On this day in 1541 – King Henry VIII and Catherine Howard arrived in York on royal progress

In 1541 King Henry VIII set of on royal progress to the north of England with his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. On 16^th September 1541 Henry and his travelling court entered the city of York through Walmgate Bar where they were met by the mayor and aldermen of the city who would beg forgiveness from the King for the Pilgrimage of Grace, when the north rebelled against the King in 1536. The King and his wife were then presented with a gold cup that were both filled with gold coins as a token of welcome.

The royal progress was normally a grand affair and this one was no different Henry had not long been married to his young bride and wanted to show to the country that the disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves was not his fault. The progress made many stops on their way to York after leaving London on 30^th June. They arrived in Lincoln on 9^th August and visiting Pontefract on 23^rd August before arriving in York on 16^th September via Cawood, Wressle, Leconfield and Hull. Henry had also arranged to meet King James V of Scotland at York to discuss the prospect of peace between the two countries. However, King James did not show to the meeting.
Chronicler Edward Hall wrote about King Henry’s progress of 1541;

“This Sommer the Kyng kepte his progresse to Yorke, and passed through Lyncolne Shire, where was made to hym an humble submission by he temporaltie, confessing their offence, and thankyngthe kyng for his pardon: and the Toune of Staunforde gaue the Kynd twentie pounde, and Lyncolne presented fourtie pounde, & Boston fiftie pound that parte whiche is called Lynsey gaue three hundred pounde, and Kestren and the Churche of Lyncolne gaue fifte pounde. And when he entered into Yorke Shire, he was met with two hundred gentlemen of the same Shire in coates of Veluet, and foure thousande tall yornen, and seruyng men, well horsed: whiche on their knees made a submission, by the mouthe of sir Robert Bowes, and gaue to the Kyng nyne hundred pounde. And on Barnesdale met the Kyng, the Archebishoppe of Yorke, with three hundred Priestes and more, and made a like submission, and gaue the kyng sixe hundred pounde. Like submission was made by the Maior of Yorke, Newe Castle and Hull, and eche of theim gaue to the Kynd an hundred pounde. When the Kyng had been at York twelue daies, he came to Hull, and deuised there certain fortificacions, and passed ouer the water of Homber, and so through Lyncolne Shire, and at Halontidee came to Hampton Court.”

It was also on this royal progress that Catherine Howard had become involved with Thomas Culpepper, an affair that was discovered shortly after their return to London and seal the young Queen’s fate.

On this day in 1540 – Thomas Cromwell was executed

On 28^th July 1540 Thomas Cromwell made his way towards Tower Hill where he was face the fate that had been passed down to him by King Henry VIII. Cromwell had been arrested on 10^th June 1540 at a Council meeting accused of treason after his failure to achieve a divorce for Henry VIII and his fourth wife Anne of Cleves. His failure allowed Cromwell to fall from the King’s grace and his enemies led by the Duke of Norfolk were able to rise up against him.

An Act of Attainder was passed against Thomas Cromwell and he was sentenced to death without a trial, however, he was kept alive long enough for the King to obtain his longed for divorce from Anne of Cleves. With the divorce achieved Cromwell met his fate and was executed on Tower Hill.

The chronicler Edward Hall recorded Cromwell’s scaffold speech:

“I am come hether to dye, and not to purge my self, as maie happen, some thynke that I will, for if I should do so, I wer a very wretche and miser: I am by the Lawe comdempned to die, and thanke my lorde God that hath appoynted me this deathe, for myne offence: For sithence the tyme that I have had yeres of discrecion, I have lived a synner, and offended my Lorde God, for the whiche I aske hym hartely forgevenes. And it is not unknowne to many of you, that I have been a great traveler in this worlde, and beyng but of a base degree, was called to high estate, and sithes the tyme I came thereunto, I have offended my prince, for the whiche I aske hym hartely forgevenes, and beseche you all to praie to God with me, that he will forgeve me. O father forgeve me. O sonne forgeve me, O holy Ghost forgeve me: O thre persons in one God forgeve me. And now I praie you that be here, to beare me record, I die in the Catholicke faithe, not doubtyng in any article of my faith, no nor doubtyng in any Sacrament of the Churche.* Many hath sclaundered me, and reported that I have been a bearer, of suche as hath mainteigned evill opinions, whiche is untrue, but I confesse that like as God by his holy spirite, doth instruct us in the truthe, so the devill is redy to seduce us, and I have been seduced: but beare me witnes that I dye in the Catholicke faithe of the holy Churche. And I hartely desire you to praie for the Kynges grace, that he maie long live with you, maie long reigne over you. And once again I desire you to pray for me, that so long as life remaigneth in this fleshe, I waver nothyng in my faithe.

