1527-1530
KATHARINE AND ANNE--THE DIVORCE
Enough has been said in the aforegoing pages to show that Henry was no
more a model of marital fidelity than other contemporary monarchs. It was
not to be expected that he should be. The marriages of such men were
usually prompted by political reasons alone; and for the indulgence of
affairs of the heart kings were forced to look elsewhere than towards the
princesses they had taken in fulfilment of treaties. Mary, the younger
daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and wife of William Carey, was the King's
mistress for some years after her marriage in 1521, with the result that
her father had received many rich grants from the crown; and in 1525 was
created Lord Rochford. As treasurer of the household Lord Rochford was
much at Court, and his relationship with the Howards, St. Legers, and
other great families through his marriage with Lady Elizabeth, daughter of
the Duke of Norfolk, naturally allied him with the party of nobles whose
traditions ran counter to those of the bureaucrats in Henry's Council. His
elder daughter Anne, who was born early in 1503, probably at Hever Castle
in Kent,[44] had been carefully educated in the learning and
accomplishments considered necessary for a lady of birth at Court, and she
accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514 for her fleeting marriage with
the valetudinarian Louis XII., related in an earlier chapter.[45] On Queen
Mary's return to England a few months afterwards with her second husband,
Charles Brandon, the youthful Anne Boleyn remained to complete her courtly
education in France, under the care of the new Queen of France, Claude,
first wife of Francis I.
When the alliance of the Emperor and England was negotiated in 1521, and
war with France threatened, Anne was recalled home; and in 1522 began her
life in the English Court and with her family in their various residences.
Her six years in the gay Court of Francis I. during her most
impressionable age, had made her in manner more French than English. She
can never have been beautiful. Her face was long and thin, her chin
pointed, and her mouth hypocritically prim; but her eyes were dark and
very fine, her brows arched and high, and her complexion dazzling. Above
all, she was supremely vain and fond of admiration. Similar qualities to
these might have been, and doubtless were, possessed by a dozen other
high-born ladies at Henry's Court; but circumstances, partly political
and partly personal, gave to them in Anne's case a national importance
that produced enduring consequences upon the world. We have already
glanced at the mixture of tedious masquerading, hunting, and amorous
intrigue which formed the principal occupations of the ladies and
gentlemen who surrounded Henry and Katharine in their daily life; and from
her arrival in England, Anne appears to have entered to the full into the
enjoyment of such pastimes. There was some negotiation for her marriage,
even before she arrived in England, with Sir Piers Butler, an Irish cousin
of hers, but it fell through on the question of settlements, and in 1526,
when she was already about twenty-three, she took matters in her own
hands, and captivated an extremely eligible suitor, in the person of a
silly, flighty young noble, Henry Percy, eldest son and heir to the Earl
of Northumberland.
Percy was one of the Court butterflies who attached themselves to Wolsey's
household, and when angrily taken to task by the Cardinal for flirting
with Anne, notwithstanding his previous formal betrothal to another lady,
the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the young man said that, as he
loved Anne best, he would rather marry her. The Cardinal did not mince
words with his follower, but Percy stood stoutly to his choice, and the
Earl of Northumberland was hastily summoned to London to exercise his
authority over his recalcitrant son. Cavendish[46] gives an amusing
account of the interview between them, at which he was present. The Earl
seems to have screwed up his courage by a generous draught of wine when he
left Wolsey's presence to await his son in the hall of York House. When
the youth did come in, the scolding he got was vituperative in its
violence, with the result that Percy was reluctantly forced to abandon the
sweetheart to whom he had plighted his troth. Wolsey's interference in
their love affair deeply angered both Anne and her sweetheart. Percy was a
poor creature, and could do Wolsey little harm; but Anne did not forget,
swearing "that if ever it lay in her power she would do the Cardinal some
displeasure, which indeed she afterwards did."[47]
The reason for Wolsey's strong opposition to a match which appeared a
perfectly fitting one for both the lovers, is not far to seek. Cavendish
himself gives us the clue when he says that when the King first heard that
Anne had become engaged to Percy, "he was much moved thereat, for he had a
private affection for her himself which was not yet discovered to any":
and the faithful usher in telling the story excuses Wolsey by saying that
"he did nothing but what the King commanded." This affair marks the
beginning of Henry's infatuation for Anne. There was no reason for Wolsey
to object to a flirtation between the girl and her royal admirer; indeed
the devotion of the King to a new mistress would doubtless make him the
more ready to consent to contract another entirely political marriage, if
he could get rid of Katharine; and the Cardinal smiled complaisantly at
the prospect that all was going well for his plans. Anne, for the look of
the thing, was sent away from Court for a short time after the Percy
affair had been broken off; but before many weeks were over she was back
again as one of Katharine's maids of honour, and the King's admiration for
her was evident to all observers.[48]
It is more than questionable whether up to this time (1526) Anne ever
dreamed of becoming Henry's wife; but in any case she was too clever to
let herself go cheaply. She knew well the difference in the positions held
by the King's mistresses in the French Court and that which had been
occupied by her sister and Lady Tailebois in England, and she coyly held
her royal lover at arm's length, with the idea of enhancing her value at
last. Henry, as we have seen, was utterly tired of, and estranged from,
Katharine; and his new flame, with her natural ability and acquired French
arts, flattered and pleased his vanity better than any woman had done
before. It is quite probable that she began to aim secretly at the higher
prize in the spring of 1527, when the idea of the divorce from Katharine
had taken shape in the King's mind under the sedulous prompting of Wolsey
for his personal and political ends; but if such was the case she was
careful not to show her hand prematurely. Her only hope of winning such a
game was to keep imperious Henry in a fever of love, whilst declining all
his illicit advances. It was a difficult and a dangerous thing to do, for
her quarry might break away at any moment, whereas if such a word as
marriage between the King and her reached the ears of the cardinal, she
and her family would inevitably be destroyed.
Such was the condition of affairs when Wolsey started for France in July
1527. He went, determined to leave no stone unturned to set Henry free
from Katharine. He knew that there was no time to be lost, for the letters
from Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, and Katharine's messenger
Felipe, were on their way to tell the story to the Emperor in Spain; and
Clement VII., a prisoner in the hands of the imperialists, would not dare
to dissolve the marriage after Charles had had time to command him not to
do so. It was a stiff race who should get to the Pope first. Wolsey's
alternative plan in the circumstances was a clever one. It was to send to
Rome the Bishop of Worcester (the Italian Ghinucci), Henry's ambassador in
Spain, then on his way home, to obtain, with the support of the cardinals
of French sympathies, a "general faculty" from Clement VII. for Wolsey to
exercise all the Papal functions during the Pope's captivity: "by which,
without informing the Pope of your (_i.e._ Henry's) purpose, I may
delegate such judges as the Queen will not refuse; and if she does the
cognisance of the cause shall be devolved upon me, and by a clause to be
inserted in the general commission no appeal be allowed from my decision
to the Pope."[49]
How unscrupulous Wolsey and Henry were in the matter is seen in a letter
dated shortly before the above was written, in which Wolsey says to
Ghinucci (Bishop of Worcester) and Dr. Lee, Henry's ambassador with the
Emperor, that "a rumour has, somehow or other, sprung up in England that
proceedings are being taken for a divorce between the King and the Queen,
which is entirely without foundation, yet not altogether causeless, for
there has been some discussion about the Papal dispensation; not with any
view to a divorce, but to satisfy the French, who raised the objection on
proposing a marriage between the Princess (Mary Tudor) and their
sovereign. The proceedings which took place on this dispute gave rise to
the rumour, and reached the ears of the Queen, who expressed some
resentment but was satisfied after explanation; and no suspicion exists,
except, perchance, the Queen may have communicated with the Emperor."[50]
Charles had, indeed, heard the whole story, as far as Katharine knew it,
from the lips of Felipe before this was written, and was not to be put off
with such smooth lies. He wrote indignantly to his ambassador Mendoza in
London, directing him to see Henry and point out to him, in diplomatic
language veiling many a threat, the danger, as well as the turpitude, of
repudiating his lawful wife with no valid excuse; and more vigorously
still he let the Pope know that there must be no underhand work to his
detriment or that of his family. Whilst the arrogant Cardinal of York was
thus playing for his own hand first, and for Henry secondly, in France,
his jealous enemies in England might put their heads together and plot
against him undeterred by the paralysing fear of his frown. His pride and
insolence, as well as his French political leanings, had caused the
populace to hate him; the commercial classes, who suffered most by the
wars with their best customers, the Flemings and Spaniards, were strongly
opposed to him; whilst the territorial and noble party, which had usually
been friendly with Katharine, and were traditionally against bureaucratic
or ecclesiastical ministers of the crown, suffered with impatience the
galling yoke of the Ipswich butcher's son, who drove them as he listed.
