Henry by David Starkey Read Free Book Online

Guildford – with whom Henry spent so much time and shared so many passions?
    Both meanings, I think, are present. And both provided Henry’s councillors with headaches and opportunities. The two were unequally distributed, however. The opportunities were for those councillors with close connexions to Henry’s charmed circle of youth/s. This meant, in practice, Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey, knight of the Garter, and lord treasurer.
    The Howards, as we have seen, had stepped smartly into the chivalric arena by assuming a predominant part in the coronation joust. Thereafter, there was no stopping them and the rewards came thick and fast. In April 1510 Thomas Howard, Surrey’s son and heir, was elected a knight of the Garter together with Henry’s political favourite, Sir Henry Marney. To have one knight of the Garter in the family was a signal honour; to have father and son as members of the order at the same time was extraordinary. A few weeks later, on 1 July, Thomas Howard and his wife Anne Plantagenet (who was Henry’s aunt) also received a generous land grant in settlement of Anne’s claims as a co-heiress of Edward IV. 3
    Finally, and at the same time, Henry gave Howard’s father, the earl of Surrey, his heart’s desire. The office of earl marshal had been hereditary in the dukedom of Norfolk. But the office, together with the dukedom itself, had been forfeit when the Howards fought on the wrong side at Bosworth.Now Henry restored the earl marshalship to Surrey. He did so on less generous terms than Surrey would ideally have wished: only granting it for life and refusing to countenance any hereditary claim. 4
    It was enough, however. The earl marshalship carried enormous prestige as one of the three or four noble ‘great offices of state’. And it was much more than merely honorific. The earl marshal was in overall charge of the college of arms, as the collegiate body of heralds was known. The heralds, collectively and individually, were responsible for the granting and policing of the coats of arms that were the badge of belonging to the rank of gentleman. They also scored and refereed tournaments and other martial contests. Finally, the earl marshal still had a residual claim to command the royal army as deputy only to the king, and bore the marshal’s gold baton as testimony to the fact.
    By his appointment, in short, Surrey found himself recognized as – under the king – the head and fount of English chivalry. For a king as chivalrous as Henry, it was the greatest honour he could bestow.
    This headlong advance of Surrey and the Howard clan is, I think, the background to Polydore Vergil’s account of the politics of the first years of Henry’s reign. Vergil writes as a contemporary; he was already long resident in England, he knew all the main actors and most of the minor ones, and he was a close and shrewd observer of the political scene. He was also a bitter enemy of the man who came to dominatethat scene: Thomas Wolsey. This has led some historians to discount his evidence. But, as I have remarked before, I do not see why we should believe a man’s friends rather than his enemies. The more so when Wolsey’s apologist and servant, George Cavendish, writes (though long after the event) an account of his master’s early years and his rise to power that is strikingly similar to Polydore’s.
    A complicating factor is that Polydore’s evidence has rarely been used in full. This is because the standard English translation of the Anglica Historia is based on Polydore’s autograph manuscript of about 1513, rather than the final printed Latin text of 1555. For obvious prudential reasons, the former excludes much of the sensational personal detail that appears only in the latter. After all, how to tell Henry VIII to his face – for the work was intended for dedication and presentation to him – how and why his principal minister had been manoeuvred into his favour? Four decades later, however, it was