and consequently of him who was held to be Christ's vicar, above all
worldly sovereignties, was an established reality of mediæval Europe. The
princes had with difficulty preserved their jurisdiction in matters purely
secular; while in matters spiritual, and in that vast section of human
affairs in which the spiritual and the secular glide one into the other,
they had been compelled--all such of them as lay within the pale of the
Latin communion--to acknowledge a power superior to their own. To the popes
was the ultimate appeal in all causes of which the spiritual courts had
cognisance. Their jurisdiction had been extended by an unwavering pursuit
of a single policy, and their constancy in the twelfth century was rewarded
by absolute victory. In England, however, the field was no sooner won than
it was again disputed, and the civil government gave way at last only when
the danger seemed to have ceased. So long as the papacy was feared, so long
as the successors of St. Peter held a sword which could inflict sensible
wounds, and enforce obedience by penalties, the English kings had resisted
both the theory and the application. While the pope was dangerous he was
dreaded and opposed. When age had withered his arm, and the feeble
lightnings flickered in harmless insignificance, they consented to withdraw
their watchfulness, and his supremacy was silently allowed as an innocent
superstition. It existed as some other institutions exist at the present
day, with a merely nominal authority; with a tacit understanding, that the
power which it was permitted to retain should be exerted only in conformity
with the national will.
Under these conditions the Tudor princes became loyal subjects to the Holy
See, and so they would have willingly remained, had not Clement, in an evil
hour for himself, forgotten the terms of the compact. He laid upon a legal
fiction a strain which his predecessors, in their palmiest days, would have
feared to attempt; and the nation, after grave remonstrance, which was only
received with insults, exorcised the chimæra with a few resolute words for
ever. The parliament, in asserting the freedom of England, carefully chose
their language. They did not pass a new law, but they passed an act
declaratory merely of the law which already existed, and which they were
vindicating against illegal encroachment. "Whereas," says the Statute of
Appeals, "by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is
manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire,
and so hath been accepted in the world; governed by one supreme head and
king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the
same; unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people,
divided in terms by names of spiritualty and temporalty, be bound and ought
to bear, next to God, a natural and humble obedience: he being also
institute and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God with
plenary, whole, and entire power, pre-eminence and authority, prerogative
and jurisdiction, to render and yield justice and final determination to
all manner of folk resident or subject within this his realm, without
restraint or provocation to any foreign prince or potentate of the world:
the body spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the law divine
happened to come in question, or of spiritual learning, [such cause being]
declared, interpret, and shewed by that part of the body politic called the
spiritualty, now usually called the English church; (which also hath been
reported and also found of that sort, that both for knowledge, integrity,
and sufficiency of numbers, it hath been always thought to be, and is also
at this hour sufficient and meet of itself, without the interfering of any
exterior person or persons, to declare and determine all such doubts, and
to administer all such offices and duties as to the administration of their
rooms spiritual doth appertain): and the laws temporal, for trial of
property of lands and goods, and for the conservation of the people of this
realm in unity and peace, having been and yet being administered, adjudged,
and executed by sundry judges and administers of the said body politic
called the temporalty: and seeing that both these authorities and
jurisdictions do conjoin together for the due administration of justice,
the one to help the other: and whereas the king's most noble progenitors,
and the nobility and commons of this said realm at divers and sundry
parliaments, as well in the time of King Edward I., Edward III., Richard
II., Henry IV., and other noble kings of this realm, made sundry
ordinances, laws, and provisions for the conservation of the prerogatives,
liberties, and pre-eminences of the imperial crown of this realm, and of
the jurisdiction spiritual and temporal of the same, to keep it from the
annoyance as well of the see of Rome as from the authority of other foreign
potentates attempting the diminution or violation thereof, as often as from
time to time any such annoyance or attempt might be known or espied: and
notwithstanding the said good statutes and ordinances, and since the making
thereof, divers inconveniences and dangers not provided for plainly by the
said statutes, have risen and sprung by reason of appeals sued out of this
realm to the see of Rome, in causes testamentary, causes of matrimony and
divorce, right of tithes, oblations, and obventions, not only to the great
inquietation, vexation, trouble, costs, and charges of the King's Highness,
and many of his subjects and residents in this his realm; but also to the
delay and let of the speedy determination of the said causes, for so much
as parties appealing to the said court of Rome most commonly do the same
for the delay of justice; and forasmuch as the great distance of way is so
far out of this realm, so that the necessary proofs, nor the true knowledge
of the causes, can neither there be so well known, nor the witnesses so
well examined there as within this realm, so that the parties grieved by
means of the said appeals be most times without remedy; in consideration
hereof, all testamentary and matrimonial causes, and all suits for tithes,
oblations, and obventions shall henceforth be adjudged in the spiritual and
temporal courts within the realm, without regard to any process of foreign
jurisdiction, or any inhibition, excommunication, or interdict. Persons
procuring processes, inhibitions, appeals, or citations from the court of
Rome, as well as their fautors, comforters, counsellors, aiders and
abettors, all and every of them shall incur the penalties of premunire; and
in all such cases as have hitherto admitted of appeal to Rome, the appeals
shall be from the Archdeacon's court to the Bishop's court, from the
Bishop's court to that of the Archbishop, and no further."[416]
The act was carried through Parliament in February, but again, as with the
Annates Bill, the king delayed his sanction till the post could reach and
return from the Vatican. The Bishop of Bayonne wrote that there was hope
that Clement might yet give way, and entreated that the king would send an
"excusator," a person formally empowered to protest for him that he could
not by the laws of England plead at a foreign tribunal; and that with this
imperfect recognition of his authority the pope would be satisfied.
Chastillon, the French ambassador, had an interview with the king, to
communicate the bishop's message.
"The morning after," Chastillon wrote, "his Majesty sent for me and desired
me to repeat my words before the council. I obeyed; but the majority
declared, that there was nothing in them to act upon, and that the king
must not put himself in subjection. His Majesty himself, too, I found less
warm than in his preceding conversation. I begged the council to be
patient. I said everything that I could think of likely to weigh with the
king, I promised him a sentence from our Holy Father declaring his first
marriage null, his present marriage good. I urged him on all grounds,
public and private, to avoid a rupture with the Holy See. Such a sentence,
I said, would be the best security for the queen, and the safest guarantee
for the unopposed succession of her offspring. If the marriage was
confirmed by the Holy Father's authority, the queen's enemies would lose
the only ground where they could make a stand. The peace of the realm was
now menaced. The emperor talked loudly and made large preparations. Let the
king be allied with France, and through France with the Holy See, and the
emperor could do him no harm. Thus I said my proposals were for the benefit
of the realm of his Majesty, and of the children who might be born to him.
The king would act more prudently both for his own interest, and for the
interest of his children, in securing himself, than in running a risk of
creating universal confusion; and, besides, he owed something to the king
his brother, who had worked so long and so hard for him.
"After some further conversation, his Majesty took me aside into a garden,
where he told me that for himself he agreed in what I had said; but he
begged me to keep his confidence secret. He fears, I think, to appear to
condescend too easily.
"He will not, however, publish the acts of parliament till he sees what is
done at Rome. The vast sums of money which used to be sent out of the
country will go no longer; but in other respects he will be glad to return
to good terms. He will send the excusator when he hears again from M. de
Paris; and for myself, I think, that although the whole country is in a
blaze against the pope, yet with the good will and assistance of the king,
the Holy Father will be reinstated in the greater part of his
prerogatives."
