The naked truth—and nakedness is not always indecent—was something of this kind. A marriage with a brother’s wife was forbidden by the universal law of Christendom. Kings, dukes, and other great men who disposed as they pleased of the hands of their sons and daughters, found it often desirable, for political or domestic reasons, to form connections which the law prohibited, and therefore they maintained an Italian conjuror who professed to be able for a consideration to turn wrong into right. To marriages so arranged it was absurd to attach the same obligations as belonged to unions legitimately contracted. If, as often happened, such marriages turned out ill, the same conjuror who could make could unmake. This function, also, he was repeatedly called on to exercise, and, for a consideration also, he was usually compliant. The King of England had been married as a boy to Catherine of Aragon, carrying out an arrangement between their respective fathers. The marriage had failed in the most important object for which royal marriages are formed: there was no male heir to the crown, nor any prospect of one. Henry, therefore, as any other prince in Europe would have done, applied to the Italian for assistance. The conjuror was willing, confessing that the case was one where his abilities might properly be employed. But another of his supporters interfered, and forced him to refuse. The King of England had always paid his share for the conjuror’s maintenance. He was violently deprived of a concession which it was admitted that he had a right to claim. But for the conjuror’s pretensions to make the unlawful lawful he would not have been in the situation in which he found himself. What could be more natural than that, finding himself thus treated, he should begin to doubt whether the conjuror, after all, had the power of making wrong into right? whether the marriage had not been wrong from the beginning? And, when the magical artist began to curse, as his habit was when doubts were thrown on his being the Vicar of the Almighty, what could be more natural also than to throw him and his tackle out of window?
The passing of the Act increased the anxiety about the position of the Princess Mary. In the opinion of most reasonable persons her claim to the succession was superior to that of Elizabeth, and, if she had submitted to her father, it would probably have been allowed and established. In the eyes of the disaffected, however, she was already, by Clement’s sentence, the legitimate possessor of the throne. Reginald Pole, Lady Salisbury’s son and grandson of the Duke of Clarence, was still abroad. Henry had endeavoured to gain him over, but had not succeeded. He was of the blood of the White Rose, and, with his brother, had gone by instinct into opposition. His birth, in those days of loyalty to race, gave him influence in England, and Catherine, as has been seen, had fixed upon him as Mary’s husband. He had been brought already under Charles’s notice as likely to be of use in the intended rebellion. The Queen, wrote Chapuys to the Emperor, knew no one to whom she would better like her daughter to be married; many right-minded people held that the light to the crown lay in the family of the Duke of Clarence, Edward’s children having been illegitimate; if the Emperor would send an army across with Lord Reginald attached to it everyone would declare for him; his younger brother Geoffrey was a constant visitor to himself; once more he insisted that nothing could be more easy than the conquest of the whole kingdom.[298]
The object with Chapuys was now to carry Mary abroad, partly that she might be married to Pole, partly for her own security. Notwithstanding the King’s evident care for her health and good treatment he could not look into the details of her daily life, and Anne was growing daily more dangerous. Both Catherine and the Princess had still many friends among the ladies of the Court. To one of these, young and beautiful—and, therefore, certainly not the plain Jane Seymour—the King was supposed to have paid attentions. Like another lady who had been mentioned previously, she was devoted to Catherine’s interests, and obviously not, therefore, a pretender to Henry’s personal affections. Anne had affected to be jealous, and under other aspects had reason for uneasiness. She had demanded this lady’s dismissal from the court, and had been so violent that “the King had left her in displeasure, complaining of her importunacy and vexatiousness.” The restoration of Mary to favour was a constant alarm to Anne, and she had a party of her own which had been raised by her patronage, depended on her influence, and was ready to execute her pleasure. Thus the petty annoyances of which both Catherine and her daughter complained were not discontinued. The household at Kimbolton was reduced; a confidential maid who had been useful in the Queen’s correspondence was discovered and dismissed. Mary was left under the control of Mrs. Shelton, who dared not openly displease Anne. It was Anne that Chapuys blamed.
