R.I.P. KING HENRY VII

Today is the anniversary of the first Tudor monarch's death in 1509. How was he remembered by his contemporaries?

It took King Henry VII twenty-seven hours to die. But he had been unwell for much longer. His eyesight had been failing for nearly a decade, and for the last two years of his life he was suffering from ailments variously described as ‘a quinsy’ (a type of abscess behind the tonsils) and consumption (tuberculosis).

He stopped eating, perhaps around March 1509, and on April 20th took to his bed in Richmond Palace. There he languished, suffering for a day and a night what his mother’s confessor John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, called ‘the sharp assaults of death’. On April 21st it was all over. The king was dead. A new era in Tudor history was coming in.

Henry VII - artist unknown

Henry had lived an extraordinary life. When he won the battle of Bosworth in 1485, he became one of the unlikeliest people ever to wear the English crown. But he held onto it for almost 24 years, saw off rebellions and plots, went a very long way to calming the bitter factionalism of the Wars of the Roses, fathered a royal family including an heir (Arthur) and a spare (Henry VIII) and made England a halfway-respectable European power once more.

By the time of his death old Henry was very far from being universally loved - but which ruler of any realm in any age has managed to remain adored over the course of a long reign? When young Henry VIII acceded, he made an ostentatious sweep of government, most notably whacking his father’s most detested bagmen, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. But this Henry only had a regime to renew because his father had worked long and tirelessly to secure it for him.

I don’t want to rehearse any more of Henry VII’s reign here. There are many recent books you can hop on for that - including Nathen Amin’s Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders, Thomas Penn’s The Winter King, and David Starkey’s study of Henry VIII’s youth and young manhood, Henry: Virtuous Prince.

However, I thought it might be interesting to quote from Bishop Fisher’s oration at Henry VII’s funeral, which was held at St Paul’s Cathedral in London on May 10th 1509. Naturally, these are obsequies in every sense, approved by and later circulated in print under the supervision of the late king’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. Nevertheless, they give us a fascinating glimpse into the early Tudor world, and the official line on how its first king was to be mourned.

Bishop Fisher, by Hans Holbein the Younger

First, as touching [Henry’s] laud and commendation, let no man think that mine intent is for to praise him for any vain transitory things of this life, which by the example of him all kings and princes may learn how sliding, how slippery, how failing they be.

Albeit he had as much of them as was possible in manner for any king to have, his politic wisdom in governance it was singular, his wit alway quick and ready, his reason pithy and substantial, his memory fresh and holding, his experience notable, his counsels fortunate and taken by wise deliberation, his speech gracious in divers languages, his person goodly and amiable, his natural complexion of the purest mixture, his issue fair and in good number, leagues and confederies he had with all Christian princes, his mighty power was dread every where, not only within his realm but without also, his people were to him in as humble subjection as ever they were to king, his land many a day in peace and tranquillity, his prosperity in battle against his enemies was marvellous, his dealing in time of perils and dangers was cold and sober with great hardiness.

If any treason were conspired against him it came out wonderfully, his treasure and richesse incomparable, his buildings most goodly and after the newest cast all of pleasure. But what is all this now as unto him, all be but fumus et umbra. A smoke that soon vanisheth, and a shadow soon passing away.

Fisher goes on to extrapolate from Scripture some lessons on righteousness, damnation, etc. Then he returns to Henry, and the manner of his death:

As to the first, at the beginning of Lent last passed, he called unto him his confessor... This noble prince, after his confession made with all diligence and great repentance, he promised three things, that is to say, a true reformation of all them that were officers and ministers of his laws to the intent that justice, from henceforward, truly and indifferently might be executed in all causes.

Another, that the promotions of the church that were of his disposition should, from henceforth, be disposed to able men such as were virtuous and well learned. Third, that as touching the dangers and jeopardies of his laws for things done in times past, he would grant a pardon generally unto all his people, which three things he let not openly to speak to divers as did resort unto him.

And many a time unto his secret servants he said that if it pleased God to send him life, they should see him a new changed man. Furthermore, with all humbleness he recognised the singular and many benefits that he had received of Almighty God, and with great repentance and marvellous sorrow accused himself of his unkindness towards Him, specially that he no more fervently had procured the honour of God, and that he had no more diligently performed the will and pleasure of Him, wherein he promised, by the grace of God, an assured amendment.

Who may suppose but that this man had verily set his heart and love upon God, or who may think that in his person may not be said, Dilexi, that is to say, I have set my love on my lord God.  

Today Henry rests in Westminster Abbey, in a vault beneath the floor of the Lady Chapel he commissioned. He is commemorated beside his wife, Elizabeth of York, with a magnificent tomb effigy in marble and gilt bronze.

Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s tomb effigy, Westminster Abbey

The inscription on the tomb states that Henry was:

the splendour of kings and light of the world, a wise and watchful monarch, a courteous lover of virtue, outstanding in beauty, vigorous and mighty; who brought peace to his kingdom, who waged very many wars, who always returned victorious from the enemy, who wedded both his daughters to kings, who was united to kings, indeed to all, by treaty, who built this holy temple, and erected this tomb for himself, his wife, and his children.

We may agree with all this - or not. Either way, it is hard to overstate the importance of the first Tudor king in England’s late medieval and early modern history.