of the court’s stays lasted only five to ten days, so the journeys could follow one another in very close succession. During the first half of the reign, between 1515 and 1531, the court did sometimes stay in one place for longer periods of time: not taking into account the period of the king’s captivity after the battle of Pavia, the court had nineteen visits lasting more than two months. By contrast, across the last fifteen years of the reign, the court had only

The French Kings on the Road  35 four stays this long. In the mid-1530s, they never exceeded a month or so, and the court had only one or two stays of that length per year. Therefore, it would appear that the Venetian ambassador to France was not exaggerating much when he wrote that at no point during the forty-five months of his embassy did the court remain in the same place for fifteen days in a row.5 It was also quite possible that, in the midst of a stay as well as during a journey, the king would leave for a few days, often taking only a small entourage with him. For instance, when he was lodged in Blois in 1519, an ambassador from Mantua wrote that the king had gone three leagues from here to a place called Sanborgho [Chambord], hunting, and the queen and Madam [the king’s mother] had gone to stay there for three or four days, and they will come back here [to Blois], where all the rest of the court have remained.6 The Choice of Venues Contrary to the situation around 1400,7 Paris in the early sixteenth century was not a royal residential city where the king would have lived most of the time. Francis I may have stayed there longer than anywhere else, but he still spent on average only forty days there a year.8 If we take a broader view and look outside the city limits, it is not insignificant that after Paris the places where the king and the court stayed the longest during Francis I’s reign were two royal châteaux that had in common both a beautiful prospect and the advantage of proximity to the capital of the kingdom: Saint-Germain-en-Laye (ten miles from Paris) and Fontainebleau (around thirty-five miles away), thus allowing the king to stay in close contact with the capital without its drawbacks. The Île-de-France, the region around Paris, was therefore the area that most attracted Francis  I; overall, he spent around a third of his time there. Evidence shows that Francis I visited this region mainly in winter. Indeed, during the thirty-two years of his reign for over half that time (seventeen times) he was in Île-de-France on the very last day of the year. Nevertheless, the king could also come to Paris in the middle of summer and for almost half his winters, he was in other provinces of his kingdom (the Loire valley of course, but also Picardy, Burgundy, Champagne), in Italy (twice) or, against his will, in Spain. His journeys, therefore, were not determined by seasonal habits but were made in response to various necessities. They could be a reaction to military requirements such as the king having to go to the army or to inspect the borders. Royal journeys could also be motivated by diplomatic meetings, such as the Field of Cloth of Gold or be the result of internal politics demanding his attention. Another explanation for this incessant travel may have been the need for the king to display himself to his own people. Several royal journeys were the occasion of what was called ‘entrées’, festivities organised when the king or the queen entered one of the towns of the kingdom for the first time. Taking the form of impressive processions, these ‘entrées’ were the occasion to show off the monarch’s sovereignty.9 It is undoubtedly for this purpose that from January 1564 to

36  Etienne Faisant May 1566, Charles IX, Francis I’s grandson, under the supervision of his mother Catherine de’ Medici, undertook a ‘grand tour’ of his kingdom for twenty-seven months in a row.10 This extensive trip, however, was a response to a particular political context. Given that the young king had been limited to living in Paris or the Île-de-France and that the nation had just experienced a civil war (in the first war of religion), it seemed propitious to exhibit him to his subjects as a means of reasserting royal authority. During the reign of Francis I, the situation is not so clear-cut. The king is said to have already made two ‘grand tours’ in 1517–18 and 1532–4, the first event was simply a case of Francis I conducting military inspections in Picardy, around Calais and the coasts in Brittany,11 between which the court resumed its habitual life. In the second, the king first went to Brittany to proclaim the union of the duchy to France, then went on to Boulogne in October 1532 to meet Henry VIII and then, a few months later, headed south to meet Pope Clement VII and to oversee the marriage of his son Henri with the pontiff’s niece. It is clear that these journeys answered specific and pressing needs; even when the king was in the vicinity of an important city like Le Mans, capital of the province of Maine, he did not see it as obligatory to break his journey and enter the town in ceremonial fashion. It is possible, therefore, that explanations for the nomadism of the court in terms of the king’s desire to reveal himself to his own people have been exaggerated. Since there is very often no indication as to why the court went to a given region or descended on one particular place, it can only be surmised that the journeys undertaken were motivated partly by political dictates but also by the personal desires and impulses of the king. Itineraries Some journeys, especially those undertaken for diplomatic or political purposes, were anticipated. In such cases, the royal officials and aldermen of the towns where the king was to arrive (as was the case in England) were informed several weeks in advance.12 But this was far from being systematically the case. Generally, it seems the route the court would take was either not publicised or simply not decided. In October  1541, for instance, an ambassador of Mantua reported from Dijon that: It is said that His Majesty will celebrate the feast of All Saints here; then, opinions differ, some say that he will go directly to Fontainebleau, others say that he will go to Picardy to watch the borders, but, as for me, I believe that His said Majesty does not know which way he will go, as it is his usual way of doing things.13 This convention was even more applicable to the journeys between two venues. A letter sent to Mantua on 29 March 1546 indicates that: ‘Since the 11th of this month, the day it left Paris, until the 27th, the court has not stopped pursuing the stags’.14 This explains the very indirect route that the court took from Paris to Fontainebleau between these two dates (see Figure 3.2). Moreover, the author of

The French Kings on the Road  37

Figure 3.2 Journey of the court from Paris to Fontainebleau (11–27 March 1546).

38  Etienne Faisant the letter adds that on the morning of 27 March, ‘leaving to chase a stag’, the king had ‘dispatched the fourriers [officers in charge of housing the court] to [the town of Melun] and to two other places where this stag seemed to be able to go’. Even on that very day, Francis I did not know where he and his court would be sleeping that night. It is thus easy to comprehend why even if some itineraries appear to have an obvious logic, following the simplest way from one venue to another, others appear much less coherent and sometimes include complete round trips. The answer lies in the fact that they probably correspond to hunting parties during which the king and the court simply roamed the countryside, the whim of their quarries determining each day on where they would go next.15

Housing the King and the Court From the Royal Châteaux to Shacks The court regularly stayed in towns and cities, Paris of course, but also other towns in all provinces of the kingdom, whether they had a royal château or not. Francis I did not like towns, however, so he often stayed with his court in one of his own châteaux in the country or, for shorter stays, in a château belonging to one of his friends or courtiers. Indeed, the latter competed to entertain him in one of their places: among many others, he stayed at Pagny at Admiral Chabot’s house, at Mauny at Louis de Brézé’s or at Joinville at Claude de Lorraine’s.16 Such accommodation solutions were fairly conventional, but Francis I  also had the idiosyncrasy to choose to stay in places infinitely less comfortable. For instance, we know that in 1540, he stayed in Nouvion, a village in Picardy near the English Channel. An ambassador of Mantua wrote on 3 March 1540: [T]here are only six to eight houses belonging to paupers; His Majesty is housed in an animal shed where some improvements had been made with wood: he had a reception room and a chapel made of planks with the intention of staying there until Easter. His Majesty says that he is better housed than the Pope. A sadder place could not be imagined.17 In spite of this the king stayed there for seventeen days. Finally, in the journeys between two venues, the king could again be housed in very varied places, whether it be an abbey, the manor house of a gentleman of the region or again some extremely modest accommodation. The Composition of the Court Francis I’s predilection of occasionally settling himself in places lacking convenience was not without major difficulties, mainly because it was also necessary to house the court in similar surroundings. It is difficult to specify the court’s precise composition, because it was variable according to time and circumstances. The court was, in fact, the assemblage of several different courts and was therefore unstable. Its core was made up of the king’s and queen’s households, which under

The French Kings on the Road  39 Francis I represented on average about 850 people.18 But these could be attended by their own servants in varying numbers according to their rank: a minor ladyin-waiting to the queen could be accompanied by ten or twelve servants,19 and figures as exalted as the duke and duchess of Guise were attended (when they were at court) by a household of around 200.20 Such figures do not include the king’s military household, which can be estimated at between 700 and 900.21 To this first nucleus could be added, depending on the moment, the household of the king’s mother, the households of his children or other members of the king’s family (his sister or cousin and so on) and also those of the ambassadors and long-term guests at court. For example Ippolito II d’Este, archbishop of Milan, was accompanied by 116 men when he came to the court of Francis I in 1536.22 To this would be regularly added delegations, petitioners and royal agents as well as the occasional visitors. We might therefore conclude that the numbers of those at court varied according to the departure or arrival of great lords or relatives of the king. Sixteenthcentury courtiers noted when the court was small or ‘large’. According to the Venetian ambassador in 1546, the court numbered ‘usually six, eight and up to twelve thousand horses’,23 and as many people. This low-range assessment could easily be exceeded when the court was ‘large’: Benvenuto Cellini wrote that ‘the king’s train always drags along behind it twelve thousand horsemen. In peacetime when the court is complete there are eighteen thousand, and so with twelve thousand the number is at its lowest’.24 Housing the Court After each move thousands of people had to be housed. However, no château could accommodate such a large crowd as even the king’s most spacious château could house only a few hundred people.25 The majority of the court stayed in inns, otherwise predominantly in the homes of local residents. The allocation was made by the king’s ‘fourriers’, who went in advance of the court. This was often problematic as there were few towns that could accommodate everyone and the king, as has been observed, often halted or stayed in places with very few dwellings. The ‘fourriers’ therefore had to use all the surrounding villages. Members of his immediate family were housed in the villages closest to where the king was staying; then the officers required for his daily life were billeted, the officers required for other members of the royal family, then his guards and finally the royal venery for hunting.26 The remaining villages in the locality were assigned to the princes and lords present at court. Even when the king stayed in one of his own great châteaux, surrounded by a small town, some courtiers were by necessity accommodated in villages up to three or five miles away or sometimes even further from the sovereign.27 This frequently caused complaints, especially from the ambassadors, who were often housed too far from the king for their liking.28 Even then the buildings provided were not necessarily regarded as sufficient and Cellini wrote: ‘so there we were, following the court through places where sometimes there were scarcely two houses to be seen; we pitched canvas tents like gipsies, and more than once we had to suffer great discomfort’29 (see Figure 3.3).

40  Etienne Faisant

Figure 3.3 Antoine Caron, The Court Leaving the Château of Anet, c.1570. Source: (Paris, Louvre) Cl. © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/Jean-Gilles Berizzi

The French Kings on the Road  41

The Journeys Travel Patterns To understand the exact conditions under which the court travelled, we can use the example of Francis I’s trip to the Spanish border in 1529–30, on the occasion of his second wife’s arrival in France, for which the king’s itinerary is better documented than usual30 (see Figure 3.4). It is apparent that the court could travel, depending on its needs, for five or even seven days in a row. If the journey to reach the next venue was longer, it was interspersed with breaks of a day or two

Figure 3.4 Journey of the court from Fontainebleau to Bordeaux (15 December 1529–8 June  1530). The dots indicate the stops during the journeys, the squares the venues.

42  Etienne Faisant (or sometimes three). The distance covered during this trip averaged about fifteen miles per day of travel, but this figure in itself is not very revealing. Two types of days dominate: the most frequent pace was between seven and fifteen miles, but many days around twenty miles were covered.31 This may have more to do with the choice of a fast or slow pace than with any particular difficulties in terrain or surroundings. Indeed, the route between Blois and Orléans was covered much more quickly on the outward journey than on the return journey.32 Moreover, not all the court travelled together. Journeys between two locations could be made by groups or in successive waves, with the result that not everyone was on the same road at the same time. After the celebration of the marriage, in Marseille on 28  October  1533, of Prince Henri and Catherine de’ Medici, the cardinal of Bourbon, his brother the duke of Vendôme, their family and ‘all their large suite’ left on 12 November, the daughters of the king and René de Savoie, his uncle, on 13 November, and the king himself on 14 November.33 The queen, for her part, did not leave until 24 November because she was sick. Modes of Transport of Persons and Furniture Francis I usually made these journeys on horseback or by mule.34 When the route allowed it and followed a navigable waterway, such as the Seine or the Loire, he could travel by boat.35 In 1540, he received as a gift a ‘coche’, a wheeled carriage that he liked very much because of the speed that it reached,36 but carriages of this type remained rare in the following decades. Generally, horses and mules were the usual means of transportation for those who did not walk on foot: the chancellor of France Antoine du Bourg (who was following Francis I and the court) fell from his mount and died in 1538, while travelling on a mule. The usual means of transport for the queen and prominent ladies was the litter, a closed box carried by two mules which could be very luxuriously fitted out and even closed with windows with glass37 (see Figure 3.5). The accounts of Catherine de’ Medici’s stable in the following generation indicate that the queen also had horses (in fact mares) and saddle mules at her disposal at all times.38 Her stable service also maintained other mares for her ladies and girls-in-waiting, as well as three ‘chariots branlants’ (wobbly wagons), four-wheeled carts roughly suspended on chains or leather straps, each drawn by four horses, which, like those of her sister-in-law Marguerite de France, were to be used for the journeys of her other ladies-in-waiting and maids.39 The luggage was carried by carts or, mostly, on mules. To transport the luggage of Éléonore of Austria and her ladies in July 1530, no fewer than 400 mules were assembled.40 Catherine de’ Medici maintained permanently ‘thirteen load mules which are usually used to carry the bed, coffers and other pieces of furniture of the room of the queen’. In the same period, the cardinal of Châtillon had ‘thirteen mules furnished with their packs, good, strong and sufficient to carry the clothes and pieces of furniture of the said lord cardinal following the court’.41

The French Kings on the Road  43

Figure 3.5 Catherine de’ Medici on her litter, detail of The Court Leaving the Château of Anet, from the Valois tapestries, c.1576 (Florence, Uffizi).

44  Etienne Faisant The French court’s way of life implies that these mules or carts carried not only clothes but also all the furniture necessary for the royal stops and stays. An account of 1562 testifies to the fact that the ‘furniture and utensils of the king’s room, hall and wardrobe’ were transported by road in his wake.42 Only the largest châteaux belonging to the Crown had a permanent supply of furniture, stockpiled in storerooms and which could sometimes be supplemented, in anticipation of a future stay, by sending on furniture stored in other châteaux. It was therefore essential for the court to travel constantly with all that was necessary for all the stopovers during a journey but also for all the stays made outside the royal residences. It seems that it was only in the case of exceptional events, notably diplomatic meetings, that additional furniture, its luxuriousness varying depending on the importance of the event, was prepared or assembled and sent directly to the place of the meeting.43 Finally, it should be noted that the perpetual itinerancy of the court meant that in addition to clothes and furniture it was necessary to take with it absolutely everything that was used for daily life. It is therefore entirely understandable that when drawing the court leaving the château of Anet, Antoine Caron represented not only birds and hunting dogs but also, in the foreground, mastiffs, a monkey and a bear from the royal menagerie (see Figure 3.3). Ruling on the Road As the court had no real home base but moved permanently throughout the kingdom, the king’s council, where all political, administrative and military matters were settled, as well as many legal cases, was also by nature itinerant. The council was held mainly during the stays: in July 1530, the ambassadors of Marguerite of Austria wrote that since the court had not stayed in any place since their last letter the Council had not yet assembled.44 However, we have knowledge of decrees that were made during periods of travel and even on dates when the king spent only one night in the place where the decision in question was signed. This implies that the Council met in the morning, after rising and before the departure of the king and the court or, more rarely, in the evening, after the arrival of the court at the place where it was to spend the night.45 However, the Council could be assembled only when the king was with the court. When he left for a few days with only a small entourage, political and military matters were in principle suspended, at least for the most important decisions.46 The ambassadors of Margaret of Austria wrote once that having gone ‘to court to know what could be done’, they had found the king ‘on his way to go hunting, where he stayed for three days, and since then he has returned. It is four days since the aforementioned are separated with the Council’.47 This last issue is only one of the many consequences of the nomadism of the French court in the first half of the sixteenth century. The court made shorter and shorter stays in the very varied places where it stopped, otherwise roaming the

The French Kings on the Road  45 roads on longer and longer journeys. The constant itinerancy of the court enabled Francis I to regularly reach strategic places, as evidenced by his important presence in the north-east or towards Italy. Between these planned trips, the court was still fundamentally nomadic. It moved unceasingly, mainly (but not solely) in Îlede-France and in the Loire valley, but often without planned itinerary: any direction being dictated by the desires of the king and the running of the deer. The king’s aim when travelling through the realm was thus not purely to show himself off to his people, an aim appropriate only at particular moments such as the ‘entrées’. More subtly, by roaming over a considerable proportion of the kingdom, Francis I adopted a way of life that promoted the proximity of the king and his people, which in his eyes at least was one of the prime qualities of the French monarchy.48

Notes he author is very grateful to Monique Chatenet for her generous advice and suggestions. T 1 On the French court in the sixteenth century, see the reference work of M. Chatenet, La cour de France au XVIe siècle. Vie sociale et architecture (Paris, 2002). 2 C. zum Kolk, ‘La sédentarisation de la cour à Paris d’après les itinéraires des derniers Valois (1515–1589)’, in B. Bove, M. Gaude-Ferragu and C. Michon (eds.), Paris, ville de cour (XIIIe-XVIIIe siècle) (Rennes, 2017), 51–68. Charles IX was still underaged when he came to the throne in 1560 and, therefore, under the regency of his mother Catherine de’ Medici. The progressive sedentary nature of the court can be explained by the civil war that was then raging in the kingdom but also maybe by the fact that as the court had again grown, it became increasingly difficult to organise its journeys (and its supplies). 3 The itineraries of several kings of France have been compiled in a database available online (https://cour-de-france.fr/squelettes/bases/itineraires/recherche_itineraire.php), in particular for the sixteenth century under the impulse of Caroline zum Kolk. 4 The bishop of Saluzzo to Cosimo de’ Medici, 24 April 1539, Romilly: Quando si abbatte a uno di questi alloggiamenti, si stà tanto quanto durano gli aironi che sono in paese e i nibbi. . . . Poi si corre due volte quando mai più al cervio, e vassi una volta alle tele; e poi si muta alloggiamento. (A. Desjardins (ed.), Négociations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane, 6 vols (Paris, 1859–1886), vol. III, 17) 5 Marino Giustiniano to the Republic of Venice, 1535: ‘nel moi tempo la corte si è fermata tanto che potessi giudicare che ella stesse in un luogo quindici giorni’ (N. Tommaseo (ed.), Relations des ambassadeurs vénitiens sur les affaires de France au XVIe siècle, 2 vols (Paris, 1838), vol. I, 108). 6 Giacomo Suardino to Federico Gonzaga, 4 October 1519, Blois: Circha al fare acadere in presto como el Re del tardetto lo farò, retornata Sua Mata, quale in questa sera è andata a tre leghe de qua ad un locho apelato Sanborgho alla cacia, et la Rezina e Madama sono andate per starli tri o quatro giorni e retornarano qua, dove tutto el resto de la corte è restata per essere tal locho molto picholo d’alozamenti. (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, AG 635, fols 101r – 102r, kindly provided by Monique Chatenet)

46  Etienne Faisant 7 B.  Bove, ‘Les rois médiévaux sont-ils Parisiens? Essai de synthèse des itinéraires royaux médiévaux de Philippe Auguste à Louis XI (1180–1483)’, in B.  Bove, M.  Gaude-Ferragu and C.  Michon (eds.), Paris, ville de cour (XIIIe-XVIIIe siècle) (Rennes, 2017), 25–49. 8 Chatenet, La cour de France, 320–1. 9 On the ‘entrées’, see most recently M. Deldicque, ‘Le souverain et la ville en fête: les entrées royales sous les Valois’, in O. Beaufils and V. Droguet (eds.), L’art de la fête à la cour des Valois (Paris, 2020), 40–5. 10 J.  Boutier, A.  Dewerpe and D.  Nordman, Un tour de France royal. Le voyage de Charles IX (1564–6) (Paris, 1984). 11 The purpose of the journey in Brittany is clearly stated in a letter from Francis I to his ambassadors in England dated 24 September 1518 from Morlaix in Brittany: Je suis toujours à faire les visitacions des villes et places de mon pais de Bretaigne, et vous asseure que je l’ay trouvé un très beau, fort et grand pays, et où y a de belles comoditez pour la force et plus que je n’eusse pensé. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits, Français 5761, fols 11v-12, published by M. Garand-Zobel, ‘Lettres échangées entre François Ier et ses ambassadeurs à Londres (août-octobre 1518)’, Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, 112 (1954), 104–25, at 118) 12 See, for instance, A. Pottier, Les entrées de Éléonore d’Autriche, reine de France, et du Dauphin, fils de François I, dans la ville de Rouen, au mois de février 1531 (Rouen, 1866), XII. 13 Giovan-Battista Gambara to the cardinal and the duchess of Mantua, 26 October 1541, Dijon: Qua dicono che Sua Mata farà la festa di Ognisanti; dipoi diversamente parlandosi, gli è dice che tirarà dritto verso Fontanabelio, altri dice che l’andarà in Piccardia per veder quelle frontiere, ma per me credo che la istessa Mata non sapia che camino tenirà come il solito del proceder suo. (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, AG 639, quoted by Chatenet, La cour de France, 45) 14 Tommaso Sandrini to the cardinal and the duchess of Mantua, 29 March 1546, Melun: Dalli XI del presente che la corte parti de Parigi insino alli XXVII, è stata continovamente appreso a cervi. Prima verso Monforte, Chiatre, Monlery et Limour, e puoi passata la Senna verso Yerra e Bria contra Robert, 4 leghe de qui contra Parigi, donde sabbato prossimo che fu il XXVII, partendosi con correr un cervo et havendo mandato e forrieri qua et in due altre bande dove pareva puotesse voltarse detto cervo et sendo gia quasi tutta la corte qui ridotta Sua Mata passò discote de qui due leghe la fiumara, et tirò di loro a Fontanabelleau altre 4 leghe de qui, ove alli XXVIII era arrivata. (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, AG 640, quoted by Chatenet, La cour de France, 19) 15 For instance, a letter sent by Fabrizzio Bobba to Mantua on 23 July 1539 indicates that il venerdí, che fu li XI del presente, [Sua Mata] se partete cum tuta la corte. . . . Et cossí se ne va passegiando per il paese de Bria d’uno in un altro villagio, et sempre nel piú tristo che si trova. Hora Soa Mata se ritrova ad uno suo locco chiamato Becoseò. . . . Il sitto he molto appropriato alla cazza. (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, AG 638, quoted by Chatenet, La cour de France, 45) 16 On this topic, see Chatenet, La cour de France, 38 and 258–62.

The French Kings on the Road  47 17 Giovan-Battista Gambara to the cardinal and the duchess of Mantua, 3 March 1540, Abbeville: Hora Sua Mata è allogiata ad una villa discosto di qua tre leghe che si chiama Novion, dove non è che sei o otto case de povere genti. Et Sua Mata allogia in una stalla, dove si è fatto alcune reparationi de legnami, et li fa far una sala et una capella pur de asse, con animo de stargli fina a Pasqua, et Sua Mata dice ch’ella sta meglio allogiata che’l Papa, et non si può veder el piú tristo luoco. (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, AG 639, quoted by Chatenet, La cour de France, 45) 18 C. zum Kolk, ‘Au cœur de la cour: les maisons royales sous le règne d’Henri II et de Catherine de Médicis’, Les amis du vieux Saint-Germain, 56 (2019), 20–9. 19 J. Boucher, Société et mentalités autour d’Henri III (Paris, 2007), 291. 20 M. Meiss-Even, Les Guise et leur paraître (Rennes, 2013), 106–10. 21  P. Hamon, L’argent du roi, les finances sous François Ier (Paris, 1994), chapter 1. 22 M.  Hollingsworth, The Cardinal’s Hat. Money, Ambition and Everyday Life in the Court of a Borgia Prince (New York, 2004), 63–4. 23 Marino Cavalli to the Republic of Venice, 1546: E non si maraviglino vostre signorie di questa somma, perchè quando le vedessero quella corte (che per l’ordinario è sempre di sei e talora di otto fino a dodicimila cavalli), e il modo del viver suo, che è profusissimo e senza regola alcuna, le crederiano tanto e forse più. (Tommaseo (ed.), Relations des ambassadeurs, vol. I, 284) 24 B. Cellini, The Autobiography of Benevenuto Cellini, trans. G. Bull (Baltimore, 1956), 252. 25 M.  Chatenet, ‘Une demeure royale au milieu du XVIe siècle. La distribution des espaces au château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye’, Revue de l’art, 81 (1988), 20–30. 26 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits, N.a.f. 7225, fol. 377–380, published by Chatenet, La cour de France, 327–32. 27 The bishop of Saluzzo to Cosimo de’ Medici, 24 April 1539, Romilly: ‘cercare di una casa sola con poche stanze per alloggiare il re e le dame; e gli altri, ogni uomo alla busca, tre, quattro e sei miglia lungi’ (Desjardins (ed.), Négociations diplomatiques, vol.  III, p.  17). In 1580, Henri  III granted exemptions to the inhabitants of the villages around Saint-Germain-en-Laye, considering that: ‘d’aultant que nous sommes ordinairement en nostre chasteau et maison de Sainct-Germain-en-Laye, nous désirons favoriser le villaige et paroisses de deux lieues alentour pour ceulx de nostre suite’ (Archives communales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, EE 3). 28 For instance, Giovan-Battista Gambara to the duke of Mantua, 26  December  15, Loches: ‘Solo quelli che tranno all’ingrosso sono allogiati con facillità et si porta mancho rispetto alli ambasciatori che alli altri: che sia vero, sono stati gli ultimi allogiati, et con gran fatica’ (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, AG 638, quoted by Chatenet, La cour de France, 35). 29 Cellini, The Autobiography, 252. 30 In addition to P.  Marichal (ed.), Catalogue des actes de François Ier (Paris, 1887– 1908), the account of the king’s offerings (Archives nationales, KK 101) indicates, for the periods that are preserved, where Francis I attended mass. 31 One could also make very fast trips ‘en poste’, that is travelling at full gallop thanks to the royal system of relay stations set up by Louis XI along the routes of the kingdom. 32 One could imagine that the outward journey was faster because it was made by boat, but the journey between Joinville and Dijon was also made at an average of twenty miles per day and this was necessarily by road.

48  Etienne Faisant 33 H. de Valbelle, Histoire journalière (1498–1539), ed. V.-L. Bourilly (Aix-en-Provence, 1985), vol. I, 257–8. 34 The king did not use a litter, as we learn from a letter sent to him by the chancellor Duprat on 1 September 1521, on the occasion of the conferences at Calais about cardinal Wolsey: Sire, icelluy cardinal en alant à la messe tiroit peine sur sa mule et m’a dit qu’il estoit grevé en façon que ne povoit endurer le cheval, si m’a demandé si avoye une lictière. J’eussy voulu en avoir une et qu’il m’eust cousté deux fois autant qu’elle pourroit valloir. Sire, vous luy ferez chose fort agréable si vostre plaisir estoit luy en envoyer une. Vous congnoissez le personnaige et veryez le temps qui court, elle ne seroit pas perdue. Et d’autant que a Madame en grande vénération, quant le don se feroit au nom d’elle, me semble soubz correction que n’y auroit que bien et que l’en trouveroit meilleure, car scet que vous n’en usez point et penseroit que seroit de celles de mad. dame. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits, Français 2966, fol. 29) 35  In 1516, for instance, he made the trip from Moulins to Blois by water: J. MartinDemézil, ‘Frédéric Gonzague à ‘Friteosognon’: un épisode des voyages en zigzag de la cour de France’, in Mélanges offerts à Claude Leymarios (Blois, 1997), 63–6. 36 Giovan-Battista Gambara to the duke of Mantua, 30 June  1540, Paris (Archivio di Stato di Mantova, AG 639, quoted by Chatenet, La cour de France, 126). 37 See, for instance, Marguerite de France, Mémoires et lettres de Marguerite de Valois, ed. F. Guessard (Paris, 1842), 90: J’allois en une lictière faite à pilliers doublez de velours incarnadin d’Espaigne, en broderie d’or et de soye nuée, à devise; cette litière toute vitrée, et les vitres toutes faictes à devise, y ayant, ou à la double, ou aux vitres, quarante devises toutes différentes, avec les mots en espaignol et italien, sur le soleil et ses effects. Laquelle estoit suivie de la litière de madame de La Roche-sur-Yon, et de celle de madame de Tournon ma dame d’honneur, et de dix filles à cheval avec leur gouvernante, et de six carrosses ou chariots, où alloit le reste des dames et filles d’elles et de moy. 38 For instance, see Archives départementales de la Manche, 262 J 719. The queen also had a ‘coche’. 39 J-L. Bourgeon, ‘Note de lecture: 1572, quand le tout-Paris se met à rouler en “chariot de Flandre” ’, Histoire, économie et société, 18/3 (1999), 659–66 at 661. 40 C. Pardanaud-Landriot, ‘Plaider, convaincre, entrer en scène: Éléonore d’Autriche et la libération des Enfants de France, d’après sa correspondance inédite’, Seizième Siècle 4 (2008), 195–216 at 207. 41 Archives nationales, Minutier central, ét. CXXII, 1368, 22 October 1556. 42 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits, Français 20686, fols 70–77v. 43 In addition to the well-known example of Field of the Cloth of Gold, the example of the meeting of Francis I and Pope Clement VII in Marseille and the wedding of prince Henri and Catherine de’ Medici is well documented: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits, Français 10390, fols 3v – 32v. 44 G. de Boom (ed.), Correspondance de Marguerite d’Autriche et de ses ambassadeurs à la cour de France concernant l’exécution du traité de Cambrai (1529–1530) (Bruxelles, 1935), 132. 45 For instance, during the 1529–30 trip to Bordeaux, the king slept at Donnemarie-Dontilly during the night of 18–19 December 1529, and a decree was signed there on 19 December; he slept at Barbezieux-Saint-Hilaire during the night of 29–30 May 1530, and a decree was signed there on 30 May; he slept at Celles-sur-Belle during the night of 21–22 August 1530, and a decree was signed there on 22 August.

The French Kings on the Road  49 46 But the king on one side, or the Council on the other side, could make decrees on particular matters. For instance, Francis I appointed a new Grand Almoner of France on 8  October  1519 at Chambord (L.  de Savoie, Journal de Louise de Savoie, ed. P. Dumaih (Clermond-Ferrand, 2011), 31) and we’ve seen that the king was then apart from the court. 47 François de Bonvalot and Philippe de Lalaing to Marguerite of Austria, 22 September 1530, Amboise: A quoy entendu, alasmes en court pour scavoir ce que pourrions faire, mais le roy estoit sur son partement pour aller à la chasse, où il a esté trois jours, et depuis retourné il y est derechiefz. Il y a quatre jours que lesdits sont séparez avec le Conseil. (de Boom (ed.), Correspondance de Marguerite d’Autriche, 176) 48 Chatenet, La cour de France, 110.

The Logistics of Progresses

4 Preparing to Progress The Great Wardrobe and the Royal Progresses of Henry VIII Sebastian Edwards

Edward Hall’s Chronicle draws a comprehensive sketch of how the young Henry VIII might spend a typical day during a royal progress:1 exercisyng hym selfe daily in shotyng, singing, daunsyng, wrastelyng, casting of the barre, plaiying at the recorders, flute, virginals, and in settyng of songes, makyng of ballettes, and did set 2 goodly masses, every of them of fyve partes . . . the rest of this progresses was spent in huntyng, hawkyng, and shotyng. This range of courtly pleasures mirrors those mentioned in other contemporary accounts of the king’s life at his principal royal palaces in and around London. But how was this achieved during a progress or remove, and how was the expected standard maintained for this most voracious of English kings? This chapter developed out of research undertaken at Historic Royal Palaces into the private domestic realm of Henry VIII and the possibilities for presenting to the public the location of his former private lodgings at Hampton Court Palace (Surrey). Any attempt to reimagine such royal spaces, which have been almost completely destroyed or rebuilt, is confronted by a dearth of material evidence combined with the elusive documentary record of a still highly mobile court following medieval patterns, which utilised a number of, and often-changing, royal houses during Henry VIII’s reign. Whilst a comprehensive history of the king’s progresses and removes (that is, regular sojourns between his principal houses) is still in the making, in recent years architectural and material historians have provided detailed descriptions and analysis of his more than fifty homes and thousands of domestic possessions, which are summarised in several inventories. Perhaps, inevitably for a monarch who enjoyed a rapacious appetite for all forms of consumption during a relatively long reign of nearly thirty-eight years, the documentation of more ephemeral moves and special events has largely been obscured by the quantity of information that survives for his everyday living. The calendars to the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII have long been used to provide an outline of an as yet unpublished (and unfinalised) royal itinerary for the reign, and the documents also provide occasional detail for the royal household’s preparation of houses for a remove. Sydney Anglo’s groundbreaking studies of DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-7

54  Sebastian Edwards early Tudor spectacle shone the spotlight on much details of the experience and impact of these events, both in England and in France, and particularly for the year 1520 (see Figure 4.1). The enormous extent of Henry VIII’s houses as a setting for the progresses has been expounded by Simon Thurley, from his original study of the buildings’ appearance and function to his most recent work on Tudor palaces, which presents them as the products of the personalities and politics of their owners, connected by ambitions as much as by road and river.2 The most detailed and searching work on furnishing early Tudor houses has been developed by Maria Hayward. Crucial for understanding the Great Wardrobe is her book on its accounts for the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, which are held in the National Archives.3 Building on her original work on the Wardrobe of the Robes and Beds of Henry VIII, this meticulous guide provides important background, reference and full transcripts of particular (itemised) accounts in English across both their reigns.4 More widely cited are the published encyclopaedic royal inventories. With the exception of the inventory of Whitehall in 1542 (in which items are recorded by type), and a number of smaller lists compiled by specialised household offices, these were registered after Henry VIII’s death for the purpose of locating, itemising and sometimes securing all the royal goods.5 As such they do not provide reliable ‘snapshots’ of the appearance of the many houses’ rooms as they were in Henry’s lifetime, because they had been out of use for a while. They also tend to record the larger and less important ‘standing’ furniture which remained in situ, with the majority of personal objects and valuable textiles removed to various ‘secret’ jewel houses, standing wardrobes or the central Jewel House at the Tower of London or located at the Removing Wardrobe in the City (see Figure  4.2). These are highly relevant as a comprehensive record of the king’s accumulation of possessions stretching back even before the start of his reign; they include many everyday items overlooked in other contemporary sources. The inventories are also useful for understanding royal progresses as a result of their occasional details about redundant or broken items, which provide chance insight into household goods in use rather than for display. The inventories enlighten us about the accumulation, range and (though only occasionally) changes in fashion in furnishing the king’s and other royal houses that were in regular use in the royal itinerary and progresses. They are more meaningful when considered alongside the particular accounts of the Great Wardrobe which offer detailed evidence of royal supply in real time, in the form of warrants issued from wherever the king or his signet happened to be. Conversely, they rarely document the specific intended location for a particular order. Even so, some of their contents can be related to the king’s removes and progresses in their details. These accounts, though predominantly of special interest to dress historians, have been less well-studied, being largely unpublished and less accessible owing to the fact they are written in Latin and liberally interpolated with English and French specialist terminology.6 Even though only just over half of these particular accounts survive for the reign, these usefully provide even coverage from Henry VIII’s accession up until 1544, although unfortunately some crucial years in the 1530s

Source: College of Arms MS Westminster Tournament Roll, 1511, mm. 12–14. Reproduced by permission of the Kings, Heralds and Pursuivants of Arms.

Preparing to Progress  55

Figure 4.1 King Henry VIII’s arrival at the Westminster Tournament of 1511. Held in celebration of the birth of the king’s son, this contemporary image shows King Henry riding in armour with a canopy held over him, similar to the pavilions kept in the Great Wardrobe.

56  Sebastian Edwards Figure 4.2 ‘Ralph Agas’ or Civitas Londinium map of London, 1561. The fourteenth-century offices of the Great Wardrobe were situated near the Blackfriars friary, marked at the junction of St Andrew’s Hill and Carter Lane. It was within the city merchants’ district, with good access by road and river to the London palaces (detail). Source: c.1633 edition. London Picture Archive – London Metropolitan Archives.

Preparing to Progress  57 are missing which would otherwise have provided important details relating to his marriages to Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour and the birth of Prince Edward. Interspersed through the extensive records of royal clothing and furnishing textiles are occasional references to the ‘progress stuffs’ and the workings of the royal wardrobe in preparing and moving furnishings between royal houses. The accounts document makers’ and merchants’ names and occasionally provide insights into the activities of the Wardrobe’s own officials. Most entries also record the place of issuing a warrant, so they have the potential to provide another checklist of locations for king’s seal (as warrants were signed or issued on his behalf), which can be added to more well-known records when considering a royal itinerary for the reign.7 Of particular interest here is how the Wardrobe and other members of the royal household prepared lodgings and furnishings in advance of the king’s visits, especially the provision of more specialised materials such as collapsible furniture, protective cases and harnesses as well as specialised transport for the safe delivery of costly goods, all of which greatly assisted Henry VIII’s progresses. Lastly, this chapter shows how this unfamiliar material can shed light on the king’s behaviour away from his principal residences and questions the idea of permanence in relation to the contents of what are usually considered Henry VIII’s chief palaces and that were so carefully itemised on his death in 1547.

Preparing for Progress Household ordinances and written instructions to members of the royal household tend to reflect a retrospective response to the king’s needs, including those for maintaining magnificence when away from the principal residences, and these make it clear that an approximation of their rooms and material appearance could be expected anywhere the king chose to be. As Neil Samman has shown, there was a well-worn routine about the progress, carefully planned in advance and published in the ‘giests’, the lists of locations which were circulated in advance of the king’s progress (and which could be at variance on occasion with those published).8 John Norris, a gentleman usher working at the middle level of the household and brother to Henry, the Groom of the Stool, later recorded his experience of preparing for the king’s visit in the form of an ordinance: [T]he gentleman usher shall command the yeoman usher to warn the groom porter to bring rushes to straw the chambers aforesaid, and shall warn the groom of the wardrobe aforesaid to bring in arras to hang the chambers aforesaid, and to bring also a cloth of estate with a chair and cushions, and then the yeoman of the chamber shall hang the said chamber, and when it is hanged, then the yeoman usher shall show unto the gentleman usher how and what they have done, which then will resort unto the said chambers to oversee the doing of the yeoman usher, and whether it be well to his mind and purpose, and as it ought to be.9 Norris goes on to describe how any new lodgings required at least four rooms, large enough to accommodate not only the king but also his servants and guards,

58  Sebastian Edwards and significantly the queen’s lodgings too which ‘shall have as many chambers as the King hath, or more if that may be had’ and that these shall be the ‘fairest and largest’. This was the pattern set in the principal houses in the earlier part of the reign, such as at Hampton Court, where in Cardinal Wolsey’s new building the queen occupied the loftier second-floor apartments above the king’s. Norris is precise and specific in these instructions, presumably based on first-hand experience, and they provide more direction for royal accommodation during a progress than the much-repeated Eltham Ordinances of 1526, which place more emphasis on the good conduct and order of the royal household. There is more concern for the safekeeping of the host’s possessions from theft by members of the court than the comfort and outward appearance of the royal lodgings.10 When Henry VIII made his first progress after becoming outright owner of Hampton Court, in September 1530, it was the responsibility of Thomas Heneage, one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber (and uncle to another Thomas who would later become vice-chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth I), to ‘lay out’ the palace in advance by paying the keepers and the watermen, who were essential for removes made along the Thames.11 By the reign of Queen Elizabeth I this had become the established routine, but in practice it is likely to have been a tradition handed down long before it was formulated in written ordinances.12 For example in his description of preparations for Anne Boleyn’s coronation, Norris declares that it is the ushers’ responsibility to command items from the Removing Wardrobe as they require. The appearance of mobile furnishings in the Great Wardrobe accounts suggests that in order for the king to be received in his accustomed splendour, he had to purchase or bring along many of his own necessaries rather than rely wholly on his hosts, even when they were very wealthy or ambitious. This large royal household department was headed up by its keeper. For much of the reign this was Sir Andrew Windsor (c.1467–1543), who presided over the Grooms of the Wardrobes of Robes and Beds as well as the Arras-maker, whose workshop of English and Flemish weavers maintained the large stock of tapestries. They were housed north of the royal residence of Baynard’s Castle, next to the Blackfriars in the city of London. Besides the offices and workshops of the Great Wardrobe itself there was also the Removing Wardrobe, a large store for the issue of furnishings used by the itinerant court.13 Among the endless provision of clothing, servants’ liveries and wall hangings, the Wardrobe periodically supplied new items of furniture – which otherwise might be purchased directly through the Chamber of the Treasury or later, the Privy Purse  – and also regularly carried out running repairs to goods including some called ‘progress stuffs’.14 The Great Wardrobe was also the hub for a network of supply to the Standing Wardrobes established at each of the larger royal houses and, on occasion, to other locations visited by the court both within and outside of royal ownership. For instance, in 1516–17, William Gysnam was paid ‘for the safe-keeping of [amongst other items] one cloth of estate and one chair of estate given by the lord king to the queen of Scots, and carried from London to Northampton by order of the lord cardinal’.15 This was around the time when Henry VIII took his elder sister Queen Margaret of Scotland into his protection, as a consequence of the death of James IV in battle against him at Flodden.

Preparing to Progress  59 When the king himself made an entry in state to a town, he relied on the Wardrobe to provide the standards, often heraldic banners of St George, as an essential part of the pageant that accompanied the monarch. A typical example is in an order of 2 August 1522, for banners issued to Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey (later 3rd duke of Norfolk), who as Lord Admiral was leading attacks against French ports at this time. These included sarsenet (a type of fine silk) banners of St George, which were painted, gilded and embossed with the royal arms by the king’s painter, John Browne.16 These regular provisions played an important part in maintaining the king’s opulence and visibility to the people whilst on the move himself or through the actions of his agents. One of the first opportunities to promote Henry VIII’s international status after coming to the throne was the military attack campaign of 1513, against the French in Picardy. Here, the king desired to bolster his political position and his status in comparison to his more powerful ally, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, by replicating the grandeur and luxury of his permanent residences whilst leading battle from a remote castle or even a tent in a field. To judge by the scale and complexity of the temporary lodgings and multi-roomed tents at the ‘Battle of the Spurs’ – the climax of the campaign – as recorded in the eyewitness account of a German visitor, it was quite possible to mirror both the functionality and the physical appearance of his palaces in all their richness. This went right down to the monarch’s inner sanctum where he briefly lay in a field in France, in the ‘King’s bed, hung round with a curtain of very precious cloth of gold, the gilt woodwork being carved and very well finished’, enclosed within a chamber painted red outside hung with ‘golden tapestry’.17 Another example of Henry VIII’s ambition to vanquish in time of peace his greatest international rival, newly crowned Francis I by emphasising the presentation of the monarch appears in report from the Venetian Ambassador in early 1515. He mentioned that the king ‘had despatched a messenger to Florence to purchase a great quantity of cloths of gold and of silk, that he might receive King Francis with honour’ at Calais, an auspicious occasion which would in the event take another five years of diplomacy to achieve at the Field of Cloth of Gold.18 When that great set piece of international diplomacy finally took place in 1520, the scale and logistics outstripped the more usual chains of supply under the auspices of the Lord Chamberlain’s department and several alternative sources were plundered. Consequently, as Glenn Richardson and others have shown, the documentary evidence for such an exceptional progress – of a sort – is not nearly so complete. Details of how the king was equipped in France, must be gleaned from official ‘memorial’ documents, a few witness reports sent by envoys privileged to attend in person and the accounts of chroniclers.19 The picture these sources provide is one of ephemeral magnificence achieved in haste by adapting local buildings and creating large temporary structures, fitted out by not only the Wardrobe but using any other resources that could be called on to meet the huge sudden demand for luxury goods, the finest of which were mostly imported from Europe. There are notable lacuna in the Wardrobe and certain other key records at important events in Henry VIII’s mid-reign, including the coronations of the 1530s, when the splendour of the palace was made visible in the streets of London.

60  Sebastian Edwards Again, observations from those attending emphasise that interior furnishings such as tapestries and cloth of gold hangings briefly adorned the exteriors of both state and private buildings along the processional routes. Much better recorded is the second and final military campaign against the French, at the siege of Boulogne of 1544. That episode was perhaps more notable for its visible display than its eventual military success, and much of this is captured in exceptional accounts made for the new keeper of the Wardrobe, Sir Ralph Sadler, a large proportion of which has been published.20 This evidence itemises the soldiers’ various liveries (forerunners of uniforms) and concludes with a list of elaborate banners with religious imagery, which gave the voyage across the English Channel the appearance of a crusade rather than a skirmish. Perhaps, the most exceptional item ordered was not some great new weapon or ship but the king’s crimson and yellow velvet bed made specially ‘for the lord king’s voyage across the sea this year, towards his ancient enemy the king of the French, along with other things’ for the exceptionally high sum of £716 18s 3d, which was notably still owing on account after the event. That year’s supply also included an unusually large and varied amount of rich textiles received from abroad by the Wardrobe’s long-standing clerk, Nicholas Bristow, which were mostly likely intended for the king’s use on this expedition.21 That the furnishing of Henry VIII’s portable lodgings was equal to that of his palaces seems very likely, judging by the ornamentation of these timber buildings, which employed many of the same craftsmen as his palaces.22

Equipping the Annual Progress One key element of the Great Wardrobe’s stock for more regular progresses was a pair of tents, the ‘Great and Small pavilions’, which were inventoried in its accounts at the beginning and end of each year. The larger of these had a ‘topper’ (most likely the ceiling) and ‘walls’ (internal hangings) made of crimson tissue of gold, embroidered with roses and suns; the second was blue cloth of gold and had hangings bearing imagery, most probably painted. They were provided with finials of gilded and painted balls, a lion and heraldic banners.23 Their relatively small size and longevity suggests they were put to routine use, an outdoor equivalent to a cloth of estate (see Figures 4.1 and 4.3). When it comes to wall hangings there was constant demand for work from the king’s tailors carrying out running repairs, hanging and occasionally replacing tapestries, the staple decoration for the palace walls. By their very nature most tapestries were kept in storage and hung for special occasions or changed regularly, even when they were intended for use at one location. This has been examined in depth in Thomas Campbell’s study of Henry VIII’s tapestry collection, where he also describes the tailors’ role in their maintenance.24 The Great Wardrobe’s principal role, however, was not to supply the costly tapestries themselves, the finest of which were specially commissioned in Flanders and northern France, although the Wardrobe’s tapestry workers were led by a Flemish ‘Arrasmaker’ with highly specialised skills. Rather, their routine work was to maintain

Preparing to Progress  61

Figure 4.3 The Family of Henry VII with St George and the Dragon, c.1503–9, Flemish (146 x 143 cm) RCIN 401228. Perhaps commissioned by the king himself, this painting gives a good idea of how such smaller tents were an integral part in the presentation of the royal family at outdoor occasions such as public entries into cities. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

the king’s huge tapestry collection, which was constantly in use and being moved between royal houses. Running repairs to tapestries of all qualities and ages could take up thousands of days of the arras-makers’ time every year – work increased by the movement and hanging of tapestries.25 The Wardrobe accounts also reveal that considerable effort was given to lining tapestries. This seems likely not just to have been a housekeeping practice intended to make these valuable objects more robust but had an aesthetic quality, as their canvas linings and stitching were dyed various bright colours including scarlet, blue and green.26 This extra expense would be necessitated where the backs of tapestries would show as they were

62  Sebastian Edwards hung over doors and windows or tied back to fit differing-sized rooms, emphasising their very mobile nature. Far less well-known is the important work of John Baven (or Bevan), the King’s Bedmaker from the late 1520s, who as well as supplying beds also looked after many of them as well as other furniture, providing some with their own protective covers and cases. These were used for both ‘standing beds’ at the principal royal houses and the safe transport of all kinds of dismantled beds, which are itemised in great numbers in the inventories of 1542 and 1547.27

‘Progress Stuff’ There are several categories of furnishing found in the ‘progress stuff’ that was retained for royal removes. It is perhaps surprising that whilst there are compromises in the manufacture and materials of such items, they generally measure up to the luxuriousness and magnificence of the contents of the standing wardrobes. What distinguishes them is that they were designed to be moved or collapsible, even though the extensive royal train of carts could be expected to move almost anything if required, as Henry VIII had demonstrated so impressively at the Field of Cloth of Gold. The inventories also itemise many precious, small items with fitted cases, perhaps like the wind instrument shown amongst the vanitas objects in Holbein’s Ambassadors portrait (National Gallery, London), an image by a Tudor court artist where the details of objects can be relied on. This compares to ‘a litle case couvered with blacke lether with 4 recorders of Iverie in it’, typical of the variety of cased instruments found in the king’s private lodgings at Whitehall in the 1547 inventory.28 Luxury pieces of furniture, such as portable desks  – an essential part of the equipment of state – sometimes came with beautifully made outer cases of decorated leather which would provide security for their contents and protect their painted decoration on journeys (see Figure 4.4). Listed in a closet off the privy chamber at Greenwich, in 1547, was ‘a deske covered with printers leather furnysshed with boxes with counters of tynne and having a paier of syssorres, a payer of compas a penne knyfe and a poyntell cased in metall’, alongside ‘a Case for a deske withoute any thing in it’. It is tempting to compare these with the rare survival of a painted desk associated with Henry VIII that is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. This was crafted with a plain outer carcase and all its fine decoration on the inside and may originally have had a travelling case.29 Larger furniture tended to have soft covers made from cloth or leather to make them lighter to carry. They might also fold or dismantle for the progress, although the nature of much sixteenth-century furniture was to be portable and often came apart easily.30 Exceptional were the Wardrobe’s small number of iron-framed chairs of state with rich upholstery supplied only to members of the royal family. None of these have survived but the accounts suggest they were of a traditional folding X-frame design. In July 1533, the upholsterer Robert Acton charged over £7: for making 3 iron chairs, of which 2 are covered with crimson velvet, of which one is fringed with silk and gold and the other with silk, and the third chair covered with purple velvet fringed with silk and gold. 31

Preparing to Progress  63

Figure 4.4 Portable writing desk, with the royal arms and decoration attributed to Lucas Horenbout (c.1490–1544). England, c.1525 (15 × 41 × 27 cm). Source: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Made for the use of the queen, these seem likely to have played a key role in the coronation of Anne Boleyn which took place the previous month. A rare Spanish drawing of a metal-framed stool hung with a case-cover, dating from 1597, intended for the Pope (illustrated in a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Brussels) gives an idea of how impressive yet practical and robust such pieces of royal furniture could still be. Such folding furniture in turn influenced the design of the much more commonplace wooden X-framed chairs, which in fact often did not fold but were susceptible to damage due to their design. Intriguingly, chairs of state made of both materials appear in the account for this coronation, together with numbers of ‘clothesacks’, ‘bare hides’ and ‘cart canvases’ and ‘trussing coffers’, which were all used for their transportation.

64  Sebastian Edwards Figure 4.5 Marriage bed made for Duc Antoine de Lorraine and Renée de Bourbon, 1515 shown in a digital reconstruction with its documented upholstery of 1532. An extremely rare survival of a contemporary bed made for a friend of King Francis I. Like Henry VIII’s hunting bed it is decorated with the owner’s personal imagery. Source: © Palais des ducs de Lorraine-Musée Lorrain, Nancy/Photo. Mazedia, 2017 Inv. D.95.255.

Preparing to Progress  65 Of all the portable furniture found at court the most commonly supplied were the ‘trussing’ beds, which made moving one of the largest household items much easier, whether for transportation or simply for regular cleaning (remembering that bed lice were an everyday pest). These could be made from similar textiles to the standing beds but were sometimes a little smaller and used by personal servants. Such beds were also more convenient for the yeomen who had to negotiate their carriage on the narrow spiral staircases, known as ‘vices’, that inevitably accessed the inward lodgings where bedchambers were situated. These were usually four-poster bed-stocks, hooked or even screwed together, their hangings draped from rods and rings rather than nailed in place. The most extraordinary of these beds noted in the Wardrobe accounts is the king’s ‘hunting bed’, the description of which may be of a bed made to be used during a lengthy hunt, one of the chief courtly activities on the king’s progresses and removes from the city.32 It was ordered in the summer of 1534, and there is little about it to differentiate it in quality from the splendour of some of the ‘great beds’ described elsewhere in the king’s inventories. It was hung with crimsonand-gold-flowered baudekin – a rich type of damask – with blue sarsenet curtains; the posts were ornamented with gilded pommels bearing the royal arms, a rose and (notably) spears, which are not part of English royal heraldry. The bed came with its own pair of coffers and straps for carriage. This can be imagined being carted to a hunting lodge in a forest where the king might rest after the hunt. Nothing else like it survives complete from England, nor any images, but it may have resembled a contemporary French bed-stock of a similar type and date made for the duke of Lorraine, which was originally hung with equally flamboyant textiles and featured painted rebus devices in its decoration (see Figure 4.5). Henry VIII had become fixated with French fashions by this time and even owned a bed belonging to Francis I, a gift received during another meeting in Calais in 1532.33

Making the Court Mobile The Wardrobe (as well as local palace officials) employed a great range of coffers and bags to store and move valuable goods, from jewels, clothing, chapel vestments and plate, to knives and even the occasional early appearance of a new refinement, a fork. However, not every valuable object came with its own case or packing, so their appearance in both the supply records and the inventories gives a sense of which items might be required during removes.34 This household office also had its own transportation besides ‘the Horse’ (which was responsible for personal travel) to enable it to go about its business in preparing the palaces. For jewels and money coffers of timber and leather of many sizes were essential, such as the numbered ‘kinges removing coofers’ found in the Secret Jewel House of the Tower.35 As fitted cupboards and large cabinets had yet to become commonplace in English homes, these boxes would also have been used to store the king’s goods safely. Or as safely as possible: security was a shared concern for the Wardrobe, which was maintained as much through its scrupulous records of costly goods coming-and-going as by physical measures. Inevitably, there were failures

66  Sebastian Edwards Figure 4.6 Drawing of a ‘chariot’ from the book of drawings of Queen Elizabeth I’s coronation in 1559, second half of the sixteenth century. The Great Wardrobe had its own carts and chariots, with canvas covers like this example, to provision the many royal houses and progresses. Source: BL Egerton MS 3320 fol. 4r © The British Library Board.

Preparing to Progress  67 as is shown in 1526, by a goldsmith’s charge for remaking a silver-gilt pommel, which had been prized and stolen from a chair of cloth-of-gold.36 An opportunist theft or perhaps a personal souvenir of King Henry? The attendance of the king’s locksmith was another requirement in the preparation of the royal lodgings, as the survival of the unique, gilded ‘Beddington lock’ attributed to locksmith Henry Rommyn (Romaynes) attests (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum).37 Such a finely produced item must have been treasured in its own right, or more objects like this would have survived from his many residences. Tanned animal hides known as ‘bare hides’ were also used extensively to protect goods in transit whilst the fine textiles of canopies and beds were often provided with trussing sheets or fitted bags of leather, lined with yellow cotton to prevent ‘fretting’, that is wear and tear. This hidden flash of colour may be significant and indicates the use of yellow sulphur, an everyday pesticide to protect silks and wools from moth.38 Finally, the great arrays of chariots, carts and wagons used for the logistics of moving the royal household are familiar from contemporary descriptions of pageants and processions at the Tudor court (see Figure 4.6). The Wardrobe records illuminate their own specialised royal transport: every few years twelve new cartcanvases were provided for the king’s ‘chariots’ – simple large covered carts – which suggests that these were probably about 16 feet (5 metres) long and 11 feet (3.5 metres) wide.39 The office’s own carts were closed over and painted with a gilded livery of royal shields, garter, imperial crowns and supporters. These must have been quite prominent moving slowly through the narrow streets of London, as if advertising the business of the monarchy itself.40 Ultimately, the unheralded work of the Great Wardrobe and the other household departments providing both necessaries and luxuries of state would be completely overshadowed by the pageantry of the king arriving in person at his destination following all their many days of preparation.

Conclusion What does all this quotidian detail add to our understanding of Henry VIII’s court on the move? We can see that a system which developed from the perennially itinerant late medieval court had become increasingly sophisticated and adapted to this particular king’s lust for luxury and also his sometimes unpredictable demands. The Great Wardrobe could supply most things to any place, in addition to relying on the standing wardrobes at the major palaces or the generosity of hosts. Only exceptional events such as the Field of Cloth of Gold called for extraordinary resources and finances. As the contemporary chronicler Edward Hall pointed out on many occasions during Henry VIII’s reign, his domestic surroundings during a progress easily match those found in the principal palaces. The full equipment of state could be taken almost anywhere and arrive in good condition; or the comforts of the king’s and queen’s private lodgings could be maintained when they chose to retreat to the country at times of fever and plague. It is also probable to judge by these material records that in providing such a high-quality, yet mobile, domestic setting for the monarch, the display of the king’s largest and most popular

68  Sebastian Edwards palaces was permitted to become even greater, so that the Estate and the king’s ‘Great Beds’ had no need to be moved, as in the past, and could therefore be made larger, or from even more luxurious materials, such as beds made with marble and enamel. By the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, domestic royal furnishings had gone beyond fashion and begun to achieve a kind of cult status as they were singled out by visiting travellers and maintained beyond her lifetime.

Notes 1 J. Dillon, Performance and Spectacle in Hall’s Chronicle (London, 2002), 35, [summer 1510]. 2 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, 21 vols (various editions). Online edition: (www.british-history.ac.uk/search/series/letters-papers-hen8); S. Anglo, Spectacle and Pageantry and early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1997), 21–46 and 124–69; S. J. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life, 1460–1547 (New Haven, CT and London, 1993); S. J. Thurley, Houses of Power The Places that Shaped the Tudor World (London, 2017), 45–58, 66–85, 98–115, 120–48, 151–78, 182–99, 210–24, 237–42, 256–7. 3 M. Hayward, The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Woodbridge, 2012). Appendix I provides full references to the National Archives documents. 4 M. Hayward, ‘Repositories of Splendour: Henry VIII’s Wardrobes of the Robes and Beds’, Textile History, 29 (1998), 134–56. 5 D. Starkey (ed.), The Inventory of King Henry VIII: The Transcript (London, 1998); M. Hayward (ed. and trans.), The 1542 Inventory of Whitehall: The Palace and Its Keeper (London, 2004). 6 The Great Wardrobe accounts, as well as some warrant books, in TNA from the Exchequer and Lord Chamberlain’s offices were researched, translated and selectively transcribed for Historic Royal Palaces with the assistance of Dr Jonathan Mackman, for which I am most grateful (see Note 3). 7 To date, no comprehensive itinerary for Henry VIII’s movements has been published. A useful outline in manuscript was created in the mid-twentieth century (?) by a member of the then-Public Record Office staff: TNA OBS 1/149. N. Samman, ‘The Henrician Court during Cardinal Wolsey’s Ascendancy, c1514–1529’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales (1988), provides a broad outline and analysis of key progresses and removes during Henry VIII’s early reign. Research into the progresses’ itinerary is currently being undertaken by K. Hayes-Davies at the University of York. 8 N. Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII, 1509–1529’, in D. MacCulloch (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIII – Politics, Policy and Piety (London, 1995), 62–3. 9 BL Add MS 71009, fols 19v -20r; parts of this document are cited in F. Kisby, ‘Religious Ceremonial at the Tudor Court: Extracts from Royal Household Regulations’, in I. Archer et al. (eds.), Religion, Politics and Society in Sixteenth-Century England, Camden Society, 5th ser., 22 (2003), 1–33 and see S. J. Thurley, Houses of Power. The Places that Shaped the Tudor World (London, 2017), 197. 10 A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household, Made in Divers Reigns from King Edward III to King William and Queen Mary. Also Receipts in Ancient Cookery, Society of Antiquaries of London (London, 1790), 107–33. 11 N. H. Nicolas, The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth (London, 1827), 75. 12 For Elizabeth I’s progress preparation, see M-H. Cole, ‘Monarchy in Motion: An Overview of Elizabethan Progress-Cole in Progresses’, in J. E. Archer et al. (eds.), The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2007), 30–3. For

Preparing to Progress  69 precedents of fifteenth-century royal household customs formulating into ordinances, see D. Starkey, ‘Henry VI’s Old Blue Gown’, The Court Historian, 4/1 (1999) 20. 13 M. Hayward, ‘Repositories of Splendour: Henry VIII’s Wardrobes of the Robes and Beds’, Textile History, 29/2 (1998), 134–56. 14 TNA E 315/456 fol. 47r. The term appears in a list of wages for tapestry repair in 1538–9. 15 TNA LC 9/51, fols 1r-32v, at fol. 28v. 16 TNA LC 9/51 fol. 120v. 17 A. Gregory, ‘The Timber Lodgings of King Henry VIII: Ephemeral Architecture at War in the Early Sixteenth-Century’, The Antiquaries Journal, 100 (2020), 8 n. 20; T. Campbell, Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty – Tapestries at the Tudor Court (New Haven, CT and London, 2009) 111. 18 CSP Ven, vol. II, 27 February 1515, www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/ vol2/pp228-231, accessed 4 January 2022. 19 G. Richardson, The Field of the Cloth of Gold (New Haven, CT and London, 2013), 58 and n. 65. Campbell, Henry VIII, 143 and nn.2 and 3. 20 Hayward, Great Wardrobe, xxvi, 167–84. Extraordinary account for the force’s livery calendared in full. 21 TNA E 101/423/10, fols 3v, 9v-10v. 22 Gregory, ‘Timber Lodgings’, 13–15; LP iii, King’s Book of Payments 1520, 11–12 April. 23 For a comparison with the Little Pavilion of Henry VII, see Hayward, Great Wardrobe, 6, 74, 77. 24 Campbell, Henry VIII, 104–10, 117–18, 143–9. 25 Today’s tapestry conservators and scientists at Historic Royal Palaces’ textile conservation studio have studied the degrading effects of simply hanging a tapestry over time and have highlighted the greatly increased stresses caused by moving a tapestry. 26 TNA E 315/456, fol. 48 r. (1538–9). 27 For example, see TNA E 101/421/3 fol. 56 [1 March  1529]. See Note 5 for the Inventories. 28 Inv. 1547, 11939 at 267. 29 Inv. 1547, 9461–9461 at 204. Hayward, ‘Packing and Transportation’, 9. The desk is VAM object number W.29:1 to 10–1932. 30 Hayward, ‘Packing and Transportation’, 10. 31 TNA E 101/421/16 fol. 70. Similar iron chairs with lined leather cases were also provided to the infant Prince Edward in 1539: TNA E 315/456 fol. 30v. 32 TNA E 101/421/16 fol. 70; M. Hayward, Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (Leeds, 2007), 277–8. 33 A. Weir, Henry VIII: King and Court (London, 2008), 330. 34 Hayward, ‘Packing and Transportation’, 11–12, discusses the use of different types of packing. 35 Inv. 1547 at 65–76. 36 TNA E 101/419/20 fol. 25v. 37 VAM object number M.397&:1 to 6–1921; TNA E 36/fols 374, 392; Nicolas, Privy Purse, xxi. 38 TNA C 9/51 fol. 75r [21 May 1518]. Richard Smyth supplied 38 skins of Portuguese leather for covering one boat of the lord king; TNA E 101/419/20 fol. 26r [1526–7]. New iron chairs with cloth of gold were provided with cases of leather lined with yellow cotton cloth and a coffer for sheets. National Archives. 39 E 101/421/3 fol. 53. The canvases were 5 by 7 ells (unit): depending on whether Flemish ells (27”) this is their approximate size. English ells (43”) would make them even larger, but most English textiles were supplied here by the yard. 40 TNA E 315/455 fol. 37v [24 June 1536].

