Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Lost Palace of Whitehall

by Nancy Bilyeau

At about 4 p.m. on January 4, 1698, during the reign of King William III, a fire broke out in the Palace of Whitehall. The possible cause was linen left to dry by a fireplace. The "devouring flame," in the words of James Vernon, destroyed the king's and queen's lodgings and most of the rest of the sprawling complex. "Except the banqueting house and the great gate, all is burnt down or blown up." The scene was chaotic, with court officials desperately trying to retrieve their possessions as the "gates were locked up to prevent the mob coming in."

The Palace of Whitehall, seen from
St. James Park in a painting from 1675.

This was the end of Whitehall as a royal residence, the palace where Henry VIII and Charles II died, where Elizabeth I entertained the French prince come to court her, where The Tempest was first staged for James I, where Hans Holbein designed a gatehouse and Inigo Jones a banqueting house, where Charles I was beheaded. Years after the fire, Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, said she wanted to rebuild Whitehall, but it came to nothing.

Today little remains above ground of the royal residence that covered 23 acres in Westminster, on the edge of London. The name "Whitehall" is synonymous with the British government and its civil service. Yet present-day Downing Street once was part of Henry VIII's royal entertainment grounds, with the street's first known house leased by Elizabeth I to a favorite, Sir Thomas Knyvet. The Tudor roots are strong.

Not everyone mourned the palace's destruction in the late 17th century. The duc de Saint-Simon said in his memoirs "a fire destroyed Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace in Europe."

But Whitehall, the obsession of royal lovers Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, had once been thought beautiful.

It was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII's lord chancellor, who turned a bishop's residence on the Thames, just a short distance from Westminster Abbey, into a place of splendor. Since Wolsey held the bishopric of York, he was entitled to make use of York Place, as it had been known since the 13th century. Wolsey borrowed money and devoted his considerable energies to expanding it "most sumptuously and gorgeously." Banquets were held there, and elaborate "masques and mummeries."

Cardinal Wolsey

On March 1st, 1522, Cardinal Wolsey looked on as an elaborate entertainment was performed at York Place after supper. A "Chateau Vert" was raised, with the King and his friends masqued to storm the castle, occupied by costumed ladies, including a young brunette named Anne Boleyn, who was named "Perseverance" and had "black and beautiful eyes."

Anne Boleyn

Five years later, Henry VIII made public his quest to divorce his longtime wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn. It was a struggle with momentous consequences, among them the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, whom, the king felt, didn't work hard enough to win his master the annulment.

On Oct. 19, 1529, Wolsey was deprived of the great seal and he threw himself on the king's mercy. Hampton Court, York Place--the palaces became Henry's. A week later, Henry VIII arrived at York Place for a royal walk through, accompanied by Anne Boleyn, her mother Elizabeth, and the courtier Henry Norris. (Norris would be executed for adultery with Queen Anne in 1536, but that's another story.) The king found "the present more valuable even than he expected." No one gave a thought to Cardinal Wolsey, who would the following year die, arrested and alone, on his way to the Tower of London.

Turning York Place into a palace fit for a king and his future queen was no simple matter. Wolsey's residence revolved around a great hall, privy chamber and a receiving room, a cloister and a chapel, and kitchens; there were no lodgings for the vast number of people who lived in a Tudor royal residence. No tiltyard for jousting or ornamental garden. On one side was the Thames. On the other was a large marsh that once contained a leper hospital. Not a lot of room for expansion.

Yet expand it did.

During the same tumultuous years that Henry VIII fought for his annulment, breaking with the Pope and alienating those still loyal to Queen Catherine and her daughter the Princess Mary, he was personally directing the legal procedure of seizing the surrounding land for the new Whitehall. He inspected each building plan before it went forward. Anne Boleyn was as involved as the king in overseeing the design of the new palace, taking tremendous interest in its architecture as well as the stylish details. Anne possessed the sort of sophisticated taste that came from serving the French queen as a teenager. She and Henry shared a fondness for French and Italian decor. Anne liked "antique" touches, such as classical columns and ceilings and patterned grotesque work.

The Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys wrote that the king concentrated on Whitehall "to please the lady who prefers that place for the king's residence to any other." Perhaps planning their new home was an escape from stress for the embattled couple.

Henry VIII ordered his people to survey the surrounding property, purchase the leases and then demolish buildings. This caused "great discomfort" to those who still lived in Westminster, but the king wasn't concerned. At one point, the up-and-coming Thomas Cromwell drew up a list of the leases. When Cromwell accompanied Henry and Anne to France to meet the French king, an official left behind wrote a reassuring letter that "there is as much speed as can be made there."

Whitehall had to be everyone's priority!

In his detailed book, Whitehall Palace: An Architectural History of the Royal Apartments, 1240 to 1699, Simon Thurley wrote about the astonishing lengths taken to build a wall along the river.

The whole area was low lying and prone to flooding from high tides...In July 1531 a pump was installed in the foundations at Lamb Alley and leather buckets were also in use to bail out the waterlogged trenches. To keep the works dry torches were provided so the pumpers and diggers could work through the night, and in reward forty barrels of beer, forty dozen loaves and four whole cheeses were distributed to the workers.

Sheriffs, bailiffs and constables were informed that at absolutely any time the king's representatives could seize workmen for the "speedy furnishing and building of our new manor." Anyone who refused to relinquish bricks and other materials was subject to arrest.

New galleries and chambers were built, extensive gardens, jousting and tennis yards, a bowling green, cock-fighting pit and, of course, the magnificent Holbein gatehouse, with its checkered pattern and fleur de lis. Historians believe that on the upper floor of this gatehouse, in January 1533, Henry and Anne married in secret. Now she would reside in the palace as the king's wife.

Expansions and renovations Whitehall continued for much of Henry VIII's life. But Anne Boleyn never saw the completion of their cherished plans, since she was beheaded three years after their wedding. Some have speculated that the king did not reside in Whitehall as much after her death out of a sense of guilt, and he seems to have gone to great lengths to obliterate her memory there. But he definitely was at Whitehall at important moments: Henry VIII married Anne's successor, Jane Seymour, in the Whitehall chapel. The famous mural of the king and his family painted by Holbein shows Jane at his side, displayed in the privy chamber of Whitehall. And Henry seems to have deliberately chosen Whitehall as the place where he wanted to die.

Holbein's mural in Whitehall, from a copy made in
early 17th century. The original mural burned in 1698.

Today it's nearly impossible for us to inhabit--to imagine--the dazzling Whitehall palace that Henry VIII was so obsessed with. The Banqueting House that survived the fire was built by the Stuarts, after all. But there is one 16th century room that remains. Underneath the Ministry of Defence is a preserved chamber referred to as Henry VIII's Wine Cellar. It may be named for the Tudor monarch, but the stone-ribbed, brick-vaulted chamber was built by Wolsey.

In that, the cardinal had the last word.

Queen Mary, widow of George V,
insisted the Tudor wine cellar be preserved

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the historical mystery trilogy The Crown, The Chalice and The Tapestry, published by Simon & Schuster and available in North America, the United Kingdom and Germany. The Crown was an Oprah magazine pick. Much of the third novel, The Tapestry, takes place in the palace of Whitehall in 1540. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com.

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Who Was the Real Charles Brandon?

By Nancy Bilyeau

English Princess Mary Tudor

The great humanist scholar Erasmus once said of Mary Tudor, "Nature never formed anything more beautiful." The pampered and adored younger sister of Henry VIII was married at 19 to Louis XII, king of France. After the princess arrived in Paris with her dowry of 400,000 crowns and hundreds of attendants, the French, disposed to find her a disappointment, admitted that she was, indeed, a "nymph from heaven."

King Louis, 52, crippled with gout, died less than three months after the wedding to the English princess, but not before showering her with jewels, including "the Mirror of Naples," a diamond pendant with a pearl "the size of a pigeon's egg." Everyone expected the widow of the French king to make another spectacular royal marriage.

