The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History

by Martin A. S. Hume

Henry at length determined that he would wait no longer. His four agents in Rome had almost driven the Pope to distraction with their importunities. Gardiner had gone to the length of threatening Clement with the secession of England from the Papacy, and Anne’s cousin, Henry’s boon companion Brian, deploring the Pope’s obstinacy in a letter from Rome to the King, was bold enough to say: “I hope I shall not die until your Grace has been able to requite the Pope, and Popes, and not be fed with their flattering words.” But in spite of it all, Clement would only palliate and temporise, and finally refused to give any fresh instructions to the Legates or help the King’s cause by any new act. To Campeggio he wrote angrily, telling him, for God’s sake, to procrastinate the matter in England somehow, and not throw upon his shoulders in Rome the responsibility of giving judgment; whilst Campeggio, though professing a desire to please Henry in everything—in the hope of getting the promised rich See of Durham, his enemies said—was equally determined not to go an inch beyond the Pope’s written instructions, or to assume responsibility for the final decision. The churchmen indeed were shuffling and lying all round, for the position was threatening, with Lutheranism daily becoming bolder and the Emperor growing ever more peremptory, now that he had become reconciled to the Pope.

By the end of May Henry had had enough of dallying, especially as rumours came from Rome that the Pope might revoke the commission of the Legates; and the great hall of the Monastery of Blackfriars was made ready for the sittings of the Legatine Court. On a raised daïs were two chairs of state, covered with cloth of gold, and on the right side of the daïs a throne and canopy for the King, confronted by another for the Queen. The first sittings of the Legates were formal, and the King and Queen were summoned to appear before the tribunal on the 18th June 1529. Early in the morning of the day appointed the hall was full to overflowing with bishops, clerics, and councillors, and upon the crowd there fell the hush of those who consciously look upon a great drama of real life. After the Bishops of Bath and Lincoln had testified that citations to the King and Queen had been delivered, and other formal statements had been taken, an usher stood forth and cried: “Henry, King of England, appear.” But Henry was at Greenwich, five miles away, and in his stead there answered the ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr. Sampson. Then “Katharine, Queen of England” rang out, and into the hall there swept the procession of the Queen, herself rustling in stiff black garments, with four bishops, amongst them Fisher of Rochester, and a great train of ladies. Standing before the throne erected for her, she made a low obeisance to the Legates; and then, in formal terms, protested against the competence of the tribunal to judge her case, consisting, as it did, of those dependent upon one of the parties, and unable to give an impartial judgment. She appealed from the Legates to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, without fear or favour of man, would decide according to divine and human law. Then with another low obeisance Katharine turned her back upon the Court, and returned to the adjoining palace of Bridewell.

On the following Monday, the 21st, the Court again sat to give judgment upon her protest, which Campeggio would have liked to accept and so to relieve him of his difficulty but for the pressure put upon him by Wolsey and the Court. To the call of his name Henry on this occasion answered in person from his throne, “Here,” whilst the Queen contented herself by an inclination of the head. When the Legates had rejected her protest, the King rose, and in one of his sanctimonious speeches once more averred his admiration and affection for his wife, and swore that his fear of living sinfully was the sole cause of his having raised the question of the validity of his marriage. When his speech had ended Katharine rose. Between them the clerks and assessors sat at a large table, so that she had to make the whole circuit of the hall to approach the King. As she came to the foot of his throne she knelt before him for a last appeal to his better feelings. In broken English, and with tears coursing down her cheeks, she spoke of their long married life together, of the little daughter they both loved so well, of her obedience and devotion to him, and finally called him and God to witness that her marriage with his brother had been one in name only. Then, rising, she bowed low to the man who was still her husband, and swept from the room. When she reached the door, Henry, realising that all Christendom would cry out against him if she was judged in her absence, bade the usher summon her back, but she turned to the Welsh courtier, Griffin Richards, upon whose arm she leaned, saying: “Go on, it is no matter; this is no impartial Court to me,” and thus, by an act of defiance, bade Henry do his worst. Like other things she did, it was brave, even heroic in the circumstances, but it was unwise from every point of view.

