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Chapters (56)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-one
  22. Chapter Twenty-two
  23. Chapter Twenty-three
  24. Chapter Twenty-four
  25. Chapter Twenty-five
  26. Chapter Twenty-six
  27. Chapter Twenty-seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-one
  32. Chapter Thirty-two
  33. Chapter Thirty-three
  34. Chapter Thirty-four
  35. Chapter Thirty-five
  36. Chapter Thirty-six
  37. Chapter Thirty-seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-one
  42. Chapter Forty-two
  43. Chapter Forty-three
  44. Chapter Forty-four
  45. Chapter Forty-five
  46. Chapter Forty-six
  47. Chapter Forty-seven
  48. Chapter Forty-eight
  49. Chapter Forty-nine
  50. Chapter Fifty
  51. Chapter Fifty-one
  52. Chapter Fifty-two
  53. Chapter Fifty-three
  54. Epilogue
  55. A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  56. H ISTORICAL N OTE

My description of Henry’s funeral is based on the account in Robert Hutchinson, The Last Days of Henry VIII (London, 2005).

Thanks also to Amanda Epstein for discussing the legal aspects of the Cotterstoke Will case with me, and to Jeanette Howlett for taking me to Sudeley Castle, where Catherine Parr lived during her sad fourth marriage, and where some beautiful examples of her clothing and possessions survive, as does her tomb, where I left some flowers in memory of Henry’s last, and to me most sympathetic, Queen.

H ISTORICAL N OTE

HISTORICAL NOTE

THE LAST YEAR OF Henry VIII’s life saw some of the most tumultuous political events of his entire reign: a major heresy hunt, an attack on the Queen, radical changes in foreign policy, an attempt at reconciliation with the Pope and, at the end of 1546, a switch in control of the Privy Council from religious traditionalists to radicals, who were left in charge of England upon Henry’s death. Unfortunately the sources are very thin, which leaves events open to a wide variety of interpretations. The historian Glyn Redworth has said, rightly, that ‘all accounts are obliged to be in the nature of interpretative essays’.1

My own attempt at interpreting the events of 1546 forms the background to the story of Lamentation (except of course for the fact that Catherine Parr’s Lamentation of a Sinner was not, in the real world, stolen). So I will start with those elements of the story where the facts are clearer, before moving on, for those who may be interested, to my own venture at an ‘interpretative essay’ on what happened in the tumultuous last months of Henry’s life.

IN 1546, ENGLAND’S ruling elite, as well as the common people in London especially, were split between those sympathetic and those hostile to religious reform. It was a matter of degree, and many people either kept their heads down to avoid trouble, or, among the ruling classes, bent with the wind for political advantage. And the wind blew very fiercely in in the mid-Tudor period, as Henry VIII, following the split with Rome in 1532–3, lurched between traditional and radical religious policies for a decade and a half.