But the hope that the pope would yield proved again delusive. Henry wrote
to him himself in the spirit of his conversation with Chastillon. His
letter was presented by Cardinal Tournon, and Clement said all that could
be said in acknowledgment without making the one vital concession. But
whenever it was put before him that the cause must be heard and decided in
England and in no other place, he talked in the old language of uncertainty
and impossibilities;[417] and Henry learning at the same time that a
correspondence was going forward between Clement and Francis, with the
secrets of which he was not made acquainted, went forward upon his own way.
April brought with it the certainty that the expected concessions were
delusive. Anne Boleyn's pregnancy made further delay impossible.
D'Inteville, who had succeeded Chastillon as French ambassador, once more
attempted to interfere, but in vain. Henry told him he could not help
himself, the pope forced him to the course which he was pursuing, by the
answer which he had been pleased to issue; and he could only encounter
enmity with its own weapons. "The archbishop," d'Inteville wrote to
Francis, "will try the question, and will give judgment. I entreated the
king to wait till the conference at Nice, but he would not consent. I
prayed him to keep the sentence secret till the pope had seen your Majesty;
he replied it was impossible."[418]
Thus the statute became law which transferred to the English courts of law
the power so long claimed and exercised by the Roman see. There are two
aspects under which it may be regarded, as there were two objects for which
it was passed. Considered as a national act, few persons will now deny that
it was as just in itself as it was politically desirable. If the pope had
no jurisdiction over English subjects, it was well that he should be known
to have none; if he had, it was equally well that such jurisdiction should
cease. The question was not of communion between the English and Roman
churches, which might or might not continue, but which this act would not
affect. The pope might still retain his rights of episcopal precedency,
whatever those might be, with all the privileges attached to it. The
parliament merely declared that he possessed no right of interference in
domestic disputes affecting persons and property.
But the act had a special as well as a national bearing, and here it is
less easy to arrive at a just conclusion. It destroyed the validity of
Queen Catherine's appeal; it placed a legal power in the hands of the
English judges to proceed to pass sentence upon the divorce; and it is open
to the censure which we ever feel entitled to pass upon a measure enacted
to meet the particular position of a particular person. When embarrassments
have arisen from unforeseen causes, we have a right to legislate to prevent
a repetition of those embarrassments. Our instincts tell us that no
legislation should be retrospective, and should affect only positions which
have been entered into with a full knowledge at the time of the condition
of the laws.
The statute endeavours to avoid the difficulty by its declaratory form; but
again this is unsatisfactory; for that the pope possessed some authority
was substantially acknowledged in every application which was made to him;
and when Catherine had married under a papal dispensation, it was a strange
thing to turn upon her, and to say, not only that the dispensation in the
particular instance had been unlawfully granted, but that the pope had no
jurisdiction in the matter by the laws of the land which she had entered.
On the other hand, throughout the entire negotiations King Henry and his
ministers had insisted jealously on the English privileges. They had
declared from the first that they might, if they so pleased, fall back upon
their own laws. In desiring that the cause might be heard by a papal legate
in England, they had represented themselves rather as condescending to a
form than acknowledging a right; and they had, in fact, in allowing the
opening of Campeggio's court, fallen, all of them, even Henry himself,
under the penalties of the statutes of provisors. The validity of
Catherine's appeal they had always consistently denied. If the papal
jurisdiction was to be admitted at all, it could only be through a minister
sitting as judge within the realm of England; and the maxim, "Ne Angli
extra Angliam litigare cogantur," was insisted upon as the absolute
privilege of every English subject.
Yet, if we allow full weight to these considerations, a feeling of painful
uncertainty continues to cling to us; and in ordinary cases to be uncertain
on such a point is to be in reality certain. The state of the law could not
have been clear, or the statute of appeals would not have been required;
and explain it as we may, it was in fact passed for a special cause against
a special person; and that person a woman.
How far the parliament was justified by the extremity of the case is a
further question, which it is equally difficult to answer. The alternative,
as I have repeatedly said, was an all but inevitable civil war, on the
death of the king; and practically, when statesmen are entrusted with the
fortunes of an empire, the responsibility is too heavy to allow them to
consider other interests. Salus populi suprema lex, ever has been and ever
will be the substantial canon of policy with public men, and morality is
bound to hesitate before it censures them. There are some acts of injustice
which no national interest can excuse, however great in itself that
interest may be, or however certain to be attained by the means proposed.
Yet government, in its easiest tax, trenches to a certain extent on natural
right and natural freedom; and trenches further and further in proportion
to the emergency with which it has to deal. How far it may go in this
direction, or whether Henry VIII. and his parliament went too far, is a
difficult problem; their best justification is an exceptive clause
introduced into the act, which was intended obviously to give Queen
Catherine the utmost advantage which was consistent with the liberties of
the realm. "In case," says the concluding paragraph, "of any cause, or
matter, or contention now depending for the causes before rehearsed, or
that hereafter shall come into contention for any of the same causes in any
of the foresaid courts, which hath, doth, shall, or may touch the king, his
heirs or successors, kings of this realm; in all or every such case or
cases the party grieved as aforesaid shall or may appeal from any of the
said courts of this realm, to the spiritual prelates and other abbots and
priors of the Upper House, assembled and convocate by the king's writ in
convocation."[419] If Catherine's cause was as just as Catholics and
English high churchmen are agreed to consider it, the English church might
have saved her. If Catherine herself had thought first or chiefly of
justice, she would not perhaps have accepted the arbitration of the English
convocation; but long years before she would have been in a cloister.
Thus it is that while we regret, we are unable to blame; and we cannot wish
undone an act, to have shrunk from which might have spared a single heart,
but _might_ have wrecked the English nation. We increase our pity for
Catherine because she was a princess. We measure the magnitude of the evils
which human beings endure by their position in the scale of society; and
misfortunes which private persons would be expected to bear without
excessive complaining, furnish matter for the lamentation of ages when they
touch the sacred head which has been circled with a diadem. Let it be so.
Let us compensate the queen's sorrows with unstinted sympathy; but let us
not trifle with history, by confusing a political necessity with a moral
crime.
The English parliament, then, had taken up the gauntlet which the pope had
flung to it with trembling fingers: and there remained nothing but for the
Archbishop of Canterbury to make use of the power of which by law he was
now possessed. And the time was pressing, for the new queen was enciente,
and further concealment was not to be thought of. The delay of the
interview between the pope and Francis, and the change in the demeanour of
the latter, which had become palpably evident, discharged Henry of all
promises by which he might have bound himself; and to hesitate before the
menaces of the pope's brief would have been fatal.
The act of appeals being passed, convocation was the authority to which the
power of determining unsettled points of spiritual law seemed to have
lapsed. In the month of April, therefore, Cranmer, now Archbishop of
Canterbury,[420] submitted to it the two questions, on the resolution of
which the sentence which he was to pass was dependent.
The first had been already answered separately by the bench of bishops and
by the universities, and had been agitated from end to end of Europe--was
it lawful to marry the widow of a brother dying without issue, but having
consummated his marriage; and was the Levitical prohibition of such a
marriage grounded on a divine law, with which the pope could not dispense,
or on a canon law of which a dispensation was permissible?[421]
The pope had declared himself unable to answer; but he had allowed that the
general opinion was against the power of dispensing,[422] and there could
be little doubt, therefore, of the reply of the English convocation, or at
least of the upper house. Fisher attempted an opposition; but wholly
without effect. The, question was one in which the interests of the higher
clergy were not concerned, and they were therefore left to the dominion of
their ordinary understandings. Out of two hundred and sixty-three votes,
nineteen only were in the pope's favour.[423]
The lower house was less unanimous, as might have been expected, and as had
been experienced before; the opposition spirit of the English clergy being
usually then, as much as now, in the ratio of their poverty. But there too
the nature of the case compelled an overwhelming majority.[424] It was
decided by both houses that Pope Julius, in granting a licence for the
marriage of Henry and Catherine, had exceeded his authority, and that this
marriage was therefore, _ab initio_, void.