It would be profitless to follow step by step the further proceedings, which Campeggio and Wolsey, at least, must have known were hollow. The Court sat from week to week, and Henry grew more angry as each sitting ended fruitlessly, the main question at issue now being the consummation or non-consummation of the first marriage; until, at the end of July, Campeggio demanded a vacation till October, in accordance with the rule in Roman Courts.[78] Whilst this new delay was being impatiently borne, the revocation of the powers of the Legates, so long desired by Campeggio, came from Rome, and Henry saw that the churchmen had cheated him after all. His rage knew no bounds; and the Cardinal’s enemies, led by Anne and her kinsmen, cleverly served now by the new man Stephen Gardiner, fanned the flame against Wolsey. He might still, however, be of some use; and though in deadly fear he was not openly disgraced yet. One day the King sent for him to Bridewell during the recess, and was closeted with him for an hour. In his barge afterwards on his way home Wolsey sat perturbed and unhappy with the Bishop of Carlisle. “It is a very hot day,” said the latter. “Yes,” replied the unhappy man, “if you had been as well chafed as I have been in the last hour you would say it was hot.” Wolsey in his distress went straight to bed when he arrived at York Place, but before he had lain two hours Anne’s father came to his bedside to order him in the name of the King to accompany Campeggio to Bridewell, to make another attempt to move the Queen. He had to obey, and, calling at Bath House for Campeggio on his way, they sought audience of Katharine. They found her cool and serene—indeed she seems rather to have overplayed the part. She came to meet them with a skein of silk around her neck. “I am sorry to keep you waiting,” she said; “I was working with my ladies.” To Wolsey’s request for a private audience she replied that he might speak before her people, she had no secrets with him; and when he began to speak in Latin she bade him use English. Throughout she was cool and stately, and, as may be supposed, the visit was as fruitless as others had been.

Wolsey was not quite done with even yet. He might still act as Legate alone, if the Pope’s decretal deciding the law of the case in favour of Henry could be obtained from Campeggio, who had held it so tightly by the Pope’s command. So when Campeggio was painfully carried into Northamptonshire in September to take leave of the King, Wolsey was ordered to accompany him. Henry thought it politic to receive them without open sign of displeasure, and sent the Italian Cardinal on his way with presents and smooth words. Wolsey escorted him a few miles on his road from Grafton, where the King was staying, to Towcester; but when next day the Cardinal returned to Grafton alone he found the King’s door shut against him, and Norreys brought him an order that he was to return to London. It was a blow that struck at his heart, and he went sadly with the shadow of impending ruin upon him, never to set eyes on his master more. Before his final fall there was still one thing he might do, and he was given a few days’ reprieve that he might do it. The Pope had pledged himself in writing not to withdraw the Legates’ commission, and although he had done so the original commission might still be alleged as authority for Wolsey to act alone, if only the Papal decretal could be found. Campeggio’s privileged character was consequently ignored, and all his baggage ransacked in the hope of finding the document before he left English soil. Alas! as an eye-witness tells us, all that the packs contained were “old hosen, old coates, and such vile stuff as no honest man would carry,” for the decretal had been committed to the flames months before by the Pope’s orders; and the outraged old Italian Legate, with his undignified belongings, crossed the Channel and so passes out of our history.

Anne had so far triumphed by the coalition of Wolsey’s enemies. Her own hatred of him was more jealous and personal than political; for she and her paternal family were decidedly French in their sympathies, and Wolsey, at all events in the latest stages, had striven his utmost to help forward her marriage with the King. The older nobility, led by Norfolk, who had deserted Katharine their former ally, in order to use Anne for their rival’s ruin, had deeper and longer-standing motives for their hate of the Cardinal. Although most of them now were heavily bribed and pensioned by France, their traditions were always towards the Imperial and Spanish alliance, and against bureaucratic ministers. There was yet another element that had joined Anne’s party in order to overthrow Wolsey. It consisted of those who from patriotic sentiment resented the galling supremacy of a foreign prince over the English Church, and cast their eyes towards Germany, where the process of emancipation from the Papacy was in full swing. The party in England was not a large one, and hardly concerned itself yet with fine points of doctrine. It was more an expression of the new-born English pride and independence than the religious revolt it was to become later; and the fit mouthpiece of the feeling was bluff Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had publicly insulted the Legates in the hall at Blackfriars.

