From 1520 - 'the king's evil counsellors'

Tudor monarch King Henry VIII has rightly been portrayed as narcissistic, cruel and vindictive. A tyrant, and especially in his last 10 years, a murderous monster. Allowing for the different attitudes of different times, this is largely true. But as so often when monarchs or other heads of state are involved, many people then (understandably) and even today (less so) prefer to blame ‘evil counsellors’ for the problems. It handily absolves the perpetrators of blame for their policies or actions, and preserves any fragile belief in the legitimacy and laws of the constitution. We should always avoid it.

Servants of the state

Cardinal Wolsey and especially Thomas Cromwell have suffered in public perception over the years. Wolsey as Lord Chancellor was effectively chief minister under Henry until his fall in late 1529. He had great capacity for work and organised the machinery of the state on both a secular and religious level. An administrative and political genius, he built a team of assistants and advisers to form the core of the Tudor government. He failed in the end to procure Henry his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. This was the reason for his downfall. 

Cardinal Wolsey

Cromwell had worked on smallish scale deals, and led an embassy to Rome for some merchants in Boston, Lincolnshire. Established in London as a legal and political fixer, in 1523 he obtained a seat in the House of Commons. He soon joined Wolsey. As an Italian speaker, lawyer and politician, with a foreign banking back story, his range of skills and experience was pretty useful. But his modest and unconventional background perhaps caused him to be a late developer - he was about 40 before joining the Cardinal’s council.

By 1529 Cromwell had become Wolsey’s chief adviser and secretary. He had a prime role in the dissolution of nearly 30 small monasteries in the 1520s, raising cash for Wolsey’s new King’s School, Ipswich and Cardinal College, Oxford. This experience proved useful 10 years later. Like his boss, he worked noticeably hard across several fields - political, commercial, legal, administrative and ecclesiastical.

Fate of upstarts

Cromwell has been painted as a rapacious, unprincipled and cynical thug. But he was clearly loyal to Wolsey after his fall, rather risky in the circumstances. He was loyal to Henry, too, despite everything. From the humblest origins, this son of a violent (possibly Irish) Putney publican had as a young man travelled extensively in Europe working in various jobs, including, maybe, as a mercenary in Italy. Extremely able, he learned several languages.

Cromwell had a wide circle of friends including notably the Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys. While at times he could show a filthy temper he was usually kind and encouraging to those in what was effectively a large extended family living under his roof. His wife and daughters had died of the sweating sickness in 1529. But he promoted his son Greg, who joined the nobility in 1537 after marrying Jane Seymour’s sister, Elizabeth. He trained and encouraged his nephew Richard, too, another who was to prove a useful servant of the state. Finally, Cromwell evidently kept a good table at his residence at London’s Austin Friars.

Thomas Cromwell attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger

Until the recent Mantel novels and the Schofield and MacCulloch biographies Cromwell endured a bad press. Why? One reason is religion, which in a secular age we tend to underplay. He maintained a close friendship with Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and his reformist sympathies were evident from the correspondence between the two. In an age when religion was so important and just as Luther’s ideas had kick started Europe’s Reformation, the nascent Protestant tide and its supporters had an active and important fan in Cromwell.

This was all done under Henry’s nose, and probably without him being fully aware. These Protestant sympathies hardly endeared him to Catholics later on. Apart from his overtures to German Lutheran princes for a prospective alliance against France and Spain, he bravely kept contacts with the sort of radical Swiss reformers Henry would have hated. Very risky.

Monastic destruction

In the last five years of his life, when he had taken on the mantle of Wolsey’s former powers in the church as ‘Vice-Gerent in Spirituals’ and Vicar General, he drove the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This act of destruction is, from a modern standpoint, unforgivable, but we might recognise that the Church largely went along with it at the time. Monastic foundations had grown rich as landlords and rights holders so among the general public they were hardly the week’s good cause. Henry wanted the money for the state - including defence, to build up the navy’s south coast port and military facilities. Here Cromwell was acting as the royal servant. In fact most of those displaced from the monasteries were given pensions or re-employed in cathedrals, a point often lost in the usual narrative of ruined abbeys and persecuted monks.    

