The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History Part 4

After this Katharine lived lonely and depressed at Greenwich, frequently closeted with Bishop Fisher and others of her councillors, whilst Henry was strengthening his case with the opinions of jurists, and by attempts to influence Campeggio. To Greenwich he went, accompanied by Anne and a brilliant Court, to show the Italian Cardinal how bounteously a Christmas could be spent in England. Campeggio's son was knighted and regaled with costly presents, and all that bribes (the Bishopric of Durham, &c.) and flattery might do was done to influence the Legate favourably; but throughout the gay doings, jousts and tourneys, banquets and maskings, "the Queen showed to them no manner of countenance, and made no great joy of nothing, her mind was so troubled."[73] Well might it be, poor soul, for Anne was by the King's side, pert and insolent, surrounded by a growing party of Wolsey's enemies, who cared little for Pope or Emperor, and who waited impatiently for the time when Anne should rule the King alone, and they, through her, should rule England. Katharine, in good truth, was in everybody's way, for even her nephew could not afford to quarrel with England for her sake, and her death or disappearance would have made a reconciliation easy, especially if Wolsey, the friend of France, fell also.

"Anne," we are told by the French amba.s.sador, "was lodged in a fine apartment close to that of the King, and greater court was now paid to her every day than has been paid to the Queen for a long time. I see that they mean to accustom the people by degrees to endure her, so that when the great blow comes it may not be, thought strange. But the people remain quite hardened (against her), and I think they would do more if they had more power."

Thus the months pa.s.sed, the Pope being plied by alternate threats and hopes, both by English and Spanish agents, until he was nearly beside himself, Wolsey almost frantically professing his desire to forward the King's object, and Campeggio temporising and trying to find a means of conciliation which would leave the King free. Katharine herself remained immovable. She had asked for and obtained from the Emperor a copy of the Papal brief authorising her marriage with Henry, but the King's advocates questioned its authenticity,[74] and even her own advisers urged her to obey her husband's request that she should demand of the Emperor the original doc.u.ment. Constrained by her sworn pledge to write nothing to the Emperor without the King's knowledge, she sent the letter dictated to her, urgently praying her nephew to send the original brief to England. The letter was carried to Spain by her young English confessor, Thomas Abel, whom she did not entirely trust, and sent with him her Spanish usher, Montoya; but they had verbal instructions from their mistress to pray the Emperor to disregard her written request, and refuse to part with the brief, and to exert all his influence to have the case decided in Rome.[75] By this it will be seen that Katharine was fully a match in duplicity for those against whom she was pitted. She never wavered from first to last in her determination to refuse to acknowledge the sentence of any court sitting in England on her case, and to resist all attempts to induce her to withdraw voluntarily from her conjugal position and enter a nunnery. Henry, and especially Anne, in the meanwhile, were growing impatient at all this calculated delay, and began to throw the blame upon Wolsey. "The young lady used very rude words to him," wrote Du Bellay on the 25th January, and "the Duke of Norfolk and his party already began to talk big."[76] A few days afterwards Mendoza, in a letter to the Emperor, spoke even more strongly. "The young lady that is the cause of all this disorder, finding her marriage delayed, that she thought herself so sure of, entertains great suspicion that Wolsey puts impediments in her way, from a belief that if she were Queen his power would decline. In this suspicion she is joined by her father and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, who have combined to overthrow the Cardinal." "The King is so hot upon it (the divorce) that there is nothing he does not promise to gain his end.... Campeggio has done nothing for the Queen as yet but to press her to enter religion."[77]

Henry at length determined that he would wait no longer. His four agents in Rome had almost driven the Pope to distraction with their importunities. Gardiner had gone to the length of threatening Clement with the secession of England from the Papacy, and Anne's cousin, Henry's boon companion Brian, deploring the Pope's obstinacy in a letter from Rome to the King, was bold enough to say: "I hope I shall not die until your Grace has been able to requite the Pope, and Popes, and not be fed with their flattering words." But in spite of it all, Clement would only palliate and temporise, and finally refused to give any fresh instructions to the Legates or help the King's cause by any new act. To Campeggio he wrote angrily, telling him, for G.o.d's sake, to procrastinate the matter in England somehow, and not throw upon his shoulders in Rome the responsibility of giving judgment; whilst Campeggio, though professing a desire to please Henry in everything--in the hope of getting the promised rich See of Durham, his enemies said--was equally determined not to go an inch beyond the Pope's written instructions, or to a.s.sume responsibility for the final decision. The churchmen indeed were shuffling and lying all round, for the position was threatening, with Lutheranism daily becoming bolder and the Emperor growing ever more peremptory, now that he had become reconciled to the Pope.

By the end of May Henry had had enough of dallying, especially as rumours came from Rome that the Pope might revoke the commission of the Legates; and the great hall of the Monastery of Blackfriars was made ready for the sittings of the Legatine Court. On a raised das were two chairs of state, covered with cloth of gold, and on the right side of the das a throne and canopy for the King, confronted by another for the Queen. The first sittings of the Legates were formal, and the King and Queen were summoned to appear before the tribunal on the 18th June 1529. Early in the morning of the day appointed the hall was full to overflowing with bishops, clerics, and councillors, and upon the crowd there fell the hush of those who consciously look upon a great drama of real life. After the Bishops of Bath and Lincoln had testified that citations to the King and Queen had been delivered, and other formal statements had been taken, an usher stood forth and cried: "Henry, King of England, appear." But Henry was at Greenwich, five miles away, and in his stead there answered the ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr. Sampson. Then "Katharine, Queen of England"

rang out, and into the hall there swept the procession of the Queen, herself rustling in stiff black garments, with four bishops, amongst them Fisher of Rochester, and a great train of ladies. Standing before the throne erected for her, she made a low obeisance to the Legates; and then, in formal terms, protested against the competence of the tribunal to judge her case, consisting, as it did, of those dependent upon one of the parties, and unable to give an impartial judgment. She appealed from the Legates to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, without fear or favour of man, would decide according to divine and human law. Then with another low obeisance Katharine turned her back upon the Court, and returned to the adjoining palace of Bridewell.

