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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts
+They Played in History, by Martin Hume
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History
+
+Author: Martin Hume
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2010 [EBook #32813]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _HENRY VIII._
+
+_From a portrait by_ JOST VAN CLEEF _in the Royal Collection at Hampton
+Court Palace_]
+
+
+
+
+  The Wives
+  of
+  Henry the Eighth
+
+  AND THE PARTS THEY PLAYED
+  IN HISTORY
+
+
+  BY
+  MARTIN HUME
+
+  AUTHOR OF "THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH"
+  "THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS"
+  ETC. ETC. ETC.
+
+
+  "_These are stars indeed,
+  And sometimes falling ones._"
+
+        --SHAKESPEARE
+
+
+  LONDON
+  EVELEIGH NASH
+  1905
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Either by chance or by the peculiar working of our constitution, the Queen
+Consorts of England have as a rule been nationally important only in
+proportion to the influence exerted by the political tendencies which
+prompted their respective marriages. England has had no Catharine or Marie
+de Medici, no Elizabeth Farnese, no Catharine of Russia, no Caroline of
+Naples, no Maria Luisa of Spain, who, either through the minority of their
+sons or the weakness of their husbands, dominated the countries of their
+adoption; the Consorts of English Kings having been, in the great majority
+of cases, simply domestic helpmates of their husbands and children, with
+comparatively small political power or ambition for themselves. Only those
+whose elevation responded to tendencies of a nationally enduring
+character, or who represented temporarily the active forces in a great
+national struggle, can claim to be powerful political factors in the
+history of our country. The six Consorts of Henry VIII., whose successive
+rise and fall synchronised with the beginning and progress of the
+Reformation in England, are perhaps those whose fleeting prominence was
+most pregnant of good or evil for the nation and for civilisation at
+large, because they personified causes infinitely more important than
+themselves.
+
+The careers of these unhappy women have almost invariably been considered,
+nevertheless, from a purely personal point of view. It is true that the
+many historians of the Reformation have dwelt upon the rivalry between
+Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and their strenuous efforts to gain
+their respective ends; but even in their case their action has usually
+been regarded as individual in impulse, instead of being, as I believe it
+was, prompted or thwarted by political forces and considerations, of which
+the Queens themselves were only partially conscious. The lives of Henry's
+Consorts have been related as if each of the six was an isolated
+phenomenon that had by chance attracted the desire of a lascivious despot,
+and in her turn had been deposed when his eye had fallen, equally
+fortuitously, upon another woman who pleased his errant fancy better. This
+view I believe to be a superficial and misleading one. I regard Henry
+himself not as the far-seeing statesman he is so often depicted for us,
+sternly resolved from the first to free his country from the yoke of Rome,
+and pressing forward through a lifetime with his eyes firmly fixed upon
+the goal of England's religious freedom; but rather as a weak, vain,
+boastful man, the plaything of his passions, which were artfully made use
+of by rival parties to forward religious and political ends in the
+struggle of giants that ended in the Reformation. No influence that could
+be exercised over the King was neglected by those who sought to lead him,
+and least of all that which appealed to his uxoriousness; and I hope to
+show in the text of this book how each of his wives in turn was but an
+instrument of politicians, intended to sway the King on one side or the
+other. Regarded from this point of view, the lives of these six unhappy
+Queens assume an importance in national history which cannot be accorded
+to them if they are considered in the usual light as the victims of a
+strong, lustful tyrant, each one standing apart, and in her turn simply
+the darling solace of his hours of dalliance. Doubtless the latter point
+of view provides to the historian a wider scope for the description of
+picturesque ceremonial and gorgeous millinery, as well as for pathetic
+passages dealing with the personal sufferings of the Queens in their
+distress; but I can only hope that the absence of much of this sentimental
+and feminine interest from my pages will be compensated by the wider
+aspect in which the public and political significance of Henry's wives is
+presented; that a clearer understanding than usual may thus be gained of
+the tortuous process by which the Reformation in England was effected, and
+that the figure of the King in the picture may stand in a juster
+proportion to his environment than is often the case.
+
+MARTIN HUME.
+
+LONDON, _October_ 1905.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE
+
+  CHAPTER I
+
+  1488-1501
+
+  INTRODUCTORY--WHY KATHARINE CAME TO ENGLAND--POLITICAL MATRIMONY       1
+
+
+  CHAPTER II
+
+  1501-1509
+
+  KATHARINE'S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND                   25
+
+
+  CHAPTER III
+
+  1509-1527
+
+  KATHARINE THE QUEEN--A POLITICAL MARRIAGE AND A PERSONAL DIVORCE      72
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+
+  1527-1530
+
+  KATHARINE AND ANNE--THE DIVORCE                                      124
+
+
+  CHAPTER V
+
+  1530-1534
+
+  HENRY'S DEFIANCE--THE VICTORY OF ANNE                                174
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+
+  1534-1536
+
+  A FLEETING TRIUMPH--POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE      225
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+
+  1536-1540
+
+  PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT--JANE SEYMOUR AND ANNE OF CLEVES                289
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+
+  1540-1542
+
+  THE KING'S "GOOD SISTER" AND THE KING'S BAD WIFE--THE LUTHERANS
+  AND ENGLISH CATHOLICS                                                350
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+
+  1542-1547
+
+  KATHARINE PARR--THE PROTESTANTS WIN THE LAST TRICK                   398
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  HENRY VIII                                                _Frontispiece_
+
+    _From a portrait by_ JOST VAN CLEEF _in the Royal
+    Collection at Hampton Court Palace._
+
+
+  KATHARINE OF ARAGON                                   _To face page_  96
+
+    _From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the National
+    Portrait Gallery._
+
+
+  ANNE BOLEYN                                                "    "    192
+
+    _From a portrait by_ LUCAS CORNELISZ _in the National
+    Portrait Gallery._
+
+
+  JANE SEYMOUR                                               "    "    288
+
+    _From a painting by_ HOLBEIN _in the Imperial
+    Collection at Vienna._
+
+
+  ANNE OF CLEVES                                             "    "    336
+
+    _From a portrait by a German artist in St. John's
+    College, Oxford. Photographed by the Clarendon
+    Press, and reproduced by the kind permission of
+    the President of St. John's College._
+
+
+  KATHARINE HOWARD                                           "    "    384
+
+    _From a portrait by an unknown artist in the National
+    Portrait Gallery._
+
+
+  KATHARINE PARR                                             "    "    400
+
+    _From a painting in the collection of the_ EARL OF
+    ASHBURNHAM. _Reproduced by the kind permission of
+    the owner._
+
+
+  HENRY VIII                                                 "    "    432
+
+    _From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the possession of
+    the Earl of Warwick. Reproduced by the kind permission
+    of the owner._
+
+
+
+
+THE WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+1488-1501
+
+INTRODUCTORY--WHY KATHARINE CAME TO ENGLAND--POLITICAL MATRIMONY
+
+
+The history of modern Europe takes its start from an event which must have
+appeared insignificant to a generation that had witnessed the violent end
+of the English dominion in France, had been dinned by the clash of the
+Wars of the Roses, and watched with breathless fear the savage hosts of
+Islam striking at the heart of Christendom over the still smoking ruins of
+the Byzantine Empire.
+
+Late one night, in the beginning of October 1469, a cavalcade of men in
+the guise of traders halted beneath the walls of the ancient city of Burgo
+de Osma in Old Castile. They had travelled for many days by little-used
+paths through the mountains of Soria from the Aragonese frontier town of
+Tarrazona; and, impatient to gain the safe shelter of the fortress of
+Osma, they banged at the gates demanding admittance. The country was in
+anarchy. Leagues of churchmen and nobles warred against each other and
+preyed upon society at large. An impotent king, deposed with ignominy by
+one faction, had been as ignominiously set up again by another, and royal
+pretenders to the succession were the puppets of rival parties whose
+object was to monopolise for themselves all the fruits of royalty, whilst
+the monarch fed upon the husks. So when the new-comers called peremptorily
+for admittance within the gates of Osma, the guards upon the city walls,
+taking them for enemies or freebooters, greeted them with a shower of
+missiles from the catapults. One murderous stone whizzed within a few
+inches of the head of a tall, fair-haired lad of good mien and handsome
+visage, who, dressed as a servant, accompanied the cavalcade. If the
+projectile had effectively hit instead of missed the stripling, the whole
+history of the world from that hour to this would have been changed, for
+this youth was Prince Ferdinand, the heir of Aragon, who was being
+conveyed secretly by a faction of Castilian nobles to marry the Princess
+Isabel, who had been set forward as a pretender to her brother's throne,
+to the exclusion of the King's doubtful daughter, the hapless Beltraneja.
+A hurried cry of explanation went up from the travellers: a shouted
+password; the flashing of torches upon the walls, the joyful recognition
+of those within, and the gates swung open, the drawbridge dropped, and
+thenceforward Prince Ferdinand was safe, surrounded by the men-at-arms of
+Isabel's faction. Within a week the eighteen-years-old bridegroom greeted
+his bride, and before the end of the month Ferdinand and Isabel were
+married at Valladolid.
+
+To most observers it may have seemed a small thing that a petty prince in
+the extreme corner of Europe had married the girl pretender to the
+distracted and divided realm of Castile; but there was one cunning, wicked
+old man in Barcelona who was fully conscious of the importance of the
+match that he had planned; and he, John II. of Aragon, had found an apt
+pupil in his son Ferdinand, crafty beyond his years. To some extent Isabel
+must have seen it too, for she was already a dreamer of great dreams which
+she meant to come true, and the strength of Aragon behind her claim would
+insure her the sovereignty that was to be the first step in their
+realisation.
+
+This is not the place to tell how the nobles of Castile found to their
+dismay that in Ferdinand and Isabel they had raised a King Stork instead
+of King Log to the throne, and how the Queen, strong as a man, subtle as a
+woman, crushed and chicaned her realms into order and obedience. The aims
+of Ferdinand and his father in effecting the union of Aragon and Castile
+by marriage went far beyond the Peninsula in which they lived. For ages
+Aragon had found its ambitions checked by the consolidation of France. The
+vision of a great Romance empire, stretching from Valencia to Genoa, and
+governed from Barcelona or Saragossa, had been dissipated when Saint Louis
+wrung from James the Conqueror, in the thirteenth century, his recognition
+of French suzerainty over Provence.
+
+But Aragonese eyes looked still towards the east, and saw a Frenchman ever
+in their way. The Christian outpost in the Mediterranean, Sicily, already
+belonged to Aragon; so did the Balearic isles: but an Aragonese dynasty
+held Naples only in alternation and constant rivalry with the French house
+of Anjou; and as the strength of the French monarchy grew it stretched
+forth its hands nearer, and ever nearer, to the weak and divided
+principalities of Italy with covetous intent. Unless Aragon could check
+the French expansion across the Alps its own power in the Mediterranean
+would be dwarfed, its vast hopes must be abandoned, and it must settle
+down to the inglorious life of a petty State, hemmed in on all sides by
+more powerful neighbours. But although too weak to vanquish France alone,
+a King of Aragon who could dispose of the resources of greater Castile
+might hope, in spite of French opposition, to dominate a united Italy, and
+thence look towards the illimitable east. This was the aspiration that
+Ferdinand inherited, and to which the efforts of his long and strenuous
+life were all directed. The conquest of Granada, the unification of Spain,
+the greed, the cruelty, the lying, the treachery, the political marriages
+of all his children, and the fires of the Inquisition, were all means to
+the end for which he fought.
+
+But fate was unkind to him. The discovery of America diverted Castilian
+energy from Aragonese objects, and death stepped in and made grim sport of
+all his marriage jugglery. Before he died, beaten and broken-hearted, he
+knew that the little realm of his fathers, instead of using the strength
+of others for its aims, would itself be used for objects which concerned
+it not. But though he failed his plan was a masterly one. Treaties, he
+knew, were rarely binding, for the age was faithless, and he himself never
+kept an oath an hour longer than suited him; but mutual interests by
+kinship might hold sovereigns together against a common opponent. So, one
+after the other, from their earliest youth, the children of Ferdinand and
+Isabel were made political counters in their father's great marriage
+league. The eldest daughter, Isabel, was married to the heir of Portugal,
+and every haven into which French galleys might shelter in their passage
+from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay was at Ferdinand's bidding.
+The only son, John, was married to the daughter of Maximilian, King of the
+Romans, and (from 1493) Emperor, whose interest also it was to check the
+French advance towards north Italy and his own dominions. The second
+daughter, Juana, was married to the Emperor's son, Philip, sovereign, in
+right of his mother, of the rich inheritance of Burgundy, Flanders,
+Holland, and the Franche Comté, and heir to Austria and the Empire, who
+from Flanders might be trusted to watch the French on their northern and
+eastern borders; and the youngest of Ferdinand's daughters, Katharine, was
+destined almost from her birth to secure the alliance of England, the
+rival of France in the Channel, and the opponent of its aggrandisement
+towards the north.
+
+Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry Tudor, Henry VII., were well matched. Both
+were clever, unscrupulous, and greedy; each knew that the other would
+cheat him if he could, and tried to get the better of every deal, utterly
+regardless not only of truth and honesty but of common decency. But,
+though Ferdinand usually beat Henry at his shuffling game, fate finally
+beat Ferdinand, and a powerful modern England is the clearly traceable
+consequence. How the great result was brought about it is one of the
+principal objects of this book to tell. That Ferdinand had everything to
+gain by thus surrounding France by possible rivals in his own interests is
+obvious, for if his plans had not miscarried he could have diverted France
+whenever it suited him, and his way towards the east would have been
+clear; but at first sight the interest of Henry VII. in placing himself
+into a position of antagonism towards France for the benefit of the King
+of Spain is not so evident. The explanation must be found in the fact that
+he held the throne of England by very uncertain tenure, and sought to
+disarm those who would be most able and likely to injure him. The royal
+house of Castile had been closely allied to the Plantagenets, and both
+Edward IV. and his brother Richard had been suitors for the hand of
+Isabel. The Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy, moreover, was Margaret
+Plantagenet, their sister, who sheltered and cherished in Flanders the
+English adherents of her house; and Henry Tudor, half a Frenchman by birth
+and sympathies, was looked at askance by the powerful group of Spain, the
+Empire, and Burgundy when first he usurped the English throne. He knew
+that he had little or nothing to fear from France, and one of his earliest
+acts was in 1487 to bid for the friendship of Ferdinand by means of an
+offer of alliance, and the marriage of his son Arthur, Prince of Wales,
+then a year old, with the Infanta Katharine, who was a few months older.
+Ferdinand at the time was trying to bring about a match between his
+eldest daughter, Isabel, and the young King of France, Charles VIII., and
+was not very eager for a new English alliance which might alarm the
+French. Before the end of the year, however, it was evident that there was
+no chance of the Spanish Infanta's marriage with Charles VIII. coming to
+anything, and Ferdinand's plan for a great coalition against France was
+finally adopted.
+
+In the first days of 1488 Ferdinand's two ambassadors arrived in London to
+negotiate the English match, and the long duel of diplomacy between the
+Kings of England and Spain began. Of one of the envoys it behoves us to
+say something, because of the influence his personal character exercised
+upon subsequent events. Rodrigo de Puebla was one of the most
+extraordinary diplomatists that can be imagined, and could only have been
+possible under such monarchs as Henry and Ferdinand, willing as both of
+them were to employ the basest instruments in their underhand policy.
+Puebla was a doctor of laws and a provincial mayor when he attracted the
+attention of Ferdinand, and his first diplomatic mission of importance was
+that to England. He was a poor, vain, greedy man, utterly corrupt, and
+Henry VII. was able to dominate him from the first. In the course of time
+he became more of an intimate English minister than a foreign ambassador,
+though he represented at Henry's court not only Castile and Aragon, but
+also the Pope and the Empire. He constantly sat in the English council,
+and was almost the only man admitted to Henry's personal confidence. That
+such an instrument would be trusted entirely by the wary Ferdinand, was
+not to be expected: and though Puebla remained in England as ambassador
+to the end of his life, he was, to his bitter jealousy, always associated
+with others when important negotiations had to be conducted. Isabel wrote
+to him often, sometimes threatening him with punishment if he failed in
+carrying out his instructions satisfactorily, sometimes flattering him and
+promising him rewards, which he never got. He was recognised by Ferdinand
+as an invaluable means of gaining knowledge of Henry's real intentions,
+and by Henry as a tool for betraying Ferdinand. It is hardly necessary to
+say that he alternately sold both and was never fully paid by either.
+Henry offered him an English bishopric which his own sovereigns would not
+allow him to accept, and a wealthy wife in England was denied him for a
+similar reason; for Ferdinand on principle kept his agents poor. On a
+wretched pittance allowed him by Henry, Puebla lived thus in London until
+he died almost simultaneously with his royal friend. When not spunging at
+the tables of the King or English nobles he lived in a house of ill-fame
+in London, paying only twopence a day for his board, and cheating the
+other inmates, in the interests of the proprietor, for the balance. He
+was, in short, a braggart, a liar, a flatterer, and a spy, who served two
+rogues roguishly and was fittingly rewarded by the scorn of honest men.
+
+This was the ambassador who, with a colleague called Juan de Sepulveda,
+was occupied through the spring of 1488 in negotiating the marriage of the
+two babies--Arthur, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta Katharine. They found
+Henry, as Puebla says, singing _Te Deum Laudamus_ about the alliance and
+marriage: but when the parties came to close quarters matters went less
+smoothly. What Henry had to gain by the alliance was the disarming of
+possible enemies of his own unstable throne, whilst Ferdinand needed
+England's active or passive support in a war against France, for the
+purpose of extorting the restoration to Aragon of the territory of
+Roussillon and Cerdagne, and of preventing the threatened absorption of
+the Duchy of Brittany into the French monarchy. The contest was keen and
+crafty. First the English commissioners demanded with the Infanta a dowry
+so large as quite to shock Puebla; it being, as he said, five times as
+much as had been mentioned by English agents in Spain. Puebla and
+Sepulveda offered a quarter of the sum demanded, and hinted with pretended
+jocosity that it was a great condescension on the part of the sovereigns
+of Spain to allow their daughter to marry at all into such a parvenu
+family as the Tudors. After infinite haggling, both as to the amount and
+the form of the dowry, it was agreed by the ambassadors that 200,000 gold
+crowns of 4s. 2d. each should be paid in cash with the bride on her
+marriage. But the marriage was the least part of Ferdinand's object, if
+indeed he then intended, which is doubtful, that it should take place at
+all. What he wanted was the assurance of Henry's help against France; and,
+of all things, peace was the first need for the English king. When the
+demand was made therefore that England should go to war with France
+whenever Ferdinand chose to do so, and should not make peace without its
+ally, baited though the demand was with the hollow suggestion of
+recovering for England the territories of Normandy and Guienne, Henry's
+duplicity was brought into play. He dared not consent to such terms, but
+he wanted the benevolent regards of Ferdinand's coalition: so his
+ministers flattered the Spanish king, and vaguely promised "mounts and
+marvels" in the way of warlike aid, as soon as the marriage treaty was
+signed and sealed. Even Puebla wanted something more definite than this;
+and the English commissioners (the Bishop of Exeter and Giles Daubeney),
+"took a missal in their hands and swore in the most solemn way before the
+crucifix that it is the will of the King of England first to conclude the
+alliance and the marriage, and afterwards to make war upon the King of
+France, according to the bidding of the Catholic kings." Nor was this all:
+for when Puebla and his colleagues later in the day saw the King himself,
+Henry smiled at and flattered the envoys, and flourishing his bonnet and
+bowing low each time the names of Ferdinand and Isabel passed his lips,
+confirmed the oath of his ministers, "which he said we must accept for
+plain truth, unmingled with double dealing or falsehood."[1] Ferdinand's
+ambassadors were fairly dazzled. They were taken to see the infant
+bridegroom; and Puebla grew quite poetical in describing his bodily
+perfections, both dressed and _in puribus naturalibus_, and the beauty and
+magnificence of the child's mother were equally extolled. The object of
+all Henry's amiability, and, indeed, of Puebla's dithyrambics also, was to
+cajole Ferdinand into sending his baby daughter Katharine into England at
+once on the marriage treaty alone. With such a hostage in his hands, Henry
+knew that he might safely break his oath about going to war with France to
+please the Spanish king.
+
+But Ferdinand was not a man easy to cajole, and when hapless, simple
+Sepulveda reached Spain with the draft treaty he found himself in the
+presence of two very angry sovereigns indeed. Two hundred thousand crowns
+dowry, indeed! One hundred was the most they would give, and that must be
+in Spanish gold, or the King of England would be sure to cheat them over
+the exchange; and they must have three years in which to pay the amount,
+for which moreover no security should be given but their own signatures.
+The cost of the bride's trousseau and jewels also must be deducted from
+the amount of the dowry. On the other hand, the Infanta's dowry and income
+from England must be fully guaranteed by land rents; and, above all, the
+King of England must bind himself at the same time--secretly if he likes,
+but by formal treaty--to go to war with France to recover for Ferdinand
+Roussillon and Cerdagne. Though Henry would not go quite so far as this,
+he conceded much for the sake of the alliances so necessary to him. The
+dowry from Spain was kept at 200,000 crowns, and England was pledged to a
+war with France whenever Ferdinand should find himself in the same
+position.
+
+With much discussion and sharp practice on both sides the treaties in this
+sense were signed in March 1489, and the four-years-old Infanta Katharine
+became Princess of Wales. It is quite clear throughout this early
+negotiation that the marriage that should give to the powerful coalition
+of which Ferdinand was the head a family interest in the maintenance of
+the Tudor dynasty was Henry's object, to be gained on terms as easy as
+practicable to himself; whereas with Ferdinand the marriage was but the
+bait to secure the armed co-operation of England against France; and
+probably at the time neither of the kings had any intention of fulfilling
+that part of the bargain which did not specially interest him. As will be
+seen, however, the force of circumstances and the keenness of the
+contracting parties led eventually to a better fulfilment of the treaty
+than was probably intended.
+
+For the next two years the political intrigues of Europe centered around
+the marriage of the young Duchess of Brittany. Though Roussillon and
+Cerdagne mattered nothing to Henry VII., the disposal of the rich duchy
+opposite his own shores was of importance to him. France, Spain, England,
+and the Empire were all trying to outbid one another for the marriage of
+the Duchess; and, as Charles VIII. of France was the most dangerous
+suitor, Henry was induced to send his troops across the Channel to
+Brittany to join those of Spain and the Empire, though neither of the
+latter troops came. From the first all the allies were false to each
+other, and hastened to make separate terms with France; Ferdinand and
+Maximilian endeavouring above all to leave Henry at war. When, at the end
+of 1491, Charles VIII. carried off the matrimonial prize of the Duchess of
+Brittany and peace ensued, none of the allies had gained anything by
+their tergiversation. Reasons were soon found by Ferdinand for regarding
+the marriage treaty between Arthur and Katharine as in abeyance, and once
+more pressure was put upon Henry to buy its fulfilment by another warlike
+coalition. The King of England stood out for a time, especially against an
+alliance with the King of the Romans, who had acted so badly about
+Brittany; but at length the English contingent was led against Boulogne by
+the King himself, as part of the allied action agreed upon. This time,
+however, it was Henry who, to prevent the betrayal he foresaw, scored off
+his allies, and without striking a blow he suddenly made a separate peace
+with France (November 1492). But yet he was the only party who had not
+gained what he had bid for. Roussillon and Cerdagne were restored to
+Ferdinand, in consequence of Henry's threat against Boulogne; France had
+been kept in check during the time that all the resources of Spain were
+strained in the supreme effort to capture the last Moorish foothold in the
+Peninsula, the peerless Granada; the King of France had married the
+Duchess of Brittany and had thus consolidated and strengthened his realm;
+whilst Henry, to his chagrin, found that not only had he not regained
+Normandy and Guienne, but that in the new treaty of peace between Spain
+and France, "Ferdinand and Isabel engage their loyal word and faith as
+Christians, not to conclude or permit any marriage of their children with
+any member of the royal family of England; and they bind themselves to
+assist the King of France against all his enemies, and _particularly
+against the English_." This was Henry's first experience of Ferdinand's
+diplomacy, and he found himself outwitted at every point. Katharine, all
+unconscious as she conned her childish lessons at Granada, ceased for a
+time to be called "Princess of Wales."
+
+With the astute King of England thus cozened by Ferdinand, it is not
+wonderful that the vain and foolish young King of France should also have
+found himself no match for his new Spanish ally. Trusting upon his
+alliance, Charles VIII. determined to strike for the possession of the
+kingdom of Naples, which he claimed as representing the house of Anjou.
+Naples at the time was ruled by a close kinsman of Ferdinand, and it is
+not conceivable that the latter ever intended to allow the French to expel
+him for the purpose of ruling there themselves. But he smiled, not
+unkindly at first, upon Charles's Italian adventure, for he knew the
+French king was rash and incompetent, and that the march of a French army
+through Italy would arouse the hatred and fear of the Italian princes and
+make them easy tools in his hands. The King of Naples, moreover, was
+extremely unpopular and of illegitimate descent: and Ferdinand doubtless
+saw that if the French seized Naples he could not only effect a powerful
+coalition to expel them, but in the scramble might keep Naples for
+himself; and this is exactly what happened. The first cry against the
+French was raised by the Pope Alexander VI., a Spanish Borgia. By the time
+Charles VIII. of France was crowned King of Naples (May 1495) all Italy
+was ablaze against the intruders, and Ferdinand formed the Holy League--of
+Rome, Spain, Austria, Venice, and Milan--to crush his enemies.
+
+Then, as usual, he found it desirable to secure the benevolence of Henry
+VII. of England. Again Henry was delighted, for Perkin Warbeck had been
+received by Maximilian and his Flemish kinsmen as the rightful King of
+England, and the Yorkist nobles still found aid and sympathy in the
+dominions of Burgundy. But Henry had already been tricked once by the
+allies, and was far more difficult to deal with than before. He found
+himself, indeed, for the first time in the position which under his
+successors enabled England to rise to the world power she attained;
+namely, that of the balancing factor between France and Spain. This was
+the first result of Ferdinand's coalition against France for the purpose
+of forwarding Aragonese aims, and it remained the central point of
+European politics for the next hundred years. Henry was not the man to
+overlook his new advantage, with both of the great European powers bidding
+for his alliance; and this time he drove a hard bargain with Ferdinand.
+There was still much haggling about the Spanish dowry for Katharine, but
+Henry stood firm at the 200,000 gold crowns, though a quarter of the
+amount was to take the form of jewels belonging the bride. One stipulation
+was that the new marriage was to be kept a profound secret, in order that
+the King of Scots might not be alarmed; for Ferdinand was trying to draw
+even him away from France by hints of marriage with an Infanta. By the new
+treaty, which was signed in October 1497, the formal marriage of Arthur
+and Katharine _per verba de presenti_ was to be celebrated when Arthur
+had completed his fourteenth year; and the bride's dowry in England was to
+consist of a third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester, with
+an increase of the income when she became Queen.
+
+But it was not all plain sailing yet. Ferdinand considered that Henry had
+tricked him about the amount and form of the dowry, but the fear that the
+King of France might induce the English to enter into a new alliance with
+him kept Ferdinand ostensibly friendly. In the summer of 1598 two special
+Spanish ambassadors arrived in London, and saw the King for the purpose of
+confirming him in the alliance with their sovereigns, and, if we are to
+believe Puebla's account of the interview, both Henry and his Queen
+carried their expressions of veneration for Ferdinand and Isabel almost to
+a blasphemous extent. Henry, indeed, is said to have had a quarrel with
+his wife because she would not give him one of the letters from the
+Spanish sovereigns always to carry about with him, Elizabeth saying that
+she wished to send her letter to the Prince of Wales.
+
+But for all Henry's blandishments and friendliness, his constant requests
+that Katharine should be sent to England met with never-failing excuses
+and procrastination. It is evident, indeed, throughout that, although the
+Infanta was used as the attraction that was to keep Henry and England in
+the Spanish, instead of the French, interest, there was much reluctance on
+the part of her parents, and particularly of Queen Isabel, to trust her
+child, to whom she was much attached, to the keeping of a stranger, whose
+only object in desiring her presence was, she knew, a political one. Some
+anxiety was shown by Henry and his wife, on the other hand, that the young
+Princess should be trained in a way that would fit her for her future
+position in England. The Princess Margaret of Austria, daughter of
+Maximilian, who had just married Ferdinand's heir, Prince John, was in
+Spain, and Puebla reports that the King and Queen of England were anxious
+that Katharine should take the opportunity of speaking French with her, in
+order to learn the language. "This is necessary, because the English
+ladies do not understand Latin, and much less Spanish. The King and Queen
+also wish that the Princess should accustom herself to drink wine. The
+water of England is not drinkable, and even if it were, the climate would
+not allow the drinking of it." The necessary Papal Bulls for the marriage
+of the Prince and Princess arrived in 1498, and Henry pressed continually
+for the coming of the bride, but Ferdinand and Isabel were in no hurry.
+"The manner in which the marriage is to be performed, and the Princess
+sent to England, must all be settled first." "You must negotiate these
+points," they wrote to Puebla, "_but make no haste_."[2] Spanish envoys of
+better character and greater impartiality than Puebla urged that
+Katharine should be sent "before she had become too much attached to
+Spanish life and institutions"; though the writer of this admits the grave
+inconvenience of subjecting so young a girl to the disadvantages of life
+in Henry's court.
+
+Young Arthur himself, even, was prompted to use his influence to persuade
+his new wife to join him, writing to his "most entirely beloved spouse"
+from Ludlow in October 1499, dwelling upon his earnest desire to see her,
+as the delay in her coming is very grievous to him, and he begs it may be
+hastened. The final disappearance of Perkin Warbeck in 1499 greatly
+changed the position of Henry and made him a more desirable connection:
+and the death without issue of Ferdinand's only son and heir about the
+same time, also made it necessary for the Spanish king to draw his
+alliances closer, in view of the nearness to the succession of his second
+daughter, Juana, who had married Maximilian's son, the Archduke Philip,
+sovereign of Flanders, who, as well as his Spanish wife, were deeply
+distrusted by both Ferdinand and Isabel. In 1500, therefore, the Spanish
+sovereigns became more acquiescent about their daughter's coming to
+England. By Don Juan Manuel, their most skilful diplomatist, they sent a
+message to Henry in January 1500, saying that they had determined to send
+Katharine in the following spring without waiting until Arthur had
+completed his fourteenth year. The sums, they were told, that had already
+been spent in preparations for her reception in England were enormous, and
+when in March there was still no sign of the bride's coming, Henry VII.
+began to get restive. He and his country, he said, would suffer great
+loss if the arrival of the Princess were delayed. But just then Ferdinand
+found that the treaty was not so favourable for him as he had expected,
+and the whole of the conditions, particularly as to the payment of the
+dowry, and the valuation of the bride's jewels, had once more to be
+laboriously discussed; another Spanish ambassador being sent, to request
+fresh concessions. In vain Puebla told his master that when once the
+Princess arrived all England would be at his bidding, assured him of
+Henry's good faith, and his own ability as a diplomatist. Ferdinand always
+found some fresh subject to be wrangled over: the style to be given to the
+King of England, the number of servants to come in the train of Katharine,
+Henry desiring that they should be few and Ferdinand many, and one of the
+demands of the English king was, "that the ladies who came from Spain with
+the Princess should all be beautiful, or at least none of them should be
+ugly."
+
+In the summer of 1500 there was a sudden panic in Ferdinand's court that
+Henry had broken off the match. He had gone to Calais to meet for the
+first time the young Archduke Philip, Ferdinand's son-in-law, and it was
+rumoured that the distrusted Fleming had persuaded Henry to marry the
+Prince of Wales to his sister the Arch duchess Margaret, the recently
+widowed daughter in-law of Ferdinand. It was not true, though it made
+Ferdinand very cordial for a time, and soon the relations between England
+and Spain resumed their usual course of smooth-tongued distrust and
+tergiversation. Still another ambassador was sent to England, and
+reported that people were saying they believed the Princess would never
+come, though great preparations for her reception continued to be made,
+and the English nobles were already arranging jousts and tournaments for
+her entertainment. Ferdinand, on the other hand, continued to send
+reassuring messages. He was, he said, probably with truth now, more
+desirous than ever that the marriage should take place when the bridegroom
+had completed his fourteenth year; but it was necessary that the marriage
+should be performed again by proxy in Spain before the bride embarked.
+Then there was a delay in obtaining the ships necessary for the passage,
+and the Spanish sovereigns changed their minds again, and preferred that
+the second marriage, after Arthur had attained his fifteenth year, should
+be performed in England. The stormy weather of August was then an excuse
+for another delay on the voyage, and a fresh quibble was raised about the
+value of the Princess's jewels being considered as part of the _first_
+instalment of the dowry. In December 1500 the marriage was once more
+performed at Ludlow, Arthur being again present and pledging himself as
+before to Puebla.
+
+Whilst delaying the voyage of Katharine as much as possible, now probably
+in consequence of her youth, her parents took the greatest of care to
+convince Henry of the indissoluble character of the marriage as it stood.
+Knowing the King of England's weakness, Isabel wrote in March 1501
+deprecating the great expense he was incurring in the preparations. She
+did not wish, she said, for her daughter to cause a loss to England,
+either in money or any other way; but to be a source of happiness to
+every one. When all was ready for the embarkation at Corunna in April
+1501, an excuse for further delay was found in a rebellion of the Moors of
+Ronda, which prevented Ferdinand from escorting his daughter to the port;
+then both Isabel and Katharine had a fit of ague, which delayed the
+departure for another week or two. But at last the parting could be
+postponed no longer, and for the last time on earth Isabel the Catholic
+embraced her favourite daughter Katharine in the fairy palace of the
+Alhambra which for ever will be linked with the memories of her heroism.
+
+The Queen was still weak with fever, and could not accompany her daughter
+on the way, but she stood stately in her sternly suppressed grief,
+sustained by the exalted religious mysticism, which in her descendants
+degenerated to neurotic mania. Grief unutterable had stricken the Queen.
+Her only son was dead, and her eldest daughter and her infant heir had
+also gone to untimely graves. The hopes founded upon the marriages of
+their children had all turned to ashes, and the King and Queen saw with
+gloomy foreboding that their daughter Juana and her foreign husband would
+rule in Spain as well as in Flanders and the Empire, to Spain's
+irreparable disaster; and, worst of all, Juana had dared to dally with the
+hated thing heresy. In the contest of divided interest which they foresaw,
+it was of the utmost importance now to the Catholic kings that England at
+least should be firmly attached to them; and they dared no longer delay
+the sacrifice of Katharine to the political needs of their country.
+Katharine, young as she was, understood that she was being sent to a far
+country amongst strangers as much an ambassador as a bride, but she from
+her birth had been brought up in the atmosphere of ecstatic devotion that
+surrounded her heroic mother, and the din of battle against the enemies of
+the Christian God had rarely been silent in her childish ears. So, with
+shining eyes and a look of proud martyrdom, Katharine bade the Queen a
+last farewell, turned her back upon lovely Granada, and through the torrid
+summer of 1501 slowly traversed the desolate bridle-roads of La Mancha and
+arid Castile to the green valleys of Galicia, where, in the harbour of
+Corunna, her little fleet lay at anchor awaiting her.
+
+From the 21st of May, when she last looked upon the Alhambra, it took her
+nearly two months of hard travel to reach Corunna, and it was almost a
+month more before all was ready for the embarkation with the great train
+of courtiers and servants that accompanied her. On the 17th August 1501
+the flotilla sailed from Corunna, only to be stricken the next day by a
+furious north-easterly gale and scattered; the Princess's ship, in dire
+danger, being driven into the little port of Laredo in the north of Spain.
+There Katharine was seriously ill, and another long delay occurred, the
+apprehension that some untoward accident had happened to the Princess at
+sea causing great anxiety to the King of England, who sent his best seamen
+to seek tidings of the bride. The season was late, and when, on the 26th
+September 1501, Katharine again left Laredo for England, even her stout
+heart failed at the prospect before her. A dangerous hurricane from the
+south accompanied her across the Channel and drove the ships finally into
+the safety of Plymouth harbour on Saturday the 2nd October 1501.
+
+The Princess was but little expected at Plymouth, as Southampton or
+Bristol had been recommended as the best ports for her arrival; and great
+preparations had been made for her reception at both those ports. But the
+Plymouth folk were nothing backward in their loyal welcome of the new
+Princess of Wales; for one of the courtiers who accompanied her wrote to
+Queen Isabel that "she could not have been received with greater
+rejoicings if she had been the saviour of the world." As she went in
+solemn procession through the streets to the church of Plymouth to give
+thanks for her safety from the perils past, with foreign speech sounding
+in her ears and surrounded by a curious crowd of fair folk so different
+from the swarthy subjects of her mother that she had left behind at
+Granada, the girl of sixteen might well be appalled at the magnitude of
+the task before her. She knew that henceforward she had, by diplomacy and
+woman's wit, to keep the might and wealth of England and its king on the
+side of her father against France; to prevent any coalition between her
+new father-in-law and her brother-in-law Philip in Flanders in which Spain
+was not included; and, finally, to give an heir to the English throne,
+who, in time to come, should be Aragonese in blood and sympathy.
+Thenceforward Katharine must belong to England in appearance if her
+mission was to succeed; and though Spain was always in her heart as the
+exotic pomegranate of Granada was on her shield, England in future was the
+name she conjured by, and all England loved her, from the hour she first
+set foot on English soil to the day of the final consummation of her
+martyrdom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+1501-1509
+
+KATHARINE'S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND
+
+
+The arrival of Katharine in England as his son's affianced wife meant very
+much for Henry VII. and his house. He had already, by a master-stroke of
+diplomacy, betrothed his eldest daughter to the King of Scots, and was
+thus safe from French intrigue on his vulnerable northern border, whilst
+the new King of France was far too apprehensive of Ferdinand's coalition
+to arouse the active enmity of England. The presence of Ferdinand's
+daughter on English soil completed the security against attack upon Henry
+from abroad. It is true that the Yorkists and their friends were still
+plotting: "Solicited, allured and provoked, by that old venomous serpent,
+the Duchess of Burgundy, ever the sower of sedition and beginner of
+rebellion against the King of England;"[3] but Henry knew well that with
+Katharine at his Court he could strike a death-blow, as he soon did, at
+his domestic enemies, without fear of reprisals from her brother-in-law
+Philip, the present sovereign of Burgundy and Flanders.
+
+Messengers were sent galloping to London to carry to the King the great
+news of Katharine's arrival at Plymouth; but the roads were bad, and it
+was not Henry's way to spoil his market by a show of over-eagerness, and
+though he sent forward the Duchess of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey to
+attend upon the Princess on her way towards London, the royal party did
+not set out from Shene Palace to meet her until the 4th November.
+Travelling through a drenching rain by short stages from one seat to
+another, Henry VII. and his daughter-in-law gradually approached each
+other with their splendid troops of followers, all muffled up, we are
+told, in heavy rain cloaks to shield their finery from the inclemency of
+an English winter. Young Arthur, coming from the seat of his government in
+Wales, met his father near Chertsey, and together they continued their
+journey towards the west. On the third day, as they rode over the
+Hampshire downs, they saw approaching them a group of horsemen, the leader
+of which dismounted and saluted the King in Latin with a message from
+Ferdinand and Isabel. Ladies in Spain were kept in strict seclusion until
+their marriage, and the messenger, who was the Protonotary Cańazares, sent
+with Katharine to England to see that Spanish etiquette was not violated,
+prayed in the name of his sovereigns that the Infanta should not be seen
+by the King, and especially by the bridegroom, until the public marriage
+was performed. This was a part of the bargain that the cautious Puebla had
+not mentioned, and Henry was puzzled at such a request in his own realm,
+where no such oriental regard for women was known. Hastily taking counsel
+of the nobles on horseback about him, he decided that, as the Infanta was
+in England, she must abide by English customs. Indeed the demand for
+seclusion seems to have aroused the King's curiosity, for, putting spurs
+to his horse, with but a small following, and leaving the boy bridegroom
+behind, he galloped on to Dogmersfield, at no great distance away, where
+the Infanta was awaiting his arrival. When he came to the house in which
+she lodged, he found a little group of horrified Spanish prelates and
+nobles, the Archbishop of Santiago, the Bishop of Majorca, and Count
+Cabra, at the door of the Infanta's apartments, barring entrance. The
+Princess had, they said, retired to her chamber and ought not to be
+disturbed. There was no restraining a king in his own realm, however, and
+Henry brushed the group aside. "Even if she were in bed," he said, "he
+meant to see and speak with her, for that was the whole intent of his
+coming."
+
+Finding that Spanish etiquette would not be observed in England, Katharine
+made the best of matters and received Henry graciously, though evidently
+her Latin and French were different from his; for they were hardly
+intelligible to one another. Then, after the King had changed his
+travelling garb, he sent word that he had a present for the Princess; and
+led in the blushing Prince Arthur to the presence of his bride. The
+conversation now was more easily conducted, for the Latin-speaking bishops
+were close by to interpret. Once more, and for the fourth time, the young
+couple formally pledged their troth; and then after supper the Spanish
+minstrels played, and the ladies and gentlemen of Katharine's suite
+danced: young Arthur, though unable to dance in the Spanish way, trod an
+English measure with Lady Guildford to show that he was not unversed in
+courtly graces.[4]
+
+Arthur appears to have been a slight, fair, delicate lad, amiable and
+gentle, and not so tall as his bride, who was within a month of sixteen
+years, Arthur being just over fifteen. Katharine must have had at this
+time at least the grace of girlhood, though she never can have been a
+great beauty. Like most of her mother's house she had pale, rather hard,
+statuesque features and ruddy hair. As we trace her history we shall see
+that most of her mistakes in England, and she made many, were the natural
+result of the uncompromising rigidity of principle arising from the
+conviction of divine appointment which formed her mother's system. She had
+been brought up in the midst of a crusading war, in which the victors drew
+their inspiration, and ascribed their triumph, to the special intervention
+of the Almighty in their favour; and already Katharine's house had assumed
+as a basis of its family faith that the cause of God was indissolubly
+linked with that of the sovereigns of Castile and Leon. It was impossible
+that a woman brought up in such a school could be opportunist, or would
+bend to the petty subterfuges and small complaisances by which men are
+successfully managed; and Katharine suffered through life from the
+inflexibility born of self-conscious rectitude.
+
+Slowly through the rain the united cavalcades travelled back by Chertsey;
+and the Spanish half then rode to Kingston, where the Duke of Buckingham,
+with four hundred retainers in black and scarlet, met the bride, and so
+to the palace at Kennington hard by Lambeth, where Katharine was lodged
+until the sumptuous preparations for the public marriage at St. Paul's
+were completed. To give a list of all the splendours that preceded the
+wedding would be as tedious as it is unnecessary; but a general impression
+of the festivities as they struck a contemporary will give us a far better
+idea than a close catalogue of the wonderful things the Princess saw as
+she rode her white palfrey on the 12th November through Southwark, over
+London Bridge, and by Cheapside to the Bishop of London's house adjoining
+St. Paul's. "And, because I will not be tedious to you, I pass over the
+wise devices, the prudent speeches, the costly works, the cunning
+portraitures, practised and set forth in seven beautiful pageants erected
+and set up in divers places of the city. I leave also the goodaly ballds,
+the sweet harmony, the musical instruments, which sounded with heavenly
+noise in every side of the street. I omit the costly apparel, both of
+goldsmith's work and embroidery, the rich jewels, the massy chains, the
+stirring horses, the beautiful bards, and the glittering trappers, both
+with bells and spangles of gold. I pretermit also the rich apparel of the
+Princess, the strange fashion of the Spanish nation, the beauty of the
+English ladies, the goodly demeanour of the young damosels, the amorous
+countenance of the lusty bachelors. I pass over the fine engrained
+clothes, the costly furs of the citizens, standing upon scaffolds, railed
+from Gracechurch to St. Paul's. What should I speak of the odoriferous
+scarlets, and fine velvet and pleasant furs, and rich chains, which the
+Mayor of London with the Senate, sitting on horseback at the little
+conduit in Chepe, ware upon their bodies and about their necks. I will not
+molest you with rehearsing the rich arras, the costly tapestry, the fine
+cloths of silver and of gold, the curious velvets and satins, the pleasant
+silks, which did hang in every street where she passed; the wine that ran
+out of the conduits, the gravelling and railing of the streets, and all
+else that needeth not remembring."[5] In short, we may conclude that
+Katharine's passage through London before her wedding was as triumphal as
+the citizens could make it. Even the common people knew that her presence
+in England made for security and peace, and her Lancastrian descent from
+John of Gaunt seemed to add promise of legitimacy to future heirs to the
+crown.
+
+A long raised gangway of timber handsomely draped ran from the great west
+door of St. Paul's to the entrance to the choir. Near the end of the
+gangway there was erected upon it a high platform, reached by steps on
+each side, with room on the top for eight persons to stand. On the north
+side of the platform sat the King and Queen incognito in a tribune
+supposed to be private; whilst the corporation of London were ranged on
+the opposite side. The day of the ceremony was the 14th November 1501,
+Sunday and the day of St. Erkenwald, and all London was agog to see the
+show. Nobles and knights from every corner of the realm, glittering and
+flashing in their new finery, had come to do honour to the heir of
+England and his bride. Both bride and bridegroom were dressed in white
+satin, and they stood together, a comely young pair, upon the high scarlet
+stage to be married for the fifth time, on this occasion by the Archbishop
+of Canterbury. Then, after mass had been celebrated at the high altar with
+Archbishops, and mitred prelates by the dozen, a procession was formed to
+lead the newly married couple to the Bishop of London's palace across the
+churchyard. The stately bride, looking older than her years, came first,
+followed by a hundred ladies; and whilst on her left hand there hobbled
+the disreputable, crippled old ambassador, Dr. Puebla, the greatest day of
+whose life this was, on the other side the Princess was led by the most
+engaging figure in all that vast assembly. It was that of a graceful
+little boy of ten years in white velvet and gold; his bearing so gallant
+and sturdy, his skin so dazzlingly fair, his golden hair so shining, his
+smile so frank, that a rain of blessings showered upon him as he passed.
+This was the bridegroom's brother, Henry, Duke of York, who in gay
+unconsciousness was leading his own fate by the hand.
+
+Again the details of crowds of lords and ladies in their sumptuous
+garments, of banquets and dancing, of chivalric jousts and puerile
+maskings, may be left to the imagination of the reader. When magnificence
+at last grew palling, the young bride and bridegroom were escorted to
+their chamber in the Bishop of London's palace, with the broad
+suggestiveness then considered proper in all well-conducted weddings, and
+duly recorded in this case by the courtly chroniclers of the times. In
+the morning Arthur called at the door of the nuptial chamber to his
+attendants for a draught of liquor. To the bantering question of the
+chamberlain as to the cause of his unaccustomed thirst, it was not
+unnatural, considering the free manners of the day, that the Prince should
+reply in a vein of boyish boastfulness, with a suggestion which was
+probably untrue regarding the aridity of the Spanish climate and his own
+prowess as being the causes of his droughtiness. In any case this
+indelicate bit of youthful swagger of Arthur's was made, nearly thirty
+years afterwards, one of the principal pieces of evidence gravely brought
+forward to prove the illegality of Katharine's marriage with Henry.
+
+On the day following the marriage the King and Queen came in full state to
+congratulate the newly married pair, and led them to the abode that had
+been elaborately prepared for them at Baynard's Castle, whose ancient keep
+frowned over the Thames, below Blackfriars. On the Thursday following the
+feast was continued at Westminster with greater magnificence than ever. In
+a splendid tribune extending from Westminster Hall right across what is
+now Parliament Square sat Katharine with all the royal family and the
+Court, whilst the citizens crowded the stands on the other side of the
+great space reserved for the tilters. Invention was exhausted by the
+greater nobles in the contrivances by which they sought to make their
+respective entries effective. One had borne over him a green erection
+representing a wooded mount, crowded with allegorical animals; another
+rode under a tent of cloth of gold, and yet another pranced into the lists
+mounted upon a stage dragon led by a fearsome giant; and so the pageantry
+that seems to us so trite, and was then considered so exquisite, unrolled
+itself before the enraptured eyes of the lieges who paid for it all. How
+gold plate beyond valuation was piled upon the sideboards at the great
+banquet after the tilt in Westminster Hall, how Katharine and one of her
+ladies danced Spanish dances and Arthur led out his aunt Cicely, how
+masques and devices innumerable were paraded before the hosts and guests,
+and, above all, how the debonair little Duke of York charmed all hearts by
+his dancing with his elder sister; and, warming to his work, cast off his
+coat and footed it in his doublet, cannot be told here, nor the ceremony
+in which Katharine distributed rich prizes a few days afterwards to the
+successful tilters. There was more feasting and mumming at Shene to
+follow, but at last the celebration wore itself out, and Arthur and his
+wife settled down for a time to married life in their palace at Baynard's
+Castle.
+
+King Henry in his letter to the bride's parents, expresses himself as
+delighted with her "beauty and agreeable and dignified manners," and
+promises to be to her "a second father, who will ever watch over her, and
+never allow her to lack anything that he can procure for her." How he kept
+his promise we shall see later; but there is no doubt that her marriage
+with his son was a great relief to him, and enabled him, first to cast his
+net awide and sweep into its meshes all the gentry of England who might be
+presumed to wish him ill, and secondly to send Empson and Dudley abroad to
+wring from the well-to-do classes the last ducat that could be squeezed
+in order that he might buttress his throne with wealth. Probably Arthur's
+letter to Ferdinand and Isabel written at the same time (November 30,
+1501) was drafted by other hands than his own, but the terms in which he
+expresses his satisfaction with his wife are so warm that they doubtless
+reflect the fact that he really found her pleasant. "He had never," he
+assured them, "felt so much joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet
+face of his bride, and no woman in the world could be more agreeable to
+him."[6] The honeymoon was a short, and could hardly have been a merry,
+one; for Arthur was obviously a weakling, consumptive some chroniclers
+aver; and the grim old castle by the river was not a lively abode.
+
+Before the marriage feast were well over, Henry's avarice began to make
+things unpleasant for Katharine. We have seen how persistent he had been
+in his demands that the dowry should be paid to him in gold, and how the
+bride's parents had pressed that the jewels and plate she took with her
+should be considered as part of the dowry. On Katharine's wedding the
+first instalment of 100,000 crowns had been handed to Henry by the
+Archbishop of Santiago, and there is no doubt that in the negotiations
+Puebla had, as usual with him, thought to smooth matters by concealing
+from both sovereigns the inconvenient conditions insisted by each of them.
+Henry therefore imagined--he said that he was led to believe it by
+Puebla--that the jewels and plate were to be surrendered to him on a
+valuation as part of the second instalment; whereas the bride's parents
+were allowed to suppose that Katharine would still have the enjoyment of
+them. In the middle of December, therefore, Henry sent for Juan de Cuero,
+Katharine's chamberlain, and demanded the valuables as an instalment of
+the remaining 100,000 crowns of the dowry. Cuero, astounded at such a
+request, replied that it would be his duty to have them weighed and valued
+and a list given to the King in exchange for a receipt for their value,
+but that he had not to give them up. The King, highly irate at what he
+considered an evasion of his due, pressed his demand, but without avail,
+and afterwards saw Katharine herself at Baynard's Castle in the presence
+of Dońa Elvira Manuel, her principal lady in waiting.
+
+What was the meaning of it, he asked, as he told her of Cuero's refusal to
+surrender her valuables in fulfilment of the promise, and further exposed
+Puebla's double-dealing. Puebla, it appears, had gone to the King, and had
+suggested that if his advice was followed the jewels would remain in
+England, whilst their value would be paid to Henry in money as well. He
+had, he assured the King, already gained over Katharine to the plan, which
+briefly was to allow the Princess to use the jewels and plate for the
+present, so that when the time came for demanding their surrender her
+father and mother would be ashamed of her being deprived of them, and
+would pay their value in money. Henry explained to Katharine that he was
+quite shocked at such a dishonest suggestion, which he refused, he said,
+to entertain. He had therefore asked for the valuables at once as he saw
+that there was craft at work, and he would be no party to it. He
+acknowledged, however, that the jewels were not due to be delivered until
+the last payment on account of the dowry had to be made. It was all
+Puebla's fault, he assured his daughter-in-law, which was probably true,
+though it will be observed that the course pursued allowed Henry to assert
+his eventual claim to the surrender of the jewels, and his many
+professions of disinterestedness cloaked the crudeness of his demand.
+
+The next day Henry sent for Bishop Ayala, who was Puebla's colleague and
+bitter enemy, and told him that Prince Arthur must be sent to Wales soon,
+and that much difference of opinion existed as to whether Katharine should
+accompany him. What did Ayala advise? The Spaniard thought that the
+Princess should remain with the King and Queen in London for the present,
+rather than go to Wales where the Prince must necessarily be absent from
+her a good deal, and she would be lonely. When Katharine herself was
+consulted by Henry she would express no decided opinion; and Arthur was
+worked upon by his father to persuade her to say that she wished to go to
+Wales. Finding that Katharine still avoided the expression of an opinion,
+Henry, with a great show of sorrow, decided that she should accompany
+Arthur. Then came the question of the maintenance of the Princess's
+household. Puebla had again tried to please every one by saying that Henry
+would provide a handsome dotation for the purpose, but when Dońa Elvira
+Manuel, on the eve of the journey to Wales, asked the King what provision
+he was going to make, he feigned the utmost surprise at the question. He
+knew nothing about it, he said. The Prince would of course maintain his
+wife and her necessary servants, but no special separate grant could be
+made to the Princess. When Puebla was brought to book he threw the blame
+upon the members of Katharine's household, and was publicly rebuked by
+Henry for his shiftiness. But the Spaniards believed, probably with
+reason, that the whole comedy was agreed upon between the King and Puebla
+to obtain possession of the plate and jewels or their value: the sending
+of the Princess to Wales being for the purpose of making it necessary that
+she should use the objects, and so give good grounds for a demand for
+their value in money on the part of Henry. In any case Katharine found
+herself, only five weeks after her marriage, with an unpaid and
+inharmonious household, dependent entirely upon her husband for her needs,
+and conscious that an artful trick was in full execution with the object
+of either depriving her of her personal jewels, and everything of value,
+with which she had furnished her husband's table as well as her own, or
+else of extorting a large sum of money from her parents. Embittered
+already with such knowledge as this, Katharine rode by her husband's side
+out of Baynard's Castle on the 21st December 1501 to continue on the long
+journey to Wales,[7] after passing their Christmas at Oxford.
+
+The plague was rife throughout England, and on the 2nd April 1502 Arthur,
+Prince of Wales, fell a victim to it at Ludlow. Here was an unforeseen
+blow that threatened to deprive both Henry and Ferdinand of the result of
+their diplomacy. For Ferdinand the matter was of the utmost importance;
+for an approachment of England and Scotland to France would upset the
+balance of power he had so laboriously constructed, already threatened, as
+it was, by the prospect that his Flemish son-in-law Philip and his wife
+would wear the crowns of the Empire, Flanders, and Burgundy, as well as
+those of Spain and its possessions; in which case, he thought, Spanish
+interests would be the last considered. The news of the unexpected
+catastrophe was greeted in London with real sorrow, for Arthur was
+promising and popular, and both Henry and his queen were naturally
+attached to their elder son, just approaching manhood, upon whose training
+they had lavished so much care. Though Henry's grief at his loss may have
+been as sincere as that of Elizabeth of York certainly was, his natural
+inclinations soon asserted themselves. Ludlow was unhealthy, and after the
+pompous funeral of Arthur at Worcester, Katharine and her household prayed
+earnestly to be allowed to approach London, but for some weeks without
+success, and by the time she arrived at her new abode at Croydon, the
+political intrigues of which she was the tool were in full swing again.
+
+When Ferdinand and Isabel first heard the news of their daughter's
+bereavement at the beginning of May they were at Toledo, and lost no time
+in sending off post haste to England a fresh ambassador with special
+instructions from themselves. The man they chose was the Duke de Estrada,
+whose only recommendation seems to have been his rank, for Puebla was soon
+able to twist him round his finger. His mission, as we now know, was an
+extraordinary and delicate one. Ostensibly he was to demand the immediate
+return of the 100,000 crowns paid to Henry on account of dowry, and the
+firm settlement upon Katharine of the manors and rents, securing to her
+the revenue assigned to her in England, and at the same time he was to
+urge Henry to send Katharine back to Spain at once. But these things were
+really the last that Ferdinand desired. He knew full well that Henry would
+go to any length to avoid disgorging the dowry, and secret instructions
+were given to Estrada to effect a betrothal between the ten-years-old
+Henry, Duke of York, and his brother's widow of sixteen. Strict orders
+also were sent to Puebla of a character to forward the secret design,
+although he was not fully informed of the latter. He was to press amongst
+other things that Katharine might receive her English revenue
+punctually--Katharine, it appears, had written to her parents, saying that
+she had been advised to borrow money for the support of her household; and
+the King and Queen of Spain were indignant at such an idea. Not a
+farthing, they said, must she be allowed to borrow, and none of her jewels
+sold: the King of England must provide for her promptly and handsomely,
+in accordance with his obligations. This course, as the writers well
+knew, would soon bring Henry VII. himself to propose the marriage for
+which Ferdinand was so anxious. Henry professed himself very ready to make
+the settlement of the English income as requested, but in such case, he
+claimed that the whole of the Spanish dowry in gold must be paid to him.
+Ferdinand could not see it in this light at all, and insisted that the
+death of Arthur had dissolved the marriage. This fencing went on for some
+time, neither party wishing to be the first to propose the indecorous
+marriage with Henry that both desired.[8] It is evident that Puebla and
+the chaplain Alexander opposed the match secretly, and endeavoured to
+thwart it, either from an idea of its illegality or, more probably, with a
+view of afterwards bringing it about themselves. In the midst of this
+intrigue the King of France suddenly attacked Ferdinand both in Italy and
+on the Catalonian frontier, and made approaches to Henry for the marriage
+of his son with a French princess. This hurried the pace in Spain, and
+Queen Isabel ordered Estrada to carry through the betrothal of Katharine
+and her brother-in-law without loss of time, "for any delay would be
+dangerous." So anxious were the Spanish sovereigns that nothing should
+stand in the way, that they were willing to let the old arrangement about
+the dowry stand, Henry retaining the 100,000 crowns already paid, and
+receiving, when the marriage was consummated, the remaining 100,000; on
+condition that in the meanwhile Katharine was properly maintained in
+England. Even the incestuous nature of the union was to be no bar to its
+being effected, though no Papal dispensation had been yet obtained. Isabel
+sought salve for her conscience in this respect by repeating Dońa Elvira
+Manuel's assurance that Katharine still remained intact; her marriage with
+Arthur not having been consummated. To lure Henry into an armed alliance
+against France once more, the old bait of the recovery of Normandy and
+Guienne was dangled before him. But the King of England played with a
+firmer hand now. He knew his worth as a balancing factor, his accumulated
+treasure made him powerful, and he held all the cards in his hand; for the
+King of Scots was his son-in-law, and the French were as anxious for his
+smiles as were the Spanish sovereigns. So he stood off and refused to
+pledge himself to a hostile alliance.
+
+In view of this Ferdinand and Isabel's tone changed, and they developed a
+greater desire than ever to have their daughter--and above all her
+dowry--returned to them. "We cannot endure," wrote Isabel to Estrada on
+the 10th August 1502, "that a daughter whom we love should be so far away
+from us in her trouble.... You shall ... tell the King of England that you
+have our orders to freight vessels for her voyage. To this end you must
+make such a show of giving directions and preparing for the voyage that
+the members of the Princess's household may believe that it is true. Send
+also some of her household on board with the captain I am now sending you
+... and show all signs of departure." If in consequence the English spoke
+of the betrothal with young Henry, the ambassador was to show no desire
+for it; but was to listen keenly to all that was proposed, and if the
+terms were acceptable he might clinch the matter at once without further
+reference. And then the saintly Queen concludes thus: "The one object of
+this business is to bring the betrothal to a conclusion as soon as
+possible in conformity with your instructions. For then all our anxiety
+will cease and we shall be able to seek the aid of England against France,
+for this is the most efficient aid we can have." Henry was not for the
+moment to be frightened by fresh demands for his armed alliance against
+France. The betrothal was to be forwarded first, and then the rest would
+follow. Puebla, who was quite confident that he alone could carry on the
+marriage negotiation successfully, was also urged by mingled flattery and
+threats by his sovereign to do his utmost with that end.
+
+Whilst this diplomatic haggling was going on in London for the disposal of
+the widowed Katharine to the best advantage, a blow fell that for a moment
+changed the aspect of affairs. Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII.,
+died on the 11th February 1503, in the Tower of London, a week after
+giving birth to her seventh child. She had been a good and submissive wife
+to the King, whose claim to the throne she had fortified by her own
+greater right; and we are told that the bereaved husband was "heavy and
+dolorous" with his loss when he retired to a solitary place to pass his
+sorrow; but before many weeks were over he and his crony Puebla put their
+crafty heads together, and agreed that the King might marry his widowed
+daughter-in-law himself. The idea was cynically repulsive but it gives us
+the measure of Henry's unscrupulousness. Puebla conveyed the hint to
+Isabel and Ferdinand, who, to do them justice, appeared to be really
+shocked at the suggestion. This time (April 1503) the Spanish sovereigns
+spoke with more sincerity than before. They were, they told their
+ambassador, tired of Henry's shiftiness, and of their daughter's equivocal
+and undignified position in England, now that the Queen was dead and the
+betrothal still hung fire. The Princess was really to come to Spain in a
+fleet that should be sent for her, unless the marriage with the young
+Prince of Wales was agreed to at once. As for a wife for King Henry there
+was the widowed Queen of Naples, Ferdinand's niece, who lived in Valencia,
+and he might have her with the blessing of the Spanish sovereigns.[9] The
+suggestion was a tempting one to Henry, for the Queen of Naples was well
+dowered, and the vigour of Isabel's refusal to listen to his marriage with
+her daughter, made it evident that that was out of the question. So Henry
+at last made up his mind at least to execute the treaty which was to
+betroth his surviving son to Katharine. In the treaty, which was signed on
+the 23rd June 1503, it is set forth that, inasmuch as the bride and
+bridegroom were related in the first degree of affinity, a Papal
+dispensation would be necessary for the marriage; and it is distinctly
+stated that the marriage with Arthur had been consummated. This may have
+been a diplomatic form considered at the time unimportant in view of the
+ease with which a dispensation could be obtained, but it is at direct
+variance with Dońa Elvira Manuel's assurance to Isabel at the time of
+Arthur's death, and with Katharine's assertion, uncontradicted by Henry,
+to the end of her life.
+
+Henry, Prince of Wales, was at this time twelve years old; and, if we are
+to believe Erasmus, a prodigy of precocious scholarship. Though his
+learning was superficial and carefully made the most of, he was, in
+effect, an apt and diligent student. From the first his mother and father
+had determined that their children should enjoy better educational
+advantages than had fallen to them, and as Henry had been until Arthur's
+death intended for the Church, his learning was far in advance of that of
+most princes and nobles of his age. The bride, who thus became unwillingly
+affianced to a boy more than five years her junior, was now a young woman
+in her prime, experienced already in the chicane and falsity of the
+atmosphere in which she lived. She knew, none better, that in the juggle
+for her marriage she had been regarded as a mere chattel, and her own
+inclinations hardly taken into account, and she faced her responsibilities
+bravely in her mother's exalted spirit of duty and sacrifice when she
+found herself once more Princess of Wales.
+
+When Ferdinand, in accordance with his pledge in the treaty, instructed
+his ambassador in Rome to ask for the Pope's dispensation, he took care to
+correct the statement embodied in the document to the effect that the
+marriage of Arthur and Katharine had been consummated; though the question
+might pertinently be asked, why, if it had not been, a dispensation was
+needed at all? The King himself answered the question by saying that "as
+the English are so much inclined to cavil, it appeared prudent to provide
+for the case as if the previous marriage had been completed; and the
+dispensation must be worded in accordance with the treaty, since the
+succession to the Crown depends on the undoubted legitimacy of the
+marriage."[10] No sooner was the ratification of the betrothal conveyed to
+Ferdinand than he demanded the aid of Henry against France, and Estrada
+was instructed to "make use of" Katharine to obtain the favour demanded.
+If Henry hesitated to provide the money for raising the 2000 English
+troops required, Katharine herself was to be asked by her kind father to
+pawn her plate and jewels for the purpose. Henry, however, had no
+intention to be hurried now that the betrothal had been signed. There were
+several things he wanted on his side first. The Earl of Suffolk and his
+brother Richard Pole were still in Flanders; and the greatest wish of
+Henry's life was that they should be handed over to his tender mercies.
+So the armed coalition against France still hung fire, whilst a French
+ambassador was as busy courting the King of England as Ferdinand himself.
+In the meanwhile Katharine for a time lived in apparent amity with Henry
+and his family, especially with the young Princess Mary, who was her
+constant companion. In the autumn of 1504 she passed a fortnight with them
+at Windsor and Richmond, hunting every day; but just as the King was
+leaving Greenwich for a progress through Kent the Princess fell seriously
+ill, and the letters written by Henry during his absence to his
+daughter-in-law are worded as if he were the most affectionate of fathers.
+On this progress the Prince of Wales accompanied his father for the first
+time, as the King had previously been loath to disturb his studies. "It is
+quite wonderful," wrote an observer, "how much the King loves the Prince.
+He has good reason to do so, for he deserves all his love." Already the
+crafty and politic King was indoctrinating his son in the system he had
+made his own: that the command of ready money, gained no matter how, meant
+power, and that to hold the balance between two greater rivals was to have
+them both at his bidding. And young Henry, though of different nature from
+his father, made good use of his lesson.
+
+Katharine's greatest trouble at this time (the autumn of 1504) was the
+bickering, and worse, of her Spanish household. We have already seen how
+Puebla had set them by the ears with his jealousy of his colleagues and
+his dodging diplomacy. Katharine appealed to Henry to bring her servants
+to order, but he refused to interfere, as they were not his subjects.
+Dońa Elvira Manuel, the governess, was a great lady, and resented any
+interference with her domain.[11] There is no doubt that her rule, so far
+as regarded the Princess herself, was a wise one; but, as we shall see
+directly, she, Castilian that she was and sister of the famous diplomatist
+Juan Manuel, took up a position inimical to Ferdinand after Isabel's
+death, and innocently led Katharine into grave political trouble.
+
+In November 1504 the death of Isabel, Queen of Castile, long threatened
+after her strenuous life, changed the whole aspect for Ferdinand. The
+heiress of the principal crown of Spain was now Katharine's sister Juana,
+who had lived for years in the latitudinarian court of Brussels with her
+consort Philip. The last time she had gone to Spain, her freedom towards
+the strict religious observances considered necessary in her mother's
+court had led to violent scenes between Isabel and Juana. Even then the
+scandalised Spanish churchmen who flocked around Isabel whispered that the
+heiress of Castile must be mad: and her foreign husband, the heir of the
+empire, was hated and distrusted by the "Catholic kings." Isabel by her
+will had left her husband guardian of her realms for Juana; and from the
+moment the Queen breathed her last the struggle between Ferdinand and his
+son-in-law never ceased, until Philip the Handsome, who thought he had
+beaten wily old Ferdinand, himself was beaten by poison. The death of her
+mother not only threw Katharine into natural grief for her loss, which
+truly was a great one; for, at least, Isabel deeply loved her youngest
+child, whilst Ferdinand loved nothing but himself and Aragon; but it
+greatly altered for the worse her position in England. Philip of Austria
+and his father the Emperor had begun to play false to Ferdinand long
+before the Queen's death; and now that the crown of Castile had fallen to
+poor weak Juana, and a struggle was seen to be impending for the regency,
+Henry VII. found himself as usual courted by both sides in the dispute.
+The widowed Archduchess Margaret, who had married as a first husband
+Ferdinand's heir, was offered to Henry as a bride by Philip and Maximilian
+and a close alliance between them proposed; and Ferdinand, whilst
+denouncing his son-in-law's ingratitude, also bade high for the King of
+England's countenance. Henry listened to both parties, but it was clear to
+him that he had now more to hope for from Philip and Maximilian, who were
+friendly with France, than from Ferdinand; and the unfortunate Katharine
+was again reduced to the utmost neglect and penury, unable to buy food for
+her own table, except by pawning her jewels.
+
+In the ensuing intrigues Dońa Elvira Manuel was on the side of the Queen
+of Castile, as against her father; and Katharine lost the impartial advice
+of her best counsellor, and involved herself in a very net of trouble. In
+the summer of 1505 it was already understood that Philip and Juana on
+their way to Spain by sea might possibly trust themselves in an English
+port; and Henry, in order to be ready for any matrimonial combinations
+that might be suggested, caused young Henry to make solemn protest before
+the Bishop of Winchester at Richmond against his marriage with
+Katharine.[12] Of this, at the time, of course the Spanish agents were
+ignorant; and so completely was even Puebla hoodwinked, that almost to the
+arrival of Philip and his wife in England he believed that Henry was in
+favour of Ferdinand against Philip and Maximilian. Early in August 1505,
+Puebla went to Richmond to see Katharine, and as he entered one of the
+household told him that an ambassador from the Archduke Philip, King of
+Castile, had just arrived and was waiting to see her. Puebla at once
+himself conveyed the news to Katharine; and to his glee served as
+interpreter between the ambassador and the Princess. On his knees before
+her the Fleming related that he had come to propose a marriage between the
+Duchess of Savoy (_i.e._ the widowed Archduchess Margaret) and Henry VII.,
+and showed the Princess two portraits of the Archduchess. Furthermore, he
+said that Philip and his wife were going by overland through France to
+Spain, and he was to ask Henry what he thought of the plan. Puebla's eyes
+were thus partially opened: and when a few days later he found that Dońa
+Elvira had not only contrived frequent private meetings between Katharine
+and the Flemish ambassador, but had persuaded the Princess to propose a
+meeting between Philip, Juana, and the King of England, he at once sounded
+a note of alarm. Katharine, it must be recollected, was yet young; and
+probably did not fully understand the deadly antagonism that existed
+between her father and her brother-in-law. She was much under the
+influence of Dońa Elvira, and doubtless yearned to see her unhappy sister
+Juana. So she was induced to write a letter to Philip, and to propose a
+meeting with Henry at Calais. When a prompt affirmative reply came, the
+Princess innocently showed it to Puebla at Durham House before sending it
+to Henry VII. The ambassador was aghast, and soundly rated Katharine for
+going against the interests of her father. He would take the letter to the
+King, he said. But this Katharine would not allow, and Dońa Elvira was
+appealed to. She promised to retain the letter for the present, but just
+as Puebla was sitting down to dinner an hour afterwards, he learnt that
+she had broken her word and sent Philip's letter to Henry VII. Starting
+up, he rushed to Katharine's apartments, and with tears streaming down his
+face at his failure, told the Princess, under pledge of secrecy, that the
+proposed interview was a plot of the Manuels to injure both her father and
+sister. She must at once write a letter to Henry which he, Puebla, would
+dictate; and, whilst still feigning a desire for the meeting, she must try
+to prevent it with all her might, and beware of Dońa Elvira in future.
+Poor Katharine, alarmed at his vehemence, did as she was told; and the
+letter was sent flying to Henry, apologising for the proposal of the
+interview. Henry must have smiled when he saw how eager they all were to
+court him. Nothing would please him better than the close alliance with
+Philip, which was already being secretly negotiated, though he was
+effusively assuring Ferdinand at the same time of the inviolability of
+their friendship; promising that the marriage--which he had secretly
+denounced--between his son and Katharine, should be celebrated on the very
+day provided by the treaty, and approving of some secret plot of Ferdinand
+against Philip which had been communicated to him.
+
+Amidst such falsity as this it is most difficult to pick one's way, though
+it is evident through it all that Henry had now gained the upper hand, and
+was fully a match for Ferdinand in his altered circumstances. But as
+things improved for Henry they became worse for Katharine. In December
+1505 she wrote bitterly to her father from Richmond, complaining of her
+fate, the unhappiness of which, she said, was all Puebla's fault. "Every
+day," she wrote, "my troubles increase. Since my arrival in England I have
+not received a farthing except for food, and I and my household have not
+even garments to wear." She had asked Puebla to pray the King to appoint
+an English dueńa for her whilst Dońa Elvira was in Flanders, but instead
+of doing so he had arranged with Henry that her household should be
+dismissed altogether, and that she should reside at Court. Her letter
+throughout shows that at the time she was in deep despondency and anger at
+her treatment; and especially resentful of Puebla, whom she disliked and
+distrusted profoundly, as did Dońa Elvira Manuel. The very elements seemed
+to fight on the side of the King of England. Ferdinand was, in sheer
+desperation, struggling to prevent his paternal realms from being merged
+in Castile and the empire, and with that end was negotiating his marriage
+with the French king's niece, Germaine de Foix, and a close alliance with
+France, in which England should be included, when Philip of Austria and
+his wife, Juana of Aragon, Queen of Castile, sailed from Flanders to claim
+their kingdom at Ferdinand's hands. They too had made friends with France
+some time before, but the marriage of Ferdinand with a French princess had
+now drawn them strongly to the side of England; and as we have seen, they
+were already in full negotiation with Henry for his marriage with the
+doubly widowed and heavily dowered Archduchess Margaret.
+
+The King and Queen of Castile were overtaken by a furious south-west gale
+in the Channel and their fine fleet dispersed. The ship that carried
+Philip and Juana was driven by the storm into Melcombe Regis, on the
+Dorset coast, on the 17th January 1506, and lay there weather-bound for
+some time. Philip the Handsome was a poor sailor, and was, we are told by
+an eye-witness, "fatigate and unquyeted in mynde and bodie." He doubtless
+yearned to tread dry land again, and, against the advice of his Council,
+had himself rowed ashore. Only in the previous year he had as unguardedly
+put himself into the power of the King of France; and his boldness had
+succeeded well, as it had resulted in the treaty with the French king that
+had so much alarmed and shocked Ferdinand, but it is unlikely that Philip
+on this occasion intended to make any stay in England or to go beyond
+Weymouth. The news of his coming brought together all the neighbouring
+gentry to oppose or welcome him, according to his demeanour, and, finding
+him friendly, Sir John Trenchard prevailed upon him to take up his
+residence in his manor-house hard by until the weather mended. In the
+meanwhile formidable English forces mustered in the country around, and
+Philip began to grow uneasy; but Trenchard's hospitality was pressing, and
+to all hints from the visitor that he wanted to be gone the reply was
+given that he really must wait until the King of England could bid him
+welcome. When at last Philip was given to understand that he was
+practically a prisoner, he made the best of the position, and with seeming
+cordiality awaited King Henry's message. No wonder, as a chronicler says,
+that Henry when he heard the news "was replenyshed with an exceeding
+gladnes ... for that he trusted his landing in England should turn to his
+profit and commoditie." This it certainly did. Philip and Juana were
+brought to Windsor in great state, and met by Henry and his son and a
+splendid train of nobles. Then the visitors were led through London in
+state to Richmond, and Philip, amidst all the festivity, was soon
+convinced that he would not be allowed to leave England until the rebel
+Plantagenet Earl of Suffolk was handed to Henry. And so the pact was made
+that bound England to Philip and Flanders against Ferdinand; the
+Archduchess Margaret with her vast fortune being promised, with unheard-of
+guarantees, to the widowed Henry.[13] When the treaty had been solemnly
+ratified on oath, taken upon a fragment of the true Cross in St. George's
+Chapel, Windsor, Philip was allowed to go his way on the 2nd March to join
+his ship at Falmouth, whither Juana had preceded him a fortnight before.
+
+This new treaty made poor Katharine of little value as a political asset
+in England; since it was clear now that Ferdinand's hold over anything but
+his paternal heritage in the Mediterranean was powerless. Flanders and
+Castile were a far more advantageous ally to England than the King of
+Aragon, and Katharine was promptly made to feel the fact. Dr. Puebla was
+certainly either kept quite out of the way or his compliance bought, or he
+would have been able to devise means for Katharine to inform her sister
+Juana of the real object of Henry's treaty with Philip; for Ferdinand
+always insisted that Juana was a dutiful daughter, and was not personally
+opposed to him. As it was, Katharine was allowed to see her sister but for
+an hour just before Juana's departure, and then in the presence of
+witnesses in the interests of Philip. Only a few weeks after the visitors
+had departed Katharine wrote to her father, in fear lest her letter should
+be intercepted, begging him to have pity upon her. She is deep in debt,
+not for extravagant things but for food. "The King of England refuses to
+pay anything, though she implores him with tears to do so. He says he has
+been cheated about the marriage portion. In the meanwhile she is in the
+deepest anguish, her servants almost begging for alms, and she herself
+nearly naked. She has been at death's door for months, and prays
+earnestly for a Spanish confessor, as she cannot speak English."[14]
+
+How false Ferdinand met his "dear children," and made with his daughter's
+husband that hellish secret compact in the church of Villafafila, that
+seemed to renounce everything to Philip whilst Ferdinand went humbly to
+his realm of Naples, and his ill-used daughter Juana to life-long
+confinement, cannot be told here, nor the sudden death of Philip the
+Handsome, which brought back Ferdinand triumphant. If Juana was sane
+before, she certainly became more or less mad after her husband's death,
+and moreover was morbidly devoted to his memory. But what mattered madness
+or a widow's devotion to Henry VII. when he had political objects to
+serve? All through the summer and autumn of 1506 Katharine had been ill
+with fever and ague, unhappy at the neglect and poverty she suffered.
+Ferdinand threw upon Castile the duty of paying the rest of her dowry; the
+Castilians retorted that Ferdinand ought to pay it himself: and Katharine,
+in the depth of despondency, in October 1506 learnt of her brother-in-law
+Philip's death. Like magic Henry VII. became amiable again to his
+daughter-in-law. He deplored her illness now, and cordially granted her
+the change of residence from Eltham to Fulham that she had so long prayed
+for in vain. The reason was soon evident; for before Juana had completed
+her dreary pilgrimage through Spain to Granada with her husband's dead
+body, Henry had cajoled Katharine to ask her father for the distraught
+widow for his wife. Katharine must have fulfilled the task with
+repulsion, though she seems to have advocated the match warmly; and
+Ferdinand, though he knew, or rather said, that Juana was mad, was quite
+ready to take advantage of such an opportunity for again getting into
+touch with Henry. The letter in which Ferdinand gently dallied with
+Henry's offer was written in Naples, after months of shifty excuses for
+not sending the rest of Katharine's dowry to England,[15] and doubtless
+the time he gained by postponing the answer about Juana's marriage until
+he returned to Spain was of value to him; for he was determined, now that
+a special providence carefully prepared had removed Philip from his path,
+that once more all Spain should bear his sway whilst he lived, and then
+should be divided, rather than his dear Aragon should be rendered
+subordinate to other interests.
+
+The encouraging talk of Henry's marriage with Juana, with which both
+Katharine and Puebla were instructed to beguile him, was all very well in
+its way, and the King of England became quite joyously sentimental at the
+prospect of the new tie of relationship between the houses of Tudor and
+Aragon; but, really, business was business: if that long overdue dowry for
+Katharine was not sent soon, young Henry would listen to some of the many
+other eligible princesses, better dowered than Katharine, who were offered
+to him. With much demur Henry at length consented to wait for five months
+longer for the dowry; that is to say, until Michaelmas 1507, and in the
+meanwhile drove a bargain as hard as that of a Jew huckster in the
+valuation of Katharine's jewels and plate, which were to be brought into
+the account.[16] It is easy to see that this concession of five months'
+delay was granted by Henry in the hope that his marriage with Juana would
+take place. The plan was hideously wicked, and Puebla made no secret of it
+in writing to Ferdinand. "No king in the world would make so good a
+husband to the Queen of Castile, whether she be sane or insane. She might
+recover her reason when wedded to such a husband, but even in that case
+King Ferdinand would at all events be sure to retain the regency of
+Castile. On the other hand, if the insanity of the Queen should prove
+incurable it would perhaps be not inconvenient that she should live in
+England. The English do not seem to mind her insanity much; especially
+since it is asserted that her mental malady would not prevent her from
+childbearing."[17] Could anything be more repulsive than this pretty
+arrangement, which had been concocted by Henry and Puebla at Richmond
+during a time when the former was seriously ill with quinsy and
+inaccessible to any one but the Spanish ambassador?
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine felt keenly the wretched position in which she
+found herself. The plate, about which so much haggling was taking place,
+was being pawned or sold by her bit by bit to provide the most necessary
+things for her own use; her servants were in rags, and she herself was
+contemned and neglected; forbidden even to see her betrothed husband for
+months together, though living in the same palace with him. The more
+confident Henry grew of his own marriage with the Archduchess Margaret, or
+with Queen Juana, the less inclined he was to wed his son to Katharine. A
+French princess for the Prince of Wales, and the Queen of Castile for
+Henry, would indeed have served England on all sides. On one occasion, in
+April 1507, Henry frankly told Katharine that he considered himself no
+longer bound by her marriage treaty, since her dowry was overdue, and all
+the poor Princess could do was to weep and pray her father to fulfil his
+part of the compact by paying the rest of her portion, whilst she, serving
+as Ferdinand's ambassador, tried to retain Henry's good graces by her
+hopeful assurances about the marriage of the latter with Juana.
+
+In all Katharine's lamentations of her own sufferings and privation, she
+never forgot to bewail the misery of her servants. Whilst she herself, she
+said, had been worse treated than any woman in England, her five women
+servants, all she had retained, had never received a farthing since their
+arrival in England six years before, and had spent everything they
+possessed. Katharine at this time of trial (August 1507) was living alone
+at Ewelme, whilst Henry was hunting at various seats in the midlands. At
+length the King made some stay at Woodstock, where Katharine saw him. With
+suspicious alacrity he consented to a further postponement of the overdue
+dowry; and showed himself more eager than ever to marry Juana, no matter
+how mad she might be. Katharine was quite acute enough to understand his
+motives, and wrote to her father that so long as the money due of her
+dowry remained unpaid the King considered himself free, so far as regarded
+her marriage with the Prince of Wales. "Mine is always the worst part,"
+she wrote. "The King of England prides himself upon his magnanimity in
+waiting so long for the payment.... His words are kind but his deeds are
+as bad as ever." She bitterly complained that Puebla himself was doing his
+utmost to frustrate her marriage in the interests of the King of England;
+and it is clear to see in her passionate letter to her father (4th October
+1507) that she half distrusted even him, as she had been told that he was
+listening to overtures from the King of France for a marriage between
+Juana and a French prince. She failed in this to understand the political
+position fully. If Juana had married a Frenchman it is certain that Henry
+would have been only too eager to complete the marriage of his son with
+Katharine. But she was evidently in fear that, unless Henry was allowed to
+marry her sister, evil might befall her. Speaking of the marriage she
+says: "I bait him with this ... and his words and professions have changed
+for the better, although his acts remain the same.... They fancy that I
+have no more in me than what outwardly appears, or that I shall not be
+able to fathom his (Puebla's) design." Under stress of her circumstances
+Katharine was developing rapidly. She was no longer a girl dependent upon
+others. Dońa Elvira had gone for good; Puebla she hated and distrusted as
+much as she did Henry; and there was no one by her to whom she could look
+for help. Her position was a terribly difficult one, pitted alone, as she
+was, against the most unscrupulous politicians in Europe, in whose hands
+she knew she was only one of the pieces in a game. Juana was still
+carrying about with her the unburied corpse of her husband, and falling
+into paroxysms of fury when a second marriage was suggested to her; and
+yet Katharine considered it necessary to keep up the pretence to Henry
+that his suit was prospering. She knew that though the Archduchess
+Margaret had firmly refused to tempt providence again by a third marriage
+with the King of England, the boy sovereign of Castile and Flanders, the
+Archduke Charles, had been securely betrothed to golden-haired little Mary
+Tudor, Henry's younger daughter; and that the close alliance thus sealed
+was as dangerous to her father King Ferdinand's interests as to her own.
+And yet she was either forced, or forced herself, to paint Henry, who was
+still treating her vilely, in the brightest colours as a chivalrous,
+virtuous gentleman, really and desperately in love with poor crazy Juana.
+Katharine's letters to her sister on behalf of Henry's suit are nauseous,
+in view of the circumstances as we know them; and show that the Princess
+of Wales was already prepared to sacrifice every human feeling to
+political expediency.
+
+This miserable position could not continue indefinitely, for the
+extension of time for the payment of the dowry was fast running out. Juana
+was more intractable than ever. Katharine, in rage and despair at the
+contumely with which she was treated, insisted at length that her father
+should send an ambassador to England, who could speak as the mouthpiece of
+a great sovereign rather than like a fawning menial of Henry as Puebla
+was. The new ambassador was Gomez de Fuensalida, Knight Commander of Haro
+and Membrilla, a man as haughty as Puebla had been servile, and he went
+far beyond even Katharine's desires in his plain speaking to Henry and his
+ministers. Ferdinand, indeed, by this time had once more gained the upper
+hand in Europe, and could afford to speak his mind. Henry was no longer so
+vigorous or so bold as he had been, and his desire to grasp everything
+whilst risking nothing had enabled his rivals to form a great coalition
+from which he was excluded--the League of Cambrai. Fuensalida offended
+Henry almost as soon as he arrived, and was roughly refused permission to
+enter the English Court. He could only storm, as he did, to Henry's
+ministers that unless the Princess of Wales was at once sent home to Spain
+with her dowry, King Ferdinand and his allies would wreak vengeance upon
+England. But Henry knew that with such a hostage as Katharine in his hands
+he was safe from attack, and held the Princess in defiance of it all. But
+he was already a waning force. Whilst Fuensalida had no good word for the
+King, he, like all other Spanish agents, turned to the rising sun and sang
+persistently the praises of the Prince of Wales. His gigantic stature and
+sturdy limbs, his fair skin and golden hair, his manliness, his prudence,
+and his wisdom were their constant theme: and even Katharine, unhappy as
+she was, with her marriage still in the balance, seems to have liked and
+admired the gallant youth whom she was allowed to see so seldom.
+
+It has become so much the fashion to speak of Katharine not only as an
+unfortunate woman, but as a blameless saint in all her relations, that an
+historian who regards her as a fallible and even in many respects a
+blameworthy woman, who was to a large extent the cause of her own
+troubles, must be content to differ from the majority of his predecessors.
+We have already seen, by the earnest attempts she made to drag her
+afflicted sister into marriage with a man whom she herself considered
+false, cruel, and unscrupulous, that Katharine was no better than those
+around her in moral principle: the passion and animosity shown in her
+letters to her father about Puebla, Fuensalida, and others whom she
+distrusted, show her to have been anything but a meek martyr. She was,
+indeed, at this time (1508-9) a self-willed, ambitious girl of strong
+passion, impatient of control, domineering and proud. Her position in
+England had been a humiliating and a hateful one for years. She was the
+sport of the selfish ambitions of others, which she herself was unable to
+control; surrounded by people whom she disliked and suspected, lonely and
+unhappy; it is not wonderful that when Henry VII. was gradually sinking to
+his grave, and her marriage with his son was still in doubt, this ardent
+Southern young woman in her prime should be tempted to cast to the wind
+considerations of dignity and prudence for the sake of her love for a man.
+
+She was friendless in a foreign land; and when her father was in Naples in
+1506, she wrote to him praying him to send her a Spanish confessor to
+solace her. Before he could do so she informed him (April 1507) that she
+had obtained a very good Spanish confessor for herself. This was a young,
+lusty, dissolute Franciscan monk called Diego Fernandez, who then became a
+member of Katharine's household. When the new outspoken ambassador,
+Fuensalida, arrived in England in the autumn of 1508, he, of course, had
+frequent conference with the Princess, and could not for long shut his
+eyes to the state of affairs in her establishment. He first sounded the
+alarm cautiously to Ferdinand in a letter of 4th March 1509. He had hoped
+against hope, he said, that the marriage of Katharine and Prince Henry
+might be effected soon; and the scandal might remedy itself without his
+worrying Ferdinand about it. But he must speak out now, for he has been
+silent too long. It is high time, he says, that some person of sufficient
+authority in the confidence of Ferdinand should be put in charge of
+Katharine's household and command respect: "for at present the Princess's
+house is governed by a young friar, whom her Highness has taken for her
+confessor, though he is, in my opinion, and that of others, utterly
+unworthy of such a position. He makes the Princess commit many errors; and
+as she is so good and conscientious, this confessor makes a mortal sin of
+everything that does not please him, and so causes her to commit many
+faults." The ambassador continues that he dare not write all he would
+because the bearer (a servant of Katharine's) is being sent by those who
+wish to injure him; but he begs the King to interrogate the man who takes
+the letter as to what had been going on in the Princess's house in the
+last two months. "The root of all the trouble is this young friar, who is
+flighty, and vain, and extremely scandalous. He has spoken to the Princess
+very roughly about the King of England; and because I told the Princess
+something of what I thought of this friar, and he learnt it, he has
+disgraced me with her worse than if I had been a traitor.... That your
+Highness may judge what sort of person he is, I will repeat exactly
+without exaggeration the very words he used to me. 'I know,' he said,
+'that they have been telling you evil tales of me.' 'I can assure you,
+father,' I replied, 'that no one has said anything about you to me.' 'I
+know,' he replied; 'the same person who told you told me himself.' 'Well,'
+I said, 'any one can bear false witness, and I swear by the Holy Body
+that, so far as I can recollect, nothing has been said to me about you.'
+'Ah,' he said, 'there are scandal-mongers in this house who have defamed
+me, and not with the lowest either, but with the highest, and that is no
+disgrace to me. If it were not for contradicting them I should be gone
+already.'" Proud Fuensalida tells the King that it was only with the
+greatest difficulty he kept his hands off the insolent priest at this.
+"His constant presence with the Princess and amongst her women is shocking
+the King of England and his Court dreadfully;" and then the ambassador
+hints strongly that Henry is only allowing the scandal to go on, so as to
+furnish him with a good excuse for still keeping Katharine's marriage in
+abeyance.
+
+With this letter to Spain went another from Katharine to her father,
+railing bitterly against the ambassador. She can no longer endure her
+troubles, and a settlement of some sort must be arrived at. The King of
+England treats her worse than ever since his daughter Mary was betrothed
+to the young Archduke Charles, sovereign of Castile and Flanders. She had
+sold everything she possessed for food and raiment; and only a few days
+before she wrote, Henry had again told her that he was not bound to feed
+her servants. Her own people, she says, are insolent and turn against her;
+but what afflicts her most is that she is too poor to maintain fittingly
+her confessor, "the best that ever woman had." It is plain to see that the
+whole household was in rebellion against the confessor who had captured
+Katharine's heart, and that the ambassador was on the side of the
+household. The Princess and Fuensalida had quarrelled about it, and she
+wished that the ambassador should be reproved. With vehement passion she
+begged her father that the confessor might not be taken away from her. "I
+implore your Highness to prevent him from leaving me; and to write to the
+King of England that you have ordered this Father to stay with me; and beg
+him for your sake to have him well treated and humoured. Tell the prelates
+also that you wish him to stay here. The greatest comfort in my trouble is
+the consolation he gives me. Almost in despair I send this servant to
+implore you not to forget that I am still your daughter, and how much I
+have suffered for your sake.... Do not let me perish like this, but write
+at once deciding what is to be done. Otherwise in my present state I am
+afraid I may do something that neither the King of England nor your
+Highness could prevent, unless you send for me and let me pass the few
+remaining days of my life in God's service."
+
+That the Princess's household and the ambassador were shocked at the
+insolent familiarity of the licentious young priest with their mistress,
+and that she herself perfectly understood that the suspicions and rumours
+were against her honour, is clear. On one occasion Henry VII. had asked
+Katharine and his daughter Mary to go to Richmond, to meet him. When the
+two princesses were dressed and ready to set out on their journey from
+Hampton Court to Richmond, the confessor entered the room and told
+Katharine she was not to go that day as she had been unwell. The Princess
+protested that she was then quite well and able to bear the short journey.
+"I tell you," replied Father Diego, "that, on pain of mortal sin, you
+shall not go to-day;" and so Princess Mary set out alone, leaving
+Katharine with the young priest of notorious evil life and a few inferior
+servants. When the next day she was allowed to go to Richmond, accompanied
+amongst others by the priest, King Henry took not the slightest notice of
+her, and for the next few weeks refused to speak to her. The ambassador
+even confessed to Ferdinand that, since he had witnessed what was going
+on in the Princess's household, he acquitted Henry of most of the blame
+for his treatment of his Spanish daughter-in-law. Whilst the Princess was
+in the direst distress, her household in want of food, and she obliged to
+sell her gowns to send messengers to her father, she went to the length of
+pawning the plate that formed part of her dowry to "satisfy the follies of
+the friar."
+
+Deaf to all remonstrances both from King Henry and her own old servants,
+Katharine obstinately had her way, and the chances of her marriage in
+England grew smaller and smaller. It is not to be supposed that the
+ambassador would have dared to say so much as he did to the lady's own
+father if he had not taken the gravest view of Katharine's conduct and its
+probable political result. But his hints to Ferdinand's ministers were
+much stronger still. "The Princess," he said, "was guilty of things a
+thousand times worse" than those he had mentioned; and the "parables" that
+he had written to the King might be made clear by the examination of
+Katharine's own servant, who carried her letters. "The devil take me," he
+continues, "if I can see anything in this friar for her to be so fond of
+him; for he has neither learning, nor good looks, nor breeding, nor
+capacity, nor authority; but if he takes it into his head to preach a new
+gospel, they have to believe it."[18] By two letters still extant, written
+by Friar Diego himself, we see that the ambassador in no wise exaggerated
+his coarseness and indelicacy, and it is almost incredible that
+Katharine, an experienced and disillusioned woman of nearly twenty-four,
+can have been ready to jeopardise everything political and personal, and
+face the opposition of the world, for the sake alone of the spiritual
+comfort to be derived from the ministrations of such a man. How far, if at
+all, the connection was actually immoral we shall probably never know, but
+the case as it stands shows Katharine to have been passionate,
+self-willed, and utterly tactless. Even after her marriage with young
+Henry Friar Diego retained his ascendency over her for several years, and
+ruled her with a rod of iron until he was publicly convicted of
+fornication, and deprived of his office as Chancellor of the Queen. We
+shall have later to consider the question of his relationship with
+Katharine after her marriage; but it is almost certain that the
+ostentatious intimacy of the pair during the last months of Henry VII. had
+reduced Katharine's chance of marriage with the Prince of Wales almost to
+vanishing point, when the death of the King suddenly changed the political
+position and rendered it necessary that the powerful coalition of which
+Ferdinand was the head should be conciliated by England.
+
+Henry VII. died at Richmond on the 22nd April 1509, making a better and
+more generous end than could have been expected from his life. He, like
+his rival Ferdinand, had been avaricious by deliberate policy; and his
+avarice was largely instrumental in founding England's coming greatness,
+for the overflowing coffers he left to his son lent force to the new
+position assumed by England as the balancing power, courted by both the
+great continental rivals. Ferdinand's ambition had o'erleaped itself, and
+the possession of Flanders by the King of Castile had made England's
+friendship more than ever necessary thenceforward, for France was opposed
+to Spain now, not in Italy alone, but on long conterminous frontiers in
+the north, south, and east as well.
+
+Henry VIII. at the age of eighteen was well fitting to succeed his father.
+All contemporary observers agree that his grace and personal beauty as a
+youth were as remarkable as his quickness of intellect and his true Tudor
+desire to stand well in the eyes of his people. Fully aware of the power
+his father's wealth gave him politically, he was determined to share no
+part of the onus for the oppression with which the wealth had been
+collected; and on the day following his father's death, before himself
+retiring to mourning reclusion in the Tower of London, the unpopular
+financial instruments of Henry VII., Empson and Dudley and others, were
+laid by the heels to sate the vengeance of the people. The Spanish match
+for the young king was by far more popular in England than any other; and
+the alacrity of Henry himself and his ministers to carry it into effect
+without further delay, now that his father with his personal ambitions and
+enmities was dead, was also indicative of his desire to begin his reign by
+pleasing his subjects.
+
+The death of Henry VII. had indeed cleared away many obstacles. Ferdinand
+had profoundly distrusted him. His evident desire to obtain control of
+Castile, either by his marriage with Juana or by that of his daughter Mary
+with the nine-year-old Archduke Charles, had finally hardened Ferdinand's
+heart against him, whilst Henry's fear and suspicion of Ferdinand had, as
+we have seen, effectually stood in the way of the completion of
+Katharine's marriage. With young Henry as king affairs stood differently.
+Even before his father's death Ferdinand had taken pains to assure him of
+his love, and had treated him as a sovereign over the dying old king's
+head. Before the breath was out of Henry VII., Ferdinand's letters were
+speeding to London to make all things smooth. There would be no opposition
+now to Ferdinand's ratification of his Flemish grandson's marriage with
+Henry's sister Mary. The clever old Aragonese knew there was still plenty
+of time to stop that later; and certainly young Henry could not interfere
+in Castile, as his father might have done, on the strength of Mary Tudor's
+betrothal. So all went merry as a marriage bell. Ferdinand, for once in
+his life, was liberal with his money. He implored his daughter to make no
+unpleasantness or complaint, and to raise no question that might obstruct
+her marriage. The ambassador, Fuensalida, was warned that if the bickering
+between himself and the Princess, or between the confessor and the
+household, was allowed to interfere with the match, disgrace and ruin
+should be his lot, and Katharine was admonished that she must be civil to
+Fuensalida, and to the Italian banker who was to pay the balance of her
+dowry. The King of Aragon need have had no anxiety. Young Henry and his
+councillors were as eager for the popular marriage as he was, and dreaded
+the idea of disgorging the 100,000 crowns dowry already paid and the
+English settlements upon Katharine. On the 6th May, accordingly, three
+days before the body of Henry VII. was borne in gloomy pomp to its last
+resting-place at Westminster, Katharine wrote to her delighted father that
+her marriage with Henry was finally settled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+1509-1527
+
+KATHARINE THE QUEEN--A POLITICAL MARRIAGE AND A PERSONAL DIVORCE
+
+
+"Long live King Henry VIII.!" cried Garter King of Arms in French as the
+great officers of state broke their staves of office and cast them into
+the open grave of the first Tudor king. Through England, like the blast of
+a trumpet, the cry was echoed from the hearts of a whole people, full of
+hope that the niggardliness and suspicion which for years had stood
+between the sovereign and his people were at last banished. The young
+king, expansive and hearty in manner, handsome and strong as a pagan god
+in person, was well calculated to captivate the love of the crowd. His
+prodigious personal vanity, which led him to delight in sumptuous raiment
+and gorgeous shows; the state and ceremony with which he surrounded
+himself and his skill in manly exercises, were all points in his favour
+with a pleasure-yearning populace which had been squeezed of its substance
+without seeing any return for it: whilst his ardent admiration for the
+learning which had during his lifetime become the fashion made grave
+scholars lose their judgment and write like flattering slaves about the
+youth of eighteen who now became unquestioned King of England and master
+of his father's hoarded treasures.
+
+As we shall see in the course of this history, Henry was but a whited
+sepulchre. Young, light-hearted, with every one about him praising him as
+a paragon, and his smallest whim indulged as a divine command, there was
+no incitement for the exhibition of the baser qualities that underlay the
+big, popular manner, the flamboyant patriotism, and, it must be added, the
+real ability which appealed alike to the gentle and simple over whom he
+was called to rule. Like many men of his peculiar physique, he was never a
+strong man morally, and his will grew weaker as his body increased in
+gross flabbiness. The obstinate self-assertion and violence that impressed
+most observers as strength, hid behind them a spirit that forever needed
+direction and support from a stronger soul. So long as he was allowed in
+appearance to have his own way and his policy was showy, he was, as one of
+his wisest ministers said in his last days, the easiest man in the world
+to manage. His sensuality, which was all his own, and his personal vanity,
+were the qualities by means of which one able councillor after another
+used him for the ends they had in view, until the bridle chafed him, and
+his temporary master was made to feel the vengeance of a weak despot who
+discovers that he has been ruled instead of ruling. In Henry's personal
+character as sketched above we shall be able to find the key of the
+tremendous political events that made his reign the most important in our
+annals; and we shall see that his successive marriages were the outcome of
+subtle intrigues in which representatives of various parties took
+advantage of the King's vanity and lasciviousness to promote their own
+political or religious views. That the emancipation of England from Rome
+was the ultimate result cannot fairly be placed to Henry's personal
+credit. If he could have had his own way without breaking with the Papacy
+he would have preferred to maintain the connection; but the Reformation
+was in the air, and craftier brains than Henry's led the King step by step
+by his ruling passions until he had gone too far to retreat. To what
+extent his various matrimonial adventures served these intrigues we shall
+see in the course of this book.
+
+That Henry's marriage with Katharine soon after his accession was
+politically expedient has been shown in the aforegoing pages; and the
+King's Council were strongly in favour of it, with the exception of the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancellor Warham, who was more purely
+ecclesiastical than his colleagues, and appears to have had doubts as to
+the canonical validity of the union. As we have seen, the Pope had given a
+dispensation for the marriage years before, in terms that covered the case
+of the union with Arthur having been duly consummated, though Katharine
+strenuously denied that it had been, or that she knew how the dispensation
+was worded. The Spanish confessor also appears to have suggested to
+Fuensalida some doubts as to the propriety of the marriage, but King
+Ferdinand promptly put his veto upon any such scruples. Had not the Pope
+given his dispensation? he asked; and did not the peace of England and
+Spain depend upon the marriage? The sin would be not the marriage, but the
+failure to effect it after the pledges that had been given. So the few
+doubters were silenced; young Henry himself, all eager for his marriage,
+was not one of them, nor was Katharine, for to her the match was a triumph
+for which she had worked and suffered for years: and on the 11th June 1509
+the pair were married privately by Warham at Henry's palace of Greenwich.
+
+Rarely in its long history has London seen so brave a pageant as the bride
+and bridegroom's triumphal passage through the city on Saturday the 21st
+June from the Tower to Westminster for their coronation. Rich tapestries,
+and hangings of cloth of gold, decked the streets through which they
+passed. The city companies lined the way from Gracechurch Street to Bread
+Street, where the Lord Mayor and the senior guild stood in bright array,
+whilst the goldsmiths' shops in Chepe had each to adorn it a figure of the
+Holy Virgin in white with many wax tapers around it. The Queen rode in a
+litter of white and gold tissue drawn by two snowy palfreys, she herself
+being garbed in white satin and gold, with a dazzling coronet of precious
+stones upon her head, from which fell almost to her feet her dark russet
+hair. She was twenty-four years of age, and in the full flush of
+womanhood; her regular classical features and fair skin bore yet the
+curves of gracious youth; and there need be no doubt of the sincerity of
+the ardent affection for her borne by the pink and white young giant who
+rode before her, a dazzling vision of crimson velvet, cloth of gold, and
+flashing precious stones. "God save your Grace," was the cry that rattled
+like platoon firing along the crowded ways, as the splendid cavalcade
+passed on.
+
+The next day, Sunday, 24th June, the pair were crowned in the Abbey with
+all the tedious pomp of the times. Then the Gargantuan feast in
+Westminster Hall, of which the chronicler spares us no detail, and the
+endless jousts and devices, in which roses and pomegranates, castles and
+leopards jostled each other in endless magnificence, until a mere
+catalogue of the splendour grows meaningless. The death of the King's wise
+old grandmother, the Countess of Richmond, interrupted for a time the
+round of festivities; but Henry was too new to the unchecked indulgence of
+his taste for splendour and pleasure to abandon them easily, and his
+English councillors, as well as the watchful Spanish agents, began before
+many weeks were over to hint gravely that the young king was neglecting
+his business. Katharine appears to have entered fully into the life of
+pleasure led by her husband. Writing to her father on the 29th July, she
+is enthusiastic in her praise. "We are all so happy," she says; "our time
+passes in continual feasting." But in her case, at least, we see that
+mixed with the frivolous pleasure there was the personal triumph of the
+politician who had succeeded. "One of the principal reasons why I love my
+husband the King, is because he is so true a son to your Majesty. I have
+obeyed your orders and have acted as your ambassador. My husband places
+himself entirely in your hands. This country of England is truly your own
+now, and is tranquil and deeply loyal to the King and to me." What more
+could wife or stateswoman ask? Katharine had her reward. Henry was hers
+and England was at the bidding of Ferdinand, and her sufferings had not
+been in vain. Henry, for his part, was, if we are to believe his letters
+to his father-in-law, as much enamoured of his wife as she was satisfied
+with him.[19]
+
+And so, amidst magnificent shows, and what seems to our taste puerile
+trifling, the pair began their married life highly contented with each
+other and the world. The inevitable black shadows were to come later. In
+reality they were an entirely ill-matched couple, even apart from the six
+years' disparity in their ages. Henry, a bluff bully, a coward morally,
+and also perhaps physically,[20] a liar, who deceived himself as well as
+others, in order to keep up appearances in his favour, he was just the man
+that a clever, tactful woman could have managed perfectly, beginning early
+in his life as Katharine did. Katharine, for all her goodness of heart and
+exalted piety, was, as we have seen, none too scrupulous herself; and if
+her ability and dexterity had been equal to her opportunities she might
+have kept Henry in bondage for life. But, even before her growing age and
+fading charms had made her distasteful to her husband, her lack of
+prudence and management towards him had caused him to turn to others for
+the guidance that she might still have exercised.
+
+The first rift of which we hear came less than a year after the marriage.
+Friar Diego, who was now Katharine's chancellor, wrote an extraordinary
+letter to King Ferdinand in May 1510, telling him of a miscarriage that
+Katharine had had at the end of January; the affair he says having been so
+secret that no one knew it but the King, two Spanish women, the physician,
+and himself; and the details he furnishes show him to have been as
+ignorant as he was impudent. Incidentally, however, he says: "Her Highness
+is very healthy and the most beautiful creature in the world, with the
+greatest gaiety and contentment that ever was. The King adores her, and
+her Highness him." But with this letter to the King went another to his
+secretary, Almazan, from the new Spanish ambassador, Carroz, who complains
+bitterly that the friar monopolises the Queen entirely, and prevents his
+access to her. He then proceeds to tell of Henry and Katharine's first
+matrimonial tiff. The two married sisters of the Duke of Buckingham were
+at Court, one being a close friend of Katharine whilst the other was said
+to be carrying on an intrigue with the King through his favourite, Sir
+William Compton. This lady's family, and especially her brother the Duke,
+who had a violent altercation with Compton, and her sister the Queen's
+friend, shocked at the scandal, carried her away to a convent in the
+country. In revenge for this the King sent the Queen's favourite away, and
+quarrelled with Katharine. Carroz was all for counselling prudence and
+diplomacy to the Queen; but he complains that Friar Diego was advising her
+badly and putting her on bad terms with her husband.
+
+Many false alarms, mostly, it would seem, set afloat by the meddling
+friar, and dwelt upon by him in his letters with quite unbecoming
+minuteness, kept the Court agog as to the possibility of an heir to the
+crown being born. Henry himself, who was always fond of children, was
+desperately anxious for a son; and when, on New Year's Day 1511, the
+looked-for heir was born at Richmond, the King's unrestrained rejoicing
+again took his favourite form of sumptuous entertainments, after he had
+ridden to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham in Norfolk to give thanks
+for the favour vouchsafed to him. Once again Westminster glittered with
+cloth of gold and gems and velvet. Once again courtiers came to the lists
+disguised as hermits, to kneel before Katharine, and then to cast off
+their gowns and stand in full panoply before her, craving for leave to
+tilt in her honour. Once again fairy bowers of gold and artificial flowers
+sheltered sylvan beauties richly bedizened, the King and his favourites
+standing by in purple satin garments with the solid gold initials of
+himself and his wife sewn upon them. Whilst the dazzling company was
+dancing the "scenery" was rolled back. It came too near the crowd of
+lieges at the end of the hall, and pilfering fingers began to pluck the
+golden ornaments from the bowers. Emboldened by their immunity for this,
+people broke the bounds, swarmed into the central space, and in the
+twinkling of an eye all the lords and ladies, even the King himself, found
+themselves stripped of their finery to their very shirts, the golden
+letters and precious tissues intended as presents for fine ladies being
+plunder now in grimy hands that turned them doubtless to better account.
+Henry in his bluff fashion made the best of it, and called the booty
+largesse. Little recked he, if the tiny heir whose existence fed his
+vanity throve. But the babe died soon after this costly celebration of his
+birth.
+
+During the ascendency that the anticipated coming of a son gave to
+Katharine, Ferdinand was able to beguile Henry into an offensive league
+against France, by using the same bait that had so often served a similar
+purpose with Henry VII.; namely, the reconquest for England of Guienne and
+Normandy. Spain, the Empire, the Papacy, and England formed a coalition
+that boded ill for the French cause in Italy. As usual the showy but
+barren part fell to Henry. Ferdinand promised him soldiers to conquer
+Normandy, but they never came. All Ferdinand wanted was to keep as many
+Frenchmen as possible from his own battle-grounds, and he found plenty of
+opportunities for evading all his pledges. Henry was flattered to the top
+of his bent. The Pope sent him the blessed golden rose, and saluted him as
+head of the Italian league; and the young king, fired with martial ardour,
+allowed himself to be dragged into war by his wife's connections, in
+opposition to the opinion of the wiser heads in his Council. A war with
+France involved hostilities with Scotland, but Henry was, in the autumn of
+1512, cajoled into depleting his realm of troops and sending an army to
+Spain to attack France over the Pyrenees, whilst another force under
+Poynings went to help the allies against the Duke of Gueldres. The former
+host under the Marquis of Dorset was kept idle by its commander because it
+was found that Ferdinand really required them to reduce the Spanish
+kingdom of Navarre, and after months of inactivity and much mortality from
+sickness, they returned ingloriously home to England. This was Henry's
+first experience of armed alliances, but he learned nothing by experience,
+and to the end of his life the results of such coalitions to him were
+always the same.
+
+But his ambition was still unappeased, and in June 1513 he in person led
+his army across the Channel to conquer France. His conduct in the campaign
+was puerile in its vanity and folly, and ended lamely with the capture of
+two (to him) unimportant fortresses in the north, Therouenne and Tournai,
+and the panic flight of the French at the Battle of the Spurs or Guingate.
+Our business with this foolish and fruitless campaign, in which Henry was
+every one's tool, is confined to the part that Katharine played at the
+time. On the King's ostentatious departure from Dover he left Katharine
+regent of the realm, with the Earl of Surrey--afterwards Duke of
+Norfolk--to command the army in the north. Katharine, we are told, rode
+back from Dover to London full of dolour for her lord's departure; but we
+see her in her element during the subsequent months of her regency. Bold
+and spirited, and it must be added utterly tactless, she revelled in the
+independent domination which she enjoyed. James IV. of Scotland had
+threatened that an English invasion of France would be followed by his own
+invasion of England. "Let him do it in God's name," shouted Henry; and
+Katharine when the threat was made good delivered a splendid oration in
+English to the officers who were going north to fight the Scots.
+"Remember," she said, "that the Lord smiled upon those who stood in
+defence of their own. Remember that the English courage excels that of all
+other nations upon earth."[21] Her letters to Wolsey, who accompanied
+Henry as almoner, or rather secretary, are full of courage, and as full of
+womanly anxiety for her husband. "She was troubled," she wrote, "to learn
+that the King was so near the siege of Therouenne," until Wolsey's letter
+assured her of the heed he takes to avoid all manner of dangers. "With his
+life and health nothing can come amiss with him, without them I see no
+manner of good thing that shall fall after it." But her tactlessness even
+in this letter shows clearly when she boasts that the King in France is
+not so busy with war as she is in England against the Scots. "My heart is
+very good of it, and I am horribly busy making standards, banners, and
+badges."[22] After congratulating Henry effusively upon the capture of
+Therouenne and his meeting with the Emperor, Katharine herself set forth
+with reinforcements towards Scotland, but before she had travelled a
+hundred miles (to Woburn) she met the couriers galloping south to bring
+her the great news of Surrey's victory at Flodden Field. Turning aside to
+thank Our Lady of Walsingham for the destruction of the Scottish power,
+Katharine on the way sent the jubilant news to Henry. James IV. in his
+defeat had been left dead upon the field, clad in his check surcoat, and
+a fragment of this coat soaked with blood the Queen sent to her husband in
+France, with a heartless gibe at his dead brother-in-law. We are told that
+in another of her letters first giving the news of Flodden, and referring
+to Henry's capture of the Duke of Longueville at Therouenne, she
+vaingloriously compared her victory with his.[23] "It was no great thing
+for one armed man to take another, but she was sending three captured by a
+woman; if he (Henry) sent her a captive Duke she would send him a prisoner
+king." For a wife and _locum tenens_ to write thus in such circumstances
+to a supremely vain man like Henry, whose martial ambition was still
+unassuaged, was to invite his jealousy and dislike. His people saw, as he
+with all his boastfulness cannot fail to have done, that Flodden was the
+real English victory, not Therouenne, and that Katharine and Surrey, not
+Henry, were the heroes. Such knowledge was gall and wormwood to the King;
+and especially when the smoke of battle had blown away, and he saw how he
+had been "sold" by his wife's relations, who kept the fruit of victory
+whilst he was put off with the shell.
+
+From that time Katharine's influence over her husband weakened, though
+with occasional intermission, and he looked for guidance to a subtler mind
+than hers. With Henry to France had gone Thomas Wolsey, one of the clergy
+of the royal chapel, recently appointed almoner by the patronage of Fox,
+Bishop of Winchester, Henry's leading councillor in foreign affairs. The
+English nobles, strong as they still were territorially, could not be
+trusted with the guidance of affairs by a comparatively new dynasty
+depending upon parliament and the towns for its power; and an official
+class, raised at the will of the sovereign, had been created by Henry
+VII., to be used as ministers and administrators. Such a class, dependent
+entirely upon the crown, were certain to be distasteful to the noble
+families, and the rivalry between these two governing elements provided
+the germ of party divisions which subsequently hardened into the English
+constitutional tradition: the officials usually being favourable to the
+strengthening of the royal prerogative, and the nobles desiring to
+maintain the check which the armed power of feudalism had formerly
+exercised. For reasons which will be obvious, the choice of both Henry
+VII. and his son of their diplomatists and ministers fell to a great
+extent upon clergymen; and Wolsey's brilliant talents and facile
+adaptiveness during his close attendance upon Henry in France captivated
+his master, who needed for a minister and guide one that could never
+become a rival either in the field or the ladies' chamber, where the King
+most desired distinction.
+
+Henry came home in October 1513, bitterly enraged against Katharine's kin,
+and ripe for the close alliance with France which the prisoner Duke of
+Longueville soon managed to bring about. What mattered it that lovely
+young Mary Tudor was sacrificed in marriage to the decrepit old King Louis
+XII., notwithstanding her previous solemn betrothal to Katharine's nephew,
+young Charles of Austria, and her secret love for Henry's bosom friend,
+Sir Charles Brandon? Princesses were but pieces in the great political
+game, and must perforce take the rough with the smooth. Henry, in any
+case, could thus show to the Spaniard that he could defy him by a French
+connection. It must have been with a sad heart that Katharine took part in
+the triumphal doings that celebrated the peace directed against her
+father. The French agents, then in London, in describing her say that she
+was lively and gracious, quite the opposite of her gloomy sister: and
+doubtless she did her best to appear so, for she was proud and schooled to
+disappointment; but with the exception of the fact that she was again with
+child, all around her looked black. Her husband openly taunted her with
+her father's ill faith; Henry was carrying on now an open intrigue with
+Lady Tailebois, whom he had brought from Calais with him; Ferdinand the
+Catholic at last was slowly dying, all his dreams and hopes frustrated;
+and on the 13th August 1514, in the palace of Greenwich, Katharine's dear
+friend and sister-in-law, Mary Tudor, was married by proxy to Louis XII.
+Katharine, led by the Duke of Longueville, attended the festivity. She was
+dressed in ash-coloured satin, covered with raised gold embroidery, costly
+chains and necklaces of gems covered her neck and bust, and a coif trimmed
+with precious stones was on her head.[24] The King at the ball in the
+evening charmed every one by his graceful dancing, and the scene was so
+gay that the grave Venetian ambassador says that had it not been for his
+age and office he would have cast off his gown and have footed it with the
+rest.
+
+But already sinister whispers were rife, and we may be sure they were not
+unknown to Katharine. She had been married five years, and no child of
+hers had lived; and, though she was again pregnant, it was said that the
+Pope would be asked to authorise Henry to put her aside, and to marry a
+French bride. Had not his new French brother-in-law done the like years
+ago?[25] To what extent this idea had really entered Henry's head at the
+time it is difficult to say; but courtiers and diplomatists have keen
+eyes, and they must have known which way the wind was blowing before they
+talked thus. In October 1514 Katharine was borne slowly in a litter to
+Dover, with the great concourse that went to speed Mary Tudor on her
+loveless two months' marriage; and a few weeks afterwards Katharine gave
+birth prematurely to a dead child. Once more the hopes of Henry were
+dashed, and though Peter Martyr ascribed the misfortune to Henry's
+unkindness, the superstitious time-servers of the King, and those in
+favour of the French alliance, began to hint that Katharine's offspring
+was accursed, and that to get an heir the King must take another wife. The
+doings at Court were still as brilliant and as frivolous as ever; the
+King's great delight being in adopting some magnificent, and, of course,
+perfectly transparent disguise in masque or ball, and then to disclose
+himself when every one, the Queen included, was supposed to be lost in
+wonder at the grace and agility of the pretended unknown. Those who take
+pleasure in the details of such puerility may be referred to Hall's
+_Chronicle_ for them: we here have more to do with the hearts beneath the
+finery, than with the trappings themselves.
+
+That Katharine was striving desperately at this time to retain her
+influence over her husband, and her popularity in England, is certain from
+the letter of Ferdinand's ambassador (6th December 1514). He complains
+that on the recommendation of Friar Diego Katharine had thrown over her
+father's interests in order to keep the love of Henry and his people. The
+Castilian interest and the Manuels have captured her, wrote the
+ambassador, and if Ferdinand did not promptly "put a bridle on this colt"
+(_i.e._ Henry) and bring Katharine to her bearings as her father's
+daughter, England would be for ever lost to Aragon.[26] There is no doubt
+that at this time Katharine felt that her only chance of keeping her
+footing was to please Henry, and "forget Spain," as Friar Diego advised
+her to do.
+
+When the King of France died on New Year's Day, 1515, and his young
+widow--Katharine's friend, Mary Tudor--clandestinely married her lover,
+Charles Brandon, Katharine's efforts to reconcile her husband to the
+peccant pair are evidence, if no other existed, that Henry's anger was
+more assumed than real, and that his vanity was pleased by the submissive
+prayers for his forgiveness. As no doubt the Queen, and Wolsey, who had
+joined his efforts with hers, foresaw, not only were Mary and Brandon
+pardoned, but taken into high favour. At the public marriage of Mary and
+Brandon at Greenwich at Easter 1515 more tournaments, masques and balls,
+enabled the King to show off his gallantry and agility in competition with
+his new brother-in-law; and on the subsequent May Day at Shooter's Hill,
+Katharine and Mary, who were inseparable, took part in elaborate and
+costly _al fresco_ entertainments in which Robin Hood, several pagan
+deities, and the various attributes of spring, were paraded for their
+delectation. It all sounds very gay, though somewhat silly, as we read the
+endless catalogues of bedizenment, of tilts and races, feasting, dancing,
+and music that delighted Henry and his friends; but before Katharine there
+ever hovered the spectre of her childlessness, and Henry, after the
+ceremonial gaiety and overdone gallantry to his wife, would too frequently
+put spurs to his courser and gallop off to New Hall in Essex, where Lady
+Tailebois lived.
+
+A gleam of hope and happiness came to her late in 1515 when she was again
+expecting to become a mother. By liberal gifts--"the greatest presents
+ever brought to England," said Henry himself--and by flattery unlimited,
+Ferdinand, almost on his death-bed, managed to "bridle" his son-in-law, to
+borrow a large sum of money from him and draw him anew into a coalition
+against France. But the hope was soon dashed; King Ferdinand died almost
+simultaneously with the birth of a girl-child to his daughter Katharine.
+It is true the babe was like to live, but a son, not a daughter, was what
+Henry wanted. Yet he put the best face on the matter publicly. The
+Venetian ambassador purposely delayed his congratulations, because the
+child was of the wrong sex; and when finally he coldly offered them, he
+pointedly told the King that they would have been much more hearty if the
+child had been a son. "We are both young," replied Henry. "If it is a
+daughter this time, by the grace of God sons will follow." The desire of
+the King for a male heir was perfectly natural. No Queen had reigned
+independently over England; and for the perpetuation of a new dynasty like
+the Tudors the succession in the male line was of the highest importance.
+In addition to this, Henry was above all things proud of his manliness,
+and he looked upon the absence of a son as in some sort reflecting a
+humiliation upon him.
+
+Katharine's health had never been robust; and at the age of thirty-three,
+after four confinements, she had lost her bloom. Disappointment and
+suffering, added to her constitutional weakness, was telling upon her, and
+her influence grew daily smaller. The gorgeous shows and frivolous
+amusements in which her husband so much delighted palled upon her, and she
+now took little pains to feign enjoyment in them, giving up much of her
+time to religious exercises, fasting rigidly twice a week and saints' days
+throughout the year, in addition to the Lenten observances, and wearing
+beneath her silks and satins a rough Franciscan nun's gown of serge. As in
+the case of so many of her kindred, mystical devotion was weaving its grey
+web about her, and saintliness of the peculiar Spanish type was covering
+her as with a garment. Henry, on the contrary, was a full-blooded young
+man of twenty-eight, with a physique like that of a butcher, held by no
+earthly control or check upon his appetites, overflowing with vitality and
+the joy of life; and it is not to be wondered at that he found his
+disillusioned and consciously saintly wife a somewhat uncomfortable
+companion.
+
+The death of Louis XII., Maximilian, and Ferdinand, and the peaceful
+accession of young Charles to the throne of Spain and the prospective
+imperial crown, entirely altered the political aspect of Europe. Francis
+I. needed peace in the first years of his reign; and to Charles it was
+also desirable, in order that his rule over turbulent Spain could be
+firmly established and his imperial succession secured. All the English
+ministers and councillors were heavily bribed by France, Wolsey himself
+was strongly in favour of the French connection, and everybody entered
+into a conspiracy to flatter Henry. The natural result was a league first
+of England and France, and subsequently a general peace to which all the
+principal Christian potentates subscribed, and men thought that the
+millennium had come. Katharine's international importance had disappeared
+with the death of her father and the accession of Charles to the throne of
+Aragon as well as to that of Castile. Wolsey was now Henry's sole adviser
+in matters of state and managed his master dexterously, whilst
+endeavouring not entirely to offend the Queen. Glimpses of his harmonious
+relations with Katharine at this time (1516-1520) are numerous. At the
+splendid christening of the Princess Mary, Wolsey was one of the sponsors,
+and he was "gossip" with Katharine at the baptism of Mary Tudor Duchess of
+Suffolk's son.
+
+Nor can the Queen's famous action after the evil May Day (1517) have been
+opposed or discountenanced by the Cardinal. The universal peace had
+brought to London hosts of foreigners, especially Frenchmen, and the alien
+question was acute. Wolsey, whose sudden rise and insolence had deeply
+angered the nobles, had, as principal promoter of the unpopular peace with
+France, to bear a full share of the detestation in which his friends the
+aliens were held. Late in April there were rumours that a general attack
+upon foreigners by the younger citizens would be made, and at Wolsey's
+instance the civic authorities ordered that all the Londoners should keep
+indoors. Some lads in Chepe disregarded the command, and the Alderman of
+the Ward attempted to arrest one of them. Then rose the cry of "'Prentices
+and Clubs! Death to the Cardinal!" and forth there poured from lane and
+alley riotous youngsters by the hundred, to wreak vengeance on the
+insolent foreigners who took the bread out of worthy Englishmen's mouths.
+Sack and pillage reigned for a few hours, but the guard quelled the boys
+with blood, the King rode hastily from Richmond, the Lieutenant of the
+Tower dropped a few casual cannon-balls into the city, and before sunset
+all was quiet. The gibbets rose at the street corners and a bloody
+vengeance fell upon the rioters. Dozens were hanged, drawn, and quartered
+with atrocious cruelty; and under the ruthless Duke of Norfolk four
+hundred more were condemned to death for treason to the King, who, it was
+bitterly said in London, loved outlanders better than his own folk. It is
+unlikely that Henry really meant to plunge all his capital in mourning by
+hanging the flower of its youth, but he loved, for vanity's sake, that
+his clemency should be publicly sought, and to act the part of a deity in
+restoring to life those legally dead. In any case, Katharine's spontaneous
+and determined intercession for the 'prentice lads would take no denial,
+and she pleaded with effect. Her intercession, nevertheless, could hardly
+have been so successful as it was if Wolsey had been opposed to it; and
+the subsequent comedy in the great Hall at Westminster on the 22nd May was
+doubtless planned to afford Henry an opportunity of appearing in his
+favourite character. Seated upon a canopied throne high upon a daďs of
+brocade, surrounded by his prelates and nobles and with Wolsey by his
+side, Henry frowned in crimson velvet whilst the "poore younglings and
+olde false knaves" trooped in, a sorry procession, stripped to their
+shirts, with halters around their necks. Wolsey in stern words rebuked
+their crime, and scolded the Lord Mayor and Aldermen for their laxity;
+ending by saying they all deserved to hang. "Mercy! gracious lord, mercy!"
+cried the terrified boys and their distracted mothers behind; and the
+Cardinal and the peers knelt before the throne to beg the life of the
+offenders, which the King granted, and with a great shout of joy halters
+were stripped from many a callow neck, and cast into the rafters of the
+Hall for very joy. But all men knew, and the mothers too, that Wolsey's
+intercession was only make-believe, and that what they saw was but the
+ceremonial act of grace. The Queen they thanked in their hearts and not
+the haughty Cardinal, for the King had pardoned the 'prentices privately
+days before, when Katharine and her two sisters-in-law, the widowed Queens
+of France and Scotland, had knelt before the King in unfeigned tears, and
+had clamoured for the lives of the Londoners. To the day of the Queen's
+unhappy death this debt was never forgotten by the citizens, who loved her
+faithfully to the end far better than any of her successors.
+
+The sweating sickness in the autumn of 1517 sent Henry and his wife as far
+away from contagion as possible, for sickness always frightened the big
+bully into a panic. During his absence from London, Wolsey was busy
+negotiating a still closer alliance with France, by the marriage of the
+baby Princess Mary to the newly born Dauphin. It can hardly have been the
+match that Katharine would have chosen for her cherished only child, but
+she was a cypher by the side of Wolsey now, and made no open move against
+it at the time. Early in the spring of 1518 the plague broke out again,
+and Henry in dire fear started upon a progress in the midlands. Richard
+Pace, who accompanied him, wrote to Wolsey on the 12th April telling him
+as a secret that the Queen was again pregnant. "I pray God heartily," he
+continued, "that it may be a prince to the surety and universal comfort of
+the realm;" and he begs the Cardinal to write a kind letter to the Queen.
+In June the glad tidings were further confirmed, as likely to result in
+"an event most earnestly desired by the whole kingdom." Still dodging the
+contagion, the King almost fled from one place to another, and when at
+Woodstock in July Henry himself wrote a letter to Wolsey which tells in
+every line how anxious he was that the coming event should be the
+fulfilment of his ardent hope. Katharine had awaited him at Woodstock,
+and he had been rejoiced at the confident hope she gave him. He tells
+Wolsey the news formally, and says that he will remove the Queen as little
+and as quietly as may be to avoid risk. Soon all the diplomatists were
+speculating at the great things that would happen when the looked-for
+prince was born; and it was probably the confident hope that this time
+Henry would not be disappointed, that made possible the success of
+Wolsey's policy and the marriage of the Princess Mary with the infant
+Dauphin. Of Wolsey's magnificent feasts that accompanied the ratification
+of peace and the betrothal on the 5th October, feasts more splendid, says
+the Venetian ambassador, than ever were given by Caligula or Cleopatra, no
+account can be given here. It was Wolsey's great triumph, and he surpassed
+all the records of luxury in England in its celebration. The sweet little
+bride dressed in cloth of gold stood before the thrones upon which her
+father and mother sat in the great Hall of Greenwich, and then, carried in
+the arms of a prelate, was held up whilst the Cardinal slipped the diamond
+wedding-ring upon her finger and blessed her nuptials with the baby
+bridegroom. That the heir of France should marry the heiress of England
+was a danger to the balance of Europe, and especially a blow to Spain. It
+was, moreover, not a match which England could regard with equanimity; for
+a French King Consort would have been repugnant to the whole nation, and
+Henry could never have meant to conclude the marriage finally, unless the
+expected heir was born. But alas! for human hopes. On the night of 10th
+November 1518, Katharine was delivered of a daughter, "to the vexation of
+as many as knew it," and King and nation mourned together, now that, after
+all, a Frenchman might reign over England.
+
+To Katharine this last disappointment was bitter indeed. Her husband,
+wounded and irritated, first in his pride, and now in his national
+interests, avoided her; her own country and kin had lost the English tie
+that meant so much to them, and she herself, in poor health and waning
+attractions, could only mourn her misfortunes, and cling more closely than
+ever to her one darling child, Mary, for the new undesired infant girl had
+died as soon as it was born. The ceaseless round of masking, mummery, and
+dancing, which so much captivated Henry, went on without abatement, and
+Katharine perforce had to take her part in it; but all the King's
+tenderness was now shown not to his wife but to his little daughter, whom
+he carried about in his arms and praised inordinately.[27] So frivolous
+and familiar indeed had Henry's behaviour grown that his Council took
+fright, and, under the thin veil of complaints against the behaviour of
+his boon companions, Carew, Peachy, Wingfield, and Brian, who were
+banished from Court, they took Henry himself seriously to task. The four
+French hostages, held for the payment of the war indemnity, were also
+feasted and entertained so familiarly by Henry, under Wolsey's influence,
+as to cause deep discontent to the lieges, who had always looked upon
+France as an enemy, and knew that the unpopular Cardinal's overwhelming
+display was paid for by French bribes. At one such entertainment
+Katharine was made to act as hostess at her dower-house of Havering in
+Essex, where, in the summer of 1519, we are told that, "for their
+welcomyng she purveyed all thynges in the most liberalist manner; and
+especially she made to the Kyng suche a sumpteous banket that he thanked
+her hartely, and the strangers gave it great praise." Later in the same
+year Katharine was present at a grand series of entertainments given by
+the King in the splendid new manor-house which he had built for Lady
+Tailebois, who had just rejoiced him by giving birth to a son. We have no
+record of Katharine's thoughts as she took part here in the tedious
+foolery so minutely described by Hall. She plucked off the masks, we are
+told, of eight disguised dancers in long dominos of blue satin and gold,
+"who danced with the ladies sadly, and communed not with them after the
+fashion of maskers." Of course the masqueraders were the Duke of Suffolk
+(Brandon) and other great nobles, as the poor Queen must well have known;
+but when she thought that all this mummery was to entertain Frenchmen, and
+the house in which it passed was devoted to the use of Henry's mistress,
+she must have covered her own heart with a more impenetrable mask than
+those of Suffolk and his companions, if her face was attuned to the gay
+sights and sounds around her.
+
+
+[Illustration: _KATHARINE OF ARAGON_
+
+_From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the National Portrait Gallery_]
+
+
+Katharine had now almost ceased to strive for the objects to which her
+life had been sacrificed, namely, the binding together of England and
+Spain to the detriment of France. Wolsey had believed that his own
+interests would be better served by a close French alliance, and he
+had had his way. Henry himself was but the vainglorious figure in the
+international pageant; the motive power was the Cardinal. But a greater
+than Wolsey, Charles of Austria and Spain, though he was as yet only a lad
+of nineteen, had appeared upon the scene, and soon was to make his power
+felt throughout the world. Wolsey's close union with France and the
+marriage of the Princess Mary with the Dauphin had been meant as a blow to
+Spain, to lead if possible to the election of Henry to the imperial crown,
+in succession to Maximilian, instead of the latter's grandson Charles. If
+the King of England were made Emperor, the way of the Cardinal of York to
+the throne of St. Peter was clear. Henry was flattered at the idea, and
+was ready to follow his minister anywhere to gain such a showy prize. But
+quite early in the struggle it was seen that the unpopular French alliance
+which had already cost England the surrender of the King's conquests in
+the war was powerless to bring about the result desired. Francis I., as
+vain and turbulent as Henry, and perhaps more able, was bidding high for
+the Empire himself. His success in the election would have been disastrous
+both to Spain and England, and yet the French alliance was too dear to
+Wolsey to be easily relinquished, and Francis was assured that all the
+interest of his dear brother of England should be cast in his favour,
+whilst, with much more truth, the Spanish candidate was plied with good
+wishes for his success, and underhand attempts were made at the same time
+to gain the electors for the King of England.[28] Wolsey hoped thus to
+win in any case; and up to a certain point he did so; for he gave to
+Charles the encouragement he needed for the masterly move which soon after
+revolutionised political relations.
+
+Charles at this time (1519), young as he was, had already developed his
+marvellous mental and physical powers. Patient and self-centred, with all
+his Aragonese grandfather's subtlety, he possessed infinitely greater
+boldness and width of view. He knew well that the seven prince electors
+who chose the Emperor might, like other men, be bought, if enough money
+could be found. To provide it and give to him the dominant power of the
+world, he was ready to crush the ancient liberties of Castile, to squeeze
+his Italian and Flemish dominions of their last obtainable ducat, for he
+knew that his success in the election would dazzle his subjects until they
+forgot what they had paid for it. And so it happened. Where Francis bribed
+in hundreds Charles bribed in thousands, and England in the conflict of
+money-bags and great territorial interests hardly counted at all. When
+Charles was elected Emperor in June 1519, Henry professed himself
+delighted; but it meant that the universal peace that had been proclaimed
+with such a flourish of trumpets only three years before was already
+tottering, and that England must soon make a choice as to which of the two
+great rivals should be her friend, and which her enemy.
+
+Francis nursed his wrath to keep it warm, and did his best to retain
+Henry and Wolsey on his side. Bribes and pensions flowed freely from
+France upon English councillors, the inviolable love of Henry and Francis,
+alike in gallantry and age, was insisted upon again and again; the
+three-year-old Princess Mary was referred to always as Dauphiness and
+future Queen of France, though when the little Dauphin was spoken of as
+future King of England, Henry's subjects pulled a wry face and cursed all
+Frenchmen. A meeting between the two allies, which for its splendour
+should surpass all other regal displays, was constantly urged by the
+French hostages in England by order of Francis, as a means of showing to
+the world that he could count upon Henry. To the latter the meeting was
+agreeable as a tribute to his power, and as a satisfaction to his love of
+show, and to Wolsey it was useful as enhancing his sale value in the eyes
+of two lavish bidders. To Charles, who shared none of the frivolous tastes
+of his rival sovereigns, it only appealed as a design against him to be
+forestalled and defeated. When, therefore, the preparations for the Field
+of the Cloth of Gold were in full swing early in the year 1520, Charles,
+by a brilliant though risky move such as his father Philip would have
+loved, took the first step to win England to his side in the now
+inevitable struggle for supremacy between the Empire and France. Whilst he
+was still wrangling with his indignant Castilian parliament in March,
+Charles sent envoys to England to propose a friendly meeting with Henry
+whilst on his way by sea from Spain to Flanders. It was Katharine's
+chance and she made the most of it. She had suffered long and patiently
+whilst the French friendship was paramount; but if God would vouchsafe her
+the boon of seeing her nephew in England it would, she said to his envoys,
+be the measure of her desires. Wolsey, too, smiled upon the suggestion,
+for failing Francis the new Emperor in time might help him to the Papacy.
+So, with all secrecy, a solemn treaty was signed on the 11th April 1520,
+settling, down to the smallest details, the reception of Charles by Henry
+and Katharine at Sandwich and Canterbury, on his voyage or else at a
+subsequent meeting of the monarchs between Calais and Gravelines.
+
+It was late in May when news came from the west that the Spanish fleet was
+sailing up the Channel;[29] and Henry was riding towards the sea from
+London ostensibly to embark for France when he learnt that the Emperor's
+ships were becalmed off Dover. Wolsey was despatched post-haste to greet
+the imperial visitor and invite him to land; and Charles, surrounded by a
+gorgeous suite of lords and ladies, with the black eagle of Austria on
+cloth of gold fluttering over and around him, was conducted to Dover
+Castle, where before dawn next morning, the 27th May, Henry arrived and
+welcomed his nephew. There was no mistaking the cordiality of the English
+cheers that rang in peals from Dover to Canterbury and through the ancient
+city, as the two monarchs rode side by side in gorgeous array. They meant,
+as clearly as tone could speak, that the enemy of France and Queen
+Katharine's nephew was the friend for the English people, whatever the
+Cardinal of York might think. To Katharine it was a period of rejoicing,
+and her thoughts were high as she welcomed her sister's son; the sallow
+young man with yellow hair, already in title the greatest monarch in the
+world, though beset with difficulties. By her stood beautiful Mary Tudor,
+Duchess of Suffolk, twice married since she had, as a child, been
+betrothed under such heavy guarantees to Charles himself; and, holding her
+mother's hand, was the other Mary Tudor, a prim, quaint little maid of
+four, with big brown eyes. Already great plans for her filled her mother's
+brain. True, she was betrothed to the Dauphin; but what if the hateful
+French match fell through, and the Emperor, he of her own kin, were to
+seal a national alliance by marrying the daughter of England? Charles
+feasted for four days at Canterbury, and then went on his way amidst
+loving plaudits to his ships at Sandwich; but before he sailed he
+whispered that to Wolsey which made the Cardinal his servant; for the
+Emperor, suzerain of Italy and King of Naples, Sicily, and Spain, might do
+more than a King of France in future towards making a Pope.
+
+By the time that Henry and Francis met early in June on the ever-memorable
+field between Ardres and Guisnes, the riot of splendour which surrounded
+the sovereigns and Wolsey, though it dazzled the crowd and left its mark
+upon history as a pageant, was known to the principal actors of the scene
+to be but hollow mockery. The glittering baubles that the two kings
+loved, the courtly dallying, the pompous ceremony, the masques and devices
+to symbolise eternal amity, were not more evanescent than the love they
+were supposed to perpetuate. Katharine went through her ceremonial part of
+the show as a duty, and graciously received the visit of Francis in the
+wonderful flimsy palace of wood, drapery, and glass at Guisnes; but her
+heart was across the Flemish frontier a few miles away, where her nephew
+awaited the coming of the King of England to greet him as his kinsman and
+future ally. Gravelines was a poor place, but Charles had other ways of
+influencing people than by piling up gewgaws before them. A single day of
+rough, hearty feasting was an agreeable relief to Henry after the
+glittering insincerity of Guisnes; and the four days following, in which
+Charles was entertained at Calais as the guest of Henry and Katharine,
+made up in prodigality for the coarseness of the Flemish fare;[30] whilst
+Wolsey, who was already posing as the arbitrator between all Christian
+potentates, was secured to the side of the Emperor in future by a grant of
+the bulk of the income from two Spanish bishoprics, Badajoz and Palencia.
+
+Already the two great rivals were bidding against each other for allies,
+and Charles, though his resources were less concentrated than those of
+Francis, could promise most. Leo X. for his own territorial ambition, and
+in fear of Luther, rallied to the side of the Emperor, the German princes
+seconded their suzerain, and the great struggle for the supremacy of
+Christendom began in March 1521. England by treaty was bound to assist
+France, but this did not suit Wolsey or Henry in their new mood, and the
+Cardinal pressed his arbitration on the combatants. Francis reluctantly
+consented to negotiate; but minds were aflame with a subject that added
+fierceness to the political rivalry between Charles and Francis. The young
+Emperor, when he had met the German princes at Worms (April 1521), had
+thrown down the gage to Luther, and thenceforward it was war to the knife
+between the old faith and the new spirit. Henry, we may be certain to the
+delight of Katharine, violently attacked Luther in his famous book, and
+was flattered by the fulsome praises of the Pope and the Emperor. In the
+circumstances Wolsey's voyage to Calais for the furtherance of arbitration
+was turned into one to conclude an armed alliance with Charles and the
+Pope. The Cardinal, who had bent all others to his will, was himself bent
+by the Emperor; and the arbitrator between two monarchs became the servant
+of one. By the treaty signed at Bruges by Wolsey for Henry, Charles
+contracted an engagement to marry his little cousin, Princess Mary, and to
+visit England for a formal betrothal in the following year.
+
+How completely Wolsey had at this time surrendered himself to the Emperor,
+is evident from Katharine's new attitude towards him. During his period of
+French sympathy she had been, as we have seen, practically alienated from
+state affairs, but now in Henry's letters to Wolsey her name is
+frequently mentioned and her advice was evidently welcome.[31] During his
+absence in Flanders, for instance, Wolsey received a letter from Henry, in
+which the King says: "The Queen, my wife, hath desired me to make her most
+hearty recommendation unto you, as to him that she loveth very well; and
+both she and I would fain know when you would repair unto us." Great news
+came that the Emperor and his allies were brilliantly successful in the
+war, but in the midst of victory the great Medici, Pope Leo X., though
+still a man in his prime, died. There is no doubt that a secret promise
+had been made by Charles to Wolsey of his support in case a vacancy in the
+Papacy arose, but no one had dreamed of its occurring so quickly,[32] and
+Charles found his hand forced. He needed for his purpose a far more
+pliable instrument in the pontifical chair than the haughty Cardinal of
+York. So, whilst pretending to work strenuously to promote Wolsey's
+elevation, and thus to gain the goodwill of Henry and his minister, he
+took care secretly that some humbler candidate, such as the one
+ultimately chosen by the Conclave, his old schoolmaster, Cardinal Adrian,
+should be the new Pope. Wolsey was somewhat sulky at the result of the
+election, and thenceforward looked with more distrust on the imperial
+connection; but, withal, he put as good a face on the matter as possible;
+and when, at the end of May 1522, he again welcomed the Emperor in Henry's
+name as he set foot on English soil at Dover, the Cardinal, though
+watchful, was still favourable to the alliance. This visit of the young
+Emperor was the most splendid royal sojourn ever made in England; and
+Henry revelled in the ceremonies wherein he was the host of the greatest
+monarch upon earth.
+
+Charles came with a train of a thousand horse and two thousand courtiers;
+and to feed and house such a multitude, the guilds of London, and even the
+principal citizens, were obliged to make return of all their spare beds
+and stocks of provisions in order to provide for the strangers. The
+journey of the monarchs was a triumphal progress from Dover through
+Canterbury, Sittingbourne, and Rochester to Gravesend. On the downs
+between Dover and Canterbury, Henry and a great train of nobles was to
+have met his nephew; but the more to do him honour the King rode into
+Dover itself, and with pride showed his visitor his new great ship the
+_Harry Grace ŕ Dieu_, and the rest of the English fleet; whereupon, "the
+Emperor and his lords much praised the making of the ships, and especially
+the artillery: they said they had never seen ships so armed." From
+Gravesend the gallant company rowed in the royal barges amidst salvoes of
+guns to Greenwich. There at the hall door of the palace stood Katharine
+surrounded by her ladies, and holding her tiny daughter by the hand.
+Sinking upon one knee the Emperor craved his aunt's blessing, which was
+given, and thenceforward for five weeks the feasting and glorious shows
+went on without intermission.
+
+On the second day after the arrival at Greenwich, whilst Henry was arming
+for a joust, a courier, all travel-stained and weary, demanded prompt
+audience, to hand the King a letter from his ambassador in France. The
+King read the despatch with knitted brows, and, turning to his friend Sir
+William Compton, said: "Go and tell the Emperor I have news for him." When
+Charles came the letter was handed to him, and it must have rejoiced his
+heart as he read it. Francis bade defiance to the King of England, and
+thenceforward Henry and the Emperor were allies in arms against a common
+enemy. Glittering pageants followed in London and Windsor, where Charles
+sat as Knight of the Garter under triumphant Henry's presidency; masques
+and dances, banquets and hunting, delighted the host and surprised the
+guests with the unrestrained lavishness of the welcome;[33] but we may be
+certain that what chiefly interested Katharine and her nephew was not this
+costly trifling, but the eternal friendship between England and Spain
+solemnly sworn upon the sacrament in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, by the
+Emperor and Henry, and the binding alliance between them in peace and war,
+cemented by the pledge that Charles should marry his cousin Mary Tudor and
+no one else in the world. It was Katharine's final and greatest triumph,
+and the shadows fell thick and fast thereafter.
+
+Henry promptly took his usual showy and unprofitable part in the war. Only
+a few weeks after the Emperor bade his new ally farewell, an English force
+invaded Picardy, and the Earl of Surrey's fleet threatened all French
+shipping in the Channel. Coerced by the King of England too, Venice
+deserted France and joined forces with the allies; the new Pope and the
+Italian princes did the same, and the Emperor's arms carried all before
+them in Italy. Henry was kept faithful to his ally by the vain hope of a
+dismemberment of France, in which he should be the principal gainer; the
+Pope Clement VII., the ambitious Medici, who succeeded Adrian in September
+1523, hungered for fresh territory which Charles alone could give him; the
+rebel De Bourbon, the greatest soldier of France, was fighting against his
+own king; and in February 1525 the crushing blow of Pavia fell, and
+Francis, "all lost except honour," was a prisoner in the hands of his
+enemy, who looking over Christendom saw none to say him nay but the bold
+monk at Wittemberg.
+
+Three years of costly war for interests not primarily their own had
+already disillusioned the English people. By methods more violent and
+tyrannical than ever had been adopted by any previous king, Henry had
+wrung from parliament supplies so oppressive and extortionate for the
+purposes of the war as to disgust and incense the whole country. Wolsey,
+too, had been for the second time beguiled about the Papacy he coveted,
+and knew now that he could not trust the Emperor to serve any interests
+but his own. The French collapse at Pavia, moreover, and pity for the
+captive Francis languishing at Madrid, had caused in England and elsewhere
+a reaction in his favour. Henry himself was, as was his wont, violently
+angry at the cynical way in which his own hopes in France were shelved by
+Charles; and the Pope, alarmed now at the Emperor's unchecked dominion in
+Italy, and the insufficient share of the spoil offered to him, also began
+to look askance at his ally. So, notwithstanding the official rejoicings
+in England when the news of Pavia came, and the revived plan of Henry and
+Wolsey to join Bourbon in his intention to dismember France, with or
+without the aid of Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warham,
+correctly interpreted the prevailing opinion in England in his letter to
+Wolsey (quoted by Hallam), saying that the people had "more cause to weep
+than to rejoice" at the French defeat. The renewed extortionate demands
+for money aroused in England discontent so dangerous as to reach rebellion
+against the King's officers.[34] Risings in Kent and the eastern counties,
+and the outspoken remonstrances of the leaders of the middle and working
+classes at length convinced Wolsey, and through him the King, that a
+change of policy was inevitable. England once more had been made the
+cat's-paw of Spain; and now, with an empty exchequer and a profoundly
+discontented people, was obliged again to shift its balance to the side
+which promised the best hopes for peace, and to redress the equilibrium in
+Europe upon which the English power depended. France was still rich in
+resources, and was made to pay or rather promise the vast sum of two
+million crowns in instalments, and an annuity of a hundred thousand a year
+to the King for England's friendship, whilst Francis was forced to abandon
+all his claims on Italy and Burgundy (January 1526), and marry the
+Emperor's sister Leonora, before he was permitted to return to France, at
+peace once more. It is true that every party to the treaties endeavoured
+to evade the fulfilment of his pledges; but that was the custom of the
+times. The point that interests us here is that the new policy now
+actively pursued by Wolsey of close friendship with France, necessarily
+meant the ruin of Katharine, unless she was dexterous and adaptable enough
+either to reverse the policy or openly espouse it. Unfortunately she did
+neither. She was now forty-one years of age, and had ceased for nearly two
+years to cohabit with her husband. Her health was bad; she had grown
+stout, and her comeliness had departed; all hopes of her giving to the
+King the son and heir for whom he so ardently craved had quite vanished,
+and with them much of her personal hold upon her husband. To her alarm and
+chagrin, Henry, as if in despair of being succeeded by a legitimate heir,
+in 1525, before signing the new alliance with France, had created his
+dearly loved natural son, Henry Fitzroy, a duke under the royal title of
+Duke of Richmond, which had been borne by his father; and Katharine, not
+without reason, feared the King's intention to depose her daughter, the
+betrothed of the Emperor, in favour of an English bastard. We have in
+previous pages noticed the peculiar absence of tact and flexibility in
+Katharine's character; and Wolsey's ostentatious French leanings after
+1525 were met by the Queen with open opposition and acrimonious reproach,
+instead of by temporising wiliness. The Emperor's off-hand treatment of
+his betrothed bride, Mary Tudor, further embittered Katharine, who was
+thus surrounded on every side by disillusionment and disappointment.
+Charles sent commissioners to England just before the battle of Pavia to
+demand, amongst other unamiable requirements, the prompt sending of Mary,
+who was only nine years old, to Flanders with an increased dowry. This was
+no part of the agreement, and was, as no doubt Charles foresaw and
+desired, certain to be refused. The envoys received from Henry and
+Katharine, and more emphatically from Wolsey, a negative answer to the
+request,[35] Mary being, as they said, the greatest treasure they had, for
+whom no hostages would be sufficient.[36] Katharine would not let her
+nephew slip out of his engagement without a struggle. Mary herself was
+made soon after to send a fine emerald to her betrothed with a grand
+message to the effect that when they came together she would be able to
+know (_i.e._ by the clearness or otherwise of the gem) "whether his
+Majesty do keep himself as continent and chaste as, with God's grace, she
+will." As at this time the Emperor was a man of twenty-five, whilst his
+bride had not reached ten years, the cases were hardly parallel; and
+within three months (in July 1525) Charles had betrothed himself to his
+cousin of Portugal. The treaty that had been so solemnly sworn to on the
+high altar at Windsor only three years before, had thus become so much
+waste-paper, and Katharine's best hopes for her child and herself were
+finally defeated. A still greater trial for her followed; for whilst
+Wolsey was drawing nearer and nearer to France, and the King himself was
+becoming more distant from his wife every day, the little Princess was
+taken from the loving care of her mother, and sent to reside in her
+principality of Wales.[37] Thenceforward the life of Katharine was a
+painful martyrdom without one break in the monotony of misfortune.
+
+Katharine appears never to have been unduly jealous of Henry's various
+mistresses. She, one of the proudest princesses in Christendom, probably
+considered them quite beneath her notice, and as usual adjuncts to a
+sovereign's establishment. Henry, moreover, was far from being a generous
+or complaisant lover; and allowed his lady favourites no great social and
+political power, such as that wielded by the mistresses of Francis I. Lady
+Tailebois (Eleanor Blount) made no figure at Court, and Mary Boleyn, the
+wife of William Carey, a quite undistinguished courtier, who had been
+Henry's mistress from about 1521,[38] was always impecunious and sometimes
+disreputable, though her greedy father reaped a rich harvest from his
+daughter's attractions. Katharine evidently troubled herself very little
+about such infidelity on the part of her husband, and certainly Wolsey had
+no objection. The real anxiety of the Queen arose from Henry's ardent
+desire for a legitimate son, which she could not hope to give him; and
+Wolsey, with his eyes constantly fixed on the Papacy, decided to make
+political capital and influence for himself by binding France and England
+so close together both dynastically and politically as to have both kings
+at his bidding before the next Pope was elected. The first idea was the
+betrothal of the jilted Princess Mary of ten to the middle-aged widower
+who sat upon the throne of France. An embassy came to London from the
+Queen Regent of France, whilst Francis was still a prisoner in Madrid in
+1525, to smooth the way for a closer intimacy. Special instructions were
+given to the ambassador to dwell upon the complete recovery of Francis
+from his illness, and to make the most of the Emperor's unfaithfulness to
+his English betrothed for the purpose of marrying the richly dowered
+Portuguese. Francis eventually regained his liberty on hard conditions
+that included his marriage with Charles's widowed sister Leonora, Queen
+Dowager of Portugal; and his sons were to remain in Spain as hostages for
+his fulfilment of the terms. But from the first Francis intended to
+violate the treaty of Madrid, wherever possible; and early in 1527 a
+stately train of French nobles, headed by De Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes,
+came with a formal demand for the hand of young Mary Tudor for the already
+much-married Francis. Again the palace of Greenwich was a blaze of
+splendour for the third nuptials of the little princess; and the elaborate
+mummery that Henry loved was re-enacted.[39] On the journeys to and from
+their lodgings in Merchant Taylors' Hall, the Bishop of Tarbes and
+Viscount de Turenne heard nothing but muttered curses, saw nothing but
+frowning faces of the London people; for Mary was in the eyes of Henry's
+subjects the heiress of England, and they would have, said they, no
+Frenchman to reign over them when their own king should die.[40] Katharine
+took little part in the betrothal festivities, for she was a mere shadow
+now. Her little daughter was made to show off her accomplishments to the
+Frenchmen, speaking to them in French and Latin, playing on the
+harpsichord, and dancing with the Viscount de Turenne, whilst the poor
+Queen looked sadly on. Stiff with gems and cloth of gold, the girl,
+appearing, we are told, "like an angel," gravely played her part to her
+proud father's delight, and the Bishop of Tarbes took back with him to his
+master enthusiastic praises of this "pearl of the world," the backward
+little girl of eleven, who was destined, as Francis said, to be the
+"cornerstone of the new covenant" between France and England, either by
+her marriage with himself, or, failing that, with his second son, the Duke
+of Orleans, which in every respect would have been a most suitable match.
+
+No sooner had the treaty of betrothal been signed than there came (2nd
+June 1527) the tremendous news that the Emperor's troops under Bourbon had
+entered and sacked Rome with ruthless fury, and that Pope Clement was a
+prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, clamouring for aid from all
+Christian princes against his impious assailants. All those kings who
+looked with distrust upon the rapidly growing power of Charles drew closer
+together. When the news came, Wolsey was in France on his embassy of
+surpassing magnificence, whilst public discontent in England at what was
+considered his warlike policy was already swelling into fierce
+denunciations against him, his pride, his greed, and his French
+proclivities. English people cared little for the troubles of the Italian
+Pope; or indeed for anything else, so long as they were allowed to live
+and trade in peace; and they knew full well that war with the Emperor
+would mean the closing of the rich Flemish and Spanish markets to them, as
+well as the seizure of their ships and goods. But to Wolsey's ambition the
+imprisonment of Clement VII. seemed to open a prospect of unlimited power.
+If Francis and Henry were closely allied, with the support of the Papacy
+behind them, Wolsey might be commissioned to exercise the Papal authority
+until he relieved the Pontiff from duress, and in due course might succeed
+to the chair of St. Peter. So, deaf to the murmuring of the English
+people, he pressed on; his goal being to bind France and England closely
+together that he might use them both.
+
+The marriage treaty of Mary with the Duke of Orleans, instead of with his
+father, was agreed upon by Francis and the Cardinal at Amiens in August
+1527. But Wolsey knew that the marriage of the children could not be
+completed for some years yet, and he was impatient to forge an immediately
+effective bond. Francis had a sister and a sister-in-law of full age,
+either of whom might marry Henry. But Katharine stood in the way, and she
+was the personification of the imperial connection. Wolsey had no
+scruples: he knew how earnestly his master wished for a son to inherit his
+realm, and how weak of will that master was if only he kept up the
+appearance of omnipotence. He knew that Katharine, disappointed, glum, and
+austere, had lost the charm by which women rule men, and the plan, that
+for many months he had been slowly and stealthily devising, was boldly
+brought out to light of day. Divorce was easy, and it would finally
+isolate the Emperor if Katharine were set aside. The Pope would do
+anything for his liberators: why not dissolve the unfruitful marriage, and
+give to England a new French consort in the person of either the widowed
+Margaret Duchess of Alençon, or of Princess Renée? It is true that the
+former indignantly refused the suggestion, and dynastic reasons prevented
+Francis from favouring that of a marriage of Renée of France and Brittany
+with the King of England; but women, and indeed men, were for Wolsey but
+puppets to be moved, not creatures to be consulted, and the Cardinal went
+back to England exultant, and hopeful that, at last, he would compass his
+aspiration, and make himself ruler of the princes of Christendom. Never
+was hope more fallacious or fortune's irony more bitter. With a strong
+master Wolsey would have won; with a flabby sensualist as his
+stalking-horse he was bound to lose, unless he remained always at his
+side. The Cardinal's absence in France was the turning-point of his
+fortunes; whilst he was glorying abroad, his enemies at home dealt him a
+death-blow through a woman.
+
+At exactly what period, or by whom, the idea of divorcing Katharine at
+this time had been broached to Henry, it is difficult to say; but it was
+no unpardonable or uncommon thing for monarchs, for reasons of dynastic
+expediency, to put aside their wedded wives. Popes, usually in a hurry to
+enrich their families, could be bribed or coerced; and the interests of
+the individual, even of a queen-consort, were as nothing in comparison of
+those of the State, as represented by the sovereign. If the question of
+religious reform had not complicated the situation and Henry had married a
+Catholic princess of one of the great royal houses, as Wolsey intended,
+instead of a mere upstart like Anne Boleyn, there would probably have been
+little difficulty about the divorce from Katharine: and the first hint of
+the repudiation of a wife who could give the King no heir, for the sake of
+his marrying another princess who might do so, and at the same time
+consolidate a new international combination, would doubtless be considered
+by those who made it as quite an ordinary political move.
+
+It is probable that the Bishop of Tarbes, when he was in England in the
+spring of 1527 for the betrothal of Mary, conferred with Wolsey as to the
+possibility of Henry's marriage to a French princess, which of course
+would involve the repudiation of Katharine. In any case the King and
+Wolsey--whether truly or not--asserted that the Bishop had first started
+the question of the validity of Henry's marriage with his wife, with
+special reference to the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, who was to be
+betrothed to Francis I. or his son. It may be accepted as certain,
+however, that the matter had been secretly fermenting ever since Wolsey
+began to shift the centre of gravity from the Emperor towards France.
+Katharine may have suspected it, though as yet no word reached her. But
+she was angry at the intimate hobnobbing with France, at her daughter's
+betrothal to the enemy of her house, and at the elevation of Henry's
+bastard son to a royal dukedom. She was deeply incensed, too, at her
+alienation from State affairs, and had formed around her a cabal of
+Wolsey's enemies, for the most part members of the older nobility
+traditionally in favour of the Spanish alliance and against France, in
+order, if possible, to obstruct the Cardinal's policy.[41]
+
+The King, no doubt fully aware of Wolsey's plan, was as usual willing to
+wound, but yet afraid to strike; not caring how much wrong he did if he
+could only gloze it over to appear right and save his own responsibility
+before the world. The first formal step, which was taken in April 1527,
+was carefully devised with this end. Henry, representing that his
+conscience was assailed by doubts, secretly consulted certain of his
+councillors as to the legality of his union with his deceased brother's
+widow. It is true that he had lived with her for eighteen years, and that
+any impediment to the marriage on the ground of affinity had been
+dispensed with to the satisfaction of all parties at the time by the
+Pope's bull. But trifles such as these could never stand in the way of so
+tender a conscience as that of Henry Tudor, or so overpowering an ambition
+as that of his minister. The councillors--most of those chosen were of
+course French partisans--thought the case was very doubtful, and were
+favourable to an inquiry.
+
+On the 17th May 1527, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, it will be
+recollected, had always been against the marriage; with Wolsey, Stephen
+Gardiner, and certain doctors-of-law, held a private sitting at the York
+House, Westminster, at which the King had been cited to appear and answer
+the charge of having lived in incest with his sister-in-law. The Court was
+adjourned twice, to the 20th and 31st May, during which time the sham
+pleadings for and against the King were carefully directed to the desired
+end. But before the first sitting was well over the plot got wind and
+reached Katharine. The Queen and the imperial connection were popular,
+Wolsey and the French were feared and detested. The old nobility and the
+populace were on the Queen's side; the mere rumour of what was intended by
+the prelates at York House set people growling ominously, and the friends
+of the Spanish-Flemish alliance became threateningly active. The King and
+Wolsey saw that for a decree of nullity to be pronounced by Warham and
+Wolsey alone, after a secret inquiry at which the Queen was not
+represented, would be too scandalous and dangerous in the state of public
+feeling, and an attempt was made to get the bishops generally to decide,
+in answer to a leading question, that such a marriage as that of the King
+and Katharine was incestuous. But the bishops were faithful sons of the
+Papacy, and most of them shied at the idea of ignoring the Pope's bull
+allowing the marriage. Henry had also learnt during the proceedings of
+the sacking of Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, which was another
+obstacle to his desires, for though the Pope would doubtless have been
+quite ready to oblige his English and French friends to the detriment of
+the Emperor when he was free, it was out of the question that he should do
+so now that he and his dominions were at the mercy of the imperial troops.
+
+The King seems to have had an idea that he might by his personal
+persuasion bring his unaccommodating wife to a more reasonable frame of
+mind. He and Wolsey had been intensely annoyed that she had learnt so
+promptly of the plot against her, but since some spy had told her, it was
+as well, thought Henry, that she should see things in their proper light.
+With a sanctimonious face he saw her on the 22nd June 1527, and told her
+how deeply his conscience was touched at the idea that they had been
+living in mortal sin for so many years. In future, he said, he must
+abstain from her company, and requested that she would remove far away
+from Court. She was a haughty princess--no angel in temper,
+notwithstanding her devout piety; and she gave Henry the vigorous answer
+that might have been expected. They were man and wife, as they had always
+been, she said, with the full sanction of the Church and the world, and
+she would stay where she was, strong in her rights as an honest woman and
+a queen. It was not Henry's way to face a strong opponent, unless he had
+some one else to support him and bear the brunt of the fight, and, in
+accordance with his character, he whined that he never meant any harm: he
+only wished to discover the truth, to set at rest the scruples raised by
+the Bishop of Tarbes. All would be for the best, he assured his angry
+wife; but pray keep the matter secret.[42]
+
+Henry did not love to be thwarted, and Wolsey, busy making ready for his
+ostentatious voyage to France, had to bear as best he might his master's
+ill-humour. The famous ecclesiastical lawyer, Sampson, had told the
+Cardinal that the marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; and
+consequently that, even apart from the Pope's dispensation, the present
+union was unimpeachable. The Queen would fight the matter to the end, he
+said; and though Wolsey did his best to answer Sampson's arguments, he was
+obliged to transmit them to the King, and recommend him to handle his wife
+gently; "until it was shown what the Pope and Francis would do." Henry
+acted on the advice, as we have seen, but Wolsey was scolded by the King
+as if he himself had advanced Sampson's arguments instead of answering
+them. Katharine did not content herself with sitting down and weeping. She
+despatched her faithful Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, on a
+pretended voyage to a sick mother in Spain, in order that he might beg the
+aid of the Emperor to prevent the injustice intended against the Queen;
+and Wolsey's spies made every effort to catch the man, and lay him by the
+heels.[43] She sent to her confessor, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, begging
+for his counsel, he being one of the bishops who held that her marriage
+was valid; she "desired," said Wolsey to the King, "counsel, as well of
+strangers as of English," and generally showed a spirit the very opposite
+of that of the patient Griselda in similar circumstances. How entirely
+upset were the King and Wolsey by the unexpected force of the opposition
+is seen in the Cardinal's letter to his master a day or two after he had
+left London at the beginning of July to proceed on his French embassy.
+Writing from Faversham, he relates how he had met Archbishop Warham, and
+had told him in dismay that the Queen had discovered their plan, and how
+irritated she was; and how the King, as arranged with Wolsey, had tried to
+pacify and reassure her. To Wolsey's delight, Warham persisted that,
+whether the Queen liked it or not, "truth and law must prevail." On his
+way through Rochester, Wolsey tackled Fisher, who was known to favour the
+Queen. He admitted under Wolsey's pressure that she had sent to him,
+though he pretended not to know why, and "greatly blamed the Queen, and
+thought that if he might speak to her he might bring her to submission."
+But Wolsey considered this would be dangerous, and bade the bishop stay
+where he was. And so, with the iniquitous plot temporarily shelved by the
+unforeseen opposition, personal and political, Wolsey and his great train,
+more splendid than that of any king, went on his way to Dover, and to
+Amiens, whilst in his absence that happened in England which in due time
+brought all his dignity and pride to dust and ashes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+1527-1530
+
+KATHARINE AND ANNE--THE DIVORCE
+
+
+Enough has been said in the aforegoing pages to show that Henry was no
+more a model of marital fidelity than other contemporary monarchs. It was
+not to be expected that he should be. The marriages of such men were
+usually prompted by political reasons alone; and for the indulgence of
+affairs of the heart kings were forced to look elsewhere than towards the
+princesses they had taken in fulfilment of treaties. Mary, the younger
+daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and wife of William Carey, was the King's
+mistress for some years after her marriage in 1521, with the result that
+her father had received many rich grants from the crown; and in 1525 was
+created Lord Rochford. As treasurer of the household Lord Rochford was
+much at Court, and his relationship with the Howards, St. Legers, and
+other great families through his marriage with Lady Elizabeth, daughter of
+the Duke of Norfolk, naturally allied him with the party of nobles whose
+traditions ran counter to those of the bureaucrats in Henry's Council. His
+elder daughter Anne, who was born early in 1503, probably at Hever Castle
+in Kent,[44] had been carefully educated in the learning and
+accomplishments considered necessary for a lady of birth at Court, and she
+accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514 for her fleeting marriage with
+the valetudinarian Louis XII., related in an earlier chapter.[45] On Queen
+Mary's return to England a few months afterwards with her second husband,
+Charles Brandon, the youthful Anne Boleyn remained to complete her courtly
+education in France, under the care of the new Queen of France, Claude,
+first wife of Francis I.
+
+When the alliance of the Emperor and England was negotiated in 1521, and
+war with France threatened, Anne was recalled home; and in 1522 began her
+life in the English Court and with her family in their various residences.
+Her six years in the gay Court of Francis I. during her most
+impressionable age, had made her in manner more French than English. She
+can never have been beautiful. Her face was long and thin, her chin
+pointed, and her mouth hypocritically prim; but her eyes were dark and
+very fine, her brows arched and high, and her complexion dazzling. Above
+all, she was supremely vain and fond of admiration. Similar qualities to
+these might have been, and doubtless were, possessed by a dozen other
+high-born ladies at Henry's Court; but circumstances, partly political
+and partly personal, gave to them in Anne's case a national importance
+that produced enduring consequences upon the world. We have already
+glanced at the mixture of tedious masquerading, hunting, and amorous
+intrigue which formed the principal occupations of the ladies and
+gentlemen who surrounded Henry and Katharine in their daily life; and from
+her arrival in England, Anne appears to have entered to the full into the
+enjoyment of such pastimes. There was some negotiation for her marriage,
+even before she arrived in England, with Sir Piers Butler, an Irish cousin
+of hers, but it fell through on the question of settlements, and in 1526,
+when she was already about twenty-three, she took matters in her own
+hands, and captivated an extremely eligible suitor, in the person of a
+silly, flighty young noble, Henry Percy, eldest son and heir to the Earl
+of Northumberland.
+
+Percy was one of the Court butterflies who attached themselves to Wolsey's
+household, and when angrily taken to task by the Cardinal for flirting
+with Anne, notwithstanding his previous formal betrothal to another lady,
+the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the young man said that, as he
+loved Anne best, he would rather marry her. The Cardinal did not mince
+words with his follower, but Percy stood stoutly to his choice, and the
+Earl of Northumberland was hastily summoned to London to exercise his
+authority over his recalcitrant son. Cavendish[46] gives an amusing
+account of the interview between them, at which he was present. The Earl
+seems to have screwed up his courage by a generous draught of wine when he
+left Wolsey's presence to await his son in the hall of York House. When
+the youth did come in, the scolding he got was vituperative in its
+violence, with the result that Percy was reluctantly forced to abandon the
+sweetheart to whom he had plighted his troth. Wolsey's interference in
+their love affair deeply angered both Anne and her sweetheart. Percy was a
+poor creature, and could do Wolsey little harm; but Anne did not forget,
+swearing "that if ever it lay in her power she would do the Cardinal some
+displeasure, which indeed she afterwards did."[47]
+
+The reason for Wolsey's strong opposition to a match which appeared a
+perfectly fitting one for both the lovers, is not far to seek. Cavendish
+himself gives us the clue when he says that when the King first heard that
+Anne had become engaged to Percy, "he was much moved thereat, for he had a
+private affection for her himself which was not yet discovered to any":
+and the faithful usher in telling the story excuses Wolsey by saying that
+"he did nothing but what the King commanded." This affair marks the
+beginning of Henry's infatuation for Anne. There was no reason for Wolsey
+to object to a flirtation between the girl and her royal admirer; indeed
+the devotion of the King to a new mistress would doubtless make him the
+more ready to consent to contract another entirely political marriage, if
+he could get rid of Katharine; and the Cardinal smiled complaisantly at
+the prospect that all was going well for his plans. Anne, for the look of
+the thing, was sent away from Court for a short time after the Percy
+affair had been broken off; but before many weeks were over she was back
+again as one of Katharine's maids of honour, and the King's admiration for
+her was evident to all observers.[48]
+
+It is more than questionable whether up to this time (1526) Anne ever
+dreamed of becoming Henry's wife; but in any case she was too clever to
+let herself go cheaply. She knew well the difference in the positions held
+by the King's mistresses in the French Court and that which had been
+occupied by her sister and Lady Tailebois in England, and she coyly held
+her royal lover at arm's length, with the idea of enhancing her value at
+last. Henry, as we have seen, was utterly tired of, and estranged from,
+Katharine; and his new flame, with her natural ability and acquired French
+arts, flattered and pleased his vanity better than any woman had done
+before. It is quite probable that she began to aim secretly at the higher
+prize in the spring of 1527, when the idea of the divorce from Katharine
+had taken shape in the King's mind under the sedulous prompting of Wolsey
+for his personal and political ends; but if such was the case she was
+careful not to show her hand prematurely. Her only hope of winning such a
+game was to keep imperious Henry in a fever of love, whilst declining all
+his illicit advances. It was a difficult and a dangerous thing to do, for
+her quarry might break away at any moment, whereas if such a word as
+marriage between the King and her reached the ears of the cardinal, she
+and her family would inevitably be destroyed.
+
+Such was the condition of affairs when Wolsey started for France in July
+1527. He went, determined to leave no stone unturned to set Henry free
+from Katharine. He knew that there was no time to be lost, for the letters
+from Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, and Katharine's messenger
+Felipe, were on their way to tell the story to the Emperor in Spain; and
+Clement VII., a prisoner in the hands of the imperialists, would not dare
+to dissolve the marriage after Charles had had time to command him not to
+do so. It was a stiff race who should get to the Pope first. Wolsey's
+alternative plan in the circumstances was a clever one. It was to send to
+Rome the Bishop of Worcester (the Italian Ghinucci), Henry's ambassador in
+Spain, then on his way home, to obtain, with the support of the cardinals
+of French sympathies, a "general faculty" from Clement VII. for Wolsey to
+exercise all the Papal functions during the Pope's captivity: "by which,
+without informing the Pope of your (_i.e._ Henry's) purpose, I may
+delegate such judges as the Queen will not refuse; and if she does the
+cognisance of the cause shall be devolved upon me, and by a clause to be
+inserted in the general commission no appeal be allowed from my decision
+to the Pope."[49]
+
+How unscrupulous Wolsey and Henry were in the matter is seen in a letter
+dated shortly before the above was written, in which Wolsey says to
+Ghinucci (Bishop of Worcester) and Dr. Lee, Henry's ambassador with the
+Emperor, that "a rumour has, somehow or other, sprung up in England that
+proceedings are being taken for a divorce between the King and the Queen,
+which is entirely without foundation, yet not altogether causeless, for
+there has been some discussion about the Papal dispensation; not with any
+view to a divorce, but to satisfy the French, who raised the objection on
+proposing a marriage between the Princess (Mary Tudor) and their
+sovereign. The proceedings which took place on this dispute gave rise to
+the rumour, and reached the ears of the Queen, who expressed some
+resentment but was satisfied after explanation; and no suspicion exists,
+except, perchance, the Queen may have communicated with the Emperor."[50]
+Charles had, indeed, heard the whole story, as far as Katharine knew it,
+from the lips of Felipe before this was written, and was not to be put off
+with such smooth lies. He wrote indignantly to his ambassador Mendoza in
+London, directing him to see Henry and point out to him, in diplomatic
+language veiling many a threat, the danger, as well as the turpitude, of
+repudiating his lawful wife with no valid excuse; and more vigorously
+still he let the Pope know that there must be no underhand work to his
+detriment or that of his family. Whilst the arrogant Cardinal of York was
+thus playing for his own hand first, and for Henry secondly, in France,
+his jealous enemies in England might put their heads together and plot
+against him undeterred by the paralysing fear of his frown. His pride and
+insolence, as well as his French political leanings, had caused the
+populace to hate him; the commercial classes, who suffered most by the
+wars with their best customers, the Flemings and Spaniards, were strongly
+opposed to him; whilst the territorial and noble party, which had usually
+been friendly with Katharine, and were traditionally against bureaucratic
+or ecclesiastical ministers of the crown, suffered with impatience the
+galling yoke of the Ipswich butcher's son, who drove them as he listed.
+
+Anne was in the circumstances a more powerful ally for them than
+Katharine. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the leader of the
+party of nobles, and her ambition would make her an apt and eager
+instrument. The infatuation of the King for her grew more violent as she
+repelled his advances,[51] and, doubtless at the prompting of Wolsey's
+foes, it soon began to be whispered that if Henry could get rid of his
+wife he might marry his English favourite. Before the Cardinal had been in
+France a month, Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, first sounded the new
+note of alarm to the Emperor, by telling him that Anne might become the
+King's wife. It is hardly possible that no hint of the danger can have
+reached Wolsey, but if it did he was confident of his power over his
+master when he should return to England. Unfortunately for him his ideas
+for the King's divorce were hampered by the plans for his own advancement;
+and the proposals he wrote to Henry were all founded on the idea of
+exerting international pressure, either for the liberation of the Pope, or
+to obtain from the Pontiff the decree of divorce. It was evident that this
+process must be a slow one, and Anne as well as Henry was in a hurry.
+Unlike Charles, who, though he was falsity itself to his rivals, never
+deceived his own ministers, Henry constantly showed the moral cowardice of
+his character by misleading those who were supposed to direct his policy,
+and at this juncture he conceived a plan of his own which promised more
+rapidity than that of Wolsey.[52] Without informing Wolsey of the real
+object of his mission, old Dr. Knight, the King's confidential secretary,
+was sent to endeavour to see the Pope in St. Angelo, and by personal
+appeal from the King persuade him to grant a dispensation for Henry's
+marriage either before his marriage with Katharine was dissolved formally
+(_constante matrimonio_), or else, if that was refused, a dispensation to
+marry after the declaration had been made nullifying the previous union
+(_soluto matrimonio_); but in either case the strange demand was to be
+made that the dispensation was to cover the case of the bride and
+bridegroom being connected within the prohibited degrees of affinity.[53]
+
+Knight saw Wolsey on his way through France and hoodwinked him as to his
+true mission by means of a bogus set of instructions, though the Cardinal
+was evidently suspicious and ill at ease. This was on the 12th September
+1527, and less than a fortnight later Wolsey hurried homeward. When he had
+set forth from England three months before he seemed to hold the King in
+the hollow of his hand. Private audience for him was always ready, and all
+doors flew open at his bidding. But when he appeared on the 30th September
+at the palace of Richmond, and sent one of his gentlemen to inquire of the
+King where he would receive him, Anne sat in the great hall by Henry's
+side, as was usual now. Before the King could answer the question of
+Wolsey's messenger, the favourite, with a petulance that Katharine would
+have considered undignified, snapped, "Where else should the Cardinal come
+but where the King is?" For the King to receive his ministers at private
+audience in a hall full of people was quite opposed to the usual etiquette
+of Henry's Court, and Wolsey's man still stood awaiting the King's reply.
+But it only came in the form of a nod that confirmed the favourite's
+decision. This must have struck the proud Cardinal to the heart, and when
+he entered the hall and bowed before his sovereign, who was toying now
+with his lady-love, and joking with his favourites, the minister must have
+known that his empire over Henry had for the time vanished. He was clever
+and crafty: he had often conquered difficulties before, and was not
+dismayed now that a young woman had supplanted him, for he still held
+confidence in himself. So he made no sign of annoyance, but he promptly
+tried to checkmate Knight's mission when he heard of it, whilst pretending
+approval of the King's attachment to Anne. The latter was deceived. She
+could not help seeing that with Wolsey's help she would attain her object
+infinitely more easily than without it, and she in her turn smiled upon
+the Cardinal, though her final success would have boded ill for him, as he
+well knew.
+
+His plan, doubtless, was to let the divorce question drag on as long as
+possible, in the hope that Henry would tire of his new flame. First he
+persuaded the King to send fresh instructions to Knight, on the ground
+that the Pope would certainly not give him a dispensation to commit bigamy
+in order that he might marry Anne, and that it would be easier to obtain
+from the Pontiff a decree leaving the validity of the marriage with
+Katharine to the decision of the Legates in England, Wolsey and another
+Cardinal. Henry having once loosened the bridle, did not entirely return
+to his submission to Wolsey. Like most weak men, he found it easier to
+rebel against the absent than against those who faced him; but he was not,
+if he and Anne could prevent it, again going to put his neck under the
+Cardinal's yoke completely, and in a secret letter to Knight he ordered
+him to ask Clement for a dispensation couched in the curious terms already
+referred to, allowing him to marry again, even within the degrees of
+affinity, as soon as the union with Katharine was dissolved. Knight had
+found it impossible to get near the Pope in Rome, for the imperialists had
+been fully forewarned by this time; but at length Clement was partially
+released and went to Orvieto in December, whither Knight followed him
+before the new instructions came from England. Knight was no match for the
+subtle churchmen. Clement dared not, moreover, mortally offend the
+Emperor, whose men-at-arms still held Rome; and the dispensation that
+Knight sent so triumphantly to England giving the Legate's Court in London
+power to decide the validity of the King's marriage, had a clause slipped
+into it which destroyed its efficacy, because it left the final decision
+to the Pontiff after all.
+
+It may be asked, if Henry believed, as he now pretended, that his first
+marriage had never been legal in consequence of Katharine being his
+brother's widow, why he needed a Papal dispensation to break it. The Papal
+brief that had been previously given allowing the marriage, was asserted
+by Henry's ecclesiastical friends to be _ultra vires_ in England, because
+marriage with a brother's widow was prohibited under the common law of the
+land, with which the Pope could not dispense. But the matter was
+complicated with all manner of side issues: the legitimacy of the Princess
+Mary, the susceptibilities of the powerful confederation that obeyed the
+Emperor, the sentiment of the English people, and, above all, the
+invariable desire of Henry to appear a saint whilst he acted like a sinner
+and to avoid personal responsibility; and so Henry still strove with the
+ostensible, but none too hearty, aid of Wolsey, to gain from the Pope the
+nullification of a marriage which he said was no marriage at all. Wolsey's
+position had become a most delicate and dangerous one. As soon as the
+Emperor learned of Anne's rise, he had written to Mendoza (30th September
+1527), saying that the Cardinal must be bought at any price. All his
+arrears of pension (45,000 ducats) were to be paid, 6000 ducats a year
+more from a Spanish bishopric were to be granted, and a Milanese
+marquisate was to be conferred upon him with a revenue of 15,000 ducats a
+year, if he would only serve the Emperor's interests. But he dared not do
+it quickly or openly, dearly as he loved money, for Anne was watchful and
+Henry suspicious of him. His only hope was that the King's infatuation for
+this long-faced woman with the prude's mouth and the blazing eyes might
+pall. Then his chance would come again.
+
+Far from growing weaker, however, Henry's passion grew as Anne's virtue
+became more rigid. She had not always been so austere, for gossip had
+already been busy with her good name. Percy and Sir Thomas Wyatt had both
+been her lovers, and with either or both of them she had in some way
+compromised herself.[54] But she played her game cleverly, for the stake
+was a big one, and her fascination must have been great. She was often
+away from Court, feigning to prefer the rural delights of Hever to the
+splendours of Greenwich or Richmond, or offended at the significant
+tittle-tattle about herself and the King. She was thus absent when in July
+1527 Wolsey had gone to France, but took care to keep herself in Henry's
+memory by sending him a splendid jewel of gold and diamonds representing a
+damsel in a boat on a troubled sea. The lovesick King replied in the first
+of those extraordinary love-letters of his which have so often been
+printed. "Henceforward," he says, "my heart shall be devoted to you only.
+I wish my body also could be. God can do it if He pleases, to whom I pray
+once a day that it may be, and hope at length to be heard:" and he signs
+_Escripte de la main du secretaire, que en coeur, corps, et volonté, est
+vostre loiall et plus assuré serviteure, H. (autre coeur ne cherche) R._
+Soon afterwards, when Wolsey was well on his way, the King writes to his
+lady-love again. "The time seems so long since I heard of your good health
+and of you that I send the bearer to be better ascertained of your health
+and your purpose: for since my last parting from you I have been told you
+have quite abandoned the intention of coming to Court, either with your
+mother or otherwise. If so I cannot wonder sufficiently; for I have
+committed no offence against you, and it is very little return for the
+great love I bear you to deny me the presence of the woman I esteem most
+of all the world. If you love me, as I hope you do, our separation should
+be painful to you. I trust your absence is not wilful; for if so I can but
+lament my ill fortune and by degrees abate my great folly."[55] This was
+the tone to bring Anne to her lover again, and before many days were over
+they were together, and in Wolsey's absence the marriage rumours spread
+apace.
+
+The fiasco of Knight's mission had convinced Henry and Anne that they must
+proceed through the ordinary diplomatic channels and with the aid of
+Wolsey in their future approaches to the Pope; and early in 1528 Stephen
+Gardiner and Edward Fox, two ecclesiastics attached to the Cardinal, were
+despatched on a fresh mission to Orvieto to urge Clement to grant to
+Wolsey and another Legate power to pronounce finally on the validity of
+Henry's marriage. The Pope was to be plied with sanctimonious assurances
+that no carnal love for Anne prompted Henry's desire to marry her, as the
+Pope had been informed, but solely her "approved excellent, virtuous
+qualities--the purity of her life, her constant virginity, her maidenly
+and womanly pudicity, her soberness, her chasteness, meekness, humility,
+wisdom, descent right noble and high through royal blood,[56] education in
+all good and laudable qualities and manners, apparent aptness to
+procreation of children, with her other infinite good qualities." Gardiner
+and Fox on their way to Dover called at Hever, and showed to Anne this
+panegyric penned by Wolsey[57] upon her, and thenceforward for a time all
+went trippingly.
+
+Gardiner was a far different negotiator from Knight, and was able, though
+with infinite difficulty, to induce Clement to grant the new bull
+demanded, relegating the cause finally to the Legatine Court in London.
+The Pope would have preferred that Wolsey should have sat alone as Legate,
+but Wolsey was so unpopular in England, and the war into which he had
+again dragged the country against the Emperor was so detested,[58] whilst
+Queen Katharine had so many sympathisers, that it was considered necessary
+that a foreign Legate should add his authority to that of Wolsey to do the
+evil deed. Campeggio, who had been in England before, and was a pensioner
+of Henry as Bishop of Hereford, was the Cardinal selected by Wolsey; and
+at last Clement consented to send him. Every one concerned appears to have
+endeavoured to avoid responsibility for what they knew was a shabby
+business. The Pope, crafty and shifty, was in a most difficult position,
+and blew hot and cold. The first commission given to Gardiner and Fox,
+which was received with such delight by Anne and Henry when Fox brought
+it to London in April 1528, was found on examination still to leave the
+question open to Papal veto. It is true that it gave permission to the
+Legates to pronounce for the King, but the responsibility for the ruling
+was left to them, and their decision might be impugned. When, at the
+urgent demand of Gardiner, the Pope with many tears gave a decretal laying
+down that the King's marriage with Katharine was bad by canon law if the
+facts were as represented, he gave secret orders to the Legate Campeggio
+that the decretal was to be burnt and not to be acted upon.
+
+Whilst the Pope was thus between the devil and the deep sea, trying to
+please the Emperor on the one hand and the Kings of France and England on
+the other, and deceiving both, the influence of Anne over her royal lover
+grew stronger every day. Wolsey was in the toils and he knew it. When
+Charles had answered the English declaration of war (January 1528), it was
+the Cardinal's rapacity, pride, and ambition against which he thundered as
+the cause of the strife and of the insult offered to the imperial house.
+To the Emperor the Cardinal could not again turn. Henry, moreover, was no
+longer the obedient tool he had been before Anne was by his side to
+stiffen his courage; and Wolsey knew that, notwithstanding the favourite's
+feline civilities and feigned dependence upon him, it would be the turn of
+his enemies to rule when once she became the King's wedded wife. He was,
+indeed, hoist with his own petard. The divorce had been mainly promoted,
+if not originated, by him, and the divorce in the present circumstances
+would crush him. But he had pledged himself too deeply to draw back
+openly; and he still had to smile upon those who were planning his ruin,
+and himself urge forward the policy by which it was to be effected.
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine stood firm, living under the same roof as her
+husband, sitting at the same table with him with a serene countenance in
+public, and to all appearance unchanged in her relations to him. But
+though her pride stood her in good stead she was perplexed and lonely.
+Henry's intention to divorce her, and his infatuation for Anne, were of
+course public property, and the courtiers turned to the coming
+constellation, whatever the common people might do. Mendoza, the Spanish
+ambassador, withdrew from Court in the spring after the declaration of
+war, and the Queen's isolation was then complete. To the Spanish Latinist
+in Flanders, J. Luis Vives, and to Erasmus, she wrote asking for counsel
+in her perplexity, but decorous epistles in stilted Latin advising
+resignation and Christian fortitude was all she got from either.[59] Her
+nephew the Emperor had urged her, in any case, to refuse to recognise the
+authority of any tribunal in England to judge her case, and had done what
+he could to frighten the Pope against acceding to Henry's wishes. But even
+he was not implacable, if his political ends were served in any
+arrangement that might be made; and at this time he evidently hoped, as
+did the Pope most fervently, that as a last resource Katharine would help
+everybody out of the trouble by giving up the struggle and taking the
+veil. Her personal desire would doubtless have been to adopt this course,
+for the world had lost its savour, but she was a daughter of Isabel the
+Catholic, and tame surrender was not in her line. Her married life with
+Henry she knew was at an end;[60] but her daughter was now growing into
+girlhood, and her legitimacy and heirship to the English crown she would
+only surrender with her own life. So to all smooth suggestions that she
+should make things pleasant all round by acquiescing in the King's view of
+their marriage, she was scornfully irresponsive.
+
+Through the plague-scourged summer of 1528 Henry and Anne waited
+impatiently for the coming of the Legate Campeggio. He was old and gouty,
+hampered with a mission which he dreaded; for he could not hope to
+reconcile the irreconcilable, and the Pope had quietly given him the hint
+that he need not hurry. Clement was, indeed, in a greater fix than ever.
+He had been made to promise by the Emperor that the case should not be
+decided in England, and yet he had been forced into giving the
+dispensation and decretal not only allowing it to be decided there in
+favour of Henry, but had despatched Campeggio to pronounce judgment. He
+had, however, at the same time assured the Emperor that means should be
+found to prevent the finality of any decision in England until the Emperor
+had approved of it, and Campeggio was instructed accordingly. The
+Spaniards thought that the English Cardinal would do his best to second
+the efforts of the Pope without appearing to do so, and there is no doubt
+that they were right, for Wolsey was now (the summer of 1528) really
+alarmed at the engine he had set in motion and could not stop. Katharine
+knew that the Legate was on his way, and that the Pope had, in appearance,
+granted all of Henry's demands; but she did not know, or could not
+understand, the political forces that were operating in her favour, which
+made the Pope defraud the King of England, and turned her erstwhile mortal
+enemy Wolsey into her secret friend. Tact and ready adaptability might
+still have helped Katharine. The party of nobles under Norfolk, it is
+true, had deserted her; but Wolsey and the bureaucrats were still a power
+to be reckoned with, and the middle classes and the populace were all in
+favour of the Queen and the imperial alliance. If these elements had been
+cleverly combined they might have conquered, for Henry was always a coward
+and would have bent to the stronger force. But Katharine was a bad hand at
+changing sides, and Wolsey dared not openly do so.
+
+For a few days in the summer of 1528, whilst Campeggio was still lingering
+on the Continent, it looked as if a mightier power than any of them might
+settle the question for once and all. Henry and Anne were at Greenwich
+when the plague broke out in London. In June one of Anne's attendants
+fell ill of the malady, and Henry in a panic sent his favourite to Hever,
+whilst he hurried from place to place in Hertfordshire. The plague
+followed him. Sir Francis Poyns, Sir William Compton, William Carey, and
+other members of his Court died in the course of the epidemic, and the
+dread news soon reached Henry that Anne and her father were both stricken
+at Hever Castle. Henry had written daily to her whilst they had been
+separated. "Since your last letter, mine own darling," he wrote a few days
+after she left, "Walter Welsh, Master Brown, Thomas Care, Grion of
+Brereton, and John Coke the apothecary have fallen of the sweat in this
+house.... By the mercy of God the rest of us be yet well, and I trust
+shall pass it, either not to have it, or at least as easily as the rest
+have done." Later he wrote: "The uneasiness my doubts about your health
+gave me, disturbed and alarmed me exceedingly; and I should not have had
+any quiet without hearing certain tidings. But now, since you have felt as
+yet nothing, I hope, and am assured, that it will spare you, as I hope it
+is doing with us. For when we were at Waltham two ushers, two valets, and
+your brother, master-treasurer, fell ill, but are now quite well; and
+since we have returned to our house at Hunsdon we have been perfectly
+well, and have not now one sick person, God be praised. I think if you
+would retire from Surrey, as we did, you would escape all danger. There is
+another thing may comfort you, which is, in truth, that in this distemper
+few or no women have been taken ill, and no person of our Court has
+died.[61] For which reason I beg you, my entirely beloved, not to frighten
+yourself, nor be too uneasy at our absence, for wherever I am, I am yours:
+and yet we must sometimes submit to our misfortunes; for whoever will
+struggle against fate is generally but so much the further from gaining
+his end. Wherefore, comfort yourself and take courage, and avoid the
+pestilence as much as you can; for I hope shortly to make you sing _la
+renvoyé_. No more at present from lack of time, but that I wish you in my
+arms that I might a little dispel your unreasonable thoughts. Written by
+the hand of him who is, and always will be, yours."
+
+When the news of Anne's illness reached him he despatched one of his
+physicians post haste with the following letter to his favourite: "There
+came to me suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have
+arrived. The first, to hear the sickness of my mistress, whom I esteem
+more than all the world, and whose health I desire as I do my own, so that
+I would gladly bear half your illness to make you well; the second, the
+fear that I have of being still longer harassed by my enemy--your
+absence--much longer ... who is, so far as I can judge, determined to
+spite me more, because I pray God to rid me of this troublesome tormentor;
+the third, because the physician in whom I have most confidence is absent
+at the very time when he might be of the most service to me, for I should
+hope by his means to obtain one of my chiefest joys on earth--that is, the
+care of my mistress. Yet, for want of him, I send you my second, and hope
+that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I
+beseech you to be guided by his advice, and I hope soon to see you again,
+which will be to me a greater comfort than all the precious jewels in the
+world." In a few days Anne was out of danger, and the hopes and fears
+aroused by her illness gave place to the old intrigues again.
+
+A few weeks later Anne was with her lover at Ampthill, hoping and praying
+daily for the coming of the gouty Legate, who was slowly being carried
+through France to the coast. Wolsey had to be very humble now, for Anne
+had shown her ability to make Henry brave him, and the King rebuked him
+publicly at her bidding,[62] but until Campeggio came and the fateful
+decision was given that would make Anne a Queen, both she and Henry
+diplomatically alternated cajolery with the humbling process towards the
+Cardinal. Anne's well-known letter with Henry's postscript, so earnestly
+asking Wolsey for news of Campeggio, is written in most affectionate
+terms, Anne saying, amongst other pretty things, that she "loves him next
+unto the King's grace, above all creatures living." But the object of her
+wheedling was only to gain news of the speedy coming of the Legate. The
+King's postscript to this letter is characteristic of him. "The writer of
+this letter would not cease till she had caused me likewise to set my
+hand, desiring you, though it be short, to take it in good part. I assure
+you that there is neither of us but greatly desireth to see you, and are
+joyous to hear that you have escaped the plague so well; trusting the fury
+thereof to be passed, especially with them that keepeth good diet, as I
+trust you do. The not hearing of the Legate's arrival in France causeth us
+somewhat to muse: notwithstanding, we trust, by your diligence and
+vigilance, with the assistance of Almighty God, shortly to be eased out of
+that trouble."[63]
+
+Campeggio was nearly four months on his way, urged forward everywhere by
+English agents and letters, held back everywhere by the Pope's fears and
+his own ailments; but at last, one joyful day in the middle of September,
+Henry could write to his lady-love at Hever: "The Legate which we most
+desire arrived at Paris on Sunday last past, so that I trust next Monday
+to hear of his arrival at Calais: and then I trust within a while after to
+enjoy that which I have so long longed for, to God's pleasure and both our
+comfort. No more to you at present, mine own darling, for lack of time,
+but that I would you were in mine arms, or I in yours, for I think it long
+since I kissed you." Henry had to wait longer than in his lover-like
+eagerness he had expected; it was fully a fortnight before he had news of
+Campeggio's arrival at Dover. Great preparations had been made to
+entertain the Papal Legate splendidly in London, and on his way thither;
+but he was suffering and sorry, and begged to be saved the fatigue of a
+public reception. So ill was he that, rather than face the streets of
+London on the day he was expected, he lodged for the night at the Duke of
+Suffolk's house on the Surrey side of London bridge, and the next day, 8th
+October, was quietly carried in the Duke's barge across the river to the
+Bishop of Bath's palace beyond Temple Bar, where he was to lodge. There he
+remained ill in bed, until the King's impatience would brook no further
+delay; and on the 12th he was carried, sick as he was, and sorely against
+his will, in a crimson velvet chair for his first audience.
+
+In the great hall of the palace of Bridewell, hard by Blackfriars, Henry
+sat in a chair of state, with Wolsey and Campeggio on his right hand,
+whilst one of the Legate's train delivered a fulsome Latin oration,
+setting forth the iniquitous outrages perpetrated by the imperialists upon
+the Vicar of Christ, and the love and gratitude of the Pontiff for his
+dearest son Henry for his aid and sympathy. The one thing apparently that
+the Pope desired was to please his benefactor, the King of England. When
+the public ceremony was over, Henry took Campeggio and Wolsey into a
+private room; and the day following the King came secretly to Campeggio's
+lodging, and for four long hours plied the suffering churchman with
+arguments and authorities which would justify the divorce. Up to this time
+Campeggio had fondly imagined that he might, with the Papal authority,
+persuade Henry to abandon his object. But this interview undeceived him.
+He found the King, as he says, better versed in the matter "than a great
+theologian or jurist"; and Campeggio opined at last that "if an angel
+descended from heaven he would be unable to persuade him" that the
+marriage was valid. When, however, Campeggio suggested that the Queen
+might be induced to enter a convent, Henry was delighted. If they would
+only prevail upon her to do that she should have everything she demanded:
+the title of Queen and all her dowry, revenue, and belongings; the
+Princess Mary should be acknowledged heiress to the crown, failing
+legitimate male issue to the King, and all should be done to Katharine's
+liking. Accordingly, the next day, 14th October, Campeggio and Wolsey took
+boat and went to try their luck with the Queen, after seeing the King for
+the third time. Beginning with a long sanctimonious rigmarole, Campeggio
+pressed her to take a "course which would give general satisfaction and
+greatly benefit herself"; and Wolsey, on his knees, and in English,
+seconded his colleague's advice. Katharine was cold and collected. She
+was, she said, a foreigner in England without skilled advice, and she
+declined at present to say anything. She had asked the King to assign
+councillors to aid her, and when she had consulted them she would see the
+Legates again.
+
+As day broke across the Thames on the 25th October, Campeggio lay awake in
+bed at Bath House, suffering the tortures of gout, and perturbed at the
+difficult position in which he was placed, when Wolsey was announced,
+having come from York Place in his barge. When the Cardinal entered the
+room he told his Italian colleague that the King had appointed Archbishop
+Warham, Bishop Fisher, and others, to be councillors for the Queen, and
+that the Queen had obtained her husband's permission to come to Campeggio
+and confess that morning. At nine o'clock Katharine came unobserved to
+Bath House by water, and was closeted for long with the Italian Cardinal.
+What she told him was under the sacred seal of the confessional, but she
+prayed that the Pope might in strict secrecy be informed of certain of the
+particulars arising out of her statements. She reviewed the whole of her
+life from the day of her arrival in England, and solemnly swore on her
+conscience that she had only slept with young Arthur seven nights, _é che
+da lui restó intacta é incorrupta_;[64] and this assertion, _as far as it
+goes_, we may accept as the truth, seeing the solemn circumstances under
+which it was made. But when Campeggio again urged Katharine to get them
+all out of their difficulty by retiring to a convent and letting the King
+have his way, she almost vehemently declared that "she would die as she
+had lived, a wife, as God had made her." "Let a sentence be given," she
+said, "and if it be against me I shall be free to do as I like, even as my
+husband will." "But neither the whole realm, nor, on the other hand, the
+greatest punishment, even being torn limb from limb, shall alter me in
+this, and if after death I were to return to life, I would die again, and
+yet again, rather than I would give way." Against such firmness as this
+the poor, flaccid old churchman could do nothing but hold up his hands
+and sigh at the idea of any one being so obstinate.
+
+A day or two afterwards Wolsey and Campeggio saw the Queen again formally.
+She was on this occasion attended by her advisers, and once more heard,
+coldly and irresponsively, the appeals to her prudence, her worldly
+wisdom, her love for her daughter, and every other feeling that could lead
+her to cut the gordian knot that baffled them all. "She would do nothing
+to her soul's damnation or against God's law," she said, as she dismissed
+them. Whether it was at this interview, or, as it seems to me more likely,
+the previous one that she broke out in violent invective against Wolsey
+for his enmity towards the Emperor, we know not, but the storm of bitter
+words she poured upon him for his pride, his falsity, his ambition, and
+his greed; her taunts at his intrigues to get the Papacy, and her burning
+scorn that her marriage, unquestioned for twenty years, should be doubted
+now,[65] must have finally convinced both Wolsey and Campeggio that if
+Henry was firm Katharine was firmer still. Campeggio was in a pitiable
+state of mind, imploring the Pope by every post to tell him what to do. He
+and Wolsey at one time conceived the horrible idea of marrying the
+Princess Mary to her half brother, the Duke of Richmond, as a solution of
+the succession difficulty, and the Pope appears to have been inclined to
+allow it;[66] but it was soon admitted that the course proposed would not
+forward, but rather retard, the King's second marriage, and that was the
+main object sought.
+
+At length Wolsey ruefully understood that conciliation was impossible;
+and, pressed as he was by the King, was forced to insist with Campeggio
+that the cause must be judicially decided without further delay. Illness,
+prayerful attempts to bring one side or the other to reason, and many
+other excuses for procrastination were tried, but at length Campeggio had
+to confess to his colleague that the Pope's decretal, laying down the law
+in the case in Henry's favour, was only a show document not to be used, or
+to leave his possession for a moment; and, moreover, that no final
+judgment could be given by him that was not submitted to the Pope's
+confirmation. Wolsey was aghast, and wrote in rage and indignation to the
+English agent with the Pope denouncing this bad faith.[67] "I see ruin,
+infamy, and subversion of the whole dignity and estimation of the
+Apostolic See if this course be persisted in. You see in what dangerous
+times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and how
+much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that the course
+he now pursues will drive the King to adopt those remedies that are so
+injurious to the Pope, and are frequently instilled into the King's mind.
+Without the Pope's compliance I cannot bear up against the storm; and when
+I reflect upon the conduct of his Holiness I cannot but fear lest the
+common enemy of souls, seeing the King's determination, inspires the Pope
+with his present fears and reluctance, which will alienate all the faith
+and devotion from the Apostolic See.... It is useless for Campeggio to
+think of reviving the marriage. If he did it would lead to worse
+consequences. Let him therefore proceed to sentence. Prostrate at the feet
+of his Holiness I most urgently beg of him to set aside all delays."
+
+This cry, wrung evidently from Wolsey's heart at the knowledge of his own
+danger, is the first articulate expression of the tremendous religious
+issue that might depend upon the conduct of the various parties in the
+divorce proceedings. The fire lit by Luther a few years previously had
+spread apace in Germany, and had reached England. All Christendom would
+soon have to range itself in two divisions, cutting athwart old national
+affinities and alliances. Charles had defied Luther at the outset; and the
+traditions of his Spanish house made him, the most powerful monarch in
+Europe, the champion of orthodoxy. But his relations with the Papacy, as
+we have seen, had not been uniformly cordial. To him the Pope was a little
+Italian prince whilst he was a great one, and he was jealous of the
+slightest interference of Rome with the Spanish Church. His position in
+Germany, moreover, as suzerain of the princes of the Empire, some of whom
+already leant to Lutheranism, complicated the situation: so that it was
+not yet absolutely certain that Charles would finally stake everything
+upon the unification of the Christian Church by force, on the lines of
+strict Papal authority.
+
+On the other hand, both Francis and Henry had for political reasons
+strongly supported the Pope in his greatest distress, and their religion
+was certainly no less faithful than that of the Emperor. It was inevitable
+that, whichever side Charles took in the coming religious struggle, would
+not for political reasons commend itself to Francis, and _vice versa_; and
+everything depended upon the weight which Henry might cast into one scale
+or the other. His national traditions and personal inclination would lead
+him to side with Charles, but at the crucial moment, when the first grain
+had to be dropped into the balance, he found himself bound by Wolsey's
+policy to Francis, and at issue with the Emperor, owing to the
+relationship of the latter to Katharine. Wolsey felt, in the letter quoted
+above, that the Pope's shilly-shally, in order not to offend the Emperor,
+would drive the impatient King of England to flout, and perhaps break
+with, the Papacy, and events proved that the Cardinal was right in his
+fears. We shall see later how the rift widened, but here the first fine
+crevice is visible.
+
+Henry, prompted by Anne and his vanity, intended to have his way at
+whatever cost. Katharine could give him no son: he would marry a woman who
+could do so, and one that he loved far better than he ever loved his wife.
+In ordinary circumstances there need have been no great difficulty about
+the divorce, nor would there have been in this case, but for the peculiar
+political and religious situation of Europe at the time, and but for
+Katharine's unbending rigidity of character. She might have made her own
+terms if she had consented to the conciliatory suggestions of the
+churchmen. The legality of her marriage would have been declared, her
+daughter recognised as heiress presumptive, her own great revenues would
+have been left to her, and her title of Queen respected.[68] She was not
+even to be asked to immure herself in a convent, or to take any conventual
+vow but that of chastity, if she would only consent to a divorce on the
+ground of her desire to devote herself to religion.[69] As Campeggio
+repeated a dozen times, the only thing she would be asked to surrender was
+conjugal relations with the King, that had ceased for years, and in no
+case would be renewed. Much as we may admire her firmness, it is
+impossible to avoid seeing that the course recommended to her was that
+which would have best served, not only her own interest and happiness, but
+also those of her daughter, of her religion, and of the good relations
+between Henry and the Emperor that she had so much at heart.
+
+Henry, on his side, was determined to allow nothing to stand in his way,
+whilst keeping up his appearance of impeccability. Legal and
+ecclesiastical authorities in England and France were besought to give
+their sanction to his view that no Pope had the power of dispensation for
+a marriage with a deceased brother's widow; and the English clergy were
+assured that the King only sought an impartial authoritative decision for
+the relief of his own conscience. The attitude of the English people gave
+him some uneasiness; for, like all his house, he loved popularity. "The
+common people, being ignorant," we are told, "and others that favoured the
+Queen, talked largely, and said that for his own pleasure the King would
+have another wife, and had sent for this Legate to be divorced from the
+Queen, with many foolish words; inasmuch as, whosoever spake against the
+marriage was of the common people abhorred and reproved."[70] The feeling
+indeed in favour of Katharine was so outspoken and general that the King
+took the unusual course of assembling the nobles, judges, and so many of
+the people as could enter, in the great hall of Bridewell, on Sunday
+afternoon, the 8th November, to endeavour personally to justify himself in
+the eyes of his subjects.
+
+As usual with him, his great aim was by sanctimonious protestations to
+make himself appear a pure-souled altruist, and to throw upon others the
+responsibility for his actions. He painted in dismal colours the dangers
+to his subjects of a disputed succession on his death. "And, although it
+hath pleased Almighty God to send us a fair daughter by a noble woman and
+me begotten, to our great joy and comfort, yet it hath been told us by
+divers great clerks that neither she is our lawful daughter, nor her
+mother our lawful wife, and that we live together abominably and
+detestably in open adultery." He swore, almost blasphemously, that for
+the relief of his conscience he only sought authoritatively to know the
+truth as to the validity of his marriage, and that Campeggio had come as
+an impartial judge to decide it. If Katharine was adjudged to be his wife
+nothing would be more pleasant or acceptable to him, and he praised her to
+the skies, as a noble lady against whom no words could be spoken.[71] The
+measure of his sincerity is seen when we compare this hypocritical
+harangue with the letters now before us to and from his envoys in Rome, by
+which it is evident that the last thing he desired was an impartial
+judgment, or indeed any judgment, but one that would set him free to marry
+again. One of the most extraordinary means employed to influence Katharine
+soon after this appears to have been another visit to her of Wolsey and
+Campeggio. They were to say that the King had intelligence of a conspiracy
+against him and Wolsey by her friends and the Emperor's English partisans;
+and they warned her that if anything of the sort occurred she would be to
+blame. They were then to complain of her bearing towards the King, "who
+was now persuaded by her behaviour that she did not love him." "She
+encouraged ladies and gentlemen to dance and make merry," for instance,
+whereas "she had better tell them to pray for a good end of the matter at
+issue." "She shows no pensiveness of countenance, nor in her apparel nor
+behaviour. She shows herself too much to the people, rejoicing greatly in
+their exclamations and ill obloquy; and, by beckoning with her head and
+smiling, which she has not been accustomed to do in times past, rather
+encouraged them in doing so." For all this and many other things the King
+does not consider it fitting to be in her company, or to let the Princess
+be with her. The acme of hypocrisy was reached in the assurance the
+Legates were then to give the Queen, that if she would behave well and go
+into a convent, the King neither could, nor would, marry another wife in
+her lifetime; and she could come out to the world again if the sentence
+were in her favour. Let her go, they said, and submit to the King on her
+knees, and he would be good to her, but otherwise he would be more angry
+than ever.[72] Scornful silence was the Queen's reply.
+
+After this Katharine lived lonely and depressed at Greenwich, frequently
+closeted with Bishop Fisher and others of her councillors, whilst Henry
+was strengthening his case with the opinions of jurists, and by attempts
+to influence Campeggio. To Greenwich he went, accompanied by Anne and a
+brilliant Court, to show the Italian Cardinal how bounteously a Christmas
+could be spent in England. Campeggio's son was knighted and regaled with
+costly presents, and all that bribes (the Bishopric of Durham, &c.) and
+flattery might do was done to influence the Legate favourably; but
+throughout the gay doings, jousts and tourneys, banquets and maskings,
+"the Queen showed to them no manner of countenance, and made no great joy
+of nothing, her mind was so troubled."[73] Well might it be, poor soul,
+for Anne was by the King's side, pert and insolent, surrounded by a
+growing party of Wolsey's enemies, who cared little for Pope or Emperor,
+and who waited impatiently for the time when Anne should rule the King
+alone, and they, through her, should rule England. Katharine, in good
+truth, was in everybody's way, for even her nephew could not afford to
+quarrel with England for her sake, and her death or disappearance would
+have made a reconciliation easy, especially if Wolsey, the friend of
+France, fell also.
+
+"Anne," we are told by the French ambassador, "was lodged in a fine
+apartment close to that of the King, and greater court was now paid to her
+every day than has been paid to the Queen for a long time. I see that they
+mean to accustom the people by degrees to endure her, so that when the
+great blow comes it may not be, thought strange. But the people remain
+quite hardened (against her), and I think they would do more if they had
+more power."
+
+Thus the months passed, the Pope being plied by alternate threats and
+hopes, both by English and Spanish agents, until he was nearly beside
+himself, Wolsey almost frantically professing his desire to forward the
+King's object, and Campeggio temporising and trying to find a means of
+conciliation which would leave the King free. Katharine herself remained
+immovable. She had asked for and obtained from the Emperor a copy of the
+Papal brief authorising her marriage with Henry, but the King's advocates
+questioned its authenticity,[74] and even her own advisers urged her to
+obey her husband's request that she should demand of the Emperor the
+original document. Constrained by her sworn pledge to write nothing to the
+Emperor without the King's knowledge, she sent the letter dictated to her,
+urgently praying her nephew to send the original brief to England. The
+letter was carried to Spain by her young English confessor, Thomas Abel,
+whom she did not entirely trust, and sent with him her Spanish usher,
+Montoya; but they had verbal instructions from their mistress to pray the
+Emperor to disregard her written request, and refuse to part with the
+brief, and to exert all his influence to have the case decided in
+Rome.[75] By this it will be seen that Katharine was fully a match in
+duplicity for those against whom she was pitted. She never wavered from
+first to last in her determination to refuse to acknowledge the sentence
+of any court sitting in England on her case, and to resist all attempts to
+induce her to withdraw voluntarily from her conjugal position and enter a
+nunnery. Henry, and especially Anne, in the meanwhile, were growing
+impatient at all this calculated delay, and began to throw the blame upon
+Wolsey. "The young lady used very rude words to him," wrote Du Bellay on
+the 25th January, and "the Duke of Norfolk and his party already began to
+talk big."[76] A few days afterwards Mendoza, in a letter to the Emperor,
+spoke even more strongly. "The young lady that is the cause of all this
+disorder, finding her marriage delayed, that she thought herself so sure
+of, entertains great suspicion that Wolsey puts impediments in her way,
+from a belief that if she were Queen his power would decline. In this
+suspicion she is joined by her father and the Dukes of Norfolk and
+Suffolk, who have combined to overthrow the Cardinal." "The King is so hot
+upon it (the divorce) that there is nothing he does not promise to gain
+his end.... Campeggio has done nothing for the Queen as yet but to press
+her to enter religion."[77]
+
+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 daďs were two chairs of state,
+covered with cloth of gold, and on the right side of the daďs 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?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+1530-1534
+
+HENRY'S DEFIANCE--THE VICTORY OF ANNE
+
+
+The deadlock with regard to the validity of the marriage could not
+continue indefinitely, for the legitimacy of the Princess Mary having been
+called into question, the matter now vitally touched the succession to the
+English crown. Katharine was immovable. She would neither retire to a
+convent nor accept a decision from an English tribunal, and, through her
+proctor in Rome, she passionately pressed for a decision there in her
+favour. Norfolk, at the end of his not very extensive mental resources,
+could only wish that both Katharine and Anne were dead and the King
+married to some one else. The Pope was ready to do anything that did not
+offend the Emperor to bring about peace; and when, under pressure from
+Henry and Norfolk, the English prelates and peers, including Wolsey and
+Warham, signed a petition to the Pope saying that Henry's marriage should
+be dissolved, or they must seek a remedy for themselves in the English
+Parliament, Clement was almost inclined to give way; for schism in England
+he dreaded before all things. But Charles's troops were in Rome and his
+agents for ever bullying the wretched Pope, and the latter was obliged to
+reply finally to the English peers with a rebuke. There were those both
+in England and abroad who urged Henry to marry Anne at once, and depend
+upon the recognition of the _fait accompli_ by means of negotiation
+afterwards, but this did not satisfy either the King or the favourite.
+Every interview between the King and the Nuncio grew more bitter than the
+previous one. No English cause, swore Henry, should be tried outside his
+realm where he was master; and if the Pope insisted in giving judgment for
+the Queen, as he had promised the Emperor to do, the English Parliament
+should deal with the matter in spite of Rome.
+
+The first ecclesiastical thunderclap came in October 1530, when Henry
+published a proclamation reminding the lieges of the old law of England
+that forbade the Pope from exercising direct jurisdiction in the realm by
+Bull or Brief. No one could understand at the time what was meant, but
+when the Nuncio in perturbation went and asked Norfolk and Suffolk the
+reason of so strange a proclamation at such a time, they replied roughly,
+that they "cared nothing for Popes in England ... the King was Emperor and
+Pope too in his own realm." Later, Henry told the Nuncio that the Pope had
+outraged convention by summoning him before a foreign tribunal, and should
+now be taught that no usurpation of power would be allowed in England. The
+Parliament was called, said Henry, to restrain the encroachment of the
+clergy generally, and unless the Pope met his wishes promptly a blow would
+be struck at all clerical pretensions. The reply of the Pope was another
+brief forbidding Henry's second marriage, and threatening Parliaments and
+Bishops in England if they dared to meddle in the matter. The question
+was thus rapidly drifting into an international one on religious lines,
+which involved either the submission of Henry or schism from the Church.
+The position of the English clergy was an especially difficult one. They
+naturally resented any curtailment of the privileges of their order,
+though they dared not speak too loudly, for they owed the enjoyment of
+their temporalities to the King. But they were all sons of the Church,
+looking to Rome for spiritual authority, and were in mortal dread of the
+advance of the new spirit of religious freedom aroused in Germany. The
+method of bridling them adopted by Henry was as clever as it was
+unscrupulous. The Bull giving to Wolsey independent power to judge the
+matrimonial cause in England as Legate, had been, as will be recollected,
+demanded by the King and recognised by him, as it had been, of course, by
+the clergy; but in January 1531, when Parliament and Convocation met, the
+English clergy found themselves laid under Premunire by the King for
+having recognised the Legatine Bull; and were told that as subjects of the
+crown, and not of the Pope, they had thus rendered themselves liable to
+the punishment for treason. The unfortunate clergy were panic-stricken at
+this new move, and looked in vain to Rome for support against their own
+King; but Rome, as usual, was trying to run with the hare and hunt with
+the hounds, and could only wail at the obstinacy both of Henry and
+Katharine.
+
+In the previous sitting of Parliament in 1529, severe laws had been passed
+against the laxity and extortion of the English ecclesiastics,
+notwithstanding the violent indignation of Fisher of Rochester; but what
+was now demanded of them as a condition of their pardon for recognising
+the Bull was practically to repudiate the authority of the Pope over them,
+and to recognise the King of England as supreme head of the Church, in
+addition to paying the tremendous fine of a hundred thousand pounds. They
+were in utter consternation, and they struggled hard; but the alternative
+to submission was ruin, and the majority gave way. The die was cast: Henry
+was Pope and King in one, and could settle his own cause in his own way.
+When the English clergy had thus been brought to heel, Henry's opponents
+saw that they had driven him too far, and were aghast at his unexpected
+exhibition of strength, a strength, be it noted, not his own, as will be
+explained later; and somewhat moderated their tone. But the King of
+England snapped his fingers now at threats of excommunication, and cared
+nothing, he said, for any decision from Rome. The Emperor dared not go to
+war with England about Katharine, for the French were busily drawing
+towards the Pope, whose niece, Katharine de Medici, was to be betrothed to
+the son of Francis; and the imperial agents in Rome ceased to insist so
+pertinaciously upon a decision of the matrimonial suit.
+
+Katharine alone clamoured unceasingly that her "hell upon earth" should be
+ended by a decision in her favour from the Sovereign Pontiff. Her friends
+in England were many, for the old party of nobles were rallying again to
+her side, even Norfolk was secretly in her favour, or at least against
+the King's marriage with his niece Anne, and Henry's new bold step against
+the Papacy, taken under bureaucratic influence, had aroused much fear and
+jealousy amongst prelates like Fisher and jurists like More, as well as
+amongst the aristocratic party in the country. Desperate efforts were made
+to prevent the need for further action in defiance of the Papacy by the
+decision of the matrimonial suit by the English Parliament; and early in
+June 1531 Henry and his Council decided to put fresh pressure upon
+Katharine to get her to consent to a suspension of the proceedings in
+Rome, and to the relegation of the case to a tribunal in some neutral
+territory. Katharine at Greenwich had secret knowledge of the intention,
+and she can hardly have been so surprised as she pretended to be when, as
+she was about to retire to rest, at nine o'clock at night, to learn that
+the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, and some thirty other nobles and
+prelates, sought audience of her. Norfolk spoke first, and in the King's
+name complained bitterly of the slight put upon him by the Pope's
+citation. He urged the Queen, for the sake of England, for the memory of
+the political services of Henry to her kin, and his past kindness to her,
+to meet his wishes and consent to a neutral tribunal judging between them.
+Katharine was, as usual, cool and contemptuous. No one was more sorry than
+she for the King's annoyance, though she had not been the cause of it; but
+there was only one judge in the world competent to deal with the case.
+"His Holiness, who keeps the place, and has the power, of God upon earth,
+and is the image of eternal truth." As for recognising her husband as
+supreme head of the Church, that she would never do. When Dr. Lee spoke
+harshly, telling her that she knew that, her first marriage having been
+consummated, her second was never legal, she vehemently denied the fact,
+and told him angrily to go to Rome and argue. He would find there others
+than a lone woman to answer him. Dr. Sampson then took up the parable and
+reproached her for her determination to have the case settled so quickly;
+and she replied to him that if he had passed such bitter days as she had,
+he would be in a hurry too. Dr. Stokesley was dealt with similarly by the
+Queen; and she then proudly protested at being thus baited late at night
+by a crowd of men; she, "a poor woman without friends or counsel." Norfolk
+reminded her that the King had appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
+Bishop of Durham, and the Bishop of Rochester to advise her. "Pretty
+councillors they are," she replied. "If I ask for Canterbury's advice he
+tells me he will have nothing to do with it, and for ever repeats _ira
+principis mors est_. The Bishop of Durham dares to say nothing because he
+is the King's subject, and Rochester only tells me to keep a good heart
+and hope for the best."
+
+Katharine knew it not, but many of those before her were really her
+friends. Gardiner, now first Secretary, looked with fear upon the Lutheran
+innovations, Guilford the Controller, Lord Talbot, and even Norfolk wished
+her well, and feared the advent of Anne; and Guilford, less prudent than
+the rest, spoke so frankly that the favourite heard of his words. She
+broke out in furious invective against him before his face. "When I am
+Queen of England," she cried, "you will soon lose your office." "You need
+not wait so long," he replied, as he went straightway to deliver his seals
+to the King. Henry told him he ought not to mind an angry woman's talk,
+and was loath to accept his resignation; but the Controller insisted, and
+another rankling enemy was raised up to Anne. The favour she enjoyed had
+fairly turned her head, and her insolence, even to those who in any case
+had a right to her respect, had made her thoroughly detested. The Duke of
+Suffolk, enemy of the Papacy as he was, and the King's brother-in-law, was
+as anxious now as Talbot, Guilford, and Fitzwilliam to avert the marriage
+with Anne, who was setting all the Court by the ears. Katharine's attitude
+made matters worse. She still lived under the same roof as the King,
+though he rarely saw her except on public occasions, and her haughty
+replies to all his emissaries, and her constant threats of what the
+Emperor might do, irritated Henry beyond endurance under the taunts of
+Anne. The latter was bitterly jealous also of the young Princess Mary, of
+whom Henry was fond; and by many spiteful, petty acts of persecution, the
+girl's life was made unhappy. Once when Henry praised his daughter in
+Anne's presence, the latter broke out into violent abuse of her, and on
+another occasion, when Katharine begged to be allowed to visit the
+Princess, Henry told her roughly that she could go away as soon as she
+liked, and stop away. But Katharine stood her ground. She would not leave
+her husband, she said, even for her daughter, until she was forced to do
+so. Henry's patience was nearly tired out between Anne's constant
+importunities and Katharine's dignified immobility; and leaving his wife
+and daughter at Windsor, he went off on a hunting progress with Anne, in
+the hope that he might soon be relieved of the presence of Katharine
+altogether. Public feeling was indignantly in favour of the Queen; and it
+was no uncommon thing for people to waylay the King, whilst he was
+hunting, with entreaties that he would live with his wife again; and
+wherever Anne went the women loudly cried shame upon her.
+
+In his distraction Henry was at a loss what to do. He always wanted to
+appear in the right, and he dared not imprison or openly ill-treat
+Katharine, for his own people favoured her, and all Europe would have
+joined in condemning him; yet it was clear that even Windsor Castle was
+not, in future, big enough for both Queen and favourite at the same time,
+and positive orders at length were sent to Katharine, in the autumn of
+1531, to take up her residence at More in Hertfordshire, in a house
+formerly belonging to Wolsey.[80] She obeyed with a heavy heart, for it
+meant parting--and for ever--with her daughter, who was sent to live at
+Richmond, and was strictly forbidden to communicate with her mother.
+Katharine said she would have preferred to have been sent to the Tower, to
+being consigned to a place so unfit for her as More, with its foul ways
+and ruinous surroundings, but nothing broke her spirit or humbled her
+pride. Her household was still regal in its extent, for we are told by an
+Italian visitor to her that "thirty maids of honour stood around her table
+when she dined, and there were fifty who performed its service: her
+household consisting of about two hundred persons in all." But her state
+was a mockery now; for Lady Anne, she knew, was with her husband, loudly
+boasting that within three or four months she would be a queen, and
+already playing the part insolently. The Privy Purse expenses of the
+period show how openly Anne was acknowledged as being Henry's actual
+consort. Not only did she accompany the King everywhere on his excursions
+and progresses, and partake of the receptions offered to him by local
+authorities and nobles,[81] but large sums of money were paid out of the
+King's treasury for the gorgeous garb in which she loved to appear. Purple
+velvet at half a guinea a yard, costly furs and linen, bows and arrows,
+liveries for her servants, and all sorts of fine gear were bought for
+Anne. The Lord Mayor of London, in June 1530, sent her a present of
+cherries, and the bearer got a reward of 6s. 8d. Soon after Anne's
+greyhounds killed a cow, and the Privy Purse had to pay the damage, 10s.
+In November, 19-3/4 yards of crimson satin at 15s. a yard had to be paid
+for to make Lady Anne a robe, and Ł8, 8s. for budge skins was paid soon
+afterwards. When Christmas came and card-playing was in season, my Lady
+Anne must have playing money, Ł20 all in groats; and when she lost, as she
+did pretty heavily, her losings had to be paid by the treasurer, though
+her winnings she kept for herself. No less than a hundred pounds was given
+to her as a New Year's gift in 1531. A few weeks afterwards, a farm at
+Greenwich was bought for her for Ł66; and her writing-desk had to be
+adorned with latten and gold at a great cost. As the year 1531 advanced
+and Katharine's cause became more desperate, the extravagance of her rival
+grew; and when in the autumn of that year the Queen was finally banished
+from Court, Anne's bills for dressmaker's finery amounted to extravagant
+proportions.
+
+The position was rendered the more bitter for Katharine when she
+recognised that the Pope, in a fright now at Henry's defiance, was trying
+to meet him half way, and was listening to the suggestion of referring the
+question to a tribunal at Cambray or elsewhere; whilst the Emperor himself
+was only anxious to get the cause settled somehow without an open affront
+to his house or necessary cause for quarrel with Henry.[82] And yet,
+withal, the divorce did not seem to make headway in England itself. As we
+have seen, the common people were strongly against it: the clergy,
+trembling, as well they might, for their privileges between the Pope and
+the King, were naturally as a body in favour of the ecclesiastical view;
+and many of Henry and Anne's clerical instruments, such as Dr. Bennet in
+Rome and Dr. Sampson at Vienna, were secretly working against the cause
+they were supposed to be aiding: even some of the new prelates, such as
+Gardiner of Winchester and Stokesley of London, grew less active advocates
+when they understood that upon them and their order would fall ultimately
+the responsibility of declaring invalid a marriage which the Church and
+the Pope had sanctioned. Much stronger still even was the dislike to the
+King's marriage on the part of the older nobility, whose enmity to Wolsey
+had first made the marriage appear practicable. They had sided with Anne
+to overthrow Wolsey; but the obstinate determination of the King to rid
+himself of his wife and marry his favourite, had brought forward new
+clerical and bureaucratic ministers whose proceedings and advice alarmed
+the aristocracy much more than anything Wolsey had done. If Katharine had
+been tactful, or even an able politician, she had the materials at hand to
+form a combination in favour of herself and her daughter, before which
+Henry, coward as he was, would have quailed. But she lacked the qualities
+necessary for a leader: she irritated the King without frightening him,
+and instead of conciliating the nobles who really sympathised with her,
+though they were forced to do the King's bidding, she snubbed them
+haughtily and drove them from her.
+
+Anne flattered and pleased the King, but it was hardly her mind that moved
+him to defy the powerful Papacy, or sustained him in his fight with his
+own clergy. From the first we have seen him leaning upon some adviser who
+would relieve him from responsibility whilst giving him all the honour for
+success. He desired the divorce above all things; but, as usual, he wanted
+to shelter himself behind other authority than his own. When in 1529 he
+had been seeking learned opinions to influence the Pope, chance had thrown
+the two ecclesiastics who were his instruments, Fox and Gardiner, into
+contact with a learned theologian and Reader in Divinity at Cambridge
+University. Thomas Cranmer had studied and lived much. He was a widower,
+and Fellow of Magdalene, Cambridge, of forty years of age; and although in
+orders and a Doctor of Divinity, his tastes were rather those of a learned
+country gentleman than of an ecclesiastic in monkish times. In
+conversation with Fox and Gardiner, this high authority on theology
+expressed the opinion that instead of enduring the delays of the
+ecclesiastical courts, the question of the legality of the King's marriage
+should be decided by divines from the words of the Scriptures themselves.
+The idea seemed a good one, and Henry jumped at it. In an interview soon
+afterwards he ordered Cranmer to put his arguments into a book, and placed
+him in the household of Anne's father, the Earl of Wiltshire, to
+facilitate the writing of it. The religious movement in Germany had found
+many echoes in England, and doubtless Cranmer conscientiously objected to
+Papal control. Certain it is that, fortified as he was by the
+encouragement of Anne and her father, his book was a persuasive one, and
+greatly pleased the King, who sent it to the Pope and others. Nor did
+Cranmer's activity stay there. He entered into disputation everywhere,
+with the object of gaining theological recruits for the King's side, and
+wrote a powerful refutation of Reginald Pole's book in favour of
+Katharine. The King thought so highly of Cranmer's controversial ability
+that he sent him with Lee, Stokesley, and other theologians to Rome,
+Paris, and elsewhere on the Continent, to forward the divorce, and from
+Rome he was commissioned as English Ambassador with the Emperor.
+
+Whilst Cranmer was thus fighting the King's battle abroad, another
+instrument came to Henry's hand for use in England. On the disgrace of
+Wolsey, his secretary, Thomas Cromwell, was recommended to Henry by
+friends. The King disliked him, and at first refused to see him; but
+consented to do so when it was hinted that Cromwell was the sort of man
+who would serve him well in what he had at heart. The hint was a
+well-founded one; for Thomas Cromwell was as ambitious and unscrupulous as
+his master had been; strong, bold, and fortunately unhampered by
+ecclesiastical orders. When Henry received him in the gardens at
+Whitehall, Cromwell spoke as no priest, and few laymen, would have dared
+to do: for, apart from the divorce question, there was to be no dallying
+with heresy if Henry could help it, and the fires of Smithfield burning
+doubters were already beginning to blaze under the influence of Sir Thomas
+More. "Sire," said Cromwell to the King, "the Pope refuses you a divorce
+... why wait for his consent? Every Englishman is master in his own house,
+and why should not you be so in England? Ought a foreign prelate to share
+your power with you? It is true the bishops make oath to your Majesty; but
+they make another to the Pope immediately afterwards which absolves them
+from it. Sire, you are but half a king, and we are but half your subjects.
+Your kingdom is a two-headed monster: will you bear such an anomaly any
+longer? Frederick and other German princes have cast off the yoke of Rome.
+Do likewise; become once more king, govern your kingdom in concert with
+your lords and commons."[83]
+
+With much more of such talk Cromwell flattered the King, who probably
+hardly knew whether to punish or reward such unheard-of boldness; but when
+Cromwell, prepared for the emergency, took from his pocket a copy of the
+prelates' oath to the Pope, Henry's indignation bore all before it, and
+Cromwell's fortune was made. He at once obtained a seat in Parliament
+(1529), and took the lead in the anti-clerical measures which culminated
+in the emancipation of the English clergy from the Papacy, and their
+submission to the King. Gardiner, ambitious and able as he was, was yet an
+ecclesiastic, and looked grimly upon such a religious policy as that into
+which Henry was being towed by his infatuation for Anne; but Cromwell was
+always ready with authorities and flattery to stiffen the King's resolve,
+and thenceforward, until his fall before a combination of nobles, his was
+the strong spirit to which Henry clung.
+
+It will be seen that the influences against the King's marriage with Anne
+were very powerful, since it had become evident that the object could only
+be attained by the separation of England from the Papal communion; a step
+too bold and too much smacking of Lutheranism to commend itself to any but
+the few who might benefit by the change. The greatest danger seemed that
+by her isolation England might enable the two great Catholic powers to
+combine against her, in which case Henry's ruin was certain; and, eager as
+he was to divorce Katharine in England and marry Anne, the King dared not
+do so until he had secured at least the neutrality of France. As usual, he
+had to pay heavily for it. Dr. Fox, Henry's most able and zealous foreign
+minister, was again sent to France, and an alliance was negotiated in the
+spring of 1532, by which Henry bound himself to join Francis against the
+Emperor in case of attack, and Francis undertook to support Henry if any
+attempt was made by Charles to avenge his aunt. Anne was once more
+jubilant and hopeful; for her cause was now linked with a national
+alliance which had a certain party of adherents in the English Court, and
+an imperial attack upon England in the interests of Katharine was rendered
+unlikely. But, withal, the opposition in England itself had to be
+overcome, for Henry was ever a stickler for correctness in form, and
+wanted the divorce to have an appearance of defensible legality. The
+bishops in Parliament were sounded, but it was soon evident that they as a
+body would not fly in the face of the Papacy and the Catholic interests,
+even to please the King. Timid, tired old Warham, the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, was approached with a suggestion that he, as Primate, might
+convene a quorum of prelates favourable to Henry, who would approve of the
+entire repudiation of the Papal authority in England, and themselves
+pronounce the King's divorce. But Warham was already hastening to the
+grave, and flatly refused to stain his last hours by spiritual revolt.
+Despairing of the English churchman, Henry then turned to the lay peers
+and commons, and, through Norfolk, asked them to decide that the
+matrimonial cause was one that should be dealt with by a lay tribunal; but
+Norfolk's advocacy was but half-hearted, and the peers refused to make the
+declaration demanded.[84]
+
+The fact is clear that England was not yet prepared to defy spiritual
+authority to satisfy the King's caprice; and Anne was nearly beside
+herself with rage. She, indeed, was for braving everybody and getting
+married at once, divorce or no divorce. Why lose so much time? the French
+ambassador asked. If the King wanted to marry again let him do as King
+Louis did, and marry of his own motion.[85] The advice pleased both Henry
+and his lady-love, but Norfolk and Anne's father were strongly opposed to
+so dangerous and irregular a step, and incurred the furious displeasure of
+Anne for daring to thwart her. Every one, she said, even her own kinsmen,
+were against her,[86] and she was not far wrong, for with the exception of
+Cranmer in Germany and Cromwell, no one cared to risk the popular anger by
+promoting the match. Above all, Warham stood firm. The continued attacks
+of the King at Cromwell's suggestion against the privileges of the clergy
+hardened the old Archbishop's heart, and it was evident that he as Primate
+would never now annul the King's marriage and defy the authority of Rome.
+The opposition of Lord Chancellor More and of the new Bishop of
+Winchester, Gardiner, to Cromwell's anti-clerical proposals in Parliament
+angered the King, and convinced him that with his present instruments it
+would be as difficult for him to obtain a divorce in legal form in England
+as in Rome itself. More was made to feel that his position was an
+impossible one, and retired when Parliament was prorogued in May; and
+Gardiner had a convenient attack of gout, which kept him away from Court
+until the King found he could not conduct foreign affairs without him and
+brought him back.
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine neglected the opportunities offered to her of
+combining all these powerful elements in her favour. Nobles, clergy, and
+people were almost universally on her side: Anne was cordially hated, and
+had no friends but the few religious reformers who hoped by her means to
+force the King ever further away from the Papacy; and yet the Queen
+continued to appeal to Rome and the Emperor, against whom English
+patriotic feeling might be raised by Anne's few friends. The unwisdom of
+thus linking Katharine's cause with threats of foreign aggression, whilst
+England itself was favourable to her, was seen when the Nuncio presented
+to Henry a half-hearted exhortation to take his lawful wife back. Henry
+fulminated against the foreigner who dared to interfere between him and
+his wife; and, very far from alarming him, the Pope's timid action only
+proved the impotence of Rome to harm him. But the results fell upon the
+misguided Katharine, who had instigated the step. She was sent from the
+More to Ampthill, a house belonging to one of her few episcopal enemies.
+
+All through the summer of 1532 the coming and going of French agents to
+England puzzled the Queen and her foreign friends; but suddenly, late in
+July, the truth came out. Henry and Anne had gone with a great train on a
+hunting tour through the midlands in July; but only a few days after
+starting they suddenly returned to London. The quidnuncs whispered that
+the people on the way had clamoured so loudly that the Queen might be
+recalled to Court, and had so grossly insulted Anne, that the royal party
+had been driven back in disgust; and though there was no doubt some ground
+for the assertion, the real reason for the return was that the interview
+between Henry and the French king, so long secretly in negotiation, had at
+last been settled. To enlist Francis personally on the side of the
+divorce, and against the clerical influence, was good policy; for the
+Emperor could not afford to quarrel both with France and England for his
+aunt, and especially as the meeting arranged between Francis and the Pope
+at Nice for the betrothal of the Duke of Orleans with Katharine de Medici
+was already in contemplation, and threatened the Emperor with a
+combination of France, England, and perhaps the Papacy, which would be
+powerful enough to defy him. The policy was Cromwell's, who had inherited
+from his master, Wolsey, a leaning for the French alliance; but Norfolk
+and the rest of Henry's advisers were heavily bribed by France, and were
+on this occasion not inimical. The people at large, as usual, looked
+askance at the French connection. They dreaded, above all things, a war
+with Spain and Flanders, and recollected with apprehension the fruitless
+and foolish waste in splendour on the last occasion of the monarchs of
+France and England meeting. An attempt was made to provide that the
+preparations should be less costly and elaborate than those for the Field
+of the Cloth of Gold, but Henry could not forego the splendour that he
+loved, and a suite of 3000 or 4000 people were warned to accompany the
+King across the Channel to Boulogne and Calais.
+
+
+[Illustration: _ANNE BOLEYN_
+
+_From a portrait by_ LUCAS CORNELISZ _in the National Portrait Gallery_]
+
+
+For the interview to have its full value in the eyes of Henry and his
+mistress, the latter must be present at the festival, and be recognised by
+the French royal family as being of their own caste. Francis was not
+scrupulous, but this was difficult to arrange. His own second wife was the
+Emperor's sister, and she, of course, would not consent to meet "the
+concubine"; nor would any other of the French princesses, if they could
+avoid it; but, although the French at first gave out that no ladies would
+be present, Anne began to get her fine clothes ready and enlist her train
+of ladies as soon as the interview between the kings was arranged. So
+confident was she now of success that she foretold to one of her friends
+that she would be married whilst in France. To add to her elation, in the
+midst of the preparations Archbishop Warham died, and the chief
+ecclesiastical obstacle to the divorce in England disappeared. Some
+obedient churchman as Primate would soon manage to enlist a sufficient
+number of his fellows to give to his court an appearance of authority, and
+the Church of England would ratify the King's release.
+
+The effects of Warham's death (23rd August 1532) were seen immediately.
+There is every probability that up to that time Anne had successfully
+held her royal lover at arm's length; but with Cranmer, or another such as
+he, at Lambeth her triumph was only a matter of the few weeks necessary to
+carry out the formalities; and by the end of the month of August 1532 she
+probably became the King's mistress. This alone would explain the
+extraordinary proceedings when, on the 1st September, she was created
+Marchioness of Pembroke in her own right. It was Sunday morning before
+Mass at Windsor, where the new French alliance was to be ratified, that
+the King and his nobles and the French ambassador met in the great
+presence chamber and Anne knelt to receive the coronet and robe of her
+rank, the first peeress ever created in her own right in England:
+precedence being given to her before the two other English marchionesses,
+both ladies of the blood royal. Everything that could add prestige to the
+ceremony was done. Anne herself was dressed in regal crimson velvet and
+ermine; splendid presents were made to her by the enamoured King, fit more
+for a sovereign's consort than his mistress; a thousand pounds a year and
+lands were settled upon her, and her rank and property were to descend to
+the issue male of her body. But the cloven hoof is shown by the omission
+from the patent of the usual legitimacy clause. Even if, after all, the
+cup of queendom was dashed from her lips untasted, she had made not a bad
+bargain for herself. Her short triumph, indeed, was rapidly coming. She
+had fought strenuously for it for many years; and now most of the legal
+bars against her had fallen. But, withal, there was bitterness still in
+her chalice. The people scowled upon her no less now that she was a
+marchioness than before, and the great ladies who were ordered to attend
+the King's "cousin" into France did their service but sourly: whilst
+Francis had to be conciliated with all sorts of important concessions
+before he could be got to welcome "the lady" into his realm. When, at
+last, he consented, "because she would have gone in any case; for the King
+cannot be an hour without her," Francis did it gallantly, and with good
+grace, for, after all, Anne was just then the strongest prop in England of
+the French alliance.
+
+Katharine, from afar off, watched these proceedings with scornful
+resentment. Henry had no chivalry, no generosity, and saved his repudiated
+wife no humiliation that he could deal her in reward for her obstinacy. He
+had piled rich gifts upon Anne, but her greed for costly gewgaws was
+insatiable; and when the preparations for her visit to France were afoot
+she coveted the Queen's jewels. Henry's sister, the Duchess of Suffolk,
+Queen Dowager of France, had been made to surrender her valuables to the
+King's favourite; but when Henry sent a message to his wife bidding her
+give up her jewels, the proud princess blazed out in indignant anger at
+the insult. "Tell the King," she said, "that I cannot send them to him;
+for when lately, according to the custom of this realm, I presented him
+with a New Year's gift, he warned me to send him no such presents for the
+future. Besides, it is offensive and insulting to me, and would weigh upon
+my conscience, if I were led to give up my jewels for such a base purpose
+as that of decking out a person who is a reproach to Christendom, and is
+bringing scandal and disgrace upon the King, through his taking her to
+such a meeting as this in France. But still, if the King commands me and
+sends specially for them himself, I will give him my jewels." Such an
+answer as this proves clearly the lack of practical wisdom in the poor
+woman. She might have resisted, or she might have surrendered with a good
+grace; but to irritate and annoy the weak bully, without gaining her
+point, was worse than useless. Anne's talk about marrying the King in
+France angered Katharine beyond measure; but the favourite's ambition grew
+as her prospect brightened, and when it was settled that Cranmer was to be
+recalled from Germany and made Primate, Anne said that she had changed her
+mind. "Even if the King wished to marry her there (in France) she would
+not consent to it. She will have it take place here in England, where
+other queens have usually been married and crowned."[87]
+
+Through Kent, avoiding as they might the plague-stricken towns, the King
+and his lady-love, with a great royal train, rode to Dover early in
+October 1532. At Calais, Henry's own town, Anne was received almost with
+regal honours; but when Henry went forth to greet Francis upon French soil
+near Boulogne, and to be sumptuously entertained, it was seen that, though
+the French armed men were threateningly numerous, there were no ladies to
+keep in countenance the English "concubine" and the proud dames who did
+her service. Blazing in gems, the two kings met with much courtly ceremony
+and hollow professions of affection. Banqueting, speech-making, and
+posturing in splendid raiment occupied five days at Boulogne, the while
+the "Lady Marquis" ate her heart out at Calais in petulant disappointment;
+though she made as brave a show as she could to the Frenchmen when they
+came to return Henry's visit. The chronicler excels himself in the
+description of the lavish magnificence of the welcome of Francis at
+Calais,[88] and tells us that, after a bounteous supper on the night of
+Sunday 27th October, at which the two kings and their retinues sat down,
+"The Marchioness of Pembroke with seven other ladies in masking apparel of
+strange fashion, made of cloth of gold compassed with crimson tinsel
+satin, covered with cloth of silver, lying loose and knit with gold
+laces," tripped in, and each masked lady chose a partner, Anne, of course,
+taking the French king. In the course of the dance Henry plucked the masks
+from the ladies' faces, and debonair Francis, in courtly fashion,
+conversed with his fair partner. One of the worst storms in the memory of
+man delayed the English king's return from Calais till the 13th November;
+but when at length the _Te Deum_ for his safe home-coming was sung at St.
+Paul's, Anne knew that the King of France had undertaken to frighten the
+Pope into inactivity by talk of the danger of schism in England, and that
+Cranmer was hurrying across Europe on his way from Italy to London, to
+become Primate of the Church of England.
+
+The plot projected was a clever one, but it was still needful to handle it
+very delicately. Cranmer during his residence in Germany and Italy had
+been zealous in winning favourable opinions for Henry's contention, and
+his foregathering with Lutheran divines had strengthened his reforming
+opinions. He had, indeed, proceeded to the dangerous length of going
+through a form of marriage secretly with a young lady belonging to a
+Lutheran family. His leanings cannot have been quite unknown to the
+ever-watchful spies of the Pope and the Emperor, though Cranmer had done
+his best to hoodwink them, and to some extent had succeeded. But to ask
+the Pope to issue the Bulls confirming such a man in the Primacy of
+England was at least a risky proceeding, and Henry had to dissemble. In
+January, Katharine fondly thought that her husband was softening towards
+her, for he released her chaplain Abell, who had been imprisoned for
+publicly speaking in her favour. She fancied, poor soul, that "perhaps God
+had touched his heart, and that he was about to acknowledge his error."
+Chapuys attributed Henry's new gentleness to his begrudging the cost of
+two queenly establishments. But seen from this distance of time, it was
+clearly caused by a desire to disarm the suspicion of the Pope and the
+Emperor, who were again to meet at Bologna, until the Bulls confirming
+Cranmer's appointment to the Archbishopric had been issued. Henry went out
+of his way to be amiable to the imperial ambassador Chapuys, whilst he
+beguiled the Nuncio with the pretended proposal for reconciliation by
+means of a decision on the divorce to be given by two Cardinal Legates,
+appointed by the Pope, and sitting in neutral territory. In vain Chapuys
+warned the Emperor that Cranmer could not be trusted; but Henry's
+diplomatic signs of grace prevailed, and the Pope, dreading to drive
+England further into schism, confirmed Cranmer's election as Archbishop of
+Canterbury (March 1533).
+
+It was high time; for under a suave exterior both Henry and Anne were in a
+fever of impatience. At the very time that Queen Katharine thought that
+her husband had repented, Anne conveyed to him the news that she was with
+child. It was necessary for their plans that the offspring should be born
+in wedlock, and yet no public marriage was possible, or the eyes of the
+Papal party would be opened before the Bulls confirming Cranmer's
+elevation were issued. Sometime late in January 1533, therefore, a secret
+marriage was performed at Greenwich, probably by the reforming Franciscan
+Friar, George Brown,[89] and Anne became Henry's second wife, whilst
+Katharine was still undivorced. The secret was well kept for a time, and
+the Nuncio, Baron di Burgo, was fooled to the top of his bent by
+flatteries and hopes of bribes. He even sat in state on Henry's right
+hand, the French ambassador being on the left, at the opening of
+Parliament, probably with the idea of convincing the trembling English
+clergy that the King and the Pope were working together. In any case, the
+close association of the Nuncio with Henry and his ministers aroused the
+fears of Katharine anew, and she broke out in denunciations of the Pope's
+supineness in thus leaving her without aid for three and a half years, and
+now entertaining, as she said, a suggestion that would cause her to be
+declared the King's concubine, and her daughter a bastard.[90] In vain
+Chapuys, the only man of his party who saw through the device, prayed that
+Cranmer's Bulls should not be sent from Rome, that the sentence in
+Katharine's favour should no longer be delayed. It was already too late.
+The pride of Anne and her father at the secret marriage could not much
+longer be kept under. In the middle of February, whilst dining in her own
+apartment, she said that "she was now as sure that she should be married
+to the King, as she was of her own death"; and the Earl of Wiltshire told
+the aged kinsman of Henry, the Earl of Rutland, a staunch adherent of
+Katharine, that "the King was determined not to be so considerate as he
+had been, but would marry the Marchioness of Pembroke at once, by the
+authority of Parliament."[91] Anne's condition, indeed, could not continue
+to be concealed, and whispers of it reached the Queen at Ampthill. By
+March the rumour was rife at Court that the marriage had taken place--a
+rumour which it is plain that Anne's friends took no pains to deny, and
+Cranmer positively encouraged.[92]
+
+Cromwell, in the meanwhile, grew in power and boldness with the success
+of his machinations. The Chancellorship, vacant by More's resignation, was
+filled by Cromwell's friend Audley, and every post that fell vacant or
+could be vacated was occupied by known opponents of the clergy. The
+country and Parliament were even yet not ready to go so far as Cromwell in
+his policy of emancipation from Rome in spiritual affairs; and only by the
+most illegal pressure both in the two Houses and in Convocation was the
+declaration condemning the validity of the King's marriage with Katharine
+at last obtained. Armed with these declarations and the Bulls from Rome
+confirming Cranmer's appointment, Henry was ready in April to cast away
+the mask, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were sent to tell Katharine
+at Ampthill "that she need not trouble any more about the King, for he had
+taken another wife, and that in future she must abandon the title of
+Queen, and be called Duchess; though she should be left in possession of
+her property."[93] Chapuys was indignant, and urged the Emperor to make
+war upon England in revenge for the insult to his house. "The moment this
+accursed Anne gets her foot firmly in the stirrup she will do the Queen
+all the harm she can, and the Princess also, which is what the Queen fears
+most.... She (Anne) has lately boasted that she will make the Princess
+one of her maids, which will not give her too much to eat; or will marry
+her to some varlet." But the Emperor had cares and dangers that his
+ambassador in England knew not of, and he dared not avenge his aunt by the
+invasion of England.
+
+A long and fruitless war of words was waged between Henry and Chapuys when
+the news of the secret marriage became known; the talk turning upon the
+eternal question of the consummation of Katharine's first marriage.
+Chapuys reminded the King that on several occasions he (Henry) had
+confessed that his wife had been intact by Arthur. "Ah!" replied Henry, "I
+only said that in fun. A man when he is frolicking and dining says a good
+many things that are not true. Now, I think I have satisfied you.... What
+else do you want to know?"[94] A day or two after this, on Easter Eve,
+Anne went to Mass in truly royal state, loaded with diamonds and other
+precious stones, and dressed in a gorgeous suit of tissue; the train being
+borne by her cousin, the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, betrothed to the
+King's illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. She was followed by a
+greater suite and treated with more ceremony than had formerly attended
+Katharine, and, to the astonishment of the people, was prayed for
+thenceforward in the Church services at Court as Queen.[95] In London the
+attitude of the people grew threatening, and the Lord Mayor was taken to
+task by the King, who ordered that proclamation should be made forbidding
+any unfavourable reference to the King's second marriage. But the fire of
+indignation glowed fiercely beneath the surface, for everywhere the cause
+of Katharine was bound up, as it seemed, with the old faith in which all
+had been born, with the security of commerce with England's best
+customers, and with the rights of anointed royalty, as against low-born
+insolence.