Anne was in the circumstances a more powerful ally for them than
Katharine. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the leader of the
party of nobles, and her ambition would make her an apt and eager
instrument. The infatuation of the King for her grew more violent as she
repelled his advances,[51] and, doubtless at the prompting of Wolsey's
foes, it soon began to be whispered that if Henry could get rid of his
wife he might marry his English favourite. Before the Cardinal had been in
France a month, Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, first sounded the new
note of alarm to the Emperor, by telling him that Anne might become the
King's wife. It is hardly possible that no hint of the danger can have
reached Wolsey, but if it did he was confident of his power over his
master when he should return to England. Unfortunately for him his ideas
for the King's divorce were hampered by the plans for his own advancement;
and the proposals he wrote to Henry were all founded on the idea of
exerting international pressure, either for the liberation of the Pope, or
to obtain from the Pontiff the decree of divorce. It was evident that this
process must be a slow one, and Anne as well as Henry was in a hurry.
Unlike Charles, who, though he was falsity itself to his rivals, never
deceived his own ministers, Henry constantly showed the moral cowardice of
his character by misleading those who were supposed to direct his policy,
and at this juncture he conceived a plan of his own which promised more
rapidity than that of Wolsey.[52] Without informing Wolsey of the real
object of his mission, old Dr. Knight, the King's confidential secretary,
was sent to endeavour to see the Pope in St. Angelo, and by personal
appeal from the King persuade him to grant a dispensation for Henry's
marriage either before his marriage with Katharine was dissolved formally
(_constante matrimonio_), or else, if that was refused, a dispensation to
marry after the declaration had been made nullifying the previous union
(_soluto matrimonio_); but in either case the strange demand was to be
made that the dispensation was to cover the case of the bride and
bridegroom being connected within the prohibited degrees of affinity.[53]
Knight saw Wolsey on his way through France and hoodwinked him as to his
true mission by means of a bogus set of instructions, though the Cardinal
was evidently suspicious and ill at ease. This was on the 12th September
1527, and less than a fortnight later Wolsey hurried homeward. When he had
set forth from England three months before he seemed to hold the King in
the hollow of his hand. Private audience for him was always ready, and all
doors flew open at his bidding. But when he appeared on the 30th September
at the palace of Richmond, and sent one of his gentlemen to inquire of the
King where he would receive him, Anne sat in the great hall by Henry's
side, as was usual now. Before the King could answer the question of
Wolsey's messenger, the favourite, with a petulance that Katharine would
have considered undignified, snapped, "Where else should the Cardinal come
but where the King is?" For the King to receive his ministers at private
audience in a hall full of people was quite opposed to the usual etiquette
of Henry's Court, and Wolsey's man still stood awaiting the King's reply.
But it only came in the form of a nod that confirmed the favourite's
decision. This must have struck the proud Cardinal to the heart, and when
he entered the hall and bowed before his sovereign, who was toying now
with his lady-love, and joking with his favourites, the minister must have
known that his empire over Henry had for the time vanished. He was clever
and crafty: he had often conquered difficulties before, and was not
dismayed now that a young woman had supplanted him, for he still held
confidence in himself. So he made no sign of annoyance, but he promptly
tried to checkmate Knight's mission when he heard of it, whilst pretending
approval of the King's attachment to Anne. The latter was deceived. She
could not help seeing that with Wolsey's help she would attain her object
infinitely more easily than without it, and she in her turn smiled upon
the Cardinal, though her final success would have boded ill for him, as he
well knew.
His plan, doubtless, was to let the divorce question drag on as long as
possible, in the hope that Henry would tire of his new flame. First he
persuaded the King to send fresh instructions to Knight, on the ground
that the Pope would certainly not give him a dispensation to commit bigamy
in order that he might marry Anne, and that it would be easier to obtain
from the Pontiff a decree leaving the validity of the marriage with
Katharine to the decision of the Legates in England, Wolsey and another
Cardinal. Henry having once loosened the bridle, did not entirely return
to his submission to Wolsey. Like most weak men, he found it easier to
rebel against the absent than against those who faced him; but he was not,
if he and Anne could prevent it, again going to put his neck under the
Cardinal's yoke completely, and in a secret letter to Knight he ordered
him to ask Clement for a dispensation couched in the curious terms already
referred to, allowing him to marry again, even within the degrees of
affinity, as soon as the union with Katharine was dissolved. Knight had
found it impossible to get near the Pope in Rome, for the imperialists had
been fully forewarned by this time; but at length Clement was partially
released and went to Orvieto in December, whither Knight followed him
before the new instructions came from England. Knight was no match for the
subtle churchmen. Clement dared not, moreover, mortally offend the
Emperor, whose men-at-arms still held Rome; and the dispensation that
Knight sent so triumphantly to England giving the Legate's Court in London
power to decide the validity of the King's marriage, had a clause slipped
into it which destroyed its efficacy, because it left the final decision
to the Pontiff after all.
It may be asked, if Henry believed, as he now pretended, that his first
marriage had never been legal in consequence of Katharine being his
brother's widow, why he needed a Papal dispensation to break it. The Papal
brief that had been previously given allowing the marriage, was asserted
by Henry's ecclesiastical friends to be _ultra vires_ in England, because
marriage with a brother's widow was prohibited under the common law of the
land, with which the Pope could not dispense. But the matter was
complicated with all manner of side issues: the legitimacy of the Princess
Mary, the susceptibilities of the powerful confederation that obeyed the
Emperor, the sentiment of the English people, and, above all, the
invariable desire of Henry to appear a saint whilst he acted like a sinner
and to avoid personal responsibility; and so Henry still strove with the
ostensible, but none too hearty, aid of Wolsey, to gain from the Pope the
nullification of a marriage which he said was no marriage at all. Wolsey's
position had become a most delicate and dangerous one. As soon as the
Emperor learned of Anne's rise, he had written to Mendoza (30th September
1527), saying that the Cardinal must be bought at any price. All his
arrears of pension (45,000 ducats) were to be paid, 6000 ducats a year
more from a Spanish bishopric were to be granted, and a Milanese
marquisate was to be conferred upon him with a revenue of 15,000 ducats a
year, if he would only serve the Emperor's interests. But he dared not do
it quickly or openly, dearly as he loved money, for Anne was watchful and
Henry suspicious of him. His only hope was that the King's infatuation for
this long-faced woman with the prude's mouth and the blazing eyes might
pall. Then his chance would come again.