Instead, while still in France, she secretly took as her second husband a 31-year-old Englishman, Charles Brandon, the newly elevated Duke of Suffolk, celebrated for his good looks, military valor and jousting skill. Before she sailed for France, Mary had told her brother she would only agree to wed the old French king if she could choose her second husband herself. Desperate for the diplomatic alliance, Henry VIII had agreed. But Mary feared that if she returned to England, her brother would force her into another arranged marriage. She persuaded Brandon, whom she had known for years and had probably fallen in love with in England before her marriage, to marry her.  They had no permission to do so and were in disgrace, with Brandon facing arrest, until Henry VIII forgave them. Charles Brandon was, after all, his best friend.

It was a highly romantic episode, inspiring a stream of novels over the centuries, most significantly When Knighthood Was in Flower in 1898, which sold so many copies it inspired a burst of similar historical novels and no less than three films, including one in 1922 financed by William Randolph Hearst and starring Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies.

Mary Tudor and her new husband, Charles Brandon

A booted Marion Davies in When Knighthood Was in Flower

"Margaret" Tudor (Gabrielle Anwar) and Charles Brandon (Henry Cavill) in the miniseries "The Tudors"

But the real Charles Brandon, while an impressive and charismatic man to his contemporaries, is not a one-dimensional figure of handsome chivalry. His record with women was notorious. He'd already been married twice when he wed Mary Tudor -- one of the wives was still alive and fighting the annulment --and had contracted to wed yet a third, a child heiress whose family title he was using. A year and a half before he married Mary, ambassadors gossiped that he was trying to seduce Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands and daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor. The root of his behavior was not womanizing--or at least not only womanizing--but a willingness to use women as a means of gaining fortune and, if possible, fame, a common policy in the Tudor and Stuart age. He had a powerful sexual appeal, and he monetized it.

Like many real people of Henry VIII's court, Brandon is made up of both light and shadow. He is a product of the man-on-the-make spirit of the early Tudor age, which itself was made possible by the violent chaos of the death of Plantagenet rule.

His life is buried in myth, and the first is that Charles Brandon was a favored royal ward, orphaned by the Battle of Bosworth when his father, Sir William Brandon, a heroic man of "pure Lancastrian heritage" bearing the standard of Henry Tudor, was personally slain by Richard III. Which is not true in every respect.

The Brandons were an old, respectable country family. They lived in a small West Suffolk town, drawing income from farms and cattle for at least three centuries. A Geoffrey Brandon, succeeding in trade in Norwich, sent his son, William, to London in the last half of the 15th century. Says one historian: "He was a pushing, shrewd, energetic and very unscrupulous knave, who soon acquired great influence in the city and amassed corresponding wealth. Finally he became sheriff and was knighted by Henry VI." Yet when Henry VI was no longer king, replaced by the Yorkist Edward IV, Sir William Brandon switched to that side, and he lent Edward IV "considerable sums of money."

Which Edward IV declined to pay back.

Ordinarily a rich man would have had no recourse to a King's reneging. But when King Edward died, and his brother Richard III displaced his nephews and took the throne, an opportunity arose for another switching sides. Henry Tudor, in exile in Brittany, was now the leader of the Lancastrians. Brandon threw his support to Tudor. Two of his sons, William and Thomas, joined the Duke of Buckingham's rebellion against Richard III and when it failed, they fled England to join Tudor's cause. William was married to a young widow with some money named Elizabeth Bruyn. In 1484, she gave birth to Charles, the future Duke of Suffolk, in either England or France, and died shortly after.

But before we travel to the heroics of Bosworth, a terrible fact must be disclosed about the young William Brandon, knighted by Henry Tudor before they invaded England. He was, by one historical document, a rapist. In 1478 he was "in ward" for raping an "old gentlewoman" and her daughter, according to Paston. One chronicler of the time thought he would hang for it, but for unknown reasons he went free. The veracity of this record is debated today.

Early 19th century depiction of the Battle of Bosworth

It was a period of sexual brutality. Edward IV tried to assault a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth Woodville but she turned a knife on her own throat, threatening to kill herself. Somehow this made the right kind of impression, and she became his wife and queen. They were the parents of Elizabeth of York, grandparents of Henry VIII, and the present royal family are descended from them. Edward IV had countless mistresses, passing them to his courtiers when he tired of them, often against their will.