On the following Monday, the 21st, the Court again sat to give judgment upon her protest, which Campeggio would have liked to accept and so to relieve him of his difficulty but for the pressure put upon him by Wolsey and the Court. To the call of his name Henry on this occasion answered in person from his throne, "Here," whilst the Queen contented herself by an inclination of the head. When the Legates had rejected her protest, the King rose, and in one of his sanctimonious speeches once more averred his admiration and affection for his wife, and swore that his fear of living sinfully was the sole cause of his having raised the question of the validity of his marriage. When his speech had ended Katharine rose.

Between them the clerks and a.s.sessors sat at a large table, so that she had to make the whole circuit of the hall to approach the King. As she came to the foot of his throne she knelt before him for a last appeal to his better feelings. In broken English, and with tears coursing down her cheeks, she spoke of their long married life together, of the little daughter they both loved so well, of her obedience and devotion to him, and finally called him and G.o.d to witness that her marriage with his brother had been one in name only. Then, rising, she bowed low to the man who was still her husband, and swept from the room. When she reached the door, Henry, realising that all Christendom would cry out against him if she was judged in her absence, bade the usher summon her back, but she turned to the Welsh courtier, Griffin Richards, upon whose arm she leaned, saying: "Go on, it is no matter; this is no impartial Court to me," and thus, by an act of defiance, bade Henry do his worst. Like other things she did, it was brave, even heroic in the circ.u.mstances, but it was unwise from every point of view.

It would be profitless to follow step by step the further proceedings, which Campeggio and Wolsey, at least, must have known were hollow. The Court sat from week to week, and Henry grew more angry as each sitting ended fruitlessly, the main question at issue now being the consummation or non-consummation of the first marriage; until, at the end of July, Campeggio demanded a vacation till October, in accordance with the rule in Roman Courts.[78] Whilst this new delay was being impatiently borne, the revocation of the powers of the Legates, so long desired by Campeggio, came from Rome, and Henry saw that the churchmen had cheated him after all. His rage knew no bounds; and the Cardinal's enemies, led by Anne and her kinsmen, cleverly served now by the new man Stephen Gardiner, fanned the flame against Wolsey. He might still, however, be of some use; and though in deadly fear he was not openly disgraced yet. One day the King sent for him to Bridewell during the recess, and was closeted with him for an hour. In his barge afterwards on his way home Wolsey sat perturbed and unhappy with the Bishop of Carlisle. "It is a very hot day," said the latter. "Yes," replied the unhappy man, "if you had been as well chafed as I have been in the last hour you would say it was hot." Wolsey in his distress went straight to bed when he arrived at York Place, but before he had lain two hours Anne's father came to his bedside to order him in the name of the King to accompany Campeggio to Bridewell, to make another attempt to move the Queen. He had to obey, and, calling at Bath House for Campeggio on his way, they sought audience of Katharine. They found her cool and serene--indeed she seems rather to have overplayed the part. She came to meet them with a skein of silk around her neck. "I am sorry to keep you waiting," she said; "I was working with my ladies." To Wolsey's request for a private audience she replied that he might speak before her people, she had no secrets with him; and when he began to speak in Latin she bade him use English. Throughout she was cool and stately, and, as may be supposed, the visit was as fruitless as others had been.

Wolsey was not quite done with even yet. He might still act as Legate alone, if the Pope's decretal deciding the law of the case in favour of Henry could be obtained from Campeggio, who had held it so tightly by the Pope's command. So when Campeggio was painfully carried into Northamptons.h.i.+re in September to take leave of the King, Wolsey was ordered to accompany him. Henry thought it politic to receive them without open sign of displeasure, and sent the Italian Cardinal on his way with presents and smooth words. Wolsey escorted him a few miles on his road from Grafton, where the King was staying, to Towcester; but when next day the Cardinal returned to Grafton alone he found the King's door shut against him, and Norreys brought him an order that he was to return to London. It was a blow that struck at his heart, and he went sadly with the shadow of impending ruin upon him, never to set eyes on his master more. Before his final fall there was still one thing he might do, and he was given a few days' reprieve that he might do it. The Pope had pledged himself in writing not to withdraw the Legates' commission, and although he had done so the original commission might still be alleged as authority for Wolsey to act alone, if only the Papal decretal could be found.

Campeggio's privileged character was consequently ignored, and all his baggage ransacked in the hope of finding the doc.u.ment before he left English soil. Alas! as an eye-witness tells us, all that the packs contained were "old hosen, old coates, and such vile stuff as no honest man would carry," for the decretal had been committed to the flames months before by the Pope's orders; and the outraged old Italian Legate, with his undignified belongings, crossed the Channel and so pa.s.ses out of our history.

Anne had so far triumphed by the coalition of Wolsey's enemies. Her own hatred of him was more jealous and personal than political; for she and her paternal family were decidedly French in their sympathies, and Wolsey, at all events in the latest stages, had striven his utmost to help forward her marriage with the King. The older n.o.bility, led by Norfolk, who had deserted Katharine their former ally, in order to use Anne for their rival's ruin, had deeper and longer-standing motives for their hate of the Cardinal. Although most of them now were heavily bribed and pensioned by France, their traditions were always towards the Imperial and Spanish alliance, and against bureaucratic ministers. There was yet another element that had joined Anne's party in order to overthrow Wolsey. It consisted of those who from patriotic sentiment resented the galling supremacy of a foreign prince over the English Church, and cast their eyes towards Germany, where the process of emanc.i.p.ation from the Papacy was in full swing. The party in England was not a large one, and hardly concerned itself yet with fine points of doctrine. It was more an expression of the new-born English pride and independence than the religious revolt it was to become later; and the fit mouthpiece of the feeling was bluff Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had publicly insulted the Legates in the hall at Blackfriars.

