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

by James Anthony Froude

were most profuse and decided; and although it was not expressly stated in words, Henry seems to have persuaded himself that, if the pope pressed matters to extremities, Francis had engaged further that the two countries should pursue a common course, and unite in a common schism. The two princes did in fact agree, that if the general council which they desired was refused, they would summon provincial councils on their own authority. Each of them perhaps interpreted their engagements by their own wishes or interests.[³⁸⁷]

We may further believe, since it was affirmed by Henry, and not denied by Francis, that the latter advised Henry to bring the dispute to a close, by a measure from which he could not recede; that he recommended him to act on the general opinion of Europe that his marriage with Queen Catherine was null, and at once upon his return to England to make Anne Boleyn his wife.[³⁸⁸]

So far the account is clear. This advice was certainly given, and as certainly Francis undertook to support Henry through all the consequences in which the marriage might involve him. But a league for mutual defence fell short of what Henry desired, and fell short also of what Francis, by the warmth of his manner, had induced Henry for the moment to believe that he meant. It is probable that the latter pressed upon him engagements which he avoided by taking refuge in general professions; and no sooner had Henry returned to England,

than either misgivings occurred to him as to the substantial results of the interview, or he was anxious to make the French king commit himself more definitely. He sent to him to beg that he would either write out, or dictate and sign, the expressions which he had used; professing to wish it only for the comfort which he would derive from the continual presence of such refreshing words—but surely for some deeper reason.[³⁸⁹]

Francis had perhaps said more than he meant; Henry supposed him to have meant more than he said. Yet some promise was made, which was not afterwards observed; and Francis acknowledged some engagement in an apology which he offered for the breach of it. He asserted, in defence of himself, that he had added a stipulation which Henry passed over in silence,—that no steps should be taken towards annulling the marriage with Catherine in the English law courts until the effect had been seen of his interview with the pope, provided the pope on his side remained similarly inactive.[³⁹⁰] Whatever it was which he had bound himself to do, this condition, if made at all, could be reconciled only with his advice that Henry should marry Anne Boleyn without further delay, on the supposition that the interview in question was to take place immediately; for the natural consequences of the second marriage would involve, as a matter of course, some speedy legal declaration with respect to the first. And when on various pretexts the pope postponed the meeting, and on the other part of his suggestion Henry had acted within a few months of his return from Calais, it became impossible that such a condition could be observed. It availed for a formal excuse; but Francis vainly endeavoured to disguise his own infirmity of purpose behind the language of a negotiation which conveyed, when it was used, a meaning widely different.

The conference was concluded on the 1st of November, but the court was detained at Calais for a further fortnight by violent gales in the Channel. In the excited state of public feeling, events in themselves ordinary assumed a preternatural significance. The friends of Queen Catherine, to whom the meeting between the kings was of so disastrous augury, and the nation generally, which an accident to Henry at such a time would have plunged into a chaos of confusion, alike watched the storm with anxious agitation; on the king's return to London, Te Deums were offered in the churches, as if for his deliverance from some extreme and imminent peril. The Nun of Kent on this great occasion was admitted to conferences with angels. She denounced the meeting, under celestial instruction, as a conspiracy against Heaven. The king, she said, but for her interposition, would have proceeded, while at Calais, to his impious marriage;[³⁹¹] and God was so angry with him, that he was not permitted to profane with his unholy eyes the blessed Sacrament. "It was written in her revelations," says the statute of her attainder, "that when the King's Grace was at Calais, and his Majesty and the French king were hearing mass in the Church of Our Lady, that God was so displeased with the King's Highness, that his Grace saw not at that time the blessed sacrament in the form of bread, for it was taken away from the priest, being at mass, by an angel, and was ministered to the said Elizabeth, there being present and invisible,

and suddenly conveyed and rapt thence again into the nunnery where she was professed."[³⁹²]

She had an interview with Henry on his return through Canterbury, to try the effect of her Cassandra presence on his fears;[³⁹³] but if he still delayed his marriage, it was probably neither because he was frightened by her denunciations, nor from alarm at the usual occurrence of an equinoctial storm. Many motives combined to dissuade him from further hesitation. Six years of trifling must have convinced him that by decisive action alone he could force the pope to a conclusion. He was growing old, and the exigencies of the succession, rendered doubly pressing by the long agitation, required immediate resolution. He was himself satisfied that he was at liberty to marry whom he pleased and when he pleased, his relationship to Catherine, according to his recent convictions, being such as had rendered his connection with her from the beginning invalid and void. His own inclinations and the interests of the nation pointed to the same course. The King of France had advised it. Even the pope himself, at the outset of the discussion, had advised it also. "Marry freely," the pope had said; "fear nothing, and all shall be arranged as you desire." He had forborne to take the pope at his word; he had hoped that the justice of his demands might open a less violent way to him; and he had shrunk from a step which might throw even a causeless shadow over the legitimacy of the offspring for which he longed. The case was now changed; no other alternative seemed to be open to his choice, and it was necessary to bring the matter to a close once and for all.

But Henry, as he said himself, was past the age when passion or appetite would be likely to move him, and having waited so many years, he could afford to wait a little longer, till the effects of the Calais conferences upon the pope should have had time to show themselves. In December, Clement was to meet the emperor at Bologna. In the month following, it might be hoped that he would meet Francis at Marseilles or Avignon, and from their interview would be seen conclusively the future attitude of the papal and imperial courts. Experience of the past forbade anything like sanguine expectation; yet it was not impossible that the pope might be compelled at last to yield the required concessions. The terms of Henry's understanding with Francis were not perhaps made public, but he