The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon / The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry VIII

by James Anthony Froude

[383] Chapuys to Charles V., Feb. 25, 1536.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. pp. 131 et seq.

[384] “Et aussy quant à l’auctorité de l’Eglise Anglicane l’on pourroit persuader au Roy que la chose se appoineteroit à son honnneur, proufit, et bien du royaulme.”

[385] I. e. as part of it. Charles V. to Chapuys, March 28, 1536.—MS. Vienna; Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. pp. 224 et seq.; Spanish Calendar, vol. v. part 2, pp. 71 et seq. There are some differences in the translations in the two Calendars. When I refer to the MS. at Vienna I use copies made there by myself.

[386] Chapuys to Charles V., April 1, 1536.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. p. 243.

[387] Chapuys to Charles V., April 1, 1536.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. p. 242.

[388] Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, June 2, 1536, vol. x. pp. 428 et seq.

[389] Chapuys to Charles V., April 21, 1536.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. pp. 287 et seq.; Spanish Calendar, vol. v. part 2, pp. 85 et seq.

[390] April 21.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic.

[391] Henry VIII. to Pate, April 25, 1536. Abridged.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. x. p. 306.

[392] “Et que a luy avoit este l’auctorite de descouvrir et parachever les affairs de la dicte Concubine, en quoy il avoit eu une merveilleuse pene; et que sur le desplesir et courroux qu’il avoit eu sur le reponse que le Roy son maistre m’avoit donné le tiers jour de Pasques il se mit a fantasier et conspirer le dict affaire,” etc. Chapuys to Charles V., June 6, 1536.—MS. Vienna; Spanish Calendar, vol. v. part 2, p. 137. From the word “conspirer” it has been inferred that the accusation of Anne and her accomplices was a conspiracy of Cromwell’s, got up in haste for an immediate political purpose. Cromwell must have been marvellously rapid, since within four days he was able to produce a case to lay before a Special Commission composed of the highest persons in the realm assisted by the Judges, involving the Queen and a still powerful faction at the court. We are to believe, too, that he had the inconceivable folly to acknowledge it to Chapuys, the most dangerous person to whom such a secret could be communicated. Cromwell was not an idiot, and it is impossible that in so short a time such an accumulation of evidence could have been invented and prepared so skilfully as to deceive the Judges.