But even within this context, standard bearer was a great honor, and William Brandon was a strange choice for it. He was not a close friend of Henry Tudor's, he lacked a distinguished battle record and he was no noble. Probably Tudor, who left England for foreign exile in 1471, did not know about the rapes. One theory is William Brandon was chosen to carry the standard and stand at the side of Tudor because he was tall and strong. Nonetheless, Richard III is said to have "cleaved" his skull in his desperate charge on Tudor. Brandon's death was the most notable loss on Tudor's side.

After Bosworth, the baby Charles Brandon was an orphan. But the romantic tradition that a grateful King raised the boy with his son Henry, sharing lessons, is simply not correct. There is no record of him living with the royal children. And Charles was seven years older than Henry (and two years older than Arthur). As an adult, he was obviously intelligent but knew scant French and exhibited no interest in scholarship; he lacked Henry VIII's knowledge of languages, history, theology, and literature. Instead, Charles Brandon seems to have spent his childhood in the care of his grandfather and uncles, possibly in the country. His later letters, the "worst spelled and written of his day," were "phonetically spelled, proved him to have spoken with a broad Suffolk accent."

When Charles' grandfather died, the family fortune passed to the oldest surviving uncle, Richard. Little Charles had nothing.

Thomas Brandon, another uncle, is an under-appreciated force in the life of Charles. He was an ambitious man of ability who managed to advance himself in the court of Henry VII, and he pulled his young nephew Charles along as best he could. After he became Master of Horse, he found a place for Charles in Arthur's household: he was a sewer, or waiter. A far from cry from the legendary status of chosen playmate to princes.

How then did Charles Brandon rise so high from such inauspicious beginnings, sewer to duke? Like Thomas Cromwell, he used his personal gifts and worked extremely hard. Cromwell was a brilliant lawyer. Brandon was an outstanding athlete, the best jouster in a highly competitive group of men fighting for the attention of first Prince, then King Henry. At the age of 17, he appeared in the lists honoring Arthur's wedding to Catherine of Aragon, and was noticed by all for his prowess when he rode in a tournament held in honor of Philip of Austria and his wife, Joanna of Castile, in 1506. At this time young Brandon was serving as Master of Horse for the Earl of Essex. That household is where he lived; he did not have lodgings at the royal court.

This is the time when Charles Brandon began his marital misadventures. He seduced Anne Brown, a gentlewoman of good family serving Queen Elizabeth, and according to her family, promised to marry her. She was pregnant by him in 1506. But then Brandon jilted Anne for her wealthy widowed aunt, Dame Margaret Mortimer, old enough to be his mother. They married and, once he got his hands on her property, he sold it all and kept the cash. An appalled Venetian ambassador wrote, "In this country, young men marry old ladies for their money."

In 1507, 23-year-old Charles Brandon had the brief marriage annulled and returned to Anne Brown, whom he married. They had two daughters before she died in 1511.

Mary Brandon, by Holbein. She was one of the daughters from his first marriage.

 Lady Mortimer bitterly opposed the annulment, and became a thorn in Brandon's side for 20 years, until he managed to get the pope himself to support the annulment in 1527. The mess of his early marriages was to haunt not just Brandon but his descendants. Decades later, Elizabeth I was supposed to have examined the legal documents of the Mortimer annulment to find a way to discredit Brandon's granddaughter, Catherine Grey, who many considered next in line to the throne but whom Elizabeth loathed.

After Henry VIII succeeded, Brandon rose higher and higher in his estimation, based mostly on his tournament prowess. He took over his uncle's position of Master of Horse. When England went to war with France, Brandon served with great bravery and distinction. Throughout his long life, he was to serve Henry VIII on the battlefield time and again. "He is like a second king," an awestruck advisor wrote Margaret of Austria.

Margaret of Austria

Back in England, Brandon was soon up to his old tricks. He signed a contract to marry his 10-year-old ward, Elizabeth Grey, a wealthy heiress, and was known as Lord Lisle, her family's title, until his best friend, King Henry VIII, made him Duke of Suffolk. "From a stableboy into a nobleman," commented Erasmus skeptically. Now he was one of only three dukes in England.