The other question to be decided was one of fact; whether the marriage of
Catherine with Prince Arthur had or had not been consummated, a matter
which the Catholic divines conceived to be of paramount importance, but
which to few persons at the present day will seem of any importance
whosoever. We cannot even read the evidence which was produced without a
sensation of disgust, although in those broader and less conscious ages the
indelicacy was less obviously perceptible. And we may console ourselves
with the hope that the discussion was not so wounding as might have been
expected to the feelings of Queen Catherine, since at all official
interviews, with all classes of persons, at all times and in all places,
she appeared herself to court the subject.[425] There is no occasion in
this place to follow her example. It is enough that Ferdinand, at the time
of her first marriage, satisfied himself, after curious inquiry, that he
might hope for a grandchild; and that the fact of the consummation was
asserted in the treaty between England and Spain, which preceded the
marriage with Henry, and in this supposed brief of Pope Julius which
permitted it.[426] We cannot in consequence be surprised that the
convocation accepted the conclusion which was sanctioned by so high
authority, and we rather wonder at the persistency of Catherine's denials.
With respect to this vote, therefore, we need notice nothing except that
Dr. Clerk, Bishop of Bath and Wells[427] was one of an exceedingly small
minority, who were inclined to believe that the denial might be true, and
this bishop was one of the four who were associated with Cranmer when he
sate at Dunstable for the trial of the cause.
The ground being thus opened, and all preparations being completed, the
archbishop composed a formal letter to the king, in which he dwelt upon the
uncertain prospects of the succession, and the danger of leaving a question
which closely affected it so long unsettled. He expatiated at length on the
general anxiety which was felt throughout the realm, and requested
permission to employ the powers attached to his office to bring it to some
conclusion. The recent alterations had rendered the archbishop something
doubtful of the nature of his position; he was diffident and unwilling to
offend; and not clearly knowing in the exercise of the new authority which
had been granted to him, whether the extension of his power was accompanied
with a parallel extension of liberty in making use of it, he wrote two
copies of this letter, with slight alterations of language, that the king
might select between them the one which he would officially recognise. Both
these copies are extant; both were written the same day from the same
place; both were folded, sealed, and sent. It seems, therefore, that
neither was Cranmer furnished beforehand with a draught of what he was to
write; nor was his first letter sent back to him corrected. He must have
acted by his own judgment; and a comparison of the two letters is singular
and instructive. In the first he spoke of his office and duty in language,
chastened indeed and modest, but still language of independence; and while
he declared his unwillingness to "enterprise any part of that office"
without his Grace's favour obtained, and pleasure therein first known, he
implied nevertheless that his request was rather of courtesy than of
obligation, and had arisen rather from a sense of moral propriety than
because he might not legally enter on the exercise of his duty without the
permission of the crown.[428]
The moderate gleam of freedom vanishes in the other copy under a few pithy
changes, as if Cranmer instinctively felt the revolution which had taken
place in the relations of church and state. Where in the first letter he
asked for his Grace's favour, in the second he asked for his Grace's favour
_and licence_--where in the first he requested to know his Grace's pleasure
as to his proceeding, in the second he desired his Most Excellent Majesty
to _license_ him to proceed. The burden of both letters was the same, but
the introduction of the little word license changed all. It implied a
hesitating belief that the spiritual judges might perhaps thenceforward be
on a footing with the temporal judges and the magistrates; that under the
new constitution they were to understand that they held their offices not
directly under God as they had hitherto pretended, but under God through
the crown.
The answer of Henry indicated that he had perceived the archbishop's
uncertainty; and that he was desirous by the emphatic distinctness of his
own language to spare him a future recurrence of it. He accepted the
deferential version of the petition; but even Cranmer's anticipation of
what might be required of him had not reached the reality. In running
through the preamble, the king flung into the tone of it a character of
still deeper humility;[429] and he conceded the desired licence in the
following imperial style. "In consideration of these things,"--_i.e._ of
the grounds urged by the archbishop for the petition--"albeit we being your
King and Sovereign, do recognise no superior on earth but only God, and not
being subject to the laws of any earthly creature; yet because ye be under
us, by God's calling and ours, the most principal minister of our spiritual
jurisdiction within this our Realm, who we think assuredly is so in the
fear of God, and love towards the observance of his laws, to the which
laws, we as a Christian king have always heretofore, and shall ever most
obediently submit ourself, we will not therefore refuse (our pre-eminence,
power, and authority to us and to our successors in this behalf
nevertheless saved) your humble request, offer, and towardness--that is, to
mean to make an end according to the will and pleasure of Almighty God in
our said great cause of matrimony, which hath so long depended
undetermined, to our great and grievous unquietness and burden of our
conscience. Wherefore we, inclining to your humble petition, by these our
letters sealed with our seal, and signed with our sign manual, do license
you to proceed in the said cause, and the examination and final
determination of the same; not doubting but that ye will have God and the
justice of the said cause only before your eyes, and not to regard any
earthly or worldly affection therein; for assuredly the thing which we most
covet in the world, is so to proceed in all our acts and doings as may be
the most acceptable to the pleasure of Almighty God our Creator, to the
wealth and honour of us, our successors and posterity, and the surety of
our Realm, and subjects within the same."[430]
The vision of ecclesiastical independence, if Cranmer had indulged in it,
must have faded utterly before his eyes on receiving this letter. As clergy
who committed felony were no longer exempted from the penalties of their
crimes; so henceforward the courts of the clergy were to fell into
conformity with the secular tribunals. The temporal prerogatives of
ecclesiastics as a body whose authority over the laity was countervailed
with no reciprocal obligation, existed no longer. This is what the language
of the king implied. The difficulty which the persons whom he was
addressing experienced in realising the change in their position, obliged
him to be somewhat emphatic in his assertion of it; and it might be
imagined at first sight, that in insisting on his superiority to the
officers of the spiritual courts, he claimed a right to dictate their
sentences. But to venture such a supposition would be to mistake the nature
of English sovereignty and the spirit of the change. The supreme authority
in England was the law; and the king no more possessed, or claimed a power
of controlling the judgment of the bishops or their ministers, than he
could interfere with the jurisdiction of the judges of the bench. All
persons in authority, whether in church or state, held their offices
thenceforth by similar tenure; but the rule of the proceedings in each
remained alike the law of the land, which Henry had no more thought of
superseding by his own will than the most constitutional of modern princes.
The closing sentences of his reply to Cranmer are striking, and it is
difficult to believe that he did not mean what he was saying. From the
first step in the process to the last, he maintained consistently that his
only object was to do what was right. He was thoroughly persuaded that the
course which he was pursuing was sanctioned by justice--and persons who are
satisfied that he was entitled to feel such persuasion, need not refuse him
the merit of sincerity, because (to use the language which Cromwell used at
the fatal crisis of his life[431]) "It may be well that they who medelle in
many matters are not able to answer for them all."