5 On Display The Role of Clothing and Livery on Henry VIII’s Progresses Maria Hayward

When Henry VIII went on pilgrimage to Walsingham in 1511, he is said to have walked the last mile or so from East Barsham barefoot, like many others before him demonstrating his penitence and humility to God, his fellow pilgrims and the local clergy.1 In a similar vein, the Field of Cloth of Gold and royal summer progresses were as much about the audiences who witnessed them as they were about the participants, and the king’s clothing, horse and accessories were central to the display. This was made clear by the anonymous artist who painted Henry VIII at the Field of Cloth of Gold (see Figure 5.1).2 His opulent cloth of gold gown, worn over a scarlet doublet, and complimenting his horses’ harness, distinguished the king from his courtiers and his household as they processed to meet Francis I, while the event, and the painting recording it, served to demonstrate Tudor royal magnificence to a range of different audiences, including the French king and his court as well as later visitors to Hampton Court Palace. A hint of Henry’s actual magnificence, rather than artistic licence, can be found in a payment made in 1520 of £113 16s 3d to William Silkcote and William Mortimer for gold wire, sarsenet and embroidery for a cloth of estate, doublets and hose for the king.3 Henry VIII was a peripatetic monarch and so many facets of his material world were designed to be portable. However, when the king went on progress he travelled for subtly different reasons, and to different places, than when he removed from one royal property to the next and this had a bearing on who he met, how he dressed and which possessions he required while he travelled.4 Progresses have been considered in various ways including in terms of logistics, as demonstrated by Neil Samman in his analysis of Henry’s early progresses5 or the progress of 1538, which Rory McEntegart regarded as unusual because of the distance Henry travelled from London and the number of moves and short stays in each place.6 Simon Thurley and Samman both looked at the purpose of progresses and placed emphasis on the opportunity these trips provided for uninterrupted hunting. Such an approach highlights the similarities and differences with other forms of royal travel and display including ‘victorious’ military campaigns, which incorporated royal entries into towns and entertainments or royal processions associated with the opening of parliament.7 Ever present, clothing played a central role of all aspects of Henry VIII’s life, whether it was the garments worn by the king, his family and close associates, the DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-8

Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Clothing and Livery on Progresses  71

Figure 5.1 Henry VIII on horseback, a detail from The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50, RCIN 405794.08.

72  Maria Hayward livery given to his household or the attire of those who witnessed these events. However, the timing of the progresses and the nature of these journeys meant that descriptions of the king’s clothes were often limited. As such this chapter works with hints and snippets and by reading between the lines. It is divided into three sections which explore how the clothing of the king, queen consort and household did, or did not, serve as focal points of the progress; then the various audiences and how they dressed to impress and engage with the monarch; and finally, how the Wardrobe of the Robes managed the king’s sartorial appearance while on holiday.

The Centre of Attention: the King, Queen Consort and Household The king’s choice of clothes on progress was heavily influenced by when and why he went away. As Hall noted in 1515, ‘this Somer the kyng tooke his progresse Westward, & visited his tounes & castels . . . & euer as he roade, he hunted’.8 The summer months were generally taken to be from August to October, so much so that in June 1531, the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys complained Henry had sloped off early because ‘he was already gone to Windsor and other places to amuse himself and pass away the time . . . For the last fortnight he has done nothing else but go from place to place’.9 However, Catherine Bates has offered a more nuanced reading of Henry’s visual display of masculinity every summer, by asserting that he presented a carefully managed image of himself as a royal hunter.10 Such self-fashioning required clothes suitable for riding and the hunt.11 While the core elite male garments consisted of a gown, worn over a doublet, hose and shirt, the king’s wardrobe contained specific items of sporting dress including coats designated for hawking, hunting, riding and stalking to help in this endeavour.12 And it was not just clothing. Henry’s wardrobe account for 1517–18 included six pairs of boots for stalking and twelve pairs of shoes for hunting.13 While not explicitly mentioned as being for that year’s progress, it is very likely that some or all would have been worn then. So, when Richard Pace observed in 1520, ‘the King rises daily, except on holy days, at 4 or 5 o’clock, and hunts till 9 or 10 at night. He spares no pains to convert the sport of hunting into a martyrdom’, he could have added that the king did so, dressed for the part.14 While the prospect of good weather and good sport partially shaped the king’s progress wardrobe, the opportunity to avoid certain things also played a part. The period between August and October saw a gap in the sessions of the lawcourts, parliament rarely if ever met then, and there were few significant religious holidays to observe or chivalric orders to engage with. As a result, the king did not require his parliament robes, garter robes or the other formal fabric expressions of his royal status. Even so he did engage in some government business, as in 1510, ‘where before him and some of this council many of the commons showed grievous bills and complaints against Dudley and Empson’.15 Or when he received the French ambassador while at the More in October 1540.16 These occasions would have required more formal dress than hunting attire.

Clothing and Livery on Progresses  73 For special progresses, whether positive such as the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 noted earlier, or punitive, as in 1541,17 the king required other clothes that were designed to stress his magnificence and his right to rule through his use of cloth of gold, sable and purple silk. Dressing the part of a king in this way was how his father had embarked on his progress to York in 1486, a choice that was especially important for a first visit to a key city.18 It was the same approach that Henry VIII took in 1541, and on 29 May Charles de Marillac, the French ambassador, reported laconically that England’s king wanted ‘to go with more magnificence as he had not yet been there as to be sure against any seditious designs’.19 However, the best-laid plans could go wrong as in 1535, when Henry intended to visit Bristol. The king and Anne arrived at Thornbury on 18 August as intended, but they did not go into the city because of the ‘Plage of pestilence’. Even so, the mayor of Bristol still sent ten oxen and forty sheep to Henry VIII and a silver cup with a cover and 100 marks to Anne on 20 August.20 Some sources reported that the king went to Bristol ‘disguised’ so that he could visit incognito.21 True or not, this episode indicates that progresses offered Henry a variety of different ways to engage with his clothing, both overt and covert, as the situation called for. For the traditional summer progresses, revels and jousts were uncommon. Indeed, court entertainments of this type were usually held in the winter months between November and March, and they were often linked to the key feast days which fell then. Or they were staged as part of military campaigns, as in July to October 1513 at Tournai and Lille, and key diplomatic visits such as the Field of Cloth of Gold in the summer of 1520. That said, there were two notable occasions when entertainments did take place during the royal progresses. Hall recorded the first in his Chronicle, when he observed that while Henry was at Woking ‘there were kept both Iustes and Turneys’ on 6 October 1510.22 The lack of any specific references to these in the revels accounts suggests that they possibly reused costumes first seen in Greenwich for this more remote venue. Possible candidates for reuse at Woking include the base and demi-trapper decorated with castles and sheaves of arrows of gold, which Richard Gibson had made for the king six months earlier in March 1510.23 The second occurred during the 1519 progress, and the entry in Gibson’s accounts reveal that a quick turnaround was required. Henry called Gibson to Havering-atte-Bower, Essex, on 23 August and commissioned him to create costumes for a performance at Newhall on 3 September that included the king, his friends and the French hostages. Central were six green satin Almain coats with sleeves covered with gold scales like a sturgeon or a dragon and six of yellow with silver scales.24 Unusual in design and calling on a broader range of suppliers than normal, including a French hosier who made the hose for the French men, the entertainments cost over £207.25 The king’s bounty did not end there, with the costumes gifted to the wearers. While often generous, Henry’s behaviour on this occasion may have been promoted by Katherine of Aragon’s entertainment of her husband and the French hostages at Havering-atte-Bower where ‘for their welcomyng she purueyed all thyngs in the moste liberallest maner’.26

74  Maria Hayward This reference to Katherine is one fragment of the rather limited evidence relating to the king’s wives on progress, but what there is offers several hints about how these journeys were used to display the queen or would-be queen. For a much-married man like Henry, progresses provided opportunities for people to see their new queen, as was the case with Catherine Howard whose wedding took place on 28 July 1540. Just over a month later Marillac reported that the progress had afforded him the chance to see her on 3 September and that she was ‘rather graceful than beautiful’, short in stature and fond of French fashion.27 Two weeks later, he added that ‘nothing [is] being spoken of here but the chase and banquets to the new Queen’.28 Both these asides indicate that Catherine was displaying her new royal wardrobe, the style of which would have met with Marillac’s approval and which Henry augmented with gifts such as the gold brooch with a scene of ‘the story of Noah’ and set with eighteen rubies and thirty-five diamonds that he gave her in October.29 However, this idyll was not to last long and shortly after their return from the 1541 progress, Catherine was arrested. Her reduced and precarious status was proclaimed by the removal of royal dress and jewels.30 Royal progresses also allowed Henry’s women to demonstrate that they shared the king’s love of the hunt and, expanding on Bate’s ideas noted earlier, that the female huntress was a match for her male companions. Henry bought Anne archery equipment using his privy purse and she in turn presented Giles de la Pommeraye, the French ambassador, with a hunting coat and hat, as well as a greyhound and a horn during the 1532 summer progress as a prelude to a meeting with Francis I later in the year.31 During her time as regent, Catherine Parr went on progress in Surrey and Kent and took with her a welcome gift of male and female falcons.32 In July, she paid a crossbow maker for various spare parts as well as eighteen crossbow strings.33 Her accounts for September record the delivery of gifts of venison, by implication killed by Catherine and distributed in the same way as her husband.34 While the king, and queen consort if present, travelled on progress with a reduced household, the livery worn by those present still made a visual impression on those around them. This was intentional as is evident from Marillac’s comment on Henry’s arrival at York on 18 September 1541: ‘he has had brought from London his richest tapestry, plate and dress, both for himself and his archers, pages and gentlemen’.35 Though third on the list, clothing was worn by every member of the royal retinue and so had the largest potential impact on even a casual observer while furnishings were usually on display to a limited, invited audience. Styled the ‘progress’ household by Fiona Kisby, the liveried display on offer functioned in slightly different ways according to whether it was a typical summer hunting progress or one of the larger, more spectacular occasions. Starting with the hunting progresses, the royal huntsmen and falconers played a central role, facilitating the king’s leisure, even though Marillac did not include them on his list. Pre-progress preparations for the huntsmen are evident in the Great Wardrobe accounts, such as those for 1510–11, with orders placed for the yeomen of the buckhounds’ livery on 18 June 1511, and lyams, collars, chains and canvas to cover the cart carrying the hounds on 30 June.36 In contrast, the falconers were

Clothing and Livery on Progresses  75 often clothed via the privy purse as on 14 September 1531, when livery coats for ‘John awod and Cowper kepers of the kings goshawkes’ were paid for costing 45s.37 The following year, on 1 August 1532, coats costing 22s 6d each were supplied to Peter and Matthew, falconers.38 Equally important were the horses and staff of the stable. Two warrants dated 1511, but containing items made the summer before, included opulent saddles for the king as well as tack for the king’s horses more generally, including fiftyseven bits with bosses for the coursers and horse houses of green and white cloth embroidered with a dragon and a greyhound. Provision was also made for the two pack horses, the four bottle horse, the close car of the robes as well as a series of repairs undertaken ‘during the king’s journeys’ of 1510. These included a new bridle for the mail horse when the king left Greenwich for Corfe castle, mending the close car at Reading, re-stuffing the saddles of the henchmen at Salisbury and mending a sumpter saddle at Southampton.39 However, several other groups within the household were equally important and much more visible because of the livery that they were issued including the footmen, the henchmen and the yeomen of the guard. It was the latter which were the most important, as was reflected by the regular payments for the carriage of their coats. In July  1510, the guards’ formal crimson jackets were taken eight miles from Windsor to Easthampstead (near Wokingham), then twelve miles to the Vyne (near Basingstoke) and nine miles to Reading at a cost of 4s 10d.40 In other years, such as the summer of 1516, the accounts just recorded a payment of 36s 6d for the ‘carriage of the jackets this summer’.41 Not surprisingly, the situation in 1541 was unsubtly different. The king was accompanied by 250 yeomen of the guard and fifty gentlemen pensioners all of whom had three attendants and ‘each have tent and war equipment, as also will several other young lords; so that it will be rather like following a camp than going to the chase’.42 The weight of the royal presence was reinforced in 1541, by the children of honour (also known as the king’s henchmen) who changed into their best cloth of gold and crimson velvet livery for the entry into Lincoln.43 While Henry VIII’s reign is synonymous with the break with Rome, the clergy played a key role during his reign as members of his household, his council and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Clerical dress made these men stand out from their secular counterparts and colleagues. When Wolsey joined the king during the Field of Cloth of Gold or in the summer progress of 1529, his cardinal’s robes would have been unique. In a similar vein, during the 1538 progress, Henry VIII and Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of Durham, spent a lot of time discussing how to resolve the ‘German question’.44 However, it was the 1535 progress which had the most notable clerical element consisting of several strands. Chapuys reported on 10 August that The king is still in confines of Wales, hunting and traversing the country to gain the people. It is said many of the peasants where he has passed, hearing the preachers who follow the court, who are so much abused as to believe that God has inspired the King.45

76  Maria Hayward The denouement came on 19 September  1535, when Barnes was consecrated as bishop of Hereford and Latimer as bishop of Worcester at Winchester, which McEntegart regards as the pinnacle of the ‘reforming royal progress’.46

Audiences and Responses to the Henrician Court on Tour The impact of a royal progress can be gauged in various ways, including the success of the royal hunt resulting in royal largesse and distribution of gifts of venison and the wider response of the people who encountered the king and his court.47 How the various audiences dressed for a meeting with Tudor royalty was indicative of how they felt about the encounter, but in general they were governed by the ideas incorporated into the Tudor sumptuary law or acts of apparel. Whether it was one of the urban communities of the various towns and cities, the academics and students of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or prior to 1536, the religious communities of the monastic houses large and small, each had their own dress code.48 These encounters were carefully planned, as the published giests indicate, and in most circumstances events went ahead as planned so giving the various audiences time to plan.49 In almost all instances, the overarching wish was for those meeting the king to dress in their best and newest clothing, along with all of the accoutrement of their status including civic regalia in the form of chains and maces. As a result, people wanted to know a royal visit was going to happen as in 1543–4, when the worthies of Canterbury paid 16d for ‘the hire of a horse to send to the court to know the king’s pleasure whether he would come through the town or not’.50 Progresses were carefully choreographed with set places designated for sartorial display. The first was the county boundary which served to assert a sense of regional identities. When Henry VIII entered Sussex in 1526, he was met proudly by the earl of Arundel, Lord de la Warr, Lord Dacre of the South and Sir David Owen, and they accompanied the king on the route to Petworth, which belonged to the earl of Northumberland.51 In contrast, the king’s reception as he crossed into Yorkshire in 1541 was very different. This was a symbolic and ‘humble submission by the temporaltie’ who were atoning for their past sins. On the border ‘he was met with two hundred gentlemen of the same Shire, in coates of Veluet, and foure thousande tall yomen, and seruyng men, well horsed’ as well as by the archbishop of York and ‘three hundred Priestes and more’.52 The different types of clothing demonstrated that the social elites of the county, laity and clergy were represented. City boundaries functioned in a similar way and, as Susan Wabuda has shown, the Cambridge colleges made full use of academic, clerical and secular dress to create a strong impression as they welcomed the king.53 When Henry and the French ambassadors rode into London on 20 October 1527, they were greeted by ‘the Maior and Aldermen . . . and the chief comminers on horsebacke in their gounes’.54 The scarlet robes worn by the mayors and aldermen of England’s cities represented hard-won rights, and they were worn with civic pride. If the city elite chose not to wear them, as happened in 1541 in York, it was very significant as York’s records reveal. Henry was met by ‘a great

Clothing and Livery on Progresses  77 multytude of the moste discreyt commoners of this city to the nowmbre of cxx persons, the moste parte of them havyng newe gownes of fine sadde tawny onely for that purpose’.55 In addition, the mayor, recorder and aldermen wore ‘a vyolet gown against the kynges maiestie comyng’.56 Sad tawny and violet were worn as a sign of submission in the face of Henry’s authority. Towns and cities wanted to make a good impression on the king often in hope of rewards from a grateful monarch. In 1520, the city fathers of Canterbury invested in livery for key individuals including ‘william Mylys Comen Clark of the Citie’ who received 10s ‘towards a Cote ayenst the coming of the Kynges grace to the Citie’.57 In 1522, the self-same William Miles received 6s 8d for ‘hys Gaberden ayenst the Comyng of the Emperour & the kynges grace to the Citie’.58 Livery could work in other ways in this context, in particular the impact individuals in royal livery had on city officials. In 1520, Canterbury gave rewards of 6s 8d to Henry VIII’s henchmen, footmen, trumpeters and waits, in addition to the queen’s footmen and ‘my lord Cardinal’s footmen’ who as Cavendish noted, were as well liveried as the king’s.59 Twelve years later, officials in Sandwich paid 20s ‘to the king’s footmen for there reward at the king’s departing from the town’.60 The king also stayed with members of the aristocracy and gentry, and during these visits clothing was used to promote individual interests. Prior to the king’s arrival at Acton Court, Gloucestershire, in 1535, Nicholas Poyntz undertook extensive building works and added a new decorative scheme.61 The jewelled and feathered bonnet he wore in the portrait based on a sketch by Hans Holbein the younger indicates he would have been very fashionably dressed for the royal visit.62 The passage of the royal progress through the English countryside could have other impacts on society as is evident from the career of Richard Gibson, yeoman of the revels and a Kentish landowner. Not surprisingly he travelled through Kent several times in 1520, as he went back and forth in preparation for the Field of Cloth of Gold, and his presence did not go unnoticed.63 He helped the civic officials of Lydd where the mayor and his colleagues paid 13s 4d in 1526–7 ‘to master Bailey and to two of the wardens of Saynt Georges playe when they went to london to speke with Mr Gybson for the apparel for the said playe’.64 The king himself continued to have influence long after his departure from an area, as was the case in York in June 1545. The city fathers must have felt that their humble supplication in 1541 had worked as they were commanded in the king’s name to call together: all suche persons within this Citie that haith harness & wapen to serue the king shall them selfes or Some able person for them be reddy vppon Corporyscrysty day to attend appon the Shyrryfes/thorro this Citie honestly furnished with ther harness & wapen.65 The king might not visit at all but rely on a gift to serve as his proxy in binding a city to him, as in 1537, when he sent a red silk velvet cap of maintenance to Waterford which was to be processed before the mayor ‘at times thought fit by you our mayor, being our officer of that our said city’.66 Embroidered with Tudor roses

78  Maria Hayward on the brim and the crown, the cap demonstrated royal approval and commanded Waterford’s loyalty in return. Arguably, the most important audience for his sumptuous wardrobe was, on the rare occasions that they met, Henry VIII’s ‘good friends and brothers’, Francis I of France and Charles V, king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. During the summer of 1522, Henry and Charles toured together on a joint summer progress of southern England.67 Henry used this time to make gifts of his clothes, possibly those worn while on progress, to some of Charles V’s attendants including ‘a Jaquet of cloth of siluer tissewe lined with blacke saten’ valued at £70 on 10 July to ‘Laco themperors seruant’ and a ‘Riding Cote of cloth of gold carnacion collor & clothe of siluer lined with purpull saten’ worth £40 to ‘Cezar Master of themperors horse’.68 One fellow monarch that Henry did not meet on progress was his nephew, James V of Scotland. Even if he had given the meeting serious consideration, James had very good reasons for not attending, but the lack of a suitable wardrobe was not one of them.69 In 1535 when James was made a knight of the Garter, [T]he high and myghti prince . . . gaue to Garter in Skotland a goune of purpule velvet, fured with blake boge and xv (?) paire of aglets and a purse and a hundred crownes of the sonne and another gowne at his installation.70 This was a clear statement to Henry that James regarded himself as his uncle’s sartorial equal. After Henry had cooled his heals in York from 16 to 27 September, James wrote to his uncle on 11 October and sent a gift of falcons ‘of good kind’ suggesting that Henry ‘should participate of what this realm affords convenient for the season’.71 As these examples indicate the audience, whoever that might be, played a key role in the reception of the progress and on occasion the king was very much playing to the audience. Church bells played an important role in the soundscape of early modern towns and they were often used to gather people together, whether it was a congregation for a church service or a popular audience to greet the monarch. The accounts for Faversham, Kent, from 1541 to 1543, noted that 3s 8d was spent ‘in Expenses and Charges att the kynges graces cumyng Thorowe the Towne the first day of Maii and [and] Retornyd ageyn the vith day of Maii & for Ryngyng of the belles the seyd tyme’.72 However, at other times the progress was a much more relaxed and low-key affair with little or no audience beyond the king’s household and friends. Indeed, as Marillac noted in September 1540, there was ‘no news worth writing, the king being, with a small company, hunting, about 20 miles from this [London] and the nobles at their own houses until Michaelmas, when the court will reassemble here’.73

The Practicalities of Getting and Then Keeping the Show on the Road Careful planning, attention to detail and well-trained Wardrobe of the Robes staff were vital to ensuring that the king had everything he needed while on progress.

Clothing and Livery on Progresses  79 First and foremost the king needed the appropriate clothes, which might well have included some of the ‘hunting’ green items ordered in 1526–7, including a jerkin of green leather with a border and two welts of green velvet.74 As a younger man his wardrobe also included portable hunting trophies including ‘a great tuske of a bore in a case of crimsyn veluete’ as well as hawk hoods, hawking gloves and dog collars.75 This preparation was not just for the king but extended to the household which was equally important for royal display. In July  1538, John Belson and John Piers, yeomen of the chamber, moved seventy-seven bows and sheaves of arrows, along with three javelins ‘for the yeomen of the guard to ride with the king in his progress’.76 While clothes were central to dressing the king, no ensemble was complete without the quintessential male accessories of bonnet, shoes and gloves and the appropriate jewels. This was true of his normal daily pattern of dressing, as well as on progress, and the groom of the stool who cared for the king’s shirt coffer and cared for his jewels.77 Many more jewels were kept in the Removing Coffers, as were the king’s spectacles, toothpick, comb, perfumes and as he got older, a growing list of medication and medical supplies. Removing coffer H included ‘a Rounde boxe with a cover and a perticyon of Siluer gilte for medecynes’, ‘a little boxe dowble for balme’, ‘a booke of syluer gilte and instruments in yt to let bloode’ and a box containing ‘dyuers peces of lynnen clothe for plasters’.78 Once the king’s clothes had been selected, they were carefully packed into cloth sacks and coffers which in turn were placed in carts, some of which belonged to the Wardrobe of the Robes and others were hired as required. In late July 1512, moving the king’s stuff from Greenwich to Portsmouth with two yeomen to wait on it cost 12s 6d.79 The same pattern was true for the queen’s goods, as in September 1544, when John Hickman, Adam Betton and a groom accompanied the queen’s coffers from Woking to Beddington and then to Eltham.80 Cleaning these clothes could range from brushing mud from silk and woollen items to laundering linens including shirts, smocks and surplices. The king’s laundress travelled with him on progress, but on occasions laundry was paid for from the privy purse, as in 27 September 1530, when 48s 4d was ‘paied to the lawnder that wasshith the children of the kings pryvat chambre’.81 Catherine Parr’s accounts indicate that her starcher also travelled with her, while running repairs were undertaken by the Wardrobe staff. Shopping was not uncommon on progress and that included new purchases of quality materials to supplement the royal wardrobe. Not surprisingly, additional items for hunting were frequent purchases as on 10 September 1531, when 50s was given ‘to xpofer mylloner for ij knyves and ij shethes of vellute and gyrdelles to them’.82 More costly acquisitions included £486 8s 8d given to the leading Italian silk merchants including Cavalcanti.83 Although as Cinzia Sicca has demonstrated, these merchants particularly targeted the king and his consort in December as in 1523, when they sold silks to the queen at Guildford on 16 December and the king three days later at Chertsey.84 Even so the privy purse reveals that the king could be tempted to buy while on progress as on 15

80  Maria Hayward September 1531, when Henry was staying at Ampthill, Bedfordshire, he bought ‘certeyn silkes’ from William Lock and a ‘brouche with an Amatas in it’ costing £70 6s and £5 respectively.85 The previous summer, Robert Cecil, yeoman of the robes was reimbursed 5s 4d in August 1530, for ‘viij peces of yolowe lace bought for the kings grace’, while in September, £10 was laid out for ‘a Reconnyng for lynnen clothe for my lady Anne’.86 Not all items were as luxurious as these, as indicated by the purchase of ‘mayling Clothes and Cordes’ for trussing the king’s good as part of the day-to-day running costs of the Wardrobe of the Robes in September 1531.87 During the course of a day, Henry changed some or all of his clothes several times and doing so while travelling posed extra challenges. This was especially the case when the king needed to make a grand entrance and he was then provided with temporary accommodation to change in. This allowed the king to appear with the required level of magnificence so ensuring (hopefully) that his audience was not disappointed. During the visit of Charles V in June 1522, the two kings ‘marched toward London, where in the waie a Myle from Sainct Georges barre, was set a riche Tente of Clothe of golde, in whyche Tente . . . these two Princes shifted theim’.88 A similar pattern took place for the entry into Lincoln in 1541. Henry and his queen arrived on the outskirts of the city on horseback where they went into their tent: and there dyd shyfte theyre apparrell, for his grace was apparellyd before he cam to hys tente in Greene veluet, & the quene in Crymesyn veluet, and then the Kinge shyftyd hym into clothe of golde, and the quene into clothe of siluer.89 This was a carefully coordinated display of royal magnificence and the theatre of changing their clothes added to the impact. However well prepared the staff of the Wardrobe of the Robes were, sometimes things did not go to plan. This could be the result of a royal change of mind or a change in the weather, as in October 1544, when Mr Frytton was sent from Woking to London ‘for certeyn the Queenes graces ffurde gownes from Baynardes’ and the following month John Morley was despatched for extra gowns.90 It could also be in response to unexpected events such as the death of Louise of Savoy, duchess of Angoulême and mother of Francis I. In a letter dated before 24 October 1531, Chapuys noted that Henry had learnt of Louise’s death and on 4 November that Henry had attended the obsequy at Waltham Abbey, Essex, rather than at St Paul’s Cathedral where obsequies for European royalty were usually held.91 Henry’s presence at such an event was unusual, but as Hall reported, ‘the kynge and a great nombre of the Nobles and Prelates of the Realm were present in mourning apparel at the kynges coste and charge’.92 Dressed in traditional royal mourning – a gown, hood, tippet and a trained mantle made from blue silk velvet and lined with blue satin  – Henry offered his sympathy to Francis I, whose support he was keen to foster.93

Clothing and Livery on Progresses  81

Conclusions Always at the heart of the court, Henry VIII’s clothes on progress were split unequally between hunting dress designed to allow him to enjoy the chase to the full, more formal attire and rare, overt displays of royal magnificence and authority. Progresses were not just about the king and they placed a periodic focus on the queen consort. Indeed, all of Henry’s queens, apart from Jane Seymour, used progresses as a means of sartorial display. In turn, the livery worn by both households served to stress the royal presence, especially when the king was more informally dressed. However, when the king chose to dress to impress, the household’s livery added to this visual display of Tudor power. Equally, as Elizabeth Hurren has noted, by ensuring the heralds were prominent during his progresses, Henry demonstrated support for them and the visitations they undertook.94 The fact this strategy worked indicates that many of the king’s subjects took note if the king’s progress brought him to their part of the country. Indeed, many did more than observe – they dressed in their best to greet the king in displays of loyalty or in a carefully staged display of penitence as in York in 1541. While the king’s progresses posed various challenges to the staff of the Wardrobe of the Robes, they were equal to the task so ensuring the king was well dressed while travelling the English countryside.

Notes 1 W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of Norfolk, 2 vols (London, 1901–8), vol. II, 394–401. www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/norf/vol2/pp394-401. 2 British School, sixteenth century, The Field of Cloth of Gold, c.1545, oil on canvas, Royal Collection, RCIN 405794. 3 LP iii, 1542. 4 F. Kisby, ‘Kingship and the Royal Itinerary: A Study of the Peripatetic Household of the Early Tudor Kings 1485–1547’, The Court Historian, 4/1 (1999), 29–39. 5 N. Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII, 1509–29’, in D. MacCulloch (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety (Basingstoke, 1995), 63. 6 R. McEntegart, Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden and the English Reformation (London, 2002), 117. 7 Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII’, 59–60; S. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life, 1460–1547 (New Haven, CT and London, 1993), 67–73. 8 E. Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York (London, 1809) [hereafter abbreviated as Chronicle], 592–3. 9 LP v, 308. 10 C. Bates, Masculinity and the Hunt: Wyatt to Spencer (Oxford, 2013), 87. 11 E. Griffin, Blood Sport: Hunting in Britain Since 1066 (New Haven, CT and London, 2007), 68–70. 12 M. Hayward, Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (Leeds, 2007), 107. Some were made in green woollen cloth but a much wider range of fabrics and colours were used. 13 TNA E101/418/11. 14 LP iii/1, 950. 15 A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (eds.), The Great Chronicle of London (London, 1938), 342; Hall, Chronicle, 515. 16 LP xvi, 168.

82  Maria Hayward 17 C. J. Sansom, ‘The Wakefield Conspiracy of 1541 and Henry VIII’s Progress to the North Reconsidered’, Northern History, 45/2 (2008), 217–38. 18 E. Cavell, ‘Henry VII, the North of England, and the First Provincial Progress of 1486’, Northern History, 39/2 (2002), 187–207. 19 LP xvi, 868. 20 L. Toulmin Smith (ed.), The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, 1475–1660 (Westminster, 1872), 53–4. 21 S. Seyer, Memoirs Historical and Topographical of Bristol and its Neighbourhood from the Earliest Period down to the Present Time, 2 vols (Bristol, 1821–3), vol. II, 214. 22 Hall, Chronicle, 515; W. R. Streitberger, Court Revels, 1485–1559 (Toronto, 1994), 256. 23 LP ii/2, 1492. 24 Ibid., 1550. 25 TNA E36/217, fols 100–08, 123–9 (LP III/2, 1550–1); Streitberger, Court Revels, 404. 26 Hall, Chronicle, 599. 27 LP xvi, 12. 28 Ibid., 60. 29 BL Stowe MS 559, fol. 60v; (LP xvi, 1389). 30 G. A. Bergenroth (ed.), Calendar of the State Papers of Henry VIII, 2 vols (London, 1830), vol. I, 695. 31 N. H. Nicholas (ed.), The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII (London, 1827), 47; E. W. Ives, Anne Boleyn (Oxford, 1986), 197. 32 S. James, Catherine Parr: Henry VIII’s Last Love (Stroud, 2008), 152–3. 33 LP xix/2, 688. 34 Ibid. F. Heal, The Power of Gifts: Gift Exchange in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2014), 116. 35 LP xvi, 1183. 36 TNA E101/417/4, fol. 34v; M. Hayward (ed.), The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Woodbridge, 2012), 136. 37 Nichols, Privy Purse, 163. 38 Ibid., 240. 39 TNA E101/417/4, fol. 40r; Hayward, Great Wardrobe Accounts, 147. 40 LP ii/2, 1447. 41 Ibid., 1472. 42 LP xvi, 868. 43 F. Madden, ‘Account of King Henry the Eighth’s Entry into Lincoln in 1541’, Archaeologia, 23 (1831), 5–6. 44 McEntegart, Henry VIII, 117, n. 194. 45 LP ix, 58. 46 McEntegart, Henry VIII, 32. MacCulloch, Cranmer, 139. 47 For example during the 1521 progress William Fitzwilliam, treasurer of the household, recorded that the king gave gifts of venison to those who visited him ‘to their particular comfort’, LP iv/2, 2368. 48 For example J. H. Baker, ‘Doctors Wear Scarlet: The Festal Gowns of the Colleges of Cambridge’, Costume, 20 (1986), 35. 49 For example LP iv/2, 2407.2; Samman, ‘Progresses’, 62. 50 J. Gibson (ed.), REED: Kent (Toronto, 2002), vol. I, 157. 51 LP iv/2, 2368. 52 Hall, Chronicle, 842. When Anne of Cleves travelled to meet her bridegroom, her reception at key towns followed a similar pattern: [A]t the Turnepyke on thyssyde Gravelyng was the Lady Anne of Cleve received by the lorde Lysle Deputie of the toune of Calice and with the Speres and horsemen belonging to the retinue there, all being fresh and warlike apparelled. Hall, Chronicle, 832

Clothing and Livery on Progresses  83 53 S. Wabuda, ‘Receiving the King: Henry VIII at Cambridge’, in T. Betteridge and S. Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Farnham, 2013), 171–72, 176–77. 54 Hall, Chronicle, 733. 55 Dickens, ‘The Yorkshire Submissions’, 273. 56 Ibid., 273, fn. 6. 57 Gibson, REED: Kent, vol. I, 118. 58 Ibid., vol. I, 128. 59 Ibid., vol. I, 118. 60 Ibid., vol. II, 847. 61 R. Bell, ‘The Royal Visit to Acton Court in 1535’, in D. R. Starkey (ed.), Henry VIII: A European Court (London, 1991), 118–25. 62 After Hans Holbein, Sir Nicholas Poyntz, oil on paper mounted on panel, c.1533–99, National Portrait Gallery, NPG 5583. 63 Gibson, REED: Kent, vol. III, 955. 64 Ibid., vol. II, 682. 65 A. Johnston and M. Rogerson (eds.), REED: York (Manchester, 1979), vol. I, 285. 66 E. McEneaney (ed.), A History of Waterford and its Mayors from the Twelfth Century to the Twentieth Century (Waterford, 1995), 105. 67 Samman, ‘The Progresses’, 61. 68 BL Harley MS 4217, fol. 6r (Hayward, Dress, 417). 69 R. K. Marshall, ‘To Be the King’s Grace ane Dowblett: The Costume of James V, King of Scots’, Costume, 28 (1994), 14–21. 70 L. Jefferson, ‘Gifts Given and Fees Paid to Garter King of Arms at the Installation Ceremonies of the Order of the Garter during the Sixteenth Century’, Costume, 36/1 (2002), 26. Also see LP ix, 178. 71 LP xvi, 1251. 72 Gibson, REED: Kent, vol. II, 577. 73 LP xvi, 59. 74 TNA E101/419/18. 75 BL Harley MS 4217, fol. 11v (Hayward, Dress, 422). 76 BL Arundel MS, 97, fol. 27v (LP xiii/2, 1280). 77 BL Harley MS 1419, fols 551r-v; D. Starkey (ed.), The Inventory of King Henry VIII: The Transcript (London, 1998), 433. 78 SoA MS 129, fol. 166r-v; Starkey, Inventory, 73, entry numbers 2406, 2419, 2421 and 2425. 79 LP ii, 1457. 80 LP xix/2, 688. 81 Nichols, Privy Purse, 75. 82 Ibid., 161. 83 LP iii, 1537. 84 C. Sicca, ‘Fashioning the Tudor Court’, in M. Hayward and E. Kramer (eds.), Textiles and Text: Re-establishing the Links between Archival and Object-based Research (London, 2007), 98. 85 Nichols, Privy Purse, 163. 86 Ibid., 68, 72. 87 Ibid., 159. 88 Hall, Chronicle, 637. 89 Madden, ‘Account’, 336. 90 LP xix/2, 688. 91 LP v, 488 and 512; Nichols, Privy Purse, xv. 92 Hall, Chronicle, 787–8. 93 TNA LC2/1, fol. 174r. 94 E. Hurren, ‘Cultures of the Body, Medical Regimen, and Physic at the Tudor Court’, in Betteridge and Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court, 87.

6 Monastic Lodgings Housing the King Before and After the Reformation Maurice Howard

Before and after the dissolution of the monasteries Tudor sovereigns used monastic houses as lodgings on their journeys around the country. Whilst the obvious change after the dissolution of the 1530s was that the Crown now had ownership of these sites and decided to retain some of them in its possession, it is not simply a question of a sudden change of direction as to their use. Since their foundation many monasteries had enjoyed royal endowment such that a sense of proprietorship and influence over their affairs had long existed. This explains why in many modern discussions about the fate of the material remains of the monasteries, after the Acts of Dissolution of 1536 and 1539, historians have stressed aspects of continuity to temper the traditional view of sudden, random and thoroughgoing destruction. There was after all a series of precedents as small numbers of sites had been suppressed before due to their physical dereliction or the coming to an end of the monastic house of which they were a part. This chapter will consider the use of these buildings across time, contrast their treatment by the Crown with other powerful grantees, outline the form that lodgings dedicated to the king took and highlight the way in which the royal conversions used a range of skilled craftsmen in the context of other royal building operations.1 The sense of an exploitation of these sites by new owners other than the Crown also does not begin with the grants of the 1530s, since in some cases this simply intensified, or made permanent, hitherto informal arrangements. Many postdissolution secular owners were ready to spring into action in assuming control and securing grants from the Crown because they already had firm links with particular sites, whether as owners of neighbouring estates or more directly because they had been lay stewards of monasteries.2 Often, their willingness to pay the asking price, set low for the topmost courtiers in the immediate years, was about their hunger for further territorial acquisition around pre-existing landholdings. Other properties became assets in the post-dissolution market for the buying and selling of estates and buildings. What is less often highlighted is the way in which some new owners must not only have encouraged local economic and leasehold practices and customs but also took a sense of personal responsibility for the local communities on the doorstep of former monasteries. As the owner of great houses such as Micheldever and the grantee of other ex-monastic possessions such as Titchfield, both in the same county of Hampshire, Thomas Wriothesley leased out DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-9

Source: John Dunkin, The History and Antiquaries of Dartford with Topographical Notices of the Neighbourhood, London, 1844. Reproduced with permission from the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Monastic Lodgings  85

Figure 6.1 Dartford priory and cloister, with church, temp. Henry VIII. Most of the antiquarian views of Dartford are of the north- and east-facing sides of the remaining fragment, though it is rare to see depicted a conjectural site of the church, accurately shown to the north, but it was not at all in the position supposed here.

86  Maurice Howard his newly acquired property of the abbey of Beaulieu but retained the rights of hunting and fishing there just as he had enjoyed in earlier times when it was a Cistercian monastic house.3 At Battle, in East Sussex, Sir Anthony Browne used parts of the abbey complex as a dwelling house but also, next to the great thirteenthcentury gatehouse which faced the town, he built a new court house for the use of the townspeople.4 For many grantees the buildings of the monastery were either a source of exploitation for building materials or they became the nexus of a great house. In some instances of leading courtiers, the ‘new men’ of Henry VIII’s reign, this might be the first large property they owned and developed. When we turn to those sites where the Crown retained ownership and which were used by the Tudor sovereigns for their own purposes we see in many ways a rather different picture, a selection of places to be retained and then a story of their continual re-adaptation for the political needs of the moment. This process included the despoiling of sites for their materials for use at other building ventures such as royal palaces and coastal defences or the shifting of materials to other monastic properties which were going to be retained and put to use. It is also possible that the political agenda of the Crown meant that it exercised a policy of deliberate neglect, or at least abandonment, at some former monastic sites to make a point in the face of recent disaffection or rebellion. It has been suggested, for example, that the royal retention of sites such as Glastonbury, without any immediate indication of particular use, was a way of reminding the local population of the fate of the last abbot, hanged for treason at the top of Glastonbury Tor.5 The sovereign and other members of the royal family had for centuries used monasteries as temporary places of residence as they travelled the kingdom, sometimes enabling a route of devotional pilgrimage between shrines. As some royal castles were left in a state of physical decline during the later middle ages and because only certain leading and loyal courtiers were honoured by a visit, monastic sites were increasingly used as places of lodging, and this development rather intensified as the administrative processes of the Tudor state became more centralised. A great abbey such as Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, for example, was often used as such a staging post and in the last years of its existence was a special place of subordinate residence for Henry VIII’s sister Mary, Queen-Dowager of France, during her second marriage, to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. The couple’s major residences in East Anglia were their nearby houses of Westhorpe and Henham.6 It was at the abbey of Bury that Mary lay in state and where she was buried after her death in 1533. One such royal ‘progress’ between monasteries took place in 1498, when Henry VII and his mother Lady Margaret Beaufort undertook a seven-week journey, which started at the Tower of London and moved into East Anglia and the East Midlands.7 About one-third of their twenty-seven resting places were religious houses, including Stratford Longthorne, Bury St Edmunds, Thetford, Norwich, Walsingham, King’s Lynn and Ely. Usually, on these journeys accommodation for the royal guest was at the charge of the religious house itself, but at one monastic site at least it is clear that Henry VIII paid for the construction of lodging thereafter always referred to as the ‘house of honour’, indicating its

Monastic Lodgings  87 royal status and reservation for the king’s use. This was at the Dominican Friary of Guildford, where Henry VIII built a royal lodging probably in the late 1520s; this was in addition to a royal lodge in parkland nearby.8 The building was clearly suitable for the business of government for it was at this friary that a treaty with the Scots was ratified in August  1534. However, by 1536, the friars petitioned that the king ‘has been pleased to build a place of honour within the precincts of their house, which place is now decaying’. Since the friars, at the time of the subsequent dissolution just seven in number, could not pay for the upkeep they were forced to seek a benefice to support its maintenance. This king’s lodging, and indeed a substantial part of the priory surrounding it, remained in royal hands after the dissolution of 1538, since repairs were carried out in 1539–40 and in 1543. The nature of this building and its materials of construction will be further considered in the context of other conversions at the end of this chapter. The Acts of Dissolution of 1536 and 1539 were simply the most drastic and farreaching of a series of more minor suppressions of religious houses that stretched back many years but now on an unprecedented and thoroughgoing scale. It is also important to reiterate that what historians might read as a government fiat was inflected by the voluntary surrender of many establishments who could see that the writing was on the wall and who therefore pre-empted an enforced and brutal evacuation to preserve the chances of the religious inmates securing benefices, pensions and the preservation of holy objects. The fate of the buildings in which they lived and worshipped was in some cases secondary to the concerns of the monastic community. However, the government clearly did not completely ignore the potential social and economic disturbance that empty monastic sites would have created. The wording used in the 1536 Act is crucial for an understanding of the government’s grasp of the wide-scale nature of what it was seeking to do and the risk of potential disruption to every local community. The Act called for every person or institution granted a former monastic property to ‘keep or cause to be kept an honest continual house and household in the same site or precinct, and to occupy yearly as much of the said demesnes in ploughing and tillage of husbandry’.9 It is clear that this dictum was not followed by many grantees, indeed it was not followed in every case at the sites the Crown itself chose to retain. No specific injunction is included here about preserving the fabric of buildings as they stood or in a state of good repair. If they intended to repurpose them, new owners – whether great courtiers, people of the merchant class or lower in the social ­hierarchy – used former monastic buildings practically and sometimes creatively to provide themselves with new houses and all necessary outbuildings. Sometimes, where the new owner sought to utilise standing buildings there was extraordinary continuity between past and present, especially when we look at those sites rapidly transformed for domestic use in the very earliest years after 1536. To some extent this was determined in the first instance by the state of these structures, but the passage of time seems to have encouraged an approach increasingly receptive to the monastic plan. In some places just the western range of a cloister complex was adapted because here was found the public-facing aspect of the religious house, often giving on to an outer court which was the monastery’s interface with

88  Maurice Howard the outside world. The western range was where guest lodgings were traditionally found, and if these had been recently updated there was a degree of fashionability and comfort that were the equal of any great house. Sometimes, in the course of making new purposes of these buildings, new owners, or their lieutenants on site, thought more practically and used those structures that were the most structurally sound and perhaps the most recently built. In several notable instances, however, new owners thought of these buildings not as a series of disjointed if adaptable building ranges but instead rose to the challenge of adapting the whole and of changing the complete cloister of the monastery into their new house. A  first consideration of this might suggest the obvious attraction of such adaptation since the full cloister most readily echoed, in its basic shape, the courtyard shape of so many prevalent elite domestic houses, and so their rapid reconfiguration might well suit those owners of humble origins, newly promoted to high office by the Crown, who had never possessed a family home of such dimensions. However, converting a claustral gathering of buildings (and it is important to see the monastery as just that, an assemblage of spaces for different purposes, both religious and domestic) was no simple challenge and owners, or their representatives on site, had to shift their expectations gathered from a past experience of the workings of great houses. The conversion of the monasteries in fact played a key role in moving the essential plan of the traditional courtyard house forwards. Titchfield Abbey in Hampshire (adapted for Sir Thomas Wriothesley), Newstead in Nottinghamshire (for Sir John Byron) and Lacock in Wiltshire (for Sir William Sharington) are all places where prominent courtiers let the plan of the former religious house reconfigure the floor levels of the conventional country house plan, re-positioning the conventional expectation and use of staircases, changing orientation and points of entry in ways that resulted in a new internal dynamic to the expectations of a country house10 (see Figure 6.2). In other instances, the owner, or more usually the next generation, had a rethink of a first, rapid transformation and completely changed the layout or orientation some years afterwards. At Sopwell Priory in Hertfordshire, Richard Lee, having initially destroyed the cloister walks as superfluous to his needs, later began effectively to reinstate them as corridors in a redesign of the house shortly before his death in 1575.11 It is important to outline the aforementioned categories of lay adaptations to contrast with this the very different way in which the Crown treated those sites that it chose to retain. It was rare for a royal reuse of a site to mirror the layout of the monastery in any exact way, though the survival of a drawing, recent examination and new technical, archaeological evidence for the priory of Dunstable suggests a surprising adherence to the footfall of the priory for the royal house that was planned to be rebuilt there.12 In most key instances it was by the addition of lodgings in the temporary material of wood within the boundaries of the walls of the site that characterised these royal adaptations and suggests that right from the beginning no long-term or continuous use was necessarily envisaged. Most of the constant re-fashioning of these buildings was to accommodate the needs of royal lodging as circumstances changed. No former monastery became

Monastic Lodgings  89

Figure 6.2 The fifteenth-century cloister of Lacock Abbey turned into the courtyard house for Sir William Sharington after 1540, with a new upper floor and mid-century windows. (Author’s photograph)

90  Maurice Howard a ‘standing’ palace like Henry VIII’s houses in and around London and in the Thames Valley, that is to say they were not kept in a similar state of readiness for royal use like Hampton Court, Oatlands or Nonsuch, give or take the necessary repairs that had to be undertaken at all places whenever the king resided. Some of them served as houses of extra accommodation in the vicinity of other places where the king favoured staying for the pursuit of hunting. Some former monasteries in Kent, along the road to Dover, most especially Dartford Priory, Rochester and St Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury, served the king’s need for travelling to the channel port and for the accommodation of foreign visitors on their way from Calais via Dover and on to London. These buildings were supplemented in number by another act of royal appropriation during this period, namely the easing out, by forced exchanges, of church prelates from their comfortable and grand courtyard houses, like the archbishop of Canterbury’s houses of Otford and Knole in the same county.13 Not all of the fifteen or so religious houses that the Crown retained were used by the king personally and therefore were not adapted for his personal, even temporary, accommodation. The former College of Bonshommes at Ashridge, in Hertfordshire, was adapted as a dwelling for the royal children, and other sites were used partially or totally for storage.14 The former Bridgettine abbey of Syon in Middlesex was used as a convenient conveyancing and transitional point by the Crown at times of crisis: here Catherine Howard was confined after her removal from Hampton Court in the winter of 1540–1, before she was conveyed to the Tower, and here the body of Henry VIII rested on its journey from London to its final burial at Windsor in January 1547, but Syon was also used for the making and storage of munitions.15 The Charterhouse in London was partly leased and partly granted away, but some of the premises were used for the storage of royal tents.16 St  Mary’s Abbey at York and the Austin Friars at Newcastle were used as administrative centres for the Council of the North. The sense of expediency and uncertainty is particularly evident from the documentation of the use of St Mary’s, York. In 1551, during the reign of Edward VI and when a new wave of desecration of the monastic past was taking place, the President of the Council of the North wrote to Sir Edward North, then chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, to inform him that delays in the post had held up a countermand order from the Privy Council that no further wilful slighting of the former Abbey should take place and that even the King’s Chamber had been defaced before the countermand was granted. All this implies that the royal monastic holdings were kept on a long lead, sometimes the site of frenzied adaptation, sometimes neglected, according to changing needs.17 The processes of adaptation of monastic sites by the Royal Works are most fully recorded at Rochester, St Augustine’s Canterbury and Dartford thanks to the survival of some of the account books of James Nedeham, carpenter and Surveyor of the Office of Works, who supervised the royal programme on site.18 The programme of works at St Augustine’s Canterbury, in the final weeks of 1539, shows a frantic schedule to prepare the site for the reception of Anne of Cleves, the king’s prospective fourth wife, on her way from Dover to London, even though she was expected to stay there for just one or two nights. In many ways, the works here

Monastic Lodgings  91 demonstrate the most extreme instance of the kind of practicality under pressure that only the Crown could undertake, with its great resources of money, materials and manpower. The walls and the remaining internal spaces of the Abbey were useful for all kinds of practical purposes for the future queen’s visit, such as kitchens, stabling, the accommodation of lesser Crown officers and their attendants. Though the king was not expected on this occasion, he could at any future date be accommodated in the former abbot’s lodging on the west side of the cloister and also forming the eastern side of the outer Great Court. For Anne of Cleves herself and her immediate entourage it was decided that only a newly built range of timber lodgings would suit the purposes of comfort and security, and these were built at a right angle to the abbot’s lodging along the south side of the Great Court. It is clear that by Henry VIII’s later years a formula for the rapid building of such ranges had been perfected, though the speed at which the builders were often made to work must have constrained at least the finishing-off process. This new range for the prospective queen had a brick base with brick chimneystacks and ‘jakes’ of the same material, but the major part of the structure above the base was of timber. At Dartford, it was decided to use the whole of the great court of the former Dominican nunnery with certain additions and removals. The surviving fragment of the royal works at this site today is the western gatehouse entry to the court at the south-west corner of the former great court (see Figures 6.3 and 6.4). The documentation covers several major aspects of construction and decoration that were characteristic of all the monastic conversions in Crown use. All royal building activity after 1536 incorporated, whether substantially or marginally, whether made visibly evident or not, recycled materials both from the site itself and also from other monastic sites where demolition had taken place. The ‘new build’ of this south-western gatehouse was in part set up on a base of ragstone, both rubble and ashlar, some of which came from demolition at Barking Abbey in Essex. Some flint was also incorporated (see Figure  6.5). The speedy setting up of a wooden structure within the Court was, like the lodgings in the same material at St Augustine’s, the result of new technologies in timber-framed buildings across a range of royal projects at this time. In the sliding scale of works between those in permanent materials and the tented structures that formed the most temporary spaces of all, these structures represented a semi-permanent royal residence that could survive the immediate needs of the occasion for which it was built to serve but would need considerable refurbishment every time it was used thereafter. Beyond these in the scale of flexible and temporary use were the structures that could be stored and reassembled in different places, most obviously those in canvas and silk like the tents but also wooden structures, fixed together with the new technology of nails, most notably the temporary structure assembled for the King at the siege of Boulogne.19 Within the court, the provision of an external stair leading up to a chamber was something paralleled in the standing palaces at this time. The application of ochre and pencilling to the buildings, giving a surface continuity and pattern to an otherwise variety of building materials, was likewise something found at royal palaces.20

92  Maurice Howard

Figure 6.3 The surviving range of the Dartford Priory gatehouse at the south-western end of the nuns’ cloister, built for Henry VIII. (Author’s photograph)

Monastic Lodgings  93

Figure 6.4 The north- and east-facing façades of the surviving fragment of Dartford Priory. The window openings are probably original, with possibly original lintels and other woodwork renewed. (Author’s photograph)

94  Maurice Howard

Figure 6.5 Details of the remains of Dartford Priory showing the use of both ashlar and rubble from Barking Abbey and fragments of flint. (Author’s photograph)

Yet there is one common factor, an over-arching pattern to the royal monastic conversions, and this concerns the methods of organising the work on site and the context of this within a broader plan of action by the Royal Works. The contrast with other new owners, even those of the highest courtier class, is of course

Monastic Lodgings  95 conditioned by the fact that we have the State Papers and thus some record of the progress of work in these royal instances and often, through records of payment, of exactly who went about it. In the private sector, documentation is scarce and there are only rare instances of named individuals working at particular sites. For the private sector the scant evidence is less in actual building accounts than in the form of letters between courtiers and their agents or requests between them for particular expertise, such as the well-known requests for the expertise of John Chapman that passed between Sir William Sharington at Lacock Abbey and Sir John Thynne at Longleat House, both of course in origin houses of the Augustinian order.21 The physical evidence for transformation survives in many non-royal conversions both inside and outside existing houses, whether in the archaeological puzzle of standing ruinous buildings, buried within the campaigns of later generations of renewal or unpicked and revealing the monastic structure by the enthusiasm of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarian revivals. In the case of the Royal Works the greatest resource for the historians is the documents recording activity and subsequent payments that can be linked from one site to another and across the many skills of building and fitting out that the Crown could command. It is possible to situate the endeavours to adapt the monastic premises of St Augustine’s and Dartford into the context of the Royal Works as a whole through the named craftsmen in Nedeham’s accounts. These indicate the work of particular people and are just one of their many paid employments for the Crown covering a range of skills and places. These make the collective achievement of some of them into a formidable body of individual work. The painterstainer John Hethe of London, a friend of Henry Machyn who recorded Hethe’s funeral in his chronicle, provided four representations of the Queen’s arms (that is to say those of Anne of Cleves) in the lodgings at St Augustine’s in preparation for her staying there in 1539. At Dartford, in the summer of 1542, Hethe gilded stone heraldic beasts of a lion and a dragon for the ‘halpace’ or landing area on the stairs leading to the royal apartments and also gilded the vanes on the roofs. He had long served the Crown, first appearing in the accounts for heraldic work for the funeral of Henry VII in 1509, and in the 1530s, he was a painter and gilder of heraldic beasts at Hampton Court. In his will of 1552, he was to leave his son Lawrence ‘the moldes and molded work that he served the king with’.22 The fate of former monastic properties as Crown property did not follow any set pattern of dispersal, rather as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries progressed they were disposed of for a variety of reasons both political and practical. They were never seen as a typological group, though their adaptation did to some extent follow a path of rapid preparation for particular occasions that sets them apart. The use in particular of wooden structures, painted and gilded to complete their presentation, characterises their reformulation and, representative as this may seem of the speed of building works in the last ten years of Henry VIII’s reign, it appears that this may have had roots in earlier building ventures where the Royal Works were not adding to the essential, core royal estate but providing necessary comfort and splendour at these other places, these staging posts of royal progress or retreat for hunting. In this context, Henry VIII’s fondness for his lodging within

96  Maurice Howard the Friary at Guildford may have been a foretaste of what was to come. The dating of the royal lodging at Guildford Friary is uncertain, but it may be that the ‘house of honour’ constructed at this poor and minimally staffed monastery may have happened at a point ten years before the dissolution of the site as early as 1528, when 35 loads of timber were transported there.23 The sense of continuity between the pre- and post-monastic story is clearly evident here before any decision to dissolve the entire monastic legacy in the creation of habitations for royal pleasure and for servicing a court on the move.

Notes 1 The major sources on which this study is based are H. M. Colvin, J. Summerson, M. Biddle, J. R. Hale and M. Merriman (eds.), The History of the King’s Works, 6 vols (London, 1963–82), vol. IV, 1485–1660 (part 2); S. Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life 1460–1547 (New Haven, CT and London, 1993); S. Thurley, ‘English Royal Palaces 1450–1550’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London (1991). For an overview of the non-royal conversions, M. Howard, The Early Tudor Country House: Architecture and Politics 1490–1550 (London, 1987), chapter 7 and M. Howard, The Building of Elizabethan and Jacobean England (New Haven, CT and London, 2007), chapter 1. On the context of the monastic buildings in the wider history of the dissolution, the highly authoritative J. G. Clark, The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History (New Haven, CT and London, 2021). 2 For the issue of stewardship, D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1979), vol. II, 283–5. 3 F. Hockey, Beaulieu: King John’s Abbey (unknown imprint, 1976), 199–200. 4 J. N. Hare, ‘The Buildings of Battle Abbey’, in Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, 1980 (Bury, 1981), 78–95; N. Antram and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, Sussex: East, With Brighton and Hove (New Haven CT and London, 2013), 101–3. 5 The retention of certain sites (for the immediate post-dissolution period at least) to underline royal power in the face of dissent is made by Clark, Dissolution, 482. 6 S. J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 1484–1545 (Oxford, 1988). 7 This progress is surveyed by S. Powell, ‘Lady Margaret Beaufort: A Progress Through Essex and East Anglia, 1498’, in C. M. Woolgar (ed.), The Elite Household in England, 1100–1550: Proceedings of the 2016 Harlaxton Symposium, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 27 (Donington, 2018), 295–316. 8 H. E. Malden (ed.), A History of the County of Surrey, 4 vols (London, 1902–67), vol. II, 114–16; Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 123–4; R. Poulton and H. Woods, ‘Excavations on the Site of the Dominican Friary at Guildford, 1974 and 1976’, Surrey Archaeological Society, Research Volumes, 9 (1984), 6–10. 9 G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, 1960), 378. 10 Howard, Tudor Country House (1987) and Elizabethan and Jacobean England (2007) discusses these sites and further in M. Howard, ‘Recycling the Monastic Fabric: Beyond the Act of Dissolution’, in D. Gaimster and R. Gilchrist (eds.), The Archaeology of Reformation 1480–1580 (Leeds, 2003), 221–34. 11 C. Platt, Medieval England (London, 1978), 216–17 and see the full account of Sopwell’s history in N. Doggett, Patterns of Re-Use: The Transformation of Former Monastic Buildings in Post-Dissolution Hertfordshire, 1540–1600, British Archaeological Reports British Series, 331 (Oxford, 2002), 187–98. 12 The use of Dunstable and the plan of 1543–4 are discussed by Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 75–6 and Thurley, Royal Palaces, 56–7, 118–19. I am indebted to information

Monastic Lodgings  97 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22

23

from Matt Bristow and Sarah Newsome about the forthcoming publication of archaeological work undertaken at this site by Historic England. On Knole at the point of royal transfer, see A. Gregory, ‘Knole: An Architectural and Social History of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s House, 1456–1538’, unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Sussex (2010) and on Otford A. Gregory, ‘ “In His Own Image”: Architectural Patronage and Self-symbolism in Archbishop Warham’s Motivations for Rebuilding the Palace at Otford (c. 1514–26)’, in M. Dimmock, A. Hadfield and M. Healy (eds.), The Intellectual Culture of the English Country House 1500–1700 (Manchester, 2015), 27–46. On Ashridge, Colvin King’s Works, vol. IV, 47–8. On Syon, Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 272–3. Philip Temple, The Charterhouse, Survey of London monographs, 18 (2010) discusses most fully the post-dissolution disposal of the various parts of the Charterhouse buildings. C. Norton, ‘The Buildings of St Mary’s Abbey, York, and Their Destruction’, The Antiquaries Journal, 74 (1994) 256–88, at 274. These buildings and Nedeham’s account books are discussed in Colvin, King’s Works, vol. IV, 59–63, 68–74, 234–7 and by Thurley ‘English Royal Palaces’, 205–29 and Thurley, Royal Palaces (1993), 56–8. A. Gregory, ‘The Timber Lodgings of King Henry VIII: Ephemeral Architecture at War in the Early Sixteenth Century’, The Antiquaries Journal, 100 (2020), 304–23. The colouring and re-colouring of buildings is discussed by E. Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting in England, 1537–1837, 2 vols (London, 1962–70), vol. I: Early Tudor to Sir James Thornhill and the discovery of paint on the east wall of the chapel at Hampton Court was discussed by P. Curnow, ‘The East Window of the Chapel at Hampton Court Palace’, Architectural History, 27 (1984), 1–14. Chapman’s work documentation was published in W. G. Clark-Maxwell, ‘Sir William Sharington’s Work at Lacock, Sudeley and Dudley’, Archaeological Journal, 70 (1913), 175–82 and the work at Longleat is most fully discussed in M. Girouard, ‘The Development of Longleat House between 1546 and 1572’, Archaeological Journal, 166 (1959), 200–22. John Hethe is mentioned in relation to St  Augustine’s Canterbury and Dartford in Colvin King’s Works, vol. IV, 61, 71. For Hethe’s wider career, see the entry in E. Town, ‘A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625’, The Walpole Society, 76 (2014), 105–6. Poulton and Woods, ‘Excavations’, 10.