+
+No humiliation was spared to Katharine. Her daughter was forbidden to hold
+any communication with her, her household was reduced to the meagre
+proportions of a private establishment, her scutcheon was taken down from
+Westminster Hall, and her cognisance from her barge, and, as a crowning
+indignity, she was summoned to appear before the Primate's court at
+Dunstable, a summons which, at the prompting of Chapuys, she entirely
+disregarded. Up to this time she had stood firm in her determination to
+maintain an attitude of loyalty to the King and to her adopted country;
+but, as she grew more bitter at her rival's triumph, and the flowing tide
+of religious change rose at her feet, she listened to plans for bringing a
+remedy for her ills by a subversion of Henry's regime. But she was a poor
+conspirator, and considerations of safety for her daughter, and her want
+of tact in uniting the English elements in her favour, always paralysed
+her.[96]
+
+In the meanwhile the preparations for the public recognition and
+coronation of Anne went on. The new Queen tried her best to captivate the
+Londoners, but without success; and only with difficulty could the
+contributions be obtained for the coming festivities when the new Queen
+passed through the city. On the 10th May Katharine was declared
+contumacious by the Primate's court, and on the 23rd May Cranmer
+pronounced the King's first marriage to have been void from the first.[97]
+This was followed by a pronouncement to the effect that the second
+marriage, that with Anne, was legal, and nothing now stood in the way of
+the final fruition of so much labour and intrigue, pregnant with such
+tremendous results to England. On the 29th May 1533 the first scene of the
+pageant was enacted with the State progress by water from Greenwich to the
+Tower.[98] No effort had been spared by Henry to make the occasion a
+brilliant one. We are told that the whole river from the point of
+departure to that of arrival was covered with beautifully bedizened boats;
+guns roared forth their salutations at Greenwich, and from the crowd of
+ships that lay in the stream. Flags and _feux de joie_ could be bought;
+courtiers', guilds', and nobles' barges could be commanded, but the hearty
+cheers of the lieges could not be got for all King Harry's power, as the
+new Queen, in the old Queen's barge, was borne to the frowning fortress
+which so soon was to be her own place of martyrdom.[99]
+
+On Sunday, 31st May 1533, the procession through the crowded city sallied
+from the Tower betimes in the morning. Englishmen and foreigners, except
+Spaniards only, had been forced to pay heavily for the splendour of the
+day; and the trade guilds and aldermen, brave in furred gowns and gold
+chains, stood from one device to another in the streets, as the glittering
+show went by. The French element did its best to add gaiety to the
+occasion, and the merchants of France established in London rode at the
+head of the procession in purple velvet embroidered with Anne's device.
+Then came the nobles and courtiers and all the squires and gentlemen whom
+the King had brought from their granges and manor-houses to do honour to
+their new Queen. Anne herself was seated in an open litter of white satin
+covered by a golden canopy. She was dressed in a surcoat and mantle of
+white tissue trimmed with ermine, and wore a robe of crimson brocade stiff
+with gems. Her hair, which was very fine, hung over her shoulders
+surmounted by a coif and a coronet of diamonds, whilst around her neck was
+hung a necklace of great pearls, and upon her breast reposed a splendid
+jewel of precious stones. "And as she passed through the city she kept
+turning her face from one side to the other to greet the people, but,
+strange to see it was, that there were hardly ten persons who greeted her
+with 'God save your Grace,' as they used to do when the sainted Queen
+Katharine went by."[100]
+
+Lowering brows, and whispered curses of "Nan Bullen" from the citizens'
+wives followed the new Queen on her way; for to them she stood for war
+against the Emperor in the behoof of France, for harassed trade and lean
+larders, and, above all, for defiance of the religious principles that
+most of them held sacred; and they hated the long fair face with which, or
+with love philtres, she had bewitched the King. The very pageants
+ostensibly raised in her honour contrived in several cases to embody a
+subtle insult. At the Gracechurch corner of Fenchurch Street, where the
+Hanse merchants had erected a "merveilous connyng pageaunt," representing
+Mount Parnassus, with the fountain of Helicon spouting racked Rhenish wine
+all day, the Queen's litter was stayed a space to listen to the Muses
+playing "swete instrumentes," and to read the "epigrams" in her praise
+that were hung around the mount. But Anne looked aloft to where Apollo
+sat, and saw that the imperial eagle was blazoned in the place of honour,
+whilst the much-derided bogus arms of the Boleyns lurked in humble guise
+below;[101] and for many a day thenceforward she was claiming vengeance
+against the Easterlings for the slight put upon her. As each triumphal
+device was passed, children dressed as angels, or muses, were made to sing
+or recite conceited phrases of dithyrambic flattery to the heroine of the
+hour. There was no grace or virtue of which she was not the true exemplar.
+Through Leadenhall and Cornhill and so to Chepe, between lines of liveried
+citizens, Anne's show progressed. At the cross on Cheapside the Mayor and
+corporation awaited the Queen; and the Recorder, "Master Baker," with many
+courtly compliments, handed her the city's gift of a thousand marks in a
+purse of gold, "which she thankfully received." That she did so was noted
+with sneering contempt by Katharine's friends. "As soon as she received
+the purse of money she placed it by her side in the litter: and thus she
+showed that she was a person of low descent. For there stood by her at the
+time the captain of the King's guard, with his men and twelve lacqueys;
+and when the sainted Queen had passed by for _her_ coronation, she handed
+the money to the captain of the guard to be divided amongst the
+halberdiers and lacqueys. Anne did not do so, but kept them for
+herself."[102] St. Paul's and Ludgate, Fleet Street and Temple Bar, all
+offered their official adulation, whilst the staring people stood by dumb.
+Westminster Hall, into which Anne's litter was borne for the feast, was
+richly hung with arras and "newly glazed." A regal throne with a canopy
+was set on high for Anne, and a great sideboard of gold plate testified to
+the King's generosity to his new wife. But after she had changed her
+garments and was welcomed with open arms by Henry at his new palace of
+Westminster, her disappointment broke out. "How like you the look of the
+city, sweetheart?" asked the King. "Sir," she replied, "the city itself
+was well enow; but I saw many caps on heads and heard but few
+tongues."[103]
+
+The next day, Sunday, Anne was crowned by Cranmer with full ceremony in
+Westminster Abbey, and for days thereafter banqueting, tilting, and the
+usual roystering went on; and the great-granddaughter of Alderman Boleyn
+felt that at last she was Queen indeed. Henry, too, had had his way, and
+again could hope that a son born in wedlock might perpetuate the name of
+Tudor on the throne of England. But he was in deadly fear, for the
+prospect was black all around him. Public indignation in England grew
+apace[104] at the religious changes and at the prospect of war; but what
+most aroused Henry's alarm was the sudden coldness of France, and the
+probability of a great Catholic coalition against him. Norfolk and Lord
+Rochford with a stately train had gone to join in the interview between
+Francis and the Pope, in the hope that the joint presence of France and
+England might force Clement to recognise accomplished facts in order to
+avoid the secession of England from the Church. Although it suited Francis
+to promote the antagonism between Henry and the Emperor by keeping the
+divorce proceedings dragging on in Rome, it did not suit him for England
+to defy the Papacy by means of Cranmer's sentence, and so to change the
+balance of power in Europe by driving Henry into permanent union with
+German Protestants whilst Francis was forced to side with the Emperor on
+religious grounds. So long as Henry remained undivorced and unmarried
+anything might happen. He might sate of his mistress and tire of the
+struggle against Rome, or be driven by fear of war to take a conciliatory
+course, and in any of these cases he must needs pay for France's aid; but
+now that his divorce and remarriage were as valid as a duly authorised
+Archbishop could make them, the utility of Anne as an aid to French
+foreign policy disappeared. The actual marriage therefore deprived her of
+the sympathies of the French party in the English Court, which had
+hitherto sided with her, and the effects were immediately seen in the
+attitude of Francis.
+
+Before Norfolk could reach the south of France news came to him that the
+Pope, coerced by the Emperor, had issued a brief declaring all of Henry's
+proceedings in England to be nullified and he and his abettors
+excommunicated, unless of his own accord he restored things to their
+former condition before September.[105] It was plain, therefore, that any
+attempt at the coming interview to reconcile Clement with Henry's action
+would be fruitless. Norfolk found Francis also much cooler than before,
+and sent back his nephew Rochford post haste to England to beg the King's
+instructions. He arrived at Court in early August, at a time when Henry's
+perplexity was at its height. He had learnt of the determination of
+Francis to greet the Pope and carry through the marriage between the Duke
+of Orleans and Katharine de Medici, whether the King of England's demands
+were satisfied by Clement or not. He now knew that the dreaded sentence of
+excommunication pended over him and his instruments. If he had been left
+to his own weakness he would probably have given way, or at least have
+sought compromise. If Norfolk had been at his elbow, the old aristocratic
+English party might also have stayed the King's hand. But Cromwell, bold
+and astute, and Anne, with the powerful lever of her unborn child, which
+might be a son, knew well that they had gone too far to return, and that
+defiance of the Papacy was the only road open to them. Already at the end
+of June Henry had gone as far as to threaten an appeal from the Pope to
+the General Council of the Church, the meeting of which was then being
+discussed; but now that he knew that Francis was failing him, and the Pope
+had finally cast down the gage, he took the next great step which led to
+England's separation from Rome. Norfolk was recalled, and Gardiner
+accredited to Francis only with a watching brief during the Papal
+interview at Nice, whilst Henry's ambassadors in Rome were recalled, and
+English agents were sent to Germany to seek alliances with the German
+Protestant princes. When, therefore, Norfolk arrived in England, he found
+that in his two months' absence Cromwell had steered the ship of state
+further away than ever from the traditional policy of the English
+conservatives; namely, one of balance between the two great Catholic
+powers; and that England was isolated, but for the doubtful friendship of
+those vassal princes of the Empire who professed the dreaded new heresy.
+Thenceforward the ruin of Anne and Cromwell was one of the main objects of
+Norfolk and the noble party.
+
+The treatment meted out to Katharine during the same time followed a
+similar impulse. Chapuys had been informed that, the King having now taken
+a legal wife, Katharine could no longer be called Queen, but Princess
+Dowager of Wales, and that her regal household could not be kept up; and
+on the 3rd July Katharine's principal officers were ordered to convey a
+similar message to her personally. The message was roughly worded. It
+could only be arrogance and vainglory, she was told, that made her retain
+or usurp the title of Queen. She was much mistaken if she imagined that
+her husband would ever live with her again, and by her obstinate contumacy
+she would cause wars and bloodshed, as well as danger to herself and her
+daughter, as both would be made to feel the King's displeasure. The
+Queen's answer, as might have been expected, was as firm as usual. She was
+the King's legitimate wife, and no reward or fear in the world would ever
+make her abandon her right to the title she bore. It was not vainglory
+that moved her, for to be the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabel was a
+greater honour than to be a Queen. Henry might punish her, she said, or
+even her daughter, "Yet neither for that, nor a thousand deaths, would she
+consent to damn her soul or that of her husband the King."[106] The King,
+beside himself with rage, could do no more than warn Katharine's household
+that they must all treat their mistress as Princess of Wales, or suffer
+the penalty. As for Katharine, no punishment short of death could move
+her; and Cromwell himself, in admiration at her answer, said that "nature
+had injured her in not making her a man, for she would have surpassed in
+fame all the heroes of history."[107]
+
+When a few days after this Katharine was removed to Buckden, crowds
+followed her with tears and blessings along the road, even as they had
+followed the Princess Mary shortly before, "as if she were God Almighty,"
+as Anne said. In defiance of Henry's threats, "God save the Queen" rang
+high and clear wherever she went, and the people, "wishing her joy,
+comfort, and all manner of prosperity, and mishap to her enemies, begged
+her with tears to let them serve her; for they were all ready to die for
+her sake."[108] Anne's spite at such demonstrations was characteristic.
+Katharine possessed a very rich and gorgeous length of stuff, which she
+had brought from Spain to serve as a christening robe if she should have a
+son and heir. Anne's time was drawing near, and she would not be content
+until the King had demanded of his wife the Spanish material to serve as a
+robe for the Prince of Wales, which he was confident would be born to
+Anne. "God forbid," replied Katharine, "that I should ever give help or
+countenance in a case so horrible and abominable as this!" and the
+indignity of forcible searching of her chests for the stuff at least was
+not insisted upon then.
+
+Anne's own position was hardly a happy one; her one hope being that the
+coming child would be a son, as the King was assured by astrologers that
+it would be. For amorous Henry was already tiring somewhat of her, and
+even Cromwell's tone was less confident than before. Early in August,
+Henry left her at Greenwich to go to Windsor alone, for the first time
+since they had been together. Sometime in July she had insisted upon a
+very sumptuous bed, which had formed part of a French royal ransom, being
+taken out of the treasure-room for the birth of the expected heir. It is
+well, sneered Chapuys, in the first days of September, that she got it
+betimes, "otherwise she would not have it now, for she has been for some
+time past very jealous of the King; and, with good cause, spoke about it
+in words that he did not like. He told her that she must wink at such
+things, and put up with them, as her betters had done before her. He could
+at any time cast her down as easily as he had raised her." Frequent
+bickerings of this sort went on during the last weeks of Anne's pregnancy;
+but on Sunday, 7th September, the day that was to heal all differences
+came. Henry had defied the greatest power in the world, had acted basely
+and brutally to his legal wife, and had incurred the reprobation of his
+own people for the sake of having a son, and on the fateful day mentioned
+a fair girl baby was born to Anne at Greenwich.
+
+The official rejoicings were held, but beneath the surface every one knew
+that a tragedy lurked,[109] for unless a son was born to Anne her doom was
+sealed. Henry had asserted his mastership in his own realm and had defied
+Christendom. He had found that his subjects, however sulkily, had accepted
+his action without open revolt; and that Charles, notwithstanding the
+insult to his house, was still speaking softly through his ambassadors. If
+a great princess like Katharine could thus be repudiated without disaster
+to his realm, it would indeed be easy for him to cast away "that noughty
+pake, Nan Bullen," if she failed to satisfy his desire for a son. But in
+the meanwhile it was necessary for him to secure, so far as he could, the
+succession of his new daughter, since Cranmer's decision had rendered
+Mary, Princess of Wales, of whom her father had been so proud,
+illegitimate. Accordingly, immediately after the child Elizabeth was
+christened, heralds proclaimed in the King's name that Princess Mary was
+thenceforward to lose her title and pre-eminence, the badge upon her
+servants' coats being replaced by the arms of the King, and the baby Lady
+Elizabeth was to be recognised as the King's only legitimate heir and
+Princess of Wales. In vain the imperial ambassador protested and talked to
+Cromwell of possible war, in which England might be ruined, which Cromwell
+admitted but reminded him that the Emperor would not benefit thereby; in
+vain Katharine from her retirement at Buckden urged Chapuys and the
+Emperor to patronise Reginald Pole as a possible threat to Henry; in vain
+Princess Mary herself, in diplomatic language, told her father that he
+might give her what title he liked, but that she herself would never admit
+her illegitimacy or her mother's repudiation; in vain Bishop Fisher and
+Chapuys counselled the invasion of England and the overturn of Henry:
+Cromwell knew that there was no drawing back for him, and that the
+struggle must go on now to the bitter end.
+
+Anne with the birth of her daughter became more insolent and exacting than
+ever. Nothing would satisfy her but the open degradation of Katharine and
+her daughter, and Henry in this respect seems to have had no spark of
+generous or gentlemanly feeling. Irritated by what he considered the
+disobedience of his wife and child, and doubtless also by their constant
+recourse for support and advice to the Emperor's ambassador against him,
+he dismissed Mary's household and ordered her to go to Hatfield and serve
+as maid the Princess Elizabeth. Mary was ready with her written protest,
+which Chapuys had drafted for her, but, having made it, decided to submit;
+and was borne to Hatfield in scornful dudgeon, to serve "the bastard" of
+three months old. When she arrived the Duke of Suffolk asked her if she
+would go and pay her respects to "the Princess." "I know of no other
+princess but myself," replied Mary. "The daughter of Lady Pembroke has no
+right to such a title. But," added she, "as the King acknowledges her I
+may call her sister, as I call the Duke of Richmond brother." Mary was the
+true daughter of her proud mother, and bluff Charles Brandon got many a
+tart answer from her before he gave her up in despair to perform a similar
+mission to her mother at Buckden.
+
+Katharine had never changed her tone. Knowing Henry's weakness, she had
+always pressed for the final Papal decision in her favour, which she
+insisted would bring her husband to his knees, as it doubtless would have
+done if he had stood alone. For a time the Pope and the King of France
+endeavoured to find a _via media_ which should save appearances, for
+Charles would not bind himself to carry out by force the Papal deposition
+of Henry, which Clement wanted. But Katharine would have no compromise,
+nor did it suit Cromwell or Anne, though the former was apparently anxious
+to avoid offending the Emperor. Parliament, moreover, was summoned for the
+15th January 1534, to give the sanction of the nation to Henry's final
+defiance of Rome; and persistence in the path to which the King's desire
+for a son and his love for Anne had dragged England, was now the only
+course open to him. Suffolk and a deputation of councillors were
+consequently sent once more with an ultimatum to Katharine. Accompanied by
+a large armed force to intimidate the Queen and the people who surrounded
+her, the deputation saw her on the 18th December; and Suffolk demanded
+that she should recognise Cranmer's decision and abandon her appeal to
+Rome; whilst her household and herself were to take the oath of allegiance
+to the King in the new form provided. The alternative was that she should
+be deprived of her servants and be removed to Fotheringay or Somersame,
+seated in the midst of pestilential marshes.[110] Suffolk was rough in his
+manner, and made short work of the English household, nearly all of whom
+were dismissed and replaced by others; but he found Katharine the same
+hard woman as ever. Considering all the King had done for her and hers, he
+said, it was disgraceful that she should worry him as she had done for
+years, putting him to vast expense in embassies to Rome and elsewhere, and
+keeping him in turmoil with his neighbours. Surely she had grown tired of
+her obstinacy by this time, and would abandon her appeal to Rome. If she
+did so the King would do anything for her; but if not he would clip her
+wings and effectually punish her. As a beginning, he said, they were going
+to remove her to Fotheringay. Katharine had heard such talk many times
+before, though less rudely worded; and she replied in the usual tone. She
+looked to the Pope alone, and cared nothing for the Archbishop of
+Canterbury. As for going to Fotheringay, that she would not do. The King
+might work his will; but unless she was dragged thither by main force she
+would not go, or she would be guilty of suicide, so unhealthy was the
+place. Some of the members of the household were recalcitrant, and the two
+priests, Abell and Barker, were sent to the Tower. The aged Spanish Bishop
+of Llandaff, Jorge de Ateca, the Queen's confessor, was also warned that
+he must go, and De la Sá, her apothecary, and a physician, both Spaniards;
+but at her earnest prayers they were allowed to remain pending an
+appeal.[111] The Queen's women attendants were also told they must
+depart, but upon Katharine saying that she would not undress or go to bed
+unless she had proper help, two of them were allowed to stay. For a whole
+week the struggle went on, every device and threat being employed to break
+down the Queen's resistance. She was as hard as adamant. All the servants
+who remained but the Spaniards, who spoke no English, had to swear not to
+treat her as Queen, and she said she would treat them as gaolers. On the
+sixth day of Suffolk's stay at Buckden, pack animals were got ready, and
+preparations made for removing the establishment to Fotheringay. But they
+still had to reckon with Katharine. Locking herself in her chamber, she
+carried on a colloquy with her oppressors through a chink in the wall. "If
+you wish to take me," she declared, "you must break down my door;" but,
+though the country gentlemen around had been summoned to the aid of the
+King's commissioners, and the latter were well armed, such was the ferment
+and indignation in the neighbourhood--and indeed throughout the
+country--that violence was felt to be unwise, and Katharine was left in
+such peace as she might enjoy.[112] Well might Suffolk write, as he did,
+to Norfolk: "We find here the most obstinate woman that may be; inasmuch
+as we think surely there is no other remedy than to convey her by force to
+Somersame. Concerning this we have nothing in our instructions; we pray
+your good lordship that we may have knowledge of the King's pleasure." All
+this petty persecution was, of course, laid at the door of Anne by
+Katharine's friends and the Catholic majority; for Cromwell was clever in
+avoiding his share of the responsibility. "The lady," they said, "would
+never be satisfied until both the Queen and her daughter had been done to
+death, either by poison or otherwise; and Katharine was warned to take
+care to fasten securely the door of her chamber at night, and to have the
+room searched before she retired.[113]
+
+In the meantime England and France were drifting further apart. If Henry
+finally decided to brave the Papal excommunication, Francis dared not make
+common cause with him. The Bishop of Paris (Du Bellay) once more came
+over, and endeavoured to find a way out of the maze. Anne, whom he had
+befriended before, received him effusively, kissing him on the cheek and
+exerting all her witchery upon him; but it was soon found that he brought
+an ultimatum from his King; and when Henry began to bully him and abuse
+Francis for deserting him, the bishop cowed him with a threat of immediate
+war. The compromise finally arrived at was that if the Pope before the
+following Easter (1534) would withdraw his sentence against Henry, England
+would remain within the pale of the Church. Otherwise the measure drafted
+for presentation to Parliament entirely throwing off the Papal supremacy
+would be proceeded with. This was the parting of the ways, and the
+decision was left to Clement VII.
+
+Parliament opened on the 15th January, perhaps the most fateful assembly
+that ever met at Westminster. The country, as we have seen, was indignant
+at the treatment of Katharine and her daughter, but the instinct of
+loyalty to the King was strong, and there was no powerful centre around
+which revolt might crystallise. The clergy especially--even those who,
+like Stokesley, Fox, and Gardiner, were Henry's instruments--dreaded the
+great changes that portended; and an attempt to influence Parliament by a
+declaration of the clergy in Convocation against the King's first
+marriage, failed, notwithstanding the flagrant violence with which
+signatures were sought. With difficulty, even though the nobles known to
+favour Katharine were not summoned, a bill granting a dowry to the Queen
+as Dowager Princess of Wales was passed; but the House of Commons,
+trembling for the English property in the imperial dominions, threw it
+out. The prospect for a time looked black for the great ecclesiastical
+changes that were contemplated, and the hopes of Katharine's friends rose
+again.
+
+The Bishop of Paris in the meanwhile had contrived to frighten Clement and
+his Cardinals, by his threatening talk of English schism and the universal
+spread of dissent, into an insincere and half-hearted acquiescence in a
+compromise that would submit the question of a divorce to a tribunal of
+two Cardinals sitting at Cambray to save appearances, and deciding in
+favour of Henry. When the French ambassador Castillon came to Henry with
+this news (early in March 1534) the King had experienced the difficulty of
+bringing Parliament and Convocation to his views; and, again, if left to
+himself, he would probably have yielded. But Anne and Cromwell, and indeed
+Cranmer, were now in the same boat; and any wavering on the part of the
+King would have meant ruin to them all. They did their best to stiffen
+Henry, but he was nearly inclined to give way behind their backs; and
+after the French ambassador had left the Council unsuccessful, Henry had a
+long secret talk with him in the garden, in which he assured him that he
+would not have anything done hastily against the Holy See.
+
+But whilst the rash and turbulent Bishop of Paris was hectoring Clement at
+Rome and sending unjustifiably encouraging messages to England,
+circumstances on both sides were working against the compromise which the
+French desired so much. Cromwell and Anne were panic-stricken at the idea
+of reopening the question of the marriage before any Papal tribunal, and
+kept up Henry's resentment against the Pope. Henry's pride also was
+wounded by a suggestion of the French that, as a return for Clement's
+pliability, Alexander de Medici, Duke of Florence, might marry the
+Princess Mary. Cromwell's diplomatic management of the Parliamentary
+opposition and the consequent passage of the bill abolishing the
+remittance of Peter's pence to Rome, also encouraged Henry to think that
+he might have his own way after all; and the chances of his making further
+concessions to the Pope again diminished. A similar process was going on
+in Rome. Whilst Clement was smilingly listening to talk of reconciliation
+for the sake of keeping England under his authority, he well knew that
+Henry could only be moved by fear; and all the thunderbolts of the Church
+were being secretly forged to launch upon the King of England.
+
+On the 23rd March 1534 the consistory of Cardinals sat, the French
+Cardinals being absent; and the final judgment on the validity of Henry's
+marriage with Katharine was given by the head of the Church. The cause
+which had stirred Europe for five years was settled beyond appeal so far
+as the Roman Church could settle it. Katharine was Henry's lawful wife,
+and Anne Boleyn was proclaimed by the Church to be his concubine. Almost
+on the very day that the gage was thus thrown down by the Pope, Henry had
+taken similar action on his own account. In the previous sitting of
+Parliament the King had been practically acknowledged as head of the
+Church in his own dominions; and now all appeals and payments to the Pope
+were forbidden, and the bishops of England were entirely exempt from his
+spiritual jurisdiction and control. To complete the emancipation of the
+country from the Papacy, on the 23rd March 1534 a bill (the Act of
+Succession) was read for the third time, confirming the legality of the
+marriage of Henry and Anne, and settling the succession to the crown upon
+their issue to the exclusion of the Princess Mary. Cranmer's divorce
+decision was thus ratified by statute; and any person questioning in word
+or print the legitimacy of Elizabeth's birth was adjudged guilty of high
+treason. Every subject of the King, moreover, was to take oath to
+maintain this statute on pain of death. The consummation was reached: for
+good or for evil England was free from Rome, and the fair woman for whose
+sake the momentous change had been wrought, sat planning schemes of
+vengeance against the two proud princesses, mother and daughter, who still
+refused to bow the neck to her whom they proclaimed the usurper of their
+rights.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1534-1536
+
+A FLEETING TRIUMPH--POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE
+
+
+In the previous pages we have witnessed the process by which a vain,
+arrogant man, naturally lustful and held by no moral or material
+restraint, had been drawn into a position which, when he took the first
+step that led to it, he could not have contemplated. In ordinary
+circumstances there would have been no insuperable difficulty in his
+obtaining a divorce, and he probably expected little. The divorce,
+however, in this case involved the question of a change in the national
+alliance and a shifting of the weight of England to the side of France;
+and the Emperor by his power over the Pope had been able to frustrate the
+design, not entirely on account of his family connection with Katharine,
+but rather as a question of international policy. The dependent position
+of the Pope had effectually stood in the way of the compromise always
+sought by France, and the resistance to his will had made Henry the more
+determined to assert himself, with the natural result that the dispute had
+developed into religious schism. There is a school of historians which
+credits Henry personally with the far-reaching design of shaking off the
+ecclesiastical control of Rome in order to augment the national
+greatness; but there seems to me little evidence to support the view. When
+once the King had bearded the Papacy, rather than retrace the steps he had
+taken and confess himself wrong, it was natural that many of his subjects
+who conscientiously leant towards greater freedom in religion than Rome
+would allow, were prepared to carry the lesson further, as the German
+Lutherans had done, but I can find no reason to believe that Henry desired
+to initiate any change of system in the direction of freedom: his aim
+being, as he himself said, simply to make himself Pope as well as King
+within his own realm. Even that position, as we have seen in the
+aforegoing chapters, was only reached gradually under the incentive of
+opposition, and by the aid of stouter hearts and clearer brains than his
+own: and if Henry could have had his way about the marriage, as he
+conceivably might have done on many occasions during the struggle by a
+very slight change in the circumstances, there would have been, so far as
+he personally was concerned, no Reformation in England at the time.
+
+One of the most curious phases in the process here described is the
+deterioration notable in Henry's character as the ecclesiastical and moral
+restraints that influenced him were gradually cast aside. We have seen him
+as a kind and courteous husband, not more immoral than other men of his
+age and station; a father whose love for his children was intense; and a
+cultured gentleman of a headstrong but not unlovable character. Resistance
+to his will had touched his pride and hardened his heart, until at the
+period which we have now reached (1534) we see him capable of brutal and
+insulting treatment of his wife and elder daughter, of which any gentleman
+would be ashamed. On the other hand, the attitude of Katharine and Mary
+was exactly that best calculated to drive to fury a conceited, overbearing
+man, loving his supreme power as Henry did. It was, of course, heroic and
+noble of the two ladies to stand upon their undoubted rights as they did;
+but if Katharine by adopting a religious life had consented to a divorce,
+the decree of nullity would not have been pronounced; her own position
+would have been recognised, her daughter's legitimacy saved, and the
+separation from Rome at least deferred, if not prevented. There was no
+such deterioration in Anne's character as in that of Henry; for it was bad
+from the first, and consistently remained so. Her ambition was the noblest
+trait in her nature; and she served it with a petty personal malignity
+against those who seemed to stand in her way that goes far to deprive her
+of the pity that otherwise would go out to her in her own martyrdom at the
+hands of the fleshly tyrant whose evil nature she had been so greatly
+instrumental in developing.
+
+It was undoubtedly to Anne's prompting that the ungenerous treatment of
+the Princess Mary was due, a treatment that aroused the indignation even
+of those to whom its execution was entrusted. Henry was deeply attached to
+his daughter, but it touched his pride for her to refuse to submit without
+protest to his behest. When Norfolk told him of the attitude of the
+Princess on her being taken to Hatfield to attend upon Elizabeth, he
+decided to bring his parental authority to bear upon her personally, and
+decided to see her. But Anne, "considering the easiness or rather levity
+of the King, and that the great beauty and goodness of the Princess might
+overcome his displeasure with her, and, moved by her virtues and his
+fatherly pity for her, be induced to treat her better and restore her
+title to her, sent Cromwell and other messengers posting after the King to
+prevent him, at any cost, from seeing or speaking to the Princess."[114]
+When Henry arrived at Hatfield and saw his baby daughter Elizabeth, the
+elder Princess begged to be allowed to salute him. The request was not
+granted; but when the King mounted his horse in the courtyard Mary stood
+upon a terrace above to see him. The King was informed of her presence, or
+saw her by chance; and, as she caught his eye, she threw herself upon her
+knees in an attitude of prayer, whereupon the father touched his bonnet,
+and bowed low and kindly to the daughter he was wronging so bitterly. He
+explained afterwards that he avoided speaking to her as she was so
+obstinate with him, "thanks to her Spanish blood." When the French
+ambassador mentioned her kindly, during the conversation, he noted that
+Henry's eyes filled with tears, and that he could not refrain from
+praising her.[115] But for Anne's jealousy for her own offspring, it is
+probable that Mary's legitimacy would have been established by Act of
+Parliament; as Cromwell at this time was certainly in favour of it: but
+Anne was ever on the watch, especially to arouse Henry's anger by hinting
+that Mary was looking to foreigners for counsel, as indeed she was. It was
+this latter element in which danger principally lurked. Katharine
+naturally appealed to her kin for support; and all through her trouble it
+was this fact, joined with her firm refusal to acknowledge Henry's supreme
+power, that steeled her husband's heart. But for the King's own daughter
+and undoubted born subject to act in the same way made her, what her
+mother never had been, a dangerous centre around which the disaffected
+elements might gather. The old nobility, as we have seen, were against
+Anne: and Henry quite understood the peril of having in his own family a
+person who commanded the sympathies of the strongest foreign powers in
+Europe, as well as the most influential elements in England. He angrily
+told the Marquis of Exeter that it was only confidence in the Emperor
+that made Mary so obstinate; but that he was not afraid of the Emperor,
+and would bring the girl to her senses: and he then went on to threaten
+Exeter himself if he dared to communicate with her. The same course was
+soon afterwards taken with Norfolk, who as well as his wife was forbidden
+to see the Princess, although he certainly had shown no desire to extend
+much leniency to her.
+
+The treatment of Katharine was even more atrocious, though in her case it
+was probably more the King's irritated pride than his fears that was the
+incentive. When the wretched Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, was
+prosecuted for her crazy prophecies against the King every possible effort
+was made to connect the unfortunate Queen with her, though unsuccessfully,
+and the attempt to force Katharine to take the oath prescribed by the new
+Act of Succession against herself and her daughter was obviously a piece
+of persecution and insult.[116] The Commission sent to Buckden to extort
+the new oath of allegiance to Henry, and to Anne as Queen, consisted of
+Dr. Lee, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Tunstall, Bishop of Durham; and the
+Bishop of Chester; and the scene as described by one of the Spanish
+servants is most curious. When the demand was made that she should take
+the oath of allegiance to Anne as Queen, Katharine with fine scorn
+replied, "Hold thy peace, bishop: speak to me no more. These are the wiles
+of the devil. I am Queen, and Queen will I die: by right the King can have
+no other wife, and let this be your answer."[117] Assembling her
+household, she addressed them, and told them they could not without sin
+swear allegiance to the King and Anne in a form that would deny the
+supreme spiritual authority of the Pope: and taking counsel with her
+Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, they settled between them that the
+Spaniards should answer interrogatories in Spanish in such a way that by a
+slight mispronunciation their answer could be interpreted, "I acknowledge
+that the King has made himself head of the Church" (_se ha hecho cabeza de
+la iglesia_), whereas the Commissioners would take it as meaning "that the
+King be created head of the Church" (_sea hecho cabeza de la iglesia_);
+and on the following morning the wily chamberlain and his countrymen saved
+appearances and their consciences at the same time by a pun. But when the
+formal oath of allegiance to Anne was demanded, Felipe, speaking for the
+rest, replied, "I have taken one oath of allegiance to my lady Queen
+Katharine. She still lives, and during her life I know no other Queen in
+this realm." Lee then threatened them with punishment for refusal, and a
+bold Burgundian lackey, Bastian,[118] burst out with, "Let the King banish
+us, but let him not order us to be perjurers." The bishop in a rage told
+him to begone at once; and, nothing loath, Bastian knelt at his mistress's
+feet and bade her farewell; taking horse at once to ride to the coast.
+Katharine in tears remonstrated with Lee for dismissing her servant
+without reference to her; and the bishop, now that his anger was calmed,
+sent messengers to fetch Bastian back; which they did not do until he had
+reached London.[119]
+
+This fresh indignity aroused Katharine's friends both in England and
+abroad. The Emperor had already remonstrated with the English ambassador
+on the reported cruel treatment of the Queen and her daughter, and Henry
+now endeavoured to justify himself in a long letter (June 1534). As for
+the Queen, he said, she was being treated "in everything to the best that
+can be devised, whom we do order and entertain as we think most expedient,
+and as to us seemeth prudent. And the like also of our daughter the Lady
+Mary: for we think it not meet that any person should prescribe unto us
+how we should order our own daughter, we being her natural father." He
+expressed himself greatly hurt that the Emperor should think him capable
+of acting unkindly, notwithstanding that the Lady Katharine "hath very
+disobediently behaved herself towards us, as well in contemning and
+setting at naught our laws and statutes, as in many other ways." Just
+lately, he continues, he had sent three bishops to exhort her, "in most
+loving fashion," to obey the law; and "she hath in most ungodly,
+obstinate, and inobedient wise, wilfully resisted, set at naught and
+contemned our laws and ordinances: so if we would administer to her any
+rigour or extremity she were undoubtedly within the extreme danger of our
+laws."
+
+The blast of persecution swept over the land. The oaths demanded by the
+new statutes were stubbornly resisted by many. Fisher and More, as learned
+and noble as any men in the land, were sent to the Tower (April 1534) to
+be entrapped and done to death a year later. Throughout the country the
+Commissioners with plenary powers were sent to administer the new oaths,
+and those citizens who cavilled at taking them were treated as traitors to
+the King. But all this did not satisfy Anne whilst Katharine and Mary
+remained recalcitrant and unpunished for the same offence. Henry was in
+dire fear, however, of some action of the Emperor in enforcement of the
+Papal excommunication against him and his kingdom, which according to the
+Catholic law he had forfeited by the Pope's ban. Francis, willing as he
+was to oppose the Emperor, dared not expose his own kingdom to
+excommunication by siding with Henry, and the latter was statesman enough
+to see, as indeed was Cromwell, that extreme measures against Mary would
+turn all Christendom against him, and probably prove the last unbearable
+infliction that would drive his own people to aid a foreign invasion. So,
+although Anne sneered at the King's weakness, as she called it, and
+eagerly anticipated his projected visit to Francis, during which she would
+remain Regent in England, and be able to wreak her wicked will on the
+young Princess, the King, held by political fear, and probably, too, by
+some fatherly regard, refused to be nagged by his wife into the murder of
+his daughter, and even relinquished the meeting with Francis rather than
+leave England with Anne in power.
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine's health grew worse. Henry told the French
+ambassador in January, soon after Suffolk's attempt to administer the
+first oath to her, that "she was dropsical and could not live long": and
+his enemies were ready with the suggestion--which was probably
+unfounded--that she was being poisoned. She shut herself up in her own
+chamber, and refused to eat the food prepared by the new servants; what
+little food she took being cooked in her own room by her one maid. Early
+in the summer (May) she was removed from Buckden to Kimbolton Castle,
+within the miasmic influence of the fens, and there was no attempt to
+conceal the desire on the part of the King and those who had brought him
+to this pass that Katharine should die, for by that means alone, it
+seemed, could foreign intervention and civil war be averted. Katharine
+herself was, as we have seen, full of suspicion. In March Chapuys reported
+that she had sent a man to London to procure some old wine for her, as she
+refused to drink the wine provided for her use. "They were trying," he
+said, "to give her artificial dropsy." Two months later, just after the
+stormy scene when Lee and Tunstall had endeavoured to extort from the
+Queen the oath to the new Act of Succession, Chapuys in hot indignation
+suddenly appeared at Richmond, where the King was, to protest against such
+treatment. Henry was intensely annoyed and offended, and refused to see
+the ambassador. He was master, he said, in his own realm; and it was no
+good coming to him with such remonstrances. No wonder that Chapuys
+concluded, "Everybody fears some ill turn will be done to the Queen,
+seeing the rudeness to which she is daily subjected, both in deeds and
+words; especially as the concubine has said that she will not cease till
+she has got rid of her; and as the prophecies say that one Queen of
+England is to be burnt, she hopes it will be Katharine."[120]
+
+Early in June Katharine urged strongly that Chapuys should travel to
+Kimbolton to see her, alleging the bad condition of her health as a
+reason. The King and Cromwell believed that her true object in desiring an
+interview was to devise plans with her nephew's ambassador for obtaining
+the enforcement of the papal censure,[121] which would have meant the
+subversion of Henry's power; and for weeks Chapuys begged for permission
+to see her in vain. "Ladies were not to be trusted," Cromwell told him;
+whilst fresh Commissioners were sent, one after the other, to extort, by
+force if necessary, the oath of Katharine's lady attendants to the Act of
+Succession, much to the Queen's distress.[122] At length, tired of
+waiting, the ambassador told Cromwell that he was determined to start at
+once; which he did two days later, on the 16th July. With a train of sixty
+horsemen, his own household and Spaniards resident in England, he rode
+through London towards the eastern counties, ostensibly on a religious
+pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham. Riding through the leafy lanes of
+Hertfordshire in the full summer tide, solaced by music, minstrelsy, and
+the quaint antics of Chapuys' fool, the party were surprised on the second
+day of their journey to see gallop past them on the road Stephen Vaughan,
+one of the King's officers who spoke Spanish; and later, when they had
+arrived within a few miles of Kimbolton, they were met by the same man,
+accompanied this time by a humble servitor of Katharine, bringing to the
+pilgrims wine and provisions in abundance, but also the ill news that the
+King had ordered that Chapuys was to be forbidden access to the Queen. The
+ambassador was exceedingly indignant. He did not wish to offend the King,
+he said, but, having come so far and being now in the immediate
+neighbourhood, he would not return unsuccessful without an effort to
+obtain a more authoritative decision. Early the next morning one of
+Katharine's old officers came to Chapuys and repeated the prohibition,
+begging him not even to pass through the village, lest the King should
+take it ill. Other messages passed, but all to the same effect. Poor
+Katharine herself sent secret word that she was as thankful for Chapuys'
+journey as if it had been successful, and hinted that it would be a
+consolation to her if some of her countrymen could at least approach the
+castle. Needless to say that the Spaniards gathered beneath the walls of
+the castle and chatted gallantly across the moat to the ladies upon the
+terraces, and some indeed, including the jester, are asserted to have
+found their way inside the castle, where they were regaled heartily, and
+the fool played some of the usual tricks of his motley.[123] Chapuys, in
+high dudgeon, returned by another road to London without attempting to
+complete his pilgrimage to Walsingham, secretly spied upon as he was, the
+whole way, by the King's envoy, Vaughan. "Tell Cromwell," he said to the
+latter, as he discovered himself on the outskirts of London, "that I
+should have judged it more honourable if the King and he had informed me
+of his intention before I left London, so that all the world should not
+have been acquainted with a proceeding which I refrain from
+characterising. But the Queen," he continued, "nevertheless had cause to
+thank him (Cromwell) since the rudeness shown to her would now be so
+patent that it could not well be denied."
+
+Henry and Cromwell had good reason to fear foreign machinations to their
+detriment. The Emperor and Francis were in ominous negotiations; for the
+King of France could not afford to break with the Papacy, the rising of
+Kildare in Ireland was known to have the sympathy, if not the aid, of
+Spain, and it was felt throughout Christendom that the Emperor must,
+sooner or later, give force to the Papal sentence against England to avoid
+the utter loss of prestige which would follow if the ban of Rome was after
+all seen to be utterly innocuous. A sympathetic English lord told Chapuys
+secretly that Cromwell had ridiculed the idea of the Emperor's attacking
+England; for his subjects would not put up with the consequent loss of
+trade. But if he did, continued Cromwell, "the death of Katharine and Mary
+would put an end to all the trouble." Chapuys told his informant, for
+Cromwell's behoof, that if any harm was done to either of the ladies the
+Emperor would have the greater cause for quarrel.
+
+In the autumn Mary fell seriously ill. She had been obliged to follow "the
+bastard," Elizabeth, against her will, for ever intriguing cleverly to
+avoid humiliation to herself. But the long struggle against such odds
+broke down her health, and Henry, who, in his heart of hearts, could
+hardly condemn his daughter's stubbornness, so like his own, softened to
+the extent of his sending his favourite physician, Dr. Butts, to visit
+her. A greater concession was to allow Katharine's two medical men to
+attend the Princess; and permission was given to Katharine herself to see
+her, but under conditions which rendered the concession nugatory. The
+Queen wrote a pathetic letter in Spanish to Cromwell, praying that Mary
+might be permitted to come and stay with her. "It will half cure her," she
+urged. As a small boon, Henry had consented that the sick girl should be
+sent to a house at no great distance from Kimbolton. "Alas!" urged
+Katharine, "if it be only a mile away, I cannot visit her. I beseech that
+she be allowed to come to where I am. I will answer for her security with
+my life." But Cromwell or his master was full of suspicion of imperial
+plots for the escape of Mary to foreign soil, and Katharine's maternal
+prayer remained unheard.
+
+The unhappy mother tried again soon afterwards to obtain access to her
+sick daughter by means of Chapuys. She besought for charity's sake that
+the King would allow her to tend Mary with her own hands. "You shall also
+tell his Highness that there is no need for any other person but myself to
+nurse her: I will put her in my own bed where I sleep, and will watch her
+when needful." When Chapuys saw the King with this pathetic message Henry
+was less arrogant than usual. "He wished to do his best for his daughter's
+health; but he must be careful of his own honour and interests, which
+would be jeopardised if Mary were conveyed abroad, or if she escaped, as
+she easily might do if she were with her mother; for he had some suspicion
+that the Emperor had a design to get her away." Henry threw all the blame
+for Mary's obstinacy upon Katharine, who he knew was in close and constant
+touch with his opponents: and the fear he expressed that the Emperor and
+his friends in England would try to spirit Mary across the sea to
+Flanders, where, indeed, she might have been made a thorn in her father's
+side, were perfectly well founded, and these plans were at the time the
+gravest peril that threatened Henry and England.[124]
+
+Cruel, therefore, as his action towards his daughter may seem, it was
+really prompted by pressing considerations of his own safety. Apart from
+this desire to keep Mary away from foreign influence working against him
+through her mother, Henry exhibited frequent signs of tenderness towards
+his elder daughter, much to Anne's dismay. In May 1534, for instance, he
+sent her a gentle message to the effect that he hoped she would obey him,
+and that in such case her position would be preserved. But the girl was
+proud and, not unnaturally, resentful, and sent back a haughty answer to
+what she thought was an attempt to entrap her. To her foreign friends she
+said that she believed her father meant to poison her, but that she cared
+little. She was sure of going to heaven, and was only sorry for her
+mother.
+
+In the meanwhile Anne's influence over the King was weakening. She saw the
+gathering clouds from all parts of Christendom ready to launch their
+lightning upon her head, and ruin upon England for her sake; and her
+temper, never good, became intolerable. Henry, having had his way, was now
+face to face with the threatening consequences, and could ill brook
+snappish petulance from the woman for whom he had brought himself to
+brave the world. As usual with weak men, he pitied himself sincerely, and
+looked around for comfort, finding none from Anne. Francis, eldest son of
+the Church and most Christian King, was far from being the genial ally he
+once had been, now that Henry was excommunicate; the German Protestant
+princes even stood apart and rejected Henry's approaches for an alliance
+to the detriment of their own suzerain;[125] and, worst of all, the
+English lords of the North, Hussey, Dacre, and the rest of them, were in
+close conspiracy with the imperialists for an armed rising aided from
+abroad; which, if successful, would make short work of Henry and his
+anti-Papal policy.[126] In return for all this danger, the King could only
+look at the cross, discontented woman by his side, who apparently was as
+incapable of bearing him a son as Katharine had been. For some months in
+the spring of 1534 Anne had endeavoured to retain her hold upon him by
+saying that she was again with child, and during the royal progress in the
+midland counties in the summer Henry was more attentive than he had been
+to the woman he still hoped might bear him a son, although her shrewish
+temper sorely tried him and all around her. At length, however, the truth
+had to be told, and Henry's hopes fled, and his eyes again turned
+elsewhere for solace.
+
+Anne knew that her position was unstable, and her husband's open
+flirtation with a lady of the Court drove her to fury. Presuming upon her
+former influence, she imperiously attempted to have her new rival removed
+from the proximity of the King. Henry flared up at this, and let Anne
+know, as brutally as language could put it, that the days of his
+complaisance with her were over, and that he regretted having done so much
+for her sake. Who the King's new lady-love was is not certain. Chapuys
+calls her "a very beautiful and adroit young lady, for whom his love is
+daily increasing, whilst the credit and insolence of the concubine (_i.e._
+Anne) decreases." That the new favourite was supported by the aristocratic
+party that opposed Anne and the religious changes is evident from Chapuys'
+remark that "there is some good hope that if this love of the King's
+continues the affairs of the Queen (Katharine) and the Princess will
+prosper, for the young lady is greatly attached to them." Anne and her
+family struggled to keep their footing, but when Henry had once plucked up
+courage to shake off the trammels, he had all a weak man's violence and
+obstinacy in following his new course. One of Princess Mary's household
+came to tell Chapuys in October that "the King had turned Lady Rochford
+(Anne's sister-in-law) out of the Court because she had conspired with the
+concubine by hook or by crook to get rid of the young lady." The rise of
+the new favourite immediately changed the attitude of the courtiers
+towards Mary. "On Wednesday before leaving the More she (Mary) was visited
+by all the ladies and gentlemen, regardless of the annoyance of Anne. The
+day before yesterday (October 22nd) the Princess was at Richmond with the
+brat (_garse, i.e._ Elizabeth), and the lady (Anne) came to see her
+daughter accompanied by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and others, all
+of whom went and saluted the Princess (Mary) with some of the ladies;
+which was quite a new thing."
+
+The death of Pope Clement and the advent of Cardinal Farnese as Paul III.,
+known to be not too well affected towards the Emperor, seemed at this time
+to offer a chance of the reconciliation of England with the Papacy: and
+the aristocratic party in Henry's counsels hoped, now that the King had
+grown tired of his second wife, that they might influence him by a fresh
+appeal to his sensuality. France also took a hand in the game in its new
+aspect, the aim being to obtain the hand of Mary for the Dauphin, to whom,
+it will be recollected, she had been betrothed as a child, with the
+legitimisation of the Princess and the return of Henry to the fold of the
+Church with a French alliance. This would, of course, have involved the
+repudiation of Anne, with the probable final result of a French domination
+of England after the King's death. The Admiral of France, Chabot de Brion,
+came to England late in the autumn to forward some such arrangement as
+that described, and incidentally to keep alive Henry's distrust of the
+Emperor, whilst threatening him that the Dauphin would marry a Spanish
+princess if the King of England held aloof. But, though Anne's influence
+over her husband was gone, Cromwell, the strong spirit, was still by his
+side; and reconciliation with the Papacy in any form would have meant ruin
+to him and the growing interests that he represented.
+
+Even if Henry had now been inclined to yield to the Papacy, of which there
+is no evidence, Cromwell had gone too far to recede; and when Parliament
+met in November the Act of Supremacy was passed, giving the force of
+statute law to the independence of the Church of England. Chabot de
+Brion's mission was therefore doomed to failure from the first, and the
+envoy took no pains to conceal his resentment towards Anne, the origin of
+all the trouble that dislocated the European balance of power. There was
+much hollow feasting and insincere professions of friendship between the
+two kings, but it was clear now to the Frenchmen that, with Anne or
+without her, Henry would bow his neck no more to the Papacy; and it was to
+the Princess Mary that the Catholic elements looked for a future
+restoration of the old state of things. A grand ball was given at Court in
+Chabot's honour the day before he left London, and the dignified French
+envoy sat in a seat of state by the side of Anne, looking at the dancing.
+Suddenly, without apparent reason, she burst into a violent fit of
+laughter. The Admiral of France, already in no very amiable mood, frowned
+angrily, and, turning to her, said, "Are you laughing at me, madam, or
+what?" After she had laughed to her heart's content, she excused herself
+to him by saying that she was laughing because the King had told her that
+he was going to fetch the Admiral's secretary to be introduced to her, and
+on the way the King had met a lady who had made him forget everything
+else.
+
+Though Henry would not submit to the Papacy at the charming of Francis, he
+was loath to forego the French alliance, and proposed a marriage between
+the younger French prince, the Duke of Angoulęme, and Elizabeth; and this
+was under discussion during the early months of 1535. But it is clear
+that, although the daughter of the second marriage was to be held
+legitimate, Anne was to gain no accession of strength by the new alliance,
+for the French flouted her almost openly, and Henry was already
+contemplating a divorce from her. We are told by Chapuys that he only
+desisted from the idea when a councillor told him that "if he separated
+from 'the concubine' he would have to recognise the validity of his first
+marriage, and, worst of all, submit to the Pope."[127] Who the councillor
+was that gave this advice is not stated; but we may fairly assume that it
+was Cromwell, who soon found a shorter, and, for him, a safer way of
+ridding his master of a wife who had tired him and could bear him no son.
+A French alliance, with a possible reconciliation with Rome in some form,
+would not have suited Cromwell; for it would have meant a triumph for the
+aristocratic party at Henry's Court, and the overthrow of the men who had
+led Henry to defy the Papacy.
+
+If the aristocratic party could influence Henry by means of the nameless
+"new young lady," the Boleyns and reformers could fight with the same
+weapons, and early in February 1535 we find Chapuys writing, "The young
+lady formerly in this King's good graces is so no longer, and has been
+succeeded by a cousin-german of the concubine, the daughter of the present
+governess of the Princess."[128] This new mistress, whilst her little
+reign lasted, worked well for Anne and Cromwell, but in the meantime the
+conspiracy amongst the nobles grew and strengthened. Throughout the upper
+classes in the country a feeling of deep resentment was felt at the
+treatment of Mary, and there was hardly a nobleman, except Anne's father
+and brother, who was not pledged to take up arms in her cause and against
+the religious changes.[129] Cromwell's answer to the disaffection, of
+which he was quite cognisant, was the closer keeping than ever of the
+royal ladies, with threats of their death if they were the cause of a
+revolt, and the stern enforcement of the oath prescribed by the Act of
+Supremacy. The martyrdom of the London Carthusians for refusing to take
+the oath of supremacy, and shortly afterwards the sacrifice of the
+venerable Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More and Katharine's priest Abel, and
+the renewed severity towards her favourite confessor, Friar Forest,[130]
+soon also to be martyred with atrocious cruelty, shocked and horrified
+England, and aroused the strongest reprobation in France and Rome, as well
+as in the dominions of the Emperor; destroying for a time all hope of a
+French alliance, and any lingering chance of a reconciliation with Rome
+during Henry's life. All Catholic aspirations both at home and abroad
+centred for the next year or so in the Princess Mary, and her father's
+friendship was shunned even by Francis, except upon impossible conditions.
+Henry's throne, indeed, was tottering. His country was riddled with
+disaffection and dislike of his proceedings. The new Pope had forged the
+final thunderbolt of Rome, enjoining all Christian potentates to execute
+the sentence of the Church, though as yet the fiat was held back at the
+instance of the Emperor. The dread of war and the general unrest arising
+from this state of things had well-nigh destroyed the English oversea
+trade; the harvest was a bad one, and food was dear. Ecclesiastics
+throughout the country were whispering to their flocks curses of Nan
+Bullen, for whose sake the Church of Christ was being split in twain and
+its ministers persecuted.[131] Anne, it is true, was now quite a secondary
+personage as a political factor, but upon her unpopular head was heaped
+the blame for everything. The wretched woman, fully conscious that she was
+the general scapegoat, could only pray for a son, whose advent might save
+her at the eleventh hour; for failing him she knew that she was doomed.
+
+In the meanwhile the struggle was breaking Katharine's heart. For seven
+years she had fought as hard against her fate as an outraged woman could.
+She had seen that her rights, her happiness, were only a small stake in
+the great game of European politics. To her it seemed but righteous that
+her nephew the Emperor should, at any cost, rise in indignant wrath and
+avenge the insult put upon his proud line, and upon the Papacy whose
+earthly champion he was, by crushing the forces that had wrought the
+wrong. But Charles was held back by all sorts of considerations arising
+from his political position. Francis was for ever on the look-out for a
+weak spot in the imperial armour; the German Protestant princes, although
+quite out of sympathy with Henry's matrimonial vagaries, would look
+askance at a crusade to enforce the Pope's executorial decree against
+England, the French and moderate influence in the College of Cardinals was
+strong, and Charles could not afford by too aggressive an action against
+Henry to drive Francis and the cardinals into closer union against
+imperial aims, especially in the Mediterranean and Italy, where, owing to
+the vacancy in the duchy of Milan, they now mainly centred. So Katharine
+clamoured in vain to those whose sacred duty she thought it was to
+vindicate her honour and the faith. Both she, and her daughter at her
+instigation, wrote burning letters to the Pope and the imperial agents,
+urging, beseeching, exhorting the Catholic powers to activity against
+their oppressor. Henry and Cromwell knew all this, and recognising the
+dire danger that sooner or later Katharine's prayer to a united
+Christendom might launch upon England an avalanche of ruin, strove as
+best they might to avert such a catastrophe. Every courier who went to the
+Emperor from England carried alarmist rumours that Katharine and Mary were
+to be put out of the way; and the ladies, in a true spirit of martyrdom,
+awaited without flinching the hour of their sacrifice. Cromwell himself
+darkly hinted that the only way out of the maze of difficulty and peril
+was the death of Katharine; and in this he was apparently right. But at
+this distance of time it seems evident that much of the threatening talk,
+both of the King's friends and those of the Catholic Church in England,
+was intended, on the one hand to drive Katharine and her daughter into
+submission, and prevent them from continuing their appeals for foreign
+aid, and on the other to move the Emperor to action against Henry. So, in
+the welter of political interests, Katharine wept and raged fruitlessly.
+The Papal decree directing the execution of the deprivation of Henry,
+though signed by the Pope, was still held back; for Charles could not
+afford to invade England himself, and was determined to give no excuse for
+Francis to do so.
+
+Though there is no known ground for the then prevailing belief that Henry
+was aiding nature in hastening the death of his first wife, the long
+unequal combat against invincible circumstances was doing its work upon a
+constitution never robust; and by the late autumn of 1535 the
+stout-hearted daughter of Isabel the Catholic was known to be sick beyond
+surgery. In December 1535 Chapuys had business with Cromwell, and during
+the course of their conversation the latter told him that he had just
+sent a messenger to inform the King of Katharine's serious illness. This
+was the first that Chapuys had heard of it, and he at once requested leave
+to go and see her, to which Cromwell replied that he might send a servant
+to inquire as to her condition, but that the King must be consulted before
+he (Chapuys) himself could be allowed to see her. As Chapuys was leaving
+Whitehall a letter was brought to him from Katharine's physician, saying
+that the Queen's illness was not serious, and would pass off; so that
+unless later unfavourable news was sent Chapuys need not press for leave
+to see her. Two days afterwards a letter reached him from Katharine
+herself, enclosing one to the Emperor. She wrote in the deepest
+depression, praying again, and for the hundredth time, in words that, as
+Chapuys says, "would move a stone to compassion," that prompt action
+should be taken on behalf of herself and her daughter before the
+Parliament could do them to death and consummate the apostasy of England.
+It was her last heart-broken cry for help, and like all those that had
+preceded it during the seven bitter years of Katharine's penance, it was
+unheard amidst the din of great national interests that was ringing
+through Europe.
+
+It was during the feast of Christmas 1535, which Henry passed at Eltham,
+that news came to Chapuys from Dr. De la Sá that Katharine had relapsed
+and was in grave peril. The ambassador was to see the King on other
+business in a day or two, in any case, but this news caused him to beg
+Cromwell to obtain for him instant leave to go to the Queen. There would
+be no difficulty about it, the secretary replied, but Chapuys must see the
+King first at Greenwich, whither he would go to meet him. The ambassador
+found Henry in the tiltyard all amiability. With a good deal of overdone
+cordiality, the King walked up and down the lists arm in arm with Chapuys,
+the while he reverted to the proposal of a new friendship and alliance
+with the Emperor.[132] The French, he said, were up to their old pranks,
+especially since the Duke of Milan had died, but he should at last be
+forced into an intimate alliance with them, unless the Emperor would let
+bygones be bygones, and make friends with him. Chapuys was cool and
+non-committal. He feared, he said, that it was only a device to make the
+French jealous, and after much word-bandying between them, the ambassador
+flatly asked Henry what he wanted the Emperor to do. "I want him," replied
+the King, "not only to cease to support Madam Katharine and my daughter,
+but also to get the Papal sentence in Madam's favour revoked." To this
+Chapuys replied that he saw no good reason for doing either, and had no
+authority to discuss the point raised; and, as a parting shot, Henry told
+him that Katharine could not live long, and when she died the Emperor
+would have no need to follow the matter up. When Chapuys had taken his
+leave, the Duke of Suffolk came after him and brought him back to the
+King, who told him that news had just reached him that Katharine was
+dying--Chapuys might go and see her, but he would hardly find her alive;
+her death, moreover, would do away with all cause for dissension between
+the Emperor and himself. A request that the Princess Mary might be allowed
+to see her dying mother was at first met with a flat refusal, and after
+Chapuys' remonstrance by a temporising evasion which was as bad, so that
+Mary saw her mother no more in life.
+
+Chapuys instantly took horse and sped to London, and then northward to
+Kimbolton, anxious to reach the Queen before she breathed her last, for he
+was told that for days the patient had eaten and drank nothing, and slept
+hardly at all. It took Chapuys two days of hard travel over the miry roads
+before he reached Kimbolton on the morning of the 2nd January 1536.[133]
+He found that the Queen's dearest friend, Lady Willoughby (Dońa Maria de
+Sarmiento), had preceded him by a day and was with her mistress. She had
+prayed in vain for license to come before, and even now Katharine's stern
+guardian, Bedingfield, asked in vain to see Lady Willoughby's permit,
+which she probably had not got. She had come in great agitation and fear,
+for, according to her own account, she had fallen from her horse, and had
+suffered other adventures on her way, but she braved everything to receive
+the last sigh of the Queen, whose girlhood's friend she had been.
+Bedingfield looked askance at the arrival of "these folks"; and at
+Chapuys' first interview with Katharine he, the chamberlain, and Vaughan
+who understood Spanish, were present, and listened to all that was said.
+It was a consolation, said the Queen, that if she could not recover she
+might die in the presence of her nephew's ambassador and not unprepared.
+He tried to cheer her with encouraging promises that the King would let
+her be removed to another house, and would accede to other requests made
+in her favour; but Katharine only smiled sadly, and bade him rest after
+his long journey. She saw the ambassador again alone later in the day, and
+spoke at length with him, as she did on each day of the four that he
+stayed, her principal discourse being of the misfortune that had overtaken
+England by reason of the long delay of the Emperor in enforcing justice to
+her.[134]
+
+After four days' stay of Chapuys, Katharine seemed better, and the
+apothecary, De la Sá, gave it as his opinion that she was out of immediate
+danger. She even laughed a little at the antics of Chapuys' fool, who was
+called in to amuse her; and, reassured by the apparent improvement, the
+ambassador started on his leisurely return to London.[135] On the second
+day after his departure, soon after midnight, the Queen asked if it was
+near day, and repeated the question several times at short intervals
+afterwards. When at length the watchers asked her the reason for her
+impatience for the dawn, she replied that it was because she wished to
+hear Mass and receive the Holy Sacrament. The aged Dominican Bishop of
+Llandaff (Jorge de Ateca) volunteered to celebrate at four o'clock in the
+morning, but Katharine refused, and quoted the Latin authorities to prove
+that it should not be done before dawn. With the first struggling of the
+grey light of morning the offices of the Church for the dying were
+solemnly performed, whilst Katharine prayed fervently for herself, for
+England, and for the man who had so cruelly wronged her. When all was done
+but the administration of extreme unction, she bade her physician write a
+short memorandum of a few gifts she craved for her faithful servants; for
+she knew, and said, that by the law of England a married woman could make
+no valid will. The testament is in the form of a supplication to Henry,
+and is remarkable as the dictation of a woman within a few hours of her
+death. Each of her servants is remembered: a hundred pounds to her
+principal Spanish lady, Blanche de Vargas, "twenty pounds to Mistress
+Darrel for her marriage"; his wages and forty pounds were to be paid to
+Francisco Felipe, the Groom of the Chambers, twenty pounds to each of the
+three lackeys, including the Burgundian Bastian, and like bequests, one by
+one, to each of the little household. Not even the sum she owed for a gown
+was forgotten. For her daughter she craved her furs and the gold chain and
+cross she had brought from Spain, all that was left of her treasures after
+Anne's greed had been satisfied;[136] and for the Convent of Observant
+Franciscans, where she begged for sepulture, "my gowns which he (the King)
+holdeth." It is a sad little document, compliance with which was for the
+most part meanly evaded by Henry; even Francisco Felipe "getting nothing
+and returning poor to his own country."
+
+Thus, dignified and saintly, at the second hour after midday on the 8th
+January 1536, Katharine of Aragon died unconquered as she had lived; a
+great lady to the last, sacrificed in death, as she had been in life, to
+the opportunism of high politics. "_In manus tuas Domine commendo spiritum
+meum_," she murmured with her last breath. From man she had received no
+mercy, and she turned to a gentler Judge with confidence and hope. As
+usual in such cases as hers, the people about her whispered of poison; and
+when the body was hastily cered and lapped in lead, "by the candlemaker of
+the house, a servant and one companion," not even the Queen's physician
+was allowed to be present. But the despised "candlemaker," who really
+seems to have been a skilled embalmer, secretly told the Bishop of
+Llandaff, who waited at the door, that all the body was sound "except the
+heart, which was black and hideous," with a black excrescence "which clung
+closely to the outside"; on which report Dr. De la Sá unhesitatingly
+opined that his mistress had died of poison.[137]
+
+The news, the joyous news, sped quickly to Greenwich; and within
+four-and-twenty hours, on Saturday, 9th January, Henry heard with
+exultation that the incubus was raised from his shoulders. "God be
+praised," was his first exclamation, "we are free from all suspicion of
+war." Now, he continued, he would be able to manage the French better.
+They would be obliged to dance to his tune, for fear he should join the
+Emperor, which would be easy now that the cause for disagreement had gone.
+Thus, heartlessly, and haggling meanly over his wife's little bequests,
+even that to her daughter, Henry greeted the death of the woman he once
+had seemed to love. He snivelled a little when he read the affecting
+letter to him that she had dictated in her last hour;[138] but the word
+went forth that on the next day, Sunday, the Court should be at its
+gayest; and Henry and Anne, in gala garb of yellow finery, went to Mass
+with their child in full state to the sound of trumpets. After dinner the
+King could not restrain his joy even within the bounds of decency.
+Entering the hall in which the ladies were dancing, he pirouetted about in
+the exuberance of his heart, and then, calling for his fair little
+daughter Elizabeth, he proudly carried her in his arms from one courtier
+to another to be petted and praised. There was only one drop of gall in
+the cup for the Boleyns, and they made no secret of it, namely, that the
+Princess Mary had not gone to accompany her mother. If Anne had only known
+it, her last chance of keeping at the King's side as his wife was the
+survival of Katharine; and lamentation instead of rejoicing should have
+been her greeting of the news of her rival's death. Henry, in fact, was
+tired of Anne already, and the cabal of nobles against her and the
+religious system she represented was stronger than ever; but the
+repudiation of his second wife on any excuse during the life of the first
+would have necessitated the return of Katharine as the King's lawful
+spouse, with all the consequences that such a change would entail, and
+this Henry's pride, as well as his inclinations, would never permit. Now
+that Katharine was dead, Anne was doomed to speedy ruin by one
+instrumentality or another, and before many weeks the cruel truth came
+home to her.
+
+Katharine was buried not in such a convent as she had wished, for Henry
+said there was not one in England, but in Peterborough Cathedral, within
+fifteen miles of Kimbolton. The honours paid to her corpse were those of a
+Dowager Princess of Wales, but the country folk who bordered the miry
+tracks through which the procession ploughed paid to the dead Katharine in
+her funeral litter the honours they had paid her in her life. Parliament,
+far away in London, might order them to swear allegiance to Nan Bullen as
+Queen, and to her daughter as heiress of England; King Harry on his throne
+might threaten them, as he did, with stake and gibbet if they dared to
+disobey; but, though they bowed the head and mumbled such oaths as were
+dictated to them, Katharine to them had always been Queen Consort of
+England, and Mary her daughter was no bastard, but true Princess of Wales,
+whatever King and Parliament might say.
+
+All people and all interests were, as if instinctively, shrinking away
+from Anne.[139] Her uncle Norfolk had quarrelled with her and retired from
+Court; the French were now almost as inimical as the imperialists; and
+even the time-serving courtiers turned from the waning favourite. She was
+no longer young, and her ill temper and many anxieties had marred her good
+looks. Her gaiety and lightness of manner had to a great extent fled; and
+sedate occupations, reading, needlework, charity, and devotion occupied
+most of her time. "Oh for a son!" was all the unhappy woman could sigh in
+her misery; for that, she knew, was the only thing that could save her,
+now that Katharine was dead and Anne might be repudiated by her husband
+without the need for taking back his first discarded wife.[140] Hope
+existed again that the prayed-for son might come into the world, and at
+the first prospect of it Anne made an attempt to utilise the influence it
+gave her by cajoling or crushing Mary into submission to the King's will.
+The girl was desolate at her mother's death; but she had her mother's
+proud spirit, and her answers to Anne's approaches were as cold and
+haughty as before. "The concubine (writes Chapuys, 21st January 1536) has
+thrown out the first bait to the Princess, telling her by her aunt (Lady
+Shelton) that if she will discontinue her obstinacy, and obey her father
+like a good girl, she (Anne) will be the best friend in the world to her,
+and like another mother will try to obtain for her all she wants. If she
+will come to Court she shall be exempt from carrying her (Anne's) train
+and shall always walk by her side." But obedience meant that Mary should
+recognise Cranmer's sentence against her mother, the repudiation of the
+Papal authority and her own illegitimacy, and she refused the olive branch
+held out to her. Then Anne changed her tone, and wrote to her aunt a
+letter to be put into Mary's way, threatening the Princess. In her former
+approaches, she said, she had only desired to save Mary out of charity. It
+was no affair of hers: she did not care; but when she had the son she
+expected the King would show no mercy to his rebellious daughter. But Mary
+remained unmoved. She knew that all Catholic Europe looked upon her now as
+the sole heiress of England, and that the Emperor was busy planning her
+escape, in order that she might, from the safe refuge of his dominions, be
+used as the main instrument for the submission of England to the Papacy
+and the destruction of Henry's rule. For things had turned out somewhat
+differently in this respect from what the King had expected. The death of
+Katharine, very far from making the armed intervention of Charles in
+England more improbable, had brought it sensibly nearer, for the great
+war-storm that had long been looming between the French and Spaniards in
+Italy was now about to burst. Francis could no longer afford to alienate
+the Papacy by even pretending to a friendship with the excommunicated
+Henry, whilst England might be paralysed, and all chance of a diversion
+against imperial arms in favour of France averted, by the slight aid and
+subsidy by the Emperor of a Catholic rising in England against Henry and
+Anne.
+
+On the 29th January 1536 Anne's last hope was crushed. In the fourth month
+of her pregnancy she had a miscarriage, which she attributed passionately
+to her love for the King and her pain at seeing him flirting with another
+woman. Henry showed his rage and disappointment brutally, as was now his
+wont. He had hardly spoken to Anne for weeks before; and when he visited
+her at her bedside he said that it was quite evident that God meant to
+deny him heirs male by her. "When you get up," he growled in answer to
+the poor woman's complaints, as he left her, "I will talk to you." The
+lady of whom Anne was jealous was probably the same that had attracted the
+King at the ball given to the Admiral of France two months previously, and
+had made him, as Anne hysterically complained, "forget everything else."
+This lady was Mistress Jane Seymour, a daughter of Sir John Seymour of
+Wolf Hall, Wilts. She was at the time just over twenty-five years of age,
+and had been at Court for some time as a maid of honour to Katharine, and
+afterwards to Anne. During the King's progress in the autumn of 1535, he
+had visited Wolf Hall, where the daughter of the house had attracted his
+admiring attention, apparently for the first time. Jane is described as
+possessing no great beauty, being somewhat colourless as to complexion;
+but her demeanour was sweet and gracious; and the King's admiration for
+her at once marked her out as a fit instrument for the conservative party
+of nobles at Court to use against Anne and the political and religious
+policy which she represented. Apparently Jane had no ability, and none was
+needed in the circumstances. Chapuys, moreover, suggests with unnecessary
+spite that in morals she was no better than she should have been, on the
+unconvincing grounds that "being an Englishwoman, and having been so long
+at Court, whether she would not hold it a sin to be still a maid." Her
+supposed unchastity, indeed, is represented as being an attraction to
+Henry: "for he may marry her on condition that she is a maid, and when he
+wants a divorce there will be plenty of witnesses ready to testify that
+she was not." This, however, is mere detraction by a man who firmly
+believed that the cruelly wronged Katharine whose cause he served had just
+been murdered by Henry's orders. That Jane had no strength of character is
+plain, and throughout her short reign she was merely an instrument by
+which politicians sought to turn the King's passion for her to their own
+ends.
+
+The Seymours were a family of good descent, allied with some of the great
+historic houses, and Jane's two brothers, Edward and Thomas, were already
+handsome and notable figures at Henry's Court: the elder, Sir Edward
+Seymour, especially, having accompanied the showy visits of the Duke of
+Suffolk, Cardinal Wolsey, and the King himself to France. So far as can be
+ascertained, however, the brothers, prompt as they were to profit by their
+sister's elevation, were no parties to the political intrigue of which
+Jane was probably the unconscious tool. She was carefully indoctrinated by
+Anne's enemies, especially Sir Nicholas Carew, how she was to behave. She
+must, above all, profess great devotion and friendship to the Princess
+Mary, to assume a mien of rigid virtue and high principles which would be
+likely to pique a sensual man like Henry without gratifying his passion
+except by marriage. Many of the enemies of the French connection, which
+included the great majority of the nation, looked with hope towards the
+King's new infatuation as a means of luring back England to the comity of
+Catholic nations and friendship with the Emperor; though there was still a
+section, especially in the north of England, which believed that their
+best interests would be served by an open rebellion in the interests of
+Mary, supported from Flanders by her cousin the Emperor. All this was, of
+course, well known to Cromwell. He had been one of the first to counsel
+defiance of the Pope, but throughout he had been anxious to avoid an open
+quarrel with the Emperor, or to pledge England too closely to French
+interests; and now that even the French had turned against Anne, Cromwell
+saw that, unless he himself was to be dragged down when she fell, he must
+put the break hard down upon the religious policy that he had initiated,
+and make common cause with Anne's enemies.
+
+In a secret conference that he held with Chapuys at the Austin Friars,
+which in future was to be his own mansion, Cromwell proposed a new
+alliance between England and the Emperor, which would necessarily have to
+be accompanied by some compromise with the Pope and the recognition of
+Mary's legitimacy.[141] He assured the imperial ambassador that Norfolk,
+Suffolk, and the rest of the nobles formerly attached to France were of
+the same opinion as himself, and tried earnestly to convince his
+interlocutor that he had no sympathy with Anne, whom he was ready to throw
+overboard to save himself. When Charles received this news from his
+ambassador, he took a somewhat tortuous but characteristic course. He was
+willing to a great extent to let bygones be bygones, and to forget the
+sufferings, and perhaps the murder, of his aunt Katharine, if Henry would
+come to terms with the Papacy and legitimise the Princess Mary; but,
+curiously enough, he preferred that Anne should remain at Henry's side,
+instead of being repudiated. Her marriage, he reasoned, was obviously
+invalid, and any children she might have by Henry would consequently be
+unable to interfere with Mary's rights to the succession: whereas if Henry
+were to divorce Anne and contract a legal marriage, any son born to him
+would disinherit Mary. To this extent was Charles ready to descend if he
+could obtain English help and money in the coming war; and Cromwell, at
+all events, was anxious to go quite as far to meet him. He now showed
+ostentatious respect to the Princess Mary, restoring to her the little
+gold cross that had been her mother's, and of which she had been cruelly
+deprived, condemned openly the continued execution of his own policy of
+spoliation of the monasteries, and quarrelled both with Anne and the only
+man now in the same boat with her, Archbishop Cranmer, who trembled in his
+shoes at the ruin he saw impending upon his patroness, ready at any moment
+to turn his coat, but ignorant of how to do it; for Cranmer, however able
+a casuist he might be, possessed little statesmanship and less courage.
+
+Lady Exeter was the go-between who brought the imperial ambassador into
+the conspiracy to oust Anne. The time was seen to be ripening. Henry was
+already talking in secret about "his having been seduced into the marriage
+with Anne by sorcery, and consequently that he considered it to be null,
+which was clearly seen by God's denying a son. He thought he should be
+quite justified in taking another wife,"[142] and Jane Seymour's company
+seemed daily more necessary to his comfort.
+
+Sir Edward Seymour was made a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber early in
+March; and a fortnight later the Marchioness of Exeter reported to her
+friend Chapuys that the King, who was at Whitehall, had sent a loving
+letter, and a purse of gold, to his new lady-love.[143] The latter had
+been carefully schooled as to the wise course to pursue, and played
+prudery to perfection. She kissed the royal letter fervently without
+opening it; and then, throwing herself upon her knees, besought the
+messenger to pray the King in her name to consider that she was a
+gentlewoman of fair and honourable lineage and without reproach. "She had
+nothing in the world but her honour, which for a thousand deaths she would
+not wound. If the King deigned to make her a present of money she prayed
+that it might be when she made an honourable marriage."[144] According to
+Lady Exeter's report, this answer inflamed even more the King's love for
+Jane. "She had behaved herself in the matter very modestly," he said;
+"and in order to let it be seen that his intentions and affection were
+honourable, he intended in future only to speak to her in the presence of
+some of her relatives." Cromwell, moreover, was turned out of a convenient
+apartment to which secret access could be obtained from the King's
+quarters, in order that Sir Edward Seymour, now Viscount Beauchamp, and
+his wife should be lodged there, and facility thus given for the King's
+virtuous billing and cooing with Jane, whilst saving the proprieties.
+
+When it was too late, even Anne attempted to desert her own political
+party and to rally to the side of the Emperor, whether because she
+understood the indulgent way in which the latter now regarded her union
+with Henry, or whether from mere desperation at the ruin impending, it is
+not easy to say. But the conspiracy for her destruction had already gone
+too far when the Emperor's diplomatic instructions came to his
+ambassador.[145] It was understood now at Court that the King intended
+somehow to get rid of his doubtful wife and marry another woman, and
+Cromwell, with a hypocritical smile behind his hand, whispered to Chapuys
+that though the King might divorce Anne he would live more virtuously in
+future. When the imperial ambassador with his master's friendly replies to
+Henry's advances saw the King at Greenwich on the 18th April 1536 the
+Court was all smiles for him, and Anne desperately clutched at the chance
+of making friends with him. Chapuys was cool, and declined to go and
+salute her, as he was invited to do. He was ready, as he said, to hold a
+candle to the devil, or a hundred of them, if his master's interests would
+thereby be served; but he knew that Anne was doomed, and notwithstanding
+his master's permission he made no attempt to conciliate her. All the
+courtiers were watching to see how he would treat her on this the first
+occasion that they had met since Katharine's death. As Anne passed into
+the chapel to high Mass she looked eagerly around to greet her enemy.
+Where was he? In the chapel, she knew, and to sit close by her side; but
+he was nowhere to be seen. He was, in fact, standing behind the open door
+by which she entered; but, determined not to be balked, she turned
+completely round and made him a profound courtesy, which, as he was bound
+to do, he returned. In Anne's rooms afterwards, where the King and the
+other ambassadors dined, Chapuys was not present, much to the
+"concubine's" chagrin; but the Princess Mary and her friends in the
+conspiracy were suspicious and jealous even of the bow that had been
+exchanged under such adverse circumstances in the chapel. Anne at dinner
+coarsely abused the King of France, and strove her utmost to lead people
+to think that she, too, was hand in glove with the imperialists, as her
+enemies were, whilst Henry was graciousness itself to Chapuys, until he
+came to close quarters and heard that the Emperor was determined to drive
+a hard bargain, and force his English uncle to eat a large piece of humble
+pie before he could be taken to his bosom again. Then Henry hectored and
+vaunted like the bully that he was, and upon Cromwell fell his ill humour,
+for having, as Henry thought, been too pliant with the imperialists; and
+for the next week Cromwell was ill and in disgrace.
+
+Submission to the Pope to the extent that Charles demanded was almost
+impossible now, both in consequence of Henry's own vanity, and because the
+vast revenues and estates of the monasteries had in many cases replenished
+the King's exchequer, or had endowed his nobles and favourites, Catholics
+though many of them were. A surrender of these estates and revenues would
+have been resisted, even if such had been possible, to the death, by those
+who had profited by the spoliation; and unless the Pope and the Emperor
+were willing to forget much, the hope of reconciling England with the
+Church was an impossible dream.[146] The great nobles who had battened
+upon the spoils, especially Norfolk, themselves took fright at the
+Emperor's uncompromising demands, and tried to play off France against
+Charles, during Cromwell's short disgrace. The Secretary saw that if the
+friends of France once more obtained the control over Henry's fickle mind,
+the revolutionary section of the Catholic party in favour of Mary and the
+imperial connection would carry all before them, and that in the flood of
+change Cromwell and all his works would certainly be swept away. If Anne
+could be got rid of, and the King married to Mistress Seymour, jointly
+with the adoption of a moderate policy of compromise with Rome and the
+Emperor, all might be well, and Cromwell might retain the helm, but either
+an uncompromising persistence in the open Protestant defiance with
+probably a French alliance against the Emperor, or, on the other hand, an
+armed Catholic revolution in England, subsidised from Flanders, would have
+been inevitable ruin to Cromwell.
+
+Anne, then, must be destroyed at any cost, and the King be won to the side
+of the man who would devise a means of doing it. But how? A repudiation or
+formal divorce on the ground of invalidity would, of course, have been
+easy; but it would have been too scandalous. It would also have convicted
+the King of levity, and above all have bastardised his second daughter,
+leaving him with no child that the law of the realm regarded as
+legitimate. Henry himself, as we have seen, talked about his having been
+drawn into the marriage by sorcery, and ardently desired to get rid of his
+wife. His intercourse with Jane Seymour, who was being cleverly coached by
+Anne's enemies and Mary's friends, plainly indicated that marriage was
+intended; but it was the intriguing brain of Cromwell that devised the
+only satisfactory way in which the King's caprice and his own interests
+could be served in the treatment of Anne. Appearances must, at any cost,
+be saved for Henry. He must not appear to blame, whatever happened.
+Cromwell must be able, for his own safety, to drag down Anne's family and
+friends at the same time that she was ruined, and the affair must be so
+managed that some sort of reconciliation could be patched up with the
+Emperor, whilst Norfolk and the French adherents were thrust into the
+background. Cromwell pondered well on the problem as he lay in bed, sick
+with annoyance at Henry's rough answer to the Emperor's terms, and thus he
+hit upon the scheme that alone would serve the aims he had in view.[147]
+
+The idea gave him health and boldness again, and just as Henry under
+Norfolk's influence was smiling upon the French ambassador, Cromwell
+appeared once more before his master after his five days' absence. What
+passed at their interview can only be guessed by the light of the events
+that followed. It is quite possible that Cromwell did not tell the King of
+his designs against Anne, but only that he had discovered a practice of
+treason against him. But whether the actual words were pronounced or not,
+Henry must have understood, before he signed and gave to Cromwell the
+secret instrument demanded of him, that evil was intended to the woman of
+whom he had grown tired. It was a patent dated the 24th April, appointing
+the Lord Chancellor Audley and a number of nobles, including the Duke of
+Norfolk and Anne's father, the Earl of Wiltshire, together with the
+judges, a Commission to inquire into any intended treasonable action, no
+matter by whom committed, and to hold a special Court to try the persons
+accused. With this instrument in his pocket, Cromwell held at will the
+lives of those whom he sought to destroy. Anne, as we have seen, had loved
+and courted the admiration of men, even as her daughter Elizabeth
+afterwards did to an extent that bordered upon mania. Her manners were
+free and somewhat hysterical, and her reputation before marriage had been
+more than doubtful, but the stern Act of Succession, which in 1534 made it
+treason to question the legitimacy of Anne's daughter, barred all
+accusation against her except in respect to actions after Elizabeth's
+birth.
+
+Cromwell was well served by spies, even in Anne's chamber; for her star
+was visibly paling, and people feared her vengeance little; and not many
+days passed before the Secretary had in his hand testimony enough to
+strike his first blow. It was little enough according to our present
+notions of evidence, and at another time would have passed unnoticed. A
+young fellow of humble origin, named Mark Smeaton, had by Anne's influence
+been appointed one of Henry's grooms of the chamber in consequence of his
+skill as a lute player. Anne herself, who was a fine musician and
+composer, delighted in listening to Mark's performances; and doubtless, as
+was her wont, she challenged his admiration because he was a man. A
+contemporary who repeated the tattle of the Court[148] says that she had
+fallen in love with the lute player, and had told him so; and that she had
+aroused the jealousy of her rival admirers, Norreys, Brereton, and
+others, by her lavish gifts and open favour to Mark Smeaton. According to
+this story, she endeavoured to appease the former by renewed flirting with
+them, and to silence Mark's discontent by large gifts of money. Others of
+her courtiers, especially Sir Thomas Percy, indignant that an upstart like
+Mark should be treated better than themselves, insulted and picked
+quarrels with the musician; and it is evident that Anne, at the very time
+that Cromwell was spreading his nets for her, was hard put to it to keep
+the peace between a number of idle, jealous young men whose admiration she
+had sought for pastime.
+
+On the 29th April, Mark Smeaton was standing sulkily in the deep embrasure
+of a window in Anne's chamber in the palace of Greenwich. The Queen asked
+him why he was so out of humour. He replied that it was nothing that
+mattered. She evidently knew the real reason for his gloom, for she
+reminded him that he could not expect her to speak to him as if he were a
+nobleman. "No, no!" said Mark, "a look sufficeth for me, and so fare you
+well."[149] Sir Thomas Percy seems to have heard this little speech, and
+have conveyed it, with many hints of Mark's sudden prosperity, to
+Cromwell. "It is hardly three months since Mark came to Court, and though
+he has only a hundred pounds a year from the King, and has received no
+more than a third, he has just bought three horses that have cost him 500
+ducats, as well as very rich arms and fine liveries for his servants for
+the May-day ridings, such as no gentleman at Court has been able to buy,
+and many are wondering where he gets the money."[150] Mark Smeaton was a
+safe quarry, for he had no influential friends, and it suited Cromwell's
+turn to begin with him to build up his case against Anne.
+
+There was to be a May-day jousting in the tilt-yard at Greenwich, at which
+Anne's brother, Lord Rochford, was the challenger, and Sir Henry Norreys
+was the principal defender. Early in the morning of the day, Cromwell, who
+of course took no part in such shows, went to London, and asked Smeaton to
+accompany him and dine,[151] returning in the afternoon to Greenwich in
+time for the ridings. Mark accepted the invitation, and was taken
+ostensibly for dinner to a house at Stepney, that probably being a
+convenient half-way place between Greenwich and Westminster by water. No
+sooner had the unsuspecting youth entered the chamber than he saw the trap
+into which he had fallen. Six armed men closed around him, and Cromwell's
+face grew grave, as the Secretary warned the terrified lad to confess
+where he obtained so much money. Smeaton prevaricated, and "then two stout
+young fellows were called, and the Secretary asked for a rope and a
+cudgel. The rope, which was filled with knots, was put around Mark's head
+and twisted with the cudgel until Mark cried, 'Sir Secretary, no more! I
+will tell the truth. The Queen gave me the money.'"[152] Then, bit by bit,
+by threats of torture, some sort of confession incriminating Anne was
+wrung out of the poor wretch: though exactly what he confessed is not on
+record. Later, when the affair was made public, the quidnuncs of London
+could tell the most private details of his adultery with the Queen;[153]
+for Cromwell took care that such gossip should be well circulated.
+
+Whatever confession was extorted from Smeaton, it implicated not only
+himself but the various gentlemen who shared with him the Queen's smiles,
+and was quite sufficient for Cromwell's purpose. Hurrying the unfortunate
+musician to the Tower in the strictest secrecy, Cromwell sent his nephew
+Richard post haste to Greenwich with a letter divulging Smeaton's story to
+the King. Richard Cromwell arrived at the tiltyard as the tournament was
+in progress, the King and Anne witnessing the bouts from a glazed gallery.
+Several versions of what then happened are given; but the most probable is
+that as soon as Henry had glanced at the contents of the letter and knew
+that Cromwell had succeeded, he abruptly rose and left the sports;
+starting almost immediately afterwards for London without the knowledge of
+Anne. With him went a great favourite of his, Sir Henry Norreys, Keeper of
+the Privy Purse, who was engaged to be married to Madge Shelton, Anne's
+cousin, who had at one time been put forward by the Boleyn interest as the
+King's mistress. Norreys had, no doubt, flirted platonically with the
+Queen, who had openly bidden for his admiration, but there is not an atom
+of evidence that their connection was a guilty one.[154] On the way to
+London the King taxed him with undue familiarity with Anne.
+Horror-stricken, Norreys could only protest his innocence, and resist all
+the temptations held out to him to make a clean breast of the Queen's
+immorality. One of the party of Anne's enemies, Sir William Fitzwilliam,
+was also in attendance on the King; and to him was given the order to
+convey Norreys to the Tower. After the King's departure from Greenwich,
+Anne learnt that he had gone without a word of farewell, and that Smeaton
+was absent from the joust, detained in London.
+
+The poor woman's heart must have sunk with fear, for the portents of her
+doom were all around her. She could not cry for mercy to the flabby coward
+her husband, who, as usual, slunk from bearing the responsibility of his
+own acts, and ran away from the danger of personal appeal from those whom
+he wronged. Late at night the dread news was whispered to her that Smeaton
+and Norreys were both in the Tower; and early in the morning she herself
+was summoned to appear before a quorum of the Royal Commissioners,
+presided over by her uncle and enemy, the Duke of Norfolk. She was rudely
+told that she was accused of committing adultery with Smeaton and Norreys,
+both of whom had confessed. She cried and protested in vain that it was
+untrue. She was told to hold her peace, and was placed under arrest until
+her barge was ready and the tide served to bear her up stream to the
+Tower. With her went a large guard of halberdiers and the Duke of Norfolk.
+Thinking that she was being carried to her husband at Westminster, she was
+composed and tranquil on the way; but when she found that the Traitors'
+Gate of the Tower was her destination, her presence of mind deserted her.
+Sir William Kingston, one of the chief conspirators in Mary's favour, and
+governor of the fortress, stood upon the steps under the gloomy archway to
+receive her, and in sign of custody took her by the arm as she ascended.
+"I was received with greater ceremony the last time I entered here," she
+cried indignantly; and as the heavy gates clanged behind her and the
+portcullis dropped, she fell upon her knees and burst into a storm of
+hysterical tears. Kingston and his wife did their best to tranquillise
+her; but her passionate protestations of innocence made no impression upon
+them.
+
+Her brother, Lord Rochford, had, unknown to her, been a few hours before
+lodged in the same fortress on the hideous and utterly unsupported charge
+of incest with his sister; and Cromwell's drag-net was cast awide to bring
+in all those whose names were connected, however loosely, with that of the
+Queen by her servants, all of whom were tumbling over each other in their
+haste to denounce their fallen mistress. Sir Thomas Weston and William
+Brereton, with both of whom Anne had been fond of bandying questionable
+compliments, were arrested on the 4th May; and on the 5th Sir Thomas
+Wyatt, the poet, and a great friend of the King, was put under guard on
+similar accusations. With regard to Wyatt there seems to have been no
+doubt, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, that some love passages
+had passed between him and Anne before her marriage; and there is
+contemporary assertion to support the belief that their connection had not
+been an innocent one;[155] but the case against him was finally dropped
+and he was again taken into Henry's favour; a proof that there was no
+evidence of any guilt on his part since Anne was Queen. He is asserted to
+have begged Henry not to contract the marriage, and subsequently to have
+reminded him that he had done so, confessing after her arrest that Anne
+had been his mistress before she married the King.
+
+The wretched woman babbled hysterically without cessation in her chamber
+in the Tower; all her distraught ravings being carefully noted and
+repeated by the ladies, mostly her personal enemies, who watched her night
+and day; artful leading questions being put to her to tempt her to talk
+the more. She was imprudent in her speech at the best of times, but now,
+in a condition of acute hysteria, she served the interests of her enemies
+to the full, dragging into her discourse the names of the gentlemen who
+were accused and repeating their risky conversations with her, which were
+now twisted to their worst meaning.[156] At one time she would only desire
+death; then she would make merry with a good dinner or supper, chatting
+and jesting, only to break down into hysterical laughter and tears in the
+midst of her merriment. Anon she would affect to believe that her husband
+was but trying her constancy, and pleaded with all her heart to be allowed
+to see him again.[157] But he, once having broken the shackles, was gaily
+amusing himself in gallant guise with Mistress Seymour, who was lodged,
+for appearance' sake, in the house of her mentor, Sir Nicholas Carew, a
+few miles from London, but within easy reach of a horseman. Anne in her
+sober moments must have known that she was doomed. She hoped much from
+Cranmer, almost the only friend of hers not now in prison; but Cranmer,
+however strong in counsel, was a weak reed in combat; and hastened to save
+himself at the cost of the woman upon whose shoulders he had climbed to
+greatness. The day after Anne's arrest, Cranmer wrote to the King "a
+letter of consolation; yet wisely making no apology for her, but
+acknowledging how divers of the lords had told him of certain of her
+faults, which, he said, he was sorry to hear, and concluded desiring that
+the King would continue his love to the gospel, lest it should be thought
+that it was for her sake only that he had favoured it."[158] Before he
+had time to despatch the letter, the timorous archbishop was summoned
+across the river to Westminster to answer certain disquieting questions of
+the Commissioners, who informed him of the evidence against the Queen; and
+in growing alarm for himself and his cause, he hurried back to Lambeth
+without uttering a word in favour of the accused, whose guilt he accepted
+without question.
+
+Thenceforward Anne's enemies worked their way unchecked, even her father
+being silenced by fear for himself. For Cromwell's safety it was necessary
+that none of the accused should escape who later might do him injury; and
+now that he and his imperialistic policy had been buttressed by the
+"discovery" of Anne's infidelity, not even the nobles of the French
+faction dared to oppose it by seeming to side with the unhappy woman. The
+Secretary did his work thoroughly. The indictments were laid before the
+grand juries of Middlesex and Kent, as the offences were asserted to have
+been committed over a long period both at Greenwich and Whitehall or
+Hampton Court. To the charges against Anne of adultery with Smeaton, who
+it was asserted had confessed, Norreys, Weston, Brereton, and Lord
+Rochford, was added that of having conspired with them to kill the King.
+There was not an atom of evidence worth the name to support any of the
+charges except the doubtful confession of Smeaton, wrung from him by
+torture; and it is certain that at the period in question the death of
+Henry would have been fatal to the interests of Anne. But a State
+prosecution in the then condition of the law almost invariably meant a
+condemnation of the accused; and when Smeaton, Weston, Norreys, and
+Brereton were arraigned in Westminster Hall on the 12th May, their doom
+was practically sealed before the trial. Smeaton simply pleaded guilty of
+adultery only, and prayed for mercy: the rest of the accused strenuously
+denied their guilt on the whole of the charges; but all were condemned to
+the terrible death awarded to traitors, though on what detailed evidence,
+if any, does not now appear.[159] Every effort was made to tempt Norreys
+to confess, but he replied that he would rather die a thousand deaths than
+confess a lie, for he verily believed the Queen innocent.[160]
+
+In the meanwhile Anne in the Tower continued her strange behaviour, at
+times arrogantly claiming all her royal prerogatives, at times reduced to
+hysterical self-abasement and despair. On the 15th May she and her brother
+were brought to the great hall of the Tower before a large panel of peers
+under the presidency of the Duke of Norfolk. All that could add ignominy
+to the accused was done. The lieges were crowded into the space behind
+barriers at the end of the hall, the city fathers under the Lord Mayor
+were bidden to attend, and with bated breath the subjects saw the woman
+they had always scorned publicly branded as an incestuous adulteress. The
+charges, as usual at the time, were made in a way and upon grounds that
+now would not be permitted in any court of justice. Scraps of overheard
+conversation with Norreys and others were twisted into sinister
+significance, allegations unsupported, and not included in the indictment,
+were dragged in to prejudice the accused; and loose statements incapable
+of proof or disproof were liberally introduced for the same purpose. The
+charge of incest with Rochford depended entirely upon the assertion that
+he once remained in his sister's room a long time; and in his case also
+loose gossip was alleged as a proof of crime: that Anne had said that the
+King was impotent,[161] that Rochford had thrown doubts upon the King
+being the father of Anne's child, and similar hearsay ribaldry. Both Anne
+and her brother defended themselves, unaided, with ability and dignity.
+They pointed out the absence of evidence against them, and the inherent
+improbability of the charges. But it was of no avail, for her death had
+already been settled between Henry and Cromwell: and the Duke of Norfolk,
+with his sinister squint, condemned his niece, Anne Queen of England, to
+be burnt or beheaded at the King's pleasure; and Viscount Rochford to a
+similar death. Both denied their guilt after sentence, but acknowledged,
+as was the custom of the time, that they deserved death, this being the
+only way in which mercy might be gained, so far as forfeiture of property
+was concerned.
+
+Anne had been cordially hated by the people. Her rise had meant the
+destruction of the ancient religious foundations, the shaking of the
+ecclesiastical bases of English society; but the sense of justice was not
+dead, and the procedure at the trial shocked the public conscience.
+Already men and women murmured that the King's goings on with Mistress
+Seymour whilst his wife was under trial for adultery were a scandal, and
+Anne in her death had more friends than in her life. On all sides in
+London now, from the Lord Mayor downwards, it was said that Anne had been
+condemned, not because she was guilty, but because the King was tired of
+her: at all events, wrote Chapuys to Granvelle, there was surely never a
+man who wore the horns so gaily as he.[162] On the 17th May the five
+condemned men were led to their death upon Tower Hill, all of them,
+including Smeaton, being beheaded.[163] As usual in such cases, they
+acknowledged general guilt, but not one (except perhaps Smeaton) admitted
+the particular crimes for which they died, for their kin might have
+suffered in property, if not in person, if the King's justice had been
+too strongly impugned.
+
+Anne, in alternate hope and despair, still remained in the Tower, but
+mostly longing for the rapid death she felt in her heart must come. Little
+knew she, however, why her sacrifice was deferred yet from day to day. In
+one of her excited, nervous outbursts she had cried that, no matter what
+they did, no one could prevent her from dying Queen of England. She had
+reckoned without Henry's meanness, Cromwell's cunning, and Cranmer's
+suppleness. Her death warrant had been signed by the King on the 16th May,
+and Cranmer was sent to receive her last confession. The coming of the
+archbishop--_her_ archbishop, as she called him--gave her fresh hope. She
+was not to be killed after all, but to be banished, and Cranmer was to
+bring her the good news. Alas! poor soul, she little knew her Cranmer even
+yet. He had been primed by Cromwell for a very different purpose, that of
+worming out of Anne some admission that would give him a pretext for
+pronouncing her marriage with the King invalid from the first. The task
+was a repulsive one for the Primate, whose act alone had made the marriage
+possible; but Cranmer was--Cranmer. The position was a complicated one.
+Henry, as he invariably did, wished to save his face and seem in the right
+before the world, consequently he could not confess that he had been
+mistaken in the divorce from Katharine, and get rid of Anne's marriage in
+that way, nor did he wish to restore Mary to the position of heiress to
+the crown. What he needed Cranmer's help for was to render Elizabeth also
+illegitimate, but still his daughter, in order that any child he might
+have by Jane Seymour, or failing that, his natural son, the Duke of
+Richmond, might be acknowledged his successor.
+
+At intervals during Anne's career her alleged betrothal to the Earl of
+Northumberland before her marriage (see p. 126) had been brought up to her
+detriment; and the poor hare-brained earl had foresworn himself more than
+once on the subject. He was dying now, but he was again pressed to say
+that a regular betrothal had taken place with Anne. But he was past
+earthly fear, and finally asserted that no contract had been made. Foiled
+in this attempt, Henry--or rather Cromwell--sent Cranmer to the Tower on
+the 16th May on his shameful errand: to lure the poor woman by hopes of
+pardon to confess the existence of an impediment to her marriage with the
+King. What the impediment was was never made public, but Anne's latest
+biographer, Mr. Friedmann, adduces excellent reasons for arriving at the
+conclusions that I have drawn, namely, that Mary Boleyn having been
+Henry's mistress, he and Anne were within the prohibited degrees of
+affinity for husband and wife; the fact that no marriage had taken place
+between Henry and Mary Boleyn being regarded as canonically
+immaterial.[164] In any case, the admission of a known impediment having
+been made by Anne, no time was lost. The next day, the 17th May, Cranmer
+sat, with Cromwell and other members of the Council, in his Primate's
+court at Lambeth to condemn the marriage that he himself had made. Anne
+was formally represented, but nothing was said on her behalf; and sentence
+was hurriedly pronounced that the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn had
+never been a marriage at all. At the same time order was sent to Sir
+William Kingston that the "concubine" was to suffer the last penalty on
+the following morning. When the sleepless night for Anne had passed,
+mostly in prayer, she took the sacrament with the utmost devotion, and in
+that most solemn moment swore before the Host, on her hopes of eternal
+life, that she had never misused her body to the King's dishonour.[165]
+
+In the meanwhile her execution had been deferred until the next day, and
+Anne again lost her nerve. It was cruel, she said, to keep her so long in
+suspense: pray, she petitioned, put her out of her misery now that she was
+prepared. The operation would not be painful, Kingston assured her. "My
+neck is small enough," she said, spanning it with her fingers, and again
+burst into hysterics. Soon she became calm once more; and thenceforward
+only yearned for despatch. "No one ever had a better will for death than
+she," wrote Chapuys to his master: and Kingston, hardened as he was to the
+sight of the condemned in their last hours, expressed surprise to Cromwell
+that instead of sorrow "this lady has much joy and pleasure in death."
+Remorse for her ungenerous treatment of the Princess Mary principally
+troubled her. She herself, she said, was not going to execution by the
+divine judgment for what she had been accused of, but for having planned
+the death of the Princess. And so, in alternate prayer and light chatter,
+passed Anne's last night on earth, and at nine o'clock on the spring
+morning of the 19th May she was led forth to the courtyard within the
+Tower, where a group of gentlemen, including Cromwell and the Dukes of
+Richmond and Suffolk, stood on or close to a low scaffold or staging
+reached by four steps from the ground. Anne was dressed in grey damask
+trimmed with fur, over a crimson petticoat, and cut low at the neck, so as
+to offer no impediment to the executioner's steel; and for the same reason
+the brown hair was dressed high in a net under the pearl-bordered coif.
+Kept back by guards to some little distance from the platform stood a
+large crowd of spectators, who had flocked in at the heels of the Lord
+Mayor and Sheriffs; though foreigners had been rigidly excluded.[166]
+
+When Anne had ascended the steps she received permission to say a few
+words; and followed the tradition of not complaining against the King's
+justice which had condemned her. She had not come thither to preach, she
+said, but to die, though she was not guilty of the particular crimes for
+which she had been condemned. When, however, she began to speak of Jane
+Seymour being the cause of her fall, those on the scaffold stopped her,
+and she said no more. A headsman of St. Omer had been brought over from
+Calais, in order that the broadsword instead of the axe might be used; and
+this man, who was undistinguishable by his garb from the other bystanders,
+now came forward, and, kneeling, asked the doomed woman's pardon, which
+granted, Anne herself knelt in a distraught way, as if to pray, but really
+gazed around her in mute appeal from one pitiless face to another. The
+headsman, taking compassion upon her, assured her that he would not strike
+until she gave the signal. "You will have to take this coif off," said the
+poor woman, and one of the ladies who attended her did so, and partially
+bound her eyes with a handkerchief; but Anne still imagined that her
+headdress was in the way, and kept her hand upon her hair, straining her
+eyes and ears towards the steps where from the headsman's words she
+expected the sword to be handed to him. Whilst she was thus kneeling erect
+in suspense, the sword which was hidden in the straw behind her was deftly
+seized by the French executioner, who, swinging the heavy blade around, in
+an instant cut through the erect, slender neck; and the head of Anne
+Boleyn jerked from the shoulders and rolled upon the cloth that covered
+the platform.
+
+Katharine in her neglected tomb at Peterborough was avenged, but the
+fissure that had been opened up between England and the Papacy for the
+sake of this woman had widened now past bridging. Politicians might, and
+did, make up their differences now that the "concubine" was dead, and form
+alliances regardless of religious affinities; but submission to the
+Papacy in future might mean that the most powerful people in England would
+be deprived of the fat spoils of the Church with which Cromwell had bought
+them, and that the vainest king on earth must humbly confess himself in
+the wrong. Anne herself was a mere straw upon a whirlpool, though her
+abilities, as Cromwell confessed, were not to be despised. She did not
+plan or make the Reformation, though she was forced by her circumstances
+to patronise it. The real author of the great schism of England was not
+Anne or Cranmer, but Luther's enemy, Charles V., the champion of
+Catholicism. But for the pressure he put upon the Pope to refuse Henry's
+divorce, in order to prevent a coalition of England and France, Cranmer's
+defiance of the Papacy would not have been needed, and Henry might have
+come back to Rome again easily. But with Cranmer to provide him with
+plausible pretexts for the repeated indulgence of his self-will, and
+Cromwell to feed his pride and cupidity by the plunder of the Church,
+Henry had already been drawn too far to go back. Greed and vanity of the
+ruling powers thus conspired to make permanent in England the influence of
+evanescent Anne Boleyn.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _JANE SEYMOUR_
+
+_From a painting by_ HOLBEIN _in the Imperial Collection at Vienna_]
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+1536-1540
+
+PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT--JANE SEYMOUR AND ANNE OF CLEVES
+
+
+From the moment that Henry abruptly left the lists at May-day on the
+receipt of Cromwell's letter detailing the admissions of Smeaton, he saw
+Anne no more. No pang of remorse, no wave of compassion passed over him.
+He easily believed what he wished to believe, and Anne was left to the
+tender mercies of Cromwell, to be done to death. Again Henry was a prey to
+profound self-pity for ever having fallen under the enchantment of such a
+wicked woman. He, of course, was not to blame for anything. He never was.
+He was always the clement, just man whose unsuspecting goodness of heart
+had been abused by others, and who tried to find distraction and to forget
+the evil done him. On the very night of the day that Anne was arrested the
+Duke of Richmond, Henry's son, now a grown youth, went, as was his custom,
+into his father's room at Whitehall to bid him good night and ask his
+blessing. The King, we are told,[167] fell a-weeping as he blessed his
+son, "saying that he and his sister (Mary) might well be grateful to God
+for saving them from the hands of that accursed and venomous harlot who
+had intended to poison them." That Anne may have planned the assassination
+of Mary is quite probable, even if she had no hand in the shortening of
+Katharine's days, and this may have been the real hidden pretext of her
+death acting upon Henry's fears for himself.[168] But if such were the
+case, Henry, at least, was deserving of no pity, for when it was only
+Katharine's life that was in danger he was, as we have seen, brutally
+callous, and only awoke to the enormity of the "venomous harlot" when
+Cromwell made him believe that his own safety was jeopardised. Then no
+fate was too cruel for the woman he once had loved.
+
+On the day preceding Anne's trial, Jane Seymour was brought from Sir
+Nicholas Carew's house to another residence on the river bank, only a mile
+from Whitehall Stairs, to be ready for her intended elevation as soon as
+the Queen was disposed of. Here Jane was served for the few days she
+stayed "very splendidly by the cooks and certain officers of the King, and
+very richly adorned."[169] So certain was Henry that nothing would now
+stand in the way of his new marriage that Jane was informed beforehand
+that on the 15th, by three in the afternoon, she would hear of her
+predecessor's condemnation; and Anne's cousin and enemy, Sir Francis
+Brian, eagerly brought the news to the expectant lady at the hour
+anticipated. The next day, when the sword of the French headsman had made
+Henry indeed a widower, the King only awaited receipt of the intelligence
+to enter his barge and seek the consolation of Jane Seymour. At six
+o'clock in the morning of the 20th May, when the headless body of Anne,
+barely cold, still awaited sepulture huddled in an old arrow-box in the
+Church of St. Peter within the Tower, Jane was secretly carried by water
+from her residence to Hampton Court; and before nine o'clock she had been
+privately married to the King,[170] by virtue of a dispensation issued the
+day previously by the accommodating Cranmer.[171] It would seem probable
+that the day after the private espousals Jane travelled to her home in
+Wiltshire, where she stayed for several days whilst preparations were
+being made in the King's abodes for her reception as Queen: for all the
+A's had to be changed to J's in the royal ciphers, and traces of Anne's
+former presence abolished wherever possible. Whether Henry accompanied his
+new wife to Wiltshire on this occasion is not quite certain, though from
+Sir John Russell's account it is probable that he did. In any case the
+King and his new wife visited Mercer's Hall, in Cheapside, on the 29th
+May, St. Peter's Eve, to witness from the windows the civic ceremony of
+the annual setting of the watch; and on the following day, 30th May, the
+pair were formally married in the Queen's closet at Whitehall.
+
+The people at large looked somewhat askance at this furious haste to marry
+the new wife before the shed blood of the previous one was dry;[172] but
+the Court, and those who still recollected the wronged Princess Mary and
+her dead mother, were enthusiastic in their welcome to Jane.[173] The
+Emperor's friends, too, were in joyous mood; and Princess Mary at Hunsdon
+was full of hope, and eager to be allowed to greet her father and his wife
+now that "that woman" was dead. Chapuys, we may be sure, did not stand
+behind the door now when he went to Court. On the contrary, when he first
+visited Whitehall a few days after the wedding, Henry led him by the hand
+to Jane's apartments, and allowed the diplomatist to kiss the
+Queen--"congratulating her upon her marriage and wishing her prosperity. I
+told her that, although the device of the lady who had preceded her on the
+throne was 'The happiest of women,' I had no doubt that she herself would
+realise that motto. I was sure that the Emperor would be equally rejoiced
+as the King himself had been at meeting such a virtuous and amiable Queen,
+the more so that her brother (_i.e._ Sir E. Seymour, afterwards the Duke
+of Somerset) had been in the Emperor's service. I added that it was almost
+impossible to believe the joy and pleasure which Englishmen generally had
+felt at the marriage; especially as it was said that she was continually
+trying to persuade the King to restore the Princess to his favour, as
+formerly." Most of Chapuys' courtly talk with Jane, indeed, was directed
+to this point of the restoration of Mary; but the new Queen, though
+inexperienced, had been well coached, and did not unduly commit herself;
+only promising to favour the Princess, and to endeavour to deserve the
+title that Chapuys had given her of "peacemaker." Henry strolled up to the
+pair at this point, and excused his new wife for any want of expertness:
+"as I was the first ambassador she had received, and she was not used yet
+to such receptions. He (Henry) felt sure, however, that she would do her
+utmost to obtain the title of 'peacemaker,' with which I (Chapuys) had
+greeted her, as, besides being naturally of a kind and amiable disposition
+and much inclined to peace, she would strive to prevent his (Henry's)
+taking part in a foreign war, if only out of the fear of being separated
+from him."[174]
+
+But all these fine hopes were rapidly banished. Jane never possessed or
+attempted to exercise any political influence on her husband. She smiled
+sweetly and in a non-committal way upon the Princess Mary, and upon the
+imperialist and moderate Catholic party that had hoped to make the new
+Queen their instrument; but Cromwell's was still the strong mind that
+swayed the King. He had obtained renewed control over his master by
+ridding him of Anne; and had, at all events, prevented England from being
+drawn into a coalition with France against the Emperor; but he had no
+intention, even if it had been possible, of going to the other extreme and
+binding his country to go to war against France to please the Emperor.
+Henry's self-will and vanity, as well as his greed, also stood in the way
+of a complete submission to the Papacy, and those who had brought Jane
+Seymour in, hoping that her advent would mean a return to the same
+position as that previous to Anne's rise, now found that they had been
+over sanguine. Charles and Francis were left to fight out their great duel
+alone in Italy and Provence, to the general discomfiture of the imperial
+cause; and, instead of hastening to humble himself at the feet of Paul
+III., as the pontiff had fondly expected, Henry summoned Parliament, and
+gave stronger statutory sanction than ever to his ecclesiastical
+independence of Rome.[175] Anne's condemnation and Elizabeth's bastardy
+were obediently confirmed by the Legislature, and the entire freedom of
+the English Church from Rome reasserted.
+
+But the question of the succession was that which aroused the strongest
+feeling, and its settlement the keenest disappointment. Now that Anne's
+offspring was disinherited, Princess Mary and her friends naturally
+expected that she, with the help of the new Queen, would once more enter
+into the enjoyment of her birthright. Eagerly Mary wrote to Cromwell
+bespeaking his aid, which she had been led to expect that he would give;
+and by his intercession she was allowed to send her humble petition to her
+father, praying for leave to see him. Her letters are all couched in terms
+of cringing humility, praying forgiveness for past offences, and promising
+to be a truly dutiful daughter in future. But this did not satisfy Henry.
+Cromwell, desirous, in pursuance of his policy of keeping friendly with
+the Emperor without going to war with France, or kneeling to Rome, hoped
+to bring about peace between Mary and her father. But the strongest
+passions of Henry's nature were now at stake, and he would only accept his
+daughter's submission on terms that made her a self-confessed bastard, and
+against this the girl, as obstinate as her father and as righteously proud
+as her mother, still rebelled. Henry's son, the Duke of Richmond, was now
+a straight stripling of eighteen, already married to Norfolk's daughter,
+and, failing issue by Jane, here was an heir to the Crown that might carry
+the Tudor line onward in the male blood, if Parliament could be chicaned
+or threatened into acknowledging him. So Mary was plied with letters from
+Cromwell, each more pressing and cruel than the previous one, driving the
+girl to distraction by the King's insistence upon his terms.[176] Threats,
+cajolery, and artful casuistry were all tried. Again Mary turned to her
+foreign advisers and the King's rebellious subjects for support, and again
+her father's heart hardened when he knew it. Norfolk, who with others was
+sent to persuade her, was so incensed with her firmness that he said if
+she had been his daughter he would have knocked her head against the wall
+until it was as soft as a codlin. But Norfolk's daughter was the Duchess
+of Richmond, and might be Queen Consort after Henry's death if Mary were
+disinherited, so that there was some excuse for his violence. Those who
+were in favour of Mary were dismissed from the Council--even Cromwell was
+in fear--and Jane Seymour was rudely snubbed by the King for daring to
+intercede for the Princess. At length, with death threatening her, Mary
+could stand out no longer. Without even reading it, she signed with a
+mental reservation, and confident of obtaining the Papal absolution for
+which she secretly asked, the shameful declaration forced upon her,
+repudiating the Papal authority, and specifically acknowledging herself a
+bastard.
+
+Then Henry was all amiability with his wronged daughter. He and Jane went
+to visit her at Richmond, whither she had been brought, giving her
+handsome presents of money and jewels; liberty was given to her to come to
+Court, and stately service surrounded her. But it was all embittered by
+the knowledge that Parliament had been induced to acknowledge that all the
+King's children were illegitimate, and to grant to Henry himself the right
+of appointing his own successor by letters patent or by will. Alas! the
+youth in whose immediate interest the injustice was done was fast sinking
+to his grave; and on the 22nd July 1536 the Duke of Richmond breathed his
+last, to Henry's bitter grief, Mary's prospects again became brighter, and
+all those who resented the religious policy and Henry's recalcitrancy now
+looked to the girl as their only hope of a return to the old order of
+things. Chapuys, too, was ceaseless in his intrigues to bring England once
+more into a condition of obedience to the Pope, that should make her a fit
+instrument for the imperial policy, and soon the disappointment that
+followed on the elevation of Jane Seymour found vent in the outbreak of
+rebellion in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
+
+The priests and the great mass of the people had bent the neck patiently
+to the King's violent innovations in the observances that they had been
+taught to hold sacred. They had seen the religious houses, to which they
+looked for help and succour in distress, destroyed and alienated. The
+abuses of the clergy had doubtless been great, and the first measures
+against them had been welcomed; but the complete confiscation of vast
+properties, in the main administered for the benefit of the lowly, the
+continued enclosure of common lands by the gentry newly enriched by
+ecclesiastical plunder, and the rankling sense of the scandalous injustice
+that had been suffered by Katharine and Mary, for the sake, as the people
+said, of the King's lustful caprice, at last provided the extreme militant
+Catholic party with the impetus needed for revolt against the Crown.
+Imperious Henry was beside himself with rage; and for a time it looked as
+if he and his system might be swept away in favour of his daughter, or one
+of the Poles, who were being put forward by the Pope. The Bull of
+excommunication against Henry and England, so long held back, was now
+launched, making rebellion righteous; and the imperial interest in
+England, which was still strong, did its best to aid the rising of Henry's
+lieges against him. But the rebels were weakly led: the greater nobles had
+for the most part been bought by grants of ecclesiastical lands; and
+Norfolk, for all his moral baseness, was an experienced and able soldier.
+So the Pilgrimage of Grace, threatening as it looked for a time, flickered
+out; and the yoke was riveted tighter than ever upon the neck of rural
+England. To the party that had hoped to make use of her, Jane Seymour was
+thus, to some extent, a disappointment;[177] but her placid
+submissiveness, which made her a bad political instrument, exactly suited
+a husband so imperious as Henry; and from a domestic point of view the
+union was successful. During the summer Jane shared in her husband's
+progresses and recreations, but as the months rolled on and no hope came
+of offspring, ominous rumours ran that Jane's coronation would be deferred
+until it was proved that she might bear children to the King; and some
+said that if she proved barren a pretext would be found for displacing her
+in favour of another. Indeed, only a few days after the public marriage,
+Henry noticed two very beautiful girls at Court, and showed his annoyance
+that he had not seen them before taking Jane.
+
+After six months of marriage without sign of issue, Henry began to take
+fright. The Duke of Richmond was dead, and both the King's daughters were
+acknowledged by the law of England to be illegitimate. He was already
+forty-six years of age, and had lately grown very obese; and his death
+without further issue or a resettlement of the succession would inevitably
+lead to a dynastic dispute, with the probable result of the return of the
+House of York to the throne in the person of one of the Poles under the
+ćgis of Rome. Whenever possible, Jane had said a good word for the
+Princess Mary, and Henry began to listen more kindly than before to his
+wife's well-meant attempts to soften him in favour of his daughter. The
+Catholic party was all alert with new hopes that the King, convinced that
+he could father no more sons, would cause his elder daughter to be
+acknowledged his heir;[178] but the reformers, who had grown up
+numerously, especially in and about London, during Henry's defiance of
+Rome, looked askance at a policy which in time they feared might bring
+back the old order of things. The mainstay of this party at Court, apart
+from the professed Lutherans and the new bishops, were those who, having
+received grants of ecclesiastical property, despaired of any return to the
+Roman communion and the imperial alliance without the restoration of the
+Church property. Amongst these courtiers was Jane's brother, Edward
+Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, who had received large grants of
+ecclesiastical lands at intervals since 1528. He was a personal friend of
+the King, and had taken no active part in the intrigue that accompanied
+his sister's elevation, though after the marriage he naturally rose higher
+than before in the favour of the King. He was a clever and superficially
+brilliant, but ostentatious and greedy man, of no great strength of
+purpose, whose new relationship to the King marked him out as a dominating
+influence in the future. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, upon whom Henry
+had depended as generals, were now very old and ailing, and there was no
+other peer but Cromwell of any ability in the Councils.
+
+Even thus early it was clear that Seymour's weight would, notwithstanding
+the circumstances of his sister's rise, be thrown on to the anti-Papal
+side when the crucial struggle came. He was, moreover, a new man; and as
+such not welcomed by the older nobility, who, though desirous of retaining
+their Church plunder, were yet bound by their traditions against
+bureaucrats such as Cromwell, and the policy of defiance of the Papacy
+that he and his like had suggested and carried out. Cromwell's own
+position at this time (1536-37) was a paradoxical one. It was he who had
+led Henry on, step by step, to entire schism and the plunder of the
+Church; it was he who not only had shown how to get rid of Katharine, but
+how to destroy her successor; and it was he whom the Catholic party hated
+with a whole-hearted detestation, for the King's acts as well as his own.
+On the other hand, he was hardly less distrusted by the reforming party;
+for his efforts were known to be directed to a reconciliation with the
+Emperor, which could only be effected conjointly with some sort of
+arrangement with the Papacy. His efforts to please the imperialists by
+siding with the Princess Mary during her dispute with her father led him
+to the very verge of destruction. Whilst the young Princess was being
+badgered into making her shameful and insincere renunciation of her faith
+and birthright, Cromwell, the very man who was the instrument for
+extorting her submission, sat, as he says, for a week in the Council
+considering himself "a dead man," because the King believed that he was
+encouraging Mary to resist. Cromwell, therefore, like most men who
+endeavour to hold a middle course, was distrusted and hated by every one;
+and it must have been obvious to him that if he could ensure the adhesion
+of the rising Seymour interest his chance of weathering the storm would be
+infinitely improved. His son had recently married Jane Seymour's sister,
+and this brought him into close relationship with the family, and, as will
+be seen, led in the next year to a compact political union between the
+Seymour brothers, Cromwell, and the reforming party, as against the
+nobles and traditional conservatives.
+
+For the time, however, Cromwell held on his way, endeavouring to keep in
+with the imperialists and Mary; and it was doubtless to his prompting that
+Jane used her influence, when at its highest point, to reconcile the
+Princess personally to her father. To the great joy of the King, in March
+1537, Jane was declared to be with child. The Emperor had already opened a
+negotiation for the marriage of Mary with his brother-in-law, the Infante
+Luiz of Portugal, and Henry was playing a waiting game till he saw if Jane
+would bear him a child. If so, Mary might go; although he still refused to
+legitimise her; but if no more issue was to be born to him, he could
+hardly allow his elder daughter to leave England and fall into the hands
+of the Emperor. Charles, on the other hand, was extremely anxious to
+obtain possession of so valuable a pledge for the future as Mary; and was
+willing to go to almost any lengths to get her, either by fair means or
+foul, fearing, as he did, that the girl might be married discreditably in
+England--he thought even to Cromwell himself--in order to destroy her
+international value to Henry's rivals.
+
+As soon, however, as Jane's pregnancy was announced Mary's position
+changed. If a child was born in wedlock to the King, especially if it were
+a son, there would be no need to degrade Mary by joining her to a lowly
+husband; she might, on the contrary, become a good international marriage
+asset in the hands of her father, who might bargain with Charles or
+Francis for her. The fresh move of Jane Seymour, therefore, in her
+favour, in the spring of 1537, when the Queen's pregnancy had given her
+greater power over her husband, was probably welcome both to the King and
+Cromwell, as enhancing Mary's importance at a time when she might be used
+as an international political pawn without danger. Jane was sad one day in
+the early period of her pregnancy. "Why, darling," said the King, "how
+happeneth it you are not merrier?"[179] "It hath pleased your Grace,"
+replied the Queen, "to make me your wife, and there are none but my
+inferiors with whom to make merry, withal, your Grace excepted; unless it
+would please you that we might enjoy the company of the Lady Mary at
+Court. I could be merry with her." "We will have her here, darling, if
+that will make thee merry," said the King. And before many days had gone,
+Mary, with a full train of ladies, was brought from Hunsdon, magnificently
+dressed, to Whitehall, where, in the great presence chamber, Henry and his
+wife stood before the fire. The poor girl was almost overcome at the
+tenderness of her reception, and fell upon her knees before her father and
+his wife. Henry, as usual anxious to throw upon others the responsibility
+of his ill-treatment of his daughter, turned to his Councillors, who stood
+around, and said, "Some of you were desirous that I should put this jewel
+to death." "That were a pity," quoth the Queen, "to have lost your
+chiefest jewel of England."[180] The hint was too much for Mary, who
+changed colour and fell into a swoon, greatly to her father's concern.
+
+At length the day long yearned and prayed for by Henry came. Jane had for
+some months lived in the strictest quietude, and prayers and masses for
+her safe delivery were offered in the churches for weeks before. In
+September she had travelled slowly to Hampton Court, and on the 12th
+October 1537 a healthy son was born to her and Henry. The joy of the King
+was great beyond words. The gross sensualist, old beyond his years, had in
+vain hoped through all his sturdy youth for a boy, who, beyond reproach,
+might bear his regal name. He had flouted Christendom and defied the
+greatest powers on earth in order to marry a woman who might bear him a
+man child. When she failed to do so, he had coldly stood aside whilst his
+instruments defamed her and did her to death; and now, at last, in his
+declining years, his prayer was answered, and the House of Tudor was
+secure upon the future throne of England. Bonfires blazed and joy bells
+rang throughout the land; feasts of unexampled bounteousness coarsely
+brought home to the lieges the blessing that had come to save the country
+from the calamity of a disputed succession. The Seymour brothers at once
+became, next the King and his son, the most important personages in
+England, the elder, Edward, being created Earl of Hertford, and both
+receiving great additional grants of monastic lands. In the general
+jubilation at the birth, the interests of the mother were forgotten. No
+attempt appears to have been made to save her from the excitement that
+surrounded her; and on the very day of her delivery she signed an
+official letter "Jane the Quene" to Cromwell, directing him to communicate
+to the Privy Council the joyful news.
+
+The most sumptuous royal christening ever seen was in bustling preparation
+in and about her sick-chamber; and that no circumstance of state should be
+lacking, the mother herself, only four days after the birth, was forced to
+take part in the exhausting ceremony. In the chapel at Hampton Court,
+newly decorated like the splendid banqueting-hall adjoining, where the
+initials of Jane carved in stone with those of the King, and her arms and
+device on glowing glass and gilded scutcheon still perpetuate her fleeting
+presence, the christening ceremony was held by torchlight late in the
+chill autumn evening. Through the long draughty corridors, preceded by
+braying trumpets and followed by rustling crowds of elated courtiers, the
+sick woman was carried on her stately pallet covered with heavy robes of
+crimson velvet and ermine. Under a golden canopy, supported by the four
+greatest nobles in the land, next to Norfolk, who was one of the
+godfathers, the Marchioness of Exeter bore the infant in her arms to the
+scene of the ceremony; and the Princess Mary, fiercely avid of love as she
+ever was, held the prince at the font. Suffolk, Arundel, and doomed
+Exeter, with a host of other magnates, stood around; whilst one towering
+handsome figure, with a long brown beard, carried aloft in his arms the
+tiny fair girl-child of Anne, the Lady Elizabeth, holding in her dainty
+hands the holy chrisom. It was Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, looked
+at askance by the rest as a new man, but already overlapping them all as
+the uncle of the infant prince. During the _Te Deum_ and the long, pompous
+ceremony of the baptism the mother lay flushed and excited upon her couch;
+whilst the proud father, his broad face beaming with pride, sat by her
+side, holding her hand.
+
+It was hard upon midnight when the Queen gave her blessing to her child
+and was carried back to her chamber, with more trumpet blasts and noisy
+gratulation. The next day, as was to be expected, she was in a high fever,
+so ill that she was confessed and received extreme unction. But she
+rallied, and seemed somewhat amended for the next few days, though ominous
+rumours were rife in London that her life had purposely been jeopardised
+in order to save that of the child at birth.[181] They were not true, but
+they give the measure of the public estimate of Henry's character, and
+have been made the most of by Sanders, Rivadeneyra, and the other Jesuit
+historians. On the 23rd October the Queen fell gravely ill again, and in
+the night was thought to be dying. Henry had intended to ride to Esher
+that day, but "could not find it in his heart" to go; and the next night,
+the 24th October, Jane Seymour died, a sacrifice to improper treatment and
+heartlessly exacted ceremonial. Henry had not been married long enough to
+her to have become tired of her, and her somewhat lethargic placidity had
+suited him. She had, moreover, borne him the long-looked-for son; and his
+grief for her loss was profound, and no doubt sincere. Much as he hated
+signs of mortality, he wore black mourning for her for three months, and
+shut himself up at Windsor away from the world, and above all away from
+the corpse of his dead wife, for a fortnight. Jane's body, embalmed, lay
+in the presence chamber at Hampton Court for a week. Blazing tapers
+surrounded the great hearse, and masses went on from dawn to midday in the
+chamber. All night long the Queen's ladies, with Princess Mary, watched
+before the bier, until the end of the month, when the catafalque had been
+erected in the chapel for the formal lying in state. On the 12th November,
+with the greatest possible pomp, the funeral procession bore the dead
+Queen to Windsor for burial in a grave in St. George's Chapel, destined to
+receive the remains of Henry as well as that of his third wife, the mother
+of his son.[182] The writers of the time, following the lead of Henry and
+his courtiers, never mentioned their grief for the Queen without promptly
+suggesting that it was more than counterbalanced by their joy at the birth
+of her son, who from his first appearance in the world was hailed as a
+paragon of beauty and perfection. Thanksgivings for the boon of a male
+heir to the King blended their sounds of jubilation with the droning of
+the masses for the mother's soul, and the flare of the bonfires died down
+into the flickering tapers that dimly lit the funerals. Even Henry
+himself, in writing to give the news of his son's birth, confessed that
+his joy at the event had far exceeded his grief for Jane's death.
+
+So far as the Catholic party that had promoted it was concerned, the
+marriage with Jane had been a failure. The Pilgrimage of Grace had been
+drowned in the blood of ruthless slaughter: and partly because of Mary's
+scruples and fears, partly because they themselves had been gorged with
+the plunder of the Church, nearly all the great nobles stood aside and
+raised no voice whilst Cromwell and his master still worked havoc on the
+religious houses, regardless of Jane's timid intercession. Boxley,
+Walsingham, and even the sacred shrine of Canterbury, yielded their relics
+and images, venerated for centuries, to be scorned and destroyed; whilst
+the vast accumulated treasures of gold and gems that enriched them went to
+fill the coffers of the King, and their lands to bribe his favourites.
+Throughout England the work of confiscation was carried on now with a zeal
+which only greed for the resultant profit can explain.[183] The attacks
+upon superstition in the Church by those in authority naturally aroused a
+feeling of greater freedom of thought amongst the mass of the people. The
+establishment of an open Bible in English in every church for the perusal
+of the parishioners, due, as indeed most of the doctrinal changes were,
+to Cranmer, encouraged men to think to some extent for themselves. But
+though, for purposes to which reference will be made presently, Henry
+willingly concurred in Cranmer's reforming tendencies and Cromwell's
+anti-ecclesiastical plans for providing him with abundant money, he would
+allow no departure from orthodoxy as he understood it. His love for
+theological controversy, and his undoubted ability and learning in that
+direction, enabled him to enforce his views with apparently unanswerable
+arguments, especially as he was able, and quite ready, to close the
+dispute with an obstinate antagonist by prescribing the stake and the
+gibbet either to those who repudiated his spiritual supremacy or to those
+who, like the Anabaptists, questioned the efficacy of a sacrament which he
+had adopted. For Henry it was to a great extent a matter of pride and
+self-esteem now to show to his own subjects and the world that he was
+absolutely supreme and infallible, and this feeling unquestionably had
+greatly influenced the progress effected by the reformation and
+emancipation from Rome made after the disappointing marriage with Jane
+Seymour.
+
+But there was also policy in Henry's present action. Throughout the years
+1536 and 1537 Francis and the Emperor had continued at war; but by the
+close of the latter year it was evident that both combatants were
+exhausted, and would shortly make up their differences. The Papal
+excommunication of Henry and his realm was now in full force, making
+rebellion against the King a laudable act for all good Catholics; and any
+agreement between the two great Continental sovereigns in union with Rome
+boded ill for England and for its King. There were others, too, to whom
+such a combination boded ill. The alliance between France and the infidel
+Turk to attack the Christian Emperor had aroused intense indignation
+amongst Catholics throughout the world against Francis; and the Pope,
+utilising this feeling, strove hard to persuade both Christian sovereigns
+to cease their fratricidal struggle and to recognise that the real enemy
+to be feared and destroyed was Lutheranism or heresy in their midst.
+During the Emperor's absence, and the war, Protestantism in Germany had
+advanced with giant strides. The Princes had boldly refused to recognise
+any conciliatory Council of the Church under the control of the Pope; and
+the pressure used by the Emperor to compel them to do so aroused the
+suspicion that the day was fast approaching when Lutheranism would have to
+fight for its life against the imperial suzerain of Germany.
+
+Already the forces were gathering. George of Saxony, the enemy of Luther,
+was hurrying to the grave, and Henry his brother and heir was a strong
+Protestant. Philip of Hesse had two years before thrown down the gage, and
+had taken by force from the Emperor the territory of Würtemburg, and had
+restored the Protestant Duke Ulrich. Charles' brother Ferdinand, who ruled
+the empire, clamoured as loudly as did Mary of Hungary in Flanders and
+Eleanor of Austria in France, for a peace between the two champions of
+Christendom, the repudiation by France of the Turkish alliance, and a
+concentration of the Catholic forces in the world before it was too late
+to crush the hydra of heresy which threatened them all. It was natural in
+the circumstances that the enemies of the Papacy should be drawn together.
+A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, and a common danger drew Henry of
+England and Philip of Hesse together. Henry was no Lutheran, and did not
+pretend to be. He had been drawn into the Reformation by the process that
+we have followed, in which interested advisers had worked upon his
+passions and self-esteem; but he had gone too far in defiance of Rome now
+to turn back, and was forced to look to his own safety by such policy as
+was possible to him. For several months after Jane Seymour's death the
+envoys of the German Protestants were in England in close negotiation with
+Henry and Cromwell. In order that a close league should be made, it was
+necessary that some common doctrinal standpoint should be agreed upon, and
+infinite theological discussions took place to bring this about. Henry
+would not give way on any principal point, and the Protestant ambassadors
+went home again without a formal understanding. But though Henry remained,
+as he intended to do, thus unpledged, it was good policy for him to
+impress upon the Germans by his ruthless suppression of the monasteries,
+and his prohibition of the ancient superstitions, that he was the enemy of
+their enemy; and that if he was attacked for heresy, it would be incumbent
+upon the Lutherans to be on his side even against their own suzerain.
+
+This was not, however, the only move made by Henry against the
+threatening danger of a joint attack of the Catholic powers. He had hardly
+thrown off his mourning for Jane before he turned his hand to the old game
+of dividing his rivals. His bluff was as audacious and brilliant as usual.
+To the imperial and French ambassadors in turn he boasted that either of
+their masters would prefer his friendship and alliance to that of the
+other; and, rightly convinced that he would really be more likely to gain
+latitudinarian Francis than Charles, he proposed in the spring of 1538
+that he should marry a French princess. As the two great Catholic
+sovereigns drew closer together, though still nominally at war in Italy,
+Henry became, indeed, quite an eager wooer. His friend, Sir Francis Brian,
+was sent to Paris, secretly to forward his suit, and obtained a portrait
+of the Duke of Guise's second daughter, the sister of the King of
+Scotland's bride, Mary of Lorraine; with which Henry confessed himself
+quite smitten. He had, before this, only three months after Jane's death,
+made a desperate attempt to prevail upon Francis to let him have Mary of
+Lorraine herself; though she was already betrothed to the King of Scots,
+his nephew; but this had been positively and even indignantly refused.
+Even the younger daughter of Guise, beautiful as she was, did not quite
+satisfy his vanity. Both he and his agent Brian, who was a fit
+representative for him, disgusted Francis by suggesting that three other
+French princesses should be taken to Calais by the Queen of
+Navarre--Francis' sister--in order that they might be paraded before the
+King of England for his selection, "like hackneys," as was said at the
+time.[184] He thought that the angry repudiation of such an insulting
+proposal was most unreasonable. "How can I choose a wife by deputy?" he
+asked. "I must depend upon my own eyes"; besides, he added, he must hear
+them sing, and see how they comported themselves. Perhaps, suggested the
+French ambassador sarcastically, he would like to go further and test the
+ladies in other ways, as the knights of King Arthur used to do. Henry
+coloured at this; but vauntingly replied that he could, if he pleased,
+marry into the imperial house; but he would not marry at all unless he was
+quite sure that his new relation would prefer his alliance to all others.
+When, at length, in June, the truce of Nice was signed, and soon
+afterwards the fraternal meeting and close community between Francis and
+Charles was effected at Aigues Mortes, Henry began to get seriously
+alarmed. His matrimonial offers, to his surprise, were treated very
+coolly; all his attempts to breed dissension between the imperial and
+French ambassadors, who were now hand and glove, were laughed at;[185] and
+the intimate confidence and friendship between his two Catholic rivals
+seemed at last to bring disaster to Henry's very doors; for it was not
+concealed that the first blow to be struck by the Catholic confederacy was
+to be upon the schismatic heretic who ruled England.
+
+With Francis there was no more to be done; for Henry and Brian, by their
+want of delicacy, had between them deeply wounded all the possible French
+brides and their families. But, at least, Henry hoped that sufficient show
+of friendship with Charles might be simulated to arouse Francis' jealousy
+of his new ally. Henry therefore began to sneer at the patched-up
+friendship, as he called it.[186] "And how about Milan?" he asked the
+French ambassador, knowing that that was the still rankling sore; and soon
+he began to boast more openly that he himself might have Milan by the
+cession of it as a dower to Dom Luiz of Portugal, on his marriage with the
+Princess Mary; whilst Henry himself married the young widowed Duchess of
+Milan, Charles' niece, Christina of Denmark, that clever, quick-witted
+woman, whose humorous face lives for ever on the canvas of Holbein in the
+English National Gallery.[187] There had been a Spanish ambassador, Diego
+Hurtado de Mendoza, in England since the spring of 1537, to negotiate the
+Portuguese marriage of the Princess Mary; but the eternal questions of
+dowry, security, and the legitimacy of the Princess had made all
+negotiations so far abortive. Now they were taken up more strongly, by
+means of Wyatt at Madrid, and by special envoys to Mary of Hungary in
+Flanders. But it was all "buckler play," as the imperial agents and
+Charles himself soon found out. Henry and Cromwell knew perfectly well
+that no stable alliance with the Emperor was possible then unless their
+religious policy was changed; and they had gone too far to change it
+without humiliation, if not destruction, to Henry; the real object of the
+negotiations being simply to obtain some sort of promise about the cession
+of Milan, by which Francis might be detached from the imperial alliance.
+But it was unsuccessful; and, for once, the two great antagonists held
+together for a time against all Lutheranism and heresy.
+
+Then Henry and Cromwell had to look anxiously for support and alliances
+elsewhere. To the King it was a repugnant and humiliating necessity. He
+had puffed himself into the belief that he was the most potent and
+infallible of sovereigns, and he found himself, for the first time,
+scorned by all those he had reason to fear. He, the embodiment of the idea
+of regal omnipotence, would be forced to make common cause with those who,
+like the German Protestants, stood for resistance to supreme authority;
+with usurpers like Christian III. of Denmark, and trading democracies like
+Lübeck. With much hesitation and dislike, therefore, he listened, whilst
+Cromwell urged the inevitable policy upon him, which led him farther and
+farther away from the inner circle of potentates to which he and his
+father had gained entrance in the course of the events related in the
+first chapters of this book.
+
+Cromwell's arguments would probably have been unavailing but for the
+opportune "discovery," in the usual fortuitous Cromwell fashion, of a
+dangerous aristocratic conspiracy against Henry himself. Cardinal Pole had
+been entrusted with the Papal excommunication, and everywhere impressed
+upon English Catholics the duty of obeying their spiritual father by
+deposing the King.[188] Whether anything in the form of a regular
+conspiracy to do this existed in England is extremely doubtful; but the
+Cardinal had naturally written to his relatives in England, especially to
+his brother Geoffrey, and perhaps to his mother, the Countess of
+Salisbury, a princess of the blood royal of York. First Geoffrey was
+seized and carried to the Tower, and some sort of incriminating admission
+drawn from him by threats of torture, though, so far as can be gathered,
+nothing but the repetition of disaffected conversations. It was enough,
+however, for Cromwell's purpose when he needed it; and the fatal net was
+cast over Pole's elder brother, Lord Montague, the Marquis of Exeter,
+allied to the royal house, the Master of the Horse, Sir Nicholas Carew,
+Sir Edward Neville, and half a score of other high gentlemen, known to be
+faithful to the old cause--all to be unjustly sacrificed on the scaffold
+to the fears of Henry and the political exigencies of Cromwell. Even the
+women and children of the supposed sympathisers with the Papacy were not
+spared; and the aged Countess of Salisbury, with her grandson, and the
+Marchioness of Exeter, with her son, were imprisoned with many humbler
+ones.
+
+The defences of the kingdom on the coast and towards Scotland were rapidly
+made ready to resist attack from abroad, which indeed looked imminent; and
+when the noble and conservative party had been sufficiently cowed by the
+sight of the blood of the highest of its members, when the reign of terror
+over the land had made all men so dumb and fearsome that none dared say
+him nay, Cromwell felt himself strong enough to endeavour to draw England
+into the league of Protestant princes and defy the Catholic world. The
+position for Henry personally was an extraordinary one. He had gradually
+drifted into a position of independence from Rome; but he still professed
+to be a strict Catholic in other respects. His primate, Cranmer, and
+several other of his bishops whose ecclesiastical status was unrecognised
+by the Pope, were unquestionably, and not unnaturally, Protestant in their
+sympathies; whilst Cromwell was simply a politician who cared nothing for
+creeds and faiths, except as ancillary to State policy. Francis, and even
+on occasion Charles himself, made little of taking Church property for lay
+purposes when he needed it: he had more than once been the ally of the
+infidel against Catholic princes, and his religious belief was notoriously
+lax; and yet he remained "the eldest son of the Church." Charles had
+struggled successfully against the Papal pretensions to control the
+temporalities of the Spanish Church, his troops had sacked Rome and
+imprisoned the Pope, and his ministers for years had bullied pontiffs and
+scolded them as if they were erring schoolboys. Excommunication had fallen
+upon him and his, and as hard things had been said of him in Rome as of
+Henry; and yet he was the champion of Catholic Christendom. The conclusion
+is obvious that Henry's sin towards the Papacy was not primarily the
+spoliation of the Church, the repudiation of Katharine, or even the
+assumption of control over the temporalities, but that he had arrogated to
+himself the spiritual headship in his realm. In most other respects he was
+as good a Catholic as Charles, and a much better one than Francis; and yet
+under stress of circumstances he was forced into common cause with the
+growing party of reform in Europe, whose separation from the Church was
+profoundly doctrinal, and arose from entirely different motives from those
+of Henry.
+
+The danger that threatened England at the time (early in 1539) was not
+really quite so serious as it seemed; for, close as the alliance between
+Charles and Francis was, old jealousies were not dead, and a joint war
+against England would have revived them; whilst the Papal plan of treating
+England commercially as outside the pale of civilisation would have ruined
+Charles' subject and was impracticable. But, in any case, the peril was
+real to Henry and Cromwell; and under the stress of it they were driven
+into the attempted policy of a Protestant confederacy. At the end of
+January 1539, Christopher Mont was sent to Germany with the first
+overtures. He carried letters of credence to Philip of Hesse, and Hans
+Frederick of Saxony, with the ostensible object of asking whether they had
+come to any conclusion respecting the theological disputations held in the
+previous year between their envoys and the English bishops to establish a
+common doctrinal basis. This, of course, was a mere pretext, the real
+object of the mission being to discover to what extent Henry could depend
+upon the German Protestant princes if he were attacked by their suzerain
+the Emperor. A private instruction was given to Mont by Cromwell, to
+remind one of the Saxon ministers who had come to England of a former
+conversation about a possible marriage between the young Duke of Cleves
+and the Princess Mary; and he was to take the opportunity of finding out
+all he could about the "beauty and qualities, shape, stature, and
+complexion" of the elder of the two unmarried daughters of the old Duke of
+Cleves, whose eldest daughter, Sybilla, had married Hans Frederick of
+Saxony himself, and was as bold a Protestant as he was. At the same time
+approaches were made to Christian III. of Denmark, who had joined the
+Evangelical league; and gradually the forces against the Papacy were to be
+knitted together. An excuse also was found to send English envoys to
+Cleves itself to offer an alliance in the matter of the Duchy of Gueldres,
+which the Duke of Cleves had just seized without the Emperor's connivance
+or consent. Carne and Wotton, the envoys, were also to offer the hand of
+the Princess Mary to the young Duke, and cautiously to hint at a marriage
+between his sister Anne and Henry, if conditions were favourable; and,
+like Mont in Saxony, were to close the ranks of Protestantism around the
+threatened Henry, from whose Court both the imperial and French
+ambassadors had now been withdrawn.
+
+Whilst these intrigues for Protestant support on the Continent were being
+carried on, and the defences of England on all sides were being
+strengthened, Henry, apparently for the purpose of disarming the Catholic
+elements, and proving that, apart from the Papal submission, he was as
+good a Catholic as any, forced through Parliament (May 1539) the
+extraordinary statute called the Six Articles, or the Bloody Statute,
+which threw all English Protestants into a panic. The Act was drafted on
+Henry's instructions by Bishop Gardiner, and was called an "Act to abolish
+diversity of opinions." The articles of faith dictated by the King to his
+subjects under ferocious penalties included the main Catholic doctrine;
+the real presence in the Sacrament in its fullest sense; the celibacy of
+the clergy; that the administration of the Sacrament in two kinds is not
+necessary; that auricular confession is compulsory, that private masses
+may be said, and that vows of chastity must be kept for ever. Cranmer, who
+was married and had children, dared to argue against the Bill when the
+Duke of Norfolk introduced it in the House of Lords, and others of the new
+bishops timidly did likewise; but they were overborne by the old bishops
+and the great majority of the lay peers, influenced by their traditions
+and by the peremptory arguments of the King himself. Even more important
+was an Act passed in the same servile Parliament giving to the King's
+proclamations the force of law; and an Act of attainder against every one,
+living or dead, in England or abroad, who had opposed the King, completed
+the terror under which thenceforward the country lay. Henry was now,
+indeed, master of the bodies and souls of his subjects, and had reduced
+them all, Protestants and Catholics alike, to a condition of abject
+subjection to his mere will. The passage of these Acts, especially the Six
+Articles, marks a temporarily successful attempt of the conservative
+party, represented by the old bishops and the nobles under Norfolk, to
+overcome the influence of Cromwell, who was forwarding the Protestant
+league;[189] but to Henry the policy must in any case have seemed a good
+one, as it tended to increase his personal power and prestige, and to keep
+both parties dependent upon him.
+
+Before the summer of 1539 had passed it was evident to Henry that the new
+combination against him would not stand the strain of a joint attack upon
+England. Charles was full of cares of his own. The Lutherans were
+increasingly threatening; even his own city of Ghent had revolted, and it
+was plain from his reception of Pole at Toledo that he could not proceed
+to extremes against Henry. It certainly was not the intention of Francis
+to do so; and the panic in England--never fully justified--passed away.
+The French ambassador came back, and once more Henry's intrigues to sow
+dissension between the Catholic powers went ceaselessly on. In the
+circumstances it was natural that, after the passage of the Six Articles
+and the resumption of diplomatic relations with France, the negotiations
+with the German Protestants slackened. But the proposed marriage of Henry
+with the Princess of Cleves offered too good an opportunity, as Cromwell
+pointed out to him, of troubling the Emperor when he liked, to be dropped,
+even though no general political league was effected with the German
+Lutherans. Her brother-in-law, Hans Frederick of Saxony, was cool about
+it. He said that some sort of engagement had been made by her father and
+the Duke of Lorraine to marry her to the heir of the latter, but finally
+in August Wotton reported from Duren that Hans Frederick would send
+envoys to Cleves to propose the match, and they would then proceed to
+England to close the matter. Wotton had been somewhat distrustful about
+the previous engagement of Anne with the Duke of Lorraine's son, but was
+assured by the Council of Cleves that it was not binding upon the
+Princess, "who was free to marry as she pleased." "She has been brought
+up," he writes, "with the Lady Duchess, her mother ... and in a manner
+never from her elbow; the Lady Duchess being a wise lady, and one that
+very straitly looketh to her children. All report her (Anne) to be of very
+lowly and gentle conditions, by the which she hath so much won her
+mother's favour that she is loth to suffer her to depart from her. She
+occupieth her time mostly with her needle, wherewithal ... she can read
+and write (Dutch); but as to French, Latin, or any other language, she
+hath none. Nor yet she cannot sing nor play any instrument, for they take
+it here in Germany for a rebuke, and an occasion of lightness that great
+ladies should be learned or have any knowledge of music. Her wit is good,
+and she will no doubt learn English soon when she puts her mind to it. I
+could never hear that she is inclined to the good cheer of this country;
+and marvel it were if she should, seeing that her brother ... doth so well
+abstain from it. Your Grace's servant Hans Holbein hath taken the effigies
+of my Lady Anne and the Lady Amelia, and hath expressed their images very
+lively."[190]
+
+Holbein was not usually a flattering painter to his sitters, and the
+portrait he sent of Anne was that of a somewhat masculine and
+large-featured, but handsome and intellectual young woman, with fine,
+soft, contemplative brown eyes, thick lashes, and strong eyebrows. The
+general appearance is dignified, though handicapped by the very unbecoming
+Dutch dress of the period; and though there is nothing of the _petite_
+sprightliness and soft rotundity that would be likely to attract a man of
+Henry's characteristics, the Princess cannot have been ill-favoured.
+Cromwell some months earlier had reported to Henry that Mont informed him
+that "everybody praises the lady's beauty, both of face and body. One said
+she excelled the Duchess (of Milan ?) as the golden sun did the silver
+moon."[191] If the latter statement be near the truth, Anne, in her own
+way, must have been quite good-looking. There was no delay or difficulty
+in carrying through the arrangements for the marriage. The envoys from
+Cleves and Saxony arrived in London in September, and saw Henry at
+Windsor. They could offer no great dowry, for Cleves was poor; but they
+would not be exacting about the appanage to be settled upon the Queen by
+her husband, to whom they left the decision of the sum; and the other
+covenants as to the eventual succession to her brother's duchy, in case of
+his death without heirs, were to be the same as those under which her
+elder sister married Hans Frederick.
+
+This was the sort of spirit that pleased Henry in negotiators, and with
+such he was always disposed to be liberal. He practically waived the
+dowry, and only urged that the lady should come at once, before the winter
+was too far advanced. When he suggested that she should come from her home
+down the Rhine through Holland, and thence by sea to England, the envoys
+prayed that she might go through Germany and Flanders by land to Calais,
+and so across. For, said they, by sea there will be great peril of capture
+and insult by some too zealous subjects of the Emperor. "Besides, they
+fear lest, the time of year being now cold and tempestuous, she might
+there, though she never were so well ordered, take such cold or other
+disease, considering she never was before upon the seas, as should be to
+her great peril.... She is, moreover, young and beautiful; and if she
+should be transported by sea they fear much how it might alter her
+complexion."[192] No sooner was the marriage treaty signed than splendid
+preparations were made for the reception of the King's coming bride. The
+Lord Admiral (Fitzwilliam) was ordered to prepare a fleet of ten vessels
+to escort her from Calais; repairs and redecorations of the royal
+residences went on apace; and especially in the Queen's apartments, where
+again the initials of poor Jane had to be altered to those of her
+successor, and the "principal lords have bought much cloth of gold and
+silk, a thing unusual for them except for some great solemnity."[193]
+
+The conclusion of the treaty was a triumph for Cromwell and the
+Protestant party in Henry's Council; and the Commissioners who signed it
+reflect the fact. Cranmer, Cromwell, the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chancellor
+Audley, and Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, were all of them inclined to the
+reforming side, whilst Bishop Tunstal, though on the Catholic side, was a
+personal friend of the King; and the new man, Hertford, Jane Seymour's
+brother, though not one of the Commissioners, gave emphatic approval of
+the match. "I am as glad," he wrote to Cromwell, "of the good resolution
+(of the marriage) as ever I was of a thing since the birth of the Prince;
+for I think the King's Highness could not in Christendom marry in any
+place meet for his Grace's honour that should be less prejudicial to his
+Majesty's succession."[194] Henry himself was in his usual vaunting mood
+about the alliance. He had long desired, he said, to cement a union with
+the German confederation, and could now disregard both France and the
+Emperor; besides, his influence would suffice to prevent the Lutherans
+from going too far in their religious innovations. As for the lady, he had
+only one male child, and he was convinced that his desire for more issue
+could not be better fulfilled "than with the said lady, who is of
+convenient age, healthy temperament, elegant stature, and endowed with
+other graces."
+
+The news of the engagement was ill received by Francis and Charles. They
+became more ostentatiously friendly than ever; and their ambassadors in
+London were inseparable. When Marillac and the Emperor's temporary envoy
+went together to tell Cromwell that the Emperor was so confident of the
+friendship of Francis that he was riding through France from Spain to
+Flanders, the English minister quite lost his composure. He was informed,
+he told the ambassadors, that this meeting of the monarchs was "merely
+with the view to making war on this poor King (Henry), who aimed at
+nothing but peace and friendship." Ominous mutterings came, too, from
+Flanders at the scant courtesy Henry had shown in throwing over the match
+with the Duchess of Milan in the midst of the negotiation. Cromwell was
+therefore full of anxiety, whilst the elaborate preparations were being
+made in Calais and in England for the new Queen's reception. Not only was
+a fresh household to be appointed, the nobility and gentry and their
+retinues summoned, fine clothes galore ordered or enjoined for others, the
+towns on the way from Dover to be warned of the welcome expected from
+them, and the hundred details dependent upon the arrival and installation
+of the King's fourth wife, but Henry himself had to be carefully handled,
+to prevent the fears engendered by the attitude of his rivals causing him
+to turn to the party opposed to Cromwell before the Protestant marriage
+was effected.
+
+In the meanwhile, Anne with a great train of guards and courtiers, three
+hundred horsemen strong, rode from Dusseldorf towards Calais through
+Cleves, Antwerp, Bruges, and Dunkirk. It was ordered that Lord Lisle, Lord
+Deputy of Calais, should meet the Queen on the English frontier, near
+Gravelines, and that at St. Pierre, Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, who had a
+fleet of fifty sail in the harbour, should greet her in the name of his
+King, gorgeously dressed in blue velvet, smothered with gold embroidery,
+and faced with crimson satin, royal blue and crimson, the King's colours,
+in velvet, damask, and silk, being the universal wear, even of the sailors
+and men-at-arms. The aged Duke of Suffolk and the Lord Warden were to
+receive her on her landing at Dover; and at Canterbury she was to be
+welcomed and entertained by Archbishop Cranmer. Norfolk and a great
+company of armed nobles were to greet the new Queen on the downs beyond
+Rochester; whilst the Queen's household, with Lady Margaret Douglas, the
+King's niece, and the Duchess of Richmond, his daughter-in-law, were to
+join her at Deptford, and the whole vast and glittering multitude were to
+convey her thence to where the King's pavilions were erected for her
+reception at Blackheath.[195]
+
+In the midwinter twilight of early morning, on the 11th December 1539,
+Anne's cavalcade entered the English town of Calais, and during the long
+time she remained weather-bound there she was entertained as sumptuously
+as the nobles and townsmen could entertain her. The day she had passed
+through Dunkirk in the Emperor's dominions, just before coming to Calais,
+a sermon was preached against her and all Lutherans; but with that
+exception no molestation was offered to her. The ship that was to carry
+her over, dressed fore and aft with silken flags, streamers, and banners,
+was exhibited to her admiration by Fitzwilliam, royal salutes thundered
+welcome to her, bands of martial music clashed in her honour, and banquets
+and jousts were held to delight her.[196] Good sense and modesty were
+shown by her in many ways at this somewhat trying time. Her principal
+mentor, Chancellor Olsiliger, begged Fitzwilliam to advise her as to her
+behaviour; and she herself asked him to teach her some game of cards that
+the King of England usually played. He taught her a game which he calls
+"Sent, which she did learn with good grace and countenance"; and she then
+begged him to come to sup with her, and bring some noble folk with him to
+sit with her in the German way. He told her that this was not the fashion
+in England, but he accepted her invitation.
+
+Thus Anne began betimes to prepare for what she hoped--greatly
+daring--would be a happy married life in England; whilst the wind and the
+waves thundering outside the harbour forbade all attempt to convey the
+bride to her now expectant bridegroom. Henry had intended to keep
+Christmas with unusual state at Greenwich in the company of his new wife;
+but week after week slipped by, with the wind still contrary, and it was
+the 27th December before a happy change of weather enabled Anne to set
+sail for her new home. She had a stout heart, for the passage was a rough
+though rapid one. When she landed at Deal, and thence, after a short rest,
+was conducted in state to Dover Castle, the wind blew blusterously, and
+the hail and winter sleet drove "continually in her Grace's face"; but she
+would hear of no delay in her journey forward, "so desirous was her Grace
+of reaching the King's presence." At Canterbury the citizens received her
+with a great torchlight procession and peals of guns. "In her chamber were
+forty or fifty gentlewomen waiting to receive her in velvet bonnets; all
+of which she took very joyously, and was so glad to see the King's
+subjects resorting to her so lovingly, that she forgot all the foul
+weather and was very merry at supper."[197]
+
+And so, with an evident determination to make the best of everything, Anne
+rode onward, accompanied by an ever-growing cavalcade of sumptuously
+bedizened folk, through Sittingbourne, and so to Rochester, where she was
+lodged at the bishop's palace, and passed New Year's Day 1540. News daily
+reached the King of his bride's approach, whilst he remained consumed with
+impatience at Greenwich. At each successive stage of her journey forward
+supple courtiers had written to Henry glowing accounts of the beauty and
+elegance of the bride. Fitzwilliam from Calais had been especially
+emphatic, and the King's curiosity was piqued to see the paragon he was to
+marry. At length, when he knew that Anne was on the way from Sittingbourne
+to Rochester, and would arrive there on New Year's Eve, he told Cromwell
+that he himself, with an escort of eight gentlemen clad in grey, would
+ride to Rochester incognito to get early sight of his bride, "whom he
+sorely desired to see." He went, he said, "to nourish love"; and full of
+hopeful anticipation, Henry on a great courser ambled over Gad's Hill from
+Gravesend to Rochester soon after dawn on New Year's Day 1540, with Sir
+Anthony Browne, his Master of the Horse, on one side, and Sir John Russell
+on the other. It was in accordance with the chivalrous tradition that this
+should be done, and that the lady should pretend to be extremely surprised
+when she was informed who her visitor was; so that Anne must have made a
+fair guess as to what was coming when Sir Anthony Browne, riding a few
+hundred yards ahead of his master, entered her presence, and, kneeling,
+told her that he had brought a New Year's gift for her. When the courtier
+raised his eyes and looked critically upon the lady before him,
+experienced as he was in Henry's tastes, "he was never more dismayed in
+his life to see her so far unlike that which was reported."[198]
+
+Anne was about twenty-four years of age, but looked older, and her frame
+was large, bony, and masculine, which in the facial portraits that had
+been sent to Henry was not indicated, and her large, low-German features,
+deeply pitted with the ravages of smallpox, were, as Browne knew, the very
+opposite of the type of beauty which would be likely to stimulate a gross,
+unwholesome voluptuary of nearly fifty. So, with a sinking heart, he went
+back to his master, not daring to prepare him for what was before him by
+any hint of disparagement of the bride. As soon as Henry entered with
+Russell and Browne and saw for himself, his countenance fell, and he made
+a wry face, which those who knew him understood too well; and they
+trembled in their shoes at what was to come of it. He nevertheless greeted
+the lady politely, raising her from the kneeling position she had assumed,
+and kissed her upon the cheek, passing a few minutes in conversation with
+her about her long journey. He had brought with him some rich presents of
+sables and other furs; but he was "so marvellously astonished and abashed"
+that he had not the heart to give them to her, but sent them the next
+morning with a cold message by Sir Anthony Browne.
+
+In the night the royal barge had been brought round from Gravesend to
+Rochester, and the King returned to Greenwich in the morning by water. He
+had hardly passed another word with Anne since the first meeting, though
+they had supped together, and it was with a sulky, frowning face that he
+took his place in the shelter of his galley. Turning to Russell, he asked,
+"Do you think this woman so fair or of such beauty as report has made
+her?" Russell, courtier-like, fenced with the question by feigning to
+misunderstand it. "I should hardly take her to be fair," he replied, "but
+of brown complexion." "Alas!" continued the King, "whom should men trust?
+I promise you I see no such thing in her as hath been showed unto me of
+her, and am ashamed that men have so praised her as they have done. I like
+her not."[199] To Browne he was quite as outspoken. "I see nothing in
+this woman as men report of her," he said angrily, "and I am surprised
+that wise men should make such reports as they have done." Whereat Browne,
+who knew that his brother-in-law, Fitzwilliam, was one of the "wise men"
+referred to, scented danger and was silent. The English ladies, too, who
+had accompanied Anne on the road began to whisper in confidence to their
+spouses that Anne's manners were coarse, and that she would never suit the
+King's fastidious taste.
+
+But he who had most to lose and most to fear was Cromwell. It was he who
+had drawn and driven his master into the Protestant friendship against the
+Emperor and the Pope, of which the marriage was to be the pledge, and he
+had repeated eagerly for months the inflated praises of Anne's beauty sent
+by his agents and friends in order to pique Henry to the union. He knew
+that vigilant enemies of himself and his policy were around him, watching
+for their opportunity, Norfolk and the older nobles, the Pope's bishops,
+and, above all, able, ambitious Stephen Gardiner, now sulking at
+Winchester, determined to supplant him if he could. When, on Friday the
+2nd January, Henry entered his working closet at Greenwich after his water
+journey from Rochester, Cromwell asked him "how he liked the Lady Anne."
+The King answered gloomily, "Nothing so well as she was spoken of," adding
+that if he had known before as much as he knew then, she should never have
+come within his realm. In the grievous self-pity usual with him in his
+perplexity, he turned to Cromwell, the man hitherto so fertile in
+expedients, and wailed, "What is the remedy?"[200] Cromwell, for once at
+a loss, could only express his grief, and say he knew of none. In very
+truth it was too late now to stop the state reception; for preparations
+had been ordered for such a pageant as had rarely been seen in England.
+Cromwell had intended it for his own triumph, and as marking the
+completeness of his victory over his opponents. Once more ambition
+o'erleaped itself, and the day that was to establish Cromwell's supremacy
+sealed his doom.
+
+What Anne thought of the situation is not on record. She had seen little
+of the world, outside the coarse boorishness of a petty low-German court;
+she was neither educated nor naturally refined, and she probably looked
+upon the lumpishness of her lover as an ordinary thing. In any case, she
+bated none of her state and apparent contentment, as she rode gorgeously
+bedight with her great train towards Greenwich. At the foot of Shooter's
+Hill there had been erected an imposing pavilion of cloth of gold, and
+divers other tents warmed with fires of perfumed wood; and here a company
+of ladies awaited the coming of the Queen on Saturday, 3rd January 1540. A
+broad way was cleared from the pavilion, across Woolwich Common and
+Blackheath, for over two miles, to the gates of Greenwich Park; and the
+merchants and Corporation of London joined with the King's retinue in
+lining each side of this long lane. Cromwell had recently gained the
+goodwill of foreigners settled in London by granting them exemption from
+special taxation for a term of years, and he had claimed, as some return,
+that they should make the most of this day of triumph. Accordingly, the
+German merchants of the Steelyard, the Venetians, the Spaniards, the
+French, and the rest of them, donned new velvet coats and jaunty crimson
+caps with white feathers, each master with a smartly clad servant behind
+him, and so stood each side of the way to do honour to the bride at the
+Greenwich end of the route. Then came the English merchants, the
+Corporation of London, the knights and gentlemen who had been bidden from
+the country to do honour to their new Queen, the gentlemen pensioners, the
+halberdiers, and, around the tent, the nobler courtiers and Queen's
+household, all brave in velvet and gold chains.[201] Behind the ranks of
+gentlemen and servitors there was ample room and verge enough upon the
+wide heath for the multitudes who came to gape and cheer King Harry's new
+wife; more than a little perplexed in many cases as to the minimum amount
+of enthusiasm which would be accepted as seemly. Cromwell himself
+marshalled the ranks on either side, "running up and down with a staff in
+his hand, for all the world as if he had been a running postman," as an
+eye-witness tells us.
+
+It was midday before the Queen's procession rode down Shooter's Hill to
+the tents, where she was met by her official household and greeted with a
+long Latin oration which she did not understand, whilst she sat in her
+chariot. Then heartily kissing the great ladies sent to welcome her, she
+alighted and entered the tent to rest and warm herself over the perfumed
+fires, and to don even more magnificent raiment than that she wore. When
+she was ready for her bridegroom's coming she must have been a blaze of
+magnificence. She wore a wide skirt of cloth of gold with a raised pattern
+in bullion and no train, and her head was covered first with a close cap
+and then a round cap covered with pearls and fronted with black velvet;
+whilst her bodice was one glittering mass of precious stones. When swift
+messengers brought news that the King was coming, Anne mounted at the door
+of the tent a beautiful white palfrey; and surrounded by her servitors,
+each bearing upon his golden coat the black lion of Cleves, and followed
+by her train, she set forth to meet her husband.
+
+Henry, unwieldy and lame as he was with a running ulcer in the leg, was as
+vain and fond of pomp as ever, and outdid his bride in splendour. His coat
+was of purple velvet cut like a frock, embroidered all over with a flat
+gold pattern interlined with narrow gold braid, and with gold lace laid
+crosswise over it all. A velvet overcoat surmounted the gorgeous garment,
+lined also with gold tissue, the sleeves and breast held together with
+great buttons of diamonds, rubies, and pearls. His sword and belt were
+covered with emeralds, and his bonnet and under-cap were "so rich in
+jewels that few men could value them"; whilst across his shoulders he wore
+a baldrick, composed of precious stones and pearls, that was the wonder of
+all beholders. The fat giant thus bedizened bestrode a great war-horse
+to match, and almost equally magnificent; and, preceded by heralds and
+trumpeters, followed by the great officers, the royal household and the
+bishops, and accompanied by the Duke Philip of Bavaria, just betrothed to
+the Princess Mary, Henry rode through the long lane of his velvet-clad
+admirers to meet Anne, hard by the cross upon Blackheath. When she
+approached him, he doffed his jewelled bonnet and bowed low; and then
+embraced her, whilst she, with every appearance of delight and duty,
+expressed her pleasure at meeting him. Thus, together, with their great
+cavalcades united, over five thousand horsemen strong, they rode in the
+waning light of a midwinter afternoon to Greenwich; and, as one who saw it
+but knew not the tragedy that lurked behind the splendour, exclaimed, "Oh!
+what a sight was this to see, so goodly a Prince and so noble a King to
+ride with so fair a lady of so goodly a stature, and so womanly a
+countenance, and especial of so good qualities. I think that no creature
+could see them but his heart rejoiced."[202]
+
+
+[Illustration: _ANNE OF CLEVES_
+
+_From a portrait by a German artist in St. John's College, Oxford_]
+
+
+There was one heart, at all events, that did not rejoice, and that was
+Henry's. He went heavily through the ceremony of welcoming home his bride
+in the great hall at Greenwich, and then led her to her chamber; but no
+sooner had he got quit of her, than retiring to his own room he summoned
+Cromwell. "Well!" he said, "is it not as I told you? Say what they will,
+she is nothing like so fair as she was reported to be. She is well and
+seemly, but nothing else." Cromwell, confused, could only mumble something
+about her having a queenly manner. But Henry wanted a way out of his
+bargain rather than reconciliation to it; and he ordered Cromwell to
+summon the Council at once--Norfolk, Suffolk, Cromwell, Cranmer,
+Fitzwilliam, and Tunstal--to consider the prior engagement made between
+Anne and the Duke of Lorraine's son.[203] The question had already been
+discussed and disposed of, and the revival of it thus at the eleventh hour
+shows how desperate Henry was. The Council assembled immediately, and
+summoned the German envoys who had negotiated the marriage and were now in
+attendance on Anne. The poor men were thunderstruck at the point of an
+impediment to the marriage being raised then, and begged to be allowed to
+think the matter over till the next morning, Sunday. When they met the
+Council again in the morning, they could only protest that the prior
+covenant had only been a betrothal, which had never taken effect, and had
+been formally annulled. If there was any question about it, however, they
+offered to remain as prisoners in England until the original deed of
+revocation was sent from Cleves.
+
+When this answer was carried to Henry he broke out angrily that he was not
+being well treated, and upbraided Cromwell for not finding a loophole for
+escape. He did not wish to marry the woman, he said. "If she had not come
+so far, and such great preparations made, and for fear of making a ruffle
+in the world--of driving her brother into the hands of the Emperor and
+the French King--he never would marry her." Cromwell was apparently afraid
+to encourage him in the idea of repudiation, and said nothing; and after
+dinner the King again summoned the Council to his presence. To them he
+bitterly complained of having been deceived. Would the lady, he asked,
+make a formal protestation before notaries that she was free from all
+contracts? Of course she would, and did, as soon as she was asked; but
+Henry's idea in demanding this is evident. If she had refused it would
+give a pretext for delay, but if she did as desired, and by any quibble
+the prior engagement was found to be valid, her protestation to the
+contrary would be good grounds for a divorce. But still Henry would much
+rather not have married her at all. "Oh! is there no other remedy?" he
+asked despairingly on Monday, after Anne had made her protestation. "Must
+I needs against my will put my neck into the yoke?" Cromwell could give
+him no comfort, and left him gloomy at the prospect of going through the
+ceremony on the morrow. On Tuesday morning, when he was apparelled for the
+wedding, as usual in a blaze of magnificence of crimson satin and cloth of
+gold, Cromwell entered his chamber on business. "My lord," said Henry, "if
+it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do what I must
+do this day for any earthly thing." But withal he went through it as best
+he might, though with heavy heart and gloomy countenance, and the
+unfortunate bride, we are told, was remarked to be "demure and sad," as
+well she might be, when her husband and Cranmer placed upon her finger the
+wedding-ring with the ominous inscription, "God send me well to keep."
+
+Early the next morning Cromwell entered the King's chamber between hope
+and fear, and found Henry frowning and sulky. "How does your Grace like
+the Queen?" he asked. Henry grumblingly, and not quite relevantly, replied
+that he, Cromwell, was not everybody; and then he broke out, "Surely, my
+lord, as you know, I liked her not well before, but now I like her much
+worse." With an incredible grossness, and want of common decency, he then
+went into certain details of his wife's physical qualities that had
+disgusted him and turned him against her. He did not believe, from certain
+peculiarities that he described, that she was a maid, he said; but so far
+as he was concerned, he was so "struck to the heart" that he had left her
+as good a maid as he had found her.[204] Nor was the King more reticent
+with others. He was free with his details to the gentlemen of his chamber,
+Denny, Heneage, and others, as to the signs which it pleased him to
+consider suspicious as touching his wife's previous virtue, and protested
+that he never could, or would, consummate the marriage; though he
+professed later that for months after the wedding he did his best to
+overcome his repugnance, and lived constantly in contact with his wife.
+But he never lost sight of the hope of getting free. If he did not find
+means soon to do so, he said, he should have no more issue. His conscience
+told him--that tender conscience of his--that Anne was not his legal wife;
+and he turned to Cromwell for a remedy, and found none: for Cromwell knew
+that the breaking up of the Protestant union, upon which he had staked his
+future, would inevitably mean now the rise of his rivals and his own ruin.
+
+He fought stoutly for his position, though Norfolk and Gardiner were often
+now at the King's ear. His henchman, Dr. Barnes, who had gone to Germany
+as envoy during the marriage negotiations, was a Protestant, and in a
+sermon on justification by faith he violently attacked Gardiner. The
+latter, in spite of Cromwell and Cranmer, secured from the King an order
+that Barnes should humbly and publicly recant. He did so at Easter at the
+Spital, but at once repeated the offence, and he and two other clergymen
+who thought like him were burnt for heresy. Men began to shake their heads
+and look grave now as they spoke of Cromwell and Cranmer; but the
+Secretary stood sturdily, and in May seemed as if he would turn the tables
+upon his enemies. Once, indeed, he threatened the Duke of Norfolk roughly
+with the King's displeasure, and at the opening of Parliament he took the
+lead as usual, expressing the King's sorrow at the religious bitterness in
+the country, and demanding large supplies for the purposes of national
+defence.
+
+But, though still apparently as powerful as ever, and more than ever
+overbearing, he dared not yet propose to the King a way out of the
+matrimonial tangle. Going home to Austin Friars from the sitting of
+Parliament on the 7th June, he told his new colleague, Wriothesley, that
+the thing that principally troubled him was that the King did not like
+the Queen, and that his marriage had never been consummated. Wriothesley,
+whose sympathies were then Catholic, suggested that "some way might be
+devised for the relief of the King." "Ah!" sighed Cromwell, who knew what
+such a remedy would mean to him, "but it is a great matter." The next day
+Wriothesley returned to the subject, and begged Cromwell to devise some
+means of relief for the King: "for if he remained in this grief and
+trouble they should all smart for it some day." "Yes," replied Cromwell,
+"it is true; but it is a great matter." "Marry!" exclaimed Wriothesley,
+out of patience, "I grant that, but let a remedy be searched for." But
+Cromwell had no remedy yet but one that would ruin himself, and that he
+dared not propose, so he shook his head sadly and changed the
+subject.[205]
+
+The repudiation of Anne was, as Cromwell said, a far greater matter than
+at first sight appeared. The plan to draw into one confederation for the
+objects of England the German Protestants, the King of Denmark, and the
+Duke of Cleves, whose seizure of Guelderland had brought him in opposition
+to the Emperor, was the most threatening that had faced Charles for years.
+His own city of Ghent was in open revolt, and Francis after all was but a
+fickle ally. If once more the French King turned from him and made friends
+with the Turk and the Lutherans, then indeed would the imperial power have
+cause to tremble and Henry to rejoice. Cromwell had striven hard to cement
+the Protestant combination; but again and again he had been thwarted by
+his rivals. The passage of the Six Articles against his wish, although the
+execution of the Act was suspended at Cromwell's instance, had caused the
+gravest distrust on the part of Hans Frederick and the Landgrave of Hesse;
+and if Henry were encouraged to repudiate his German wife, not only would
+her brother--already in negotiation with the imperial agents for the
+investiture of Gueldres, and his marriage with the Emperor's niece, the
+Duchess of Milan--be at once driven into opposition to England, but Hans
+Frederick and Hesse would also abandon Henry to the tender mercies of his
+enemies.
+
+The only way to avoid such a disaster following upon the repudiation of
+Anne was first to drive a wedge of distrust between Charles and Francis,
+now in close confederacy. In January the Emperor had surprised the world
+by his boldness in traversing France to his Flemish dominions. He was
+feasted splendidly by Francis, and escaped unbetrayed; but during his stay
+in France desperate attempts were made by Wyatt, Henry's ambassador with
+Charles, Bonner, the ambassador in France, and by the Duke of Norfolk, who
+went in February on a special mission, to sow discord between the allied
+sovereigns, and not without some degree of success. Charles during his
+stay in France was badgered by Wyatt into saying some hasty words, which
+were deliberately twisted by Norfolk into a menace to France and England
+alike. Francis was reminded with irritating iteration that Charles had
+plenty of smiles and soft words for his French friends, but avoided
+keeping his promises about the cession of Milan or anything else. So in
+France those who were in favour of the imperial alliance, the
+Montmorencies and the Queen, declined in their hold over Francis, and
+their opponents, the Birons, the Queen of Navarre, Francis' sister, and
+the Duchess of Etampes, his mistress, planned with Henry's agents for an
+understanding with England. This, as may be supposed, was not primarily
+Cromwell's policy, but that of Norfolk and his friends, because its
+success would inevitably mean the conciliation of the German princes and
+Cleves by the Emperor, and the break-up of the Protestant confederacy and
+England, by which Cromwell must now stand or fall.
+
+As early as April, Marillac, the French ambassador in England, foretold
+the great change that was coming. The arrest of Barnes, Garrard, and
+Jerome, for anti-Catholic teaching, and the persecutions everywhere for
+those who offended ever so slightly in the same way, presaged Cromwell's
+fall. "Cranmer and Cromwell," writes Marillac, "do not know where they
+are. Within a few days there will be seen in this country a great change
+in many things, which this King begins to make in his ministers, recalling
+those he had disgraced, and degrading those he had raised. Cromwell is
+tottering: for all those now recalled were dismissed at his request, and
+bear him no little grudge--amongst others, the Bishops of Winchester
+(_i.e._ Gardiner), Durham, and Bath, men of great learning and experience,
+who are now summoned to the Privy Council. It is said that Tunstal (_i.e._
+Durham) will be Vicar-General, and Bath Privy Seal, which are Cromwell's
+principal offices.... If he holds his own (_i.e._ Cromwell), it will only
+be because of his close assiduity in business, though he is very rude in
+his demeanour. He does nothing without consulting the King, and is
+desirous of doing justice, especially to foreigners."
+
+This was somewhat premature, but it gives a good idea of the process that
+was going on. There is no doubt that Cromwell believed in his ability to
+keep his footing politically; for he was anything but rigid in his
+principles, and if the friendship with France initiated by his rivals had,
+as it showed signs of doing, developed into an alliance that would enable
+Henry both to dismiss his fears of the Emperor and throw over the
+Protestants, he would probably have accepted the situation, and have
+proposed a means for Henry to get rid of his distasteful wife. But this
+opportunism did not suit his opponents in Henry's Council. They wanted to
+get rid of the man quite as much as they did his policy; for his insolence
+had stung them to the quick, great nobles as most of them were, and he the
+son of a blacksmith. Some other means, therefore, than a mere change of
+policy was necessary to dislodge the strong man who guided the King.
+Parliament had met on the 12th April, and it was managed with Cromwell's
+usual boldness and success.[206] As if to mark that his great ability was
+still paramount, he was made Earl of Essex and Great Chamberlain of
+England in the following week.
+
+But the struggle in the Council, and around the King, continued unabated.
+Henry was warned by Cromwell's enemies of the danger of allowing religious
+freedom to be carried too far, and of thus giving the Catholic powers an
+excuse for executing the Pope's decree of deprivation against him. He was
+reminded that the Emperor and Francis were still friends, that the latter
+was suspiciously preparing for war, and that Henry's brother-in-law the
+Duke of Cleves' quarrel with the Emperor might drag England into war for
+the sake of a beggarly German dukedom of no importance or value to her. On
+the other hand, Cromwell would point out to Henry the disobedience and
+insolence of the Catholics who questioned his spiritual supremacy, and
+cause Churchmen who advocated a reconciliation with Rome to be imprisoned.
+Clearly such a position could not continue indefinitely, and Norfolk
+anticipated Cromwell by playing the final trump card--that of arousing
+Henry's personal fears. The word treason and a hint that anything could be
+intended against his person always brought Henry to heel. What the exact
+accusation against Cromwell was no one knows, though it was whispered at
+the time that the nobles had told Henry that Cromwell had amassed great
+stores of money and arms, and maintained a vast number of dependants (1500
+men, it was asserted, wore his livery), with a sinister object; some said
+to marry the Princess Mary and make himself King; and that he had received
+a great bribe from the Duke of Cleves and the Protestants to bring about
+the marriage of Anne. Others said that he had boasted that he was to
+receive a crown abroad from a foreign potentate (_i.e._, the Emperor), and
+that he had talked of defending the new doctrines at the sword's
+point.[207] No such accusations, however, are on official record; and
+there is no doubt that the real reason for his arrest was the animosity of
+the aristocratic and Catholic party against him, acting upon the King's
+fears and his desire to get rid of Anne of Cleves.
+
+On the 9th June Parliament was still sitting, discussing the religious
+question with a view to the settlement of some uniform doctrine. The Lords
+of the Council left the Chamber to go across to Whitehall to dinner before
+midday; and as they wended their way across the great courtyard of
+Westminster a high wind carried away Cromwell's flat cap from his head. It
+was the custom when one gentleman was even accidentally uncovered for
+those who were with him also to doff their bonnets. But, as an attendant
+ran and recovered Cromwell's flying headgear on that occasion, the haughty
+minister looked grimly round and saw all his colleagues, once so humble,
+holding their own caps upon their heads. "A high wind indeed must this
+be," sneered Cromwell, "to blow my cap off, and for you to need hold yours
+on." He must have known that ill foreboded; for during dinner no one spoke
+to him. The meal finished, Cromwell went to the Council Chamber with the
+rest, and, as was his custom, stood at a window apart to hear appeals and
+applications to him, and when these were disposed of he turned to the
+table to take his usual seat with the rest. On this occasion Norfolk
+stopped him, and told him that it was not meet that traitors should sit
+amongst loyal gentlemen. "I am no traitor!" shouted Cromwell, dashing his
+cap upon the ground; but the captain of the guard was at the door, and
+still protesting the wretched man was hurried to the Water Gate and rowed
+swiftly to the Tower, surrounded by halberdiers, Norfolk as he left the
+Council Chamber tearing off the fallen minister's badge of the Garter as a
+last stroke of ignominy.
+
+Cromwell knew he was doomed, for by the iniquitous Act that he himself had
+forged for the ruin of others, he might be attainted and condemned legally
+without his presence or defence. "Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!" he wrote to the
+King in his agony; but for him there was as little mercy as he had shown
+to others. His death was a foregone conclusion, for Henry's fears had been
+aroused: but Cromwell had to be kept alive long enough for him to furnish
+such information as would provide a plausible pretext for the repudiation
+of Anne. He was ready to do all that was asked of him--to swear to
+anything the King wished. He testified that he knew the marriage had never
+been consummated, and never would be; that the King was dissatisfied from
+the first, and had complained that the evidence of the nullification of
+the prior contract with the heir of Lorraine was insufficient; that the
+King had never given full consent to the marriage, but had gone through
+the ceremony under compulsion of circumstances, and with mental
+reservation. When all this was sworn to, Cromwell's hold upon the world
+was done. Upon evidence now unknown he was condemned for treason and
+heresy without being heard in his own defence, and on the 28th July 1540
+he stood, a sorry figure, upon the scaffold in the Tower. He had been a
+sinner, he confessed, and had travailed after the things of this world;
+but he fervently avowed that he was a good Catholic and no heretic, and
+had harboured no thought of evil towards his sovereign. But protestations
+availed not; and his head, the cleverest head in England, was pitiably
+hacked off by a bungling headsman. Before that happened, the repudiation
+of Anne of Cleves was complete, and a revival of the aristocratic and
+Catholic influence in England was an accomplished fact.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+1540-1542
+
+THE KING'S "GOOD SISTER" AND THE KING'S BAD WIFE--THE LUTHERANS AND
+ENGLISH CATHOLICS
+
+
+During her few months of incomplete wedlock with the King, Anne had felt
+uneasily the strange anomaly of her position. She accompanied Henry in his
+daily life at bed and board, and shared with him the various festivities
+held in celebration of the marriage; the last of which was a splendid
+tournament given by the bachelor courtiers at Durham House on May-day. She
+had studied English diligently, and tried to please her husband in a
+hundred well-meant but ungainly ways. She had by her jovial manner and
+real kindness of heart become very popular with those around her; but yet
+she got no nearer to the glum, bloated man by her side. In truth she was
+no fit companion for him, either physically or mentally. Her lack of the
+softer feminine charms, her homely manners, her lack of learning and of
+musical talent, on which Henry set so much store, were not counterbalanced
+by strong will or commanding ability which might have enabled her to
+dominate him, or by feminine craft by which he might have been captivated.
+
+She was a woman, however, and could not fail to know that her repudiation
+in some form was in the air. It was one of the accusations against
+Cromwell that he had divulged to her what the King had said about the
+marriage; but, so far from doing so, he had steadily avoided compliance
+with her oft-repeated requests for an interview with him. Shortly before
+Cromwell's fall, Henry had complained to him that Anne's temper was
+becoming tart; and then Cromwell thought well to warn her through her
+Chamberlain that she should try to please the King more. The poor woman,
+desirous of doing right, tactlessly flew to the other extreme, and her
+cloying fondness aroused Henry's suspicion that Cromwell had informed her
+of his intention to get rid of her. Anne's Lutheranism, moreover, had
+begun to grate upon the tender conscience of her husband under the
+prompting of the Catholic party; although she scrupulously followed the
+English ritual, and later became a professed Catholic; and to all these
+reasons which now made Henry doubly anxious for prompt release, was added
+another more powerful than any. One of Anne's maids of honour was a very
+beautiful girl of about eighteen, Katharine, the orphan daughter of Lord
+Edmund Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk, and consequently first
+cousin of Anne Boleyn. During the first months of his unsatisfying union
+with Anne, Henry's eyes must have been cast covetously upon Katharine; for
+in April 1540 she received a grant from him of a certain felon's property,
+and in the following month twenty-three quilts of quilted sarsnet were
+given to her out of the royal wardrobe. When Cromwell was still awaiting
+his fate in the Tower, and whispers were rife of what was intended against
+the Queen, Marillac the observant French ambassador wrote in cipher to
+his master, telling him that there was another lady in the case; and a
+week afterwards (6th July) he amplified his hints by saying that, either
+for that reason or some other, Anne had been sent to Richmond, on the
+false pretence that plague had appeared in London, and that Henry, very
+far from joining her there, as he had promised, had not left London, and
+was about to make a progress in another direction. Marillac rightly says
+that "if there had been any suspicion of plague, the King would not stay
+for any affair, however great, as he is the most timid person that could
+be in such a case."
+
+The true reason why Anne was sent away was Henry's invariable cowardice,
+that made him afraid to face a person whom he was wronging. Gardiner had
+promptly done what Cromwell had been ruined for not doing, and had
+submitted to the King within a few days of the arrest of his rival a
+complete plan by which Anne might be repudiated.[208] First certain
+ecclesiastics, under oath of secrecy, were to be asked for their opinion
+as to the best way to proceed, and the Council was thereupon to discuss
+and settle the procedure in accordance: the question of the previous
+contract and its repudiation was to be examined; the manner in which the
+Queen herself was to be approached was to be arranged, and evidence from
+every one to whom the King had spoken at the time as to his lack of
+consent and consummation was to be collected. All this had been done by
+the 7th July, when the clergy met at Westminster, summoned by writ under
+the great seal, dated the 6th, to decide whether the King's marriage was
+valid or not in the circumstances detailed. The obedient Parliament,
+sitting with closed doors, a few days previously had, by Norfolk's orders,
+petitioned the King to solve certain doubts that had been raised about the
+marriage, and Henry, ever desirous of pleasing his faithful lieges, and to
+set at rest conscientious scruples, referred the question to his prelates
+in Synod for decision.
+
+Anne, two days before this, summoned to Richmond the ambassador of her
+brother, who came to her at four o'clock in the morning; and she then sent
+for the Earl of Rutland, the chief of her household, to be present at the
+interview. The King, she said, had sent her a message and asked for a
+reply. The effect of the message was to express doubts as to the validity
+of their marriage, and to ask her if she was content to leave the decision
+of it to the English clergy. The poor woman, much perturbed, had refused
+to send an answer without consideration, and she had then desired that her
+brother's envoy should give, or at all events carry, the answer to the
+King, but this he refused to do; and she in her trouble could only appeal
+to Rutland for advice. He prated about the "graciousness and virtue" of
+the King, and assured her that he would "do nothing but that should stand
+by the law of God, and for the discharge of his conscience and hers, and
+the quietness of the realm, and at the suit of all his lords and commons."
+The King was content to refer the question to the learned and virtuous
+bishops, so that she had cause to be glad rather than sorry. Anne was
+confused and doubtful; for she did not know what was intended towards her.
+But, considering the helplessness of her position and the danger of
+resistance, she met the deputation of the Council that came to her next
+day (6th July) in a spirit of complete surrender. She was, she said in
+German, always content to obey the King, and would abide by the decision
+of the prelates; and with this answer Gardiner posted back to London that
+night, to appear at the Synod the next morning.
+
+Neither Anne, nor any one for her, appeared. The whole evidence, which was
+that already mentioned, was to show the existence of a prior contract, of
+the annulling of which no sufficient proofs had been produced, the avowals
+of the King and the Queen to their confidants that the marriage had never
+been consummated, and never would be; and, lastly, the absence of "inner
+consent" on the part of the King from the first. Under the pressure of
+Gardiner--for Cranmer, overshadowed by a cloud and in hourly fear of
+Cromwell's fate, was ready to sign anything--the union was declared to be
+invalid, and both parties were pronounced capable of remarriage. A Bill
+was then hurriedly rushed through Parliament confirming the decision of
+Convocation, and Cranmer, for the third time, as Primate, annulled his
+master's marriage. Anne was still profoundly disturbed at the fate that
+might be in store for her; and when Suffolk, Southampton, and Wriothesley
+went to Richmond on the 10th July to obtain her acceptance of the
+decision, she fainted at the sight of them. They did their best to
+reassure her, giving her from the King a large present of money and a
+specially affectionate letter. She was assured that if she would acquiesce
+and remain in the realm she should be the King's adopted sister, with
+precedence before all other ladies but the King's wife and daughters; a
+large appanage should be secured to her, and jewels, furniture, and the
+household of a royal princess provided for her. She was still doubtful;
+and some persuasion had to be used before she would consent to sign the
+letter dictated to her as the King's "sister"; but at last she did so, and
+was made to say that "though the case was hard and sorrowful, for the
+great love she bears to his noble person, yet, having more regard for God
+and His truth than for any worldly affection, she accepts the judgment,
+praying that the King will take her as one of his most humble servants,
+and so determine of her that she may sometimes enjoy his presence."
+
+This seemed almost too good to be true when Henry read it, and he insisted
+upon its being written and signed again in German, that Anne might not
+subsequently profess ignorance of its wording. When Anne, however, was
+asked to write to her brother, saying that she was fully satisfied, she at
+first refused. Why should she write to him before he wrote to her? she
+asked. If he sent a complaint, she would answer it as the King wished; but
+after a few days she gave way on this point when further pressed.[209] So
+delighted was Henry at so much submission to his will, that he was
+kindness and generosity itself. On the 14th July he sent the Councillors
+again to Richmond, with another handsome present and a letter to his
+"Right dear, and right entirely beloved sister," thanking her gratefully
+for her "wise and honourable proceedings." "As it is done in respect of
+God and His truth; and, continuing your conformity, you shall find us a
+perfect friend content to repute you as our dearest sister." He promised
+her Ł4000 a year, with the two royal residences of Richmond and
+Bletchingly, and a welcome at Court when she pleased to come. In return
+she sent him another amiable letter, and the wedding-ring; expressing
+herself fully satisfied. She certainly carried out her part of the
+arrangement to perfection, whether from fear or complaisance; assuring the
+envoys of her brother the Duke that she was well treated, as in a material
+sense indeed she was, and thenceforward made the best of her life in
+England.
+
+Her brother and the German Protestants were of course furiously
+indignant; but, as the injured lady expressed herself not only satisfied
+but delighted with her position, no ground could be found for open
+quarrel. She was probably a person of little refinement of feeling, and
+highly appreciated the luxury and abundance with which she thenceforward
+was surrounded, enjoying, as she always did, recreation and fine dress, in
+which she was distinguished above any of Henry's wives. On the day after
+the Synod had met in Westminster to decide the invalidity of the marriage
+(7th July), Pate, the English ambassador, saw the Emperor at Bruges, with
+a message from Henry which foreshadowed an entire change in the foreign
+policy of England. Charles received Pate at midnight, and was agreeably
+surprised to learn that conscientious scruples had made Henry doubt the
+validity of his union with Anne. The Emperor's stiff demeanour changed at
+once, and, as the news came day by day of the progress of the separation
+of Henry from his Protestant wife, the cordiality of the Emperor grew
+towards him,[210] whilst England itself was in full Catholic reaction.
+
+The fall of Cromwell had, as it was intended to do, provided Henry with a
+scapegoat. The spoliation and destruction of the religious houses, by
+which the King and many of the Catholic nobles had profited enormously,
+was laid to the dead man's door; the policy of plundering the Church, of
+union with Lutherans, and the favouring of heresy, had been the work of
+the wicked minister, and not of the good King--that ill-served and
+ungratefully-used King, who was always innocent, and never in the wrong,
+who simply differed from other good Catholics in his independence of the
+Bishop of Rome: merely a domestic disagreement. With such suave hypocrisy
+as this difficulties were soon smoothed over; and to prove the perfect
+sincerity with which Henry proceeded, Protestants like Barnes, Garrard,
+and Jerome were burnt impartially side by side with Catholics who did not
+accept the spiritual supremacy of Henry over the Church in England, such
+as Abell, Powell, Fetherstone, and Cook. The Catholic and aristocratic
+party in England had thus triumphed all along the line, by the aid of
+anti-Protestant Churchmen like Gardiner and Tunstal. Their heavy-handed
+enemy, Cromwell, had gone, bearing the whole responsibility for the past;
+the King had been flattered by exoneration from blame, and pleased by the
+release from his wife, so deftly and pleasantly effected. No one but
+Cromwell was to blame for anything: they were all good Catholics, whom the
+other Catholic powers surely could not attack for a paltry quarrel with
+the Pope; and, best of all, the ecclesiastical spoil was secured to them
+and their heirs for ever, for they all maintained the supremacy of the
+King in England, good Catholics though they were.
+
+But, withal, they knew that Henry must have some one close to him to keep
+him in the straight way.[211] The nobles were not afraid of Cranmer, for
+he kept in the background, and was a man of poor spirit; and, moreover,
+for the moment the danger was hardly from the reformers. The nobles had
+triumphed by the aid of Gardiner, and Gardiner was now the strong spirit
+near the King; but the aims of the nobles were somewhat different from
+those of Churchmen; and a Catholic bishop as the sole director of the
+national policy might carry them farther than they wished to go. Henry's
+concupiscence must therefore once more be utilised, and the woman upon
+whom he cast his eyes, if possible, made into a political instrument to
+forward the faction that favoured her. Gardiner was nothing loath, for he
+was sure of himself; but how eager Norfolk and his party were to take
+advantage of Henry's fancy for Katharine Howard, to effect her lodgment by
+his side as Queen, is seen by the almost indecent haste with which they
+began to spread the news of her rise, even before the final decision was
+given as to the validity of the marriage with Anne. On the 12th July a
+humble dependant of the Howards, Mistress Joan Bulmer (of whom more will
+be heard), wrote to Katharine, congratulating her upon her coming
+greatness, and begging for an office about her person: "for I trost the
+Quyne of Bretane wyll not forget her secretary."
+
+Less than a fortnight later (21st July) the French ambassador gives as a
+piece of gossip that Katharine Howard was already pregnant by the King,
+and that the marriage was therefore being hurried on. Exactly when or
+where the wedding took place is not known, but it was a private one, and
+by the 11th August Katharine was called Queen, and acknowledged as such by
+all the Court. On the 15th Marillac wrote that her name had been added to
+the prayers in the Church service, and that the King had gone on a hunting
+expedition, presumably accompanied by his new wife; whilst "Madame de
+Cleves, so far from claiming to be married, is more joyous than ever, and
+wears new dresses every day." Everybody thus was well satisfied except the
+Protestants.[212] Henry, indeed, was delighted with his tiny, sparkling
+girl-wife, and did his best to be a gallant bridegroom to her, though
+there was none of the pomp and splendour that accompanied his previous
+nuptials.[213] The autumn of 1540 was passed in a leisurely progress
+through the shires to Grafton, where most of the honeymoon was spent. The
+rose crowned was chosen by Henry as his bride's personal cognisance, and
+the most was made of her royal descent and connections by the enamoured
+King. "The King is so amorous of her," wrote Marillac in September, "that
+he cannot treat her well enough, and caresses her more than he did the
+others." Even thus early, however, whispers were heard of the King's
+fickleness. Once it was said that Anne of Cleves was pregnant by him, and
+he would cast aside Katharine in her favour, and shortly afterwards he
+refrained from seeing his new wife for ten days together, because of
+something she had done to offend him.
+
+The moral deterioration of Henry's character, which had progressed in
+proportion with the growing conviction of his own infallibility and
+immunity, had now reached its lowest depth. He was rapidly becoming more
+and more bulky; and his temper, never angelic, was now irascible in the
+extreme. His health was bad, and increasing age had made him more than
+ever impatient of contradiction or restraint, and no consideration but
+that of his own interest and safety influenced him. The policy which he
+adopted under the guidance of Gardiner and Norfolk was one of rigorous
+enforcement of the Six Articles, and, at the same time, of his own
+spiritual supremacy in England. All chance of a coalition of Henry with
+the Lutherans was now out of the question ("Squire Harry means to be God,
+and to do as pleases himself," said Luther at the time); and the Emperor,
+freed from that danger, and faced with the greater peril of a coalition of
+the French and Turks, industriously endeavoured to come to some _modus
+vivendi_ with his German electors. The rift between Charles and Francis
+was daily widening; and Henry himself was aiding the process to his full
+ability; for he knew that whilst they were disunited he was safe. But for
+the first time in his reign, except when he defied the Pope, he adopted a
+policy--probably his own and not that of his ministers--calculated to
+offend both the Catholic powers, whilst he was alienated from the
+reforming element on the Continent.
+
+By an Act of Parliament the ancient penal laws against foreign denizens
+were re-enacted, and all foreigners but established merchants were to be
+expelled the country; whilst alien merchants resident were to pay double
+taxation. The taxation of Englishmen, enormous under Cromwell, was now
+recklessly increased, with the set purpose of keeping the lieges poor,
+just as the atrocious religious executions were mainly to keep them
+submissive, and incapable of questioning the despot's will. But, though
+Englishmen might be stricken dumb by persecution, the expulsion or
+oppression of foreigners led to much acrimony and reprisals on the part
+both of the Emperor and Francis. An entirely gratuitous policy of
+irritation towards France on the frontier of Calais and elsewhere was also
+adopted, apparently to impress the Emperor, and for the satisfaction of
+Henry's arrogance, when he thought it might be safe to exercise it. The
+general drift of English policy at the time was undoubtedly to draw closer
+to the Emperor, not entirely to the satisfaction of the Duke of Norfolk,
+who was usually pro-French; but even here the oppressive Act against
+foreigners by which Henry hoped to show Charles that his friendship was
+worth buying made cordiality in the interim extremely difficult. When
+Chapuys in the Emperor's name remonstrated with the Council about the new
+decree forbidding the export of goods from England except in English
+bottoms, the English ministers rudely said that the King could pass what
+laws he liked in his own country, just as the Emperor could in his.
+Charles and his sister, the Regent of the Netherlands, took the hint, and
+utterly astounded Henry by forbidding goods being shipped in the
+Netherlands in English vessels.
+
+The danger was understood at once. Not only did this strike a heavy blow
+at English trade, but it upset the laboriously constructed pretence of
+close communion with the Emperor which had been used to hoodwink the
+French. Henry himself bullied and hectored, as if he was the first injured
+party; and then took Chapuys aside in a window-bay and hinted at an
+alliance. He said that the French were plotting against the Emperor, and
+trying to gain his (Henry's) support, which, however, he would prefer to
+give to the Emperor if he wished for it. Henry saw, indeed, that he had
+drawn the bow too tight, and was ready to shuffle out of the position into
+which his own arrogance had led him. So Gardiner was sent in the winter
+to see the Emperor with the King's friend Knyvett, who was to be the new
+resident ambassador; the object of the visit being partly to impress the
+French, and partly to persuade Charles of Henry's strict Catholicism, and
+so to render more difficult any such agreement being made as that aimed at
+by the meeting at Worms between the Lutheran princes and their suzerain.
+Gardiner's mission was not very successful, for Charles understood the
+move perfectly; but it was not his policy then to alienate Henry, for he
+was slowly maturing his plans for crushing France utterly, and hoped
+whilst Catholic influence was paramount in England to obtain the help or
+at least the neutrality of Henry.
+
+The fall of Cromwell had been hailed by Catholics in England as the
+salvation of their faith, and high hopes had attended the elevation of
+Gardiner. But the crushing taxation, the arbitrary measures, and, above
+all, the cruel persecution of those who, however slightly, questioned the
+King's spiritual supremacy, caused renewed discontent amongst the extreme
+Catholics, who still looked yearningly towards Cardinal Pole and his
+house. It is not probable that any Yorkist conspiracy existed in England
+at the time; the people were too much terrified for that; but Henry's
+ambassadors and agents in Catholic countries had been forced sometimes to
+dally with the foreign view of the King's supremacy, and Gardiner, whose
+methods were even more unscrupulous than those of Cromwell, suddenly
+pounced upon those of Henry's ministers who might be supposed to have come
+into contact with the friends of the House of York. Pate, the English
+ambassador with the Emperor, was suspicious, and escaped to Rome; but Sir
+Thomas Wyatt, who had been the ambassador in Spain, was led to the Tower
+handcuffed with ignominy; Dr. Mason, another ambassador, was also lodged
+in the fortress, at the suggestion of Bonner. Even Sir Ralph Sadler, one
+of the Secretaries of State, was imprisoned for a short time, whilst Sir
+John Wallop, the ambassador in France, was recalled and consigned to a
+dungeon, as was Sir Thomas Palmer, Knight Porter of Calais, and others;
+though most of them were soon afterwards pardoned at the instance of
+Katharine Howard. In the early spring of 1541 an unsuccessful attempt was
+made at a Catholic rising in Yorkshire, where the feeling was very bitter;
+and though the revolt was quickly suppressed, it was considered a good
+opportunity for striking terror into those who still doubted the spiritual
+supremacy of Henry, and resented the plunder of the monasteries. The
+atrocious crime was perpetrated of bringing out the mother of Pole, the
+aged Countess of Salisbury, last of the Plantagenets, from her prison in
+the Tower to the headsman's block. Lord Leonard Gray was a another
+blameless victim, whilst Lord Dacre of the South was, on a trumped-up
+charge of murder, hanged like a common malefactor at Tyburn. Lord Lisle,
+Henry's illegitimate uncle, was also kept in the Tower till his death.
+
+When the reign of terror had humbled all men to the dust, the King could
+venture to travel northward with the purpose of provoking and subjecting
+his nephew, the King of Scots, the ally of France. All this seems to
+point to the probability that at this time (1541) Henry had decided to
+take a share on the side of the Emperor in the war which was evidently
+looming between Charles and Francis. He was broken and fretful, but his
+vanity and ambition were still boundless; and Gardiner, whose policy, and
+not Norfolk's, it undoubtedly was, would easily persuade him that an
+alliance in war with Charles could not fail to secure for him increased
+consideration and readmission into the circle of Catholic nations, whilst
+retaining his own supremacy unimpaired. Henry's pompous progress in the
+North, accompanied by Katharine, occupied nearly five months, till the end
+of October. How far the young wife was influential in keeping Henry to the
+policy just described it is impossible to say, but beyond acquiescence in
+an occasional petition or hint, it is difficult to believe that the
+elderly, self-willed man would be moved by the thoughtless, giddy girl
+whom he had married. If the opposite had been the case, Norfolk's
+traditions and leanings would have been more conspicuous than they are in
+Henry's actions at the time. It is true that, during the whole period, a
+pretence of cordial negotiation was made for a marriage between Princess
+Mary and a French prince, but it is certain now, whatever Norfolk may have
+thought at the time, that the negotiation was solely in order to stimulate
+Charles to nearer approach, and to mislead Francis whilst the English
+preparations for war and the strengthening of the garrisons towards France
+and Scotland went steadily on.
+
+An alliance with the Emperor in a war with France was evidently the policy
+upon which Henry, instigated by his new adviser, now depended to bring
+him back with flying colours into the comity of Catholic sovereigns,
+whilst bating no jot of his claims to do as he chose in his own realm.
+Such a policy was one after Henry's own heart. It was showy and tricky,
+and might, if successful, cover him with glory, as well as redound greatly
+to his profit in the case of the dismemberment of France. But it would
+have been impossible whilst the union symbolised by the Cleves marriage
+existed; and, seen by this light, the eagerness of Gardiner to find a way
+for the King to dismiss the wife who had personally repelled him is easily
+understood, as well as Cromwell's disinclination to do so. The
+encouragement of the marriage with Katharine Howard, part of the same
+intrigue, was still further to attach the King to its promoters, and the
+match was doubtless intended at the same time to conciliate Norfolk and
+the nobles whilst Gardiner carried through his policy. We shall see that,
+either by strange chance or deep design, those who were opposed to this
+policy were the men who were instrumental in shattering the marriage that
+was its concomitant.
+
+Henry and his consort arrived at Hampton Court from the North on the 30th
+October 1541, and to his distress he found his only son, Edward, seriously
+ill of quartan fever. All the physicians within reach were summoned, and
+reported to the anxious father that the child was so fat and unhealthy as
+to be unlikely to live long. The King had now been married to Katharine
+for fifteen months, and there were no signs of probable issue. Strange
+whispers were going about on back stairs and ante-chambers with regard to
+the Queen's proceedings. She was known to have been a giddy, neglected
+girl before her marriage, having been brought up by her grandmother, the
+Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, without the slightest regard for her welfare
+or the high rank of her family; and her confidants in a particularly
+dissolute Court were many and untrustworthy. The King, naturally, was the
+last person to hear the malicious tittle-tattle of jealous waiting-maids
+and idle pages about the Queen; and though his wife's want of reserve and
+dignity often displeased him, he lived usually upon affectionate terms
+with her. There was other loose talk, also, going on to the effect that on
+one of the visits of Anne of Cleves to Hampton Court after Henry's
+marriage with Katharine, the King and his repudiated wife had made up
+their differences, with the consequence that Anne was pregnant by him. It
+was not true; though later it gave much trouble both to Henry and Anne,
+but it lent further support to the suggestions that were already being
+made that the King would dismiss Katharine and take Anne back again. The
+air was full of such rumours, some prompted, as we shall see, by personal
+malice, others evidently by the opponents of Gardiner's policy, which was
+leading England to a war with France and a close alliance with the
+imperial champion of Catholicism.
+
+On the 2nd November, Henry, still in distress about the health of his son,
+attended Mass, as usual, in the chapel at Hampton Court,[214] and as he
+came out Cranmer prayed for a private interview with him. The archbishop
+had for many months been in the background, for Gardiner would brook no
+competition; but Cranmer was personally a favourite with the
+King,--Cromwell said once that Henry would forgive him anything,--and when
+they were alone Cranmer put him in possession of a shameful story that a
+few days before had been told to him, which he had carefully put into
+writing; and, after grave discussion with the Earl of Hertford (Seymour)
+and the Lord Chancellor (Audley), had determined to hand to the King. The
+conjunction of Cranmer, Seymour, and Audley, as the trio that thought it
+their duty to open Henry's eyes to the suspicions cast upon his wife, is
+significant. They were all of them in sympathy with the reformed religion,
+and against the Norfolk and Gardiner policy; and it is difficult to escape
+from the conclusion that, however true may have been the statements as to
+Katharine's behaviour, and there is no doubt that she was guilty of much
+that was laid to her charge, the enlightenment of Henry as to her life
+before and after marriage was intended to serve the political and
+religious ends of those who were instrumental in it.
+
+The story as set forth by Cranmer was a dreadful one. It appears that a
+man named John Lascelles, who was a strong Protestant, and had already
+foretold the overthrow of Norfolk and Gardiner,[215] went to Cranmer and
+said that he had been visiting in Sussex a sister of his, whose married
+name was Hall. She had formerly been in the service of the Howard family
+and of the Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, in whose houses Katharine Howard
+had passed her neglected childhood; and Lascelles, recalling the fact,
+had, he said, recommended his sister to apply to the young Queen, whom she
+had known so intimately as a girl, for a place in the household. "No,"
+replied the sister, "I will not do that; but I am very sorry for her."
+"Why are you sorry for her?" asked Lascelles. "Marry," quoth she, "because
+she is light, both in living and conditions" (_i.e._ behaviour). The
+brother asked for further particulars, and, thus pressed, Mary Hall
+related that "one Francis Derham had lain in bed with her, and between the
+sheets in his doublet and hose, a hundred nights; and a maid in the house
+had said that she would lie no longer with her (Katharine) because she
+knew not what matrimony was. Moreover, one Mannock, a servant of the
+Dowager-Duchess, knew and spoke of a private mark upon the Queen's body."
+This was the document which Cranmer handed to the King, "not having the
+heart to say it by word of mouth": and it must be admitted that as it was
+only a bit of second-hand scandal, without corroboration, and could not
+refer to any period subsequent to Katharine's marriage, it did not amount
+to much. Henry is represented as having been inclined to make light of it,
+which was natural, but he nevertheless summoned Fitzwilliam (Southampton),
+Lord Russell (Lord Admiral), Sir Anthony Browne, and Wriothesley, and
+deputed to them the inquiry into the whole matter. Fitzwilliam hurried to
+London and then to Sussex to examine Lascelles and his sister, whilst the
+others were sent to take the depositions of Derham, who was now in
+Katharine's service, and was ordered to be apprehended on a charge of
+piracy in Ireland sometime previously, and Mannock, who was a musician in
+the household of the Duchess.
+
+On the 5th November the ministers came to Hampton Court with the shocking
+admissions which they had extracted from the persons examined. Up to that
+time Henry had been gay, and had thought little of the affair, but now,
+when he heard the statements presented to him, he was overcome with grief:
+"his heart was pierced with pensiveness," we are told, "so that it was
+long before he could utter his sorrow, and finally with copious tears,
+which was strange in his courage, opened the same." The next day, Sunday,
+he met Norfolk and the Lord Chancellor secretly in the fields, and then
+with the closest privacy took boat to London without bidding farewell to
+Katharine, leaving in the hands of his Council the unravelling of the
+disgraceful business.
+
+The story, pieced together from the many different depositions,[216] and
+divested of its repetitions and grossness of phraseology, may be
+summarised as follows. Katharine, whose mother had died early, had grown
+up uncared for in the house of her grandmother at Horsham in Norfolk, and
+later at Lambeth; apparently living her life in common with the
+women-servants. Whilst she was yet quite a child, certainly not more than
+thirteen, probably younger, Henry Mannock, one of the Duchess's musicians,
+had taught her to play the virginals; and, as he himself professed, had
+fallen in love with her. The age was a licentious one; and the maids,
+probably to disguise their own amours, appear to have taken a sport in
+promoting immoral liberties between the orphan girl and the musician,
+carrying backwards and forwards between the ill-matched pair tokens and
+messages, and facilitating secret meetings at untimely hours: and Mannock
+deposed unblushingly to have corrupted the girl systematically and
+shamefully, though not criminally. On one occasion the old Duchess found
+this scamp hugging her granddaughter, and in great anger she beat the
+girl, upbraided the musician, and forbade such meetings for the future.
+Mary Hall, who first gave the information, represents herself as having
+remonstrated indignantly with Mannock for his presumption in pledging his
+troth, as one of the other women told her he had, with Katharine. He
+replied impudently that all he wanted of the girl was to seduce her, and
+he had no doubt he should succeed in doing so, seeing the liberties she
+had already permitted him to take with her. Mary Hall said that she had
+warned him that the Howards would kill or ruin him if he did not take
+care. Katharine, according to Mary Hall's tale, when told of Mannock's
+impudent speech, had angrily said that she cared nothing for him; but he
+managed the next time he saw her, by her own contrivance, to persuade her
+that he was so much in love as not to know what he said.
+
+Before long, however, a more dangerous lover, because one of better rank,
+appeared in the field, and spoilt Mannock's game. This was Francis Derham,
+a young gentleman of some means in the household of the Duke of Norfolk,
+of whom he seems to have been a distant connection. In his own confession
+he boldly admitted that he was in love with Katharine, and had promised
+her marriage. The old Duchess always had the keys of the maids' dormitory,
+where Katharine also slept, brought to her chamber after the doors were
+locked; but means were found by the women to laugh at locksmiths, and the
+most unbridled licence prevailed amongst them. Derham, with the lovers of
+two of the women, used to obtain access almost nightly to the dormitory,
+where they remained feasting and rioting until two or three in the
+morning: and there can remain little doubt that, on the promise of
+marriage, Derham practically lived with Katharine as his wife thus
+clandestinely, for a considerable period, whilst she was yet very young.
+Mannock, who found himself supplanted, thereupon wrote an anonymous letter
+to the Duchess and left it in her pew at chapel, saying that if her Grace
+would rise again an hour after she had retired and visit the gentlewomen's
+chamber she would see something that would surprise her. The old lady, who
+was not free from reproach in the matter herself, railed and stormed at
+the women; and Katharine, who was deeply in love with Derham, stole the
+anonymous letter from her grandmother's room and showed it to him,
+charging Mannock with having written it. The result, of course, was a
+quarrel, and the further enlightenment of the Duchess with regard to her
+granddaughter's connection with Derham. The old lady herself was
+afterwards accused of having introduced Derham into her own household for
+the purpose of forwarding a match between him and Katharine; and finally
+got into great trouble and danger by seizing and destroying Derham's
+papers before the King's Council could impound them: but when she learnt
+the lengths to which the immoral connection had been carried, and the
+shameful licentiousness that had accompanied it, she made a clean sweep of
+the servants inculpated, and brought her granddaughter to live in Lambeth
+amongst a fresh set of people.
+
+There is no doubt that Katharine and Derham were secretly engaged to be
+married, and, apart from the immoral features of the engagement, no very
+great objection could have been taken to it. She was a member of a very
+large family, an orphan with no dower or prospects, and her marriage with
+Derham, who was a sort of relative, would have been not a glaringly
+unequal one. With lover-like alacrity he provided her with the feminine
+treasures which she coveted, but which her lack of means prevented her
+from buying. Artificial flowers, articles of dress, or materials for them,
+trinkets and adornments, not to speak of the delicacies which he brought
+to furnish forth the tables during the nightly orgy. He had made no great
+secret of his engagement to, and intention of marrying Katharine, and had
+shown various little tokens of her troth that she had given him. On one
+of his piratical raids, moreover, he had handed to her the whole of his
+money, as to his affianced wife, and told her she might keep it if he came
+not back, whilst on other occasions he had exercised his authority, as her
+betrothed, to chide her for her attentions to others. When at last the old
+Duchess learnt fully of the immoral proceedings that had been going on,
+Katharine got another severe beating, and Derham fled from the vengeance
+of the Howards. After the matter had blown over, and Katharine was living
+usually at Lambeth, Derham found his way back, and attempted clandestinely
+to renew the connection. But Katharine by this time was older and more
+experienced, as beseemed a lady at Court. It was said that she was
+affianced to her cousin, Thomas Culpeper; but in any case she indignantly
+refused to have anything to do with Derham, and hotly resented his claim
+to interfere in her affairs.
+
+So far the disclosures referred solely to misconduct previous to
+Katharine's marriage with the King, and, however reprehensible this may
+have been, it only constructively became treason _post facto_, by reason
+of the concealment from the King of his wife's previous immoral life;
+whereby the royal blood was "tainted," and he himself injured. Cranmer was
+therefore sent to visit Katharine with orders to set before her the
+iniquity of her conduct and the penalty prescribed by the law; and then to
+promise her the King's mercy on certain conditions. The poor girl was
+frantic with grief and fear when the Primate entered; and he in compassion
+spared her the first parts of his mission, and began by telling her of
+her husband's pity and clemency. The reaction from her deadly fear sent
+her into greater paroxysms than ever of remorse and regret. "This sudden
+mercy made her offences seem the more heinous." "This was about the hour"
+(6 o'clock), she sobbed, "that Master Heneage was wont to bring me
+knowledge of his Grace." The promise of mercy may or may not have been
+sincere; but it is evident that the real object of Cranmer's visit was to
+learn from Katharine whether the betrothal with Derham was a binding
+contract. If that were alleged in her defence the marriage with the King
+was voidable, as that of Anne of Cleves was for a similar cause; and if,
+by reason of such prior contract, Katharine had never legally been Henry's
+wife, her guilt was much attenuated, and she and her accomplices could
+only be punished for concealment of fact to the King's detriment, a
+sufficiently grave crime, it is true, in those days, but much less grave
+if Katharine was never legally Henry's wife. It may therefore have seemed
+good policy to offer her clemency on such conditions as would have
+relieved him of her presence for ever, with as little obloquy as possible,
+but other counsels eventually prevailed. Orders were given that she was to
+be sent to Sion House, with a small suite and no canopy of state, pending
+further inquiry; whilst the Lord Chancellor, Councillors, peers, bishops,
+and judges were convened on the 12th November, and the evidence touching
+the Queen laid before them. It was decided, however, that Derham should
+not be called, and that all reference to a previous contract of marriage
+should be suppressed. On the following Sunday the whole of the Queen's
+household was to be similarly informed of the offences and their gravity,
+and to them also no reference to a prior engagement that might serve to
+lighten the accusations or their own responsibility was to be made.
+
+Katharine Howard's fate if the matter had ended here would probably have
+been divorce on the ground of her previous immorality "tainting the royal
+blood," and lifelong seclusion; but in their confessions the men and women
+involved had mentioned other names; and on the 13th November, the day
+before Katharine was to be taken to Sion, the scope of the inquiry
+widened. Mannock in his first examination on the 5th November had said
+that Mistress Katharine Tylney, the Queen's chamberwoman, a relative of
+the old Duchess, could speak as to Katharine's early immoral life; and
+when this lady found herself in the hands of Wriothesley she told some
+startling tales. "Did the Queen leave her chamber any night at Lincoln or
+elsewhere during her recent progress with the King?" "Yes, her Majesty had
+gone on two occasions to Lady Rochford's[217] room, which could be reached
+by a little pair of back stairs near the Queen's apartment." Mrs. Tylney
+and the Queen's other attendant, Margery Morton, had attempted to
+accompany their mistress, but had been sent back. Mrs. Tylney had obeyed,
+and had gone to bed; but Margery had crept back up the stairs again to
+Lady Rochford's room. About two o'clock in the morning Margery came to bed
+in the same dormitory as the other maids. "Jesu! is not the Queen abed
+yet?" asked the surprised Tylney, as she awoke. "Yes," in effect, replied
+Margery, "she has just retired." On the second occasion Katharine sent the
+rest of her attendants to bed and took Tylney with her to Lady Rochford's
+room, but the maid, with Lady Rochford's servant, were shut up in a small
+closet, and not allowed to see who came into the principal apartments.
+But, nevertheless, her suspicions were aroused by the strange messages
+with which she was sent by Katharine to Lady Rochford: "so strange that
+she knew not how to utter them." Even at Hampton Court lately, as well as
+at Grimsthorpe during the progress, she had been bidden by the Queen to
+ask Lady Rochford "when she should have the thing she promised her," the
+answer being that she (Lady Rochford) was sitting up for it, and would
+bring the Queen word herself.
+
+Then Margery Morton was tackled by Sir Anthony Browne. She had never
+mistrusted the Queen until the other day, at Hatfield, "when she saw her
+Majesty look out of the window to Mr. Culpeper in such sort that she
+thought there was love between them." Whilst at Hatfield the Queen had
+given orders that none of her attendants were to enter her bedroom unless
+they were summoned. Margery, too, had been sent on mysterious secret
+errands to Lady Rochford, which she could not understand, and, with others
+of the maids, had considered herself slighted by the Queen's preference
+for Katharine Tylney and for those who owed their position to Lady
+Rochford; which lady, she said, she considered the principal cause of the
+Queen's folly. Thus far there was nothing beyond the suspicions of jealous
+women, but Lady Rochford was frightened into telling a much more damning
+story, though she tried to make her own share in it as light as possible.
+The Queen, she confessed, had had many interviews in her rooms with
+Culpeper--at Greenwich, Lincoln, Pontefract, York, and elsewhere--for many
+months past; but as Culpeper stood at the farther end of the room with his
+foot upon the top of the back stairs, so as to be ready to slip down in
+case of alarm, and the Queen talked to him at the door, Lady Rochford
+professed to be ignorant of what passed between them. One night, she
+recalled, the Queen and herself were standing at the back door at eleven
+at night, when a watchman came with a lantern and locked the door. Shortly
+afterwards, however, Culpeper entered the room, saying that he and his
+servant had picked the lock. Since the first suspicion had been cast upon
+the Queen by Lascelles, Katharine, according to Lady Rochford, had
+continually asked after Culpeper. "If that matter came not out she feared
+nothing," and finally, Lady Rochford, although professing to have been
+asleep during some of Culpeper's compromising visits, declared her belief
+that criminal relations had existed between him and the Queen:
+
+Culpeper, according to the depositions,[218] made quite a clean breast of
+it, though what means were adopted for making him so frank is not clear.
+Probably torture, or the threat of it, was resorted to, since Hertford,
+Riche, and Audley had much to do with the examinations;[219] whilst even
+the Duke of Norfolk and Wriothesley, not to appear backward in the King's
+service, were as anxious as their rivals to make the case complete.
+Culpeper was a gentleman of great estate in Kent and elsewhere, holding
+many houses and offices; a gentleman of the chamber, clerk of the armoury,
+steward and keeper of several royal manors; and he had received many
+favours from the King, with whom he ordinarily slept. He deposed to and
+described many stolen interviews with Katharine, all apparently after the
+previous Passion Week (1541), when the Queen, he said, had sent for him
+and given him a velvet cap. Lady Rochford, according to his statement, was
+the go-between, and arranged all the assignations in her apartments,
+whilst the Queen, whenever she reached a house during the progress, would
+make herself acquainted with the back doors and back stairs, in order to
+facilitate the meetings. At Pontefract she thought the back door was being
+watched by the King's orders, and Lady Rochford caused her servant to
+keep a counter watch. On one occasion, he said, the Queen had hinted that
+she could favour him as a certain lady of the Court had favoured Lord
+Parr; and when Culpeper said he did not think that the Queen was such a
+lady as the one mentioned, she had replied, "Well, if I had tarried still
+in the maidens' chamber I would have tried you;" and on another occasion
+she had warned him that if he confessed, even when he was shriven, what
+had passed between them, the King would be sure to know, as he was the
+head of the Church. Culpeper's animus against Lady Rochford is evident.
+She had provoked him much, he said, to love the Queen, and he intended to
+do ill with her. Evidence began to grow, too, that not only was Derham
+admittedly guilty with the Queen before marriage, but that suspicious
+familiarity had been resumed afterwards. He himself confessed that he had
+been more than once in the Queen's private apartment, and she had given
+him various sums of money, warning him to heed what he said; which, truth
+to tell, he had not done, according to other deponents.
+
+Everybody implicated in the scandals was imprisoned, mostly in the Tower,
+several members of the house of Howard being put under guard; and Norfolk,
+trembling for his own position, showed as much zeal as any one to condemn
+his unfortunate niece. He knew, indeed, at this time that he had been used
+simply as a catspaw in the advances towards France, and complained
+bitterly that the match he had secretly suggested between the Princess
+Mary and the Duke of Orleans was now common talk, which gave ground for
+his enemies who were jealous of him to denounce him to the King as
+wishing to embrace all great affairs of State. It is clear that at this
+period it was not only the Protestants who were against Norfolk, but his
+own colleagues who were planning the alliance with the Emperor; which to
+some extent explains why such men as Wriothesley, Fitzwilliam, and Browne
+were so anxious to make the case of Katharine and her family look as black
+as possible, and why Norfolk aided them so as not to be left behind. When,
+on the 15th December, the old Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, his stepmother,
+his half-brother, Lord William Howard and his wife, and his sister, Lady
+Bridgewater, were imprisoned on the charge of having been privy to
+Katharine's doings before marriage, the Duke wrote as follows to the King:
+"I learnt yesterday that mine ungracious mother-in-law, mine unhappy
+brother and his wife, and my lewd sister of Bridgewater were committed to
+the Tower; and am sure it was not done but for some false proceeding
+against your Majesty. Weighing this with the abominable deeds done by my
+two nieces (_i.e._ Katharine Howard and Anne Boleyn), and the repeated
+treasons of many of my kin, I fear your Majesty will abhor to hear speak
+of me or my kin again. Prostrate at your Majesty's feet, I remind your
+Majesty that much of this has come to light through my own report of my
+mother-in-law's words to me, when I was sent to Lambeth to search Derham's
+coffers. My own truth, and the small love my mother-in-law and nieces bear
+me, make me hope; and I pray your Majesty for some comfortable assurance
+of your royal favour, without which I will never desire to live.
+Kenninghall Lodge, 15th December 1541."[220]
+
+On the 1st December, Culpeper and Derham had been arraigned before a
+special Commission in Guildhall, accused of treason.[221] The indictment
+set forth that before her marriage Katharine had "led an abominable, base,
+carnal, voluptuous, and vicious life, like a common harlot ... whilst, at
+other times, maintaining an appearance of chastity and honesty. That she
+led the King to love her, believing her to be pure, and arrogantly coupled
+with him in marriage." That upon her and Derham being charged with their
+former vicious life, they had excused themselves by saying that they were
+betrothed before the marriage with the King; which betrothal they falsely
+and traitorously concealed from the King when he married her. After the
+marriage they attempted to renew their former vicious courses at
+Pontefract and elsewhere, the Queen having procured Derham's admission
+into her service, and entrusted secret affairs to him. Against Culpeper
+it was alleged that he had held secret and illicit meetings with the
+Queen, who had "incited him to have intercourse with her, and insinuated
+to him that she loved him better than the King and all others. Similarly
+Culpeper incited the Queen, and they had retained Lady Rochford as their
+go-between, she having traitorously aided and abetted them."
+
+It will be noticed that actual adultery is not alleged, and the indictment
+follows very closely the deposition of the witnesses. The _liaison_ with
+Derham before the marriage was not denied; nor were the meetings with
+Culpeper after the marriage. This and the concealment were sufficient for
+the King's purpose, without adding to his ignominy by labouring to prove
+the charge of adultery.[222] After pleading not guilty, the two men,
+in face of the evidence and their own admissions, changed their plea to
+guilty, and were promptly condemned to be drawn through London to Tyburn,
+"and there hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled, and, they still living,
+their bowels burnt, the bodies then to be beheaded and quartered:" a
+brutal sentence that was carried out to the letter in Derham's case only,
+on the 10th December, Culpeper being beheaded.
+
+
+[Illustration: _KATHARINE HOWARD_
+
+_From a portrait by an unknown artist in the National Portrait Gallery_]
+
+
+Although the procedure had saved the King as much humiliation as possible,
+the affair was a terrible blow to his self-esteem as well as to his
+affections; for he seems to have been really fond of his young wife.
+Chapuys, writing on the 3rd December, says that he shows greater sorrow at
+her loss than at any of his previous matrimonial misfortunes. "It is like
+the case of the woman who cried more bitterly at the loss of her tenth
+husband than for all the rest put together, though they had all been good
+men; but it was because she had never buried one before without being sure
+of the next. As yet, it does not seem that he has any one else in
+view."[223] The French ambassador, a few days later, wrote that "the grief
+of the King was so great that it was believed that it had sent him mad;
+for he had called suddenly for a sword with which to kill the Queen whom
+he had loved so much. Sometimes sitting in Council he suddenly calls for
+horses, without saying whither he would go. Sometimes he will say
+irrelevantly that that wicked woman had never had such delight in her
+incontinency as she should have torture in her death; and then, finally,
+he bursts into tears, bewailing his misfortune in meeting such
+ill-conditioned wives, and blaming his Council for this last
+mischief."[224]
+
+In the meanwhile Henry sought such distraction as he might at Oatlands and
+other country places, solaced by music and mummers, whilst Norfolk, in
+grief and apprehension, lurked on his own lands, and Gardiner kept a firm
+hand upon affairs. The discomfiture of the Howards, who had brought about
+the Catholic reaction, gave new hope to the Protestants that the wheel of
+fate was turning in their favour. Anne of Cleves, they began to whisper,
+had been confined of a "fair boy"; "and whose should it be but the King's
+Majesty's, begotten when she was at Hampton Court?" This rumour, which the
+King, apparently, was inclined to believe, gave great offence and
+annoyance to him and his Council, as did the severely repressed but
+frequent statements that he intended to take back his repudiated wife. It
+was not irresponsible gossip alone that took this turn, for on the 12th
+December the ambassador from the Duke of Cleves brought letters to Cranmer
+at Lambeth from Chancellor Olsiliger, who had negotiated the marriage,
+commending to him the reconciliation of Henry with Anne. Cranmer, who
+understood perfectly well that with Gardiner as the King's factotum such a
+thing was impossible, was frightened out of his wits by such a suggestion,
+and promptly assured Henry that he had declined to discuss it without the
+Sovereign's orders.
+
+But the envoy of Cleves was not lightly shaken off, and at once sought
+audience of Henry himself to press the cause of "Madam Anne." He was
+assured that the King's grief at his present troubles would prevent his
+giving audience; and the Protestant envoy then tackled the Council on the
+subject. As may be supposed, he met with a rebuff. The lady would be
+better treated than ever, he was told, but the separation was just and
+final, and the Duke of Cleves must never again request that his sister
+should be restored to the position of the King's wife. The envoy begged
+that the answer might be repeated formally to him, whereupon Gardiner flew
+into a rage, and said that the King would never take Anne back, whatever
+happened. The envoy was afraid to retort for fear of evil consequences to
+Anne, but the Duke of Cleves, who was now in close league with the French,
+endeavoured to obtain the aid of his new allies to forward his sister's
+cause in England. Francis, however, saw, like every one else, that war
+between him and the Emperor was now inevitable, and was anxious not to
+drive Henry into alliance with Charles against him. Cleves by himself was
+powerless, and the trend of politics in England under Gardiner, and with
+Henry in his present mood, was entirely unfavourable to a union with the
+Lutherans on the Continent; so Anne of Cleves continued her placid and
+jovial existence as "the King's good sister," rather than his wife, whilst
+the Protestants of England soon found that they had misjudged the
+situation produced by Katharine Howard's fall. All that the latter really
+had done was to place Norfolk and the French sympathisers under a cloud,
+and make Gardiner entirely master of the situation whilst he carried out
+the King's own policy.
+
+Henry returned to Greenwich for Christmas 1541, and at once began his
+bargaining to sell his alliance with the Emperor at as high a price as
+possible. He had already in hand the stoppage of trade with Flanders,
+which his ministers were still laboriously and stiffly discussing with the
+Emperor's representatives. Any concession in that respect would have to be
+paid for. The French, too, were very anxious, according to his showing,
+for his friendship, and were offering him all manner of tempting
+matrimonial alliances, and when Henry, on the day after Christmas Day,
+received Chapuys at Greenwich, he was all smiles, but determined to make
+the best of his opportunities. The Emperor had just met with a terrible
+disaster at sea during his operations against Algiers, and had returned to
+Spain depressed at his losses, and the more ready to make terms with Henry
+if possible. Chapuys was a hard bargainer, and it was a fair game of brag
+that ensued between him and Henry. Chapuys began by flattering the King:
+"and got him into very high spirits by such words, which the Lord Privy
+Seal (_i.e._ Fitzwilliam) says are never thrown away upon him," and then
+told him that he would give him in strict confidence some important
+information about French intrigues.
+
+After dinner the ball opened in earnest, Chapuys and Henry being alone and
+seated, with Fitzwilliam, Russell, and Browne at some distance away. The
+imperial ambassador began by saying that the King of France had made a
+determined bid to marry his second son, Orleans, with the Infanta of
+Portugal. This was a shock to Henry, and he changed colour; for one of his
+own trump cards was the sham negotiation in which Norfolk had been the
+tool, to marry the Princess Mary to Orleans. For a time he could only
+sputter and exclaim; but when he had collected his senses he countered by
+saying that Francis only wished to get the Infanta into his power, not for
+marriage, "but for objects of greater consequence than people imagined."
+Besides, the French wanted the Princess Mary for Orleans, and were anxious
+to send an embassy to him about it: indeed, the French ambassador was
+coming to see him about it with fresh powers next day. Chapuys protested
+that he spoke as one devoted to Henry's service; but he was sure the
+French did not mean business. They would never let Orleans marry a
+Princess of illegitimate birth. "Ah!" replied Henry, "but though she may
+be a bastard, I have power from Parliament to appoint her my successor if
+I like;" but Chapuys gave several other reasons why the match with Mary
+would never suit the French. "Why," cried Henry, "Francis is even now
+soliciting an interview with me with a view to alliances." "Yes, I know
+they say that," replied the ambassador, "but at the same time Francis has
+sent an ambassador to Scotland, with orders not to touch at an English
+port." This was a sore point with Henry, and he again winced at the blow.
+
+Then he began to boast. He was prepared to face any one, and James of
+Scotland was in mortal fear of him. Chapuys then mentioned that France
+had made a secret treaty with Sweden and Denmark to obtain control of the
+North Sea, and divert all the Anglo-German trade to France, which Henry
+parried, by saying that Francis was in league with the German Protestants,
+and, notwithstanding the new decree of the Diet of Ratisbon, could draw as
+many mercenary soldiers as he liked from the Emperor's vassals. He felt
+sure that Francis would invade Flanders next spring; and if he, Henry, had
+cared to marry a daughter of France, as her father wished him to do, he
+might have had a share of his conquests. This made Chapuys angry, and he
+said that perhaps Holstein and Cleves had also been offered shares. Henry
+then went on another tack, and said that he knew quite well that Francis
+and Charles together intended, if they could, to make war on England.
+Considering, however, the Emperor's disaster at Algiers, and the state of
+Europe, he was astonished that Charles had not tried to make a close
+friendship with him. Chapuys jumped at the hint, and begged Henry to state
+his intentions, that they might be conveyed to the Emperor. But the King
+was not to be drawn too rapidly, and would not say whether he was willing
+to form an alliance with the Emperor until some one with full and special
+powers was sent to him. He had been cheated too often and left in the
+lurch before, he said. "He was quite independent. If people wanted him
+they might come forward with offers." This sparring went on for hours on
+that day and the next, interspersed with little wrangles about the
+commercial question, and innuendoes as to the French intrigues. But
+Chapuys, who knew his man, quite understood that Henry was for sale; and,
+as usual, might, if dexterously handled, be bought by flattery and feigned
+submission to his will, hurriedly wrote to his master that: "If the
+Emperor wishes to gain the King, he must send hither at once an able
+person, with full powers, to take charge of the negotiation:" since he,
+Chapuys, was in ill health and unequal to it.
+
+Thus the English Catholic reaction that had been symbolised by the
+repudiation of Anne of Cleves, and the marriage with Katharine Howard, was
+triumphantly producing the results which Henry and Gardiner had intended.
+The excommunicated King, the man who had flung aside his proud Spanish
+wife and bade defiance to the vicegerent of Christ, was to be flattered
+and sought in alliance by the head of the house of Aragon and the
+appointed champion of Roman orthodoxy. He was to come back into the fold
+unrepentant, with no submission or reparation made, a good Catholic, but
+his own Pope. It was a prospect that appealed strongly to a man of Henry's
+vain and ostentatious character, for it gave apparent sanction to his
+favourite pose that everything he did was warranted by the strictest right
+and justice; it promised the possibility of an extension of his
+Continental territory, and the establishment of his own fame as a warrior
+and a king. We shall see how his pompous self-conceit enabled his ally to
+trick him out of his reward, and how the consequent reaction against those
+who had beguiled him drew his country farther along the road of the
+Reformation than Henry ever meant to go. But at present all looked
+rose-coloured, for the imperial connection and the miserable scandal of
+Katharine Howard rather benefited than injured the chances of its
+successful negotiation. Cranmer, Hertford, and Audley had shot their bolt
+in vain so far as political or religious aims were attained.
+
+In the meanwhile the evidence against Katharine and her abettors was being
+laboriously wrung out of all those who had come into contact with her. The
+poor old Duchess of Norfolk and her son and daughters and several
+underlings were condemned for misprison of treason to perpetual
+imprisonment and confiscation,[225] and in Parliament on the 21st January
+a Bill of Attainder against Katharine and three lady accomplices was
+presented to the Lords. The evidence presented against Katharine was
+adjudged to be insufficient in the absence of direct allegations of
+adultery after her marriage, or of specific admissions from herself.[226]
+This and other objections seem to have delayed the passage of the Bill
+until the 11th of February, when it received the royal assent by
+commission, condemning Katharine and Lady Rochford to death for treason.
+During the passage of the Bill, as soon, indeed, as the procedure of
+Katharine's condemnation had been settled, Henry plucked up spirits again,
+and with characteristic heartlessness once more began to play the gallant.
+"The King," writes Chapuys, "had never been merry since first hearing of
+the Queen's misconduct, but he has been so since (the attainder was
+arranged), especially on the 29th, when he gave a supper and banquet with
+twenty-six ladies at the table, besides gentlemen, and thirty-five at
+another table adjoining. The lady for whom he showed the greatest regard
+was a sister of Lord Cobham, whom Wyatt, some time ago, divorced for
+adultery. She is a pretty young creature, with wit enough to do as badly
+as the others if she were to try. The King is also said to fancy a
+daughter of Mistress Albart(?) and niece of Sir Anthony Browne; and also
+for a daughter, by her first marriage, of the wife of Lord Lisle, late
+Deputy of Calais."[227]
+
+Up to this time Katharine had remained at Sion House, as Chapuys reported,
+"making good cheer, fatter and more beautiful than ever; taking great care
+to be well apparelled, and more imperious and exacting to serve than even
+when she was with the King, although she believes she will be put to
+death, and admits that she deserves it. Perhaps if the King does not wish
+to marry again he may show her some compassion."[228] No sooner, however,
+had the Act of Attainder passed its third reading in the Commons (10th
+January) than Fitzwilliam was sent to Isleworth to convey her to the
+Tower. She resisted at first, but was of course overpowered, and the sad
+procession swept along the wintry river Londonward. First came
+Fitzwilliam's barge with himself and several Privy Councillors, then, in a
+small covered barge, followed the doomed woman, and the rear was guarded
+by a great barge full of soldiers under the aged Duke of Suffolk, whose
+matrimonial adventures had been almost as numerous as those of his royal
+brother-in-law. Under the frowning portcullis of the Traitors' Gate in the
+gathering twilight of the afternoon, the beautiful girl in black velvet
+landed amidst a crowd of Councillors, who treated her with as much
+ceremony as if she still sat by the King's side. She proudly and calmly
+gloried in her love for her betrothed Culpeper, whom she knew she soon
+would join in death. There was no hysterical babbling like that of her
+cousin, Anne Boleyn; no regret in her mien or her words now. Even as he,
+with his last breath, had confessed his love for her, and mourned that the
+King's passion for her had stood in the way of their honest union, so did
+she, with flashing eyes and blazing cheeks, proclaim that love was
+victorious over death; and that since there had been no mercy for the man
+she loved she asked no mercy for herself from the King whose plaything of
+a year she had been.
+
+On Sunday evening, 12th February, she was told that she must be prepared
+for death on the morrow, and she asked that the block should be brought
+to her room, that she might learn how to dispose her head upon it. This
+was done, and she calmly and smilingly rehearsed her part in the tragedy
+of the morrow. Early in the morning, before it was fully light, she was
+led out across the green, upon which the hoar-frost glistened, to the
+scaffold erected on the same spot that had seen the sacrifice of Anne
+Boleyn. Around it stood all the Councillors except Norfolk and Suffolk:
+even her first cousin, the poet Surrey, with his own doom not far off,
+witnessed the scene. Upon the scaffold, half crazy with fear, stood the
+wretched Lady Rochford, the ministress of the Queen's amours, who was to
+share her fate. Katharine spoke shortly. She died, she said, in full
+confidence in God's goodness. She had grievously sinned and deserved
+death, though she had not wronged the King in the particular way that she
+had been accused of. If she had married the man she loved, instead of
+being dazzled by ambition, all would have been well; and when the headsman
+knelt to ask her forgiveness, she pardoned him, but exclaimed, "I die a
+Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper;" and then,
+kneeling in prayer, her head was struck off whilst she was unaware.[229]
+Lady Rochford followed her to the block as soon as the head and trunk of
+the Queen had been piteously gathered up in black cloth by the ladies who
+attended her at last, and conveyed to the adjoining chapel for sepulture
+close to the grave of Anne Boleyn.
+
+Katharine Howard had erred much for love, and had erred more for ambition,
+but taking a human view of the whole circumstances of her life, and of the
+personality of the man she married, she is surely more worthy of pity than
+condemnation. Only a few days after her death we learn from Chapuys (25th
+February) that "the King has been in better spirits since the execution,
+and during the last three days before Lent there has been much feasting.
+Sunday was devoted to the lords of his Council and courtiers, Monday to
+the men of the law, Tuesday to the ladies, who all slept at the Court. The
+King himself did nothing but go from room to room ordering and arranging
+the lodgings to be prepared for these ladies, and he made them great and
+hearty cheer, without showing special affection for any particular one.
+Indeed, unless Parliament prays him to take another wife, he will not be
+in a hurry to do so, I think. Besides, there are few, if any, ladies now
+at Court who would aspire to such an honour; for by a new Act just passed,
+any lady that the King may marry, if she be a subject, is bound, on pain
+of death, to declare any charge of misconduct that can be brought against
+her; and all who know or suspect anything against her must declare it
+within twenty days, on pain of perpetual imprisonment and confiscation."
+Henry, with five unsuccessful matrimonial adventures to his account, might
+well pause before taking another plunge; though, from the extract printed
+above, it was evident that he had no desire to put himself out of the way
+of temptation. The only course upon which he seemed quite determined was
+to resist all the blandishments of the Protestants, the German Lutherans,
+and the French to take back Anne of Cleves, who, we are told, had waxed
+half as beautiful again as she was since she had begun her jolly life of
+liberty and beneficence, away from so difficult a husband as Henry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1542-1547
+
+KATHARINE PARR--THE PROTESTANTS WIN THE LAST TRICK
+
+
+The disappearance of Katharine Howard and the temporary eclipse of Norfolk
+caused no check to the progress of the Catholic cause in England. When
+Gardiner was with the Emperor in the summer of 1541 he had been able to
+make in Henry's name an agreement by which neither monarch should treat
+anything to the other's disadvantage for the next ten months; and as war
+loomed nearer between Charles and Francis, the chances of a more durable
+and binding treaty being made between the former and Henry improved. When
+Gardiner had hinted at it in Germany, both Charles and Granvelle had
+suggested that the submission of Henry to the Pope would be a necessary
+preliminary. But the Emperor's brother, Ferdinand, was in close grips with
+the Turk in Hungary, and getting the worst of it; Francis was again in
+negotiation with the infidel, and French intrigue in Italy was busy. Henry
+therefore found that the Emperor's tone softened considerably on the
+report of Chapuys' conversation at Windsor in February, whilst the English
+terms became stiffer, as Francis endeavoured to turn his feigned
+negotiations with Henry into real ones. The whole policy of Henry at the
+period was really to effect an armed league with the Emperor, by means of
+which France might be humiliated, perhaps dismembered, whilst Henry was
+welcomed back with open arms by the great Catholic power, in spite of his
+contumacy, and the hegemony of England established over Scotland. In order
+the better to incline Charles to essential concessions, it was good policy
+for Henry to give several more turns of the screw upon his own subjects,
+to prove to his future ally how devout a Catholic he was, and how entirely
+Cromwell's later action was being reversed.
+
+The great Bibles were withdrawn from the churches, the dissemination of
+the Scriptures restricted, and the Six Articles were enforced more
+severely than ever;[230] but yet when, after some months of fencing and
+waiting, Chapuys came to somewhat closer quarters with the English
+Council, he still talked, though with bated breath now, about Henry's
+submission to the Pope and the legitimation of the Princess Mary. But the
+Emperor's growing need for support gradually broke down the wall of
+reserve that Henry's defection from Rome had raised, and Gardiner and
+Chapuys, during the spring of 1542, were in almost daily confabulation in
+a quiet house in the fields at Stepney.[231] In June the imperial
+ambassador made a hasty visit to Flanders to submit the English terms for
+an alliance to the Queen Regent. Henry's conditions in appearance were
+hard, for by going to war with France he would, he said, lose the great
+yearly tribute he received from that country; but Charles and his sister
+knew how to manage him, and were not troubled with scruples as to keeping
+promises. So, to begin with, the commercial question that had so long been
+rankling, was now rapidly settled, and the relations daily grew more
+cordial. Henry had agents in Germany and Flanders ordering munitions of
+war and making secret compacts with mercenary captains; he was actively
+reinforcing his own garrisons and castles, organising a fine fleet,
+collecting vast fresh sums of money from his groaning subjects, and in
+every way preparing himself to be an ally worth purchase by the Emperor at
+a high price.
+
+In July 1542 the French simultaneously attacked the imperial territory in
+four distinct directions; and Henry summoned the ambassadors of Charles
+and Francis to Windsor to tell them that, as war was so near him, he must
+raise men for his defence, especially towards Scotland, but meant no
+menace to either of the Continental powers. Chapuys had already been
+assured that the comedy was only to blind the French, and cheerfully
+acquiesced, but the Frenchmen took a more gloomy view and knew it meant
+war. With Scotland and Henry it was a case of the lamb and the wolf. Henry
+knew that he dared not send his army across the Channel to attack France
+without first crushing his northern neighbour. The pretended negotiations
+with, and allegations against, the unfortunate Stuart were never sincere.
+James was surrounded by traitors: for English money and religious rancour
+had profoundly divided the Scottish gentry; Cardinal Beaton, the Scots
+King's principal minister, was hated; the powerful Douglas family were
+disaffected and in English pay; and the forces with which James V. rashly
+attempted to raid the English marches in reprisal for Henry's unprovoked
+attacks upon him were wild and undisciplined. The battle of Solway Moss
+(November 1542) was a disgraceful rout for the Scots, and James,
+heart-broken, fled from the ruin of his cause to Tantallon and Edinburgh,
+and thence to Falkland to die. Then, with Scotland rent in twain, with a
+new-born baby for a Queen, and a foreign woman as regent, Henry could face
+a war with France by the side of the Emperor, with assurance of safety on
+his northern border, especially if he could force upon the rulers of
+Scotland a marriage between his only son and the infant Mary Stuart, as he
+intended to do.
+
+
+[Illustration: _KATHARINE PARR_
+
+_From a painting in the collection of the_ EARL OF ASHBURNHAM]
+
+
+There was infinite haggling with Chapuys with regard to the style to be
+given to Henry in the secret treaty, even after the heads of the treaty
+itself had been agreed upon. He must be called sovereign head of the
+English Church, said Gardiner, or there would be no alliance with the
+Emperor at all, and the difficulty was only overcome by varying the style
+in the two copies of the document, that signed by Chapuys bearing the
+style of; "King of England, France, and Ireland, etc.," and that signed by
+the English ministers adding the King's ecclesiastical claims. If the
+territories of either monarch were invaded the other was bound to come to
+his aid. The French King was to be summoned to forbear intelligence with
+the Turk, to satisfy the demands of the Emperor and the King of England in
+the many old claims they had against him, and no peace was to be made with
+France by either ally, unless the other's claims were satisfied. The
+claims of Henry included the town and county of Boulogne, with Montreuil
+and Therouenne, his arrears of pension, and assurance of future payment:
+and the two allies agreed within two years to invade France together, each
+with 20,000 foot and 5000 horse.[232] This secret compact was signed on
+the 11th February 1543; and the diplomatic relations with France were at
+once broken off. At last the repudiation of Katharine of Aragon was
+condoned, and Henry was once more the Emperor's "good brother";--a fit
+ally for the Catholic king, the champion of orthodox Christianity. As if
+to put the finishing touch upon Henry's victory, Charles held an interview
+with the Pope in June 1543 on his way through Italy, and succeeded in
+persuading him that the inclusion of the King who defied the Church in the
+league of militant Catholics was a fit complement to the alliance of
+France and enemies of all Christianity; and would secure the triumph of
+the Papacy and the return of England into the fold.
+
+Whilst the preparations for war thus went busily forward on all sides,
+with Chantonnay in England and Thomas Seymour in Germany and Flanders
+arranging military details of arms, levies, and stores, and the Emperor
+already clamouring constantly for prompt English subsidies and contingents
+against his enemies, Henry, full of importance and self-satisfaction at
+his position, contracted the only one of his marriages which was not
+promoted by a political intrigue, although at the time it was effected it
+was doubtless looked upon as favouring the Catholic party. Certainly no
+lady of the Court enjoyed a more blameless reputation than Katharine Lady
+Latimer, upon whom the King now cast his eyes. A daughter of the great and
+wealthy house of Parr of Kendal, allied to the royal blood in no very
+distant degree, and related to most of the higher nobility of England, she
+was, so far as descent was concerned, quite as worthy to be the wife of a
+king as the unfortunate daughters of the house of Howard. Her brother,
+Lord Parr, soon to be created Earl of Essex and Marquis of Northampton, a
+favourite courtier of the King and a very splendid magnate,[233] had been
+one of the chief enemies of Cromwell; who had in his last days usurped the
+ancient earldom which Parr had claimed in right of his Bourchier wife,
+whilst Katharine's second husband, Neville Lord Latimer, had been so
+strong a Catholic as to have risked his great possessions, as well as his
+head, by joining the rising in the North that had assumed the name of the
+Pilgrimage of Grace and had been mainly directed against Cromwell's
+measures. She was, moreover, closely related to the Throckmortons, the
+stoutly Catholic family whose chief, Sir George, Cromwell had despoiled
+and imprisoned until the intrigue already related drove the minister from
+power in June 1540, with the mysterious support, so it is asserted, of
+Katharine Lady Latimer herself, though the evidence of it is not very
+convincing.[234]
+
+Katharine had been brought up mostly in the north country with extreme
+care and wisdom by a hard-headed mother, and had been married almost as a
+child to an elderly widower, Lord Borough, who had died soon afterwards,
+leaving her a large jointure. Her second husband, Lord Latimer, had also
+been many years older than herself; and accompanying him, as she did, in
+his periodical visits to London, where they had a house in the precincts
+of the Charterhouse, she had for several years been remarkable in Henry's
+Court, not only for her wide culture and love of learning, but also for
+her friendship with the Princess Mary, whose tastes were exactly similar
+to her own. Lord Latimer died in London at the beginning of 1543, leaving
+to Katharine considerable property; and certainly not many weeks can have
+passed before the King began to pay his court to the wealthy and dignified
+widow of thirty-two. His attentions were probably not very welcome to her,
+for he was a terribly dangerous husband, and any unrevealed peccadillo in
+the previous life of a woman he married might mean the loss of her head.
