Henry possessed a handsome presence and a genial bluff manner, and as long as all went well with him, and his least wish was carried into instant execution, he could be amiable and even attractive. But his character was both cruel and crafty, and, in later years, these defects became more strongly marked. With old age and infirmity, he became more akin to a wild animal than to aught human; and although he was personally popular amongst the great bulk of the people, on account of his magnificence and prodigality, no greater tyrant ever sat upon the English throne.
Froude has in vain tried to whitewash Henry’s character. The early years of his reign were indeed years of promise, but Henry must be judged, not by his promise, but by his life and deeds; and the butcher of Anne Boleyn, of More and Fisher, can only be regarded as a worthy colleague of the worst tyrants that have from their height of place been the curse and bane of their subjects.
Henry, with his love of show and splendour, gave himself and Catherine a gorgeous wedding ceremony. They had held their court at the Tower previous to their nuptials, and on the 21st of June the wedding took place. Never had the English court made so magnificent a show as at this time. The costumes of the men vied in splendour with those of the women, and many of the great nobles literally bore their fortunes upon their backs. The King blazed in a habit of crimson velvet, lined with ermine and covered with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other gems. And as he rode through the streets, bareheaded, on a charger arrayed in damasked cloth of gold, he was surrounded and followed by a suite of knights and nobles, all in crimson velvet or scarlet cloth, Sir Thomas Brandon, the Master of the Horse, being the most splendid figure in the procession next to the King. Brandon, the chronicler tells us, was arrayed in “tissue broudered with roses of fine gold, and having a massy balderick of gold.” He led the King’s spare horse by a silken rein, “trapped barde wise, with harneis broudered with bullion golde,” and he was followed by nine children of honour, “apparelled in blewe velvet, poudered with floure delices of gold and chains of goldsmithes woorke, every one of their horses trapped with a trapper of the King’s title.”
The Queen’s cortege was no less magnificent. Catherine was seated in a chariot drawn by two white palfreys, and was attired “in white satyn embroidered, her heire hangyng downe to her backe, and on her hedde a coronall, set with many rich orient stones.” She was followed by a crowd of ladies riding white palfreys, dressed in cloth of gold and silver, these again being followed by an army of attendants.
The coronation was soon followed by executions; Henry seems to have required blood-shedding as a kind of relaxation, and to have caused it to flow with as much delight as he participated in the pomps and splendours of his regal state. His next victim, after Empson and Dudley, was Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. Although the only crime that could be brought against him was his consanguinity to the Blood Royal of the Plantagenets, it was quite a sufficient excuse for the King, and Suffolk was beheaded in 1513. He had been born in 1464, his father being John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, and his mother Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of Richard, Duke of York, consequently he was of the Blood Royal by his mother’s side, and, through her, nephew to Edward IV. and Richard III. Edmund de la Pole had surrendered the Dukedom of Suffolk in 1493, but was attainted in 1504, imprisoned in the Tower in 1506, and executed seven years later. “Audacious, strong and prompt in council” is the character given to Suffolk by a contemporary writer. The title of Duke of Suffolk was bestowed by Henry upon his brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, who had made such a fine figure at his marriage.
Half-a-dozen years passed, and again the Tower prisons were filled, some of the prisoners there having been concerned in a City riot. With these was a Dr Bell, charged with “inflammatory and seditious preaching.” During this riot the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Roger Cholmondeley (whose effigy is in St Peter’s Chapel), fired the Tower guns upon the City, but the damage done by the cannonade seems to have been very slight.
In 1521 a descendant of Edward II. was brought to the fortress; this was Edward Bohun, Duke of Buckingham, who traced his descent from the grandfather of Richard II. through Anne the eldest daughter of Thomas of Woodstock. Wolsey, now all-powerful, hated Buckingham for the arrogance of his manner towards him, the Duke never troubling to conceal his contempt for the lowly born, but ambitious Cardinal. Wolsey’s opportunity for being revenged upon the nobleman for his insolence came, when some ill-guarded expressions uttered by Buckingham were repeated to him; the Duke was immediately arrested and taken to the Tower. This was on the 16th of January 1521, and on the 13th of the following month he was tried on the charge of high treason and sentenced to death. Holinshed, in his Chronicle, describes how Buckingham was taken by water from the Tower to Westminster. A barge had been furnished for the occasion with a carpet and cushions, and when the Duke was brought back from Westminster in the same manner, but with the axe’s edge turned towards him, he refused to take the seat which he had occupied on his way to his trial, saying to Sir Thomas Lovel, “When I came to Westminster I was Lord High Constable, and Duke of Buckingham, but now, poor Edward Bohun.” It is interesting to see how closely Shakespeare has followed Holinshed’s description of this episode in Buckingham’s condemnation, in his play of Henry VIII.:
| Vaux. | Prepare there, the Duke is coming: see the barge be ready; And fit it with such furniture as suits The greatness of his person. |
| Buckingham. | Nay, Sir Nicholas, Let it alone; my state will now but mock me. When I came hither, I was Lord High Constable And Duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun— |
In Brewer’s Introduction to the third volume of “Foreign and Domestic State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII.,” is the following interesting account of Buckingham’s trial and execution:—
“As trials for treason were conducted in those days it was little better than a question of personal credibility, assertion against assertion; and very few reasonable men could entertain doubts as to the issue. The King had already pronounced judgment, he had examined the witnesses, encouraged and read their correspondence, and expressed his belief in the Duke’s guilt. Who was to gainsay it? Who should be bold enough to assert that the King had arrived at a false conclusion, and that such manners of procedure were fatal to justice? In a court also, constituted of men who were not lawyers by profession, who had received no training for such nice questions, who understood nothing of the salutary laws of legal evidence, what hope could there be for the accused? How could he expect that protection which not only innocence but guilt had a right to demand until the charge be fairly and fully proven? The only lawyer employed was the Attorney-General, on behalf of the Crown. But in those days Attorneys-General regarded themselves as the servants of the Crown, who had to earn their wages by establishing the guilt of the prisoner. So the Lords retired, and on their return into court the sentence of each peer was taken one by one. Then said the Duke of Norfolk to the Duke of Suffolk, ‘What say you of Sir Edward, Duke of Buckingham, touching this high treason.’ ‘I say that he is guilty,’ answered the Duke, laying his hand upon his heart. Every peer made the same response; and against each of the names entered on the panel—a little scrap of dirty parchment, still preserved in the Record Office—there is to be seen to this day, in the handwriting of the Duke of Norfolk, ‘Dicit quod est culpabilis.’