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"He is a wonderful man and has wonderful people about him,” a French ambassador once said of Henry VIII.1 The people most about the King, and closest to him, were the members of his Privy Chamber. The Privy Chamber was not just a room, or suite of rooms, but a household department, set up by Henry VII around 1495 to look after the private needs of the sovereign. Under Henry VIII, the Privy Chamber would become an elite and sophisticated power base rivalling the Privy Council rather than simply a private royal retreat.
There was rampant competition for places in the Privy Chamber. Its members were the only courtiers, apart from privy councillors, with a right of entry to the inward chambers, and they had daily contact with the King. They were not necessarily aristocrats—a high proportion came from the gentry—but men who could offer good service and congenial companionship to their master.
All members of the Privy Chamber had to have “a vigilant and reverend respect and eye to His Majesty, so that by his look or countenance they may know what lacketh or is his pleasure to be had or done.” They waited on him hand and foot and guarded his lodgings when he was absent, whiling away the time playing cards and dice. They were expected to be “loving together, and not to tattle about such things as may be done or said when the King goes forth,” and “they must leave enquiry where the King is or goeth, not grudging, mumbling or talking of the King’s pastime, late or early going to bed, or anything done by His Grace.”2 All Privy Chamber staff were expected to turn their hands, when required, to music-making, singing, dancing, and acting.
The Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber was the Groom of the Stool, who ran the department and was responsible for its staff and the safekeeping of furnishings, keys, and valuables; he was also Keeper of the King’s Privy Purse. As we have seen, he had the dubious privilege of attending his sovereign when he relieved himself, and for this purpose was always assigned a room in the privy lodgings; no one else had access to Henry’s bedchamber “or any other secret place,” unless by invitation. 3 The Groom of the Stool was usually a knight; by the end of the reign he was also a member of the King’s Council.
Next in importance were the twelve Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, of whom six were on duty at any one time; at least two of them had be in attendance on the King and sleep at night in the privy lodgings. These gentlemen were in a highly privileged and powerful position, able to advise, influence, and even manipulate the King, control access to his presence, and exercise patronage. Many of them were young men, “servants without office” 4 who were there for no other reason but that the King liked them; several had served him when he was Prince of Wales. The Duke of Buckingham once complained, not without reason, that the King “would give his fees, offices and rewards to boys rather than noblemen,”5 and it is true that these nonpolitical appointees did sometimes exercise more influence over the King than his more experienced ministers and nobles did.
There were four Esquires of the Body, proficient knights who watched over the King day and night, helped him dress, and informed the Lord Chamberlain “if anything lack for his person or pleasaunce. Their business is in many secrets.” 6
Four Gentlemen Ushers were responsible for ensuring that protocol was observed at all times within the privy chamber. They guarded the King’s door, ushered visitors into his presence, and watched over his valuables. 7 Ushers were instructed to be “courteous, and glad to receive, teach and direct every man,” and they had to know “all the customs and ceremonies used about the King.”8
The Yeomen of the Chamber acted as bedmakers and torchbearers, and kept the passage leading to the privy chamber “clear of rascals, boys and others” who often hung about there causing a nuisance. 9
Four Grooms of the Chamber carried out menial duties such as cleaning, making up fires, and laying out sleeping pallets; they were helped by four Pages of Honour, or Henchmen, of gentle birth, whose duties also included waiting on their superiors and walking near the King’s horse in public processions. Pages wore parti-coloured tunics with gold chains slung across the shoulder baldrick-fashion, and they carried green-and-white-striped staves on ceremonial occasions. Both Pages and Grooms slept in the presence chamber, or the pages’ chamber if there was one.
Lastly, there were six Gentlemen Waiters, three Cupbearers, three Carvers, two Surveyors, three Sewers, six physicians and surgeons, and Penny, the barber. The King’s secretaries were also members of the Privy Chamber. 10 Most Privy Chamber staff had lodgings at court, near the royal apartments.
Among the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber were the King’s closest friends, dashing gallants with whom he hunted, jousted, playacted, gambled, and made merry. In their company, he was more of a young man bent upon having a good time than a king, and he delighted in rewarding them lavishly for the good fellowship they gave him.
