CHAPTER 29
Henry VIII made much use of the Tudor Rose symbol of which he was, of course, a living embodiment. He had the Round Table in Winchester Castle (reputed to be that of King Arthur himself, although now carbon-dated to the late 13th century) repainted in the Tudor colours of green and white. At its centre was a large Tudor Rose, perhaps emblematic of himself as the prime flower brought about by the union of the two houses – York and Lancaster. In the same vein, he changed the collar of the Order of the Garter, the oldest and most esteemed order of chivalry in Europe. From then onward, the collar, somewhat similar to a mayor’s chain of office, was to be composed of a necklace of jewels. Each jewel – and there were 26 of them in all, each one representing a living member of the order – was an enamelled Tudor Rose of gold. These were joined together by a gold chain composed of 26 carefully crafted knots. This collar was a new innovation and its symbolism was plain for all to see. The Knights of the Garter were not just an order of chivalry but servants of the Tudor Rose. As such, they were expected to act like a brotherhood, the knots holding their order together as eternal as those between brothers of the flesh.
When young, Henry VIII was a tall, charismatic man who loved hunting and jousting. Had it not been for a suppurating lance wound in his thigh that healed and caused him great pain, he might have turned out to be one of our better kings. Depending on your point of view of him as an ogre or a misunderstood modernizer, we are all familiar, anyway, with the story of his six wives. What is less well remembered is the way in which he envisioned a new kind of Britain: one that would be strong, united, independent of foreign dominance and above all ‘Arthurian’. The Acts of Parliament that he passed, making himself Head of the Church of England (in place of the Pope) and dissolving the abbeys, can be understood as stemming from his desire to return to the values and organization of the British Church prior to the mission of St Augustine. He and, later on, his daughter Elizabeth resolutely believed that, having been founded by Joseph of Arimathea, the British Church preceded that of Rome. Seen from this perspective, the Roman Church, with its wealthy order of monks, dissolute Popes and pretensions to be able to grant indulgences in exchange for hard cash, was a corrupt, foreign imposition. The closure of the monasteries and the selling of their lands and buildings could be justified as the acts of a pious king, one descended from Brutus who was intent on purging the British church from sin.
In 1535, an Act was passed through Parliament and this was reinforced by a second Act in 1542. The intention of these Acts was to unify Wales and England as a single country. Five new Welsh counties were created, making 13 in all, and the power of the old Marcher Lords was greatly curtailed. In their place Henry established courts of law presided over by Circuit judges instead of local lords. Such judges, being from outside a given area, were much less amenable to bribes than the Lords who had administered justice under the old system. Meanwhile, the Welsh counties were now able to elect and send their own Members of Parliament to Westminster, a privilege they had not previously enjoyed. All this change, however, did not come without a cost. Proceedings in the new Assize Courts were held only in English. Welsh was to be regarded as a second-class language, and anyone in Wales who wanted to prosper needed to learn English. Although this caused some hardship, the benefits of full citizenship and rights in England, as well as Wales, far outweighed any disadvantages for the burgeoning middle class and Welsh gentry.
A major beneficiary of these changes was another William Herbert, the eldest son of Sir Richard Herbert of Ewyas. As a young man, he made his reputation as a soldier and adventurer in the service of the King of France. Soon he came to the attention of Henry VIII, who dubbed him a knight and rewarded his services by giving him the estates of Wilton and Ramsbury in Wiltshire as well as Cardiff Castle.
Sir William Herbert was married to Anne Parr, the sister of Henry’s sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr. This royal connection helped him greatly, especially after the King’s death (in 1547) when he was appointed guardian of Henry’s son, the boy King Edward VI. Honours soon followed; he was made a Knight of the Garter in 1549 and, in 1551, was raised to the peerage as Baron Herbert of Cardiff and the next day given back the Earldom of Pembroke that was once held by his grandfather. With their new land holdings and old earldom, the Herbert family was back in business. Indeed, the branch growing from the ‘stump’ of the earlier executed Earl of Pembroke was now even mightier than its forebear. By now, I was beginning to suspect that the Herbert family was close to the centre of the Rosicrucian mystery and formed a link between some clandestine, medieval, secret society and the 17th-century Rosicrucian Brotherhood. However, they were not alone in this, and my attention now switched in a different direction to one of the most important families in the later Tudor and early Stuart periods – the Sidneys.