Cranmer, then, being fortified with this permission, and taking with him
the Bishops of London, Winchester, Lincoln, and Bath and Wells (the latter
perhaps having been chosen in consequence of his late conduct in the
convocation, to give show of fairness to the proceeding), went down to
Dunstable and opened his court there. The queen was at Ampthill, six miles
distant, having entered on her sad tenancy, it would seem, as soon as the
place had been evacuated by the gaudy hunting party of the preceding
summer. The cause being undecided, and her title being therefore uncertain,
she was called by the safe name of "the Lady Catherine," and under this
designation she was served with a citation from the archbishop to appear
before him on Saturday, the 10th of May. The bearers of the summons were
Sir Francis Bryan (an unfortunate choice, for he was cousin of the new
queen, and insolent in his manner and bearing), Sir Thomas Gage, and Lord
Vaux. She received them like herself with imperial sorrow. They delivered
their message; she announced that she refused utterly to acknowledge the
competency of the tribunal before which she was called; the court was a
mockery; the archbishop was a shadow.[432] She would neither appear before
him in person, nor commission any one to appear on her behalf.
The court had but one course before it--she was pronounced contumacious,
and the trial went forward. None of her household were tempted even by
curiosity to be present. "There came not so much as a servant of hers to
Dunstable, save such as were brought in as witnesses;" some of them having
been required to give evidence in the re-examination which was thought
necessary, as to the nature of the relation of their mistress with her
first boy husband. As soon as this disgusting question had been
sufficiently investigated, nothing remained but to pronounce judgment. The
marriage with the king was declared to have been null and void from the
beginning, and on the 23rd of May, the archbishop sent to London the
welcome news that the long matter was at an end.[433]
It was over;--over at last; yet so over, that the conclusion could but
appear to the losing party a fresh injustice. To those who were concerned
in bringing it to pass, to the king himself, to the nation, to Europe, to
every one who heard of it at the time, it must have appeared, as it appears
now to us who read the story of it, if a necessity, yet a most unwelcome
and unsatisfying one. That the king remained uneasy is evident from the
efforts which he continued to make, or which he allowed to be made,
notwithstanding the brief of the 23rd of December, to gain the sanction of
the pope. That the nation was uneasy, we should not require the evidence of
history to tell us. "There was much murmuring in England," says Hall, "and
it was thought by the unwise that the Bishop of Rome would curse all
Englishmen; that the emperor and he would destroy all the people." And
those who had no such fears, and whose judgment in the main approved of
what had been done, were scandalised at the presentation to them at the
instant of the publication of the divorce, of a new queen, four months
advanced in pregnancy. This also was a misfortune which had arisen out of
the chain of duplicities, a fresh accident swelling a complication which
was already sufficiently entangled. It had been occasioned by steps which
at the moment at which they were ventured, prudence seemed to justify; but
we the more regret it, because, in comparison with the interests which were
at issue, the few months of additional delay were infinitely unimportant.
Nevertheless, we have reason to be thankful that the thing, well or ill,
was over; seven years of endurance were enough for the English nation, and
may be supposed to have gained even for Henry a character for patience. In
some way, too, it is needless to say, the thing must have ended. The life
of none of us is long enough to allow us to squander so large a section of
it struggling in the meshes of a law-suit; and although there may be a
difference of opinion on the wisdom of having first entered upon ground of
such a kind, few thinking persons can suggest any other method in which
either the nation or the king could have extricated themselves. Meanwhile,
it was resolved that such spots and blemishes as hung about the transaction
should be forgotten in the splendour of the coronation. If there was
scandal in the condition of the queen, yet under another aspect that
condition was matter of congratulation to a people so eager for an heir;
and Henry may have thought that the sight for the first time in public of
so beautiful a creature, surrounded by the most magnificent pageant which
London had witnessed since the unknown day on which the first stone of it
was laid, and bearing in her bosom the long-hoped-for inheritor of the
English crown, might induce a chivalrous nation to forget what it was the
interest of no loyal subject to remember longer, and to offer her an
English welcome to the throne.
In anticipation of the timely close of the proceedings at Dunstable, notice
had been given in the city early in May, that preparations should be made
for the coronation on the first of the following month. Queen Anne was at
Greenwich, but, according to custom, the few preceding days were to be
spent at the Tower; and on the 19th of May, she was conducted thither in
state by the lord mayor and the city companies, with one of those splendid
exhibitions upon the water which in the days when the silver Thames
deserved its name, and the sun could shine down upon it out of the blue
summer sky, were spectacles scarcely rivalled in gorgeousness by the
world-famous wedding of the Adriatic. The river was crowded with boats, the
banks and the ships in the pool swarmed with people; and fifty great barges
formed the procession, all blazing with gold and banners. The queen herself
was in her own barge, close to that of the lord mayor; and in keeping with
the fantastic genius of the time, she was preceded up the water by "a foyst
or wafter full or ordnance, in which was a great dragon continually moving
and casting wildfire, and round about the foyst stood terrible monsters and
wild men, casting fire and making hideous noise."[434] So, with trumpets
blowing, cannon pealing, the Tower guns answering the guns of the ships, in
a blaze of fireworks and splendour, Anne Boleyn was borne along to the
great archway of the Tower, where the king was waiting on the stairs to
receive her.
And now let us suppose eleven days to have elapsed, the welcome news to
have arrived at length from Dunstable, and the fair summer morning of life
dawning in treacherous beauty after the long night of expectation. No
bridal ceremonial had been possible; the marriage had been huddled over
like a stolen love-match, and the marriage feast had been eaten in vexation
and disappointment. These past mortifications were to be atoned for by a
coronation pageant which the art and the wealth of the richest city in
Europe should be poured out in the most lavish profusion to adorn.
On the morning of the 31st of May, the families of the London citizens were
stirring early in all houses. From Temple Bar to the Tower, the streets
were fresh strewed with gravel, the footpaths were railed off along the
whole distance, and occupied on one side by the guilds, their workmen, and
apprentices, on the other by the city constables and officials in their
gaudy uniforms, "with their staves in hand for to cause the people to keep
good room and order."[435] Cornhill and Gracechurch Street had dressed
their fronts in scarlet and crimson, in arras and tapestry, and the rich
carpet-work from Persia and the East. Cheapside, to outshine her rivals,
was draped even more splendidly in cloth of gold, and tissue, and velvet.
The sheriffs were pacing up and down on their great Flemish horses, hung
with liveries, and all the windows were thronged with ladies crowding to
see the procession pass. At length the Tower guns opened, the grim gates
rolled back, and under the archway in the bright May sunshine, the long
column began slowly to defile. Two states only permitted their
representatives to grace the scene with their presence--Venice and France.
It was, perhaps, to make the most of this isolated countenance, that the
French ambassador's train formed the van of the cavalcade. Twelve French
knights came riding foremost in surcoats of blue velvet with sleeves of
yellow silk, their horses trapped in blue, with white crosses powdered on
their hangings. After them followed a troop of English gentlemen, two and
two, and then the Knights of the Bath, "in gowns of violet, with hoods
purfled with miniver like doctors." Next, perhaps at a little interval, the
abbots passed on, mitred in their robes; the barons followed in crimson
velvet, the bishops then, and then the earls and marquises, the dresses of
each order increasing in elaborate gorgeousness. All these rode on in
pairs. Then came alone Audeley, lord-chancellor, and behind him the
Venetian ambassador and the Archbishop of York; the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Du Bellay, Bishop of Bayonne and of Paris, not now with
bugle and hunting-frock, but solemn with stole and crozier. Next, the lord
mayor, with the city mace in hand, the Garter in his coat of arms; and then
Lord William Howard--Belted Will Howard, of the Scottish Border, Marshal of
England. The officers of the queen's household succeeded the marshal in
scarlet and gold, and the van of the procession was closed by the Duke of
Suffolk, as high constable, with his silver wand. It is no easy matter to
picture to ourselves the blazing trail of splendour which in such a pageant
must have drawn along the London streets,--those streets which now we know
so black and smoke-grimed, themselves then radiant with masses of colour,
gold, and crimson, and violet. Yet there it was, and there the sun could
shine upon it, and tens of thousands of eyes were gazing on the scene out
of the crowded lattices.