Far from growing weaker, however, Henry's passion grew as Anne's virtue
became more rigid. She had not always been so austere, for gossip had
already been busy with her good name. Percy and Sir Thomas Wyatt had both
been her lovers, and with either or both of them she had in some way
compromised herself.[54] But she played her game cleverly, for the stake
was a big one, and her fascination must have been great. She was often
away from Court, feigning to prefer the rural delights of Hever to the
splendours of Greenwich or Richmond, or offended at the significant
tittle-tattle about herself and the King. She was thus absent when in July
1527 Wolsey had gone to France, but took care to keep herself in Henry's
memory by sending him a splendid jewel of gold and diamonds representing a
damsel in a boat on a troubled sea. The lovesick King replied in the first
of those extraordinary love-letters of his which have so often been
printed. "Henceforward," he says, "my heart shall be devoted to you only.
I wish my body also could be. God can do it if He pleases, to whom I pray
once a day that it may be, and hope at length to be heard:" and he signs
_Escripte de la main du secretaire, que en coeur, corps, et volonte, est
vostre loiall et plus assure serviteure, H. (autre coeur ne cherche) R._
Soon afterwards, when Wolsey was well on his way, the King writes to his
lady-love again. "The time seems so long since I heard of your good health
and of you that I send the bearer to be better ascertained of your health
and your purpose: for since my last parting from you I have been told you
have quite abandoned the intention of coming to Court, either with your
mother or otherwise. If so I cannot wonder sufficiently; for I have
committed no offence against you, and it is very little return for the
great love I bear you to deny me the presence of the woman I esteem most
of all the world. If you love me, as I hope you do, our separation should
be painful to you. I trust your absence is not wilful; for if so I can but
lament my ill fortune and by degrees abate my great folly."[55] This was
the tone to bring Anne to her lover again, and before many days were over
they were together, and in Wolsey's absence the marriage rumours spread
apace.
The fiasco of Knight's mission had convinced Henry and Anne that they must
proceed through the ordinary diplomatic channels and with the aid of
Wolsey in their future approaches to the Pope; and early in 1528 Stephen
Gardiner and Edward Fox, two ecclesiastics attached to the Cardinal, were
despatched on a fresh mission to Orvieto to urge Clement to grant to
Wolsey and another Legate power to pronounce finally on the validity of
Henry's marriage. The Pope was to be plied with sanctimonious assurances
that no carnal love for Anne prompted Henry's desire to marry her, as the
Pope had been informed, but solely her "approved excellent, virtuous
qualities--the purity of her life, her constant virginity, her maidenly
and womanly pudicity, her soberness, her chasteness, meekness, humility,
wisdom, descent right noble and high through royal blood,[56] education in
all good and laudable qualities and manners, apparent aptness to
procreation of children, with her other infinite good qualities." Gardiner
and Fox on their way to Dover called at Hever, and showed to Anne this
panegyric penned by Wolsey[57] upon her, and thenceforward for a time all
went trippingly.
Gardiner was a far different negotiator from Knight, and was able, though
with infinite difficulty, to induce Clement to grant the new bull
demanded, relegating the cause finally to the Legatine Court in London.
The Pope would have preferred that Wolsey should have sat alone as Legate,
but Wolsey was so unpopular in England, and the war into which he had
again dragged the country against the Emperor was so detested,[58] whilst
Queen Katharine had so many sympathisers, that it was considered necessary
that a foreign Legate should add his authority to that of Wolsey to do the
evil deed. Campeggio, who had been in England before, and was a pensioner
of Henry as Bishop of Hereford, was the Cardinal selected by Wolsey; and
at last Clement consented to send him. Every one concerned appears to have
endeavoured to avoid responsibility for what they knew was a shabby
business. The Pope, crafty and shifty, was in a most difficult position,
and blew hot and cold. The first commission given to Gardiner and Fox,
which was received with such delight by Anne and Henry when Fox brought
it to London in April 1528, was found on examination still to leave the
question open to Papal veto. It is true that it gave permission to the
Legates to pronounce for the King, but the responsibility for the ruling
was left to them, and their decision might be impugned. When, at the
urgent demand of Gardiner, the Pope with many tears gave a decretal laying
down that the King's marriage with Katharine was bad by canon law if the
facts were as represented, he gave secret orders to the Legate Campeggio
that the decretal was to be burnt and not to be acted upon.
Whilst the Pope was thus between the devil and the deep sea, trying to
please the Emperor on the one hand and the Kings of France and England on
the other, and deceiving both, the influence of Anne over her royal lover
grew stronger every day. Wolsey was in the toils and he knew it. When
Charles had answered the English declaration of war (January 1528), it was
the Cardinal's rapacity, pride, and ambition against which he thundered as
the cause of the strife and of the insult offered to the imperial house.
To the Emperor the Cardinal could not again turn. Henry, moreover, was no
longer the obedient tool he had been before Anne was by his side to
stiffen his courage; and Wolsey knew that, notwithstanding the favourite's
feline civilities and feigned dependence upon him, it would be the turn of
his enemies to rule when once she became the King's wedded wife. He was,
indeed, hoist with his own petard. The divorce had been mainly promoted,
if not originated, by him, and the divorce in the present circumstances
would crush him. But he had pledged himself too deeply to draw back
openly; and he still had to smile upon those who were planning his ruin,
and himself urge forward the policy by which it was to be effected.
In the meanwhile Katharine stood firm, living under the same roof as her
husband, sitting at the same table with him with a serene countenance in
public, and to all appearance unchanged in her relations to him. But
though her pride stood her in good stead she was perplexed and lonely.
Henry's intention to divorce her, and his infatuation for Anne, were of
course public property, and the courtiers turned to the coming
constellation, whatever the common people might do. Mendoza, the Spanish
ambassador, withdrew from Court in the spring after the declaration of
war, and the Queen's isolation was then complete. To the Spanish Latinist
in Flanders, J. Luis Vives, and to Erasmus, she wrote asking for counsel
in her perplexity, but decorous epistles in stilted Latin advising
resignation and Christian fortitude was all she got from either.[59] Her
nephew the Emperor had urged her, in any case, to refuse to recognise the
authority of any tribunal in England to judge her case, and had done what
he could to frighten the Pope against acceding to Henry's wishes. But even
he was not implacable, if his political ends were served in any
arrangement that might be made; and at this time he evidently hoped, as
did the Pope most fervently, that as a last resource Katharine would help
everybody out of the trouble by giving up the struggle and taking the
veil. Her personal desire would doubtless have been to adopt this course,
for the world had lost its savour, but she was a daughter of Isabel the
Catholic, and tame surrender was not in her line. Her married life with
Henry she knew was at an end;[60] but her daughter was now growing into
girlhood, and her legitimacy and heirship to the English crown she would
only surrender with her own life. So to all smooth suggestions that she
should make things pleasant all round by acquiescing in the King's view of
their marriage, she was scornfully irresponsive.
Through the plague-scourged summer of 1528 Henry and Anne waited
impatiently for the coming of the Legate Campeggio. He was old and gouty,
hampered with a mission which he dreaded; for he could not hope to
reconcile the irreconcilable, and the Pope had quietly given him the hint
that he need not hurry. Clement was, indeed, in a greater fix than ever.