Henry VIII attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger 

Apart from upsetting Catholics, Cromwell was an upstart without breeding. After Wolsey, the Ipswich butcher’s son, this nobody from a Putney pub was just too much. Pedigree was vital in the culture of the age and his rise attracted a deal of snobbery. In fact English history is full of ‘low born’ characters who made their mark through sheer ability. It was just not easy for aristocrats with a born to rule mentality to accept. It made him enemies. Even more so after he arranged his son Greg's marriage to Queen Jane's sister.

There were of course some real negatives with Cromwell. Apart from his role in the Dissolution, his enthusiastic procurement of Henry’s divorce from Catherine and the accompanying legislation to make the king head of the church and break England’s residual ties with Rome, via the Acts of Supremacy and Succession, damn him in some eyes. Yet it was the basis of a successful Elizabethan state. On a secular level his self-enriching and aggrandisement were legion, if typical for the period. He held scores of offices, some pretty lucrative. He also acquired land, property and eventually a title, Earl of Essex.

Lacock Abbey converted to a Tudor mansion

Cromwell fell out early on with Anne Boleyn - rather uncharacteristic of him. She made her disdain for him pretty clear. Her destruction was inspired by the king and organised by Cromwell, once Henry’s mind was made up. It seems Cromwell had no real motive here other than carrying out the king’s will.

He failed over the Anne of Cleves affair of course, despite it seeming an obvious trap to avoid. But this appeared to have been settled amicably enough when he was suddenly stripped of power at a Council meeting in June 1540. He’d angered the catholic Duke of Norfolk in his general behaviour, and in particular the closing of one Norfolk priory that was still a Howard family cemetery. Attainted, not tried in court. Henry was easily persuaded that his chief minister was a heretic. He was found guilty of this with other trumped up charges, sentenced to death and in July, beheaded.

Cromwell's legacy

Within a few months Henry regretted his killing, accusing ministers of using ‘pretexts and false accusations’ against ‘the most faithful servant I ever had’. And indeed, the list of Cromwell’s achievements is impressive. In 10 years as head of the government he streamlined Crown finances - with a huge windfall from the Dissolution. Realising its potential he used Parliament to push social and economic reforms, including action against enclosures. He promoted religious reformers and had copies of the (largely Tyndale) Great Bible sent to every parish in England. In modernising the government he mainly removed the medieval features of central administration.

Cromwell should be seen as the key figure in the Tudor revolution. He continued Wolsey’s work in building the fabric and structure of the new English state, translating royal supremacy into parliamentary terms. He also trained young Protestants like Nicholas Bacon and William Cecil to become the statesmen who later steered Elizabethan Reformation England. “That is the measure of Cromwell’s greatness, and of the way he shaped the future of these islands”, according to Diarmaid MacCulloch, “a cool, self-contained idealist - the remaker of this realm”.

1485 - Henry VII's new Tudor Dynasty

Many will recall learning at school that the Battle of Bosworth Field marked a clean break with the past, settling the royal succession once and for all, putting England on a new footing, with a new direction. That 1485 was a watershed between the medieval era and the start of modern times. The new king, Henry VII, was portrayed as wise, fair minded and level headed, uniting warring factions. In the spirit of a rather simplistic puritanical 1950s’ culture, he was lauded for thrift, sound taxation, and replenishing the near bankrupt Treasury.

Apart from the last point, little of this was true. In fact challenges to Henry’s rule continued throughout his reign, and the questionable legitimacy of the Tudor succession was, even years later, a constant source of worry to his son Henry VIII. The regime’s propagandists did a good job of pushing their narrative, and much of the spin is still accepted today. But in fact we should see this reign as typifying the cynical use of authoritarian power, with divide and rule, Star Chamber and particularly in the final years, under the cover of refilling the country’s coffers, the cruel, corrupt practices of a gangster state.

