Documentary Notes – ‘Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer’ Part 1

Jonathan Foyle.

April 1509 Henry VIII takes refuge in the Tower of London.

Public image – kills Empson and Dudley.

Coronation = cloth of gold, jewels on horseback, Hall’s Chronicle, Thomas More – lawyer commissioned to make a speech, “golden age”.

Humanism influenced More and Henry, also chivalry – Erasmus,

Eltham Palace – Henry was raised away from the centre of London.

Glenn Richardson.

John Skelton taught him Latin, French, etc. Influenced by Margaret Beaufort and William Blount Lord Mountjoy.

New learning – grammar, rhetoric, morals, history. History of his own ancestors.

1503 Prince Henry was betrothed to Katherine of Aragon.

Strength of the Tudor family – influence, wealth, power. Demonstrated by buildings like King’s College Chapel.

Propaganda.

Greyhound = loyalty, dragon = Welsh roots, portcullis – Yorkist, red rose, Lancastrian.

Renaissance prince.

Lady chapel in Westminster Abbey is Henry VII’s burial place.

Royal residences – changed, not castles with moats, supposed to display wealth, power and peace.

Hampton Court – William Bolton, renaissance and classical.

Royal family, envoys and foreign ambassadors – has to appeal to lots of people.

Demonstrates “European ambition”.

Tapestries – stories and morals. Thomas Campbell – portable to move with the court, practical, could be used as propaganda. Expensive to make/buy. Cost £100 compared to a Holbein painting £5.

Hampton Court eclipsed Henry’s palaces. Henry lost Westminster in a fire in 1512. Henry tried to build a copy in 1516 called Newhall – doesn’t exist today, replaced by an Elizabethan copy.

Supported Tudor dynasty – Tudor rose, pomegranate.

Field of the Cloth of Gold 1520.

Little to do with peace – “cultural warfare” and ostentation.

Nobles tried to emulate their king – ostentation, ambition, leave an impression on the king.

Tudor celebrations – music, dancing, masqueing, drinking and feasting. Henry composed and performed ‘gentil prince de renom’.

No one dared criticise him “patron rather than creator”.

Could overstep the mark – threatened. Thornberry Castle and the Duke of Buckingham, executed 1521, claim to the throne.

Debate = divorce and great matter. Defence of the sacraments earned Henry the title defender of the faith – now seems hypocritical.

Andrea Clark – British library, book of hours.

1527 “scruples of conscience” – Leviticus vs. Deutronomy, contrary to divine law, pope couldn’t dispense, monastic libraries.

Henry’s own intellectual prowess.

Henry was very involved – notes and highlighting, intellectual foundations.

Henry thought he was being punished for sin – marrying his brother’s wife, no male heir.

Realism in visual arts. Hans Holbein 1526 arrived in England.

Painted the family of Thomas More and got a position at court. 1527 French embassy, Holbein started work at Greenwich – triumphal arch at the banqueting house, painting of the Battle of the Spurs 1513.

Court painters had to have a range – portraits, sets, etc.

Whitehall mural destroyed 1698 – Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York – Henry’s most famous portrait.

Elaborate, distortion – power, strength, wealth – defines our image of Henry today.

1 June 1533 Anne Boleyn’s coronation – More and Fisher arrested. Act of succession and act of supremacy.

Henry isolated – rooted in tradition.

Conservatism “was his trump card.”

Ruthless using any force to secure his crown and dynasty.