Hampton Court Palace, the great gatehouse. Marked "A" on the plan below.'1'

Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London; it has not been inhabited by the British royal family since the 18th century. The palace is located 11.7 miles (18.8 km) south west of Charing Cross and upstream of Central London on the River Thames. It was originally built for Cardinal Wolsey, a favourite of King Henry VIII, circa 1514; in 1529, as Wolsey fell from favour, the palace was passed to the King, who enlarged it.

The following century, William III's massive rebuilding and expansion project intended to rival Versailles was begun.^[1] Work halted in 1694, leaving the palace in two distinct contrasting architectural styles, domestic Tudor and Baroque. While the palace's styles are an accident of fate, a unity exists due to the use of pink bricks and a symmetrical, albeit vague, balancing of successive low wings.^[2]

Today, the palace is open to the public, and a major tourist attraction. It is cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces which receives no funding from the Government or the Crown.^[3]

The palace's Home Park is the site of the annual Hampton Court Palace Festival and Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Along with St. James's Palace, it is one of only two surviving palaces out of the many owned by Henry VIII.

History[link]

Tudor period[link]

Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, Chief Minister and favourite of Henry VIII, took over the site of Hampton Court Palace in 1514.^[4] It had previously been a property of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.^[2] Over the following seven years, Wolsey spent lavishly to build the finest palace in England at Hampton Court, a figure of 200,000 gold crowns.^[5] Wolsey rebuilt the existing manor house to form the nucleus of the present palace. Today, little of Wolsey's building work remains unchanged. The first courtyard, the Base Court,^[6] (B on plan), was his creation, as was the second, inner gatehouse (C) which leads to the Clock Court (D) (Wolsey's seal remains visible over the entrance arch of the clock tower^[7]) which contained his private rooms (O on plan).^[4] The Base Court contained forty-four lodgings reserved for guests, while the second court (today, Clock Court) contained the very best rooms—the state apartments—reserved for the King and his family.^[8] Henry VIII stayed in the state apartments as Wolsey's guest immediately after their completion in 1525.

In building his palace, Wolsey was attempting to create a Renaissance cardinal's palace featuring rectilinear symmetrical planning with grand apartments on a raised piano nobile, all rendered with classical detailing. Jonathan Foyle has suggested^[9] that it is likely that Wolsey had been inspired by Paolo Cortese's De Cardinalatu, a manual for cardinals that included advice on palatial architecture, published in 1510. The architectural historian Sir John Summerson asserts that the palace shows "the essence of Wolsey—the plain English churchman who nevertheless made his sovereign the arbiter of Europe and who built and furnished Hampton Court to show foreign embassies that Henry VIII's chief minister knew how to live as graciously as any cardinal in Rome."^[10] Whatever the concepts were, the architecture is an excellent and rare example of a thirty-year era when English architecture was in a harmonious transition from domestic Tudor, strongly influenced by perpendicular Gothic, to the Italian Renaissance classical style. Perpendicular Gothic owed nothing historically to the Renaissance style, yet harmonised well with it.^[11] This blending of styles was realised by a small group of Italian craftsmen working at the English court in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century. They specialised in the adding of Renaissance ornament to otherwise straightforward Tudor buildings.^[11] It was one of these, Giovanni da Maiano who was responsible for the set of eight relief busts of Roman emperors which were set in the Tudor brickwork.^[12]

Anne Boleyn's Gate. The Tudor gatehouse and astrological clock, made for Henry VIII in 1540 (C on plan above) Two of the Renaissance bas reliefs by Giovanni di Maiano can be seen set into the brickwork.

Wolsey was only to enjoy his palace for a few years.^[10] In 1528, knowing that his enemies and the King were engineering his downfall, he passed the palace to the King as a gift. Wolsey died two years later in 1530.^[10]

Within six months of coming into ownership, the King began his own rebuilding and expansion.^[8] Henry VIII's court consisted of over one thousand people, while the King owned over sixty houses and palaces. Few of these were large enough to hold the assembled court, and thus one of the first of the King's building works (in order to transform Hampton Court to a principal residence) was to build the vast kitchens. These were quadrupled in size in 1529.^[13] The architecture of King Henry's new palace followed the design precedent set by Wolsey: perpendicular Gothic-inspired Tudor with restrained Renaissance ornament. This hybrid architecture was to remain almost unchanged for nearly a century, until Inigo Jones introduced strong classical influences from Italy to the London palaces of the first Stuart kings.

Between 1532 and 1535 Henry added the Great Hall (the last medieval great hall built for the English monarchy) and the Royal Tennis Court.^[14] The Great Hall features a carved hammer-beam roof. During Tudor times, this was the most important room of the palace; here, the King would dine in state seated at a table upon a raised dais.^[15] The hall took five years to complete, so impatient was the King for completion that the masons were compelled to work throughout the night by candlelight.^[16]

The gatehouse to the second, inner court was adorned in 1540 with an early example of a post-Copernican astronomical clock. Still functioning, the clock shows the time of day, the phases of the moon, the month, the quarter of the year, the date, the sun and star sign, and high water at London Bridge.^[17] The latter information was of great importance to those visiting this Thames-side palace from London, as the preferred method of transport at the time was by barge, and at low water London Bridge created dangerous rapids. This gatehouse is also known today as Anne Boleyn's gate, after Henry's second wife. Work was still underway on Anne Boleyn's apartments above the gate when the King, having tired of her, had her executed.^[18]

Henry VIII's first building project at Hampton Court created vast kitchens capable of feeding his court of 1,000 people.