+
+There was another reason than this, however, that made the King's
+addresses especially embarrassing to Katharine. The younger of the two
+magnificent Seymour brothers, Sir Thomas, had thus early also approached
+her with offers of love. He was one of the handsomest men at Court, and of
+similar age to Katharine. He was already very rich with the church
+plunder, and was the King's brother-in-law; so that he was in all respects
+a good match for her. He must have arrived from his mission to Germany
+immediately after Lord Latimer's death, and remained at Court until early
+in May, about three months; during which time, from the evidence of
+Katharine's subsequent letters, she seems to have made up her mind to
+marry him. It may be that the King noticed signs of their courtship, for
+Sir Thomas Seymour was promptly sent on an embassy to Flanders in company
+with Dr. Wotton, and subsequently with the English contingent to the
+Emperor's army to France, where he remained until long after Henry's sixth
+marriage.
+
+That Henry himself lost no time in approaching the widow after her
+husband's death is seen by a tailor's bill for dresses for Lady Latimer
+being paid out of the Exchequer by the King's orders as early as the 16th
+February 1543, when it would seem that her husband cannot have been dead
+much more than a month. This bill includes linen and buckram, the making
+of Italian gowns, "pleats and sleeves," a slope hood and tippet, kirtles,
+French, Dutch, and Venetian gowns, Venetian sleeves, French hoods, and
+other feminine fripperies; the amount of the total being Ł8, 9s. 5d.; and,
+as showing that even before the marriage considerable intimacy existed
+between Katharine and the Princess Mary, it is curious to note that some
+of the garments appear to have been destined for the use of the
+latter.[235] By the middle of June the King's attentions to Lady Latimer
+were public; and already the lot of the sickly, disinherited Princess Mary
+was rendered happier by the prospective elevation of her friend. Mary came
+to Court at Greenwich, as did her sister Elizabeth; and Katharine is
+specially mentioned as being with them in a letter from Dudley, the new
+Lord Lisle, to Katharine's brother, Lord Parr, the Warden of the Scottish
+Marches. The King had then (20th June) just returned from a tour of
+inspection of his coast defences, and three weeks later Cranmer as Primate
+issued a licence for his marriage with Katharine Lady Latimer, without the
+publication of banns.
+
+On the 12th July 1543 the marriage took place in the upper oratory "called
+the Quynes Preyevey Closet" at Hampton Court. When Gardiner the celebrant
+put the canonical question to the bridegroom, his Majesty answered "with a
+smiling face," yea, and, taking his bride's hand, firmly recited the usual
+pledge. Katharine, whatever her inner feelings may have been, made a
+bright and buxom bride, and from the first endeavoured, as none of the
+other wives had done, to bring together into some semblance of family life
+with her the three children of her husband. Her reward was that she was
+beloved and respected by all of them; and Princess Mary, who was nearly
+her own age, continued her constant companion and friend.[236]
+
+As she began so she remained; amiable, tactful, and clever. Throughout her
+life with Henry her influence was exerted wherever possible in favour of
+concord, and I have not met with a single disparaging remark with regard
+to her, even from those who in the last days of the King's life became her
+political opponents. Her character must have been an exceedingly lovable
+one, and she evidently knew to perfection how to manage men by humouring
+their weak points. She could be firm, too, on occasions where an injustice
+had to be remedied. A story is told of her in connection with her brother
+Parr, Earl of Essex, in the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, which, so far as I
+know, has not been related by any other historian of the reign.
+
+Parr fell in love with Lord Cobham's daughter, a very beautiful girl,
+who, as told in our text, was mentioned as one of the King's flames after
+Katharine Howard's fall. Parr had married the great Bourchier heiress, but
+had grown tired of her, and by suborned evidence charged her with
+adultery, and she was found guilty and sentenced to death. "The good
+Queen, his sister, threw herself at the feet of the King and would not
+rise until he had promised to grant her the boon she craved, which was the
+life of the Countess (of Essex). When the King heard what it was, he said,
+But, Madam, you know that the law enacts that a woman of rank who so
+forgets herself shall die unless her husband pardon her. To this the Queen
+answered, Your Majesty is above the law, and I will try to get my brother
+to pardon. Well, said the King, if your brother be content I will pardon
+her." The Queen then sends for her brother and upbraids him for bringing
+perjured witnesses against his wife, which he denies and says he has only
+acted in accordance with the legal evidence. "I can promise you, brother,
+that it shall not be as you expect: I will have the witnesses put to the
+torture, and then by God's help we shall know the truth." Before this
+could be done Parr sent his witnesses to Cornwall, out of the way: and
+again Katharine insisted upon the Countess' pardon, by virtue of the
+promise that the King had given her. This somewhat alarmed Parr, and
+Katharine managed to effect a mutual renunciation, after which Parr
+married Lord Cobham's daughter.[237]
+
+Gardiner had been not only the prelate who performed the ceremony but had
+himself given the bride away; so that it may fairly be concluded that he,
+at least, was not discontented with the match. Wriothesley, his obedient
+creature, moreover, must have been voicing the general feeling of
+Catholics when he wrote to the Duke of Suffolk in the North his eulogy of
+the bride a few days after the wedding. "The King's Majesty was mareid
+onne Thursdaye last to my ladye Latimor, a woman, in my judgment, for
+vertewe, wisdomme and gentilnesse, most meite for his Highnesse: and sure
+I am his Mat{e} had never a wife more agreable to his harte than she is.
+Our Lorde sende them long lyf and moche joy togethir."[238] Both the
+King's daughters had been at the wedding, Mary receiving from Katharine a
+handsome present as bride's-maid; but Henry had the decency not to bid the
+presence of Anne of Cleves. She is represented as being somewhat disgusted
+at the turn of events. Her friends, and perhaps she herself, had never
+lost the hope that if the Protestant influence became paramount, Henry
+might take her back. But the imperial alliance had made England an enemy
+of her brother of Cleves, whose territory the Emperor's troops were
+harrying with fire and sword; and her position in England was a most
+difficult one. "She would," says Chapuys, "prefer to be with her mother,
+if with nothing but the clothes on her back, rather than be here now,
+having specially taken great grief and despair at the King's espousal of
+his new wife, who is not nearly so good-looking as she is, besides that
+there is no hope of her (Katharine) having issue, seeing that she had none
+by her two former husbands."[239]
+
+As we have seen, Katharine had all her life belonged to the Catholic
+party, of which the northern nobles were the leaders, and doubtless this
+fact had secured for her marriage the ready acquiescence of Gardiner and
+his friends, especially when coupled with the attachment known to exist
+between the bride and the Princess Mary. But Katharine had studied hard,
+and was devoted to the "new learning," which had suddenly become
+fashionable for high-born ladies. The Latin classics, the writings of
+Erasmus, of Juan Luis Vives, and others were the daily solace of the few
+ladies in England who had at this time been seized with the new craze of
+culture, Katharine, the King's daughters, his grand-nieces the Greys, and
+the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, being especially versed in classics,
+languages, philosophy, and theology. The "new learning" had been, and was
+still to be, for the most part promoted by those who sympathised with the
+reformed doctrines, and Katharine's devotion to it brought her into
+intimate contact with the learned men at Court whose zeal for the spread
+of classical and controversial knowledge was coupled with the spirit of
+inquiry which frequently went with religious heterodoxy.
+
+Not many days after the marriage, Gardiner scented danger in this
+foregathering of the Queen with such men as Cranmer and Latimer, and at
+the encouragement and help given by her to the young princesses in the
+translation of portions of the Scriptures, and of the writings of Erasmus.
+There is no reason to conclude that Katharine, as yet, had definitely
+attached herself to the reform party, but it is certain that very soon
+after her marriage her love of learning, or her distrust of Gardiner's
+policy and methods, caused her to look sympathetically towards those at
+Court who went beyond the King in his opposition to Rome. Gardiner dared
+not as yet directly attack either Katharine or Cranmer, for the King was
+personally much attached to both of them, whilst Gardiner himself was
+never a favourite with him. But indirectly these two persons in privileged
+places might be ruined by attacking others first; and the plan was
+patiently and cunningly laid to do it, before a new party of reformers led
+by Cranmer, reinforced by Katharine, could gain the King's ear and reverse
+the policy of his present adviser. At the instance of Gardiner's creature
+Dr. London, a canon of Windsor, a prosecution under the Six Articles was
+commenced against a priest and some choristers of the royal chapel, and
+one other person, who were known to meet together for religious
+discussion. For weeks London's spies had been listening to the talk of
+those in the castle and town who might be suspected of reformed ideas; and
+with the evidence so accumulated in his hand, Gardiner moved the King in
+Council to issue a warrant authorising a search for unauthorised books and
+papers in the town and castle of Windsor. Henry, whilst allowing the
+imprisonment of the accused persons with the addition of Sir Philip Hoby
+and Dr. Haines, both resident in the castle, declined to allow his own
+residence to be searched for heretical books. This was a set back for
+Gardiner's plan; but it succeeded to the extent of securing the conviction
+and execution at the stake of three of the accused. This was merely a
+beginning; and already those at Court were saying that the Bishop of
+Winchester "aimed at higher deer" than those that had already fallen to
+his bow.[240]
+
+Hardly had the ashes of the three martyrs cooled, than a mass of fresh
+accusations was formulated by London against several members of the royal
+household. The reports of spies and informers were sent to Gardiner by the
+hand of Ockham, the clerk of the court that had condemned the martyrs, but
+one of the persons accused, a member of Katharine's household, received
+secret notice of what was intended and waylaid Ockham. Perusal of the
+documents he bore showed that much of the information had been suborned by
+Dr. London and his assistant Simons, and Katharine was appealed to for her
+aid. She exerted her influence with her husband to have them both
+arrested and examined. Unaware that their papers had been taken from
+Ockham, they foreswore themselves and broke down when confronted with the
+written proofs that the case against the accused had been trumped up on
+false evidence with ulterior objects. Disgrace and imprisonment for the
+two instruments, London and Simons, followed,[241] but the prelate who had
+inspired their activity was too indispensable to the King to be attacked,
+and he, firm in his political predominance, bided his time for yet another
+blow at his enemies, amongst whom he now included the Queen, whose union
+with the King he and other Catholics had so recently blessed.
+
+Cranmer, secure as he thought in the King's regard and in his great
+position as Primate, had certainly laid himself open to the attacks of his
+enemies, by his almost ostentatious favour to the clergy of his province
+who were known to be evading or violating the Six Articles. The chapter of
+his own cathedral was profoundly divided, and the majority of its members
+were opposed to what they considered the injustice of their Archbishop.
+Cranmer's commissary, his nephew Nevinson, whilst going out of his way to
+favour those who were accused before the chapter of false doctrine,
+offended deeply the majority of the clergy by his zeal--which really only
+reflected that of the Archbishop himself--in the displacing and
+destruction of images in the churches, even when the figures did not
+offend against the law by being made the objects of superstitious
+pilgrimages and offerings. For several years past the cathedral church of
+Canterbury had been a hotbed of discord, in consequence of Cranmer's
+having appointed, apparently on principle, men of extreme opinions on both
+sides as canons, prebendaries, and preachers; and so great had grown the
+opposition in his own chapter to the Primate's known views in the spring
+of 1543, that it was evident that a crisis could not be long delayed,
+especially as the clergy opposed to the prelate had the letter of the law
+on their side, and the countenance of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, all
+powerful as he was in the lay counsels of the King.
+
+Some of the Kentish clergy who resented the Archbishop's action had laid
+their heads together in March 1543, and formulated a set of accusations
+against him. This the two most active movers in the protest had carried to
+the metropolis for submission to Gardiner. They first, however, approached
+the Dr. London already referred to, who rewrote the accusations with
+additions of his own, in order to bring the accused within the penal law.
+The two first movers, Willoughby and Searl, took fright at this, for it
+was a dangerous thing to attack the Archbishop, and hastily returned home;
+but Dr. London had enough for his present purpose, and handed his enlarged
+version of their depositions to Gardiner. London's disgrace, already
+related, stayed the matter for a time, but a few months afterwards a fresh
+set of articles, alleging illegal acts on the part of the Archbishop, was
+forwarded by the discontented clergy to Gardiner, and the accusers were
+then summoned before the Privy Council, where they were encouraged to make
+their testimony as strong as possible. When the depositions were complete
+they were sent to the King by Gardiner, in the hope that now the great
+stumblingblock of the Catholic party might be cleared from the path, and
+that the new Queen's ruin might promptly follow that of the Primate.
+
+But they reckoned without Henry's love for Cranmer. Rowing on the Thames
+one evening in the late autumn soon after the depositions had been handed
+to him, the King called at the pier by Lambeth Palace and took Cranmer
+into his barge. "Ah, my chaplain," he said jocosely, as the Archbishop
+took his seat in the boat, "I have news for you. I know now who is the
+greatest heretic in Kent;" and with this he drew from his sleeve and
+handed to Cranmer the depositions of those who had sought to ruin him. The
+Archbishop insisted upon a regular Commission being issued to test the
+truth of the accusations; but Henry could be generous when it suited him,
+and he never knew how soon he might need Cranmer's pliable ingenuity
+again. So, although he issued the Commission, he made Cranmer its head,
+and gave to him the appointment of its members; with the natural result
+that the accusers and all their abettors were imprisoned and forced to beg
+the Primate's forgiveness for their action.[242] But the man who gave life
+to the whole plot, Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, still led the King's
+political counsels, much as Henry disliked him personally; for the armed
+alliance with the Emperor could only bring its full harvest of profit and
+glory to the King of England if the Catholic powers on the Continent were
+convinced of Henry's essential orthodoxy, notwithstanding his quarrel with
+the Pope.[243] So, though Cranmer might be favoured privately and
+Katharine's coquetting with the new learning and its professors winked at,
+Gardiner, whose Catholicism was stronger than that of his master, had to
+be the figure-head to impress foreigners.
+
+In July 1543 the English contingent to aid the imperial troops to protect
+Flanders was sent from Guisnes and Calais under Sir John Wallop. By the
+strict terms of the treaty they were only to be employed for a limited
+period for the defence of territory invaded by the enemy; but soon after
+Wallop's arrival he was asked to take part in the regular siege of
+Landrecy in Hainault, that had been occupied by the French. Henry allowed
+him to do so under protest. It was waste of time, he said, and would
+divert the forces from what was to be their main object; but if he allowed
+it, he must have the same right when the war in France commenced to call
+upon the imperial contingent with him also to besiege a town if he wished
+to do so. Both the allies, even before the war really began, were playing
+for their own hands with the deliberate intention of making use of each
+other; and in the dismal comedy of chicanery that followed and lasted
+almost to Henry's death, this siege of Landrecy and that of St. Disier
+were made the peg upon which countless reclamations and recriminations
+were hung. The Emperor was ill, in dire need of money, and overwhelmed
+with anxiety as to the attitude of the Lutheran princes during the coming
+struggle. His eyes were turned towards Italy, and he depended much upon
+the diversion that Henry's forces might effect by land and sea; and
+conscious that the campaign must be prompt and rapid if he was to profit
+by it, he sent one of his most trusted lieutenants, Ferrante Gonzaga,
+Viceroy of Sicily, to England at the end of the year 1543 to settle with
+Henry the plan of the campaign to be undertaken in the spring.
+
+His task was a difficult one; for Henry was as determined to use Charles
+for his advantage as Charles was to use him. After much dispute it was
+agreed that Henry, as early in the summer as possible, should lead his
+army of 35,000 foot and 7000 horse to invade France from Calais, whilst
+the imperial troops were to invade by Lorraine, form a junction with the
+English on the Somme, and push on towards Paris. Rapidity was the very
+essence of such a plan; but Henry would not promise celerity. He could
+not, he said, transport all his men across the sea before the end of June:
+the fact being that his own secret intention all along was to conquer the
+Boulognais country for himself, gain a free hand in Scotland, and leave
+the Emperor to shift as he might. Utter bad faith on both sides pervaded
+the affair from first to last. The engaging and payment of mercenaries by
+England, the purchase of horses, arms, and stores, the hire of transport,
+the interference with commerce--everything in which sharp dealing could be
+employed by one ally to get the better of the other was taken advantage of
+to the utmost. Henry, enfeebled as he was by disease and obesity, was
+determined to turn to his personal glory the victory he anticipated for
+his arms. His own courtiers dared not remonstrate with him; and, although
+Katharine prayed him to have regard for his safety, he brushed aside her
+remonstrances as becoming womanly fears for a dearly loved husband.
+Charles knew that if the King himself crossed the Channel the English army
+would not be at the imperial bidding. Envoys were consequently sent from
+Flanders to pray Henry, for his health's sake, not to risk the hardships
+of a sea voyage and a campaign. The subject was a sore one with him; and
+when the envoy began to dwell too emphatically upon his infirmities, he
+flew into a passion and said that the Emperor was suffering from gout,
+which was much worse than any malady he (Henry) had, and it would be more
+dangerous for the Emperor to go to the war.
+
+Henry's decision to accompany his army at once increased the importance of
+Katharine; who, in accordance with precedent, would become regent in her
+husband's absence. A glimpse of her growing influence at this time is seen
+in a letter of hers, dated 3rd June 1544, to the Countess of Hertford,
+that termagant Ann Stanhope who afterwards was her jealous enemy.
+Hertford had been sent in March to the Scottish Border to invade again,
+and this time utterly crush Scotland, where Henry's pensioners had played
+him false, and betrothed their infant Queen to the heir of France. The
+Countess, anxious that her husband should be at home during the King's
+absence--probably in order that if anything happened to Henry, Hertford
+might take prompt measures on behalf of the new King, his nephew, and
+safeguard his own influence--wrote to Katharine praying for her aid.[244]
+The Queen's answer is written on the same sheet of paper as one from
+Princess Mary to the Countess, whose letters to Katharine had been sent
+through the Princess. "My lord your husband's comyng hyther is not
+altered, for he schall come home before the Kynge's Majesty take hys
+journey over the sees, as it pleaseth his Majesty to declare to me of
+late. You may be ryght assured I wold not have forgotten my promise to you
+in a matter of lesse effect than thys, and so I pray you most hartely to
+think....--KATERYN THE QUENE."[245]
+
+Since Henry insisted upon going to the war himself the next best thing,
+according to the Emperor's point of view, to keeping him away was to cause
+some Spanish officer of high rank and great experience to be constantly
+close to him during the campaign. Except the little skirmishes on the
+borders of Scotland, Englishmen had seen no active military service for
+many years, and it was urged upon Henry that a general well acquainted
+with modern Continental warfare would be useful to him. The Emperor's
+Spanish and Italian commanders were the best in the world, as were his
+men-at-arms; and a grandee, the Duke of Najera, who was on his way from
+Flanders to Spain by sea, was looked upon as being a suitable man for the
+purpose of advising the King of England. Henry was determined to impress
+him and entertained him splendidly, delaying him as long as possible, in
+order that he might be persuaded to accompany the English forces. The
+accounts of Najera's stay in England show that Katharine had now, the
+spring of 1544, quite settled down in her position as Queen and coming
+Regent. Chapuys mentions that when he first took Najera to Court he
+"visited the Queen and Princess (Mary), who asked very minutely for news
+of the Emperor ... and, although the Queen was a little indisposed, she
+wished to dance for the honour of the company. The Queen favours the
+Princess all she can; and since the Treaty with the Emperor was made, she
+has constantly urged the Princess' cause, insomuch as in this sitting of
+Parliament she (Mary) has been declared capable of succeeding in default
+of the Prince."[246]
+
+A Spaniard who attended Najera tells the story of the Duke's interview
+with Katharine somewhat more fully. "The Duke kissed the Queen's hand and
+was then conducted to another chamber, to which the Queen and ladies
+followed, and there was music and much beautiful dancing. The Queen danced
+first with her brother very gracefully, and then Princess Mary and the
+Princess of Scotland (_i.e._ Lady Margaret Douglas) danced with other
+gentlemen, and many other ladies also danced, a Venetian of the King's
+household dancing some gaillards with such extraordinary activity that he
+seemed to have wings upon his feet; surely never was a man seen so agile.
+After the dancing had lasted several hours the Queen returned to her
+chamber, first causing one of the noblemen who spoke Spanish to offer some
+presents to the Duke, who kissed her hand. He would likewise have kissed
+that of the Princess Mary, but she offered her lips; and so he saluted her
+and all the other ladies.[247] The King is regarded as a very powerful and
+handsome man. The Queen is graceful and of cheerful countenance; and is
+praised for her virtue. She wore an underskirt, showing in front, of cloth
+of gold, and a sleeved over-dress of brocade lined with crimson satin, the
+sleeves themselves being lined with crimson velvet, and the train was two
+yards long. She wore hanging from the neck two crosses and a jewel of very
+magnificent diamonds, and she wore a great number of splendid diamonds in
+her headdress." The author of this curious contemporary document excels
+himself in praise of the Princess Mary, whose dress on the occasion
+described was even more splendid than that of the Queen, consisting as it
+did entirely of cloth of gold and purple velvet. The house and gardens of
+Whitehall also moved the witness to wonder and admiration. The green
+alleys with high hedges of the garden and the sculpture with which the
+walks were adorned especially attracted the attention of the visitors, and
+the greatness of London and the stately river Thames are declared to be
+incomparable.[248]
+
+The Duke of Najera, unwilling to stay, and, apparently, not impressing
+Henry very favourably, went on his way; and was immediately followed by
+another Spanish commander of equal rank and much greater experience in
+warfare, the Duke of Alburquerque, and he, too, was received with the
+splendour and ostentation that Henry loved, ultimately accompanying the
+King to the siege of Boulogne as military adviser; both the King and
+Queen, we are told, treating him with extraordinary favour.[249]
+
+By the time that Henry was ready to cross the Channel early in July to
+join his army, which several weeks before had preceded him under the
+command of Norfolk and Suffolk, the short-lived and insincere alliance
+with the Emperor, from which Henry and Gardiner had expected so much, was
+already strained almost to breaking point. The great imperialist defeat
+at Ceresole in Savoy earlier in the year had made Henry more disinclined
+than ever to sacrifice English men and treasure to fight indirectly the
+Emperor's battle in Italy. Even before that Henry had begun to show signs
+of an intention to break away from the plan of campaign agreed upon. How
+dangerous it would be, he said, for the Emperor to push forward into
+France without securing the ground behind him. "Far better to lay siege to
+two or three large towns on the road to Paris than to go to the capital
+and burn it down." Charles was indignant, and continued to send reminders
+and remonstrances that the plan agreed upon must be adhered to. Henry
+retorted that Charles himself had departed from it by laying siege to
+Landecy. The question of supplies from Flanders, the payment and passage
+of mercenaries through the Emperor's territories, the free concession of
+trading licences by the Queen Regent of the Netherlands, and a dozen other
+questions, kept the relations between the allies in a state of irritation
+and acrimony, even before the campaign well began, and it is clear thus
+early that Henry started with the fixed intention of conquering the
+territory of Boulogne, and then perhaps making friends with Francis,
+leaving the Emperor at war. With both the great rivals exhausted, he would
+be more sought after than ever. He at once laid siege to Montreuil and
+Boulogne, and personally took command, deaf to the prayers and
+remonstrances of Charles and his sister, that he would not go beyond
+Calais, "for his health's sake"; but would send the bulk of his forces to
+join the Emperor's army before St. Disier. The Emperor had himself broken
+the compact by besieging Landrecy and St. Disier; and so the bulk of
+Henry's army sat down before Boulogne, whilst the Emperor, short of
+provisions, far in an enemy's country, with weak lines of communication,
+unfriendly Lorraine on his flank and two French armies approaching him,
+could only curse almost in despair the hour that he trusted the word of
+"his good brother," the King of England.
+
+Katharine bade farewell to her husband at Dover when he went on his
+pompous voyage,[250] and returned forthwith to London, fully empowered to
+rule England as Regent during his absence. She was directed to use the
+advice and counsel of Cranmer, Wriothesley, the Earl of Hertford, who was
+to replace her if she became incapacitated, Thirlby, and Petre; Gardiner
+accompanying the King as minister. The letters written by Katharine to her
+husband during his short campaign show no such instances of want of tact
+as did those of the first Katharine, quoted in the earlier pages of this
+book. It is plain to read in them the clever, discreet woman, determined
+to please a vain man; content to take a subordinate place and to shine by
+a reflected light alone. "She thanks God for a prosperous beginning of his
+affairs;" "she rejoices at the joyful news of his good health," and in a
+business-like way shows that she and her council are actively forwarding
+the interests of the King with a single-hearted view to his honour and
+glory alone.
+
+During this time the young Prince Edward and his sister Mary were at
+Hampton Court with the Queen; but the other daughter, Elizabeth, lived
+apart at St. James's. Though it is evident that the girl was generally
+regarded and treated as inferior to her sister, she appears to have felt a
+real regard for her stepmother, almost the only person who, since her
+infancy, had been kind to her. Elizabeth wrote to the Queen on the 31st
+July a curious letter in Italian. "Envious fortune," she writes, "for a
+whole year deprived me of your Highness's presence, and, not content
+therewith, has again despoiled me of that boon. I know, nevertheless, that
+I have your love; and that you have not forgotten me in writing to the
+King. I pray you in writing to his Majesty deign to recommend me to him;
+praying him for his ever-welcome blessing; praying at the same time to
+Almighty God to send him good fortune and victory over his enemies; so
+that your Highness and I together may the sooner rejoice at his happy
+return. I humbly pray to God to have your Highness in His keeping; and
+respectfully kissing your Highness' hand.--ELIZABETH."[251]
+
+Katharine indeed, in this trying time of responsibility, comes well out of
+her ordeal. The prayer[252] composed by her for peace at this period is
+really a beautiful composition; and the letter from her to her husband,
+printed by Strype, breathes sentiment likely to please such a man as
+Henry, but in language at once womanly and dignified. "Although the
+distance of time and account of days," she writes, "neither is long nor
+many, of your Majesty's absence, yet the want of your presence, so much
+beloved and desired by me, maketh me that I cannot quietly pleasure in
+anything until I hear from your Majesty. The time therefore seemeth to me
+very long, with a great desire to know how your Highness hath done since
+your departing hence; whose prosperity and health I prefer and desire more
+than mine own. And, whereas I know your Majesty's absence is never without
+great need, yet love and affection compel me to desire your presence.
+Again the same zeal and affection forceth me to be best content with that
+which is your will and pleasure. Thus, love maketh me in all things set
+apart mine own convenience and pleasure, and to embrace most joyfully his
+will and pleasure whom I love. God, the knower of secrets, can judge these
+words to be not only written with ink but most truly impressed upon the
+heart. Much more I omit, less it be thought I go about to praise myself or
+crave a thank. Which thing to do I mind nothing less, but a plain simple
+relation of the love and zeal I bear your Majesty, proceeding from the
+abundance of the heart.... I make like account with your Majesty, as I do
+with God, for His benefits and gifts heaped upon me daily; acknowledging
+myself to be a great debtor to Him, not being able to recompense the least
+of His benefit. In which state I am certain and sure to die, yet I hope
+for His gracious acceptance of my goodwill. Even such confidence have I in
+your Majesty's gentleness, knowing myself never to have done my duty as
+were requisite and meet for such a noble Prince, at whose hands I have
+received so much love and goodness that with words I cannot express
+it."[253]
+
+It will be seen by this, and nearly every other letter that Katharine
+wrote to her husband, that she had taken the measure of his prodigious
+vanity, and indulged him to the top of his bent. In a letter written to
+him on the 9th August, referring to the success of the Earl of Lennox, who
+had just married Henry's niece, Margaret Douglas, and had gone to Scotland
+to seize the government in English interest, Katharine says: "The good
+speed which Lennox has had, is to be imputed to his serving a master whom
+God aids. He might have served the French king, his old master, many years
+without attaining such a victory." This is the attitude in which Henry
+loved to be approached, and with such letters from his wife in England
+confirming the Jove-like qualities attributed to him in consequence of his
+presence with his army in France, Henry's short campaign before Boulogne
+was doubtless one of the pleasantest experiences in his life.
+
+To add to his satisfaction, he had not been at Calais a week before
+Francis began to make secret overtures for peace. It was too early for
+that, however, just yet, for Henry coveted Boulogne, and the sole use made
+of the French approaches to him was to impress the imperial agents with
+his supreme importance. The warning was not lost upon Charles and his
+sister the Queen Regent of the Netherlands, who themselves began to
+listen to the unofficial suggestions for peace made by the agents of the
+Duchess d'Etampes, the mistress of Francis, in order, if possible, to
+benefit herself and the Duke of Orleans in the conditions, to the
+detriment of the Dauphin Henry. Thenceforward it was a close game of
+diplomatic finesse between Henry and Charles as to which should make terms
+first and arbitrate on the claims of the other.
+
+St. Disier capitulated to the Emperor on the 8th August; and Charles at
+once sent another envoy to Henry at Boulogne, praying him urgently to
+fulfil the plan of campaign decided with Gonzaga, or the whole French army
+would be concentrated upon the imperial forces and crush them. But Henry
+would not budge from before Boulogne, and Charles, whilst rapidly pushing
+forward into France, and in serious danger of being cut off by the
+Dauphin, listened intently for sounds of peace. They soon came, through
+the Duke of Lorraine; and before the end of August the Emperor was in
+close negotiation with the French, determined, come what might, that the
+final settlement of terms should not be left in the hands of the King of
+England. Henry's action at this juncture was pompous, inflated, and
+stupid, whilst that of Charles was statesmanlike, though unscrupulous.
+Even during the negotiations Charles pushed forward and captured Epernay
+and Château Thierry, where the Dauphin's stores were. This was on the 7th
+September, and then having struck his blow he knew that he must make peace
+at once. He therefore sent the young Bishop of Arras, Granvelle, with a
+message to Henry which he knew would have the effect desired. The King of
+England was again to be urged formally but insincerely to advance and join
+the Emperor, but if he would not the Emperor must make peace, always
+providing that the English claims were satisfactorily settled.
+
+Arras arrived in the English camp on the 11th September. He found Henry in
+his most vaunting mood; for only three days before the ancient tower on
+the harbour side opposite Boulogne had been captured by his men.[254] He
+could not move forward, he said; it was too late in the season to begin a
+new campaign, and he was only bound by the treaty to keep the field four
+months in a year. If the Emperor was in a fix, that was his look-out. The
+terms, moreover, suggested for the peace between his ally and France were
+out of the question, especially the clause about English claims. The
+French had already offered him much better conditions than those. Arras
+pushed his point. The Emperor must know definitely, he urged, whether the
+King of England would make peace or not, as affairs could not be left
+pending. Then Henry lost his temper, as the clever imperial ministers knew
+he would do, and blurted out in a rage: "Let the Emperor make peace for
+himself if he likes, but nothing must be done to prejudice my claims." It
+was enough for the purpose desired, for in good truth the Emperor had
+already agreed with the French, and Arras posted back to his master with
+Henry's hasty words giving permission for him to make a separate peace. In
+vain for the next two years Henry strove to unsay, to palliate, to
+disclaim these words. Quarrels, bursts of violent passion, incoherent
+rage, indignant denials, were all of no avail; the words were said, and
+vouched for by those who heard them; and Charles hurriedly ratified the
+peace already practically made with France on terms that surprised the
+world, and made Henry wild with indignation.
+
+The Emperor, victor though he was, in appearance gave away everything. His
+daughter or niece was to marry Orleans, with Milan or Flanders as a dowry;
+Savoy was to be restored to the Duke, and the French were to join the
+Emperor in alliance against the Turk. None knew yet--though Henry may have
+suspected it--that behind the public treaty there was a secret compact by
+which the two Catholic sovereigns agreed to concentrate their joint powers
+and extirpate a greater enemy than the Turk, namely, the rising power of
+Protestantism in Europe. Henry was thus betrayed and was at war alone with
+France, all of whose forces were now directed against him. Boulogne fell
+to the English on the 14th September, three days after Arras arrived in
+Henry's camp, and the King hurried back to England in blazing wrath with
+the Emperor and inflated with the glorification of his own victory, eager
+for the applause of his subjects before his laurels faded and the French
+beleagured the captured town. Gardiner and Paget, soon to be joined
+temporarily by Hertford, remained in Calais in order to continue, if
+possible, the abortive peace negotiations with France. But it was a
+hopeless task now; for Francis, free from fear on his north-east frontier,
+was determined to win back Boulogne at any cost. The Dauphin swore that he
+would have no peace whilst Boulogne remained in English hands, and Henry
+boastfully declared that he would hold it for ever now that he had won it.
+
+Thenceforward the relations between Henry and the Emperor became daily
+more unamiable. Henry claimed under the treaty that Charles should still
+help him in the war, but that was out of the question. When in 1546 the
+French made a descent upon the Isle of Wight, once more the treaty was
+invoked violently by the King of England: almost daily claims, complaints,
+and denunciations were made on both sides with regard to the vexed
+question of contraband of war for the French, mostly Dutch herrings; and
+the right of capture by the English. The Emperor was seriously intent upon
+keeping Henry on fairly good terms, and certainly did not wish to go to
+war with him; but he had submitted to the hard terms of the peace of
+Crespy with a distinct object, and dared not jeopardise it by renewing his
+quarrel with France for the sake of Henry.
+
+Slowly it had forced itself upon the mind of Charles that his own
+Protestant vassals, the Princes of the Schmalkaldic league, must be
+crushed into obedience, or his own power would become a shadow; and his
+aim was to keep all Christendom friendly until he had choked Lutheranism
+at its fountain-head. From the period of Henry's return to England in
+these circumstances, growing sympathy for those whom a Papal and imperial
+coalition were attacking caused the influence of the Catholic party in his
+Councils gradually but spasmodically to decline. Chapuys, who himself was
+hastening to the grave, accompanied his successor Van Der Delft as
+ambassador to England at Christmas (1544), and describes Henry as looking
+very old and broken, but more boastful of his victory over the French than
+ever. He professed, no doubt sincerely, a desire to remain friendly with
+the Emperor; and after their interview with him the ambassadors, without
+any desire being expressed on their part, were conducted to the Queen's
+oratory during divine service. In reply to their greetings and thanks for
+her good offices for the preservation of friendship and her kindness to
+Princess Mary, Katharine "replied, very graciously, that she did not
+deserve so much courtesy from your Majesty (the Emperor). What she did for
+Lady Mary was less than she would like to do, and was only her duty in
+every respect. With regard to the maintenance of friendship, she said she
+had done, and would do, nothing to prevent its growing still firmer, and
+she hoped that God would avert the slightest dissension; as the friendship
+was so necessary, and both sovereigns were so good."[255]
+
+
+[Illustration: _HENRY VIII._
+
+_From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the possession of the Earl of Warwick_]
+
+
+Katharine was equally amiable, though evidently now playing a political
+part, when four months later the aged and crippled Chapuys bade his
+last farewell to England. He was being carried in a chair to take leave of
+Henry at Whitehall one morning in May at nine o'clock. He was an hour
+earlier than the time fixed for his audience, and was passing through the
+green alleys of the garden towards the King's apartments, when notice was
+brought to him that the Queen and Princess Mary were hastening after him.
+He stopped at once, and had just time to hobble out of his chair before
+the two ladies reached him. "It seemed from the small suite she had with
+her, and the haste with which she came, as if her purpose in coming was
+specially to speak to me. She was attended only by four or five ladies of
+the chamber, and opened the conversation by saying that the King had told
+her the previous evening that I was coming that morning to say good-bye.
+She was very sorry, on the one hand, for my departure, as she had been
+told that I had always performed my duties well, and the King trusted me;
+but on the other hand she doubted not that my health would be better on
+the other side of the sea. I could, however, she said, do as much on the
+other side as here, for the maintenance of the friendship, of which I had
+been one of the chief promoters. For this reason she was glad I was going;
+although she had no doubt that so wise and good a sovereign as your
+Majesty (_i.e._ the Emperor) would see the need and importance of
+upholding the friendship, of which the King, on his side, had given so
+many proofs in the past. Yet it seemed to her that your Majesty had not
+been so thoroughly informed hitherto, either by my letters or otherwise,
+of the King's sincere affection and goodwill, as I should be able to
+report verbally. She therefore begged me earnestly, after I had presented
+to your Majesty her humble service, to express explicitly to you, all that
+I had learned here of the good wishes of the King."[256]
+
+There was much more high-flown compliment both from Katharine and her
+step-daughter before the gouty ambassador went on his way; but it is
+evident that Katharine, like her husband, was at this time (May 1545)
+apprehensive as to the intentions of Charles and his French allies towards
+England, and was still desirous to obtain some aid in the war under the
+treaty, in order, if possible, to weaken the new friendship with France
+and the Catholic alliance. In the meanwhile the failure of Gardiner's
+policy, and the irritation felt at the Emperor's abandonment of England,
+placed the minister somewhat under a cloud. He had failed, too, to
+persuade the Emperor personally to fulfil the treaty, as well as in his
+negotiations for peace with the French; and, as his sun gradually sank
+before the King's annoyance, that of Secretary Paget, of Hertford, of
+Dudley, and of Wriothesley, now Lord Chancellor, a mere time-serving
+courtier, rose. The Protestant element around Katharine, too, became
+bolder, and her own participation in politics was now frankly on the
+anti-Catholic side. The alliance--insincere and temporary though it
+was--between the Emperor and France, once more produced its inevitable
+effect of drawing together England and the German Lutherans. It is true
+that Charles' great plan for crushing dissent by the aid of the Pope was
+not yet publicly known; but the Council of Trent was slowly gathering, and
+it was clear to the German princes of the Schmalkaldic league that great
+events touching religion and their independence were in the air; for
+Cardinal Farnese and the Papal agents were running backward and forward to
+the Emperor on secret missions, and all the Catholic world rang with
+denunciation of heresy.
+
+In June the new imperial ambassador, Van Der Delft, sounded the first note
+of alarm from England. Katharine Parr's secretary, Buckler, he said, had
+been in Germany for weeks, trying to arrange a league between the
+Protestant princes and England. This was a matter of the highest
+importance, and Charles when he heard of it was doubly desirous of keeping
+his English brother from quite breaking away; whilst in September there
+arrived in England from France a regular embassy from the Duke of Saxony,
+the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Würtemburg, and the King of Denmark,
+ostensibly to promote peace between England and France, but really bent
+upon effecting a Protestant alliance. Henry, indeed, was seriously
+alarmed. He was exhausted by his long war in France, harassed in the
+victualling of Boulogne and even of Calais, and fully alive to the fact
+that he was practically defenceless against an armed coalition of the
+Emperor and France. In the circumstances it was natural that the influence
+over him of his wife, and of his brother-in-law Hertford, both inclined to
+a reconciliation with France and an understanding with the German
+Protestants, should increase.
+
+Katharine, now undisguisedly in favour of such a policy, was full of tact;
+during the King's frequent attacks of illness she was tender and useful to
+him, and the attachment to her of the young Prince Edward, testified by
+many charming little letters of the boy, too well known to need quotation
+here, seemed to promise a growth of her State importance. The tendency was
+one to be strenuously opposed by Gardiner and his friends in the Council,
+and once more attempts were made to strike at the Queen through Cranmer,
+almost simultaneously with a movement, flattering to Henry and hopeful for
+the Catholic party, to negotiate a meeting at Calais or in Flanders
+between him and the Emperor, to settle all questions and make France
+distrustful. For any such approach to be productive of the full effects
+desired by Gardiner, it was necessary to couple with it severe measures
+against the Protestants. Henry was reminded that the coming attack upon
+the German Lutherans by the Emperor, with the acquiescence of France,
+would certainly portend an attack upon himself later; and he was told by
+the Catholic majority of his Council that any tenderness on his part
+towards heresy now would be specially perilous. The first blow was struck
+at Cranmer, and was struck in vain. The story in full is told by Strype
+from Morice and Foxe, and has been repeated by every historian of the
+reign. Gardiner and his colleagues represented to Henry that, although the
+Archbishop was spreading heresy, no one dared to give evidence against a
+Privy Councillor whilst he was free. The King promised that they might
+send Cranmer to the Tower, if on examination of him they found reason to
+do so. Late that night Henry sent across the river to Lambeth to summon
+the Archbishop from his bed to see him, told him of the accusation, and
+his consent that the accused should be judged and, if advisable, committed
+to the Tower by his own colleagues on the Council. Cranmer humbly thanked
+the King, sure, as he said, that no injustice would be permitted. Henry,
+however, knew better, and indignantly said so; giving to his favourite
+prelate his ring for a token that summoned the Council to the royal
+presence.
+
+The next morning early Cranmer was summoned to the Council, and was kept
+long waiting in an ante-room amongst suitors and serving-men. Dr. Butts,
+Henry's privileged physician, saw this and told the King that the
+Archbishop of Canterbury had turned lackey; for he had stood humbly
+waiting outside the Council door for an hour. Henry, in a towering rage,
+growled, "I shall talk to them by-and-by." When Cranmer was charged with
+encouraging heresy he demanded of his colleagues that he should be
+confronted with his accusers. They refused him rudely, and told him he
+should be sent to the Tower. Then Cranmer's turn came, and he produced the
+King's ring, to the dismay of the Council, who, when they tremblingly
+faced their irate sovereign, were taken to task with a violence that
+promised them ill, if ever they dared to touch again the King's friend.
+But though Cranmer was unassailable, the preachers who followed his creed
+were not. In the spring of 1546 the persecutions under the Six Articles
+commenced afresh, and for a short time the Catholic party in the Council
+had much their own way, having frightened Henry into abandoning the
+Lutheran connection, in order that the vengeance of the Catholic league
+might not fall upon him, when the Emperor had crushed the Schmalkaldic
+princes.[257]
+
+Henry's health was visibly failing, and the two factions in his Court knew
+that time was short in which to establish the predominance of either at
+the critical moment. On the Protestant side were Hertford, Dudley,
+Cranmer, and the Queen, and on the other Gardiner, Paget, Paulet, and
+Wriothesley; and as Katharine's influence grew with her husband's
+increasing infirmity, it became necessary for the opposite party if
+possible to get rid of her before the King died. In February 1546 the
+imperial ambassador reported: "I am confused and apprehensive to have to
+inform your Majesty that there are rumours here of a new Queen, although I
+do not know why or how true they may be. Some people attribute them to the
+sterility of the Queen, whilst others say that there will be no change
+whilst the present war lasts. The Duchess of Suffolk is much talked about,
+and is in great favour; but the King shows no alteration in his behaviour
+towards the Queen, though she is, I am informed, annoyed at the
+rumours."[258] Hints of this sort continued for some time, and evidently
+took their rise from a deliberate attack upon Katharine by the Catholic
+councillors. She herself, for once, failed in her tact, and laid herself
+open to the designs of her enemies. She was betrayed into a religious
+discussion with Henry during one of his attacks of illness, in the
+presence of Gardiner, much to the King's annoyance. When she had retired
+the Bishop flattered Henry by saying that he wondered how any one could
+have the temerity to differ from him on theology, and carried his
+suggestions further by saying that such a person might well oppose him in
+other things than opinions. Moved by the hints at his danger, always a
+safe card to play with him, the King allowed an indictment to be drawn up
+against Katharine, and certain ladies of her family, under the Six
+Articles. Everything was arranged for the Queen's arrest and examination,
+when Wriothesley, the Lord Chancellor, a servile creature who always clung
+to the strongest side, seems to have taken fright and divulged the plot to
+one of her friends. Katharine was at once informed and fell ill with
+fright, which for a short time deferred the arrest. Being partially
+recovered she sought the King, and when he began to talk about religion,
+she by her submission and refusal to contradict his views, as those of one
+far too learned for her to controvert, easily flattered him back into a
+good humour with her. The next day was fixed for carrying her to the
+Tower, and again Henry determined to play a trick upon his ministers.
+Sending for his wife in the garden, he kept her in conversation until the
+hour appointed for her arrest. When Wriothesley and the guard approached,
+the King turned upon him in a fury, calling him knave, fool, beast, and
+other opprobrious names, to the Lord Chancellor's utter surprise and
+confusion.
+
+The failure of the attack upon Katharine in the summer of 1546 marks the
+decline of the Catholic party in the Council. Peace was made with France
+in the autumn; and Katharine did her part in the splendid reception of the
+Admiral of France and the great rejoicings over the new peace treaty
+(September 1546). Almost simultaneously came the news of fresh dissensions
+between the Emperor and Francis; for the terms of the peace of Crespy were
+flagrantly evaded, and it began to be seen now that the treaty had for its
+sole object the keeping of France quiet and England at war whilst the
+German Protestants were crushed. Not in France alone, but in England too,
+the revulsion of feeling against the Emperor's aims was great. The
+treacherous attack upon his own vassals in order to force orthodoxy upon
+them at the sword's point had been successful, and it was seen to
+constitute a menace to all the world. Again Protestant envoys came to
+England and obtained a loan from Henry: again the Duke Philip of Bavaria,
+who said that he had never heard mass in his life until he arrived in
+England, came to claim the hand of the Princess Mary;[259] and the
+Catholics in the King's Council, forced to stand upon the defensive,
+became, not the conspirators but those conspired against. Hertford and
+Dudley, now Lord Admiral, were the King's principal companions, both in
+his pastimes and his business; and the imperial ambassador expressed his
+fears for the future to a caucus of the Council consisting of Gardiner,
+Wriothesley, and Paulet, deploring, as he said, that "not only had the
+Protestants their openly declared champions ... but I had even heard that
+some of them had gained great favour with the King, though I wished they
+were as far away from Court as they were last year. I did not mention
+names, but the persons I referred to were the Earl of Hertford and the
+Lord Admiral. The councillors made no reply, but they clearly showed that
+they understood me, and continued in their great devotion to your
+Majesty."[260]
+
+Late in September the King fell seriously ill, and his life for a time was
+despaired of. Dr. Butts had died some months before, and the Queen was
+indefatigable in her attendance; and the Seymours, as uncles of the heir,
+rose in importance as the danger to the King increased. The only strong
+men on the Council on the Catholic side were Gardiner, who was extremely
+unpopular and already beaten, and Norfolk. Paulet was as obedient to the
+prevailing wind as a weathercock; Wriothesley was an obsequious, greedy
+sycophant; Paget a humble official with little influence, and the rest
+were nonentities. The enmity of the Seymours against the Howards was of
+long standing, and was as much personal as political; especially between
+the younger brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, and the Earl of Surrey, the heir
+of Norfolk, whose quarrels and affrays had several times caused scandal at
+Court. There was much ill-will also between Surrey and his sister, the
+widowed Duchess of Richmond, who after the death of her young husband had
+been almost betrothed to Sir Thomas Seymour.[261] With these elements of
+enmity a story was trumped up which frightened the sick King into the
+absurd idea that Surrey aimed at succeeding to the crown, to the exclusion
+of Henry's children. It was sufficient to send him to the Tower, and
+afterwards to the block as one of Henry's most popular victims. His
+father, the aged Duke of Norfolk, was got rid of by charges of complicity
+with him. Stripped of his garter, the first of English nobles was carried
+to the Tower by water, whilst his brilliant poet son was led through the
+streets of London like a pickpurse, cheered to the echo by the crowd that
+loved him. The story hatched to explain the arrests to the public, besides
+the silly gossip about Surrey's coat-of-arms and claims to the crown, was,
+that whilst the King was thought to be dying in November at Windsor, the
+Duke and his son had plotted to obtain possession of the Prince for their
+own ends on the death of his father. Having regard for the plots and
+counterplots that we know divided the Council at the time, this is very
+probable, and was exactly what Hertford and Dudley were doing, the Prince,
+indeed, being then in his uncle's keeping at Hertford Castle.
+
+At the end of December the King suffered from a fresh attack, which
+promised to be fatal. He was at Whitehall at the time, whilst Katharine
+was at Greenwich, an unusual thing which attracted much comment; but
+whether she was purposely excluded by Hertford from access to him or not,
+it is certain that the Protestant party of which she, the Duchess of
+Suffolk, and the Countess of Hertford were the principal lady members, and
+the Earl of Hertford and Lord Admiral Dudley the active leaders, alone had
+control of affairs. Gardiner had been threatened with the Tower months
+before, and had then only been saved by Norfolk's bold protest. Now
+Norfolk was safe under bolts and bars, whilst Wriothesley and Paulet were
+openly insulted by Hertford and Dudley, and, like their chief Gardiner,
+lay low in fear of what was to come when the King died.[262] They were
+soon to learn. The King had been growing worse daily during January. His
+legs, covered with running ulcers, were useless to him and in terrible
+torture. His bulk was so unwieldy that mechanical means had to be employed
+to lift him. Surrey had been done to death in the Tower for high treason,
+whilst yet the King's stiffened hand could sign the death-warrant; but
+when the time came for killing Norfolk, Henry was too far gone to place
+his signature to the fatal paper. Wriothesley, always ready to oblige the
+strong, produced a commission, stated to be authorised by the King,
+empowering him as Chancellor to sign for him, which he did upon the
+warrant ordering the death of Norfolk, whose head was to fall on the
+following morning. But it was too late, for on the morrow before the hour
+fixed for the execution the soul of King Henry had gone to its account,
+and none dared carry out the vicarious command to sacrifice the proudest
+noble in the realm for the convenience of the political party for the
+moment predominant.
+
+On the afternoon of 26th January 1547 the end of the King was seen to be
+approaching. The events of Henry's deathbed have been told with so much
+religious passion on both sides that it is somewhat difficult to arrive at
+the truth. Between the soul in despair and mortal anguish, as described by
+Rivadeneyra, and the devout Protestant deathbed portrayed by some of the
+ardent religious reformers, there is a world of difference. The accepted
+English version says that, fearing the dying man's anger, none of the
+courtiers dared to tell him of his coming dissolution, until his old
+friend Sir Anthony Denny, leaning over him, gently broke the news. Henry
+was calm and resigned, and when asked if he wished to see a priest, he
+answered: "Only Cranmer, and him not yet." It was to be never, for Henry
+was speechless and sightless when the Primate came, and the King could
+answer only by a pressure of his numbed fingers the question if he died in
+the faith of Christ. Another contemporary, whom I have several times
+quoted, though always with some reservation, says that Henry, some days
+before he died, took a tender farewell of the Princess Mary, to whose
+motherly care he commended her young brother; and that he then sent for
+the Queen and said to her, "'It is God's will that we should part, and I
+order all these gentlemen to honour and treat you as if I were living
+still; and, if it should be your pleasure to marry again, I order that you
+shall have seven thousand pounds for your service as long as you live, and
+all your jewels and ornaments.' The good Queen could not answer for
+weeping, and he ordered her to leave him. The next day he confessed, took
+the sacrament, and commended his soul to God."[263]
+
+Henry died, in fact, as he had lived, a Catholic. The Reformation in
+England, of which we have traced the beginnings in this book, did not
+spring mature from the mind and will of the King, but was gradually thrust
+upon him by the force of circumstances, arising out of the steps he took
+to satisfy his passion and gratify his imperious vanity. Freedom of
+thought in religion was the last thing to commend itself to such a mind as
+his, and his treatment of those who disobeyed either the Act of Supremacy
+or the Bloody Statute (the Six Articles) shows that neither on the one
+side or the other would he tolerate dissent from his own views, which he
+characteristically caused to be embodied in the law of the land, either in
+politics or religion. The concession to subjects of the right of private
+judgment in matters of conscience seemed to the potentates of the
+sixteenth century to strike at the very base of all authority, and the
+very last to concede such a revolutionary claim was Henry Tudor. His
+separation from the Papal obedience, whilst retaining what, in his view,
+were the essentials of the Papal creed, was directed rather to the
+increase than to the diminution of his own authority over his subjects,
+and it was this fact that doubtless made it more than ever attractive to
+him. To ascribe to him a complete plan for the aggrandisement of England
+and her emancipation from foreign control, by means of religious schism,
+has always appeared to me to endow him with a political sagacity and
+prescience which, in my opinion, he did not possess, and to estimate
+imperfectly the forces by which he was impelled.
+
+We have seen how, entirely in consequence of the unexpected difficulties
+raised by the Papacy to the first divorce, he adopted the bold advice of
+Cranmer and Cromwell to defy the Pope on that particular point. The
+opposition of the Pope was a purely political one, forced upon him by the
+Emperor for reasons of State, in order to prevent a coalition between
+England and France; and there were several occasions when, if the Pope had
+been left to himself, he would have found a solution that would have kept
+England in the orthodox fold. But for the persistence of the opposition
+Henry would never have taken the first step that led to the Reformation.
+Having taken it, each other step onward was the almost inevitable
+consequence of the first, having regard to the peculiar character of the
+King. It has been the main business of this book to trace in what respect
+the policy that ended in the great religious schism was reflected or
+influenced by the matrimonial adventures of the King, who has gone down to
+history as the most married monarch of modern times. We have seen that,
+although, with the exception of Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, each
+for a short time, the direct influence of Henry's wives upon events was
+small, each one represented, and coincided in point of time with, a
+change in the ruling forces around the King. We have seen that the
+libidinous tendency of the monarch was utilised by the rival parties, as
+were all other elements that might help them, to forward the opportunity
+by which a person to some extent dependent upon them might be placed at
+the side of the King as his wife; and when for the purpose it was
+necessary to remove the wife in possession first, we have witnessed the
+process by which it was effected.
+
+The story from this point of view has not been told before in its
+entirety, and as the whole panorama unrolls before us, we mark curiously
+the regular degeneration of Henry's character, as the only checks upon his
+action were removed, and he progressively defied traditional authority and
+established standards of conduct without disaster to himself. The power of
+the Church to censure or punish him, and the fear of personal reprobation
+by the world, were the influences that, had they retained their force over
+him to the end, would probably have kept Henry to all appearance a good
+man. But when he found, probably to his own surprise, that the jealous
+divisions of the Catholic powers on the Continent made defiance of the
+Church in his case unpunishable, and that crafty advisers and servile
+Parliaments could give to his deeds, however violent and cruel, the
+sanction of Holy Writ and the law of the land, there was no power on earth
+to hold in check the devil in the breast of Henry Tudor; and the man who
+began a vain, brilliant sensualist, with the feelings of a gentleman,
+ended a repulsive, bloodstained monster, the more dangerous because his
+evil was always held to be good by himself and those around him.
+
+In his own eyes he was a deeply wronged and ill-used man when Katharine of
+Aragon refused to surrender her position as his wife after twenty years of
+wedlock, and appealed to forces outside England to aid her in supporting
+her claim. It was a rebellious, a cruel, and a wicked thing for her and
+her friends to stand in the way of his tender conscience, and of his
+laudable and natural desire to be succeeded on the throne by a son of his
+own. Similarly, it seemed very hard upon him that all Europe, and most of
+his own country, should be threateningly against him for the sake of Anne
+Boleyn, for whom he had already sacrificed and suffered so much, and
+particularly as she was shrewish and had brought him no son. He really was
+a most ill-used man, and it was a providential instance of divine justice
+that Cromwell, in the nick of time, when the situation had become
+unendurable and Jane Seymour's prudish charms were most elusive, should
+fortunately discover that Anne was unworthy to be Henry's wife, and
+Cranmer should decide that she never _had_ been his wife. It was not his
+fault, moreover, that Anne of Cleves' physical qualities had repelled him.
+A wicked and ungenerous trick had been played upon him. His trustful
+ingenuousness had been betrayed by flatterers at the instance of a knavish
+minister, who, not content with bringing him a large unsympathetic Dutch
+vrow for a wife, had pledged him to an alliance with a lot of
+insignificant vassal princes in rebellion against the greater sovereigns
+who were his own peers. It was a just decree of heaven that the righteous
+wisdom of Gardiner and Norfolk should enable it to be demonstrated clearly
+that the good King had once more been deceived, and that Anne, and the
+policy she stood for, could be repudiated at the same time without
+opprobrium or wrongdoing. Again, how relentless was the persecution of the
+powers of evil against the obese invalid of fifty who married in ignorance
+of her immoral past a light-lived beauty of seventeen, and was undeceived
+when her frivolity began to pall upon him by those whose political and
+religious views might benefit by the disgrace of the party that had placed
+Katharine Howard by the King's side as his wife. That the girl Queen
+should lose her head for lack of virtue before her marriage and lack of
+prudence after it, was, of course, quite just, and in accordance with the
+law of the land--for all that Henry did was strictly legal--but it was a
+heartrending thing that the good husband should suffer the distress of
+having once believed in so unworthy a wife. Still Katharine Howard was not
+sacrificed in vain, for, although the Catholic policy she represented
+suffered no check, for reasons set forth in earlier pages, the King's sad
+bereavement left him in the matrimonial market and enhanced his price as
+an ally, for much of the future depended upon the wife and the party that
+should be in possession when the King died. As we have seen, the
+Protestants, or rather the anti-Catholics, won the last trick; and
+Somerset's predominance meant that the Reformation in England should not
+be one of form alone but of substance.
+
+The life of Katharine Parr after Henry's death hardly enters into the plan
+of this book; but a few lines may be devoted to it, and to her pitiable
+end. The instant rise of the Protector Somerset on the death of Henry
+brought with it a corresponding increase in the importance of his brother
+Sir Thomas, then Lord Seymour of Sudeley, who was certainly no less
+ambitious than his brother, and probably of much stronger character. For a
+time all went well between the brothers, Thomas being created Lord
+Admiral, to the annoyance of Dudley--now Earl of Warwick--who had held the
+office, and receiving great grants of forfeited estates and other wealth.
+But soon the evident attempts of Lord Seymour to rival his elder brother,
+and perhaps to supplant him, aroused the jealousy of Somerset, or more
+likely of his quarrelsome and haughty wife.
+
+Some love passages, we have seen, took place between Seymour and Katharine
+Parr before her marriage with the King, so that it need not be ascribed to
+ambition that the lover should once more cast his eyes upon the royal
+widow before the weeds for the King had been cast aside.[264] Katharine,
+with a large dower that has already been mentioned, lived alternately in
+her two mansion-houses at Chelsea and Hanworth; and to her care was
+consigned the Lady Elizabeth, then a girl of fourteen. As early as the
+beginning of May 1547, Seymour had visited the widowed Queen at Chelsea
+with his tale of love. Katharine was now thirty-four years of age, and
+having married in succession three old men, might fairly be entitled to
+contract a fourth marriage to please herself. There was no more manly or
+handsome figure in England than that of Seymour, with his stately stature,
+his sonorous voice, and his fine brown beard; and in his quiet meetings
+with the Queen in her pretty riverside garden at Chelsea, he appears to
+have found no difficulty in persuading Katharine of the sincerity of his
+love.
+
+For a time the engagement was kept secret; but watchful eyes were around
+the Queen, especially those of her own kin, and the following letter,
+written by Seymour to her on the 17th May, shows that her sister, Lady
+Herbert, at least, had wind from Katharine of what was going on: "After my
+humble commendations of your Highness. Yester night I supped at my brother
+Herbert's, of whom, for your sake besydes my nown, I receved good cheyre.
+And after the same I received from your Highness by my sister Herbert[265]
+your commendations, which were more welcome than they were sent. And after
+the same she (Lady Herbert) waded further with me touching my being with
+your Highness at Chelsey, which I denied; but that, indeed, I went by the
+garden as I went to the Bishop of London's howse; and at this point I
+stood with her for a time, till at last she told me further tokens that
+made me change colour; and she, like a false wench, took me with the
+maner. Then, remembering what she was, and knowing how well ye trusted
+her, I examined her whether these things came from your Highness and by
+that knew it to be true; for the which I render unto your Highness my most
+umbell and harty thanks: for by her company (in default of yours) I shall
+shorten the weeks in these parts, which heretofore were three days longer
+in every of them than they were under the planets at Chelsey. Besydes this
+commoditye I may ascertain (_i.e._ inform) your Highness by her how I do
+proceed in my matter...." Seymour goes on to say that he has not yet dared
+to try his strength until he is fully in favour, this having reference
+apparently to his intention of begging his brother to permit the marriage,
+and then he proceeds: "If I knew by what means I might gratify your
+Highness for your goodness to me at our last being together, I should not
+be slack to declare mine to you again, and the intent that I will be more
+bound to your Highness, I do make my request that, yf it be nott painfull
+to your Highness, that once in three days I may receve three lynes in a
+letter from you; and as many lynes and letters more as shall seem good to
+your Highness. Also I shall ombeley desyr your Highness to geve me one of
+your small pictures yf ye hav one left, who with his silence shall give me
+occasion to think on the friendly cheere I shall have when my sawght
+(suit?) shall be at an end. 12 o'clock in the night this Tewsday the 17th
+May 1547. From him whom ye have bound to honour, love, and in all lawful
+thynges obbey.--T. SEYMOUR."
+
+The Queen had evidently pledged her troth to her lover at the previous
+meeting; and it would appear that when Katharine had promised to write to
+him but once a fortnight her impatience, as much as his, could ill suffer
+so long a silence. Either in answer to the above letter, or another
+similar one, Katharine wrote: "My Lord, I send you my most humble and
+hearty commendations, being desirous to know how ye have done since I saw
+you. I pray ye be not offended with me in that I send sooner to you than I
+said I would, for my promise was but once a fortnight. Howbeit, the time
+is well abbreviated, by what means I know not, except weeks be shorter at
+Chelsey than in other places. My Lord, your brother hath deferred
+answering such requests as I made to him till his coming hither, which he
+sayeth shall be immediately after the term. This is not the first promise
+I have received of his coming, and yet unperformed. I think my lady
+(_i.e._ the Duchess of Somerset) hath taught him that lesson, for it is
+her custom to promise many comings to her friends and to perform none. I
+trust in greater matters she is more circumspect."[266] Then follows a
+curious loving postscript, which shows that Katharine's fancy for Seymour
+was no new passion. "I would not have you think that this, mine honest
+good will toward you, proceeds from any sudden motion of passion; for, as
+truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent the other time I was at
+liberty to marry you before any man I know. Howbeit, God withstood my will
+therein most vehemently for a time, and through His grace and goodness
+made that possible which seemed to me most impossible: that was, made me
+renounce utterly mine own will, and follow His most willingly. It were
+long to write all the process of this matter. If I live I shall declare it
+to you myself. I can say nothing; but as my lady of Suffolk saith: 'God is
+a marvellous man.'--KATHERYN THE QUENE."[267]
+
+The course of true love did not run smoothly. Somerset, and especially his
+wife, did not like the idea of his younger brother's elevation to higher
+influence by his marrying the Queen-Dowager; and the Protector proved
+unwilling to grant his consent to the marriage. Katharine evidently
+resented this, and was inclined to use her great influence with the young
+King himself over his elder uncle's head. When Seymour was in doubt how to
+approach his brother about it, Katharine wrote spiritedly: "The denial of
+your request shall make his folly more manifest to the world, which will
+more grieve me than the want of his speaking. I would not wish you to
+importune for his goodwill if it come not frankly at first. It shall be
+sufficient once to require it, and then to cease. I would desire you might
+obtain the King's letters in your favour, and also the aid and furtherance
+of the most notable of the Council, such as ye shall think convenient,
+which thing being obtained shall be no small shame to your brother and
+sister in case they do not the like." In the same letter Katharine rather
+playfully dallies with her lover's request that she will abridge the
+period of waiting from two years to two months, and then she concludes in
+a way which proves if nothing else did how deeply she was in love with
+Seymour. "When it shall pleasure you to repair hither (Chelsea) ye must
+take some pains to come early in the morning, so that ye may be gone again
+by seven o'clock; and thus I suppose ye may come without being suspect. I
+pray ye let me have knowledge overnight at what hour ye will come, that
+your portress (_i.e._ Katharine herself) may wait at the gate to the
+fields for you."
+
+It was not two years, or even two months, that the impatient lovers
+waited: for they must have been married before the last day in May 1547,
+four months after Henry's death. Katharine's suggestion that the boy King
+himself should be enlisted on their side, was adopted; and he was induced
+to press Seymour's suit to his father's widow, as if he were the promoter
+of it. When the secret marriage was known to Somerset, he expressed the
+greatest indignation and anger at it; and a system of petty persecution of
+Katharine began. Her jewels, of which the King had left her the use during
+her life, were withheld from her; her jointure estates were dealt with by
+Somerset regardless of her wishes and protests; and her every appearance
+at Court led to a squabble with the Protector's wife as to the precedence
+to be accorded to her. On one occasion it is stated that this question of
+precedence led in the Chapel Royal to a personal encounter between
+Katharine and proud Ann Stanhope.
+
+Nor was Katharine's life at home with her gallant, empty-headed, turbulent
+husband, cloudless. The Princess Elizabeth lived with them; and though she
+was but a girl, Seymour began before many months of married life to act
+suspiciously with her. The manners of the time were free; and Seymour
+might perhaps innocently romp suggestively, as he did, sometimes alone and
+sometimes in his wife's presence, with the young Princess as she lay in
+bed; but when Katharine, entering a chamber suddenly once, found young
+Elizabeth embraced in her husband's arms, there was a domestic explosion
+which led to the departure of the girl from the Chelsea household.[268]
+Katharine was pregnant at the time; and Elizabeth's letter to her on her
+leaving Chelsea shows that although, for the sake of prudence, the girl
+was sent away, there was no great unkindness between her and her
+stepmother in consequence. She says that she was chary of her thanks when
+leaving, because "I was replete with sorrow to depart from your Highness,
+especially leaving you undoubtful of health, and, albeit I answered
+little, I weighed more deeper when you said you would warn me of all the
+evils that you should hear of me."
+
+When the poor lady's time drew near, she wrote a hopeful yet pathetic
+letter to her husband, who was already involving himself in the ambitious
+schemes that brought his head to the block. Both she and her husband in
+their letters anticipated the birth of their child with a frankness of
+detail which make the documents unfitted for reproduction here; and it is
+evident that, though they were now often separated, this looked-for son
+was to be a new pledge to bind them together for the future. In June 1548
+Seymour took his wife to Sudeley Castle for her confinement; and from
+there carried on, through his agents with the King, his secret plots to
+supersede his brother Somerset as Protector of the realm. He and his wife
+were surrounded by a retinue so large, as of itself to constitute a menace
+to the Protector; but Katharine's royal title gave a pretext for so large
+a household, and this and her personal influence secured whilst she lived
+her husband's safety from attack by his brother.
+
+At length, on the 30th August, Katharine's child was born, a daughter, and
+at first all went well. Even Somerset, angry and distrustful as he was,
+was infected by his brother's joy, and sent congratulations. But on the
+fourth day the mother became excited, and wandered somewhat; saying that
+she thought she would die, and that she was not being well treated. "Those
+who are about me do not care for me, but stand laughing at my grief," she
+complained to her friend Lady Tyrwhitt. This was evidently directed
+against Seymour, who stood by. "Why, sweetheart," he said, "I would you no
+hurt." "No, my Lord," replied Katharine, "I think so; but," she whispered,
+"you have given me many shrewd taunts." This seems to have troubled
+Seymour, and he suggested to Lady Tyrwhitt that he should lie on the bed
+by the Queen's side and try to calm her; but his efforts were without
+effect, for she continued excitedly to say that she had not been properly
+dealt with. These facts, related and magnified by attendants, and coupled
+with Seymour's desire to marry Elizabeth as soon as his wife died, gave
+rise to a pretty general opinion that Katharine was either poisoned or
+otherwise ill treated. But there are many circumstances that point in the
+contrary direction, and there can be no reasonable doubt now, that
+although in her inmost mind she had begun to distrust her husband, and the
+anxiety so caused may have contributed to her illness, she died (on the
+5th September) of ordinary puerperal fever.
+
+She was buried in great state in the chapel at Sudeley Castle, and her
+remains, which have been examined and described several times, add their
+testimony to the belief that the unfortunate Queen died a natural death.
+The death of Katharine Parr, the last, and least politically important, of
+Henry's six wives, took place, so far as English history is concerned, on
+the day that heralded the death of her royal husband. From the moment that
+Somerset and his wife sat in the seats of the mighty there was no room for
+the exercise of political influence by the Queen-Dowager; and these latter
+pages telling of her fourth marriage, this time for love, form but a human
+postscript to a political history.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1.
+
+[2] The second marriage, by proxy, of Arthur and Katharine eventually took
+place at the chapel of the royal manor of Bewdley on the 19th May 1499,
+and the young Prince appears to have performed his part of the ceremony
+with much decorum: "Saying in a loud, clear voice to Dr. Puebla, who
+represented the bride, that he was much rejoiced to contract an
+indissoluble marriage with Katharine, Princess of Wales, not only in
+obedience to the Pope and King Henry, but also from his deep and sincere
+love for the said Princess, his wife."--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1.
+
+[3] Hall's _Chronicle_.
+
+[4] Leland's _Collectanea_.
+
+[5] Hall's _Chronicle_.
+
+[6] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1.
+
+[7] The Spanish agent believed that Henry would have preferred that
+Katharine had not accompanied Arthur to Wales, but for his desire to force
+her to use her valuables, so that he might obtain their equivalent in
+money. Both Dońa Elvira and Bishop Ayala told Henry that they considered
+that it would be well that the young couple should be separated and not
+live together for a time, as Arthur was so young. But Puebla and the
+Princess's chaplain, Alexander (Fitzgerald), had apparently said to the
+King that the bride's parents did not wish the Princess to be separated
+from her husband on any account. Dońa Elvira's opinion on the matter
+assumes importance from her subsequent declaration soon after Arthur's
+death that she knew the marriage had not been consummated.
+
+[8] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, 271.
+
+[9] There is in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid (I. 325) a Spanish
+document, apparently a contemporary translation of the report sent to
+Henry from Valencia by the three agents he sent thither in 1505 to report
+upon the appearance of the two widowed Queens of Naples resident there.
+James Braybrooke, John Stile, and Francis Marsin express an extremely
+free, but favourable, opinion of the charms of the younger queen, aged
+twenty-seven. Katharine appears to have given letters of recommendation to
+the envoys. The Spanish version of the document varies but little from the
+printed English copy in the Calendar. The date of it is not given, but it
+must have been written in the late autumn of 1505. Henry was evidently
+anxious for the match, though he said that he would not marry the lady for
+all the treasures in the world if she turned out to be ugly. The Queen of
+Naples, however, would not allow a portrait to be taken of her, and
+decidedly objected to the match. The various phases of Henry's own
+matrimonial intrigues cannot be dealt with in this book, but it appears
+certain that if he could have allied himself to Spain by marrying the
+Queen of Naples, he would have broken his son's betrothal with Katharine,
+and have married him to one of the young princesses of France, a
+master-stroke which would have bound him to all the principal political
+factors in Europe.
+
+[10] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, p. 309.
+
+[11] She insisted--in accord with Ferdinand and Isabel--that Katharine
+should live in great seclusion as a widow until the second marriage
+actually took place, and Katharine appears to have done so at this time,
+though not very willingly. Some of her friends seem to have incited her to
+enjoy more freedom, but a tight hand was kept upon her, until events made
+her her own mistress, when, as will be seen in a subsequent page, she
+quite lost her head for a time, and committed what at least were the
+gravest indiscretions. (See _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1 and Supplement.)
+
+[12] The protest is dated 24th June 1505, when Henry was fourteen.
+
+[13] Margaret absolutely refused to marry Henry, and a substitute was
+found in the betrothal of young Charles, the eldest son of Philip, to
+Henry's younger daughter, Mary Tudor, afterwards Queen of France and
+Duchess of Suffolk.
+
+[14] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, 386.
+
+[15] This letter is dated in March 1507, and is a most characteristic
+epistle. Ferdinand in it professes the deepest love for his daughter and
+sympathy for her unhappiness. He had had the money all ready to send, he
+assures her, but King Philip had stopped it; and she must keep friendly
+with King Henry, never allowing any question to be raised as to the
+binding nature of her marriage with his son. As to the King's marriage
+with Juana, the proposal must be kept very secret or Juana will do
+something to prevent it; but if she ever marry again it shall be with no
+one else but Henry. Whether Ferdinand ever meant in any case to sell his
+distraught daughter to Henry may be doubted; but the proposal offered a
+good opportunity of gaining a fresh hold upon the King of England.
+
+[16] Puebla says that Henry had bought very cheaply the jewels of the
+deposed Kings of Naples and had great stores of them. He would only take
+Katharine's at a very low price.
+
+[17] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, 409, 15th April 1507.
+
+[18] The letters relating to this curious affair were for some years kept
+secret by the authorities at Simancas; but were eventually printed in the
+Supplement to vols. 2 and 3 of the _Spanish Calendar_.
+
+[19] _Calendar Henry VIII._, 26th July 1509.
+
+[20] It is doubtful if he was ever present at an engagement, and he
+hurried home from Boulogne as soon as hard fighting seemed to the fore.
+His fear of contagion and sickness was exhibited in most undignified
+fashion on several occasions.
+
+[21] _Calendar Henry VIII._, 23rd September 1513.
+
+[22] Katharine to Wolsey, 13th August 1513. _Calendar Henry VIII._
+
+[23] _Venetian Calendar_, vol. 2, 7th October 1513.
+
+[24] _Venetian Calendar_, vol. 2.
+
+[25] Lippomano from Rome, 1st September. _Venetian Calendar_, vol. 2.
+
+[26] _Calendar Henry VIII._, 31st December 1514.
+
+[27] See Giustiani's letters in the _Venetian Calendars_ of the date.
+
+[28] See the letters of Henry's secretary, Richard Pace, in the _Calendar
+of Henry VIII._, vol. 2.
+
+[29] The Emperor's fleet was sighted off Plymouth on the 23rd May 1520.
+
+[30] In the _Rutland Papers_ (Camden Society), Hall's _Chronicle_, and
+Camden's _Annales_ full and interesting details will be found.
+
+[31] The ambassador Martin de Salinas, who arrived in England during the
+Emperor's stay, from the Archduke Ferdinand who acted as _locum tenens_ in
+Germany for his brother, reports (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 2)
+that he delivered separate credentials to Queen Katharine, who promised to
+read them and give him her answer later. He continues: "I went to see her
+again this morning. She said that one of the letters had contained my
+credentials and the other spoke of the business of the Turks. The time for
+a war with the Turks, she declared, was ill chosen; as the war with France
+absorbed all the English resources. I told her that the Infante (_i.e._
+Ferdinand) regarded her as his true mother, and prayed her not to forsake
+him, but to see that the King of England sent him succour against the
+Turk. She answered that it will be impossible for the King to do so." It
+will be seen by this and other references to the same matter that
+Katharine at this time, during the imperial alliance, was again taking a
+powerful part in political affairs.
+
+[32] See the series of letters in Bradford's "Charles V." and Pace's
+correspondence in the _Henry VIII. Calendar_.
+
+[33] A good idea of the magnitude and splendour of the preparations may be
+gained by the official lists of personages and "diets," in the _Rutland
+Papers_, Camden Society. The pageants themselves are fully described in
+Hall.
+
+[34] Amongst others the 10 per cent. tax on all property in 1523. See
+Roper's "Life of More," Hall's _Chronicle_, Herbert's "Henry VIII.," &c.
+
+[35] Henry's answer, which was very emphatic, testified that although he
+had lost affection for his wife he respected her still; indeed his
+attitude to her throughout all his subsequent cruelty was consistently
+respectful to her character as a woman and a queen. "If," he said on this
+occasion, "he should seek a mistress for her (the Princess Mary), to frame
+her after the manner of Spain, and of whom she might take example of
+virtue, he should not find in all Christendom a more mete than she now
+hath, that is the Queen's grace, her mother."--_Venetian Calendar._
+
+[36] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 3, p. 1.
+
+[37] Late in 1525. A sad little letter written by Katharine in her quaint
+English to her daughter at this time is well known, but will bear
+repeating. Mary had written asking how she was; and the reply assures the
+Princess that it had not been forgetfulness of her that had caused her
+mother to delay the answer. "I am in that case that the long absence of
+the King and you troubleth me. My health is metely good; and I trust in
+God, he that sent me the last (illness?) doth it to the best and will
+shortly turn it (_i.e._ like?) to the fyrst to come to good effect. And in
+the meantime, I am veray glad to hear from you, specially when they shew
+me that ye be well amended. As for your writing in Latin, I am glad ye
+shall change from me to Master Federston; for that shall do you much good
+to learn by him to write right. But yet sometimes I would be glad when ye
+do write to Master Federston of your own enditing, when he hath read it
+that I may see it. For it shall be a great comfort to me to see you keep
+your Latin and fair writing and all." (Ellis' "Original Letters," B.M.
+Cotton Vesp. F. xiii.)
+
+[38] Mr. Froude denied that there is any foundation for the assertion that
+Mary Boleyn was the King's mistress. It seems to me, on the contrary, to
+be as fully supported by evidence as any such fact can be.
+
+[39] As usual, Hall is very diffuse in his descriptions of these
+festivities, especially in their sartorial aspects, and those readers who
+desire such details may be referred to his _Chronicle_.
+
+[40] Cavendish, "Life of Wolsey."
+
+[41] Letters of Ińigo Lopez de Mendoza early in 1527. _Spanish Calendar_,
+vol. 3, part 2.
+
+[42] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 3, part 2, Mendoza's letters, and _Henry
+VIII. Calendar_, vol. 4, part 2, Wolsey to the King, 5th July 1527.
+
+[43] How false were all the parties to each other at this time may be seen
+in a curious letter from Knight, the King's secretary, to Wolsey (when in
+France) about this man's going (Ellis' "Original Letters"). "So yt is that
+Francisco Philip Spaniard hath instantly laboured for license to go into
+Spain pretendyng cawse and colour of his goyng to be forasmuch as he
+saiyth he wolde visite his modre which is veari sore syk. The Queen hath
+both refused to assent unto his going and allso laboured unto the King's
+Highnesse to empesh the same. The King's Highnesse, knowing grete colusion
+and dissymulation betwene theym, doth allso dissymule faynyng that
+Philip's desyre is made upon good grownde and consideration, and hath
+easyli persuaded the Quene to be content with his goyng." The writer
+continues that the King had even promised to ransom Felipe if he was
+captured on his way through France, and desires Wolsey, notwithstanding
+the man's passport, to have him secretly captured, taking care that the
+King's share in the plot should never be known. Wolsey in reply says that
+it shall be done, unless Felipe went to Spain by sea. Probably Katharine
+guessed her husband's trick, for Felipe must have gone by sea, as he duly
+arrived at Valladolid and told the Emperor his message.
+
+[44] Blickling Hall, Norfolk, is frequently claimed as her birthplace, and
+even Ireland has put in its claim for the doubtful honour. The evidence in
+favour of Hever is, however, the strongest.
+
+[45] Mr. Brewer was strongly of opinion that Anne did not go to France
+until some years afterwards, and that it was Mary Boleyn who accompanied
+the Princess in 1514. He also believed that Anne was the younger of the
+two sisters. There was, of course, some ground for both of these
+contentions, but the evidence marshalled against them by Mr. Friedmann in
+an appendix to his "Anne Boleyn" appears to me unanswerable.
+
+[46] "Life of Wolsey." Cavendish was the Cardinal's gentleman usher.
+
+[47] "Life of Wolsey." It was afterwards stated, with much probability of
+truth, that Anne's _liaison_ with Percy had gone much further than a mere
+engagement to marry.
+
+[48] Cavendish, Wolsey's usher, tells a story which shows how Katharine
+regarded the King's flirtation with Anne at this time. Playing at cards
+with her rival, the Queen noticed that Anne held the King several times.
+"My lady Anne," she said, "you have good hap ever to stop at a King; but
+you are like the others, you will have all or none." Contemptuous
+tolerance by a proud royal lady of a light jade who was scheming to be her
+husband's mistress, was evidently Katharine's sentiment.
+
+[49] Wolsey to Henry from Compiegne, 5th September 1527. _Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[50] Wolsey to Ghinucci and Lee, 5th August 1527. _Calendar Henry VIII._,
+vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[51] Several long speeches stated to have been uttered by her to Henry
+when he sought her illicit love are given in the Sloane MSS., 2495, in the
+British Museum, but they are stilted expressions of exalted virtue quite
+foreign to Anne's character and manner.
+
+[52] Although it was said to have been suggested by Dr. Barlow, Lord
+Rochford's chaplain.
+
+[53] The dispensation asked for was to permit Henry to marry a woman, even
+if she stood in the first degree of affinity, "either by reason of licit
+or illicit connection," provided she was not the widow of his deceased
+brother. This could only refer to the fact that Mary Boleyn, Anne's
+sister, had been his mistress, and that Henry desired to provide against
+all risk of a disputed succession arising out of the invalidity of the
+proposed marriage. By the canon law previous to 1533 no difference had
+been made between legitimate and illegitimate intercourse so far as
+concerned the forbidden degrees of affinity between husband and wife. In
+that year (1533) when Henry's marriage with Anne had just been celebrated,
+an Act of Parliament was passed setting forth a list of forbidden degrees
+for husband and wife, and in this the affinities by reason of illicit
+intercourse were omitted. In 1536, when Anne was doomed, another Act was
+passed ordering every man who had married the sister of a former mistress
+to separate from her and forbidding such marriages in future. Before
+Henry's marriage with Anne, Sir George Throgmorton mentioned to him the
+common belief that Henry had carried on a _liaison_ with both the
+stepmother and the sister of Anne. "_Never with the mother_," replied the
+King; "nor with the sister either," added Cromwell. But most people will
+conclude that the King's remark was an admission that Mary Boleyn was his
+mistress. (Friedmann's "Anne Boleyn," Appendix B.)
+
+[54] It would not be fair to accept as gospel the unsupported assertions
+of the enemies of Anne with regard to her light behaviour before marriage,
+though they are numerous and circumstantial, but Wyatt's own story of his
+snatching a locket from her and wearing it under his doublet, by which
+Henry's jealousy was aroused, gives us the clue to the meaning of another
+contemporary statement (_Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the writer),
+to the effect that Wyatt, who was a great friend of the King, and was one
+of those accused at the time of Anne's fall, when confronted with
+Cromwell, privately told him to remind the King of the warning he gave him
+about Anne before the marriage. Chapuys, also, writing at the time when
+Anne was in the highest favour (1530), told the Emperor that she had been
+accused by the Duke of Suffolk of undue familiarity with "a gentleman who
+on a former occasion had been banished on suspicion." This might apply
+either to Percy or Wyatt. All authorities agree that her demeanour was not
+usually modest or decorous.
+
+[55] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[56] Not content with her Howard descent through her mother, Anne, or
+rather her father, had caused a bogus pedigree to be drawn up by which the
+city mercer who had been his grandfather was represented as being of noble
+Norman blood. The Duchess of Norfolk was scornful and indignant, and gave
+to Anne "a piece of her mind" on the subject, greatly to Henry's
+annoyance. (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.)
+
+[57] They took with them a love-letter from the King to Anne which is
+still extant (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2). He tells her that
+"they were despatched with as many things to compass our matter as wit
+could imagine," and he trusts that he and his sweetheart will shortly have
+their desired end. "This would be more to my heart's ease and quietness of
+mind than anything in the world.... Keep him (_i.e._ Gardiner) not too
+long with you, but desire him for your sake to make the more speed; for
+the sooner we have word of him the sooner shall our matter come to pass.
+And thus upon trust of your short repair to London I make end of my
+letter, mine own sweetheart. Written with the hand of him which desireth
+as much to be yours as you do to have him." Gardiner also took with him
+Henry's book justifying his view of the invalidity of his marriage. A good
+description of the Pope's cautious attitude whilst he read this production
+is contained in Gardiner's letter from Orvieto, 31st March 1528. (_Henry
+VIII. Calendar_, vol. 4, part 2.)
+
+[58] Hall tells a curious and circumstantial story that the declaration of
+war, which led to the confiscation of great quantities of English property
+in the imperial dominions, was brought about purely by a trick of Wolsey,
+his intention being to sacrifice Clarencieux Herald, who was sent to Spain
+with the defiance. Clarencieux, however, learnt of the intention as he
+passed through Bayonne on his way home, and found means through Nicholas
+Carew to see the King at Hampton Court before Wolsey knew of his return.
+When he had shown Henry by the Cardinal's own letters that the grounds for
+the declaration of war had been invented by the latter, the King burst out
+angrily: "O Lorde Jesu! he that I trusted moste told me all these things
+contrary. Well, Clarencieux, I will be no more of so light credence
+hereafter, for now I see perfectly that I am made to believe the thing
+that never was done." Hall continues that the King was closeted with
+Wolsey, from which audience the Cardinal came "not very mery, and after
+that time the Kyng mistrusted hym ever after." This must have been in
+April 1528.
+
+[59] For Erasmus' letter see _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2, and
+for Vives' letter see "Vives Opera," vol. 7.
+
+[60] The Pope was told that there were certain secret reasons which could
+not be committed to writing why the marriage should be dissolved, the
+Queen "suffering from certain diseases defying all remedy, for which, as
+well as other reasons, the King would never again live with her as his
+wife."
+
+[61] This was written before the death of the courtiers already mentioned.
+
+[62] See the letters on the question of the appointment of the Abbess of
+Wilton in Fiddes' "Life of Wolsey," and the _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol.
+4, part 2, &c.
+
+[63] This letter was stated by Sir H. Ellis in his "Original Letters" to
+be from Katharine and Henry; and many false presumptions with regard to
+their relations at this time have been founded on the error.
+
+[64] It will be remarked that her statement was limited to the fact that
+she had remained intact _da lui_, "by him." This might well be true, and
+yet there might be grounds for Henry's silence in non-confirmation of her
+public and repeated reiteration of the statement in the course of the
+proceedings, and for the stress laid by his advocates upon the boyish
+boast of Arthur related in an earlier chapter. The episode of the young
+cleric, Diego Fernandez, must not be forgotten in this connection.
+
+[65] The words, often quoted, are given by Hall.
+
+[66] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[67] Wolsey to Sir Gregory Casale, 1st November 1528. _Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[68] Or as Henry himself puts it in his letters to his envoys in Rome,
+"for him to have two legal wives instead of one," Katharine in a convent
+and the other by his side.
+
+[69] So desirous was the Papal interest to persuade Katharine to this
+course that one of the Cardinals in Rome (Salviati) told the Emperor's
+envoy Mai that she would be very unwise to resist further or she might be
+poisoned, as the English ambassadors had hinted she would be. Mai's reply
+was that "the Queen was ready to incur that danger rather than be a bad
+wife and prejudice her daughter." (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part
+3.)
+
+[70] Hall's _Chronicle_.
+
+[71] This is Hall's version. Du Bellay, the French ambassador (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2), adds that Henry began to hector at the end
+of the speech, saying that if any one dared in future to speak of the
+matter in a way disrespectful to him he would let him know who was master.
+"There was no head so fine," he said, "that he would not make it fly."
+
+[72] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2. "Intended Address of the
+Legates to the Queen."
+
+[73] This is not surprising, as only a month before she had been reproved
+and threatened for not being sad enough.
+
+[74] There seems to be no doubt, from a letter written in January 1529 by
+the Pope to Campeggio, that the copy sent to Katharine from Spain was a
+forgery, or contained clauses which operated in her favour, but which were
+not in the original document. It was said that there was no entry of such
+a brief in the Papal archives, and Katharine herself asserted that the
+wording of it--alleging the consummation of Arthur's marriage--was unknown
+to her. The Spaniards explained the absence of any record of the document
+in the Papal Registry by saying that at the urgent prayer of Isabel the
+Catholic on her deathbed, the original brief had been sent to her as soon
+as it was granted. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 3, p. 2278.)
+
+[75] _Ibid._
+
+[76] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 3.
+
+[77] _Ibid._ The suspicion against Wolsey at this time arose doubtless
+from his renewed attempts to obtain the Papacy on Clement's death. These
+led him to oppose a decision of the divorce except by the ecclesiastical
+authority.
+
+[78] It was on this occasion that Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
+Henry's old friend and brother-in-law, lost patience. "Banging the table
+before him violently, he shouted: 'By the Mass! now I see that the old saw
+is true, that there never was Legate or Cardinal that did good in
+England;' and with that all the temporal lords departed to the King,
+leaving the Legates sitting looking at each other, sore
+astonished."--Hall's _Chronicle_, and Cavendish's "Wolsey."
+
+[79] Du Bellay to Montmorency, 22nd October 1529. _Henry VIII. Calendar_,
+vol. 4, part 3.
+
+[80] This peremptory order seems to have been precipitated by a peculiarly
+acrimonious correspondence between Henry and his wife at the end of July.
+She had been in the habit of sending him private messages under token; and
+when he and Anne had left Windsor on their hunting tour, Katharine sent to
+him, as usual, to inquire after his health and to say that, though she had
+been forbidden to accompany him, she had hoped, at least, that she might
+have been allowed to bid him good-bye. The King burst into a violent rage.
+"Tell the Queen," he said to the messenger, "that he did not want any of
+her good-byes, and had no wish to afford her consolation. He did not care
+whether she asked after his health or not. She had caused him no end of
+trouble, and had obstinately refused the reasonable request of his Privy
+Council. She depended, he knew, upon the Emperor; but she would find that
+God Almighty was more powerful still. In any case, he wanted no more of
+her messages." To this angry outburst the Queen must needs write a long,
+cold, dignified, and utterly tactless letter, which irritated the King
+still more, and his reply was that of a vulgar bully without a spark of
+good feeling. "It would be a great deal better," he wrote, "if she spent
+her time in seeking witnesses to prove her pretended virginity at the time
+of her marriage with him, than in talking about it to whoever would listen
+to her, as she was doing. As for sending messages to him, let her stop it,
+and mind her own business. (Chapuys to the Emperor, 21st July 1531.
+_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._)
+
+[81] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 1531.
+
+[82] Katharine to the Emperor, _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 28th July
+1531.
+
+[83] Foxe.
+
+[84] Chapuys relates in May 1532 that when Henry asked the House of
+Commons for a grant to fortify the Scottish Border, two members spoke
+strongly against it. The best guarantee of peace, they said, was to keep
+friendly with the Emperor. They urged the House to beg the King to return
+to his lawful wife, and treat her properly, or the whole kingdom would be
+ruined; since the Emperor was more capable of harming England than any
+other potentate, and would not fail to avenge his aunt. The House, it is
+represented, was in favour of this view with the exception of two or three
+members, and the question of the grant demanded was held in abeyance.
+Henry, of course, was extremely angry, and sent for the majority, whom he
+harangued in a long speech, saying that the matter of the divorce was not
+then before them, but that he was determined to protect them against
+ecclesiastical encroachment. The leaders of the protest, however, were
+made to understand they were treading on dangerous ground, and hastened to
+submit before Henry's threats.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 4, 2nd May 1532.
+
+[85] Chapuys to the Emperor, 16th April 1532.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 4,
+2nd May 1532.
+
+[86] In May 1532 the Nuncio complained to Norfolk of a preacher who in the
+pulpit had dared to call the Pope a heretic. The Duke replied that he was
+not surprised, for the man was a Lutheran. If it had not been for the Earl
+of Wiltshire _and another person_ (evidently Anne) he, Norfolk, would have
+burnt the man alive, with another like him. It is clear from this that
+Norfolk was now gravely alarmed at the religious situation created by
+Anne.
+
+[87] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 1st October 1532.
+
+[88] Hall's _Chronicle_, and _The Chronicle of Calais_, Camden Society.
+
+[89] It is often stated to have been celebrated by Dr. Lee, and sometimes
+even by Cranmer, who appears to have been present.
+
+[90] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 9th February
+1533.
+
+[91] _Ibid._, 15th February.
+
+[92] Chapuys, writing to Granville on the 23rd February, relates that
+Anne, "without rhyme or reason, amidst a great company as she came out her
+chamber, began to say to one whom she loves well, and who was formerly
+sent away from Court by the King out of jealousy (probably Wyatt), that
+three days before she had had a furious hankering to eat apples, such as
+she had never had in her life before; and the King had told her that it
+was a sign she was pregnant, but she had said that it was nothing of the
+sort. Then she burst out laughing loudly and returned to her room. Almost
+all the Court heard what she said and did; and most of those present were
+much surprised and shocked." (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._)
+
+[93] Mountjoy, Katharine's chamberlain, or rather gaoler, immediately
+afterwards gave the Queen a still harsher message, to the effect that not
+only was she to be deprived of the regal title, but that the King would
+not continue to provide for her household. "He would retire her to some
+private house of her own, there to live on a small allowance, which, I am
+told, will scarcely be sufficient to cover the expenses of her household
+for the first quarter of next year." Katharine replied that, so long as
+she lived, she should call herself Queen. As to beginning housekeeping on
+her own account, she could not begin so late in life. If her expenses were
+too heavy the King might take her personal property, and place her where
+he chose, with a confessor, a physician, an apothecary, and two
+chamber-maids. If that was too much to ask, and there was nothing for her
+and her servants to live upon, she would willingly go out into the world
+and beg for alms for the sake of God. (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._,
+15th April 1533.)
+
+[94] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 15th April
+1533.
+
+[95] It was shortly after this that Friar George Brown first publicly
+prayed for the new Queen at Austin Friars.
+
+[96] Chapuys to the Emperor, 27th April and 18th May 1533.
+
+[97] An interesting letter from Cranmer on the subject is in the Harleian
+MSS., British Museum (Ellis's Letters, vol. 2, series 1).
+
+[98] The Duke of Norfolk was apparently delighted to be absent from his
+niece's triumph, though the Duchess followed Anne in a carriage. He
+started the day before to be present at the interview between Francis and
+the Pope at Nice. He had two extraordinary secret conferences with Chapuys
+just before he left London, in which he displayed without attempt at
+concealment his and the King's vivid apprehension that the Emperor would
+make war upon England. Norfolk went from humble cringing and flattery to
+desperate threats, praying that Chapuys would do his best to reconcile
+Katharine to Cranmer's sentence and to prevent war. He praised Katharine
+to the skies "for her great modesty, prudence, and forbearance during the
+divorce proceedings, as well as on former occasions, the King having been
+at all times inclined to amours." Most significant of all was Norfolk's
+declaration "that he had not been either the originator or promoter of
+this second marriage, but on the contrary had always been opposed to it,
+and had tried to dissuade the King therefrom." (_Spanish Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 6, part 2, 29th May 1533.)
+
+[99] Norfolk, on the morning of the water pageant, told Chapuys that the
+King had been very angry to learn that Katharine's barge had been
+appropriated by Anne, and the arms ignominiously torn off and hacked; and
+the new Queen's chamberlain had been reprimanded for it, as there were
+plenty of barges on the river as fit for the purpose as that one. But Anne
+would bate no jot of her spiteful triumph over her rival; and, as is told
+in the text, she used Katharine's barge for her progress, in spite of all.
+
+[100] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present writer,
+1889.
+
+[101] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 11th and
+30th July 1533.
+
+[102] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present writer.
+
+[103] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ Cranmer, in his letter to Hawkins giving
+an account of the festivities on this occasion (Harl. MSS., Ellis's
+Original Letters, vol. 2, series 1), says that after the banquet in the
+hall of the old palace, "She was conveyed owte of the bake syde of the
+palice into a barge and, soe unto Yorke Place, where the King's Grace was
+before her comyng; for this you must ever presuppose that his Grace came
+allwayes before her secretlye in a barge as well frome Grenewyche to the
+Tower, as from the Tower to Yorke Place."
+
+[104] Stow gives some curious glimpses of the public detestation of the
+marriage, and of the boldness of Friar Peto in preaching before the King
+at Greenwich in condemnation of it; and the letter of the Earl of Derby
+and Sir Henry Faryngton to Henry (Ellis's Original Letters, vol. 2, series
+1) recounts several instances of bold talk in Lancashire on the subject,
+the most insulting and opprobrious words being used to describe "Nan
+Bullen the hoore."
+
+[105] Lord Herbert of Cherbury.
+
+[106] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 11th July 1533.
+
+[107] Katharine was even more indignant shortly afterwards, when she was
+informed that of the sum apportioned to her sustenance, only 12,000 crowns
+a year was to be at her own disposal, the rest, 18,000 crowns, being
+administered by an agent of the King, who would pay the bills and
+servants. She was for open rebellion on this point--she would rather beg
+her bread in the streets, she said, than consent to it--but Chapuys knew
+that his master did not wish to drive affairs to an extremity just then,
+and counselled submission and patience. (_Ibid._, 23rd August.)
+
+[108] Chapuys to the Emperor, 30th July 1533.
+
+[109] Chapuys writes a day or two afterwards: "The baptism ceremony was
+sad and unpleasant as the mother's coronation had been. Neither at Court
+nor in the city have there been the bonfires, illuminations, and
+rejoicings usual on such occasions."
+
+[110] Katharine had shortly before complained of the insalubrity of
+Buckden and its distance from London.
+
+[111] Katharine's appeal that she might not be deprived of the service of
+her own countrymen is very pathetic. She wrote to the Council: "As to my
+physician and apothecary, they be my countrymen: the King knoweth them as
+well as I do. They have continued many years with me and (I thank them)
+have taken great pains with me, for I am often sickly, as the King's grace
+doth know right well, and I require their attendance for the preservation
+of my poor body, that I may live as long as it pleaseth God. They have
+been faithful and diligent in my service, and also daily do pray that the
+King's royal estate may long endure. But if they take any other oath to
+the King and to me (to serve me) than that which they have taken, I shall
+never trust them again, for in so doing I should live continually in fear
+of my life with them. Wherefore I trust the King, in his high honour and
+goodness, and for the great love that hath been between us (which love in
+me is as faithful to him as ever it was, I take God to record) will not
+use extremity with me, my request being so reasonable."--_Privy Council
+Papers_, December 1533.
+
+[112] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 27th December 1533.
+
+[113] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 27th December 1533.
+
+[114] Chapuys to the Emperor, 17th January 1534.
+
+[115] Many instances are given by Chapuys of Anne's bitter spite against
+Mary about this time. In February 1534 he mentions that Northumberland
+(Anne's old flame, who had more than once got into trouble about her) had
+said that she was determined to poison Mary. Some one else had told him
+that Anne had sent to her aunt, Lady Clare, who was Mary's governess,
+telling her if the Princess used her title "to give her a good banging
+like the cursed bastard that she was." Soon afterwards the girl is
+reported to be nearly destitute of clothes and other necessaries. When
+Anne visited her daughter at Hatfield in March, she sent for Mary to come
+and pay her respects to her as Queen. "I know no Queen in England but my
+mother," was Mary's proud answer: and a few days afterwards Norfolk took
+away all the girl's jewels, and told her brutally that she was no princess
+and it was time her pride was abated: and Lady Clare assured her that the
+King did not care whether she renounced her title or not. Parliament by
+statute had declared her a bastard, and if she (Lady Clare) were in the
+King's place she would kick her out of the house. It was said also that
+the King himself had threatened that Mary should lose her head. There was,
+no doubt, some truth in all this, but it must not be forgotten that
+Chapuys, who reports most of it, was Anne's deadly enemy.
+
+[116] Lee's instructions are said to have been "not to press the Queen
+very hard." It must have been evident that no pressure would suffice.
+
+[117] The Queen wrote to Chapuys soon afterwards saying that the bishops
+had threatened her with the gibbet. She asked which of them was going to
+be the hangman, and said that she must ask them to hang her in public, not
+secretly. Lee's and Tunstall's own account of their proceedings is in the
+_Calendar of Henry VIII._, 29th May 1534.
+
+[118] This lackey's name is given Bastian Hennyocke in the English State
+Papers. To him Katharine left Ł20 in her will. The other Spanish servants
+with Katharine at the time, besides Francisco Felipe, the Groom of the
+Chambers, and the Bishop of Llandaff (Fray Jorge de Ateca), were Dr.
+Miguel de la Sá, Juan Soto, Felipe de Granada, and Antonio Roca.
+
+[119] This narrative is taken from the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._,
+edited by the present writer. The author of the Chronicle was a Spanish
+merchant resident in London, and he was evidently indebted for this
+description of the scene to his friend and countryman, Francisco Felipe,
+Katharine's Groom of the Chambers. The account supplements but does not
+materially contradict the official report of Lee and Tunstall, and
+Chapuys' account to the Emperor gained from the Queen and her Spanish
+attendants.
+
+[120] Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th May 1534.
+
+[121] She had written more than one fiery letter to Charles during the
+previous few months, fervently urging him to strike for the authority of
+the Church. All considerations of her safety and that of her daughter, she
+said, were to be put aside. It was the duty of the Emperor to his faith
+that the march of heresy and iniquity in England should be stayed at any
+cost, and she exhorted him not to fail. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, February
+and May 1534.)
+
+[122] Bedingfield and Tyrell were instructed in May 1534 to inform
+Katharine that the appeal she had made that her Spanish servants should
+not be penalised for refusing to take the oath to the new Act of
+Succession had been rejected, but licenses for the Spaniards to stay with
+their mistress on the old footing were soon afterwards given. (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._, May 1534.)
+
+[123] The account here given, that of Chapuys himself, is quaintly and
+minutely confirmed by that of one of the Spanish merchants who accompanied
+him, Antonio de Guaras, the author of the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry
+VIII._
+
+[124] See Chapuys' many letters on the subject.
+
+[125] Letters of Stephen Vaughan, Henry's envoy to Germany. (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._, vol. 7, etc.)
+
+[126] Letters of Chapuys in the autumn of 1534. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[127] Chapuys to the Emperor, 2nd May 1536.
+
+[128] Lady Shelton.
+
+[129] The plans for Mary's flight from Eltham and her deportation to the
+Continent were nearly successful at this time.
+
+[130] Katharine had first met the saintly Friar Forest when she had gone
+on the famous pilgrimage to Walsingham after the victory of Flodden
+(October 1513), and on his first imprisonment she and her maid, Elizabeth
+Hammon, wrote heart-broken letters to him urging him to escape. (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._)
+
+[131] A vivid picture of the general discontent in England at this time,
+and the steadfast fidelity of the people to the cause of Katharine and
+Mary, is given by the French envoy, the Bishop of Tarbes. (_Calendar Henry
+VIII._, October 1535.)
+
+[132] The suggestion had been tentatively put forward by the English
+Minister in Flanders three months before.
+
+[133] This is according to Bedingfield's statement, although from Chapuys'
+letters, in which the chronology is a little confusing, it might possibly
+be inferred that he arrived at Kimbolton on the 1st January and that Lady
+Willoughby arrived soon after him. I am inclined to think that the day I
+have mentioned, however, is the correct one.
+
+[134] In the previous month of November she had written what she called
+her final appeal to the Emperor through Chapuys. In the most solemn and
+exalted manner she exhorted her nephew to strike and save her before she
+and her daughter were done to death by the forthcoming Parliament. This
+supreme heart-cry having been met as all similar appeals had been by
+smooth evasions on the part of Charles, Katharine thenceforward lost hope,
+and resigned herself to her fate.
+
+[135] Before Chapuys left Kimbolton he asked De la Sá if he had any
+suspicion that the Queen was being poisoned. The Spanish doctor replied
+that he feared that such was the case, though some slow and cunningly
+contrived poison must be that employed, as he could not see any signs or
+appearance of a simple poison. The Queen, he said, had never been well
+since she had partaken of some Welsh beer. The matter is still greatly in
+doubt, and there are many suspicious circumstances--the exclusion of De la
+Sá and the Bishop of Llandaff from the room when the body was opened, and
+the strenuous efforts to retain both of them in England after Katharine's
+death; and, above all, the urgent political reasons that Henry had for
+wishing Katharine to die, since he dared not carry out his threat of
+having her attainted and taken to the Tower. Such a proceeding would have
+provoked a rising which would almost certainly have swept him from the
+throne.
+
+[136] Even this small gold cross with a sacred relic enclosed in it--the
+jewel itself not being worth, as Chapuys says, more than ten crowns--was
+demanded of Mary by Cromwell soon afterwards.
+
+[137] This account of Katharine's death is compiled from Chapuys' letters,
+Bedingfield's letters, and others in the _Spanish_ and _Henry VIII.
+Calendars_, and from the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[138] The letter tells Henry that death draws near to her, and she must
+remind him for her love's sake to safeguard his soul before the desires of
+his body, "for which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into
+many cares. For my part I do pardon you all, yea I do wish and devoutly
+pray God that He will also pardon you." She commends her daughter and her
+maids to him, and concludes, "Lastly, I do vow that mine eyes desire you
+above all things." Katharine, Queen of England. (Cotton MSS., British
+Museum, Otho C. x.)
+
+[139] The death of Sir Thomas More greatly increased Anne's unpopularity.
+It is recorded (More's _Life of More_) that when the news came of the
+execution the King and Anne sat at play, and Henry ungenerously told her
+she was the cause of it, and abruptly left the table in anger.
+
+[140] Even the King's fool dared (July 1535) to call her a bawd and her
+child a bastard.
+
+[141] Chapuys to the Emperor, 24th February 1536.
+
+[142] Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th January 1536.
+
+[143] Probably the following letter, which has been frequently
+printed:--"My dear friend and mistress. The bearer of these few lines from
+thy entirely devoted servant will deliver into thy fair hands a token of
+my true affection for thee, hoping you will keep it for ever in your
+sincere love for me. Advertising you that there is a ballad made lately of
+great derision against us, which if it go much abroad and is seen by you I
+pray you pay no manner of regard to it. I am not at present informed who
+is the setter forth of this malignant writing, but if he is found he shall
+be straitly punished for it. For the things ye lacked I have minded my
+lord to supply them to you as soon as he can buy them. Thus hoping shortly
+to receive you in these arms I end for the present your own loving servant
+and Sovereign. H. R."
+
+[144] Chapuys to the Emperor, 1st April 1536.
+
+[145] See p. 264.
+
+[146] It will be recollected that this question of the return of the
+alienated ecclesiastical property was the principal difficulty when Mary
+brought England back again into the fold of the Church. Pole and the
+Churchmen at Rome were for unconditional restitution, which would have
+made Mary's task an impossible one; the political view which recommended
+conciliation and a recognition of facts being that urged by Charles and
+his son Philip, and subsequently adopted. Charles had never shown undue
+respect for ecclesiastical property in Spain, and had on more than one
+occasion spoliated the Church for his own purposes.
+
+[147] Chapuys to the Emperor, 6th June 1536. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[148] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, ed. Martin Hume. The author was
+Antonio de Guaras, a Spanish merchant in London, and afterwards Chargé
+d'Affaires. His evidence is to a great extent hearsay, but it truly
+represented the belief current at the time.
+
+[149] British Museum, Cotton, Otho C. x., and Singer's addition to
+Cavendish's _Wolsey_.
+
+[150] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[151] It must not be forgotten that the dinner hour was before noon.
+
+[152] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[153] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[154] See letter from Sir W. Kingston, Governor of the Tower, to Cromwell,
+3rd May 1536, Cotton MSS., Otho C. x.
+
+[155] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[156] Full account of her behaviour from day to day in the Tower will be
+found in Kingston's letters to Cromwell, Cotton MSS., Otho C. x., which
+have been printed in several places, and especially in the _Calendars
+Henry VIII._
+
+[157] The beautiful letter signed Ann Bullen and addressed to the King
+with the date of 6th May, in which the writer in dignified language
+protests innocence and begs for an impartial trial, is well known, having
+been printed many times. It is, however, of extremely doubtful
+authenticity; the writing and signature being certainly not that of Anne,
+and the composition unconvincing, though the letter is said to have been
+found amongst Cromwell's papers after his arrest. The genuineness of the
+document being so questionable, I have not thought well to reproduce it
+here.
+
+[158] Strype's _Cranmer_. Cranmer was at Croydon when Cromwell sent him
+news of Anne's arrest, with the King's command that he should go to
+Lambeth and stay there till further orders reached him. This letter was
+written as soon as he arrived there.
+
+[159] Much appears to have been made of a certain alleged death-bed
+deposition of Lady Wingfield recently dead, who had been one of Anne's
+attendants, and as it was asserted, the conniver of her amours. Exactly
+what Lady Wingfield had confessed is not now known, nor the amount of
+credence to be given to her declarations. They appear, however, to have
+principally incriminated Anne with Smeaton, and, on the whole, the balance
+of probability is that if Anne was guilty at all, which certainly was not
+proved, as she had no fair trial or defence, it was with Smeaton. The
+charge that she and Norreys had "imagined" the death of the King is
+fantastically improbable.
+
+[160] Godwin.
+
+[161] "Je ne veux pas omettre qu'entre autres choses luy fust objecté pour
+crime que sa soeur la putain avait dit a sa femme (_i.e._ Lady Rochford)
+que le Roy n'estait habile en cas de soy copuler avec femme, et qu'il
+navait ni vertu ni puissance." This accusation was handed to Rochford in
+writing to answer, but to the dismay of the Court he read it out before
+denying it. (Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May. _Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[162] Chapuys to Granvelle, 18th May 1536. See also Camden.
+
+[163] Froude says Smeaton was hanged; but the evidence that he was
+beheaded like the rest is the stronger.
+
+[164] The whole question is exhaustively discussed by Mr. Friedmann in his
+_Anne Boleyn_, to which I am indebted for several references on the
+subject.
+
+[165] Lady Kingston, who was present, hastened to send this news secretly
+to Chapuys, who, bitter enemy as he was to Anne, to do him justice seems
+to have been shocked at the disregard of legality in the procedure against
+her.
+
+[166] The curious gossip, Antonio de Guaras, a Spaniard, says that he got
+into the fortress overnight. Constantine gives also a good account of the
+execution, varying little from that of Guaras. The Portuguese account used
+by Lingard and Froude confirms them.
+
+[167] Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May 1536. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[168] This was Cromwell's version as sent to the English agents in foreign
+Courts. He speaks of a conspiracy to kill the King which "made them all
+quake at the danger he was in."
+
+[169] Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[170] Chapuys to Granvelle, 20th May. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[171] The local story that the marriage took place at Wolf Hall, the seat
+of the Seymours in Wiltshire, and that a barn now standing on the estate
+was the scene of the wedding feast, may be dismissed. That festivities
+would take place there in celebration of the wedding is certain; and on
+more than one occasion Henry was entertained at Wolf Hall, and probably
+feasted in the barn itself; but the royal couple were not there on the
+occasion of their marriage. The romantic account given by Nott in his
+_Life of Surrey_, of Henry's waiting with straining ears, either in Epping
+Forest or elsewhere in hunting garb, to hear the signal gun announcing
+Anne's death before galloping off to be married at Tottenham Church, near
+Wolf Hall, is equally unsupported, and, indeed, impossible. Henry's
+private marriage undoubtedly took place, as related in the text, at
+Hampton Court, and the public ceremony on the 30th May at Whitehall.
+
+[172] Henry's apologists have found decent explanations for his hurry to
+marry Jane. Mr. Froude pointed to the urgent petition of the Privy Council
+and the peers that the King would marry at once, and opined that it could
+hardly be disregarded; and another writer reminds us that if Henry had not
+married Jane privately on the day he did, 20th May, the ceremony would
+have had to be postponed--as, in fact, the full ceremony was--until after
+the Rogation days preceding Whitsuntide. But nothing but callous
+concupiscence can really explain the unwillingness of Henry to wait even a
+week before his remarriage.
+
+[173] The Catholics were saying that before Anne's head fell the wax
+tapers on Katharine's shrine at Peterborough kindled themselves. (John de
+Ponte's letter to Cromwell, Cotton MSS., Titus B 1, printed by Ellis.)
+
+[174] _Spanish Calendar_, 6th June 1536.
+
+[175] The Parliament of 1536 enacted that all Bulls, Briefs, and
+Dispensations from Rome should be held void; that every officer, lay or
+clerical, should take an oath to renounce and resist all authority of the
+Pope on pain of high treason. In Convocation, Cromwell for the King at the
+same time introduced a new ecclesiastical constitution, establishing the
+Scriptures as the basis of faith, as interpreted by the four first
+Councils of the Church. Three sacraments only were acknowledged--Baptism,
+Penance, and the Eucharist. The use of images and invocation of the saints
+were regulated and modified, all idolatrous or material worship of them
+being forbidden. Cromwell at the same period was raised to the peerage
+under the title of Baron Cromwell, and made Vicar-General of the Church.
+(Lord Herbert's _Henry VIII._)
+
+[176] They are all in Cotton MSS., Otho x., and have been printed in
+Hearne's _Sylloge_.
+
+[177] She did her best for her backers during the Pilgrimage of Grace,
+throwing herself upon her knees before the King and beseeching him to
+restore the dissolved abbeys. Henry's reply was to bid her get up and not
+meddle in his affairs--she should bear in mind what happened to her
+predecessor through having done so. The hint was enough for Jane, who
+appears to have had no strength of character, and thenceforward, though
+interesting herself personally for the Princess Mary, she let politics
+alone. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 12.)
+
+[178] Chapuys to the Emperor. (_Calendar Henry VIII._)
+
+[179] _Hist. MSS. Commission_, Report XII., Appendix iv. vol. 1, Duke of
+Rutland's Papers.
+
+[180] _Ibid._
+
+[181] The assertion almost invariably made that Bishop Nicholas Sanders,
+the Jesuit writer, "invented" the story that the Cesarian operation was
+performed at birth is not true. The facts of this time are to a great
+extent copied textually by Sanders from the MS. _Cronica de Enrico Otavo_,
+by Guaras, and the statement is there made as an unsupported rumour only.
+
+[182] Henry's elaborate testamentary directions for the erection and
+adornment with precious stones of a sumptuous monument to himself and Jane
+were never carried out.
+
+[183] An account of these confiscations will be found in the _Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 13.
+
+[184] Chastillon Correspondence in _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 13.
+
+[185] The extraordinary attentions showered upon the elderly French lady,
+Mme de Montreuil, and her daughter, Mme de Brun, and their large train of
+attendant ladies, in the autumn of 1538, is an amusing instance of Henry's
+diplomacy. It has usually been concluded by historians that it was a
+question of amour or gallantry on Henry's part; but this was not the case.
+The lady had been the governess of the late Queen Madeleine of Scotland,
+and was passing through England on her way home. The most elaborate comedy
+was played by Henry and Cromwell on the occasion. The ladies were treated
+like princesses. The Lord Mayor and all the authorities on their way to
+the coast had to banquet them; they were taken sight-seeing and feasting
+everywhere, and loaded with gifts; and the most ostentatious appearance
+made of a close intimacy with them, in order to hoodwink the imperial
+agent into the idea that a French match was under discussion. Henry
+himself went to Dover to see them, and gave them all presents. But the
+French and imperial ambassadors were in close touch one with the other,
+and themselves dined with the ladies at Chelsea; having a good laugh with
+them at the farce that was being played, which they quite understood.
+(_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 13, part 2.)
+
+[186] The terms of the arrangement were the maintenance of the _status quo
+ante_, but were generally in favour of France, which retained Savoy and
+some of the Lombard fortresses threatening Milan, that State, the
+principal bone of contention, being still held by the Emperor's troops;
+but with a vague understanding that it might be given as a dowry to a
+princess of the Emperor's house, if she married a French prince. The
+latter clause was hollow, and never intended to be carried out, as Henry
+knew.
+
+[187] Her own well-known comment on Henry's proposal was, that if she had
+two heads one should be at the disposal of his Majesty of England.
+
+[188] Pole had been sent to Spain by the Pope for the purpose of urging
+the Emperor to execute the decree against England, at least to the extent
+of stopping commerce with his dominions. Charles saw Pole in Toledo early
+in March 1539. The Cardinal found the Emperor professedly sympathetic, but
+evidently not willing to adopt extreme measures of force against Henry.
+Pole, disappointed, thereupon returned to Papal Avignon instead of going
+on to France with a similar errand. Nothing is clearer in the
+correspondence on the subject (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 14) than
+Charles' determination--which was invariable throughout his life--not to
+allow Churchmen or ecclesiastical polity to guide his state action. Whilst
+Pole was thus seeking in vain to urge the Catholic powers to overthrow
+Henry, Wyatt the English ambassador in Spain, poet and gentle wit though
+he was, was busily plotting the murder of the Cardinal, together with some
+secret device to raise trouble in Italy and set Charles and Francis by the
+ears. This was probably the treacherous surrender of Parma and Piacenza to
+England for France, to the detriment of the Emperor and the Pope--who
+claimed them.
+
+[189] The influence of this party led by Norfolk and Gardiner, though it
+sufficed to secure the passage of the Six Articles, did not last long
+enough to carry them into rigid execution. Cromwell, by arousing Henry's
+fears that the German confederation would abandon him to his enemies, soon
+gained the upper hand; and the Saxon envoy Burchardus, writing to
+Melancthon in the autumn, expressed hopes that the coming of Anne would
+coincide with the repeal of the Act. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14,
+part 2.) The English Protestants blamed Cranmer for what they considered
+his timid opposition, soon silenced, to the passage of the Bill, and
+approved of the action of Latimer, who fled rather than assent to it, as
+did the Bishop of Salisbury. Before the Bill had been passed three months,
+of its principal promoters Stokesley of London was dead, Gardiner sent
+away from Court, and Norfolk entirely in the background.
+
+[190] Wotton to the King, 11th August 1539. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol.
+14, p. 2.)
+
+[191] It has been suggested that the Duchess with whom this comparison was
+instituted was Anne's sister, the Duchess of Saxony, who was quite as
+beautiful as the Duchess of Milan.
+
+[192] Memorandum in _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 14, part 2, p. 96.
+
+[193] Marillac to Francis I., 3rd October 1539.
+
+[194] The last passage meant that a union with France or the empire might
+have led to the putting of the Princess Mary forward as heir after the
+King's death, as against Prince Edward. The letter with Hertford's truly
+dreadful spelling is printed by Ellis.
+
+[195] A list of the personages appointed to attend will be found in the
+_Calendar of Henry VIII._, vol. 14.
+
+[196] As usual, tedious lists of the finery worn on the occasion are given
+by Hall, and copied by Miss Strickland.
+
+[197] The Duke of Suffolk to Cromwell. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14).
+
+[198] Deposition of Sir A. Browne. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14, 2.)
+
+[199] Russell's deposition. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14, 2.)
+
+[200] Cromwell (after his disgrace) to the King. (Hatfield MSS.)
+
+[201] For descriptions of the pageant see Hall, also _Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 15, and _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present
+writer.
+
+[202] Hall.
+
+[203] Cromwell to Henry. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14.)
+
+[204] Cromwell's statement. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15, p. 391.)
+
+[205] Wriothesley's deposition. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 15.)
+
+[206] The King got a double grant of four fifteenths and tenths, payable
+by instalments in four years; a shilling in the pound on all lands, and
+sixpence in the pound on personal property; aliens paying double; besides
+the confiscation of the great revenues of the Order of St. John. Such
+taxation was almost without precedent in England, and certainly added to
+Cromwell's unpopularity, already very great, owing to the oppressiveness
+of his religious policy with regard to the religious houses and his
+personal harshness.
+
+[207] _The Spanish Chronicle Of Henry VIII._, edited by the present
+writer. In this record, Seymour, Earl of Hertford, is made to take a
+leading part in the fall of Cromwell in the interests of his nephew the
+Prince of Wales (Edward VI.), but I can find no official confirmation of
+this.
+
+[208] Memo. in Gardiner's handwriting, Record Office. (_Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 15.)
+
+[209] She does not appear to have done so, however, until the King had
+received a letter from the Duke of Cleves, dated 13th July, couched in
+somewhat indignant terms. She then wrote to her brother that she "had
+consented to the examination and determination, wherein I had more
+respect, as beseemed me, to truth than to any worldly affection that might
+move me to the contrary, and did the rather condescend thereto for that my
+body remaineth in the integrity which I brought into this realm." She
+continues that the King has adopted her as a sister and has treated her
+very liberally, more than she or her brother could well wish. She is well
+satisfied. The King's friendship for her brother, she says, will not be
+impaired for this matter unless the fault should be in himself (_i.e._
+Cleves). She thinks it necessary to write this, and to say that she
+intends to live in England, lest for want of true knowledge her brother
+should take the matter otherwise than he ought. The letter is signed "Anna
+Duchess, born, of Cleves, Gulik, Geldre and Berg; your loving sister." The
+English and German drafts are in the Record Office, the former abstracted
+in _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15. The King instructed Wotton and Clerk,
+his envoys at Cleves, to deal with the Duke in the same spirit, holding
+out hopes of reward if he took the matter quietly, and to assume a haughty
+tone if he seemed threatening.
+
+[210] Within a week of this--to show how rapid was the change of
+feeling--Pate wrote to the King and to the Duke of Norfolk saying how that
+"while Thomas Cromwell ruled, slanders and obloquies of England were
+common," but that now all was changed. The brother of the Duke of Ferrara
+had sent to him to say that he was going to visit the King of England, for
+"the Emperor these years and days past often praised the King's gifts of
+body and mind, which made him the very image of his Creator." This praise
+had "engendered such love in the stomach" of Don Francesco d'Este that he
+could no longer defer his wish to see such a paragon of excellence as
+Henry, and he rejoices "that so many gentlemen belonging to the Emperor"
+are doing likewise. This was even before the marriage with Anne was
+declared invalid. (12th July, _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15.) Chapuys,
+the Emperor's ambassador, was again sent to England immediately, and
+cordial relations were promptly resumed. (_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 6, part
+1.)
+
+[211] Richard Hilles, the Protestant merchant, writing to Bullinger in
+Latin (Zurich Letters, Parker Society), says that for some weeks before
+the divorce from Anne of Cleves, Henry was captivated by Katharine Howard,
+whom he calls "a very little girl"; and that he frequently used to cross
+the Thames from Westminster to Lambeth to visit, both by night and day,
+the Bishop of Winchester (Gardiner) providing feasts for them in his
+palace. But at that time Katharine was, Hilles tells us, looked upon
+simply as Henry's mistress--as indeed she probably was--rather than his
+future wife.
+
+[212] Hilles to Bullinger (Parker Society, Zurich Letters) gives voice to
+bitter complaints, and Melancthon wrote (17th August, etc.) praying that
+God might destroy "this British Nero." (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15.)
+
+[213] There is in the British Museum (Stowe MS. 559) a list of the jewels
+and other things given by Henry to Katharine at the marriage and
+subsequently. The inventory was made at the time of her attainder, when
+she was deprived of everything. The jewels appear to have been very
+numerous and rich: one square or stomacher, given on New Year's Day 1540,
+containing 33 diamonds, 60 rubies, and a border of pearls. Another gift at
+Christmas the same year was "two laces containing 26 fair table diamonds
+and 158 fair pearls, with a rope of fair large pearls, 200 pearls."
+Magnificent jewels of all sorts are to be counted by the dozen in this
+list, comparing strangely with the meagre list of Katharine of Aragon's
+treasures. One curious item in Katharine's list is "a book of gold
+enamelled, wherein is a clock, upon every side of which book is three
+diamonds, a little man standing upon one of them, four turquoises and
+three rubies with a little chain of gold enamelled blue hanging to it."
+This book, together with "a purse of gold enamelled red containing eight
+diamonds set in goldsmith's work," was taken by the King himself when poor
+Katharine fell, and another splendid jewelled pomander containing a clock
+was taken by him for Princess Mary.
+
+[214] He had on the same morning taken the Sacrament, it being All Souls'
+Day, and had directed his confessor, the Bishop of Lincoln, to offer up a
+prayer of thanks with him "for the good life he (Henry) led, and hoped to
+lead with his wife." (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 16, p. 615.)
+
+[215] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 16, p. 48, September 1540. This was a
+year before he made his statement to Cranmer. The hatred expressed to the
+King's new Catholic policy by Lascelles proves him to have been a fit
+instrument for the delation and ruin of Katharine.
+
+[216] They are all in the Record Office, and are summarised in the _Henry
+VIII. Calendar_, vol. 16.
+
+[217] Lady Rochford, who seems to have been a most abandoned woman, was
+the widow of Anne Boleyn's brother, who had been beheaded at the time of
+his sister's fall.
+
+[218] In the Record Office, abstracted (much condensed) in _Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 16. For the purposes of this book I have used the original
+manuscripts.
+
+[219] In the curious and detailed but in many respects unveracious account
+of the affair given in the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by
+the present writer, it is distinctly stated that Culpeper made his
+confession on the threat of the rack in the Tower. He is made in this
+account to say that he was deeply in love with Katharine before her
+marriage, and had fallen ill with grief when she became Henry's wife. She
+had taken pity upon him, and had arranged a meeting at Richmond, which had
+been betrayed to Hertford by one of Katharine's servants. The writer of
+the _Chronicle_ (Guaras), who had good sources of information and was a
+close observer, did not believe that any guilty act had been committed by
+Katharine after her marriage.
+
+[220] Record Office, State Papers, 1, 721. The Duke had gone to demand of
+his stepmother Derham's box of papers. He found that she had already
+overhauled them and destroyed many of them. In his conversation with her,
+she admitted that she knew Katharine was immoral before marriage.
+
+[221] The Commissioners included Michael Dormer, Lord Mayor, Lord
+Chancellor Audley, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the Lords of the
+Council and judges. Norfolk, in order to show his zeal and freedom from
+complicity, jeered and laughed as the examination of the prisoners
+proceeded. For a similar reason he brought his son, the Earl of Surrey, to
+the trial: and it was noted that both the Queen's brothers and those of
+Culpeper rode about the city unconcernedly, in order to prove that they
+had no sympathy with the accused. As soon as the trial was over, however,
+Norfolk retired to Kenninghall, some said by the King's orders, and
+rumours were rife that not only was he in disgrace, but that danger to him
+portended. We shall see that his fate was deferred for a time, as Henry
+needed his military aid in the coming wars with Scotland and France, and
+he was the only soldier of experience and authority in England.
+
+[222] One of Katharine's love letters to Culpeper, written during the
+progress in the North, is in the Record Office; and although it does not
+offer direct corroboration of guilt, it would have offered good
+presumptive evidence, and is, to say the least of it, an extremely
+indiscreet letter for a married woman and a queen to write to a man who
+had been her lover before her marriage. The letter is all in Katharine's
+writing except the first line. "Master Culpeper," it runs, "I heartily
+recommend me unto you, praying you to send me word how that you do. I did
+hear that ye were sick and I never longed so much for anything as to see
+you. It maketh my heart to die when I do think that I cannot always be in
+your company. Come to me when my Lady Rochford be here, for then I shall
+be best at leisure to be at your commandment. I do thank you that you have
+promised to be good to that poor fellow my man; for when he is gone there
+be none I dare trust to send to you. I pray you to give me a horse for my
+man, for I have much ado to get one, and therefore I pray you send me one
+by him, and in so doing I am as I said before: and thus I take my leave of
+you trusting to see you shortly again; and I would you were with me now
+that you might see what pain I take in writing to you. Yours as long as
+life endures, Katheryn. One thing I had forgotten, and that is to speak to
+my man. Entreat him to tarry here with me still, for he says whatsoever
+you order he will do it." The letter is extremely illiterate in style and
+spelling. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 16.)
+
+[223] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 6, part 1.
+
+[224] Marillac Correspondence, ed. Kaulec. There is a transcript in the
+Record Office and abstracts in the _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 16.
+
+[225] They were soon afterwards pardoned.
+
+[226] This difficulty seems to have been met by sending to the unhappy
+girl a committee of the Council to invite her to appear in person and
+defend herself if she pleased; but she threw herself entirely upon the
+King's mercy, and admitted that she deserved death. This facilitated her
+condemnation, and there was no more difficulty. The Duke of Suffolk in the
+House of Lords and Wriothesley stated that she had "confessed her great
+crime" to the deputation of the Council, but exactly what or how much she
+confessed is not known. She most solemnly assured the Bishop of Lincoln
+(White) in her last hours that she had not offended criminally after her
+marriage; and as has been pointed out in the text, she is not specifically
+charged with having done so in the indictment. This might be, of course,
+to save the King's honour as much as possible; but taking all things into
+consideration, the probability is that no guilty act had been committed
+since the marriage, though it is clear that Katharine was fluttering
+perilously close to the flame.
+
+[227] This was Anne Bassett. Lord Lisle, the illegitimate son of Edward
+IV., was at this time released from his unjust imprisonment in the Tower,
+but died immediately.
+
+[228] Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th January 1542.
+
+[229] The accounts of Chapuys, Hall, and Ottewell Johnson say simply that
+she confessed her faults and made a Christian end. The _Spanish Chronicle
+of Henry VIII._ gives an account of her speech of which the above is a
+summary.
+
+[230] The book which, although it was largely Gardiner's work, was called
+"The King's Book," or "The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any
+Christian Man," laid down afresh the doctrines to be accepted. It was
+authorised by Parliament in May 1543, and greatly straitened the creed
+prescribed in 1537. Just previously a large number of persecutions were
+begun against those who questioned Transubstantiation (see Foxe), and
+printers were newly harried for daring to print books not in accordance
+with the King's proclamation. Strict inquests were also held through
+London for any householders who ate meat in Lent, the young, turbulent
+Earl of Surrey being one of the offenders. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol.
+17, part 1.) It is to be noted, however, that, side by side with these
+anti-Protestant measures, greater efforts than ever were made to emphasise
+the King's supremacy; the Mass Books being carefully revised in order to
+eliminate all reference even indirectly to the Pope, and to saints not
+mentioned in the Bible.
+
+[231] In his account of these and similar interviews Chapuys dwells much
+upon Gardiner's anxiety to adopt the best course to induce Henry to enter
+into the agreement. He begged the imperial ambassador not to rub the King
+the wrong way by dwelling upon the advantage to accrue to England from the
+alliance. (_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 6, part 2.)
+
+[232] The treaty is in the Record Office. Printed in full in Rymer.
+
+[233] At the time of Katharine's marriage, her brother, Lord Parr, was on
+the Scottish border as Warden of the Marches; and a few days after the
+wedding the new Queen-Consort wrote to him from Oatlands saying that "it
+having pleased God to incline the King to take her as his wife, which is
+the greatest joy and comfort that could happen to her, she desires to
+inform her brother of it, as the person who has most cause to rejoice
+thereat. She requires him to let her hear sometimes of his health as
+friendly as if she had not been called to this honour." (_Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 18, part 1.)
+
+[234] It depends upon a metrical family history written by Katharine's
+cousin, Sir Thomas Throckmorton.
+
+[235] The document is in the Record Office. About half way down the margin
+is written, "For your daughter." At the top is written, "Lady Latimer."
+
+[236] The author of the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ thus portrays
+Katharine's character: "She was quieter than any of the young wives the
+King had, and as she knew more of the world she always got on pleasantly
+with the King and had no caprices. She had much honour to Lady Mary and
+the wives of the nobles, but she kept her ladies very strictly.... The
+King was very well satisfied with her."
+
+[237] Many years afterwards when Parr, then Marquis of Northampton and a
+leading anti-Catholic, was with other nobles urging Queen Elizabeth to
+drop shilly-shally and get married in earnest, the Queen, who was of
+course playing a deep game which they did not understand, turned upon Parr
+in a rage and told him that he was a nice fellow to talk about marriage,
+considering how he had managed his own matrimonial affairs. (Hume,
+"Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.")
+
+[238] Record Office. _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 18, part 1.
+
+[239] _Spanish State Papers, Calendar_, vol. 6, part 2. The author of the
+_Chronicle of Henry VIII._ (Guaras) says that the King ordered Anne to
+come to the wedding, but if that be the case there is no record of her
+presence; though all the other guests and witnesses are enumerated in the
+notarial deed attesting the marriage. The Spanish chronicler puts into
+Anne's mouth, as a sign of her indifference, a somewhat ill-natured gibe
+at the "burden that Madam Katharine hath taken upon herself," explaining
+that she referred to the King's immense bulk. "The King was so fat that
+such a man had never been seen. Three of the biggest men that could be
+found could get inside his doublet." Anne's trouble with regard to her
+brother was soon at an end. The Emperor's troops crushed him completely,
+and in September he begged for mercy on his knees, receiving the disputed
+duchies from Charles as an imperial fief. Anne's mother, who had stoutly
+resisted the Emperor's claims upon her duchies, died of grief during the
+campaign.
+
+[240] Strype's "Memorials of Cranmer."
+
+[241] Strype's "Memorials," Foxe's "Acts and Monuments," and Burnet; all
+of whom followed the account given by Cranmer's secretary Morice as to
+Cranmer's part.
+
+[242] Morice's anecdotes in "Narratives of the Reformation," Camden
+Society. See also Strype's "Memorials" and Foxe. The MS. record of the
+whole investigation is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. I am indebted
+for this fact to my friend Dr. James Gairdner, C.B.
+
+[243] How necessary this was is seen by the strenuous efforts, even thus
+late, of the Pope to effect a reconciliation between Charles and Francis
+rather than acquiesce in a combination between the former and the
+excommunicated King of England. Paul III. sent his grandson, Cardinal
+Farnese, in November 1543 to Flanders and to the Emperor with this object;
+but Charles was determined, and told the Cardinal in no gentle terms that
+the Pope's dallying with the infidel Turks, and Francis' intrigues with
+the Lutherans, were a hundred times worse than his own alliance with the
+schismatic King of England. (_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 7.)
+
+[244] Hertford had sacked Edinburgh and Leith and completely cowed the
+Scots before the letter was written. His presence in London at a crisis
+was therefore more necessary than on the Border.
+
+[245] _Hatfield Papers_, Hist. MSS. Commission, part 1.
+
+[246] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 7. This reparation to Mary had been urged
+very strongly by the Emperor, ever since the negotiations began. Mary,
+however, was not legitimated, and not only came after Edward, but also
+after any children Katharine might bear. The Queen undoubtedly urged
+Mary's cause.
+
+[247] It was constantly noted by foreign visitors that English ladies were
+kissed on the lips by men. It appears to have been quite an English
+custom, and greatly surprised Spaniards, who kept their women in almost
+oriental seclusion.
+
+[248] MSS. British Museum, Add. 8219, fol. 114.
+
+[249] A full account of his visit and service will be found in my
+_Chronicle of Henry VIII._ In the _Spanish Calendar_ and in the
+_Chronicle_ it is asserted that the Duke stayed with Henry very
+unwillingly and at the Emperor's request.
+
+[250] We are told that even the sails of his ship were of cloth of silver,
+and probably no King of England ever took the field under such splendid
+conditions before or since.
+
+[251] Hearne's _Sylloge_.
+
+[252] "Prayers and Meditations," London, 1545. The prayer is printed at
+length by Miss Strickland, as well as several extracts from Katharine's
+"Lamentations of a Sinner," which show that she had studied Vives and
+Guevara.
+
+[253] Although this letter is always assigned to the period when Henry was
+at Boulogne, I have very considerable doubt as to its having been written
+then. I should be inclined to ascribe it to the following year.
+
+[254] The following is his letter to Katharine informing her of this: "At
+the closing up of these our letters this day the castle aforesaid with the
+dyke is at our commandment, and not like to be recovered by the Frenchmen
+again, as we trust, not doubting with God's grace but that the castle and
+town shall shortly follow the same trade, for as this day, which is the
+8th September, we began three batteries and have three mines going,
+besides one which hath done its execution, shaking and tearing off one of
+their greatest bulwarks. No more to you at this time, sweetheart, but for
+lack of time and great occupations of business, saving we pray you to give
+in our name our hearty blessings to all our children, and recommendations
+to our cousin Margaret, and the rest of the ladies and gentlewomen, and to
+our Council also. Written with the hand of your loving husband--HENRY
+R."--"Royal Letters."
+
+[255] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[256] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[257] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[258] _Ibid._ The Duchess of Suffolk, a great friend of Katharine Parr's,
+and widow of Charles Brandon, who had recently died, was the daughter of a
+Spanish lady and of Lord Willoughby D'Eresby, which title she inherited.
+She soon after married one of her esquires, Francis Bertie, and became a
+strong Protestant.
+
+[259] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume. September 1546.
+
+[260] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume. September 1546.
+
+[261] Surrey prompted his sister on this occasion to appeal to the King
+for permission to marry Seymour, and to act in such a way that the King
+might fall in love with her, and make her his mistress, "so that she might
+have as much power as the Duchess d'Etampes in France." The suggestion was
+specially atrocious, as she was the widow of Henry's son.
+
+[262] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[263] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ Hume.
+
+[264] The author of the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ makes Paget and his
+wife the first promoters of the match between Seymour and Katharine,
+though I can find no confirmation of his story. He says that the Queen
+being in the great hall with her ladies and Princess Mary, Lord Seymour
+came in as had been arranged, looking very handsome. Lady Paget whispered
+to the Queen an inquiry as to what she thought of the Lord Admiral's
+looks, to which Katharine replied that she liked his looks very much. "All
+the ill I wish you, Madam," whispered Lady Paget, "is that he should
+become your husband." "I could wish that it had been my fate to have him
+for a husband," replied Katharine; "but God hath so placed me that any
+lowering of my condition would be a reproach to me." The arguments used to
+both lovers by Lady Paget are then detailed, and the final consent of
+Katharine to accept Seymour. There may have been a small germ of truth in
+this account, but it can hardly have happened as described, in view of the
+correspondence of the lovers now before us.
+
+[265] This use of the words brother and sister as referring to the
+Herberts, who were no relations of Seymour's, indicates that the latter
+and the Queen were already betrothed.
+
+[266] _State Papers, Domestic_, vol. 1.
+
+[267] Hearne's _Sylloge_, &c.
+
+[268] The deposition of Katharine Ashley. (_Hatfield Papers_, part 1.)
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  A
+
+  Abell, martyred, 358
+
+  Adrian, Pope, 105, 107
+
+  Alburquerque, Duke of, accompanies Henry to the war, 422
+
+  Alençon, Duchess of, proposed marriage of Henry VIII., 116
+
+  Alexander VI. (Pope), Borgia, 14
+
+  Amelia of Cleves, 322
+
+  Angoulęme, Duke of, 245
+
+  Anne Boleyn, early life, 124-128;
+    the divorce, 129-162;
+    courtship of Henry, 137, 139-147;
+    her party, 168-170;
+    her life with Henry, 171, 180, 181, 182, 183, 190, 192;
+    in France, 193-197;
+    married, 199, 202;
+    her procession through London, 204-208;
+    her unpopularity, 209;
+    birth of her child, 214-216, 217, 222, 227, 233;
+    her influence declines, 240-243, 244, 257, 260-261;
+    her fall inevitable, 269-270, 271;
+    her betrayal, 271-274;
+    her arrest, 275;
+    in the Tower, 276-280;
+    her trial, 281;
+    condemnation and death, 282-288, 291
+
+  Anne of Cleves, 320, 322;
+    her voyage to England, 324-330;
+    her arrival and interview with Henry, 331-334;
+    her marriage, 334-339, 340, 341, 342, 349, 350-352;
+    her repudiation, 353-356, 360, 368;
+    talk of her rehabilitation, 386, 387, 397, 409
+
+  Aragon, ambition of, 3-5
+
+  Arras. _See_ Granvelle
+
+  Arthur, Prince of Wales, his first betrothal to Katharine, 6, 8-12, 15,
+        16, 17, 18;
+    his first meeting with Katharine, 27;
+    description of him, 28;
+    his marriage, 29-33, 34, 36, 37;
+    his death, 38
+
+  Arundel, Earl of, 305
+
+  Audrey, Sir Thomas, Lord Chancellor, 201, 270, 326, 369, 371, 376, 380
+
+  Ayala, Bishop, Spanish envoy, 36
+
+
+  B
+
+  Bar, Duke of, betrothal of Anne of Cleves to, 322, 323, 338, 348
+
+  Barnes, Dr., prosecution of, 341, 344, 358
+
+  Bassett, Anne, 393
+
+  Bastian, Katharine's Burgundian lackey, 231, 255
+
+  Bedingfield, 252, 256
+
+  Bennet, Dr., 184
+
+  Boleyn, Anne. _See_ Anne
+
+  Boleyn, Mary, 112, 124, 284
+
+  Boleyn, Thomas (Earl of Wiltshire), 124, 169, 170, 190, 200, 270
+
+  Bonner, Dr., 343, 365
+
+  Boulogne, siege of, &c., 423-427, 435
+
+  Brandon, Charles, Duke of Suffolk, 85, 87, 96, 162, 169, 175, 178, 181,
+  201, 216, 217, 219, 234, 243, 251, 263, 286, 300, 326, 328, 338, 392,
+  394, 409, 422
+
+  Brereton, William, 272, 276, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Brian, Sir Francis, 93, 290, 312, 314
+
+  Bridewell, the divorce tribunal there, 157, 163-166
+
+  Bridgewater, Lady, 382
+
+  Brittany, Duchess of, 12, 13
+
+  Brown, Friar George, 199
+
+  Browne, Sir Anthony, 331, 332, 370, 382, 393
+
+  Buckingham, Duke of, 28
+
+  Buckler, Katharine Parr's secretary, 435
+
+  Bulmer, Mrs. Joan, 359
+
+  Burgo, Baron di, the Papal envoy, 199
+
+
+  C
+
+  Campeggio, Cardinal, 140, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153,
+  154, 157-159, 162, 163-166, 167, 168
+
+  Cańazares, Protonotary, 26
+
+  Carew, Sir Nicholas, 262, 287, 290, 317
+
+  Carey, William, 112, 124
+
+  Carne, Dr., 320
+
+  Carroz, Spanish ambassador, 78
+
+  Carthusians, martyrdom of, 246
+
+  Castillon, French ambassador, 221
+
+  Chabot de Brion, Admiral of France, in England, 243, 244
+
+  Chantonnay (Perennot), 402
+
+  Chapuys, imperial ambassador, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 211, 214, 215,
+        228, 234;
+    his journey to Kimbolton, 235-239, 240, 242, 245;
+    last interviews with Katharine, 250-256, 259, 265, 266;
+    his coldness towards Anne, 267, 282, 285;
+    his reception by Jane Seymour, 293, 385, 388-399, 393, 398, 401, 409,
+        432, 433, 434
+
+  Charles V., Emperor, 60, 65, 69, 70, 85, 90, 97, 98;
+    visits to England, 99-106;
+    his attitude towards the divorce, 129-130, 154, 155, 160, 170, 173,
+        174, 177, 181, 188, 192, 209, 232, 238, 243, 248, 263;
+    his attitude after Katharine's death, 263-4, 288, 300-302, 312, 313,
+        319, 322, 326, 343, 357;
+    renewed friendship with Henry, 357-366, 388-390, 398;
+    his alliance with Henry, 402, 416, 417, 418, 427-431;
+    makes peace, 428-431;
+    attacks the Lutherans, 435, 438
+
+  Charles VIII. of France, 7, 12, 13-15, 40
+
+  Christian III. of Denmark, 316, 319, 324
+
+  Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, 314-15, 324, 343
+
+  Clare, Lady, 228
+
+  Clement VII., Pope, 107, 115, 129, 141, 153, 160, 170, 173, 174-177,
+        183, 198, 199, 210, 216, 220, 221, 222;
+    gives sentence in the divorce case, 223;
+    death of, 243
+
+  Clergy, English, and the divorce, 176, 177, 221, 247
+
+  Cleves, Anne, Princess of. _See_ Anne
+
+  Cleves, Duke of, 319, 320, 323, 342, 346, 386, 387, 409
+
+  Cleves, Duchess of, 323
+
+  Compton, Sir William, 78, 106
+
+  Cook martyred, 358
+
+  Cranmer, Archbishop, 185-187, 190, 194, 196, 197;
+    appointed to Canterbury, 198, 199, 201;
+    pronounces the divorce from Katharine of Aragon, 203-204, 208, 209,
+        215, 217, 222, 223, 264, 283, 288, 317, 321, 326, 328, 338, 339,
+        341, 344, 354, 369, 370, 375, 386, 410, 411;
+    plots of Gardiner against him, 411-415, 436-437, 438, 444, 446, 448
+
+  Cromwell, Richard, 274
+
+  Cromwell, Thomas, 186, 187, 190, 192, 200, 212, 215, 217, 222, 233, 235,
+        237, 238, 239, 245, 246, 248, 263, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271-281,
+        288, 295, 296, 301, 311, 315, 319, 322, 324, 326, 333, 338, 339;
+    decline of his influence, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345;
+    created Earl of Essex, 345, 346;
+    his arrest, 347;
+    execution, 348, 349, 351, 352, 357, 358, 359
+
+  Culpeper, Thomas, the lover of Katharine Howard, accused, 375, 378
+        _et seq._;
+    trial and execution, 383-385, 395
+
+  Cuero, Juan de, chamberlain of Katharine of Aragon, 35
+
+
+  D
+
+  Dacre, Lord, 365
+
+  Darrel, Mistress, 255
+
+  Daubeney, Giles, 10
+
+  Dauphin of France, betrothed to Princess Mary, 94, 95, 97, 99
+
+  De la Sá, Katharine's apothecary, 218, 231, 250, 253, 256
+
+  Denny, Sir Anthony, 340, 444
+
+  Derham, Francis, accused of immorality with Katharine Howard, 373
+        _et seq._;
+    trial and execution, 383-385
+
+  Divorce proceedings between Henry and Katharine of Aragon, 117-123,
+  129-162, 170, 184-192, 198-204
+
+  Dogmersfield, Hants, Katharine meets Arthur there, 27
+
+  Dorset, Marquis of, commands English contingent in Navarre, 81
+
+  Douglas, Lady Margaret, 328, 421, 427
+
+  Dowry of Katharine of Aragon, 9, 11, 15, 34-37, 39, 40, 55, 57, 58, 61, 70
+
+  Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, 220, 221, 222
+
+  Dudley, John (Lord Lisle, afterwards Earl of Warwick, and Duke of
+  Northumberland), 434, 438, 440, 441, 443, 450
+
+
+  E
+
+  Edward, Prince of Wales, 304;
+    his baptism, 305-6, 326, 367, 425, 442, 455
+
+  Elizabeth of York, Queen, 10, 30, 38;
+    death of, 42
+
+  Elizabeth, Princess, 214, 215, 216, 223, 228, 238, 243, 245, 257, 284,
+  295, 305, 425, 456
+
+  Empson and Dudley, 33, 69
+
+  Erasmus, 44, 410
+
+  Estrada, Duke of, 39
+
+  Etampes, Duchess of, 344, 428
+
+  Europe, condition of, at the end of the fifteenth century, 4
+
+  Evil May Day, 91, 92
+
+  Exeter, Bishop of, 10
+
+  Exeter, Marquis of, 229, 305, 317
+
+  Exeter, the Marchioness of, 264, 265, 305, 317
+
+
+  F
+
+  Felipe, Francisco, Katharine's groom of the chambers, 121, 122, 129,
+  231, 255
+
+  Ferdinand, King of Aragon, 1-24, 34, 39, 43, 44, 45, 51, 52, 55-60, 70,
+  71, 78, 80, 87, 90
+
+  Fernandez, Diego, Katharine's confessor, 63-68, 78
+
+  Fetherston martyred, 358
+
+  Field of the Cloth of Gold, 101
+
+  Fisher, Dr., Bishop of Rochester, 122, 150, 159, 164, 177, 179, 215, 233
+
+  Fitzwilliam, Sir William, 275, 325, 326, 328, 329, 330, 338, 370, 382,
+  394
+
+  Flodden, battle of, 82, 83
+
+  Fox, Bishop of Winchester, 83, 138, 139, 188, 221
+
+  Francis I., 97, 98, 99;
+    on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 101;
+    at war with England, 103, 108, 109, 113, 117;
+    receives Wolsey, 129, 154, 155;
+    his attitude towards the divorce, 190-192;
+    meets Henry, 193-197;
+    renewed coolness, 209-211, 220, 233, 310, 312, 313, 319, 322, 326,
+        343, 362, 389, 390;
+    at war with Charles, 400, 423, 427
+
+
+  G
+
+  Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, 119, 138, 139, 166, 179, 184,
+        190, 211, 221, 320, 321, 333, 341, 344, 352, 354, 359, 361, 364,
+        366, 368, 369, 386, 387, 391, 398, 400, 410, 411;
+    his plots against Cranmer and Katharine Parr, 411-415, 422;
+    with Henry in France, 424, 434, 436, 438, 439, 441
+
+  Garrard, Dr., 344, 358
+
+  German Protestants and England, 209, 211, 241, 248, 310, 311, 315,
+  316-320, 322-325, 338, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 358, 364, 387, 390,
+  397, 431, 435, 436, 440
+
+  Germaine de Foix, second wife of Ferdinand, 52
+
+  Ghinucci, Henry's envoy to Spain and Rome, 129, 130
+
+  Gomez de Fuensalida, Spanish envoy, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70, 74
+
+  Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, 429, 430
+
+  Grey, Lord Leonard, 365
+
+  Guildford, Sir J., Controller, 179, 180, 181
+
+  Guildford, Lady, 28
+
+
+  H
+
+  Haines, Dr., 412
+
+  Hall, Mary, 370 _et seq._
+
+  Heneage, Sir Thomas, 340, 376
+
+  Henry VII., his political aims, 6;
+    his relations with Puebla, 7-8;
+    his negotiations for the Spanish marriage, 9-20;
+    his first meeting with Katharine, 26, 27;
+    at Arthur's marriage, 30, 33, 34;
+    his treatment of Katharine, 35-42;
+    proposes to marry Katharine, 43;
+    his negotiations with Ferdinand after Henry's betrothal, 45;
+    his treatment of Katharine, 48;
+    receives Philip and Juana, 49-54;
+    proposes marriage to Juana, 55-60, 62, 66, 68;
+    his death, 68, 69, 70
+
+  Henry VIII., at Arthur's wedding, 31;
+    first betrothal to Katharine of Aragon, 39-43, 44, 46;
+    secret denunciation of his betrothal, 49;
+    his accession, 69;
+    marriage, 71-77;
+    his character, 72, 73;
+    his first tiff with Katharine, 78;
+    birth of his first child, rejoicings, 79-80;
+    war with France, 80-83;
+    French alliance, 84, 85;
+    his relations with Katharine, 83-89;
+    his pretensions to the imperial crown, 97-99;
+    meets Charles and Francis, 101-106;
+    war with France, 107, 108;
+    proposed alliance with France, 116;
+    proposals for divorcing Katharine and marrying a French princess, 117;
+    the divorce, 119-123;
+    in love with Anne Boleyn, 127, 128;
+    his attempts to obtain a divorce, 129-173;
+    his courtship of Anne Boleyn, 141-147;
+    appears at Bridewell, 157, 163-166;
+    defies the Pope, 174-177, 180-183;
+    second meeting with Francis, 192-197;
+    the divorce, 199;
+    marries Anne, 200-208;
+    change of policy, 210-211, 220-223;
+    further emancipation, 223-226, 238-241, 243;
+    estrangement from Anne, 245;
+    approaches the Emperor, 251;
+    his behaviour on Katharine's death, 257;
+    he tires of Anne, 260, 261;
+    in love with Jane Seymour, 265;
+    approaches the Emperor, 266-269;
+    his sacrifice of Anne, 271-287;
+    marries Jane Seymour, 291;
+    his religious measures, 294;
+    his treatment of Mary, 295, 296, 302-303;
+    religious persecutions, 308-310;
+    proposes a matrimonial alliance with France, 312-313, 315;
+    approaches the German Protestants, 315-320;
+    religious measures, 320-322;
+    betrothed to Anne of Cleves, 323-330;
+    his reception of his bride, 331;
+    his discontent, 332-334;
+    his marriage, 334-340;
+    his attempts to get rid of Anne, 340-352, 353-356;
+    his approaches to the Emperor, 357-359;
+    marries Katharine Howard, 360;
+    change of policy, 361-367;
+    Katharine Howard accused, 369-372;
+    plans for her repudiation, 375;
+    great grief at Katharine Howard's conduct, 385, 386;
+    preparations for an alliance with the Emperor, 388, 398, 401;
+    the alliance signed, 402;
+    at war with France, 402;
+    enamoured of Katharine Parr, 405;
+    marries her, 409;
+    his invasion of France, 417, 418, 419, 420;
+    at the siege of Boulogne, 424, 427;
+    left in the lurch by Charles, 428-431;
+    approaches of the German Protestants, 435, 436;
+    his last illness, 441;
+    death, 444;
+    his character and career, 445-449
+
+  Herbert, Lady, 451
+
+  Hertford, Countess of, 418, 453, 455
+
+  Hesse, Philip of, 310, 311, 319, 343, 435
+
+  Hoby, Sir Philip, 412
+
+  Howard, Lord William, 382, 392
+
+
+  I
+
+  Isabel, Princess of (Castile), 7
+
+  Isabel, the Catholic, of Castile, 1-5, 13-16, 17, 20, 21, 34, 39, 41,
+        42, 43;
+    death of, 47, 48
+
+
+  J
+
+  James IV. of Scotland, 15, 25, 41, 81;
+    death at Flodden, 82
+
+  James V. of Scotland, 312, 366, 389;
+    death of, 401
+
+  Jerome, Dr., 358
+
+  John, Prince of Asturias, 5, 17, 21
+
+  John II. of Aragon, 3
+
+  Juana, Queen of Castile, 5, 18, 21, 47, 48;
+    visit to England, 49-54;
+    widowed, 55;
+    negotiations for her marriage with Henry VII., 55-60, 69
+
+
+  K
+
+  Katharine of Aragon, first betrothal to Arthur, Prince of Wales, 6,
+        8-12, 15, 16, 17;
+    her coming to England, 18, 19, 20, 21;
+    her voyage, 21-24;
+    her arrival, 25-26;
+    her character, 28;
+    her reception in London and marriage, 29-33;
+    her journey to Wales, 36, 37;
+    widowed, 38, 39;
+    betrothed to Henry, 39-43, 44-49;
+    her betrothal denounced, 49;
+    her position in England, 49, 50, 54-60;
+    her relations with her confessor, 63-68;
+    marriage with Henry, 70, 71-77;
+    birth of her first child, 79;
+    Regent of England, 81-85;
+    her life with Henry, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 102-106,
+        109, 110, 111, 112;
+    her separation from Henry, 112, 116;
+    the divorce, 117-123, 129-173;
+    her statement to Campeggio, 151;
+    her firmness, 155, 156, 159;
+    appears at Bridewell, 164, 165;
+    her appeals to the Pope, 177-179;
+    sent away from court, 181, 191, 195;
+    renewed hopes, 198, 199;
+    again undeceived, 200;
+    persecution, 201, 211-213, 216-224, 227, 229-232;
+    illness of, 234-238, 247, 248;
+    death of, 249-256
+
+  Katharine Howard, her origin, 351-359;
+    married to Henry, 360, 365, 367, 368;
+    denunciation of her by Cranmer and his friends, 369-372;
+    the story of her accusers, 372-384;
+    her attainder, 392, 393;
+    her execution, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398
+
+  Katharine Parr, 403-408;
+    married to Henry, 409, 410;
+    her religious leanings, 411;
+    Gardiner's plots to ruin her, 412-415, 419;
+    described, 421;
+    Regent in Henry's absence, 424, 425, 426, 427;
+    Chapuys' interviews with her, 432, 433;
+    sides with the Protestants, 435;
+    her danger, 438, 439, 443;
+    her widowhood, 450;
+    marries Thomas Seymour, 450-456;
+    her death, 457-458
+
+  Kingston, Sir W., Governor of the Tower, 275, 276, 285
+
+  Knight, Dr., sent to the Pope, 133, 138
+
+
+  L
+
+  Lascelles, John, denounces Katharine Howard, 369 _et seq._
+
+  Latimer, Bishop, 411
+
+  Latimer, Lord, 404
+
+  Lee, Dr., Henry's ambassador to the Emperor, 130;
+    interview with Katharine, 179, 186, 199, 230
+
+  Lennox, Earl of, 427
+
+  Leo X., Pope, 102, 104
+
+  Lisle, Lord, 365, 393
+
+  Llandaff, Bishop of, Jorge de Ateca, Katharine's confessor, 218, 231,
+  254, 256
+
+  London, reception in, of Katharine of Aragon, 29-32, 75
+
+  London, Anne Boleyn's reception in, 205-208
+
+  London, Dr., 411, 412, 414
+
+  Longueville, Duke of, 83, 84, 85
+
+  Lorraine, Duke of, 428
+
+  Lorraine, Duke of. _See also_ Bar
+
+  Louis XII. of France, 84, 85, 86
+
+  Ludlow, Arthur at, 18, 20, 38
+
+  Luiz, Dom, of Portugal, 314
+
+  Luther, 102, 103, 154, 173, 362
+
+
+  M
+
+  Mannoch accused of immorality with Katharine Howard, 370 _et seq._
+
+  Manuel, Dońa Elvira, 35, 41, 44, 48, 49, 50, 60
+
+  Manuel, Don Juan, 18, 50
+
+  Margaret of Austria, 17, 48, 49, 52, 53, 58, 60
+
+  Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Burgundy, 6, 25
+
+  Marillac, French ambassador, 344, 351, 361
+
+  Mary of Hungary, governess of Flanders, 315, 400, 423, 427
+
+  Mary of Lorraine, 312
+
+  Mary Queen of Scots, 401
+
+  Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VII.), 46, 60, 65, 66, 69, 70, 84, 85, 86,
+  87, 88, 90, 101, 125, 195
+
+  Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VIII.), 88, 94, 95, 97, 99, 101;
+    betrothed to Charles, 103-107, 110;
+    betrothed to the Duke of Orleans, 113-115, 117, 130, 174, 181, 202,
+        213, 215, 216, 222, 227, 228, 233, 238, 239, 242, 243-245,
+        246-247, 249, 258-260, 264, 266-267, 269, 289;
+    her submission, 296, 299, 301-303, 305, 307, 315, 319, 326, 337, 381,
+        389, 399, 404, 409, 410, 421, 425, 432
+
+  Mason, Dr., 365
+
+  Maximilian, Emperor, 5, 13, 15, 17, 18, 48, 90
+
+  Medici, Alexander de, Duke of Florence, 222
+
+  Medici, Katharine de, 192, 210
+
+  Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, Spanish ambassador, 315
+
+  Mendoza, Ińigo Lopez de, Spanish ambassador, 118, 129, 130, 132
+
+  Mont, Christopher, 319, 320, 324
+
+  Montague, Lord, 317
+
+  Montreuil, Mme. de, 313
+
+  More, Sir Thomas, 169, 187, 190, 201, 233, 258
+
+  Morton, Margery, 377, 378
+
+  Mountjoy, Katharine of Aragon's chamberlain at Ampthill, 201
+
+
+  N
+
+  Najera, Duke of, his visit to the English court, 420, 421, 422
+
+  Naples, Queen of, 43
+
+  Neville, Sir Edward, 317
+
+  Nevinson, Cranmer's nephew, 413
+
+  Norfolk, Duke of, 26, 81, 83, 131, 162, 169, 171, 173, 174, 175, 178,
+        179, 190, 192, 201, 202, 205;
+    mission to France, 205, 209-210, 219, 227, 243, 258, 263, 268, 270,
+        275, 276, 280, 281, 296, 297, 298, 300, 321, 338, 341, 346, 347,
+        348, 351, 359, 361, 366, 369, 371, 380, 381, 382, 383, 386, 389,
+        395, 398, 422, 441, 442, 443
+
+  Norfolk, Duchess of, 26, 370-377, 382, 392
+
+  Norreys, Sir Henry, 167, 272, 273-275, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+
+  O
+
+  Ockham, 412, 413
+
+  Olsiliger, Chancellor, 329, 386
+
+  Orleans, Henry, Duke of, second son of Francis I., and afterwards
+  Dauphin, 114, 192, 210, 381, 389, 428
+
+
+  P
+
+  Pace, Richard, 93
+
+  Paget, Secretary, 434, 438, 450
+
+  Palmer, Sir Thomas, 365
+
+  Parr, Lord, 381, 403, 404, 405, 407, 408
+
+  Pate, Henry's envoy to the Emperor, 357, 365
+
+  Paul III. (Farnese), Pope, 242, 249, 294, 416
+
+  Paulet (Lord St. John), 438, 441, 443
+
+  Pavia, battle of, 107, 108
+
+  Peachy, 95
+
+  Pembroke, Marchioness. _See_ Boleyn, Anne
+
+  Percy, Henry (Earl of Northumberland), 126, 127
+
+  Percy, Thomas, 272
+
+  Perkin Warbeck, 15, 18
+
+  Peto, Friar, 209
+
+  Petre, Dr., 424
+
+  Philip, Duke of Bavaria, 337, 440
+
+  Philip the Handsome, 5, 18, 19, 21, 23, 47, 48;
+    visit to England, 49-54;
+    death of, 55
+
+  Pilgrimage of Grace, 298, 308
+
+  Plymouth, arrival of Katharine of Aragon at, 23
+
+  Pole, Cardinal Reginald, 186, 215, 316, 317, 322, 364
+
+  Pole, Geoffrey, 316
+
+  Pole, Richard, 45
+
+  Poles, the, 45, 299
+
+  Powell martyred, 358
+
+  Poynings commands English contingent in Flanders, 80
+
+  Puebla, Dr., Spanish ambassador, 7-8, 10, 16, 17, 19, 31, 34, 36, 37,
+  39, 42, 49, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62
+
+
+  R
+
+  Renée of France, Princess, proposed marriage with Henry VIII., 116
+
+  Richards, Griffin, 165
+
+  Richmond, Duchess of, 202, 295, 296, 328, 442
+
+  Richmond, Duke of, Henry's son, 96, 110, 202, 284, 286, 289, 295, 296
+
+  Rochford, Lord, 169, 209, 273, 280;
+    his trial, 281;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Rochford, Lady, 242, 280, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 384;
+    her execution, 395
+
+  Rome sacked by the Imperial forces under Bourbon, 114
+
+  Russell, Sir John, 291, 331, 332, 370
+
+  Rutland, Earl of, 200, 353
+
+
+  S
+
+  Sadler, Sir Ralph, 365
+
+  Salisbury, Countess of, 316, 317;
+    beheaded, 365
+
+  Saxony, Hans Frederick of, 319, 322, 323, 324, 343, 435
+
+  Saxony, George, Duke of, 310
+
+  Sampson, Dr., 121, 164, 179, 184
+
+  Sepulveda, Juan de, Spanish ambassador, 8, 10
+
+  Seymour, Sir Edward (Lord Beauchamp, Earl of Hertford, and afterwards
+  Duke of Somerset), 262, 265, 266, 293, 300, 304, 305, 306, 326, 346,
+  369, 380, 419, 424, 434, 435, 438, 440, 441, 443, 450, 454, 455, 456
+
+  Seymour, Jane, her first appearance, 261;
+    her family, 262, 265, 269, 282, 284, 286, 290;
+    married to Henry, 291;
+    her small political influence, 293, 296-299;
+    gives birth to a son, 304;
+    her death, 307, 308, 309
+
+  Seymour, Sir Thomas (Lord Seymour of Sudeley), 262, 402, 405, 441;
+    marries Katharine Parr, 450-458
+
+  Shelton, Lady, 259
+
+  Six Articles, the Act so called, 320, 321, 362, 399, 411, 413, 437, 445
+
+  Smeaton, Mark, 271, 272;
+    arrested, by Cromwell, 273;
+    his admissions, 273-274, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Solway Moss, 401
+
+  Spurs, Battle of, 81
+
+  Stokesley, Bishop of London, 179, 184, 186, 221
+
+  Succession, Act of, 223, 230-232, 233
+
+  Suffolk, Duke of. _See_ Brandon
+
+  Suffolk, Duchess of (Katharine, Lady Willoughby), 438, 443
+
+  Suffolk, Earl of (Pole), 45, 53
+
+  Supremacy, Act of, 246, 445
+
+  Surrey, Earl of, 395, 441, 443
+
+  Sybilla of Cleves, Duchess of Saxony, 319, 324
+
+
+  T
+
+  Tarbes, Bishop of (Grammont), 113, 114, 117
+
+  Tailebois, Lady (Eleanor Blunt), 85, 88, 96, 112, 128
+
+  Talbot, Lord, 179, 180
+
+  Therouenne, Henry at the siege of, 82, 83
+
+  Thirlby, Dr., 424
+
+  Throckmorton, Sir George, 404
+
+  Trenchard, Sir John, 53
+
+  Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, 179, 230, 326, 338, 344
+
+  Turenne, Vicomte de, 113, 114
+
+  Tylney, Katharine, 377, 378
+
+  Tyrwhitt, Lady, 457
+
+
+  V
+
+  Van der Delft, Imperial ambassador in England, 432, 435, 441
+
+  Vargas, Blanche de, 255
+
+  Vaughan, Stephen, 236, 237, 253
+
+  Vives, J. Luis, 410
+
+
+  W
+
+  Wallop, Sir J., commands the English contingent in Flanders, 416
+
+  Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, 74, 75, 108, 119, 150, 174, 189;
+    death of, 193
+
+  Weston, Sir Thomas, 276, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Wingfield, 95
+
+  Wingfield, Lady, 280
+
+  Willoughby, Lady, 252
+
+  Wolf Hall, the home of the Seymours, 261, 262, 291
+
+  Wolsey, Cardinal, 82, 83, 87, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95;
+    his French leanings, 96, 97, 99;
+    won to the side of the Emperor, 101-106;
+    renewed approaches to France, 107-109, 110, 111, 114;
+    proposes Katharine's divorce, 116-123, 126;
+    his attitude towards Anne Boleyn, 127;
+    embassy in France, 129-134;
+    decline of influence, 134-135;
+    acts as Legate, 140, 149-154, 160-167;
+    his disgrace, 167-169;
+    his death, 173
+
+  Wotton, Dr., 320, 322, 405
+
+  Wriothesley, Thomas, 341, 342, 370, 377, 380, 392, 408, 424, 434, 438,
+  439, 441, 443
+
+  Würtemburg, Duke of, 435
+
+  Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 137, 276, 315, 343, 365, 393
+
+  Wyatt, Lady (daughter of Lord Cobham), 393, 408
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+
+Edinburgh & London
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
+
+Superscripted letters are shown in {brackets}.
+
+The following misprints have been corrected:
+  "FitzWilliam" corrected to "Fitzwilliam" (page 180)
+  "been been" corrected to "been" (page 204)
+  "Francisans" corrected to "Franciscans" (page 255)
+  "Cramner" corrected to "Cranmer" (page 369)
+  "wth" corrected to "with" (page 389)
+  "appproaching" corrected to "approaching" (page 424)
+  "wore" corrected to "were" (footnote 118)
+  "ininstructed" corrected to "instructed" (footnote 209)
+  "Dona" standardized to "Dońa" (index)
+  "Inigo" standardized to "Ińigo" (index)
+  "Nagera" corrected to "Najera" (Index)
+
+Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in
+spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained.
+
+Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors
+have been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have
+been left open. Other punctuation has been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the
+Parts They Played in History, by Martin Hume
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wives of Henry the Eighth, by Martin Hume.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts
+They Played in History, by Martin Hume
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+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
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+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+Title: The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History
+
+Author: Martin Hume
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2010 [EBook #32813]
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+
+<h1>THE WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH</h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;<a name="front" id="front"></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/ifrontis.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>HENRY VIII.</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Jost Van Cleef</span> <i>in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>The Wives</h1>
+<h4>of</h4>
+<h1>Henry the Eighth</h1>
+<h2>AND THE PARTS THEY PLAYED<br />IN HISTORY</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+<h4>MARTIN HUME</h4>
+<h5>AUTHOR OF &#8220;THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH&#8221;<br />
+&#8220;THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS&#8221;<br />ETC. ETC. ETC.</h5>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="quote">
+<tr><td>&#8220;<i>These are stars indeed,</i><br />
+<i>And sometimes falling ones.</i>&#8221;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span></span></td></tr></table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>LONDON<br />EVELEIGH NASH<br />1905</h3>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>Either by chance or by the peculiar working of our constitution, the Queen
+Consorts of England have as a rule been nationally important only in
+proportion to the influence exerted by the political tendencies which
+prompted their respective marriages. England has had no Catharine or Marie
+de Medici, no Elizabeth Farnese, no Catharine of Russia, no Caroline of
+Naples, no Maria Luisa of Spain, who, either through the minority of their
+sons or the weakness of their husbands, dominated the countries of their
+adoption; the Consorts of English Kings having been, in the great majority
+of cases, simply domestic helpmates of their husbands and children, with
+comparatively small political power or ambition for themselves. Only those
+whose elevation responded to tendencies of a nationally enduring
+character, or who represented temporarily the active forces in a great
+national struggle, can claim to be powerful political factors in the
+history of our country. The six Consorts of Henry VIII., whose successive
+rise and fall synchronised with the beginning and progress of the
+Reformation in England, are perhaps those whose fleeting prominence was
+most pregnant of good or evil for the nation and for civilisation at
+large, because they personified causes infinitely more important than
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>The careers of these unhappy women have almost invariably been considered,
+nevertheless, from a purely personal point of view. It is true that the
+many historians of the Reformation have dwelt upon the rivalry between
+Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and their strenuous efforts to gain
+their respective ends; but even in their case their action has usually
+been regarded as individual in impulse, instead of being, as I believe it
+was, prompted or thwarted by political forces and considerations, of which
+the Queens themselves were only partially conscious. The lives of Henry&#8217;s
+Consorts have been related as if each of the six was an isolated
+phenomenon that had by chance attracted the desire of a lascivious despot,
+and in her turn had been deposed when his eye had fallen, equally
+fortuitously, upon another woman who pleased his errant fancy better. This
+view I believe to be a superficial and misleading one. I regard Henry
+himself not as the far-seeing statesman he is so often depicted for us,
+sternly resolved from the first to free his country from the yoke of Rome,
+and pressing forward through a lifetime with his eyes firmly fixed upon
+the goal of England&#8217;s religious freedom; but rather as a weak, vain,
+boastful man, the plaything of his passions, which were artfully made use
+of by rival parties to forward religious and political ends in the
+struggle of giants that ended in the Reformation. No influence that could
+be exercised over the King was neglected by those who sought to lead him,
+and least of all that which appealed to his uxoriousness; and I hope to
+show in the text of this book how each of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> his wives in turn was but an
+instrument of politicians, intended to sway the King on one side or the
+other. Regarded from this point of view, the lives of these six unhappy
+Queens assume an importance in national history which cannot be accorded
+to them if they are considered in the usual light as the victims of a
+strong, lustful tyrant, each one standing apart, and in her turn simply
+the darling solace of his hours of dalliance. Doubtless the latter point
+of view provides to the historian a wider scope for the description of
+picturesque ceremonial and gorgeous millinery, as well as for pathetic
+passages dealing with the personal sufferings of the Queens in their
+distress; but I can only hope that the absence of much of this sentimental
+and feminine interest from my pages will be compensated by the wider
+aspect in which the public and political significance of Henry&#8217;s wives is
+presented; that a clearer understanding than usual may thus be gained of
+the tortuous process by which the Reformation in England was effected, and
+that the figure of the King in the picture may stand in a juster
+proportion to his environment than is often the case.</p>
+
+<p class="right">MARTIN HUME.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>October</i> 1905.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="contents">
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><span class="smcaplc">PAGE</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1488-1501</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">INTRODUCTORY&mdash;WHY KATHARINE CAME TO ENGLAND&mdash;POLITICAL MATRIMONY</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1501-1509</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">KATHARINE&#8217;S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1509-1527</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">KATHARINE THE QUEEN&mdash;A POLITICAL MARRIAGE AND A PERSONAL DIVORCE</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1527-1530</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">KATHARINE AND ANNE&mdash;THE DIVORCE</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1530-1534</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">HENRY&#8217;S DEFIANCE&mdash;THE VICTORY OF ANNE</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1534-1536</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">A FLEETING TRIUMPH&mdash;POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1536-1540</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT&mdash;JANE SEYMOUR AND ANNE OF CLEVES</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1540-1542</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">THE KING&#8217;S &#8220;GOOD SISTER&#8221; AND THE KING&#8217;S BAD WIFE&mdash;THE LUTHERANS AND ENGLISH CATHOLICS</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">1542-1547</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><span class="smcaplc">KATHARINE PARR&mdash;THE PROTESTANTS WIN THE LAST TRICK</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_398">398</a></td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="illustrations">
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Henry VIII</span></td><td colspan="2" align="right"><a href="#front"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Jost Van Cleef</span> <i>in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Katharine of Aragon</span></td><td><i>To face page</i></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Holbein</span> <i>in the National Portrait Gallery.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Anne Boleyn</span></td><td><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>"<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_193">192</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Lucas Cornelisz</span> <i>in the National Portrait Gallery.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Jane Seymour</span></td><td><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>"<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a painting by</i> <span class="smcap">Holbein</span> <i>in the Imperial Collection at Vienna.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Anne of Cleves</span></td><td><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>"<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_337">336</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a portrait by a German artist in St. John&#8217;s College, Oxford.
+Photographed by the Clarendon Press, and<br />reproduced by the kind permission of the President of St. John&#8217;s College.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Katharine Howard</span></td><td><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>"<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_385">384</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a portrait by an unknown artist in the National Portrait Gallery.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Katharine Parr</span></td><td><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>"<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_401">400</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a painting in the collection of the</i> <span class="smcap">Earl Of Ashburnham</span>.
+<i>Reproduced by the kind permission of the owner.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Henry VIII</span></td><td><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>"<span class="spacer2">&nbsp;</span>"</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_432">432</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Holbein</span> <i>in the possession of the Earl of
+Warwick. Reproduced by the kind permission of the owner.</i></td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h1>THE WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>1488-1501</h3>
+<h3>INTRODUCTORY&mdash;WHY KATHARINE CAME TO ENGLAND&mdash;POLITICAL MATRIMONY</h3>
+
+<p>The history of modern Europe takes its start from an event which must have
+appeared insignificant to a generation that had witnessed the violent end
+of the English dominion in France, had been dinned by the clash of the
+Wars of the Roses, and watched with breathless fear the savage hosts of
+Islam striking at the heart of Christendom over the still smoking ruins of
+the Byzantine Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Late one night, in the beginning of October 1469, a cavalcade of men in
+the guise of traders halted beneath the walls of the ancient city of Burgo
+de Osma in Old Castile. They had travelled for many days by little-used
+paths through the mountains of Soria from the Aragonese frontier town of
+Tarrazona; and, impatient to gain the safe shelter of the fortress of
+Osma, they banged at the gates demanding admittance. The country was in
+anarchy. Leagues of churchmen and nobles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> warred against each other and
+preyed upon society at large. An impotent king, deposed with ignominy by
+one faction, had been as ignominiously set up again by another, and royal
+pretenders to the succession were the puppets of rival parties whose
+object was to monopolise for themselves all the fruits of royalty, whilst
+the monarch fed upon the husks. So when the new-comers called peremptorily
+for admittance within the gates of Osma, the guards upon the city walls,
+taking them for enemies or freebooters, greeted them with a shower of
+missiles from the catapults. One murderous stone whizzed within a few
+inches of the head of a tall, fair-haired lad of good mien and handsome
+visage, who, dressed as a servant, accompanied the cavalcade. If the
+projectile had effectively hit instead of missed the stripling, the whole
+history of the world from that hour to this would have been changed, for
+this youth was Prince Ferdinand, the heir of Aragon, who was being
+conveyed secretly by a faction of Castilian nobles to marry the Princess
+Isabel, who had been set forward as a pretender to her brother&#8217;s throne,
+to the exclusion of the King&#8217;s doubtful daughter, the hapless Beltraneja.
+A hurried cry of explanation went up from the travellers: a shouted
+password; the flashing of torches upon the walls, the joyful recognition
+of those within, and the gates swung open, the drawbridge dropped, and
+thenceforward Prince Ferdinand was safe, surrounded by the men-at-arms of
+Isabel&#8217;s faction. Within a week the eighteen-years-old bridegroom greeted
+his bride, and before the end of the month Ferdinand and Isabel were
+married at Valladolid.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>To most observers it may have seemed a small thing that a petty prince in
+the extreme corner of Europe had married the girl pretender to the
+distracted and divided realm of Castile; but there was one cunning, wicked
+old man in Barcelona who was fully conscious of the importance of the
+match that he had planned; and he, John II. of Aragon, had found an apt
+pupil in his son Ferdinand, crafty beyond his years. To some extent Isabel
+must have seen it too, for she was already a dreamer of great dreams which
+she meant to come true, and the strength of Aragon behind her claim would
+insure her the sovereignty that was to be the first step in their
+realisation.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place to tell how the nobles of Castile found to their
+dismay that in Ferdinand and Isabel they had raised a King Stork instead
+of King Log to the throne, and how the Queen, strong as a man, subtle as a
+woman, crushed and chicaned her realms into order and obedience. The aims
+of Ferdinand and his father in effecting the union of Aragon and Castile
+by marriage went far beyond the Peninsula in which they lived. For ages
+Aragon had found its ambitions checked by the consolidation of France. The
+vision of a great Romance empire, stretching from Valencia to Genoa, and
+governed from Barcelona or Saragossa, had been dissipated when Saint Louis
+wrung from James the Conqueror, in the thirteenth century, his recognition
+of French suzerainty over Provence.</p>
+
+<p>But Aragonese eyes looked still towards the east, and saw a Frenchman ever
+in their way. The Christian outpost in the Mediterranean, Sicily, already
+belonged to Aragon; so did the Balearic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> isles: but an Aragonese dynasty
+held Naples only in alternation and constant rivalry with the French house
+of Anjou; and as the strength of the French monarchy grew it stretched
+forth its hands nearer, and ever nearer, to the weak and divided
+principalities of Italy with covetous intent. Unless Aragon could check
+the French expansion across the Alps its own power in the Mediterranean
+would be dwarfed, its vast hopes must be abandoned, and it must settle
+down to the inglorious life of a petty State, hemmed in on all sides by
+more powerful neighbours. But although too weak to vanquish France alone,
+a King of Aragon who could dispose of the resources of greater Castile
+might hope, in spite of French opposition, to dominate a united Italy, and
+thence look towards the illimitable east. This was the aspiration that
+Ferdinand inherited, and to which the efforts of his long and strenuous
+life were all directed. The conquest of Granada, the unification of Spain,
+the greed, the cruelty, the lying, the treachery, the political marriages
+of all his children, and the fires of the Inquisition, were all means to
+the end for which he fought.</p>
+
+<p>But fate was unkind to him. The discovery of America diverted Castilian
+energy from Aragonese objects, and death stepped in and made grim sport of
+all his marriage jugglery. Before he died, beaten and broken-hearted, he
+knew that the little realm of his fathers, instead of using the strength
+of others for its aims, would itself be used for objects which concerned
+it not. But though he failed his plan was a masterly one. Treaties, he
+knew, were rarely binding, for the age was faithless, and he himself never
+kept an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> oath an hour longer than suited him; but mutual interests by
+kinship might hold sovereigns together against a common opponent. So, one
+after the other, from their earliest youth, the children of Ferdinand and
+Isabel were made political counters in their father&#8217;s great marriage
+league. The eldest daughter, Isabel, was married to the heir of Portugal,
+and every haven into which French galleys might shelter in their passage
+from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay was at Ferdinand&#8217;s bidding.
+The only son, John, was married to the daughter of Maximilian, King of the
+Romans, and (from 1493) Emperor, whose interest also it was to check the
+French advance towards north Italy and his own dominions. The second
+daughter, Juana, was married to the Emperor&#8217;s son, Philip, sovereign, in
+right of his mother, of the rich inheritance of Burgundy, Flanders,
+Holland, and the Franche Comt&eacute;, and heir to Austria and the Empire, who
+from Flanders might be trusted to watch the French on their northern and
+eastern borders; and the youngest of Ferdinand&#8217;s daughters, Katharine, was
+destined almost from her birth to secure the alliance of England, the
+rival of France in the Channel, and the opponent of its aggrandisement
+towards the north.</p>
+
+<p>Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry Tudor, Henry VII., were well matched. Both
+were clever, unscrupulous, and greedy; each knew that the other would
+cheat him if he could, and tried to get the better of every deal, utterly
+regardless not only of truth and honesty but of common decency. But,
+though Ferdinand usually beat Henry at his shuffling game, fate finally
+beat Ferdinand, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> a powerful modern England is the clearly traceable
+consequence. How the great result was brought about it is one of the
+principal objects of this book to tell. That Ferdinand had everything to
+gain by thus surrounding France by possible rivals in his own interests is
+obvious, for if his plans had not miscarried he could have diverted France
+whenever it suited him, and his way towards the east would have been
+clear; but at first sight the interest of Henry VII. in placing himself
+into a position of antagonism towards France for the benefit of the King
+of Spain is not so evident. The explanation must be found in the fact that
+he held the throne of England by very uncertain tenure, and sought to
+disarm those who would be most able and likely to injure him. The royal
+house of Castile had been closely allied to the Plantagenets, and both
+Edward IV. and his brother Richard had been suitors for the hand of
+Isabel. The Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy, moreover, was Margaret
+Plantagenet, their sister, who sheltered and cherished in Flanders the
+English adherents of her house; and Henry Tudor, half a Frenchman by birth
+and sympathies, was looked at askance by the powerful group of Spain, the
+Empire, and Burgundy when first he usurped the English throne. He knew
+that he had little or nothing to fear from France, and one of his earliest
+acts was in 1487 to bid for the friendship of Ferdinand by means of an
+offer of alliance, and the marriage of his son Arthur, Prince of Wales,
+then a year old, with the Infanta Katharine, who was a few months older.
+Ferdinand at the time was trying to bring about a match between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> his
+eldest daughter, Isabel, and the young King of France, Charles VIII., and
+was not very eager for a new English alliance which might alarm the
+French. Before the end of the year, however, it was evident that there was
+no chance of the Spanish Infanta&#8217;s marriage with Charles VIII. coming to
+anything, and Ferdinand&#8217;s plan for a great coalition against France was
+finally adopted.</p>
+
+<p>In the first days of 1488 Ferdinand&#8217;s two ambassadors arrived in London to
+negotiate the English match, and the long duel of diplomacy between the
+Kings of England and Spain began. Of one of the envoys it behoves us to
+say something, because of the influence his personal character exercised
+upon subsequent events. Rodrigo de Puebla was one of the most
+extraordinary diplomatists that can be imagined, and could only have been
+possible under such monarchs as Henry and Ferdinand, willing as both of
+them were to employ the basest instruments in their underhand policy.
+Puebla was a doctor of laws and a provincial mayor when he attracted the
+attention of Ferdinand, and his first diplomatic mission of importance was
+that to England. He was a poor, vain, greedy man, utterly corrupt, and
+Henry VII. was able to dominate him from the first. In the course of time
+he became more of an intimate English minister than a foreign ambassador,
+though he represented at Henry&#8217;s court not only Castile and Aragon, but
+also the Pope and the Empire. He constantly sat in the English council,
+and was almost the only man admitted to Henry&#8217;s personal confidence. That
+such an instrument would be trusted entirely by the wary Ferdinand, was
+not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> to be expected: and though Puebla remained in England as ambassador
+to the end of his life, he was, to his bitter jealousy, always associated
+with others when important negotiations had to be conducted. Isabel wrote
+to him often, sometimes threatening him with punishment if he failed in
+carrying out his instructions satisfactorily, sometimes flattering him and
+promising him rewards, which he never got. He was recognised by Ferdinand
+as an invaluable means of gaining knowledge of Henry&#8217;s real intentions,
+and by Henry as a tool for betraying Ferdinand. It is hardly necessary to
+say that he alternately sold both and was never fully paid by either.
+Henry offered him an English bishopric which his own sovereigns would not
+allow him to accept, and a wealthy wife in England was denied him for a
+similar reason; for Ferdinand on principle kept his agents poor. On a
+wretched pittance allowed him by Henry, Puebla lived thus in London until
+he died almost simultaneously with his royal friend. When not spunging at
+the tables of the King or English nobles he lived in a house of ill-fame
+in London, paying only twopence a day for his board, and cheating the
+other inmates, in the interests of the proprietor, for the balance. He
+was, in short, a braggart, a liar, a flatterer, and a spy, who served two
+rogues roguishly and was fittingly rewarded by the scorn of honest men.</p>
+
+<p>This was the ambassador who, with a colleague called Juan de Sepulveda,
+was occupied through the spring of 1488 in negotiating the marriage of the
+two babies&mdash;Arthur, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta Katharine. They found
+Henry, as Puebla says, singing <i>Te Deum Laudamus</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> about the alliance and
+marriage: but when the parties came to close quarters matters went less
+smoothly. What Henry had to gain by the alliance was the disarming of
+possible enemies of his own unstable throne, whilst Ferdinand needed
+England&#8217;s active or passive support in a war against France, for the
+purpose of extorting the restoration to Aragon of the territory of
+Roussillon and Cerdagne, and of preventing the threatened absorption of
+the Duchy of Brittany into the French monarchy. The contest was keen and
+crafty. First the English commissioners demanded with the Infanta a dowry
+so large as quite to shock Puebla; it being, as he said, five times as
+much as had been mentioned by English agents in Spain. Puebla and
+Sepulveda offered a quarter of the sum demanded, and hinted with pretended
+jocosity that it was a great condescension on the part of the sovereigns
+of Spain to allow their daughter to marry at all into such a parvenu
+family as the Tudors. After infinite haggling, both as to the amount and
+the form of the dowry, it was agreed by the ambassadors that 200,000 gold
+crowns of 4s. 2d. each should be paid in cash with the bride on her
+marriage. But the marriage was the least part of Ferdinand&#8217;s object, if
+indeed he then intended, which is doubtful, that it should take place at
+all. What he wanted was the assurance of Henry&#8217;s help against France; and,
+of all things, peace was the first need for the English king. When the
+demand was made therefore that England should go to war with France
+whenever Ferdinand chose to do so, and should not make peace without its
+ally, baited though the demand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> was with the hollow suggestion of
+recovering for England the territories of Normandy and Guienne, Henry&#8217;s
+duplicity was brought into play. He dared not consent to such terms, but
+he wanted the benevolent regards of Ferdinand&#8217;s coalition: so his
+ministers flattered the Spanish king, and vaguely promised &#8220;mounts and
+marvels&#8221; in the way of warlike aid, as soon as the marriage treaty was
+signed and sealed. Even Puebla wanted something more definite than this;
+and the English commissioners (the Bishop of Exeter and Giles Daubeney),
+&#8220;took a missal in their hands and swore in the most solemn way before the
+crucifix that it is the will of the King of England first to conclude the
+alliance and the marriage, and afterwards to make war upon the King of
+France, according to the bidding of the Catholic kings.&#8221; Nor was this all:
+for when Puebla and his colleagues later in the day saw the King himself,
+Henry smiled at and flattered the envoys, and flourishing his bonnet and
+bowing low each time the names of Ferdinand and Isabel passed his lips,
+confirmed the oath of his ministers, &#8220;which he said we must accept for
+plain truth, unmingled with double dealing or falsehood.&#8221;<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small> Ferdinand&#8217;s
+ambassadors were fairly dazzled. They were taken to see the infant
+bridegroom; and Puebla grew quite poetical in describing his bodily
+perfections, both dressed and <i>in puribus naturalibus</i>, and the beauty and
+magnificence of the child&#8217;s mother were equally extolled. The object of
+all Henry&#8217;s amiability, and, indeed, of Puebla&#8217;s dithyrambics also, was to
+cajole Ferdinand into sending his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> baby daughter Katharine into England at
+once on the marriage treaty alone. With such a hostage in his hands, Henry
+knew that he might safely break his oath about going to war with France to
+please the Spanish king.</p>
+
+<p>But Ferdinand was not a man easy to cajole, and when hapless, simple
+Sepulveda reached Spain with the draft treaty he found himself in the
+presence of two very angry sovereigns indeed. Two hundred thousand crowns
+dowry, indeed! One hundred was the most they would give, and that must be
+in Spanish gold, or the King of England would be sure to cheat them over
+the exchange; and they must have three years in which to pay the amount,
+for which moreover no security should be given but their own signatures.
+The cost of the bride&#8217;s trousseau and jewels also must be deducted from
+the amount of the dowry. On the other hand, the Infanta&#8217;s dowry and income
+from England must be fully guaranteed by land rents; and, above all, the
+King of England must bind himself at the same time&mdash;secretly if he likes,
+but by formal treaty&mdash;to go to war with France to recover for Ferdinand
+Roussillon and Cerdagne. Though Henry would not go quite so far as this,
+he conceded much for the sake of the alliances so necessary to him. The
+dowry from Spain was kept at 200,000 crowns, and England was pledged to a
+war with France whenever Ferdinand should find himself in the same
+position.</p>
+
+<p>With much discussion and sharp practice on both sides the treaties in this
+sense were signed in March 1489, and the four-years-old Infanta Katharine
+became Princess of Wales. It is quite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> clear throughout this early
+negotiation that the marriage that should give to the powerful coalition
+of which Ferdinand was the head a family interest in the maintenance of
+the Tudor dynasty was Henry&#8217;s object, to be gained on terms as easy as
+practicable to himself; whereas with Ferdinand the marriage was but the
+bait to secure the armed co-operation of England against France; and
+probably at the time neither of the kings had any intention of fulfilling
+that part of the bargain which did not specially interest him. As will be
+seen, however, the force of circumstances and the keenness of the
+contracting parties led eventually to a better fulfilment of the treaty
+than was probably intended.</p>
+
+<p>For the next two years the political intrigues of Europe centered around
+the marriage of the young Duchess of Brittany. Though Roussillon and
+Cerdagne mattered nothing to Henry VII., the disposal of the rich duchy
+opposite his own shores was of importance to him. France, Spain, England,
+and the Empire were all trying to outbid one another for the marriage of
+the Duchess; and, as Charles VIII. of France was the most dangerous
+suitor, Henry was induced to send his troops across the Channel to
+Brittany to join those of Spain and the Empire, though neither of the
+latter troops came. From the first all the allies were false to each
+other, and hastened to make separate terms with France; Ferdinand and
+Maximilian endeavouring above all to leave Henry at war. When, at the end
+of 1491, Charles VIII. carried off the matrimonial prize of the Duchess of
+Brittany and peace ensued, none of the allies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> had gained anything by
+their tergiversation. Reasons were soon found by Ferdinand for regarding
+the marriage treaty between Arthur and Katharine as in abeyance, and once
+more pressure was put upon Henry to buy its fulfilment by another warlike
+coalition. The King of England stood out for a time, especially against an
+alliance with the King of the Romans, who had acted so badly about
+Brittany; but at length the English contingent was led against Boulogne by
+the King himself, as part of the allied action agreed upon. This time,
+however, it was Henry who, to prevent the betrayal he foresaw, scored off
+his allies, and without striking a blow he suddenly made a separate peace
+with France (November 1492). But yet he was the only party who had not
+gained what he had bid for. Roussillon and Cerdagne were restored to
+Ferdinand, in consequence of Henry&#8217;s threat against Boulogne; France had
+been kept in check during the time that all the resources of Spain were
+strained in the supreme effort to capture the last Moorish foothold in the
+Peninsula, the peerless Granada; the King of France had married the
+Duchess of Brittany and had thus consolidated and strengthened his realm;
+whilst Henry, to his chagrin, found that not only had he not regained
+Normandy and Guienne, but that in the new treaty of peace between Spain
+and France, &#8220;Ferdinand and Isabel engage their loyal word and faith as
+Christians, not to conclude or permit any marriage of their children with
+any member of the royal family of England; and they bind themselves to
+assist the King of France against all his enemies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> and <i>particularly
+against the English</i>.&#8221; This was Henry&#8217;s first experience of Ferdinand&#8217;s
+diplomacy, and he found himself outwitted at every point. Katharine, all
+unconscious as she conned her childish lessons at Granada, ceased for a
+time to be called &#8220;Princess of Wales.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With the astute King of England thus cozened by Ferdinand, it is not
+wonderful that the vain and foolish young King of France should also have
+found himself no match for his new Spanish ally. Trusting upon his
+alliance, Charles VIII. determined to strike for the possession of the
+kingdom of Naples, which he claimed as representing the house of Anjou.
+Naples at the time was ruled by a close kinsman of Ferdinand, and it is
+not conceivable that the latter ever intended to allow the French to expel
+him for the purpose of ruling there themselves. But he smiled, not
+unkindly at first, upon Charles&#8217;s Italian adventure, for he knew the
+French king was rash and incompetent, and that the march of a French army
+through Italy would arouse the hatred and fear of the Italian princes and
+make them easy tools in his hands. The King of Naples, moreover, was
+extremely unpopular and of illegitimate descent: and Ferdinand doubtless
+saw that if the French seized Naples he could not only effect a powerful
+coalition to expel them, but in the scramble might keep Naples for
+himself; and this is exactly what happened. The first cry against the
+French was raised by the Pope Alexander VI., a Spanish Borgia. By the time
+Charles VIII. of France was crowned King of Naples (May 1495) all Italy
+was ablaze against the intruders, and Ferdinand formed the Holy League&mdash;of
+Rome,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> Spain, Austria, Venice, and Milan&mdash;to crush his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as usual, he found it desirable to secure the benevolence of Henry
+VII. of England. Again Henry was delighted, for Perkin Warbeck had been
+received by Maximilian and his Flemish kinsmen as the rightful King of
+England, and the Yorkist nobles still found aid and sympathy in the
+dominions of Burgundy. But Henry had already been tricked once by the
+allies, and was far more difficult to deal with than before. He found
+himself, indeed, for the first time in the position which under his
+successors enabled England to rise to the world power she attained;
+namely, that of the balancing factor between France and Spain. This was
+the first result of Ferdinand&#8217;s coalition against France for the purpose
+of forwarding Aragonese aims, and it remained the central point of
+European politics for the next hundred years. Henry was not the man to
+overlook his new advantage, with both of the great European powers bidding
+for his alliance; and this time he drove a hard bargain with Ferdinand.
+There was still much haggling about the Spanish dowry for Katharine, but
+Henry stood firm at the 200,000 gold crowns, though a quarter of the
+amount was to take the form of jewels belonging the bride. One stipulation
+was that the new marriage was to be kept a profound secret, in order that
+the King of Scots might not be alarmed; for Ferdinand was trying to draw
+even him away from France by hints of marriage with an Infanta. By the new
+treaty, which was signed in October 1497, the formal marriage of Arthur
+and Katharine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> <i>per verba de presenti</i> was to be celebrated when Arthur
+had completed his fourteenth year; and the bride&#8217;s dowry in England was to
+consist of a third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester, with
+an increase of the income when she became Queen.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not all plain sailing yet. Ferdinand considered that Henry had
+tricked him about the amount and form of the dowry, but the fear that the
+King of France might induce the English to enter into a new alliance with
+him kept Ferdinand ostensibly friendly. In the summer of 1598 two special
+Spanish ambassadors arrived in London, and saw the King for the purpose of
+confirming him in the alliance with their sovereigns, and, if we are to
+believe Puebla&#8217;s account of the interview, both Henry and his Queen
+carried their expressions of veneration for Ferdinand and Isabel almost to
+a blasphemous extent. Henry, indeed, is said to have had a quarrel with
+his wife because she would not give him one of the letters from the
+Spanish sovereigns always to carry about with him, Elizabeth saying that
+she wished to send her letter to the Prince of Wales.</p>
+
+<p>But for all Henry&#8217;s blandishments and friendliness, his constant requests
+that Katharine should be sent to England met with never-failing excuses
+and procrastination. It is evident, indeed, throughout that, although the
+Infanta was used as the attraction that was to keep Henry and England in
+the Spanish, instead of the French, interest, there was much reluctance on
+the part of her parents, and particularly of Queen Isabel, to trust her
+child, to whom she was much attached, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> the keeping of a stranger, whose
+only object in desiring her presence was, she knew, a political one. Some
+anxiety was shown by Henry and his wife, on the other hand, that the young
+Princess should be trained in a way that would fit her for her future
+position in England. The Princess Margaret of Austria, daughter of
+Maximilian, who had just married Ferdinand&#8217;s heir, Prince John, was in
+Spain, and Puebla reports that the King and Queen of England were anxious
+that Katharine should take the opportunity of speaking French with her, in
+order to learn the language. &#8220;This is necessary, because the English
+ladies do not understand Latin, and much less Spanish. The King and Queen
+also wish that the Princess should accustom herself to drink wine. The
+water of England is not drinkable, and even if it were, the climate would
+not allow the drinking of it.&#8221; The necessary Papal Bulls for the marriage
+of the Prince and Princess arrived in 1498, and Henry pressed continually
+for the coming of the bride, but Ferdinand and Isabel were in no hurry.
+&#8220;The manner in which the marriage is to be performed, and the Princess
+sent to England, must all be settled first.&#8221; &#8220;You must negotiate these
+points,&#8221; they wrote to Puebla, &#8220;<i>but make no haste</i>.&#8221;<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small> Spanish envoys of
+better character and greater impartiality than Puebla urged that
+Katharine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> should be sent &#8220;before she had become too much attached to
+Spanish life and institutions&#8221;; though the writer of this admits the grave
+inconvenience of subjecting so young a girl to the disadvantages of life
+in Henry&#8217;s court.</p>
+
+<p>Young Arthur himself, even, was prompted to use his influence to persuade
+his new wife to join him, writing to his &#8220;most entirely beloved spouse&#8221;
+from Ludlow in October 1499, dwelling upon his earnest desire to see her,
+as the delay in her coming is very grievous to him, and he begs it may be
+hastened. The final disappearance of Perkin Warbeck in 1499 greatly
+changed the position of Henry and made him a more desirable connection:
+and the death without issue of Ferdinand&#8217;s only son and heir about the
+same time, also made it necessary for the Spanish king to draw his
+alliances closer, in view of the nearness to the succession of his second
+daughter, Juana, who had married Maximilian&#8217;s son, the Archduke Philip,
+sovereign of Flanders, who, as well as his Spanish wife, were deeply
+distrusted by both Ferdinand and Isabel. In 1500, therefore, the Spanish
+sovereigns became more acquiescent about their daughter&#8217;s coming to
+England. By Don Juan Manuel, their most skilful diplomatist, they sent a
+message to Henry in January 1500, saying that they had determined to send
+Katharine in the following spring without waiting until Arthur had
+completed his fourteenth year. The sums, they were told, that had already
+been spent in preparations for her reception in England were enormous, and
+when in March there was still no sign of the bride&#8217;s coming, Henry VII.
+began to get restive.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> He and his country, he said, would suffer great
+loss if the arrival of the Princess were delayed. But just then Ferdinand
+found that the treaty was not so favourable for him as he had expected,
+and the whole of the conditions, particularly as to the payment of the
+dowry, and the valuation of the bride&#8217;s jewels, had once more to be
+laboriously discussed; another Spanish ambassador being sent, to request
+fresh concessions. In vain Puebla told his master that when once the
+Princess arrived all England would be at his bidding, assured him of
+Henry&#8217;s good faith, and his own ability as a diplomatist. Ferdinand always
+found some fresh subject to be wrangled over: the style to be given to the
+King of England, the number of servants to come in the train of Katharine,
+Henry desiring that they should be few and Ferdinand many, and one of the
+demands of the English king was, &#8220;that the ladies who came from Spain with
+the Princess should all be beautiful, or at least none of them should be
+ugly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1500 there was a sudden panic in Ferdinand&#8217;s court that
+Henry had broken off the match. He had gone to Calais to meet for the
+first time the young Archduke Philip, Ferdinand&#8217;s son-in-law, and it was
+rumoured that the distrusted Fleming had persuaded Henry to marry the
+Prince of Wales to his sister the Arch duchess Margaret, the recently
+widowed daughter in-law of Ferdinand. It was not true, though it made
+Ferdinand very cordial for a time, and soon the relations between England
+and Spain resumed their usual course of smooth-tongued distrust and
+tergiversation. Still another ambassador was sent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> to England, and
+reported that people were saying they believed the Princess would never
+come, though great preparations for her reception continued to be made,
+and the English nobles were already arranging jousts and tournaments for
+her entertainment. Ferdinand, on the other hand, continued to send
+reassuring messages. He was, he said, probably with truth now, more
+desirous than ever that the marriage should take place when the bridegroom
+had completed his fourteenth year; but it was necessary that the marriage
+should be performed again by proxy in Spain before the bride embarked.
+Then there was a delay in obtaining the ships necessary for the passage,
+and the Spanish sovereigns changed their minds again, and preferred that
+the second marriage, after Arthur had attained his fifteenth year, should
+be performed in England. The stormy weather of August was then an excuse
+for another delay on the voyage, and a fresh quibble was raised about the
+value of the Princess&#8217;s jewels being considered as part of the <i>first</i>
+instalment of the dowry. In December 1500 the marriage was once more
+performed at Ludlow, Arthur being again present and pledging himself as
+before to Puebla.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst delaying the voyage of Katharine as much as possible, now probably
+in consequence of her youth, her parents took the greatest of care to
+convince Henry of the indissoluble character of the marriage as it stood.
+Knowing the King of England&#8217;s weakness, Isabel wrote in March 1501
+deprecating the great expense he was incurring in the preparations. She
+did not wish, she said, for her daughter to cause a loss to England,
+either<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> in money or any other way; but to be a source of happiness to
+every one. When all was ready for the embarkation at Corunna in April
+1501, an excuse for further delay was found in a rebellion of the Moors of
+Ronda, which prevented Ferdinand from escorting his daughter to the port;
+then both Isabel and Katharine had a fit of ague, which delayed the
+departure for another week or two. But at last the parting could be
+postponed no longer, and for the last time on earth Isabel the Catholic
+embraced her favourite daughter Katharine in the fairy palace of the
+Alhambra which for ever will be linked with the memories of her heroism.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen was still weak with fever, and could not accompany her daughter
+on the way, but she stood stately in her sternly suppressed grief,
+sustained by the exalted religious mysticism, which in her descendants
+degenerated to neurotic mania. Grief unutterable had stricken the Queen.
+Her only son was dead, and her eldest daughter and her infant heir had
+also gone to untimely graves. The hopes founded upon the marriages of
+their children had all turned to ashes, and the King and Queen saw with
+gloomy foreboding that their daughter Juana and her foreign husband would
+rule in Spain as well as in Flanders and the Empire, to Spain&#8217;s
+irreparable disaster; and, worst of all, Juana had dared to dally with the
+hated thing heresy. In the contest of divided interest which they foresaw,
+it was of the utmost importance now to the Catholic kings that England at
+least should be firmly attached to them; and they dared no longer delay
+the sacrifice of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> Katharine to the political needs of their country.
+Katharine, young as she was, understood that she was being sent to a far
+country amongst strangers as much an ambassador as a bride, but she from
+her birth had been brought up in the atmosphere of ecstatic devotion that
+surrounded her heroic mother, and the din of battle against the enemies of
+the Christian God had rarely been silent in her childish ears. So, with
+shining eyes and a look of proud martyrdom, Katharine bade the Queen a
+last farewell, turned her back upon lovely Granada, and through the torrid
+summer of 1501 slowly traversed the desolate bridle-roads of La Mancha and
+arid Castile to the green valleys of Galicia, where, in the harbour of
+Corunna, her little fleet lay at anchor awaiting her.</p>
+
+<p>From the 21st of May, when she last looked upon the Alhambra, it took her
+nearly two months of hard travel to reach Corunna, and it was almost a
+month more before all was ready for the embarkation with the great train
+of courtiers and servants that accompanied her. On the 17th August 1501
+the flotilla sailed from Corunna, only to be stricken the next day by a
+furious north-easterly gale and scattered; the Princess&#8217;s ship, in dire
+danger, being driven into the little port of Laredo in the north of Spain.
+There Katharine was seriously ill, and another long delay occurred, the
+apprehension that some untoward accident had happened to the Princess at
+sea causing great anxiety to the King of England, who sent his best seamen
+to seek tidings of the bride. The season was late, and when, on the 26th
+September 1501, Katharine again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> left Laredo for England, even her stout
+heart failed at the prospect before her. A dangerous hurricane from the
+south accompanied her across the Channel and drove the ships finally into
+the safety of Plymouth harbour on Saturday the 2nd October 1501.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess was but little expected at Plymouth, as Southampton or
+Bristol had been recommended as the best ports for her arrival; and great
+preparations had been made for her reception at both those ports. But the
+Plymouth folk were nothing backward in their loyal welcome of the new
+Princess of Wales; for one of the courtiers who accompanied her wrote to
+Queen Isabel that &#8220;she could not have been received with greater
+rejoicings if she had been the saviour of the world.&#8221; As she went in
+solemn procession through the streets to the church of Plymouth to give
+thanks for her safety from the perils past, with foreign speech sounding
+in her ears and surrounded by a curious crowd of fair folk so different
+from the swarthy subjects of her mother that she had left behind at
+Granada, the girl of sixteen might well be appalled at the magnitude of
+the task before her. She knew that henceforward she had, by diplomacy and
+woman&#8217;s wit, to keep the might and wealth of England and its king on the
+side of her father against France; to prevent any coalition between her
+new father-in-law and her brother-in-law Philip in Flanders in which Spain
+was not included; and, finally, to give an heir to the English throne,
+who, in time to come, should be Aragonese in blood and sympathy.
+Thenceforward Katharine must belong to England in appearance if her
+mission was to succeed; and though Spain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> was always in her heart as the
+exotic pomegranate of Granada was on her shield, England in future was the
+name she conjured by, and all England loved her, from the hour she first
+set foot on English soil to the day of the final consummation of her
+martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i024.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h3>1501-1509</h3>
+<h3>KATHARINE&#8217;S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND</h3>
+
+<p>The arrival of Katharine in England as his son&#8217;s affianced wife meant very
+much for Henry VII. and his house. He had already, by a master-stroke of
+diplomacy, betrothed his eldest daughter to the King of Scots, and was
+thus safe from French intrigue on his vulnerable northern border, whilst
+the new King of France was far too apprehensive of Ferdinand&#8217;s coalition
+to arouse the active enmity of England. The presence of Ferdinand&#8217;s
+daughter on English soil completed the security against attack upon Henry
+from abroad. It is true that the Yorkists and their friends were still
+plotting: &#8220;Solicited, allured and provoked, by that old venomous serpent,
+the Duchess of Burgundy, ever the sower of sedition and beginner of
+rebellion against the King of England;&#8221;<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small> but Henry knew well that with
+Katharine at his Court he could strike a death-blow, as he soon did, at
+his domestic enemies, without fear of reprisals from her brother-in-law
+Philip, the present sovereign of Burgundy and Flanders.</p>
+
+<p>Messengers were sent galloping to London to carry to the King the great
+news of Katharine&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> arrival at Plymouth; but the roads were bad, and it
+was not Henry&#8217;s way to spoil his market by a show of over-eagerness, and
+though he sent forward the Duchess of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey to
+attend upon the Princess on her way towards London, the royal party did
+not set out from Shene Palace to meet her until the 4th November.
+Travelling through a drenching rain by short stages from one seat to
+another, Henry VII. and his daughter-in-law gradually approached each
+other with their splendid troops of followers, all muffled up, we are
+told, in heavy rain cloaks to shield their finery from the inclemency of
+an English winter. Young Arthur, coming from the seat of his government in
+Wales, met his father near Chertsey, and together they continued their
+journey towards the west. On the third day, as they rode over the
+Hampshire downs, they saw approaching them a group of horsemen, the leader
+of which dismounted and saluted the King in Latin with a message from
+Ferdinand and Isabel. Ladies in Spain were kept in strict seclusion until
+their marriage, and the messenger, who was the Protonotary Ca&ntilde;azares, sent
+with Katharine to England to see that Spanish etiquette was not violated,
+prayed in the name of his sovereigns that the Infanta should not be seen
+by the King, and especially by the bridegroom, until the public marriage
+was performed. This was a part of the bargain that the cautious Puebla had
+not mentioned, and Henry was puzzled at such a request in his own realm,
+where no such oriental regard for women was known. Hastily taking counsel
+of the nobles on horseback about him, he decided<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> that, as the Infanta was
+in England, she must abide by English customs. Indeed the demand for
+seclusion seems to have aroused the King&#8217;s curiosity, for, putting spurs
+to his horse, with but a small following, and leaving the boy bridegroom
+behind, he galloped on to Dogmersfield, at no great distance away, where
+the Infanta was awaiting his arrival. When he came to the house in which
+she lodged, he found a little group of horrified Spanish prelates and
+nobles, the Archbishop of Santiago, the Bishop of Majorca, and Count
+Cabra, at the door of the Infanta&#8217;s apartments, barring entrance. The
+Princess had, they said, retired to her chamber and ought not to be
+disturbed. There was no restraining a king in his own realm, however, and
+Henry brushed the group aside. &#8220;Even if she were in bed,&#8221; he said, &#8220;he
+meant to see and speak with her, for that was the whole intent of his
+coming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Finding that Spanish etiquette would not be observed in England, Katharine
+made the best of matters and received Henry graciously, though evidently
+her Latin and French were different from his; for they were hardly
+intelligible to one another. Then, after the King had changed his
+travelling garb, he sent word that he had a present for the Princess; and
+led in the blushing Prince Arthur to the presence of his bride. The
+conversation now was more easily conducted, for the Latin-speaking bishops
+were close by to interpret. Once more, and for the fourth time, the young
+couple formally pledged their troth; and then after supper the Spanish
+minstrels played, and the ladies and gentlemen of Katharine&#8217;s suite
+danced: young Arthur,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> though unable to dance in the Spanish way, trod an
+English measure with Lady Guildford to show that he was not unversed in
+courtly graces.<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Arthur appears to have been a slight, fair, delicate lad, amiable and
+gentle, and not so tall as his bride, who was within a month of sixteen
+years, Arthur being just over fifteen. Katharine must have had at this
+time at least the grace of girlhood, though she never can have been a
+great beauty. Like most of her mother&#8217;s house she had pale, rather hard,
+statuesque features and ruddy hair. As we trace her history we shall see
+that most of her mistakes in England, and she made many, were the natural
+result of the uncompromising rigidity of principle arising from the
+conviction of divine appointment which formed her mother&#8217;s system. She had
+been brought up in the midst of a crusading war, in which the victors drew
+their inspiration, and ascribed their triumph, to the special intervention
+of the Almighty in their favour; and already Katharine&#8217;s house had assumed
+as a basis of its family faith that the cause of God was indissolubly
+linked with that of the sovereigns of Castile and Leon. It was impossible
+that a woman brought up in such a school could be opportunist, or would
+bend to the petty subterfuges and small complaisances by which men are
+successfully managed; and Katharine suffered through life from the
+inflexibility born of self-conscious rectitude.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly through the rain the united cavalcades travelled back by Chertsey;
+and the Spanish half then rode to Kingston, where the Duke of Buckingham,
+with four hundred retainers in black<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> and scarlet, met the bride, and so
+to the palace at Kennington hard by Lambeth, where Katharine was lodged
+until the sumptuous preparations for the public marriage at St. Paul&#8217;s
+were completed. To give a list of all the splendours that preceded the
+wedding would be as tedious as it is unnecessary; but a general impression
+of the festivities as they struck a contemporary will give us a far better
+idea than a close catalogue of the wonderful things the Princess saw as
+she rode her white palfrey on the 12th November through Southwark, over
+London Bridge, and by Cheapside to the Bishop of London&#8217;s house adjoining
+St. Paul&#8217;s. &#8220;And, because I will not be tedious to you, I pass over the
+wise devices, the prudent speeches, the costly works, the cunning
+portraitures, practised and set forth in seven beautiful pageants erected
+and set up in divers places of the city. I leave also the goodaly ballds,
+the sweet harmony, the musical instruments, which sounded with heavenly
+noise in every side of the street. I omit the costly apparel, both of
+goldsmith&#8217;s work and embroidery, the rich jewels, the massy chains, the
+stirring horses, the beautiful bards, and the glittering trappers, both
+with bells and spangles of gold. I pretermit also the rich apparel of the
+Princess, the strange fashion of the Spanish nation, the beauty of the
+English ladies, the goodly demeanour of the young damosels, the amorous
+countenance of the lusty bachelors. I pass over the fine engrained
+clothes, the costly furs of the citizens, standing upon scaffolds, railed
+from Gracechurch to St. Paul&#8217;s. What should I speak of the odoriferous
+scarlets, and fine velvet and pleasant furs, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> rich chains, which the
+Mayor of London with the Senate, sitting on horseback at the little
+conduit in Chepe, ware upon their bodies and about their necks. I will not
+molest you with rehearsing the rich arras, the costly tapestry, the fine
+cloths of silver and of gold, the curious velvets and satins, the pleasant
+silks, which did hang in every street where she passed; the wine that ran
+out of the conduits, the gravelling and railing of the streets, and all
+else that needeth not remembring.&#8221;<small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">[5]</a></small> In short, we may conclude that
+Katharine&#8217;s passage through London before her wedding was as triumphal as
+the citizens could make it. Even the common people knew that her presence
+in England made for security and peace, and her Lancastrian descent from
+John of Gaunt seemed to add promise of legitimacy to future heirs to the
+crown.</p>
+
+<p>A long raised gangway of timber handsomely draped ran from the great west
+door of St. Paul&#8217;s to the entrance to the choir. Near the end of the
+gangway there was erected upon it a high platform, reached by steps on
+each side, with room on the top for eight persons to stand. On the north
+side of the platform sat the King and Queen incognito in a tribune
+supposed to be private; whilst the corporation of London were ranged on
+the opposite side. The day of the ceremony was the 14th November 1501,
+Sunday and the day of St. Erkenwald, and all London was agog to see the
+show. Nobles and knights from every corner of the realm, glittering and
+flashing in their new finery, had come to do honour to the heir of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+England and his bride. Both bride and bridegroom were dressed in white
+satin, and they stood together, a comely young pair, upon the high scarlet
+stage to be married for the fifth time, on this occasion by the Archbishop
+of Canterbury. Then, after mass had been celebrated at the high altar with
+Archbishops, and mitred prelates by the dozen, a procession was formed to
+lead the newly married couple to the Bishop of London&#8217;s palace across the
+churchyard. The stately bride, looking older than her years, came first,
+followed by a hundred ladies; and whilst on her left hand there hobbled
+the disreputable, crippled old ambassador, Dr. Puebla, the greatest day of
+whose life this was, on the other side the Princess was led by the most
+engaging figure in all that vast assembly. It was that of a graceful
+little boy of ten years in white velvet and gold; his bearing so gallant
+and sturdy, his skin so dazzlingly fair, his golden hair so shining, his
+smile so frank, that a rain of blessings showered upon him as he passed.
+This was the bridegroom&#8217;s brother, Henry, Duke of York, who in gay
+unconsciousness was leading his own fate by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Again the details of crowds of lords and ladies in their sumptuous
+garments, of banquets and dancing, of chivalric jousts and puerile
+maskings, may be left to the imagination of the reader. When magnificence
+at last grew palling, the young bride and bridegroom were escorted to
+their chamber in the Bishop of London&#8217;s palace, with the broad
+suggestiveness then considered proper in all well-conducted weddings, and
+duly recorded in this case by the courtly chroniclers of the times.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> In
+the morning Arthur called at the door of the nuptial chamber to his
+attendants for a draught of liquor. To the bantering question of the
+chamberlain as to the cause of his unaccustomed thirst, it was not
+unnatural, considering the free manners of the day, that the Prince should
+reply in a vein of boyish boastfulness, with a suggestion which was
+probably untrue regarding the aridity of the Spanish climate and his own
+prowess as being the causes of his droughtiness. In any case this
+indelicate bit of youthful swagger of Arthur&#8217;s was made, nearly thirty
+years afterwards, one of the principal pieces of evidence gravely brought
+forward to prove the illegality of Katharine&#8217;s marriage with Henry.</p>
+
+<p>On the day following the marriage the King and Queen came in full state to
+congratulate the newly married pair, and led them to the abode that had
+been elaborately prepared for them at Baynard&#8217;s Castle, whose ancient keep
+frowned over the Thames, below Blackfriars. On the Thursday following the
+feast was continued at Westminster with greater magnificence than ever. In
+a splendid tribune extending from Westminster Hall right across what is
+now Parliament Square sat Katharine with all the royal family and the
+Court, whilst the citizens crowded the stands on the other side of the
+great space reserved for the tilters. Invention was exhausted by the
+greater nobles in the contrivances by which they sought to make their
+respective entries effective. One had borne over him a green erection
+representing a wooded mount, crowded with allegorical animals; another
+rode under a tent of cloth of gold, and yet another pranced into the lists
+mounted upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> a stage dragon led by a fearsome giant; and so the pageantry
+that seems to us so trite, and was then considered so exquisite, unrolled
+itself before the enraptured eyes of the lieges who paid for it all. How
+gold plate beyond valuation was piled upon the sideboards at the great
+banquet after the tilt in Westminster Hall, how Katharine and one of her
+ladies danced Spanish dances and Arthur led out his aunt Cicely, how
+masques and devices innumerable were paraded before the hosts and guests,
+and, above all, how the debonair little Duke of York charmed all hearts by
+his dancing with his elder sister; and, warming to his work, cast off his
+coat and footed it in his doublet, cannot be told here, nor the ceremony
+in which Katharine distributed rich prizes a few days afterwards to the
+successful tilters. There was more feasting and mumming at Shene to
+follow, but at last the celebration wore itself out, and Arthur and his
+wife settled down for a time to married life in their palace at Baynard&#8217;s
+Castle.</p>
+
+<p>King Henry in his letter to the bride&#8217;s parents, expresses himself as
+delighted with her &#8220;beauty and agreeable and dignified manners,&#8221; and
+promises to be to her &#8220;a second father, who will ever watch over her, and
+never allow her to lack anything that he can procure for her.&#8221; How he kept
+his promise we shall see later; but there is no doubt that her marriage
+with his son was a great relief to him, and enabled him, first to cast his
+net awide and sweep into its meshes all the gentry of England who might be
+presumed to wish him ill, and secondly to send Empson and Dudley abroad to
+wring from the well-to-do classes the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> last ducat that could be squeezed
+in order that he might buttress his throne with wealth. Probably Arthur&#8217;s
+letter to Ferdinand and Isabel written at the same time (November 30,
+1501) was drafted by other hands than his own, but the terms in which he
+expresses his satisfaction with his wife are so warm that they doubtless
+reflect the fact that he really found her pleasant. &#8220;He had never,&#8221; he
+assured them, &#8220;felt so much joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet
+face of his bride, and no woman in the world could be more agreeable to
+him.&#8221;<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">[6]</a></small> The honeymoon was a short, and could hardly have been a merry,
+one; for Arthur was obviously a weakling, consumptive some chroniclers
+aver; and the grim old castle by the river was not a lively abode.</p>
+
+<p>Before the marriage feast were well over, Henry&#8217;s avarice began to make
+things unpleasant for Katharine. We have seen how persistent he had been
+in his demands that the dowry should be paid to him in gold, and how the
+bride&#8217;s parents had pressed that the jewels and plate she took with her
+should be considered as part of the dowry. On Katharine&#8217;s wedding the
+first instalment of 100,000 crowns had been handed to Henry by the
+Archbishop of Santiago, and there is no doubt that in the negotiations
+Puebla had, as usual with him, thought to smooth matters by concealing
+from both sovereigns the inconvenient conditions insisted by each of them.
+Henry therefore imagined&mdash;he said that he was led to believe it by
+Puebla&mdash;that the jewels and plate were to be surrendered to him on a
+valuation as part of the second instalment;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> whereas the bride&#8217;s parents
+were allowed to suppose that Katharine would still have the enjoyment of
+them. In the middle of December, therefore, Henry sent for Juan de Cuero,
+Katharine&#8217;s chamberlain, and demanded the valuables as an instalment of
+the remaining 100,000 crowns of the dowry. Cuero, astounded at such a
+request, replied that it would be his duty to have them weighed and valued
+and a list given to the King in exchange for a receipt for their value,
+but that he had not to give them up. The King, highly irate at what he
+considered an evasion of his due, pressed his demand, but without avail,
+and afterwards saw Katharine herself at Baynard&#8217;s Castle in the presence
+of Do&ntilde;a Elvira Manuel, her principal lady in waiting.</p>
+
+<p>What was the meaning of it, he asked, as he told her of Cuero&#8217;s refusal to
+surrender her valuables in fulfilment of the promise, and further exposed
+Puebla&#8217;s double-dealing. Puebla, it appears, had gone to the King, and had
+suggested that if his advice was followed the jewels would remain in
+England, whilst their value would be paid to Henry in money as well. He
+had, he assured the King, already gained over Katharine to the plan, which
+briefly was to allow the Princess to use the jewels and plate for the
+present, so that when the time came for demanding their surrender her
+father and mother would be ashamed of her being deprived of them, and
+would pay their value in money. Henry explained to Katharine that he was
+quite shocked at such a dishonest suggestion, which he refused, he said,
+to entertain. He had therefore asked for the valuables at once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> as he saw
+that there was craft at work, and he would be no party to it. He
+acknowledged, however, that the jewels were not due to be delivered until
+the last payment on account of the dowry had to be made. It was all
+Puebla&#8217;s fault, he assured his daughter-in-law, which was probably true,
+though it will be observed that the course pursued allowed Henry to assert
+his eventual claim to the surrender of the jewels, and his many
+professions of disinterestedness cloaked the crudeness of his demand.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Henry sent for Bishop Ayala, who was Puebla&#8217;s colleague and
+bitter enemy, and told him that Prince Arthur must be sent to Wales soon,
+and that much difference of opinion existed as to whether Katharine should
+accompany him. What did Ayala advise? The Spaniard thought that the
+Princess should remain with the King and Queen in London for the present,
+rather than go to Wales where the Prince must necessarily be absent from
+her a good deal, and she would be lonely. When Katharine herself was
+consulted by Henry she would express no decided opinion; and Arthur was
+worked upon by his father to persuade her to say that she wished to go to
+Wales. Finding that Katharine still avoided the expression of an opinion,
+Henry, with a great show of sorrow, decided that she should accompany
+Arthur. Then came the question of the maintenance of the Princess&#8217;s
+household. Puebla had again tried to please every one by saying that Henry
+would provide a handsome dotation for the purpose, but when Do&ntilde;a Elvira
+Manuel, on the eve of the journey to Wales, asked the King<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> what provision
+he was going to make, he feigned the utmost surprise at the question. He
+knew nothing about it, he said. The Prince would of course maintain his
+wife and her necessary servants, but no special separate grant could be
+made to the Princess. When Puebla was brought to book he threw the blame
+upon the members of Katharine&#8217;s household, and was publicly rebuked by
+Henry for his shiftiness. But the Spaniards believed, probably with
+reason, that the whole comedy was agreed upon between the King and Puebla
+to obtain possession of the plate and jewels or their value: the sending
+of the Princess to Wales being for the purpose of making it necessary that
+she should use the objects, and so give good grounds for a demand for
+their value in money on the part of Henry. In any case Katharine found
+herself, only five weeks after her marriage, with an unpaid and
+inharmonious household, dependent entirely upon her husband for her needs,
+and conscious that an artful trick was in full execution with the object
+of either depriving her of her personal jewels, and everything of value,
+with which she had furnished her husband&#8217;s table as well as her own, or
+else of extorting a large sum of money from her parents. Embittered
+already with such knowledge as this, Katharine rode by her husband&#8217;s side
+out of Baynard&#8217;s Castle on the 21st December 1501 to continue on the long
+journey to Wales,<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small> after passing their Christmas at Oxford.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>The plague was rife throughout England, and on the 2nd April 1502 Arthur,
+Prince of Wales, fell a victim to it at Ludlow. Here was an unforeseen
+blow that threatened to deprive both Henry and Ferdinand of the result of
+their diplomacy. For Ferdinand the matter was of the utmost importance;
+for an approachment of England and Scotland to France would upset the
+balance of power he had so laboriously constructed, already threatened, as
+it was, by the prospect that his Flemish son-in-law Philip and his wife
+would wear the crowns of the Empire, Flanders, and Burgundy, as well as
+those of Spain and its possessions; in which case, he thought, Spanish
+interests would be the last considered. The news of the unexpected
+catastrophe was greeted in London with real sorrow, for Arthur was
+promising and popular, and both Henry and his queen were naturally
+attached to their elder son, just approaching manhood, upon whose training
+they had lavished so much care. Though Henry&#8217;s grief at his loss may have
+been as sincere as that of Elizabeth of York certainly was, his natural
+inclinations soon asserted themselves. Ludlow was unhealthy, and after the
+pompous funeral of Arthur at Worcester, Katharine and her household prayed
+earnestly to be allowed to approach London, but for some weeks without
+success, and by the time she arrived at her new abode at Croydon, the
+political intrigues of which she was the tool were in full swing again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>When Ferdinand and Isabel first heard the news of their daughter&#8217;s
+bereavement at the beginning of May they were at Toledo, and lost no time
+in sending off post haste to England a fresh ambassador with special
+instructions from themselves. The man they chose was the Duke de Estrada,
+whose only recommendation seems to have been his rank, for Puebla was soon
+able to twist him round his finger. His mission, as we now know, was an
+extraordinary and delicate one. Ostensibly he was to demand the immediate
+return of the 100,000 crowns paid to Henry on account of dowry, and the
+firm settlement upon Katharine of the manors and rents, securing to her
+the revenue assigned to her in England, and at the same time he was to
+urge Henry to send Katharine back to Spain at once. But these things were
+really the last that Ferdinand desired. He knew full well that Henry would
+go to any length to avoid disgorging the dowry, and secret instructions
+were given to Estrada to effect a betrothal between the ten-years-old
+Henry, Duke of York, and his brother&#8217;s widow of sixteen. Strict orders
+also were sent to Puebla of a character to forward the secret design,
+although he was not fully informed of the latter. He was to press amongst
+other things that Katharine might receive her English revenue
+punctually&mdash;Katharine, it appears, had written to her parents, saying that
+she had been advised to borrow money for the support of her household; and
+the King and Queen of Spain were indignant at such an idea. Not a
+farthing, they said, must she be allowed to borrow, and none of her jewels
+sold: the King of England must provide for her promptly and handsomely,
+in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> accordance with his obligations. This course, as the writers well
+knew, would soon bring Henry VII. himself to propose the marriage for
+which Ferdinand was so anxious. Henry professed himself very ready to make
+the settlement of the English income as requested, but in such case, he
+claimed that the whole of the Spanish dowry in gold must be paid to him.
+Ferdinand could not see it in this light at all, and insisted that the
+death of Arthur had dissolved the marriage. This fencing went on for some
+time, neither party wishing to be the first to propose the indecorous
+marriage with Henry that both desired.<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small> It is evident that Puebla and
+the chaplain Alexander opposed the match secretly, and endeavoured to
+thwart it, either from an idea of its illegality or, more probably, with a
+view of afterwards bringing it about themselves. In the midst of this
+intrigue the King of France suddenly attacked Ferdinand both in Italy and
+on the Catalonian frontier, and made approaches to Henry for the marriage
+of his son with a French princess. This hurried the pace in Spain, and
+Queen Isabel ordered Estrada to carry through the betrothal of Katharine
+and her brother-in-law without loss of time, &#8220;for any delay would be
+dangerous.&#8221; So anxious were the Spanish sovereigns that nothing should
+stand in the way, that they were willing to let the old arrangement about
+the dowry stand, Henry retaining the 100,000 crowns already paid, and
+receiving, when the marriage was consummated, the remaining 100,000; on
+condition that in the meanwhile Katharine was properly maintained in
+England. Even the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> incestuous nature of the union was to be no bar to its
+being effected, though no Papal dispensation had been yet obtained. Isabel
+sought salve for her conscience in this respect by repeating Do&ntilde;a Elvira
+Manuel&#8217;s assurance that Katharine still remained intact; her marriage with
+Arthur not having been consummated. To lure Henry into an armed alliance
+against France once more, the old bait of the recovery of Normandy and
+Guienne was dangled before him. But the King of England played with a
+firmer hand now. He knew his worth as a balancing factor, his accumulated
+treasure made him powerful, and he held all the cards in his hand; for the
+King of Scots was his son-in-law, and the French were as anxious for his
+smiles as were the Spanish sovereigns. So he stood off and refused to
+pledge himself to a hostile alliance.</p>
+
+<p>In view of this Ferdinand and Isabel&#8217;s tone changed, and they developed a
+greater desire than ever to have their daughter&mdash;and above all her
+dowry&mdash;returned to them. &#8220;We cannot endure,&#8221; wrote Isabel to Estrada on
+the 10th August 1502, &#8220;that a daughter whom we love should be so far away
+from us in her trouble.... You shall ... tell the King of England that you
+have our orders to freight vessels for her voyage. To this end you must
+make such a show of giving directions and preparing for the voyage that
+the members of the Princess&#8217;s household may believe that it is true. Send
+also some of her household on board with the captain I am now sending you
+... and show all signs of departure.&#8221; If in consequence the English spoke
+of the betrothal with young Henry, the ambassador was to show no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> desire
+for it; but was to listen keenly to all that was proposed, and if the
+terms were acceptable he might clinch the matter at once without further
+reference. And then the saintly Queen concludes thus: &#8220;The one object of
+this business is to bring the betrothal to a conclusion as soon as
+possible in conformity with your instructions. For then all our anxiety
+will cease and we shall be able to seek the aid of England against France,
+for this is the most efficient aid we can have.&#8221; Henry was not for the
+moment to be frightened by fresh demands for his armed alliance against
+France. The betrothal was to be forwarded first, and then the rest would
+follow. Puebla, who was quite confident that he alone could carry on the
+marriage negotiation successfully, was also urged by mingled flattery and
+threats by his sovereign to do his utmost with that end.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst this diplomatic haggling was going on in London for the disposal of
+the widowed Katharine to the best advantage, a blow fell that for a moment
+changed the aspect of affairs. Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII.,
+died on the 11th February 1503, in the Tower of London, a week after
+giving birth to her seventh child. She had been a good and submissive wife
+to the King, whose claim to the throne she had fortified by her own
+greater right; and we are told that the bereaved husband was &#8220;heavy and
+dolorous&#8221; with his loss when he retired to a solitary place to pass his
+sorrow; but before many weeks were over he and his crony Puebla put their
+crafty heads together, and agreed that the King might marry his widowed
+daughter-in-law himself. The idea was cynically repulsive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> but it gives us
+the measure of Henry&#8217;s unscrupulousness. Puebla conveyed the hint to
+Isabel and Ferdinand, who, to do them justice, appeared to be really
+shocked at the suggestion. This time (April 1503) the Spanish sovereigns
+spoke with more sincerity than before. They were, they told their
+ambassador, tired of Henry&#8217;s shiftiness, and of their daughter&#8217;s equivocal
+and undignified position in England, now that the Queen was dead and the
+betrothal still hung fire. The Princess was really to come to Spain in a
+fleet that should be sent for her, unless the marriage with the young
+Prince of Wales was agreed to at once. As for a wife for King Henry there
+was the widowed Queen of Naples, Ferdinand&#8217;s niece, who lived in Valencia,
+and he might have her with the blessing of the Spanish sovereigns.<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small> The
+suggestion was a tempting one to Henry, for the Queen of Naples was well
+dowered, and the vigour of Isabel&#8217;s refusal to listen to his marriage with
+her daughter, made it evident that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> that was out of the question. So Henry
+at last made up his mind at least to execute the treaty which was to
+betroth his surviving son to Katharine. In the treaty, which was signed on
+the 23rd June 1503, it is set forth that, inasmuch as the bride and
+bridegroom were related in the first degree of affinity, a Papal
+dispensation would be necessary for the marriage; and it is distinctly
+stated that the marriage with Arthur had been consummated. This may have
+been a diplomatic form considered at the time unimportant in view of the
+ease with which a dispensation could be obtained, but it is at direct
+variance with Do&ntilde;a Elvira Manuel&#8217;s assurance to Isabel at the time of
+Arthur&#8217;s death, and with Katharine&#8217;s assertion, uncontradicted by Henry,
+to the end of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, Prince of Wales, was at this time twelve years old; and, if we are
+to believe Erasmus, a prodigy of precocious scholarship. Though his
+learning was superficial and carefully made the most of, he was, in
+effect, an apt and diligent student. From the first his mother and father
+had determined that their children should enjoy better educational
+advantages than had fallen to them, and as Henry had been until Arthur&#8217;s
+death intended for the Church, his learning was far in advance of that of
+most princes and nobles of his age. The bride, who thus became unwillingly
+affianced to a boy more than five years her junior, was now a young woman
+in her prime, experienced already in the chicane and falsity of the
+atmosphere in which she lived. She knew, none better, that in the juggle
+for her marriage she had been regarded as a mere chattel, and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> own
+inclinations hardly taken into account, and she faced her responsibilities
+bravely in her mother&#8217;s exalted spirit of duty and sacrifice when she
+found herself once more Princess of Wales.</p>
+
+<p>When Ferdinand, in accordance with his pledge in the treaty, instructed
+his ambassador in Rome to ask for the Pope&#8217;s dispensation, he took care to
+correct the statement embodied in the document to the effect that the
+marriage of Arthur and Katharine had been consummated; though the question
+might pertinently be asked, why, if it had not been, a dispensation was
+needed at all? The King himself answered the question by saying that &#8220;as
+the English are so much inclined to cavil, it appeared prudent to provide
+for the case as if the previous marriage had been completed; and the
+dispensation must be worded in accordance with the treaty, since the
+succession to the Crown depends on the undoubted legitimacy of the
+marriage.&#8221;<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small> No sooner was the ratification of the betrothal conveyed to
+Ferdinand than he demanded the aid of Henry against France, and Estrada
+was instructed to &#8220;make use of&#8221; Katharine to obtain the favour demanded.
+If Henry hesitated to provide the money for raising the 2000 English
+troops required, Katharine herself was to be asked by her kind father to
+pawn her plate and jewels for the purpose. Henry, however, had no
+intention to be hurried now that the betrothal had been signed. There were
+several things he wanted on his side first. The Earl of Suffolk and his
+brother Richard Pole were still in Flanders; and the greatest wish of
+Henry&#8217;s life was that they should be handed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> over to his tender mercies.
+So the armed coalition against France still hung fire, whilst a French
+ambassador was as busy courting the King of England as Ferdinand himself.
+In the meanwhile Katharine for a time lived in apparent amity with Henry
+and his family, especially with the young Princess Mary, who was her
+constant companion. In the autumn of 1504 she passed a fortnight with them
+at Windsor and Richmond, hunting every day; but just as the King was
+leaving Greenwich for a progress through Kent the Princess fell seriously
+ill, and the letters written by Henry during his absence to his
+daughter-in-law are worded as if he were the most affectionate of fathers.
+On this progress the Prince of Wales accompanied his father for the first
+time, as the King had previously been loath to disturb his studies. &#8220;It is
+quite wonderful,&#8221; wrote an observer, &#8220;how much the King loves the Prince.
+He has good reason to do so, for he deserves all his love.&#8221; Already the
+crafty and politic King was indoctrinating his son in the system he had
+made his own: that the command of ready money, gained no matter how, meant
+power, and that to hold the balance between two greater rivals was to have
+them both at his bidding. And young Henry, though of different nature from
+his father, made good use of his lesson.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine&#8217;s greatest trouble at this time (the autumn of 1504) was the
+bickering, and worse, of her Spanish household. We have already seen how
+Puebla had set them by the ears with his jealousy of his colleagues and
+his dodging diplomacy. Katharine appealed to Henry to bring her servants
+to order, but he refused to interfere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> as they were not his subjects.
+Do&ntilde;a Elvira Manuel, the governess, was a great lady, and resented any
+interference with her domain.<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small> There is no doubt that her rule, so far
+as regarded the Princess herself, was a wise one; but, as we shall see
+directly, she, Castilian that she was and sister of the famous diplomatist
+Juan Manuel, took up a position inimical to Ferdinand after Isabel&#8217;s
+death, and innocently led Katharine into grave political trouble.</p>
+
+<p>In November 1504 the death of Isabel, Queen of Castile, long threatened
+after her strenuous life, changed the whole aspect for Ferdinand. The
+heiress of the principal crown of Spain was now Katharine&#8217;s sister Juana,
+who had lived for years in the latitudinarian court of Brussels with her
+consort Philip. The last time she had gone to Spain, her freedom towards
+the strict religious observances considered necessary in her mother&#8217;s
+court had led to violent scenes between Isabel and Juana. Even then the
+scandalised Spanish churchmen who flocked around Isabel whispered that the
+heiress of Castile must be mad: and her foreign husband, the heir of the
+empire, was hated and distrusted by the &#8220;Catholic kings.&#8221; Isabel by her
+will had left her husband guardian of her realms for Juana; and from the
+moment the Queen breathed her last the struggle between Ferdinand and his
+son-in-law never ceased, until Philip the Handsome, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> thought he had
+beaten wily old Ferdinand, himself was beaten by poison. The death of her
+mother not only threw Katharine into natural grief for her loss, which
+truly was a great one; for, at least, Isabel deeply loved her youngest
+child, whilst Ferdinand loved nothing but himself and Aragon; but it
+greatly altered for the worse her position in England. Philip of Austria
+and his father the Emperor had begun to play false to Ferdinand long
+before the Queen&#8217;s death; and now that the crown of Castile had fallen to
+poor weak Juana, and a struggle was seen to be impending for the regency,
+Henry VII. found himself as usual courted by both sides in the dispute.
+The widowed Archduchess Margaret, who had married as a first husband
+Ferdinand&#8217;s heir, was offered to Henry as a bride by Philip and Maximilian
+and a close alliance between them proposed; and Ferdinand, whilst
+denouncing his son-in-law&#8217;s ingratitude, also bade high for the King of
+England&#8217;s countenance. Henry listened to both parties, but it was clear to
+him that he had now more to hope for from Philip and Maximilian, who were
+friendly with France, than from Ferdinand; and the unfortunate Katharine
+was again reduced to the utmost neglect and penury, unable to buy food for
+her own table, except by pawning her jewels.</p>
+
+<p>In the ensuing intrigues Do&ntilde;a Elvira Manuel was on the side of the Queen
+of Castile, as against her father; and Katharine lost the impartial advice
+of her best counsellor, and involved herself in a very net of trouble. In
+the summer of 1505 it was already understood that Philip and Juana on
+their way to Spain by sea might possibly trust<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> themselves in an English
+port; and Henry, in order to be ready for any matrimonial combinations
+that might be suggested, caused young Henry to make solemn protest before
+the Bishop of Winchester at Richmond against his marriage with
+Katharine.<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small> Of this, at the time, of course the Spanish agents were
+ignorant; and so completely was even Puebla hoodwinked, that almost to the
+arrival of Philip and his wife in England he believed that Henry was in
+favour of Ferdinand against Philip and Maximilian. Early in August 1505,
+Puebla went to Richmond to see Katharine, and as he entered one of the
+household told him that an ambassador from the Archduke Philip, King of
+Castile, had just arrived and was waiting to see her. Puebla at once
+himself conveyed the news to Katharine; and to his glee served as
+interpreter between the ambassador and the Princess. On his knees before
+her the Fleming related that he had come to propose a marriage between the
+Duchess of Savoy (<i>i.e.</i> the widowed Archduchess Margaret) and Henry VII.,
+and showed the Princess two portraits of the Archduchess. Furthermore, he
+said that Philip and his wife were going by overland through France to
+Spain, and he was to ask Henry what he thought of the plan. Puebla&#8217;s eyes
+were thus partially opened: and when a few days later he found that Do&ntilde;a
+Elvira had not only contrived frequent private meetings between Katharine
+and the Flemish ambassador, but had persuaded the Princess to propose a
+meeting between Philip, Juana, and the King of England, he at once sounded
+a note of alarm. Katharine, it must be recollected, was yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> young; and
+probably did not fully understand the deadly antagonism that existed
+between her father and her brother-in-law. She was much under the
+influence of Do&ntilde;a Elvira, and doubtless yearned to see her unhappy sister
+Juana. So she was induced to write a letter to Philip, and to propose a
+meeting with Henry at Calais. When a prompt affirmative reply came, the
+Princess innocently showed it to Puebla at Durham House before sending it
+to Henry VII. The ambassador was aghast, and soundly rated Katharine for
+going against the interests of her father. He would take the letter to the
+King, he said. But this Katharine would not allow, and Do&ntilde;a Elvira was
+appealed to. She promised to retain the letter for the present, but just
+as Puebla was sitting down to dinner an hour afterwards, he learnt that
+she had broken her word and sent Philip&#8217;s letter to Henry VII. Starting
+up, he rushed to Katharine&#8217;s apartments, and with tears streaming down his
+face at his failure, told the Princess, under pledge of secrecy, that the
+proposed interview was a plot of the Manuels to injure both her father and
+sister. She must at once write a letter to Henry which he, Puebla, would
+dictate; and, whilst still feigning a desire for the meeting, she must try
+to prevent it with all her might, and beware of Do&ntilde;a Elvira in future.
+Poor Katharine, alarmed at his vehemence, did as she was told; and the
+letter was sent flying to Henry, apologising for the proposal of the
+interview. Henry must have smiled when he saw how eager they all were to
+court him. Nothing would please him better than the close alliance with
+Philip, which was already being secretly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> negotiated, though he was
+effusively assuring Ferdinand at the same time of the inviolability of
+their friendship; promising that the marriage&mdash;which he had secretly
+denounced&mdash;between his son and Katharine, should be celebrated on the very
+day provided by the treaty, and approving of some secret plot of Ferdinand
+against Philip which had been communicated to him.</p>
+
+<p>Amidst such falsity as this it is most difficult to pick one&#8217;s way, though
+it is evident through it all that Henry had now gained the upper hand, and
+was fully a match for Ferdinand in his altered circumstances. But as
+things improved for Henry they became worse for Katharine. In December
+1505 she wrote bitterly to her father from Richmond, complaining of her
+fate, the unhappiness of which, she said, was all Puebla&#8217;s fault. &#8220;Every
+day,&#8221; she wrote, &#8220;my troubles increase. Since my arrival in England I have
+not received a farthing except for food, and I and my household have not
+even garments to wear.&#8221; She had asked Puebla to pray the King to appoint
+an English due&ntilde;a for her whilst Do&ntilde;a Elvira was in Flanders, but instead
+of doing so he had arranged with Henry that her household should be
+dismissed altogether, and that she should reside at Court. Her letter
+throughout shows that at the time she was in deep despondency and anger at
+her treatment; and especially resentful of Puebla, whom she disliked and
+distrusted profoundly, as did Do&ntilde;a Elvira Manuel. The very elements seemed
+to fight on the side of the King of England. Ferdinand was, in sheer
+desperation, struggling to prevent his paternal realms from being merged
+in Castile and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the empire, and with that end was negotiating his marriage
+with the French king&#8217;s niece, Germaine de Foix, and a close alliance with
+France, in which England should be included, when Philip of Austria and
+his wife, Juana of Aragon, Queen of Castile, sailed from Flanders to claim
+their kingdom at Ferdinand&#8217;s hands. They too had made friends with France
+some time before, but the marriage of Ferdinand with a French princess had
+now drawn them strongly to the side of England; and as we have seen, they
+were already in full negotiation with Henry for his marriage with the
+doubly widowed and heavily dowered Archduchess Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>The King and Queen of Castile were overtaken by a furious south-west gale
+in the Channel and their fine fleet dispersed. The ship that carried
+Philip and Juana was driven by the storm into Melcombe Regis, on the
+Dorset coast, on the 17th January 1506, and lay there weather-bound for
+some time. Philip the Handsome was a poor sailor, and was, we are told by
+an eye-witness, &#8220;fatigate and unquyeted in mynde and bodie.&#8221; He doubtless
+yearned to tread dry land again, and, against the advice of his Council,
+had himself rowed ashore. Only in the previous year he had as unguardedly
+put himself into the power of the King of France; and his boldness had
+succeeded well, as it had resulted in the treaty with the French king that
+had so much alarmed and shocked Ferdinand, but it is unlikely that Philip
+on this occasion intended to make any stay in England or to go beyond
+Weymouth. The news of his coming brought together all the neighbouring
+gentry to oppose or welcome him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> according to his demeanour, and, finding
+him friendly, Sir John Trenchard prevailed upon him to take up his
+residence in his manor-house hard by until the weather mended. In the
+meanwhile formidable English forces mustered in the country around, and
+Philip began to grow uneasy; but Trenchard&#8217;s hospitality was pressing, and
+to all hints from the visitor that he wanted to be gone the reply was
+given that he really must wait until the King of England could bid him
+welcome. When at last Philip was given to understand that he was
+practically a prisoner, he made the best of the position, and with seeming
+cordiality awaited King Henry&#8217;s message. No wonder, as a chronicler says,
+that Henry when he heard the news &#8220;was replenyshed with an exceeding
+gladnes ... for that he trusted his landing in England should turn to his
+profit and commoditie.&#8221; This it certainly did. Philip and Juana were
+brought to Windsor in great state, and met by Henry and his son and a
+splendid train of nobles. Then the visitors were led through London in
+state to Richmond, and Philip, amidst all the festivity, was soon
+convinced that he would not be allowed to leave England until the rebel
+Plantagenet Earl of Suffolk was handed to Henry. And so the pact was made
+that bound England to Philip and Flanders against Ferdinand; the
+Archduchess Margaret with her vast fortune being promised, with unheard-of
+guarantees, to the widowed Henry.<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small> When the treaty had been solemnly
+ratified on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> oath, taken upon a fragment of the true Cross in St. George&#8217;s
+Chapel, Windsor, Philip was allowed to go his way on the 2nd March to join
+his ship at Falmouth, whither Juana had preceded him a fortnight before.</p>
+
+<p>This new treaty made poor Katharine of little value as a political asset
+in England; since it was clear now that Ferdinand&#8217;s hold over anything but
+his paternal heritage in the Mediterranean was powerless. Flanders and
+Castile were a far more advantageous ally to England than the King of
+Aragon, and Katharine was promptly made to feel the fact. Dr. Puebla was
+certainly either kept quite out of the way or his compliance bought, or he
+would have been able to devise means for Katharine to inform her sister
+Juana of the real object of Henry&#8217;s treaty with Philip; for Ferdinand
+always insisted that Juana was a dutiful daughter, and was not personally
+opposed to him. As it was, Katharine was allowed to see her sister but for
+an hour just before Juana&#8217;s departure, and then in the presence of
+witnesses in the interests of Philip. Only a few weeks after the visitors
+had departed Katharine wrote to her father, in fear lest her letter should
+be intercepted, begging him to have pity upon her. She is deep in debt,
+not for extravagant things but for food. &#8220;The King of England refuses to
+pay anything, though she implores him with tears to do so. He says he has
+been cheated about the marriage portion. In the meanwhile she is in the
+deepest anguish, her servants almost begging for alms, and she herself
+nearly naked. She has been at death&#8217;s door for months, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> prays
+earnestly for a Spanish confessor, as she cannot speak English.&#8221;<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>How false Ferdinand met his &#8220;dear children,&#8221; and made with his daughter&#8217;s
+husband that hellish secret compact in the church of Villafafila, that
+seemed to renounce everything to Philip whilst Ferdinand went humbly to
+his realm of Naples, and his ill-used daughter Juana to life-long
+confinement, cannot be told here, nor the sudden death of Philip the
+Handsome, which brought back Ferdinand triumphant. If Juana was sane
+before, she certainly became more or less mad after her husband&#8217;s death,
+and moreover was morbidly devoted to his memory. But what mattered madness
+or a widow&#8217;s devotion to Henry VII. when he had political objects to
+serve? All through the summer and autumn of 1506 Katharine had been ill
+with fever and ague, unhappy at the neglect and poverty she suffered.
