With the country ravaged by years of conflict, Lancastrians and Yorkists now looked for peace rather than war, led from the top by two women: Henry’s mother, Margaret, and Edward IV’s widow, Elizabeth Woodville. They accomplished a union of the red and white roses through the marriage of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV. Now crowned Henry VII, he and Elizabeth began the glorious Tudor Age, which would last till the end of Elizabeth I’s Golden Age.
Henry VII inherited a devastated economy and was therefore preoccupied with replenishing the coffers by careful budgeting and raising taxes, which earned him a reputation as austere and miserly. Henry VII was fiscally moderate and rarely indulgent, but he understood the power of display. He recognized the need to promote the magnificence of the monarchy, and he cultivated relationships with some of the finest European poets, philosophers and humanists of the age, some of whom were chosen as tutors for the king’s sons, Arthur and Henry, and helped shape the future king’s attitudes towards the arts. Musicians played in the dancing chambers and halls of Henry VII’s palaces while king and court feasted and played chess and cards. Henry VII, like his son, enjoyed the traditional courtly pursuits of hawking, hunting, bowls and archery, though his aim deteriorated along with his sight, once accidentally shooting a farmyard rooster – in the wrong place at the wrong time – with his crossbow.
To add a sense of mythology to his royal claim, he declared that he had traced his lineage back to the famous King Arthur, and the legend of Camelot permeated the court, with Henry and Elizabeth naming their first-born son after his illustrious forebear. Arthur would be followed by Henry, Duke of York, and two daughters, Margaret and Mary. The very future of the Tudor dynasty rested on Arthur’s shoulders. Henry VII was tremendously invested in Arthur’s education, ensuring he had the best tutors, and from the time he could walk he was kept separate from his siblings and received a royal education that would prepare him for kingship.
HEIRS AND SPARES
It was decided that young Prince Arthur, the heir to the English throne, would marry the young, auburn-haired princess Katherine of Aragon, daughter of the Spanish Empire’s ruling monarchs, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Katherine represented the future: an England finally looking towards Europe. Katherine and Arthur were moved to Ludlow Castle, which stood near the English border with Wales, but the marriage was short-lived, as Arthur died six months into the marriage, possibly of tuberculosis. It is often stated that Arthur was sickly throughout his youth, but there is no contemporary evidence to support this theory, with several accounts noting his skill at archery, hunting and dancing.
Henry, now the heir, would go on to marry his brother’s wife, apparently certain that Katherine had never consummated her first marriage, and confident that a papal dispensation would be granted to allow it. Katherine and Henry VIII were married and crowned in 1509, both in love and destined to preside over a golden world. Their partnership lasted almost 20 years.
Yet for all his confidence, Mantel’s Arthur hovers, like a spectre at Henry’s feast, haunting the king. As we shall see, Katherine’s first wedding night will eventually be put under the microscope for the whole country to peer at, and the memory of Arthur conjured up before the court:
‘A ghost walks: Arthur, studious and pale. King Henry, he thinks, you raised him; now you put him down.’
Neither Wolsey nor Cromwell could have foreseen Henry’s complicated love life: he loved until he fell out of love, usually with alarming speed. He spent years trying to get his marriage to Katherine annulled as she could not produce a male heir; his second Queen, Anne Boleyn, might have been the love of his life, but she could not bear him a male heir either; his next great love was Jane Seymour, of whom we shall hear more later; she was followed by Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and, finally, Catherine Parr – the latter two marriages occurring after Cromwell’s death.
Nor would anyone ever have imagined that of the three Tudor heirs – Mary, daughter of Katherine of Aragon; Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn; or Edward, son of Jane Seymour – only Elizabeth, who became monarch in 1558, would rule for more than a short time. This could only have happened with some tragedy and a few missteps in the family. When Henry died on 28 January 1547, the nine-year-old Edward VI was crowned King. Under Edward England experienced significant religious reforms, moving towards a modern Church of England, though there were signs that Edward might take after his father in terms of temperament. Sadly Edward died at the age of 15, but not before he rather arrogantly reversed his father’s order of succession and created his own in order to prevent the country’s return to Catholicism. Excluding his half-sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, Edward named Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, as heir to the throne. The country rebelled against this decision, having always loved Mary, and Jane was deposed by Mary nine days after becoming queen. Mary was the first Queen regnant of England and Ireland, though her reign was marred by civil and religious unrest, however, she does not deserve the title ‘Bloody Mary’. After only five years on the throne, Mary also died, and against all the odds it was Elizabeth, who had been declared illegitimate by her own father at the age of three, who held the sceptre. Elizabeth is only a baby in Bring Up the Bodies:
The child Elizabeth is wrapped tightly in
