The Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, and Her Times. Richard Davey
in scores of presentments of him, to be met with at every turn: here, a plump little boy, by Mabuse; there, a singularly handsome fair-haired young man by Paris Bordone; and yonder, a full-length portrait by Hans Holbein, in which it was evident that His Majesty was beginning to “put on flesh.” In the Audience Chamber was a “table” of the monarch painted by Bartolomeo Penni, wherein the “peepy eyes” and the bloated cheeks of his latter years were only too faithfully portrayed. Though there were portraits of nearly all the King’s contemporaries, including one of Charles VIII of France and another of Charles V, besides a round dozen of Francis I, the likenesses of the five queens who preceded Katherine Parr had all been carefully removed, or, as in the case, of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, destroyed. A cabinet full of relics of Queen Jane stood, however, in the anteroom of the King’s bedchamber at the Tower; and at Westminster, in a picture-book, there was a portrait of this Queen with another of the King facing it on the opposite page. Among the great “tables” at Whitehall were the “Virgin and Child,” by Leonardo da Vinci,40 given to the King by Francis I in exchange for a picture by Holbein; “St. George and the Dragon,”41 by Raphael; “Christina of Denmark,”42 by Holbein, full length; a portrait, “Like unto Life,” of “Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,”43 and “one table of the King’s Highness trampling upon the papal tiara, whence issues a serpent with seven heads snorting fire. In the King’s hand is the Bible, and a sword whereon is written Verbum Dei.”44
If the art of painting was well represented in the King’s many palaces, that of music was even more cherished. Page after page in the Royal Inventory is devoted to “double” and “single” virginals, with cases inlaid and encrusted with ivory and mother-of-pearl or adorned with arabesques of gold, studded with gems; while of lutes and flutes, rebecks and viols, there seems to have been a perfect arsenal. Then there was a library of over a thousand precious volumes, a sort of perambulating feast of reason, for in the Household Expenses we find various sums of money disbursed from time to time for the removal of boat-loads of books from one palace to another. The number of gold, silver, bronze, crystal, and glass chandeliers, sconces, and candlesticks distributed among the royal residences baffles belief. Each of the two hundred and eighty-four guest-chambers at Hampton Court boasted a bedstead hung with the richest silk and satin, with a gorgeously embroidered and wadded counterpane to match, an Oriental carpet, and a toilet set, ewer, basin, and candlesticks complete, of massive silver; while one closet at Whitehall was stored with an immense collection of the choicest German and Venetian glass. Such, in fact, was the King’s mania for collecting things rich and rare that, in spite of the hopeless and suffering condition of his health, he was still “buying,” down to the ultimate week of his life, and some of his last purchases seem never to have been paid for by his successors.
These contemporary accounts of the Household of Henry VIII strike the student by their marked resemblance to similar descriptions, by such writers as Sagrado and Knowles, of the quaint and numerous population of the Seraglio in the palmy days of the Ottoman Khaliphats. The Tudor King, like the Grand Turk, had four battalions of pages—pages of the Outer and of the Inner Court, of the King’s Antechamber, and of the King’s Presence Chamber; and yet a fifth contingent was attached to the service of the Queen. These lads, some hundreds in number, had their captains and even their school-masters; they were mostly of good family, and were apparelled, according to their rank, in wondrous State garments either of satin, green and white, the colours of the house of Tudor, or else of royal scarlet and gold. There was a legion of Grooms of the Wardrobe, Keepers of the King’s Horse, Sports and Pastimes, of his Harriers and Beagles, Sergeants-at-Arms, Sergeants of the Woodyard, Sergeants of the Bakehouse, Sergeants of the Pantry, Sergeants of the Pastry, Sergeants of the Trumpeters, Yeomen of the Wardrobe, Yeomen of the Armoury, Yeomen of the Buttery, Yeomen of the Chamber, Yeomen of the Chariots, of the Cooks, of the Henchmen, Stables, and Tents. The Royal Chapel was served by a full complement of chaplains, sub-chaplains, organists, and choir-boys. There were apothecaries, physicians, astronomers,45 astrologers, secretaries, ushers, cup-bearers, carvers, servers, singing-boys, virginal players, Italian singers and English madrigalists, and a perfect orchestra of players on the lute, the flute, the rebeck, the sackbut, the harp, the psalter, and all manner of instruments.