 

And then made he his praier, whiche was long, but not so long, as bothe Godly and learned, and after committed his soule, into the handes of God, and so paciently suffered the stroke of the axe, by a ragged and Boocherly miser, whiche very ungoodly perfourmed the Office.”

 

As Thomas Cromwell was being executed Henry VIII was marrying his fifth wife Catherine Parr. Henry is recorded to have regretted ordering Cromwell’s execution and called him his most faithful servant and later accused his council of engineering Cromwell’s downfall.

Thomas Cromwell

On this day in 1509 – King Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon were coronated at Westminster Abbey

24^th June 1509 saw Henry Tudor and his new wife Katherine of Aragon crowned as the new king and queen of England, making Henry King Henry VIII.

The celebrations however began three days earlier on 21^st June when Henry rode from Greenwich to the Tower of London where he would stay until the morning of his coronation. The following evening, at a lavish banquet Henry created new Knights of the Bath these men would carry the dishes into the feast under the premise that they would never carry dishes again with their new appointment. These men were;

“viz., Richard (sic) Radclyff lord Fitzwater, the lord Scroop of Bolton, the lord Fitzhugh, the lord Mountjoye, the lord Dawbeney, the lord Brooke, Sir Henry Clyfford, Sir Maurice Berkeley, Sir Thomas Knyvet, Sir Andrew Wyndesore, Sir Thomas Parr, Sir Thomas Boleyne, Sir Richard Wentworth, Sir Henry Owtrede, Sir Francis Cheyny, Sir Henry Wyotte, Sir George Hastynges, Sir Thomas Metham, Sir Thomas Bedyngfeld, Sir John Shelton, Sir Giles Alyngton, Sir John Trevanyon, Sir William Crowmer, Sir John Heydon, Sir Godarde Oxenbrige and Sir Henry Sacheverell.”

(Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1, 1509-1514.)

On Saturday 23^rd June at 4pm a procession began that would take Henry from the Tower of London to Westminster. It was led by the newly created Knights of the Bath who were dressed in blue gowns. They were followed by the newly created Constable of England, Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham was carrying a silver baton that showed his office and he was then followed by the soon to be King. The streets were lined with tapestries and cloths of gold.

Henry wore a cloth of gold coat that was highly decorated with gems and a collar of rubies and topped with a collar of red velvet and ermine trimmed robe. Henry’s horse was also dressed for the procession in ermine and cloth of gold. There was also a cloth of gold canopy held over him by the four barons of Cinque Ports.

Behind Henry came his master of the horse, Sir Thomas Brandon. Following Brandon came the procession for the future Queen. Katherine was escorted in a litter covered by a canopy. Katherine wore her hair loose, which was custom for a coronation procession and was dressed in ‘a rich mantle of cloth of tissue’ and a gold, pearl and silk circlet upon her head.

On 24^th June at 8am following behind 28 bishops Henry and Katherine proceeded from the Palace of Westminster towards the Abbey for the ceremony. It was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham. Warham presented Henry to the crowd and called ‘Vivat ,vivat rex’ translated into English as ‘Long live the King’. Henry went on to swear the nine oaths of kingship and was anointed by Warham with the holy oils before being crowned. Katherine was then crowned Queen and the couple moved back to Westminster Hall for a splendid celebration banquet.

The chronicler, Edward Hall said of the coronation;

“The following day being a Sunday, and also Midsummer’s Day, the noble prince with his queen left the palace for Westminster Abbey at the appointed hour. The barons of the Cinq Ports held canopies over the royal couple who trod on striped cloth of ray, which was immediately cut up by the crowd when they had entered the abbey. Inside, according to sacred tradition and ancient custom, his grace and the queen were anointed and crowned by the archbishop of Canterbury in the presence of other prelates of the realm and the nobility and a large number of civic dignitaries. The people were asked if they would take this most noble prince as their king and obey him. With great reverence, love and willingness they responded with the cry ‘Yea, Yea’.

