Prelude to David Holland's talk on 17th April 2024 The Exeter Conspiracy Through The Eyes Of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell

HILARY MANTEL’s WOLF HALL TRILOGY OF NOVELS and the TWO HENRYS: KING HENRY VIII & HENRY COURTENAY

Prelude to David Holland’ talk on 17th April 2024 in the Music Room, Powderham Castle: The Exeter Conspiracy Through The Eyes Of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell

The Courtenay connection

Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived [just!] (1) is the well known chant to help remember the sequence of Henry VIII’s wives: that clutch of unfortunate, largely doomed ladies. Beside them sit other, less well-known victims like Sir Thomas More of Henry VIII’s psychopathic paranoia.  In Henry’s paranoid mind his victims were possible threats to his throne and dynasty. So, anyone whose head popped above the successional parapet was liable to have it involuntarily removed. None more so than the family members [Plantagenets] of Queen Elizabeth of York (d.1503) wife of Henry VIII’s father, the Lancastrian Henry VII (r.1485-1509), Fig. 1.   

A Courtenay Story 

A starting point for a Courtenay Story is the marriage of Queen Elizabeth’s youngest sister Catherine to William Courtenay of Tiverton Castle, at this time Powderham Castle was not the family’s main residence. The Yorkist curse fell on the shoulders of their son, Henry Courtenay, Henry VIII’s cousin, childhood buddy and then close friend. The Courtenays were the most powerful family in the West of England with extensive estates from which it could raise its own private army that could even threaten the king’s. For Henry C. all was well throughout the 1520s; he was Henry VIII’s leading courtier. And, as Henry VIII’s oldest male relative, he was a heartbeat from the throne.  But note Henry C’s wife, Gertrude, was devoutly religious, a companion and friend of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s ageing, infertile wife whom Henry VIII hoped easily to replace with the fecund, doe eyed Anne Boleyn. 

Hilary Mantel’s First Two Novels in the Trilogy and Henry Courtenay

Wolf Hall Fate now cast its long, deadly shadow over Henry Courtenay. Henry VIII’s bitter divorce from Catherine of Aragon and the split from Rome saw Henry VIII replace the Pope as head of the Catholic Church in England so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. From c. 1530 Gertrude Courtenay, Catherine of Aragon’s staunch supporter, became closely involved with her and the Pope’s backers: Henry VIII’s enemies whom he hung, beheaded or burned. Hilary Mantel details how Gertrude’s religious fervour pointed to Henry Courtenay’s possible entanglement in this fevered poisonous web of rumour, accusations and duplicity but without any evidence of a conspiracy against Henry VIII. So, Henry C. survived, just, as a leading courtier. 

Bring Up The Bodies continues the tale, with the Courtenays perhaps surprisingly in 1536 playing a major role as Henry VIII’s allies in getting rid of their hated enemy Anne Boleyn once Henry VIII’s love for her turned to loathing and his eye latched on to a younger, more fertile possible queen. So, in 1536 Henry had Anne decapitated and he married Jane Seymour. A year later Jane bore Henry VIII his greatest wish: a baby Lancastrian son - Prince Edward. Yorkist Henry Courtenay was now in deadly danger - a potentially murderous wicked uncle who on Henry VIII’s death would kill Prince Edward and seize the throne as had a Yorkist uncle Richard III some 50 years ago.

Figure 1 Yorkist Family Tree  :  showing Catherine – sister of Elizabeth of York, wife of William Courtenay

Note: wicked uncle Richard III, line 2, Catherine, line 4, fifth person along - second sister of Elizabeth of York who married the Lancastrian Henry VII

 

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Figure 2 Henry Courtenay, in a royal procession in 1535 

Henry is ranked second in the kingdom in the pecking order the procession reveals.  

The three oval red circles on his surcoat are taken from the Courtenay coat of arms.