Henry’s favourite was Charles Brandon, the son of Sir William Brandon, Henry VII’s standard-bearer, who had been cut down by Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. Brandon, whose date of birth is unknown, was admitted to Prince Arthur’s household as a page and, after Arthur’s death in 1502, was brought up at court with Prince Henry, with whom he struck up a lasting friendship.
In 1509, Brandon was appointed an Esquire of the Body. He was the perfect companion for the King, whom he so resembled in looks and build that some people thought he was Henry’s “bastard brother.” 11 Handsome, brave, charming, and extrovert, he shared Henry’s love of competitive sports, and undoubtedly owed his meteoric rise to his “valiant” partnership of the King in the lists.12 Soon, Henry was showering him with offices, stewardships, receiverships, wardships, and licences, and in 1513 he made him a Knight of the Garter. Brandon was no intellectual match for his master, but an accomplished courtier, soldier, and diplomat, and a loyal and congenial servant who, by sometimes compromising his principles, retained Henry’s affection until he died.
As well as gaining a reputation as a womaniser, Brandon had already enjoyed a complicated matrimonial career. He had first become precontracted to Anne, sister to Sir Anthony Browne and a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth of York. Anne bore him a daughter, but in 1506/7 Brandon wriggled out of their uncanonical union and made a more advantageous marriage with her rich forty-three-year-old aunt, Margaret Mortimer. This match was quickly annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, and in 1508 Brandon abducted and married the long-suffering Anne Browne, who bore him two more daughters before dying in 1512. In 1513, he became betrothed to his ward Elizabeth, the nine-year-old heiress of John Grey, Viscount Lisle, and assumed her father’s title in anticipation of his forthcoming marriage. This betrothal was later annulled. Margaret Mortimer was still complaining that the annulment of her marriage was invalid, and it was not until the 1520s that the Pope finally declared it null and void. By then, as we shall see, Brandon was married to another lady.
The King’s first Groom of the Stool was the influential William Compton, a former ward of Henry VII who was nine years older than Henry VIII and had been his attendant since childhood. Compton came from a wealthy family and built himself a fine red-brick courtyard house, Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, which was completed around 1515 and still stands today. The King visited there several times; the room reputedly used by him has a ceiling decorated with royal badges and initials. Foreign ambassadors rightly regarded Compton as one of the most powerful men at court, and heaped pensions and rich gifts on him in order to secure his favour. 13
Another of the King’s boon companions was his distant cousin and Sewer14 Edward Neville, brother of George, Lord Abergavenny, and a relative of Warwick the Kingmaker. Like Brandon, he bore a marked resemblance to Henry VIII. He and Henry were often mistaken for brothers, and although they were not far apart in age, a persistent rumour had it that Neville was the King’s bastard; Elizabeth I later mischievously addressed his son as “brother Henry”!15 Neville also shared his master’s passion for jousting.
Sir Thomas Boleyn, an Esquire of the Body, had been at court since 1501 and was made a Knight of the Bath at Henry’s coronation; he would soon be appointed a Knight of the Body, Keeper of the Exchange at Calais, joint Constable of Norwich Castle, and Sheriff of Kent. The Boleyns were a rising, socially aspiring family. Thomas’s grandfather, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, had been a mercer who had prospered sufficiently to become Lord Mayor of London in 1457 and had later purchased two fine properties for himself, Blickling in Norfolk and Hever in Kent. His son, Sir William Boleyn, had made a brilliant marriage with Margaret Butler, daughter of the Anglo-Irish Earl of Ormonde, and Thomas himself had made another illustrious match with the Earl of Surrey’s daughter, Elizabeth Howard.
Since his father’s death in 1505,16 Boleyn had resided at Hever Castle, his mother having inherited Blickling. Now thirty-two, he was a shrewd, able, ambitious, yet miserly and unscrupulous man, greedy for power, wealth, and advancement; he “would sooner act from interest than from any other motive,” wrote a French envoy.17 Not without personal charm, he soon proved to the King that he could be useful and trustworthy; he spoke fluent Latin, and his French was better than anyone else’s at court,18 which led to his being sent by Henry, from 1512 onwards, on several important embassies, in the course of which he displayed a sound talent for diplomacy. He was also well educated in the humanist tradition, and was praised by Erasmus as being outstandingly learned. This, and Boleyn’s expertise in the tiltyard, further endeared him to Henry.
