This involved squeezing through the shaft that ran from the latrine into the river below. But Surrey hatched a daring plan to escape from the Tower of London, where he and his father awaited their death. The fact that Surrey had displayed royal arms on his coat of arms was evidence enough for the king, who ordered his arrest and that of his father, Norfolk.īoth were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. Edward played on the ageing king’s increasing paranoia, convincing him that the Howards were plotting to place Surrey on the throne when Henry died. Surrey made a dangerous enemy of the late queen Jane Seymour’s brother, Edward, who was a dominant force at court. A gifted poet, Surrey was also highly volatile and a notorious drunk, whom the king called a “foolish, proud boy”. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was the eldest son of an old stalwart of Henry VIII’s court, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Read more: A seventh wife for Henry VIII? The story of Katherine Willoughby.She had narrowly escaped with her life and would not risk it again. The queen knew, though, that it had been a close-run thing. Henry was instantly mollified and railed against Gardiner for daring to question his wife’s loyalty. Katherine had literally talked herself out of trouble. When the king rushed to see her, she cleverly told him that she was sick with fear that she had displeased him and proceeded to give a skilfully submissive defence of her actions, pleading that she was “a simple poor woman so much inferior in all respects of nature to you”. By chance, the queen heard of this before the men could reach her and immediately took to her bed, claiming that she was mortally ill. He and his faction gathered enough evidence of Katherine’s heresy to secure a warrant for her arrest. When the king confided in him that he resented his wife’s outspokenness on matters of religion, Gardiner seized his chance. In doing so, she made some dangerous enemies among the religious conservatives at court, notably Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Gathering around her like-minded women (including her stepdaughter Elizabeth), she would spend hours debating the finer points of reform and even wrote some religious treatises herself. Katherine Parr’s passion for the ‘new faith’ became ever more pronounced during her marriage to Henry as his sixth and final wife. In 1550 a treaty was signed that finally returned Boulogne to the French, by which time both Henry VIII and Francis I were dead. The remaining English forces managed to withhold the French bombardment for several years, but it was an expensive and largely futile campaign. But they disobeyed his orders and withdrew most of the troops to Calais. Henry returned to England at the end of September, leaving the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk in charge of holding the town. The emperor promptly made a separate treaty with Francis I, and they agreed to unite their forces to reclaim Boulogne for the French. He arrived shortly after the French surrender on 13 September. In early 1544, an English force departed from Calais and marched towards the coastal town of Boulogne, laying siege to it on 19 July.ĭesperate to prove he was still a warrior king, Henry set out to join his troops a few weeks later. When he discovered Francis had helped fortify Scotland against England, Henry made an alliance with Charles V and agreed to invade France. But peace never lasted long, and in 1543 Henry was on the offensive yet again. But no one could have expected that they would actually come into their inheritance: Edward was a strong, healthy boy with every prospect of a long life.įor most of his reign, Henry played a complex game of diplomacy with the two great potentates of Europe: Francis I of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. This transformed the status of both girls from illegitimate daughters to royal princesses. It was almost certainly her influence that led the king to assent to the third Act of Succession in spring 1544, which acknowledged Mary and Elizabeth as heirs to the throne once more. Taking pity on the disinherited girls (Elizabeth in particular, with whom she shared a passion for Protestantism), Katherine persuaded her husband to invite them to court more often. But the benign influence of Henry’s last wife, Katherine Parr, changed all of that. She and Mary had lived under the stigma of illegitimacy since the birth of their half-brother, Edward, in 1537, which had moved them further from the throne. Elizabeth – just two years and eight months old at the time of the second act – had been quick to appreciate the change in her status, demanding of her servants: “How happs it yesterday Lady Princess and to-day but Lady Elsabeth?” The first and second Acts of Succession (15) had declared Henry VIII’s eldest daughter, Mary, and her half-sister, Elizabeth, to be bastards.
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