Henry: Virtuous Prince. David Starkey

22 And indeed God (or the stars) seemed to be on the side of the Tudors: the double family event was a powerful signal of their strengthening grip on the throne; it also meant that the first two pieces on the dynastic chessboard were in place.

      It remained to be seen how much room there would be for the third child, Henry, whose entry into the world – so understated in comparison with the ceremonies for Arthur and Margaret – followed eighteen months later in June 1491.

      Notes - CHAPTER 3: THE HEIR

1. Memorials, 39.

2. Loc. cit.

3. For all this, see D. Starkey, ‘King Henry and King Arthur’ in J. P. Carley and F. Riddy, eds, Arthurian Literature,16 (Cambridge, 1998), 171–96, pp. 177–8.

4. Collectanea IV, 204, 206.

5. Beaufort Hours, 279.

6. Collectanea IV, 204.

7. Ibid., 206.

8. Vergil A, 208.

9. Ibid., 207; BL Add. MS 4617, fo. 186; Staniland, ‘Royal Entry’, 307 n. 60.

10. Materials II, 349, 459; BL Add. MS 4617, fo. 202; CPR Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III (1476–85), p. 241.

11. Materials II, 298, 343, 394, 404, 437, 553, 556.

12. Materials II, 343, 349, 370, 459; BL Add. MS 4617, fo. 205.

13. OxfordDNB, ‘Alcock’.

14. N. Orme, ‘The Education of Edward IV’, HR 57 (1984), 119–30, 126–30.

15. OxfordDNB, ‘Courtenay’.

16. N. Pronay and J. Cox, eds, The Crowland Chronicle Continuations: 1459–1486 (1986), 181; W. Jerdan, ed., Rutland Papers CS old series 21 (1842), 10.

17. M. Condon, ‘Itinerary’ (unpublished); CPR Henry VIII I (1485–94), 152; Materials II, 115.

18. Original Letters, 1st s. I, 18–19 (misdated to the later crisis of 1492).

19. Collectanea IV, 212; Condon, ‘Itinerary’.

20. Collectanea IV, 236.

21. Ibid., 249–57.

22. Collectanea IV, 249–54.

       4

       INFANCY

      IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS BIRTH AND CHRISTENING, Henry, like his elder siblings and indeed almost all elite children from the dawn of time to the beginning of the twentieth century, was handed over to be suckled by his wet-nurse. Her name was Anne Uxbridge, and for the first two years or so of his life she was the person closest to Henry. She would have acted as his surrogate mother emotionally as well as physically, and his very survival depended on her good health and assiduity.

Unfortunately, despite her importance to Henry, almost nothing is known about her. We are even ignorant of her maiden name. She had married into a family of minor Sussex gentry, and within a few years would be widowed and remarried to Walter Luke. Assisting Anne were Henry’s two ‘rockers’, Margaret Draughton and Frideswide Puttenham. Theirs was a merely menial duty, and they were paid only a third as much as Anne Uxbridge: £3.6s.8d a year as against £10 for Henry’s nurse.1

      But, menial or not, at least one of them was to remain around long enough to become a fixture in Henry’s boyhood and youth.

These staffing arrangements were more or less identical to those for Henry’s elder siblings, Arthur and Margaret. And much the same physical provisions would have been made for Henry as well. These are described in great detail in The Ryalle Book.2 The royal child was to have a nursery apartment consisting of two main interconnecting rooms – an inner or sleeping chamber and an outer or receiving chamber – and smaller service rooms. Dominating both principal chambers were Henry’s cradles, known respectively as the ‘great’ and ‘little’ cradles.

      The ‘little cradle’ stood in the inner or sleeping chamber of Henry’s two-room apartment. It was made of painted and gilded wood, and was just under four feet long. There were four silver-gilt pommels, one at each corner, and two similar pommels on top of the U-shaped frame in which the body of the cradle swung. The bedding consisted of a mattress, sheets, pillows and a rich counterpane of cloth-of-gold furred with ermine. Sensibly, two sets of each were provided. There were also five ‘swathing’ bands, each with its silver buckle, to hold the child in place and, it was thought, encourage him to grow straight and strong. Over the cradle hung a ‘sparver’ or canopy, while a traverse, or curtain, could be drawn round it.

      And that was the little cradle! The ‘great cradle of estate’, which stood in the outer or receiving chamber, more than lived up to its name. It was a third larger than the other, and covered in cloth-of-gold: the royal arms were placed at its head, rich carpets surrounded it on the floor and its cloth-of-gold canopy was fringed in silk and suspended from a silver-gilt boss.

      These features – the cloth-of-gold, canopy and carpets – were the essential elements of the chair of estate, or throne, which stood in the Presence Chamber of Henry’s father and mother. Even when empty, etiquette dictated that the chair be treated with the same respect as though the sovereign or consort sat in it. The same went for Henry’s cradle of estate: gentlemen doffed their hats and bowed; ladies curtsied. And when Henry lay there the bows and curtsies would have been extra deep. Henry might not have