Glorious as the spectacle was, perhaps however, it passed unheeded. Those
eyes were watching all for another object, which now drew near. In an open
space behind the constable there was seen approaching "a white chariot,"
drawn by two palfreys in white damask which swept the ground, a golden
canopy borne above it making music with silver bells: and in the chariot
sat the observed of all observers, the beautiful occasion of all this
glittering homage; fortune's plaything of the hour, the Queen of
England--queen at last--borne along upon the waves of this sea of glory,
breathing the perfumed incense of greatness which she had risked her fair
name, her delicacy, her honour, her self-respect, to win; and she had won
it.
There she sate, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose
over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of gold
and diamonds--most beautiful--loveliest--most favoured perhaps, as she
seemed at that hour, of all England's daughters. Alas! "within the hollow
round" of that coronet--
Kept death his court, and there the antick sate,
Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp.
Allowing her a little breath, a little scene
To monarchise, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing her with self and vain conceit,
As if the flesh which walled about her life
Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus,
Bored through her castle walls; and farewell, Queen.
Fatal gift of greatness! so dangerous ever! so more than dangerous in those
tremendous times when the fountains are broken loose of the great deeps of
thought; and nations are in the throes of revolution;--when ancient order
and law and tradition are splitting in the social earthquake; and as the
opposing forces wrestle to and fro, those unhappy ones who stand out above
the crowd become the symbols of the struggle, and fall the victims of its
alternating fortunes. And what if into an unsteady heart and brain,
intoxicated with splendour, the outward chaos should find its way,
converting the poor silly soul into an image of the same confusion,--if
conscience should be deposed from her high place, and the Pandora box be
broken loose of passions and sensualities and follies; and at length there
be nothing left of all which man or woman ought to value, save hope of
God's forgiveness.
Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning, Queen
Anne Boleyn will leave the Tower of London--not radiant then with beauty on
a gay errand of coronation, but a poor wandering ghost, on a sad tragic
errand, from which she will never more return, passing away out of an earth
where she may stay no longer, into a presence where, nevertheless, we know
that all is well--for all of us--and therefore for her.
But let us not cloud her shortlived sunshine with the shadow of the future.
She went on in her loveliness, the peeresses following in their carriages,
with the royal guard in their rear. In Fenchurch Street she was met by the
children of the city schools; and at the corner of Gracechurch Street a
masterpiece had been prepared of the pseudo-classic art, then so
fashionable, by the merchants of the Styll Yard. A Mount Parnassus had been
constructed, and a Helicon fountain upon it playing into a basin with four
jets of Rhenish wine. On the top of the mountain sat Apollo with Calliope
at his feet, and on either side the remaining Muses, holding lutes or
harps, and singing each of them some "posy" or epigram in praise of the
queen, which was presented, after it had been sung, written in letters of
gold.
From Gracechurch Street, the procession passed to Leadenhall, where there
was a spectacle in better taste, of the old English Catholic kind, quaint
perhaps and forced, but truly and even beautifully emblematic. There was
again a "little mountain," which was hung with red and white roses; a gold
ring was placed on the summit, on which, as the queen appeared, a white
falcon was made to "descend as out of the sky"--"and then incontinent came
down an angel with great melody, and set a close crown of gold upon the
falcon's head; and in the same pageant sat Saint Anne with all her issue
beneath her; and Mary Cleophas with her four children, of the which
children one made a goodly oration to the queen, of the fruitfulness of St.
Anne, trusting that like fruit should come of her."[436]
With such "pretty conceits," at that time the honest tokens of an English
welcome, the new queen was received by the citizens of London. These scenes
must be multiplied by the number of the streets, where some fresh fancy met
her at every turn. To preserve the festivities from flagging, every
fountain and conduit within the walls ran all day with wine; the bells of
every steeple were ringing; children lay in wait with song, and ladies with
posies, in which all the resources of fantastic extravagance were
exhausted; and thus in an unbroken triumph--and to outward appearance
received with the warmest affection--she passed under Temple Bar, down the
Strand by Charing Cross to Westminster Hall. The king was not with her
throughout the day; nor did he intend to be with her in any part of the
ceremony. She was to reign without a rival, the undisputed sovereign of the
hour.
Saturday being passed in showing herself to the people, she retired for the
night to "the king's manour house at Westminster," where she slept. On the
following morning, between eight and nine o'clock, she returned to the
hall, where the lord mayor, the city council, and the peers were again
assembled, and took her place on the high dais at the top of the stairs
under the cloth of state; while the bishops, the abbots, and the monks of
the abbey formed in the area. A railed way had been laid with carpets
across Palace Yard and the Sanctuary to the abbey gates, and when all was
ready, preceded by the peers in their robes of parliament, the Knights of
the Garter in the dress of the order, she swept out under her canopy, the
bishops and the monks "solemnly singing." The train was borne by the old
Duchess of Norfolk her aunt, the Bishops of London and Winchester on either
side "bearing up the lappets of her robe." The Earl of Oxford carried the
crown on its cushion immediately before her. She was dressed in purple
velvet furred with ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she usually wore it,
under a wreath of diamonds.
On entering the abbey, she was led to the coronation chair Where she sat
while the train fell into their places, and the preliminaries, of the
ceremonial were despatched. Then she was conducted up to the high altar,
and anointed Queen of England, and she received from the hands of Cranmer,
fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the last words of his sentence
upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the golden sceptre, and St.
Edward's crown.
Did any twinge of remorse, any pang of painful recollection, pierce at that
moment the incense of glory which she was inhaling? Did any vision flit
across her of a sad mourning figure which once had stood where she was
standing, now desolate, neglected, sinking into the darkening twilight of a
life cut short by sorrow? Who can tell? At such a time, that figure would
have weighed heavily upon a noble mind, and a wise mind would have been
taught by the thought of it, that although life be fleeting as a dream, it
is long enough to experience strange vicissitudes of fortune. But Anne
Boleyn was not noble and was not wise,--too probably she felt nothing but
the delicious, all-absorbing, all-intoxicating present, and if that plain,
suffering face presented itself to her memory at all, we may fear that it
was rather as a foil to her own surpassing loveliness. Two years later, she
was able to exult over Catherine's death; she is not likely to have thought
of her with gentler feelings in the first glow and flush of triumph.
We may now leave these scenes. They concluded in the usual English style,
with a banquet in the great hall, and with all outward signs of enjoyment
and pleasure. There must have been but few persons present however who did
not feel that the sunshine of such a day might not last for ever, and that
over so dubious a marriage no Englishman could exult with more than half a
heart. It is foolish to blame lightly actions which arise in the midst of
circumstances which are and can be but imperfectly known; and there may
have been political reasons which made so much pomp desirable. Anne Boleyn
had been the subject of public conversation for seven years, and Henry, no
doubt, desired to present his jewel to them in the rarest and choicest
setting. Yet to our eyes, seeing, perhaps, by the light of what followed, a
more modest introduction would have appeared more suited to the doubtful
nature of her position.