Anne hated the Princess. The King had a real love for her. In her illness he had been studiously kind. When told it had been caused by mental trouble he said, with a sigh, “that it was pity her obstinacy should prevent him from treating her as he wished and as she deserved. The case was the harder, as he knew that her conduct had been dictated by her mother, and he was therefore obliged to keep them separate.”[299]
The Privy Councillors appear to have remonstrated with Anne on her behaviour to Mary. Passionate scenes, at any rate, had occurred between her and Henry’s principal Ministers. She spoke to her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, in terms “which would not be used to a dog.” Norfolk left the room in indignation, muttering that she was a “grande putaine.” The malcontents increased daily and became bolder in word and action. Lord Northumberland, Anne’s early lover, of whom Darcy had been doubtful, professed now to be so disgusted with the malice and arrogance of the Lady that he, too, looked to the Emperor’s coming as the only remedy. Lord Sandys, Henry’s chamberlain, withdrew to his house, pretending sickness, and sent Chapuys a message that the Emperor had the hearts of the English people, and, at the least motion which the Emperor might make, the realm would be in confusion.[300] The news from Fitzgerald was less satisfactory. His resources were failing, and he wanted help, but he was still standing out. England, however, was more and more sure; the northern counties were unanimous, in the south and west the Marquis of Exeter and the Poles were superior to any force which could be brought against them; the spread of Lutheranism was creating more exasperation than even the divorce. Moderate men had hoped for an arrangement with the new Pope. Instead of it, the heretical preachers were more violent than ever, and the King was believed to have encouraged them. Dr. Brown, an Augustinian friar, and General of the Mendicant Order, who, as some believed, had married the King and Anne, had dared to maintain in a sermon “that the Bishops and all others who did not burn the Bulls which they had received from the Pope, and obtain others from the King, deserved to be punished. Their authority was derived from the King alone. Their sacred chrism would avail them nothing while they obeyed the Idol of Rome, who was a limb of the Devil.”
“Language so abominable,” said Chapuys, in reporting it, “must have been prompted by the King, or else by Cromwell, who made the said monk his right hand in all things unlawful;” Cromwell and Cranmer being of Luther’s opinion that there was no difference between priests and bishops, save what the letters patent of the Crown might constitute. “Cromwell,” Chapuys said, “had been feeling his way with some of the Bench on the subject.” At a meeting of Council he had asked Gardiner and others whether the King could not make and unmake bishops at his pleasure. They were obliged to answer that he could, to save their benefices.[301]
Outrages so flagrant had shocked beyond longer endurance the Conservative mind of England. Darcy, at the beginning of the new year (a year which, as he hoped, was to witness an end to them), sent Chapuys a present of a sword, as an indication that the time was come for sword-play.[302] Let the Emperor send but a little money; let a proclamation be drawn in his name that the nation was in arms for the cause of God and the Queen, the comfort of the people, and the restoration of order and justice, and a hundred thousand men would rush to the field. The present was the propitious moment. If action was longer delayed it might be too late.[303]
To the enthusiastic and the eager the cause which touches themselves the nearest seems always the most important in the world. Charles V. had struggled long to escape the duty which the Pope and destiny appeared to be combining to thrust upon him. With Germany unsettled, with the Turks in Hungary, with Barbarossa’s corsair-fleet commanding the Mediterranean and harassing the Spanish coast, with another French war visibly ahead, and a renewed invasion of Italy, Charles was in no condition to add Henry to the number of his enemies. Chapuys and Darcy, Fisher and Reginald Pole allowed passion to persuade them that the English King was Antichrist in person, the centre of all the disorder which disturbed the world. All else could wait, but the Emperor must first strike down Antichrist and then the rest would be easy. Charles was wiser than they, and could better estimate the danger of what he was called on to undertake; but he could not shut his ears entirely to entreaties so reiterated. Before anything could be done, however, means would have to be taken to secure the persons of the Queen and Princess—of the Princess especially, as she would be in most danger. So far he had discouraged her escape when it had been proposed to him, since, were she once in his hands, he had thought that war could no longer be avoided. He now allowed Chapuys to try what he could do to get her out of the country, and meanwhile to report more particularly on the landing of an invading force.
The escape itself presented no great difficulty. The Princess was generally at the Palace at Greenwich. Her friends would let her out at night; an armed barge could be waiting off the walls, and a Flemish man-of-war might be ready at the Nore, of size sufficient to beat off boats that might be sent in pursuit. Should she be removed elsewhere the enterprise would not be so easy. In the event of an insurrection while she was still in the realm, Chapuys said the first step of the Lords would be to get possession of her mother and Mary. If they failed, the King would send them to the Tower: but in the Tower they would be out of danger, as the Constable, Sir William Kingston, was their friend. In any case he did not believe that hurt would be done them, the King feeling that, if war did break out, they would be useful as mediators, like the wife and mother of Coriolanus.