The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-02 00:00:00

Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII. Selection of Despatches written by the Venetian Ambassador, Sebastian Giustinian. Translated by Raw don Brown. London: Smith and Elder. ONE would scarcely have expected, at this time of day, to find new and authentic ma terials for the illustration of English history of so early a period as Henry VIII. in the archives of Venice, yet the fact is, that no where is there contained so minute a picture of the English Court from 1515-19, and so exact an account of the European intrigues and alliances of that time, as are comprised in this correspondence of Sebastian Gius tinian, the Venetian Ambassador at the Court of our bluff King Hal. In the days of her pride and power, the diplomacy of Venice attained very great dex terity. Often her disasters in the field were repaired by her successes in the Cabinet. When her fortunes were at the lowest ebb, they were not unfrequently repaired by the skill of her ambassadors at foreign Courts, who, early trained to business, and possessing great penetration of mind, joined to great suavity of manner, conciliated the good-will of the potentates and their ministers to whom they were accredited, and, turning enmity to friendship, suspicion to trust, broke up the leagues formed against the Republic, and gave another direction to the military force which threatened it. Fortunately for the interests of history, her foreign Ministers were required to be most minute and precise in their correspondence with their Government, and in the reports they furnished of the leading events of their mission. " Their ordinary despatches" says Mr. Brown, " were intended for the informa tion of the college and Senate, while the more secret and confidential were reserved for the Doge and the Council of Ten." This cor respondence, with all the instructions and reports relating to diplomatic missions, were carefully arranged and preserved in the Vene tian chancery ; and had the records been kept unimpaired to this day they would have formed an incomparable collection for histo rical purposes. But revolutions, which in must cases take a perverse delight in destroy ing the most precious property of a people, have made sad ravages in these Venetian archives, though a considerable portion of them have escaped what Mr. Brown calls the " patriotic excesses " which followed the French invasion and the fall of the old Republic in 1797. Before transmitting official documents to their Government, the Venetian ambassadors commonly took copies of them, and it is to the accident of Sebastian Giustinian having preserved a duplicate of his despatches that we are indebted for this publication. The collection descended to the library of Girolamo Contarini, who with great liberality bequeathed the whole of his books and MSS. to the library of St. Mark ; and here Mr. Brown's attention was drawn to this very curious and valuable correspondence. Giustiuian belonged to one of the noblest of Venetian families. Born in 1460, he was early employed by the State, and was in his 55th year when he arrived in England as ambassador from the Signory in the spring of 1515. He came at a critical period. On the first explosion of " the League of Cambray," Venice, attacked by an overwhelming force, had lost the whole of her territories on the mainland ; but by her skil full diplomacy she broke up this league, and slowly repaired her losses. In 1515 she was firmly allied with France, for the recovery of d Ve , .- from the Emperor Maxi -, VII was jealous of Nter into any was the part good-will, and between Venice 3 conferences the principal and of all the *lie& the un are detailed THE PRESS. in his despatches with complete fidelity. Much of the matter is not adapted for general reading, though to the historical investigator the whole will be deemed very precious. In our extracts we confine ourselves mainly to the pictures given by this keen-eyed Vene tian of the personages and manners of the English Court. This description is given of Henry, then in the very prime of youthful manhood: — Assuredly, most serene Prince, from what we have seen of him, and in conformity, moreover, with the report made to us by others, this most serene King is not only very ex pert in arms, and of great valour, and most excellent in his personal endowments, but is likewise so gifted and adorned with mental accomplishments of every sort that we believe him to have few equals in the world. He speaks English, French, and Latin; understands Italian well; plays almost on every instrument; sings and com poses fairly (delegnamente); is prudent and sage, and free from every vice ; and besides is so good and affectionate a friend to the most serene State, that we consider it certain no ultramontane sovereign ever surpassed him in this respect. The ambassador had his first audience of the King on St. George's-day at the palace at Richmond : Early in the morning the same two lords who met us on our arrival came with a numerous retinue, and escorted the three ambassadors