Henry: Virtuous Prince. David Starkey

The equipment of the smaller service rooms of the nursery apartment was more practical, and took account of the fact that the occupant of the nursery was a baby as well as a prince, with the mundane need of all babies for washing, bathing and feeding. There were ‘two great basins of pewter for the laundry in the nursery’, a ‘chafer’ (to heat water) and a brass basin in which to wash the child, and a liquid-and stain-proof ‘cushion of leather, made like a carving cushion, for the nurse’, on which Anne Uxbridge sat while breast-feeding Henry.3

      Such an infancy – with its wet-nurse and rockers, its cloth-of-gold and ermine, its rituals and deference – seems almost impossibly strange. But then it was par for the royal course: it was neither peculiar to Henry, nor can it have contributed much to what would make him distinctive.

      For that we need to look elsewhere, to aspects of Henry’s upbringing that were less bound by rules and conventions. Should he, for instance, be brought up with his elder brother? Or his sister? The choice was a real one, since separate establishments already existed for the two older children.

Arthur, as we have seen, had had his own independent princely household from the earliest days of his infancy. For the first two years or more of his life, it had been based at the bishop of Winchester’s castle-palace at Farnham, Surrey. A year or two later, by the time of Arthur’s creation as prince of Wales, it seems to have moved a score or two miles east and to have been situated in or near Ashford in Kent.4

Even less is known about the location of Margaret’s much smaller nursery establishment. But it seems a safe bet that it moved from palace to palace with her mother, Elizabeth of York, who normally followed a much less hectic itinerary than her husband, the king. This meant that Margaret was living at Greenwich at the time of her little brother Henry’s birth elsewhere in the palace. As she was only eighteen months old herself, she still had her wet-nurse, Alice Davy, as well as her rockers, Ann Mayland, Margery Gower and Alice Bywymble.5

At some point in the latter half of 1491, Margaret was weaned and her nurse, Alice Davy, paid off. This still left her with her three rockers, who were duly paid their half-year wages of £1.13s.4d on 31 December. But the ‘warrant’, or instruction to pay their wages, also lists Henry’s own nursery establishment, headed by Nurse Uxbridge. A similar joint warrant for both Henry and Margaret’s servants was issued a half-year later, in July 1492.6

      What was going on? Henry, it seems clear, had been moved in at birth with his sister Margaret. They always kept their separate rooms and, to begin with, their staffs also retained their distinct identities. But the move towards a collective nursery had begun.

It accelerated in the course of the year. By early July 1492 Henry had a younger sister as well. His mother began her fourth confinement at Sheen (which Henry’s father was later to rename Richmond) in early June. Shortly after, Henry’s maternal grandmother, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, who had been forced into a discontented retirement at Bermondsey Abbey in 1487, died on 8 June. Because of her condition, Elizabeth of York was unable to attend the funeral. Her new daughter, born on 2 July, was christened Elizabeth, after both her mother and her grandmother. She also seems to have inherited the Woodville good looks.7

Elizabeth joined Henry and Margaret in the new collective nursery, and a warrant was issued to pay the salaries of all three groups of attendants. First to be named was Cecily Burbage, ‘nurse to our right dearly beloved daughter the Lady Elizabeth’, who enjoyed the accustomed £10 per annum; then came the remaining ‘servants attending upon our right dearly well-beloved children, the Lord Henry and the Ladies Margaret and Elizabeth’.8

      Henry, as the male, came first. But he was outnumbered, as he was to remain for all his boyhood, by his sisters.

      The name of one royal child is, of course, conspicuous by its absence from these warrants: Henry’s elder brother, Arthur, prince of Wales. He, it seems clear, was still being brought up elsewhere and alone. Quite where at this point we have no idea. But the uncertainty vanishes with the other great event of 1492: Henry VII’s campaign against France.

      To go to war with France was the natural destiny for a late medieval English king. When it came Henry’s own turn, he would embrace it with enthusiasm. His father, however, did so hesitantly and reluctantly. He knew the reality of war in a way his son never would – and, as a usurper who had won his crown on the field, he was all too aware of the risks of battle as well. Go, however, Henry VII finally did, though he put off embarking till October, when the campaigning season had at most only a few more weeks to run.

      Henry, who was barely eighteen months old, was of course far too young to understand anything of this. But he could not escape its consequences. Indeed, the war and its aftermath turned out to be the dominant event of his childhood, creating a poisonous web of intrigue and danger of which he found himself the unwitting centre.

The more immediate effect of the campaign, however, fell on the already overburdened shoulders of Henry’s elder brother, Arthur. When, seventeen years earlier, Henry’s grandfather Edward IV had invaded France in a similarly brief and inglorious campaign, he had made his eldest son Edward, prince of Wales, lieutenant and governor of the realm (that is, regent) during his absence. Predictably, Henry VII did the same, and Regent Arthur, aged six, found himself holding the same resounding powers as Regent Edward, aged five, had done. He was sent to Westminster, perhaps to preside over meetings of the council and certainly to ‘attest’ or give formal sanction to certain of its acts.9

Arthur’s regency lasted only a few weeks, until his father’s return to England on 17 December automatically brought it to an end. But it had evidently been deemed a success, and it emboldened Henry VII to take the next and crucial step in his son and heir’s career. Edward, prince of Wales had been only three when he was sent to receive his academic and political education as head of a devolved administration in the Welsh Marches. Now, in the course of 1493, Arthur, aged six, followed in his wake and, wherever possible, in his footsteps. He too took up residence at Ludlow, the great castle which Edward IV had rebuilt for his eldest son; the powers of Arthur’s council were closely modelled on those of Edward’s, and some of the personnel were the same. The boys even shared the same physician, Dr Argentine, who was the last person known to have seen the dethroned Edward V, as he then was, alive in the Tower.10

Arthur’s departure for the Welsh Marches was also the turning point in his relations (or rather lack of them) with his younger brother. Henry was now developing fast. In the summer of 1493 he was weaned, and bade farewell to his wet-nurse Anne Uxbridge, who was described as ‘late’ nurse to Henry early the following year. In 1494 he learned to ride and (less confidently) to walk.11

      But Arthur was not there to see it. Instead, he became the brother that Henry scarcely knew. They met only on high days and holidays at their parents’ court. There is no evidence that they ever exchanged letters or even tokens.

      Did they, I wonder, spend more than a few weeks in each other’s company?

Instead, Henry’s world was shaped by his sisters, his mother and her women. And it was as feminine as Arthur’s was male: cloth and bedding was brought for Henry and his sisters; linen was purchased to make shirts for him and smocks for them.12

Once again, the war of 1492 was pivotal in defining this separation between the experiences of the