Part I
A marble slab marks Henry VIII and Jane Seymour’s final resting place in the Quire of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle; however, this was only intended to be temporary while a grand monument was completed, and it is clear that no expense was to be spared. Although Henry’s magnificent tomb was never achieved, by studying the planned effigy of the king on horseback and dressed in armour, it can reveal much about how he viewed his masculinity and kingly image. It is apparent that the presentation of Henry’s masculinity was significant to his kingship as he consciously devised an image for his tomb, which aligned his monarchy with chivalrous and martial feats. In keeping with the theme of this volume I shall examine the various ways in which Henry’s version of knightly masculinity was constructed, in a deliberate attempt to have his kingship memorialised in a traditional context. This chapter will explore the ways in which Henry projected his masculine image through his active participation in chivalry and through his wars against France that were part of the criteria against which the performance of kingship was assessed by his contemporaries. It is evident that Henry viewed his kingship in a medieval milieu as he looked to the example of his ancestors Henry V and grandfather, Edward IV, who had been immortalised as warrior kings. The king’s choice of burial place at St George’s Chapel will also be examined, in order to draw links between Henry’s enthusiasm for the Order of the Garter and his dedication to St George as England’s patron saint of chivalry. Furthermore, I maintain that though Henry’s kingship was multifaceted and was informed by other religious and ancient figures, it was the knightly archetype he favoured above everything else. This chapter lends itself to a discussion on memorialising premodern monarchs, as it uses Henry’s designs for his tomb as way to assess the dominant model of manhood he sought to emulate which has not been done before; thus, it offers a valuable contribution to the current historiography on kingly masculinity.1
Initial plans for Henry’s tomb were made by the Italian sculptor Pietro Torrigiano, the same man who designed the tomb of Henry’s parents, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, who were buried at Westminster Abbey.2 Torrigiano planned for Henry VIII’s sarcophagus to be made of the same white marble and black touchstone as his father’s, only it was to be considerably bigger. Yet, a disagreement over compensation for the designing of the burial plans ensued, causing Torrigiano to return to Italy by June 1519. Henry considered giving another Italian sculptor, Jacopo Sansovino, an extraordinary commission of 75,000 ducats to work on a design in 1527, a modern equivalent of six million and ninety thousand pounds.3 The king’s effigy was cast and polished while he was still alive. Work progressed during the last years of Henry’s reign, but the wars in France and Scotland in the 1540s drained the royal treasury and work slowed. However, the monument which Henry described in his will as being, “an honourable tomb for our bones to rest in, which is well onward and almost made therefore already, with a fair grate about it,” was not originally his, but had been commissioned by his chief minister Thomas Wolsey.4 In 1524 Wolsey commissioned the great Florentine sculptor Benedetto da Rovenzanno to design a magnificent tomb for him that was to include four bronze angels.5 In much the same way as Wolsey had lavishly re-designed Hampton Court Palace as a symbol of his power and ambitions, he desired for his tomb to be a lasting monument of his earthly glory.6 In 1524, work began on Wolsey’s tomb which consisted of a marble base, pillars and statues, and a black and white marble sarcophagus, which was mounted on an 8-feet-high base.7 Following Wolsey’s downfall in 1529, Henry confiscated all parts of the cardinal’s tomb for himself. When Henry died, the sarcophagus was taken to his burial place at Windsor Castle, but it remained unused at Windsor for three hundred years.8
Antiquarian John Speed unearthed in the seventeenth century a now lost manuscript believed to have been owned by the Lancastrian Herald, Nicholas Charles, which gave details of Sansovino’s design.9 In his History of Britain Speed describes how the proposed tomb was: “the said two tombs of blacke touch, and the said Angel over the King and Queene, shall stand an high basement like sepulchre.”10 This was all to be topped with a life-size gilded statue of Henry on horseback under a triumphal arch, “over the height of the Basement shall be made an Image of the King on Horse-backe, lively in Armor like a King, after the antique manner.”11 Always conscious of the need to emphasise his knightly masculinity, Henry laid down an elaborate plan to have himself depicted on horseback, emulating the iconic image of the medieval knight and his tomb was intended to reflect this.12 The design of Henry’s tomb was in grand Italian Renaissance fashion, but he also combined the classicism of the triumphant arch, with the ostentatious equestrian statue that was intended to be avant-garde. The king’s tomb if completed would have been one of the earliest examples of the antique style in England, as it was intended to seal his reputation as a great and glorious monarch by surpassing everything of its kind. Though Henry’s ambitious plans for his tomb may have highlighted Renaissance modernity, the king’s choice of burial at the chivalric setting of St George’s Chapel symbolised the coming together of the medieval past, with the present. Henry preferred to represent himself as the embodiment of the union of the families of Lancaster and York.13 However, it is evident that the king’s reign has often been argued as marking a clear break with the medieval past. Yet, Lucy Wooding is one of the few historians to consider Henry VIII’s reign as continuing many aspects of the medieval period.14 I would argue that Henry’s burial place is an indication of his desire to have his monarchy remembered within a traditional framework and it is from this perspective that I have considered his presentation of masculinity and kingship.