During the Tudor period, the palace was the scene of many historic events. In 1537, the King's much desired male heir, the future Edward VI, was born at the palace and the child's mother, Jane Seymour, died there two weeks later.^[19] Four years afterwards, whilst attending Mass in the palace's chapel, the King was informed of his fifth wife's adultery. The Queen, Catherine Howard, was then confined to her room for a few days before being sent to the tower. Legend claims she briefly escaped her guards and ran through The Haunted Gallery to beg Henry for her life but she was recaptured.^[20]

King Henry died in January 1547 and was succeeded first by his son Edward VI, and then by both his daughters in turn. It was to Hampton Court that Queen Mary I (Henry's eldest daughter) retreated with King Philip II of Spain to spend her honeymoon, after their wedding at Winchester.^[16] The marriage was politically expedient rather than a love match. Mary chose Hampton Court as the place for the birth of her first child, which turned out to be the first of two phantom pregnancies. Mary had initially wanted to give birth at Windsor Castle as it was a more secure location, and she was still fearfull of rebellion. But Hampton Court was considerably larger in size, and could accommodate the entire court and more besides. Mary stayed at the Palace awaiting the birth of the "child" for over five months, and only left because of the inhabitable state of the court being kept in the one location for so long, after which her court departed for the much smaller palace of Oatlands. Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I and it was Elizabeth who had the Eastern kitchen built; today, this is the palace's public tea room.^[21]

Stuart period[link]

Christopher Wren's south front built for William and Mary (G on plan) viewed from the Privy Garden.

The King's Staircase murals painted by Antonio Verrio.

On the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the Tudor period came to an end. The Queen was succeeded by her first cousin-twice-removed, the Scottish King, James VI, who became known in England as James I of the House of Stuart.

In 1604, the palace was the site of King James' meeting with representatives of the English Puritans, known as the Hampton Court Conference; while agreement with the Puritans was not reached, the meeting led to James's commissioning of the King James Version of the Bible.^[22]

King James was succeeded in 1625 by his son, the ill-fated Charles I. For this king, Hampton Court was to become both his palace and his prison.^[22] It was also the setting for his honeymoon with his fifteen year old bride, Henrietta Maria in 1625.^[16] Following King Charles' execution in 1649, the palace became the property of the Commonwealth presided over by Oliver Cromwell. Unlike some other former royal properties, the palace escaped relatively unscathed. While the government auctioned much of the contents, the building was ignored.^[23]

After the Restoration, King Charles II and his successor James II visited Hampton Court but largely preferred to reside elsewhere. By this time, by current French court standards Hampton Court appeared old-fashioned. It was in 1689, shortly after Louis XIV's court had moved permanently to Versailles, that the palace's antiquated state was addressed. England had two new joint monarchs, William of Orange and his wife, the daughter of James II, Queen Mary II. Within months of their accession they embarked on a massive rebuilding project at Hampton Court. The intention was to demolish the Tudor palace a section at a time, while replacing it with a huge modern palace in the Baroque style retaining only Henry VIII's Great Hall.^[24] The country's most eminent architect, Sir Christopher Wren, was called upon to draw the plans, while the master of works was to be William Talman. The plan was for a vast palace constructed around two courtyards at right angles to each other. Wren's design for a domed palace bore resemblances to the work of Jules Hardouin Mansart and Louis Le Vau, both architects employed by Louis XIV at Versailles.^[24] It has been suggested, though, that the plans were abandoned because the resemblance to Versailles was too subtle and not strong enough; at this time, it was impossible for any sovereign to visualise a palace that did not emulate Versailles' repetitive Baroque form.^[25] However, the resemblances are there: while the façades are not so long as those of Versailles, they have similar seemingly unstoppable repetitive rhythms beneath a long flat skyline. The monotony is even repeated as the façade turns the corner from the east to the south fronts. However, Hampton Court, unlike Versailles, is given an extra dimension by the contrast between the pink brick and the pale Portland stone quoins, frames and banding.^[26] Further diversion is added by the circular and decorated windows of the second floor mezzanine. This theme is repeated in the inner Fountain Court, but the rhythm is faster and the windows, unpedimented on the outer façades, are given pointed pediments in the courtyard; this has led the courtyard to be described as "Startling, as of simultaneous exposure to a great many eyes with raised eyebrows."^[27]

The Fountain Court designed by Sir Christopher Wren (E on plan): "Startling, as of simultaneous exposure to a great many eyes with raised eyebrows."^[27]

During this work, half the Tudor palace was replaced and Henry VIII's state rooms were lost; the new wings around the Fountain Court contained new state apartments and private rooms, one set for the King and one for the Queen. Each suite of state rooms was accessed by a state staircase. The royal suites were of completely equal value in order to reflect William and Mary's unique status as joint sovereigns.^[28] The King's Apartments face south over the Privy Garden, the Queen's east over the Fountain Garden. The suites are linked by a gallery running the length of the east façade, another reference to Versailles, where the King and Queen's apartments are linked by the Galerie des Glaces. However, at Hampton Court the linking gallery is of more modest proportions and decoration. The King's staircase was decorated with frescos by Antonio Verrio and delicate ironwork by Jean Tijou.^[29] Other artists commissioned to decorate the rooms included Grinling Gibbons, Sir James Thornhill and Jacques Rousseau; furnishings were designed by Daniel Marot.^[30]

After the death of Queen Mary, King William lost interest in the renovations, and work ceased. However, it was in Hampton Court Park in 1702 that he fell from his horse, later dying from his injuries at Kensington Palace. He was succeeded by his sister-in-law Queen Anne who continued the decoration and completion of the state apartments. On Queen Anne's death in 1714 the Stuart dynasty came to an end.