+Ferdinand threw upon Castile the duty of paying the rest of her dowry; the
+Castilians retorted that Ferdinand ought to pay it himself: and Katharine,
+in the depth of despondency, in October 1506 learnt of her brother-in-law
+Philip&#8217;s death. Like magic Henry VII. became amiable again to his
+daughter-in-law. He deplored her illness now, and cordially granted her
+the change of residence from Eltham to Fulham that she had so long prayed
+for in vain. The reason was soon evident; for before Juana had completed
+her dreary pilgrimage through Spain to Granada with her husband&#8217;s dead
+body, Henry had cajoled Katharine to ask her father for the distraught
+widow for his wife. Katharine must have fulfilled the task<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> with
+repulsion, though she seems to have advocated the match warmly; and
+Ferdinand, though he knew, or rather said, that Juana was mad, was quite
+ready to take advantage of such an opportunity for again getting into
+touch with Henry. The letter in which Ferdinand gently dallied with
+Henry&#8217;s offer was written in Naples, after months of shifty excuses for
+not sending the rest of Katharine&#8217;s dowry to England,<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small> and doubtless
+the time he gained by postponing the answer about Juana&#8217;s marriage until
+he returned to Spain was of value to him; for he was determined, now that
+a special providence carefully prepared had removed Philip from his path,
+that once more all Spain should bear his sway whilst he lived, and then
+should be divided, rather than his dear Aragon should be rendered
+subordinate to other interests.</p>
+
+<p>The encouraging talk of Henry&#8217;s marriage with Juana, with which both
+Katharine and Puebla were instructed to beguile him, was all very well in
+its way, and the King of England became quite joyously sentimental at the
+prospect of the new tie of relationship between the houses of Tudor and
+Aragon; but, really, business was business: if that long overdue dowry for
+Katharine was not sent soon, young Henry would listen to some of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> many
+other eligible princesses, better dowered than Katharine, who were offered
+to him. With much demur Henry at length consented to wait for five months
+longer for the dowry; that is to say, until Michaelmas 1507, and in the
+meanwhile drove a bargain as hard as that of a Jew huckster in the
+valuation of Katharine&#8217;s jewels and plate, which were to be brought into
+the account.<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small> It is easy to see that this concession of five months&#8217;
+delay was granted by Henry in the hope that his marriage with Juana would
+take place. The plan was hideously wicked, and Puebla made no secret of it
+in writing to Ferdinand. &#8220;No king in the world would make so good a
+husband to the Queen of Castile, whether she be sane or insane. She might
+recover her reason when wedded to such a husband, but even in that case
+King Ferdinand would at all events be sure to retain the regency of
+Castile. On the other hand, if the insanity of the Queen should prove
+incurable it would perhaps be not inconvenient that she should live in
+England. The English do not seem to mind her insanity much; especially
+since it is asserted that her mental malady would not prevent her from
+childbearing.&#8221;<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small> Could anything be more repulsive than this pretty
+arrangement, which had been concocted by Henry and Puebla at Richmond
+during a time when the former was seriously ill with quinsy and
+inaccessible to any one but the Spanish ambassador?</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Katharine felt keenly the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> wretched position in which she
+found herself. The plate, about which so much haggling was taking place,
+was being pawned or sold by her bit by bit to provide the most necessary
+things for her own use; her servants were in rags, and she herself was
+contemned and neglected; forbidden even to see her betrothed husband for
+months together, though living in the same palace with him. The more
+confident Henry grew of his own marriage with the Archduchess Margaret, or
+with Queen Juana, the less inclined he was to wed his son to Katharine. A
+French princess for the Prince of Wales, and the Queen of Castile for
+Henry, would indeed have served England on all sides. On one occasion, in
+April 1507, Henry frankly told Katharine that he considered himself no
+longer bound by her marriage treaty, since her dowry was overdue, and all
+the poor Princess could do was to weep and pray her father to fulfil his
+part of the compact by paying the rest of her portion, whilst she, serving
+as Ferdinand&#8217;s ambassador, tried to retain Henry&#8217;s good graces by her
+hopeful assurances about the marriage of the latter with Juana.</p>
+
+<p>In all Katharine&#8217;s lamentations of her own sufferings and privation, she
+never forgot to bewail the misery of her servants. Whilst she herself, she
+said, had been worse treated than any woman in England, her five women
+servants, all she had retained, had never received a farthing since their
+arrival in England six years before, and had spent everything they
+possessed. Katharine at this time of trial (August 1507) was living alone
+at Ewelme, whilst Henry was hunting at various seats in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> midlands. At
+length the King made some stay at Woodstock, where Katharine saw him. With
+suspicious alacrity he consented to a further postponement of the overdue
+dowry; and showed himself more eager than ever to marry Juana, no matter
+how mad she might be. Katharine was quite acute enough to understand his
+motives, and wrote to her father that so long as the money due of her
+dowry remained unpaid the King considered himself free, so far as regarded
+her marriage with the Prince of Wales. &#8220;Mine is always the worst part,&#8221;
+she wrote. &#8220;The King of England prides himself upon his magnanimity in
+waiting so long for the payment.... His words are kind but his deeds are
+as bad as ever.&#8221; She bitterly complained that Puebla himself was doing his
+utmost to frustrate her marriage in the interests of the King of England;
+and it is clear to see in her passionate letter to her father (4th October
+1507) that she half distrusted even him, as she had been told that he was
+listening to overtures from the King of France for a marriage between
+Juana and a French prince. She failed in this to understand the political
+position fully. If Juana had married a Frenchman it is certain that Henry
+would have been only too eager to complete the marriage of his son with
+Katharine. But she was evidently in fear that, unless Henry was allowed to
+marry her sister, evil might befall her. Speaking of the marriage she
+says: &#8220;I bait him with this ... and his words and professions have changed
+for the better, although his acts remain the same.... They fancy that I
+have no more in me than what outwardly appears, or that I shall not be
+able to fathom his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> (Puebla&#8217;s) design.&#8221; Under stress of her circumstances
+Katharine was developing rapidly. She was no longer a girl dependent upon
+others. Do&ntilde;a Elvira had gone for good; Puebla she hated and distrusted as
+much as she did Henry; and there was no one by her to whom she could look
+for help. Her position was a terribly difficult one, pitted alone, as she
+was, against the most unscrupulous politicians in Europe, in whose hands
+she knew she was only one of the pieces in a game. Juana was still
+carrying about with her the unburied corpse of her husband, and falling
+into paroxysms of fury when a second marriage was suggested to her; and
+yet Katharine considered it necessary to keep up the pretence to Henry
+that his suit was prospering. She knew that though the Archduchess
+Margaret had firmly refused to tempt providence again by a third marriage
+with the King of England, the boy sovereign of Castile and Flanders, the
+Archduke Charles, had been securely betrothed to golden-haired little Mary
+Tudor, Henry&#8217;s younger daughter; and that the close alliance thus sealed
+was as dangerous to her father King Ferdinand&#8217;s interests as to her own.
+And yet she was either forced, or forced herself, to paint Henry, who was
+still treating her vilely, in the brightest colours as a chivalrous,
+virtuous gentleman, really and desperately in love with poor crazy Juana.
+Katharine&#8217;s letters to her sister on behalf of Henry&#8217;s suit are nauseous,
+in view of the circumstances as we know them; and show that the Princess
+of Wales was already prepared to sacrifice every human feeling to
+political expediency.</p>
+
+<p>This miserable position could not continue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> indefinitely, for the
+extension of time for the payment of the dowry was fast running out. Juana
+was more intractable than ever. Katharine, in rage and despair at the
+contumely with which she was treated, insisted at length that her father
+should send an ambassador to England, who could speak as the mouthpiece of
+a great sovereign rather than like a fawning menial of Henry as Puebla
+was. The new ambassador was Gomez de Fuensalida, Knight Commander of Haro
+and Membrilla, a man as haughty as Puebla had been servile, and he went
+far beyond even Katharine&#8217;s desires in his plain speaking to Henry and his
+ministers. Ferdinand, indeed, by this time had once more gained the upper
+hand in Europe, and could afford to speak his mind. Henry was no longer so
+vigorous or so bold as he had been, and his desire to grasp everything
+whilst risking nothing had enabled his rivals to form a great coalition
+from which he was excluded&mdash;the League of Cambrai. Fuensalida offended
+Henry almost as soon as he arrived, and was roughly refused permission to
+enter the English Court. He could only storm, as he did, to Henry&#8217;s
+ministers that unless the Princess of Wales was at once sent home to Spain
+with her dowry, King Ferdinand and his allies would wreak vengeance upon
+England. But Henry knew that with such a hostage as Katharine in his hands
+he was safe from attack, and held the Princess in defiance of it all. But
+he was already a waning force. Whilst Fuensalida had no good word for the
+King, he, like all other Spanish agents, turned to the rising sun and sang
+persistently the praises of the Prince of Wales. His<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> gigantic stature and
+sturdy limbs, his fair skin and golden hair, his manliness, his prudence,
+and his wisdom were their constant theme: and even Katharine, unhappy as
+she was, with her marriage still in the balance, seems to have liked and
+admired the gallant youth whom she was allowed to see so seldom.</p>
+
+<p>It has become so much the fashion to speak of Katharine not only as an
+unfortunate woman, but as a blameless saint in all her relations, that an
+historian who regards her as a fallible and even in many respects a
+blameworthy woman, who was to a large extent the cause of her own
+troubles, must be content to differ from the majority of his predecessors.
+We have already seen, by the earnest attempts she made to drag her
+afflicted sister into marriage with a man whom she herself considered
+false, cruel, and unscrupulous, that Katharine was no better than those
+around her in moral principle: the passion and animosity shown in her
+letters to her father about Puebla, Fuensalida, and others whom she
+distrusted, show her to have been anything but a meek martyr. She was,
+indeed, at this time (1508-9) a self-willed, ambitious girl of strong
+passion, impatient of control, domineering and proud. Her position in
+England had been a humiliating and a hateful one for years. She was the
+sport of the selfish ambitions of others, which she herself was unable to
+control; surrounded by people whom she disliked and suspected, lonely and
+unhappy; it is not wonderful that when Henry VII. was gradually sinking to
+his grave, and her marriage with his son was still in doubt, this ardent
+Southern young woman in her prime<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> should be tempted to cast to the wind
+considerations of dignity and prudence for the sake of her love for a man.</p>
+
+<p>She was friendless in a foreign land; and when her father was in Naples in
+1506, she wrote to him praying him to send her a Spanish confessor to
+solace her. Before he could do so she informed him (April 1507) that she
+had obtained a very good Spanish confessor for herself. This was a young,
+lusty, dissolute Franciscan monk called Diego Fernandez, who then became a
+member of Katharine&#8217;s household. When the new outspoken ambassador,
+Fuensalida, arrived in England in the autumn of 1508, he, of course, had
+frequent conference with the Princess, and could not for long shut his
+eyes to the state of affairs in her establishment. He first sounded the
+alarm cautiously to Ferdinand in a letter of 4th March 1509. He had hoped
+against hope, he said, that the marriage of Katharine and Prince Henry
+might be effected soon; and the scandal might remedy itself without his
+worrying Ferdinand about it. But he must speak out now, for he has been
+silent too long. It is high time, he says, that some person of sufficient
+authority in the confidence of Ferdinand should be put in charge of
+Katharine&#8217;s household and command respect: &#8220;for at present the Princess&#8217;s
+house is governed by a young friar, whom her Highness has taken for her
+confessor, though he is, in my opinion, and that of others, utterly
+unworthy of such a position. He makes the Princess commit many errors; and
+as she is so good and conscientious, this confessor makes a mortal sin of
+everything that does not please him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> and so causes her to commit many
+faults.&#8221; The ambassador continues that he dare not write all he would
+because the bearer (a servant of Katharine&#8217;s) is being sent by those who
+wish to injure him; but he begs the King to interrogate the man who takes
+the letter as to what had been going on in the Princess&#8217;s house in the
+last two months. &#8220;The root of all the trouble is this young friar, who is
+flighty, and vain, and extremely scandalous. He has spoken to the Princess
+very roughly about the King of England; and because I told the Princess
+something of what I thought of this friar, and he learnt it, he has
+disgraced me with her worse than if I had been a traitor.... That your
+Highness may judge what sort of person he is, I will repeat exactly
+without exaggeration the very words he used to me. &#8216;I know,&#8217; he said,
+&#8216;that they have been telling you evil tales of me.&#8217; &#8216;I can assure you,
+father,&#8217; I replied, &#8216;that no one has said anything about you to me.&#8217; &#8216;I
+know,&#8217; he replied; &#8216;the same person who told you told me himself.&#8217; &#8216;Well,&#8217;
+I said, &#8216;any one can bear false witness, and I swear by the Holy Body
+that, so far as I can recollect, nothing has been said to me about you.&#8217;
+&#8216;Ah,&#8217; he said, &#8216;there are scandal-mongers in this house who have defamed
+me, and not with the lowest either, but with the highest, and that is no
+disgrace to me. If it were not for contradicting them I should be gone
+already.&#8217;&#8221; Proud Fuensalida tells the King that it was only with the
+greatest difficulty he kept his hands off the insolent priest at this.
+&#8220;His constant presence with the Princess and amongst her women is shocking
+the King of England and his Court dreadfully;&#8221; and then the ambassador<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+hints strongly that Henry is only allowing the scandal to go on, so as to
+furnish him with a good excuse for still keeping Katharine&#8217;s marriage in
+abeyance.</p>
+
+<p>With this letter to Spain went another from Katharine to her father,
+railing bitterly against the ambassador. She can no longer endure her
+troubles, and a settlement of some sort must be arrived at. The King of
+England treats her worse than ever since his daughter Mary was betrothed
+to the young Archduke Charles, sovereign of Castile and Flanders. She had
+sold everything she possessed for food and raiment; and only a few days
+before she wrote, Henry had again told her that he was not bound to feed
+her servants. Her own people, she says, are insolent and turn against her;
+but what afflicts her most is that she is too poor to maintain fittingly
+her confessor, &#8220;the best that ever woman had.&#8221; It is plain to see that the
+whole household was in rebellion against the confessor who had captured
+Katharine&#8217;s heart, and that the ambassador was on the side of the
+household. The Princess and Fuensalida had quarrelled about it, and she
+wished that the ambassador should be reproved. With vehement passion she
+begged her father that the confessor might not be taken away from her. &#8220;I
+implore your Highness to prevent him from leaving me; and to write to the
+King of England that you have ordered this Father to stay with me; and beg
+him for your sake to have him well treated and humoured. Tell the prelates
+also that you wish him to stay here. The greatest comfort in my trouble is
+the consolation he gives me. Almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> in despair I send this servant to
+implore you not to forget that I am still your daughter, and how much I
+have suffered for your sake.... Do not let me perish like this, but write
+at once deciding what is to be done. Otherwise in my present state I am
+afraid I may do something that neither the King of England nor your
+Highness could prevent, unless you send for me and let me pass the few
+remaining days of my life in God&#8217;s service.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That the Princess&#8217;s household and the ambassador were shocked at the
+insolent familiarity of the licentious young priest with their mistress,
+and that she herself perfectly understood that the suspicions and rumours
+were against her honour, is clear. On one occasion Henry VII. had asked
+Katharine and his daughter Mary to go to Richmond, to meet him. When the
+two princesses were dressed and ready to set out on their journey from
+Hampton Court to Richmond, the confessor entered the room and told
+Katharine she was not to go that day as she had been unwell. The Princess
+protested that she was then quite well and able to bear the short journey.
+&#8220;I tell you,&#8221; replied Father Diego, &#8220;that, on pain of mortal sin, you
+shall not go to-day;&#8221; and so Princess Mary set out alone, leaving
+Katharine with the young priest of notorious evil life and a few inferior
+servants. When the next day she was allowed to go to Richmond, accompanied
+amongst others by the priest, King Henry took not the slightest notice of
+her, and for the next few weeks refused to speak to her. The ambassador
+even confessed to Ferdinand that, since he had witnessed what was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> going
+on in the Princess&#8217;s household, he acquitted Henry of most of the blame
+for his treatment of his Spanish daughter-in-law. Whilst the Princess was
+in the direst distress, her household in want of food, and she obliged to
+sell her gowns to send messengers to her father, she went to the length of
+pawning the plate that formed part of her dowry to &#8220;satisfy the follies of
+the friar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Deaf to all remonstrances both from King Henry and her own old servants,
+Katharine obstinately had her way, and the chances of her marriage in
+England grew smaller and smaller. It is not to be supposed that the
+ambassador would have dared to say so much as he did to the lady&#8217;s own
+father if he had not taken the gravest view of Katharine&#8217;s conduct and its
+probable political result. But his hints to Ferdinand&#8217;s ministers were
+much stronger still. &#8220;The Princess,&#8221; he said, &#8220;was guilty of things a
+thousand times worse&#8221; than those he had mentioned; and the &#8220;parables&#8221; that
+he had written to the King might be made clear by the examination of
+Katharine&#8217;s own servant, who carried her letters. &#8220;The devil take me,&#8221; he
+continues, &#8220;if I can see anything in this friar for her to be so fond of
+him; for he has neither learning, nor good looks, nor breeding, nor
+capacity, nor authority; but if he takes it into his head to preach a new
+gospel, they have to believe it.&#8221;<small><a name="f18.1" id="f18.1" href="#f18">[18]</a></small> By two letters still extant, written
+by Friar Diego himself, we see that the ambassador in no wise exaggerated
+his coarseness and indelicacy, and it is almost incredible that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+Katharine, an experienced and disillusioned woman of nearly twenty-four,
+can have been ready to jeopardise everything political and personal, and
+face the opposition of the world, for the sake alone of the spiritual
+comfort to be derived from the ministrations of such a man. How far, if at
+all, the connection was actually immoral we shall probably never know, but
+the case as it stands shows Katharine to have been passionate,
+self-willed, and utterly tactless. Even after her marriage with young
+Henry Friar Diego retained his ascendency over her for several years, and
+ruled her with a rod of iron until he was publicly convicted of
+fornication, and deprived of his office as Chancellor of the Queen. We
+shall have later to consider the question of his relationship with
+Katharine after her marriage; but it is almost certain that the
+ostentatious intimacy of the pair during the last months of Henry VII. had
+reduced Katharine&#8217;s chance of marriage with the Prince of Wales almost to
+vanishing point, when the death of the King suddenly changed the political
+position and rendered it necessary that the powerful coalition of which
+Ferdinand was the head should be conciliated by England.</p>
+
+<p>Henry VII. died at Richmond on the 22nd April 1509, making a better and
+more generous end than could have been expected from his life. He, like
+his rival Ferdinand, had been avaricious by deliberate policy; and his
+avarice was largely instrumental in founding England&#8217;s coming greatness,
+for the overflowing coffers he left to his son lent force to the new
+position assumed by England as the balancing power, courted by both the
+great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> continental rivals. Ferdinand&#8217;s ambition had o&#8217;erleaped itself, and
+the possession of Flanders by the King of Castile had made England&#8217;s
+friendship more than ever necessary thenceforward, for France was opposed
+to Spain now, not in Italy alone, but on long conterminous frontiers in
+the north, south, and east as well.</p>
+
+<p>Henry VIII. at the age of eighteen was well fitting to succeed his father.
+All contemporary observers agree that his grace and personal beauty as a
+youth were as remarkable as his quickness of intellect and his true Tudor
+desire to stand well in the eyes of his people. Fully aware of the power
+his father&#8217;s wealth gave him politically, he was determined to share no
+part of the onus for the oppression with which the wealth had been
+collected; and on the day following his father&#8217;s death, before himself
+retiring to mourning reclusion in the Tower of London, the unpopular
+financial instruments of Henry VII., Empson and Dudley and others, were
+laid by the heels to sate the vengeance of the people. The Spanish match
+for the young king was by far more popular in England than any other; and
+the alacrity of Henry himself and his ministers to carry it into effect
+without further delay, now that his father with his personal ambitions and
+enmities was dead, was also indicative of his desire to begin his reign by
+pleasing his subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Henry VII. had indeed cleared away many obstacles. Ferdinand
+had profoundly distrusted him. His evident desire to obtain control of
+Castile, either by his marriage with Juana or by that of his daughter Mary
+with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> nine-year-old Archduke Charles, had finally hardened Ferdinand&#8217;s
+heart against him, whilst Henry&#8217;s fear and suspicion of Ferdinand had, as
+we have seen, effectually stood in the way of the completion of
+Katharine&#8217;s marriage. With young Henry as king affairs stood differently.
+Even before his father&#8217;s death Ferdinand had taken pains to assure him of
+his love, and had treated him as a sovereign over the dying old king&#8217;s
+head. Before the breath was out of Henry VII., Ferdinand&#8217;s letters were
+speeding to London to make all things smooth. There would be no opposition
+now to Ferdinand&#8217;s ratification of his Flemish grandson&#8217;s marriage with
+Henry&#8217;s sister Mary. The clever old Aragonese knew there was still plenty
+of time to stop that later; and certainly young Henry could not interfere
+in Castile, as his father might have done, on the strength of Mary Tudor&#8217;s
+betrothal. So all went merry as a marriage bell. Ferdinand, for once in
+his life, was liberal with his money. He implored his daughter to make no
+unpleasantness or complaint, and to raise no question that might obstruct
+her marriage. The ambassador, Fuensalida, was warned that if the bickering
+between himself and the Princess, or between the confessor and the
+household, was allowed to interfere with the match, disgrace and ruin
+should be his lot, and Katharine was admonished that she must be civil to
+Fuensalida, and to the Italian banker who was to pay the balance of her
+dowry. The King of Aragon need have had no anxiety. Young Henry and his
+councillors were as eager for the popular marriage as he was, and dreaded
+the idea of disgorging the 100,000 crowns dowry already<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> paid and the
+English settlements upon Katharine. On the 6th May, accordingly, three
+days before the body of Henry VII. was borne in gloomy pomp to its last
+resting-place at Westminster, Katharine wrote to her delighted father that
+her marriage with Henry was finally settled.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i071.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h3>1509-1527</h3>
+<h3>KATHARINE THE QUEEN&mdash;A POLITICAL MARRIAGE AND A PERSONAL DIVORCE</h3>
+
+<p>&#8220;Long live King Henry VIII.!&#8221; cried Garter King of Arms in French as the
+great officers of state broke their staves of office and cast them into
+the open grave of the first Tudor king. Through England, like the blast of
+a trumpet, the cry was echoed from the hearts of a whole people, full of
+hope that the niggardliness and suspicion which for years had stood
+between the sovereign and his people were at last banished. The young
+king, expansive and hearty in manner, handsome and strong as a pagan god
+in person, was well calculated to captivate the love of the crowd. His
+prodigious personal vanity, which led him to delight in sumptuous raiment
+and gorgeous shows; the state and ceremony with which he surrounded
+himself and his skill in manly exercises, were all points in his favour
+with a pleasure-yearning populace which had been squeezed of its substance
+without seeing any return for it: whilst his ardent admiration for the
+learning which had during his lifetime become the fashion made grave
+scholars lose their judgment and write like flattering slaves about the
+youth of eighteen who now became unquestioned King of England and master
+of his father&#8217;s hoarded treasures.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>As we shall see in the course of this history, Henry was but a whited
+sepulchre. Young, light-hearted, with every one about him praising him as
+a paragon, and his smallest whim indulged as a divine command, there was
+no incitement for the exhibition of the baser qualities that underlay the
+big, popular manner, the flamboyant patriotism, and, it must be added, the
+real ability which appealed alike to the gentle and simple over whom he
+was called to rule. Like many men of his peculiar physique, he was never a
+strong man morally, and his will grew weaker as his body increased in
+gross flabbiness. The obstinate self-assertion and violence that impressed
+most observers as strength, hid behind them a spirit that forever needed
+direction and support from a stronger soul. So long as he was allowed in
+appearance to have his own way and his policy was showy, he was, as one of
+his wisest ministers said in his last days, the easiest man in the world
+to manage. His sensuality, which was all his own, and his personal vanity,
+were the qualities by means of which one able councillor after another
+used him for the ends they had in view, until the bridle chafed him, and
+his temporary master was made to feel the vengeance of a weak despot who
+discovers that he has been ruled instead of ruling. In Henry&#8217;s personal
+character as sketched above we shall be able to find the key of the
+tremendous political events that made his reign the most important in our
+annals; and we shall see that his successive marriages were the outcome of
+subtle intrigues in which representatives of various parties took
+advantage of the King&#8217;s vanity and lasciviousness to promote their own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+political or religious views. That the emancipation of England from Rome
+was the ultimate result cannot fairly be placed to Henry&#8217;s personal
+credit. If he could have had his own way without breaking with the Papacy
+he would have preferred to maintain the connection; but the Reformation
+was in the air, and craftier brains than Henry&#8217;s led the King step by step
+by his ruling passions until he had gone too far to retreat. To what
+extent his various matrimonial adventures served these intrigues we shall
+see in the course of this book.</p>
+
+<p>That Henry&#8217;s marriage with Katharine soon after his accession was
+politically expedient has been shown in the aforegoing pages; and the
+King&#8217;s Council were strongly in favour of it, with the exception of the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancellor Warham, who was more purely
+ecclesiastical than his colleagues, and appears to have had doubts as to
+the canonical validity of the union. As we have seen, the Pope had given a
+dispensation for the marriage years before, in terms that covered the case
+of the union with Arthur having been duly consummated, though Katharine
+strenuously denied that it had been, or that she knew how the dispensation
+was worded. The Spanish confessor also appears to have suggested to
+Fuensalida some doubts as to the propriety of the marriage, but King
+Ferdinand promptly put his veto upon any such scruples. Had not the Pope
+given his dispensation? he asked; and did not the peace of England and
+Spain depend upon the marriage? The sin would be not the marriage, but the
+failure to effect it after the pledges that had been given.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> So the few
+doubters were silenced; young Henry himself, all eager for his marriage,
+was not one of them, nor was Katharine, for to her the match was a triumph
+for which she had worked and suffered for years: and on the 11th June 1509
+the pair were married privately by Warham at Henry&#8217;s palace of Greenwich.</p>
+
+<p>Rarely in its long history has London seen so brave a pageant as the bride
+and bridegroom&#8217;s triumphal passage through the city on Saturday the 21st
+June from the Tower to Westminster for their coronation. Rich tapestries,
+and hangings of cloth of gold, decked the streets through which they
+passed. The city companies lined the way from Gracechurch Street to Bread
+Street, where the Lord Mayor and the senior guild stood in bright array,
+whilst the goldsmiths&#8217; shops in Chepe had each to adorn it a figure of the
+Holy Virgin in white with many wax tapers around it. The Queen rode in a
+litter of white and gold tissue drawn by two snowy palfreys, she herself
+being garbed in white satin and gold, with a dazzling coronet of precious
+stones upon her head, from which fell almost to her feet her dark russet
+hair. She was twenty-four years of age, and in the full flush of
+womanhood; her regular classical features and fair skin bore yet the
+curves of gracious youth; and there need be no doubt of the sincerity of
+the ardent affection for her borne by the pink and white young giant who
+rode before her, a dazzling vision of crimson velvet, cloth of gold, and
+flashing precious stones. &#8220;God save your Grace,&#8221; was the cry that rattled
+like platoon firing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> along the crowded ways, as the splendid cavalcade
+passed on.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, Sunday, 24th June, the pair were crowned in the Abbey with
+all the tedious pomp of the times. Then the Gargantuan feast in
+Westminster Hall, of which the chronicler spares us no detail, and the
+endless jousts and devices, in which roses and pomegranates, castles and
+leopards jostled each other in endless magnificence, until a mere
+catalogue of the splendour grows meaningless. The death of the King&#8217;s wise
+old grandmother, the Countess of Richmond, interrupted for a time the
+round of festivities; but Henry was too new to the unchecked indulgence of
+his taste for splendour and pleasure to abandon them easily, and his
+English councillors, as well as the watchful Spanish agents, began before
+many weeks were over to hint gravely that the young king was neglecting
+his business. Katharine appears to have entered fully into the life of
+pleasure led by her husband. Writing to her father on the 29th July, she
+is enthusiastic in her praise. &#8220;We are all so happy,&#8221; she says; &#8220;our time
+passes in continual feasting.&#8221; But in her case, at least, we see that
+mixed with the frivolous pleasure there was the personal triumph of the
+politician who had succeeded. &#8220;One of the principal reasons why I love my
+husband the King, is because he is so true a son to your Majesty. I have
+obeyed your orders and have acted as your ambassador. My husband places
+himself entirely in your hands. This country of England is truly your own
+now, and is tranquil and deeply loyal to the King and to me.&#8221; What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> more
+could wife or stateswoman ask? Katharine had her reward. Henry was hers
+and England was at the bidding of Ferdinand, and her sufferings had not
+been in vain. Henry, for his part, was, if we are to believe his letters
+to his father-in-law, as much enamoured of his wife as she was satisfied
+with him.<small><a name="f19.1" id="f19.1" href="#f19">[19]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>And so, amidst magnificent shows, and what seems to our taste puerile
+trifling, the pair began their married life highly contented with each
+other and the world. The inevitable black shadows were to come later. In
+reality they were an entirely ill-matched couple, even apart from the six
+years&#8217; disparity in their ages. Henry, a bluff bully, a coward morally,
+and also perhaps physically,<small><a name="f20.1" id="f20.1" href="#f20">[20]</a></small> a liar, who deceived himself as well as
+others, in order to keep up appearances in his favour, he was just the man
+that a clever, tactful woman could have managed perfectly, beginning early
+in his life as Katharine did. Katharine, for all her goodness of heart and
+exalted piety, was, as we have seen, none too scrupulous herself; and if
+her ability and dexterity had been equal to her opportunities she might
+have kept Henry in bondage for life. But, even before her growing age and
+fading charms had made her distasteful to her husband, her lack of
+prudence and management towards him had caused him to turn to others for
+the guidance that she might still have exercised.</p>
+
+<p>The first rift of which we hear came less than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> a year after the marriage.
+Friar Diego, who was now Katharine&#8217;s chancellor, wrote an extraordinary
+letter to King Ferdinand in May 1510, telling him of a miscarriage that
+Katharine had had at the end of January; the affair he says having been so
+secret that no one knew it but the King, two Spanish women, the physician,
+and himself; and the details he furnishes show him to have been as
+ignorant as he was impudent. Incidentally, however, he says: &#8220;Her Highness
+is very healthy and the most beautiful creature in the world, with the
+greatest gaiety and contentment that ever was. The King adores her, and
+her Highness him.&#8221; But with this letter to the King went another to his
+secretary, Almazan, from the new Spanish ambassador, Carroz, who complains
+bitterly that the friar monopolises the Queen entirely, and prevents his
+access to her. He then proceeds to tell of Henry and Katharine&#8217;s first
+matrimonial tiff. The two married sisters of the Duke of Buckingham were
+at Court, one being a close friend of Katharine whilst the other was said
+to be carrying on an intrigue with the King through his favourite, Sir
+William Compton. This lady&#8217;s family, and especially her brother the Duke,
+who had a violent altercation with Compton, and her sister the Queen&#8217;s
+friend, shocked at the scandal, carried her away to a convent in the
+country. In revenge for this the King sent the Queen&#8217;s favourite away, and
+quarrelled with Katharine. Carroz was all for counselling prudence and
+diplomacy to the Queen; but he complains that Friar Diego was advising her
+badly and putting her on bad terms with her husband.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Many false alarms, mostly, it would seem, set afloat by the meddling
+friar, and dwelt upon by him in his letters with quite unbecoming
+minuteness, kept the Court agog as to the possibility of an heir to the
+crown being born. Henry himself, who was always fond of children, was
+desperately anxious for a son; and when, on New Year&#8217;s Day 1511, the
+looked-for heir was born at Richmond, the King&#8217;s unrestrained rejoicing
+again took his favourite form of sumptuous entertainments, after he had
+ridden to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham in Norfolk to give thanks
+for the favour vouchsafed to him. Once again Westminster glittered with
+cloth of gold and gems and velvet. Once again courtiers came to the lists
+disguised as hermits, to kneel before Katharine, and then to cast off
+their gowns and stand in full panoply before her, craving for leave to
+tilt in her honour. Once again fairy bowers of gold and artificial flowers
+sheltered sylvan beauties richly bedizened, the King and his favourites
+standing by in purple satin garments with the solid gold initials of
+himself and his wife sewn upon them. Whilst the dazzling company was
+dancing the &#8220;scenery&#8221; was rolled back. It came too near the crowd of
+lieges at the end of the hall, and pilfering fingers began to pluck the
+golden ornaments from the bowers. Emboldened by their immunity for this,
+people broke the bounds, swarmed into the central space, and in the
+twinkling of an eye all the lords and ladies, even the King himself, found
+themselves stripped of their finery to their very shirts, the golden
+letters and precious tissues intended as presents for fine ladies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> being
+plunder now in grimy hands that turned them doubtless to better account.
+Henry in his bluff fashion made the best of it, and called the booty
+largesse. Little recked he, if the tiny heir whose existence fed his
+vanity throve. But the babe died soon after this costly celebration of his
+birth.</p>
+
+<p>During the ascendency that the anticipated coming of a son gave to
+Katharine, Ferdinand was able to beguile Henry into an offensive league
+against France, by using the same bait that had so often served a similar
+purpose with Henry VII.; namely, the reconquest for England of Guienne and
+Normandy. Spain, the Empire, the Papacy, and England formed a coalition
+that boded ill for the French cause in Italy. As usual the showy but
+barren part fell to Henry. Ferdinand promised him soldiers to conquer
+Normandy, but they never came. All Ferdinand wanted was to keep as many
+Frenchmen as possible from his own battle-grounds, and he found plenty of
+opportunities for evading all his pledges. Henry was flattered to the top
+of his bent. The Pope sent him the blessed golden rose, and saluted him as
+head of the Italian league; and the young king, fired with martial ardour,
+allowed himself to be dragged into war by his wife&#8217;s connections, in
+opposition to the opinion of the wiser heads in his Council. A war with
+France involved hostilities with Scotland, but Henry was, in the autumn of
+1512, cajoled into depleting his realm of troops and sending an army to
+Spain to attack France over the Pyrenees, whilst another force under
+Poynings went to help the allies against the Duke of Gueldres. The former<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+host under the Marquis of Dorset was kept idle by its commander because it
+was found that Ferdinand really required them to reduce the Spanish
+kingdom of Navarre, and after months of inactivity and much mortality from
+sickness, they returned ingloriously home to England. This was Henry&#8217;s
+first experience of armed alliances, but he learned nothing by experience,
+and to the end of his life the results of such coalitions to him were
+always the same.</p>
+
+<p>But his ambition was still unappeased, and in June 1513 he in person led
+his army across the Channel to conquer France. His conduct in the campaign
+was puerile in its vanity and folly, and ended lamely with the capture of
+two (to him) unimportant fortresses in the north, Therouenne and Tournai,
+and the panic flight of the French at the Battle of the Spurs or Guingate.
+Our business with this foolish and fruitless campaign, in which Henry was
+every one&#8217;s tool, is confined to the part that Katharine played at the
+time. On the King&#8217;s ostentatious departure from Dover he left Katharine
+regent of the realm, with the Earl of Surrey&mdash;afterwards Duke of
+Norfolk&mdash;to command the army in the north. Katharine, we are told, rode
+back from Dover to London full of dolour for her lord&#8217;s departure; but we
+see her in her element during the subsequent months of her regency. Bold
+and spirited, and it must be added utterly tactless, she revelled in the
+independent domination which she enjoyed. James IV. of Scotland had
+threatened that an English invasion of France would be followed by his own
+invasion of England. &#8220;Let him do it in God&#8217;s name,&#8221; shouted Henry; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+Katharine when the threat was made good delivered a splendid oration in
+English to the officers who were going north to fight the Scots.
+&#8220;Remember,&#8221; she said, &#8220;that the Lord smiled upon those who stood in
+defence of their own. Remember that the English courage excels that of all
+other nations upon earth.&#8221;<small><a name="f21.1" id="f21.1" href="#f21">[21]</a></small> Her letters to Wolsey, who accompanied
+Henry as almoner, or rather secretary, are full of courage, and as full of
+womanly anxiety for her husband. &#8220;She was troubled,&#8221; she wrote, &#8220;to learn
+that the King was so near the siege of Therouenne,&#8221; until Wolsey&#8217;s letter
+assured her of the heed he takes to avoid all manner of dangers. &#8220;With his
+life and health nothing can come amiss with him, without them I see no
+manner of good thing that shall fall after it.&#8221; But her tactlessness even
+in this letter shows clearly when she boasts that the King in France is
+not so busy with war as she is in England against the Scots. &#8220;My heart is
+very good of it, and I am horribly busy making standards, banners, and
+badges.&#8221;<small><a name="f22.1" id="f22.1" href="#f22">[22]</a></small> After congratulating Henry effusively upon the capture of
+Therouenne and his meeting with the Emperor, Katharine herself set forth
+with reinforcements towards Scotland, but before she had travelled a
+hundred miles (to Woburn) she met the couriers galloping south to bring
+her the great news of Surrey&#8217;s victory at Flodden Field. Turning aside to
+thank Our Lady of Walsingham for the destruction of the Scottish power,
+Katharine on the way sent the jubilant news to Henry. James IV. in his
+defeat had been left dead upon the field, clad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> in his check surcoat, and
+a fragment of this coat soaked with blood the Queen sent to her husband in
+France, with a heartless gibe at his dead brother-in-law. We are told that
+in another of her letters first giving the news of Flodden, and referring
+to Henry&#8217;s capture of the Duke of Longueville at Therouenne, she
+vaingloriously compared her victory with his.<small><a name="f23.1" id="f23.1" href="#f23">[23]</a></small> &#8220;It was no great thing
+for one armed man to take another, but she was sending three captured by a
+woman; if he (Henry) sent her a captive Duke she would send him a prisoner
+king.&#8221; For a wife and <i>locum tenens</i> to write thus in such circumstances
+to a supremely vain man like Henry, whose martial ambition was still
+unassuaged, was to invite his jealousy and dislike. His people saw, as he
+with all his boastfulness cannot fail to have done, that Flodden was the
+real English victory, not Therouenne, and that Katharine and Surrey, not
+Henry, were the heroes. Such knowledge was gall and wormwood to the King;
+and especially when the smoke of battle had blown away, and he saw how he
+had been &#8220;sold&#8221; by his wife&#8217;s relations, who kept the fruit of victory
+whilst he was put off with the shell.</p>
+
+<p>From that time Katharine&#8217;s influence over her husband weakened, though
+with occasional intermission, and he looked for guidance to a subtler mind
+than hers. With Henry to France had gone Thomas Wolsey, one of the clergy
+of the royal chapel, recently appointed almoner by the patronage of Fox,
+Bishop of Winchester, Henry&#8217;s leading councillor in foreign affairs. The
+English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> nobles, strong as they still were territorially, could not be
+trusted with the guidance of affairs by a comparatively new dynasty
+depending upon parliament and the towns for its power; and an official
+class, raised at the will of the sovereign, had been created by Henry
+VII., to be used as ministers and administrators. Such a class, dependent
+entirely upon the crown, were certain to be distasteful to the noble
+families, and the rivalry between these two governing elements provided
+the germ of party divisions which subsequently hardened into the English
+constitutional tradition: the officials usually being favourable to the
+strengthening of the royal prerogative, and the nobles desiring to
+maintain the check which the armed power of feudalism had formerly
+exercised. For reasons which will be obvious, the choice of both Henry
+VII. and his son of their diplomatists and ministers fell to a great
+extent upon clergymen; and Wolsey&#8217;s brilliant talents and facile
+adaptiveness during his close attendance upon Henry in France captivated
+his master, who needed for a minister and guide one that could never
+become a rival either in the field or the ladies&#8217; chamber, where the King
+most desired distinction.</p>
+
+<p>Henry came home in October 1513, bitterly enraged against Katharine&#8217;s kin,
+and ripe for the close alliance with France which the prisoner Duke of
+Longueville soon managed to bring about. What mattered it that lovely
+young Mary Tudor was sacrificed in marriage to the decrepit old King Louis
+XII., notwithstanding her previous solemn betrothal to Katharine&#8217;s nephew,
+young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> Charles of Austria, and her secret love for Henry&#8217;s bosom friend,
+Sir Charles Brandon? Princesses were but pieces in the great political
+game, and must perforce take the rough with the smooth. Henry, in any
+case, could thus show to the Spaniard that he could defy him by a French
+connection. It must have been with a sad heart that Katharine took part in
+the triumphal doings that celebrated the peace directed against her
+father. The French agents, then in London, in describing her say that she
+was lively and gracious, quite the opposite of her gloomy sister: and
+doubtless she did her best to appear so, for she was proud and schooled to
+disappointment; but with the exception of the fact that she was again with
+child, all around her looked black. Her husband openly taunted her with
+her father&#8217;s ill faith; Henry was carrying on now an open intrigue with
+Lady Tailebois, whom he had brought from Calais with him; Ferdinand the
+Catholic at last was slowly dying, all his dreams and hopes frustrated;
+and on the 13th August 1514, in the palace of Greenwich, Katharine&#8217;s dear
+friend and sister-in-law, Mary Tudor, was married by proxy to Louis XII.
+Katharine, led by the Duke of Longueville, attended the festivity. She was
+dressed in ash-coloured satin, covered with raised gold embroidery, costly
+chains and necklaces of gems covered her neck and bust, and a coif trimmed
+with precious stones was on her head.<small><a name="f24.1" id="f24.1" href="#f24">[24]</a></small> The King at the ball in the
+evening charmed every one by his graceful dancing, and the scene was so
+gay that the grave Venetian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> ambassador says that had it not been for his
+age and office he would have cast off his gown and have footed it with the
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>But already sinister whispers were rife, and we may be sure they were not
+unknown to Katharine. She had been married five years, and no child of
+hers had lived; and, though she was again pregnant, it was said that the
+Pope would be asked to authorise Henry to put her aside, and to marry a
+French bride. Had not his new French brother-in-law done the like years
+ago?<small><a name="f25.1" id="f25.1" href="#f25">[25]</a></small> To what extent this idea had really entered Henry&#8217;s head at the
+time it is difficult to say; but courtiers and diplomatists have keen
+eyes, and they must have known which way the wind was blowing before they
+talked thus. In October 1514 Katharine was borne slowly in a litter to
+Dover, with the great concourse that went to speed Mary Tudor on her
+loveless two months&#8217; marriage; and a few weeks afterwards Katharine gave
+birth prematurely to a dead child. Once more the hopes of Henry were
+dashed, and though Peter Martyr ascribed the misfortune to Henry&#8217;s
+unkindness, the superstitious time-servers of the King, and those in
+favour of the French alliance, began to hint that Katharine&#8217;s offspring
+was accursed, and that to get an heir the King must take another wife. The
+doings at Court were still as brilliant and as frivolous as ever; the
+King&#8217;s great delight being in adopting some magnificent, and, of course,
+perfectly transparent disguise in masque or ball, and then to disclose
+himself when every one, the Queen included, was supposed to be lost in
+wonder at the grace and agility of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> pretended unknown. Those who take
+pleasure in the details of such puerility may be referred to Hall&#8217;s
+<i>Chronicle</i> for them: we here have more to do with the hearts beneath the
+finery, than with the trappings themselves.</p>
+
+<p>That Katharine was striving desperately at this time to retain her
+influence over her husband, and her popularity in England, is certain from
+the letter of Ferdinand&#8217;s ambassador (6th December 1514). He complains
+that on the recommendation of Friar Diego Katharine had thrown over her
+father&#8217;s interests in order to keep the love of Henry and his people. The
+Castilian interest and the Manuels have captured her, wrote the
+ambassador, and if Ferdinand did not promptly &#8220;put a bridle on this colt&#8221;
+(<i>i.e.</i> Henry) and bring Katharine to her bearings as her father&#8217;s
+daughter, England would be for ever lost to Aragon.<small><a name="f26.1" id="f26.1" href="#f26">[26]</a></small> There is no doubt
+that at this time Katharine felt that her only chance of keeping her
+footing was to please Henry, and &#8220;forget Spain,&#8221; as Friar Diego advised
+her to do.</p>
+
+<p>When the King of France died on New Year&#8217;s Day, 1515, and his young
+widow&mdash;Katharine&#8217;s friend, Mary Tudor&mdash;clandestinely married her lover,
+Charles Brandon, Katharine&#8217;s efforts to reconcile her husband to the
+peccant pair are evidence, if no other existed, that Henry&#8217;s anger was
+more assumed than real, and that his vanity was pleased by the submissive
+prayers for his forgiveness. As no doubt the Queen, and Wolsey, who had
+joined his efforts with hers, foresaw, not only were Mary and Brandon
+pardoned, but taken into high favour. At the public marriage of Mary and
+Brandon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> at Greenwich at Easter 1515 more tournaments, masques and balls,
+enabled the King to show off his gallantry and agility in competition with
+his new brother-in-law; and on the subsequent May Day at Shooter&#8217;s Hill,
+Katharine and Mary, who were inseparable, took part in elaborate and
+costly <i>al fresco</i> entertainments in which Robin Hood, several pagan
+deities, and the various attributes of spring, were paraded for their
+delectation. It all sounds very gay, though somewhat silly, as we read the
+endless catalogues of bedizenment, of tilts and races, feasting, dancing,
+and music that delighted Henry and his friends; but before Katharine there
+ever hovered the spectre of her childlessness, and Henry, after the
+ceremonial gaiety and overdone gallantry to his wife, would too frequently
+put spurs to his courser and gallop off to New Hall in Essex, where Lady
+Tailebois lived.</p>
+
+<p>A gleam of hope and happiness came to her late in 1515 when she was again
+expecting to become a mother. By liberal gifts&mdash;&#8220;the greatest presents
+ever brought to England,&#8221; said Henry himself&mdash;and by flattery unlimited,
+Ferdinand, almost on his death-bed, managed to &#8220;bridle&#8221; his son-in-law, to
+borrow a large sum of money from him and draw him anew into a coalition
+against France. But the hope was soon dashed; King Ferdinand died almost
+simultaneously with the birth of a girl-child to his daughter Katharine.
+It is true the babe was like to live, but a son, not a daughter, was what
+Henry wanted. Yet he put the best face on the matter publicly. The
+Venetian ambassador purposely delayed his congratulations, because the
+child was of the wrong sex; and when finally he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> coldly offered them, he
+pointedly told the King that they would have been much more hearty if the
+child had been a son. &#8220;We are both young,&#8221; replied Henry. &#8220;If it is a
+daughter this time, by the grace of God sons will follow.&#8221; The desire of
+the King for a male heir was perfectly natural. No Queen had reigned
+independently over England; and for the perpetuation of a new dynasty like
+the Tudors the succession in the male line was of the highest importance.
+In addition to this, Henry was above all things proud of his manliness,
+and he looked upon the absence of a son as in some sort reflecting a
+humiliation upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine&#8217;s health had never been robust; and at the age of thirty-three,
+after four confinements, she had lost her bloom. Disappointment and
+suffering, added to her constitutional weakness, was telling upon her, and
+her influence grew daily smaller. The gorgeous shows and frivolous
+amusements in which her husband so much delighted palled upon her, and she
+now took little pains to feign enjoyment in them, giving up much of her
+time to religious exercises, fasting rigidly twice a week and saints&#8217; days
+throughout the year, in addition to the Lenten observances, and wearing
+beneath her silks and satins a rough Franciscan nun&#8217;s gown of serge. As in
+the case of so many of her kindred, mystical devotion was weaving its grey
+web about her, and saintliness of the peculiar Spanish type was covering
+her as with a garment. Henry, on the contrary, was a full-blooded young
+man of twenty-eight, with a physique like that of a butcher, held by no
+earthly control or check upon his appetites, overflowing with vitality and
+the joy of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> life; and it is not to be wondered at that he found his
+disillusioned and consciously saintly wife a somewhat uncomfortable
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Louis XII., Maximilian, and Ferdinand, and the peaceful
+accession of young Charles to the throne of Spain and the prospective
+imperial crown, entirely altered the political aspect of Europe. Francis
+I. needed peace in the first years of his reign; and to Charles it was
+also desirable, in order that his rule over turbulent Spain could be
+firmly established and his imperial succession secured. All the English
+ministers and councillors were heavily bribed by France, Wolsey himself
+was strongly in favour of the French connection, and everybody entered
+into a conspiracy to flatter Henry. The natural result was a league first
+of England and France, and subsequently a general peace to which all the
+principal Christian potentates subscribed, and men thought that the
+millennium had come. Katharine&#8217;s international importance had disappeared
+with the death of her father and the accession of Charles to the throne of
+Aragon as well as to that of Castile. Wolsey was now Henry&#8217;s sole adviser
+in matters of state and managed his master dexterously, whilst
+endeavouring not entirely to offend the Queen. Glimpses of his harmonious
+relations with Katharine at this time (1516-1520) are numerous. At the
+splendid christening of the Princess Mary, Wolsey was one of the sponsors,
+and he was &#8220;gossip&#8221; with Katharine at the baptism of Mary Tudor Duchess of
+Suffolk&#8217;s son.</p>
+
+<p>Nor can the Queen&#8217;s famous action after the evil May Day (1517) have been
+opposed or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> discountenanced by the Cardinal. The universal peace had
+brought to London hosts of foreigners, especially Frenchmen, and the alien
+question was acute. Wolsey, whose sudden rise and insolence had deeply
+angered the nobles, had, as principal promoter of the unpopular peace with
+France, to bear a full share of the detestation in which his friends the
+aliens were held. Late in April there were rumours that a general attack
+upon foreigners by the younger citizens would be made, and at Wolsey&#8217;s
+instance the civic authorities ordered that all the Londoners should keep
+indoors. Some lads in Chepe disregarded the command, and the Alderman of
+the Ward attempted to arrest one of them. Then rose the cry of &#8220;&#8217;Prentices
+and Clubs! Death to the Cardinal!&#8221; and forth there poured from lane and
+alley riotous youngsters by the hundred, to wreak vengeance on the
+insolent foreigners who took the bread out of worthy Englishmen&#8217;s mouths.
+Sack and pillage reigned for a few hours, but the guard quelled the boys
+with blood, the King rode hastily from Richmond, the Lieutenant of the
+Tower dropped a few casual cannon-balls into the city, and before sunset
+all was quiet. The gibbets rose at the street corners and a bloody
+vengeance fell upon the rioters. Dozens were hanged, drawn, and quartered
+with atrocious cruelty; and under the ruthless Duke of Norfolk four
+hundred more were condemned to death for treason to the King, who, it was
+bitterly said in London, loved outlanders better than his own folk. It is
+unlikely that Henry really meant to plunge all his capital in mourning by
+hanging the flower of its youth, but he loved, for vanity&#8217;s sake, that
+his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> clemency should be publicly sought, and to act the part of a deity in
+restoring to life those legally dead. In any case, Katharine&#8217;s spontaneous
+and determined intercession for the &#8217;prentice lads would take no denial,
+and she pleaded with effect. Her intercession, nevertheless, could hardly
+have been so successful as it was if Wolsey had been opposed to it; and
+the subsequent comedy in the great Hall at Westminster on the 22nd May was
+doubtless planned to afford Henry an opportunity of appearing in his
+favourite character. Seated upon a canopied throne high upon a da&iuml;s of
+brocade, surrounded by his prelates and nobles and with Wolsey by his
+side, Henry frowned in crimson velvet whilst the &#8220;poore younglings and
+olde false knaves&#8221; trooped in, a sorry procession, stripped to their
+shirts, with halters around their necks. Wolsey in stern words rebuked
+their crime, and scolded the Lord Mayor and Aldermen for their laxity;
+ending by saying they all deserved to hang. &#8220;Mercy! gracious lord, mercy!&#8221;
+cried the terrified boys and their distracted mothers behind; and the
+Cardinal and the peers knelt before the throne to beg the life of the
+offenders, which the King granted, and with a great shout of joy halters
+were stripped from many a callow neck, and cast into the rafters of the
+Hall for very joy. But all men knew, and the mothers too, that Wolsey&#8217;s
+intercession was only make-believe, and that what they saw was but the
+ceremonial act of grace. The Queen they thanked in their hearts and not
+the haughty Cardinal, for the King had pardoned the &#8217;prentices privately
+days before, when Katharine and her two sisters-in-law, the widowed Queens
+of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> France and Scotland, had knelt before the King in unfeigned tears, and
+had clamoured for the lives of the Londoners. To the day of the Queen&#8217;s
+unhappy death this debt was never forgotten by the citizens, who loved her
+faithfully to the end far better than any of her successors.</p>
+
+<p>The sweating sickness in the autumn of 1517 sent Henry and his wife as far
+away from contagion as possible, for sickness always frightened the big
+bully into a panic. During his absence from London, Wolsey was busy
+negotiating a still closer alliance with France, by the marriage of the
+baby Princess Mary to the newly born Dauphin. It can hardly have been the
+match that Katharine would have chosen for her cherished only child, but
+she was a cypher by the side of Wolsey now, and made no open move against
+it at the time. Early in the spring of 1518 the plague broke out again,
+and Henry in dire fear started upon a progress in the midlands. Richard
+Pace, who accompanied him, wrote to Wolsey on the 12th April telling him
+as a secret that the Queen was again pregnant. &#8220;I pray God heartily,&#8221; he
+continued, &#8220;that it may be a prince to the surety and universal comfort of
+the realm;&#8221; and he begs the Cardinal to write a kind letter to the Queen.
+In June the glad tidings were further confirmed, as likely to result in
+&#8220;an event most earnestly desired by the whole kingdom.&#8221; Still dodging the
+contagion, the King almost fled from one place to another, and when at
+Woodstock in July Henry himself wrote a letter to Wolsey which tells in
+every line how anxious he was that the coming event should be the
+fulfilment of his ardent hope. Katharine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> had awaited him at Woodstock,
+and he had been rejoiced at the confident hope she gave him. He tells
+Wolsey the news formally, and says that he will remove the Queen as little
+and as quietly as may be to avoid risk. Soon all the diplomatists were
+speculating at the great things that would happen when the looked-for
+prince was born; and it was probably the confident hope that this time
+Henry would not be disappointed, that made possible the success of
+Wolsey&#8217;s policy and the marriage of the Princess Mary with the infant
+Dauphin. Of Wolsey&#8217;s magnificent feasts that accompanied the ratification
+of peace and the betrothal on the 5th October, feasts more splendid, says
+the Venetian ambassador, than ever were given by Caligula or Cleopatra, no
+account can be given here. It was Wolsey&#8217;s great triumph, and he surpassed
+all the records of luxury in England in its celebration. The sweet little
+bride dressed in cloth of gold stood before the thrones upon which her
+father and mother sat in the great Hall of Greenwich, and then, carried in
+the arms of a prelate, was held up whilst the Cardinal slipped the diamond
+wedding-ring upon her finger and blessed her nuptials with the baby
+bridegroom. That the heir of France should marry the heiress of England
+was a danger to the balance of Europe, and especially a blow to Spain. It
+was, moreover, not a match which England could regard with equanimity; for
+a French King Consort would have been repugnant to the whole nation, and
+Henry could never have meant to conclude the marriage finally, unless the
+expected heir was born. But alas! for human hopes. On the night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> of 10th
+November 1518, Katharine was delivered of a daughter, &#8220;to the vexation of
+as many as knew it,&#8221; and King and nation mourned together, now that, after
+all, a Frenchman might reign over England.</p>
+
+<p>To Katharine this last disappointment was bitter indeed. Her husband,
+wounded and irritated, first in his pride, and now in his national
+interests, avoided her; her own country and kin had lost the English tie
+that meant so much to them, and she herself, in poor health and waning
+attractions, could only mourn her misfortunes, and cling more closely than
+ever to her one darling child, Mary, for the new undesired infant girl had
+died as soon as it was born. The ceaseless round of masking, mummery, and
+dancing, which so much captivated Henry, went on without abatement, and
+Katharine perforce had to take her part in it; but all the King&#8217;s
+tenderness was now shown not to his wife but to his little daughter, whom
+he carried about in his arms and praised inordinately.<small><a name="f27.1" id="f27.1" href="#f27">[27]</a></small> So frivolous
+and familiar indeed had Henry&#8217;s behaviour grown that his Council took
+fright, and, under the thin veil of complaints against the behaviour of
+his boon companions, Carew, Peachy, Wingfield, and Brian, who were
+banished from Court, they took Henry himself seriously to task. The four
+French hostages, held for the payment of the war indemnity, were also
+feasted and entertained so familiarly by Henry, under Wolsey&#8217;s influence,
+as to cause deep discontent to the lieges, who had always looked upon
+France as an enemy, and knew that the unpopular Cardinal&#8217;s overwhelming
+display was paid for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> by French bribes. At one such entertainment
+Katharine was made to act as hostess at her dower-house of Havering in
+Essex, where, in the summer of 1519, we are told that, &#8220;for their
+welcomyng she purveyed all thynges in the most liberalist manner; and
+especially she made to the Kyng suche a sumpteous banket that he thanked
+her hartely, and the strangers gave it great praise.&#8221; Later in the same
+year Katharine was present at a grand series of entertainments given by
+the King in the splendid new manor-house which he had built for Lady
+Tailebois, who had just rejoiced him by giving birth to a son. We have no
+record of Katharine&#8217;s thoughts as she took part here in the tedious
+foolery so minutely described by Hall. She plucked off the masks, we are
+told, of eight disguised dancers in long dominos of blue satin and gold,
+&#8220;who danced with the ladies sadly, and communed not with them after the
+fashion of maskers.&#8221; Of course the masqueraders were the Duke of Suffolk
+(Brandon) and other great nobles, as the poor Queen must well have known;
+but when she thought that all this mummery was to entertain Frenchmen, and
+the house in which it passed was devoted to the use of Henry&#8217;s mistress,
+she must have covered her own heart with a more impenetrable mask than
+those of Suffolk and his companions, if her face was attuned to the gay
+sights and sounds around her.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i096.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>KATHARINE OF ARAGON</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Holbein</span> <i>in the National Portrait Gallery</i></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Katharine had now almost ceased to strive for the objects to which her
+life had been sacrificed, namely, the binding together of England and
+Spain to the detriment of France. Wolsey had believed that his own
+interests would be better <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>served by a close French alliance, and he
+had had his way. Henry himself was but the vainglorious figure in the
+international pageant; the motive power was the Cardinal. But a greater
+than Wolsey, Charles of Austria and Spain, though he was as yet only a lad
+of nineteen, had appeared upon the scene, and soon was to make his power
+felt throughout the world. Wolsey&#8217;s close union with France and the
+marriage of the Princess Mary with the Dauphin had been meant as a blow to
+Spain, to lead if possible to the election of Henry to the imperial crown,
+in succession to Maximilian, instead of the latter&#8217;s grandson Charles. If
+the King of England were made Emperor, the way of the Cardinal of York to
+the throne of St. Peter was clear. Henry was flattered at the idea, and
+was ready to follow his minister anywhere to gain such a showy prize. But
+quite early in the struggle it was seen that the unpopular French alliance
+which had already cost England the surrender of the King&#8217;s conquests in
+the war was powerless to bring about the result desired. Francis I., as
+vain and turbulent as Henry, and perhaps more able, was bidding high for
+the Empire himself. His success in the election would have been disastrous
+both to Spain and England, and yet the French alliance was too dear to
+Wolsey to be easily relinquished, and Francis was assured that all the
+interest of his dear brother of England should be cast in his favour,
+whilst, with much more truth, the Spanish candidate was plied with good
+wishes for his success, and underhand attempts were made at the same time
+to gain the electors for the King<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of England.<small><a name="f28.1" id="f28.1" href="#f28">[28]</a></small> Wolsey hoped thus to
+win in any case; and up to a certain point he did so; for he gave to
+Charles the encouragement he needed for the masterly move which soon after
+revolutionised political relations.</p>
+
+<p>Charles at this time (1519), young as he was, had already developed his
+marvellous mental and physical powers. Patient and self-centred, with all
+his Aragonese grandfather&#8217;s subtlety, he possessed infinitely greater
+boldness and width of view. He knew well that the seven prince electors
+who chose the Emperor might, like other men, be bought, if enough money
+could be found. To provide it and give to him the dominant power of the
+world, he was ready to crush the ancient liberties of Castile, to squeeze
+his Italian and Flemish dominions of their last obtainable ducat, for he
+knew that his success in the election would dazzle his subjects until they
+forgot what they had paid for it. And so it happened. Where Francis bribed
+in hundreds Charles bribed in thousands, and England in the conflict of
+money-bags and great territorial interests hardly counted at all. When
+Charles was elected Emperor in June 1519, Henry professed himself
+delighted; but it meant that the universal peace that had been proclaimed
+with such a flourish of trumpets only three years before was already
+tottering, and that England must soon make a choice as to which of the two
+great rivals should be her friend, and which her enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Francis nursed his wrath to keep it warm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> and did his best to retain
+Henry and Wolsey on his side. Bribes and pensions flowed freely from
+France upon English councillors, the inviolable love of Henry and Francis,
+alike in gallantry and age, was insisted upon again and again; the
+three-year-old Princess Mary was referred to always as Dauphiness and
+future Queen of France, though when the little Dauphin was spoken of as
+future King of England, Henry&#8217;s subjects pulled a wry face and cursed all
+Frenchmen. A meeting between the two allies, which for its splendour
+should surpass all other regal displays, was constantly urged by the
+French hostages in England by order of Francis, as a means of showing to
+the world that he could count upon Henry. To the latter the meeting was
+agreeable as a tribute to his power, and as a satisfaction to his love of
+show, and to Wolsey it was useful as enhancing his sale value in the eyes
+of two lavish bidders. To Charles, who shared none of the frivolous tastes
+of his rival sovereigns, it only appealed as a design against him to be
+forestalled and defeated. When, therefore, the preparations for the Field
+of the Cloth of Gold were in full swing early in the year 1520, Charles,
+by a brilliant though risky move such as his father Philip would have
+loved, took the first step to win England to his side in the now
+inevitable struggle for supremacy between the Empire and France. Whilst he
+was still wrangling with his indignant Castilian parliament in March,
+Charles sent envoys to England to propose a friendly meeting with Henry
+whilst on his way by sea from Spain to Flanders. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Katharine&#8217;s
+chance and she made the most of it. She had suffered long and patiently
+whilst the French friendship was paramount; but if God would vouchsafe her
+the boon of seeing her nephew in England it would, she said to his envoys,
+be the measure of her desires. Wolsey, too, smiled upon the suggestion,
+for failing Francis the new Emperor in time might help him to the Papacy.
+So, with all secrecy, a solemn treaty was signed on the 11th April 1520,
+settling, down to the smallest details, the reception of Charles by Henry
+and Katharine at Sandwich and Canterbury, on his voyage or else at a
+subsequent meeting of the monarchs between Calais and Gravelines.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in May when news came from the west that the Spanish fleet was
+sailing up the Channel;<small><a name="f29.1" id="f29.1" href="#f29">[29]</a></small> and Henry was riding towards the sea from
+London ostensibly to embark for France when he learnt that the Emperor&#8217;s
+ships were becalmed off Dover. Wolsey was despatched post-haste to greet
+the imperial visitor and invite him to land; and Charles, surrounded by a
+gorgeous suite of lords and ladies, with the black eagle of Austria on
+cloth of gold fluttering over and around him, was conducted to Dover
+Castle, where before dawn next morning, the 27th May, Henry arrived and
+welcomed his nephew. There was no mistaking the cordiality of the English
+cheers that rang in peals from Dover to Canterbury and through the ancient
+city, as the two monarchs rode side by side in gorgeous array. They meant,
+as clearly as tone could speak, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> the enemy of France and Queen
+Katharine&#8217;s nephew was the friend for the English people, whatever the
+Cardinal of York might think. To Katharine it was a period of rejoicing,
+and her thoughts were high as she welcomed her sister&#8217;s son; the sallow
+young man with yellow hair, already in title the greatest monarch in the
+world, though beset with difficulties. By her stood beautiful Mary Tudor,
+Duchess of Suffolk, twice married since she had, as a child, been
+betrothed under such heavy guarantees to Charles himself; and, holding her
+mother&#8217;s hand, was the other Mary Tudor, a prim, quaint little maid of
+four, with big brown eyes. Already great plans for her filled her mother&#8217;s
+brain. True, she was betrothed to the Dauphin; but what if the hateful
+French match fell through, and the Emperor, he of her own kin, were to
+seal a national alliance by marrying the daughter of England? Charles
+feasted for four days at Canterbury, and then went on his way amidst
+loving plaudits to his ships at Sandwich; but before he sailed he
+whispered that to Wolsey which made the Cardinal his servant; for the
+Emperor, suzerain of Italy and King of Naples, Sicily, and Spain, might do
+more than a King of France in future towards making a Pope.</p>
+
+<p>By the time that Henry and Francis met early in June on the ever-memorable
+field between Ardres and Guisnes, the riot of splendour which surrounded
+the sovereigns and Wolsey, though it dazzled the crowd and left its mark
+upon history as a pageant, was known to the principal actors of the scene
+to be but hollow mockery. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> glittering baubles that the two kings
+loved, the courtly dallying, the pompous ceremony, the masques and devices
+to symbolise eternal amity, were not more evanescent than the love they
+were supposed to perpetuate. Katharine went through her ceremonial part of
+the show as a duty, and graciously received the visit of Francis in the
+wonderful flimsy palace of wood, drapery, and glass at Guisnes; but her
+heart was across the Flemish frontier a few miles away, where her nephew
+awaited the coming of the King of England to greet him as his kinsman and
+future ally. Gravelines was a poor place, but Charles had other ways of
+influencing people than by piling up gewgaws before them. A single day of
+rough, hearty feasting was an agreeable relief to Henry after the
+glittering insincerity of Guisnes; and the four days following, in which
+Charles was entertained at Calais as the guest of Henry and Katharine,
+made up in prodigality for the coarseness of the Flemish fare;<small><a name="f30.1" id="f30.1" href="#f30">[30]</a></small> whilst
+Wolsey, who was already posing as the arbitrator between all Christian
+potentates, was secured to the side of the Emperor in future by a grant of
+the bulk of the income from two Spanish bishoprics, Badajoz and Palencia.</p>
+
+<p>Already the two great rivals were bidding against each other for allies,
+and Charles, though his resources were less concentrated than those of
+Francis, could promise most. Leo X. for his own territorial ambition, and
+in fear of Luther, rallied to the side of the Emperor, the German<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> princes
+seconded their suzerain, and the great struggle for the supremacy of
+Christendom began in March 1521. England by treaty was bound to assist
+France, but this did not suit Wolsey or Henry in their new mood, and the
+Cardinal pressed his arbitration on the combatants. Francis reluctantly
+consented to negotiate; but minds were aflame with a subject that added
+fierceness to the political rivalry between Charles and Francis. The young
+Emperor, when he had met the German princes at Worms (April 1521), had
+thrown down the gage to Luther, and thenceforward it was war to the knife
+between the old faith and the new spirit. Henry, we may be certain to the
+delight of Katharine, violently attacked Luther in his famous book, and
+was flattered by the fulsome praises of the Pope and the Emperor. In the
+circumstances Wolsey&#8217;s voyage to Calais for the furtherance of arbitration
+was turned into one to conclude an armed alliance with Charles and the
+Pope. The Cardinal, who had bent all others to his will, was himself bent
+by the Emperor; and the arbitrator between two monarchs became the servant
+of one. By the treaty signed at Bruges by Wolsey for Henry, Charles
+contracted an engagement to marry his little cousin, Princess Mary, and to
+visit England for a formal betrothal in the following year.</p>
+
+<p>How completely Wolsey had at this time surrendered himself to the Emperor,
+is evident from Katharine&#8217;s new attitude towards him. During his period of
+French sympathy she had been, as we have seen, practically alienated from
+state affairs, but now in Henry&#8217;s letters to Wolsey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> her name is
+frequently mentioned and her advice was evidently welcome.<small><a name="f31.1" id="f31.1" href="#f31">[31]</a></small> During his
+absence in Flanders, for instance, Wolsey received a letter from Henry, in
+which the King says: &#8220;The Queen, my wife, hath desired me to make her most
+hearty recommendation unto you, as to him that she loveth very well; and
+both she and I would fain know when you would repair unto us.&#8221; Great news
+came that the Emperor and his allies were brilliantly successful in the
+war, but in the midst of victory the great Medici, Pope Leo X., though
+still a man in his prime, died. There is no doubt that a secret promise
+had been made by Charles to Wolsey of his support in case a vacancy in the
+Papacy arose, but no one had dreamed of its occurring so quickly,<small><a name="f32.1" id="f32.1" href="#f32">[32]</a></small> and
+Charles found his hand forced. He needed for his purpose a far more
+pliable instrument in the pontifical chair than the haughty Cardinal of
+York. So, whilst pretending to work strenuously to promote Wolsey&#8217;s
+elevation, and thus to gain the goodwill of Henry and his minister, he
+took care<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> secretly that some humbler candidate, such as the one
+ultimately chosen by the Conclave, his old schoolmaster, Cardinal Adrian,
+should be the new Pope. Wolsey was somewhat sulky at the result of the
+election, and thenceforward looked with more distrust on the imperial
+connection; but, withal, he put as good a face on the matter as possible;
+and when, at the end of May 1522, he again welcomed the Emperor in Henry&#8217;s
+name as he set foot on English soil at Dover, the Cardinal, though
+watchful, was still favourable to the alliance. This visit of the young
+Emperor was the most splendid royal sojourn ever made in England; and
+Henry revelled in the ceremonies wherein he was the host of the greatest
+monarch upon earth.</p>
+
+<p>Charles came with a train of a thousand horse and two thousand courtiers;
+and to feed and house such a multitude, the guilds of London, and even the
+principal citizens, were obliged to make return of all their spare beds
+and stocks of provisions in order to provide for the strangers. The
+journey of the monarchs was a triumphal progress from Dover through
+Canterbury, Sittingbourne, and Rochester to Gravesend. On the downs
+between Dover and Canterbury, Henry and a great train of nobles was to
+have met his nephew; but the more to do him honour the King rode into
+Dover itself, and with pride showed his visitor his new great ship the
+<i>Harry Grace &agrave; Dieu</i>, and the rest of the English fleet; whereupon, &#8220;the
+Emperor and his lords much praised the making of the ships, and especially
+the artillery: they said they had never seen ships so armed.&#8221; From
+Gravesend the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> gallant company rowed in the royal barges amidst salvoes of
+guns to Greenwich. There at the hall door of the palace stood Katharine
+surrounded by her ladies, and holding her tiny daughter by the hand.
+Sinking upon one knee the Emperor craved his aunt&#8217;s blessing, which was
+given, and thenceforward for five weeks the feasting and glorious shows
+went on without intermission.</p>
+
+<p>On the second day after the arrival at Greenwich, whilst Henry was arming
+for a joust, a courier, all travel-stained and weary, demanded prompt
+audience, to hand the King a letter from his ambassador in France. The
+King read the despatch with knitted brows, and, turning to his friend Sir
+William Compton, said: &#8220;Go and tell the Emperor I have news for him.&#8221; When
+Charles came the letter was handed to him, and it must have rejoiced his
+heart as he read it. Francis bade defiance to the King of England, and
+thenceforward Henry and the Emperor were allies in arms against a common
+enemy. Glittering pageants followed in London and Windsor, where Charles
+sat as Knight of the Garter under triumphant Henry&#8217;s presidency; masques
+and dances, banquets and hunting, delighted the host and surprised the
+guests with the unrestrained lavishness of the welcome;<small><a name="f33.1" id="f33.1" href="#f33">[33]</a></small> but we may be
+certain that what chiefly interested Katharine and her nephew was not this
+costly trifling, but the eternal friendship between England and Spain
+solemnly sworn upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> sacrament in St. George&#8217;s Chapel, Windsor, by the
+Emperor and Henry, and the binding alliance between them in peace and war,
+cemented by the pledge that Charles should marry his cousin Mary Tudor and
+no one else in the world. It was Katharine&#8217;s final and greatest triumph,
+and the shadows fell thick and fast thereafter.</p>
+
+<p>Henry promptly took his usual showy and unprofitable part in the war. Only
+a few weeks after the Emperor bade his new ally farewell, an English force
+invaded Picardy, and the Earl of Surrey&#8217;s fleet threatened all French
+shipping in the Channel. Coerced by the King of England too, Venice
+deserted France and joined forces with the allies; the new Pope and the
+Italian princes did the same, and the Emperor&#8217;s arms carried all before
+them in Italy. Henry was kept faithful to his ally by the vain hope of a
+dismemberment of France, in which he should be the principal gainer; the
+Pope Clement VII., the ambitious Medici, who succeeded Adrian in September
+1523, hungered for fresh territory which Charles alone could give him; the
+rebel De Bourbon, the greatest soldier of France, was fighting against his
+own king; and in February 1525 the crushing blow of Pavia fell, and
+Francis, &#8220;all lost except honour,&#8221; was a prisoner in the hands of his
+enemy, who looking over Christendom saw none to say him nay but the bold
+monk at Wittemberg.</p>
+
+<p>Three years of costly war for interests not primarily their own had
+already disillusioned the English people. By methods more violent and
+tyrannical than ever had been adopted by any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> previous king, Henry had
+wrung from parliament supplies so oppressive and extortionate for the
+purposes of the war as to disgust and incense the whole country. Wolsey,
+too, had been for the second time beguiled about the Papacy he coveted,
+and knew now that he could not trust the Emperor to serve any interests
+but his own. The French collapse at Pavia, moreover, and pity for the
+captive Francis languishing at Madrid, had caused in England and elsewhere
+a reaction in his favour. Henry himself was, as was his wont, violently
+angry at the cynical way in which his own hopes in France were shelved by
+Charles; and the Pope, alarmed now at the Emperor&#8217;s unchecked dominion in
+Italy, and the insufficient share of the spoil offered to him, also began
+to look askance at his ally. So, notwithstanding the official rejoicings
+in England when the news of Pavia came, and the revived plan of Henry and
+Wolsey to join Bourbon in his intention to dismember France, with or
+without the aid of Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warham,
+correctly interpreted the prevailing opinion in England in his letter to
+Wolsey (quoted by Hallam), saying that the people had &#8220;more cause to weep
+than to rejoice&#8221; at the French defeat. The renewed extortionate demands
+for money aroused in England discontent so dangerous as to reach rebellion
+against the King&#8217;s officers.<small><a name="f34.1" id="f34.1" href="#f34">[34]</a></small> Risings in Kent and the eastern counties,
+and the outspoken remonstrances of the leaders of the middle and working
+classes at length convinced Wolsey, and through him the King,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> that a
+change of policy was inevitable. England once more had been made the
+cat&#8217;s-paw of Spain; and now, with an empty exchequer and a profoundly
+discontented people, was obliged again to shift its balance to the side
+which promised the best hopes for peace, and to redress the equilibrium in
+Europe upon which the English power depended. France was still rich in
+resources, and was made to pay or rather promise the vast sum of two
+million crowns in instalments, and an annuity of a hundred thousand a year
+to the King for England&#8217;s friendship, whilst Francis was forced to abandon
+all his claims on Italy and Burgundy (January 1526), and marry the
+Emperor&#8217;s sister Leonora, before he was permitted to return to France, at
+peace once more. It is true that every party to the treaties endeavoured
+to evade the fulfilment of his pledges; but that was the custom of the
+times. The point that interests us here is that the new policy now
+actively pursued by Wolsey of close friendship with France, necessarily
+meant the ruin of Katharine, unless she was dexterous and adaptable enough
+either to reverse the policy or openly espouse it. Unfortunately she did
+neither. She was now forty-one years of age, and had ceased for nearly two
+years to cohabit with her husband. Her health was bad; she had grown
+stout, and her comeliness had departed; all hopes of her giving to the
+King the son and heir for whom he so ardently craved had quite vanished,
+and with them much of her personal hold upon her husband. To her alarm and
+chagrin, Henry, as if in despair of being succeeded by a legitimate heir,
+in 1525, before signing the new alliance with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> France, had created his
+dearly loved natural son, Henry Fitzroy, a duke under the royal title of
+Duke of Richmond, which had been borne by his father; and Katharine, not
+without reason, feared the King&#8217;s intention to depose her daughter, the
+betrothed of the Emperor, in favour of an English bastard. We have in
+previous pages noticed the peculiar absence of tact and flexibility in
+Katharine&#8217;s character; and Wolsey&#8217;s ostentatious French leanings after
+1525 were met by the Queen with open opposition and acrimonious reproach,
+instead of by temporising wiliness. The Emperor&#8217;s off-hand treatment of
+his betrothed bride, Mary Tudor, further embittered Katharine, who was
+thus surrounded on every side by disillusionment and disappointment.
+Charles sent commissioners to England just before the battle of Pavia to
+demand, amongst other unamiable requirements, the prompt sending of Mary,
+who was only nine years old, to Flanders with an increased dowry. This was
+no part of the agreement, and was, as no doubt Charles foresaw and
+desired, certain to be refused. The envoys received from Henry and
+Katharine, and more emphatically from Wolsey, a negative answer to the
+request,<small><a name="f35.1" id="f35.1" href="#f35">[35]</a></small> Mary being, as they said, the greatest treasure they had, for
+whom no hostages would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> sufficient.<small><a name="f36.1" id="f36.1" href="#f36">[36]</a></small> Katharine would not let her
+nephew slip out of his engagement without a struggle. Mary herself was
+made soon after to send a fine emerald to her betrothed with a grand
+message to the effect that when they came together she would be able to
+know (<i>i.e.</i> by the clearness or otherwise of the gem) &#8220;whether his
+Majesty do keep himself as continent and chaste as, with God&#8217;s grace, she
+will.&#8221; As at this time the Emperor was a man of twenty-five, whilst his
+bride had not reached ten years, the cases were hardly parallel; and
+within three months (in July 1525) Charles had betrothed himself to his
+cousin of Portugal. The treaty that had been so solemnly sworn to on the
+high altar at Windsor only three years before, had thus become so much
+waste-paper, and Katharine&#8217;s best hopes for her child and herself were
+finally defeated. A still greater trial for her followed; for whilst
+Wolsey was drawing nearer and nearer to France, and the King himself was
+becoming more distant from his wife every day, the little Princess was
+taken from the loving care of her mother, and sent to reside in her
+principality of Wales.<small><a name="f37.1" id="f37.1" href="#f37">[37]</a></small> Thenceforward the life of Katharine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> was a
+painful martyrdom without one break in the monotony of misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine appears never to have been unduly jealous of Henry&#8217;s various
+mistresses. She, one of the proudest princesses in Christendom, probably
+considered them quite beneath her notice, and as usual adjuncts to a
+sovereign&#8217;s establishment. Henry, moreover, was far from being a generous
+or complaisant lover; and allowed his lady favourites no great social and
+political power, such as that wielded by the mistresses of Francis I. Lady
+Tailebois (Eleanor Blount) made no figure at Court, and Mary Boleyn, the
+wife of William Carey, a quite undistinguished courtier, who had been
+Henry&#8217;s mistress from about 1521,<small><a name="f38.1" id="f38.1" href="#f38">[38]</a></small> was always impecunious and sometimes
+disreputable, though her greedy father reaped a rich harvest from his
+daughter&#8217;s attractions. Katharine evidently troubled herself very little
+about such infidelity on the part of her husband, and certainly Wolsey had
+no objection. The real anxiety of the Queen arose from Henry&#8217;s ardent
+desire for a legitimate son, which she could not hope to give him; and
+Wolsey, with his eyes constantly fixed on the Papacy, decided to make
+political capital and influence for himself by binding France and England
+so close together both dynastically and politically as to have both kings
+at his bidding before the next Pope was elected. The first idea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> was the
+betrothal of the jilted Princess Mary of ten to the middle-aged widower
+who sat upon the throne of France. An embassy came to London from the
+Queen Regent of France, whilst Francis was still a prisoner in Madrid in
+1525, to smooth the way for a closer intimacy. Special instructions were
+given to the ambassador to dwell upon the complete recovery of Francis
+from his illness, and to make the most of the Emperor&#8217;s unfaithfulness to
+his English betrothed for the purpose of marrying the richly dowered
+Portuguese. Francis eventually regained his liberty on hard conditions
+that included his marriage with Charles&#8217;s widowed sister Leonora, Queen
+Dowager of Portugal; and his sons were to remain in Spain as hostages for
+his fulfilment of the terms. But from the first Francis intended to
+violate the treaty of Madrid, wherever possible; and early in 1527 a
+stately train of French nobles, headed by De Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes,
+came with a formal demand for the hand of young Mary Tudor for the already
+much-married Francis. Again the palace of Greenwich was a blaze of
+splendour for the third nuptials of the little princess; and the elaborate
+mummery that Henry loved was re-enacted.<small><a name="f39.1" id="f39.1" href="#f39">[39]</a></small> On the journeys to and from
+their lodgings in Merchant Taylors&#8217; Hall, the Bishop of Tarbes and
+Viscount de Turenne heard nothing but muttered curses, saw nothing but
+frowning faces of the London people; for Mary was in the eyes of Henry&#8217;s
+subjects the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> heiress of England, and they would have, said they, no
+Frenchman to reign over them when their own king should die.<small><a name="f40.1" id="f40.1" href="#f40">[40]</a></small> Katharine
+took little part in the betrothal festivities, for she was a mere shadow
+now. Her little daughter was made to show off her accomplishments to the
+Frenchmen, speaking to them in French and Latin, playing on the
+harpsichord, and dancing with the Viscount de Turenne, whilst the poor
+Queen looked sadly on. Stiff with gems and cloth of gold, the girl,
+appearing, we are told, &#8220;like an angel,&#8221; gravely played her part to her
+proud father&#8217;s delight, and the Bishop of Tarbes took back with him to his
+master enthusiastic praises of this &#8220;pearl of the world,&#8221; the backward
+little girl of eleven, who was destined, as Francis said, to be the
+&#8220;cornerstone of the new covenant&#8221; between France and England, either by
+her marriage with himself, or, failing that, with his second son, the Duke
+of Orleans, which in every respect would have been a most suitable match.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the treaty of betrothal been signed than there came (2nd
+June 1527) the tremendous news that the Emperor&#8217;s troops under Bourbon had
+entered and sacked Rome with ruthless fury, and that Pope Clement was a
+prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, clamouring for aid from all
+Christian princes against his impious assailants. All those kings who
+looked with distrust upon the rapidly growing power of Charles drew closer
+together. When the news came, Wolsey was in France on his embassy of
+surpassing magnificence, whilst public discontent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> in England at what was
+considered his warlike policy was already swelling into fierce
+denunciations against him, his pride, his greed, and his French
+proclivities. English people cared little for the troubles of the Italian
+Pope; or indeed for anything else, so long as they were allowed to live
+and trade in peace; and they knew full well that war with the Emperor
+would mean the closing of the rich Flemish and Spanish markets to them, as
+well as the seizure of their ships and goods. But to Wolsey&#8217;s ambition the
+imprisonment of Clement VII. seemed to open a prospect of unlimited power.
+If Francis and Henry were closely allied, with the support of the Papacy
+behind them, Wolsey might be commissioned to exercise the Papal authority
+until he relieved the Pontiff from duress, and in due course might succeed
+to the chair of St. Peter. So, deaf to the murmuring of the English
+people, he pressed on; his goal being to bind France and England closely
+together that he might use them both.</p>
+
+<p>The marriage treaty of Mary with the Duke of Orleans, instead of with his
+father, was agreed upon by Francis and the Cardinal at Amiens in August
+1527. But Wolsey knew that the marriage of the children could not be
+completed for some years yet, and he was impatient to forge an immediately
+effective bond. Francis had a sister and a sister-in-law of full age,
+either of whom might marry Henry. But Katharine stood in the way, and she
+was the personification of the imperial connection. Wolsey had no
+scruples: he knew how earnestly his master wished for a son to inherit his
+realm, and how weak of will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> that master was if only he kept up the
+appearance of omnipotence. He knew that Katharine, disappointed, glum, and
+austere, had lost the charm by which women rule men, and the plan, that
+for many months he had been slowly and stealthily devising, was boldly
+brought out to light of day. Divorce was easy, and it would finally
+isolate the Emperor if Katharine were set aside. The Pope would do
+anything for his liberators: why not dissolve the unfruitful marriage, and
+give to England a new French consort in the person of either the widowed
+Margaret Duchess of Alen&ccedil;on, or of Princess Ren&eacute;e? It is true that the
+former indignantly refused the suggestion, and dynastic reasons prevented
+Francis from favouring that of a marriage of Ren&eacute;e of France and Brittany
+with the King of England; but women, and indeed men, were for Wolsey but
+puppets to be moved, not creatures to be consulted, and the Cardinal went
+back to England exultant, and hopeful that, at last, he would compass his
+aspiration, and make himself ruler of the princes of Christendom. Never
+was hope more fallacious or fortune&#8217;s irony more bitter. With a strong
+master Wolsey would have won; with a flabby sensualist as his
+stalking-horse he was bound to lose, unless he remained always at his
+side. The Cardinal&#8217;s absence in France was the turning-point of his
+fortunes; whilst he was glorying abroad, his enemies at home dealt him a
+death-blow through a woman.</p>
+
+<p>At exactly what period, or by whom, the idea of divorcing Katharine at
+this time had been broached to Henry, it is difficult to say; but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> was
+no unpardonable or uncommon thing for monarchs, for reasons of dynastic
+expediency, to put aside their wedded wives. Popes, usually in a hurry to
+enrich their families, could be bribed or coerced; and the interests of
+the individual, even of a queen-consort, were as nothing in comparison of
+those of the State, as represented by the sovereign. If the question of
+religious reform had not complicated the situation and Henry had married a
+Catholic princess of one of the great royal houses, as Wolsey intended,
+instead of a mere upstart like Anne Boleyn, there would probably have been
+little difficulty about the divorce from Katharine: and the first hint of
+the repudiation of a wife who could give the King no heir, for the sake of
+his marrying another princess who might do so, and at the same time
+consolidate a new international combination, would doubtless be considered
+by those who made it as quite an ordinary political move.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that the Bishop of Tarbes, when he was in England in the
+spring of 1527 for the betrothal of Mary, conferred with Wolsey as to the
+possibility of Henry&#8217;s marriage to a French princess, which of course
+would involve the repudiation of Katharine. In any case the King and
+Wolsey&mdash;whether truly or not&mdash;asserted that the Bishop had first started
+the question of the validity of Henry&#8217;s marriage with his wife, with
+special reference to the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, who was to be
+betrothed to Francis I. or his son. It may be accepted as certain,
+however, that the matter had been secretly fermenting ever since Wolsey
+began to shift the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> centre of gravity from the Emperor towards France.
+Katharine may have suspected it, though as yet no word reached her. But
+she was angry at the intimate hobnobbing with France, at her daughter&#8217;s
+betrothal to the enemy of her house, and at the elevation of Henry&#8217;s
+bastard son to a royal dukedom. She was deeply incensed, too, at her
+alienation from State affairs, and had formed around her a cabal of
+Wolsey&#8217;s enemies, for the most part members of the older nobility
+traditionally in favour of the Spanish alliance and against France, in
+order, if possible, to obstruct the Cardinal&#8217;s policy.<small><a name="f41.1" id="f41.1" href="#f41">[41]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The King, no doubt fully aware of Wolsey&#8217;s plan, was as usual willing to
+wound, but yet afraid to strike; not caring how much wrong he did if he
+could only gloze it over to appear right and save his own responsibility
+before the world. The first formal step, which was taken in April 1527,
+was carefully devised with this end. Henry, representing that his
+conscience was assailed by doubts, secretly consulted certain of his
+councillors as to the legality of his union with his deceased brother&#8217;s
+widow. It is true that he had lived with her for eighteen years, and that
+any impediment to the marriage on the ground of affinity had been
+dispensed with to the satisfaction of all parties at the time by the
+Pope&#8217;s bull. But trifles such as these could never stand in the way of so
+tender a conscience as that of Henry Tudor, or so overpowering an ambition
+as that of his minister. The councillors&mdash;most of those chosen were of
+course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> French partisans&mdash;thought the case was very doubtful, and were
+favourable to an inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th May 1527, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, it will be
+recollected, had always been against the marriage; with Wolsey, Stephen
+Gardiner, and certain doctors-of-law, held a private sitting at the York
+House, Westminster, at which the King had been cited to appear and answer
+the charge of having lived in incest with his sister-in-law. The Court was
+adjourned twice, to the 20th and 31st May, during which time the sham
+pleadings for and against the King were carefully directed to the desired
+end. But before the first sitting was well over the plot got wind and
+reached Katharine. The Queen and the imperial connection were popular,
+Wolsey and the French were feared and detested. The old nobility and the
+populace were on the Queen&#8217;s side; the mere rumour of what was intended by
+the prelates at York House set people growling ominously, and the friends
+of the Spanish-Flemish alliance became threateningly active. The King and
+Wolsey saw that for a decree of nullity to be pronounced by Warham and
+Wolsey alone, after a secret inquiry at which the Queen was not
+represented, would be too scandalous and dangerous in the state of public
+feeling, and an attempt was made to get the bishops generally to decide,
+in answer to a leading question, that such a marriage as that of the King
+and Katharine was incestuous. But the bishops were faithful sons of the
+Papacy, and most of them shied at the idea of ignoring the Pope&#8217;s bull
+allowing the marriage. Henry had also learnt during the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> proceedings of
+the sacking of Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, which was another
+obstacle to his desires, for though the Pope would doubtless have been
+quite ready to oblige his English and French friends to the detriment of
+the Emperor when he was free, it was out of the question that he should do
+so now that he and his dominions were at the mercy of the imperial troops.</p>
+
+<p>The King seems to have had an idea that he might by his personal
+persuasion bring his unaccommodating wife to a more reasonable frame of
+mind. He and Wolsey had been intensely annoyed that she had learnt so
+promptly of the plot against her, but since some spy had told her, it was
+as well, thought Henry, that she should see things in their proper light.
+With a sanctimonious face he saw her on the 22nd June 1527, and told her
+how deeply his conscience was touched at the idea that they had been
+living in mortal sin for so many years. In future, he said, he must
+abstain from her company, and requested that she would remove far away
+from Court. She was a haughty princess&mdash;no angel in temper,
+notwithstanding her devout piety; and she gave Henry the vigorous answer
+that might have been expected. They were man and wife, as they had always
+been, she said, with the full sanction of the Church and the world, and
+she would stay where she was, strong in her rights as an honest woman and
+a queen. It was not Henry&#8217;s way to face a strong opponent, unless he had
+some one else to support him and bear the brunt of the fight, and, in
+accordance with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> character, he whined that he never meant any harm: he
+only wished to discover the truth, to set at rest the scruples raised by
+the Bishop of Tarbes. All would be for the best, he assured his angry
+wife; but pray keep the matter secret.<small><a name="f42.1" id="f42.1" href="#f42">[42]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Henry did not love to be thwarted, and Wolsey, busy making ready for his
+ostentatious voyage to France, had to bear as best he might his master&#8217;s
+ill-humour. The famous ecclesiastical lawyer, Sampson, had told the
+Cardinal that the marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; and
+consequently that, even apart from the Pope&#8217;s dispensation, the present
+union was unimpeachable. The Queen would fight the matter to the end, he
+said; and though Wolsey did his best to answer Sampson&#8217;s arguments, he was
+obliged to transmit them to the King, and recommend him to handle his wife
+gently; &#8220;until it was shown what the Pope and Francis would do.&#8221; Henry
+acted on the advice, as we have seen, but Wolsey was scolded by the King
+as if he himself had advanced Sampson&#8217;s arguments instead of answering
+them. Katharine did not content herself with sitting down and weeping. She
+despatched her faithful Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, on a
+pretended voyage to a sick mother in Spain, in order that he might beg the
+aid of the Emperor to prevent the injustice intended against the Queen;
+and Wolsey&#8217;s spies made every effort to catch the man, and lay him by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> the
+heels.<small><a name="f43.1" id="f43.1" href="#f43">[43]</a></small> She sent to her confessor, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, begging
+for his counsel, he being one of the bishops who held that her marriage
+was valid; she &#8220;desired,&#8221; said Wolsey to the King, &#8220;counsel, as well of
+strangers as of English,&#8221; and generally showed a spirit the very opposite
+of that of the patient Griselda in similar circumstances. How entirely
+upset were the King and Wolsey by the unexpected force of the opposition
+is seen in the Cardinal&#8217;s letter to his master a day or two after he had
+left London at the beginning of July to proceed on his French embassy.
+Writing from Faversham, he relates how he had met Archbishop Warham, and
+had told him in dismay that the Queen had discovered their plan, and how
+irritated she was; and how the King, as arranged with Wolsey, had tried to
+pacify and reassure her. To Wolsey&#8217;s delight, Warham persisted that,
+whether the Queen liked it or not, &#8220;truth and law must prevail.&#8221; On his
+way through Rochester, Wolsey tackled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Fisher, who was known to favour the
+Queen. He admitted under Wolsey&#8217;s pressure that she had sent to him,
+though he pretended not to know why, and &#8220;greatly blamed the Queen, and
+thought that if he might speak to her he might bring her to submission.&#8221;
+But Wolsey considered this would be dangerous, and bade the bishop stay
+where he was. And so, with the iniquitous plot temporarily shelved by the
+unforeseen opposition, personal and political, Wolsey and his great train,
+more splendid than that of any king, went on his way to Dover, and to
+Amiens, whilst in his absence that happened in England which in due time
+brought all his dignity and pride to dust and ashes.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i123.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<h3>1527-1530</h3>
+<h3>KATHARINE AND ANNE&mdash;THE DIVORCE</h3>
+
+<p>Enough has been said in the aforegoing pages to show that Henry was no
+more a model of marital fidelity than other contemporary monarchs. It was
+not to be expected that he should be. The marriages of such men were
+usually prompted by political reasons alone; and for the indulgence of
+affairs of the heart kings were forced to look elsewhere than towards the
+princesses they had taken in fulfilment of treaties. Mary, the younger
+daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and wife of William Carey, was the King&#8217;s
+mistress for some years after her marriage in 1521, with the result that
+her father had received many rich grants from the crown; and in 1525 was
+created Lord Rochford. As treasurer of the household Lord Rochford was
+much at Court, and his relationship with the Howards, St. Legers, and
+other great families through his marriage with Lady Elizabeth, daughter of
+the Duke of Norfolk, naturally allied him with the party of nobles whose
+traditions ran counter to those of the bureaucrats in Henry&#8217;s Council. His
+elder daughter Anne, who was born early in 1503, probably at Hever Castle
+in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> Kent,<small><a name="f44.1" id="f44.1" href="#f44">[44]</a></small> had been carefully educated in the learning and
+accomplishments considered necessary for a lady of birth at Court, and she
+accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514 for her fleeting marriage with
+the valetudinarian Louis XII., related in an earlier chapter.<small><a name="f45.1" id="f45.1" href="#f45">[45]</a></small> On Queen
+Mary&#8217;s return to England a few months afterwards with her second husband,
+Charles Brandon, the youthful Anne Boleyn remained to complete her courtly
+education in France, under the care of the new Queen of France, Claude,
+first wife of Francis I.</p>
+
+<p>When the alliance of the Emperor and England was negotiated in 1521, and
+war with France threatened, Anne was recalled home; and in 1522 began her
+life in the English Court and with her family in their various residences.
+Her six years in the gay Court of Francis I. during her most
+impressionable age, had made her in manner more French than English. She
+can never have been beautiful. Her face was long and thin, her chin
+pointed, and her mouth hypocritically prim; but her eyes were dark and
+very fine, her brows arched and high, and her complexion dazzling. Above
+all, she was supremely vain and fond of admiration. Similar qualities to
+these might have been, and doubtless were, possessed by a dozen other
+high-born ladies at Henry&#8217;s Court; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> circumstances, partly political
+and partly personal, gave to them in Anne&#8217;s case a national importance
+that produced enduring consequences upon the world. We have already
+glanced at the mixture of tedious masquerading, hunting, and amorous
+intrigue which formed the principal occupations of the ladies and
+gentlemen who surrounded Henry and Katharine in their daily life; and from
+her arrival in England, Anne appears to have entered to the full into the
+enjoyment of such pastimes. There was some negotiation for her marriage,
+even before she arrived in England, with Sir Piers Butler, an Irish cousin
+of hers, but it fell through on the question of settlements, and in 1526,
+when she was already about twenty-three, she took matters in her own
+hands, and captivated an extremely eligible suitor, in the person of a
+silly, flighty young noble, Henry Percy, eldest son and heir to the Earl
+of Northumberland.</p>
+
+<p>Percy was one of the Court butterflies who attached themselves to Wolsey&#8217;s
+household, and when angrily taken to task by the Cardinal for flirting
+with Anne, notwithstanding his previous formal betrothal to another lady,
+the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the young man said that, as he
+loved Anne best, he would rather marry her. The Cardinal did not mince
+words with his follower, but Percy stood stoutly to his choice, and the
+Earl of Northumberland was hastily summoned to London to exercise his
+authority over his recalcitrant son. Cavendish<small><a name="f46.1" id="f46.1" href="#f46">[46]</a></small> gives an amusing
+account of the interview between them, at which he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> present. The Earl
+seems to have screwed up his courage by a generous draught of wine when he
+left Wolsey&#8217;s presence to await his son in the hall of York House. When
+the youth did come in, the scolding he got was vituperative in its
+violence, with the result that Percy was reluctantly forced to abandon the
+sweetheart to whom he had plighted his troth. Wolsey&#8217;s interference in
+their love affair deeply angered both Anne and her sweetheart. Percy was a
+poor creature, and could do Wolsey little harm; but Anne did not forget,
+swearing &#8220;that if ever it lay in her power she would do the Cardinal some
+displeasure, which indeed she afterwards did.&#8221;<small><a name="f47.1" id="f47.1" href="#f47">[47]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The reason for Wolsey&#8217;s strong opposition to a match which appeared a
+perfectly fitting one for both the lovers, is not far to seek. Cavendish
+himself gives us the clue when he says that when the King first heard that
+Anne had become engaged to Percy, &#8220;he was much moved thereat, for he had a
+private affection for her himself which was not yet discovered to any&#8221;:
+and the faithful usher in telling the story excuses Wolsey by saying that
+&#8220;he did nothing but what the King commanded.&#8221; This affair marks the
+beginning of Henry&#8217;s infatuation for Anne. There was no reason for Wolsey
+to object to a flirtation between the girl and her royal admirer; indeed
+the devotion of the King to a new mistress would doubtless make him the
+more ready to consent to contract another entirely political<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> marriage, if
+he could get rid of Katharine; and the Cardinal smiled complaisantly at
+the prospect that all was going well for his plans. Anne, for the look of
+the thing, was sent away from Court for a short time after the Percy
+affair had been broken off; but before many weeks were over she was back
+again as one of Katharine&#8217;s maids of honour, and the King&#8217;s admiration for
+her was evident to all observers.<small><a name="f48.1" id="f48.1" href="#f48">[48]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>It is more than questionable whether up to this time (1526) Anne ever
+dreamed of becoming Henry&#8217;s wife; but in any case she was too clever to
+let herself go cheaply. She knew well the difference in the positions held
+by the King&#8217;s mistresses in the French Court and that which had been
+occupied by her sister and Lady Tailebois in England, and she coyly held
+her royal lover at arm&#8217;s length, with the idea of enhancing her value at
+last. Henry, as we have seen, was utterly tired of, and estranged from,
+Katharine; and his new flame, with her natural ability and acquired French
+arts, flattered and pleased his vanity better than any woman had done
+before. It is quite probable that she began to aim secretly at the higher
+prize in the spring of 1527, when the idea of the divorce from Katharine
+had taken shape in the King&#8217;s mind under the sedulous prompting of Wolsey
+for his personal and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> political ends; but if such was the case she was
+careful not to show her hand prematurely. Her only hope of winning such a
+game was to keep imperious Henry in a fever of love, whilst declining all
+his illicit advances. It was a difficult and a dangerous thing to do, for
+her quarry might break away at any moment, whereas if such a word as
+marriage between the King and her reached the ears of the cardinal, she
+and her family would inevitably be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the condition of affairs when Wolsey started for France in July
+1527. He went, determined to leave no stone unturned to set Henry free
+from Katharine. He knew that there was no time to be lost, for the letters
+from Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, and Katharine&#8217;s messenger
+Felipe, were on their way to tell the story to the Emperor in Spain; and
+Clement VII., a prisoner in the hands of the imperialists, would not dare
+to dissolve the marriage after Charles had had time to command him not to
+do so. It was a stiff race who should get to the Pope first. Wolsey&#8217;s
+alternative plan in the circumstances was a clever one. It was to send to
+Rome the Bishop of Worcester (the Italian Ghinucci), Henry&#8217;s ambassador in
+Spain, then on his way home, to obtain, with the support of the cardinals
+of French sympathies, a &#8220;general faculty&#8221; from Clement VII. for Wolsey to
+exercise all the Papal functions during the Pope&#8217;s captivity: &#8220;by which,
+without informing the Pope of your (<i>i.e.</i> Henry&#8217;s) purpose, I may
+delegate such judges as the Queen will not refuse; and if she does the
+cognisance of the cause shall be devolved upon me, and by a clause<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> to be
+inserted in the general commission no appeal be allowed from my decision
+to the Pope.&#8221;<small><a name="f49.1" id="f49.1" href="#f49">[49]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>How unscrupulous Wolsey and Henry were in the matter is seen in a letter
+dated shortly before the above was written, in which Wolsey says to
+Ghinucci (Bishop of Worcester) and Dr. Lee, Henry&#8217;s ambassador with the
+Emperor, that &#8220;a rumour has, somehow or other, sprung up in England that
+proceedings are being taken for a divorce between the King and the Queen,
+which is entirely without foundation, yet not altogether causeless, for
+there has been some discussion about the Papal dispensation; not with any
+view to a divorce, but to satisfy the French, who raised the objection on
+proposing a marriage between the Princess (Mary Tudor) and their
+sovereign. The proceedings which took place on this dispute gave rise to
+the rumour, and reached the ears of the Queen, who expressed some
+resentment but was satisfied after explanation; and no suspicion exists,
+except, perchance, the Queen may have communicated with the Emperor.&#8221;<small><a name="f50.1" id="f50.1" href="#f50">[50]</a></small>
+Charles had, indeed, heard the whole story, as far as Katharine knew it,
+from the lips of Felipe before this was written, and was not to be put off
+with such smooth lies. He wrote indignantly to his ambassador Mendoza in
+London, directing him to see Henry and point out to him, in diplomatic
+language veiling many a threat, the danger, as well as the turpitude, of
+repudiating his lawful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> wife with no valid excuse; and more vigorously
+still he let the Pope know that there must be no underhand work to his
+detriment or that of his family. Whilst the arrogant Cardinal of York was
+thus playing for his own hand first, and for Henry secondly, in France,
+his jealous enemies in England might put their heads together and plot
+against him undeterred by the paralysing fear of his frown. His pride and
+insolence, as well as his French political leanings, had caused the
+populace to hate him; the commercial classes, who suffered most by the
+wars with their best customers, the Flemings and Spaniards, were strongly
+opposed to him; whilst the territorial and noble party, which had usually
+been friendly with Katharine, and were traditionally against bureaucratic
+or ecclesiastical ministers of the crown, suffered with impatience the
+galling yoke of the Ipswich butcher&#8217;s son, who drove them as he listed.</p>
+
+<p>Anne was in the circumstances a more powerful ally for them than
+Katharine. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the leader of the
+party of nobles, and her ambition would make her an apt and eager
+instrument. The infatuation of the King for her grew more violent as she
+repelled his advances,<small><a name="f51.1" id="f51.1" href="#f51">[51]</a></small> and, doubtless at the prompting of Wolsey&#8217;s
+foes, it soon began to be whispered that if Henry could get rid of his
+wife he might marry his English favourite. Before the Cardinal had been in
+France a month,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, first sounded the new
+note of alarm to the Emperor, by telling him that Anne might become the
+King&#8217;s wife. It is hardly possible that no hint of the danger can have
+reached Wolsey, but if it did he was confident of his power over his
+master when he should return to England. Unfortunately for him his ideas
+for the King&#8217;s divorce were hampered by the plans for his own advancement;
+and the proposals he wrote to Henry were all founded on the idea of
+exerting international pressure, either for the liberation of the Pope, or
+to obtain from the Pontiff the decree of divorce. It was evident that this
+process must be a slow one, and Anne as well as Henry was in a hurry.
+Unlike Charles, who, though he was falsity itself to his rivals, never
+deceived his own ministers, Henry constantly showed the moral cowardice of
+his character by misleading those who were supposed to direct his policy,
+and at this juncture he conceived a plan of his own which promised more
+rapidity than that of Wolsey.<small><a name="f52.1" id="f52.1" href="#f52">[52]</a></small> Without informing Wolsey of the real
+object of his mission, old Dr. Knight, the King&#8217;s confidential secretary,
+was sent to endeavour to see the Pope in St. Angelo, and by personal
+appeal from the King persuade him to grant a dispensation for Henry&#8217;s
+marriage either before his marriage with Katharine was dissolved formally
+(<i>constante matrimonio</i>), or else, if that was refused, a dispensation to
+marry after the declaration had been made nullifying the previous union
+(<i>soluto matrimonio</i>);<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> but in either case the strange demand was to be
+made that the dispensation was to cover the case of the bride and
+bridegroom being connected within the prohibited degrees of affinity.<small><a name="f53.1" id="f53.1" href="#f53">[53]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Knight saw Wolsey on his way through France and hoodwinked him as to his
+true mission by means of a bogus set of instructions, though the Cardinal
+was evidently suspicious and ill at ease. This was on the 12th September
+1527, and less than a fortnight later Wolsey hurried homeward. When he had
+set forth from England three months before he seemed to hold the King in
+the hollow of his hand. Private audience for him was always ready, and all
+doors flew open at his bidding. But when he appeared on the 30th September
+at the palace of Richmond, and sent one of his gentlemen to inquire of the
+King where he would receive him, Anne<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> sat in the great hall by Henry&#8217;s
+side, as was usual now. Before the King could answer the question of
+Wolsey&#8217;s messenger, the favourite, with a petulance that Katharine would
+have considered undignified, snapped, &#8220;Where else should the Cardinal come
+but where the King is?&#8221; For the King to receive his ministers at private
+audience in a hall full of people was quite opposed to the usual etiquette
+of Henry&#8217;s Court, and Wolsey&#8217;s man still stood awaiting the King&#8217;s reply.
+But it only came in the form of a nod that confirmed the favourite&#8217;s
+decision. This must have struck the proud Cardinal to the heart, and when
+he entered the hall and bowed before his sovereign, who was toying now
+with his lady-love, and joking with his favourites, the minister must have
+known that his empire over Henry had for the time vanished. He was clever
+and crafty: he had often conquered difficulties before, and was not
+dismayed now that a young woman had supplanted him, for he still held
+confidence in himself. So he made no sign of annoyance, but he promptly
+tried to checkmate Knight&#8217;s mission when he heard of it, whilst pretending
+approval of the King&#8217;s attachment to Anne. The latter was deceived. She
+could not help seeing that with Wolsey&#8217;s help she would attain her object
+infinitely more easily than without it, and she in her turn smiled upon
+the Cardinal, though her final success would have boded ill for him, as he
+well knew.</p>
+
+<p>His plan, doubtless, was to let the divorce question drag on as long as
+possible, in the hope that Henry would tire of his new flame. First he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>persuaded the King to send fresh instructions to Knight, on the ground
+that the Pope would certainly not give him a dispensation to commit bigamy
+in order that he might marry Anne, and that it would be easier to obtain
+from the Pontiff a decree leaving the validity of the marriage with
+Katharine to the decision of the Legates in England, Wolsey and another
+Cardinal. Henry having once loosened the bridle, did not entirely return
+to his submission to Wolsey. Like most weak men, he found it easier to
+rebel against the absent than against those who faced him; but he was not,
+if he and Anne could prevent it, again going to put his neck under the
+Cardinal&#8217;s yoke completely, and in a secret letter to Knight he ordered
+him to ask Clement for a dispensation couched in the curious terms already
+referred to, allowing him to marry again, even within the degrees of
+affinity, as soon as the union with Katharine was dissolved. Knight had
+found it impossible to get near the Pope in Rome, for the imperialists had
+been fully forewarned by this time; but at length Clement was partially
+released and went to Orvieto in December, whither Knight followed him
+before the new instructions came from England. Knight was no match for the
+subtle churchmen. Clement dared not, moreover, mortally offend the
+Emperor, whose men-at-arms still held Rome; and the dispensation that
+Knight sent so triumphantly to England giving the Legate&#8217;s Court in London
+power to decide the validity of the King&#8217;s marriage, had a clause slipped
+into it which destroyed its efficacy, because it left the final decision
+to the Pontiff after all.</p>
+
+<p>It may be asked, if Henry believed, as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> now pretended, that his first
+marriage had never been legal in consequence of Katharine being his
+brother&#8217;s widow, why he needed a Papal dispensation to break it. The Papal
+brief that had been previously given allowing the marriage, was asserted
+by Henry&#8217;s ecclesiastical friends to be <i>ultra vires</i> in England, because
+marriage with a brother&#8217;s widow was prohibited under the common law of the
+land, with which the Pope could not dispense. But the matter was
+complicated with all manner of side issues: the legitimacy of the Princess
+Mary, the susceptibilities of the powerful confederation that obeyed the
+Emperor, the sentiment of the English people, and, above all, the
+invariable desire of Henry to appear a saint whilst he acted like a sinner
+and to avoid personal responsibility; and so Henry still strove with the
+ostensible, but none too hearty, aid of Wolsey, to gain from the Pope the
+nullification of a marriage which he said was no marriage at all. Wolsey&#8217;s
+position had become a most delicate and dangerous one. As soon as the
+Emperor learned of Anne&#8217;s rise, he had written to Mendoza (30th September
+1527), saying that the Cardinal must be bought at any price. All his
+arrears of pension (45,000 ducats) were to be paid, 6000 ducats a year
+more from a Spanish bishopric were to be granted, and a Milanese
+marquisate was to be conferred upon him with a revenue of 15,000 ducats a
+year, if he would only serve the Emperor&#8217;s interests. But he dared not do
+it quickly or openly, dearly as he loved money, for Anne was watchful and
+Henry suspicious of him. His only hope was that the King&#8217;s infatuation for
+this long-faced woman with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> the prude&#8217;s mouth and the blazing eyes might
+pall. Then his chance would come again.</p>
+
+<p>Far from growing weaker, however, Henry&#8217;s passion grew as Anne&#8217;s virtue
+became more rigid. She had not always been so austere, for gossip had
+already been busy with her good name. Percy and Sir Thomas Wyatt had both
+been her lovers, and with either or both of them she had in some way
+compromised herself.<small><a name="f54.1" id="f54.1" href="#f54">[54]</a></small> But she played her game cleverly, for the stake
+was a big one, and her fascination must have been great. She was often
+away from Court, feigning to prefer the rural delights of Hever to the
+splendours of Greenwich or Richmond, or offended at the significant
+tittle-tattle about herself and the King. She was thus absent when in July
+1527 Wolsey had gone to France, but took care to keep herself in Henry&#8217;s
+memory by sending him a splendid jewel of gold and diamonds representing a
+damsel in a boat on a troubled sea. The lovesick King replied in the first
+of those extraordinary love-letters of his which have so often been
+printed. &#8220;Henceforward,&#8221; he says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> &#8220;my heart shall be devoted to you only.
+I wish my body also could be. God can do it if He pleases, to whom I pray
+once a day that it may be, and hope at length to be heard:&#8221; and he signs
+<i>Escripte de la main du secretaire, que en c&oelig;ur, corps, et volont&eacute;, est
+vostre loiall et plus assur&eacute; serviteure, H. (autre c&oelig;ur ne cherche) R.</i>
+Soon afterwards, when Wolsey was well on his way, the King writes to his
+lady-love again. &#8220;The time seems so long since I heard of your good health
+and of you that I send the bearer to be better ascertained of your health
+and your purpose: for since my last parting from you I have been told you
+have quite abandoned the intention of coming to Court, either with your
+mother or otherwise. If so I cannot wonder sufficiently; for I have
+committed no offence against you, and it is very little return for the
+great love I bear you to deny me the presence of the woman I esteem most
+of all the world. If you love me, as I hope you do, our separation should
+be painful to you. I trust your absence is not wilful; for if so I can but
+lament my ill fortune and by degrees abate my great folly.&#8221;<small><a name="f55.1" id="f55.1" href="#f55">[55]</a></small> This was
+the tone to bring Anne to her lover again, and before many days were over
+they were together, and in Wolsey&#8217;s absence the marriage rumours spread
+apace.</p>
+
+<p>The fiasco of Knight&#8217;s mission had convinced Henry and Anne that they must
+proceed through the ordinary diplomatic channels and with the aid of
+Wolsey in their future approaches to the Pope; and early in 1528 Stephen
+Gardiner and Edward Fox, two ecclesiastics attached to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> Cardinal, were
+despatched on a fresh mission to Orvieto to urge Clement to grant to
+Wolsey and another Legate power to pronounce finally on the validity of
+Henry&#8217;s marriage. The Pope was to be plied with sanctimonious assurances
+that no carnal love for Anne prompted Henry&#8217;s desire to marry her, as the
+Pope had been informed, but solely her &#8220;approved excellent, virtuous
+qualities&mdash;the purity of her life, her constant virginity, her maidenly
+and womanly pudicity, her soberness, her chasteness, meekness, humility,
+wisdom, descent right noble and high through royal blood,<small><a name="f56.1" id="f56.1" href="#f56">[56]</a></small> education in
+all good and laudable qualities and manners, apparent aptness to
+procreation of children, with her other infinite good qualities.&#8221; Gardiner
+and Fox on their way to Dover called at Hever, and showed to Anne this
+panegyric penned by Wolsey<small><a name="f57.1" id="f57.1" href="#f57">[57]</a></small> upon her, and thenceforward for a time all
+went trippingly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>Gardiner was a far different negotiator from Knight, and was able, though
+with infinite difficulty, to induce Clement to grant the new bull
+demanded, relegating the cause finally to the Legatine Court in London.
+The Pope would have preferred that Wolsey should have sat alone as Legate,
+but Wolsey was so unpopular in England, and the war into which he had
+again dragged the country against the Emperor was so detested,<small><a name="f58.1" id="f58.1" href="#f58">[58]</a></small> whilst
+Queen Katharine had so many sympathisers, that it was considered necessary
+that a foreign Legate should add his authority to that of Wolsey to do the
+evil deed. Campeggio, who had been in England before, and was a pensioner
+of Henry as Bishop of Hereford, was the Cardinal selected by Wolsey; and
+at last Clement consented to send him. Every one concerned appears to have
+endeavoured to avoid responsibility for what they knew was a shabby
+business. The Pope, crafty and shifty, was in a most difficult position,
+and blew hot and cold. The first commission given to Gardiner and Fox,
+which was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> received with such delight by Anne and Henry when Fox brought
+it to London in April 1528, was found on examination still to leave the
+question open to Papal veto. It is true that it gave permission to the
+Legates to pronounce for the King, but the responsibility for the ruling
+was left to them, and their decision might be impugned. When, at the
+urgent demand of Gardiner, the Pope with many tears gave a decretal laying
+down that the King&#8217;s marriage with Katharine was bad by canon law if the
+facts were as represented, he gave secret orders to the Legate Campeggio
+that the decretal was to be burnt and not to be acted upon.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the Pope was thus between the devil and the deep sea, trying to
+please the Emperor on the one hand and the Kings of France and England on
+the other, and deceiving both, the influence of Anne over her royal lover
+grew stronger every day. Wolsey was in the toils and he knew it. When
+Charles had answered the English declaration of war (January 1528), it was
+the Cardinal&#8217;s rapacity, pride, and ambition against which he thundered as
+the cause of the strife and of the insult offered to the imperial house.
+To the Emperor the Cardinal could not again turn. Henry, moreover, was no
+longer the obedient tool he had been before Anne was by his side to
+stiffen his courage; and Wolsey knew that, notwithstanding the favourite&#8217;s
+feline civilities and feigned dependence upon him, it would be the turn of
+his enemies to rule when once she became the King&#8217;s wedded wife. He was,
+indeed, hoist with his own petard. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> divorce had been mainly promoted,
+if not originated, by him, and the divorce in the present circumstances
+would crush him. But he had pledged himself too deeply to draw back
+openly; and he still had to smile upon those who were planning his ruin,
+and himself urge forward the policy by which it was to be effected.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Katharine stood firm, living under the same roof as her
+husband, sitting at the same table with him with a serene countenance in
+public, and to all appearance unchanged in her relations to him. But
+though her pride stood her in good stead she was perplexed and lonely.
+Henry&#8217;s intention to divorce her, and his infatuation for Anne, were of
+course public property, and the courtiers turned to the coming
+constellation, whatever the common people might do. Mendoza, the Spanish
+ambassador, withdrew from Court in the spring after the declaration of
+war, and the Queen&#8217;s isolation was then complete. To the Spanish Latinist
+in Flanders, J. Luis Vives, and to Erasmus, she wrote asking for counsel
+in her perplexity, but decorous epistles in stilted Latin advising
+resignation and Christian fortitude was all she got from either.<small><a name="f59.1" id="f59.1" href="#f59">[59]</a></small> Her
+nephew the Emperor had urged her, in any case, to refuse to recognise the
+authority of any tribunal in England to judge her case, and had done what
+he could to frighten the Pope against acceding to Henry&#8217;s wishes. But even
+he was not implacable, if his political ends were served in any
+arrangement that might be made; and at this time he evidently hoped,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> as
+did the Pope most fervently, that as a last resource Katharine would help
+everybody out of the trouble by giving up the struggle and taking the
+veil. Her personal desire would doubtless have been to adopt this course,
+for the world had lost its savour, but she was a daughter of Isabel the
+Catholic, and tame surrender was not in her line. Her married life with
+Henry she knew was at an end;<small><a name="f60.1" id="f60.1" href="#f60">[60]</a></small> but her daughter was now growing into
+girlhood, and her legitimacy and heirship to the English crown she would
+only surrender with her own life. So to all smooth suggestions that she
+should make things pleasant all round by acquiescing in the King&#8217;s view of
+their marriage, she was scornfully irresponsive.</p>
+
+<p>Through the plague-scourged summer of 1528 Henry and Anne waited
+impatiently for the coming of the Legate Campeggio. He was old and gouty,
+hampered with a mission which he dreaded; for he could not hope to
+reconcile the irreconcilable, and the Pope had quietly given him the hint
+that he need not hurry. Clement was, indeed, in a greater fix than ever.
+He had been made to promise by the Emperor that the case should not be
+decided in England, and yet he had been forced into giving the
+dispensation and decretal not only allowing it to be decided there in
+favour of Henry, but had despatched Campeggio to pronounce judgment. He
+had, however, at the same time assured the Emperor that means<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> should be
+found to prevent the finality of any decision in England until the Emperor
+had approved of it, and Campeggio was instructed accordingly. The
+Spaniards thought that the English Cardinal would do his best to second
+the efforts of the Pope without appearing to do so, and there is no doubt
+that they were right, for Wolsey was now (the summer of 1528) really
+alarmed at the engine he had set in motion and could not stop. Katharine
+knew that the Legate was on his way, and that the Pope had, in appearance,
+granted all of Henry&#8217;s demands; but she did not know, or could not
+understand, the political forces that were operating in her favour, which
+made the Pope defraud the King of England, and turned her erstwhile mortal
+enemy Wolsey into her secret friend. Tact and ready adaptability might
+still have helped Katharine. The party of nobles under Norfolk, it is
+true, had deserted her; but Wolsey and the bureaucrats were still a power
+to be reckoned with, and the middle classes and the populace were all in
+favour of the Queen and the imperial alliance. If these elements had been
+cleverly combined they might have conquered, for Henry was always a coward
+and would have bent to the stronger force. But Katharine was a bad hand at
+changing sides, and Wolsey dared not openly do so.</p>
+
+<p>For a few days in the summer of 1528, whilst Campeggio was still lingering
+on the Continent, it looked as if a mightier power than any of them might
+settle the question for once and all. Henry and Anne were at Greenwich
+when the plague broke out in London. In June one of Anne&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> attendants
+fell ill of the malady, and Henry in a panic sent his favourite to Hever,
+whilst he hurried from place to place in Hertfordshire. The plague
+followed him. Sir Francis Poyns, Sir William Compton, William Carey, and
+other members of his Court died in the course of the epidemic, and the
+dread news soon reached Henry that Anne and her father were both stricken
+at Hever Castle. Henry had written daily to her whilst they had been
+separated. &#8220;Since your last letter, mine own darling,&#8221; he wrote a few days
+after she left, &#8220;Walter Welsh, Master Brown, Thomas Care, Grion of
+Brereton, and John Coke the apothecary have fallen of the sweat in this
+house.... By the mercy of God the rest of us be yet well, and I trust
+shall pass it, either not to have it, or at least as easily as the rest
+have done.&#8221; Later he wrote: &#8220;The uneasiness my doubts about your health
+gave me, disturbed and alarmed me exceedingly; and I should not have had
+any quiet without hearing certain tidings. But now, since you have felt as
+yet nothing, I hope, and am assured, that it will spare you, as I hope it
+is doing with us. For when we were at Waltham two ushers, two valets, and
+your brother, master-treasurer, fell ill, but are now quite well; and
+since we have returned to our house at Hunsdon we have been perfectly
+well, and have not now one sick person, God be praised. I think if you
+would retire from Surrey, as we did, you would escape all danger. There is
+another thing may comfort you, which is, in truth, that in this distemper
+few or no women have been taken ill, and no person of our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> Court has
+died.<small><a name="f61.1" id="f61.1" href="#f61">[61]</a></small> For which reason I beg you, my entirely beloved, not to frighten
+yourself, nor be too uneasy at our absence, for wherever I am, I am yours:
+and yet we must sometimes submit to our misfortunes; for whoever will
+struggle against fate is generally but so much the further from gaining
+his end. Wherefore, comfort yourself and take courage, and avoid the
+pestilence as much as you can; for I hope shortly to make you sing <i>la
+renvoy&eacute;</i>. No more at present from lack of time, but that I wish you in my
+arms that I might a little dispel your unreasonable thoughts. Written by
+the hand of him who is, and always will be, yours.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the news of Anne&#8217;s illness reached him he despatched one of his
+physicians post haste with the following letter to his favourite: &#8220;There
+came to me suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have
+arrived. The first, to hear the sickness of my mistress, whom I esteem
+more than all the world, and whose health I desire as I do my own, so that
+I would gladly bear half your illness to make you well; the second, the
+fear that I have of being still longer harassed by my enemy&mdash;your
+absence&mdash;much longer ... who is, so far as I can judge, determined to
+spite me more, because I pray God to rid me of this troublesome tormentor;
+the third, because the physician in whom I have most confidence is absent
+at the very time when he might be of the most service to me, for I should
+hope by his means to obtain one of my chiefest joys on earth&mdash;that is, the
+care of my mistress. Yet, for want of him, I send you my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> second, and hope
+that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I
+beseech you to be guided by his advice, and I hope soon to see you again,
+which will be to me a greater comfort than all the precious jewels in the
+world.&#8221; In a few days Anne was out of danger, and the hopes and fears
+aroused by her illness gave place to the old intrigues again.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks later Anne was with her lover at Ampthill, hoping and praying
+daily for the coming of the gouty Legate, who was slowly being carried
+through France to the coast. Wolsey had to be very humble now, for Anne
+had shown her ability to make Henry brave him, and the King rebuked him
+publicly at her bidding,<small><a name="f62.1" id="f62.1" href="#f62">[62]</a></small> but until Campeggio came and the fateful
+decision was given that would make Anne a Queen, both she and Henry
+diplomatically alternated cajolery with the humbling process towards the
+Cardinal. Anne&#8217;s well-known letter with Henry&#8217;s postscript, so earnestly
+asking Wolsey for news of Campeggio, is written in most affectionate
+terms, Anne saying, amongst other pretty things, that she &#8220;loves him next
+unto the King&#8217;s grace, above all creatures living.&#8221; But the object of her
+wheedling was only to gain news of the speedy coming of the Legate. The
+King&#8217;s postscript to this letter is characteristic of him. &#8220;The writer of
+this letter would not cease till she had caused me likewise to set my
+hand, desiring you, though it be short, to take it in good part. I assure
+you that there is neither of us but greatly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> desireth to see you, and are
+joyous to hear that you have escaped the plague so well; trusting the fury
+thereof to be passed, especially with them that keepeth good diet, as I
+trust you do. The not hearing of the Legate&#8217;s arrival in France causeth us
+somewhat to muse: notwithstanding, we trust, by your diligence and
+vigilance, with the assistance of Almighty God, shortly to be eased out of
+that trouble.&#8221;<small><a name="f63.1" id="f63.1" href="#f63">[63]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Campeggio was nearly four months on his way, urged forward everywhere by
+English agents and letters, held back everywhere by the Pope&#8217;s fears and
+his own ailments; but at last, one joyful day in the middle of September,
+Henry could write to his lady-love at Hever: &#8220;The Legate which we most
+desire arrived at Paris on Sunday last past, so that I trust next Monday
+to hear of his arrival at Calais: and then I trust within a while after to
+enjoy that which I have so long longed for, to God&#8217;s pleasure and both our
+comfort. No more to you at present, mine own darling, for lack of time,
+but that I would you were in mine arms, or I in yours, for I think it long
+since I kissed you.&#8221; Henry had to wait longer than in his lover-like
+eagerness he had expected; it was fully a fortnight before he had news of
+Campeggio&#8217;s arrival at Dover. Great preparations had been made to
+entertain the Papal Legate splendidly in London, and on his way thither;
+but he was suffering and sorry, and begged to be saved the fatigue of a
+public reception. So ill was he that, rather than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> face the streets of
+London on the day he was expected, he lodged for the night at the Duke of
+Suffolk&#8217;s house on the Surrey side of London bridge, and the next day, 8th
+October, was quietly carried in the Duke&#8217;s barge across the river to the
+Bishop of Bath&#8217;s palace beyond Temple Bar, where he was to lodge. There he
+remained ill in bed, until the King&#8217;s impatience would brook no further
+delay; and on the 12th he was carried, sick as he was, and sorely against
+his will, in a crimson velvet chair for his first audience.</p>
+
+<p>In the great hall of the palace of Bridewell, hard by Blackfriars, Henry
+sat in a chair of state, with Wolsey and Campeggio on his right hand,
+whilst one of the Legate&#8217;s train delivered a fulsome Latin oration,
+setting forth the iniquitous outrages perpetrated by the imperialists upon
+the Vicar of Christ, and the love and gratitude of the Pontiff for his
+dearest son Henry for his aid and sympathy. The one thing apparently that
+the Pope desired was to please his benefactor, the King of England. When
+the public ceremony was over, Henry took Campeggio and Wolsey into a
+private room; and the day following the King came secretly to Campeggio&#8217;s
+lodging, and for four long hours plied the suffering churchman with
+arguments and authorities which would justify the divorce. Up to this time
+Campeggio had fondly imagined that he might, with the Papal authority,
+persuade Henry to abandon his object. But this interview undeceived him.
+He found the King, as he says, better versed in the matter &#8220;than a great
+theologian or jurist&#8221;; and Campeggio opined at last that &#8220;if an angel
+descended from heaven he would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> unable to persuade him&#8221; that the
+marriage was valid. When, however, Campeggio suggested that the Queen
+might be induced to enter a convent, Henry was delighted. If they would
+only prevail upon her to do that she should have everything she demanded:
+the title of Queen and all her dowry, revenue, and belongings; the
+Princess Mary should be acknowledged heiress to the crown, failing
+legitimate male issue to the King, and all should be done to Katharine&#8217;s
+liking. Accordingly, the next day, 14th October, Campeggio and Wolsey took
+boat and went to try their luck with the Queen, after seeing the King for
+the third time. Beginning with a long sanctimonious rigmarole, Campeggio
+pressed her to take a &#8220;course which would give general satisfaction and
+greatly benefit herself&#8221;; and Wolsey, on his knees, and in English,
+seconded his colleague&#8217;s advice. Katharine was cold and collected. She
+was, she said, a foreigner in England without skilled advice, and she
+declined at present to say anything. She had asked the King to assign
+councillors to aid her, and when she had consulted them she would see the
+Legates again.</p>
+
+<p>As day broke across the Thames on the 25th October, Campeggio lay awake in
+bed at Bath House, suffering the tortures of gout, and perturbed at the
+difficult position in which he was placed, when Wolsey was announced,
+having come from York Place in his barge. When the Cardinal entered the
+room he told his Italian colleague that the King had appointed Archbishop
+Warham, Bishop Fisher, and others, to be councillors for the Queen, and
+that the Queen had obtained her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> husband&#8217;s permission to come to Campeggio
+and confess that morning. At nine o&#8217;clock Katharine came unobserved to
+Bath House by water, and was closeted for long with the Italian Cardinal.
+What she told him was under the sacred seal of the confessional, but she
+prayed that the Pope might in strict secrecy be informed of certain of the
+particulars arising out of her statements. She reviewed the whole of her
+life from the day of her arrival in England, and solemnly swore on her
+conscience that she had only slept with young Arthur seven nights, <i>&eacute; che
+da lui rest&oacute; intacta &eacute; incorrupta</i>;<small><a name="f64.1" id="f64.1" href="#f64">[64]</a></small> and this assertion, <i>as far as it
+goes</i>, we may accept as the truth, seeing the solemn circumstances under
+which it was made. But when Campeggio again urged Katharine to get them
+all out of their difficulty by retiring to a convent and letting the King
+have his way, she almost vehemently declared that &#8220;she would die as she
+had lived, a wife, as God had made her.&#8221; &#8220;Let a sentence be given,&#8221; she
+said, &#8220;and if it be against me I shall be free to do as I like, even as my
+husband will.&#8221; &#8220;But neither the whole realm, nor, on the other hand, the
+greatest punishment, even being torn limb from limb, shall alter me in
+this, and if after death I were to return to life, I would die again, and
+yet again, rather than I would give way.&#8221; Against such firmness as this
+the poor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> flaccid old churchman could do nothing but hold up his hands
+and sigh at the idea of any one being so obstinate.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two afterwards Wolsey and Campeggio saw the Queen again formally.
+She was on this occasion attended by her advisers, and once more heard,
+coldly and irresponsively, the appeals to her prudence, her worldly
+wisdom, her love for her daughter, and every other feeling that could lead
+her to cut the gordian knot that baffled them all. &#8220;She would do nothing
+to her soul&#8217;s damnation or against God&#8217;s law,&#8221; she said, as she dismissed
+them. Whether it was at this interview, or, as it seems to me more likely,
+the previous one that she broke out in violent invective against Wolsey
+for his enmity towards the Emperor, we know not, but the storm of bitter
+words she poured upon him for his pride, his falsity, his ambition, and
+his greed; her taunts at his intrigues to get the Papacy, and her burning
+scorn that her marriage, unquestioned for twenty years, should be doubted
+now,<small><a name="f65.1" id="f65.1" href="#f65">[65]</a></small> must have finally convinced both Wolsey and Campeggio that if
+Henry was firm Katharine was firmer still. Campeggio was in a pitiable
+state of mind, imploring the Pope by every post to tell him what to do. He
+and Wolsey at one time conceived the horrible idea of marrying the
+Princess Mary to her half brother, the Duke of Richmond, as a solution of
+the succession difficulty, and the Pope appears to have been inclined to
+allow it;<small><a name="f66.1" id="f66.1" href="#f66">[66]</a></small> but it was soon admitted that the course proposed would not
+forward, but rather retard, the King&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> second marriage, and that was the
+main object sought.</p>
+
+<p>At length Wolsey ruefully understood that conciliation was impossible;
+and, pressed as he was by the King, was forced to insist with Campeggio
+that the cause must be judicially decided without further delay. Illness,
+prayerful attempts to bring one side or the other to reason, and many
+other excuses for procrastination were tried, but at length Campeggio had
+to confess to his colleague that the Pope&#8217;s decretal, laying down the law
+in the case in Henry&#8217;s favour, was only a show document not to be used, or
+to leave his possession for a moment; and, moreover, that no final
+judgment could be given by him that was not submitted to the Pope&#8217;s
+confirmation. Wolsey was aghast, and wrote in rage and indignation to the
+English agent with the Pope denouncing this bad faith.<small><a name="f67.1" id="f67.1" href="#f67">[67]</a></small> &#8220;I see ruin,
+infamy, and subversion of the whole dignity and estimation of the
+Apostolic See if this course be persisted in. You see in what dangerous
+times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and how
+much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that the course
+he now pursues will drive the King to adopt those remedies that are so
+injurious to the Pope, and are frequently instilled into the King&#8217;s mind.
+Without the Pope&#8217;s compliance I cannot bear up against the storm; and when
+I reflect upon the conduct of his Holiness I cannot but fear lest the
+common enemy of souls, seeing the King&#8217;s determination, inspires the Pope
+with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> his present fears and reluctance, which will alienate all the faith
+and devotion from the Apostolic See.... It is useless for Campeggio to
+think of reviving the marriage. If he did it would lead to worse
+consequences. Let him therefore proceed to sentence. Prostrate at the feet
+of his Holiness I most urgently beg of him to set aside all delays.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This cry, wrung evidently from Wolsey&#8217;s heart at the knowledge of his own
+danger, is the first articulate expression of the tremendous religious
+issue that might depend upon the conduct of the various parties in the
+divorce proceedings. The fire lit by Luther a few years previously had
+spread apace in Germany, and had reached England. All Christendom would
+soon have to range itself in two divisions, cutting athwart old national
+affinities and alliances. Charles had defied Luther at the outset; and the
+traditions of his Spanish house made him, the most powerful monarch in
+Europe, the champion of orthodoxy. But his relations with the Papacy, as
+we have seen, had not been uniformly cordial. To him the Pope was a little
+Italian prince whilst he was a great one, and he was jealous of the
+slightest interference of Rome with the Spanish Church. His position in
+Germany, moreover, as suzerain of the princes of the Empire, some of whom
+already leant to Lutheranism, complicated the situation: so that it was
+not yet absolutely certain that Charles would finally stake everything
+upon the unification of the Christian Church by force, on the lines of
+strict Papal authority.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, both Francis and Henry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> had for political reasons
+strongly supported the Pope in his greatest distress, and their religion
+was certainly no less faithful than that of the Emperor. It was inevitable
+that, whichever side Charles took in the coming religious struggle, would
+not for political reasons commend itself to Francis, and <i>vice versa</i>; and
+everything depended upon the weight which Henry might cast into one scale
+or the other. His national traditions and personal inclination would lead
+him to side with Charles, but at the crucial moment, when the first grain
+had to be dropped into the balance, he found himself bound by Wolsey&#8217;s
+policy to Francis, and at issue with the Emperor, owing to the
+relationship of the latter to Katharine. Wolsey felt, in the letter quoted
+above, that the Pope&#8217;s shilly-shally, in order not to offend the Emperor,
+would drive the impatient King of England to flout, and perhaps break
+with, the Papacy, and events proved that the Cardinal was right in his
+fears. We shall see later how the rift widened, but here the first fine
+crevice is visible.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, prompted by Anne and his vanity, intended to have his way at
+whatever cost. Katharine could give him no son: he would marry a woman who
+could do so, and one that he loved far better than he ever loved his wife.
+In ordinary circumstances there need have been no great difficulty about
+the divorce, nor would there have been in this case, but for the peculiar
+political and religious situation of Europe at the time, and but for
+Katharine&#8217;s unbending rigidity of character. She might have made her own
+terms if she had consented to the conciliatory suggestions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the
+churchmen. The legality of her marriage would have been declared, her
+daughter recognised as heiress presumptive, her own great revenues would
+have been left to her, and her title of Queen respected.<small><a name="f68.1" id="f68.1" href="#f68">[68]</a></small> She was not
+even to be asked to immure herself in a convent, or to take any conventual
+vow but that of chastity, if she would only consent to a divorce on the
+ground of her desire to devote herself to religion.<small><a name="f69.1" id="f69.1" href="#f69">[69]</a></small> As Campeggio
+repeated a dozen times, the only thing she would be asked to surrender was
+conjugal relations with the King, that had ceased for years, and in no
+case would be renewed. Much as we may admire her firmness, it is
+impossible to avoid seeing that the course recommended to her was that
+which would have best served, not only her own interest and happiness, but
+also those of her daughter, of her religion, and of the good relations
+between Henry and the Emperor that she had so much at heart.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, on his side, was determined to allow nothing to stand in his way,
+whilst keeping up his appearance of impeccability. Legal and
+ecclesiastical authorities in England and France were besought to give
+their sanction to his view that no Pope had the power of dispensation for
+a marriage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> with a deceased brother&#8217;s widow; and the English clergy were
+assured that the King only sought an impartial authoritative decision for
+the relief of his own conscience. The attitude of the English people gave
+him some uneasiness; for, like all his house, he loved popularity. &#8220;The
+common people, being ignorant,&#8221; we are told, &#8220;and others that favoured the
+Queen, talked largely, and said that for his own pleasure the King would
+have another wife, and had sent for this Legate to be divorced from the
+Queen, with many foolish words; inasmuch as, whosoever spake against the
+marriage was of the common people abhorred and reproved.&#8221;<small><a name="f70.1" id="f70.1" href="#f70">[70]</a></small> The feeling
+indeed in favour of Katharine was so outspoken and general that the King
+took the unusual course of assembling the nobles, judges, and so many of
+the people as could enter, in the great hall of Bridewell, on Sunday
+afternoon, the 8th November, to endeavour personally to justify himself in
+the eyes of his subjects.</p>
+
+<p>As usual with him, his great aim was by sanctimonious protestations to
+make himself appear a pure-souled altruist, and to throw upon others the
+responsibility for his actions. He painted in dismal colours the dangers
+to his subjects of a disputed succession on his death. &#8220;And, although it
+hath pleased Almighty God to send us a fair daughter by a noble woman and
+me begotten, to our great joy and comfort, yet it hath been told us by
+divers great clerks that neither she is our lawful daughter, nor her
+mother our lawful wife, and that we live together abominably and
+detestably in open adultery.&#8221; He swore, almost blasphemously, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> for
+the relief of his conscience he only sought authoritatively to know the
+truth as to the validity of his marriage, and that Campeggio had come as
+an impartial judge to decide it. If Katharine was adjudged to be his wife
+nothing would be more pleasant or acceptable to him, and he praised her to
+the skies, as a noble lady against whom no words could be spoken.<small><a name="f71.1" id="f71.1" href="#f71">[71]</a></small> The
+measure of his sincerity is seen when we compare this hypocritical
+harangue with the letters now before us to and from his envoys in Rome, by
+which it is evident that the last thing he desired was an impartial
+judgment, or indeed any judgment, but one that would set him free to marry
+again. One of the most extraordinary means employed to influence Katharine
+soon after this appears to have been another visit to her of Wolsey and
+Campeggio. They were to say that the King had intelligence of a conspiracy
+against him and Wolsey by her friends and the Emperor&#8217;s English partisans;
+and they warned her that if anything of the sort occurred she would be to
+blame. They were then to complain of her bearing towards the King, &#8220;who
+was now persuaded by her behaviour that she did not love him.&#8221; &#8220;She
+encouraged ladies and gentlemen to dance and make merry,&#8221; for instance,
+whereas &#8220;she had better tell them to pray for a good end of the matter at
+issue.&#8221; &#8220;She shows no pensiveness of countenance, nor in her apparel nor
+behaviour. She shows herself too much to the people, rejoicing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> greatly in
+their exclamations and ill obloquy; and, by beckoning with her head and
+smiling, which she has not been accustomed to do in times past, rather
+encouraged them in doing so.&#8221; For all this and many other things the King
+does not consider it fitting to be in her company, or to let the Princess
+be with her. The acme of hypocrisy was reached in the assurance the
+Legates were then to give the Queen, that if she would behave well and go
+into a convent, the King neither could, nor would, marry another wife in
+her lifetime; and she could come out to the world again if the sentence
+were in her favour. Let her go, they said, and submit to the King on her
+knees, and he would be good to her, but otherwise he would be more angry
+than ever.<small><a name="f72.1" id="f72.1" href="#f72">[72]</a></small> Scornful silence was the Queen&#8217;s reply.</p>
+
+<p>After this Katharine lived lonely and depressed at Greenwich, frequently
+closeted with Bishop Fisher and others of her councillors, whilst Henry
+was strengthening his case with the opinions of jurists, and by attempts
+to influence Campeggio. To Greenwich he went, accompanied by Anne and a
+brilliant Court, to show the Italian Cardinal how bounteously a Christmas
+could be spent in England. Campeggio&#8217;s son was knighted and regaled with
+costly presents, and all that bribes (the Bishopric of Durham, &amp;c.) and
+flattery might do was done to influence the Legate favourably; but
+throughout the gay doings, jousts and tourneys, banquets and maskings,
+&#8220;the Queen showed to them no manner of countenance, and made no great joy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+of nothing, her mind was so troubled.&#8221;<small><a name="f73.1" id="f73.1" href="#f73">[73]</a></small> Well might it be, poor soul,
+for Anne was by the King&#8217;s side, pert and insolent, surrounded by a
+growing party of Wolsey&#8217;s enemies, who cared little for Pope or Emperor,
+and who waited impatiently for the time when Anne should rule the King
+alone, and they, through her, should rule England. Katharine, in good
+truth, was in everybody&#8217;s way, for even her nephew could not afford to
+quarrel with England for her sake, and her death or disappearance would
+have made a reconciliation easy, especially if Wolsey, the friend of
+France, fell also.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anne,&#8221; we are told by the French ambassador, &#8220;was lodged in a fine
+apartment close to that of the King, and greater court was now paid to her
+every day than has been paid to the Queen for a long time. I see that they
+mean to accustom the people by degrees to endure her, so that when the
+great blow comes it may not be, thought strange. But the people remain
+quite hardened (against her), and I think they would do more if they had
+more power.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus the months passed, the Pope being plied by alternate threats and
+hopes, both by English and Spanish agents, until he was nearly beside
+himself, Wolsey almost frantically professing his desire to forward the
+King&#8217;s object, and Campeggio temporising and trying to find a means of
+conciliation which would leave the King free. Katharine herself remained
+immovable. She had asked for and obtained from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> Emperor a copy of the
+Papal brief authorising her marriage with Henry, but the King&#8217;s advocates
+questioned its authenticity,<small><a name="f74.1" id="f74.1" href="#f74">[74]</a></small> and even her own advisers urged her to
+obey her husband&#8217;s request that she should demand of the Emperor the
+original document. Constrained by her sworn pledge to write nothing to the
+Emperor without the King&#8217;s knowledge, she sent the letter dictated to her,
+urgently praying her nephew to send the original brief to England. The
+letter was carried to Spain by her young English confessor, Thomas Abel,
+whom she did not entirely trust, and sent with him her Spanish usher,
+Montoya; but they had verbal instructions from their mistress to pray the
+Emperor to disregard her written request, and refuse to part with the
+brief, and to exert all his influence to have the case decided in
+Rome.<small><a name="f75.1" id="f75.1" href="#f75">[75]</a></small> By this it will be seen that Katharine was fully a match in
+duplicity for those against whom she was pitted. She never wavered from
+first to last in her determination to refuse to acknowledge the sentence
+of any court sitting in England on her case, and to resist all attempts to
+induce her to withdraw voluntarily from her conjugal position<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> and enter a
+nunnery. Henry, and especially Anne, in the meanwhile, were growing
+impatient at all this calculated delay, and began to throw the blame upon
+Wolsey. &#8220;The young lady used very rude words to him,&#8221; wrote Du Bellay on
+the 25th January, and &#8220;the Duke of Norfolk and his party already began to
+talk big.&#8221;<small><a name="f76.1" id="f76.1" href="#f76">[76]</a></small> A few days afterwards Mendoza, in a letter to the Emperor,
+spoke even more strongly. &#8220;The young lady that is the cause of all this
+disorder, finding her marriage delayed, that she thought herself so sure
+of, entertains great suspicion that Wolsey puts impediments in her way,
+from a belief that if she were Queen his power would decline. In this
+suspicion she is joined by her father and the Dukes of Norfolk and
+Suffolk, who have combined to overthrow the Cardinal.&#8221; &#8220;The King is so hot
+upon it (the divorce) that there is nothing he does not promise to gain
+his end.... Campeggio has done nothing for the Queen as yet but to press
+her to enter religion.&#8221;<small><a name="f77.1" id="f77.1" href="#f77">[77]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>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&#8217;s cousin, Henry&#8217;s boon
+companion Brian, deploring the Pope&#8217;s obstinacy in a letter from Rome to
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> King, was bold enough to say: &#8220;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.&#8221; 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&#8217;s cause by any new act. To Campeggio he
+wrote angrily, telling him, for God&#8217;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&mdash;in the hope of getting the promised
+rich See of Durham, his enemies said&mdash;was equally determined not to go an
+inch beyond the Pope&#8217;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 da&iuml;s were two chairs of state,
+covered with cloth of gold, and on the right side of the da&iuml;s 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> 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: &#8220;Henry, King of England, appear.&#8221; But Henry was at
+Greenwich, five miles away, and in his stead there answered the
+ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr. Sampson. Then &#8220;Katharine, Queen of England&#8221;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+person from his throne, &#8220;Here,&#8221; 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: &#8220;Go on, it is no matter; this is no impartial Court to me,&#8221; 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.</p>
+
+<p>It would be profitless to follow step by step the further proceedings,
+which Campeggio and Wolsey,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> 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.<small><a name="f78.1" id="f78.1" href="#f78">[78]</a></small> 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&#8217;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. &#8220;It is a very hot day,&#8221; said the
+latter. &#8220;Yes,&#8221; replied the unhappy man, &#8220;if you had been as well chafed as
+I have been in the last hour you would say it was hot.&#8221; Wolsey in his
+distress went straight to bed when he arrived at York Place, but before he
+had lain two hours Anne&#8217;s father came to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> 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&mdash;indeed she seems rather to have overplayed the part. She
+came to meet them with a skein of silk around her neck. &#8220;I am sorry to
+keep you waiting,&#8221; she said; &#8220;I was working with my ladies.&#8221; To Wolsey&#8217;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.</p>
+
+<p>Wolsey was not quite done with even yet. He might still act as Legate
+alone, if the Pope&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+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&#8217; reprieve that he might do it. The Pope had pledged
+himself in writing not to withdraw the Legates&#8217; 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&#8217;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 &#8220;old hosen, old coates, and such vile stuff as no honest
+man would carry,&#8221; for the decretal had been committed to the flames months
+before by the Pope&#8217;s orders; and the outraged old Italian Legate, with his
+undignified belongings, crossed the Channel and so passes out of our
+history.</p>
+
+<p>Anne had so far triumphed by the coalition of Wolsey&#8217;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&#8217;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> and against bureaucratic ministers. There was yet another
+element that had joined Anne&#8217;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&mdash;of which Anne was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the real head<small><a name="f79.1" id="f79.1" href="#f79">[79]</a></small>&mdash;no very distinct
+line of policy could be expected. The Parliament, which was summoned on
+Wolsey&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;s repudiation; and the
+serving of Wiltshire, as Henry&#8217;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&#8217;s
+confidence in Wiltshire&#8217;s ability. It was too late now to recall Wolsey,
+although the French government did what was possible to soften the King&#8217;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> Henry himself became a party to an intrigue for the
+Cardinal&#8217;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.</p>
+
+<p>Anne&#8217;s position in the King&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> 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&#8217;s
+contention. Bribes, as lavish as they were barefaced, were offered to
+jurists for decisions confirming the view that marriage with a deceased
+brother&#8217;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> 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&#8217;s
+ambassador. Again Norfolk became alarmed, and a disclosure of the intrigue
+gave an excuse for Wolsey&#8217;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&#8217;s place. She was brave; &#8220;as fierce as a lioness,&#8221; the Emperor&#8217;s
+ambassador wrote, and would &#8220;rather see the Queen hanged than recognise
+her as her mistress&#8221;; 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?</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i173.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<h3>1530-1534</h3>
+<h3>HENRY&#8217;S DEFIANCE&mdash;THE VICTORY OF ANNE</h3>
+
+<p>The deadlock with regard to the validity of the marriage could not
+continue indefinitely, for the legitimacy of the Princess Mary having been
+called into question, the matter now vitally touched the succession to the
+English crown. Katharine was immovable. She would neither retire to a
+convent nor accept a decision from an English tribunal, and, through her
+proctor in Rome, she passionately pressed for a decision there in her
+favour. Norfolk, at the end of his not very extensive mental resources,
+could only wish that both Katharine and Anne were dead and the King
+married to some one else. The Pope was ready to do anything that did not
+offend the Emperor to bring about peace; and when, under pressure from
+Henry and Norfolk, the English prelates and peers, including Wolsey and
+Warham, signed a petition to the Pope saying that Henry&#8217;s marriage should
+be dissolved, or they must seek a remedy for themselves in the English
+Parliament, Clement was almost inclined to give way; for schism in England
+he dreaded before all things. But Charles&#8217;s troops were in Rome and his
+agents for ever bullying the wretched Pope, and the latter was obliged to
+reply finally to the English peers with a rebuke. There were those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> both
+in England and abroad who urged Henry to marry Anne at once, and depend
+upon the recognition of the <i>fait accompli</i> by means of negotiation
+afterwards, but this did not satisfy either the King or the favourite.
+Every interview between the King and the Nuncio grew more bitter than the
+previous one. No English cause, swore Henry, should be tried outside his
+realm where he was master; and if the Pope insisted in giving judgment for
+the Queen, as he had promised the Emperor to do, the English Parliament
+should deal with the matter in spite of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The first ecclesiastical thunderclap came in October 1530, when Henry
+published a proclamation reminding the lieges of the old law of England
+that forbade the Pope from exercising direct jurisdiction in the realm by
+Bull or Brief. No one could understand at the time what was meant, but
+when the Nuncio in perturbation went and asked Norfolk and Suffolk the
+reason of so strange a proclamation at such a time, they replied roughly,
+that they &#8220;cared nothing for Popes in England ... the King was Emperor and
+Pope too in his own realm.&#8221; Later, Henry told the Nuncio that the Pope had
+outraged convention by summoning him before a foreign tribunal, and should
+now be taught that no usurpation of power would be allowed in England. The
+Parliament was called, said Henry, to restrain the encroachment of the
+clergy generally, and unless the Pope met his wishes promptly a blow would
+be struck at all clerical pretensions. The reply of the Pope was another
+brief forbidding Henry&#8217;s second marriage, and threatening Parliaments and
+Bishops in England if they dared to meddle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> in the matter. The question
+was thus rapidly drifting into an international one on religious lines,
+which involved either the submission of Henry or schism from the Church.
+The position of the English clergy was an especially difficult one. They
+naturally resented any curtailment of the privileges of their order,
+though they dared not speak too loudly, for they owed the enjoyment of
+their temporalities to the King. But they were all sons of the Church,
+looking to Rome for spiritual authority, and were in mortal dread of the
+advance of the new spirit of religious freedom aroused in Germany. The
+method of bridling them adopted by Henry was as clever as it was
+unscrupulous. The Bull giving to Wolsey independent power to judge the
+matrimonial cause in England as Legate, had been, as will be recollected,
+demanded by the King and recognised by him, as it had been, of course, by
+the clergy; but in January 1531, when Parliament and Convocation met, the
+English clergy found themselves laid under Premunire by the King for
+having recognised the Legatine Bull; and were told that as subjects of the
+crown, and not of the Pope, they had thus rendered themselves liable to
+the punishment for treason. The unfortunate clergy were panic-stricken at
+this new move, and looked in vain to Rome for support against their own
+King; but Rome, as usual, was trying to run with the hare and hunt with
+the hounds, and could only wail at the obstinacy both of Henry and
+Katharine.</p>
+
+<p>In the previous sitting of Parliament in 1529, severe laws had been passed
+against the laxity and extortion of the English ecclesiastics,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>notwithstanding the violent indignation of Fisher of Rochester; but what
+was now demanded of them as a condition of their pardon for recognising
+the Bull was practically to repudiate the authority of the Pope over them,
+and to recognise the King of England as supreme head of the Church, in
+addition to paying the tremendous fine of a hundred thousand pounds. They
+were in utter consternation, and they struggled hard; but the alternative
+to submission was ruin, and the majority gave way. The die was cast: Henry
+was Pope and King in one, and could settle his own cause in his own way.
+When the English clergy had thus been brought to heel, Henry&#8217;s opponents
+saw that they had driven him too far, and were aghast at his unexpected
+exhibition of strength, a strength, be it noted, not his own, as will be
+explained later; and somewhat moderated their tone. But the King of
+England snapped his fingers now at threats of excommunication, and cared
+nothing, he said, for any decision from Rome. The Emperor dared not go to
+war with England about Katharine, for the French were busily drawing
+towards the Pope, whose niece, Katharine de Medici, was to be betrothed to
+the son of Francis; and the imperial agents in Rome ceased to insist so
+pertinaciously upon a decision of the matrimonial suit.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine alone clamoured unceasingly that her &#8220;hell upon earth&#8221; should be
+ended by a decision in her favour from the Sovereign Pontiff. Her friends
+in England were many, for the old party of nobles were rallying again to
+her side, even Norfolk was secretly in her favour, or at least<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> against
+the King&#8217;s marriage with his niece Anne, and Henry&#8217;s new bold step against
+the Papacy, taken under bureaucratic influence, had aroused much fear and
+jealousy amongst prelates like Fisher and jurists like More, as well as
+amongst the aristocratic party in the country. Desperate efforts were made
+to prevent the need for further action in defiance of the Papacy by the
+decision of the matrimonial suit by the English Parliament; and early in
+June 1531 Henry and his Council decided to put fresh pressure upon
+Katharine to get her to consent to a suspension of the proceedings in
+Rome, and to the relegation of the case to a tribunal in some neutral
+territory. Katharine at Greenwich had secret knowledge of the intention,
+and she can hardly have been so surprised as she pretended to be when, as
+she was about to retire to rest, at nine o&#8217;clock at night, to learn that
+the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, and some thirty other nobles and
+prelates, sought audience of her. Norfolk spoke first, and in the King&#8217;s
+name complained bitterly of the slight put upon him by the Pope&#8217;s
+citation. He urged the Queen, for the sake of England, for the memory of
+the political services of Henry to her kin, and his past kindness to her,
+to meet his wishes and consent to a neutral tribunal judging between them.
+Katharine was, as usual, cool and contemptuous. No one was more sorry than
+she for the King&#8217;s annoyance, though she had not been the cause of it; but
+there was only one judge in the world competent to deal with the case.
+&#8220;His Holiness, who keeps the place, and has the power, of God upon earth,
+and is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> image of eternal truth.&#8221; As for recognising her husband as
+supreme head of the Church, that she would never do. When Dr. Lee spoke
+harshly, telling her that she knew that, her first marriage having been
+consummated, her second was never legal, she vehemently denied the fact,
+and told him angrily to go to Rome and argue. He would find there others
+than a lone woman to answer him. Dr. Sampson then took up the parable and
+reproached her for her determination to have the case settled so quickly;
+and she replied to him that if he had passed such bitter days as she had,
+he would be in a hurry too. Dr. Stokesley was dealt with similarly by the
+Queen; and she then proudly protested at being thus baited late at night
+by a crowd of men; she, &#8220;a poor woman without friends or counsel.&#8221; Norfolk
+reminded her that the King had appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
+Bishop of Durham, and the Bishop of Rochester to advise her. &#8220;Pretty
+councillors they are,&#8221; she replied. &#8220;If I ask for Canterbury&#8217;s advice he
+tells me he will have nothing to do with it, and for ever repeats <i>ira
+principis mors est</i>. The Bishop of Durham dares to say nothing because he
+is the King&#8217;s subject, and Rochester only tells me to keep a good heart
+and hope for the best.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Katharine knew it not, but many of those before her were really her
+friends. Gardiner, now first Secretary, looked with fear upon the Lutheran
+innovations, Guilford the Controller, Lord Talbot, and even Norfolk wished
+her well, and feared the advent of Anne; and Guilford, less prudent than
+the rest, spoke so frankly that the favourite heard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> of his words. She
+broke out in furious invective against him before his face. &#8220;When I am
+Queen of England,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;you will soon lose your office.&#8221; &#8220;You need
+not wait so long,&#8221; he replied, as he went straightway to deliver his seals
+to the King. Henry told him he ought not to mind an angry woman&#8217;s talk,
+and was loath to accept his resignation; but the Controller insisted, and
+another rankling enemy was raised up to Anne. The favour she enjoyed had
+fairly turned her head, and her insolence, even to those who in any case
+had a right to her respect, had made her thoroughly detested. The Duke of
+Suffolk, enemy of the Papacy as he was, and the King&#8217;s brother-in-law, was
+as anxious now as Talbot, Guilford, and <ins class="correction" title="original: FitzWilliam">Fitzwilliam</ins> to avert the marriage
+with Anne, who was setting all the Court by the ears. Katharine&#8217;s attitude
+made matters worse. She still lived under the same roof as the King,
+though he rarely saw her except on public occasions, and her haughty
+replies to all his emissaries, and her constant threats of what the
+Emperor might do, irritated Henry beyond endurance under the taunts of
+Anne. The latter was bitterly jealous also of the young Princess Mary, of
+whom Henry was fond; and by many spiteful, petty acts of persecution, the
+girl&#8217;s life was made unhappy. Once when Henry praised his daughter in
+Anne&#8217;s presence, the latter broke out into violent abuse of her, and on
+another occasion, when Katharine begged to be allowed to visit the
+Princess, Henry told her roughly that she could go away as soon as she
+liked, and stop away. But Katharine stood her ground. She would not leave
+her husband, she said, even for her daughter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> until she was forced to do
+so. Henry&#8217;s patience was nearly tired out between Anne&#8217;s constant
+importunities and Katharine&#8217;s dignified immobility; and leaving his wife
+and daughter at Windsor, he went off on a hunting progress with Anne, in
+the hope that he might soon be relieved of the presence of Katharine
+altogether. Public feeling was indignantly in favour of the Queen; and it
+was no uncommon thing for people to waylay the King, whilst he was
+hunting, with entreaties that he would live with his wife again; and
+wherever Anne went the women loudly cried shame upon her.</p>
+
+<p>In his distraction Henry was at a loss what to do. He always wanted to
+appear in the right, and he dared not imprison or openly ill-treat
+Katharine, for his own people favoured her, and all Europe would have
+joined in condemning him; yet it was clear that even Windsor Castle was
+not, in future, big enough for both Queen and favourite at the same time,
+and positive orders at length were sent to Katharine, in the autumn of
+1531, to take up her residence at More in Hertfordshire, in a house
+formerly belonging to Wolsey.<small><a name="f80.1" id="f80.1" href="#f80">[80]</a></small> She obeyed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> a heavy heart, for it
+meant parting&mdash;and for ever&mdash;with her daughter, who was sent to live at
+Richmond, and was strictly forbidden to communicate with her mother.
+Katharine said she would have preferred to have been sent to the Tower, to
+being consigned to a place so unfit for her as More, with its foul ways
+and ruinous surroundings, but nothing broke her spirit or humbled her
+pride. Her household was still regal in its extent, for we are told by an
+Italian visitor to her that &#8220;thirty maids of honour stood around her table
+when she dined, and there were fifty who performed its service: her
+household consisting of about two hundred persons in all.&#8221; But her state
+was a mockery now; for Lady Anne, she knew, was with her husband, loudly
+boasting that within three or four months she would be a queen, and
+already playing the part insolently. The Privy Purse expenses of the
+period show how openly Anne was acknowledged as being Henry&#8217;s actual
+consort. Not only did she accompany the King everywhere on his excursions
+and progresses, and partake of the receptions offered to him by local
+authorities and nobles,<small><a name="f81.1" id="f81.1" href="#f81">[81]</a></small> but large sums of money were paid out of the
+King&#8217;s treasury for the gorgeous garb in which she loved to appear. Purple
+velvet at half<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> a guinea a yard, costly furs and linen, bows and arrows,
+liveries for her servants, and all sorts of fine gear were bought for
+Anne. The Lord Mayor of London, in June 1530, sent her a present of
+cherries, and the bearer got a reward of 6s. 8d. Soon after Anne&#8217;s
+greyhounds killed a cow, and the Privy Purse had to pay the damage, 10s.
+In November, 19&#190; yards of crimson satin at 15s. a yard had to be paid
+for to make Lady Anne a robe, and &pound;8, 8s. for budge skins was paid soon
+afterwards. When Christmas came and card-playing was in season, my Lady
+Anne must have playing money, &pound;20 all in groats; and when she lost, as she
+did pretty heavily, her losings had to be paid by the treasurer, though
+her winnings she kept for herself. No less than a hundred pounds was given
+to her as a New Year&#8217;s gift in 1531. A few weeks afterwards, a farm at
+Greenwich was bought for her for &pound;66; and her writing-desk had to be
+adorned with latten and gold at a great cost. As the year 1531 advanced
+and Katharine&#8217;s cause became more desperate, the extravagance of her rival
+grew; and when in the autumn of that year the Queen was finally banished
+from Court, Anne&#8217;s bills for dressmaker&#8217;s finery amounted to extravagant
+proportions.</p>
+
+<p>The position was rendered the more bitter for Katharine when she
+recognised that the Pope, in a fright now at Henry&#8217;s defiance, was trying
+to meet him half way, and was listening to the suggestion of referring the
+question to a tribunal at Cambray or elsewhere; whilst the Emperor himself
+was only anxious to get the cause settled somehow without an open affront
+to his house or necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> cause for quarrel with Henry.<small><a name="f82.1" id="f82.1" href="#f82">[82]</a></small> And yet,
+withal, the divorce did not seem to make headway in England itself. As we
+have seen, the common people were strongly against it: the clergy,
+trembling, as well they might, for their privileges between the Pope and
+the King, were naturally as a body in favour of the ecclesiastical view;
+and many of Henry and Anne&#8217;s clerical instruments, such as Dr. Bennet in
+Rome and Dr. Sampson at Vienna, were secretly working against the cause
+they were supposed to be aiding: even some of the new prelates, such as
+Gardiner of Winchester and Stokesley of London, grew less active advocates
+when they understood that upon them and their order would fall ultimately
+the responsibility of declaring invalid a marriage which the Church and
+the Pope had sanctioned. Much stronger still even was the dislike to the
+King&#8217;s marriage on the part of the older nobility, whose enmity to Wolsey
+had first made the marriage appear practicable. They had sided with Anne
+to overthrow Wolsey; but the obstinate determination of the King to rid
+himself of his wife and marry his favourite, had brought forward new
+clerical and bureaucratic ministers whose proceedings and advice alarmed
+the aristocracy much more than anything Wolsey had done. If Katharine had
+been tactful, or even an able politician, she had the materials at hand to
+form a combination in favour of herself and her daughter, before which
+Henry, coward as he was, would have quailed. But she lacked the qualities
+necessary for a leader: she irritated the King without frightening him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+and instead of conciliating the nobles who really sympathised with her,
+though they were forced to do the King&#8217;s bidding, she snubbed them
+haughtily and drove them from her.</p>
+
+<p>Anne flattered and pleased the King, but it was hardly her mind that moved
+him to defy the powerful Papacy, or sustained him in his fight with his
+own clergy. From the first we have seen him leaning upon some adviser who
+would relieve him from responsibility whilst giving him all the honour for
+success. He desired the divorce above all things; but, as usual, he wanted
+to shelter himself behind other authority than his own. When in 1529 he
+had been seeking learned opinions to influence the Pope, chance had thrown
+the two ecclesiastics who were his instruments, Fox and Gardiner, into
+contact with a learned theologian and Reader in Divinity at Cambridge
+University. Thomas Cranmer had studied and lived much. He was a widower,
+and Fellow of Magdalene, Cambridge, of forty years of age; and although in
+orders and a Doctor of Divinity, his tastes were rather those of a learned
+country gentleman than of an ecclesiastic in monkish times. In
+conversation with Fox and Gardiner, this high authority on theology
+expressed the opinion that instead of enduring the delays of the
+ecclesiastical courts, the question of the legality of the King&#8217;s marriage
+should be decided by divines from the words of the Scriptures themselves.
+The idea seemed a good one, and Henry jumped at it. In an interview soon
+afterwards he ordered Cranmer to put his arguments into a book, and placed
+him in the household of Anne&#8217;s father, the Earl of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> Wiltshire, to
+facilitate the writing of it. The religious movement in Germany had found
+many echoes in England, and doubtless Cranmer conscientiously objected to
+Papal control. Certain it is that, fortified as he was by the
+encouragement of Anne and her father, his book was a persuasive one, and
+greatly pleased the King, who sent it to the Pope and others. Nor did
+Cranmer&#8217;s activity stay there. He entered into disputation everywhere,
+with the object of gaining theological recruits for the King&#8217;s side, and
+wrote a powerful refutation of Reginald Pole&#8217;s book in favour of
+Katharine. The King thought so highly of Cranmer&#8217;s controversial ability
+that he sent him with Lee, Stokesley, and other theologians to Rome,
+Paris, and elsewhere on the Continent, to forward the divorce, and from
+Rome he was commissioned as English Ambassador with the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Cranmer was thus fighting the King&#8217;s battle abroad, another
+instrument came to Henry&#8217;s hand for use in England. On the disgrace of
+Wolsey, his secretary, Thomas Cromwell, was recommended to Henry by
+friends. The King disliked him, and at first refused to see him; but
+consented to do so when it was hinted that Cromwell was the sort of man
+who would serve him well in what he had at heart. The hint was a
+well-founded one; for Thomas Cromwell was as ambitious and unscrupulous as
+his master had been; strong, bold, and fortunately unhampered by
+ecclesiastical orders. When Henry received him in the gardens at
+Whitehall, Cromwell spoke as no priest, and few laymen, would have dared
+to do: for, apart from the divorce question, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> was to be no dallying
+with heresy if Henry could help it, and the fires of Smithfield burning
+doubters were already beginning to blaze under the influence of Sir Thomas
+More. &#8220;Sire,&#8221; said Cromwell to the King, &#8220;the Pope refuses you a divorce
+... why wait for his consent? Every Englishman is master in his own house,
+and why should not you be so in England? Ought a foreign prelate to share
+your power with you? It is true the bishops make oath to your Majesty; but
+they make another to the Pope immediately afterwards which absolves them
+from it. Sire, you are but half a king, and we are but half your subjects.
+Your kingdom is a two-headed monster: will you bear such an anomaly any
+longer? Frederick and other German princes have cast off the yoke of Rome.
+Do likewise; become once more king, govern your kingdom in concert with
+your lords and commons.&#8221;<small><a name="f83.1" id="f83.1" href="#f83">[83]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>With much more of such talk Cromwell flattered the King, who probably
+hardly knew whether to punish or reward such unheard-of boldness; but when
+Cromwell, prepared for the emergency, took from his pocket a copy of the
+prelates&#8217; oath to the Pope, Henry&#8217;s indignation bore all before it, and
+Cromwell&#8217;s fortune was made. He at once obtained a seat in Parliament
+(1529), and took the lead in the anti-clerical measures which culminated
+in the emancipation of the English clergy from the Papacy, and their
+submission to the King. Gardiner, ambitious and able as he was, was yet an
+ecclesiastic, and looked grimly upon such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> religious policy as that into
+which Henry was being towed by his infatuation for Anne; but Cromwell was
+always ready with authorities and flattery to stiffen the King&#8217;s resolve,
+and thenceforward, until his fall before a combination of nobles, his was
+the strong spirit to which Henry clung.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen that the influences against the King&#8217;s marriage with Anne
+were very powerful, since it had become evident that the object could only
+be attained by the separation of England from the Papal communion; a step
+too bold and too much smacking of Lutheranism to commend itself to any but
+the few who might benefit by the change. The greatest danger seemed that
+by her isolation England might enable the two great Catholic powers to
+combine against her, in which case Henry&#8217;s ruin was certain; and, eager as
+he was to divorce Katharine in England and marry Anne, the King dared not
+do so until he had secured at least the neutrality of France. As usual, he
+had to pay heavily for it. Dr. Fox, Henry&#8217;s most able and zealous foreign
+minister, was again sent to France, and an alliance was negotiated in the
+spring of 1532, by which Henry bound himself to join Francis against the
+Emperor in case of attack, and Francis undertook to support Henry if any
+attempt was made by Charles to avenge his aunt. Anne was once more
+jubilant and hopeful; for her cause was now linked with a national
+alliance which had a certain party of adherents in the English Court, and
+an imperial attack upon England in the interests of Katharine was rendered
+unlikely. But, withal, the opposition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> in England itself had to be
+overcome, for Henry was ever a stickler for correctness in form, and
+wanted the divorce to have an appearance of defensible legality. The
+bishops in Parliament were sounded, but it was soon evident that they as a
+body would not fly in the face of the Papacy and the Catholic interests,
+even to please the King. Timid, tired old Warham, the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, was approached with a suggestion that he, as Primate, might
+convene a quorum of prelates favourable to Henry, who would approve of the
+entire repudiation of the Papal authority in England, and themselves
+pronounce the King&#8217;s divorce. But Warham was already hastening to the
+grave, and flatly refused to stain his last hours by spiritual revolt.
+Despairing of the English churchman, Henry then turned to the lay peers
+and commons, and, through Norfolk, asked them to decide that the
+matrimonial cause was one that should be dealt with by a lay tribunal; but
+Norfolk&#8217;s advocacy was but half-hearted, and the peers refused to make the
+declaration demanded.<small><a name="f84.1" id="f84.1" href="#f84">[84]</a></small></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>The fact is clear that England was not yet prepared to defy spiritual
+authority to satisfy the King&#8217;s caprice; and Anne was nearly beside
+herself with rage. She, indeed, was for braving everybody and getting
+married at once, divorce or no divorce. Why lose so much time? the French
+ambassador asked. If the King wanted to marry again let him do as King
+Louis did, and marry of his own motion.<small><a name="f85.1" id="f85.1" href="#f85">[85]</a></small> The advice pleased both Henry
+and his lady-love, but Norfolk and Anne&#8217;s father were strongly opposed to
+so dangerous and irregular a step, and incurred the furious displeasure of
+Anne for daring to thwart her. Every one, she said, even her own kinsmen,
+were against her,<small><a name="f86.1" id="f86.1" href="#f86">[86]</a></small> and she was not far wrong, for with the exception of
+Cranmer in Germany and Cromwell, no one cared to risk the popular anger by
+promoting the match. Above all, Warham stood firm. The continued attacks
+of the King at Cromwell&#8217;s suggestion against the privileges of the clergy
+hardened the old Archbishop&#8217;s heart, and it was evident that he as Primate
+would never now annul the King&#8217;s marriage and defy the authority of Rome.
+The opposition of Lord Chancellor More and of the new Bishop of
+Winchester, Gardiner, to Cromwell&#8217;s anti-clerical proposals in Parliament
+angered the King, and convinced him that with his present instruments<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> it
+would be as difficult for him to obtain a divorce in legal form in England
+as in Rome itself. More was made to feel that his position was an
+impossible one, and retired when Parliament was prorogued in May; and
+Gardiner had a convenient attack of gout, which kept him away from Court
+until the King found he could not conduct foreign affairs without him and
+brought him back.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Katharine neglected the opportunities offered to her of
+combining all these powerful elements in her favour. Nobles, clergy, and
+people were almost universally on her side: Anne was cordially hated, and
+had no friends but the few religious reformers who hoped by her means to
+force the King ever further away from the Papacy; and yet the Queen
+continued to appeal to Rome and the Emperor, against whom English
+patriotic feeling might be raised by Anne&#8217;s few friends. The unwisdom of
+thus linking Katharine&#8217;s cause with threats of foreign aggression, whilst
+England itself was favourable to her, was seen when the Nuncio presented
+to Henry a half-hearted exhortation to take his lawful wife back. Henry
+fulminated against the foreigner who dared to interfere between him and
+his wife; and, very far from alarming him, the Pope&#8217;s timid action only
+proved the impotence of Rome to harm him. But the results fell upon the
+misguided Katharine, who had instigated the step. She was sent from the
+More to Ampthill, a house belonging to one of her few episcopal enemies.</p>
+
+<p>All through the summer of 1532 the coming and going of French agents to
+England puzzled the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> Queen and her foreign friends; but suddenly, late in
+July, the truth came out. Henry and Anne had gone with a great train on a
+hunting tour through the midlands in July; but only a few days after
+starting they suddenly returned to London. The quidnuncs whispered that
+the people on the way had clamoured so loudly that the Queen might be
+recalled to Court, and had so grossly insulted Anne, that the royal party
+had been driven back in disgust; and though there was no doubt some ground
+for the assertion, the real reason for the return was that the interview
+between Henry and the French king, so long secretly in negotiation, had at
+last been settled. To enlist Francis personally on the side of the
+divorce, and against the clerical influence, was good policy; for the
+Emperor could not afford to quarrel both with France and England for his
+aunt, and especially as the meeting arranged between Francis and the Pope
+at Nice for the betrothal of the Duke of Orleans with Katharine de Medici
+was already in contemplation, and threatened the Emperor with a
+combination of France, England, and perhaps the Papacy, which would be
+powerful enough to defy him. The policy was Cromwell&#8217;s, who had inherited
+from his master, Wolsey, a leaning for the French alliance; but Norfolk
+and the rest of Henry&#8217;s advisers were heavily bribed by France, and were
+on this occasion not inimical. The people at large, as usual, looked
+askance at the French connection. They dreaded, above all things, a war
+with Spain and Flanders, and recollected with apprehension the fruitless
+and foolish waste in splendour on the last occasion of the monarchs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> of
+France and England meeting. An attempt was made to provide that the
+preparations should be less costly and elaborate than those for the Field
+of the Cloth of Gold, but Henry could not forego the splendour that he
+loved, and a suite of 3000 or 4000 people were warned to accompany the
+King across the Channel to Boulogne and Calais.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i192.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>ANNE BOLEYN</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Lucas Cornelisz</span> <i>in the National Portrait Gallery</i></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>For the interview to have its full value in the eyes of Henry and his
+mistress, the latter must be present at the festival, and be recognised by
+the French royal family as being of their own caste. Francis was not
+scrupulous, but this was difficult to arrange. His own second wife was the
+Emperor&#8217;s sister, and she, of course, would not consent to meet &#8220;the
+concubine&#8221;; nor would any other of the French princesses, if they could
+avoid it; but, although the French at first gave out that no ladies would
+be present, Anne began to get her fine clothes ready and enlist her train
+of ladies as soon as the interview between the kings was arranged. So
+confident was she now of success that she foretold to one of her friends
+that she would be married whilst in France. To add to her elation, in the
+midst of the preparations Archbishop Warham died, and the chief
+ecclesiastical obstacle to the divorce in England disappeared. Some
+obedient churchman as Primate would soon manage to enlist a sufficient
+number of his fellows to give to his court an appearance of authority, and
+the Church of England would ratify the King&#8217;s release.</p>
+
+<p>The effects of Warham&#8217;s death (23rd August 1532) were seen immediately.
+There is every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> probability that up to that time Anne had successfully
+held her royal lover at arm&#8217;s length; but with Cranmer, or another such as
+he, at Lambeth her triumph was only a matter of the few weeks necessary to
+carry out the formalities; and by the end of the month of August 1532 she
+probably became the King&#8217;s mistress. This alone would explain the
+extraordinary proceedings when, on the 1st September, she was created
+Marchioness of Pembroke in her own right. It was Sunday morning before
+Mass at Windsor, where the new French alliance was to be ratified, that
+the King and his nobles and the French ambassador met in the great
+presence chamber and Anne knelt to receive the coronet and robe of her
+rank, the first peeress ever created in her own right in England:
+precedence being given to her before the two other English marchionesses,
+both ladies of the blood royal. Everything that could add prestige to the
+ceremony was done. Anne herself was dressed in regal crimson velvet and
+ermine; splendid presents were made to her by the enamoured King, fit more
+for a sovereign&#8217;s consort than his mistress; a thousand pounds a year and
+lands were settled upon her, and her rank and property were to descend to
+the issue male of her body. But the cloven hoof is shown by the omission
+from the patent of the usual legitimacy clause. Even if, after all, the
+cup of queendom was dashed from her lips untasted, she had made not a bad
+bargain for herself. Her short triumph, indeed, was rapidly coming. She
+had fought strenuously for it for many years; and now most of the legal
+bars against her had fallen. But, withal, there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> bitterness still in
+her chalice. The people scowled upon her no less now that she was a
+marchioness than before, and the great ladies who were ordered to attend
+the King&#8217;s &#8220;cousin&#8221; into France did their service but sourly: whilst
+Francis had to be conciliated with all sorts of important concessions
+before he could be got to welcome &#8220;the lady&#8221; into his realm. When, at
+last, he consented, &#8220;because she would have gone in any case; for the King
+cannot be an hour without her,&#8221; Francis did it gallantly, and with good
+grace, for, after all, Anne was just then the strongest prop in England of
+the French alliance.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine, from afar off, watched these proceedings with scornful
+resentment. Henry had no chivalry, no generosity, and saved his repudiated
+wife no humiliation that he could deal her in reward for her obstinacy. He
+had piled rich gifts upon Anne, but her greed for costly gewgaws was
+insatiable; and when the preparations for her visit to France were afoot
+she coveted the Queen&#8217;s jewels. Henry&#8217;s sister, the Duchess of Suffolk,
+Queen Dowager of France, had been made to surrender her valuables to the
+King&#8217;s favourite; but when Henry sent a message to his wife bidding her
+give up her jewels, the proud princess blazed out in indignant anger at
+the insult. &#8220;Tell the King,&#8221; she said, &#8220;that I cannot send them to him;
+for when lately, according to the custom of this realm, I presented him
+with a New Year&#8217;s gift, he warned me to send him no such presents for the
+future. Besides, it is offensive and insulting to me, and would weigh upon
+my conscience, if I were led to give up my jewels for such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> base purpose
+as that of decking out a person who is a reproach to Christendom, and is
+bringing scandal and disgrace upon the King, through his taking her to
+such a meeting as this in France. But still, if the King commands me and
+sends specially for them himself, I will give him my jewels.&#8221; Such an
+answer as this proves clearly the lack of practical wisdom in the poor
+woman. She might have resisted, or she might have surrendered with a good
+grace; but to irritate and annoy the weak bully, without gaining her
+point, was worse than useless. Anne&#8217;s talk about marrying the King in
+France angered Katharine beyond measure; but the favourite&#8217;s ambition grew
+as her prospect brightened, and when it was settled that Cranmer was to be
+recalled from Germany and made Primate, Anne said that she had changed her
+mind. &#8220;Even if the King wished to marry her there (in France) she would
+not consent to it. She will have it take place here in England, where
+other queens have usually been married and crowned.&#8221;<small><a name="f87.1" id="f87.1" href="#f87">[87]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Through Kent, avoiding as they might the plague-stricken towns, the King
+and his lady-love, with a great royal train, rode to Dover early in
+October 1532. At Calais, Henry&#8217;s own town, Anne was received almost with
+regal honours; but when Henry went forth to greet Francis upon French soil
+near Boulogne, and to be sumptuously entertained, it was seen that, though
+the French armed men were threateningly numerous, there were no ladies to
+keep in countenance the English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> &#8220;concubine&#8221; and the proud dames who did
+her service. Blazing in gems, the two kings met with much courtly ceremony
+and hollow professions of affection. Banqueting, speech-making, and
+posturing in splendid raiment occupied five days at Boulogne, the while
+the &#8220;Lady Marquis&#8221; ate her heart out at Calais in petulant disappointment;
+though she made as brave a show as she could to the Frenchmen when they
+came to return Henry&#8217;s visit. The chronicler excels himself in the
+description of the lavish magnificence of the welcome of Francis at
+Calais,<small><a name="f88.1" id="f88.1" href="#f88">[88]</a></small> and tells us that, after a bounteous supper on the night of
+Sunday 27th October, at which the two kings and their retinues sat down,
+&#8220;The Marchioness of Pembroke with seven other ladies in masking apparel of
+strange fashion, made of cloth of gold compassed with crimson tinsel
+satin, covered with cloth of silver, lying loose and knit with gold
+laces,&#8221; tripped in, and each masked lady chose a partner, Anne, of course,
+taking the French king. In the course of the dance Henry plucked the masks
+from the ladies&#8217; faces, and debonair Francis, in courtly fashion,
+conversed with his fair partner. One of the worst storms in the memory of
+man delayed the English king&#8217;s return from Calais till the 13th November;
+but when at length the <i>Te Deum</i> for his safe home-coming was sung at St.
+Paul&#8217;s, Anne knew that the King of France had undertaken to frighten the
+Pope into inactivity by talk of the danger of schism in England, and that
+Cranmer was hurrying across Europe on his way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> from Italy to London, to
+become Primate of the Church of England.</p>
+
+<p>The plot projected was a clever one, but it was still needful to handle it
+very delicately. Cranmer during his residence in Germany and Italy had
+been zealous in winning favourable opinions for Henry&#8217;s contention, and
+his foregathering with Lutheran divines had strengthened his reforming
+opinions. He had, indeed, proceeded to the dangerous length of going
+through a form of marriage secretly with a young lady belonging to a
+Lutheran family. His leanings cannot have been quite unknown to the
+ever-watchful spies of the Pope and the Emperor, though Cranmer had done
+his best to hoodwink them, and to some extent had succeeded. But to ask
+the Pope to issue the Bulls confirming such a man in the Primacy of
+England was at least a risky proceeding, and Henry had to dissemble. In
+January, Katharine fondly thought that her husband was softening towards
+her, for he released her chaplain Abell, who had been imprisoned for
+publicly speaking in her favour. She fancied, poor soul, that &#8220;perhaps God
+had touched his heart, and that he was about to acknowledge his error.&#8221;
+Chapuys attributed Henry&#8217;s new gentleness to his begrudging the cost of
+two queenly establishments. But seen from this distance of time, it was
+clearly caused by a desire to disarm the suspicion of the Pope and the
+Emperor, who were again to meet at Bologna, until the Bulls confirming
+Cranmer&#8217;s appointment to the Archbishopric had been issued. Henry went out
+of his way to be amiable to the imperial ambassador Chapuys, whilst he
+beguiled the Nuncio with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> pretended proposal for reconciliation by
+means of a decision on the divorce to be given by two Cardinal Legates,
+appointed by the Pope, and sitting in neutral territory. In vain Chapuys
+warned the Emperor that Cranmer could not be trusted; but Henry&#8217;s
+diplomatic signs of grace prevailed, and the Pope, dreading to drive
+England further into schism, confirmed Cranmer&#8217;s election as Archbishop of
+Canterbury (March 1533).</p>
+
+<p>It was high time; for under a suave exterior both Henry and Anne were in a
+fever of impatience. At the very time that Queen Katharine thought that
+her husband had repented, Anne conveyed to him the news that she was with
+child. It was necessary for their plans that the offspring should be born
+in wedlock, and yet no public marriage was possible, or the eyes of the
+Papal party would be opened before the Bulls confirming Cranmer&#8217;s
+elevation were issued. Sometime late in January 1533, therefore, a secret
+marriage was performed at Greenwich, probably by the reforming Franciscan
+Friar, George Brown,<small><a name="f89.1" id="f89.1" href="#f89">[89]</a></small> and Anne became Henry&#8217;s second wife, whilst
+Katharine was still undivorced. The secret was well kept for a time, and
+the Nuncio, Baron di Burgo, was fooled to the top of his bent by
+flatteries and hopes of bribes. He even sat in state on Henry&#8217;s right
+hand, the French ambassador being on the left, at the opening of
+Parliament, probably with the idea of convincing the trembling English
+clergy that the King and the Pope were working together. In any case, the
+close association of the Nuncio with Henry and his ministers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> aroused the
+fears of Katharine anew, and she broke out in denunciations of the Pope&#8217;s
+supineness in thus leaving her without aid for three and a half years, and
+now entertaining, as she said, a suggestion that would cause her to be
+declared the King&#8217;s concubine, and her daughter a bastard.<small><a name="f90.1" id="f90.1" href="#f90">[90]</a></small> In vain
+Chapuys, the only man of his party who saw through the device, prayed that
+Cranmer&#8217;s Bulls should not be sent from Rome, that the sentence in
+Katharine&#8217;s favour should no longer be delayed. It was already too late.
+The pride of Anne and her father at the secret marriage could not much
+longer be kept under. In the middle of February, whilst dining in her own
+apartment, she said that &#8220;she was now as sure that she should be married
+to the King, as she was of her own death&#8221;; and the Earl of Wiltshire told
+the aged kinsman of Henry, the Earl of Rutland, a staunch adherent of
+Katharine, that &#8220;the King was determined not to be so considerate as he
+had been, but would marry the Marchioness of Pembroke at once, by the
+authority of Parliament.&#8221;<small><a name="f91.1" id="f91.1" href="#f91">[91]</a></small> Anne&#8217;s condition, indeed, could not continue
+to be concealed, and whispers of it reached the Queen at Ampthill. By
+March the rumour was rife at Court that the marriage had taken place&mdash;a
+rumour which it is plain that Anne&#8217;s friends took no pains to deny, and
+Cranmer positively encouraged.<small><a name="f92.1" id="f92.1" href="#f92">[92]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Cromwell, in the meanwhile, grew in power and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> boldness with the success
+of his machinations. The Chancellorship, vacant by More&#8217;s resignation, was
+filled by Cromwell&#8217;s friend Audley, and every post that fell vacant or
+could be vacated was occupied by known opponents of the clergy. The
+country and Parliament were even yet not ready to go so far as Cromwell in
+his policy of emancipation from Rome in spiritual affairs; and only by the
+most illegal pressure both in the two Houses and in Convocation was the
+declaration condemning the validity of the King&#8217;s marriage with Katharine
+at last obtained. Armed with these declarations and the Bulls from Rome
+confirming Cranmer&#8217;s appointment, Henry was ready in April to cast away
+the mask, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were sent to tell Katharine
+at Ampthill &#8220;that she need not trouble any more about the King, for he had
+taken another wife, and that in future she must abandon the title of
+Queen, and be called Duchess; though she should be left in possession of
+her property.&#8221;<small><a name="f93.1" id="f93.1" href="#f93">[93]</a></small> Chapuys was indignant, and urged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> the Emperor to make
+war upon England in revenge for the insult to his house. &#8220;The moment this
+accursed Anne gets her foot firmly in the stirrup she will do the Queen
+all the harm she can, and the Princess also, which is what the Queen fears
+most.... She (Anne) has lately boasted that she will make the Princess
+one of her maids, which will not give her too much to eat; or will marry
+her to some varlet.&#8221; But the Emperor had cares and dangers that his
+ambassador in England knew not of, and he dared not avenge his aunt by the
+invasion of England.</p>
+
+<p>A long and fruitless war of words was waged between Henry and Chapuys when
+the news of the secret marriage became known; the talk turning upon the
+eternal question of the consummation of Katharine&#8217;s first marriage.
+Chapuys reminded the King that on several occasions he (Henry) had
+confessed that his wife had been intact by Arthur. &#8220;Ah!&#8221; replied Henry, &#8220;I
+only said that in fun. A man when he is frolicking and dining says a good
+many things that are not true. Now, I think I have satisfied you.... What
+else do you want to know?&#8221;<small><a name="f94.1" id="f94.1" href="#f94">[94]</a></small> A day or two after this, on Easter Eve,
+Anne went to Mass in truly royal state, loaded with diamonds and other
+precious stones, and dressed in a gorgeous suit of tissue; the train being
+borne by her cousin, the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, betrothed to the
+King&#8217;s illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. She was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> followed by a
+greater suite and treated with more ceremony than had formerly attended
+Katharine, and, to the astonishment of the people, was prayed for
+thenceforward in the Church services at Court as Queen.<small><a name="f95.1" id="f95.1" href="#f95">[95]</a></small> In London the
+attitude of the people grew threatening, and the Lord Mayor was taken to
+task by the King, who ordered that proclamation should be made forbidding
+any unfavourable reference to the King&#8217;s second marriage. But the fire of
+indignation glowed fiercely beneath the surface, for everywhere the cause
+of Katharine was bound up, as it seemed, with the old faith in which all
+had been born, with the security of commerce with England&#8217;s best
+customers, and with the rights of anointed royalty, as against low-born
+insolence.</p>
+
+<p>No humiliation was spared to Katharine. Her daughter was forbidden to hold
+any communication with her, her household was reduced to the meagre
+proportions of a private establishment, her scutcheon was taken down from
+Westminster Hall, and her cognisance from her barge, and, as a crowning
+indignity, she was summoned to appear before the Primate&#8217;s court at
+Dunstable, a summons which, at the prompting of Chapuys, she entirely
+disregarded. Up to this time she had stood firm in her determination to
+maintain an attitude of loyalty to the King and to her adopted country;
+but, as she grew more bitter at her rival&#8217;s triumph, and the flowing tide
+of religious change rose at her feet, she listened to plans for bringing a
+remedy for her ills by a subversion of Henry&#8217;s regime. But she was a poor
+conspirator, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> considerations of safety for her daughter, and her want
+of tact in uniting the English elements in her favour, always paralysed
+her.<small><a name="f96.1" id="f96.1" href="#f96">[96]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile the preparations for the public recognition and
+coronation of Anne went on. The new Queen tried her best to captivate the
+Londoners, but without success; and only with difficulty could the
+contributions be obtained for the coming festivities when the new Queen
+passed through the city. On the 10th May Katharine was declared
+contumacious by the Primate&#8217;s court, and on the 23rd May Cranmer
+pronounced the King&#8217;s first marriage to have been void from the first.<small><a name="f97.1" id="f97.1" href="#f97">[97]</a></small>
+This was followed by a pronouncement to the effect that the second
+marriage, that with Anne, was legal, and nothing now stood in the way of
+the final fruition of so much labour and intrigue, pregnant with such
+tremendous results to England. On the 29th May 1533 the first scene of the
+pageant was enacted with the State progress by water from Greenwich to the
+Tower.<small><a name="f98.1" id="f98.1" href="#f98">[98]</a></small> No effort had <ins class="correction" title="original: been been">been</ins> spared by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> Henry to make the occasion a
+brilliant one. We are told that the whole river from the point of
+departure to that of arrival was covered with beautifully bedizened boats;
+guns roared forth their salutations at Greenwich, and from the crowd of
+ships that lay in the stream. Flags and <i>feux de joie</i> could be bought;
+courtiers&#8217;, guilds&#8217;, and nobles&#8217; barges could be commanded, but the hearty
+cheers of the lieges could not be got for all King Harry&#8217;s power, as the
+new Queen, in the old Queen&#8217;s barge, was borne to the frowning fortress
+which so soon was to be her own place of martyrdom.<small><a name="f99.1" id="f99.1" href="#f99">[99]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>On Sunday, 31st May 1533, the procession through the crowded city sallied
+from the Tower betimes in the morning. Englishmen and foreigners, except
+Spaniards only, had been forced to pay heavily for the splendour of the
+day; and the trade guilds and aldermen, brave in furred gowns and gold
+chains, stood from one device to another in the streets, as the glittering
+show went by. The French element did its best to add gaiety to the
+occasion, and the merchants of France established in London rode at the
+head of the procession in purple velvet embroidered with Anne&#8217;s device.
+Then came the nobles and courtiers and all the squires and gentlemen whom
+the King had brought from their granges and manor-houses to do honour to
+their new Queen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> Anne herself was seated in an open litter of white satin
+covered by a golden canopy. She was dressed in a surcoat and mantle of
+white tissue trimmed with ermine, and wore a robe of crimson brocade stiff
+with gems. Her hair, which was very fine, hung over her shoulders
+surmounted by a coif and a coronet of diamonds, whilst around her neck was
+hung a necklace of great pearls, and upon her breast reposed a splendid
+jewel of precious stones. &#8220;And as she passed through the city she kept
+turning her face from one side to the other to greet the people, but,
+strange to see it was, that there were hardly ten persons who greeted her
+with &#8216;God save your Grace,&#8217; as they used to do when the sainted Queen
+Katharine went by.&#8221;<small><a name="f100.1" id="f100.1" href="#f100">[100]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Lowering brows, and whispered curses of &#8220;Nan Bullen&#8221; from the citizens&#8217;
+wives followed the new Queen on her way; for to them she stood for war
+against the Emperor in the behoof of France, for harassed trade and lean
+larders, and, above all, for defiance of the religious principles that
+most of them held sacred; and they hated the long fair face with which, or
+with love philtres, she had bewitched the King. The very pageants
+ostensibly raised in her honour contrived in several cases to embody a
+subtle insult. At the Gracechurch corner of Fenchurch Street, where the
+Hanse merchants had erected a &#8220;merveilous connyng pageaunt,&#8221; representing
+Mount Parnassus, with the fountain of Helicon spouting racked Rhenish wine
+all day, the Queen&#8217;s litter was stayed a space<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> to listen to the Muses
+playing &#8220;swete instrumentes,&#8221; and to read the &#8220;epigrams&#8221; in her praise
+that were hung around the mount. But Anne looked aloft to where Apollo
+sat, and saw that the imperial eagle was blazoned in the place of honour,
+whilst the much-derided bogus arms of the Boleyns lurked in humble guise
+below;<small><a name="f101.1" id="f101.1" href="#f101">[101]</a></small> and for many a day thenceforward she was claiming vengeance
+against the Easterlings for the slight put upon her. As each triumphal
+device was passed, children dressed as angels, or muses, were made to sing
+or recite conceited phrases of dithyrambic flattery to the heroine of the
+hour. There was no grace or virtue of which she was not the true exemplar.
+Through Leadenhall and Cornhill and so to Chepe, between lines of liveried
+citizens, Anne&#8217;s show progressed. At the cross on Cheapside the Mayor and
+corporation awaited the Queen; and the Recorder, &#8220;Master Baker,&#8221; with many
+courtly compliments, handed her the city&#8217;s gift of a thousand marks in a
+purse of gold, &#8220;which she thankfully received.&#8221; That she did so was noted
+with sneering contempt by Katharine&#8217;s friends. &#8220;As soon as she received
+the purse of money she placed it by her side in the litter: and thus she
+showed that she was a person of low descent. For there stood by her at the
+time the captain of the King&#8217;s guard, with his men and twelve lacqueys;
+and when the sainted Queen had passed by for <i>her</i> coronation, she handed
+the money to the captain of the guard to be divided amongst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> the
+halberdiers and lacqueys. Anne did not do so, but kept them for
+herself.&#8221;<small><a name="f102.1" id="f102.1" href="#f102">[102]</a></small> St. Paul&#8217;s and Ludgate, Fleet Street and Temple Bar, all
+offered their official adulation, whilst the staring people stood by dumb.
+Westminster Hall, into which Anne&#8217;s litter was borne for the feast, was
+richly hung with arras and &#8220;newly glazed.&#8221; A regal throne with a canopy
+was set on high for Anne, and a great sideboard of gold plate testified to
+the King&#8217;s generosity to his new wife. But after she had changed her
+garments and was welcomed with open arms by Henry at his new palace of
+Westminster, her disappointment broke out. &#8220;How like you the look of the
+city, sweetheart?&#8221; asked the King. &#8220;Sir,&#8221; she replied, &#8220;the city itself
+was well enow; but I saw many caps on heads and heard but few
+tongues.&#8221;<small><a name="f103.1" id="f103.1" href="#f103">[103]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The next day, Sunday, Anne was crowned by Cranmer with full ceremony in
+Westminster Abbey, and for days thereafter banqueting, tilting, and the
+usual roystering went on; and the great-granddaughter of Alderman Boleyn
+felt that at last she was Queen indeed. Henry, too, had had his way, and
+again could hope that a son born in wedlock might perpetuate the name of
+Tudor on the throne of England. But he was in deadly fear, for the
+prospect was black all around him. Public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> indignation in England grew
+apace<small><a name="f104.1" id="f104.1" href="#f104">[104]</a></small> at the religious changes and at the prospect of war; but what
+most aroused Henry&#8217;s alarm was the sudden coldness of France, and the
+probability of a great Catholic coalition against him. Norfolk and Lord
+Rochford with a stately train had gone to join in the interview between
+Francis and the Pope, in the hope that the joint presence of France and
+England might force Clement to recognise accomplished facts in order to
+avoid the secession of England from the Church. Although it suited Francis
+to promote the antagonism between Henry and the Emperor by keeping the
+divorce proceedings dragging on in Rome, it did not suit him for England
+to defy the Papacy by means of Cranmer&#8217;s sentence, and so to change the
+balance of power in Europe by driving Henry into permanent union with
+German Protestants whilst Francis was forced to side with the Emperor on
+religious grounds. So long as Henry remained undivorced and unmarried
+anything might happen. He might sate of his mistress and tire of the
+struggle against Rome, or be driven by fear of war to take a conciliatory
+course, and in any of these cases he must needs pay for France&#8217;s aid; but
+now that his divorce and remarriage were as valid as a duly authorised
+Archbishop could make them, the utility of Anne as an aid to French
+foreign policy disappeared. The actual marriage therefore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> deprived her of
+the sympathies of the French party in the English Court, which had
+hitherto sided with her, and the effects were immediately seen in the
+attitude of Francis.</p>
+
+<p>Before Norfolk could reach the south of France news came to him that the
+Pope, coerced by the Emperor, had issued a brief declaring all of Henry&#8217;s
+proceedings in England to be nullified and he and his abettors
+excommunicated, unless of his own accord he restored things to their
+former condition before September.<small><a name="f105.1" id="f105.1" href="#f105">[105]</a></small> It was plain, therefore, that any
+attempt at the coming interview to reconcile Clement with Henry&#8217;s action
+would be fruitless. Norfolk found Francis also much cooler than before,
+and sent back his nephew Rochford post haste to England to beg the King&#8217;s
+instructions. He arrived at Court in early August, at a time when Henry&#8217;s
+perplexity was at its height. He had learnt of the determination of
+Francis to greet the Pope and carry through the marriage between the Duke
+of Orleans and Katharine de Medici, whether the King of England&#8217;s demands
+were satisfied by Clement or not. He now knew that the dreaded sentence of
+excommunication pended over him and his instruments. If he had been left
+to his own weakness he would probably have given way, or at least have
+sought compromise. If Norfolk had been at his elbow, the old aristocratic
+English party might also have stayed the King&#8217;s hand. But Cromwell, bold
+and astute, and Anne, with the powerful lever of her unborn child, which
+might be a son, knew well that they had gone too far to return,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> and that
+defiance of the Papacy was the only road open to them. Already at the end
+of June Henry had gone as far as to threaten an appeal from the Pope to
+the General Council of the Church, the meeting of which was then being
+discussed; but now that he knew that Francis was failing him, and the Pope
+had finally cast down the gage, he took the next great step which led to
+England&#8217;s separation from Rome. Norfolk was recalled, and Gardiner
+accredited to Francis only with a watching brief during the Papal
+interview at Nice, whilst Henry&#8217;s ambassadors in Rome were recalled, and
+English agents were sent to Germany to seek alliances with the German
+Protestant princes. When, therefore, Norfolk arrived in England, he found
+that in his two months&#8217; absence Cromwell had steered the ship of state
+further away than ever from the traditional policy of the English
+conservatives; namely, one of balance between the two great Catholic
+powers; and that England was isolated, but for the doubtful friendship of
+those vassal princes of the Empire who professed the dreaded new heresy.
+Thenceforward the ruin of Anne and Cromwell was one of the main objects of
+Norfolk and the noble party.</p>
+
+<p>The treatment meted out to Katharine during the same time followed a
+similar impulse. Chapuys had been informed that, the King having now taken
+a legal wife, Katharine could no longer be called Queen, but Princess
+Dowager of Wales, and that her regal household could not be kept up; and
+on the 3rd July Katharine&#8217;s principal officers were ordered to convey a
+similar message to her personally. The message was roughly worded. It
+could only be arrogance and vainglory, she was told, that made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> her retain
+or usurp the title of Queen. She was much mistaken if she imagined that
+her husband would ever live with her again, and by her obstinate contumacy
+she would cause wars and bloodshed, as well as danger to herself and her
+daughter, as both would be made to feel the King&#8217;s displeasure. The
+Queen&#8217;s answer, as might have been expected, was as firm as usual. She was
+the King&#8217;s legitimate wife, and no reward or fear in the world would ever
+make her abandon her right to the title she bore. It was not vainglory
+that moved her, for to be the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabel was a
+greater honour than to be a Queen. Henry might punish her, she said, or
+even her daughter, &#8220;Yet neither for that, nor a thousand deaths, would she
+consent to damn her soul or that of her husband the King.&#8221;<small><a name="f106.1" id="f106.1" href="#f106">[106]</a></small> The King,
+beside himself with rage, could do no more than warn Katharine&#8217;s household
+that they must all treat their mistress as Princess of Wales, or suffer
+the penalty. As for Katharine, no punishment short of death could move
+her; and Cromwell himself, in admiration at her answer, said that &#8220;nature
+had injured her in not making her a man, for she would have surpassed in
+fame all the heroes of history.&#8221;<small><a name="f107.1" id="f107.1" href="#f107">[107]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>When a few days after this Katharine was removed to Buckden, crowds
+followed her with tears<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> and blessings along the road, even as they had
+followed the Princess Mary shortly before, &#8220;as if she were God Almighty,&#8221;
+as Anne said. In defiance of Henry&#8217;s threats, &#8220;God save the Queen&#8221; rang
+high and clear wherever she went, and the people, &#8220;wishing her joy,
+comfort, and all manner of prosperity, and mishap to her enemies, begged
+her with tears to let them serve her; for they were all ready to die for
+her sake.&#8221;<small><a name="f108.1" id="f108.1" href="#f108">[108]</a></small> Anne&#8217;s spite at such demonstrations was characteristic.
+Katharine possessed a very rich and gorgeous length of stuff, which she
+had brought from Spain to serve as a christening robe if she should have a
+son and heir. Anne&#8217;s time was drawing near, and she would not be content
+until the King had demanded of his wife the Spanish material to serve as a
+robe for the Prince of Wales, which he was confident would be born to
+Anne. &#8220;God forbid,&#8221; replied Katharine, &#8220;that I should ever give help or
+countenance in a case so horrible and abominable as this!&#8221; and the
+indignity of forcible searching of her chests for the stuff at least was
+not insisted upon then.</p>
+
+<p>Anne&#8217;s own position was hardly a happy one; her one hope being that the
+coming child would be a son, as the King was assured by astrologers that
+it would be. For amorous Henry was already tiring somewhat of her, and
+even Cromwell&#8217;s tone was less confident than before. Early in August,
+Henry left her at Greenwich to go to Windsor alone, for the first time
+since they had been together. Sometime in July she had insisted upon a
+very sumptuous bed, which had formed part of a French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> royal ransom, being
+taken out of the treasure-room for the birth of the expected heir. It is
+well, sneered Chapuys, in the first days of September, that she got it
+betimes, &#8220;otherwise she would not have it now, for she has been for some
+time past very jealous of the King; and, with good cause, spoke about it
+in words that he did not like. He told her that she must wink at such
+things, and put up with them, as her betters had done before her. He could
+at any time cast her down as easily as he had raised her.&#8221; Frequent
+bickerings of this sort went on during the last weeks of Anne&#8217;s pregnancy;
+but on Sunday, 7th September, the day that was to heal all differences
+came. Henry had defied the greatest power in the world, had acted basely
+and brutally to his legal wife, and had incurred the reprobation of his
+own people for the sake of having a son, and on the fateful day mentioned
+a fair girl baby was born to Anne at Greenwich.</p>
+
+<p>The official rejoicings were held, but beneath the surface every one knew
+that a tragedy lurked,<small><a name="f109.1" id="f109.1" href="#f109">[109]</a></small> for unless a son was born to Anne her doom was
+sealed. Henry had asserted his mastership in his own realm and had defied
+Christendom. He had found that his subjects, however sulkily, had accepted
+his action without open revolt; and that Charles, notwithstanding the
+insult to his house, was still speaking softly through his ambassadors. If
+a great princess like Katharine could thus be repudiated without disaster
+to his realm, it would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> indeed be easy for him to cast away &#8220;that noughty
+pake, Nan Bullen,&#8221; if she failed to satisfy his desire for a son. But in
+the meanwhile it was necessary for him to secure, so far as he could, the
+succession of his new daughter, since Cranmer&#8217;s decision had rendered
+Mary, Princess of Wales, of whom her father had been so proud,
+illegitimate. Accordingly, immediately after the child Elizabeth was
+christened, heralds proclaimed in the King&#8217;s name that Princess Mary was
+thenceforward to lose her title and pre-eminence, the badge upon her
+servants&#8217; coats being replaced by the arms of the King, and the baby Lady
+Elizabeth was to be recognised as the King&#8217;s only legitimate heir and
+Princess of Wales. In vain the imperial ambassador protested and talked to
+Cromwell of possible war, in which England might be ruined, which Cromwell
+admitted but reminded him that the Emperor would not benefit thereby; in
+vain Katharine from her retirement at Buckden urged Chapuys and the
+Emperor to patronise Reginald Pole as a possible threat to Henry; in vain
+Princess Mary herself, in diplomatic language, told her father that he
+might give her what title he liked, but that she herself would never admit
+her illegitimacy or her mother&#8217;s repudiation; in vain Bishop Fisher and
+Chapuys counselled the invasion of England and the overturn of Henry:
+Cromwell knew that there was no drawing back for him, and that the
+struggle must go on now to the bitter end.</p>
+
+<p>Anne with the birth of her daughter became more insolent and exacting than
+ever. Nothing would satisfy her but the open degradation of Katharine and
+her daughter, and Henry in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> respect seems to have had no spark of
+generous or gentlemanly feeling. Irritated by what he considered the
+disobedience of his wife and child, and doubtless also by their constant
+recourse for support and advice to the Emperor&#8217;s ambassador against him,
+he dismissed Mary&#8217;s household and ordered her to go to Hatfield and serve
+as maid the Princess Elizabeth. Mary was ready with her written protest,
+which Chapuys had drafted for her, but, having made it, decided to submit;
+and was borne to Hatfield in scornful dudgeon, to serve &#8220;the bastard&#8221; of
+three months old. When she arrived the Duke of Suffolk asked her if she
+would go and pay her respects to &#8220;the Princess.&#8221; &#8220;I know of no other
+princess but myself,&#8221; replied Mary. &#8220;The daughter of Lady Pembroke has no
+right to such a title. But,&#8221; added she, &#8220;as the King acknowledges her I
+may call her sister, as I call the Duke of Richmond brother.&#8221; Mary was the
+true daughter of her proud mother, and bluff Charles Brandon got many a
+tart answer from her before he gave her up in despair to perform a similar
+mission to her mother at Buckden.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine had never changed her tone. Knowing Henry&#8217;s weakness, she had
+always pressed for the final Papal decision in her favour, which she
+insisted would bring her husband to his knees, as it doubtless would have
+done if he had stood alone. For a time the Pope and the King of France
+endeavoured to find a <i>via media</i> which should save appearances, for
+Charles would not bind himself to carry out by force the Papal deposition
+of Henry, which Clement wanted. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> Katharine would have no compromise,
+nor did it suit Cromwell or Anne, though the former was apparently anxious
+to avoid offending the Emperor. Parliament, moreover, was summoned for the
+15th January 1534, to give the sanction of the nation to Henry&#8217;s final
+defiance of Rome; and persistence in the path to which the King&#8217;s desire
+for a son and his love for Anne had dragged England, was now the only
+course open to him. Suffolk and a deputation of councillors were
+consequently sent once more with an ultimatum to Katharine. Accompanied by
+a large armed force to intimidate the Queen and the people who surrounded
+her, the deputation saw her on the 18th December; and Suffolk demanded
+that she should recognise Cranmer&#8217;s decision and abandon her appeal to
+Rome; whilst her household and herself were to take the oath of allegiance
+to the King in the new form provided. The alternative was that she should
+be deprived of her servants and be removed to Fotheringay or Somersame,
+seated in the midst of pestilential marshes.<small><a name="f110.1" id="f110.1" href="#f110">[110]</a></small> Suffolk was rough in his
+manner, and made short work of the English household, nearly all of whom
+were dismissed and replaced by others; but he found Katharine the same
+hard woman as ever. Considering all the King had done for her and hers, he
+said, it was disgraceful that she should worry him as she had done for
+years, putting him to vast expense in embassies to Rome and elsewhere, and
+keeping him in turmoil with his neighbours. Surely she had grown tired of
+her obstinacy by this time,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> and would abandon her appeal to Rome. If she
+did so the King would do anything for her; but if not he would clip her
+wings and effectually punish her. As a beginning, he said, they were going
+to remove her to Fotheringay. Katharine had heard such talk many times
+before, though less rudely worded; and she replied in the usual tone. She
+looked to the Pope alone, and cared nothing for the Archbishop of
+Canterbury. As for going to Fotheringay, that she would not do. The King
+might work his will; but unless she was dragged thither by main force she
+would not go, or she would be guilty of suicide, so unhealthy was the
+place. Some of the members of the household were recalcitrant, and the two
+priests, Abell and Barker, were sent to the Tower. The aged Spanish Bishop
+of Llandaff, Jorge de Ateca, the Queen&#8217;s confessor, was also warned that
+he must go, and De la S&aacute;, her apothecary, and a physician, both Spaniards;
+but at her earnest prayers they were allowed to remain pending an
+appeal.<small><a name="f111.1" id="f111.1" href="#f111">[111]</a></small> The Queen&#8217;s women attendants were also told they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> must
+depart, but upon Katharine saying that she would not undress or go to bed
+unless she had proper help, two of them were allowed to stay. For a whole
+week the struggle went on, every device and threat being employed to break
+down the Queen&#8217;s resistance. She was as hard as adamant. All the servants
+who remained but the Spaniards, who spoke no English, had to swear not to
+treat her as Queen, and she said she would treat them as gaolers. On the
+sixth day of Suffolk&#8217;s stay at Buckden, pack animals were got ready, and
+preparations made for removing the establishment to Fotheringay. But they
+still had to reckon with Katharine. Locking herself in her chamber, she
+carried on a colloquy with her oppressors through a chink in the wall. &#8220;If
+you wish to take me,&#8221; she declared, &#8220;you must break down my door;&#8221; but,
+though the country gentlemen around had been summoned to the aid of the
+King&#8217;s commissioners, and the latter were well armed, such was the ferment
+and indignation in the neighbourhood&mdash;and indeed throughout the
+country&mdash;that violence was felt to be unwise, and Katharine was left in
+such peace as she might enjoy.<small><a name="f112.1" id="f112.1" href="#f112">[112]</a></small> Well might Suffolk write, as he did,
+to Norfolk: &#8220;We find here the most obstinate woman that may be; inasmuch
+as we think surely there is no other remedy than to convey her by force to
+Somersame. Concerning this we have nothing in our instructions; we pray
+your good lordship that we may have knowledge of the King&#8217;s pleasure.&#8221; All
+this petty persecution was, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> course, laid at the door of Anne by
+Katharine&#8217;s friends and the Catholic majority; for Cromwell was clever in
+avoiding his share of the responsibility. &#8220;The lady,&#8221; they said, &#8220;would
+never be satisfied until both the Queen and her daughter had been done to
+death, either by poison or otherwise; and Katharine was warned to take
+care to fasten securely the door of her chamber at night, and to have the
+room searched before she retired.<small><a name="f113.1" id="f113.1" href="#f113">[113]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>In the meantime England and France were drifting further apart. If Henry
+finally decided to brave the Papal excommunication, Francis dared not make
+common cause with him. The Bishop of Paris (Du Bellay) once more came
+over, and endeavoured to find a way out of the maze. Anne, whom he had
+befriended before, received him effusively, kissing him on the cheek and
+exerting all her witchery upon him; but it was soon found that he brought
+an ultimatum from his King; and when Henry began to bully him and abuse
+Francis for deserting him, the bishop cowed him with a threat of immediate
+war. The compromise finally arrived at was that if the Pope before the
+following Easter (1534) would withdraw his sentence against Henry, England
+would remain within the pale of the Church. Otherwise the measure drafted
+for presentation to Parliament entirely throwing off the Papal supremacy
+would be proceeded with. This was the parting of the ways, and the
+decision was left to Clement VII.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>Parliament opened on the 15th January, perhaps the most fateful assembly
+that ever met at Westminster. The country, as we have seen, was indignant
+at the treatment of Katharine and her daughter, but the instinct of
+loyalty to the King was strong, and there was no powerful centre around
+which revolt might crystallise. The clergy especially&mdash;even those who,
+like Stokesley, Fox, and Gardiner, were Henry&#8217;s instruments&mdash;dreaded the
+great changes that portended; and an attempt to influence Parliament by a
+declaration of the clergy in Convocation against the King&#8217;s first
+marriage, failed, notwithstanding the flagrant violence with which
+signatures were sought. With difficulty, even though the nobles known to
+favour Katharine were not summoned, a bill granting a dowry to the Queen
+as Dowager Princess of Wales was passed; but the House of Commons,
+trembling for the English property in the imperial dominions, threw it
+out. The prospect for a time looked black for the great ecclesiastical
+changes that were contemplated, and the hopes of Katharine&#8217;s friends rose
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop of Paris in the meanwhile had contrived to frighten Clement and
+his Cardinals, by his threatening talk of English schism and the universal
+spread of dissent, into an insincere and half-hearted acquiescence in a
+compromise that would submit the question of a divorce to a tribunal of
+two Cardinals sitting at Cambray to save appearances, and deciding in
+favour of Henry. When the French ambassador Castillon came to Henry with
+this news (early in March 1534) the King had experienced the difficulty of
+bringing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> Parliament and Convocation to his views; and, again, if left to
+himself, he would probably have yielded. But Anne and Cromwell, and indeed
+Cranmer, were now in the same boat; and any wavering on the part of the
+King would have meant ruin to them all. They did their best to stiffen
+Henry, but he was nearly inclined to give way behind their backs; and
+after the French ambassador had left the Council unsuccessful, Henry had a
+long secret talk with him in the garden, in which he assured him that he
+would not have anything done hastily against the Holy See.</p>
+
+<p>But whilst the rash and turbulent Bishop of Paris was hectoring Clement at
+Rome and sending unjustifiably encouraging messages to England,
+circumstances on both sides were working against the compromise which the
+French desired so much. Cromwell and Anne were panic-stricken at the idea
+of reopening the question of the marriage before any Papal tribunal, and
+kept up Henry&#8217;s resentment against the Pope. Henry&#8217;s pride also was
+wounded by a suggestion of the French that, as a return for Clement&#8217;s
+pliability, Alexander de Medici, Duke of Florence, might marry the
+Princess Mary. Cromwell&#8217;s diplomatic management of the Parliamentary
+opposition and the consequent passage of the bill abolishing the
+remittance of Peter&#8217;s pence to Rome, also encouraged Henry to think that
+he might have his own way after all; and the chances of his making further
+concessions to the Pope again diminished. A similar process was going on
+in Rome. Whilst Clement was smilingly listening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> to talk of reconciliation
+for the sake of keeping England under his authority, he well knew that
+Henry could only be moved by fear; and all the thunderbolts of the Church
+were being secretly forged to launch upon the King of England.</p>
+
+<p>On the 23rd March 1534 the consistory of Cardinals sat, the French
+Cardinals being absent; and the final judgment on the validity of Henry&#8217;s
+marriage with Katharine was given by the head of the Church. The cause
+which had stirred Europe for five years was settled beyond appeal so far
+as the Roman Church could settle it. Katharine was Henry&#8217;s lawful wife,
+and Anne Boleyn was proclaimed by the Church to be his concubine. Almost
+on the very day that the gage was thus thrown down by the Pope, Henry had
+taken similar action on his own account. In the previous sitting of
+Parliament the King had been practically acknowledged as head of the
+Church in his own dominions; and now all appeals and payments to the Pope
+were forbidden, and the bishops of England were entirely exempt from his
+spiritual jurisdiction and control. To complete the emancipation of the
+country from the Papacy, on the 23rd March 1534 a bill (the Act of
+Succession) was read for the third time, confirming the legality of the
+marriage of Henry and Anne, and settling the succession to the crown upon
+their issue to the exclusion of the Princess Mary. Cranmer&#8217;s divorce
+decision was thus ratified by statute; and any person questioning in word
+or print the legitimacy of Elizabeth&#8217;s birth was adjudged guilty of high
+treason. Every subject of the King, moreover, was to take oath to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+maintain this statute on pain of death. The consummation was reached: for
+good or for evil England was free from Rome, and the fair woman for whose
+sake the momentous change had been wrought, sat planning schemes of
+vengeance against the two proud princesses, mother and daughter, who still
+refused to bow the neck to her whom they proclaimed the usurper of their
+rights.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i224.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<h3>1534-1536</h3>
+<h3>A FLEETING TRIUMPH&mdash;POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE</h3>
+
+<p>In the previous pages we have witnessed the process by which a vain,
+arrogant man, naturally lustful and held by no moral or material
+restraint, had been drawn into a position which, when he took the first
+step that led to it, he could not have contemplated. In ordinary
+circumstances there would have been no insuperable difficulty in his
+obtaining a divorce, and he probably expected little. The divorce,
+however, in this case involved the question of a change in the national
+alliance and a shifting of the weight of England to the side of France;
+and the Emperor by his power over the Pope had been able to frustrate the
+design, not entirely on account of his family connection with Katharine,
+but rather as a question of international policy. The dependent position
+of the Pope had effectually stood in the way of the compromise always
+sought by France, and the resistance to his will had made Henry the more
+determined to assert himself, with the natural result that the dispute had
+developed into religious schism. There is a school of historians which
+credits Henry personally with the far-reaching design of shaking off the
+ecclesiastical control<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> of Rome in order to augment the national
+greatness; but there seems to me little evidence to support the view. When
+once the King had bearded the Papacy, rather than retrace the steps he had
+taken and confess himself wrong, it was natural that many of his subjects
+who conscientiously leant towards greater freedom in religion than Rome
+would allow, were prepared to carry the lesson further, as the German
+Lutherans had done, but I can find no reason to believe that Henry desired
+to initiate any change of system in the direction of freedom: his aim
+being, as he himself said, simply to make himself Pope as well as King
+within his own realm. Even that position, as we have seen in the
+aforegoing chapters, was only reached gradually under the incentive of
+opposition, and by the aid of stouter hearts and clearer brains than his
+own: and if Henry could have had his way about the marriage, as he
+conceivably might have done on many occasions during the struggle by a
+very slight change in the circumstances, there would have been, so far as
+he personally was concerned, no Reformation in England at the time.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most curious phases in the process here described is the
+deterioration notable in Henry&#8217;s character as the ecclesiastical and moral
+restraints that influenced him were gradually cast aside. We have seen him
+as a kind and courteous husband, not more immoral than other men of his
+age and station; a father whose love for his children was intense; and a
+cultured gentleman of a headstrong but not unlovable character. Resistance
+to his will had touched his pride and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> hardened his heart, until at the
+period which we have now reached (1534) we see him capable of brutal and
+insulting treatment of his wife and elder daughter, of which any gentleman
+would be ashamed. On the other hand, the attitude of Katharine and Mary
+was exactly that best calculated to drive to fury a conceited, overbearing
+man, loving his supreme power as Henry did. It was, of course, heroic and
+noble of the two ladies to stand upon their undoubted rights as they did;
+but if Katharine by adopting a religious life had consented to a divorce,
+the decree of nullity would not have been pronounced; her own position
+would have been recognised, her daughter&#8217;s legitimacy saved, and the
+separation from Rome at least deferred, if not prevented. There was no
+such deterioration in Anne&#8217;s character as in that of Henry; for it was bad
+from the first, and consistently remained so. Her ambition was the noblest
+trait in her nature; and she served it with a petty personal malignity
+against those who seemed to stand in her way that goes far to deprive her
+of the pity that otherwise would go out to her in her own martyrdom at the
+hands of the fleshly tyrant whose evil nature she had been so greatly
+instrumental in developing.</p>
+
+<p>It was undoubtedly to Anne&#8217;s prompting that the ungenerous treatment of
+the Princess Mary was due, a treatment that aroused the indignation even
+of those to whom its execution was entrusted. Henry was deeply attached to
+his daughter, but it touched his pride for her to refuse to submit without
+protest to his behest. When Norfolk told him of the attitude of the
+Princess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> on her being taken to Hatfield to attend upon Elizabeth, he
+decided to bring his parental authority to bear upon her personally, and
+decided to see her. But Anne, &#8220;considering the easiness or rather levity
+of the King, and that the great beauty and goodness of the Princess might
+overcome his displeasure with her, and, moved by her virtues and his
+fatherly pity for her, be induced to treat her better and restore her
+title to her, sent Cromwell and other messengers posting after the King to
+prevent him, at any cost, from seeing or speaking to the Princess.&#8221;<small><a name="f114.1" id="f114.1" href="#f114">[114]</a></small>
+When Henry arrived at Hatfield and saw his baby daughter Elizabeth, the
+elder Princess begged to be allowed to salute him. The request was not
+granted; but when the King mounted his horse in the courtyard Mary stood
+upon a terrace above to see him. The King was informed of her presence, or
+saw her by chance; and, as she caught his eye, she threw herself upon her
+knees in an attitude of prayer, whereupon the father touched his bonnet,
+and bowed low and kindly to the daughter he was wronging so bitterly. He
+explained afterwards that he avoided speaking to her as she was so
+obstinate with him, &#8220;thanks to her Spanish blood.&#8221; When the French
+ambassador mentioned her kindly, during the conversation, he noted that
+Henry&#8217;s eyes filled with tears, and that he could not refrain from
+praising her.<small><a name="f115.1" id="f115.1" href="#f115">[115]</a></small> But for Anne&#8217;s jealousy for her own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> offspring, it is
+probable that Mary&#8217;s legitimacy would have been established by Act of
+Parliament; as Cromwell at this time was certainly in favour of it: but
+Anne was ever on the watch, especially to arouse Henry&#8217;s anger by hinting
+that Mary was looking to foreigners for counsel, as indeed she was. It was
+this latter element in which danger principally lurked. Katharine
+naturally appealed to her kin for support; and all through her trouble it
+was this fact, joined with her firm refusal to acknowledge Henry&#8217;s supreme
+power, that steeled her husband&#8217;s heart. But for the King&#8217;s own daughter
+and undoubted born subject to act in the same way made her, what her
+mother never had been, a dangerous centre around which the disaffected
+elements might gather. The old nobility, as we have seen, were against
+Anne: and Henry quite understood the peril of having in his own family a
+person who commanded the sympathies of the strongest foreign powers in
+Europe, as well as the most influential elements in England. He angrily
+told the Marquis of Exeter that it was only confidence in the Emperor
+that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> made Mary so obstinate; but that he was not afraid of the Emperor,
+and would bring the girl to her senses: and he then went on to threaten
+Exeter himself if he dared to communicate with her. The same course was
+soon afterwards taken with Norfolk, who as well as his wife was forbidden
+to see the Princess, although he certainly had shown no desire to extend
+much leniency to her.</p>
+
+<p>The treatment of Katharine was even more atrocious, though in her case it
+was probably more the King&#8217;s irritated pride than his fears that was the
+incentive. When the wretched Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, was
+prosecuted for her crazy prophecies against the King every possible effort
+was made to connect the unfortunate Queen with her, though unsuccessfully,
+and the attempt to force Katharine to take the oath prescribed by the new
+Act of Succession against herself and her daughter was obviously a piece
+of persecution and insult.<small><a name="f116.1" id="f116.1" href="#f116">[116]</a></small> The Commission sent to Buckden to extort
+the new oath of allegiance to Henry, and to Anne as Queen, consisted of
+Dr. Lee, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Tunstall, Bishop of Durham; and the
+Bishop of Chester; and the scene as described by one of the Spanish
+servants is most curious. When the demand was made that she should take
+the oath of allegiance to Anne as Queen, Katharine with fine scorn
+replied, &#8220;Hold thy peace, bishop: speak to me no more. These are the wiles
+of the devil. I am Queen, and Queen will I die: by right the King can have
+no other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> wife, and let this be your answer.&#8221;<small><a name="f117.1" id="f117.1" href="#f117">[117]</a></small> Assembling her
+household, she addressed them, and told them they could not without sin
+swear allegiance to the King and Anne in a form that would deny the
+supreme spiritual authority of the Pope: and taking counsel with her
+Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, they settled between them that the
+Spaniards should answer interrogatories in Spanish in such a way that by a
+slight mispronunciation their answer could be interpreted, &#8220;I acknowledge
+that the King has made himself head of the Church&#8221; (<i>se ha hecho cabeza de
+la iglesia</i>), whereas the Commissioners would take it as meaning &#8220;that the
+King be created head of the Church&#8221; (<i>sea hecho cabeza de la iglesia</i>);
+and on the following morning the wily chamberlain and his countrymen saved
+appearances and their consciences at the same time by a pun. But when the
+formal oath of allegiance to Anne was demanded, Felipe, speaking for the
+rest, replied, &#8220;I have taken one oath of allegiance to my lady Queen
+Katharine. She still lives, and during her life I know no other Queen in
+this realm.&#8221; Lee then threatened them with punishment for refusal, and a
+bold Burgundian lackey, Bastian,<small><a name="f118.1" id="f118.1" href="#f118">[118]</a></small> burst out with, &#8220;Let the King banish
+us, but let him not order us to be perjurers.&#8221;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> The bishop in a rage told
+him to begone at once; and, nothing loath, Bastian knelt at his mistress&#8217;s
+feet and bade her farewell; taking horse at once to ride to the coast.
+Katharine in tears remonstrated with Lee for dismissing her servant
+without reference to her; and the bishop, now that his anger was calmed,
+sent messengers to fetch Bastian back; which they did not do until he had
+reached London.<small><a name="f119.1" id="f119.1" href="#f119">[119]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>This fresh indignity aroused Katharine&#8217;s friends both in England and
+abroad. The Emperor had already remonstrated with the English ambassador
+on the reported cruel treatment of the Queen and her daughter, and Henry
+now endeavoured to justify himself in a long letter (June 1534). As for
+the Queen, he said, she was being treated &#8220;in everything to the best that
+can be devised, whom we do order and entertain as we think most expedient,
+and as to us seemeth prudent. And the like also of our daughter the Lady
+Mary: for we think it not meet that any person should prescribe unto us
+how we should order our own daughter, we being her natural father.&#8221; He
+expressed himself greatly hurt that the Emperor should think him capable
+of acting unkindly, notwithstanding that the Lady Katharine &#8220;hath very
+disobediently behaved herself towards us,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> as well in contemning and
+setting at naught our laws and statutes, as in many other ways.&#8221; Just
+lately, he continues, he had sent three bishops to exhort her, &#8220;in most
+loving fashion,&#8221; to obey the law; and &#8220;she hath in most ungodly,
+obstinate, and inobedient wise, wilfully resisted, set at naught and
+contemned our laws and ordinances: so if we would administer to her any
+rigour or extremity she were undoubtedly within the extreme danger of our
+laws.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The blast of persecution swept over the land. The oaths demanded by the
+new statutes were stubbornly resisted by many. Fisher and More, as learned
+and noble as any men in the land, were sent to the Tower (April 1534) to
+be entrapped and done to death a year later. Throughout the country the
+Commissioners with plenary powers were sent to administer the new oaths,
+and those citizens who cavilled at taking them were treated as traitors to
+the King. But all this did not satisfy Anne whilst Katharine and Mary
+remained recalcitrant and unpunished for the same offence. Henry was in
+dire fear, however, of some action of the Emperor in enforcement of the
+Papal excommunication against him and his kingdom, which according to the
+Catholic law he had forfeited by the Pope&#8217;s ban. Francis, willing as he
+was to oppose the Emperor, dared not expose his own kingdom to
+excommunication by siding with Henry, and the latter was statesman enough
+to see, as indeed was Cromwell, that extreme measures against Mary would
+turn all Christendom against him, and probably prove the last unbearable
+infliction that would drive his own people to aid a foreign invasion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> So,
+although Anne sneered at the King&#8217;s weakness, as she called it, and
+eagerly anticipated his projected visit to Francis, during which she would
+remain Regent in England, and be able to wreak her wicked will on the
+young Princess, the King, held by political fear, and probably, too, by
+some fatherly regard, refused to be nagged by his wife into the murder of
+his daughter, and even relinquished the meeting with Francis rather than
+leave England with Anne in power.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Katharine&#8217;s health grew worse. Henry told the French
+ambassador in January, soon after Suffolk&#8217;s attempt to administer the
+first oath to her, that &#8220;she was dropsical and could not live long&#8221;: and
+his enemies were ready with the suggestion&mdash;which was probably
+unfounded&mdash;that she was being poisoned. She shut herself up in her own
+chamber, and refused to eat the food prepared by the new servants; what
+little food she took being cooked in her own room by her one maid. Early
+in the summer (May) she was removed from Buckden to Kimbolton Castle,
+within the miasmic influence of the fens, and there was no attempt to
+conceal the desire on the part of the King and those who had brought him
+to this pass that Katharine should die, for by that means alone, it
+seemed, could foreign intervention and civil war be averted. Katharine
+herself was, as we have seen, full of suspicion. In March Chapuys reported
+that she had sent a man to London to procure some old wine for her, as she
+refused to drink the wine provided for her use. &#8220;They were trying,&#8221; he
+said, &#8220;to give her artificial dropsy.&#8221; Two months later, just after the
+stormy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> scene when Lee and Tunstall had endeavoured to extort from the
+Queen the oath to the new Act of Succession, Chapuys in hot indignation
+suddenly appeared at Richmond, where the King was, to protest against such
+treatment. Henry was intensely annoyed and offended, and refused to see
+the ambassador. He was master, he said, in his own realm; and it was no
+good coming to him with such remonstrances. No wonder that Chapuys
+concluded, &#8220;Everybody fears some ill turn will be done to the Queen,
+seeing the rudeness to which she is daily subjected, both in deeds and
+words; especially as the concubine has said that she will not cease till
+she has got rid of her; and as the prophecies say that one Queen of
+England is to be burnt, she hopes it will be Katharine.&#8221;<small><a name="f120.1" id="f120.1" href="#f120">[120]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Early in June Katharine urged strongly that Chapuys should travel to
+Kimbolton to see her, alleging the bad condition of her health as a
+reason. The King and Cromwell believed that her true object in desiring an
+interview was to devise plans with her nephew&#8217;s ambassador for obtaining
+the enforcement of the papal censure,<small><a name="f121.1" id="f121.1" href="#f121">[121]</a></small> which would have meant the
+subversion of Henry&#8217;s power; and for weeks Chapuys begged for permission
+to see her in vain. &#8220;Ladies were not to be trusted,&#8221; Cromwell told him;
+whilst fresh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> Commissioners were sent, one after the other, to extort, by
+force if necessary, the oath of Katharine&#8217;s lady attendants to the Act of
+Succession, much to the Queen&#8217;s distress.<small><a name="f122.1" id="f122.1" href="#f122">[122]</a></small> At length, tired of
+waiting, the ambassador told Cromwell that he was determined to start at
+once; which he did two days later, on the 16th July. With a train of sixty
+horsemen, his own household and Spaniards resident in England, he rode
+through London towards the eastern counties, ostensibly on a religious
+pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham. Riding through the leafy lanes of
+Hertfordshire in the full summer tide, solaced by music, minstrelsy, and
+the quaint antics of Chapuys&#8217; fool, the party were surprised on the second
+day of their journey to see gallop past them on the road Stephen Vaughan,
+one of the King&#8217;s officers who spoke Spanish; and later, when they had
+arrived within a few miles of Kimbolton, they were met by the same man,
+accompanied this time by a humble servitor of Katharine, bringing to the
+pilgrims wine and provisions in abundance, but also the ill news that the
+King had ordered that Chapuys was to be forbidden access to the Queen. The
+ambassador was exceedingly indignant. He did not wish to offend the King,
+he said, but, having come so far and being now in the immediate
+neighbourhood, he would not return unsuccessful without an effort to
+obtain a more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> authoritative decision. Early the next morning one of
+Katharine&#8217;s old officers came to Chapuys and repeated the prohibition,
+begging him not even to pass through the village, lest the King should
+take it ill. Other messages passed, but all to the same effect. Poor
+Katharine herself sent secret word that she was as thankful for Chapuys&#8217;
+journey as if it had been successful, and hinted that it would be a
+consolation to her if some of her countrymen could at least approach the
+castle. Needless to say that the Spaniards gathered beneath the walls of
+the castle and chatted gallantly across the moat to the ladies upon the
+terraces, and some indeed, including the jester, are asserted to have
+found their way inside the castle, where they were regaled heartily, and
+the fool played some of the usual tricks of his motley.<small><a name="f123.1" id="f123.1" href="#f123">[123]</a></small> Chapuys, in
+high dudgeon, returned by another road to London without attempting to
+complete his pilgrimage to Walsingham, secretly spied upon as he was, the
+whole way, by the King&#8217;s envoy, Vaughan. &#8220;Tell Cromwell,&#8221; he said to the
+latter, as he discovered himself on the outskirts of London, &#8220;that I
+should have judged it more honourable if the King and he had informed me
+of his intention before I left London, so that all the world should not
+have been acquainted with a proceeding which I refrain from
+characterising. But the Queen,&#8221; he continued, &#8220;nevertheless had cause to
+thank him (Cromwell) since the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> rudeness shown to her would now be so
+patent that it could not well be denied.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Henry and Cromwell had good reason to fear foreign machinations to their
+detriment. The Emperor and Francis were in ominous negotiations; for the
+King of France could not afford to break with the Papacy, the rising of
+Kildare in Ireland was known to have the sympathy, if not the aid, of
+Spain, and it was felt throughout Christendom that the Emperor must,
+sooner or later, give force to the Papal sentence against England to avoid
+the utter loss of prestige which would follow if the ban of Rome was after
+all seen to be utterly innocuous. A sympathetic English lord told Chapuys
+secretly that Cromwell had ridiculed the idea of the Emperor&#8217;s attacking
+England; for his subjects would not put up with the consequent loss of
+trade. But if he did, continued Cromwell, &#8220;the death of Katharine and Mary
+would put an end to all the trouble.&#8221; Chapuys told his informant, for
+Cromwell&#8217;s behoof, that if any harm was done to either of the ladies the
+Emperor would have the greater cause for quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn Mary fell seriously ill. She had been obliged to follow &#8220;the
+bastard,&#8221; Elizabeth, against her will, for ever intriguing cleverly to
+avoid humiliation to herself. But the long struggle against such odds
+broke down her health, and Henry, who, in his heart of hearts, could
+hardly condemn his daughter&#8217;s stubbornness, so like his own, softened to
+the extent of his sending his favourite physician, Dr. Butts, to visit
+her. A greater concession was to allow Katharine&#8217;s two medical men to
+attend the Princess; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> permission was given to Katharine herself to see
+her, but under conditions which rendered the concession nugatory. The
+Queen wrote a pathetic letter in Spanish to Cromwell, praying that Mary
+might be permitted to come and stay with her. &#8220;It will half cure her,&#8221; she
+urged. As a small boon, Henry had consented that the sick girl should be
+sent to a house at no great distance from Kimbolton. &#8220;Alas!&#8221; urged
+Katharine, &#8220;if it be only a mile away, I cannot visit her. I beseech that
+she be allowed to come to where I am. I will answer for her security with
+my life.&#8221; But Cromwell or his master was full of suspicion of imperial
+plots for the escape of Mary to foreign soil, and Katharine&#8217;s maternal
+prayer remained unheard.</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy mother tried again soon afterwards to obtain access to her
+sick daughter by means of Chapuys. She besought for charity&#8217;s sake that
+the King would allow her to tend Mary with her own hands. &#8220;You shall also
+tell his Highness that there is no need for any other person but myself to
+nurse her: I will put her in my own bed where I sleep, and will watch her
+when needful.&#8221; When Chapuys saw the King with this pathetic message Henry
+was less arrogant than usual. &#8220;He wished to do his best for his daughter&#8217;s
+health; but he must be careful of his own honour and interests, which
+would be jeopardised if Mary were conveyed abroad, or if she escaped, as
+she easily might do if she were with her mother; for he had some suspicion
+that the Emperor had a design to get her away.&#8221; Henry threw all the blame
+for Mary&#8217;s obstinacy upon Katharine, who he knew was in close and constant
+touch with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> his opponents: and the fear he expressed that the Emperor and
+his friends in England would try to spirit Mary across the sea to
+Flanders, where, indeed, she might have been made a thorn in her father&#8217;s
+side, were perfectly well founded, and these plans were at the time the
+gravest peril that threatened Henry and England.<small><a name="f124.1" id="f124.1" href="#f124">[124]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Cruel, therefore, as his action towards his daughter may seem, it was
+really prompted by pressing considerations of his own safety. Apart from
+this desire to keep Mary away from foreign influence working against him
+through her mother, Henry exhibited frequent signs of tenderness towards
+his elder daughter, much to Anne&#8217;s dismay. In May 1534, for instance, he
+sent her a gentle message to the effect that he hoped she would obey him,
+and that in such case her position would be preserved. But the girl was
+proud and, not unnaturally, resentful, and sent back a haughty answer to
+what she thought was an attempt to entrap her. To her foreign friends she
+said that she believed her father meant to poison her, but that she cared
+little. She was sure of going to heaven, and was only sorry for her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Anne&#8217;s influence over the King was weakening. She saw the
+gathering clouds from all parts of Christendom ready to launch their
+lightning upon her head, and ruin upon England for her sake; and her
+temper, never good, became intolerable. Henry, having had his way, was now
+face to face with the threatening consequences, and could ill brook
+snappish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> petulance from the woman for whom he had brought himself to
+brave the world. As usual with weak men, he pitied himself sincerely, and
+looked around for comfort, finding none from Anne. Francis, eldest son of
+the Church and most Christian King, was far from being the genial ally he
+once had been, now that Henry was excommunicate; the German Protestant
+princes even stood apart and rejected Henry&#8217;s approaches for an alliance
+to the detriment of their own suzerain;<small><a name="f125.1" id="f125.1" href="#f125">[125]</a></small> and, worst of all, the
+English lords of the North, Hussey, Dacre, and the rest of them, were in
+close conspiracy with the imperialists for an armed rising aided from
+abroad; which, if successful, would make short work of Henry and his
+anti-Papal policy.<small><a name="f126.1" id="f126.1" href="#f126">[126]</a></small> In return for all this danger, the King could only
+look at the cross, discontented woman by his side, who apparently was as
+incapable of bearing him a son as Katharine had been. For some months in
+the spring of 1534 Anne had endeavoured to retain her hold upon him by
+saying that she was again with child, and during the royal progress in the
+midland counties in the summer Henry was more attentive than he had been
+to the woman he still hoped might bear him a son, although her shrewish
+temper sorely tried him and all around her. At length, however, the truth
+had to be told, and Henry&#8217;s hopes fled, and his eyes again turned
+elsewhere for solace.</p>
+
+<p>Anne knew that her position was unstable, and her husband&#8217;s open
+flirtation with a lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> of the Court drove her to fury. Presuming upon her
+former influence, she imperiously attempted to have her new rival removed
+from the proximity of the King. Henry flared up at this, and let Anne
+know, as brutally as language could put it, that the days of his
+complaisance with her were over, and that he regretted having done so much
+for her sake. Who the King&#8217;s new lady-love was is not certain. Chapuys
+calls her &#8220;a very beautiful and adroit young lady, for whom his love is
+daily increasing, whilst the credit and insolence of the concubine (<i>i.e.</i>
+Anne) decreases.&#8221; That the new favourite was supported by the aristocratic
+party that opposed Anne and the religious changes is evident from Chapuys&#8217;
+remark that &#8220;there is some good hope that if this love of the King&#8217;s
+continues the affairs of the Queen (Katharine) and the Princess will
+prosper, for the young lady is greatly attached to them.&#8221; Anne and her
+family struggled to keep their footing, but when Henry had once plucked up
+courage to shake off the trammels, he had all a weak man&#8217;s violence and
+obstinacy in following his new course. One of Princess Mary&#8217;s household
+came to tell Chapuys in October that &#8220;the King had turned Lady Rochford
+(Anne&#8217;s sister-in-law) out of the Court because she had conspired with the
+concubine by hook or by crook to get rid of the young lady.&#8221; The rise of
+the new favourite immediately changed the attitude of the courtiers
+towards Mary. &#8220;On Wednesday before leaving the More she (Mary) was visited
+by all the ladies and gentlemen, regardless of the annoyance of Anne. The
+day before yesterday (October 22nd) the Princess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> was at Richmond with the
+brat (<i>garse, i.e.</i> Elizabeth), and the lady (Anne) came to see her
+daughter accompanied by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and others, all
+of whom went and saluted the Princess (Mary) with some of the ladies;
+which was quite a new thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The death of Pope Clement and the advent of Cardinal Farnese as Paul III.,
+known to be not too well affected towards the Emperor, seemed at this time
+to offer a chance of the reconciliation of England with the Papacy: and
+the aristocratic party in Henry&#8217;s counsels hoped, now that the King had
+grown tired of his second wife, that they might influence him by a fresh
+appeal to his sensuality. France also took a hand in the game in its new
+aspect, the aim being to obtain the hand of Mary for the Dauphin, to whom,
+it will be recollected, she had been betrothed as a child, with the
+legitimisation of the Princess and the return of Henry to the fold of the
+Church with a French alliance. This would, of course, have involved the
+repudiation of Anne, with the probable final result of a French domination
+of England after the King&#8217;s death. The Admiral of France, Chabot de Brion,
+came to England late in the autumn to forward some such arrangement as
+that described, and incidentally to keep alive Henry&#8217;s distrust of the
+Emperor, whilst threatening him that the Dauphin would marry a Spanish
+princess if the King of England held aloof. But, though Anne&#8217;s influence
+over her husband was gone, Cromwell, the strong spirit, was still by his
+side; and reconciliation with the Papacy in any form would have meant ruin
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> him and the growing interests that he represented.</p>
+
+<p>Even if Henry had now been inclined to yield to the Papacy, of which there
+is no evidence, Cromwell had gone too far to recede; and when Parliament
+met in November the Act of Supremacy was passed, giving the force of
+statute law to the independence of the Church of England. Chabot de
+Brion&#8217;s mission was therefore doomed to failure from the first, and the
+envoy took no pains to conceal his resentment towards Anne, the origin of
+all the trouble that dislocated the European balance of power. There was
+much hollow feasting and insincere professions of friendship between the
+two kings, but it was clear now to the Frenchmen that, with Anne or
+without her, Henry would bow his neck no more to the Papacy; and it was to
+the Princess Mary that the Catholic elements looked for a future
+restoration of the old state of things. A grand ball was given at Court in
+Chabot&#8217;s honour the day before he left London, and the dignified French
+envoy sat in a seat of state by the side of Anne, looking at the dancing.
+Suddenly, without apparent reason, she burst into a violent fit of
+laughter. The Admiral of France, already in no very amiable mood, frowned
+angrily, and, turning to her, said, &#8220;Are you laughing at me, madam, or
+what?&#8221; After she had laughed to her heart&#8217;s content, she excused herself
+to him by saying that she was laughing because the King had told her that
+he was going to fetch the Admiral&#8217;s secretary to be introduced to her, and
+on the way the King had met a lady who had made him forget everything
+else.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>Though Henry would not submit to the Papacy at the charming of Francis, he
+was loath to forego the French alliance, and proposed a marriage between
+the younger French prince, the Duke of Angoul&ecirc;me, and Elizabeth; and this
+was under discussion during the early months of 1535. But it is clear
+that, although the daughter of the second marriage was to be held
+legitimate, Anne was to gain no accession of strength by the new alliance,
+for the French flouted her almost openly, and Henry was already
+contemplating a divorce from her. We are told by Chapuys that he only
+desisted from the idea when a councillor told him that &#8220;if he separated
+from &#8216;the concubine&#8217; he would have to recognise the validity of his first
+marriage, and, worst of all, submit to the Pope.&#8221;<small><a name="f127.1" id="f127.1" href="#f127">[127]</a></small> Who the councillor
+was that gave this advice is not stated; but we may fairly assume that it
+was Cromwell, who soon found a shorter, and, for him, a safer way of
+ridding his master of a wife who had tired him and could bear him no son.
+A French alliance, with a possible reconciliation with Rome in some form,
+would not have suited Cromwell; for it would have meant a triumph for the
+aristocratic party at Henry&#8217;s Court, and the overthrow of the men who had
+led Henry to defy the Papacy.</p>
+
+<p>If the aristocratic party could influence Henry by means of the nameless
+&#8220;new young lady,&#8221; the Boleyns and reformers could fight with the same
+weapons, and early in February 1535 we find Chapuys writing, &#8220;The young
+lady formerly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> in this King&#8217;s good graces is so no longer, and has been
+succeeded by a cousin-german of the concubine, the daughter of the present
+governess of the Princess.&#8221;<small><a name="f128.1" id="f128.1" href="#f128">[128]</a></small> This new mistress, whilst her little
+reign lasted, worked well for Anne and Cromwell, but in the meantime the
+conspiracy amongst the nobles grew and strengthened. Throughout the upper
+classes in the country a feeling of deep resentment was felt at the
+treatment of Mary, and there was hardly a nobleman, except Anne&#8217;s father
+and brother, who was not pledged to take up arms in her cause and against
+the religious changes.<small><a name="f129.1" id="f129.1" href="#f129">[129]</a></small> Cromwell&#8217;s answer to the disaffection, of
+which he was quite cognisant, was the closer keeping than ever of the
+royal ladies, with threats of their death if they were the cause of a
+revolt, and the stern enforcement of the oath prescribed by the Act of
+Supremacy. The martyrdom of the London Carthusians for refusing to take
+the oath of supremacy, and shortly afterwards the sacrifice of the
+venerable Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More and Katharine&#8217;s priest Abel, and
+the renewed severity towards her favourite confessor, Friar Forest,<small><a name="f130.1" id="f130.1" href="#f130">[130]</a></small>
+soon also to be martyred with atrocious cruelty, shocked and horrified
+England, and aroused the strongest reprobation in France and Rome, as well
+as in the dominions of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> Emperor; destroying for a time all hope of a
+French alliance, and any lingering chance of a reconciliation with Rome
+during Henry&#8217;s life. All Catholic aspirations both at home and abroad
+centred for the next year or so in the Princess Mary, and her father&#8217;s
+friendship was shunned even by Francis, except upon impossible conditions.
+Henry&#8217;s throne, indeed, was tottering. His country was riddled with
+disaffection and dislike of his proceedings. The new Pope had forged the
+final thunderbolt of Rome, enjoining all Christian potentates to execute
+the sentence of the Church, though as yet the fiat was held back at the
+instance of the Emperor. The dread of war and the general unrest arising
+from this state of things had well-nigh destroyed the English oversea
+trade; the harvest was a bad one, and food was dear. Ecclesiastics
+throughout the country were whispering to their flocks curses of Nan
+Bullen, for whose sake the Church of Christ was being split in twain and
+its ministers persecuted.<small><a name="f131.1" id="f131.1" href="#f131">[131]</a></small> Anne, it is true, was now quite a secondary
+personage as a political factor, but upon her unpopular head was heaped
+the blame for everything. The wretched woman, fully conscious that she was
+the general scapegoat, could only pray for a son, whose advent might save
+her at the eleventh hour; for failing him she knew that she was doomed.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile the struggle was breaking Katharine&#8217;s heart. For seven
+years she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> fought as hard against her fate as an outraged woman could.
