The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History Part 13

[78] It was on this occasion that Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Henry's old friend and brother-in-law, lost patience. "Banging the table before him violently, he shouted: 'By the Ma.s.s! now I see that the old saw is true, that there never was Legate or Cardinal that did good in England;' and with that all the temporal lords departed to the King, leaving the Legates sitting looking at each other, sore astonished."--Hall's _Chronicle_, and Cavendish's "Wolsey."

[79] Du Bellay to Montmorency, 22nd October 1529. _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 4, part 3.

[80] This peremptory order seems to have been precipitated by a peculiarly acrimonious correspondence between Henry and his wife at the end of July.

She had been in the habit of sending him private messages under token; and when he and Anne had left Windsor on their hunting tour, Katharine sent to him, as usual, to inquire after his health and to say that, though she had been forbidden to accompany him, she had hoped, at least, that she might have been allowed to bid him good-bye. The King burst into a violent rage.

"Tell the Queen," he said to the messenger, "that he did not want any of her good-byes, and had no wish to afford her consolation. He did not care whether she asked after his health or not. She had caused him no end of trouble, and had obstinately refused the reasonable request of his Privy Council. She depended, he knew, upon the Emperor; but she would find that G.o.d Almighty was more powerful still. In any case, he wanted no more of her messages." To this angry outburst the Queen must needs write a long, cold, dignified, and utterly tactless letter, which irritated the King still more, and his reply was that of a vulgar bully without a spark of good feeling. "It would be a great deal better," he wrote, "if she spent her time in seeking witnesses to prove her pretended virginity at the time of her marriage with him, than in talking about it to whoever would listen to her, as she was doing. As for sending messages to him, let her stop it, and mind her own business. (Chapuys to the Emperor, 21st July 1531.

_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._)

[81] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 1531.

[82] Katharine to the Emperor, _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 28th July 1531.

[83] Foxe.

[84] Chapuys relates in May 1532 that when Henry asked the House of Commons for a grant to fortify the Scottish Border, two members spoke strongly against it. The best guarantee of peace, they said, was to keep friendly with the Emperor. They urged the House to beg the King to return to his lawful wife, and treat her properly, or the whole kingdom would be ruined; since the Emperor was more capable of harming England than any other potentate, and would not fail to avenge his aunt. The House, it is represented, was in favour of this view with the exception of two or three members, and the question of the grant demanded was held in abeyance.

Henry, of course, was extremely angry, and sent for the majority, whom he harangued in a long speech, saying that the matter of the divorce was not then before them, but that he was determined to protect them against ecclesiastical encroachment. The leaders of the protest, however, were made to understand they were treading on dangerous ground, and hastened to submit before Henry's threats.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 4, 2nd May 1532.

[85] Chapuys to the Emperor, 16th April 1532.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 4, 2nd May 1532.

[86] In May 1532 the Nuncio complained to Norfolk of a preacher who in the pulpit had dared to call the Pope a heretic. The Duke replied that he was not surprised, for the man was a Lutheran. If it had not been for the Earl of Wilts.h.i.+re _and another person_ (evidently Anne) he, Norfolk, would have burnt the man alive, with another like him. It is clear from this that Norfolk was now gravely alarmed at the religious situation created by Anne.

[87] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 1st October 1532.

[88] Hall's _Chronicle_, and _The Chronicle of Calais_, Camden Society.

[89] It is often stated to have been celebrated by Dr. Lee, and sometimes even by Cranmer, who appears to have been present.

[90] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 9th February 1533.

[91] _Ibid._, 15th February.

[92] Chapuys, writing to Granville on the 23rd February, relates that Anne, "without rhyme or reason, amidst a great company as she came out her chamber, began to say to one whom she loves well, and who was formerly sent away from Court by the King out of jealousy (probably Wyatt), that three days before she had had a furious hankering to eat apples, such as she had never had in her life before; and the King had told her that it was a sign she was pregnant, but she had said that it was nothing of the sort. Then she burst out laughing loudly and returned to her room. Almost all the Court heard what she said and did; and most of those present were much surprised and shocked." (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._)