Brandon was still contracted to his ward when he flirted with Margaret of Austria, pretending to steal her ring while Henry VIII laughed in encouragement. There were rumors that she would marry him, until her father, the Holy Roman Emperor, grew furious. She backed away quickly.

Young Henry VIII

A 19th century historian wrote of Henry VIII and Charles Brandon:

"The two men were of the same towering height but Charles was, perhaps, the more powerful... both were exceedingly fair and had the same golden curly hair, the same steel gray eyes planted on either side of an aquiline nose.... owing to the brilliance of their complexions, they were universally considered extremely handsome."

This was the man Princess Mary fell in love with at the same time her brother was arranging her marriage to the King of France. There is no hint of impropriety between them at the English court; she was scrupulously chaperoned. Brandon did not escort her to France. So why did Henry VIII send his friend, infamous for his treatment of women, to escort a vulnerable Mary back to England after King Louis died? He is supposed to have made Brandon promise not to marry her in France. Brandon was always a loyal friend to Henry VIII...yet he did marry her. The French royal jewels that the couple smuggled out of the country and gave to Henry VIII--including the Mirror of Naples--mollified him.

Henry Cavill's portrayal of Brandon adds to his mythic appeal

Did Mary Tudor find happiness with the husband she chose for herself, who she risked her brother's wrath to marry? Was this a man who, despite his irresistible good looks and athletic prowess, could be a good husband, even in the 16th century? Perhaps. That is another question entirely, fit for another blog post.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of a trilogy of mystery novels set in the court of Henry VIII, published by Simon and Schuster. The main character, Joanna Stafford, is a Dominican novice. The Crown was an Oprah magazine pick in January 2012. The Tapestry, the third in the series, was published in 2015. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

The Prophetess & the End of the World

By Nancy Bilyeau


In the spring of 1881, families across England deserted their homes, too distraught to sleep in their beds. They slept in fields or prayed in churches and chapels for God to spare their lives in the apocalypse that was foretold: "The world to an end shall come; in eighteen hundred and eighty one."

The author of their terror was Mother Shipton, also known as Ursula Shipton, a woman whose prophecies had been circulating through England and beyond for centuries. The first famous man whose life she prophesied was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the minister to Henry VIII until 1530. In often cryptic verse, the crone-like seer predicted wars, rebellions and all matter of natural disasters. After London burned in 1666, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: "Mother Shipton's word is out." Her prophecies were published in one form or another over 20 times between 1641 and 1700. In the 1800s, her predictions grew even more terrifying: The end-of-the-world was foretold in a book published in 1862. Its other prophetic verse included: "A carriage without a horse shall go; Disaster fill the world with woe; In water iron then shall float; As easy as a wooden boat."

The world did not end in 1881. People began sleeping in their beds once more. It was not the first time that fear of a Mother Shipton prediction convulsed a nation and it would not be the last.

Today there is considerable skepticism that a voluble prophetess named Mother Shipton ever existed. Many of her written predictions are, after all, confirmed forgeries, created to sell greater numbers of chapbooks and almanacs. Her 1684 "biographer" spun spooky details of her birth and existence; the 1881 end-of-the-world prophecy was debunked when the Victorian editor Charles Hindley publicly confessed to concocting the verses himself.

Entrance to Shipton Cave

Nonetheless, belief in Mother Shipton persisted. Today a thriving tourist attraction called Mother Shipton's Cave, at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, features the cave where she was born and the petrifying well where objects can turn to stone. There's also a shop selling mugs, tea towels, thimbles, and wishing-well water in dark pink, ruby red and kelly green.

But just because Mother Shipton has become the label on kelly- green wishing-well water does not mean that she has no basis in fact. Like Robin Hood or King Arthur, it's believed that if we were able to trace the myth-making back to the very beginning, a living, breathing person could be identified

There are no written references to Mother Shipton in the 1500s. That name does not appear in print until 1641. But a mention of a "witch of York" in a chilling letter written by King Henry VIII himself could be the elusive source of the legend.