+She had seen that her rights, her happiness, were only a small stake in
+the great game of European politics. To her it seemed but righteous that
+her nephew the Emperor should, at any cost, rise in indignant wrath and
+avenge the insult put upon his proud line, and upon the Papacy whose
+earthly champion he was, by crushing the forces that had wrought the
+wrong. But Charles was held back by all sorts of considerations arising
+from his political position. Francis was for ever on the look-out for a
+weak spot in the imperial armour; the German Protestant princes, although
+quite out of sympathy with Henry&#8217;s matrimonial vagaries, would look
+askance at a crusade to enforce the Pope&#8217;s executorial decree against
+England, the French and moderate influence in the College of Cardinals was
+strong, and Charles could not afford by too aggressive an action against
+Henry to drive Francis and the cardinals into closer union against
+imperial aims, especially in the Mediterranean and Italy, where, owing to
+the vacancy in the duchy of Milan, they now mainly centred. So Katharine
+clamoured in vain to those whose sacred duty she thought it was to
+vindicate her honour and the faith. Both she, and her daughter at her
+instigation, wrote burning letters to the Pope and the imperial agents,
+urging, beseeching, exhorting the Catholic powers to activity against
+their oppressor. Henry and Cromwell knew all this, and recognising the
+dire danger that sooner or later Katharine&#8217;s prayer to a united
+Christendom might launch upon England an avalanche of ruin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> strove as
+best they might to avert such a catastrophe. Every courier who went to the
+Emperor from England carried alarmist rumours that Katharine and Mary were
+to be put out of the way; and the ladies, in a true spirit of martyrdom,
+awaited without flinching the hour of their sacrifice. Cromwell himself
+darkly hinted that the only way out of the maze of difficulty and peril
+was the death of Katharine; and in this he was apparently right. But at
+this distance of time it seems evident that much of the threatening talk,
+both of the King&#8217;s friends and those of the Catholic Church in England,
+was intended, on the one hand to drive Katharine and her daughter into
+submission, and prevent them from continuing their appeals for foreign
+aid, and on the other to move the Emperor to action against Henry. So, in
+the welter of political interests, Katharine wept and raged fruitlessly.
+The Papal decree directing the execution of the deprivation of Henry,
+though signed by the Pope, was still held back; for Charles could not
+afford to invade England himself, and was determined to give no excuse for
+Francis to do so.</p>
+
+<p>Though there is no known ground for the then prevailing belief that Henry
+was aiding nature in hastening the death of his first wife, the long
+unequal combat against invincible circumstances was doing its work upon a
+constitution never robust; and by the late autumn of 1535 the
+stout-hearted daughter of Isabel the Catholic was known to be sick beyond
+surgery. In December 1535 Chapuys had business with Cromwell, and during
+the course of their conversation the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> latter told him that he had just
+sent a messenger to inform the King of Katharine&#8217;s serious illness. This
+was the first that Chapuys had heard of it, and he at once requested leave
+to go and see her, to which Cromwell replied that he might send a servant
+to inquire as to her condition, but that the King must be consulted before
+he (Chapuys) himself could be allowed to see her. As Chapuys was leaving
+Whitehall a letter was brought to him from Katharine&#8217;s physician, saying
+that the Queen&#8217;s illness was not serious, and would pass off; so that
+unless later unfavourable news was sent Chapuys need not press for leave
+to see her. Two days afterwards a letter reached him from Katharine
+herself, enclosing one to the Emperor. She wrote in the deepest
+depression, praying again, and for the hundredth time, in words that, as
+Chapuys says, &#8220;would move a stone to compassion,&#8221; that prompt action
+should be taken on behalf of herself and her daughter before the
+Parliament could do them to death and consummate the apostasy of England.
+It was her last heart-broken cry for help, and like all those that had
+preceded it during the seven bitter years of Katharine&#8217;s penance, it was
+unheard amidst the din of great national interests that was ringing
+through Europe.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the feast of Christmas 1535, which Henry passed at Eltham,
+that news came to Chapuys from Dr. De la S&aacute; that Katharine had relapsed
+and was in grave peril. The ambassador was to see the King on other
+business in a day or two, in any case, but this news caused him to beg
+Cromwell to obtain for him instant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> leave to go to the Queen. There would
+be no difficulty about it, the secretary replied, but Chapuys must see the
+King first at Greenwich, whither he would go to meet him. The ambassador
+found Henry in the tiltyard all amiability. With a good deal of overdone
+cordiality, the King walked up and down the lists arm in arm with Chapuys,
+the while he reverted to the proposal of a new friendship and alliance
+with the Emperor.<small><a name="f132.1" id="f132.1" href="#f132">[132]</a></small> The French, he said, were up to their old pranks,
+especially since the Duke of Milan had died, but he should at last be
+forced into an intimate alliance with them, unless the Emperor would let
+bygones be bygones, and make friends with him. Chapuys was cool and
+non-committal. He feared, he said, that it was only a device to make the
+French jealous, and after much word-bandying between them, the ambassador
+flatly asked Henry what he wanted the Emperor to do. &#8220;I want him,&#8221; replied
+the King, &#8220;not only to cease to support Madam Katharine and my daughter,
+but also to get the Papal sentence in Madam&#8217;s favour revoked.&#8221; To this
+Chapuys replied that he saw no good reason for doing either, and had no
+authority to discuss the point raised; and, as a parting shot, Henry told
+him that Katharine could not live long, and when she died the Emperor
+would have no need to follow the matter up. When Chapuys had taken his
+leave, the Duke of Suffolk came after him and brought him back to the
+King, who told him that news had just reached him that Katharine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> was
+dying&mdash;Chapuys might go and see her, but he would hardly find her alive;
+her death, moreover, would do away with all cause for dissension between
+the Emperor and himself. A request that the Princess Mary might be allowed
+to see her dying mother was at first met with a flat refusal, and after
+Chapuys&#8217; remonstrance by a temporising evasion which was as bad, so that
+Mary saw her mother no more in life.</p>
+
+<p>Chapuys instantly took horse and sped to London, and then northward to
+Kimbolton, anxious to reach the Queen before she breathed her last, for he
+was told that for days the patient had eaten and drank nothing, and slept
+hardly at all. It took Chapuys two days of hard travel over the miry roads
+before he reached Kimbolton on the morning of the 2nd January 1536.<small><a name="f133.1" id="f133.1" href="#f133">[133]</a></small>
+He found that the Queen&#8217;s dearest friend, Lady Willoughby (Do&ntilde;a Maria de
+Sarmiento), had preceded him by a day and was with her mistress. She had
+prayed in vain for license to come before, and even now Katharine&#8217;s stern
+guardian, Bedingfield, asked in vain to see Lady Willoughby&#8217;s permit,
+which she probably had not got. She had come in great agitation and fear,
+for, according to her own account, she had fallen from her horse, and had
+suffered other adventures on her way, but she braved everything to receive
+the last sigh of the Queen, whose girlhood&#8217;s friend she had been.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>Bedingfield looked askance at the arrival of &#8220;these folks&#8221;; and at
+Chapuys&#8217; first interview with Katharine he, the chamberlain, and Vaughan
+who understood Spanish, were present, and listened to all that was said.
+It was a consolation, said the Queen, that if she could not recover she
+might die in the presence of her nephew&#8217;s ambassador and not unprepared.
+He tried to cheer her with encouraging promises that the King would let
+her be removed to another house, and would accede to other requests made
+in her favour; but Katharine only smiled sadly, and bade him rest after
+his long journey. She saw the ambassador again alone later in the day, and
+spoke at length with him, as she did on each day of the four that he
+stayed, her principal discourse being of the misfortune that had overtaken
+England by reason of the long delay of the Emperor in enforcing justice to
+her.<small><a name="f134.1" id="f134.1" href="#f134">[134]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>After four days&#8217; stay of Chapuys, Katharine seemed better, and the
+apothecary, De la S&aacute;, gave it as his opinion that she was out of immediate
+danger. She even laughed a little at the antics of Chapuys&#8217; fool, who was
+called in to amuse her; and, reassured by the apparent improvement, the
+ambassador started on his leisurely return to London.<small><a name="f135.1" id="f135.1" href="#f135">[135]</a></small> On the second
+day after his departure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> soon after midnight, the Queen asked if it was
+near day, and repeated the question several times at short intervals
+afterwards. When at length the watchers asked her the reason for her
+impatience for the dawn, she replied that it was because she wished to
+hear Mass and receive the Holy Sacrament. The aged Dominican Bishop of
+Llandaff (Jorge de Ateca) volunteered to celebrate at four o&#8217;clock in the
+morning, but Katharine refused, and quoted the Latin authorities to prove
+that it should not be done before dawn. With the first struggling of the
+grey light of morning the offices of the Church for the dying were
+solemnly performed, whilst Katharine prayed fervently for herself, for
+England, and for the man who had so cruelly wronged her. When all was done
+but the administration of extreme unction, she bade her physician write a
+short memorandum of a few gifts she craved for her faithful servants; for
+she knew, and said, that by the law of England a married woman could make
+no valid will. The testament is in the form of a supplication to Henry,
+and is remarkable as the dictation of a woman within a few hours of her
+death. Each of her servants is remembered: a hundred pounds to her
+principal Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> lady, Blanche de Vargas, &#8220;twenty pounds to Mistress
+Darrel for her marriage&#8221;; his wages and forty pounds were to be paid to
+Francisco Felipe, the Groom of the Chambers, twenty pounds to each of the
+three lackeys, including the Burgundian Bastian, and like bequests, one by
+one, to each of the little household. Not even the sum she owed for a gown
+was forgotten. For her daughter she craved her furs and the gold chain and
+cross she had brought from Spain, all that was left of her treasures after
+Anne&#8217;s greed had been satisfied;<small><a name="f136.1" id="f136.1" href="#f136">[136]</a></small> and for the Convent of Observant
+<ins class="correction" title="original: Francisans">Franciscans</ins>, where she begged for sepulture, &#8220;my gowns which he (the King)
+holdeth.&#8221; It is a sad little document, compliance with which was for the
+most part meanly evaded by Henry; even Francisco Felipe &#8220;getting nothing
+and returning poor to his own country.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus, dignified and saintly, at the second hour after midday on the 8th
+January 1536, Katharine of Aragon died unconquered as she had lived; a
+great lady to the last, sacrificed in death, as she had been in life, to
+the opportunism of high politics. &#8220;<i>In manus tuas Domine commendo spiritum
+meum</i>,&#8221; she murmured with her last breath. From man she had received no
+mercy, and she turned to a gentler Judge with confidence and hope. As
+usual in such cases as hers, the people about her whispered of poison; and
+when the body was hastily cered and lapped in lead, &#8220;by the candlemaker of
+the house, a servant and one companion,&#8221; not even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> the Queen&#8217;s physician
+was allowed to be present. But the despised &#8220;candlemaker,&#8221; who really
+seems to have been a skilled embalmer, secretly told the Bishop of
+Llandaff, who waited at the door, that all the body was sound &#8220;except the
+heart, which was black and hideous,&#8221; with a black excrescence &#8220;which clung
+closely to the outside&#8221;; on which report Dr. De la S&aacute; unhesitatingly
+opined that his mistress had died of poison.<small><a name="f137.1" id="f137.1" href="#f137">[137]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The news, the joyous news, sped quickly to Greenwich; and within
+four-and-twenty hours, on Saturday, 9th January, Henry heard with
+exultation that the incubus was raised from his shoulders. &#8220;God be
+praised,&#8221; was his first exclamation, &#8220;we are free from all suspicion of
+war.&#8221; Now, he continued, he would be able to manage the French better.
+They would be obliged to dance to his tune, for fear he should join the
+Emperor, which would be easy now that the cause for disagreement had gone.
+Thus, heartlessly, and haggling meanly over his wife&#8217;s little bequests,
+even that to her daughter, Henry greeted the death of the woman he once
+had seemed to love. He snivelled a little when he read the affecting
+letter to him that she had dictated in her last hour;<small><a name="f138.1" id="f138.1" href="#f138">[138]</a></small><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> but the word
+went forth that on the next day, Sunday, the Court should be at its
+gayest; and Henry and Anne, in gala garb of yellow finery, went to Mass
+with their child in full state to the sound of trumpets. After dinner the
+King could not restrain his joy even within the bounds of decency.
+Entering the hall in which the ladies were dancing, he pirouetted about in
+the exuberance of his heart, and then, calling for his fair little
+daughter Elizabeth, he proudly carried her in his arms from one courtier
+to another to be petted and praised. There was only one drop of gall in
+the cup for the Boleyns, and they made no secret of it, namely, that the
+Princess Mary had not gone to accompany her mother. If Anne had only known
+it, her last chance of keeping at the King&#8217;s side as his wife was the
+survival of Katharine; and lamentation instead of rejoicing should have
+been her greeting of the news of her rival&#8217;s death. Henry, in fact, was
+tired of Anne already, and the cabal of nobles against her and the
+religious system she represented was stronger than ever; but the
+repudiation of his second wife on any excuse during the life of the first
+would have necessitated the return of Katharine as the King&#8217;s lawful
+spouse, with all the consequences that such a change would entail, and
+this Henry&#8217;s pride, as well as his inclinations, would never permit. Now
+that Katharine was dead, Anne was doomed to speedy ruin by one
+instrumentality or another, and before many weeks the cruel truth came
+home to her.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine was buried not in such a convent as she had wished, for Henry
+said there was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> one in England, but in Peterborough Cathedral, within
+fifteen miles of Kimbolton. The honours paid to her corpse were those of a
+Dowager Princess of Wales, but the country folk who bordered the miry
+tracks through which the procession ploughed paid to the dead Katharine in
+her funeral litter the honours they had paid her in her life. Parliament,
+far away in London, might order them to swear allegiance to Nan Bullen as
+Queen, and to her daughter as heiress of England; King Harry on his throne
+might threaten them, as he did, with stake and gibbet if they dared to
+disobey; but, though they bowed the head and mumbled such oaths as were
+dictated to them, Katharine to them had always been Queen Consort of
+England, and Mary her daughter was no bastard, but true Princess of Wales,
+whatever King and Parliament might say.</p>
+
+<p>All people and all interests were, as if instinctively, shrinking away
+from Anne.<small><a name="f139.1" id="f139.1" href="#f139">[139]</a></small> Her uncle Norfolk had quarrelled with her and retired from
+Court; the French were now almost as inimical as the imperialists; and
+even the time-serving courtiers turned from the waning favourite. She was
+no longer young, and her ill temper and many anxieties had marred her good
+looks. Her gaiety and lightness of manner had to a great extent fled; and
+sedate occupations, reading, needlework, charity, and devotion occupied
+most of her time. &#8220;Oh for a son!&#8221; was all the unhappy woman could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> sigh in
+her misery; for that, she knew, was the only thing that could save her,
+now that Katharine was dead and Anne might be repudiated by her husband
+without the need for taking back his first discarded wife.<small><a name="f140.1" id="f140.1" href="#f140">[140]</a></small> Hope
+existed again that the prayed-for son might come into the world, and at
+the first prospect of it Anne made an attempt to utilise the influence it
+gave her by cajoling or crushing Mary into submission to the King&#8217;s will.
+The girl was desolate at her mother&#8217;s death; but she had her mother&#8217;s
+proud spirit, and her answers to Anne&#8217;s approaches were as cold and
+haughty as before. &#8220;The concubine (writes Chapuys, 21st January 1536) has
+thrown out the first bait to the Princess, telling her by her aunt (Lady
+Shelton) that if she will discontinue her obstinacy, and obey her father
+like a good girl, she (Anne) will be the best friend in the world to her,
+and like another mother will try to obtain for her all she wants. If she
+will come to Court she shall be exempt from carrying her (Anne&#8217;s) train
+and shall always walk by her side.&#8221; But obedience meant that Mary should
+recognise Cranmer&#8217;s sentence against her mother, the repudiation of the
+Papal authority and her own illegitimacy, and she refused the olive branch
+held out to her. Then Anne changed her tone, and wrote to her aunt a
+letter to be put into Mary&#8217;s way, threatening the Princess. In her former
+approaches, she said, she had only desired to save Mary out of charity. It
+was no affair of hers: she did not care; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> when she had the son she
+expected the King would show no mercy to his rebellious daughter. But Mary
+remained unmoved. She knew that all Catholic Europe looked upon her now as
+the sole heiress of England, and that the Emperor was busy planning her
+escape, in order that she might, from the safe refuge of his dominions, be
+used as the main instrument for the submission of England to the Papacy
+and the destruction of Henry&#8217;s rule. For things had turned out somewhat
+differently in this respect from what the King had expected. The death of
+Katharine, very far from making the armed intervention of Charles in
+England more improbable, had brought it sensibly nearer, for the great
+war-storm that had long been looming between the French and Spaniards in
+Italy was now about to burst. Francis could no longer afford to alienate
+the Papacy by even pretending to a friendship with the excommunicated
+Henry, whilst England might be paralysed, and all chance of a diversion
+against imperial arms in favour of France averted, by the slight aid and
+subsidy by the Emperor of a Catholic rising in England against Henry and
+Anne.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th January 1536 Anne&#8217;s last hope was crushed. In the fourth month
+of her pregnancy she had a miscarriage, which she attributed passionately
+to her love for the King and her pain at seeing him flirting with another
+woman. Henry showed his rage and disappointment brutally, as was now his
+wont. He had hardly spoken to Anne for weeks before; and when he visited
+her at her bedside he said that it was quite evident that God meant to
+deny him heirs male by her. &#8220;When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> you get up,&#8221; he growled in answer to
+the poor woman&#8217;s complaints, as he left her, &#8220;I will talk to you.&#8221; The
+lady of whom Anne was jealous was probably the same that had attracted the
+King at the ball given to the Admiral of France two months previously, and
+had made him, as Anne hysterically complained, &#8220;forget everything else.&#8221;
+This lady was Mistress Jane Seymour, a daughter of Sir John Seymour of
+Wolf Hall, Wilts. She was at the time just over twenty-five years of age,
+and had been at Court for some time as a maid of honour to Katharine, and
+afterwards to Anne. During the King&#8217;s progress in the autumn of 1535, he
+had visited Wolf Hall, where the daughter of the house had attracted his
+admiring attention, apparently for the first time. Jane is described as
+possessing no great beauty, being somewhat colourless as to complexion;
+but her demeanour was sweet and gracious; and the King&#8217;s admiration for
+her at once marked her out as a fit instrument for the conservative party
+of nobles at Court to use against Anne and the political and religious
+policy which she represented. Apparently Jane had no ability, and none was
+needed in the circumstances. Chapuys, moreover, suggests with unnecessary
+spite that in morals she was no better than she should have been, on the
+unconvincing grounds that &#8220;being an Englishwoman, and having been so long
+at Court, whether she would not hold it a sin to be still a maid.&#8221; Her
+supposed unchastity, indeed, is represented as being an attraction to
+Henry: &#8220;for he may marry her on condition that she is a maid, and when he
+wants a divorce there will be plenty of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> witnesses ready to testify that
+she was not.&#8221; This, however, is mere detraction by a man who firmly
+believed that the cruelly wronged Katharine whose cause he served had just
+been murdered by Henry&#8217;s orders. That Jane had no strength of character is
+plain, and throughout her short reign she was merely an instrument by
+which politicians sought to turn the King&#8217;s passion for her to their own
+ends.</p>
+
+<p>The Seymours were a family of good descent, allied with some of the great
+historic houses, and Jane&#8217;s two brothers, Edward and Thomas, were already
+handsome and notable figures at Henry&#8217;s Court: the elder, Sir Edward
+Seymour, especially, having accompanied the showy visits of the Duke of
+Suffolk, Cardinal Wolsey, and the King himself to France. So far as can be
+ascertained, however, the brothers, prompt as they were to profit by their
+sister&#8217;s elevation, were no parties to the political intrigue of which
+Jane was probably the unconscious tool. She was carefully indoctrinated by
+Anne&#8217;s enemies, especially Sir Nicholas Carew, how she was to behave. She
+must, above all, profess great devotion and friendship to the Princess
+Mary, to assume a mien of rigid virtue and high principles which would be
+likely to pique a sensual man like Henry without gratifying his passion
+except by marriage. Many of the enemies of the French connection, which
+included the great majority of the nation, looked with hope towards the
+King&#8217;s new infatuation as a means of luring back England to the comity of
+Catholic nations and friendship with the Emperor; though there was still a
+section, especially in the north of England,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> which believed that their
+best interests would be served by an open rebellion in the interests of
+Mary, supported from Flanders by her cousin the Emperor. All this was, of
+course, well known to Cromwell. He had been one of the first to counsel
+defiance of the Pope, but throughout he had been anxious to avoid an open
+quarrel with the Emperor, or to pledge England too closely to French
+interests; and now that even the French had turned against Anne, Cromwell
+saw that, unless he himself was to be dragged down when she fell, he must
+put the break hard down upon the religious policy that he had initiated,
+and make common cause with Anne&#8217;s enemies.</p>
+
+<p>In a secret conference that he held with Chapuys at the Austin Friars,
+which in future was to be his own mansion, Cromwell proposed a new
+alliance between England and the Emperor, which would necessarily have to
+be accompanied by some compromise with the Pope and the recognition of
+Mary&#8217;s legitimacy.<small><a name="f141.1" id="f141.1" href="#f141">[141]</a></small> He assured the imperial ambassador that Norfolk,
+Suffolk, and the rest of the nobles formerly attached to France were of
+the same opinion as himself, and tried earnestly to convince his
+interlocutor that he had no sympathy with Anne, whom he was ready to throw
+overboard to save himself. When Charles received this news from his
+ambassador, he took a somewhat tortuous but characteristic course. He was
+willing to a great extent to let bygones be bygones, and to forget the
+sufferings, and perhaps the murder, of his aunt Katharine, if Henry would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+come to terms with the Papacy and legitimise the Princess Mary; but,
+curiously enough, he preferred that Anne should remain at Henry&#8217;s side,
+instead of being repudiated. Her marriage, he reasoned, was obviously
+invalid, and any children she might have by Henry would consequently be
+unable to interfere with Mary&#8217;s rights to the succession: whereas if Henry
+were to divorce Anne and contract a legal marriage, any son born to him
+would disinherit Mary. To this extent was Charles ready to descend if he
+could obtain English help and money in the coming war; and Cromwell, at
+all events, was anxious to go quite as far to meet him. He now showed
+ostentatious respect to the Princess Mary, restoring to her the little
+gold cross that had been her mother&#8217;s, and of which she had been cruelly
+deprived, condemned openly the continued execution of his own policy of
+spoliation of the monasteries, and quarrelled both with Anne and the only
+man now in the same boat with her, Archbishop Cranmer, who trembled in his
+shoes at the ruin he saw impending upon his patroness, ready at any moment
+to turn his coat, but ignorant of how to do it; for Cranmer, however able
+a casuist he might be, possessed little statesmanship and less courage.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Exeter was the go-between who brought the imperial ambassador into
+the conspiracy to oust Anne. The time was seen to be ripening. Henry was
+already talking in secret about &#8220;his having been seduced into the marriage
+with Anne by sorcery, and consequently that he considered it to be null,
+which was clearly seen by God&#8217;s denying a son. He thought he should be
+quite justified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> in taking another wife,&#8221;<small><a name="f142.1" id="f142.1" href="#f142">[142]</a></small> and Jane Seymour&#8217;s company
+seemed daily more necessary to his comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Edward Seymour was made a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber early in
+March; and a fortnight later the Marchioness of Exeter reported to her
+friend Chapuys that the King, who was at Whitehall, had sent a loving
+letter, and a purse of gold, to his new lady-love.<small><a name="f143.1" id="f143.1" href="#f143">[143]</a></small> The latter had
+been carefully schooled as to the wise course to pursue, and played
+prudery to perfection. She kissed the royal letter fervently without
+opening it; and then, throwing herself upon her knees, besought the
+messenger to pray the King in her name to consider that she was a
+gentlewoman of fair and honourable lineage and without reproach. &#8220;She had
+nothing in the world but her honour, which for a thousand deaths she would
+not wound. If the King deigned to make her a present of money she prayed
+that it might be when she made an honourable marriage.&#8221;<small><a name="f144.1" id="f144.1" href="#f144">[144]</a></small> According to
+Lady Exeter&#8217;s report, this answer inflamed even more the King&#8217;s love for
+Jane. &#8220;She had behaved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> herself in the matter very modestly,&#8221; he said;
+&#8220;and in order to let it be seen that his intentions and affection were
+honourable, he intended in future only to speak to her in the presence of
+some of her relatives.&#8221; Cromwell, moreover, was turned out of a convenient
+apartment to which secret access could be obtained from the King&#8217;s
+quarters, in order that Sir Edward Seymour, now Viscount Beauchamp, and
+his wife should be lodged there, and facility thus given for the King&#8217;s
+virtuous billing and cooing with Jane, whilst saving the proprieties.</p>
+
+<p>When it was too late, even Anne attempted to desert her own political
+party and to rally to the side of the Emperor, whether because she
+understood the indulgent way in which the latter now regarded her union
+with Henry, or whether from mere desperation at the ruin impending, it is
+not easy to say. But the conspiracy for her destruction had already gone
+too far when the Emperor&#8217;s diplomatic instructions came to his
+ambassador.<small><a name="f145.1" id="f145.1" href="#f145">[145]</a></small> It was understood now at Court that the King intended
+somehow to get rid of his doubtful wife and marry another woman, and
+Cromwell, with a hypocritical smile behind his hand, whispered to Chapuys
+that though the King might divorce Anne he would live more virtuously in
+future. When the imperial ambassador with his master&#8217;s friendly replies to
+Henry&#8217;s advances saw the King at Greenwich on the 18th April 1536 the
+Court was all smiles for him, and Anne desperately clutched at the chance
+of making friends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> with him. Chapuys was cool, and declined to go and
+salute her, as he was invited to do. He was ready, as he said, to hold a
+candle to the devil, or a hundred of them, if his master&#8217;s interests would
+thereby be served; but he knew that Anne was doomed, and notwithstanding
+his master&#8217;s permission he made no attempt to conciliate her. All the
+courtiers were watching to see how he would treat her on this the first
+occasion that they had met since Katharine&#8217;s death. As Anne passed into
+the chapel to high Mass she looked eagerly around to greet her enemy.
+Where was he? In the chapel, she knew, and to sit close by her side; but
+he was nowhere to be seen. He was, in fact, standing behind the open door
+by which she entered; but, determined not to be balked, she turned
+completely round and made him a profound courtesy, which, as he was bound
+to do, he returned. In Anne&#8217;s rooms afterwards, where the King and the
+other ambassadors dined, Chapuys was not present, much to the
+&#8220;concubine&#8217;s&#8221; chagrin; but the Princess Mary and her friends in the
+conspiracy were suspicious and jealous even of the bow that had been
+exchanged under such adverse circumstances in the chapel. Anne at dinner
+coarsely abused the King of France, and strove her utmost to lead people
+to think that she, too, was hand in glove with the imperialists, as her
+enemies were, whilst Henry was graciousness itself to Chapuys, until he
+came to close quarters and heard that the Emperor was determined to drive
+a hard bargain, and force his English uncle to eat a large piece of humble
+pie before he could be taken to his bosom again. Then Henry hectored<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> and
+vaunted like the bully that he was, and upon Cromwell fell his ill humour,
+for having, as Henry thought, been too pliant with the imperialists; and
+for the next week Cromwell was ill and in disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>Submission to the Pope to the extent that Charles demanded was almost
+impossible now, both in consequence of Henry&#8217;s own vanity, and because the
+vast revenues and estates of the monasteries had in many cases replenished
+the King&#8217;s exchequer, or had endowed his nobles and favourites, Catholics
+though many of them were. A surrender of these estates and revenues would
+have been resisted, even if such had been possible, to the death, by those
+who had profited by the spoliation; and unless the Pope and the Emperor
+were willing to forget much, the hope of reconciling England with the
+Church was an impossible dream.<small><a name="f146.1" id="f146.1" href="#f146">[146]</a></small> The great nobles who had battened
+upon the spoils, especially Norfolk, themselves took fright at the
+Emperor&#8217;s uncompromising demands, and tried to play off France against
+Charles, during Cromwell&#8217;s short disgrace. The Secretary saw that if the
+friends of France once more obtained the control over Henry&#8217;s fickle mind,
+the revolutionary section of the Catholic party in favour of Mary and the
+imperial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> connection would carry all before them, and that in the flood of
+change Cromwell and all his works would certainly be swept away. If Anne
+could be got rid of, and the King married to Mistress Seymour, jointly
+with the adoption of a moderate policy of compromise with Rome and the
+Emperor, all might be well, and Cromwell might retain the helm, but either
+an uncompromising persistence in the open Protestant defiance with
+probably a French alliance against the Emperor, or, on the other hand, an
+armed Catholic revolution in England, subsidised from Flanders, would have
+been inevitable ruin to Cromwell.</p>
+
+<p>Anne, then, must be destroyed at any cost, and the King be won to the side
+of the man who would devise a means of doing it. But how? A repudiation or
+formal divorce on the ground of invalidity would, of course, have been
+easy; but it would have been too scandalous. It would also have convicted
+the King of levity, and above all have bastardised his second daughter,
+leaving him with no child that the law of the realm regarded as
+legitimate. Henry himself, as we have seen, talked about his having been
+drawn into the marriage by sorcery, and ardently desired to get rid of his
+wife. His intercourse with Jane Seymour, who was being cleverly coached by
+Anne&#8217;s enemies and Mary&#8217;s friends, plainly indicated that marriage was
+intended; but it was the intriguing brain of Cromwell that devised the
+only satisfactory way in which the King&#8217;s caprice and his own interests
+could be served in the treatment of Anne. Appearances must, at any cost,
+be saved for Henry. He must not appear to blame, whatever happened.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+Cromwell must be able, for his own safety, to drag down Anne&#8217;s family and
+friends at the same time that she was ruined, and the affair must be so
+managed that some sort of reconciliation could be patched up with the
+Emperor, whilst Norfolk and the French adherents were thrust into the
+background. Cromwell pondered well on the problem as he lay in bed, sick
+with annoyance at Henry&#8217;s rough answer to the Emperor&#8217;s terms, and thus he
+hit upon the scheme that alone would serve the aims he had in view.<small><a name="f147.1" id="f147.1" href="#f147">[147]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The idea gave him health and boldness again, and just as Henry under
+Norfolk&#8217;s influence was smiling upon the French ambassador, Cromwell
+appeared once more before his master after his five days&#8217; absence. What
+passed at their interview can only be guessed by the light of the events
+that followed. It is quite possible that Cromwell did not tell the King of
+his designs against Anne, but only that he had discovered a practice of
+treason against him. But whether the actual words were pronounced or not,
+Henry must have understood, before he signed and gave to Cromwell the
+secret instrument demanded of him, that evil was intended to the woman of
+whom he had grown tired. It was a patent dated the 24th April, appointing
+the Lord Chancellor Audley and a number of nobles, including the Duke of
+Norfolk and Anne&#8217;s father, the Earl of Wiltshire, together with the
+judges, a Commission to inquire into any intended treasonable action, no
+matter by whom committed, and to hold a special Court to try the persons
+accused.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> With this instrument in his pocket, Cromwell held at will the
+lives of those whom he sought to destroy. Anne, as we have seen, had loved
+and courted the admiration of men, even as her daughter Elizabeth
+afterwards did to an extent that bordered upon mania. Her manners were
+free and somewhat hysterical, and her reputation before marriage had been
+more than doubtful, but the stern Act of Succession, which in 1534 made it
+treason to question the legitimacy of Anne&#8217;s daughter, barred all
+accusation against her except in respect to actions after Elizabeth&#8217;s
+birth.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell was well served by spies, even in Anne&#8217;s chamber; for her star
+was visibly paling, and people feared her vengeance little; and not many
+days passed before the Secretary had in his hand testimony enough to
+strike his first blow. It was little enough according to our present
+notions of evidence, and at another time would have passed unnoticed. A
+young fellow of humble origin, named Mark Smeaton, had by Anne&#8217;s influence
+been appointed one of Henry&#8217;s grooms of the chamber in consequence of his
+skill as a lute player. Anne herself, who was a fine musician and
+composer, delighted in listening to Mark&#8217;s performances; and doubtless, as
+was her wont, she challenged his admiration because he was a man. A
+contemporary who repeated the tattle of the Court<small><a name="f148.1" id="f148.1" href="#f148">[148]</a></small> says that she had
+fallen in love with the lute player, and had told him so; and that she had
+aroused the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> jealousy of her rival admirers, Norreys, Brereton, and
+others, by her lavish gifts and open favour to Mark Smeaton. According to
+this story, she endeavoured to appease the former by renewed flirting with
+them, and to silence Mark&#8217;s discontent by large gifts of money. Others of
+her courtiers, especially Sir Thomas Percy, indignant that an upstart like
+Mark should be treated better than themselves, insulted and picked
+quarrels with the musician; and it is evident that Anne, at the very time
+that Cromwell was spreading his nets for her, was hard put to it to keep
+the peace between a number of idle, jealous young men whose admiration she
+had sought for pastime.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th April, Mark Smeaton was standing sulkily in the deep embrasure
+of a window in Anne&#8217;s chamber in the palace of Greenwich. The Queen asked
+him why he was so out of humour. He replied that it was nothing that
+mattered. She evidently knew the real reason for his gloom, for she
+reminded him that he could not expect her to speak to him as if he were a
+nobleman. &#8220;No, no!&#8221; said Mark, &#8220;a look sufficeth for me, and so fare you
+well.&#8221;<small><a name="f149.1" id="f149.1" href="#f149">[149]</a></small> Sir Thomas Percy seems to have heard this little speech, and
+have conveyed it, with many hints of Mark&#8217;s sudden prosperity, to
+Cromwell. &#8220;It is hardly three months since Mark came to Court, and though
+he has only a hundred pounds a year from the King, and has received no
+more than a third, he has just bought three horses that have cost him 500
+ducats, as well as very rich<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> arms and fine liveries for his servants for
+the May-day ridings, such as no gentleman at Court has been able to buy,
+and many are wondering where he gets the money.&#8221;<small><a name="f150.1" id="f150.1" href="#f150">[150]</a></small> Mark Smeaton was a
+safe quarry, for he had no influential friends, and it suited Cromwell&#8217;s
+turn to begin with him to build up his case against Anne.</p>
+
+<p>There was to be a May-day jousting in the tilt-yard at Greenwich, at which
+Anne&#8217;s brother, Lord Rochford, was the challenger, and Sir Henry Norreys
+was the principal defender. Early in the morning of the day, Cromwell, who
+of course took no part in such shows, went to London, and asked Smeaton to
+accompany him and dine,<small><a name="f151.1" id="f151.1" href="#f151">[151]</a></small> returning in the afternoon to Greenwich in
+time for the ridings. Mark accepted the invitation, and was taken
+ostensibly for dinner to a house at Stepney, that probably being a
+convenient half-way place between Greenwich and Westminster by water. No
+sooner had the unsuspecting youth entered the chamber than he saw the trap
+into which he had fallen. Six armed men closed around him, and Cromwell&#8217;s
+face grew grave, as the Secretary warned the terrified lad to confess
+where he obtained so much money. Smeaton prevaricated, and &#8220;then two stout
+young fellows were called, and the Secretary asked for a rope and a
+cudgel. The rope, which was filled with knots, was put around Mark&#8217;s head
+and twisted with the cudgel until Mark cried, &#8216;Sir Secretary, no more! I
+will tell the truth. The Queen gave me the money.&#8217;&#8221;<small><a name="f152.1" id="f152.1" href="#f152">[152]</a></small> Then, bit by bit,
+by threats of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> torture, some sort of confession incriminating Anne was
+wrung out of the poor wretch: though exactly what he confessed is not on
+record. Later, when the affair was made public, the quidnuncs of London
+could tell the most private details of his adultery with the Queen;<small><a name="f153.1" id="f153.1" href="#f153">[153]</a></small>
+for Cromwell took care that such gossip should be well circulated.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever confession was extorted from Smeaton, it implicated not only
+himself but the various gentlemen who shared with him the Queen&#8217;s smiles,
+and was quite sufficient for Cromwell&#8217;s purpose. Hurrying the unfortunate
+musician to the Tower in the strictest secrecy, Cromwell sent his nephew
+Richard post haste to Greenwich with a letter divulging Smeaton&#8217;s story to
+the King. Richard Cromwell arrived at the tiltyard as the tournament was
+in progress, the King and Anne witnessing the bouts from a glazed gallery.
+Several versions of what then happened are given; but the most probable is
+that as soon as Henry had glanced at the contents of the letter and knew
+that Cromwell had succeeded, he abruptly rose and left the sports;
+starting almost immediately afterwards for London without the knowledge of
+Anne. With him went a great favourite of his, Sir Henry Norreys, Keeper of
+the Privy Purse, who was engaged to be married to Madge Shelton, Anne&#8217;s
+cousin, who had at one time been put forward by the Boleyn interest as the
+King&#8217;s mistress. Norreys had, no doubt, flirted platonically with the
+Queen, who had openly bidden for his admiration, but there is not an atom
+of evidence that their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> connection was a guilty one.<small><a name="f154.1" id="f154.1" href="#f154">[154]</a></small> On the way to
+London the King taxed him with undue familiarity with Anne.
+Horror-stricken, Norreys could only protest his innocence, and resist all
+the temptations held out to him to make a clean breast of the Queen&#8217;s
+immorality. One of the party of Anne&#8217;s enemies, Sir William Fitzwilliam,
+was also in attendance on the King; and to him was given the order to
+convey Norreys to the Tower. After the King&#8217;s departure from Greenwich,
+Anne learnt that he had gone without a word of farewell, and that Smeaton
+was absent from the joust, detained in London.</p>
+
+<p>The poor woman&#8217;s heart must have sunk with fear, for the portents of her
+doom were all around her. She could not cry for mercy to the flabby coward
+her husband, who, as usual, slunk from bearing the responsibility of his
+own acts, and ran away from the danger of personal appeal from those whom
+he wronged. Late at night the dread news was whispered to her that Smeaton
+and Norreys were both in the Tower; and early in the morning she herself
+was summoned to appear before a quorum of the Royal Commissioners,
+presided over by her uncle and enemy, the Duke of Norfolk. She was rudely
+told that she was accused of committing adultery with Smeaton and Norreys,
+both of whom had confessed. She cried and protested in vain that it was
+untrue. She was told to hold her peace, and was placed under arrest until
+her barge was ready and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> tide served to bear her up stream to the
+Tower. With her went a large guard of halberdiers and the Duke of Norfolk.
+Thinking that she was being carried to her husband at Westminster, she was
+composed and tranquil on the way; but when she found that the Traitors&#8217;
+Gate of the Tower was her destination, her presence of mind deserted her.
+Sir William Kingston, one of the chief conspirators in Mary&#8217;s favour, and
+governor of the fortress, stood upon the steps under the gloomy archway to
+receive her, and in sign of custody took her by the arm as she ascended.
+&#8220;I was received with greater ceremony the last time I entered here,&#8221; she
+cried indignantly; and as the heavy gates clanged behind her and the
+portcullis dropped, she fell upon her knees and burst into a storm of
+hysterical tears. Kingston and his wife did their best to tranquillise
+her; but her passionate protestations of innocence made no impression upon
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Her brother, Lord Rochford, had, unknown to her, been a few hours before
+lodged in the same fortress on the hideous and utterly unsupported charge
+of incest with his sister; and Cromwell&#8217;s drag-net was cast awide to bring
+in all those whose names were connected, however loosely, with that of the
+Queen by her servants, all of whom were tumbling over each other in their
+haste to denounce their fallen mistress. Sir Thomas Weston and William
+Brereton, with both of whom Anne had been fond of bandying questionable
+compliments, were arrested on the 4th May; and on the 5th Sir Thomas
+Wyatt, the poet, and a great friend of the King, was put under guard on
+similar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> accusations. With regard to Wyatt there seems to have been no
+doubt, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, that some love passages
+had passed between him and Anne before her marriage; and there is
+contemporary assertion to support the belief that their connection had not
+been an innocent one;<small><a name="f155.1" id="f155.1" href="#f155">[155]</a></small> but the case against him was finally dropped
+and he was again taken into Henry&#8217;s favour; a proof that there was no
+evidence of any guilt on his part since Anne was Queen. He is asserted to
+have begged Henry not to contract the marriage, and subsequently to have
+reminded him that he had done so, confessing after her arrest that Anne
+had been his mistress before she married the King.</p>
+
+<p>The wretched woman babbled hysterically without cessation in her chamber
+in the Tower; all her distraught ravings being carefully noted and
+repeated by the ladies, mostly her personal enemies, who watched her night
+and day; artful leading questions being put to her to tempt her to talk
+the more. She was imprudent in her speech at the best of times, but now,
+in a condition of acute hysteria, she served the interests of her enemies
+to the full, dragging into her discourse the names of the gentlemen who
+were accused and repeating their risky conversations with her, which were
+now twisted to their worst meaning.<small><a name="f156.1" id="f156.1" href="#f156">[156]</a></small> At one time she would only desire
+death; then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> she would make merry with a good dinner or supper, chatting
+and jesting, only to break down into hysterical laughter and tears in the
+midst of her merriment. Anon she would affect to believe that her husband
+was but trying her constancy, and pleaded with all her heart to be allowed
+to see him again.<small><a name="f157.1" id="f157.1" href="#f157">[157]</a></small> But he, once having broken the shackles, was gaily
+amusing himself in gallant guise with Mistress Seymour, who was lodged,
+for appearance&#8217; sake, in the house of her mentor, Sir Nicholas Carew, a
+few miles from London, but within easy reach of a horseman. Anne in her
+sober moments must have known that she was doomed. She hoped much from
+Cranmer, almost the only friend of hers not now in prison; but Cranmer,
+however strong in counsel, was a weak reed in combat; and hastened to save
+himself at the cost of the woman upon whose shoulders he had climbed to
+greatness. The day after Anne&#8217;s arrest, Cranmer wrote to the King &#8220;a
+letter of consolation; yet wisely making no apology for her, but
+acknowledging how divers of the lords had told him of certain of her
+faults, which, he said, he was sorry to hear, and concluded desiring that
+the King would continue his love to the gospel, lest it should be thought
+that it was for her sake only that he had favoured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> it.&#8221;<small><a name="f158.1" id="f158.1" href="#f158">[158]</a></small> Before he
+had time to despatch the letter, the timorous archbishop was summoned
+across the river to Westminster to answer certain disquieting questions of
+the Commissioners, who informed him of the evidence against the Queen; and
+in growing alarm for himself and his cause, he hurried back to Lambeth
+without uttering a word in favour of the accused, whose guilt he accepted
+without question.</p>
+
+<p>Thenceforward Anne&#8217;s enemies worked their way unchecked, even her father
+being silenced by fear for himself. For Cromwell&#8217;s safety it was necessary
+that none of the accused should escape who later might do him injury; and
+now that he and his imperialistic policy had been buttressed by the
+&#8220;discovery&#8221; of Anne&#8217;s infidelity, not even the nobles of the French
+faction dared to oppose it by seeming to side with the unhappy woman. The
+Secretary did his work thoroughly. The indictments were laid before the
+grand juries of Middlesex and Kent, as the offences were asserted to have
+been committed over a long period both at Greenwich and Whitehall or
+Hampton Court. To the charges against Anne of adultery with Smeaton, who
+it was asserted had confessed, Norreys, Weston, Brereton, and Lord
+Rochford, was added that of having conspired with them to kill the King.
+There was not an atom of evidence worth the name to support any of the
+charges except the doubtful confession of Smeaton, wrung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> from him by
+torture; and it is certain that at the period in question the death of
+Henry would have been fatal to the interests of Anne. But a State
+prosecution in the then condition of the law almost invariably meant a
+condemnation of the accused; and when Smeaton, Weston, Norreys, and
+Brereton were arraigned in Westminster Hall on the 12th May, their doom
+was practically sealed before the trial. Smeaton simply pleaded guilty of
+adultery only, and prayed for mercy: the rest of the accused strenuously
+denied their guilt on the whole of the charges; but all were condemned to
+the terrible death awarded to traitors, though on what detailed evidence,
+if any, does not now appear.<small><a name="f159.1" id="f159.1" href="#f159">[159]</a></small> Every effort was made to tempt Norreys
+to confess, but he replied that he would rather die a thousand deaths than
+confess a lie, for he verily believed the Queen innocent.<small><a name="f160.1" id="f160.1" href="#f160">[160]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Anne in the Tower continued her strange behaviour, at
+times arrogantly claiming all her royal prerogatives, at times reduced to
+hysterical self-abasement and despair. On the 15th May she and her brother
+were brought to the great hall of the Tower before a large panel of peers
+under the presidency of the Duke of Norfolk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> All that could add ignominy
+to the accused was done. The lieges were crowded into the space behind
+barriers at the end of the hall, the city fathers under the Lord Mayor
+were bidden to attend, and with bated breath the subjects saw the woman
+they had always scorned publicly branded as an incestuous adulteress. The
+charges, as usual at the time, were made in a way and upon grounds that
+now would not be permitted in any court of justice. Scraps of overheard
+conversation with Norreys and others were twisted into sinister
+significance, allegations unsupported, and not included in the indictment,
+were dragged in to prejudice the accused; and loose statements incapable
+of proof or disproof were liberally introduced for the same purpose. The
+charge of incest with Rochford depended entirely upon the assertion that
+he once remained in his sister&#8217;s room a long time; and in his case also
+loose gossip was alleged as a proof of crime: that Anne had said that the
+King was impotent,<small><a name="f161.1" id="f161.1" href="#f161">[161]</a></small> that Rochford had thrown doubts upon the King
+being the father of Anne&#8217;s child, and similar hearsay ribaldry. Both Anne
+and her brother defended themselves, unaided, with ability and dignity.
+They pointed out the absence of evidence against them, and the inherent
+improbability of the charges. But it was of no avail, for her death had
+already been settled between Henry and Cromwell: and the Duke of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> Norfolk,
+with his sinister squint, condemned his niece, Anne Queen of England, to
+be burnt or beheaded at the King&#8217;s pleasure; and Viscount Rochford to a
+similar death. Both denied their guilt after sentence, but acknowledged,
+as was the custom of the time, that they deserved death, this being the
+only way in which mercy might be gained, so far as forfeiture of property
+was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Anne had been cordially hated by the people. Her rise had meant the
+destruction of the ancient religious foundations, the shaking of the
+ecclesiastical bases of English society; but the sense of justice was not
+dead, and the procedure at the trial shocked the public conscience.
+Already men and women murmured that the King&#8217;s goings on with Mistress
+Seymour whilst his wife was under trial for adultery were a scandal, and
+Anne in her death had more friends than in her life. On all sides in
+London now, from the Lord Mayor downwards, it was said that Anne had been
+condemned, not because she was guilty, but because the King was tired of
+her: at all events, wrote Chapuys to Granvelle, there was surely never a
+man who wore the horns so gaily as he.<small><a name="f162.1" id="f162.1" href="#f162">[162]</a></small> On the 17th May the five
+condemned men were led to their death upon Tower Hill, all of them,
+including Smeaton, being beheaded.<small><a name="f163.1" id="f163.1" href="#f163">[163]</a></small> As usual in such cases, they
+acknowledged general guilt, but not one (except perhaps Smeaton) admitted
+the particular crimes for which they died, for their kin might have
+suffered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> in property, if not in person, if the King&#8217;s justice had been
+too strongly impugned.</p>
+
+<p>Anne, in alternate hope and despair, still remained in the Tower, but
+mostly longing for the rapid death she felt in her heart must come. Little
+knew she, however, why her sacrifice was deferred yet from day to day. In
+one of her excited, nervous outbursts she had cried that, no matter what
+they did, no one could prevent her from dying Queen of England. She had
+reckoned without Henry&#8217;s meanness, Cromwell&#8217;s cunning, and Cranmer&#8217;s
+suppleness. Her death warrant had been signed by the King on the 16th May,
+and Cranmer was sent to receive her last confession. The coming of the
+archbishop&mdash;<i>her</i> archbishop, as she called him&mdash;gave her fresh hope. She
+was not to be killed after all, but to be banished, and Cranmer was to
+bring her the good news. Alas! poor soul, she little knew her Cranmer even
+yet. He had been primed by Cromwell for a very different purpose, that of
+worming out of Anne some admission that would give him a pretext for
+pronouncing her marriage with the King invalid from the first. The task
+was a repulsive one for the Primate, whose act alone had made the marriage
+possible; but Cranmer was&mdash;Cranmer. The position was a complicated one.
+Henry, as he invariably did, wished to save his face and seem in the right
+before the world, consequently he could not confess that he had been
+mistaken in the divorce from Katharine, and get rid of Anne&#8217;s marriage in
+that way, nor did he wish to restore Mary to the position of heiress to
+the crown. What he needed Cranmer&#8217;s help for was to render Elizabeth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> also
+illegitimate, but still his daughter, in order that any child he might
+have by Jane Seymour, or failing that, his natural son, the Duke of
+Richmond, might be acknowledged his successor.</p>
+
+<p>At intervals during Anne&#8217;s career her alleged betrothal to the Earl of
+Northumberland before her marriage (see p. 126) had been brought up to her
+detriment; and the poor hare-brained earl had foresworn himself more than
+once on the subject. He was dying now, but he was again pressed to say
+that a regular betrothal had taken place with Anne. But he was past
+earthly fear, and finally asserted that no contract had been made. Foiled
+in this attempt, Henry&mdash;or rather Cromwell&mdash;sent Cranmer to the Tower on
+the 16th May on his shameful errand: to lure the poor woman by hopes of
+pardon to confess the existence of an impediment to her marriage with the
+King. What the impediment was was never made public, but Anne&#8217;s latest
+biographer, Mr. Friedmann, adduces excellent reasons for arriving at the
+conclusions that I have drawn, namely, that Mary Boleyn having been
+Henry&#8217;s mistress, he and Anne were within the prohibited degrees of
+affinity for husband and wife; the fact that no marriage had taken place
+between Henry and Mary Boleyn being regarded as canonically
+immaterial.<small><a name="f164.1" id="f164.1" href="#f164">[164]</a></small> In any case, the admission of a known impediment having
+been made by Anne, no time was lost. The next day, the 17th May, Cranmer
+sat, with Cromwell and other members<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> of the Council, in his Primate&#8217;s
+court at Lambeth to condemn the marriage that he himself had made. Anne
+was formally represented, but nothing was said on her behalf; and sentence
+was hurriedly pronounced that the King&#8217;s marriage with Anne Boleyn had
+never been a marriage at all. At the same time order was sent to Sir
+William Kingston that the &#8220;concubine&#8221; was to suffer the last penalty on
+the following morning. When the sleepless night for Anne had passed,
+mostly in prayer, she took the sacrament with the utmost devotion, and in
+that most solemn moment swore before the Host, on her hopes of eternal
+life, that she had never misused her body to the King&#8217;s dishonour.<small><a name="f165.1" id="f165.1" href="#f165">[165]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile her execution had been deferred until the next day, and
+Anne again lost her nerve. It was cruel, she said, to keep her so long in
+suspense: pray, she petitioned, put her out of her misery now that she was
+prepared. The operation would not be painful, Kingston assured her. &#8220;My
+neck is small enough,&#8221; she said, spanning it with her fingers, and again
+burst into hysterics. Soon she became calm once more; and thenceforward
+only yearned for despatch. &#8220;No one ever had a better will for death than
+she,&#8221; wrote Chapuys to his master: and Kingston, hardened as he was to the
+sight of the condemned in their last hours, expressed surprise to Cromwell
+that instead of sorrow &#8220;this lady has much joy and pleasure in death.&#8221;
+Remorse for her ungenerous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> treatment of the Princess Mary principally
+troubled her. She herself, she said, was not going to execution by the
+divine judgment for what she had been accused of, but for having planned
+the death of the Princess. And so, in alternate prayer and light chatter,
+passed Anne&#8217;s last night on earth, and at nine o&#8217;clock on the spring
+morning of the 19th May she was led forth to the courtyard within the
+Tower, where a group of gentlemen, including Cromwell and the Dukes of
+Richmond and Suffolk, stood on or close to a low scaffold or staging
+reached by four steps from the ground. Anne was dressed in grey damask
+trimmed with fur, over a crimson petticoat, and cut low at the neck, so as
+to offer no impediment to the executioner&#8217;s steel; and for the same reason
+the brown hair was dressed high in a net under the pearl-bordered coif.
+Kept back by guards to some little distance from the platform stood a
+large crowd of spectators, who had flocked in at the heels of the Lord
+Mayor and Sheriffs; though foreigners had been rigidly excluded.<small><a name="f166.1" id="f166.1" href="#f166">[166]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>When Anne had ascended the steps she received permission to say a few
+words; and followed the tradition of not complaining against the King&#8217;s
+justice which had condemned her. She had not come thither to preach, she
+said, but to die, though she was not guilty of the particular crimes for
+which she had been condemned. When, however, she began to speak of Jane
+Seymour being the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> cause of her fall, those on the scaffold stopped her,
+and she said no more. A headsman of St. Omer had been brought over from
+Calais, in order that the broadsword instead of the axe might be used; and
+this man, who was undistinguishable by his garb from the other bystanders,
+now came forward, and, kneeling, asked the doomed woman&#8217;s pardon, which
+granted, Anne herself knelt in a distraught way, as if to pray, but really
+gazed around her in mute appeal from one pitiless face to another. The
+headsman, taking compassion upon her, assured her that he would not strike
+until she gave the signal. &#8220;You will have to take this coif off,&#8221; said the
+poor woman, and one of the ladies who attended her did so, and partially
+bound her eyes with a handkerchief; but Anne still imagined that her
+headdress was in the way, and kept her hand upon her hair, straining her
+eyes and ears towards the steps where from the headsman&#8217;s words she
+expected the sword to be handed to him. Whilst she was thus kneeling erect
+in suspense, the sword which was hidden in the straw behind her was deftly
+seized by the French executioner, who, swinging the heavy blade around, in
+an instant cut through the erect, slender neck; and the head of Anne
+Boleyn jerked from the shoulders and rolled upon the cloth that covered
+the platform.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine in her neglected tomb at Peterborough was avenged, but the
+fissure that had been opened up between England and the Papacy for the
+sake of this woman had widened now past bridging. Politicians might, and
+did, make up their differences now that the &#8220;concubine&#8221; was dead, and form
+alliances regardless of religious affinities;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> but submission to the
+Papacy in future might mean that the most powerful people in England would
+be deprived of the fat spoils of the Church with which Cromwell had bought
+them, and that the vainest king on earth must humbly confess himself in
+the wrong. Anne herself was a mere straw upon a whirlpool, though her
+abilities, as Cromwell confessed, were not to be despised. She did not
+plan or make the Reformation, though she was forced by her circumstances
+to patronise it. The real author of the great schism of England was not
+Anne or Cranmer, but Luther&#8217;s enemy, Charles V., the champion of
+Catholicism. But for the pressure he put upon the Pope to refuse Henry&#8217;s
+divorce, in order to prevent a coalition of England and France, Cranmer&#8217;s
+defiance of the Papacy would not have been needed, and Henry might have
+come back to Rome again easily. But with Cranmer to provide him with
+plausible pretexts for the repeated indulgence of his self-will, and
+Cromwell to feed his pride and cupidity by the plunder of the Church,
+Henry had already been drawn too far to go back. Greed and vanity of the
+ruling powers thus conspired to make permanent in England the influence of
+evanescent Anne Boleyn.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i288.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i289.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>JANE SEYMOUR</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a painting by</i> <span class="smcap">Holbein</span> <i>in the Imperial Collection at Vienna</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<h3>1536-1540</h3>
+<h3>PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT&mdash;JANE SEYMOUR AND ANNE OF CLEVES</h3>
+
+<p>From the moment that Henry abruptly left the lists at May-day on the
+receipt of Cromwell&#8217;s letter detailing the admissions of Smeaton, he saw
+Anne no more. No pang of remorse, no wave of compassion passed over him.
+He easily believed what he wished to believe, and Anne was left to the
+tender mercies of Cromwell, to be done to death. Again Henry was a prey to
+profound self-pity for ever having fallen under the enchantment of such a
+wicked woman. He, of course, was not to blame for anything. He never was.
+He was always the clement, just man whose unsuspecting goodness of heart
+had been abused by others, and who tried to find distraction and to forget
+the evil done him. On the very night of the day that Anne was arrested the
+Duke of Richmond, Henry&#8217;s son, now a grown youth, went, as was his custom,
+into his father&#8217;s room at Whitehall to bid him good night and ask his
+blessing. The King, we are told,<small><a name="f167.1" id="f167.1" href="#f167">[167]</a></small> fell a-weeping as he blessed his
+son, &#8220;saying that he and his sister (Mary) might well be grateful to God
+for saving them from the hands of that accursed and venomous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> harlot who
+had intended to poison them.&#8221; That Anne may have planned the assassination
+of Mary is quite probable, even if she had no hand in the shortening of
+Katharine&#8217;s days, and this may have been the real hidden pretext of her
+death acting upon Henry&#8217;s fears for himself.<small><a name="f168.1" id="f168.1" href="#f168">[168]</a></small> But if such were the
+case, Henry, at least, was deserving of no pity, for when it was only
+Katharine&#8217;s life that was in danger he was, as we have seen, brutally
+callous, and only awoke to the enormity of the &#8220;venomous harlot&#8221; when
+Cromwell made him believe that his own safety was jeopardised. Then no
+fate was too cruel for the woman he once had loved.</p>
+
+<p>On the day preceding Anne&#8217;s trial, Jane Seymour was brought from Sir
+Nicholas Carew&#8217;s house to another residence on the river bank, only a mile
+from Whitehall Stairs, to be ready for her intended elevation as soon as
+the Queen was disposed of. Here Jane was served for the few days she
+stayed &#8220;very splendidly by the cooks and certain officers of the King, and
+very richly adorned.&#8221;<small><a name="f169.1" id="f169.1" href="#f169">[169]</a></small> So certain was Henry that nothing would now
+stand in the way of his new marriage that Jane was informed beforehand
+that on the 15th, by three in the afternoon, she would hear of her
+predecessor&#8217;s condemnation; and Anne&#8217;s cousin and enemy, Sir Francis
+Brian, eagerly brought the news to the expectant lady at the hour
+anticipated. The next day, when the sword of the French headsman had made
+Henry indeed a widower, the King only awaited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> receipt of the intelligence
+to enter his barge and seek the consolation of Jane Seymour. At six
+o&#8217;clock in the morning of the 20th May, when the headless body of Anne,
+barely cold, still awaited sepulture huddled in an old arrow-box in the
+Church of St. Peter within the Tower, Jane was secretly carried by water
+from her residence to Hampton Court; and before nine o&#8217;clock she had been
+privately married to the King,<small><a name="f170.1" id="f170.1" href="#f170">[170]</a></small> by virtue of a dispensation issued the
+day previously by the accommodating Cranmer.<small><a name="f171.1" id="f171.1" href="#f171">[171]</a></small> It would seem probable
+that the day after the private espousals Jane travelled to her home in
+Wiltshire, where she stayed for several days whilst preparations were
+being made in the King&#8217;s abodes for her reception as Queen: for all the
+A&#8217;s had to be changed to J&#8217;s in the royal ciphers, and traces of Anne&#8217;s
+former presence abolished wherever possible. Whether Henry accompanied his
+new wife to Wiltshire on this occasion is not quite certain, though from
+Sir John Russell&#8217;s account it is probable that he did. In any case the
+King and his new wife visited Mercer&#8217;s Hall, in Cheapside, on the 29th
+May, St.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Peter&#8217;s Eve, to witness from the windows the civic ceremony of
+the annual setting of the watch; and on the following day, 30th May, the
+pair were formally married in the Queen&#8217;s closet at Whitehall.</p>
+
+<p>The people at large looked somewhat askance at this furious haste to marry
+the new wife before the shed blood of the previous one was dry;<small><a name="f172.1" id="f172.1" href="#f172">[172]</a></small> but
+the Court, and those who still recollected the wronged Princess Mary and
+her dead mother, were enthusiastic in their welcome to Jane.<small><a name="f173.1" id="f173.1" href="#f173">[173]</a></small> The
+Emperor&#8217;s friends, too, were in joyous mood; and Princess Mary at Hunsdon
+was full of hope, and eager to be allowed to greet her father and his wife
+now that &#8220;that woman&#8221; was dead. Chapuys, we may be sure, did not stand
+behind the door now when he went to Court. On the contrary, when he first
+visited Whitehall a few days after the wedding, Henry led him by the hand
+to Jane&#8217;s apartments, and allowed the diplomatist to kiss the
+Queen&mdash;&#8220;congratulating her upon her marriage and wishing her prosperity. I
+told her that, although the device of the lady who had preceded her on the
+throne was &#8216;The happiest of women,&#8217; I had no doubt that she herself would
+realise that motto. I was sure that the Emperor would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> equally rejoiced
+as the King himself had been at meeting such a virtuous and amiable Queen,
+the more so that her brother (<i>i.e.</i> Sir E. Seymour, afterwards the Duke
+of Somerset) had been in the Emperor&#8217;s service. I added that it was almost
+impossible to believe the joy and pleasure which Englishmen generally had
+felt at the marriage; especially as it was said that she was continually
+trying to persuade the King to restore the Princess to his favour, as
+formerly.&#8221; Most of Chapuys&#8217; courtly talk with Jane, indeed, was directed
+to this point of the restoration of Mary; but the new Queen, though
+inexperienced, had been well coached, and did not unduly commit herself;
+only promising to favour the Princess, and to endeavour to deserve the
+title that Chapuys had given her of &#8220;peacemaker.&#8221; Henry strolled up to the
+pair at this point, and excused his new wife for any want of expertness:
+&#8220;as I was the first ambassador she had received, and she was not used yet
+to such receptions. He (Henry) felt sure, however, that she would do her
+utmost to obtain the title of &#8216;peacemaker,&#8217; with which I (Chapuys) had
+greeted her, as, besides being naturally of a kind and amiable disposition
+and much inclined to peace, she would strive to prevent his (Henry&#8217;s)
+taking part in a foreign war, if only out of the fear of being separated
+from him.&#8221;<small><a name="f174.1" id="f174.1" href="#f174">[174]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>But all these fine hopes were rapidly banished. Jane never possessed or
+attempted to exercise any political influence on her husband. She smiled
+sweetly and in a non-committal way upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> Princess Mary, and upon the
+imperialist and moderate Catholic party that had hoped to make the new
+Queen their instrument; but Cromwell&#8217;s was still the strong mind that
+swayed the King. He had obtained renewed control over his master by
+ridding him of Anne; and had, at all events, prevented England from being
+drawn into a coalition with France against the Emperor; but he had no
+intention, even if it had been possible, of going to the other extreme and
+binding his country to go to war against France to please the Emperor.
+Henry&#8217;s self-will and vanity, as well as his greed, also stood in the way
+of a complete submission to the Papacy, and those who had brought Jane
+Seymour in, hoping that her advent would mean a return to the same
+position as that previous to Anne&#8217;s rise, now found that they had been
+over sanguine. Charles and Francis were left to fight out their great duel
+alone in Italy and Provence, to the general discomfiture of the imperial
+cause; and, instead of hastening to humble himself at the feet of Paul
+III., as the pontiff had fondly expected, Henry summoned Parliament, and
+gave stronger statutory sanction than ever to his ecclesiastical
+independence of Rome.<small><a name="f175.1" id="f175.1" href="#f175">[175]</a></small> Anne&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> condemnation and Elizabeth&#8217;s bastardy
+were obediently confirmed by the Legislature, and the entire freedom of
+the English Church from Rome reasserted.</p>
+
+<p>But the question of the succession was that which aroused the strongest
+feeling, and its settlement the keenest disappointment. Now that Anne&#8217;s
+offspring was disinherited, Princess Mary and her friends naturally
+expected that she, with the help of the new Queen, would once more enter
+into the enjoyment of her birthright. Eagerly Mary wrote to Cromwell
+bespeaking his aid, which she had been led to expect that he would give;
+and by his intercession she was allowed to send her humble petition to her
+father, praying for leave to see him. Her letters are all couched in terms
+of cringing humility, praying forgiveness for past offences, and promising
+to be a truly dutiful daughter in future. But this did not satisfy Henry.
+Cromwell, desirous, in pursuance of his policy of keeping friendly with
+the Emperor without going to war with France, or kneeling to Rome, hoped
+to bring about peace between Mary and her father. But the strongest
+passions of Henry&#8217;s nature were now at stake, and he would only accept his
+daughter&#8217;s submission on terms that made her a self-confessed bastard, and
+against this the girl, as obstinate as her father and as righteously proud
+as her mother, still rebelled. Henry&#8217;s son, the Duke of Richmond, was now
+a straight stripling of eighteen, already married to Norfolk&#8217;s daughter,
+and, failing issue by Jane, here was an heir to the Crown that might carry
+the Tudor line onward in the male blood, if Parliament<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> could be chicaned
+or threatened into acknowledging him. So Mary was plied with letters from
+Cromwell, each more pressing and cruel than the previous one, driving the
+girl to distraction by the King&#8217;s insistence upon his terms.<small><a name="f176.1" id="f176.1" href="#f176">[176]</a></small> Threats,
+cajolery, and artful casuistry were all tried. Again Mary turned to her
+foreign advisers and the King&#8217;s rebellious subjects for support, and again
+her father&#8217;s heart hardened when he knew it. Norfolk, who with others was
+sent to persuade her, was so incensed with her firmness that he said if
+she had been his daughter he would have knocked her head against the wall
+until it was as soft as a codlin. But Norfolk&#8217;s daughter was the Duchess
+of Richmond, and might be Queen Consort after Henry&#8217;s death if Mary were
+disinherited, so that there was some excuse for his violence. Those who
+were in favour of Mary were dismissed from the Council&mdash;even Cromwell was
+in fear&mdash;and Jane Seymour was rudely snubbed by the King for daring to
+intercede for the Princess. At length, with death threatening her, Mary
+could stand out no longer. Without even reading it, she signed with a
+mental reservation, and confident of obtaining the Papal absolution for
+which she secretly asked, the shameful declaration forced upon her,
+repudiating the Papal authority, and specifically acknowledging herself a
+bastard.</p>
+
+<p>Then Henry was all amiability with his wronged daughter. He and Jane went
+to visit her at Richmond, whither she had been brought, giving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> her
+handsome presents of money and jewels; liberty was given to her to come to
+Court, and stately service surrounded her. But it was all embittered by
+the knowledge that Parliament had been induced to acknowledge that all the
+King&#8217;s children were illegitimate, and to grant to Henry himself the right
+of appointing his own successor by letters patent or by will. Alas! the
+youth in whose immediate interest the injustice was done was fast sinking
+to his grave; and on the 22nd July 1536 the Duke of Richmond breathed his
+last, to Henry&#8217;s bitter grief, Mary&#8217;s prospects again became brighter, and
+all those who resented the religious policy and Henry&#8217;s recalcitrancy now
+looked to the girl as their only hope of a return to the old order of
+things. Chapuys, too, was ceaseless in his intrigues to bring England once
+more into a condition of obedience to the Pope, that should make her a fit
+instrument for the imperial policy, and soon the disappointment that
+followed on the elevation of Jane Seymour found vent in the outbreak of
+rebellion in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.</p>
+
+<p>The priests and the great mass of the people had bent the neck patiently
+to the King&#8217;s violent innovations in the observances that they had been
+taught to hold sacred. They had seen the religious houses, to which they
+looked for help and succour in distress, destroyed and alienated. The
+abuses of the clergy had doubtless been great, and the first measures
+against them had been welcomed; but the complete confiscation of vast
+properties, in the main administered for the benefit of the lowly, the
+continued enclosure of common lands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> by the gentry newly enriched by
+ecclesiastical plunder, and the rankling sense of the scandalous injustice
+that had been suffered by Katharine and Mary, for the sake, as the people
+said, of the King&#8217;s lustful caprice, at last provided the extreme militant
+Catholic party with the impetus needed for revolt against the Crown.
+Imperious Henry was beside himself with rage; and for a time it looked as
+if he and his system might be swept away in favour of his daughter, or one
+of the Poles, who were being put forward by the Pope. The Bull of
+excommunication against Henry and England, so long held back, was now
+launched, making rebellion righteous; and the imperial interest in
+England, which was still strong, did its best to aid the rising of Henry&#8217;s
+lieges against him. But the rebels were weakly led: the greater nobles had
+for the most part been bought by grants of ecclesiastical lands; and
+Norfolk, for all his moral baseness, was an experienced and able soldier.
+So the Pilgrimage of Grace, threatening as it looked for a time, flickered
+out; and the yoke was riveted tighter than ever upon the neck of rural
+England. To the party that had hoped to make use of her, Jane Seymour was
+thus, to some extent, a disappointment;<small><a name="f177.1" id="f177.1" href="#f177">[177]</a></small> but her placid
+submissiveness, which made her a bad political instrument, exactly suited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+a husband so imperious as Henry; and from a domestic point of view the
+union was successful. During the summer Jane shared in her husband&#8217;s
+progresses and recreations, but as the months rolled on and no hope came
+of offspring, ominous rumours ran that Jane&#8217;s coronation would be deferred
+until it was proved that she might bear children to the King; and some
+said that if she proved barren a pretext would be found for displacing her
+in favour of another. Indeed, only a few days after the public marriage,
+Henry noticed two very beautiful girls at Court, and showed his annoyance
+that he had not seen them before taking Jane.</p>
+
+<p>After six months of marriage without sign of issue, Henry began to take
+fright. The Duke of Richmond was dead, and both the King&#8217;s daughters were
+acknowledged by the law of England to be illegitimate. He was already
+forty-six years of age, and had lately grown very obese; and his death
+without further issue or a resettlement of the succession would inevitably
+lead to a dynastic dispute, with the probable result of the return of the
+House of York to the throne in the person of one of the Poles under the
+&aelig;gis of Rome. Whenever possible, Jane had said a good word for the
+Princess Mary, and Henry began to listen more kindly than before to his
+wife&#8217;s well-meant attempts to soften him in favour of his daughter. The
+Catholic party was all alert with new hopes that the King, convinced that
+he could father no more sons, would cause his elder daughter to be
+acknowledged his heir;<small><a name="f178.1" id="f178.1" href="#f178">[178]</a></small> but the reformers, who had grown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> up
+numerously, especially in and about London, during Henry&#8217;s defiance of
+Rome, looked askance at a policy which in time they feared might bring
+back the old order of things. The mainstay of this party at Court, apart
+from the professed Lutherans and the new bishops, were those who, having
+received grants of ecclesiastical property, despaired of any return to the
+Roman communion and the imperial alliance without the restoration of the
+Church property. Amongst these courtiers was Jane&#8217;s brother, Edward
+Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, who had received large grants of
+ecclesiastical lands at intervals since 1528. He was a personal friend of
+the King, and had taken no active part in the intrigue that accompanied
+his sister&#8217;s elevation, though after the marriage he naturally rose higher
+than before in the favour of the King. He was a clever and superficially
+brilliant, but ostentatious and greedy man, of no great strength of
+purpose, whose new relationship to the King marked him out as a dominating
+influence in the future. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, upon whom Henry
+had depended as generals, were now very old and ailing, and there was no
+other peer but Cromwell of any ability in the Councils.</p>
+
+<p>Even thus early it was clear that Seymour&#8217;s weight would, notwithstanding
+the circumstances of his sister&#8217;s rise, be thrown on to the anti-Papal
+side when the crucial struggle came. He was, moreover, a new man; and as
+such not welcomed by the older nobility, who, though desirous of retaining
+their Church plunder, were yet bound by their traditions against
+bureaucrats such as Cromwell, and the policy of defiance of the Papacy
+that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> he and his like had suggested and carried out. Cromwell&#8217;s own
+position at this time (1536-37) was a paradoxical one. It was he who had
+led Henry on, step by step, to entire schism and the plunder of the
+Church; it was he who not only had shown how to get rid of Katharine, but
+how to destroy her successor; and it was he whom the Catholic party hated
+with a whole-hearted detestation, for the King&#8217;s acts as well as his own.
+On the other hand, he was hardly less distrusted by the reforming party;
+for his efforts were known to be directed to a reconciliation with the
+Emperor, which could only be effected conjointly with some sort of
+arrangement with the Papacy. His efforts to please the imperialists by
+siding with the Princess Mary during her dispute with her father led him
+to the very verge of destruction. Whilst the young Princess was being
+badgered into making her shameful and insincere renunciation of her faith
+and birthright, Cromwell, the very man who was the instrument for
+extorting her submission, sat, as he says, for a week in the Council
+considering himself &#8220;a dead man,&#8221; because the King believed that he was
+encouraging Mary to resist. Cromwell, therefore, like most men who
+endeavour to hold a middle course, was distrusted and hated by every one;
+and it must have been obvious to him that if he could ensure the adhesion
+of the rising Seymour interest his chance of weathering the storm would be
+infinitely improved. His son had recently married Jane Seymour&#8217;s sister,
+and this brought him into close relationship with the family, and, as will
+be seen, led in the next year to a compact political union between the
+Seymour brothers, Cromwell, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> the reforming party, as against the
+nobles and traditional conservatives.</p>
+
+<p>For the time, however, Cromwell held on his way, endeavouring to keep in
+with the imperialists and Mary; and it was doubtless to his prompting that
+Jane used her influence, when at its highest point, to reconcile the
+Princess personally to her father. To the great joy of the King, in March
+1537, Jane was declared to be with child. The Emperor had already opened a
+negotiation for the marriage of Mary with his brother-in-law, the Infante
+Luiz of Portugal, and Henry was playing a waiting game till he saw if Jane
+would bear him a child. If so, Mary might go; although he still refused to
+legitimise her; but if no more issue was to be born to him, he could
+hardly allow his elder daughter to leave England and fall into the hands
+of the Emperor. Charles, on the other hand, was extremely anxious to
+obtain possession of so valuable a pledge for the future as Mary; and was
+willing to go to almost any lengths to get her, either by fair means or
+foul, fearing, as he did, that the girl might be married discreditably in
+England&mdash;he thought even to Cromwell himself&mdash;in order to destroy her
+international value to Henry&#8217;s rivals.</p>
+
+<p>As soon, however, as Jane&#8217;s pregnancy was announced Mary&#8217;s position
+changed. If a child was born in wedlock to the King, especially if it were
+a son, there would be no need to degrade Mary by joining her to a lowly
+husband; she might, on the contrary, become a good international marriage
+asset in the hands of her father, who might bargain with Charles or
+Francis for her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> The fresh move of Jane Seymour, therefore, in her
+favour, in the spring of 1537, when the Queen&#8217;s pregnancy had given her
+greater power over her husband, was probably welcome both to the King and
+Cromwell, as enhancing Mary&#8217;s importance at a time when she might be used
+as an international political pawn without danger. Jane was sad one day in
+the early period of her pregnancy. &#8220;Why, darling,&#8221; said the King, &#8220;how
+happeneth it you are not merrier?&#8221;<small><a name="f179.1" id="f179.1" href="#f179">[179]</a></small> &#8220;It hath pleased your Grace,&#8221;
+replied the Queen, &#8220;to make me your wife, and there are none but my
+inferiors with whom to make merry, withal, your Grace excepted; unless it
+would please you that we might enjoy the company of the Lady Mary at
+Court. I could be merry with her.&#8221; &#8220;We will have her here, darling, if
+that will make thee merry,&#8221; said the King. And before many days had gone,
+Mary, with a full train of ladies, was brought from Hunsdon, magnificently
+dressed, to Whitehall, where, in the great presence chamber, Henry and his
+wife stood before the fire. The poor girl was almost overcome at the
+tenderness of her reception, and fell upon her knees before her father and
+his wife. Henry, as usual anxious to throw upon others the responsibility
+of his ill-treatment of his daughter, turned to his Councillors, who stood
+around, and said, &#8220;Some of you were desirous that I should put this jewel
+to death.&#8221; &#8220;That were a pity,&#8221; quoth the Queen, &#8220;to have lost your
+chiefest jewel of England.&#8221;<small><a name="f180.1" id="f180.1" href="#f180">[180]</a></small> The hint was too much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> for Mary, who
+changed colour and fell into a swoon, greatly to her father&#8217;s concern.</p>
+
+<p>At length the day long yearned and prayed for by Henry came. Jane had for
+some months lived in the strictest quietude, and prayers and masses for
+her safe delivery were offered in the churches for weeks before. In
+September she had travelled slowly to Hampton Court, and on the 12th
+October 1537 a healthy son was born to her and Henry. The joy of the King
+was great beyond words. The gross sensualist, old beyond his years, had in
+vain hoped through all his sturdy youth for a boy, who, beyond reproach,
+might bear his regal name. He had flouted Christendom and defied the
+greatest powers on earth in order to marry a woman who might bear him a
+man child. When she failed to do so, he had coldly stood aside whilst his
+instruments defamed her and did her to death; and now, at last, in his
+declining years, his prayer was answered, and the House of Tudor was
+secure upon the future throne of England. Bonfires blazed and joy bells
+rang throughout the land; feasts of unexampled bounteousness coarsely
+brought home to the lieges the blessing that had come to save the country
+from the calamity of a disputed succession. The Seymour brothers at once
+became, next the King and his son, the most important personages in
+England, the elder, Edward, being created Earl of Hertford, and both
+receiving great additional grants of monastic lands. In the general
+jubilation at the birth, the interests of the mother were forgotten. No
+attempt appears to have been made to save her from the excitement that
+surrounded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> her; and on the very day of her delivery she signed an
+official letter &#8220;Jane the Quene&#8221; to Cromwell, directing him to communicate
+to the Privy Council the joyful news.</p>
+
+<p>The most sumptuous royal christening ever seen was in bustling preparation
+in and about her sick-chamber; and that no circumstance of state should be
+lacking, the mother herself, only four days after the birth, was forced to
+take part in the exhausting ceremony. In the chapel at Hampton Court,
+newly decorated like the splendid banqueting-hall adjoining, where the
+initials of Jane carved in stone with those of the King, and her arms and
+device on glowing glass and gilded scutcheon still perpetuate her fleeting
+presence, the christening ceremony was held by torchlight late in the
+chill autumn evening. Through the long draughty corridors, preceded by
+braying trumpets and followed by rustling crowds of elated courtiers, the
+sick woman was carried on her stately pallet covered with heavy robes of
+crimson velvet and ermine. Under a golden canopy, supported by the four
+greatest nobles in the land, next to Norfolk, who was one of the
+godfathers, the Marchioness of Exeter bore the infant in her arms to the
+scene of the ceremony; and the Princess Mary, fiercely avid of love as she
+ever was, held the prince at the font. Suffolk, Arundel, and doomed
+Exeter, with a host of other magnates, stood around; whilst one towering
+handsome figure, with a long brown beard, carried aloft in his arms the
+tiny fair girl-child of Anne, the Lady Elizabeth, holding in her dainty
+hands the holy chrisom. It was Edward Seymour,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> Earl of Hertford, looked
+at askance by the rest as a new man, but already overlapping them all as
+the uncle of the infant prince. During the <i>Te Deum</i> and the long, pompous
+ceremony of the baptism the mother lay flushed and excited upon her couch;
+whilst the proud father, his broad face beaming with pride, sat by her
+side, holding her hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was hard upon midnight when the Queen gave her blessing to her child
+and was carried back to her chamber, with more trumpet blasts and noisy
+gratulation. The next day, as was to be expected, she was in a high fever,
+so ill that she was confessed and received extreme unction. But she
+rallied, and seemed somewhat amended for the next few days, though ominous
+rumours were rife in London that her life had purposely been jeopardised
+in order to save that of the child at birth.<small><a name="f181.1" id="f181.1" href="#f181">[181]</a></small> They were not true, but
+they give the measure of the public estimate of Henry&#8217;s character, and
+have been made the most of by Sanders, Rivadeneyra, and the other Jesuit
+historians. On the 23rd October the Queen fell gravely ill again, and in
+the night was thought to be dying. Henry had intended to ride to Esher
+that day, but &#8220;could not find it in his heart&#8221; to go; and the next night,
+the 24th October, Jane Seymour died, a sacrifice to improper treatment and
+heartlessly exacted ceremonial. Henry had not been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> married long enough to
+her to have become tired of her, and her somewhat lethargic placidity had
+suited him. She had, moreover, borne him the long-looked-for son; and his
+grief for her loss was profound, and no doubt sincere. Much as he hated
+signs of mortality, he wore black mourning for her for three months, and
+shut himself up at Windsor away from the world, and above all away from
+the corpse of his dead wife, for a fortnight. Jane&#8217;s body, embalmed, lay
+in the presence chamber at Hampton Court for a week. Blazing tapers
+surrounded the great hearse, and masses went on from dawn to midday in the
+chamber. All night long the Queen&#8217;s ladies, with Princess Mary, watched
+before the bier, until the end of the month, when the catafalque had been
+erected in the chapel for the formal lying in state. On the 12th November,
+with the greatest possible pomp, the funeral procession bore the dead
+Queen to Windsor for burial in a grave in St. George&#8217;s Chapel, destined to
+receive the remains of Henry as well as that of his third wife, the mother
+of his son.<small><a name="f182.1" id="f182.1" href="#f182">[182]</a></small> The writers of the time, following the lead of Henry and
+his courtiers, never mentioned their grief for the Queen without promptly
+suggesting that it was more than counterbalanced by their joy at the birth
+of her son, who from his first appearance in the world was hailed as a
+paragon of beauty and perfection. Thanksgivings for the boon of a male
+heir to the King blended their sounds of jubilation with the droning of
+the masses for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> mother&#8217;s soul, and the flare of the bonfires died down
+into the flickering tapers that dimly lit the funerals. Even Henry
+himself, in writing to give the news of his son&#8217;s birth, confessed that
+his joy at the event had far exceeded his grief for Jane&#8217;s death.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the Catholic party that had promoted it was concerned, the
+marriage with Jane had been a failure. The Pilgrimage of Grace had been
+drowned in the blood of ruthless slaughter: and partly because of Mary&#8217;s
+scruples and fears, partly because they themselves had been gorged with
+the plunder of the Church, nearly all the great nobles stood aside and
+raised no voice whilst Cromwell and his master still worked havoc on the
+religious houses, regardless of Jane&#8217;s timid intercession. Boxley,
+Walsingham, and even the sacred shrine of Canterbury, yielded their relics
+and images, venerated for centuries, to be scorned and destroyed; whilst
+the vast accumulated treasures of gold and gems that enriched them went to
+fill the coffers of the King, and their lands to bribe his favourites.
+Throughout England the work of confiscation was carried on now with a zeal
+which only greed for the resultant profit can explain.<small><a name="f183.1" id="f183.1" href="#f183">[183]</a></small> The attacks
+upon superstition in the Church by those in authority naturally aroused a
+feeling of greater freedom of thought amongst the mass of the people. The
+establishment of an open Bible in English in every church for the perusal
+of the parishioners, due, as indeed most of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> doctrinal changes were,
+to Cranmer, encouraged men to think to some extent for themselves. But
+though, for purposes to which reference will be made presently, Henry
+willingly concurred in Cranmer&#8217;s reforming tendencies and Cromwell&#8217;s
+anti-ecclesiastical plans for providing him with abundant money, he would
+allow no departure from orthodoxy as he understood it. His love for
+theological controversy, and his undoubted ability and learning in that
+direction, enabled him to enforce his views with apparently unanswerable
+arguments, especially as he was able, and quite ready, to close the
+dispute with an obstinate antagonist by prescribing the stake and the
+gibbet either to those who repudiated his spiritual supremacy or to those
+who, like the Anabaptists, questioned the efficacy of a sacrament which he
+had adopted. For Henry it was to a great extent a matter of pride and
+self-esteem now to show to his own subjects and the world that he was
+absolutely supreme and infallible, and this feeling unquestionably had
+greatly influenced the progress effected by the reformation and
+emancipation from Rome made after the disappointing marriage with Jane
+Seymour.</p>
+
+<p>But there was also policy in Henry&#8217;s present action. Throughout the years
+1536 and 1537 Francis and the Emperor had continued at war; but by the
+close of the latter year it was evident that both combatants were
+exhausted, and would shortly make up their differences. The Papal
+excommunication of Henry and his realm was now in full force, making
+rebellion against the King a laudable act for all good Catholics; and any
+agreement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> between the two great Continental sovereigns in union with Rome
+boded ill for England and for its King. There were others, too, to whom
+such a combination boded ill. The alliance between France and the infidel
+Turk to attack the Christian Emperor had aroused intense indignation
+amongst Catholics throughout the world against Francis; and the Pope,
+utilising this feeling, strove hard to persuade both Christian sovereigns
+to cease their fratricidal struggle and to recognise that the real enemy
+to be feared and destroyed was Lutheranism or heresy in their midst.
+During the Emperor&#8217;s absence, and the war, Protestantism in Germany had
+advanced with giant strides. The Princes had boldly refused to recognise
+any conciliatory Council of the Church under the control of the Pope; and
+the pressure used by the Emperor to compel them to do so aroused the
+suspicion that the day was fast approaching when Lutheranism would have to
+fight for its life against the imperial suzerain of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>Already the forces were gathering. George of Saxony, the enemy of Luther,
+was hurrying to the grave, and Henry his brother and heir was a strong
+Protestant. Philip of Hesse had two years before thrown down the gage, and
+had taken by force from the Emperor the territory of W&uuml;rtemburg, and had
+restored the Protestant Duke Ulrich. Charles&#8217; brother Ferdinand, who ruled
+the empire, clamoured as loudly as did Mary of Hungary in Flanders and
+Eleanor of Austria in France, for a peace between the two champions of
+Christendom, the repudiation by France of the Turkish alliance, and a
+concentration of the Catholic forces in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> world before it was too late
+to crush the hydra of heresy which threatened them all. It was natural in
+the circumstances that the enemies of the Papacy should be drawn together.
+A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, and a common danger drew Henry of
+England and Philip of Hesse together. Henry was no Lutheran, and did not
+pretend to be. He had been drawn into the Reformation by the process that
+we have followed, in which interested advisers had worked upon his
+passions and self-esteem; but he had gone too far in defiance of Rome now
+to turn back, and was forced to look to his own safety by such policy as
+was possible to him. For several months after Jane Seymour&#8217;s death the
+envoys of the German Protestants were in England in close negotiation with
+Henry and Cromwell. In order that a close league should be made, it was
+necessary that some common doctrinal standpoint should be agreed upon, and
+infinite theological discussions took place to bring this about. Henry
+would not give way on any principal point, and the Protestant ambassadors
+went home again without a formal understanding. But though Henry remained,
+as he intended to do, thus unpledged, it was good policy for him to
+impress upon the Germans by his ruthless suppression of the monasteries,
+and his prohibition of the ancient superstitions, that he was the enemy of
+their enemy; and that if he was attacked for heresy, it would be incumbent
+upon the Lutherans to be on his side even against their own suzerain.</p>
+
+<p>This was not, however, the only move made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> by Henry against the
+threatening danger of a joint attack of the Catholic powers. He had hardly
+thrown off his mourning for Jane before he turned his hand to the old game
+of dividing his rivals. His bluff was as audacious and brilliant as usual.
+To the imperial and French ambassadors in turn he boasted that either of
+their masters would prefer his friendship and alliance to that of the
+other; and, rightly convinced that he would really be more likely to gain
+latitudinarian Francis than Charles, he proposed in the spring of 1538
+that he should marry a French princess. As the two great Catholic
+sovereigns drew closer together, though still nominally at war in Italy,
+Henry became, indeed, quite an eager wooer. His friend, Sir Francis Brian,
+was sent to Paris, secretly to forward his suit, and obtained a portrait
+of the Duke of Guise&#8217;s second daughter, the sister of the King of
+Scotland&#8217;s bride, Mary of Lorraine; with which Henry confessed himself
+quite smitten. He had, before this, only three months after Jane&#8217;s death,
+made a desperate attempt to prevail upon Francis to let him have Mary of
+Lorraine herself; though she was already betrothed to the King of Scots,
+his nephew; but this had been positively and even indignantly refused.
+Even the younger daughter of Guise, beautiful as she was, did not quite
+satisfy his vanity. Both he and his agent Brian, who was a fit
+representative for him, disgusted Francis by suggesting that three other
+French princesses should be taken to Calais by the Queen of
+Navarre&mdash;Francis&#8217; sister&mdash;in order that they might be paraded before the
+King of England for his selection, &#8220;like hackneys,&#8221; as was said at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> the
+time.<small><a name="f184.1" id="f184.1" href="#f184">[184]</a></small> He thought that the angry repudiation of such an insulting
+proposal was most unreasonable. &#8220;How can I choose a wife by deputy?&#8221; he
+asked. &#8220;I must depend upon my own eyes&#8221;; besides, he added, he must hear
+them sing, and see how they comported themselves. Perhaps, suggested the
+French ambassador sarcastically, he would like to go further and test the
+ladies in other ways, as the knights of King Arthur used to do. Henry
+coloured at this; but vauntingly replied that he could, if he pleased,
+marry into the imperial house; but he would not marry at all unless he was
+quite sure that his new relation would prefer his alliance to all others.
+When, at length, in June, the truce of Nice was signed, and soon
+afterwards the fraternal meeting and close community between Francis and
+Charles was effected at Aigues Mortes, Henry began to get seriously
+alarmed. His matrimonial offers, to his surprise, were treated very
+coolly; all his attempts to breed dissension between the imperial and
+French ambassadors, who were now hand and glove, were laughed at;<small><a name="f185.1" id="f185.1" href="#f185">[185]</a></small> and
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> intimate confidence and friendship between his two Catholic rivals
+seemed at last to bring disaster to Henry&#8217;s very doors; for it was not
+concealed that the first blow to be struck by the Catholic confederacy was
+to be upon the schismatic heretic who ruled England.</p>
+
+<p>With Francis there was no more to be done; for Henry and Brian, by their
+want of delicacy, had between them deeply wounded all the possible French
+brides and their families. But, at least, Henry hoped that sufficient show
+of friendship with Charles might be simulated to arouse Francis&#8217; jealousy
+of his new ally. Henry therefore began to sneer at the patched-up
+friendship, as he called it.<small><a name="f186.1" id="f186.1" href="#f186">[186]</a></small> &#8220;And how about Milan?&#8221; he asked the
+French ambassador, knowing that that was the still rankling sore; and soon
+he began to boast more openly that he himself might have Milan by the
+cession of it as a dower to Dom Luiz of Portugal, on his marriage with the
+Princess Mary; whilst Henry himself married the young widowed Duchess of
+Milan, Charles&#8217; niece, Christina of Denmark, that clever, quick-witted
+woman, whose humorous face lives for ever on the canvas of Holbein in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+English National Gallery.<small><a name="f187.1" id="f187.1" href="#f187">[187]</a></small> There had been a Spanish ambassador, Diego
+Hurtado de Mendoza, in England since the spring of 1537, to negotiate the
+Portuguese marriage of the Princess Mary; but the eternal questions of
+dowry, security, and the legitimacy of the Princess had made all
+negotiations so far abortive. Now they were taken up more strongly, by
+means of Wyatt at Madrid, and by special envoys to Mary of Hungary in
+Flanders. But it was all &#8220;buckler play,&#8221; as the imperial agents and
+Charles himself soon found out. Henry and Cromwell knew perfectly well
+that no stable alliance with the Emperor was possible then unless their
+religious policy was changed; and they had gone too far to change it
+without humiliation, if not destruction, to Henry; the real object of the
+negotiations being simply to obtain some sort of promise about the cession
+of Milan, by which Francis might be detached from the imperial alliance.
+But it was unsuccessful; and, for once, the two great antagonists held
+together for a time against all Lutheranism and heresy.</p>
+
+<p>Then Henry and Cromwell had to look anxiously for support and alliances
+elsewhere. To the King it was a repugnant and humiliating necessity. He
+had puffed himself into the belief that he was the most potent and
+infallible of sovereigns, and he found himself, for the first time,
+scorned by all those he had reason to fear. He, the embodiment of the idea
+of regal omnipotence, would be forced to make common cause with those who,
+like the German Protestants, stood for resistance to supreme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> authority;
+with usurpers like Christian III. of Denmark, and trading democracies like
+L&uuml;beck. With much hesitation and dislike, therefore, he listened, whilst
+Cromwell urged the inevitable policy upon him, which led him farther and
+farther away from the inner circle of potentates to which he and his
+father had gained entrance in the course of the events related in the
+first chapters of this book.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell&#8217;s arguments would probably have been unavailing but for the
+opportune &#8220;discovery,&#8221; in the usual fortuitous Cromwell fashion, of a
+dangerous aristocratic conspiracy against Henry himself. Cardinal Pole had
+been entrusted with the Papal excommunication, and everywhere impressed
+upon English Catholics the duty of obeying their spiritual father by
+deposing the King.<small><a name="f188.1" id="f188.1" href="#f188">[188]</a></small> Whether anything in the form of a regular
+conspiracy to do this existed in England is extremely doubtful; but the
+Cardinal had naturally written to his relatives in England, especially to
+his brother Geoffrey, and perhaps to his mother, the Countess of
+Salisbury,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> a princess of the blood royal of York. First Geoffrey was
+seized and carried to the Tower, and some sort of incriminating admission
+drawn from him by threats of torture, though, so far as can be gathered,
+nothing but the repetition of disaffected conversations. It was enough,
+however, for Cromwell&#8217;s purpose when he needed it; and the fatal net was
+cast over Pole&#8217;s elder brother, Lord Montague, the Marquis of Exeter,
+allied to the royal house, the Master of the Horse, Sir Nicholas Carew,
+Sir Edward Neville, and half a score of other high gentlemen, known to be
+faithful to the old cause&mdash;all to be unjustly sacrificed on the scaffold
+to the fears of Henry and the political exigencies of Cromwell. Even the
+women and children of the supposed sympathisers with the Papacy were not
+spared; and the aged Countess of Salisbury, with her grandson, and the
+Marchioness of Exeter, with her son, were imprisoned with many humbler
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>The defences of the kingdom on the coast and towards Scotland were rapidly
+made ready to resist attack from abroad, which indeed looked imminent; and
+when the noble and conservative party had been sufficiently cowed by the
+sight of the blood of the highest of its members, when the reign of terror
+over the land had made all men so dumb and fearsome that none dared say
+him nay, Cromwell felt himself strong enough to endeavour to draw England
+into the league of Protestant princes and defy the Catholic world. The
+position for Henry personally was an extraordinary one. He had gradually
+drifted into a position of independence from Rome; but he still professed
+to be a strict Catholic in other respects. His primate, Cranmer,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> and
+several other of his bishops whose ecclesiastical status was unrecognised
+by the Pope, were unquestionably, and not unnaturally, Protestant in their
+sympathies; whilst Cromwell was simply a politician who cared nothing for
+creeds and faiths, except as ancillary to State policy. Francis, and even
+on occasion Charles himself, made little of taking Church property for lay
+purposes when he needed it: he had more than once been the ally of the
+infidel against Catholic princes, and his religious belief was notoriously
+lax; and yet he remained &#8220;the eldest son of the Church.&#8221; Charles had
+struggled successfully against the Papal pretensions to control the
+temporalities of the Spanish Church, his troops had sacked Rome and
+imprisoned the Pope, and his ministers for years had bullied pontiffs and
+scolded them as if they were erring schoolboys. Excommunication had fallen
+upon him and his, and as hard things had been said of him in Rome as of
+Henry; and yet he was the champion of Catholic Christendom. The conclusion
+is obvious that Henry&#8217;s sin towards the Papacy was not primarily the
+spoliation of the Church, the repudiation of Katharine, or even the
+assumption of control over the temporalities, but that he had arrogated to
+himself the spiritual headship in his realm. In most other respects he was
+as good a Catholic as Charles, and a much better one than Francis; and yet
+under stress of circumstances he was forced into common cause with the
+growing party of reform in Europe, whose separation from the Church was
+profoundly doctrinal, and arose from entirely different motives from those
+of Henry.</p>
+
+<p>The danger that threatened England at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> time (early in 1539) was not
+really quite so serious as it seemed; for, close as the alliance between
+Charles and Francis was, old jealousies were not dead, and a joint war
+against England would have revived them; whilst the Papal plan of treating
+England commercially as outside the pale of civilisation would have ruined
+Charles&#8217; subject and was impracticable. But, in any case, the peril was
+real to Henry and Cromwell; and under the stress of it they were driven
+into the attempted policy of a Protestant confederacy. At the end of
+January 1539, Christopher Mont was sent to Germany with the first
+overtures. He carried letters of credence to Philip of Hesse, and Hans
+Frederick of Saxony, with the ostensible object of asking whether they had
+come to any conclusion respecting the theological disputations held in the
+previous year between their envoys and the English bishops to establish a
+common doctrinal basis. This, of course, was a mere pretext, the real
+object of the mission being to discover to what extent Henry could depend
+upon the German Protestant princes if he were attacked by their suzerain
+the Emperor. A private instruction was given to Mont by Cromwell, to
+remind one of the Saxon ministers who had come to England of a former
+conversation about a possible marriage between the young Duke of Cleves
+and the Princess Mary; and he was to take the opportunity of finding out
+all he could about the &#8220;beauty and qualities, shape, stature, and
+complexion&#8221; of the elder of the two unmarried daughters of the old Duke of
+Cleves, whose eldest daughter, Sybilla, had married Hans Frederick of
+Saxony himself, and was as bold a Protestant as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> he was. At the same time
+approaches were made to Christian III. of Denmark, who had joined the
+Evangelical league; and gradually the forces against the Papacy were to be
+knitted together. An excuse also was found to send English envoys to
+Cleves itself to offer an alliance in the matter of the Duchy of Gueldres,
+which the Duke of Cleves had just seized without the Emperor&#8217;s connivance
+or consent. Carne and Wotton, the envoys, were also to offer the hand of
+the Princess Mary to the young Duke, and cautiously to hint at a marriage
+between his sister Anne and Henry, if conditions were favourable; and,
+like Mont in Saxony, were to close the ranks of Protestantism around the
+threatened Henry, from whose Court both the imperial and French
+ambassadors had now been withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst these intrigues for Protestant support on the Continent were being
+carried on, and the defences of England on all sides were being
+strengthened, Henry, apparently for the purpose of disarming the Catholic
+elements, and proving that, apart from the Papal submission, he was as
+good a Catholic as any, forced through Parliament (May 1539) the
+extraordinary statute called the Six Articles, or the Bloody Statute,
+which threw all English Protestants into a panic. The Act was drafted on
+Henry&#8217;s instructions by Bishop Gardiner, and was called an &#8220;Act to abolish
+diversity of opinions.&#8221; The articles of faith dictated by the King to his
+subjects under ferocious penalties included the main Catholic doctrine;
+the real presence in the Sacrament in its fullest sense; the celibacy of
+the clergy; that the administration of the Sacrament in two kinds is not
+necessary; that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> auricular confession is compulsory, that private masses
+may be said, and that vows of chastity must be kept for ever. Cranmer, who
+was married and had children, dared to argue against the Bill when the
+Duke of Norfolk introduced it in the House of Lords, and others of the new
+bishops timidly did likewise; but they were overborne by the old bishops
+and the great majority of the lay peers, influenced by their traditions
+and by the peremptory arguments of the King himself. Even more important
+was an Act passed in the same servile Parliament giving to the King&#8217;s
+proclamations the force of law; and an Act of attainder against every one,
+living or dead, in England or abroad, who had opposed the King, completed
+the terror under which thenceforward the country lay. Henry was now,
+indeed, master of the bodies and souls of his subjects, and had reduced
+them all, Protestants and Catholics alike, to a condition of abject
+subjection to his mere will. The passage of these Acts, especially the Six
+Articles, marks a temporarily successful attempt of the conservative
+party, represented by the old bishops and the nobles under Norfolk, to
+overcome the influence of Cromwell, who was forwarding the Protestant
+league;<small><a name="f189.1" id="f189.1" href="#f189">[189]</a></small><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> but to Henry the policy must in any case have seemed a good
+one, as it tended to increase his personal power and prestige, and to keep
+both parties dependent upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Before the summer of 1539 had passed it was evident to Henry that the new
+combination against him would not stand the strain of a joint attack upon
+England. Charles was full of cares of his own. The Lutherans were
+increasingly threatening; even his own city of Ghent had revolted, and it
+was plain from his reception of Pole at Toledo that he could not proceed
+to extremes against Henry. It certainly was not the intention of Francis
+to do so; and the panic in England&mdash;never fully justified&mdash;passed away.
+The French ambassador came back, and once more Henry&#8217;s intrigues to sow
+dissension between the Catholic powers went ceaselessly on. In the
+circumstances it was natural that, after the passage of the Six Articles
+and the resumption of diplomatic relations with France, the negotiations
+with the German Protestants slackened. But the proposed marriage of Henry
+with the Princess of Cleves offered too good an opportunity, as Cromwell
+pointed out to him, of troubling the Emperor when he liked, to be dropped,
+even though no general political league was effected with the German
+Lutherans. Her brother-in-law, Hans Frederick of Saxony, was cool about
+it. He said that some sort of engagement had been made by her father and
+the Duke of Lorraine to marry her to the heir of the latter, but finally
+in August Wotton reported<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> from Duren that Hans Frederick would send
+envoys to Cleves to propose the match, and they would then proceed to
+England to close the matter. Wotton had been somewhat distrustful about
+the previous engagement of Anne with the Duke of Lorraine&#8217;s son, but was
+assured by the Council of Cleves that it was not binding upon the
+Princess, &#8220;who was free to marry as she pleased.&#8221; &#8220;She has been brought
+up,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;with the Lady Duchess, her mother ... and in a manner
+never from her elbow; the Lady Duchess being a wise lady, and one that
+very straitly looketh to her children. All report her (Anne) to be of very
+lowly and gentle conditions, by the which she hath so much won her
+mother&#8217;s favour that she is loth to suffer her to depart from her. She
+occupieth her time mostly with her needle, wherewithal ... she can read
+and write (Dutch); but as to French, Latin, or any other language, she
+hath none. Nor yet she cannot sing nor play any instrument, for they take
+it here in Germany for a rebuke, and an occasion of lightness that great
+ladies should be learned or have any knowledge of music. Her wit is good,
+and she will no doubt learn English soon when she puts her mind to it. I
+could never hear that she is inclined to the good cheer of this country;
+and marvel it were if she should, seeing that her brother ... doth so well
+abstain from it. Your Grace&#8217;s servant Hans Holbein hath taken the effigies
+of my Lady Anne and the Lady Amelia, and hath expressed their images very
+lively.&#8221;<small><a name="f190.1" id="f190.1" href="#f190">[190]</a></small></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>Holbein was not usually a flattering painter to his sitters, and the
+portrait he sent of Anne was that of a somewhat masculine and
+large-featured, but handsome and intellectual young woman, with fine,
+soft, contemplative brown eyes, thick lashes, and strong eyebrows. The
+general appearance is dignified, though handicapped by the very unbecoming
+Dutch dress of the period; and though there is nothing of the <i>petite</i>
+sprightliness and soft rotundity that would be likely to attract a man of
+Henry&#8217;s characteristics, the Princess cannot have been ill-favoured.
+Cromwell some months earlier had reported to Henry that Mont informed him
+that &#8220;everybody praises the lady&#8217;s beauty, both of face and body. One said
+she excelled the Duchess (of Milan ?) as the golden sun did the silver
+moon.&#8221;<small><a name="f191.1" id="f191.1" href="#f191">[191]</a></small> If the latter statement be near the truth, Anne, in her own
+way, must have been quite good-looking. There was no delay or difficulty
+in carrying through the arrangements for the marriage. The envoys from
+Cleves and Saxony arrived in London in September, and saw Henry at
+Windsor. They could offer no great dowry, for Cleves was poor; but they
+would not be exacting about the appanage to be settled upon the Queen by
+her husband, to whom they left the decision of the sum; and the other
+covenants as to the eventual succession to her brother&#8217;s duchy, in case of
+his death without heirs, were to be the same as those under which her
+elder sister married Hans Frederick.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>This was the sort of spirit that pleased Henry in negotiators, and with
+such he was always disposed to be liberal. He practically waived the
+dowry, and only urged that the lady should come at once, before the winter
+was too far advanced. When he suggested that she should come from her home
+down the Rhine through Holland, and thence by sea to England, the envoys
+prayed that she might go through Germany and Flanders by land to Calais,
+and so across. For, said they, by sea there will be great peril of capture
+and insult by some too zealous subjects of the Emperor. &#8220;Besides, they
+fear lest, the time of year being now cold and tempestuous, she might
+there, though she never were so well ordered, take such cold or other
+disease, considering she never was before upon the seas, as should be to
+her great peril.... She is, moreover, young and beautiful; and if she
+should be transported by sea they fear much how it might alter her
+complexion.&#8221;<small><a name="f192.1" id="f192.1" href="#f192">[192]</a></small> No sooner was the marriage treaty signed than splendid
+preparations were made for the reception of the King&#8217;s coming bride. The
+Lord Admiral (Fitzwilliam) was ordered to prepare a fleet of ten vessels
+to escort her from Calais; repairs and redecorations of the royal
+residences went on apace; and especially in the Queen&#8217;s apartments, where
+again the initials of poor Jane had to be altered to those of her
+successor, and the &#8220;principal lords have bought much cloth of gold and
+silk, a thing unusual for them except for some great solemnity.&#8221;<small><a name="f193.1" id="f193.1" href="#f193">[193]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The conclusion of the treaty was a triumph for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> Cromwell and the
+Protestant party in Henry&#8217;s Council; and the Commissioners who signed it
+reflect the fact. Cranmer, Cromwell, the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chancellor
+Audley, and Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, were all of them inclined to the
+reforming side, whilst Bishop Tunstal, though on the Catholic side, was a
+personal friend of the King; and the new man, Hertford, Jane Seymour&#8217;s
+brother, though not one of the Commissioners, gave emphatic approval of
+the match. &#8220;I am as glad,&#8221; he wrote to Cromwell, &#8220;of the good resolution
+(of the marriage) as ever I was of a thing since the birth of the Prince;
+for I think the King&#8217;s Highness could not in Christendom marry in any
+place meet for his Grace&#8217;s honour that should be less prejudicial to his
+Majesty&#8217;s succession.&#8221;<small><a name="f194.1" id="f194.1" href="#f194">[194]</a></small> Henry himself was in his usual vaunting mood
+about the alliance. He had long desired, he said, to cement a union with
+the German confederation, and could now disregard both France and the
+Emperor; besides, his influence would suffice to prevent the Lutherans
+from going too far in their religious innovations. As for the lady, he had
+only one male child, and he was convinced that his desire for more issue
+could not be better fulfilled &#8220;than with the said lady, who is of
+convenient age, healthy temperament, elegant stature, and endowed with
+other graces.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The news of the engagement was ill received by Francis and Charles. They
+became more ostentatiously friendly than ever; and their ambassadors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> in
+London were inseparable. When Marillac and the Emperor&#8217;s temporary envoy
+went together to tell Cromwell that the Emperor was so confident of the
+friendship of Francis that he was riding through France from Spain to
+Flanders, the English minister quite lost his composure. He was informed,
+he told the ambassadors, that this meeting of the monarchs was &#8220;merely
+with the view to making war on this poor King (Henry), who aimed at
+nothing but peace and friendship.&#8221; Ominous mutterings came, too, from
+Flanders at the scant courtesy Henry had shown in throwing over the match
+with the Duchess of Milan in the midst of the negotiation. Cromwell was
+therefore full of anxiety, whilst the elaborate preparations were being
+made in Calais and in England for the new Queen&#8217;s reception. Not only was
+a fresh household to be appointed, the nobility and gentry and their
+retinues summoned, fine clothes galore ordered or enjoined for others, the
+towns on the way from Dover to be warned of the welcome expected from
+them, and the hundred details dependent upon the arrival and installation
+of the King&#8217;s fourth wife, but Henry himself had to be carefully handled,
+to prevent the fears engendered by the attitude of his rivals causing him
+to turn to the party opposed to Cromwell before the Protestant marriage
+was effected.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile, Anne with a great train of guards and courtiers, three
+hundred horsemen strong, rode from Dusseldorf towards Calais through
+Cleves, Antwerp, Bruges, and Dunkirk. It was ordered that Lord Lisle, Lord
+Deputy of Calais, should meet the Queen on the English frontier, near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
+Gravelines, and that at St. Pierre, Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, who had a
+fleet of fifty sail in the harbour, should greet her in the name of his
+King, gorgeously dressed in blue velvet, smothered with gold embroidery,
+and faced with crimson satin, royal blue and crimson, the King&#8217;s colours,
+in velvet, damask, and silk, being the universal wear, even of the sailors
+and men-at-arms. The aged Duke of Suffolk and the Lord Warden were to
+receive her on her landing at Dover; and at Canterbury she was to be
+welcomed and entertained by Archbishop Cranmer. Norfolk and a great
+company of armed nobles were to greet the new Queen on the downs beyond
+Rochester; whilst the Queen&#8217;s household, with Lady Margaret Douglas, the
+King&#8217;s niece, and the Duchess of Richmond, his daughter-in-law, were to
+join her at Deptford, and the whole vast and glittering multitude were to
+convey her thence to where the King&#8217;s pavilions were erected for her
+reception at Blackheath.<small><a name="f195.1" id="f195.1" href="#f195">[195]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>In the midwinter twilight of early morning, on the 11th December 1539,
+Anne&#8217;s cavalcade entered the English town of Calais, and during the long
+time she remained weather-bound there she was entertained as sumptuously
+as the nobles and townsmen could entertain her. The day she had passed
+through Dunkirk in the Emperor&#8217;s dominions, just before coming to Calais,
+a sermon was preached against her and all Lutherans; but with that
+exception no molestation was offered to her. The ship that was to carry
+her over, dressed fore and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> aft with silken flags, streamers, and banners,
+was exhibited to her admiration by Fitzwilliam, royal salutes thundered
+welcome to her, bands of martial music clashed in her honour, and banquets
+and jousts were held to delight her.<small><a name="f196.1" id="f196.1" href="#f196">[196]</a></small> Good sense and modesty were
+shown by her in many ways at this somewhat trying time. Her principal
+mentor, Chancellor Olsiliger, begged Fitzwilliam to advise her as to her
+behaviour; and she herself asked him to teach her some game of cards that
+the King of England usually played. He taught her a game which he calls
+&#8220;Sent, which she did learn with good grace and countenance&#8221;; and she then
+begged him to come to sup with her, and bring some noble folk with him to
+sit with her in the German way. He told her that this was not the fashion
+in England, but he accepted her invitation.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Anne began betimes to prepare for what she hoped&mdash;greatly
+daring&mdash;would be a happy married life in England; whilst the wind and the
+waves thundering outside the harbour forbade all attempt to convey the
+bride to her now expectant bridegroom. Henry had intended to keep
+Christmas with unusual state at Greenwich in the company of his new wife;
+but week after week slipped by, with the wind still contrary, and it was
+the 27th December before a happy change of weather enabled Anne to set
+sail for her new home. She had a stout heart, for the passage was a rough
+though rapid one. When she landed at Deal, and thence, after a short rest,
+was conducted in state to Dover Castle, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> wind blew blusterously, and
+the hail and winter sleet drove &#8220;continually in her Grace&#8217;s face&#8221;; but she
+would hear of no delay in her journey forward, &#8220;so desirous was her Grace
+of reaching the King&#8217;s presence.&#8221; At Canterbury the citizens received her
+with a great torchlight procession and peals of guns. &#8220;In her chamber were
+forty or fifty gentlewomen waiting to receive her in velvet bonnets; all
+of which she took very joyously, and was so glad to see the King&#8217;s
+subjects resorting to her so lovingly, that she forgot all the foul
+weather and was very merry at supper.&#8221;<small><a name="f197.1" id="f197.1" href="#f197">[197]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>And so, with an evident determination to make the best of everything, Anne
+rode onward, accompanied by an ever-growing cavalcade of sumptuously
+bedizened folk, through Sittingbourne, and so to Rochester, where she was
+lodged at the bishop&#8217;s palace, and passed New Year&#8217;s Day 1540. News daily
+reached the King of his bride&#8217;s approach, whilst he remained consumed with
+impatience at Greenwich. At each successive stage of her journey forward
+supple courtiers had written to Henry glowing accounts of the beauty and
+elegance of the bride. Fitzwilliam from Calais had been especially
+emphatic, and the King&#8217;s curiosity was piqued to see the paragon he was to
+marry. At length, when he knew that Anne was on the way from Sittingbourne
+to Rochester, and would arrive there on New Year&#8217;s Eve, he told Cromwell
+that he himself, with an escort of eight gentlemen clad in grey, would
+ride to Rochester incognito to get early sight of his bride, &#8220;whom he
+sorely desired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> to see.&#8221; He went, he said, &#8220;to nourish love&#8221;; and full of
+hopeful anticipation, Henry on a great courser ambled over Gad&#8217;s Hill from
+Gravesend to Rochester soon after dawn on New Year&#8217;s Day 1540, with Sir
+Anthony Browne, his Master of the Horse, on one side, and Sir John Russell
+on the other. It was in accordance with the chivalrous tradition that this
+should be done, and that the lady should pretend to be extremely surprised
+when she was informed who her visitor was; so that Anne must have made a
+fair guess as to what was coming when Sir Anthony Browne, riding a few
+hundred yards ahead of his master, entered her presence, and, kneeling,
+told her that he had brought a New Year&#8217;s gift for her. When the courtier
+raised his eyes and looked critically upon the lady before him,
+experienced as he was in Henry&#8217;s tastes, &#8220;he was never more dismayed in
+his life to see her so far unlike that which was reported.&#8221;<small><a name="f198.1" id="f198.1" href="#f198">[198]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Anne was about twenty-four years of age, but looked older, and her frame
+was large, bony, and masculine, which in the facial portraits that had
+been sent to Henry was not indicated, and her large, low-German features,
+deeply pitted with the ravages of smallpox, were, as Browne knew, the very
+opposite of the type of beauty which would be likely to stimulate a gross,
+unwholesome voluptuary of nearly fifty. So, with a sinking heart, he went
+back to his master, not daring to prepare him for what was before him by
+any hint of disparagement of the bride. As soon as Henry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> entered with
+Russell and Browne and saw for himself, his countenance fell, and he made
+a wry face, which those who knew him understood too well; and they
+trembled in their shoes at what was to come of it. He nevertheless greeted
+the lady politely, raising her from the kneeling position she had assumed,
+and kissed her upon the cheek, passing a few minutes in conversation with
+her about her long journey. He had brought with him some rich presents of
+sables and other furs; but he was &#8220;so marvellously astonished and abashed&#8221;
+that he had not the heart to give them to her, but sent them the next
+morning with a cold message by Sir Anthony Browne.</p>
+
+<p>In the night the royal barge had been brought round from Gravesend to
+Rochester, and the King returned to Greenwich in the morning by water. He
+had hardly passed another word with Anne since the first meeting, though
+they had supped together, and it was with a sulky, frowning face that he
+took his place in the shelter of his galley. Turning to Russell, he asked,
+&#8220;Do you think this woman so fair or of such beauty as report has made
+her?&#8221; Russell, courtier-like, fenced with the question by feigning to
+misunderstand it. &#8220;I should hardly take her to be fair,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;but
+of brown complexion.&#8221; &#8220;Alas!&#8221; continued the King, &#8220;whom should men trust?
+I promise you I see no such thing in her as hath been showed unto me of
+her, and am ashamed that men have so praised her as they have done. I like
+her not.&#8221;<small><a name="f199.1" id="f199.1" href="#f199">[199]</a></small> To Browne he was quite as outspoken.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> &#8220;I see nothing in
+this woman as men report of her,&#8221; he said angrily, &#8220;and I am surprised
+that wise men should make such reports as they have done.&#8221; Whereat Browne,
+who knew that his brother-in-law, Fitzwilliam, was one of the &#8220;wise men&#8221;
+referred to, scented danger and was silent. The English ladies, too, who
+had accompanied Anne on the road began to whisper in confidence to their
+spouses that Anne&#8217;s manners were coarse, and that she would never suit the
+King&#8217;s fastidious taste.</p>
+
+<p>But he who had most to lose and most to fear was Cromwell. It was he who
+had drawn and driven his master into the Protestant friendship against the
+Emperor and the Pope, of which the marriage was to be the pledge, and he
+had repeated eagerly for months the inflated praises of Anne&#8217;s beauty sent
+by his agents and friends in order to pique Henry to the union. He knew
+that vigilant enemies of himself and his policy were around him, watching
+for their opportunity, Norfolk and the older nobles, the Pope&#8217;s bishops,
+and, above all, able, ambitious Stephen Gardiner, now sulking at
+Winchester, determined to supplant him if he could. When, on Friday the
+2nd January, Henry entered his working closet at Greenwich after his water
+journey from Rochester, Cromwell asked him &#8220;how he liked the Lady Anne.&#8221;
+The King answered gloomily, &#8220;Nothing so well as she was spoken of,&#8221; adding
+that if he had known before as much as he knew then, she should never have
+come within his realm. In the grievous self-pity usual with him in his
+perplexity, he turned to Cromwell, the man hitherto so fertile in
+expedients, and wailed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> &#8220;What is the remedy?&#8221;<small><a name="f200.1" id="f200.1" href="#f200">[200]</a></small> Cromwell, for once at
+a loss, could only express his grief, and say he knew of none. In very
+truth it was too late now to stop the state reception; for preparations
+had been ordered for such a pageant as had rarely been seen in England.
+Cromwell had intended it for his own triumph, and as marking the
+completeness of his victory over his opponents. Once more ambition
+o&#8217;erleaped itself, and the day that was to establish Cromwell&#8217;s supremacy
+sealed his doom.</p>
+
+<p>What Anne thought of the situation is not on record. She had seen little
+of the world, outside the coarse boorishness of a petty low-German court;
+she was neither educated nor naturally refined, and she probably looked
+upon the lumpishness of her lover as an ordinary thing. In any case, she
+bated none of her state and apparent contentment, as she rode gorgeously
+bedight with her great train towards Greenwich. At the foot of Shooter&#8217;s
+Hill there had been erected an imposing pavilion of cloth of gold, and
+divers other tents warmed with fires of perfumed wood; and here a company
+of ladies awaited the coming of the Queen on Saturday, 3rd January 1540. A
+broad way was cleared from the pavilion, across Woolwich Common and
+Blackheath, for over two miles, to the gates of Greenwich Park; and the
+merchants and Corporation of London joined with the King&#8217;s retinue in
+lining each side of this long lane. Cromwell had recently gained the
+goodwill of foreigners settled in London by granting them exemption<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> from
+special taxation for a term of years, and he had claimed, as some return,
+that they should make the most of this day of triumph. Accordingly, the
+German merchants of the Steelyard, the Venetians, the Spaniards, the
+French, and the rest of them, donned new velvet coats and jaunty crimson
+caps with white feathers, each master with a smartly clad servant behind
+him, and so stood each side of the way to do honour to the bride at the
+Greenwich end of the route. Then came the English merchants, the
+Corporation of London, the knights and gentlemen who had been bidden from
+the country to do honour to their new Queen, the gentlemen pensioners, the
+halberdiers, and, around the tent, the nobler courtiers and Queen&#8217;s
+household, all brave in velvet and gold chains.<small><a name="f201.1" id="f201.1" href="#f201">[201]</a></small> Behind the ranks of
+gentlemen and servitors there was ample room and verge enough upon the
+wide heath for the multitudes who came to gape and cheer King Harry&#8217;s new
+wife; more than a little perplexed in many cases as to the minimum amount
+of enthusiasm which would be accepted as seemly. Cromwell himself
+marshalled the ranks on either side, &#8220;running up and down with a staff in
+his hand, for all the world as if he had been a running postman,&#8221; as an
+eye-witness tells us.</p>
+
+<p>It was midday before the Queen&#8217;s procession rode down Shooter&#8217;s Hill to
+the tents, where she was met by her official household and greeted with a
+long Latin oration which she did not understand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> whilst she sat in her
+chariot. Then heartily kissing the great ladies sent to welcome her, she
+alighted and entered the tent to rest and warm herself over the perfumed
+fires, and to don even more magnificent raiment than that she wore. When
+she was ready for her bridegroom&#8217;s coming she must have been a blaze of
+magnificence. She wore a wide skirt of cloth of gold with a raised pattern
+in bullion and no train, and her head was covered first with a close cap
+and then a round cap covered with pearls and fronted with black velvet;
+whilst her bodice was one glittering mass of precious stones. When swift
+messengers brought news that the King was coming, Anne mounted at the door
+of the tent a beautiful white palfrey; and surrounded by her servitors,
+each bearing upon his golden coat the black lion of Cleves, and followed
+by her train, she set forth to meet her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, unwieldy and lame as he was with a running ulcer in the leg, was as
+vain and fond of pomp as ever, and outdid his bride in splendour. His coat
+was of purple velvet cut like a frock, embroidered all over with a flat
+gold pattern interlined with narrow gold braid, and with gold lace laid
+crosswise over it all. A velvet overcoat surmounted the gorgeous garment,
+lined also with gold tissue, the sleeves and breast held together with
+great buttons of diamonds, rubies, and pearls. His sword and belt were
+covered with emeralds, and his bonnet and under-cap were &#8220;so rich in
+jewels that few men could value them&#8221;; whilst across his shoulders he wore
+a baldrick, composed of precious stones and pearls, that was the wonder of
+all beholders. The fat giant thus bedizened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> bestrode a great war-horse
+to match, and almost equally magnificent; and, preceded by heralds and
+trumpeters, followed by the great officers, the royal household and the
+bishops, and accompanied by the Duke Philip of Bavaria, just betrothed to
+the Princess Mary, Henry rode through the long lane of his velvet-clad
+admirers to meet Anne, hard by the cross upon Blackheath. When she
+approached him, he doffed his jewelled bonnet and bowed low; and then
+embraced her, whilst she, with every appearance of delight and duty,
+expressed her pleasure at meeting him. Thus, together, with their great
+cavalcades united, over five thousand horsemen strong, they rode in the
+waning light of a midwinter afternoon to Greenwich; and, as one who saw it
+but knew not the tragedy that lurked behind the splendour, exclaimed, &#8220;Oh!
+what a sight was this to see, so goodly a Prince and so noble a King to
+ride with so fair a lady of so goodly a stature, and so womanly a
+countenance, and especial of so good qualities. I think that no creature
+could see them but his heart rejoiced.&#8221;<small><a name="f202.1" id="f202.1" href="#f202">[202]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i336.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>ANNE OF CLEVES</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a portrait by a German artist in St. John&#8217;s College, Oxford</i></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>There was one heart, at all events, that did not rejoice, and that was
+Henry&#8217;s. He went heavily through the ceremony of welcoming home his bride
+in the great hall at Greenwich, and then led her to her chamber; but no
+sooner had he got quit of her, than retiring to his own room he summoned
+Cromwell. &#8220;Well!&#8221; he said, &#8220;is it not as I told you? Say what they will,
+she is nothing like so fair as she was reported to be. She is well and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+seemly, but nothing else.&#8221; Cromwell, confused, could only mumble something
+about her having a queenly manner. But Henry wanted a way out of his
+bargain rather than reconciliation to it; and he ordered Cromwell to
+summon the Council at once&mdash;Norfolk, Suffolk, Cromwell, Cranmer,
+Fitzwilliam, and Tunstal&mdash;to consider the prior engagement made between
+Anne and the Duke of Lorraine&#8217;s son.<small><a name="f203.1" id="f203.1" href="#f203">[203]</a></small> The question had already been
+discussed and disposed of, and the revival of it thus at the eleventh hour
+shows how desperate Henry was. The Council assembled immediately, and
+summoned the German envoys who had negotiated the marriage and were now in
+attendance on Anne. The poor men were thunderstruck at the point of an
+impediment to the marriage being raised then, and begged to be allowed to
+think the matter over till the next morning, Sunday. When they met the
+Council again in the morning, they could only protest that the prior
+covenant had only been a betrothal, which had never taken effect, and had
+been formally annulled. If there was any question about it, however, they
+offered to remain as prisoners in England until the original deed of
+revocation was sent from Cleves.</p>
+
+<p>When this answer was carried to Henry he broke out angrily that he was not
+being well treated, and upbraided Cromwell for not finding a loophole for
+escape. He did not wish to marry the woman, he said. &#8220;If she had not come
+so far, and such great preparations made, and for fear of making a ruffle
+in the world&mdash;of driving her brother into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> the hands of the Emperor and
+the French King&mdash;he never would marry her.&#8221; Cromwell was apparently afraid
+to encourage him in the idea of repudiation, and said nothing; and after
+dinner the King again summoned the Council to his presence. To them he
+bitterly complained of having been deceived. Would the lady, he asked,
+make a formal protestation before notaries that she was free from all
+contracts? Of course she would, and did, as soon as she was asked; but
+Henry&#8217;s idea in demanding this is evident. If she had refused it would
+give a pretext for delay, but if she did as desired, and by any quibble
+the prior engagement was found to be valid, her protestation to the
+contrary would be good grounds for a divorce. But still Henry would much
+rather not have married her at all. &#8220;Oh! is there no other remedy?&#8221; he
+asked despairingly on Monday, after Anne had made her protestation. &#8220;Must
+I needs against my will put my neck into the yoke?&#8221; Cromwell could give
+him no comfort, and left him gloomy at the prospect of going through the
+ceremony on the morrow. On Tuesday morning, when he was apparelled for the
+wedding, as usual in a blaze of magnificence of crimson satin and cloth of
+gold, Cromwell entered his chamber on business. &#8220;My lord,&#8221; said Henry, &#8220;if
+it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do what I must
+do this day for any earthly thing.&#8221; But withal he went through it as best
+he might, though with heavy heart and gloomy countenance, and the
+unfortunate bride, we are told, was remarked to be &#8220;demure and sad,&#8221; as
+well she might be, when her husband and Cranmer placed upon her finger the
+wedding-ring with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> the ominous inscription, &#8220;God send me well to keep.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning Cromwell entered the King&#8217;s chamber between hope
+and fear, and found Henry frowning and sulky. &#8220;How does your Grace like
+the Queen?&#8221; he asked. Henry grumblingly, and not quite relevantly, replied
+that he, Cromwell, was not everybody; and then he broke out, &#8220;Surely, my
+lord, as you know, I liked her not well before, but now I like her much
+worse.&#8221; With an incredible grossness, and want of common decency, he then
+went into certain details of his wife&#8217;s physical qualities that had
+disgusted him and turned him against her. He did not believe, from certain
+peculiarities that he described, that she was a maid, he said; but so far
+as he was concerned, he was so &#8220;struck to the heart&#8221; that he had left her
+as good a maid as he had found her.<small><a name="f204.1" id="f204.1" href="#f204">[204]</a></small> Nor was the King more reticent
+with others. He was free with his details to the gentlemen of his chamber,
+Denny, Heneage, and others, as to the signs which it pleased him to
+consider suspicious as touching his wife&#8217;s previous virtue, and protested
+that he never could, or would, consummate the marriage; though he
+professed later that for months after the wedding he did his best to
+overcome his repugnance, and lived constantly in contact with his wife.
+But he never lost sight of the hope of getting free. If he did not find
+means soon to do so, he said, he should have no more issue. His conscience
+told him&mdash;that tender conscience of his&mdash;that Anne was not his legal wife;
+and he turned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> to Cromwell for a remedy, and found none: for Cromwell knew
+that the breaking up of the Protestant union, upon which he had staked his
+future, would inevitably mean now the rise of his rivals and his own ruin.</p>
+
+<p>He fought stoutly for his position, though Norfolk and Gardiner were often
+now at the King&#8217;s ear. His henchman, Dr. Barnes, who had gone to Germany
+as envoy during the marriage negotiations, was a Protestant, and in a
+sermon on justification by faith he violently attacked Gardiner. The
+latter, in spite of Cromwell and Cranmer, secured from the King an order
+that Barnes should humbly and publicly recant. He did so at Easter at the
+Spital, but at once repeated the offence, and he and two other clergymen
+who thought like him were burnt for heresy. Men began to shake their heads
+and look grave now as they spoke of Cromwell and Cranmer; but the
+Secretary stood sturdily, and in May seemed as if he would turn the tables
+upon his enemies. Once, indeed, he threatened the Duke of Norfolk roughly
+with the King&#8217;s displeasure, and at the opening of Parliament he took the
+lead as usual, expressing the King&#8217;s sorrow at the religious bitterness in
+the country, and demanding large supplies for the purposes of national
+defence.</p>
+
+<p>But, though still apparently as powerful as ever, and more than ever
+overbearing, he dared not yet propose to the King a way out of the
+matrimonial tangle. Going home to Austin Friars from the sitting of
+Parliament on the 7th June, he told his new colleague, Wriothesley, that
+the thing that principally troubled him was that the King<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> did not like
+the Queen, and that his marriage had never been consummated. Wriothesley,
+whose sympathies were then Catholic, suggested that &#8220;some way might be
+devised for the relief of the King.&#8221; &#8220;Ah!&#8221; sighed Cromwell, who knew what
+such a remedy would mean to him, &#8220;but it is a great matter.&#8221; The next day
+Wriothesley returned to the subject, and begged Cromwell to devise some
+means of relief for the King: &#8220;for if he remained in this grief and
+trouble they should all smart for it some day.&#8221; &#8220;Yes,&#8221; replied Cromwell,
+&#8220;it is true; but it is a great matter.&#8221; &#8220;Marry!&#8221; exclaimed Wriothesley,
+out of patience, &#8220;I grant that, but let a remedy be searched for.&#8221; But
+Cromwell had no remedy yet but one that would ruin himself, and that he
+dared not propose, so he shook his head sadly and changed the
+subject.<small><a name="f205.1" id="f205.1" href="#f205">[205]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The repudiation of Anne was, as Cromwell said, a far greater matter than
+at first sight appeared. The plan to draw into one confederation for the
+objects of England the German Protestants, the King of Denmark, and the
+Duke of Cleves, whose seizure of Guelderland had brought him in opposition
+to the Emperor, was the most threatening that had faced Charles for years.
+His own city of Ghent was in open revolt, and Francis after all was but a
+fickle ally. If once more the French King turned from him and made friends
+with the Turk and the Lutherans, then indeed would the imperial power have
+cause to tremble and Henry to rejoice. Cromwell had striven hard to cement
+the Protestant combination; but again and again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> he had been thwarted by
+his rivals. The passage of the Six Articles against his wish, although the
+execution of the Act was suspended at Cromwell&#8217;s instance, had caused the
+gravest distrust on the part of Hans Frederick and the Landgrave of Hesse;
+and if Henry were encouraged to repudiate his German wife, not only would
+her brother&mdash;already in negotiation with the imperial agents for the
+investiture of Gueldres, and his marriage with the Emperor&#8217;s niece, the
+Duchess of Milan&mdash;be at once driven into opposition to England, but Hans
+Frederick and Hesse would also abandon Henry to the tender mercies of his
+enemies.</p>
+
+<p>The only way to avoid such a disaster following upon the repudiation of
+Anne was first to drive a wedge of distrust between Charles and Francis,
+now in close confederacy. In January the Emperor had surprised the world
+by his boldness in traversing France to his Flemish dominions. He was
+feasted splendidly by Francis, and escaped unbetrayed; but during his stay
+in France desperate attempts were made by Wyatt, Henry&#8217;s ambassador with
+Charles, Bonner, the ambassador in France, and by the Duke of Norfolk, who
+went in February on a special mission, to sow discord between the allied
+sovereigns, and not without some degree of success. Charles during his
+stay in France was badgered by Wyatt into saying some hasty words, which
+were deliberately twisted by Norfolk into a menace to France and England
+alike. Francis was reminded with irritating iteration that Charles had
+plenty of smiles and soft words for his French friends, but avoided
+keeping his promises about the cession of Milan or anything else. So in
+France those who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> were in favour of the imperial alliance, the
+Montmorencies and the Queen, declined in their hold over Francis, and
+their opponents, the Birons, the Queen of Navarre, Francis&#8217; sister, and
+the Duchess of Etampes, his mistress, planned with Henry&#8217;s agents for an
+understanding with England. This, as may be supposed, was not primarily
+Cromwell&#8217;s policy, but that of Norfolk and his friends, because its
+success would inevitably mean the conciliation of the German princes and
+Cleves by the Emperor, and the break-up of the Protestant confederacy and
+England, by which Cromwell must now stand or fall.</p>
+
+<p>As early as April, Marillac, the French ambassador in England, foretold
+the great change that was coming. The arrest of Barnes, Garrard, and
+Jerome, for anti-Catholic teaching, and the persecutions everywhere for
+those who offended ever so slightly in the same way, presaged Cromwell&#8217;s
+fall. &#8220;Cranmer and Cromwell,&#8221; writes Marillac, &#8220;do not know where they
+are. Within a few days there will be seen in this country a great change
+in many things, which this King begins to make in his ministers, recalling
+those he had disgraced, and degrading those he had raised. Cromwell is
+tottering: for all those now recalled were dismissed at his request, and
+bear him no little grudge&mdash;amongst others, the Bishops of Winchester
+(<i>i.e.</i> Gardiner), Durham, and Bath, men of great learning and experience,
+who are now summoned to the Privy Council. It is said that Tunstal (<i>i.e.</i>
+Durham) will be Vicar-General, and Bath Privy Seal, which are Cromwell&#8217;s
+principal offices.... If he holds his own (<i>i.e.</i> Cromwell), it will only
+be because of his close<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> assiduity in business, though he is very rude in
+his demeanour. He does nothing without consulting the King, and is
+desirous of doing justice, especially to foreigners.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was somewhat premature, but it gives a good idea of the process that
+was going on. There is no doubt that Cromwell believed in his ability to
+keep his footing politically; for he was anything but rigid in his
+principles, and if the friendship with France initiated by his rivals had,
+as it showed signs of doing, developed into an alliance that would enable
+Henry both to dismiss his fears of the Emperor and throw over the
+Protestants, he would probably have accepted the situation, and have
+proposed a means for Henry to get rid of his distasteful wife. But this
+opportunism did not suit his opponents in Henry&#8217;s Council. They wanted to
+get rid of the man quite as much as they did his policy; for his insolence
+had stung them to the quick, great nobles as most of them were, and he the
+son of a blacksmith. Some other means, therefore, than a mere change of
+policy was necessary to dislodge the strong man who guided the King.
+Parliament had met on the 12th April, and it was managed with Cromwell&#8217;s
+usual boldness and success.<small><a name="f206.1" id="f206.1" href="#f206">[206]</a></small> As if to mark that his great ability was
+still paramount, he was made Earl of Essex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> and Great Chamberlain of
+England in the following week.</p>
+
+<p>But the struggle in the Council, and around the King, continued unabated.
+Henry was warned by Cromwell&#8217;s enemies of the danger of allowing religious
+freedom to be carried too far, and of thus giving the Catholic powers an
+excuse for executing the Pope&#8217;s decree of deprivation against him. He was
+reminded that the Emperor and Francis were still friends, that the latter
+was suspiciously preparing for war, and that Henry&#8217;s brother-in-law the
+Duke of Cleves&#8217; quarrel with the Emperor might drag England into war for
+the sake of a beggarly German dukedom of no importance or value to her. On
+the other hand, Cromwell would point out to Henry the disobedience and
+insolence of the Catholics who questioned his spiritual supremacy, and
+cause Churchmen who advocated a reconciliation with Rome to be imprisoned.
+Clearly such a position could not continue indefinitely, and Norfolk
+anticipated Cromwell by playing the final trump card&mdash;that of arousing
+Henry&#8217;s personal fears. The word treason and a hint that anything could be
+intended against his person always brought Henry to heel. What the exact
+accusation against Cromwell was no one knows, though it was whispered at
+the time that the nobles had told Henry that Cromwell had amassed great
+stores of money and arms, and maintained a vast number of dependants (1500
+men, it was asserted, wore his livery), with a sinister object; some said
+to marry the Princess Mary and make himself King; and that he had received
+a great bribe from the Duke of Cleves and the Protestants to bring about
+the marriage of Anne.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> Others said that he had boasted that he was to
+receive a crown abroad from a foreign potentate (<i>i.e.</i>, the Emperor), and
+that he had talked of defending the new doctrines at the sword&#8217;s
+point.<small><a name="f207.1" id="f207.1" href="#f207">[207]</a></small> No such accusations, however, are on official record; and
+there is no doubt that the real reason for his arrest was the animosity of
+the aristocratic and Catholic party against him, acting upon the King&#8217;s
+fears and his desire to get rid of Anne of Cleves.</p>
+
+<p>On the 9th June Parliament was still sitting, discussing the religious
+question with a view to the settlement of some uniform doctrine. The Lords
+of the Council left the Chamber to go across to Whitehall to dinner before
+midday; and as they wended their way across the great courtyard of
+Westminster a high wind carried away Cromwell&#8217;s flat cap from his head. It
+was the custom when one gentleman was even accidentally uncovered for
+those who were with him also to doff their bonnets. But, as an attendant
+ran and recovered Cromwell&#8217;s flying headgear on that occasion, the haughty
+minister looked grimly round and saw all his colleagues, once so humble,
+holding their own caps upon their heads. &#8220;A high wind indeed must this
+be,&#8221; sneered Cromwell, &#8220;to blow my cap off, and for you to need hold yours
+on.&#8221; He must have known that ill foreboded; for during dinner no one spoke
+to him. The meal finished, Cromwell went to the Council Chamber with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+rest, and, as was his custom, stood at a window apart to hear appeals and
+applications to him, and when these were disposed of he turned to the
+table to take his usual seat with the rest. On this occasion Norfolk
+stopped him, and told him that it was not meet that traitors should sit
+amongst loyal gentlemen. &#8220;I am no traitor!&#8221; shouted Cromwell, dashing his
+cap upon the ground; but the captain of the guard was at the door, and
+still protesting the wretched man was hurried to the Water Gate and rowed
+swiftly to the Tower, surrounded by halberdiers, Norfolk as he left the
+Council Chamber tearing off the fallen minister&#8217;s badge of the Garter as a
+last stroke of ignominy.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell knew he was doomed, for by the iniquitous Act that he himself had
+forged for the ruin of others, he might be attainted and condemned legally
+without his presence or defence. &#8220;Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!&#8221; he wrote to the
+King in his agony; but for him there was as little mercy as he had shown
+to others. His death was a foregone conclusion, for Henry&#8217;s fears had been
+aroused: but Cromwell had to be kept alive long enough for him to furnish
+such information as would provide a plausible pretext for the repudiation
+of Anne. He was ready to do all that was asked of him&mdash;to swear to
+anything the King wished. He testified that he knew the marriage had never
+been consummated, and never would be; that the King was dissatisfied from
+the first, and had complained that the evidence of the nullification of
+the prior contract with the heir of Lorraine was insufficient; that the
+King had never given full consent to the marriage, but had gone through
+the ceremony<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> under compulsion of circumstances, and with mental
+reservation. When all this was sworn to, Cromwell&#8217;s hold upon the world
+was done. Upon evidence now unknown he was condemned for treason and
+heresy without being heard in his own defence, and on the 28th July 1540
+he stood, a sorry figure, upon the scaffold in the Tower. He had been a
+sinner, he confessed, and had travailed after the things of this world;
+but he fervently avowed that he was a good Catholic and no heretic, and
+had harboured no thought of evil towards his sovereign. But protestations
+availed not; and his head, the cleverest head in England, was pitiably
+hacked off by a bungling headsman. Before that happened, the repudiation
+of Anne of Cleves was complete, and a revival of the aristocratic and
+Catholic influence in England was an accomplished fact.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i349.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<h3>1540-1542</h3>
+<h3>THE KING&#8217;S &#8220;GOOD SISTER&#8221; AND THE KING&#8217;S BAD WIFE&mdash;THE LUTHERANS AND ENGLISH CATHOLICS</h3>
+
+<p>During her few months of incomplete wedlock with the King, Anne had felt
+uneasily the strange anomaly of her position. She accompanied Henry in his
+daily life at bed and board, and shared with him the various festivities
+held in celebration of the marriage; the last of which was a splendid
+tournament given by the bachelor courtiers at Durham House on May-day. She
+had studied English diligently, and tried to please her husband in a
+hundred well-meant but ungainly ways. She had by her jovial manner and
+real kindness of heart become very popular with those around her; but yet
+she got no nearer to the glum, bloated man by her side. In truth she was
+no fit companion for him, either physically or mentally. Her lack of the
+softer feminine charms, her homely manners, her lack of learning and of
+musical talent, on which Henry set so much store, were not counterbalanced
+by strong will or commanding ability which might have enabled her to
+dominate him, or by feminine craft by which he might have been captivated.</p>
+
+<p>She was a woman, however, and could not fail to know that her repudiation
+in some form was in the air. It was one of the accusations against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+Cromwell that he had divulged to her what the King had said about the
+marriage; but, so far from doing so, he had steadily avoided compliance
+with her oft-repeated requests for an interview with him. Shortly before
+Cromwell&#8217;s fall, Henry had complained to him that Anne&#8217;s temper was
+becoming tart; and then Cromwell thought well to warn her through her
+Chamberlain that she should try to please the King more. The poor woman,
+desirous of doing right, tactlessly flew to the other extreme, and her
+cloying fondness aroused Henry&#8217;s suspicion that Cromwell had informed her
+of his intention to get rid of her. Anne&#8217;s Lutheranism, moreover, had
+begun to grate upon the tender conscience of her husband under the
+prompting of the Catholic party; although she scrupulously followed the
+English ritual, and later became a professed Catholic; and to all these
+reasons which now made Henry doubly anxious for prompt release, was added
+another more powerful than any. One of Anne&#8217;s maids of honour was a very
+beautiful girl of about eighteen, Katharine, the orphan daughter of Lord
+Edmund Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk, and consequently first
+cousin of Anne Boleyn. During the first months of his unsatisfying union
+with Anne, Henry&#8217;s eyes must have been cast covetously upon Katharine; for
+in April 1540 she received a grant from him of a certain felon&#8217;s property,
+and in the following month twenty-three quilts of quilted sarsnet were
+given to her out of the royal wardrobe. When Cromwell was still awaiting
+his fate in the Tower, and whispers were rife of what was intended against
+the Queen, Marillac the observant French ambassador<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> wrote in cipher to
+his master, telling him that there was another lady in the case; and a
+week afterwards (6th July) he amplified his hints by saying that, either
+for that reason or some other, Anne had been sent to Richmond, on the
+false pretence that plague had appeared in London, and that Henry, very
+far from joining her there, as he had promised, had not left London, and
+was about to make a progress in another direction. Marillac rightly says
+that &#8220;if there had been any suspicion of plague, the King would not stay
+for any affair, however great, as he is the most timid person that could
+be in such a case.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The true reason why Anne was sent away was Henry&#8217;s invariable cowardice,
+that made him afraid to face a person whom he was wronging. Gardiner had
+promptly done what Cromwell had been ruined for not doing, and had
+submitted to the King within a few days of the arrest of his rival a
+complete plan by which Anne might be repudiated.<small><a name="f208.1" id="f208.1" href="#f208">[208]</a></small> First certain
+ecclesiastics, under oath of secrecy, were to be asked for their opinion
+as to the best way to proceed, and the Council was thereupon to discuss
+and settle the procedure in accordance: the question of the previous
+contract and its repudiation was to be examined; the manner in which the
+Queen herself was to be approached was to be arranged, and evidence from
+every one to whom the King had spoken at the time as to his lack of
+consent and consummation was to be collected. All this had been done by
+the 7th July, when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> clergy met at Westminster, summoned by writ under
+the great seal, dated the 6th, to decide whether the King&#8217;s marriage was
+valid or not in the circumstances detailed. The obedient Parliament,
+sitting with closed doors, a few days previously had, by Norfolk&#8217;s orders,
+petitioned the King to solve certain doubts that had been raised about the
+marriage, and Henry, ever desirous of pleasing his faithful lieges, and to
+set at rest conscientious scruples, referred the question to his prelates
+in Synod for decision.</p>
+
+<p>Anne, two days before this, summoned to Richmond the ambassador of her
+brother, who came to her at four o&#8217;clock in the morning; and she then sent
+for the Earl of Rutland, the chief of her household, to be present at the
+interview. The King, she said, had sent her a message and asked for a
+reply. The effect of the message was to express doubts as to the validity
+of their marriage, and to ask her if she was content to leave the decision
+of it to the English clergy. The poor woman, much perturbed, had refused
+to send an answer without consideration, and she had then desired that her
+brother&#8217;s envoy should give, or at all events carry, the answer to the
+King, but this he refused to do; and she in her trouble could only appeal
+to Rutland for advice. He prated about the &#8220;graciousness and virtue&#8221; of
+the King, and assured her that he would &#8220;do nothing but that should stand
+by the law of God, and for the discharge of his conscience and hers, and
+the quietness of the realm, and at the suit of all his lords and commons.&#8221;
+The King was content to refer the question to the learned and virtuous
+bishops,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> so that she had cause to be glad rather than sorry. Anne was
+confused and doubtful; for she did not know what was intended towards her.
+But, considering the helplessness of her position and the danger of
+resistance, she met the deputation of the Council that came to her next
+day (6th July) in a spirit of complete surrender. She was, she said in
+German, always content to obey the King, and would abide by the decision
+of the prelates; and with this answer Gardiner posted back to London that
+night, to appear at the Synod the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Anne, nor any one for her, appeared. The whole evidence, which was
+that already mentioned, was to show the existence of a prior contract, of
+the annulling of which no sufficient proofs had been produced, the avowals
+of the King and the Queen to their confidants that the marriage had never
+been consummated, and never would be; and, lastly, the absence of &#8220;inner
+consent&#8221; on the part of the King from the first. Under the pressure of
+Gardiner&mdash;for Cranmer, overshadowed by a cloud and in hourly fear of
+Cromwell&#8217;s fate, was ready to sign anything&mdash;the union was declared to be
+invalid, and both parties were pronounced capable of remarriage. A Bill
+was then hurriedly rushed through Parliament confirming the decision of
+Convocation, and Cranmer, for the third time, as Primate, annulled his
+master&#8217;s marriage. Anne was still profoundly disturbed at the fate that
+might be in store for her; and when Suffolk, Southampton, and Wriothesley
+went to Richmond on the 10th July to obtain her acceptance of the
+decision, she fainted at the sight of them. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> did their best to
+reassure her, giving her from the King a large present of money and a
+specially affectionate letter. She was assured that if she would acquiesce
+and remain in the realm she should be the King&#8217;s adopted sister, with
+precedence before all other ladies but the King&#8217;s wife and daughters; a
+large appanage should be secured to her, and jewels, furniture, and the
+household of a royal princess provided for her. She was still doubtful;
+and some persuasion had to be used before she would consent to sign the
+letter dictated to her as the King&#8217;s &#8220;sister&#8221;; but at last she did so, and
+was made to say that &#8220;though the case was hard and sorrowful, for the
+great love she bears to his noble person, yet, having more regard for God
+and His truth than for any worldly affection, she accepts the judgment,
+praying that the King will take her as one of his most humble servants,
+and so determine of her that she may sometimes enjoy his presence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This seemed almost too good to be true when Henry read it, and he insisted
+upon its being written and signed again in German, that Anne might not
+subsequently profess ignorance of its wording. When Anne, however, was
+asked to write to her brother, saying that she was fully satisfied, she at
+first refused. Why should she write to him before he wrote to her? she
+asked. If he sent a complaint, she would answer it as the King wished; but
+after a few days she gave way on this point when further pressed.<small><a name="f209.1" id="f209.1" href="#f209">[209]</a></small> So
+delighted was Henry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> at so much submission to his will, that he was
+kindness and generosity itself. On the 14th July he sent the Councillors
+again to Richmond, with another handsome present and a letter to his
+&#8220;Right dear, and right entirely beloved sister,&#8221; thanking her gratefully
+for her &#8220;wise and honourable proceedings.&#8221; &#8220;As it is done in respect of
+God and His truth; and, continuing your conformity, you shall find us a
+perfect friend content to repute you as our dearest sister.&#8221; He promised
+her &pound;4000 a year, with the two royal residences of Richmond and
+Bletchingly, and a welcome at Court when she pleased to come. In return
+she sent him another amiable letter, and the wedding-ring; expressing
+herself fully satisfied. She certainly carried out her part of the
+arrangement to perfection, whether from fear or complaisance; assuring the
+envoys of her brother the Duke that she was well treated, as in a material
+sense indeed she was, and thenceforward made the best of her life in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>Her brother and the German Protestants were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> of course furiously
+indignant; but, as the injured lady expressed herself not only satisfied
+but delighted with her position, no ground could be found for open
+quarrel. She was probably a person of little refinement of feeling, and
+highly appreciated the luxury and abundance with which she thenceforward
+was surrounded, enjoying, as she always did, recreation and fine dress, in
+which she was distinguished above any of Henry&#8217;s wives. On the day after
+the Synod had met in Westminster to decide the invalidity of the marriage
+(7th July), Pate, the English ambassador, saw the Emperor at Bruges, with
+a message from Henry which foreshadowed an entire change in the foreign
+policy of England. Charles received Pate at midnight, and was agreeably
+surprised to learn that conscientious scruples had made Henry doubt the
+validity of his union with Anne. The Emperor&#8217;s stiff demeanour changed at
+once, and, as the news came day by day of the progress of the separation
+of Henry from his Protestant wife, the cordiality of the Emperor grew
+towards him,<small><a name="f210.1" id="f210.1" href="#f210">[210]</a></small> whilst England itself was in full Catholic reaction.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>The fall of Cromwell had, as it was intended to do, provided Henry with a
+scapegoat. The spoliation and destruction of the religious houses, by
+which the King and many of the Catholic nobles had profited enormously,
+was laid to the dead man&#8217;s door; the policy of plundering the Church, of
+union with Lutherans, and the favouring of heresy, had been the work of
+the wicked minister, and not of the good King&mdash;that ill-served and
+ungratefully-used King, who was always innocent, and never in the wrong,
+who simply differed from other good Catholics in his independence of the
+Bishop of Rome: merely a domestic disagreement. With such suave hypocrisy
+as this difficulties were soon smoothed over; and to prove the perfect
+sincerity with which Henry proceeded, Protestants like Barnes, Garrard,
+and Jerome were burnt impartially side by side with Catholics who did not
+accept the spiritual supremacy of Henry over the Church in England, such
+as Abell, Powell, Fetherstone, and Cook. The Catholic and aristocratic
+party in England had thus triumphed all along the line, by the aid of
+anti-Protestant Churchmen like Gardiner and Tunstal. Their heavy-handed
+enemy, Cromwell, had gone, bearing the whole responsibility for the past;
+the King had been flattered by exoneration from blame, and pleased by the
+release from his wife, so deftly and pleasantly effected. No one but
+Cromwell was to blame for anything: they were all good Catholics, whom the
+other Catholic powers surely could not attack for a paltry quarrel with
+the Pope; and, best of all, the ecclesiastical spoil was secured to them
+and their heirs for ever, for they all maintained the supremacy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> of the
+King in England, good Catholics though they were.</p>
+
+<p>But, withal, they knew that Henry must have some one close to him to keep
+him in the straight way.<small><a name="f211.1" id="f211.1" href="#f211">[211]</a></small> The nobles were not afraid of Cranmer, for
+he kept in the background, and was a man of poor spirit; and, moreover,
+for the moment the danger was hardly from the reformers. The nobles had
+triumphed by the aid of Gardiner, and Gardiner was now the strong spirit
+near the King; but the aims of the nobles were somewhat different from
+those of Churchmen; and a Catholic bishop as the sole director of the
+national policy might carry them farther than they wished to go. Henry&#8217;s
+concupiscence must therefore once more be utilised, and the woman upon
+whom he cast his eyes, if possible, made into a political instrument to
+forward the faction that favoured her. Gardiner was nothing loath, for he
+was sure of himself; but how eager Norfolk and his party were to take
+advantage of Henry&#8217;s fancy for Katharine Howard, to effect her lodgment by
+his side as Queen, is seen by the almost indecent haste with which they
+began to spread the news of her rise, even before the final decision was
+given as to the validity of the marriage with Anne. On the 12th July a
+humble dependant of the Howards, Mistress Joan Bulmer (of whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> more will
+be heard), wrote to Katharine, congratulating her upon her coming
+greatness, and begging for an office about her person: &#8220;for I trost the
+Quyne of Bretane wyll not forget her secretary.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Less than a fortnight later (21st July) the French ambassador gives as a
+piece of gossip that Katharine Howard was already pregnant by the King,
+and that the marriage was therefore being hurried on. Exactly when or
+where the wedding took place is not known, but it was a private one, and
+by the 11th August Katharine was called Queen, and acknowledged as such by
+all the Court. On the 15th Marillac wrote that her name had been added to
+the prayers in the Church service, and that the King had gone on a hunting
+expedition, presumably accompanied by his new wife; whilst &#8220;Madame de
+Cleves, so far from claiming to be married, is more joyous than ever, and
+wears new dresses every day.&#8221; Everybody thus was well satisfied except the
+Protestants.<small><a name="f212.1" id="f212.1" href="#f212">[212]</a></small> Henry, indeed, was delighted with his tiny, sparkling
+girl-wife, and did his best to be a gallant bridegroom to her, though
+there was none of the pomp and splendour that accompanied his previous
+nuptials.<small><a name="f213.1" id="f213.1" href="#f213">[213]</a></small> The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> autumn of 1540 was passed in a leisurely progress
+through the shires to Grafton, where most of the honeymoon was spent. The
+rose crowned was chosen by Henry as his bride&#8217;s personal cognisance, and
+the most was made of her royal descent and connections by the enamoured
+King. &#8220;The King is so amorous of her,&#8221; wrote Marillac in September, &#8220;that
+he cannot treat her well enough, and caresses her more than he did the
+others.&#8221; Even thus early, however, whispers were heard of the King&#8217;s
+fickleness. Once it was said that Anne of Cleves was pregnant by him, and
+he would cast aside Katharine in her favour, and shortly afterwards he
+refrained from seeing his new wife for ten days together, because of
+something she had done to offend him.</p>
+
+<p>The moral deterioration of Henry&#8217;s character, which had progressed in
+proportion with the growing conviction of his own infallibility and
+immunity, had now reached its lowest depth. He was rapidly becoming more
+and more bulky; and his temper, never angelic, was now irascible in the
+extreme. His health was bad, and increasing age had made him more than
+ever impatient of contradiction or restraint, and no consideration but
+that of his own interest and safety influenced him. The policy which he
+adopted under the guidance of Gardiner and Norfolk was one of rigorous
+enforcement of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> Six Articles, and, at the same time, of his own
+spiritual supremacy in England. All chance of a coalition of Henry with
+the Lutherans was now out of the question (&#8220;Squire Harry means to be God,
+and to do as pleases himself,&#8221; said Luther at the time); and the Emperor,
+freed from that danger, and faced with the greater peril of a coalition of
+the French and Turks, industriously endeavoured to come to some <i>modus
+vivendi</i> with his German electors. The rift between Charles and Francis
+was daily widening; and Henry himself was aiding the process to his full
+ability; for he knew that whilst they were disunited he was safe. But for
+the first time in his reign, except when he defied the Pope, he adopted a
+policy&mdash;probably his own and not that of his ministers&mdash;calculated to
+offend both the Catholic powers, whilst he was alienated from the
+reforming element on the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>By an Act of Parliament the ancient penal laws against foreign denizens
+were re-enacted, and all foreigners but established merchants were to be
+expelled the country; whilst alien merchants resident were to pay double
+taxation. The taxation of Englishmen, enormous under Cromwell, was now
+recklessly increased, with the set purpose of keeping the lieges poor,
+just as the atrocious religious executions were mainly to keep them
+submissive, and incapable of questioning the despot&#8217;s will. But, though
+Englishmen might be stricken dumb by persecution, the expulsion or
+oppression of foreigners led to much acrimony and reprisals on the part
+both of the Emperor and Francis. An entirely gratuitous policy of
+irritation towards France on the frontier of Calais and elsewhere was also
+adopted, apparently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> to impress the Emperor, and for the satisfaction of
+Henry&#8217;s arrogance, when he thought it might be safe to exercise it. The
+general drift of English policy at the time was undoubtedly to draw closer
+to the Emperor, not entirely to the satisfaction of the Duke of Norfolk,
+who was usually pro-French; but even here the oppressive Act against
+foreigners by which Henry hoped to show Charles that his friendship was
+worth buying made cordiality in the interim extremely difficult. When
+Chapuys in the Emperor&#8217;s name remonstrated with the Council about the new
+decree forbidding the export of goods from England except in English
+bottoms, the English ministers rudely said that the King could pass what
+laws he liked in his own country, just as the Emperor could in his.
+Charles and his sister, the Regent of the Netherlands, took the hint, and
+utterly astounded Henry by forbidding goods being shipped in the
+Netherlands in English vessels.</p>
+
+<p>The danger was understood at once. Not only did this strike a heavy blow
+at English trade, but it upset the laboriously constructed pretence of
+close communion with the Emperor which had been used to hoodwink the
+French. Henry himself bullied and hectored, as if he was the first injured
+party; and then took Chapuys aside in a window-bay and hinted at an
+alliance. He said that the French were plotting against the Emperor, and
+trying to gain his (Henry&#8217;s) support, which, however, he would prefer to
+give to the Emperor if he wished for it. Henry saw, indeed, that he had
+drawn the bow too tight, and was ready to shuffle out of the position into
+which his own arrogance had led him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> So Gardiner was sent in the winter
+to see the Emperor with the King&#8217;s friend Knyvett, who was to be the new
+resident ambassador; the object of the visit being partly to impress the
+French, and partly to persuade Charles of Henry&#8217;s strict Catholicism, and
+so to render more difficult any such agreement being made as that aimed at
+by the meeting at Worms between the Lutheran princes and their suzerain.
+Gardiner&#8217;s mission was not very successful, for Charles understood the
+move perfectly; but it was not his policy then to alienate Henry, for he
+was slowly maturing his plans for crushing France utterly, and hoped
+whilst Catholic influence was paramount in England to obtain the help or
+at least the neutrality of Henry.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Cromwell had been hailed by Catholics in England as the
+salvation of their faith, and high hopes had attended the elevation of
+Gardiner. But the crushing taxation, the arbitrary measures, and, above
+all, the cruel persecution of those who, however slightly, questioned the
+King&#8217;s spiritual supremacy, caused renewed discontent amongst the extreme
+Catholics, who still looked yearningly towards Cardinal Pole and his
+house. It is not probable that any Yorkist conspiracy existed in England
+at the time; the people were too much terrified for that; but Henry&#8217;s
+ambassadors and agents in Catholic countries had been forced sometimes to
+dally with the foreign view of the King&#8217;s supremacy, and Gardiner, whose
+methods were even more unscrupulous than those of Cromwell, suddenly
+pounced upon those of Henry&#8217;s ministers who might be supposed to have come
+into contact with the friends of the House of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> York. Pate, the English
+ambassador with the Emperor, was suspicious, and escaped to Rome; but Sir
+Thomas Wyatt, who had been the ambassador in Spain, was led to the Tower
+handcuffed with ignominy; Dr. Mason, another ambassador, was also lodged
+in the fortress, at the suggestion of Bonner. Even Sir Ralph Sadler, one
+of the Secretaries of State, was imprisoned for a short time, whilst Sir
+John Wallop, the ambassador in France, was recalled and consigned to a
+dungeon, as was Sir Thomas Palmer, Knight Porter of Calais, and others;
+though most of them were soon afterwards pardoned at the instance of
+Katharine Howard. In the early spring of 1541 an unsuccessful attempt was
+made at a Catholic rising in Yorkshire, where the feeling was very bitter;
+and though the revolt was quickly suppressed, it was considered a good
+opportunity for striking terror into those who still doubted the spiritual
+supremacy of Henry, and resented the plunder of the monasteries. The
+atrocious crime was perpetrated of bringing out the mother of Pole, the
+aged Countess of Salisbury, last of the Plantagenets, from her prison in
+the Tower to the headsman&#8217;s block. Lord Leonard Gray was a another
+blameless victim, whilst Lord Dacre of the South was, on a trumped-up
+charge of murder, hanged like a common malefactor at Tyburn. Lord Lisle,
+Henry&#8217;s illegitimate uncle, was also kept in the Tower till his death.</p>
+
+<p>When the reign of terror had humbled all men to the dust, the King could
+venture to travel northward with the purpose of provoking and subjecting
+his nephew, the King of Scots, the ally of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> France. All this seems to
+point to the probability that at this time (1541) Henry had decided to
+take a share on the side of the Emperor in the war which was evidently
+looming between Charles and Francis. He was broken and fretful, but his
+vanity and ambition were still boundless; and Gardiner, whose policy, and
+not Norfolk&#8217;s, it undoubtedly was, would easily persuade him that an
+alliance in war with Charles could not fail to secure for him increased
+consideration and readmission into the circle of Catholic nations, whilst
+retaining his own supremacy unimpaired. Henry&#8217;s pompous progress in the
+North, accompanied by Katharine, occupied nearly five months, till the end
+of October. How far the young wife was influential in keeping Henry to the
+policy just described it is impossible to say, but beyond acquiescence in
+an occasional petition or hint, it is difficult to believe that the
+elderly, self-willed man would be moved by the thoughtless, giddy girl
+whom he had married. If the opposite had been the case, Norfolk&#8217;s
+traditions and leanings would have been more conspicuous than they are in
+Henry&#8217;s actions at the time. It is true that, during the whole period, a
+pretence of cordial negotiation was made for a marriage between Princess
+Mary and a French prince, but it is certain now, whatever Norfolk may have
+thought at the time, that the negotiation was solely in order to stimulate
+Charles to nearer approach, and to mislead Francis whilst the English
+preparations for war and the strengthening of the garrisons towards France
+and Scotland went steadily on.</p>
+
+<p>An alliance with the Emperor in a war with France was evidently the policy
+upon which Henry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> instigated by his new adviser, now depended to bring
+him back with flying colours into the comity of Catholic sovereigns,
+whilst bating no jot of his claims to do as he chose in his own realm.
+Such a policy was one after Henry&#8217;s own heart. It was showy and tricky,
+and might, if successful, cover him with glory, as well as redound greatly
+to his profit in the case of the dismemberment of France. But it would
+have been impossible whilst the union symbolised by the Cleves marriage
+existed; and, seen by this light, the eagerness of Gardiner to find a way
+for the King to dismiss the wife who had personally repelled him is easily
+understood, as well as Cromwell&#8217;s disinclination to do so. The
+encouragement of the marriage with Katharine Howard, part of the same
+intrigue, was still further to attach the King to its promoters, and the
+match was doubtless intended at the same time to conciliate Norfolk and
+the nobles whilst Gardiner carried through his policy. We shall see that,
+either by strange chance or deep design, those who were opposed to this
+policy were the men who were instrumental in shattering the marriage that
+was its concomitant.</p>
+
+<p>Henry and his consort arrived at Hampton Court from the North on the 30th
+October 1541, and to his distress he found his only son, Edward, seriously
+ill of quartan fever. All the physicians within reach were summoned, and
+reported to the anxious father that the child was so fat and unhealthy as
+to be unlikely to live long. The King had now been married to Katharine
+for fifteen months, and there were no signs of probable issue. Strange
+whispers were going about on back stairs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> and ante-chambers with regard to
+the Queen&#8217;s proceedings. She was known to have been a giddy, neglected
+girl before her marriage, having been brought up by her grandmother, the
+Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, without the slightest regard for her welfare
+or the high rank of her family; and her confidants in a particularly
+dissolute Court were many and untrustworthy. The King, naturally, was the
+last person to hear the malicious tittle-tattle of jealous waiting-maids
+and idle pages about the Queen; and though his wife&#8217;s want of reserve and
+dignity often displeased him, he lived usually upon affectionate terms
+with her. There was other loose talk, also, going on to the effect that on
+one of the visits of Anne of Cleves to Hampton Court after Henry&#8217;s
+marriage with Katharine, the King and his repudiated wife had made up
+their differences, with the consequence that Anne was pregnant by him. It
+was not true; though later it gave much trouble both to Henry and Anne,
+but it lent further support to the suggestions that were already being
+made that the King would dismiss Katharine and take Anne back again. The
+air was full of such rumours, some prompted, as we shall see, by personal
+malice, others evidently by the opponents of Gardiner&#8217;s policy, which was
+leading England to a war with France and a close alliance with the
+imperial champion of Catholicism.</p>
+
+<p>On the 2nd November, Henry, still in distress about the health of his son,
+attended Mass, as usual, in the chapel at Hampton Court,<small><a name="f214.1" id="f214.1" href="#f214">[214]</a></small> and as he
+came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> out Cranmer prayed for a private interview with him. The archbishop
+had for many months been in the background, for Gardiner would brook no
+competition; but <ins class="correction" title="original: Cramner">Cranmer</ins> was personally a favourite with the
+King,&mdash;Cromwell said once that Henry would forgive him anything,&mdash;and when
+they were alone Cranmer put him in possession of a shameful story that a
+few days before had been told to him, which he had carefully put into
+writing; and, after grave discussion with the Earl of Hertford (Seymour)
+and the Lord Chancellor (Audley), had determined to hand to the King. The
+conjunction of Cranmer, Seymour, and Audley, as the trio that thought it
+their duty to open Henry&#8217;s eyes to the suspicions cast upon his wife, is
+significant. They were all of them in sympathy with the reformed religion,
+and against the Norfolk and Gardiner policy; and it is difficult to escape
+from the conclusion that, however true may have been the statements as to
+Katharine&#8217;s behaviour, and there is no doubt that she was guilty of much
+that was laid to her charge, the enlightenment of Henry as to her life
+before and after marriage was intended to serve the political and
+religious ends of those who were instrumental in it.</p>
+
+<p>The story as set forth by Cranmer was a dreadful one. It appears that a
+man named John Lascelles, who was a strong Protestant, and had already
+foretold the overthrow of Norfolk and Gardiner,<small><a name="f215.1" id="f215.1" href="#f215">[215]</a></small><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> went to Cranmer and
+said that he had been visiting in Sussex a sister of his, whose married
+name was Hall. She had formerly been in the service of the Howard family
+and of the Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, in whose houses Katharine Howard
+had passed her neglected childhood; and Lascelles, recalling the fact,
+had, he said, recommended his sister to apply to the young Queen, whom she
+had known so intimately as a girl, for a place in the household. &#8220;No,&#8221;
+replied the sister, &#8220;I will not do that; but I am very sorry for her.&#8221;
+&#8220;Why are you sorry for her?&#8221; asked Lascelles. &#8220;Marry,&#8221; quoth she, &#8220;because
+she is light, both in living and conditions&#8221; (<i>i.e.</i> behaviour). The
+brother asked for further particulars, and, thus pressed, Mary Hall
+related that &#8220;one Francis Derham had lain in bed with her, and between the
+sheets in his doublet and hose, a hundred nights; and a maid in the house
+had said that she would lie no longer with her (Katharine) because she
+knew not what matrimony was. Moreover, one Mannock, a servant of the
+Dowager-Duchess, knew and spoke of a private mark upon the Queen&#8217;s body.&#8221;
+This was the document which Cranmer handed to the King, &#8220;not having the
+heart to say it by word of mouth&#8221;: and it must be admitted that as it was
+only a bit of second-hand scandal, without corroboration, and could not
+refer to any period subsequent to Katharine&#8217;s marriage, it did not amount
+to much. Henry is represented as having been inclined to make light of it,
+which was natural, but he nevertheless summoned Fitzwilliam (Southampton),
+Lord Russell (Lord Admiral), Sir Anthony Browne, and Wriothesley, and
+deputed to them the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> inquiry into the whole matter. Fitzwilliam hurried to
+London and then to Sussex to examine Lascelles and his sister, whilst the
+others were sent to take the depositions of Derham, who was now in
+Katharine&#8217;s service, and was ordered to be apprehended on a charge of
+piracy in Ireland sometime previously, and Mannock, who was a musician in
+the household of the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th November the ministers came to Hampton Court with the shocking
+admissions which they had extracted from the persons examined. Up to that
+time Henry had been gay, and had thought little of the affair, but now,
+when he heard the statements presented to him, he was overcome with grief:
+&#8220;his heart was pierced with pensiveness,&#8221; we are told, &#8220;so that it was
+long before he could utter his sorrow, and finally with copious tears,
+which was strange in his courage, opened the same.&#8221; The next day, Sunday,
+he met Norfolk and the Lord Chancellor secretly in the fields, and then
+with the closest privacy took boat to London without bidding farewell to
+Katharine, leaving in the hands of his Council the unravelling of the
+disgraceful business.</p>
+
+<p>The story, pieced together from the many different depositions,<small><a name="f216.1" id="f216.1" href="#f216">[216]</a></small> and
+divested of its repetitions and grossness of phraseology, may be
+summarised as follows. Katharine, whose mother had died early, had grown
+up uncared for in the house of her grandmother at Horsham in Norfolk, and
+later at Lambeth; apparently living her life in common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> with the
+women-servants. Whilst she was yet quite a child, certainly not more than
+thirteen, probably younger, Henry Mannock, one of the Duchess&#8217;s musicians,
+had taught her to play the virginals; and, as he himself professed, had
+fallen in love with her. The age was a licentious one; and the maids,
+probably to disguise their own amours, appear to have taken a sport in
+promoting immoral liberties between the orphan girl and the musician,
+carrying backwards and forwards between the ill-matched pair tokens and
+messages, and facilitating secret meetings at untimely hours: and Mannock
+deposed unblushingly to have corrupted the girl systematically and
+shamefully, though not criminally. On one occasion the old Duchess found
+this scamp hugging her granddaughter, and in great anger she beat the
+girl, upbraided the musician, and forbade such meetings for the future.
+Mary Hall, who first gave the information, represents herself as having
+remonstrated indignantly with Mannock for his presumption in pledging his
+troth, as one of the other women told her he had, with Katharine. He
+replied impudently that all he wanted of the girl was to seduce her, and
+he had no doubt he should succeed in doing so, seeing the liberties she
+had already permitted him to take with her. Mary Hall said that she had
+warned him that the Howards would kill or ruin him if he did not take
+care. Katharine, according to Mary Hall&#8217;s tale, when told of Mannock&#8217;s
+impudent speech, had angrily said that she cared nothing for him; but he
+managed the next time he saw her, by her own contrivance, to persuade her
+that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> was so much in love as not to know what he said.</p>
+
+<p>Before long, however, a more dangerous lover, because one of better rank,
+appeared in the field, and spoilt Mannock&#8217;s game. This was Francis Derham,
+a young gentleman of some means in the household of the Duke of Norfolk,
+of whom he seems to have been a distant connection. In his own confession
+he boldly admitted that he was in love with Katharine, and had promised
+her marriage. The old Duchess always had the keys of the maids&#8217; dormitory,
+where Katharine also slept, brought to her chamber after the doors were
+locked; but means were found by the women to laugh at locksmiths, and the
+most unbridled licence prevailed amongst them. Derham, with the lovers of
+two of the women, used to obtain access almost nightly to the dormitory,
+where they remained feasting and rioting until two or three in the
+morning: and there can remain little doubt that, on the promise of
+marriage, Derham practically lived with Katharine as his wife thus
+clandestinely, for a considerable period, whilst she was yet very young.
+Mannock, who found himself supplanted, thereupon wrote an anonymous letter
+to the Duchess and left it in her pew at chapel, saying that if her Grace
+would rise again an hour after she had retired and visit the gentlewomen&#8217;s
+chamber she would see something that would surprise her. The old lady, who
+was not free from reproach in the matter herself, railed and stormed at
+the women; and Katharine, who was deeply in love with Derham, stole the
+anonymous letter from her grandmother&#8217;s room and showed it to him,
+charging Mannock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> with having written it. The result, of course, was a
+quarrel, and the further enlightenment of the Duchess with regard to her
+granddaughter&#8217;s connection with Derham. The old lady herself was
+afterwards accused of having introduced Derham into her own household for
+the purpose of forwarding a match between him and Katharine; and finally
+got into great trouble and danger by seizing and destroying Derham&#8217;s
+papers before the King&#8217;s Council could impound them: but when she learnt
+the lengths to which the immoral connection had been carried, and the
+shameful licentiousness that had accompanied it, she made a clean sweep of
+the servants inculpated, and brought her granddaughter to live in Lambeth
+amongst a fresh set of people.</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that Katharine and Derham were secretly engaged to be
+married, and, apart from the immoral features of the engagement, no very
+great objection could have been taken to it. She was a member of a very
+large family, an orphan with no dower or prospects, and her marriage with
+Derham, who was a sort of relative, would have been not a glaringly
+unequal one. With lover-like alacrity he provided her with the feminine
+treasures which she coveted, but which her lack of means prevented her
+from buying. Artificial flowers, articles of dress, or materials for them,
+trinkets and adornments, not to speak of the delicacies which he brought
+to furnish forth the tables during the nightly orgy. He had made no great
+secret of his engagement to, and intention of marrying Katharine, and had
+shown various little tokens of her troth that she had given him. On one
+of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> his piratical raids, moreover, he had handed to her the whole of his
+money, as to his affianced wife, and told her she might keep it if he came
+not back, whilst on other occasions he had exercised his authority, as her
+betrothed, to chide her for her attentions to others. When at last the old
+Duchess learnt fully of the immoral proceedings that had been going on,
+Katharine got another severe beating, and Derham fled from the vengeance
+of the Howards. After the matter had blown over, and Katharine was living
+usually at Lambeth, Derham found his way back, and attempted clandestinely
+to renew the connection. But Katharine by this time was older and more
+experienced, as beseemed a lady at Court. It was said that she was
+affianced to her cousin, Thomas Culpeper; but in any case she indignantly
+refused to have anything to do with Derham, and hotly resented his claim
+to interfere in her affairs.</p>
+
+<p>So far the disclosures referred solely to misconduct previous to
+Katharine&#8217;s marriage with the King, and, however reprehensible this may
+have been, it only constructively became treason <i>post facto</i>, by reason
+of the concealment from the King of his wife&#8217;s previous immoral life;
+whereby the royal blood was &#8220;tainted,&#8221; and he himself injured. Cranmer was
+therefore sent to visit Katharine with orders to set before her the
+iniquity of her conduct and the penalty prescribed by the law; and then to
+promise her the King&#8217;s mercy on certain conditions. The poor girl was
+frantic with grief and fear when the Primate entered; and he in compassion
+spared her the first parts of his mission, and began by telling her of
+her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> husband&#8217;s pity and clemency. The reaction from her deadly fear sent
+her into greater paroxysms than ever of remorse and regret. &#8220;This sudden
+mercy made her offences seem the more heinous.&#8221; &#8220;This was about the hour&#8221;
+(6 o&#8217;clock), she sobbed, &#8220;that Master Heneage was wont to bring me
+knowledge of his Grace.&#8221; The promise of mercy may or may not have been
+sincere; but it is evident that the real object of Cranmer&#8217;s visit was to
+learn from Katharine whether the betrothal with Derham was a binding
+contract. If that were alleged in her defence the marriage with the King
+was voidable, as that of Anne of Cleves was for a similar cause; and if,
+by reason of such prior contract, Katharine had never legally been Henry&#8217;s
+wife, her guilt was much attenuated, and she and her accomplices could
+only be punished for concealment of fact to the King&#8217;s detriment, a
+sufficiently grave crime, it is true, in those days, but much less grave
+if Katharine was never legally Henry&#8217;s wife. It may therefore have seemed
+good policy to offer her clemency on such conditions as would have
+relieved him of her presence for ever, with as little obloquy as possible,
+but other counsels eventually prevailed. Orders were given that she was to
+be sent to Sion House, with a small suite and no canopy of state, pending
+further inquiry; whilst the Lord Chancellor, Councillors, peers, bishops,
+and judges were convened on the 12th November, and the evidence touching
+the Queen laid before them. It was decided, however, that Derham should
+not be called, and that all reference to a previous contract of marriage
+should be suppressed. On the following Sunday the whole of the Queen&#8217;s
+household<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> was to be similarly informed of the offences and their gravity,
+and to them also no reference to a prior engagement that might serve to
+lighten the accusations or their own responsibility was to be made.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine Howard&#8217;s fate if the matter had ended here would probably have
+been divorce on the ground of her previous immorality &#8220;tainting the royal
+blood,&#8221; and lifelong seclusion; but in their confessions the men and women
+involved had mentioned other names; and on the 13th November, the day
+before Katharine was to be taken to Sion, the scope of the inquiry
+widened. Mannock in his first examination on the 5th November had said
+that Mistress Katharine Tylney, the Queen&#8217;s chamberwoman, a relative of
+the old Duchess, could speak as to Katharine&#8217;s early immoral life; and
+when this lady found herself in the hands of Wriothesley she told some
+startling tales. &#8220;Did the Queen leave her chamber any night at Lincoln or
+elsewhere during her recent progress with the King?&#8221; &#8220;Yes, her Majesty had
+gone on two occasions to Lady Rochford&#8217;s<small><a name="f217.1" id="f217.1" href="#f217">[217]</a></small> room, which could be reached
+by a little pair of back stairs near the Queen&#8217;s apartment.&#8221; Mrs. Tylney
+and the Queen&#8217;s other attendant, Margery Morton, had attempted to
+accompany their mistress, but had been sent back. Mrs. Tylney had obeyed,
+and had gone to bed; but Margery had crept back up the stairs again to
+Lady Rochford&#8217;s room. About two o&#8217;clock in the morning Margery came to bed
+in the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> dormitory as the other maids. &#8220;Jesu! is not the Queen abed
+yet?&#8221; asked the surprised Tylney, as she awoke. &#8220;Yes,&#8221; in effect, replied
+Margery, &#8220;she has just retired.&#8221; On the second occasion Katharine sent the
+rest of her attendants to bed and took Tylney with her to Lady Rochford&#8217;s
+room, but the maid, with Lady Rochford&#8217;s servant, were shut up in a small
+closet, and not allowed to see who came into the principal apartments.
+But, nevertheless, her suspicions were aroused by the strange messages
+with which she was sent by Katharine to Lady Rochford: &#8220;so strange that
+she knew not how to utter them.&#8221; Even at Hampton Court lately, as well as
+at Grimsthorpe during the progress, she had been bidden by the Queen to
+ask Lady Rochford &#8220;when she should have the thing she promised her,&#8221; the
+answer being that she (Lady Rochford) was sitting up for it, and would
+bring the Queen word herself.</p>
+
+<p>Then Margery Morton was tackled by Sir Anthony Browne. She had never
+mistrusted the Queen until the other day, at Hatfield, &#8220;when she saw her
+Majesty look out of the window to Mr. Culpeper in such sort that she
+thought there was love between them.&#8221; Whilst at Hatfield the Queen had
+given orders that none of her attendants were to enter her bedroom unless
+they were summoned. Margery, too, had been sent on mysterious secret
+errands to Lady Rochford, which she could not understand, and, with others
+of the maids, had considered herself slighted by the Queen&#8217;s preference
+for Katharine Tylney and for those who owed their position to Lady
+Rochford; which lady, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> said, she considered the principal cause of the
+Queen&#8217;s folly. Thus far there was nothing beyond the suspicions of jealous
+women, but Lady Rochford was frightened into telling a much more damning
+story, though she tried to make her own share in it as light as possible.
+The Queen, she confessed, had had many interviews in her rooms with
+Culpeper&mdash;at Greenwich, Lincoln, Pontefract, York, and elsewhere&mdash;for many
+months past; but as Culpeper stood at the farther end of the room with his
+foot upon the top of the back stairs, so as to be ready to slip down in
+case of alarm, and the Queen talked to him at the door, Lady Rochford
+professed to be ignorant of what passed between them. One night, she
+recalled, the Queen and herself were standing at the back door at eleven
+at night, when a watchman came with a lantern and locked the door. Shortly
+afterwards, however, Culpeper entered the room, saying that he and his
+servant had picked the lock. Since the first suspicion had been cast upon
+the Queen by Lascelles, Katharine, according to Lady Rochford, had
+continually asked after Culpeper. &#8220;If that matter came not out she feared
+nothing,&#8221; and finally, Lady Rochford, although professing to have been
+asleep during some of Culpeper&#8217;s compromising visits, declared her belief
+that criminal relations had existed between him and the Queen:</p>
+
+<p>Culpeper, according to the depositions,<small><a name="f218.1" id="f218.1" href="#f218">[218]</a></small> made quite a clean breast of
+it, though what means<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> were adopted for making him so frank is not clear.
+Probably torture, or the threat of it, was resorted to, since Hertford,
+Riche, and Audley had much to do with the examinations;<small><a name="f219.1" id="f219.1" href="#f219">[219]</a></small> whilst even
+the Duke of Norfolk and Wriothesley, not to appear backward in the King&#8217;s
+service, were as anxious as their rivals to make the case complete.
+Culpeper was a gentleman of great estate in Kent and elsewhere, holding
+many houses and offices; a gentleman of the chamber, clerk of the armoury,
+steward and keeper of several royal manors; and he had received many
+favours from the King, with whom he ordinarily slept. He deposed to and
+described many stolen interviews with Katharine, all apparently after the
+previous Passion Week (1541), when the Queen, he said, had sent for him
+and given him a velvet cap. Lady Rochford, according to his statement, was
+the go-between, and arranged all the assignations in her apartments,
+whilst the Queen, whenever she reached a house during the progress, would
+make herself acquainted with the back doors and back stairs, in order to
+facilitate the meetings. At Pontefract she thought the back door was being
+watched by the King&#8217;s orders, and Lady Rochford caused her servant to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>
+keep a counter watch. On one occasion, he said, the Queen had hinted that
+she could favour him as a certain lady of the Court had favoured Lord
+Parr; and when Culpeper said he did not think that the Queen was such a
+lady as the one mentioned, she had replied, &#8220;Well, if I had tarried still
+in the maidens&#8217; chamber I would have tried you;&#8221; and on another occasion
+she had warned him that if he confessed, even when he was shriven, what
+had passed between them, the King would be sure to know, as he was the
+head of the Church. Culpeper&#8217;s animus against Lady Rochford is evident.
+She had provoked him much, he said, to love the Queen, and he intended to
+do ill with her. Evidence began to grow, too, that not only was Derham
+admittedly guilty with the Queen before marriage, but that suspicious
+familiarity had been resumed afterwards. He himself confessed that he had
+been more than once in the Queen&#8217;s private apartment, and she had given
+him various sums of money, warning him to heed what he said; which, truth
+to tell, he had not done, according to other deponents.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody implicated in the scandals was imprisoned, mostly in the Tower,
+several members of the house of Howard being put under guard; and Norfolk,
+trembling for his own position, showed as much zeal as any one to condemn
+his unfortunate niece. He knew, indeed, at this time that he had been used
+simply as a catspaw in the advances towards France, and complained
+bitterly that the match he had secretly suggested between the Princess
+Mary and the Duke of Orleans was now common talk, which gave ground for
+his enemies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> who were jealous of him to denounce him to the King as
+wishing to embrace all great affairs of State. It is clear that at this
+period it was not only the Protestants who were against Norfolk, but his
+own colleagues who were planning the alliance with the Emperor; which to
+some extent explains why such men as Wriothesley, Fitzwilliam, and Browne
+were so anxious to make the case of Katharine and her family look as black
+as possible, and why Norfolk aided them so as not to be left behind. When,
+on the 15th December, the old Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, his stepmother,
+his half-brother, Lord William Howard and his wife, and his sister, Lady
+Bridgewater, were imprisoned on the charge of having been privy to
+Katharine&#8217;s doings before marriage, the Duke wrote as follows to the King:
+&#8220;I learnt yesterday that mine ungracious mother-in-law, mine unhappy
+brother and his wife, and my lewd sister of Bridgewater were committed to
+the Tower; and am sure it was not done but for some false proceeding
+against your Majesty. Weighing this with the abominable deeds done by my
+two nieces (<i>i.e.</i> Katharine Howard and Anne Boleyn), and the repeated
+treasons of many of my kin, I fear your Majesty will abhor to hear speak
+of me or my kin again. Prostrate at your Majesty&#8217;s feet, I remind your
+Majesty that much of this has come to light through my own report of my
+mother-in-law&#8217;s words to me, when I was sent to Lambeth to search Derham&#8217;s
+coffers. My own truth, and the small love my mother-in-law and nieces bear
+me, make me hope; and I pray your Majesty for some comfortable assurance
+of your royal favour, without which I will never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> desire to live.
+Kenninghall Lodge, 15th December 1541.&#8221;<small><a name="f220.1" id="f220.1" href="#f220">[220]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>On the 1st December, Culpeper and Derham had been arraigned before a
+special Commission in Guildhall, accused of treason.<small><a name="f221.1" id="f221.1" href="#f221">[221]</a></small> The indictment
+set forth that before her marriage Katharine had &#8220;led an abominable, base,
+carnal, voluptuous, and vicious life, like a common harlot ... whilst, at
+other times, maintaining an appearance of chastity and honesty. That she
+led the King to love her, believing her to be pure, and arrogantly coupled
+with him in marriage.&#8221; That upon her and Derham being charged with their
+former vicious life, they had excused themselves by saying that they were
+betrothed before the marriage with the King; which betrothal they falsely
+and traitorously concealed from the King when he married her. After the
+marriage they attempted to renew their former vicious courses at
+Pontefract and elsewhere, the Queen having procured Derham&#8217;s admission
+into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> her service, and entrusted secret affairs to him. Against Culpeper
+it was alleged that he had held secret and illicit meetings with the
+Queen, who had &#8220;incited him to have intercourse with her, and insinuated
+to him that she loved him better than the King and all others. Similarly
+Culpeper incited the Queen, and they had retained Lady Rochford as their
+go-between, she having traitorously aided and abetted them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It will be noticed that actual adultery is not alleged, and the indictment
+follows very closely the deposition of the witnesses. The <i>liaison</i> with
+Derham before the marriage was not denied; nor were the meetings with
+Culpeper after the marriage. This and the concealment were sufficient for
+the King&#8217;s purpose, without adding to his ignominy by labouring to prove
+the charge of adultery.<small><a name="f222.1" id="f222.1" href="#f222">[222]</a></small><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> After pleading not guilty, the two men,
+in face of the evidence and their own admissions, changed their plea to
+guilty, and were promptly condemned to be drawn through London to Tyburn,
+&#8220;and there hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled, and, they still living,
+their bowels burnt, the bodies then to be beheaded and quartered:&#8221; a
+brutal sentence that was carried out to the letter in Derham&#8217;s case only,
+on the 10th December, Culpeper being beheaded.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i384.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>KATHARINE HOWARD</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a portrait by an unknown artist in the National Portrait Gallery</i></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Although the procedure had saved the King as much humiliation as possible,
+the affair was a terrible blow to his self-esteem as well as to his
+affections; for he seems to have been really fond of his young wife.
+Chapuys, writing on the 3rd December, says that he shows greater sorrow at
+her loss than at any of his previous matrimonial misfortunes. &#8220;It is like
+the case of the woman who cried more bitterly at the loss of her tenth
+husband than for all the rest put together, though they had all been good
+men; but it was because she had never buried one before without being sure
+of the next. As yet, it does not seem that he has any one else in
+view.&#8221;<small><a name="f223.1" id="f223.1" href="#f223">[223]</a></small> The French ambassador, a few days later, wrote that &#8220;the grief
+of the King was so great that it was believed that it had sent him mad;
+for he had called suddenly for a sword with which to kill the Queen whom
+he had loved so much. Sometimes sitting in Council he suddenly calls for
+horses, without saying whither he would go. Sometimes he will say
+irrelevantly that that wicked woman had never had such delight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> in her
+incontinency as she should have torture in her death; and then, finally,
+he bursts into tears, bewailing his misfortune in meeting such
+ill-conditioned wives, and blaming his Council for this last
+mischief.&#8221;<small><a name="f224.1" id="f224.1" href="#f224">[224]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Henry sought such distraction as he might at Oatlands and
+other country places, solaced by music and mummers, whilst Norfolk, in
+grief and apprehension, lurked on his own lands, and Gardiner kept a firm
+hand upon affairs. The discomfiture of the Howards, who had brought about
+the Catholic reaction, gave new hope to the Protestants that the wheel of
+fate was turning in their favour. Anne of Cleves, they began to whisper,
+had been confined of a &#8220;fair boy&#8221;; &#8220;and whose should it be but the King&#8217;s
+Majesty&#8217;s, begotten when she was at Hampton Court?&#8221; This rumour, which the
+King, apparently, was inclined to believe, gave great offence and
+annoyance to him and his Council, as did the severely repressed but
+frequent statements that he intended to take back his repudiated wife. It
+was not irresponsible gossip alone that took this turn, for on the 12th
+December the ambassador from the Duke of Cleves brought letters to Cranmer
+at Lambeth from Chancellor Olsiliger, who had negotiated the marriage,
+commending to him the reconciliation of Henry with Anne. Cranmer, who
+understood perfectly well that with Gardiner as the King&#8217;s factotum such a
+thing was impossible, was frightened out of his wits by such a suggestion,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> promptly assured Henry that he had declined to discuss it without the
+Sovereign&#8217;s orders.</p>
+
+<p>But the envoy of Cleves was not lightly shaken off, and at once sought
+audience of Henry himself to press the cause of &#8220;Madam Anne.&#8221; He was
+assured that the King&#8217;s grief at his present troubles would prevent his
+giving audience; and the Protestant envoy then tackled the Council on the
+subject. As may be supposed, he met with a rebuff. The lady would be
+better treated than ever, he was told, but the separation was just and
+final, and the Duke of Cleves must never again request that his sister
+should be restored to the position of the King&#8217;s wife. The envoy begged
+that the answer might be repeated formally to him, whereupon Gardiner flew
+into a rage, and said that the King would never take Anne back, whatever
+happened. The envoy was afraid to retort for fear of evil consequences to
+Anne, but the Duke of Cleves, who was now in close league with the French,
+endeavoured to obtain the aid of his new allies to forward his sister&#8217;s
+cause in England. Francis, however, saw, like every one else, that war
+between him and the Emperor was now inevitable, and was anxious not to
+drive Henry into alliance with Charles against him. Cleves by himself was
+powerless, and the trend of politics in England under Gardiner, and with
+Henry in his present mood, was entirely unfavourable to a union with the
+Lutherans on the Continent; so Anne of Cleves continued her placid and
+jovial existence as &#8220;the King&#8217;s good sister,&#8221; rather than his wife, whilst
+the Protestants of England soon found that they had misjudged the
+situation produced by Katharine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> Howard&#8217;s fall. All that the latter really
+had done was to place Norfolk and the French sympathisers under a cloud,
+and make Gardiner entirely master of the situation whilst he carried out
+the King&#8217;s own policy.</p>
+
+<p>Henry returned to Greenwich for Christmas 1541, and at once began his
+bargaining to sell his alliance with the Emperor at as high a price as
+possible. He had already in hand the stoppage of trade with Flanders,
+which his ministers were still laboriously and stiffly discussing with the
+Emperor&#8217;s representatives. Any concession in that respect would have to be
+paid for. The French, too, were very anxious, according to his showing,
+for his friendship, and were offering him all manner of tempting
+matrimonial alliances, and when Henry, on the day after Christmas Day,
+received Chapuys at Greenwich, he was all smiles, but determined to make
+the best of his opportunities. The Emperor had just met with a terrible
+disaster at sea during his operations against Algiers, and had returned to
+Spain depressed at his losses, and the more ready to make terms with Henry
+if possible. Chapuys was a hard bargainer, and it was a fair game of brag
+that ensued between him and Henry. Chapuys began by flattering the King:
+&#8220;and got him into very high spirits by such words, which the Lord Privy
+Seal (<i>i.e.</i> Fitzwilliam) says are never thrown away upon him,&#8221; and then
+told him that he would give him in strict confidence some important
+information about French intrigues.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner the ball opened in earnest, Chapuys and Henry being alone and
+seated, with Fitzwilliam, Russell, and Browne at some distance away. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>
+imperial ambassador began by saying that the King of France had made a
+determined bid to marry his second son, Orleans, with the Infanta of
+Portugal. This was a shock to Henry, and he changed colour; for one of his
+own trump cards was the sham negotiation in which Norfolk had been the
+tool, to marry the Princess Mary to Orleans. For a time he could only
+sputter and exclaim; but when he had collected his senses he countered by
+saying that Francis only wished to get the Infanta into his power, not for
+marriage, &#8220;but for objects of greater consequence than people imagined.&#8221;
+Besides, the French wanted the Princess Mary for Orleans, and were anxious
+to send an embassy to him about it: indeed, the French ambassador was
+coming to see him about it with fresh powers next day. Chapuys protested
+that he spoke as one devoted to Henry&#8217;s service; but he was sure the
+French did not mean business. They would never let Orleans marry a
+Princess of illegitimate birth. &#8220;Ah!&#8221; replied Henry, &#8220;but though she may
+be a bastard, I have power from Parliament to appoint her my successor if
+I like;&#8221; but Chapuys gave several other reasons why the match with Mary
+would never suit the French. &#8220;Why,&#8221; cried Henry, &#8220;Francis is even now
+soliciting an interview <ins class="correction" title="original: wth">with</ins> me with a view to alliances.&#8221; &#8220;Yes, I know
+they say that,&#8221; replied the ambassador, &#8220;but at the same time Francis has
+sent an ambassador to Scotland, with orders not to touch at an English
+port.&#8221; This was a sore point with Henry, and he again winced at the blow.</p>
+
+<p>Then he began to boast. He was prepared to face any one, and James of
+Scotland was in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> mortal fear of him. Chapuys then mentioned that France
+had made a secret treaty with Sweden and Denmark to obtain control of the
+North Sea, and divert all the Anglo-German trade to France, which Henry
+parried, by saying that Francis was in league with the German Protestants,
+and, notwithstanding the new decree of the Diet of Ratisbon, could draw as
+many mercenary soldiers as he liked from the Emperor&#8217;s vassals. He felt
+sure that Francis would invade Flanders next spring; and if he, Henry, had
+cared to marry a daughter of France, as her father wished him to do, he
+might have had a share of his conquests. This made Chapuys angry, and he
+said that perhaps Holstein and Cleves had also been offered shares. Henry
+then went on another tack, and said that he knew quite well that Francis
+and Charles together intended, if they could, to make war on England.
+Considering, however, the Emperor&#8217;s disaster at Algiers, and the state of
+Europe, he was astonished that Charles had not tried to make a close
+friendship with him. Chapuys jumped at the hint, and begged Henry to state
+his intentions, that they might be conveyed to the Emperor. But the King
+was not to be drawn too rapidly, and would not say whether he was willing
+to form an alliance with the Emperor until some one with full and special
+powers was sent to him. He had been cheated too often and left in the
+lurch before, he said. &#8220;He was quite independent. If people wanted him
+they might come forward with offers.&#8221; This sparring went on for hours on
+that day and the next, interspersed with little wrangles about the
+commercial question, and innuendoes as to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> the French intrigues. But
+Chapuys, who knew his man, quite understood that Henry was for sale; and,
+as usual, might, if dexterously handled, be bought by flattery and feigned
+submission to his will, hurriedly wrote to his master that: &#8220;If the
+Emperor wishes to gain the King, he must send hither at once an able
+person, with full powers, to take charge of the negotiation:&#8221; since he,
+Chapuys, was in ill health and unequal to it.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the English Catholic reaction that had been symbolised by the
+repudiation of Anne of Cleves, and the marriage with Katharine Howard, was
+triumphantly producing the results which Henry and Gardiner had intended.
+The excommunicated King, the man who had flung aside his proud Spanish
+wife and bade defiance to the vicegerent of Christ, was to be flattered
+and sought in alliance by the head of the house of Aragon and the
+appointed champion of Roman orthodoxy. He was to come back into the fold
+unrepentant, with no submission or reparation made, a good Catholic, but
+his own Pope. It was a prospect that appealed strongly to a man of Henry&#8217;s
+vain and ostentatious character, for it gave apparent sanction to his
+favourite pose that everything he did was warranted by the strictest right
+and justice; it promised the possibility of an extension of his
+Continental territory, and the establishment of his own fame as a warrior
+and a king. We shall see how his pompous self-conceit enabled his ally to
+trick him out of his reward, and how the consequent reaction against those
+who had beguiled him drew his country farther along the road of the
+Reformation than Henry ever meant to go. But at present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> all looked
+rose-coloured, for the imperial connection and the miserable scandal of
+Katharine Howard rather benefited than injured the chances of its
+successful negotiation. Cranmer, Hertford, and Audley had shot their bolt
+in vain so far as political or religious aims were attained.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile the evidence against Katharine and her abettors was being
+laboriously wrung out of all those who had come into contact with her. The
+poor old Duchess of Norfolk and her son and daughters and several
+underlings were condemned for misprison of treason to perpetual
+imprisonment and confiscation,<small><a name="f225.1" id="f225.1" href="#f225">[225]</a></small> and in Parliament on the 21st January
+a Bill of Attainder against Katharine and three lady accomplices was
+presented to the Lords. The evidence presented against Katharine was
+adjudged to be insufficient in the absence of direct allegations of
+adultery after her marriage, or of specific admissions from herself.<small><a name="f226.1" id="f226.1" href="#f226">[226]</a></small>
+This and other objections seem to have delayed the passage of the Bill
+until the 11th of February, when it received the royal assent by
+commission,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> condemning Katharine and Lady Rochford to death for treason.
+During the passage of the Bill, as soon, indeed, as the procedure of
+Katharine&#8217;s condemnation had been settled, Henry plucked up spirits again,
+and with characteristic heartlessness once more began to play the gallant.
+&#8220;The King,&#8221; writes Chapuys, &#8220;had never been merry since first hearing of
+the Queen&#8217;s misconduct, but he has been so since (the attainder was
+arranged), especially on the 29th, when he gave a supper and banquet with
+twenty-six ladies at the table, besides gentlemen, and thirty-five at
+another table adjoining. The lady for whom he showed the greatest regard
+was a sister of Lord Cobham, whom Wyatt, some time ago, divorced for
+adultery. She is a pretty young creature, with wit enough to do as badly
+as the others if she were to try. The King is also said to fancy a
+daughter of Mistress Albart(?) and niece of Sir Anthony Browne; and also
+for a daughter, by her first marriage, of the wife of Lord Lisle, late
+Deputy of Calais.&#8221;<small><a name="f227.1" id="f227.1" href="#f227">[227]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Up to this time Katharine had remained at Sion House, as Chapuys reported,
+&#8220;making good cheer, fatter and more beautiful than ever; taking great care
+to be well apparelled, and more imperious and exacting to serve than even
+when she was with the King, although she believes she will be put to
+death, and admits that she deserves it. Perhaps if the King does not wish
+to marry again he may show her some compassion.&#8221;<small><a name="f228.1" id="f228.1" href="#f228">[228]</a></small> No sooner, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+had the Act of Attainder passed its third reading in the Commons (10th
+January) than Fitzwilliam was sent to Isleworth to convey her to the
+Tower. She resisted at first, but was of course overpowered, and the sad
+procession swept along the wintry river Londonward. First came
+Fitzwilliam&#8217;s barge with himself and several Privy Councillors, then, in a
+small covered barge, followed the doomed woman, and the rear was guarded
+by a great barge full of soldiers under the aged Duke of Suffolk, whose
+matrimonial adventures had been almost as numerous as those of his royal
+brother-in-law. Under the frowning portcullis of the Traitors&#8217; Gate in the
+gathering twilight of the afternoon, the beautiful girl in black velvet
+landed amidst a crowd of Councillors, who treated her with as much
+ceremony as if she still sat by the King&#8217;s side. She proudly and calmly
+gloried in her love for her betrothed Culpeper, whom she knew she soon
+would join in death. There was no hysterical babbling like that of her
+cousin, Anne Boleyn; no regret in her mien or her words now. Even as he,
+with his last breath, had confessed his love for her, and mourned that the
+King&#8217;s passion for her had stood in the way of their honest union, so did
+she, with flashing eyes and blazing cheeks, proclaim that love was
+victorious over death; and that since there had been no mercy for the man
+she loved she asked no mercy for herself from the King whose plaything of
+a year she had been.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday evening, 12th February, she was told that she must be prepared
+for death on the morrow, and she asked that the block should be brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+to her room, that she might learn how to dispose her head upon it. This
+was done, and she calmly and smilingly rehearsed her part in the tragedy
+of the morrow. Early in the morning, before it was fully light, she was
+led out across the green, upon which the hoar-frost glistened, to the
+scaffold erected on the same spot that had seen the sacrifice of Anne
+Boleyn. Around it stood all the Councillors except Norfolk and Suffolk:
+even her first cousin, the poet Surrey, with his own doom not far off,
+witnessed the scene. Upon the scaffold, half crazy with fear, stood the
+wretched Lady Rochford, the ministress of the Queen&#8217;s amours, who was to
+share her fate. Katharine spoke shortly. She died, she said, in full
+confidence in God&#8217;s goodness. She had grievously sinned and deserved
+death, though she had not wronged the King in the particular way that she
+had been accused of. If she had married the man she loved, instead of
+being dazzled by ambition, all would have been well; and when the headsman
+knelt to ask her forgiveness, she pardoned him, but exclaimed, &#8220;I die a
+Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper;&#8221; and then,
+kneeling in prayer, her head was struck off whilst she was unaware.<small><a name="f229.1" id="f229.1" href="#f229">[229]</a></small>
+Lady Rochford followed her to the block as soon as the head and trunk of
+the Queen had been piteously gathered up in black cloth by the ladies who
+attended her at last, and conveyed to the adjoining chapel for sepulture
+close to the grave of Anne Boleyn.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>Katharine Howard had erred much for love, and had erred more for ambition,
+but taking a human view of the whole circumstances of her life, and of the
+personality of the man she married, she is surely more worthy of pity than
+condemnation. Only a few days after her death we learn from Chapuys (25th
+February) that &#8220;the King has been in better spirits since the execution,
+and during the last three days before Lent there has been much feasting.
+Sunday was devoted to the lords of his Council and courtiers, Monday to
+the men of the law, Tuesday to the ladies, who all slept at the Court. The
+King himself did nothing but go from room to room ordering and arranging
+the lodgings to be prepared for these ladies, and he made them great and
+hearty cheer, without showing special affection for any particular one.
+Indeed, unless Parliament prays him to take another wife, he will not be
+in a hurry to do so, I think. Besides, there are few, if any, ladies now
+at Court who would aspire to such an honour; for by a new Act just passed,
+any lady that the King may marry, if she be a subject, is bound, on pain
+of death, to declare any charge of misconduct that can be brought against
+her; and all who know or suspect anything against her must declare it
+within twenty days, on pain of perpetual imprisonment and confiscation.&#8221;
+Henry, with five unsuccessful matrimonial adventures to his account, might
+well pause before taking another plunge; though, from the extract printed
+above, it was evident that he had no desire to put himself out of the way
+of temptation. The only course upon which he seemed quite determined was
+to resist all the blandishments of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> Protestants, the German Lutherans,
+and the French to take back Anne of Cleves, who, we are told, had waxed
+half as beautiful again as she was since she had begun her jolly life of
+liberty and beneficence, away from so difficult a husband as Henry.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i397.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<h3>1542-1547</h3>
+<h3>KATHARINE PARR&mdash;THE PROTESTANTS WIN THE LAST TRICK</h3>
+
+<p>The disappearance of Katharine Howard and the temporary eclipse of Norfolk
+caused no check to the progress of the Catholic cause in England. When
+Gardiner was with the Emperor in the summer of 1541 he had been able to
+make in Henry&#8217;s name an agreement by which neither monarch should treat
+anything to the other&#8217;s disadvantage for the next ten months; and as war
+loomed nearer between Charles and Francis, the chances of a more durable
+and binding treaty being made between the former and Henry improved. When
+Gardiner had hinted at it in Germany, both Charles and Granvelle had
+suggested that the submission of Henry to the Pope would be a necessary
+preliminary. But the Emperor&#8217;s brother, Ferdinand, was in close grips with
+the Turk in Hungary, and getting the worst of it; Francis was again in
+negotiation with the infidel, and French intrigue in Italy was busy. Henry
+therefore found that the Emperor&#8217;s tone softened considerably on the
+report of Chapuys&#8217; conversation at Windsor in February, whilst the English
+terms became stiffer, as Francis endeavoured to turn his feigned
+negotiations with Henry into real ones. The whole policy of Henry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> at the
+period was really to effect an armed league with the Emperor, by means of
+which France might be humiliated, perhaps dismembered, whilst Henry was
+welcomed back with open arms by the great Catholic power, in spite of his
+contumacy, and the hegemony of England established over Scotland. In order
+the better to incline Charles to essential concessions, it was good policy
+for Henry to give several more turns of the screw upon his own subjects,
+to prove to his future ally how devout a Catholic he was, and how entirely
+Cromwell&#8217;s later action was being reversed.</p>
+
+<p>The great Bibles were withdrawn from the churches, the dissemination of
+the Scriptures restricted, and the Six Articles were enforced more
+severely than ever;<small><a name="f230.1" id="f230.1" href="#f230">[230]</a></small> but yet when, after some months of fencing and
+waiting, Chapuys came to somewhat closer quarters with the English
+Council, he still talked, though with bated breath now, about Henry&#8217;s
+submission to the Pope and the legitimation of the Princess Mary. But the
+Emperor&#8217;s growing need for support gradually broke down the wall of
+reserve that Henry&#8217;s defection from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> Rome had raised, and Gardiner and
+Chapuys, during the spring of 1542, were in almost daily confabulation in
+a quiet house in the fields at Stepney.<small><a name="f231.1" id="f231.1" href="#f231">[231]</a></small> In June the imperial
+ambassador made a hasty visit to Flanders to submit the English terms for
+an alliance to the Queen Regent. Henry&#8217;s conditions in appearance were
+hard, for by going to war with France he would, he said, lose the great
+yearly tribute he received from that country; but Charles and his sister
+knew how to manage him, and were not troubled with scruples as to keeping
+promises. So, to begin with, the commercial question that had so long been
+rankling, was now rapidly settled, and the relations daily grew more
+cordial. Henry had agents in Germany and Flanders ordering munitions of
+war and making secret compacts with mercenary captains; he was actively
+reinforcing his own garrisons and castles, organising a fine fleet,
+collecting vast fresh sums of money from his groaning subjects, and in
+every way preparing himself to be an ally worth purchase by the Emperor at
+a high price.</p>
+
+<p>In July 1542 the French simultaneously attacked the imperial territory in
+four distinct directions; and Henry summoned the ambassadors of Charles
+and Francis to Windsor to tell them that, as war was so near him, he must
+raise men for his defence, especially towards Scotland, but meant no
+menace to either of the Continental powers. Chapuys had already been
+assured that the comedy was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> only to blind the French, and cheerfully
+acquiesced, but the Frenchmen took a more gloomy view and knew it meant
+war. With Scotland and Henry it was a case of the lamb and the wolf. Henry
+knew that he dared not send his army across the Channel to attack France
+without first crushing his northern neighbour. The pretended negotiations
+with, and allegations against, the unfortunate Stuart were never sincere.
+James was surrounded by traitors: for English money and religious rancour
+had profoundly divided the Scottish gentry; Cardinal Beaton, the Scots
+King&#8217;s principal minister, was hated; the powerful Douglas family were
+disaffected and in English pay; and the forces with which James V. rashly
+attempted to raid the English marches in reprisal for Henry&#8217;s unprovoked
+attacks upon him were wild and undisciplined. The battle of Solway Moss
+(November 1542) was a disgraceful rout for the Scots, and James,
+heart-broken, fled from the ruin of his cause to Tantallon and Edinburgh,
+and thence to Falkland to die. Then, with Scotland rent in twain, with a
+new-born baby for a Queen, and a foreign woman as regent, Henry could face
+a war with France by the side of the Emperor, with assurance of safety on
+his northern border, especially if he could force upon the rulers of
+Scotland a marriage between his only son and the infant Mary Stuart, as he
+intended to do.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i400.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>KATHARINE PARR</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a painting in the collection of the</i> <span class="smcap">Earl of Ashburnham</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>There was infinite haggling with Chapuys with regard to the style to be
+given to Henry in the secret treaty, even after the heads of the treaty
+itself had been agreed upon. He must be called sovereign head of the
+English Church, said Gardiner, or there would be no alliance with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> the
+Emperor at all, and the difficulty was only overcome by varying the style
+in the two copies of the document, that signed by Chapuys bearing the
+style of; &#8220;King of England, France, and Ireland, etc.,&#8221; and that signed by
+the English ministers adding the King&#8217;s ecclesiastical claims. If the
+territories of either monarch were invaded the other was bound to come to
+his aid. The French King was to be summoned to forbear intelligence with
+the Turk, to satisfy the demands of the Emperor and the King of England in
+the many old claims they had against him, and no peace was to be made with
+France by either ally, unless the other&#8217;s claims were satisfied. The
+claims of Henry included the town and county of Boulogne, with Montreuil
+and Therouenne, his arrears of pension, and assurance of future payment:
+and the two allies agreed within two years to invade France together, each
+with 20,000 foot and 5000 horse.<small><a name="f232.1" id="f232.1" href="#f232">[232]</a></small> This secret compact was signed on
+the 11th February 1543; and the diplomatic relations with France were at
+once broken off. At last the repudiation of Katharine of Aragon was
+condoned, and Henry was once more the Emperor&#8217;s &#8220;good brother&#8221;;&mdash;a fit
+ally for the Catholic king, the champion of orthodox Christianity. As if
+to put the finishing touch upon Henry&#8217;s victory, Charles held an interview
+with the Pope in June 1543 on his way through Italy, and succeeded in
+persuading him that the inclusion of the King who defied the Church in the
+league of militant Catholics was a fit complement to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> the alliance of
+France and enemies of all Christianity; and would secure the triumph of
+the Papacy and the return of England into the fold.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the preparations for war thus went busily forward on all sides,
+with Chantonnay in England and Thomas Seymour in Germany and Flanders
+arranging military details of arms, levies, and stores, and the Emperor
+already clamouring constantly for prompt English subsidies and contingents
+against his enemies, Henry, full of importance and self-satisfaction at
+his position, contracted the only one of his marriages which was not
+promoted by a political intrigue, although at the time it was effected it
+was doubtless looked upon as favouring the Catholic party. Certainly no
+lady of the Court enjoyed a more blameless reputation than Katharine Lady
+Latimer, upon whom the King now cast his eyes. A daughter of the great and
+wealthy house of Parr of Kendal, allied to the royal blood in no very
+distant degree, and related to most of the higher nobility of England, she
+was, so far as descent was concerned, quite as worthy to be the wife of a
+king as the unfortunate daughters of the house of Howard. Her brother,
+Lord Parr, soon to be created Earl of Essex and Marquis of Northampton, a
+favourite courtier of the King and a very splendid magnate,<small><a name="f233.1" id="f233.1" href="#f233">[233]</a></small><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> had been
+one of the chief enemies of Cromwell; who had in his last days usurped the
+ancient earldom which Parr had claimed in right of his Bourchier wife,
+whilst Katharine&#8217;s second husband, Neville Lord Latimer, had been so
+strong a Catholic as to have risked his great possessions, as well as his
+head, by joining the rising in the North that had assumed the name of the
+Pilgrimage of Grace and had been mainly directed against Cromwell&#8217;s
+measures. She was, moreover, closely related to the Throckmortons, the
+stoutly Catholic family whose chief, Sir George, Cromwell had despoiled
+and imprisoned until the intrigue already related drove the minister from
+power in June 1540, with the mysterious support, so it is asserted, of
+Katharine Lady Latimer herself, though the evidence of it is not very
+convincing.<small><a name="f234.1" id="f234.1" href="#f234">[234]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Katharine had been brought up mostly in the north country with extreme
+care and wisdom by a hard-headed mother, and had been married almost as a
+child to an elderly widower, Lord Borough, who had died soon afterwards,
+leaving her a large jointure. Her second husband, Lord Latimer, had also
+been many years older than herself; and accompanying him, as she did, in
+his periodical visits to London, where they had a house in the precincts
+of the Charterhouse, she had for several years been remarkable in Henry&#8217;s
+Court, not only for her wide culture and love of learning, but also for
+her friendship with the Princess Mary, whose tastes were exactly similar
+to her own. Lord Latimer died in London at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> beginning of 1543, leaving
+to Katharine considerable property; and certainly not many weeks can have
+passed before the King began to pay his court to the wealthy and dignified
+widow of thirty-two. His attentions were probably not very welcome to her,
+for he was a terribly dangerous husband, and any unrevealed peccadillo in
+the previous life of a woman he married might mean the loss of her head.</p>
+
+<p>There was another reason than this, however, that made the King&#8217;s
+addresses especially embarrassing to Katharine. The younger of the two
+magnificent Seymour brothers, Sir Thomas, had thus early also approached
+her with offers of love. He was one of the handsomest men at Court, and of
+similar age to Katharine. He was already very rich with the church
+plunder, and was the King&#8217;s brother-in-law; so that he was in all respects
+a good match for her. He must have arrived from his mission to Germany
+immediately after Lord Latimer&#8217;s death, and remained at Court until early
+in May, about three months; during which time, from the evidence of
+Katharine&#8217;s subsequent letters, she seems to have made up her mind to
+marry him. It may be that the King noticed signs of their courtship, for
+Sir Thomas Seymour was promptly sent on an embassy to Flanders in company
+with Dr. Wotton, and subsequently with the English contingent to the
+Emperor&#8217;s army to France, where he remained until long after Henry&#8217;s sixth
+marriage.</p>
+
+<p>That Henry himself lost no time in approaching the widow after her
+husband&#8217;s death is seen by a tailor&#8217;s bill for dresses for Lady Latimer
+being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> paid out of the Exchequer by the King&#8217;s orders as early as the 16th
+February 1543, when it would seem that her husband cannot have been dead
+much more than a month. This bill includes linen and buckram, the making
+of Italian gowns, &#8220;pleats and sleeves,&#8221; a slope hood and tippet, kirtles,
+French, Dutch, and Venetian gowns, Venetian sleeves, French hoods, and
+other feminine fripperies; the amount of the total being &pound;8, 9s. 5d.; and,
+as showing that even before the marriage considerable intimacy existed
+between Katharine and the Princess Mary, it is curious to note that some
+of the garments appear to have been destined for the use of the
+latter.<small><a name="f235.1" id="f235.1" href="#f235">[235]</a></small> By the middle of June the King&#8217;s attentions to Lady Latimer
+were public; and already the lot of the sickly, disinherited Princess Mary
+was rendered happier by the prospective elevation of her friend. Mary came
+to Court at Greenwich, as did her sister Elizabeth; and Katharine is
+specially mentioned as being with them in a letter from Dudley, the new
+Lord Lisle, to Katharine&#8217;s brother, Lord Parr, the Warden of the Scottish
+Marches. The King had then (20th June) just returned from a tour of
+inspection of his coast defences, and three weeks later Cranmer as Primate
+issued a licence for his marriage with Katharine Lady Latimer, without the
+publication of banns.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th July 1543 the marriage took place in the upper oratory &#8220;called
+the Quynes Preyevey Closet&#8221; at Hampton Court. When Gardiner the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> celebrant
+put the canonical question to the bridegroom, his Majesty answered &#8220;with a
+smiling face,&#8221; yea, and, taking his bride&#8217;s hand, firmly recited the usual
+pledge. Katharine, whatever her inner feelings may have been, made a
+bright and buxom bride, and from the first endeavoured, as none of the
+other wives had done, to bring together into some semblance of family life
+with her the three children of her husband. Her reward was that she was
+beloved and respected by all of them; and Princess Mary, who was nearly
+her own age, continued her constant companion and friend.<small><a name="f236.1" id="f236.1" href="#f236">[236]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>As she began so she remained; amiable, tactful, and clever. Throughout her
+life with Henry her influence was exerted wherever possible in favour of
+concord, and I have not met with a single disparaging remark with regard
+to her, even from those who in the last days of the King&#8217;s life became her
+political opponents. Her character must have been an exceedingly lovable
+one, and she evidently knew to perfection how to manage men by humouring
+their weak points. She could be firm, too, on occasions where an injustice
+had to be remedied. A story is told of her in connection with her brother
+Parr, Earl of Essex, in the <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>, which, so far as I
+know, has not been related by any other historian of the reign.</p>
+
+<p>Parr fell in love with Lord Cobham&#8217;s daughter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> a very beautiful girl,
+who, as told in our text, was mentioned as one of the King&#8217;s flames after
+Katharine Howard&#8217;s fall. Parr had married the great Bourchier heiress, but
+had grown tired of her, and by suborned evidence charged her with
+adultery, and she was found guilty and sentenced to death. &#8220;The good
+Queen, his sister, threw herself at the feet of the King and would not
+rise until he had promised to grant her the boon she craved, which was the
+life of the Countess (of Essex). When the King heard what it was, he said,
+But, Madam, you know that the law enacts that a woman of rank who so
+forgets herself shall die unless her husband pardon her. To this the Queen
+answered, Your Majesty is above the law, and I will try to get my brother
+to pardon. Well, said the King, if your brother be content I will pardon
+her.&#8221; The Queen then sends for her brother and upbraids him for bringing
+perjured witnesses against his wife, which he denies and says he has only
+acted in accordance with the legal evidence. &#8220;I can promise you, brother,
+that it shall not be as you expect: I will have the witnesses put to the
+torture, and then by God&#8217;s help we shall know the truth.&#8221; Before this
+could be done Parr sent his witnesses to Cornwall, out of the way: and
+again Katharine insisted upon the Countess&#8217; pardon, by virtue of the
+promise that the King had given her. This somewhat alarmed Parr, and
+Katharine managed to effect a mutual renunciation, after which Parr
+married Lord Cobham&#8217;s daughter.<small><a name="f237.1" id="f237.1" href="#f237">[237]</a></small></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>Gardiner had been not only the prelate who performed the ceremony but had
+himself given the bride away; so that it may fairly be concluded that he,
+at least, was not discontented with the match. Wriothesley, his obedient
+creature, moreover, must have been voicing the general feeling of
+Catholics when he wrote to the Duke of Suffolk in the North his eulogy of
+the bride a few days after the wedding. &#8220;The King&#8217;s Majesty was mareid
+onne Thursdaye last to my ladye Latimor, a woman, in my judgment, for
+vertewe, wisdomme and gentilnesse, most meite for his Highnesse: and sure
+I am his Mat<sup>e</sup> had never a wife more agreable to his harte than she is.
+Our Lorde sende them long lyf and moche joy togethir.&#8221;<small><a name="f238.1" id="f238.1" href="#f238">[238]</a></small> Both the
+King&#8217;s daughters had been at the wedding, Mary receiving from Katharine a
+handsome present as bride&#8217;s-maid; but Henry had the decency not to bid the
+presence of Anne of Cleves. She is represented as being somewhat disgusted
+at the turn of events. Her friends, and perhaps she herself, had never
+lost the hope that if the Protestant influence became paramount, Henry
+might take her back. But the imperial alliance had made England an enemy
+of her brother of Cleves, whose territory the Emperor&#8217;s troops were
+harrying with fire and sword; and her position in England was a most
+difficult one. &#8220;She would,&#8221; says Chapuys, &#8220;prefer to be with her mother,
+if with nothing but the clothes on her back, rather than be here now,
+having specially taken great grief<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> and despair at the King&#8217;s espousal of
+his new wife, who is not nearly so good-looking as she is, besides that
+there is no hope of her (Katharine) having issue, seeing that she had none
+by her two former husbands.&#8221;<small><a name="f239.1" id="f239.1" href="#f239">[239]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>As we have seen, Katharine had all her life belonged to the Catholic
+party, of which the northern nobles were the leaders, and doubtless this
+fact had secured for her marriage the ready acquiescence of Gardiner and
+his friends, especially when coupled with the attachment known to exist
+between the bride and the Princess Mary. But Katharine had studied hard,
+and was devoted to the &#8220;new learning,&#8221; which had suddenly become
+fashionable for high-born ladies. The Latin classics, the writings of
+Erasmus, of Juan Luis Vives, and others were the daily solace of the few
+ladies in England who had at this time been seized with the new craze of
+culture, Katharine, the King&#8217;s daughters, his grand-nieces the Greys, and
+the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, being especially versed in classics,
+languages, philosophy, and theology. The &#8220;new learning&#8221; had been, and was
+still to be, for the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> part promoted by those who sympathised with the
+reformed doctrines, and Katharine&#8217;s devotion to it brought her into
+intimate contact with the learned men at Court whose zeal for the spread
+of classical and controversial knowledge was coupled with the spirit of
+inquiry which frequently went with religious heterodoxy.</p>
+
+<p>Not many days after the marriage, Gardiner scented danger in this
+foregathering of the Queen with such men as Cranmer and Latimer, and at
+the encouragement and help given by her to the young princesses in the
+translation of portions of the Scriptures, and of the writings of Erasmus.
+There is no reason to conclude that Katharine, as yet, had definitely
+attached herself to the reform party, but it is certain that very soon
+after her marriage her love of learning, or her distrust of Gardiner&#8217;s
+policy and methods, caused her to look sympathetically towards those at
+Court who went beyond the King in his opposition to Rome. Gardiner dared
+not as yet directly attack either Katharine or Cranmer, for the King was
+personally much attached to both of them, whilst Gardiner himself was
+never a favourite with him. But indirectly these two persons in privileged
+places might be ruined by attacking others first; and the plan was
+patiently and cunningly laid to do it, before a new party of reformers led
+by Cranmer, reinforced by Katharine, could gain the King&#8217;s ear and reverse
+the policy of his present adviser. At the instance of Gardiner&#8217;s creature
+Dr. London, a canon of Windsor, a prosecution under the Six Articles was
+commenced against a priest and some choristers of the royal chapel, and
+one other person, who were known to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> meet together for religious
+discussion. For weeks London&#8217;s spies had been listening to the talk of
+those in the castle and town who might be suspected of reformed ideas; and
+with the evidence so accumulated in his hand, Gardiner moved the King in
+Council to issue a warrant authorising a search for unauthorised books and
+papers in the town and castle of Windsor. Henry, whilst allowing the
+imprisonment of the accused persons with the addition of Sir Philip Hoby
+and Dr. Haines, both resident in the castle, declined to allow his own
+residence to be searched for heretical books. This was a set back for
+Gardiner&#8217;s plan; but it succeeded to the extent of securing the conviction
+and execution at the stake of three of the accused. This was merely a
+beginning; and already those at Court were saying that the Bishop of
+Winchester &#8220;aimed at higher deer&#8221; than those that had already fallen to
+his bow.<small><a name="f240.1" id="f240.1" href="#f240">[240]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Hardly had the ashes of the three martyrs cooled, than a mass of fresh
+accusations was formulated by London against several members of the royal
+household. The reports of spies and informers were sent to Gardiner by the
+hand of Ockham, the clerk of the court that had condemned the martyrs, but
+one of the persons accused, a member of Katharine&#8217;s household, received
+secret notice of what was intended and waylaid Ockham. Perusal of the
+documents he bore showed that much of the information had been suborned by
+Dr. London and his assistant Simons, and Katharine was appealed to for her
+aid. She exerted her influence with her husband to have them both
+arrested<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> and examined. Unaware that their papers had been taken from
+Ockham, they foreswore themselves and broke down when confronted with the
+written proofs that the case against the accused had been trumped up on
+false evidence with ulterior objects. Disgrace and imprisonment for the
+two instruments, London and Simons, followed,<small><a name="f241.1" id="f241.1" href="#f241">[241]</a></small> but the prelate who had
+inspired their activity was too indispensable to the King to be attacked,
+and he, firm in his political predominance, bided his time for yet another
+blow at his enemies, amongst whom he now included the Queen, whose union
+with the King he and other Catholics had so recently blessed.</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer, secure as he thought in the King&#8217;s regard and in his great
+position as Primate, had certainly laid himself open to the attacks of his
+enemies, by his almost ostentatious favour to the clergy of his province
+who were known to be evading or violating the Six Articles. The chapter of
+his own cathedral was profoundly divided, and the majority of its members
+were opposed to what they considered the injustice of their Archbishop.
+Cranmer&#8217;s commissary, his nephew Nevinson, whilst going out of his way to
+favour those who were accused before the chapter of false doctrine,
+offended deeply the majority of the clergy by his zeal&mdash;which really only
+reflected that of the Archbishop himself&mdash;in the displacing and
+destruction of images in the churches, even when the figures did not
+offend against the law by being made the objects of superstitious
+pilgrimages and offerings. For several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> years past the cathedral church of
+Canterbury had been a hotbed of discord, in consequence of Cranmer&#8217;s
+having appointed, apparently on principle, men of extreme opinions on both
+sides as canons, prebendaries, and preachers; and so great had grown the
+opposition in his own chapter to the Primate&#8217;s known views in the spring
+of 1543, that it was evident that a crisis could not be long delayed,
+especially as the clergy opposed to the prelate had the letter of the law
+on their side, and the countenance of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, all
+powerful as he was in the lay counsels of the King.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the Kentish clergy who resented the Archbishop&#8217;s action had laid
+their heads together in March 1543, and formulated a set of accusations
+against him. This the two most active movers in the protest had carried to
+the metropolis for submission to Gardiner. They first, however, approached
+the Dr. London already referred to, who rewrote the accusations with
+additions of his own, in order to bring the accused within the penal law.
+The two first movers, Willoughby and Searl, took fright at this, for it
+was a dangerous thing to attack the Archbishop, and hastily returned home;
+but Dr. London had enough for his present purpose, and handed his enlarged
+version of their depositions to Gardiner. London&#8217;s disgrace, already
+related, stayed the matter for a time, but a few months afterwards a fresh
+set of articles, alleging illegal acts on the part of the Archbishop, was
+forwarded by the discontented clergy to Gardiner, and the accusers were
+then summoned before the Privy Council, where they were encouraged to make
+their testimony as strong as possible. When the depositions were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> complete
+they were sent to the King by Gardiner, in the hope that now the great
+stumblingblock of the Catholic party might be cleared from the path, and
+that the new Queen&#8217;s ruin might promptly follow that of the Primate.</p>
+
+<p>But they reckoned without Henry&#8217;s love for Cranmer. Rowing on the Thames
+one evening in the late autumn soon after the depositions had been handed
+to him, the King called at the pier by Lambeth Palace and took Cranmer
+into his barge. &#8220;Ah, my chaplain,&#8221; he said jocosely, as the Archbishop
+took his seat in the boat, &#8220;I have news for you. I know now who is the
+greatest heretic in Kent;&#8221; and with this he drew from his sleeve and
+handed to Cranmer the depositions of those who had sought to ruin him. The
+Archbishop insisted upon a regular Commission being issued to test the
+truth of the accusations; but Henry could be generous when it suited him,
+and he never knew how soon he might need Cranmer&#8217;s pliable ingenuity
+again. So, although he issued the Commission, he made Cranmer its head,
+and gave to him the appointment of its members; with the natural result
+that the accusers and all their abettors were imprisoned and forced to beg
+the Primate&#8217;s forgiveness for their action.<small><a name="f242.1" id="f242.1" href="#f242">[242]</a></small> But the man who gave life
+to the whole plot, Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, still led the King&#8217;s
+political counsels, much as Henry disliked him personally; for the armed
+alliance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> with the Emperor could only bring its full harvest of profit and
+glory to the King of England if the Catholic powers on the Continent were
+convinced of Henry&#8217;s essential orthodoxy, notwithstanding his quarrel with
+the Pope.<small><a name="f243.1" id="f243.1" href="#f243">[243]</a></small> So, though Cranmer might be favoured privately and
+Katharine&#8217;s coquetting with the new learning and its professors winked at,
+Gardiner, whose Catholicism was stronger than that of his master, had to
+be the figure-head to impress foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>In July 1543 the English contingent to aid the imperial troops to protect
+Flanders was sent from Guisnes and Calais under Sir John Wallop. By the
+strict terms of the treaty they were only to be employed for a limited
+period for the defence of territory invaded by the enemy; but soon after
+Wallop&#8217;s arrival he was asked to take part in the regular siege of
+Landrecy in Hainault, that had been occupied by the French. Henry allowed
+him to do so under protest. It was waste of time, he said, and would
+divert the forces from what was to be their main object; but if he allowed
+it, he must have the same right when the war in France commenced to call
+upon the imperial contingent with him also to besiege a town if he wished
+to do so. Both the allies, even before the war really began, were playing
+for their own hands with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> the deliberate intention of making use of each
+other; and in the dismal comedy of chicanery that followed and lasted
+almost to Henry&#8217;s death, this siege of Landrecy and that of St. Disier
+were made the peg upon which countless reclamations and recriminations
+were hung. The Emperor was ill, in dire need of money, and overwhelmed
+with anxiety as to the attitude of the Lutheran princes during the coming
+struggle. His eyes were turned towards Italy, and he depended much upon
+the diversion that Henry&#8217;s forces might effect by land and sea; and
+conscious that the campaign must be prompt and rapid if he was to profit
+by it, he sent one of his most trusted lieutenants, Ferrante Gonzaga,
+Viceroy of Sicily, to England at the end of the year 1543 to settle with
+Henry the plan of the campaign to be undertaken in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>His task was a difficult one; for Henry was as determined to use Charles
+for his advantage as Charles was to use him. After much dispute it was
+agreed that Henry, as early in the summer as possible, should lead his
+army of 35,000 foot and 7000 horse to invade France from Calais, whilst
+the imperial troops were to invade by Lorraine, form a junction with the
+English on the Somme, and push on towards Paris. Rapidity was the very
+essence of such a plan; but Henry would not promise celerity. He could
+not, he said, transport all his men across the sea before the end of June:
+the fact being that his own secret intention all along was to conquer the
+Boulognais country for himself, gain a free hand in Scotland, and leave
+the Emperor to shift as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> might. Utter bad faith on both sides pervaded
+the affair from first to last. The engaging and payment of mercenaries by
+England, the purchase of horses, arms, and stores, the hire of transport,
+the interference with commerce&mdash;everything in which sharp dealing could be
+employed by one ally to get the better of the other was taken advantage of
+to the utmost. Henry, enfeebled as he was by disease and obesity, was
+determined to turn to his personal glory the victory he anticipated for
+his arms. His own courtiers dared not remonstrate with him; and, although
+Katharine prayed him to have regard for his safety, he brushed aside her
+remonstrances as becoming womanly fears for a dearly loved husband.
+Charles knew that if the King himself crossed the Channel the English army
+would not be at the imperial bidding. Envoys were consequently sent from
+Flanders to pray Henry, for his health&#8217;s sake, not to risk the hardships
+of a sea voyage and a campaign. The subject was a sore one with him; and
+when the envoy began to dwell too emphatically upon his infirmities, he
+flew into a passion and said that the Emperor was suffering from gout,
+which was much worse than any malady he (Henry) had, and it would be more
+dangerous for the Emperor to go to the war.</p>
+
+<p>Henry&#8217;s decision to accompany his army at once increased the importance of
+Katharine; who, in accordance with precedent, would become regent in her
+husband&#8217;s absence. A glimpse of her growing influence at this time is seen
+in a letter of hers, dated 3rd June 1544, to the Countess of Hertford,
+that termagant Ann Stanhope who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> afterwards was her jealous enemy.
+Hertford had been sent in March to the Scottish Border to invade again,
+and this time utterly crush Scotland, where Henry&#8217;s pensioners had played
+him false, and betrothed their infant Queen to the heir of France. The
+Countess, anxious that her husband should be at home during the King&#8217;s
+absence&mdash;probably in order that if anything happened to Henry, Hertford
+might take prompt measures on behalf of the new King, his nephew, and
+safeguard his own influence&mdash;wrote to Katharine praying for her aid.<small><a name="f244.1" id="f244.1" href="#f244">[244]</a></small>
+The Queen&#8217;s answer is written on the same sheet of paper as one from
+Princess Mary to the Countess, whose letters to Katharine had been sent
+through the Princess. &#8220;My lord your husband&#8217;s comyng hyther is not
+altered, for he schall come home before the Kynge&#8217;s Majesty take hys
+journey over the sees, as it pleaseth his Majesty to declare to me of
+late. You may be ryght assured I wold not have forgotten my promise to you
+in a matter of lesse effect than thys, and so I pray you most hartely to
+think....&mdash;<span class="smcap">Kateryn the Quene</span>.&#8221;<small><a name="f245.1" id="f245.1" href="#f245">[245]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Since Henry insisted upon going to the war himself the next best thing,
+according to the Emperor&#8217;s point of view, to keeping him away was to cause
+some Spanish officer of high rank and great experience to be constantly
+close to him during the campaign. Except the little skirmishes on the
+borders of Scotland, Englishmen had seen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> no active military service for
+many years, and it was urged upon Henry that a general well acquainted
+with modern Continental warfare would be useful to him. The Emperor&#8217;s
+Spanish and Italian commanders were the best in the world, as were his
+men-at-arms; and a grandee, the Duke of Najera, who was on his way from
+Flanders to Spain by sea, was looked upon as being a suitable man for the
+purpose of advising the King of England. Henry was determined to impress
+him and entertained him splendidly, delaying him as long as possible, in
+order that he might be persuaded to accompany the English forces. The
+accounts of Najera&#8217;s stay in England show that Katharine had now, the
+spring of 1544, quite settled down in her position as Queen and coming
+Regent. Chapuys mentions that when he first took Najera to Court he
+&#8220;visited the Queen and Princess (Mary), who asked very minutely for news
+of the Emperor ... and, although the Queen was a little indisposed, she
+wished to dance for the honour of the company. The Queen favours the
+Princess all she can; and since the Treaty with the Emperor was made, she
+has constantly urged the Princess&#8217; cause, insomuch as in this sitting of
+Parliament she (Mary) has been declared capable of succeeding in default
+of the Prince.&#8221;<small><a name="f246.1" id="f246.1" href="#f246">[246]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>A Spaniard who attended Najera tells the story of the Duke&#8217;s interview
+with Katharine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> somewhat more fully. &#8220;The Duke kissed the Queen&#8217;s hand and
+was then conducted to another chamber, to which the Queen and ladies
+followed, and there was music and much beautiful dancing. The Queen danced
+first with her brother very gracefully, and then Princess Mary and the
+Princess of Scotland (<i>i.e.</i> Lady Margaret Douglas) danced with other
+gentlemen, and many other ladies also danced, a Venetian of the King&#8217;s
+household dancing some gaillards with such extraordinary activity that he
+seemed to have wings upon his feet; surely never was a man seen so agile.
+After the dancing had lasted several hours the Queen returned to her
+chamber, first causing one of the noblemen who spoke Spanish to offer some
+presents to the Duke, who kissed her hand. He would likewise have kissed
+that of the Princess Mary, but she offered her lips; and so he saluted her
+and all the other ladies.<small><a name="f247.1" id="f247.1" href="#f247">[247]</a></small> The King is regarded as a very powerful and
+handsome man. The Queen is graceful and of cheerful countenance; and is
+praised for her virtue. She wore an underskirt, showing in front, of cloth
+of gold, and a sleeved over-dress of brocade lined with crimson satin, the
+sleeves themselves being lined with crimson velvet, and the train was two
+yards long. She wore hanging from the neck two crosses and a jewel of very
+magnificent diamonds, and she wore a great number of splendid diamonds in
+her headdress.&#8221; The author of this curious contemporary document excels
+himself in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> praise of the Princess Mary, whose dress on the occasion
+described was even more splendid than that of the Queen, consisting as it
+did entirely of cloth of gold and purple velvet. The house and gardens of
+Whitehall also moved the witness to wonder and admiration. The green
+alleys with high hedges of the garden and the sculpture with which the
+walks were adorned especially attracted the attention of the visitors, and
+the greatness of London and the stately river Thames are declared to be
+incomparable.<small><a name="f248.1" id="f248.1" href="#f248">[248]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Najera, unwilling to stay, and, apparently, not impressing
+Henry very favourably, went on his way; and was immediately followed by
+another Spanish commander of equal rank and much greater experience in
+warfare, the Duke of Alburquerque, and he, too, was received with the
+splendour and ostentation that Henry loved, ultimately accompanying the
+King to the siege of Boulogne as military adviser; both the King and
+Queen, we are told, treating him with extraordinary favour.<small><a name="f249.1" id="f249.1" href="#f249">[249]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>By the time that Henry was ready to cross the Channel early in July to
+join his army, which several weeks before had preceded him under the
+command of Norfolk and Suffolk, the short-lived and insincere alliance
+with the Emperor, from which Henry and Gardiner had expected so much, was
+already strained almost to breaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> point. The great imperialist defeat
+at Ceresole in Savoy earlier in the year had made Henry more disinclined
+than ever to sacrifice English men and treasure to fight indirectly the
+Emperor&#8217;s battle in Italy. Even before that Henry had begun to show signs
+of an intention to break away from the plan of campaign agreed upon. How
+dangerous it would be, he said, for the Emperor to push forward into
+France without securing the ground behind him. &#8220;Far better to lay siege to
+two or three large towns on the road to Paris than to go to the capital
+and burn it down.&#8221; Charles was indignant, and continued to send reminders
+and remonstrances that the plan agreed upon must be adhered to. Henry
+retorted that Charles himself had departed from it by laying siege to
+Landecy. The question of supplies from Flanders, the payment and passage
+of mercenaries through the Emperor&#8217;s territories, the free concession of
+trading licences by the Queen Regent of the Netherlands, and a dozen other
+questions, kept the relations between the allies in a state of irritation
+and acrimony, even before the campaign well began, and it is clear thus
+early that Henry started with the fixed intention of conquering the
+territory of Boulogne, and then perhaps making friends with Francis,
+leaving the Emperor at war. With both the great rivals exhausted, he would
+be more sought after than ever. He at once laid siege to Montreuil and
+Boulogne, and personally took command, deaf to the prayers and
+remonstrances of Charles and his sister, that he would not go beyond
+Calais, &#8220;for his health&#8217;s sake&#8221;; but would send the bulk of his forces to
+join the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> Emperor&#8217;s army before St. Disier. The Emperor had himself broken
+the compact by besieging Landrecy and St. Disier; and so the bulk of
+Henry&#8217;s army sat down before Boulogne, whilst the Emperor, short of
+provisions, far in an enemy&#8217;s country, with weak lines of communication,
+unfriendly Lorraine on his flank and two French armies <ins class="correction" title="original: appproaching">approaching</ins> him,
+could only curse almost in despair the hour that he trusted the word of
+&#8220;his good brother,&#8221; the King of England.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine bade farewell to her husband at Dover when he went on his
+pompous voyage,<small><a name="f250.1" id="f250.1" href="#f250">[250]</a></small> and returned forthwith to London, fully empowered to
+rule England as Regent during his absence. She was directed to use the
+advice and counsel of Cranmer, Wriothesley, the Earl of Hertford, who was
+to replace her if she became incapacitated, Thirlby, and Petre; Gardiner
+accompanying the King as minister. The letters written by Katharine to her
+husband during his short campaign show no such instances of want of tact
+as did those of the first Katharine, quoted in the earlier pages of this
+book. It is plain to read in them the clever, discreet woman, determined
+to please a vain man; content to take a subordinate place and to shine by
+a reflected light alone. &#8220;She thanks God for a prosperous beginning of his
+affairs;&#8221; &#8220;she rejoices at the joyful news of his good health,&#8221; and in a
+business-like way shows that she and her council are actively forwarding
+the interests of the King with a single-hearted view to his honour and
+glory alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>During this time the young Prince Edward and his sister Mary were at
+Hampton Court with the Queen; but the other daughter, Elizabeth, lived
+apart at St. James&#8217;s. Though it is evident that the girl was generally
+regarded and treated as inferior to her sister, she appears to have felt a
+real regard for her stepmother, almost the only person who, since her
+infancy, had been kind to her. Elizabeth wrote to the Queen on the 31st
+July a curious letter in Italian. &#8220;Envious fortune,&#8221; she writes, &#8220;for a
+whole year deprived me of your Highness&#8217;s presence, and, not content
+therewith, has again despoiled me of that boon. I know, nevertheless, that
+I have your love; and that you have not forgotten me in writing to the
+King. I pray you in writing to his Majesty deign to recommend me to him;
+praying him for his ever-welcome blessing; praying at the same time to
+Almighty God to send him good fortune and victory over his enemies; so
+that your Highness and I together may the sooner rejoice at his happy
+return. I humbly pray to God to have your Highness in His keeping; and
+respectfully kissing your Highness&#8217; hand.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Elizabeth.</span>&#8221;<small><a name="f251.1" id="f251.1" href="#f251">[251]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Katharine indeed, in this trying time of responsibility, comes well out of
+her ordeal. The prayer<small><a name="f252.1" id="f252.1" href="#f252">[252]</a></small> composed by her for peace at this period is
+really a beautiful composition; and the letter from her to her husband,
+printed by Strype, breathes sentiment likely to please such a man as
+Henry,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> but in language at once womanly and dignified. &#8220;Although the
+distance of time and account of days,&#8221; she writes, &#8220;neither is long nor
+many, of your Majesty&#8217;s absence, yet the want of your presence, so much
+beloved and desired by me, maketh me that I cannot quietly pleasure in
+anything until I hear from your Majesty. The time therefore seemeth to me
+very long, with a great desire to know how your Highness hath done since
+your departing hence; whose prosperity and health I prefer and desire more
+than mine own. And, whereas I know your Majesty&#8217;s absence is never without
+great need, yet love and affection compel me to desire your presence.
+Again the same zeal and affection forceth me to be best content with that
+which is your will and pleasure. Thus, love maketh me in all things set
+apart mine own convenience and pleasure, and to embrace most joyfully his
+will and pleasure whom I love. God, the knower of secrets, can judge these
+words to be not only written with ink but most truly impressed upon the
+heart. Much more I omit, less it be thought I go about to praise myself or
+crave a thank. Which thing to do I mind nothing less, but a plain simple
+relation of the love and zeal I bear your Majesty, proceeding from the
+abundance of the heart.... I make like account with your Majesty, as I do
+with God, for His benefits and gifts heaped upon me daily; acknowledging
+myself to be a great debtor to Him, not being able to recompense the least
+of His benefit. In which state I am certain and sure to die, yet I hope
+for His gracious acceptance of my goodwill. Even such confidence have I in
+your Majesty&#8217;s gentleness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> knowing myself never to have done my duty as
+were requisite and meet for such a noble Prince, at whose hands I have
+received so much love and goodness that with words I cannot express
+it.&#8221;<small><a name="f253.1" id="f253.1" href="#f253">[253]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>It will be seen by this, and nearly every other letter that Katharine
+wrote to her husband, that she had taken the measure of his prodigious
+vanity, and indulged him to the top of his bent. In a letter written to
+him on the 9th August, referring to the success of the Earl of Lennox, who
+had just married Henry&#8217;s niece, Margaret Douglas, and had gone to Scotland
+to seize the government in English interest, Katharine says: &#8220;The good
+speed which Lennox has had, is to be imputed to his serving a master whom
+God aids. He might have served the French king, his old master, many years
+without attaining such a victory.&#8221; This is the attitude in which Henry
+loved to be approached, and with such letters from his wife in England
+confirming the Jove-like qualities attributed to him in consequence of his
+presence with his army in France, Henry&#8217;s short campaign before Boulogne
+was doubtless one of the pleasantest experiences in his life.</p>
+
+<p>To add to his satisfaction, he had not been at Calais a week before
+Francis began to make secret overtures for peace. It was too early for
+that, however, just yet, for Henry coveted Boulogne, and the sole use made
+of the French approaches to him was to impress the imperial agents with
+his supreme importance. The warning was not lost upon Charles and his
+sister the Queen Regent of the Netherlands,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> who themselves began to
+listen to the unofficial suggestions for peace made by the agents of the
+Duchess d&#8217;Etampes, the mistress of Francis, in order, if possible, to
+benefit herself and the Duke of Orleans in the conditions, to the
+detriment of the Dauphin Henry. Thenceforward it was a close game of
+diplomatic finesse between Henry and Charles as to which should make terms
+first and arbitrate on the claims of the other.</p>
+
+<p>St. Disier capitulated to the Emperor on the 8th August; and Charles at
+once sent another envoy to Henry at Boulogne, praying him urgently to
+fulfil the plan of campaign decided with Gonzaga, or the whole French army
+would be concentrated upon the imperial forces and crush them. But Henry
+would not budge from before Boulogne, and Charles, whilst rapidly pushing
+forward into France, and in serious danger of being cut off by the
+Dauphin, listened intently for sounds of peace. They soon came, through
+the Duke of Lorraine; and before the end of August the Emperor was in
+close negotiation with the French, determined, come what might, that the
+final settlement of terms should not be left in the hands of the King of
+England. Henry&#8217;s action at this juncture was pompous, inflated, and
+stupid, whilst that of Charles was statesmanlike, though unscrupulous.
+Even during the negotiations Charles pushed forward and captured Epernay
+and Ch&acirc;teau Thierry, where the Dauphin&#8217;s stores were. This was on the 7th
+September, and then having struck his blow he knew that he must make peace
+at once. He therefore sent the young Bishop of Arras, Granvelle, with a
+message to Henry which he knew would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> have the effect desired. The King of
+England was again to be urged formally but insincerely to advance and join
+the Emperor, but if he would not the Emperor must make peace, always
+providing that the English claims were satisfactorily settled.</p>
+
+<p>Arras arrived in the English camp on the 11th September. He found Henry in
+his most vaunting mood; for only three days before the ancient tower on
+the harbour side opposite Boulogne had been captured by his men.<small><a name="f254.1" id="f254.1" href="#f254">[254]</a></small> He
+could not move forward, he said; it was too late in the season to begin a
+new campaign, and he was only bound by the treaty to keep the field four
+months in a year. If the Emperor was in a fix, that was his look-out. The
+terms, moreover, suggested for the peace between his ally and France were
+out of the question, especially the clause about English claims. The
+French had already offered him much better conditions than those. Arras
+pushed his point. The Emperor must know definitely, he urged, whether the
+King of England would make peace or not, as affairs could not be left
+pending. Then Henry lost his temper, as the clever imperial ministers knew
+he would do, and blurted out in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> rage: &#8220;Let the Emperor make peace for
+himself if he likes, but nothing must be done to prejudice my claims.&#8221; It
+was enough for the purpose desired, for in good truth the Emperor had
+already agreed with the French, and Arras posted back to his master with
+Henry&#8217;s hasty words giving permission for him to make a separate peace. In
+vain for the next two years Henry strove to unsay, to palliate, to
+disclaim these words. Quarrels, bursts of violent passion, incoherent
+rage, indignant denials, were all of no avail; the words were said, and
+vouched for by those who heard them; and Charles hurriedly ratified the
+peace already practically made with France on terms that surprised the
+world, and made Henry wild with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor, victor though he was, in appearance gave away everything. His
+daughter or niece was to marry Orleans, with Milan or Flanders as a dowry;
+Savoy was to be restored to the Duke, and the French were to join the
+Emperor in alliance against the Turk. None knew yet&mdash;though Henry may have
+suspected it&mdash;that behind the public treaty there was a secret compact by
+which the two Catholic sovereigns agreed to concentrate their joint powers
+and extirpate a greater enemy than the Turk, namely, the rising power of
+Protestantism in Europe. Henry was thus betrayed and was at war alone with
+France, all of whose forces were now directed against him. Boulogne fell
+to the English on the 14th September, three days after Arras arrived in
+Henry&#8217;s camp, and the King hurried back to England in blazing wrath with
+the Emperor and inflated with the glorification of his own victory, eager
+for the applause of his subjects before his laurels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> faded and the French
+beleagured the captured town. Gardiner and Paget, soon to be joined
+temporarily by Hertford, remained in Calais in order to continue, if
+possible, the abortive peace negotiations with France. But it was a
+hopeless task now; for Francis, free from fear on his north-east frontier,
+was determined to win back Boulogne at any cost. The Dauphin swore that he
+would have no peace whilst Boulogne remained in English hands, and Henry
+boastfully declared that he would hold it for ever now that he had won it.</p>
+
+<p>Thenceforward the relations between Henry and the Emperor became daily
+more unamiable. Henry claimed under the treaty that Charles should still
+help him in the war, but that was out of the question. When in 1546 the
+French made a descent upon the Isle of Wight, once more the treaty was
+invoked violently by the King of England: almost daily claims, complaints,
+and denunciations were made on both sides with regard to the vexed
+question of contraband of war for the French, mostly Dutch herrings; and
+the right of capture by the English. The Emperor was seriously intent upon
+keeping Henry on fairly good terms, and certainly did not wish to go to
+war with him; but he had submitted to the hard terms of the peace of
+Crespy with a distinct object, and dared not jeopardise it by renewing his
+quarrel with France for the sake of Henry.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly it had forced itself upon the mind of Charles that his own
+Protestant vassals, the Princes of the Schmalkaldic league, must be
+crushed into obedience, or his own power would become a shadow; and his
+aim was to keep all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> Christendom friendly until he had choked Lutheranism
+at its fountain-head. From the period of Henry&#8217;s return to England in
+these circumstances, growing sympathy for those whom a Papal and imperial
+coalition were attacking caused the influence of the Catholic party in his
+Councils gradually but spasmodically to decline. Chapuys, who himself was
+hastening to the grave, accompanied his successor Van Der Delft as
+ambassador to England at Christmas (1544), and describes Henry as looking
+very old and broken, but more boastful of his victory over the French than
+ever. He professed, no doubt sincerely, a desire to remain friendly with
+the Emperor; and after their interview with him the ambassadors, without
+any desire being expressed on their part, were conducted to the Queen&#8217;s
+oratory during divine service. In reply to their greetings and thanks for
+her good offices for the preservation of friendship and her kindness to
+Princess Mary, Katharine &#8220;replied, very graciously, that she did not
+deserve so much courtesy from your Majesty (the Emperor). What she did for
+Lady Mary was less than she would like to do, and was only her duty in
+every respect. With regard to the maintenance of friendship, she said she
+had done, and would do, nothing to prevent its growing still firmer, and
+she hoped that God would avert the slightest dissension; as the friendship
+was so necessary, and both sovereigns were so good.&#8221;<small><a name="f255.1" id="f255.1" href="#f255">[255]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i432.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center"><i>HENRY VIII.</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>From a portrait by</i> <span class="smcap">Holbein</span> <i>in the possession of the Earl of Warwick</i></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Katharine was equally amiable, though evidently now playing a political
+part, when four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> months later the aged and crippled Chapuys bade his
+last farewell to England. He was being carried in a chair to take leave of
+Henry at Whitehall one morning in May at nine o&#8217;clock. He was an hour
+earlier than the time fixed for his audience, and was passing through the
+green alleys of the garden towards the King&#8217;s apartments, when notice was
+brought to him that the Queen and Princess Mary were hastening after him.