Queen Anne's successor was George I; he and his son George II were the last monarchs to reside at Hampton Court.^[1] Under George I six rooms were completed in 1717 to the design of John Vanbrugh.^[31] Under George II and his Queen, Caroline, further refurbishment took place, with the architect William Kent employed to design new furnishings and decor including the Queen's Staircase, (1733)^[32] and the Cumberland Suite (1737) for the Duke of Cumberland.^[32] Today, the Queen's Private Apartments are open to the public and include her bathroom and bedroom.

Contents[link]

The Cartoon Gallery at Hampton Court

The palace houses many works of art and furnishings from the Royal Collection, mainly dating from the two principal periods of the palace's construction, the early Tudor (Renaissance) and late Stuart to Early Georgian period. The single most important works are Mantegna's Triumphs of Caesar housed in the Lower Orangery. The palace once housed the Raphael Cartoons now kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Their former home, the Cartoon Gallery on the south side of the Fountain Court, was designed by Christopher Wren; copies painted in the 1690s by a minor artist, Henry Cooke, are now displayed in their place. Also on display are important collections of ceramics, including numerous pieces of blue and white porcelain collected by Queen Mary II, both Chinese imports and Delftware.

Queen Mary II's Bedchamber, also known as Queen Caroline's State Bedchamber.

Much of the original furniture from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, including tables by Jean Pelletier, "India back" walnut chairs by Thomas Roberts and clocks and a barometer by Thomas Tompion. Several state beds are still in their original positions, as is the Throne Canopy in the King's Privy Chamber. This room contains a crystal chandelier of circa 1700, possibly the first such in the country.^[33]

The King's Guard Chamber contains a large quantity of arms: muskets, pistols, swords, daggers, powder horns and pieces of armour arranged on the walls in decorative patterns. Bills exist for payment to a John Harris dated 1699 for the arrangement, which is believed to be that which can still be seen today.

Chapel Royal[link]

Stained glass windows in the Great Watching Chamber.

The double height chapel was begun by Wolsey and completed under Henry VIII. Its timber and plaster ceiling, a Gothic vault with Renaissance pendants completed by trumpeting boys, is considered the "most important and magnificent in Britain."^[20] The altar is framed by a massive oak reredos in Baroque style carved by Grinling Gibbons during the reign of Queen Anne.^[20] Opposite the altar, at first floor level, is the royal pew where the royal family would attend services apart from the general congregation seated below. Queen Catherine Howard was painfully dragged down this gallery pleading to Henry not to be executed.

Grounds[link]

The grounds as they appear today were laid out in grand style in the late 17th century. There are no authentic remains of Henry VIII's gardens, merely a small knot garden, planted in 1924 which hints at the gardens' 16th century appearance.^[34] Today, the dominating feature of the grounds is the great landscaping scheme constructed for Sir Christopher Wren's intended new palace. From a water-bounded semicircular parterre, the length of the east front, three avenues radiate in crow's foot pattern. The central avenue containing not a walk or a drive, but the great canal, known as the Long Water, excavated during the reign of Charles II, in 1662. The design, radical at the time, is another immediately recognizable influence from Versailles, and was indeed laid out by pupils of André Le Nôtre, Louis XIV's landscape gardener.^[26]

On the south side of the palace is the Privy Garden bounded by semi-circular wrought iron gates by Jean Tijou.^[35] This garden, originally William III's private garden, was replanted in 1992 in period style with manicured hollies and yews along a geometric system of paths.^[34]

The garden recreated in the style of Henry VIII's gardens of 1536.

On a raised site overlooking the Thames, is a small pavilion, the Banqueting House. This was built circa 1700, for informal meals and entertainments in the gardens rather than for the larger state dinners which would have taken place inside the palace itself. A nearby conservatory houses the "Great Vine", planted in 1769; by 1968 it had a trunk 81 inches thick and has a length of 100 feet.^[26] It still produces an annual crop of grapes.^[36]

The palace included apartments for the use of favored royal friends. One such apartment is described as being in "The Pavilion and situated on the Home Park" of Hampton Court Palace. This privilege was first extended about 1817 by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, to his friend, Lieut General James Moore, K.C., and his new bride, Miss Cecilia Watson. George the Fourth continued this arrangement following the death of Prince Edward on 23 Jan 1820. Her majesty, the Queen, continued the arrangement for the widow of General Moore, following his death on 24 Apr 1838. This particular apartment was used for 21 years or more and spanned three different sponsors.^[37]

One of the Palace's sunken gardens. In the background is William III's Banqueting House (H on plan) of 1700.

