The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [58]
It would be fair to say that Henry saw himself as a guardian of public morality. He never took the Lord’s name in vain, could not abide swearing, and refused to tolerate it in his presence, gently admonishing or severely chiding any noble who disobeyed this edict: ‘Everyone who swore was abominable to him.’ His strongest oaths were ‘St John’ or ‘Forsooth and forsooth!’
He had no time for the vagaries of fashion, believing that the revealing clothes of the period led people into promiscuity, an opinion shared by many contemporary moralists. Blacman says, ‘He took great precautions to secure not only his own chastity but that of his servants,’ and was so concerned about immorality at his court that he was not above keeping ‘careful watch through hidden windows of his chamber’ on ladies entering his palace, ‘lest any foolish impertinence of women cause the fall of any of his household’.
He was excessively prudish and much offended by nudity, often quoting Petrarch on the subject, saying, ‘The nakedness of a beast is in men unpleasing, but the decency of raiment makes for modesty.’ When he visited the Roman baths at Bath, he saw men ‘wholly naked, with every garment cast off, at which he was displeased’, and fled with embarrassment from the scene, ‘abhorring such nudity as a great offence’. One Christmas time, a certain lord, probably for a malicious prank, ‘brought him a dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to dance in that guise before the King, who very angrily averted his eyes, turned his back upon them, and went out to his chamber, saying, “Fie, fie, for shame!” ’
Shortly before Henry married at the age of twenty-three, the papal envoy to England reported that he lived more like a monk than a king and ‘avoided the company of women’. Blacman says that as a youth he was ‘a pupil of chastity’. He was ‘chaste and pure from the beginning of his days and eschewed all licentiousness in word or deed while he was young’. He was fond of reading moral treatises and other improving literature, and firmly believed that the spread of such works would lead to more virtuous behaviour on the part of his subjects. Indeed, his chamberlain, Sir Richard Tunstall, recalled how the King would spend much of his leisure perusing books and chronicles, or, on holy days, the scriptures.
Like his father, Henry was a patron of music, and was the first king to appoint a master for the children of the Chapel Royal, while under his auspices the first degrees in music were awarded by the University of Cambridge. He himself was no mean composer and the manuscript of his Sanctus is still preserved at King’s College, Cambridge.
Education was one of Henry’s chief passions, and he was especially anxious to promote the spread of literacy among his subjects: in fact, he was more enthusiastic about education than he was about governing his realm and righting its wrongs. He was a generous patron of scholars and a great benefactor of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. During his reign a great many grammar schools were founded, catering for boys from the newly prosperous middle classes and for poor boys who might not otherwise obtain a good education and could benefit from the charitable places available.
Henry’s chief interest was in his two great academic foundations, Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge. Not only did he found these two institutions, but he also devoted great care and expense to their buildings. Blacman states that he ‘graced the laying of the foundation stones with his presence, and with great devotion offered his foundations to Almighty God’.
Since he was seventeen, Henry had wished to found a college dedicated to prayer and charity, where the sons of poor families could benefit