Henry VII was dying. In the spring of 1509, his joints throbbed and coughs rattled his body. Servants changed his sheets in the middle of the night because of the unnatural heat that made him sweat yet left him cold. His frame, forever slight, was now a scarecrow.
No one had seen the seventeen-year-old Prince of Wales, heir to the throne, according to Ambassador Fuensalida. Ferdinand II of Aragon had sent his ambassador to negotiate the marriage between his daughter, Catherine, and Prince Henry.
The old King had recently forbidden his son visitation with 23-year-old Catherine, now dubbed the Princess of Wales; but what good was a title when you were alone in a tower, living in rags, with only a friar for prayer and an old maid for company?
Information about Prince Henry was scant while gossip was thick. The Ambassador said the Prince was confined like a young girl in the back rooms of his father’s chambers. He was allowed to take the air but only from a secret door and if accompanied by a select few of the old King’s men.
Prince Henry’s cousin, Reginald Pole, said that the King hated his own son and wanted to kill him. There had been talk of violent arguments in the King’s chambers with flushed faces, pounding hearts, and a giant’s worth of self-control not to strike. The son could have crushed the old man who was nothing but a weeping willow in the year before he died.
Commentary
I’ve always read the stories about the ‘house arrest’ of the adolescent Henry the VIII as evidence of his father’s narcissism: a dying King unable to hand over the reins of power to the healthy, golden boy, so charming in youth and vigor. The heir apparent was everything the old man was not. Envy and resentment must have gnawed at his gut like mice chewing leather when he saw how carefree this second son breezed through his days. Out of sight and out of mind would have decreased his tension.
Paranoia, too, may well have contributed to Henry’s confinement. The blue-bloods who still had their heads and their property continued to be a threat to the questionable legitimacy of Henry VII. These men hungered for a puppet prince they could distract with pretty palaces and glorious tournaments. By caging Henry, the old King prevented backdoor dealings between his naïve son and unscrupulous aspirants with eyes on the throne.
Protection may, too, have been a factor. Henry VII had no more sons and may have feared losing the second as he had lost his first. No exposure to courtiers, foreigners, and commoners meant no contagion.
While all of the above is likely, there’s one more reason, far more compelling and equally disturbing if you were Henry VII. The old King was shrewd at measuring the worth of a man. He watched people closely: how they spoke, where they cast their eyes when they bowed before him, if they blinked when telling the truth, or raised their eyebrows when they lied. It was how they interacted as much as what they said that guided him in assessing character. Neither false promises nor fulsome flattery misled him. He would not have survived otherwise during the years he fought for the throne.
The feckless, reckless young Henry would not have passed muster with his father. Where older brother Arthur had been serious and studious, Henry was extroverted and easily bored. Where Arthur reveled in history, literature, and statesmanship, Henry preferred dancing, singing and jousting. It goes far deeper, however. Henry VIII became a shallow, selfish, and incompetent monarch. His father surely sensed the boy’s incompetence and inability in grasping the sacred, ironclad determination necessary for a leading role on the world’s stage. This assessment must have hollowed out his heart when he considered that all he had achieved for England in economic prosperity, international recognition, and the restoration of peace would pass to a young man unfit for the crown who could, quite possibly, undo his lifetime of work.
Sources
Scarisbrick, J.J., Henry VIII. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968. (p. 6).
Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: The King and his Court. New York: Ballantine Books. (p. 10).