In the description of Henry’s proposed tomb Speed details the image of the king on horseback, “with this horse shall be of the whole stature of a goodly man and a large horse.”15 It is significant that Henry’s plans specified a large horse, as it demonstrated his ability to dominate a great courser that in turn had direct connotations to qualities of manliness. According to Katherine Lewis, “self-mastery was widely regarded as essential to both kingship and manhood.”16 In reference to elite masculinity Fiona Dunlop argues, “it is predicated on the ideal of rule- the ability to govern both oneself and others.”17 Yet it was also fundamental that high status men possessed the physical strength and skills to take charge of a horse. It is notable that the king describes a ‘goodly man’: it was a depiction that quite literally expected elite men to be athletic, muscular and supremely fit. Noel Fallows’ explicit discussion of the male body in connection with knightly prowess offers a major contribution to the current literature surrounding chivalry. Fallows describes, “in the Middle Ages a man’s masculinity was often defined by his well formed buttocks, thighs and legs.”18 This knightly model that Henry aspired to required a particular physique: it was not just about performing martial exploits—there was a physical aspect to achieving high status manhood. Indeed, the relationship between the two is self-evident: having a manly body befitting the tiltyard implied that a man was capable of physical prowess because of the hours of training that were involved to achieve this particular physique. Indeed, Wooding rightly acknowledges that the hours that Henry spent on the tournament field were not wasted; “they were at the very heart of his identity and purpose as king.”19 This sculpting of a ‘goodly man’ was a deliberate attempt by Henry to create a lasting image of a knightly body. In spite of the king’s decline of manliness in his later years, due to his lack of self-control, he wanted to be remembered in this youthful vain, since the body was still an essential marker of high status masculinity in the early sixteenth century.20
The gendering of Henry’s effigy as a knightly figure is also evident through Speed’s description of the king being “lively in armour.” The armoured Henry acts as a visual construction of knightly masculinity, as the wearing of armour, on horseback, with the powerful male body on show had direct connotations to knighthood. The hegemonic ideal for elite men in the Middle Ages was the knightly model as Ruth Mazo Karras identifies: “knighthood epitomized one set of medieval ideals about masculinity.”21 The ideals of knighthood were heavily influenced by the chivalric literature at the time that emphasised the knight’s need for physical vigour and military skill. In Geoffroi de Charny’s Book of Chivalry published in 1352, it provides a manual on the daily life of the knight.22 As one of the most respected knights of his age, he applauds those knights who exhibit strength, agility and eagerness for tourney or battle. The armoured male body in itself was a signifier of knightly masculinity as it implied that violent, aggressive and combative action was to take place. Though we are not given any further descriptions of the type of armour that the king wanted to be depicted in, by analysing the suits he commissioned during his reign, it is possible to envisage the style of his armour. Under Henry, armour in England developed a distinctive design, as the king set up his own armour workshops at Greenwich in 1511, which became the main suppliers of armour for the monarch and English court.23 The king encouraged armourers from Milan, Brussels and Germany to relocate to the Greenwich armoury so that he could quickly commission personal armours for himself and his men.24 The Greenwich suits of armour commissioned by Henry are particularly notable for their extravagance, reflecting the cultural Renaissance that was taking place in England at large. In particular it was the king’s painter Hans Holbein who was appointed to design the etchings for several of his suits of armour.25 The king’s suits themselves became a valuable status symbol for Henry, with his most impressive armour being reserved for the tournament.26 In following with this trend it is likely that the armour garniture planned for Henry’s effigy would have been highly decorative with etching and possibly gilding as was the case on the king’s surviving suits of armour.
The figure of the king on horseback also had strong imperial overtones that fitted Henry’s ambitions for conquest and imperial expansion in France. This military drive harkened back to a golden age of chivalry, with its high point being under Edward III and Henry V who had established English settlements in Normandy and Calais.27 From the start of his reign, Henry VIII had made it clear that he wanted to be a different type of king to his father. Though Henry VII was a proven military leader, he realised that England’s resources were insufficient for an expansive foreign policy on the scale of Henry V. By way of contrast, Henry VIII was determined to go to war with France, despite the fact that war could have been avoided if he had wished.28 The chronicler Polydore Vergil explicitly stated that the king was “not unmindful that it was his duty to seek fame by military skill.”29 It seems that Henry had a shrewd instinct that a victory over France would still hold an important European status for the English nation at all levels. David Trim argues that unlike his father, “Henry VIII’s commitment to the martial ideal and chivalric ethos was unequivocal, he quite consciously modelled himself on Henry V.”30 Henry VIII, anxious to recreate the chivalrous identity of the English monarchy, thus embarked on an unprovoked and aggressive campaign against France. For Henry, military success abroad was a desirable end in itself, as Steven Gunn has shown.31 Indeed martial pursuits added to Henry’s manly reputation, therefore aside from the material rewards that could be gained from war, it profited his knightly image. Henry’s intent for war with France highlights the importance of recuperative masculinity as he felt compelled to equal and even to surpass his medieval heroes. If Henry was successful in this endeavour he could be immortalised alongside Henry V as a warrior king. Henry VIII was only too aware that his grandfather and father had secured their thrones on the battlefield.32 He had inherited the throne, unchallenged, but he wanted the fame that accompanied victory in battle.
The obvious choice for Henry was glorious military success against England’s traditional enemy, France. In June 1513, the king crossed the sea to Calais, accompanied by hundreds of members of his household. Despite Henry’s pursuit, the French did not want to engage in combat, and apart from one or two minor skirmishes, there was no fighting until the English army laid siege to the town of Thérouanne. On 16 August, a body of French cavalry faced the English and after some exchange of fire, turned and fled. Yet it would later become known as the glorious ‘Battle of the Spurs’ because of the haste of the French to leave the battlefield. English chronicler, Edward Hall, notes that it was the French who “call this battaile the iourney of Spurres because they rune away so fast on horsbacke.”33 Nevertheless, Henry made the most of this victory as he wanted to make a major and lasting impact on Europe by displaying his own chivalric majesty abroad. After Thérouanne fell, Henry launched a second siege, this time on the French city of Tournai, which was fortified by strong walls and a ring of great towers. The king and the English artillery set about besieging the city for eight days until it surrendered on 23 September 1513, which marked the climax of a brilliant campaign. Though Henry VIII’s invasion of France in 1513 in reality achieved only modest success, it was still a remarkable achievement given that it was England’s first victory in France within living memory. Trim contends that modern historians have treated Henry’s triumph with contempt, but at the time, “Henry VIII was perceived as a successful warrior king.”34 Certainly, it likely seemed possible that Henry would extend these conquests further, yet in the end they were promoted for the rest of his reign because he had nothing else to replace them with.35 These events were celebrated when the French ambassadors came to visit the king at Greenwich Palace in 1527, where court painter Hans Holbein had created a panorama of the siege of Thérouanne on a great arch.36 The unsubtle gesture was intended to impress upon Henry’s visitors his military potential by illustrating his only field victory during the 1513 French campaign.37 By memorialising the English triumph over the French for the ambassadors to witness, it made it explicit Henry’s desire for commanding status in Europe as a warrior king.38
Had Henry’s designs for his effigy been realised, this magnificent structure would have been far grander than the tomb of the king’s parents and more ornate than the resting places of all the European monarchs. Indeed, perhaps the only royal tomb comparable to Henry’s design is Emperor Maximillian I’s, who envisioned a grand tomb, surrounded by twenty-eight life-sized statues of his ancestors and personal heroes, such as King Arthur of Britain.39 Work on the figures began in 1502, and carving continued, under Maximilian’s son, Charles V, and his grandson, Ferdinand I, who completed the extravagant tomb in 1572. The statues are remarkably detailed in costume and image, illustrating medieval knights dressed in armour with heraldic shields and enormous effigies of kings, dukes and princes from the medieval past who all surround the tomb.40 The mammoth project had no medieval counterpart, but it can be best compared with the original plans for the tomb of Pope Julius II, his rival, with which it was likely intended to compete against.41 Thus we might speculate that the image of the Emperor-Knight that Maximillian planned for his tomb influenced the English king in his own equally elaborate design. It is likely that Henry drew inspiration from the Emperor, who was thirty-two years his senior, and shared his passion for jousting competitions and chivalric culture.42 Perhaps the young king even looked to the Emperor as a mentor as he heard about his legendary performances in the tiltyard from across the continent.43 It appears that Maximillian also looked to encourage the young Henry into the chivalric way of life by gifting him the ‘Burgundian Bard,’ an ornate horse armour, to celebrate his marriage to Katherine of Aragon in 1509.44 The bard is lavishly embossed with pomegranates, a personal emblem of both Maximillian and Katherine, which was a shrewd move as it served as a visual reminder of the Emperor’s generosity.