Young Henry by a French artist        

Usurper

First, legitimacy and the problem of being labelled a usurper. In fact around half the 40 or so English monarchs since 1066 (and a good few before) had their right to the throne disputed. Some took the crown by conquest and/or battle, some owed it to family quarrels, or to the next in line being too young. Some were seen as the answer to religious arguments, while others simply killed the incumbent. It was a risky business being and getting to be, king - uneasy is the head that wears the crown. Six monarchs were indeed killed during this period. The fond notion that royal succession is a suitably clear, peaceful and uncontested way of choosing a head of state is another obvious myth of English history.

Henry’s claim to the throne was tenuous. It derived from a woman, his mother, Margaret Beaufort, and thus by illegitimate descent from John of Gaunt and his mistress Katherine Swynford. He tried to make something of his hereditary link to the Welsh aristocracy but this was also weak. But if Henry was a usurper, he was only replacing another usurper, and was challenged by a few more. He was virtually ‘last man standing’ after the Yorkist-Lancastrian dynastic civil war.

Margaret Beaufort, National Portrait Gallery 

Henry was lucky in several ways. As the Yorkist Edward IV regained the throne in 1471, Henry, having been brought up in England, fled with his uncle Jasper and others to Brittany. Nearly sent back to Edward IV in the 1470s, chance saved him. By 1484 his mother, by then married to the powerful Lord Stanley, was secretly aiding him. He had support from the Woodville family of Edward IV’s widow, Elizabeth, after the new king, Richard III, murdered Earl Rivers and almost certainly Elizabeth’s children, the ‘Princes in the Tower’. Those joining Henry in Brittany were mainly disaffected Yorkists, appalled at the attitude and behaviour of Richard III in England.

Elizabeth’s brother, Edward Woodville, was outraged at what was widely rumoured to be Richard’s murder of his two nephews. Seizing two ships in Southampton Water, he delivered these, plus £10,000 in cash, 15% of annual state revenues, to the exiled Henry in Brittany. With momentum building, Henry pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter and heir of Edward IV. And he finally won the firm backing of the young new French king, Charles, and his regency.

Bosworth Field and after

Henry’s army at Bosworth was small, about 5000, with a few French, Scots and Welsh soldiers. But it defeated Richard’s forces as the king suicidally charged into the fray and the Northumberland and Stanley contingents switched sides or left the field. After the battle, Henry backdated his reign to the previous day, and also had Edward, the 10 year old Earl of Warwick (and a potential rival), put in the Tower. Lucky then, but also a sound if cynical political strategist.

He wed Elizabeth in 1486, with a new iconic symbol of the combined Lancaster and York roses, the Tudor rose, created by his spinners. It was used to show the unity of his reign. Yet this itself was threatened by several challenges, first in 1486 on a small scale by the Staffords, followed by a boy, Lambert Simnel, whose claim was backed by some English Yorkists. Yet the most serious threat was from Perkin Warbeck, a young Fleming claiming to be Richard, younger of the ‘Princes in the Tower’. With support from Edward IV’s sister Margaret of Burgundy, the rebels made a serious attempt to invade Ireland, and while they were at it persuaded Scotland’s James IV to invade England. The Warbeck rebellion ended in 1497 with a failed Cornish landing.

State extortion

Historians have often praised Henry for his acumen with money. He sidelined Parliament which only sat once in the last 12 years of his reign. Instead he raised revenue from Royal Estates, mainly using feudal methods like escheats (estates with no heir reverting to the crown) and ‘livery payments’ on wardships. By these and other means he increased revenues by nearly half. He also gained much from illicit trading in alum, vital in the cloth industry, and supposedly an accepted Vatican monopoly. And he managed to extort £5000 a year from the French, simply for not attacking them.

Cardinal John Morton

Henry was hardly frugal with his own family, or in bribing European rulers to support him. But he was greedy. Chancellor Archbishop Morton’s Catch 22 tax policy with nobles -‘Morton’s Fork’- meant that if you spent little you must be hiding wealth, but if you spent a lot you could afford to pay more. Many important cases, including tax disputes, were heard by Star Chamber, the so called Prerogative Court - authoritarian justice. Henry used it to divide and rule noble families and shackle presumed opponents, who were forced to sign huge bonds repayable over many years to the Crown. 