A well known curiosity of the palace's grounds is Hampton Court Maze; planted in the 1690s by George London and Henry Wise for William III of Orange.^[36] The maze covers a third of an acre and contains half a mile of paths. It is possible that the current design replaced an earlier maze planted for Cardinal Wolsey. It was originally planted with hornbeam; it has been repaired latterly using many different types of hedge.

Inspired by narrow views of a Tudor garden that can be seen through doorways in a painting, The Family of Henry VIII, hanging in the palace's Haunted Gallery, a new garden in the style of Henry VIII’s 16th century Privy Gardens has been designed to celebrate the anniversary of that King’s accession to the throne. Sited on the former Chapel Court Garden, it has been planted with flowers and herbs from the 16th century, and is complete by gilded heraldic beasts and bold green and white painted fences. The heraldic beasts carved by Ben Harms and Ray Gonzalez of G&H Studios includes The Golden Lion of England, The White Greyhound of Richmond, The Red Dragon of Wales and the White Hart of Richard II, are all carved from English oak. The garden's architect was Todd Langstaffe-Gowan, who collaborated with James Fox and the Gardens Team at Historic Royal Palaces.

Recent history[link]

After the reign of George II, no monarch ever resided at Hampton Court. In fact, George III, from the moment of his accession, never set foot in the palace; he associated the state apartments with a humiliating scene when his father had once struck him following an innocent remark.^[38]

In 1796, the Great Hall was restored and in 1838, during the reign of Queen Victoria, the restoration was completed and the palace opened to the public. The heavy-handed restoration plan at this time, reduced the Great Gatehouse (A), the palace's principal entrance, by two stories and removed the lead cupolas adorning its four towers.^[39]

On 2 September 1952, the palace was given statutory protection by being grade I listed.^[40] Other buildings and structures within the grounds are separately grade I listed, including the early 16th-century tilt yard tower — the only surviving example of the five original towers;^[41] Christopher Wren's Lion gate built for Queen Anne and George I;^[42] and the Tudor and 17th-century perimeter walls.^[43]

Throughout the 20th century in addition to becoming a major London tourist attraction, the palace housed 50 grace and favour residences given to esteemed servants and subjects of the crown. It was an elderly recipient of one such grace and favour apartment who caused a major fire, which spread to the King's Apartments in 1986. This led to a new programme of restoration work which was completed in 1990.

The Royal School of Needlework moved to premises within the Palace from Princes Gate in Kensington 1987, and the Palace also houses the headquarters of Historic Royal Palaces.

On 27–28 October 2005 an informal European Council meeting took place at Hampton Court Palace.

Film location[link]

Hampton Court served as the location filmed for the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, directed by Fred Zinnemann and appeared in the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams where Adams was received by King George III as the first American ambassador to Great Britain.

2012 Olympic Games[link]

Hampton Court Palace is the venue for the Road Cycling Time Trial of the 2012 Summer Olympics and temporary structures for the event will be installed in the grounds.^[44]

Legend[link]

According to legend, the ghost of Catherine Howard haunts The Haunted Gallery. Staff have reported hearing screaming and crying and even the thumping on the chapel doors, visitors have also claimed to have unpleasant encounters. Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife is said to appear holding a candle on the anniversary of her son Edward VI's birth and silently walking towards his bedroom. Other ghosts include Henry VIII himself and a woman named Mrs. Sybil Penn, Edward VI's nurse. She died of smallpox in 1562 and her grave was damaged by a storm in the early 19th century. Staff have heard the sound of a spinning wheel and the muttering of an old woman and found a room containing an old spinning wheel.

See also[link]

• Het Loo Palace
• List of artists at Hampton Court Palace
• Treaty of Hampton Court (1562), also known as the Treaty of Richmond, signed on 22 September 1562 between Queen Elizabeth and Huguenot leader Louis I de Bourbon, prince de Condé

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hampton Court

• Official site at Historic Royal Palaces
• Historic photos of Hampton Court Palace
• Hampton Court by Walter Jerrold
• Grace & Favour: A handbook of who lived where at Hampton Court 1750-1950 - there are full floor plans of the palace on pages 10–13
• Jonathan Foyle: "Hampton Court: the lost Palace" 2002
• Aerial view of the maze at Google Maps
• The Hampton Court Flower Show
• The Royal Tennis Court at Hampton Court Palace
• The Choir of The Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace
• Aerial photo and map
• Areal photo and solution map to the Maze

v t e Royal palaces and residences in the United Kingdom Occupied Bagshot Park Balmoral Castle Birkhall Buckingham Palace Clarence House Gatcombe Park Highgrove House Hillsborough Castle Holyrood Palace St James's Palace Kensington Palace Llwynywermod Royal Lodge Sandringham House Thatched House Lodge Windsor Castle Historical Palace of Beaulieu Beaumont Palace Brantridge Park Bridewell Palace Coombe Abbey Coppins Carlton House Claremont Cumberland Lodge Doune Castle Dunfermline Palace Edinburgh Castle Eltham Palace Falkland Palace Fort Belvedere Hampton Court Palace Havering Palace Kew Palace Kings Langley Palace Linlithgow Palace Marlborough House Castle of Mey Nonsuch Palace Oatlands Palace Osborne House Palace of Placentia Queen's House Ribsden Holt Richmond Palace Royal Pavilion Savoy Palace Stirling Castle Sunninghill Park Tower of London Palace of Westminster Palace of Whitehall White Lodge Woodstock Palace