Moreover, in 1511 Maximillian commissioned his Austrian armourer Konrad Seusenhofer to make a suit of armour for the English king that was topped with an elaborate ‘Horned Helmet,’ which was deeply embossed and gifted to Henry in 1514.45 It was clearly intended for pageantry and display rather than serving any practical purposes, yet it showcased the skill and intricate detail for which the German armour workshops were famous. Carolyn Springer argues that Italian nobles expressed anxieties about the body and masculine authority that were combated by the commissioning of elaborate and decorate parade armour in the sixteenth century.46 It is apparent that this was the case with Henry’s armour as he got older; he used armour to emphasise his manliness, at a time when he was anxious about his standing as a man. In studying men’s bodies, armour provides a valuable material source as, although armour could be somewhat modified to give an impressive appearance, it was bespoke for individuals, and its practical function meant that it had to fit its owner closely. Therefore it does tell us something about what knightly bodies were like, in particular the measurements that we can derive from the king’s surviving suits of armour. The earliest surviving armour of Henry is the ‘Silver and Engraved’ field armour, on display at the Tower of London that is dated from around 1515, when the king was only twenty-four years old. It was the first known product of Henry’s new workshop at Greenwich.47 The armour shows that in 1515 Henry’s waist measured 35in and his chest 42in. It is evident that in his youth Henry displayed a body that exemplified the knightly body, but this clearly changed as the king got older.
On Henry’s breastplate is a large image of St George holding a broken lance, the point of which pierces the dragon’s neck. St George had been England’s patron saint since the fourteenth century, and he was inextricably linked with another symbol of English chivalry: the Order of the Garter, which became an essential part of Henry’s kingly identity. The Order of the Garter had been founded by the king’s ancestor, Edward III, in 1348 and represented the highest rank of chivalry.48 The Order under Edward III consisted of his knightly companions who were favoured above all others for their military virtues, which were considered inherent qualities of manhood that climaxed in battle and war.49 In the same way Henry used the Order to create a loyal body of young, noble warriors, who could support him in his war aims with France.50 It was Henry’s grandfather, Edward IV, who had commissioned the building of a new chapel for St George in 1475, which was completed by his grandson in 1528. Significantly, Edward IV was the first monarch who chose to be buried at St George’s Chapel rather than at Westminster, which illustrates his close alignment with chivalry.51 It was Edward IV who provided a significant platform for jousting contests in the 1460s, as unlike all the previous kings of the fifteenth century, he competed alongside his men in the tiltyard.52 Henry VIII clearly identified with his medieval ancestors as he left precise instructions about the repositioning and beautification of the tombs of Henry VI and Edward IV, thus immortalising himself as the living embodiment of the two houses of Lancaster and York.53 Henry was also actively involved in chivalry, like his grandfather, taking part in jousting contests from the start of his reign, which may explain why he selected to be buried at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, rather than at Westminster with his father.54 It is apparent that Henry wanted to be remembered within a chivalrous setting by having his place of burial at St George’s Chapel: the location for the Order of the Garter ceremonies he bound his kingship to these knightly codes of honour.
The feast day of St George fell on 23 April; Henry had been proclaimed king on that date and used it as his official birthday. Henry had been invested with the Order of the Garter by order of his father since the age of four and it is most likely that the ceremony took place at St George’s Chapel, the home of the patron of Saint George.55 Even as a prince Wooding writes, “Henry possessed four images of St George, more than any other religious figure.”56 Henry went further in changing the oath taken by his knights so that rather than swearing to defend the college of St George’s, Windsor, new knights now undertook to defend the “honors, quarrels, rights, and dominions and cause of their king.”57 Through this Henry forged a bond between monarchy and nobility that placed him at the centre, as he replaced the figure of St George and presented himself as the ultimate chivalrous idol. Henry also entwined the Tudor iconography with that of the Order of the Garter in 1510, when he decreed that the Garter collar consist of twelve red and white roses set within blue garters, interspersed with twelve tasselled knots.58 From the collar, then hung a pendant of St George slaying the dragon, which the knights were to wear on the annual feast day the king held each year. After Henry’s reign the new Garter insignia combining the Tudor rose was not continued by his successors, making it unique to his reign. The king also commissioned the Black Book in 1534, which was the earliest surviving register of the Order of the Garter stretching back to the knights in Edward III’s reign in 1348.59 Inside it contained the history, regulations and ceremonies of the knights of the Order of the Garter. It was decorated with the initials of the Order’s founder Edward III and successive monarchs up until Henry VIII. The king occupied a central double page depicting the ceremonies of the Order in 1534. It was expected that Henry would feature so heavily compared to his predecessors given that he commissioned the Black Book ; he is shown enthroned surrounded by the Garter knights and then again alone at prayer. The illumination of Henry raised above his Garter knights illustrates that as king, he was naturally at the head of this Order and as a result he topped the male hierarchy. Thus the horizontal layers of chivalry that bound Henry and his knights in this brotherhood of arms were also carefully overlain with vertical ties. In commissioning a book that illustrated the medieval kings and Garter knights of the past, up until his present reign, Henry solidified his kingship in a traditional context.
