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| Henry Howard |
A Momentous Year Begins
At some
point in 1536 Frances moved to live at Kenninghall with her husband, the couple
were both eighteen. Their daughter Jane was born sometime between the end of
that year and the beginning of the next. The year started off badly for the
Howard family; in January Queen Anne lost the baby she was carrying, a male
child, and Henry VIII blamed his wife for the miscarriage. He had already
started romancing one of her ladies-in-waiting, one Jane Seymour a member of the powerful Seymour family.
It was not
long before the king’s thoughts turned to divorce and Cromwell was able to
create reasons for his master to eschew Anne who was accused of adultery with a
number of men at court including her brother, George Boleyn, among others. By April Cromwell was
ready with proof[i];
the indictment stated that the queen;
‘Daily her frail and carnal
lust, did falsely and traitorously procure by base conversations and kisses,
diverse of the King’s daily and familiar servants to be her adulterers and
concubines, so that several of the King’s servants yielded to her vile
provocations.’[ii]
Fitzroy had
been ailing for some months, despite that he still attended the execution of
Anne Boleyn on 19th May along with Norfolk[iii].
For his reward Cromwell was made Lord Privy Seal, replacing Anne Boleyn’s father the Earl of Wiltshire. Cromwell now controlled most of the
machinery of government. Norfolk was now almost powerless.
Poets in Peril
_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger.jpg/434px-Sir_Thomas_Wyatt_(1)_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger.jpg) |
| Sir Thomas Wyatt |
The reversal
of his fortunes was made quite clear when Norfolk was unable to assist when his
half-brother Thomas who was arrested on 8th
July for his presumption in plighting his troth to the king’s niece Lady Margaret Douglas[iv].. The pre-contract had been signed
sometime after 17th May when the Princess Elizabeth had been
declared a bastard and the paranoid Henry VIII viewed the affair as treasonous[v].
Lady Margaret who, as the daughter of
Margaret Tudor, had a claim to the throne now that both Henry’s daughters had
been pronounced illegitimate.
Lady
Margaret and Thomas Howard were both poets and they and Henry and Mary Howard[vi]
(also poets in their own right) formed a mutual appreciation circle, along with
others at court including Sir Thomas Wyatt, to discuss their own poetry. The
circle recorded their favourite poems in the Devonshire manuscript.
Lord Thomas
found himself in the Tower and an Act of Attainder[vii], to which his half-brother was
forced to assent[viii],
was passed against him. He was to remain incarcerated until his death in 1537. The
20 year old Margaret was also sent to the Tower and they both feared the worst.
On 23rd July the imperial ambassador reported that Margaret;
‘For the present, has been
pardoned her life considering that copulation had not taken place.’[ix]
On the same
day Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset died, his marriage with Mary
still unconsummated, at St James Palace in London. He was buried at Framlingham parish church, the burial place of the Howard
family, in a very private funeral[x]
with only two mourners in attendance.
Henry was heartbroken
by the loss of his comrade in arms; at the funeral he rode Fitzroy’s favourite
jennet along with its saddle and harness of black velvet. Henry’s grief was
exacerbated the following month when he received the news of the death from
pleurisy of his friend the Dauphin François.
.svg/320px-Banner_of_the_Holy_Wounds_(Pilgrimage_of_Grace).svg.png) |
| Banner of Wounds similar to that carried on Pilgrimage of Grace |
Norfolk, who
barely escaped being sent to the Tower himself, was annoyed to miss out on the
plums on offer following the dissolution of the monasteries, as the Church of England separated itself from the church in Rome. Cromwell,
in charge of the dissolution and picking up many of the plums for himself,
allied himself with the Seymours and Archbishop Cranmer to Norfolk’s detriment. He and Bishop Gardiner found themselves in the leading ranks of the conservatives.
In early October
in Lincolnshire there was an uprising protesting
against the break with Rome and the associated loss of the monasteries. The
spark was the closing of Louth Park Abbey. The king sent a force under his brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, to deal with his rebellious
subjects. Suffolk had been building a powerbase in the region.
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| Duke of Suffolk |
Twelve days
later Yorkshire went up in flames as what became
known as the Pilgrimage of Grace flared up. Like the Lincolnshire uprising,
this was a protest against the religious changes across the country. While
ordinary folk might approve the death of the traitorous Queen Anne, they did
not appreciate the loss of their religion, any more than did the conservative
northern lords who failed to keep law and order in their lands once the
rebellion took hold.
While the
Lincolnshire uprising was being suppressed one Robert Aske[xi] was raising the banner of the five
wounds of Christ in Yorkshire. Many of the Lincolnshire protesters joined
Aske’s band, swelling their ranks with tens of thousands of adherents.
