A Journey Through Tudor England by Suzannah Lipscomb Read Free Book Online Page B

doubt, to his place of childhood abandon.
    It is particularly regrettable then, that after the early sixteenth century, the palace was allowed to fall into decay. By the seventeenth century, parts of the palace had collapsed. During the eighteenth century, the ruined palace became a farm, and the Great Hall was used as a barn. Today, only the ragstone Great Hall, three fifteenth-century gables and the foundations of the royal apartments remain from the grand palace of Henry’s boyhood. Eltham may be famous now as a quintessentially art deco house but, with a little imagination, we can picture the place as the formative boyhood home of England’s most notorious monarch.

‘Upon each side of this goodly court … there are galleries with many windows full lightsome and commodious.’
    A ll that remains of Henry VII’s great palace at Richmond is the red-brick palace gatehouse on Richmond Green (now in a road called The Wardrobe, testament to the buildings that once stood there) and the outer courtyard, now known as Old Palace Yard. As you look around you’ll see several signs marking the area where the palace once stood. Much of it was torn down during Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth and, in the eighteenth century, new buildings such as Trumpeter’s House were constructed out of the surviving Tudor materials. Yet, it is possible to get a sense of what this grand palace must have been like and see a glimpse of the character of the King whose coat of arms — the red dragon of Wales and the greyhound of Richmond — is still above the gate.
    Henry VII became King at the Battle of Bosworth [see B OSWORTH ] in 1485 at the age of just twenty-eight. He is chiefly remembered, when he is remembered at all, for his miserly avarice, secretive nature and sombre court, but these are qualities that should be more fairly associated with him only in the last few yearsof his life when, suffering from a recurrent illness, he grieved the loss of his wife, his firstborn son and many of his infant children, and feared greatly for the succession. Founding a dynasty is not without its anxieties.
    Consider his position in 1485: having grown up in Wales, he had only once briefly been to England; he had no experience of governing, or training as a prince; he had spent fourteen years as a captive in exile in Brittany; and he had neither wealth nor land. Yet, this usurper rallied people around him and, once King, made prudent and effective decisions to consolidate his rule. He must have been a natural leader: confident, capable and charismatic enough to inspire support, and clever enough to maintain it. Sixteenth-century historian Polydore Vergil tells us that his ‘mind was brave and resolute’, that he was gracious and kind, and generous in hospitality, but severe with those who failed him. His appearance helped, as he was above average height (a Tudor trait), slender but strong and was ‘remarkably attractive’ with a cheerful face and small, blue eyes, though his teeth were ‘few, poor and blackish’.
    One of his wise decisions was to marry Elizabeth of York, Edward IV’s eldest daughter, four months after Bosworth: in one stroke he finally managed to unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster. Eight months after their wedding, Elizabeth gave birth to the first of their eight children: Prince Arthur, born 19 September 1486.
    But a king needs an heir and a spare, and Henry still faced threats to his throne. He established a 200-strong armed bodyguard for himself (the forerunners to the Yeomen of the Guard), as he was acutely aware that his claim to the throne was weaker than that of the Yorkist pretenders who would emerge during his reign.
    The first was Lambert Simnel, who claimed to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Edward IV’s brother George, Duke ofClarence. Simnel was supported by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and was crowned King of England in Dublin in May 1487, before landing on the Cumbrian coast with 2,000 Dutch