He had been made to promise by the Emperor that the case should not be
decided in England, and yet he had been forced into giving the
dispensation and decretal not only allowing it to be decided there in
favour of Henry, but had despatched Campeggio to pronounce judgment. He
had, however, at the same time assured the Emperor that means should be
found to prevent the finality of any decision in England until the Emperor
had approved of it, and Campeggio was instructed accordingly. The
Spaniards thought that the English Cardinal would do his best to second
the efforts of the Pope without appearing to do so, and there is no doubt
that they were right, for Wolsey was now (the summer of 1528) really
alarmed at the engine he had set in motion and could not stop. Katharine
knew that the Legate was on his way, and that the Pope had, in appearance,
granted all of Henry's demands; but she did not know, or could not
understand, the political forces that were operating in her favour, which
made the Pope defraud the King of England, and turned her erstwhile mortal
enemy Wolsey into her secret friend. Tact and ready adaptability might
still have helped Katharine. The party of nobles under Norfolk, it is
true, had deserted her; but Wolsey and the bureaucrats were still a power
to be reckoned with, and the middle classes and the populace were all in
favour of the Queen and the imperial alliance. If these elements had been
cleverly combined they might have conquered, for Henry was always a coward
and would have bent to the stronger force. But Katharine was a bad hand at
changing sides, and Wolsey dared not openly do so.
For a few days in the summer of 1528, whilst Campeggio was still lingering
on the Continent, it looked as if a mightier power than any of them might
settle the question for once and all. Henry and Anne were at Greenwich
when the plague broke out in London. In June one of Anne's attendants
fell ill of the malady, and Henry in a panic sent his favourite to Hever,
whilst he hurried from place to place in Hertfordshire. The plague
followed him. Sir Francis Poyns, Sir William Compton, William Carey, and
other members of his Court died in the course of the epidemic, and the
dread news soon reached Henry that Anne and her father were both stricken
at Hever Castle. Henry had written daily to her whilst they had been
separated. "Since your last letter, mine own darling," he wrote a few days
after she left, "Walter Welsh, Master Brown, Thomas Care, Grion of
Brereton, and John Coke the apothecary have fallen of the sweat in this
house.... By the mercy of God the rest of us be yet well, and I trust
shall pass it, either not to have it, or at least as easily as the rest
have done." Later he wrote: "The uneasiness my doubts about your health
gave me, disturbed and alarmed me exceedingly; and I should not have had
any quiet without hearing certain tidings. But now, since you have felt as
yet nothing, I hope, and am assured, that it will spare you, as I hope it
is doing with us. For when we were at Waltham two ushers, two valets, and
your brother, master-treasurer, fell ill, but are now quite well; and
since we have returned to our house at Hunsdon we have been perfectly
well, and have not now one sick person, God be praised. I think if you
would retire from Surrey, as we did, you would escape all danger. There is
another thing may comfort you, which is, in truth, that in this distemper
few or no women have been taken ill, and no person of our Court has
died.[61] For which reason I beg you, my entirely beloved, not to frighten
yourself, nor be too uneasy at our absence, for wherever I am, I am yours:
and yet we must sometimes submit to our misfortunes; for whoever will
struggle against fate is generally but so much the further from gaining
his end. Wherefore, comfort yourself and take courage, and avoid the
pestilence as much as you can; for I hope shortly to make you sing _la
renvoye_. No more at present from lack of time, but that I wish you in my
arms that I might a little dispel your unreasonable thoughts. Written by
the hand of him who is, and always will be, yours."
When the news of Anne's illness reached him he despatched one of his
physicians post haste with the following letter to his favourite: "There
came to me suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have
arrived. The first, to hear the sickness of my mistress, whom I esteem
more than all the world, and whose health I desire as I do my own, so that
I would gladly bear half your illness to make you well; the second, the
fear that I have of being still longer harassed by my enemy--your
absence--much longer ... who is, so far as I can judge, determined to
spite me more, because I pray God to rid me of this troublesome tormentor;
the third, because the physician in whom I have most confidence is absent
at the very time when he might be of the most service to me, for I should
hope by his means to obtain one of my chiefest joys on earth--that is, the
care of my mistress. Yet, for want of him, I send you my second, and hope
that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I
beseech you to be guided by his advice, and I hope soon to see you again,
which will be to me a greater comfort than all the precious jewels in the
world." In a few days Anne was out of danger, and the hopes and fears
aroused by her illness gave place to the old intrigues again.
A few weeks later Anne was with her lover at Ampthill, hoping and praying
daily for the coming of the gouty Legate, who was slowly being carried
through France to the coast. Wolsey had to be very humble now, for Anne
had shown her ability to make Henry brave him, and the King rebuked him
publicly at her bidding,[62] but until Campeggio came and the fateful
decision was given that would make Anne a Queen, both she and Henry
diplomatically alternated cajolery with the humbling process towards the
Cardinal. Anne's well-known letter with Henry's postscript, so earnestly
asking Wolsey for news of Campeggio, is written in most affectionate
terms, Anne saying, amongst other pretty things, that she "loves him next
unto the King's grace, above all creatures living." But the object of her
wheedling was only to gain news of the speedy coming of the Legate. The
King's postscript to this letter is characteristic of him. "The writer of
this letter would not cease till she had caused me likewise to set my
hand, desiring you, though it be short, to take it in good part. I assure
you that there is neither of us but greatly desireth to see you, and are
joyous to hear that you have escaped the plague so well; trusting the fury
thereof to be passed, especially with them that keepeth good diet, as I
trust you do. The not hearing of the Legate's arrival in France causeth us
somewhat to muse: notwithstanding, we trust, by your diligence and
vigilance, with the assistance of Almighty God, shortly to be eased out of
that trouble."[63]
Campeggio was nearly four months on his way, urged forward everywhere by
English agents and letters, held back everywhere by the Pope's fears and
his own ailments; but at last, one joyful day in the middle of September,
Henry could write to his lady-love at Hever: "The Legate which we most
desire arrived at Paris on Sunday last past, so that I trust next Monday
to hear of his arrival at Calais: and then I trust within a while after to
enjoy that which I have so long longed for, to God's pleasure and both our
comfort. No more to you at present, mine own darling, for lack of time,
but that I would you were in mine arms, or I in yours, for I think it long
since I kissed you." Henry had to wait longer than in his lover-like
eagerness he had expected; it was fully a fortnight before he had news of
Campeggio's arrival at Dover. Great preparations had been made to
entertain the Papal Legate splendidly in London, and on his way thither;
but he was suffering and sorry, and begged to be saved the fatigue of a
public reception. So ill was he that, rather than face the streets of
London on the day he was expected, he lodged for the night at the Duke of
Suffolk's house on the Surrey side of London bridge, and the next day, 8th
October, was quietly carried in the Duke's barge across the river to the
Bishop of Bath's palace beyond Temple Bar, where he was to lodge. There he
remained ill in bed, until the King's impatience would brook no further
delay; and on the 12th he was carried, sick as he was, and sorely against
his will, in a crimson velvet chair for his first audience.
In the great hall of the palace of Bridewell, hard by Blackfriars, Henry
sat in a chair of state, with Wolsey and Campeggio on his right hand,
whilst one of the Legate's train delivered a fulsome Latin oration,
setting forth the iniquitous outrages perpetrated by the imperialists upon
the Vicar of Christ, and the love and gratitude of the Pontiff for his
dearest son Henry for his aid and sympathy. The one thing apparently that
the Pope desired was to please his benefactor, the King of England. When
the public ceremony was over, Henry took Campeggio and Wolsey into a
private room; and the day following the King came secretly to Campeggio's
lodging, and for four long hours plied the suffering churchman with
arguments and authorities which would justify the divorce. Up to this time
Campeggio had fondly imagined that he might, with the Papal authority,
persuade Henry to abandon his object. But this interview undeceived him.