7 Anne of Cleves Bound for England Valerie Schutte

The only information we have about Anne of Cleves’s upbringing comes from Nicholas Wotton’s letter of 11 August 1539. In it, he reports to King Henry VIII that Anne has been brought up by her mother and is never far from her elbow. Wotton also notes that Anne spends most of her time with her needlework and can read and write her own language, but of Frenche Latyn or other langaige she [hath no]ne nor yet she canne not synge nor playe [upon] enye instrument, for they take yn here in Germane for a rebuke and an occasion of lightnesse, that great ladyes shuld be lernyd of have anye knowledge of musike. Most importantly, ‘her witte is [] goode, that no doubt she wille yn a short span lerne th’englisshe tongue, when so [soon?] she putts her mynde to hit’. Finally, Anne has no reputation for drinking, as she is not ‘ynclyned to the good cheer of this country and marvel it were yf she should, seeing that her brother, yn whom yet hit were somewhat more tolerable, doth so well abstayne from hit’.1 It is clear from this list of qualities that Anne of Cleves was not given a humanist education, like Katherine of Aragon, nor a foreign courtly upbringing, such as Anne Boleyn. Anne of Cleves’s background perhaps most closely resembled that of Jane Seymour, a woman taught traditional skills of chastity, virtue and obedience; Jane’s motto was ‘bound to obey and serve’, after all. With this traditional upbringing, Anne would have been little prepared to become Queen of England. As such, I suggest that her six-week progress to England was likely the only preparation she received, and during that journey she used her time and proximity to some of Henry’s closest courtiers to prepare for her queenship as best she could. Anne of Cleves has received scant historiographical attention, as she is the sole focus of only one academic monograph and a handful of articles, though she is featured in a few commercial biographies and compendiums of the six wives of Henry VIII.2 Typically, in English-language scholarship, Anne’s progress is included only within biographies, which cover the event in varying levels of detail. These secondary works all tend to downplay or gloss over Anne’s journey from Düsseldorf to London, never considering Anne’s journey as a royal progress, filled with royal symbolism and opportunity for Anne to be shown to her new DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-10

Anne of Cleves  99 people as well as represent her new queenly status.3 In his monograph on the six wives, David Loades gives only two paragraphs on Anne’s travel from Cleves to Rochester and has some of his facts incorrect, such as when she actually left Cleves.4 David Starkey offers only four pages on the subject, focusing his attention on Anne’s time in Calais, but at least acknowledges that while there she ‘did her best to prepare herself for her new role’.5 Retha Warnicke devotes two chapters of her monograph on Anne’s marriage to the subject of Anne’s journey, choosing to highlight Anne and Henry’s first meeting using sources from July 1540, instead of focusing on the importance and meaning of the journey itself.6 However, these chapters are well researched and usefully compare Anne’s entry into London with Katherine of Aragon’s in 1501.7 Heather Darsie, Anne’s most recent popular biographer, addresses Anne’s travel preparations and journey as entangled with the international fallout of the Act of Six Articles.8 These accounts, though they provide some narrative of the journey itself, neglect to consider Anne’s journey as a royal progress rife with symbolism and meaning. This chapter attempts to offer a fuller picture of the journey, its importance and, most importantly, Anne’s behaviour (see Figure 7.1). By mid-1538, King Henry VIII began seriously searching for his fourth bride. After multiple failed prospects, including Mary of Guise and Christina of Milan, he settled on Anne of Cleves, sister to William, duke of Cleves. Their final marriage contract was signed by the king’s commissioners on 4 October 1539.9 All that was left to settle was how Anne would get to England, for the tenth term of the marriage contract stated that William would keep Henry informed of his transportation plans for Anne so that the king would have adequate time to prepare for her arrival.10 Anne could either travel to England over land to Calais and then sail across the Channel or sail the entire way via a direct route from Harderwijk on the Zuiderzee. The land route was safer, but this required permission from Charles V for her to cross his territories, and this was not guaranteed since William and Charles were disputing over Guelders.11 The Cleves envoy in England insisted that Anne travel over land, as she had never been on the sea before and worried for both a rough journey and the possibility that she would catch a cold or disease.12 Henry, however, thought travel via sea would be speediest for her conveyance, and so early as 26 September 1539, Henry wrote to William with concern about getting Anne to England quickly because winter was coming.13 According to French ambassador Charles de Marillac, Henry was also preparing ten ships to be fitted for Anne’s conduct overseas and ordered ‘the repairs and ornaments’ for some of the royal residences, most likely for the Queen’s apartments at Whitehall and Hampton Court Palace.14 In his eagerness, Henry sent John à Borough of Devon and Richard Couche of Dover, seamen, to examine the route and draw up a plan.15 Anthony Anthony used Borough and Couche’s map to create a more decorative, presentation map, likely meant to sway the Cleves attaché as to the safety of a sea route. Yet, the map did not have the desired effect, and eventually Henry agreed to Anne taking a land route. In Calais, preparations began on 18 October, when Thomas Cromwell wrote to Arthur Plantagenet, first Viscount Lisle and Lord Deputy of Calais, instructing

100  Valerie Schutte

Figure 7.1  Queen Anne of Cleves, head and shoulders, in a rococo medallion; below, putti seated next to a crown. Source: Engraving by J. Houbraken after H. Holbein the younger, 1740. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark.

Anne of Cleves  101 him to ‘view his Grace’s house there called the Exchequer, that with all diligence all things therein necessary to be amended may be undelayedly repaired’. Cromwell continued that [H]is Majesty would that you should cause the streets and lanes there to be viewed for the pavements, and where any default is, to give commandment to those which should repair the same to see it immediately amended, endeavouring yourselves to put all other things within the said town in the most honest and cleanly order you can devise.16 Also in Calais, John Norris and William Moris were paid to ready Anne’s lodgings for forty-one days.17 Cromwell wrote further letters of instructions to Nicholas Wotton, the English diplomat who arranged the Cleves marriage. Beginning in November 1539, several upgrades were made to Greenwich Palace, including a roof for the queen’s new privy kitchen.18 In the list of Henry’s household expenses for December 1539, payments are listed for bows and arrows from the Tower of London for the guards attending Anne’s arrival, repairs to the Tower itself, provisions for the king’s stables and mast poles for tents (most likely for the tents under which Henry greeted his wife-to-be at Greenwich).19 In spring of 1540, Richard Longman, Yeoman of the Tents, was given wages for actually setting up the tents upon Blackheath.20 Further payments were made in January 1540 for Yeomen of the Guard to be present at Anne’s arrival, from 10 December  1539 to 19 January  1540; for Williams Raynsford and Thomas Gifforde, Gentleman Ushers of the Chamber, to make ready Dover and Sittingbourne for Anne’s arrival, at five shillings a day for thirty-five days, along with two yeomen and five grooms there for thirty-nine days; for Richard Greneway, a Gentleman Usher of the Chamber, for making ready Canterbury and Rochester for thirty-five days, alongside three yeomen and four grooms for thirty-nine days and finally for Richard Fremmelynge and John Thomson and three grooms for making Dartford ready for thirty days.21 Further preparations were undertaken at Dartford and Rochester to set up the king’s bed at each place, as well as make them ready for the new queen.22 Preparations were even made at Hampton Court Palace to accommodate any strangers who arrived with Anne there on 18 January 1540.23 The exact date for Anne’s arrival in England was unknown, but on 24 October, John Husse wrote to Lord Lisle that ‘the officers are appointed which shall go over to prepare against the Queen’s coming to Calais. Howbeit, when they shall depart it is yet uncertain, yet some thinketh within this vj or vij days’.24 This guess of Anne leaving her homeland within six or seven days turned out to be overly optimistic. Duke William did not even order the gentlemen who would accompany Anne to England to assemble in Cleves until 7 November, for a 25 November gathering.25 Anne and her own attendants did not leave Düsseldorf for Cleves until 26 November. When Anne finally did leave Cleves, her train, comprising 263 persons and 228 horses, was very slow moving and frequently delayed, often travelling no more than five miles per day.26 Anne herself rode in a horse-drawn chariot and was announced at each town entrance by thirteen trumpeters provided by the elector of Saxony, Anne’s brother-in-law.27

102  Valerie Schutte After leaving Cleves, Anne travelled through Ravenstein, Bertingburg, the Low Countries, Tillburg, and Hoogstraten. On 29 November, Stephen Vaughan reported to Lord Lisle that ‘upon the second day of December the Lady’s Grace of Cleves is appointed to be at Antwerp’ and ‘intendeth not to tarry above one day’. She was to arrive in Calais six days later.28 However, it seems like Anne did not arrive in Antwerp until 3 December, the first stop for which any detail survives, and stayed one night.29 Once she entered English territory there are several more accounts of her progress to London. This is most likely because many more English people joined her entourage at this point or would have been in the proximity of the travelling caravan to witness the events. On 4 December, Nicholas Wotton wrote to Cromwell with details of the members of her train, including which German persons intended to return to Germany, and which intended to continue to London, information about a German gift-giving custom called bruidstuckes and how Anne’s arrival to Bruges would be delayed by one day due to the horses not being able to cross over low water. As for Anne’s reception in Antwerp, the count of Buren fed Anne’s train and Stephen Vaughan and the merchants entertained her at the English house there. The count of Buren told Wotton that he never saw so many people gathered in Antwerp for an entry, not even for the emperor. Wotton closed that ‘withe my ladyes trayne, and with Vaughan and the merchantes, it was a right goodlye sight’.30 Anne and her train arrived at Bruges on 7 December, going through Newport and Dunkirk, where a seditious sermon was preached and later investigated; though vaguely reported about, the sermon did not disparage Henry but was ‘full of railing’, which gives the impression that it was either too Lutheran or went against the newly established Six Articles.31 Anne finally reached Gravelines, outside of Calais, on 11 December. Two days prior, Gregory Cromwell wrote to his wife that Anne’s arrival was imminent and that after a few days, ‘wynde and wether seruynge, take hir passage into Englande’. He further reported that My Lorde Deputie, with all the Speares and Offycers of the towne shall receyue hir att the English Pale. My Lorde Admyral with all vs accompanyenge hime a litle withowte the towne. My Lady Lisle with all the other Ladyes and Gentlewomen att the towne gates.32 According to Hall’s Chronicle, Anne’s arrival followed this plan. She was received at Gravelines by Lord Lisle. As they approached Calais, they were met by William Fitzwilliam, the Earl of Southampton, and thirty gentlemen of the King’s household, including Sir Francis Bryan and Sir Thomas Seymour.33 Southampton brought Anne into Calais through Lantern Gate, ‘where the Shippes laye in the Hauen garnyshed with their banners, pencelles  & flagges, pleasantly to beholde’. Hall continued that ‘at her entry was shot such a peale of gones, that all the retynew much meruailed at it’. Upon her entry into the town, she was presented purses of coin until she reached Exchequer house, where she spent fifteen days due to bad weather.34 There is one very interesting sentence in Gregory Cromwell’s letter that has never received attention and is not included in the summary found in the calendars

Anne of Cleves  103 of Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. Cromwell remarked to his wife that ‘After she ons entereth the Englishe Pale, both she and hir whole treyne shall be att the Kyngs charge, thitherto she hath bene att hir owne’.35 According to the second term of the marriage treaty, Anne would be conveyed to Calais at the expense of her brother, so this sentence accurately reflected that Henry would now be financially responsible for Anne and her party at this juncture.36 However, Cromwell’s statement could very well have a double meaning based upon the final three words. Here, Cromwell pointed out a very important distinction in Anne’s status and position based upon her physical location. Prior to entering English territory, she was an unmarried woman ‘at hir owne’. This might not have been entirely true, as no unmarried royal female could escape the control of her male relatives, but it noted the significance of her changing status once she had crossed into Calais. At her entry into English territory, Anne was regarded as Queen of England by her new subjects. She was now ‘at the Kyngs charge’, his soon-to-be wife and highest-ranking female in all of England. She may have still had her natal connections to Germany, but upon entering English territory, her reign as queen consort began, even if not legally. This is important because it explains her actions and behaviour during her two-week stay in Calais. Anne was supposed to be in Calais only for a few days, yet the weather was too poor to sail.37 However, I suggest that while in Calais, Anne used her time wisely, being in such close proximity to many of her future husband’s closest councillors and friends, to both demonstrate her fitness for queenship and learn as much about Henry and her new country as possible. Not for the first time, Nicholas Wotton provided the greatest source of information on Anne, her personality and her behaviours in a letter that he co-authored with Southampton and sent to Henry VIII on 13 December, two days after Anne’s entry into Calais.38 According to Southampton and Wotton, on 12 December, after Anne dined, Southampton took her to Lantern Gate, where she was able to see the ship that would carry her to England, ‘and surely not oonly she, but also all such straungiers as were with her, moche commended and liked the same’. Later that day, Southampton also met with Dr Henry Olisleger and another German diplomat so that they could give him letters from Duke William to Henry (which were enclosed with this letter). On the morning of 13 December, Southampton met with them again to receive a present of a horse which was delivered ‘me with an harnesse of blak velwet and a stele sadell’ in thanks for ‘thadvauncement and compassing of this mariage’. Also at this meeting, the German ambassadors prayed me on the behalf of their Lorde their master and his moder, to continue my good mynde unto my Ladye, to shewe my self like a faithfull freende and counsaillor, and from tyme to tyme to advertise Her Grace how to frame, to behave, and demeane her self, to the mynde pleasure and contentacion of Your Majestie, trusting she was such oon that wold well consider the same. With this, Southampton reported to Henry that Anne was amenable and desired to learn how to behave herself as Queen of England, specifically with the tutelage

104  Valerie Schutte of one of Henry’s most trusted friends. There is no doubt that the German ambassadors were aware that Anne was underprepared for the role and hoped that while in Calais, Southampton would advise her as much as possible. From here, Southampton digressed to praise Henry and hoped that the result of this marriage would be ‘to have moo childern’. Furthermore, Southampton contemplated if Henry would have had a successful marriage had he married the French king’s daughter or the Duchess of Milan, as Henry had previously had difficulties with both the King of France and the Emperor, uncle to the Duchess. For Southampton, myne affection served me to favour neither of theym: but, hering greate reapport of the notable vertues of my Ladye now, with her excellent beawtie, such as I well perceyve to bee no lesse then was report in verrey dede, my mydne gave me to leane that weye, and to favour Her Graces part. Southampton also acknowledged that the process to obtain Anne as a bride was a ‘deepe matier and long deliberation and consulting’, but ‘the successe of the same shalbe good and for the best’, hopefully resulting in ‘fruct inough’. As Henry had still not seen his bride in person, only Holbein’s image of her, Southampton assured him that all reports of her are true; she was virtuous, beautiful and young enough to bear children, the three most important things Henry could have sought in a foreign bride. Further evidence showing Anne’s desire to please her future husband emerges from when Southampton visited her on the afternoon of 13 December, [A]nd after moche commuicacion she prayed me, by Olisleger who was troucheman [interpreter], to goo to the carddes at sum gamme that Your Highnes used, to thintent she might learne. And soo my Lorde William and I  played with her at cent, and Maister Moryson, Maistres Gylmyne, with Mr Wotton stode by and taght her the playe. And I assure Your Majestie she played as pleasauntly, and with as good a grace and countenaunce as ever in all my life I sawe any noble woman. As ‘one of Henry’s oldest gaming cronies’, Southampton’s comment about Anne must have been a high compliment, as he used to play cards with Anne Boleyn.39 But, again, it showed a real effort on Anne’s part to learn a game that she could play with Henry, knowing that communication would be challenging for them with no common language. Henry was also keenly aware of this potential difficulty, and the Mistress Gilman who was in attendance at that card game was none other than Susanna Gilman, née Horenbout, daughter to the artist Gerard Horenbout, and herself an artist at the Tudor court. Susanna came to the English court in approximately 1522 and received the employment and patronage of Henry VIII and many of his consorts. During Anne’s journey from Düsseldorf to Calais, Nicholas Wotton reported to Thomas Cromwell

Anne of Cleves  105 that it is pourposdde that there shall go over ynto England with my ladye Annes grace, and remayn there with her, maistresse gylmyn (who is taken for first of al my ladyes gentilwomane [] that she is sent hither by the kinges highnesse).40 Henry most likely chose her for the task because she was Flemish and presumably spoke both German and English, which would have allowed her to communicate with Anne ‘in her own tongue and help her through the transition from Cleves to England and her initiation into the complex rituals of English court politics’.41 Anne then kept Susanna on as one of her ladies-in-waiting. As Southampton took his leave of Anne after the card game, ‘she was contented, and thanked me, prayeng me to comme again to supper, and to bringe sum noble folks with me to sit with her, after the maner of her contrey’. Southampton explained to her that this was not the custom in England, so he would not join her. Yet nevertheless, she eftsones prayed me twise or thrise verrey instantly, yea, and caused Olisleger to do the same . . . for, as she sayed, she was moche desirous to see the maner and facion of Englisshemen sitting at their meate. Finally, Southampton gave in, perhaps remembering his promise to Duke William that he would advise Anne how to behave as at the English court. Southampton returned to Anne’s chambers for supper, bringing with him Lord William, Lord Hastings, Lord Grey, Lord Talbois, Master Bryan, Master Seymour, Master Knevet and Gregory Cromwell. At the table, ‘her maner usaige and semblaunce, which she shewed unto us all, was such, as no one might bee more commendable, ner more like a princesse’. As Anne was the daughter of a duke and duchess, Fitzwilliam’s final comment on the supper was meant to show that she was regal above her status, another compliment to her behaviour and attitude. Overall, Southampton and Wotton’s report on Anne in this letter, after spending only two days with her at Calais, was simply glowing. Anne showed proper enthusiasm and wonder at her husband’s navy. She showed herself eager to learn English customs and manners from Henry’s closest advisors and friends. And she endeavoured to learn a pastime that she could share with her husband while she learned the language of her new homeland. It is also likely, with Anne’s reported wit, that she also used that time to gather as much information as possible about Henry from his courtiers. Anne truly embraced her new role as Queen of England and used her time on her journey, especially those unexpected two weeks when she was stranded in Calais, to prepare as much as possible for her queenship.42 Anne continued her sojourn in Calais until 27 December. In the meantime, she possibly began to absorb the gravity of her new position and became homesick for the quieter life in her mother’s household at Düsseldorf.43 On 18 December, Southampton reported to Cromwell that he had received a packet of letters from Flanders, and Anne asked him to open it, hoping there might be a letter for her inside, but there were none.44 On 19 December, Gregory Cromwell

106  Valerie Schutte reported to his father that Anne was in good health, but the weather was still too poor to cross.45 Sometime, after 21 December, Thomas Cromwell wrote to Southampton that His Grace dothe very moche desire the good arrival of my Ladyes Grace and as reason requirethe, and prayeth you hartely soo to chere my Lady and her trayne, as they may think ethe tyme as shot as the tediousness of it woll suffer’. So, while Anne showed interest in her new life in England, Henry showed concern for her as well.46 Finally, on St  John the Evangelist’s Day, Anne sailed from Calais at noon, landing at Deal at five o’clock, where she was received by Thomas Cheiny, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. She was met there by the duke and duchess of Suffolk, the bishop of Chichester and a great number of other ladies and gentlemen, who then escorted her to Dover Castle for a one-night stay.47 Even in England, the weather remained bad. Suffolk reported back to Cromwell that it was windy and hailing, and as a result, there were difficulties getting her chariot and belongings on shore.48 Yet, Anne remained resilient, determined to keep to schedule now that they were in England. When she and her belongings were set, she travelled to Canterbury, where she met Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was less than pleased with the turnout for her there.49 According to John Norris, the next day, Tuesday, Anne and her train went to Sittingbourne, where they spent the night. Then she went ‘upon Wednesday to Rochester, and there met with her Grace, ij miles out of Rochester, my Lord of Norfolk with an hundred horses and a goodly company of gentlemen . . . and so lay there New Year’s Day’.50 In only one sentence, Norris summed up her first meeting with Henry, noting ‘that day the King’s Highness came thither prively and banquetted with her Grace upon Friday, and so came prively away again that night’.51 Henry went to Anne disguised, and she acted respectfully, not knowing his true identity. It is not known when exactly Henry revealed himself to Anne as the king. Yet in all accounts, there is no reported incident or misbehaviour by either Anne or Henry; she behaved virtuously while Henry showed no (public) signs of disgust. It was not until the next day, when Henry left Rochester for Greenwich, that he immediately began to talk of his displeasure at Anne’s appearance and asked Cromwell to find a way out. Even these facts cannot be dated any earlier than July 1540, located in the letters that Cromwell wrote from the Tower and the depositions of Henry’s closest courtiers. Anne left Rochester on 2 January to spend one night at Dartford and on 3 January was received at Blackheath Hill, just outside Greenwich. Norris further reported that upon Anne’s arrival at the foot of Shooter’s Hill there was a pavilion and inside Anne met with several men and women who were all part of her newly formed household, such as her Lord Chamberlain, the earl of Rutland, and his

Anne of Cleves  107 wife, who was part of Anne’s privy chamber. After this reception and an oration by Doctor Day, [H]er Grace went into the pavilion and there did shift her wondrous gorgeously in cloth of tissue, made after her own fashion, and a wondrous rich attire upon her head of her own country fashion; and there tarried till the King came within half a mile of her pavilion. And then her Grace took her horse, and afore her a great company of gentlemen and then her own gentlemen that met her there, and then her Council, both English and Cleves, and next her my Lord Chamberlain and Vice-Chamberlain, my Lord Norfolk, my Lord Great Master, my Lord of Canterbury, my Lord Warden, and then her Grace upon a goodly palfrey or gelding, wondrously rich apparelled, and behind her Sir John Dudley, Master of her Horse, leading her horse of honour, richly apparelled; and then all the ladies in their degree, and last of all her yeomen and all serving men behind them.52 Anne rode out to meet Henry, who had an equally magnificent train behind him.53 Her route was lined with spectators and the Thames was lined with barges trying to see the new queen.54 She was presented with many gifts and orations. Henry rode out to greet her and then escorted her to Greenwich for a day of feasting and celebrations. Of the entirety of Anne’s progress to London, her reception at Greenwich was the most magnificent; she ended her journey in London as the new Queen of England, even if not yet officially married.55 On the journey leading up to this, she used her time to prepare to be the queen, but once she reached London and participated in this public spectacle, she truly became the queen at Henry’s side. This ends the months-long progress of Anne of Cleves to England to become the fourth wife of Henry VIII. While the traditional purpose of a royal progress was for a monarch to be seen by his or her people to reinforce his or her authority through ceremony and ritual, this was not the case with Anne.56 While hers did not fail to impress spectators, its purpose was not to build a relationship with the people who witnessed it along the way but to prepare Anne to become Queen of England. Instead of building a relationship with the people of her native lands, Anne had a little more than six weeks to build relationships with the people of her new homeland, those who joined her in Calais and in England. She spent time learning as much as she could about the customs, language and even court pastimes such as gambling, so that she could be a knowledgeable queen. This journey was essentially Anne’s crash-course of preparation to be queen. One could even say it was proportionate to the amount of time she actually spent in the role. All of the preparations for Anne’s arrival, from castle refurbishment to road repair to map creation, show that Anne’s marriage to Henry was internationally important, reminding us that Anne’s queenship was relevant to European politics, more so than is typically portrayed in historical and fictional accounts. Most importantly, this journey is the first time we see Anne herself represented in the

108  Valerie Schutte sources, except for a brief glimpse in letters about her appearance and image in paintings. We do not truly get Anne’s voice until after the divorce, but we do at least get her voice and personality as filtered through those around her. Her actions on this journey reveal that she used her time well, presided over banquets and feasts and showed a genuine interest in learning about her future husband and his kingdom.

Notes 1 BL Cotton MS Vitellius B XXI, fol. 186. The quotations can be found on fol. 204v. 2 R. Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves: Royal Protocol in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000); E. Norton, Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII’s Discarded Bride (Stroud, 2010); M. Saaler, Anne of Cleves: Fourth Wife of Henry VIII (London, 1995); S-B. Watkins, Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII’s Unwanted Wife (Winchester, 2018); V. Schutte, ‘Anne of Cleves in Book and Manuscript’, Journal of the Early Book Society, 21 (2018), 123–47; R. Warnicke, ‘Henry VIII’s Greeting of Anne of Cleves and Early Modern Court Protocol’, Albion, 28/4 (1996), 565–85; D. Loades, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Stroud, 2009); D. Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (New York, 2003); A. Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (New York, NY, 1991). 3 Building upon S. Anglo’s Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1968), the history of Tudor progresses has become its own field of study, especially focused on Queen Elizabeth. N. Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII, 1509–1529’, in D. MacCullouch (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety (Basingstoke, 1995), 59–73; Z. Dovey, An Elizabethan Progress: The Queen’s Journey into East Anglia, 1578 (Stroud, 1996); M-H. Cole, The Portable Queen: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony (Boston, MA, 1999); J. E. Archer, E. Goldring, and S. Knight (eds.), The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2007); E. Zeman Kolkovich, The Elizabethan Country House Entertainment: Print, Performance, and Gender (Cambridge, 2016). 4 Loades, The Six Wives, 111–12. 5 Starkey, Six Wives, 625. 6 Warnicke, Marrying of Anne of Cleves, 107–54. 7 Ibid., 148–9. Warnicke does not consider Anne’s journey to be a royal progress, though she at least offers some comparison and analysis with other English royal entries. 8 H. R. Darsie, Anna Duchess of Cleves: The King’s “Beloved Sister” (Stroud, 2019), chapter five. 9 BL Cotton MS Vitellius C XI, fols 213–220b [LP xiv/2, 286]. 10 Ibid. 11 Starkey, Six Wives, 623. For a full discussion of the Imperial-Cleves dispute of Guelders, see Darsie, Anna Duchess of Cleves. 12 BL Cotton MS Vitellius C XVI, fol. 273. Report of marriage negotiations in Thomas Wriothesley’s hand, dated 30 September 1539 [LP xiv/2, 258]. 13 BL Cotton MS Vitellius C. XVI, fol. 279. Letter from Henry VIII to William, Duke of Cleves, dated 26 September 1539 [LP xiv/2, 221]. 14 ‘les réparations et ornemens’. J. Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance Politique de MM. de Castillon et de Marillac: Ambassadeurs de France en Angleterre, 1537–1542 (Paris, 1885), entry 153. 15 BL Cotton MS Augustus I ii 29; A. Ruddock, ‘The Earliest Original English Seaman’s Rutter and Pilot’s Chart’, Journal of Navigation, 14/4 (1961), 409–31. 16 M. St. C. Byrne, The Lisle Letters, 6 vols (Chicago, IL, 1981), vol. V, 679. Letter from Thomas Cromwell to Lord Lisle and the Council of Calais, dated 18 October 1539,

Anne of Cleves  109 vol. V, 1571. According to Byrne, this was the first communication that Lisle received concerning the King’s marriage to Anne of Cleves. 17 LP xvi, 380 [BL MS Arundel 97]. 18 LP xvi, 398. 19 LP xiv/2, 781. 20 LP xvi, 380. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Byrne (ed.), Lisle Letters, vol. V, 1581. Letter from John Husse to Lord Lisle, dated 24 October 1539. 25 Warnicke, Marrying of Anne of Cleves, 114; R. McEntegart, Henry VIII, The League of Schmalkalden, and the English Reformation (London, 2002), 393. 26 TNA SP 1/155 fol. 85. Letter from Wotton to Cromwell, dated 4 December 1539 [LP xiv/2, 634]. 27 Ibid. Wotton later reported that the trumpeters requested to enter England with Anne. TNA SP 1/155, fol. 108. 28 The Lisle Letters, vol. V, 1616. Letter from Stephen Vaughan to Lord Lisle, dated 29 November 1539 [LP xiv/2, 604]. 29 Warnicke, Marrying of Anne of Cleves, 115. Several accounts of Anne’s journey exist, each with varying details. See Halls’ Chronicle, collation of the 1548 and 1550 editions (London, 1809), 832; BL Cotton MS Vitellius CXI, fols 220–224 [LP xv, 14]; TNA SP 1/155 fols 85–8; SP 3/18 fol. 139a [LP xiv/2, 761]; London, College of Arms, M. 6bis, fols 123–7; A. W. Bouterwek, ‘Anna von Cleve’, Zeitschrift des Bergischen Geschictsvereins, 4 (1867), 410–13; E. Smit and J. Zweers, ‘Der Erwerb Geldern als Berweggrund für die Hierat Zwishen Anna von Kleve und Heinrich VIII von England’, Land, 150; A. Müller, ‘Die Beziehungen Heinrichs VIII zu Anna von Cleve’, unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Tübingen (1907). 30 TNA SP 1/155 fol. 85. Letter from Wotton to Cromwell, dated 4 December 1539 [LP xiv/2, 634]. Another list of members of Anne’s train can be found in BL MS Harleian 296, fols 169–170 [LP xv, 14]. Parts of this list are excerpted in H. Ellis (ed.), Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, 3rd Series, 4 vols (London, 1825–46), vol. III, 251–2. Fol. 171 contains the names of persons appointed to receive Anne at Calais. This has been reprinted in The Chronicle of Calais, 167–71, 173–9. Another copy of the list of members of Anne’s train in a later hand can be found in BL MS Vitellius CXI, fols 220–224. This list is reprinted in The Chronicle of Calais, 172 [LP xiv/2, 572]. 31 TNA SP 1/155, fol. 108 [LP xiv/2, 677]. 32 TNA SP 1/155 fol. 101. Letter from Gregory Cromwell to his wife. Ellis (ed.), Original Letters, vol. III, 251–4 [LP xiv/2, 664]. This letter is reprinted in M. A. Everett Wood (ed.), Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain, 2 vols (London, 1846), vol. II, 357. 33 Interestingly, here, Hall describes the rich apparel worn by Lisle and Southampton but does not mention how Anne was dressed. 34 Dillon, Hall’s Chronicle, 832–3. 35 TNA SP 1/155 fol. 101. 36 LP xiv/2, 286 [BL Cotton MS Vitellius C XI, fols 213–20b]. 37 A timetable of tides from 12 December shows how the weather was not suitable for departure. TNA SP 1/155 fol. 105 [LP xiv/2, 674]. Southampton continued to report the poor weather to Cromwell. TNA SP 1/155, fols 108, 115, 121 [LP xiv/2, 685, 693]. 38 TNA SP 1/155, fol. 108 [LP xiv/2, 677]. Letter from Southampton and Wotton to Henry VIII, dated 13 December 1540. 39 Starkey, Six Wives, 625.

110  Valerie Schutte 40 SP 1/155 fol. 85 [LP xiv/2, 634]. I am grateful to Aidan Norrie for helping me with the transcription. 41 S. E. James, The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485–1603: Women as Consumers, Patrons and Painters (Abingdon, 2016), 249–50; L. Campbell and S. Foister, ‘Gerard, Lucas and Susanna Horenbout’, Burlington Magazine, 128 (1986), 726. 42 Starkey, Six Wives, 625. 43 Warnicke, Marrying of Anne of Cleves, 122; Norton, Anne of Cleves, 51; Darsie, Anna Duchess of Cleves, 109. 44 TNA SP 1/155, fol. 125 [LP xiv/2, 703]. 45 TNA SP 1/155, fol. 129 [LP xiv/2, 707]. 46 TNA SP 1/155, fol. 134 [LP xiv/2, 726]. Letter from Cromwell to Southampton, undated. 47 Dillon, Hall’s Chronicle, 833. 48 BL Cotton MS Vitellius C. XVI, fol. 277. Letter from the Duke of Suffolk to Cromwell, dated 29 December 1539 [LP xiv/2, 754]. 49 TNA SP 1/156, fol. 2 [LP xiv/2, 753]. 50 Bryne (ed.), Lisle Letters, vol. VI, 1634. Letter from John Norris to Lady Lisle, dated c.4 January 1540 [British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius C. XVI, fol. 271]. According to Byrne, there are a number of passages missing from this letter due to damage. It is also the only personal letter in the State Papers which gives an account of Anne’s arrival, with other accounts coming from chronicles and foreign ambassadors (at page 10). 51 The Lisle Letters, vol. VI, 1634. 52 Ibid. 53 For an order Henry’s train at Greenwich, see TNA SP 1/157, fol. 1 [LP xv 10]; College of Arms, M. 6bis, fols 118r – 119v. 54 Dillon, Hall’s Chronicle, 833–836; LP xv, 2; Kaulek, Correspondance, 150. Letter from Marillac to Francis I, dated 5 January 1540. 55 Norton, Anne of Cleves, 65. 56 Samman, ‘Progresses of Henry VIII’, 59.

The Spectacle and Symbolism of Progresses

8 Travelling Grooms A Royal Progress or A Wedding Journey? Patrik Pastrnak

For centuries, kings and other minor rulers of the pre-modern era tended to conclude marital alliances with one another. The exchange of foreign brides led to the higher interconnection of dynasties and even helped to delineate the cultural boundaries of medieval Europe.1 From a more mundane perspective, marriage with an outlander required the relocation of one of the newlyweds to the other. Yet, far from being a simple move, this voyage was imbued with many ritualistic and sociocultural layers that were supposed to communicate political messages, dynastic splendour and social hierarchies or to mitigate the imminent impact of the cultural and life change for the individual making the transfer. As we will see, predominantly, it was the princely women who underwent such a passage, but there were cases when the transfer was made by males. If the gender of the nuptial traveller differed, did it have an impact on the way the journey was made? In other words, did a princely bridegroom travel differently from a princely bride? Were the expectations of the travelling grooms and brides different? Was the bridegroom’s journey more similar to the royal progress? Traditionally, the transfers of princely brides have been a part of queens’ biographies, and overall scholars have considered them a necessary by-product of princely intermarriages. Some queenly monographs have devoted a longer section to the transfer of the princess to her husband, occasionally drawing comparisons with other nuptial migrations, yet they have generally confined analysis to the reconstruction of events without attempting to discern the general patterns of this type of travel on a wider, trans-dynastic scale.2 This approach was modified first by Karl-Heinz Spieß, who from randomly chosen examples from all around medieval Europe showed a general process leading to inter-dynastic marriage (negotiations, wedding by proxy, bedding ceremony) and various practicalities of the princess’s transfer, but he also noticed deeper implications of the journey, in terms of cultural differences or the diplomatic role of the journey.3 Yet the bridal journey as a historiographical topic was introduced by the studies of Christiane Coester. Coester not only recognised political representation as being a prime role of the voyage and pinpointed several symbolic border-crossings en route but also created the very term ‘bridal journey’, translating the German term Brautfahrt, because, as she writes, there is no adequate expression for this type of travel in English or French.4 DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-12

114  Patrik Pastrnak Use of the term ‘bridal’ is rationalised by Coester’s approach: she considered the so-called classic type of journey, that is a transfer of an adult princess to the husband’s court, preceded by the arrival of the fetching embassy and wedding by proxy. Usually, in this type, the groom would wait for the bride on the outskirts of his residence and they would see each other for the first time there. Afterwards, the joint solemn entry and the second wedding would follow. However, Coester distinguished two other subcategories in which it is the male prince who would make the trip: in one, the groom would arrive and stay at the bride’s court; and in the other, the husband would personally escort his spouse back to his domain. Whereas the ‘classic’ female type of wedding transfer is deemed the standard one and its procedure does not have to be rationalised, Coester pinpoints specific conditions that forced the princely bridegrooms to make a nuptial trip, namely superiority of rank (resulting in the personal escorting) and the hereditary rights of the wife (meaning that the prince was to stay at her court as a consort).5 Aside from Coester’s brief remarks, scholars have paid little attention to the broader analysis of male nuptial trips. This chapter fills this void by looking closely at two male wedding transfers, of Maximilian I (1459–1516) and Maximilian II (1527–76) – the former travelling to Ghent from Vienna in 1477, and the latter to Valladolid from Augsburg in 1548.6 By comparing key aspects of these journeys with their female equivalents, namely the logistics and overall execution of the journey, level of agency and the rites of wedding transition, this study shows that the gender of the traveller had little impact on the way the nuptial transfer was made with the only notable difference arising in the staging of ritual transition. At the same time, this chapter briefly makes a comparison with royal progresses and argues that the male nuptial journeys were a unique mix of the wedding transfer and monarch’s progress, sharing many common points but diverging from each other with regard to the main rationale of the undertaking and position of power of the protagonist.

The Material and Festive Course of the Journey Both female and male wedding travellers were accompanied by a massive retinue, amounting to hundreds or even thousands, but certainly not less than 600. Eleanor of Portugal (1451–2), for instance, was accompanied from Portugal to Italy by 3,000 people of whom around 580 were noblemen on horseback while Joanna of Castile (1496) arrived in Flanders with an armada of close to 15,500 people. Bianca Maria Sforza (1493–4) came to Innsbruck with 600 horses whereas Elizabeth of Habsburg (1543) came to Poland with 1,200 horses. Entourages of grooms were of comparable size: Maximilian I’s retinue consisted of 800–1,200 people; Maximilian II is also reported to have travelled with around 600 horses.7 To understand the massive numbers of the entourages, we must consider their inner structure. These nuptial trains were not homogenous but consisted of three parts: a household, amounting to (at the most) one hundred people; an aristocratic entourage, consisting of tens or hundreds of aristocrats and their small private retinues (family members or personnel) and a military escort, taking care of the

Travelling Grooms  115 prince’s or princess’s safety. Whereas the nuptial household was necessary for assuring the everyday needs of the princess or the prince, the noblemen had a more representative and diplomatic role: communicating the splendour of the entire wedding train (manifested by the number and status of its participants) and constructing the high status of the princess/prince and by extension their entire house vis-à-vis the foreign dynasty. One distinctive feature of the female trains was the presence of the ladies’ court (in German sources called Frauenzimmer), consisting of a high stewardess, noble and unmarried ladies-in-waiting and lower-class chambermaids and chamber ladies.8 However, the male household could also include women; Maximilian II, for instance, had a personal laundry woman at his disposal.9 The presence of females was not confined to the princess’s or queen’s household, and we should not think of it as an indicative factor of the female bridal traveller either. As Michail Bojcov states in his study of the German Frauenzimmer, ‘the woman at court had not one face but manifold, in fact she had as many faces as a man at court’.10 Although the bridal households were often short-lived and they were reorganised once the nuptial transfer was over, they were important from the perspective of the princesses as these sometimes represent the first occasion on which they would have had their own court at their disposal. Nonetheless, it seems that the brides did not have much say in the selection process of the household members or aristocratic entourage, and the decision-making was left to their parents or court dignitaries. On the contrary, the travelling grooms usually possessed their own households long before the wedding transfer took place, and they also seem to have been more involved in the staffing of the cortège. For instance, we possess two letters of Maximilian II prior to his journey to Spain.11 In them he wrote to Count Pernštejn of Moravia (a part of the modern-day Czech Republic) asking him to allow his two sons, Jaroslav and Vratislav, to accompany him, promising that he would keep them safe from dangers. Vratislav, who already served at the prince’s court as a cupbearer (Mundschenk), was allowed to go, but Jaroslav was not on account of his father’s long illness. In the second letter, Maximilian repeated his request, thanking the count for giving permission to Vratislav but asking for Jaroslav to come too, if not for the entire journey to Spain, then at least for a brief leg of it (up to Genoa) which would be unlikely to endanger his life. In undertaking such journeys, there seems to have been no difference between travelling brides and grooms. Each of them travelled with great pomp and sumptuousness, passing important cities and making solemn entries into them. The festive display, associated with the nuptial ceremony, was a crucial tool to communicate the social status of the dynasty. The staging of the bride’s or groom’s journey could thus have been used to prolong the wedding festivities and to spread the ceremonial splendour to the wider parts of the domains of the uniting dynasties. Moreover, as brides or grooms passed the territory of third-party lords or cities, the financial burden connected with the organisation of the festival would be transferred to local hosts who did not hesitate to provide the nuptial traveller

116  Patrik Pastrnak with an honourable reception, as this kind of service might have been profitable in the long term.12 Over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the number and scope of these festive and ceremonial events grew steadily. This ‘festivisation’ of the nuptial journeys can be explained by several factors, one of the most important being the rise of a new genre of literature, festival books, which placed great emphasis on spectacle.13 From 1500 onwards, these accounts, either in print or in manuscript form, began to emerge in relation to the transfers of princely brides, at first describing only the final solemn entry but gradually documenting the entire course of the journey.14 Leaving out the instances of inconvenience and conflict, these reports painstakingly craft an image of the journey as an incessant stream of triumphs, detailing the order of ceremonies, the names of participants, the character of divertissements and so on. The process of ‘festivisation’ as such is recorded in other sources too. Maximilian II’s trip to Spain did not give rise to any festival books, yet the chronicle of Cerbonio Besozzi, an eyewitness of the trip and a musician in service of Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo of Trent, reports numerous ceremonies, rites and pageants over the entire course of the journey.15 This stands in sharp contrast to the journey by Maximilian I to Flanders a century earlier, whose itinerary – starting in Vienna and passing through major cities (Graz, Salzburg) – is well documented, yet the sequence of triumphal entries and public spectacles began only from Cologne, where his entire entourage, consisting of delegations of imperial princes, assembled.16 Up until this point, he appears to have progressed without any accompanying ‘honours’. The ‘festivisation’ of the nuptial journeys in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries might have been caused by the general atmosphere of princely mobility taking place in this period, more specifically by the culture of ostentatious royal progresses. The sixteenth century was, as Roy Strong put it, the time of royal tours, and rulers from all around Europe made progresses around their domains to consolidate their power, to popularise the monarchy’s values or simply to find pleasure and pastimes.17 Royal progresses, especially those of Charles V through Italy in 1536–7 with a series of awe-inspiring and carefully staged processions to several cities on the peninsula, combining triumphal arches, allegorical, mythological and historical statues and paintings, could have been a strong inspiration for the hosting cities to stage an elaborate festival to honour the nuptial traveller. Whatever the reasons, the gender of the wedding traveller had no impact on the number or scope of the ceremonial displays.

The Behaviour of the Travellers Focussing on the behaviour of the travellers, gender differences are still not clearly visible. In terms of the princess’s or prince’s agency, one would expect the travelling grooms to have had more influence on the decision-making en route than their female counterparts. However, on closer scrutiny, it is hard to uphold this hypothesis. The financial records of Maximilian II provide evidence that he

Travelling Grooms  117 engaged in numerous encounters with nobles or commoners on the way (mostly by gift exchange) or actively requested visiting holy shrines or relics.18 The same is true for Maximilian’s sister Joanna in 1565, who in her hunger to explore monasteries turned down the invitation for a visit by the count of Mirandola, near Mantua, or, on another occasion did not hesitate to delay the daily itinerary to such an extent that the bridal company had to journey late into the night.19 Aside from these minor interactions, nothing points to the fact that Maximilian’s will was a decisive factor in the course of the trips, especially in times of crisis. Such a crisis occurred when passing Marseille, which was a French territory, in a tense period from 1538 after the Truce of Nice. At first, multiple gifts and acts of friendship were exchanged between the Habsburg and the French, but this made Leone Strozzi, a commander of the French fleet stationed there, jealous. Strozzi first issued a rather hostile welcome statement to the imperial fleet, delineating a very strict route the imperial party had to follow to avoid a military encounter. However, one Habsburg galley, not knowing about the restrictions, made an overly deep incursion into the port and as a result, cannon from the nearby fortress were fired and a mainsail of the ship was hit. Having heard about this, Andrea Doria, the supreme leader of the imperial fleet, was angered and wanted to retaliate. Only the swift intervention of Cristoforo Madruzzo, the cardinal of Trent and Maximilian’s companion on the voyage, calmed Doria’s passions and prevented an imminent battle, saying that they did not come to start a war but to conduct the young prince safely to the wedding. What is striking about this episode is not the Franco-Habsburg hostility but rather the strange behaviour of the young Habsburg. Even after Strozzi’s cold welcome, Maximilian reportedly remained ‘quite stunned and let the prince of Doria speak with his eyes pointed at him’. After the demolition of the galley, Maximilian was entirely sidelined and the decision-making left to the discretion of Admiral Andrea Doria.20 This stands in clear contrast to the journey of Maximilian’s aunt Margaret travelling to Spain in 1497. As the princess had to take shelter in the port of Southampton from a storm at sea, King Henry VII, having learnt about the princess’s docking, wrote a letter to Margaret inviting her to stay in the town for as long as she needed. Rather than approaching Fadrique Enríquez de Velasco, the admiral of the fleet, the Tudor monarch addressed the princess directly and hence deemed her as someone who was to a certain degree in charge.21 Even if this argument can be rebutted on the grounds that it was more polite to address the princess rather than the admiral, it still puts the bride at the centre of the decision-making, since, at the very least, she had to communicate the will of the host to the navy’s commander. Naturally, Margaret was not personally commanding every move of the armada, or involved in the overall planning of the route, but the princess was often at the centre of affairs and could have had a direct influence on the course of events. The bridegrooms lag behind their female counterparts in another area of selfrealisation, that is, in the preparation of oneself for the future role of royal/ducal consort over the course of their wedding transfer. In 1476, the Neapolitan courtier Diomede Carafa authored a small book advising Princess Beatrice of Aragon

118  Patrik Pastrnak (1457–1508), a future wife of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, on how she should conduct herself over the course of the bridal journey.22 Carafa envisages a whole set of activities in which the queen could engage and thus train herself for the role she was about to perform. For instance, she could learn how to enter into correspondence to gain the favour of her husband or mother-in-law, how to take care of her courtiers and entourage members, how to learn the husband’s language and generally how to promote a positive public image.23 The marital transfers of royal and ducal wives from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries give proof that these counsels were not just Carafa’s projections but were based on premodern practice, and many elite brides engaged in these activities.24 To mention one example, Anne of Cleves on her way to England in 1539, enquired as to the favourite game of Henry VIII and was keen to witness the English style of dining.25 In doing so she acted precisely in line with Carafa’s manual, which exhorts the queen to actively solicit any piece of information about the soon-to-be spouse during the journey from the noblemen sent to fetch her.26 Conversely, these forms of behaviour, amounting to self-instruction, are scarcely documented for the travelling grooms. The sources that have come down to us describe how Maximilian II (see Figure 8.1), prior to the sea leg of his passage to Spain, spent a considerable amount of time observing ships in Genoa and even made short incursions out to sea, testing whether he would get dizzy or not. According to the letter of a Spanish ambassador, the archduke boarded a galley several times, making it sail one mile from the port. Allegedly, each time his body bore the never-before-experienced toil well, which made him proud to such an extent that he even mocked those who were not as successful as him.27 Yet, in the end, this rehearsal did not serve him well as the actual naval transport caused him, in his own words, a ‘fever’.28 This, however, was more likely seasickness, because as soon as Maximilian set foot on Iberian soil he ordered a mariner to be reimbursed with fifteen guldens for a pair of trousers which the same mariner had given to the prince on board the galley.29 Rather than being a simple anecdotal tale, this unfortunate outcome of the naval voyage bears witness to the fact that Maximilian underwent his preparation for seafaring out of fear that he would lose his stature, not in a quest to acquire a new ability. Therefore, nothing suggests that the males – unlike the females – used their wedding passage to acquire a new skill or to perform a special task. This discrepancy might be explained not by the fact that the princely males were perhaps given a proper and more thorough education in childhood, because, as we know, princesses were also provided with formal instruction (for example in court etiquette, language and dancing) as well as informal guidance (such as that provided by interaction with senior females at court)30 but rather by the nature of this en route coaching as envisioned by Carafa. As such it was not supposed to take the place of standard tuition but to polish and adapt it in relation to the features of the new family the princess was about to enter. An overall aim of Carafa’s advice was gaining the favour of the new husband, reflecting the contemporary values of male superiority, and thus his counsel obviously could not apply to grooms.

Travelling Grooms  119

Figure 8.1 The portrait of Maximilian II by William Scrots, c.1544, roughly four years before his wedding transfer to Spain. Source: ©KHM-Museumsverband.

The Transition Rituals Ultimately, however, there is one area in which the gender differences between male and female nuptial journeys are clearly visible, that is, in the ritual transition which took place as part of the marriage. The bridal journeys can be seen as

120  Patrik Pastrnak a perfect example of the rite of passage, as delineated in Arnold van Gennep’s namesake book.31 The beginning of the journey was marked by rites of separation, epitomised by the farewell to the family, whose portrayal in narrative and literary sources is packed with inflated emotional scenes. Yet the separative acts were much more complex and could have taken the form of public church liturgy, private spiritual preparation or escorting the bride on her way for a limited distance. The travelling grooms, unlike their female counterparts, are not recorded as having performed such a rite nor even formally bidding farewell to family members, which presumably demonstrates that their wedding transfer was not deemed as final and they were perhaps expected eventually to return. Interestingly, however, there is evidence that bridegrooms were subjected to rites of incorporation into the new milieu, either by welcoming delegations and speeches or by material means. Both the travelling grooms discussed in this chapter, Maximilian I and Maximilian II, were shortly before the first encounter with their spouses given a gift of attire. The former found this in his lodgings following his solemn entry to Ghent and preceding his meeting with Mary of Burgundy,32 whereas the latter was presented with two silver trays loaded with richly made shirts, handkerchiefs and other clothes a day before his final arrival in Valladolid and introduction to his spouse, Maria.33 Accepting the fashion of the husband’s cultural circle was a recurrent theme during many international marriages and was a sign of endorsement of the new culture from the bride’s side.34 This aspect could have been at play for the incoming grooms, but there might have been political implications too. At least for the 1477 occasion, the gift of clothes was not made in one instance only; instead, Mary would continue sending Maximilian I  new costumes on numerous days between his arrival and the nuptial ceremony (see Figure 8.2). The day after he entered Ghent, he was presented with a golden and silver robe in Burgundian fashion, with an overgarment made from black atlas silk; on another day, with a robe from white atlas silk, a red-atlas overgarment and a golden chain and the day after that with a black-silk robe in Italian style.35 The mention of the Burgundian style, but more importantly, the use of black, was strongly tied to the Valois dukes of Burgundy, especially Philip the Good (1396–1467), who promoted this colour in the princely sphere in general.36 The garments, imbued with such strong ties to the previous Burgundian dukes, were, without doubt, an attempt to cast Maximilian as an heir to the Valois dukes of Burgundy, whose last male member, Charles the Bold (1433–77), died earlier that year. His unexpected death put his only surviving daughter, Mary, in danger from the king of France, who wanted to claim back the Burgundian domains. It was thus vital to present continuity with the past and to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Habsburg prince as a husband to the heiress of the Burgundian lands. One can find an apparent gender difference also in the mode of how the first meeting of the newlyweds was staged. Generally, the travelling females would be met by their spouses in some extramural setting, and after the formal greeting, the joint solemn entry to the city would follow.37 In the journeys of both Maximilians, another pattern emerges: the bridegrooms are still welcomed by

Travelling Grooms  121

Figure 8.2 The portrait of Maximilian I by Joos van Cleve, c.1508–09. Although portrayals of princes holding a flower were popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth ­centuries, the carnation on this picture might have been a reference to ­Maximilian I’s first encounter with Mary of Burgundy, during which the Habsburg was supposed to search for the flower, concealed in Mary’s garments. Source: ©KHM-Museumsverband.

122  Patrik Pastrnak the bride’s delegation before the city and the solemn entry is made, but the brides wait for the bridegrooms to come inside the residence and, at best, they come out of their chambers to meet them only in a nearby hall. Maximilian I  was even told to wait in his quarters in Ghent until Mary of Burgundy was ready to receive him.38 The same paradigm is apparent again almost a century later when another Habsburg archduke journeyed to reach his spouse: before approaching Valladolid, Maximilian II was saluted by a delegation of Spanish noblemen led by Philip II, both his cousin and soon-to-be brother-in-law, then by Pedro Fernández de Velasco y Tovar, a constable of Castile, and by Giovanni Poggio, a papal nuncio to the Spanish court. Infanta Maria, the bride, was waiting in a palace in the company of her ladies; unlike in 1477, however, Maximilian II did not pause in his lodgings to change garments but headed directly to see her.39 This procedure is hard to explain, especially given the fact that females (wives of prominent aristocrats) were often employed in welcoming arriving brides, so riding-off and greeting were not deemed an inappropriate activity for a woman to conduct. Even though hard to decipher, there must have been a general acceptance of the rule that the bride was not supposed to ride off to meet her spouse. This hypothesis is supported by the episode during the nuptials of Maximilian I and Bianca Maria Sforza (1493–4). As the soon-to-be empress arrived in the agreed place of the encounter she and her train had to wait for the groom to show up. Being aware that he might run late, Maximilian explicitly ordered Bianca and her train not to come out to meet him further than the palace gate.40 We can see a similar arrangement during the first encounters of other travelling grooms. For instance, in 1554 Philip of Spain went to see Mary I first secretly and then publicly; on both occasions, Mary was waiting for Philip inside Winchester Palace.41 Ercole II d’Este (1528) was also presented to his upcoming bride, Renée of France, inside the residence in Saint Germain-en-Laye.42 Similarly, Anne of Denmark (1589) remained at her temporary lodging in Oslo to greet the arrival of James VI of Scotland.43 The volume of cases from various parts of sixteenth-century Europe thus hints at the existence of a non-written protocol that required the women, waiting for their consorts, to take a passive role, regardless of their status (be it a regnant queen or infanta).

Nuptial Journeys and Royal Progresses Up to this point attention has been drawn mostly to the gender differences between the male and female wedding transfer, whereas the common points between the journeys of the grooms and royal progresses have only been hinted at, mostly when speaking about the origins of ‘festivisation’. Judging from the earlier discussed areas of comparison (overall execution, agency of the prince, ritual transition), one may say that the two types of travel bore many similarities with each other: the monarch on tour or prince on the bride’s quest were both surrounded by a travelling court; for both of them, elaborate ceremonies and pastimes were staged and gifts and precious objects circulated.44 Nonetheless, despite these

Travelling Grooms  123 parallels, on closer inspection it becomes clear that these two forms of travel differed greatly. The lack of agency in the travelling grooms contrasts sharply with the touring ruler who did not only choose what places he would visit, indicating his/her favour towards the host, but he/she also administered justice or the healing touch.45 Royal progresses were circular tours around the sovereign’s domains that could  – with due variations  – be repeated each year. On the contrary, voyages of princely grooms were unique, one-way expeditions, during which the nuptial traveller often crossed lands that did not belong to his patrimonial or gainedthrough-marriage territory. In this last respect, the passage of noble bridegrooms resembled honorary visits of foreign potentates, such as that of Emperor Charles V through France in 1539–40; yet even this analogy is not without challenges as the imperial guest was granted a (traditionally royal) privilege to pardon prisoners during the solemn entries, and he was accompanied by only fifty companions, a fragment of what would be a standard wedding train, not to mention the political and diplomatic atmosphere of the whole event.46 Progresses and wedding journeys alike could be modified or called off due to an outbreak of plague, political circumstances or the personal whims of the main protagonist on the route. The cancellation of a wedding, however, would have had dire consequences in the field of diplomacy as it would have foiled the alliance of two dynasties. Finally, the main reason for the prince hitting the road, that is, the nuptials, brought another aspect into play, that is, the rite of passage that enabled the incorporative process of the groom, visualised through accepting the outer appearance of the new milieu, the first meeting of the newlyweds and at last in the wedding ceremony.

Conclusion The gender of the traveller did not have a large impact on the course of the wedding transfer. Although princely brides were accompanied by a notable group of females, assembled in the ladies’ court (Frauenzimmer), both princes and princesses travelled in a very similar way, in an endless stream of festivities and pageants. What is more, male travellers do not seem to have been involved in decision-making any more than the females. The only distinctive feature is the ritual transition, taking place during the wedding transfer. Whereas the brides underwent separation and incorporation, the grooms are documented as making only the latter. The first encounter of the newlyweds was staged differently according to gender: the princesses were usually welcomed in an extramural setting, whilst the princes met their future consorts in their private chambers. Despite the comparable amount of pageantry and other outer similarities, the journeying of the princely grooms differed from that of royal progresses, mostly in terms of power dynamics: whereas the ruler touring his/her domains exercised regal authority in every sense of the word, the travelling grooms resembled distinguished guests rather than power-wielding figures. Yet even this conclusion might be contested by the case of Maximilian I making triumphal entries to cities that were to belong

124  Patrik Pastrnak to his future dominions, thus blurring the lines between an honorary visit and an act of homage. This last example shows two important facts. First, there was a fine line between each of these travels, and the movement of the princely bridegrooms oscillated between the bridal journey and the royal tour, which points to the fact that these forms of short-term mobility were perhaps too diverse to fit perfectly into a modern scholarly category. Second, a deeper investigation, examining many more princely nuptial trips, is much needed. This study attempts to pave a way for such research, focusing on two such journeys, but to understand the patterns delineated in this text and to discover many others, one has to widen the scope. Deeper comprehension of these events and their background not only will contribute to the history of travel but also will deepen our knowledge of princely representation, monarchical rituals and the role of gender in these events.

Notes 1 R. Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2020), 15–17. 2 A list of the studies falling into this category would be long. To quote just a few: R. M. Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves. Royal Protocol in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000), 114–54; M. Sommé, Isabelle de Portugal, duchesse de Bourgogne. Une femme au pouvoir au XVe siècle (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1998), 31–4; G. B. Fleming, Juana I. Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile (Basingstoke, 2018), 15–34. 3 K.-H. Spieß, ‘Unterwegs zu einem fremden Ehemann. Brautfahrt und Ehe in europäischen Fürstenhäusern des Spätmittelalters’, in I. Erfen and K.-H. Spieß (eds.), Fremdheit und Reisen im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1997), 17–36. 4 C. Coester, ‘Brautfahrten. Grenzüberschreitungen und Fremdheitserfahrungen adliger Frauen in der Frühen Neuzeit’, Francia, 35 (2008), 149–68; C. Coester, ‘Crossing Boundaries and Traversing Space. The Voyage of the Bride in Early Modern Europe’, in G. Calvi and I. Chabot (eds.), Moving Elites: Women and Cultural Transfers in the European Court System. Proceedings of an International Workshop (Florence, 12–13 December 2008) (Florence, 2010), 9–20; C. Coester, ‘Passage de frontières. Le voyage de la jeune mariée dans la haute noblesse des temps modernes (XVe-XVIIIe Siècle)’, Genre and Histoire, 9 (2011), http://journals.openedition.org/genrehistoire/1469. 5 Coester, ‘Crossing Boundaries’, 11. 6 This study as a whole is a result of my doctoral research that has looked into the wedding transfers of Austrian Habsburgs in c.1450–1550. From around twenty cases in this sample the journeys of the two Maximilians are the only nuptial transfers made solely by the princely males, although many other grooms (of the House of Habsburg or marrying into it) did not wait for their brides to come but undertook a trip to visit or meet them halfway. 7 N. Lanckmann, Leonor de Portugal, imperatriz da Alemanha: diário de viagem do embaixador Nicolau Lanckman de Valckenstein, Colecção Medievalia 6 (Lisbon, 1992), 54; R. de Pina, Chronica de El-Rei D. Affonso V, ed. G. Pereira (Lisbon: Escriptorio rua dos Retrozeiros, 1901), vol. I, 125; H. Hochrinner, ‘Bianca Maria Sforza. Versuch Einer Biographie’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Graz (1966), 33; Fleming, Juana I, 17; J. R. Mulryne, H. Watanabe-O’Kelly and M. Shewring (eds.), Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, 2 vols (Aldershot, 2004), vol. I, 394–5; K. Rausch, Die burgundische Heirat Maximilians I

Travelling Grooms  125 (Vienna, 1880), 175–6; C. Besozzi, Die Chronik des Cerbonio Besozzi, 1548–1563, ed. W. Friedensburg, Fontes rerum Austriacarum. Erste Abteilung, Scriptores 9 (Vienna, 1904), 33. 8 The structure of the ladies’ court accompanying the princely bride more or less copied the usual, stable female household of the queen or duchess. J. Duindam, ‘The Politics of Female Households: Afterthoughts’, in N. Akkerman and B. Houben (eds.), The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting across Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2014), 365–70. 9 Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv, Niederösterreichische Herrschaftsakten, W 61/A/36/A, fols 323–7. 10 M. Bojcov, ‘“Das Frauenzimmer” oder “Die Fraue bei Hofe”?’, in J. Hirschbiegel and W. Paravicini (eds.), Das Frauenzimmer. Die Frau bei Hofe in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 2000), 337. 11 The letters, written on 20 April and 18 May 1548, are printed in J. Loserth (ed.), Die Registratur Erzherzog Maximilians (Maximilians II) aus den Jahren 1547–1551, Fontes Rerum Austriacarum. Zweite Abtheilung, Diplomataria et Acta 48 (Vienna, 1896), 408–9, 416. 12 For instance, the local government in Verona justifies the splendid reception given to the Margaret of Parma, an illegitimate daughter of Emperor Charles V in 1533, by the words that ‘our illustrious [Venetian] signoria holds the imperial Majesty in high esteem’. The princess, on the other hand, promised the hosts that she would report to her father about the received honours, so clearly, the hosts sought to build social capital out of the princess’s visit. M. Sanuto, I diarii di Marino Sanuto, ed. G. Berchet, N. Barozzi and M. Allegri, 58 vols (Venice, 1902), vol. LVII, col. 645. 13 H. Watanabe-O’Kelly, ‘The Early Modern Festival Book: Function and Form’, in J. R. Mulryne, H. Watanabe-O’Kelly and M. Shewring (eds.), Europa Triumphans, vol. I, 3–17; H. Watanabe-O’Kelly, ‘Early Modern European Festivals – Politics and Performance, Event and Record’, in J. R. Mulryne and E. Goldring (eds.), Court Festivals of the European Renaissance: Art, Politics, and Performance (Aldershot, 2002), 15–25. 14 For instance, a festival book for Eleanor of Habsburg [1561], stored in Tiroler Landesarchiv (henceforth TLA), Ferdinandea 31, pos. 27, and her sister Joanna [1565], stored in TLA, HS 5565. 15 Besozzi, Die Chronik. 16 Rausch, Die burgundische Heirat Maximilians I, 175. 17 R. Strong, Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450–1650 (Woodbridge, 1984), 77. For Charles V’s progress through Italy see 82–5. 18 The records are printed in F. Menčík, Die Reise Kaiser Maximilian II nach Spanien im Jahre 1548 (Vienna, 1898). 19 TLA HS 5565, 13 and 17. 20 Besozzi, Die Chronik, 43–4. 21 G. A. Bergenroth (ed.), Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers Relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere, 13 vols (London, 1862), vol. I, 137–9. 22 D. Carafa, Memoriali, ed. F. Petrucci Nardelli (Roma, 1988), 211–43; D. Carafa, De Institutione Vivendi. Tanítás az életvezetés szabályairól. Emlékeztető Magyarország fenséges királynéjának [Teaching on Lifestyle. The Memorial for the Hungarian Queen], ed. Péter Ekler (Budapest, 2006), 11–46, www.academia.edu/8553308. I am quoting the latter version due to its digital accessibility. 23 Briefly summarised in Coester, ‘Crossing Boundaries’, 11–12. 24 See my forthcoming study ‘The Way of Becoming a Good Queen: The Bridal Journey as Preparation for the Queenly Role’, in S. Betts and C. McKenzie (eds.), Queens in Waiting: Potential and Prospective Queens, Ambitions and Expectations.