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Coordinates: 51°24′12″N 0°20′15″W / 51.40333°N 0.3375°W / 51.40333; -0.3375

Henry VIII
King Henry VIII after Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
King of England and Ireland (more...)
Reign	21 April 1509 – 28 January 1547
Coronation	24 June 1509
Predecessor	Henry VII
Successor	Edward VI
Spouse	Catherine of Aragon Anne Boleyn Jane Seymour Anne of Cleves Catherine Howard Catherine Parr
Among others Issue
Henry, Duke of Cornwall Mary I of England Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset Elizabeth I of England Edward VI of England
House	House of Tudor
Father	Henry VII of England
Mother	Elizabeth of York
Born	(1491-06-28)28 June 1491 Greenwich Palace, Greenwich
Died	28 January 1547(1547-01-28) (aged 55) Palace of Whitehall, London
Burial	4 February 1547 St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
Signature
Religion	Christianity (Anglican, previously Roman Catholic)

English Royalty
House of Tudor
Royal Coat of Arms
Henry VIII
Henry, Duke of Cornwall
Mary I
Elizabeth I
Edward VI

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the House of Tudor, succeeding his father, Henry VII.

Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry's struggles with Rome led to the separation of the Church of England from papal authority, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and establishing himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Yet he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings, even after his excommunication from the Catholic Church.^[1] Henry oversaw the legal union of England and Wales with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542.

Henry was considered an attractive, educated and accomplished king in his prime and has a reputation as "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne".^[2][3] Besides ruling with absolute power, he also engaged himself as an author and composer. His desire to provide England with a male heir—which stemmed partly from personal vanity and partly because he believed a daughter would be unable to consolidate the Tudor Dynasty and the fragile peace that existed following the Wars of the Roses^[4]—led to the two things for which Henry is remembered: his six marriages, and the English Reformation, making England a mostly Protestant nation. In later life he became morbidly obese and his health suffered; his public image is frequently depicted as one of a lustful, egotistical, harsh, and insecure king.^[5]

Early years: 1491–1509[link]

Catherine of Aragon as a young widow, by Henry VII's court painter, Michael Sittow, in c. 1502.

Born at Greenwich Palace, Henry VIII was the third child of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.^[6] Of the young Henry's six siblings, only three — Arthur, Prince of Wales; Margaret; and Mary — survived infancy. In 1493, at the age of two, Henry was appointed Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. In 1494, he was made Duke of York. He was subsequently appointed Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Henry was given a first-rate education from leading tutors, becoming fluent in Latin, French, and Spanish.^[7] As it was expected that the throne would pass to Prince Arthur, Henry's older brother, Henry was prepared for a clerical career. Elizabeth of York, his mother, died when Henry was aged 11.^[8]

Death of Prince Arthur[link]

In 1502, Arthur died at the age of 15, after only 20 weeks of marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Arthur's death thrust all his duties upon his younger brother, the 10-year-old Henry, who then became Prince of Wales. Henry VII renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance between England and Spain, by offering his second son in marriage to Prince Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon, youngest surviving child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.^[9] For the new Prince of Wales to marry his brother's widow, a dispensation from the Pope was normally required to overrule the impediment of affinity because, as told in the Book of Leviticus, "If a brother is to marry the wife of a brother they will remain childless." Catherine swore that her marriage to Prince Arthur had not been consummated. Still, both the English and Spanish parties agreed that an additional papal dispensation of affinity would be prudent to remove all doubt regarding the legitimacy of the marriage.

The impatience of Catherine's mother, Queen Isabella I, induced Pope Julius II to grant dispensation in the form of a Papal bull. So, 14 months after her young husband's death, Catherine was betrothed to his even younger brother, Henry. Yet by 1505, Henry VII lost interest in a Spanish alliance and the younger Henry declared that his betrothal had been arranged without his consent.

Continued diplomatic manoeuvring over the fate of the proposed marriage lingered until the death of Henry VII in 1509. Only 17 years old, Henry married Catherine on 11 June 1509 and, on 24 June 1509, the two were crowned at Westminster Abbey.

Early reign: 1509–1525[link]

Two days after his coronation, he arrested his father's two most unpopular ministers, Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley (grandfather of Henry's daughter Elizabeth's favourite courtier, Robert Dudley). They were charged with high treason and were executed in 1510. This was to become Henry's primary tactic for dealing with those who stood in his way,^[10] as believed by historians such as Crofton. Henry also returned to the public some of the money supposedly extorted by the two ministers.

... his executors made restitution of great sums of money, to many persons taken against good conscience to the said king's use, by the forenamed Empson and Dudley.^[11]

Eighteen year-old Henry after his coronation in 1509.

Henry cultivated the image of a Renaissance Man and his court was a centre of scholarly and artistic innovation and glamorous excess, epitomised by the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He was an accomplished musician, author, and poet. His best known musical composition is "Pastime with Good Company" or "The Kynges Ballade". He was an avid gambler and dice player, and excelled at sports, especially jousting, hunting, and real tennis. He was known for his strong defence of conventional Christian piety.^[12] Meeting Francis I on 7 June 1520 near Calais, he entertained the French king with a fortnight of lavish entertainment to establish a closer diplomatic relationship after the military conflicts of the previous decade.

