“My lord,” answered the queen, with a proud innocence, “if you have anything to say, speak it openly before these folk; I would all the world should see and hear it.”
Whereupon Wolsey began to address her in Latin, in which language she was well skilled; but she said humbly: “Pray, my good lord, speak to me in English, for I can, thank God, understand English, though I do know some Latin.”
The queen then led the cardinals into her withdrawing-room, and it is recorded of this conference, that she did so set forth her cause that they would not henceforth decide against her.
But chafing at the long pontifical delays, King Henry determined to take the matter into his own hands. He had used every device to induce the queen to consent to the divorce; and had by bribes and threats obtained from most of the universities of Europe opinions that the marriage was illegal.
King Henry then sent a message to Queen Catharine, who was at that time residing at Greenwich Palace, entreating her, for the quieting of his conscience, that she would refer the matter to arbitration. Catharine replied: “God grant my husband a quiet conscience; but I mean to abide by no decision excepting that of Rome.”
This answer so enraged the king that he took the queen to Windsor Castle, and then himself departing on some excuse, he sent authoritative commands to her that she should leave forever the royal palace.
“He is my husband, and it is my duty to obey him,” said the injured and faithful wife; “but though I go hence at his bidding, I am his wife, and for him will I pray.”
King Henry had previously endeavored to have Catharine persuaded to enter a convent; and in view of such an event, his sensitive conscience had required him to apply to the ablest canonists in Rome to give him their opinions on the three following questions: 1. Whether, if a wife were to enter a convent, the Pope could not, in the plenitude of his power, authorize the husband to marry again. 2. Whether, if the husband were to enter a religious order that he might induce his wife to do the same, he might not be afterwards released from his vow and at liberty to marry. 3. Whether, for reasons of state, the Pope could not license a king to have, like the ancient patriarchs, two wives, of whom one only should be acknowledged and enjoy the honors of royalty. Rather convincing proofs, truly, that the compunctions of conscience of this royal hypocrite were a hollow sham!
After her expulsion from her husband’s court, Catharine first went to her manor of the More, in Hertfordshire; and then settled at Ampthill, from whence she wrote to Pope Clement, informing him of her banishment from the royal court. As the Pope would not sanction the divorce, but instead issued a bull of excommunication against the royal rebel, the king, in 1533, dissolved his own wedlock by a decision pronounced in a court held by Archbishop Cranmer. Some historians state that he had married Anne Boleyn previously to the time when the divorce was pronounced.
When the news of this double insult reached poor Catharine, she was lying upon a sick-bed, worn out with sorrow. In vain had she pleaded to be allowed to see her only child, the Princess Mary, for one last farewell. And now her agonized mother’s heart is wrung with added woe. Lord Montjoy, her former page, was deputed to bear to her the minutes of the infamous conference, by whose decision she was degraded from the rank of queen of England to that of dowager-princess of Wales.