[93] Mountjoy, Katharine's chamberlain, or rather gaoler, immediately afterwards gave the Queen a still harsher message, to the effect that not only was she to be deprived of the regal t.i.tle, but that the King would not continue to provide for her household. "He would retire her to some private house of her own, there to live on a small allowance, which, I am told, will scarcely be sufficient to cover the expenses of her household for the first quarter of next year." Katharine replied that, so long as she lived, she should call herself Queen. As to beginning housekeeping on her own account, she could not begin so late in life. If her expenses were too heavy the King might take her personal property, and place her where he chose, with a confessor, a physician, an apothecary, and two chamber-maids. If that was too much to ask, and there was nothing for her and her servants to live upon, she would willingly go out into the world and beg for alms for the sake of G.o.d. (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 15th April 1533.)

[94] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 15th April 1533.

[95] It was shortly after this that Friar George Brown first publicly prayed for the new Queen at Austin Friars.

[96] Chapuys to the Emperor, 27th April and 18th May 1533.

[97] An interesting letter from Cranmer on the subject is in the Harleian MSS., British Museum (Ellis's Letters, vol. 2, series 1).

[98] The Duke of Norfolk was apparently delighted to be absent from his niece's triumph, though the d.u.c.h.ess followed Anne in a carriage. He started the day before to be present at the interview between Francis and the Pope at Nice. He had two extraordinary secret conferences with Chapuys just before he left London, in which he displayed without attempt at concealment his and the King's vivid apprehension that the Emperor would make war upon England. Norfolk went from humble cringing and flattery to desperate threats, praying that Chapuys would do his best to reconcile Katharine to Cranmer's sentence and to prevent war. He praised Katharine to the skies "for her great modesty, prudence, and forbearance during the divorce proceedings, as well as on former occasions, the King having been at all times inclined to amours." Most significant of all was Norfolk's declaration "that he had not been either the originator or promoter of this second marriage, but on the contrary had always been opposed to it, and had tried to dissuade the King therefrom." (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 6, part 2, 29th May 1533.)

[99] Norfolk, on the morning of the water pageant, told Chapuys that the King had been very angry to learn that Katharine's barge had been appropriated by Anne, and the arms ignominiously torn off and hacked; and the new Queen's chamberlain had been reprimanded for it, as there were plenty of barges on the river as fit for the purpose as that one. But Anne would bate no jot of her spiteful triumph over her rival; and, as is told in the text, she used Katharine's barge for her progress, in spite of all.

[100] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present writer, 1889.

[101] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 11th and 30th July 1533.

[102] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present writer.

[103] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ Cranmer, in his letter to Hawkins giving an account of the festivities on this occasion (Harl. MSS., Ellis's Original Letters, vol. 2, series 1), says that after the banquet in the hall of the old palace, "She was conveyed owte of the bake syde of the palice into a barge and, soe unto Yorke Place, where the King's Grace was before her comyng; for this you must ever presuppose that his Grace came allwayes before her secretlye in a barge as well frome Grenewyche to the Tower, as from the Tower to Yorke Place."

[104] Stow gives some curious glimpses of the public detestation of the marriage, and of the boldness of Friar Peto in preaching before the King at Greenwich in condemnation of it; and the letter of the Earl of Derby and Sir Henry Faryngton to Henry (Ellis's Original Letters, vol. 2, series 1) recounts several instances of bold talk in Lancas.h.i.+re on the subject, the most insulting and opprobrious words being used to describe "Nan Bullen the hoore."

[105] Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

[106] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 11th July 1533.

[107] Katharine was even more indignant shortly afterwards, when she was informed that of the sum apportioned to her sustenance, only 12,000 crowns a year was to be at her own disposal, the rest, 18,000 crowns, being administered by an agent of the King, who would pay the bills and servants. She was for open rebellion on this point--she would rather beg her bread in the streets, she said, than consent to it--but Chapuys knew that his master did not wish to drive affairs to an extremity just then, and counselled submission and patience. (_Ibid._, 23rd August.)

[108] Chapuys to the Emperor, 30th July 1533.

[109] Chapuys writes a day or two afterwards: "The baptism ceremony was sad and unpleasant as the mother's coronation had been. Neither at Court nor in the city have there been the bonfires, illuminations, and rejoicings usual on such occasions."

[110] Katharine had shortly before complained of the insalubrity of Buckden and its distance from London.

