III nection Talbois alienation from Catherine on the part of her husband, CHAP we have no evidence, although he seems to have acquired libertine habits some years before. Balthasar, the French ambassador, writing home in 1515, "He is a youngling, cares for nothing but girls and hunting, and wastes his father's patrimony." But we have his own words in proof that about this time he forsook the Queen altogether, putting upon her the greatest indignity that a husband could." The settled character of his alienation is shown by the intimacy which now arose between the King and Elizabeth Blunt, afterwards the wife of Sir Gilbert Talbois. His conThis lady belonged to a very anciently ennobled with Lady family; being the daughter of Sir John Blunt, and Elizabeth Catherine, third daughter of Sir Thomas Peshall; the former of whom was closely related to the great Lord Mountjoy, and like him, a direct descendant of Sir Walter Blunt of Rock and Sodington [1272-1315], in the reigns of Edward I. and II. Her dishonourable connection with the King resulted, sometime in the year 1519, in the birth of a son, who A.D. 1519 was christened Henry Fitz-Roy, and created Earl of Nottingham, and Duke of Richmond and Somerset on June 17, 1526. Lord Herbert says that this youth “was equally like to both parents," his mother Henry "being thought, for her rare ornaments of nature and education, to be the beauty and mistress piece of the time."8 He became the bosom friend of the brave and polished Earl of Surrey, who lamented his Brewer's Calend. St. Pap., 1105. 7 "The King declared to Simon Grinceus" (as the latter writes to Bucer, September 10, 1531) "that for seven years he had abstained from the Queen." It is observable that in the year 1524 Wolsey published a bull (in his capacity as Legate) Fitz-Roy III CHAP death as if he had lost a brother. It is alleged by several writers of the period that the King intended Intended to appoint this son heir to the crown at a time when to be his he had no legitimate male issue: and all accounts successor of him speak so highly of his capacities and disposi father's tion, as to indicate that, but for his illegitimacy, he would have been quite worthy of the position thus destined for him by his father. No records show how long Elizabeth Blunt retained her hold upon the King's affections: but it is singular to observe that she survived all the King's six wives, married Sir Gilbert Talbois (who died in 1530), and after the King's death married Lord Clinton, who was subsequently created Earl of Lincoln by Queen Elizabeth.1 And 9 This assertion is founded on a clause in the Act of Succession passed a few months before the young Duke's death. It enacted "That for lack of lawful heirs of the King's body to be procreated or begotten, as is afore limited by this Act, it shall and may be lawful for him to confer the same on any such person or persons, in possession and remainder, as should please his Highness, and according to such estate, and after such manner, form, fashion, order, and condition as should be expressed, declared, named, and limited, in his said letters patent or by his last will the Crown to be enjoyed by such person or persons so to be nominated & appointed in as large & ample a manner as if such person or persons had been his Highness' lawful heirs to the imperial Crown of this realm." [28 Hen. VIII. c. 7.] The King conferred the highest honours he could on Henry FitzRoy, short of making him Prince of Wales, and this latter title seems to have been forestalled by the creation of Mary Princess of Wales in 1518. [Burnet, i. 76.] He was made Earl Marshal, Knight of the Garter, and Lord High Admiral. He was also married, by the King's own management, to Mary, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, the highest match to be found among the subjects of the Crown. This marriage took place in 1533, and the Duke died, at the age of seventeen, on July 22, 1536. His widow was recognised as Duchess of Richmond, and had a dower from the Crown for her second marriage. Jenkyns' Cranmer, i. 84, 226; Ellis' Orig. Letters, II. cxx.; State Papers, i. 577. 1 Queen Elizabeth was born about the time of the Duke of Richmond's marriage, Cranmer mentioning both events together in the letter referred to in the previous notes. The Duke being in such high favour with his father, and being all but made heir to the Crown, it is scarcely likely but that his mother was also; and it is possible that her name was given to the infant princess just born; though, of course, it must be remembered that Elizabeth was the name of the III for however short a time her actual association with CHAP the King may have continued, one can see that the influence of a young, well-born, well-educated, clever, and beautiful woman such as she was, must have tended much to draw him away more entirely from the Queen. causes of alienation from year alien only Catherine For the time had now arrived when the discrep- Other ancy of age between Henry and Catherine was the King's beginning to grow very conspicuous. In the 1518 the one