The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3)

by James Anthony Froude

audacity. Far from imitating the hesitation of the pope and the bishops, she issued boldly, "in the name and by the authority of God," a solemn prohibition against the king; threatening that, if he divorced his wife, he should not "reign a month, but should die a villain's death."[³²⁶] Burdened with this message, she forced herself into the presence of Henry himself;[³²⁷] and when she failed to produce an effect upon Henry's obdurate scepticism, she turned to the hesitating ecclesiastics, and roused their flagging spirits. The archbishop bent under her denunciations, and at her earnest request introduced her to Wolsey, then tottering on the edge of ruin.[³²⁸] He, too, in his confusion and perplexity, was frightened, and doubted. She made herself known to the papal ambassadors, and through them she took upon herself to threaten Clement,[³²⁹] assuming, in virtue of her

divine commission, an authority above all principalities and powers. If it were likely that she could have heard the story of the Maid of Orleans, it might be supposed that her imagination tempted her to play again a similar career on an English stage, and that she fancied herself the destined saviour of the Church of Christ, as the Maid had been the saviour of France.

It would indeed be a libel on the fair fame of Joan of Arc, if she were to be compared to a confessed impostor; but Joan of Arc might have been the reality which the Nun attempted to counterfeit; and the history of the true heroine might have suggested easily to the imitator the outline of her part. A revolution had been effected in Europe by a somnambulist peasant girl; another peasant girl, a somnambulist also, might have seen in the achievement which had been already accomplished, an earnest of what might be done by herself. While we call the Nun, too, an impostor, we are bound to believe that she first imposed upon herself, and that her wildest adventures into falsehood were compatible with a belief that she was really and truly inspired. Nothing short of such a conviction would have enabled her to play a part among kings and queens, and so many of the ablest statesmen of that most able age. Nothing else could have tempted her, on the failure of her prophecies, into the desperate career of treason into which we are soon to see her launched.

Her proceedings were known partially, but partially only, to the king; and the king seems to have been the only person whose understanding was proof against her influence. To him she appeared nothing worse than an excited fanatic, and he allowed her to go her own way, as the best escapement of a frenzy. Until parliament had declared it illegal to discuss the marriage question further, he interfered with no one, and therefore not with her. If her own word was to be taken, he even showed her much personal kindness, having offered to make her an abbess, which is difficult to believe, especially as she said that she had refused his offer. She stated also that at the time of Lord Wiltshire's mission to the emperor, the Countess of Wiltshire endeavoured to persuade her to accept a place at the court, as a companion to Anne; which again is unsupported by other evidence, and sounds improbable.[³³⁰] But it is plain, that until she was found to be meditating treason, she experienced no treatment from the government of which she had cause to complain; and thus for the present we may leave

her pursuing her machinations with the Canterbury friars, and return to the parliament.

The second session had been longer than the first; it had commenced on the 16th of January, and continued for ten weeks. On the 30th of March, which was to be its last day, Sir Thomas More came down to the House of Commons, and there read aloud to the members the decision of the various universities on the papal power, and the judgment of European learning on the general question of the king's divorce. The country, he said, was much disturbed, and the king desired them each to report what they had heard in their several counties and towns, "in order that all men might perceive that he had not attempted this matter of his own will or pleasure, as some strangers reported, but only for the discharge of his conscience and surety of the succession of his realm."[³³¹] This appears to have been the first time that the subject was mentioned before parliament, and the occasion was reasonably and sensibly chosen. The clergy having possession of the pulpits, had used their opportunity to spread a false impression where the ignorance of the people would allow them to venture the experiment; the king having resolved to fall back upon the support of his subjects, naturally desired the assistance of the country gentlemen and the nobles to counteract the efforts of disaffection, and provided them with accurate information in the simplest manner which he could have chosen.

But the desire expressed by Henry was no more than an unnecessary form, for as a body, the educated laity were as earnestly bent upon the divorce as the king himself could be, and might have been trusted to use all means by which to further it. The parliament was prorogued, but the Lords, shortly after the separation, united with such of the Commons as remained in London, to give a proof of their feeling by a voluntary address to the pope. The meaning of this movement was not to be mistaken. On one side, the Nun of Kent was threatening Clement, speaking, perhaps, the feelings of the clergy and of all the women in England; on the other side, the parliament thought well to threaten him, speaking for the great body of English men, for all persons of substance and property, who desired above all things peace and order and a secured succession.

The language of this remarkable document[³³²] was as follows:—

"To the Most Holy Lord our Lord and Father in Christ, Clement, by Divine Providence the seventh of that name, we desire perpetual happiness in our Lord Jesus Christ.