The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History Part 3

At exactly what period, or by whom, the idea of divorcing Katharine at this time had been broached to Henry, it is difficult to say; but it was no unpardonable or uncommon thing for monarchs, for reasons of dynastic expediency, to put aside their wedded wives. Popes, usually in a hurry to enrich their families, could be bribed or coerced; and the interests of the individual, even of a queen-consort, were as nothing in comparison of those of the State, as represented by the sovereign. If the question of religious reform had not complicated the situation and Henry had married a Catholic princess of one of the great royal houses, as Wolsey intended, instead of a mere upstart like Anne Boleyn, there would probably have been little difficulty about the divorce from Katharine: and the first hint of the repudiation of a wife who could give the King no heir, for the sake of his marrying another princess who might do so, and at the same time consolidate a new international combination, would doubtless be considered by those who made it as quite an ordinary political move.

It is probable that the Bishop of Tarbes, when he was in England in the spring of 1527 for the betrothal of Mary, conferred with Wolsey as to the possibility of Henry's marriage to a French princess, which of course would involve the repudiation of Katharine. In any case the King and Wolsey--whether truly or not--a.s.serted that the Bishop had first started the question of the validity of Henry's marriage with his wife, with special reference to the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, who was to be betrothed to Francis I. or his son. It may be accepted as certain, however, that the matter had been secretly fermenting ever since Wolsey began to s.h.i.+ft the centre of gravity from the Emperor towards France.

Katharine may have suspected it, though as yet no word reached her. But she was angry at the intimate hobn.o.bbing with France, at her daughter's betrothal to the enemy of her house, and at the elevation of Henry's b.a.s.t.a.r.d son to a royal dukedom. She was deeply incensed, too, at her alienation from State affairs, and had formed around her a cabal of Wolsey's enemies, for the most part members of the older n.o.bility traditionally in favour of the Spanish alliance and against France, in order, if possible, to obstruct the Cardinal's policy.[41]

The King, no doubt fully aware of Wolsey's plan, was as usual willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike; not caring how much wrong he did if he could only gloze it over to appear right and save his own responsibility before the world. The first formal step, which was taken in April 1527, was carefully devised with this end. Henry, representing that his conscience was a.s.sailed by doubts, secretly consulted certain of his councillors as to the legality of his union with his deceased brother's widow. It is true that he had lived with her for eighteen years, and that any impediment to the marriage on the ground of affinity had been dispensed with to the satisfaction of all parties at the time by the Pope's bull. But trifles such as these could never stand in the way of so tender a conscience as that of Henry Tudor, or so overpowering an ambition as that of his minister. The councillors--most of those chosen were of course French partisans--thought the case was very doubtful, and were favourable to an inquiry.

On the 17th May 1527, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, it will be recollected, had always been against the marriage; with Wolsey, Stephen Gardiner, and certain doctors-of-law, held a private sitting at the York House, Westminster, at which the King had been cited to appear and answer the charge of having lived in incest with his sister-in-law. The Court was adjourned twice, to the 20th and 31st May, during which time the sham pleadings for and against the King were carefully directed to the desired end. But before the first sitting was well over the plot got wind and reached Katharine. The Queen and the imperial connection were popular, Wolsey and the French were feared and detested. The old n.o.bility and the populace were on the Queen's side; the mere rumour of what was intended by the prelates at York House set people growling ominously, and the friends of the Spanish-Flemish alliance became threateningly active. The King and Wolsey saw that for a decree of nullity to be p.r.o.nounced by Warham and Wolsey alone, after a secret inquiry at which the Queen was not represented, would be too scandalous and dangerous in the state of public feeling, and an attempt was made to get the bishops generally to decide, in answer to a leading question, that such a marriage as that of the King and Katharine was incestuous. But the bishops were faithful sons of the Papacy, and most of them s.h.i.+ed at the idea of ignoring the Pope's bull allowing the marriage. Henry had also learnt during the proceedings of the sacking of Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, which was another obstacle to his desires, for though the Pope would doubtless have been quite ready to oblige his English and French friends to the detriment of the Emperor when he was free, it was out of the question that he should do so now that he and his dominions were at the mercy of the imperial troops.

The King seems to have had an idea that he might by his personal persuasion bring his unaccommodating wife to a more reasonable frame of mind. He and Wolsey had been intensely annoyed that she had learnt so promptly of the plot against her, but since some spy had told her, it was as well, thought Henry, that she should see things in their proper light.