Henry Guildford, “a lusty young man well beloved of the King,” 19 was perhaps two years older than Henry; he was knighted in 1512 and remained in favour for the rest of his life, receiving several offices and grants of land. Like Boleyn, he was a cultivated humanist, and regularly corresponded with Erasmus. He also excelled in the joust and in court pageants. His brother, Edward Guildford, was another of the King’s jousting partners.
William Fitzwilliam, Henry’s Cupbearer, had also been brought up with the King, who was a year his junior, and shared his love of the chase. The two men always remained close: Fitzwilliam understood his master’s “nature and temper better than any man in England.”20 In 1511 he was appointed an Esquire of the Body. He later became treasurer of Wolsey’s household for a short while, then returned to the King’s service, in which he remained for the rest of his life in various household posts and on active service on sea and land. He was a dependable, solid individual, who remained aloof from factional politics and was refreshingly free from the rapacious acquisitiveness that typified most courtiers.
Henry was also fond of John Pechy, another star of the tiltyard, who served him in various administrative capacities and also invited him and Queen Katherine to hunt in his parks. Thomas Knyvet, Boleyn’s militaristic brother-in-law, was another member of the young King’s circle, as was his brother Charles Knyvet. Henry’s other intimates included Surrey’s son, Sir Edward Howard; Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire; Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, and his brothers, Leonard and Anthony; and John St. John, a nephew of Margaret Beaufort, who had shared the King’s education and would serve both of his daughters.21
During these early years, Henry was very fond of his cousin Henry Courtenay, the son of his aunt, Katherine of York, by William Courtenay, Earl of Devon. In 1509, Courtenay was only eleven; seven years earlier, his father had been sent to the Tower by Henry VII on suspicion of treason, and Elizabeth of York had taken the boy into the royal household to be brought up with the royal children. On his accession, Henry VIII freed the Earl, who died in 1511, whereupon his son inherited his title and his vast estates in the west country.
Courtenay was one of several aristocratic companions of the King. At Henry’s accession, there were forty-five hereditary peers: one duke, one marquess, twelve earls, and thirty-one barons. Between them, they owned up to 70 percent of England; however, their power had weakened since the Wars of the Roses, when several old families had died out.
Henry VII had mistrusted the nobility and created only five new peers. He restricted the numbers of liveried retainers they might keep and forced them to enter into bonds with ruinous penalties should they prove disloyal. Nor, being a peace-loving monarch, did he give them much scope to exercise their natural aptitude for war: since feudal times, the nobility had served the King in a military capacity as tenants in chief. Hence when Henry VIII came to the throne, with his grandiose ideas for reconquering England’s lost lands in France, the aristocracy hailed his accession with enthusiasm. “Now the nobility, long since at the mercy of the dregs of the population, lifts its head and rejoices in such a king, and with good reason,” wrote Thomas More in his coronation panegyric. In many ways, their expectations would be satisfied.
However, Henry VIII, like his father, was suspicious of the nobility, some of whom had royal blood and might be potential dynastic rivals. He therefore kept them busy with political and administrative affairs at court and in the shires, and rewarded them handsomely, in order to keep them faithful. Their loyalty was vital to his security, so he was careful to identify their interests with his own.
The nobility were jealous of their time-honoured right to act as the King’s chief political advisers, but as far as Henry VIII was concerned, good service was as important as high birth, if not more so, and where power had once been the privilege of the landed peerage, it was now beginning to devolve upon men who had risen through their own abilities and education rather than their pedigrees. “We will not be bound of necessity to be served with lords, but we will be served with such men of what degree soever as we shall appoint,” Henry once stated.22 The chief officers of the household might happen to be nobles, but their prominence at court derived from their offices rather than their birth. Like his father, Henry was also concerned with reestablishing the dominance of the Crown over the nobility, which had been weakened during the Wars of the Roses.