France and the Habsburgs[link]

In 1511 Pope Julius II proclaimed a Holy League against France. The new alliance rapidly grew to include not only Spain and the Holy Roman Empire but England as well. Henry decided to use the occasion to expand his holdings in northern France. He concluded the Treaty of Westminster, a pledge of mutual aid with Spain against France, in November 1511 and prepared for involvement in the War of the League of Cambrai.

In 1513 Henry invaded France and his troops defeated a French army at the Battle of the Spurs. His brother-in-law, James IV of Scotland, invaded England at the behest of Louis XII of France,^[13] but failed to draw Henry's attention away from France. The English army, led by Queen Catherine, who acted as regent of England while Henry was in France, defeated the Scots at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513. Among the dead was the Scottish King James IV, ending Scotland's brief involvement in the war.

On 18 February 1516 Queen Catherine bore Henry his first child to survive infancy, Princess Mary. (A son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, had been born in 1511 but lived only a few weeks.)

Power and authority[link]

Government and finances under Henry[link]

Financially, the reign of Henry was a near-disaster. Although he inherited a prosperous economy (and further augmented his royal treasury by seizures of church lands), Henry's heavy spending and high taxes damaged the economy.^[14][15] For example, Henry expanded the Royal Navy from 5 to 53 ships. He loved palaces; he began with a dozen and died with fifty-five, in which he hung 2,000 tapestries.^[16] By comparison, his neighbour and nephew James V of Scotland had five palaces and 200 tapestries.^[17] He took pride in showing off his collection of weapons, which included exotic archery equipment, 2,250 pieces of land ordnance and 6,500 handguns.^[18]

Henry VIII with Charles Quint (right) and Pope Leo X (center), circa 1520.

Henry began his reign with heavy reliance on advisers and ended with complete control. From 1514 to 1529, Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530), a Catholic cardinal, served as lord chancellor and practically controlled domestic and foreign policy for the young king. He negotiated the truce with France that was signalled by the dramatic display of amity on the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520). He switched England back and forth as an ally of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Wolsey centralised the national government and extended the jurisdiction of the conciliar courts, particularly the Star Chamber. His use of forced loans to pay for foreign wars angered the rich, who were annoyed as well by his enormous wealth and ostentatious living. Wolsey disappointed the king when he failed to secure a divorce from Queen Catherine. The treasury was empty after years of extravagance; the peers and people were dissatisfied and Henry needed an entirely new approach; Wolsey had to be replaced. After 16 years at the top he lost power in 1529 and in 1530 was arrested on false charges of treason and died in custody. Wolsey's fall was a warning to the Pope and to the clergy of England of what might be expected for failure to comply with the king's wishes. Henry then took full control of his government, although at court numerous complex factions continued to try to ruin and destroy each other.

Henry VIII's suit of armour, c.1544, Italian made. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Geoffrey Elton (1962) argues there was a major Tudor revolution in government. While crediting Henry with intelligence and shrewdness, Elton finds that much of the positive action, especially the break with Rome, was the work of Thomas Cromwell and not the king. Elton sees Henry as competent, but too lazy to take direct control of affairs for any extended period; that is, the king was an opportunist who relied on others for most of his ideas and to do most of the work. Henry's marital adventures are part of Elton's chain of evidence; a man who marries six wives, Elton notes, is not someone who fully controls his own fate. Elton shows that Thomas Cromwell had conceived of a commonwealth of England that included popular participation through Parliament and that this was generally expressed in the preambles to legislation. Parliamentary consent did not mean that the king had yielded any of his authority; Henry VIII was a paternalistic ruler who did not hesitate to use his power. Popular "consent" was a means to augment rather than limit royal power.^[19]

Reformation[link]

Henry never formally repudiated the doctrines of the Catholic Church, but he declared himself supreme head of the church in England in 1534. This, combined with subsequent actions, eventually resulted in a separated church, the Church of England. Henry and his advisors felt the pope was acting in the role of an Italian prince involved in secular affairs, which obscured his religious role. They said Rome treated England as a minor stepchild, allowing it one cardinal out of fifty, and no possibility of that cardinal becoming pope. For reasons of state it was increasingly intolerable to Henry that major decisions in England were settled by Italians. The divorce issue exemplified the problem but was not itself the cause of the problem.^[20]

Henry's reformation of the English church involved more complex motives and methods than his desire for a new wife and an heir. Henry asserted that his first marriage had never been valid, but the divorce issue was only one factor in Henry's desire to reform the church. In 1532–1537, he instituted a number of statutes — the act of appeal (Statute in Restraint of Appeals, 1533), the various Acts of Succession (1533, 1534, and 1536), the first Act of Supremacy (1534), and others — that dealt with the relationship between the king and the pope and the structure of the Church of England. During these years, Henry suppressed monasteries and pilgrimage shrines in his attempt to reform the church. The king was always the dominant force in the making of religious policy; his policy, which he pursued skilfully and consistently, is best characterised as a search for the middle way.^[21]

Questions over what was the true faith were resolved with the adoption of the orthodox "Act of Six Articles" (1539) and a careful holding of the balance between extreme factions after 1540. Even so, the era saw movement away from religious orthodoxy, the more so as the pillars of the old beliefs, especially Thomas More and John Fisher, had been unable to accept the change and had been executed in 1535 for refusing to renounce papal authority. Critical for the Henrician reformation was the new political theology of obedience to the prince that was enthusiastically adopted by the Church of England in the 1530s. It reflected Martin Luther's new interpretation of the fourth commandment ("Honor thy father and mother") and was mediated to an English audience by William Tyndale.

