A month later, the same writer was at Paris, and says:—
“The English ambassador here, Sir John Wallop, does not approve the divorce; praising the wisdom, innocence, and patience of Queen Katharine, as also her daughter. He says that the Queen was beloved as if she had been of the blood royal of England, and the Princess in like manner.”[82]
And from Lyons, on the 28th March 1533, he writes that a gentleman who has come from England has told Sir John Wallop, that “the King does not choose the Princess any longer to be styled Princess, but ‘Madam Mary,’ nor will he give her in marriage abroad; others say that he intends to make her a nun”. In August Marc Antonio Venier, in a despatch to the Signory from Rome, says that “letters from England announce that the Archbishop of Canterbury has pronounced a sentence in favour of Henry, prohibiting Katharine to be any longer named Queen, and is having it proclaimed throughout the realm, so that she may not be able to defend herself; and her daughter has been admonished not to interfere”.[83]
In the main, the Italians were correctly informed as to passing events in England. But at this period, although Henry kept Mary at a distance from court, and had not seen her for three years, she was still treated with a degree of consideration, to which her mother had long been a stranger. He was still uncertain as to the use he would make of her, in securing for himself allies abroad. He hoped that she would submit quietly to the new laws, and therefore, for a time at least, nothing was abated of her royal state. In September 1531, soon after her parting from her mother, a warrant was issued to the Master of the Great Wardrobe “to deliver certain things for the use of the Princess,” nearly all of which were composed of materials then only used by royal personages.[84]
The perennial question of her marriage was again in debate, but was thenceforth removed to a lower level in European politics. Her betrothal to the Duke of Orleans had never been cancelled, but a dispute had arisen between Henry and Francis, on the subject of money. Then, when the validity of her parents’ marriage became a matter of discussion in all the Universities of Europe, Francis wished that the case should be first settled, “lest the world should declare that his son had married a bastard”.[85] And in the midst of these delays, the Scottish alliance was again mooted. But the Scotch put too high a value on their friendship with France, to risk such a union;[86] Margaret was too like her brother to commit herself to any definite policy save that of intrigue; and Henry had now more urgent business on hand than the disposal of his daughter in marriage. Some languid interest was excited at court by the proposal of King John Zapolski to marry her, and Chapuys heard that her hand had been sought for the Duke of Cleves;[87] but neither project was seriously entertained. It was also believed that the Pope and the Emperor wished to bestow her on Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, who had lost the use of his hands and feet. “And this,” wrote Niño to the Emperor, “would not be half such bad treatment of the daughter as of the mother.”[88]
To all these projects Henry replied that the Princess would never be married except in a high position, for she was still heiress of the kingdom; and when the great affair was settled in the King’s favour, and he remarried, it was uncertain whether he would have male children, and if not she would be preferred to other daughters. If any person ventured to say that she was illegitimate, “he would have his head cut off”.[89]
Wolsey had died in disgrace, on the 27th November 1530, and the chancellorship devolved on his own secretary, Thomas Cromwell, a man who virtually made the history of the next ten years in England. The son of a “fuller of clothes” or dyer, his career had been singularly varied. He had as a mere youth found his way to Italy, where he served as a common soldier, but being preternaturally observant, he succeeded in picking up many scraps of the new learning which fell from the great Medici banquet, then being spread throughout Tuscany. Machiavelli’s book, Il Principe, was the foundation on which his whole future statesmanship was built. On his return to England he was successively a scrivener, a lawyer, a money-lender, and a great wool merchant at Middlesbrough. It was not till he was nearly middle-aged, that he attracted the notice of Wolsey, then beginning the suppression of some small monasteries, in favour of his colleges at Ipswich and Oxford. On Wolsey’s fall, it was thought that he would be imprisoned, but he seized the moment when the tide was turning, and used it to float himself into a safe harbour. Reginald Pole, son of the Countess of Salisbury, had met him at Cardinal Wolsey’s, and had recognised in him the coming man. They had talked philosophy, and Cromwell tried to persuade him that Plato’s system was “a dream,” promising to send him a copy of Il Principe. It was probably at Cromwell’s instigation that Henry offered Pole the Archbishopric of York, although he was not yet in priest’s orders. Seeing the course that the King was now taking, and Cromwell’s growing influence, instead of accepting the benefice, Pole determined to fly the kingdom, “beyond the reach of his bow,”[90] and was in consequence saved from the fate of More and Fisher, and, later on, from that of his own mother. Henry, loth to lose so able an advocate as he would prove, if he could be won over to his cause, refused his repeated request to be allowed to go and study abroad. But at last Pole told him that if he remained in England, he must of necessity attend the Parliament which was about to assemble, and that if the King’s divorce were discussed, he must speak according to his conscience. Henry then at once gave him leave to go, and even promised to continue his income of 400 ducats yearly.[91]
Between the beginning of August 1530 and May 1531, Henry lavished the price of a king’s ransom in jewels upon Anne.[92] But in the catalogue of presents made by him on New Year’s Day, 1532, the names of the Queen and Princess are conspicuously followed by a blank space. Not only did he send them none, but he forbade the members of his council, and others to do so, and this year he abstained for the first time from making presents to the ladies of Katharine’s and Mary’s households. But to Anne he gave the hangings of a room in cloth of gold and silver, and crimson satin with costly embroideries. She was now lodged in the Queen’s apartments, and had almost as many ladies as if she were already queen. Katharine sent a gold cup to the King as a present, but he returned it to her, with a message praising its beauty, but informing her that he could receive no gift from her. So complete was the power of Anne over him at this time, that he was less free than the least of his subjects; and this power she continued to exercise during the entire year then beginning, and a few months longer. Chapuys told the Emperor that one day Henry had met his daughter walking in the fields, but did not say much to her, except to ask her how she was, and to assure her that in future he would see her more often. “It is certain,” he continued, “that the King dares [not] bring her where the Lady is, for she does not wish to see her or hear of her.” He thought that the King would have talked with Mary longer and more familiarly, if the Lady had not sent two of her people to listen. The Princess, he adds, was to be at Windsor during her father’s absence in France, whither he was to be accompanied by Anne, and the Queen was very much afraid that he would marry his mistress at the impending interview with the French king. “But the Lady has assured some person in whom she trusts, that even if the King wished, she would not consent, for she wishes it to be done here, in the place where queens are wont to be married and crowned.”[93]
In anticipation of the journey to France, Anne had been created Marchioness of Pembroke on the 1st September 1532,[94] and was to appear at the meeting with Francis, in great state as the future queen; but as no royal lady could be prevailed on to meet her, not even the Queen of Navarre, who was supposed to be her friend, she was obliged to go unattended by a suite.[95]