When the ceremony was finished, the lords spiritual and temporal paid homage to the king and, with the queen’s permission, returned to Westminster Hall – each one beneath his canopy – where the lord marshal bearing his staff of office ushered all to their seats. Each noble and lord proceeded to his allotted place arranged earlier according to seniority. The nine-piece table being set with the king’s estate seated on the right and the queen’s estate on the left, the first course of the banquet was announced with a fanfare. At the sound the duke of Buckingham entered riding a huge charger covered with richly embroidered trappings, together with the lord steward mounted on a horse decked with cloth of gold. The two of them led in the banquet which was truly sumptuous, and as well as a great number of delicacies also included unusual heraldic devices and mottoes.

How can I describe the abundance of fine and delicate fare prepared for this magnificent and lordly feast, produced both abroad and in the many and various parts of this realm to which God has granted his bounty. Or indeed the exemplary execution of the service of the meal itself, the clean handling and distribution of the food and the efficient ordering of the course, such that no person of any estate lacked for anything.”

Hall goes on to describe the events of the days that followed that included two days of jousting and even more banquets.

“The following day the aforementioned defending team, lady Palla’s scholars, presented themselves before the king ready for the tourney. All on horseback and armed from head to foot they each had one side of their armour-skirts and horse-trappings made of white velvet embroidered with gold roses and other devices, and the other made of green velvet embroidered with gold pomegranates. On their headpieces each wore a plume of gold damask.

 

At the same time the other side rode in, the aforementioned eight knights fully armed and dressed, like their mounts, in green satin embroidered with fine golden bramble branches. Following them, blowing horns, came a number of men dressed as foresters or gamekeepers in green cloth, with caps and hose to match, who arranged a set like a park with white and green fencing around it. Inside this paddock were fallow deer and artificial trees; bushes, ferns, and so forth. Once set up before the queen the paddock gates were unlocked and the deer ran out into the palace grounds. Greyhounds were then let loose which killed the deer, the bodies of which were then presented to the queen and then assembled ladies by the above-mentioned knights.

 

Crocheman, who had brought in the golden lance the previous day, then declared that his knights were the servants of the goddess Diana and whilst they had been indulged in their pastime of hunting had received news that lady Pallas’s knights had come into these parts to perform feats of arms. Thereupon they had left off the chase and come hither to encounter these knights and to fight with them for the love of the ladies.

He added that if lady Pallas’s knights vanquished them or forced them to leave the field of battle then they would receive the deer that had been killed and the greyhounds that slew them. But if Diana’s knights overpowers their opponents they were to be given the swords of those knights and nothing more.

 

Hearing this, the queen and her ladies asked the king for his advice on the matter. The king, thinking that perhaps there was some grudge between the two parties and believing that to grant the request might lead to some unpleasantness, decided not to consent to the terms. Instead, to defuse the situation, it was decided that both parties should fight the tourney but that only a limited number of strokes would be permitted.

 

This was done and the two sides then left the field. The jousts then came to an end and the prizes were awarded to each man according to his deserts.”

The Parliamentary roll of King Henry VIII coronation procession

On this day in 1517 – Evil May Day riots

On 1^st May 1517 a riot gripped London that would be known as the Evil May Day riots.

Londoners took to the streets of London to protest about foreigners living and working in London in particularly the merchants and bankers that resided in Lombard Street. A fortnight before the riots took hold a speech was given at St Paul’s Cross, a preaching cross in the grounds of the old St Paul’s Cathedral. It was spoken by Dr Bell, at the request of broker John Lincoln. It was highly xenophobic blaming the foreigners for many of the economical problems the country was facing. Bell was reported as calling on all ‘Englishman to cherish and defend themselves, and to hurt and grieve aliens for the common weal’ according to the chronicler Edward Hall.

Over the next two weeks attacks were springing up across London with rumours spreading that on May Day the city would rebel and attack any foreigner. The Mayor of London announced at 8.30pm on 30^th April 1517 that a curfew would be enforced at 9pm, giving Londoners 30 minutes to get home.

Instead a few hours after the curfew a group of approximately 1000 male apprentices had gathered in Cheapside where they went on to free many prisoners who had been jailed in the past few weeks for attacking foreigners and they set off towards St Martin le Grand, a place where many foreigners lived. Thomas More greeted the rioters and tried to persuade them to disperse and go home with no further action.

As soon as More had calmed crowd the residents of St Martin le Grand began to rise as they throw rocks, bricks and even boiling water from their windows onto the groups below. With the apprentices now under attack they soon retaliated by looting the homes of the foreigners who were attacking them and across the city. This continued into the early hours of 1^st May.