He found the King, as he says, better versed in the matter "than a great
theologian or jurist"; and Campeggio opined at last that "if an angel
descended from heaven he would be unable to persuade him" that the
marriage was valid. When, however, Campeggio suggested that the Queen
might be induced to enter a convent, Henry was delighted. If they would
only prevail upon her to do that she should have everything she demanded:
the title of Queen and all her dowry, revenue, and belongings; the
Princess Mary should be acknowledged heiress to the crown, failing
legitimate male issue to the King, and all should be done to Katharine's
liking. Accordingly, the next day, 14th October, Campeggio and Wolsey took
boat and went to try their luck with the Queen, after seeing the King for
the third time. Beginning with a long sanctimonious rigmarole, Campeggio
pressed her to take a "course which would give general satisfaction and
greatly benefit herself"; and Wolsey, on his knees, and in English,
seconded his colleague's advice. Katharine was cold and collected. She
was, she said, a foreigner in England without skilled advice, and she
declined at present to say anything. She had asked the King to assign
councillors to aid her, and when she had consulted them she would see the
Legates again.
As day broke across the Thames on the 25th October, Campeggio lay awake in
bed at Bath House, suffering the tortures of gout, and perturbed at the
difficult position in which he was placed, when Wolsey was announced,
having come from York Place in his barge. When the Cardinal entered the
room he told his Italian colleague that the King had appointed Archbishop
Warham, Bishop Fisher, and others, to be councillors for the Queen, and
that the Queen had obtained her husband's permission to come to Campeggio
and confess that morning. At nine o'clock Katharine came unobserved to
Bath House by water, and was closeted for long with the Italian Cardinal.
What she told him was under the sacred seal of the confessional, but she
prayed that the Pope might in strict secrecy be informed of certain of the
particulars arising out of her statements. She reviewed the whole of her
life from the day of her arrival in England, and solemnly swore on her
conscience that she had only slept with young Arthur seven nights, _e che
da lui resto intacta e incorrupta_;[64] and this assertion, _as far as it
goes_, we may accept as the truth, seeing the solemn circumstances under
which it was made. But when Campeggio again urged Katharine to get them
all out of their difficulty by retiring to a convent and letting the King
have his way, she almost vehemently declared that "she would die as she
had lived, a wife, as God had made her." "Let a sentence be given," she
said, "and if it be against me I shall be free to do as I like, even as my
husband will." "But neither the whole realm, nor, on the other hand, the
greatest punishment, even being torn limb from limb, shall alter me in
this, and if after death I were to return to life, I would die again, and
yet again, rather than I would give way." Against such firmness as this
the poor, flaccid old churchman could do nothing but hold up his hands
and sigh at the idea of any one being so obstinate.
A day or two afterwards Wolsey and Campeggio saw the Queen again formally.
She was on this occasion attended by her advisers, and once more heard,
coldly and irresponsively, the appeals to her prudence, her worldly
wisdom, her love for her daughter, and every other feeling that could lead
her to cut the gordian knot that baffled them all. "She would do nothing
to her soul's damnation or against God's law," she said, as she dismissed
them. Whether it was at this interview, or, as it seems to me more likely,
the previous one that she broke out in violent invective against Wolsey
for his enmity towards the Emperor, we know not, but the storm of bitter
words she poured upon him for his pride, his falsity, his ambition, and
his greed; her taunts at his intrigues to get the Papacy, and her burning
scorn that her marriage, unquestioned for twenty years, should be doubted
now,[65] must have finally convinced both Wolsey and Campeggio that if
Henry was firm Katharine was firmer still. Campeggio was in a pitiable
state of mind, imploring the Pope by every post to tell him what to do. He
and Wolsey at one time conceived the horrible idea of marrying the
Princess Mary to her half brother, the Duke of Richmond, as a solution of
the succession difficulty, and the Pope appears to have been inclined to
allow it;[66] but it was soon admitted that the course proposed would not
forward, but rather retard, the King's second marriage, and that was the
main object sought.
At length Wolsey ruefully understood that conciliation was impossible;
and, pressed as he was by the King, was forced to insist with Campeggio
that the cause must be judicially decided without further delay. Illness,
prayerful attempts to bring one side or the other to reason, and many
other excuses for procrastination were tried, but at length Campeggio had
to confess to his colleague that the Pope's decretal, laying down the law
in the case in Henry's favour, was only a show document not to be used, or
to leave his possession for a moment; and, moreover, that no final
judgment could be given by him that was not submitted to the Pope's
confirmation. Wolsey was aghast, and wrote in rage and indignation to the
English agent with the Pope denouncing this bad faith.[67] "I see ruin,
infamy, and subversion of the whole dignity and estimation of the
Apostolic See if this course be persisted in. You see in what dangerous
times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and how
much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that the course
he now pursues will drive the King to adopt those remedies that are so
injurious to the Pope, and are frequently instilled into the King's mind.
Without the Pope's compliance I cannot bear up against the storm; and when
I reflect upon the conduct of his Holiness I cannot but fear lest the
common enemy of souls, seeing the King's determination, inspires the Pope
with his present fears and reluctance, which will alienate all the faith
and devotion from the Apostolic See.... It is useless for Campeggio to
think of reviving the marriage. If he did it would lead to worse
consequences. Let him therefore proceed to sentence. Prostrate at the feet
of his Holiness I most urgently beg of him to set aside all delays."
This cry, wrung evidently from Wolsey's heart at the knowledge of his own
danger, is the first articulate expression of the tremendous religious
issue that might depend upon the conduct of the various parties in the
divorce proceedings. The fire lit by Luther a few years previously had
spread apace in Germany, and had reached England. All Christendom would
soon have to range itself in two divisions, cutting athwart old national
affinities and alliances. Charles had defied Luther at the outset; and the
traditions of his Spanish house made him, the most powerful monarch in
Europe, the champion of orthodoxy. But his relations with the Papacy, as
we have seen, had not been uniformly cordial. To him the Pope was a little
Italian prince whilst he was a great one, and he was jealous of the
slightest interference of Rome with the Spanish Church. His position in
Germany, moreover, as suzerain of the princes of the Empire, some of whom
already leant to Lutheranism, complicated the situation: so that it was
not yet absolutely certain that Charles would finally stake everything
upon the unification of the Christian Church by force, on the lines of
strict Papal authority.
On the other hand, both Francis and Henry had for political reasons
strongly supported the Pope in his greatest distress, and their religion
was certainly no less faithful than that of the Emperor. It was inevitable
that, whichever side Charles took in the coming religious struggle, would
not for political reasons commend itself to Francis, and _vice versa_; and
everything depended upon the weight which Henry might cast into one scale
or the other. His national traditions and personal inclination would lead
him to side with Charles, but at the crucial moment, when the first grain
had to be dropped into the balance, he found himself bound by Wolsey's
policy to Francis, and at issue with the Emperor, owing to the
relationship of the latter to Katharine. Wolsey felt, in the letter quoted
above, that the Pope's shilly-shally, in order not to offend the Emperor,
would drive the impatient King of England to flout, and perhaps break
with, the Papacy, and events proved that the Cardinal was right in his
fears. We shall see later how the rift widened, but here the first fine
crevice is visible.