It is obvious that a party consisting of so many factions would lose its cohesion when its main object was attained with the fall of Wolsey. The latter had bent before the storm, and at once surrendered all his plunder to the King and to Anne's relatives, which secured his personal immunity for a time, whilst he watched for the divisions amongst his opponents that might give him his chance again. Anne's uncle, Norfolk, aristocratic and conservative, took the lead in the new government, to the annoyance of the Duke of Suffolk, who occupied a secondary place, for which his lack of political ability alone qualified him. Sir Thomas More became Chancellor, and between him and Anne there was no great love lost, whilst Anne's father, now Earl of Wilts.h.i.+re, became Lord Privy Seal, and her brother, Lord Rochford, was sent as English amba.s.sador to France. With such a government as this--of which Anne was the real head[79]--no very distinct line of policy could be expected. The Parliament, which was summoned on Wolsey's fall, was kept busy legalising the enrichment of Anne at the expense of the Cardinal, and in clamorous complaints of the abuses committed by the clergy, but when foreign affairs had to be dealt with the voice of the government was a divided one. Anne and her paternal family were still in favour of France; but the Emperor and the Pope were close friends now, and it was felt necessary by the King and Norfolk to attempt to reconcile them to the divorce, if possible, by a new political arrangement. For this purpose Anne's father travelled to Bologna, where Charles and Clement were staying together, and urged the case of his master. The only result was a contemptuous refusal from the Emperor to consider any proposal for facilitating his aunt's repudiation; and the serving of Wilts.h.i.+re, as Henry's representative, with a formal citation of the King of England to appear in person or by proxy before the Papal Court in Rome entrusted with the decision of the divorce case. This latter result drove Henry and Anne into a fury, and strengthened their discontent against the churchmen, whilst it considerably decreased the King's confidence in Wilts.h.i.+re's ability. It was too late now to recall Wolsey, although the French government did what was possible to soften the King's rigour against him; but Henry longed to be able again to command the consummate ability and experience of his greatest minister, and early in the year 1530 Henry himself became a party to an intrigue for the Cardinal's partial rehabilitation. Anne, when she thought Wolsey was dying, was persuaded to send him a token and a kind message; but when, later, she learnt that an interview between the King and him was in contemplation, she took fright; and Norfolk, who at least was at one with her in her jealousy of the fallen minister, ordered the latter to go to his diocese of York, and not to approach within five miles of the King.

Anne's position in the King's household was now a most extraordinary one.

She had visited the fine palace, York Place, which Wolsey had conveyed to the King at Westminster; and with the glee of a child enjoying a new toy, had inspected and appraised the splendours it contained. In future it was to be the royal residence, and she was its mistress. She sat at table in Katharine's place, and even took precedence of the d.u.c.h.ess of Norfolk and ladies of the highest rank. This was all very well in its way, but it did not satisfy Anne. To be Queen in name as well as in fact was the object for which she was striving, and anything less galled her. The Pope was now hand in glove with the Emperor, and could not afford to waver on Henry's side, whilst Charles was more determined than ever to prevent the close alliance between England and France that the marriage and a Boleyn predominance seemed to forebode. The natural effect of this was, of course, to drive Henry more than ever into the arms of France, and though Wolsey had owed his unpopularity largely to his French sympathies, he had never truckled so slavishly to Francis as Henry was now obliged to do, in order to obtain his support for the divorce, which he despaired of obtaining from the Pope without French pressure. The Papal Court was divided, then and always, into French and Spanish factions, and in North Italy French and Spanish agents perpetually tried to outwit each other.

Throughout the Continent, wherever the influence of France extended, pressure was exerted to obtain legal opinions favourable to Henry's contention. Bribes, as lavish as they were barefaced, were offered to jurists for decisions confirming the view that marriage with a deceased brother's widow was invalid in fact, and incapable of dispensation. The French Universities were influenced until some sort of irregular dictum, afterwards formally repudiated, was obtained in favour of Henry, and in Italy French and Spanish intrigue were busy at work, the one extorting from lawyers support to the English view, the other by threats and bribes preventing its being given. This, however, was a slow process, and of doubtful efficacy after all; because, whilst the final decision on the divorce lay with the Pope, the opinions of jurists and Universities, even if they had been generally favourable to Henry, instead of the reverse, could have had ultimately no authoritative effect.

Henry began to grow restive by the end of 1530. All his life he had seemed to have his own way in everything, and here he found himself and his most ardent wishes unceremoniously set aside, as if of no account. Other kings had obtained divorces easily enough from Rome: why not he? The answer that would naturally occur to him was that his affairs were being ineptly managed by his ministers, and he again yearned for Wolsey. The Cardinal had in the meanwhile plucked up some of his old spirit at York, and was still in close communication with the French, and even with the Emperor's amba.s.sador. Again Norfolk became alarmed, and a disclosure of the intrigue gave an excuse for Wolsey's arrest. It was the last blow, and the heart of the proud Cardinal broke on his way south to prison, leaving Henry with no strong councillor but the fair-faced woman with the tight mouth who sat in his wife's place. She was brave; "as fierce as a lioness," the Emperor's amba.s.sador wrote, and would "rather see the Queen hanged than recognise her as her mistress"; but the party behind her was a divided one, and the greatest powers in Europe were united against her. There was only one way in which she might win, and that was by linking her cause with that of successful opposition to the Papacy. The Pope was a small Italian prince now slavishly subservient to the Emperor: Luther had defied a greater Sovereign Pontiff than he; why should Clement, a degenerate scion of the mercantile Medicis, dare to dictate to England and her King?

CHAPTER V

1530-1534

HENRY'S DEFIANCE--THE VICTORY OF ANNE

The deadlock with regard to the validity of the marriage could not continue indefinitely, for the legitimacy of the Princess Mary having been called into question, the matter now vitally touched the succession to the English crown. Katharine was immovable. She would neither retire to a convent nor accept a decision from an English tribunal, and, through her proctor in Rome, she pa.s.sionately pressed for a decision there in her favour. Norfolk, at the end of his not very extensive mental resources, could only wish that both Katharine and Anne were dead and the King married to some one else. The Pope was ready to do anything that did not offend the Emperor to bring about peace; and when, under pressure from Henry and Norfolk, the English prelates and peers, including Wolsey and Warham, signed a pet.i.tion to the Pope saying that Henry's marriage should be dissolved, or they must seek a remedy for themselves in the English Parliament, Clement was almost inclined to give way; for schism in England he dreaded before all things. But Charles's troops were in Rome and his agents for ever bullying the wretched Pope, and the latter was obliged to reply finally to the English peers with a rebuke. There were those both in England and abroad who urged Henry to marry Anne at once, and depend upon the recognition of the _fait accompli_ by means of negotiation afterwards, but this did not satisfy either the King or the favourite.

Every interview between the King and the Nuncio grew more bitter than the previous one. No English cause, swore Henry, should be tried outside his realm where he was master; and if the Pope insisted in giving judgment for the Queen, as he had promised the Emperor to do, the English Parliament should deal with the matter in spite of Rome.