Posthumous Henry VII statue from his death mask  

When his son and heir Arthur died in 1502, followed by his wife Elizabeth in 1503, grief seemed to drive him into a period of prolonged depression. His paranoia became even more intense and he encouraged his tax officials to go after everyone thought to have wealth, including people who had been loyal to him over many years, some of whom had fought with him at Bosworth. Minor technical infringements were punished with enormous fines or bonds which could never be repaid by victims or their successors.

The widespread use of what were termed recognizances, or suspended fines, was a threat waved at everyone and often used. It was like being on permanent bail - if triggered it would amount to certain ruin for the families involved. In 1506 his Stanley step-family, charged with minor infringements, was fined an incredible £145,000, saddling their descendants with huge debts.

This pattern was repeated many times over five years with the Church and leading merchants. The key officials involved in this extortion business were Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, the latter recording an amazing £220,000 in just one of several account books. Contemporary commentator Vergil wrote ‘through the agency of these two men, the most savage harshness was made complete’.

Henry VII with Empson and Dudley

In the 1950s lauded historian Geoffrey Elton had the honesty to change his earlier benevolent view of this reign. The systematic abuse of power, worst in 300 years recorded for posterity, was a permanent stain on Henry. He died in April 1509, when Empson and Dudley were immediately seized and executed. But in truth they were just the fall guys - agents of a king who had obsessively counted it all down to the nearest halfpenny.

1455-1485 a rose by any other name?

The second half of the 15^th Century saw England plagued by an attenuated and bloody power conflict. Or really, a series of conflicts. For 30 years the country was the victim of pillaging bands of unpaid and unemployed soldiery, a period later glamourised as the Wars of the Roses. Not the chivalrous Lancaster v York medieval scrap of popular myth, but among the bloodiest civil wars in English history. Far from loyalty to one group or the other, people and factions often changed sides. France and Scotland stirred the pot, and by the end, having fought to a standstill, the male lines of both sides had been eliminated.

Supporters of two rival branches of the Plantagenet family struggled for control of the English throne, generating a dreadful spell of dynastic warfare. The question of succession dated back to the time of Edward III. The House of Lancaster descended from John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward. The House of York originated with Edward of Langley, his fourth son. Complex arguments surrounded the legitimate succession, including Edward III’s change to the rules of primogeniture, and the deposition of Richard II by the Duke of Lancaster (Bolingbroke) later Henry IV. With no major policy or ideological split, discord focused on the economic and social effects of the French wars, which had ended badly for England, and the mental incapacity of a weak King Henry VI.

Red and white roses?

The first myth to dispel is that of red and white roses for Lancaster and York respectively. It sounds like a cricket match with fair competition and with no hint of barbarity. At the time this conflict was usually called the ‘Cousins’ Wars’. And while Yorkists used the white rose symbol from early on, the Lancastrian red rose only appeared after Henry Tudor’s 1485 Bosworth victory. Participants held multiple titles, so various heraldic badges were used - falcons, boars, suns, stars etc. Livery badges were common. These signified a man’s immediate lord or permanent patron under the system of ‘bastard feudalism’ and excluded mercenaries. At Bosworth, Henry’s forces fought under the red dragon, and Richard’s under the white boar. The term Wars of the Roses was not used until the 1830’s, nearly 400 years later, when it was coined by Sir Walter Scott, referencing a scene in Shakespeare’s Henry IV part I. This depicts courtly characters demonstrating their allegiances by picking red or white roses in a garden of the Temple Church.

Henry V1

Henry VI, only son of Henry V and Catherine de Valois, became an infant king in 1422 when his father died. He also became the disputed king of France a few weeks later on the death of Charles VI. A shy, passive individual, Henry grew into an ineffective ruler. Inheriting the long running stop-start Hundred Years War, his reign saw the gradual loss of English lands in France. By 1453 Calais was England’s only remaining possession there.

Henry had married the French Margaret of Anjou (a key piece in the excellent board game ‘Kingmaker’). At first tensions over the lack of an heir were a concern, but in 1453 he managed to father a son, Edward. However Henry became increasingly mentally unstable and by common consent was clearly not fit to rule.