It is obvious that a party consisting of so many factions would lose its cohesion when its main object was attained with the fall of Wolsey. The latter had bent before the storm, and at once surrendered all his plunder to the King and to Anne’s relatives, which secured his personal immunity for a time, whilst he watched for the divisions amongst his opponents that might give him his chance again. Anne’s uncle, Norfolk, aristocratic and conservative, took the lead in the new government, to the annoyance of the Duke of Suffolk, who occupied a secondary place, for which his lack of political ability alone qualified him. Sir Thomas More became Chancellor, and between him and Anne there was no great love lost, whilst Anne’s father, now Earl of Wiltshire, became Lord Privy Seal, and her brother, Lord Rochford, was sent as English ambassador to France. With such a government as this—of which Anne was the real head[79]—no very distinct line of policy could be expected. The Parliament, which was summoned on Wolsey’s fall, was kept busy legalising the enrichment of Anne at the expense of the Cardinal, and in clamorous complaints of the abuses committed by the clergy, but when foreign affairs had to be dealt with the voice of the government was a divided one. Anne and her paternal family were still in favour of France; but the Emperor and the Pope were close friends now, and it was felt necessary by the King and Norfolk to attempt to reconcile them to the divorce, if possible, by a new political arrangement. For this purpose Anne’s father travelled to Bologna, where Charles and Clement were staying together, and urged the case of his master. The only result was a contemptuous refusal from the Emperor to consider any proposal for facilitating his aunt’s repudiation; and the serving of Wiltshire, as Henry’s representative, with a formal citation of the King of England to appear in person or by proxy before the Papal Court in Rome entrusted with the decision of the divorce case. This latter result drove Henry and Anne into a fury, and strengthened their discontent against the churchmen, whilst it considerably decreased the King’s confidence in Wiltshire’s ability. It was too late now to recall Wolsey, although the French government did what was possible to soften the King’s rigour against him; but Henry longed to be able again to command the consummate ability and experience of his greatest minister, and early in the year 1530 Henry himself became a party to an intrigue for the Cardinal’s partial rehabilitation. Anne, when she thought Wolsey was dying, was persuaded to send him a token and a kind message; but when, later, she learnt that an interview between the King and him was in contemplation, she took fright; and Norfolk, who at least was at one with her in her jealousy of the fallen minister, ordered the latter to go to his diocese of York, and not to approach within five miles of the King.

Anne’s position in the King’s household was now a most extraordinary one. She had visited the fine palace, York Place, which Wolsey had conveyed to the King at Westminster; and with the glee of a child enjoying a new toy, had inspected and appraised the splendours it contained. In future it was to be the royal residence, and she was its mistress. She sat at table in Katharine’s place, and even took precedence of the Duchess of Norfolk and ladies of the highest rank. This was all very well in its way, but it did not satisfy Anne. To be Queen in name as well as in fact was the object for which she was striving, and anything less galled her. The Pope was now hand in glove with the Emperor, and could not afford to waver on Henry’s side, whilst Charles was more determined than ever to prevent the close alliance between England and France that the marriage and a Boleyn predominance seemed to forebode. The natural effect of this was, of course, to drive Henry more than ever into the arms of France, and though Wolsey had owed his unpopularity largely to his French sympathies, he had never truckled so slavishly to Francis as Henry was now obliged to do, in order to obtain his support for the divorce, which he despaired of obtaining from the Pope without French pressure. The Papal Court was divided, then and always, into French and Spanish factions, and in North Italy French and Spanish agents perpetually tried to outwit each other. Throughout the Continent, wherever the influence of France extended, pressure was exerted to obtain legal opinions favourable to Henry’s contention. Bribes, as lavish as they were barefaced, were offered to jurists for decisions confirming the view that marriage with a deceased brother’s widow was invalid in fact, and incapable of dispensation. The French Universities were influenced until some sort of irregular dictum, afterwards formally repudiated, was obtained in favour of Henry, and in Italy French and Spanish intrigue were busy at work, the one extorting from lawyers support to the English view, the other by threats and bribes preventing its being given. This, however, was a slow process, and of doubtful efficacy after all; because, whilst the final decision on the divorce lay with the Pope, the opinions of jurists and Universities, even if they had been generally favourable to Henry, instead of the reverse, could have had ultimately no authoritative effect.

Henry began to grow restive by the end of 1530. All his life he had seemed to have his own way in everything, and here he found himself and his most ardent wishes unceremoniously set aside, as if of no account. Other kings had obtained divorces easily enough from Rome: why not he? The answer that would naturally occur to him was that his affairs were being ineptly managed by his ministers, and he again yearned for Wolsey. The Cardinal had in the meanwhile plucked up some of his old spirit at York, and was still in close communication with the French, and even with the Emperor’s ambassador. Again Norfolk became alarmed, and a disclosure of the intrigue gave an excuse for Wolsey’s arrest. It was the last blow, and the heart of the proud Cardinal broke on his way south to prison, leaving Henry with no strong councillor but the fair-faced woman with the tight mouth who sat in his wife’s place. She was brave; “as fierce as a lioness,” the Emperor’s ambassador wrote, and would “rather see the Queen hanged than recognise her as her mistress”; but the party behind her was a divided one, and the greatest powers in Europe were united against her. There was only one way in which she might win, and that was by linking her cause with that of successful opposition to the Papacy. The Pope was a small Italian prince now slavishly subservient to the Emperor: Luther had defied a greater Sovereign Pontiff than he; why should Clement, a degenerate scion of the mercantile Medicis, dare to dictate to England and her King?