As to the divorce, it will be well to clear away the enormous amount of argument, of vituperation and prevarication by which the whole question is obscured, and to seek by the magnet of common sense to find the needle of truth in this vast bundle of hay.
The situation was complicated. In those days it was generally supposed that no woman could succeed to the throne, and a male successor was regarded as a political necessity. Charles V., too, was plotting to depose Henry and to proclaim James V. as ruler of England, or Mary, who was to be married to an English noble for this purpose.
The Succession
The Duke of Buckingham was the most formidable possible heir to the throne, were the King to die without male heirs. His execution took place in 1521. Desperate men take desperate remedies. Now, in 1519, Henry had a natural son by Elizabeth Blount, sister of Lord Mountjoy. This boy Henry contemplated placing on the throne, so causing considerable uneasiness to the Queen. In 1525 he was created Duke of Richmond. Shortly after he was made Lord High Admiral of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. It was suggested that he should marry a royal Princess. Another suggestion was that he should marry his half-sister, an arrangement which seems to have commended itself to the Pope, on condition that Henry abandoned his divorce from Queen Katharine! But this was not to be, and Mary was betrothed to the French prince. An heir must be obtained somehow, and the divorce, therefore, took more and more tangible shape. A marriage with Anne Boleyn was the next move. To attain this object, Henry applied himself with his accustomed energy. His conscience walked hand in hand with expediency.
To Rome, Henry sent many embassies and to the Universities of Christendom much gold, in order to persuade them to yield to the dictates of his conscience. His passion for marriage lines in his amours was one of Henry’s most distinguishing qualities.
In 1527 an union between Francis I. and the Princess Mary was set on foot. Here the question of Mary’s legitimacy was debated, and this gave Henry another excuse for regarding the divorce as necessary.
As the modern historian might aptly say: “Here was a pretty kettle of fish.”
There can be little doubt that as a man of God, Wolsey strongly disapproved of the divorce, but as the King’s Chancellor he felt himself bound to urge his case to the best of his ability. He was in fact the advocate—the devil’s advocate—under protest. One cannot imagine a more terrible position for a man of conscience to be placed in, but once even a cardinal embarks in politics the working of his conscience is temporarily suspended. In world politics the Ten Commandments are apt to become a negligible quantity.
Henry’s conscience was becoming more and more tender. Much may be urged in favour of the divorce from a political point of view, and no doubt Henry had a powerful faculty of self-persuasion—such men can grow to believe that whatever they desire is right, that “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” It is a pity, however, that Henry’s scruples did not assert themselves before the marriage with Katharine took place, for the ethical arguments against such an union were then equally strong. Indeed, these scruples appear to have been a “family failing,” for Henry’s sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland, obtained a dispensation of divorce from Rome on far slenderer grounds. To make matters worse for Henry, Rome was sacked—the Pope was a prisoner in the Emperor’s hands. In this state of things, the Pope was naturally disinclined to give offence to the Emperor by divorcing his aunt (Katharine).
At all costs, the Pope must be set free—on this errand Wolsey now set out for France. But Charles V. was no less wily than Wolsey, and dispatched Cardinal Quignon to Rome to frustrate his endeavours, and to deprive Wolsey of his legatine powers. A schism between Henry and Wolsey was now asserting itself—Wolsey being opposed to the King’s union with Anne Boleyn. (“We’ll no Anne Boleyns for him!”) Wolsey desired that the King should marry the French King’s sister, in order to strengthen his opposition to Charles V. of Spain.