Henry, prompted by Anne and his vanity, intended to have his way at
whatever cost. Katharine could give him no son: he would marry a woman who
could do so, and one that he loved far better than he ever loved his wife.
In ordinary circumstances there need have been no great difficulty about
the divorce, nor would there have been in this case, but for the peculiar
political and religious situation of Europe at the time, and but for
Katharine's unbending rigidity of character. She might have made her own
terms if she had consented to the conciliatory suggestions of the
churchmen. The legality of her marriage would have been declared, her
daughter recognised as heiress presumptive, her own great revenues would
have been left to her, and her title of Queen respected.[68] She was not
even to be asked to immure herself in a convent, or to take any conventual
vow but that of chastity, if she would only consent to a divorce on the
ground of her desire to devote herself to religion.[69] As Campeggio
repeated a dozen times, the only thing she would be asked to surrender was
conjugal relations with the King, that had ceased for years, and in no
case would be renewed. Much as we may admire her firmness, it is
impossible to avoid seeing that the course recommended to her was that
which would have best served, not only her own interest and happiness, but
also those of her daughter, of her religion, and of the good relations
between Henry and the Emperor that she had so much at heart.
Henry, on his side, was determined to allow nothing to stand in his way,
whilst keeping up his appearance of impeccability. Legal and
ecclesiastical authorities in England and France were besought to give
their sanction to his view that no Pope had the power of dispensation for
a marriage with a deceased brother's widow; and the English clergy were
assured that the King only sought an impartial authoritative decision for
the relief of his own conscience. The attitude of the English people gave
him some uneasiness; for, like all his house, he loved popularity. "The
common people, being ignorant," we are told, "and others that favoured the
Queen, talked largely, and said that for his own pleasure the King would
have another wife, and had sent for this Legate to be divorced from the
Queen, with many foolish words; inasmuch as, whosoever spake against the
marriage was of the common people abhorred and reproved."[70] The feeling
indeed in favour of Katharine was so outspoken and general that the King
took the unusual course of assembling the nobles, judges, and so many of
the people as could enter, in the great hall of Bridewell, on Sunday
afternoon, the 8th November, to endeavour personally to justify himself in
the eyes of his subjects.
As usual with him, his great aim was by sanctimonious protestations to
make himself appear a pure-souled altruist, and to throw upon others the
responsibility for his actions. He painted in dismal colours the dangers
to his subjects of a disputed succession on his death. "And, although it
hath pleased Almighty God to send us a fair daughter by a noble woman and
me begotten, to our great joy and comfort, yet it hath been told us by
divers great clerks that neither she is our lawful daughter, nor her
mother our lawful wife, and that we live together abominably and
detestably in open adultery." He swore, almost blasphemously, that for
the relief of his conscience he only sought authoritatively to know the
truth as to the validity of his marriage, and that Campeggio had come as
an impartial judge to decide it. If Katharine was adjudged to be his wife
nothing would be more pleasant or acceptable to him, and he praised her to
the skies, as a noble lady against whom no words could be spoken.[71] The
measure of his sincerity is seen when we compare this hypocritical
harangue with the letters now before us to and from his envoys in Rome, by
which it is evident that the last thing he desired was an impartial
judgment, or indeed any judgment, but one that would set him free to marry
again. One of the most extraordinary means employed to influence Katharine
soon after this appears to have been another visit to her of Wolsey and
Campeggio. They were to say that the King had intelligence of a conspiracy
against him and Wolsey by her friends and the Emperor's English partisans;
and they warned her that if anything of the sort occurred she would be to
blame. They were then to complain of her bearing towards the King, "who
was now persuaded by her behaviour that she did not love him." "She
encouraged ladies and gentlemen to dance and make merry," for instance,
whereas "she had better tell them to pray for a good end of the matter at
issue." "She shows no pensiveness of countenance, nor in her apparel nor
behaviour. She shows herself too much to the people, rejoicing greatly in
their exclamations and ill obloquy; and, by beckoning with her head and
smiling, which she has not been accustomed to do in times past, rather
encouraged them in doing so." For all this and many other things the King
does not consider it fitting to be in her company, or to let the Princess
be with her. The acme of hypocrisy was reached in the assurance the
Legates were then to give the Queen, that if she would behave well and go
into a convent, the King neither could, nor would, marry another wife in
her lifetime; and she could come out to the world again if the sentence
were in her favour. Let her go, they said, and submit to the King on her
knees, and he would be good to her, but otherwise he would be more angry
than ever.[72] Scornful silence was the Queen's reply.
After this Katharine lived lonely and depressed at Greenwich, frequently
closeted with Bishop Fisher and others of her councillors, whilst Henry
was strengthening his case with the opinions of jurists, and by attempts
to influence Campeggio. To Greenwich he went, accompanied by Anne and a
brilliant Court, to show the Italian Cardinal how bounteously a Christmas
could be spent in England. Campeggio's son was knighted and regaled with
costly presents, and all that bribes (the Bishopric of Durham, &c.) and
flattery might do was done to influence the Legate favourably; but
throughout the gay doings, jousts and tourneys, banquets and maskings,
"the Queen showed to them no manner of countenance, and made no great joy
of nothing, her mind was so troubled."[73] Well might it be, poor soul,
for Anne was by the King's side, pert and insolent, surrounded by a
growing party of Wolsey's enemies, who cared little for Pope or Emperor,
and who waited impatiently for the time when Anne should rule the King
alone, and they, through her, should rule England. Katharine, in good
truth, was in everybody's way, for even her nephew could not afford to
quarrel with England for her sake, and her death or disappearance would
have made a reconciliation easy, especially if Wolsey, the friend of
France, fell also.
"Anne," we are told by the French ambassador, "was lodged in a fine
apartment close to that of the King, and greater court was now paid to her
every day than has been paid to the Queen for a long time. I see that they
mean to accustom the people by degrees to endure her, so that when the
great blow comes it may not be, thought strange. But the people remain
quite hardened (against her), and I think they would do more if they had
more power."