Half-Groat of Henry VIII

The founding of royal authority on the Ten Commandments, and thus on the word of God, was a particularly attractive feature of this doctrine, which became a defining feature of Henrician religion. Rival tendencies within the Church of England sought to exploit it in the pursuit of their particular agendas. Reformers strove to preserve its connections with the broader framework of Lutheran theology, with the emphasis on faith alone and the word of God, while conservatives emphasised good works, ceremonies, and charity. The Reformers linked royal supremacy and the word of God to persuade Henry to publish the Great Bible in 1539, an English translation that was a formidable prop for his new-found dignity.^[22]

Response to the reforms was mixed. The reforms, which closed down monasteries that were the only support of the impoverished,^[23] alienated most of the population outside of London and helped provoke the great northern rising of 1536–1537, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.^[24] It was the only real threat to Henry's security on the throne in all his reign. Some 30,000 rebels in nine groups were led by the charismatic Robert Aske, together with most of the northern nobility. Aske went to London to negotiate terms; once there he was arrested, charged with treason and executed. About 200 rebels were executed and the disturbances ended.^[25] Elsewhere the changes were accepted and welcomed, and those who clung to Catholic rites kept quiet or moved in secrecy. They would reemerge in the reign of Henry's daughter Mary (1553–1558).

Dissolving the monasteries[link]

England possessed numerous religious houses that owned large tracts of land worked by tenants. Henry dissolved them (1536–1541) and transferred a fifth of England's landed wealth to new hands. The program was designed primarily to create a landed gentry beholden to the crown, which would use the lands much more efficiently.

Henry made radical changes in traditional religious practices. He ordered the clergy to preach against superstitious images, relics, miracles, and pilgrimages, and to remove most candles. The catechism of 1545, called the King's Primer, left out the saints. Latin rituals gave way to English. Shrines to saints were destroyed — including the popular one of St. Thomas of Canterbury — and relics were ridiculed as worthless old bones.

Mistresses[link]

Contrary to popular belief, Henry may not have had very many affairs outside marriage. Apart from women he later married, the identities of only two mistresses are completely undisputed: Elizabeth Blount and Mary Boleyn.^[26] However, it is unlikely that they were the only two; Alison Weir has argued that, aside from the affairs listed below, there were numerous other short-term and secret liaisons, most of them conducted in the king's river-side mansion of Jordan House.^[27]

Elizabeth "Bessie" Blount gave birth in June 1519 to Henry's illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy. The young boy was made Duke of Richmond in June 1525 in what some thought was one step on the path to legitimising him. In 1533, FitzRoy married Mary Howard, Anne Boleyn's first cousin, but died three years later without any children. At the time of FitzRoy's death (July 1536), Parliament was enacting the Second Succession Act, which could have allowed Henry's illegitimate son to become king.

Mary Boleyn was Henry's mistress before her sister, Anne, became his second wife. She is thought to have been Catherine's lady-in-waiting at some point between 1519 and 1526. There has been speculation that Mary's two children, Catherine and Henry, were fathered by Henry, but this has never been proved and the King never acknowledged them as he did Henry FitzRoy.

In 1510 it was reported that Henry was conducting an affair with one of the sisters of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, either Elizabeth or Anne Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.^[28] Her brother, the Duke of Buckingham, became enraged and Lord George Hastings, her husband, sent her to a convent. Eustace Chapuys wrote, "the husband of that lady went away, carried her off and placed her in a convent sixty miles from here, that no one may see her."^[29]

Biographer Antonia Fraser has claimed that Henry had an affair with Mary Shelton in 1535, in opposition to the traditional belief that Margaret ("Madge") Shelton was Henry's lover.^[30]

King's Great Matter: 1525–1533[link]

The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Catherine of Aragon
Anne Boleyn
Jane Seymour
Anne of Cleves
Catherine Howard
Catherine Parr

Henry became impatient with Catherine's inability to produce the heir he desired. All of Catherine's children died in infancy except their daughter Mary.^[31] Henry wanted a male heir to consolidate the power of the Tudor dynasty.

In 1525, as Henry grew more impatient, he became enamoured of a charismatic young woman in the Queen's entourage, Anne Boleyn.^[32] Anne at first resisted his attempts to seduce her, and refused to become his mistress as her sister Mary Boleyn had. She said "I beseech your highness most earnestly to desist, and to this my answer in good part. I would rather lose my life than my honesty."^[27]:160 This refusal made Henry even more attracted, and he pursued her relentlessly.