The first ecclesiastical thunderclap came in October 1530, when Henry published a proclamation reminding the lieges of the old law of England that forbade the Pope from exercising direct jurisdiction in the realm by Bull or Brief. No one could understand at the time what was meant, but when the Nuncio in perturbation went and asked Norfolk and Suffolk the reason of so strange a proclamation at such a time, they replied roughly, that they "cared nothing for Popes in England ... the King was Emperor and Pope too in his own realm." Later, Henry told the Nuncio that the Pope had outraged convention by summoning him before a foreign tribunal, and should now be taught that no usurpation of power would be allowed in England. The Parliament was called, said Henry, to restrain the encroachment of the clergy generally, and unless the Pope met his wishes promptly a blow would be struck at all clerical pretensions. The reply of the Pope was another brief forbidding Henry's second marriage, and threatening Parliaments and Bishops in England if they dared to meddle in the matter. The question was thus rapidly drifting into an international one on religious lines, which involved either the submission of Henry or schism from the Church.

The position of the English clergy was an especially difficult one. They naturally resented any curtailment of the privileges of their order, though they dared not speak too loudly, for they owed the enjoyment of their temporalities to the King. But they were all sons of the Church, looking to Rome for spiritual authority, and were in mortal dread of the advance of the new spirit of religious freedom aroused in Germany. The method of bridling them adopted by Henry was as clever as it was unscrupulous. The Bull giving to Wolsey independent power to judge the matrimonial cause in England as Legate, had been, as will be recollected, demanded by the King and recognised by him, as it had been, of course, by the clergy; but in January 1531, when Parliament and Convocation met, the English clergy found themselves laid under Premunire by the King for having recognised the Legatine Bull; and were told that as subjects of the crown, and not of the Pope, they had thus rendered themselves liable to the punishment for treason. The unfortunate clergy were panic-stricken at this new move, and looked in vain to Rome for support against their own King; but Rome, as usual, was trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, and could only wail at the obstinacy both of Henry and Katharine.

In the previous sitting of Parliament in 1529, severe laws had been pa.s.sed against the laxity and extortion of the English ecclesiastics, notwithstanding the violent indignation of Fisher of Rochester; but what was now demanded of them as a condition of their pardon for recognising the Bull was practically to repudiate the authority of the Pope over them, and to recognise the King of England as supreme head of the Church, in addition to paying the tremendous fine of a hundred thousand pounds. They were in utter consternation, and they struggled hard; but the alternative to submission was ruin, and the majority gave way. The die was cast: Henry was Pope and King in one, and could settle his own cause in his own way.

When the English clergy had thus been brought to heel, Henry's opponents saw that they had driven him too far, and were aghast at his unexpected exhibition of strength, a strength, be it noted, not his own, as will be explained later; and somewhat moderated their tone. But the King of England snapped his fingers now at threats of excommunication, and cared nothing, he said, for any decision from Rome. The Emperor dared not go to war with England about Katharine, for the French were busily drawing towards the Pope, whose niece, Katharine de Medici, was to be betrothed to the son of Francis; and the imperial agents in Rome ceased to insist so pertinaciously upon a decision of the matrimonial suit.

Katharine alone clamoured unceasingly that her "h.e.l.l upon earth" should be ended by a decision in her favour from the Sovereign Pontiff. Her friends in England were many, for the old party of n.o.bles were rallying again to her side, even Norfolk was secretly in her favour, or at least against the King's marriage with his niece Anne, and Henry's new bold step against the Papacy, taken under bureaucratic influence, had aroused much fear and jealousy amongst prelates like Fisher and jurists like More, as well as amongst the aristocratic party in the country. Desperate efforts were made to prevent the need for further action in defiance of the Papacy by the decision of the matrimonial suit by the English Parliament; and early in June 1531 Henry and his Council decided to put fresh pressure upon Katharine to get her to consent to a suspension of the proceedings in Rome, and to the relegation of the case to a tribunal in some neutral territory. Katharine at Greenwich had secret knowledge of the intention, and she can hardly have been so surprised as she pretended to be when, as she was about to retire to rest, at nine o'clock at night, to learn that the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, and some thirty other n.o.bles and prelates, sought audience of her. Norfolk spoke first, and in the King's name complained bitterly of the slight put upon him by the Pope's citation. He urged the Queen, for the sake of England, for the memory of the political services of Henry to her kin, and his past kindness to her, to meet his wishes and consent to a neutral tribunal judging between them.

Katharine was, as usual, cool and contemptuous. No one was more sorry than she for the King's annoyance, though she had not been the cause of it; but there was only one judge in the world competent to deal with the case.

"His Holiness, who keeps the place, and has the power, of G.o.d upon earth, and is the image of eternal truth." As for recognising her husband as supreme head of the Church, that she would never do. When Dr. Lee spoke harshly, telling her that she knew that, her first marriage having been consummated, her second was never legal, she vehemently denied the fact, and told him angrily to go to Rome and argue. He would find there others than a lone woman to answer him. Dr. Sampson then took up the parable and reproached her for her determination to have the case settled so quickly; and she replied to him that if he had pa.s.sed such bitter days as she had, he would be in a hurry too. Dr. Stokesley was dealt with similarly by the Queen; and she then proudly protested at being thus baited late at night by a crowd of men; she, "a poor woman without friends or counsel." Norfolk reminded her that the King had appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Durham, and the Bishop of Rochester to advise her. "Pretty councillors they are," she replied. "If I ask for Canterbury's advice he tells me he will have nothing to do with it, and for ever repeats _ira principis mors est_. The Bishop of Durham dares to say nothing because he is the King's subject, and Rochester only tells me to keep a good heart and hope for the best."

