Prince Henry (born 28th June 1491, died 28th January 1547) was the second son of Henry VII., and in 1509 succeeded his father on the throne of England. Henry VIII. always lived in much luxury and loved finery and splendour, and to a certain extent this feeling shows in the many beautiful bindings which were made for him. The King was certainly fond of his books, and he had several of them beautifully bound in velvet and embroidered with pearls and inlays of coloured silks and satins, finished with gold thread. Others are of gold, richly worked and enamelled.
For his Queens also several fine bindings were made; these, however, were generally armorial panel stamps, impressed without gold. He married six times. For Catherine of Aragon bindings were made which still exist, for Anne Bullen and Catherine Parr, the same, but for Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, or Katherine Howard I know of no bindings recorded or in existence. Katherine Parr is said to have herself embroidered a beautiful armorial velvet-bound copy of Petrarch with her own arms, and at the Bodleian Library at Oxford there is a book said to have been embroidered for her by the Princess Elizabeth, on which are the initials "K. P."
Thomas Berthelet, the first English bookbinder to use gold tooling was made Royal Printer and Bookbinder to Henry VIII. in 1530, and he bound the greater number of the Royal books in leather, velvet, or satin.
Henry VIII. used the same coat-of-arms and supporters as his father, namely, the red dragon of Cadwallader as a dexter supporter and the white greyhound of the Nevills as a sinister supporter, until 1528, when he adopted a golden lion rampant royally crowned as his dexter supporter, and moved the dragon to the sinister side, leaving out the greyhound altogether. This change, however, does not, as far as I know, show on any book, but it can be seen on the gold coins of the period, and also on a sculptured compartment at Caerhays, is common at the house of a member of the Trevanion family, and again on the keystone of the ceiling over the organ-loft at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and here, moreover, the date 1528 is also given.
HENRY BENEDICT, CARDINAL YORK
Arms.—Quarterly.
1st and 4th grand quarters, France and England quarterly.