Henry VIII Read Online Free PDF Page B

tapestries, and free wine flowed from the conduits. Henry rode beneath a canopy borne by the barons of the Cinque Ports, with his heralds going before him. He was resplendent in a doublet of gold embroidered with precious stones beneath a robe of crimson velvet furred with ermine; across his shoulder was slung a baldrick of rubies. Katherine, in embroidered white satin and ermine, followed in a litter hung with white silk and golden ribbons. Her ladies, in blue velvet, rode behind on matching palfreys. 38 Margaret Beaufort, watching from a window in Cheapside, wept for joy, overcome by the occasion.
    In the late afternoon, the King and Queen arrived at the Palace of Westminster, which had been the seat of royal government and the monarch’s chief London residence since the eleventh century. The palace was a sprawling complex of mediaeval stone and timber buildings that covered six acres. Much of it had been rebuilt in the thirteenth century by Henry III, although the magnificent Westminster Hall had been erected by William Rufus in 1097–1099; its impressive hammerbeam roof was installed by Richard II in 1394. The law courts of King’s Bench, Chancery, and Common Pleas sat here during the legal term, while the House of Lords met in the great hall—called the White Chamber—of the palace itself. There was therefore limited space for large-scale court ceremonials.
    The royal apartments, which had been refurbished by Edward IV and Henry VII, still bore signs of the faded splendour of a bygone age. Like his father, Henry VIII used as his bedchamber Henry III’s vast Painted Chamber, which measured eighty-six feet by twenty-six feet. Above the King’s bed was a thirteenth-century mural in red, blue, silver, and gold portraying the coronation of St. Edward the Confessor, and on the adjacent walls were vivid depictions of Old Testament battles. Being so close to the river, the palace was damp and difficult to heat; tapestry hung over the doors to keep out the draughts. Beggars thronged the rubbish-strewn forecourt with its clock tower and fountain. Yet Henry spent much time here in the first years of his reign.
    Throughout the night before their coronation, the King and Queen kept vigil in the Chapel of St. Stephen, founded by King Stephen in the twelfth century (Edward III had remodelled it in the fourteenth century and commissioned murals of himself and his large family).
    On Midsummer Day, Sunday, 24 June, Henry and Katherine, wearing royal robes of crimson and preceded by the nobility in furred gowns of scarlet, walked to Westminster Abbey along a carpet of striped cloth strewn with herbs and flowers. 39 As soon as the King disappeared into the Abbey, the crowds ripped the carpet to pieces for souvenirs. 40
    â€œThis day consecrates a young man who is the everlasting glory of our age,” exulted Thomas More. “This day is the end of our slavery, the fount of our liberty, the beginning of joy. Now the people, liberated, run before their king with bright faces.” 41
    After being acclaimed by the peers, Henry swore his coronation oath and was anointed with holy oil. He was then crowned by Archbishop Warham with the crown of St. Edward the Confessor. 42 The choir burst into the Te Deum as the newly consecrated monarch was led by thirty-eight bishops to his throne to receive the homage of his chief subjects.
    Chief among the choristers that day was Dr. Robert Fairfax, who was to become renowned as “the prime musician of the nation.” 43 A Cambridge graduate, Fairfax was the first man to take a degree in music at Oxford. Henry had heard of his fame as organist and choirmaster of St. Albans Abbey, and had already persuaded him to become a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Fairfax was to write grand polyphonic masses and motets for the Chapel, as well as delightful secular ballads for the court. He was paid only £9.2s.6d (£9.12) a year, less than a royal gardener would earn, but he was