The early promotions of men advanced into the Order of the Garter under Henry typically were those who were actively involved in this culture of chivalry both titling alongside the king as knights and as soldiers representing him on the battlefield. The exemplar of manhood for Henry was his closest companion, Charles Brandon, whose involvement in chivalric enterprises such as jousting and tourneys led to him being granted further honour through his acceptance in April 1513 into the Order of the Garter.60 This formalised the chivalric relationship between king and servant. Brandon was to pledge his loyalty to the king through service in arms. The Order honoured men of martial virtue, valour and knightliness, which was recognised through the wearing of the collar that symbolised the chivalric brotherhood. Brandon was then expected to prove his loyalty to the Order, by taking up arms in honour of the king’s 1513 campaign to France. It was Brandon’s participation in warfare that gained him higher admiration from Henry, when he was made Duke of Suffolk in 1514.61 The fact that Brandon became one of only two dukes made in Henry’s reign is striking; it proves that Henry privileged this model of martial masculinity above all other versions at his court.62 To make this point further Henry commissioned the burial of Brandon at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, a site reserved for royalty and high nobility. A 1787 entry in Chapter Acts states, “ordered that leave to be given to lay a stone above the grace of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, according to his majesties directions.”63 The choice of burial was significant as no other of Henry’s men received a burial at Windsor. This was an extraordinary honour for Brandon as one of the only non-royals to be buried at St George’s Chapel, and it signified the remarkable longevity of his chivalrous bond with the king that was expected to continue beyond death.64
The iconography surrounding Henry’s planned burial monument included the figure of St. George, as described by Speed: “item the foure Images of St. Iohn the Baptist and Saint George, and all the figures of the Father and Angels steps shall be V. foot.”65 Yet, it is evident alongside the chivalrous imagery, a wealth of Christian imagery was added on Henry’s tomb, which provided other influential models for his kingly identity. Indeed, the tapestries that hung in Henry’s palaces included scenes from the New Testament depicting Saint Paul, Samson and the passion of Jesus Christ and others drew on the Old Testament stories of King David, Moses and Solomon.66 The earlier portrait of Henry on the title page of the Coverdale Bible designed by Holbein in 1535 is bordered on the right-hand side by the lyre playing figure of King David.67 Significantly, David is shown with a likeness of the king and although not formally authorised, it was circulated under the patronage of Thomas Cromwell and was a means to validate Henry’s claim to govern without clerical intercession.68 By the Great Bible front piece four years later in 1539, the figure of David and Henry had now merged into one.69 The king’s supreme status is demonstrated through Henry receiving the word of God quite literally as a prophet, and handing the bible to his clergy and nobility who in turn communicate the word to the people. Perhaps the best illustration of Henry as the new King David was the Psalter of Henry VIII written and illuminated by Jean Maillart in 1540: it features miniatures associating the king with David.70 Those who sought royal patronage at Henry’s court clearly understood the value to the king in creating works of art and literature, which compared his likeness to these biblical models as the Old Testament stories were reinterpreted to validate the English Reformation. In 1540 on New Year’s Day Henry was presented with a painting miniature by Holbein named Solomon and the Queen of Sheba that compared the king to God’s elected ruler Solomon.71 This constructed image clearly alluded to Henry as a Solomonic figure, which fitted with his status as head of the Church of England. The very fact that it was gifted to Henry indicates that he was openly flattered by these biblical archetypes, which were implemented into his policy of absolute kingship. It is evident that Henry was using the archetype of David and Solomon as ideal kings as part of his personal iconography in the 1530s and 1540s, since it elevated his status as the great religious patriarch and memorialised him as the father of the English nation.
The early years of Henry’s reign have been categorised as the chivalric phase of his masculinity and kingship, which were marked by the number of tournaments that the king held in the 1510s and 1520s. Yet, in 1540 when the king was forty-nine years old, he had his armourers at Greenwich make a suit of armour, now held at the Tower of London.72 It was likely made for the May Day tournament held at the Palace of Westminster in 1540, but there is no record of the king competing, despite his existing armour.73 The king’s great garniture consists of etched and gilded decorations, and polished steel, which made for a fine showcasing of knightly masculinity. Though Henry at this stage in his lifecycle was now aged, and grossly overweight, and no longer the handsome, athletic king who had dominated the tiltyard in his youth. The king’s armour measurements reveal that his waist was now 51in and his chest 54.5in. Therefore Henry displayed a physique that was no longer suited to the tiltyard; nevertheless, his suit of armour had two sets of reinforcing plates added ready for the joust. It is curious why the king had armour garniture made for the contest, if he had no intention of competing. Therefore I would argue that Henry wanted to convey a jouster’s appearance by wearing this spectacular suit of armour so that visually he looked apart of the action. The presentation of chivalric manhood remained an important part of Henry’s kingship even in his later years, which is why the armour is broad and heavy in appearance, and still demonstrates a commanding presence. The king’s oversized codpiece in this armour was in itself an obvious marker of his virility.74 Suzannah Lipscomb argues that in Holbein’s famous portrait of Henry in the Whitehall Mural completed in 1537, everything about how his body has been depicted is intended to convey masculinity and virility.75 Tatiana String has examined the evident motifs of masculine prowess in the mural, drawing attention specifically to Henry’s elaborately decorated and large codpiece, which she argues focused in on the royal genitals as potent and sexual.76 While codpieces also had a practical function, that is, to cover the outstanding part of the body, the point about courtly codpieces was that they became epic in proportion during Henry’s reign.77 It does appear that as Henry got older his codpieces got bigger, as in spite of his failing manly body, he reverted to the chivalrous activities of his youth.78 Hence the king’s impressive suits of armour enabled him to practically and decoratively self-fashion this lasting knightly image.