Katharine knew it not, but many of those before her were really her friends. Gardiner, now first Secretary, looked with fear upon the Lutheran innovations, Guilford the Controller, Lord Talbot, and even Norfolk wished her well, and feared the advent of Anne; and Guilford, less prudent than the rest, spoke so frankly that the favourite heard of his words. She broke out in furious invective against him before his face. "When I am Queen of England," she cried, "you will soon lose your office." "You need not wait so long," he replied, as he went straightway to deliver his seals to the King. Henry told him he ought not to mind an angry woman's talk, and was loath to accept his resignation; but the Controller insisted, and another rankling enemy was raised up to Anne. The favour she enjoyed had fairly turned her head, and her insolence, even to those who in any case had a right to her respect, had made her thoroughly detested. The Duke of Suffolk, enemy of the Papacy as he was, and the King's brother-in-law, was as anxious now as Talbot, Guilford, and Fitzwilliam to avert the marriage with Anne, who was setting all the Court by the ears. Katharine's att.i.tude made matters worse. She still lived under the same roof as the King, though he rarely saw her except on public occasions, and her haughty replies to all his emissaries, and her constant threats of what the Emperor might do, irritated Henry beyond endurance under the taunts of Anne. The latter was bitterly jealous also of the young Princess Mary, of whom Henry was fond; and by many spiteful, petty acts of persecution, the girl's life was made unhappy. Once when Henry praised his daughter in Anne's presence, the latter broke out into violent abuse of her, and on another occasion, when Katharine begged to be allowed to visit the Princess, Henry told her roughly that she could go away as soon as she liked, and stop away. But Katharine stood her ground. She would not leave her husband, she said, even for her daughter, until she was forced to do so. Henry's patience was nearly tired out between Anne's constant importunities and Katharine's dignified immobility; and leaving his wife and daughter at Windsor, he went off on a hunting progress with Anne, in the hope that he might soon be relieved of the presence of Katharine altogether. Public feeling was indignantly in favour of the Queen; and it was no uncommon thing for people to waylay the King, whilst he was hunting, with entreaties that he would live with his wife again; and wherever Anne went the women loudly cried shame upon her.

In his distraction Henry was at a loss what to do. He always wanted to appear in the right, and he dared not imprison or openly ill-treat Katharine, for his own people favoured her, and all Europe would have joined in condemning him; yet it was clear that even Windsor Castle was not, in future, big enough for both Queen and favourite at the same time, and positive orders at length were sent to Katharine, in the autumn of 1531, to take up her residence at More in Hertfords.h.i.+re, in a house formerly belonging to Wolsey.[80] She obeyed with a heavy heart, for it meant parting--and for ever--with her daughter, who was sent to live at Richmond, and was strictly forbidden to communicate with her mother.

Katharine said she would have preferred to have been sent to the Tower, to being consigned to a place so unfit for her as More, with its foul ways and ruinous surroundings, but nothing broke her spirit or humbled her pride. Her household was still regal in its extent, for we are told by an Italian visitor to her that "thirty maids of honour stood around her table when she dined, and there were fifty who performed its service: her household consisting of about two hundred persons in all." But her state was a mockery now; for Lady Anne, she knew, was with her husband, loudly boasting that within three or four months she would be a queen, and already playing the part insolently. The Privy Purse expenses of the period show how openly Anne was acknowledged as being Henry's actual consort. Not only did she accompany the King everywhere on his excursions and progresses, and partake of the receptions offered to him by local authorities and n.o.bles,[81] but large sums of money were paid out of the King's treasury for the gorgeous garb in which she loved to appear. Purple velvet at half a guinea a yard, costly furs and linen, bows and arrows, liveries for her servants, and all sorts of fine gear were bought for Anne. The Lord Mayor of London, in June 1530, sent her a present of cherries, and the bearer got a reward of 6s. 8d. Soon after Anne's greyhounds killed a cow, and the Privy Purse had to pay the damage, 10s.

In November, 19-3/4 yards of crimson satin at 15s. a yard had to be paid for to make Lady Anne a robe, and 8, 8s. for budge skins was paid soon afterwards. When Christmas came and card-playing was in season, my Lady Anne must have playing money, 20 all in groats; and when she lost, as she did pretty heavily, her losings had to be paid by the treasurer, though her winnings she kept for herself. No less than a hundred pounds was given to her as a New Year's gift in 1531. A few weeks afterwards, a farm at Greenwich was bought for her for 66; and her writing-desk had to be adorned with latten and gold at a great cost. As the year 1531 advanced and Katharine's cause became more desperate, the extravagance of her rival grew; and when in the autumn of that year the Queen was finally banished from Court, Anne's bills for dressmaker's finery amounted to extravagant proportions.

The position was rendered the more bitter for Katharine when she recognised that the Pope, in a fright now at Henry's defiance, was trying to meet him half way, and was listening to the suggestion of referring the question to a tribunal at Cambray or elsewhere; whilst the Emperor himself was only anxious to get the cause settled somehow without an open affront to his house or necessary cause for quarrel with Henry.[82] And yet, withal, the divorce did not seem to make headway in England itself. As we have seen, the common people were strongly against it: the clergy, trembling, as well they might, for their privileges between the Pope and the King, were naturally as a body in favour of the ecclesiastical view; and many of Henry and Anne's clerical instruments, such as Dr. Bennet in Rome and Dr. Sampson at Vienna, were secretly working against the cause they were supposed to be aiding: even some of the new prelates, such as Gardiner of Winchester and Stokesley of London, grew less active advocates when they understood that upon them and their order would fall ultimately the responsibility of declaring invalid a marriage which the Church and the Pope had sanctioned. Much stronger still even was the dislike to the King's marriage on the part of the older n.o.bility, whose enmity to Wolsey had first made the marriage appear practicable. They had sided with Anne to overthrow Wolsey; but the obstinate determination of the King to rid himself of his wife and marry his favourite, had brought forward new clerical and bureaucratic ministers whose proceedings and advice alarmed the aristocracy much more than anything Wolsey had done. If Katharine had been tactful, or even an able politician, she had the materials at hand to form a combination in favour of herself and her daughter, before which Henry, coward as he was, would have quailed. But she lacked the qualities necessary for a leader: she irritated the King without frightening him, and instead of conciliating the n.o.bles who really sympathised with her, though they were forced to do the King's bidding, she snubbed them haughtily and drove them from her.

Anne flattered and pleased the King, but it was hardly her mind that moved him to defy the powerful Papacy, or sustained him in his fight with his own clergy. From the first we have seen him leaning upon some adviser who would relieve him from responsibility whilst giving him all the honour for success. He desired the divorce above all things; but, as usual, he wanted to shelter himself behind other authority than his own. When in 1529 he had been seeking learned opinions to influence the Pope, chance had thrown the two ecclesiastics who were his instruments, Fox and Gardiner, into contact with a learned theologian and Reader in Divinity at Cambridge University. Thomas Cranmer had studied and lived much. He was a widower, and Fellow of Magdalene, Cambridge, of forty years of age; and although in orders and a Doctor of Divinity, his tastes were rather those of a learned country gentleman than of an ecclesiastic in monkish times. In conversation with Fox and Gardiner, this high authority on theology expressed the opinion that instead of enduring the delays of the ecclesiastical courts, the question of the legality of the King's marriage should be decided by divines from the words of the Scriptures themselves.