Gangster wars

Power was seized by various regional magnates vying with Queen Margaret and her supporters. Bands of private armed retainers, formed of soldiers back from France, proliferated. These groups fought their neighbours, paralysed the courts and basically took over what government there was. England was effectively sliding into a mob state.

Battle of Barnet 1471

The series of conflicts veered between minor skirmishes to enormous pitched battles. But the Victorian chivalric portrayal is quite false. Fighting was increasingly vicious as first one side then the other gained the upper hand. In one battle at Towton, near York, fought in March 1461 in a snow blizzard, an estimated 20,000 were thought to have died in a day. This number, with new archeological and other evidence, has recently been revised significantly downward. Whatever the actual figure, though, there is little doubt it was among the bloodiest battles ever fought on English soil.

Aside from the fighting leading opponents who survived were often summarily executed after a battle. The total killed during the wars was perhaps 50,000-75,000 but, as this toll was spread over 30 years, it might not then have seemed too costly in human life. Henry was captured and kept as a prisoner twice during the struggle. The Yorkist Edward IV seized control for a while and was made king. Then he was deposed by the Earl of Warwick, and then in power again. Finally in 1471 he had Henry murdered in the Tower. At the same time Henry’s only son, the 17 year old Edward, was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury.

Battle of Tewkesbury 1471

Peace interludes

There were some periods of relative peace when the fighting died down, particularly after 1471. But under the surface local scores were settled with the breakdown in law and order and a vacuum in royal authority. Indeed the last private battle in England took place in 1470 at Nibley Green, in Gloucestershire - Viscount Lisle’s army fought with Lord Berkeley’s over an inheritance still unresolved in the courts. All the time the sons and heirs of potential royal claimants were almost systematically being killed.

Curiously, foreign visitors often remarked on what appeared the settled state of England and its efficient government. Even allowing that these impressions were gained during lulls in the fighting, it might still seem strange. Probably the key here is that London, the South East and East of the country avoided the worst violence. These areas were where most foreign visitors would have appeared. Indeed, trade and industry were relatively untouched by the conflict. This was fortunate. The benefits were enjoyed by the succeeding dynasty.

Edward IV 

Succession problems

This period threw up some characters who later proved the mainstay of popular fiction and culture - Margaret, the White Queen and Elizabeth Woodville spring to mind, besides Warwick the Kingmaker. Whether the real figures would have been as appealing as their 21^st century media reincarnations is a moot point. But the Mills and Boon school of historical fiction has had some fun with them, and fans of this genre have acquired a colourful, if inaccurate, view of the associated history.

One final thought. Monarchists often claim royal succession as a sound, simple principle in choosing a head of state. Disputes may not always be as disastrous as the ‘Wars of the Roses’, but monarchs might be too young, too ill or otherwise inadequate. In practice, succession is often challenged. But without a way to change things, bar killing or deposition, the inflexibility of this brittle procedure would seem obvious.

Henry V – national hero?

King for less than 10 years, Henry V has still made a mark on English history. Regarded as somewhat riotous in his youth, then morphing into a brave soldier and national hero after the battle of Agincourt, his bad side was glossed over. His reputation, as that of a similarly short-reigned Richard I, is disproportionate to his achievements. Based on a portrayal by Shakespeare, a brilliant dramatist but poor historian, this character wrongly gets a free pass.

Henry was born in 1386. He became king in 1413 on the death of his father Henry IV, who as Bolingbroke, had earlier invaded England from France to oust his cousin King Richard II. There was something of the usurper about Henry IV seizing the throne, and therefore of his son’s legitimacy, but then that applies to most of England’s royal families since 1066. History shows us that rulers who clearly feel threatened by their doubtful title and questionable rights are inclined to double down on anything that justifies themselves and their role. Henry V, the personification of self-righteousness, was no exception.

