The Last Days of Henry VIII by Hutchinson Robert

Author:Hutchinson, Robert [Hutchinson, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781780222509
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The Mystery of the Royal Will

‘His Majesty … being by God’s sufferance born by just and most certain title and succession to such a kingdom as knows no superior, his crown being close and his progenitors before him emperors in their own realm and dominions, doubts not but, with God’s help, he will so prepare himself as he shall be able to leave it in as good case to his son as his father before left it to him – and better.’

HENRY VIII IN A LETTER TO THE DUKE OF NORFOLK, 1540.1

Prince Edward was probably unaware just how serious his father’s decline was. Henry’s health had been steadily growing worse during the course of 1546, confining him more and more to his secret apartments. In March that year, the king was ‘indisposed with a slight fever for two or three days’2 and he passed the listless hours of convalescence playing cards with Dudley and his other court intimates. The imperial ambassador van der Delft reported to Charles V: ‘I do not know what will come of it, as his principal medical man, Dr Butts, died this [last] winter. I will inquire daily and will report to your majesty.’3 Three months later, Henry was again ill, this time with colic, and was taking his prescribed medicine.

The frustration resulting from his immobility and the pain from his legs worsened his temper and he grew ‘exceedingly perverse and intractable’. He could still ride, with some difficulty, and during the summer of 1546 he spent much time hunting at Chobham, Guildford, and elsewhere in Surrey, with most of the kills probably stage-managed by his huntsmen. A ramp had been constructed in the grounds of Otelands, one of his houses in that county, to help him climb into his horse’s saddle.4 However, by September he was physically exhausted and the delights of the chase had to be curtailed. Henry journeyed to Windsor to recover, accompanied by Queen Katherine.

Once there, he was again taken ill, but Wriothesley said reassuringly on 17 September that he had ‘only a cold and was now cured’.5 Van der Delft heard differently and believed that Henry had been very sick indeed – that his life had been in great danger and his physicians had given up all hope of his recovery. But recover he did, and within three weeks he was back in the saddle in the hunting field. The king returned to London in November ‘for certain baths which he usually has at this season’ and then moved back to Otelands. The Spanish ambassador saw him there on 5 December, when Henry told him he had suffered a ‘sharp attack of the fever, which lasted in the burning stage for thirty hours, but now he was quite restored’. But the ambassador had his doubts: ‘his colour does not bear out [this] statement and he looks to me greatly fallen away.’6 Henry’s last feeble foray into the hunting field came on 7 December. Three days later, he was due to see the French envoy Odet de Selve, but the audience was postponed because of a royal cold.

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