At any rate we escape from this scene of splendour very gladly as from
something unseasonable. It would have been well for Henry VIII. if he had
lived in a world in which women could have been dispensed with; so ill, in
all his relations with them, he succeeded. With men he could speak the
right word, he could do the right thing; with women he seemed to be under a
fatal necessity of mistake.
It was now necessary, however, after this public step, to communicate in
form to the emperor the divorce and the new marriage. The king was assured
of the rectitude of the motives on which he had himself acted, and he knew
at the same time that he had challenged the hostility of the papal world.
Yet he did not desire a quarrel if there were means of avoiding it; and
more than once he had shown respect for the opposition which he had met
with from Charles, as dictated by honourable care for the interests of his
kinswoman. He therefore, in the truest language which will be met with in
the whole long series of the correspondence, composed a despatch for his
ambassador at Brussels, and expressed himself in a tone of honest sorrow
for the injury which he had been compelled to commit. Neither the coercion
which the emperor had exerted over the pope, nor his intrigues with his
subjects in Ireland and England, could deprive the nephew of Catherine of
his right to a courteous explanation; and Henry directed Doctor Nicholas
Hawkins in making his communication "to use only gentle words;" to express
a hope that Charles would not think only of his own honour, but would
remember public justice; and that a friendship of long standing, which the
interests of the subjects of both countries were concerned so strongly in
maintaining, might not be broken. The instructions are too interesting to
pass over with a general description. After stating the grounds on which
Henry had proceeded, and which Charles thoroughly understood, Hawkins was
directed to continue thus:--
"The King of England is not ignorant what respect is due unto the world.
How much he hath laboured and travailed therein he hath sufficiently
declared and showed in his acts and proceedings. If he had contemned the
order and process of the world, or the friendship and amity of your
Majesty, he needed not to have sent so often to the pope and to you both,
nor continued and spent his time in delays. He might have done what he has
done now, had it so liked him, with as little difficulty as now, if without
such respect he would have followed his pleasure."
The minister was then to touch the pope's behaviour and Henry's
forbearance, and after that to say:--
"Going forward in that way his Highness saw that he could come to no
conclusion; and he was therefore compelled to step right forth out of the
maze, and so to quiet himself at last. And is it not time to have an end in
seven years? It is not to be asked nor questioned whether the matter hath
been determined after the common fashion, but whether it hath in it common
justice, truth, and equity. For observation of the common order, his Grace
hath done what lay in him. Enforced by necessity he hath found the true
order which he hath in substance followed with effect, and hath done as
becometh him. He doubteth not but your Majesty, remembering his cause from
the beginning hitherto, will of yourself consider and think, that among
mortal men nothing should be immortal; and suits must once have an end, si
possis recte, si non quocunque modo. If his Highness cannot as he would,
then must he do as he may; and he that hath a journey to be perfected must,
if he cannot go one way, essay another. For his matter with the pope, he
shall deal with him apart. Your Majesty he taketh for his friend, and as to
a friend he openeth these matters to you, trusting to find your Majesty no
less friendly than he hath done heretofore."[437]
If courtesy obliged Henry to express a confidence in the stability of the
relations between himself and Charles, which it was impossible that he
could have felt, yet in other respects this letter has the most pleasant
merit of honesty. Hawkins was so much overcome by "the sweetness of it,"
that "he nothing doubted if that the emperor read the same, by God's grace
he should be utterly persuaded;" and although in this expectation he was a
little over sanguine, as in calmer moments he would have acknowledged, yet
plain speech is never without its value; and Charles himself after he had
tried other expedients, and they had not succeeded with him, found it more
prudent to acquiesce in what could no longer be altered, and to return to
cordiality.
For the present he remained under the impression that by the great body of
the English the divorce was looked upon with coldness and even with
displeasure, that the king was supported only by the complacency of a few
courtiers, and that the nation were prepared to compel him to undo the
wrong which had been inflicted upon Catherine and the princess. So he was
assured by the Spanish party in England; so all the disaffected assured
him, who were perhaps themselves deceived. He had secured Ireland, and
Scotland also in so far as James's promises could secure it;[438] and he
was not disposed to surrender for the present so promising a game till he
had tried his strength and proved his weakness. He replied coldly to
Hawkins, "That for the King of England's amity he would be glad thereof, so
the said king would do works according. The matter was none of his; but the
lady, whose rights had been violated, was his aunt and an orphan, and that
he must see for her, and for her daughter his cousin."[439]
The scarcely ambiguous answer was something softened the following day;
perhaps only, however, because it was too plain a betrayal of his
intentions. He communicated at once with Catherine, and Henry speedily
learnt the nature of the advice which he had given to her. After the
coronation had passed off so splendidly, when no disturbance had risen, no
voice had been raised for her or for her daughter, the poor queen's spirit
for the moment had sunk; she had thought of leaving the country, and flying
with the Princess Mary to Spain. The emperor sent to urge her to remain a
little longer, guaranteeing her, if she could command her patience, an
ample reparation for her injuries. Whatever might appear upon the surface,
the new queen, he was assured, was little loved by the people, and "they
were ready to join with any prince who would espouse her quarrel."[440] All
classes, he said, were agreed in one common feeling of displeasure. They
were afraid of a change of religion; they were afraid of the wreck of their
commerce; and the whole country was fast ripening towards insurrection. The
points on which he relied as the occasion of the disaffection betrayed the
sources of his information. He was in correspondence with the regular
clergy through Peto at Antwerp, and through his Flemish subjects with
merchants of London. Among both these classes, as well as among the White
Rose nobles, he had powerful adherents; and it could not have been
forgotten in the courts, either of London or Brussels, that within the
memory of living men, a small band of exiles, equipped by a Duke of
Burgundy, had landed at a Yorkshire village, and in a month had
revolutionised the kingdom.
In the eyes of Charles there was no reason why an attempt which had
succeeded once might not succeed again under circumstances seemingly of far
fairer promise. The strength of a party of insurrection is a power which
official statesmen never justly comprehend. It depends upon moral
influences, which they are professionally incapable of appreciating. They
are able complacently to ignore the existence of substantial disaffection
though all society may be undermined; they can build their hopes, When it
suits their convenience, on the idle trifling of superficial discontent. In
the present instance there was some excuse for the mistake. That in England
there really existed an active and organised opposition, prepared, when
opportunity offered, to try the chances of rebellion, was no delusion of
persons who measured facts by their desires; it was an ascertained peril of
serious magnitude, which might be seriously calculated upon; and if the
experiment was tried, reasonable men might fairly be divided in opinion on
the result to be expected.
In the meantime the government had been obliged to follow up the coronation
of the new queen by an act which the situation of the kingdom explained and
excused; but which, if Catherine had been no more than a private person,
would have been wanton cruelty. Among the people she still bore her royal
title; but the name of queen, so long as she was permitted to retain it,
was an allowed witness against the legality of the sentence at Dunstable.
There could not be "two queens" in England,[441] and one or other must
retire from the designation. A proclamation was therefore issued by the
council, declaring, that in consequence of the final proofs that the Lady
Catherine had never been lawfully married to the king, she was to bear
thenceforward the title which she had received after the death of her first
husband, and be called the Princess Dowager.