The context of the letter is critical. It was written to Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, while the duke was in the middle of a clean-up operation following the Northern rebellion against the king known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Thousands of commoners and a fair number of nobles rose up against the reforms in religion forced on the country by Henry VIII. The rebels were particularly aggrieved by the fresh taxes and the closing of the monasteries, which in the poorer regions of the North were needed sources of food, shelter, and medical care. The Duke of Norfolk had easily defeated this 1537 outbreak, which followed the main rebellion of 1536, and he was now imprisoning and then executing people without trial, imposing martial law. He wrote his king that he hanged more than 70.

A watercolor of the rebellion showing, somewhat inaccurately,  that the army was led by priests and monks

Henry VIII dictated the following letter to Norfolk in response:

“We shall not forget your services, and are glad to hear also from sundry of our servants how you advance the truth, declaring the usurpation of the bishop of Rome… We approve of your proceedings in the displaying of our banner, which being now spread, till it is closed again the course of our laws must give place to martial law; and before you close it up again, you must cause such dreadful execution upon a good number of inhabitants, hanging them on trees, quartering them, and setting their heads and quarters in every town, as shall be a fearful warning, whereby shall ensue the preservation of a great multitude... You shall send up to us the traitors Bigod, the friar of Knareborough, Leche, if he may be taken, the vicar of Penrith and Towneley, late chancellor to the bishop of Carlise, who has been a great promoter of these rebellions, the witch of York and one Dr. Pykering, a canon. You are to see to the lands and goods of such as shall now be attainted, that we may have them in safety, to be given, if we be so disposed, to those who have truly served us..."

"The witch of York"...could this be a contemporary reference to a woman who not only caused enough trouble to incite the wrath of Henry VIII but also transformed into Mother Shipton? Her legend grew and grew in the 1600s, in published almanacs: Ursula was born in a cave in 1488, the child of an orphan servant girl and an unknown father--perhaps Lucifer himself. She was singularly ugly, called "Devils Bastard" and "Hag-face." Nonetheless, Ursula married a builder named Toby Shipton and lived quietly with him, never prosecuted for witchcraft though regularly uttering prophecy. "Her stature," wrote her biographer, "was larger than common, her body crooked, her face frightful; but her understanding extraordinary." How much of this describes the same "witch of York" cited by Henry VIII is unknown.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey

The fact that Mother Shipton's first known prediction concerned the fate of Cardinal Wolsey is significant. According to Wolsey's gentleman usher and later biographer, George Cavendish, Wolsey, near the end of his life, was disturbed by a prophecy heard. Cavendish wrote: " 'There is a saying, quoth he, 'that When this cow rideth the bull, then priest beware thy skull." According to Tudor-court interpretation, the cow was Anne Boleyn, who in her holding sway over Henry VIII and convincing him to divorce his queen to marry her, triggered the break with the Catholic Church. Mother Shipton was not attributed to this prophecy by Cavendish. But in the future, her soothsaying would intertwine with Wolsey's fate.

Belief in prophecy ran through every level of Tudor society. It reached a fever pitch during the dangerous 1530s, when queens and courtiers were beheaded, monasteries fell, and rebels were hanged from trees across the North of England. 

Many prophecies were used for political purposes. Uprisers against Henry VII said they were following the ancient sages. The rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace cried that Henry VIII was the ancient 'Mouldwarp,' a monster ruler foretold by Merlin who would be "cast down." Anthony Babington, who conspired to assassinate Elizabeth I, carried a prediction of Merlin's sayings. One popular prophecy during Elizabeth's time was "When HEMPE is soon, England's done." HEMPE was thought to stand for Henry-Edward-Mary-Philip-Elizabeth.  Madeleine Dodds in Political Prophecies in the Reign of Henry VIII wrote:  "Political prophecies tended to be invoked at a time of crisis, usually to demonstrate that some drastic change, either desired or already accomplished, had been foreseen by the sages of the past."

In the 1700 and 1800s, Mother Shipton's prophecies broadened to cataclysmic disasters, amazing inventions, and, of course, the end of the world. Stripped of politics, they were more potent than ever. Perhaps they filled a deep craving within to feel that everything happens by some design, even if it is drawn by an ancient mystic, sage or witch. We are all of us fulfilling an obscure and coded destiny.

