Henry: Virtuous Prince. David Starkey

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Название Henry: Virtuous Prince
Автор произведения David Starkey
Жанр Историческая литература
Серия
Издательство Историческая литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007287833



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emotions. Instead, his forthcoming fatherhood only opened up new prospects: greater, grander even than anything yet.

      Then, having been born in Arthur’s capital, the child would be christened Arthur too, and Britain’s golden age would be renewed.

      It was a tremendous gamble (imagine the shame and confusion if the child had turned out to be a girl!). Yet the gamble paid off, as Henry VII’s gambles always seemed to.

      The birth was at least a month premature.

      Perhaps the queen had been shaken by the journey, in her gaily decorated but springless carriage or, when the going got really rough, in her litter slung between two horses. Or perhaps it was merely the difficulties of a first pregnancy.

      * * *

      It remained only to get the ceremonies of his baptism – dislocated by his premature birth – back on track. The main problem was the whereabouts of the intended godfather, the earl of Oxford. He was still at Lavenham, the immensely rich cloth-making town that was the jewel in the crown of the de Vere family’s principal estates in Suffolk. Lavenham was over a hundred miles from Winchester, and the roads were getting slower by the hour as the rains continued. To give Oxford time to make the journey, the christening was put back to Sunday, 24 September.

      On the day appointed, the other actors assembled: the prince’s procession formed in his mother’s apartments; while the clergy and his godmother, the queen dowager Elizabeth Woodville, who had been restored to the title and lands which had been forfeit under Richard III, prepared to receive the baby in the cathedral. The earl, they were then informed, was ‘within a mile’. It was decided to wait for him.

      They kept on waiting. And waiting.

      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 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.