Eventually, Anne saw her opportunity in Henry's infatuation and determined she would only yield to his embraces as his acknowledged queen.^[33] It soon became the King's absorbing desire to annul his marriage to Catherine.^[34]

Henry appealed directly to the Holy See, independently from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, from whom he kept his plans for Anne secret. Instead, Henry's secretary, William Knight, was sent to Pope Clement VII to sue for the annulment. The grounds were that the bull of Pope Julius II was obtained by false pretences, because Catherine's brief marriage to the sickly Arthur had been consummated. Henry petitioned, in the event of annulment, a dispensation to marry again to any woman even in the first degree of affinity, whether the affinity was contracted by lawful or unlawful connection. This clearly had reference to Anne.^[33]

Catherine of Aragon, first queen of Henry VIII

However, as the pope was at that time imprisoned by Catherine's nephew, Emperor Charles V, Knight had difficulty in getting access to him, and so only managed to obtain the conditional dispensation for a new marriage. Henry now had no choice but to put the matter into the hands of Wolsey. Wolsey did all he could to secure a decision in the King's favour, going so far as to arrange an ecclesiastical court to meet in England, with a representative from the Pope.^[33] Shakespeare's play, Henry VIII, accurately records Catherine of Aragon's astounding coup in that remarkable courtroom in Act II, scene iv. She bows low to Henry, put herself at his mercy, states her case with irrefutable eloquence and then sweeps out of the courtroom, a woman both formidable and clearly wronged. However much this moment swayed those present and the rest of the world to her side, the Pope had never had any intention of empowering his legate. Charles V resisted the annulment of his aunt's marriage, but it is not clear how far this influenced the pope. But it is clear that Henry saw that the Pope was unlikely to give him an annulment from the Emperor's aunt.^[35] The pope forbade Henry to proceed to a new marriage before a decision was given in Rome, not in England. Wolsey bore the blame. Convinced that he was treacherous, Anne Boleyn maintained pressure until Wolsey was dismissed from public office in 1529. After being dismissed, the cardinal begged her to help him return to power, but she refused. He then began a plot to have Anne forced into exile and began communication with Queen Catherine and the Pope to that end. When this was discovered, Henry ordered Wolsey's arrest and had it not been for his death from illness in 1530, he might have been executed for treason.^[36] His replacement, Sir Thomas More, initially cooperated with the king's new policy, denouncing Wolsey in Parliament and proclaiming the opinion of the theologians at Oxford and Cambridge that the marriage of Henry to Catherine had been unlawful. As Henry began to deny the authority of the Pope, More's qualms grew.

A year later, Queen Catherine was banished from court and her rooms were given to Anne. With Wolsey gone, Anne had considerable power over political matters. She was an unusually educated and intellectual woman for her time, and was keenly absorbed and engaged with the ideas of the Protestant Reformers. When Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died, Anne had the Boleyn family's chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, appointed to the vacant position. Through the intervention of the King of France, this was conceded by Rome, the pallium being granted to him by Clement.^[37]

Breaking the power of Rome in England proceeded slowly. In 1532, a lawyer who was a supporter of Anne, Thomas Cromwell, brought before Parliament a number of acts including the Supplication against the Ordinaries and the Submission of the Clergy, which recognised Royal Supremacy over the church. Following these acts, Thomas More resigned as Chancellor, leaving Cromwell as Henry's chief minister.^[38]

Second marriage[link]

Portrait of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second queen; a later copy of an original painted in about 1534

In the winter of 1532, Henry attended a meeting with Francis I of France at Calais in which he enlisted the support of the French king for his new marriage.^[39] Immediately upon returning to Dover in England, Henry and Anne went through a secret wedding service.^[40] She soon became pregnant and there was a second wedding service in London on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer, sitting in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of the king's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be valid.^[41]

Catherine was formally stripped of her title as queen, and Anne was crowned queen consort on 1 June 1533. The queen gave birth to a daughter slightly prematurely on 7 September 1533. The child was christened Elizabeth, in honour of Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York.^[42] Rejecting the decisions of the Pope, Parliament validated the marriage of Henry and Anne with the First Succession Act (Act of Succession 1533). Catherine's daughter, Mary, was declared illegitimate, and Anne's issue were declared next in the line of succession. Most notable in this declaration was a clause repudiating "any foreign authority, prince or potentate". All adults in the Kingdom were required to acknowledge the Act's provisions by oath; those who refused were subject to imprisonment for life. Any publisher or printer of any literature alleging that the marriage was invalid was automatically guilty of high treason and could be punished by death.

Separation from Rome: 1533–1540[link]

Meanwhile, Parliament had forbidden all appeals to Rome and exacted the penalties of praemunire against all who introduced papal bulls into England. Parliament prohibited the Church from making any regulations (canons) without the king's consent. It was only then that Pope Clement at last took the step of launching sentences of excommunication against Henry and Thomas Cranmer,^[43][44] declaring at the same time the archbishop's decree of annulment to be invalid and the marriage with Anne null and papal nuncio was withdrawn from England and diplomatic relations with Rome were broken off.^[37] Several more laws were passed in England. The Ecclesiastical Appointments Act 1534 required the clergy to elect bishops nominated by the Sovereign. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared that the King was "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England" and the Treasons Act 1534 made it high treason, punishable by death, to refuse to acknowledge the King as such. In response to the excommunications, the Peter's Pence Act was passed in and it reiterated that England had "no superior under God, but only your Grace" and that Henry's "imperial crown" had been diminished by "the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions" of the Pope.^[45]

In defiance of the Pope the Church of England was now under Henry’s control, not Rome's. Protestant Reformers still faced persecution, particularly over objections to Henry's annulment. Many fled abroad where they met further difficulties, including the influential William Tyndale, who was eventually executed and his body burned at King Henry's behest. Theological and practical reforms would follow only under Henry's successors (see end of section).