The idea seemed a good one, and Henry jumped at it. In an interview soon afterwards he ordered Cranmer to put his arguments into a book, and placed him in the household of Anne's father, the Earl of Wilts.h.i.+re, to facilitate the writing of it. The religious movement in Germany had found many echoes in England, and doubtless Cranmer conscientiously objected to Papal control. Certain it is that, fortified as he was by the encouragement of Anne and her father, his book was a persuasive one, and greatly pleased the King, who sent it to the Pope and others. Nor did Cranmer's activity stay there. He entered into disputation everywhere, with the object of gaining theological recruits for the King's side, and wrote a powerful refutation of Reginald Pole's book in favour of Katharine. The King thought so highly of Cranmer's controversial ability that he sent him with Lee, Stokesley, and other theologians to Rome, Paris, and elsewhere on the Continent, to forward the divorce, and from Rome he was commissioned as English Amba.s.sador with the Emperor.

Whilst Cranmer was thus fighting the King's battle abroad, another instrument came to Henry's hand for use in England. On the disgrace of Wolsey, his secretary, Thomas Cromwell, was recommended to Henry by friends. The King disliked him, and at first refused to see him; but consented to do so when it was hinted that Cromwell was the sort of man who would serve him well in what he had at heart. The hint was a well-founded one; for Thomas Cromwell was as ambitious and unscrupulous as his master had been; strong, bold, and fortunately unhampered by ecclesiastical orders. When Henry received him in the gardens at Whitehall, Cromwell spoke as no priest, and few laymen, would have dared to do: for, apart from the divorce question, there was to be no dallying with heresy if Henry could help it, and the fires of Smithfield burning doubters were already beginning to blaze under the influence of Sir Thomas More. "Sire," said Cromwell to the King, "the Pope refuses you a divorce ... why wait for his consent? Every Englishman is master in his own house, and why should not you be so in England? Ought a foreign prelate to share your power with you? It is true the bishops make oath to your Majesty; but they make another to the Pope immediately afterwards which absolves them from it. Sire, you are but half a king, and we are but half your subjects.

Your kingdom is a two-headed monster: will you bear such an anomaly any longer? Frederick and other German princes have cast off the yoke of Rome.

Do likewise; become once more king, govern your kingdom in concert with your lords and commons."[83]

With much more of such talk Cromwell flattered the King, who probably hardly knew whether to punish or reward such unheard-of boldness; but when Cromwell, prepared for the emergency, took from his pocket a copy of the prelates' oath to the Pope, Henry's indignation bore all before it, and Cromwell's fortune was made. He at once obtained a seat in Parliament (1529), and took the lead in the anti-clerical measures which culminated in the emanc.i.p.ation of the English clergy from the Papacy, and their submission to the King. Gardiner, ambitious and able as he was, was yet an ecclesiastic, and looked grimly upon such a religious policy as that into which Henry was being towed by his infatuation for Anne; but Cromwell was always ready with authorities and flattery to stiffen the King's resolve, and thenceforward, until his fall before a combination of n.o.bles, his was the strong spirit to which Henry clung.

It will be seen that the influences against the King's marriage with Anne were very powerful, since it had become evident that the object could only be attained by the separation of England from the Papal communion; a step too bold and too much smacking of Lutheranism to commend itself to any but the few who might benefit by the change. The greatest danger seemed that by her isolation England might enable the two great Catholic powers to combine against her, in which case Henry's ruin was certain; and, eager as he was to divorce Katharine in England and marry Anne, the King dared not do so until he had secured at least the neutrality of France. As usual, he had to pay heavily for it. Dr. Fox, Henry's most able and zealous foreign minister, was again sent to France, and an alliance was negotiated in the spring of 1532, by which Henry bound himself to join Francis against the Emperor in case of attack, and Francis undertook to support Henry if any attempt was made by Charles to avenge his aunt. Anne was once more jubilant and hopeful; for her cause was now linked with a national alliance which had a certain party of adherents in the English Court, and an imperial attack upon England in the interests of Katharine was rendered unlikely. But, withal, the opposition in England itself had to be overcome, for Henry was ever a stickler for correctness in form, and wanted the divorce to have an appearance of defensible legality. The bishops in Parliament were sounded, but it was soon evident that they as a body would not fly in the face of the Papacy and the Catholic interests, even to please the King. Timid, tired old Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was approached with a suggestion that he, as Primate, might convene a quorum of prelates favourable to Henry, who would approve of the entire repudiation of the Papal authority in England, and themselves p.r.o.nounce the King's divorce. But Warham was already hastening to the grave, and flatly refused to stain his last hours by spiritual revolt.

Despairing of the English churchman, Henry then turned to the lay peers and commons, and, through Norfolk, asked them to decide that the matrimonial cause was one that should be dealt with by a lay tribunal; but Norfolk's advocacy was but half-hearted, and the peers refused to make the declaration demanded.[84]

The fact is clear that England was not yet prepared to defy spiritual authority to satisfy the King's caprice; and Anne was nearly beside herself with rage. She, indeed, was for braving everybody and getting married at once, divorce or no divorce. Why lose so much time? the French amba.s.sador asked. If the King wanted to marry again let him do as King Louis did, and marry of his own motion.[85] The advice pleased both Henry and his lady-love, but Norfolk and Anne's father were strongly opposed to so dangerous and irregular a step, and incurred the furious displeasure of Anne for daring to thwart her. Every one, she said, even her own kinsmen, were against her,[86] and she was not far wrong, for with the exception of Cranmer in Germany and Cromwell, no one cared to risk the popular anger by promoting the match. Above all, Warham stood firm. The continued attacks of the King at Cromwell's suggestion against the privileges of the clergy hardened the old Archbishop's heart, and it was evident that he as Primate would never now annul the King's marriage and defy the authority of Rome.