Priestly king

The first of several myths is Henry’s laddish, even loutish, teenage behaviour. In his younger years he actually played the holy card, spending hours at prayer. He had his hair cut in a monkish style and vowed chastity and thrift. It was rather like having a priest for a king in waiting. Indeed French ambassadors said he looked rather priestly. To further his search for the appearance of sanctity he adopted the imagery of St George. Always at confession, he was more of a creeping Jesus than the young reprobate he was painted.

So why the stories? The English propagandists needed evidence of divine approval when the war with France picked up again. They wanted God on their side. And there’s something of the biblical tale of the Prodigal Son about Henry being a reformed tearaway. As his father’s health became weaker, young Henry joined the Council as regent. There he moved to change some aspects of domestic policy. But when the king' health partially recovered, he promptly reversed the changes, removing his son from the Council. They quarrelled over political and financial matters, not youthful indiscretions. Far from touching forgiveness from the king, the deathbed scene was the familiar one of plotting factions. The excluded prince entered his father’s presence armed and with an escort of heavies. 

As king, the 26 year old Henry was so obsessed with security that he repudiated inconvenient old friends. He had turned on his comrades and advisers Harry and Thomas Percy in 1403 at the battle of Shrewsbury. He later ditched his former tutor and friend Henry Beaufort. His propaganda sold this as virtuous behaviour - it showed the king was not corrupt and would punish favourites if required.

Ian Mortimer points out that the worst case was that of his former friend, the Lollard Sir John Oldcastle. Sir John had earlier helped Henry as a battlefield aide de camp. He was generally regarded as a harmless old man but the new king had him burned to death for heresy. Lollard teaching was that kings needed to earn their authority by being good. This was deemed subversive so Henry sacrificed him, a move presented as noble and as a trial of his own faith.

Harfleur and Agincourt

By 1415 Henry felt he had domestic affairs under control and re-asserted Edward III’s claim to the throne of France. Politically, a true king of England was virtually obliged to pretend to the French crown. In August he set sail for Normandy and besieged the port of Harfleur. It fell in September. Then Henry, despite warnings from his advisers, marched his force across northern France. In October the French army intercepted him at Agincourt, where his heavily outnumbered group of tired and sick men won a famous victory. It had rained overnight, and funnelled (or kettled as we might now say) between two wooded areas, the French cavalry and men at arms got horribly stuck in the mud, falling on and crushing each other. It was a slaughter but Henry still managed to massacre 3000 prisoners for good measure, entirely against all conventions of the time.

Battle of Agincourt 1415

Agincourt may have been a lucky victory but over the next few years Henry doubled up, attacking many parts of France in alliance with factions of a badly divided country. He recovered Normandy and ravished much of the province, though with resources clearly overstretched he couldn’t really hold territory. Instead the areas involved suffered depredations and disease. Henry successfully burnished his war criminal credentials. During the Rouen siege he let hundreds of women and children who had left the town die of cold and starvation.

French crown

Wedding of Henry V and Catherine de Valois

Henry demanded a promise of the reversion of the French throne and forced Charles VI to name him as legitimate heir. In 1420 he married the young princess Catherine de Valois (later the grandmother of Henry VII) to seal it. Yet having fathered a son, who was to become King Henry VI, Henry neglected and ignored his bride. Still, it briefly seemed that England and France might be united under one crown. But Henry never actually became king of France. He died of dysentery in 1422, aged 35, at Vincennes, two months before Charles VI.

The absurdly heroic stories of Henry V and his reign are a problem we still wrestle with. On top of the Shakespeare version is the image portrayed in popular culture, and generally taught to school pupils over the years. It's wrong not only because it's fundamentally untrue. It also embodies two contradictory ideas, the country as a victim of powerful continental forces doing it down, and at the same time as the plucky warrior punching above its weight. Henry seems to serve this narrative. 

Historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto witheringly, but fairly, sums him up: “Henry V, in English myth, is the ideal Englishman: plucky and persevering, austere and audacious, cool-headed, stiff-lipped and effortlessly superior: ‘simply the greatest man’, as my generation of undergraduates learned, ‘ever to rule England’. Elizabethan dramatists boosted the image...The myth became more important than the man - just as well for those who like their past to be comforting or inspiring. The reality, stripped out of the myth, is vicious and dispiriting”.