The last suit of armour made for Henry towards the end of his life in c.1544 was designed for use on the field, now on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.79 Constructed for use both on horse and on foot, it was probably worn by the king during his last military campaign, the siege of Boulogne in 1544, where he commanded his army personally.80 Henry’s greatly expanded body shape at age fifty-three is apparent from the armour, as its height including the king’s helmet was 73in and it weighed 23kg. The obsession of war with France continued into Henry’s later years, and so this suit of armour designed by the Milanese, Francis Albert, was imported by the king. The spectacular etched, blacked and gilt three-quarter armour was almost certainly, states Robert Hutchinson, “the one Henry wore on his march from Calais.”81 It is significant that this was the first time that the king had worn armour on the battlefield, since his French campaign in 1513 at the start of his reign, a point that should not be overlooked. Henry took a central role in the siege of Boulogne supervising every move as he proudly rode a great courser, with the red flag of St George which flew before him. The defeat of the French and the fall of the city of Boulogne on 18 September 1544 signalled the most spectacular military victory of Henry’s wartime career. Hall records Henry’s splendid entrance into the city of Boulogne, “like a noble and valyaunt conqueror rode into Bulleyn.”82 Though it was not at all comparable to Agincourt, it was designed so that Henry appeared like his hero Henry V, whom he considered the exemplar warrior king. The king had long-held ambitions for reconquering France; he had always wanted to pursue his claim for the French throne as far as he could, whilst establishing his international prestige as a celebrated military leader. It is significant that Henry marked the start and end of his reign in war with France, as it is a clear marker of the type of king that he wanted to be and highlights just how much the cult of chivalry appealed to him as a traditional monarch.
It is surprising that more has not been made of Henry VIII’s planned tomb despite it not being completed, as it is still vital that we consider how the king wanted to be remembered. There is much we can learn about how Henry understood his kingship and masculinity from the design of his effigy, which was planned to venerate him as a medieval knight in armour on horseback. This model of knightly masculinity was an active ideal that required physical strength and courage and emphasised the need for martial expertise. Hence the focus of Henry’s kingship was to embody those ideals pertaining to knighthood by competing and holding tournaments in his reign and by displaying courage and warrior skills in conquering France. The great medieval kings of the past, Edward III, Henry V and Edward IV, set a precedent of ideal kingship as their reigns evoked memories of great victories in battle, of magnificent tournaments and of chivalric orders, such as the Order of the Garter. In continuing this legacy Henry committed to the archetype of the knight throughout his reign and even in death this imagery was designed to immortalise his chivalrous masculinity. I would argue that Henry rejected other models in favour of a return to the youthful militant version of masculinity by going to war with France at the very start and end of his reign; he showed that he wanted to be remembered as a warrior king above everything else. Henry did not abandon his chivalric kingly status in his later reign in favour of a religious model, as the enduring appeal of the medieval knight was just as prominent in the king’s final years as he continued to sponsor tournaments and returned to war with France in the 1540s. Yet, it is indeed ironic that a king who decided on an extravagant and oversized burial effigy, who held spectacular tournaments, wore elaborate armour, and who led a glorious campaign to France, should lie in a plain vault, marked only by a marble slab.
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1. Allmand, C. T. “The Lancastrian Land Settlement in Normandy 1417–50.” The Economic History Review 21.3 (1968): 461–479.
2. ———. The Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History Medieval Occupation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
3. Anglo, Sydney. “Archives of the English Tournament: Score Cheques and Lists.” Journal of the Society of Archivists 2 (1961): 153–162.
4. Ashmole, Elias. The History of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. London, 1715.
5. Barber, Richard. “Why did Edward III hold the Round Table? The Political Background.” In Edward III’s Round Table at Windsor: The House of the Round Table and the Windsor Festival of 1344, edited by Julian Munby, Richard Barber, and Richard Brown, 77–84. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007.
6. Blair, Claude. “The Emperor Maximillian’s Gift of Armour to King Henry VIII and the Silvered and Engraved Armour at the Tower of London.” Archaeologia 99 (1965): 1–52.
7. Beltz, Frederick George. Memorials of the Order of the Garter: From its Foundations to the Present Time with Biographical Notices of the Knights in the reigns of Edward III and Richard II. London: London W. Pickering, 1841.
8. Campbell, Thomas. Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor court. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2007.
9. Charny, Geoffroi. A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry. Translated by Elspeth Kennedy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
10. Collins, Hugh. The Order of the Garter, 1358–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.
11. Connell, Raewyn, and James Messerschmidt. “Hegemonic Masculinity. Rethinking the Concept.” Gender and Society 19 (2005): 829–859.
12. Cruickshank, Charles. Henry VIII and the Invasion of France. Stroud: Sutton, 1990.
13. Davies, C. S. L. “Tudor: What’s in Name?” History 97 no. 325 (2012): 24–42.
14. Dillon, Viscount. “Tilting in Tudor Times.” Archaeological Journal 55 (1898): 269–339.
15. Dressler, Rachel. “Steel Corpse Imaging the Knight in Death.” In Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, edited by Jacqueline Murray, 135–167. New York: Garland Press, 1999.
16. Dunlop, Fiona. The Late Medieval Interlude: The Drama of Youth and Aristocratic Masculinity. York: York Medieval Press, in Association with Boydell & Brewer and the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, 2007.
17. Fallows, Noel. Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance Iberia. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2010.
18. Ffoulkes, Charles. “Jousting Cheques of the Sixteenth Century.” Archaeologia Journal 63 (1912): 34–39.
19. Fletcher, Christopher. Richard II Manhood, Youth and Politics 1377–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
20. Frommel, Luitpold Christoph. Michelangelo’s Tomb for Julius II: Genesis and Genius. London: Yale University Press, 2016.
21. Gunn, Steven. Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend. Original edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988. Revised edition, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2015.