126  Patrik Pastrnak 25 Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves, 121. See Chapter 7 in the present volume. 26 ‘In itinere cum iis proceribus, qui te comitabuntur, cupidam et curiosam ostendito intelligendi naturam et mores regis, ut eo pacto assequaris, antequam in eius consuetudinem veneris, que eidem et grata et ingrata sint’. Carafa, De institutione vivendi, 34. 27 Ambassador Figueroa to Philip II, Genoa, 23 July 1548, printed in C. Malfatti (ed.), El archiduque Maximiliano, gobernador de España: Su viaje a Valladolid en 1548 y su boda con la Infanta María : Crónicas y documentos (Barcelona, 1948), 194–5. 28 Maximilian II to several recipients, Valladolid, 19 September 1548, printed in Loserth, Die Registratur Erzherzog Maximilians, 435–40. 29 Menčík, Die Reise Kaiser Maximilian II nach Spanien, 11. 30 E. Woodacre, Queens and Queenship (Leeds, 2021), 24–8. 31 A. van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago, IL, 1992). 32 J. Chmel (ed.), Actenstücke und Briefe zur Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg im Zeitalter Maximilians I, Monumenta Habsburgica. Sammlung von Actenstücken und Briefen zur Geschiche des Hauses Habsburg in dem Zeitraume von 1473 bis 1576, 3 vols (Vienna, 1854), vol. I, 160. 33 Besozzi, Die Chronik, 56. 34 Coester, ‘Crossing Boundaries’, 16–18; K. O. Frieling, ‘Dressing the Bride: Weddings and Fashion Practices at German Princely Courts in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, in E. Griffey (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women (Amsterdam, 2019), 83–5. 35 Chmel, Actenstücke und Briefe, 161. 36 M. Pastoureau, Black: The History of a Color (Princeton, NJ, 2008), 102–3. 37 K. Kosior, ‘First Meetings of Early Modern Royal Couples in Poland, France, and England: Protocol, Ceremony, and Emotion’, Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 76/2 (2020), 325. 38 Chmel, Actenstücke und Briefe, 160. 39 Besozzi, Die Chronik, 57. 40 ‘Sua Mayesta non volse se gli andasse incontro se non fin a la porta del pallatio’. Balthasare Pusterla, Giasone da Mayno and Erasmo Brasca to Lodovico Sforza, 10 March  1494, Archivio di Stato di Milano, Potenze Sovrane, Carteggio VisconteoSforzesco, busta 1467, fol. 70r. 41 Narratione assai piu particolare della prima, del viaggio, et dell’entrata del Serenissimo Prencipe di Spagna, . . . con la Serenissima Regina ([Rome]: [1554?]), 5; A. Muñoz, Viaje de Felipe segundo á Inglaterra . . . y relaciones varias relativas al mismo suceso, ed. P. de Gayángos y Arce (Madrid, 1877), 70–2. 42 B. Fontana, Renata di Francia, duchessa di Ferrara. Sui documenti dell’ Archivio Estense . . . e dell’Archivio secreto Vaticano, etc., 3 vols (Roma, 1889), vol. I, 26. 43 D. Stevenson, Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding: The Marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark (Edinburgh, 1997), 35. 44 N. Samman, ‘The Progresses of Henry VIII, 1509–1529’, in D. MacCulloch (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety (Basingstoke, 1995), 59–74; M-H. Cole, ‘Monarchy in Motion: An Overview of Elizabethan Progresses’, in J. E. Archer, E. Goldring and S. Knight (eds.), The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2007), 27–45. 45 See Chapter 11 of the present volume. 46 R. J. Knecht, ‘Charles V’s Journey through France, 1539–40’, in J. R. Mulryne and Elizabeth Goldring (eds.), Court Festivals of the European Renaissance: Art, Politics, and Performance (Aldershot, 2002), 153–70.

9 ‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy? Ladies and Gentlewomen at the Field of Cloth of Gold James Taffe This chapter considers the role and presence of ladies and gentlewomen at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. The oil painting, The Field of Cloth of Gold, c.1520–1550, by an unknown artist, celebrates the diplomatic summit which took place from 7 to 24 June between England and France (see frontispiece). It portrays, in the left foreground, Henry VIII riding in procession on horseback with courtiers, councillors and his gentlemen servants. The centre background illustrates Henry’s meeting with Francis I, king of France. Both kings embrace in a rich gold tent, with many onlookers, who also appear to be men, surrounding them. To the right of the painting is the tiltyard, and here again, both Henry and Francis are present, as are their queens, Katherine of Aragon and Claude of France. Crowds of men, some on horseback, some with spears, edge the tiltyard. Few women are represented in this painting, though if the stage is examined more closely there are a few shadowy figures in crimson standing behind the queens, who are, presumably, their ladies-in-waiting. On the extreme right of the painting there is a woman in a tent; this may be Queen Katherine. The tent accommodating her is emblazoned with a Tudor rose, and she is wearing similar attire to one of the queens at the tiltyard. She is surrounded by noblemen and commands their attention, though admittedly, her portrait lacks detail. Here again, in the shadows, there are women, but their faces are obscured (Figure 9.1). Behind this tent, unmistakeably, there are ladies and gentlewomen on horseback, representing, if only symbolically, their attendance at the Field of Cloth of Gold.1 Whereas the king and his men are situated front and centre in this painting, queens and their women remain in the background, if, indeed, they are present at all. Women, it was clearly felt, were not central to the summit. This was a meeting of men, the inauguration of an alliance between England and France, and a peace negotiated and achieved personally by two Renaissance princes and their male counsellors. Whereas historians have cross-examined the interactions and behaviours of Henry and Francis at the summit in determining its relative success, or failure, no study as yet has considered in detail the queens and their ladies and gentlewomen.2 Why were they in attendance? Did they play an active or prominent role, or were they merely decorative? What, if anything, was achieved by their presence? This chapter begins by identifying and categorising the ladies and gentlewomen with Katherine and Claude as their household servants, DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-13

128  James Taffe

Figure 9.1 Ladies and gentlewomen in a tent, a detail from The Field of Cloth of Gold, c.1520–50, Unknown artist. RCIN 405794.05. Source: Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy?  129 contextualising their attendance as both practical and performative. It examines documents concerning the preparations for the summit and uses knowledge of the ‘functioning’ household as a framework to interpret the evidence of involvement and interaction by these women, which survives predominantly in the accounts of foreign ambassadors and English chroniclers. As will be demonstrated, both queens’ households functioned at the Field of Cloth of Gold, and ‘on tour’ or on progress, for display, hospitality, sociability and even diplomacy. It will be shown that their participation at the summit was interactive in nature, illustrating how and why women near to the crown in this period must be studied to provide a fuller, more integrated narrative and understanding of monarchy, the royal household and the wider court. An estimate taken in England of the number of attendees for the queen’s side came to 1,175 individuals, the core of which was Katherine’s household, approximately 100 men and women who served the queen in her chambers.3 Their names survive in several lists of attendees, drafted and redrafted in preparation for the summit.4 Lacking the scope to provide any specific or biographical information on these women individually, it will suffice to say here that they can be identified and categorised by the position they held within the queen’s household.5 Ladies and Gentlewomen of the Privy Chamber were responsible for the queen’s personal, intimate and everyday needs. These women would dress and undress the queen, wash and bathe her and wait on her in her privy chamber and bedchamber. Ladies in Presence, and Maids-of-honour, would attend upon the queen in her presence chamber, where she would host, entertain, and occasionally dine with the king, courtiers and councillors and receive foreign ambassadors and dignitaries. Chamberers were responsible for the more menial and routine tasks such as making the queen’s bed, cleaning and arranging her bed linens, wardrobe and lodgings.6 The identification of these women as the queens’ servants is crucial, as they performed the same duties as they did serving in the queens’ households in England and France, though perhaps on a much grander scale. That entire households were transported, with Katherine’s journeying to Calais and Guînes, and Claude’s to Ardres, to be in attendance at the summit, is indicative of their importance to their queenship. A fifth group of women, Ladies and Gentlewomen ‘Attendant’, were women of noble heritage and distinction, the wives and widows of dukes, earls, barons and other noblemen who served in the king’s household or on his council. These women were not strictly in service but were invited, or ‘summoned’, to attend upon the queen and perform infrequent, formal roles on state occasions such as coronations, christenings, marriages, funerals or, in this instance, diplomatic summits. A few months prior to the Field of Cloth of Gold, Henry VIII ‘wrote letters of summons to all suche lordes, ladies, gentlemen and Gentlewomen as he felt should give their attendaunce on hym and the quene’.7 Although their attendance was not mandatory, it was felt their duty to appear, and to absent oneself without good reason could incur the wrath or displeasure of their sovereign. The importance of their attendance is attested by ‘A Memoriall of such things as be requisite’. This document was drafted in early 1520, with detailed plans and regulations laid out for the summit chiefly concerning the display of magnificence

130  James Taffe in the preparation of lodgings, dress and limitations on the size of royal retinues.8 The ‘Memoriall’ accounted for the presence of both queens and their ladies and gentlewomen: [T]he Kyngs Hyghnesse with hys Nobles, and the Qwene with her Ladyes and Jentylwemen, schall mete with the Frensche Kyng and hys Qwene, with thayr Nobles, Ladies and Gentilwemen, at the said place on horseback, and after embracyng of each other familierly, and the Qwenys to do semblablely for theyr parties, the said Kyngs, Qwenys, and thays traynes, forthwith to repayre to Calais in such goode order.9 Though Henry and Francis were determined to achieve parity in numbers, so as to avoid either entourage exceeding the other,10 exceptions may have been made for women, whose attendance at the summit was welcomed, even encouraged, by both kings. Sir Richard Wingfield, ambassador at the court of France, had spoken with Francis, who assured him that [H]e intendythe to put an ordre of suche nommber of personnaiges of all estates as shall attende apon hym to the Veue. Whyche he saythe shall not excede the nommbr whyche your grace hathe appointyd but as for the nommber of Ladyes he thynckythe that your highnes wyll not be miscontentyd thowght theye whyche shalbe mete for suche an assemble maye francklye com wythout any reffuse, in that behalff, wherunto I  cowde make hym no direct answer for lacke of knowledge of your graces pleasure. Notwithstondynge I  shewyd hym that I  never sawe your highnes encombryd or fynde defaulte with over grete presse of Ladyes.11 Through the months of March, April and May 1520, Wingfield was tasked with arranging the summit by facilitating communications between the two sovereigns. His correspondence reveals that the date of the meeting was carefully calculated to ensure Queen Claude, who was heavily pregnant, could attend. When Henry requested that the meeting be delayed until the end of June, Francis refused, stating that if his wife was to travel any later than planned it ‘myght be dangerous vnto to the frute she berythe’.12 It was concluded that there could be no such delay if the queen was to be there. ‘All the concession he would make was that, if Henry would be at Calais on 4th June’, then he could ‘prolong the assembly’, but only for as long as Claude’s condition would allow.13 ‘The Queen’s state of health will not allow of delay’, Francis warned, and later remarked that ‘the continual travel he caused the Queen here to take, being in the case that she is in’ should leave Henry in no doubt of his resolve and commitment to meet with him.14 ‘The King’s highness would not for anything’, Wingfield assured Francis, ‘but that sh[e should be] at the assembly, without the which his highness thought the[re should] lack one great part of the perfection of the feast’.15 These remarks by Wingfield and the urgency with which Francis ensured they kept to time, accommodating Claude’s pregnancy, demonstrate that her attendance, and by extension that of her ladies and gentlewomen, was seen as integral to the summit.

‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy?  131 An important function met by the queen’s ladies and gentlewomen servants was the display of royal magnificence. The ‘Memoriall’, again, observed that ‘the Kyngs householde shalbe warned to prepare theymselfs in their best mans apparelled, accordyng to their estates and degrees, to attend upon his grace at this metyng’.16 Undoubtedly, this ordinance applied to servants in the queen’s household too.17 Their physical appearance and presence constituted ‘queenliness’, or the feminine expression of queenship, and their bodies and virtues were appropriated in its construction. On 26 March 1520, Wingfield reported that in preparation for the summit a great search was being made in France ‘to bring to the meeting, the fairest ladies that may be found’. He urged that Queen Katherine too must ‘brynge suche in her bande, that the visaige of England, whiche hathe allweys had the preyse, shall not at thys tyme lose thesame’.18 A  queen’s regal status and majesty was proclaimed by overawing and impressing through extravagance and could be represented, by extension, in her ladies and gentlewomen servants. Clothing, the wearing of costly jewels and rich garments, was materially and culturally significant to this role.19 Dressing the queen and her attendants required the utmost attention to detail. It is not difficult to conceive of how, upon receiving the summons from the king, these women will have urgently besought their silkwomen to ensure that they were properly attired for the occasion. The accounts of Elis Hilton, Katherine’s yeoman of the robes, reveal that she laid out vast sums – as much as £710, 3s 1½d from April to May 1520 alone – indicating that the queen took care in outfitting her household appropriately, concerning herself with the detail of their attire.20 Both queens and their ladies and gentlewomen had approximately two or three months to ‘put theimselfes in a redines after the moste costliest fashion’, and they did not disappoint, as the chronicler Edward Hall remarked: ‘To tell you the apparel of the ladies, their riche attyres, their sumptuous Iuelles, their diuersities of beauties . . . I assure you ten mennes wittes can scace declare it’.21 At the Field of Cloth of Gold, the queen and her women often became the focus of display. On 5 June, Henry and Katherine travelled from Calais to their royal lodgings, the portable palace, or castle, at Guînes. Adorned with cloth of gold, the queen rode through the town on horseback, alongside the king and in procession ‘with her trayne of ladies’, in full view of attendees.22 At a banquet held on 10 June, Katherine’s gentlewomen were ‘richlie appareled in cloth of gould velvet and silkes after the most gorgeous fashion’.23 The masculine display of military prowess at the jousts taking place on 11 June was balanced by the feminine display of both queens Katherine and Claude, and their ladies and gentlewomen, ‘richly dressed in jewels, and with many chariots, litters and hackneys covered with cloth of gold and silver, emblazoned with their arms’.24 Extensive and occasionally detailed reports by foreign ambassadors in attendance concentrated too on their physical appearance, though such accounts could be distorted by their own biases or tastes, and they did not hesitate in their scrutiny. Soardino, the Mantuan ambassador to France, was unlikely to be neutral in observing that Katherine’s ladies ‘were ornamented in the English fashion, but were not richly clad’. Claude, on the other hand, was ‘accompanied by forty ladies of high rank, richly dressed and with jewels’.25 Whereas the English ladies were on this

132  James Taffe occasion described as ‘well-dressed but ugly’, at a masque on 24 June, the French ladies were, again, ‘richly attired’, all ‘dressed in the Italian fashion with velvet caps, round which were feathers’.26 This contrast is reiterated by an anonymous report, which described Katherine’s women as ‘handsome and well arrayed’, though again, compared them unfavourably with the French ladies, ‘all dressed in crimson velvet, their sleeves lined with cloth of gold, a beautiful fashion, which the English is not’.27 Not all of the attendees were impressed with the attire of the French ladies. Polydore Vergil felt it was ‘singularly unfit for the chaste’, and regretted that many of the English ladies in attendance had taken up the fashion, ‘abandoning for the most part the far more modest costume of their forebears’.28 It is likely that their success in projecting magnificence was limited by differences in taste, fashions and culture. It was inevitable that England and France would be measured against one another. Mirroring the rivalry of the kings Henry and Francis, as Wingfield had predicted, there was much comparison, even competition, between the queens and their women; one observer remarked yet more plainly that they were ‘all vieing with each other in beauty and ornamented apparel’.29 Certainly, their contemporaries focused their reports on their physical appearance and attire, but there is evidence that the ladies and gentlewomen in attendance were engaged in the summit in ways which were more than merely decorative. The Field of Cloth of Gold was, first and foremost, a tournament, which, somewhat paradoxically, gave physical expression to genuine hopes of peace between the kingdoms of England and France.30 The tournament ‘proper’ began on 9 June, and the jousts commenced on 11 June. Queens Katherine and Claude met here for the first time, ‘where either saluted other right honorably, and went into a stage for them prepared, right curiously hanged’.31 In preparation for the ‘justes, torneys and other feats of armes, as well on horsbak as on fote be intended to be made’, the ‘Memoriall’ drafted prior to the summit ordered the ‘fortifieng’ of the field, or tiltyard, ‘where the feates shalbe doon’, appointing a number of ‘galleries withdrawyng places, tents, pavilions, and other things necessarie for the Quenes ladies, nobles, and all other comers, as shall reasorte to see the said feats’.32 Here the two queens exchanged greetings and began ‘talking and amusing themselves, surrounded by great personages and their favourite ladies’.33 When it began to rain, both Henry and Francis ‘ascended the ladies’ stages and too amused themselves’.34 Again there were jousts on 15 June, and though neither queen was present, both English and French ladies attended. Both kings reportedly ‘passed the time partly on horseback, and partly with the ladies’.35 In the words of chronicler Edward Hall, it was only ‘after salutacions’ were ‘made to the Quenes being by their stages’, and ‘the reuerence done to the Quenes and their ladies’, that ‘the kynges had their speres redy’.36 The queen’s ladies and gentlewomen were an integral element of a chivalric court culture, in which knights would, feigning their love, woo their ladies with dances, poems, songs and gifts and other favours in an unending pursuit for their affection.37 ‘For love of them’, it was observed, ‘each of the jousters endeavoured to display his valour and prowess, in order to find more favour with his sweetheart’.38 If the presence of women on these occasions was meant to elevate the competitive spirit and encourage the men in their

‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy?  133 feats, certainly this was achieved, though it may have amounted to a spontaneous wrestling match and some ungentlemanly behaviour between Henry and Francis.39 At the temporary palace in Guînes there was a king’s side, a queen’s side and two large banqueting halls between them. On the queen’s side, there were three chambers and many galleries, which were all, like her ladies and gentlewomen, to be ‘put in a redinesse, garnyshed, and honorablely trymyd’.40 The queen’s Presence, or banqueting, chamber, for instance, was ‘hung with tapestry of silk and gold representing the most minute foliage, the most beautiful that the eye of man ever beheld’.41 It was here on 10 June that Katherine hosted the king of France and his entourage for a banquet. Food and drink were bountiful, ‘so delycate wynes, soo precyouse meatys’ were all honourably served,42 and the king was reportedly ‘received in the most courteous manner possible’.43 Katherine’s ladies and gentlewomen were accomplished and well-rehearsed in welcoming and entertaining guests, as they did on many occasions in the queen’s chambers in England.44 ‘When that dinner was doune’, Francis passed the tyme in the banqueting chamber with dauncing among the ladies first erre that he dide daunce he went from one ende of the chamber to thother on both sides and with his capp in his hand and kissed the ladies and gentilweomen one after an other . . . saving iiii or fyve that were ould and not faire standing together.45 Apparently, the king of France had forgotten his manners! How Queen Katherine and her ladies reacted to this faux pas cannot now be known, though one can imagine that these women often had to bite their tongue to keep up appearances. They dined again with Francis in the queen’s chambers two weeks later, on which occasion the king staged a masque.46 Ladies and gentlewomen were ‘apparaled in masking clothes with vizers on their faces gorgiouslie beseene’, and they all ‘danced to the sound of fifes’.47 Meanwhile, Henry too had, on 10 June, ‘prepared diuers maskers’ in his entourage, before travelling to Ardres, where they were received by the French ladies, ‘dressed in cloth of gold’,48 and brought into the chamber of riche apparell, where at the instance of the French Quene the kyng and all his, them disuisered and shewed theyr faces, and al the ladies of England likewyse, then began feast & chere to arise, the king of England was set, and after all the ladies and Maskers of England and were nobly serued of many straunge meates.49 Queen Claude and her ladies hosted the king through the rest of the evening in her chambers, like Katherine’s richly adorned, ‘hanged and siled with clothe of gold, enbrodered with great cordelles or friers knottes of cloth of siluer’,50 dining, dancing and ‘passing the tyme joyously’ and ‘with much solas’.51 Upon their departure, Henry and Francis crossed paths, and the two kings embraced, declaring ‘What cheer?’52 Clearly, the queens’ ladies and gentlewomen created an amicable, relaxed environment for ‘pleasaunt’ pastime and, even, diplomatic conciliation.

134  James Taffe In the crowded agenda of banquets, feasts, pageants, masques, jousts and tournaments, close interaction between the English and the French courts was facilitated. Indeed, on many occasions at the summit both courts were quite purposefully integrated, so that they ‘shall se and conuerse together familiarly, to the ende that it may engender betwene them an amitie more firme and stable, for that cause and that more suerly and agreably they may bee together’.53 It was reported that ‘there was very great abundance of good cheer, and vast pomp’.54 Encouraging friendship and goodwill between the two countries, it was observed that ‘the Frenchmen’ were ‘making merry with the English women, and the Englishmen with the French women’.55 Surely aiding in the merriment were the stores of wine and beer flowing freely at the summit.56 Within the temporary palace constructed in Guînes for the English court, there was a ‘very large cellar, most excellently stored with every sort of good wine’.57 An estimate of the expenses incurred for the summit observed that there was to be 700 qrs of wine, at 12s a quarter, 150 tuns of French and Gascon wine, at 110s a tun, and 560 tuns of beer, at 20s a tun, which, when calculated with the food, came to an astonishing £7,633.58 Outside of the palace there was a fountain, represented in the oil painting of the summit, which ‘ranne to all people plenteously with red, white, and claret wyne’,59 and here the overindulgence of drinking and merriment appears to have left a few of the attendees worse for wear. The Mantuan ambassador remarked that, ‘in the long hall were prepared two large cupboards of silver-gilt vases, constantly used by persons drinking, and the Englishwomen never gave those bowls and flasks any rest’.60 At the jousts held at Guînes on 11 June, one of Katherine’s ladies took a large flask of wine, and putting it to her lips, drank freely, and then passed it to her companions, who did the like and emptied it. Not content with this, they drank out of large cups, which, during the joust, it was observed, ‘circulated more than twenty times amongst the French lords and those English ladies’. The Mantuan ambassador in attendance, stood aghast, remarking the next day that these ladies ‘were neither very handsome nor very graceful’.61 A country was judged by its spectacles. This unflattering report of the queen’s attendants drinking freely, and without ceremony, hardly perpetuated an image of virtue or magnificence. This might have reflected too upon Katherine’s honour, as a queen who failed to censure her servants’ behaviour and discipline them could be judged incapable of governing her own.62 An alternative and perhaps more accurate reading of this evidence would suggest that these women were engaging in the ‘performance’ required of diplomacy, embracing fully the spirit of the summit, a celebration of peace. Perhaps, they sought to outdo their male counterparts and drink them under the table. It is surely significant that the French noblemen too were partaking in the merriment, though of course, it was the English women who drew criticism from the Mantuan ambassador. On the other hand, and irrespective of their hard drinking, the chronicler Hall regarded only their ‘good behaviour from day to day since the first metyng’.63 Bishop John Fisher, whose account survives in a sermon preached shortly after the summit, was in attendance on the queen’s side and as such was an eyewitness to all these festivities. Though Fisher condemned the cost, extravagance and wastefulness of the summit, of the ‘fayre

‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy?  135 ladyes’ he testified only to their ‘sumptuouse and gorgeous apparell’ and their active participation in ‘suche daunsynges, suche armonyes, suche dalyaunce, and so many pleasaunt pastymes’.64 That neither Hall nor Fisher made mention of any drunken disorder by the women suggests that their behaviour was seen, at least by the English camp, in good cheer. At the end of the summit, it was judged that Henry and Francis were apparently like ‘perfect friends, giving hope of good-will and union between these two nations, which for many years have been bred in hatred of each other’. Clearly, it was the men who would be commended for their role, ‘this change being effected through the wisdom and virtue of both the sovereigns, who are anxious for the peace of Christendom’.65 But it was not to last, as in the words of bishop Fisher, ‘theyr wylles dyd chaunge and nat abyde’.66 Notwithstanding the relative ­success – or failure – of the summit, and lacking this formal recognition of their role by their contemporaries, the Field of Cloth of Gold was a triumph for women. As they accompanied the queens, riding on horseback in procession, dined and danced with kings, engaged in the chivalric culture of the jousts or kept up conversation and merriment with attendees, ladies and gentlewomen demonstrated their importance both practically and culturally, and the power of their presence, visually, materially and diplomatically. All of the queens’ women were crucial for the practice, construction and display of queenship. Between them they met the functions of her household: hospitality, sociability and, at times, all-tooconspicuous consumption. By their beauty, charm, gaiety and, occasionally drunken, diplomacy, these women encouraged friendship and goodwill, or at least, eased tensions and deflected attention from irreconcilable differences between the two countries. Much like their representation in the oil painting, the role played by ladies and gentlewomen at the summit was rather more subtle than the clashing of spears, and egos, by their male counterparts, though certainly, no less significant.

Notes 1 At the front of the train is a woman whose attire resembles the representations of Katherine at the tiltyard and in the tent. This woman is veiled, however, and no contemporary accounts make any mention of a veil for either Queen Katherine or Claude, and thus the woman’s identity remains a mystery. 2 An exception to this is Michelle Beer, who has examined the ‘material diplomacy’ of Katherine of Aragon and her household at the summit. M. Beer, Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain: Catherine of Aragon and Margaret Tudor, 1503–1533 (Woodbridge, 2018), 60–9. Both Glenn Richardson and Joycelyne G. Russell consider in good measure the queens and their ladies in their respective accounts of the summit, though not critically or as the focus for analysis. G. Richardson, The Field of Cloth of Gold (New Haven, CT, and London, 2013). J. G. Russell, Field of Cloth of Gold: Men and Manners in 1520 (London, 1969). 3 ‘The Names of al the Noblemen and other whiche be appointed to attende upon the Kings highnes and the Quenes grace to the enterview with the Frenche King’. TNA SP 1/19 fol. 268r; LP iii, 704. 4 No such list survives for Claude’s attendants, though as observed by Richardson, ‘French lists must once have been made, but only one memorandum of those who

136  James Taffe

5

6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

were to attend Francis and his first meeting with Henry survives’. Richardson, Cloth of Gold, 79; LP iii, 702 (4). TNA SP 1/19 fol. 268r (LP iii, 704) and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1116 fol. 99r-99v list the women in attendance upon the English queen in order of precedence, according to their rank (duchesses, countesses, baronesses, knight’s wives, gentlewomen and chamberers). For the duties, tasks and functions of the queen’s servants, see the Black Book of Edward IV (c.1471), the Eltham ordinances (1526) and Orders and Regulations of the Government of the Queen’s Household (1627) in A collection of ordinances and regulations for the government of the royal household, made in divers reigns: From King Edward III to King William and Queen Mary, also receipts in ancient cookery (London, 1790). E. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the History of England, during the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth (1809), 600–1. ‘A Memoriall of such things as be requisite’ (hereafter ‘Memoriall’) in ‘Two Papers Relating to the Interview between Henry the Eighth of England and Francis the First of France’, ed. John Caley, Archaeologia, 21 (1827), 176–91 (at 184). ‘Memoriall’, 190. So that they ‘may honorablely and quietly, without encomboraunce or disorder, mete togethyr’. It was ordained that ‘neyther of theym shall bryng with theyme a mor nombre of Noblemen and women servants and horsis than is conteyned in a bill indented’. ‘Memoriall’, 184. TNA SP 1/20 fol. 41 (LP iii, 806). BL Cotton MS Caligula D VII fols 205–206 (LP iii 725); BL Cotton MS Caligula D VII fol. 184 (LP iii, 697). BL Cotton MS Caligula D VII fols 198–201 (LP iii, 723). BL Cotton MS Caligula D VII fol. 195 (LP iii, 726); BL Cotton MS Caligula D VII fol. 216 (LP iii, 808). Wingfield wrote to Henry, ‘I assure your grace you would have no little compassion if y[e saw] the poor creature with the charge she beareth’. BL Cotton MS Caligula, D VII fol. 184 (LP iii, 697). ‘Memoriall’, 178. Ordinances for the household were drawn up for the king’s side but clearly extended to and were directed towards the queen’s side. TNA SP 1/19 fol. 231 (LP iii 698). M. Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Abington, 2007), 301–16 for dressing the households of Henry VIII’s queens. TNA E 315/242/3 fols 22v-31r (LP iii, 852). ‘Using her clothing and the liveries of her household, Catherine inserted symbols of her dynasty and of Spain into the AngloFrench spectacle, thus publicly offering the English an alternative to the alliance with France’. Beer, Queenship, 60. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 615, 618. R. Brown et al. (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 38 vols (London, 1864–90) [hereafter CSP Ven], vol. III, 68. ‘The meating of the king of England and the emperor at Canterburie and the meating of the said king and the French king at Guysnes anno domini 1520 anno viith of his raigne’. Bodleian MS Ashmole 1116, fol. 101r. ‘L’Ordonnance et ordre du tournoy’, summarised in LP iii, 870. CSP Ven, vol. III, 81. Ibid., 50. Ibid., 84. The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, A. D. 1485–1537, ed. and trans. D. Hay, Royal Historical Society, Camden Series, 74 (London, 1950), 269. CSP Ven, vol. III, 69.

‘Pleasaunt Pastime’ or Drunken Diplomacy?  137 30 G. Richardson, ‘ “As Presence Did Present Them”: Personal Gift-giving at the Field of Cloth of Gold’, in T. Betteridge and S. Lipscomb (eds.), Henry VIII and the Court: Art, Politics and Performance (Abingdon, 2016), 47–64 (at 48). Richardson, Cloth of Gold, 2. 31 Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 611. 32 ‘Memoriall’, 177. 33 CSP Ven, vol. III, 84. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 90. Gifts were exchanged by both Queens Katherine and Claude to the English and French gentlemen in recognition of their exploits in the jousts (CSP Ven, vol. III, 50), to both kings Henry and Francis (CSP Ven, vol. III, 79) and to one another (CSP Ven, vol. III, 94). 36 Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 614. 37 E. W. Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Oxford, 2004), 20, 68–9 for the ‘courtly love’ tradition. 38 CSP Ven, vol. III, 69. And thus these women did ‘assemble daily to witness swordfighting on horseback and on foot, and other tournaments and representations of war’. 39 Russell, Cloth of Gold¸ 132. Recorded only by Robert de La Marck, seigneur de Florange, in his memoirs. 40 ‘Memoriall’, 189. 41 CSP Ven, vol. III, 50, 88. 42 ‘Here after ensueth two fruytfull sermons, made [and] compyled by the right reverende father in God John Fyssher, Doctour of dyvynyte and Bysshop of Rochester’, in C. A. Hatt (ed.), English Works of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester: Sermons and Other Writings, 1520–1535 (Oxford, 2002), 212–54, hereafter Fisher, Sermons. 43 La description et ordre du camp, festins et joustes, summarised in LP iii, 869. 44 Foreign ambassadors and dignitaries were honoured with an audience with the queen in her presence chamber. Their reports are punctuated with references of being taken by the king through ‘to the Queen’s chamber’, wherein they were received by her ladies and maids-of-honour. In 1517, Sebastian Giustinian reported that an Imperial ambassador was taken by the king ‘into the Queen’s chamber’, where Henry ‘made her and all those ladies pay him as much honor as if he had been a sovereign, giving him amusements of every description’. LP ii, 3455; Giustinian’s secretary, Nicolas Sagudino, wrote that, after the banquet, when the king and his guests ‘betook themselves into another hall’, the queen’s presence chamber, there were waiting ‘the damsels of the most serene Queen’, her maids-of-honour, who danced with them. LP ii, 3462; For all manner of ceremonies, banquets, receptions or pastime in the queen’s chambers in England, see, for instance, P. Gayangos, et  al. (eds.), Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 13 vols (1888–1954) [hereafter CSP Sp], vol. IV/2, 1055; CSP Ven, vol. IV, 105; Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 62; LP iv, 1704; LP vi, 212; LP xix/1, 296; B. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers (Oxford, 2002), 234. 45 Bodleian MS  Ashmole 1116 fol. 101r; Anne Browne, Katherine’s maid-of-honour, danced with the French king and was described as ‘an accomplished woman, and the handsomest in the company’. CSP Ven, vol. III, 50. 46 In preparing the queen’s lodgings to accommodate the festivities, it was observed that there was to be a ‘large chamber’, which was ‘to joyne to and uppon the Qwenes lodgyng for Ladyes and Gentylweme to daunce in’, and a ‘withdrawyng’ chamber, whereunto the Qwenys Ladies and Gentylwemen may pawse and repayre, as the cas schall requyre’. ‘Memoriall’, 189. 47 Bodleian MS Ashmole 1116, fol. 102v; ‘Memoriall’, 182–183, for instructions for ‘an honorable Mumery’ in which the ladies were to take part. 48 LP iii, 869.

138  James Taffe 49 Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 619. Anne Boleyn is likely to have been in attendance as a maid-of-honour to queen Claude on the French side of the summit and thus is likely to have crossed paths with the king of England, and her future husband, when he dined and danced in Ardres. 50 Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 615. 51 LP iii, 869; HC, 619–20. 52 LP iii, 869. 53 ‘Memoriall’, 190; HC, 603. 54 CSP Ven, vol. III, 50. 55 Ibid., 83. 56 The English elite typically drank wine – Elizabeth of York and lady Margaret Beaufort, the king’s mother and grandmother, even advised Catherine in 1498, to ‘accustom herself to drink wine’ before she came to England. CSP Sp, vol. I, 203. 57 CSP Ven, vol. III, 94. 58 ‘An estimacion for the Kings Dyetts and the Quenes with other nobles having at Calys and Guynes for one moneth in June and July. 12 Hen. VIII’. TNA SP 1/20, fol. 179 (LP iii 919, ii.) 59 Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 605. 60 CSP Ven, vol. III, 94. 61 Ibid., 81. The Mantuan ambassador’s taste, or distaste, may also have been with the English custom of sharing the same flask for drinking among several people. ‘Both Erasmus, and a Venetian writer of 1500, made especial note of the English custom of sharing the same drinking cup among several people’. Russell, Cloth of Gold, 126. 62 G. Russell, Young and Damned and Fair: The Life and Tragedy of Catherine Howard at the Court of Henry VIII (London, 2017), 216. 63 Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 618. Certainly, the English and French gentlemen were all indulging in wine and beer too. Ibid., 610. 64 Fisher, Sermons, 212–54. 65 CSP Ven, vol. III, 69. 66 Fisher, Sermons, 212–54.

10 Magnificence on the Move Timothy Schroder

When Princess Mary, younger sister of Henry VIII (1496–1533), embarked for France to marry the ageing Louis XII, she travelled with a huge entourage of noblemen, knights and ladies. Lorenzo Pasqualigo, an Italian merchant living in London, witnessed her departure and wrote: There would be about 1000 palfreys and 100 women’s carriages. There are so many gowns of wove gold and with gold grounds, housings [harnesses] for the horses and palfreys of the same materials, and chains and jewels, that they are worth a vast amount of treasure; and some of the noblemen in this company, to do themselves honour, had spent as much as 200,000 each . . . [The Princess] wore a gown in the French fashion, of wove gold, very costly. . . . On her neck was a jewelled diamond, as large and broad as a full-sized finger, with a pear-shaped pearl beneath it, which jewel had been sent as a present by the king of France . . . and the jewellers of the Row [on Cheapside], when the king desired to value it, estimated its worth at 60,000 crowns.1 The magnificence that was on view to the crowds, however, was only part of the wealth that travelled that day. In her baggage went a substantial dowry, as well as plate, tapestries and jewels intended to enhance her dignity as a princess of England, and shortly to be queen of France. The surviving inventory of jewels and plate2 is impressive: twenty-two items of gold, including gold-mounted rock crystals set with jewels, and nearly 10,500oz of silver and silver-gilt. Not all of this was to complete the journey, though, and according to a Venetian diplomatic despatch, the party endured a stormy crossing in which one ship foundered and ‘much plate and property was lost’.3 Fortunately for the princess, however, her own ship, presumably also carrying a good deal of the valuable cargo, made the crossing safely. This event, remarkable though it was, was far from unprecedented. Whenever princes travelled, within their own domains or abroad, they were accompanied by entourages of noblemen, guards and servants and by long trains of carts containing equipment and valuables. Henry VIII himself always travelled with much mobile magnificence and this chapter looks at the evidence for this, especially in relation to gold and silver, at various times when he was ‘on the road’. The nature DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-14

140  Timothy Schroder of these journeys ranged from progresses in the normal sense (summer peregrinations when he travelled with a reduced court, staying at his many ‘manors’, or at those of his courtiers, hunting and being seen by his subjects), to great summit meetings in France, and even to military campaigns. We start, not at the beginning, but with the most spectacular of all of Henry VIII’s progresses: his meeting with Francis I at Guînes and Ardes, near Calais, in the summer of 1520, the event that has ever since been known as the Field of Cloth of Gold (see Figure 10.1). The Field was primarily a tournament. But it wasn’t just a feat of arms; it was a competitive display of prestige between two monarchs and their courts. As a result, it was hugely extravagant in almost every respect – in ceremony, entourages, consumption and in the conspicuous display of magnificence. This took many forms: plate, of course, but also jewels, spectacular armour, fine tapestries shot through with gold and silver thread, and enormous quantities of cloth of gold. The event acquired its nickname from the prodigious use made by French and English alike of this most costly of fabrics. It was used – together with tapestries  – for wall hangings in Henry’s temporary palace, to cover the inside and outside of tents, and in the clothes worn by the principal players on this great stage. We have no images of this event, other than the painting at Hampton Court, and the best impression of the jousts at Guînes is gained vicariously from the Westminster Tournament Roll, a brilliantly detailed record of a tournament held nine years earlier in London. One of its images shows the king doing a lap of honour, as it were, broken lance in hand and wearing a robe made of damascened cloth of gold trimmed with fur. It would have cost, in the words of one contemporary observer, ‘a well of gold’. Luxurious cloth of gold clothes pervaded the entire proceedings at Guînes, and when Henry dined with the French queen one day, he wore ‘a double mantle of cloth of gold, embroidered with jewels, a beautiful headdress of fine cloth of gold and a beautiful collar made of jewels’. Very little cloth of gold from this period survives but one piece that does is a sumptuous cope that was almost certainly present at the Field (see Figure 10.2). It was bequeathed by Henry VII to Westminster Abbey and his son borrowed it in 1520 to add yet more magnificence to the meeting. Embroidered with Tudor iconography of crowns and portcullises, red roses and a collar of esses along the border, it could hardly have been more suited to the occasion. Cloth of gold, mostly made in Venice, came in various grades. The most expensive was woven from pure gold thread, pulled into wires of extraordinary thinness; more labourintensive, if less costly, was a type formed from thin gold ribbon painstakingly wound around silk thread. Its cost ranged from about 30s a yard to as much as six or even seven pounds, and the Chamber accounts from the early part of Henry VIII’s reign show huge sums being spent with Italian merchants, stockpiling bolts of the fabric. Payments of £500 or more were routine and one particularly spectacular purchase, in September 1515, cost £3,202.4 The Hampton Court painting, even though dating from some years after the event, gives a strong, if abbreviated, impression of its splendour. But it compresses both time and space. It shows events that happened sequentially; it underrepresents the size of Henry’s temporary palace;5 and it shows many fewer tents than

Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Magnificence on the Move  141

Figure 10.1 The cloth of gold tent, detail from The Field of Cloth of Gold, c.1520–50, RCIN 405794.02.

142  Timothy Schroder

Figure 10.2 Cope, c.1509, bequeathed by Henry VII to Westminster Abbey. Source: © Stonyhurst College/Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Magnificence on the Move  143 were actually there. As a result, we lose that sense of muchness that so impressed those who were present. And it shows nothing, of course, of the massive role played by gold and silver in enriching the proceedings. To get a sense of those, we need to turn to the documents – the chronicles and ambassadorial reports – which describe in great detail the elaborate tableware deployed at banquets, the gold and silver used on armour and horse harnesses, the abundant altar plate in the chapels and the costly gifts exchanged between monarchs and courtiers. Banquets were the principal stage for precious metal. Tables groaned under its weight and it played a central role in some of the highly choreographed rituals of ceremonial dining, such as the ‘void’.6 But its most impressive focus was the ‘buffet of plate’ (see Figure 10.3), a tiered structure stacked high with gold and silvergilt plate as a measure of rank and status. When Katherine of Aragon entertained King Francis to dinner the Mantuan ambassador was at pains to point out that [A]mongst other remarkable things were two cupboards [or buffets], on one of which were many vessels of massive gold, and set with beautiful jewels. From these vessels the king and queen were served. On the other cupboard were vessels, also of massive gold, but not set with jewels, and these were served for the other guests at the royal table. There was besides an infinite number of silver-gilt vessels.7 This is very important: gold plate set with jewels for the king and queen, gold plate without jewels for the others at the royal table and mere silver-gilt for the rest. So, not only was the overall display a measure of status but also the microdeployment of the vessels was a none-too-subtle reflection of rank. The banquet, however, was not the only stage for plate. The royal chapel and the tournament itself were awash with precious metal too. Edward Hall, Henry’s first biographer, was evidently present at the Field and one of his most vivid passages relates to the high altar of the chapel within Henry’s palace. To quote from his account, this had ‘a rich canopy of marvellous greatness’ and was ‘apparelled [or set] with five pair of candlesticks of gold, a corpus domini, all fine gold, and . . . twelve images of the bigness of a child of four years of age, all gold’. Then there were ‘three rich great crosses ready to be borne at festival times, and basins and censers, gospellers, paxes, cruets, holy water vessels, and other ornaments also all of gold’.8 Nor was that all. The temporary chapel, like the permanent ones in his residences in England, was equipped with ‘closets’, private chapels for the king and queen that looked down on the altar and allowed them complete privacy. In the king’s closet was a ‘crucifix of fine gold, with an image of the Trinity, an image of Our Lady, and twelve other images all fine gold and precious stones’, as well as a complete set of mass plate like the high altar. The qualifier ‘and precious stones’ is significant because – as in the case of the banquet – it marked out plate intended for the king’s (or queen’s) own use. The final stage for gold and silver was the tiltyard itself. The Tournament Roll image of the king (see Figure 4.1) shows that magnificence washing over all the participants: the king’s foot attendants are all wearing heavy gold chains, and

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Figure 10.3 A  royal tent with buffet of plate, from The Story of King David, tapestry, ­Brussels, c.1520. Source: © Musée de la Renaissance, Écouen.

his horse wears a sumptuous blue ‘robe’ sewn with gold or silver-gilt letters of K and pomegranates (Katherine of Aragon’s personal emblem). Another image shows the king’s helmet being carried into the lists. It is embellished with a jewelled crown and collar, its noble bearer wears a costly collar of his own and his horse has an elaborate silver-gilt harness. But how do we know that these things really were of precious metal rather than simply seeming to be so? Quite simply,

Magnificence on the Move  145 because the privy chamber accounts contain records of payments to goldsmiths for those very things.9 Apart from its high visibility in ceremonial performance at the Field, plate and jewels played another indispensable part, namely in the exchange of gifts, which were hugely valuable. Francis I gave Cardinal Wolsey ‘gold vases’ worth 20,000 crowns, while his opposite number, Guillaume Bonnivet, the French admiral, received ‘a jewel’ and gold plate worth 14,000 from Henry. Wolsey was lavish in his own gifts too, giving Louise of Savoy a jewelled cross with a relic of the True Cross and Bonnivet ‘a very large salt-cellar, all of gold, studded with a number of very beautiful jewels, and surmounted by a St George’. But in considering the extravagance of these gifts, it is important to remember that those exchanged by princes or great courtiers were governed by the principle of reciprocity and their value was largely balanced out by the fact that they were – or were intended to be – broadly equivalent to those received: 20,000 crowns out was effectively cancelled out by 20,000 crowns in. A good example of this principle failing to work is the story of an unplanned exchange of gifts between Henry and Francis: one day during the Field, according to one of the Venetian ambassadors, Francis paid an unscheduled call on Henry at Guînes, and Henry was taken by surprise – indeed, he was not yet fully dressed. But Francis hadn’t thought through the implications of such spontaneity and Henry felt obliged to mark the occasion. ‘Having embraced each other [we are told] the king of England gave [Francis] a collar of jewels and pearls of great value’. Now it was Francis’s turn to be wrong-footed. Presumably having nothing else to hand, he ‘gave in exchange to the king of England his gold bracelets studded with jewels of great value, [then], doubting whether the gift was an equivalent for the present received, he sent in addition six coursers of great price’.10 The intended outcome of the Field and one of the chief reasons for the massive expenditure in putting it on was lasting peace. But this was not to be and England and France soon found themselves at war again. As a result, the two monarchs did not meet again until October 1532. This second meeting, split between Boulogne and Calais, was different from the first: it wasn’t a tournament; it was shorter and it was less extravagant. From Henry’s point of view, one of its main purposes was to canvass Francis’s support in the matter of Henry’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon. This was important and much hung by it. Preparations began some months before the meeting and a royal warrant of 20 August instructed Thomas Cromwell, master of the jewels, to send a quantity of jewels and gold plate from the jewel house to the royal goldsmith, Cornelis Hayes. To quote the warrant, they were ‘to be broken, transposed, changed, set and new made . . . according to such devices as we have devised’.11 Henry rightly expected the event to be highly competitive in terms of display and commentators were particularly struck by the French king’s plate, all of which, according to Hall, was ‘of the new fashion’.12 We are fortunate in the survival of one of those pieces made for Francis, the St Michael gold cup in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (see Figure 10.4). This magnificent gold and jewelled vessel was commissioned

146  Timothy Schroder

Figure 10.4 The St Michael cup (Antwerp, 1532), gold, enamel, pearls and precious stones. Source: © Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

from an Antwerp goldsmith (Josse Vezeler) and delivered direct to Boulogne just in time for the meeting. That is exactly what Henry had anticipated and it is likely that the pieces he entrusted to Cromwell to be ‘new made’ were designed by Henry’s court artist, Hans Holbein the younger (c.1497–1543).

Magnificence on the Move  147 On the English side of the meeting, the decoration of Henry’s lodgings in the Staple Inn at Calais and of St Mary’s Church is described by Hall, according to whom the king’s chamber was hanged with cloth of silver, ‘raised with gold, and the seams of the same were covered with broad wreathes of goldsmiths’ work, full of stone and pearl’, while the buffet was ‘seven stages [shelves] high, all of plate of gold’. As in 1520, the gifts that concluded the meeting were lavish. The two monarchs exchanged ‘diverse precious jewels and great horses’ and two special gifts from Francis were ‘a suite of bed furniture, wrought throughout with pearls on crimson velvet’ for Henry and a huge diamond worth 15,000 or 16,000 crowns for Anne Boleyn. The dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk received silver-gilt services and gold cups as well as being honoured with membership of the order of St Michael; other courtiers were given gold chains. Henry VIII’s other expeditions to France were not for peace but for war. From the outset he was determined to mount a glorious campaign to recover England’s lost possessions in that country. Two years into Henry’s reign Pope Julius II provided him with the perfect pretext by excommunicating Louis XII and recognising Henry as king of France. Needing no further encouragement, he embarked for Calais in June 1513, with an army of some 24,000. It was an impressive display and an Italian based in London noted that ‘the valuables they took with them were incredible; the housings of the king’s charger and the jewels around his head piece were worth 15,000 crowns. Never had a finer sight been seen’.13 Hall adds that Henry’s armour was gilt and graven . . . full of borders, and in all places traversed with branches in running work of fine gold, the branches were of hawthorne wrought by goldsmith’s craft, wound with a branch of roses, and every flower, leaf and berry were embossed.14 But the most fulsome account of the king’s magnificence in the theatre of war was by a member of the entourage of Henry’s ally, Emperor Maximilian, whom Henry met near Thérouanne. This describes the king’s rich attire, his liberality and magnificence: [the king] rode clad in his armour without the helmet, wearing a surcoat of cloth of gold; his hair bound in a rich golden cap in which were set many rich precious stones . . . He sat [on] a beautiful brown stallion, the bridle and harness laid with pure beaten gold plates. There hung . . . many golden bells, each about two ounces in weight, some of which were so loosely fastened that when he made his stallion bound, one or other of the golden bells fell off. The account goes on to describe Henry’s tent: All over from the ground to the roof, [it] was covered with rich cloth of gold of pure drawn gold thread. There is also therein here and there a beautiful gilded sideboard of very large vessels and flagons, [see Figure 10.3] among them some drinking cups all of gold, which are looked after by certain

148  Timothy Schroder persons who are thereto appointed . . . The outside of the tent was likewise from the ground to the summit overlaid with good cloth of gold . . . Above it stood a lion of gold holding the arms of England in its paws.15 Henry’s campaign resulted in the capture of Thérouanne and Tournai. His meeting at Thérouanne with the Emperor Maximilian (see Figure 12.3) evidently allowed for a convivial conversation which turned to a subject close to Henry’s heart. Paolo de Laude, Milanese ambassador to the emperor, wrote to his master that [I]mmediately after dinner I hear that these princes talked of rings and jewels, and that the king showed some very fine ones to the emperor and in the end gave his Imperial Majesty an eagle to wear at his neck, holding in his claws a large carbuncle, and at its breast or perhaps in its beak, a large cluster of diamonds, and a great pearl at its throat, so that this eagle is estimated to be worth more than 30,000 gold florins . . . Some say that this eagle formerly belonged to Duke Charles of Burgundy.16 Henry’s personal magnificence on campaign was mirrored, though somewhat less brightly, by that of the English nobility. The commentator from ­Maximilian’s entourage recalls that ‘the king of England’s servants and lords riding with him . . . wore coats completely covered with gold and silver plates bound together with rings instead of seams, others of cloth of gold, velvet and rich clothing’. In choosing to take such luxurious goods on campaign, Henry VIII was, by princely conventions of the time, behaving quite normally. The point is made by three other examples: Charles the Bold in 1476, James IV of Scots in 1513, and Francis I in 1525. Charles the Bold took a wealth of precious objects on the campaign that ended with his death at Nancy and some of the jewels, plate and tapestries found among his abandoned possessions are preserved in the Historical Museum at Bern. Similarly, when James IV was defeated and killed at Flodden, the victorious English discovered huge quantities of plate and jewels among the Scottish dead. And before the Battle of Pavia in 1525 (which Francis I lost but survived), one of the French tents was said to have been ‘full of silver and gold vessels, cups, flasks and so forth’. Even so, Henry’s travelling magnificence seems to have been on an exceptional scale. At least that is the impression conveyed by commentators at the time. Why was the huge and patently obvious risk in carrying such precious baggage to war considered worth taking? Part of the answer to that was that it was expected: a prince must be seen to be princely, even on campaign, and an essential element of the princely ethos was magnificence. The same was true, though less so, of the nobility. In his account of the 1513 campaign, Hall tells us that the duke of Buckingham wore ‘purple satin, his apparel and barde full of antelopes and swans of fine gold bullion and full of spangles and little bells of gold marvellous costly and pleasant to behold’.17 The list of baggage taken by the earl of Northumberland

Magnificence on the Move  149 on the same campaign opens with ‘a sumpter horse for the coffers with my Lord’s plate’.18 But there was another, more practical consideration too: campaigning armies had to be accompanied by large amounts of cash and if a campaign ran on longer than expected there was a real risk of the money running out, with alarming consequences. In 1526, for example, in Milan, the Imperial troops threatened mutiny when their pay was delayed and the situation was saved only by various nobles pledging the plate and jewels that they had taken with them. Compared with the rich and vivid documentation of these great events, which we owe largely to the despatches written by foreign ambassadors, our knowledge of the magnificence accompanying the king on his regular summer progresses is much more generic. But the summer progress was an important part of the annual court calendar, usually lasting two or three months and taking in large parts of southern England. The numbers of courtiers and servants accompanying the king on these peregrinations were quite small compared with those normally in attendance at court, but the logistical complications were considerable even so. Henry owned some 64 houses during the latter part of the reign, of which only the socalled standing houses (Whitehall, Greenwich, Hampton Court and a few others) were kept furnished and most had to be suitably provided for in advance of the king’s arrival. This involved, on average, some 300 or more carts carrying furniture, bedding, wall hangings and plate.19 When the king chose to visit one of his courtiers’ houses, as he did, for example, in 1535, when he stayed with Sir Nicholas Poyntz at Acton Court near Bristol, it could land his host with considerable expense. Poyntz built an entirely new wing for the purpose and invested heavily in ultra-fashionable façon de Venise glass to impress the king.20 The most important ‘domestic’ progress of the reign, however, was the most northerly one of all, which took him to York in 1541. The north of England had long been neglected by the regime and no royal progress that far from London had taken place since Henry VII’s visit to York in 1486. The 1536 northern rebellion, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, was mostly about the dissolution of the monasteries, but it was partly a result of this neglect too. The rebellion was put down and its ring leaders ruthlessly punished. But the episode persuaded Henry that a northern journey was essential to shore up his authority and the progress to York, accompanied by a huge retinue and a substantial display of military power, was intended as much to intimidate as to impress. There was, anyway, a second purpose to the trip and that was an intended meeting with his nephew, the young James V of Scots. As it turned out, James became suspicious of Henry’s intentions and decided at the last minute to pull out of the meeting, but the scale of the expedition and its displays had been devised with that in mind too. No packing lists of royal plate, jewels or tapestries appear to have survived for this progress and we have to content ourselves with the general observation of the French ambassador that the king ‘brought from London his richest tapestry, plate and dress, both for himself and his archers, pages and gentlemen’, adding that ‘this seems to betoken some extraordinary triumph’. Of one element, however, it is possible, though unprovable, that we have an image. The British Library’s

150  Timothy Schroder group of drawings of rich tents (see Figure 10.5) are generally accepted as designs for those deployed at the Field of Cloth of Gold and they were presented as such in the 2009 British Library exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of Henry’s accession.21 There may be grounds, however, for reconsidering this, since their decoration and iconography do not, in this writer’s view, sit comfortably with such a dating. The linear patterns embroidered in gold thread on the red fabric seem to suggest a more thorough absorption of Italian Renaissance style than we know to be the case in England by 1520.22 More telling, however, are the royal beasts and decorative motifs decorating the top of the tents. The vase motif placed at the extreme left imitates plate but again seems more advanced in design than surviving vessels of that date (it is, for example, very like a two-handled vessel of 1533 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford).23 As for the beasts (lions, dragons, greyhounds, antelopes and harts), these all appeared in royal imagery throughout Henry VIII’s reign, but they were not all equal. Up to around 1527, the regular supporters of Henry VIII’s arms were the same as his father’s – the greyhound and dragon – but after that date the greyhound was gradually replaced by the lion. In the tent design the lion and the dragon seem to be of higher status than the others, in that they are both holding the royal arms on poles surmounted by a closed crown whereas the others are holding badges, mostly without the crown. Perhaps, therefore, this suggests a date after 1527. And although certain other events might have called for tents of such splendour, the ‘extraordinary triumph’ of the York progress in 1541 might well be the best candidate.24 The royal progresses we have been discussing, both within the realm and abroad, required huge resources and meticulous planning. In the case of the Field of Cloth of Gold, the most complex of all, almost nothing could be sourced locally and nearly everything needed by the 6,000 or so English participants had to be brought in. Much of the food and drink was sourced outside of French territory and from further afield than the English pale and virtually all matériel had to be shipped across the Channel, including Henry’s palace, which is thought to have been largely prefabricated in England. When it came to mobile magnificence this required detailed planning by several household departments. A particularly challenging task was the secure transport of plate and valuables, which fell to the jewel house, the Wardrobe and the Chapel Royal. A lengthy briefing document from the early part of 1520 allocates many of the logistical tasks and a flavour of their complexity emerges from the following excerpt (see Figure 10.3): The Chamberlain and the ministers of the wardrobe to provide for the transportation to Calais of Arras tapestry and other necessaries for the decoration of the King’s house, and to cross the sea forty days before the interview, that all may be ready. . . . The rich copes with the vestments given to the monastery of Westminster by the late King are to be borrowed for this voyage, and afterwards returned. The clerk of the closet . . . to provide the closet with the best hangings, travers, jewels, images, altar cloths, &c. that the King has. . . . Sir Harry Wyatt is charged to transport gold and silver plate sufficient for the

Source: BL Cotton MS Augustus III. 18 © The British Library Board.

Magnificence on the Move  151

Figure 10.5 Tent design said to be for the Field of Cloth of Gold, c.1520, but possibly later.

152  Timothy Schroder banquet. . . . The lord Chamberlain to arrange for the garnishing of the King’s house and the carriage of apparel to Calais by the officers of the Wardrobe.25 Meanwhile, ‘The Mary Rose, the King’s Greate Barke, the Little Barke, and two other small ships were to scour the seas from time to time during the passage’ to protect the convoy and their precious cargo from pirates. The transport of valuable and vulnerable material was expensive. The Chamber accounts for 1520 include a number of entries relating to the packing and transport of plate: in April a payment of £20 was made ‘for coffers and canvas for trussing jewels and plate to be sent to Calais’.26 More boxes turned out to be needed and a warrant appears after the event to pay William Rothwell, Sergeant of the Vestry, 16s 4d for ‘cases of leather for images’ bought at Calais. These cost 2s 8d each, except for the one made for the image of Our Lady, which cost 3s 4d.27 Shipping itself was a significant cost and in June the master of the Christopher of Hyde was paid 20s ‘for carrying the king’s jewels from Dover to Calais’.28 This was just part of the consignment and the following month a much higher figure of £9 was paid for ‘freight of the king’s ship with the jewels from Calais to London’. There was also a bill for the carriage of ‘eight loads of jewel house stuff from the chapel’.29 The logistics in 1520 were further complicated by the fact that another meeting, with the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, was arranged at short notice en route to France. This was held in Canterbury and included splendid services in the cathedral, interspersed with feasting and a visit to the shrine of Thomas Becket. The meeting was briefer and a much lower key event than the Field but still had to make an appropriate impression and much of the plate taken to France would have been deployed at Canterbury too, redoubling the complications of packing and unpacking.30 The organisation and security of plate and jewels when not safely locked up in the jewel house or one of the standing houses also fell to the jewel house staff and the Chamber accounts note regular payments both for conveyance and guarding of plate while accompanying the king on his various progresses. In 1532, for example, three yeomen and their assistants were paid for a total of 50 days absence in connection with the Anglo-French summit in Calais and Boulogne.31 The considerable length of time allocated to the job beyond that of the meeting itself is an indicator of the complexities involved in getting everything properly in place by the required date. In October 1544, during Henry’s second military campaign in France, the jewel house had to provide two yeomen and four servants to attend on the king and to protect the plate and jewels.32 The need for extra packing materials in 1520 was doubtless due to the exceptionally large shipment of plate for the Field, and a similar need arose in 1532 when £35 3s 4d was spent, among other things, on ‘Normandy canvass to for making bags for the jewels and plate’, 80 yards of ‘white Welsh frees [frieze – woollen cloth?] to lay between gilt bowls etc to save the gilding’, ‘certain cases of leather for the trussing of cups and bowls of gold’, a load of hay for use as packing material and ‘two bear hides for the covering of the carts with the said jewels and plate’.33

Magnificence on the Move  153 In conclusion we might return, briefly, to the magnificence that accompanied Princess Mary to France in 1514. In addition to the money and plate that comprised her dowry (and over which there was much wrangling after Louis XII’s untimely death), she carried splendid jewels and much plate of her own. These were more than a valuable asset. They were part of a symbolic performance that all the components of her very public procession contributed to. Her entourage, her long train of baggage carts, her rich clothes and even her person represented not so much herself but her royal brother and his realm. It was therefore essential that the entire performance should radiate magnificence and thereby demonstrate that England’s power was every bit as great as that of France. The same principle governed the extravagance of major diplomatic missions sent from one country to another to negotiate or sign some treaty or dynastic marriage contract. As a single example, when Francis I’s ambassador arrived in London, in 1518, to arrange the marriage of the dauphin to Princess Mary (Henry’s daughter, this time, rather than his sister) he came as his king’s personal representative and a Venetian ambassador commented that ‘the Lord Admiral of France made his entry yesterday into London with great pomp . . . Their horses exceed 600; they had 70 mules and seven baggage wagons: such a display was never seen’. Another observer reported that the ambassador had with him ‘30 gentlemen and 50 archers, with companies of wrestlers, musicians and tennis players’.34 Such vast undertakings were a both a compliment to their hosts and a statement of their own master’s place in the hierarchy of princes. They were part of the wheels of state craft.