+He stopped at once, and had just time to hobble out of his chair before
+the two ladies reached him. &#8220;It seemed from the small suite she had with
+her, and the haste with which she came, as if her purpose in coming was
+specially to speak to me. She was attended only by four or five ladies of
+the chamber, and opened the conversation by saying that the King had told
+her the previous evening that I was coming that morning to say good-bye.
+She was very sorry, on the one hand, for my departure, as she had been
+told that I had always performed my duties well, and the King trusted me;
+but on the other hand she doubted not that my health would be better on
+the other side of the sea. I could, however, she said, do as much on the
+other side as here, for the maintenance of the friendship, of which I had
+been one of the chief promoters. For this reason she was glad I was going;
+although she had no doubt that so wise and good a sovereign as your
+Majesty (<i>i.e.</i> the Emperor) would see the need and importance of
+upholding the friendship, of which the King, on his side, had given so
+many proofs in the past. Yet it seemed to her that your Majesty had not
+been so thoroughly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> informed hitherto, either by my letters or otherwise,
+of the King&#8217;s sincere affection and goodwill, as I should be able to
+report verbally. She therefore begged me earnestly, after I had presented
+to your Majesty her humble service, to express explicitly to you, all that
+I had learned here of the good wishes of the King.&#8221;<small><a name="f256.1" id="f256.1" href="#f256">[256]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>There was much more high-flown compliment both from Katharine and her
+step-daughter before the gouty ambassador went on his way; but it is
+evident that Katharine, like her husband, was at this time (May 1545)
+apprehensive as to the intentions of Charles and his French allies towards
+England, and was still desirous to obtain some aid in the war under the
+treaty, in order, if possible, to weaken the new friendship with France
+and the Catholic alliance. In the meanwhile the failure of Gardiner&#8217;s
+policy, and the irritation felt at the Emperor&#8217;s abandonment of England,
+placed the minister somewhat under a cloud. He had failed, too, to
+persuade the Emperor personally to fulfil the treaty, as well as in his
+negotiations for peace with the French; and, as his sun gradually sank
+before the King&#8217;s annoyance, that of Secretary Paget, of Hertford, of
+Dudley, and of Wriothesley, now Lord Chancellor, a mere time-serving
+courtier, rose. The Protestant element around Katharine, too, became
+bolder, and her own participation in politics was now frankly on the
+anti-Catholic side. The alliance&mdash;insincere and temporary though it
+was&mdash;between the Emperor and France, once more produced its inevitable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>
+effect of drawing together England and the German Lutherans. It is true
+that Charles&#8217; great plan for crushing dissent by the aid of the Pope was
+not yet publicly known; but the Council of Trent was slowly gathering, and
+it was clear to the German princes of the Schmalkaldic league that great
+events touching religion and their independence were in the air; for
+Cardinal Farnese and the Papal agents were running backward and forward to
+the Emperor on secret missions, and all the Catholic world rang with
+denunciation of heresy.</p>
+
+<p>In June the new imperial ambassador, Van Der Delft, sounded the first note
+of alarm from England. Katharine Parr&#8217;s secretary, Buckler, he said, had
+been in Germany for weeks, trying to arrange a league between the
+Protestant princes and England. This was a matter of the highest
+importance, and Charles when he heard of it was doubly desirous of keeping
+his English brother from quite breaking away; whilst in September there
+arrived in England from France a regular embassy from the Duke of Saxony,
+the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of W&uuml;rtemburg, and the King of Denmark,
+ostensibly to promote peace between England and France, but really bent
+upon effecting a Protestant alliance. Henry, indeed, was seriously
+alarmed. He was exhausted by his long war in France, harassed in the
+victualling of Boulogne and even of Calais, and fully alive to the fact
+that he was practically defenceless against an armed coalition of the
+Emperor and France. In the circumstances it was natural that the influence
+over him of his wife, and of his brother-in-law Hertford, both inclined to
+a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> reconciliation with France and an understanding with the German
+Protestants, should increase.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine, now undisguisedly in favour of such a policy, was full of tact;
+during the King&#8217;s frequent attacks of illness she was tender and useful to
+him, and the attachment to her of the young Prince Edward, testified by
+many charming little letters of the boy, too well known to need quotation
+here, seemed to promise a growth of her State importance. The tendency was
+one to be strenuously opposed by Gardiner and his friends in the Council,
+and once more attempts were made to strike at the Queen through Cranmer,
+almost simultaneously with a movement, flattering to Henry and hopeful for
+the Catholic party, to negotiate a meeting at Calais or in Flanders
+between him and the Emperor, to settle all questions and make France
+distrustful. For any such approach to be productive of the full effects
+desired by Gardiner, it was necessary to couple with it severe measures
+against the Protestants. Henry was reminded that the coming attack upon
+the German Lutherans by the Emperor, with the acquiescence of France,
+would certainly portend an attack upon himself later; and he was told by
+the Catholic majority of his Council that any tenderness on his part
+towards heresy now would be specially perilous. The first blow was struck
+at Cranmer, and was struck in vain. The story in full is told by Strype
+from Morice and Foxe, and has been repeated by every historian of the
+reign. Gardiner and his colleagues represented to Henry that, although the
+Archbishop was spreading heresy, no one dared to give evidence against a
+Privy Councillor whilst he was free. The King<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> promised that they might
+send Cranmer to the Tower, if on examination of him they found reason to
+do so. Late that night Henry sent across the river to Lambeth to summon
+the Archbishop from his bed to see him, told him of the accusation, and
+his consent that the accused should be judged and, if advisable, committed
+to the Tower by his own colleagues on the Council. Cranmer humbly thanked
+the King, sure, as he said, that no injustice would be permitted. Henry,
+however, knew better, and indignantly said so; giving to his favourite
+prelate his ring for a token that summoned the Council to the royal
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning early Cranmer was summoned to the Council, and was kept
+long waiting in an ante-room amongst suitors and serving-men. Dr. Butts,
+Henry&#8217;s privileged physician, saw this and told the King that the
+Archbishop of Canterbury had turned lackey; for he had stood humbly
+waiting outside the Council door for an hour. Henry, in a towering rage,
+growled, &#8220;I shall talk to them by-and-by.&#8221; When Cranmer was charged with
+encouraging heresy he demanded of his colleagues that he should be
+confronted with his accusers. They refused him rudely, and told him he
+should be sent to the Tower. Then Cranmer&#8217;s turn came, and he produced the
+King&#8217;s ring, to the dismay of the Council, who, when they tremblingly
+faced their irate sovereign, were taken to task with a violence that
+promised them ill, if ever they dared to touch again the King&#8217;s friend.
+But though Cranmer was unassailable, the preachers who followed his creed
+were not. In the spring of 1546 the persecutions under the Six Articles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>
+commenced afresh, and for a short time the Catholic party in the Council
+had much their own way, having frightened Henry into abandoning the
+Lutheran connection, in order that the vengeance of the Catholic league
+might not fall upon him, when the Emperor had crushed the Schmalkaldic
+princes.<small><a name="f257.1" id="f257.1" href="#f257">[257]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Henry&#8217;s health was visibly failing, and the two factions in his Court knew
+that time was short in which to establish the predominance of either at
+the critical moment. On the Protestant side were Hertford, Dudley,
+Cranmer, and the Queen, and on the other Gardiner, Paget, Paulet, and
+Wriothesley; and as Katharine&#8217;s influence grew with her husband&#8217;s
+increasing infirmity, it became necessary for the opposite party if
+possible to get rid of her before the King died. In February 1546 the
+imperial ambassador reported: &#8220;I am confused and apprehensive to have to
+inform your Majesty that there are rumours here of a new Queen, although I
+do not know why or how true they may be. Some people attribute them to the
+sterility of the Queen, whilst others say that there will be no change
+whilst the present war lasts. The Duchess of Suffolk is much talked about,
+and is in great favour; but the King shows no alteration in his behaviour
+towards the Queen, though she is, I am informed, annoyed at the
+rumours.&#8221;<small><a name="f258.1" id="f258.1" href="#f258">[258]</a></small> Hints of this sort continued for some time, and evidently
+took their rise from a deliberate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> attack upon Katharine by the Catholic
+councillors. She herself, for once, failed in her tact, and laid herself
+open to the designs of her enemies. She was betrayed into a religious
+discussion with Henry during one of his attacks of illness, in the
+presence of Gardiner, much to the King&#8217;s annoyance. When she had retired
+the Bishop flattered Henry by saying that he wondered how any one could
+have the temerity to differ from him on theology, and carried his
+suggestions further by saying that such a person might well oppose him in
+other things than opinions. Moved by the hints at his danger, always a
+safe card to play with him, the King allowed an indictment to be drawn up
+against Katharine, and certain ladies of her family, under the Six
+Articles. Everything was arranged for the Queen&#8217;s arrest and examination,
+when Wriothesley, the Lord Chancellor, a servile creature who always clung
+to the strongest side, seems to have taken fright and divulged the plot to
+one of her friends. Katharine was at once informed and fell ill with
+fright, which for a short time deferred the arrest. Being partially
+recovered she sought the King, and when he began to talk about religion,
+she by her submission and refusal to contradict his views, as those of one
+far too learned for her to controvert, easily flattered him back into a
+good humour with her. The next day was fixed for carrying her to the
+Tower, and again Henry determined to play a trick upon his ministers.
+Sending for his wife in the garden, he kept her in conversation until the
+hour appointed for her arrest. When Wriothesley and the guard approached,
+the King turned upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> him in a fury, calling him knave, fool, beast, and
+other opprobrious names, to the Lord Chancellor&#8217;s utter surprise and
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p>The failure of the attack upon Katharine in the summer of 1546 marks the
+decline of the Catholic party in the Council. Peace was made with France
+in the autumn; and Katharine did her part in the splendid reception of the
+Admiral of France and the great rejoicings over the new peace treaty
+(September 1546). Almost simultaneously came the news of fresh dissensions
+between the Emperor and Francis; for the terms of the peace of Crespy were
+flagrantly evaded, and it began to be seen now that the treaty had for its
+sole object the keeping of France quiet and England at war whilst the
+German Protestants were crushed. Not in France alone, but in England too,
+the revulsion of feeling against the Emperor&#8217;s aims was great. The
+treacherous attack upon his own vassals in order to force orthodoxy upon
+them at the sword&#8217;s point had been successful, and it was seen to
+constitute a menace to all the world. Again Protestant envoys came to
+England and obtained a loan from Henry: again the Duke Philip of Bavaria,
+who said that he had never heard mass in his life until he arrived in
+England, came to claim the hand of the Princess Mary;<small><a name="f259.1" id="f259.1" href="#f259">[259]</a></small> and the
+Catholics in the King&#8217;s Council, forced to stand upon the defensive,
+became, not the conspirators but those conspired against. Hertford and
+Dudley, now Lord Admiral, were the King&#8217;s principal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> companions, both in
+his pastimes and his business; and the imperial ambassador expressed his
+fears for the future to a caucus of the Council consisting of Gardiner,
+Wriothesley, and Paulet, deploring, as he said, that &#8220;not only had the
+Protestants their openly declared champions ... but I had even heard that
+some of them had gained great favour with the King, though I wished they
+were as far away from Court as they were last year. I did not mention
+names, but the persons I referred to were the Earl of Hertford and the
+Lord Admiral. The councillors made no reply, but they clearly showed that
+they understood me, and continued in their great devotion to your
+Majesty.&#8221;<small><a name="f260.1" id="f260.1" href="#f260">[260]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Late in September the King fell seriously ill, and his life for a time was
+despaired of. Dr. Butts had died some months before, and the Queen was
+indefatigable in her attendance; and the Seymours, as uncles of the heir,
+rose in importance as the danger to the King increased. The only strong
+men on the Council on the Catholic side were Gardiner, who was extremely
+unpopular and already beaten, and Norfolk. Paulet was as obedient to the
+prevailing wind as a weathercock; Wriothesley was an obsequious, greedy
+sycophant; Paget a humble official with little influence, and the rest
+were nonentities. The enmity of the Seymours against the Howards was of
+long standing, and was as much personal as political; especially between
+the younger brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, and the Earl of Surrey, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> heir
+of Norfolk, whose quarrels and affrays had several times caused scandal at
+Court. There was much ill-will also between Surrey and his sister, the
+widowed Duchess of Richmond, who after the death of her young husband had
+been almost betrothed to Sir Thomas Seymour.<small><a name="f261.1" id="f261.1" href="#f261">[261]</a></small> With these elements of
+enmity a story was trumped up which frightened the sick King into the
+absurd idea that Surrey aimed at succeeding to the crown, to the exclusion
+of Henry&#8217;s children. It was sufficient to send him to the Tower, and
+afterwards to the block as one of Henry&#8217;s most popular victims. His
+father, the aged Duke of Norfolk, was got rid of by charges of complicity
+with him. Stripped of his garter, the first of English nobles was carried
+to the Tower by water, whilst his brilliant poet son was led through the
+streets of London like a pickpurse, cheered to the echo by the crowd that
+loved him. The story hatched to explain the arrests to the public, besides
+the silly gossip about Surrey&#8217;s coat-of-arms and claims to the crown, was,
+that whilst the King was thought to be dying in November at Windsor, the
+Duke and his son had plotted to obtain possession of the Prince for their
+own ends on the death of his father. Having regard for the plots and
+counterplots that we know divided the Council at the time, this is very
+probable, and was exactly what Hertford and Dudley were doing, the Prince,
+indeed, being then in his uncle&#8217;s keeping at Hertford Castle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span>At the end of December the King suffered from a fresh attack, which
+promised to be fatal. He was at Whitehall at the time, whilst Katharine
+was at Greenwich, an unusual thing which attracted much comment; but
+whether she was purposely excluded by Hertford from access to him or not,
+it is certain that the Protestant party of which she, the Duchess of
+Suffolk, and the Countess of Hertford were the principal lady members, and
+the Earl of Hertford and Lord Admiral Dudley the active leaders, alone had
+control of affairs. Gardiner had been threatened with the Tower months
+before, and had then only been saved by Norfolk&#8217;s bold protest. Now
+Norfolk was safe under bolts and bars, whilst Wriothesley and Paulet were
+openly insulted by Hertford and Dudley, and, like their chief Gardiner,
+lay low in fear of what was to come when the King died.<small><a name="f262.1" id="f262.1" href="#f262">[262]</a></small> They were
+soon to learn. The King had been growing worse daily during January. His
+legs, covered with running ulcers, were useless to him and in terrible
+torture. His bulk was so unwieldy that mechanical means had to be employed
+to lift him. Surrey had been done to death in the Tower for high treason,
+whilst yet the King&#8217;s stiffened hand could sign the death-warrant; but
+when the time came for killing Norfolk, Henry was too far gone to place
+his signature to the fatal paper. Wriothesley, always ready to oblige the
+strong, produced a commission, stated to be authorised by the King,
+empowering him as Chancellor to sign for him, which he did upon the
+warrant ordering the death of Norfolk, whose head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> was to fall on the
+following morning. But it was too late, for on the morrow before the hour
+fixed for the execution the soul of King Henry had gone to its account,
+and none dared carry out the vicarious command to sacrifice the proudest
+noble in the realm for the convenience of the political party for the
+moment predominant.</p>
+
+<p>On the afternoon of 26th January 1547 the end of the King was seen to be
+approaching. The events of Henry&#8217;s deathbed have been told with so much
+religious passion on both sides that it is somewhat difficult to arrive at
+the truth. Between the soul in despair and mortal anguish, as described by
+Rivadeneyra, and the devout Protestant deathbed portrayed by some of the
+ardent religious reformers, there is a world of difference. The accepted
+English version says that, fearing the dying man&#8217;s anger, none of the
+courtiers dared to tell him of his coming dissolution, until his old
+friend Sir Anthony Denny, leaning over him, gently broke the news. Henry
+was calm and resigned, and when asked if he wished to see a priest, he
+answered: &#8220;Only Cranmer, and him not yet.&#8221; It was to be never, for Henry
+was speechless and sightless when the Primate came, and the King could
+answer only by a pressure of his numbed fingers the question if he died in
+the faith of Christ. Another contemporary, whom I have several times
+quoted, though always with some reservation, says that Henry, some days
+before he died, took a tender farewell of the Princess Mary, to whose
+motherly care he commended her young brother; and that he then sent for
+the Queen and said to her, &#8220;&#8216;It is God&#8217;s will that we should part, and I
+order all these gentlemen to honour and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> treat you as if I were living
+still; and, if it should be your pleasure to marry again, I order that you
+shall have seven thousand pounds for your service as long as you live, and
+all your jewels and ornaments.&#8217; The good Queen could not answer for
+weeping, and he ordered her to leave him. The next day he confessed, took
+the sacrament, and commended his soul to God.&#8221;<small><a name="f263.1" id="f263.1" href="#f263">[263]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Henry died, in fact, as he had lived, a Catholic. The Reformation in
+England, of which we have traced the beginnings in this book, did not
+spring mature from the mind and will of the King, but was gradually thrust
+upon him by the force of circumstances, arising out of the steps he took
+to satisfy his passion and gratify his imperious vanity. Freedom of
+thought in religion was the last thing to commend itself to such a mind as
+his, and his treatment of those who disobeyed either the Act of Supremacy
+or the Bloody Statute (the Six Articles) shows that neither on the one
+side or the other would he tolerate dissent from his own views, which he
+characteristically caused to be embodied in the law of the land, either in
+politics or religion. The concession to subjects of the right of private
+judgment in matters of conscience seemed to the potentates of the
+sixteenth century to strike at the very base of all authority, and the
+very last to concede such a revolutionary claim was Henry Tudor. His
+separation from the Papal obedience, whilst retaining what, in his view,
+were the essentials of the Papal creed, was directed rather to the
+increase than to the diminution of his own authority<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> over his subjects,
+and it was this fact that doubtless made it more than ever attractive to
+him. To ascribe to him a complete plan for the aggrandisement of England
+and her emancipation from foreign control, by means of religious schism,
+has always appeared to me to endow him with a political sagacity and
+prescience which, in my opinion, he did not possess, and to estimate
+imperfectly the forces by which he was impelled.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen how, entirely in consequence of the unexpected difficulties
+raised by the Papacy to the first divorce, he adopted the bold advice of
+Cranmer and Cromwell to defy the Pope on that particular point. The
+opposition of the Pope was a purely political one, forced upon him by the
+Emperor for reasons of State, in order to prevent a coalition between
+England and France; and there were several occasions when, if the Pope had
+been left to himself, he would have found a solution that would have kept
+England in the orthodox fold. But for the persistence of the opposition
+Henry would never have taken the first step that led to the Reformation.
+Having taken it, each other step onward was the almost inevitable
+consequence of the first, having regard to the peculiar character of the
+King. It has been the main business of this book to trace in what respect
+the policy that ended in the great religious schism was reflected or
+influenced by the matrimonial adventures of the King, who has gone down to
+history as the most married monarch of modern times. We have seen that,
+although, with the exception of Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, each
+for a short time, the direct influence of Henry&#8217;s wives upon events was
+small, each one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> represented, and coincided in point of time with, a
+change in the ruling forces around the King. We have seen that the
+libidinous tendency of the monarch was utilised by the rival parties, as
+were all other elements that might help them, to forward the opportunity
+by which a person to some extent dependent upon them might be placed at
+the side of the King as his wife; and when for the purpose it was
+necessary to remove the wife in possession first, we have witnessed the
+process by which it was effected.</p>
+
+<p>The story from this point of view has not been told before in its
+entirety, and as the whole panorama unrolls before us, we mark curiously
+the regular degeneration of Henry&#8217;s character, as the only checks upon his
+action were removed, and he progressively defied traditional authority and
+established standards of conduct without disaster to himself. The power of
+the Church to censure or punish him, and the fear of personal reprobation
+by the world, were the influences that, had they retained their force over
+him to the end, would probably have kept Henry to all appearance a good
+man. But when he found, probably to his own surprise, that the jealous
+divisions of the Catholic powers on the Continent made defiance of the
+Church in his case unpunishable, and that crafty advisers and servile
+Parliaments could give to his deeds, however violent and cruel, the
+sanction of Holy Writ and the law of the land, there was no power on earth
+to hold in check the devil in the breast of Henry Tudor; and the man who
+began a vain, brilliant sensualist, with the feelings of a gentleman,
+ended a repulsive, bloodstained monster, the more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> dangerous because his
+evil was always held to be good by himself and those around him.</p>
+
+<p>In his own eyes he was a deeply wronged and ill-used man when Katharine of
+Aragon refused to surrender her position as his wife after twenty years of
+wedlock, and appealed to forces outside England to aid her in supporting
+her claim. It was a rebellious, a cruel, and a wicked thing for her and
+her friends to stand in the way of his tender conscience, and of his
+laudable and natural desire to be succeeded on the throne by a son of his
+own. Similarly, it seemed very hard upon him that all Europe, and most of
+his own country, should be threateningly against him for the sake of Anne
+Boleyn, for whom he had already sacrificed and suffered so much, and
+particularly as she was shrewish and had brought him no son. He really was
+a most ill-used man, and it was a providential instance of divine justice
+that Cromwell, in the nick of time, when the situation had become
+unendurable and Jane Seymour&#8217;s prudish charms were most elusive, should
+fortunately discover that Anne was unworthy to be Henry&#8217;s wife, and
+Cranmer should decide that she never <i>had</i> been his wife. It was not his
+fault, moreover, that Anne of Cleves&#8217; physical qualities had repelled him.
+A wicked and ungenerous trick had been played upon him. His trustful
+ingenuousness had been betrayed by flatterers at the instance of a knavish
+minister, who, not content with bringing him a large unsympathetic Dutch
+vrow for a wife, had pledged him to an alliance with a lot of
+insignificant vassal princes in rebellion against the greater sovereigns
+who were his own peers. It was a just decree of heaven that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> the righteous
+wisdom of Gardiner and Norfolk should enable it to be demonstrated clearly
+that the good King had once more been deceived, and that Anne, and the
+policy she stood for, could be repudiated at the same time without
+opprobrium or wrongdoing. Again, how relentless was the persecution of the
+powers of evil against the obese invalid of fifty who married in ignorance
+of her immoral past a light-lived beauty of seventeen, and was undeceived
+when her frivolity began to pall upon him by those whose political and
+religious views might benefit by the disgrace of the party that had placed
+Katharine Howard by the King&#8217;s side as his wife. That the girl Queen
+should lose her head for lack of virtue before her marriage and lack of
+prudence after it, was, of course, quite just, and in accordance with the
+law of the land&mdash;for all that Henry did was strictly legal&mdash;but it was a
+heartrending thing that the good husband should suffer the distress of
+having once believed in so unworthy a wife. Still Katharine Howard was not
+sacrificed in vain, for, although the Catholic policy she represented
+suffered no check, for reasons set forth in earlier pages, the King&#8217;s sad
+bereavement left him in the matrimonial market and enhanced his price as
+an ally, for much of the future depended upon the wife and the party that
+should be in possession when the King died. As we have seen, the
+Protestants, or rather the anti-Catholics, won the last trick; and
+Somerset&#8217;s predominance meant that the Reformation in England should not
+be one of form alone but of substance.</p>
+
+<p>The life of Katharine Parr after Henry&#8217;s death hardly enters into the plan
+of this book; but a few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> lines may be devoted to it, and to her pitiable
+end. The instant rise of the Protector Somerset on the death of Henry
+brought with it a corresponding increase in the importance of his brother
+Sir Thomas, then Lord Seymour of Sudeley, who was certainly no less
+ambitious than his brother, and probably of much stronger character. For a
+time all went well between the brothers, Thomas being created Lord
+Admiral, to the annoyance of Dudley&mdash;now Earl of Warwick&mdash;who had held the
+office, and receiving great grants of forfeited estates and other wealth.
+But soon the evident attempts of Lord Seymour to rival his elder brother,
+and perhaps to supplant him, aroused the jealousy of Somerset, or more
+likely of his quarrelsome and haughty wife.</p>
+
+<p>Some love passages, we have seen, took place between Seymour and Katharine
+Parr before her marriage with the King, so that it need not be ascribed to
+ambition that the lover should once more cast his eyes upon the royal
+widow before the weeds for the King had been cast aside.<small><a name="f264.1" id="f264.1" href="#f264">[264]</a></small> Katharine,
+with a large dower that has already been mentioned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> lived alternately in
+her two mansion-houses at Chelsea and Hanworth; and to her care was
+consigned the Lady Elizabeth, then a girl of fourteen. As early as the
+beginning of May 1547, Seymour had visited the widowed Queen at Chelsea
+with his tale of love. Katharine was now thirty-four years of age, and
+having married in succession three old men, might fairly be entitled to
+contract a fourth marriage to please herself. There was no more manly or
+handsome figure in England than that of Seymour, with his stately stature,
+his sonorous voice, and his fine brown beard; and in his quiet meetings
+with the Queen in her pretty riverside garden at Chelsea, he appears to
+have found no difficulty in persuading Katharine of the sincerity of his
+love.</p>
+
+<p>For a time the engagement was kept secret; but watchful eyes were around
+the Queen, especially those of her own kin, and the following letter,
+written by Seymour to her on the 17th May, shows that her sister, Lady
+Herbert, at least, had wind from Katharine of what was going on: &#8220;After my
+humble commendations of your Highness. Yester night I supped at my brother
+Herbert&#8217;s, of whom, for your sake besydes my nown, I receved good cheyre.
+And after the same I received from your Highness by my sister Herbert<small><a name="f265.1" id="f265.1" href="#f265">[265]</a></small>
+your commendations, which were more welcome than they were sent. And after
+the same she (Lady Herbert) waded further with me touching my being with
+your Highness at Chelsey, which I denied; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> that, indeed, I went by the
+garden as I went to the Bishop of London&#8217;s howse; and at this point I
+stood with her for a time, till at last she told me further tokens that
+made me change colour; and she, like a false wench, took me with the
+maner. Then, remembering what she was, and knowing how well ye trusted
+her, I examined her whether these things came from your Highness and by
+that knew it to be true; for the which I render unto your Highness my most
+umbell and harty thanks: for by her company (in default of yours) I shall
+shorten the weeks in these parts, which heretofore were three days longer
+in every of them than they were under the planets at Chelsey. Besydes this
+commoditye I may ascertain (<i>i.e.</i> inform) your Highness by her how I do
+proceed in my matter....&#8221; Seymour goes on to say that he has not yet dared
+to try his strength until he is fully in favour, this having reference
+apparently to his intention of begging his brother to permit the marriage,
+and then he proceeds: &#8220;If I knew by what means I might gratify your
+Highness for your goodness to me at our last being together, I should not
+be slack to declare mine to you again, and the intent that I will be more
+bound to your Highness, I do make my request that, yf it be nott painfull
+to your Highness, that once in three days I may receve three lynes in a
+letter from you; and as many lynes and letters more as shall seem good to
+your Highness. Also I shall ombeley desyr your Highness to geve me one of
+your small pictures yf ye hav one left, who with his silence shall give me
+occasion to think on the friendly cheere I shall have when my sawght<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>
+(suit?) shall be at an end. 12 o&#8217;clock in the night this Tewsday the 17th
+May 1547. From him whom ye have bound to honour, love, and in all lawful
+thynges obbey.&mdash;<span class="smcap">T. Seymour.</span>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Queen had evidently pledged her troth to her lover at the previous
+meeting; and it would appear that when Katharine had promised to write to
+him but once a fortnight her impatience, as much as his, could ill suffer
+so long a silence. Either in answer to the above letter, or another
+similar one, Katharine wrote: &#8220;My Lord, I send you my most humble and
+hearty commendations, being desirous to know how ye have done since I saw
+you. I pray ye be not offended with me in that I send sooner to you than I
+said I would, for my promise was but once a fortnight. Howbeit, the time
+is well abbreviated, by what means I know not, except weeks be shorter at
+Chelsey than in other places. My Lord, your brother hath deferred
+answering such requests as I made to him till his coming hither, which he
+sayeth shall be immediately after the term. This is not the first promise
+I have received of his coming, and yet unperformed. I think my lady
+(<i>i.e.</i> the Duchess of Somerset) hath taught him that lesson, for it is
+her custom to promise many comings to her friends and to perform none. I
+trust in greater matters she is more circumspect.&#8221;<small><a name="f266.1" id="f266.1" href="#f266">[266]</a></small> Then follows a
+curious loving postscript, which shows that Katharine&#8217;s fancy for Seymour
+was no new passion. &#8220;I would not have you think that this, mine honest
+good will toward you, proceeds from any sudden motion of passion; for, as
+truly as God is God, my mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> was fully bent the other time I was at
+liberty to marry you before any man I know. Howbeit, God withstood my will
+therein most vehemently for a time, and through His grace and goodness
+made that possible which seemed to me most impossible: that was, made me
+renounce utterly mine own will, and follow His most willingly. It were
+long to write all the process of this matter. If I live I shall declare it
+to you myself. I can say nothing; but as my lady of Suffolk saith: &#8216;God is
+a marvellous man.&#8217;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Katheryn the Quene.</span>&#8221;<small><a name="f267.1" id="f267.1" href="#f267">[267]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>The course of true love did not run smoothly. Somerset, and especially his
+wife, did not like the idea of his younger brother&#8217;s elevation to higher
+influence by his marrying the Queen-Dowager; and the Protector proved
+unwilling to grant his consent to the marriage. Katharine evidently
+resented this, and was inclined to use her great influence with the young
+King himself over his elder uncle&#8217;s head. When Seymour was in doubt how to
+approach his brother about it, Katharine wrote spiritedly: &#8220;The denial of
+your request shall make his folly more manifest to the world, which will
+more grieve me than the want of his speaking. I would not wish you to
+importune for his goodwill if it come not frankly at first. It shall be
+sufficient once to require it, and then to cease. I would desire you might
+obtain the King&#8217;s letters in your favour, and also the aid and furtherance
+of the most notable of the Council, such as ye shall think convenient,
+which thing being obtained shall be no small shame to your brother and
+sister in case they do not the like.&#8221; In the same letter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> Katharine rather
+playfully dallies with her lover&#8217;s request that she will abridge the
+period of waiting from two years to two months, and then she concludes in
+a way which proves if nothing else did how deeply she was in love with
+Seymour. &#8220;When it shall pleasure you to repair hither (Chelsea) ye must
+take some pains to come early in the morning, so that ye may be gone again
+by seven o&#8217;clock; and thus I suppose ye may come without being suspect. I
+pray ye let me have knowledge overnight at what hour ye will come, that
+your portress (<i>i.e.</i> Katharine herself) may wait at the gate to the
+fields for you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was not two years, or even two months, that the impatient lovers
+waited: for they must have been married before the last day in May 1547,
+four months after Henry&#8217;s death. Katharine&#8217;s suggestion that the boy King
+himself should be enlisted on their side, was adopted; and he was induced
+to press Seymour&#8217;s suit to his father&#8217;s widow, as if he were the promoter
+of it. When the secret marriage was known to Somerset, he expressed the
+greatest indignation and anger at it; and a system of petty persecution of
+Katharine began. Her jewels, of which the King had left her the use during
+her life, were withheld from her; her jointure estates were dealt with by
+Somerset regardless of her wishes and protests; and her every appearance
+at Court led to a squabble with the Protector&#8217;s wife as to the precedence
+to be accorded to her. On one occasion it is stated that this question of
+precedence led in the Chapel Royal to a personal encounter between
+Katharine and proud Ann Stanhope.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>Nor was Katharine&#8217;s life at home with her gallant, empty-headed, turbulent
+husband, cloudless. The Princess Elizabeth lived with them; and though she
+was but a girl, Seymour began before many months of married life to act
+suspiciously with her. The manners of the time were free; and Seymour
+might perhaps innocently romp suggestively, as he did, sometimes alone and
+sometimes in his wife&#8217;s presence, with the young Princess as she lay in
+bed; but when Katharine, entering a chamber suddenly once, found young
+Elizabeth embraced in her husband&#8217;s arms, there was a domestic explosion
+which led to the departure of the girl from the Chelsea household.<small><a name="f268.1" id="f268.1" href="#f268">[268]</a></small>
+Katharine was pregnant at the time; and Elizabeth&#8217;s letter to her on her
+leaving Chelsea shows that although, for the sake of prudence, the girl
+was sent away, there was no great unkindness between her and her
+stepmother in consequence. She says that she was chary of her thanks when
+leaving, because &#8220;I was replete with sorrow to depart from your Highness,
+especially leaving you undoubtful of health, and, albeit I answered
+little, I weighed more deeper when you said you would warn me of all the
+evils that you should hear of me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the poor lady&#8217;s time drew near, she wrote a hopeful yet pathetic
+letter to her husband, who was already involving himself in the ambitious
+schemes that brought his head to the block. Both she and her husband in
+their letters anticipated the birth of their child with a frankness of
+detail which make the documents unfitted for reproduction here; and it is
+evident that, though they were now often<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> separated, this looked-for son
+was to be a new pledge to bind them together for the future. In June 1548
+Seymour took his wife to Sudeley Castle for her confinement; and from
+there carried on, through his agents with the King, his secret plots to
+supersede his brother Somerset as Protector of the realm. He and his wife
+were surrounded by a retinue so large, as of itself to constitute a menace
+to the Protector; but Katharine&#8217;s royal title gave a pretext for so large
+a household, and this and her personal influence secured whilst she lived
+her husband&#8217;s safety from attack by his brother.</p>
+
+<p>At length, on the 30th August, Katharine&#8217;s child was born, a daughter, and
+at first all went well. Even Somerset, angry and distrustful as he was,
+was infected by his brother&#8217;s joy, and sent congratulations. But on the
+fourth day the mother became excited, and wandered somewhat; saying that
+she thought she would die, and that she was not being well treated. &#8220;Those
+who are about me do not care for me, but stand laughing at my grief,&#8221; she
+complained to her friend Lady Tyrwhitt. This was evidently directed
+against Seymour, who stood by. &#8220;Why, sweetheart,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I would you no
+hurt.&#8221; &#8220;No, my Lord,&#8221; replied Katharine, &#8220;I think so; but,&#8221; she whispered,
+&#8220;you have given me many shrewd taunts.&#8221; This seems to have troubled
+Seymour, and he suggested to Lady Tyrwhitt that he should lie on the bed
+by the Queen&#8217;s side and try to calm her; but his efforts were without
+effect, for she continued excitedly to say that she had not been properly
+dealt with. These facts, related and magnified by attendants, and coupled
+with Seymour&#8217;s desire to marry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> Elizabeth as soon as his wife died, gave
+rise to a pretty general opinion that Katharine was either poisoned or
+otherwise ill treated. But there are many circumstances that point in the
+contrary direction, and there can be no reasonable doubt now, that
+although in her inmost mind she had begun to distrust her husband, and the
+anxiety so caused may have contributed to her illness, she died (on the
+5th September) of ordinary puerperal fever.</p>
+
+<p>She was buried in great state in the chapel at Sudeley Castle, and her
+remains, which have been examined and described several times, add their
+testimony to the belief that the unfortunate Queen died a natural death.
+The death of Katharine Parr, the last, and least politically important, of
+Henry&#8217;s six wives, took place, so far as English history is concerned, on
+the day that heralded the death of her royal husband. From the moment that
+Somerset and his wife sat in the seats of the mighty there was no room for
+the exercise of political influence by the Queen-Dowager; and these latter
+pages telling of her fourth marriage, this time for love, form but a human
+postscript to a political history.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<strong>A</strong><br />
+<br />
+Abell, martyred, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br />
+<br />
+Adrian, Pope, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br />
+<br />
+Alburquerque, Duke of, accompanies Henry to the war, <a href="#Page_422">422</a><br />
+<br />
+Alen&ccedil;on, Duchess of, proposed marriage of Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br />
+<br />
+Alexander VI. (Pope), Borgia, <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br />
+<br />
+Amelia of Cleves, <a href="#Page_322">322</a><br />
+<br />
+Angoul&ecirc;me, Duke of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br />
+<a name="Anne" id="Anne"></a><br />
+Anne Boleyn, early life, <a href="#Page_124">124-128</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the divorce, <a href="#Page_129">129-162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">courtship of Henry, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139-147</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her party, <a href="#Page_168">168-170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her life with Henry, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in France, <a href="#Page_193">193-197</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">married, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her procession through London, <a href="#Page_204">204-208</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her unpopularity, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of her child, <a href="#Page_214">214-216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her influence declines, <a href="#Page_240">240-243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260-261</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her fall inevitable, <a href="#Page_269">269-270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her betrayal, <a href="#Page_271">271-274</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her arrest, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Tower, <a href="#Page_276">276-280</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her trial, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">condemnation and death, <a href="#Page_282">282-288</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></span><br />
+<a name="Cleves" id="Cleves"></a><br />
+Anne of Cleves, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her voyage to England, <a href="#Page_324">324-330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her arrival and interview with Henry, <a href="#Page_331">331-334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her marriage, <a href="#Page_334">334-339</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350-352</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her repudiation, <a href="#Page_353">353-356</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">talk of her rehabilitation, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Aragon, ambition of, <a href="#Page_3">3-5</a><br />
+<br />
+Arras. <i>See</i> <a href="#Granvelle">Granvelle</a><br />
+<br />
+Arthur, Prince of Wales, his first betrothal to Katharine, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8-12</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his first meeting with Katharine, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">description of him, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his marriage, <a href="#Page_29">29-33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his death, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Arundel, Earl of, <a href="#Page_305">305</a><br />
+<br />
+Audrey, Sir Thomas, Lord Chancellor, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a><br />
+<br />
+Ayala, Bishop, Spanish envoy, <a href="#Page_36">36</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>B</strong><br />
+<a name="Bar" id="Bar"></a><br />
+Bar, Duke of, betrothal of Anne of Cleves to, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a><br />
+<br />
+Barnes, Dr., prosecution of, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br />
+<br />
+Bassett, Anne, <a href="#Page_393">393</a><br />
+<br />
+Bastian, Katharine&#8217;s Burgundian lackey, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br />
+<br />
+Bedingfield, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br />
+<br />
+Bennet, Dr., <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br />
+<br />
+Boleyn, Anne. <i>See</i> <a href="#Anne">Anne</a><br />
+<br />
+Boleyn, Mary, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a><br />
+<br />
+Boleyn, Thomas (Earl of Wiltshire), <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a><br />
+<br />
+Bonner, Dr., <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+<br />
+Boulogne, siege of, &amp;c., <a href="#Page_423">423-427</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a><br />
+<a name="Brandon" id="Brandon"></a><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span>Brandon, Charles, Duke of Suffolk, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a><br />
+<br />
+Brereton, William, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">executed, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Brian, Sir Francis, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a><br />
+<br />
+Bridewell, the divorce tribunal there, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163-166</a><br />
+<br />
+Bridgewater, Lady, <a href="#Page_382">382</a><br />
+<br />
+Brittany, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br />
+<br />
+Brown, Friar George, <a href="#Page_199">199</a><br />
+<br />
+Browne, Sir Anthony, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a><br />
+<br />
+Buckingham, Duke of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a><br />
+<br />
+Buckler, Katharine Parr&#8217;s secretary, <a href="#Page_435">435</a><br />
+<br />
+Bulmer, Mrs. Joan, <a href="#Page_359">359</a><br />
+<br />
+Burgo, Baron di, the Papal envoy, <a href="#Page_199">199</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>C</strong><br />
+<br />
+Campeggio, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163-166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a><br />
+<br />
+Ca&ntilde;azares, Protonotary, <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+<br />
+Carew, Sir Nicholas, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a><br />
+<br />
+Carey, William, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br />
+<br />
+Carne, Dr., <a href="#Page_320">320</a><br />
+<br />
+Carroz, Spanish ambassador, <a href="#Page_78">78</a><br />
+<br />
+Carthusians, martyrdom of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br />
+<br />
+Castillon, French ambassador, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br />
+<br />
+Chabot de Brion, Admiral of France, in England, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a><br />
+<br />
+Chantonnay (Perennot), <a href="#Page_402">402</a><br />
+<br />
+Chapuys, imperial ambassador, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his journey to Kimbolton, <a href="#Page_235">235-239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last interviews with Katharine, <a href="#Page_250">250-256</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his coldness towards Anne, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his reception by Jane Seymour, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388-399</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Charles V., Emperor, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits to England, <a href="#Page_99">99-106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude towards the divorce, <a href="#Page_129">129-130</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude after Katharine&#8217;s death, <a href="#Page_263">263-4</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300-302</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">renewed friendship with Henry, <a href="#Page_357">357-366</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388-390</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his alliance with Henry, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427-431</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">makes peace, <a href="#Page_428">428-431</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attacks the Lutherans, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Charles VIII. of France, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13-15</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br />
+<br />
+Christian III. of Denmark, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a><br />
+<br />
+Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, <a href="#Page_314">314-15</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a><br />
+<br />
+Clare, Lady, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br />
+<br />
+Clement VII., Pope, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174-177</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gives sentence in the divorce case, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Clergy, English, and the divorce, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br />
+<br />
+Cleves, Anne, Princess of. <i>See</i> <a href="#Cleves">Anne</a><br />
+<br />
+Cleves, Duke of, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a><br />
+<br />
+Cleves, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_323">323</a><br />
+<br />
+Compton, Sir William, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br />
+<br />
+Cook martyred, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br />
+<br />
+Cranmer, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_185">185-187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed to Canterbury, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pronounces the divorce from Katharine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_203">203-204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">plots of Gardiner against him, <a href="#Page_411">411-415</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436-437</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>, <a href="#Page_448">448</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cromwell, Richard, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br />
+<br />
+Cromwell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271-281</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decline of his influence, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">created Earl of Essex, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his arrest, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">execution, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Culpeper, Thomas, the lover of Katharine Howard, accused, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trial and execution, <a href="#Page_383">383-385</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cuero, Juan de, chamberlain of Katharine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_35">35</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>D</strong><br />
+<br />
+Dacre, Lord, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+<br />
+Darrel, Mistress, <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br />
+<br />
+Daubeney, Giles, <a href="#Page_10">10</a><br />
+<br />
+Dauphin of France, betrothed to Princess Mary, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br />
+<br />
+De la S&aacute;, Katharine&#8217;s apothecary, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br />
+<br />
+Denny, Sir Anthony, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_444">444</a><br />
+<br />
+Derham, Francis, accused of immorality with Katharine Howard, <a href="#Page_373">373</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trial and execution, <a href="#Page_383">383-385</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Divorce proceedings between Henry and Katharine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_117">117-123</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129-162</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184-192</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198-204</a><br />
+<br />
+Dogmersfield, Hants, Katharine meets Arthur there, <a href="#Page_27">27</a><br />
+<br />
+Dorset, Marquis of, commands English contingent in Navarre, <a href="#Page_81">81</a><br />
+<br />
+Douglas, Lady Margaret, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a><br />
+<br />
+Dowry of Katharine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34-37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br />
+<br />
+Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a><br />
+<br />
+Dudley, John (Lord Lisle, afterwards Earl of Warwick, and Duke of Northumberland), <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>E</strong><br />
+<br />
+Edward, Prince of Wales, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his baptism, <a href="#Page_305">305-6</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>, <a href="#Page_455">455</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Elizabeth of York, Queen, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Elizabeth, Princess, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a><br />
+<br />
+Empson and Dudley, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a><br />
+<br />
+Erasmus, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a><br />
+<br />
+Estrada, Duke of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br />
+<br />
+Etampes, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a><br />
+<br />
+Europe, condition of, at the end of the fifteenth century, <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br />
+<br />
+Evil May Day, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a><br />
+<br />
+Exeter, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a><br />
+<br />
+Exeter, Marquis of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a><br />
+<br />
+Exeter, the Marchioness of, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>F</strong><br />
+<br />
+Felipe, Francisco, Katharine&#8217;s groom of the chambers, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br />
+<br />
+Ferdinand, King of Aragon, <a href="#Page_1">1-24</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55-60</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+<br />
+Fernandez, Diego, Katharine&#8217;s confessor, <a href="#Page_63">63-68</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a><br />
+<br />
+Fetherston martyred, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>Field of the Cloth of Gold, <a href="#Page_101">101</a><br />
+<br />
+Fisher, Dr., Bishop of Rochester, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br />
+<br />
+Fitzwilliam, Sir William, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a><br />
+<br />
+Flodden, battle of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br />
+<br />
+Fox, Bishop of Winchester, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br />
+<br />
+Francis I., <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at war with England, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">receives Wolsey, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude towards the divorce, <a href="#Page_190">190-192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meets Henry, <a href="#Page_193">193-197</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">renewed coolness, <a href="#Page_209">209-211</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at war with Charles, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>G</strong><br />
+<br />
+Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his plots against Cranmer and Katharine Parr, <a href="#Page_411">411-415</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">with Henry in France, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Garrard, Dr., <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br />
+<br />
+German Protestants and England, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316-320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322-325</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a><br />
+<br />
+Germaine de Foix, second wife of Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br />
+<br />
+Ghinucci, Henry&#8217;s envoy to Spain and Rome, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a><br />
+<br />
+Gomez de Fuensalida, Spanish envoy, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a><br />
+<a name="Granvelle" id="Granvelle"></a><br />
+Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>, <a href="#Page_430">430</a><br />
+<br />
+Grey, Lord Leonard, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+<br />
+Guildford, Sir J., Controller, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br />
+<br />
+Guildford, Lady, <a href="#Page_28">28</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>H</strong><br />
+<br />
+Haines, Dr., <a href="#Page_412">412</a><br />
+<br />
+Hall, Mary, <a href="#Page_370">370</a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Heneage, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a><br />
+<br />
+Henry VII., his political aims, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his relations with Puebla, <a href="#Page_7">7-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his negotiations for the Spanish marriage, <a href="#Page_9">9-20</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his first meeting with Katharine, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Arthur&#8217;s marriage, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his treatment of Katharine, <a href="#Page_35">35-42</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposes to marry Katharine, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his negotiations with Ferdinand after Henry&#8217;s betrothal, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his treatment of Katharine, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">receives Philip and Juana, <a href="#Page_49">49-54</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposes marriage to Juana, <a href="#Page_55">55-60</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his death, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Henry VIII., at Arthur&#8217;s wedding, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first betrothal to Katharine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_39">39-43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secret denunciation of his betrothal, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his accession, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage, <a href="#Page_71">71-77</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his character, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his first tiff with Katharine, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of his first child, rejoicings, <a href="#Page_79">79-80</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">war with France, <a href="#Page_80">80-83</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">French alliance, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his relations with Katharine, <a href="#Page_83">83-89</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pretensions to the imperial crown, <a href="#Page_97">97-99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meets Charles and Francis, <a href="#Page_101">101-106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">war with France, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed alliance with France, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposals for divorcing Katharine and marrying a French princess, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the divorce, <a href="#Page_119">119-123</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in love with Anne Boleyn, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attempts to obtain a divorce, <a href="#Page_129">129-173</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">his courtship of Anne Boleyn, <a href="#Page_141">141-147</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appears at Bridewell, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163-166</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defies the Pope, <a href="#Page_174">174-177</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180-183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second meeting with Francis, <a href="#Page_192">192-197</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the divorce, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marries Anne, <a href="#Page_200">200-208</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">change of policy, <a href="#Page_210">210-211</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220-223</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">further emancipation, <a href="#Page_223">223-226</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238-241</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">estrangement from Anne, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">approaches the Emperor, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his behaviour on Katharine&#8217;s death, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">he tires of Anne, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in love with Jane Seymour, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">approaches the Emperor, <a href="#Page_266">266-269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his sacrifice of Anne, <a href="#Page_271">271-287</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marries Jane Seymour, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his religious measures, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his treatment of Mary, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302-303</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">religious persecutions, <a href="#Page_308">308-310</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposes a matrimonial alliance with France, <a href="#Page_312">312-313</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">approaches the German Protestants, <a href="#Page_315">315-320</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">religious measures, <a href="#Page_320">320-322</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">betrothed to Anne of Cleves, <a href="#Page_323">323-330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his reception of his bride, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his discontent, <a href="#Page_332">332-334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his marriage, <a href="#Page_334">334-340</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attempts to get rid of Anne, <a href="#Page_340">340-352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353-356</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his approaches to the Emperor, <a href="#Page_357">357-359</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marries Katharine Howard, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">change of policy, <a href="#Page_361">361-367</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Katharine Howard accused, <a href="#Page_369">369-372</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">plans for her repudiation, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">great grief at Katharine Howard&#8217;s conduct, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">preparations for an alliance with the Emperor, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the alliance signed, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at war with France, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enamoured of Katharine Parr, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marries her, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his invasion of France, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at the siege of Boulogne, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">left in the lurch by Charles, <a href="#Page_428">428-431</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">approaches of the German Protestants, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his last illness, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his character and career, <a href="#Page_445">445-449</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Herbert, Lady, <a href="#Page_451">451</a><br />
+<br />
+Hertford, Countess of, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>, <a href="#Page_455">455</a><br />
+<br />
+Hesse, Philip of, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a><br />
+<br />
+Hoby, Sir Philip, <a href="#Page_412">412</a><br />
+<br />
+Howard, Lord William, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>I</strong><br />
+<br />
+Isabel, Princess of (Castile), <a href="#Page_7">7</a><br />
+<br />
+Isabel, the Catholic, of Castile, <a href="#Page_1">1-5</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13-16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>J</strong><br />
+<br />
+James IV. of Scotland, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death at Flodden, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></span><br />
+<br />
+James V. of Scotland, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_401">401</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Jerome, Dr., <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br />
+<br />
+John, Prince of Asturias, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a><br />
+<br />
+John II. of Aragon, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+<br />
+Juana, Queen of Castile, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to England, <a href="#Page_49">49-54</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">widowed, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">negotiations for her marriage with Henry VII., <a href="#Page_55">55-60</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>K</strong><br />
+<br />
+Katharine of Aragon, first betrothal to Arthur, Prince of Wales, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8-12</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her coming to England, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her voyage, <a href="#Page_21">21-24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her arrival, <a href="#Page_25">25-26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her character, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her reception in London and marriage, <a href="#Page_29">29-33</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her journey to Wales, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">widowed, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">betrothed to Henry, <a href="#Page_39">39-43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44-49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her betrothal denounced, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her position in England, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54-60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her relations with her confessor, <a href="#Page_63">63-68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage with Henry, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71-77</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of her first child, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Regent of England, <a href="#Page_81">81-85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her life with Henry, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102-106</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her separation from Henry, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the divorce, <a href="#Page_117">117-123</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129-173</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her statement to Campeggio, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her firmness, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appears at Bridewell, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her appeals to the Pope, <a href="#Page_177">177-179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent away from court, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">renewed hopes, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">again undeceived, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">persecution, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211-213</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216-224</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229-232</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illness of, <a href="#Page_234">234-238</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_249">249-256</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Katharine Howard, her origin, <a href="#Page_351">351-359</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">married to Henry, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">denunciation of her by Cranmer and his friends, <a href="#Page_369">369-372</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the story of her accusers, <a href="#Page_372">372-384</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her attainder, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her execution, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Katharine Parr, <a href="#Page_403">403-408</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">married to Henry, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her religious leanings, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gardiner&#8217;s plots to ruin her, <a href="#Page_412">412-415</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">described, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Regent in Henry&#8217;s absence, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chapuys&#8217; interviews with her, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sides with the Protestants, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her danger, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her widowhood, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marries Thomas Seymour, <a href="#Page_450">450-456</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her death, <a href="#Page_457">457-458</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Kingston, Sir W., Governor of the Tower, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a><br />
+<br />
+Knight, Dr., sent to the Pope, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>L</strong><br />
+<br />
+Lascelles, John, denounces Katharine Howard, <a href="#Page_369">369</a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Latimer, Bishop, <a href="#Page_411">411</a><br />
+<br />
+Latimer, Lord, <a href="#Page_404">404</a><br />
+<br />
+Lee, Dr., Henry&#8217;s ambassador to the Emperor, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interview with Katharine, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lennox, Earl of, <a href="#Page_427">427</a><br />
+<br />
+Leo X., Pope, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br />
+<br />
+Lisle, Lord, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a><br />
+<br />
+Llandaff, Bishop of, Jorge de Ateca, Katharine&#8217;s confessor, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br />
+<br />
+London, reception in, of Katharine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_29">29-32</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a><br />
+<br />
+London, Anne Boleyn&#8217;s reception in, <a href="#Page_205">205-208</a><br />
+<br />
+London, Dr., <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_414">414</a><br />
+<br />
+Longueville, Duke of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a><br />
+<br />
+Lorraine, Duke of, <a href="#Page_428">428</a><br />
+<br />
+Lorraine, Duke of. <i>See also</i> <a href="#Bar">Bar</a><br />
+<br />
+Louis XII. of France, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a><br />
+<br />
+Ludlow, Arthur at, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a><br />
+<br />
+Luiz, Dom, of Portugal, <a href="#Page_314">314</a><br />
+<br />
+Luther, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>M</strong><br />
+<br />
+Mannoch accused of immorality with Katharine Howard, <a href="#Page_370">370</a> <i>et seq.</i><br />
+<br />
+Manuel, <ins class="correction" title="original: Dona">Do&ntilde;a</ins> Elvira, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br />
+<br />
+Manuel, Don Juan, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a><br />
+<br />
+Margaret of Austria, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br />
+<br />
+Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Burgundy, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>Marillac, French ambassador, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a><br />
+<br />
+Mary of Hungary, governess of Flanders, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a><br />
+<br />
+Mary of Lorraine, <a href="#Page_312">312</a><br />
+<br />
+Mary Queen of Scots, <a href="#Page_401">401</a><br />
+<br />
+Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VII.), <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_295">195</a><br />
+<br />
+Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VIII.), <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">betrothed to Charles, <a href="#Page_103">103-107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">betrothed to the Duke of Orleans, <a href="#Page_113">113-115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243-245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246-247</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258-260</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266-267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her submission, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301-303</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mason, Dr., <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+<br />
+Maximilian, Emperor, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+<br />
+Medici, Alexander de, Duke of Florence, <a href="#Page_222">222</a><br />
+<br />
+Medici, Katharine de, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a><br />
+<br />
+Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, Spanish ambassador, <a href="#Page_315">315</a><br />
+<br />
+Mendoza, <ins class="correction" title="original: Inigo">I&ntilde;igo</ins> Lopez de, Spanish ambassador, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br />
+<br />
+Mont, Christopher, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a><br />
+<br />
+Montague, Lord, <a href="#Page_317">317</a><br />
+<br />
+Montreuil, Mme. de, <a href="#Page_313">313</a><br />
+<br />
+More, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br />
+<br />
+Morton, Margery, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a><br />
+<br />
+Mountjoy, Katharine of Aragon&#8217;s chamberlain at Ampthill, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>N</strong><br />
+<br />
+<ins class="correction" title="original: Nagera">Najera</ins>, Duke of, his visit to the English court, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a><br />
+<br />
+Naples, Queen of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br />
+<br />
+Neville, Sir Edward, <a href="#Page_317">317</a><br />
+<br />
+Nevinson, Cranmer&#8217;s nephew, <a href="#Page_413">413</a><br />
+<br />
+Norfolk, Duke of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mission to France, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209-210</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Norfolk, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370-377</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a><br />
+<br />
+Norreys, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273-275</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">executed, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>O</strong><br />
+<br />
+Ockham, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a><br />
+<br />
+Olsiliger, Chancellor, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a><br />
+<br />
+Orleans, Henry, Duke of, second son of Francis I., and afterwards Dauphin, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>P</strong><br />
+<br />
+Pace, Richard, <a href="#Page_93">93</a><br />
+<br />
+Paget, Secretary, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a><br />
+<br />
+Palmer, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+<br />
+Parr, Lord, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a><br />
+<br />
+Pate, Henry&#8217;s envoy to the Emperor, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+<br />
+Paul III. (Farnese), Pope, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a><br />
+<br />
+Paulet (Lord St. John), <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br />
+<br />
+Pavia, battle of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br />
+<br />
+Peachy, <a href="#Page_95">95</a><br />
+<br />
+Pembroke, Marchioness. <i>See</i> <a href="#Anne">Boleyn, Anne</a><br />
+<br />
+Percy, Henry (Earl of Northumberland), <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a><br />
+<br />
+Percy, Thomas, <a href="#Page_272">272</a><br />
+<br />
+Perkin Warbeck, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>Peto, Friar, <a href="#Page_209">209</a><br />
+<br />
+Petre, Dr., <a href="#Page_424">424</a><br />
+<br />
+Philip, Duke of Bavaria, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a><br />
+<br />
+Philip the Handsome, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to England, <a href="#Page_49">49-54</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Pilgrimage of Grace, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a><br />
+<br />
+Plymouth, arrival of Katharine of Aragon at, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br />
+<br />
+Pole, Cardinal Reginald, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a><br />
+<br />
+Pole, Geoffrey, <a href="#Page_316">316</a><br />
+<br />
+Pole, Richard, <a href="#Page_45">45</a><br />
+<br />
+Poles, the, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a><br />
+<br />
+Powell martyred, <a href="#Page_358">358</a><br />
+<br />
+Poynings commands English contingent in Flanders, <a href="#Page_80">80</a><br />
+<br />
+Puebla, Dr., Spanish ambassador, <a href="#Page_7">7-8</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>R</strong><br />
+<br />
+Ren&eacute;e of France, Princess, proposed marriage with Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br />
+<br />
+Richards, Griffin, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br />
+<br />
+Richmond, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_442">442</a><br />
+<br />
+Richmond, Duke of, Henry&#8217;s son, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a><br />
+<br />
+Rochford, Lord, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his trial, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">executed, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Rochford, Lady, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her execution, <a href="#Page_395">395</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Rome sacked by the Imperial forces under Bourbon, <a href="#Page_114">114</a><br />
+<br />
+Russell, Sir John, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a><br />
+<br />
+Rutland, Earl of, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>S</strong><br />
+<br />
+Sadler, Sir Ralph, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+<br />
+Salisbury, Countess of, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">beheaded, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Saxony, Hans Frederick of, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a><br />
+<br />
+Saxony, George, Duke of, <a href="#Page_310">310</a><br />
+<br />
+Sampson, Dr., <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br />
+<br />
+Sepulveda, Juan de, Spanish ambassador, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a><br />
+<br />
+Seymour, Sir Edward (Lord Beauchamp, Earl of Hertford, and afterwards Duke of Somerset), <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a><br />
+<br />
+Seymour, Jane, her first appearance, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her family, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">married to Henry, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her small political influence, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296-299</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gives birth to a son, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her death, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Seymour, Sir Thomas (Lord Seymour of Sudeley), <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marries Katharine Parr, <a href="#Page_450">450-458</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Shelton, Lady, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br />
+<br />
+Six Articles, the Act so called, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>, <a href="#Page_445">445</a><br />
+<br />
+Smeaton, Mark, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arrested, by Cromwell, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his admissions, <a href="#Page_273">273-274</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">executed, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Solway Moss, <a href="#Page_401">401</a><br />
+<br />
+Spurs, Battle of, <a href="#Page_81">81</a><br />
+<br />
+Stokesley, Bishop of London, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br />
+<br />
+Succession, Act of, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230-232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br />
+<br />
+Suffolk, Duke of. <i>See</i> <a href="#Brandon">Brandon</a><br />
+<br />
+Suffolk, Duchess of (Katharine, Lady Willoughby), <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br />
+<br />
+Suffolk, Earl of (Pole), <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br />
+<br />
+Supremacy, Act of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_445">445</a><br />
+<br />
+Surrey, Earl of, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br />
+<br />
+Sybilla of Cleves, Duchess of Saxony, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<strong>T</strong><br />
+<br />
+Tarbes, Bishop of (Grammont), <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a><br />
+<br />
+Tailebois, Lady (Eleanor Blunt), <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a><br />
+<br />
+Talbot, Lord, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+<br />
+Therouenne, Henry at the siege of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br />
+<br />
+Thirlby, Dr., <a href="#Page_424">424</a><br />
+<br />
+Throckmorton, Sir George, <a href="#Page_404">404</a><br />
+<br />
+Trenchard, Sir John, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br />
+<br />
+Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a><br />
+<br />
+Turenne, Vicomte de, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a><br />
+<br />
+Tylney, Katharine, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_378">378</a><br />
+<br />
+Tyrwhitt, Lady, <a href="#Page_457">457</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>V</strong><br />
+<br />
+Van der Delft, Imperial ambassador in England, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a><br />
+<br />
+Vargas, Blanche de, <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br />
+<br />
+Vaughan, Stephen, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a><br />
+<br />
+Vives, J. Luis, <a href="#Page_410">410</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<strong>W</strong><br />
+<br />
+Wallop, Sir J., commands the English contingent in Flanders, <a href="#Page_416">416</a><br />
+<br />
+Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Weston, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">executed, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wingfield, <a href="#Page_95">95</a><br />
+<br />
+Wingfield, Lady, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br />
+<br />
+Willoughby, Lady, <a href="#Page_252">252</a><br />
+<br />
+Wolf Hall, the home of the Seymours, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a><br />
+<br />
+Wolsey, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his French leanings, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">won to the side of the Emperor, <a href="#Page_101">101-106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">renewed approaches to France, <a href="#Page_107">107-109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposes Katharine&#8217;s divorce, <a href="#Page_116">116-123</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his attitude towards Anne Boleyn, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">embassy in France, <a href="#Page_129">129-134</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decline of influence, <a href="#Page_134">134-135</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">acts as Legate, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149-154</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160-167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his disgrace, <a href="#Page_167">167-169</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his death, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wotton, Dr., <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a><br />
+<br />
+Wriothesley, Thomas, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>, <a href="#Page_443">443</a><br />
+<br />
+W&uuml;rtemburg, Duke of, <a href="#Page_435">435</a><br />
+<br />
+Wyatt, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a><br />
+<br />
+Wyatt, Lady (daughter of Lord Cobham), <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">THE END</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Printed by <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson &amp; Co.</span><br />
+Edinburgh &amp; London</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> The second marriage, by proxy, of Arthur and Katharine eventually took
+place at the chapel of the royal manor of Bewdley on the 19th May 1499,
+and the young Prince appears to have performed his part of the ceremony
+with much decorum: &#8220;Saying in a loud, clear voice to Dr. Puebla, who
+represented the bride, that he was much rejoiced to contract an
+indissoluble marriage with Katharine, Princess of Wales, not only in
+obedience to the Pope and King Henry, but also from his deep and sincere
+love for the said Princess, his wife.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> Hall&#8217;s <i>Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> Leland&#8217;s <i>Collectanea</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> Hall&#8217;s <i>Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> The Spanish agent believed that Henry would have preferred that
+Katharine had not accompanied Arthur to Wales, but for his desire to force
+her to use her valuables, so that he might obtain their equivalent in
+money. Both Do&ntilde;a Elvira and Bishop Ayala told Henry that they considered
+that it would be well that the young couple should be separated and not
+live together for a time, as Arthur was so young. But Puebla and the
+Princess&#8217;s chaplain, Alexander (Fitzgerald), had apparently said to the
+King that the bride&#8217;s parents did not wish the Princess to be separated
+from her husband on any account. Do&ntilde;a Elvira&#8217;s opinion on the matter
+assumes importance from her subsequent declaration soon after Arthur&#8217;s
+death that she knew the marriage had not been consummated.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1, 271.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> There is in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid (I. 325) a Spanish
+document, apparently a contemporary translation of the report sent to
+Henry from Valencia by the three agents he sent thither in 1505 to report
+upon the appearance of the two widowed Queens of Naples resident there.
+James Braybrooke, John Stile, and Francis Marsin express an extremely
+free, but favourable, opinion of the charms of the younger queen, aged
+twenty-seven. Katharine appears to have given letters of recommendation to
+the envoys. The Spanish version of the document varies but little from the
+printed English copy in the Calendar. The date of it is not given, but it
+must have been written in the late autumn of 1505. Henry was evidently
+anxious for the match, though he said that he would not marry the lady for
+all the treasures in the world if she turned out to be ugly. The Queen of
+Naples, however, would not allow a portrait to be taken of her, and
+decidedly objected to the match. The various phases of Henry&#8217;s own
+matrimonial intrigues cannot be dealt with in this book, but it appears
+certain that if he could have allied himself to Spain by marrying the
+Queen of Naples, he would have broken his son&#8217;s betrothal with Katharine,
+and have married him to one of the young princesses of France, a
+master-stroke which would have bound him to all the principal political
+factors in Europe.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1, p. 309.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> She insisted&mdash;in accord with Ferdinand and Isabel&mdash;that Katharine
+should live in great seclusion as a widow until the second marriage
+actually took place, and Katharine appears to have done so at this time,
+though not very willingly. Some of her friends seem to have incited her to
+enjoy more freedom, but a tight hand was kept upon her, until events made
+her her own mistress, when, as will be seen in a subsequent page, she
+quite lost her head for a time, and committed what at least were the
+gravest indiscretions. (See <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1 and Supplement.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> The protest is dated 24th June 1505, when Henry was fourteen.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> Margaret absolutely refused to marry Henry, and a substitute was
+found in the betrothal of young Charles, the eldest son of Philip, to
+Henry&#8217;s younger daughter, Mary Tudor, afterwards Queen of France and
+Duchess of Suffolk.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1, 386.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a> This letter is dated in March 1507, and is a most characteristic
+epistle. Ferdinand in it professes the deepest love for his daughter and
+sympathy for her unhappiness. He had had the money all ready to send, he
+assures her, but King Philip had stopped it; and she must keep friendly
+with King Henry, never allowing any question to be raised as to the
+binding nature of her marriage with his son. As to the King&#8217;s marriage
+with Juana, the proposal must be kept very secret or Juana will do
+something to prevent it; but if she ever marry again it shall be with no
+one else but Henry. Whether Ferdinand ever meant in any case to sell his
+distraught daughter to Henry may be doubted; but the proposal offered a
+good opportunity of gaining a fresh hold upon the King of England.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> Puebla says that Henry had bought very cheaply the jewels of the
+deposed Kings of Naples and had great stores of them. He would only take
+Katharine&#8217;s at a very low price.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 1, 409, 15th April 1507.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f18" id="f18" href="#f18.1">[18]</a> The letters relating to this curious affair were for some years kept
+secret by the authorities at Simancas; but were eventually printed in the
+Supplement to vols. 2 and 3 of the <i>Spanish Calendar</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f19" id="f19" href="#f19.1">[19]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 26th July 1509.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f20" id="f20" href="#f20.1">[20]</a> It is doubtful if he was ever present at an engagement, and he
+hurried home from Boulogne as soon as hard fighting seemed to the fore.
+His fear of contagion and sickness was exhibited in most undignified
+fashion on several occasions.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f21" id="f21" href="#f21.1">[21]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 23rd September 1513.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f22" id="f22" href="#f22.1">[22]</a> Katharine to Wolsey, 13th August 1513. <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f23" id="f23" href="#f23.1">[23]</a> <i>Venetian Calendar</i>, vol. 2, 7th October 1513.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f24" id="f24" href="#f24.1">[24]</a> <i>Venetian Calendar</i>, vol. 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f25" id="f25" href="#f25.1">[25]</a> Lippomano from Rome, 1st September. <i>Venetian Calendar</i>, vol. 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f26" id="f26" href="#f26.1">[26]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 31st December 1514.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f27" id="f27" href="#f27.1">[27]</a> See Giustiani&#8217;s letters in the <i>Venetian Calendars</i> of the date.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f28" id="f28" href="#f28.1">[28]</a> See the letters of Henry&#8217;s secretary, Richard Pace, in the <i>Calendar
+of Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f29" id="f29" href="#f29.1">[29]</a> The Emperor&#8217;s fleet was sighted off Plymouth on the 23rd May 1520.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f30" id="f30" href="#f30.1">[30]</a> In the <i>Rutland Papers</i> (Camden Society), Hall&#8217;s <i>Chronicle</i>, and
+Camden&#8217;s <i>Annales</i> full and interesting details will be found.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f31" id="f31" href="#f31.1">[31]</a> The ambassador Martin de Salinas, who arrived in England during the
+Emperor&#8217;s stay, from the Archduke Ferdinand who acted as <i>locum tenens</i> in
+Germany for his brother, reports (<i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 2)
+that he delivered separate credentials to Queen Katharine, who promised to
+read them and give him her answer later. He continues: &#8220;I went to see her
+again this morning. She said that one of the letters had contained my
+credentials and the other spoke of the business of the Turks. The time for
+a war with the Turks, she declared, was ill chosen; as the war with France
+absorbed all the English resources. I told her that the Infante (<i>i.e.</i>
+Ferdinand) regarded her as his true mother, and prayed her not to forsake
+him, but to see that the King of England sent him succour against the
+Turk. She answered that it will be impossible for the King to do so.&#8221; It
+will be seen by this and other references to the same matter that
+Katharine at this time, during the imperial alliance, was again taking a
+powerful part in political affairs.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f32" id="f32" href="#f32.1">[32]</a> See the series of letters in Bradford&#8217;s &#8220;Charles V.&#8221; and Pace&#8217;s
+correspondence in the <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f33" id="f33" href="#f33.1">[33]</a> A good idea of the magnitude and splendour of the preparations may be
+gained by the official lists of personages and &#8220;diets,&#8221; in the <i>Rutland
+Papers</i>, Camden Society. The pageants themselves are fully described in Hall.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f34" id="f34" href="#f34.1">[34]</a> Amongst others the 10 per cent. tax on all property in 1523. See
+Roper&#8217;s &#8220;Life of More,&#8221; Hall&#8217;s <i>Chronicle</i>, Herbert&#8217;s &#8220;Henry VIII.,&#8221; &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f35" id="f35" href="#f35.1">[35]</a> Henry&#8217;s answer, which was very emphatic, testified that although he
+had lost affection for his wife he respected her still; indeed his
+attitude to her throughout all his subsequent cruelty was consistently
+respectful to her character as a woman and a queen. &#8220;If,&#8221; he said on this
+occasion, &#8220;he should seek a mistress for her (the Princess Mary), to frame
+her after the manner of Spain, and of whom she might take example of
+virtue, he should not find in all Christendom a more mete than she now
+hath, that is the Queen&#8217;s grace, her mother.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Venetian Calendar.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f36" id="f36" href="#f36.1">[36]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 3, p. 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f37" id="f37" href="#f37.1">[37]</a> Late in 1525. A sad little letter written by Katharine in her quaint
+English to her daughter at this time is well known, but will bear
+repeating. Mary had written asking how she was; and the reply assures the
+Princess that it had not been forgetfulness of her that had caused her
+mother to delay the answer. &#8220;I am in that case that the long absence of
+the King and you troubleth me. My health is metely good; and I trust in
+God, he that sent me the last (illness?) doth it to the best and will
+shortly turn it (<i>i.e.</i> like?) to the fyrst to come to good effect. And in
+the meantime, I am veray glad to hear from you, specially when they shew
+me that ye be well amended. As for your writing in Latin, I am glad ye
+shall change from me to Master Federston; for that shall do you much good
+to learn by him to write right. But yet sometimes I would be glad when ye
+do write to Master Federston of your own enditing, when he hath read it
+that I may see it. For it shall be a great comfort to me to see you keep
+your Latin and fair writing and all.&#8221; (Ellis&#8217; &#8220;Original Letters,&#8221; B.M.
+Cotton Vesp. F. xiii.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f38" id="f38" href="#f38.1">[38]</a> Mr. Froude denied that there is any foundation for the assertion that
+Mary Boleyn was the King&#8217;s mistress. It seems to me, on the contrary, to
+be as fully supported by evidence as any such fact can be.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f39" id="f39" href="#f39.1">[39]</a> As usual, Hall is very diffuse in his descriptions of these
+festivities, especially in their sartorial aspects, and those readers who
+desire such details may be referred to his <i>Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f40" id="f40" href="#f40.1">[40]</a> Cavendish, &#8220;Life of Wolsey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f41" id="f41" href="#f41.1">[41]</a> Letters of I&ntilde;igo Lopez de Mendoza early in 1527. <i>Spanish Calendar</i>,
+vol. 3, part 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f42" id="f42" href="#f42.1">[42]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 3, part 2, Mendoza&#8217;s letters, and <i>Henry
+VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 4, part 2, Wolsey to the King, 5th July 1527.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f43" id="f43" href="#f43.1">[43]</a> How false were all the parties to each other at this time may be seen
+in a curious letter from Knight, the King&#8217;s secretary, to Wolsey (when in
+France) about this man&#8217;s going (Ellis&#8217; &#8220;Original Letters&#8221;). &#8220;So yt is that
+Francisco Philip Spaniard hath instantly laboured for license to go into
+Spain pretendyng cawse and colour of his goyng to be forasmuch as he
+saiyth he wolde visite his modre which is veari sore syk. The Queen hath
+both refused to assent unto his going and allso laboured unto the King&#8217;s
+Highnesse to empesh the same. The King&#8217;s Highnesse, knowing grete colusion
+and dissymulation betwene theym, doth allso dissymule faynyng that
+Philip&#8217;s desyre is made upon good grownde and consideration, and hath
+easyli persuaded the Quene to be content with his goyng.&#8221; The writer
+continues that the King had even promised to ransom Felipe if he was
+captured on his way through France, and desires Wolsey, notwithstanding
+the man&#8217;s passport, to have him secretly captured, taking care that the
+King&#8217;s share in the plot should never be known. Wolsey in reply says that
+it shall be done, unless Felipe went to Spain by sea. Probably Katharine
+guessed her husband&#8217;s trick, for Felipe must have gone by sea, as he duly
+arrived at Valladolid and told the Emperor his message.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f44" id="f44" href="#f44.1">[44]</a> Blickling Hall, Norfolk, is frequently claimed as her birthplace, and
+even Ireland has put in its claim for the doubtful honour. The evidence in
+favour of Hever is, however, the strongest.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f45" id="f45" href="#f45.1">[45]</a> Mr. Brewer was strongly of opinion that Anne did not go to France
+until some years afterwards, and that it was Mary Boleyn who accompanied
+the Princess in 1514. He also believed that Anne was the younger of the
+two sisters. There was, of course, some ground for both of these
+contentions, but the evidence marshalled against them by Mr. Friedmann in
+an appendix to his &#8220;Anne Boleyn&#8221; appears to me unanswerable.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f46" id="f46" href="#f46.1">[46]</a> &#8220;Life of Wolsey.&#8221; Cavendish was the Cardinal&#8217;s gentleman usher.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f47" id="f47" href="#f47.1">[47]</a> &#8220;Life of Wolsey.&#8221; It was afterwards stated, with much probability of
+truth, that Anne&#8217;s <i>liaison</i> with Percy had gone much further than a mere
+engagement to marry.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f48" id="f48" href="#f48.1">[48]</a> Cavendish, Wolsey&#8217;s usher, tells a story which shows how Katharine
+regarded the King&#8217;s flirtation with Anne at this time. Playing at cards
+with her rival, the Queen noticed that Anne held the King several times.
+&#8220;My lady Anne,&#8221; she said, &#8220;you have good hap ever to stop at a King; but
+you are like the others, you will have all or none.&#8221; Contemptuous
+tolerance by a proud royal lady of a light jade who was scheming to be her
+husband&#8217;s mistress, was evidently Katharine&#8217;s sentiment.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f49" id="f49" href="#f49.1">[49]</a> Wolsey to Henry from Compiegne, 5th September 1527. <i>Calendar Henry
+VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f50" id="f50" href="#f50.1">[50]</a> Wolsey to Ghinucci and Lee, 5th August 1527. <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>,
+vol. 4, part 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f51" id="f51" href="#f51.1">[51]</a> Several long speeches stated to have been uttered by her to Henry
+when he sought her illicit love are given in the Sloane MSS., 2495, in the
+British Museum, but they are stilted expressions of exalted virtue quite
+foreign to Anne&#8217;s character and manner.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f52" id="f52" href="#f52.1">[52]</a> Although it was said to have been suggested by Dr. Barlow, Lord
+Rochford&#8217;s chaplain.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f53" id="f53" href="#f53.1">[53]</a> The dispensation asked for was to permit Henry to marry a woman, even
+if she stood in the first degree of affinity, &#8220;either by reason of licit
+or illicit connection,&#8221; provided she was not the widow of his deceased
+brother. This could only refer to the fact that Mary Boleyn, Anne&#8217;s
+sister, had been his mistress, and that Henry desired to provide against
+all risk of a disputed succession arising out of the invalidity of the
+proposed marriage. By the canon law previous to 1533 no difference had
+been made between legitimate and illegitimate intercourse so far as
+concerned the forbidden degrees of affinity between husband and wife. In
+that year (1533) when Henry&#8217;s marriage with Anne had just been celebrated,
+an Act of Parliament was passed setting forth a list of forbidden degrees
+for husband and wife, and in this the affinities by reason of illicit
+intercourse were omitted. In 1536, when Anne was doomed, another Act was
+passed ordering every man who had married the sister of a former mistress
+to separate from her and forbidding such marriages in future. Before
+Henry&#8217;s marriage with Anne, Sir George Throgmorton mentioned to him the
+common belief that Henry had carried on a <i>liaison</i> with both the
+stepmother and the sister of Anne. &#8220;<i>Never with the mother</i>,&#8221; replied the
+King; &#8220;nor with the sister either,&#8221; added Cromwell. But most people will
+conclude that the King&#8217;s remark was an admission that Mary Boleyn was his
+mistress. (Friedmann&#8217;s &#8220;Anne Boleyn,&#8221; Appendix B.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f54" id="f54" href="#f54.1">[54]</a> It would not be fair to accept as gospel the unsupported assertions
+of the enemies of Anne with regard to her light behaviour before marriage,
+though they are numerous and circumstantial, but Wyatt&#8217;s own story of his
+snatching a locket from her and wearing it under his doublet, by which
+Henry&#8217;s jealousy was aroused, gives us the clue to the meaning of another
+contemporary statement (<i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>, edited by the writer),
+to the effect that Wyatt, who was a great friend of the King, and was one
+of those accused at the time of Anne&#8217;s fall, when confronted with
+Cromwell, privately told him to remind the King of the warning he gave him
+about Anne before the marriage. Chapuys, also, writing at the time when
+Anne was in the highest favour (1530), told the Emperor that she had been
+accused by the Duke of Suffolk of undue familiarity with &#8220;a gentleman who
+on a former occasion had been banished on suspicion.&#8221; This might apply
+either to Percy or Wyatt. All authorities agree that her demeanour was not
+usually modest or decorous.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f55" id="f55" href="#f55.1">[55]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f56" id="f56" href="#f56.1">[56]</a> Not content with her Howard descent through her mother, Anne, or
+rather her father, had caused a bogus pedigree to be drawn up by which the
+city mercer who had been his grandfather was represented as being of noble
+Norman blood. The Duchess of Norfolk was scornful and indignant, and gave
+to Anne &#8220;a piece of her mind&#8221; on the subject, greatly to Henry&#8217;s
+annoyance. (<i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f57" id="f57" href="#f57.1">[57]</a> They took with them a love-letter from the King to Anne which is
+still extant (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2). He tells her that
+&#8220;they were despatched with as many things to compass our matter as wit
+could imagine,&#8221; and he trusts that he and his sweetheart will shortly have
+their desired end. &#8220;This would be more to my heart&#8217;s ease and quietness of
+mind than anything in the world.... Keep him (<i>i.e.</i> Gardiner) not too
+long with you, but desire him for your sake to make the more speed; for
+the sooner we have word of him the sooner shall our matter come to pass.
+And thus upon trust of your short repair to London I make end of my
+letter, mine own sweetheart. Written with the hand of him which desireth
+as much to be yours as you do to have him.&#8221; Gardiner also took with him
+Henry&#8217;s book justifying his view of the invalidity of his marriage. A good
+description of the Pope&#8217;s cautious attitude whilst he read this production
+is contained in Gardiner&#8217;s letter from Orvieto, 31st March 1528. (<i>Henry
+VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 4, part 2.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f58" id="f58" href="#f58.1">[58]</a> Hall tells a curious and circumstantial story that the declaration of
+war, which led to the confiscation of great quantities of English property
+in the imperial dominions, was brought about purely by a trick of Wolsey,
+his intention being to sacrifice Clarencieux Herald, who was sent to Spain
+with the defiance. Clarencieux, however, learnt of the intention as he
+passed through Bayonne on his way home, and found means through Nicholas
+Carew to see the King at Hampton Court before Wolsey knew of his return.
+When he had shown Henry by the Cardinal&#8217;s own letters that the grounds for
+the declaration of war had been invented by the latter, the King burst out
+angrily: &#8220;O Lorde Jesu! he that I trusted moste told me all these things
+contrary. Well, Clarencieux, I will be no more of so light credence
+hereafter, for now I see perfectly that I am made to believe the thing
+that never was done.&#8221; Hall continues that the King was closeted with
+Wolsey, from which audience the Cardinal came &#8220;not very mery, and after
+that time the Kyng mistrusted hym ever after.&#8221; This must have been in
+April 1528.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f59" id="f59" href="#f59.1">[59]</a> For Erasmus&#8217; letter see <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2, and
+for Vives&#8217; letter see &#8220;Vives Opera,&#8221; vol. 7.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f60" id="f60" href="#f60.1">[60]</a> The Pope was told that there were certain secret reasons which could
+not be committed to writing why the marriage should be dissolved, the
+Queen &#8220;suffering from certain diseases defying all remedy, for which, as
+well as other reasons, the King would never again live with her as his
+wife.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f61" id="f61" href="#f61.1">[61]</a> This was written before the death of the courtiers already mentioned.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f62" id="f62" href="#f62.1">[62]</a> See the letters on the question of the appointment of the Abbess of
+Wilton in Fiddes&#8217; &#8220;Life of Wolsey,&#8221; and the <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol.
+4, part 2, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f63" id="f63" href="#f63.1">[63]</a> This letter was stated by Sir H. Ellis in his &#8220;Original Letters&#8221; to
+be from Katharine and Henry; and many false presumptions with regard to
+their relations at this time have been founded on the error.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f64" id="f64" href="#f64.1">[64]</a> It will be remarked that her statement was limited to the fact that
+she had remained intact <i>da lui</i>, &#8220;by him.&#8221; This might well be true, and
+yet there might be grounds for Henry&#8217;s silence in non-confirmation of her
+public and repeated reiteration of the statement in the course of the
+proceedings, and for the stress laid by his advocates upon the boyish
+boast of Arthur related in an earlier chapter. The episode of the young
+cleric, Diego Fernandez, must not be forgotten in this connection.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f65" id="f65" href="#f65.1">[65]</a> The words, often quoted, are given by Hall.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f66" id="f66" href="#f66.1">[66]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f67" id="f67" href="#f67.1">[67]</a> Wolsey to Sir Gregory Casale, 1st November 1528. <i>Calendar Henry
+VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f68" id="f68" href="#f68.1">[68]</a> Or as Henry himself puts it in his letters to his envoys in Rome,
+&#8220;for him to have two legal wives instead of one,&#8221; Katharine in a convent
+and the other by his side.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f69" id="f69" href="#f69.1">[69]</a> So desirous was the Papal interest to persuade Katharine to this
+course that one of the Cardinals in Rome (Salviati) told the Emperor&#8217;s
+envoy Mai that she would be very unwise to resist further or she might be
+poisoned, as the English ambassadors had hinted she would be. Mai&#8217;s reply
+was that &#8220;the Queen was ready to incur that danger rather than be a bad
+wife and prejudice her daughter.&#8221; (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part
+3.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f70" id="f70" href="#f70.1">[70]</a> Hall&#8217;s <i>Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f71" id="f71" href="#f71.1">[71]</a> This is Hall&#8217;s version. Du Bellay, the French ambassador (<i>Calendar
+Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2), adds that Henry began to hector at the end
+of the speech, saying that if any one dared in future to speak of the
+matter in a way disrespectful to him he would let him know who was master.
+&#8220;There was no head so fine,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that he would not make it fly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f72" id="f72" href="#f72.1">[72]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 2. &#8220;Intended Address of the
+Legates to the Queen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f73" id="f73" href="#f73.1">[73]</a> This is not surprising, as only a month before she had been reproved
+and threatened for not being sad enough.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f74" id="f74" href="#f74.1">[74]</a> There seems to be no doubt, from a letter written in January 1529 by
+the Pope to Campeggio, that the copy sent to Katharine from Spain was a
+forgery, or contained clauses which operated in her favour, but which were
+not in the original document. It was said that there was no entry of such
+a brief in the Papal archives, and Katharine herself asserted that the
+wording of it&mdash;alleging the consummation of Arthur&#8217;s marriage&mdash;was unknown
+to her. The Spaniards explained the absence of any record of the document
+in the Papal Registry by saying that at the urgent prayer of Isabel the
+Catholic on her deathbed, the original brief had been sent to her as soon
+as it was granted. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 3, p. 2278.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f75" id="f75" href="#f75.1">[75]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f76" id="f76" href="#f76.1">[76]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 4, part 3.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f77" id="f77" href="#f77.1">[77]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> The suspicion against Wolsey at this time arose doubtless
+from his renewed attempts to obtain the Papacy on Clement&#8217;s death. These
+led him to oppose a decision of the divorce except by the ecclesiastical
+authority.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f78" id="f78" href="#f78.1">[78]</a> It was on this occasion that Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
+Henry&#8217;s old friend and brother-in-law, lost patience. &#8220;Banging the table
+before him violently, he shouted: &#8216;By the Mass! now I see that the old saw
+is true, that there never was Legate or Cardinal that did good in
+England;&#8217; and with that all the temporal lords departed to the King,
+leaving the Legates sitting looking at each other, sore
+astonished.&#8221;&mdash;Hall&#8217;s <i>Chronicle</i>, and Cavendish&#8217;s &#8220;Wolsey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f79" id="f79" href="#f79.1">[79]</a> Du Bellay to Montmorency, 22nd October 1529. <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>,
+vol. 4, part 3.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f80" id="f80" href="#f80.1">[80]</a> This peremptory order seems to have been precipitated by a peculiarly
+acrimonious correspondence between Henry and his wife at the end of July.
+She had been in the habit of sending him private messages under token; and
+when he and Anne had left Windsor on their hunting tour, Katharine sent to
+him, as usual, to inquire after his health and to say that, though she had
+been forbidden to accompany him, she had hoped, at least, that she might
+have been allowed to bid him good-bye. The King burst into a violent rage.
+&#8220;Tell the Queen,&#8221; he said to the messenger, &#8220;that he did not want any of
+her good-byes, and had no wish to afford her consolation. He did not care
+whether she asked after his health or not. She had caused him no end of
+trouble, and had obstinately refused the reasonable request of his Privy
+Council. She depended, he knew, upon the Emperor; but she would find that
+God Almighty was more powerful still. In any case, he wanted no more of
+her messages.&#8221; To this angry outburst the Queen must needs write a long,
+cold, dignified, and utterly tactless letter, which irritated the King
+still more, and his reply was that of a vulgar bully without a spark of
+good feeling. &#8220;It would be a great deal better,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;if she spent
+her time in seeking witnesses to prove her pretended virginity at the time
+of her marriage with him, than in talking about it to whoever would listen
+to her, as she was doing. As for sending messages to him, let her stop it,
+and mind her own business. (Chapuys to the Emperor, 21st July 1531.
+<i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f81" id="f81" href="#f81.1">[81]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 1531.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f82" id="f82" href="#f82.1">[82]</a> Katharine to the Emperor, <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 28th July 1531.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f83" id="f83" href="#f83.1">[83]</a> Foxe.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f84" id="f84" href="#f84.1">[84]</a> Chapuys relates in May 1532 that when Henry asked the House of
+Commons for a grant to fortify the Scottish Border, two members spoke
+strongly against it. The best guarantee of peace, they said, was to keep
+friendly with the Emperor. They urged the House to beg the King to return
+to his lawful wife, and treat her properly, or the whole kingdom would be
+ruined; since the Emperor was more capable of harming England than any
+other potentate, and would not fail to avenge his aunt. The House, it is
+represented, was in favour of this view with the exception of two or three
+members, and the question of the grant demanded was held in abeyance.
+Henry, of course, was extremely angry, and sent for the majority, whom he
+harangued in a long speech, saying that the matter of the divorce was not
+then before them, but that he was determined to protect them against
+ecclesiastical encroachment. The leaders of the protest, however, were
+made to understand they were treading on dangerous ground, and hastened to
+submit before Henry&#8217;s threats.&mdash;<i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 4, 2nd May 1532.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f85" id="f85" href="#f85.1">[85]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 16th April 1532.&mdash;<i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 4, 2nd May 1532.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f86" id="f86" href="#f86.1">[86]</a> In May 1532 the Nuncio complained to Norfolk of a preacher who in the
+pulpit had dared to call the Pope a heretic. The Duke replied that he was
+not surprised, for the man was a Lutheran. If it had not been for the Earl
+of Wiltshire <i>and another person</i> (evidently Anne) he, Norfolk, would have
+burnt the man alive, with another like him. It is clear from this that
+Norfolk was now gravely alarmed at the religious situation created by Anne.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f87" id="f87" href="#f87.1">[87]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 1st October 1532.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f88" id="f88" href="#f88.1">[88]</a> Hall&#8217;s <i>Chronicle</i>, and <i>The Chronicle of Calais</i>, Camden Society.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f89" id="f89" href="#f89.1">[89]</a> It is often stated to have been celebrated by Dr. Lee, and sometimes
+even by Cranmer, who appears to have been present.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f90" id="f90" href="#f90.1">[90]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, Chapuys to the Emperor, 9th February 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f91" id="f91" href="#f91.1">[91]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 15th February.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f92" id="f92" href="#f92.1">[92]</a> Chapuys, writing to Granville on the 23rd February, relates that
+Anne, &#8220;without rhyme or reason, amidst a great company as she came out her
+chamber, began to say to one whom she loves well, and who was formerly
+sent away from Court by the King out of jealousy (probably Wyatt), that
+three days before she had had a furious hankering to eat apples, such as
+she had never had in her life before; and the King had told her that it
+was a sign she was pregnant, but she had said that it was nothing of the
+sort. Then she burst out laughing loudly and returned to her room. Almost
+all the Court heard what she said and did; and most of those present were
+much surprised and shocked.&#8221; (<i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f93" id="f93" href="#f93.1">[93]</a> Mountjoy, Katharine&#8217;s chamberlain, or rather gaoler, immediately
+afterwards gave the Queen a still harsher message, to the effect that not
+only was she to be deprived of the regal title, but that the King would
+not continue to provide for her household. &#8220;He would retire her to some
+private house of her own, there to live on a small allowance, which, I am
+told, will scarcely be sufficient to cover the expenses of her household
+for the first quarter of next year.&#8221; Katharine replied that, so long as
+she lived, she should call herself Queen. As to beginning housekeeping on
+her own account, she could not begin so late in life. If her expenses were
+too heavy the King might take her personal property, and place her where
+he chose, with a confessor, a physician, an apothecary, and two
+chamber-maids. If that was too much to ask, and there was nothing for her
+and her servants to live upon, she would willingly go out into the world
+and beg for alms for the sake of God. (<i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>,
+15th April 1533.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f94" id="f94" href="#f94.1">[94]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, Chapuys to the Emperor, 15th April 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f95" id="f95" href="#f95.1">[95]</a> It was shortly after this that Friar George Brown first publicly
+prayed for the new Queen at Austin Friars.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f96" id="f96" href="#f96.1">[96]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 27th April and 18th May 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f97" id="f97" href="#f97.1">[97]</a> An interesting letter from Cranmer on the subject is in the Harleian
+MSS., British Museum (Ellis&#8217;s Letters, vol. 2, series 1).</p>
+
+<p><a name="f98" id="f98" href="#f98.1">[98]</a> The Duke of Norfolk was apparently delighted to be absent from his
+niece&#8217;s triumph, though the Duchess followed Anne in a carriage. He
+started the day before to be present at the interview between Francis and
+the Pope at Nice. He had two extraordinary secret conferences with Chapuys
+just before he left London, in which he displayed without attempt at
+concealment his and the King&#8217;s vivid apprehension that the Emperor would
+make war upon England. Norfolk went from humble cringing and flattery to
+desperate threats, praying that Chapuys would do his best to reconcile
+Katharine to Cranmer&#8217;s sentence and to prevent war. He praised Katharine
+to the skies &#8220;for her great modesty, prudence, and forbearance during the
+divorce proceedings, as well as on former occasions, the King having been
+at all times inclined to amours.&#8221; Most significant of all was Norfolk&#8217;s
+declaration &#8220;that he had not been either the originator or promoter of
+this second marriage, but on the contrary had always been opposed to it,
+and had tried to dissuade the King therefrom.&#8221; (<i>Spanish Calendar Henry
+VIII.</i>, vol. 6, part 2, 29th May 1533.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f99" id="f99" href="#f99.1">[99]</a> Norfolk, on the morning of the water pageant, told Chapuys that the
+King had been very angry to learn that Katharine&#8217;s barge had been
+appropriated by Anne, and the arms ignominiously torn off and hacked; and
+the new Queen&#8217;s chamberlain had been reprimanded for it, as there were
+plenty of barges on the river as fit for the purpose as that one. But Anne
+would bate no jot of her spiteful triumph over her rival; and, as is told
+in the text, she used Katharine&#8217;s barge for her progress, in spite of all.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f100" id="f100" href="#f100.1">[100]</a> <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>, edited by the present writer, 1889.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f101" id="f101" href="#f101.1">[101]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, Chapuys to the Emperor, 11th and 30th July 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f102" id="f102" href="#f102.1">[102]</a> <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>, edited by the present writer.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f103" id="f103" href="#f103.1">[103]</a> <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i> Cranmer, in his letter to Hawkins giving
+an account of the festivities on this occasion (Harl. MSS., Ellis&#8217;s
+Original Letters, vol. 2, series 1), says that after the banquet in the
+hall of the old palace, &#8220;She was conveyed owte of the bake syde of the
+palice into a barge and, soe unto Yorke Place, where the King&#8217;s Grace was
+before her comyng; for this you must ever presuppose that his Grace came
+allwayes before her secretlye in a barge as well frome Grenewyche to the
+Tower, as from the Tower to Yorke Place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f104" id="f104" href="#f104.1">[104]</a> Stow gives some curious glimpses of the public detestation of the
+marriage, and of the boldness of Friar Peto in preaching before the King
+at Greenwich in condemnation of it; and the letter of the Earl of Derby
+and Sir Henry Faryngton to Henry (Ellis&#8217;s Original Letters, vol. 2, series
+1) recounts several instances of bold talk in Lancashire on the subject,
+the most insulting and opprobrious words being used to describe &#8220;Nan
+Bullen the hoore.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f105" id="f105" href="#f105.1">[105]</a> Lord Herbert of Cherbury.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f106" id="f106" href="#f106.1">[106]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 11th July 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f107" id="f107" href="#f107.1">[107]</a> Katharine was even more indignant shortly afterwards, when she was
+informed that of the sum apportioned to her sustenance, only 12,000 crowns
+a year was to be at her own disposal, the rest, 18,000 crowns, being
+administered by an agent of the King, who would pay the bills and
+servants. She was for open rebellion on this point&mdash;she would rather beg
+her bread in the streets, she said, than consent to it&mdash;but Chapuys knew
+that his master did not wish to drive affairs to an extremity just then,
+and counselled submission and patience. (<i>Ibid.</i>, 23rd August.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f108" id="f108" href="#f108.1">[108]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 30th July 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f109" id="f109" href="#f109.1">[109]</a> Chapuys writes a day or two afterwards: &#8220;The baptism ceremony was
+sad and unpleasant as the mother&#8217;s coronation had been. Neither at Court
+nor in the city have there been the bonfires, illuminations, and
+rejoicings usual on such occasions.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f110" id="f110" href="#f110.1">[110]</a> Katharine had shortly before complained of the insalubrity of
+Buckden and its distance from London.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f111" id="f111" href="#f111.1">[111]</a> Katharine&#8217;s appeal that she might not be deprived of the service of
+her own countrymen is very pathetic. She wrote to the Council: &#8220;As to my
+physician and apothecary, they be my countrymen: the King knoweth them as
+well as I do. They have continued many years with me and (I thank them)
+have taken great pains with me, for I am often sickly, as the King&#8217;s grace
+doth know right well, and I require their attendance for the preservation
+of my poor body, that I may live as long as it pleaseth God. They have
+been faithful and diligent in my service, and also daily do pray that the
+King&#8217;s royal estate may long endure. But if they take any other oath to
+the King and to me (to serve me) than that which they have taken, I shall
+never trust them again, for in so doing I should live continually in fear
+of my life with them. Wherefore I trust the King, in his high honour and
+goodness, and for the great love that hath been between us (which love in
+me is as faithful to him as ever it was, I take God to record) will not
+use extremity with me, my request being so reasonable.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Privy Council
+Papers</i>, December 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f112" id="f112" href="#f112.1">[112]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 27th December 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f113" id="f113" href="#f113.1">[113]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, 27th December 1533.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f114" id="f114" href="#f114.1">[114]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 17th January 1534.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f115" id="f115" href="#f115.1">[115]</a> Many instances are given by Chapuys of Anne&#8217;s bitter spite against
+Mary about this time. In February 1534 he mentions that Northumberland
+(Anne&#8217;s old flame, who had more than once got into trouble about her) had
+said that she was determined to poison Mary. Some one else had told him
+that Anne had sent to her aunt, Lady Clare, who was Mary&#8217;s governess,
+telling her if the Princess used her title &#8220;to give her a good banging
+like the cursed bastard that she was.&#8221; Soon afterwards the girl is
+reported to be nearly destitute of clothes and other necessaries. When
+Anne visited her daughter at Hatfield in March, she sent for Mary to come
+and pay her respects to her as Queen. &#8220;I know no Queen in England but my
+mother,&#8221; was Mary&#8217;s proud answer: and a few days afterwards Norfolk took
+away all the girl&#8217;s jewels, and told her brutally that she was no princess
+and it was time her pride was abated: and Lady Clare assured her that the
+King did not care whether she renounced her title or not. Parliament by
+statute had declared her a bastard, and if she (Lady Clare) were in the
+King&#8217;s place she would kick her out of the house. It was said also that
+the King himself had threatened that Mary should lose her head. There was,
+no doubt, some truth in all this, but it must not be forgotten that
+Chapuys, who reports most of it, was Anne&#8217;s deadly enemy.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f116" id="f116" href="#f116.1">[116]</a> Lee&#8217;s instructions are said to have been &#8220;not to press the Queen
+very hard.&#8221; It must have been evident that no pressure would suffice.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f117" id="f117" href="#f117.1">[117]</a> The Queen wrote to Chapuys soon afterwards saying that the bishops
+had threatened her with the gibbet. She asked which of them was going to
+be the hangman, and said that she must ask them to hang her in public, not
+secretly. Lee&#8217;s and Tunstall&#8217;s own account of their proceedings is in the
+<i>Calendar of Henry VIII.</i>, 29th May 1534.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f118" id="f118" href="#f118.1">[118]</a> This lackey&#8217;s name is given Bastian Hennyocke in the English State
+Papers. To him Katharine left &pound;20 in her will. The other Spanish servants
+with Katharine at the time, besides Francisco Felipe, the Groom of the
+Chambers, and the Bishop of Llandaff (Fray Jorge de Ateca), <ins class="correction" title="original: wore">were</ins> Dr.
+Miguel de la S&aacute;, Juan Soto, Felipe de Granada, and Antonio Roca.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f119" id="f119" href="#f119.1">[119]</a> This narrative is taken from the <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>,
+edited by the present writer. The author of the Chronicle was a Spanish
+merchant resident in London, and he was evidently indebted for this
+description of the scene to his friend and countryman, Francisco Felipe,
+Katharine&#8217;s Groom of the Chambers. The account supplements but does not
+materially contradict the official report of Lee and Tunstall, and
+Chapuys&#8217; account to the Emperor gained from the Queen and her Spanish
+attendants.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f120" id="f120" href="#f120.1">[120]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th May 1534.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f121" id="f121" href="#f121.1">[121]</a> She had written more than one fiery letter to Charles during the
+previous few months, fervently urging him to strike for the authority of
+the Church. All considerations of her safety and that of her daughter, she
+said, were to be put aside. It was the duty of the Emperor to his faith
+that the march of heresy and iniquity in England should be stayed at any
+cost, and she exhorted him not to fail. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, February and May 1534.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f122" id="f122" href="#f122.1">[122]</a> Bedingfield and Tyrell were instructed in May 1534 to inform
+Katharine that the appeal she had made that her Spanish servants should
+not be penalised for refusing to take the oath to the new Act of
+Succession had been rejected, but licenses for the Spaniards to stay with
+their mistress on the old footing were soon afterwards given. (<i>Calendar
+Henry VIII.</i>, May 1534.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f123" id="f123" href="#f123.1">[123]</a> The account here given, that of Chapuys himself, is quaintly and
+minutely confirmed by that of one of the Spanish merchants who accompanied
+him, Antonio de Guaras, the author of the <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f124" id="f124" href="#f124.1">[124]</a> See Chapuys&#8217; many letters on the subject.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f125" id="f125" href="#f125.1">[125]</a> Letters of Stephen Vaughan, Henry&#8217;s envoy to Germany. (<i>Calendar
+Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 7, etc.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f126" id="f126" href="#f126.1">[126]</a> Letters of Chapuys in the autumn of 1534. (<i>Spanish Calendar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f127" id="f127" href="#f127.1">[127]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 2nd May 1536.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f128" id="f128" href="#f128.1">[128]</a> Lady Shelton.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f129" id="f129" href="#f129.1">[129]</a> The plans for Mary&#8217;s flight from Eltham and her deportation to the
+Continent were nearly successful at this time.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f130" id="f130" href="#f130.1">[130]</a> Katharine had first met the saintly Friar Forest when she had gone
+on the famous pilgrimage to Walsingham after the victory of Flodden
+(October 1513), and on his first imprisonment she and her maid, Elizabeth
+Hammon, wrote heart-broken letters to him urging him to escape. (<i>Calendar
+Henry VIII.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f131" id="f131" href="#f131.1">[131]</a> A vivid picture of the general discontent in England at this time,
+and the steadfast fidelity of the people to the cause of Katharine and
+Mary, is given by the French envoy, the Bishop of Tarbes. (<i>Calendar Henry
+VIII.</i>, October 1535.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f132" id="f132" href="#f132.1">[132]</a> The suggestion had been tentatively put forward by the English
+Minister in Flanders three months before.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f133" id="f133" href="#f133.1">[133]</a> This is according to Bedingfield&#8217;s statement, although from Chapuys&#8217;
+letters, in which the chronology is a little confusing, it might possibly
+be inferred that he arrived at Kimbolton on the 1st January and that Lady
+Willoughby arrived soon after him. I am inclined to think that the day I
+have mentioned, however, is the correct one.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f134" id="f134" href="#f134.1">[134]</a> In the previous month of November she had written what she called
+her final appeal to the Emperor through Chapuys. In the most solemn and
+exalted manner she exhorted her nephew to strike and save her before she
+and her daughter were done to death by the forthcoming Parliament. This
+supreme heart-cry having been met as all similar appeals had been by
+smooth evasions on the part of Charles, Katharine thenceforward lost hope,
+and resigned herself to her fate.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f135" id="f135" href="#f135.1">[135]</a> Before Chapuys left Kimbolton he asked De la S&aacute; if he had any
+suspicion that the Queen was being poisoned. The Spanish doctor replied
+that he feared that such was the case, though some slow and cunningly
+contrived poison must be that employed, as he could not see any signs or
+appearance of a simple poison. The Queen, he said, had never been well
+since she had partaken of some Welsh beer. The matter is still greatly in
+doubt, and there are many suspicious circumstances&mdash;the exclusion of De la
+S&aacute; and the Bishop of Llandaff from the room when the body was opened, and
+the strenuous efforts to retain both of them in England after Katharine&#8217;s
+death; and, above all, the urgent political reasons that Henry had for
+wishing Katharine to die, since he dared not carry out his threat of
+having her attainted and taken to the Tower. Such a proceeding would have
+provoked a rising which would almost certainly have swept him from the
+throne.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f136" id="f136" href="#f136.1">[136]</a> Even this small gold cross with a sacred relic enclosed in it&mdash;the
+jewel itself not being worth, as Chapuys says, more than ten crowns&mdash;was
+demanded of Mary by Cromwell soon afterwards.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f137" id="f137" href="#f137.1">[137]</a> This account of Katharine&#8217;s death is compiled from Chapuys&#8217; letters,
+Bedingfield&#8217;s letters, and others in the <i>Spanish</i> and <i>Henry VIII.
+Calendars</i>, and from the <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f138" id="f138" href="#f138.1">[138]</a> The letter tells Henry that death draws near to her, and she must
+remind him for her love&#8217;s sake to safeguard his soul before the desires of
+his body, &#8220;for which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into
+many cares. For my part I do pardon you all, yea I do wish and devoutly
+pray God that He will also pardon you.&#8221; She commends her daughter and her
+maids to him, and concludes, &#8220;Lastly, I do vow that mine eyes desire you
+above all things.&#8221; Katharine, Queen of England. (Cotton MSS., British
+Museum, Otho C. x.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f139" id="f139" href="#f139.1">[139]</a> The death of Sir Thomas More greatly increased Anne&#8217;s unpopularity.
+It is recorded (More&#8217;s <i>Life of More</i>) that when the news came of the
+execution the King and Anne sat at play, and Henry ungenerously told her
+she was the cause of it, and abruptly left the table in anger.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f140" id="f140" href="#f140.1">[140]</a> Even the King&#8217;s fool dared (July 1535) to call her a bawd and her child a bastard.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f141" id="f141" href="#f141.1">[141]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 24th February 1536.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f142" id="f142" href="#f142.1">[142]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th January 1536.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f143" id="f143" href="#f143.1">[143]</a> Probably the following letter, which has been frequently
+printed:&mdash;&#8220;My dear friend and mistress. The bearer of these few lines from
+thy entirely devoted servant will deliver into thy fair hands a token of
+my true affection for thee, hoping you will keep it for ever in your
+sincere love for me. Advertising you that there is a ballad made lately of
+great derision against us, which if it go much abroad and is seen by you I
+pray you pay no manner of regard to it. I am not at present informed who
+is the setter forth of this malignant writing, but if he is found he shall
+be straitly punished for it. For the things ye lacked I have minded my
+lord to supply them to you as soon as he can buy them. Thus hoping shortly
+to receive you in these arms I end for the present your own loving servant
+and Sovereign. H. R.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f144" id="f144" href="#f144.1">[144]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 1st April 1536.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f145" id="f145" href="#f145.1">[145]</a> See p. 264.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f146" id="f146" href="#f146.1">[146]</a> It will be recollected that this question of the return of the
+alienated ecclesiastical property was the principal difficulty when Mary
+brought England back again into the fold of the Church. Pole and the
+Churchmen at Rome were for unconditional restitution, which would have
+made Mary&#8217;s task an impossible one; the political view which recommended
+conciliation and a recognition of facts being that urged by Charles and
+his son Philip, and subsequently adopted. Charles had never shown undue
+respect for ecclesiastical property in Spain, and had on more than one
+occasion spoliated the Church for his own purposes.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f147" id="f147" href="#f147.1">[147]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 6th June 1536. (<i>Spanish Calendar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f148" id="f148" href="#f148.1">[148]</a> <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>, ed. Martin Hume. The author was
+Antonio de Guaras, a Spanish merchant in London, and afterwards Charg&eacute;
+d&#8217;Affaires. His evidence is to a great extent hearsay, but it truly
+represented the belief current at the time.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f149" id="f149" href="#f149.1">[149]</a> British Museum, Cotton, Otho C. x., and Singer&#8217;s addition to
+Cavendish&#8217;s <i>Wolsey</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f150" id="f150" href="#f150.1">[150]</a> <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f151" id="f151" href="#f151.1">[151]</a> It must not be forgotten that the dinner hour was before noon.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f152" id="f152" href="#f152.1">[152]</a> <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f153" id="f153" href="#f153.1">[153]</a> <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f154" id="f154" href="#f154.1">[154]</a> See letter from Sir W. Kingston, Governor of the Tower, to Cromwell,
+3rd May 1536, Cotton MSS., Otho C. x.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f155" id="f155" href="#f155.1">[155]</a> <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f156" id="f156" href="#f156.1">[156]</a> Full account of her behaviour from day to day in the Tower will be
+found in Kingston&#8217;s letters to Cromwell, Cotton MSS., Otho C. x., which
+have been printed in several places, and especially in the <i>Calendars Henry VIII.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f157" id="f157" href="#f157.1">[157]</a> The beautiful letter signed Ann Bullen and addressed to the King
+with the date of 6th May, in which the writer in dignified language
+protests innocence and begs for an impartial trial, is well known, having
+been printed many times. It is, however, of extremely doubtful
+authenticity; the writing and signature being certainly not that of Anne,
+and the composition unconvincing, though the letter is said to have been
+found amongst Cromwell&#8217;s papers after his arrest. The genuineness of the
+document being so questionable, I have not thought well to reproduce it here.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f158" id="f158" href="#f158.1">[158]</a> Strype&#8217;s <i>Cranmer</i>. Cranmer was at Croydon when Cromwell sent him
+news of Anne&#8217;s arrest, with the King&#8217;s command that he should go to
+Lambeth and stay there till further orders reached him. This letter was written as soon as he arrived there.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f159" id="f159" href="#f159.1">[159]</a> Much appears to have been made of a certain alleged death-bed
+deposition of Lady Wingfield recently dead, who had been one of Anne&#8217;s
+attendants, and as it was asserted, the conniver of her amours. Exactly
+what Lady Wingfield had confessed is not now known, nor the amount of
+credence to be given to her declarations. They appear, however, to have
+principally incriminated Anne with Smeaton, and, on the whole, the balance
+of probability is that if Anne was guilty at all, which certainly was not
+proved, as she had no fair trial or defence, it was with Smeaton. The
+charge that she and Norreys had &#8220;imagined&#8221; the death of the King is
+fantastically improbable.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f160" id="f160" href="#f160.1">[160]</a> Godwin.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f161" id="f161" href="#f161.1">[161]</a> &#8220;Je ne veux pas omettre qu&#8217;entre autres choses luy fust object&eacute; pour
+crime que sa s&oelig;ur la putain avait dit a sa femme (<i>i.e.</i> Lady Rochford)
+que le Roy n&#8217;estait habile en cas de soy copuler avec femme, et qu&#8217;il
+navait ni vertu ni puissance.&#8221; This accusation was handed to Rochford in
+writing to answer, but to the dismay of the Court he read it out before
+denying it. (Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May. <i>Spanish Calendar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f162" id="f162" href="#f162.1">[162]</a> Chapuys to Granvelle, 18th May 1536. See also Camden.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f163" id="f163" href="#f163.1">[163]</a> Froude says Smeaton was hanged; but the evidence that he was
+beheaded like the rest is the stronger.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f164" id="f164" href="#f164.1">[164]</a> The whole question is exhaustively discussed by Mr. Friedmann in his
+<i>Anne Boleyn</i>, to which I am indebted for several references on the subject.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f165" id="f165" href="#f165.1">[165]</a> Lady Kingston, who was present, hastened to send this news secretly
+to Chapuys, who, bitter enemy as he was to Anne, to do him justice seems
+to have been shocked at the disregard of legality in the procedure against her.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f166" id="f166" href="#f166.1">[166]</a> The curious gossip, Antonio de Guaras, a Spaniard, says that he got
+into the fortress overnight. Constantine gives also a good account of the
+execution, varying little from that of Guaras. The Portuguese account used
+by Lingard and Froude confirms them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f167" id="f167" href="#f167.1">[167]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May 1536. (<i>Spanish Calendar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f168" id="f168" href="#f168.1">[168]</a> This was Cromwell&#8217;s version as sent to the English agents in foreign
+Courts. He speaks of a conspiracy to kill the King which &#8220;made them all
+quake at the danger he was in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f169" id="f169" href="#f169.1">[169]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May. (<i>Spanish Calendar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f170" id="f170" href="#f170.1">[170]</a> Chapuys to Granvelle, 20th May. (<i>Spanish Calendar.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f171" id="f171" href="#f171.1">[171]</a> The local story that the marriage took place at Wolf Hall, the seat
+of the Seymours in Wiltshire, and that a barn now standing on the estate
+was the scene of the wedding feast, may be dismissed. That festivities
+would take place there in celebration of the wedding is certain; and on
+more than one occasion Henry was entertained at Wolf Hall, and probably
+feasted in the barn itself; but the royal couple were not there on the
+occasion of their marriage. The romantic account given by Nott in his
+<i>Life of Surrey</i>, of Henry&#8217;s waiting with straining ears, either in Epping
+Forest or elsewhere in hunting garb, to hear the signal gun announcing
+Anne&#8217;s death before galloping off to be married at Tottenham Church, near
+Wolf Hall, is equally unsupported, and, indeed, impossible. Henry&#8217;s
+private marriage undoubtedly took place, as related in the text, at
+Hampton Court, and the public ceremony on the 30th May at Whitehall.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f172" id="f172" href="#f172.1">[172]</a> Henry&#8217;s apologists have found decent explanations for his hurry to
+marry Jane. Mr. Froude pointed to the urgent petition of the Privy Council
+and the peers that the King would marry at once, and opined that it could
+hardly be disregarded; and another writer reminds us that if Henry had not
+married Jane privately on the day he did, 20th May, the ceremony would
+have had to be postponed&mdash;as, in fact, the full ceremony was&mdash;until after
+the Rogation days preceding Whitsuntide. But nothing but callous
+concupiscence can really explain the unwillingness of Henry to wait even a
+week before his remarriage.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f173" id="f173" href="#f173.1">[173]</a> The Catholics were saying that before Anne&#8217;s head fell the wax
+tapers on Katharine&#8217;s shrine at Peterborough kindled themselves. (John de
+Ponte&#8217;s letter to Cromwell, Cotton MSS., Titus B 1, printed by Ellis.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f174" id="f174" href="#f174.1">[174]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, 6th June 1536.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f175" id="f175" href="#f175.1">[175]</a> The Parliament of 1536 enacted that all Bulls, Briefs, and
+Dispensations from Rome should be held void; that every officer, lay or
+clerical, should take an oath to renounce and resist all authority of the
+Pope on pain of high treason. In Convocation, Cromwell for the King at the
+same time introduced a new ecclesiastical constitution, establishing the
+Scriptures as the basis of faith, as interpreted by the four first
+Councils of the Church. Three sacraments only were acknowledged&mdash;Baptism,
+Penance, and the Eucharist. The use of images and invocation of the saints
+were regulated and modified, all idolatrous or material worship of them
+being forbidden. Cromwell at the same period was raised to the peerage
+under the title of Baron Cromwell, and made Vicar-General of the Church.
+(Lord Herbert&#8217;s <i>Henry VIII.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f176" id="f176" href="#f176.1">[176]</a> They are all in Cotton MSS., Otho x., and have been printed in Hearne&#8217;s <i>Sylloge</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f177" id="f177" href="#f177.1">[177]</a> She did her best for her backers during the Pilgrimage of Grace,
+throwing herself upon her knees before the King and beseeching him to
+restore the dissolved abbeys. Henry&#8217;s reply was to bid her get up and not
+meddle in his affairs&mdash;she should bear in mind what happened to her
+predecessor through having done so. The hint was enough for Jane, who
+appears to have had no strength of character, and thenceforward, though
+interesting herself personally for the Princess Mary, she let politics
+alone. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 12.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f178" id="f178" href="#f178.1">[178]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f179" id="f179" href="#f179.1">[179]</a> <i>Hist. MSS. Commission</i>, Report XII., Appendix iv. vol. 1, Duke of Rutland&#8217;s Papers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f180" id="f180" href="#f180.1">[180]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="f181" id="f181" href="#f181.1">[181]</a> The assertion almost invariably made that Bishop Nicholas Sanders,
+the Jesuit writer, &#8220;invented&#8221; the story that the Cesarian operation was
+performed at birth is not true. The facts of this time are to a great
+extent copied textually by Sanders from the MS. <i>Cronica de Enrico Otavo</i>,
+by Guaras, and the statement is there made as an unsupported rumour only.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f182" id="f182" href="#f182.1">[182]</a> Henry&#8217;s elaborate testamentary directions for the erection and
+adornment with precious stones of a sumptuous monument to himself and Jane were never carried out.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f183" id="f183" href="#f183.1">[183]</a> An account of these confiscations will be found in the <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 13.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f184" id="f184" href="#f184.1">[184]</a> Chastillon Correspondence in <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 13.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f185" id="f185" href="#f185.1">[185]</a> The extraordinary attentions showered upon the elderly French lady,
+Mme de Montreuil, and her daughter, Mme de Brun, and their large train of
+attendant ladies, in the autumn of 1538, is an amusing instance of Henry&#8217;s
+diplomacy. It has usually been concluded by historians that it was a
+question of amour or gallantry on Henry&#8217;s part; but this was not the case.
+The lady had been the governess of the late Queen Madeleine of Scotland,
+and was passing through England on her way home. The most elaborate comedy
+was played by Henry and Cromwell on the occasion. The ladies were treated
+like princesses. The Lord Mayor and all the authorities on their way to
+the coast had to banquet them; they were taken sight-seeing and feasting
+everywhere, and loaded with gifts; and the most ostentatious appearance
+made of a close intimacy with them, in order to hoodwink the imperial
+agent into the idea that a French match was under discussion. Henry
+himself went to Dover to see them, and gave them all presents. But the
+French and imperial ambassadors were in close touch one with the other,
+and themselves dined with the ladies at Chelsea; having a good laugh with
+them at the farce that was being played, which they quite understood.
+(<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 13, part 2.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f186" id="f186" href="#f186.1">[186]</a> The terms of the arrangement were the maintenance of the <i>status quo
+ante</i>, but were generally in favour of France, which retained Savoy and
+some of the Lombard fortresses threatening Milan, that State, the
+principal bone of contention, being still held by the Emperor&#8217;s troops;
+but with a vague understanding that it might be given as a dowry to a
+princess of the Emperor&#8217;s house, if she married a French prince. The
+latter clause was hollow, and never intended to be carried out, as Henry
+knew.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f187" id="f187" href="#f187.1">[187]</a> Her own well-known comment on Henry&#8217;s proposal was, that if she had
+two heads one should be at the disposal of his Majesty of England.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f188" id="f188" href="#f188.1">[188]</a> Pole had been sent to Spain by the Pope for the purpose of urging
+the Emperor to execute the decree against England, at least to the extent
+of stopping commerce with his dominions. Charles saw Pole in Toledo early
+in March 1539. The Cardinal found the Emperor professedly sympathetic, but
+evidently not willing to adopt extreme measures of force against Henry.
+Pole, disappointed, thereupon returned to Papal Avignon instead of going
+on to France with a similar errand. Nothing is clearer in the
+correspondence on the subject (<i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 14) than
+Charles&#8217; determination&mdash;which was invariable throughout his life&mdash;not to
+allow Churchmen or ecclesiastical polity to guide his state action. Whilst
+Pole was thus seeking in vain to urge the Catholic powers to overthrow
+Henry, Wyatt the English ambassador in Spain, poet and gentle wit though
+he was, was busily plotting the murder of the Cardinal, together with some
+secret device to raise trouble in Italy and set Charles and Francis by the
+ears. This was probably the treacherous surrender of Parma and Piacenza to
+England for France, to the detriment of the Emperor and the Pope&mdash;who
+claimed them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f189" id="f189" href="#f189.1">[189]</a> The influence of this party led by Norfolk and Gardiner, though it
+sufficed to secure the passage of the Six Articles, did not last long
+enough to carry them into rigid execution. Cromwell, by arousing Henry&#8217;s
+fears that the German confederation would abandon him to his enemies, soon
+gained the upper hand; and the Saxon envoy Burchardus, writing to
+Melancthon in the autumn, expressed hopes that the coming of Anne would
+coincide with the repeal of the Act. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 14,
+part 2.) The English Protestants blamed Cranmer for what they considered
+his timid opposition, soon silenced, to the passage of the Bill, and
+approved of the action of Latimer, who fled rather than assent to it, as
+did the Bishop of Salisbury. Before the Bill had been passed three months,
+of its principal promoters Stokesley of London was dead, Gardiner sent
+away from Court, and Norfolk entirely in the background.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f190" id="f190" href="#f190.1">[190]</a> Wotton to the King, 11th August 1539. (<i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 14, p. 2.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f191" id="f191" href="#f191.1">[191]</a> It has been suggested that the Duchess with whom this comparison was
+instituted was Anne&#8217;s sister, the Duchess of Saxony, who was quite as
+beautiful as the Duchess of Milan.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f192" id="f192" href="#f192.1">[192]</a> Memorandum in <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 14, part 2, p. 96.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f193" id="f193" href="#f193.1">[193]</a> Marillac to Francis I., 3rd October 1539.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f194" id="f194" href="#f194.1">[194]</a> The last passage meant that a union with France or the empire might
+have led to the putting of the Princess Mary forward as heir after the
+King&#8217;s death, as against Prince Edward. The letter with Hertford&#8217;s truly
+dreadful spelling is printed by Ellis.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f195" id="f195" href="#f195.1">[195]</a> A list of the personages appointed to attend will be found in the
+<i>Calendar of Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 14.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f196" id="f196" href="#f196.1">[196]</a> As usual, tedious lists of the finery worn on the occasion are given
+by Hall, and copied by Miss Strickland.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f197" id="f197" href="#f197.1">[197]</a> The Duke of Suffolk to Cromwell. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 14).</p>
+
+<p><a name="f198" id="f198" href="#f198.1">[198]</a> Deposition of Sir A. Browne. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 14, 2.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f199" id="f199" href="#f199.1">[199]</a> Russell&#8217;s deposition. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 14, 2.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f200" id="f200" href="#f200.1">[200]</a> Cromwell (after his disgrace) to the King. (Hatfield MSS.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f201" id="f201" href="#f201.1">[201]</a> For descriptions of the pageant see Hall, also <i>Calendar Henry
+VIII.</i>, vol. 15, and <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>, edited by the present writer.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f202" id="f202" href="#f202.1">[202]</a> Hall.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f203" id="f203" href="#f203.1">[203]</a> Cromwell to Henry. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 14.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f204" id="f204" href="#f204.1">[204]</a> Cromwell&#8217;s statement. (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 15, p. 391.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f205" id="f205" href="#f205.1">[205]</a> Wriothesley&#8217;s deposition. (<i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 15.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f206" id="f206" href="#f206.1">[206]</a> The King got a double grant of four fifteenths and tenths, payable
+by instalments in four years; a shilling in the pound on all lands, and
+sixpence in the pound on personal property; aliens paying double; besides
+the confiscation of the great revenues of the Order of St. John. Such
+taxation was almost without precedent in England, and certainly added to
+Cromwell&#8217;s unpopularity, already very great, owing to the oppressiveness
+of his religious policy with regard to the religious houses and his
+personal harshness.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f207" id="f207" href="#f207.1">[207]</a> <i>The Spanish Chronicle Of Henry VIII.</i>, edited by the present
+writer. In this record, Seymour, Earl of Hertford, is made to take a
+leading part in the fall of Cromwell in the interests of his nephew the
+Prince of Wales (Edward VI.), but I can find no official confirmation of
+this.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f208" id="f208" href="#f208.1">[208]</a> Memo. in Gardiner&#8217;s handwriting, Record Office. (<i>Henry VIII.
+Calendar</i>, vol. 15.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f209" id="f209" href="#f209.1">[209]</a> She does not appear to have done so, however, until the King had
+received a letter from the Duke of Cleves, dated 13th July, couched in
+somewhat indignant terms. She then wrote to her brother that she &#8220;had
+consented to the examination and determination, wherein I had more
+respect, as beseemed me, to truth than to any worldly affection that might
+move me to the contrary, and did the rather condescend thereto for that my
+body remaineth in the integrity which I brought into this realm.&#8221; She
+continues that the King has adopted her as a sister and has treated her
+very liberally, more than she or her brother could well wish. She is well
+satisfied. The King&#8217;s friendship for her brother, she says, will not be
+impaired for this matter unless the fault should be in himself (<i>i.e.</i>
+Cleves). She thinks it necessary to write this, and to say that she
+intends to live in England, lest for want of true knowledge her brother
+should take the matter otherwise than he ought. The letter is signed &#8220;Anna
+Duchess, born, of Cleves, Gulik, Geldre and Berg; your loving sister.&#8221; The
+English and German drafts are in the Record Office, the former abstracted
+in <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 15. The King <ins class="correction" title="original: ininstructed">instructed</ins> Wotton and Clerk,
+his envoys at Cleves, to deal with the Duke in the same spirit, holding
+out hopes of reward if he took the matter quietly, and to assume a haughty
+tone if he seemed threatening.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f210" id="f210" href="#f210.1">[210]</a> Within a week of this&mdash;to show how rapid was the change of
+feeling&mdash;Pate wrote to the King and to the Duke of Norfolk saying how that
+&#8220;while Thomas Cromwell ruled, slanders and obloquies of England were
+common,&#8221; but that now all was changed. The brother of the Duke of Ferrara
+had sent to him to say that he was going to visit the King of England, for
+&#8220;the Emperor these years and days past often praised the King&#8217;s gifts of
+body and mind, which made him the very image of his Creator.&#8221; This praise
+had &#8220;engendered such love in the stomach&#8221; of Don Francesco d&#8217;Este that he
+could no longer defer his wish to see such a paragon of excellence as
+Henry, and he rejoices &#8220;that so many gentlemen belonging to the Emperor&#8221;
+are doing likewise. This was even before the marriage with Anne was
+declared invalid. (12th July, <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 15.) Chapuys,
+the Emperor&#8217;s ambassador, was again sent to England immediately, and
+cordial relations were promptly resumed. (<i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 6, part 1.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f211" id="f211" href="#f211.1">[211]</a> Richard Hilles, the Protestant merchant, writing to Bullinger in
+Latin (Zurich Letters, Parker Society), says that for some weeks before
+the divorce from Anne of Cleves, Henry was captivated by Katharine Howard,
+whom he calls &#8220;a very little girl&#8221;; and that he frequently used to cross
+the Thames from Westminster to Lambeth to visit, both by night and day,
+the Bishop of Winchester (Gardiner) providing feasts for them in his
+palace. But at that time Katharine was, Hilles tells us, looked upon
+simply as Henry&#8217;s mistress&mdash;as indeed she probably was&mdash;rather than his
+future wife.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f212" id="f212" href="#f212.1">[212]</a> Hilles to Bullinger (Parker Society, Zurich Letters) gives voice to
+bitter complaints, and Melancthon wrote (17th August, etc.) praying that
+God might destroy &#8220;this British Nero.&#8221; (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 15.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f213" id="f213" href="#f213.1">[213]</a> There is in the British Museum (Stowe MS. 559) a list of the jewels
+and other things given by Henry to Katharine at the marriage and
+subsequently. The inventory was made at the time of her attainder, when
+she was deprived of everything. The jewels appear to have been very
+numerous and rich: one square or stomacher, given on New Year&#8217;s Day 1540,
+containing 33 diamonds, 60 rubies, and a border of pearls. Another gift at
+Christmas the same year was &#8220;two laces containing 26 fair table diamonds
+and 158 fair pearls, with a rope of fair large pearls, 200 pearls.&#8221;
+Magnificent jewels of all sorts are to be counted by the dozen in this
+list, comparing strangely with the meagre list of Katharine of Aragon&#8217;s
+treasures. One curious item in Katharine&#8217;s list is &#8220;a book of gold
+enamelled, wherein is a clock, upon every side of which book is three
+diamonds, a little man standing upon one of them, four turquoises and
+three rubies with a little chain of gold enamelled blue hanging to it.&#8221;
+This book, together with &#8220;a purse of gold enamelled red containing eight
+diamonds set in goldsmith&#8217;s work,&#8221; was taken by the King himself when poor
+Katharine fell, and another splendid jewelled pomander containing a clock
+was taken by him for Princess Mary.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f214" id="f214" href="#f214.1">[214]</a> He had on the same morning taken the Sacrament, it being All Souls&#8217;
+Day, and had directed his confessor, the Bishop of Lincoln, to offer up a
+prayer of thanks with him &#8220;for the good life he (Henry) led, and hoped to
+lead with his wife.&#8221; (<i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 16, p. 615.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f215" id="f215" href="#f215.1">[215]</a> <i>Calendar Henry VIII.</i>, vol. 16, p. 48, September 1540. This was a
+year before he made his statement to Cranmer. The hatred expressed to the
+King&#8217;s new Catholic policy by Lascelles proves him to have been a fit
+instrument for the delation and ruin of Katharine.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f216" id="f216" href="#f216.1">[216]</a> They are all in the Record Office, and are summarised in the <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 16.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f217" id="f217" href="#f217.1">[217]</a> Lady Rochford, who seems to have been a most abandoned woman, was
+the widow of Anne Boleyn&#8217;s brother, who had been beheaded at the time of his sister&#8217;s fall.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f218" id="f218" href="#f218.1">[218]</a> In the Record Office, abstracted (much condensed) in <i>Henry VIII.
+Calendar</i>, vol. 16. For the purposes of this book I have used the original manuscripts.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f219" id="f219" href="#f219.1">[219]</a> In the curious and detailed but in many respects unveracious account
+of the affair given in the <i>Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i>, edited by
+the present writer, it is distinctly stated that Culpeper made his
+confession on the threat of the rack in the Tower. He is made in this
+account to say that he was deeply in love with Katharine before her
+marriage, and had fallen ill with grief when she became Henry&#8217;s wife. She
+had taken pity upon him, and had arranged a meeting at Richmond, which had
+been betrayed to Hertford by one of Katharine&#8217;s servants. The writer of
+the <i>Chronicle</i> (Guaras), who had good sources of information and was a
+close observer, did not believe that any guilty act had been committed by
+Katharine after her marriage.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f220" id="f220" href="#f220.1">[220]</a> Record Office, State Papers, 1, 721. The Duke had gone to demand of
+his stepmother Derham&#8217;s box of papers. He found that she had already
+overhauled them and destroyed many of them. In his conversation with her,
+she admitted that she knew Katharine was immoral before marriage.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f221" id="f221" href="#f221.1">[221]</a> The Commissioners included Michael Dormer, Lord Mayor, Lord
+Chancellor Audley, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the Lords of the
+Council and judges. Norfolk, in order to show his zeal and freedom from
+complicity, jeered and laughed as the examination of the prisoners
+proceeded. For a similar reason he brought his son, the Earl of Surrey, to
+the trial: and it was noted that both the Queen&#8217;s brothers and those of
+Culpeper rode about the city unconcernedly, in order to prove that they
+had no sympathy with the accused. As soon as the trial was over, however,
+Norfolk retired to Kenninghall, some said by the King&#8217;s orders, and
+rumours were rife that not only was he in disgrace, but that danger to him
+portended. We shall see that his fate was deferred for a time, as Henry
+needed his military aid in the coming wars with Scotland and France, and
+he was the only soldier of experience and authority in England.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f222" id="f222" href="#f222.1">[222]</a> One of Katharine&#8217;s love letters to Culpeper, written during the
+progress in the North, is in the Record Office; and although it does not
+offer direct corroboration of guilt, it would have offered good
+presumptive evidence, and is, to say the least of it, an extremely
+indiscreet letter for a married woman and a queen to write to a man who
+had been her lover before her marriage. The letter is all in Katharine&#8217;s
+writing except the first line. &#8220;Master Culpeper,&#8221; it runs, &#8220;I heartily
+recommend me unto you, praying you to send me word how that you do. I did
+hear that ye were sick and I never longed so much for anything as to see
+you. It maketh my heart to die when I do think that I cannot always be in
+your company. Come to me when my Lady Rochford be here, for then I shall
+be best at leisure to be at your commandment. I do thank you that you have
+promised to be good to that poor fellow my man; for when he is gone there
+be none I dare trust to send to you. I pray you to give me a horse for my
+man, for I have much ado to get one, and therefore I pray you send me one
+by him, and in so doing I am as I said before: and thus I take my leave of
+you trusting to see you shortly again; and I would you were with me now
+that you might see what pain I take in writing to you. Yours as long as
+life endures, Katheryn. One thing I had forgotten, and that is to speak to
+my man. Entreat him to tarry here with me still, for he says whatsoever
+you order he will do it.&#8221; The letter is extremely illiterate in style and
+spelling. (<i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 16.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f223" id="f223" href="#f223.1">[223]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 6, part 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f224" id="f224" href="#f224.1">[224]</a> Marillac Correspondence, ed. Kaulec. There is a transcript in the
+Record Office and abstracts in the <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 16.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f225" id="f225" href="#f225.1">[225]</a> They were soon afterwards pardoned.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f226" id="f226" href="#f226.1">[226]</a> This difficulty seems to have been met by sending to the unhappy
+girl a committee of the Council to invite her to appear in person and
+defend herself if she pleased; but she threw herself entirely upon the
+King&#8217;s mercy, and admitted that she deserved death. This facilitated her
+condemnation, and there was no more difficulty. The Duke of Suffolk in the
+House of Lords and Wriothesley stated that she had &#8220;confessed her great
+crime&#8221; to the deputation of the Council, but exactly what or how much she
+confessed is not known. She most solemnly assured the Bishop of Lincoln
+(White) in her last hours that she had not offended criminally after her
+marriage; and as has been pointed out in the text, she is not specifically
+charged with having done so in the indictment. This might be, of course,
+to save the King&#8217;s honour as much as possible; but taking all things into
+consideration, the probability is that no guilty act had been committed
+since the marriage, though it is clear that Katharine was fluttering
+perilously close to the flame.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f227" id="f227" href="#f227.1">[227]</a> This was Anne Bassett. Lord Lisle, the illegitimate son of Edward
+IV., was at this time released from his unjust imprisonment in the Tower,
+but died immediately.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f228" id="f228" href="#f228.1">[228]</a> Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th January 1542.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f229" id="f229" href="#f229.1">[229]</a> The accounts of Chapuys, Hall, and Ottewell Johnson say simply that
+she confessed her faults and made a Christian end. The <i>Spanish Chronicle
+of Henry VIII.</i> gives an account of her speech of which the above is a summary.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f230" id="f230" href="#f230.1">[230]</a> The book which, although it was largely Gardiner&#8217;s work, was called
+&#8220;The King&#8217;s Book,&#8221; or &#8220;The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any
+Christian Man,&#8221; laid down afresh the doctrines to be accepted. It was
+authorised by Parliament in May 1543, and greatly straitened the creed
+prescribed in 1537. Just previously a large number of persecutions were
+begun against those who questioned Transubstantiation (see Foxe), and
+printers were newly harried for daring to print books not in accordance
+with the King&#8217;s proclamation. Strict inquests were also held through
+London for any householders who ate meat in Lent, the young, turbulent
+Earl of Surrey being one of the offenders. (<i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol.
+17, part 1.) It is to be noted, however, that, side by side with these
+anti-Protestant measures, greater efforts than ever were made to emphasise
+the King&#8217;s supremacy; the Mass Books being carefully revised in order to
+eliminate all reference even indirectly to the Pope, and to saints not
+mentioned in the Bible.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f231" id="f231" href="#f231.1">[231]</a> In his account of these and similar interviews Chapuys dwells much
+upon Gardiner&#8217;s anxiety to adopt the best course to induce Henry to enter
+into the agreement. He begged the imperial ambassador not to rub the King
+the wrong way by dwelling upon the advantage to accrue to England from the
+alliance. (<i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 6, part 2.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f232" id="f232" href="#f232.1">[232]</a> The treaty is in the Record Office. Printed in full in Rymer.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f233" id="f233" href="#f233.1">[233]</a> At the time of Katharine&#8217;s marriage, her brother, Lord Parr, was on
+the Scottish border as Warden of the Marches; and a few days after the
+wedding the new Queen-Consort wrote to him from Oatlands saying that &#8220;it
+having pleased God to incline the King to take her as his wife, which is
+the greatest joy and comfort that could happen to her, she desires to
+inform her brother of it, as the person who has most cause to rejoice
+thereat. She requires him to let her hear sometimes of his health as
+friendly as if she had not been called to this honour.&#8221; (<i>Henry VIII.
+Calendar</i>, vol. 18, part 1.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f234" id="f234" href="#f234.1">[234]</a> It depends upon a metrical family history written by Katharine&#8217;s
+cousin, Sir Thomas Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f235" id="f235" href="#f235.1">[235]</a> The document is in the Record Office. About half way down the margin
+is written, &#8220;For your daughter.&#8221; At the top is written, &#8220;Lady Latimer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f236" id="f236" href="#f236.1">[236]</a> The author of the <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i> thus portrays
+Katharine&#8217;s character: &#8220;She was quieter than any of the young wives the
+King had, and as she knew more of the world she always got on pleasantly
+with the King and had no caprices. She had much honour to Lady Mary and
+the wives of the nobles, but she kept her ladies very strictly.... The
+King was very well satisfied with her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f237" id="f237" href="#f237.1">[237]</a> Many years afterwards when Parr, then Marquis of Northampton and a
+leading anti-Catholic, was with other nobles urging Queen Elizabeth to
+drop shilly-shally and get married in earnest, the Queen, who was of
+course playing a deep game which they did not understand, turned upon Parr
+in a rage and told him that he was a nice fellow to talk about marriage,
+considering how he had managed his own matrimonial affairs. (Hume,
+&#8220;Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.&#8221;)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f238" id="f238" href="#f238.1">[238]</a> Record Office. <i>Henry VIII. Calendar</i>, vol. 18, part 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f239" id="f239" href="#f239.1">[239]</a> <i>Spanish State Papers, Calendar</i>, vol. 6, part 2. The author of the
+<i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i> (Guaras) says that the King ordered Anne to
+come to the wedding, but if that be the case there is no record of her
+presence; though all the other guests and witnesses are enumerated in the
+notarial deed attesting the marriage. The Spanish chronicler puts into
+Anne&#8217;s mouth, as a sign of her indifference, a somewhat ill-natured gibe
+at the &#8220;burden that Madam Katharine hath taken upon herself,&#8221; explaining
+that she referred to the King&#8217;s immense bulk. &#8220;The King was so fat that
+such a man had never been seen. Three of the biggest men that could be
+found could get inside his doublet.&#8221; Anne&#8217;s trouble with regard to her
+brother was soon at an end. The Emperor&#8217;s troops crushed him completely,
+and in September he begged for mercy on his knees, receiving the disputed
+duchies from Charles as an imperial fief. Anne&#8217;s mother, who had stoutly
+resisted the Emperor&#8217;s claims upon her duchies, died of grief during the campaign.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f240" id="f240" href="#f240.1">[240]</a> Strype&#8217;s &#8220;Memorials of Cranmer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f241" id="f241" href="#f241.1">[241]</a> Strype&#8217;s &#8220;Memorials,&#8221; Foxe&#8217;s &#8220;Acts and Monuments,&#8221; and Burnet; all
+of whom followed the account given by Cranmer&#8217;s secretary Morice as to Cranmer&#8217;s part.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f242" id="f242" href="#f242.1">[242]</a> Morice&#8217;s anecdotes in &#8220;Narratives of the Reformation,&#8221; Camden
+Society. See also Strype&#8217;s &#8220;Memorials&#8221; and Foxe. The MS. record of the
+whole investigation is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. I am indebted
+for this fact to my friend Dr. James Gairdner, C.B.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f243" id="f243" href="#f243.1">[243]</a> How necessary this was is seen by the strenuous efforts, even thus
+late, of the Pope to effect a reconciliation between Charles and Francis
+rather than acquiesce in a combination between the former and the
+excommunicated King of England. Paul III. sent his grandson, Cardinal
+Farnese, in November 1543 to Flanders and to the Emperor with this object;
+but Charles was determined, and told the Cardinal in no gentle terms that
+the Pope&#8217;s dallying with the infidel Turks, and Francis&#8217; intrigues with
+the Lutherans, were a hundred times worse than his own alliance with the
+schismatic King of England. (<i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 7.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="f244" id="f244" href="#f244.1">[244]</a> Hertford had sacked Edinburgh and Leith and completely cowed the
+Scots before the letter was written. His presence in London at a crisis
+was therefore more necessary than on the Border.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f245" id="f245" href="#f245.1">[245]</a> <i>Hatfield Papers</i>, Hist. MSS. Commission, part 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f246" id="f246" href="#f246.1">[246]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 7. This reparation to Mary had been urged
+very strongly by the Emperor, ever since the negotiations began. Mary,
+however, was not legitimated, and not only came after Edward, but also
+after any children Katharine might bear. The Queen undoubtedly urged Mary&#8217;s cause.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f247" id="f247" href="#f247.1">[247]</a> It was constantly noted by foreign visitors that English ladies were
+kissed on the lips by men. It appears to have been quite an English
+custom, and greatly surprised Spaniards, who kept their women in almost
+oriental seclusion.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f248" id="f248" href="#f248.1">[248]</a> MSS. British Museum, Add. 8219, fol. 114.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f249" id="f249" href="#f249.1">[249]</a> A full account of his visit and service will be found in my
+<i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i> In the <i>Spanish Calendar</i> and in the
+<i>Chronicle</i> it is asserted that the Duke stayed with Henry very
+unwillingly and at the Emperor&#8217;s request.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f250" id="f250" href="#f250.1">[250]</a> We are told that even the sails of his ship were of cloth of silver,
+and probably no King of England ever took the field under such splendid conditions before or since.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f251" id="f251" href="#f251.1">[251]</a> Hearne&#8217;s <i>Sylloge</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f252" id="f252" href="#f252.1">[252]</a> &#8220;Prayers and Meditations,&#8221; London, 1545. The prayer is printed at
+length by Miss Strickland, as well as several extracts from Katharine&#8217;s
+&#8220;Lamentations of a Sinner,&#8221; which show that she had studied Vives and Guevara.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f253" id="f253" href="#f253.1">[253]</a> Although this letter is always assigned to the period when Henry was
+at Boulogne, I have very considerable doubt as to its having been written
+then. I should be inclined to ascribe it to the following year.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f254" id="f254" href="#f254.1">[254]</a> The following is his letter to Katharine informing her of this: &#8220;At
+the closing up of these our letters this day the castle aforesaid with the
+dyke is at our commandment, and not like to be recovered by the Frenchmen
+again, as we trust, not doubting with God&#8217;s grace but that the castle and
+town shall shortly follow the same trade, for as this day, which is the
+8th September, we began three batteries and have three mines going,
+besides one which hath done its execution, shaking and tearing off one of
+their greatest bulwarks. No more to you at this time, sweetheart, but for
+lack of time and great occupations of business, saving we pray you to give
+in our name our hearty blessings to all our children, and recommendations
+to our cousin Margaret, and the rest of the ladies and gentlewomen, and to
+our Council also. Written with the hand of your loving husband&mdash;<span class="smcap">Henry
+R.</span>&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;Royal Letters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f255" id="f255" href="#f255.1">[255]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 8. Hume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f256" id="f256" href="#f256.1">[256]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 8. Hume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f257" id="f257" href="#f257.1">[257]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 8. Hume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f258" id="f258" href="#f258.1">[258]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> The Duchess of Suffolk, a great friend of Katharine Parr&#8217;s,
+and widow of Charles Brandon, who had recently died, was the daughter of a
+Spanish lady and of Lord Willoughby D&#8217;Eresby, which title she inherited.
+She soon after married one of her esquires, Francis Bertie, and became a
+strong Protestant.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f259" id="f259" href="#f259.1">[259]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 8. Hume. September 1546.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f260" id="f260" href="#f260.1">[260]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 8. Hume. September 1546.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f261" id="f261" href="#f261.1">[261]</a> Surrey prompted his sister on this occasion to appeal to the King
+for permission to marry Seymour, and to act in such a way that the King
+might fall in love with her, and make her his mistress, &#8220;so that she might
+have as much power as the Duchess d&#8217;Etampes in France.&#8221; The suggestion was
+specially atrocious, as she was the widow of Henry&#8217;s son.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f262" id="f262" href="#f262.1">[262]</a> <i>Spanish Calendar</i>, vol. 8. Hume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f263" id="f263" href="#f263.1">[263]</a> <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i> Hume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f264" id="f264" href="#f264.1">[264]</a> The author of the <i>Chronicle of Henry VIII.</i> makes Paget and his
+wife the first promoters of the match between Seymour and Katharine,
+though I can find no confirmation of his story. He says that the Queen
+being in the great hall with her ladies and Princess Mary, Lord Seymour
+came in as had been arranged, looking very handsome. Lady Paget whispered
+to the Queen an inquiry as to what she thought of the Lord Admiral&#8217;s
+looks, to which Katharine replied that she liked his looks very much. &#8220;All
+the ill I wish you, Madam,&#8221; whispered Lady Paget, &#8220;is that he should
+become your husband.&#8221; &#8220;I could wish that it had been my fate to have him
+for a husband,&#8221; replied Katharine; &#8220;but God hath so placed me that any
+lowering of my condition would be a reproach to me.&#8221; The arguments used to
+both lovers by Lady Paget are then detailed, and the final consent of
+Katharine to accept Seymour. There may have been a small germ of truth in
+this account, but it can hardly have happened as described, in view of the
+correspondence of the lovers now before us.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f265" id="f265" href="#f265.1">[265]</a> This use of the words brother and sister as referring to the
+Herberts, who were no relations of Seymour&#8217;s, indicates that the latter
+and the Queen were already betrothed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f266" id="f266" href="#f266.1">[266]</a> <i>State Papers, Domestic</i>, vol. 1.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f267" id="f267" href="#f267.1">[267]</a> Hearne&#8217;s <i>Sylloge</i>, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><a name="f268" id="f268" href="#f268.1">[268]</a> The deposition of Katharine Ashley. (<i>Hatfield Papers</i>, part 1.)</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><b>Transcriber&#8217;s Notes:</b></p>
+
+<p>Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. Thus, page numbering around the illustrations does not exactly match the original.</p>
+
+<p>The text in the list of illustrations is presented as in the original text, but the links
+navigate to the page number closest to the illustration&#8217;s loaction in this document.</p>
+
+<p>Some quotes in the orignal are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors
+have been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have been left open.
+Other puctuation has been fixed without note.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the
+Parts They Played in History, by Martin Hume
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts
+They Played in History, by Martin Hume
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History
+
+Author: Martin Hume
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2010 [EBook #32813]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _HENRY VIII._
+
+_From a portrait by_ JOST VAN CLEEF _in the Royal Collection at Hampton
+Court Palace_]
+
+
+
+
+  The Wives
+  of
+  Henry the Eighth
+
+  AND THE PARTS THEY PLAYED
+  IN HISTORY
+
+
+  BY
+  MARTIN HUME
+
+  AUTHOR OF "THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH"
+  "THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS"
+  ETC. ETC. ETC.
+
+
+  "_These are stars indeed,
+  And sometimes falling ones._"
+
+        --SHAKESPEARE
+
+
+  LONDON
+  EVELEIGH NASH
+  1905
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Either by chance or by the peculiar working of our constitution, the Queen
+Consorts of England have as a rule been nationally important only in
+proportion to the influence exerted by the political tendencies which
+prompted their respective marriages. England has had no Catharine or Marie
+de Medici, no Elizabeth Farnese, no Catharine of Russia, no Caroline of
+Naples, no Maria Luisa of Spain, who, either through the minority of their
+sons or the weakness of their husbands, dominated the countries of their
+adoption; the Consorts of English Kings having been, in the great majority
+of cases, simply domestic helpmates of their husbands and children, with
+comparatively small political power or ambition for themselves. Only those
+whose elevation responded to tendencies of a nationally enduring
+character, or who represented temporarily the active forces in a great
+national struggle, can claim to be powerful political factors in the
+history of our country. The six Consorts of Henry VIII., whose successive
+rise and fall synchronised with the beginning and progress of the
+Reformation in England, are perhaps those whose fleeting prominence was
+most pregnant of good or evil for the nation and for civilisation at
+large, because they personified causes infinitely more important than
+themselves.
+
+The careers of these unhappy women have almost invariably been considered,
+nevertheless, from a purely personal point of view. It is true that the
+many historians of the Reformation have dwelt upon the rivalry between
+Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and their strenuous efforts to gain
+their respective ends; but even in their case their action has usually
+been regarded as individual in impulse, instead of being, as I believe it
+was, prompted or thwarted by political forces and considerations, of which
+the Queens themselves were only partially conscious. The lives of Henry's
+Consorts have been related as if each of the six was an isolated
+phenomenon that had by chance attracted the desire of a lascivious despot,
+and in her turn had been deposed when his eye had fallen, equally
+fortuitously, upon another woman who pleased his errant fancy better. This
+view I believe to be a superficial and misleading one. I regard Henry
+himself not as the far-seeing statesman he is so often depicted for us,
+sternly resolved from the first to free his country from the yoke of Rome,
+and pressing forward through a lifetime with his eyes firmly fixed upon
+the goal of England's religious freedom; but rather as a weak, vain,
+boastful man, the plaything of his passions, which were artfully made use
+of by rival parties to forward religious and political ends in the
+struggle of giants that ended in the Reformation. No influence that could
+be exercised over the King was neglected by those who sought to lead him,
+and least of all that which appealed to his uxoriousness; and I hope to
+show in the text of this book how each of his wives in turn was but an
+instrument of politicians, intended to sway the King on one side or the
+other. Regarded from this point of view, the lives of these six unhappy
+Queens assume an importance in national history which cannot be accorded
+to them if they are considered in the usual light as the victims of a
+strong, lustful tyrant, each one standing apart, and in her turn simply
+the darling solace of his hours of dalliance. Doubtless the latter point
+of view provides to the historian a wider scope for the description of
+picturesque ceremonial and gorgeous millinery, as well as for pathetic
+passages dealing with the personal sufferings of the Queens in their
+distress; but I can only hope that the absence of much of this sentimental
+and feminine interest from my pages will be compensated by the wider
+aspect in which the public and political significance of Henry's wives is
+presented; that a clearer understanding than usual may thus be gained of
+the tortuous process by which the Reformation in England was effected, and
+that the figure of the King in the picture may stand in a juster
+proportion to his environment than is often the case.
+
+MARTIN HUME.
+
+LONDON, _October_ 1905.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE
+
+  CHAPTER I
+
+  1488-1501
+
+  INTRODUCTORY--WHY KATHARINE CAME TO ENGLAND--POLITICAL MATRIMONY       1
+
+
+  CHAPTER II
+
+  1501-1509
+
+  KATHARINE'S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND                   25
+
+
+  CHAPTER III
+
+  1509-1527
+
+  KATHARINE THE QUEEN--A POLITICAL MARRIAGE AND A PERSONAL DIVORCE      72
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+
+  1527-1530
+
+  KATHARINE AND ANNE--THE DIVORCE                                      124
+
+
+  CHAPTER V
+
+  1530-1534
+
+  HENRY'S DEFIANCE--THE VICTORY OF ANNE                                174
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+
+  1534-1536
+
+  A FLEETING TRIUMPH--POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE      225
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+
+  1536-1540
+
+  PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT--JANE SEYMOUR AND ANNE OF CLEVES                289
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+
+  1540-1542
+
+  THE KING'S "GOOD SISTER" AND THE KING'S BAD WIFE--THE LUTHERANS
+  AND ENGLISH CATHOLICS                                                350
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+
+  1542-1547
+
+  KATHARINE PARR--THE PROTESTANTS WIN THE LAST TRICK                   398
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  HENRY VIII                                                _Frontispiece_
+
+    _From a portrait by_ JOST VAN CLEEF _in the Royal
+    Collection at Hampton Court Palace._
+
+
+  KATHARINE OF ARAGON                                   _To face page_  96
+
+    _From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the National
+    Portrait Gallery._
+
+
+  ANNE BOLEYN                                                "    "    192
+
+    _From a portrait by_ LUCAS CORNELISZ _in the National
+    Portrait Gallery._
+
+
+  JANE SEYMOUR                                               "    "    288
+
+    _From a painting by_ HOLBEIN _in the Imperial
+    Collection at Vienna._
+
+
+  ANNE OF CLEVES                                             "    "    336
+
+    _From a portrait by a German artist in St. John's
+    College, Oxford. Photographed by the Clarendon
+    Press, and reproduced by the kind permission of
+    the President of St. John's College._
+
+
+  KATHARINE HOWARD                                           "    "    384
+
+    _From a portrait by an unknown artist in the National
+    Portrait Gallery._
+
+
+  KATHARINE PARR                                             "    "    400
+
+    _From a painting in the collection of the_ EARL OF
+    ASHBURNHAM. _Reproduced by the kind permission of
+    the owner._
+
+
+  HENRY VIII                                                 "    "    432
+
+    _From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the possession of
+    the Earl of Warwick. Reproduced by the kind permission
+    of the owner._
+
+
+
+
+THE WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+1488-1501
+
+INTRODUCTORY--WHY KATHARINE CAME TO ENGLAND--POLITICAL MATRIMONY
+
+
+The history of modern Europe takes its start from an event which must have
+appeared insignificant to a generation that had witnessed the violent end
+of the English dominion in France, had been dinned by the clash of the
+Wars of the Roses, and watched with breathless fear the savage hosts of
+Islam striking at the heart of Christendom over the still smoking ruins of
+the Byzantine Empire.
+
+Late one night, in the beginning of October 1469, a cavalcade of men in
+the guise of traders halted beneath the walls of the ancient city of Burgo
+de Osma in Old Castile. They had travelled for many days by little-used
+paths through the mountains of Soria from the Aragonese frontier town of
+Tarrazona; and, impatient to gain the safe shelter of the fortress of
+Osma, they banged at the gates demanding admittance. The country was in
+anarchy. Leagues of churchmen and nobles warred against each other and
+preyed upon society at large. An impotent king, deposed with ignominy by
+one faction, had been as ignominiously set up again by another, and royal
+pretenders to the succession were the puppets of rival parties whose
+object was to monopolise for themselves all the fruits of royalty, whilst
+the monarch fed upon the husks. So when the new-comers called peremptorily
+for admittance within the gates of Osma, the guards upon the city walls,
+taking them for enemies or freebooters, greeted them with a shower of
+missiles from the catapults. One murderous stone whizzed within a few
+inches of the head of a tall, fair-haired lad of good mien and handsome
+visage, who, dressed as a servant, accompanied the cavalcade. If the
+projectile had effectively hit instead of missed the stripling, the whole
+history of the world from that hour to this would have been changed, for
+this youth was Prince Ferdinand, the heir of Aragon, who was being
+conveyed secretly by a faction of Castilian nobles to marry the Princess
+Isabel, who had been set forward as a pretender to her brother's throne,
+to the exclusion of the King's doubtful daughter, the hapless Beltraneja.
+A hurried cry of explanation went up from the travellers: a shouted
+password; the flashing of torches upon the walls, the joyful recognition
+of those within, and the gates swung open, the drawbridge dropped, and
+thenceforward Prince Ferdinand was safe, surrounded by the men-at-arms of
+Isabel's faction. Within a week the eighteen-years-old bridegroom greeted
+his bride, and before the end of the month Ferdinand and Isabel were
+married at Valladolid.
+
+To most observers it may have seemed a small thing that a petty prince in
+the extreme corner of Europe had married the girl pretender to the
+distracted and divided realm of Castile; but there was one cunning, wicked
+old man in Barcelona who was fully conscious of the importance of the
+match that he had planned; and he, John II. of Aragon, had found an apt
+pupil in his son Ferdinand, crafty beyond his years. To some extent Isabel
+must have seen it too, for she was already a dreamer of great dreams which
+she meant to come true, and the strength of Aragon behind her claim would
+insure her the sovereignty that was to be the first step in their
+realisation.
+
+This is not the place to tell how the nobles of Castile found to their
+dismay that in Ferdinand and Isabel they had raised a King Stork instead
+of King Log to the throne, and how the Queen, strong as a man, subtle as a
+woman, crushed and chicaned her realms into order and obedience. The aims
+of Ferdinand and his father in effecting the union of Aragon and Castile
+by marriage went far beyond the Peninsula in which they lived. For ages
+Aragon had found its ambitions checked by the consolidation of France. The
+vision of a great Romance empire, stretching from Valencia to Genoa, and
+governed from Barcelona or Saragossa, had been dissipated when Saint Louis
+wrung from James the Conqueror, in the thirteenth century, his recognition
+of French suzerainty over Provence.
+
+But Aragonese eyes looked still towards the east, and saw a Frenchman ever
+in their way. The Christian outpost in the Mediterranean, Sicily, already
+belonged to Aragon; so did the Balearic isles: but an Aragonese dynasty
+held Naples only in alternation and constant rivalry with the French house
+of Anjou; and as the strength of the French monarchy grew it stretched
+forth its hands nearer, and ever nearer, to the weak and divided
+principalities of Italy with covetous intent. Unless Aragon could check
+the French expansion across the Alps its own power in the Mediterranean
+would be dwarfed, its vast hopes must be abandoned, and it must settle
+down to the inglorious life of a petty State, hemmed in on all sides by
+more powerful neighbours. But although too weak to vanquish France alone,
+a King of Aragon who could dispose of the resources of greater Castile
+might hope, in spite of French opposition, to dominate a united Italy, and
+thence look towards the illimitable east. This was the aspiration that
+Ferdinand inherited, and to which the efforts of his long and strenuous
+life were all directed. The conquest of Granada, the unification of Spain,
+the greed, the cruelty, the lying, the treachery, the political marriages
+of all his children, and the fires of the Inquisition, were all means to
+the end for which he fought.
+
+But fate was unkind to him. The discovery of America diverted Castilian
+energy from Aragonese objects, and death stepped in and made grim sport of
+all his marriage jugglery. Before he died, beaten and broken-hearted, he
+knew that the little realm of his fathers, instead of using the strength
+of others for its aims, would itself be used for objects which concerned
+it not. But though he failed his plan was a masterly one. Treaties, he
+knew, were rarely binding, for the age was faithless, and he himself never
+kept an oath an hour longer than suited him; but mutual interests by
+kinship might hold sovereigns together against a common opponent. So, one
+after the other, from their earliest youth, the children of Ferdinand and
+Isabel were made political counters in their father's great marriage
+league. The eldest daughter, Isabel, was married to the heir of Portugal,
+and every haven into which French galleys might shelter in their passage
+from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay was at Ferdinand's bidding.
+The only son, John, was married to the daughter of Maximilian, King of the
+Romans, and (from 1493) Emperor, whose interest also it was to check the
+French advance towards north Italy and his own dominions. The second
+daughter, Juana, was married to the Emperor's son, Philip, sovereign, in
+right of his mother, of the rich inheritance of Burgundy, Flanders,
+Holland, and the Franche Comte, and heir to Austria and the Empire, who
+from Flanders might be trusted to watch the French on their northern and
+eastern borders; and the youngest of Ferdinand's daughters, Katharine, was
+destined almost from her birth to secure the alliance of England, the
+rival of France in the Channel, and the opponent of its aggrandisement
+towards the north.
+
+Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry Tudor, Henry VII., were well matched. Both
+were clever, unscrupulous, and greedy; each knew that the other would
+cheat him if he could, and tried to get the better of every deal, utterly
+regardless not only of truth and honesty but of common decency. But,
+though Ferdinand usually beat Henry at his shuffling game, fate finally
+beat Ferdinand, and a powerful modern England is the clearly traceable
+consequence. How the great result was brought about it is one of the
+principal objects of this book to tell. That Ferdinand had everything to
+gain by thus surrounding France by possible rivals in his own interests is
+obvious, for if his plans had not miscarried he could have diverted France
+whenever it suited him, and his way towards the east would have been
+clear; but at first sight the interest of Henry VII. in placing himself
+into a position of antagonism towards France for the benefit of the King
+of Spain is not so evident. The explanation must be found in the fact that
+he held the throne of England by very uncertain tenure, and sought to
+disarm those who would be most able and likely to injure him. The royal
+house of Castile had been closely allied to the Plantagenets, and both
+Edward IV. and his brother Richard had been suitors for the hand of
+Isabel. The Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy, moreover, was Margaret
+Plantagenet, their sister, who sheltered and cherished in Flanders the
+English adherents of her house; and Henry Tudor, half a Frenchman by birth
+and sympathies, was looked at askance by the powerful group of Spain, the
+Empire, and Burgundy when first he usurped the English throne. He knew
+that he had little or nothing to fear from France, and one of his earliest
+acts was in 1487 to bid for the friendship of Ferdinand by means of an
+offer of alliance, and the marriage of his son Arthur, Prince of Wales,
+then a year old, with the Infanta Katharine, who was a few months older.
+Ferdinand at the time was trying to bring about a match between his
+eldest daughter, Isabel, and the young King of France, Charles VIII., and
+was not very eager for a new English alliance which might alarm the
+French. Before the end of the year, however, it was evident that there was
+no chance of the Spanish Infanta's marriage with Charles VIII. coming to
+anything, and Ferdinand's plan for a great coalition against France was
+finally adopted.
+
+In the first days of 1488 Ferdinand's two ambassadors arrived in London to
+negotiate the English match, and the long duel of diplomacy between the
+Kings of England and Spain began. Of one of the envoys it behoves us to
+say something, because of the influence his personal character exercised
+upon subsequent events. Rodrigo de Puebla was one of the most
+extraordinary diplomatists that can be imagined, and could only have been
+possible under such monarchs as Henry and Ferdinand, willing as both of
+them were to employ the basest instruments in their underhand policy.
+Puebla was a doctor of laws and a provincial mayor when he attracted the
+attention of Ferdinand, and his first diplomatic mission of importance was
+that to England. He was a poor, vain, greedy man, utterly corrupt, and
+Henry VII. was able to dominate him from the first. In the course of time
+he became more of an intimate English minister than a foreign ambassador,
+though he represented at Henry's court not only Castile and Aragon, but
+also the Pope and the Empire. He constantly sat in the English council,
+and was almost the only man admitted to Henry's personal confidence. That
+such an instrument would be trusted entirely by the wary Ferdinand, was
+not to be expected: and though Puebla remained in England as ambassador
+to the end of his life, he was, to his bitter jealousy, always associated
+with others when important negotiations had to be conducted. Isabel wrote
+to him often, sometimes threatening him with punishment if he failed in
+carrying out his instructions satisfactorily, sometimes flattering him and
+promising him rewards, which he never got. He was recognised by Ferdinand
+as an invaluable means of gaining knowledge of Henry's real intentions,
+and by Henry as a tool for betraying Ferdinand. It is hardly necessary to
+say that he alternately sold both and was never fully paid by either.
+Henry offered him an English bishopric which his own sovereigns would not
+allow him to accept, and a wealthy wife in England was denied him for a
+similar reason; for Ferdinand on principle kept his agents poor. On a
+wretched pittance allowed him by Henry, Puebla lived thus in London until
+he died almost simultaneously with his royal friend. When not spunging at
+the tables of the King or English nobles he lived in a house of ill-fame
+in London, paying only twopence a day for his board, and cheating the
+other inmates, in the interests of the proprietor, for the balance. He
+was, in short, a braggart, a liar, a flatterer, and a spy, who served two
+rogues roguishly and was fittingly rewarded by the scorn of honest men.
+
+This was the ambassador who, with a colleague called Juan de Sepulveda,
+was occupied through the spring of 1488 in negotiating the marriage of the
+two babies--Arthur, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta Katharine. They found
+Henry, as Puebla says, singing _Te Deum Laudamus_ about the alliance and
+marriage: but when the parties came to close quarters matters went less
+smoothly. What Henry had to gain by the alliance was the disarming of
+possible enemies of his own unstable throne, whilst Ferdinand needed
+England's active or passive support in a war against France, for the
+purpose of extorting the restoration to Aragon of the territory of
+Roussillon and Cerdagne, and of preventing the threatened absorption of
+the Duchy of Brittany into the French monarchy. The contest was keen and
+crafty. First the English commissioners demanded with the Infanta a dowry
+so large as quite to shock Puebla; it being, as he said, five times as
+much as had been mentioned by English agents in Spain. Puebla and
+Sepulveda offered a quarter of the sum demanded, and hinted with pretended
+jocosity that it was a great condescension on the part of the sovereigns
+of Spain to allow their daughter to marry at all into such a parvenu
+family as the Tudors. After infinite haggling, both as to the amount and
+the form of the dowry, it was agreed by the ambassadors that 200,000 gold
+crowns of 4s. 2d. each should be paid in cash with the bride on her
+marriage. But the marriage was the least part of Ferdinand's object, if
+indeed he then intended, which is doubtful, that it should take place at
+all. What he wanted was the assurance of Henry's help against France; and,
+of all things, peace was the first need for the English king. When the
+demand was made therefore that England should go to war with France
+whenever Ferdinand chose to do so, and should not make peace without its
+ally, baited though the demand was with the hollow suggestion of
+recovering for England the territories of Normandy and Guienne, Henry's
+duplicity was brought into play. He dared not consent to such terms, but
+he wanted the benevolent regards of Ferdinand's coalition: so his
+ministers flattered the Spanish king, and vaguely promised "mounts and
+marvels" in the way of warlike aid, as soon as the marriage treaty was
+signed and sealed. Even Puebla wanted something more definite than this;
+and the English commissioners (the Bishop of Exeter and Giles Daubeney),
+"took a missal in their hands and swore in the most solemn way before the
+crucifix that it is the will of the King of England first to conclude the
+alliance and the marriage, and afterwards to make war upon the King of
+France, according to the bidding of the Catholic kings." Nor was this all:
+for when Puebla and his colleagues later in the day saw the King himself,
+Henry smiled at and flattered the envoys, and flourishing his bonnet and
+bowing low each time the names of Ferdinand and Isabel passed his lips,
+confirmed the oath of his ministers, "which he said we must accept for
+plain truth, unmingled with double dealing or falsehood."[1] Ferdinand's
+ambassadors were fairly dazzled. They were taken to see the infant
+bridegroom; and Puebla grew quite poetical in describing his bodily
+perfections, both dressed and _in puribus naturalibus_, and the beauty and
+magnificence of the child's mother were equally extolled. The object of
+all Henry's amiability, and, indeed, of Puebla's dithyrambics also, was to
+cajole Ferdinand into sending his baby daughter Katharine into England at
+once on the marriage treaty alone. With such a hostage in his hands, Henry
+knew that he might safely break his oath about going to war with France to
+please the Spanish king.
+
+But Ferdinand was not a man easy to cajole, and when hapless, simple
+Sepulveda reached Spain with the draft treaty he found himself in the
+presence of two very angry sovereigns indeed. Two hundred thousand crowns
+dowry, indeed! One hundred was the most they would give, and that must be
+in Spanish gold, or the King of England would be sure to cheat them over
+the exchange; and they must have three years in which to pay the amount,
+for which moreover no security should be given but their own signatures.
+The cost of the bride's trousseau and jewels also must be deducted from
+the amount of the dowry. On the other hand, the Infanta's dowry and income
+from England must be fully guaranteed by land rents; and, above all, the
+King of England must bind himself at the same time--secretly if he likes,
+but by formal treaty--to go to war with France to recover for Ferdinand
+Roussillon and Cerdagne. Though Henry would not go quite so far as this,
+he conceded much for the sake of the alliances so necessary to him. The
+dowry from Spain was kept at 200,000 crowns, and England was pledged to a
+war with France whenever Ferdinand should find himself in the same
+position.
+
+With much discussion and sharp practice on both sides the treaties in this
+sense were signed in March 1489, and the four-years-old Infanta Katharine
+became Princess of Wales. It is quite clear throughout this early
+negotiation that the marriage that should give to the powerful coalition
+of which Ferdinand was the head a family interest in the maintenance of
+the Tudor dynasty was Henry's object, to be gained on terms as easy as
+practicable to himself; whereas with Ferdinand the marriage was but the
+bait to secure the armed co-operation of England against France; and
+probably at the time neither of the kings had any intention of fulfilling
+that part of the bargain which did not specially interest him. As will be
+seen, however, the force of circumstances and the keenness of the
+contracting parties led eventually to a better fulfilment of the treaty
+than was probably intended.
+
+For the next two years the political intrigues of Europe centered around
+the marriage of the young Duchess of Brittany. Though Roussillon and
+Cerdagne mattered nothing to Henry VII., the disposal of the rich duchy
+opposite his own shores was of importance to him. France, Spain, England,
+and the Empire were all trying to outbid one another for the marriage of
+the Duchess; and, as Charles VIII. of France was the most dangerous
+suitor, Henry was induced to send his troops across the Channel to
+Brittany to join those of Spain and the Empire, though neither of the
+latter troops came. From the first all the allies were false to each
+other, and hastened to make separate terms with France; Ferdinand and
+Maximilian endeavouring above all to leave Henry at war. When, at the end
+of 1491, Charles VIII. carried off the matrimonial prize of the Duchess of
+Brittany and peace ensued, none of the allies had gained anything by
+their tergiversation. Reasons were soon found by Ferdinand for regarding
+the marriage treaty between Arthur and Katharine as in abeyance, and once
+more pressure was put upon Henry to buy its fulfilment by another warlike
+coalition. The King of England stood out for a time, especially against an
+alliance with the King of the Romans, who had acted so badly about
+Brittany; but at length the English contingent was led against Boulogne by
+the King himself, as part of the allied action agreed upon. This time,
+however, it was Henry who, to prevent the betrayal he foresaw, scored off
+his allies, and without striking a blow he suddenly made a separate peace
+with France (November 1492). But yet he was the only party who had not
+gained what he had bid for. Roussillon and Cerdagne were restored to
+Ferdinand, in consequence of Henry's threat against Boulogne; France had
+been kept in check during the time that all the resources of Spain were
+strained in the supreme effort to capture the last Moorish foothold in the
+Peninsula, the peerless Granada; the King of France had married the
+Duchess of Brittany and had thus consolidated and strengthened his realm;
+whilst Henry, to his chagrin, found that not only had he not regained
+Normandy and Guienne, but that in the new treaty of peace between Spain
+and France, "Ferdinand and Isabel engage their loyal word and faith as
+Christians, not to conclude or permit any marriage of their children with
+any member of the royal family of England; and they bind themselves to
+assist the King of France against all his enemies, and _particularly
+against the English_." This was Henry's first experience of Ferdinand's
+diplomacy, and he found himself outwitted at every point. Katharine, all
+unconscious as she conned her childish lessons at Granada, ceased for a
+time to be called "Princess of Wales."
+
+With the astute King of England thus cozened by Ferdinand, it is not
+wonderful that the vain and foolish young King of France should also have
+found himself no match for his new Spanish ally. Trusting upon his
+alliance, Charles VIII. determined to strike for the possession of the
+kingdom of Naples, which he claimed as representing the house of Anjou.
+Naples at the time was ruled by a close kinsman of Ferdinand, and it is
+not conceivable that the latter ever intended to allow the French to expel
+him for the purpose of ruling there themselves. But he smiled, not
+unkindly at first, upon Charles's Italian adventure, for he knew the
+French king was rash and incompetent, and that the march of a French army
+through Italy would arouse the hatred and fear of the Italian princes and
+make them easy tools in his hands. The King of Naples, moreover, was
+extremely unpopular and of illegitimate descent: and Ferdinand doubtless
+saw that if the French seized Naples he could not only effect a powerful
+coalition to expel them, but in the scramble might keep Naples for
+himself; and this is exactly what happened. The first cry against the
+French was raised by the Pope Alexander VI., a Spanish Borgia. By the time
+Charles VIII. of France was crowned King of Naples (May 1495) all Italy
+was ablaze against the intruders, and Ferdinand formed the Holy League--of
+Rome, Spain, Austria, Venice, and Milan--to crush his enemies.
+
+Then, as usual, he found it desirable to secure the benevolence of Henry
+VII. of England. Again Henry was delighted, for Perkin Warbeck had been
+received by Maximilian and his Flemish kinsmen as the rightful King of
+England, and the Yorkist nobles still found aid and sympathy in the
+dominions of Burgundy. But Henry had already been tricked once by the
+allies, and was far more difficult to deal with than before. He found
+himself, indeed, for the first time in the position which under his
+successors enabled England to rise to the world power she attained;
+namely, that of the balancing factor between France and Spain. This was
+the first result of Ferdinand's coalition against France for the purpose
+of forwarding Aragonese aims, and it remained the central point of
+European politics for the next hundred years. Henry was not the man to
+overlook his new advantage, with both of the great European powers bidding
+for his alliance; and this time he drove a hard bargain with Ferdinand.
+There was still much haggling about the Spanish dowry for Katharine, but
+Henry stood firm at the 200,000 gold crowns, though a quarter of the
+amount was to take the form of jewels belonging the bride. One stipulation
+was that the new marriage was to be kept a profound secret, in order that
+the King of Scots might not be alarmed; for Ferdinand was trying to draw
+even him away from France by hints of marriage with an Infanta. By the new
+treaty, which was signed in October 1497, the formal marriage of Arthur
+and Katharine _per verba de presenti_ was to be celebrated when Arthur
+had completed his fourteenth year; and the bride's dowry in England was to
+consist of a third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester, with
+an increase of the income when she became Queen.
+
+But it was not all plain sailing yet. Ferdinand considered that Henry had
+tricked him about the amount and form of the dowry, but the fear that the
+King of France might induce the English to enter into a new alliance with
+him kept Ferdinand ostensibly friendly. In the summer of 1598 two special
+Spanish ambassadors arrived in London, and saw the King for the purpose of
+confirming him in the alliance with their sovereigns, and, if we are to
+believe Puebla's account of the interview, both Henry and his Queen
+carried their expressions of veneration for Ferdinand and Isabel almost to
+a blasphemous extent. Henry, indeed, is said to have had a quarrel with
+his wife because she would not give him one of the letters from the
+Spanish sovereigns always to carry about with him, Elizabeth saying that
+she wished to send her letter to the Prince of Wales.
+
+But for all Henry's blandishments and friendliness, his constant requests
+that Katharine should be sent to England met with never-failing excuses
+and procrastination. It is evident, indeed, throughout that, although the
+Infanta was used as the attraction that was to keep Henry and England in
+the Spanish, instead of the French, interest, there was much reluctance on
+the part of her parents, and particularly of Queen Isabel, to trust her
+child, to whom she was much attached, to the keeping of a stranger, whose
+only object in desiring her presence was, she knew, a political one. Some
+anxiety was shown by Henry and his wife, on the other hand, that the young
+Princess should be trained in a way that would fit her for her future
+position in England. The Princess Margaret of Austria, daughter of
+Maximilian, who had just married Ferdinand's heir, Prince John, was in
+Spain, and Puebla reports that the King and Queen of England were anxious
+that Katharine should take the opportunity of speaking French with her, in
+order to learn the language. "This is necessary, because the English
+ladies do not understand Latin, and much less Spanish. The King and Queen
+also wish that the Princess should accustom herself to drink wine. The
+water of England is not drinkable, and even if it were, the climate would
+not allow the drinking of it." The necessary Papal Bulls for the marriage
+of the Prince and Princess arrived in 1498, and Henry pressed continually
+for the coming of the bride, but Ferdinand and Isabel were in no hurry.
+"The manner in which the marriage is to be performed, and the Princess
+sent to England, must all be settled first." "You must negotiate these
+points," they wrote to Puebla, "_but make no haste_."[2] Spanish envoys of
+better character and greater impartiality than Puebla urged that
+Katharine should be sent "before she had become too much attached to
+Spanish life and institutions"; though the writer of this admits the grave
+inconvenience of subjecting so young a girl to the disadvantages of life
+in Henry's court.
+
+Young Arthur himself, even, was prompted to use his influence to persuade
+his new wife to join him, writing to his "most entirely beloved spouse"
+from Ludlow in October 1499, dwelling upon his earnest desire to see her,
+as the delay in her coming is very grievous to him, and he begs it may be
+hastened. The final disappearance of Perkin Warbeck in 1499 greatly
+changed the position of Henry and made him a more desirable connection:
+and the death without issue of Ferdinand's only son and heir about the
+same time, also made it necessary for the Spanish king to draw his
+alliances closer, in view of the nearness to the succession of his second
+daughter, Juana, who had married Maximilian's son, the Archduke Philip,
+sovereign of Flanders, who, as well as his Spanish wife, were deeply
+distrusted by both Ferdinand and Isabel. In 1500, therefore, the Spanish
+sovereigns became more acquiescent about their daughter's coming to
+England. By Don Juan Manuel, their most skilful diplomatist, they sent a
+message to Henry in January 1500, saying that they had determined to send
+Katharine in the following spring without waiting until Arthur had
+completed his fourteenth year. The sums, they were told, that had already
+been spent in preparations for her reception in England were enormous, and
+when in March there was still no sign of the bride's coming, Henry VII.
+began to get restive. He and his country, he said, would suffer great
+loss if the arrival of the Princess were delayed. But just then Ferdinand
+found that the treaty was not so favourable for him as he had expected,
+and the whole of the conditions, particularly as to the payment of the
+dowry, and the valuation of the bride's jewels, had once more to be
+laboriously discussed; another Spanish ambassador being sent, to request
+fresh concessions. In vain Puebla told his master that when once the
+Princess arrived all England would be at his bidding, assured him of
+Henry's good faith, and his own ability as a diplomatist. Ferdinand always
+found some fresh subject to be wrangled over: the style to be given to the
+King of England, the number of servants to come in the train of Katharine,
+Henry desiring that they should be few and Ferdinand many, and one of the
+demands of the English king was, "that the ladies who came from Spain with
+the Princess should all be beautiful, or at least none of them should be
+ugly."
+
+In the summer of 1500 there was a sudden panic in Ferdinand's court that
+Henry had broken off the match. He had gone to Calais to meet for the
+first time the young Archduke Philip, Ferdinand's son-in-law, and it was
+rumoured that the distrusted Fleming had persuaded Henry to marry the
+Prince of Wales to his sister the Arch duchess Margaret, the recently
+widowed daughter in-law of Ferdinand. It was not true, though it made
+Ferdinand very cordial for a time, and soon the relations between England
+and Spain resumed their usual course of smooth-tongued distrust and
+tergiversation. Still another ambassador was sent to England, and
+reported that people were saying they believed the Princess would never
+come, though great preparations for her reception continued to be made,
+and the English nobles were already arranging jousts and tournaments for
+her entertainment. Ferdinand, on the other hand, continued to send
+reassuring messages. He was, he said, probably with truth now, more
+desirous than ever that the marriage should take place when the bridegroom
+had completed his fourteenth year; but it was necessary that the marriage
+should be performed again by proxy in Spain before the bride embarked.
+Then there was a delay in obtaining the ships necessary for the passage,
+and the Spanish sovereigns changed their minds again, and preferred that
+the second marriage, after Arthur had attained his fifteenth year, should
+be performed in England. The stormy weather of August was then an excuse
+for another delay on the voyage, and a fresh quibble was raised about the
+value of the Princess's jewels being considered as part of the _first_
+instalment of the dowry. In December 1500 the marriage was once more
+performed at Ludlow, Arthur being again present and pledging himself as
+before to Puebla.
+
+Whilst delaying the voyage of Katharine as much as possible, now probably
+in consequence of her youth, her parents took the greatest of care to
+convince Henry of the indissoluble character of the marriage as it stood.
+Knowing the King of England's weakness, Isabel wrote in March 1501
+deprecating the great expense he was incurring in the preparations. She
+did not wish, she said, for her daughter to cause a loss to England,
+either in money or any other way; but to be a source of happiness to
+every one. When all was ready for the embarkation at Corunna in April
+1501, an excuse for further delay was found in a rebellion of the Moors of
+Ronda, which prevented Ferdinand from escorting his daughter to the port;
+then both Isabel and Katharine had a fit of ague, which delayed the
+departure for another week or two. But at last the parting could be
+postponed no longer, and for the last time on earth Isabel the Catholic
+embraced her favourite daughter Katharine in the fairy palace of the
+Alhambra which for ever will be linked with the memories of her heroism.
+
+The Queen was still weak with fever, and could not accompany her daughter
+on the way, but she stood stately in her sternly suppressed grief,
+sustained by the exalted religious mysticism, which in her descendants
+degenerated to neurotic mania. Grief unutterable had stricken the Queen.
+Her only son was dead, and her eldest daughter and her infant heir had
+also gone to untimely graves. The hopes founded upon the marriages of
+their children had all turned to ashes, and the King and Queen saw with
+gloomy foreboding that their daughter Juana and her foreign husband would
+rule in Spain as well as in Flanders and the Empire, to Spain's
+irreparable disaster; and, worst of all, Juana had dared to dally with the
+hated thing heresy. In the contest of divided interest which they foresaw,
+it was of the utmost importance now to the Catholic kings that England at
+least should be firmly attached to them; and they dared no longer delay
+the sacrifice of Katharine to the political needs of their country.
+Katharine, young as she was, understood that she was being sent to a far
+country amongst strangers as much an ambassador as a bride, but she from
+her birth had been brought up in the atmosphere of ecstatic devotion that
+surrounded her heroic mother, and the din of battle against the enemies of
+the Christian God had rarely been silent in her childish ears. So, with
+shining eyes and a look of proud martyrdom, Katharine bade the Queen a
+last farewell, turned her back upon lovely Granada, and through the torrid
+summer of 1501 slowly traversed the desolate bridle-roads of La Mancha and
+arid Castile to the green valleys of Galicia, where, in the harbour of
+Corunna, her little fleet lay at anchor awaiting her.
+
+From the 21st of May, when she last looked upon the Alhambra, it took her
+nearly two months of hard travel to reach Corunna, and it was almost a
+month more before all was ready for the embarkation with the great train
+of courtiers and servants that accompanied her. On the 17th August 1501
+the flotilla sailed from Corunna, only to be stricken the next day by a
+furious north-easterly gale and scattered; the Princess's ship, in dire
+danger, being driven into the little port of Laredo in the north of Spain.
+There Katharine was seriously ill, and another long delay occurred, the
+apprehension that some untoward accident had happened to the Princess at
+sea causing great anxiety to the King of England, who sent his best seamen
+to seek tidings of the bride. The season was late, and when, on the 26th
+September 1501, Katharine again left Laredo for England, even her stout
+heart failed at the prospect before her. A dangerous hurricane from the
+south accompanied her across the Channel and drove the ships finally into
+the safety of Plymouth harbour on Saturday the 2nd October 1501.
+
+The Princess was but little expected at Plymouth, as Southampton or
+Bristol had been recommended as the best ports for her arrival; and great
+preparations had been made for her reception at both those ports. But the
+Plymouth folk were nothing backward in their loyal welcome of the new
+Princess of Wales; for one of the courtiers who accompanied her wrote to
+Queen Isabel that "she could not have been received with greater
+rejoicings if she had been the saviour of the world." As she went in
+solemn procession through the streets to the church of Plymouth to give
+thanks for her safety from the perils past, with foreign speech sounding
+in her ears and surrounded by a curious crowd of fair folk so different
+from the swarthy subjects of her mother that she had left behind at
+Granada, the girl of sixteen might well be appalled at the magnitude of
+the task before her. She knew that henceforward she had, by diplomacy and
+woman's wit, to keep the might and wealth of England and its king on the
+side of her father against France; to prevent any coalition between her
+new father-in-law and her brother-in-law Philip in Flanders in which Spain
+was not included; and, finally, to give an heir to the English throne,
+who, in time to come, should be Aragonese in blood and sympathy.
+Thenceforward Katharine must belong to England in appearance if her
+mission was to succeed; and though Spain was always in her heart as the
+exotic pomegranate of Granada was on her shield, England in future was the
+name she conjured by, and all England loved her, from the hour she first
+set foot on English soil to the day of the final consummation of her
+martyrdom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+1501-1509
+
+KATHARINE'S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND
+
+
+The arrival of Katharine in England as his son's affianced wife meant very
+much for Henry VII. and his house. He had already, by a master-stroke of
+diplomacy, betrothed his eldest daughter to the King of Scots, and was
+thus safe from French intrigue on his vulnerable northern border, whilst
+the new King of France was far too apprehensive of Ferdinand's coalition
+to arouse the active enmity of England. The presence of Ferdinand's
+daughter on English soil completed the security against attack upon Henry
+from abroad. It is true that the Yorkists and their friends were still
+plotting: "Solicited, allured and provoked, by that old venomous serpent,
+the Duchess of Burgundy, ever the sower of sedition and beginner of
+rebellion against the King of England;"[3] but Henry knew well that with
+Katharine at his Court he could strike a death-blow, as he soon did, at
+his domestic enemies, without fear of reprisals from her brother-in-law
+Philip, the present sovereign of Burgundy and Flanders.
+
+Messengers were sent galloping to London to carry to the King the great
+news of Katharine's arrival at Plymouth; but the roads were bad, and it
+was not Henry's way to spoil his market by a show of over-eagerness, and
+though he sent forward the Duchess of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey to
+attend upon the Princess on her way towards London, the royal party did
+not set out from Shene Palace to meet her until the 4th November.
+Travelling through a drenching rain by short stages from one seat to
+another, Henry VII. and his daughter-in-law gradually approached each
+other with their splendid troops of followers, all muffled up, we are
+told, in heavy rain cloaks to shield their finery from the inclemency of
+an English winter. Young Arthur, coming from the seat of his government in
+Wales, met his father near Chertsey, and together they continued their
+journey towards the west. On the third day, as they rode over the
+Hampshire downs, they saw approaching them a group of horsemen, the leader
+of which dismounted and saluted the King in Latin with a message from
+Ferdinand and Isabel. Ladies in Spain were kept in strict seclusion until
+their marriage, and the messenger, who was the Protonotary Canazares, sent
+with Katharine to England to see that Spanish etiquette was not violated,
+prayed in the name of his sovereigns that the Infanta should not be seen
+by the King, and especially by the bridegroom, until the public marriage
+was performed. This was a part of the bargain that the cautious Puebla had
+not mentioned, and Henry was puzzled at such a request in his own realm,
+where no such oriental regard for women was known. Hastily taking counsel
+of the nobles on horseback about him, he decided that, as the Infanta was
+in England, she must abide by English customs. Indeed the demand for
+seclusion seems to have aroused the King's curiosity, for, putting spurs
+to his horse, with but a small following, and leaving the boy bridegroom
+behind, he galloped on to Dogmersfield, at no great distance away, where
+the Infanta was awaiting his arrival. When he came to the house in which
+she lodged, he found a little group of horrified Spanish prelates and
+nobles, the Archbishop of Santiago, the Bishop of Majorca, and Count
+Cabra, at the door of the Infanta's apartments, barring entrance. The
+Princess had, they said, retired to her chamber and ought not to be
+disturbed. There was no restraining a king in his own realm, however, and
+Henry brushed the group aside. "Even if she were in bed," he said, "he
+meant to see and speak with her, for that was the whole intent of his
+coming."
+
+Finding that Spanish etiquette would not be observed in England, Katharine
+made the best of matters and received Henry graciously, though evidently
+her Latin and French were different from his; for they were hardly
+intelligible to one another. Then, after the King had changed his
+travelling garb, he sent word that he had a present for the Princess; and
+led in the blushing Prince Arthur to the presence of his bride. The
+conversation now was more easily conducted, for the Latin-speaking bishops
+were close by to interpret. Once more, and for the fourth time, the young
+couple formally pledged their troth; and then after supper the Spanish
+minstrels played, and the ladies and gentlemen of Katharine's suite
+danced: young Arthur, though unable to dance in the Spanish way, trod an
+English measure with Lady Guildford to show that he was not unversed in
+courtly graces.[4]
+
+Arthur appears to have been a slight, fair, delicate lad, amiable and
+gentle, and not so tall as his bride, who was within a month of sixteen
+years, Arthur being just over fifteen. Katharine must have had at this
+time at least the grace of girlhood, though she never can have been a
+great beauty. Like most of her mother's house she had pale, rather hard,
+statuesque features and ruddy hair. As we trace her history we shall see
+that most of her mistakes in England, and she made many, were the natural
+result of the uncompromising rigidity of principle arising from the
+conviction of divine appointment which formed her mother's system. She had
+been brought up in the midst of a crusading war, in which the victors drew
+their inspiration, and ascribed their triumph, to the special intervention
+of the Almighty in their favour; and already Katharine's house had assumed
+as a basis of its family faith that the cause of God was indissolubly
+linked with that of the sovereigns of Castile and Leon. It was impossible
+that a woman brought up in such a school could be opportunist, or would
+bend to the petty subterfuges and small complaisances by which men are
+successfully managed; and Katharine suffered through life from the
+inflexibility born of self-conscious rectitude.
+
+Slowly through the rain the united cavalcades travelled back by Chertsey;
+and the Spanish half then rode to Kingston, where the Duke of Buckingham,
+with four hundred retainers in black and scarlet, met the bride, and so
+to the palace at Kennington hard by Lambeth, where Katharine was lodged
+until the sumptuous preparations for the public marriage at St. Paul's
+were completed. To give a list of all the splendours that preceded the
+wedding would be as tedious as it is unnecessary; but a general impression
+of the festivities as they struck a contemporary will give us a far better
+idea than a close catalogue of the wonderful things the Princess saw as
+she rode her white palfrey on the 12th November through Southwark, over
+London Bridge, and by Cheapside to the Bishop of London's house adjoining
+St. Paul's. "And, because I will not be tedious to you, I pass over the
+wise devices, the prudent speeches, the costly works, the cunning
+portraitures, practised and set forth in seven beautiful pageants erected
+and set up in divers places of the city. I leave also the goodaly ballds,
+the sweet harmony, the musical instruments, which sounded with heavenly
+noise in every side of the street. I omit the costly apparel, both of
+goldsmith's work and embroidery, the rich jewels, the massy chains, the
+stirring horses, the beautiful bards, and the glittering trappers, both
+with bells and spangles of gold. I pretermit also the rich apparel of the
+Princess, the strange fashion of the Spanish nation, the beauty of the
+English ladies, the goodly demeanour of the young damosels, the amorous
+countenance of the lusty bachelors. I pass over the fine engrained
+clothes, the costly furs of the citizens, standing upon scaffolds, railed
+from Gracechurch to St. Paul's. What should I speak of the odoriferous
+scarlets, and fine velvet and pleasant furs, and rich chains, which the
+Mayor of London with the Senate, sitting on horseback at the little
+conduit in Chepe, ware upon their bodies and about their necks. I will not
+molest you with rehearsing the rich arras, the costly tapestry, the fine
+cloths of silver and of gold, the curious velvets and satins, the pleasant
+silks, which did hang in every street where she passed; the wine that ran
+out of the conduits, the gravelling and railing of the streets, and all
+else that needeth not remembring."[5] In short, we may conclude that
+Katharine's passage through London before her wedding was as triumphal as
+the citizens could make it. Even the common people knew that her presence
+in England made for security and peace, and her Lancastrian descent from
+John of Gaunt seemed to add promise of legitimacy to future heirs to the
+crown.
+
+A long raised gangway of timber handsomely draped ran from the great west
+door of St. Paul's to the entrance to the choir. Near the end of the
+gangway there was erected upon it a high platform, reached by steps on
+each side, with room on the top for eight persons to stand. On the north
+side of the platform sat the King and Queen incognito in a tribune
+supposed to be private; whilst the corporation of London were ranged on
+the opposite side. The day of the ceremony was the 14th November 1501,
+Sunday and the day of St. Erkenwald, and all London was agog to see the
+show. Nobles and knights from every corner of the realm, glittering and
+flashing in their new finery, had come to do honour to the heir of
+England and his bride. Both bride and bridegroom were dressed in white
+satin, and they stood together, a comely young pair, upon the high scarlet
+stage to be married for the fifth time, on this occasion by the Archbishop
+of Canterbury. Then, after mass had been celebrated at the high altar with
+Archbishops, and mitred prelates by the dozen, a procession was formed to
+lead the newly married couple to the Bishop of London's palace across the
+churchyard. The stately bride, looking older than her years, came first,
+followed by a hundred ladies; and whilst on her left hand there hobbled
+the disreputable, crippled old ambassador, Dr. Puebla, the greatest day of
+whose life this was, on the other side the Princess was led by the most
+engaging figure in all that vast assembly. It was that of a graceful
+little boy of ten years in white velvet and gold; his bearing so gallant
+and sturdy, his skin so dazzlingly fair, his golden hair so shining, his
+smile so frank, that a rain of blessings showered upon him as he passed.
+This was the bridegroom's brother, Henry, Duke of York, who in gay
+unconsciousness was leading his own fate by the hand.
+
+Again the details of crowds of lords and ladies in their sumptuous
+garments, of banquets and dancing, of chivalric jousts and puerile
+maskings, may be left to the imagination of the reader. When magnificence
+at last grew palling, the young bride and bridegroom were escorted to
+their chamber in the Bishop of London's palace, with the broad
+suggestiveness then considered proper in all well-conducted weddings, and
+duly recorded in this case by the courtly chroniclers of the times. In
+the morning Arthur called at the door of the nuptial chamber to his
+attendants for a draught of liquor. To the bantering question of the
+chamberlain as to the cause of his unaccustomed thirst, it was not
+unnatural, considering the free manners of the day, that the Prince should
+reply in a vein of boyish boastfulness, with a suggestion which was
+probably untrue regarding the aridity of the Spanish climate and his own
+prowess as being the causes of his droughtiness. In any case this
+indelicate bit of youthful swagger of Arthur's was made, nearly thirty
+years afterwards, one of the principal pieces of evidence gravely brought
+forward to prove the illegality of Katharine's marriage with Henry.
+
+On the day following the marriage the King and Queen came in full state to
+congratulate the newly married pair, and led them to the abode that had
+been elaborately prepared for them at Baynard's Castle, whose ancient keep
+frowned over the Thames, below Blackfriars. On the Thursday following the
+feast was continued at Westminster with greater magnificence than ever. In
+a splendid tribune extending from Westminster Hall right across what is
+now Parliament Square sat Katharine with all the royal family and the
+Court, whilst the citizens crowded the stands on the other side of the
+great space reserved for the tilters. Invention was exhausted by the
+greater nobles in the contrivances by which they sought to make their
+respective entries effective. One had borne over him a green erection
+representing a wooded mount, crowded with allegorical animals; another
+rode under a tent of cloth of gold, and yet another pranced into the lists
+mounted upon a stage dragon led by a fearsome giant; and so the pageantry
+that seems to us so trite, and was then considered so exquisite, unrolled
+itself before the enraptured eyes of the lieges who paid for it all. How
+gold plate beyond valuation was piled upon the sideboards at the great
+banquet after the tilt in Westminster Hall, how Katharine and one of her
+ladies danced Spanish dances and Arthur led out his aunt Cicely, how
+masques and devices innumerable were paraded before the hosts and guests,
+and, above all, how the debonair little Duke of York charmed all hearts by
+his dancing with his elder sister; and, warming to his work, cast off his
+coat and footed it in his doublet, cannot be told here, nor the ceremony
+in which Katharine distributed rich prizes a few days afterwards to the
+successful tilters. There was more feasting and mumming at Shene to
+follow, but at last the celebration wore itself out, and Arthur and his
+wife settled down for a time to married life in their palace at Baynard's
+Castle.
+
+King Henry in his letter to the bride's parents, expresses himself as
+delighted with her "beauty and agreeable and dignified manners," and
+promises to be to her "a second father, who will ever watch over her, and
+never allow her to lack anything that he can procure for her." How he kept
+his promise we shall see later; but there is no doubt that her marriage
+with his son was a great relief to him, and enabled him, first to cast his
+net awide and sweep into its meshes all the gentry of England who might be
+presumed to wish him ill, and secondly to send Empson and Dudley abroad to
+wring from the well-to-do classes the last ducat that could be squeezed
+in order that he might buttress his throne with wealth. Probably Arthur's
+letter to Ferdinand and Isabel written at the same time (November 30,
+1501) was drafted by other hands than his own, but the terms in which he
+expresses his satisfaction with his wife are so warm that they doubtless
+reflect the fact that he really found her pleasant. "He had never," he
+assured them, "felt so much joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet
+face of his bride, and no woman in the world could be more agreeable to
+him."[6] The honeymoon was a short, and could hardly have been a merry,
+one; for Arthur was obviously a weakling, consumptive some chroniclers
+aver; and the grim old castle by the river was not a lively abode.
+
+Before the marriage feast were well over, Henry's avarice began to make
+things unpleasant for Katharine. We have seen how persistent he had been
+in his demands that the dowry should be paid to him in gold, and how the
+bride's parents had pressed that the jewels and plate she took with her
+should be considered as part of the dowry. On Katharine's wedding the
+first instalment of 100,000 crowns had been handed to Henry by the
+Archbishop of Santiago, and there is no doubt that in the negotiations
+Puebla had, as usual with him, thought to smooth matters by concealing
+from both sovereigns the inconvenient conditions insisted by each of them.
+Henry therefore imagined--he said that he was led to believe it by
+Puebla--that the jewels and plate were to be surrendered to him on a
+valuation as part of the second instalment; whereas the bride's parents
+were allowed to suppose that Katharine would still have the enjoyment of
+them. In the middle of December, therefore, Henry sent for Juan de Cuero,
+Katharine's chamberlain, and demanded the valuables as an instalment of
+the remaining 100,000 crowns of the dowry. Cuero, astounded at such a
+request, replied that it would be his duty to have them weighed and valued
+and a list given to the King in exchange for a receipt for their value,
+but that he had not to give them up. The King, highly irate at what he
+considered an evasion of his due, pressed his demand, but without avail,
+and afterwards saw Katharine herself at Baynard's Castle in the presence
+of Dona Elvira Manuel, her principal lady in waiting.
+
+What was the meaning of it, he asked, as he told her of Cuero's refusal to
+surrender her valuables in fulfilment of the promise, and further exposed
+Puebla's double-dealing. Puebla, it appears, had gone to the King, and had
+suggested that if his advice was followed the jewels would remain in
+England, whilst their value would be paid to Henry in money as well. He
+had, he assured the King, already gained over Katharine to the plan, which
+briefly was to allow the Princess to use the jewels and plate for the
+present, so that when the time came for demanding their surrender her
+father and mother would be ashamed of her being deprived of them, and
+would pay their value in money. Henry explained to Katharine that he was
+quite shocked at such a dishonest suggestion, which he refused, he said,
+to entertain. He had therefore asked for the valuables at once as he saw
+that there was craft at work, and he would be no party to it. He
+acknowledged, however, that the jewels were not due to be delivered until
+the last payment on account of the dowry had to be made. It was all
+Puebla's fault, he assured his daughter-in-law, which was probably true,
+though it will be observed that the course pursued allowed Henry to assert
+his eventual claim to the surrender of the jewels, and his many
+professions of disinterestedness cloaked the crudeness of his demand.
+
+The next day Henry sent for Bishop Ayala, who was Puebla's colleague and
+bitter enemy, and told him that Prince Arthur must be sent to Wales soon,
+and that much difference of opinion existed as to whether Katharine should
+accompany him. What did Ayala advise? The Spaniard thought that the
+Princess should remain with the King and Queen in London for the present,
+rather than go to Wales where the Prince must necessarily be absent from
+her a good deal, and she would be lonely. When Katharine herself was
+consulted by Henry she would express no decided opinion; and Arthur was
+worked upon by his father to persuade her to say that she wished to go to
+Wales. Finding that Katharine still avoided the expression of an opinion,
+Henry, with a great show of sorrow, decided that she should accompany
+Arthur. Then came the question of the maintenance of the Princess's
+household. Puebla had again tried to please every one by saying that Henry
+would provide a handsome dotation for the purpose, but when Dona Elvira
+Manuel, on the eve of the journey to Wales, asked the King what provision
+he was going to make, he feigned the utmost surprise at the question. He
+knew nothing about it, he said. The Prince would of course maintain his
+wife and her necessary servants, but no special separate grant could be
+made to the Princess. When Puebla was brought to book he threw the blame
+upon the members of Katharine's household, and was publicly rebuked by
+Henry for his shiftiness. But the Spaniards believed, probably with
+reason, that the whole comedy was agreed upon between the King and Puebla
+to obtain possession of the plate and jewels or their value: the sending
+of the Princess to Wales being for the purpose of making it necessary that
+she should use the objects, and so give good grounds for a demand for
+their value in money on the part of Henry. In any case Katharine found
+herself, only five weeks after her marriage, with an unpaid and
+inharmonious household, dependent entirely upon her husband for her needs,
+and conscious that an artful trick was in full execution with the object
+of either depriving her of her personal jewels, and everything of value,
+with which she had furnished her husband's table as well as her own, or
+else of extorting a large sum of money from her parents. Embittered
+already with such knowledge as this, Katharine rode by her husband's side
+out of Baynard's Castle on the 21st December 1501 to continue on the long
+journey to Wales,[7] after passing their Christmas at Oxford.
+
+The plague was rife throughout England, and on the 2nd April 1502 Arthur,
+Prince of Wales, fell a victim to it at Ludlow. Here was an unforeseen
+blow that threatened to deprive both Henry and Ferdinand of the result of
+their diplomacy. For Ferdinand the matter was of the utmost importance;
+for an approachment of England and Scotland to France would upset the
+balance of power he had so laboriously constructed, already threatened, as
+it was, by the prospect that his Flemish son-in-law Philip and his wife
+would wear the crowns of the Empire, Flanders, and Burgundy, as well as
+those of Spain and its possessions; in which case, he thought, Spanish
+interests would be the last considered. The news of the unexpected
+catastrophe was greeted in London with real sorrow, for Arthur was
+promising and popular, and both Henry and his queen were naturally
+attached to their elder son, just approaching manhood, upon whose training
+they had lavished so much care. Though Henry's grief at his loss may have
+been as sincere as that of Elizabeth of York certainly was, his natural
+inclinations soon asserted themselves. Ludlow was unhealthy, and after the
+pompous funeral of Arthur at Worcester, Katharine and her household prayed
+earnestly to be allowed to approach London, but for some weeks without
+success, and by the time she arrived at her new abode at Croydon, the
+political intrigues of which she was the tool were in full swing again.
+
+When Ferdinand and Isabel first heard the news of their daughter's
+bereavement at the beginning of May they were at Toledo, and lost no time
+in sending off post haste to England a fresh ambassador with special
+instructions from themselves. The man they chose was the Duke de Estrada,
+whose only recommendation seems to have been his rank, for Puebla was soon
+able to twist him round his finger. His mission, as we now know, was an
+extraordinary and delicate one. Ostensibly he was to demand the immediate
+return of the 100,000 crowns paid to Henry on account of dowry, and the
+firm settlement upon Katharine of the manors and rents, securing to her
+the revenue assigned to her in England, and at the same time he was to
+urge Henry to send Katharine back to Spain at once. But these things were
+really the last that Ferdinand desired. He knew full well that Henry would
+go to any length to avoid disgorging the dowry, and secret instructions
+were given to Estrada to effect a betrothal between the ten-years-old
+Henry, Duke of York, and his brother's widow of sixteen. Strict orders
+also were sent to Puebla of a character to forward the secret design,
+although he was not fully informed of the latter. He was to press amongst
+other things that Katharine might receive her English revenue
+punctually--Katharine, it appears, had written to her parents, saying that
+she had been advised to borrow money for the support of her household; and
+the King and Queen of Spain were indignant at such an idea. Not a
+farthing, they said, must she be allowed to borrow, and none of her jewels
+sold: the King of England must provide for her promptly and handsomely,
+in accordance with his obligations. This course, as the writers well
+knew, would soon bring Henry VII. himself to propose the marriage for
+which Ferdinand was so anxious. Henry professed himself very ready to make
+the settlement of the English income as requested, but in such case, he
+claimed that the whole of the Spanish dowry in gold must be paid to him.
+Ferdinand could not see it in this light at all, and insisted that the
+death of Arthur had dissolved the marriage. This fencing went on for some
+time, neither party wishing to be the first to propose the indecorous
+marriage with Henry that both desired.[8] It is evident that Puebla and
+the chaplain Alexander opposed the match secretly, and endeavoured to
+thwart it, either from an idea of its illegality or, more probably, with a
+view of afterwards bringing it about themselves. In the midst of this
+intrigue the King of France suddenly attacked Ferdinand both in Italy and
+on the Catalonian frontier, and made approaches to Henry for the marriage
+of his son with a French princess. This hurried the pace in Spain, and
+Queen Isabel ordered Estrada to carry through the betrothal of Katharine
+and her brother-in-law without loss of time, "for any delay would be
+dangerous." So anxious were the Spanish sovereigns that nothing should
+stand in the way, that they were willing to let the old arrangement about
+the dowry stand, Henry retaining the 100,000 crowns already paid, and
+receiving, when the marriage was consummated, the remaining 100,000; on
+condition that in the meanwhile Katharine was properly maintained in
+England. Even the incestuous nature of the union was to be no bar to its
+being effected, though no Papal dispensation had been yet obtained. Isabel
+sought salve for her conscience in this respect by repeating Dona Elvira
+Manuel's assurance that Katharine still remained intact; her marriage with
+Arthur not having been consummated. To lure Henry into an armed alliance
+against France once more, the old bait of the recovery of Normandy and
+Guienne was dangled before him. But the King of England played with a
+firmer hand now. He knew his worth as a balancing factor, his accumulated
+treasure made him powerful, and he held all the cards in his hand; for the
+King of Scots was his son-in-law, and the French were as anxious for his
+smiles as were the Spanish sovereigns. So he stood off and refused to
+pledge himself to a hostile alliance.
+
+In view of this Ferdinand and Isabel's tone changed, and they developed a
+greater desire than ever to have their daughter--and above all her
+dowry--returned to them. "We cannot endure," wrote Isabel to Estrada on
+the 10th August 1502, "that a daughter whom we love should be so far away
+from us in her trouble.... You shall ... tell the King of England that you
+have our orders to freight vessels for her voyage. To this end you must
+make such a show of giving directions and preparing for the voyage that
+the members of the Princess's household may believe that it is true. Send
+also some of her household on board with the captain I am now sending you
+... and show all signs of departure." If in consequence the English spoke
+of the betrothal with young Henry, the ambassador was to show no desire
+for it; but was to listen keenly to all that was proposed, and if the
+terms were acceptable he might clinch the matter at once without further
+reference. And then the saintly Queen concludes thus: "The one object of
+this business is to bring the betrothal to a conclusion as soon as
+possible in conformity with your instructions. For then all our anxiety
+will cease and we shall be able to seek the aid of England against France,
+for this is the most efficient aid we can have." Henry was not for the
+moment to be frightened by fresh demands for his armed alliance against
+France. The betrothal was to be forwarded first, and then the rest would
+follow. Puebla, who was quite confident that he alone could carry on the
+marriage negotiation successfully, was also urged by mingled flattery and
+threats by his sovereign to do his utmost with that end.
+
+Whilst this diplomatic haggling was going on in London for the disposal of
+the widowed Katharine to the best advantage, a blow fell that for a moment
+changed the aspect of affairs. Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII.,
+died on the 11th February 1503, in the Tower of London, a week after
+giving birth to her seventh child. She had been a good and submissive wife
+to the King, whose claim to the throne she had fortified by her own
+greater right; and we are told that the bereaved husband was "heavy and
+dolorous" with his loss when he retired to a solitary place to pass his
+sorrow; but before many weeks were over he and his crony Puebla put their
+crafty heads together, and agreed that the King might marry his widowed
+daughter-in-law himself. The idea was cynically repulsive but it gives us
+the measure of Henry's unscrupulousness. Puebla conveyed the hint to
+Isabel and Ferdinand, who, to do them justice, appeared to be really
+shocked at the suggestion. This time (April 1503) the Spanish sovereigns
+spoke with more sincerity than before. They were, they told their
+ambassador, tired of Henry's shiftiness, and of their daughter's equivocal
+and undignified position in England, now that the Queen was dead and the
+betrothal still hung fire. The Princess was really to come to Spain in a
+fleet that should be sent for her, unless the marriage with the young
+Prince of Wales was agreed to at once. As for a wife for King Henry there
+was the widowed Queen of Naples, Ferdinand's niece, who lived in Valencia,
+and he might have her with the blessing of the Spanish sovereigns.[9] The
+suggestion was a tempting one to Henry, for the Queen of Naples was well
+dowered, and the vigour of Isabel's refusal to listen to his marriage with
+her daughter, made it evident that that was out of the question. So Henry
+at last made up his mind at least to execute the treaty which was to
+betroth his surviving son to Katharine. In the treaty, which was signed on
+the 23rd June 1503, it is set forth that, inasmuch as the bride and
+bridegroom were related in the first degree of affinity, a Papal
+dispensation would be necessary for the marriage; and it is distinctly
+stated that the marriage with Arthur had been consummated. This may have
+been a diplomatic form considered at the time unimportant in view of the
+ease with which a dispensation could be obtained, but it is at direct
+variance with Dona Elvira Manuel's assurance to Isabel at the time of
+Arthur's death, and with Katharine's assertion, uncontradicted by Henry,
+to the end of her life.
+
+Henry, Prince of Wales, was at this time twelve years old; and, if we are
+to believe Erasmus, a prodigy of precocious scholarship. Though his
+learning was superficial and carefully made the most of, he was, in
+effect, an apt and diligent student. From the first his mother and father
+had determined that their children should enjoy better educational
+advantages than had fallen to them, and as Henry had been until Arthur's
+death intended for the Church, his learning was far in advance of that of
+most princes and nobles of his age. The bride, who thus became unwillingly
+affianced to a boy more than five years her junior, was now a young woman
+in her prime, experienced already in the chicane and falsity of the
+atmosphere in which she lived. She knew, none better, that in the juggle
+for her marriage she had been regarded as a mere chattel, and her own
+inclinations hardly taken into account, and she faced her responsibilities
+bravely in her mother's exalted spirit of duty and sacrifice when she
+found herself once more Princess of Wales.
+
+When Ferdinand, in accordance with his pledge in the treaty, instructed
+his ambassador in Rome to ask for the Pope's dispensation, he took care to
+correct the statement embodied in the document to the effect that the
+marriage of Arthur and Katharine had been consummated; though the question
+might pertinently be asked, why, if it had not been, a dispensation was
+needed at all? The King himself answered the question by saying that "as
+the English are so much inclined to cavil, it appeared prudent to provide
+for the case as if the previous marriage had been completed; and the
+dispensation must be worded in accordance with the treaty, since the
+succession to the Crown depends on the undoubted legitimacy of the
+marriage."[10] No sooner was the ratification of the betrothal conveyed to
+Ferdinand than he demanded the aid of Henry against France, and Estrada
+was instructed to "make use of" Katharine to obtain the favour demanded.
+If Henry hesitated to provide the money for raising the 2000 English
+troops required, Katharine herself was to be asked by her kind father to
+pawn her plate and jewels for the purpose. Henry, however, had no
+intention to be hurried now that the betrothal had been signed. There were
+several things he wanted on his side first. The Earl of Suffolk and his
+brother Richard Pole were still in Flanders; and the greatest wish of
+Henry's life was that they should be handed over to his tender mercies.
+So the armed coalition against France still hung fire, whilst a French
+ambassador was as busy courting the King of England as Ferdinand himself.
+In the meanwhile Katharine for a time lived in apparent amity with Henry
+and his family, especially with the young Princess Mary, who was her
+constant companion. In the autumn of 1504 she passed a fortnight with them
+at Windsor and Richmond, hunting every day; but just as the King was
+leaving Greenwich for a progress through Kent the Princess fell seriously
+ill, and the letters written by Henry during his absence to his
+daughter-in-law are worded as if he were the most affectionate of fathers.
+On this progress the Prince of Wales accompanied his father for the first
+time, as the King had previously been loath to disturb his studies. "It is
+quite wonderful," wrote an observer, "how much the King loves the Prince.
+He has good reason to do so, for he deserves all his love." Already the
+crafty and politic King was indoctrinating his son in the system he had
+made his own: that the command of ready money, gained no matter how, meant
+power, and that to hold the balance between two greater rivals was to have
+them both at his bidding. And young Henry, though of different nature from
+his father, made good use of his lesson.
+
+Katharine's greatest trouble at this time (the autumn of 1504) was the
+bickering, and worse, of her Spanish household. We have already seen how
+Puebla had set them by the ears with his jealousy of his colleagues and
+his dodging diplomacy. Katharine appealed to Henry to bring her servants
+to order, but he refused to interfere, as they were not his subjects.
+Dona Elvira Manuel, the governess, was a great lady, and resented any
+interference with her domain.[11] There is no doubt that her rule, so far
+as regarded the Princess herself, was a wise one; but, as we shall see
+directly, she, Castilian that she was and sister of the famous diplomatist
+Juan Manuel, took up a position inimical to Ferdinand after Isabel's
+death, and innocently led Katharine into grave political trouble.
+
+In November 1504 the death of Isabel, Queen of Castile, long threatened
+after her strenuous life, changed the whole aspect for Ferdinand. The
+heiress of the principal crown of Spain was now Katharine's sister Juana,
+who had lived for years in the latitudinarian court of Brussels with her
+consort Philip. The last time she had gone to Spain, her freedom towards
+the strict religious observances considered necessary in her mother's
+court had led to violent scenes between Isabel and Juana. Even then the
+scandalised Spanish churchmen who flocked around Isabel whispered that the
+heiress of Castile must be mad: and her foreign husband, the heir of the
+empire, was hated and distrusted by the "Catholic kings." Isabel by her
+will had left her husband guardian of her realms for Juana; and from the
+moment the Queen breathed her last the struggle between Ferdinand and his
+son-in-law never ceased, until Philip the Handsome, who thought he had
+beaten wily old Ferdinand, himself was beaten by poison. The death of her
+mother not only threw Katharine into natural grief for her loss, which
+truly was a great one; for, at least, Isabel deeply loved her youngest
+child, whilst Ferdinand loved nothing but himself and Aragon; but it
+greatly altered for the worse her position in England. Philip of Austria
+and his father the Emperor had begun to play false to Ferdinand long
+before the Queen's death; and now that the crown of Castile had fallen to
+poor weak Juana, and a struggle was seen to be impending for the regency,
+Henry VII. found himself as usual courted by both sides in the dispute.
+The widowed Archduchess Margaret, who had married as a first husband
+Ferdinand's heir, was offered to Henry as a bride by Philip and Maximilian
+and a close alliance between them proposed; and Ferdinand, whilst
+denouncing his son-in-law's ingratitude, also bade high for the King of
+England's countenance. Henry listened to both parties, but it was clear to
+him that he had now more to hope for from Philip and Maximilian, who were
+friendly with France, than from Ferdinand; and the unfortunate Katharine
+was again reduced to the utmost neglect and penury, unable to buy food for
+her own table, except by pawning her jewels.
+
+In the ensuing intrigues Dona Elvira Manuel was on the side of the Queen
+of Castile, as against her father; and Katharine lost the impartial advice
+of her best counsellor, and involved herself in a very net of trouble. In
+the summer of 1505 it was already understood that Philip and Juana on
+their way to Spain by sea might possibly trust themselves in an English
+port; and Henry, in order to be ready for any matrimonial combinations
+that might be suggested, caused young Henry to make solemn protest before
+the Bishop of Winchester at Richmond against his marriage with
+Katharine.[12] Of this, at the time, of course the Spanish agents were
+ignorant; and so completely was even Puebla hoodwinked, that almost to the
+arrival of Philip and his wife in England he believed that Henry was in
+favour of Ferdinand against Philip and Maximilian. Early in August 1505,
+Puebla went to Richmond to see Katharine, and as he entered one of the
+household told him that an ambassador from the Archduke Philip, King of
+Castile, had just arrived and was waiting to see her. Puebla at once
+himself conveyed the news to Katharine; and to his glee served as
+interpreter between the ambassador and the Princess. On his knees before
+her the Fleming related that he had come to propose a marriage between the
+Duchess of Savoy (_i.e._ the widowed Archduchess Margaret) and Henry VII.,
+and showed the Princess two portraits of the Archduchess. Furthermore, he
+said that Philip and his wife were going by overland through France to
+Spain, and he was to ask Henry what he thought of the plan. Puebla's eyes
+were thus partially opened: and when a few days later he found that Dona
+Elvira had not only contrived frequent private meetings between Katharine
+and the Flemish ambassador, but had persuaded the Princess to propose a
+meeting between Philip, Juana, and the King of England, he at once sounded
+a note of alarm. Katharine, it must be recollected, was yet young; and
+probably did not fully understand the deadly antagonism that existed
+between her father and her brother-in-law. She was much under the
+influence of Dona Elvira, and doubtless yearned to see her unhappy sister
+Juana. So she was induced to write a letter to Philip, and to propose a
+meeting with Henry at Calais. When a prompt affirmative reply came, the
+Princess innocently showed it to Puebla at Durham House before sending it
+to Henry VII. The ambassador was aghast, and soundly rated Katharine for
+going against the interests of her father. He would take the letter to the
+King, he said. But this Katharine would not allow, and Dona Elvira was
+appealed to. She promised to retain the letter for the present, but just
+as Puebla was sitting down to dinner an hour afterwards, he learnt that
+she had broken her word and sent Philip's letter to Henry VII. Starting
+up, he rushed to Katharine's apartments, and with tears streaming down his
+face at his failure, told the Princess, under pledge of secrecy, that the
+proposed interview was a plot of the Manuels to injure both her father and
+sister. She must at once write a letter to Henry which he, Puebla, would
+dictate; and, whilst still feigning a desire for the meeting, she must try
+to prevent it with all her might, and beware of Dona Elvira in future.
+Poor Katharine, alarmed at his vehemence, did as she was told; and the
+letter was sent flying to Henry, apologising for the proposal of the
+interview. Henry must have smiled when he saw how eager they all were to
+court him. Nothing would please him better than the close alliance with
+Philip, which was already being secretly negotiated, though he was
+effusively assuring Ferdinand at the same time of the inviolability of
+their friendship; promising that the marriage--which he had secretly
+denounced--between his son and Katharine, should be celebrated on the very
+day provided by the treaty, and approving of some secret plot of Ferdinand
+against Philip which had been communicated to him.
+
+Amidst such falsity as this it is most difficult to pick one's way, though
+it is evident through it all that Henry had now gained the upper hand, and
+was fully a match for Ferdinand in his altered circumstances. But as
+things improved for Henry they became worse for Katharine. In December
+1505 she wrote bitterly to her father from Richmond, complaining of her
+fate, the unhappiness of which, she said, was all Puebla's fault. "Every
+day," she wrote, "my troubles increase. Since my arrival in England I have
+not received a farthing except for food, and I and my household have not
+even garments to wear." She had asked Puebla to pray the King to appoint
+an English duena for her whilst Dona Elvira was in Flanders, but instead
+of doing so he had arranged with Henry that her household should be
+dismissed altogether, and that she should reside at Court. Her letter
+throughout shows that at the time she was in deep despondency and anger at
+her treatment; and especially resentful of Puebla, whom she disliked and
+distrusted profoundly, as did Dona Elvira Manuel. The very elements seemed
+to fight on the side of the King of England. Ferdinand was, in sheer
+desperation, struggling to prevent his paternal realms from being merged
+in Castile and the empire, and with that end was negotiating his marriage
+with the French king's niece, Germaine de Foix, and a close alliance with
+France, in which England should be included, when Philip of Austria and
+his wife, Juana of Aragon, Queen of Castile, sailed from Flanders to claim
+their kingdom at Ferdinand's hands. They too had made friends with France
+some time before, but the marriage of Ferdinand with a French princess had
+now drawn them strongly to the side of England; and as we have seen, they
+were already in full negotiation with Henry for his marriage with the
+doubly widowed and heavily dowered Archduchess Margaret.
+
+The King and Queen of Castile were overtaken by a furious south-west gale
+in the Channel and their fine fleet dispersed. The ship that carried
+Philip and Juana was driven by the storm into Melcombe Regis, on the
+Dorset coast, on the 17th January 1506, and lay there weather-bound for
+some time. Philip the Handsome was a poor sailor, and was, we are told by
+an eye-witness, "fatigate and unquyeted in mynde and bodie." He doubtless
+yearned to tread dry land again, and, against the advice of his Council,
+had himself rowed ashore. Only in the previous year he had as unguardedly
+put himself into the power of the King of France; and his boldness had
+succeeded well, as it had resulted in the treaty with the French king that
+had so much alarmed and shocked Ferdinand, but it is unlikely that Philip
+on this occasion intended to make any stay in England or to go beyond
+Weymouth. The news of his coming brought together all the neighbouring
+gentry to oppose or welcome him, according to his demeanour, and, finding
+him friendly, Sir John Trenchard prevailed upon him to take up his
+residence in his manor-house hard by until the weather mended. In the
+meanwhile formidable English forces mustered in the country around, and
+Philip began to grow uneasy; but Trenchard's hospitality was pressing, and
+to all hints from the visitor that he wanted to be gone the reply was
+given that he really must wait until the King of England could bid him
+welcome. When at last Philip was given to understand that he was
+practically a prisoner, he made the best of the position, and with seeming
+cordiality awaited King Henry's message. No wonder, as a chronicler says,
+that Henry when he heard the news "was replenyshed with an exceeding
+gladnes ... for that he trusted his landing in England should turn to his
+profit and commoditie." This it certainly did. Philip and Juana were
+brought to Windsor in great state, and met by Henry and his son and a
+splendid train of nobles. Then the visitors were led through London in
+state to Richmond, and Philip, amidst all the festivity, was soon
+convinced that he would not be allowed to leave England until the rebel
+Plantagenet Earl of Suffolk was handed to Henry. And so the pact was made
+that bound England to Philip and Flanders against Ferdinand; the
+Archduchess Margaret with her vast fortune being promised, with unheard-of
+guarantees, to the widowed Henry.[13] When the treaty had been solemnly
+ratified on oath, taken upon a fragment of the true Cross in St. George's
+Chapel, Windsor, Philip was allowed to go his way on the 2nd March to join
+his ship at Falmouth, whither Juana had preceded him a fortnight before.
+
+This new treaty made poor Katharine of little value as a political asset
+in England; since it was clear now that Ferdinand's hold over anything but
+his paternal heritage in the Mediterranean was powerless. Flanders and
+Castile were a far more advantageous ally to England than the King of
+Aragon, and Katharine was promptly made to feel the fact. Dr. Puebla was
+certainly either kept quite out of the way or his compliance bought, or he
+would have been able to devise means for Katharine to inform her sister
+Juana of the real object of Henry's treaty with Philip; for Ferdinand
+always insisted that Juana was a dutiful daughter, and was not personally
+opposed to him. As it was, Katharine was allowed to see her sister but for
+an hour just before Juana's departure, and then in the presence of
+witnesses in the interests of Philip. Only a few weeks after the visitors
+had departed Katharine wrote to her father, in fear lest her letter should
+be intercepted, begging him to have pity upon her. She is deep in debt,
+not for extravagant things but for food. "The King of England refuses to
+pay anything, though she implores him with tears to do so. He says he has
+been cheated about the marriage portion. In the meanwhile she is in the
+deepest anguish, her servants almost begging for alms, and she herself
+nearly naked. She has been at death's door for months, and prays
+earnestly for a Spanish confessor, as she cannot speak English."[14]
+
+How false Ferdinand met his "dear children," and made with his daughter's
+husband that hellish secret compact in the church of Villafafila, that
+seemed to renounce everything to Philip whilst Ferdinand went humbly to
+his realm of Naples, and his ill-used daughter Juana to life-long
+confinement, cannot be told here, nor the sudden death of Philip the
+Handsome, which brought back Ferdinand triumphant. If Juana was sane
+before, she certainly became more or less mad after her husband's death,
+and moreover was morbidly devoted to his memory. But what mattered madness
+or a widow's devotion to Henry VII. when he had political objects to
+serve? All through the summer and autumn of 1506 Katharine had been ill
+with fever and ague, unhappy at the neglect and poverty she suffered.
+Ferdinand threw upon Castile the duty of paying the rest of her dowry; the
+Castilians retorted that Ferdinand ought to pay it himself: and Katharine,
+in the depth of despondency, in October 1506 learnt of her brother-in-law
+Philip's death. Like magic Henry VII. became amiable again to his
+daughter-in-law. He deplored her illness now, and cordially granted her
+the change of residence from Eltham to Fulham that she had so long prayed
+for in vain. The reason was soon evident; for before Juana had completed
+her dreary pilgrimage through Spain to Granada with her husband's dead
+body, Henry had cajoled Katharine to ask her father for the distraught
+widow for his wife. Katharine must have fulfilled the task with
+repulsion, though she seems to have advocated the match warmly; and
+Ferdinand, though he knew, or rather said, that Juana was mad, was quite
+ready to take advantage of such an opportunity for again getting into
+touch with Henry. The letter in which Ferdinand gently dallied with
+Henry's offer was written in Naples, after months of shifty excuses for
+not sending the rest of Katharine's dowry to England,[15] and doubtless
+the time he gained by postponing the answer about Juana's marriage until
+he returned to Spain was of value to him; for he was determined, now that
+a special providence carefully prepared had removed Philip from his path,
+that once more all Spain should bear his sway whilst he lived, and then
+should be divided, rather than his dear Aragon should be rendered
+subordinate to other interests.
+
+The encouraging talk of Henry's marriage with Juana, with which both
+Katharine and Puebla were instructed to beguile him, was all very well in
+its way, and the King of England became quite joyously sentimental at the
+prospect of the new tie of relationship between the houses of Tudor and
+Aragon; but, really, business was business: if that long overdue dowry for
+Katharine was not sent soon, young Henry would listen to some of the many
+other eligible princesses, better dowered than Katharine, who were offered
+to him. With much demur Henry at length consented to wait for five months
+longer for the dowry; that is to say, until Michaelmas 1507, and in the
+meanwhile drove a bargain as hard as that of a Jew huckster in the
+valuation of Katharine's jewels and plate, which were to be brought into
+the account.[16] It is easy to see that this concession of five months'
+delay was granted by Henry in the hope that his marriage with Juana would
+take place. The plan was hideously wicked, and Puebla made no secret of it
+in writing to Ferdinand. "No king in the world would make so good a
+husband to the Queen of Castile, whether she be sane or insane. She might
+recover her reason when wedded to such a husband, but even in that case
+King Ferdinand would at all events be sure to retain the regency of
+Castile. On the other hand, if the insanity of the Queen should prove
+incurable it would perhaps be not inconvenient that she should live in
+England. The English do not seem to mind her insanity much; especially
+since it is asserted that her mental malady would not prevent her from
+childbearing."[17] Could anything be more repulsive than this pretty
+arrangement, which had been concocted by Henry and Puebla at Richmond
+during a time when the former was seriously ill with quinsy and
+inaccessible to any one but the Spanish ambassador?
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine felt keenly the wretched position in which she
+found herself. The plate, about which so much haggling was taking place,
+was being pawned or sold by her bit by bit to provide the most necessary
+things for her own use; her servants were in rags, and she herself was
+contemned and neglected; forbidden even to see her betrothed husband for
+months together, though living in the same palace with him. The more
+confident Henry grew of his own marriage with the Archduchess Margaret, or
+with Queen Juana, the less inclined he was to wed his son to Katharine. A
+French princess for the Prince of Wales, and the Queen of Castile for
+Henry, would indeed have served England on all sides. On one occasion, in
+April 1507, Henry frankly told Katharine that he considered himself no
+longer bound by her marriage treaty, since her dowry was overdue, and all
+the poor Princess could do was to weep and pray her father to fulfil his
+part of the compact by paying the rest of her portion, whilst she, serving
+as Ferdinand's ambassador, tried to retain Henry's good graces by her
+hopeful assurances about the marriage of the latter with Juana.
+
+In all Katharine's lamentations of her own sufferings and privation, she
+never forgot to bewail the misery of her servants. Whilst she herself, she
+said, had been worse treated than any woman in England, her five women
+servants, all she had retained, had never received a farthing since their
+arrival in England six years before, and had spent everything they
+possessed. Katharine at this time of trial (August 1507) was living alone
+at Ewelme, whilst Henry was hunting at various seats in the midlands. At
+length the King made some stay at Woodstock, where Katharine saw him. With
+suspicious alacrity he consented to a further postponement of the overdue
+dowry; and showed himself more eager than ever to marry Juana, no matter
+how mad she might be. Katharine was quite acute enough to understand his
+motives, and wrote to her father that so long as the money due of her
+dowry remained unpaid the King considered himself free, so far as regarded
+her marriage with the Prince of Wales. "Mine is always the worst part,"
+she wrote. "The King of England prides himself upon his magnanimity in
+waiting so long for the payment.... His words are kind but his deeds are
+as bad as ever." She bitterly complained that Puebla himself was doing his
+utmost to frustrate her marriage in the interests of the King of England;
+and it is clear to see in her passionate letter to her father (4th October
+1507) that she half distrusted even him, as she had been told that he was
+listening to overtures from the King of France for a marriage between
+Juana and a French prince. She failed in this to understand the political
+position fully. If Juana had married a Frenchman it is certain that Henry
+would have been only too eager to complete the marriage of his son with
+Katharine. But she was evidently in fear that, unless Henry was allowed to
+marry her sister, evil might befall her. Speaking of the marriage she
+says: "I bait him with this ... and his words and professions have changed
+for the better, although his acts remain the same.... They fancy that I
+have no more in me than what outwardly appears, or that I shall not be
+able to fathom his (Puebla's) design." Under stress of her circumstances
+Katharine was developing rapidly. She was no longer a girl dependent upon
+others. Dona Elvira had gone for good; Puebla she hated and distrusted as
+much as she did Henry; and there was no one by her to whom she could look
+for help. Her position was a terribly difficult one, pitted alone, as she
+was, against the most unscrupulous politicians in Europe, in whose hands
+she knew she was only one of the pieces in a game. Juana was still
+carrying about with her the unburied corpse of her husband, and falling
+into paroxysms of fury when a second marriage was suggested to her; and
+yet Katharine considered it necessary to keep up the pretence to Henry
+that his suit was prospering. She knew that though the Archduchess
+Margaret had firmly refused to tempt providence again by a third marriage
+with the King of England, the boy sovereign of Castile and Flanders, the
+Archduke Charles, had been securely betrothed to golden-haired little Mary
+Tudor, Henry's younger daughter; and that the close alliance thus sealed
+was as dangerous to her father King Ferdinand's interests as to her own.
+And yet she was either forced, or forced herself, to paint Henry, who was
+still treating her vilely, in the brightest colours as a chivalrous,
+virtuous gentleman, really and desperately in love with poor crazy Juana.
+Katharine's letters to her sister on behalf of Henry's suit are nauseous,
+in view of the circumstances as we know them; and show that the Princess
+of Wales was already prepared to sacrifice every human feeling to
+political expediency.
+
+This miserable position could not continue indefinitely, for the
+extension of time for the payment of the dowry was fast running out. Juana
+was more intractable than ever. Katharine, in rage and despair at the
+contumely with which she was treated, insisted at length that her father
+should send an ambassador to England, who could speak as the mouthpiece of
+a great sovereign rather than like a fawning menial of Henry as Puebla
+was. The new ambassador was Gomez de Fuensalida, Knight Commander of Haro
+and Membrilla, a man as haughty as Puebla had been servile, and he went
+far beyond even Katharine's desires in his plain speaking to Henry and his
+ministers. Ferdinand, indeed, by this time had once more gained the upper
+hand in Europe, and could afford to speak his mind. Henry was no longer so
+vigorous or so bold as he had been, and his desire to grasp everything
+whilst risking nothing had enabled his rivals to form a great coalition
+from which he was excluded--the League of Cambrai. Fuensalida offended
+Henry almost as soon as he arrived, and was roughly refused permission to
+enter the English Court. He could only storm, as he did, to Henry's
+ministers that unless the Princess of Wales was at once sent home to Spain
+with her dowry, King Ferdinand and his allies would wreak vengeance upon
+England. But Henry knew that with such a hostage as Katharine in his hands
+he was safe from attack, and held the Princess in defiance of it all. But
+he was already a waning force. Whilst Fuensalida had no good word for the
+King, he, like all other Spanish agents, turned to the rising sun and sang
+persistently the praises of the Prince of Wales. His gigantic stature and
+sturdy limbs, his fair skin and golden hair, his manliness, his prudence,
+and his wisdom were their constant theme: and even Katharine, unhappy as
+she was, with her marriage still in the balance, seems to have liked and
+admired the gallant youth whom she was allowed to see so seldom.
+
+It has become so much the fashion to speak of Katharine not only as an
+unfortunate woman, but as a blameless saint in all her relations, that an
+historian who regards her as a fallible and even in many respects a
+blameworthy woman, who was to a large extent the cause of her own
+troubles, must be content to differ from the majority of his predecessors.
+We have already seen, by the earnest attempts she made to drag her
+afflicted sister into marriage with a man whom she herself considered
+false, cruel, and unscrupulous, that Katharine was no better than those
+around her in moral principle: the passion and animosity shown in her
+letters to her father about Puebla, Fuensalida, and others whom she
+distrusted, show her to have been anything but a meek martyr. She was,
+indeed, at this time (1508-9) a self-willed, ambitious girl of strong
+passion, impatient of control, domineering and proud. Her position in
+England had been a humiliating and a hateful one for years. She was the
+sport of the selfish ambitions of others, which she herself was unable to
+control; surrounded by people whom she disliked and suspected, lonely and
+unhappy; it is not wonderful that when Henry VII. was gradually sinking to
+his grave, and her marriage with his son was still in doubt, this ardent
+Southern young woman in her prime should be tempted to cast to the wind
+considerations of dignity and prudence for the sake of her love for a man.
+
+She was friendless in a foreign land; and when her father was in Naples in
+1506, she wrote to him praying him to send her a Spanish confessor to
+solace her. Before he could do so she informed him (April 1507) that she
+had obtained a very good Spanish confessor for herself. This was a young,
+lusty, dissolute Franciscan monk called Diego Fernandez, who then became a
+member of Katharine's household. When the new outspoken ambassador,
+Fuensalida, arrived in England in the autumn of 1508, he, of course, had
+frequent conference with the Princess, and could not for long shut his
+eyes to the state of affairs in her establishment. He first sounded the
+alarm cautiously to Ferdinand in a letter of 4th March 1509. He had hoped
+against hope, he said, that the marriage of Katharine and Prince Henry
+might be effected soon; and the scandal might remedy itself without his
+worrying Ferdinand about it. But he must speak out now, for he has been
+silent too long. It is high time, he says, that some person of sufficient
+authority in the confidence of Ferdinand should be put in charge of
+Katharine's household and command respect: "for at present the Princess's
+house is governed by a young friar, whom her Highness has taken for her
+confessor, though he is, in my opinion, and that of others, utterly
+unworthy of such a position. He makes the Princess commit many errors; and
+as she is so good and conscientious, this confessor makes a mortal sin of
+everything that does not please him, and so causes her to commit many
+faults." The ambassador continues that he dare not write all he would
+because the bearer (a servant of Katharine's) is being sent by those who
+wish to injure him; but he begs the King to interrogate the man who takes
+the letter as to what had been going on in the Princess's house in the
+last two months. "The root of all the trouble is this young friar, who is
+flighty, and vain, and extremely scandalous. He has spoken to the Princess
+very roughly about the King of England; and because I told the Princess
+something of what I thought of this friar, and he learnt it, he has
+disgraced me with her worse than if I had been a traitor.... That your
+Highness may judge what sort of person he is, I will repeat exactly
+without exaggeration the very words he used to me. 'I know,' he said,
+'that they have been telling you evil tales of me.' 'I can assure you,
+father,' I replied, 'that no one has said anything about you to me.' 'I
+know,' he replied; 'the same person who told you told me himself.' 'Well,'
+I said, 'any one can bear false witness, and I swear by the Holy Body
+that, so far as I can recollect, nothing has been said to me about you.'
+'Ah,' he said, 'there are scandal-mongers in this house who have defamed
+me, and not with the lowest either, but with the highest, and that is no
+disgrace to me. If it were not for contradicting them I should be gone
+already.'" Proud Fuensalida tells the King that it was only with the
+greatest difficulty he kept his hands off the insolent priest at this.
+"His constant presence with the Princess and amongst her women is shocking
+the King of England and his Court dreadfully;" and then the ambassador
+hints strongly that Henry is only allowing the scandal to go on, so as to
+furnish him with a good excuse for still keeping Katharine's marriage in
+abeyance.
+
+With this letter to Spain went another from Katharine to her father,
+railing bitterly against the ambassador. She can no longer endure her
+troubles, and a settlement of some sort must be arrived at. The King of
+England treats her worse than ever since his daughter Mary was betrothed
+to the young Archduke Charles, sovereign of Castile and Flanders. She had
+sold everything she possessed for food and raiment; and only a few days
+before she wrote, Henry had again told her that he was not bound to feed
+her servants. Her own people, she says, are insolent and turn against her;
+but what afflicts her most is that she is too poor to maintain fittingly
+her confessor, "the best that ever woman had." It is plain to see that the
+whole household was in rebellion against the confessor who had captured
+Katharine's heart, and that the ambassador was on the side of the
+household. The Princess and Fuensalida had quarrelled about it, and she
+wished that the ambassador should be reproved. With vehement passion she
+begged her father that the confessor might not be taken away from her. "I
+implore your Highness to prevent him from leaving me; and to write to the
+King of England that you have ordered this Father to stay with me; and beg
+him for your sake to have him well treated and humoured. Tell the prelates
+also that you wish him to stay here. The greatest comfort in my trouble is
+the consolation he gives me. Almost in despair I send this servant to
+implore you not to forget that I am still your daughter, and how much I
+have suffered for your sake.... Do not let me perish like this, but write
+at once deciding what is to be done. Otherwise in my present state I am
+afraid I may do something that neither the King of England nor your
+Highness could prevent, unless you send for me and let me pass the few
+remaining days of my life in God's service."
+
+That the Princess's household and the ambassador were shocked at the
+insolent familiarity of the licentious young priest with their mistress,
+and that she herself perfectly understood that the suspicions and rumours
+were against her honour, is clear. On one occasion Henry VII. had asked
+Katharine and his daughter Mary to go to Richmond, to meet him. When the
+two princesses were dressed and ready to set out on their journey from
+Hampton Court to Richmond, the confessor entered the room and told
+Katharine she was not to go that day as she had been unwell. The Princess
+protested that she was then quite well and able to bear the short journey.
+"I tell you," replied Father Diego, "that, on pain of mortal sin, you
+shall not go to-day;" and so Princess Mary set out alone, leaving
+Katharine with the young priest of notorious evil life and a few inferior
+servants. When the next day she was allowed to go to Richmond, accompanied
+amongst others by the priest, King Henry took not the slightest notice of
+her, and for the next few weeks refused to speak to her. The ambassador
+even confessed to Ferdinand that, since he had witnessed what was going
+on in the Princess's household, he acquitted Henry of most of the blame
+for his treatment of his Spanish daughter-in-law. Whilst the Princess was
+in the direst distress, her household in want of food, and she obliged to
+sell her gowns to send messengers to her father, she went to the length of
+pawning the plate that formed part of her dowry to "satisfy the follies of
+the friar."
+
+Deaf to all remonstrances both from King Henry and her own old servants,
+Katharine obstinately had her way, and the chances of her marriage in
+England grew smaller and smaller. It is not to be supposed that the
+ambassador would have dared to say so much as he did to the lady's own
+father if he had not taken the gravest view of Katharine's conduct and its
+probable political result. But his hints to Ferdinand's ministers were
+much stronger still. "The Princess," he said, "was guilty of things a
+thousand times worse" than those he had mentioned; and the "parables" that
+he had written to the King might be made clear by the examination of
+Katharine's own servant, who carried her letters. "The devil take me," he
+continues, "if I can see anything in this friar for her to be so fond of
+him; for he has neither learning, nor good looks, nor breeding, nor
+capacity, nor authority; but if he takes it into his head to preach a new
+gospel, they have to believe it."[18] By two letters still extant, written
+by Friar Diego himself, we see that the ambassador in no wise exaggerated
+his coarseness and indelicacy, and it is almost incredible that
+Katharine, an experienced and disillusioned woman of nearly twenty-four,
+can have been ready to jeopardise everything political and personal, and
+face the opposition of the world, for the sake alone of the spiritual
+comfort to be derived from the ministrations of such a man. How far, if at
+all, the connection was actually immoral we shall probably never know, but
+the case as it stands shows Katharine to have been passionate,
+self-willed, and utterly tactless. Even after her marriage with young
+Henry Friar Diego retained his ascendency over her for several years, and
+ruled her with a rod of iron until he was publicly convicted of
+fornication, and deprived of his office as Chancellor of the Queen. We
+shall have later to consider the question of his relationship with
+Katharine after her marriage; but it is almost certain that the
+ostentatious intimacy of the pair during the last months of Henry VII. had
+reduced Katharine's chance of marriage with the Prince of Wales almost to
+vanishing point, when the death of the King suddenly changed the political
+position and rendered it necessary that the powerful coalition of which
+Ferdinand was the head should be conciliated by England.
+
+Henry VII. died at Richmond on the 22nd April 1509, making a better and
+more generous end than could have been expected from his life. He, like
+his rival Ferdinand, had been avaricious by deliberate policy; and his
+avarice was largely instrumental in founding England's coming greatness,
+for the overflowing coffers he left to his son lent force to the new
+position assumed by England as the balancing power, courted by both the
+great continental rivals. Ferdinand's ambition had o'erleaped itself, and
+the possession of Flanders by the King of Castile had made England's
+friendship more than ever necessary thenceforward, for France was opposed
+to Spain now, not in Italy alone, but on long conterminous frontiers in
+the north, south, and east as well.
+
+Henry VIII. at the age of eighteen was well fitting to succeed his father.
+All contemporary observers agree that his grace and personal beauty as a
+youth were as remarkable as his quickness of intellect and his true Tudor
+desire to stand well in the eyes of his people. Fully aware of the power
+his father's wealth gave him politically, he was determined to share no
+part of the onus for the oppression with which the wealth had been
+collected; and on the day following his father's death, before himself
+retiring to mourning reclusion in the Tower of London, the unpopular
+financial instruments of Henry VII., Empson and Dudley and others, were
+laid by the heels to sate the vengeance of the people. The Spanish match
+for the young king was by far more popular in England than any other; and
+the alacrity of Henry himself and his ministers to carry it into effect
+without further delay, now that his father with his personal ambitions and
+enmities was dead, was also indicative of his desire to begin his reign by
+pleasing his subjects.
+
+The death of Henry VII. had indeed cleared away many obstacles. Ferdinand
+had profoundly distrusted him. His evident desire to obtain control of
+Castile, either by his marriage with Juana or by that of his daughter Mary
+with the nine-year-old Archduke Charles, had finally hardened Ferdinand's
+heart against him, whilst Henry's fear and suspicion of Ferdinand had, as
+we have seen, effectually stood in the way of the completion of
+Katharine's marriage. With young Henry as king affairs stood differently.
+Even before his father's death Ferdinand had taken pains to assure him of
+his love, and had treated him as a sovereign over the dying old king's
+head. Before the breath was out of Henry VII., Ferdinand's letters were
+speeding to London to make all things smooth. There would be no opposition
+now to Ferdinand's ratification of his Flemish grandson's marriage with
+Henry's sister Mary. The clever old Aragonese knew there was still plenty
+of time to stop that later; and certainly young Henry could not interfere
+in Castile, as his father might have done, on the strength of Mary Tudor's
+betrothal. So all went merry as a marriage bell. Ferdinand, for once in
+his life, was liberal with his money. He implored his daughter to make no
+unpleasantness or complaint, and to raise no question that might obstruct
+her marriage. The ambassador, Fuensalida, was warned that if the bickering
+between himself and the Princess, or between the confessor and the
+household, was allowed to interfere with the match, disgrace and ruin
+should be his lot, and Katharine was admonished that she must be civil to
+Fuensalida, and to the Italian banker who was to pay the balance of her
+dowry. The King of Aragon need have had no anxiety. Young Henry and his
+councillors were as eager for the popular marriage as he was, and dreaded
+the idea of disgorging the 100,000 crowns dowry already paid and the
+English settlements upon Katharine. On the 6th May, accordingly, three
+days before the body of Henry VII. was borne in gloomy pomp to its last
+resting-place at Westminster, Katharine wrote to her delighted father that
+her marriage with Henry was finally settled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+1509-1527
+
+KATHARINE THE QUEEN--A POLITICAL MARRIAGE AND A PERSONAL DIVORCE
+
+
+"Long live King Henry VIII.!" cried Garter King of Arms in French as the
+great officers of state broke their staves of office and cast them into
+the open grave of the first Tudor king. Through England, like the blast of
+a trumpet, the cry was echoed from the hearts of a whole people, full of
+hope that the niggardliness and suspicion which for years had stood
+between the sovereign and his people were at last banished. The young
+king, expansive and hearty in manner, handsome and strong as a pagan god
+in person, was well calculated to captivate the love of the crowd. His
+prodigious personal vanity, which led him to delight in sumptuous raiment
+and gorgeous shows; the state and ceremony with which he surrounded
+himself and his skill in manly exercises, were all points in his favour
+with a pleasure-yearning populace which had been squeezed of its substance
+without seeing any return for it: whilst his ardent admiration for the
+learning which had during his lifetime become the fashion made grave
+scholars lose their judgment and write like flattering slaves about the
+youth of eighteen who now became unquestioned King of England and master
+of his father's hoarded treasures.