22. ———. “Henry VIII’s Foreign Policy and the Tudor Cult of Chivalry.” In François ler et Henri VIII: deux princes de la renaissance, edited by Charles Giry-Deloison, 25–35. Lille: Charles de Gaulle Université-Lille III, 1996.
23. ———. The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
24. ———. “Tournaments and Early Tudor Chivalry.” History Today 41 no. 6 (1991): 15–21.
25. Guy, John. Tudor England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
26. Hekster, Oliver. Emperors and Ancestors: Roman Rulers and Constraints of Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
27. Higgins, Alfred. “On the Work of Florentine Sculptors in England in the Early Part of the Sixteenth Century, with Special Reference to the Tombs of Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII.” The Archaeological Journal 51 (1894): 142.
28. Hoaks, Dale. “Legacy of Henry VIII.” In Henry VIII and his After Lives, edited by Mark Rankin, Christopher Higley, and John King, 53–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
29. Hutchinson, Robert. Henry VIII: The Decline and Fall of a Tyrant. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2019.
30. Karras, Mazo Ruth. From Boys to Men: Formation of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
31. King, John. “Henry VIII as David.” In Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts, edited by Peter. C. Herman, 78–83. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
32. Levitt, Emma. “Tiltyard Friendships and Bonds of Loyalty in the Reign of Edward IV, 1461–1483.” In Loyalty to the British Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain c.1400–1688, edited by Matthew Ward and Matthew Hefferan, 15–37. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
33. Keen, Maurice, and Barker Juliet. “The Medieval English Kings and the Tournament.” In Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms in the Middle Ages, edited by Maurice Keen, 83–101. Hambledon: Continuum, 1996.
34. Lewis, Katherine. Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England. Oxon: Routledge, 2013.
35. Lipscomb, Suzannah. 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII. Oxford: Lion Books, 2009.
36. Phillip, Lindley G. “Playing Check-mate with Royal Majesty? Wolsey’s Patronage of Italian Royal Sculpture.” In Cardinal Wolsey: Church State and Art, edited by Steven J. Gunn and Phillip G. Lindley, 261–284. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
37. Massey, R. A. “The Land Settlement in Lancastrian in Normandy, 1417–50.” In Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, edited by A. J. Pollard, 76–96. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1984.
38. Mitchell, Margaret. “Works of Art from Rome for Henry VIII.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34 (1971): 178–203.
39. Neal, Derek. The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
40. Richardson, Thom. “The Royal Armour Workshops at Greenwich.” In Henry VIII: Arms and the Man, 1509–2009, edited by Graeme Rimer, Thom Richardson, and John D. P. Cooper 1–8. Leeds: Royal Armouries, 2009.
41. Richardson, Thom. The Armour & Arms of Henry VIII. Trustees of the Royal Armouries Museum, 2017.
42. Richardson, Glenn. “Entertainments for the French Ambassadors at the Court of Henry VIII.” Renaissance Studies 9.4 (1995): 404–415.
43. Ross, Charles. Edward IV. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997.
44. Saul, Nigel. “Introduction.” In St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Fourteenth Century, edited by Nigel Saul, 1–13. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005.
45. Springer, Carolyn. Armour and Masculinity in the Italian Renaissance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
46. String, Tatiana. “Projecting Masculinity: Henry VIII’s Codpiece”. In Henry VIII and His Afterlives: Literature, Politics and Art, edited by Mark Rankin, Christopher Highley, and John N. King, 143–160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
47. Trim, David. “Knights of Christ?” In Cross, Crown & Community: Religion, Government, and Culture in Early Modern England 1400–1800, edited by David J. B. Trim, Peter J. Balderstone, and Harry Leonard, 77–113. Oxford: Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2004.
48. Warnicke, Retha M. The Marrying of Anne of Cleves: Royal Protocol in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
49. Wyatt, Michael. The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
50. Wood, Christopher. Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
51. Wooding, Lucy. Henry VIII. Oxon: Routledge 2nd ed., 2015.
Unpublished Thesis
1. Anderson, Natalie. “The Tournament and its Role in the Court Culture of Emperor Maximillian I (1459–1519).” PhD diss., The University of Leeds, 2017.
2. Bolland, Charlotte. “Italian Material Culture at The Tudor Court.” PhD diss., Queen Mary, University of London, 2011.
Internet Resources
1. Royal Armouries. “Armor for field and tournament 1540.” Accessed 30 November 2020. https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-11384.html.
2. Royal Armouries. “The Burgundian Bard (1510).” Accessed 30 November 2020. https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-2626.html.
3. Royal Armouries. “The Horned Helmet (1512).” Accessed 30 November 2020. https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-2623.html.
4. Royal Armouries. “Tonlet Armour (1520).” Accessed 20 November 2020. https://royalarmouries.org/stories/object-of-the-month/object-of-the-month-for-april-henry-viiis-foot-combat-armour.
5. Royal Collection. “The Meeting of Henry VIII and the Emperor Maximilian I.” Accessed 30 November 2020. https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/405800/the-meeting-of-henry-viii-and-the-emperor-maximilian-i.
6. Royal Collection Trust. “Solomon and the Queen of Sheba c. 1534.” Accessed 30 November 2020. https://www.rct.uk/collection/912188/solomon-and-the-queen-of-sheba.
Footnotes
1
One of the first major studies to examine the performance of masculine ideals of kingship is Christopher Fletcher, Richard II Manhood, Youth and Politics 1377–99 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), and more recently, Katherine Lewis, Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England (Oxon: Routledge, 2013).
2
Alfred Higgins, “On the Work of Florentine Sculptors in England in the Early Part of the Sixteenth Century, with Special Reference to the Tombs of Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII,” The Archaeological Journal 51 (1894): 142.
3
Charlotte Bolland, “Italian Material Culture at The Tudor Court,” (PhD. diss., Queen Mary, University of London 2011), 15–278.
4
Henry VIII, Miscellaneous Writings: In which are Included Assertion of the Seven Sacraments; Love Letters to Anne Boleyn; Songs; Letter to the Emperor; Two Proclamations; Will., ed. Francis McNamara (Golden Cockerel Press: Waltham Saint Lawrence, 1924), 206–207.