[111] Katharine's appeal that she might not be deprived of the service of her own countrymen is very pathetic. She wrote to the Council: "As to my physician and apothecary, they be my countrymen: the King knoweth them as well as I do. They have continued many years with me and (I thank them) have taken great pains with me, for I am often sickly, as the King's grace doth know right well, and I require their attendance for the preservation of my poor body, that I may live as long as it pleaseth G.o.d. They have been faithful and diligent in my service, and also daily do pray that the King's royal estate may long endure. But if they take any other oath to the King and to me (to serve me) than that which they have taken, I shall never trust them again, for in so doing I should live continually in fear of my life with them. Wherefore I trust the King, in his high honour and goodness, and for the great love that hath been between us (which love in me is as faithful to him as ever it was, I take G.o.d to record) will not use extremity with me, my request being so reasonable."--_Privy Council Papers_, December 1533.

[112] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 27th December 1533.

[113] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 27th December 1533.

[114] Chapuys to the Emperor, 17th January 1534.

[115] Many instances are given by Chapuys of Anne's bitter spite against Mary about this time. In February 1534 he mentions that Northumberland (Anne's old flame, who had more than once got into trouble about her) had said that she was determined to poison Mary. Some one else had told him that Anne had sent to her aunt, Lady Clare, who was Mary's governess, telling her if the Princess used her t.i.tle "to give her a good banging like the cursed b.a.s.t.a.r.d that she was." Soon afterwards the girl is reported to be nearly dest.i.tute of clothes and other necessaries. When Anne visited her daughter at Hatfield in March, she sent for Mary to come and pay her respects to her as Queen. "I know no Queen in England but my mother," was Mary's proud answer: and a few days afterwards Norfolk took away all the girl's jewels, and told her brutally that she was no princess and it was time her pride was abated: and Lady Clare a.s.sured her that the King did not care whether she renounced her t.i.tle or not. Parliament by statute had declared her a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and if she (Lady Clare) were in the King's place she would kick her out of the house. It was said also that the King himself had threatened that Mary should lose her head. There was, no doubt, some truth in all this, but it must not be forgotten that Chapuys, who reports most of it, was Anne's deadly enemy.

[116] Lee's instructions are said to have been "not to press the Queen very hard." It must have been evident that no pressure would suffice.

[117] The Queen wrote to Chapuys soon afterwards saying that the bishops had threatened her with the gibbet. She asked which of them was going to be the hangman, and said that she must ask them to hang her in public, not secretly. Lee's and Tunstall's own account of their proceedings is in the _Calendar of Henry VIII._, 29th May 1534.

[118] This lackey's name is given Bastian Hennyocke in the English State Papers. To him Katharine left 20 in her will. The other Spanish servants with Katharine at the time, besides Francisco Felipe, the Groom of the Chambers, and the Bishop of Llandaff (Fray Jorge de Ateca), were Dr.

Miguel de la Sa, Juan Soto, Felipe de Granada, and Antonio Roca.

[119] This narrative is taken from the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present writer. The author of the Chronicle was a Spanish merchant resident in London, and he was evidently indebted for this description of the scene to his friend and countryman, Francisco Felipe, Katharine's Groom of the Chambers. The account supplements but does not materially contradict the official report of Lee and Tunstall, and Chapuys' account to the Emperor gained from the Queen and her Spanish attendants.

[120] Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th May 1534.

[121] She had written more than one fiery letter to Charles during the previous few months, fervently urging him to strike for the authority of the Church. All considerations of her safety and that of her daughter, she said, were to be put aside. It was the duty of the Emperor to his faith that the march of heresy and iniquity in England should be stayed at any cost, and she exhorted him not to fail. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, February and May 1534.)

[122] Bedingfield and Tyrell were instructed in May 1534 to inform Katharine that the appeal she had made that her Spanish servants should not be penalised for refusing to take the oath to the new Act of Succession had been rejected, but licenses for the Spaniards to stay with their mistress on the old footing were soon afterwards given. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, May 1534.)

[123] The account here given, that of Chapuys himself, is quaintly and minutely confirmed by that of one of the Spanish merchants who accompanied him, Antonio de Guaras, the author of the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._

[124] See Chapuys' many letters on the subject.