Harsh as this measure was, she had left no alternative to the government by
which to escape the enforcement of it, by her refusal to consent to any
form of compromise. If she was queen, Anne Boleyn was not queen. If she was
queen, the Princess Mary remained the heir to the crown, and the expected
offspring of Anne would be illegitimate. If the question had been merely of
names, to have moved it would have been unworthy and wicked; but where
respect for private feeling was incompatible with the steps which a nation
felt necessary in order to secure itself against civil convulsions, private
feeling was compelled not unjustly to submit to injury. Mary, though still
a girl, had inherited both her father's will and her mother's obstinacy.
She was in correspondence, as we have seen, with the Nun of Kent, and aware
at least, if she was not further implicated in it, of a conspiracy to place
her on the throne. Charles was engaged in the same designs; and it will not
be pretended that Catherine was left without information of what was going
forward, or that her own conduct was uninfluenced by policy. These
intrigues it was positively necessary to stifle, and it was impossible to
leave a pretext of which so powerful a use might be made in the hands of a
party whose object was not only to secure to the princess her right to
succeed her father, but to compel him by arms either to acknowledge it, or
submit to be deposed.[442]
Our sympathies are naturally on the side of the weak and the unsuccessful.
State considerations lose their force after the lapse of centuries, when no
interests of our own are any longer in jeopardy; and we feel for the great
sufferers of history only in their individual capacity, without recalling
or caring for the political exigencies to which they were sacrificed. It is
an error of disguised selfishness, the counterpart of the carelessness with
which in our own age, when we are ourselves constituents of an interested
public, we ignore what it is inconvenient to remember.
Thus, therefore, on one hot Midsummer Sunday in this year 1533, the people
gathering to church in every parish through the English counties, read,
nailed upon the doors, a paper signed Henry R., setting forth that the Lady
Catherine of Spain, heretofore called Queen of England, was not to be
called by that title any more, but was to be called Princess Dowager, and
so to be held and esteemed. The proclamation, we may suppose, was read with
varying comments; of the reception of it in the northern counties, the
following information was forwarded to the crown. The Earl of Derby,
lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire, wrote to inform the council that he had
arrested a certain "lewd and naughty priest," James Harrison by name, on
the charge of having spoken unfitting and slanderous words of his Highness
and the Queen's Grace. He had taken the examinations of several witnesses,
which he had sent with his letter, and which were to the following
effect:--
Richard Clark deposeth that the said James Harrison reading the
proclamation, said that Queen Catherine was queen, Nan Bullen should not be
queen, nor the king should be no king but on his bearing.
William Dalton deposeth, that in his hearing the above-named James said, I
will take none for queen but Queen Catherine--who the devil made Nan
Bullen, that hoore, queen? I will never take her for queen--and he the said
William answered, "Hold thy peace, thou wot'st not what thou sayest--but
that thou art a priest I should punish thee, that others should take
example."
Richard Sumner and John Clayton depose, that they came in company with the
said James from Perbalt to Eccleston, when the said James did say, "This is
a marvellous world--the king will put down the order of priests and destroy
the Sacrament, but he cannot reign long, for York will be in London
hastily."[443]
Here was the later growth of the spirit which we saw a few months
previously in the monks of Furness. The mutterings of discontent had
developed into plain open treason, confident of success, and scarcely
caring to conceal itself--and Yorkshire was preparing for rebellion and
"the Pilgrimage of Grace."
There is another quarter also into which we must follow the proclamation,
and watch the effect of the royal order in a scene where it is well that we
should for a few moments rest. Catherine was still at Ampthill, surrounded
by her own attendants, who formed an inner circle, shielding her retirement
against impertinent curiosity. She rarely or never allowed herself to be
seen; Lord Mountjoy, with an official retinue, was in attendance in the
house; but the occupation was not a pleasant one, and he was as willing to
respect the queen's seclusion as she to remain secluded. Injunctions
arrived however from the court at the end of June, which compelled him to
request an interview; a deputation of the privy council had come down to
inform the ex-queen of the orders of the government, and to desire that
they might be put in force in her own family. Aware probably of the nature
of the communication which was to be made to her, she refused repeatedly to
admit them to her presence. At length, however, she nerved herself for the
effort, and on the 3rd of July Mountjoy and the state commissioners were
informed that she was ready to receive them.
As they entered her room she was lying on a sofa. She had a bad cough, and
she had hurt her foot with a pin, and was unable to stand or walk. Her
attendants were all present by her own desire; she was glad to see around
her some sympathising human faces, to enable her to endure the cold hard
eyes of the officials of the council.
She inquired whether the message was to be delivered in writing or by word
of mouth.
They replied that they had brought with them instructions which they were
to read, and that they were further charged with a message which was to be
delivered verbally. She desired that they would read their written
despatch. It was addressed to the Princess Dowager, and she at once
excepted to the name. She was not Princess Dowager, she said, but queen,
and the king's true wife. She came to the king a clear maid for any bodily
knowledge of Prince Arthur; she had borne him lawful issue and no bastard,
and therefore queen she was, and queen she would be while she lived.
The commissioners were prepared for the objection, and continued, without
replying, to read. The paper contained a statement of worn-out unrealities;
the old story of the judgment of the universities and the learned men, the
sentence of convocation, and of the houses of parliament; and, finally, the
fact of substantial importance, that the king, acting as he believed
according to the laws of God, had married the Lady Anne Boleyn, who was now
his lawful wife, and anointed Queen of England.
Oh yes, she answered when they had done, we know that, and "we know the
authority by which it has been done--more by power than justice." The
king's learned men were learned heretics; the honest learning was for her.
As for the seals of the universities there were strange stories about the
way in which they had been obtained. The universities and the parliament
had done what the king bade them; and they had gone against their
consciences in doing it; but it was of no importance to her--she was in the
hands of the pope, who was God's vicar, and she acknowledged no other
judge.
The commissioners informed her of the decision of the council that she was
no longer to bear the title of queen. It stood, they said, neither with the
laws of God nor man, nor with the king's honour, to have two queens named
within the realm; and in fact, there was but one queen, the king's lawful
wife, to whom he was now married.
She replied shortly that she was the king's lawful queen, and none other.
There was little hope in her manner that anything which could be said would
move her; but her visitors were ordered to try her to the uttermost.
The king, they continued, was surprised that she could be so disobedient;
and not only that she was disobedient herself, but that she allowed and
encouraged her servants in the same conduct.
She was ready to obey the king; she answered, when she could do so without
disobeying God; but she could not damn her soul even for him. Her servants,
she said, must do the best they could; they were standing round her as she
was speaking; and she turned to them with an apology, and a hope that they
would pardon her. She would hinder her cause, she said; and put her soul in
danger, if on their account she were to relinquish her name, and she could
not do it.
The deputation next attempted her on her worldly side. If she would obey,
they informed her that she would be allowed not only her jointure as
Princess Dowager and her own private fortune, but all the settlements which
had been made upon her on her marriage with the king.
She "passed not upon possessions, in regard of this matter," she replied.
It touched her conscience, and no worldly considerations were of the
slightest moment.
In disobeying the king, they said; seeing that she was none other than his
subject, she might give cause for dissension and disturbance; and she might
lose the favour of the people.
She "trusted not," she replied--she "never minded it, nor would she"--she
"desired only to save her right; and if she should lose the favour of the
people in defending that right, yet she trusted to go to heaven cum famâ et
infamiâ."