5
Phillip G. Lindley, “Playing check-mate with royal majesty? Wolsey’s Patronage of Italian Royal sculpture,” in Cardinal Wolsey: Church State and Art, eds. Steven J. Gunn and Phillip G. Lindley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 261–284.
6
For work on the extravagant ostentation of the building see John Matusiak, Wolsey: The Life of King Henry VIII’s Cardinal (Stroud: The History Press, 2014).
7
Margaret Mitchell, “Works of Art from Rome for Henry VIII,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34 (1971): 178–203.
8
Michael Wyatt, The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 51. In 1808, it was relocated to St Paul’s Cathedral and set above the grave of the acclaimed war hero Lord Nelson.
9
Mitchell, “Works of Art from Rome for Henry VIII,” 178–203.
10
John Speed, The history of Great Britaine under the conquests of ye Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. Their original manners, habits, warres, coines, and seales, with the successions, lines, acts, and issues of the English monarchs, from Iulius Caesar, to our most, gratious soueraigne King Iames. The second edition. Reuised, & enlarged w[i]th sundry descents of ye Saxons kings, their mariages and armes (London, 1627), 796–797. Speed’s description of the tomb.
11
Speed, The History of Greate Britaine, 796–797.
12
Mitchell, “Works of Art from Rome for Henry VIII,” 178–203.
13
C. S. L. Davies, “Tudor: What’s in Name?” History 97 no. 325 (2012): 24–42.
14
Lucy Wooding, Henry VIII (Oxon: Routledge 2nd ed., 2015), 70.
15
Speed, The History of Greate Britaine, 796–797.
16
Lewis, Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England, 2.
17
Fiona Dunlop, The Late Medieval Interlude: The Drama of Youth and Aristocratic Masculinity (York: York Medieval Press, in association with Boydell & Brewer and the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, 2007), 123.
18
Noel Fallows, Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance Iberia (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2010), 175.
19
Wooding, Henry VIII, 67.
20
Derek Neal, The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 134.
21
Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 20.
22
Geoffroi de Charny, A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry, trans. Elspeth Kennedy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
23
Thom Richardson, “The Royal Armour Workshops at Greenwich,” in Henry VIII: Arms and the Man, 1509–2009, eds. Graeme Rimer, Thom Richardson, and John D. P. Cooper (Leeds: Royal Armouries, 2009), 1–8.
24
Thom Richardson, The Armour & Arms of Henry VIII (Trustees of the Royal Armouries Museum, 2017).
25
I discuss below Henry VIII’s armour for field and combat (1540) that incorporated designs by Hans Holbein.
26
For example Henry’s Tonlet armour (1520) worn at the Field of Cloth of Gold tournament see “Tonlet Armour (1520)” Object number II.7 Royal Armouries Collection, accessed 30 November 2020, https://royalarmouries.org/stories/object-of-the-month/object-of-the-month-for-april-henry-viiis-foot-combat-armour/.
27
For English settlement in Normandy in the early fifteenth century, see C.T. Allmand, “The Lancastrian Land Settlement in Normandy 1417–50,” The Economic History Review 21.3 (1968): 461–479; C.T. Allmand, The Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History Medieval Occupation (Oxford: Clarendon Press: 1983), 50–121; R.A. Massey, “The Land Settlement in Lancastrian in Normandy, 1417–50,” in Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, ed. A. J. Pollard (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1984), 76–96.
28
Steven J. Gunn, The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 11.
29
Polydore Vergil, Anglican Historia of Polydore Vergil, A.d. 1485–1537, ed. and trans. Denys Hay (Camden Society., 3rd series, 1940), 161.
30
David Trim, “Knights of Christ?” in Cross, Crown & Community: Religion, Government, and Culture in Early Modern England 1400–1800, eds. David. J. B. Trim, Peter. J. Balderstone, and Harry Leonard (Oxford: Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2004), 77–113.
31
Steven J. Gunn, “Henry VIII’s Foreign Policy and the Tudor Cult of Chivalry,” in François ler et Henri VIII: deux princes de la renaissance, ed. Charles Giry-Deloison (Lille: Charles de Gaulle Université-Lille III, 1996), 25–35.
32
Wooding, Henry VIII, 67.
33
Edward Hall, Hall’s chronicle: containing the history of England , during the reign of Henry the Fourth, and the succeeding monarchs, to the end of the reign of Henry the Eighth, in which are particularly described the manners and customs of those periods. Carefully collated with the editions of 1548 and 1550, ed. J. Johnson (London, 1809), 550.
34
Trim, “Knights of Christ?” 77–113.
35
Charles G. Cruickshank, Henry VIII and the Invasion of France (Stroud: Sutton, 1990), 163 and John Guy, Tudor England, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988), 192: the traditional stance taken by these historians is that Henry’s wars were wasteful and ineffective.
36
Henry Guildford’s account book for stores and revels at Greenwich in 1527 in The National Archives, UK, E36/227, fol. 11 records that he earned £4 and 10 shillings for the painting of the siege of Thèrouanne.
37
Glenn Richardson, “Entertainments for the French ambassadors at the court of Henry VIII,” Renaissance Studies 9.4 (1995): 404–415.
38
Dale Hoaks, “Legacy of Henry VIII,” in Henry VIII and his After Lives, eds. Mark Rankin, Christopher Higley, and John King (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 53–73. Tellingly towards the end of his life Henry had two enormous paintings commissioned of him in battle.
39
Olivier Hekster, Emperors and Ancestors: Roman Rulers and Constraints of Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 315.
40
Christopher S. Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 311.
41
Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Michelangelo’s Tomb for Julius II: Genesis and Genius (London: Yale University Press, 2016).
42
Maximillian recorded his many contests in a richly illustrated tourney book known as Freydal that appears in a text MS. with corrections by Maximilian I in Vienna, National Library, cod. 2385.
43
Natalie Anderson, “The Tournament and its Role in the Court Culture of Emperor Maximillian I (1459–1519),” (PhD. diss., The University of Leeds, 2017), 1–235.
44
“The Burgundian Bard (1510)” Object number VI.6, Royal Armouries Collection, accessed 30 November 2020, https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-2626.html.
45
“The Horned Helmet (1512)” Object number IV.22, Royal Armouries Collection, accessed 30 November 2020, https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-2623.html.
