The Other Tudors by Philippa Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

friends to whom his every word was law and he had witnessed Arthur’s taste of independence. It is extremely unlikely that he found staying at home under the prying eyes of his father and grandmother at all to his liking.
    In August 1504, the Spanish Ambassador to London, Hernan, duque de Estrada, wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella that Henry VII was devoted to his son: ‘Certainly there could be no better school in the world than the society of such a father as Henry VII. He is so wise and attentive to everything; nothing escapes his attention.’ He added that the King had told him, ‘I keep the prince with me because I wish to improve him.’ 22
    This attention must have stifled the young Prince Henry, however. The Spanish Envoy, Gutiérrez Gómez de Fuensalida, wrote in 1508 that Henry was kept under supervision as if he were a girl. He could only go out by one door into the park, and then only with companions selected by his father (young men such as Charles Brandon and Edward Neville). No one could approach or speak to him without permission. He slept in a room that connected only with his father’s. He never spoke in public except to answer his father’s questions; he never attended any council meetings or audiences with ambassadors or deputations. Fuensalida was supposed to talk to the Prince about his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, but he was not allowed to see him without his father being present, let alone talk to him in private. At Richmond, Henry spent most days in the tiltyard, sometimes watched by his father.
    The Prince had his own suite of apartments in Westminster Palace, reached through those of the King. He had footmen, a gentleman usher, a groom of the privy chamber, tutors, minstrels and players. Here at least he might occasionally be alone with his friends. During the evening entertainments, lords and ladies gathered together to hear stories and sing songs about romance and courtly love, to flirt (and more). In courtly love, ideally one should be in love with someone unattainable, preferably above you socially. Henry had few places to turn for this kind of ‘belle dame’ – and so he focused his attention on Catherine.
    In August 1504, the King went on progress with Prince Henry, Princess Mary and the Dowager Princess Catherine. Henry and Catherine spent time together riding, hunting and talking. It is impossible to know what they talked about, whether he felt sorry for her, alone in a strange country, unsure of her future, at the mercy of his father’s whims. Perhaps they fell in love; perhaps they found company in a shared misery of powerless subjection. Catherine had a lot to be worried about. Her mother was dead, and there was now open conflict between her father and his son-in-law and daughter, Philip the Handsome and Joanna. Both parties sought to use Catherine to gain King Henry’s support.
    In October 1505, Henry sent a letter to Pope Julius II. The letter complained that Catherine had taken to fasting, prayer, abstinence and pilgrimage; and that this might affect her health and particularly her ability to have children later. The Pope wrote back, giving the Prince, as her betrothed husband, permission to order her to stop, ‘We … grant you permission to restrain the aforesaid Catherine, your wife, and to compel her not to observe without your permission any vows or purposes of prayer, fasts, abstinences or pilgrimages ...’ 23
    Poor Catherine began to look less and less like a future queen of England. Louis XII of France offered Margaret of Angoulême, the Dauphin’s sister, as a future wife for the Prince. Philip the Handsome offered his daughter Eleanor but Henry VII held up the Prince’s marriage for political reasons. This had a major effect on Henry – his later marriages, except one, were for personal desire rather than for political advantage. When Henry fell in love, he wished to form an immediate relationship; any suggestion that he couldn’t or shouldn’t took him