Three hundred rioters were arrested and charged with treason and were swiftly executed on 4^th May with John Lincoln the instigator of the original speech executed on 7^th May. Hundreds more rioters were arrested but later pardoned by the King after his wife, Katherine of Aragon, begged him to show mercy.

Image courtesey of the British Museum.

On this day in 1522 – Anne Boleyn played Perseverance

On the evening of 1^st March 1522, Shrove Tuesday, Anne Boleyn made her first recorded appearance at court. Anne appeared as Perseverance in a pageant of ‘The Château Vert’ at York Palace.

The pageant was part of the Shrovetide celebrations, where the court put on entertainment to celebrate the event of Shrove. Entertainment consisted of plays, masques, music and jousting tournaments.

Alongside Anne as Perseverance was Mary Tudor, the Kings sister, as Beauty, the Countess of Devonshire as Honour, Jane Parker, Anne’s future sister in law as Constancy and Mary Boleyn as Kindness as well as three unknown females playing Bounty, Mercy and Pity. Anne and her companions were dressed in white satin with their virtues sewn onto yellow satin and upon their heads were Venetian gold with Milan bonnets.

Opposite the eight ladies of the court were eight courtiers playing the parts of Amoress, Nobleness, Youth, Attendance, Loyalty, Pleasure, Gentleness and Liberty. The men were led by a masked King Henry VIII. It was the courtier’s role in the pageant to rescue the eight virtuous ladies from the eight feminine vices of; Disdain Jealousy, Danger, Scorn, Unkindness, Malebouche and Strangeness, who were guarding the captive ladies.

The male courtiers attacked the castle where the virtuous ladies were being ‘held’ and rescued them from the evil vices. The men triumphed and led the women away where they were unmasked and revealed to the court before leading a dance.

Edward Hall recorded the events of the pageant in his chronicles;

“On shrouetewesdaie at night, the said Cardinall to the kyng and ambassadors made another supper, and after supper thei came into a great chamber hanged with Arras, and there was a clothe of estate, and many braunches, and on euery braunche. xxxii. torchettes of waxe, and in the nether ende of thesame chamber was a castle, in which was a principall Tower, in which was a Cresset burning: and two other lesse Towers stode on euery side, warded
and embattailed, and on euery Tower was a banner, one banner was of iii. rent hartes, the other was a ladies hand gripyng a mans harte, the third banner was a ladies hand turnyng a mannes hart: this castle was kept with ladies of straunge names, the first Beautie, the second Honor, the third Perseueraunce, the fourth Kyndnes, the fifth Constance, the sixte Bountie, the seuenthe Mercie, and the eight Pitie: these eight ladies had Millian gounes of white sattin, euery Lady had her name embraudered with golde, on their heddes calles, and Millein bonettes of gold, with Iwelles. Vnder nethe the basse fortresse of the castle were other eight ladies, whose names were, Dangier, Disdain, Gelousie, Vnkyndenes, Scorne, Malebouche, Straungenes, these ladies were tired like to women of Inde.

Then entered eight Lordes in clothe of golde cappes and all, and great mantell clokes of blewe sattin, these lordes were named. Amorus, Noblenes, Youth, Attendance, Loyaltie, Pleasure, Gentlenes, and Libertie, the kyng was chief of this compaignie, this compainie was led by one all in crimosin sattin with burnyng flames of gold, called Ardent
Desire, whiche so moued the Ladies to geue ouer the Castle, but Scorne and Disdain saied they would holde the place, then Desire saied the ladies should be wonne and came and encoraged the knightes, then the lordes ranne to the castle, (at whiche tyme without was shot a greate peale of gunnes) and the ladies defended the castle with Rose water and Comfittes and the lordes threwe in Dates and Orenges, and other fruites made for pleasure but at the last the place was wonne, but Lady Scorne and her compaignie stubbernely defended them with boows and balles, till they were dnuen out of the place and fled. Then the lordes toke the ladies of honor as prisoners by the handes, and brought them doune, and daunced together verie pleasauntly, which much pleased the straungers, and when thei had
daunced their fill then all these disuisered themselfes and wer knowen: and then was there a costlv banket, and when all was done, the straungiers tooke their leaue of the king and the Cardinal and so departed into Flaunders, geuyng to the kyng muche commendacion.”

It is unknown if Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII had any contact during the evenings proceedings but it is highly unlikely this is where the future royal couple first met.     Natalie Domer and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII at The Château Vert pagaent as portrayed in ‘The Tudors’