It's a craving that we still see around us today. It just might be part of being human.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the Tudor-era thriller The Crown, now on sale in North America, the United Kingdom and nine foreign markets. It was put on the short list for the Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award for 2012.

The sequel, The Chalice, which goes on sale on Feb 28th, 2013 in the United Kingdom and March 5th, 2013 in North America, revolves around a deadly prophecy. And yes, Mother Shipton is part of the plot.

For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

A Resplendent Monument to Henry VIII of England

Judith Arnopp

 Most people would agree that England’s most memorable monarch is Henry VIII. The bloody years of his reign, the executions, the break with Rome, his complex sex life have all left their mark on our imagination. He is so synonymous with England that you might even assume that a magnificent memorial stands prominently in Westminster such as the one his parents share, or the superb edifice that enshrines the resting place of his daughter Elizabeth. But you’d be quite wrong to think so.  

Indeed, although buried at Windsor alongside his third wife, Jane Seymour, there is no glorious shrine, no guilded angels, just a slab set in the floor. Where once people trembled before King Henry, now many of us do not even notice when we walk over him.

Death is a great leveller.

In the sixteenth century monuments were intended to mark wealth, status and power, and the building of them was usually undertaken during the lifetime of the person for whom the tomb was intended. Always conscious of the need to emphasise his own supremacy, Henry laid down elaborate plans for a suitable edifice. You have only to consider the most famous portrait of Henry to imagine the impact he intended his memorial to have. Henry was dominant, self-obsessed and power hungry. His burial tomb was intended to reflect that.

The Tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York

As early as 1518, while still married to his first queen, Katherine of Aragon, a contract was signed by a Florentine sculptor, Pietro Torrigiano, the same man who created the fabulous tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. It was to be similar in design, of black and white marble yet twenty-five per cent bigger and ‘finished in beauty, fairness, costs and adornments.’

Unfortunately, an issue arose over payment between the sculptor and Wolsey (who was in charge of the project) and the Florentine left without completing, or perhaps not even beginning the work. 

Henry and Wolsey quickly sought other craftsmen and made further plans for even more splendid designs. Robert Hutchinson in his book, The last days of Henry VIII notes that the design was based on one originally intended for Pope Leo X. ‘It was to be 28ft high, 15ft long and topped by an effigy of the king on horseback in grand Italian Renaissance style. Beneath this the high canopy were to lie the effigies of the king and queen. In its sheer megalomaniac scale, it was deliberately intended to be a monument to outshine that of any pope or monarch found within the churches and abbeys of Europe.’ Wow, splendid indeed ...and expensive.

The Tomb of Henry's Grandmother, Margaret Beaufort

At around this time Cardinal Wolsey had also began plans for his own shrine. As equally status-conscious as his king, Wolsey’s tomb was to outdo that of Henry VII’s both in ostentation and in cost. Unfortunately, his downfall preceded the completion of his monument and having fallen foul of his King, he was instead buried ignominiously at Abbey Park in Leicestershire.

Henry, never one to let a good thing go to waste, lost no time in acquiring elements of Wolsey’s tomb for his own use, and Cromwell, who was now the project manager, made several payments to Italian and English metal founders. A giant effigy of the king was produced in gilt bronze and work continued until the last decade of Henry’s reign when war with France and Scotland put pressure on the royal coffers. By this time the project was well underway. In his will Henry stated that his tomb was 'well onward and almost made therefore already with a fair grate about it, in which we will also the bones of our true and loving wife Queen Jane be put also.’ 
But with the king out of the picture the project for his grand burial was no longer of primary importance, even to his children.

Under his successor, Edward VI, work continued half-heartedly and under the new protestant regime even the chantry priests who had been asked to pray for Henry and Jane’s souls were forbidden to continue. The King's tomb was shelved and after Edward’s early demise in 1553 work on his own tomb took precedence over Henry’s.

When Mary Tudor assumed the throne she declined to continue with the work for fear she should be seen as supporting one who broke with Rome, and when Elizabeth's turn came, she showed no more filial respect than her sister. Records show that she did consider continuing with the project but rejected several designs, hampered no doubt by the reluctance to spend too much money on it. After all, her own considerable monument, taking many years to complete and requiring a fortune in white marble, was of more immediate importance.