With a sanctimonious face he saw her on the 22nd June 1527, and told her how deeply his conscience was touched at the idea that they had been living in mortal sin for so many years. In future, he said, he must abstain from her company, and requested that she would remove far away from Court. She was a haughty princess--no angel in temper, notwithstanding her devout piety; and she gave Henry the vigorous answer that might have been expected. They were man and wife, as they had always been, she said, with the full sanction of the Church and the world, and she would stay where she was, strong in her rights as an honest woman and a queen. It was not Henry's way to face a strong opponent, unless he had some one else to support him and bear the brunt of the fight, and, in accordance with his character, he whined that he never meant any harm: he only wished to discover the truth, to set at rest the scruples raised by the Bishop of Tarbes. All would be for the best, he a.s.sured his angry wife; but pray keep the matter secret.[42]

Henry did not love to be thwarted, and Wolsey, busy making ready for his ostentatious voyage to France, had to bear as best he might his master's ill-humour. The famous ecclesiastical lawyer, Sampson, had told the Cardinal that the marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; and consequently that, even apart from the Pope's dispensation, the present union was unimpeachable. The Queen would fight the matter to the end, he said; and though Wolsey did his best to answer Sampson's arguments, he was obliged to transmit them to the King, and recommend him to handle his wife gently; "until it was shown what the Pope and Francis would do." Henry acted on the advice, as we have seen, but Wolsey was scolded by the King as if he himself had advanced Sampson's arguments instead of answering them. Katharine did not content herself with sitting down and weeping. She despatched her faithful Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, on a pretended voyage to a sick mother in Spain, in order that he might beg the aid of the Emperor to prevent the injustice intended against the Queen; and Wolsey's spies made every effort to catch the man, and lay him by the heels.[43] She sent to her confessor, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, begging for his counsel, he being one of the bishops who held that her marriage was valid; she "desired," said Wolsey to the King, "counsel, as well of strangers as of English," and generally showed a spirit the very opposite of that of the patient Griselda in similar circ.u.mstances. How entirely upset were the King and Wolsey by the unexpected force of the opposition is seen in the Cardinal's letter to his master a day or two after he had left London at the beginning of July to proceed on his French emba.s.sy.

Writing from Faversham, he relates how he had met Archbishop Warham, and had told him in dismay that the Queen had discovered their plan, and how irritated she was; and how the King, as arranged with Wolsey, had tried to pacify and rea.s.sure her. To Wolsey's delight, Warham persisted that, whether the Queen liked it or not, "truth and law must prevail." On his way through Rochester, Wolsey tackled Fisher, who was known to favour the Queen. He admitted under Wolsey's pressure that she had sent to him, though he pretended not to know why, and "greatly blamed the Queen, and thought that if he might speak to her he might bring her to submission."

But Wolsey considered this would be dangerous, and bade the bishop stay where he was. And so, with the iniquitous plot temporarily shelved by the unforeseen opposition, personal and political, Wolsey and his great train, more splendid than that of any king, went on his way to Dover, and to Amiens, whilst in his absence that happened in England which in due time brought all his dignity and pride to dust and ashes.

CHAPTER IV

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 relations.h.i.+p 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 n.o.bles 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 n.o.ble, Henry Percy, eldest son and heir to the Earl of Northumberland.

Percy was one of the Court b.u.t.terflies 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 amba.s.sador 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 circ.u.mstances was a clever one. It was to send to Rome the Bishop of Worcester (the Italian Ghinucci), Henry's amba.s.sador 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 amba.s.sador 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 amba.s.sador 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 cla.s.ses, who suffered most by the wars with their best customers, the Flemings and Spaniards, were strongly opposed to him; whilst the territorial and n.o.ble 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 circ.u.mstances a more powerful ally for them than Katharine. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the leader of the party of n.o.bles, 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 amba.s.sador, 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 a.s.serted 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 pa.s.sion 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 t.i.ttle-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. G.o.d 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 a.s.sure 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 p.r.o.nounce finally on the validity of Henry's marriage. The Pope was to be plied with sanctimonious a.s.surances 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 n.o.ble 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 s.h.i.+fty, 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 p.r.o.nounce 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 circ.u.mstances 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 amba.s.sador, 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 fort.i.tude 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 heirs.h.i.+p 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 p.r.o.nounce judgment. He had, however, at the same time a.s.sured 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 n.o.bles under Norfolk, it is true, had deserted her; but Wolsey and the bureaucrats were still a power to be reckoned with, and the middle cla.s.ses 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 Hertfords.h.i.+re. 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 c.o.ke the apothecary have fallen of the sweat in this house.... By the mercy of G.o.d the rest of us be yet well, and I trust shall pa.s.s 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 a.s.sured, 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, G.o.d 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 hara.s.sed by my enemy--your absence--much longer ... who is, so far as I can judge, determined to spite me more, because I pray G.o.d 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sistance of Almighty G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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 grat.i.tude 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sign 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 un.o.bserved 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 a.s.sertion, _as far as it goes_, we may accept as the truth, seeing the solemn circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d 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 d.a.m.nation or against G.o.d'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 r.e.t.a.r.d, 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 doc.u.ment 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 relations.h.i.+p of the latter to Katharine. Wolsey felt, in the letter quoted above, that the Pope's s.h.i.+lly-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 circ.u.mstances 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 t.i.tle 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 chast.i.ty, 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 a.s.sured that the King only sought an impartial authoritative decision for the relief of his own conscience. The att.i.tude 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 a.s.sembling the n.o.bles, 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 G.o.d to send us a fair daughter by a n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.surance 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.