was thirty-five and the other twenty-seven years of age. Under the best of circumstances such a difference tells greatly; but in this case Catherine was older even than her years, for her health was much broken, and she had been seven times a mother under circumstances of peculiar trial. Her beauty had faded away, her sprightly buoyancy had gone, and she had become, as her daughter Mary became afterwards, somewhat austere in her religious practices. Had her husband been eight years older than herself, with the cares of state upon him, all this would have been of little consequence, as the fervour of youthful passion would have diminished, and the Queen was still a person to be loved and esteemed in a very high degree. Henry was now at the full tide of life as regarded his passions, and under their influence as a nature such as his was likely to be. The Venetian ambas- Contemsador describes the kind of man he was a few years scription of before, writing home to his court in 1515 a glowing Henry description of the King's general physique child's two grandmothers. That there was some family connection between the Boleyns and the Blunts seems indicated by the fact that Stow mentions an Elizabeth Bo But leyn, daughter of Thomas Blunt, porary de VIII.'s person CHAP 112 HENRY VIII. DESCRIBED BY A FOREIGNER "His Majesty is the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes on: above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg; his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face, so very beautiful, that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick."2 Four years later a similar account is given, which goes more into detail, and speaks of his habits as well as his person, as they appeared to an observant foreigner: "His Majesty is twenty-nine years old, and extremely handsome. Nature could not have done more for him. He is much handsomer than any other sovereign in Christendom; a great deal handsomer than the King of France; very fair, and his whole frame admirably proportioned. On hearing that Francis I. wore a beard, he allowed his own to grow, and as it is reddish, he has now got a beard that looks like gold. He is very accomplished; a good musician, composes well; is a most capital horseman; a fine jouster; speaks good French, Latin, and Spanish, is very religious; hears three masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes five on other days. He hears the office every day in the Queen's chamber, that is to say, vesper and compline. He is very fond of hunting, and never takes his diversion without tiring eight or ten horses, which he causes to be stationed beforehand along the line of country he means to take; and when one is tired he mounts another, and before he gets home they are all exhausted. He is extremely fond of tennis, at which game it is the prettiest thing in the world to see him play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture."3 Giustiniani's Despatches, i. 86. 3 Ibid., ii. 312. From the same source we have a vivid description of the King's dress at a "solemn reception," which will help the reader to fill up the picture of Henry's appearance at about the age of thirty:-"His bodyguard consisted of 300 halberdiers with silver breastplates, who were all as big as giants.' He wore a cap of crimson velvet in the French fashion, and the brim was looped up all round with lacets and gold enamelled tags. His doublet was in the Swiss fashion, striped alternately with white and crimson satin; and his hose were scarlet, III A man of this kind would find little satisfaction in CHAP the society of an invalid wife, whose charms had been ripened early under a southern sky, and had faded early under the trial of adverse circumstances and a northern climate. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the shades of her great trouble already beginning to come over her, to deepen more and more until they were lost in the deeper shadow of death itself. When, in what manner, and by whose suggestion, the idea of a divorce from Catherine first presented itself to the King has been the subject of much controversy; but no writer has brought forward any evidence to show that it was entertained earlier than the beginning of 1527. doubts of The coming event casts forward its shadow at first in the shape of revived doubts respecting the legality Revived of Henry's marriage with his brother's widow. That the legality such doubts had at one time been strongly felt is of Catheevident. The Archbishop of Canterbury had only riage given up his opposition in deference to the dispensation issued by the Pope and in his evidence of cloth of gold, which covered a Among the instructions sent to "In hac deinde re secreta insunt nonnulla, secreto Sanctissimo Domino nostro exponenda, et non credenda literis, quas ob causas, morbosque nonnullos, quibus absque remedio Regina laborat, et ob animi etiam conceptum scrupulum, Regia Majestas nec potest, nec vult ullo unquam posthac tempore, ea uti, vel ut Uxorem admittere, quodcunque evenerit."-Burnet, iv. 55 Pocock's Ed. rine's mar. |