The opposition of Lord Chancellor More and of the new Bishop of Winchester, Gardiner, to Cromwell's anti-clerical proposals in Parliament angered the King, and convinced him that with his present instruments it would be as difficult for him to obtain a divorce in legal form in England as in Rome itself. More was made to feel that his position was an impossible one, and retired when Parliament was prorogued in May; and Gardiner had a convenient attack of gout, which kept him away from Court until the King found he could not conduct foreign affairs without him and brought him back.

In the meanwhile Katharine neglected the opportunities offered to her of combining all these powerful elements in her favour. n.o.bles, clergy, and people were almost universally on her side: Anne was cordially hated, and had no friends but the few religious reformers who hoped by her means to force the King ever further away from the Papacy; and yet the Queen continued to appeal to Rome and the Emperor, against whom English patriotic feeling might be raised by Anne's few friends. The unwisdom of thus linking Katharine's cause with threats of foreign aggression, whilst England itself was favourable to her, was seen when the Nuncio presented to Henry a half-hearted exhortation to take his lawful wife back. Henry fulminated against the foreigner who dared to interfere between him and his wife; and, very far from alarming him, the Pope's timid action only proved the impotence of Rome to harm him. But the results fell upon the misguided Katharine, who had instigated the step. She was sent from the More to Ampthill, a house belonging to one of her few episcopal enemies.

All through the summer of 1532 the coming and going of French agents to England puzzled the Queen and her foreign friends; but suddenly, late in July, the truth came out. Henry and Anne had gone with a great train on a hunting tour through the midlands in July; but only a few days after starting they suddenly returned to London. The quidnuncs whispered that the people on the way had clamoured so loudly that the Queen might be recalled to Court, and had so grossly insulted Anne, that the royal party had been driven back in disgust; and though there was no doubt some ground for the a.s.sertion, the real reason for the return was that the interview between Henry and the French king, so long secretly in negotiation, had at last been settled. To enlist Francis personally on the side of the divorce, and against the clerical influence, was good policy; for the Emperor could not afford to quarrel both with France and England for his aunt, and especially as the meeting arranged between Francis and the Pope at Nice for the betrothal of the Duke of Orleans with Katharine de Medici was already in contemplation, and threatened the Emperor with a combination of France, England, and perhaps the Papacy, which would be powerful enough to defy him. The policy was Cromwell's, who had inherited from his master, Wolsey, a leaning for the French alliance; but Norfolk and the rest of Henry's advisers were heavily bribed by France, and were on this occasion not inimical. The people at large, as usual, looked askance at the French connection. They dreaded, above all things, a war with Spain and Flanders, and recollected with apprehension the fruitless and foolish waste in splendour on the last occasion of the monarchs of France and England meeting. An attempt was made to provide that the preparations should be less costly and elaborate than those for the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but Henry could not forego the splendour that he loved, and a suite of 3000 or 4000 people were warned to accompany the King across the Channel to Boulogne and Calais.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _ANNE BOLEYN_

_From a portrait by_ LUCAS CORNELISZ _in the National Portrait Gallery_]

For the interview to have its full value in the eyes of Henry and his mistress, the latter must be present at the festival, and be recognised by the French royal family as being of their own caste. Francis was not scrupulous, but this was difficult to arrange. His own second wife was the Emperor's sister, and she, of course, would not consent to meet "the concubine"; nor would any other of the French princesses, if they could avoid it; but, although the French at first gave out that no ladies would be present, Anne began to get her fine clothes ready and enlist her train of ladies as soon as the interview between the kings was arranged. So confident was she now of success that she foretold to one of her friends that she would be married whilst in France. To add to her elation, in the midst of the preparations Archbishop Warham died, and the chief ecclesiastical obstacle to the divorce in England disappeared. Some obedient churchman as Primate would soon manage to enlist a sufficient number of his fellows to give to his court an appearance of authority, and the Church of England would ratify the King's release.

The effects of Warham's death (23rd August 1532) were seen immediately.

There is every probability that up to that time Anne had successfully held her royal lover at arm's length; but with Cranmer, or another such as he, at Lambeth her triumph was only a matter of the few weeks necessary to carry out the formalities; and by the end of the month of August 1532 she probably became the King's mistress. This alone would explain the extraordinary proceedings when, on the 1st September, she was created Marchioness of Pembroke in her own right. It was Sunday morning before Ma.s.s at Windsor, where the new French alliance was to be ratified, that the King and his n.o.bles and the French amba.s.sador met in the great presence chamber and Anne knelt to receive the coronet and robe of her rank, the first peeress ever created in her own right in England: precedence being given to her before the two other English marchionesses, both ladies of the blood royal. Everything that could add prestige to the ceremony was done. Anne herself was dressed in regal crimson velvet and ermine; splendid presents were made to her by the enamoured King, fit more for a sovereign's consort than his mistress; a thousand pounds a year and lands were settled upon her, and her rank and property were to descend to the issue male of her body. But the cloven hoof is shown by the omission from the patent of the usual legitimacy clause. Even if, after all, the cup of queendom was dashed from her lips untasted, she had made not a bad bargain for herself. Her short triumph, indeed, was rapidly coming. She had fought strenuously for it for many years; and now most of the legal bars against her had fallen. But, withal, there was bitterness still in her chalice. The people scowled upon her no less now that she was a marchioness than before, and the great ladies who were ordered to attend the King's "cousin" into France did their service but sourly: whilst Francis had to be conciliated with all sorts of important concessions before he could be got to welcome "the lady" into his realm. When, at last, he consented, "because she would have gone in any case; for the King cannot be an hour without her," Francis did it gallantly, and with good grace, for, after all, Anne was just then the strongest prop in England of the French alliance.

