Henry: Virtuous Prince. David Starkey

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СКАЧАТЬ to begin. The prince was named and baptised with a substitute godparent, Thomas Stanley, the king’s stepfather, who had been made earl of Derby as a reward for his family’s behaviour at Bosworth, as his sponsor.7

At this moment, Oxford entered. John de Vere, 13th earl of Oxford, was probably the most powerful man in England after the king; he was certainly the noblest, with an earldom going back to 1142. He had been a Lancastrian loyalist even in the dark days after the destruction of the house of Lancaster at Tewkesbury in 1471, and had been imprisoned by Edward IV. In 1484 he escaped and joined Henry Tudor in France. Almost all of his other supporters were tarnished with accommodation at the least with Edward IV; Oxford was unblemished and Henry, who trusted so few, felt he could trust him implicitly, as one ‘in whom he might repose his hope, and settle himself more safely than in any other’.8 It was a relationship that endured, and Oxford became both Henry VII’s most important military commander and – by virtue of his hereditary office of lord great chamberlain, to which he was restored – his leading courtier as well.

      Oxford now assumed his intended role in the ceremonies. He ‘took the prince in his right arm’ – the arm that had fought so often for Lancaster – and presented him for his Confirmation. That done, another procession formed and the child was carried to the shrine of St Swithun, the patron saint of the cathedral, in whose honour more anthems were sung.

      The adults then took refreshments – ‘spices and hypocras, with other sweet wines [in] great plenty’ – while the prince was handed back to the Lady Cecily, the queen’s eldest sister, who carried him home in triumph with ‘all the torches burning’. The procession passed through the nursery, ‘the king’s trumpets and minstrels playing on their instruments’, and brought him at last to his father and mother, who gave him their blessing.

      Arthur’s christening was the first of the many spectacular ceremonies that Henry VII used to mark each stage of the advance and consolidation of the Tudor dynasty. Like its successors, it was carefully planned, staged and recorded. It also showed Henry VII’s bold eye for theatre – and his willingness to take the risks that all great theatre involves.

      Finally, and above all, its scale and ambition make clear why Henry’s own christening ceremonies at Greenwich, which were almost domestic in comparison, were so comprehensively ignored by contemporaries.

The court remained at Winchester for the next five or six weeks. Partly this was out of necessity. The queen was ill with an ‘ague’, which was almost certainly a post-partum fever following a difficult birth, and was taking time to recover. Indeed, she seems to have attributed her recovery and her child’s survival only to the attentions of Alice Massy, her obstetrix or midwife, whom she insisted on using for all her future births. There were also the formalities of her ‘churching’, or ceremonial purification from the pollution of childbirth, to go through. For most women, the church would only perform the ceremony after sixty days had elapsed from the time of delivery. For the queen this was normally abbreviated to about forty, as indeed seems to have been the case on this occasion.9

      The time appears to have been put to good use as well to finalize the details of Arthur’s upbringing during his infancy – and perhaps beyond.

The basic arrangements for the upbringing of the little prince were already in place. One of the ladies who had attended the christening was ‘my lady Darcy, lady mistress’. This was Elizabeth, Lady Darcy, the widow of Sir Robert Darcy. She was the best-qualified person possible for the job, since she had fulfilled the same function, which carried overall charge of the royal nursery, for Edward IV’s eldest son, Edward.10 The substantial fee, of 40 marks, or £26.13s.4d a year, was commensurate with the responsibilities of the post.

Almost as well paid, with £20 per annum, was Arthur’s wet-nurse, Catherine Gibbs, who as was then customary suckled the boy on his mother’s behalf.11 This was double the amount that would be paid to the nurses of subsequent royal children, including Henry himself, and it was a sum which the cash-strapped exchequer of these years frequently had difficulty in raising. But Catherine became expert at extorting it. On one occasion she resorted to a sob-story. The treasurer was instructed to pay the £10 outstanding on the nail as Catherine ‘is now in Our Lady’s bonds nigh the time of her deliverance’ – in other words, she too was pregnant and near term. Assisting Catherine were Arthur’s two ‘rockers’, Agnes Butler and Evelyn Hobbes, whose job was to rock the prince in his cradle.12

No doubt Lady Darcy was the practical expert on the Yorkist nursery. But many others in Winchester for Arthur’s christening were well informed as well. Elizabeth Woodville, the queen dowager, had been instrumental in setting it up. Elizabeth of York had been on the receiving end as a conscientious eldest daughter. But most interesting is the role of John Alcock, bishop of Worcester, who had just christened Arthur ‘in pontificals’ or full priestly vestments.13

      Alcock belonged to the other elite of late medieval England. Aristocrats and gentlemen, like Oxford, supplied the brawn and (occasionally) the beauty and style in public life; the brains and organization came from university-educated clergymen like Alcock.

      Their origins were from almost the opposite end of the social spectrum to Oxford: they owed their position to talent and education, not pedigree and breeding, and they wielded their authority by the pen, not the sword. But, despite its very different sources, their power was commensurate with that of the titled aristocracy. They had a virtual monopoly on the two greatest offices in the council, the positions of lord chancellor and lord privy seal; they even had comparable incomes, since the richest bishoprics, like Canterbury and Winchester, which enjoyed princely revenues, were generally reserved for them.

      The greatest, the richest, the most splendid of such clerical ministers was to be Henry’s own cardinal-chancellor, Thomas Wolsey, who did more, built more and impressed himself more vividly on his contemporaries than any of his predecessors.

      But he was also the last – and in part for reasons that were already present in the kind of sophisticated, Latinate education which was even now being planned for Henry’s elder brother, and was in time to be enjoyed by Henry himself.

      Alcock was thus part of an Indian summer. Born in about 1430, he was the son of a burgess of Hull. He received his early education at the grammar school attached to Beverley Minster, and then continued to Cambridge, where he stuck through the whole programme of degrees, from bachelor to doctor. By then he was about twenty-nine. The result, however, was anything but otherworldly. Hardly any of Alcock’s contemporaries opted for theology; instead, like him, they chose law.

      The result was honed, organized, hungry minds.

      But Alcock had to wait over ten years for the first crumbs of patronage. Then it fell like manna from heaven. The turning point was the crucial year 1470–71, when Alcock, then an up-and-coming lawyer, seems to have been one of the select group who showed kindness to Elizabeth Woodville and her children when they took refuge in the Westminster sanctuary. Neither Edward IV nor Elizabeth Woodville ever forgot it. In quick succession Alcock became dean of St Stephen’s, Westminster, master of the rolls or deputy chancellor, and bishop of Rochester.

This was the prelude to the decision in 1473 to give Alcock joint custody of Edward, prince of Wales and the presidency of his council at Ludlow. His co-adjutor was Elizabeth Woodville’s brother, Anthony, Earl Rivers. Rivers СКАЧАТЬ