Thus the months passed, the Pope being plied by alternate threats and
hopes, both by English and Spanish agents, until he was nearly beside
himself, Wolsey almost frantically professing his desire to forward the
King's object, and Campeggio temporising and trying to find a means of
conciliation which would leave the King free. Katharine herself remained
immovable. She had asked for and obtained from the Emperor a copy of the
Papal brief authorising her marriage with Henry, but the King's advocates
questioned its authenticity,[74] and even her own advisers urged her to
obey her husband's request that she should demand of the Emperor the
original document. Constrained by her sworn pledge to write nothing to the
Emperor without the King's knowledge, she sent the letter dictated to her,
urgently praying her nephew to send the original brief to England. The
letter was carried to Spain by her young English confessor, Thomas Abel,
whom she did not entirely trust, and sent with him her Spanish usher,
Montoya; but they had verbal instructions from their mistress to pray the
Emperor to disregard her written request, and refuse to part with the
brief, and to exert all his influence to have the case decided in
Rome.[75] By this it will be seen that Katharine was fully a match in
duplicity for those against whom she was pitted. She never wavered from
first to last in her determination to refuse to acknowledge the sentence
of any court sitting in England on her case, and to resist all attempts to
induce her to withdraw voluntarily from her conjugal position and enter a
nunnery. Henry, and especially Anne, in the meanwhile, were growing
impatient at all this calculated delay, and began to throw the blame upon
Wolsey. "The young lady used very rude words to him," wrote Du Bellay on
the 25th January, and "the Duke of Norfolk and his party already began to
talk big."[76] A few days afterwards Mendoza, in a letter to the Emperor,
spoke even more strongly. "The young lady that is the cause of all this
disorder, finding her marriage delayed, that she thought herself so sure
of, entertains great suspicion that Wolsey puts impediments in her way,
from a belief that if she were Queen his power would decline. In this
suspicion she is joined by her father and the Dukes of Norfolk and
Suffolk, who have combined to overthrow the Cardinal." "The King is so hot
upon it (the divorce) that there is nothing he does not promise to gain
his end.... Campeggio has done nothing for the Queen as yet but to press
her to enter religion."[77]
Henry at length determined that he would wait no longer. His four agents
in Rome had almost driven the Pope to distraction with their
importunities. Gardiner had gone to the length of threatening Clement with
the secession of England from the Papacy, and Anne's cousin, Henry's boon
companion Brian, deploring the Pope's obstinacy in a letter from Rome to
the King, was bold enough to say: "I hope I shall not die until your
Grace has been able to requite the Pope, and Popes, and not be fed with
their flattering words." But in spite of it all, Clement would only
palliate and temporise, and finally refused to give any fresh instructions
to the Legates or help the King's cause by any new act. To Campeggio he
wrote angrily, telling him, for God's sake, to procrastinate the matter in
England somehow, and not throw upon his shoulders in Rome the
responsibility of giving judgment; whilst Campeggio, though professing a
desire to please Henry in everything--in the hope of getting the promised
rich See of Durham, his enemies said--was equally determined not to go an
inch beyond the Pope's written instructions, or to assume responsibility
for the final decision. The churchmen indeed were shuffling and lying all
round, for the position was threatening, with Lutheranism daily becoming
bolder and the Emperor growing ever more peremptory, now that he had
become reconciled to the Pope.
By the end of May Henry had had enough of dallying, especially as rumours
came from Rome that the Pope might revoke the commission of the Legates;
and the great hall of the Monastery of Blackfriars was made ready for the
sittings of the Legatine Court. On a raised dais were two chairs of state,
covered with cloth of gold, and on the right side of the dais a throne and
canopy for the King, confronted by another for the Queen. The first
sittings of the Legates were formal, and the King and Queen were summoned
to appear before the tribunal on the 18th June 1529. Early in the morning
of the day appointed the hall was full to overflowing with bishops,
clerics, and councillors, and upon the crowd there fell the hush of those
who consciously look upon a great drama of real life. After the Bishops of
Bath and Lincoln had testified that citations to the King and Queen had
been delivered, and other formal statements had been taken, an usher stood
forth and cried: "Henry, King of England, appear." But Henry was at
Greenwich, five miles away, and in his stead there answered the
ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr. Sampson. Then "Katharine, Queen of England"
rang out, and into the hall there swept the procession of the Queen,
herself rustling in stiff black garments, with four bishops, amongst them
Fisher of Rochester, and a great train of ladies. Standing before the
throne erected for her, she made a low obeisance to the Legates; and then,
in formal terms, protested against the competence of the tribunal to judge
her case, consisting, as it did, of those dependent upon one of the
parties, and unable to give an impartial judgment. She appealed from the
Legates to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, without fear or favour of man,
would decide according to divine and human law. Then with another low
obeisance Katharine turned her back upon the Court, and returned to the
adjoining palace of Bridewell.
On the following Monday, the 21st, the Court again sat to give judgment
upon her protest, which Campeggio would have liked to accept and so to
relieve him of his difficulty but for the pressure put upon him by Wolsey
and the Court. To the call of his name Henry on this occasion answered in
person from his throne, "Here," whilst the Queen contented herself by an
inclination of the head. When the Legates had rejected her protest, the
King rose, and in one of his sanctimonious speeches once more averred his
admiration and affection for his wife, and swore that his fear of living
sinfully was the sole cause of his having raised the question of the
validity of his marriage. When his speech had ended Katharine rose.
Between them the clerks and assessors sat at a large table, so that she
had to make the whole circuit of the hall to approach the King. As she
came to the foot of his throne she knelt before him for a last appeal to
his better feelings. In broken English, and with tears coursing down her
cheeks, she spoke of their long married life together, of the little
daughter they both loved so well, of her obedience and devotion to him,
and finally called him and God to witness that her marriage with his
brother had been one in name only. Then, rising, she bowed low to the man
who was still her husband, and swept from the room. When she reached the
door, Henry, realising that all Christendom would cry out against him if
she was judged in her absence, bade the usher summon her back, but she
turned to the Welsh courtier, Griffin Richards, upon whose arm she leaned,
saying: "Go on, it is no matter; this is no impartial Court to me," and
thus, by an act of defiance, bade Henry do his worst. Like other things
she did, it was brave, even heroic in the circumstances, but it was unwise
from every point of view.
It would be profitless to follow step by step the further proceedings,
which Campeggio and Wolsey, at least, must have known were hollow. The
Court sat from week to week, and Henry grew more angry as each sitting
ended fruitlessly, the main question at issue now being the consummation
or non-consummation of the first marriage; until, at the end of July,
Campeggio demanded a vacation till October, in accordance with the rule in
Roman Courts.[78] Whilst this new delay was being impatiently borne, the
revocation of the powers of the Legates, so long desired by Campeggio,
came from Rome, and Henry saw that the churchmen had cheated him after
all. His rage knew no bounds; and the Cardinal's enemies, led by Anne and
her kinsmen, cleverly served now by the new man Stephen Gardiner, fanned
the flame against Wolsey. He might still, however, be of some use; and
though in deadly fear he was not openly disgraced yet. One day the King
sent for him to Bridewell during the recess, and was closeted with him for
an hour. In his barge afterwards on his way home Wolsey sat perturbed and
unhappy with the Bishop of Carlisle. "It is a very hot day," said the
latter. "Yes," replied the unhappy man, "if you had been as well chafed as
I have been in the last hour you would say it was hot." Wolsey in his
distress went straight to bed when he arrived at York Place, but before he
had lain two hours Anne's father came to his bedside to order him in the
name of the King to accompany Campeggio to Bridewell, to make another
attempt to move the Queen. He had to obey, and, calling at Bath House for
Campeggio on his way, they sought audience of Katharine. They found her
cool and serene--indeed she seems rather to have overplayed the part. She
came to meet them with a skein of silk around her neck. "I am sorry to
keep you waiting," she said; "I was working with my ladies." To Wolsey's
request for a private audience she replied that he might speak before her
people, she had no secrets with him; and when he began to speak in Latin
she bade him use English. Throughout she was cool and stately, and, as may
be supposed, the visit was as fruitless as others had been.
Wolsey was not quite done with even yet. He might still act as Legate
alone, if the Pope's decretal deciding the law of the case in favour of
Henry could be obtained from Campeggio, who had held it so tightly by the
Pope's command. So when Campeggio was painfully carried into
Northamptonshire in September to take leave of the King, Wolsey was
ordered to accompany him. Henry thought it politic to receive them without
open sign of displeasure, and sent the Italian Cardinal on his way with
presents and smooth words. Wolsey escorted him a few miles on his road
from Grafton, where the King was staying, to Towcester; but when next day
the Cardinal returned to Grafton alone he found the King's door shut
against him, and Norreys brought him an order that he was to return to
London. It was a blow that struck at his heart, and he went sadly with
the shadow of impending ruin upon him, never to set eyes on his master
more. Before his final fall there was still one thing he might do, and he
was given a few days' reprieve that he might do it. The Pope had pledged
himself in writing not to withdraw the Legates' commission, and although
he had done so the original commission might still be alleged as authority
for Wolsey to act alone, if only the Papal decretal could be found.