46
Carolyn Springer, Armour and Masculinity in the Italian Renaissance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 21.
47
“Silver and engraved armour (about 1515)” Object II.5, Royal Armouries Collection, accessed 30 November 2020, https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-18.html.
48
Hugh E. L. Collins, The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000) 1.
49
Richard Barber, “Why did Edward III hold the Round Table? The political background,” in Edward III’s Round Table at Windsor: The House of the Round Table and the Windsor Festival of 1344, eds. Julian Munby, Richard Barber, and Richard Brown (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), 77–84.
50
Wooding, Henry VIII, 63.
51
Charles Ross, Edward IV (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 274.
52
For works on the tournaments of Edward IV see Sydney Anglo, “Anglo- Burgundian Feats of Arms: Smithfield June 1467,” The Guildhall Miscellany 2.7 (1965): 271–283; Richard Barber, “Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and Court Culture,” in Arthurian Literature XII, eds. James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1993), 133–156; Francis Cripps-Day, The History of the Tournament in England and in France (London: B. Quaritch limited, 1918), 96–98; Maurice Keen and Juliet Barker, “The Medieval English Kings and the Tournament,” in Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms in the Middle Ages, ed. M. Keen (Hambledon: Continuum, 1996), 83–101; Emma Levitt, “Tiltyard Friendships and Bonds of Loyalty in the Reign of Edward IV, 1461–1483,” in Loyalty to the British Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain c.1400–1688, eds. Matthew Ward and Matthew Hefferan (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 15–37.
53
Henry VIII, Miscellaneous Writings: In which are Included Assertion of the Seven Sacraments; Love Letters to Anne Boleyn; Songs; Letter to the Emperor; Two Proclamations; Will., 207.
54
There is a wealth of literature on Henry VIII’s tournaments. See Viscount Dillon, “Tilting in Tudor Times,” Archaeological Journal 55 (1898): 269–339; Charles Ffoulkes, “Jousting Cheques of the Sixteenth Century,” Archaeologia Journal 63 (1912): 34–39; Steven Gunn, “Tournaments and Early Tudor Chivalry,” History Today 41.6, (1991): 15–21.
55
Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII; letters, &c. of Henry VII; correspondence of James IV, ed. James Gairdner (Longman Green: Longman and Roberts, 1863), 57.
56
Wooding, Henry VIII, 63.
57
Frederick George Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter: From its Foundations to the Present Time with Biographical Notices of the Knights in the reigns of Edward III and Richard II (London: London W. Pickering, 1841), 89.
58
“Henry VIII: April 1523, 16–30,” in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 3, 1519–1523, ed. J. S Brewer (London, 1867), 1250–1265, British History Online, accessed 16 February 2021, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol3/pp1250-1265.
59
Now in the possession of the Dean at the College of Windsor.
60
“Henry VIII: April 1513, 21–25,” in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1, 1509–1514, ed. J. S Brewer (London, 1920), 815–833. British History Online, accessed 16 February 2021, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol1/pp815-833.
61
“Henry VIII: February 1514, 1–10,” in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1, 1509–1514, 1147–1153. British History Online, accessed 16 February 2021, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol1/pp1147-1153.
62
For an academic study on Charles Brandon see Steven Gunn, Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend (original edition Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988, revised edition Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2015).
63
Eleanor Cracknell, “Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,” Archives Blog, accessed 30 November 2020, https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/charles-brandon-duke-of-suffolk/.
64
Edward IV arranged for his best friend William Hastings to be buried next to him at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
65
Speed, The history of Great Britaine, 796–797.
66
Thomas P. Campbell, Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor court (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2007), 233.
67
Miles Coverdale, Biblia. The Bible tha[t] is, the holy scripture of t[he] Olde and new Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of Douche and Latyn in to Englishe by Miles Coverdale (Germany, 1535): a copy can be found online The British Library, accessed 30 November 2020, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/coverdale-bible.
68
John N. King, “Henry VIII as David,” in Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts, ed. Peter. C. Herman (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press), 78–83.
69
“Henry VIII Great Bible c.1538–1540,” The British Library, accessed 30 November 2020, http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item101943.html The Bible with its coloured title page is visible on here.
70
Jean Maillart, “Psalter (The Psalter of Henry VIII),” The British Library, accessed 30 November 2020, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/henry-viii-psalter: the entire manuscript has been digitised.
71
Hans Holbein, “Solomon and the Queen of Sheba c. 1534,” Royal Collection Trust, accessed 30 November 2020, https://www.rct.uk/collection/912188/solomon-and-the-queen-of-sheba.
72
“Armor for field and tournament 1540,” Object II.8 Royal Armouries, accessed 30 November 2020, https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-11384.html.
73
The Royal College of Arms collection formerly in Box 37: now in a portfolio, tilting list, 6V. 46, May 1 1540.
74
Neal, The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England, 134.
75
Suzannah Lipscomb, 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII (Oxford: Lion Books, 2009), 11.
76
Tatiana String, “Projecting Masculinity: Henry VIII’s Codpiece,” in Henry VIII and His Afterlives: Literature, Politics and Art, eds. Mark Rankin, Christopher Highley, and John N. King (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 143–160.
77
For a recent discussion on the size of codpieces in an adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall see Alison Flood, “Research confirms inadequacy of codpieces in TV version of Wolf Hall”, The Guardian, 30 April 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/30/wolf-hall-codpieces-too-small-says-literature-researcher.
78
Retha M. Warnicke, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves: Royal Protocol in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 127–153. This is made explicit in one humiliating episode that took place in January 1540, in which Henry hastened to meet his soon to be bride Anne of Cleves at Rochester.
79
“Field Armor of King Henry VIII of England ca.1544,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed 30 November 2020, http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/23936.
80
“Henry VIII: September 1544, 11–15,” in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 19 Part 2, August-December 1544, eds. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1905), 114–125. British History Online, accessed 16 February 2021, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol19/no2/pp114-125.
81
Robert Hutchinson, Henry VIII: The Decline and Fall of a Tyrant (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2019), 92.
82
Hall, Hall’s Chronicle, 861.