Notes 1 CSP Ven, vol. II, 500. 2 The inventory compiled for Henry Wyatt, master of the jewel house. The original document is preserved in the Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France in BNF, Trésor des Chartes, J.650 Angleterre XVIII; a nineteenth-century manuscript copy is in the National Archives. TNA PRO 31/8/137, fols 74–76v. For a fuller account, see T. Schroder, ‘A Marvel to Behold’: Gold and Silver at the Court of Henry VIII (Woodbridge, 2020), 128. 3 CSP Ven, vol. II, 507. 4 LP ii, 1469. 5 For a full account of the Field and Henry’s palace, see Glenn Richardson, The Field of Cloth of Gold (New Haven, CT and London, 2013), 54–6. 6 For an account of the void, see Schroder, Marvel to Behold, 93–4. 7 CSP Ven, vol. III, 8. 8 E. Hall, King Henry VIII, ed. C. Whibley, 2 vols (London, 1904) vol. I, 192. 9 Chamber Books, BL Add. MS 21481, fols 131, 133v, 221. 10 CSP Ven, vol. III, 77. 11 TNA E 101/421/5, no. 11. 12 Hall, Henry VIII, vol. II, 215–17. 13 Antonio Bavarin, factor of the Pesaro firm in London. CSP Ven, vol. II, 252, 283. 14 Hall, Henry VIII, vol. I, 89. This may well be the armour partly preserved at the Tower of London. Given to Henry by the Emperor Maximilian, it was probably decorated by the royal ‘harness gilder’, Paul van Vreland, an immigrant from Brussels. Several contracts and warrants naming Vreland survive. A 1514 warrant to pay him £121 6s 8d

154  Timothy Schroder

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

for ‘certain gold, quicksilver and workmanship’ on the king’s armour was followed by a £200 contract in 1516, to decorate a bard, ‘according to a complete harness which of late he made for our body’. LP i, 3055; LP ii, 1950. LP i/2, app. 25. CSP, Milan, no. 651. Hall, Henry VIII, vol. 1, p. 75. F. Gross (ed.), Antiquarian Repertory, vol. 4 (London, 1809), vol. IV, 346. S. J. Thurley, Houses of Power. The Places That Shaped the Tudor World (London, 2017), 189. For a full account, see K. Rodwell and R. Bell, Acton Court. The Evolution of an Early Tudor Courtier’s House (Swindon, 2001). Henry VIII: Man and Monarch, 2009 British Library exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of Henry’s accession. I myself accepted them as ‘possibly for the Field of cloth of Gold’ in my Marvel to Behold (at 158). This, admittedly, is the least telling point, since the textile, complete with its decoration, could well have been directly imported from Italy. Illus. in Schroder, Marvel to Behold, fig. 12.3. On 12 August, on his way to York, the king arrived in Lincoln, where it is clear that the royal party slept in tents (LP iii, 1541, no. 1088). LP iii/2, 704. LP iii, 1540. Ibid., 1093. Ibid., 1541. Ibid., 919. Ibid., 804. LP v, 1589. LP xix/2, 524. LP v, 1370. LP ii/2, 4356, 4453.

The Political Culture of Progresses

11 Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England Laura Flannigan

Tudor royal progresses have proven to be such an alluring area of study largely because they offer us a window into the spectacle of personal, performative and sacral monarchy. They certainly aided in the projection of authority outwards into the wider community of England, a quality that most clearly distinguishes such carefully planned public endeavours to range across the realm from the regular, seasonal movement of the court around palaces within the Thames Valley. With an eye to the cultural sinews that bound the monarch to the rest of the body politic, it is no coincidence that the trend towards longer, grander and more frequent progresses across the sixteenth century aligned with the contemporaneous developments of royal supremacy, centralised government and the emergence of the English ‘state’. The progress brought subject and sovereign together throughout turbulent times. Historians have typically been less engaged with the more mundane and bureaucratic means by which this contact occurred, however. The dispensation of justice by the monarch is one such area that has long been acknowledged as a part of progresses but which has not received much direct study. This is perhaps because it appears to have gone on behind closed doors and was not necessarily given the sort of publicity that we associate with the pageantry of the progress. Studying the complex judicial procedures that constituted justice-giving inevitably takes us away from the grandeur of the royal tour and into the formulaic legal and governmental records of this period. From the perspective of the king, council and court, justice-giving was hardly the primary function of progresses; more often we suspect that Henry VII sought to win over his subjects, and Henry VIII to intimidate them. Yet the possibility of a royal remedy may well have represented one of the major benefits of the entourage’s sojourns into the countryside for the people who lived there. For them, progresses provided an opportunity to draw the greatest authority in the realm into private disputes and even as a means of circumventing the inflexible proceedings of the normal legal system. In the broad legal landscape over which the Tudor monarchy presided, royal justice on progress served as a court of appeal about which we still know surprisingly little. Just as histories of politics and progresses have overlooked this activity of the attendant household, so the socio-legal histories of the last several decades have tended to focus more on the equitable and criminal proceedings of DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-16

158  Laura Flannigan the Westminster courts and, occasionally, on the localised remedies available in ecclesiastical, borough and manorial courts. These are all valuable areas for study, further drawing together the threads of the rather patchy tapestry of late medieval and early modern law. In light of the decline of the general eyre and the settling down of the court of King’s Bench at Westminster, we would be forgiven for thinking that the itinerant justice of the medieval curia regis was a thing of the distant past by the sixteenth century. But the little-studied evidence for royal justice on progress under the early Tudors suggests that such provision was revived and routinised in this period. The practice of justice on progress goes back much further than the Tudors, of course. Henry V had a reputation for due justice-giving and even heard and furthered private petitions in person while besieging French towns.1 Later, Richard III’s short reign saw him openly invite petitions from his subjects, making ‘a p[ro]clamacion generall that every man wronged that wolde compleyn shuld have hasty remedye . . . no man except[ed]’.2 All the available evidence suggests that he lived up to this promise: by late 1483, he was celebrated for how many ‘a poor man that hath suffred wrong [was] relevyd and helpyd by hym and his commands in his progresse’.3 Elsewhere in Europe, that most famed of medieval French kings, Louis IX, was said to have heard complaints personally in the palace gardens and ordered his councillors to collect subjects’ petitions at the ‘Gate of Requests’.4 At least two courts for hearing petitioners’ ‘Requests’ were in operation at the palace in Paris by the sixteenth century, one of which was attached to the king’s household. Owing to their own relatively vulnerable position, Henry VII and Henry VIII were especially inclined to emulate their famous predecessors and to carefully watch their rivals on the continent. Little wonder, then, that chronicles of the early Tudor period tell us that justice came to be more routinely invited, proffered and requested during summer progresses under this new regime. When the corporation of Bristol welcomed Henry VII in 1487, their pageant figure of ‘Justicia’ praised the new king for ‘Minisshing justice duly in every place/Thorough this region where ye ride or goo’. The heralds’ account of this early progress recounts how the king spent a night after evensong listening to the mayor, sheriff and burgesses of the town explain ‘the cause of ther povertie’, declaring that he ‘shuld so helpe theym by dyvers means’.5 When writing of the spectacle of Henrician progresses, Edward Hall often mentioned the king’s openness to complaints. Of Henry VIII’s long progress through the southern counties in 1510, Hall reported that ‘The kynge beyng thus in hys progresse h[e]arde every daye more and more complayntes of Empson and Dudley’, both awaiting execution in the Tower of London following their arrest that spring.6 The anonymous chronicler of London for this period similarly thought it worth mentioning that when ‘the King rode in his disport into certain counties of this land .  .  . before him and some of [his] council many of the commons showed grievous bills and complaints’.7 On the 1515 outing, Hall reported that ‘the kyng took his progresse Westward, & visited his tounes  & castles there,  & h[e]arde the co[m]playntes of his poor co[m]minaltie’.8

Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England  159 These snapshots confirm the perceived centrality of justice to relations between the sovereign and his subjects, and even its visibility during progresses, from the perspective of councillors, commoners and common lawyers alike. They also hint that this activity was especially in aid of the poorer sort: the commonality, who made up the majority of England’s population. Moreover, while complaints could concern such enormities as the exactions of Henry VII’s notorious ministers, they could also presumably have involved disputes between subjects, in which the king may have had no personal interest at all. These accounts speak to the continued provision for justice on progress under the early Tudors and also its greater routinisation. But what they do not tell is much about how receiving and judging petitions worked day by day. What happened to complaints and complainants once they arrived at court? How seriously did the travelling household take its duty for justice-giving? And, to return to one of the questions animating this volume of essays/chapters, was accessible justice one aspect of progresses that would have been popular? This chapter will follow these lines of enquiry, with attention to the surviving record of early Tudor justice on progress. The judicial activity of the itinerant, attendant side of the royal household under Henry VII and Henry VIII is recorded in part within the records of the socalled Court of Requests. From the commencement of its records in 1493, and through to at least the later 1530s, Requests was not a formalised court but an informal provision for handling private petitions submitted directly to the royal household. In some respects, it came to represent the ‘in court’ judicial provision in place of those tribunals that had moved ‘out of court’ to Westminster. While any serious complaints against royal officials, of the kind presented during the 1510 progress, might be siphoned off into King’s Bench commissions or aired in the prerogative court of Star Chamber at Westminster, more general and mundane grievances from subjects were still received within the royal court, on the move and with surprising efficiency. This activity was recorded not within the registers of the main Council but in a separate, independent archive from the early 1490s onwards.9 The most vivid documentary traces we possess for uncovering the means by which justice was dispensed during early Tudor progresses are the anecdotal accounts contained within the thousands of loose documents, including original paper petitions, surviving in the archives of the Court of Requests and other legal repositories. These are accounts of litigation written from the perspective of plaintiffs, adding colour to the otherwise quite obscure practicalities of suing to the king. One well-known example is the ‘narrative of Robert Pilkington’, the tale of a fifteenth-century gentry man and his long-running legal dispute with the Ainsworth family over the rights to and rents from lands in Derbyshire. In exhaustive detail, Pilkington described being asked to appear and argue his case before the ‘council court’ at Kenilworth, Collyweston, Leicester and Nottingham across the mid-1490s.10 Similar narratives are provided in greater number by the petitions themselves, filed in Requests’ pleadings class and in many uncatalogued boxes, especially where a petitioner had returned to court several times and recounted their initial round of litigation.11 The same documents are marked with the notes

160  Laura Flannigan and signatures of the household’s staff, serving as material evidence for what occurred once petitioners approached the court and council for aid. A second, more formulaic set of sources are Requests’ writs for commission. These ephemeral documents were produced by clerks within the attendant household and sent out to named recipients – usually men of good standing in the localities, especially clergy and gentry  – to order them to investigate or determine disputes that had been presented to the king. Each was sent out under one of the king’s own seals: occasionally the privy seal but more usually the signet seal, which was the more personal of the two by the early Tudor period. These commission documents only survive in the central archive when the commissioners had gathered all of their evidence or had reached a dead end in their negotiations with the disputants, at which point the whole case file was returned to the Council. Those that do survive show us, crucially, where the Requests committee received and processed cases in the first instance, with the dates and the locations of their issuing detailed in their final lines. Significantly, those writs moved under the signet seal were only ever issued on the move: from a range of locations outside of London, including the castles at Nottingham, Farnham, Warwick and Dover; abbeys at Reading, Leicester and Waltham and the manors at Langley and Thornbury, to give just some examples. The final and most abundant register of justice on progress is the books of Requests’ orders and decrees. The entries made here by the clerks fortuitously record where the tribunal of Requests heard cases; where its judges received attending defendants and their lawyers, read and listened to evidence and made determinations. Of the early Tudor conciliar courts, only the Court of Requests still possesses this kind of register.12 Admittedly, the evidence for itinerancy proves much fuller for Henry VII’s reign than for Henry VIII’s, when locations were less frequently included by the clerks alongside their entries. Yet for both kings the locations match up with their known itineraries. Lisa Ford used the first few books to build her itinerary for Henry VII and found corroborative evidence for Requests’ dates and locations among the warrants for the privy and great seals.13 It is doubtful that the king was ever present for judicial deliberations in person; lists of attendant judges also recorded in these books never feature the king, as those in Star Chamber sometimes did. Still, it can be reasonably assumed that he was somewhere within the vicinity of these hearings – hunting or hawking, or perhaps in his privy chambers while his councillors occupied available meeting rooms. When drawing together the data provided by these documents and mapping it out, we are provided with a picture of an active touring judicial tribunal, accompanying the early Tudor kings wherever they went. Between 1493 and the late 1530s (the point at which Requests began to settle more permanently at Westminster), many of this tribunal’s orders and hearings were conducted at various royal palaces within the Thames Valley: including (in order of most to least frequently cited) Westminster, Sheen/Richmond, Greenwich, the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Baynard’s Castle, Bridewell Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, Fulham, Eltham, Wallington (near Croydon), Hampton Court and the Wardrobe (between Baynard’s Castle and St Paul’s Cathedral). Otherwise, at least 114 of the sessions recorded in

Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England  161 this period’s books and dozens of documented procedures were advanced in the further reaches of the realm, during progresses, as far afield as Yorkshire, south Wales, the Isle of Wight and Calais. For Henry VII’s reign, we can map these activities onto the progresses of 1495, 1502, 1503, 1504 and 1505, and for Henry VIII those of 1511, 1518, 1519, 1520, 1523, 1526, 1529 and 1532. That there is such a comprehensive and consistent archive of this business, carefully kept under the early Tudors, tells us something about the priorities of government in this period. After decades of civil infighting this was a dynasty especially concerned with legitimacy and good rulership and one still occasionally threatened by pretenders to the Crown and by popular rebellion. Within these early documentary traces we also glimpse something of the opportunities provided by progresses to the people who could intercept them. It is thereby possible to examine the advantages of progresses for state–society relations from the perspective of both sides: subjects with complaints and the central administration on the receiving end. Perhaps, the most pressing question, with the most elusive answer, is how petitioning to the court on progress unfolded for prospective litigants. Petitions were in English, were addressed to the king personally and were likely produced by hired lawyers or by the literate neighbours of complainants. Some were polished and professionally written, while others were quite scrappy and hastily thrown together. This suggests a broad spectrum of petitioners; certainly a greater range than we might find in the Westminster-based courts or even in other conciliar tribunals like Star Chamber. Complaints presented to Requests were usually quite mundane in nature: they generally concerned the possession of lands and goods, small debts and (very occasionally) physical assaults on the petitioner or their relatives. They were typically framed as pitting vulnerable or disadvantaged complainants – ‘your poor orator’  – against wealthier, more established opponents, with reference not just to finances but also to relative status and occupation, to extent of estates and to kin networks in the area. Undoubtedly, suits to the king could be vexatious, designed to end disputes by forcing opponents to face costly legal proceedings or give up their cause. But many read as genuine plights of vulnerable people against the ‘extort power’ of their powerful neighbours and landlords. As far as we know, petitioners attended on the court in person to submit written petitions. From this, we can extrapolate that they knew where the royal entourage and its judicial committee were going to be in advance. Perhaps, they received this information by word of mouth, following the publication of ‘gests’ or, at shorter notice, the arrival of the king’s purveyors in town just ahead of the entourage. They were able to work through networks of literacy and legal knowledge to produce a petition, however rudimentary, perhaps with just a couple of weeks’ foresight. And they were able, by some means, to access the court and its personnel. Examples of this opportunistic and resourceful petitioning abound in the order books, with petitioners sometimes receiving judicial remedy within their own hometown. Whether they could rely on this route seems to have depended on their status and wealth, however. Members of religious orders, with duties that

162  Laura Flannigan must have kept them at their religious houses, seemed most likely to wait for the attendant household to pass nearby. For example Brother John Castell, a prior from the Carmelite friary in Nottingham, was able to gain a hearing in Requests regarding an annuity of fifty marks when the king and his household resided in his city in the summer of 1503.14 Generally speaking, though, complainants from all walks of life and all corners of the realm could make use of the opportunity a progress provided them to approach their king and his representatives for speedy remedy – the kind they might not have been able to find in other courts. What sorts of spaces did petitioners need to access for this kind of redress? Requests’ books tell us that the Council sat for hearings in chambers at Henry VII’s newly restored palace at Richmond, and at Henry VIII’s residential palace of Greenwich, both presumably awe-inspiring to prospective petitioners and humbled defendants alike. On the road, the court often stopped at abbeys and monasteries, including those taken into the Crown’s hands at the dissolution. The sorting out of secular business in religious spaces was hardly unusual; when returning their certificates to Requests’ judges, local commissioners often reported that they had sat together in village churches to take depositions and listen to arguments.15 At cities such as Winchester, Worcester and Cambridge, we might suppose that the Requests committee co-opted civic buildings. Other stops are harder to envisage. Surprisingly, Requests heard cases, with petitioners and defendants presumably present, even at more private royal houses, such as Langley. Its judges also laid on some sort of provision for suitors heard at the small towns of Mitchel Troy and Fairford, around the Welsh border, during the 1502 progress.16 On this occasion, they may have occupied tents or possibly the much humbler environs of local parish churches. As for how petitions passed from the hands of supplicants into this rather fluid judicial committee, processions of the household were likely the most promising channel. The passage of the monarch through the public spaces of courtly buildings on the way to and from mass certainly offered an opportune moment for petitioning in later periods. Sir Julius Caesar, a later Master of Requests, reported that on 17 August 1595 ‘her Majesty [Elizabeth I] delivered me bills offered to her, and received, going to the chapel’.17 How far this was true of the early Tudors as well is difficult to ascertain. As Kisby’s work on the household chapel in this period has suggested, gentlemen ushers may have been ordered to see that ‘no maner man [be able] to put bill ne to approche’ the king as he passed through more public spaces.18 Various ordinances for the organisation of the main Council in Henry VIII’s reign commented on how many complaints were presented to the king ‘in his demurre or passing from place to place’ by subjects and servants alike.19 But evidence from the Requests archive suggests that the men of the household clergy were accessible for petitioning, whether in the first instance or as right-hand men to the king. This small cadre of councillors included the dean of the Chapel Royal, the king’s almoner and the chaplains who accompanied the monarch year-round and would have been present during both the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ devotional activities of the court. Their involvement as the first line of organisation for justice-giving is evidenced by the orders that they oversaw and

Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England  163 had recorded on the reverse side of petitions – often by the clerks of the Council but sometimes in their own hastily scrawled handwriting. Anecdotal evidence suggests, perhaps unsurprisingly, that seeking out the progressing court could require an enormous amount of travelling and at least some trial and error for prospective petitioners. Robert Pilkington lamented how he had been forced to follow the court around for eight days to submit his case in late 1493, as Henry VII moved between Collyweston, Northampton, Fotheringhay and Pipewell Abbey.20 An even more extreme example is furnished to us by the petition of John Hannibal and his wife in early 1518. They claimed to have ‘suyde unto [Henry VIII] at yor manor of Newhall’ (or Beaulieu, in Essex) and to have been commanded ‘to gyve attendance at Wyndesore’, before presenting themselves again ‘unto yor noble grace at yor manor of Wodstoke & twyse to Hampton Corte & five tymes to Grenewich for ther remedy’ – perhaps they suffered from Henry VIII’s changeable whims.21 Whatever the case, accounts like these imply that progresses could leave a long trail of petitioners, defendants and legal counsel in their wake. What justice was actually done on progress? The immediate responses to petitions plainly involved the production of a paper trail more than a performative dispensation of mercy by the monarch personally – or, rather, the former was a prosaic manifestation of the latter. Illustrative of what the progressing court could do for suitors is the account of a widow called Cecile Arden, who travelled from her home in Cheshire to Nottingham Castle in August 1511, meeting Henry VIII and his court there in the middle of their progress through the midland counties. In a later pleading, Arden told how: [when] yor said Oratrice at yor last being at yor Castell of Nottyngham sued by byll of peticion unto yor grace for the greate extorcion iniurys and wronges doon unto her in sundrye wise by on Rauf Arden [the defendant] . . . it pleasyd yor highnes to direct yor gracious lettres of comission under yor prive seale unto Sir William Bothe and Sir John Lee of yor said Countie knyghtes.22 What Arden describes here is one of two royally authorised orders that the council would send out in the first instance upon receiving a complaint. Letters of summons under the privy seal were the most common: they were significant in the grander scheme of the legal system because they required the accused party’s attendance on the court within a week or so of receipt and imposed heavy penalties for failure to do so. If the defendant did not show up, they could be arrested by a sergeant-at-arms and hauled before the Council anyway. The other kind of order was the aforementioned writ for commission, normally issued under the king’s signet seal (though under the privy seal instead in Arden’s case). The Requests provision on the move made use of both on a regular basis; examples of each were issued from Leicester, Nottingham, Kenilworth and Warwick during that same 1511 progress, with one of the signet seal writs signed off by William Atwater, then dean of the Chapel Royal.23

164  Laura Flannigan The efficiency of this mechanism is proven by a number of examples in the archive where both the writ itself and the petition with the order for the writ signed and dated on the back survive. These instances tell us that such orders were agreed by the judges, written up by the clerk, authorised by the king and sent out at most within a few days of the petition being received and sometimes even on the very same day.24 Not only was this a speedy way of moving a case forward; it also conveyed the king’s orders into ordinary lives. Testimonies of messengers recorded in the Requests books tell us that they were delivered to subjects in parish churches and public spaces, or else affixed over their doorways, ideally with as many witnesses as possible.25 This was the justice that plaintiffs could get in the first instance. Sometimes, it was all they needed to prompt their opponents to make peace. Yet, if they were willing and able to hold on for longer, petitioners’ persistent attendance on the court could pay dividends. During Henry VII’s grand progress through the midlands and into Wales in 1502, the abbot of Flaxley must have approached the royal entourage with his petition as it moved through his town and sat to receive parties on 13 August. There he put forth his title and interest in a grange in ‘Rachelbury’ (Regilbury or Regil) in Somerset along with its backdated rents. A  couple of weeks later, on 1 September, a hearing was held across the River Severn at Berkeley Castle, further along the king’s return route. Present at this meeting would likely have been Richard Fitzjames, the bishop of Rochester and president of the attendant Council, alongside Geoffrey Symeon, dean of the Chapel Royal, perhaps accompanied by the lawyers Morgan Kidwelly and Richard Sutton and Lord Bergavenny. Both parties and their legal counsel would also have attended. There the abbot was awarded a decree that ordered his opponent, a knight called John Chokke, to vacate the lands by the following Monday and pay arrears worth £40.26 Real judicial remedy was in reach, then. In fact, since this tribunal passed the majority of its judgements in favour of the petitioner, it was especially worth the wait. Attempting to reconstruct the processes that went on behind the scenes to produce paperwork on the move leads us to reflect on what progresses could cost the king and court – what the visibility of the royal court wrought for its personnel. The books of orders and decrees give us some sense of the scale of the operation, even if they record only the later stages of cases. Counting entries indicates that there was a steady flow of cases into Requests throughout the early Tudor period, with peaks passing 400 suits per year around 1500 and again in the early 1520s, before a sudden spike upwards from there after the late 1530s. In some ways, the progressing court proved adaptive to the needs of the suitors it met on the road. Most obviously, the judicial tribunal of Requests worked on every and any day of the week, with no clear schedule; it was entirely ad hoc, operating in response to the volume of business presented to it. Keeping up with all this work involved the near-constant delegation of royal justice-giving to the men of the court. Effective justice-giving required numerous people on hand to receive petitions, to oversee processes and to pass judgement, as well as to write its documents and registers and to convey its messages. We might imagine that under Henry VII this

Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England  165 delegation was relatively straightforward, given that he had a large and flexible council and a similarly fluid group of attendants. But the demand for staffing the provision for justice on the move was more of a problem under Henry VIII, when the number of attendant councillors shrank drastically. It was, as we know, even smaller during progresses anyway. By the early 1520s only one man – the theologian and royal almoner, Dr John Stokesley – was doing all the work required for Requests. The result was a serious delay in business and a restricted capacity to function itinerantly.27 The extent to which the commitment of personnel and resources could be stretched can be assessed in those moments where royal business became most pressing and the household moved overseas. The early Tudor kings and their entourages removed to France in 1500, 1513 and 1520, and on each occasion the Requests committee reacted differently. In 1500, Henry VII travelled to Calais, to avoid the outbreak of plague in London and to check the garrison established.28 The king and queen were accompanied by a retinue of lords and the bishop of London, Thomas Savage, who was by that time the president of the royal Council and the presiding judge whenever it sat to hear cases.29 Between 20 May and 11 June, Savage sat for six days and heard thirteen cases, five of which received final decrees.30 All of these suits appear to have been local to Calais and Guînes. A couple had presumably been referred following previous judgements made by the mayor and aldermen of Calais, while at least one petition was presented directly to the royal Council on 23 May.31 Some were part of a wave of complaints against Sir James Tyrell, the Lieutenant of the Castle of Guînes. Sixteen petitions to the king accusing Tyrrell of withholding wages, payments, lands and crops from local men and women are still bundled together in the Requests pleadings archive. They were all signed by Savage personally, and a couple were subsequently heard by the Requests tribunal whilst in Calais.32 In this instance, justice – and especially the king’s ‘indifferent justice’ against royal servants – was likely on show for all to see. But things were different on the occasions that Henry VIII left the country, when justice-giving seemed less of a priority compared to war and diplomacy. In the summer of 1513, Henry VIII led the English army on a campaign that culminated in the Battle of the Spurs and the seizure of the towns of Thérouanne and Tournai, spending much of the fifth year of his reign, including Easter and Trinity terms, out of England.33 Though Requests’ order book for this period is now lost, transcriptions taken from it in c.1590 by Sir Julius Caesar, the Master of Requests, appear to confirm that there was no business recorded at all between 20 April 1513 and 3 May 1514.34 None of the catalogued Requests pleadings files are datable to within the timespan of this campaign, either. It seems, then, that justice was not done by the attendant household in this thirteen-month period. This was almost certainly a staffing issue: all 115 attendants of the Chapel Royal accompanied the king, including William Atwater, the Dean and presiding judge in Requests at this time.35 Often, working alongside Atwater was a pre-ascendancy Thomas Wolsey, the royal almoner; he was part of the king’s ‘Myddleward’ and was described in near-contemporary accounts as encouraging the citizens

166  Laura Flannigan of Tournai to swear themselves to Henry VIII.36 Other signatories to Requests petitions in the early 1510s were James Denton and Edward Higgons, the king’s chaplains, and Thomas Dalby, the archdeacon of Richmond, all of whom were listed among those recompensed in November 1513 for their return journeys from France.37 But whereas in 1500, Requests and its personnel had simply relocated with the king, in 1513, they appear to have stopped working altogether. Indeed, the itinerant Requests was the only agency of discretionary justice that seemingly suspended all processes at this time; in contrast, King’s Bench, Common Pleas, Star Chamber and Chancery all continued without pause, overseen by officers who were directly attached to their running and who did not therefore accompany the king (the justices of the benches and the Chancellor). Crucially, then, attendant justice could still at this time be subsumed back into the Council from which it stemmed. This brings us to the third occasion on which the royal entourage journeyed to France: the journey taken by Henry VIII and a retinue of around 6,000 people to meet with Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold in Guînes in the summer of 1520. The men attached to Requests  – still all members of the household clergy – travelled with the king. The Chronicle of Calais lists the dean of the Chapel (John Clerk) and the royal almoner (Richard Rawlins), both of whom were the primary signatories to Requests proceedings at this time, as present in the entourage.38 By this date, Requests kept legal terms and did not routinely sit in the summer months anyway. Yet the main sequence of the early 1520s book gives no entries between 18 May  1520 (a few days before the end of Easter term) and the first day of Michaelmas term.39 There is a folio titled ‘Term of St Trinity anno 12 Henry VIII’ (Termino Sancti Trinitatis Anno RR Henrici viij xijo), but no business was recorded beneath it.40 Again, then, the demands of diplomacy caused the more mundane work of judgement to be deferred for the time being. The absence of justice-giving at the Field of Cloth of Gold perhaps subverts our expectations of this grandest display of statecraft. But even on domestic progresses justice was hardly a consistent provision. It was really at its height in the middle of Henry VII’s reign. In 1502, following the death of Prince Arthur, Henry and Queen Elizabeth travelled to Raglan Castle in Monmouthshire on a four-anda-half-month progress. Of the seventeen stops on this journey, the councillors in Requests sat for hearings at eleven of them, at least: at Windsor, Woodstock, in Gloucester and several surrounding towns, at the castles of Raglan and Berkeley and at the private residences at Langley and East Hampstead in Berkshire. In the process, they heard sixty-three cases and passed five decrees.41 This rush of business sharply contrasts with the lack of hearings recorded during Henry VIII’s grand 100-day progress alongside Charles V in the spring and summer of 1522, or during his ‘grand sweep’ through the southern counties in 1526. Around the same time the provision of justice was further distanced from the king’s own hands; the practice of the hands-on Henry VII for signing each writ for commission personally was phased out in favour of a rudimentary stamp of Henry VIII’s sign manual.

Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England  167 We might interpret these changing practices as evidence for the declining role of justice on progress under Henry VIII, who was admittedly distracted by the weighty matters of his marriage(s), his faith and the future of his dynasty. The informal committal of royal justice-giving to Henry VII’s sprawling attendant Council was seemingly less workable under the sparser arrangements of Henry VIII’s regime. However, we must distinguish between formal hearings – the final phase of judicial proceedings  – and the more ephemeral evidence of petitions being received and processed. In fact, writs for commission under the royal seals and (stamped) autograph continued to be issued from stops on the king’s progress routes well into the 1530s and beyond: from Waltham Abbey in July, Langley in August and Dover Castle in November of 1532; from Abingdon Abbey in July and the manor of Thornbury in August 1535 and from Sittingbourne, Dover and Woking across the spring and summer of 1542.42 Orders scrawled onto the backs of petitions and anecdotal accounts of Requests business from these years suggest that it received defendants for attendance at Ampthill in September 1539, and at Grafton around the same time.43 Justice on progress was no longer as prevalent or consistent as it had been in the earliest years of the Tudor regimes. But even until the middle of the sixteenth century, desperate petitioners were able to, and were successful in, seeking out the royal court wherever it resided. In conclusion, submissions of petitions and the dispensation of justice were a core part of many early Tudor progresses, taking place in the hallways and passages of a range of religious and royal settings. In these years, hopeful petitioners knew where the entourage was going to be in advance and quickly solicited networks of legal counsel to put together a written petition to be presented to the king’s servants as they processed by or to officials at palace gates. This provision had been made by late medieval kings too, but under the early Tudors more discrete procedures emerged to respond to growing numbers of complainants; mostly involving the authorisation of orders in the king’s name to investigate cases locally or to summon accused people to give answer before the Council. Much to the advantage of ordinary people locked in complex disputes with powerful neighbours, the whole system ran under authorisation of the king’s own hand and (quasi) in his presence. If they could obtain a decree, engrossed with the sovereign’s seal and signature, they would gain substantial leverage against their local opponents. At times, royal justice-giving could be as performative as any other aspect of progresses; we could certainly take this interpretation of Henry VII’s visits to Bristol and Calais. Yet it is of no small significance that there appears to have been no official order, ordinance or statute to formally establish this judicial business in the court and household. That it existed at all suggests that royal justice-giving was a response to subjects, created by necessity and not always a deliberate or even necessarily performative aspect of progresses. Did the opportunity to seek justice make progresses popular, contrary to the view that they were intended to cow rebellious subjects and impose royal authority? For some of the English population, yes. That this route to redress was appealing to petitioners seems evident from the steep increase in this business from the beginning of Henry VII’s reign onwards and especially in the years

168  Laura Flannigan around 1500, when it was most visible and active on progress. Of course, these powerful procedures were less appealing to those who were summarily called before the royal Council to answer to complaints made against them, and there is much work still needed to uncover the perspective of the defendant in litigation. Furthermore, as we have seen, justice-giving would and could not always be a priority of King and Council. In the increasing absence of justice on progress into the middle of the sixteenth century, complainants may have instead been pointed towards Westminster Hall or even towards those local courts that they hoped to avoid altogether. The development of this merciful and socially conscious form of justice-giving into something more established proceeded in fits and starts during its itinerant phase and took off when it was itself settled at Westminster in the later 1530s, as the Court of Requests proper. Still, at least in theory and sometimes in practice too, justice-giving was the part of early Tudor progresses that brought the power of the monarch most directly into contact with the priorities and demands of subjects.

Notes 1 J. Caley and J. Bayley (eds.), Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; to Which Are Prefixed Examples of Earlier Proceedings in That Court, 3 vols (London, 1827), vol. I, xvi–xviii. 2 As reported by Nicholas Catesby in his narrative of litigating before the king’s Council in the 1480s and 1490s: TNA E 163/29/11; Charles Ross, Richard III (London, 1981), 173–4. 3 J. B. Sheppard (ed.), Christ Church Letters: A Volume of Medieval Letters Relating to the Affairs of the Priory of Christ Church Canterbury, Camden New Series 19 (London, 1876), 46. 4 M. R. B. Shaw (trans.), Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades (London, 1974), 182. 5 E. Cavell (ed.), The Heralds’ Memoir, 1486–1490: Court Ceremony, Royal Progress and Rebellion (Donington, 2009), 95, 97. 6 E. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the History of England, during the Reign of Henry the Fourth and the Succeeding Monarchs to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth (London, 1809), 513. 7 A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (eds.), The Great Chronicle of London (London, 1938), 366. 8 Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 582–3. 9 Initially in the books now filed in TNA REQ 1: Books of Orders and Decrees. 10 ‘The Narrative of Robert Pilkington’, printed in HMC: Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, 8 vols (London, 1903), vol. II, 28–56. 11 These are TNA REQ 2: Pleadings and TNA REQ 3: Miscellanea. 12 The Star Chamber order books were last seen in 1705, while Chancery did not keep rolls of its decrees until the 1530s: D. Gosling, ‘The Records of the Court of Star Chamber at The National Archives and Elsewhere’, in K. J. Kesselring and N. Mears (eds.), Star Chamber Matters: An Early Modern Court and its Records (London, 2021), 21; T. S. Haskett, ‘The Medieval English Court of Chancery’, Law and History Review, 14/2 (1996), 269, 278–9. The Chancery decree rolls of 1534 onwards are filed under TNA C 78 and C 79, while its order and decree books, commencing in 1544, can be found under C 33.

Justice on Progress in Early Tudor England  169 13 L. L. Ford, ‘Conciliar Politics and Administration in the Reign of Henry VII’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of St Andrews (2001), 209–83. 14 TNA REQ 1/3 fol. 71v. 15 TNA REQ 2/3/345. 16 TNA REQ 1/2 fols 9v-16v. 17 Cited in E. Lodge, Life of Sir Julius Caesar (London, 1827), 18. 18 F. Kisby, ‘ “When the King Goeth a Procession”: Chapel Ceremonies and Services, the Ritual Year, and Religious Reforms at the Early Tudor Court, 1485–1547’, Journal of British Studies, 40/1 (2001), 56. 19 J. Nichols (ed.), A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (London, 1790), 159; Sir N. H. Nicolas (ed.), Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 7 vols (London, 1834–37), vol. VII, 51–2. 20 HMC: Report on Various Collections, vol. I, 31, 33, 36; Ford, ‘Conciliar Politics’, 231. 21 TNA REQ 2/10/235. 22 TNA REQ 2/12/198. 23 TNA REQ 2/4/366, 2/5/380, 2/7/15, 2/12/208. 24 For more on these processes, see L. Flannigan, ‘Signed, Stamped, and Sealed: Delivering Royal Justice in Early Sixteenth-century England’, Historical Research, 94 (2021), 275–6. 25 For examples, see TNA REQ 1/1 fol. 104v, REQ 1/2 fols 24v, 110v, 146v, REQ 1/3 fols 62, 119v, 143, 235v, 249v. 26 TNA REQ 1/3 fols 10v, 13. 27 L. Flannigan, ‘ “Allowable or Not”? John Stokesley, the Court of Requests and Royal Justice in Sixteenth-Century England’, Historical Research, 93 (2020). 28 According to Polydore Vergil, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, A.D. 1485– 1537, ed. D. Hay, Camden Society, Third Series 74 (London, 1950), 119. 29 J. G. Nichols (ed.), The Chronicle of Calais in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII to the Year 1540, Camden Society, Old Series 35 (London, 1845), 3. 30 TNA REQ 1/2 fols 104–8. 31 TNA REQ 1/2 fol. 104v-105v; REQ2/2/144. 32 TNA REQ 2/2/158. Items 19 and 20 are the petitions of Nicholas Cottington and Robert Wyndebanke respectively, both of whom had their cases heard by Requests in Calais: TNA REQ 1/2 fols 104, 106v. 33 Nichols (ed.), Chronicle of Calais, 12, 15; Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 539. 34 Sir Julius Caesar, The Ancient State, Authorities, and Proceedings of the Court of Requests (London, 1597), 51. 35 LP i, 2053; Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 564. Bills accounting for oblations given in Calais and the surrounding area in the summer and autumn of 1513 were corrected and signed by Atwater: BL Stowe MS 146 fol. 88. 36 REQ 2/1/62, 2/4/49, 2/5/59, 271, 2/6/240, 2/7/15, 2/11/159; LP I. 2053; Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 565. 37 REQ 2/1/15, 92, 2/4/169, 383, 2/5/59, 271, 2/6/180, 240, 2/8/50, 2/13/71, 102; LP i, 2480. 38 Nichols (ed.), Chronicle of Calais, 20. 39 TNA REQ 1/104 fols 41, 45. 40 TNA REQ 1/104 fol. 44. 41 TNA REQ 1/2 fols 9v-16v. 42 TNA REQ 2/5/45, 2/6/166, 2/7/56, 2/8/119, 336, 2/11/30, 199. 43 TNA REQ 3/8 Gardefield v. Alye; REQ 3/16 pt. 1 Barret v. Barnard.

12 Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures The Field of Cloth of Gold and Tudor History Painting Brett Dolman Introduction The Field of Cloth of Gold is one of four surviving paintings in the Royal Collection that records notable moments of Henry VIII’s foreign adventures (see frontispiece). In this case, the scene depicts the remarkable splendour and scale of the first meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I of France at the tournament and summit held on the border between English and French territories near Calais in June 1520. It is an important pictorial record, alongside the documentary evidence of the event, that helps illustrate how the king progressed to such a crucial royal conference but also indicates how Henry required the event to be remembered. The Field of Cloth of Gold is usually described as a royal commission of the 1540s, executed by a small team of Anglo-Netherlandish artists embedded at the English court, celebrating the king’s achievements. Yet, very little is known about the early history of the painting and its original context is unknown. Joseph Ayloffe published the first detailed analysis of The Field of Cloth of Gold painting in 1775, and Oliver Millar’s catalogue for the Royal Collection remains the authority on its history, drawn from the evidence of unpublished inventories and other early records. Sidney Anglo’s evaluation of the painting as a historical document, comparing the artwork with the documentary record of the event itself, also drew tentative conclusions about the painting’s date, attribution and purpose.1 But primary evidence for Tudor history painting generally is scarce: most of the surviving references concern payments to artists for unspecified commissions or fleeting and ambiguous descriptions of artworks in early inventories, Exchequer books, Great or Privy Seal warrants, Royal Household and Wardrobe receipts and court correspondence.2 Of the physical record, very few history paintings remain, and they have largely been ignored by art historical scholarship, which has focused on portraiture and the pivotal figure of Hans Holbein, as the central narrative of early sixteenth-century art and the pictorial projection of royal power. This chapter reviews the evidence for the creation and purpose of The Field of Cloth of Gold, alongside its assumed pair, The Embarkation at Dover (Figure 12.1) and the wider context of Tudor history painting. It will approach the evidence through three lenses: the documentary record; the internal evidence of the artworks themselves (in terms of pictorial content and physical characteristics, DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-17

Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  171

Figure 12.1 The Embarkation at Dover, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50, oil on canvas, 168.9 x 346.7cm, twentieth-century Tudor-style frame (not shown). RCIN 405793.

172  Brett Dolman including the results of recent infra-red reflectography) and the cultural and political environment of the Tudor court. I  hope to demonstrate how Tudor history paintings generally, and The Field of Cloth of Gold specifically, are part of the vocabulary of visual and material magnificence employed by Henry VIII at key moments of his reign to demonstrate royal authority and to deliver key messages about Tudor policy and identity. The paintings were designed to achieve much the same effects as the events they represented: just as a royal progress (or military campaign) could be a visually rich commentary on Tudor power, often constructed around a specific purpose, Tudor history paintings also aimed to convince their intended audiences both of past glories and of present political strategy.

Evidence for Tudor History Painting: the Documentary Record The first account of the two paintings now known as, The Field of the Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation at Dover, appears in a descriptive list of paintings written by the nineteen-year-old Bohemian nobleman Baron Waldstein (Zdenek Brtnicky z Valdstejna) within his account of a visit to Whitehall Palace on 5 July  1600: ‘King Henry VIII’s entry into  – and his magnificent display at  – ­Boulogne when he had made preparations to receive the King of France there, done in two ­pictures’.3 A little later, a similar report from another European teenager on a cultural tour of western capitals, Johann Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, recorded in 1613: ‘The history how King Henry VIII came to the Emperor Charles at Calais and Boulogne. Further, how he arrived by ship at Calais. These are two large tables [tafel] with many figures painted from life’.4 Similar descriptions of both paintings can be traced through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, notably often locating the events in Boulogne, perhaps either in ignorance of the Calais disembarkation point for the 1520 voyage or misreading the subject matter as Henry VIII’s later continental expedition of 1532. By the late 1630s, the two pictures had found their way to Greenwich, where they were inventoried by Abraham van der Doort for Charles I. Returned to Whitehall after the Restoration where they were described by Samuel Pepys in 1662, the pictures were later moved to Windsor Castle by the 1730s, noted by William Derham, Canon of Windsor. Here they were viewed by Ayloffe who, in a lecture first delivered in 1770, established the subject matter of both paintings as representing Henry VIII’s 1520 journey to the Field of Cloth of Gold.5 But our conclusions need to be more nuanced. Whilst the paintings have, since 1600, nearly always been described as a pair, this does not mean that they were created so to be, nor that they necessarily represent the same event: perhaps The Embarkation, notably different in compositional style although the same size as The Field of Cloth of Gold, does in fact record Henry VIII’s later journey to Boulogne. There are no records of either painting before 1600: they do not appear in the inventories of Whitehall Palace of 1542, nor in the 1547 inventory taken after the death of Henry VIII and purporting to record all the King’s moveable possessions.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  173 It is often argued that large paintings of this nature might have been overlooked, particularly if they had been set into the architecture of a palace interior. Indeed, in 1589, George Gower, the Sergeant Painter, amidst a long list of itemised decorative painting tasks, was paid: for clensinge wasshinge, and repairinge, with sondrie colors where the wale [sic] was perished of all the discourse of Kinge Henries Coronacion, and his goinge to Bulleyne, and a greate table cont[aining] Kinge Henrie, Prince Edwarde, and the ii ladies his daughters pictors, which were also vernished with a speciall vernish made without sente.6 This ‘going to Bulleyne’ has been suggested throughout recent scholarship as a reference to The Embarkation, but a misunderstanding seems to have arisen from an incomplete transcription of the original account, which draws a clear distinction between the murals including Henry VIII’s coronation and a scene representing ‘his going to Bulleyne’ and the table of Henry VIII and his family. The murals which Gower was paid to repair are in fact recorded in the 1531–2 Exchequer accounts, where they are described summarily as depicting the ‘Coronacion of oure Sovereigne lord . . . [and] other workis’ and where it is clear that the mural scheme was painted ‘upon the walles of the . . . newe galarye’.7 Such works may well also have included representations of the events of 1520, but it seems improbable for the murals to be the same artworks as the surviving Royal Collection paintings nor as Roy Strong suggested, Elizabethan copies of the same. There is no suggestion in 1600 that the ‘two pictures’ seen by Waldstein were copies of a scheme restored only a decade earlier, nor indeed any record of such copies being commissioned, and there is no mention of a separate painting of Henry VIII’s coronation in later accounts.8 Nevertheless, the payments to artists for the early 1530s at Whitehall demonstrate the scale and ambition for Tudor history painting within a palace decorative context. At the height of the campaign, in October and November 1531, forty-seven painters were employed in the King’s ‘Low Gallery’ creating what was apparently a long, highly decorative mural. The records reveal a hierarchy of salaries to painters from 4d up to 12d per day for Isaac (or Iakette) Labrune and John Raufe (or Raff).9 Payments were made to the grocer Henry Bird for supplies of colours including red lead, white lead, red ochre, spruce ochre, verdigris, vermillion and black chalk, while fine gold was delivered by the gold beaters William Southewoode and Peter Peerche. But the detail of the record for the labour and materials required for the scheme is matched by the lack of any further evidence of the subject matter. We have to look elsewhere for other examples of Tudor mural art celebrating Henry VIII’s achievements. Towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign, Sir Anthony Browne commissioned from an unknown artist, or artists, a series of murals for the dining room of Cowdray House in Sussex to celebrate his role (as Master of the Horse) in Henry VIII’s foreign military campaigns. The murals may have been ordered as a suitable commemoration of the Pyrrhic victories of 1544, completed in time for a

174  Brett Dolman Privy Council meeting convened at Cowdray in 1545. The house was destroyed in a fire of 1793, but the murals – teasingly reminiscent in scale and composition with The Field of Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation – survived just long enough to be described in detail by Ayloffe and copied by engravers (see Figure 12.2).10 Meanwhile, Henry VIII’s collection at his death, drawn from the comprehensive inventory of 1547–9, included 113 portraits, 93 religious pictures, 23 mythological or allegorical subjects, one landscape and two contemporary history paintings, one of which is described as ‘A Table wherein is conteined the Seginge of Torney and Turwyn’,11 which may well be the picture surviving today in the Royal Collection, The Meeting of Henry VIII and the Emperor Maximilian I (see Figure 12.3), as it contains both events in the background. The painting, despite its small scale, is an expensive commission, with gold leaf used to highlight the armour. The layout of the painting, with identifying cartouches and its densely packed groups of soldiers, weapons raised, is stylistically similar to the Cowdray murals, although the painting is presently dated to c.1513, shortly after the military campaign itself. The fourth surviving painting, The Battle of the Spurs (see Figure 12.4), is a larger canvas, first and foremost a fictionalised battle-scene, usually described as depicting Henry VIII centre stage, receiving the surrender of Pierre Terrail, the Chevalier de Bayard, with the siege of Thérouanne in the background. Like The Meeting of Henry VIII and Maximilian, it is also assumed to have been painted soon after the events it purports to represent, c.1513, but, as with the other canvas history paintings, The Battle of the Spurs does not appear in Henry VIII’s inventories. On the other hand, the 1547–9 inventory lists, in a separate category of ‘mappes’, a further six battle-scenes, including ‘The Discripcion of the Siege and Wynnynge of Bolloingne stayned uppon clothe sette in a frame of woode’.12 While pictures also appear in the inventory under separate categories of ‘tables’, ‘stained cloth’, ‘pictures’ (meaning sculpture) and ‘tables with pictures’, the definitions are not consistent: ‘tables’ includes works on panel, embroidery, painted cloth, parchment and even mother-of-pearl. This reminds us of the array of media used for pictorial representation at the sixteenth-century Tudor court and how much has been lost: recent estimates suggest only 30 per cent of portraiture survives and much less of religious, allegorical, landscape, historical subjects or ephemeral decorative work ‘that, in contrast to portraits of revered ancestors, were more vulnerable to shifts in taste’.13 The written accounts and comprehensive payment records for the 1527 French embassy and supporting festivities at Greenwich detail one example of the breadth and depth of the work required from Tudor painters attached to the court. The temporary buildings erected for the occasion, including a triumphal arch, disguising house and banqueting hall, all required painting, mostly with elaborate decorative motifs, heraldry and royal insignia, but there was scenic subject matter too: Holbein’s workshop was paid for four cloths, including two astrological scenes produced in collaboration with Nicholas Kratzer while ‘Master Hans’ himself received £4 10s ‘for the paynetyng of the plat of Tirwan which standith on the

Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  175

Figure 12.2 The Siege of Boulogne (1544), engraved by James Basire for the Society of Antiquaries of London, and published in 1783, after a lost mural at Cowdray House, Sussex, c.1544–5. RCIN 503906.

176  Brett Dolman Figure 12.3 The Meeting of Henry VIII and Maximilian I, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1513, oil on panel, 99.1 × 205.7cm, seventeenth-century gilt frame. RCIN 405800. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  177

Figure 12.4 The Battle of the Spurs, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1513, oil on canvas, 131.5 × 264.2cm, twentieth-century Tudor-style frame (not framed). RCIN 406784.

178  Brett Dolman bakesyde of the grete arche in grete’, which the Tudor chronicler Edward Hall described as showing Thérouanne under siege and ‘the very maner of every man’s camp, very connyngly wrought’. Henry VIII personally inspected the works, with ten men being paid ‘to hang the cloths in the king’s sight’. The huge amount of decorative painting required that year was overseen by Vincenzo Vulpe, Ellis Carmyan and the Sergeant Painter John Browne, in charge of a small group of Italian painters and a larger group of English gilders, painters and grinders of colours.14 It is quite possible that scenes such as Holbein’s lost Siege of Thérouanne, while apparently ephemeral in design, were retained after 1527; Holbein’s painting was certainly portable, travelling by boat from London to Greenwich on 4 April, for incorporation in the set works of the festival. It is not impossible that the two unidentified great canvases for the walls at either end of the hall prepared by his workshop (along with the two astrological scenes) might have been The Field of Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation and that they too were kept afterwards: on 7 May, men were employed to ‘gather the King’s stuff and for to take down cloths of canvas’.15 Such pictures, or others like them, were apparently retained in the Royal Wardrobe, for future use, some of them surviving to become items recorded in the 1547 inventory. By that date, the list of painted cloths in the royal collection also included scenes of sieges of Boulogne, Tunis, Naples, Pavia and Vienna, as well as ‘discripcions’ of Calais, Dover and other cities. Any or all of these could have originally been produced as part of decorative schemes for special court occasions, not just for Greenwich in 1527, but for later, less well-documented events. Surviving Tudor history paintings elsewhere that record Henry VIII’s own adventures are scarce; most, notably, a second version of The Embarkation survives at Leeds Castle in Kent.16 Of lost paintings known only through documentary record, one of the best collections seems to have been assembled, if not commissioned, for Cowdray House. In addition to the murals dating from the last years of Henry VIII’s reign, a number of history paintings were listed in a catalogue published in 1777, and described (but not unfortunately engraved) in various accounts during the eighteenth century, before being lost to the fire of 1793. Two pictures at Cowdray recorded the events of 1520, celebrating the involvement of Sir Anthony Browne and his predecessor as owner of Cowdray, Sir William Fitzwilliam, earl of Southampton.17 Such evidence raises the possibility that The Field of Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation may not have been created as royal pictures. As the former certainly, and the latter probably, contain identifiable portraits of Tudor courtiers, perhaps these paintings too were originally intended to celebrate their role in the events of 1520. This may explain their absence from sixteenth-century royal inventories, with the pictures only later perhaps offered as gifts to Elizabeth I or James I by descendants of the same families, keen to remind the current sovereign of their long-standing loyalty to the monarchy. Nonetheless, the evidence of the 1531 Whitehall mural commission does establish Henry VIII’s own deployment of the history painting as a form of commemorative act, while the lengthy list of painted

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  179 cloths of battle-scenes in the 1547–9 inventory, as well as the documentary record of Holbein’s 1527 Siege of Thérouanne prove that portable history paintings did exist at court.

The Physical Evidence of the Surviving Paintings Three of the surviving Tudor history paintings in the Royal Collection might be described as ‘painted cloths’, as they are composed on canvas rather than panel. There are also other physical clues suggesting how the pictures might have been employed and hung. Marking along the top edge of the canvas of The Embarkation suggests that the painting may have originally hung on a stretcher and perhaps inserted into an architectural feature of a room. Surviving records from livery hall decorative schemes from the sixteenth century suggest that canvas was strained on battens, attached with spikes and nails, which were fixed flush to the wall and then painted in situ, sometimes forming ‘friezes’ of painted cloths occupying positions in rooms above the wainscoting, in the same space as murals painted directly onto plastered walls. At the beginning of the century, it was more common for a chamber or gallery to be hung with a variety of painted hangings of different sizes rather than individually framed pictures.18 Such substantial schemes, as already noted for the 1527 Greenwich decorations and the 1531 Whitehall murals, required large teams of painters, who might have to embrace a wide variety of artistic commissions. Vincenzo Vulpe, apparently from Naples, was one of the higher paid artists working at the English court, and in 1520, was sent to Antwerp on a royal mission, perhaps to procure the materials for all the painting demands of the ephemeral architecture, tents, flags and banners required for the summit with Francis I. Later, in 1530, Vulpe was paid for painted ‘plats’ or ‘descripcions’ of Hastings and Rye. A surviving watercolour in the British Library (see Figure 12.5) is an example of this kind of artwork, and with its painterly flourishes and detailing of church steeples and wind-blown warships battling through a blustery sea, the style is not dissimilar in approach to The Embarkation, particularly in the depiction of the waves.19 It is possible that such topographical drawings, whilst intended for a particular purpose, may have formed the inspiration or even the background design for history paintings. Both types of artwork share a chorographic viewpoint and treat their subjects in similar ways, enlarging important compositional elements to help define the landscape or relay the narrative: The Field of Cloth of Gold was described as ‘a picturesque map’ by Ayloffe. The reign of Henry VIII meanwhile saw advances in the design of military fortification and shipping, and technical drawing flourished. Artistic talent and engineering invention proved to be compatible qualifications; the artist Girolamo da Treviso was employed as a military engineer by Henry VIII and died at the siege of Boulogne in 1544; earlier, during or after the king’s 1513 military campaign, the Ordinance accounts record the ‘payntors’ John Crust and Salaman Fyrewude receiving payment for ‘drawyng the towne of Bullon and grounde about the same’. The number of such ‘plats’ and ‘mappes’ listed in the later Tudor inventories indicate that such designs were retained.20

180  Brett Dolman

Figure 12.5 Proposal for a new harbour at Dover, attributed to Vincenzo Vulpe, 1532, watercolour, pen and ink on parchment, 53.5 × 136.0 cm. Source: BL Cotton MS Augustus I.i.9 © The British Library Board.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  181

Figure 12.6 The Field of Cloth of Gold (detail, infra-red reflectography). The foreground figures have been painted over the wine fountain. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

To facilitate the larger history commissions, Tudor workshops no doubt evolved to provide the necessary teams of artists able to mobilise and work together on shared projects, in and outside of the court. Different painters might be restricted to their own specialism – ‘flower work’, ‘compartment work’, ‘antique and grotesque’, ‘perspective’ or ‘figures’. And this meant that it was not unusual for more than one artist to work on a single painting.21 Technical analysis of the surviving history paintings bears out this theory of shared authorship, with different hands identifiably responsible for the various pictorial elements. Infra-red reflectography (see Figure 12.7) demonstrates that such teams worked ‘from back to front’ in stages, allowing for each specialist to work on the canvases in turn. Horizontal bands of landscape and seascape colours were laid in first with some ‘reserve’ areas left blank for later details (and in the case of The Embarkation, with incised

182  Brett Dolman

Figure 12.7 The Banquet of Abraham, engraved by Etienne Delaune, c.1550–72, 7.8 × 10.5cm. 1834,0804.77. Source: © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  183 lines drawn into wet paint to mark out the positions of the ships). The townscapes, architecture and landscape details followed, and finally the larger foreground figures were added over the top of everything else.22 Some details, for example The Field of Cloth of Gold dragon, appear to have been drawn in freehand, with alterations visible throughout the painting process while the artists responsible for the portraits in Henry VIII’s procession in the same painting demonstrate a practised confidence, perhaps even a miniaturist’s expertise, with particularly fine brushstrokes delineating some of the figures. All of this suggests an original artwork, with elements of the final design worked out on the canvas, rather than an inferior copy produced from a pattern. Indeed, despite the likelihood that elements of such complicated compositions as Tudor history paintings might have been reproduced from circulated prints, direct proof of this remains elusive. One example might be the banqueting scene and attendant characters in The Field of Cloth of Gold, which may be based on a similar original source to The Banquet of Abraham by Etienne Delaune (see Figure 12.7).23 More convincingly, the depiction of the besieged town of Thérouanne in the background of The Battle of the Spurs is clearly related to a view of the town created by Cornelis Anthonisz, a Dutch painter, engraver and mapmaker, as well as an undated painting sold at Christie’s in 2009, depicting a later siege at Thérouanne with an army led by Charles V, signed by the artist Herri met de Bles. Of these views, The Battle of the Spurs contains the most detailed rendering of the town, possibly later simplified in print by Anthonisz and reproduced thereafter. This re-emphasises the collaborative nature of artwork production and suggests an early date for the painting, which also corresponds with the style of the armour depicted in the battle-scene itself.24 Widening our lens, all the surviving Tudor history paintings evince a shared Anglo-Netherlandish aesthetic, colouring and tonality, as well as a common compositional approach, with a strong narrative thread, set within a fictive landscape setting and populated by miniature portraiture. This should not be surprising: Netherlandish ways of painting were admired and adopted by artists working in England, while evidence from payment records of the Tudor court reveals an identifiable group of Netherlandish artists working for Henry VIII. Unlike their Italian counterparts, who were listed separately, Dutch or Flemish names are often intermixed with English ones in the accounts, suggesting a closer relationship and a longer assimilation into English artistic circles. The multiplicity of artists and shared traditions of style, however, make determining a date for the paintings difficult. Other methodologies prove equally problematic. Determining the accuracy of the artists’ depiction of the temporary architecture or the narrative of events in The Field of Cloth of Gold, for example, to measure the distance between the event and the artwork’s creation, assume that historical veracity was more important than aesthetic impact or political messaging. Establishing an early 1530s date for The Embarkation based on the style and construction of the Dover fortifications or the identity of the ships in the royal fleet ignores the possibility that an informed later artist might have used the detail of earlier depictions or documentary knowledge. While it is likely that the principal

184  Brett Dolman

Figure 12.8 The Field of Cloth of Gold (detail, infra-red reflectography). The head of Henry VIII dates from after 1620, painted on an inserted circular fragment of canvas. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

vessels represent Henry VIII’s three grandest and largest carracks – Henri Grace à Dieu, Mary Rose and Peter Pomegranate – these were not the ships that carried the royal court to the continent in 1520; their inclusion instead makes a statement about English naval strength and magnificence and relies on a combination of observed knowledge of the actual ships but also generic repetition and established patterns for depicting naval vessels in Netherlandish paintings.25 The Field of Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation do contain individualised portraits, across all ranks of the assembled court. However, comparable and datable portraits from the sixteenth century are rare, making identification in most cases unproven and dating the paintings from this type of evidence uncertain.26 Katherine of Aragon is perhaps notable by her absence (shown only in the far distance

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  185 watching the 1520 tournament), and this conceivably indicates a date for both paintings of or after the annulment of her marriage to Henry VIII in 1533. Meanwhile, however, the head of Henry VIII in The Field of Cloth of Gold (see Figure 12.9) is an early seventeenth-century interloper. The painting was apparently vandalised in 1620, during a Spanish embassy to James I at Whitehall Palace.27 Any attempt therefore to date the painting late in Henry VIII’s reign on the basis of the post-Holbein appearance of the King alone, is flawed: we simply do not know what the original image of Henry VIII looked like. We are on slightly firmer ground with costume: the assembled soldiers and courtiers in The Embarkation wear the steeple hats, coifs and short gowns more common by the late 1530s or 1540s: the distinctive red-and-yellow costume on display may even directly refer to the 1544 commission of new livery for Henry’s court.

Tudor History Painting in Context: Function and Meaning The combination of complicated narrative scenes enlivened by strong colours and metal gilding places history painting in the same category as the highest class of figurative tapestries, interwoven with gold and silver threads. Both sought to dazzle, and their close artistic relationship reminds us that both formed a part of a wider context of royal interior design that included fine and decorative art, costume and jewellery, heraldic and symbolic ornamentation and the architectural grandeur of the palace apartments themselves. The purpose of such design was to create an aura of magnificence and authority around the image of Henry VIII himself and, by association, the Tudor court. The king wished to be seen as rich, sophisticated and successful: colourful tapestries and history paintings, highlighted in gold, shimmered in the candlelight alongside displays of gold and silver plate, and the sumptuous array of the royal wardrobe, and proved Henry VIII could compete culturally with his continental rivals.28 Moreover, both history painting and tapestry could also serve a narrative purpose: as well as showing magnificence, they attempted to explain why Henry VIII was a glorious monarch. At Greenwich in May 1527, we hear from the chronicler Edward Hall that the Anglo-French royal party left the Banqueting House underneath a specially constructed triumphal arch and then when they were betwene the uttermoste dore and the Arches the kyng caused them to turne backe and loke on that syde of the Arches, and there they sawe how Tyrwyn [Thérouanne] was beseged, and the very maner of every mans camp, very connyngly wrought, whiche woorke more pleased them then the remembring of the thing in dede.29 The positioning of the painting, within the performance of the whole state occasion, was therefore significant. As the king and the French ambassadors walked away from the arch, turning back to view the depiction of their previous conflict, they were, quite literally leaving the past behind them and moving towards a more amicable future. In this case, the vocabulary of visual splendour and messaging

186  Brett Dolman was directed at the specific political agenda of the embassy. The Greenwich event of May 1527 was followed by a reciprocal visit led by Cardinal Wolsey to Amiens in August and a further Greenwich festival in September. The political aim was to move England and France towards a new treaty and to advertise the availability of Henry VIII’s solitary matrimonial bargaining chip, his daughter Princess Mary. The dramatic spectacles produced at each venue were loaded with symbolic messaging, carefully crafted compliments and allegorical devices to encourage a successful outcome, itself memorialised in visual form in the illuminations added to the treaty documents.30 This is the political context for Tudor history paintings – Henry VIII’s ‘display diplomacy’  – part of the evolving language of pageant, symbolism, ceremony, dramatic performance, printed polemic, oratory and displayed magnificence that together created the spectacle of Henrician power and authority. As Sir Thomas Elyot argued in the Boke of the Gouernour, published in 1531: Semblable deckynge oughte to be in the house of a nobleman or man of honour. I meane concernynge certain ornamentes of halle and chambres, in Arise [arras], painted tables, and images containyng histories, wherin is represented some monument of vertue, most cunnyngly wrought, with the circumstance of the mater briefely declared; wherby other men in beholdynge may be instructed, or at the lest wayes, to vertue persuaded.31 The Royal Collection painting, The Battle of the Spurs, is a good example of this. Ostensibly a realistic and bloody battle-scene, but Henry VIII appears centre stage, heroically  – if inaccurately  – in the midst of battle, in the act of ­mercifully – and virtuously – accepting the surrender of the Chevalier de Bayard. Similarly, both The Embarkation and The Field of Cloth of Gold are not just attempts at creating a visual record of actual events but are celebratory manipulations of history to provide a suitably heroic evocation of Henry VIII’s achievements. In this way, they are more than just ‘picturesque maps’, they are political statements, their design purposefully deployed to emphasise the king’s authority and magnificence. The Field of Cloth of Gold records in visual form the spectacle and scale of Henry VIII’s celebrated meeting with Francis I  in 1520, focusing on either the Tudor king’s arrival at Guîsnes on 5 June, or his procession to meet his great European rival two days later – or an artistic conflation of both. The royal pageant curves away from the viewer, leading the eye towards the central motif: the golden tent hosting the first meeting of the two kings (a similar effect is achieved in The Embarkation by the harbour wall arcing towards Henry aboard the goldensailed Henri Grace à Dieu). On the right-hand side of the painting, special attention is reserved for the architectural marvels constructed for the occasion, the temporary palace and the two wine-plumbed fountains, staged within an identifiable topography, foregrounded by the town and castle of Guîsnes, with Hames and Calais across the water – statements of English ownership of this small corner of Continental Europe.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  187 The practice of recording the achievements of a particular reign in a visual form was an established one across the monarchies of western Europe: inventories of Francis I  and Charles V reveal analogous artworks, and some comparable pictures survive. In 1535, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen travelled with the army of Charles V to witness and record the successful campaign against the Ottoman Empire, including the capture of Tunis. Vermeyen’s ten cartoons for tapestries to celebrate the event, now in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, tell the story with a bloody realism reminiscent of the grisly detailing of The Battle of the Spurs. More similar in compositional arrangement and content is a large canvas painting attributed to the Italian artist Niccolò dell’Abate, depicting the meeting of Charles V with the Bey of Tunis (see Figure 12.9).32 At Cowdray, Sir Anthony Browne ensured that the narrative of his presence at Henry VIII’s side during the 1544 military campaign would be well understood by viewers of the artwork (conceivably his colleagues and rivals in Henry VIII’s Privy Council when they visited the following year). The murals, positioned high on the wall and separated by fictive frames in the form of arabesque flowers and military lances, formed part of the decorative fabric of the room, but they were

Figure 12.9 The Meeting of Charles V and the Bey of Tunis, Niccolò dell’Abate, c.1546– 50, oil on canvas, 175.5 x 211.0cm. P. 1951.XX.2. Source: © The Courtauld Institute of Art.