Promises and persuasions being unavailing, they tried threats. She was told
that if she persisted in so obstinate a course, the king would be obliged
to make known to the world the offers which he had made to her, and the ill
reception which they had met with--and then he would perhaps withdraw those
offers, and conceive some evil opinions of high displeasure towards her.
She answered that there was no manner of offers neither of lands nor goods
that she had respect unto in comparison of her cause--and as to the loss of
the king's affection, she trusted to God, to whom she would daily pray for
him.
The learned council might as well have reasoned with the winds; or
threatened the waves of the sea. But they were not yet weary, and their
next effort was as foolish as it was ungenerous. They suggested, "that if
she did reserve the name of queen, it was thought that she would do it of a
vain desire and appetite of glory; and further, she might be an occasion
that the king would withdraw his love from her most dear daughter the Lady
Princess, which should chiefly move her, if none other cause did."
They must have known little of Catherine, if they thought she could be
influenced by childish vanity. It was for no vain glory that she cared, she
answered proudly; she was the king's true wife, and her conscience forbade
her to call herself otherwise; the princess was his true begotten child;
and as God hath given her to them, so for her part she would render her
again; neither for daughter, family, nor possessions, would she yield in
her cause; and she made a solemn protestation, calling on every one present
to bear witness to what she said, that the king's wife she was, and such
she would take herself to be, and that she would never surrender the name
of queen till the pope had decided that she must bear it no longer.
So ended the first interview. Catherine, before the commissioners left her,
desired to have a copy of the proposals which they had brought, that she
might translate and send them to Rome. They returned with them the next
day, when she requested to see the report which they intended to send to
the council of the preceding conversation. It was placed in her hands; and
as she read it and found there the name of Princess Dowager, she took a pen
and dashed out the words, the mark of which indignant ink-stroke may now be
seen in the letter from which this account is taken.[444] With the accuracy
of the rest she appeared to be satisfied--only when she found again their
poor suggestion that she was influenced by vanity, she broke out with a
burst of passionate indignation.
"I would rather be a poor beggar's wife," she said, "and be sure of heaven,
than queen of all the world, and stand in doubt thereof by reason of my own
consent. I stick not so for vain glory, but because I know myself the
king's true wife--and while you call me the king's subject, I was his
subject while he took me for his wife. But if he take me not for his wife,
I came not into this Realm as merchandise, nor to be married to any
merchant; nor do I continue in the same but as his lawful wife, and not as
a subject to live under his dominion otherwise. I have always demeaned
myself well and truly towards the king--and if it can be proved that either
in writing to the pope or any other, I have either stirred or procured
anything against his Grace, or have been the means to any person to make
any motion which might be prejudicial to his Grace or to his Realm, I am
content to suffer for it. I have done England little good, and I should be
sorry to do it any harm. But if I should agree to your motions and
persuasions, I should slander myself, and confess to have been the king's
harlot for twenty-four years. The cause, I cannot tell by what subtle
means, has been determined here within the king's Realm, before a man of
his own making, the Bishop of Canterbury, no person indifferent I think in
that behalf; and for the indifference of the place, I think the place had
been more indifferent to have been judged in hell; for no truth can be
suffered here, whereas the devils themselves I suppose do tremble to see
the truth in this cause so sore oppressed."[445]
Most noble, spirited, and like a queen. Yet she would never have been
brought to this extremity, and she would have shown a truer nobleness, if
four years before she could have yielded at the pope's entreaty on the
first terms which were proposed to her. Those terms would have required no
humiliating confessions; they would have involved no sentence on her
marriage nor touched her daughter's legitimacy. She would have broken no
law of God, nor seemed to break it. She was required only to forget her own
interests; and she would not forget them, though all the world should be
wrecked by her refusal. She denied that she was concerned in "motions
prejudicial to the king or to the Realm," but she must have placed her own
interpretation on the words, and would have considered excommunication and
interdict a salutary discipline to the king and parliament. She knew that
this sentence was imminent, that in its minor form it had already fallen;
and she knew that her nephew and her friends in England were plotting to
give effect to the decree. But we may pass over this. It is not for an
English writer to dwell upon those faults of Catherine of Arragon, which
English remorse has honourably insisted on forgetting. Her injuries,
inevitable as they were, and forced upon her in great measure by her own
wilfulness, remain among the saddest spots in the pages of our history.
One other brief incident remains to be noticed here, to bring up before the
imagination the features of this momentous summer. It is contained in the
postscript of a letter of Cranmer to Hawkins the ambassador in Germany; and
the manner in which the story is told is no less suggestive than the story
itself.
The immediate present, however awful its import, will ever seem common and
familiar to those who live and breathe in the midst of it. In the days of
the September massacre at Paris, the theatres were open as usual; men ate,
and drank, and laughed, and cried, and went about their common work,
unconscious that those days which were passing by them, so much like other
days, would remain the _dies nefasti_, accursed in the memory of mankind
for ever. Nothing is terrible, nothing is sublime in human things, so long
as they are before our eyes. The great man has so much in common with men
in general, the routine of daily life, in periods the most remarkable in
history, contains so much that is unvarying, that it is only when time has
done its work; and all which was unimportant has ceased to be remembered,
that such men and such times stand out in their true significance. It might
have been thought that to a person like Cranmer, the court at Dunstable,
the coronation of the new queen, the past out of which these things had
risen, and the future which they threatened to involve, would have seemed
at least serious; and that engaged as he had been as a chief actor, in a
matter which, if it had done nothing else, had broken the heart of a
high-born lady whom once he had honoured as his queen, he would have been
either silent about his exploits, or if he had spoken of them, would have
spoken not without some show of emotion. We look for a symptom of feeling,
but we do not find it. When the coronation festivities were concluded he
wrote to his friend an account of what had been done by himself and others
in the light gossiping tone of easiest content; as if he were describing
the common incidents of a common day. It is disappointing, and not wholly
to be approved of. Still less can we approve of the passage with which he
concludes his letter.
"Other news we have none notable, but that one Frith, which was in the
Tower in prison,[446] was appointed by the King's Grace to be examined
before me, my Lord of London, my Lord of Winchester, my Lord of Suffolk, my
Lord Chancellor, and my Lord of Wiltshire; whose opinion was so notably
erroneous that we could not dispatch him, but were fain to leave him to the
determination of his ordinary, which is the Bishop of London. His said
opinion is of such nature, that he thought it not necessary to be believed
as an article of our faith that there is the very corporeal presence of
Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar; and holdeth on this
point much after the opinion of Oecolampadius.
"And surely I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade him to
leave that imagination. But for all that we could do therein, he would not
apply to any counsel. Notwithstanding now he is at a final end with all
examinations; for my Lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered him
to the secular power when he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And
there is also condemned with him one Andrew a tailor for the self-same
opinion; and thus fare you well."[447]
These victims went as they were sentenced, dismissed to their martyr's
crowns at Smithfield, as Queen Anne Boleyn but a few days before had
received her golden crown at the altar of Westminster Abbey. Twenty years
later another fire was blazing under the walls of Oxford; and the hand
which was now writing these light lines was blackening in the flames of it,
paying there the penalty of the same "imagination" for which Frith and the
poor London tailor were with such cool indifference condemned. It is
affecting to know that Frith's writings were the instruments of Cranmer's
conversion; and the fathers of the Anglican church have left a monument of
their sorrow for the shedding of this innocent blood in the Order of the
Communion service, which closes with the very words on which the primate,
with his brother bishops, had sate in judgment.[448]