The Tomb of King Francis I of France

Through the Commonwealth and the Restoration periods the half-finished monument, and the chapel that housed it, fell into further disrepair, its ruinous condition being recorded as late as 1749.  In 1804 when the architect, James Wyatt, began work on a huge royal catacomb on the site of the chapel, Henry’s tomb was put into storage. As his memory faded into the past, plans for  Henry VIII’s memorial faded with it. The tomb was never completed and the huge black sarcophagus intended for Henry, is now in St Paul’s housing instead the bones of England’s hero of Trafalgar, Lord Nelson - who has so many monuments.

And so Henry and Jane stayed where they were, beneath the floor of St George’s Chapel at Windsor but they were not left in peace. In 1649 the tomb was opened up to make way for Charles I. One wonders, after executing so many lesser men, what Henry makes of sharing his tomb with a defeated and executed King. You can almost hear his indignant roar, ‘It wouldn’t have happened in my day.’ 

At the end of the seventeenth century the tomb was opened again for the burial of a still-born child of Princess George of Denmark (later to become Queen Anne) and again to allow a casket  of relics appertaining to Charles I to be interred. 

At that time a light was lowered into the tomb and revealed Henry’s coffin to be ‘in a condition of great dilapidation. The King’s skull, with its very broad frontal, his thigh bones, ribs and other portions of the skeleton are exposed to view as the lead has been extensively ripped open…’

The grave remained unmarked until 1837 when in King William IV’s reign it was inscribed as follows.

IN A VAULT

BENEATH THIS MARBLE SLAB

 ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS

 OF

JANE SEYMOUR, QUEEN OF KING HENRY VIII

 1537

 KING HENRY VIII

 1547

KING CHARLES I

 1648

 AND AN INFANT CHILD OF QUEEN ANNE.

 THIS MEMORIAL WAS PLACED HERE

 BY COMMAND OF

 KING WILLIAM IV. 1837.

So, our great Tudor monarch lies in a modest tomb, in mixed company while many of his contemporaries, people who bowed and scraped before him, lie in splendour elsewhere in the kingdom.

The graves of his wives are more resplendent than his, even those who died disgraced. Katherine of Aragon has a black marble grave marker with her name written above it in large gilded letters. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard lie beneath decorative grave markers at the Chapel of St Peter ad vincula at the Tower of London where flowers are left regularly by modern day sympathisers. 

Anne of Cleves has a marked tomb at Westminster Abbey which, if a little difficult to find, still has substance.  And at Sudeley Castle an effigy of Henry’s last wife, Catherine Parr, lies upon a resplendent tomb.

Henry's son, Edward VI has a tomb fit for a monarch at Westminster Abbey, as does Elizabeth who shares her grave with her half-sister Queen Mary I. Even Henry’s bastard son, Henry Fitzroy, lies in some majesty in St Michael’s church at Framlingham in Suffolk.

Many of Henry's VIII's contemporaries have superior monuments to their king. Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, third Duke of Norfolk has a sumptuous memorial at Framlingham Church, and Henry’s great rival King Francis I has a huge effigy in the Basilica of St Denis in Paris with a separate, gigantic urn to house his heart. 

The Tomb of Henry's last victim, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

And Henry’s last victim, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who was beheaded just one day before the king died, has a resplendent effigy marking the tomb he shares with his wife Frances, at Framlingham in Suffolk.

Henry’s elder brother Arthur, who was Catherine of Aragon's first husband and died before he could ascend the throne, has an ostentatious tomb in a designated chapel. I could go on, and on but I will resist.

Henry’s parents, grandparents, wives, children, cousins, siblings, friends; most of the Tudors rest in splendour and, I hope, peace.

It is only Henry, who in life was the most ostentatious of them all, that lacks the majesty of a proper monument.

Judith writes historical novels and essays. Her latest Tudor novel The Winchester Goose, is now available in paperback and on kindle. Click the link to purchase.

The Winchester Goose

More information about Judith's work can be found on her webpage: http://www.juditharnopp.com