188  Brett Dolman designed to be viewed and read. Labels and titling on the pictures themselves (as Elyot had recommended) aided interpretation and confirmed Browne’s importance: ‘The Metinge of the Kinge by Sr Antoni Browne upon the Hill between Callis and Marquison’. Divining more specific meaning in The Field of Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation without knowledge of their intended original context is, however, elusive. As canvases, both paintings were portable: it is possible that both formed part of an ephemeral stage-set designed for a specific court occasion, when a visual declaration of Anglo-French amity was required, perhaps to decorate the temporary hall erected at Hampton Court in 1546, to host the French embassy of that year. In this way, the paintings would have been more than commemorations of past events but active engagements with current politics. Just as at Greenwich in 1527, perhaps such images would have been integrated into the dramatic performances and ceremonies that took place in the rooms beneath them, acting out a complex textual and visual dialogue with the orators, performers and participants. Unfortunately, details of the 1546 embassy, including the decorations for the temporary banqueting house erected at Hampton Court, are incomplete: surviving payment books amongst the papers of Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels, list craftsmen and building works, but there is no evidence for the commissioning of history painting.33 It is instructive, however, to compare other Henrician artworks of the 1540s that demonstrate how Henry VIII was preoccupied, towards the end of his reign, with a self-justificatory projection of his royal image. Two hugely expensive tapestry commissions of this decade, richly woven sets depicting the stories of the Old Testament patriarch Abraham and of the Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar, emphasised publicly by association the spiritual and secular supremacy of the Tudor dynasty. Abraham had made a new covenant with God and been rewarded with the birth, late in his life, of a son and heir; so, too, had Henry, and this provided validation for the king’s political and spiritual policies. The designs and content of the tapestries relayed this message to the court, packaged in an artwork that was also proof of his magnificence and cultural heft.34 By this time, Henry VIII’s health was failing and his lifelong preoccupation with solidifying the Tudor dynasty now centred on creating a legacy that underlined his own achievements and authority and would provide some stability and breathing space for his young son, the future Edward VI, to mature. The painting of The Family of Henry VIII, reminiscent of a Netherlandish altarpiece in its composition, was a visual testament of this dynastic preoccupation, with the ‘holy’ Tudor family – the King, his son and his mother Jane Seymour – centre stage and the princesses Elizabeth and Mary co-starring as worshipping angels to either side. It is possible that history paintings that celebrated Tudor claims to be true Renaissance princes (in terms of both their majesty and potency) were also commissioned in the 1540s, as part of this campaign of iconographic promotion.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  189

Conclusions Despite a comprehensive search through the documentary records of the Tudor court, there remains no definitive evidence for the commissioning, or even existence, of The Field of Cloth of Gold painting (nor its assumed pair, The Embarkation at Dover) before 1600. This should not be surprising, given the lack of contemporary detailed accounts of Tudor decorative art, especially of its subject matter, purpose and intended audience. Equally, very few Tudor history paintings survive from which to draw comparable theories about authorship, dating and context. Nonetheless, this chapter has attempted to survey what can be gleaned from the surviving documents and pictorial legacy of the sixteenth century to form some tentative conclusions about the function of such artworks within the visually rich symbolism of the Tudor court. The Cowdray House murals of the late 1540s provide the strongest parallel in terms of scale and narrative approach. The two Royal Collection paintings do seem to share a stylistic vocabulary, perhaps suggesting a similar creation date: the combination of oversized figures populating a topographic view drawn from a bird’s eye perspective is the same while the principal processional figures accompanying Henry VIII in the Cowdray Encampment at Portsmouth employ a similar range of dynamically animated figures to those in the foreground of both The Field of Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation, turning to each other, towards and away from the viewer. But there are also differences: the closely packed formations of troops throughout the scenes set around Boulogne have no direct similarity with the arrangements of the crowds at The Field of Cloth of Gold nor, perhaps more tellingly, with the soldiers and courtiers in The Embarkation. In fact, in these details, the Cowdray murals have arguably more in common with other surviving history paintings, including The Meeting of Henry VIII and Maximilian in the Royal Collection. Comparing The Embarkation and The Field of Cloth of Gold directly to each other also highlights an internal compositional dissonance: the latter represents a continuous synthesis of more than one event (with Henry VIII represented three times) and the former a single scene. This raises the possibility that, despite their similarities of scale, the two pictures may not even be a pair, nor be describing the same event, while the inclusion of courtier portraiture in The Field of Cloth of Gold might suggest that its commission might not be royal. Tudor history paintings may appear superficially analogous, but there is a danger of drawing too many conclusions based simply on the fortuitous survival of the paintings in the Royal Collection and the engraved prints and descriptions of the Cowdray House murals, when so much else has been lost. As Sidney Anglo warned, ‘The few surviving pictures at Hampton Court must be regarded as representing a fashion for historical, narrative paintings, the extent of which can now only be guessed at’.35 The artists responsible for Tudor history paintings were, in any case, a small army of decorative painters and specialists whose court careers spanned the 1520s and 1540s, sharing workshops and an Anglo-Netherlandish

190  Brett Dolman aesthetic vocabulary. Attributing the surviving paintings more specifically to the hand of individual artists may be both impossible and incorrect. Identifying an original context for The Embarkation and The Field of Cloth of Gold is therefore difficult. A possible solution emerges by considering Tudor history paintings as visual devices designed as part of a wider language of political and decorative communication, composed for specific events. The detailed accounts for a similar event at Greenwich in 1527, show how extensive and apposite such commissions could be, and how a history painting, Holbein’s Siege of Thérouanne, played an important decorative and political role. Indeed, it is not impossible that the Royal Collection paintings formed a part of the Greenwich festival. However, internal evidence within both pictures – the details of the costume, the absence of Katherine of Aragon, the misrepresentation of architectural and landscape detail – whilst inconclusive, arguably suggests a slightly later genesis. The Cowdray inventory of the eighteenth century, recording the paintings lost to the fire of 1793, demonstrates that key international moments of Henry VIII’s reign were recorded in pictorial form: there were paintings depicting not only the events of 1513, 1520 and 1545 but also English embassies to France in 1518 and 1529. Mural schemes celebrating Tudor kingship once decorated the walls of Whitehall Palace and other more ephemeral designs may have been produced for other state occasions, such as the 1546 French embassy, and perhaps, The Field of Cloth of Gold and The Embarkation are fragments of such a decorative scheme prepared for the banqueting house erected at Hampton Court that year. Entertainments at such events, as Glenn Richardson has written, ‘constituted a form of political theatre into which the ambassadors were co-opted and in which lavish material display advanced Henry VIII’s claims to European greatness’.36 The four surviving history paintings in the Royal Collection are not just attempts at creating visual records of the events of 1513 and 1520, but they are fragments of a lost and extensive programme of permanent and ephemeral art created for royal palaces, special events and royal progresses whose purpose was not simply to celebrate the king’s past achievements but to contribute to an evolving language of pageant, tournament, symbolism, ceremony, dramatic performance, printed polemic, oratory and displayed magnificence, all choreographed to create a persuasive spectacle of Henrician power and authority.

Notes 1 Sir J. Ayloffe, ‘An Historical Description of an Ancient Painting in Windsor Castle’, Archaeologia, 3 (1775), 185–229; Sir Oliver Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen (London, 1963), no. 25; S. Anglo, ‘The Hampton Court painting of the Field of Cloth of Gold considered as an Historical Document’, The Antiquaries Journal, 46 (1966), 287–307. The events of 1520 itself, and the principal source material, have been gathered and published by J. Russell, The Field of Cloth of Gold: Men and Manners in 1520 (London, 1969) and G. Richardson, The Field of Cloth of Gold (New Haven, CT, and London, 2013). 2 Documentary sources relating to the production of Tudor art have been gathered and published in: M. Hayward, The 1542 Inventory of Whitehall (London, 2004); D.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  191 Starkey (ed.), The Inventory of King Henry VIII (London, 1998); E. Auerbach, Tudor Artists (London, 1954); R. Strong, ‘More Tudor Artists’, Burlington Magazine, 108 (1966); M. Edmond, ‘Limners and Picture Makers’, Walpole Society, 47 (1978–80), 60–242; E. Town, ‘Biographical Dictionary of London painters 1547–1625’, Walpole Society, 76 (2014). 3 The Diary of Baron Waldstein, a Traveller in Elizabethan England, translated and annotated by G. W. Groos (London, 1981), 42–4. 4 ‘Pictures and other works of art in the royal palaces in the year 1613’, extracted and translated from the journal of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar in W. B. Rye, England as Seen by Foreigners (London, 1865), 159ff. 5 Millar, Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian, 35–6, dates the van der Doort catalogue to 1637–40 and provides a summary list of historical references to both paintings. 6 ‘Works and Buildings, Surveyors and Paymasters’, 1588–9, TNA E 351/3223. 7 ‘Books of payments for wages and stuffs bought for repairs to the King’s manor of Westminster’, 1530–2, TNA E 36/251–2. 8 The evidence for Henry VIII’s construction of his new gallery at Whitehall Palace, and for later building works, is detailed in S. J. Thurley, Whitehall Palace: An Architectural History of the Royal Apartments, 1240–1698 (New Haven, CT, and London, 1999), 51, 59, 73. For the argument that The Field of Cloth of Gold painting is an Elizabethan copy of the lost Whitehall murals: R. Strong, Holbein and Henry VIII (London, 1967), 24–6. 9 Labrune also appears in the Exchequer accounts of 1532 and 1533, paid for unspecified decorative work at Hampton Court, while Raufe had been part of a similar troop of painters employed at the Greenwich revels of 1527 (see later): he is thought to be identical to the artist elsewhere recorded as Joannes Corvus. 10 For a description and discussion of the Cowdray murals: Sir W. H. St J. Hope, Cowdray and Easebourne Priory in the County of Sussex (London, 1919); C. Lloyd and S. Thurley, Henry VIII: Images of a Tudor King (London, 1990), 41–56. 11 Starkey, Inventory, no. 15413. 12 Ibid., no. 10773. 13 T. Cooper, M. Howard, A. Burnstock and E. Town, Painting in Britain 1500–1630: Production, Influence and Patronage (Oxford, 2015), 3. The publication presents the technical discoveries of the Making Art in Tudor Britain project, led by the National Portrait Gallery, London, and provides an assessment of the artistic and cultural environment within and for which it is assumed that Tudor history painting was produced. 14 ‘Account of Henry Guildford, kt, and Thomas Wyatt, kt, for works on two triumphal arches and other materials and stores for revels in the banqueting house at Greenwich’, 1526–7, TNA E 36/227, fols 2–23. The 1527 entertainments as described by Hall are published and discussed in: J. Dillon (ed.), Performance and Spectacle of Hall’s Chronicle (London, 2002), 122–31, 244–9. For further analysis: K. Rawlinson, ‘Hall’s Chronicle and the Greenwich Triumphs of 1527’, in T. Betteridge and G. Walker (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Drama (Oxford, 2012), 402–28; Anglo, ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’, 306. 15 TNA SP 2/C, fol. 355v. 16 Loaned from the collection of the earl of Scarborough, identical in most details (although the figure of Henry VIII is notably different), the painting can be traced back to the collection of John Thynne, 3rd Baron Carteret (1772–1849), of Haynes, Bedfordshire, but its earlier provenance remains unclear. 17 The first apparently depicted the arrival in England of Charles V and the arrangements for the summit with Henry VIII before the Field of Cloth of Gold; the second, the meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I, focussing on Browne’s role on the tournament field: A. J. Browne, A Catalogue of the Pictures at Cowdray House (Portsmouth, 1777). The pictures are further described in Hope, Cowdray, 36–48.

192  Brett Dolman 18 Town, Biographical Dictionary, 8. 19 A drawing of ships outside Dover Castle (BL Cotton MS Augustus I.ii.23), attributed to Sir Richard Lee (1513–75), the King’s Surveyor of Works, and dated to c.1538, has a similar approach to enlivening a technical presentation drawing with landscape detail with an even more flamboyant approach to depicting ships. On Vulpe: E. Auerbach, ‘Vincent Volpe, the King’s Painter’, The Burlington Magazine, 92 (1950), 222–7. 20 ‘Works: Hampton Court and other places’, 1513–4, TNA E 36/236, fol. 398. I  am grateful to Alden Gregory for discovering this reference. 21 Outside of court, artists found support and work through membership of the Company of Painters and Stainers. Commissions included painted decorations for the elaborate Lord Mayor’s pageants and the popular Midsummer Shows staged by all the London companies, as well as work for theatres. There was considerable overlap with the same artists’ names appearing in both court and civic contexts: of fifty-three members of the Painters and Stainers Company listed in a document from 1537–8, no less than nineteen were also recorded as working at the Greenwich revels of 1527. See: Town, Biographical Dictionary and A. Borg, The History of the Worshipful Company of Painters (Huddersfield, 2005). 22 I am very grateful to Royal Collection Trust and to Rosanna de Sancha for guiding me through the results of new infra-red reflectography of The Field of Cloth of Gold completed in 2019. Arguably, the different modelling of the figures in the painting alone suggests the work of four separate artists. 23 While there is considerable evidence for the use of ornamental prints as design templates during the Tudor period, there are few direct examples of figurative or subject prints being used in this way. This is perhaps because, ‘being so much more important artistically, they were considerably more expensive and so less affordable’. See A. Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Influence of Continental Prints (New Haven, CT, and London, 1997), 95. 24 Old Master and Nineteenth-Century Paintings: Evening Sale, Christie’s London, 8 December 2009, lot 4. 25 For a full analysis of the painting’s concordance and dissonance with the documentary record, see Anglo, ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’. 26 Three certain members of Henry VIII’s entourage are Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (d.1530), riding alongside the King astride a mule; Sir Thomas Wriothesley (d.1534), wearing a heraldic tabard distinguishing him as the Garter King of Arms, and behind him, Thomas Grey (1477–1530), 2nd Marquess of Dorset, bearing the sword of state immediately before the King. Unfortunately, there are no reliable contemporary portraits of Wriothesley or Grey with which to compare the images in the painting, and as all three men were dead by the early 1530s, any later artist would have had to rely on portraits created nearer to the date of the event in any case. 27 ‘Out of these [paintings] were many pieces cut . . . in [King Henry VIII his going to Bolloigne] the king’s head cut off’. Locke to Dudley Carleton, 11 November  1620, TNA SP 14/117 no.71. 28 Studies of Tudor material culture include: T. Campbell, Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor Court (New Haven, CT, and London, 2008); S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (2nd ed., Oxford, 1997); M. Howard, The Tudor Image (London, 1995); T. String, Art and Communication in the Reign of Henry VIII (Aldershot, 2008); K. Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT, and London, 2009). 29 Dillon, Performance and Spectacle, 122–31, 244–9; Rawlinson, Hall’s Chronicle, 402–28. 30 Ibid.; Anglo, Spectacle, 207–37. The treaty documents: ‘Treaty of Perpetual Peace between England and France, French ratification’ and ‘Ratification by the same of a treaty with England relating to ecclesiastical affairs’, 18 August  1527, TNA E 30/1109–14.

Palaces, Progresses, Panache and Pictures  193 31 Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Gouernour, 2 vols (London, 1883), vol. II, ­Chapter 3, 22–4. 32 The painting was previously sold at Christie’s, London (18 July 1947), lot 174, when it was attributed to ‘Flemish School’. I am grateful to Edward Town for suggesting this artwork as a useful comparator to Tudor history painting. 33 L. Yeandle and W. R. Streitberger, ‘The Loseley Collection of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D. C.’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 38/2 (1987), 201–7. There are other significant collections at the National Archives, London and the Surrey History Centre, Woking. See also, W. R. Streitberger, ‘Records of Royal Banqueting Houses and Henry VIII’s Timber Lodging, 1543–59’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 15/2 (1994), 187–202. 34 The Caesar tapestries do not survive, but the Abraham set is still in the Royal Collection: RCIN 1046. 35 Anglo, ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’, 307. 36 G. Richardson, ‘Entertainments for the French Ambassadors at the Court of Henry VIII’, Renaissance Studies, 9 (1995), 404–15.

13 Performing Power and Theatricalisation at the Field of Cloth of Gold Lesley Mickel

When thinking about the performance of power in the early modern period in England, the Tudors instantly leap to mind as the most theatrical of monarchs, none more so than Henry VIII.1 We continue to be fascinated by the Tudors’ instinct for self-dramatisation, their sheer will to power expressed through spectacular and theatrical rituals and ceremonies designed to entrench their rule. Our interest in this aspect of the Tudor dynasty has ensured that the famed 1520 meeting between Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France at the Field of Cloth of Gold has been the subject of re-enactments and dramatisations and recreated as literary fiction, as well as being the focus of weighty academic monographs and a major exhibition at Hampton Court. Obsession with the Tudors is not merely a facet of popular culture but has also been legitimated by the hugely influential work of Michel Foucault and critics working within the theoretical frameworks of New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, as they continue to shine a light on the ways in which political ideologies are encoded in literary and cultural texts and events.2 This is a broad view of the theatrical presentation of Tudor kingship, and important insights about the mechanics of rule and power come to light once we start to think about theatricalisation in a more specific way. In terms of performance theory, theatricalisation involves drawing attention to the mechanics of production, the functions and relationships between different aspects of staging such as props, costume, stage machinery and actors. Pavis and Shantz offer a useful definition: ‘To theatricalise an event is to interpret it on stage using stage and actors. The visual aspect of the stage and the contextualisation of the characters’ speeches in an actual situation are the marks of theatricalisation’. Hulfield addresses this approach in the context of European modernist drama: ‘We can understand these demands for theatricalisation simply as a formal means of distinguishing between productions that try to hide the mechanics of staging and productions that emphasise those mechanics’.3 Bringing these insights to the Field of Cloth of Gold begs the question to what extent the event was transparent about its constructed nature, designed by Wolsey to consolidate the Tudor Crown’s position at the centre of European diplomacy and reinforce the personal prestige of Henry VIII and to what extent it obscured the material conditions of production, presenting a view of kingship and political DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-18

Performing Power and Theatricalisation  195 dominance predicated on the innate virtue of the monarch and a national chivalric culture? In answer to that question, the Field of Cloth of Gold was an intensely theatricalised event, as multiple elements of staging such as costume, gift exchange, use of the body, chivalric sports, improvisation and the more obviously theatrical element of masquing all contributed to this politically charged détente. Nevertheless, both monarchs sought to obscure the mechanical operations supporting this spectacular meeting and behind their own glamorous and dramatic self-presentations to present their impressive powers as somehow natural and God given. In England, the impulse to obscure the mechanical and material basis underpinning the display of personal and national power at this festival stemmed from a deep-seated unease about the morality of theatre and display present throughout the sixteenth century, simultaneous with the immensely effective deployment of theatrical values to reinforce the power base of monarchical government.4 The bias against theatre had a religious underpinning, hostile to its power to create immersive, alternative worlds. A further factor leading to the obscuring of the mechanics underpinning displays of accomplishment in Renaissance Europe was the courtly assumption that while excellence in the skills of dancing or equitation, for example, required hard work to perfect, the toil involved in acquiring such accomplishments should be hidden from view. This allowed for impressive and apparently spontaneous displays of sprezzatura, as codified by Castiglione in his Book of the Courtier (1528) – ‘A certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it’ – and reiterated by Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Book of the Governor (1531), confirming the right to rule through the assertion of innate superiority.5 The essential theatricality of power is expressed in the many re-imaginings of the Field of Cloth of Gold, and examination of historical texts recording the meeting between the French and English monarchs in Ardres in 1520 reveals both kings revelling in the opportunity for self-dramatisation to promote themselves and by extension, their nation state.6 Some of these theatrical opportunities were carefully staged and planned by Cardinal Wolsey, some were impromptu and thus incurred the inevitable risk that improvisation might not work out the way the performer intended. This deviation from the scripted festival not only exposed performers to critique of their all-too-human failings but also drew attention to the way in which theatricalisation was at work in reinforcing royal power at home and abroad. Yet the risk was worth taking, as for the Renaissance monarch the theatrical enactment of power constituted real power. Similarly, emphasis on the material culture at stake in the Field of Cloth of Gold emphasises that for the early modern subject, materiality (clothes, for example) constituted identity at a profound level. Laura Levine has comprehensively examined English anti-theatrical prejudice in the seventeenth century, with its religious and political contexts, and we see that it was also present a century earlier, deeply embedded in the Field of Cloth of Gold itself.7 John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, was present as Queen Katherine’s spiritual advisor and grimly noted the ephemeral and superficial pleasures of

196  Lesley Mickel the festival; remarking with satisfaction in a sermon delivered shortly afterwards, how the glamour soon turned to dust. The tensions inherent in theatricality are evidenced further by the writings of the English chronicler Edward Hall, who was also present as part of Henry’s retinue. While Hall delights in the variety and colour of the French masque costumes, he is disapproving of the same variety of fabric and colour of clothes amongst the French as a whole. This liberty for the French to wear what they wanted was specifically requested by Francis, yet Hall sees dangers lurking in this potential for theatrical self-determination and the threat of social collapse.8 In his sermon Fisher identified royal apparel as the chief signifier of power, wealth and royalty for Henry, Francis and the Emperor Charles: And eche of these thre in so great honour, shewing theyr ryalty, shewing theyr rychesse, shewing theyr power with eche of theyr noblesse appointed and apparellyd in ryche clothes, in sylkes, veluettes, clothes of golde, and suche other precyouse araymentes.9 Hall’s account of the costumes worn by both monarchs makes it clear that they were designed to enhance the physical presence of the wearer, to make him seem taller and broader in the shoulders and chest. To some extent this was determined by the dictates of fashion, but taken to extremes it allowed the monarch to dominate physically those around him by appearing more powerful than everyone else. Viewed in this way, clothes obviously become a crucial part of the competition between Henry and Francis, their rich materials displaying the wealth of the wearer while their construction emphasised his physical superiority. This is why Henry took a very personal interest in his costumes for the event being the ‘divisor thereof’ and why the chroniclers Hall and Holinshed pay such close attention to what was worn by the two kings and how it was worn.10 Fisher also understood the intensity of the sartorial competition between the monarchs and nobles and that more was at stake than mere fashion: ‘And thereof also must nedes aryse moche harte brennynge and secrete enuye amongst many for the apparell. They whiche had the leest, dyd enuye the other whiche had richer apparel than they had or might reche vnto’.11 Here Fisher seizes on the way in which apparel constitutes identity in the early modern world, and notes that pride and social aspiration make men beggar themselves to pay for rich costumes, ensuring their rank and status. This material hierarchy rests on competition between individuals, and the assertion of rank must always be at someone else’s expense. Fisher penetrates the transformative power of costume, the effects of which reverberate beyond the immediate stage and into the wider world; and his antagonism to the way in which monarchs deploy the theatrical, transformative potential of costume is because he views this as an abrogation of God’s divine, transformative power over the individual. Later attacks on the theatre continued to seize on the transformative power of theatrical costume to invert gender and social hierarchies. For Henry as well as Francis, royal clothes were always costume, an opportunity for dressing up and inhabiting the public role of monarch. This performative

Performing Power and Theatricalisation  197 aspect of kingship is highlighted when we notice that Henry’s royal outfits, worn in France in 1520, were similar to the rich and exotic costumes that he favoured for masques. Hall tells us that for his first meeting with Francis, Henry shewed himself somedele forwarde in beautye and personage, the most goodliest prince that ever reigned over the Realme of England: his grace was apparelled in a garment of Cloth of Silver, of Damaske, ribbed with Cloth of Golde, so thicke as might bee, the garment was large, and pitted verie thicke, and canteled of very good intaile, of suche shape and makynge, that it was marveilous to behold.12 This outfit paraded Henry’s wealth and physical presence, its thickness and ‘canteled’ or artificially bolstered and wired shape enhancing Henry’s chest and shoulders, to make him even more physically impressive than he already was. Costume was such an integral part of Henry’s kingship that Holinshed carefully records what he wore at a variety of occasions and not merely Henry’s masque costumes.13 Francis also made a good impression on Hall, who asserts that he personally ‘perceiued thabiliment royall of the frenche kyng, his garment was a chemew, of cloth of silver, cuipond with clothe of gold, of damaske cantellwise’. Francis wore a curious cloak suspended from one shoulder, and his outfit was embellished with pearls, diamonds and other precious stones. He was also dressing to impress, using artificial support ‘cantellwise’ in his outfit to expand the breadth of his chest and shoulders. The sum of the parts was impressive, and Hall describes him as a ‘goodly Prince’ with typically French physical characteristics: ‘mery of chere, broune coloured, great iyes, high nosed, bigge lipped, faire brested and shoulders, small legges, and long fete’. Which is as much to say the French King was on the small side, so that although he was a splendid sight, he fell short of Henry’s example: here we may detect some national bias on the historian’s part, but the French newsletter known as ‘La Description’ (1520) also recognises Henry’s imposing appearance, describing him as ‘honnette, haut et droit’ but also ‘rather fat, and with a red beard’.14 The competition relating to personal presentation and costume was extrapolated to a view of national power, so the chroniclers seized on the weaker aspects of the kings’ physical appearance, to elevate their own monarch and nation. Improvisation was a high-risk strategy attempted by both monarchs at the Field of Cloth of Gold, with varying levels of success. Henry’s performances were an expression of national might in an international context, mediated through his personal accomplishments, and so it is not surprising that in the English records of the event neither Holinshed nor Hall mentions that Henry was thrown in an impromptu wrestling match with Francis.15 The French courtier Florange (1491– 1538) tells that after a series of wrestling matches where the English won over the French, and after drinking with Francis, Henry challenged the French king to a match. Florange adds that Francis was skilled in the art and quickly threw Henry decisively with ‘ung tour de Bretaigne’, a special wrestling trick native to Brittany. Henry was eager for a rematch, but events were cut short by dinner. Henry’s

198  Lesley Mickel desire for the rematch must be viewed as an attempt to reverse the damage to his personal prestige as an athlete and as a monarch, particularly when his physical prowess was linked so fundamentally with that of his international standing and his nation’s military power. It was, however, the French king’s prestige that was boosted by the incident, and Henry comes out of it looking rather sheepish, calling for a rematch that never took place. Florange’s reference to Françis’s mastery of a special wrestling technique highlights the French king’s prowess at the sport but also reveals that this was a learnt skill rather than innate physical superiority, unintentionally underlining the staged theatricality of the episode. While Castiglione underscored the importance of disguising the theatrical operations underlying personal excellence, and that apparently innate ability was visually and rhetorically more impressive than obviously learnt skills, this was an illusion that took years of practice and rehearsal to pull off. In his memoir Florange reveals the theatrical basis of royal accomplishments, as does Henry’s failure to overcome his rival in a wrestling match (see Figure 13.1). So theatrical improvisation is a risky strategy but one with great prestigeenhancing potential. Francis understood this, and his major deviation from Wolsey’s scripted ‘instrument’ dictating the procedure of the festivities shows planning and preparation as he made a lightning raid on the English camp in the early hours one morning. This key event of the summit revealed the kings’ determination to outshine each other, part of a broader strategy to gain pre-eminence on an international stage. It also shows the disingenuity employed in the declarations of friendship, cloaking the deeply embedded competition between the two. Florange tells us that Francis got up unusually early ‘qui n’estoit poinct homme souspectionneux’, managed to avoid English guards and archers to visit Henry at eight in the morning, and ‘hurter à la porte’ of the privy chamber, where Henry was in a state of undress. The French author of ‘La Description’ mentions this episode in passing, dating it to Sunday 17 June, with the comment (as translated by J. S. Brewer), ‘This action removed all suspicion from the minds of the English’. These remarks suggestively cite English suspicion of the French as a given. Furthermore, Florange’s remark about Francis’s uncharacteristic early rising, so that no one would suspect him, suggests not only English suspicion of him but also that the French king deliberately sought to surprise Henry in this way. His wearing of ‘une cappe a la espaignolz’ also indicates that he rejected his normal regal splendour for a soldier’s field outfit, a sartorial gesture confirming that he was engaged in a semi-military assault on the English settlement.16 ‘Hurter à la porte’ may be translated as ‘knock at the door’, but it also has the sense of ‘bang’ or ‘strike’, suggesting that this was a forceful approach. Hall says that Henry welcomed Francis in a ‘frendly and honourable maner’ and goes on to say that he went off to the French castle at Ardres for a feast while Francis was similarly entertained at Guînes. Whatever his intention, Francis clearly timed his visit for an unusually early hour; Florange reports that Francis declared himself Henry’s lackey, and then helped him on with his shirt, while another account by a Venetian adds that Francis declared himself Henry’s prisoner and they heard mass together.

Source: Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

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Figure 13.1 Henry VIII and Francis I seemingly engaged in a wrestling match, a detail in The Field of Cloth of Gold, Anglo-Netherlandish School, c.1520–50, Unknown artist. RCIN 405794.13.

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Figure 13.2 François Ier, roi de France by the school of Jean Clouet (1475/1485–1540) Inv3256. Source: © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/Michel Urtado

From the French perspective, the episode is explicable in terms of the court custom of the levée, where the monarch’s status is asserted through the ritualised process of being dressed by attendant courtiers, and Florange makes this explicit in his account, stating that the French king, ‘se voullut lever le roy d’Angleterre’.17 This

Performing Power and Theatricalisation  201 ritualised and theatrical expression of subservience is counterpointed by Florange’s description of the French monarch’s vigorous evasion of the English guards and governor of the castle, showing how he exploited surprise and his military prowess to make his presence potent rather than subservient. As Florange says of Henry, ‘ne fust jamais homme sy esbahys [taken aback] que fut le roy d’Anglettere’. Henry, stripped of all the trappings of kingship and in a bizarre inversion of the tradition of chivalric or courtly love, became the desired object of Francis’s declaration of loyalty and servitude. As Richardson says, Francis, ‘presented himself as a sort of gift to Henry’.18 In keeping with the summit’s insistence on parity, Henry gifted himself to the French king by return, saying ‘je me rends vostre prisonnier’. This episode, then, is yet a further instance of competition between the two men, this time revolving around which of them could express the most loyalty and amity utilising the rhetoric of chivalry. Francis manipulated the custom of the French levée to produce a negative image of the Tudor masque, for instead of being the sole centre of the action, dressed in costume redolent with power and iconography, Henry in his linen nightshirt was a blank page on which Francis inscribed his own status as a physically powerful Renaissance prince (see Figure 13.2). The practice of the levée normally involved the monarch’s collusion in the ceremony; however, the fact that the English king and his attendants were not accustomed to the levée or fully aware of its symbolism is signalled by the way in which Hall and Holinshed gloss over it, and Francis’s evasion of the castle guards indicates further that he was not expected. Henry’s state of undress rendered him vulnerable, undermining the construct of power he normally evoked through his use of splendid costume, designed to accentuate his masculinity by exaggerating his muscular physique. Thus, Henry was forced to show himself stripped of the costume of state, and Francis’s gesture of making a gift of himself to the temporarily disempowered Henry was perhaps the grandest and most magnanimous gesture the French king could make in terms of the royal culture of gift exchange, the ultimate expression of royal largesse. It is not surprising, therefore, that Henry sought to reclaim lost prestige by declaring himself Francis’s prisoner and giving him a collar worth 30,000 ducats, made of rubies, diamonds and pearls, in the centre of which was an enormous pendant ruby in the shape of a heart, so large it was referred to as a carbuncle. To reciprocate, the French king presented Henry with a jewelled bracelet, but Florange’s brief reference to it suggests that it was of far less value and visual impact compared with Henry’s collar. Nevertheless, in the egalitarian spirit of the meeting, Henry was obliged to return the early morning visit a few days later while Francis was still in bed. This visit was attended by no particular ceremony or gift giving, rather the two monarchs dined and then went to the lists. Henry’s choice not to reproduce the levée may indicate that he was uncomfortable with this foreign practice and did not wish to engage in it a second time, in case he came off worse yet again; or perhaps more obviously, that he did not understand it. In the competition of prestige between the two monarchs Henry had lost the initiative because of Francis’s improvised visit, but he had sought to regain ground with an outstanding show of princely largesse.

202  Lesley Mickel Masquing played an important part of the theatricalised festivities of 1520 and presented an opportunity for Henry to intervene in the ongoing political and diplomatic tensions between the two nations. On 18 June, after his early morning visit from Francis, Henry went to visit Queen Claude at Ardres, where he feasted in great state. We are told by Hall that ‘after diner the ladies dressed them to daunce, the king the more to glad the queen & the sayde ladies, departed secretly and put hymself with xxix persons more in masquers apparel’.19 We already know that Henry loved to stage and perform in masques, so Hall’s comment that it was to please the French queen and her ladies seems disingenuous. Given that Henry staged this masque on the same day as Francis’s destabilising early morning visit, it could be seen as a response to the French king’s assertion of his physical strength and royal power at Henry’s expense, albeit filtered through the courtesy of the leveé. This view of the masque is not undermined by the fact that Henry must have had all the costumes and props brought from England in anticipation, as his timing of it makes the masque respond to Francis’s recent actions. The element of secrecy is a key signature of Henry’s masquing, where the combination of surprise entry, the mysterious disguise and the delayed pleasure of eventual revelation is enacted. Francis had also exploited the dramatic impact of secrecy with the levée earlier in the day. Within courtly masque the motif of secrecy, disguise and revelation is, of course, a theatrical indulgence on the part of the performers and spectators, for it must have been obvious that the masquer with the most gorgeous costume, and the biggest part to play, was in fact the king.20 The English masquers were divided into three groups of ten, the first dressed in Scandinavian costume, the second as old men and the third in bizarre, rich robes with visors and beards of cloth of gold. While on the surface the three groups of masquers and their costumes appear to be notable merely for their material magnificence, they all emphasise English economic wealth, political strength and a powerful monarchy. The Scandinavian disguises evoked the costume of ‘farre Estland [Eastland]’ and were a spectacular confection of scarlet satin and cloth of gold, accessorised with fur belts, purses and Danish hats. With this performance the English masquers reminded the French of the geographical stretch of England’s economic trade and the great wealth generated by exports of finished cloth, as well as other goods.21 While some of the costumes may have been commissioned for the meeting in France, others were drawn from the royal wardrobe and were pragmatically reused. Hall tells us that the second group of masquers, the ‘old men’, wore ‘long gounes of blewe Satten of auncient fashion embroidered with reasons of golde’.22 The previous September Henry hosted French hostages at his palace of Beaulieu and entertained them with a masque where there were eight masquers with white beards, and long and large garments of blew satin paned with sipers, poudered with spangles of bullion gold, and they dansed with the ladies sadlie, and grauelie . . . all these were somewhat aged, the youngest man was fiftie at the least. The ladies had good sport to see these ancient persons masquers.23

Performing Power and Theatricalisation  203 It seems that Henry grafted this novel masque onto his entertainment for the French court, for the costumes’ embroidered ‘reasons of gold’ that were part of his masque at Ardres, correspond with those sporting the embroidered motto ‘adieu jeunesse’, worn the year before at Beaulieu. As well as matching costume details, the distinctive theme of old men dancing in a masque normally reserved for young courtiers also identifies the French masque of old men as the same as the one staged at Beaulieu. There are obviously practical advantages to reusing masque costumes, but these old men costumes were viewed as particularly suitable for a French audience. Both at Beaulieu and at Ardres this unusual masque costume alluded directly to an episode in Tudor history now known as ‘the expulsion of the minions’ and clearly deemed by Henry to be of immediate relevance to his French audience. The minions were young boon companions of the king who in September 1518 were given the official status of Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and yet a mere nine months later were replaced by individuals of more mature years and sober habits. These minions were great Francophiles; while in France as part of the Treaty of London negotiations they had been flattered by Francis and acquired a rowdy reputation. While this may not have endeared them to the people of Paris, they were no less unpopular at home; as Hall says, ‘their fall was little moned emong wise men’, and given Holinshed’s description of the xenophobia sweeping London at the time it was politic to put distance between Henry and his Francophile minions.24 The factors leading to the removal of these young men are still controversial, but Francis himself was in no doubt that it was because ‘they wished to be on good terms with . . . [François], whereas the grandees were opposed to his interests’.25 This particular masque invention reminded the French ladies that despite the similarities between the two young monarchs, unlike Francis, Henry had put away his youthful folly (‘Adieu Jeunesse’ as the inscriptions on the costumes read) and was now advised by mature and wise counsellors. Given the French king’s understanding of the expulsion, the masque’s allusion to it indicated mutual scepticism about Anglo-French relations. The final masquing group, including Henry, wore the richest costumes of cloth of gold lined with green taffeta. These materials were also used for curious visors and the masquers wore beards made of fine gold wire. In terms of the costumes as a whole, these were the richest and strangest and offered the most complete disguise with visors and beards. The reason for this must have been to disguise the king’s identity, so that within the masque his virtue, personal prowess and stature identify him rather than any superficial badge of kingship: through adopting the strategy of anonymity Henry asserted his unique difference. This use of disguise as revelation of innate superiority is closely related to the ideology of sprezzatura, a courtly practice designed to reinforce personal power, and here, in an international context. Henry harnessed the protocols of masque to make political and personal points at the expense of his rival, highlighting English economic strength, political know-how and charismatic leadership. This expression of superiority is particularly bold, given that it was made in the French camp to a French audience.

204  Lesley Mickel On 22 June, 22 masqued processions were the finale to a day of religious and chivalric festivity, with the English proceeding to Ardres in disguise and the French to Guînes in similar fashion. The English band of masquers was even larger than on the previous occasion with forty participants divided into groups of ten; two of the groups were female courtiers led by Mary, Henry’s sister and dowager Queen of France. Henry appeared as Hercules, one of the nine worthies of Medieval and Renaissance literature, his costume mimicking Hercules’s lion skin and club with damask and cloth of gold. The female masquers wore costumes after Milanese and Genovese fashions, and the whole group processed towards Ardres, meeting a similar French procession en route to Guînes. The fictional integrity of the event was maintained for neither band de-visored until it came to its destination when identities were revealed prior to more feasting. The uniformity of the English masquers, where each group wore the same style of costume (apart from Henry, of course, and probably Mary) is implicitly acknowledged by Hall’s remark that ‘The French Masquers apparel was not all of one suite, but of severall fashions, of divers silks, some cut, some broched, some had plumes that were very fayre, but very beautifull was the sight’.26 Whereas Hall had previously criticised the variety of French dress as collapsing social boundaries, so that the nobles were not distinguished from the ‘braggery’, in this instance the multiplicity of colour and fabric produced a pleasing effect. Variety in costume was acceptable in masque but potentially problematic in the social arena outside it, because the masque’s governing visual aesthetic is one of rich strangeness, so often remarked on with approval by commentators. Henry, however, still preferred the massed effect of groups of masquers in identical costumes, and the sheer number involved, which was about four times as many as the norm, must have enhanced the impact made by massed dancers appearing in uniform costumes. Henry used his sure theatrical sense in an attempt to overshadow the French masquing procession, and the principles governing the dress worn by the English contingent for the festival as a whole also applied to the masques. Whether Henry succeeded in upstaging his rival on this occasion or not is speculation, but the inclusion of women in the procession suggests that he aimed at surprising the French with a novel twist on the celebrations so far.27 Mary certainly enjoyed masquing and had been involved in it as a princess in the Tudor court, but so far the festivities at Guînes and Ardres had been male dominated. Moreover, as the dowager Queen of France, Mary had kept some jewels that Francis wished returned for his wife’s use, so giving Mary such a prominent role in what was the finale of the meeting as a whole could be seen as provocative on Henry’s part. The Field of Cloth of Gold was a unique cultural and political event, providing rich materials for analysis by historians, scholars of literature, drama and culture. Examining this festival through the perspective of theatricalisation brings particular rewards, highlighting the dynamic relations between its many constituent elements, such as costume, gift exchange, improvisation, masquing, chivalric sports, religion and music, and the way in which these cultural displays were embedded in opposing political and national ideologies as well as exhibiting shared assumptions about courtly behaviour and accomplishment. I have touched on some of

Performing Power and Theatricalisation  205 these elements, but there is more to be said about the role of music and religion, for example and also further work to be done drawing on European contemporary accounts of the meeting. By focusing on the theatricalised elements of costume, improvisation, gift exchange and masquing, I have signalled the mutually constitutive operation of political power and culture in early modern court festivals and the way in which the theatrical and transformative power of culture is deployed to achieve political goals.

Notes 1 A longer version of this chapter has appeared as, ‘Theatricalisation and The Field of Cloth of Gold, 1520’, in S. Coelsch-Foisner and T. Heimerdinger (eds.), Theatricalisierung (Heidelberg, 2016). 2 M. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, 1975) uses a Marxist understanding of ideology to produce a view of the mechanisms of state power that chimes strongly with the idea of the theatricalisation of power and that it must be displayed convincingly before it can operate effectively over individuals. New Historicist and Cultural Materialist critics interested in the way in which culture and politics intersect in the Tudor period include Stephen Greenblatt (The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance (Colchester, 1983) and subsequent publications), Louis Montrose (The Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender and Representation (Chicago, 2007)), Alan Sinfield and Jonathan Dollimore (Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism (2nd ed., Manchester, 2012)) and Peter Stallybrass and Allon White (The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (New York, 1986)). Theatrical re-enactments of historical pageants have been popular from the late nineteenth to the present time: the 2008 Dover Pageant re-enacted the meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I. The Field of Cloth of Gold also features in the many popular novels set in the Tudor period, and The Tudors were the subject of a recent eponymous popular TV series (BBC: 2007–10). An important exhibition examining the background and significance of The Field of Cloth of Gold was mounted in Calais in 2012, and recorded in the following publication C. Giry-Deloison, 1520 Le Camp du drap d’or: La rencontre d’Henri VIII et de Francois Ier (Paris, 2012). The recognition of the theatricality inherent in monarchy was not unique to the Tudors of course, and Michael Brauer has written in detail about this in relation to Charles V of France: M Brauer, ‘Politics or Leisure? A Day in the Life of King Charles V of France (1364–80)’, Journal of Medieval History, 18/1 (2015), 46–63. 3 P. Pavis and C. Shantz, Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts and Analysis (Toronto, 1998), 39; S. Hulfield, ‘Modernist Theatre’, in D. Wiles and C. Dymkowski (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Theatre History (Cambridge, 2013), 17. 4 For the religious and political contexts of this scepticism regarding theatrical display, see L. Levine, Men in Women’s Clothing: Anti-theatricality and Effeminisation, 1579– 1642 (Cambridge, 1994). 5 B. Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (London, 1528; new ed., 1967), 67; Elyot recognises that education leading to excellence in the practice of art, music and dancing is essential for future rulers; The Boke Called the Governor (1531), www.luminarium. org/renascence-editions/gov/gov2.htm, accessed 14 July 2015. 6 The contemporary historical texts consulted for the research in this article include Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland in Six Volumes (London, 1587), this edition printed for J. Johnstone (London, 1807–8); E. Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre & Yorke .  .  . (London, 1547); ‘La description et ordre du camp, festins et joustes’ (Paris, 1520), available in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 3: 1519–1523 (1867), ed. J.

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S. Brewer (London, 1867); Mémoires Du Maréchal De Florange (1505–21) (Paris, 1913); ‘Two Fruytful Sermons’ (1520/21), C. A. Hatt (ed.), English Works of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (1469–1535) (Oxford, 2002). See Note 3. Hatt (ed.), Fisher, 229; Hall, Union, lxxvii. Hatt (ed.), Fisher, 227. G. Richardson, The Field of Cloth of Gold (New Haven, CT and London, 2013), 38. Hatt (ed.), Fisher, 228. Hall, Union, lxxvi. Ibid., 38. Hall, Union, lxxvi; ‘La Description’, no. 869. The account of the wrestling match may have been shaped by Florange’s national bias, but there is no reason to doubt the basic facts; Florange, 272. ‘La Description’, no. 870. At the Uffizi Gallery is Clouet’s 1540 portrait of Francis I on horseback, showing him wearing military armour and a soft cap; unlike a helmet a cap allowed for greater flexibility of movement and freedom of vision, making it suitable wear for a guerrilla-style operation such as his surprise early morning visit to Henry. This episode would count as an early example of the French custom of the royal levée. The practice at the court of Louis XIV is described in detail by N. Elias, The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford, 1983), 83–6. Florange, 269. Richardson, Field of Cloth of Gold, 166. Hall, Union, lxxx. Twycross and Carpenter reveal the playful relationship between identity and disguise in Henry VIII’s masques where the apparent uniformity of masque costume does not apply to the monarch, whose costume sports subtle but distinct differences. The anonymity of disguise meant that the king displayed his natural prowess or virtue, but ‘the person of the king must at some point, in some way, be seen through the mask’. So Henry’s costume usually matched his fellow masquers, ‘but more so’: M. Twycross and S. Carpenter, Masks and Masking in Medieval and Early Tudor Britain (Aldershot, 2002), 149. English trade with Eastland can be traced to the expansion of commerce established by Henry VII, ‘The exports of England were sent as far north as the Baltic and as far south and east as Venice’, C. Pope, A Lecture on the Origin, Progress, and Present State of Shipping, Navigation and Commerce (London, 1825), 22. Trade with Eastland was established as early as the fifteenth century: R. W. K. Hinton, The Eastland Trade and the Commonweal in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1959), 2. Hall, Union, lxxx. Holinshed, Chronicles, 640. Hall, Union, lxxix; Holinshed, Chronicles, 639. D. Starkey, ‘From Feud to Faction: English Politics 1450–1550’, History Today, 32/11 (1982). Starkey describes the minions in France, where ‘they behaved rather like a Rugby tour, riding with the French King .  .  . daily disguised through the streets of Paris, throwing eggs, stones and other foolish trifles at the people’. Greg Walker sees the expulsion of the minions as related to their antisocial behaviour and to government restructuring: ‘The Expulsion of the “Minions” of 1519 Reconsidered’, The Historical Journal, 32 (1989), 1–16. Hall, Union, lxxxiii. Women certainly danced in the French and English courts at this time, however, when Henry appeared in masque dances it was always with a group of male dancers. Women were invited to join the revels, a novelty introduced to the Tudor court in 1512, and receiving a mixed reception.

14 ‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’ Context and Consequences of the Field of Cloth of Gold Glenn Richardson Though these Prynces of whom we spake of before, were not so/but they had dyvers wills, dyvers councels, and no perdurable amity, as after that did well appear. These Prynces were mortal and mutable, and so their wills did change and not abide.1 Thus, John Fisher, the bishop of Rochester, characterised the Field of Cloth of Gold somewhile after it occurred in June 1520. As a reforming Christian humanist prelate, Fisher cast the spectacular meeting between Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France as a poor counterfeit of the true splendours of the heavenly kingdom, and his sermon reflected vividly on the emptiness of the material display which marked the Field. In its dispraise, he summoned once more the winds that had filled the air with rain at the Field, torn down the French king’s tents and ‘shaked sore the houses that were builded for pleasure’. He opined that ‘many great men’s’ coffers were emptied and many were brought to ‘a great ebb and poverty’ and alleged that some had even died as a result. He even reflected, a touch sourly perhaps, that all the splendid fabrics worn or displayed there were ‘borrowed of other creatures’, from the backs of sheep, the hides of deer and other beasts and in the case of silk ‘out of the entrails of worms’. He had no time for the human skills and ingenuity required to fashion them into the splendid garments and dressings that adorned the Field. Perhaps, more tellingly for present purposes, however, Fisher also made a connection between magnificence and competitiveness: Never was seen in England such excess of apparelment before, as has been used ever since. and thereof also must needs arise much heart burning and secret envy amongst many for the apparel . . . Thus many for these pleasures were the worse, both in their bodies and in their souls.2 Competition and ostentatious showing-off definitely characterised the event and masked a good deal of hidden ‘heart burning’ on each side about the apparent DOI: 10.4324/9781003284154-19

208  Glenn Richardson aims and ambitions of the other. Fisher was also right that the immediate circumstances of the Field ‘did not abide’ for very long after. The fact that Henry and Francis were at war with each other within two years of the event invites an understandable scepticism about their expressed desire for peace. Appearances were, however, somewhat deceptive. The real longer-term consequences of the event were not immediately obvious to Fisher, or anyone else, at the time of his sermon. Whether he liked it or not, knowledge of the temporary magnificence of the exceptional royal progress that was the Field assists us to better understand the society and the culture of the early Tudor court that produced it. It was a court culture of which Fisher, for all his moralising finger-wagging, had long been part. His connections with the king’s regime, from the early patronage of him by Margaret Beaufort to his appointment as a bishop, had seen to that. After all, had he not been at the event himself, he would not have been in a position to give the kind of critical sermon about what he observed there that he later delivered.3 Fisher’s scepticism has echoed down the centuries in English and to some extent in French historiography. The Field has become a byword for extravagant display and ostentatious consumption in early modern Europe. The difficulty for anyone looking at it from this distance is to identify what its meanings were for its participants. In the first full modern study of the Field, written in 1969, Joycelene Russell explained the meeting’s context and arrangements. The book provided a great deal of detail and incident in marvelling at the organisation and spectacle of the Field but portrayed it as having ‘no tangible result’ and being ‘in fact merely an excuse for a party on a grand scale’, even as it also ‘assaulted the popular imagination, both then and since’.4 That was, and still is in some circles at least, a view of the Field, and of temporary magnificence more generally, but not one that gets us very far towards understanding the culture that created it. The 1520 meeting involved a great many more people than the 11,000–12,000 in the two royal entourages that actually attended it. The figure may be more like 20,000 when one includes those who created the event; the masons, carpenters, glaziers and tent makers, the sailors who manned ships and who erected the tents, the seamstresses, musicians, carters and muleteers, blacksmiths, brewers, cooks, servants and general labourers – very few of whose names survive. The time and logistics it required were extraordinary, as was the range of human labour required to stage it. Late medieval elite culture celebrated the virtue of ‘magnificence’ but distinguished it from pointless extravagance or profligacy. Given that people in any age do not usually invest time and money hugely in an event that means little or nothing to them what, then, was the significance of this exceptional royal progress? The Field of Cloth of Gold was first and foremost an international tournament at which Henry and Francis publicly inaugurated the Treaty of Universal Peace, agreed to by most European powers two years earlier. Since Francis’s victory at the battle of Marignano in September 1515, and his conquest of the duchy of Milan, Henry and his adviser Cardinal Wolsey had tried various strategies to curb his power. They wanted Henry, not Francis, to be prominent in Europe. An international peace and mutual defence agreement was organised by Wolsey under Henry’s auspices and (notionally at least) of Pope Leo X, who had called in 1517

‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’  209 for a truce among Christian rulers in hopes of a united front against the advancing Ottomans. Tied into the peace by a separate Anglo-French alliance, and theoretically already committed to war beyond Christendom, Francis could have no further Italian adventures. That suited Henry and Leo very well. All participants were welcomed to London for the treaty signing in October 1518. Writing in the aftermath of the First World War and within two years of the start of the Second, Garret Mattingly usefully characterised the 1518 agreements as together constituting an ‘early international non-aggression pact’. To be successful, it had to have the commitment of all, including the European leader of the highest status at the time, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.5 In searching for a reason why it did not finally prove successful as a mechanism for European peace, insincerity and deception have been detected on all sides. It is easy to assume, as have historians from A. F. Pollard down to G. R. Elton, that Henry’s relations with Francis were always essentially bad and those with Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis’s younger and powerful rival, were good or at least neutral until the mid-1520s. It is also easy to infer from that assumption that it was therefore always Henry’s intention to deceive Francis (and that he in fact did so) in 1520. After all, Henry met Charles at Dover and Canterbury immediately before the Field and at Calais shortly afterwards. There, it has often been argued, he stitched up a deal with the emperor that nullified in all but name any commitments made to Francis.6 In other words, the Field was all an expensive piece of disingenuous theatre. That is possible. Theatrical it certainly was. Expensive, too. Yet the bulk of the evidence, not least its expense, suggests that the Field is better understood as a high-risk but genuine effort to use what might today be called ‘soft power’, as an implicit demonstration of potential hard power, to bring about an outcome that was advantageous to both its hosts. In 1520, Henry and Francis met each other at the Field of Cloth of Gold to reinforce their own positions under their alliance through an offer of cooperation and the threat of its opposite (see Figures 14.1 and 14.2). Neither of them was committed to war with the other in 1520, but neither were they committed to permanent peace purely for its own sake. Henry and Wolsey were doing through this event what they had done through the lavish entertainments provided for the French ambassadors who had come to London in 1518, to conclude the treaty of Universal Peace. For Henry, the Field was an offer of peace matched with a warning that if Francis broke the rules of the treaty so favourable to the king of England, he would be attacked. For his part, Francis was also doing again what he had done at the end of 1518. Then he had welcomed English noblemen to Paris and entertained them as allies, as supporters of his own prominence in that peace agreement, as the victor of Marignano, the duke of Milan and the foremost leader of Christendom. Francis was genuinely hopeful that his offer of friendship would be accepted by Henry because it was advantageous to him and, at the Field, Francis showed his determination to be the king of France, and all that meant internationally, in deed as well as name. Francis made this clear at his first meeting with Henry on 7 June. Apparently hoping to put the king of England at his ease but also impress him with his

210  Glenn Richardson

Figure 14.1  Francis I, King of France, after Joos van Cleve, c.1530, RCIN 403433. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

sincerity and power, Francis told him that he was happy to have crossed his vast kingdom to meet him. His commitment to peace was thereby implicitly emphasised through the travel and movement of the court. To which Henry is said to have replied, a little tetchily perhaps: Sir, neither your realmes nor other the places of you power is the matter of my regard, but the steadfastnes and loyal kepyng

‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’  211

Figure 14.2 Henry VIII by Joos van Cleve, c.1530–35, RCIN 403368. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

of promesse, comprised in charters between you and me; that observed and kepte, I never sawe prince with my iyen, that might of my harte be more loved.7 In other words, Henry reminded Francis, as large as his beautiful kingdom was, he needed his cooperation to have any importance in Christendom beyond it under the new dispensation of the Universal Peace and that he had better stick to the

212  Glenn Richardson terms of their agreement. Why else had he undertaken the journey for which he now praised himself? Francis’s response came a few moments later when their alliance agreement was formally reviewed and Henry’s title as ‘King of France’ was read out. An embarrassed Henry said ‘expunge that title’ and that it was ‘good for nothing’. Francis’s counter-intuitive reaction was first to insist on the value and honour of the title ‘King of France’ by ordering that the title be read again. Then he said: my brother, now that you are my friend you are the King of France, king of all my possessions, and of me myself: but without friendship I acknowledge no other king of France than myself. Francis was really saying that Henry could call himself whatever he liked; he remained dependent upon Francis’s goodwill and active support if he was to have the kind of significant role in Europe envisaged by the Universal Peace whose champion he claimed to be. Why else, after all, was Henry there? Imprecise though they are, such estimates of cost that can be made to demonstrate that, for both kings, the Field represented a serious investment. Each knew that the other had spent vast sums of money on hosting their meeting. Each intended by that expenditure to declare to the other and to a wide audience beyond those thousands participating in the Field, their capacity, confidence and competence as a monarch either to support advantageous peace throughout Christendom or to fight, if necessary, in defence of their dynastic rights.8 That this was the message of the meeting was made evident in the aftermath of the Field, when Henry turned to deal with the ruler who was very ambiguous about his commitment to the Universal Peace; not Francis I, but Charles V. From the moment he learned of it in February  1520, Charles was genuinely anxious about the Anglo-French meeting, just as he had been since 1518 about the rapprochement it celebrated which underpinned the Universal Peace. Despite a family connection of which both made much when it suited them, Henry and Charles were more strangers to each other in early 1520 than were Henry and Francis. By the spring of that year, Charles was planning his own full progress from Spain to the German lands. There he would be received and crowned as ‘King of the Romans’, following his election as ruler in June the previous year, in succession to his grandfather Maximilian of Habsburg. Henry agreed to meet Charles as he travelled from Spain readily enough, as it would remind both his rivals of his own significance. Francis expressed anger at Charles’s intervention but could do little to object to one member of the international non-aggression pact meeting with another. Accordingly, in May Charles called in to Dover on his way to the Netherlands and met Henry and his aunt Katherine for the first time at Canterbury. His earnest efforts to dissuade Henry from meeting Francis came to nothing, but it was agreed that he and Henry would meet immediately after the Field. To that end, and because Charles wished to stay close to events, the emperor-elect remained in Flanders throughout June, where he spent the time receiving the loyalty and adulation of his Flemish and German nobles. Although not formally a part of the

‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’  213 Field, Charles was determined that none should forget his near presence nor his importance for the success of the Universal Peace that the meeting apparently celebrated. The plan was for Henry and Charles to meet again at Gravelines on Wednesday 4 July, from where the emperor was to return to Calais on 7 July. There he would be entertained before Henry returned to England on or about 10 July.9 Henry duly arrived back in Calais from Guînes on 25 June and began to oversee preparations for the emperor’s visit. It was, then, something of a surprise when on 27 June the English agent in the Netherlands, Thomas Spinelly, reported a suggestion that the meeting between the two sovereigns should now take place at Bruges. ‘They had proposed Bruges as more commodious; Gravelines is not sufficient for the company’.10 While there does not seem to have been any suggestion that Charles would not eventually come to Calais as agreed, his receiving of a large number of his Flemish and German magnates appeared to be a useful card to play to highlight his own regional and wider importance. It is likely of course that the suggested alteration of the timing and location of the meeting was also prompted by the emperor’s need to use some of those same noblemen to augment the splendour of his own progress to English territory at Calais, and thus to ensure that it was all as well arranged and magnificent as possible within the terms of the agreement made in May. Unfortunately, unlike for his visit to England in 1522, we have no information about the size or composition of Charles’s entourage for that July movement of the court, beyond the names of his council and immediate household. While it was nothing like the approximately 6,000 people on either side who attended the Field, Charles would not want to have been too overshadowed; hence perhaps the suggestion that Bruges was more ‘commodious’ for the larger entourage he now wished to have about him when he met Henry. Charles was evidently putting on some temporary magnificence of his own. In spite of delaying tactics on the part of the emperor, designed to augment his own splendour for the meeting with Henry but also to create an opportunity for his two most senior officials to meet Wolsey before he arrived, Henry and Charles did meet finally on 10 July at Gravelines, and the emperor’s visit to Calais followed.11 A request for an Anglo-Imperial alliance to undermine the Field was turned down. Nothing in the face-saving treaty that was signed that July between Henry and Charles contradicted the pre-existing Anglo-French alliance. They agreed to exchange resident ambassadors for the first time, eighteen months after the first resident English and French ambassadors had been exchanged. They would send special representatives to Calais within two years to work towards increased cooperation between them and there were no proposals for an attack on France.12 This was surely not the grand alliance against France to which Henry was already supposedly committed by May 1520, as has so often been argued. The suggestion that Henry should go to Bruges for Charles’s convenience had been made to a king who had just confidently outfaced his greatest rival and asserted his international status and military potential in front of his own nobles, the French and before the ambassadors of half a dozen other European rulers into the bargain. Was he likely to do less now? Charles was quick enough to respond as Henry expected,

214  Glenn Richardson and the English thereafter maintained close contacts with the emperor as, indeed, they also wanted and were bound to do by the Universal Peace. His preponderant power in Europe did eventually bring about the Anglo-Imperial alliance he sought – but that was not until some two years later when the international situation had changed radically because of unilateral action by Francis. If Henry and Wolsey were apparently determined to stand, if not by Francis, then at least by the Universal Peace of which he was part, what was the attitude of the French king and his court to the meaning and effect of the display it had put on at Ardres? Immediately after the Field, Francis moved south to Abbeville, and from there to Amiens where he ordered new fortifications at the northern approaches to the city.13 From Amiens, Francis made his way to Chantilly and on to the royal château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye where Queen Claude gave birth to her fifth child, Madeleine.14 The French court and close entourage seem to have been reasonably satisfied with the Field, seeing it as a victory for Francis. His influential mother Louise of Savoy, herself always an advocate of Anglo-French peace, advised her son to trust that all would be well in respect of Milan. It was keeping the duchy in possession that had induced him to participate in Wolsey’s scheme for a universal peace, and he expected the king of England’s active assistance as an ally. To say that Francis ever reposed entire confidence in Henry would be wrong, but there was a certain optimism at this point that at least Charles could not monopolise English support.15 The optimistic spirit in the French court was encapsulated in a range of descriptions, encomiums and epic poetry about the Field written by a number of humanist scholars and rhetoricians, associated with the court, such as Clément Marot. It is striking how many of these were published in the months after the event, in dramatic contrast to the situation in England, where not a single account or description of it appeared. They include Jacobus Sylvius’s Francisci Francorum Regis et Henrici Anglorum Colloquium, which provides the fullest poetic account of the event. Also among them is the third volume of Commentaires de la guerre gallique, which dates from November 1520 and is now in the Musée Condé at Chantilly.16 In this poem, written by the king’s former tutor, François Demoulins, under the patronage of Louise of Savoy, the events at Guînes and Ardres frame and contextualise what is, in effect, an extended praise of Francis’s de facto imperial status as conqueror and duke of Milan. Like the first two volumes, which were completed in 1519, the year Charles of Spain became emperor-elect, the third begins with a fictitious meeting between Francis and Julius Caesar. This is said to have happened on Saturday 27 February 1520. Francis was at the royal château at Cognac, his birthplace, which is called in the poem ‘la maison de Daedalus’. The name of the house was perhaps intended to symbolise the inventiveness necessary for Francis to play Daedalus to Charles V’s Minos.17 Outside is the park and forest of Craige, near Angoulême. The two towns and the forest thus represent Francis’s dynasty and realm. In the poem’s narrative, a storm blows up, which seems to be an allegory of conflict with Charles. The king is sure that ‘whether the wind comes from Germany or Spain’ (the two centres of Habsburg power), the forest (of France) is strong enough to withstand it.18 The king’s close companions, the

‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’  215 French Admiral Guillaume de Bonnivet and Anne de Montmorency (who had represented Francis at Calais after the Field) watch the storm with him. They warn him against going out into it but Francis, because of ‘the magnanimity he possessed and his determination not to be afraid, he went out and entered the forest all alone leaving at the gate the two named gentlemen’.19 In the forest, Caesar greets Francis as a son and tells him that soon he will go to his town of Ardres near to where he will meet a king who will make him: joyous and good cheer; you will make him more honour than your power requires of you, but your humility and gracious eloquence will constrain him to love you and this will reduce the arrogance of the islanders. You also will be contented by him at this meeting, for he is a gracious prince.20 At the end of the conversation the king ‘returns to Angoulême and shortly afterwards sets out on the road to Ardres’. The section of the work in which this takes place also contains the only illustration in the three volumes of the Commentaires showing Caesar and Francis embracing. Demoulins praises the ‘virtuous bravery and firm constancy of our wise and loving Caesar’, drawing a clear connection between Caesar’s adoption of Francis and his claim to be the real ‘Holy Roman Emperor’. With reference to Henry, Caesar has advised Francis how, by gracious and magnanimous treatment he will make an ally of England. Written in the months after the Field, Demoulins’s poem offers a retrospective, very politicised, reading of Francis’s behaviour at the event. Its emphasis on the king’s personal bravery in leaving safety to encounter his destiny is of course intended to praise Francis’s character and motivation in joining the Universal Peace and meeting Henry. Yet this fictional encounter is evidently also intended to celebrate a real one that seems to have been for Francis the highlight of the Field. This was his apparently impromptu visit to Henry at Guînes Castle early on the second Sunday of the meeting. On the morning of 17 June, the French king rose early and accompanied by only a few courtiers rode over from Ardres to Guînes. There he demanded entry to the castle and to Henry’s private apartments. On entering them, he grandly declared himself to be Henry’s prisoner while assuring him of his good faith. He then offered or was invited to help Henry on with his shirt, as one of his own gentilhommes de la chambre would have done for him. A rather disconcerted Henry presented Francis with a jewelled collar, to which the French king responded with gifts of his own; either the collar he was wearing or expensive bracelets (the sources vary). Francis then stayed in the castle in the company of Queen Katherine and her household until it was time for the banquet later in the day at which he was expected.21 In making this spontaneous and unexpected gesture, Francis demonstrated both the courage for which Demoulins’s poem later praises him and perhaps arrogance. Arriving unannounced and calling himself Henry’s prisoner was apparently a demonstration of his own good faith and willingness

216  Glenn Richardson to trust Henry – that was certainly the prime meaning given to the visit publicly. But it was also a very provocative gesture that put Henry in a very difficult position because for as long as he was on English territory, Francis effectively made himself a hostage for whose safety and good treatment Henry became responsible. Apart from their first meeting on 7 June, the two kings had only ever been in each other’s company at the tournament enclosure. This was sited on the border of the Pale and French territory and was, in effect, neutral ground. Of course, Francis’s strategic security was exactly what the Universal Peace itself purported to offer him. He may have been trying to get Henry literally to act out the role of host and protector he claimed for himself. Francis’s ‘invasion’ of Henry’s private space deprived his rival of the protection of the tight protocols that had hitherto governed the meeting. Henry had been forced to allow Francis to help him dress and had apparently to scrabble about to find a gold collar of sufficient value to give him as a token of esteem. The visit was in fact a bold assertion by Francis of his right as one sovereign to behave familiarly towards another, to presume upon Henry’s promise of friendship in an extraordinarily personal manner and in a way that forced Henry into magnanimous reciprocal gestures that he may have preferred not to make. In his account of the Field and of this particular encounter, the nobleman and author the seigneur de Florange says that he remonstrated with Francis on his return to Ardres that day for having taken such a risk. But he also noted that Francis had become increasingly frustrated by the atmosphere of suspicion which had dominated the encounters of the previous ten days. As Florange knew, from his childhood Francis’s character had shown a measure of unpredictability, boisterousness and physical bravery, expressed in his love of games, practical jokes and rough-and-tumble. The chronicle of the Bourgeois de Paris notes how the young Francis sometimes rode through Paris in disguise with companions and engaged in petty vandalism. In 1518, the young king, in such a company among whom were several visiting English courtiers, did just this, ‘throwing eggs, stones and other foolish trifles at the people, which light demeanour in a king was much discommended and jested at’. Francis famously accepted Henry’s challenge to wrestle at the Field.22 Seven months later, during a mock siege of a house belonging to the comte de Saint-Pol at Romorantin in January 1521, someone accidentally or otherwise dropped a heavy smouldering log or torch on the king’s head from an upstairs window. He was knocked unconscious, and his life was in danger for some time.23 Francis’s natural disposition to an impromptu act of bravado was probably also encouraged by the fact that his court was on progress at the time. It has often been noted that while away from the major residences, on journeys and (more regularly) while hunting, the daily rituals and ceremony that surrounded monarchs were significantly diminished. At such times rulers were more accessible to their subjects; to the nobles they visited or hunted with and the people more generally with whom they could interact, often receiving small gifts as expressions of loyalty. Francis clearly felt himself free enough, for all the diplomatic protocols, to act as he did and calculated, rightly, that the same tradition of ease of access on progress would help him to see Henry.

‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’  217 Eighteen years later, in July  1538, at the coastal town of Aigues-Mortes in the south of France, Francis would do something very similar at an encounter with Charles V to discuss peace over Milan. Charles sailed to the French coast from Spain, and his galley dropped anchor in the bay. The meeting was governed by protocols at least as strict as those of 1520. It had been agreed that the two men would first greet each other on land at the port. It surprised everyone, then, when Francis suddenly ordered that he be rowed out to the emperor’s galley and demanded to come aboard. He did so in such a forceful way that a very disconcerted Charles felt compelled to offer Francis his hand and to help him on to the deck of the ship, where they embraced. A few days later Francis made an impromptu visit to Charles, encountering him in his private chamber just as he was awakening from his afternoon siesta, helping the emperor to dress and offering him expensive gifts which Charles had to reciprocate.24 Whether in the longer-term Francis’s confrontational approach to visiting and gift-giving worked quite as well as he hoped in 1520 (and indeed in 1538) may be doubted. But in the short term, it worked like a charm. The Mantuan ambassador reported from the Field that, two days later, the English king duly responded with a somewhat ponderous early morning visit to Ardres of his own. There was another round of gift-exchanges. The Mantuan report neatly captures how Francis’s competitive gift-giving, and the breaking of protocol during the progress, had worked. He observed: The whole court of France rejoices, for until now, no mark of confidence had been displayed by the English king; nay in all matters he invariably evinced small trust; but the Most Christian King has compelled him to make this demonstration, having set the example by placing himself with such assurance in his hands last Sunday in the Castle of Guînes.25 Evidently aware of the way Francis was gaining esteem among the nobles for his visit, Henry had little choice but to reciprocate and simultaneously try to outflank Francis publicly by giving full weight to his claim to have visited to honour Henry as a good brother. This was certainly the interpretation placed upon it and relayed back to Henry by the royal council in England. In a letter to him of 23 June, the councillors praised Henry for the general success of the meeting and specifically mentioned: also of the speciall truste and confidence that the said Frenshe king haith in your highnes manifestly declared by his subdain repaire and commyng unto your grace into your said castell of Guysnes, and putting hymselfe hooly into your handes, which approveth his desirous and affectuous mynde to attaine your favour and amitie, and the moor specially because he canne not be satisfied till he have visited and seen your grace within this your realme.26

218  Glenn Richardson A very similar spirit inhabits Demoulins’s poem on the French side, asserting as it does that it was Francis who, moved by his imagined imperial mentor Caesar and by destiny, had shown the greatest bravery and magnanimity during the Field. It is evidence that in the months afterwards, Francis’s regime wanted to believe that he had personally and effectively co-opted the English into a celebration of his own power and that he had the right to expect the support of Henry in the achievement of his own ambitions. A full discussion of subsequent events, of Francis’s covert strike at imperial territory in the spring of 1521, and the outbreak of war with Charles lies beyond the scope of this chapter. In short, despite the grand scheme, Francis fretted that the longer he kept peace with Charles, the stronger the latter became and threatened not so much France, but his hold on Milan. Wolsey initially tried to resolve the conflict under the terms of the Universal Peace at a conference he convened in Calais in July 1521. By the late summer, however, the cardinal had concluded that an alliance with Charles would better serve Henry’s interests, although he still wanted to postpone any military commitment against Francis for as long as possible. By the end of the year, Francis had lost Tournai, and worse still, Milan, to Charles. Henry’s armies invaded France again in 1523, but due to confused aims and logistics, achieved no strategic success. Having fought Charles to a standstill, Francis attempted to regain Milan in late 1524. He crossed the Alps and besieged Pavia. There, on 24 February  1525, he was defeated in pitched battle against imperial forces trying to break the French siege. He was taken prisoner to Spain and had to sign the disadvantageous treaty of Madrid to be released from captivity. He returned to France in March 1526, leaving his two eldest sons as hostages for his performance of the treaty.27 Even before his release, it was a capacity to make an honourable, ‘chivalric’ peace first essayed in 1518–20 that proved essential in re-establishing Francis’s control over his kingdom and holding it from Charles. A new concord with Henry, organised once more by Wolsey from as early as the summer of 1524, culminated in the third great Anglo-French peace and alliance of his reign, the so-called Eternal Peace of 1527. Once again, temporary magnificence was deployed to inaugurate it. A banqueting house was built at Greenwich Palace to house entertainments for a large group of French ambassadors who came for the signing of the Treaty of Westminster in April 1527. Its decoration recalled both the temporary palace of 1520 and the French tented ‘house of solace’ built (but never used) at Ardres; itself modelled on a temporary banqueting hall created in the courtyard of the Bastille on the night of the winter solstice in 1518 to celebrate the Treaty of Universal Peace. Like the Bastille courtyard construction, the 1527 Greenwich banqueting house had a constellation ceiling. It was painted in part at least by Holbein, according to designs by Nicholas Kratzer, Henry’s German-born astronomer royal. The same banqueting house was then refurbished for a second embassy in November 1527, led by Anne de Montmorency, that came to ratify the Eternal Peace agreed by Wolsey and Francis at Amiens in July that year and for celebrations that included the exchange between the kings of membership of each other’s chivalric orders, the Garter and the Saint-Michel.28

‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’  219 Henry’s campaign for an annulment of his marriage also began in 1527. The consequent break from Rome meant that Francis became Henry’s only effective European ally. The two kings met again at Boulogne and Calais over the course of a week in October  1532. The temporary magnificence of that occasion was somewhat more restrained, as was the feasting and dancing, but once again lavish gifts were exchanged, including a special camp-bed given to Henry by Francis.29 Francis did make considerable efforts to assist Henry and to press the papacy for an annulment, using his cardinals and ambassadors in Rome, but never at the expense of his own interests or advantage there. Nevertheless, isolated as he was, Henry had little choice but to maintain relations with Francis, even if these were often rancorous and always difficult.30 Francis, in turn, expected much more active support from Henry against Charles. Frustrated by Francis’s indifference, Henry finally invaded France for the fourth time, and the second in person, in 1544. He conquered Boulogne but nothing more and the resulting stalemate led to a final peace agreement with Francis in 1546. By then the idea of peace, inaugurated all those years ago at the Field of Cloth of Gold, was rather more mangled than magnificent. The temporary structures made for the Field, the banqueting palace, the tents and the tiltyard, were all disassembled and taken back to England, where they were stored in the Great Wardrobe and ancillary warehousing and eventually repurposed or redistributed over the course of the following decade and more. The same was true of the French structures. The rich fabrics that had adorned the French tents were later audited and accounted for while the canvas was used again in tents for Francis’s war of 1521. The English temporary palace in particular had been a demonstration of the technical expertise and confidence of its builders. Whether it was designed by Wolsey, by Henry, or both of them working together, it was meant to announce the English regime’s appreciation of classical decorative design and its capacity to innovate. Precisely because it was temporary, the palace at Guînes could be far more daring and impressive than might be a more prosaic permanent building. The monumental gateway of the palace with its huge scallopshell pediment flanked by English roses was a dramatic statement of Renaissance chic. Most of that work was carried out by talented English craftsmen directed by master masons and painters who served the royal court. That court was already in direct contact with Italian expertise as well in the persons of Pietro Torrigiano, Benedetto da Rovezzano and particularly Giovanni da Maiano, who seems to have been responsible for the roundels of classical figures that decorated the palace. He would go on to create a more permanent set of eight similar roundels for Wolsey at Hampton Court and do further influential work for other English courtiers.31 Notwithstanding its temporary nature, the Field was a significant impetus in England’s long engagement with the Continental Renaissance. This had pre-dated Henry’s reign but reached a high point under him. Particularly during the 1540s when, due to the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry’s finances allowed him to patronise ambitious projects, the French court was the principal conduit of artistic influence in England and still its principal cultural competitor. In the context

220  Glenn Richardson of their personal rivalry since the Field, Henry was kept well informed by his ambassadors of Francis’s architectural and artistic patronage, and a number of artists and artisans who had worked for Francis also worked for Henry. These included Nicolas Bellin of Modena, who had worked at Fontainebleau and came to England in about 1539–40, where he worked on the decoration of Nonsuch palace. Conscious of the extraordinary portraits Jean and then François Clouet had produced for Francis and his court since the early 1520s, Henry secured one of the greatest European portraitists ever. In Hans Holbein he found an artist of truly international standing whose iconic images of Henry helped to make him the most famous king in English history.

Conclusion The Field of Cloth of Gold lay between two worlds in at least two senses. First, between that of realpolitick, of agreements and strategic aims and military action, and the world of what we would call political ‘spin’; of presentation and atmospherics designed to communicate national ambitions and to assert status. It also looked backwards towards an imagined, or at least idealised, world where the values of chivalry could serve Christian unity, and concerted action by princes in the service of a single religious ideal was thought possible and desirable; a world which Leo X, Wolsey and perhaps even the kings themselves were trying to bring about by the Universal Peace. The particular circumstances of having three young, dynamic and ambitious kings on three of Europe’s principal thrones at the same time heightened the potential for unity. It made it seem, perhaps, more tangible than it had ever been before. Yet, paradoxically, it also made that unity impossible because of the intense rivalry between them. By the time the kings met in 1520, the possibility of Christendom forged into united action by the will of individual kings, popes and cardinal legates a latere was already lost – if indeed it had ever really existed. Nevertheless, the idealism of the Field was as real as any in human experience and deserves to be ranked with other aspirational moments in European, indeed world, history. Grand international peace treaties and attempts to regulate violence and promote peace have rarely worked or rarely worked for very long. Yet their limited success does not prove that attempts at creating them have not been genuine. Contrary to the general assumption, the encounter in 1520 was not intended primarily to be a celebration of Anglo-French peace in which neither side believed and which was ruined by irrepressible rivalry. Neither was it merely two weeks of wasted time and money with no purpose other than entertainment for its own sake. Nor yet was it a deliberate deception of the French by Henry with the connivance of Charles V. The meeting, and perhaps all similar progresses and occasions of temporary display, is best understood as a ‘field’ in the sixteenth-century senses of the word: a place, an event and a form of battle, which depended on spectacle for success. It was a very conspicuous piece of royal Renaissance ‘self-fashioning’, of ostentatious material display and political theatre, designed to present dynastic power in a dynamic and memorable way. ‘Mortal and mutable’ they certainly

‘These Princes were Mortal and Mutable’  221 were, but one of the reasons why we still have such a permanently vivid sense of Henry, Francis and (even) Charles as Europe’s foremost Renaissance monarchs is the temporary magnificence of the Field of Cloth of Gold.

Notes 1 Here after ensueth two fruitful sermons made and complied by the right Reverend father in god John Fisher Doctor of Divinity and Bishop of Rochester, printed by William Rastell in 1532. (repr. London, 2010); J. G. Russell, The Field of Cloth of Gold: Men and Manners in 1520 (London, 1969), 216–19 [Appendix D] at 218–19. 2 Ibid. 3 M. Dowling, Fisher of Men: A Life of John Fisher 1469–1535 (London, 1999), 7–48. 4 Russell, Men and Manners, 1–2. 5 G. Mattingly, ‘An Early Nonagression Pact’, Journal of Modern History, 10/1 (1938), 1–30; G. Richardson, The Field of Cloth of Gold (New Haven, CT, and London, 2013), 13–37. 6 G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509–1558 (London: 1977), 84–5; S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry ad Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969; 1995). 7 E. Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of York and Lancastre, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1809), 610. My italics. 8 Richardson, Cloth of Gold, 174–7 on estimated costs of about £40,000 on each side. 9 CSP Ven, vol. III, 97: Surian to the Venetian Signory, Calais, 28 June 1520. See also ‘Remembraunce devised for thentervieu bitwixte the most noble Princes the King our souerain lord and the electe Kyng of the Romaynes’, Original Documents illustrative of the Courts and Times of Henry VII and Henry VIII from the private archives of the Duke of Rutland, selected by W. Jerdan, Camden Society (London, 1842), 50–7. 10 LP iii/i, 883 Spinelly to Wolsey, Brussels, 27 June 1520. 11 Rutland Papers, 57–9; Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy, 158–69; C. Giry-Deloison, ‘Le premier ouvrage imprimé à Arras? Jean [de] Buyens et l’entrevue de Charles Quint et d’Henri VIII à Calais en Juillet 1520’, in J-P. Poussuo, R. Baury and M-C. Vignal-Souleyrou (eds.), Monarchies, noblesses, et diplomats européenes (Paris, 2006), 167–202. 12 Calendar of State Papers Spanish, ed. P. de Gayangos, G. Mattingly, M. A. S. Hume and R. Tyler (15 vols in 20, London: HMSO, 1862–1954), vol. II, 287. Treaty between Charles V and Henry VIII dated 14 July 1520. See also LP iii/i, 908, 914. 13 Baron A. De Calonne, Histoire de la ville d’Amiens, 3 vols (Brussels, 1899, repr. 1976), 487–9. 14 Madeleine of France was born on 10 August. She married James V of Scots in 1537, but died at Holyrood Palace in July the same year, aged 17. 15 BL, Cotton MS Caligula D VII, fols 242–3 [LP iii/i, 923] Wingfield to Henry VIII, Poissy, 19 July 1520. 16 Musée Condé MS 1139 Troisieme Livre de la Guerre gallique by François Demoulins. 17 Ibid., fol. iv; M. C. Howatson (ed.), Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (Oxford, 1989), sub ‘daedalus’ and ‘labrynth’, Daedalus the legendary Athenian who designed the labrynth made for king Minos of Crete from whom he then escaped. The word labrynth, comes from ‘labrys’ which Plutarch says was the Lydian word for the royal symbol of the double-headed axe frequently found in the ruins of Minoan Crete. Charles V’s double-headed eagle symbol was known universally in the sixteenth century. 18 Commentaires, fol. iv, ‘que le vent de source d’almaigne ou d’espaigne’. 19 Commentaires, fol. iv, ‘Neantmoins ainsy que magnanimitie le conduit et le garde d’estre timide, il s’avanca et entre dedands tout seul, lesant a la porte les deux gentilshommes dessus nomez’.

222  Glenn Richardson 20 Joyeuse et bonne chere, vous luy ferez the plus plus d’honneur que votre puissance ne requiret/mais votre humilite et gracieuse faconde de le contraindra de vous aymer et mitiquera l’arrogance des insulaires/Vous aussi ferez contant de luy en ceste ensemble car Il est gracieux prince. 21 Mémoires du maréchal de Florange dit le jeune adventureux, ed. R. Goubaux and P. A. Lemoisne, 2 vols (Paris, 1913–24), vol. II, 268–70. CSP Ven, vol. III, 90 Soardino to the Marquess of Mantua, ‘Lisien’ [Licques], 19 June 1520; 91 Giovanni Badoer and Antonio Suriano to the Signory of Venice, [Lis] 21 June 1520; Hall, Union, 614–15. 22 Hall, Union, 597; Richardson, Cloth of Gold, 138–9 on the kings’ wrestling match. 23 R. J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I (Cambridge, 1994), 109 on this episode and Francis’s disposition towards violent sport. 24 Xavier Le Person, ‘A Moment of “resverie”: Charles V and Francis I’s Encounter at Aigues-Mortes (July 1538)’, French History, 19/1 (2005), 1–27. 25 CSP Ven, vol. III, 90. My italics. 26 The Chronicle of Calais, in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII to the Year 1540, ed. John Gough Nichols (London, 1846: repr. London and New York, 1968), 90. 27 Knecht, Reign of Francis I, 200–48. 28 S. Thurley, ‘The Banqueting and Disguising Houses of 1527’, in D. Starkey (ed.), Henry VIII: A European Court in England (London, 1991), 64–9. 29 Le Père Alfred Hamy, Entrevue de François Ier avec Henri VIII à Boulogne-sur-Mer en 1532 (Paris, 1898). 30 G. Richardson, ‘Eternal Peace, Occasional War: Anglo-French Relations under Henry VIII’, in S. Doran and G. Richardson (eds.), Tudor England and its Neighbours (Basingstoke, 2005), 44–73. 31 K. Rawlinson, ‘Giovanni da Maiano: On the English Career of a Florentine Sculptor (c. 1520–42)’, Sculpture Journal, 26/1 (2017), 37–52; DOI:10.3828/sj.2017.26.1.7.

Index

Key: Field, Field of Cloth of Gold (except in main entry and titles of paintings) Abate, Niccolò dell’, Italian painter 187, 187 Abbeville [dep. Somme], France 214 Abingdon abbey, Oxon 167 Abraham, Christian Old Testament patriarch 188 accidents and disasters: accidents causing injury 216; falls 42; fires 7, 17, 174, 178, 190; see also Cowdray House; Whitehall Palace accomplishments 118, 204; dancing 23, 53, 195; horsemanship 25, 195; needlework 98; sprezzatura 195, 203 accounts see administration, royal; archives and documentary evidence; Wardrobe, Great Acton Court, Glos 5, 28, 77, 149 Acton, Robert, upholsterer 62 Admiral, Lord see Howard, Thomas, 3rd duke of Norfolk administration, royal, and personnel: Chamber of the Treasury 24, 58; Chancellor 166; Closet, clerk of the 150; Council of the North 24, 29, 90; Horse, the 65; Lord Chamberlain 59, 150; Office of Tents 26; Office of Works 17, 90, 94, 95; Privy Chamber, accounts 140, 145, 152; Privy Purse 58, 74, 75, 79; see also courts, royal; Tower of London; Wardrobe, Great Agas, Ralph, English land surveyor and cartographer 56 Aigues-Mortes [dep. Gard], France 217 Ainsworth family, litigants 159 Alps, French 218 ambassadors see Badoer; Bellay; Bonvalot; Cavalli; Chapuys; Gambara; Giustinian;

Giustiniano; Gouffier; Huniers; Lalaing; Laude; Marillac; Montmorency; Pommeraye; Suardino; Wingfield; see also diplomacy The Ambassadors, painting by Hans Holbein the younger 62 Amiens [dep. Somme], France 186, 214, 218 Ampthill, Beds 15, 80, 167 Anet, Château de [dep. Eure-et-Loir], France 43, 44 Angoulême [dep. Charente], France 215; countess of see Savoy, Louise of animals, birds and wildlife: bears 44; birds, including falcons, herons and kites 34, 44, 74, 78; boars (tusk of) 79; deer, including stags 34, 36, 38, 45, 207; dogs, including greyhounds, hunting dogs and mastiffs 17, 44, 74; hares 18; monkeys 44; mules 42, 44, 153; oxen 18, 73; rabbits 18; sheep 73, 207; see also beasts, mythical; horses and riding equipment; hunting Anjou see Margaret of Anjou Anne, queen of England 17 Anne Boleyn, queen consort of England: as the Lady Anne 80; as card-player 104; at Field? 133n50; coronation 58, 63; education 98; gifts received and given 74, 147; marriage 57; on progress 1535 27, 28, 73; see also Boleyn family Anne of Cleves, Portrait of, painting by Hans Holbein the younger (c1539) [Musée du Louvre, Paris] 104 Anne of Cleves, Queen, engraving by J. Houbraken after Hans Holbein the younger (1740) 100

224 Index Anne of Cleves, queen consort of England: arms of 95; behaviour 99, 103, 104, 105, 118; divorce 108; first meeting with Henry VIII 5, 99, 106; homesickness of 105; journey to England, stages of 4, 90, 91, 99, 101, 102, 103, 106; journey to England, use of 3, 98, 104, 107 – 8, 118; reaction of Henry VIII to 106; reports on 104, 105, 106; upbringing and education 98 Anne of Denmark, queen consort of England 122 annuities and pensions 87, 162 Anthonisz, Cornelis, Dutch painter, engraver and mapmaker 183 Anthony, Anthony, mapmaker 99 Antoine, duke of Lorraine 64, 65 Antwerp [Antwerp], Belgium 102, 179; the English House 102 archaeology 28, 88, 95 Archduke Maximilian, painting by William Scrots (c1544) 119 architecture and architectural features: chimney stacks 91; cloisters 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, courts, great 91; façades 93; gateways 4, 219; lintels 93; outer courts 87; pediments, including scallop shell 4, 219; ranges, western 88; roofs 101; roundels 219; vanes 95; walls 91, 173; windows and window openings 23, 89, 93; woodwork 93; see also buildings and structures; decoration and design; religious houses archives and documentary evidence: accounts, including of the royal household and Exchequer 26, 78, 131, 173; catalogues 178; civic records, general 26; correspondence 170; dispatches or reports 26, 59, 143, 149; Exchequer books 170; for evidence of royal journeys 1; for knowledge of lost paintings 178; inventories 53, 54, 65, 139, 170, 179, 187, 190; ‘Memoriall’ (or instrument), document containing plans and regulations for the Field 59, 129 – 30, 131, 132, 150, 152, 198; ordinances, of royal household 57; packing lists 149; payment books 188; records, of royal household 170; State Papers 95; warrants 75, 145, 152, 160, 170; Westminster Tournament Roll 55, 140, 143; see also College of Arms; Eltham ordinances; inventories, royal;

Requests, Court of; administration, royal; Wardrobe, Great archive repositories see London, British Library; London, College of Arms; London Picture Archive - London Metropolitan Archives; Society of Antiquaries; Kew, Surrey, The National Archives (formerly Public Record Office) Arden, Cecily (Cecile), of Cheshire, litigant 163; Arden, Ralph (Rauf), defendant 163 Ardres [dep. Pas-de-Calais], France 129, 133, 140, 195, 198, 202, 203, 204, 214, 215, 217, 218 Arlington, earl of see Bennet; Euston, Suff armour 55, 140, 143, 147; helmets 144, 147; surcoats 147 arras see crafts and craftsmen; furniture and furnishings: tapestries ‘Arrasmaker’, Flemish, leads Great Wardrobe’s tapestry workers 60 art, artists and materials: altarpieces, Netherlandish 188; art, analysis of, by infra-red reflectography 172, 181, 181, 184; artists (painters) 6, 173, 179, 181, 220; artists, Anglo-Netherlandish 6, 170, 183; artists, Italian 6, 178, 183; artists, Netherlandish 183; artworks, labels and titling, murals, Cowdray House 188; artworks, restoration of 173; artworks, subjects of, including battlescenes 174, 178, 179, 186; canvases 178, 179; cartoons (for tapestries) 187; colours, including gold and gold leaf 173; commissions 6, 170, 181, 188, 189; drawing, technical 179; drawings 63, 66, 150; engravers 174; engravings 175; frames 187; friezes 28; history paintings 5, 173, 178, 179, 181, 183, 185, 186, 188, 189; materials 179; media 174; murals 5, 173, 174, 175, 187 – 8, 189, 190; paintings 1, 5, 116, 174, 179, 183 – 5, 186, 188; prints 183; varnish 173; water-colours 179, 180; see also artists, named; artworks and paintings, individual; sculptors Arthur, prince of Wales 166 artists, named see Abate; Antonisz; Bellin; Bles; Carmyan; Caron; Cleve; Clouet; Delaune; Doort; Gilman; Holbein the younger; Horenbout; Scrots; Treviso; Vermeyen; Vulpe; see also engravers, named; mapmakers, named

Index  225 artworks (drawings, engravings and paintings) see The Ambassadors; Anne of Cleves; Archduke Maximilian; The Banquet of Abraham; The Battle of the Spurs; ‘chariot’ (drawing of) from of book of drawings of Queen Elizabeth I’s coronation in 1559; The Court leaving the Château de Anet; The Discripcion of the Siege and Wynnynge of Bolloingne stayned uppon clothe sette in a frame of woode; The Embarkation at Dover; Encampment at Portsmouth; The Family of Henry VII with St George and the Dragon; The Family of Henry VIII; The Field of Cloth of Gold; François Ier, roi de France; Francis I, King of France; Henry VIII; Maximilian I; Maximilian II; The Meeting of Charles V and the Bey of Tunis; The Meeting of Henry VIII and the Emperor Maximilian I; The Metinge of the Kinge by Sr Antoni Browne upon the Hill between Callis and Marquison; Proposal for a new harbour at Dover; Queen Anne of Cleves; The Seige of Boulogne; Siege of Thérouanne; Sir Nicholas Poyntz; The Story of King David (tapestry); Tent design for the Field (c1520); The Valois tapestries Arundel, earl of see Fitzalan Ashridge priory, Kent, former college of Bonshommes 90 Asser, bishop of Sherborne, author of Life of King Alfred 25 Atwater, William, dean of the Chapel Royal 163, 165 Audley End, Saffron Walden, Essex 16 Augsburg [Swabia, Bavaria], Germany 114 Augustinian canonesses see Lacock abbey Augustinian canons see Longleat priory Australia, country, ‘walkabout’ royal tour (1970) 25 Austria, country; see Eleanor of; Joanna of; Margaret of; Maria of authors, named see Asser; Carafa; Castiglione; Cellini; Demoulins; Dunkin; Elyot; Marck, seigneur de Florange; Marot; Sylvius; see also historians, chroniclers and antiquaries awod, John, keeper of the king’s goshawks 75 Ayloffe, Sir Joseph, English antiquary 170, 172, 174, 179

Badoer, Giovanni, Venetian ambassador to France 145 Bailey, Master, of Lydd, payment to 77 The Banquet of Abraham, engraving, by Etienne Delaune (c1550–72) 182, 183 ‘bare hides’ see packing equipment and materials: tanned hides Barking abbey, Essex 91, 94 Basire, James, engraver 175 Bastille, Paris, fortress 218 Batenburg (Bertingberg) [Gelderland], Netherlands 102 Bath cathedral priory, Som 28 Battle abbey, Sussex 86 The Battle of the Spurs, painting, Anglo-Netherlandish school (c1513) 174, 177, 183, 186, 187, 190 baudekin see textiles and ornamentation Bavarin, Antonio, factor of Pesaro firm in London 147 Baven (or Bevan), John, King’s Bedmaker 62 Bayard, chevalier de see Terrail Baynard’s Castle, London 80, 160 Baynton, Sir Edward, of Bromham, Wilts 28 Bayonne [Bordeaux archdiocese], France, bishop of see Bellay beasts, mythical: dragons 61, 183 Beatrice of Aragon, future wife of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary 117 – 18 Beaufort, Lady Margaret, mother of Hen VII 12, 86, 208 Beaulieu (New Hall), Essex 12, 23, 73, 163, 202, 203 Beaulieu abbey, Hants, Cistercian monks 86 Becket, Thomas, shrine of 152; see also Canterbury cathedral Beddington lock, by Henry Romaynes, locksmith (16th cent.) 67 Beddington, Surrey 24, 79 Bedmaker, King’s see Baven Bellay, Jean du, Bishop of Bayonne, and others French ambassadors to England 76 Bellin, Nicolas, of Modena, Italian painter 220 Belson, John, yeoman of the chamber 79 Benedictine monks see York, St Mary’s abbey Bennet, Henry, 1st earl of Arlington 18 Bergavenny see Nevill

226 Index Berkeley Castle, Glos 164, 166 Bern, Switzerland, Historical Museum 148 Besozzi, Cerbonio, Italian musician and chronicler 116 Betton, Adam, yeoman accompanying queen’s coffers 79 Bevan see Baven Bird, Henry, grocer, supplier of colours for paints 173 Black Prince see Edward [of Woodstock], Prince of Wales Blackheath, Kent 101 Blackheath Hill, near Greenwich, Kent 106 Bles, Herri met de, Flemish painter 183 Blois [dep. Loir-et-Cher], France 35, 42 Boleyn family 23; see also Anne Boleyn, queen consort of England Bonnivet see Gouffier Bonvalot, François de, ambassador of Margaret of Austria 44 The Book of the Courtier (1528), by Baldassare Castiglione 195 The Book of the Governor (1531) by Sir Thomas Elyot 186, 195 Booth (Bothe), Sir William, of Cheshire 163 Bordeaux [dep. Gironde], France 41 Borough, John à, of Devon, seaman 99 Boulogne [dep. Pas-de-Calais], France: as subject of Embarkation 172; gained by Henry VIII (1544) 219; siege of 60, 91, 174, 178 179; summit at (1532) 36, 145, 146, 152, 219 Bourbon, Antoinette de, duchess of Guise, household of 39 Bourbon, Charles de, duke of Vendôme 42 Bourbon-Vendôme, Louis de, cardinal 42 Bourg, Antoine du, chancellor of France 42 Brandon, Charles, 1st duke of Suffolk 86, 106, 147; as Grand Master of the Royal Household 107 Brautfahrt see journeys Brézé, Louis de, of Mauny, France 38 Bridewell Palace, London 160 Bridgettine nuns see Syon abbey Bristol, Glos, corporation of 158; mayor of see Coke; mayor, sheriff and burgesses of 158; visited by Henry VII 27, 158, 167; by Henry VIII? 5, 73; by Henry VIII, intended 28; by Elizabeth I 12 Bristow, Nicholas, clerk of the Wardrobe 60 Britain, as part of Stuart itinerary 15

Brittany, France: coast of 36; duchess of see Claude, queen consort of France; duke of see Francis III; wrestling trick from 197 Brodie, R. H. (Robert Henry), British civil servant, 26 Bromham, Wilts 28 Browne, John, King’s painter 59 Browne, Sir Anthony, Master of the Horse 86, 173, 178, 187 Brtnicky z Valdstejna, Zdenek, baron Waldstein, Bohemian nobleman 172, 173 Bruges [West Flanders], Belgium 102, 213 bruidstuckes see gifts and gift-giving Bryan, Sir Francis, gentleman of the king’s household 102, 105 Buckingham, duke of see Stafford, Edward buffets see furniture and furnishings building materials and equipment 86; ashlar 91, 94, bricks 91; flint 91, 94; gravel 19; marble 68; moulded work 95; moulds 95; nails 91; planks 38; ragstone 91; rubble 91, 94; sand 19; timber 91, 96; wood 88 buildings and structures: building works 90, 188; buildings, re-use and re-purposing of 88, 91, 219; buildings, timber or wooden 6, 60, 91, 95; castles 6, 86; court houses 86; courtyard houses 88, 89, 90; disrepair of 87; fountains (for wine) 134, 181, 186; gatehouses 86, 91, 92; ‘houses of honour’ 86, 96; hunting lodges 16, 65; inns 39; livery halls 179; lodges, royal 87; lodgings 67, 91, 101; palaces 5, 6, 16, 54; palaces, standing 22, 24, 91, 152; palaces, standing, cleaning of 27; repairs to 6, 87, 99; residences (châteaux) 39; sheds 38; stables 91; see also architecture and architectural features; decoration and design building and structures, interiors: banqueting halls and houses, including temporary structures 188; cellars 134; 90, 91, 133, 147, 179; corridors 88; dining rooms 173; fittings and fixtures see Beddington lock; galleries 132, 133, 173, 179; ‘halpace’ (landing area on stairs) 95; ‘jakes’ (lavatories) 91; kitchens 91, 101; reception rooms 38; stages 132; staircases 88, 91; storerooms 44; upper floors 89; ‘vices’ (narrow

Index  227 spiral staircases) 65; withdrawing chambers or places 23, 132; see also architecture and architectural features buildings and structures, portable and temporary 174, 179; arches, triumphal 174, 185; banqueting halls and houses, including ceiling painted with constellation 133, 174, 185, 218, 219; chambers 59; disguising houses 174; halls 188; lodgings, temporary and portable 58, 59, 60, 88; palaces 28; palaces, portable 4, 133, 134, 140, 143, 150, 186, 218, 218; pavilions 28, 55, 106, 132; pavilions, Great and Small 60; pavilions, finials 60; pavilions, hangings (hangings round stage) 132; pavilions, mast poles 101; pavilions, toppers (ceilings) 60; pavilions, walls (internal hangings) 60, 140; tents 4, 5, 21, 28, 34, 39, 59, 60, 61, 75, 80, 90, 91, 101, 127, 132, 140, 141, 143, 144, 147 – 8, 150, 162, 179, 186; 208, 219; tents, ‘house of solace’ at Ardres 218; tents, at Field, and design for 128, 207, 150, 151; see also buildings and structures; decoration and design Buren, count of see Egmond Burgundy, province, France 35; dukes of see Charles I; Philip III; see also Mary of Burgundy Bury St Edmunds abbey, Suff 86 Byron, Sir John 88 Caesar (Cezar), master of the horse of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 78 Caesar, Julius, Roman general and dictator 188, 214, 215, 218 Caesar, Sir Julius, Master of Requests 162, 165 Calais [dep. Pas-de-Calais], France 36, 90, 102, 130, 150, 152, 213, 218; depicted 178; The English Pale 102, 103, 150, 216; The Exchequer 101, 102; journey of Henry VIII to, with army (1513) 147; journey of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon from to Guînes 131; journey of Katherine of Aragon to 129; Lantern Gate 102, 103; meeting of Henry VIII and Charles V (1520) 209; meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I (1532) 65, 145, 219; stage of journey of Anne of Cleves 99, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107; Requests, Court of, cases relating to

161, 165; St Mary’s church 147; Staple Inn 147; visited by Henry VII 165, 167; Cambridge, Cambs 25, 162; University of, academic dress 76 Canterbury, Kent 15, 76, 77, 101, 106, 152, 209, 212; archbishop of see Cranmer; cathedral 152; St Augustine’s abbey 90 – 1, 95 Carafa, Diomede, Neapolitan courtier and writer 117, 118 Carew, Sir Nicholas, of Beddington 24 Carmyan, Ellis, Italian painter 178 Caron, Antoine, French painter 40, 44 carracks (warships) see Henri Grace à Dieu; Mary Rose; Peter Pomegranate Castell, Brother John, prior, Carmelite friary, Nottingham 162 Castiglione, Baldassare, count of Casatico, Italian courtier, soldier, diplomat and author 195, 198 Castile, constable of see Fernández de Velasco y Tovar Catherine de’ Medici, queen consort of France 36, 42, 43 Catherine Howard, queen consort of England 29, 74, 80, 90 Catherine Parr, queen consort of England (also as regent) 74, 79, 80 Catholicism 16 Cavalcanti, Giovanni, Italian silk merchant 79 Cavalli, Marino, Venetian ambassador to France 39 Cawarden, Sir Thomas, Master of the Revels 188 Cecil, Robert, yeoman of the robes 80 Cecil, Sir Robert, English statesman 14 Cellini, Benvenuto, Italian sculptor, goldsmith and writer 39 ‘cent’ see entertainments and leisure pursuits ceremony, etiquette and protocol: on progresses 2; ceremony, relaxing of 216; court culture, chivalric and courtly behaviour 132, 204; levée, including symbolism of 200, 201, 202; orations 107; protocol, breach of 5, 217; visits, impromptu 5, 145, 195, 198, 204, 215, 217; visits, in diguise or incognito 5, 73, 106; visits, public 122; visits, secret 122; see also journeys Cezar see Caesar

228 Index Chabot, Philippe de, admiral, of Pagny-le-Château, France 38 Chambord [dep. Loir-et-Cher], France 35 chamew’ (chamarre or chammer) see clothing and liveries Champagne, province, France 35 Chancery, court of 166 Channel, English 60, 99, 150 Chantilly [dep. Oise], France 214; Musée Condé 214 Chapel Royal and personnel: Chapel royal 2, 24, 25, 150, 152, 162; attendants 165, 166; chapel, king’s riding 2, 21, 26; chapels, private (closets) 143; chaplains, royal 162; deans 162; gentlemen ushers 162; see also Hampton Court Palace, Surrey Chapman, John, English stone carver 95 Chapuys, Eustace, ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor to England 28, 29, 72, 75, 80 Charing Palace, Kent 15 ‘chariots branlants’ see transport Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor 23 Charles I, ‘the Bold’, duke of Burgundy 120, 148 Charles I, king of England, inventory made for 172 Charles I, king of England 11, 15, 18, 19 Charles II, king of England 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18 Charles IX, king of France 33, 36 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 104, 196, 209, 213, 214, 220, 221; depicted 183, 187; dispute with William, duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg 99; gains duchy of Milan 218; inventories of 187; meeting with Henry VIII at Gravelines and Calais 209, 213; meeting with Henry VIII at Canterbury and Dover (1520) 152, 209, 212; progress from Spain to German lands for coronation 212; progress with Henry VIII (1522) 1, 27, 77, 78, 80, 166, 213; progress through France, (1539–40) 123; progress through Italy (1536–7) 116; relations with Henry VIII and attitude to Field 212; visited impromptu by Francis I 5, 217; war with Francis I 218 Charterhouse, London 90 châteaux see buildings and structures: residences Châtillon, cardinal of see Coligny

Cheney (Cheiny), Sir Thomas, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 106, 107 Chertsey, Surr 79 Cheshire, county 1, 22, 163 Chester castle 22 Chester, earldom of 22 Chichester, bishop of see Sampson chivalry, orders of: Order of Saint-Michel 147, 218; Order of the Garter 78, 218; see also James V, king of Scots Choke (Chokke), Sir John, party in Court of Requests hearing 164 Christina of Denmark, duchess of Milan 99, 104 Christopher, of Hyde, ship, master of 152 The Chronicle of Calais, Anon. (15th-16th cent.) 166, 217 church furniture and ornaments: altars 143; altar cloths 150; altar plate 143; basins 143; candlesticks 143; canopies 143; censers 143; church bells 78; corpus domini 143; crosses 143, 145; crucifixes 143; cruets 143; gospellers 143; holy objects 87; paxes 143; plate 65, 143; vessels, holy water 143; see also images, religious; St Michael cup churches and chapels: chapels 23, 38, 143, 162; churches 164; see also Chapel Royal Cinque Ports, warden of see Cheney Cistercian monks see Beaulieu abbey Civitas Londinium (or ‘Woodcut’ map of London), map of London, formerly attributed to Ralph Agas (1561) 56 Claude, duchess of Brittany, queen consort of France 35, 130, 204; at Field 127, 132; birth of daughter 214; depicted 127; journey to Field 129, 130; ladies of, at Field 127, 131, 132; pregnancy 130; visited by Henry VIII at Ardres 133, 140, 202 Clement VII, Pope 36 Clement VIII, Pope 63 clergy 75; 76; benefices 87; see also clerical and monastic dress Clerk, John, dean of the Chapel Royal 166 Cleve, Joos van, painter active in Antwerp 121, 210, 211 Cleves [North Rhine-Westphalia], Germany 99, 101, 102; envoy of see Olisleger Closet, clerk of see administration, royal closets see churches and chapels

Index  229 clothing, liveries and accessories: accessories 70; aglets (tags at end of laces) 78; belts 202; bonnets 77, 79; boots, stalking 72; caps 132, 133, 147, 198; ‘chamew’ (chamarre or chammer) 197; cloaks 197; clothing 28, 42, 44, 57, 58, 65, 70, 72, 74, 76, 77, 81, 120, 140, 149, 152, 196; clothing (rich) 131, 148, 153, 185; clothing as performative aspect of kingship 196 – 7; clothing, change of 107; clothing, cleaning of 79; clothing, expense of 131; clothing, laundering of 79; clothing, repairs to 79; coats 76, 77, 148; coats, hawking 72; coats, hunting 72, 74; coats, stalking 72; coifs 185; doublets 70, 72; dress, academic 76; dress, as costume 195, 204; dress, as display 3; dress, hunting 72, 79; dress, mourning 80; dress, religious 76; dress, riding 72, 78; dress, secular 76; fur 78, 80, 140, 202; gaberdines 77; gloves 79; gloves, hawking 79; gowns 4, 70, 72, 77, 78, 80, 139, 185, 202; hats 185, 202; hats, hunting 74; headdresses 107, 140; hoods, mourning 80; hose, 70, 72, 73; jackets 75, 78; jerkins (leather) 79; liveries 3, 19, 77; liveries, household, royal, 58, 72, 74, 75; liveries, soldiers 60, 185; mantles 140; mantles, mourning 80; nightshirts 201; over garments 120; purses 202; robes 120, 140; robes, civic 76; robes, Garter 72; robes, Parliament 72; shirts 72, 79, 120, 198, 215; shoes 79; shoes, hunting 72; smocks 79; tippets, mourning 80; trousers 118; see also chivalry, orders of; dress, clerical and monastic; hides and leather; hunting; theatre Clouet: François, French miniaturist and painter 220; Jean, French miniaturist and painter 200, 220 ‘coches’ see transport Cognac [dep. Charente], France, royal château 214 coin and money: angels 11; crowns 78; marks 73; purses of coin 78, 102 Coke, Roger, mayor of Bristol 73 Coligny, Odet de, cardinal of Châtillon 42 Collyweston, Northants 159, 163 Cologne [North Rhine-Westphalia], Germany 116

Commentaires de la guerre gallique, volumes 1 – 2 (1519) 214; volume 3, allegorical poem by François Demoulins de Rochefort relating to the Field (1520) 214, 215, 218 commerce and trade: merchants 6, 57, 79, 140; traders 6, 18 commodities 6; firewood 18; fodder 18; fodder 18; luxury goods 18; rushes 19, 57 Common Pleas, court of 166 Corfe castle, Dors 23, 75 Cornwall, county 1; duchy of 22; duke of see Cornwall corpus domini see church furniture and ornaments Couche, Richard, of Dover, seaman 99 Council (King’s or Queen’s; Privy; Royal) 18, 90, 160, 163, 166, 167, 168; clerks of 163; councillors 14, 160, 217; French 44; meetings of 174, 187; ordinances for organisation of 162; petition presented to 165; registers of 159 Council of the North see administration, royal, and personnel; President of see Talbot, Francis The Court leaving the Château de Anet, painting by Antoine Caron, French (c1570) 40, 43 Court, English, late medieval, itinerancy of 67 Court, French, itinerancy of 33 – 4, 37, 38 – 9, 40, 41 – 2, 43, 44 – 5 courts, local and ecclesiastical: courts, appeal 157; courts, borough 158; courts, ecclesiastical 158; courts, manorial 22, 158 courts, royal see curia regis; eyre, general; Chancery; Common Pleas; King’s Bench; Requests; Star Chamber; see also justice, administration of Cowdray House, Suss, catalogue or inventory of collections now lost 178, 190; location of lost murals 173, 174, 175, 187, 189, 190 Cowper, keeper of the king’s goshawks 75 crafts and craftsmen: architects 6; arras (or tapestry) makers 58, 60; artisans 220; builders 6; carpenters 6, 208; craftsmen 6, 18, 57, 60, 84, 95, 188, 219; crossbow makers 74; gilders 178; glaziers 6, 208; goldsmiths 67, 145; 178; grinders of colours 178; hosiers,

230 Index French 73; jewellers 139; locksmiths 67; metalworkers 5; painters 6, 178, 219; stone masons 6, 208, 219; tailors 60; tent makers 208; weavers, English and Flemish 58; see also ‘Arrasmaker’; Browne; Crust; Fyrewude; Gower; Hethe; Labrune; Raufe (or Raff) Craige, near Angoulême [dep. Charente], France, park and forest 214 Cranmer, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury 23, 106, 107 crime, criminals and punishment: conmen 6; executions 23, 28, 158; pickpockets 6; prisoners 28; theft 67 Cromwell: Elizabeth, Lady Cromwell 102, 103; Gregory, 1st baron Cromwell 102, 105 – 6; Oliver, Lord Protector 15; Thomas, earl of Essex 24; as Lord Chamberlain 107; as master of the jewels 145, 147; letters of 99, 101, 106; letters and reports received 102, 104, 105, 106; on progress (1535) 28 Crust, John, painter 179 Crystal Palace, site of 1851 Exhibition, Hyde Park, London 4 Cultural Materialism see literary theory curia regis 158 d’Este see Ercole II d’Este; Ippolito II d’Este Dacre of the South, Lord see Fiennes ‘Daedalus, la maison de’, name of the royal château at Cognac, in the Commentaires de la guerre gallique, volume 3 (1520) 214 Dalby, Thomas, archdeacon of Richmond 166 Dartford priory, Kent, Dominican nuns 15, 85, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 101, 106 Day, Dr George, public orator of the University of Cambridge 107 Deal, Kent 106 decoration and design: decoration 60, 63, 218; carving 59; embossing 59; engraving, including armour with hawthorn and roses 147; gilding 59, 60, 65, 67, 95; ochre 91; painting 59, 60, 95; pencilling 91; design, classical 219; design, interior 185; designs (vase motif) 150; designs, of tents, for Field 150; pommels 65, 67; see also buildings and structures, portable and temporary; emblems

Delaune, Etienne, French goldsmith, draughtsman, medallist and engraver 182 Demoulins de Rochefort, François, former tutor and almoner of Francis I, king of France 214, 215, 218 Denton, James, king’s chaplain 166 Derham, William, canon of Windsor 172 La Description, French newsletter (1520) 197, 198 Dijon [dep. Côte-d‘Or], France 36 diplomacy 59; alliances 127; ambassadors, exchange with Holy Roman Empire (1520) 213; diplomatic missions 2, 153; diplomatic summits 1, 59, 127, 129, 140, 170; embassy, French to England (1527) 174, 185, 188, 190, 218; embassy, English to France (1518) 190; embassy, English to France (1529) 190; embassy, French (1546) 188, 190; embassy, Spanish (1620) 185; peace and peace negotiations 127, 132, 134, 145; see also ambassadors; archives and documentary evidence The Discripcion of the Siege and Wynnynge of Bolloingne stayned uppon clothe sette in a frame of woode, painting listed in inventory (1547–9) 174 Dissolution of the monasteries 6, 28, 29, 84, 149, 219 Dominican friars see Guildford friary Dominican nuns see Dartford priory Donato, Count Alessandro, Venetian commentator on impromtu visit by Francis I to Henry VIII at Field 198 Doort, Abraham van der, Dutch artist, first Surveyor of the King’s Pictures 172 Doria, Andrea, supreme leader of the imperial fleet 117 Dorset, marquess of see Grey Dover, Kent 27, 90, 101, 152, 178, 183, 209, 212; castle, Kent 106, 160, 167 dragons see beasts, mythical; heraldry and heralds dress, clerical and monastic: copes 140, 142, copes 150; dress, clerical 75, 76; habits, monastic 76; robes, of cardinal 75; surplices 79; vestments 24, 65, 150; see also clothing and liveries Dudley, Edmund, English administrator 24, 72, 158, 159 Dudley, Sir John, Master of [the queen’s] Horse 107

Index  231 Dunkin, John, author 85 Dunkirk [dep. Nord], France 102 Dunstable priory, Beds 88 Durham, bishop of see Tunstall Düsseldorf [North Rhine-Westphalia], Germany 98, 101, 104, 105 Dutch Republic 17 East Anglia 86 East Barsham, Norf 70 East Midlands 86 Easthampstead, Berks 75, 166 Écouen [dep. Vale-d’Oise], France, Musée de la Renaissance 144 education: of princes 118; of princesses 98, 118; see also journeys Edward VI, king of England 22, 27, 18, 90; as Prince Edward 57, 173, 188 Edward [of Woodstock], Prince of Wales, ‘The Black Prince’ 22 Egmond, Maximiliaan van, count of Buren 102 Eleanor of Austria, queen consort of France 41, 42 Eleanor of Portugal, consort of Holy Roman Emperor 114 Elizabeth I, queen of England 11, 15, 17, 18, 58, 66, 68, 162, 178; as Princess Elizabeth 173, 188; progresses of 1, 12, 14, 14, 24, 26, 58; style of monarchy 14; visits to houses of courtiers 7, 26 Elizabeth of Habsburg, queen consort of Poland 114 Elizabeth of York, queen consort of England 12, 165, 166 Eltham ordinances (1526) 22, 23, 58 Eltham Palace, Kent 23, 79, 160 Ely cathedral priory, Cambs 86 Elyot, Sir Thomas, English diplomat and scholar 186, 188, 195 The Embarkation at Dover, painting, Anglo-Netherlandish school (16th cent.) 6, 171, 178, 179, 184; attribution 189; dating of 183 – 5, 189; discussion of how employed and hung 179; identification of 173; intended location 190; provenance of 172, 178, 189; purpose and meaning of 186, 188, 190; reason for creation 178; relationship to Cowdray House murals 174, 189; relationship to The Field of Cloth of Gold (qv) 170, 172, 189; techniques used in creation 181, 183

emblems: crowns and portcullises 140; pomegranates 144; roses 60, 65, 140; roses, English 4, 219; roses, Tudor 77, 127; suns 60 Empson, Sir Richard, English lawyer and minister of Henry VII 24, 72, 158, 159 Encampment at Portsmouth, Cowdray House mural 189 England, country: 15, 16, 19, 107, 131, 132, 195, 213; ambassador of see Wingfield; kings of see Charles I; Charles II; Edward VI; Henry V; Henry VI; Henry VII; Henry VIII; James II; James VI and I; Richard III; William III; queens of see Elizabeth I; Mary I; Mary II; Anne; queens consort of see Anne Boleyn; Anne of Cleves; Catherine Howard; Catherine Parr; Elizabeth of York; Henrietta Maria; Katherine of Aragon; Jane Seymour; Margaret of Anjou; south coast of and southern 1, 18, 149 engravers, named see Basire; Houbraken; see also artists, named Enríquez de Velasco, Fadrique, admiral of Spanish fleet 117 entertainments and leisure pursuits 2; banquets, including the ‘void’ 4, 22, 74, 131, 133, 134, 143, 152; card games and gambling, including ‘cent’ 3, 104, 105, 107, 118; carousing 4; dancing 132, 133, 135, 202, 204, 219; dining 133, 197, 201; drinking 4, 98; feasts and feasting 4, 23, 107, 134, 202, 204, 219; hospitality 5, 12, 24; siestas 5, 217; see also accomplishments; sports; theatre entrées’ see journeys, royal, French Ercole II d’Este, duke of Ferrara 122 Essex, county 14; retainer of earl of see Standen ‘Eternal Peace’ see treaties and alliances Euston, Suff, house of earl of Arlington 18 Ewelme, Oxon, royal house at 24 ‘The expulsion of the minions’, episode in Tudor history (1518) 203 eyre, general 158 Fairford, Glos, Requests orders and hearings at, location of 162 The Family of Henry VII with St George and the Dragon, Flemish school (16th cent.) 61

232 Index The Family of Henry VIII, painting, British school (16th cent.), interpretation of 188 Farnham castle, Surr, issue of writs under signet seal 160 Faversham, Kent, expenses for ringing bells when king passed through 78 Fernández de Velasco y Tovar, Pedro, a constable of Castile 122 Ferrara, duchess of see Renée of France; duke of see Ercole II d’Este festivals, religious and other: All Saints 36; Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary 22; Christmas 23; Corpus Christi 77; Easter 23, 38; Epiphany 23; feast days 73; holydays 24, 72; Maundy Thursday 27; New Year’s Day 106; solstice, winter 218; St John the Evangelist’s Day 106; Sundays 24; see also chivalry, orders of; liturgy and worship The Field of Cloth of Gold, painting, Anglo-Netherlandish school (16th cent.) v, 1, 6, 70, 127, 128, 140, 141, 172, 184, 186, 190, 199; accuracy of 183; attribution of 189; detail 71, 134, 183; detail, infra-red reflectology 172, 181, 181, 184; dating of 140, 172, 183 – 5, 189; depiction of ladies 135; description of 170, 172, 179; intended location 190; provenance 172, 178, 189; purpose and meaning 170, 178, 186, 188, 190; relationship to Cowdray House murals 174, 189; relationship to The Embarkation at Dover (qv) 172, 189 Field of Cloth of Gold, near Guînes [dep. Pas-de-Calais], France 5, 67, 140, 150, 152, 170, 186, 194; absence of justicegiving at 166; appraisal of 220 – 1; as diplomatic summit 1, 35, 59, 73; as English engagement with Continental Renaissance 219; as special progress 73, 140; as spectacle 70; as theatricalised event 194, 195, 204; as tournament 132, 208; as viewed by Dr John Fisher (qv) 195 – 6, 207, 208; bad weather at 5, 207; behaviour at, of Francis I, including impromptu visit 145, 197, 198; identification of named individuals present at (other than royalty) see Fisher, Dr John; Grey, Thomas, 2nd marquess of Dorset; Hall, Edward; Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas; Wriothesley, Sir Thomas; location of 216; opulence at 145, 221; outcome and reactions to

195 – 6, 209, 212, 214, 219; planning and preparations 77, 129, 150, 219; purpose of 209; role and achievements of ladies at 127, 129, 131, 135; temporary structures and decoration, including re-use of 62, 179, 219 Fiennes, Thomas, 8th baron Dacre of the South, 1526 76 Finch, Daniel, 2nd earl of Nottingham 17 Fisher, John, bishop of Rochester 134 – 5, 195 – 6, 207, 208 Fitzalan, Henry, 12th earl of Arundel 76 Fitzjames, Richard, bishop of Rochester 164 Fitzwilliam, William, 1st earl of Southampton 25, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 178 flags see heraldry and heralds; ships Flanders, Belgium 60, 105, 114, 116 Flaxley, Glos, abbot of 164 Flodden, battle of, 1513 58, 148 Florange see Marck Florence [Tuscany], Italy 59; Uffizi Gallery 43 flowers: carnations 121 Fontainebleau [dep. Seine-et-Marne], France, royal château, departure from (1529) 4, 35, 36, 37, 41, 220 food and drink 6, 133, 134, 150; ale 6; beer 134; venison 25, 74, 76; wines 133, 134 Fotheringhay castle, Northants, Henry VII progress to (1493) 163 Foucault, Michel, French philosopher 194 fourriers see household, royal Fox, Edward, bishop of Hereford 76 France, country, 22, 59, 123, 131, 132, 150, 203, 218; ambassadors of see Bellay; Gouffier; Huniers; Marillac; Montmorency; Pommeraye; chancellor of see Bourg; destination of journey of Mary Tudor to marry Louis XII 139, 153; invaded by Henry VIII (1544) 152, 219; kings of see Charles IX; Francis I; Henry II; Louis IX; Louis XI; Louis XII; France, northern, location of production of tapestries 60; queens consort see Catherine de’ Medici; Claude, duchess of Brittany; Eleanor of Austria Francis I de Bourbon, comte de Saint-Pol 216 Francis I, King of France, after Joos van Cleve (c1530) 210 Francis I, king of France 59, 60, 104, 153, 203, 204, 212, 214; accident and injury