in a large barge, followed by many others containing the merchants and the rest of the Vene tians, to a palace on the Thames belonging to this most serene King, called Richmond, distant ten miles hence. Having landed with about two hundred persons, we went into this palace, and on entering a very handsome and lofty hall, a collation was served us of nothing but bread and wine, according to the custom here, and this being ended we passed through some other chambers, where we saw part of his Majesty's guard, consisting of three hun dred English, all very handsome men, and in excellent array, with their halberts, and, by my faith, I never saw finer fellows. At length we entered a room where his Majesty was leaning against a chair, which was covered with cloth of gold brocade, with a cushion of the same ma terial, and a large gilt sword, under a canopy of cloth of gold, with a raised pile. His Majesty was dressed as a Knight of the Garter, of which order he is the superior, and wore a very costly doublet, over which was a mantle of violet-coloured velvet, with an extremely long train, lined with white satin; on his head was a richly-jewelled cap of crimson velvet of immense value, and round his neck he wore a collar, studded with many precious stones, of which I never saw the like. • • • • • • The personal beauty of his Majesty will be well known to your Magnificence through your brother, the Lord Frederick ; and I have heard that besides his beauty, which is indeed very great, he has moreover many other most excellent qualities ; for instance, he is courageous, an excellent musician, plays the harpsichord well, is learned for his age and station, and has many other en dowments and good parts ; and the like of two such courts and two such kings as those of France and of England have, I fancy, not been witnessed by any ambassadors who have gone out of Venice for these fifty years. But it was at Greenwich that the ambassador saw the Court in its highest splendour : On the first day of May his Majesty sent two English lords to the ambassadors, who were taken by them to a place milled Greenwich, five miles hence, where the King was, for the purpose of celebrating May-day. On the am bassadors arriving there they mounted on horseback with many of the chief nobles of the kingdom, and accompanied the most serene Queen into the country to meet the King. Her Majesty was most excellently attired, and very richly, and with her were twenty-five damsels mounted on white palfreys, with housings of the same fashion, most beautifully embroidered in gold, and these damsels had all dresses slashed with gold lama in very costly trim, with a number of footmen in most excellent order. The Queen went thus with her retinue a distance of two miles out of Greenwich into a wood, where they found the King with his guard, all clad in a livery of green, with bows in their hands, and about a hundred noblemen on horseback, all gorgeously arrayed. In this wood were certain bowers filled purposely with singing birds, which carolled most sweetly, and in one of these bastions or bowers were some triumphal cars, on which were singers and musicians, who played on an organ and lute and flutes for a good while during a banquet which was served in this place ; then proceeding homewards, certain tall paste-board giants being placed on cars, and surrounded by his Majesty's guard, were conducted with the greatest order to Green wich, the musicians singing the whole way and sounding the trumpets and other instruments, so that, by my faith, it was an extremely fine triumph, and very pompous, and the King in person brought up the rear in as great state as possible, being followed by the Queen, with such a crowd on foot as to exceed, I think, 25,000 persons. Then followed dinner, served with unpa ralleled pomp, and after that came a splendid joust : The preparations for the joust being at length accom plished, this most serene King made his appearance in very great pomp: on his side were ten of these noblemen on most capital horses, all with housings of one sort, namely, with cloth of gold with a raised pile, his Majest)'s war horse being likewise caparisoned in the same manner; and, in truth, he looked like St. George in person on its hack. The opposing party consisted of ten other noblemen, also in rich array, and very well mounted, so that really I SATURDAY I never saw such a sight ; and then they began to joust, a n d continued this sport for three hours, to the constant sound of the trumpets and drums, the King excelling all the others, shivering many lances, and unhorsing one of hia opponents ; so that the show was most beautiful, and I only regret not having time to describe it in full. I never should have expected to find such pomp ; and on this occa sion his Majesty exerted himself to the utmost, for the sake of the ambassadors, and more particularly on account of Pasqualigo (who is returning to France to-day), that he may be able to tell King Francis what he has seen in Eng land, and especially with regard to his Majesty's own prowess. Here is another portrait of the