In my previous Tudor post, we looked at the Exeter Conspiracy and the destruction of families who were accused of threatening Henry VIII’s throne.
But there was another man drawn into its aftermath.
And his story is particularly striking because he had once been one of Henry VIII’s closest companions.
Sir Nicholas Carew had spent years beside the king - hunting, jousting and enjoying the pleasures of the Tudor court. But in 1539, Henry sent him to the scaffold.
So how did a royal favourite end up accused of treason?
Nicholas was born towards the end of the 15th century into the Carew family of Beddington in Surrey. He entered royal service when he was still young and became closely associated with Henry VIII. Contemporary evidence shows that Carew belonged to the group of young courtiers who shared the king’s sporting interests and entertainments.
Henry clearly valued him.
In 1522, Nicholas was appointed Master of the Horse, an important position in the royal household, and he was repeatedly trusted with diplomatic missions. He attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold and travelled abroad on the king’s business.
But Nicholas was also closely connected with the more conservative faction at court.
He appears to have remained sympathetic towards Catherine of Aragon and her daughter Mary, and he was certainly no enthusiastic supporter of Anne Boleyn.
By 1536, Anne’s position had become dangerously unstable. Nicholas was among the courtiers who benefited from her fall, and he was associated with the group supporting Jane Seymour, who would become Henry’s third wife only days after Anne’s execution.
For Nicholas, it must have seemed that he had backed the winning side.
And for a while, he had.
He was elected a Knight of the Garter in 1536, one of the highest honours Henry could bestow. Even in 1537, Nicholas still appeared to be firmly within the king’s favour and took part in the ceremonies surrounding the christening of the future Edward VI.
Then the political atmosphere changed again.
In 1538, Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, Henry Pole, Lord Montagu, and others were arrested during what became known as the Exeter Conspiracy.
Nicholas knew some of these men.
Worse still, he apparently questioned the way Exeter had been prosecuted.
Investigators claimed that Nicholas had been involved in earlier conversations with Exeter and that correspondence between them had deliberately been destroyed. Whether this amounted to a genuine conspiracy against Henry remains debated, but in the Tudor court even the suggestion of disloyalty could be fatal.
Nicholas was arrested on the 31st of December 1538 and sent to the Tower.
On the 14th of February 1539, he was tried for treason and accused of supporting Exeter and criticising the proceedings against him.
He was found guilty.
On the 3rd of March 1539, Sir Nicholas Carew was executed on Tower Hill.
It was an extraordinary reversal.
A man who had grown up around Henry, entertained him, hunted with him, represented him abroad and risen to one of the most prestigious positions at court had become another casualty of the political fear surrounding the king.
There is also a rather grim irony to Nicholas Carew’s story.
Only a few years earlier, he had been associated with the faction that helped remove Anne Boleyn from power.
Now he had discovered the same lesson that so many people around Henry VIII eventually learned.
Helping someone else fall did not make you safe.
At Henry VIII’s court, yesterday’s favourite could very easily become tomorrow’s traitor.
Do you think Nicholas Carew was genuinely involved in a conspiracy against Henry VIII - or had Tudor politics simply caught up with him?
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