Full fifty cooks and twice as many scullions worked in the spacious kitchens, and in 1544 we hear of a French pastry-cook of good repute who rejoiced in the very pleasing and appropriate name of M. Doux. A regiment of gardeners and under-gardeners trimmed the pleasaunces and kept the King’s orchards in order.
The dresses and costumes of this army of picturesque, though often quite useless, folk, numbering some thousands or so, were sufficiently costly to account in part for the straits of the Royal Exchequer. Their wages and silks and satins cost the nation, in the last year of Henry VIII’s reign, £56,700—against £17,280 in the last year of that of his father; a prodigious increase—when we take into consideration the relative value of money—and sufficient to explain the depletion of the coin.
HENRY VIII IN 1548
FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING
Scarlet, or rather deep red, was the predominant colour of the garments of King Henry’s retainers, but dark blue and orange, with the white and light apple green of the house of Tudor, were not lacking, and added to the kaleidoscopic aspect of the courtyards and staircases, galleries and audience chamber, in the stately residences of “bluff King Hal.” One Venetian Ambassador, commenting on the order kept at the English Court, declared that “everything is regulated as by clock-work, and no one ever seems to be out of his place.” When the King condescended to walk abroad, he was attended by a host of superbly attired courtiers, by his grand equerries and chamberlains, the Grand Master of his Horse, his almoners, ushers, and physicians; his fool—Will Somers46; his pages, and even by a favourite musician or so. In the last years of his life, owing to his increasing infirmity, Henry was sometimes carried upon the shoulders of six sturdy noblemen, in a kind of sedia gestatoria like the Pope’s. At His Majesty’s approach every knee was bent, and many who particularly desired to conciliate his favour “grovelled” face downward as Orientals before some Eastern despot. The officials and serving-men who prepared the table for His Majesty’s meals made an obeisance each time they passed the vacant chair wherein the monarch was presently to seat himself. The Queen-Consort, and the Princesses, his daughters, knelt whenever they addressed him. In brief, King Henry, having filched from Peter some of Peter’s pontifical prerogatives, exacted the same sort of homage as that paid to the Roman Pontiff, and turned himself from mortal into a sort of demigod or idol. But foreigners and Catholics noted that though people knelt as he rode past, His Majesty bestowed no blessing upon them. This slavish etiquette continued throughout the reign of Edward VI,47 but was modified when Mary renounced the titular position of Head of the Church. Elizabeth, however, demanded, and, what is more, received, quasi-divine honours from her subjects.
Yet another point of resemblance between the Courts of England and the Ottoman at this period: Whitehall, like the Seraglio, was gay and brilliant on the surface, but in each case there was an undercurrent of terror and suspicion. The Tudor Court swarmed with spies and informers, and often a thoughtless jest, a careless remark, spitefully retailed at headquarters, would send men or women to the Tower, or even to the stake. Folks went in fear and trembling lest what they had said overnight in their cups might be brought home to them with appalling consequences in the morning. This state of abject and habitual fear engendered habits of whispering and talking apart and an atmosphere of mystery, in spite of which the gossip and rumours of the King’s own chamber passed to the pages, grooms, and serving-men in the courtyards below, and thence to the general public, as rapidly as news flies nowadays by telephone and telegraph.
There can be no doubt that Jane Grey, the daughter of one so closely connected with the throne as was the Marchioness of Dorset, must often have mingled in the gaudy crowd that thronged her grand-uncle’s palace. Henry was as “fond of children as he was of pastry,” although, for obvious reasons, he did not display any overweening affection for his own offspring. This engaging little niece, now about six years of age, is likely to have found favour in the monarch’s sight, and Jane Grey, for all we know, may even have throned it on her dread relative’s august knee. Cranmer’s hand, too,