+
+As we shall see in the course of this history, Henry was but a whited
+sepulchre. Young, light-hearted, with every one about him praising him as
+a paragon, and his smallest whim indulged as a divine command, there was
+no incitement for the exhibition of the baser qualities that underlay the
+big, popular manner, the flamboyant patriotism, and, it must be added, the
+real ability which appealed alike to the gentle and simple over whom he
+was called to rule. Like many men of his peculiar physique, he was never a
+strong man morally, and his will grew weaker as his body increased in
+gross flabbiness. The obstinate self-assertion and violence that impressed
+most observers as strength, hid behind them a spirit that forever needed
+direction and support from a stronger soul. So long as he was allowed in
+appearance to have his own way and his policy was showy, he was, as one of
+his wisest ministers said in his last days, the easiest man in the world
+to manage. His sensuality, which was all his own, and his personal vanity,
+were the qualities by means of which one able councillor after another
+used him for the ends they had in view, until the bridle chafed him, and
+his temporary master was made to feel the vengeance of a weak despot who
+discovers that he has been ruled instead of ruling. In Henry's personal
+character as sketched above we shall be able to find the key of the
+tremendous political events that made his reign the most important in our
+annals; and we shall see that his successive marriages were the outcome of
+subtle intrigues in which representatives of various parties took
+advantage of the King's vanity and lasciviousness to promote their own
+political or religious views. That the emancipation of England from Rome
+was the ultimate result cannot fairly be placed to Henry's personal
+credit. If he could have had his own way without breaking with the Papacy
+he would have preferred to maintain the connection; but the Reformation
+was in the air, and craftier brains than Henry's led the King step by step
+by his ruling passions until he had gone too far to retreat. To what
+extent his various matrimonial adventures served these intrigues we shall
+see in the course of this book.
+
+That Henry's marriage with Katharine soon after his accession was
+politically expedient has been shown in the aforegoing pages; and the
+King's Council were strongly in favour of it, with the exception of the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancellor Warham, who was more purely
+ecclesiastical than his colleagues, and appears to have had doubts as to
+the canonical validity of the union. As we have seen, the Pope had given a
+dispensation for the marriage years before, in terms that covered the case
+of the union with Arthur having been duly consummated, though Katharine
+strenuously denied that it had been, or that she knew how the dispensation
+was worded. The Spanish confessor also appears to have suggested to
+Fuensalida some doubts as to the propriety of the marriage, but King
+Ferdinand promptly put his veto upon any such scruples. Had not the Pope
+given his dispensation? he asked; and did not the peace of England and
+Spain depend upon the marriage? The sin would be not the marriage, but the
+failure to effect it after the pledges that had been given. So the few
+doubters were silenced; young Henry himself, all eager for his marriage,
+was not one of them, nor was Katharine, for to her the match was a triumph
+for which she had worked and suffered for years: and on the 11th June 1509
+the pair were married privately by Warham at Henry's palace of Greenwich.
+
+Rarely in its long history has London seen so brave a pageant as the bride
+and bridegroom's triumphal passage through the city on Saturday the 21st
+June from the Tower to Westminster for their coronation. Rich tapestries,
+and hangings of cloth of gold, decked the streets through which they
+passed. The city companies lined the way from Gracechurch Street to Bread
+Street, where the Lord Mayor and the senior guild stood in bright array,
+whilst the goldsmiths' shops in Chepe had each to adorn it a figure of the
+Holy Virgin in white with many wax tapers around it. The Queen rode in a
+litter of white and gold tissue drawn by two snowy palfreys, she herself
+being garbed in white satin and gold, with a dazzling coronet of precious
+stones upon her head, from which fell almost to her feet her dark russet
+hair. She was twenty-four years of age, and in the full flush of
+womanhood; her regular classical features and fair skin bore yet the
+curves of gracious youth; and there need be no doubt of the sincerity of
+the ardent affection for her borne by the pink and white young giant who
+rode before her, a dazzling vision of crimson velvet, cloth of gold, and
+flashing precious stones. "God save your Grace," was the cry that rattled
+like platoon firing along the crowded ways, as the splendid cavalcade
+passed on.
+
+The next day, Sunday, 24th June, the pair were crowned in the Abbey with
+all the tedious pomp of the times. Then the Gargantuan feast in
+Westminster Hall, of which the chronicler spares us no detail, and the
+endless jousts and devices, in which roses and pomegranates, castles and
+leopards jostled each other in endless magnificence, until a mere
+catalogue of the splendour grows meaningless. The death of the King's wise
+old grandmother, the Countess of Richmond, interrupted for a time the
+round of festivities; but Henry was too new to the unchecked indulgence of
+his taste for splendour and pleasure to abandon them easily, and his
+English councillors, as well as the watchful Spanish agents, began before
+many weeks were over to hint gravely that the young king was neglecting
+his business. Katharine appears to have entered fully into the life of
+pleasure led by her husband. Writing to her father on the 29th July, she
+is enthusiastic in her praise. "We are all so happy," she says; "our time
+passes in continual feasting." But in her case, at least, we see that
+mixed with the frivolous pleasure there was the personal triumph of the
+politician who had succeeded. "One of the principal reasons why I love my
+husband the King, is because he is so true a son to your Majesty. I have
+obeyed your orders and have acted as your ambassador. My husband places
+himself entirely in your hands. This country of England is truly your own
+now, and is tranquil and deeply loyal to the King and to me." What more
+could wife or stateswoman ask? Katharine had her reward. Henry was hers
+and England was at the bidding of Ferdinand, and her sufferings had not
+been in vain. Henry, for his part, was, if we are to believe his letters
+to his father-in-law, as much enamoured of his wife as she was satisfied
+with him.[19]
+
+And so, amidst magnificent shows, and what seems to our taste puerile
+trifling, the pair began their married life highly contented with each
+other and the world. The inevitable black shadows were to come later. In
+reality they were an entirely ill-matched couple, even apart from the six
+years' disparity in their ages. Henry, a bluff bully, a coward morally,
+and also perhaps physically,[20] a liar, who deceived himself as well as
+others, in order to keep up appearances in his favour, he was just the man
+that a clever, tactful woman could have managed perfectly, beginning early
+in his life as Katharine did. Katharine, for all her goodness of heart and
+exalted piety, was, as we have seen, none too scrupulous herself; and if
+her ability and dexterity had been equal to her opportunities she might
+have kept Henry in bondage for life. But, even before her growing age and
+fading charms had made her distasteful to her husband, her lack of
+prudence and management towards him had caused him to turn to others for
+the guidance that she might still have exercised.
+
+The first rift of which we hear came less than a year after the marriage.
+Friar Diego, who was now Katharine's chancellor, wrote an extraordinary
+letter to King Ferdinand in May 1510, telling him of a miscarriage that
+Katharine had had at the end of January; the affair he says having been so
+secret that no one knew it but the King, two Spanish women, the physician,
+and himself; and the details he furnishes show him to have been as
+ignorant as he was impudent. Incidentally, however, he says: "Her Highness
+is very healthy and the most beautiful creature in the world, with the
+greatest gaiety and contentment that ever was. The King adores her, and
+her Highness him." But with this letter to the King went another to his
+secretary, Almazan, from the new Spanish ambassador, Carroz, who complains
+bitterly that the friar monopolises the Queen entirely, and prevents his
+access to her. He then proceeds to tell of Henry and Katharine's first
+matrimonial tiff. The two married sisters of the Duke of Buckingham were
+at Court, one being a close friend of Katharine whilst the other was said
+to be carrying on an intrigue with the King through his favourite, Sir
+William Compton. This lady's family, and especially her brother the Duke,
+who had a violent altercation with Compton, and her sister the Queen's
+friend, shocked at the scandal, carried her away to a convent in the
+country. In revenge for this the King sent the Queen's favourite away, and
+quarrelled with Katharine. Carroz was all for counselling prudence and
+diplomacy to the Queen; but he complains that Friar Diego was advising her
+badly and putting her on bad terms with her husband.
+
+Many false alarms, mostly, it would seem, set afloat by the meddling
+friar, and dwelt upon by him in his letters with quite unbecoming
+minuteness, kept the Court agog as to the possibility of an heir to the
+crown being born. Henry himself, who was always fond of children, was
+desperately anxious for a son; and when, on New Year's Day 1511, the
+looked-for heir was born at Richmond, the King's unrestrained rejoicing
+again took his favourite form of sumptuous entertainments, after he had
+ridden to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham in Norfolk to give thanks
+for the favour vouchsafed to him. Once again Westminster glittered with
+cloth of gold and gems and velvet. Once again courtiers came to the lists
+disguised as hermits, to kneel before Katharine, and then to cast off
+their gowns and stand in full panoply before her, craving for leave to
+tilt in her honour. Once again fairy bowers of gold and artificial flowers
+sheltered sylvan beauties richly bedizened, the King and his favourites
+standing by in purple satin garments with the solid gold initials of
+himself and his wife sewn upon them. Whilst the dazzling company was
+dancing the "scenery" was rolled back. It came too near the crowd of
+lieges at the end of the hall, and pilfering fingers began to pluck the
+golden ornaments from the bowers. Emboldened by their immunity for this,
+people broke the bounds, swarmed into the central space, and in the
+twinkling of an eye all the lords and ladies, even the King himself, found
+themselves stripped of their finery to their very shirts, the golden
+letters and precious tissues intended as presents for fine ladies being
+plunder now in grimy hands that turned them doubtless to better account.
+Henry in his bluff fashion made the best of it, and called the booty
+largesse. Little recked he, if the tiny heir whose existence fed his
+vanity throve. But the babe died soon after this costly celebration of his
+birth.
+
+During the ascendency that the anticipated coming of a son gave to
+Katharine, Ferdinand was able to beguile Henry into an offensive league
+against France, by using the same bait that had so often served a similar
+purpose with Henry VII.; namely, the reconquest for England of Guienne and
+Normandy. Spain, the Empire, the Papacy, and England formed a coalition
+that boded ill for the French cause in Italy. As usual the showy but
+barren part fell to Henry. Ferdinand promised him soldiers to conquer
+Normandy, but they never came. All Ferdinand wanted was to keep as many
+Frenchmen as possible from his own battle-grounds, and he found plenty of
+opportunities for evading all his pledges. Henry was flattered to the top
+of his bent. The Pope sent him the blessed golden rose, and saluted him as
+head of the Italian league; and the young king, fired with martial ardour,
+allowed himself to be dragged into war by his wife's connections, in
+opposition to the opinion of the wiser heads in his Council. A war with
+France involved hostilities with Scotland, but Henry was, in the autumn of
+1512, cajoled into depleting his realm of troops and sending an army to
+Spain to attack France over the Pyrenees, whilst another force under
+Poynings went to help the allies against the Duke of Gueldres. The former
+host under the Marquis of Dorset was kept idle by its commander because it
+was found that Ferdinand really required them to reduce the Spanish
+kingdom of Navarre, and after months of inactivity and much mortality from
+sickness, they returned ingloriously home to England. This was Henry's
+first experience of armed alliances, but he learned nothing by experience,
+and to the end of his life the results of such coalitions to him were
+always the same.
+
+But his ambition was still unappeased, and in June 1513 he in person led
+his army across the Channel to conquer France. His conduct in the campaign
+was puerile in its vanity and folly, and ended lamely with the capture of
+two (to him) unimportant fortresses in the north, Therouenne and Tournai,
+and the panic flight of the French at the Battle of the Spurs or Guingate.
+Our business with this foolish and fruitless campaign, in which Henry was
+every one's tool, is confined to the part that Katharine played at the
+time. On the King's ostentatious departure from Dover he left Katharine
+regent of the realm, with the Earl of Surrey--afterwards Duke of
+Norfolk--to command the army in the north. Katharine, we are told, rode
+back from Dover to London full of dolour for her lord's departure; but we
+see her in her element during the subsequent months of her regency. Bold
+and spirited, and it must be added utterly tactless, she revelled in the
+independent domination which she enjoyed. James IV. of Scotland had
+threatened that an English invasion of France would be followed by his own
+invasion of England. "Let him do it in God's name," shouted Henry; and
+Katharine when the threat was made good delivered a splendid oration in
+English to the officers who were going north to fight the Scots.
+"Remember," she said, "that the Lord smiled upon those who stood in
+defence of their own. Remember that the English courage excels that of all
+other nations upon earth."[21] Her letters to Wolsey, who accompanied
+Henry as almoner, or rather secretary, are full of courage, and as full of
+womanly anxiety for her husband. "She was troubled," she wrote, "to learn
+that the King was so near the siege of Therouenne," until Wolsey's letter
+assured her of the heed he takes to avoid all manner of dangers. "With his
+life and health nothing can come amiss with him, without them I see no
+manner of good thing that shall fall after it." But her tactlessness even
+in this letter shows clearly when she boasts that the King in France is
+not so busy with war as she is in England against the Scots. "My heart is
+very good of it, and I am horribly busy making standards, banners, and
+badges."[22] After congratulating Henry effusively upon the capture of
+Therouenne and his meeting with the Emperor, Katharine herself set forth
+with reinforcements towards Scotland, but before she had travelled a
+hundred miles (to Woburn) she met the couriers galloping south to bring
+her the great news of Surrey's victory at Flodden Field. Turning aside to
+thank Our Lady of Walsingham for the destruction of the Scottish power,
+Katharine on the way sent the jubilant news to Henry. James IV. in his
+defeat had been left dead upon the field, clad in his check surcoat, and
+a fragment of this coat soaked with blood the Queen sent to her husband in
+France, with a heartless gibe at his dead brother-in-law. We are told that
+in another of her letters first giving the news of Flodden, and referring
+to Henry's capture of the Duke of Longueville at Therouenne, she
+vaingloriously compared her victory with his.[23] "It was no great thing
+for one armed man to take another, but she was sending three captured by a
+woman; if he (Henry) sent her a captive Duke she would send him a prisoner
+king." For a wife and _locum tenens_ to write thus in such circumstances
+to a supremely vain man like Henry, whose martial ambition was still
+unassuaged, was to invite his jealousy and dislike. His people saw, as he
+with all his boastfulness cannot fail to have done, that Flodden was the
+real English victory, not Therouenne, and that Katharine and Surrey, not
+Henry, were the heroes. Such knowledge was gall and wormwood to the King;
+and especially when the smoke of battle had blown away, and he saw how he
+had been "sold" by his wife's relations, who kept the fruit of victory
+whilst he was put off with the shell.
+
+From that time Katharine's influence over her husband weakened, though
+with occasional intermission, and he looked for guidance to a subtler mind
+than hers. With Henry to France had gone Thomas Wolsey, one of the clergy
+of the royal chapel, recently appointed almoner by the patronage of Fox,
+Bishop of Winchester, Henry's leading councillor in foreign affairs. The
+English nobles, strong as they still were territorially, could not be
+trusted with the guidance of affairs by a comparatively new dynasty
+depending upon parliament and the towns for its power; and an official
+class, raised at the will of the sovereign, had been created by Henry
+VII., to be used as ministers and administrators. Such a class, dependent
+entirely upon the crown, were certain to be distasteful to the noble
+families, and the rivalry between these two governing elements provided
+the germ of party divisions which subsequently hardened into the English
+constitutional tradition: the officials usually being favourable to the
+strengthening of the royal prerogative, and the nobles desiring to
+maintain the check which the armed power of feudalism had formerly
+exercised. For reasons which will be obvious, the choice of both Henry
+VII. and his son of their diplomatists and ministers fell to a great
+extent upon clergymen; and Wolsey's brilliant talents and facile
+adaptiveness during his close attendance upon Henry in France captivated
+his master, who needed for a minister and guide one that could never
+become a rival either in the field or the ladies' chamber, where the King
+most desired distinction.
+
+Henry came home in October 1513, bitterly enraged against Katharine's kin,
+and ripe for the close alliance with France which the prisoner Duke of
+Longueville soon managed to bring about. What mattered it that lovely
+young Mary Tudor was sacrificed in marriage to the decrepit old King Louis
+XII., notwithstanding her previous solemn betrothal to Katharine's nephew,
+young Charles of Austria, and her secret love for Henry's bosom friend,
+Sir Charles Brandon? Princesses were but pieces in the great political
+game, and must perforce take the rough with the smooth. Henry, in any
+case, could thus show to the Spaniard that he could defy him by a French
+connection. It must have been with a sad heart that Katharine took part in
+the triumphal doings that celebrated the peace directed against her
+father. The French agents, then in London, in describing her say that she
+was lively and gracious, quite the opposite of her gloomy sister: and
+doubtless she did her best to appear so, for she was proud and schooled to
+disappointment; but with the exception of the fact that she was again with
+child, all around her looked black. Her husband openly taunted her with
+her father's ill faith; Henry was carrying on now an open intrigue with
+Lady Tailebois, whom he had brought from Calais with him; Ferdinand the
+Catholic at last was slowly dying, all his dreams and hopes frustrated;
+and on the 13th August 1514, in the palace of Greenwich, Katharine's dear
+friend and sister-in-law, Mary Tudor, was married by proxy to Louis XII.
+Katharine, led by the Duke of Longueville, attended the festivity. She was
+dressed in ash-coloured satin, covered with raised gold embroidery, costly
+chains and necklaces of gems covered her neck and bust, and a coif trimmed
+with precious stones was on her head.[24] The King at the ball in the
+evening charmed every one by his graceful dancing, and the scene was so
+gay that the grave Venetian ambassador says that had it not been for his
+age and office he would have cast off his gown and have footed it with the
+rest.
+
+But already sinister whispers were rife, and we may be sure they were not
+unknown to Katharine. She had been married five years, and no child of
+hers had lived; and, though she was again pregnant, it was said that the
+Pope would be asked to authorise Henry to put her aside, and to marry a
+French bride. Had not his new French brother-in-law done the like years
+ago?[25] To what extent this idea had really entered Henry's head at the
+time it is difficult to say; but courtiers and diplomatists have keen
+eyes, and they must have known which way the wind was blowing before they
+talked thus. In October 1514 Katharine was borne slowly in a litter to
+Dover, with the great concourse that went to speed Mary Tudor on her
+loveless two months' marriage; and a few weeks afterwards Katharine gave
+birth prematurely to a dead child. Once more the hopes of Henry were
+dashed, and though Peter Martyr ascribed the misfortune to Henry's
+unkindness, the superstitious time-servers of the King, and those in
+favour of the French alliance, began to hint that Katharine's offspring
+was accursed, and that to get an heir the King must take another wife. The
+doings at Court were still as brilliant and as frivolous as ever; the
+King's great delight being in adopting some magnificent, and, of course,
+perfectly transparent disguise in masque or ball, and then to disclose
+himself when every one, the Queen included, was supposed to be lost in
+wonder at the grace and agility of the pretended unknown. Those who take
+pleasure in the details of such puerility may be referred to Hall's
+_Chronicle_ for them: we here have more to do with the hearts beneath the
+finery, than with the trappings themselves.
+
+That Katharine was striving desperately at this time to retain her
+influence over her husband, and her popularity in England, is certain from
+the letter of Ferdinand's ambassador (6th December 1514). He complains
+that on the recommendation of Friar Diego Katharine had thrown over her
+father's interests in order to keep the love of Henry and his people. The
+Castilian interest and the Manuels have captured her, wrote the
+ambassador, and if Ferdinand did not promptly "put a bridle on this colt"
+(_i.e._ Henry) and bring Katharine to her bearings as her father's
+daughter, England would be for ever lost to Aragon.[26] There is no doubt
+that at this time Katharine felt that her only chance of keeping her
+footing was to please Henry, and "forget Spain," as Friar Diego advised
+her to do.
+
+When the King of France died on New Year's Day, 1515, and his young
+widow--Katharine's friend, Mary Tudor--clandestinely married her lover,
+Charles Brandon, Katharine's efforts to reconcile her husband to the
+peccant pair are evidence, if no other existed, that Henry's anger was
+more assumed than real, and that his vanity was pleased by the submissive
+prayers for his forgiveness. As no doubt the Queen, and Wolsey, who had
+joined his efforts with hers, foresaw, not only were Mary and Brandon
+pardoned, but taken into high favour. At the public marriage of Mary and
+Brandon at Greenwich at Easter 1515 more tournaments, masques and balls,
+enabled the King to show off his gallantry and agility in competition with
+his new brother-in-law; and on the subsequent May Day at Shooter's Hill,
+Katharine and Mary, who were inseparable, took part in elaborate and
+costly _al fresco_ entertainments in which Robin Hood, several pagan
+deities, and the various attributes of spring, were paraded for their
+delectation. It all sounds very gay, though somewhat silly, as we read the
+endless catalogues of bedizenment, of tilts and races, feasting, dancing,
+and music that delighted Henry and his friends; but before Katharine there
+ever hovered the spectre of her childlessness, and Henry, after the
+ceremonial gaiety and overdone gallantry to his wife, would too frequently
+put spurs to his courser and gallop off to New Hall in Essex, where Lady
+Tailebois lived.
+
+A gleam of hope and happiness came to her late in 1515 when she was again
+expecting to become a mother. By liberal gifts--"the greatest presents
+ever brought to England," said Henry himself--and by flattery unlimited,
+Ferdinand, almost on his death-bed, managed to "bridle" his son-in-law, to
+borrow a large sum of money from him and draw him anew into a coalition
+against France. But the hope was soon dashed; King Ferdinand died almost
+simultaneously with the birth of a girl-child to his daughter Katharine.
+It is true the babe was like to live, but a son, not a daughter, was what
+Henry wanted. Yet he put the best face on the matter publicly. The
+Venetian ambassador purposely delayed his congratulations, because the
+child was of the wrong sex; and when finally he coldly offered them, he
+pointedly told the King that they would have been much more hearty if the
+child had been a son. "We are both young," replied Henry. "If it is a
+daughter this time, by the grace of God sons will follow." The desire of
+the King for a male heir was perfectly natural. No Queen had reigned
+independently over England; and for the perpetuation of a new dynasty like
+the Tudors the succession in the male line was of the highest importance.
+In addition to this, Henry was above all things proud of his manliness,
+and he looked upon the absence of a son as in some sort reflecting a
+humiliation upon him.
+
+Katharine's health had never been robust; and at the age of thirty-three,
+after four confinements, she had lost her bloom. Disappointment and
+suffering, added to her constitutional weakness, was telling upon her, and
+her influence grew daily smaller. The gorgeous shows and frivolous
+amusements in which her husband so much delighted palled upon her, and she
+now took little pains to feign enjoyment in them, giving up much of her
+time to religious exercises, fasting rigidly twice a week and saints' days
+throughout the year, in addition to the Lenten observances, and wearing
+beneath her silks and satins a rough Franciscan nun's gown of serge. As in
+the case of so many of her kindred, mystical devotion was weaving its grey
+web about her, and saintliness of the peculiar Spanish type was covering
+her as with a garment. Henry, on the contrary, was a full-blooded young
+man of twenty-eight, with a physique like that of a butcher, held by no
+earthly control or check upon his appetites, overflowing with vitality and
+the joy of life; and it is not to be wondered at that he found his
+disillusioned and consciously saintly wife a somewhat uncomfortable
+companion.
+
+The death of Louis XII., Maximilian, and Ferdinand, and the peaceful
+accession of young Charles to the throne of Spain and the prospective
+imperial crown, entirely altered the political aspect of Europe. Francis
+I. needed peace in the first years of his reign; and to Charles it was
+also desirable, in order that his rule over turbulent Spain could be
+firmly established and his imperial succession secured. All the English
+ministers and councillors were heavily bribed by France, Wolsey himself
+was strongly in favour of the French connection, and everybody entered
+into a conspiracy to flatter Henry. The natural result was a league first
+of England and France, and subsequently a general peace to which all the
+principal Christian potentates subscribed, and men thought that the
+millennium had come. Katharine's international importance had disappeared
+with the death of her father and the accession of Charles to the throne of
+Aragon as well as to that of Castile. Wolsey was now Henry's sole adviser
+in matters of state and managed his master dexterously, whilst
+endeavouring not entirely to offend the Queen. Glimpses of his harmonious
+relations with Katharine at this time (1516-1520) are numerous. At the
+splendid christening of the Princess Mary, Wolsey was one of the sponsors,
+and he was "gossip" with Katharine at the baptism of Mary Tudor Duchess of
+Suffolk's son.
+
+Nor can the Queen's famous action after the evil May Day (1517) have been
+opposed or discountenanced by the Cardinal. The universal peace had
+brought to London hosts of foreigners, especially Frenchmen, and the alien
+question was acute. Wolsey, whose sudden rise and insolence had deeply
+angered the nobles, had, as principal promoter of the unpopular peace with
+France, to bear a full share of the detestation in which his friends the
+aliens were held. Late in April there were rumours that a general attack
+upon foreigners by the younger citizens would be made, and at Wolsey's
+instance the civic authorities ordered that all the Londoners should keep
+indoors. Some lads in Chepe disregarded the command, and the Alderman of
+the Ward attempted to arrest one of them. Then rose the cry of "'Prentices
+and Clubs! Death to the Cardinal!" and forth there poured from lane and
+alley riotous youngsters by the hundred, to wreak vengeance on the
+insolent foreigners who took the bread out of worthy Englishmen's mouths.
+Sack and pillage reigned for a few hours, but the guard quelled the boys
+with blood, the King rode hastily from Richmond, the Lieutenant of the
+Tower dropped a few casual cannon-balls into the city, and before sunset
+all was quiet. The gibbets rose at the street corners and a bloody
+vengeance fell upon the rioters. Dozens were hanged, drawn, and quartered
+with atrocious cruelty; and under the ruthless Duke of Norfolk four
+hundred more were condemned to death for treason to the King, who, it was
+bitterly said in London, loved outlanders better than his own folk. It is
+unlikely that Henry really meant to plunge all his capital in mourning by
+hanging the flower of its youth, but he loved, for vanity's sake, that
+his clemency should be publicly sought, and to act the part of a deity in
+restoring to life those legally dead. In any case, Katharine's spontaneous
+and determined intercession for the 'prentice lads would take no denial,
+and she pleaded with effect. Her intercession, nevertheless, could hardly
+have been so successful as it was if Wolsey had been opposed to it; and
+the subsequent comedy in the great Hall at Westminster on the 22nd May was
+doubtless planned to afford Henry an opportunity of appearing in his
+favourite character. Seated upon a canopied throne high upon a dais of
+brocade, surrounded by his prelates and nobles and with Wolsey by his
+side, Henry frowned in crimson velvet whilst the "poore younglings and
+olde false knaves" trooped in, a sorry procession, stripped to their
+shirts, with halters around their necks. Wolsey in stern words rebuked
+their crime, and scolded the Lord Mayor and Aldermen for their laxity;
+ending by saying they all deserved to hang. "Mercy! gracious lord, mercy!"
+cried the terrified boys and their distracted mothers behind; and the
+Cardinal and the peers knelt before the throne to beg the life of the
+offenders, which the King granted, and with a great shout of joy halters
+were stripped from many a callow neck, and cast into the rafters of the
+Hall for very joy. But all men knew, and the mothers too, that Wolsey's
+intercession was only make-believe, and that what they saw was but the
+ceremonial act of grace. The Queen they thanked in their hearts and not
+the haughty Cardinal, for the King had pardoned the 'prentices privately
+days before, when Katharine and her two sisters-in-law, the widowed Queens
+of France and Scotland, had knelt before the King in unfeigned tears, and
+had clamoured for the lives of the Londoners. To the day of the Queen's
+unhappy death this debt was never forgotten by the citizens, who loved her
+faithfully to the end far better than any of her successors.
+
+The sweating sickness in the autumn of 1517 sent Henry and his wife as far
+away from contagion as possible, for sickness always frightened the big
+bully into a panic. During his absence from London, Wolsey was busy
+negotiating a still closer alliance with France, by the marriage of the
+baby Princess Mary to the newly born Dauphin. It can hardly have been the
+match that Katharine would have chosen for her cherished only child, but
+she was a cypher by the side of Wolsey now, and made no open move against
+it at the time. Early in the spring of 1518 the plague broke out again,
+and Henry in dire fear started upon a progress in the midlands. Richard
+Pace, who accompanied him, wrote to Wolsey on the 12th April telling him
+as a secret that the Queen was again pregnant. "I pray God heartily," he
+continued, "that it may be a prince to the surety and universal comfort of
+the realm;" and he begs the Cardinal to write a kind letter to the Queen.
+In June the glad tidings were further confirmed, as likely to result in
+"an event most earnestly desired by the whole kingdom." Still dodging the
+contagion, the King almost fled from one place to another, and when at
+Woodstock in July Henry himself wrote a letter to Wolsey which tells in
+every line how anxious he was that the coming event should be the
+fulfilment of his ardent hope. Katharine had awaited him at Woodstock,
+and he had been rejoiced at the confident hope she gave him. He tells
+Wolsey the news formally, and says that he will remove the Queen as little
+and as quietly as may be to avoid risk. Soon all the diplomatists were
+speculating at the great things that would happen when the looked-for
+prince was born; and it was probably the confident hope that this time
+Henry would not be disappointed, that made possible the success of
+Wolsey's policy and the marriage of the Princess Mary with the infant
+Dauphin. Of Wolsey's magnificent feasts that accompanied the ratification
+of peace and the betrothal on the 5th October, feasts more splendid, says
+the Venetian ambassador, than ever were given by Caligula or Cleopatra, no
+account can be given here. It was Wolsey's great triumph, and he surpassed
+all the records of luxury in England in its celebration. The sweet little
+bride dressed in cloth of gold stood before the thrones upon which her
+father and mother sat in the great Hall of Greenwich, and then, carried in
+the arms of a prelate, was held up whilst the Cardinal slipped the diamond
+wedding-ring upon her finger and blessed her nuptials with the baby
+bridegroom. That the heir of France should marry the heiress of England
+was a danger to the balance of Europe, and especially a blow to Spain. It
+was, moreover, not a match which England could regard with equanimity; for
+a French King Consort would have been repugnant to the whole nation, and
+Henry could never have meant to conclude the marriage finally, unless the
+expected heir was born. But alas! for human hopes. On the night of 10th
+November 1518, Katharine was delivered of a daughter, "to the vexation of
+as many as knew it," and King and nation mourned together, now that, after
+all, a Frenchman might reign over England.
+
+To Katharine this last disappointment was bitter indeed. Her husband,
+wounded and irritated, first in his pride, and now in his national
+interests, avoided her; her own country and kin had lost the English tie
+that meant so much to them, and she herself, in poor health and waning
+attractions, could only mourn her misfortunes, and cling more closely than
+ever to her one darling child, Mary, for the new undesired infant girl had
+died as soon as it was born. The ceaseless round of masking, mummery, and
+dancing, which so much captivated Henry, went on without abatement, and
+Katharine perforce had to take her part in it; but all the King's
+tenderness was now shown not to his wife but to his little daughter, whom
+he carried about in his arms and praised inordinately.[27] So frivolous
+and familiar indeed had Henry's behaviour grown that his Council took
+fright, and, under the thin veil of complaints against the behaviour of
+his boon companions, Carew, Peachy, Wingfield, and Brian, who were
+banished from Court, they took Henry himself seriously to task. The four
+French hostages, held for the payment of the war indemnity, were also
+feasted and entertained so familiarly by Henry, under Wolsey's influence,
+as to cause deep discontent to the lieges, who had always looked upon
+France as an enemy, and knew that the unpopular Cardinal's overwhelming
+display was paid for by French bribes. At one such entertainment
+Katharine was made to act as hostess at her dower-house of Havering in
+Essex, where, in the summer of 1519, we are told that, "for their
+welcomyng she purveyed all thynges in the most liberalist manner; and
+especially she made to the Kyng suche a sumpteous banket that he thanked
+her hartely, and the strangers gave it great praise." Later in the same
+year Katharine was present at a grand series of entertainments given by
+the King in the splendid new manor-house which he had built for Lady
+Tailebois, who had just rejoiced him by giving birth to a son. We have no
+record of Katharine's thoughts as she took part here in the tedious
+foolery so minutely described by Hall. She plucked off the masks, we are
+told, of eight disguised dancers in long dominos of blue satin and gold,
+"who danced with the ladies sadly, and communed not with them after the
+fashion of maskers." Of course the masqueraders were the Duke of Suffolk
+(Brandon) and other great nobles, as the poor Queen must well have known;
+but when she thought that all this mummery was to entertain Frenchmen, and
+the house in which it passed was devoted to the use of Henry's mistress,
+she must have covered her own heart with a more impenetrable mask than
+those of Suffolk and his companions, if her face was attuned to the gay
+sights and sounds around her.
+
+
+[Illustration: _KATHARINE OF ARAGON_
+
+_From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the National Portrait Gallery_]
+
+
+Katharine had now almost ceased to strive for the objects to which her
+life had been sacrificed, namely, the binding together of England and
+Spain to the detriment of France. Wolsey had believed that his own
+interests would be better served by a close French alliance, and he
+had had his way. Henry himself was but the vainglorious figure in the
+international pageant; the motive power was the Cardinal. But a greater
+than Wolsey, Charles of Austria and Spain, though he was as yet only a lad
+of nineteen, had appeared upon the scene, and soon was to make his power
+felt throughout the world. Wolsey's close union with France and the
+marriage of the Princess Mary with the Dauphin had been meant as a blow to
+Spain, to lead if possible to the election of Henry to the imperial crown,
+in succession to Maximilian, instead of the latter's grandson Charles. If
+the King of England were made Emperor, the way of the Cardinal of York to
+the throne of St. Peter was clear. Henry was flattered at the idea, and
+was ready to follow his minister anywhere to gain such a showy prize. But
+quite early in the struggle it was seen that the unpopular French alliance
+which had already cost England the surrender of the King's conquests in
+the war was powerless to bring about the result desired. Francis I., as
+vain and turbulent as Henry, and perhaps more able, was bidding high for
+the Empire himself. His success in the election would have been disastrous
+both to Spain and England, and yet the French alliance was too dear to
+Wolsey to be easily relinquished, and Francis was assured that all the
+interest of his dear brother of England should be cast in his favour,
+whilst, with much more truth, the Spanish candidate was plied with good
+wishes for his success, and underhand attempts were made at the same time
+to gain the electors for the King of England.[28] Wolsey hoped thus to
+win in any case; and up to a certain point he did so; for he gave to
+Charles the encouragement he needed for the masterly move which soon after
+revolutionised political relations.
+
+Charles at this time (1519), young as he was, had already developed his
+marvellous mental and physical powers. Patient and self-centred, with all
+his Aragonese grandfather's subtlety, he possessed infinitely greater
+boldness and width of view. He knew well that the seven prince electors
+who chose the Emperor might, like other men, be bought, if enough money
+could be found. To provide it and give to him the dominant power of the
+world, he was ready to crush the ancient liberties of Castile, to squeeze
+his Italian and Flemish dominions of their last obtainable ducat, for he
+knew that his success in the election would dazzle his subjects until they
+forgot what they had paid for it. And so it happened. Where Francis bribed
+in hundreds Charles bribed in thousands, and England in the conflict of
+money-bags and great territorial interests hardly counted at all. When
+Charles was elected Emperor in June 1519, Henry professed himself
+delighted; but it meant that the universal peace that had been proclaimed
+with such a flourish of trumpets only three years before was already
+tottering, and that England must soon make a choice as to which of the two
+great rivals should be her friend, and which her enemy.
+
+Francis nursed his wrath to keep it warm, and did his best to retain
+Henry and Wolsey on his side. Bribes and pensions flowed freely from
+France upon English councillors, the inviolable love of Henry and Francis,
+alike in gallantry and age, was insisted upon again and again; the
+three-year-old Princess Mary was referred to always as Dauphiness and
+future Queen of France, though when the little Dauphin was spoken of as
+future King of England, Henry's subjects pulled a wry face and cursed all
+Frenchmen. A meeting between the two allies, which for its splendour
+should surpass all other regal displays, was constantly urged by the
+French hostages in England by order of Francis, as a means of showing to
+the world that he could count upon Henry. To the latter the meeting was
+agreeable as a tribute to his power, and as a satisfaction to his love of
+show, and to Wolsey it was useful as enhancing his sale value in the eyes
+of two lavish bidders. To Charles, who shared none of the frivolous tastes
+of his rival sovereigns, it only appealed as a design against him to be
+forestalled and defeated. When, therefore, the preparations for the Field
+of the Cloth of Gold were in full swing early in the year 1520, Charles,
+by a brilliant though risky move such as his father Philip would have
+loved, took the first step to win England to his side in the now
+inevitable struggle for supremacy between the Empire and France. Whilst he
+was still wrangling with his indignant Castilian parliament in March,
+Charles sent envoys to England to propose a friendly meeting with Henry
+whilst on his way by sea from Spain to Flanders. It was Katharine's
+chance and she made the most of it. She had suffered long and patiently
+whilst the French friendship was paramount; but if God would vouchsafe her
+the boon of seeing her nephew in England it would, she said to his envoys,
+be the measure of her desires. Wolsey, too, smiled upon the suggestion,
+for failing Francis the new Emperor in time might help him to the Papacy.
+So, with all secrecy, a solemn treaty was signed on the 11th April 1520,
+settling, down to the smallest details, the reception of Charles by Henry
+and Katharine at Sandwich and Canterbury, on his voyage or else at a
+subsequent meeting of the monarchs between Calais and Gravelines.
+
+It was late in May when news came from the west that the Spanish fleet was
+sailing up the Channel;[29] and Henry was riding towards the sea from
+London ostensibly to embark for France when he learnt that the Emperor's
+ships were becalmed off Dover. Wolsey was despatched post-haste to greet
+the imperial visitor and invite him to land; and Charles, surrounded by a
+gorgeous suite of lords and ladies, with the black eagle of Austria on
+cloth of gold fluttering over and around him, was conducted to Dover
+Castle, where before dawn next morning, the 27th May, Henry arrived and
+welcomed his nephew. There was no mistaking the cordiality of the English
+cheers that rang in peals from Dover to Canterbury and through the ancient
+city, as the two monarchs rode side by side in gorgeous array. They meant,
+as clearly as tone could speak, that the enemy of France and Queen
+Katharine's nephew was the friend for the English people, whatever the
+Cardinal of York might think. To Katharine it was a period of rejoicing,
+and her thoughts were high as she welcomed her sister's son; the sallow
+young man with yellow hair, already in title the greatest monarch in the
+world, though beset with difficulties. By her stood beautiful Mary Tudor,
+Duchess of Suffolk, twice married since she had, as a child, been
+betrothed under such heavy guarantees to Charles himself; and, holding her
+mother's hand, was the other Mary Tudor, a prim, quaint little maid of
+four, with big brown eyes. Already great plans for her filled her mother's
+brain. True, she was betrothed to the Dauphin; but what if the hateful
+French match fell through, and the Emperor, he of her own kin, were to
+seal a national alliance by marrying the daughter of England? Charles
+feasted for four days at Canterbury, and then went on his way amidst
+loving plaudits to his ships at Sandwich; but before he sailed he
+whispered that to Wolsey which made the Cardinal his servant; for the
+Emperor, suzerain of Italy and King of Naples, Sicily, and Spain, might do
+more than a King of France in future towards making a Pope.
+
+By the time that Henry and Francis met early in June on the ever-memorable
+field between Ardres and Guisnes, the riot of splendour which surrounded
+the sovereigns and Wolsey, though it dazzled the crowd and left its mark
+upon history as a pageant, was known to the principal actors of the scene
+to be but hollow mockery. The glittering baubles that the two kings
+loved, the courtly dallying, the pompous ceremony, the masques and devices
+to symbolise eternal amity, were not more evanescent than the love they
+were supposed to perpetuate. Katharine went through her ceremonial part of
+the show as a duty, and graciously received the visit of Francis in the
+wonderful flimsy palace of wood, drapery, and glass at Guisnes; but her
+heart was across the Flemish frontier a few miles away, where her nephew
+awaited the coming of the King of England to greet him as his kinsman and
+future ally. Gravelines was a poor place, but Charles had other ways of
+influencing people than by piling up gewgaws before them. A single day of
+rough, hearty feasting was an agreeable relief to Henry after the
+glittering insincerity of Guisnes; and the four days following, in which
+Charles was entertained at Calais as the guest of Henry and Katharine,
+made up in prodigality for the coarseness of the Flemish fare;[30] whilst
+Wolsey, who was already posing as the arbitrator between all Christian
+potentates, was secured to the side of the Emperor in future by a grant of
+the bulk of the income from two Spanish bishoprics, Badajoz and Palencia.
+
+Already the two great rivals were bidding against each other for allies,
+and Charles, though his resources were less concentrated than those of
+Francis, could promise most. Leo X. for his own territorial ambition, and
+in fear of Luther, rallied to the side of the Emperor, the German princes
+seconded their suzerain, and the great struggle for the supremacy of
+Christendom began in March 1521. England by treaty was bound to assist
+France, but this did not suit Wolsey or Henry in their new mood, and the
+Cardinal pressed his arbitration on the combatants. Francis reluctantly
+consented to negotiate; but minds were aflame with a subject that added
+fierceness to the political rivalry between Charles and Francis. The young
+Emperor, when he had met the German princes at Worms (April 1521), had
+thrown down the gage to Luther, and thenceforward it was war to the knife
+between the old faith and the new spirit. Henry, we may be certain to the
+delight of Katharine, violently attacked Luther in his famous book, and
+was flattered by the fulsome praises of the Pope and the Emperor. In the
+circumstances Wolsey's voyage to Calais for the furtherance of arbitration
+was turned into one to conclude an armed alliance with Charles and the
+Pope. The Cardinal, who had bent all others to his will, was himself bent
+by the Emperor; and the arbitrator between two monarchs became the servant
+of one. By the treaty signed at Bruges by Wolsey for Henry, Charles
+contracted an engagement to marry his little cousin, Princess Mary, and to
+visit England for a formal betrothal in the following year.
+
+How completely Wolsey had at this time surrendered himself to the Emperor,
+is evident from Katharine's new attitude towards him. During his period of
+French sympathy she had been, as we have seen, practically alienated from
+state affairs, but now in Henry's letters to Wolsey her name is
+frequently mentioned and her advice was evidently welcome.[31] During his
+absence in Flanders, for instance, Wolsey received a letter from Henry, in
+which the King says: "The Queen, my wife, hath desired me to make her most
+hearty recommendation unto you, as to him that she loveth very well; and
+both she and I would fain know when you would repair unto us." Great news
+came that the Emperor and his allies were brilliantly successful in the
+war, but in the midst of victory the great Medici, Pope Leo X., though
+still a man in his prime, died. There is no doubt that a secret promise
+had been made by Charles to Wolsey of his support in case a vacancy in the
+Papacy arose, but no one had dreamed of its occurring so quickly,[32] and
+Charles found his hand forced. He needed for his purpose a far more
+pliable instrument in the pontifical chair than the haughty Cardinal of
+York. So, whilst pretending to work strenuously to promote Wolsey's
+elevation, and thus to gain the goodwill of Henry and his minister, he
+took care secretly that some humbler candidate, such as the one
+ultimately chosen by the Conclave, his old schoolmaster, Cardinal Adrian,
+should be the new Pope. Wolsey was somewhat sulky at the result of the
+election, and thenceforward looked with more distrust on the imperial
+connection; but, withal, he put as good a face on the matter as possible;
+and when, at the end of May 1522, he again welcomed the Emperor in Henry's
+name as he set foot on English soil at Dover, the Cardinal, though
+watchful, was still favourable to the alliance. This visit of the young
+Emperor was the most splendid royal sojourn ever made in England; and
+Henry revelled in the ceremonies wherein he was the host of the greatest
+monarch upon earth.
+
+Charles came with a train of a thousand horse and two thousand courtiers;
+and to feed and house such a multitude, the guilds of London, and even the
+principal citizens, were obliged to make return of all their spare beds
+and stocks of provisions in order to provide for the strangers. The
+journey of the monarchs was a triumphal progress from Dover through
+Canterbury, Sittingbourne, and Rochester to Gravesend. On the downs
+between Dover and Canterbury, Henry and a great train of nobles was to
+have met his nephew; but the more to do him honour the King rode into
+Dover itself, and with pride showed his visitor his new great ship the
+_Harry Grace a Dieu_, and the rest of the English fleet; whereupon, "the
+Emperor and his lords much praised the making of the ships, and especially
+the artillery: they said they had never seen ships so armed." From
+Gravesend the gallant company rowed in the royal barges amidst salvoes of
+guns to Greenwich. There at the hall door of the palace stood Katharine
+surrounded by her ladies, and holding her tiny daughter by the hand.
+Sinking upon one knee the Emperor craved his aunt's blessing, which was
+given, and thenceforward for five weeks the feasting and glorious shows
+went on without intermission.
+
+On the second day after the arrival at Greenwich, whilst Henry was arming
+for a joust, a courier, all travel-stained and weary, demanded prompt
+audience, to hand the King a letter from his ambassador in France. The
+King read the despatch with knitted brows, and, turning to his friend Sir
+William Compton, said: "Go and tell the Emperor I have news for him." When
+Charles came the letter was handed to him, and it must have rejoiced his
+heart as he read it. Francis bade defiance to the King of England, and
+thenceforward Henry and the Emperor were allies in arms against a common
+enemy. Glittering pageants followed in London and Windsor, where Charles
+sat as Knight of the Garter under triumphant Henry's presidency; masques
+and dances, banquets and hunting, delighted the host and surprised the
+guests with the unrestrained lavishness of the welcome;[33] but we may be
+certain that what chiefly interested Katharine and her nephew was not this
+costly trifling, but the eternal friendship between England and Spain
+solemnly sworn upon the sacrament in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, by the
+Emperor and Henry, and the binding alliance between them in peace and war,
+cemented by the pledge that Charles should marry his cousin Mary Tudor and
+no one else in the world. It was Katharine's final and greatest triumph,
+and the shadows fell thick and fast thereafter.
+
+Henry promptly took his usual showy and unprofitable part in the war. Only
+a few weeks after the Emperor bade his new ally farewell, an English force
+invaded Picardy, and the Earl of Surrey's fleet threatened all French
+shipping in the Channel. Coerced by the King of England too, Venice
+deserted France and joined forces with the allies; the new Pope and the
+Italian princes did the same, and the Emperor's arms carried all before
+them in Italy. Henry was kept faithful to his ally by the vain hope of a
+dismemberment of France, in which he should be the principal gainer; the
+Pope Clement VII., the ambitious Medici, who succeeded Adrian in September
+1523, hungered for fresh territory which Charles alone could give him; the
+rebel De Bourbon, the greatest soldier of France, was fighting against his
+own king; and in February 1525 the crushing blow of Pavia fell, and
+Francis, "all lost except honour," was a prisoner in the hands of his
+enemy, who looking over Christendom saw none to say him nay but the bold
+monk at Wittemberg.
+
+Three years of costly war for interests not primarily their own had
+already disillusioned the English people. By methods more violent and
+tyrannical than ever had been adopted by any previous king, Henry had
+wrung from parliament supplies so oppressive and extortionate for the
+purposes of the war as to disgust and incense the whole country. Wolsey,
+too, had been for the second time beguiled about the Papacy he coveted,
+and knew now that he could not trust the Emperor to serve any interests
+but his own. The French collapse at Pavia, moreover, and pity for the
+captive Francis languishing at Madrid, had caused in England and elsewhere
+a reaction in his favour. Henry himself was, as was his wont, violently
+angry at the cynical way in which his own hopes in France were shelved by
+Charles; and the Pope, alarmed now at the Emperor's unchecked dominion in
+Italy, and the insufficient share of the spoil offered to him, also began
+to look askance at his ally. So, notwithstanding the official rejoicings
+in England when the news of Pavia came, and the revived plan of Henry and
+Wolsey to join Bourbon in his intention to dismember France, with or
+without the aid of Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warham,
+correctly interpreted the prevailing opinion in England in his letter to
+Wolsey (quoted by Hallam), saying that the people had "more cause to weep
+than to rejoice" at the French defeat. The renewed extortionate demands
+for money aroused in England discontent so dangerous as to reach rebellion
+against the King's officers.[34] Risings in Kent and the eastern counties,
+and the outspoken remonstrances of the leaders of the middle and working
+classes at length convinced Wolsey, and through him the King, that a
+change of policy was inevitable. England once more had been made the
+cat's-paw of Spain; and now, with an empty exchequer and a profoundly
+discontented people, was obliged again to shift its balance to the side
+which promised the best hopes for peace, and to redress the equilibrium in
+Europe upon which the English power depended. France was still rich in
+resources, and was made to pay or rather promise the vast sum of two
+million crowns in instalments, and an annuity of a hundred thousand a year
+to the King for England's friendship, whilst Francis was forced to abandon
+all his claims on Italy and Burgundy (January 1526), and marry the
+Emperor's sister Leonora, before he was permitted to return to France, at
+peace once more. It is true that every party to the treaties endeavoured
+to evade the fulfilment of his pledges; but that was the custom of the
+times. The point that interests us here is that the new policy now
+actively pursued by Wolsey of close friendship with France, necessarily
+meant the ruin of Katharine, unless she was dexterous and adaptable enough
+either to reverse the policy or openly espouse it. Unfortunately she did
+neither. She was now forty-one years of age, and had ceased for nearly two
+years to cohabit with her husband. Her health was bad; she had grown
+stout, and her comeliness had departed; all hopes of her giving to the
+King the son and heir for whom he so ardently craved had quite vanished,
+and with them much of her personal hold upon her husband. To her alarm and
+chagrin, Henry, as if in despair of being succeeded by a legitimate heir,
+in 1525, before signing the new alliance with France, had created his
+dearly loved natural son, Henry Fitzroy, a duke under the royal title of
+Duke of Richmond, which had been borne by his father; and Katharine, not
+without reason, feared the King's intention to depose her daughter, the
+betrothed of the Emperor, in favour of an English bastard. We have in
+previous pages noticed the peculiar absence of tact and flexibility in
+Katharine's character; and Wolsey's ostentatious French leanings after
+1525 were met by the Queen with open opposition and acrimonious reproach,
+instead of by temporising wiliness. The Emperor's off-hand treatment of
+his betrothed bride, Mary Tudor, further embittered Katharine, who was
+thus surrounded on every side by disillusionment and disappointment.
+Charles sent commissioners to England just before the battle of Pavia to
+demand, amongst other unamiable requirements, the prompt sending of Mary,
+who was only nine years old, to Flanders with an increased dowry. This was
+no part of the agreement, and was, as no doubt Charles foresaw and
+desired, certain to be refused. The envoys received from Henry and
+Katharine, and more emphatically from Wolsey, a negative answer to the
+request,[35] Mary being, as they said, the greatest treasure they had, for
+whom no hostages would be sufficient.[36] Katharine would not let her
+nephew slip out of his engagement without a struggle. Mary herself was
+made soon after to send a fine emerald to her betrothed with a grand
+message to the effect that when they came together she would be able to
+know (_i.e._ by the clearness or otherwise of the gem) "whether his
+Majesty do keep himself as continent and chaste as, with God's grace, she
+will." As at this time the Emperor was a man of twenty-five, whilst his
+bride had not reached ten years, the cases were hardly parallel; and
+within three months (in July 1525) Charles had betrothed himself to his
+cousin of Portugal. The treaty that had been so solemnly sworn to on the
+high altar at Windsor only three years before, had thus become so much
+waste-paper, and Katharine's best hopes for her child and herself were
+finally defeated. A still greater trial for her followed; for whilst
+Wolsey was drawing nearer and nearer to France, and the King himself was
+becoming more distant from his wife every day, the little Princess was
+taken from the loving care of her mother, and sent to reside in her
+principality of Wales.[37] Thenceforward the life of Katharine was a
+painful martyrdom without one break in the monotony of misfortune.
+
+Katharine appears never to have been unduly jealous of Henry's various
+mistresses. She, one of the proudest princesses in Christendom, probably
+considered them quite beneath her notice, and as usual adjuncts to a
+sovereign's establishment. Henry, moreover, was far from being a generous
+or complaisant lover; and allowed his lady favourites no great social and
+political power, such as that wielded by the mistresses of Francis I. Lady
+Tailebois (Eleanor Blount) made no figure at Court, and Mary Boleyn, the
+wife of William Carey, a quite undistinguished courtier, who had been
+Henry's mistress from about 1521,[38] was always impecunious and sometimes
+disreputable, though her greedy father reaped a rich harvest from his
+daughter's attractions. Katharine evidently troubled herself very little
+about such infidelity on the part of her husband, and certainly Wolsey had
+no objection. The real anxiety of the Queen arose from Henry's ardent
+desire for a legitimate son, which she could not hope to give him; and
+Wolsey, with his eyes constantly fixed on the Papacy, decided to make
+political capital and influence for himself by binding France and England
+so close together both dynastically and politically as to have both kings
+at his bidding before the next Pope was elected. The first idea was the
+betrothal of the jilted Princess Mary of ten to the middle-aged widower
+who sat upon the throne of France. An embassy came to London from the
+Queen Regent of France, whilst Francis was still a prisoner in Madrid in
+1525, to smooth the way for a closer intimacy. Special instructions were
+given to the ambassador to dwell upon the complete recovery of Francis
+from his illness, and to make the most of the Emperor's unfaithfulness to
+his English betrothed for the purpose of marrying the richly dowered
+Portuguese. Francis eventually regained his liberty on hard conditions
+that included his marriage with Charles's widowed sister Leonora, Queen
+Dowager of Portugal; and his sons were to remain in Spain as hostages for
+his fulfilment of the terms. But from the first Francis intended to
+violate the treaty of Madrid, wherever possible; and early in 1527 a
+stately train of French nobles, headed by De Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes,
+came with a formal demand for the hand of young Mary Tudor for the already
+much-married Francis. Again the palace of Greenwich was a blaze of
+splendour for the third nuptials of the little princess; and the elaborate
+mummery that Henry loved was re-enacted.[39] On the journeys to and from
+their lodgings in Merchant Taylors' Hall, the Bishop of Tarbes and
+Viscount de Turenne heard nothing but muttered curses, saw nothing but
+frowning faces of the London people; for Mary was in the eyes of Henry's
+subjects the heiress of England, and they would have, said they, no
+Frenchman to reign over them when their own king should die.[40] Katharine
+took little part in the betrothal festivities, for she was a mere shadow
+now. Her little daughter was made to show off her accomplishments to the
+Frenchmen, speaking to them in French and Latin, playing on the
+harpsichord, and dancing with the Viscount de Turenne, whilst the poor
+Queen looked sadly on. Stiff with gems and cloth of gold, the girl,
+appearing, we are told, "like an angel," gravely played her part to her
+proud father's delight, and the Bishop of Tarbes took back with him to his
+master enthusiastic praises of this "pearl of the world," the backward
+little girl of eleven, who was destined, as Francis said, to be the
+"cornerstone of the new covenant" between France and England, either by
+her marriage with himself, or, failing that, with his second son, the Duke
+of Orleans, which in every respect would have been a most suitable match.
+
+No sooner had the treaty of betrothal been signed than there came (2nd
+June 1527) the tremendous news that the Emperor's troops under Bourbon had
+entered and sacked Rome with ruthless fury, and that Pope Clement was a
+prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, clamouring for aid from all
+Christian princes against his impious assailants. All those kings who
+looked with distrust upon the rapidly growing power of Charles drew closer
+together. When the news came, Wolsey was in France on his embassy of
+surpassing magnificence, whilst public discontent in England at what was
+considered his warlike policy was already swelling into fierce
+denunciations against him, his pride, his greed, and his French
+proclivities. English people cared little for the troubles of the Italian
+Pope; or indeed for anything else, so long as they were allowed to live
+and trade in peace; and they knew full well that war with the Emperor
+would mean the closing of the rich Flemish and Spanish markets to them, as
+well as the seizure of their ships and goods. But to Wolsey's ambition the
+imprisonment of Clement VII. seemed to open a prospect of unlimited power.
+If Francis and Henry were closely allied, with the support of the Papacy
+behind them, Wolsey might be commissioned to exercise the Papal authority
+until he relieved the Pontiff from duress, and in due course might succeed
+to the chair of St. Peter. So, deaf to the murmuring of the English
+people, he pressed on; his goal being to bind France and England closely
+together that he might use them both.
+
+The marriage treaty of Mary with the Duke of Orleans, instead of with his
+father, was agreed upon by Francis and the Cardinal at Amiens in August
+1527. But Wolsey knew that the marriage of the children could not be
+completed for some years yet, and he was impatient to forge an immediately
+effective bond. Francis had a sister and a sister-in-law of full age,
+either of whom might marry Henry. But Katharine stood in the way, and she
+was the personification of the imperial connection. Wolsey had no
+scruples: he knew how earnestly his master wished for a son to inherit his
+realm, and how weak of will that master was if only he kept up the
+appearance of omnipotence. He knew that Katharine, disappointed, glum, and
+austere, had lost the charm by which women rule men, and the plan, that
+for many months he had been slowly and stealthily devising, was boldly
+brought out to light of day. Divorce was easy, and it would finally
+isolate the Emperor if Katharine were set aside. The Pope would do
+anything for his liberators: why not dissolve the unfruitful marriage, and
+give to England a new French consort in the person of either the widowed
+Margaret Duchess of Alencon, or of Princess Renee? It is true that the
+former indignantly refused the suggestion, and dynastic reasons prevented
+Francis from favouring that of a marriage of Renee of France and Brittany
+with the King of England; but women, and indeed men, were for Wolsey but
+puppets to be moved, not creatures to be consulted, and the Cardinal went
+back to England exultant, and hopeful that, at last, he would compass his
+aspiration, and make himself ruler of the princes of Christendom. Never
+was hope more fallacious or fortune's irony more bitter. With a strong
+master Wolsey would have won; with a flabby sensualist as his
+stalking-horse he was bound to lose, unless he remained always at his
+side. The Cardinal's absence in France was the turning-point of his
+fortunes; whilst he was glorying abroad, his enemies at home dealt him a
+death-blow through a woman.
+
+At exactly what period, or by whom, the idea of divorcing Katharine at
+this time had been broached to Henry, it is difficult to say; but it was
+no unpardonable or uncommon thing for monarchs, for reasons of dynastic
+expediency, to put aside their wedded wives. Popes, usually in a hurry to
+enrich their families, could be bribed or coerced; and the interests of
+the individual, even of a queen-consort, were as nothing in comparison of
+those of the State, as represented by the sovereign. If the question of
+religious reform had not complicated the situation and Henry had married a
+Catholic princess of one of the great royal houses, as Wolsey intended,
+instead of a mere upstart like Anne Boleyn, there would probably have been
+little difficulty about the divorce from Katharine: and the first hint of
+the repudiation of a wife who could give the King no heir, for the sake of
+his marrying another princess who might do so, and at the same time
+consolidate a new international combination, would doubtless be considered
+by those who made it as quite an ordinary political move.
+
+It is probable that the Bishop of Tarbes, when he was in England in the
+spring of 1527 for the betrothal of Mary, conferred with Wolsey as to the
+possibility of Henry's marriage to a French princess, which of course
+would involve the repudiation of Katharine. In any case the King and
+Wolsey--whether truly or not--asserted that the Bishop had first started
+the question of the validity of Henry's marriage with his wife, with
+special reference to the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, who was to be
+betrothed to Francis I. or his son. It may be accepted as certain,
+however, that the matter had been secretly fermenting ever since Wolsey
+began to shift the centre of gravity from the Emperor towards France.
+Katharine may have suspected it, though as yet no word reached her. But
+she was angry at the intimate hobnobbing with France, at her daughter's
+betrothal to the enemy of her house, and at the elevation of Henry's
+bastard son to a royal dukedom. She was deeply incensed, too, at her
+alienation from State affairs, and had formed around her a cabal of
+Wolsey's enemies, for the most part members of the older nobility
+traditionally in favour of the Spanish alliance and against France, in
+order, if possible, to obstruct the Cardinal's policy.[41]
+
+The King, no doubt fully aware of Wolsey's plan, was as usual willing to
+wound, but yet afraid to strike; not caring how much wrong he did if he
+could only gloze it over to appear right and save his own responsibility
+before the world. The first formal step, which was taken in April 1527,
+was carefully devised with this end. Henry, representing that his
+conscience was assailed by doubts, secretly consulted certain of his
+councillors as to the legality of his union with his deceased brother's
+widow. It is true that he had lived with her for eighteen years, and that
+any impediment to the marriage on the ground of affinity had been
+dispensed with to the satisfaction of all parties at the time by the
+Pope's bull. But trifles such as these could never stand in the way of so
+tender a conscience as that of Henry Tudor, or so overpowering an ambition
+as that of his minister. The councillors--most of those chosen were of
+course French partisans--thought the case was very doubtful, and were
+favourable to an inquiry.
+
+On the 17th May 1527, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, it will be
+recollected, had always been against the marriage; with Wolsey, Stephen
+Gardiner, and certain doctors-of-law, held a private sitting at the York
+House, Westminster, at which the King had been cited to appear and answer
+the charge of having lived in incest with his sister-in-law. The Court was
+adjourned twice, to the 20th and 31st May, during which time the sham
+pleadings for and against the King were carefully directed to the desired
+end. But before the first sitting was well over the plot got wind and
+reached Katharine. The Queen and the imperial connection were popular,
+Wolsey and the French were feared and detested. The old nobility and the
+populace were on the Queen's side; the mere rumour of what was intended by
+the prelates at York House set people growling ominously, and the friends
+of the Spanish-Flemish alliance became threateningly active. The King and
+Wolsey saw that for a decree of nullity to be pronounced by Warham and
+Wolsey alone, after a secret inquiry at which the Queen was not
+represented, would be too scandalous and dangerous in the state of public
+feeling, and an attempt was made to get the bishops generally to decide,
+in answer to a leading question, that such a marriage as that of the King
+and Katharine was incestuous. But the bishops were faithful sons of the
+Papacy, and most of them shied at the idea of ignoring the Pope's bull
+allowing the marriage. Henry had also learnt during the proceedings of
+the sacking of Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, which was another
+obstacle to his desires, for though the Pope would doubtless have been
+quite ready to oblige his English and French friends to the detriment of
+the Emperor when he was free, it was out of the question that he should do
+so now that he and his dominions were at the mercy of the imperial troops.
+
+The King seems to have had an idea that he might by his personal
+persuasion bring his unaccommodating wife to a more reasonable frame of
+mind. He and Wolsey had been intensely annoyed that she had learnt so
+promptly of the plot against her, but since some spy had told her, it was
+as well, thought Henry, that she should see things in their proper light.
+With a sanctimonious face he saw her on the 22nd June 1527, and told her
+how deeply his conscience was touched at the idea that they had been
+living in mortal sin for so many years. In future, he said, he must
+abstain from her company, and requested that she would remove far away
+from Court. She was a haughty princess--no angel in temper,
+notwithstanding her devout piety; and she gave Henry the vigorous answer
+that might have been expected. They were man and wife, as they had always
+been, she said, with the full sanction of the Church and the world, and
+she would stay where she was, strong in her rights as an honest woman and
+a queen. It was not Henry's way to face a strong opponent, unless he had
+some one else to support him and bear the brunt of the fight, and, in
+accordance with his character, he whined that he never meant any harm: he
+only wished to discover the truth, to set at rest the scruples raised by
+the Bishop of Tarbes. All would be for the best, he assured his angry
+wife; but pray keep the matter secret.[42]
+
+Henry did not love to be thwarted, and Wolsey, busy making ready for his
+ostentatious voyage to France, had to bear as best he might his master's
+ill-humour. The famous ecclesiastical lawyer, Sampson, had told the
+Cardinal that the marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; and
+consequently that, even apart from the Pope's dispensation, the present
+union was unimpeachable. The Queen would fight the matter to the end, he
+said; and though Wolsey did his best to answer Sampson's arguments, he was
+obliged to transmit them to the King, and recommend him to handle his wife
+gently; "until it was shown what the Pope and Francis would do." Henry
+acted on the advice, as we have seen, but Wolsey was scolded by the King
+as if he himself had advanced Sampson's arguments instead of answering
+them. Katharine did not content herself with sitting down and weeping. She
+despatched her faithful Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, on a
+pretended voyage to a sick mother in Spain, in order that he might beg the
+aid of the Emperor to prevent the injustice intended against the Queen;
+and Wolsey's spies made every effort to catch the man, and lay him by the
+heels.[43] She sent to her confessor, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, begging
+for his counsel, he being one of the bishops who held that her marriage
+was valid; she "desired," said Wolsey to the King, "counsel, as well of
+strangers as of English," and generally showed a spirit the very opposite
+of that of the patient Griselda in similar circumstances. How entirely
+upset were the King and Wolsey by the unexpected force of the opposition
+is seen in the Cardinal's letter to his master a day or two after he had
+left London at the beginning of July to proceed on his French embassy.
+Writing from Faversham, he relates how he had met Archbishop Warham, and
+had told him in dismay that the Queen had discovered their plan, and how
+irritated she was; and how the King, as arranged with Wolsey, had tried to
+pacify and reassure her. To Wolsey's delight, Warham persisted that,
+whether the Queen liked it or not, "truth and law must prevail." On his
+way through Rochester, Wolsey tackled Fisher, who was known to favour the
+Queen. He admitted under Wolsey's pressure that she had sent to him,
+though he pretended not to know why, and "greatly blamed the Queen, and
+thought that if he might speak to her he might bring her to submission."
+But Wolsey considered this would be dangerous, and bade the bishop stay
+where he was. And so, with the iniquitous plot temporarily shelved by the
+unforeseen opposition, personal and political, Wolsey and his great train,
+more splendid than that of any king, went on his way to Dover, and to
+Amiens, whilst in his absence that happened in England which in due time
+brought all his dignity and pride to dust and ashes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+1527-1530
+
+KATHARINE AND ANNE--THE DIVORCE
+
+
+Enough has been said in the aforegoing pages to show that Henry was no
+more a model of marital fidelity than other contemporary monarchs. It was
+not to be expected that he should be. The marriages of such men were
+usually prompted by political reasons alone; and for the indulgence of
+affairs of the heart kings were forced to look elsewhere than towards the
+princesses they had taken in fulfilment of treaties. Mary, the younger
+daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and wife of William Carey, was the King's
+mistress for some years after her marriage in 1521, with the result that
+her father had received many rich grants from the crown; and in 1525 was
+created Lord Rochford. As treasurer of the household Lord Rochford was
+much at Court, and his relationship with the Howards, St. Legers, and
+other great families through his marriage with Lady Elizabeth, daughter of
+the Duke of Norfolk, naturally allied him with the party of nobles whose
+traditions ran counter to those of the bureaucrats in Henry's Council. His
+elder daughter Anne, who was born early in 1503, probably at Hever Castle
+in Kent,[44] had been carefully educated in the learning and
+accomplishments considered necessary for a lady of birth at Court, and she
+accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514 for her fleeting marriage with
+the valetudinarian Louis XII., related in an earlier chapter.[45] On Queen
+Mary's return to England a few months afterwards with her second husband,
+Charles Brandon, the youthful Anne Boleyn remained to complete her courtly
+education in France, under the care of the new Queen of France, Claude,
+first wife of Francis I.
+
+When the alliance of the Emperor and England was negotiated in 1521, and
+war with France threatened, Anne was recalled home; and in 1522 began her
+life in the English Court and with her family in their various residences.
+Her six years in the gay Court of Francis I. during her most
+impressionable age, had made her in manner more French than English. She
+can never have been beautiful. Her face was long and thin, her chin
+pointed, and her mouth hypocritically prim; but her eyes were dark and
+very fine, her brows arched and high, and her complexion dazzling. Above
+all, she was supremely vain and fond of admiration. Similar qualities to
+these might have been, and doubtless were, possessed by a dozen other
+high-born ladies at Henry's Court; but circumstances, partly political
+and partly personal, gave to them in Anne's case a national importance
+that produced enduring consequences upon the world. We have already
+glanced at the mixture of tedious masquerading, hunting, and amorous
+intrigue which formed the principal occupations of the ladies and
+gentlemen who surrounded Henry and Katharine in their daily life; and from
+her arrival in England, Anne appears to have entered to the full into the
+enjoyment of such pastimes. There was some negotiation for her marriage,
+even before she arrived in England, with Sir Piers Butler, an Irish cousin
+of hers, but it fell through on the question of settlements, and in 1526,
+when she was already about twenty-three, she took matters in her own
+hands, and captivated an extremely eligible suitor, in the person of a
+silly, flighty young noble, Henry Percy, eldest son and heir to the Earl
+of Northumberland.
+
+Percy was one of the Court butterflies who attached themselves to Wolsey's
+household, and when angrily taken to task by the Cardinal for flirting
+with Anne, notwithstanding his previous formal betrothal to another lady,
+the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the young man said that, as he
+loved Anne best, he would rather marry her. The Cardinal did not mince
+words with his follower, but Percy stood stoutly to his choice, and the
+Earl of Northumberland was hastily summoned to London to exercise his
+authority over his recalcitrant son. Cavendish[46] gives an amusing
+account of the interview between them, at which he was present. The Earl
+seems to have screwed up his courage by a generous draught of wine when he
+left Wolsey's presence to await his son in the hall of York House. When
+the youth did come in, the scolding he got was vituperative in its
+violence, with the result that Percy was reluctantly forced to abandon the
+sweetheart to whom he had plighted his troth. Wolsey's interference in
+their love affair deeply angered both Anne and her sweetheart. Percy was a
+poor creature, and could do Wolsey little harm; but Anne did not forget,
+swearing "that if ever it lay in her power she would do the Cardinal some
+displeasure, which indeed she afterwards did."[47]
+
+The reason for Wolsey's strong opposition to a match which appeared a
+perfectly fitting one for both the lovers, is not far to seek. Cavendish
+himself gives us the clue when he says that when the King first heard that
+Anne had become engaged to Percy, "he was much moved thereat, for he had a
+private affection for her himself which was not yet discovered to any":
+and the faithful usher in telling the story excuses Wolsey by saying that
+"he did nothing but what the King commanded." This affair marks the
+beginning of Henry's infatuation for Anne. There was no reason for Wolsey
+to object to a flirtation between the girl and her royal admirer; indeed
+the devotion of the King to a new mistress would doubtless make him the
+more ready to consent to contract another entirely political marriage, if
+he could get rid of Katharine; and the Cardinal smiled complaisantly at
+the prospect that all was going well for his plans. Anne, for the look of
+the thing, was sent away from Court for a short time after the Percy
+affair had been broken off; but before many weeks were over she was back
+again as one of Katharine's maids of honour, and the King's admiration for
+her was evident to all observers.[48]
+
+It is more than questionable whether up to this time (1526) Anne ever
+dreamed of becoming Henry's wife; but in any case she was too clever to
+let herself go cheaply. She knew well the difference in the positions held
+by the King's mistresses in the French Court and that which had been
+occupied by her sister and Lady Tailebois in England, and she coyly held
+her royal lover at arm's length, with the idea of enhancing her value at
+last. Henry, as we have seen, was utterly tired of, and estranged from,
+Katharine; and his new flame, with her natural ability and acquired French
+arts, flattered and pleased his vanity better than any woman had done
+before. It is quite probable that she began to aim secretly at the higher
+prize in the spring of 1527, when the idea of the divorce from Katharine
+had taken shape in the King's mind under the sedulous prompting of Wolsey
+for his personal and political ends; but if such was the case she was
+careful not to show her hand prematurely. Her only hope of winning such a
+game was to keep imperious Henry in a fever of love, whilst declining all
+his illicit advances. It was a difficult and a dangerous thing to do, for
+her quarry might break away at any moment, whereas if such a word as
+marriage between the King and her reached the ears of the cardinal, she
+and her family would inevitably be destroyed.
+
+Such was the condition of affairs when Wolsey started for France in July
+1527. He went, determined to leave no stone unturned to set Henry free
+from Katharine. He knew that there was no time to be lost, for the letters
+from Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, and Katharine's messenger
+Felipe, were on their way to tell the story to the Emperor in Spain; and
+Clement VII., a prisoner in the hands of the imperialists, would not dare
+to dissolve the marriage after Charles had had time to command him not to
+do so. It was a stiff race who should get to the Pope first. Wolsey's
+alternative plan in the circumstances was a clever one. It was to send to
+Rome the Bishop of Worcester (the Italian Ghinucci), Henry's ambassador in
+Spain, then on his way home, to obtain, with the support of the cardinals
+of French sympathies, a "general faculty" from Clement VII. for Wolsey to
+exercise all the Papal functions during the Pope's captivity: "by which,
+without informing the Pope of your (_i.e._ Henry's) purpose, I may
+delegate such judges as the Queen will not refuse; and if she does the
+cognisance of the cause shall be devolved upon me, and by a clause to be
+inserted in the general commission no appeal be allowed from my decision
+to the Pope."[49]
+
+How unscrupulous Wolsey and Henry were in the matter is seen in a letter
+dated shortly before the above was written, in which Wolsey says to
+Ghinucci (Bishop of Worcester) and Dr. Lee, Henry's ambassador with the
+Emperor, that "a rumour has, somehow or other, sprung up in England that
+proceedings are being taken for a divorce between the King and the Queen,
+which is entirely without foundation, yet not altogether causeless, for
+there has been some discussion about the Papal dispensation; not with any
+view to a divorce, but to satisfy the French, who raised the objection on
+proposing a marriage between the Princess (Mary Tudor) and their
+sovereign. The proceedings which took place on this dispute gave rise to
+the rumour, and reached the ears of the Queen, who expressed some
+resentment but was satisfied after explanation; and no suspicion exists,
+except, perchance, the Queen may have communicated with the Emperor."[50]
+Charles had, indeed, heard the whole story, as far as Katharine knew it,
+from the lips of Felipe before this was written, and was not to be put off
+with such smooth lies. He wrote indignantly to his ambassador Mendoza in
+London, directing him to see Henry and point out to him, in diplomatic
+language veiling many a threat, the danger, as well as the turpitude, of
+repudiating his lawful wife with no valid excuse; and more vigorously
+still he let the Pope know that there must be no underhand work to his
+detriment or that of his family. Whilst the arrogant Cardinal of York was
+thus playing for his own hand first, and for Henry secondly, in France,
+his jealous enemies in England might put their heads together and plot
+against him undeterred by the paralysing fear of his frown. His pride and
+insolence, as well as his French political leanings, had caused the
+populace to hate him; the commercial classes, who suffered most by the
+wars with their best customers, the Flemings and Spaniards, were strongly
+opposed to him; whilst the territorial and noble party, which had usually
+been friendly with Katharine, and were traditionally against bureaucratic
+or ecclesiastical ministers of the crown, suffered with impatience the
+galling yoke of the Ipswich butcher's son, who drove them as he listed.
+
+Anne was in the circumstances a more powerful ally for them than
+Katharine. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, the leader of the
+party of nobles, and her ambition would make her an apt and eager
+instrument. The infatuation of the King for her grew more violent as she
+repelled his advances,[51] and, doubtless at the prompting of Wolsey's
+foes, it soon began to be whispered that if Henry could get rid of his
+wife he might marry his English favourite. Before the Cardinal had been in
+France a month, Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, first sounded the new
+note of alarm to the Emperor, by telling him that Anne might become the
+King's wife. It is hardly possible that no hint of the danger can have
+reached Wolsey, but if it did he was confident of his power over his
+master when he should return to England. Unfortunately for him his ideas
+for the King's divorce were hampered by the plans for his own advancement;
+and the proposals he wrote to Henry were all founded on the idea of
+exerting international pressure, either for the liberation of the Pope, or
+to obtain from the Pontiff the decree of divorce. It was evident that this
+process must be a slow one, and Anne as well as Henry was in a hurry.
+Unlike Charles, who, though he was falsity itself to his rivals, never
+deceived his own ministers, Henry constantly showed the moral cowardice of
+his character by misleading those who were supposed to direct his policy,
+and at this juncture he conceived a plan of his own which promised more
+rapidity than that of Wolsey.[52] Without informing Wolsey of the real
+object of his mission, old Dr. Knight, the King's confidential secretary,
+was sent to endeavour to see the Pope in St. Angelo, and by personal
+appeal from the King persuade him to grant a dispensation for Henry's
+marriage either before his marriage with Katharine was dissolved formally
+(_constante matrimonio_), or else, if that was refused, a dispensation to
+marry after the declaration had been made nullifying the previous union
+(_soluto matrimonio_); but in either case the strange demand was to be
+made that the dispensation was to cover the case of the bride and
+bridegroom being connected within the prohibited degrees of affinity.[53]
+
+Knight saw Wolsey on his way through France and hoodwinked him as to his
+true mission by means of a bogus set of instructions, though the Cardinal
+was evidently suspicious and ill at ease. This was on the 12th September
+1527, and less than a fortnight later Wolsey hurried homeward. When he had
+set forth from England three months before he seemed to hold the King in
+the hollow of his hand. Private audience for him was always ready, and all
+doors flew open at his bidding. But when he appeared on the 30th September
+at the palace of Richmond, and sent one of his gentlemen to inquire of the
+King where he would receive him, Anne sat in the great hall by Henry's
+side, as was usual now. Before the King could answer the question of
+Wolsey's messenger, the favourite, with a petulance that Katharine would
+have considered undignified, snapped, "Where else should the Cardinal come
+but where the King is?" For the King to receive his ministers at private
+audience in a hall full of people was quite opposed to the usual etiquette
+of Henry's Court, and Wolsey's man still stood awaiting the King's reply.
+But it only came in the form of a nod that confirmed the favourite's
+decision. This must have struck the proud Cardinal to the heart, and when
+he entered the hall and bowed before his sovereign, who was toying now
+with his lady-love, and joking with his favourites, the minister must have
+known that his empire over Henry had for the time vanished. He was clever
+and crafty: he had often conquered difficulties before, and was not
+dismayed now that a young woman had supplanted him, for he still held
+confidence in himself. So he made no sign of annoyance, but he promptly
+tried to checkmate Knight's mission when he heard of it, whilst pretending
+approval of the King's attachment to Anne. The latter was deceived. She
+could not help seeing that with Wolsey's help she would attain her object
+infinitely more easily than without it, and she in her turn smiled upon
+the Cardinal, though her final success would have boded ill for him, as he
+well knew.
+
+His plan, doubtless, was to let the divorce question drag on as long as
+possible, in the hope that Henry would tire of his new flame. First he
+persuaded the King to send fresh instructions to Knight, on the ground
+that the Pope would certainly not give him a dispensation to commit bigamy
+in order that he might marry Anne, and that it would be easier to obtain
+from the Pontiff a decree leaving the validity of the marriage with
+Katharine to the decision of the Legates in England, Wolsey and another
+Cardinal. Henry having once loosened the bridle, did not entirely return
+to his submission to Wolsey. Like most weak men, he found it easier to
+rebel against the absent than against those who faced him; but he was not,
+if he and Anne could prevent it, again going to put his neck under the
+Cardinal's yoke completely, and in a secret letter to Knight he ordered
+him to ask Clement for a dispensation couched in the curious terms already
+referred to, allowing him to marry again, even within the degrees of
+affinity, as soon as the union with Katharine was dissolved. Knight had
+found it impossible to get near the Pope in Rome, for the imperialists had
+been fully forewarned by this time; but at length Clement was partially
+released and went to Orvieto in December, whither Knight followed him
+before the new instructions came from England. Knight was no match for the
+subtle churchmen. Clement dared not, moreover, mortally offend the
+Emperor, whose men-at-arms still held Rome; and the dispensation that
+Knight sent so triumphantly to England giving the Legate's Court in London
+power to decide the validity of the King's marriage, had a clause slipped
+into it which destroyed its efficacy, because it left the final decision
+to the Pontiff after all.
+
+It may be asked, if Henry believed, as he now pretended, that his first
+marriage had never been legal in consequence of Katharine being his
+brother's widow, why he needed a Papal dispensation to break it. The Papal
+brief that had been previously given allowing the marriage, was asserted
+by Henry's ecclesiastical friends to be _ultra vires_ in England, because
+marriage with a brother's widow was prohibited under the common law of the
+land, with which the Pope could not dispense. But the matter was
+complicated with all manner of side issues: the legitimacy of the Princess
+Mary, the susceptibilities of the powerful confederation that obeyed the
+Emperor, the sentiment of the English people, and, above all, the
+invariable desire of Henry to appear a saint whilst he acted like a sinner
+and to avoid personal responsibility; and so Henry still strove with the
+ostensible, but none too hearty, aid of Wolsey, to gain from the Pope the
+nullification of a marriage which he said was no marriage at all. Wolsey's
+position had become a most delicate and dangerous one. As soon as the
+Emperor learned of Anne's rise, he had written to Mendoza (30th September
+1527), saying that the Cardinal must be bought at any price. All his
+arrears of pension (45,000 ducats) were to be paid, 6000 ducats a year
+more from a Spanish bishopric were to be granted, and a Milanese
+marquisate was to be conferred upon him with a revenue of 15,000 ducats a
+year, if he would only serve the Emperor's interests. But he dared not do
+it quickly or openly, dearly as he loved money, for Anne was watchful and
+Henry suspicious of him. His only hope was that the King's infatuation for
+this long-faced woman with the prude's mouth and the blazing eyes might
+pall. Then his chance would come again.
+
+Far from growing weaker, however, Henry's passion grew as Anne's virtue
+became more rigid. She had not always been so austere, for gossip had
+already been busy with her good name. Percy and Sir Thomas Wyatt had both
+been her lovers, and with either or both of them she had in some way
+compromised herself.[54] But she played her game cleverly, for the stake
+was a big one, and her fascination must have been great. She was often
+away from Court, feigning to prefer the rural delights of Hever to the
+splendours of Greenwich or Richmond, or offended at the significant
+tittle-tattle about herself and the King. She was thus absent when in July
+1527 Wolsey had gone to France, but took care to keep herself in Henry's
+memory by sending him a splendid jewel of gold and diamonds representing a
+damsel in a boat on a troubled sea. The lovesick King replied in the first
+of those extraordinary love-letters of his which have so often been
+printed. "Henceforward," he says, "my heart shall be devoted to you only.
+I wish my body also could be. God can do it if He pleases, to whom I pray
+once a day that it may be, and hope at length to be heard:" and he signs
+_Escripte de la main du secretaire, que en coeur, corps, et volonte, est
+vostre loiall et plus assure serviteure, H. (autre coeur ne cherche) R._
+Soon afterwards, when Wolsey was well on his way, the King writes to his
+lady-love again. "The time seems so long since I heard of your good health
+and of you that I send the bearer to be better ascertained of your health
+and your purpose: for since my last parting from you I have been told you
+have quite abandoned the intention of coming to Court, either with your
+mother or otherwise. If so I cannot wonder sufficiently; for I have
+committed no offence against you, and it is very little return for the
+great love I bear you to deny me the presence of the woman I esteem most
+of all the world. If you love me, as I hope you do, our separation should
+be painful to you. I trust your absence is not wilful; for if so I can but
+lament my ill fortune and by degrees abate my great folly."[55] This was
+the tone to bring Anne to her lover again, and before many days were over
+they were together, and in Wolsey's absence the marriage rumours spread
+apace.
+
+The fiasco of Knight's mission had convinced Henry and Anne that they must
+proceed through the ordinary diplomatic channels and with the aid of
+Wolsey in their future approaches to the Pope; and early in 1528 Stephen
+Gardiner and Edward Fox, two ecclesiastics attached to the Cardinal, were
+despatched on a fresh mission to Orvieto to urge Clement to grant to
+Wolsey and another Legate power to pronounce finally on the validity of
+Henry's marriage. The Pope was to be plied with sanctimonious assurances
+that no carnal love for Anne prompted Henry's desire to marry her, as the
+Pope had been informed, but solely her "approved excellent, virtuous
+qualities--the purity of her life, her constant virginity, her maidenly
+and womanly pudicity, her soberness, her chasteness, meekness, humility,
+wisdom, descent right noble and high through royal blood,[56] education in
+all good and laudable qualities and manners, apparent aptness to
+procreation of children, with her other infinite good qualities." Gardiner
+and Fox on their way to Dover called at Hever, and showed to Anne this
+panegyric penned by Wolsey[57] upon her, and thenceforward for a time all
+went trippingly.
+
+Gardiner was a far different negotiator from Knight, and was able, though
+with infinite difficulty, to induce Clement to grant the new bull
+demanded, relegating the cause finally to the Legatine Court in London.
+The Pope would have preferred that Wolsey should have sat alone as Legate,
+but Wolsey was so unpopular in England, and the war into which he had
+again dragged the country against the Emperor was so detested,[58] whilst
+Queen Katharine had so many sympathisers, that it was considered necessary
+that a foreign Legate should add his authority to that of Wolsey to do the
+evil deed. Campeggio, who had been in England before, and was a pensioner
+of Henry as Bishop of Hereford, was the Cardinal selected by Wolsey; and
+at last Clement consented to send him. Every one concerned appears to have
+endeavoured to avoid responsibility for what they knew was a shabby
+business. The Pope, crafty and shifty, was in a most difficult position,
+and blew hot and cold. The first commission given to Gardiner and Fox,
+which was received with such delight by Anne and Henry when Fox brought
+it to London in April 1528, was found on examination still to leave the
+question open to Papal veto. It is true that it gave permission to the
+Legates to pronounce for the King, but the responsibility for the ruling
+was left to them, and their decision might be impugned. When, at the
+urgent demand of Gardiner, the Pope with many tears gave a decretal laying
+down that the King's marriage with Katharine was bad by canon law if the
+facts were as represented, he gave secret orders to the Legate Campeggio
+that the decretal was to be burnt and not to be acted upon.
+
+Whilst the Pope was thus between the devil and the deep sea, trying to
+please the Emperor on the one hand and the Kings of France and England on
+the other, and deceiving both, the influence of Anne over her royal lover
+grew stronger every day. Wolsey was in the toils and he knew it. When
+Charles had answered the English declaration of war (January 1528), it was
+the Cardinal's rapacity, pride, and ambition against which he thundered as
+the cause of the strife and of the insult offered to the imperial house.
+To the Emperor the Cardinal could not again turn. Henry, moreover, was no
+longer the obedient tool he had been before Anne was by his side to
+stiffen his courage; and Wolsey knew that, notwithstanding the favourite's
+feline civilities and feigned dependence upon him, it would be the turn of
+his enemies to rule when once she became the King's wedded wife. He was,
+indeed, hoist with his own petard. The divorce had been mainly promoted,
+if not originated, by him, and the divorce in the present circumstances
+would crush him. But he had pledged himself too deeply to draw back
+openly; and he still had to smile upon those who were planning his ruin,
+and himself urge forward the policy by which it was to be effected.
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine stood firm, living under the same roof as her
+husband, sitting at the same table with him with a serene countenance in
+public, and to all appearance unchanged in her relations to him. But
+though her pride stood her in good stead she was perplexed and lonely.
+Henry's intention to divorce her, and his infatuation for Anne, were of
+course public property, and the courtiers turned to the coming
+constellation, whatever the common people might do. Mendoza, the Spanish
+ambassador, withdrew from Court in the spring after the declaration of
+war, and the Queen's isolation was then complete. To the Spanish Latinist
+in Flanders, J. Luis Vives, and to Erasmus, she wrote asking for counsel
+in her perplexity, but decorous epistles in stilted Latin advising
+resignation and Christian fortitude was all she got from either.[59] Her
+nephew the Emperor had urged her, in any case, to refuse to recognise the
+authority of any tribunal in England to judge her case, and had done what
+he could to frighten the Pope against acceding to Henry's wishes. But even
+he was not implacable, if his political ends were served in any
+arrangement that might be made; and at this time he evidently hoped, as
+did the Pope most fervently, that as a last resource Katharine would help
+everybody out of the trouble by giving up the struggle and taking the
+veil. Her personal desire would doubtless have been to adopt this course,
+for the world had lost its savour, but she was a daughter of Isabel the
+Catholic, and tame surrender was not in her line. Her married life with
+Henry she knew was at an end;[60] but her daughter was now growing into
+girlhood, and her legitimacy and heirship to the English crown she would
+only surrender with her own life. So to all smooth suggestions that she
+should make things pleasant all round by acquiescing in the King's view of
+their marriage, she was scornfully irresponsive.
+
+Through the plague-scourged summer of 1528 Henry and Anne waited
+impatiently for the coming of the Legate Campeggio. He was old and gouty,
+hampered with a mission which he dreaded; for he could not hope to
+reconcile the irreconcilable, and the Pope had quietly given him the hint
+that he need not hurry. Clement was, indeed, in a greater fix than ever.
+He had been made to promise by the Emperor that the case should not be
+decided in England, and yet he had been forced into giving the
+dispensation and decretal not only allowing it to be decided there in
+favour of Henry, but had despatched Campeggio to pronounce judgment. He
+had, however, at the same time assured the Emperor that means should be
+found to prevent the finality of any decision in England until the Emperor
+had approved of it, and Campeggio was instructed accordingly. The
+Spaniards thought that the English Cardinal would do his best to second
+the efforts of the Pope without appearing to do so, and there is no doubt
+that they were right, for Wolsey was now (the summer of 1528) really
+alarmed at the engine he had set in motion and could not stop. Katharine
+knew that the Legate was on his way, and that the Pope had, in appearance,
+granted all of Henry's demands; but she did not know, or could not
+understand, the political forces that were operating in her favour, which
+made the Pope defraud the King of England, and turned her erstwhile mortal
+enemy Wolsey into her secret friend. Tact and ready adaptability might
+still have helped Katharine. The party of nobles under Norfolk, it is
+true, had deserted her; but Wolsey and the bureaucrats were still a power
+to be reckoned with, and the middle classes and the populace were all in
+favour of the Queen and the imperial alliance. If these elements had been
+cleverly combined they might have conquered, for Henry was always a coward
+and would have bent to the stronger force. But Katharine was a bad hand at
+changing sides, and Wolsey dared not openly do so.
+
+For a few days in the summer of 1528, whilst Campeggio was still lingering
+on the Continent, it looked as if a mightier power than any of them might
+settle the question for once and all. Henry and Anne were at Greenwich
+when the plague broke out in London. In June one of Anne's attendants
+fell ill of the malady, and Henry in a panic sent his favourite to Hever,
+whilst he hurried from place to place in Hertfordshire. The plague
+followed him. Sir Francis Poyns, Sir William Compton, William Carey, and
+other members of his Court died in the course of the epidemic, and the
+dread news soon reached Henry that Anne and her father were both stricken
+at Hever Castle. Henry had written daily to her whilst they had been
+separated. "Since your last letter, mine own darling," he wrote a few days
+after she left, "Walter Welsh, Master Brown, Thomas Care, Grion of
+Brereton, and John Coke the apothecary have fallen of the sweat in this
+house.... By the mercy of God the rest of us be yet well, and I trust
+shall pass it, either not to have it, or at least as easily as the rest
+have done." Later he wrote: "The uneasiness my doubts about your health
+gave me, disturbed and alarmed me exceedingly; and I should not have had
+any quiet without hearing certain tidings. But now, since you have felt as
+yet nothing, I hope, and am assured, that it will spare you, as I hope it
+is doing with us. For when we were at Waltham two ushers, two valets, and
+your brother, master-treasurer, fell ill, but are now quite well; and
+since we have returned to our house at Hunsdon we have been perfectly
+well, and have not now one sick person, God be praised. I think if you
+would retire from Surrey, as we did, you would escape all danger. There is
+another thing may comfort you, which is, in truth, that in this distemper
+few or no women have been taken ill, and no person of our Court has
+died.[61] For which reason I beg you, my entirely beloved, not to frighten
+yourself, nor be too uneasy at our absence, for wherever I am, I am yours:
+and yet we must sometimes submit to our misfortunes; for whoever will
+struggle against fate is generally but so much the further from gaining
+his end. Wherefore, comfort yourself and take courage, and avoid the
+pestilence as much as you can; for I hope shortly to make you sing _la
+renvoye_. No more at present from lack of time, but that I wish you in my
+arms that I might a little dispel your unreasonable thoughts. Written by
+the hand of him who is, and always will be, yours."
+
+When the news of Anne's illness reached him he despatched one of his
+physicians post haste with the following letter to his favourite: "There
+came to me suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have
+arrived. The first, to hear the sickness of my mistress, whom I esteem
+more than all the world, and whose health I desire as I do my own, so that
+I would gladly bear half your illness to make you well; the second, the
+fear that I have of being still longer harassed by my enemy--your
+absence--much longer ... who is, so far as I can judge, determined to
+spite me more, because I pray God to rid me of this troublesome tormentor;
+the third, because the physician in whom I have most confidence is absent
+at the very time when he might be of the most service to me, for I should
+hope by his means to obtain one of my chiefest joys on earth--that is, the
+care of my mistress. Yet, for want of him, I send you my second, and hope
+that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I
+beseech you to be guided by his advice, and I hope soon to see you again,
+which will be to me a greater comfort than all the precious jewels in the
+world." In a few days Anne was out of danger, and the hopes and fears
+aroused by her illness gave place to the old intrigues again.
+
+A few weeks later Anne was with her lover at Ampthill, hoping and praying
+daily for the coming of the gouty Legate, who was slowly being carried
+through France to the coast. Wolsey had to be very humble now, for Anne
+had shown her ability to make Henry brave him, and the King rebuked him
+publicly at her bidding,[62] but until Campeggio came and the fateful
+decision was given that would make Anne a Queen, both she and Henry
+diplomatically alternated cajolery with the humbling process towards the
+Cardinal. Anne's well-known letter with Henry's postscript, so earnestly
+asking Wolsey for news of Campeggio, is written in most affectionate
+terms, Anne saying, amongst other pretty things, that she "loves him next
+unto the King's grace, above all creatures living." But the object of her
+wheedling was only to gain news of the speedy coming of the Legate. The
+King's postscript to this letter is characteristic of him. "The writer of
+this letter would not cease till she had caused me likewise to set my
+hand, desiring you, though it be short, to take it in good part. I assure
+you that there is neither of us but greatly desireth to see you, and are
+joyous to hear that you have escaped the plague so well; trusting the fury
+thereof to be passed, especially with them that keepeth good diet, as I
+trust you do. The not hearing of the Legate's arrival in France causeth us
+somewhat to muse: notwithstanding, we trust, by your diligence and
+vigilance, with the assistance of Almighty God, shortly to be eased out of
+that trouble."[63]
+
+Campeggio was nearly four months on his way, urged forward everywhere by
+English agents and letters, held back everywhere by the Pope's fears and
+his own ailments; but at last, one joyful day in the middle of September,
+Henry could write to his lady-love at Hever: "The Legate which we most
+desire arrived at Paris on Sunday last past, so that I trust next Monday
+to hear of his arrival at Calais: and then I trust within a while after to
+enjoy that which I have so long longed for, to God's pleasure and both our
+comfort. No more to you at present, mine own darling, for lack of time,
+but that I would you were in mine arms, or I in yours, for I think it long
+since I kissed you." Henry had to wait longer than in his lover-like
+eagerness he had expected; it was fully a fortnight before he had news of
+Campeggio's arrival at Dover. Great preparations had been made to
+entertain the Papal Legate splendidly in London, and on his way thither;
+but he was suffering and sorry, and begged to be saved the fatigue of a
+public reception. So ill was he that, rather than face the streets of
+London on the day he was expected, he lodged for the night at the Duke of
+Suffolk's house on the Surrey side of London bridge, and the next day, 8th
+October, was quietly carried in the Duke's barge across the river to the
+Bishop of Bath's palace beyond Temple Bar, where he was to lodge. There he
+remained ill in bed, until the King's impatience would brook no further
+delay; and on the 12th he was carried, sick as he was, and sorely against
+his will, in a crimson velvet chair for his first audience.
+
+In the great hall of the palace of Bridewell, hard by Blackfriars, Henry
+sat in a chair of state, with Wolsey and Campeggio on his right hand,
+whilst one of the Legate's train delivered a fulsome Latin oration,
+setting forth the iniquitous outrages perpetrated by the imperialists upon
+the Vicar of Christ, and the love and gratitude of the Pontiff for his
+dearest son Henry for his aid and sympathy. The one thing apparently that
+the Pope desired was to please his benefactor, the King of England. When
+the public ceremony was over, Henry took Campeggio and Wolsey into a
+private room; and the day following the King came secretly to Campeggio's
+lodging, and for four long hours plied the suffering churchman with
+arguments and authorities which would justify the divorce. Up to this time
+Campeggio had fondly imagined that he might, with the Papal authority,
+persuade Henry to abandon his object. But this interview undeceived him.
+He found the King, as he says, better versed in the matter "than a great
+theologian or jurist"; and Campeggio opined at last that "if an angel
+descended from heaven he would be unable to persuade him" that the
+marriage was valid. When, however, Campeggio suggested that the Queen
+might be induced to enter a convent, Henry was delighted. If they would
+only prevail upon her to do that she should have everything she demanded:
+the title of Queen and all her dowry, revenue, and belongings; the
+Princess Mary should be acknowledged heiress to the crown, failing
+legitimate male issue to the King, and all should be done to Katharine's
+liking. Accordingly, the next day, 14th October, Campeggio and Wolsey took
+boat and went to try their luck with the Queen, after seeing the King for
+the third time. Beginning with a long sanctimonious rigmarole, Campeggio
+pressed her to take a "course which would give general satisfaction and
+greatly benefit herself"; and Wolsey, on his knees, and in English,
+seconded his colleague's advice. Katharine was cold and collected. She
+was, she said, a foreigner in England without skilled advice, and she
+declined at present to say anything. She had asked the King to assign
+councillors to aid her, and when she had consulted them she would see the
+Legates again.
+
+As day broke across the Thames on the 25th October, Campeggio lay awake in
+bed at Bath House, suffering the tortures of gout, and perturbed at the
+difficult position in which he was placed, when Wolsey was announced,
+having come from York Place in his barge. When the Cardinal entered the
+room he told his Italian colleague that the King had appointed Archbishop
+Warham, Bishop Fisher, and others, to be councillors for the Queen, and
+that the Queen had obtained her husband's permission to come to Campeggio
+and confess that morning. At nine o'clock Katharine came unobserved to
+Bath House by water, and was closeted for long with the Italian Cardinal.
+What she told him was under the sacred seal of the confessional, but she
+prayed that the Pope might in strict secrecy be informed of certain of the
+particulars arising out of her statements. She reviewed the whole of her
+life from the day of her arrival in England, and solemnly swore on her
+conscience that she had only slept with young Arthur seven nights, _e che
+da lui resto intacta e incorrupta_;[64] and this assertion, _as far as it
+goes_, we may accept as the truth, seeing the solemn circumstances under
+which it was made. But when Campeggio again urged Katharine to get them
+all out of their difficulty by retiring to a convent and letting the King
+have his way, she almost vehemently declared that "she would die as she
+had lived, a wife, as God had made her." "Let a sentence be given," she
+said, "and if it be against me I shall be free to do as I like, even as my
+husband will." "But neither the whole realm, nor, on the other hand, the
+greatest punishment, even being torn limb from limb, shall alter me in
+this, and if after death I were to return to life, I would die again, and
+yet again, rather than I would give way." Against such firmness as this
+the poor, flaccid old churchman could do nothing but hold up his hands
+and sigh at the idea of any one being so obstinate.
+
+A day or two afterwards Wolsey and Campeggio saw the Queen again formally.
+She was on this occasion attended by her advisers, and once more heard,
+coldly and irresponsively, the appeals to her prudence, her worldly
+wisdom, her love for her daughter, and every other feeling that could lead
+her to cut the gordian knot that baffled them all. "She would do nothing
+to her soul's damnation or against God's law," she said, as she dismissed
+them. Whether it was at this interview, or, as it seems to me more likely,
+the previous one that she broke out in violent invective against Wolsey
+for his enmity towards the Emperor, we know not, but the storm of bitter
+words she poured upon him for his pride, his falsity, his ambition, and
+his greed; her taunts at his intrigues to get the Papacy, and her burning
+scorn that her marriage, unquestioned for twenty years, should be doubted
+now,[65] must have finally convinced both Wolsey and Campeggio that if
+Henry was firm Katharine was firmer still. Campeggio was in a pitiable
+state of mind, imploring the Pope by every post to tell him what to do. He
+and Wolsey at one time conceived the horrible idea of marrying the
+Princess Mary to her half brother, the Duke of Richmond, as a solution of
+the succession difficulty, and the Pope appears to have been inclined to
+allow it;[66] but it was soon admitted that the course proposed would not
+forward, but rather retard, the King's second marriage, and that was the
+main object sought.
+
+At length Wolsey ruefully understood that conciliation was impossible;
+and, pressed as he was by the King, was forced to insist with Campeggio
+that the cause must be judicially decided without further delay. Illness,
+prayerful attempts to bring one side or the other to reason, and many
+other excuses for procrastination were tried, but at length Campeggio had
+to confess to his colleague that the Pope's decretal, laying down the law
+in the case in Henry's favour, was only a show document not to be used, or
+to leave his possession for a moment; and, moreover, that no final
+judgment could be given by him that was not submitted to the Pope's
+confirmation. Wolsey was aghast, and wrote in rage and indignation to the
+English agent with the Pope denouncing this bad faith.[67] "I see ruin,
+infamy, and subversion of the whole dignity and estimation of the
+Apostolic See if this course be persisted in. You see in what dangerous
+times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and how
+much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that the course
+he now pursues will drive the King to adopt those remedies that are so
+injurious to the Pope, and are frequently instilled into the King's mind.
+Without the Pope's compliance I cannot bear up against the storm; and when
+I reflect upon the conduct of his Holiness I cannot but fear lest the
+common enemy of souls, seeing the King's determination, inspires the Pope
+with his present fears and reluctance, which will alienate all the faith
+and devotion from the Apostolic See.... It is useless for Campeggio to
+think of reviving the marriage. If he did it would lead to worse
+consequences. Let him therefore proceed to sentence. Prostrate at the feet
+of his Holiness I most urgently beg of him to set aside all delays."
+
+This cry, wrung evidently from Wolsey's heart at the knowledge of his own
+danger, is the first articulate expression of the tremendous religious
+issue that might depend upon the conduct of the various parties in the
+divorce proceedings. The fire lit by Luther a few years previously had
+spread apace in Germany, and had reached England. All Christendom would
+soon have to range itself in two divisions, cutting athwart old national
+affinities and alliances. Charles had defied Luther at the outset; and the
+traditions of his Spanish house made him, the most powerful monarch in
+Europe, the champion of orthodoxy. But his relations with the Papacy, as
+we have seen, had not been uniformly cordial. To him the Pope was a little
+Italian prince whilst he was a great one, and he was jealous of the
+slightest interference of Rome with the Spanish Church. His position in
+Germany, moreover, as suzerain of the princes of the Empire, some of whom
+already leant to Lutheranism, complicated the situation: so that it was
+not yet absolutely certain that Charles would finally stake everything
+upon the unification of the Christian Church by force, on the lines of
+strict Papal authority.
+
+On the other hand, both Francis and Henry had for political reasons
+strongly supported the Pope in his greatest distress, and their religion
+was certainly no less faithful than that of the Emperor. It was inevitable
+that, whichever side Charles took in the coming religious struggle, would
+not for political reasons commend itself to Francis, and _vice versa_; and
+everything depended upon the weight which Henry might cast into one scale
+or the other. His national traditions and personal inclination would lead
+him to side with Charles, but at the crucial moment, when the first grain
+had to be dropped into the balance, he found himself bound by Wolsey's
+policy to Francis, and at issue with the Emperor, owing to the
+relationship of the latter to Katharine. Wolsey felt, in the letter quoted
+above, that the Pope's shilly-shally, in order not to offend the Emperor,
+would drive the impatient King of England to flout, and perhaps break
+with, the Papacy, and events proved that the Cardinal was right in his
+fears. We shall see later how the rift widened, but here the first fine
+crevice is visible.
+
+Henry, prompted by Anne and his vanity, intended to have his way at
+whatever cost. Katharine could give him no son: he would marry a woman who
+could do so, and one that he loved far better than he ever loved his wife.
+In ordinary circumstances there need have been no great difficulty about
+the divorce, nor would there have been in this case, but for the peculiar
+political and religious situation of Europe at the time, and but for
+Katharine's unbending rigidity of character. She might have made her own
+terms if she had consented to the conciliatory suggestions of the
+churchmen. The legality of her marriage would have been declared, her
+daughter recognised as heiress presumptive, her own great revenues would
+have been left to her, and her title of Queen respected.[68] She was not
+even to be asked to immure herself in a convent, or to take any conventual
+vow but that of chastity, if she would only consent to a divorce on the
+ground of her desire to devote herself to religion.[69] As Campeggio
+repeated a dozen times, the only thing she would be asked to surrender was
+conjugal relations with the King, that had ceased for years, and in no
+case would be renewed. Much as we may admire her firmness, it is
+impossible to avoid seeing that the course recommended to her was that
+which would have best served, not only her own interest and happiness, but
+also those of her daughter, of her religion, and of the good relations
+between Henry and the Emperor that she had so much at heart.
+
+Henry, on his side, was determined to allow nothing to stand in his way,
+whilst keeping up his appearance of impeccability. Legal and
+ecclesiastical authorities in England and France were besought to give
+their sanction to his view that no Pope had the power of dispensation for
+a marriage with a deceased brother's widow; and the English clergy were
+assured that the King only sought an impartial authoritative decision for
+the relief of his own conscience. The attitude of the English people gave
+him some uneasiness; for, like all his house, he loved popularity. "The
+common people, being ignorant," we are told, "and others that favoured the
+Queen, talked largely, and said that for his own pleasure the King would
+have another wife, and had sent for this Legate to be divorced from the
+Queen, with many foolish words; inasmuch as, whosoever spake against the
+marriage was of the common people abhorred and reproved."[70] The feeling
+indeed in favour of Katharine was so outspoken and general that the King
+took the unusual course of assembling the nobles, judges, and so many of
+the people as could enter, in the great hall of Bridewell, on Sunday
+afternoon, the 8th November, to endeavour personally to justify himself in
+the eyes of his subjects.
+
+As usual with him, his great aim was by sanctimonious protestations to
+make himself appear a pure-souled altruist, and to throw upon others the
+responsibility for his actions. He painted in dismal colours the dangers
+to his subjects of a disputed succession on his death. "And, although it
+hath pleased Almighty God to send us a fair daughter by a noble woman and
+me begotten, to our great joy and comfort, yet it hath been told us by
+divers great clerks that neither she is our lawful daughter, nor her
+mother our lawful wife, and that we live together abominably and
+detestably in open adultery." He swore, almost blasphemously, that for
+the relief of his conscience he only sought authoritatively to know the
+truth as to the validity of his marriage, and that Campeggio had come as
+an impartial judge to decide it. If Katharine was adjudged to be his wife
+nothing would be more pleasant or acceptable to him, and he praised her to
+the skies, as a noble lady against whom no words could be spoken.[71] The
+measure of his sincerity is seen when we compare this hypocritical
+harangue with the letters now before us to and from his envoys in Rome, by
+which it is evident that the last thing he desired was an impartial
+judgment, or indeed any judgment, but one that would set him free to marry
+again. One of the most extraordinary means employed to influence Katharine
+soon after this appears to have been another visit to her of Wolsey and
+Campeggio. They were to say that the King had intelligence of a conspiracy
+against him and Wolsey by her friends and the Emperor's English partisans;
+and they warned her that if anything of the sort occurred she would be to
+blame. They were then to complain of her bearing towards the King, "who
+was now persuaded by her behaviour that she did not love him." "She
+encouraged ladies and gentlemen to dance and make merry," for instance,
+whereas "she had better tell them to pray for a good end of the matter at
+issue." "She shows no pensiveness of countenance, nor in her apparel nor
+behaviour. She shows herself too much to the people, rejoicing greatly in
+their exclamations and ill obloquy; and, by beckoning with her head and
+smiling, which she has not been accustomed to do in times past, rather
+encouraged them in doing so." For all this and many other things the King
+does not consider it fitting to be in her company, or to let the Princess
+be with her. The acme of hypocrisy was reached in the assurance the
+Legates were then to give the Queen, that if she would behave well and go
+into a convent, the King neither could, nor would, marry another wife in
+her lifetime; and she could come out to the world again if the sentence
+were in her favour. Let her go, they said, and submit to the King on her
+knees, and he would be good to her, but otherwise he would be more angry
+than ever.[72] Scornful silence was the Queen's reply.
+
+After this Katharine lived lonely and depressed at Greenwich, frequently
+closeted with Bishop Fisher and others of her councillors, whilst Henry
+was strengthening his case with the opinions of jurists, and by attempts
+to influence Campeggio. To Greenwich he went, accompanied by Anne and a
+brilliant Court, to show the Italian Cardinal how bounteously a Christmas
+could be spent in England. Campeggio's son was knighted and regaled with
+costly presents, and all that bribes (the Bishopric of Durham, &c.) and
+flattery might do was done to influence the Legate favourably; but
+throughout the gay doings, jousts and tourneys, banquets and maskings,
+"the Queen showed to them no manner of countenance, and made no great joy
+of nothing, her mind was so troubled."[73] Well might it be, poor soul,
+for Anne was by the King's side, pert and insolent, surrounded by a
+growing party of Wolsey's enemies, who cared little for Pope or Emperor,
+and who waited impatiently for the time when Anne should rule the King
+alone, and they, through her, should rule England. Katharine, in good
+truth, was in everybody's way, for even her nephew could not afford to
+quarrel with England for her sake, and her death or disappearance would
+have made a reconciliation easy, especially if Wolsey, the friend of
+France, fell also.
+
+"Anne," we are told by the French ambassador, "was lodged in a fine
+apartment close to that of the King, and greater court was now paid to her
+every day than has been paid to the Queen for a long time. I see that they
+mean to accustom the people by degrees to endure her, so that when the
+great blow comes it may not be, thought strange. But the people remain
+quite hardened (against her), and I think they would do more if they had
+more power."
+
+Thus the months passed, the Pope being plied by alternate threats and
+hopes, both by English and Spanish agents, until he was nearly beside
+himself, Wolsey almost frantically professing his desire to forward the
+King's object, and Campeggio temporising and trying to find a means of
+conciliation which would leave the King free. Katharine herself remained
+immovable. She had asked for and obtained from the Emperor a copy of the
+Papal brief authorising her marriage with Henry, but the King's advocates
+questioned its authenticity,[74] and even her own advisers urged her to
+obey her husband's request that she should demand of the Emperor the
+original document. Constrained by her sworn pledge to write nothing to the
+Emperor without the King's knowledge, she sent the letter dictated to her,
+urgently praying her nephew to send the original brief to England. The
+letter was carried to Spain by her young English confessor, Thomas Abel,
+whom she did not entirely trust, and sent with him her Spanish usher,
+Montoya; but they had verbal instructions from their mistress to pray the
+Emperor to disregard her written request, and refuse to part with the
+brief, and to exert all his influence to have the case decided in
+Rome.[75] By this it will be seen that Katharine was fully a match in
+duplicity for those against whom she was pitted. She never wavered from
+first to last in her determination to refuse to acknowledge the sentence
+of any court sitting in England on her case, and to resist all attempts to
+induce her to withdraw voluntarily from her conjugal position and enter a
+nunnery. Henry, and especially Anne, in the meanwhile, were growing
+impatient at all this calculated delay, and began to throw the blame upon
+Wolsey. "The young lady used very rude words to him," wrote Du Bellay on
+the 25th January, and "the Duke of Norfolk and his party already began to
+talk big."[76] A few days afterwards Mendoza, in a letter to the Emperor,
+spoke even more strongly. "The young lady that is the cause of all this
+disorder, finding her marriage delayed, that she thought herself so sure
+of, entertains great suspicion that Wolsey puts impediments in her way,
+from a belief that if she were Queen his power would decline. In this
+suspicion she is joined by her father and the Dukes of Norfolk and
+Suffolk, who have combined to overthrow the Cardinal." "The King is so hot
+upon it (the divorce) that there is nothing he does not promise to gain
+his end.... Campeggio has done nothing for the Queen as yet but to press
+her to enter religion."[77]
+
+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 dais were two chairs of state,
+covered with cloth of gold, and on the right side of the dais 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?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+1530-1534
+
+HENRY'S DEFIANCE--THE VICTORY OF ANNE
+
+
+The deadlock with regard to the validity of the marriage could not
+continue indefinitely, for the legitimacy of the Princess Mary having been
+called into question, the matter now vitally touched the succession to the
+English crown. Katharine was immovable. She would neither retire to a
+convent nor accept a decision from an English tribunal, and, through her
+proctor in Rome, she passionately pressed for a decision there in her
+favour. Norfolk, at the end of his not very extensive mental resources,
+could only wish that both Katharine and Anne were dead and the King
+married to some one else. The Pope was ready to do anything that did not
+offend the Emperor to bring about peace; and when, under pressure from
+Henry and Norfolk, the English prelates and peers, including Wolsey and
+Warham, signed a petition to the Pope saying that Henry's marriage should
+be dissolved, or they must seek a remedy for themselves in the English
+Parliament, Clement was almost inclined to give way; for schism in England
+he dreaded before all things. But Charles's troops were in Rome and his
+agents for ever bullying the wretched Pope, and the latter was obliged to
+reply finally to the English peers with a rebuke. There were those both
+in England and abroad who urged Henry to marry Anne at once, and depend
+upon the recognition of the _fait accompli_ by means of negotiation
+afterwards, but this did not satisfy either the King or the favourite.
+Every interview between the King and the Nuncio grew more bitter than the
+previous one. No English cause, swore Henry, should be tried outside his
+realm where he was master; and if the Pope insisted in giving judgment for
+the Queen, as he had promised the Emperor to do, the English Parliament
+should deal with the matter in spite of Rome.
+
+The first ecclesiastical thunderclap came in October 1530, when Henry
+published a proclamation reminding the lieges of the old law of England
+that forbade the Pope from exercising direct jurisdiction in the realm by
+Bull or Brief. No one could understand at the time what was meant, but
+when the Nuncio in perturbation went and asked Norfolk and Suffolk the
+reason of so strange a proclamation at such a time, they replied roughly,
+that they "cared nothing for Popes in England ... the King was Emperor and
+Pope too in his own realm." Later, Henry told the Nuncio that the Pope had
+outraged convention by summoning him before a foreign tribunal, and should
+now be taught that no usurpation of power would be allowed in England. The
+Parliament was called, said Henry, to restrain the encroachment of the
+clergy generally, and unless the Pope met his wishes promptly a blow would
+be struck at all clerical pretensions. The reply of the Pope was another
+brief forbidding Henry's second marriage, and threatening Parliaments and
+Bishops in England if they dared to meddle in the matter. The question
+was thus rapidly drifting into an international one on religious lines,
+which involved either the submission of Henry or schism from the Church.
+The position of the English clergy was an especially difficult one. They
+naturally resented any curtailment of the privileges of their order,
+though they dared not speak too loudly, for they owed the enjoyment of
+their temporalities to the King. But they were all sons of the Church,
+looking to Rome for spiritual authority, and were in mortal dread of the
+advance of the new spirit of religious freedom aroused in Germany. The
+method of bridling them adopted by Henry was as clever as it was
+unscrupulous. The Bull giving to Wolsey independent power to judge the
+matrimonial cause in England as Legate, had been, as will be recollected,
+demanded by the King and recognised by him, as it had been, of course, by
+the clergy; but in January 1531, when Parliament and Convocation met, the
+English clergy found themselves laid under Premunire by the King for
+having recognised the Legatine Bull; and were told that as subjects of the
+crown, and not of the Pope, they had thus rendered themselves liable to
+the punishment for treason. The unfortunate clergy were panic-stricken at
+this new move, and looked in vain to Rome for support against their own
+King; but Rome, as usual, was trying to run with the hare and hunt with
+the hounds, and could only wail at the obstinacy both of Henry and
+Katharine.
+
+In the previous sitting of Parliament in 1529, severe laws had been passed
+against the laxity and extortion of the English ecclesiastics,
+notwithstanding the violent indignation of Fisher of Rochester; but what
+was now demanded of them as a condition of their pardon for recognising
+the Bull was practically to repudiate the authority of the Pope over them,
+and to recognise the King of England as supreme head of the Church, in
+addition to paying the tremendous fine of a hundred thousand pounds. They
+were in utter consternation, and they struggled hard; but the alternative
+to submission was ruin, and the majority gave way. The die was cast: Henry
+was Pope and King in one, and could settle his own cause in his own way.
+When the English clergy had thus been brought to heel, Henry's opponents
+saw that they had driven him too far, and were aghast at his unexpected
+exhibition of strength, a strength, be it noted, not his own, as will be
+explained later; and somewhat moderated their tone. But the King of
+England snapped his fingers now at threats of excommunication, and cared
+nothing, he said, for any decision from Rome. The Emperor dared not go to
+war with England about Katharine, for the French were busily drawing
+towards the Pope, whose niece, Katharine de Medici, was to be betrothed to
+the son of Francis; and the imperial agents in Rome ceased to insist so
+pertinaciously upon a decision of the matrimonial suit.
+
+Katharine alone clamoured unceasingly that her "hell upon earth" should be
+ended by a decision in her favour from the Sovereign Pontiff. Her friends
+in England were many, for the old party of nobles were rallying again to
+her side, even Norfolk was secretly in her favour, or at least against
+the King's marriage with his niece Anne, and Henry's new bold step against
+the Papacy, taken under bureaucratic influence, had aroused much fear and
+jealousy amongst prelates like Fisher and jurists like More, as well as
+amongst the aristocratic party in the country. Desperate efforts were made
+to prevent the need for further action in defiance of the Papacy by the
+decision of the matrimonial suit by the English Parliament; and early in
+June 1531 Henry and his Council decided to put fresh pressure upon
+Katharine to get her to consent to a suspension of the proceedings in
+Rome, and to the relegation of the case to a tribunal in some neutral
+territory. Katharine at Greenwich had secret knowledge of the intention,
+and she can hardly have been so surprised as she pretended to be when, as
+she was about to retire to rest, at nine o'clock at night, to learn that
+the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, and some thirty other nobles and
+prelates, sought audience of her. Norfolk spoke first, and in the King's
+name complained bitterly of the slight put upon him by the Pope's
+citation. He urged the Queen, for the sake of England, for the memory of
+the political services of Henry to her kin, and his past kindness to her,
+to meet his wishes and consent to a neutral tribunal judging between them.
+Katharine was, as usual, cool and contemptuous. No one was more sorry than
+she for the King's annoyance, though she had not been the cause of it; but
+there was only one judge in the world competent to deal with the case.
+"His Holiness, who keeps the place, and has the power, of God upon earth,
+and is the image of eternal truth." As for recognising her husband as
+supreme head of the Church, that she would never do. When Dr. Lee spoke
+harshly, telling her that she knew that, her first marriage having been
+consummated, her second was never legal, she vehemently denied the fact,
+and told him angrily to go to Rome and argue. He would find there others
+than a lone woman to answer him. Dr. Sampson then took up the parable and
+reproached her for her determination to have the case settled so quickly;
+and she replied to him that if he had passed such bitter days as she had,
+he would be in a hurry too. Dr. Stokesley was dealt with similarly by the
+Queen; and she then proudly protested at being thus baited late at night
+by a crowd of men; she, "a poor woman without friends or counsel." Norfolk
+reminded her that the King had appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
+Bishop of Durham, and the Bishop of Rochester to advise her. "Pretty
+councillors they are," she replied. "If I ask for Canterbury's advice he
+tells me he will have nothing to do with it, and for ever repeats _ira
+principis mors est_. The Bishop of Durham dares to say nothing because he
+is the King's subject, and Rochester only tells me to keep a good heart
+and hope for the best."
+
+Katharine knew it not, but many of those before her were really her
+friends. Gardiner, now first Secretary, looked with fear upon the Lutheran
+innovations, Guilford the Controller, Lord Talbot, and even Norfolk wished
+her well, and feared the advent of Anne; and Guilford, less prudent than
+the rest, spoke so frankly that the favourite heard of his words. She
+broke out in furious invective against him before his face. "When I am
+Queen of England," she cried, "you will soon lose your office." "You need
+not wait so long," he replied, as he went straightway to deliver his seals
+to the King. Henry told him he ought not to mind an angry woman's talk,
+and was loath to accept his resignation; but the Controller insisted, and
+another rankling enemy was raised up to Anne. The favour she enjoyed had
+fairly turned her head, and her insolence, even to those who in any case
+had a right to her respect, had made her thoroughly detested. The Duke of
+Suffolk, enemy of the Papacy as he was, and the King's brother-in-law, was
+as anxious now as Talbot, Guilford, and Fitzwilliam to avert the marriage
+with Anne, who was setting all the Court by the ears. Katharine's attitude
+made matters worse. She still lived under the same roof as the King,
+though he rarely saw her except on public occasions, and her haughty
+replies to all his emissaries, and her constant threats of what the
+Emperor might do, irritated Henry beyond endurance under the taunts of
+Anne. The latter was bitterly jealous also of the young Princess Mary, of
+whom Henry was fond; and by many spiteful, petty acts of persecution, the
+girl's life was made unhappy. Once when Henry praised his daughter in
+Anne's presence, the latter broke out into violent abuse of her, and on
+another occasion, when Katharine begged to be allowed to visit the
+Princess, Henry told her roughly that she could go away as soon as she
+liked, and stop away. But Katharine stood her ground. She would not leave
+her husband, she said, even for her daughter, until she was forced to do
+so. Henry's patience was nearly tired out between Anne's constant
+importunities and Katharine's dignified immobility; and leaving his wife
+and daughter at Windsor, he went off on a hunting progress with Anne, in
+the hope that he might soon be relieved of the presence of Katharine
+altogether. Public feeling was indignantly in favour of the Queen; and it
+was no uncommon thing for people to waylay the King, whilst he was
+hunting, with entreaties that he would live with his wife again; and
+wherever Anne went the women loudly cried shame upon her.
+
+In his distraction Henry was at a loss what to do. He always wanted to
+appear in the right, and he dared not imprison or openly ill-treat
+Katharine, for his own people favoured her, and all Europe would have
+joined in condemning him; yet it was clear that even Windsor Castle was
+not, in future, big enough for both Queen and favourite at the same time,
+and positive orders at length were sent to Katharine, in the autumn of
+1531, to take up her residence at More in Hertfordshire, in a house
+formerly belonging to Wolsey.[80] She obeyed with a heavy heart, for it
+meant parting--and for ever--with her daughter, who was sent to live at
+Richmond, and was strictly forbidden to communicate with her mother.
+Katharine said she would have preferred to have been sent to the Tower, to
+being consigned to a place so unfit for her as More, with its foul ways
+and ruinous surroundings, but nothing broke her spirit or humbled her
+pride. Her household was still regal in its extent, for we are told by an
+Italian visitor to her that "thirty maids of honour stood around her table
+when she dined, and there were fifty who performed its service: her
+household consisting of about two hundred persons in all." But her state
+was a mockery now; for Lady Anne, she knew, was with her husband, loudly
+boasting that within three or four months she would be a queen, and
+already playing the part insolently. The Privy Purse expenses of the
+period show how openly Anne was acknowledged as being Henry's actual
+consort. Not only did she accompany the King everywhere on his excursions
+and progresses, and partake of the receptions offered to him by local
+authorities and nobles,[81] but large sums of money were paid out of the
+King's treasury for the gorgeous garb in which she loved to appear. Purple
+velvet at half a guinea a yard, costly furs and linen, bows and arrows,
+liveries for her servants, and all sorts of fine gear were bought for
+Anne. The Lord Mayor of London, in June 1530, sent her a present of
+cherries, and the bearer got a reward of 6s. 8d. Soon after Anne's
+greyhounds killed a cow, and the Privy Purse had to pay the damage, 10s.
+In November, 19-3/4 yards of crimson satin at 15s. a yard had to be paid
+for to make Lady Anne a robe, and L8, 8s. for budge skins was paid soon
+afterwards. When Christmas came and card-playing was in season, my Lady
+Anne must have playing money, L20 all in groats; and when she lost, as she
+did pretty heavily, her losings had to be paid by the treasurer, though
+her winnings she kept for herself. No less than a hundred pounds was given
+to her as a New Year's gift in 1531. A few weeks afterwards, a farm at
+Greenwich was bought for her for L66; and her writing-desk had to be
+adorned with latten and gold at a great cost. As the year 1531 advanced
+and Katharine's cause became more desperate, the extravagance of her rival
+grew; and when in the autumn of that year the Queen was finally banished
+from Court, Anne's bills for dressmaker's finery amounted to extravagant
+proportions.
+
+The position was rendered the more bitter for Katharine when she
+recognised that the Pope, in a fright now at Henry's defiance, was trying
+to meet him half way, and was listening to the suggestion of referring the
+question to a tribunal at Cambray or elsewhere; whilst the Emperor himself
+was only anxious to get the cause settled somehow without an open affront
+to his house or necessary cause for quarrel with Henry.[82] And yet,
+withal, the divorce did not seem to make headway in England itself. As we
+have seen, the common people were strongly against it: the clergy,
+trembling, as well they might, for their privileges between the Pope and
+the King, were naturally as a body in favour of the ecclesiastical view;
+and many of Henry and Anne's clerical instruments, such as Dr. Bennet in
+Rome and Dr. Sampson at Vienna, were secretly working against the cause
+they were supposed to be aiding: even some of the new prelates, such as
+Gardiner of Winchester and Stokesley of London, grew less active advocates
+when they understood that upon them and their order would fall ultimately
+the responsibility of declaring invalid a marriage which the Church and
+the Pope had sanctioned. Much stronger still even was the dislike to the
+King's marriage on the part of the older nobility, whose enmity to Wolsey
+had first made the marriage appear practicable. They had sided with Anne
+to overthrow Wolsey; but the obstinate determination of the King to rid
+himself of his wife and marry his favourite, had brought forward new
+clerical and bureaucratic ministers whose proceedings and advice alarmed
+the aristocracy much more than anything Wolsey had done. If Katharine had
+been tactful, or even an able politician, she had the materials at hand to
+form a combination in favour of herself and her daughter, before which
+Henry, coward as he was, would have quailed. But she lacked the qualities
+necessary for a leader: she irritated the King without frightening him,
+and instead of conciliating the nobles who really sympathised with her,
+though they were forced to do the King's bidding, she snubbed them
+haughtily and drove them from her.
+
+Anne flattered and pleased the King, but it was hardly her mind that moved
+him to defy the powerful Papacy, or sustained him in his fight with his
+own clergy. From the first we have seen him leaning upon some adviser who
+would relieve him from responsibility whilst giving him all the honour for
+success. He desired the divorce above all things; but, as usual, he wanted
+to shelter himself behind other authority than his own. When in 1529 he
+had been seeking learned opinions to influence the Pope, chance had thrown
+the two ecclesiastics who were his instruments, Fox and Gardiner, into
+contact with a learned theologian and Reader in Divinity at Cambridge
+University. Thomas Cranmer had studied and lived much. He was a widower,
+and Fellow of Magdalene, Cambridge, of forty years of age; and although in
+orders and a Doctor of Divinity, his tastes were rather those of a learned
+country gentleman than of an ecclesiastic in monkish times. In
+conversation with Fox and Gardiner, this high authority on theology
+expressed the opinion that instead of enduring the delays of the
+ecclesiastical courts, the question of the legality of the King's marriage
+should be decided by divines from the words of the Scriptures themselves.
+The idea seemed a good one, and Henry jumped at it. In an interview soon
+afterwards he ordered Cranmer to put his arguments into a book, and placed
+him in the household of Anne's father, the Earl of Wiltshire, to
+facilitate the writing of it. The religious movement in Germany had found
+many echoes in England, and doubtless Cranmer conscientiously objected to
+Papal control. Certain it is that, fortified as he was by the
+encouragement of Anne and her father, his book was a persuasive one, and
+greatly pleased the King, who sent it to the Pope and others. Nor did
+Cranmer's activity stay there. He entered into disputation everywhere,
+with the object of gaining theological recruits for the King's side, and
+wrote a powerful refutation of Reginald Pole's book in favour of
+Katharine. The King thought so highly of Cranmer's controversial ability
+that he sent him with Lee, Stokesley, and other theologians to Rome,
+Paris, and elsewhere on the Continent, to forward the divorce, and from
+Rome he was commissioned as English Ambassador with the Emperor.
+
+Whilst Cranmer was thus fighting the King's battle abroad, another
+instrument came to Henry's hand for use in England. On the disgrace of
+Wolsey, his secretary, Thomas Cromwell, was recommended to Henry by
+friends. The King disliked him, and at first refused to see him; but
+consented to do so when it was hinted that Cromwell was the sort of man
+who would serve him well in what he had at heart. The hint was a
+well-founded one; for Thomas Cromwell was as ambitious and unscrupulous as
+his master had been; strong, bold, and fortunately unhampered by
+ecclesiastical orders. When Henry received him in the gardens at
+Whitehall, Cromwell spoke as no priest, and few laymen, would have dared
+to do: for, apart from the divorce question, there was to be no dallying
+with heresy if Henry could help it, and the fires of Smithfield burning
+doubters were already beginning to blaze under the influence of Sir Thomas
+More. "Sire," said Cromwell to the King, "the Pope refuses you a divorce
+... why wait for his consent? Every Englishman is master in his own house,
+and why should not you be so in England? Ought a foreign prelate to share
+your power with you? It is true the bishops make oath to your Majesty; but
+they make another to the Pope immediately afterwards which absolves them
+from it. Sire, you are but half a king, and we are but half your subjects.
+Your kingdom is a two-headed monster: will you bear such an anomaly any
+longer? Frederick and other German princes have cast off the yoke of Rome.
+Do likewise; become once more king, govern your kingdom in concert with
+your lords and commons."[83]
+
+With much more of such talk Cromwell flattered the King, who probably
+hardly knew whether to punish or reward such unheard-of boldness; but when
+Cromwell, prepared for the emergency, took from his pocket a copy of the
+prelates' oath to the Pope, Henry's indignation bore all before it, and
+Cromwell's fortune was made. He at once obtained a seat in Parliament
+(1529), and took the lead in the anti-clerical measures which culminated
+in the emancipation of the English clergy from the Papacy, and their
+submission to the King. Gardiner, ambitious and able as he was, was yet an
+ecclesiastic, and looked grimly upon such a religious policy as that into
+which Henry was being towed by his infatuation for Anne; but Cromwell was
+always ready with authorities and flattery to stiffen the King's resolve,
+and thenceforward, until his fall before a combination of nobles, his was
+the strong spirit to which Henry clung.
+
+It will be seen that the influences against the King's marriage with Anne
+were very powerful, since it had become evident that the object could only
+be attained by the separation of England from the Papal communion; a step
+too bold and too much smacking of Lutheranism to commend itself to any but
+the few who might benefit by the change. The greatest danger seemed that
+by her isolation England might enable the two great Catholic powers to
+combine against her, in which case Henry's ruin was certain; and, eager as
+he was to divorce Katharine in England and marry Anne, the King dared not
+do so until he had secured at least the neutrality of France. As usual, he
+had to pay heavily for it. Dr. Fox, Henry's most able and zealous foreign
+minister, was again sent to France, and an alliance was negotiated in the
+spring of 1532, by which Henry bound himself to join Francis against the
+Emperor in case of attack, and Francis undertook to support Henry if any
+attempt was made by Charles to avenge his aunt. Anne was once more
+jubilant and hopeful; for her cause was now linked with a national
+alliance which had a certain party of adherents in the English Court, and
+an imperial attack upon England in the interests of Katharine was rendered
+unlikely. But, withal, the opposition in England itself had to be
+overcome, for Henry was ever a stickler for correctness in form, and
+wanted the divorce to have an appearance of defensible legality. The
+bishops in Parliament were sounded, but it was soon evident that they as a
+body would not fly in the face of the Papacy and the Catholic interests,
+even to please the King. Timid, tired old Warham, the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, was approached with a suggestion that he, as Primate, might
+convene a quorum of prelates favourable to Henry, who would approve of the
+entire repudiation of the Papal authority in England, and themselves
+pronounce the King's divorce. But Warham was already hastening to the
+grave, and flatly refused to stain his last hours by spiritual revolt.
+Despairing of the English churchman, Henry then turned to the lay peers
+and commons, and, through Norfolk, asked them to decide that the
+matrimonial cause was one that should be dealt with by a lay tribunal; but
+Norfolk's advocacy was but half-hearted, and the peers refused to make the
+declaration demanded.[84]
+
+The fact is clear that England was not yet prepared to defy spiritual
+authority to satisfy the King's caprice; and Anne was nearly beside
+herself with rage. She, indeed, was for braving everybody and getting
+married at once, divorce or no divorce. Why lose so much time? the French
+ambassador asked. If the King wanted to marry again let him do as King
+Louis did, and marry of his own motion.[85] The advice pleased both Henry
+and his lady-love, but Norfolk and Anne's father were strongly opposed to
+so dangerous and irregular a step, and incurred the furious displeasure of
+Anne for daring to thwart her. Every one, she said, even her own kinsmen,
+were against her,[86] and she was not far wrong, for with the exception of
+Cranmer in Germany and Cromwell, no one cared to risk the popular anger by
+promoting the match. Above all, Warham stood firm. The continued attacks
+of the King at Cromwell's suggestion against the privileges of the clergy
+hardened the old Archbishop's heart, and it was evident that he as Primate
+would never now annul the King's marriage and defy the authority of Rome.
+The opposition of Lord Chancellor More and of the new Bishop of
+Winchester, Gardiner, to Cromwell's anti-clerical proposals in Parliament
+angered the King, and convinced him that with his present instruments it
+would be as difficult for him to obtain a divorce in legal form in England
+as in Rome itself. More was made to feel that his position was an
+impossible one, and retired when Parliament was prorogued in May; and
+Gardiner had a convenient attack of gout, which kept him away from Court
+until the King found he could not conduct foreign affairs without him and
+brought him back.
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine neglected the opportunities offered to her of
+combining all these powerful elements in her favour. Nobles, clergy, and
+people were almost universally on her side: Anne was cordially hated, and
+had no friends but the few religious reformers who hoped by her means to
+force the King ever further away from the Papacy; and yet the Queen
+continued to appeal to Rome and the Emperor, against whom English
+patriotic feeling might be raised by Anne's few friends. The unwisdom of
+thus linking Katharine's cause with threats of foreign aggression, whilst
+England itself was favourable to her, was seen when the Nuncio presented
+to Henry a half-hearted exhortation to take his lawful wife back. Henry
+fulminated against the foreigner who dared to interfere between him and
+his wife; and, very far from alarming him, the Pope's timid action only
+proved the impotence of Rome to harm him. But the results fell upon the
+misguided Katharine, who had instigated the step. She was sent from the
+More to Ampthill, a house belonging to one of her few episcopal enemies.
+
+All through the summer of 1532 the coming and going of French agents to
+England puzzled the Queen and her foreign friends; but suddenly, late in
+July, the truth came out. Henry and Anne had gone with a great train on a
+hunting tour through the midlands in July; but only a few days after
+starting they suddenly returned to London. The quidnuncs whispered that
+the people on the way had clamoured so loudly that the Queen might be
+recalled to Court, and had so grossly insulted Anne, that the royal party
+had been driven back in disgust; and though there was no doubt some ground
+for the assertion, the real reason for the return was that the interview
+between Henry and the French king, so long secretly in negotiation, had at
+last been settled. To enlist Francis personally on the side of the
+divorce, and against the clerical influence, was good policy; for the
+Emperor could not afford to quarrel both with France and England for his
+aunt, and especially as the meeting arranged between Francis and the Pope
+at Nice for the betrothal of the Duke of Orleans with Katharine de Medici
+was already in contemplation, and threatened the Emperor with a
+combination of France, England, and perhaps the Papacy, which would be
+powerful enough to defy him. The policy was Cromwell's, who had inherited
+from his master, Wolsey, a leaning for the French alliance; but Norfolk
+and the rest of Henry's advisers were heavily bribed by France, and were
+on this occasion not inimical. The people at large, as usual, looked
+askance at the French connection. They dreaded, above all things, a war
+with Spain and Flanders, and recollected with apprehension the fruitless
+and foolish waste in splendour on the last occasion of the monarchs of
+France and England meeting. An attempt was made to provide that the
+preparations should be less costly and elaborate than those for the Field
+of the Cloth of Gold, but Henry could not forego the splendour that he
+loved, and a suite of 3000 or 4000 people were warned to accompany the
+King across the Channel to Boulogne and Calais.
+
+
+[Illustration: _ANNE BOLEYN_
+
+_From a portrait by_ LUCAS CORNELISZ _in the National Portrait Gallery_]
+
+
+For the interview to have its full value in the eyes of Henry and his
+mistress, the latter must be present at the festival, and be recognised by
+the French royal family as being of their own caste. Francis was not
+scrupulous, but this was difficult to arrange. His own second wife was the
+Emperor's sister, and she, of course, would not consent to meet "the
+concubine"; nor would any other of the French princesses, if they could
+avoid it; but, although the French at first gave out that no ladies would
+be present, Anne began to get her fine clothes ready and enlist her train
+of ladies as soon as the interview between the kings was arranged. So
+confident was she now of success that she foretold to one of her friends
+that she would be married whilst in France. To add to her elation, in the
+midst of the preparations Archbishop Warham died, and the chief
+ecclesiastical obstacle to the divorce in England disappeared. Some
+obedient churchman as Primate would soon manage to enlist a sufficient
+number of his fellows to give to his court an appearance of authority, and
+the Church of England would ratify the King's release.
+
+The effects of Warham's death (23rd August 1532) were seen immediately.
+There is every probability that up to that time Anne had successfully
+held her royal lover at arm's length; but with Cranmer, or another such as
+he, at Lambeth her triumph was only a matter of the few weeks necessary to
+carry out the formalities; and by the end of the month of August 1532 she
+probably became the King's mistress. This alone would explain the
+extraordinary proceedings when, on the 1st September, she was created
+Marchioness of Pembroke in her own right. It was Sunday morning before
+Mass at Windsor, where the new French alliance was to be ratified, that
+the King and his nobles and the French ambassador met in the great
+presence chamber and Anne knelt to receive the coronet and robe of her
+rank, the first peeress ever created in her own right in England:
+precedence being given to her before the two other English marchionesses,
+both ladies of the blood royal. Everything that could add prestige to the
+ceremony was done. Anne herself was dressed in regal crimson velvet and
+ermine; splendid presents were made to her by the enamoured King, fit more
+for a sovereign's consort than his mistress; a thousand pounds a year and
+lands were settled upon her, and her rank and property were to descend to
+the issue male of her body. But the cloven hoof is shown by the omission
+from the patent of the usual legitimacy clause. Even if, after all, the
+cup of queendom was dashed from her lips untasted, she had made not a bad
+bargain for herself. Her short triumph, indeed, was rapidly coming. She
+had fought strenuously for it for many years; and now most of the legal
+bars against her had fallen. But, withal, there was bitterness still in
+her chalice. The people scowled upon her no less now that she was a
+marchioness than before, and the great ladies who were ordered to attend
+the King's "cousin" into France did their service but sourly: whilst
+Francis had to be conciliated with all sorts of important concessions
+before he could be got to welcome "the lady" into his realm. When, at
+last, he consented, "because she would have gone in any case; for the King
+cannot be an hour without her," Francis did it gallantly, and with good
+grace, for, after all, Anne was just then the strongest prop in England of
+the French alliance.
+
+Katharine, from afar off, watched these proceedings with scornful
+resentment. Henry had no chivalry, no generosity, and saved his repudiated
+wife no humiliation that he could deal her in reward for her obstinacy. He
+had piled rich gifts upon Anne, but her greed for costly gewgaws was
+insatiable; and when the preparations for her visit to France were afoot
+she coveted the Queen's jewels. Henry's sister, the Duchess of Suffolk,
+Queen Dowager of France, had been made to surrender her valuables to the
+King's favourite; but when Henry sent a message to his wife bidding her
+give up her jewels, the proud princess blazed out in indignant anger at
+the insult. "Tell the King," she said, "that I cannot send them to him;
+for when lately, according to the custom of this realm, I presented him
+with a New Year's gift, he warned me to send him no such presents for the
+future. Besides, it is offensive and insulting to me, and would weigh upon
+my conscience, if I were led to give up my jewels for such a base purpose
+as that of decking out a person who is a reproach to Christendom, and is
+bringing scandal and disgrace upon the King, through his taking her to
+such a meeting as this in France. But still, if the King commands me and
+sends specially for them himself, I will give him my jewels." Such an
+answer as this proves clearly the lack of practical wisdom in the poor
+woman. She might have resisted, or she might have surrendered with a good
+grace; but to irritate and annoy the weak bully, without gaining her
+point, was worse than useless. Anne's talk about marrying the King in
+France angered Katharine beyond measure; but the favourite's ambition grew
+as her prospect brightened, and when it was settled that Cranmer was to be
+recalled from Germany and made Primate, Anne said that she had changed her
+mind. "Even if the King wished to marry her there (in France) she would
+not consent to it. She will have it take place here in England, where
+other queens have usually been married and crowned."[87]
+
+Through Kent, avoiding as they might the plague-stricken towns, the King
+and his lady-love, with a great royal train, rode to Dover early in
+October 1532. At Calais, Henry's own town, Anne was received almost with
+regal honours; but when Henry went forth to greet Francis upon French soil
+near Boulogne, and to be sumptuously entertained, it was seen that, though
+the French armed men were threateningly numerous, there were no ladies to
+keep in countenance the English "concubine" and the proud dames who did
+her service. Blazing in gems, the two kings met with much courtly ceremony
+and hollow professions of affection. Banqueting, speech-making, and
+posturing in splendid raiment occupied five days at Boulogne, the while
+the "Lady Marquis" ate her heart out at Calais in petulant disappointment;
+though she made as brave a show as she could to the Frenchmen when they
+came to return Henry's visit. The chronicler excels himself in the
+description of the lavish magnificence of the welcome of Francis at
+Calais,[88] and tells us that, after a bounteous supper on the night of
+Sunday 27th October, at which the two kings and their retinues sat down,
+"The Marchioness of Pembroke with seven other ladies in masking apparel of
+strange fashion, made of cloth of gold compassed with crimson tinsel
+satin, covered with cloth of silver, lying loose and knit with gold
+laces," tripped in, and each masked lady chose a partner, Anne, of course,
+taking the French king. In the course of the dance Henry plucked the masks
+from the ladies' faces, and debonair Francis, in courtly fashion,
+conversed with his fair partner. One of the worst storms in the memory of
+man delayed the English king's return from Calais till the 13th November;
+but when at length the _Te Deum_ for his safe home-coming was sung at St.
+Paul's, Anne knew that the King of France had undertaken to frighten the
+Pope into inactivity by talk of the danger of schism in England, and that
+Cranmer was hurrying across Europe on his way from Italy to London, to
+become Primate of the Church of England.
+
+The plot projected was a clever one, but it was still needful to handle it
+very delicately. Cranmer during his residence in Germany and Italy had
+been zealous in winning favourable opinions for Henry's contention, and
+his foregathering with Lutheran divines had strengthened his reforming
+opinions. He had, indeed, proceeded to the dangerous length of going
+through a form of marriage secretly with a young lady belonging to a
+Lutheran family. His leanings cannot have been quite unknown to the
+ever-watchful spies of the Pope and the Emperor, though Cranmer had done
+his best to hoodwink them, and to some extent had succeeded. But to ask
+the Pope to issue the Bulls confirming such a man in the Primacy of
+England was at least a risky proceeding, and Henry had to dissemble. In
+January, Katharine fondly thought that her husband was softening towards
+her, for he released her chaplain Abell, who had been imprisoned for
+publicly speaking in her favour. She fancied, poor soul, that "perhaps God
+had touched his heart, and that he was about to acknowledge his error."
+Chapuys attributed Henry's new gentleness to his begrudging the cost of
+two queenly establishments. But seen from this distance of time, it was
+clearly caused by a desire to disarm the suspicion of the Pope and the
+Emperor, who were again to meet at Bologna, until the Bulls confirming
+Cranmer's appointment to the Archbishopric had been issued. Henry went out
+of his way to be amiable to the imperial ambassador Chapuys, whilst he
+beguiled the Nuncio with the pretended proposal for reconciliation by
+means of a decision on the divorce to be given by two Cardinal Legates,
+appointed by the Pope, and sitting in neutral territory. In vain Chapuys
+warned the Emperor that Cranmer could not be trusted; but Henry's
+diplomatic signs of grace prevailed, and the Pope, dreading to drive
+England further into schism, confirmed Cranmer's election as Archbishop of
+Canterbury (March 1533).
+
+It was high time; for under a suave exterior both Henry and Anne were in a
+fever of impatience. At the very time that Queen Katharine thought that
+her husband had repented, Anne conveyed to him the news that she was with
+child. It was necessary for their plans that the offspring should be born
+in wedlock, and yet no public marriage was possible, or the eyes of the
+Papal party would be opened before the Bulls confirming Cranmer's
+elevation were issued. Sometime late in January 1533, therefore, a secret
+marriage was performed at Greenwich, probably by the reforming Franciscan
+Friar, George Brown,[89] and Anne became Henry's second wife, whilst
+Katharine was still undivorced. The secret was well kept for a time, and
+the Nuncio, Baron di Burgo, was fooled to the top of his bent by
+flatteries and hopes of bribes. He even sat in state on Henry's right
+hand, the French ambassador being on the left, at the opening of
+Parliament, probably with the idea of convincing the trembling English
+clergy that the King and the Pope were working together. In any case, the
+close association of the Nuncio with Henry and his ministers aroused the
+fears of Katharine anew, and she broke out in denunciations of the Pope's
+supineness in thus leaving her without aid for three and a half years, and
+now entertaining, as she said, a suggestion that would cause her to be
+declared the King's concubine, and her daughter a bastard.[90] In vain
+Chapuys, the only man of his party who saw through the device, prayed that
+Cranmer's Bulls should not be sent from Rome, that the sentence in
+Katharine's favour should no longer be delayed. It was already too late.
+The pride of Anne and her father at the secret marriage could not much
+longer be kept under. In the middle of February, whilst dining in her own
+apartment, she said that "she was now as sure that she should be married
+to the King, as she was of her own death"; and the Earl of Wiltshire told
+the aged kinsman of Henry, the Earl of Rutland, a staunch adherent of
+Katharine, that "the King was determined not to be so considerate as he
+had been, but would marry the Marchioness of Pembroke at once, by the
+authority of Parliament."[91] Anne's condition, indeed, could not continue
+to be concealed, and whispers of it reached the Queen at Ampthill. By
+March the rumour was rife at Court that the marriage had taken place--a
+rumour which it is plain that Anne's friends took no pains to deny, and
+Cranmer positively encouraged.[92]
+
+Cromwell, in the meanwhile, grew in power and boldness with the success
+of his machinations. The Chancellorship, vacant by More's resignation, was
+filled by Cromwell's friend Audley, and every post that fell vacant or
+could be vacated was occupied by known opponents of the clergy. The
+country and Parliament were even yet not ready to go so far as Cromwell in
+his policy of emancipation from Rome in spiritual affairs; and only by the
+most illegal pressure both in the two Houses and in Convocation was the
+declaration condemning the validity of the King's marriage with Katharine
+at last obtained. Armed with these declarations and the Bulls from Rome
+confirming Cranmer's appointment, Henry was ready in April to cast away
+the mask, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were sent to tell Katharine
+at Ampthill "that she need not trouble any more about the King, for he had
+taken another wife, and that in future she must abandon the title of
+Queen, and be called Duchess; though she should be left in possession of
+her property."[93] Chapuys was indignant, and urged the Emperor to make
+war upon England in revenge for the insult to his house. "The moment this
+accursed Anne gets her foot firmly in the stirrup she will do the Queen
+all the harm she can, and the Princess also, which is what the Queen fears
+most.... She (Anne) has lately boasted that she will make the Princess
+one of her maids, which will not give her too much to eat; or will marry
+her to some varlet." But the Emperor had cares and dangers that his
+ambassador in England knew not of, and he dared not avenge his aunt by the
+invasion of England.
+
+A long and fruitless war of words was waged between Henry and Chapuys when
+the news of the secret marriage became known; the talk turning upon the
+eternal question of the consummation of Katharine's first marriage.
+Chapuys reminded the King that on several occasions he (Henry) had
+confessed that his wife had been intact by Arthur. "Ah!" replied Henry, "I
+only said that in fun. A man when he is frolicking and dining says a good
+many things that are not true. Now, I think I have satisfied you.... What
+else do you want to know?"[94] A day or two after this, on Easter Eve,
+Anne went to Mass in truly royal state, loaded with diamonds and other
+precious stones, and dressed in a gorgeous suit of tissue; the train being
+borne by her cousin, the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, betrothed to the
+King's illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. She was followed by a
+greater suite and treated with more ceremony than had formerly attended
+Katharine, and, to the astonishment of the people, was prayed for
+thenceforward in the Church services at Court as Queen.[95] In London the
+attitude of the people grew threatening, and the Lord Mayor was taken to
+task by the King, who ordered that proclamation should be made forbidding
+any unfavourable reference to the King's second marriage. But the fire of
+indignation glowed fiercely beneath the surface, for everywhere the cause
+of Katharine was bound up, as it seemed, with the old faith in which all
+had been born, with the security of commerce with England's best
+customers, and with the rights of anointed royalty, as against low-born
+insolence.
+
+No humiliation was spared to Katharine. Her daughter was forbidden to hold
+any communication with her, her household was reduced to the meagre
+proportions of a private establishment, her scutcheon was taken down from
+Westminster Hall, and her cognisance from her barge, and, as a crowning
+indignity, she was summoned to appear before the Primate's court at
+Dunstable, a summons which, at the prompting of Chapuys, she entirely
+disregarded. Up to this time she had stood firm in her determination to
+maintain an attitude of loyalty to the King and to her adopted country;
+but, as she grew more bitter at her rival's triumph, and the flowing tide
+of religious change rose at her feet, she listened to plans for bringing a
+remedy for her ills by a subversion of Henry's regime. But she was a poor
+conspirator, and considerations of safety for her daughter, and her want
+of tact in uniting the English elements in her favour, always paralysed
+her.[96]
+
+In the meanwhile the preparations for the public recognition and
+coronation of Anne went on. The new Queen tried her best to captivate the
+Londoners, but without success; and only with difficulty could the
+contributions be obtained for the coming festivities when the new Queen
+passed through the city. On the 10th May Katharine was declared
+contumacious by the Primate's court, and on the 23rd May Cranmer
+pronounced the King's first marriage to have been void from the first.[97]
+This was followed by a pronouncement to the effect that the second
+marriage, that with Anne, was legal, and nothing now stood in the way of
+the final fruition of so much labour and intrigue, pregnant with such
+tremendous results to England. On the 29th May 1533 the first scene of the
+pageant was enacted with the State progress by water from Greenwich to the
+Tower.[98] No effort had been spared by Henry to make the occasion a
+brilliant one. We are told that the whole river from the point of
+departure to that of arrival was covered with beautifully bedizened boats;
+guns roared forth their salutations at Greenwich, and from the crowd of
+ships that lay in the stream. Flags and _feux de joie_ could be bought;
+courtiers', guilds', and nobles' barges could be commanded, but the hearty
+cheers of the lieges could not be got for all King Harry's power, as the
+new Queen, in the old Queen's barge, was borne to the frowning fortress
+which so soon was to be her own place of martyrdom.[99]
+
+On Sunday, 31st May 1533, the procession through the crowded city sallied
+from the Tower betimes in the morning. Englishmen and foreigners, except
+Spaniards only, had been forced to pay heavily for the splendour of the
+day; and the trade guilds and aldermen, brave in furred gowns and gold
+chains, stood from one device to another in the streets, as the glittering
+show went by. The French element did its best to add gaiety to the
+occasion, and the merchants of France established in London rode at the
+head of the procession in purple velvet embroidered with Anne's device.
+Then came the nobles and courtiers and all the squires and gentlemen whom
+the King had brought from their granges and manor-houses to do honour to
+their new Queen. Anne herself was seated in an open litter of white satin
+covered by a golden canopy. She was dressed in a surcoat and mantle of
+white tissue trimmed with ermine, and wore a robe of crimson brocade stiff
+with gems. Her hair, which was very fine, hung over her shoulders
+surmounted by a coif and a coronet of diamonds, whilst around her neck was
+hung a necklace of great pearls, and upon her breast reposed a splendid
+jewel of precious stones. "And as she passed through the city she kept
+turning her face from one side to the other to greet the people, but,
+strange to see it was, that there were hardly ten persons who greeted her
+with 'God save your Grace,' as they used to do when the sainted Queen
+Katharine went by."[100]
+
+Lowering brows, and whispered curses of "Nan Bullen" from the citizens'
+wives followed the new Queen on her way; for to them she stood for war
+against the Emperor in the behoof of France, for harassed trade and lean
+larders, and, above all, for defiance of the religious principles that
+most of them held sacred; and they hated the long fair face with which, or
+with love philtres, she had bewitched the King. The very pageants
+ostensibly raised in her honour contrived in several cases to embody a
+subtle insult. At the Gracechurch corner of Fenchurch Street, where the
+Hanse merchants had erected a "merveilous connyng pageaunt," representing
+Mount Parnassus, with the fountain of Helicon spouting racked Rhenish wine
+all day, the Queen's litter was stayed a space to listen to the Muses
+playing "swete instrumentes," and to read the "epigrams" in her praise
+that were hung around the mount. But Anne looked aloft to where Apollo
+sat, and saw that the imperial eagle was blazoned in the place of honour,
+whilst the much-derided bogus arms of the Boleyns lurked in humble guise
+below;[101] and for many a day thenceforward she was claiming vengeance
+against the Easterlings for the slight put upon her. As each triumphal
+device was passed, children dressed as angels, or muses, were made to sing
+or recite conceited phrases of dithyrambic flattery to the heroine of the
+hour. There was no grace or virtue of which she was not the true exemplar.
+Through Leadenhall and Cornhill and so to Chepe, between lines of liveried
+citizens, Anne's show progressed. At the cross on Cheapside the Mayor and
+corporation awaited the Queen; and the Recorder, "Master Baker," with many
+courtly compliments, handed her the city's gift of a thousand marks in a
+purse of gold, "which she thankfully received." That she did so was noted
+with sneering contempt by Katharine's friends. "As soon as she received
+the purse of money she placed it by her side in the litter: and thus she
+showed that she was a person of low descent. For there stood by her at the
+time the captain of the King's guard, with his men and twelve lacqueys;
+and when the sainted Queen had passed by for _her_ coronation, she handed
+the money to the captain of the guard to be divided amongst the
+halberdiers and lacqueys. Anne did not do so, but kept them for
+herself."[102] St. Paul's and Ludgate, Fleet Street and Temple Bar, all
+offered their official adulation, whilst the staring people stood by dumb.
+Westminster Hall, into which Anne's litter was borne for the feast, was
+richly hung with arras and "newly glazed." A regal throne with a canopy
+was set on high for Anne, and a great sideboard of gold plate testified to
+the King's generosity to his new wife. But after she had changed her
+garments and was welcomed with open arms by Henry at his new palace of
+Westminster, her disappointment broke out. "How like you the look of the
+city, sweetheart?" asked the King. "Sir," she replied, "the city itself
+was well enow; but I saw many caps on heads and heard but few
+tongues."[103]
+
+The next day, Sunday, Anne was crowned by Cranmer with full ceremony in
+Westminster Abbey, and for days thereafter banqueting, tilting, and the
+usual roystering went on; and the great-granddaughter of Alderman Boleyn
+felt that at last she was Queen indeed. Henry, too, had had his way, and
+again could hope that a son born in wedlock might perpetuate the name of
+Tudor on the throne of England. But he was in deadly fear, for the
+prospect was black all around him. Public indignation in England grew
+apace[104] at the religious changes and at the prospect of war; but what
+most aroused Henry's alarm was the sudden coldness of France, and the
+probability of a great Catholic coalition against him. Norfolk and Lord
+Rochford with a stately train had gone to join in the interview between
+Francis and the Pope, in the hope that the joint presence of France and
+England might force Clement to recognise accomplished facts in order to
+avoid the secession of England from the Church. Although it suited Francis
+to promote the antagonism between Henry and the Emperor by keeping the
+divorce proceedings dragging on in Rome, it did not suit him for England
+to defy the Papacy by means of Cranmer's sentence, and so to change the
+balance of power in Europe by driving Henry into permanent union with
+German Protestants whilst Francis was forced to side with the Emperor on
+religious grounds. So long as Henry remained undivorced and unmarried
+anything might happen. He might sate of his mistress and tire of the
+struggle against Rome, or be driven by fear of war to take a conciliatory
+course, and in any of these cases he must needs pay for France's aid; but
+now that his divorce and remarriage were as valid as a duly authorised
+Archbishop could make them, the utility of Anne as an aid to French
+foreign policy disappeared. The actual marriage therefore deprived her of
+the sympathies of the French party in the English Court, which had
+hitherto sided with her, and the effects were immediately seen in the
+attitude of Francis.
+
+Before Norfolk could reach the south of France news came to him that the
+Pope, coerced by the Emperor, had issued a brief declaring all of Henry's
+proceedings in England to be nullified and he and his abettors
+excommunicated, unless of his own accord he restored things to their
+former condition before September.[105] It was plain, therefore, that any
+attempt at the coming interview to reconcile Clement with Henry's action
+would be fruitless. Norfolk found Francis also much cooler than before,
+and sent back his nephew Rochford post haste to England to beg the King's
+instructions. He arrived at Court in early August, at a time when Henry's
+perplexity was at its height. He had learnt of the determination of
+Francis to greet the Pope and carry through the marriage between the Duke
+of Orleans and Katharine de Medici, whether the King of England's demands
+were satisfied by Clement or not. He now knew that the dreaded sentence of
+excommunication pended over him and his instruments. If he had been left
+to his own weakness he would probably have given way, or at least have
+sought compromise. If Norfolk had been at his elbow, the old aristocratic
+English party might also have stayed the King's hand. But Cromwell, bold
+and astute, and Anne, with the powerful lever of her unborn child, which
+might be a son, knew well that they had gone too far to return, and that
+defiance of the Papacy was the only road open to them. Already at the end
+of June Henry had gone as far as to threaten an appeal from the Pope to
+the General Council of the Church, the meeting of which was then being
+discussed; but now that he knew that Francis was failing him, and the Pope
+had finally cast down the gage, he took the next great step which led to
+England's separation from Rome. Norfolk was recalled, and Gardiner
+accredited to Francis only with a watching brief during the Papal
+interview at Nice, whilst Henry's ambassadors in Rome were recalled, and
+English agents were sent to Germany to seek alliances with the German
+Protestant princes. When, therefore, Norfolk arrived in England, he found
+that in his two months' absence Cromwell had steered the ship of state
+further away than ever from the traditional policy of the English
+conservatives; namely, one of balance between the two great Catholic
+powers; and that England was isolated, but for the doubtful friendship of
+those vassal princes of the Empire who professed the dreaded new heresy.
+Thenceforward the ruin of Anne and Cromwell was one of the main objects of
+Norfolk and the noble party.
+
+The treatment meted out to Katharine during the same time followed a
+similar impulse. Chapuys had been informed that, the King having now taken
+a legal wife, Katharine could no longer be called Queen, but Princess
+Dowager of Wales, and that her regal household could not be kept up; and
+on the 3rd July Katharine's principal officers were ordered to convey a
+similar message to her personally. The message was roughly worded. It
+could only be arrogance and vainglory, she was told, that made her retain
+or usurp the title of Queen. She was much mistaken if she imagined that
+her husband would ever live with her again, and by her obstinate contumacy
+she would cause wars and bloodshed, as well as danger to herself and her
+daughter, as both would be made to feel the King's displeasure. The
+Queen's answer, as might have been expected, was as firm as usual. She was
+the King's legitimate wife, and no reward or fear in the world would ever
+make her abandon her right to the title she bore. It was not vainglory
+that moved her, for to be the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabel was a
+greater honour than to be a Queen. Henry might punish her, she said, or
+even her daughter, "Yet neither for that, nor a thousand deaths, would she
+consent to damn her soul or that of her husband the King."[106] The King,
+beside himself with rage, could do no more than warn Katharine's household
+that they must all treat their mistress as Princess of Wales, or suffer
+the penalty. As for Katharine, no punishment short of death could move
+her; and Cromwell himself, in admiration at her answer, said that "nature
+had injured her in not making her a man, for she would have surpassed in
+fame all the heroes of history."[107]
+
+When a few days after this Katharine was removed to Buckden, crowds
+followed her with tears and blessings along the road, even as they had
+followed the Princess Mary shortly before, "as if she were God Almighty,"
+as Anne said. In defiance of Henry's threats, "God save the Queen" rang
+high and clear wherever she went, and the people, "wishing her joy,
+comfort, and all manner of prosperity, and mishap to her enemies, begged
+her with tears to let them serve her; for they were all ready to die for
+her sake."[108] Anne's spite at such demonstrations was characteristic.
+Katharine possessed a very rich and gorgeous length of stuff, which she
+had brought from Spain to serve as a christening robe if she should have a
+son and heir. Anne's time was drawing near, and she would not be content
+until the King had demanded of his wife the Spanish material to serve as a
+robe for the Prince of Wales, which he was confident would be born to
+Anne. "God forbid," replied Katharine, "that I should ever give help or
+countenance in a case so horrible and abominable as this!" and the
+indignity of forcible searching of her chests for the stuff at least was
+not insisted upon then.
+
+Anne's own position was hardly a happy one; her one hope being that the
+coming child would be a son, as the King was assured by astrologers that
+it would be. For amorous Henry was already tiring somewhat of her, and
+even Cromwell's tone was less confident than before. Early in August,
+Henry left her at Greenwich to go to Windsor alone, for the first time
+since they had been together. Sometime in July she had insisted upon a
+very sumptuous bed, which had formed part of a French royal ransom, being
+taken out of the treasure-room for the birth of the expected heir. It is
+well, sneered Chapuys, in the first days of September, that she got it
+betimes, "otherwise she would not have it now, for she has been for some
+time past very jealous of the King; and, with good cause, spoke about it
+in words that he did not like. He told her that she must wink at such
+things, and put up with them, as her betters had done before her. He could
+at any time cast her down as easily as he had raised her." Frequent
+bickerings of this sort went on during the last weeks of Anne's pregnancy;
+but on Sunday, 7th September, the day that was to heal all differences
+came. Henry had defied the greatest power in the world, had acted basely
+and brutally to his legal wife, and had incurred the reprobation of his
+own people for the sake of having a son, and on the fateful day mentioned
+a fair girl baby was born to Anne at Greenwich.
+
+The official rejoicings were held, but beneath the surface every one knew
+that a tragedy lurked,[109] for unless a son was born to Anne her doom was
+sealed. Henry had asserted his mastership in his own realm and had defied
+Christendom. He had found that his subjects, however sulkily, had accepted
+his action without open revolt; and that Charles, notwithstanding the
+insult to his house, was still speaking softly through his ambassadors. If
+a great princess like Katharine could thus be repudiated without disaster
+to his realm, it would indeed be easy for him to cast away "that noughty
+pake, Nan Bullen," if she failed to satisfy his desire for a son. But in
+the meanwhile it was necessary for him to secure, so far as he could, the
+succession of his new daughter, since Cranmer's decision had rendered
+Mary, Princess of Wales, of whom her father had been so proud,
+illegitimate. Accordingly, immediately after the child Elizabeth was
+christened, heralds proclaimed in the King's name that Princess Mary was
+thenceforward to lose her title and pre-eminence, the badge upon her
+servants' coats being replaced by the arms of the King, and the baby Lady
+Elizabeth was to be recognised as the King's only legitimate heir and
+Princess of Wales. In vain the imperial ambassador protested and talked to
+Cromwell of possible war, in which England might be ruined, which Cromwell
+admitted but reminded him that the Emperor would not benefit thereby; in
+vain Katharine from her retirement at Buckden urged Chapuys and the
+Emperor to patronise Reginald Pole as a possible threat to Henry; in vain
+Princess Mary herself, in diplomatic language, told her father that he
+might give her what title he liked, but that she herself would never admit
+her illegitimacy or her mother's repudiation; in vain Bishop Fisher and
+Chapuys counselled the invasion of England and the overturn of Henry:
+Cromwell knew that there was no drawing back for him, and that the
+struggle must go on now to the bitter end.
+
+Anne with the birth of her daughter became more insolent and exacting than
+ever. Nothing would satisfy her but the open degradation of Katharine and
+her daughter, and Henry in this respect seems to have had no spark of
+generous or gentlemanly feeling. Irritated by what he considered the
+disobedience of his wife and child, and doubtless also by their constant
+recourse for support and advice to the Emperor's ambassador against him,
+he dismissed Mary's household and ordered her to go to Hatfield and serve
+as maid the Princess Elizabeth. Mary was ready with her written protest,
+which Chapuys had drafted for her, but, having made it, decided to submit;
+and was borne to Hatfield in scornful dudgeon, to serve "the bastard" of
+three months old. When she arrived the Duke of Suffolk asked her if she
+would go and pay her respects to "the Princess." "I know of no other
+princess but myself," replied Mary. "The daughter of Lady Pembroke has no
+right to such a title. But," added she, "as the King acknowledges her I
+may call her sister, as I call the Duke of Richmond brother." Mary was the
+true daughter of her proud mother, and bluff Charles Brandon got many a
+tart answer from her before he gave her up in despair to perform a similar
+mission to her mother at Buckden.
+
+Katharine had never changed her tone. Knowing Henry's weakness, she had
+always pressed for the final Papal decision in her favour, which she
+insisted would bring her husband to his knees, as it doubtless would have
+done if he had stood alone. For a time the Pope and the King of France
+endeavoured to find a _via media_ which should save appearances, for
+Charles would not bind himself to carry out by force the Papal deposition
+of Henry, which Clement wanted. But Katharine would have no compromise,
+nor did it suit Cromwell or Anne, though the former was apparently anxious
+to avoid offending the Emperor. Parliament, moreover, was summoned for the
+15th January 1534, to give the sanction of the nation to Henry's final
+defiance of Rome; and persistence in the path to which the King's desire
+for a son and his love for Anne had dragged England, was now the only
+course open to him. Suffolk and a deputation of councillors were
+consequently sent once more with an ultimatum to Katharine. Accompanied by
+a large armed force to intimidate the Queen and the people who surrounded
+her, the deputation saw her on the 18th December; and Suffolk demanded
+that she should recognise Cranmer's decision and abandon her appeal to
+Rome; whilst her household and herself were to take the oath of allegiance
+to the King in the new form provided. The alternative was that she should
+be deprived of her servants and be removed to Fotheringay or Somersame,
+seated in the midst of pestilential marshes.[110] Suffolk was rough in his
+manner, and made short work of the English household, nearly all of whom
+were dismissed and replaced by others; but he found Katharine the same
+hard woman as ever. Considering all the King had done for her and hers, he
+said, it was disgraceful that she should worry him as she had done for
+years, putting him to vast expense in embassies to Rome and elsewhere, and
+keeping him in turmoil with his neighbours. Surely she had grown tired of
+her obstinacy by this time, and would abandon her appeal to Rome. If she
+did so the King would do anything for her; but if not he would clip her
+wings and effectually punish her. As a beginning, he said, they were going
+to remove her to Fotheringay. Katharine had heard such talk many times
+before, though less rudely worded; and she replied in the usual tone. She
+looked to the Pope alone, and cared nothing for the Archbishop of
+Canterbury. As for going to Fotheringay, that she would not do. The King
+might work his will; but unless she was dragged thither by main force she
+would not go, or she would be guilty of suicide, so unhealthy was the
+place. Some of the members of the household were recalcitrant, and the two
+priests, Abell and Barker, were sent to the Tower. The aged Spanish Bishop
+of Llandaff, Jorge de Ateca, the Queen's confessor, was also warned that
+he must go, and De la Sa, her apothecary, and a physician, both Spaniards;
+but at her earnest prayers they were allowed to remain pending an
+appeal.[111] The Queen's women attendants were also told they must
+depart, but upon Katharine saying that she would not undress or go to bed
+unless she had proper help, two of them were allowed to stay. For a whole
+week the struggle went on, every device and threat being employed to break
+down the Queen's resistance. She was as hard as adamant. All the servants
+who remained but the Spaniards, who spoke no English, had to swear not to
+treat her as Queen, and she said she would treat them as gaolers. On the
+sixth day of Suffolk's stay at Buckden, pack animals were got ready, and
+preparations made for removing the establishment to Fotheringay. But they
+still had to reckon with Katharine. Locking herself in her chamber, she
+carried on a colloquy with her oppressors through a chink in the wall. "If
+you wish to take me," she declared, "you must break down my door;" but,
+though the country gentlemen around had been summoned to the aid of the
+King's commissioners, and the latter were well armed, such was the ferment
+and indignation in the neighbourhood--and indeed throughout the
+country--that violence was felt to be unwise, and Katharine was left in
+such peace as she might enjoy.[112] Well might Suffolk write, as he did,
+to Norfolk: "We find here the most obstinate woman that may be; inasmuch
+as we think surely there is no other remedy than to convey her by force to
+Somersame. Concerning this we have nothing in our instructions; we pray
+your good lordship that we may have knowledge of the King's pleasure." All
+this petty persecution was, of course, laid at the door of Anne by
+Katharine's friends and the Catholic majority; for Cromwell was clever in
+avoiding his share of the responsibility. "The lady," they said, "would
+never be satisfied until both the Queen and her daughter had been done to
+death, either by poison or otherwise; and Katharine was warned to take
+care to fasten securely the door of her chamber at night, and to have the
+room searched before she retired.[113]
+
+In the meantime England and France were drifting further apart. If Henry
+finally decided to brave the Papal excommunication, Francis dared not make
+common cause with him. The Bishop of Paris (Du Bellay) once more came
+over, and endeavoured to find a way out of the maze. Anne, whom he had
+befriended before, received him effusively, kissing him on the cheek and
+exerting all her witchery upon him; but it was soon found that he brought
+an ultimatum from his King; and when Henry began to bully him and abuse
+Francis for deserting him, the bishop cowed him with a threat of immediate
+war. The compromise finally arrived at was that if the Pope before the
+following Easter (1534) would withdraw his sentence against Henry, England
+would remain within the pale of the Church. Otherwise the measure drafted
+for presentation to Parliament entirely throwing off the Papal supremacy
+would be proceeded with. This was the parting of the ways, and the
+decision was left to Clement VII.
+
+Parliament opened on the 15th January, perhaps the most fateful assembly
+that ever met at Westminster. The country, as we have seen, was indignant
+at the treatment of Katharine and her daughter, but the instinct of
+loyalty to the King was strong, and there was no powerful centre around
+which revolt might crystallise. The clergy especially--even those who,
+like Stokesley, Fox, and Gardiner, were Henry's instruments--dreaded the
+great changes that portended; and an attempt to influence Parliament by a
+declaration of the clergy in Convocation against the King's first
+marriage, failed, notwithstanding the flagrant violence with which
+signatures were sought. With difficulty, even though the nobles known to
+favour Katharine were not summoned, a bill granting a dowry to the Queen
+as Dowager Princess of Wales was passed; but the House of Commons,
+trembling for the English property in the imperial dominions, threw it
+out. The prospect for a time looked black for the great ecclesiastical
+changes that were contemplated, and the hopes of Katharine's friends rose
+again.
+
+The Bishop of Paris in the meanwhile had contrived to frighten Clement and
+his Cardinals, by his threatening talk of English schism and the universal
+spread of dissent, into an insincere and half-hearted acquiescence in a
+compromise that would submit the question of a divorce to a tribunal of
+two Cardinals sitting at Cambray to save appearances, and deciding in
+favour of Henry. When the French ambassador Castillon came to Henry with
+this news (early in March 1534) the King had experienced the difficulty of
+bringing Parliament and Convocation to his views; and, again, if left to
+himself, he would probably have yielded. But Anne and Cromwell, and indeed
+Cranmer, were now in the same boat; and any wavering on the part of the
+King would have meant ruin to them all. They did their best to stiffen
+Henry, but he was nearly inclined to give way behind their backs; and
+after the French ambassador had left the Council unsuccessful, Henry had a
+long secret talk with him in the garden, in which he assured him that he
+would not have anything done hastily against the Holy See.
+
+But whilst the rash and turbulent Bishop of Paris was hectoring Clement at
+Rome and sending unjustifiably encouraging messages to England,
+circumstances on both sides were working against the compromise which the
+French desired so much. Cromwell and Anne were panic-stricken at the idea
+of reopening the question of the marriage before any Papal tribunal, and
+kept up Henry's resentment against the Pope. Henry's pride also was
+wounded by a suggestion of the French that, as a return for Clement's
+pliability, Alexander de Medici, Duke of Florence, might marry the
+Princess Mary. Cromwell's diplomatic management of the Parliamentary
+opposition and the consequent passage of the bill abolishing the
+remittance of Peter's pence to Rome, also encouraged Henry to think that
+he might have his own way after all; and the chances of his making further
+concessions to the Pope again diminished. A similar process was going on
+in Rome. Whilst Clement was smilingly listening to talk of reconciliation
+for the sake of keeping England under his authority, he well knew that
+Henry could only be moved by fear; and all the thunderbolts of the Church
+were being secretly forged to launch upon the King of England.
+
+On the 23rd March 1534 the consistory of Cardinals sat, the French
+Cardinals being absent; and the final judgment on the validity of Henry's
+marriage with Katharine was given by the head of the Church. The cause
+which had stirred Europe for five years was settled beyond appeal so far
+as the Roman Church could settle it. Katharine was Henry's lawful wife,
+and Anne Boleyn was proclaimed by the Church to be his concubine. Almost
+on the very day that the gage was thus thrown down by the Pope, Henry had
+taken similar action on his own account. In the previous sitting of
+Parliament the King had been practically acknowledged as head of the
+Church in his own dominions; and now all appeals and payments to the Pope
+were forbidden, and the bishops of England were entirely exempt from his
+spiritual jurisdiction and control. To complete the emancipation of the
+country from the Papacy, on the 23rd March 1534 a bill (the Act of
+Succession) was read for the third time, confirming the legality of the
+marriage of Henry and Anne, and settling the succession to the crown upon
+their issue to the exclusion of the Princess Mary. Cranmer's divorce
+decision was thus ratified by statute; and any person questioning in word
+or print the legitimacy of Elizabeth's birth was adjudged guilty of high
+treason. Every subject of the King, moreover, was to take oath to
+maintain this statute on pain of death. The consummation was reached: for
+good or for evil England was free from Rome, and the fair woman for whose
+sake the momentous change had been wrought, sat planning schemes of
+vengeance against the two proud princesses, mother and daughter, who still
+refused to bow the neck to her whom they proclaimed the usurper of their
+rights.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1534-1536
+
+A FLEETING TRIUMPH--POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE
+
+
+In the previous pages we have witnessed the process by which a vain,
+arrogant man, naturally lustful and held by no moral or material
+restraint, had been drawn into a position which, when he took the first
+step that led to it, he could not have contemplated. In ordinary
+circumstances there would have been no insuperable difficulty in his
+obtaining a divorce, and he probably expected little. The divorce,
+however, in this case involved the question of a change in the national
+alliance and a shifting of the weight of England to the side of France;
+and the Emperor by his power over the Pope had been able to frustrate the
+design, not entirely on account of his family connection with Katharine,
+but rather as a question of international policy. The dependent position
+of the Pope had effectually stood in the way of the compromise always
+sought by France, and the resistance to his will had made Henry the more
+determined to assert himself, with the natural result that the dispute had
+developed into religious schism. There is a school of historians which
+credits Henry personally with the far-reaching design of shaking off the
+ecclesiastical control of Rome in order to augment the national
+greatness; but there seems to me little evidence to support the view. When
+once the King had bearded the Papacy, rather than retrace the steps he had
+taken and confess himself wrong, it was natural that many of his subjects
+who conscientiously leant towards greater freedom in religion than Rome
+would allow, were prepared to carry the lesson further, as the German
+Lutherans had done, but I can find no reason to believe that Henry desired
+to initiate any change of system in the direction of freedom: his aim
+being, as he himself said, simply to make himself Pope as well as King
+within his own realm. Even that position, as we have seen in the
+aforegoing chapters, was only reached gradually under the incentive of
+opposition, and by the aid of stouter hearts and clearer brains than his
+own: and if Henry could have had his way about the marriage, as he
+conceivably might have done on many occasions during the struggle by a
+very slight change in the circumstances, there would have been, so far as
+he personally was concerned, no Reformation in England at the time.
+
+One of the most curious phases in the process here described is the
+deterioration notable in Henry's character as the ecclesiastical and moral
+restraints that influenced him were gradually cast aside. We have seen him
+as a kind and courteous husband, not more immoral than other men of his
+age and station; a father whose love for his children was intense; and a
+cultured gentleman of a headstrong but not unlovable character. Resistance
+to his will had touched his pride and hardened his heart, until at the
+period which we have now reached (1534) we see him capable of brutal and
+insulting treatment of his wife and elder daughter, of which any gentleman
+would be ashamed. On the other hand, the attitude of Katharine and Mary
+was exactly that best calculated to drive to fury a conceited, overbearing
+man, loving his supreme power as Henry did. It was, of course, heroic and
+noble of the two ladies to stand upon their undoubted rights as they did;
+but if Katharine by adopting a religious life had consented to a divorce,
+the decree of nullity would not have been pronounced; her own position
+would have been recognised, her daughter's legitimacy saved, and the
+separation from Rome at least deferred, if not prevented. There was no
+such deterioration in Anne's character as in that of Henry; for it was bad
+from the first, and consistently remained so. Her ambition was the noblest
+trait in her nature; and she served it with a petty personal malignity
+against those who seemed to stand in her way that goes far to deprive her
+of the pity that otherwise would go out to her in her own martyrdom at the
+hands of the fleshly tyrant whose evil nature she had been so greatly
+instrumental in developing.
+
+It was undoubtedly to Anne's prompting that the ungenerous treatment of
+the Princess Mary was due, a treatment that aroused the indignation even
+of those to whom its execution was entrusted. Henry was deeply attached to
+his daughter, but it touched his pride for her to refuse to submit without
+protest to his behest. When Norfolk told him of the attitude of the
+Princess on her being taken to Hatfield to attend upon Elizabeth, he
+decided to bring his parental authority to bear upon her personally, and
+decided to see her. But Anne, "considering the easiness or rather levity
+of the King, and that the great beauty and goodness of the Princess might
+overcome his displeasure with her, and, moved by her virtues and his
+fatherly pity for her, be induced to treat her better and restore her
+title to her, sent Cromwell and other messengers posting after the King to
+prevent him, at any cost, from seeing or speaking to the Princess."[114]
+When Henry arrived at Hatfield and saw his baby daughter Elizabeth, the
+elder Princess begged to be allowed to salute him. The request was not
+granted; but when the King mounted his horse in the courtyard Mary stood
+upon a terrace above to see him. The King was informed of her presence, or
+saw her by chance; and, as she caught his eye, she threw herself upon her
+knees in an attitude of prayer, whereupon the father touched his bonnet,
+and bowed low and kindly to the daughter he was wronging so bitterly. He
+explained afterwards that he avoided speaking to her as she was so
+obstinate with him, "thanks to her Spanish blood." When the French
+ambassador mentioned her kindly, during the conversation, he noted that
+Henry's eyes filled with tears, and that he could not refrain from
+praising her.[115] But for Anne's jealousy for her own offspring, it is
+probable that Mary's legitimacy would have been established by Act of
+Parliament; as Cromwell at this time was certainly in favour of it: but
+Anne was ever on the watch, especially to arouse Henry's anger by hinting
+that Mary was looking to foreigners for counsel, as indeed she was. It was
+this latter element in which danger principally lurked. Katharine
+naturally appealed to her kin for support; and all through her trouble it
+was this fact, joined with her firm refusal to acknowledge Henry's supreme
+power, that steeled her husband's heart. But for the King's own daughter
+and undoubted born subject to act in the same way made her, what her
+mother never had been, a dangerous centre around which the disaffected
+elements might gather. The old nobility, as we have seen, were against
+Anne: and Henry quite understood the peril of having in his own family a
+person who commanded the sympathies of the strongest foreign powers in
+Europe, as well as the most influential elements in England. He angrily
+told the Marquis of Exeter that it was only confidence in the Emperor
+that made Mary so obstinate; but that he was not afraid of the Emperor,
+and would bring the girl to her senses: and he then went on to threaten
+Exeter himself if he dared to communicate with her. The same course was
+soon afterwards taken with Norfolk, who as well as his wife was forbidden
+to see the Princess, although he certainly had shown no desire to extend
+much leniency to her.
+
+The treatment of Katharine was even more atrocious, though in her case it
+was probably more the King's irritated pride than his fears that was the
+incentive. When the wretched Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, was
+prosecuted for her crazy prophecies against the King every possible effort
+was made to connect the unfortunate Queen with her, though unsuccessfully,
+and the attempt to force Katharine to take the oath prescribed by the new
+Act of Succession against herself and her daughter was obviously a piece
+of persecution and insult.[116] The Commission sent to Buckden to extort
+the new oath of allegiance to Henry, and to Anne as Queen, consisted of
+Dr. Lee, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Tunstall, Bishop of Durham; and the
+Bishop of Chester; and the scene as described by one of the Spanish
+servants is most curious. When the demand was made that she should take
+the oath of allegiance to Anne as Queen, Katharine with fine scorn
+replied, "Hold thy peace, bishop: speak to me no more. These are the wiles
+of the devil. I am Queen, and Queen will I die: by right the King can have
+no other wife, and let this be your answer."[117] Assembling her
+household, she addressed them, and told them they could not without sin
+swear allegiance to the King and Anne in a form that would deny the
+supreme spiritual authority of the Pope: and taking counsel with her
+Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, they settled between them that the
+Spaniards should answer interrogatories in Spanish in such a way that by a
+slight mispronunciation their answer could be interpreted, "I acknowledge
+that the King has made himself head of the Church" (_se ha hecho cabeza de
+la iglesia_), whereas the Commissioners would take it as meaning "that the
+King be created head of the Church" (_sea hecho cabeza de la iglesia_);
+and on the following morning the wily chamberlain and his countrymen saved
+appearances and their consciences at the same time by a pun. But when the
+formal oath of allegiance to Anne was demanded, Felipe, speaking for the
+rest, replied, "I have taken one oath of allegiance to my lady Queen
+Katharine. She still lives, and during her life I know no other Queen in
+this realm." Lee then threatened them with punishment for refusal, and a
+bold Burgundian lackey, Bastian,[118] burst out with, "Let the King banish
+us, but let him not order us to be perjurers." The bishop in a rage told
+him to begone at once; and, nothing loath, Bastian knelt at his mistress's
+feet and bade her farewell; taking horse at once to ride to the coast.
+Katharine in tears remonstrated with Lee for dismissing her servant
+without reference to her; and the bishop, now that his anger was calmed,
+sent messengers to fetch Bastian back; which they did not do until he had
+reached London.[119]
+
+This fresh indignity aroused Katharine's friends both in England and
+abroad. The Emperor had already remonstrated with the English ambassador
+on the reported cruel treatment of the Queen and her daughter, and Henry
+now endeavoured to justify himself in a long letter (June 1534). As for
+the Queen, he said, she was being treated "in everything to the best that
+can be devised, whom we do order and entertain as we think most expedient,
+and as to us seemeth prudent. And the like also of our daughter the Lady
+Mary: for we think it not meet that any person should prescribe unto us
+how we should order our own daughter, we being her natural father." He
+expressed himself greatly hurt that the Emperor should think him capable
+of acting unkindly, notwithstanding that the Lady Katharine "hath very
+disobediently behaved herself towards us, as well in contemning and
+setting at naught our laws and statutes, as in many other ways." Just
+lately, he continues, he had sent three bishops to exhort her, "in most
+loving fashion," to obey the law; and "she hath in most ungodly,
+obstinate, and inobedient wise, wilfully resisted, set at naught and
+contemned our laws and ordinances: so if we would administer to her any
+rigour or extremity she were undoubtedly within the extreme danger of our
+laws."
+
+The blast of persecution swept over the land. The oaths demanded by the
+new statutes were stubbornly resisted by many. Fisher and More, as learned
+and noble as any men in the land, were sent to the Tower (April 1534) to
+be entrapped and done to death a year later. Throughout the country the
+Commissioners with plenary powers were sent to administer the new oaths,
+and those citizens who cavilled at taking them were treated as traitors to
+the King. But all this did not satisfy Anne whilst Katharine and Mary
+remained recalcitrant and unpunished for the same offence. Henry was in
+dire fear, however, of some action of the Emperor in enforcement of the
+Papal excommunication against him and his kingdom, which according to the
+Catholic law he had forfeited by the Pope's ban. Francis, willing as he
+was to oppose the Emperor, dared not expose his own kingdom to
+excommunication by siding with Henry, and the latter was statesman enough
+to see, as indeed was Cromwell, that extreme measures against Mary would
+turn all Christendom against him, and probably prove the last unbearable
+infliction that would drive his own people to aid a foreign invasion. So,
+although Anne sneered at the King's weakness, as she called it, and
+eagerly anticipated his projected visit to Francis, during which she would
+remain Regent in England, and be able to wreak her wicked will on the
+young Princess, the King, held by political fear, and probably, too, by
+some fatherly regard, refused to be nagged by his wife into the murder of
+his daughter, and even relinquished the meeting with Francis rather than
+leave England with Anne in power.
+
+In the meanwhile Katharine's health grew worse. Henry told the French
+ambassador in January, soon after Suffolk's attempt to administer the
+first oath to her, that "she was dropsical and could not live long": and
+his enemies were ready with the suggestion--which was probably
+unfounded--that she was being poisoned. She shut herself up in her own
+chamber, and refused to eat the food prepared by the new servants; what
+little food she took being cooked in her own room by her one maid. Early
+in the summer (May) she was removed from Buckden to Kimbolton Castle,
+within the miasmic influence of the fens, and there was no attempt to
+conceal the desire on the part of the King and those who had brought him
+to this pass that Katharine should die, for by that means alone, it
+seemed, could foreign intervention and civil war be averted. Katharine
+herself was, as we have seen, full of suspicion. In March Chapuys reported
+that she had sent a man to London to procure some old wine for her, as she
+refused to drink the wine provided for her use. "They were trying," he
+said, "to give her artificial dropsy." Two months later, just after the
+stormy scene when Lee and Tunstall had endeavoured to extort from the
+Queen the oath to the new Act of Succession, Chapuys in hot indignation
+suddenly appeared at Richmond, where the King was, to protest against such
+treatment. Henry was intensely annoyed and offended, and refused to see
+the ambassador. He was master, he said, in his own realm; and it was no
+good coming to him with such remonstrances. No wonder that Chapuys
+concluded, "Everybody fears some ill turn will be done to the Queen,
+seeing the rudeness to which she is daily subjected, both in deeds and
+words; especially as the concubine has said that she will not cease till
+she has got rid of her; and as the prophecies say that one Queen of
+England is to be burnt, she hopes it will be Katharine."[120]
+
+Early in June Katharine urged strongly that Chapuys should travel to
+Kimbolton to see her, alleging the bad condition of her health as a
+reason. The King and Cromwell believed that her true object in desiring an
+interview was to devise plans with her nephew's ambassador for obtaining
+the enforcement of the papal censure,[121] which would have meant the
+subversion of Henry's power; and for weeks Chapuys begged for permission
+to see her in vain. "Ladies were not to be trusted," Cromwell told him;
+whilst fresh Commissioners were sent, one after the other, to extort, by
+force if necessary, the oath of Katharine's lady attendants to the Act of
+Succession, much to the Queen's distress.[122] At length, tired of
+waiting, the ambassador told Cromwell that he was determined to start at
+once; which he did two days later, on the 16th July. With a train of sixty
+horsemen, his own household and Spaniards resident in England, he rode
+through London towards the eastern counties, ostensibly on a religious
+pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham. Riding through the leafy lanes of
+Hertfordshire in the full summer tide, solaced by music, minstrelsy, and
+the quaint antics of Chapuys' fool, the party were surprised on the second
+day of their journey to see gallop past them on the road Stephen Vaughan,
+one of the King's officers who spoke Spanish; and later, when they had
+arrived within a few miles of Kimbolton, they were met by the same man,
+accompanied this time by a humble servitor of Katharine, bringing to the
+pilgrims wine and provisions in abundance, but also the ill news that the
+King had ordered that Chapuys was to be forbidden access to the Queen. The
+ambassador was exceedingly indignant. He did not wish to offend the King,
+he said, but, having come so far and being now in the immediate
+neighbourhood, he would not return unsuccessful without an effort to
+obtain a more authoritative decision. Early the next morning one of
+Katharine's old officers came to Chapuys and repeated the prohibition,
+begging him not even to pass through the village, lest the King should
+take it ill. Other messages passed, but all to the same effect. Poor
+Katharine herself sent secret word that she was as thankful for Chapuys'
+journey as if it had been successful, and hinted that it would be a
+consolation to her if some of her countrymen could at least approach the
+castle. Needless to say that the Spaniards gathered beneath the walls of
+the castle and chatted gallantly across the moat to the ladies upon the
+terraces, and some indeed, including the jester, are asserted to have
+found their way inside the castle, where they were regaled heartily, and
+the fool played some of the usual tricks of his motley.[123] Chapuys, in
+high dudgeon, returned by another road to London without attempting to
+complete his pilgrimage to Walsingham, secretly spied upon as he was, the
+whole way, by the King's envoy, Vaughan. "Tell Cromwell," he said to the
+latter, as he discovered himself on the outskirts of London, "that I
+should have judged it more honourable if the King and he had informed me
+of his intention before I left London, so that all the world should not
+have been acquainted with a proceeding which I refrain from
+characterising. But the Queen," he continued, "nevertheless had cause to
+thank him (Cromwell) since the rudeness shown to her would now be so
+patent that it could not well be denied."
+
+Henry and Cromwell had good reason to fear foreign machinations to their
+detriment. The Emperor and Francis were in ominous negotiations; for the
+King of France could not afford to break with the Papacy, the rising of
+Kildare in Ireland was known to have the sympathy, if not the aid, of
+Spain, and it was felt throughout Christendom that the Emperor must,
+sooner or later, give force to the Papal sentence against England to avoid
+the utter loss of prestige which would follow if the ban of Rome was after
+all seen to be utterly innocuous. A sympathetic English lord told Chapuys
+secretly that Cromwell had ridiculed the idea of the Emperor's attacking
+England; for his subjects would not put up with the consequent loss of
+trade. But if he did, continued Cromwell, "the death of Katharine and Mary
+would put an end to all the trouble." Chapuys told his informant, for
+Cromwell's behoof, that if any harm was done to either of the ladies the
+Emperor would have the greater cause for quarrel.
+
+In the autumn Mary fell seriously ill. She had been obliged to follow "the
+bastard," Elizabeth, against her will, for ever intriguing cleverly to
+avoid humiliation to herself. But the long struggle against such odds
+broke down her health, and Henry, who, in his heart of hearts, could
+hardly condemn his daughter's stubbornness, so like his own, softened to
+the extent of his sending his favourite physician, Dr. Butts, to visit
+her. A greater concession was to allow Katharine's two medical men to
+attend the Princess; and permission was given to Katharine herself to see
+her, but under conditions which rendered the concession nugatory. The
+Queen wrote a pathetic letter in Spanish to Cromwell, praying that Mary
+might be permitted to come and stay with her. "It will half cure her," she
+urged. As a small boon, Henry had consented that the sick girl should be
+sent to a house at no great distance from Kimbolton. "Alas!" urged
+Katharine, "if it be only a mile away, I cannot visit her. I beseech that
+she be allowed to come to where I am. I will answer for her security with
+my life." But Cromwell or his master was full of suspicion of imperial
+plots for the escape of Mary to foreign soil, and Katharine's maternal
+prayer remained unheard.
+
+The unhappy mother tried again soon afterwards to obtain access to her
+sick daughter by means of Chapuys. She besought for charity's sake that
+the King would allow her to tend Mary with her own hands. "You shall also
+tell his Highness that there is no need for any other person but myself to
+nurse her: I will put her in my own bed where I sleep, and will watch her
+when needful." When Chapuys saw the King with this pathetic message Henry
+was less arrogant than usual. "He wished to do his best for his daughter's
+health; but he must be careful of his own honour and interests, which
+would be jeopardised if Mary were conveyed abroad, or if she escaped, as
+she easily might do if she were with her mother; for he had some suspicion
+that the Emperor had a design to get her away." Henry threw all the blame
+for Mary's obstinacy upon Katharine, who he knew was in close and constant
+touch with his opponents: and the fear he expressed that the Emperor and
+his friends in England would try to spirit Mary across the sea to
+Flanders, where, indeed, she might have been made a thorn in her father's
+side, were perfectly well founded, and these plans were at the time the
+gravest peril that threatened Henry and England.[124]
+
+Cruel, therefore, as his action towards his daughter may seem, it was
+really prompted by pressing considerations of his own safety. Apart from
+this desire to keep Mary away from foreign influence working against him
+through her mother, Henry exhibited frequent signs of tenderness towards
+his elder daughter, much to Anne's dismay. In May 1534, for instance, he
+sent her a gentle message to the effect that he hoped she would obey him,
+and that in such case her position would be preserved. But the girl was
+proud and, not unnaturally, resentful, and sent back a haughty answer to
+what she thought was an attempt to entrap her. To her foreign friends she
+said that she believed her father meant to poison her, but that she cared
+little. She was sure of going to heaven, and was only sorry for her
+mother.
+
+In the meanwhile Anne's influence over the King was weakening. She saw the
+gathering clouds from all parts of Christendom ready to launch their
+lightning upon her head, and ruin upon England for her sake; and her
+temper, never good, became intolerable. Henry, having had his way, was now
+face to face with the threatening consequences, and could ill brook
+snappish petulance from the woman for whom he had brought himself to
+brave the world. As usual with weak men, he pitied himself sincerely, and
+looked around for comfort, finding none from Anne. Francis, eldest son of
+the Church and most Christian King, was far from being the genial ally he
+once had been, now that Henry was excommunicate; the German Protestant
+princes even stood apart and rejected Henry's approaches for an alliance
+to the detriment of their own suzerain;[125] and, worst of all, the
+English lords of the North, Hussey, Dacre, and the rest of them, were in
+close conspiracy with the imperialists for an armed rising aided from
+abroad; which, if successful, would make short work of Henry and his
+anti-Papal policy.[126] In return for all this danger, the King could only
+look at the cross, discontented woman by his side, who apparently was as
+incapable of bearing him a son as Katharine had been. For some months in
+the spring of 1534 Anne had endeavoured to retain her hold upon him by
+saying that she was again with child, and during the royal progress in the
+midland counties in the summer Henry was more attentive than he had been
+to the woman he still hoped might bear him a son, although her shrewish
+temper sorely tried him and all around her. At length, however, the truth
+had to be told, and Henry's hopes fled, and his eyes again turned
+elsewhere for solace.
+
+Anne knew that her position was unstable, and her husband's open
+flirtation with a lady of the Court drove her to fury. Presuming upon her
+former influence, she imperiously attempted to have her new rival removed
+from the proximity of the King. Henry flared up at this, and let Anne
+know, as brutally as language could put it, that the days of his
+complaisance with her were over, and that he regretted having done so much
+for her sake. Who the King's new lady-love was is not certain. Chapuys
+calls her "a very beautiful and adroit young lady, for whom his love is
+daily increasing, whilst the credit and insolence of the concubine (_i.e._
+Anne) decreases." That the new favourite was supported by the aristocratic
+party that opposed Anne and the religious changes is evident from Chapuys'
+remark that "there is some good hope that if this love of the King's
+continues the affairs of the Queen (Katharine) and the Princess will
+prosper, for the young lady is greatly attached to them." Anne and her
+family struggled to keep their footing, but when Henry had once plucked up
+courage to shake off the trammels, he had all a weak man's violence and
+obstinacy in following his new course. One of Princess Mary's household
+came to tell Chapuys in October that "the King had turned Lady Rochford
+(Anne's sister-in-law) out of the Court because she had conspired with the
+concubine by hook or by crook to get rid of the young lady." The rise of
+the new favourite immediately changed the attitude of the courtiers
+towards Mary. "On Wednesday before leaving the More she (Mary) was visited
+by all the ladies and gentlemen, regardless of the annoyance of Anne. The
+day before yesterday (October 22nd) the Princess was at Richmond with the
+brat (_garse, i.e._ Elizabeth), and the lady (Anne) came to see her
+daughter accompanied by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and others, all
+of whom went and saluted the Princess (Mary) with some of the ladies;
+which was quite a new thing."
+
+The death of Pope Clement and the advent of Cardinal Farnese as Paul III.,
+known to be not too well affected towards the Emperor, seemed at this time
+to offer a chance of the reconciliation of England with the Papacy: and
+the aristocratic party in Henry's counsels hoped, now that the King had
+grown tired of his second wife, that they might influence him by a fresh
+appeal to his sensuality. France also took a hand in the game in its new
+aspect, the aim being to obtain the hand of Mary for the Dauphin, to whom,
+it will be recollected, she had been betrothed as a child, with the
+legitimisation of the Princess and the return of Henry to the fold of the
+Church with a French alliance. This would, of course, have involved the
+repudiation of Anne, with the probable final result of a French domination
+of England after the King's death. The Admiral of France, Chabot de Brion,
+came to England late in the autumn to forward some such arrangement as
+that described, and incidentally to keep alive Henry's distrust of the
+Emperor, whilst threatening him that the Dauphin would marry a Spanish
+princess if the King of England held aloof. But, though Anne's influence
+over her husband was gone, Cromwell, the strong spirit, was still by his
+side; and reconciliation with the Papacy in any form would have meant ruin
+to him and the growing interests that he represented.
+
+Even if Henry had now been inclined to yield to the Papacy, of which there
+is no evidence, Cromwell had gone too far to recede; and when Parliament
+met in November the Act of Supremacy was passed, giving the force of
+statute law to the independence of the Church of England. Chabot de
+Brion's mission was therefore doomed to failure from the first, and the
+envoy took no pains to conceal his resentment towards Anne, the origin of
+all the trouble that dislocated the European balance of power. There was
+much hollow feasting and insincere professions of friendship between the
+two kings, but it was clear now to the Frenchmen that, with Anne or
+without her, Henry would bow his neck no more to the Papacy; and it was to
+the Princess Mary that the Catholic elements looked for a future
+restoration of the old state of things. A grand ball was given at Court in
+Chabot's honour the day before he left London, and the dignified French
+envoy sat in a seat of state by the side of Anne, looking at the dancing.
+Suddenly, without apparent reason, she burst into a violent fit of
+laughter. The Admiral of France, already in no very amiable mood, frowned
+angrily, and, turning to her, said, "Are you laughing at me, madam, or
+what?" After she had laughed to her heart's content, she excused herself
+to him by saying that she was laughing because the King had told her that
+he was going to fetch the Admiral's secretary to be introduced to her, and
+on the way the King had met a lady who had made him forget everything
+else.
+
+Though Henry would not submit to the Papacy at the charming of Francis, he
+was loath to forego the French alliance, and proposed a marriage between
+the younger French prince, the Duke of Angouleme, and Elizabeth; and this
+was under discussion during the early months of 1535. But it is clear
+that, although the daughter of the second marriage was to be held
+legitimate, Anne was to gain no accession of strength by the new alliance,
+for the French flouted her almost openly, and Henry was already
+contemplating a divorce from her. We are told by Chapuys that he only
+desisted from the idea when a councillor told him that "if he separated
+from 'the concubine' he would have to recognise the validity of his first
+marriage, and, worst of all, submit to the Pope."[127] Who the councillor
+was that gave this advice is not stated; but we may fairly assume that it
+was Cromwell, who soon found a shorter, and, for him, a safer way of
+ridding his master of a wife who had tired him and could bear him no son.
+A French alliance, with a possible reconciliation with Rome in some form,
+would not have suited Cromwell; for it would have meant a triumph for the
+aristocratic party at Henry's Court, and the overthrow of the men who had
+led Henry to defy the Papacy.
+
+If the aristocratic party could influence Henry by means of the nameless
+"new young lady," the Boleyns and reformers could fight with the same
+weapons, and early in February 1535 we find Chapuys writing, "The young
+lady formerly in this King's good graces is so no longer, and has been
+succeeded by a cousin-german of the concubine, the daughter of the present
+governess of the Princess."[128] This new mistress, whilst her little
+reign lasted, worked well for Anne and Cromwell, but in the meantime the
+conspiracy amongst the nobles grew and strengthened. Throughout the upper
+classes in the country a feeling of deep resentment was felt at the
+treatment of Mary, and there was hardly a nobleman, except Anne's father
+and brother, who was not pledged to take up arms in her cause and against
+the religious changes.[129] Cromwell's answer to the disaffection, of
+which he was quite cognisant, was the closer keeping than ever of the
+royal ladies, with threats of their death if they were the cause of a
+revolt, and the stern enforcement of the oath prescribed by the Act of
+Supremacy. The martyrdom of the London Carthusians for refusing to take
+the oath of supremacy, and shortly afterwards the sacrifice of the
+venerable Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More and Katharine's priest Abel, and
+the renewed severity towards her favourite confessor, Friar Forest,[130]
+soon also to be martyred with atrocious cruelty, shocked and horrified
+England, and aroused the strongest reprobation in France and Rome, as well
+as in the dominions of the Emperor; destroying for a time all hope of a
+French alliance, and any lingering chance of a reconciliation with Rome
+during Henry's life. All Catholic aspirations both at home and abroad
+centred for the next year or so in the Princess Mary, and her father's
+friendship was shunned even by Francis, except upon impossible conditions.
+Henry's throne, indeed, was tottering. His country was riddled with
+disaffection and dislike of his proceedings. The new Pope had forged the
+final thunderbolt of Rome, enjoining all Christian potentates to execute
+the sentence of the Church, though as yet the fiat was held back at the
+instance of the Emperor. The dread of war and the general unrest arising
+from this state of things had well-nigh destroyed the English oversea
+trade; the harvest was a bad one, and food was dear. Ecclesiastics
+throughout the country were whispering to their flocks curses of Nan
+Bullen, for whose sake the Church of Christ was being split in twain and
+its ministers persecuted.[131] Anne, it is true, was now quite a secondary
+personage as a political factor, but upon her unpopular head was heaped
+the blame for everything. The wretched woman, fully conscious that she was
+the general scapegoat, could only pray for a son, whose advent might save
+her at the eleventh hour; for failing him she knew that she was doomed.
+
+In the meanwhile the struggle was breaking Katharine's heart. For seven
+years she had fought as hard against her fate as an outraged woman could.
+She had seen that her rights, her happiness, were only a small stake in
+the great game of European politics. To her it seemed but righteous that
+her nephew the Emperor should, at any cost, rise in indignant wrath and
+avenge the insult put upon his proud line, and upon the Papacy whose
+earthly champion he was, by crushing the forces that had wrought the
+wrong. But Charles was held back by all sorts of considerations arising
+from his political position. Francis was for ever on the look-out for a
+weak spot in the imperial armour; the German Protestant princes, although
+quite out of sympathy with Henry's matrimonial vagaries, would look
+askance at a crusade to enforce the Pope's executorial decree against
+England, the French and moderate influence in the College of Cardinals was
+strong, and Charles could not afford by too aggressive an action against
+Henry to drive Francis and the cardinals into closer union against
+imperial aims, especially in the Mediterranean and Italy, where, owing to
+the vacancy in the duchy of Milan, they now mainly centred. So Katharine
+clamoured in vain to those whose sacred duty she thought it was to
+vindicate her honour and the faith. Both she, and her daughter at her
+instigation, wrote burning letters to the Pope and the imperial agents,
+urging, beseeching, exhorting the Catholic powers to activity against
+their oppressor. Henry and Cromwell knew all this, and recognising the
+dire danger that sooner or later Katharine's prayer to a united
+Christendom might launch upon England an avalanche of ruin, strove as
+best they might to avert such a catastrophe. Every courier who went to the
+Emperor from England carried alarmist rumours that Katharine and Mary were
+to be put out of the way; and the ladies, in a true spirit of martyrdom,
+awaited without flinching the hour of their sacrifice. Cromwell himself
+darkly hinted that the only way out of the maze of difficulty and peril
+was the death of Katharine; and in this he was apparently right. But at
+this distance of time it seems evident that much of the threatening talk,
+both of the King's friends and those of the Catholic Church in England,
+was intended, on the one hand to drive Katharine and her daughter into
+submission, and prevent them from continuing their appeals for foreign
+aid, and on the other to move the Emperor to action against Henry. So, in
+the welter of political interests, Katharine wept and raged fruitlessly.
+The Papal decree directing the execution of the deprivation of Henry,
+though signed by the Pope, was still held back; for Charles could not
+afford to invade England himself, and was determined to give no excuse for
+Francis to do so.
+
+Though there is no known ground for the then prevailing belief that Henry
+was aiding nature in hastening the death of his first wife, the long
+unequal combat against invincible circumstances was doing its work upon a
+constitution never robust; and by the late autumn of 1535 the
+stout-hearted daughter of Isabel the Catholic was known to be sick beyond
+surgery. In December 1535 Chapuys had business with Cromwell, and during
+the course of their conversation the latter told him that he had just
+sent a messenger to inform the King of Katharine's serious illness. This
+was the first that Chapuys had heard of it, and he at once requested leave
+to go and see her, to which Cromwell replied that he might send a servant
+to inquire as to her condition, but that the King must be consulted before
+he (Chapuys) himself could be allowed to see her. As Chapuys was leaving
+Whitehall a letter was brought to him from Katharine's physician, saying
+that the Queen's illness was not serious, and would pass off; so that
+unless later unfavourable news was sent Chapuys need not press for leave
+to see her. Two days afterwards a letter reached him from Katharine
+herself, enclosing one to the Emperor. She wrote in the deepest
+depression, praying again, and for the hundredth time, in words that, as
+Chapuys says, "would move a stone to compassion," that prompt action
+should be taken on behalf of herself and her daughter before the
+Parliament could do them to death and consummate the apostasy of England.
+It was her last heart-broken cry for help, and like all those that had
+preceded it during the seven bitter years of Katharine's penance, it was
+unheard amidst the din of great national interests that was ringing
+through Europe.
+
+It was during the feast of Christmas 1535, which Henry passed at Eltham,
+that news came to Chapuys from Dr. De la Sa that Katharine had relapsed
+and was in grave peril. The ambassador was to see the King on other
+business in a day or two, in any case, but this news caused him to beg
+Cromwell to obtain for him instant leave to go to the Queen. There would
+be no difficulty about it, the secretary replied, but Chapuys must see the
+King first at Greenwich, whither he would go to meet him. The ambassador
+found Henry in the tiltyard all amiability. With a good deal of overdone
+cordiality, the King walked up and down the lists arm in arm with Chapuys,
+the while he reverted to the proposal of a new friendship and alliance
+with the Emperor.[132] The French, he said, were up to their old pranks,
+especially since the Duke of Milan had died, but he should at last be
+forced into an intimate alliance with them, unless the Emperor would let
+bygones be bygones, and make friends with him. Chapuys was cool and
+non-committal. He feared, he said, that it was only a device to make the
+French jealous, and after much word-bandying between them, the ambassador
+flatly asked Henry what he wanted the Emperor to do. "I want him," replied
+the King, "not only to cease to support Madam Katharine and my daughter,
+but also to get the Papal sentence in Madam's favour revoked." To this
+Chapuys replied that he saw no good reason for doing either, and had no
+authority to discuss the point raised; and, as a parting shot, Henry told
+him that Katharine could not live long, and when she died the Emperor
+would have no need to follow the matter up. When Chapuys had taken his
+leave, the Duke of Suffolk came after him and brought him back to the
+King, who told him that news had just reached him that Katharine was
+dying--Chapuys might go and see her, but he would hardly find her alive;
+her death, moreover, would do away with all cause for dissension between
+the Emperor and himself. A request that the Princess Mary might be allowed
+to see her dying mother was at first met with a flat refusal, and after
+Chapuys' remonstrance by a temporising evasion which was as bad, so that
+Mary saw her mother no more in life.
+
+Chapuys instantly took horse and sped to London, and then northward to
+Kimbolton, anxious to reach the Queen before she breathed her last, for he
+was told that for days the patient had eaten and drank nothing, and slept
+hardly at all. It took Chapuys two days of hard travel over the miry roads
+before he reached Kimbolton on the morning of the 2nd January 1536.[133]
+He found that the Queen's dearest friend, Lady Willoughby (Dona Maria de
+Sarmiento), had preceded him by a day and was with her mistress. She had
+prayed in vain for license to come before, and even now Katharine's stern
+guardian, Bedingfield, asked in vain to see Lady Willoughby's permit,
+which she probably had not got. She had come in great agitation and fear,
+for, according to her own account, she had fallen from her horse, and had
+suffered other adventures on her way, but she braved everything to receive
+the last sigh of the Queen, whose girlhood's friend she had been.
+Bedingfield looked askance at the arrival of "these folks"; and at
+Chapuys' first interview with Katharine he, the chamberlain, and Vaughan
+who understood Spanish, were present, and listened to all that was said.
+It was a consolation, said the Queen, that if she could not recover she
+might die in the presence of her nephew's ambassador and not unprepared.
+He tried to cheer her with encouraging promises that the King would let
+her be removed to another house, and would accede to other requests made
+in her favour; but Katharine only smiled sadly, and bade him rest after
+his long journey. She saw the ambassador again alone later in the day, and
+spoke at length with him, as she did on each day of the four that he
+stayed, her principal discourse being of the misfortune that had overtaken
+England by reason of the long delay of the Emperor in enforcing justice to
+her.[134]
+
+After four days' stay of Chapuys, Katharine seemed better, and the
+apothecary, De la Sa, gave it as his opinion that she was out of immediate
+danger. She even laughed a little at the antics of Chapuys' fool, who was
+called in to amuse her; and, reassured by the apparent improvement, the
+ambassador started on his leisurely return to London.[135] On the second
+day after his departure, soon after midnight, the Queen asked if it was
+near day, and repeated the question several times at short intervals
+afterwards. When at length the watchers asked her the reason for her
+impatience for the dawn, she replied that it was because she wished to
+hear Mass and receive the Holy Sacrament. The aged Dominican Bishop of
+Llandaff (Jorge de Ateca) volunteered to celebrate at four o'clock in the
+morning, but Katharine refused, and quoted the Latin authorities to prove
+that it should not be done before dawn. With the first struggling of the
+grey light of morning the offices of the Church for the dying were
+solemnly performed, whilst Katharine prayed fervently for herself, for
+England, and for the man who had so cruelly wronged her. When all was done
+but the administration of extreme unction, she bade her physician write a
+short memorandum of a few gifts she craved for her faithful servants; for
+she knew, and said, that by the law of England a married woman could make
+no valid will. The testament is in the form of a supplication to Henry,
+and is remarkable as the dictation of a woman within a few hours of her
+death. Each of her servants is remembered: a hundred pounds to her
+principal Spanish lady, Blanche de Vargas, "twenty pounds to Mistress
+Darrel for her marriage"; his wages and forty pounds were to be paid to
+Francisco Felipe, the Groom of the Chambers, twenty pounds to each of the
+three lackeys, including the Burgundian Bastian, and like bequests, one by
+one, to each of the little household. Not even the sum she owed for a gown
+was forgotten. For her daughter she craved her furs and the gold chain and
+cross she had brought from Spain, all that was left of her treasures after
+Anne's greed had been satisfied;[136] and for the Convent of Observant
+Franciscans, where she begged for sepulture, "my gowns which he (the King)
+holdeth." It is a sad little document, compliance with which was for the
+most part meanly evaded by Henry; even Francisco Felipe "getting nothing
+and returning poor to his own country."
+
+Thus, dignified and saintly, at the second hour after midday on the 8th
+January 1536, Katharine of Aragon died unconquered as she had lived; a
+great lady to the last, sacrificed in death, as she had been in life, to
+the opportunism of high politics. "_In manus tuas Domine commendo spiritum
+meum_," she murmured with her last breath. From man she had received no
+mercy, and she turned to a gentler Judge with confidence and hope. As
+usual in such cases as hers, the people about her whispered of poison; and
+when the body was hastily cered and lapped in lead, "by the candlemaker of
+the house, a servant and one companion," not even the Queen's physician
+was allowed to be present. But the despised "candlemaker," who really
+seems to have been a skilled embalmer, secretly told the Bishop of
+Llandaff, who waited at the door, that all the body was sound "except the
+heart, which was black and hideous," with a black excrescence "which clung
+closely to the outside"; on which report Dr. De la Sa unhesitatingly
+opined that his mistress had died of poison.[137]
+
+The news, the joyous news, sped quickly to Greenwich; and within
+four-and-twenty hours, on Saturday, 9th January, Henry heard with
+exultation that the incubus was raised from his shoulders. "God be
+praised," was his first exclamation, "we are free from all suspicion of
+war." Now, he continued, he would be able to manage the French better.
+They would be obliged to dance to his tune, for fear he should join the
+Emperor, which would be easy now that the cause for disagreement had gone.
+Thus, heartlessly, and haggling meanly over his wife's little bequests,
+even that to her daughter, Henry greeted the death of the woman he once
+had seemed to love. He snivelled a little when he read the affecting
+letter to him that she had dictated in her last hour;[138] but the word
+went forth that on the next day, Sunday, the Court should be at its
+gayest; and Henry and Anne, in gala garb of yellow finery, went to Mass
+with their child in full state to the sound of trumpets. After dinner the
+King could not restrain his joy even within the bounds of decency.
+Entering the hall in which the ladies were dancing, he pirouetted about in
+the exuberance of his heart, and then, calling for his fair little
+daughter Elizabeth, he proudly carried her in his arms from one courtier
+to another to be petted and praised. There was only one drop of gall in
+the cup for the Boleyns, and they made no secret of it, namely, that the
+Princess Mary had not gone to accompany her mother. If Anne had only known
+it, her last chance of keeping at the King's side as his wife was the
+survival of Katharine; and lamentation instead of rejoicing should have
+been her greeting of the news of her rival's death. Henry, in fact, was
+tired of Anne already, and the cabal of nobles against her and the
+religious system she represented was stronger than ever; but the
+repudiation of his second wife on any excuse during the life of the first
+would have necessitated the return of Katharine as the King's lawful
+spouse, with all the consequences that such a change would entail, and
+this Henry's pride, as well as his inclinations, would never permit. Now
+that Katharine was dead, Anne was doomed to speedy ruin by one
+instrumentality or another, and before many weeks the cruel truth came
+home to her.
+
+Katharine was buried not in such a convent as she had wished, for Henry
+said there was not one in England, but in Peterborough Cathedral, within
+fifteen miles of Kimbolton. The honours paid to her corpse were those of a
+Dowager Princess of Wales, but the country folk who bordered the miry
+tracks through which the procession ploughed paid to the dead Katharine in
+her funeral litter the honours they had paid her in her life. Parliament,
+far away in London, might order them to swear allegiance to Nan Bullen as
+Queen, and to her daughter as heiress of England; King Harry on his throne
+might threaten them, as he did, with stake and gibbet if they dared to
+disobey; but, though they bowed the head and mumbled such oaths as were
+dictated to them, Katharine to them had always been Queen Consort of
+England, and Mary her daughter was no bastard, but true Princess of Wales,
+whatever King and Parliament might say.
+
+All people and all interests were, as if instinctively, shrinking away
+from Anne.[139] Her uncle Norfolk had quarrelled with her and retired from
+Court; the French were now almost as inimical as the imperialists; and
+even the time-serving courtiers turned from the waning favourite. She was
+no longer young, and her ill temper and many anxieties had marred her good
+looks. Her gaiety and lightness of manner had to a great extent fled; and
+sedate occupations, reading, needlework, charity, and devotion occupied
+most of her time. "Oh for a son!" was all the unhappy woman could sigh in
+her misery; for that, she knew, was the only thing that could save her,
+now that Katharine was dead and Anne might be repudiated by her husband
+without the need for taking back his first discarded wife.[140] Hope
+existed again that the prayed-for son might come into the world, and at
+the first prospect of it Anne made an attempt to utilise the influence it
+gave her by cajoling or crushing Mary into submission to the King's will.
+The girl was desolate at her mother's death; but she had her mother's
+proud spirit, and her answers to Anne's approaches were as cold and
+haughty as before. "The concubine (writes Chapuys, 21st January 1536) has
+thrown out the first bait to the Princess, telling her by her aunt (Lady
+Shelton) that if she will discontinue her obstinacy, and obey her father
+like a good girl, she (Anne) will be the best friend in the world to her,
+and like another mother will try to obtain for her all she wants. If she
+will come to Court she shall be exempt from carrying her (Anne's) train
+and shall always walk by her side." But obedience meant that Mary should
+recognise Cranmer's sentence against her mother, the repudiation of the
+Papal authority and her own illegitimacy, and she refused the olive branch
+held out to her. Then Anne changed her tone, and wrote to her aunt a
+letter to be put into Mary's way, threatening the Princess. In her former
+approaches, she said, she had only desired to save Mary out of charity. It
+was no affair of hers: she did not care; but when she had the son she
+expected the King would show no mercy to his rebellious daughter. But Mary
+remained unmoved. She knew that all Catholic Europe looked upon her now as
+the sole heiress of England, and that the Emperor was busy planning her
+escape, in order that she might, from the safe refuge of his dominions, be
+used as the main instrument for the submission of England to the Papacy
+and the destruction of Henry's rule. For things had turned out somewhat
+differently in this respect from what the King had expected. The death of
+Katharine, very far from making the armed intervention of Charles in
+England more improbable, had brought it sensibly nearer, for the great
+war-storm that had long been looming between the French and Spaniards in
+Italy was now about to burst. Francis could no longer afford to alienate
+the Papacy by even pretending to a friendship with the excommunicated
+Henry, whilst England might be paralysed, and all chance of a diversion
+against imperial arms in favour of France averted, by the slight aid and
+subsidy by the Emperor of a Catholic rising in England against Henry and
+Anne.
+
+On the 29th January 1536 Anne's last hope was crushed. In the fourth month
+of her pregnancy she had a miscarriage, which she attributed passionately
+to her love for the King and her pain at seeing him flirting with another
+woman. Henry showed his rage and disappointment brutally, as was now his
+wont. He had hardly spoken to Anne for weeks before; and when he visited
+her at her bedside he said that it was quite evident that God meant to
+deny him heirs male by her. "When you get up," he growled in answer to
+the poor woman's complaints, as he left her, "I will talk to you." The
+lady of whom Anne was jealous was probably the same that had attracted the
+King at the ball given to the Admiral of France two months previously, and
+had made him, as Anne hysterically complained, "forget everything else."
+This lady was Mistress Jane Seymour, a daughter of Sir John Seymour of
+Wolf Hall, Wilts. She was at the time just over twenty-five years of age,
+and had been at Court for some time as a maid of honour to Katharine, and
+afterwards to Anne. During the King's progress in the autumn of 1535, he
+had visited Wolf Hall, where the daughter of the house had attracted his
+admiring attention, apparently for the first time. Jane is described as
+possessing no great beauty, being somewhat colourless as to complexion;
+but her demeanour was sweet and gracious; and the King's admiration for
+her at once marked her out as a fit instrument for the conservative party
+of nobles at Court to use against Anne and the political and religious
+policy which she represented. Apparently Jane had no ability, and none was
+needed in the circumstances. Chapuys, moreover, suggests with unnecessary
+spite that in morals she was no better than she should have been, on the
+unconvincing grounds that "being an Englishwoman, and having been so long
+at Court, whether she would not hold it a sin to be still a maid." Her
+supposed unchastity, indeed, is represented as being an attraction to
+Henry: "for he may marry her on condition that she is a maid, and when he
+wants a divorce there will be plenty of witnesses ready to testify that
+she was not." This, however, is mere detraction by a man who firmly
+believed that the cruelly wronged Katharine whose cause he served had just
+been murdered by Henry's orders. That Jane had no strength of character is
+plain, and throughout her short reign she was merely an instrument by
+which politicians sought to turn the King's passion for her to their own
+ends.
+
+The Seymours were a family of good descent, allied with some of the great
+historic houses, and Jane's two brothers, Edward and Thomas, were already
+handsome and notable figures at Henry's Court: the elder, Sir Edward
+Seymour, especially, having accompanied the showy visits of the Duke of
+Suffolk, Cardinal Wolsey, and the King himself to France. So far as can be
+ascertained, however, the brothers, prompt as they were to profit by their
+sister's elevation, were no parties to the political intrigue of which
+Jane was probably the unconscious tool. She was carefully indoctrinated by
+Anne's enemies, especially Sir Nicholas Carew, how she was to behave. She
+must, above all, profess great devotion and friendship to the Princess
+Mary, to assume a mien of rigid virtue and high principles which would be
+likely to pique a sensual man like Henry without gratifying his passion
+except by marriage. Many of the enemies of the French connection, which
+included the great majority of the nation, looked with hope towards the
+King's new infatuation as a means of luring back England to the comity of
+Catholic nations and friendship with the Emperor; though there was still a
+section, especially in the north of England, which believed that their
+best interests would be served by an open rebellion in the interests of
+Mary, supported from Flanders by her cousin the Emperor. All this was, of
+course, well known to Cromwell. He had been one of the first to counsel
+defiance of the Pope, but throughout he had been anxious to avoid an open
+quarrel with the Emperor, or to pledge England too closely to French
+interests; and now that even the French had turned against Anne, Cromwell
+saw that, unless he himself was to be dragged down when she fell, he must
+put the break hard down upon the religious policy that he had initiated,
+and make common cause with Anne's enemies.
+
+In a secret conference that he held with Chapuys at the Austin Friars,
+which in future was to be his own mansion, Cromwell proposed a new
+alliance between England and the Emperor, which would necessarily have to
+be accompanied by some compromise with the Pope and the recognition of
+Mary's legitimacy.[141] He assured the imperial ambassador that Norfolk,
+Suffolk, and the rest of the nobles formerly attached to France were of
+the same opinion as himself, and tried earnestly to convince his
+interlocutor that he had no sympathy with Anne, whom he was ready to throw
+overboard to save himself. When Charles received this news from his
+ambassador, he took a somewhat tortuous but characteristic course. He was
+willing to a great extent to let bygones be bygones, and to forget the
+sufferings, and perhaps the murder, of his aunt Katharine, if Henry would
+come to terms with the Papacy and legitimise the Princess Mary; but,
+curiously enough, he preferred that Anne should remain at Henry's side,
+instead of being repudiated. Her marriage, he reasoned, was obviously
+invalid, and any children she might have by Henry would consequently be
+unable to interfere with Mary's rights to the succession: whereas if Henry
+were to divorce Anne and contract a legal marriage, any son born to him
+would disinherit Mary. To this extent was Charles ready to descend if he
+could obtain English help and money in the coming war; and Cromwell, at
+all events, was anxious to go quite as far to meet him. He now showed
+ostentatious respect to the Princess Mary, restoring to her the little
+gold cross that had been her mother's, and of which she had been cruelly
+deprived, condemned openly the continued execution of his own policy of
+spoliation of the monasteries, and quarrelled both with Anne and the only
+man now in the same boat with her, Archbishop Cranmer, who trembled in his
+shoes at the ruin he saw impending upon his patroness, ready at any moment
+to turn his coat, but ignorant of how to do it; for Cranmer, however able
+a casuist he might be, possessed little statesmanship and less courage.
+
+Lady Exeter was the go-between who brought the imperial ambassador into
+the conspiracy to oust Anne. The time was seen to be ripening. Henry was
+already talking in secret about "his having been seduced into the marriage
+with Anne by sorcery, and consequently that he considered it to be null,
+which was clearly seen by God's denying a son. He thought he should be
+quite justified in taking another wife,"[142] and Jane Seymour's company
+seemed daily more necessary to his comfort.
+
+Sir Edward Seymour was made a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber early in
+March; and a fortnight later the Marchioness of Exeter reported to her
+friend Chapuys that the King, who was at Whitehall, had sent a loving
+letter, and a purse of gold, to his new lady-love.[143] The latter had
+been carefully schooled as to the wise course to pursue, and played
+prudery to perfection. She kissed the royal letter fervently without
+opening it; and then, throwing herself upon her knees, besought the
+messenger to pray the King in her name to consider that she was a
+gentlewoman of fair and honourable lineage and without reproach. "She had
+nothing in the world but her honour, which for a thousand deaths she would
+not wound. If the King deigned to make her a present of money she prayed
+that it might be when she made an honourable marriage."[144] According to
+Lady Exeter's report, this answer inflamed even more the King's love for
+Jane. "She had behaved herself in the matter very modestly," he said;
+"and in order to let it be seen that his intentions and affection were
+honourable, he intended in future only to speak to her in the presence of
+some of her relatives." Cromwell, moreover, was turned out of a convenient
+apartment to which secret access could be obtained from the King's
+quarters, in order that Sir Edward Seymour, now Viscount Beauchamp, and
+his wife should be lodged there, and facility thus given for the King's
+virtuous billing and cooing with Jane, whilst saving the proprieties.
+
+When it was too late, even Anne attempted to desert her own political
+party and to rally to the side of the Emperor, whether because she
+understood the indulgent way in which the latter now regarded her union
+with Henry, or whether from mere desperation at the ruin impending, it is
+not easy to say. But the conspiracy for her destruction had already gone
+too far when the Emperor's diplomatic instructions came to his
+ambassador.[145] It was understood now at Court that the King intended
+somehow to get rid of his doubtful wife and marry another woman, and
+Cromwell, with a hypocritical smile behind his hand, whispered to Chapuys
+that though the King might divorce Anne he would live more virtuously in
+future. When the imperial ambassador with his master's friendly replies to
+Henry's advances saw the King at Greenwich on the 18th April 1536 the
+Court was all smiles for him, and Anne desperately clutched at the chance
+of making friends with him. Chapuys was cool, and declined to go and
+salute her, as he was invited to do. He was ready, as he said, to hold a
+candle to the devil, or a hundred of them, if his master's interests would
+thereby be served; but he knew that Anne was doomed, and notwithstanding
+his master's permission he made no attempt to conciliate her. All the
+courtiers were watching to see how he would treat her on this the first
+occasion that they had met since Katharine's death. As Anne passed into
+the chapel to high Mass she looked eagerly around to greet her enemy.
+Where was he? In the chapel, she knew, and to sit close by her side; but
+he was nowhere to be seen. He was, in fact, standing behind the open door
+by which she entered; but, determined not to be balked, she turned
+completely round and made him a profound courtesy, which, as he was bound
+to do, he returned. In Anne's rooms afterwards, where the King and the
+other ambassadors dined, Chapuys was not present, much to the
+"concubine's" chagrin; but the Princess Mary and her friends in the
+conspiracy were suspicious and jealous even of the bow that had been
+exchanged under such adverse circumstances in the chapel. Anne at dinner
+coarsely abused the King of France, and strove her utmost to lead people
+to think that she, too, was hand in glove with the imperialists, as her
+enemies were, whilst Henry was graciousness itself to Chapuys, until he
+came to close quarters and heard that the Emperor was determined to drive
+a hard bargain, and force his English uncle to eat a large piece of humble
+pie before he could be taken to his bosom again. Then Henry hectored and
+vaunted like the bully that he was, and upon Cromwell fell his ill humour,
+for having, as Henry thought, been too pliant with the imperialists; and
+for the next week Cromwell was ill and in disgrace.
+
+Submission to the Pope to the extent that Charles demanded was almost
+impossible now, both in consequence of Henry's own vanity, and because the
+vast revenues and estates of the monasteries had in many cases replenished
+the King's exchequer, or had endowed his nobles and favourites, Catholics
+though many of them were. A surrender of these estates and revenues would
+have been resisted, even if such had been possible, to the death, by those
+who had profited by the spoliation; and unless the Pope and the Emperor
+were willing to forget much, the hope of reconciling England with the
+Church was an impossible dream.[146] The great nobles who had battened
+upon the spoils, especially Norfolk, themselves took fright at the
+Emperor's uncompromising demands, and tried to play off France against
+Charles, during Cromwell's short disgrace. The Secretary saw that if the
+friends of France once more obtained the control over Henry's fickle mind,
+the revolutionary section of the Catholic party in favour of Mary and the
+imperial connection would carry all before them, and that in the flood of
+change Cromwell and all his works would certainly be swept away. If Anne
+could be got rid of, and the King married to Mistress Seymour, jointly
+with the adoption of a moderate policy of compromise with Rome and the
+Emperor, all might be well, and Cromwell might retain the helm, but either
+an uncompromising persistence in the open Protestant defiance with
+probably a French alliance against the Emperor, or, on the other hand, an
+armed Catholic revolution in England, subsidised from Flanders, would have
+been inevitable ruin to Cromwell.
+
+Anne, then, must be destroyed at any cost, and the King be won to the side
+of the man who would devise a means of doing it. But how? A repudiation or
+formal divorce on the ground of invalidity would, of course, have been
+easy; but it would have been too scandalous. It would also have convicted
+the King of levity, and above all have bastardised his second daughter,
+leaving him with no child that the law of the realm regarded as
+legitimate. Henry himself, as we have seen, talked about his having been
+drawn into the marriage by sorcery, and ardently desired to get rid of his
+wife. His intercourse with Jane Seymour, who was being cleverly coached by
+Anne's enemies and Mary's friends, plainly indicated that marriage was
+intended; but it was the intriguing brain of Cromwell that devised the
+only satisfactory way in which the King's caprice and his own interests
+could be served in the treatment of Anne. Appearances must, at any cost,
+be saved for Henry. He must not appear to blame, whatever happened.
+Cromwell must be able, for his own safety, to drag down Anne's family and
+friends at the same time that she was ruined, and the affair must be so
+managed that some sort of reconciliation could be patched up with the
+Emperor, whilst Norfolk and the French adherents were thrust into the
+background. Cromwell pondered well on the problem as he lay in bed, sick
+with annoyance at Henry's rough answer to the Emperor's terms, and thus he
+hit upon the scheme that alone would serve the aims he had in view.[147]
+
+The idea gave him health and boldness again, and just as Henry under
+Norfolk's influence was smiling upon the French ambassador, Cromwell
+appeared once more before his master after his five days' absence. What
+passed at their interview can only be guessed by the light of the events
+that followed. It is quite possible that Cromwell did not tell the King of
+his designs against Anne, but only that he had discovered a practice of
+treason against him. But whether the actual words were pronounced or not,
+Henry must have understood, before he signed and gave to Cromwell the
+secret instrument demanded of him, that evil was intended to the woman of
+whom he had grown tired. It was a patent dated the 24th April, appointing
+the Lord Chancellor Audley and a number of nobles, including the Duke of
+Norfolk and Anne's father, the Earl of Wiltshire, together with the
+judges, a Commission to inquire into any intended treasonable action, no
+matter by whom committed, and to hold a special Court to try the persons
+accused. With this instrument in his pocket, Cromwell held at will the
+lives of those whom he sought to destroy. Anne, as we have seen, had loved
+and courted the admiration of men, even as her daughter Elizabeth
+afterwards did to an extent that bordered upon mania. Her manners were
+free and somewhat hysterical, and her reputation before marriage had been
+more than doubtful, but the stern Act of Succession, which in 1534 made it
+treason to question the legitimacy of Anne's daughter, barred all
+accusation against her except in respect to actions after Elizabeth's
+birth.
+
+Cromwell was well served by spies, even in Anne's chamber; for her star
+was visibly paling, and people feared her vengeance little; and not many
+days passed before the Secretary had in his hand testimony enough to
+strike his first blow. It was little enough according to our present
+notions of evidence, and at another time would have passed unnoticed. A
+young fellow of humble origin, named Mark Smeaton, had by Anne's influence
+been appointed one of Henry's grooms of the chamber in consequence of his
+skill as a lute player. Anne herself, who was a fine musician and
+composer, delighted in listening to Mark's performances; and doubtless, as
+was her wont, she challenged his admiration because he was a man. A
+contemporary who repeated the tattle of the Court[148] says that she had
+fallen in love with the lute player, and had told him so; and that she had
+aroused the jealousy of her rival admirers, Norreys, Brereton, and
+others, by her lavish gifts and open favour to Mark Smeaton. According to
+this story, she endeavoured to appease the former by renewed flirting with
+them, and to silence Mark's discontent by large gifts of money. Others of
+her courtiers, especially Sir Thomas Percy, indignant that an upstart like
+Mark should be treated better than themselves, insulted and picked
+quarrels with the musician; and it is evident that Anne, at the very time
+that Cromwell was spreading his nets for her, was hard put to it to keep
+the peace between a number of idle, jealous young men whose admiration she
+had sought for pastime.
+
+On the 29th April, Mark Smeaton was standing sulkily in the deep embrasure
+of a window in Anne's chamber in the palace of Greenwich. The Queen asked
+him why he was so out of humour. He replied that it was nothing that
+mattered. She evidently knew the real reason for his gloom, for she
+reminded him that he could not expect her to speak to him as if he were a
+nobleman. "No, no!" said Mark, "a look sufficeth for me, and so fare you
+well."[149] Sir Thomas Percy seems to have heard this little speech, and
+have conveyed it, with many hints of Mark's sudden prosperity, to
+Cromwell. "It is hardly three months since Mark came to Court, and though
+he has only a hundred pounds a year from the King, and has received no
+more than a third, he has just bought three horses that have cost him 500
+ducats, as well as very rich arms and fine liveries for his servants for
+the May-day ridings, such as no gentleman at Court has been able to buy,
+and many are wondering where he gets the money."[150] Mark Smeaton was a
+safe quarry, for he had no influential friends, and it suited Cromwell's
+turn to begin with him to build up his case against Anne.
+
+There was to be a May-day jousting in the tilt-yard at Greenwich, at which
+Anne's brother, Lord Rochford, was the challenger, and Sir Henry Norreys
+was the principal defender. Early in the morning of the day, Cromwell, who
+of course took no part in such shows, went to London, and asked Smeaton to
+accompany him and dine,[151] returning in the afternoon to Greenwich in
+time for the ridings. Mark accepted the invitation, and was taken
+ostensibly for dinner to a house at Stepney, that probably being a
+convenient half-way place between Greenwich and Westminster by water. No
+sooner had the unsuspecting youth entered the chamber than he saw the trap
+into which he had fallen. Six armed men closed around him, and Cromwell's
+face grew grave, as the Secretary warned the terrified lad to confess
+where he obtained so much money. Smeaton prevaricated, and "then two stout
+young fellows were called, and the Secretary asked for a rope and a
+cudgel. The rope, which was filled with knots, was put around Mark's head
+and twisted with the cudgel until Mark cried, 'Sir Secretary, no more! I
+will tell the truth. The Queen gave me the money.'"[152] Then, bit by bit,
+by threats of torture, some sort of confession incriminating Anne was
+wrung out of the poor wretch: though exactly what he confessed is not on
+record. Later, when the affair was made public, the quidnuncs of London
+could tell the most private details of his adultery with the Queen;[153]
+for Cromwell took care that such gossip should be well circulated.
+
+Whatever confession was extorted from Smeaton, it implicated not only
+himself but the various gentlemen who shared with him the Queen's smiles,
+and was quite sufficient for Cromwell's purpose. Hurrying the unfortunate
+musician to the Tower in the strictest secrecy, Cromwell sent his nephew
+Richard post haste to Greenwich with a letter divulging Smeaton's story to
+the King. Richard Cromwell arrived at the tiltyard as the tournament was
+in progress, the King and Anne witnessing the bouts from a glazed gallery.
+Several versions of what then happened are given; but the most probable is
+that as soon as Henry had glanced at the contents of the letter and knew
+that Cromwell had succeeded, he abruptly rose and left the sports;
+starting almost immediately afterwards for London without the knowledge of
+Anne. With him went a great favourite of his, Sir Henry Norreys, Keeper of
+the Privy Purse, who was engaged to be married to Madge Shelton, Anne's
+cousin, who had at one time been put forward by the Boleyn interest as the
+King's mistress. Norreys had, no doubt, flirted platonically with the
+Queen, who had openly bidden for his admiration, but there is not an atom
+of evidence that their connection was a guilty one.[154] On the way to
+London the King taxed him with undue familiarity with Anne.
+Horror-stricken, Norreys could only protest his innocence, and resist all
+the temptations held out to him to make a clean breast of the Queen's
+immorality. One of the party of Anne's enemies, Sir William Fitzwilliam,
+was also in attendance on the King; and to him was given the order to
+convey Norreys to the Tower. After the King's departure from Greenwich,
+Anne learnt that he had gone without a word of farewell, and that Smeaton
+was absent from the joust, detained in London.
+
+The poor woman's heart must have sunk with fear, for the portents of her
+doom were all around her. She could not cry for mercy to the flabby coward
+her husband, who, as usual, slunk from bearing the responsibility of his
+own acts, and ran away from the danger of personal appeal from those whom
+he wronged. Late at night the dread news was whispered to her that Smeaton
+and Norreys were both in the Tower; and early in the morning she herself
+was summoned to appear before a quorum of the Royal Commissioners,
+presided over by her uncle and enemy, the Duke of Norfolk. She was rudely
+told that she was accused of committing adultery with Smeaton and Norreys,
+both of whom had confessed. She cried and protested in vain that it was
+untrue. She was told to hold her peace, and was placed under arrest until
+her barge was ready and the tide served to bear her up stream to the
+Tower. With her went a large guard of halberdiers and the Duke of Norfolk.
+Thinking that she was being carried to her husband at Westminster, she was
+composed and tranquil on the way; but when she found that the Traitors'
+Gate of the Tower was her destination, her presence of mind deserted her.
+Sir William Kingston, one of the chief conspirators in Mary's favour, and
+governor of the fortress, stood upon the steps under the gloomy archway to
+receive her, and in sign of custody took her by the arm as she ascended.
+"I was received with greater ceremony the last time I entered here," she
+cried indignantly; and as the heavy gates clanged behind her and the
+portcullis dropped, she fell upon her knees and burst into a storm of
+hysterical tears. Kingston and his wife did their best to tranquillise
+her; but her passionate protestations of innocence made no impression upon
+them.
+
+Her brother, Lord Rochford, had, unknown to her, been a few hours before
+lodged in the same fortress on the hideous and utterly unsupported charge
+of incest with his sister; and Cromwell's drag-net was cast awide to bring
+in all those whose names were connected, however loosely, with that of the
+Queen by her servants, all of whom were tumbling over each other in their
+haste to denounce their fallen mistress. Sir Thomas Weston and William
+Brereton, with both of whom Anne had been fond of bandying questionable
+compliments, were arrested on the 4th May; and on the 5th Sir Thomas
+Wyatt, the poet, and a great friend of the King, was put under guard on
+similar accusations. With regard to Wyatt there seems to have been no
+doubt, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, that some love passages
+had passed between him and Anne before her marriage; and there is
+contemporary assertion to support the belief that their connection had not
+been an innocent one;[155] but the case against him was finally dropped
+and he was again taken into Henry's favour; a proof that there was no
+evidence of any guilt on his part since Anne was Queen. He is asserted to
+have begged Henry not to contract the marriage, and subsequently to have
+reminded him that he had done so, confessing after her arrest that Anne
+had been his mistress before she married the King.
+
+The wretched woman babbled hysterically without cessation in her chamber
+in the Tower; all her distraught ravings being carefully noted and
+repeated by the ladies, mostly her personal enemies, who watched her night
+and day; artful leading questions being put to her to tempt her to talk
+the more. She was imprudent in her speech at the best of times, but now,
+in a condition of acute hysteria, she served the interests of her enemies
+to the full, dragging into her discourse the names of the gentlemen who
+were accused and repeating their risky conversations with her, which were
+now twisted to their worst meaning.[156] At one time she would only desire
+death; then she would make merry with a good dinner or supper, chatting
+and jesting, only to break down into hysterical laughter and tears in the
+midst of her merriment. Anon she would affect to believe that her husband
+was but trying her constancy, and pleaded with all her heart to be allowed
+to see him again.[157] But he, once having broken the shackles, was gaily
+amusing himself in gallant guise with Mistress Seymour, who was lodged,
+for appearance' sake, in the house of her mentor, Sir Nicholas Carew, a
+few miles from London, but within easy reach of a horseman. Anne in her
+sober moments must have known that she was doomed. She hoped much from
+Cranmer, almost the only friend of hers not now in prison; but Cranmer,
+however strong in counsel, was a weak reed in combat; and hastened to save
+himself at the cost of the woman upon whose shoulders he had climbed to
+greatness. The day after Anne's arrest, Cranmer wrote to the King "a
+letter of consolation; yet wisely making no apology for her, but
+acknowledging how divers of the lords had told him of certain of her
+faults, which, he said, he was sorry to hear, and concluded desiring that
+the King would continue his love to the gospel, lest it should be thought
+that it was for her sake only that he had favoured it."[158] Before he
+had time to despatch the letter, the timorous archbishop was summoned
+across the river to Westminster to answer certain disquieting questions of
+the Commissioners, who informed him of the evidence against the Queen; and
+in growing alarm for himself and his cause, he hurried back to Lambeth
+without uttering a word in favour of the accused, whose guilt he accepted
+without question.
+
+Thenceforward Anne's enemies worked their way unchecked, even her father
+being silenced by fear for himself. For Cromwell's safety it was necessary
+that none of the accused should escape who later might do him injury; and
+now that he and his imperialistic policy had been buttressed by the
+"discovery" of Anne's infidelity, not even the nobles of the French
+faction dared to oppose it by seeming to side with the unhappy woman. The
+Secretary did his work thoroughly. The indictments were laid before the
+grand juries of Middlesex and Kent, as the offences were asserted to have
+been committed over a long period both at Greenwich and Whitehall or
+Hampton Court. To the charges against Anne of adultery with Smeaton, who
+it was asserted had confessed, Norreys, Weston, Brereton, and Lord
+Rochford, was added that of having conspired with them to kill the King.
+There was not an atom of evidence worth the name to support any of the
+charges except the doubtful confession of Smeaton, wrung from him by
+torture; and it is certain that at the period in question the death of
+Henry would have been fatal to the interests of Anne. But a State
+prosecution in the then condition of the law almost invariably meant a
+condemnation of the accused; and when Smeaton, Weston, Norreys, and
+Brereton were arraigned in Westminster Hall on the 12th May, their doom
+was practically sealed before the trial. Smeaton simply pleaded guilty of
+adultery only, and prayed for mercy: the rest of the accused strenuously
+denied their guilt on the whole of the charges; but all were condemned to
+the terrible death awarded to traitors, though on what detailed evidence,
+if any, does not now appear.[159] Every effort was made to tempt Norreys
+to confess, but he replied that he would rather die a thousand deaths than
+confess a lie, for he verily believed the Queen innocent.[160]
+
+In the meanwhile Anne in the Tower continued her strange behaviour, at
+times arrogantly claiming all her royal prerogatives, at times reduced to
+hysterical self-abasement and despair. On the 15th May she and her brother
+were brought to the great hall of the Tower before a large panel of peers
+under the presidency of the Duke of Norfolk. All that could add ignominy
+to the accused was done. The lieges were crowded into the space behind
+barriers at the end of the hall, the city fathers under the Lord Mayor
+were bidden to attend, and with bated breath the subjects saw the woman
+they had always scorned publicly branded as an incestuous adulteress. The
+charges, as usual at the time, were made in a way and upon grounds that
+now would not be permitted in any court of justice. Scraps of overheard
+conversation with Norreys and others were twisted into sinister
+significance, allegations unsupported, and not included in the indictment,
+were dragged in to prejudice the accused; and loose statements incapable
+of proof or disproof were liberally introduced for the same purpose. The
+charge of incest with Rochford depended entirely upon the assertion that
+he once remained in his sister's room a long time; and in his case also
+loose gossip was alleged as a proof of crime: that Anne had said that the
+King was impotent,[161] that Rochford had thrown doubts upon the King
+being the father of Anne's child, and similar hearsay ribaldry. Both Anne
+and her brother defended themselves, unaided, with ability and dignity.
+They pointed out the absence of evidence against them, and the inherent
+improbability of the charges. But it was of no avail, for her death had
+already been settled between Henry and Cromwell: and the Duke of Norfolk,
+with his sinister squint, condemned his niece, Anne Queen of England, to
+be burnt or beheaded at the King's pleasure; and Viscount Rochford to a
+similar death. Both denied their guilt after sentence, but acknowledged,
+as was the custom of the time, that they deserved death, this being the
+only way in which mercy might be gained, so far as forfeiture of property
+was concerned.
+
+Anne had been cordially hated by the people. Her rise had meant the
+destruction of the ancient religious foundations, the shaking of the
+ecclesiastical bases of English society; but the sense of justice was not
+dead, and the procedure at the trial shocked the public conscience.
+Already men and women murmured that the King's goings on with Mistress
+Seymour whilst his wife was under trial for adultery were a scandal, and
+Anne in her death had more friends than in her life. On all sides in
+London now, from the Lord Mayor downwards, it was said that Anne had been
+condemned, not because she was guilty, but because the King was tired of
+her: at all events, wrote Chapuys to Granvelle, there was surely never a
+man who wore the horns so gaily as he.[162] On the 17th May the five
+condemned men were led to their death upon Tower Hill, all of them,
+including Smeaton, being beheaded.[163] As usual in such cases, they
+acknowledged general guilt, but not one (except perhaps Smeaton) admitted
+the particular crimes for which they died, for their kin might have
+suffered in property, if not in person, if the King's justice had been
+too strongly impugned.
+
+Anne, in alternate hope and despair, still remained in the Tower, but
+mostly longing for the rapid death she felt in her heart must come. Little
+knew she, however, why her sacrifice was deferred yet from day to day. In
+one of her excited, nervous outbursts she had cried that, no matter what
+they did, no one could prevent her from dying Queen of England. She had
+reckoned without Henry's meanness, Cromwell's cunning, and Cranmer's
+suppleness. Her death warrant had been signed by the King on the 16th May,
+and Cranmer was sent to receive her last confession. The coming of the
+archbishop--_her_ archbishop, as she called him--gave her fresh hope. She
+was not to be killed after all, but to be banished, and Cranmer was to
+bring her the good news. Alas! poor soul, she little knew her Cranmer even
+yet. He had been primed by Cromwell for a very different purpose, that of
+worming out of Anne some admission that would give him a pretext for
+pronouncing her marriage with the King invalid from the first. The task
+was a repulsive one for the Primate, whose act alone had made the marriage
+possible; but Cranmer was--Cranmer. The position was a complicated one.
+Henry, as he invariably did, wished to save his face and seem in the right
+before the world, consequently he could not confess that he had been
+mistaken in the divorce from Katharine, and get rid of Anne's marriage in
+that way, nor did he wish to restore Mary to the position of heiress to
+the crown. What he needed Cranmer's help for was to render Elizabeth also
+illegitimate, but still his daughter, in order that any child he might
+have by Jane Seymour, or failing that, his natural son, the Duke of
+Richmond, might be acknowledged his successor.
+
+At intervals during Anne's career her alleged betrothal to the Earl of
+Northumberland before her marriage (see p. 126) had been brought up to her
+detriment; and the poor hare-brained earl had foresworn himself more than
+once on the subject. He was dying now, but he was again pressed to say
+that a regular betrothal had taken place with Anne. But he was past
+earthly fear, and finally asserted that no contract had been made. Foiled
+in this attempt, Henry--or rather Cromwell--sent Cranmer to the Tower on
+the 16th May on his shameful errand: to lure the poor woman by hopes of
+pardon to confess the existence of an impediment to her marriage with the
+King. What the impediment was was never made public, but Anne's latest
+biographer, Mr. Friedmann, adduces excellent reasons for arriving at the
+conclusions that I have drawn, namely, that Mary Boleyn having been
+Henry's mistress, he and Anne were within the prohibited degrees of
+affinity for husband and wife; the fact that no marriage had taken place
+between Henry and Mary Boleyn being regarded as canonically
+immaterial.[164] In any case, the admission of a known impediment having
+been made by Anne, no time was lost. The next day, the 17th May, Cranmer
+sat, with Cromwell and other members of the Council, in his Primate's
+court at Lambeth to condemn the marriage that he himself had made. Anne
+was formally represented, but nothing was said on her behalf; and sentence
+was hurriedly pronounced that the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn had
+never been a marriage at all. At the same time order was sent to Sir
+William Kingston that the "concubine" was to suffer the last penalty on
+the following morning. When the sleepless night for Anne had passed,
+mostly in prayer, she took the sacrament with the utmost devotion, and in
+that most solemn moment swore before the Host, on her hopes of eternal
+life, that she had never misused her body to the King's dishonour.[165]
+
+In the meanwhile her execution had been deferred until the next day, and
+Anne again lost her nerve. It was cruel, she said, to keep her so long in
+suspense: pray, she petitioned, put her out of her misery now that she was
+prepared. The operation would not be painful, Kingston assured her. "My
+neck is small enough," she said, spanning it with her fingers, and again
+burst into hysterics. Soon she became calm once more; and thenceforward
+only yearned for despatch. "No one ever had a better will for death than
+she," wrote Chapuys to his master: and Kingston, hardened as he was to the
+sight of the condemned in their last hours, expressed surprise to Cromwell
+that instead of sorrow "this lady has much joy and pleasure in death."