King highly favourable : And first of all, his Majesty is twenty-nine years old, and extremely handsome; nature could not have done more for him ; he is much handsomer than any other sovereign in Christendom, a great deal handsomer than the King of France ; very fair, and his whole frame admirably propor tioned. On hearing that Francis 1. wore a beard he allowed his own to grow, and, as it is reddish, he has now got a beard which looks like gold. He is very accom plished; a good musician; composes well; is a moat capital horseman ; a fine jouster; speaks good French, Latin, and Spanish; is very religious; hears three masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes five on other days: he hears the office every day in the Queen's chamber, that is to say vespers and compline. He is very fond indeed of hunting, and never takes this diversion without tiring eight or ten horses, which be causes to be stationed before hand along the live of country he may mean to take, and when one is tired he mounts another, and before he gets home they are all exhausted. He is extremely fond of tennis, at which game it is the prettiest thing in the world to see him play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture. He gambled with the French hostages to the amount occasionally, it is said, of from six to eight thousand ducats in a day. He is affable, gracious ; harms no one ; does not covet his neighbour's goods, and is satisfied with his own dominions, having often said to the ambassador, " Domino Orator, we want all potentates to content themselves with their own territories ; we are satisfied with this island of ours." From the little paragraph following might an observer who knew Henry's sensual nature have shrewdly foreshadowed coming events : The joust being ended, the ambassadors went to visit the Queen, whom Pasqualigo addressed in Spanish, in which tongue her Majesty, in like manner, replied. She is rather ugly than otherwise, and supposed to be preg nant; but the damsels of her court are handsome, and make a sumptuous appearance. The ugly queen and her handsome damsels formed an ominous conjunction. In another place we read. — The Queen is the sister of the mother of the King of Spain, now styled King of the Romans. She is thirty five years old, not handsome, but has a very beautiful complexion. She is religious, and as virtuous as words can express. The ambassador early discerned, and acutely notices, the rivalry between Henry and Francis ; and this rivalry, on the part of Henry at least, amusingly extended to personal appearance. Who cannot imagine the burly monarch slapping his thigh as he asked whe ther Francis could show such a leg ? Hia Majesty came into our arbour, and, addressing me in French, said : " Talk with me awhile ! The King of France, is he as tall as 1 am?" 1 told him there was but little difference. He continued, "Ishe as stout'?" 1 said he was not ; and he then inquired, " What sort of legs has he ?" I replied, " Spare." Whereupon lie opened the front of his doublet, and placing his hand on his thigh said, " Look here ! and I have also a good calf to my leg." The personal qualities of Wolsey are described with equal minuteness : He is of low origin : he as two bthe, one of whom holds an untitled benefice, hro and the other rs h is pushing is fortune. This Cardinal is the person who rules both the King and the entire kingdom. On the ambassador's first arrival in England he used to say to him,—" His Majesty will do so and so : " subsequently , by d e g rees, he went forgetting himself, and commenced saying, " We shall do so and so : " at this present he has reached such a pitch that he says, " I shall do so and so." He is about forty-six years old, very handsome, learned, extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and indefatigable. He, alone, transacts the same business as that which occupies all the magistracies, offices, and councils of Venice, both civil and criniind ; and all state affairs, likewise, are managed by him, let their nature be what it may. He is pensive, and has the re p utation of being extremely just: he favours the people exceedingly, and especially the poor ; hearing their suits, and seeking to despatch them instantly ; he also makes the lawyers plead gratis for all paupers. He is in very were Pope. He has a very fine palace, where one traverses - great repute — seven t imes more sothan if he eight rooms before reaching his audie nce chamber, and they are all hung with tapestry, which is changed once a week. He always has a sideboard of plate worth 25,000 ducats, wherever he ma y be; and hie silver is estimated at 150,000 ducats. In his own chamber there is always a cupboard with vessels to the amount o 30,000 d u cats, this being customary with the English nobility. Brescia and Verona from the Em milian ; and, as Henry VIII. wa Francis 1., and inclined to ente alli #ga,- t him, it n of a: 't‘o'oboiliate his goi to in ormed bets ' . s of his • y, and tl 1, . 1 ; SY! * c t • urt, am. ns to sr' acv se , e ~• • ave rise, viori mosommismimiNEMMllMlNNliil 1144 \ Yittraturt.