Nevertheless, the nobility remained a caste apart; they sat in the House of Lords, and their status was reflected in their dress, entourages, and lifestyle. Their servants wore their livery and badges, and their heraldic emblems were emblazoned on their country houses. Their privileges were enshrined in Magna Carta, and over the centuries had been further defined by tradition and sumptuary laws. For example, only a duke could sit by himself at table with the King; an earl had to have another earl with him, and his robes had one less row of ermine than a duke’s. Peers surrounded the King on state occasions, their illustrious presence enhancing his majestas. Precedence governed all, and was an accepted fact of court life.
The sovereign was the fount of all honour, and only he could create peers. Henry VIII created thirty-seven. But noblemen were well aware that he could also unmake them, through the parliamentary process of attainder, and that their status and wealth depended on his goodwill and their good behaviour. Neither could they marry without his consent. Having set a precedent in magnificence, the King encouraged his nobles to copy his extravagant example—in an age that valued outward show, they needed little persuasion—and so distracted them from the warmongering to which they had been bred. The effort to keep up with their monarch led many to financial ruin and the consequent erosion of their power and independence, which further restricted their ability to become involved in the kind of subversive activities so feared by the King.
Henry made it clear that the court was the place to be if the nobles wished to fulfil their traditional ambitions and take their rightful place in society. Their scramble for attendance upon the King, as well as their enthusiastic attempts to emulate him, indicate how successful Henry’s controlling measures had been.
The older nobility were disparaging and resentful of those whom the Duke of Norfolk scathingly termed “new men,” men such as Charles Brandon and Thomas Cromwell, whose titles and lands were bestowed by the King as rewards for good service; the peers believed the King ought only to pay heed to themselves, who were his “natural counsellors” by virtue of their birth.23 The “new men,” who were mostly from the gentry and merchant classes, only fuelled the peers’ fury by flaunting their new position as landed aristocracy and affecting the manners, dress, and lifestyle of the older nobility. The King had his work cut out to maintain the peace between the old elite and the nouveaux riches at court.
Yet what now defined a gentleman was not just the ability to “live idly and without manual labour,”24 nor was it purely the traditional knightly virtues of military prowess, liberality, hospitality, honour, courtesy, and chivalry. In Henry’s reign, the definition was widened.
In 1509, few aristocrats went to university, nor did they dabble in intellectual pursuits such as music and poetry; one lordly father said he would sooner see his son hanged than have him reading books. “Before poets began to be in price,” wrote Sir Philip Sidney, “our nation hath set their heart’s delight upon action and not upon imagination.” 25 If the upper classes did read, they resorted to works that reflected the values of their caste, such as romances or books of courtesy.
In Italy, however, most men of rank were also men of letters; Henry VIII himself typified the Italian Renaissance ideal of the multi-talented, accomplished gentleman. His courtiers’ desire to ape him, together with the spread of Renaissance influences, ensured that attitudes changed rapidly. Humanists now argued that true nobility lay in intellectual aspirations rather than in blood.
Before long, it was essential for any gentleman who wished to succeed at court to be literate, erudite, and musical, and to have some knowledge of the law and theology. Sir Thomas Elyot, in his book The Governor (1531), also advocated artistic pursuits such as painting and carving, so that a gentleman might be able to discern “the excellence of them which in music, statuary or painter’s craft possesseth any cunning.” Music in particular, declared Castiglione, was “not only an ornament, but necessary for a courtier.” Most aristocratic children were therefore taught to play an instrument, and many noblemen patronised musicians.
A gentleman was also supposed to conduct himself with dignity, elegance, and effortless refinement, and “to use in every thing a certain recklessness, and to do it without pain.”26 Honour compelled him to make a brave show of his wealth, while affecting a certain nonchalance about it, since a preoccupation with money smacked of trade. In all he did, a gentleman was obliged to show courtesy to others and reverence towards God.
The premier peer of England was Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham. A descendant of Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III, the Duke had a strong claim to the throne and his lifestyle was that of a mighty mediaeval magnate. His father, the second Duke, had been executed for treason in 1483 by Richard III, and his mother, Katherine Wydeville, was Henry VIII’s great-aunt. Stafford had come into his great inheritance at the age of seven; he was the richest peer in the realm, with an annual income of £6,000 (£1,800,000).
Buckingham’s wife was the sister of the powerful Earl of Northumberland, and he was allied by blood and marriage to most of the older nobility. He owned vast lands in twelve counties, and had various seats, including Penshurst Place in Kent, Stafford Castle, Maxstoke Castle, Kimbolton Castle, and Thornbury Castle, a palatial residence he built between 1511 and 1521 in Gloucestershire, which was said to have been modelled on Richmond.
