Stephen Vaughan and Christopher Mann were despatched, the former to Saxony, the other to Bavaria.[[340]] Vaughan reached Weimar on the 1st of September, where he had to wait five days for the Elector of Saxony, who was away hunting. On the 5th of September he had an audience of the prince, and spoke to him first in French and then in Latin. Seeing that the elector, who spoke neither French, English, nor Latin, answered him only with nods,[[341]] he begged the chancellor to be his interpreter. A written answer was sent to Vaughan at seven in the evening: the Elector of Saxony turned his back on the powerful King of England. He was unworthy, he said, to have at his court ambassadors from his royal majesty; and besides, the emperor, who was his only master, might be displeased. Vaughan’s annoyance was extreme. ‘Strange rudeness!’ he exclaimed. ‘A more uncourteous refusal has never been made to such a gracious proposition. And to my greater misfortune, it is the first mission of kind with which I have ever been entrusted.’ He left Weimar determined not to deliver his credentials either to the Landgrave of Hesse or to the Duke of Lauenberg, whom he was instructed to visit: he did not wish to run the chance of receiving fresh affronts.
A strange lot was that of the King of England! the pope excommunicating him, and the heretics desiring to have nothing to do with him! No more allies, no more friends! Be it so: if the nation and the monarch are agreed, what is there to fear? Besides at the very moment this affront was offered him, his joy was at its height; the hope of soon possessing that heir, for whom he had longed so many years, quite transported him. He ordered an official letter to be prepared announcing the birth of a prince ‘to the great joy of the king,’ it ran, ‘and of all his loving subjects.’ Only the date of the letter was left blank.
On the 7th of September, two days after the elector’s refusal, Anne, then residing in the palace at Greenwich, was brought to bed of a fine well-formed child, reminding the gossips of the features of both parents; but alas! it was a girl. Henry, agitated by two strong affections, love for Anne and desire for a son, had been kept in great anxiety during the time of labor. When he was told that the child was a girl, the love he bore for the mother prevailed, and though disappointed in his fondest wishes, he received the babe with joy. But the famous letter announcing the birth of a prince ... what must be done with it now? Henry ordered the queen’s secretary to add an s to the word prince, and despatched the circular without making any change in the expression of his satisfaction.[[342]] The christening was celebrated with great pomp; two hundred torches were carried before the princess, a fit emblem of the light which her reign would shed abroad. The child was named Elizabeth, and Henry gave her the title of Princess of Wales, declaring her his successor, in case he should have no male offspring. In London the excitement was great; Te Deums, bells, and music filled the air. The adepts of judicial astrology declared that the stars announced a glorious future. A bright star was indeed rising over England; and the English people, throwing off the yoke of Rome, were about to start on a career of freedom, morality, and greatness. The firm Elizabeth was not destined to shine by the amiability which distinguished her mother, and the restrictions she placed upon liberty tend rather to remind us of her father. Yet while on the continent kings were trampling under foot the independence of their subjects, the English people, under Anne Boleyn’s daughter, were to develop themselves, to flourish in letters, and in arts, to extend navigation and commerce, to reform abuses, to exercise their liberties, to watch energetically over the public good, and to set up the torch of the Gospel of Christ.
English Envoys At Marseilles.
The king of France very adverse to England’s becoming independent of Rome, at last prevailed upon Henry to send two English agents (Gardiner and Bryan) to Marseilles. ‘You will keep your eyes open,’ said Henry VIII. to them, ‘and lend an attentive ear, but you will keep your mouths shut.’ The English envoys being invited to a conference with Clement and Francis, and solicited by those great personages to speak, declared that they had no powers. ‘Why then were you sent?’ exclaimed the king unable to conceal his vexation. The ambassadors only answered with a smile.[[343]] Francis who meant to uphold the authority of the pope in France, was unwilling that England should be free: he seems to have had some presentiment of the happy effects that independence would work for the rival nation. Accordingly he took the ambassadors aside, and prayed them to enter immediately on business with the pontiff. ‘We are not here for his Holiness,’ dryly answered Gardiner, ‘or to negotiate anything with him, but only to do what the King of England commands us.’ The tricks of the papacy had ruined it in the minds of the English people. Francis I., displeased at Gardiner’s silence and irritated by his stiffness, intimated to the King of England that he would be pleased to see ‘better instruments’ sent.[[344]] Henry did send another instrument to Marseilles, but he took care to choose one sharper still.
Edward Bonner, archdeacon of Leicester, was a clever, active man, but ambitious, coarse and rude, wanting in delicacy and consideration towards those with whom he had to deal, violent, and, as he showed himself later to the protestants, a cruel persecutor. For some time he had got into Cromwell’s good graces, and as the wind was against popery, Bonner was against the pope. Henry gave him his appeal to a general council, and charged him to present it to Clement VII.: it was the ‘bill of divorcement’ between the pope and England. Bonner, proud of being the bearer of so important a message, arrived at Marseilles, firmly resolved to give Henry a proof of his zeal. If Luther had burnt the pope’s bull at Wittemberg, Bonner would do as much; but while Luther had acted as a free man, Bonner was only a slave, pushing to fanaticism his submission to the orders of his despotic master.
Gardiner was astonished when he heard of Bonner’s arrival. What a humiliation for him! He hung his head, pinched his lips,[[345]] and then lifted up his eyes and hands, as if cursing the day and hour when Bonner appeared. Never were two men more discordant to one another. Gardiner could not believe the news. A scheme contrived without him! A bishop to see one of his inferiors charged with a mission more important than his own! Bonner, having paid him a visit, Gardiner affected great coldness, and brought forward every reason calculated to dissuade him from executing his commission.—‘But I have a letter from the king,’ answered Bonner, ‘sealed with his seal, and dated from Windsor; here it is.’ And he took from his satchel the letter in which Henry VIII. intimated that he had appealed from the sentence of the pope recently delivered against him.[[346]] ‘Good,’ answered Gardiner, and taking the letter he read: ‘Our good pleasure is that if you deem it good and serviceable (Gardiner dwelt upon those two words) you will give the pope notice of the said appeal, according to the forms required by law; if not, you will acquaint us with your opinion in that respect.—‘That is clear,’ said Gardiner; ‘you should advise the king to abstain, for that notice just now will be neither good nor serviceable.’—‘And I say that it is both,’ rejoined Bonner.
One circumstance brought the two Englishmen into harmony, at least for a time. Catherine de Medicis, the pope’s niece, had been married to the son of Francis I., and Clement made four French prelates cardinals. But not one Englishman, not even Gardiner! That changed the question; there could be no more doubt. Francis is sacrificing Henry to the pope, and the pope insults England. Gardiner himself desired Bonner to give the pontiff notice of the appeal, and the English envoy, fearing refusal if he asked for an audience of Clement, determined to overleap the usual formalities, and take the place by assault.
Clement And Bonner.
On the 7th of November, the Archdeacon of Leicester, accompanied by Penniston, a gentleman who had brought him the king’s last orders, went early to the pontifical palace, preparing to let fall from the folds of his mantle war between England and the papacy. As he was not expected, the pontifical officers stopped him at the door; but the Englishman forced his way in, and entered a hall through which the pope must pass on his way to the consistory.