Index  233 216; appraisal of 221; architectural and artistic patronage of 220; as duke of Milan 208, 209, 214; behaviour, at Field 127, 133, 197, 198; death of mother 80; defeat at battle of Pavia 34, 148, 218; depicted 70, 127, 186, 200, 210; described, including clothing 196, 197; dress, at Field 196, 198; entertainment by Katherine of Aragon, at Field 143; exchange of gifts, at Field 145, 147, 215, 217; at Calais (1532) 65, 145, 219; impromptu visits 5, 145, 198, 201, 202, 215 – 16, 217; inventories of 187; journeys, including entourage 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45; leisure pursuits, including hunting 1, 2; loss of Tournai and duchy of Milan 218; marriage of son 42; meeting with Henry VIII (1532) 36, 74, 145, 219; meeting with Henry VIII, at Field and Ardres, 70, 133, 140, 166, 170, 194, 195, 209 – 10, 212, 216; opinion of minions (qv) 203; planning and preparations for Field 130, 196; prisoner in Spain 34, 218; relations with Henry VIII 132, 135, 208, 209, 218, 219, 220; represented in Commentaires (qv) 214, 215; residences of 38 – 9; victor of battle of Marignano 208, 209; wrestling match, at Field 133, 197, 198, 199 Francis III, duke of Brittany (as dauphin), son of Francis I, king of France 153, 218 Francisci Francorum Regis et Henrici Anglorum Colloqium, poem by Jacobus Sylvius (1521) 214 François Ier, roi de France, painting, school of Jean Clouet 200 Frauenzimmer see household, royal Fremmelynge, Richard 101 Frytton, Mr, of Wardrobe of the Robes 80 Fulford cross, York, Yorks 29 Fulham Palace, Midd 160 furniture and furnishings 54; bed furniture and hangings 28, 65, 67, 147; bed, king’s 59, 60, 68, 101; bed, king’s ‘hunting bed’ 65; bed, marriage 64, bed, queen’s 42, 129; beds, including four-poster beds and bed posts 3, 28, 59, 62, 65, 219; cabinets 65; canopies 55, 67; carpets, Turkish 28; chairs and chairs of estate 28, 57, 58, 62, 63, 67; chests 28; cloths of estate 23, 57,

58, 60, 70; cupboards or sideboards (buffets) 134, 143, 144, 147; cupboards, fitted 65; cushions 28, 57; desks 3, 62, 63; furniture 42, 44, 58, 62, 63, 149; furniture, collapsible, folding or mobile 57, 58, 62, 63, 65, 68; furniture, including permanent or ‘standing’ furniture 44, 54, 62, 65; stools 63; tables 143; tapestries (arras), including hanging of, linings of, repairs of 3, 23, 28, 43, 57, 58, 59, 60 – 2, 74, 133, 139, 140, 144, 148, 149, 150, 185, 188; traverse 150; upholstery 62, 64; wallhangings 58, 60, 133, 150, see also buildings and structures, portable and temporary Fyrewude, Salaman, painter 179 Gage, Sir John, Vice-Chamberlain 107 Gambara, Giovan-Battista, Mantuan ambassador to France 36, 38 Gardiner, Stephen, bishop of Winchester 28 Garter, Order of see chivalry, orders of Genoa [Liguria], Italy 115 ‘German question’, discussed by Henry VIII and Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of Durham 75 Germany, country 102, 103 gests (giests) see progresses, royal, English: lists of locations Ghent [East Flanders], Belgium 114, 120, 122 Gibson, Richard, yeoman of the revels, Kentish landowner 73, 77 Gifforde, Thomas, gentleman usher of the Chamber 101 gifts and gift giving: gifts 18, 19, 26, 42, 73, 76, 77, 78, 107, 132, 143, 216; customary gifts, including traditional German gift-giving to those organising wedding feasts and celebrations (bruidstuckes) 102; exchange at Field 145, 215; from Francis I to Charles V 217; from Francis I to Henry VIII (1532) 65, 147; from Henry VIII to wives 74; from James V to Henry VIII 78; gift-giving 1, 5, 24, 117, 195, 201, 204, 205, 217, 219; to Elizabeth I or James VI & I 178; wedding gifts 3, 103, 120, 122 Gilman (Gylmyne), Susanna, painter, daughter of Gerard Horenbout (qv) 104

234 Index Giustinian: Antonio, Venetian ambassador to France 145; Sebastian, Venetian ambassador to England 59, 153 Giustiniano, Marino, Venetian ambassador to France 35 Glastonbury abbey, Som 28, 86; abbot of see Whiting Glastonbury Tor, Som 86 Gloucester, Glos 27, 166 goldsmiths see Cellini; Delaune; Hayes; Vezeler Gouffier, Guillaume, seigneur de Bonnivet, Admiral of France, French ambassador to England 145, 153, 215 Gower, George, sergeant painter 173 Grafton Regis manor, Northants 24, 167 Gravelines [dep. Nord], France 102, 213 Graz [Styria], Austria 116 The Great Chronicle of London, Anon. (15th cent.) 158 Greate Barke, warship 152 Greenwich Palace, Kent 12, 23, 62, 73, 75, 79, 101, 106; Anglo-French festivities at (1527) 174, 178, 179, 185, 186, 188, 190, 218; as ‘standing house’ 149; celebrations at (1540) 107; Court of Requests orders and hearings at 160, 162, 163; location of pictures 172, 178 Greneway, Richard, gentleman usher of the Chamber 101 Grey William, 13th baron Grey of Wilton 105 Grey, Thomas, 2nd marquess of Dorset 184n26 Guelders, duchy of, Low Countries 99 Guildford, Surr 18, 79; Dominican friary, ‘house of honour’ 87; royal lodging place 96 Guînes paintings see The Embarkation at Dover; The Field of Cloth of Gold Guînes [dep. Pas-de-Calais], France 4, 129, 140, 165, 186, 198, 204; impromptu visit of Francis I to 215, 217; jousts at 134, 140; temporary palace at 131,133, 134; town and castle of, depicted 186 Guise: duke and duchess of see Lorraine; Bourbonl; Mary of, potential fourth bride of Henry VIII 99 Gylmyne see Gilman Gysnam, William, payment to for keeping of items for queen of Scots 58

Habsburg, house of, and territories 1, 117, 120, 124; galley 117; hostility with France 117; see also Maximilian I; Maximilian II; Charles V Hall, Edward, English chronicler, as author of Hall’s Chronicle (The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke) (1548): presence at Field 143, 196; no mention in detail of levée 201; no mention of impromptu wrestling match 197; on Anglo-French celebrations (1527) 178, 185; on Anne of Cleves 102; on campaign of 1513 148; on clothing at Field 196, 197; on Field 198, 210 – 11; on Francis I at Field, description of 197; on Henry VIII’s armour 147; on Henry VIII’s chamber (1532) 147; on ladies at Field 131, 134, 135; on masque at Ardres and costumes 133, 196, 202, 204; on minions (1518) 203; on obsequies of Louise of Savoy 80; on plate of Francis I 145; on progresses 23, 24, 25, 53, 67, 72, 73, 158; on queens at joust at Field 132, 133 ‘halpace’ see buildings and structures, interiors Hammes [dep. Pas-de-Calais], France, depicted 186 Hampton Court Palace, Surr 4, 12, 23, 53, 58, 70, 90, 99, 101; 500th Anniversary exhibition (2020) 194; as ‘standing house’ 90, 149; Chapel Royal at 25; condition of 15, 16; decorative architectural work 95, 219; festivities (1546) 188, 190; location of paintings 140, 189; Requests, Court of, hearings at 160, 163; use of as residence, by successive monarchs and Protector 12, 15, 16, 17 Hannibal, John and wife, petitioners to Court of Requests 163 Harderwijk, Netherlands 99 Hastings, George, 3rd Baron Hastings, 1st earl of Huntingdon 105 Hastings, Henry, 5th earl of Huntingdon, Lord Lieutenant of Leicester 19 Hastings, Suss 179 Havering-atte-Bower, Essex 73 Hayes, Cornelis, royal goldsmith 145 health and medicine: balm 79; bloodletting instruments 79; colds 99; diseases 99; fever 67, 118; healing touch, royal 123; ill-health 27, 42, 115;

Index  235 medicines 79; plague 2, 5, 16, 28, 67, 73, 123, 165; plasters, linen cloth for 79; pregnancy 130; sea sickness 118 Heneage: Thomas, gentleman of the Privy Chamber 58; Thomas, vice chamberlain to Elizabeth I 58 Henham Park, Suff 86 Henri Grace à Dieu, warship (carrack) 184, 186 Henri II, king of France (also as son of Francis I, king of France) 36, 42, 218 Henrietta Maria, queen consort of England 11 Henry, duke of Cornwall 55 Henry V, king of England 158 Henry VI, king of England 23 Henry VII, king of England, as justicegiver 158; justice on progress 159, 166; bequeathes cope to Westminster abbey 140, 142, 150; Court of Requests business in reign 164 – 5, 166, 167; family of 61; funeral of 95; itinerary of 11, 160; letter to Margaret of Austria 117; mother of 12, 86, 208; public piety on progresses 27; relationship with subjects on progress 157; residences of 12, 23; visits to Bristol and Calais 165, 167; see also progresses, royal, English, of individual monarchs ‘Henry VIII on Tour: Tudor Palaces and Royal Progresses’ Project, Historic Royal Palaces, funded by AHRC 22 Henry VIII, painting by Joos van Cleve (c1530–35) 211 Henry VIII, king of England 4, 91, 102, 127, 190, 212; aims for Field 194, 209; appraisal of 221; architectural and artistic patronage of 183; arms of 150; as justice-giver 27, 158; at Calais (1532) 65, 145, 219; attends obsequies of Louise of Savoy 80; behaviour, at Field 127, 197; borrows cope to take to Field 140; Court of Requests business in reign 158, 163, 165, 166, 167; death and final journey of 27, 54, 57, 90; depicted 55, 70, 71, 127, 140, 143, 170, 173, 185, 186, 188, 189, 199; depiction of events of reign 190; diplomacy 214, 218; display, including importance of 139, 172, 185, 186; divorce from Katherine of Aragon 28, 219; dress and costumes, including at Field 2, 70, 78, 81, 196 – 7, 204; family

members of 58, 153, 173, 186; gifts, exchange of, including at Field 74, 77, 139, 145, 147, 201, 215, 217; health and mood of 25, 188; household expenses of 101; impromptu visits 5, 145, 198, 201, 202, 215 – 16, 217; inventories of 22 – 3, 174; itinerary of 11, 22 – 3, 28; journeys, including to and from Field, and entourage 1, 131, 166, 213; justice on progress 159, 160, 163; leisure pursuits, including card games and hunting 1, 2, 3, 53, 72, 78, 118; letters from William, duke of Jülich-ClevesBerg 103; marriage and relationship with Anne of Cleves 98, 99, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107; marriage with Anne Boleyn 28; marriages contemplated 99, 104; masques, including at Field 133, 202, 203, 204; meeting with Francis I (1532) 36, 74, 145, 208, 219; meeting with Francis I, at Field and Ardres, 70, 133, 140, 166, 170, 186, 194, 195, 209 – 10, 212, 216; meeting with Maximilian I 147; meetings with Charles V (1522) 80, 209, 212, 213; military campaigns 73, 147, 148, 152, 218, 219; planning and preparation for Field 129, 130, 219; possessions of 3, 57, 60 – 1, 62, 65, 147, 188; progresses 5, 30, 67, 70, 162; public piety on progresses 70; purchases, of fabrics 59, 79 – 80; reign of 18, 179; relations with Francis I 132, 135, 208, 209, 215, 218, 219, 220; relationship with James V, king of Scots 78; relationship with subjects on progress 22, 157; residences of, including works 6, 7, 12, 15, 24, 57, 91, 95 – 6, 149; view of minions (qv) 203; visits to houses of courtiers and prelates 7, 12; wrestling match, at Field 133, 197, 198, 199; see also progresses, royal, English, of individual monarchs heraldry and heralds: arms 131; arms (of England) 148; arms, royal 3, 23, 59, 63, 65, 95, 150; badges 150; banners, heraldic, including of St George 3, 59, 60, 179; beasts, heraldic (including lions, dragons, greyhounds, antelopes and harts, some as supporters) 60, 95, 148, 150; flags 179; heralds 81, 158; heralds’ visitations 81; shields 67; standards 59; supporters 3, 67, 75, 150; see also beasts, mythical; images, religious

236 Index Hercules, one of nine worthies of Medieval and Renaissance literature 23, 204 Hereford, Heref 27; bishop of see Fox Hertfordshire, county 14 Hethe: John, of London, painter-stainer 95; Lawrence, son of John 95 Hickman, John, yeoman accompanying queen’s coffers 79 hides and leather: leather 79, 207; see also clothing, liveries and accessories; packing equipment and materials Higgons, Edward, king’s chaplain 166 Hilton, Elis, yeoman of the robes 131 historians, chroniclers and antiquaries see Ayloffe; Besozzi; Hall; Holinshed; Millar; Vergil Historic Royal Palaces 53 Holbein, Hans, the younger, German painter 62, 104, 170, 174, 185, 218, 220; creator of lost painting 178, 179, 190; designer of cup 146; engraving after 100; portrait based on sketch by 77; see also The Ambassadors; Anne of Cleves, Portrait of; Anne of Cleves, Queen, engraving after; Poyntz, Sir Nicholas, portrait after; Siege of Thérouanne, painting (lost) Holdenby, Northants 15 Holinshed, Raphael, English chronicler 196, 197, 201, 203 Holy Roman Emperors see Charlemagne; Charles V; Maximilian I; Maximilian II; consorts of see Eleanor of Portugal; Maria of Austria; Mary of Burgundy; Sforza, Bianca Maria Holy Roman Empire: ambassador of see Chapuys; troops of 149 honour, children of see household, royal, and personnel (English, French and German): henchmen honour, houses of see buildings and structures Hoogstraten [Antwerp], Belgium 102 Horenbout, Gerard, Flemish painter at Tudor court, father of Susanna Gilman 104 Horenbout, Lucas, Flemish painter 63 horses and riding equipment: bardes, decorated 148; bases and demi-trappers, decorated 73; bits 75; bridles 75, 147; chargers 147; coursers 75, 145; geldings 107; harness 70, 77, 103, 143, 144, 147; head pieces 147; horse houses or housings 75, 13, 147;

horses 18, 21, 39, 42, 70, 75, 76, 103, 107, 114, 144, 147, 153; horses, bottle 75; horses, mail 75; horses, pack 75; horses, sumpter 149; mares 42; palfreys 107, 139; robes 144; saddles 75, 103; stallions 147; tack 75; see also clothing, liveries and accessories Houbraken, Jacobus, Dutch engraver 100 household equipment 54; bed linen and bedding 129, 149; bowls 134; cups 134, 147; earthenware 28; flagons 147; flasks 134; forks 65; glassware, Venetian 28, 149; goblets 28; knives 65; salts and salt-cellars 28, 145; spoons, apostle- 28; tableware 143; utensils 44; vessels 147, 150; see also furniture and furnishings; jewels, plate and precious metals household, royal, and personnel (English, French and German) 131; accommodation of 39; chamberers 129; clerks of the royal seals 21; composition of 39; cupbearer (Mundschenk) 115; departments 150; falconers 74; footmen 75, 77, 143; Frauenzimmer (German ladies’ court) 115, 123; gentlemen 74, 148; gentlemen pensioners 75; gentlemen of the Privy Chamber 203; gentlemen ushers 57, 58; gentilhommes de la chambre (of Francis I, king of France) 215; groom porters 57; groom of the stool 79; guards 58; harbingers (  fourriers) 3, 17, 38, 39; henchmen (children of honour) 75, 77; horsemen 28; household officers 3, 15; huntsmen 74; keepers (of residences) 58; king’s almoner 162; king’s bedmaker 62; kitchen scullions 15; ladies-in-waiting 39, 42; ladies and gentlewomen 3, 4; at Field 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135; ‘attendant’ 129; of the Privy Chamber 129; ladies in Presence 129; maids-of-honour 129; messengers 18; pages 74; queen’s footmen 77; queen’s household 106, 129, 131; riding household 15; royal purveyors 161; servants 3, 39, 58, 148; royal stables and staff 42, 75, royal stables 101; trumpeters 77; waits 77; yeomen and assistants 152; yeomen of the buckhounds 74; yeomen of the chamber 57; yeomen of the guard 15, 75, 79, 101; yeomen ushers 57; see also archives and documentary evidence; Eltham ordinances (1526); progresses, royal, English

Index  237 Howard: Henry, English aristocrat and courtier 14; Lord William, son of Thomas Howard, 3rd duke of Norfolk 104, 105; Thomas, 3rd duke of Norfolk (also as earl of Surrey), Lord Admiral 59, 102, 106, 107, 147; Thomas, Lord, acting Lord Chamberlain 14 Hull see Kingston upon Hull Hungary, king of see Matthias Corvinus Huniers, Monsieur de, French ambassador to England 76 hunting and hunting equipment: crossbow strings 74; dog chains 74; dog collars 74, 79; dog leashes (liams or lyams) 74; hawk hoods 79; hawking 23, 53, 160; hunting 1, 2, 15, 18, 23, 24 – 5, 27, 34, 35, 36, 39, 44, 53, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 95, 140, 160, 216; hunting horns 74; hunting parties 2, 38; hunting trophies 79; knives 79; sheathes with girdles 79; warrens 18; see also animals, birds and wildlife; clothing, liveries and accessories; entertainments and leisure pursuits; household, royal; sport; awod, John; Cowper; Peter; Matthew Huntingdon, earls of see Hastings Husse, John, informed Lord Lisle of intended preparations at Calais 101 Île-de-France, region around Paris, France 35, 36, 45 images, religious 60, 143, 150; of Our Lady 143, 152; of St George 61, 145; of the Trinity 143; see also heraldry and heralds; St Michael cup industry: brick and tile trade 19; glass manufacture 19; lead production 19; stone quarries 19 infra-red reflectography see art and artists Innsbruck [Tyrol], Austria 114 insects: bed lice 65; moth 67; silkworms 207 insignia and regalia: cap of maintenance 77; chains of office 3, 76; crowns 3, 27, 67, 144, 150; garter 3, 67; maces 76 De institutione vivendi. The manual for the queen according to Diomede Carafa (c1476) 117, 118 interpreters see languages inventories, royal 30; possessions of Henry VIII (1547–9) 26, 62, 172, 174, 178, 179; Whitehall (1542) 62, 172, 174 ‘Inventory of Henry VIII Project’ 30

Ippolito II d’Este, cardinal, archbishop of Milan 39 Ireland, country 1 Isle of Wight, England 161 Italy, country 35, 114, 116 itineraries, royal 1, 11, 15, 19, 41; of Henry VIII, sources for, of progresses 21, 22, 26, 28, 30, 53, 160; of kings of France 33; see also journeys, royal, French; progresses, royal, English ‘jakes’ see buildings and structures, interiors James II, king of England (also as duke of York) 16 James IV, king of Scots 58, 148 James V, king of Scots 29, 78, 149 James VI and I, king of Scotland and England 11, 14, 15, 17, 122, 178, 185 Jan IV of Pernštejn, count Pernštejn, of Moravia 115 Jane Seymour, queen consort of England 26, 57, 81, 98, 188 Jaroslav of Pernštejn 115 Jewel House and Secret Jewel House see Tower of London jewels, plate and precious metals 131, 139; as mark of status of user 143; amethysts 80; bracelets 145, 201, 215; brooches, including with scene of the story of Noah 74, 80; carbuncles 148, 201; chains 120, 139, 143, 147; collars 140, 144, 145, 201, 215, 216; diamonds 74, 139, 147, 148, 197, 201; enamel 68, 146; gilt bowls 152; gold 139, 143, 146, 147, 148; gold bowls 19; gold cups 147, 152; gold plate 19, 143, 145, 147, 150, 185; gold (plates) 148; gold (plates), on horse’s bridle and harness 147; jewels 4, 65, 79, 131, 139, 140, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153; jewels, eagle jewel 148; jewels, on horse’s head piece 147; jewels, remaking and remodelling of 67; 145; pearls 139, 145, 146, 147, 148, 197, 201; plate 4, 18, 28, 74, 139, 140, 143, 144, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153; precious metal 143; precious stones 143, 146, 147, 197; rings 148; rock crystals 139; rubies 74, 201; silver 28, 73, 139, 143; silver plate 148, 150, 185; silver trays 120; silver-gilt 28, 67, 139, 143, 147; silver-gilt harness 144; silver-gilt plate 143; silver-gilt vases 134;

238 Index silver-gilt vessels 143; valuation of 139, 145, 147, 148; see also church furniture and ornaments; decoration and design; insignia and regalia; St Michael cup Joan of Kent, Princess of Wales 22 Joanna of Austria 117 Joanna of Castile 114 Johann Ernst I, duke of Saxe-Weimar 172 John Brown, sergeant painter 178 John Frederick I, elector of Saxony 101 Joinville [dep. Haute-Marne], France, residence of Claude de Lorraine 38 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Ier, 1515 – 1536 216 journeys: by barge 25; by boat 42; by mule 42; by river 58; by sea 60, 99, 118; on horseback 42; see also literature: festival books; manuals of conduct; gifts and gift-giving; journeys, marriage; journeys, royal; progresses, royal, English; transport journeys, marriage 2, 113, 120, 153; as rites of passage 120, 123; arrival of fetching embassy 114; behaviour of travellers 116; 118; bridal 3, 113, 118; bridal (Brautfahrt) 113; bridegrooms’ 113; bridegrooms’, comparison with bridal journeys 122, 123; bridegrooms’, contrast with bridal journeys 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 122, 123; ceremony of, including ‘festivisation’ 115, 116, 122; coaching during (for princesses only) 118; comparison with royal progresses 114, 122, 123, 124; contrast with royal progresses 123, 124; entry into destination 114, 120; financing of 116; purpose of, as display 115; retinue and composition 114, 115; welcoming 120 journeys: royal 7, 116; definition of 1 – 2; entourage 139; impact of 3; purpose of 2; spectacle of 1; unplanned itineraries 7 journeys, royal, English: ‘walkabout’ royal tour (1970) 25; purpose of 139, 153; retinue and composition 153 journeys, royal, French 33; as ‘entrées’ 35 – 6; comparison and contrast with English royal progresses 1, 33; length of court’s stays 34 – 5; grand tours, of Charles IX (1564–6) 36; grand tours, of Francis I (1517–18; 1532 – 4) 36; itinerancy of court and council 33, 44; journeys, of Francis I (1529–30) 41;

purposes of 35, 45; speed of travel 41 – 2; unplanned itineraries 36, 45 journeys, royal, German: of Anne of Cleves (1539–40) 98, 107; entourage 101, 107; use of, as preparation for queenship 98, 99, 103, 107, 108 Jülich-Cleves-Berg, duke of see Maria; William Julius II, Pope 147 justice, administration of: dispensation of, on progress 2, 123, 157, 158, 163, 167; importance of, on progress 158, 159; matters handled, on progress 158; petitions, private 158; popularity or otherwise, on progress 159; process 159; see also courts, local and other; curia regis; eyre, general; Chancery, Court of; King’s Bench, Court of; Requests, Court of; Star Chamber, Court of justice, administration of, personnel: clerks 164; commissioners 162; judges 160, 162, 164; justices of the benches 166; lawyers 161; messengers 164; serjeants-at-arms 163 Katherine of Aragon, queen of England: as depicted in Guînes paintings 127, 184 – 5, 190; at Field 127; clothing 131; divorce, including separation 28, 145; document (‘Memoriall’), outlines presence at Field 130; education of 98; entertains Francis I, king of France, at Field 133, 143; entertains Henry VIII and French hostages at Havering-atteBower 73; entry into London (1501) 99; footmen of 77; household of, at Field 129; journey to Calais 130; journey from Calais to Guînes 131; journey to Field 129; ladies of, at Field 127, 131, 132, 134, 135; meets Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, at Canterbury 212; meets Claude, duchess of Brittany, queen of France, at Field 132; pilgrimage of 3; progresses of 27; purchases silks 79; spiritual advisor of 195; visited by Francis I at Field 215 Kenilworth castle, Warw 12, 159, 163 Kensington Palace, Midd 17 Kent, county 15, 74, 77, 90 Kew, Surr, The National Archives (formerly Public Record Office) 11, 54; series E, records of the Exchequer, Office of First Fruits and Tenths, and

Index  239 the Court of Augmentations 26; series SP, records of the State Paper Office, including papers of the Secretaries of State up to 1782 26; see also administration, royal, and personnel Keynsham abbey, Som 28 Kidwelly, Morgan, lawyer 164 King’s Bench, court of 158, 159, 166 King’s Lynn priory, Norf 86 Kingston upon Hull, Yorks 27 Knevet see Knyvet Knole, Kent, former palace of archbishops of Canterbury 90 Knyvet, Sir Henry, gentleman of the king’s household 105 Kratzer, Nicholas, astronomer-royal 174, 218 Labrune, Isaac (or Iakette), painter 173 Laco, servant of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 78 Lacock abbey, Wilts, Augustinian canonesses 88, 89, 95 ladies and gentlewomen see household, royal Lalaing, Philippe de, ambassador of Margaret of Austria 44 Lancaster duchy of, as part of crown estate 22 Langley manor, Herts 160, 162, 166, 167 languages: English 3, 54, 98, 105, 107, 161; French 54, 98; German 98, 105; interpreters (‘troucheman’) 104; Latin 54, 98 Latimer, Hugh, bishop of Worcester, consecrated 1535 76 Laude, Paolo de, Milanese ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire, letter from 148 Le Mans, city, province of Maine, France 36 Lee: Edward, archbishop of York 76; Sir John, of Cheshire 163; Richard, of Sopwell priory, Hants 88 Leeds Castle, Kent 178 Leicester, Leics 19, 159, 163; abbey, 160; Lord Lieutenant of see Hastings, Henry; St Martin’s Church 19 Leo X, Pope 208 – 9, 220 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Public Record Office Calendars 53, 95, 102 – 3; see also Gairdner; Brodie levée see ceremony, etiquette and protocol

‘liams’ (lyams) see hunting and hunting equipment: dog leashes Life of King Alfred (893) by Asser, bishop of Sherborne 25 Lille [dep. Nord], France 73 Lincoln, Lincs 75, 80; minster 27 Lincolnshire Rising (1536) 29 Lisle, viscount see Plantagenet; lady see Plantagenet literary theory: Cultural Materialism 194; New Historicism 194; see also performance theory literature: chronicles 1, 26, 59, 116, 143, 158; festival books 116; literature 5; poetry 5, 132; see also authors, named; The Book of the Courtier; The Book of the Governor; The Chronicle of Calais; Commentaires de la guerre gallique; De institutione vivendi; La Description; Francisci Francorum Regis et Henrici Angolorum Colloqium; The Great Chronicle of London; Hall’s Chronicle; The History and Antiquities of Dartford with Topographical Notices of the Neighbourhood; Holinshed’s Chronicles; Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Ier, 1515 – 1536; Life of King Alfred; Mémoires du Maréchal de Florange, dit le Jeune Aventureux Little Barke, warship 152 liturgy and worship: 26, 204; books 24; chapel services 4; church services, including evensong 19, 24, 78, 120, 152; 158; liturgical year 23; liturgy 2, 26; masses, including Lady Mass 24, 198; St George’s day Garter service 27; sermons 102, 134, 196, 207, 208; see also chivalry, orders of; Fisher, John; images, religious Lock, William, seller of silks, Ampthill 80 Loire, River, France 42 Loire valley, France 35, 45 London: bishop of see Savage; British Library 26, 66, 149, 151, 179, 180; British Library: ‘Henry VIII: Man and Monarch’, exhibition (2009); see also Figure 10.5 151; British Museum 182; Christie’s Auctions and Private Sales 183; city, 22, 59, 67, 78, 203; arrival and entertainment of French ambassadors (1518) 153, 209; (1527) 76; as location of royal residences, in and around 23,

240 Index 53, 90; as seat of government 1; College of Arms 55; The Courtauld Institute of Art 187; escape from 2, 165; location of, and removal from, of court 16, 18, 23; journeys to 80, 90, 98, 102; journeys and transport from 28, 58, 70, 74, 90, 152, 178; location of royal household departments and personnel 54, 56, 58; location of tournament (1511) 140; London Picture Archives – London Metropolitan Archives 56; National Gallery 62; Row on Cheapside, jewellers 139; St Paul’s cathedral 80, 160; Society of Antiquaries 23, 26, 175; use of as residence, by successive monarchs and Protector 12, 15, 17; Victoria and Albert Museum 62, 63, 67; Wellcome Collection 100; see also Tower of London Longleat House, Wilts 95 Longleat priory, Augustinian canons, 95 Longman, Richard, yeoman of the Tents 101 Lorraine: Claude de, duke of Guise 38, 39; duke of see Antoine; duchess of see Renée de Bourbon Louis IX, king of France 158 Louis XI, king of France 120 Louis XII, king of France 139, 147, 153 Low Countries 102 Lutheranism 102 lyams (‘liams’) see hunting and hunting equipment: dog leashes Lydd, Kent, civic officials, mayor and colleagues of 77 Machyn, Henry, English chronicler 95 Madeleine of France, daughter of Francis I, king of France 42, 214 Madruzzo, Cardinal Cristoforo, bishop of Trent 116, 117 Maiano, Giovanni da, Italian sculptor 219 Maiden Bradley priory, Wilts 28 Maine, province of, France 36 Manners: Eleanor, countess of Rutland 106 – 7; Thomas, earl of Rutland 106 Mantua [Lombardy], Italy 117; ambassadors of see Gambara; Suardino; duchy, Italy, letter to (1546) 36 maps, map-makers and plans: maps 99, 107; see also Agas; Antonisz; Anthony; artists, named; Borough; Civitas Londinium; Couche

Marck, Robert III de la, seigneur de Florange, French nobleman and author 197, 198, 200, 201, 216 Margaret of Anjou, queen consort of England 23 Margaret of Austria, duchess of Savoy 117; ambassadors of see Bonvalot; Lalaing Margaret of France, daughter of Francis I, king of France 42 Margaret Tudor, queen consort of Scots, sister of Henry VIII, king of England 58 Maria of Austria, consort of Holy Roman Emperor 120, 122 Maria, duchess of Jülich-Berg, mother of Anne of Cleves 98, 103, 105 Marignano, battle of (1515) 208, 209 Marillac, Charles de, French ambassador to England 21, 28, 29, 72, 73, 74, 78, 99, 149 Marot, Clément, French poet 214 marriage and marriage alliances 57, 113; as diplomacy 113, 123; bedding ceremony 113; divorce, including separation 28 108, 145; dowries 139, 153; farewells 120; first meetings, including according to gender 114, 120, 122; marriage, annulment of 185, 219; marriage by proxy 113, 114; marriage contracts 99; marriage in person 114; negotiations 113; see also journeys, marriage Marseille [dep. Bouches-du-Rhône], France 42, 117 Mary I, queen of England 3, 27, 122; as Princess Mary 29, 153, 173, 186, 188 Mary II, queen of England, accession 16, 17 Mary of Burgundy, consort of Holy Roman Emperor 120, 122 Mary Rose, warship 152, 184 Mary Tudor, duchess of Suffolk 106; as Princess Mary 4, 139, 153; as queen-dowager of France, 86, 204 masques see theatre Matthew, royal falconer 75 Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary 118 Mauny [dep. Seine-Maritime], France, residence of Louis de Brézé 38 Maximilian I, painting by Joos van Cleve (c1508 or 1509) 121 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor 59, 120, 123, 212; first meeting with spouse 120, 122; meeting with Henry VIII 147, 148; route of journey to Flanders 116;

Index  241 third wife, Bianca Maria Sforza 114, 122; wedding journey and retinue 1477 114 Maximilian II, portrait of, by William Scrots (c1544) 119 Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, 115, 116, 117; first meeting with spouse 121, 120, 122; seasickness 118; wedding journey and retinue 1548 114, 115, 116, 117, 118 May, Hugh, English architect 16 Medici, Cosimo de’, letter from bishop of Saluzzo 1539 33 The Meeting of Charles V and the Bey of Tunis, painting, by Niccolò dell’Abate (c1546–50) 187 The Meeting of Henry VIII and the Emperor Maximilian I, painting, Anglo-Netherlandish school (c1513), description of, 174, 176, 189, 190 Mellor, Derb see Ainsworth; Pilkington Melun [dep. Seine-et-Marne], France 38 Mémoires du Maréchal de Florange dit le Jeune Aventureux, by Robert III de la Marck, seigneur de Florange 197 ‘Memoriall’ (or instrument), document containing plans and regulations for the Field see archives and documentary evidence menagerie, royal, French 44 merchants see commerce and trade; see also Cavalcanti; Pasqualigo; Vaughan The Metinge of the Kinge by Sr Antoni Browne upon the Hill between Callis and Marquison, label of murals at Cowdray House 188 Micheldever manor, Hants 84 Milan [Lombardy], Italy 149; ambassador of see Laude; archbishop of see Ippolito II d’Este; duchess of see Christina of Denmark; duchy of 208, 214, 218 Miles, William, common clerk of Canterbury 77 Millar, Sir Oliver, British art historian 170 minions see ‘The expulsion of the minions’ Mirandola, count of see Pico della Mirandola Mitchel Troy, Monm 162 Montmorency, Anne de, duke of Montmorency, French ambassador to England 76, 215, 218 Moravia [Czech Republic] 115; see also Jan IV of Pernštejn, count Pernštejn

The More Palace, Herts 72 Moris, William, payments to, at Calais 101 Morley, John, of Wardrobe of the Robes 80 Morrison (Moryson), Master 104 Mortimer, William, payments to 70 Mundschenk see household, royal, and personnel (English, French and German) museums and galleries see Bern, Switzerland, Historical Museum; Chantilly [dep. Oise], France, Musée Condé; Écouen [dep. Vale-d’Oise], France, Musée de la Renaissance; Florence, Italy, Uffizi Gallery; London, British Museum; London, National Gallery; London, National Portrait Gallery; London, Victoria and Albert Museum; London, Wellcome Collection; Nancy [dep. Meurthe-et-Moselle], France, Palais des ducs de Lorraine-Musée Lorrain; Paris, France, Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre); Paris, France, Musée du Louvre; Vienna, Austria; Kunsthistorisches Museum music and music-making, religious and secular: ‘ballettes’ (balletts, part-songs) 53; anthems 24; composition 23, 53; masses, five-part, settings of 53; music 5, 26, 98, 204; musicians 4, 6, 153, 208; performance 23, 53, 98; singers and singing 2, 23, 53, 98; songs 23, 53, 132; see also Besozzi; liturgy and worship musical instruments 3; fifes 133; flutes 23, 53; recorders 23, 53, 62; 23, 53; virginals 23; 53; wind instruments 62; see also household, royal Mylloner, Christopher, paid for hunting equipment 79 Nancy [dep. Meurthe-et-Moselle], France 64, 148 Naples [Campania], Italy, seige of 178 The Narrative of Robert Pilkington, by Robert Pilkington (15th cent.) 159 Nedeham, James, account books of 90, 95 Nevill, George, 5th baron Bergavenny 164 New Hall, Essex see Beaulieu, Essex New Historicism see literary theory New Zealand, country, ‘walkabout’ royal tour (1970) 25 Newcastle, Austin Friars, Northumb 90 Newmarket, Suff 18; location of royal residence 15, 16, 18 Newstead priory, Notts 88

242 Index Niewpoort (Newport) [West Flanders], Belgium 102 Noah, Biblical story of see jewels, plate and precious metals Nonsuch Palace, near Cheam, Surr 90, 220 Norfolk, duke of see Howard Norris, Henry, Groom of the Stool 57 Norris, John, gentleman usher 57 – 8, 101, 106 North, Sir Edward, chancellor of the Court of Augmentations 90 Northampton, Northants 58, 163 Northern History, journal 29 Northumberland, earl of see Percy Norwich, Norf 12; cathedral priory, Norf 86 Nottingham, earl of see Finch Nottingham, Notts 162, 163; Carmelite friary, prior of see Castell; castle 12, 159, 160, 163 Nouvion [dep. Somme], France, Picardy region near the English Channel 38 Oatlands Palace, Surr 12, 23, 90 occupations: blacksmiths 18, 208; burgesses 158; brewers 18, 208; carters 11; carters 208; cooks 208; farriers 6; inn-keepers 6, 18; innkeepers 6; labourers 208; laundresses 6, 79, 115; muleteers 208; sailors 118, 208; seamstresses 208; servants 76, 208; shopkeepers 6, 18; silkwomen 131; starchers 79; water boatmen or watermen 6, 58; workmen 28; yeomen 76; see also crafts; hunting; music and music-making; household, royal, and personnel officials: aldermen 19, 36, 165; (of London) 76, (of York) 77; corporations 18, 29; mayors 19, 73, 77, 158, 165, (of London) 76, (of York) 77; officials, of towns 36; recorders (of York) 77; sheriffs 77, 158; see also Bristol; Calais; Coke; Leicester; London; Lydd; Winchester; York officials, ecclesiastical: abbots see Flaxley; Whiting; archbishops 90; see also Cranmer; d’Este; Lee; cardinals see Bourbon-Vendôme; Coligny; Madruzzo; Wolsey; prelates 90; priors see Castell; see also religious: friars; nuns Olisleger, Dr Henry, envoy from Cleves to England 99, 103, 104, 105

Orléans [dep. Loiret], France 42 Oslo, Norway 122 Otford Palace, Kent, former palace of archbishops of Canterbury 90 Ottoman Empire and Ottomans 187, 209 Owen, Sir David 76 Oxford, Oxon: Third Exclusion Parliament (1681) at 16; University of, academic dress 76; Corpus Christi College 150 Pace, Richard, diplomat and clergyman 72 packing equipment and materials: bags and baggage 3, 11, 65, 139; bags, canvas 152; bags, leather 67; boxes 152; cases, including protective, of leather 62, 57, 152; cloths 67, 80; coffers 63, 65, 79, 149, 152; cords 80; covers, including for carts 62, 63, 65, 67, 74; expenses of 152; harnesses 57; hay 152; sacks 63, 79; straps; tanned hides (‘bare hides’) 63, 67, 152; Welsh frieze (white Welsh frees) 152; see also hides and leather; journeys; textiles; transport Pagny-le-Château [dep. Côte-d‘Or], France, residence of Philippe de Chabot 38 Paris, France 36, 37, 203, 209; as location of court 33, 38; as residence or otherwise of monarch 35, 36; Gate of Requests, Palais de la Cité 158; Musée du Louvre 104; Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) 40, 200 Parliament, Acts of: Act of Six Articles (1539) 99, 102; Acts of Apparel, Tudor (1509; 1514; 1515; 1532; 1554) 76; Acts of Dissolution (1536; 1539) (The Suppression of Religious Houses Act, 1536; 1539) 84, 87; Test Act (1673) 16 Parliament: three exclusion parliaments (1679–81) 16; Third Exclusion Parliament, Oxford, (1681) 16 Pasqualigo, Lorenzo, Italian merchant in London 139 Pavia, battle of (1525) 34, 148; siege of 178, 218 Peerche, Peter, goldbeater 173 Pepys, Samuel, diarist and naval administrator 172 Percy: family, earls of Northumberland 29; Henry, 5th earl of Northumberland 25, 76, 148 performance theory: theatricalisation, definition of 194

Index  243 Pernštejn, Count see Jan IV of Pernštejn 115 Perpetual Peace see treaties and alliances personal items: combs 79; handkerchiefs 120; perfumes 79; spectacles 79; toothpicks 79 Peter Pomegranate, warship 184 Peter, royal falconer 75 Petworth House, Suss 24, 25, 76 Philip II, king of Spain 3, 122 Philip III ‘the Good’, duke of Burgundy, house of Valois 120 Picardy, province, France 35, 36, 59 Pico della Mirandola, Ludovico II, count of Mirandola and Concordia 117 Piers, John, yeoman of the chamber 79 piety and pious acts 2; alms, distribution of 24; Maundy Thursday ceremony (washing feet of poor) 27; pilgrimages 2, 3, 25, 27, 70, 86; processions, religious 27; relics, visits to 117; shrines, visits to 2, 25, 86, 117, 152; see also Becket, Thomas; Walsingham Pilgrimage of Grace (1536) 29, 149 Pilgrims of Grace 29 Pilkington, Robert, litigant, lands in Mellor, Derbys 159, 163 Pipewell abbey, Northants 163 pirates 152 Plantagenet: Arthur, 1st viscount Lisle, Lord Deputy of Calais 99, 101, 102; Honor, Lady Lisle 102 Poggio, Giovanni, papal nuncio to Spanish court 122 Poland, country 114; queen consort of see Elizabeth of Habsburg Pommeraye, Giles de la, French ambassador to England 74 Pontefract castle, Yorks 12 Popish Plot (1678) 16 Portsmouth, Hants 18, 27, 28, 79 Portugal, country 114; see also Eleanor of Portugal, consort of Holy Roman Emperor postal system (General Post Office) 18 ‘poyntell’ (pointel) see writing and other instruments Poyntz, Sir Nicholas, after Hans Holbein, c1533 – 1599, National Portrait Gallery, London 77 Poyntz, Sir Nicholas, of Acton Court, Glos 28, 77, 149 processions, religious see piety and pious acts

progresses, royal, English: achievements and benefits of, cultural and social, including through dispensation of justice 4 – 5, 6, 25, 27, 157, 159, 161; activities 23, 53; analysis by gender and rôle of queens and women 2, 27, 74; announcement of arrival, including church bells, gun salutes and trumpeters 4, 78, 101, 102; as sartorial and other display, including for queens 24, 67, 70, 76, 81; as evidence of religious devotions 27; as performance and spectacle 3, 4, 70, 80, 167; as royal court on the move 11, 17, 22, 27, 29, 67; decline of 17, 27; definition of 1 – 2, 22, 23, 24, 123; dispensation of justice on 5, 24, 167; expenses of 17, 18, 26; impact of, including of liveries 3, 5, 19, 22, 26, 27, 76, 77, 81; lists of locations (gests or giests) 2, 26, 28, 57, 76, 161; planning and preparations 2, 15, 28, 53, 57, 62, 70, 78, 150, 152; popularity or otherwise of 167; processions, including with decorations 67, 116; purchases made during 6, 79; purpose of 1, 2, 21, 26, 27, 29, 70, 149, 157; seasonal 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 23, 25, 74, 140, 149, 158; significance of 7, 22, 30, 157; sources for 2; see also buildings and structures, portable and temporary; Chapel royal; furniture and furnishings; Requests, Court of progresses, royal, English, of individual monarchs: of Charles I (1634) 19; of Charles I, Scotland (1633) 15; (1636) 18; (1639) 15; of Elizabeth I 24; (1561) 12; (1575) 14; of Henry VII, (1486) 23, 26, 27, 29, 73, 149; (1487) 26, 158; (1493) 163; (1495) 161; (1498) 86; (1502) 161, 162, 164, 166; (1504) 161; (1505) 161; of Henry VIII 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, 53; (1510) 23, 72, 73, 158; (1511) 161, 163; (1515) 25, 72, 158; (1516) 75; (1518) 161; (1519) 73, 161; (1520) 73, 161; (1522) 27, 78, 166; (1523) 79, 161; (1526) 13, 76, 161, 166; (1529) 75, 161; (1530) 58; (1531) 79; (1532) 74, 161, 167; (1535) 27 – 28, 73, 75, 167; (1538) 70, 75; (1540) 72; (1541) 21, 27, 28, 29, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 81, 149, 150; (1542) 167; see also Anne; Charles II; Edward VI; Mary I; William III and Mary II

244 Index Proposal for a new harbour at Dover, attributed to Vincenzo Vulpe (1532) 180 Public Record Office see Kew, Surr, The National Archives Rachelbury (Regil; Regilbury), manor, Som 164 Raglan castle, Monm 166 Raufe (or Raff), John, painter 173 Ravenstein [North Brabant], Netherlands 102 Rawlins, Richard, royal almoner 166 Raynsford, William, gentleman usher of the Chamber 101 Reading, Berks 75; abbey, Berks 27, 160 Reformation, English 75, 219 regalia see insignia and regalia Regil; Regilbury see Rachelbury Reigate, Surr 19 relics: of the True Cross 145; see also piety and pious acts religious houses 162; as royal lodgings 6, 84, 86; buildings, adaptation and conversion of 6, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 94; dispersal of 95; guest lodgings 88; neglect of 86; new owners of 84; re-use of materials 86; sites of 84, 87; visits to 117; see also building materials and equipment; buildings and structures religious houses, named: abbeys see Abingdon; Barking; Battle; Beaulieu; Bury St Edmunds; Canterbury, St Augustine’s; Glastonbury; Keynsham; Lacock; Leicester; Pipewell; Reading; Stratford Longthorne; Syon; Titchfield; Waltham; Westminster; York, St Mary’s; friaries see Guildford; Nottingham; priories see Ashridge; Bath; Dartford; Dunstable; Ely; King’s Lynn; Maiden Bradley; Newstead; Norwich; Rochester; Sopwell; Thetford; Walsingham religious orders see Augustinian canons; Augustinian canonesses; Benedictine monks; Bridgettine nuns; Cistercian monks; Dominican friars; Dominican nuns Renaissance, English engagement with 28, 219 Renée de Bourbon, duchess of Lorraine 64 Renée of France, duchess of Ferrara 122 Requests, Court of: as core part of Tudor progresses 167; business, types of 161;

business, volume of 164, 165, 166, 168; coincidence with progresses of Henry VII and Henry VIII 161; history and development of 158, 159, 166, 168; letters of summons under privy seal 163; litigants and petitioners, types of 5, 161; nature of 160, 164; petitions, private 5, 159, 161, 162, 165; places of hearing 160, 162, 163, 166; process 159; 160, 161, 162, 164, 167; records of, including Books of Orders and Decrees 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165, 166; uses of 162, 164, 168; writs for commission under signet or privy seal 160, 163; see also courts, royal; justice, administration of; administration, royal; progresses, royal, English Restoration of the monarchy (1660) 172 Restormel castle, Corn 22 Richard III, king of England 26, 158 Richmond, archdeacon of see Dalby Richmond Palace (Sheen Palace), Surr 12, 23, 160, 162 rights: hunting and fishing 6, 86 Rochester, Kent, 99, 101, 106; bishops of see Fisher; Fitzjames; cathedral priory 90 Romaynes (Rommyn, Romayne), Henry, locksmith 67 Romorantin [dep. Loir-et-Cher], France, house of comte de Saint-Pol at 216 Rothwell, William, Sergeant of the Vestry 152 Rovezzano, Benedetto da, Italian architect and sculptor 219 Royal Collection Trust 61, 71, 128, 141, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 181, 184, 186, 199, 210, 211; paintings held by 179, 189, 190 Royston, Herts 17, 18; palace 15 Rutland, countess of see Manners, Eleanor; earl of see Manners, Thomas Rye, Sussex, picture of by Vulpe 179 sacraments and ceremonies: baptisms 129; coronations 17, 58, 59, 63, 66, 129, 173; funerals 95, 129; marriages (ceremony) 129; see also marriage and marriage alliances Sadler, Sir Ralph, Master of the Great Wardrobe 60 Saffron Walden, Essex 16 St George’s bar, near, Southwark 80

Index  245 St George’s play, two wardens of, of Lydd 77 St James’s Palace, Westminster 17 St James’s Park, Westminster 17 St Michael cup, Antwerp (1532) 145, 146 St Michael, Order of see chivalry, orders of: Order of Saint-Michel St Paul’s cathedral see London, St Paul’s cathedral Saint-Germain-en-Laye [dep. Yvelines], France 35, 122, 214 Saint-Pol, comte de see Francis I de Bourbon Salisbury, Wilts 75; bishop of see Shaxton Saluzzo, bishop of see Tornabuoni, Alfonso Salzburg [Salzburg], Austria 116 Sampson, Richard, bishop of Chichester 106 Sandrini, Tomasso, writes letter to duchy of Mantua 1546 36, 38 Sandwich, Kent 77 Sandys, William, 1st baron Sandys, of The Vyne 24, 28 Savage, Thomas, bishop of London, president of the royal Council and presiding judge 165 Savoy: duchess of see Margaret of Austria; Louise of, countess of Angoulême 35, 80, 145, 214; René of, uncle of Francis I, king of France 42 Saxe-Weimar, duke of see Johann Ernst I Saxon kings, painted panels depicting 23 Saxony, elector of see John Frederick I Scotland, country 14, 15, 18; king of see James VI and I; see also progresses, royal, English Scots, defence against 29; kings of see James IV; James V; queen consort of see Margaret Tudor Scrots, William, painter at the Tudor court 119 sculptors and sculptures: statues 116; see also Bellini; Maiano; Rovezzano; Torrigiano seals (royal) 57; privy seal 26; signet seal 26 seamen see Borough; Couche Seine, River, France 42 Severn, River 164 Seymour: Sir John, of Wolf Hall 26; Sir Thomas, gentleman of the king’s household 28, 102, 105

Sforza, Bianca Maria, consort of Holy Roman Emperor 114, 122 Shaftesbury, Dors 23 Sharington, Sir William 88, 89 95 Shaxton, Nicholas, bishop of Salisbury 28 Sheen Palace see Richmond Palace ships and shipping, including warships (carracks) and equipment: banners 102; ‘pencelles’ (pencel, small pennon or streamer) 102; flags 102; galleys 5, 117, 118, 217; sails 117; ships 99, 102, 103, 152; shipwrecks 139; see also Christopher of Hyde; Greate Barke; Henri Grace à Dieu; Little Barke; Mary Rose; Peter Pomegranate Shooter’s Hill, near Greenwich, Kent 106 Shrewsbury, earl of see Talbot shrines see Becket, Thomas; Walsingham; see also piety and pious acts The Siege of Boulogne, engraving by James Basire (1783) 175 The Siege of Thérouanne, painting (lost), by Hans Holbein the younger 178, 179, 190 Silkcote, William, payment to 70 Simnel, Lambert, Yorkist pretender to throne of England 26 – 7 Sittingbourne, Kent 101, 106, 167 Soardino see Suardino ‘solace, house of’ see buildings and structures, portable and temporary: tents Sopwell priory, Herts 88 Southampton, earls of see FitzWilliam; Wriothesley Southampton, Hants 27, 75, 117 Southewoode, William, gold beater 173 Spain, country 35, 41, 115, 116, 117, 118, 218; king of see Philip II Spinelly, Thomas, English agent in the Netherlands 213 sport, including equipment and personnel 2, 195, 204; archery (shooting) and equipment 23, 53, 74; ‘casting of the barre’ 23, 53; ‘field’, Field as 220; jousting 3, 23, 25, 73, 131, 132, 134, 135, 140, 201; lists 144; tennis players 153; tiltyards 127, 132, 143, 219; tournaments 2, 4, 23, 73, 132, 134, 140, 170, 208; wrestlers and wrestling, including wrestling tricks 3, 23, 53 133, 153, 197 – 8, 216; see also accomplishments; clothing, liveries and accessories; hunting

246 Index sprezzatura see accomplishments Spurs, battle of the (1513) 59, 165 Stafford, Edward, 3rd duke of Buckingham 148 Staffordshire, county 12 Standen, Anthony, retainer of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex 11 Star Chamber, court of 159, 160, 161, 166 Stokesley, Dr John, theologian and royal almoner 165 Stonyhurst College 142 The Story of King David, tapestry, Brussels (c1520) 155 Stratford Longthorne abbey, Essex 86 Strozzi, Leone, a commander of the French fleet 117 Stuart kings of England 2 Suardino (Soardino), Giacomo, Mantuan ambassador to France 35, 131, 134, 143, 217 Sudeley castle, Glos 28 Suffolk, county 14; 1st duke of see Brandon, Charles; duchess of see Mary Tudor sulphur, yellow, moth repellent 67 Surrey, county, brick and tile trade in 15, 17, 19, 74; earl of see Howard, Thomas Sussex, county 76 Sutton, Richard, lawyer 164 Sylvius, Jacobus, French humanist and anatomist 214 Symeon, Geoffrey, dean of the Chapel Royal 164 Syon House, Midd, formerly Syon abbey, Bridgettine nuns 90 Tailboys (Talbois), George, 2nd baron Tailboys of Kyme 105 Talbot, Francis, 5th earl of Shrewsbury, President of the Council of the North 90 Terrail, Pierre, chevalier de Bayard 174, 186 Tewkesbury, Glos 28 textiles and ornamentation: baudekin (damask) 65; bells 147, 148; canvas 61, 91, 152, 219; cloth of gold 67, 73, 131, 140, 147, 148, 197; clothing of 70, 78, 80, 131, 132, 133, 139, 140, 147, 148, 196; cost of 140; costumes of 202, 203, 204; curtain and hangings of 59, 60, 133; livery of 75; manufacture of 140; cotton 67; damask 197, 204; dying of 61; embroidery 28, 60, 70, 75, 77, 150,

202; feathers and plumes 132, 204; fringes 62; gold wire 70, 140, 203; lace 6, 80; linen 80; sarsenet 59, 65, 70; satin 78, 80, 148, 202; silk 6, 59, 62, 73, 80, 91, 120, 131, 196, 204, 207; silver, cloth of 78, 80, 131, 133, 147, 197; spangles 148; 202; stitching of 61; taffeta 203; textiles 5, 57, 60, 150, 207, 219; tissue 78, 107; velvet 28, 62, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 103, 131, 132, 147, 148, 196; see also commerce and trade; decoration and design; furniture and furnishings; packing equipment and materials Thames, River 107; valley, palaces or ‘standing houses’ in 12, 23, 90, 157, 160 theatre: masques 132; 133, 134, 195, 202, 203, 204; masques, costumes 73, 196, 202, 203, 204; masques, costumes, re-use of 73, 203; masques, elements of 202; pageants and pageant figures (including ‘Justicia’) 67, 134, 158; plays, including St George’s play, Lydd, Kent 2, 77; revels 73; theatre, distrust of 195; theatre, theatrical values 195; theatre, use of 194, 205; visors 133, 203, 204 Theobalds Palace, Herts 15 Thérouanne [dep. Pas-de-Calais], France 147; capture of 148, 165; siege of, depicted 174, 178, 183, 185 Thetford, Norf 15; priory 86 Thomson, John, payment to 101 Thornbury, manor, Glos 73, 160, 167 Thynne, Sir John, of Longleat House 95 Tilburg (Tillburg) [North Brabant], Netherlands 102 Titchfield abbey, Hants 84, 88 Tornabuoni, Alfonso, bishop of Saluzzo 33 Torrigiano, Pietro, Italian sculptor 219 Tournai [Wallonia], Belgium 73, 148, 165, 218 Tower of London 28, 86, 90, 101, 106, 158, 160; Jewel House 54, 145, 150, 152; Secret Jewel House 65 transport 57, 150, 152; barges 107; by boat 178; by river 21, 58; by sea 21, 28, 150 carriages 18, 139; carts 15, 18, 42, 44, 62, 67, 79, 139, 149; carts, baggage 3, 152, 153; carts for buckhounds 74; carts, of Great Wardrobe or Wardrobe of the Robes, including those bearing livery 3, 11, 65, 67, 75, 79; ‘chariots branlants’ (wobbly wagons) 42; chariots (including

Index  247 of Great Wardrobe) 65, 66, 67, 101, 106, 131; coaches 12; ‘coches’ (wheeled carriages) 42; expenses of, including payments for 75, 152; hackneys 131; highways 6; litters 42, 43, 131; roads, improvements in 18; roads, repair of 6, 101, 107; streets 67; waggons 67, 153; waterways including rivers 6, 42; see also journeys; packing equipment and materials; occupations; ships and shipping ‘travers’ (traverse) see furniture and furnishings treaties and alliances: Treaty of Ardres (1546) 219; Treaty of Bruges (1521) 213, 214; Treaty of London (‘Universal Peace’) (1518) 203, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 218; Treaty of Madrid (1526) 218; Treaty of Perpetual Peace (1534) 87; Treaty of Westminster (‘Eternal’ or ‘Perpetual Peace’) (1527) 186, 218; Truce of Nice (1538) 117; see also diplomacy Trent, bishop of see Madruzzo Treviso, Girolamo da, artist and military engineer 179 ‘troucheman’ see languages: interpreters Tunis [Tunisia], siege of, depicted 178; capture of 187 Tunis, Bey of, depicted 187 Tunstall, Cuthbert, bishop of Durham 75 Tyrell, Sir James, lieutenant of the castle of Guînes 165 The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke) (1548) see Hall, Edward ‘Universal Peace’ see treaties and alliances Valladolid [Castile and León], Spain 114, 120, 122 Valois dukes of Burgundy see Philip the Good; Charles the Bold The Valois tapestries (c1576) 43 Vaughan, Stephen, English merchant and diplomat 102 Vendôme, duke of see Bourbon, Charles de 42 Venice, republic of 140; ambassadors of see Badoer; Cavalli; Giustinian; Giustiniano; see also Donato Vergil, Polydore, humanist scholar and historian 132

Vermeyen, Jan Cornelisz, Dutch painter 187 Vezeler, Josse, Antwerp goldsmith 146 Vienna [Vienna], Austria 114, 116, 178; Kunsthistorisches Museum 119, 121, 145, 146, 187 ‘void, the’ see entertainments and leisure pursuits Vratislav of Pernštejn 115 Vulpe, Vincenzo, of Naples, Italian painter 178, 179, 180 The Vyne, Hants, 24, 28, 75 Wakefield, Yorks 29 Waldstein see Brtnicky z Valdstejna Wales, country, including South Wales 75, 161, 164; princes of see Arthur; Edward [of Woodstock]; princess of see Joan of Kent Wallington (near Croydon), Surr 160 Walsingham, Norf 25, 70; priory of the Holy Sepulchre 86 Waltham abbey, Essex 80, 160, 167 war and rebellion: archers 74, 153; armies 147; civil war, including first French War of Religion 36; equipment 75; hostages 73, 202, 218; military campaigns and expenses of 2, 59, 73, 140, 147, 152, 165; mutiny, threatened 149; naval attacks 59; naval battle averted 117; pay, of troops 149; rebellions 2, 21, 26, 149, 161; soldiers 29, 185; troops 22; see also Boulogne, seige of; Flodden, battle of; Holy Roman Empire; Lille; Lincolnshire uprising; Marignano, battle of; Naples, seige of; Nice, truce of; Pavia, battle of; Pavia, seige of; Pilgrimage of Grace; Spurs, battle of the; Thérouanne; Tunis, seige of; Vienna, seige of; diplomacy; weapons and armour Wardrobe, Great 3, 55, 60, 65, 67, 150, 160, 178, 219; accounts 54, 58, 60, 72, 74, 75; clerk of see Bristow; grooms of the wardrobe 57; keeper 58, 60; see also Windsor; master of see Sadler; officials 57, 150, 152; records of 26, 59, 67, 170; removing coffers 65, 79; Removing Wardrobe 22, 58; Standing Wardrobe 58, 67; Wardrobe of the Robes and Beds and staff 54, 58, 72, 78, 79, 80, 81; warrants 54, 57; see also transport Warr, de la, lord see West, Thomas

248 Index Warwick Castle, Warw 160, 163 Warwickshire, county 23 Waterford, Ireland 77 weapons 77; arrows 79, 101; artillery 21, 28; bows 79, 101; cannon 117; javelins 79; lances 140; spears, including as decoration 65, 127, 132 weather: hail 106; rain 207; storms 117, 139, 214 – 15; weather, bad 3, 5, 102, 103, 106; weather, good 72; wind 207 West, Thomas, 9th baron de la Warr 76 Westhorpe Hall, Suff 86 Westminster 17; abbey 140, 142, 150; as seat of government 1, 22; as location of royal residences 23; Westminster Hall 168; jousts and tournament at 25, 55; palace 12; royal courts at 158, 159, 160, 161; traders in 18 Westminster Tournament Roll see archives and documentary evidence; London, College of Arms Whitehall Palace, Westminster 18; as royal residence 12, 15, 16, 17, 99, 149; Court of Requests hearings at 160; destruction by fire 7, 17; in relation to paintings 172, 173; inventory of, 1542 54, 62; murals at 178, 179, 190; visits to 172, 185; see also York Place Whiting, Richard, abbot of Glastonbury 86 William III, king of England 16, 17; William III and Mary II, king and queen of England 11 William, duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg 98, 99, 101, 103, 105 Wilton, baron Grey of see Grey Winchester, Hants 7; as place of marriage of Philip II and Mary I 3, 122; as progress stage 17; as site of proposed palace and alternative capital of England 16, 18; bishop of see Gardiner; consecration of bishop of Worcester at 76; corporation of 18 Court of Requests orders and hearings at 162 Windsor, Sir Andrew, keeper of the Great Wardrobe 58 Windsor, Berks 18; canon of see Derham; castle 11, 12, 23, 72, 75; as burial place of Henry VIII, king of England 90; as royal residence 12, 15 – 16, 17; Court of Requests petitons presented at, orders and hearings at 160, 163, 166; location

of paintings 172; progress from and return to 27 Wingfield, Sir Richard, English ambassador to France 130, 131, 132 Woking, Surr 15, 22, 23, 79, 80, 167; palace 73 Wolf Hall, Wilts 26 Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas 25, 58, 194, 195, 219; as advisor of Henry VIII 208; as diplomat 186, 193, 209, 213, 214, 218, 220; as owner of Hampton Court Palace 12, 58, 219; as royal almoner 165 – 6; at Field 75, 145, 184n26; author of ‘Memoriall’, plan for Field (qv) 198; footmen of 77; issuer of Eltham ordinances (qv) 23 women see artists, named (Gilman); gifts and gift-giving; journeys; occupations; household, royal; progresses, royal, English Woodstock Palace, Oxon 12, 23, 163, 166 Worcester, Worcs 27, 162; bishop of see Latimer; consecration of bishop see Winchester Wotton, Nicholas, diplomat and cleric 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105 Wren, Sir Christopher, English architect 7, 16 Wriothesley: Sir Thomas, Garter King of Arms, depicted in Field 184n2; Thomas, 1st earl of Southampton 84, 88 writing and other instruments: ‘poyntell’ (‘pointel’, writing or engraving instrument) 62; compasses 62, penknife 62; scissors 62 Wyatt, Sir Henry, Master of the Jewel House 150 York Place (Whitehall Palace), Westminster 12 York, Yorks, archbishop of see Lee; city fathers of, array 77; King’s Manor, seat of Council of the North 24, 29; not visited by Elizabeth I 1; progress to (1486) 27, 73, 149; progress to (1541) 1, 6, 21, 28, 29, 73, 74, 76 – 7, 78, 81, 150; St Mary’s abbey 24, 28, 90 Yorkshire, county 76, 161 Zuiderzee, bay, North Sea, Netherlands 99