Although Buckingham was a privy councillor, High Steward of England, and often at court, he never became one of Henry’s closest advisers. Not only was Buckingham too near the throne for comfort, but he was also “high minded,”27 haughty, aloof, and not very bright. He enjoyed gambling, although he lost frequently, and was a fine jouster, which was sufficient to guarantee him a place in the King’s circle, but his overweening pride in his lineage and his tendency to “rail and misuse himself in words” made him an uncomfortable companion. He lacked the bonhomie that Henry so appreciated in those close to him, and he did not condescend to acquire it; it is possible he even thought the King a parvenu.
There were other nobles who were too near the throne in blood for Henry’s comfort. Several were scions of the Plantagenet House of York, which had been overthrown when Richard III was defeated and killed by Henry VII at Bosworth in 1485. There were those who believed that these “White Rose” lords had a better claim to the throne than the Tudors, and for this reason Henry VII and Henry VIII were ever-watchful of their activities. However, where Henry VII had been ruthless in suppressing his unwanted relatives, Henry VIII treated them well until his suspicions were aroused. Henry VII had executed Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Edward IV’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, but Warwick’s sister Margaret, widow of Sir Richard Pole, was a now a close friend of Katherine of Aragon.
Edward IV’s sister Elizabeth had married John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Their son, Edmund, the present Earl of Suffolk, had been a prisoner in the Tower since 1506 on account of his nearness to the throne, and his younger brother Richard, a notorious political agitator, had fled abroad. Then there was Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who was as yet too young to pose any threat to the King’s security. In fact, for many years Henry enjoyed good relations with Devon and Margaret Pole.
He was also on excellent terms with many of the older nobility, including the Bourchiers, Nevilles, Staffords, and Manners, all of whom were of Plantagenet descent. Most of the so-called White Rose faction were members of the Queen’s circle: their high lineage and conservative outlook appealed to her Spanish pride, and in time they came to be identified with reactionary opinion at court.
Thomas Grey, second Marquess of Dorset, ranked second after Buckingham; he had no royal blood, but was the grandson of Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Wydeville, by her first marriage to Sir John Grey, and therefore the King’s cousin. Dorset had inherited his title in 1501 on the execution of his father, and had been the first patron of the young Thomas Wolsey. He was now forty, of middle height, with blonde hair.28 Although of no outstanding political ability, he was a hero of the joust. The King liked him greatly, and in 1523 made him a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. Dorset’s wife was Margaret Wotton, who was later drawn by Hans Holbein,29 and his seat was at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire, now famous as the birthplace of his granddaughter, Lady Jane Grey.
The most influential nobleman on the Council was the Lord Treasurer, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, aged sixty-six. The Howards had originally been East Anglian gentry, but thanks to a series of advantageous marriages had inherited the dukedom of Norfolk. Surrey’s father, John Howard, first Duke of Norfolk, had died fighting for Richard III at Bosworth, and Surrey, who had fought with him and been wounded, had been attainted by Henry VII. The King had asked Surrey why he had supported Richard, whereupon he staunchly replied, “He was my crowned king, and if the parliamentary authority of England set the crown on a stock, I will fight for that stock. And as I fought then for him, I will fight for you.”30
Thanks to his integrity, his tenacity, and his abilities as a soldier and administrator, Surrey had gradually clawed his way back into favour, had regained some of his lands—his chief seat was his palace at Kenninghall, Norfolk—and been given responsibility for guarding the northern border; but he had so far failed, for all his loyal service, to achieve his ambition of recovering the dukedom of Norfolk.
By his two wives, who were both members of the Tilney family of Norfolk, Surrey was the father of a large family and related through his children’s marriages to most of the English nobility. His eldest son, Lord Thomas Howard, was set for a brilliant political career at court, while his second son, the martial Sir Edward Howard, was one of the King’s intimates. A kindly, dependable man of modest tastes, Surrey was a favourite of both the King and Queen, and very popular with the people of England. He was, wrote Polydore Vergil, “a man of the utmost wisdom, solid worth and loyalty.”