Campeggio's privileged character was consequently ignored, and all his
baggage ransacked in the hope of finding the document before he left
English soil. Alas! as an eye-witness tells us, all that the packs
contained were "old hosen, old coates, and such vile stuff as no honest
man would carry," for the decretal had been committed to the flames months
before by the Pope's orders; and the outraged old Italian Legate, with his
undignified belongings, crossed the Channel and so passes out of our
history.
Anne had so far triumphed by the coalition of Wolsey's enemies. Her own
hatred of him was more jealous and personal than political; for she and
her paternal family were decidedly French in their sympathies, and Wolsey,
at all events in the latest stages, had striven his utmost to help forward
her marriage with the King. The older nobility, led by Norfolk, who had
deserted Katharine their former ally, in order to use Anne for their
rival's ruin, had deeper and longer-standing motives for their hate of the
Cardinal. Although most of them now were heavily bribed and pensioned by
France, their traditions were always towards the Imperial and Spanish
alliance, and against bureaucratic ministers. There was yet another
element that had joined Anne's party in order to overthrow Wolsey. It
consisted of those who from patriotic sentiment resented the galling
supremacy of a foreign prince over the English Church, and cast their eyes
towards Germany, where the process of emancipation from the Papacy was in
full swing. The party in England was not a large one, and hardly concerned
itself yet with fine points of doctrine. It was more an expression of the
new-born English pride and independence than the religious revolt it was
to become later; and the fit mouthpiece of the feeling was bluff Charles
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had publicly insulted the Legates in the
hall at Blackfriars.
It is obvious that a party consisting of so many factions would lose its
cohesion when its main object was attained with the fall of Wolsey. The
latter had bent before the storm, and at once surrendered all his plunder
to the King and to Anne's relatives, which secured his personal immunity
for a time, whilst he watched for the divisions amongst his opponents that
might give him his chance again. Anne's uncle, Norfolk, aristocratic and
conservative, took the lead in the new government, to the annoyance of the
Duke of Suffolk, who occupied a secondary place, for which his lack of
political ability alone qualified him. Sir Thomas More became Chancellor,
and between him and Anne there was no great love lost, whilst Anne's
father, now Earl of Wiltshire, became Lord Privy Seal, and her brother,
Lord Rochford, was sent as English ambassador to France. With such a
government as this--of which Anne was the real head[79]--no very distinct
line of policy could be expected. The Parliament, which was summoned on
Wolsey's fall, was kept busy legalising the enrichment of Anne at the
expense of the Cardinal, and in clamorous complaints of the abuses
committed by the clergy, but when foreign affairs had to be dealt with the
voice of the government was a divided one. Anne and her paternal family
were still in favour of France; but the Emperor and the Pope were close
friends now, and it was felt necessary by the King and Norfolk to attempt
to reconcile them to the divorce, if possible, by a new political
arrangement. For this purpose Anne's father travelled to Bologna, where
Charles and Clement were staying together, and urged the case of his
master. The only result was a contemptuous refusal from the Emperor to
consider any proposal for facilitating his aunt's repudiation; and the
serving of Wiltshire, as Henry's representative, with a formal citation of
the King of England to appear in person or by proxy before the Papal Court
in Rome entrusted with the decision of the divorce case. This latter
result drove Henry and Anne into a fury, and strengthened their discontent
against the churchmen, whilst it considerably decreased the King's
confidence in Wiltshire's ability. It was too late now to recall Wolsey,
although the French government did what was possible to soften the King's
rigour against him; but Henry longed to be able again to command the
consummate ability and experience of his greatest minister, and early in
the year 1530 Henry himself became a party to an intrigue for the
Cardinal's partial rehabilitation. Anne, when she thought Wolsey was
dying, was persuaded to send him a token and a kind message; but when,
later, she learnt that an interview between the King and him was in
contemplation, she took fright; and Norfolk, who at least was at one with
her in her jealousy of the fallen minister, ordered the latter to go to
his diocese of York, and not to approach within five miles of the King.
Anne's position in the King's household was now a most extraordinary one.
She had visited the fine palace, York Place, which Wolsey had conveyed to
the King at Westminster; and with the glee of a child enjoying a new toy,
had inspected and appraised the splendours it contained. In future it was
to be the royal residence, and she was its mistress. She sat at table in
Katharine's place, and even took precedence of the Duchess of Norfolk and
ladies of the highest rank. This was all very well in its way, but it did
not satisfy Anne. To be Queen in name as well as in fact was the object
for which she was striving, and anything less galled her. The Pope was now
hand in glove with the Emperor, and could not afford to waver on Henry's
side, whilst Charles was more determined than ever to prevent the close
alliance between England and France that the marriage and a Boleyn
predominance seemed to forebode. The natural effect of this was, of
course, to drive Henry more than ever into the arms of France, and though
Wolsey had owed his unpopularity largely to his French sympathies, he had
never truckled so slavishly to Francis as Henry was now obliged to do, in
order to obtain his support for the divorce, which he despaired of
obtaining from the Pope without French pressure. The Papal Court was
divided, then and always, into French and Spanish factions, and in North
Italy French and Spanish agents perpetually tried to outwit each other.
Throughout the Continent, wherever the influence of France extended,
pressure was exerted to obtain legal opinions favourable to Henry's
contention. Bribes, as lavish as they were barefaced, were offered to
jurists for decisions confirming the view that marriage with a deceased
brother's widow was invalid in fact, and incapable of dispensation. The
French Universities were influenced until some sort of irregular dictum,
afterwards formally repudiated, was obtained in favour of Henry, and in
Italy French and Spanish intrigue were busy at work, the one extorting
from lawyers support to the English view, the other by threats and bribes
preventing its being given. This, however, was a slow process, and of
doubtful efficacy after all; because, whilst the final decision on the
divorce lay with the Pope, the opinions of jurists and Universities, even
if they had been generally favourable to Henry, instead of the reverse,
could have had ultimately no authoritative effect.
Henry began to grow restive by the end of 1530. All his life he had seemed
to have his own way in everything, and here he found himself and his most
ardent wishes unceremoniously set aside, as if of no account. Other kings
had obtained divorces easily enough from Rome: why not he? The answer that
would naturally occur to him was that his affairs were being ineptly
managed by his ministers, and he again yearned for Wolsey. The Cardinal
had in the meanwhile plucked up some of his old spirit at York, and was
still in close communication with the French, and even with the Emperor's
ambassador. Again Norfolk became alarmed, and a disclosure of the intrigue
gave an excuse for Wolsey's arrest. It was the last blow, and the heart of
the proud Cardinal broke on his way south to prison, leaving Henry with no
strong councillor but the fair-faced woman with the tight mouth who sat in
his wife's place. She was brave; "as fierce as a lioness," the Emperor's
ambassador wrote, and would "rather see the Queen hanged than recognise
her as her mistress"; but the party behind her was a divided one, and the
greatest powers in Europe were united against her. There was only one way
in which she might win, and that was by linking her cause with that of
successful opposition to the Papacy. The Pope was a small Italian prince
now slavishly subservient to the Emperor: Luther had defied a greater
Sovereign Pontiff than he; why should Clement, a degenerate scion of the
mercantile Medicis, dare to dictate to England and her King?