Katharine, from afar off, watched these proceedings with scornful resentment. Henry had no chivalry, no generosity, and saved his repudiated wife no humiliation that he could deal her in reward for her obstinacy. He had piled rich gifts upon Anne, but her greed for costly gewgaws was insatiable; and when the preparations for her visit to France were afoot she coveted the Queen's jewels. Henry's sister, the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, Queen Dowager of France, had been made to surrender her valuables to the King's favourite; but when Henry sent a message to his wife bidding her give up her jewels, the proud princess blazed out in indignant anger at the insult. "Tell the King," she said, "that I cannot send them to him; for when lately, according to the custom of this realm, I presented him with a New Year's gift, he warned me to send him no such presents for the future. Besides, it is offensive and insulting to me, and would weigh upon my conscience, if I were led to give up my jewels for such a base purpose as that of decking out a person who is a reproach to Christendom, and is bringing scandal and disgrace upon the King, through his taking her to such a meeting as this in France. But still, if the King commands me and sends specially for them himself, I will give him my jewels." Such an answer as this proves clearly the lack of practical wisdom in the poor woman. She might have resisted, or she might have surrendered with a good grace; but to irritate and annoy the weak bully, without gaining her point, was worse than useless. Anne's talk about marrying the King in France angered Katharine beyond measure; but the favourite's ambition grew as her prospect brightened, and when it was settled that Cranmer was to be recalled from Germany and made Primate, Anne said that she had changed her mind. "Even if the King wished to marry her there (in France) she would not consent to it. She will have it take place here in England, where other queens have usually been married and crowned."[87]

Through Kent, avoiding as they might the plague-stricken towns, the King and his lady-love, with a great royal train, rode to Dover early in October 1532. At Calais, Henry's own town, Anne was received almost with regal honours; but when Henry went forth to greet Francis upon French soil near Boulogne, and to be sumptuously entertained, it was seen that, though the French armed men were threateningly numerous, there were no ladies to keep in countenance the English "concubine" and the proud dames who did her service. Blazing in gems, the two kings met with much courtly ceremony and hollow professions of affection. Banqueting, speech-making, and posturing in splendid raiment occupied five days at Boulogne, the while the "Lady Marquis" ate her heart out at Calais in petulant disappointment; though she made as brave a show as she could to the Frenchmen when they came to return Henry's visit. The chronicler excels himself in the description of the lavish magnificence of the welcome of Francis at Calais,[88] and tells us that, after a bounteous supper on the night of Sunday 27th October, at which the two kings and their retinues sat down, "The Marchioness of Pembroke with seven other ladies in masking apparel of strange fas.h.i.+on, made of cloth of gold compa.s.sed with crimson tinsel satin, covered with cloth of silver, lying loose and knit with gold laces," tripped in, and each masked lady chose a partner, Anne, of course, taking the French king. In the course of the dance Henry plucked the masks from the ladies' faces, and debonair Francis, in courtly fas.h.i.+on, conversed with his fair partner. One of the worst storms in the memory of man delayed the English king's return from Calais till the 13th November; but when at length the _Te Deum_ for his safe home-coming was sung at St.

Paul's, Anne knew that the King of France had undertaken to frighten the Pope into inactivity by talk of the danger of schism in England, and that Cranmer was hurrying across Europe on his way from Italy to London, to become Primate of the Church of England.

The plot projected was a clever one, but it was still needful to handle it very delicately. Cranmer during his residence in Germany and Italy had been zealous in winning favourable opinions for Henry's contention, and his foregathering with Lutheran divines had strengthened his reforming opinions. He had, indeed, proceeded to the dangerous length of going through a form of marriage secretly with a young lady belonging to a Lutheran family. His leanings cannot have been quite unknown to the ever-watchful spies of the Pope and the Emperor, though Cranmer had done his best to hoodwink them, and to some extent had succeeded. But to ask the Pope to issue the Bulls confirming such a man in the Primacy of England was at least a risky proceeding, and Henry had to dissemble. In January, Katharine fondly thought that her husband was softening towards her, for he released her chaplain Abell, who had been imprisoned for publicly speaking in her favour. She fancied, poor soul, that "perhaps G.o.d had touched his heart, and that he was about to acknowledge his error."

Chapuys attributed Henry's new gentleness to his begrudging the cost of two queenly establishments. But seen from this distance of time, it was clearly caused by a desire to disarm the suspicion of the Pope and the Emperor, who were again to meet at Bologna, until the Bulls confirming Cranmer's appointment to the Archbishopric had been issued. Henry went out of his way to be amiable to the imperial amba.s.sador Chapuys, whilst he beguiled the Nuncio with the pretended proposal for reconciliation by means of a decision on the divorce to be given by two Cardinal Legates, appointed by the Pope, and sitting in neutral territory. In vain Chapuys warned the Emperor that Cranmer could not be trusted; but Henry's diplomatic signs of grace prevailed, and the Pope, dreading to drive England further into schism, confirmed Cranmer's election as Archbishop of Canterbury (March 1533).

It was high time; for under a suave exterior both Henry and Anne were in a fever of impatience. At the very time that Queen Katharine thought that her husband had repented, Anne conveyed to him the news that she was with child. It was necessary for their plans that the offspring should be born in wedlock, and yet no public marriage was possible, or the eyes of the Papal party would be opened before the Bulls confirming Cranmer's elevation were issued. Sometime late in January 1533, therefore, a secret marriage was performed at Greenwich, probably by the reforming Franciscan Friar, George Brown,[89] and Anne became Henry's second wife, whilst Katharine was still undivorced. The secret was well kept for a time, and the Nuncio, Baron di Burgo, was fooled to the top of his bent by flatteries and hopes of bribes. He even sat in state on Henry's right hand, the French amba.s.sador being on the left, at the opening of Parliament, probably with the idea of convincing the trembling English clergy that the King and the Pope were working together. In any case, the close a.s.sociation of the Nuncio with Henry and his ministers aroused the fears of Katharine anew, and she broke out in denunciations of the Pope's supineness in thus leaving her without aid for three and a half years, and now entertaining, as she said, a suggestion that would cause her to be declared the King's concubine, and her daughter a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.[90] In vain Chapuys, the only man of his party who saw through the device, prayed that Cranmer's Bulls should not be sent from Rome, that the sentence in Katharine's favour should no longer be delayed. It was already too late.

The pride of Anne and her father at the secret marriage could not much longer be kept under. In the middle of February, whilst dining in her own apartment, she said that "she was now as sure that she should be married to the King, as she was of her own death"; and the Earl of Wilts.h.i.+re told the aged kinsman of Henry, the Earl of Rutland, a staunch adherent of Katharine, that "the King was determined not to be so considerate as he had been, but would marry the Marchioness of Pembroke at once, by the authority of Parliament."[91] Anne's condition, indeed, could not continue to be concealed, and whispers of it reached the Queen at Ampthill. By March the rumour was rife at Court that the marriage had taken place--a rumour which it is plain that Anne's friends took no pains to deny, and Cranmer positively encouraged.[92]