Henry: Virtuous Prince. David Starkey

Hever Castle, Kent.

      Ferdinand of Aragon, Spanish school, oil on panel, 15th century. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      Isabella of Castile, Spanish school, oil on panel, 15th century. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      Catherine of Aragon, by Michiel Sittow, c.1510. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna/ akg-images/Erich Lessing.

      Laughing Child, possibly Henry VIII, by Guido Mazzoni, painted and gilded terracotta, c.1498. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      Old Greenwich Palace, c. early 17th century. Kingston Lacy, The Bankes Collection (The National Trust). © NTPL.

      Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, English school, oil on panel, 16th century. Society of Antiquaries, London/The Bridgeman Art Library.

      Maximilian I, Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor, by Albrecht Dürer, oil on limewood, 1519. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna/akg-images/Erich Lessing.

      Perkin Warbeck, Flemish school, sanguine on paper, 16th century. Bibliothèque Municipale, Arras/The Bridgeman Art Library.

       Second Plate Section

      Four images from Writhe’s Garter Book, late 15th century, in the collection of The Trustees of the 9th Duke of Buccleuch’s Chattels Fund. By courtesy of the British Library.

      Drawings I, III, V, VII, IX, XI and XIII from The Panorama of London by Anthonis van den Wyngaerde, pen and ink and chalk on paper, c.1544. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford/The Bridgeman Art Library.

      The North-East View of Eltham Palace in the County of Kent, coloured engraving by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, 1735. Eltham Palace, London/Copyright © English Heritage Photo Library.

      The Family of Henry VII with St. George, unknown artist, c.1505–9. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      John Skelton, woodcut from an edition of Collyn Clout, his satirical poem of 1522. Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage Image Partnership.

      Sir Thomas More, by Hans Holbein the Younger, chalk, c.1527. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      Desiderius Erasmus, by Quinten Massys, oil on panel, 1517. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      Philip I ‘The Fair’, Archduke of Burgundy and King of Castile, copy after the Master of the Magdalen Legend, oil on wood, c.1497. Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck/ akg-images/Erich Lessing.

      Juana ‘The Mad’, Queen of Castile, by Juan de Flandes, oil on oakwood, c.1496. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna/akgimages/ Erich Lessing.

      The Round Table of King Arthur in the Great Hall at Winchester Castle. © 2004 Fortean/Healy/Topfoto.

      Manuscript illustration of a joust between Jean Chalons and Loys de Beul at Tours in 1446, French school, mid-15th century. © The Board of Trustees of the Armouries/Heritage Image Partnership.

      Images from Prince Henry’s Prayer Roll by kind permission of Ushaw College, Durham.

       Third Plate Section

      Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, by Daniel Mytens, oil on canvas, c.1620–38. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      James IV of Scotland, oil on panel, artist and date unknown. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.

      Mary Tudor, detail from a double portrait with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, after Clouet © By kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Bedford and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates.

      Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, by Bernart van Orley, oil on wood, c.1516. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest/akg-images.

      Richmond Palace in the reign of Charles I, unknown artist, oil on canvas, c.1640. Society of Antiquaries of London.

      Henry VII on his deathbed, from the Collections of Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Garter King of Arms, early 16th century. British Library, Add.45131, f.54.

      Henry VIII, English school, oil on panel, c.1509. © The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum, USA/The Bridgeman Art Library.

      Coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, woodcut from A Joyfull Medytacyon to All Englonde by Stephen Hawes, 1509. Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

      The Royal procession to Parliament at Westminster, detail from the Parliament Procession Roll of 1512, 17th-century copy. British Library, Add.22306, Section 6.

      Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, English school, oil on panel, 16th century. © Corpus Christi College Oxford/The Bridgeman Art Library.

      William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, by Hans Holbein the Younger, chalk and wash, 1527. The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

      Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Flemish school, sanguine on paper, 16th century. Bibliothéque Municipale, Arras/The Bridgeman Art Library

      Part of The Great Tournament Roll of Westminster, showing Henry VIII jousting before Catherine of Aragon in 1511. The College of Arms, London.

      Armour of Henry VIII, English, c.1514–15, with horse armour, probably Flemish, c.1515. © The Board of Trustees of the Armouries/Heritage Image Partnership.

      Henry VIII, unknown artist, oil on panel, c.1520. National Portrait Gallery, London.

       Endpapers

      Part of The Great Tournament Roll of Westminster, showing Henry VIII jousting before Catherine of Aragon in 1511. The College of Arms, London.

      While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein, the publishers would like to apologise for any omissions and would be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in future editions.

       INTRODUCTION

      Henry and I go back a long way.

      My first and second undergraduate essays at Cambridge, written in late 1964, were on his grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. My doctoral dissertation, begun in 1967 and finally completed in 1973, grew directly out of that second essay and was an in-depth study of his privy chamber and its staff. This was the department of the royal household that provided both the king’s body service and his personal political aides. It was thus rather like the modern Downing Street or White House staff, and included individuals just as silky and shamelessly self-serving as their present-day equivalents.

      One of them, William Compton, has a bit part in this book.

      He was Henry’s groom of the stool and I have only to write the words to be carried back almost four decades to the Cambridge University Library tea-room circa 1970. It is about 3.30 p.m. and I have met up with my fellow members of Geoffrey Elton’s research seminar. We are a noisy, gregarious, grub-loving group. I am eating home-made lemon-cake with a gooey icing and filling and bits of grated lemon rind that occasionally get stuck between the teeth. I am also drinking lemon tea. And I am talking. And talking. About Henry and his groom of the stool.

      ‘Did you know the