The king
originally planned to lead his army north in person. Norfolk, who had
anticipated being given a leading role in putting down the rebellion, found
himself packed off to East Anglia to prevent trouble occurring there. His
son Henry would fight on his behalf; the sixty-three year old duke wrote a
shocked letter to the king;
‘Alas, sir, shal every noble
man save I eyther come to your person or els go towards your enemys? Shall I
now sit still lyk a man of law? Alas, sir, my hert is nere ded as wold to God
it wer.’[xii]
Norfolk
threatened to march north in any event and soon he received new orders sending
him up to join the fighting in Yorkshire.
Northwards
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| Earl of Shrewsbury (C) |
On 11th
October 1536 Norfolk left Kenninghall with Henry in his train. Henry helped his
father with the mustering of his men, he bragged that;
‘A company of so able men
and so goodly personage as I do think the like in such number upon so sudden
warning assembled hath not been seen, which those here do judge as have seen
many musters.’[xiii]
Thomas was
left at home with several hundred men to preserve order in the Howard back
yard. As soon as Henry VIII heard of Henry’s attendance upon his father he
ordered him back to Norfolk where the two Howard boys would be hostage for
their father’s loyalty.
Norfolk met
up with the Earl
of Shrewsbury at Doncaster. On 27th October Norfolk and
his eight thousand men met with the rebels, forty thousand strong, at Doncaster
Bridge. He promised to present their grievances at court. The two armies
separated; Henry VIII did not listen to the representations of the rebels, he’d
been primed by Norfolk’s enemies at court to consider Norfolk a rebel
sympathiser.
Norfolk was
forbidden to address the rebels’ demands; the king was confident that the
rebels would see things his way and would disperse. Henry VIII seemed to be
unaware of the disparity of the two forces. Meeting with the rebels on 4th
December Norfolk promised them the moon, including the temporary restoration of
the monasteries and the coronation of Queen Jane at York. Trusting Norfolk’s integrity the rebels dispersed.
Early in
1537 a number of trouble spots flared up[xiv]
and Norfolk declared martial law. He had around two hundred former rebels
rounded up and hung from the trees and steeples of their villages. In March he
summonsed Henry to come and join him in subjugating the region. The new
uprising failed and Aske and his fellow rebels were arrested and brought to
trial for treason.
Returning
home Henry was unwell for much of the summer of 1537 which he spent at
Kenninghall and Norfolk commented that;
‘He is there with his wife,
which is an ill medicine for that purpose.’[xv]
This is one
of the few hints of how Henry and Frances got on together; it could have been
that Norfolk, who had never cared for the de Vere alliance, believed that the
cure for what ailed his son was manly pursuits such as war.
Bibliography
Thomas Wyatt
– Susan Brigden, Faber and Faber 2012
Henry VIII’s
Last Victim – Jessie Childs, Vintage Books 2008
The Ebbs and
Flows of Fortune – David M Head, University of Georgia Press 2009
House of
Treason – Robert Hutchinson, Phoenix 2009
Henry VIII –
Robert Lacey, Weidenfeld & Nicholson & Book Club Associates 1972
The Earlier
Tudors – J D Mackie, Oxford University Press 1992
Bastard
Prince – Beverley A Murphy, Sutton Publishing 2001
Rivals in
Power – David Starkey, MacMillan London Ltd 1990
The Six
Wives of Henry VIII – Alison Weir, Pimlico 1992
The Lost
Tudor Princess – Alison Weir, Vintage 2015
A Tudor
Tragedy – Neville Williams, Barrie & Jenkins 1964
www.wikipedia.en
[ii]
Henry VIII’s Last Victim - Childs
[iii]
It is not known if Henry attended his cousin’s execution
[v]
Given the king’s propensity for throwing people into the Tower or executing
them, the couple would have been wiser to apply for royal permission, albeit
that probably would not have been granted.
[vi]
Henry was only five years younger than his uncle
[vii]
Rather than try Thomas according to a law passed in the month AFTER the
engagement, he was declared traitor by statute
[viii]
Norfolk was always prepared to jettison his family when his safety was
encroached upon
[ix]
The Lost Tudor Princess - Weir
[x]
By order of the king who later changed his mind and blamed the lack of pomp and
circumstance on Norfolk who exceeded the original orders given him by Henry
VIII
[xi]
A barrister from London
[xii]
The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune - Head
[xiii]
Henry VIII’s Last Victim - Childs
[xv]
Henry VIII’s Last Victim - Childs
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