+Remorse for her ungenerous treatment of the Princess Mary principally
+troubled her. She herself, she said, was not going to execution by the
+divine judgment for what she had been accused of, but for having planned
+the death of the Princess. And so, in alternate prayer and light chatter,
+passed Anne's last night on earth, and at nine o'clock on the spring
+morning of the 19th May she was led forth to the courtyard within the
+Tower, where a group of gentlemen, including Cromwell and the Dukes of
+Richmond and Suffolk, stood on or close to a low scaffold or staging
+reached by four steps from the ground. Anne was dressed in grey damask
+trimmed with fur, over a crimson petticoat, and cut low at the neck, so as
+to offer no impediment to the executioner's steel; and for the same reason
+the brown hair was dressed high in a net under the pearl-bordered coif.
+Kept back by guards to some little distance from the platform stood a
+large crowd of spectators, who had flocked in at the heels of the Lord
+Mayor and Sheriffs; though foreigners had been rigidly excluded.[166]
+
+When Anne had ascended the steps she received permission to say a few
+words; and followed the tradition of not complaining against the King's
+justice which had condemned her. She had not come thither to preach, she
+said, but to die, though she was not guilty of the particular crimes for
+which she had been condemned. When, however, she began to speak of Jane
+Seymour being the cause of her fall, those on the scaffold stopped her,
+and she said no more. A headsman of St. Omer had been brought over from
+Calais, in order that the broadsword instead of the axe might be used; and
+this man, who was undistinguishable by his garb from the other bystanders,
+now came forward, and, kneeling, asked the doomed woman's pardon, which
+granted, Anne herself knelt in a distraught way, as if to pray, but really
+gazed around her in mute appeal from one pitiless face to another. The
+headsman, taking compassion upon her, assured her that he would not strike
+until she gave the signal. "You will have to take this coif off," said the
+poor woman, and one of the ladies who attended her did so, and partially
+bound her eyes with a handkerchief; but Anne still imagined that her
+headdress was in the way, and kept her hand upon her hair, straining her
+eyes and ears towards the steps where from the headsman's words she
+expected the sword to be handed to him. Whilst she was thus kneeling erect
+in suspense, the sword which was hidden in the straw behind her was deftly
+seized by the French executioner, who, swinging the heavy blade around, in
+an instant cut through the erect, slender neck; and the head of Anne
+Boleyn jerked from the shoulders and rolled upon the cloth that covered
+the platform.
+
+Katharine in her neglected tomb at Peterborough was avenged, but the
+fissure that had been opened up between England and the Papacy for the
+sake of this woman had widened now past bridging. Politicians might, and
+did, make up their differences now that the "concubine" was dead, and form
+alliances regardless of religious affinities; but submission to the
+Papacy in future might mean that the most powerful people in England would
+be deprived of the fat spoils of the Church with which Cromwell had bought
+them, and that the vainest king on earth must humbly confess himself in
+the wrong. Anne herself was a mere straw upon a whirlpool, though her
+abilities, as Cromwell confessed, were not to be despised. She did not
+plan or make the Reformation, though she was forced by her circumstances
+to patronise it. The real author of the great schism of England was not
+Anne or Cranmer, but Luther's enemy, Charles V., the champion of
+Catholicism. But for the pressure he put upon the Pope to refuse Henry's
+divorce, in order to prevent a coalition of England and France, Cranmer's
+defiance of the Papacy would not have been needed, and Henry might have
+come back to Rome again easily. But with Cranmer to provide him with
+plausible pretexts for the repeated indulgence of his self-will, and
+Cromwell to feed his pride and cupidity by the plunder of the Church,
+Henry had already been drawn too far to go back. Greed and vanity of the
+ruling powers thus conspired to make permanent in England the influence of
+evanescent Anne Boleyn.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _JANE SEYMOUR_
+
+_From a painting by_ HOLBEIN _in the Imperial Collection at Vienna_]
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+1536-1540
+
+PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT--JANE SEYMOUR AND ANNE OF CLEVES
+
+
+From the moment that Henry abruptly left the lists at May-day on the
+receipt of Cromwell's letter detailing the admissions of Smeaton, he saw
+Anne no more. No pang of remorse, no wave of compassion passed over him.
+He easily believed what he wished to believe, and Anne was left to the
+tender mercies of Cromwell, to be done to death. Again Henry was a prey to
+profound self-pity for ever having fallen under the enchantment of such a
+wicked woman. He, of course, was not to blame for anything. He never was.
+He was always the clement, just man whose unsuspecting goodness of heart
+had been abused by others, and who tried to find distraction and to forget
+the evil done him. On the very night of the day that Anne was arrested the
+Duke of Richmond, Henry's son, now a grown youth, went, as was his custom,
+into his father's room at Whitehall to bid him good night and ask his
+blessing. The King, we are told,[167] fell a-weeping as he blessed his
+son, "saying that he and his sister (Mary) might well be grateful to God
+for saving them from the hands of that accursed and venomous harlot who
+had intended to poison them." That Anne may have planned the assassination
+of Mary is quite probable, even if she had no hand in the shortening of
+Katharine's days, and this may have been the real hidden pretext of her
+death acting upon Henry's fears for himself.[168] But if such were the
+case, Henry, at least, was deserving of no pity, for when it was only
+Katharine's life that was in danger he was, as we have seen, brutally
+callous, and only awoke to the enormity of the "venomous harlot" when
+Cromwell made him believe that his own safety was jeopardised. Then no
+fate was too cruel for the woman he once had loved.
+
+On the day preceding Anne's trial, Jane Seymour was brought from Sir
+Nicholas Carew's house to another residence on the river bank, only a mile
+from Whitehall Stairs, to be ready for her intended elevation as soon as
+the Queen was disposed of. Here Jane was served for the few days she
+stayed "very splendidly by the cooks and certain officers of the King, and
+very richly adorned."[169] So certain was Henry that nothing would now
+stand in the way of his new marriage that Jane was informed beforehand
+that on the 15th, by three in the afternoon, she would hear of her
+predecessor's condemnation; and Anne's cousin and enemy, Sir Francis
+Brian, eagerly brought the news to the expectant lady at the hour
+anticipated. The next day, when the sword of the French headsman had made
+Henry indeed a widower, the King only awaited receipt of the intelligence
+to enter his barge and seek the consolation of Jane Seymour. At six
+o'clock in the morning of the 20th May, when the headless body of Anne,
+barely cold, still awaited sepulture huddled in an old arrow-box in the
+Church of St. Peter within the Tower, Jane was secretly carried by water
+from her residence to Hampton Court; and before nine o'clock she had been
+privately married to the King,[170] by virtue of a dispensation issued the
+day previously by the accommodating Cranmer.[171] It would seem probable
+that the day after the private espousals Jane travelled to her home in
+Wiltshire, where she stayed for several days whilst preparations were
+being made in the King's abodes for her reception as Queen: for all the
+A's had to be changed to J's in the royal ciphers, and traces of Anne's
+former presence abolished wherever possible. Whether Henry accompanied his
+new wife to Wiltshire on this occasion is not quite certain, though from
+Sir John Russell's account it is probable that he did. In any case the
+King and his new wife visited Mercer's Hall, in Cheapside, on the 29th
+May, St. Peter's Eve, to witness from the windows the civic ceremony of
+the annual setting of the watch; and on the following day, 30th May, the
+pair were formally married in the Queen's closet at Whitehall.
+
+The people at large looked somewhat askance at this furious haste to marry
+the new wife before the shed blood of the previous one was dry;[172] but
+the Court, and those who still recollected the wronged Princess Mary and
+her dead mother, were enthusiastic in their welcome to Jane.[173] The
+Emperor's friends, too, were in joyous mood; and Princess Mary at Hunsdon
+was full of hope, and eager to be allowed to greet her father and his wife
+now that "that woman" was dead. Chapuys, we may be sure, did not stand
+behind the door now when he went to Court. On the contrary, when he first
+visited Whitehall a few days after the wedding, Henry led him by the hand
+to Jane's apartments, and allowed the diplomatist to kiss the
+Queen--"congratulating her upon her marriage and wishing her prosperity. I
+told her that, although the device of the lady who had preceded her on the
+throne was 'The happiest of women,' I had no doubt that she herself would
+realise that motto. I was sure that the Emperor would be equally rejoiced
+as the King himself had been at meeting such a virtuous and amiable Queen,
+the more so that her brother (_i.e._ Sir E. Seymour, afterwards the Duke
+of Somerset) had been in the Emperor's service. I added that it was almost
+impossible to believe the joy and pleasure which Englishmen generally had
+felt at the marriage; especially as it was said that she was continually
+trying to persuade the King to restore the Princess to his favour, as
+formerly." Most of Chapuys' courtly talk with Jane, indeed, was directed
+to this point of the restoration of Mary; but the new Queen, though
+inexperienced, had been well coached, and did not unduly commit herself;
+only promising to favour the Princess, and to endeavour to deserve the
+title that Chapuys had given her of "peacemaker." Henry strolled up to the
+pair at this point, and excused his new wife for any want of expertness:
+"as I was the first ambassador she had received, and she was not used yet
+to such receptions. He (Henry) felt sure, however, that she would do her
+utmost to obtain the title of 'peacemaker,' with which I (Chapuys) had
+greeted her, as, besides being naturally of a kind and amiable disposition
+and much inclined to peace, she would strive to prevent his (Henry's)
+taking part in a foreign war, if only out of the fear of being separated
+from him."[174]
+
+But all these fine hopes were rapidly banished. Jane never possessed or
+attempted to exercise any political influence on her husband. She smiled
+sweetly and in a non-committal way upon the Princess Mary, and upon the
+imperialist and moderate Catholic party that had hoped to make the new
+Queen their instrument; but Cromwell's was still the strong mind that
+swayed the King. He had obtained renewed control over his master by
+ridding him of Anne; and had, at all events, prevented England from being
+drawn into a coalition with France against the Emperor; but he had no
+intention, even if it had been possible, of going to the other extreme and
+binding his country to go to war against France to please the Emperor.
+Henry's self-will and vanity, as well as his greed, also stood in the way
+of a complete submission to the Papacy, and those who had brought Jane
+Seymour in, hoping that her advent would mean a return to the same
+position as that previous to Anne's rise, now found that they had been
+over sanguine. Charles and Francis were left to fight out their great duel
+alone in Italy and Provence, to the general discomfiture of the imperial
+cause; and, instead of hastening to humble himself at the feet of Paul
+III., as the pontiff had fondly expected, Henry summoned Parliament, and
+gave stronger statutory sanction than ever to his ecclesiastical
+independence of Rome.[175] Anne's condemnation and Elizabeth's bastardy
+were obediently confirmed by the Legislature, and the entire freedom of
+the English Church from Rome reasserted.
+
+But the question of the succession was that which aroused the strongest
+feeling, and its settlement the keenest disappointment. Now that Anne's
+offspring was disinherited, Princess Mary and her friends naturally
+expected that she, with the help of the new Queen, would once more enter
+into the enjoyment of her birthright. Eagerly Mary wrote to Cromwell
+bespeaking his aid, which she had been led to expect that he would give;
+and by his intercession she was allowed to send her humble petition to her
+father, praying for leave to see him. Her letters are all couched in terms
+of cringing humility, praying forgiveness for past offences, and promising
+to be a truly dutiful daughter in future. But this did not satisfy Henry.
+Cromwell, desirous, in pursuance of his policy of keeping friendly with
+the Emperor without going to war with France, or kneeling to Rome, hoped
+to bring about peace between Mary and her father. But the strongest
+passions of Henry's nature were now at stake, and he would only accept his
+daughter's submission on terms that made her a self-confessed bastard, and
+against this the girl, as obstinate as her father and as righteously proud
+as her mother, still rebelled. Henry's son, the Duke of Richmond, was now
+a straight stripling of eighteen, already married to Norfolk's daughter,
+and, failing issue by Jane, here was an heir to the Crown that might carry
+the Tudor line onward in the male blood, if Parliament could be chicaned
+or threatened into acknowledging him. So Mary was plied with letters from
+Cromwell, each more pressing and cruel than the previous one, driving the
+girl to distraction by the King's insistence upon his terms.[176] Threats,
+cajolery, and artful casuistry were all tried. Again Mary turned to her
+foreign advisers and the King's rebellious subjects for support, and again
+her father's heart hardened when he knew it. Norfolk, who with others was
+sent to persuade her, was so incensed with her firmness that he said if
+she had been his daughter he would have knocked her head against the wall
+until it was as soft as a codlin. But Norfolk's daughter was the Duchess
+of Richmond, and might be Queen Consort after Henry's death if Mary were
+disinherited, so that there was some excuse for his violence. Those who
+were in favour of Mary were dismissed from the Council--even Cromwell was
+in fear--and Jane Seymour was rudely snubbed by the King for daring to
+intercede for the Princess. At length, with death threatening her, Mary
+could stand out no longer. Without even reading it, she signed with a
+mental reservation, and confident of obtaining the Papal absolution for
+which she secretly asked, the shameful declaration forced upon her,
+repudiating the Papal authority, and specifically acknowledging herself a
+bastard.
+
+Then Henry was all amiability with his wronged daughter. He and Jane went
+to visit her at Richmond, whither she had been brought, giving her
+handsome presents of money and jewels; liberty was given to her to come to
+Court, and stately service surrounded her. But it was all embittered by
+the knowledge that Parliament had been induced to acknowledge that all the
+King's children were illegitimate, and to grant to Henry himself the right
+of appointing his own successor by letters patent or by will. Alas! the
+youth in whose immediate interest the injustice was done was fast sinking
+to his grave; and on the 22nd July 1536 the Duke of Richmond breathed his
+last, to Henry's bitter grief, Mary's prospects again became brighter, and
+all those who resented the religious policy and Henry's recalcitrancy now
+looked to the girl as their only hope of a return to the old order of
+things. Chapuys, too, was ceaseless in his intrigues to bring England once
+more into a condition of obedience to the Pope, that should make her a fit
+instrument for the imperial policy, and soon the disappointment that
+followed on the elevation of Jane Seymour found vent in the outbreak of
+rebellion in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
+
+The priests and the great mass of the people had bent the neck patiently
+to the King's violent innovations in the observances that they had been
+taught to hold sacred. They had seen the religious houses, to which they
+looked for help and succour in distress, destroyed and alienated. The
+abuses of the clergy had doubtless been great, and the first measures
+against them had been welcomed; but the complete confiscation of vast
+properties, in the main administered for the benefit of the lowly, the
+continued enclosure of common lands by the gentry newly enriched by
+ecclesiastical plunder, and the rankling sense of the scandalous injustice
+that had been suffered by Katharine and Mary, for the sake, as the people
+said, of the King's lustful caprice, at last provided the extreme militant
+Catholic party with the impetus needed for revolt against the Crown.
+Imperious Henry was beside himself with rage; and for a time it looked as
+if he and his system might be swept away in favour of his daughter, or one
+of the Poles, who were being put forward by the Pope. The Bull of
+excommunication against Henry and England, so long held back, was now
+launched, making rebellion righteous; and the imperial interest in
+England, which was still strong, did its best to aid the rising of Henry's
+lieges against him. But the rebels were weakly led: the greater nobles had
+for the most part been bought by grants of ecclesiastical lands; and
+Norfolk, for all his moral baseness, was an experienced and able soldier.
+So the Pilgrimage of Grace, threatening as it looked for a time, flickered
+out; and the yoke was riveted tighter than ever upon the neck of rural
+England. To the party that had hoped to make use of her, Jane Seymour was
+thus, to some extent, a disappointment;[177] but her placid
+submissiveness, which made her a bad political instrument, exactly suited
+a husband so imperious as Henry; and from a domestic point of view the
+union was successful. During the summer Jane shared in her husband's
+progresses and recreations, but as the months rolled on and no hope came
+of offspring, ominous rumours ran that Jane's coronation would be deferred
+until it was proved that she might bear children to the King; and some
+said that if she proved barren a pretext would be found for displacing her
+in favour of another. Indeed, only a few days after the public marriage,
+Henry noticed two very beautiful girls at Court, and showed his annoyance
+that he had not seen them before taking Jane.
+
+After six months of marriage without sign of issue, Henry began to take
+fright. The Duke of Richmond was dead, and both the King's daughters were
+acknowledged by the law of England to be illegitimate. He was already
+forty-six years of age, and had lately grown very obese; and his death
+without further issue or a resettlement of the succession would inevitably
+lead to a dynastic dispute, with the probable result of the return of the
+House of York to the throne in the person of one of the Poles under the
+aegis of Rome. Whenever possible, Jane had said a good word for the
+Princess Mary, and Henry began to listen more kindly than before to his
+wife's well-meant attempts to soften him in favour of his daughter. The
+Catholic party was all alert with new hopes that the King, convinced that
+he could father no more sons, would cause his elder daughter to be
+acknowledged his heir;[178] but the reformers, who had grown up
+numerously, especially in and about London, during Henry's defiance of
+Rome, looked askance at a policy which in time they feared might bring
+back the old order of things. The mainstay of this party at Court, apart
+from the professed Lutherans and the new bishops, were those who, having
+received grants of ecclesiastical property, despaired of any return to the
+Roman communion and the imperial alliance without the restoration of the
+Church property. Amongst these courtiers was Jane's brother, Edward
+Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, who had received large grants of
+ecclesiastical lands at intervals since 1528. He was a personal friend of
+the King, and had taken no active part in the intrigue that accompanied
+his sister's elevation, though after the marriage he naturally rose higher
+than before in the favour of the King. He was a clever and superficially
+brilliant, but ostentatious and greedy man, of no great strength of
+purpose, whose new relationship to the King marked him out as a dominating
+influence in the future. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, upon whom Henry
+had depended as generals, were now very old and ailing, and there was no
+other peer but Cromwell of any ability in the Councils.
+
+Even thus early it was clear that Seymour's weight would, notwithstanding
+the circumstances of his sister's rise, be thrown on to the anti-Papal
+side when the crucial struggle came. He was, moreover, a new man; and as
+such not welcomed by the older nobility, who, though desirous of retaining
+their Church plunder, were yet bound by their traditions against
+bureaucrats such as Cromwell, and the policy of defiance of the Papacy
+that he and his like had suggested and carried out. Cromwell's own
+position at this time (1536-37) was a paradoxical one. It was he who had
+led Henry on, step by step, to entire schism and the plunder of the
+Church; it was he who not only had shown how to get rid of Katharine, but
+how to destroy her successor; and it was he whom the Catholic party hated
+with a whole-hearted detestation, for the King's acts as well as his own.
+On the other hand, he was hardly less distrusted by the reforming party;
+for his efforts were known to be directed to a reconciliation with the
+Emperor, which could only be effected conjointly with some sort of
+arrangement with the Papacy. His efforts to please the imperialists by
+siding with the Princess Mary during her dispute with her father led him
+to the very verge of destruction. Whilst the young Princess was being
+badgered into making her shameful and insincere renunciation of her faith
+and birthright, Cromwell, the very man who was the instrument for
+extorting her submission, sat, as he says, for a week in the Council
+considering himself "a dead man," because the King believed that he was
+encouraging Mary to resist. Cromwell, therefore, like most men who
+endeavour to hold a middle course, was distrusted and hated by every one;
+and it must have been obvious to him that if he could ensure the adhesion
+of the rising Seymour interest his chance of weathering the storm would be
+infinitely improved. His son had recently married Jane Seymour's sister,
+and this brought him into close relationship with the family, and, as will
+be seen, led in the next year to a compact political union between the
+Seymour brothers, Cromwell, and the reforming party, as against the
+nobles and traditional conservatives.
+
+For the time, however, Cromwell held on his way, endeavouring to keep in
+with the imperialists and Mary; and it was doubtless to his prompting that
+Jane used her influence, when at its highest point, to reconcile the
+Princess personally to her father. To the great joy of the King, in March
+1537, Jane was declared to be with child. The Emperor had already opened a
+negotiation for the marriage of Mary with his brother-in-law, the Infante
+Luiz of Portugal, and Henry was playing a waiting game till he saw if Jane
+would bear him a child. If so, Mary might go; although he still refused to
+legitimise her; but if no more issue was to be born to him, he could
+hardly allow his elder daughter to leave England and fall into the hands
+of the Emperor. Charles, on the other hand, was extremely anxious to
+obtain possession of so valuable a pledge for the future as Mary; and was
+willing to go to almost any lengths to get her, either by fair means or
+foul, fearing, as he did, that the girl might be married discreditably in
+England--he thought even to Cromwell himself--in order to destroy her
+international value to Henry's rivals.
+
+As soon, however, as Jane's pregnancy was announced Mary's position
+changed. If a child was born in wedlock to the King, especially if it were
+a son, there would be no need to degrade Mary by joining her to a lowly
+husband; she might, on the contrary, become a good international marriage
+asset in the hands of her father, who might bargain with Charles or
+Francis for her. The fresh move of Jane Seymour, therefore, in her
+favour, in the spring of 1537, when the Queen's pregnancy had given her
+greater power over her husband, was probably welcome both to the King and
+Cromwell, as enhancing Mary's importance at a time when she might be used
+as an international political pawn without danger. Jane was sad one day in
+the early period of her pregnancy. "Why, darling," said the King, "how
+happeneth it you are not merrier?"[179] "It hath pleased your Grace,"
+replied the Queen, "to make me your wife, and there are none but my
+inferiors with whom to make merry, withal, your Grace excepted; unless it
+would please you that we might enjoy the company of the Lady Mary at
+Court. I could be merry with her." "We will have her here, darling, if
+that will make thee merry," said the King. And before many days had gone,
+Mary, with a full train of ladies, was brought from Hunsdon, magnificently
+dressed, to Whitehall, where, in the great presence chamber, Henry and his
+wife stood before the fire. The poor girl was almost overcome at the
+tenderness of her reception, and fell upon her knees before her father and
+his wife. Henry, as usual anxious to throw upon others the responsibility
+of his ill-treatment of his daughter, turned to his Councillors, who stood
+around, and said, "Some of you were desirous that I should put this jewel
+to death." "That were a pity," quoth the Queen, "to have lost your
+chiefest jewel of England."[180] The hint was too much for Mary, who
+changed colour and fell into a swoon, greatly to her father's concern.
+
+At length the day long yearned and prayed for by Henry came. Jane had for
+some months lived in the strictest quietude, and prayers and masses for
+her safe delivery were offered in the churches for weeks before. In
+September she had travelled slowly to Hampton Court, and on the 12th
+October 1537 a healthy son was born to her and Henry. The joy of the King
+was great beyond words. The gross sensualist, old beyond his years, had in
+vain hoped through all his sturdy youth for a boy, who, beyond reproach,
+might bear his regal name. He had flouted Christendom and defied the
+greatest powers on earth in order to marry a woman who might bear him a
+man child. When she failed to do so, he had coldly stood aside whilst his
+instruments defamed her and did her to death; and now, at last, in his
+declining years, his prayer was answered, and the House of Tudor was
+secure upon the future throne of England. Bonfires blazed and joy bells
+rang throughout the land; feasts of unexampled bounteousness coarsely
+brought home to the lieges the blessing that had come to save the country
+from the calamity of a disputed succession. The Seymour brothers at once
+became, next the King and his son, the most important personages in
+England, the elder, Edward, being created Earl of Hertford, and both
+receiving great additional grants of monastic lands. In the general
+jubilation at the birth, the interests of the mother were forgotten. No
+attempt appears to have been made to save her from the excitement that
+surrounded her; and on the very day of her delivery she signed an
+official letter "Jane the Quene" to Cromwell, directing him to communicate
+to the Privy Council the joyful news.
+
+The most sumptuous royal christening ever seen was in bustling preparation
+in and about her sick-chamber; and that no circumstance of state should be
+lacking, the mother herself, only four days after the birth, was forced to
+take part in the exhausting ceremony. In the chapel at Hampton Court,
+newly decorated like the splendid banqueting-hall adjoining, where the
+initials of Jane carved in stone with those of the King, and her arms and
+device on glowing glass and gilded scutcheon still perpetuate her fleeting
+presence, the christening ceremony was held by torchlight late in the
+chill autumn evening. Through the long draughty corridors, preceded by
+braying trumpets and followed by rustling crowds of elated courtiers, the
+sick woman was carried on her stately pallet covered with heavy robes of
+crimson velvet and ermine. Under a golden canopy, supported by the four
+greatest nobles in the land, next to Norfolk, who was one of the
+godfathers, the Marchioness of Exeter bore the infant in her arms to the
+scene of the ceremony; and the Princess Mary, fiercely avid of love as she
+ever was, held the prince at the font. Suffolk, Arundel, and doomed
+Exeter, with a host of other magnates, stood around; whilst one towering
+handsome figure, with a long brown beard, carried aloft in his arms the
+tiny fair girl-child of Anne, the Lady Elizabeth, holding in her dainty
+hands the holy chrisom. It was Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, looked
+at askance by the rest as a new man, but already overlapping them all as
+the uncle of the infant prince. During the _Te Deum_ and the long, pompous
+ceremony of the baptism the mother lay flushed and excited upon her couch;
+whilst the proud father, his broad face beaming with pride, sat by her
+side, holding her hand.
+
+It was hard upon midnight when the Queen gave her blessing to her child
+and was carried back to her chamber, with more trumpet blasts and noisy
+gratulation. The next day, as was to be expected, she was in a high fever,
+so ill that she was confessed and received extreme unction. But she
+rallied, and seemed somewhat amended for the next few days, though ominous
+rumours were rife in London that her life had purposely been jeopardised
+in order to save that of the child at birth.[181] They were not true, but
+they give the measure of the public estimate of Henry's character, and
+have been made the most of by Sanders, Rivadeneyra, and the other Jesuit
+historians. On the 23rd October the Queen fell gravely ill again, and in
+the night was thought to be dying. Henry had intended to ride to Esher
+that day, but "could not find it in his heart" to go; and the next night,
+the 24th October, Jane Seymour died, a sacrifice to improper treatment and
+heartlessly exacted ceremonial. Henry had not been married long enough to
+her to have become tired of her, and her somewhat lethargic placidity had
+suited him. She had, moreover, borne him the long-looked-for son; and his
+grief for her loss was profound, and no doubt sincere. Much as he hated
+signs of mortality, he wore black mourning for her for three months, and
+shut himself up at Windsor away from the world, and above all away from
+the corpse of his dead wife, for a fortnight. Jane's body, embalmed, lay
+in the presence chamber at Hampton Court for a week. Blazing tapers
+surrounded the great hearse, and masses went on from dawn to midday in the
+chamber. All night long the Queen's ladies, with Princess Mary, watched
+before the bier, until the end of the month, when the catafalque had been
+erected in the chapel for the formal lying in state. On the 12th November,
+with the greatest possible pomp, the funeral procession bore the dead
+Queen to Windsor for burial in a grave in St. George's Chapel, destined to
+receive the remains of Henry as well as that of his third wife, the mother
+of his son.[182] The writers of the time, following the lead of Henry and
+his courtiers, never mentioned their grief for the Queen without promptly
+suggesting that it was more than counterbalanced by their joy at the birth
+of her son, who from his first appearance in the world was hailed as a
+paragon of beauty and perfection. Thanksgivings for the boon of a male
+heir to the King blended their sounds of jubilation with the droning of
+the masses for the mother's soul, and the flare of the bonfires died down
+into the flickering tapers that dimly lit the funerals. Even Henry
+himself, in writing to give the news of his son's birth, confessed that
+his joy at the event had far exceeded his grief for Jane's death.
+
+So far as the Catholic party that had promoted it was concerned, the
+marriage with Jane had been a failure. The Pilgrimage of Grace had been
+drowned in the blood of ruthless slaughter: and partly because of Mary's
+scruples and fears, partly because they themselves had been gorged with
+the plunder of the Church, nearly all the great nobles stood aside and
+raised no voice whilst Cromwell and his master still worked havoc on the
+religious houses, regardless of Jane's timid intercession. Boxley,
+Walsingham, and even the sacred shrine of Canterbury, yielded their relics
+and images, venerated for centuries, to be scorned and destroyed; whilst
+the vast accumulated treasures of gold and gems that enriched them went to
+fill the coffers of the King, and their lands to bribe his favourites.
+Throughout England the work of confiscation was carried on now with a zeal
+which only greed for the resultant profit can explain.[183] The attacks
+upon superstition in the Church by those in authority naturally aroused a
+feeling of greater freedom of thought amongst the mass of the people. The
+establishment of an open Bible in English in every church for the perusal
+of the parishioners, due, as indeed most of the doctrinal changes were,
+to Cranmer, encouraged men to think to some extent for themselves. But
+though, for purposes to which reference will be made presently, Henry
+willingly concurred in Cranmer's reforming tendencies and Cromwell's
+anti-ecclesiastical plans for providing him with abundant money, he would
+allow no departure from orthodoxy as he understood it. His love for
+theological controversy, and his undoubted ability and learning in that
+direction, enabled him to enforce his views with apparently unanswerable
+arguments, especially as he was able, and quite ready, to close the
+dispute with an obstinate antagonist by prescribing the stake and the
+gibbet either to those who repudiated his spiritual supremacy or to those
+who, like the Anabaptists, questioned the efficacy of a sacrament which he
+had adopted. For Henry it was to a great extent a matter of pride and
+self-esteem now to show to his own subjects and the world that he was
+absolutely supreme and infallible, and this feeling unquestionably had
+greatly influenced the progress effected by the reformation and
+emancipation from Rome made after the disappointing marriage with Jane
+Seymour.
+
+But there was also policy in Henry's present action. Throughout the years
+1536 and 1537 Francis and the Emperor had continued at war; but by the
+close of the latter year it was evident that both combatants were
+exhausted, and would shortly make up their differences. The Papal
+excommunication of Henry and his realm was now in full force, making
+rebellion against the King a laudable act for all good Catholics; and any
+agreement between the two great Continental sovereigns in union with Rome
+boded ill for England and for its King. There were others, too, to whom
+such a combination boded ill. The alliance between France and the infidel
+Turk to attack the Christian Emperor had aroused intense indignation
+amongst Catholics throughout the world against Francis; and the Pope,
+utilising this feeling, strove hard to persuade both Christian sovereigns
+to cease their fratricidal struggle and to recognise that the real enemy
+to be feared and destroyed was Lutheranism or heresy in their midst.
+During the Emperor's absence, and the war, Protestantism in Germany had
+advanced with giant strides. The Princes had boldly refused to recognise
+any conciliatory Council of the Church under the control of the Pope; and
+the pressure used by the Emperor to compel them to do so aroused the
+suspicion that the day was fast approaching when Lutheranism would have to
+fight for its life against the imperial suzerain of Germany.
+
+Already the forces were gathering. George of Saxony, the enemy of Luther,
+was hurrying to the grave, and Henry his brother and heir was a strong
+Protestant. Philip of Hesse had two years before thrown down the gage, and
+had taken by force from the Emperor the territory of Wuertemburg, and had
+restored the Protestant Duke Ulrich. Charles' brother Ferdinand, who ruled
+the empire, clamoured as loudly as did Mary of Hungary in Flanders and
+Eleanor of Austria in France, for a peace between the two champions of
+Christendom, the repudiation by France of the Turkish alliance, and a
+concentration of the Catholic forces in the world before it was too late
+to crush the hydra of heresy which threatened them all. It was natural in
+the circumstances that the enemies of the Papacy should be drawn together.
+A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, and a common danger drew Henry of
+England and Philip of Hesse together. Henry was no Lutheran, and did not
+pretend to be. He had been drawn into the Reformation by the process that
+we have followed, in which interested advisers had worked upon his
+passions and self-esteem; but he had gone too far in defiance of Rome now
+to turn back, and was forced to look to his own safety by such policy as
+was possible to him. For several months after Jane Seymour's death the
+envoys of the German Protestants were in England in close negotiation with
+Henry and Cromwell. In order that a close league should be made, it was
+necessary that some common doctrinal standpoint should be agreed upon, and
+infinite theological discussions took place to bring this about. Henry
+would not give way on any principal point, and the Protestant ambassadors
+went home again without a formal understanding. But though Henry remained,
+as he intended to do, thus unpledged, it was good policy for him to
+impress upon the Germans by his ruthless suppression of the monasteries,
+and his prohibition of the ancient superstitions, that he was the enemy of
+their enemy; and that if he was attacked for heresy, it would be incumbent
+upon the Lutherans to be on his side even against their own suzerain.
+
+This was not, however, the only move made by Henry against the
+threatening danger of a joint attack of the Catholic powers. He had hardly
+thrown off his mourning for Jane before he turned his hand to the old game
+of dividing his rivals. His bluff was as audacious and brilliant as usual.
+To the imperial and French ambassadors in turn he boasted that either of
+their masters would prefer his friendship and alliance to that of the
+other; and, rightly convinced that he would really be more likely to gain
+latitudinarian Francis than Charles, he proposed in the spring of 1538
+that he should marry a French princess. As the two great Catholic
+sovereigns drew closer together, though still nominally at war in Italy,
+Henry became, indeed, quite an eager wooer. His friend, Sir Francis Brian,
+was sent to Paris, secretly to forward his suit, and obtained a portrait
+of the Duke of Guise's second daughter, the sister of the King of
+Scotland's bride, Mary of Lorraine; with which Henry confessed himself
+quite smitten. He had, before this, only three months after Jane's death,
+made a desperate attempt to prevail upon Francis to let him have Mary of
+Lorraine herself; though she was already betrothed to the King of Scots,
+his nephew; but this had been positively and even indignantly refused.
+Even the younger daughter of Guise, beautiful as she was, did not quite
+satisfy his vanity. Both he and his agent Brian, who was a fit
+representative for him, disgusted Francis by suggesting that three other
+French princesses should be taken to Calais by the Queen of
+Navarre--Francis' sister--in order that they might be paraded before the
+King of England for his selection, "like hackneys," as was said at the
+time.[184] He thought that the angry repudiation of such an insulting
+proposal was most unreasonable. "How can I choose a wife by deputy?" he
+asked. "I must depend upon my own eyes"; besides, he added, he must hear
+them sing, and see how they comported themselves. Perhaps, suggested the
+French ambassador sarcastically, he would like to go further and test the
+ladies in other ways, as the knights of King Arthur used to do. Henry
+coloured at this; but vauntingly replied that he could, if he pleased,
+marry into the imperial house; but he would not marry at all unless he was
+quite sure that his new relation would prefer his alliance to all others.
+When, at length, in June, the truce of Nice was signed, and soon
+afterwards the fraternal meeting and close community between Francis and
+Charles was effected at Aigues Mortes, Henry began to get seriously
+alarmed. His matrimonial offers, to his surprise, were treated very
+coolly; all his attempts to breed dissension between the imperial and
+French ambassadors, who were now hand and glove, were laughed at;[185] and
+the intimate confidence and friendship between his two Catholic rivals
+seemed at last to bring disaster to Henry's very doors; for it was not
+concealed that the first blow to be struck by the Catholic confederacy was
+to be upon the schismatic heretic who ruled England.
+
+With Francis there was no more to be done; for Henry and Brian, by their
+want of delicacy, had between them deeply wounded all the possible French
+brides and their families. But, at least, Henry hoped that sufficient show
+of friendship with Charles might be simulated to arouse Francis' jealousy
+of his new ally. Henry therefore began to sneer at the patched-up
+friendship, as he called it.[186] "And how about Milan?" he asked the
+French ambassador, knowing that that was the still rankling sore; and soon
+he began to boast more openly that he himself might have Milan by the
+cession of it as a dower to Dom Luiz of Portugal, on his marriage with the
+Princess Mary; whilst Henry himself married the young widowed Duchess of
+Milan, Charles' niece, Christina of Denmark, that clever, quick-witted
+woman, whose humorous face lives for ever on the canvas of Holbein in the
+English National Gallery.[187] There had been a Spanish ambassador, Diego
+Hurtado de Mendoza, in England since the spring of 1537, to negotiate the
+Portuguese marriage of the Princess Mary; but the eternal questions of
+dowry, security, and the legitimacy of the Princess had made all
+negotiations so far abortive. Now they were taken up more strongly, by
+means of Wyatt at Madrid, and by special envoys to Mary of Hungary in
+Flanders. But it was all "buckler play," as the imperial agents and
+Charles himself soon found out. Henry and Cromwell knew perfectly well
+that no stable alliance with the Emperor was possible then unless their
+religious policy was changed; and they had gone too far to change it
+without humiliation, if not destruction, to Henry; the real object of the
+negotiations being simply to obtain some sort of promise about the cession
+of Milan, by which Francis might be detached from the imperial alliance.
+But it was unsuccessful; and, for once, the two great antagonists held
+together for a time against all Lutheranism and heresy.
+
+Then Henry and Cromwell had to look anxiously for support and alliances
+elsewhere. To the King it was a repugnant and humiliating necessity. He
+had puffed himself into the belief that he was the most potent and
+infallible of sovereigns, and he found himself, for the first time,
+scorned by all those he had reason to fear. He, the embodiment of the idea
+of regal omnipotence, would be forced to make common cause with those who,
+like the German Protestants, stood for resistance to supreme authority;
+with usurpers like Christian III. of Denmark, and trading democracies like
+Luebeck. With much hesitation and dislike, therefore, he listened, whilst
+Cromwell urged the inevitable policy upon him, which led him farther and
+farther away from the inner circle of potentates to which he and his
+father had gained entrance in the course of the events related in the
+first chapters of this book.
+
+Cromwell's arguments would probably have been unavailing but for the
+opportune "discovery," in the usual fortuitous Cromwell fashion, of a
+dangerous aristocratic conspiracy against Henry himself. Cardinal Pole had
+been entrusted with the Papal excommunication, and everywhere impressed
+upon English Catholics the duty of obeying their spiritual father by
+deposing the King.[188] Whether anything in the form of a regular
+conspiracy to do this existed in England is extremely doubtful; but the
+Cardinal had naturally written to his relatives in England, especially to
+his brother Geoffrey, and perhaps to his mother, the Countess of
+Salisbury, a princess of the blood royal of York. First Geoffrey was
+seized and carried to the Tower, and some sort of incriminating admission
+drawn from him by threats of torture, though, so far as can be gathered,
+nothing but the repetition of disaffected conversations. It was enough,
+however, for Cromwell's purpose when he needed it; and the fatal net was
+cast over Pole's elder brother, Lord Montague, the Marquis of Exeter,
+allied to the royal house, the Master of the Horse, Sir Nicholas Carew,
+Sir Edward Neville, and half a score of other high gentlemen, known to be
+faithful to the old cause--all to be unjustly sacrificed on the scaffold
+to the fears of Henry and the political exigencies of Cromwell. Even the
+women and children of the supposed sympathisers with the Papacy were not
+spared; and the aged Countess of Salisbury, with her grandson, and the
+Marchioness of Exeter, with her son, were imprisoned with many humbler
+ones.
+
+The defences of the kingdom on the coast and towards Scotland were rapidly
+made ready to resist attack from abroad, which indeed looked imminent; and
+when the noble and conservative party had been sufficiently cowed by the
+sight of the blood of the highest of its members, when the reign of terror
+over the land had made all men so dumb and fearsome that none dared say
+him nay, Cromwell felt himself strong enough to endeavour to draw England
+into the league of Protestant princes and defy the Catholic world. The
+position for Henry personally was an extraordinary one. He had gradually
+drifted into a position of independence from Rome; but he still professed
+to be a strict Catholic in other respects. His primate, Cranmer, and
+several other of his bishops whose ecclesiastical status was unrecognised
+by the Pope, were unquestionably, and not unnaturally, Protestant in their
+sympathies; whilst Cromwell was simply a politician who cared nothing for
+creeds and faiths, except as ancillary to State policy. Francis, and even
+on occasion Charles himself, made little of taking Church property for lay
+purposes when he needed it: he had more than once been the ally of the
+infidel against Catholic princes, and his religious belief was notoriously
+lax; and yet he remained "the eldest son of the Church." Charles had
+struggled successfully against the Papal pretensions to control the
+temporalities of the Spanish Church, his troops had sacked Rome and
+imprisoned the Pope, and his ministers for years had bullied pontiffs and
+scolded them as if they were erring schoolboys. Excommunication had fallen
+upon him and his, and as hard things had been said of him in Rome as of
+Henry; and yet he was the champion of Catholic Christendom. The conclusion
+is obvious that Henry's sin towards the Papacy was not primarily the
+spoliation of the Church, the repudiation of Katharine, or even the
+assumption of control over the temporalities, but that he had arrogated to
+himself the spiritual headship in his realm. In most other respects he was
+as good a Catholic as Charles, and a much better one than Francis; and yet
+under stress of circumstances he was forced into common cause with the
+growing party of reform in Europe, whose separation from the Church was
+profoundly doctrinal, and arose from entirely different motives from those
+of Henry.
+
+The danger that threatened England at the time (early in 1539) was not
+really quite so serious as it seemed; for, close as the alliance between
+Charles and Francis was, old jealousies were not dead, and a joint war
+against England would have revived them; whilst the Papal plan of treating
+England commercially as outside the pale of civilisation would have ruined
+Charles' subject and was impracticable. But, in any case, the peril was
+real to Henry and Cromwell; and under the stress of it they were driven
+into the attempted policy of a Protestant confederacy. At the end of
+January 1539, Christopher Mont was sent to Germany with the first
+overtures. He carried letters of credence to Philip of Hesse, and Hans
+Frederick of Saxony, with the ostensible object of asking whether they had
+come to any conclusion respecting the theological disputations held in the
+previous year between their envoys and the English bishops to establish a
+common doctrinal basis. This, of course, was a mere pretext, the real
+object of the mission being to discover to what extent Henry could depend
+upon the German Protestant princes if he were attacked by their suzerain
+the Emperor. A private instruction was given to Mont by Cromwell, to
+remind one of the Saxon ministers who had come to England of a former
+conversation about a possible marriage between the young Duke of Cleves
+and the Princess Mary; and he was to take the opportunity of finding out
+all he could about the "beauty and qualities, shape, stature, and
+complexion" of the elder of the two unmarried daughters of the old Duke of
+Cleves, whose eldest daughter, Sybilla, had married Hans Frederick of
+Saxony himself, and was as bold a Protestant as he was. At the same time
+approaches were made to Christian III. of Denmark, who had joined the
+Evangelical league; and gradually the forces against the Papacy were to be
+knitted together. An excuse also was found to send English envoys to
+Cleves itself to offer an alliance in the matter of the Duchy of Gueldres,
+which the Duke of Cleves had just seized without the Emperor's connivance
+or consent. Carne and Wotton, the envoys, were also to offer the hand of
+the Princess Mary to the young Duke, and cautiously to hint at a marriage
+between his sister Anne and Henry, if conditions were favourable; and,
+like Mont in Saxony, were to close the ranks of Protestantism around the
+threatened Henry, from whose Court both the imperial and French
+ambassadors had now been withdrawn.
+
+Whilst these intrigues for Protestant support on the Continent were being
+carried on, and the defences of England on all sides were being
+strengthened, Henry, apparently for the purpose of disarming the Catholic
+elements, and proving that, apart from the Papal submission, he was as
+good a Catholic as any, forced through Parliament (May 1539) the
+extraordinary statute called the Six Articles, or the Bloody Statute,
+which threw all English Protestants into a panic. The Act was drafted on
+Henry's instructions by Bishop Gardiner, and was called an "Act to abolish
+diversity of opinions." The articles of faith dictated by the King to his
+subjects under ferocious penalties included the main Catholic doctrine;
+the real presence in the Sacrament in its fullest sense; the celibacy of
+the clergy; that the administration of the Sacrament in two kinds is not
+necessary; that auricular confession is compulsory, that private masses
+may be said, and that vows of chastity must be kept for ever. Cranmer, who
+was married and had children, dared to argue against the Bill when the
+Duke of Norfolk introduced it in the House of Lords, and others of the new
+bishops timidly did likewise; but they were overborne by the old bishops
+and the great majority of the lay peers, influenced by their traditions
+and by the peremptory arguments of the King himself. Even more important
+was an Act passed in the same servile Parliament giving to the King's
+proclamations the force of law; and an Act of attainder against every one,
+living or dead, in England or abroad, who had opposed the King, completed
+the terror under which thenceforward the country lay. Henry was now,
+indeed, master of the bodies and souls of his subjects, and had reduced
+them all, Protestants and Catholics alike, to a condition of abject
+subjection to his mere will. The passage of these Acts, especially the Six
+Articles, marks a temporarily successful attempt of the conservative
+party, represented by the old bishops and the nobles under Norfolk, to
+overcome the influence of Cromwell, who was forwarding the Protestant
+league;[189] but to Henry the policy must in any case have seemed a good
+one, as it tended to increase his personal power and prestige, and to keep
+both parties dependent upon him.
+
+Before the summer of 1539 had passed it was evident to Henry that the new
+combination against him would not stand the strain of a joint attack upon
+England. Charles was full of cares of his own. The Lutherans were
+increasingly threatening; even his own city of Ghent had revolted, and it
+was plain from his reception of Pole at Toledo that he could not proceed
+to extremes against Henry. It certainly was not the intention of Francis
+to do so; and the panic in England--never fully justified--passed away.
+The French ambassador came back, and once more Henry's intrigues to sow
+dissension between the Catholic powers went ceaselessly on. In the
+circumstances it was natural that, after the passage of the Six Articles
+and the resumption of diplomatic relations with France, the negotiations
+with the German Protestants slackened. But the proposed marriage of Henry
+with the Princess of Cleves offered too good an opportunity, as Cromwell
+pointed out to him, of troubling the Emperor when he liked, to be dropped,
+even though no general political league was effected with the German
+Lutherans. Her brother-in-law, Hans Frederick of Saxony, was cool about
+it. He said that some sort of engagement had been made by her father and
+the Duke of Lorraine to marry her to the heir of the latter, but finally
+in August Wotton reported from Duren that Hans Frederick would send
+envoys to Cleves to propose the match, and they would then proceed to
+England to close the matter. Wotton had been somewhat distrustful about
+the previous engagement of Anne with the Duke of Lorraine's son, but was
+assured by the Council of Cleves that it was not binding upon the
+Princess, "who was free to marry as she pleased." "She has been brought
+up," he writes, "with the Lady Duchess, her mother ... and in a manner
+never from her elbow; the Lady Duchess being a wise lady, and one that
+very straitly looketh to her children. All report her (Anne) to be of very
+lowly and gentle conditions, by the which she hath so much won her
+mother's favour that she is loth to suffer her to depart from her. She
+occupieth her time mostly with her needle, wherewithal ... she can read
+and write (Dutch); but as to French, Latin, or any other language, she
+hath none. Nor yet she cannot sing nor play any instrument, for they take
+it here in Germany for a rebuke, and an occasion of lightness that great
+ladies should be learned or have any knowledge of music. Her wit is good,
+and she will no doubt learn English soon when she puts her mind to it. I
+could never hear that she is inclined to the good cheer of this country;
+and marvel it were if she should, seeing that her brother ... doth so well
+abstain from it. Your Grace's servant Hans Holbein hath taken the effigies
+of my Lady Anne and the Lady Amelia, and hath expressed their images very
+lively."[190]
+
+Holbein was not usually a flattering painter to his sitters, and the
+portrait he sent of Anne was that of a somewhat masculine and
+large-featured, but handsome and intellectual young woman, with fine,
+soft, contemplative brown eyes, thick lashes, and strong eyebrows. The
+general appearance is dignified, though handicapped by the very unbecoming
+Dutch dress of the period; and though there is nothing of the _petite_
+sprightliness and soft rotundity that would be likely to attract a man of
+Henry's characteristics, the Princess cannot have been ill-favoured.
+Cromwell some months earlier had reported to Henry that Mont informed him
+that "everybody praises the lady's beauty, both of face and body. One said
+she excelled the Duchess (of Milan ?) as the golden sun did the silver
+moon."[191] If the latter statement be near the truth, Anne, in her own
+way, must have been quite good-looking. There was no delay or difficulty
+in carrying through the arrangements for the marriage. The envoys from
+Cleves and Saxony arrived in London in September, and saw Henry at
+Windsor. They could offer no great dowry, for Cleves was poor; but they
+would not be exacting about the appanage to be settled upon the Queen by
+her husband, to whom they left the decision of the sum; and the other
+covenants as to the eventual succession to her brother's duchy, in case of
+his death without heirs, were to be the same as those under which her
+elder sister married Hans Frederick.
+
+This was the sort of spirit that pleased Henry in negotiators, and with
+such he was always disposed to be liberal. He practically waived the
+dowry, and only urged that the lady should come at once, before the winter
+was too far advanced. When he suggested that she should come from her home
+down the Rhine through Holland, and thence by sea to England, the envoys
+prayed that she might go through Germany and Flanders by land to Calais,
+and so across. For, said they, by sea there will be great peril of capture
+and insult by some too zealous subjects of the Emperor. "Besides, they
+fear lest, the time of year being now cold and tempestuous, she might
+there, though she never were so well ordered, take such cold or other
+disease, considering she never was before upon the seas, as should be to
+her great peril.... She is, moreover, young and beautiful; and if she
+should be transported by sea they fear much how it might alter her
+complexion."[192] No sooner was the marriage treaty signed than splendid
+preparations were made for the reception of the King's coming bride. The
+Lord Admiral (Fitzwilliam) was ordered to prepare a fleet of ten vessels
+to escort her from Calais; repairs and redecorations of the royal
+residences went on apace; and especially in the Queen's apartments, where
+again the initials of poor Jane had to be altered to those of her
+successor, and the "principal lords have bought much cloth of gold and
+silk, a thing unusual for them except for some great solemnity."[193]
+
+The conclusion of the treaty was a triumph for Cromwell and the
+Protestant party in Henry's Council; and the Commissioners who signed it
+reflect the fact. Cranmer, Cromwell, the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chancellor
+Audley, and Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, were all of them inclined to the
+reforming side, whilst Bishop Tunstal, though on the Catholic side, was a
+personal friend of the King; and the new man, Hertford, Jane Seymour's
+brother, though not one of the Commissioners, gave emphatic approval of
+the match. "I am as glad," he wrote to Cromwell, "of the good resolution
+(of the marriage) as ever I was of a thing since the birth of the Prince;
+for I think the King's Highness could not in Christendom marry in any
+place meet for his Grace's honour that should be less prejudicial to his
+Majesty's succession."[194] Henry himself was in his usual vaunting mood
+about the alliance. He had long desired, he said, to cement a union with
+the German confederation, and could now disregard both France and the
+Emperor; besides, his influence would suffice to prevent the Lutherans
+from going too far in their religious innovations. As for the lady, he had
+only one male child, and he was convinced that his desire for more issue
+could not be better fulfilled "than with the said lady, who is of
+convenient age, healthy temperament, elegant stature, and endowed with
+other graces."
+
+The news of the engagement was ill received by Francis and Charles. They
+became more ostentatiously friendly than ever; and their ambassadors in
+London were inseparable. When Marillac and the Emperor's temporary envoy
+went together to tell Cromwell that the Emperor was so confident of the
+friendship of Francis that he was riding through France from Spain to
+Flanders, the English minister quite lost his composure. He was informed,
+he told the ambassadors, that this meeting of the monarchs was "merely
+with the view to making war on this poor King (Henry), who aimed at
+nothing but peace and friendship." Ominous mutterings came, too, from
+Flanders at the scant courtesy Henry had shown in throwing over the match
+with the Duchess of Milan in the midst of the negotiation. Cromwell was
+therefore full of anxiety, whilst the elaborate preparations were being
+made in Calais and in England for the new Queen's reception. Not only was
+a fresh household to be appointed, the nobility and gentry and their
+retinues summoned, fine clothes galore ordered or enjoined for others, the
+towns on the way from Dover to be warned of the welcome expected from
+them, and the hundred details dependent upon the arrival and installation
+of the King's fourth wife, but Henry himself had to be carefully handled,
+to prevent the fears engendered by the attitude of his rivals causing him
+to turn to the party opposed to Cromwell before the Protestant marriage
+was effected.
+
+In the meanwhile, Anne with a great train of guards and courtiers, three
+hundred horsemen strong, rode from Dusseldorf towards Calais through
+Cleves, Antwerp, Bruges, and Dunkirk. It was ordered that Lord Lisle, Lord
+Deputy of Calais, should meet the Queen on the English frontier, near
+Gravelines, and that at St. Pierre, Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, who had a
+fleet of fifty sail in the harbour, should greet her in the name of his
+King, gorgeously dressed in blue velvet, smothered with gold embroidery,
+and faced with crimson satin, royal blue and crimson, the King's colours,
+in velvet, damask, and silk, being the universal wear, even of the sailors
+and men-at-arms. The aged Duke of Suffolk and the Lord Warden were to
+receive her on her landing at Dover; and at Canterbury she was to be
+welcomed and entertained by Archbishop Cranmer. Norfolk and a great
+company of armed nobles were to greet the new Queen on the downs beyond
+Rochester; whilst the Queen's household, with Lady Margaret Douglas, the
+King's niece, and the Duchess of Richmond, his daughter-in-law, were to
+join her at Deptford, and the whole vast and glittering multitude were to
+convey her thence to where the King's pavilions were erected for her
+reception at Blackheath.[195]
+
+In the midwinter twilight of early morning, on the 11th December 1539,
+Anne's cavalcade entered the English town of Calais, and during the long
+time she remained weather-bound there she was entertained as sumptuously
+as the nobles and townsmen could entertain her. The day she had passed
+through Dunkirk in the Emperor's dominions, just before coming to Calais,
+a sermon was preached against her and all Lutherans; but with that
+exception no molestation was offered to her. The ship that was to carry
+her over, dressed fore and aft with silken flags, streamers, and banners,
+was exhibited to her admiration by Fitzwilliam, royal salutes thundered
+welcome to her, bands of martial music clashed in her honour, and banquets
+and jousts were held to delight her.[196] Good sense and modesty were
+shown by her in many ways at this somewhat trying time. Her principal
+mentor, Chancellor Olsiliger, begged Fitzwilliam to advise her as to her
+behaviour; and she herself asked him to teach her some game of cards that
+the King of England usually played. He taught her a game which he calls
+"Sent, which she did learn with good grace and countenance"; and she then
+begged him to come to sup with her, and bring some noble folk with him to
+sit with her in the German way. He told her that this was not the fashion
+in England, but he accepted her invitation.
+
+Thus Anne began betimes to prepare for what she hoped--greatly
+daring--would be a happy married life in England; whilst the wind and the
+waves thundering outside the harbour forbade all attempt to convey the
+bride to her now expectant bridegroom. Henry had intended to keep
+Christmas with unusual state at Greenwich in the company of his new wife;
+but week after week slipped by, with the wind still contrary, and it was
+the 27th December before a happy change of weather enabled Anne to set
+sail for her new home. She had a stout heart, for the passage was a rough
+though rapid one. When she landed at Deal, and thence, after a short rest,
+was conducted in state to Dover Castle, the wind blew blusterously, and
+the hail and winter sleet drove "continually in her Grace's face"; but she
+would hear of no delay in her journey forward, "so desirous was her Grace
+of reaching the King's presence." At Canterbury the citizens received her
+with a great torchlight procession and peals of guns. "In her chamber were
+forty or fifty gentlewomen waiting to receive her in velvet bonnets; all
+of which she took very joyously, and was so glad to see the King's
+subjects resorting to her so lovingly, that she forgot all the foul
+weather and was very merry at supper."[197]
+
+And so, with an evident determination to make the best of everything, Anne
+rode onward, accompanied by an ever-growing cavalcade of sumptuously
+bedizened folk, through Sittingbourne, and so to Rochester, where she was
+lodged at the bishop's palace, and passed New Year's Day 1540. News daily
+reached the King of his bride's approach, whilst he remained consumed with
+impatience at Greenwich. At each successive stage of her journey forward
+supple courtiers had written to Henry glowing accounts of the beauty and
+elegance of the bride. Fitzwilliam from Calais had been especially
+emphatic, and the King's curiosity was piqued to see the paragon he was to
+marry. At length, when he knew that Anne was on the way from Sittingbourne
+to Rochester, and would arrive there on New Year's Eve, he told Cromwell
+that he himself, with an escort of eight gentlemen clad in grey, would
+ride to Rochester incognito to get early sight of his bride, "whom he
+sorely desired to see." He went, he said, "to nourish love"; and full of
+hopeful anticipation, Henry on a great courser ambled over Gad's Hill from
+Gravesend to Rochester soon after dawn on New Year's Day 1540, with Sir
+Anthony Browne, his Master of the Horse, on one side, and Sir John Russell
+on the other. It was in accordance with the chivalrous tradition that this
+should be done, and that the lady should pretend to be extremely surprised
+when she was informed who her visitor was; so that Anne must have made a
+fair guess as to what was coming when Sir Anthony Browne, riding a few
+hundred yards ahead of his master, entered her presence, and, kneeling,
+told her that he had brought a New Year's gift for her. When the courtier
+raised his eyes and looked critically upon the lady before him,
+experienced as he was in Henry's tastes, "he was never more dismayed in
+his life to see her so far unlike that which was reported."[198]
+
+Anne was about twenty-four years of age, but looked older, and her frame
+was large, bony, and masculine, which in the facial portraits that had
+been sent to Henry was not indicated, and her large, low-German features,
+deeply pitted with the ravages of smallpox, were, as Browne knew, the very
+opposite of the type of beauty which would be likely to stimulate a gross,
+unwholesome voluptuary of nearly fifty. So, with a sinking heart, he went
+back to his master, not daring to prepare him for what was before him by
+any hint of disparagement of the bride. As soon as Henry entered with
+Russell and Browne and saw for himself, his countenance fell, and he made
+a wry face, which those who knew him understood too well; and they
+trembled in their shoes at what was to come of it. He nevertheless greeted
+the lady politely, raising her from the kneeling position she had assumed,
+and kissed her upon the cheek, passing a few minutes in conversation with
+her about her long journey. He had brought with him some rich presents of
+sables and other furs; but he was "so marvellously astonished and abashed"
+that he had not the heart to give them to her, but sent them the next
+morning with a cold message by Sir Anthony Browne.
+
+In the night the royal barge had been brought round from Gravesend to
+Rochester, and the King returned to Greenwich in the morning by water. He
+had hardly passed another word with Anne since the first meeting, though
+they had supped together, and it was with a sulky, frowning face that he
+took his place in the shelter of his galley. Turning to Russell, he asked,
+"Do you think this woman so fair or of such beauty as report has made
+her?" Russell, courtier-like, fenced with the question by feigning to
+misunderstand it. "I should hardly take her to be fair," he replied, "but
+of brown complexion." "Alas!" continued the King, "whom should men trust?
+I promise you I see no such thing in her as hath been showed unto me of
+her, and am ashamed that men have so praised her as they have done. I like
+her not."[199] To Browne he was quite as outspoken. "I see nothing in
+this woman as men report of her," he said angrily, "and I am surprised
+that wise men should make such reports as they have done." Whereat Browne,
+who knew that his brother-in-law, Fitzwilliam, was one of the "wise men"
+referred to, scented danger and was silent. The English ladies, too, who
+had accompanied Anne on the road began to whisper in confidence to their
+spouses that Anne's manners were coarse, and that she would never suit the
+King's fastidious taste.
+
+But he who had most to lose and most to fear was Cromwell. It was he who
+had drawn and driven his master into the Protestant friendship against the
+Emperor and the Pope, of which the marriage was to be the pledge, and he
+had repeated eagerly for months the inflated praises of Anne's beauty sent
+by his agents and friends in order to pique Henry to the union. He knew
+that vigilant enemies of himself and his policy were around him, watching
+for their opportunity, Norfolk and the older nobles, the Pope's bishops,
+and, above all, able, ambitious Stephen Gardiner, now sulking at
+Winchester, determined to supplant him if he could. When, on Friday the
+2nd January, Henry entered his working closet at Greenwich after his water
+journey from Rochester, Cromwell asked him "how he liked the Lady Anne."
+The King answered gloomily, "Nothing so well as she was spoken of," adding
+that if he had known before as much as he knew then, she should never have
+come within his realm. In the grievous self-pity usual with him in his
+perplexity, he turned to Cromwell, the man hitherto so fertile in
+expedients, and wailed, "What is the remedy?"[200] Cromwell, for once at
+a loss, could only express his grief, and say he knew of none. In very
+truth it was too late now to stop the state reception; for preparations
+had been ordered for such a pageant as had rarely been seen in England.
+Cromwell had intended it for his own triumph, and as marking the
+completeness of his victory over his opponents. Once more ambition
+o'erleaped itself, and the day that was to establish Cromwell's supremacy
+sealed his doom.
+
+What Anne thought of the situation is not on record. She had seen little
+of the world, outside the coarse boorishness of a petty low-German court;
+she was neither educated nor naturally refined, and she probably looked
+upon the lumpishness of her lover as an ordinary thing. In any case, she
+bated none of her state and apparent contentment, as she rode gorgeously
+bedight with her great train towards Greenwich. At the foot of Shooter's
+Hill there had been erected an imposing pavilion of cloth of gold, and
+divers other tents warmed with fires of perfumed wood; and here a company
+of ladies awaited the coming of the Queen on Saturday, 3rd January 1540. A
+broad way was cleared from the pavilion, across Woolwich Common and
+Blackheath, for over two miles, to the gates of Greenwich Park; and the
+merchants and Corporation of London joined with the King's retinue in
+lining each side of this long lane. Cromwell had recently gained the
+goodwill of foreigners settled in London by granting them exemption from
+special taxation for a term of years, and he had claimed, as some return,
+that they should make the most of this day of triumph. Accordingly, the
+German merchants of the Steelyard, the Venetians, the Spaniards, the
+French, and the rest of them, donned new velvet coats and jaunty crimson
+caps with white feathers, each master with a smartly clad servant behind
+him, and so stood each side of the way to do honour to the bride at the
+Greenwich end of the route. Then came the English merchants, the
+Corporation of London, the knights and gentlemen who had been bidden from
+the country to do honour to their new Queen, the gentlemen pensioners, the
+halberdiers, and, around the tent, the nobler courtiers and Queen's
+household, all brave in velvet and gold chains.[201] Behind the ranks of
+gentlemen and servitors there was ample room and verge enough upon the
+wide heath for the multitudes who came to gape and cheer King Harry's new
+wife; more than a little perplexed in many cases as to the minimum amount
+of enthusiasm which would be accepted as seemly. Cromwell himself
+marshalled the ranks on either side, "running up and down with a staff in
+his hand, for all the world as if he had been a running postman," as an
+eye-witness tells us.
+
+It was midday before the Queen's procession rode down Shooter's Hill to
+the tents, where she was met by her official household and greeted with a
+long Latin oration which she did not understand, whilst she sat in her
+chariot. Then heartily kissing the great ladies sent to welcome her, she
+alighted and entered the tent to rest and warm herself over the perfumed
+fires, and to don even more magnificent raiment than that she wore. When
+she was ready for her bridegroom's coming she must have been a blaze of
+magnificence. She wore a wide skirt of cloth of gold with a raised pattern
+in bullion and no train, and her head was covered first with a close cap
+and then a round cap covered with pearls and fronted with black velvet;
+whilst her bodice was one glittering mass of precious stones. When swift
+messengers brought news that the King was coming, Anne mounted at the door
+of the tent a beautiful white palfrey; and surrounded by her servitors,
+each bearing upon his golden coat the black lion of Cleves, and followed
+by her train, she set forth to meet her husband.
+
+Henry, unwieldy and lame as he was with a running ulcer in the leg, was as
+vain and fond of pomp as ever, and outdid his bride in splendour. His coat
+was of purple velvet cut like a frock, embroidered all over with a flat
+gold pattern interlined with narrow gold braid, and with gold lace laid
+crosswise over it all. A velvet overcoat surmounted the gorgeous garment,
+lined also with gold tissue, the sleeves and breast held together with
+great buttons of diamonds, rubies, and pearls. His sword and belt were
+covered with emeralds, and his bonnet and under-cap were "so rich in
+jewels that few men could value them"; whilst across his shoulders he wore
+a baldrick, composed of precious stones and pearls, that was the wonder of
+all beholders. The fat giant thus bedizened bestrode a great war-horse
+to match, and almost equally magnificent; and, preceded by heralds and
+trumpeters, followed by the great officers, the royal household and the
+bishops, and accompanied by the Duke Philip of Bavaria, just betrothed to
+the Princess Mary, Henry rode through the long lane of his velvet-clad
+admirers to meet Anne, hard by the cross upon Blackheath. When she
+approached him, he doffed his jewelled bonnet and bowed low; and then
+embraced her, whilst she, with every appearance of delight and duty,
+expressed her pleasure at meeting him. Thus, together, with their great
+cavalcades united, over five thousand horsemen strong, they rode in the
+waning light of a midwinter afternoon to Greenwich; and, as one who saw it
+but knew not the tragedy that lurked behind the splendour, exclaimed, "Oh!
+what a sight was this to see, so goodly a Prince and so noble a King to
+ride with so fair a lady of so goodly a stature, and so womanly a
+countenance, and especial of so good qualities. I think that no creature
+could see them but his heart rejoiced."[202]
+
+
+[Illustration: _ANNE OF CLEVES_
+
+_From a portrait by a German artist in St. John's College, Oxford_]
+
+
+There was one heart, at all events, that did not rejoice, and that was
+Henry's. He went heavily through the ceremony of welcoming home his bride
+in the great hall at Greenwich, and then led her to her chamber; but no
+sooner had he got quit of her, than retiring to his own room he summoned
+Cromwell. "Well!" he said, "is it not as I told you? Say what they will,
+she is nothing like so fair as she was reported to be. She is well and
+seemly, but nothing else." Cromwell, confused, could only mumble something
+about her having a queenly manner. But Henry wanted a way out of his
+bargain rather than reconciliation to it; and he ordered Cromwell to
+summon the Council at once--Norfolk, Suffolk, Cromwell, Cranmer,
+Fitzwilliam, and Tunstal--to consider the prior engagement made between
+Anne and the Duke of Lorraine's son.[203] The question had already been
+discussed and disposed of, and the revival of it thus at the eleventh hour
+shows how desperate Henry was. The Council assembled immediately, and
+summoned the German envoys who had negotiated the marriage and were now in
+attendance on Anne. The poor men were thunderstruck at the point of an
+impediment to the marriage being raised then, and begged to be allowed to
+think the matter over till the next morning, Sunday. When they met the
+Council again in the morning, they could only protest that the prior
+covenant had only been a betrothal, which had never taken effect, and had
+been formally annulled. If there was any question about it, however, they
+offered to remain as prisoners in England until the original deed of
+revocation was sent from Cleves.
+
+When this answer was carried to Henry he broke out angrily that he was not
+being well treated, and upbraided Cromwell for not finding a loophole for
+escape. He did not wish to marry the woman, he said. "If she had not come
+so far, and such great preparations made, and for fear of making a ruffle
+in the world--of driving her brother into the hands of the Emperor and
+the French King--he never would marry her." Cromwell was apparently afraid
+to encourage him in the idea of repudiation, and said nothing; and after
+dinner the King again summoned the Council to his presence. To them he
+bitterly complained of having been deceived. Would the lady, he asked,
+make a formal protestation before notaries that she was free from all
+contracts? Of course she would, and did, as soon as she was asked; but
+Henry's idea in demanding this is evident. If she had refused it would
+give a pretext for delay, but if she did as desired, and by any quibble
+the prior engagement was found to be valid, her protestation to the
+contrary would be good grounds for a divorce. But still Henry would much
+rather not have married her at all. "Oh! is there no other remedy?" he
+asked despairingly on Monday, after Anne had made her protestation. "Must
+I needs against my will put my neck into the yoke?" Cromwell could give
+him no comfort, and left him gloomy at the prospect of going through the
+ceremony on the morrow. On Tuesday morning, when he was apparelled for the
+wedding, as usual in a blaze of magnificence of crimson satin and cloth of
+gold, Cromwell entered his chamber on business. "My lord," said Henry, "if
+it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do what I must
+do this day for any earthly thing." But withal he went through it as best
+he might, though with heavy heart and gloomy countenance, and the
+unfortunate bride, we are told, was remarked to be "demure and sad," as
+well she might be, when her husband and Cranmer placed upon her finger the
+wedding-ring with the ominous inscription, "God send me well to keep."
+
+Early the next morning Cromwell entered the King's chamber between hope
+and fear, and found Henry frowning and sulky. "How does your Grace like
+the Queen?" he asked. Henry grumblingly, and not quite relevantly, replied
+that he, Cromwell, was not everybody; and then he broke out, "Surely, my
+lord, as you know, I liked her not well before, but now I like her much
+worse." With an incredible grossness, and want of common decency, he then
+went into certain details of his wife's physical qualities that had
+disgusted him and turned him against her. He did not believe, from certain
+peculiarities that he described, that she was a maid, he said; but so far
+as he was concerned, he was so "struck to the heart" that he had left her
+as good a maid as he had found her.[204] Nor was the King more reticent
+with others. He was free with his details to the gentlemen of his chamber,
+Denny, Heneage, and others, as to the signs which it pleased him to
+consider suspicious as touching his wife's previous virtue, and protested
+that he never could, or would, consummate the marriage; though he
+professed later that for months after the wedding he did his best to
+overcome his repugnance, and lived constantly in contact with his wife.
+But he never lost sight of the hope of getting free. If he did not find
+means soon to do so, he said, he should have no more issue. His conscience
+told him--that tender conscience of his--that Anne was not his legal wife;
+and he turned to Cromwell for a remedy, and found none: for Cromwell knew
+that the breaking up of the Protestant union, upon which he had staked his
+future, would inevitably mean now the rise of his rivals and his own ruin.
+
+He fought stoutly for his position, though Norfolk and Gardiner were often
+now at the King's ear. His henchman, Dr. Barnes, who had gone to Germany
+as envoy during the marriage negotiations, was a Protestant, and in a
+sermon on justification by faith he violently attacked Gardiner. The
+latter, in spite of Cromwell and Cranmer, secured from the King an order
+that Barnes should humbly and publicly recant. He did so at Easter at the
+Spital, but at once repeated the offence, and he and two other clergymen
+who thought like him were burnt for heresy. Men began to shake their heads
+and look grave now as they spoke of Cromwell and Cranmer; but the
+Secretary stood sturdily, and in May seemed as if he would turn the tables
+upon his enemies. Once, indeed, he threatened the Duke of Norfolk roughly
+with the King's displeasure, and at the opening of Parliament he took the
+lead as usual, expressing the King's sorrow at the religious bitterness in
+the country, and demanding large supplies for the purposes of national
+defence.
+
+But, though still apparently as powerful as ever, and more than ever
+overbearing, he dared not yet propose to the King a way out of the
+matrimonial tangle. Going home to Austin Friars from the sitting of
+Parliament on the 7th June, he told his new colleague, Wriothesley, that
+the thing that principally troubled him was that the King did not like
+the Queen, and that his marriage had never been consummated. Wriothesley,
+whose sympathies were then Catholic, suggested that "some way might be
+devised for the relief of the King." "Ah!" sighed Cromwell, who knew what
+such a remedy would mean to him, "but it is a great matter." The next day
+Wriothesley returned to the subject, and begged Cromwell to devise some
+means of relief for the King: "for if he remained in this grief and
+trouble they should all smart for it some day." "Yes," replied Cromwell,
+"it is true; but it is a great matter." "Marry!" exclaimed Wriothesley,
+out of patience, "I grant that, but let a remedy be searched for." But
+Cromwell had no remedy yet but one that would ruin himself, and that he
+dared not propose, so he shook his head sadly and changed the
+subject.[205]
+
+The repudiation of Anne was, as Cromwell said, a far greater matter than
+at first sight appeared. The plan to draw into one confederation for the
+objects of England the German Protestants, the King of Denmark, and the
+Duke of Cleves, whose seizure of Guelderland had brought him in opposition
+to the Emperor, was the most threatening that had faced Charles for years.
+His own city of Ghent was in open revolt, and Francis after all was but a
+fickle ally. If once more the French King turned from him and made friends
+with the Turk and the Lutherans, then indeed would the imperial power have
+cause to tremble and Henry to rejoice. Cromwell had striven hard to cement
+the Protestant combination; but again and again he had been thwarted by
+his rivals. The passage of the Six Articles against his wish, although the
+execution of the Act was suspended at Cromwell's instance, had caused the
+gravest distrust on the part of Hans Frederick and the Landgrave of Hesse;
+and if Henry were encouraged to repudiate his German wife, not only would
+her brother--already in negotiation with the imperial agents for the
+investiture of Gueldres, and his marriage with the Emperor's niece, the
+Duchess of Milan--be at once driven into opposition to England, but Hans
+Frederick and Hesse would also abandon Henry to the tender mercies of his
+enemies.
+
+The only way to avoid such a disaster following upon the repudiation of
+Anne was first to drive a wedge of distrust between Charles and Francis,
+now in close confederacy. In January the Emperor had surprised the world
+by his boldness in traversing France to his Flemish dominions. He was
+feasted splendidly by Francis, and escaped unbetrayed; but during his stay
+in France desperate attempts were made by Wyatt, Henry's ambassador with
+Charles, Bonner, the ambassador in France, and by the Duke of Norfolk, who
+went in February on a special mission, to sow discord between the allied
+sovereigns, and not without some degree of success. Charles during his
+stay in France was badgered by Wyatt into saying some hasty words, which
+were deliberately twisted by Norfolk into a menace to France and England
+alike. Francis was reminded with irritating iteration that Charles had
+plenty of smiles and soft words for his French friends, but avoided
+keeping his promises about the cession of Milan or anything else. So in
+France those who were in favour of the imperial alliance, the
+Montmorencies and the Queen, declined in their hold over Francis, and
+their opponents, the Birons, the Queen of Navarre, Francis' sister, and
+the Duchess of Etampes, his mistress, planned with Henry's agents for an
+understanding with England. This, as may be supposed, was not primarily
+Cromwell's policy, but that of Norfolk and his friends, because its
+success would inevitably mean the conciliation of the German princes and
+Cleves by the Emperor, and the break-up of the Protestant confederacy and
+England, by which Cromwell must now stand or fall.
+
+As early as April, Marillac, the French ambassador in England, foretold
+the great change that was coming. The arrest of Barnes, Garrard, and
+Jerome, for anti-Catholic teaching, and the persecutions everywhere for
+those who offended ever so slightly in the same way, presaged Cromwell's
+fall. "Cranmer and Cromwell," writes Marillac, "do not know where they
+are. Within a few days there will be seen in this country a great change
+in many things, which this King begins to make in his ministers, recalling
+those he had disgraced, and degrading those he had raised. Cromwell is
+tottering: for all those now recalled were dismissed at his request, and
+bear him no little grudge--amongst others, the Bishops of Winchester
+(_i.e._ Gardiner), Durham, and Bath, men of great learning and experience,
+who are now summoned to the Privy Council. It is said that Tunstal (_i.e._
+Durham) will be Vicar-General, and Bath Privy Seal, which are Cromwell's
+principal offices.... If he holds his own (_i.e._ Cromwell), it will only
+be because of his close assiduity in business, though he is very rude in
+his demeanour. He does nothing without consulting the King, and is
+desirous of doing justice, especially to foreigners."
+
+This was somewhat premature, but it gives a good idea of the process that
+was going on. There is no doubt that Cromwell believed in his ability to
+keep his footing politically; for he was anything but rigid in his
+principles, and if the friendship with France initiated by his rivals had,
+as it showed signs of doing, developed into an alliance that would enable
+Henry both to dismiss his fears of the Emperor and throw over the
+Protestants, he would probably have accepted the situation, and have
+proposed a means for Henry to get rid of his distasteful wife. But this
+opportunism did not suit his opponents in Henry's Council. They wanted to
+get rid of the man quite as much as they did his policy; for his insolence
+had stung them to the quick, great nobles as most of them were, and he the
+son of a blacksmith. Some other means, therefore, than a mere change of
+policy was necessary to dislodge the strong man who guided the King.
+Parliament had met on the 12th April, and it was managed with Cromwell's
+usual boldness and success.[206] As if to mark that his great ability was
+still paramount, he was made Earl of Essex and Great Chamberlain of
+England in the following week.
+
+But the struggle in the Council, and around the King, continued unabated.
+Henry was warned by Cromwell's enemies of the danger of allowing religious
+freedom to be carried too far, and of thus giving the Catholic powers an
+excuse for executing the Pope's decree of deprivation against him. He was
+reminded that the Emperor and Francis were still friends, that the latter
+was suspiciously preparing for war, and that Henry's brother-in-law the
+Duke of Cleves' quarrel with the Emperor might drag England into war for
+the sake of a beggarly German dukedom of no importance or value to her. On
+the other hand, Cromwell would point out to Henry the disobedience and
+insolence of the Catholics who questioned his spiritual supremacy, and
+cause Churchmen who advocated a reconciliation with Rome to be imprisoned.
+Clearly such a position could not continue indefinitely, and Norfolk
+anticipated Cromwell by playing the final trump card--that of arousing
+Henry's personal fears. The word treason and a hint that anything could be
+intended against his person always brought Henry to heel. What the exact
+accusation against Cromwell was no one knows, though it was whispered at
+the time that the nobles had told Henry that Cromwell had amassed great
+stores of money and arms, and maintained a vast number of dependants (1500
+men, it was asserted, wore his livery), with a sinister object; some said
+to marry the Princess Mary and make himself King; and that he had received
+a great bribe from the Duke of Cleves and the Protestants to bring about
+the marriage of Anne. Others said that he had boasted that he was to
+receive a crown abroad from a foreign potentate (_i.e._, the Emperor), and
+that he had talked of defending the new doctrines at the sword's
+point.[207] No such accusations, however, are on official record; and
+there is no doubt that the real reason for his arrest was the animosity of
+the aristocratic and Catholic party against him, acting upon the King's
+fears and his desire to get rid of Anne of Cleves.
+
+On the 9th June Parliament was still sitting, discussing the religious
+question with a view to the settlement of some uniform doctrine. The Lords
+of the Council left the Chamber to go across to Whitehall to dinner before
+midday; and as they wended their way across the great courtyard of
+Westminster a high wind carried away Cromwell's flat cap from his head. It
+was the custom when one gentleman was even accidentally uncovered for
+those who were with him also to doff their bonnets. But, as an attendant
+ran and recovered Cromwell's flying headgear on that occasion, the haughty
+minister looked grimly round and saw all his colleagues, once so humble,
+holding their own caps upon their heads. "A high wind indeed must this
+be," sneered Cromwell, "to blow my cap off, and for you to need hold yours
+on." He must have known that ill foreboded; for during dinner no one spoke
+to him. The meal finished, Cromwell went to the Council Chamber with the
+rest, and, as was his custom, stood at a window apart to hear appeals and
+applications to him, and when these were disposed of he turned to the
+table to take his usual seat with the rest. On this occasion Norfolk
+stopped him, and told him that it was not meet that traitors should sit
+amongst loyal gentlemen. "I am no traitor!" shouted Cromwell, dashing his
+cap upon the ground; but the captain of the guard was at the door, and
+still protesting the wretched man was hurried to the Water Gate and rowed
+swiftly to the Tower, surrounded by halberdiers, Norfolk as he left the
+Council Chamber tearing off the fallen minister's badge of the Garter as a
+last stroke of ignominy.
+
+Cromwell knew he was doomed, for by the iniquitous Act that he himself had
+forged for the ruin of others, he might be attainted and condemned legally
+without his presence or defence. "Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!" he wrote to the
+King in his agony; but for him there was as little mercy as he had shown
+to others. His death was a foregone conclusion, for Henry's fears had been
+aroused: but Cromwell had to be kept alive long enough for him to furnish
+such information as would provide a plausible pretext for the repudiation
+of Anne. He was ready to do all that was asked of him--to swear to
+anything the King wished. He testified that he knew the marriage had never
+been consummated, and never would be; that the King was dissatisfied from
+the first, and had complained that the evidence of the nullification of
+the prior contract with the heir of Lorraine was insufficient; that the
+King had never given full consent to the marriage, but had gone through
+the ceremony under compulsion of circumstances, and with mental
+reservation. When all this was sworn to, Cromwell's hold upon the world
+was done. Upon evidence now unknown he was condemned for treason and
+heresy without being heard in his own defence, and on the 28th July 1540
+he stood, a sorry figure, upon the scaffold in the Tower. He had been a
+sinner, he confessed, and had travailed after the things of this world;
+but he fervently avowed that he was a good Catholic and no heretic, and
+had harboured no thought of evil towards his sovereign. But protestations
+availed not; and his head, the cleverest head in England, was pitiably
+hacked off by a bungling headsman. Before that happened, the repudiation
+of Anne of Cleves was complete, and a revival of the aristocratic and
+Catholic influence in England was an accomplished fact.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+1540-1542
+
+THE KING'S "GOOD SISTER" AND THE KING'S BAD WIFE--THE LUTHERANS AND
+ENGLISH CATHOLICS
+
+
+During her few months of incomplete wedlock with the King, Anne had felt
+uneasily the strange anomaly of her position. She accompanied Henry in his
+daily life at bed and board, and shared with him the various festivities
+held in celebration of the marriage; the last of which was a splendid
+tournament given by the bachelor courtiers at Durham House on May-day. She
+had studied English diligently, and tried to please her husband in a
+hundred well-meant but ungainly ways. She had by her jovial manner and
+real kindness of heart become very popular with those around her; but yet
+she got no nearer to the glum, bloated man by her side. In truth she was
+no fit companion for him, either physically or mentally. Her lack of the
+softer feminine charms, her homely manners, her lack of learning and of
+musical talent, on which Henry set so much store, were not counterbalanced
+by strong will or commanding ability which might have enabled her to
+dominate him, or by feminine craft by which he might have been captivated.
+
+She was a woman, however, and could not fail to know that her repudiation
+in some form was in the air. It was one of the accusations against
+Cromwell that he had divulged to her what the King had said about the
+marriage; but, so far from doing so, he had steadily avoided compliance
+with her oft-repeated requests for an interview with him. Shortly before
+Cromwell's fall, Henry had complained to him that Anne's temper was
+becoming tart; and then Cromwell thought well to warn her through her
+Chamberlain that she should try to please the King more. The poor woman,
+desirous of doing right, tactlessly flew to the other extreme, and her
+cloying fondness aroused Henry's suspicion that Cromwell had informed her
+of his intention to get rid of her. Anne's Lutheranism, moreover, had
+begun to grate upon the tender conscience of her husband under the
+prompting of the Catholic party; although she scrupulously followed the
+English ritual, and later became a professed Catholic; and to all these
+reasons which now made Henry doubly anxious for prompt release, was added
+another more powerful than any. One of Anne's maids of honour was a very
+beautiful girl of about eighteen, Katharine, the orphan daughter of Lord
+Edmund Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk, and consequently first
+cousin of Anne Boleyn. During the first months of his unsatisfying union
+with Anne, Henry's eyes must have been cast covetously upon Katharine; for
+in April 1540 she received a grant from him of a certain felon's property,
+and in the following month twenty-three quilts of quilted sarsnet were
+given to her out of the royal wardrobe. When Cromwell was still awaiting
+his fate in the Tower, and whispers were rife of what was intended against
+the Queen, Marillac the observant French ambassador wrote in cipher to
+his master, telling him that there was another lady in the case; and a
+week afterwards (6th July) he amplified his hints by saying that, either
+for that reason or some other, Anne had been sent to Richmond, on the
+false pretence that plague had appeared in London, and that Henry, very
+far from joining her there, as he had promised, had not left London, and
+was about to make a progress in another direction. Marillac rightly says
+that "if there had been any suspicion of plague, the King would not stay
+for any affair, however great, as he is the most timid person that could
+be in such a case."
+
+The true reason why Anne was sent away was Henry's invariable cowardice,
+that made him afraid to face a person whom he was wronging. Gardiner had
+promptly done what Cromwell had been ruined for not doing, and had
+submitted to the King within a few days of the arrest of his rival a
+complete plan by which Anne might be repudiated.[208] First certain
+ecclesiastics, under oath of secrecy, were to be asked for their opinion
+as to the best way to proceed, and the Council was thereupon to discuss
+and settle the procedure in accordance: the question of the previous
+contract and its repudiation was to be examined; the manner in which the
+Queen herself was to be approached was to be arranged, and evidence from
+every one to whom the King had spoken at the time as to his lack of
+consent and consummation was to be collected. All this had been done by
+the 7th July, when the clergy met at Westminster, summoned by writ under
+the great seal, dated the 6th, to decide whether the King's marriage was
+valid or not in the circumstances detailed. The obedient Parliament,
+sitting with closed doors, a few days previously had, by Norfolk's orders,
+petitioned the King to solve certain doubts that had been raised about the
+marriage, and Henry, ever desirous of pleasing his faithful lieges, and to
+set at rest conscientious scruples, referred the question to his prelates
+in Synod for decision.
+
+Anne, two days before this, summoned to Richmond the ambassador of her
+brother, who came to her at four o'clock in the morning; and she then sent
+for the Earl of Rutland, the chief of her household, to be present at the
+interview. The King, she said, had sent her a message and asked for a
+reply. The effect of the message was to express doubts as to the validity
+of their marriage, and to ask her if she was content to leave the decision
+of it to the English clergy. The poor woman, much perturbed, had refused
+to send an answer without consideration, and she had then desired that her
+brother's envoy should give, or at all events carry, the answer to the
+King, but this he refused to do; and she in her trouble could only appeal
+to Rutland for advice. He prated about the "graciousness and virtue" of
+the King, and assured her that he would "do nothing but that should stand
+by the law of God, and for the discharge of his conscience and hers, and
+the quietness of the realm, and at the suit of all his lords and commons."
+The King was content to refer the question to the learned and virtuous
+bishops, so that she had cause to be glad rather than sorry. Anne was
+confused and doubtful; for she did not know what was intended towards her.
+But, considering the helplessness of her position and the danger of
+resistance, she met the deputation of the Council that came to her next
+day (6th July) in a spirit of complete surrender. She was, she said in
+German, always content to obey the King, and would abide by the decision
+of the prelates; and with this answer Gardiner posted back to London that
+night, to appear at the Synod the next morning.
+
+Neither Anne, nor any one for her, appeared. The whole evidence, which was
+that already mentioned, was to show the existence of a prior contract, of
+the annulling of which no sufficient proofs had been produced, the avowals
+of the King and the Queen to their confidants that the marriage had never
+been consummated, and never would be; and, lastly, the absence of "inner
+consent" on the part of the King from the first. Under the pressure of
+Gardiner--for Cranmer, overshadowed by a cloud and in hourly fear of
+Cromwell's fate, was ready to sign anything--the union was declared to be
+invalid, and both parties were pronounced capable of remarriage. A Bill
+was then hurriedly rushed through Parliament confirming the decision of
+Convocation, and Cranmer, for the third time, as Primate, annulled his
+master's marriage. Anne was still profoundly disturbed at the fate that
+might be in store for her; and when Suffolk, Southampton, and Wriothesley
+went to Richmond on the 10th July to obtain her acceptance of the
+decision, she fainted at the sight of them. They did their best to
+reassure her, giving her from the King a large present of money and a
+specially affectionate letter. She was assured that if she would acquiesce
+and remain in the realm she should be the King's adopted sister, with
+precedence before all other ladies but the King's wife and daughters; a
+large appanage should be secured to her, and jewels, furniture, and the
+household of a royal princess provided for her. She was still doubtful;
+and some persuasion had to be used before she would consent to sign the
+letter dictated to her as the King's "sister"; but at last she did so, and
+was made to say that "though the case was hard and sorrowful, for the
+great love she bears to his noble person, yet, having more regard for God
+and His truth than for any worldly affection, she accepts the judgment,
+praying that the King will take her as one of his most humble servants,
+and so determine of her that she may sometimes enjoy his presence."
+
+This seemed almost too good to be true when Henry read it, and he insisted
+upon its being written and signed again in German, that Anne might not
+subsequently profess ignorance of its wording. When Anne, however, was
+asked to write to her brother, saying that she was fully satisfied, she at
+first refused. Why should she write to him before he wrote to her? she
+asked. If he sent a complaint, she would answer it as the King wished; but
+after a few days she gave way on this point when further pressed.[209] So
+delighted was Henry at so much submission to his will, that he was
+kindness and generosity itself. On the 14th July he sent the Councillors
+again to Richmond, with another handsome present and a letter to his
+"Right dear, and right entirely beloved sister," thanking her gratefully
+for her "wise and honourable proceedings." "As it is done in respect of
+God and His truth; and, continuing your conformity, you shall find us a
+perfect friend content to repute you as our dearest sister." He promised
+her L4000 a year, with the two royal residences of Richmond and
+Bletchingly, and a welcome at Court when she pleased to come. In return
+she sent him another amiable letter, and the wedding-ring; expressing
+herself fully satisfied. She certainly carried out her part of the
+arrangement to perfection, whether from fear or complaisance; assuring the
+envoys of her brother the Duke that she was well treated, as in a material
+sense indeed she was, and thenceforward made the best of her life in
+England.
+
+Her brother and the German Protestants were of course furiously
+indignant; but, as the injured lady expressed herself not only satisfied
+but delighted with her position, no ground could be found for open
+quarrel. She was probably a person of little refinement of feeling, and
+highly appreciated the luxury and abundance with which she thenceforward
+was surrounded, enjoying, as she always did, recreation and fine dress, in
+which she was distinguished above any of Henry's wives. On the day after
+the Synod had met in Westminster to decide the invalidity of the marriage
+(7th July), Pate, the English ambassador, saw the Emperor at Bruges, with
+a message from Henry which foreshadowed an entire change in the foreign
+policy of England. Charles received Pate at midnight, and was agreeably
+surprised to learn that conscientious scruples had made Henry doubt the
+validity of his union with Anne. The Emperor's stiff demeanour changed at
+once, and, as the news came day by day of the progress of the separation
+of Henry from his Protestant wife, the cordiality of the Emperor grew
+towards him,[210] whilst England itself was in full Catholic reaction.
+
+The fall of Cromwell had, as it was intended to do, provided Henry with a
+scapegoat. The spoliation and destruction of the religious houses, by
+which the King and many of the Catholic nobles had profited enormously,
+was laid to the dead man's door; the policy of plundering the Church, of
+union with Lutherans, and the favouring of heresy, had been the work of
+the wicked minister, and not of the good King--that ill-served and
+ungratefully-used King, who was always innocent, and never in the wrong,
+who simply differed from other good Catholics in his independence of the
+Bishop of Rome: merely a domestic disagreement. With such suave hypocrisy
+as this difficulties were soon smoothed over; and to prove the perfect
+sincerity with which Henry proceeded, Protestants like Barnes, Garrard,
+and Jerome were burnt impartially side by side with Catholics who did not
+accept the spiritual supremacy of Henry over the Church in England, such
+as Abell, Powell, Fetherstone, and Cook. The Catholic and aristocratic
+party in England had thus triumphed all along the line, by the aid of
+anti-Protestant Churchmen like Gardiner and Tunstal. Their heavy-handed
+enemy, Cromwell, had gone, bearing the whole responsibility for the past;
+the King had been flattered by exoneration from blame, and pleased by the
+release from his wife, so deftly and pleasantly effected. No one but
+Cromwell was to blame for anything: they were all good Catholics, whom the
+other Catholic powers surely could not attack for a paltry quarrel with
+the Pope; and, best of all, the ecclesiastical spoil was secured to them
+and their heirs for ever, for they all maintained the supremacy of the
+King in England, good Catholics though they were.
+
+But, withal, they knew that Henry must have some one close to him to keep
+him in the straight way.[211] The nobles were not afraid of Cranmer, for
+he kept in the background, and was a man of poor spirit; and, moreover,
+for the moment the danger was hardly from the reformers. The nobles had
+triumphed by the aid of Gardiner, and Gardiner was now the strong spirit
+near the King; but the aims of the nobles were somewhat different from
+those of Churchmen; and a Catholic bishop as the sole director of the
+national policy might carry them farther than they wished to go. Henry's
+concupiscence must therefore once more be utilised, and the woman upon
+whom he cast his eyes, if possible, made into a political instrument to
+forward the faction that favoured her. Gardiner was nothing loath, for he
+was sure of himself; but how eager Norfolk and his party were to take
+advantage of Henry's fancy for Katharine Howard, to effect her lodgment by
+his side as Queen, is seen by the almost indecent haste with which they
+began to spread the news of her rise, even before the final decision was
+given as to the validity of the marriage with Anne. On the 12th July a
+humble dependant of the Howards, Mistress Joan Bulmer (of whom more will
+be heard), wrote to Katharine, congratulating her upon her coming
+greatness, and begging for an office about her person: "for I trost the
+Quyne of Bretane wyll not forget her secretary."
+
+Less than a fortnight later (21st July) the French ambassador gives as a
+piece of gossip that Katharine Howard was already pregnant by the King,
+and that the marriage was therefore being hurried on. Exactly when or
+where the wedding took place is not known, but it was a private one, and
+by the 11th August Katharine was called Queen, and acknowledged as such by
+all the Court. On the 15th Marillac wrote that her name had been added to
+the prayers in the Church service, and that the King had gone on a hunting
+expedition, presumably accompanied by his new wife; whilst "Madame de
+Cleves, so far from claiming to be married, is more joyous than ever, and
+wears new dresses every day." Everybody thus was well satisfied except the
+Protestants.[212] Henry, indeed, was delighted with his tiny, sparkling
+girl-wife, and did his best to be a gallant bridegroom to her, though
+there was none of the pomp and splendour that accompanied his previous
+nuptials.[213] The autumn of 1540 was passed in a leisurely progress
+through the shires to Grafton, where most of the honeymoon was spent. The
+rose crowned was chosen by Henry as his bride's personal cognisance, and
+the most was made of her royal descent and connections by the enamoured
+King. "The King is so amorous of her," wrote Marillac in September, "that
+he cannot treat her well enough, and caresses her more than he did the
+others." Even thus early, however, whispers were heard of the King's
+fickleness. Once it was said that Anne of Cleves was pregnant by him, and
+he would cast aside Katharine in her favour, and shortly afterwards he
+refrained from seeing his new wife for ten days together, because of
+something she had done to offend him.
+
+The moral deterioration of Henry's character, which had progressed in
+proportion with the growing conviction of his own infallibility and
+immunity, had now reached its lowest depth. He was rapidly becoming more
+and more bulky; and his temper, never angelic, was now irascible in the
+extreme. His health was bad, and increasing age had made him more than
+ever impatient of contradiction or restraint, and no consideration but
+that of his own interest and safety influenced him. The policy which he
+adopted under the guidance of Gardiner and Norfolk was one of rigorous
+enforcement of the Six Articles, and, at the same time, of his own
+spiritual supremacy in England. All chance of a coalition of Henry with
+the Lutherans was now out of the question ("Squire Harry means to be God,
+and to do as pleases himself," said Luther at the time); and the Emperor,
+freed from that danger, and faced with the greater peril of a coalition of
+the French and Turks, industriously endeavoured to come to some _modus
+vivendi_ with his German electors. The rift between Charles and Francis
+was daily widening; and Henry himself was aiding the process to his full
+ability; for he knew that whilst they were disunited he was safe. But for
+the first time in his reign, except when he defied the Pope, he adopted a
+policy--probably his own and not that of his ministers--calculated to
+offend both the Catholic powers, whilst he was alienated from the
+reforming element on the Continent.
+
+By an Act of Parliament the ancient penal laws against foreign denizens
+were re-enacted, and all foreigners but established merchants were to be
+expelled the country; whilst alien merchants resident were to pay double
+taxation. The taxation of Englishmen, enormous under Cromwell, was now
+recklessly increased, with the set purpose of keeping the lieges poor,
+just as the atrocious religious executions were mainly to keep them
+submissive, and incapable of questioning the despot's will. But, though
+Englishmen might be stricken dumb by persecution, the expulsion or
+oppression of foreigners led to much acrimony and reprisals on the part
+both of the Emperor and Francis. An entirely gratuitous policy of
+irritation towards France on the frontier of Calais and elsewhere was also
+adopted, apparently to impress the Emperor, and for the satisfaction of
+Henry's arrogance, when he thought it might be safe to exercise it. The
+general drift of English policy at the time was undoubtedly to draw closer
+to the Emperor, not entirely to the satisfaction of the Duke of Norfolk,
+who was usually pro-French; but even here the oppressive Act against
+foreigners by which Henry hoped to show Charles that his friendship was
+worth buying made cordiality in the interim extremely difficult. When
+Chapuys in the Emperor's name remonstrated with the Council about the new
+decree forbidding the export of goods from England except in English
+bottoms, the English ministers rudely said that the King could pass what
+laws he liked in his own country, just as the Emperor could in his.
+Charles and his sister, the Regent of the Netherlands, took the hint, and
+utterly astounded Henry by forbidding goods being shipped in the
+Netherlands in English vessels.
+
+The danger was understood at once. Not only did this strike a heavy blow
+at English trade, but it upset the laboriously constructed pretence of
+close communion with the Emperor which had been used to hoodwink the
+French. Henry himself bullied and hectored, as if he was the first injured
+party; and then took Chapuys aside in a window-bay and hinted at an
+alliance. He said that the French were plotting against the Emperor, and
+trying to gain his (Henry's) support, which, however, he would prefer to
+give to the Emperor if he wished for it. Henry saw, indeed, that he had
+drawn the bow too tight, and was ready to shuffle out of the position into
+which his own arrogance had led him. So Gardiner was sent in the winter
+to see the Emperor with the King's friend Knyvett, who was to be the new
+resident ambassador; the object of the visit being partly to impress the
+French, and partly to persuade Charles of Henry's strict Catholicism, and
+so to render more difficult any such agreement being made as that aimed at
+by the meeting at Worms between the Lutheran princes and their suzerain.
+Gardiner's mission was not very successful, for Charles understood the
+move perfectly; but it was not his policy then to alienate Henry, for he
+was slowly maturing his plans for crushing France utterly, and hoped
+whilst Catholic influence was paramount in England to obtain the help or
+at least the neutrality of Henry.
+
+The fall of Cromwell had been hailed by Catholics in England as the
+salvation of their faith, and high hopes had attended the elevation of
+Gardiner. But the crushing taxation, the arbitrary measures, and, above
+all, the cruel persecution of those who, however slightly, questioned the
+King's spiritual supremacy, caused renewed discontent amongst the extreme
+Catholics, who still looked yearningly towards Cardinal Pole and his
+house. It is not probable that any Yorkist conspiracy existed in England
+at the time; the people were too much terrified for that; but Henry's
+ambassadors and agents in Catholic countries had been forced sometimes to
+dally with the foreign view of the King's supremacy, and Gardiner, whose
+methods were even more unscrupulous than those of Cromwell, suddenly
+pounced upon those of Henry's ministers who might be supposed to have come
+into contact with the friends of the House of York. Pate, the English
+ambassador with the Emperor, was suspicious, and escaped to Rome; but Sir
+Thomas Wyatt, who had been the ambassador in Spain, was led to the Tower
+handcuffed with ignominy; Dr. Mason, another ambassador, was also lodged
+in the fortress, at the suggestion of Bonner. Even Sir Ralph Sadler, one
+of the Secretaries of State, was imprisoned for a short time, whilst Sir
+John Wallop, the ambassador in France, was recalled and consigned to a
+dungeon, as was Sir Thomas Palmer, Knight Porter of Calais, and others;
+though most of them were soon afterwards pardoned at the instance of
+Katharine Howard. In the early spring of 1541 an unsuccessful attempt was
+made at a Catholic rising in Yorkshire, where the feeling was very bitter;
+and though the revolt was quickly suppressed, it was considered a good
+opportunity for striking terror into those who still doubted the spiritual
+supremacy of Henry, and resented the plunder of the monasteries. The
+atrocious crime was perpetrated of bringing out the mother of Pole, the
+aged Countess of Salisbury, last of the Plantagenets, from her prison in
+the Tower to the headsman's block. Lord Leonard Gray was a another
+blameless victim, whilst Lord Dacre of the South was, on a trumped-up
+charge of murder, hanged like a common malefactor at Tyburn. Lord Lisle,
+Henry's illegitimate uncle, was also kept in the Tower till his death.
+
+When the reign of terror had humbled all men to the dust, the King could
+venture to travel northward with the purpose of provoking and subjecting
+his nephew, the King of Scots, the ally of France. All this seems to
+point to the probability that at this time (1541) Henry had decided to
+take a share on the side of the Emperor in the war which was evidently
+looming between Charles and Francis. He was broken and fretful, but his
+vanity and ambition were still boundless; and Gardiner, whose policy, and
+not Norfolk's, it undoubtedly was, would easily persuade him that an
+alliance in war with Charles could not fail to secure for him increased
+consideration and readmission into the circle of Catholic nations, whilst
+retaining his own supremacy unimpaired. Henry's pompous progress in the
+North, accompanied by Katharine, occupied nearly five months, till the end
+of October. How far the young wife was influential in keeping Henry to the
+policy just described it is impossible to say, but beyond acquiescence in
+an occasional petition or hint, it is difficult to believe that the
+elderly, self-willed man would be moved by the thoughtless, giddy girl
+whom he had married. If the opposite had been the case, Norfolk's
+traditions and leanings would have been more conspicuous than they are in
+Henry's actions at the time. It is true that, during the whole period, a
+pretence of cordial negotiation was made for a marriage between Princess
+Mary and a French prince, but it is certain now, whatever Norfolk may have
+thought at the time, that the negotiation was solely in order to stimulate
+Charles to nearer approach, and to mislead Francis whilst the English
+preparations for war and the strengthening of the garrisons towards France
+and Scotland went steadily on.
+
+An alliance with the Emperor in a war with France was evidently the policy
+upon which Henry, instigated by his new adviser, now depended to bring
+him back with flying colours into the comity of Catholic sovereigns,
+whilst bating no jot of his claims to do as he chose in his own realm.
+Such a policy was one after Henry's own heart. It was showy and tricky,
+and might, if successful, cover him with glory, as well as redound greatly
+to his profit in the case of the dismemberment of France. But it would
+have been impossible whilst the union symbolised by the Cleves marriage
+existed; and, seen by this light, the eagerness of Gardiner to find a way
+for the King to dismiss the wife who had personally repelled him is easily
+understood, as well as Cromwell's disinclination to do so. The
+encouragement of the marriage with Katharine Howard, part of the same
+intrigue, was still further to attach the King to its promoters, and the
+match was doubtless intended at the same time to conciliate Norfolk and
+the nobles whilst Gardiner carried through his policy. We shall see that,
+either by strange chance or deep design, those who were opposed to this
+policy were the men who were instrumental in shattering the marriage that
+was its concomitant.
+
+Henry and his consort arrived at Hampton Court from the North on the 30th
+October 1541, and to his distress he found his only son, Edward, seriously
+ill of quartan fever. All the physicians within reach were summoned, and
+reported to the anxious father that the child was so fat and unhealthy as
+to be unlikely to live long. The King had now been married to Katharine
+for fifteen months, and there were no signs of probable issue. Strange
+whispers were going about on back stairs and ante-chambers with regard to
+the Queen's proceedings. She was known to have been a giddy, neglected
+girl before her marriage, having been brought up by her grandmother, the
+Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, without the slightest regard for her welfare
+or the high rank of her family; and her confidants in a particularly
+dissolute Court were many and untrustworthy. The King, naturally, was the
+last person to hear the malicious tittle-tattle of jealous waiting-maids
+and idle pages about the Queen; and though his wife's want of reserve and
+dignity often displeased him, he lived usually upon affectionate terms
+with her. There was other loose talk, also, going on to the effect that on
+one of the visits of Anne of Cleves to Hampton Court after Henry's
+marriage with Katharine, the King and his repudiated wife had made up
+their differences, with the consequence that Anne was pregnant by him. It
+was not true; though later it gave much trouble both to Henry and Anne,
+but it lent further support to the suggestions that were already being
+made that the King would dismiss Katharine and take Anne back again. The
+air was full of such rumours, some prompted, as we shall see, by personal
+malice, others evidently by the opponents of Gardiner's policy, which was
+leading England to a war with France and a close alliance with the
+imperial champion of Catholicism.
+
+On the 2nd November, Henry, still in distress about the health of his son,
+attended Mass, as usual, in the chapel at Hampton Court,[214] and as he
+came out Cranmer prayed for a private interview with him. The archbishop
+had for many months been in the background, for Gardiner would brook no
+competition; but Cranmer was personally a favourite with the
+King,--Cromwell said once that Henry would forgive him anything,--and when
+they were alone Cranmer put him in possession of a shameful story that a
+few days before had been told to him, which he had carefully put into
+writing; and, after grave discussion with the Earl of Hertford (Seymour)
+and the Lord Chancellor (Audley), had determined to hand to the King. The
+conjunction of Cranmer, Seymour, and Audley, as the trio that thought it
+their duty to open Henry's eyes to the suspicions cast upon his wife, is
+significant. They were all of them in sympathy with the reformed religion,
+and against the Norfolk and Gardiner policy; and it is difficult to escape
+from the conclusion that, however true may have been the statements as to
+Katharine's behaviour, and there is no doubt that she was guilty of much
+that was laid to her charge, the enlightenment of Henry as to her life
+before and after marriage was intended to serve the political and
+religious ends of those who were instrumental in it.
+
+The story as set forth by Cranmer was a dreadful one. It appears that a
+man named John Lascelles, who was a strong Protestant, and had already
+foretold the overthrow of Norfolk and Gardiner,[215] went to Cranmer and
+said that he had been visiting in Sussex a sister of his, whose married
+name was Hall. She had formerly been in the service of the Howard family
+and of the Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, in whose houses Katharine Howard
+had passed her neglected childhood; and Lascelles, recalling the fact,
+had, he said, recommended his sister to apply to the young Queen, whom she
+had known so intimately as a girl, for a place in the household. "No,"
+replied the sister, "I will not do that; but I am very sorry for her."
+"Why are you sorry for her?" asked Lascelles. "Marry," quoth she, "because
+she is light, both in living and conditions" (_i.e._ behaviour). The
+brother asked for further particulars, and, thus pressed, Mary Hall
+related that "one Francis Derham had lain in bed with her, and between the
+sheets in his doublet and hose, a hundred nights; and a maid in the house
+had said that she would lie no longer with her (Katharine) because she
+knew not what matrimony was. Moreover, one Mannock, a servant of the
+Dowager-Duchess, knew and spoke of a private mark upon the Queen's body."
+This was the document which Cranmer handed to the King, "not having the
+heart to say it by word of mouth": and it must be admitted that as it was
+only a bit of second-hand scandal, without corroboration, and could not
+refer to any period subsequent to Katharine's marriage, it did not amount
+to much. Henry is represented as having been inclined to make light of it,
+which was natural, but he nevertheless summoned Fitzwilliam (Southampton),
+Lord Russell (Lord Admiral), Sir Anthony Browne, and Wriothesley, and
+deputed to them the inquiry into the whole matter. Fitzwilliam hurried to
+London and then to Sussex to examine Lascelles and his sister, whilst the
+others were sent to take the depositions of Derham, who was now in
+Katharine's service, and was ordered to be apprehended on a charge of
+piracy in Ireland sometime previously, and Mannock, who was a musician in
+the household of the Duchess.
+
+On the 5th November the ministers came to Hampton Court with the shocking
+admissions which they had extracted from the persons examined. Up to that
+time Henry had been gay, and had thought little of the affair, but now,
+when he heard the statements presented to him, he was overcome with grief:
+"his heart was pierced with pensiveness," we are told, "so that it was
+long before he could utter his sorrow, and finally with copious tears,
+which was strange in his courage, opened the same." The next day, Sunday,
+he met Norfolk and the Lord Chancellor secretly in the fields, and then
+with the closest privacy took boat to London without bidding farewell to
+Katharine, leaving in the hands of his Council the unravelling of the
+disgraceful business.
+
+The story, pieced together from the many different depositions,[216] and
+divested of its repetitions and grossness of phraseology, may be
+summarised as follows. Katharine, whose mother had died early, had grown
+up uncared for in the house of her grandmother at Horsham in Norfolk, and
+later at Lambeth; apparently living her life in common with the
+women-servants. Whilst she was yet quite a child, certainly not more than
+thirteen, probably younger, Henry Mannock, one of the Duchess's musicians,
+had taught her to play the virginals; and, as he himself professed, had
+fallen in love with her. The age was a licentious one; and the maids,
+probably to disguise their own amours, appear to have taken a sport in
+promoting immoral liberties between the orphan girl and the musician,
+carrying backwards and forwards between the ill-matched pair tokens and
+messages, and facilitating secret meetings at untimely hours: and Mannock
+deposed unblushingly to have corrupted the girl systematically and
+shamefully, though not criminally. On one occasion the old Duchess found
+this scamp hugging her granddaughter, and in great anger she beat the
+girl, upbraided the musician, and forbade such meetings for the future.
+Mary Hall, who first gave the information, represents herself as having
+remonstrated indignantly with Mannock for his presumption in pledging his
+troth, as one of the other women told her he had, with Katharine. He
+replied impudently that all he wanted of the girl was to seduce her, and
+he had no doubt he should succeed in doing so, seeing the liberties she
+had already permitted him to take with her. Mary Hall said that she had
+warned him that the Howards would kill or ruin him if he did not take
+care. Katharine, according to Mary Hall's tale, when told of Mannock's
+impudent speech, had angrily said that she cared nothing for him; but he
+managed the next time he saw her, by her own contrivance, to persuade her
+that he was so much in love as not to know what he said.
+
+Before long, however, a more dangerous lover, because one of better rank,
+appeared in the field, and spoilt Mannock's game. This was Francis Derham,
+a young gentleman of some means in the household of the Duke of Norfolk,
+of whom he seems to have been a distant connection. In his own confession
+he boldly admitted that he was in love with Katharine, and had promised
+her marriage. The old Duchess always had the keys of the maids' dormitory,
+where Katharine also slept, brought to her chamber after the doors were
+locked; but means were found by the women to laugh at locksmiths, and the
+most unbridled licence prevailed amongst them. Derham, with the lovers of
+two of the women, used to obtain access almost nightly to the dormitory,
+where they remained feasting and rioting until two or three in the
+morning: and there can remain little doubt that, on the promise of
+marriage, Derham practically lived with Katharine as his wife thus
+clandestinely, for a considerable period, whilst she was yet very young.
+Mannock, who found himself supplanted, thereupon wrote an anonymous letter
+to the Duchess and left it in her pew at chapel, saying that if her Grace
+would rise again an hour after she had retired and visit the gentlewomen's
+chamber she would see something that would surprise her. The old lady, who
+was not free from reproach in the matter herself, railed and stormed at
+the women; and Katharine, who was deeply in love with Derham, stole the
+anonymous letter from her grandmother's room and showed it to him,
+charging Mannock with having written it. The result, of course, was a
+quarrel, and the further enlightenment of the Duchess with regard to her
+granddaughter's connection with Derham. The old lady herself was
+afterwards accused of having introduced Derham into her own household for
+the purpose of forwarding a match between him and Katharine; and finally
+got into great trouble and danger by seizing and destroying Derham's
+papers before the King's Council could impound them: but when she learnt
+the lengths to which the immoral connection had been carried, and the
+shameful licentiousness that had accompanied it, she made a clean sweep of
+the servants inculpated, and brought her granddaughter to live in Lambeth
+amongst a fresh set of people.
+
+There is no doubt that Katharine and Derham were secretly engaged to be
+married, and, apart from the immoral features of the engagement, no very
+great objection could have been taken to it. She was a member of a very
+large family, an orphan with no dower or prospects, and her marriage with
+Derham, who was a sort of relative, would have been not a glaringly
+unequal one. With lover-like alacrity he provided her with the feminine
+treasures which she coveted, but which her lack of means prevented her
+from buying. Artificial flowers, articles of dress, or materials for them,
+trinkets and adornments, not to speak of the delicacies which he brought
+to furnish forth the tables during the nightly orgy. He had made no great
+secret of his engagement to, and intention of marrying Katharine, and had
+shown various little tokens of her troth that she had given him. On one
+of his piratical raids, moreover, he had handed to her the whole of his
+money, as to his affianced wife, and told her she might keep it if he came
+not back, whilst on other occasions he had exercised his authority, as her
+betrothed, to chide her for her attentions to others. When at last the old
+Duchess learnt fully of the immoral proceedings that had been going on,
+Katharine got another severe beating, and Derham fled from the vengeance
+of the Howards. After the matter had blown over, and Katharine was living
+usually at Lambeth, Derham found his way back, and attempted clandestinely
+to renew the connection. But Katharine by this time was older and more
+experienced, as beseemed a lady at Court. It was said that she was
+affianced to her cousin, Thomas Culpeper; but in any case she indignantly
+refused to have anything to do with Derham, and hotly resented his claim
+to interfere in her affairs.
+
+So far the disclosures referred solely to misconduct previous to
+Katharine's marriage with the King, and, however reprehensible this may
+have been, it only constructively became treason _post facto_, by reason
+of the concealment from the King of his wife's previous immoral life;
+whereby the royal blood was "tainted," and he himself injured. Cranmer was
+therefore sent to visit Katharine with orders to set before her the
+iniquity of her conduct and the penalty prescribed by the law; and then to
+promise her the King's mercy on certain conditions. The poor girl was
+frantic with grief and fear when the Primate entered; and he in compassion
+spared her the first parts of his mission, and began by telling her of
+her husband's pity and clemency. The reaction from her deadly fear sent
+her into greater paroxysms than ever of remorse and regret. "This sudden
+mercy made her offences seem the more heinous." "This was about the hour"
+(6 o'clock), she sobbed, "that Master Heneage was wont to bring me
+knowledge of his Grace." The promise of mercy may or may not have been
+sincere; but it is evident that the real object of Cranmer's visit was to
+learn from Katharine whether the betrothal with Derham was a binding
+contract. If that were alleged in her defence the marriage with the King
+was voidable, as that of Anne of Cleves was for a similar cause; and if,
+by reason of such prior contract, Katharine had never legally been Henry's
+wife, her guilt was much attenuated, and she and her accomplices could
+only be punished for concealment of fact to the King's detriment, a
+sufficiently grave crime, it is true, in those days, but much less grave
+if Katharine was never legally Henry's wife. It may therefore have seemed
+good policy to offer her clemency on such conditions as would have
+relieved him of her presence for ever, with as little obloquy as possible,
+but other counsels eventually prevailed. Orders were given that she was to
+be sent to Sion House, with a small suite and no canopy of state, pending
+further inquiry; whilst the Lord Chancellor, Councillors, peers, bishops,
+and judges were convened on the 12th November, and the evidence touching
+the Queen laid before them. It was decided, however, that Derham should
+not be called, and that all reference to a previous contract of marriage
+should be suppressed. On the following Sunday the whole of the Queen's
+household was to be similarly informed of the offences and their gravity,
+and to them also no reference to a prior engagement that might serve to
+lighten the accusations or their own responsibility was to be made.
+
+Katharine Howard's fate if the matter had ended here would probably have
+been divorce on the ground of her previous immorality "tainting the royal
+blood," and lifelong seclusion; but in their confessions the men and women
+involved had mentioned other names; and on the 13th November, the day
+before Katharine was to be taken to Sion, the scope of the inquiry
+widened. Mannock in his first examination on the 5th November had said
+that Mistress Katharine Tylney, the Queen's chamberwoman, a relative of
+the old Duchess, could speak as to Katharine's early immoral life; and
+when this lady found herself in the hands of Wriothesley she told some
+startling tales. "Did the Queen leave her chamber any night at Lincoln or
+elsewhere during her recent progress with the King?" "Yes, her Majesty had
+gone on two occasions to Lady Rochford's[217] room, which could be reached
+by a little pair of back stairs near the Queen's apartment." Mrs. Tylney
+and the Queen's other attendant, Margery Morton, had attempted to
+accompany their mistress, but had been sent back. Mrs. Tylney had obeyed,
+and had gone to bed; but Margery had crept back up the stairs again to
+Lady Rochford's room. About two o'clock in the morning Margery came to bed
+in the same dormitory as the other maids. "Jesu! is not the Queen abed
+yet?" asked the surprised Tylney, as she awoke. "Yes," in effect, replied
+Margery, "she has just retired." On the second occasion Katharine sent the
+rest of her attendants to bed and took Tylney with her to Lady Rochford's
+room, but the maid, with Lady Rochford's servant, were shut up in a small
+closet, and not allowed to see who came into the principal apartments.
+But, nevertheless, her suspicions were aroused by the strange messages
+with which she was sent by Katharine to Lady Rochford: "so strange that
+she knew not how to utter them." Even at Hampton Court lately, as well as
+at Grimsthorpe during the progress, she had been bidden by the Queen to
+ask Lady Rochford "when she should have the thing she promised her," the
+answer being that she (Lady Rochford) was sitting up for it, and would
+bring the Queen word herself.
+
+Then Margery Morton was tackled by Sir Anthony Browne. She had never
+mistrusted the Queen until the other day, at Hatfield, "when she saw her
+Majesty look out of the window to Mr. Culpeper in such sort that she
+thought there was love between them." Whilst at Hatfield the Queen had
+given orders that none of her attendants were to enter her bedroom unless
+they were summoned. Margery, too, had been sent on mysterious secret
+errands to Lady Rochford, which she could not understand, and, with others
+of the maids, had considered herself slighted by the Queen's preference
+for Katharine Tylney and for those who owed their position to Lady
+Rochford; which lady, she said, she considered the principal cause of the
+Queen's folly. Thus far there was nothing beyond the suspicions of jealous
+women, but Lady Rochford was frightened into telling a much more damning
+story, though she tried to make her own share in it as light as possible.
+The Queen, she confessed, had had many interviews in her rooms with
+Culpeper--at Greenwich, Lincoln, Pontefract, York, and elsewhere--for many
+months past; but as Culpeper stood at the farther end of the room with his
+foot upon the top of the back stairs, so as to be ready to slip down in
+case of alarm, and the Queen talked to him at the door, Lady Rochford
+professed to be ignorant of what passed between them. One night, she
+recalled, the Queen and herself were standing at the back door at eleven
+at night, when a watchman came with a lantern and locked the door. Shortly
+afterwards, however, Culpeper entered the room, saying that he and his
+servant had picked the lock. Since the first suspicion had been cast upon
+the Queen by Lascelles, Katharine, according to Lady Rochford, had
+continually asked after Culpeper. "If that matter came not out she feared
+nothing," and finally, Lady Rochford, although professing to have been
+asleep during some of Culpeper's compromising visits, declared her belief
+that criminal relations had existed between him and the Queen:
+
+Culpeper, according to the depositions,[218] made quite a clean breast of
+it, though what means were adopted for making him so frank is not clear.
+Probably torture, or the threat of it, was resorted to, since Hertford,
+Riche, and Audley had much to do with the examinations;[219] whilst even
+the Duke of Norfolk and Wriothesley, not to appear backward in the King's
+service, were as anxious as their rivals to make the case complete.
+Culpeper was a gentleman of great estate in Kent and elsewhere, holding
+many houses and offices; a gentleman of the chamber, clerk of the armoury,
+steward and keeper of several royal manors; and he had received many
+favours from the King, with whom he ordinarily slept. He deposed to and
+described many stolen interviews with Katharine, all apparently after the
+previous Passion Week (1541), when the Queen, he said, had sent for him
+and given him a velvet cap. Lady Rochford, according to his statement, was
+the go-between, and arranged all the assignations in her apartments,
+whilst the Queen, whenever she reached a house during the progress, would
+make herself acquainted with the back doors and back stairs, in order to
+facilitate the meetings. At Pontefract she thought the back door was being
+watched by the King's orders, and Lady Rochford caused her servant to
+keep a counter watch. On one occasion, he said, the Queen had hinted that
+she could favour him as a certain lady of the Court had favoured Lord
+Parr; and when Culpeper said he did not think that the Queen was such a
+lady as the one mentioned, she had replied, "Well, if I had tarried still
+in the maidens' chamber I would have tried you;" and on another occasion
+she had warned him that if he confessed, even when he was shriven, what
+had passed between them, the King would be sure to know, as he was the
+head of the Church. Culpeper's animus against Lady Rochford is evident.
+She had provoked him much, he said, to love the Queen, and he intended to
+do ill with her. Evidence began to grow, too, that not only was Derham
+admittedly guilty with the Queen before marriage, but that suspicious
+familiarity had been resumed afterwards. He himself confessed that he had
+been more than once in the Queen's private apartment, and she had given
+him various sums of money, warning him to heed what he said; which, truth
+to tell, he had not done, according to other deponents.
+
+Everybody implicated in the scandals was imprisoned, mostly in the Tower,
+several members of the house of Howard being put under guard; and Norfolk,
+trembling for his own position, showed as much zeal as any one to condemn
+his unfortunate niece. He knew, indeed, at this time that he had been used
+simply as a catspaw in the advances towards France, and complained
+bitterly that the match he had secretly suggested between the Princess
+Mary and the Duke of Orleans was now common talk, which gave ground for
+his enemies who were jealous of him to denounce him to the King as
+wishing to embrace all great affairs of State. It is clear that at this
+period it was not only the Protestants who were against Norfolk, but his
+own colleagues who were planning the alliance with the Emperor; which to
+some extent explains why such men as Wriothesley, Fitzwilliam, and Browne
+were so anxious to make the case of Katharine and her family look as black
+as possible, and why Norfolk aided them so as not to be left behind. When,
+on the 15th December, the old Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, his stepmother,
+his half-brother, Lord William Howard and his wife, and his sister, Lady
+Bridgewater, were imprisoned on the charge of having been privy to
+Katharine's doings before marriage, the Duke wrote as follows to the King:
+"I learnt yesterday that mine ungracious mother-in-law, mine unhappy
+brother and his wife, and my lewd sister of Bridgewater were committed to
+the Tower; and am sure it was not done but for some false proceeding
+against your Majesty. Weighing this with the abominable deeds done by my
+two nieces (_i.e._ Katharine Howard and Anne Boleyn), and the repeated
+treasons of many of my kin, I fear your Majesty will abhor to hear speak
+of me or my kin again. Prostrate at your Majesty's feet, I remind your
+Majesty that much of this has come to light through my own report of my
+mother-in-law's words to me, when I was sent to Lambeth to search Derham's
+coffers. My own truth, and the small love my mother-in-law and nieces bear
+me, make me hope; and I pray your Majesty for some comfortable assurance
+of your royal favour, without which I will never desire to live.
+Kenninghall Lodge, 15th December 1541."[220]
+
+On the 1st December, Culpeper and Derham had been arraigned before a
+special Commission in Guildhall, accused of treason.[221] The indictment
+set forth that before her marriage Katharine had "led an abominable, base,
+carnal, voluptuous, and vicious life, like a common harlot ... whilst, at
+other times, maintaining an appearance of chastity and honesty. That she
+led the King to love her, believing her to be pure, and arrogantly coupled
+with him in marriage." That upon her and Derham being charged with their
+former vicious life, they had excused themselves by saying that they were
+betrothed before the marriage with the King; which betrothal they falsely
+and traitorously concealed from the King when he married her. After the
+marriage they attempted to renew their former vicious courses at
+Pontefract and elsewhere, the Queen having procured Derham's admission
+into her service, and entrusted secret affairs to him. Against Culpeper
+it was alleged that he had held secret and illicit meetings with the
+Queen, who had "incited him to have intercourse with her, and insinuated
+to him that she loved him better than the King and all others. Similarly
+Culpeper incited the Queen, and they had retained Lady Rochford as their
+go-between, she having traitorously aided and abetted them."
+
+It will be noticed that actual adultery is not alleged, and the indictment
+follows very closely the deposition of the witnesses. The _liaison_ with
+Derham before the marriage was not denied; nor were the meetings with
+Culpeper after the marriage. This and the concealment were sufficient for
+the King's purpose, without adding to his ignominy by labouring to prove
+the charge of adultery.[222] After pleading not guilty, the two men,
+in face of the evidence and their own admissions, changed their plea to
+guilty, and were promptly condemned to be drawn through London to Tyburn,
+"and there hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled, and, they still living,
+their bowels burnt, the bodies then to be beheaded and quartered:" a
+brutal sentence that was carried out to the letter in Derham's case only,
+on the 10th December, Culpeper being beheaded.
+
+
+[Illustration: _KATHARINE HOWARD_
+
+_From a portrait by an unknown artist in the National Portrait Gallery_]
+
+
+Although the procedure had saved the King as much humiliation as possible,
+the affair was a terrible blow to his self-esteem as well as to his
+affections; for he seems to have been really fond of his young wife.
+Chapuys, writing on the 3rd December, says that he shows greater sorrow at
+her loss than at any of his previous matrimonial misfortunes. "It is like
+the case of the woman who cried more bitterly at the loss of her tenth
+husband than for all the rest put together, though they had all been good
+men; but it was because she had never buried one before without being sure
+of the next. As yet, it does not seem that he has any one else in
+view."[223] The French ambassador, a few days later, wrote that "the grief
+of the King was so great that it was believed that it had sent him mad;
+for he had called suddenly for a sword with which to kill the Queen whom
+he had loved so much. Sometimes sitting in Council he suddenly calls for
+horses, without saying whither he would go. Sometimes he will say
+irrelevantly that that wicked woman had never had such delight in her
+incontinency as she should have torture in her death; and then, finally,
+he bursts into tears, bewailing his misfortune in meeting such
+ill-conditioned wives, and blaming his Council for this last
+mischief."[224]
+
+In the meanwhile Henry sought such distraction as he might at Oatlands and
+other country places, solaced by music and mummers, whilst Norfolk, in
+grief and apprehension, lurked on his own lands, and Gardiner kept a firm
+hand upon affairs. The discomfiture of the Howards, who had brought about
+the Catholic reaction, gave new hope to the Protestants that the wheel of
+fate was turning in their favour. Anne of Cleves, they began to whisper,
+had been confined of a "fair boy"; "and whose should it be but the King's
+Majesty's, begotten when she was at Hampton Court?" This rumour, which the
+King, apparently, was inclined to believe, gave great offence and
+annoyance to him and his Council, as did the severely repressed but
+frequent statements that he intended to take back his repudiated wife. It
+was not irresponsible gossip alone that took this turn, for on the 12th
+December the ambassador from the Duke of Cleves brought letters to Cranmer
+at Lambeth from Chancellor Olsiliger, who had negotiated the marriage,
+commending to him the reconciliation of Henry with Anne. Cranmer, who
+understood perfectly well that with Gardiner as the King's factotum such a
+thing was impossible, was frightened out of his wits by such a suggestion,
+and promptly assured Henry that he had declined to discuss it without the
+Sovereign's orders.
+
+But the envoy of Cleves was not lightly shaken off, and at once sought
+audience of Henry himself to press the cause of "Madam Anne." He was
+assured that the King's grief at his present troubles would prevent his
+giving audience; and the Protestant envoy then tackled the Council on the
+subject. As may be supposed, he met with a rebuff. The lady would be
+better treated than ever, he was told, but the separation was just and
+final, and the Duke of Cleves must never again request that his sister
+should be restored to the position of the King's wife. The envoy begged
+that the answer might be repeated formally to him, whereupon Gardiner flew
+into a rage, and said that the King would never take Anne back, whatever
+happened. The envoy was afraid to retort for fear of evil consequences to
+Anne, but the Duke of Cleves, who was now in close league with the French,
+endeavoured to obtain the aid of his new allies to forward his sister's
+cause in England. Francis, however, saw, like every one else, that war
+between him and the Emperor was now inevitable, and was anxious not to
+drive Henry into alliance with Charles against him. Cleves by himself was
+powerless, and the trend of politics in England under Gardiner, and with
+Henry in his present mood, was entirely unfavourable to a union with the
+Lutherans on the Continent; so Anne of Cleves continued her placid and
+jovial existence as "the King's good sister," rather than his wife, whilst
+the Protestants of England soon found that they had misjudged the
+situation produced by Katharine Howard's fall. All that the latter really
+had done was to place Norfolk and the French sympathisers under a cloud,
+and make Gardiner entirely master of the situation whilst he carried out
+the King's own policy.
+
+Henry returned to Greenwich for Christmas 1541, and at once began his
+bargaining to sell his alliance with the Emperor at as high a price as
+possible. He had already in hand the stoppage of trade with Flanders,
+which his ministers were still laboriously and stiffly discussing with the
+Emperor's representatives. Any concession in that respect would have to be
+paid for. The French, too, were very anxious, according to his showing,
+for his friendship, and were offering him all manner of tempting
+matrimonial alliances, and when Henry, on the day after Christmas Day,
+received Chapuys at Greenwich, he was all smiles, but determined to make
+the best of his opportunities. The Emperor had just met with a terrible
+disaster at sea during his operations against Algiers, and had returned to
+Spain depressed at his losses, and the more ready to make terms with Henry
+if possible. Chapuys was a hard bargainer, and it was a fair game of brag
+that ensued between him and Henry. Chapuys began by flattering the King:
+"and got him into very high spirits by such words, which the Lord Privy
+Seal (_i.e._ Fitzwilliam) says are never thrown away upon him," and then
+told him that he would give him in strict confidence some important
+information about French intrigues.
+
+After dinner the ball opened in earnest, Chapuys and Henry being alone and
+seated, with Fitzwilliam, Russell, and Browne at some distance away. The
+imperial ambassador began by saying that the King of France had made a
+determined bid to marry his second son, Orleans, with the Infanta of
+Portugal. This was a shock to Henry, and he changed colour; for one of his
+own trump cards was the sham negotiation in which Norfolk had been the
+tool, to marry the Princess Mary to Orleans. For a time he could only
+sputter and exclaim; but when he had collected his senses he countered by
+saying that Francis only wished to get the Infanta into his power, not for
+marriage, "but for objects of greater consequence than people imagined."
+Besides, the French wanted the Princess Mary for Orleans, and were anxious
+to send an embassy to him about it: indeed, the French ambassador was
+coming to see him about it with fresh powers next day. Chapuys protested
+that he spoke as one devoted to Henry's service; but he was sure the
+French did not mean business. They would never let Orleans marry a
+Princess of illegitimate birth. "Ah!" replied Henry, "but though she may
+be a bastard, I have power from Parliament to appoint her my successor if
+I like;" but Chapuys gave several other reasons why the match with Mary
+would never suit the French. "Why," cried Henry, "Francis is even now
+soliciting an interview with me with a view to alliances." "Yes, I know
+they say that," replied the ambassador, "but at the same time Francis has
+sent an ambassador to Scotland, with orders not to touch at an English
+port." This was a sore point with Henry, and he again winced at the blow.
+
+Then he began to boast. He was prepared to face any one, and James of
+Scotland was in mortal fear of him. Chapuys then mentioned that France
+had made a secret treaty with Sweden and Denmark to obtain control of the
+North Sea, and divert all the Anglo-German trade to France, which Henry
+parried, by saying that Francis was in league with the German Protestants,
+and, notwithstanding the new decree of the Diet of Ratisbon, could draw as
+many mercenary soldiers as he liked from the Emperor's vassals. He felt
+sure that Francis would invade Flanders next spring; and if he, Henry, had
+cared to marry a daughter of France, as her father wished him to do, he
+might have had a share of his conquests. This made Chapuys angry, and he
+said that perhaps Holstein and Cleves had also been offered shares. Henry
+then went on another tack, and said that he knew quite well that Francis
+and Charles together intended, if they could, to make war on England.
+Considering, however, the Emperor's disaster at Algiers, and the state of
+Europe, he was astonished that Charles had not tried to make a close
+friendship with him. Chapuys jumped at the hint, and begged Henry to state
+his intentions, that they might be conveyed to the Emperor. But the King
+was not to be drawn too rapidly, and would not say whether he was willing
+to form an alliance with the Emperor until some one with full and special
+powers was sent to him. He had been cheated too often and left in the
+lurch before, he said. "He was quite independent. If people wanted him
+they might come forward with offers." This sparring went on for hours on
+that day and the next, interspersed with little wrangles about the
+commercial question, and innuendoes as to the French intrigues. But
+Chapuys, who knew his man, quite understood that Henry was for sale; and,
+as usual, might, if dexterously handled, be bought by flattery and feigned
+submission to his will, hurriedly wrote to his master that: "If the
+Emperor wishes to gain the King, he must send hither at once an able
+person, with full powers, to take charge of the negotiation:" since he,
+Chapuys, was in ill health and unequal to it.
+
+Thus the English Catholic reaction that had been symbolised by the
+repudiation of Anne of Cleves, and the marriage with Katharine Howard, was
+triumphantly producing the results which Henry and Gardiner had intended.
+The excommunicated King, the man who had flung aside his proud Spanish
+wife and bade defiance to the vicegerent of Christ, was to be flattered
+and sought in alliance by the head of the house of Aragon and the
+appointed champion of Roman orthodoxy. He was to come back into the fold
+unrepentant, with no submission or reparation made, a good Catholic, but
+his own Pope. It was a prospect that appealed strongly to a man of Henry's
+vain and ostentatious character, for it gave apparent sanction to his
+favourite pose that everything he did was warranted by the strictest right
+and justice; it promised the possibility of an extension of his
+Continental territory, and the establishment of his own fame as a warrior
+and a king. We shall see how his pompous self-conceit enabled his ally to
+trick him out of his reward, and how the consequent reaction against those
+who had beguiled him drew his country farther along the road of the
+Reformation than Henry ever meant to go. But at present all looked
+rose-coloured, for the imperial connection and the miserable scandal of
+Katharine Howard rather benefited than injured the chances of its
+successful negotiation. Cranmer, Hertford, and Audley had shot their bolt
+in vain so far as political or religious aims were attained.
+
+In the meanwhile the evidence against Katharine and her abettors was being
+laboriously wrung out of all those who had come into contact with her. The
+poor old Duchess of Norfolk and her son and daughters and several
+underlings were condemned for misprison of treason to perpetual
+imprisonment and confiscation,[225] and in Parliament on the 21st January
+a Bill of Attainder against Katharine and three lady accomplices was
+presented to the Lords. The evidence presented against Katharine was
+adjudged to be insufficient in the absence of direct allegations of
+adultery after her marriage, or of specific admissions from herself.[226]
+This and other objections seem to have delayed the passage of the Bill
+until the 11th of February, when it received the royal assent by
+commission, condemning Katharine and Lady Rochford to death for treason.
+During the passage of the Bill, as soon, indeed, as the procedure of
+Katharine's condemnation had been settled, Henry plucked up spirits again,
+and with characteristic heartlessness once more began to play the gallant.
+"The King," writes Chapuys, "had never been merry since first hearing of
+the Queen's misconduct, but he has been so since (the attainder was
+arranged), especially on the 29th, when he gave a supper and banquet with
+twenty-six ladies at the table, besides gentlemen, and thirty-five at
+another table adjoining. The lady for whom he showed the greatest regard
+was a sister of Lord Cobham, whom Wyatt, some time ago, divorced for
+adultery. She is a pretty young creature, with wit enough to do as badly
+as the others if she were to try. The King is also said to fancy a
+daughter of Mistress Albart(?) and niece of Sir Anthony Browne; and also
+for a daughter, by her first marriage, of the wife of Lord Lisle, late
+Deputy of Calais."[227]
+
+Up to this time Katharine had remained at Sion House, as Chapuys reported,
+"making good cheer, fatter and more beautiful than ever; taking great care
+to be well apparelled, and more imperious and exacting to serve than even
+when she was with the King, although she believes she will be put to
+death, and admits that she deserves it. Perhaps if the King does not wish
+to marry again he may show her some compassion."[228] No sooner, however,
+had the Act of Attainder passed its third reading in the Commons (10th
+January) than Fitzwilliam was sent to Isleworth to convey her to the
+Tower. She resisted at first, but was of course overpowered, and the sad
+procession swept along the wintry river Londonward. First came
+Fitzwilliam's barge with himself and several Privy Councillors, then, in a
+small covered barge, followed the doomed woman, and the rear was guarded
+by a great barge full of soldiers under the aged Duke of Suffolk, whose
+matrimonial adventures had been almost as numerous as those of his royal
+brother-in-law. Under the frowning portcullis of the Traitors' Gate in the
+gathering twilight of the afternoon, the beautiful girl in black velvet
+landed amidst a crowd of Councillors, who treated her with as much
+ceremony as if she still sat by the King's side. She proudly and calmly
+gloried in her love for her betrothed Culpeper, whom she knew she soon
+would join in death. There was no hysterical babbling like that of her
+cousin, Anne Boleyn; no regret in her mien or her words now. Even as he,
+with his last breath, had confessed his love for her, and mourned that the
+King's passion for her had stood in the way of their honest union, so did
+she, with flashing eyes and blazing cheeks, proclaim that love was
+victorious over death; and that since there had been no mercy for the man
+she loved she asked no mercy for herself from the King whose plaything of
+a year she had been.
+
+On Sunday evening, 12th February, she was told that she must be prepared
+for death on the morrow, and she asked that the block should be brought
+to her room, that she might learn how to dispose her head upon it. This
+was done, and she calmly and smilingly rehearsed her part in the tragedy
+of the morrow. Early in the morning, before it was fully light, she was
+led out across the green, upon which the hoar-frost glistened, to the
+scaffold erected on the same spot that had seen the sacrifice of Anne
+Boleyn. Around it stood all the Councillors except Norfolk and Suffolk:
+even her first cousin, the poet Surrey, with his own doom not far off,
+witnessed the scene. Upon the scaffold, half crazy with fear, stood the
+wretched Lady Rochford, the ministress of the Queen's amours, who was to
+share her fate. Katharine spoke shortly. She died, she said, in full
+confidence in God's goodness. She had grievously sinned and deserved
+death, though she had not wronged the King in the particular way that she
+had been accused of. If she had married the man she loved, instead of
+being dazzled by ambition, all would have been well; and when the headsman
+knelt to ask her forgiveness, she pardoned him, but exclaimed, "I die a
+Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of Culpeper;" and then,
+kneeling in prayer, her head was struck off whilst she was unaware.[229]
+Lady Rochford followed her to the block as soon as the head and trunk of
+the Queen had been piteously gathered up in black cloth by the ladies who
+attended her at last, and conveyed to the adjoining chapel for sepulture
+close to the grave of Anne Boleyn.
+
+Katharine Howard had erred much for love, and had erred more for ambition,
+but taking a human view of the whole circumstances of her life, and of the
+personality of the man she married, she is surely more worthy of pity than
+condemnation. Only a few days after her death we learn from Chapuys (25th
+February) that "the King has been in better spirits since the execution,
+and during the last three days before Lent there has been much feasting.
+Sunday was devoted to the lords of his Council and courtiers, Monday to
+the men of the law, Tuesday to the ladies, who all slept at the Court. The
+King himself did nothing but go from room to room ordering and arranging
+the lodgings to be prepared for these ladies, and he made them great and
+hearty cheer, without showing special affection for any particular one.
+Indeed, unless Parliament prays him to take another wife, he will not be
+in a hurry to do so, I think. Besides, there are few, if any, ladies now
+at Court who would aspire to such an honour; for by a new Act just passed,
+any lady that the King may marry, if she be a subject, is bound, on pain
+of death, to declare any charge of misconduct that can be brought against
+her; and all who know or suspect anything against her must declare it
+within twenty days, on pain of perpetual imprisonment and confiscation."
+Henry, with five unsuccessful matrimonial adventures to his account, might
+well pause before taking another plunge; though, from the extract printed
+above, it was evident that he had no desire to put himself out of the way
+of temptation. The only course upon which he seemed quite determined was
+to resist all the blandishments of the Protestants, the German Lutherans,
+and the French to take back Anne of Cleves, who, we are told, had waxed
+half as beautiful again as she was since she had begun her jolly life of
+liberty and beneficence, away from so difficult a husband as Henry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1542-1547
+
+KATHARINE PARR--THE PROTESTANTS WIN THE LAST TRICK
+
+
+The disappearance of Katharine Howard and the temporary eclipse of Norfolk
+caused no check to the progress of the Catholic cause in England. When
+Gardiner was with the Emperor in the summer of 1541 he had been able to
+make in Henry's name an agreement by which neither monarch should treat
+anything to the other's disadvantage for the next ten months; and as war
+loomed nearer between Charles and Francis, the chances of a more durable
+and binding treaty being made between the former and Henry improved. When
+Gardiner had hinted at it in Germany, both Charles and Granvelle had
+suggested that the submission of Henry to the Pope would be a necessary
+preliminary. But the Emperor's brother, Ferdinand, was in close grips with
+the Turk in Hungary, and getting the worst of it; Francis was again in
+negotiation with the infidel, and French intrigue in Italy was busy. Henry
+therefore found that the Emperor's tone softened considerably on the
+report of Chapuys' conversation at Windsor in February, whilst the English
+terms became stiffer, as Francis endeavoured to turn his feigned
+negotiations with Henry into real ones. The whole policy of Henry at the
+period was really to effect an armed league with the Emperor, by means of
+which France might be humiliated, perhaps dismembered, whilst Henry was
+welcomed back with open arms by the great Catholic power, in spite of his
+contumacy, and the hegemony of England established over Scotland. In order
+the better to incline Charles to essential concessions, it was good policy
+for Henry to give several more turns of the screw upon his own subjects,
+to prove to his future ally how devout a Catholic he was, and how entirely
+Cromwell's later action was being reversed.
+
+The great Bibles were withdrawn from the churches, the dissemination of
+the Scriptures restricted, and the Six Articles were enforced more
+severely than ever;[230] but yet when, after some months of fencing and
+waiting, Chapuys came to somewhat closer quarters with the English
+Council, he still talked, though with bated breath now, about Henry's
+submission to the Pope and the legitimation of the Princess Mary. But the
+Emperor's growing need for support gradually broke down the wall of
+reserve that Henry's defection from Rome had raised, and Gardiner and
+Chapuys, during the spring of 1542, were in almost daily confabulation in
+a quiet house in the fields at Stepney.[231] In June the imperial
+ambassador made a hasty visit to Flanders to submit the English terms for
+an alliance to the Queen Regent. Henry's conditions in appearance were
+hard, for by going to war with France he would, he said, lose the great
+yearly tribute he received from that country; but Charles and his sister
+knew how to manage him, and were not troubled with scruples as to keeping
+promises. So, to begin with, the commercial question that had so long been
+rankling, was now rapidly settled, and the relations daily grew more
+cordial. Henry had agents in Germany and Flanders ordering munitions of
+war and making secret compacts with mercenary captains; he was actively
+reinforcing his own garrisons and castles, organising a fine fleet,
+collecting vast fresh sums of money from his groaning subjects, and in
+every way preparing himself to be an ally worth purchase by the Emperor at
+a high price.
+
+In July 1542 the French simultaneously attacked the imperial territory in
+four distinct directions; and Henry summoned the ambassadors of Charles
+and Francis to Windsor to tell them that, as war was so near him, he must
+raise men for his defence, especially towards Scotland, but meant no
+menace to either of the Continental powers. Chapuys had already been
+assured that the comedy was only to blind the French, and cheerfully
+acquiesced, but the Frenchmen took a more gloomy view and knew it meant
+war. With Scotland and Henry it was a case of the lamb and the wolf. Henry
+knew that he dared not send his army across the Channel to attack France
+without first crushing his northern neighbour. The pretended negotiations
+with, and allegations against, the unfortunate Stuart were never sincere.
+James was surrounded by traitors: for English money and religious rancour
+had profoundly divided the Scottish gentry; Cardinal Beaton, the Scots
+King's principal minister, was hated; the powerful Douglas family were
+disaffected and in English pay; and the forces with which James V. rashly
+attempted to raid the English marches in reprisal for Henry's unprovoked
+attacks upon him were wild and undisciplined. The battle of Solway Moss
+(November 1542) was a disgraceful rout for the Scots, and James,
+heart-broken, fled from the ruin of his cause to Tantallon and Edinburgh,
+and thence to Falkland to die. Then, with Scotland rent in twain, with a
+new-born baby for a Queen, and a foreign woman as regent, Henry could face
+a war with France by the side of the Emperor, with assurance of safety on
+his northern border, especially if he could force upon the rulers of
+Scotland a marriage between his only son and the infant Mary Stuart, as he
+intended to do.
+
+
+[Illustration: _KATHARINE PARR_
+
+_From a painting in the collection of the_ EARL OF ASHBURNHAM]
+
+
+There was infinite haggling with Chapuys with regard to the style to be
+given to Henry in the secret treaty, even after the heads of the treaty
+itself had been agreed upon. He must be called sovereign head of the
+English Church, said Gardiner, or there would be no alliance with the
+Emperor at all, and the difficulty was only overcome by varying the style
+in the two copies of the document, that signed by Chapuys bearing the
+style of; "King of England, France, and Ireland, etc.," and that signed by
+the English ministers adding the King's ecclesiastical claims. If the
+territories of either monarch were invaded the other was bound to come to
+his aid. The French King was to be summoned to forbear intelligence with
+the Turk, to satisfy the demands of the Emperor and the King of England in
+the many old claims they had against him, and no peace was to be made with
+France by either ally, unless the other's claims were satisfied. The
+claims of Henry included the town and county of Boulogne, with Montreuil
+and Therouenne, his arrears of pension, and assurance of future payment:
+and the two allies agreed within two years to invade France together, each
+with 20,000 foot and 5000 horse.[232] This secret compact was signed on
+the 11th February 1543; and the diplomatic relations with France were at
+once broken off. At last the repudiation of Katharine of Aragon was
+condoned, and Henry was once more the Emperor's "good brother";--a fit
+ally for the Catholic king, the champion of orthodox Christianity. As if
+to put the finishing touch upon Henry's victory, Charles held an interview
+with the Pope in June 1543 on his way through Italy, and succeeded in
+persuading him that the inclusion of the King who defied the Church in the
+league of militant Catholics was a fit complement to the alliance of
+France and enemies of all Christianity; and would secure the triumph of
+the Papacy and the return of England into the fold.
+
+Whilst the preparations for war thus went busily forward on all sides,
+with Chantonnay in England and Thomas Seymour in Germany and Flanders
+arranging military details of arms, levies, and stores, and the Emperor
+already clamouring constantly for prompt English subsidies and contingents
+against his enemies, Henry, full of importance and self-satisfaction at
+his position, contracted the only one of his marriages which was not
+promoted by a political intrigue, although at the time it was effected it
+was doubtless looked upon as favouring the Catholic party. Certainly no
+lady of the Court enjoyed a more blameless reputation than Katharine Lady
+Latimer, upon whom the King now cast his eyes. A daughter of the great and
+wealthy house of Parr of Kendal, allied to the royal blood in no very
+distant degree, and related to most of the higher nobility of England, she
+was, so far as descent was concerned, quite as worthy to be the wife of a
+king as the unfortunate daughters of the house of Howard. Her brother,
+Lord Parr, soon to be created Earl of Essex and Marquis of Northampton, a
+favourite courtier of the King and a very splendid magnate,[233] had been
+one of the chief enemies of Cromwell; who had in his last days usurped the
+ancient earldom which Parr had claimed in right of his Bourchier wife,
+whilst Katharine's second husband, Neville Lord Latimer, had been so
+strong a Catholic as to have risked his great possessions, as well as his
+head, by joining the rising in the North that had assumed the name of the
+Pilgrimage of Grace and had been mainly directed against Cromwell's
+measures. She was, moreover, closely related to the Throckmortons, the
+stoutly Catholic family whose chief, Sir George, Cromwell had despoiled
+and imprisoned until the intrigue already related drove the minister from
+power in June 1540, with the mysterious support, so it is asserted, of
+Katharine Lady Latimer herself, though the evidence of it is not very
+convincing.[234]
+
+Katharine had been brought up mostly in the north country with extreme
+care and wisdom by a hard-headed mother, and had been married almost as a
+child to an elderly widower, Lord Borough, who had died soon afterwards,
+leaving her a large jointure. Her second husband, Lord Latimer, had also
+been many years older than herself; and accompanying him, as she did, in
+his periodical visits to London, where they had a house in the precincts
+of the Charterhouse, she had for several years been remarkable in Henry's
+Court, not only for her wide culture and love of learning, but also for
+her friendship with the Princess Mary, whose tastes were exactly similar
+to her own. Lord Latimer died in London at the beginning of 1543, leaving
+to Katharine considerable property; and certainly not many weeks can have
+passed before the King began to pay his court to the wealthy and dignified
+widow of thirty-two. His attentions were probably not very welcome to her,
+for he was a terribly dangerous husband, and any unrevealed peccadillo in
+the previous life of a woman he married might mean the loss of her head.
+
+There was another reason than this, however, that made the King's
+addresses especially embarrassing to Katharine. The younger of the two
+magnificent Seymour brothers, Sir Thomas, had thus early also approached
+her with offers of love. He was one of the handsomest men at Court, and of
+similar age to Katharine. He was already very rich with the church
+plunder, and was the King's brother-in-law; so that he was in all respects
+a good match for her. He must have arrived from his mission to Germany
+immediately after Lord Latimer's death, and remained at Court until early
+in May, about three months; during which time, from the evidence of
+Katharine's subsequent letters, she seems to have made up her mind to
+marry him. It may be that the King noticed signs of their courtship, for
+Sir Thomas Seymour was promptly sent on an embassy to Flanders in company
+with Dr. Wotton, and subsequently with the English contingent to the
+Emperor's army to France, where he remained until long after Henry's sixth
+marriage.
+
+That Henry himself lost no time in approaching the widow after her
+husband's death is seen by a tailor's bill for dresses for Lady Latimer
+being paid out of the Exchequer by the King's orders as early as the 16th
+February 1543, when it would seem that her husband cannot have been dead
+much more than a month. This bill includes linen and buckram, the making
+of Italian gowns, "pleats and sleeves," a slope hood and tippet, kirtles,
+French, Dutch, and Venetian gowns, Venetian sleeves, French hoods, and
+other feminine fripperies; the amount of the total being L8, 9s. 5d.; and,
+as showing that even before the marriage considerable intimacy existed
+between Katharine and the Princess Mary, it is curious to note that some
+of the garments appear to have been destined for the use of the
+latter.[235] By the middle of June the King's attentions to Lady Latimer
+were public; and already the lot of the sickly, disinherited Princess Mary
+was rendered happier by the prospective elevation of her friend. Mary came
+to Court at Greenwich, as did her sister Elizabeth; and Katharine is
+specially mentioned as being with them in a letter from Dudley, the new
+Lord Lisle, to Katharine's brother, Lord Parr, the Warden of the Scottish
+Marches. The King had then (20th June) just returned from a tour of
+inspection of his coast defences, and three weeks later Cranmer as Primate
+issued a licence for his marriage with Katharine Lady Latimer, without the
+publication of banns.
+
+On the 12th July 1543 the marriage took place in the upper oratory "called
+the Quynes Preyevey Closet" at Hampton Court. When Gardiner the celebrant
+put the canonical question to the bridegroom, his Majesty answered "with a
+smiling face," yea, and, taking his bride's hand, firmly recited the usual
+pledge. Katharine, whatever her inner feelings may have been, made a
+bright and buxom bride, and from the first endeavoured, as none of the
+other wives had done, to bring together into some semblance of family life
+with her the three children of her husband. Her reward was that she was
+beloved and respected by all of them; and Princess Mary, who was nearly
+her own age, continued her constant companion and friend.[236]
+
+As she began so she remained; amiable, tactful, and clever. Throughout her
+life with Henry her influence was exerted wherever possible in favour of
+concord, and I have not met with a single disparaging remark with regard
+to her, even from those who in the last days of the King's life became her
+political opponents. Her character must have been an exceedingly lovable
+one, and she evidently knew to perfection how to manage men by humouring
+their weak points. She could be firm, too, on occasions where an injustice
+had to be remedied. A story is told of her in connection with her brother
+Parr, Earl of Essex, in the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, which, so far as I
+know, has not been related by any other historian of the reign.
+
+Parr fell in love with Lord Cobham's daughter, a very beautiful girl,
+who, as told in our text, was mentioned as one of the King's flames after
+Katharine Howard's fall. Parr had married the great Bourchier heiress, but
+had grown tired of her, and by suborned evidence charged her with
+adultery, and she was found guilty and sentenced to death. "The good
+Queen, his sister, threw herself at the feet of the King and would not
+rise until he had promised to grant her the boon she craved, which was the
+life of the Countess (of Essex). When the King heard what it was, he said,
+But, Madam, you know that the law enacts that a woman of rank who so
+forgets herself shall die unless her husband pardon her. To this the Queen
+answered, Your Majesty is above the law, and I will try to get my brother
+to pardon. Well, said the King, if your brother be content I will pardon
+her." The Queen then sends for her brother and upbraids him for bringing
+perjured witnesses against his wife, which he denies and says he has only
+acted in accordance with the legal evidence. "I can promise you, brother,
+that it shall not be as you expect: I will have the witnesses put to the
+torture, and then by God's help we shall know the truth." Before this
+could be done Parr sent his witnesses to Cornwall, out of the way: and
+again Katharine insisted upon the Countess' pardon, by virtue of the
+promise that the King had given her. This somewhat alarmed Parr, and
+Katharine managed to effect a mutual renunciation, after which Parr
+married Lord Cobham's daughter.[237]
+
+Gardiner had been not only the prelate who performed the ceremony but had
+himself given the bride away; so that it may fairly be concluded that he,
+at least, was not discontented with the match. Wriothesley, his obedient
+creature, moreover, must have been voicing the general feeling of
+Catholics when he wrote to the Duke of Suffolk in the North his eulogy of
+the bride a few days after the wedding. "The King's Majesty was mareid
+onne Thursdaye last to my ladye Latimor, a woman, in my judgment, for
+vertewe, wisdomme and gentilnesse, most meite for his Highnesse: and sure
+I am his Mat{e} had never a wife more agreable to his harte than she is.
+Our Lorde sende them long lyf and moche joy togethir."[238] Both the
+King's daughters had been at the wedding, Mary receiving from Katharine a
+handsome present as bride's-maid; but Henry had the decency not to bid the
+presence of Anne of Cleves. She is represented as being somewhat disgusted
+at the turn of events. Her friends, and perhaps she herself, had never
+lost the hope that if the Protestant influence became paramount, Henry
+might take her back. But the imperial alliance had made England an enemy
+of her brother of Cleves, whose territory the Emperor's troops were
+harrying with fire and sword; and her position in England was a most
+difficult one. "She would," says Chapuys, "prefer to be with her mother,
+if with nothing but the clothes on her back, rather than be here now,
+having specially taken great grief and despair at the King's espousal of
+his new wife, who is not nearly so good-looking as she is, besides that
+there is no hope of her (Katharine) having issue, seeing that she had none
+by her two former husbands."[239]
+
+As we have seen, Katharine had all her life belonged to the Catholic
+party, of which the northern nobles were the leaders, and doubtless this
+fact had secured for her marriage the ready acquiescence of Gardiner and
+his friends, especially when coupled with the attachment known to exist
+between the bride and the Princess Mary. But Katharine had studied hard,
+and was devoted to the "new learning," which had suddenly become
+fashionable for high-born ladies. The Latin classics, the writings of
+Erasmus, of Juan Luis Vives, and others were the daily solace of the few
+ladies in England who had at this time been seized with the new craze of
+culture, Katharine, the King's daughters, his grand-nieces the Greys, and
+the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, being especially versed in classics,
+languages, philosophy, and theology. The "new learning" had been, and was
+still to be, for the most part promoted by those who sympathised with the
+reformed doctrines, and Katharine's devotion to it brought her into
+intimate contact with the learned men at Court whose zeal for the spread
+of classical and controversial knowledge was coupled with the spirit of
+inquiry which frequently went with religious heterodoxy.
+
+Not many days after the marriage, Gardiner scented danger in this
+foregathering of the Queen with such men as Cranmer and Latimer, and at
+the encouragement and help given by her to the young princesses in the
+translation of portions of the Scriptures, and of the writings of Erasmus.
+There is no reason to conclude that Katharine, as yet, had definitely
+attached herself to the reform party, but it is certain that very soon
+after her marriage her love of learning, or her distrust of Gardiner's
+policy and methods, caused her to look sympathetically towards those at
+Court who went beyond the King in his opposition to Rome. Gardiner dared
+not as yet directly attack either Katharine or Cranmer, for the King was
+personally much attached to both of them, whilst Gardiner himself was
+never a favourite with him. But indirectly these two persons in privileged
+places might be ruined by attacking others first; and the plan was
+patiently and cunningly laid to do it, before a new party of reformers led
+by Cranmer, reinforced by Katharine, could gain the King's ear and reverse
+the policy of his present adviser. At the instance of Gardiner's creature
+Dr. London, a canon of Windsor, a prosecution under the Six Articles was
+commenced against a priest and some choristers of the royal chapel, and
+one other person, who were known to meet together for religious
+discussion. For weeks London's spies had been listening to the talk of
+those in the castle and town who might be suspected of reformed ideas; and
+with the evidence so accumulated in his hand, Gardiner moved the King in
+Council to issue a warrant authorising a search for unauthorised books and
+papers in the town and castle of Windsor. Henry, whilst allowing the
+imprisonment of the accused persons with the addition of Sir Philip Hoby
+and Dr. Haines, both resident in the castle, declined to allow his own
+residence to be searched for heretical books. This was a set back for
+Gardiner's plan; but it succeeded to the extent of securing the conviction
+and execution at the stake of three of the accused. This was merely a
+beginning; and already those at Court were saying that the Bishop of
+Winchester "aimed at higher deer" than those that had already fallen to
+his bow.[240]
+
+Hardly had the ashes of the three martyrs cooled, than a mass of fresh
+accusations was formulated by London against several members of the royal
+household. The reports of spies and informers were sent to Gardiner by the
+hand of Ockham, the clerk of the court that had condemned the martyrs, but
+one of the persons accused, a member of Katharine's household, received
+secret notice of what was intended and waylaid Ockham. Perusal of the
+documents he bore showed that much of the information had been suborned by
+Dr. London and his assistant Simons, and Katharine was appealed to for her
+aid. She exerted her influence with her husband to have them both
+arrested and examined. Unaware that their papers had been taken from
+Ockham, they foreswore themselves and broke down when confronted with the
+written proofs that the case against the accused had been trumped up on
+false evidence with ulterior objects. Disgrace and imprisonment for the
+two instruments, London and Simons, followed,[241] but the prelate who had
+inspired their activity was too indispensable to the King to be attacked,
+and he, firm in his political predominance, bided his time for yet another
+blow at his enemies, amongst whom he now included the Queen, whose union
+with the King he and other Catholics had so recently blessed.
+
+Cranmer, secure as he thought in the King's regard and in his great
+position as Primate, had certainly laid himself open to the attacks of his
+enemies, by his almost ostentatious favour to the clergy of his province
+who were known to be evading or violating the Six Articles. The chapter of
+his own cathedral was profoundly divided, and the majority of its members
+were opposed to what they considered the injustice of their Archbishop.
+Cranmer's commissary, his nephew Nevinson, whilst going out of his way to
+favour those who were accused before the chapter of false doctrine,
+offended deeply the majority of the clergy by his zeal--which really only
+reflected that of the Archbishop himself--in the displacing and
+destruction of images in the churches, even when the figures did not
+offend against the law by being made the objects of superstitious
+pilgrimages and offerings. For several years past the cathedral church of
+Canterbury had been a hotbed of discord, in consequence of Cranmer's
+having appointed, apparently on principle, men of extreme opinions on both
+sides as canons, prebendaries, and preachers; and so great had grown the
+opposition in his own chapter to the Primate's known views in the spring
+of 1543, that it was evident that a crisis could not be long delayed,
+especially as the clergy opposed to the prelate had the letter of the law
+on their side, and the countenance of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, all
+powerful as he was in the lay counsels of the King.
+
+Some of the Kentish clergy who resented the Archbishop's action had laid
+their heads together in March 1543, and formulated a set of accusations
+against him. This the two most active movers in the protest had carried to
+the metropolis for submission to Gardiner. They first, however, approached
+the Dr. London already referred to, who rewrote the accusations with
+additions of his own, in order to bring the accused within the penal law.
+The two first movers, Willoughby and Searl, took fright at this, for it
+was a dangerous thing to attack the Archbishop, and hastily returned home;
+but Dr. London had enough for his present purpose, and handed his enlarged
+version of their depositions to Gardiner. London's disgrace, already
+related, stayed the matter for a time, but a few months afterwards a fresh
+set of articles, alleging illegal acts on the part of the Archbishop, was
+forwarded by the discontented clergy to Gardiner, and the accusers were
+then summoned before the Privy Council, where they were encouraged to make
+their testimony as strong as possible. When the depositions were complete
+they were sent to the King by Gardiner, in the hope that now the great
+stumblingblock of the Catholic party might be cleared from the path, and
+that the new Queen's ruin might promptly follow that of the Primate.
+
+But they reckoned without Henry's love for Cranmer. Rowing on the Thames
+one evening in the late autumn soon after the depositions had been handed
+to him, the King called at the pier by Lambeth Palace and took Cranmer
+into his barge. "Ah, my chaplain," he said jocosely, as the Archbishop
+took his seat in the boat, "I have news for you. I know now who is the
+greatest heretic in Kent;" and with this he drew from his sleeve and
+handed to Cranmer the depositions of those who had sought to ruin him. The
+Archbishop insisted upon a regular Commission being issued to test the
+truth of the accusations; but Henry could be generous when it suited him,
+and he never knew how soon he might need Cranmer's pliable ingenuity
+again. So, although he issued the Commission, he made Cranmer its head,
+and gave to him the appointment of its members; with the natural result
+that the accusers and all their abettors were imprisoned and forced to beg
+the Primate's forgiveness for their action.[242] But the man who gave life
+to the whole plot, Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, still led the King's
+political counsels, much as Henry disliked him personally; for the armed
+alliance with the Emperor could only bring its full harvest of profit and
+glory to the King of England if the Catholic powers on the Continent were
+convinced of Henry's essential orthodoxy, notwithstanding his quarrel with
+the Pope.[243] So, though Cranmer might be favoured privately and
+Katharine's coquetting with the new learning and its professors winked at,
+Gardiner, whose Catholicism was stronger than that of his master, had to
+be the figure-head to impress foreigners.
+
+In July 1543 the English contingent to aid the imperial troops to protect
+Flanders was sent from Guisnes and Calais under Sir John Wallop. By the
+strict terms of the treaty they were only to be employed for a limited
+period for the defence of territory invaded by the enemy; but soon after
+Wallop's arrival he was asked to take part in the regular siege of
+Landrecy in Hainault, that had been occupied by the French. Henry allowed
+him to do so under protest. It was waste of time, he said, and would
+divert the forces from what was to be their main object; but if he allowed
+it, he must have the same right when the war in France commenced to call
+upon the imperial contingent with him also to besiege a town if he wished
+to do so. Both the allies, even before the war really began, were playing
+for their own hands with the deliberate intention of making use of each
+other; and in the dismal comedy of chicanery that followed and lasted
+almost to Henry's death, this siege of Landrecy and that of St. Disier
+were made the peg upon which countless reclamations and recriminations
+were hung. The Emperor was ill, in dire need of money, and overwhelmed
+with anxiety as to the attitude of the Lutheran princes during the coming
+struggle. His eyes were turned towards Italy, and he depended much upon
+the diversion that Henry's forces might effect by land and sea; and
+conscious that the campaign must be prompt and rapid if he was to profit
+by it, he sent one of his most trusted lieutenants, Ferrante Gonzaga,
+Viceroy of Sicily, to England at the end of the year 1543 to settle with
+Henry the plan of the campaign to be undertaken in the spring.
+
+His task was a difficult one; for Henry was as determined to use Charles
+for his advantage as Charles was to use him. After much dispute it was
+agreed that Henry, as early in the summer as possible, should lead his
+army of 35,000 foot and 7000 horse to invade France from Calais, whilst
+the imperial troops were to invade by Lorraine, form a junction with the
+English on the Somme, and push on towards Paris. Rapidity was the very
+essence of such a plan; but Henry would not promise celerity. He could
+not, he said, transport all his men across the sea before the end of June:
+the fact being that his own secret intention all along was to conquer the
+Boulognais country for himself, gain a free hand in Scotland, and leave
+the Emperor to shift as he might. Utter bad faith on both sides pervaded
+the affair from first to last. The engaging and payment of mercenaries by
+England, the purchase of horses, arms, and stores, the hire of transport,
+the interference with commerce--everything in which sharp dealing could be
+employed by one ally to get the better of the other was taken advantage of
+to the utmost. Henry, enfeebled as he was by disease and obesity, was
+determined to turn to his personal glory the victory he anticipated for
+his arms. His own courtiers dared not remonstrate with him; and, although
+Katharine prayed him to have regard for his safety, he brushed aside her
+remonstrances as becoming womanly fears for a dearly loved husband.
+Charles knew that if the King himself crossed the Channel the English army
+would not be at the imperial bidding. Envoys were consequently sent from
+Flanders to pray Henry, for his health's sake, not to risk the hardships
+of a sea voyage and a campaign. The subject was a sore one with him; and
+when the envoy began to dwell too emphatically upon his infirmities, he
+flew into a passion and said that the Emperor was suffering from gout,
+which was much worse than any malady he (Henry) had, and it would be more
+dangerous for the Emperor to go to the war.
+
+Henry's decision to accompany his army at once increased the importance of
+Katharine; who, in accordance with precedent, would become regent in her
+husband's absence. A glimpse of her growing influence at this time is seen
+in a letter of hers, dated 3rd June 1544, to the Countess of Hertford,
+that termagant Ann Stanhope who afterwards was her jealous enemy.
+Hertford had been sent in March to the Scottish Border to invade again,
+and this time utterly crush Scotland, where Henry's pensioners had played
+him false, and betrothed their infant Queen to the heir of France. The
+Countess, anxious that her husband should be at home during the King's
+absence--probably in order that if anything happened to Henry, Hertford
+might take prompt measures on behalf of the new King, his nephew, and
+safeguard his own influence--wrote to Katharine praying for her aid.[244]
+The Queen's answer is written on the same sheet of paper as one from
+Princess Mary to the Countess, whose letters to Katharine had been sent
+through the Princess. "My lord your husband's comyng hyther is not
+altered, for he schall come home before the Kynge's Majesty take hys
+journey over the sees, as it pleaseth his Majesty to declare to me of
+late. You may be ryght assured I wold not have forgotten my promise to you
+in a matter of lesse effect than thys, and so I pray you most hartely to
+think....--KATERYN THE QUENE."[245]
+
+Since Henry insisted upon going to the war himself the next best thing,
+according to the Emperor's point of view, to keeping him away was to cause
+some Spanish officer of high rank and great experience to be constantly
+close to him during the campaign. Except the little skirmishes on the
+borders of Scotland, Englishmen had seen no active military service for
+many years, and it was urged upon Henry that a general well acquainted
+with modern Continental warfare would be useful to him. The Emperor's
+Spanish and Italian commanders were the best in the world, as were his
+men-at-arms; and a grandee, the Duke of Najera, who was on his way from
+Flanders to Spain by sea, was looked upon as being a suitable man for the
+purpose of advising the King of England. Henry was determined to impress
+him and entertained him splendidly, delaying him as long as possible, in
+order that he might be persuaded to accompany the English forces. The
+accounts of Najera's stay in England show that Katharine had now, the
+spring of 1544, quite settled down in her position as Queen and coming
+Regent. Chapuys mentions that when he first took Najera to Court he
+"visited the Queen and Princess (Mary), who asked very minutely for news
+of the Emperor ... and, although the Queen was a little indisposed, she
+wished to dance for the honour of the company. The Queen favours the
+Princess all she can; and since the Treaty with the Emperor was made, she
+has constantly urged the Princess' cause, insomuch as in this sitting of
+Parliament she (Mary) has been declared capable of succeeding in default
+of the Prince."[246]
+
+A Spaniard who attended Najera tells the story of the Duke's interview
+with Katharine somewhat more fully. "The Duke kissed the Queen's hand and
+was then conducted to another chamber, to which the Queen and ladies
+followed, and there was music and much beautiful dancing. The Queen danced
+first with her brother very gracefully, and then Princess Mary and the
+Princess of Scotland (_i.e._ Lady Margaret Douglas) danced with other
+gentlemen, and many other ladies also danced, a Venetian of the King's
+household dancing some gaillards with such extraordinary activity that he
+seemed to have wings upon his feet; surely never was a man seen so agile.
+After the dancing had lasted several hours the Queen returned to her
+chamber, first causing one of the noblemen who spoke Spanish to offer some
+presents to the Duke, who kissed her hand. He would likewise have kissed
+that of the Princess Mary, but she offered her lips; and so he saluted her
+and all the other ladies.[247] The King is regarded as a very powerful and
+handsome man. The Queen is graceful and of cheerful countenance; and is
+praised for her virtue. She wore an underskirt, showing in front, of cloth
+of gold, and a sleeved over-dress of brocade lined with crimson satin, the
+sleeves themselves being lined with crimson velvet, and the train was two
+yards long. She wore hanging from the neck two crosses and a jewel of very
+magnificent diamonds, and she wore a great number of splendid diamonds in
+her headdress." The author of this curious contemporary document excels
+himself in praise of the Princess Mary, whose dress on the occasion
+described was even more splendid than that of the Queen, consisting as it
+did entirely of cloth of gold and purple velvet. The house and gardens of
+Whitehall also moved the witness to wonder and admiration. The green
+alleys with high hedges of the garden and the sculpture with which the
+walks were adorned especially attracted the attention of the visitors, and
+the greatness of London and the stately river Thames are declared to be
+incomparable.[248]
+
+The Duke of Najera, unwilling to stay, and, apparently, not impressing
+Henry very favourably, went on his way; and was immediately followed by
+another Spanish commander of equal rank and much greater experience in
+warfare, the Duke of Alburquerque, and he, too, was received with the
+splendour and ostentation that Henry loved, ultimately accompanying the
+King to the siege of Boulogne as military adviser; both the King and
+Queen, we are told, treating him with extraordinary favour.[249]
+
+By the time that Henry was ready to cross the Channel early in July to
+join his army, which several weeks before had preceded him under the
+command of Norfolk and Suffolk, the short-lived and insincere alliance
+with the Emperor, from which Henry and Gardiner had expected so much, was
+already strained almost to breaking point. The great imperialist defeat
+at Ceresole in Savoy earlier in the year had made Henry more disinclined
+than ever to sacrifice English men and treasure to fight indirectly the
+Emperor's battle in Italy. Even before that Henry had begun to show signs
+of an intention to break away from the plan of campaign agreed upon. How
+dangerous it would be, he said, for the Emperor to push forward into
+France without securing the ground behind him. "Far better to lay siege to
+two or three large towns on the road to Paris than to go to the capital
+and burn it down." Charles was indignant, and continued to send reminders
+and remonstrances that the plan agreed upon must be adhered to. Henry
+retorted that Charles himself had departed from it by laying siege to
+Landecy. The question of supplies from Flanders, the payment and passage
+of mercenaries through the Emperor's territories, the free concession of
+trading licences by the Queen Regent of the Netherlands, and a dozen other
+questions, kept the relations between the allies in a state of irritation
+and acrimony, even before the campaign well began, and it is clear thus
+early that Henry started with the fixed intention of conquering the
+territory of Boulogne, and then perhaps making friends with Francis,
+leaving the Emperor at war. With both the great rivals exhausted, he would
+be more sought after than ever. He at once laid siege to Montreuil and
+Boulogne, and personally took command, deaf to the prayers and
+remonstrances of Charles and his sister, that he would not go beyond
+Calais, "for his health's sake"; but would send the bulk of his forces to
+join the Emperor's army before St. Disier. The Emperor had himself broken
+the compact by besieging Landrecy and St. Disier; and so the bulk of
+Henry's army sat down before Boulogne, whilst the Emperor, short of
+provisions, far in an enemy's country, with weak lines of communication,
+unfriendly Lorraine on his flank and two French armies approaching him,
+could only curse almost in despair the hour that he trusted the word of
+"his good brother," the King of England.
+
+Katharine bade farewell to her husband at Dover when he went on his
+pompous voyage,[250] and returned forthwith to London, fully empowered to
+rule England as Regent during his absence. She was directed to use the
+advice and counsel of Cranmer, Wriothesley, the Earl of Hertford, who was
+to replace her if she became incapacitated, Thirlby, and Petre; Gardiner
+accompanying the King as minister. The letters written by Katharine to her
+husband during his short campaign show no such instances of want of tact
+as did those of the first Katharine, quoted in the earlier pages of this
+book. It is plain to read in them the clever, discreet woman, determined
+to please a vain man; content to take a subordinate place and to shine by
+a reflected light alone. "She thanks God for a prosperous beginning of his
+affairs;" "she rejoices at the joyful news of his good health," and in a
+business-like way shows that she and her council are actively forwarding
+the interests of the King with a single-hearted view to his honour and
+glory alone.
+
+During this time the young Prince Edward and his sister Mary were at
+Hampton Court with the Queen; but the other daughter, Elizabeth, lived
+apart at St. James's. Though it is evident that the girl was generally
+regarded and treated as inferior to her sister, she appears to have felt a
+real regard for her stepmother, almost the only person who, since her
+infancy, had been kind to her. Elizabeth wrote to the Queen on the 31st
+July a curious letter in Italian. "Envious fortune," she writes, "for a
+whole year deprived me of your Highness's presence, and, not content
+therewith, has again despoiled me of that boon. I know, nevertheless, that
+I have your love; and that you have not forgotten me in writing to the
+King. I pray you in writing to his Majesty deign to recommend me to him;
+praying him for his ever-welcome blessing; praying at the same time to
+Almighty God to send him good fortune and victory over his enemies; so
+that your Highness and I together may the sooner rejoice at his happy
+return. I humbly pray to God to have your Highness in His keeping; and
+respectfully kissing your Highness' hand.--ELIZABETH."[251]
+
+Katharine indeed, in this trying time of responsibility, comes well out of
+her ordeal. The prayer[252] composed by her for peace at this period is
+really a beautiful composition; and the letter from her to her husband,
+printed by Strype, breathes sentiment likely to please such a man as
+Henry, but in language at once womanly and dignified. "Although the
+distance of time and account of days," she writes, "neither is long nor
+many, of your Majesty's absence, yet the want of your presence, so much
+beloved and desired by me, maketh me that I cannot quietly pleasure in
+anything until I hear from your Majesty. The time therefore seemeth to me
+very long, with a great desire to know how your Highness hath done since
+your departing hence; whose prosperity and health I prefer and desire more
+than mine own. And, whereas I know your Majesty's absence is never without
+great need, yet love and affection compel me to desire your presence.
+Again the same zeal and affection forceth me to be best content with that
+which is your will and pleasure. Thus, love maketh me in all things set
+apart mine own convenience and pleasure, and to embrace most joyfully his
+will and pleasure whom I love. God, the knower of secrets, can judge these
+words to be not only written with ink but most truly impressed upon the
+heart. Much more I omit, less it be thought I go about to praise myself or
+crave a thank. Which thing to do I mind nothing less, but a plain simple
+relation of the love and zeal I bear your Majesty, proceeding from the
+abundance of the heart.... I make like account with your Majesty, as I do
+with God, for His benefits and gifts heaped upon me daily; acknowledging
+myself to be a great debtor to Him, not being able to recompense the least
+of His benefit. In which state I am certain and sure to die, yet I hope
+for His gracious acceptance of my goodwill. Even such confidence have I in
+your Majesty's gentleness, knowing myself never to have done my duty as
+were requisite and meet for such a noble Prince, at whose hands I have
+received so much love and goodness that with words I cannot express
+it."[253]
+
+It will be seen by this, and nearly every other letter that Katharine
+wrote to her husband, that she had taken the measure of his prodigious
+vanity, and indulged him to the top of his bent. In a letter written to
+him on the 9th August, referring to the success of the Earl of Lennox, who
+had just married Henry's niece, Margaret Douglas, and had gone to Scotland
+to seize the government in English interest, Katharine says: "The good
+speed which Lennox has had, is to be imputed to his serving a master whom
+God aids. He might have served the French king, his old master, many years
+without attaining such a victory." This is the attitude in which Henry
+loved to be approached, and with such letters from his wife in England
+confirming the Jove-like qualities attributed to him in consequence of his
+presence with his army in France, Henry's short campaign before Boulogne
+was doubtless one of the pleasantest experiences in his life.
+
+To add to his satisfaction, he had not been at Calais a week before
+Francis began to make secret overtures for peace. It was too early for
+that, however, just yet, for Henry coveted Boulogne, and the sole use made
+of the French approaches to him was to impress the imperial agents with
+his supreme importance. The warning was not lost upon Charles and his
+sister the Queen Regent of the Netherlands, who themselves began to
+listen to the unofficial suggestions for peace made by the agents of the
+Duchess d'Etampes, the mistress of Francis, in order, if possible, to
+benefit herself and the Duke of Orleans in the conditions, to the
+detriment of the Dauphin Henry. Thenceforward it was a close game of
+diplomatic finesse between Henry and Charles as to which should make terms
+first and arbitrate on the claims of the other.
+
+St. Disier capitulated to the Emperor on the 8th August; and Charles at
+once sent another envoy to Henry at Boulogne, praying him urgently to
+fulfil the plan of campaign decided with Gonzaga, or the whole French army
+would be concentrated upon the imperial forces and crush them. But Henry
+would not budge from before Boulogne, and Charles, whilst rapidly pushing
+forward into France, and in serious danger of being cut off by the
+Dauphin, listened intently for sounds of peace. They soon came, through
+the Duke of Lorraine; and before the end of August the Emperor was in
+close negotiation with the French, determined, come what might, that the
+final settlement of terms should not be left in the hands of the King of
+England. Henry's action at this juncture was pompous, inflated, and
+stupid, whilst that of Charles was statesmanlike, though unscrupulous.
+Even during the negotiations Charles pushed forward and captured Epernay
+and Chateau Thierry, where the Dauphin's stores were. This was on the 7th
+September, and then having struck his blow he knew that he must make peace
+at once. He therefore sent the young Bishop of Arras, Granvelle, with a
+message to Henry which he knew would have the effect desired. The King of
+England was again to be urged formally but insincerely to advance and join
+the Emperor, but if he would not the Emperor must make peace, always
+providing that the English claims were satisfactorily settled.
+
+Arras arrived in the English camp on the 11th September. He found Henry in
+his most vaunting mood; for only three days before the ancient tower on
+the harbour side opposite Boulogne had been captured by his men.[254] He
+could not move forward, he said; it was too late in the season to begin a
+new campaign, and he was only bound by the treaty to keep the field four
+months in a year. If the Emperor was in a fix, that was his look-out. The
+terms, moreover, suggested for the peace between his ally and France were
+out of the question, especially the clause about English claims. The
+French had already offered him much better conditions than those. Arras
+pushed his point. The Emperor must know definitely, he urged, whether the
+King of England would make peace or not, as affairs could not be left
+pending. Then Henry lost his temper, as the clever imperial ministers knew
+he would do, and blurted out in a rage: "Let the Emperor make peace for
+himself if he likes, but nothing must be done to prejudice my claims." It
+was enough for the purpose desired, for in good truth the Emperor had
+already agreed with the French, and Arras posted back to his master with
+Henry's hasty words giving permission for him to make a separate peace. In
+vain for the next two years Henry strove to unsay, to palliate, to
+disclaim these words. Quarrels, bursts of violent passion, incoherent
+rage, indignant denials, were all of no avail; the words were said, and
+vouched for by those who heard them; and Charles hurriedly ratified the
+peace already practically made with France on terms that surprised the
+world, and made Henry wild with indignation.
+
+The Emperor, victor though he was, in appearance gave away everything. His
+daughter or niece was to marry Orleans, with Milan or Flanders as a dowry;
+Savoy was to be restored to the Duke, and the French were to join the
+Emperor in alliance against the Turk. None knew yet--though Henry may have
+suspected it--that behind the public treaty there was a secret compact by
+which the two Catholic sovereigns agreed to concentrate their joint powers
+and extirpate a greater enemy than the Turk, namely, the rising power of
+Protestantism in Europe. Henry was thus betrayed and was at war alone with
+France, all of whose forces were now directed against him. Boulogne fell
+to the English on the 14th September, three days after Arras arrived in
+Henry's camp, and the King hurried back to England in blazing wrath with
+the Emperor and inflated with the glorification of his own victory, eager
+for the applause of his subjects before his laurels faded and the French
+beleagured the captured town. Gardiner and Paget, soon to be joined
+temporarily by Hertford, remained in Calais in order to continue, if
+possible, the abortive peace negotiations with France. But it was a
+hopeless task now; for Francis, free from fear on his north-east frontier,
+was determined to win back Boulogne at any cost. The Dauphin swore that he
+would have no peace whilst Boulogne remained in English hands, and Henry
+boastfully declared that he would hold it for ever now that he had won it.
+
+Thenceforward the relations between Henry and the Emperor became daily
+more unamiable. Henry claimed under the treaty that Charles should still
+help him in the war, but that was out of the question. When in 1546 the
+French made a descent upon the Isle of Wight, once more the treaty was
+invoked violently by the King of England: almost daily claims, complaints,
+and denunciations were made on both sides with regard to the vexed
+question of contraband of war for the French, mostly Dutch herrings; and
+the right of capture by the English. The Emperor was seriously intent upon
+keeping Henry on fairly good terms, and certainly did not wish to go to
+war with him; but he had submitted to the hard terms of the peace of
+Crespy with a distinct object, and dared not jeopardise it by renewing his
+quarrel with France for the sake of Henry.
+
+Slowly it had forced itself upon the mind of Charles that his own
+Protestant vassals, the Princes of the Schmalkaldic league, must be
+crushed into obedience, or his own power would become a shadow; and his
+aim was to keep all Christendom friendly until he had choked Lutheranism
+at its fountain-head. From the period of Henry's return to England in
+these circumstances, growing sympathy for those whom a Papal and imperial
+coalition were attacking caused the influence of the Catholic party in his
+Councils gradually but spasmodically to decline. Chapuys, who himself was
+hastening to the grave, accompanied his successor Van Der Delft as
+ambassador to England at Christmas (1544), and describes Henry as looking
+very old and broken, but more boastful of his victory over the French than
+ever. He professed, no doubt sincerely, a desire to remain friendly with
+the Emperor; and after their interview with him the ambassadors, without
+any desire being expressed on their part, were conducted to the Queen's
+oratory during divine service. In reply to their greetings and thanks for
+her good offices for the preservation of friendship and her kindness to
+Princess Mary, Katharine "replied, very graciously, that she did not
+deserve so much courtesy from your Majesty (the Emperor). What she did for
+Lady Mary was less than she would like to do, and was only her duty in
+every respect. With regard to the maintenance of friendship, she said she
+had done, and would do, nothing to prevent its growing still firmer, and
+she hoped that God would avert the slightest dissension; as the friendship
+was so necessary, and both sovereigns were so good."[255]
+
+
+[Illustration: _HENRY VIII._
+
+_From a portrait by_ HOLBEIN _in the possession of the Earl of Warwick_]
+
+
+Katharine was equally amiable, though evidently now playing a political
+part, when four months later the aged and crippled Chapuys bade his
+last farewell to England. He was being carried in a chair to take leave of
+Henry at Whitehall one morning in May at nine o'clock. He was an hour
+earlier than the time fixed for his audience, and was passing through the
+green alleys of the garden towards the King's apartments, when notice was
+brought to him that the Queen and Princess Mary were hastening after him.
+He stopped at once, and had just time to hobble out of his chair before
+the two ladies reached him. "It seemed from the small suite she had with
+her, and the haste with which she came, as if her purpose in coming was
+specially to speak to me. She was attended only by four or five ladies of
+the chamber, and opened the conversation by saying that the King had told
+her the previous evening that I was coming that morning to say good-bye.
+She was very sorry, on the one hand, for my departure, as she had been
+told that I had always performed my duties well, and the King trusted me;
+but on the other hand she doubted not that my health would be better on
+the other side of the sea. I could, however, she said, do as much on the
+other side as here, for the maintenance of the friendship, of which I had
+been one of the chief promoters. For this reason she was glad I was going;
+although she had no doubt that so wise and good a sovereign as your
+Majesty (_i.e._ the Emperor) would see the need and importance of
+upholding the friendship, of which the King, on his side, had given so
+many proofs in the past. Yet it seemed to her that your Majesty had not
+been so thoroughly informed hitherto, either by my letters or otherwise,
+of the King's sincere affection and goodwill, as I should be able to
+report verbally. She therefore begged me earnestly, after I had presented
+to your Majesty her humble service, to express explicitly to you, all that
+I had learned here of the good wishes of the King."[256]
+
+There was much more high-flown compliment both from Katharine and her
+step-daughter before the gouty ambassador went on his way; but it is
+evident that Katharine, like her husband, was at this time (May 1545)
+apprehensive as to the intentions of Charles and his French allies towards
+England, and was still desirous to obtain some aid in the war under the
+treaty, in order, if possible, to weaken the new friendship with France
+and the Catholic alliance. In the meanwhile the failure of Gardiner's
+policy, and the irritation felt at the Emperor's abandonment of England,
+placed the minister somewhat under a cloud. He had failed, too, to
+persuade the Emperor personally to fulfil the treaty, as well as in his
+negotiations for peace with the French; and, as his sun gradually sank
+before the King's annoyance, that of Secretary Paget, of Hertford, of
+Dudley, and of Wriothesley, now Lord Chancellor, a mere time-serving
+courtier, rose. The Protestant element around Katharine, too, became
+bolder, and her own participation in politics was now frankly on the
+anti-Catholic side. The alliance--insincere and temporary though it
+was--between the Emperor and France, once more produced its inevitable
+effect of drawing together England and the German Lutherans. It is true
+that Charles' great plan for crushing dissent by the aid of the Pope was
+not yet publicly known; but the Council of Trent was slowly gathering, and
+it was clear to the German princes of the Schmalkaldic league that great
+events touching religion and their independence were in the air; for
+Cardinal Farnese and the Papal agents were running backward and forward to
+the Emperor on secret missions, and all the Catholic world rang with
+denunciation of heresy.
+
+In June the new imperial ambassador, Van Der Delft, sounded the first note
+of alarm from England. Katharine Parr's secretary, Buckler, he said, had
+been in Germany for weeks, trying to arrange a league between the
+Protestant princes and England. This was a matter of the highest
+importance, and Charles when he heard of it was doubly desirous of keeping
+his English brother from quite breaking away; whilst in September there
+arrived in England from France a regular embassy from the Duke of Saxony,
+the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Wuertemburg, and the King of Denmark,
+ostensibly to promote peace between England and France, but really bent
+upon effecting a Protestant alliance. Henry, indeed, was seriously
+alarmed. He was exhausted by his long war in France, harassed in the
+victualling of Boulogne and even of Calais, and fully alive to the fact
+that he was practically defenceless against an armed coalition of the
+Emperor and France. In the circumstances it was natural that the influence
+over him of his wife, and of his brother-in-law Hertford, both inclined to
+a reconciliation with France and an understanding with the German
+Protestants, should increase.
+
+Katharine, now undisguisedly in favour of such a policy, was full of tact;
+during the King's frequent attacks of illness she was tender and useful to
+him, and the attachment to her of the young Prince Edward, testified by
+many charming little letters of the boy, too well known to need quotation
+here, seemed to promise a growth of her State importance. The tendency was
+one to be strenuously opposed by Gardiner and his friends in the Council,
+and once more attempts were made to strike at the Queen through Cranmer,
+almost simultaneously with a movement, flattering to Henry and hopeful for
+the Catholic party, to negotiate a meeting at Calais or in Flanders
+between him and the Emperor, to settle all questions and make France
+distrustful. For any such approach to be productive of the full effects
+desired by Gardiner, it was necessary to couple with it severe measures
+against the Protestants. Henry was reminded that the coming attack upon
+the German Lutherans by the Emperor, with the acquiescence of France,
+would certainly portend an attack upon himself later; and he was told by
+the Catholic majority of his Council that any tenderness on his part
+towards heresy now would be specially perilous. The first blow was struck
+at Cranmer, and was struck in vain. The story in full is told by Strype
+from Morice and Foxe, and has been repeated by every historian of the
+reign. Gardiner and his colleagues represented to Henry that, although the
+Archbishop was spreading heresy, no one dared to give evidence against a
+Privy Councillor whilst he was free. The King promised that they might
+send Cranmer to the Tower, if on examination of him they found reason to
+do so. Late that night Henry sent across the river to Lambeth to summon
+the Archbishop from his bed to see him, told him of the accusation, and
+his consent that the accused should be judged and, if advisable, committed
+to the Tower by his own colleagues on the Council. Cranmer humbly thanked
+the King, sure, as he said, that no injustice would be permitted. Henry,
+however, knew better, and indignantly said so; giving to his favourite
+prelate his ring for a token that summoned the Council to the royal
+presence.
+
+The next morning early Cranmer was summoned to the Council, and was kept
+long waiting in an ante-room amongst suitors and serving-men. Dr. Butts,
+Henry's privileged physician, saw this and told the King that the
+Archbishop of Canterbury had turned lackey; for he had stood humbly
+waiting outside the Council door for an hour. Henry, in a towering rage,
+growled, "I shall talk to them by-and-by." When Cranmer was charged with
+encouraging heresy he demanded of his colleagues that he should be
+confronted with his accusers. They refused him rudely, and told him he
+should be sent to the Tower. Then Cranmer's turn came, and he produced the
+King's ring, to the dismay of the Council, who, when they tremblingly
+faced their irate sovereign, were taken to task with a violence that
+promised them ill, if ever they dared to touch again the King's friend.
+But though Cranmer was unassailable, the preachers who followed his creed
+were not. In the spring of 1546 the persecutions under the Six Articles
+commenced afresh, and for a short time the Catholic party in the Council
+had much their own way, having frightened Henry into abandoning the
+Lutheran connection, in order that the vengeance of the Catholic league
+might not fall upon him, when the Emperor had crushed the Schmalkaldic
+princes.[257]
+
+Henry's health was visibly failing, and the two factions in his Court knew
+that time was short in which to establish the predominance of either at
+the critical moment. On the Protestant side were Hertford, Dudley,
+Cranmer, and the Queen, and on the other Gardiner, Paget, Paulet, and
+Wriothesley; and as Katharine's influence grew with her husband's
+increasing infirmity, it became necessary for the opposite party if
+possible to get rid of her before the King died. In February 1546 the
+imperial ambassador reported: "I am confused and apprehensive to have to
+inform your Majesty that there are rumours here of a new Queen, although I
+do not know why or how true they may be. Some people attribute them to the
+sterility of the Queen, whilst others say that there will be no change
+whilst the present war lasts. The Duchess of Suffolk is much talked about,
+and is in great favour; but the King shows no alteration in his behaviour
+towards the Queen, though she is, I am informed, annoyed at the
+rumours."[258] Hints of this sort continued for some time, and evidently
+took their rise from a deliberate attack upon Katharine by the Catholic
+councillors. She herself, for once, failed in her tact, and laid herself
+open to the designs of her enemies. She was betrayed into a religious
+discussion with Henry during one of his attacks of illness, in the
+presence of Gardiner, much to the King's annoyance. When she had retired
+the Bishop flattered Henry by saying that he wondered how any one could
+have the temerity to differ from him on theology, and carried his
+suggestions further by saying that such a person might well oppose him in
+other things than opinions. Moved by the hints at his danger, always a
+safe card to play with him, the King allowed an indictment to be drawn up
+against Katharine, and certain ladies of her family, under the Six
+Articles. Everything was arranged for the Queen's arrest and examination,
+when Wriothesley, the Lord Chancellor, a servile creature who always clung
+to the strongest side, seems to have taken fright and divulged the plot to
+one of her friends. Katharine was at once informed and fell ill with
+fright, which for a short time deferred the arrest. Being partially
+recovered she sought the King, and when he began to talk about religion,
+she by her submission and refusal to contradict his views, as those of one
+far too learned for her to controvert, easily flattered him back into a
+good humour with her. The next day was fixed for carrying her to the
+Tower, and again Henry determined to play a trick upon his ministers.
+Sending for his wife in the garden, he kept her in conversation until the
+hour appointed for her arrest. When Wriothesley and the guard approached,
+the King turned upon him in a fury, calling him knave, fool, beast, and
+other opprobrious names, to the Lord Chancellor's utter surprise and
+confusion.
+
+The failure of the attack upon Katharine in the summer of 1546 marks the
+decline of the Catholic party in the Council. Peace was made with France
+in the autumn; and Katharine did her part in the splendid reception of the
+Admiral of France and the great rejoicings over the new peace treaty
+(September 1546). Almost simultaneously came the news of fresh dissensions
+between the Emperor and Francis; for the terms of the peace of Crespy were
+flagrantly evaded, and it began to be seen now that the treaty had for its
+sole object the keeping of France quiet and England at war whilst the
+German Protestants were crushed. Not in France alone, but in England too,
+the revulsion of feeling against the Emperor's aims was great. The
+treacherous attack upon his own vassals in order to force orthodoxy upon
+them at the sword's point had been successful, and it was seen to
+constitute a menace to all the world. Again Protestant envoys came to
+England and obtained a loan from Henry: again the Duke Philip of Bavaria,
+who said that he had never heard mass in his life until he arrived in
+England, came to claim the hand of the Princess Mary;[259] and the
+Catholics in the King's Council, forced to stand upon the defensive,
+became, not the conspirators but those conspired against. Hertford and
+Dudley, now Lord Admiral, were the King's principal companions, both in
+his pastimes and his business; and the imperial ambassador expressed his
+fears for the future to a caucus of the Council consisting of Gardiner,
+Wriothesley, and Paulet, deploring, as he said, that "not only had the
+Protestants their openly declared champions ... but I had even heard that
+some of them had gained great favour with the King, though I wished they
+were as far away from Court as they were last year. I did not mention
+names, but the persons I referred to were the Earl of Hertford and the
+Lord Admiral. The councillors made no reply, but they clearly showed that
+they understood me, and continued in their great devotion to your
+Majesty."[260]
+
+Late in September the King fell seriously ill, and his life for a time was
+despaired of. Dr. Butts had died some months before, and the Queen was
+indefatigable in her attendance; and the Seymours, as uncles of the heir,
+rose in importance as the danger to the King increased. The only strong
+men on the Council on the Catholic side were Gardiner, who was extremely
+unpopular and already beaten, and Norfolk. Paulet was as obedient to the
+prevailing wind as a weathercock; Wriothesley was an obsequious, greedy
+sycophant; Paget a humble official with little influence, and the rest
+were nonentities. The enmity of the Seymours against the Howards was of
+long standing, and was as much personal as political; especially between
+the younger brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, and the Earl of Surrey, the heir
+of Norfolk, whose quarrels and affrays had several times caused scandal at
+Court. There was much ill-will also between Surrey and his sister, the
+widowed Duchess of Richmond, who after the death of her young husband had
+been almost betrothed to Sir Thomas Seymour.[261] With these elements of
+enmity a story was trumped up which frightened the sick King into the
+absurd idea that Surrey aimed at succeeding to the crown, to the exclusion
+of Henry's children. It was sufficient to send him to the Tower, and
+afterwards to the block as one of Henry's most popular victims. His
+father, the aged Duke of Norfolk, was got rid of by charges of complicity
+with him. Stripped of his garter, the first of English nobles was carried
+to the Tower by water, whilst his brilliant poet son was led through the
+streets of London like a pickpurse, cheered to the echo by the crowd that
+loved him. The story hatched to explain the arrests to the public, besides
+the silly gossip about Surrey's coat-of-arms and claims to the crown, was,
+that whilst the King was thought to be dying in November at Windsor, the
+Duke and his son had plotted to obtain possession of the Prince for their
+own ends on the death of his father. Having regard for the plots and
+counterplots that we know divided the Council at the time, this is very
+probable, and was exactly what Hertford and Dudley were doing, the Prince,
+indeed, being then in his uncle's keeping at Hertford Castle.
+
+At the end of December the King suffered from a fresh attack, which
+promised to be fatal. He was at Whitehall at the time, whilst Katharine
+was at Greenwich, an unusual thing which attracted much comment; but
+whether she was purposely excluded by Hertford from access to him or not,
+it is certain that the Protestant party of which she, the Duchess of
+Suffolk, and the Countess of Hertford were the principal lady members, and
+the Earl of Hertford and Lord Admiral Dudley the active leaders, alone had
+control of affairs. Gardiner had been threatened with the Tower months
+before, and had then only been saved by Norfolk's bold protest. Now
+Norfolk was safe under bolts and bars, whilst Wriothesley and Paulet were
+openly insulted by Hertford and Dudley, and, like their chief Gardiner,
+lay low in fear of what was to come when the King died.[262] They were
+soon to learn. The King had been growing worse daily during January. His
+legs, covered with running ulcers, were useless to him and in terrible
+torture. His bulk was so unwieldy that mechanical means had to be employed
+to lift him. Surrey had been done to death in the Tower for high treason,
+whilst yet the King's stiffened hand could sign the death-warrant; but
+when the time came for killing Norfolk, Henry was too far gone to place
+his signature to the fatal paper. Wriothesley, always ready to oblige the
+strong, produced a commission, stated to be authorised by the King,
+empowering him as Chancellor to sign for him, which he did upon the
+warrant ordering the death of Norfolk, whose head was to fall on the
+following morning. But it was too late, for on the morrow before the hour
+fixed for the execution the soul of King Henry had gone to its account,
+and none dared carry out the vicarious command to sacrifice the proudest
+noble in the realm for the convenience of the political party for the
+moment predominant.
+
+On the afternoon of 26th January 1547 the end of the King was seen to be
+approaching. The events of Henry's deathbed have been told with so much
+religious passion on both sides that it is somewhat difficult to arrive at
+the truth. Between the soul in despair and mortal anguish, as described by
+Rivadeneyra, and the devout Protestant deathbed portrayed by some of the
+ardent religious reformers, there is a world of difference. The accepted
+English version says that, fearing the dying man's anger, none of the
+courtiers dared to tell him of his coming dissolution, until his old
+friend Sir Anthony Denny, leaning over him, gently broke the news. Henry
+was calm and resigned, and when asked if he wished to see a priest, he
+answered: "Only Cranmer, and him not yet." It was to be never, for Henry
+was speechless and sightless when the Primate came, and the King could
+answer only by a pressure of his numbed fingers the question if he died in
+the faith of Christ. Another contemporary, whom I have several times
+quoted, though always with some reservation, says that Henry, some days
+before he died, took a tender farewell of the Princess Mary, to whose
+motherly care he commended her young brother; and that he then sent for
+the Queen and said to her, "'It is God's will that we should part, and I
+order all these gentlemen to honour and treat you as if I were living
+still; and, if it should be your pleasure to marry again, I order that you
+shall have seven thousand pounds for your service as long as you live, and
+all your jewels and ornaments.' The good Queen could not answer for
+weeping, and he ordered her to leave him. The next day he confessed, took
+the sacrament, and commended his soul to God."[263]
+
+Henry died, in fact, as he had lived, a Catholic. The Reformation in
+England, of which we have traced the beginnings in this book, did not
+spring mature from the mind and will of the King, but was gradually thrust
+upon him by the force of circumstances, arising out of the steps he took
+to satisfy his passion and gratify his imperious vanity. Freedom of
+thought in religion was the last thing to commend itself to such a mind as
+his, and his treatment of those who disobeyed either the Act of Supremacy
+or the Bloody Statute (the Six Articles) shows that neither on the one
+side or the other would he tolerate dissent from his own views, which he
+characteristically caused to be embodied in the law of the land, either in
+politics or religion. The concession to subjects of the right of private
+judgment in matters of conscience seemed to the potentates of the
+sixteenth century to strike at the very base of all authority, and the
+very last to concede such a revolutionary claim was Henry Tudor. His
+separation from the Papal obedience, whilst retaining what, in his view,
+were the essentials of the Papal creed, was directed rather to the
+increase than to the diminution of his own authority over his subjects,
+and it was this fact that doubtless made it more than ever attractive to
+him. To ascribe to him a complete plan for the aggrandisement of England
+and her emancipation from foreign control, by means of religious schism,
+has always appeared to me to endow him with a political sagacity and
+prescience which, in my opinion, he did not possess, and to estimate
+imperfectly the forces by which he was impelled.
+
+We have seen how, entirely in consequence of the unexpected difficulties
+raised by the Papacy to the first divorce, he adopted the bold advice of
+Cranmer and Cromwell to defy the Pope on that particular point. The
+opposition of the Pope was a purely political one, forced upon him by the
+Emperor for reasons of State, in order to prevent a coalition between
+England and France; and there were several occasions when, if the Pope had
+been left to himself, he would have found a solution that would have kept
+England in the orthodox fold. But for the persistence of the opposition
+Henry would never have taken the first step that led to the Reformation.
+Having taken it, each other step onward was the almost inevitable
+consequence of the first, having regard to the peculiar character of the
+King. It has been the main business of this book to trace in what respect
+the policy that ended in the great religious schism was reflected or
+influenced by the matrimonial adventures of the King, who has gone down to
+history as the most married monarch of modern times. We have seen that,
+although, with the exception of Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, each
+for a short time, the direct influence of Henry's wives upon events was
+small, each one represented, and coincided in point of time with, a
+change in the ruling forces around the King. We have seen that the
+libidinous tendency of the monarch was utilised by the rival parties, as
+were all other elements that might help them, to forward the opportunity
+by which a person to some extent dependent upon them might be placed at
+the side of the King as his wife; and when for the purpose it was
+necessary to remove the wife in possession first, we have witnessed the
+process by which it was effected.
+
+The story from this point of view has not been told before in its
+entirety, and as the whole panorama unrolls before us, we mark curiously
+the regular degeneration of Henry's character, as the only checks upon his
+action were removed, and he progressively defied traditional authority and
+established standards of conduct without disaster to himself. The power of
+the Church to censure or punish him, and the fear of personal reprobation
+by the world, were the influences that, had they retained their force over
+him to the end, would probably have kept Henry to all appearance a good
+man. But when he found, probably to his own surprise, that the jealous
+divisions of the Catholic powers on the Continent made defiance of the
+Church in his case unpunishable, and that crafty advisers and servile
+Parliaments could give to his deeds, however violent and cruel, the
+sanction of Holy Writ and the law of the land, there was no power on earth
+to hold in check the devil in the breast of Henry Tudor; and the man who
+began a vain, brilliant sensualist, with the feelings of a gentleman,
+ended a repulsive, bloodstained monster, the more dangerous because his
+evil was always held to be good by himself and those around him.
+
+In his own eyes he was a deeply wronged and ill-used man when Katharine of
+Aragon refused to surrender her position as his wife after twenty years of
+wedlock, and appealed to forces outside England to aid her in supporting
+her claim. It was a rebellious, a cruel, and a wicked thing for her and
+her friends to stand in the way of his tender conscience, and of his
+laudable and natural desire to be succeeded on the throne by a son of his
+own. Similarly, it seemed very hard upon him that all Europe, and most of
+his own country, should be threateningly against him for the sake of Anne
+Boleyn, for whom he had already sacrificed and suffered so much, and
+particularly as she was shrewish and had brought him no son. He really was
+a most ill-used man, and it was a providential instance of divine justice
+that Cromwell, in the nick of time, when the situation had become
+unendurable and Jane Seymour's prudish charms were most elusive, should
+fortunately discover that Anne was unworthy to be Henry's wife, and
+Cranmer should decide that she never _had_ been his wife. It was not his
+fault, moreover, that Anne of Cleves' physical qualities had repelled him.
+A wicked and ungenerous trick had been played upon him. His trustful
+ingenuousness had been betrayed by flatterers at the instance of a knavish
+minister, who, not content with bringing him a large unsympathetic Dutch
+vrow for a wife, had pledged him to an alliance with a lot of
+insignificant vassal princes in rebellion against the greater sovereigns
+who were his own peers. It was a just decree of heaven that the righteous
+wisdom of Gardiner and Norfolk should enable it to be demonstrated clearly
+that the good King had once more been deceived, and that Anne, and the
+policy she stood for, could be repudiated at the same time without
+opprobrium or wrongdoing. Again, how relentless was the persecution of the
+powers of evil against the obese invalid of fifty who married in ignorance
+of her immoral past a light-lived beauty of seventeen, and was undeceived
+when her frivolity began to pall upon him by those whose political and
+religious views might benefit by the disgrace of the party that had placed
+Katharine Howard by the King's side as his wife. That the girl Queen
+should lose her head for lack of virtue before her marriage and lack of
+prudence after it, was, of course, quite just, and in accordance with the
+law of the land--for all that Henry did was strictly legal--but it was a
+heartrending thing that the good husband should suffer the distress of
+having once believed in so unworthy a wife. Still Katharine Howard was not
+sacrificed in vain, for, although the Catholic policy she represented
+suffered no check, for reasons set forth in earlier pages, the King's sad
+bereavement left him in the matrimonial market and enhanced his price as
+an ally, for much of the future depended upon the wife and the party that
+should be in possession when the King died. As we have seen, the
+Protestants, or rather the anti-Catholics, won the last trick; and
+Somerset's predominance meant that the Reformation in England should not
+be one of form alone but of substance.
+
+The life of Katharine Parr after Henry's death hardly enters into the plan
+of this book; but a few lines may be devoted to it, and to her pitiable
+end. The instant rise of the Protector Somerset on the death of Henry
+brought with it a corresponding increase in the importance of his brother
+Sir Thomas, then Lord Seymour of Sudeley, who was certainly no less
+ambitious than his brother, and probably of much stronger character. For a
+time all went well between the brothers, Thomas being created Lord
+Admiral, to the annoyance of Dudley--now Earl of Warwick--who had held the
+office, and receiving great grants of forfeited estates and other wealth.
+But soon the evident attempts of Lord Seymour to rival his elder brother,
+and perhaps to supplant him, aroused the jealousy of Somerset, or more
+likely of his quarrelsome and haughty wife.
+
+Some love passages, we have seen, took place between Seymour and Katharine
+Parr before her marriage with the King, so that it need not be ascribed to
+ambition that the lover should once more cast his eyes upon the royal
+widow before the weeds for the King had been cast aside.[264] Katharine,
+with a large dower that has already been mentioned, lived alternately in
+her two mansion-houses at Chelsea and Hanworth; and to her care was
+consigned the Lady Elizabeth, then a girl of fourteen. As early as the
+beginning of May 1547, Seymour had visited the widowed Queen at Chelsea
+with his tale of love. Katharine was now thirty-four years of age, and
+having married in succession three old men, might fairly be entitled to
+contract a fourth marriage to please herself. There was no more manly or
+handsome figure in England than that of Seymour, with his stately stature,
+his sonorous voice, and his fine brown beard; and in his quiet meetings
+with the Queen in her pretty riverside garden at Chelsea, he appears to
+have found no difficulty in persuading Katharine of the sincerity of his
+love.
+
+For a time the engagement was kept secret; but watchful eyes were around
+the Queen, especially those of her own kin, and the following letter,
+written by Seymour to her on the 17th May, shows that her sister, Lady
+Herbert, at least, had wind from Katharine of what was going on: "After my
+humble commendations of your Highness. Yester night I supped at my brother
+Herbert's, of whom, for your sake besydes my nown, I receved good cheyre.
+And after the same I received from your Highness by my sister Herbert[265]
+your commendations, which were more welcome than they were sent. And after
+the same she (Lady Herbert) waded further with me touching my being with
+your Highness at Chelsey, which I denied; but that, indeed, I went by the
+garden as I went to the Bishop of London's howse; and at this point I
+stood with her for a time, till at last she told me further tokens that
+made me change colour; and she, like a false wench, took me with the
+maner. Then, remembering what she was, and knowing how well ye trusted
+her, I examined her whether these things came from your Highness and by
+that knew it to be true; for the which I render unto your Highness my most
+umbell and harty thanks: for by her company (in default of yours) I shall
+shorten the weeks in these parts, which heretofore were three days longer
+in every of them than they were under the planets at Chelsey. Besydes this
+commoditye I may ascertain (_i.e._ inform) your Highness by her how I do
+proceed in my matter...." Seymour goes on to say that he has not yet dared
+to try his strength until he is fully in favour, this having reference
+apparently to his intention of begging his brother to permit the marriage,
+and then he proceeds: "If I knew by what means I might gratify your
+Highness for your goodness to me at our last being together, I should not
+be slack to declare mine to you again, and the intent that I will be more
+bound to your Highness, I do make my request that, yf it be nott painfull
+to your Highness, that once in three days I may receve three lynes in a
+letter from you; and as many lynes and letters more as shall seem good to
+your Highness. Also I shall ombeley desyr your Highness to geve me one of
+your small pictures yf ye hav one left, who with his silence shall give me
+occasion to think on the friendly cheere I shall have when my sawght
+(suit?) shall be at an end. 12 o'clock in the night this Tewsday the 17th
+May 1547. From him whom ye have bound to honour, love, and in all lawful
+thynges obbey.--T. SEYMOUR."
+
+The Queen had evidently pledged her troth to her lover at the previous
+meeting; and it would appear that when Katharine had promised to write to
+him but once a fortnight her impatience, as much as his, could ill suffer
+so long a silence. Either in answer to the above letter, or another
+similar one, Katharine wrote: "My Lord, I send you my most humble and
+hearty commendations, being desirous to know how ye have done since I saw
+you. I pray ye be not offended with me in that I send sooner to you than I
+said I would, for my promise was but once a fortnight. Howbeit, the time
+is well abbreviated, by what means I know not, except weeks be shorter at
+Chelsey than in other places. My Lord, your brother hath deferred
+answering such requests as I made to him till his coming hither, which he
+sayeth shall be immediately after the term. This is not the first promise
+I have received of his coming, and yet unperformed. I think my lady
+(_i.e._ the Duchess of Somerset) hath taught him that lesson, for it is
+her custom to promise many comings to her friends and to perform none. I
+trust in greater matters she is more circumspect."[266] Then follows a
+curious loving postscript, which shows that Katharine's fancy for Seymour
+was no new passion. "I would not have you think that this, mine honest
+good will toward you, proceeds from any sudden motion of passion; for, as
+truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent the other time I was at
+liberty to marry you before any man I know. Howbeit, God withstood my will
+therein most vehemently for a time, and through His grace and goodness
+made that possible which seemed to me most impossible: that was, made me
+renounce utterly mine own will, and follow His most willingly. It were
+long to write all the process of this matter. If I live I shall declare it
+to you myself. I can say nothing; but as my lady of Suffolk saith: 'God is
+a marvellous man.'--KATHERYN THE QUENE."[267]
+
+The course of true love did not run smoothly. Somerset, and especially his
+wife, did not like the idea of his younger brother's elevation to higher
+influence by his marrying the Queen-Dowager; and the Protector proved
+unwilling to grant his consent to the marriage. Katharine evidently
+resented this, and was inclined to use her great influence with the young
+King himself over his elder uncle's head. When Seymour was in doubt how to
+approach his brother about it, Katharine wrote spiritedly: "The denial of
+your request shall make his folly more manifest to the world, which will
+more grieve me than the want of his speaking. I would not wish you to
+importune for his goodwill if it come not frankly at first. It shall be
+sufficient once to require it, and then to cease. I would desire you might
+obtain the King's letters in your favour, and also the aid and furtherance
+of the most notable of the Council, such as ye shall think convenient,
+which thing being obtained shall be no small shame to your brother and
+sister in case they do not the like." In the same letter Katharine rather
+playfully dallies with her lover's request that she will abridge the
+period of waiting from two years to two months, and then she concludes in
+a way which proves if nothing else did how deeply she was in love with
+Seymour. "When it shall pleasure you to repair hither (Chelsea) ye must
+take some pains to come early in the morning, so that ye may be gone again
+by seven o'clock; and thus I suppose ye may come without being suspect. I
+pray ye let me have knowledge overnight at what hour ye will come, that
+your portress (_i.e._ Katharine herself) may wait at the gate to the
+fields for you."
+
+It was not two years, or even two months, that the impatient lovers
+waited: for they must have been married before the last day in May 1547,
+four months after Henry's death. Katharine's suggestion that the boy King
+himself should be enlisted on their side, was adopted; and he was induced
+to press Seymour's suit to his father's widow, as if he were the promoter
+of it. When the secret marriage was known to Somerset, he expressed the
+greatest indignation and anger at it; and a system of petty persecution of
+Katharine began. Her jewels, of which the King had left her the use during
+her life, were withheld from her; her jointure estates were dealt with by
+Somerset regardless of her wishes and protests; and her every appearance
+at Court led to a squabble with the Protector's wife as to the precedence
+to be accorded to her. On one occasion it is stated that this question of
+precedence led in the Chapel Royal to a personal encounter between
+Katharine and proud Ann Stanhope.
+
+Nor was Katharine's life at home with her gallant, empty-headed, turbulent
+husband, cloudless. The Princess Elizabeth lived with them; and though she
+was but a girl, Seymour began before many months of married life to act
+suspiciously with her. The manners of the time were free; and Seymour
+might perhaps innocently romp suggestively, as he did, sometimes alone and
+sometimes in his wife's presence, with the young Princess as she lay in
+bed; but when Katharine, entering a chamber suddenly once, found young
+Elizabeth embraced in her husband's arms, there was a domestic explosion
+which led to the departure of the girl from the Chelsea household.[268]
+Katharine was pregnant at the time; and Elizabeth's letter to her on her
+leaving Chelsea shows that although, for the sake of prudence, the girl
+was sent away, there was no great unkindness between her and her
+stepmother in consequence. She says that she was chary of her thanks when
+leaving, because "I was replete with sorrow to depart from your Highness,
+especially leaving you undoubtful of health, and, albeit I answered
+little, I weighed more deeper when you said you would warn me of all the
+evils that you should hear of me."
+
+When the poor lady's time drew near, she wrote a hopeful yet pathetic
+letter to her husband, who was already involving himself in the ambitious
+schemes that brought his head to the block. Both she and her husband in
+their letters anticipated the birth of their child with a frankness of
+detail which make the documents unfitted for reproduction here; and it is
+evident that, though they were now often separated, this looked-for son
+was to be a new pledge to bind them together for the future. In June 1548
+Seymour took his wife to Sudeley Castle for her confinement; and from
+there carried on, through his agents with the King, his secret plots to
+supersede his brother Somerset as Protector of the realm. He and his wife
+were surrounded by a retinue so large, as of itself to constitute a menace
+to the Protector; but Katharine's royal title gave a pretext for so large
+a household, and this and her personal influence secured whilst she lived
+her husband's safety from attack by his brother.
+
+At length, on the 30th August, Katharine's child was born, a daughter, and
+at first all went well. Even Somerset, angry and distrustful as he was,
+was infected by his brother's joy, and sent congratulations. But on the
+fourth day the mother became excited, and wandered somewhat; saying that
+she thought she would die, and that she was not being well treated. "Those
+who are about me do not care for me, but stand laughing at my grief," she
+complained to her friend Lady Tyrwhitt. This was evidently directed
+against Seymour, who stood by. "Why, sweetheart," he said, "I would you no
+hurt." "No, my Lord," replied Katharine, "I think so; but," she whispered,
+"you have given me many shrewd taunts." This seems to have troubled
+Seymour, and he suggested to Lady Tyrwhitt that he should lie on the bed
+by the Queen's side and try to calm her; but his efforts were without
+effect, for she continued excitedly to say that she had not been properly
+dealt with. These facts, related and magnified by attendants, and coupled
+with Seymour's desire to marry Elizabeth as soon as his wife died, gave
+rise to a pretty general opinion that Katharine was either poisoned or
+otherwise ill treated. But there are many circumstances that point in the
+contrary direction, and there can be no reasonable doubt now, that
+although in her inmost mind she had begun to distrust her husband, and the
+anxiety so caused may have contributed to her illness, she died (on the
+5th September) of ordinary puerperal fever.
+
+She was buried in great state in the chapel at Sudeley Castle, and her
+remains, which have been examined and described several times, add their
+testimony to the belief that the unfortunate Queen died a natural death.
+The death of Katharine Parr, the last, and least politically important, of
+Henry's six wives, took place, so far as English history is concerned, on
+the day that heralded the death of her royal husband. From the moment that
+Somerset and his wife sat in the seats of the mighty there was no room for
+the exercise of political influence by the Queen-Dowager; and these latter
+pages telling of her fourth marriage, this time for love, form but a human
+postscript to a political history.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1.
+
+[2] The second marriage, by proxy, of Arthur and Katharine eventually took
+place at the chapel of the royal manor of Bewdley on the 19th May 1499,
+and the young Prince appears to have performed his part of the ceremony
+with much decorum: "Saying in a loud, clear voice to Dr. Puebla, who
+represented the bride, that he was much rejoiced to contract an
+indissoluble marriage with Katharine, Princess of Wales, not only in
+obedience to the Pope and King Henry, but also from his deep and sincere
+love for the said Princess, his wife."--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1.
+
+[3] Hall's _Chronicle_.
+
+[4] Leland's _Collectanea_.
+
+[5] Hall's _Chronicle_.
+
+[6] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1.
+
+[7] The Spanish agent believed that Henry would have preferred that
+Katharine had not accompanied Arthur to Wales, but for his desire to force
+her to use her valuables, so that he might obtain their equivalent in
+money. Both Dona Elvira and Bishop Ayala told Henry that they considered
+that it would be well that the young couple should be separated and not
+live together for a time, as Arthur was so young. But Puebla and the
+Princess's chaplain, Alexander (Fitzgerald), had apparently said to the
+King that the bride's parents did not wish the Princess to be separated
+from her husband on any account. Dona Elvira's opinion on the matter
+assumes importance from her subsequent declaration soon after Arthur's
+death that she knew the marriage had not been consummated.
+
+[8] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, 271.
+
+[9] There is in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid (I. 325) a Spanish
+document, apparently a contemporary translation of the report sent to
+Henry from Valencia by the three agents he sent thither in 1505 to report
+upon the appearance of the two widowed Queens of Naples resident there.
+James Braybrooke, John Stile, and Francis Marsin express an extremely
+free, but favourable, opinion of the charms of the younger queen, aged
+twenty-seven. Katharine appears to have given letters of recommendation to
+the envoys. The Spanish version of the document varies but little from the
+printed English copy in the Calendar. The date of it is not given, but it
+must have been written in the late autumn of 1505. Henry was evidently
+anxious for the match, though he said that he would not marry the lady for
+all the treasures in the world if she turned out to be ugly. The Queen of
+Naples, however, would not allow a portrait to be taken of her, and
+decidedly objected to the match. The various phases of Henry's own
+matrimonial intrigues cannot be dealt with in this book, but it appears
+certain that if he could have allied himself to Spain by marrying the
+Queen of Naples, he would have broken his son's betrothal with Katharine,
+and have married him to one of the young princesses of France, a
+master-stroke which would have bound him to all the principal political
+factors in Europe.
+
+[10] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, p. 309.
+
+[11] She insisted--in accord with Ferdinand and Isabel--that Katharine
+should live in great seclusion as a widow until the second marriage
+actually took place, and Katharine appears to have done so at this time,
+though not very willingly. Some of her friends seem to have incited her to
+enjoy more freedom, but a tight hand was kept upon her, until events made
+her her own mistress, when, as will be seen in a subsequent page, she
+quite lost her head for a time, and committed what at least were the
+gravest indiscretions. (See _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1 and Supplement.)
+
+[12] The protest is dated 24th June 1505, when Henry was fourteen.
+
+[13] Margaret absolutely refused to marry Henry, and a substitute was
+found in the betrothal of young Charles, the eldest son of Philip, to
+Henry's younger daughter, Mary Tudor, afterwards Queen of France and
+Duchess of Suffolk.
+
+[14] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, 386.
+
+[15] This letter is dated in March 1507, and is a most characteristic
+epistle. Ferdinand in it professes the deepest love for his daughter and
+sympathy for her unhappiness. He had had the money all ready to send, he
+assures her, but King Philip had stopped it; and she must keep friendly
+with King Henry, never allowing any question to be raised as to the
+binding nature of her marriage with his son. As to the King's marriage
+with Juana, the proposal must be kept very secret or Juana will do
+something to prevent it; but if she ever marry again it shall be with no
+one else but Henry. Whether Ferdinand ever meant in any case to sell his
+distraught daughter to Henry may be doubted; but the proposal offered a
+good opportunity of gaining a fresh hold upon the King of England.
+
+[16] Puebla says that Henry had bought very cheaply the jewels of the
+deposed Kings of Naples and had great stores of them. He would only take
+Katharine's at a very low price.
+
+[17] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 1, 409, 15th April 1507.
+
+[18] The letters relating to this curious affair were for some years kept
+secret by the authorities at Simancas; but were eventually printed in the
+Supplement to vols. 2 and 3 of the _Spanish Calendar_.
+
+[19] _Calendar Henry VIII._, 26th July 1509.
+
+[20] It is doubtful if he was ever present at an engagement, and he
+hurried home from Boulogne as soon as hard fighting seemed to the fore.
+His fear of contagion and sickness was exhibited in most undignified
+fashion on several occasions.
+
+[21] _Calendar Henry VIII._, 23rd September 1513.
+
+[22] Katharine to Wolsey, 13th August 1513. _Calendar Henry VIII._
+
+[23] _Venetian Calendar_, vol. 2, 7th October 1513.
+
+[24] _Venetian Calendar_, vol. 2.
+
+[25] Lippomano from Rome, 1st September. _Venetian Calendar_, vol. 2.
+
+[26] _Calendar Henry VIII._, 31st December 1514.
+
+[27] See Giustiani's letters in the _Venetian Calendars_ of the date.
+
+[28] See the letters of Henry's secretary, Richard Pace, in the _Calendar
+of Henry VIII._, vol. 2.
+
+[29] The Emperor's fleet was sighted off Plymouth on the 23rd May 1520.
+
+[30] In the _Rutland Papers_ (Camden Society), Hall's _Chronicle_, and
+Camden's _Annales_ full and interesting details will be found.
+
+[31] The ambassador Martin de Salinas, who arrived in England during the
+Emperor's stay, from the Archduke Ferdinand who acted as _locum tenens_ in
+Germany for his brother, reports (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 2)
+that he delivered separate credentials to Queen Katharine, who promised to
+read them and give him her answer later. He continues: "I went to see her
+again this morning. She said that one of the letters had contained my
+credentials and the other spoke of the business of the Turks. The time for
+a war with the Turks, she declared, was ill chosen; as the war with France
+absorbed all the English resources. I told her that the Infante (_i.e._
+Ferdinand) regarded her as his true mother, and prayed her not to forsake
+him, but to see that the King of England sent him succour against the
+Turk. She answered that it will be impossible for the King to do so." It
+will be seen by this and other references to the same matter that
+Katharine at this time, during the imperial alliance, was again taking a
+powerful part in political affairs.
+
+[32] See the series of letters in Bradford's "Charles V." and Pace's
+correspondence in the _Henry VIII. Calendar_.
+
+[33] A good idea of the magnitude and splendour of the preparations may be
+gained by the official lists of personages and "diets," in the _Rutland
+Papers_, Camden Society. The pageants themselves are fully described in
+Hall.
+
+[34] Amongst others the 10 per cent. tax on all property in 1523. See
+Roper's "Life of More," Hall's _Chronicle_, Herbert's "Henry VIII.," &c.
+
+[35] Henry's answer, which was very emphatic, testified that although he
+had lost affection for his wife he respected her still; indeed his
+attitude to her throughout all his subsequent cruelty was consistently
+respectful to her character as a woman and a queen. "If," he said on this
+occasion, "he should seek a mistress for her (the Princess Mary), to frame
+her after the manner of Spain, and of whom she might take example of
+virtue, he should not find in all Christendom a more mete than she now
+hath, that is the Queen's grace, her mother."--_Venetian Calendar._
+
+[36] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 3, p. 1.
+
+[37] Late in 1525. A sad little letter written by Katharine in her quaint
+English to her daughter at this time is well known, but will bear
+repeating. Mary had written asking how she was; and the reply assures the
+Princess that it had not been forgetfulness of her that had caused her
+mother to delay the answer. "I am in that case that the long absence of
+the King and you troubleth me. My health is metely good; and I trust in
+God, he that sent me the last (illness?) doth it to the best and will
+shortly turn it (_i.e._ like?) to the fyrst to come to good effect. And in
+the meantime, I am veray glad to hear from you, specially when they shew
+me that ye be well amended. As for your writing in Latin, I am glad ye
+shall change from me to Master Federston; for that shall do you much good
+to learn by him to write right. But yet sometimes I would be glad when ye
+do write to Master Federston of your own enditing, when he hath read it
+that I may see it. For it shall be a great comfort to me to see you keep
+your Latin and fair writing and all." (Ellis' "Original Letters," B.M.
+Cotton Vesp. F. xiii.)
+
+[38] Mr. Froude denied that there is any foundation for the assertion that
+Mary Boleyn was the King's mistress. It seems to me, on the contrary, to
+be as fully supported by evidence as any such fact can be.
+
+[39] As usual, Hall is very diffuse in his descriptions of these
+festivities, especially in their sartorial aspects, and those readers who
+desire such details may be referred to his _Chronicle_.
+
+[40] Cavendish, "Life of Wolsey."
+
+[41] Letters of Inigo Lopez de Mendoza early in 1527. _Spanish Calendar_,
+vol. 3, part 2.
+
+[42] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 3, part 2, Mendoza's letters, and _Henry
+VIII. Calendar_, vol. 4, part 2, Wolsey to the King, 5th July 1527.
+
+[43] How false were all the parties to each other at this time may be seen
+in a curious letter from Knight, the King's secretary, to Wolsey (when in
+France) about this man's going (Ellis' "Original Letters"). "So yt is that
+Francisco Philip Spaniard hath instantly laboured for license to go into
+Spain pretendyng cawse and colour of his goyng to be forasmuch as he
+saiyth he wolde visite his modre which is veari sore syk. The Queen hath
+both refused to assent unto his going and allso laboured unto the King's
+Highnesse to empesh the same. The King's Highnesse, knowing grete colusion
+and dissymulation betwene theym, doth allso dissymule faynyng that
+Philip's desyre is made upon good grownde and consideration, and hath
+easyli persuaded the Quene to be content with his goyng." The writer
+continues that the King had even promised to ransom Felipe if he was
+captured on his way through France, and desires Wolsey, notwithstanding
+the man's passport, to have him secretly captured, taking care that the
+King's share in the plot should never be known. Wolsey in reply says that
+it shall be done, unless Felipe went to Spain by sea. Probably Katharine
+guessed her husband's trick, for Felipe must have gone by sea, as he duly
+arrived at Valladolid and told the Emperor his message.
+
+[44] Blickling Hall, Norfolk, is frequently claimed as her birthplace, and
+even Ireland has put in its claim for the doubtful honour. The evidence in
+favour of Hever is, however, the strongest.
+
+[45] Mr. Brewer was strongly of opinion that Anne did not go to France
+until some years afterwards, and that it was Mary Boleyn who accompanied
+the Princess in 1514. He also believed that Anne was the younger of the
+two sisters. There was, of course, some ground for both of these
+contentions, but the evidence marshalled against them by Mr. Friedmann in
+an appendix to his "Anne Boleyn" appears to me unanswerable.
+
+[46] "Life of Wolsey." Cavendish was the Cardinal's gentleman usher.
+
+[47] "Life of Wolsey." It was afterwards stated, with much probability of
+truth, that Anne's _liaison_ with Percy had gone much further than a mere
+engagement to marry.
+
+[48] Cavendish, Wolsey's usher, tells a story which shows how Katharine
+regarded the King's flirtation with Anne at this time. Playing at cards
+with her rival, the Queen noticed that Anne held the King several times.
+"My lady Anne," she said, "you have good hap ever to stop at a King; but
+you are like the others, you will have all or none." Contemptuous
+tolerance by a proud royal lady of a light jade who was scheming to be her
+husband's mistress, was evidently Katharine's sentiment.
+
+[49] Wolsey to Henry from Compiegne, 5th September 1527. _Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[50] Wolsey to Ghinucci and Lee, 5th August 1527. _Calendar Henry VIII._,
+vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[51] Several long speeches stated to have been uttered by her to Henry
+when he sought her illicit love are given in the Sloane MSS., 2495, in the
+British Museum, but they are stilted expressions of exalted virtue quite
+foreign to Anne's character and manner.
+
+[52] Although it was said to have been suggested by Dr. Barlow, Lord
+Rochford's chaplain.
+
+[53] The dispensation asked for was to permit Henry to marry a woman, even
+if she stood in the first degree of affinity, "either by reason of licit
+or illicit connection," provided she was not the widow of his deceased
+brother. This could only refer to the fact that Mary Boleyn, Anne's
+sister, had been his mistress, and that Henry desired to provide against
+all risk of a disputed succession arising out of the invalidity of the
+proposed marriage. By the canon law previous to 1533 no difference had
+been made between legitimate and illegitimate intercourse so far as
+concerned the forbidden degrees of affinity between husband and wife. In
+that year (1533) when Henry's marriage with Anne had just been celebrated,
+an Act of Parliament was passed setting forth a list of forbidden degrees
+for husband and wife, and in this the affinities by reason of illicit
+intercourse were omitted. In 1536, when Anne was doomed, another Act was
+passed ordering every man who had married the sister of a former mistress
+to separate from her and forbidding such marriages in future. Before
+Henry's marriage with Anne, Sir George Throgmorton mentioned to him the
+common belief that Henry had carried on a _liaison_ with both the
+stepmother and the sister of Anne. "_Never with the mother_," replied the
+King; "nor with the sister either," added Cromwell. But most people will
+conclude that the King's remark was an admission that Mary Boleyn was his
+mistress. (Friedmann's "Anne Boleyn," Appendix B.)
+
+[54] It would not be fair to accept as gospel the unsupported assertions
+of the enemies of Anne with regard to her light behaviour before marriage,
+though they are numerous and circumstantial, but Wyatt's own story of his
+snatching a locket from her and wearing it under his doublet, by which
+Henry's jealousy was aroused, gives us the clue to the meaning of another
+contemporary statement (_Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the writer),
+to the effect that Wyatt, who was a great friend of the King, and was one
+of those accused at the time of Anne's fall, when confronted with
+Cromwell, privately told him to remind the King of the warning he gave him
+about Anne before the marriage. Chapuys, also, writing at the time when
+Anne was in the highest favour (1530), told the Emperor that she had been
+accused by the Duke of Suffolk of undue familiarity with "a gentleman who
+on a former occasion had been banished on suspicion." This might apply
+either to Percy or Wyatt. All authorities agree that her demeanour was not
+usually modest or decorous.
+
+[55] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[56] Not content with her Howard descent through her mother, Anne, or
+rather her father, had caused a bogus pedigree to be drawn up by which the
+city mercer who had been his grandfather was represented as being of noble
+Norman blood. The Duchess of Norfolk was scornful and indignant, and gave
+to Anne "a piece of her mind" on the subject, greatly to Henry's
+annoyance. (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.)
+
+[57] They took with them a love-letter from the King to Anne which is
+still extant (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2). He tells her that
+"they were despatched with as many things to compass our matter as wit
+could imagine," and he trusts that he and his sweetheart will shortly have
+their desired end. "This would be more to my heart's ease and quietness of
+mind than anything in the world.... Keep him (_i.e._ Gardiner) not too
+long with you, but desire him for your sake to make the more speed; for
+the sooner we have word of him the sooner shall our matter come to pass.
+And thus upon trust of your short repair to London I make end of my
+letter, mine own sweetheart. Written with the hand of him which desireth
+as much to be yours as you do to have him." Gardiner also took with him
+Henry's book justifying his view of the invalidity of his marriage. A good
+description of the Pope's cautious attitude whilst he read this production
+is contained in Gardiner's letter from Orvieto, 31st March 1528. (_Henry
+VIII. Calendar_, vol. 4, part 2.)
+
+[58] Hall tells a curious and circumstantial story that the declaration of
+war, which led to the confiscation of great quantities of English property
+in the imperial dominions, was brought about purely by a trick of Wolsey,
+his intention being to sacrifice Clarencieux Herald, who was sent to Spain
+with the defiance. Clarencieux, however, learnt of the intention as he
+passed through Bayonne on his way home, and found means through Nicholas
+Carew to see the King at Hampton Court before Wolsey knew of his return.
+When he had shown Henry by the Cardinal's own letters that the grounds for
+the declaration of war had been invented by the latter, the King burst out
+angrily: "O Lorde Jesu! he that I trusted moste told me all these things
+contrary. Well, Clarencieux, I will be no more of so light credence
+hereafter, for now I see perfectly that I am made to believe the thing
+that never was done." Hall continues that the King was closeted with
+Wolsey, from which audience the Cardinal came "not very mery, and after
+that time the Kyng mistrusted hym ever after." This must have been in
+April 1528.
+
+[59] For Erasmus' letter see _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2, and
+for Vives' letter see "Vives Opera," vol. 7.
+
+[60] The Pope was told that there were certain secret reasons which could
+not be committed to writing why the marriage should be dissolved, the
+Queen "suffering from certain diseases defying all remedy, for which, as
+well as other reasons, the King would never again live with her as his
+wife."
+
+[61] This was written before the death of the courtiers already mentioned.
+
+[62] See the letters on the question of the appointment of the Abbess of
+Wilton in Fiddes' "Life of Wolsey," and the _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol.
+4, part 2, &c.
+
+[63] This letter was stated by Sir H. Ellis in his "Original Letters" to
+be from Katharine and Henry; and many false presumptions with regard to
+their relations at this time have been founded on the error.
+
+[64] It will be remarked that her statement was limited to the fact that
+she had remained intact _da lui_, "by him." This might well be true, and
+yet there might be grounds for Henry's silence in non-confirmation of her
+public and repeated reiteration of the statement in the course of the
+proceedings, and for the stress laid by his advocates upon the boyish
+boast of Arthur related in an earlier chapter. The episode of the young
+cleric, Diego Fernandez, must not be forgotten in this connection.
+
+[65] The words, often quoted, are given by Hall.
+
+[66] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[67] Wolsey to Sir Gregory Casale, 1st November 1528. _Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 4, part 2.
+
+[68] Or as Henry himself puts it in his letters to his envoys in Rome,
+"for him to have two legal wives instead of one," Katharine in a convent
+and the other by his side.
+
+[69] So desirous was the Papal interest to persuade Katharine to this
+course that one of the Cardinals in Rome (Salviati) told the Emperor's
+envoy Mai that she would be very unwise to resist further or she might be
+poisoned, as the English ambassadors had hinted she would be. Mai's reply
+was that "the Queen was ready to incur that danger rather than be a bad
+wife and prejudice her daughter." (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part
+3.)
+
+[70] Hall's _Chronicle_.
+
+[71] This is Hall's version. Du Bellay, the French ambassador (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2), adds that Henry began to hector at the end
+of the speech, saying that if any one dared in future to speak of the
+matter in a way disrespectful to him he would let him know who was master.
+"There was no head so fine," he said, "that he would not make it fly."
+
+[72] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 2. "Intended Address of the
+Legates to the Queen."
+
+[73] This is not surprising, as only a month before she had been reproved
+and threatened for not being sad enough.
+
+[74] There seems to be no doubt, from a letter written in January 1529 by
+the Pope to Campeggio, that the copy sent to Katharine from Spain was a
+forgery, or contained clauses which operated in her favour, but which were
+not in the original document. It was said that there was no entry of such
+a brief in the Papal archives, and Katharine herself asserted that the
+wording of it--alleging the consummation of Arthur's marriage--was unknown
+to her. The Spaniards explained the absence of any record of the document
+in the Papal Registry by saying that at the urgent prayer of Isabel the
+Catholic on her deathbed, the original brief had been sent to her as soon
+as it was granted. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 3, p. 2278.)
+
+[75] _Ibid._
+
+[76] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 4, part 3.
+
+[77] _Ibid._ The suspicion against Wolsey at this time arose doubtless
+from his renewed attempts to obtain the Papacy on Clement's death. These
+led him to oppose a decision of the divorce except by the ecclesiastical
+authority.
+
+[78] It was on this occasion that Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
+Henry's old friend and brother-in-law, lost patience. "Banging the table
+before him violently, he shouted: 'By the Mass! now I see that the old saw
+is true, that there never was Legate or Cardinal that did good in
+England;' and with that all the temporal lords departed to the King,
+leaving the Legates sitting looking at each other, sore
+astonished."--Hall's _Chronicle_, and Cavendish's "Wolsey."
+
+[79] Du Bellay to Montmorency, 22nd October 1529. _Henry VIII. Calendar_,
+vol. 4, part 3.
+
+[80] This peremptory order seems to have been precipitated by a peculiarly
+acrimonious correspondence between Henry and his wife at the end of July.
+She had been in the habit of sending him private messages under token; and
+when he and Anne had left Windsor on their hunting tour, Katharine sent to
+him, as usual, to inquire after his health and to say that, though she had
+been forbidden to accompany him, she had hoped, at least, that she might
+have been allowed to bid him good-bye. The King burst into a violent rage.
+"Tell the Queen," he said to the messenger, "that he did not want any of
+her good-byes, and had no wish to afford her consolation. He did not care
+whether she asked after his health or not. She had caused him no end of
+trouble, and had obstinately refused the reasonable request of his Privy
+Council. She depended, he knew, upon the Emperor; but she would find that
+God Almighty was more powerful still. In any case, he wanted no more of
+her messages." To this angry outburst the Queen must needs write a long,
+cold, dignified, and utterly tactless letter, which irritated the King
+still more, and his reply was that of a vulgar bully without a spark of
+good feeling. "It would be a great deal better," he wrote, "if she spent
+her time in seeking witnesses to prove her pretended virginity at the time
+of her marriage with him, than in talking about it to whoever would listen
+to her, as she was doing. As for sending messages to him, let her stop it,
+and mind her own business. (Chapuys to the Emperor, 21st July 1531.
+_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._)
+
+[81] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 1531.
+
+[82] Katharine to the Emperor, _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 28th July
+1531.
+
+[83] Foxe.
+
+[84] Chapuys relates in May 1532 that when Henry asked the House of
+Commons for a grant to fortify the Scottish Border, two members spoke
+strongly against it. The best guarantee of peace, they said, was to keep
+friendly with the Emperor. They urged the House to beg the King to return
+to his lawful wife, and treat her properly, or the whole kingdom would be
+ruined; since the Emperor was more capable of harming England than any
+other potentate, and would not fail to avenge his aunt. The House, it is
+represented, was in favour of this view with the exception of two or three
+members, and the question of the grant demanded was held in abeyance.
+Henry, of course, was extremely angry, and sent for the majority, whom he
+harangued in a long speech, saying that the matter of the divorce was not
+then before them, but that he was determined to protect them against
+ecclesiastical encroachment. The leaders of the protest, however, were
+made to understand they were treading on dangerous ground, and hastened to
+submit before Henry's threats.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 4, 2nd May 1532.
+
+[85] Chapuys to the Emperor, 16th April 1532.--_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 4,
+2nd May 1532.
+
+[86] In May 1532 the Nuncio complained to Norfolk of a preacher who in the
+pulpit had dared to call the Pope a heretic. The Duke replied that he was
+not surprised, for the man was a Lutheran. If it had not been for the Earl
+of Wiltshire _and another person_ (evidently Anne) he, Norfolk, would have
+burnt the man alive, with another like him. It is clear from this that
+Norfolk was now gravely alarmed at the religious situation created by
+Anne.
+
+[87] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 1st October 1532.
+
+[88] Hall's _Chronicle_, and _The Chronicle of Calais_, Camden Society.
+
+[89] It is often stated to have been celebrated by Dr. Lee, and sometimes
+even by Cranmer, who appears to have been present.
+
+[90] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 9th February
+1533.
+
+[91] _Ibid._, 15th February.
+
+[92] Chapuys, writing to Granville on the 23rd February, relates that
+Anne, "without rhyme or reason, amidst a great company as she came out her
+chamber, began to say to one whom she loves well, and who was formerly
+sent away from Court by the King out of jealousy (probably Wyatt), that
+three days before she had had a furious hankering to eat apples, such as
+she had never had in her life before; and the King had told her that it
+was a sign she was pregnant, but she had said that it was nothing of the
+sort. Then she burst out laughing loudly and returned to her room. Almost
+all the Court heard what she said and did; and most of those present were
+much surprised and shocked." (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._)
+
+[93] Mountjoy, Katharine's chamberlain, or rather gaoler, immediately
+afterwards gave the Queen a still harsher message, to the effect that not
+only was she to be deprived of the regal title, but that the King would
+not continue to provide for her household. "He would retire her to some
+private house of her own, there to live on a small allowance, which, I am
+told, will scarcely be sufficient to cover the expenses of her household
+for the first quarter of next year." Katharine replied that, so long as
+she lived, she should call herself Queen. As to beginning housekeeping on
+her own account, she could not begin so late in life. If her expenses were
+too heavy the King might take her personal property, and place her where
+he chose, with a confessor, a physician, an apothecary, and two
+chamber-maids. If that was too much to ask, and there was nothing for her
+and her servants to live upon, she would willingly go out into the world
+and beg for alms for the sake of God. (_Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._,
+15th April 1533.)
+
+[94] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 15th April
+1533.
+
+[95] It was shortly after this that Friar George Brown first publicly
+prayed for the new Queen at Austin Friars.
+
+[96] Chapuys to the Emperor, 27th April and 18th May 1533.
+
+[97] An interesting letter from Cranmer on the subject is in the Harleian
+MSS., British Museum (Ellis's Letters, vol. 2, series 1).
+
+[98] The Duke of Norfolk was apparently delighted to be absent from his
+niece's triumph, though the Duchess followed Anne in a carriage. He
+started the day before to be present at the interview between Francis and
+the Pope at Nice. He had two extraordinary secret conferences with Chapuys
+just before he left London, in which he displayed without attempt at
+concealment his and the King's vivid apprehension that the Emperor would
+make war upon England. Norfolk went from humble cringing and flattery to
+desperate threats, praying that Chapuys would do his best to reconcile
+Katharine to Cranmer's sentence and to prevent war. He praised Katharine
+to the skies "for her great modesty, prudence, and forbearance during the
+divorce proceedings, as well as on former occasions, the King having been
+at all times inclined to amours." Most significant of all was Norfolk's
+declaration "that he had not been either the originator or promoter of
+this second marriage, but on the contrary had always been opposed to it,
+and had tried to dissuade the King therefrom." (_Spanish Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 6, part 2, 29th May 1533.)
+
+[99] Norfolk, on the morning of the water pageant, told Chapuys that the
+King had been very angry to learn that Katharine's barge had been
+appropriated by Anne, and the arms ignominiously torn off and hacked; and
+the new Queen's chamberlain had been reprimanded for it, as there were
+plenty of barges on the river as fit for the purpose as that one. But Anne
+would bate no jot of her spiteful triumph over her rival; and, as is told
+in the text, she used Katharine's barge for her progress, in spite of all.
+
+[100] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present writer,
+1889.
+
+[101] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, Chapuys to the Emperor, 11th and
+30th July 1533.
+
+[102] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present writer.
+
+[103] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ Cranmer, in his letter to Hawkins giving
+an account of the festivities on this occasion (Harl. MSS., Ellis's
+Original Letters, vol. 2, series 1), says that after the banquet in the
+hall of the old palace, "She was conveyed owte of the bake syde of the
+palice into a barge and, soe unto Yorke Place, where the King's Grace was
+before her comyng; for this you must ever presuppose that his Grace came
+allwayes before her secretlye in a barge as well frome Grenewyche to the
+Tower, as from the Tower to Yorke Place."
+
+[104] Stow gives some curious glimpses of the public detestation of the
+marriage, and of the boldness of Friar Peto in preaching before the King
+at Greenwich in condemnation of it; and the letter of the Earl of Derby
+and Sir Henry Faryngton to Henry (Ellis's Original Letters, vol. 2, series
+1) recounts several instances of bold talk in Lancashire on the subject,
+the most insulting and opprobrious words being used to describe "Nan
+Bullen the hoore."
+
+[105] Lord Herbert of Cherbury.
+
+[106] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 11th July 1533.
+
+[107] Katharine was even more indignant shortly afterwards, when she was
+informed that of the sum apportioned to her sustenance, only 12,000 crowns
+a year was to be at her own disposal, the rest, 18,000 crowns, being
+administered by an agent of the King, who would pay the bills and
+servants. She was for open rebellion on this point--she would rather beg
+her bread in the streets, she said, than consent to it--but Chapuys knew
+that his master did not wish to drive affairs to an extremity just then,
+and counselled submission and patience. (_Ibid._, 23rd August.)
+
+[108] Chapuys to the Emperor, 30th July 1533.
+
+[109] Chapuys writes a day or two afterwards: "The baptism ceremony was
+sad and unpleasant as the mother's coronation had been. Neither at Court
+nor in the city have there been the bonfires, illuminations, and
+rejoicings usual on such occasions."
+
+[110] Katharine had shortly before complained of the insalubrity of
+Buckden and its distance from London.
+
+[111] Katharine's appeal that she might not be deprived of the service of
+her own countrymen is very pathetic. She wrote to the Council: "As to my
+physician and apothecary, they be my countrymen: the King knoweth them as
+well as I do. They have continued many years with me and (I thank them)
+have taken great pains with me, for I am often sickly, as the King's grace
+doth know right well, and I require their attendance for the preservation
+of my poor body, that I may live as long as it pleaseth God. They have
+been faithful and diligent in my service, and also daily do pray that the
+King's royal estate may long endure. But if they take any other oath to
+the King and to me (to serve me) than that which they have taken, I shall
+never trust them again, for in so doing I should live continually in fear
+of my life with them. Wherefore I trust the King, in his high honour and
+goodness, and for the great love that hath been between us (which love in
+me is as faithful to him as ever it was, I take God to record) will not
+use extremity with me, my request being so reasonable."--_Privy Council
+Papers_, December 1533.
+
+[112] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 27th December 1533.
+
+[113] _Spanish Calendar Henry VIII._, 27th December 1533.
+
+[114] Chapuys to the Emperor, 17th January 1534.
+
+[115] Many instances are given by Chapuys of Anne's bitter spite against
+Mary about this time. In February 1534 he mentions that Northumberland
+(Anne's old flame, who had more than once got into trouble about her) had
+said that she was determined to poison Mary. Some one else had told him
+that Anne had sent to her aunt, Lady Clare, who was Mary's governess,
+telling her if the Princess used her title "to give her a good banging
+like the cursed bastard that she was." Soon afterwards the girl is
+reported to be nearly destitute of clothes and other necessaries. When
+Anne visited her daughter at Hatfield in March, she sent for Mary to come
+and pay her respects to her as Queen. "I know no Queen in England but my
+mother," was Mary's proud answer: and a few days afterwards Norfolk took
+away all the girl's jewels, and told her brutally that she was no princess
+and it was time her pride was abated: and Lady Clare assured her that the
+King did not care whether she renounced her title or not. Parliament by
+statute had declared her a bastard, and if she (Lady Clare) were in the
+King's place she would kick her out of the house. It was said also that
+the King himself had threatened that Mary should lose her head. There was,
+no doubt, some truth in all this, but it must not be forgotten that
+Chapuys, who reports most of it, was Anne's deadly enemy.
+
+[116] Lee's instructions are said to have been "not to press the Queen
+very hard." It must have been evident that no pressure would suffice.
+
+[117] The Queen wrote to Chapuys soon afterwards saying that the bishops
+had threatened her with the gibbet. She asked which of them was going to
+be the hangman, and said that she must ask them to hang her in public, not
+secretly. Lee's and Tunstall's own account of their proceedings is in the
+_Calendar of Henry VIII._, 29th May 1534.
+
+[118] This lackey's name is given Bastian Hennyocke in the English State
+Papers. To him Katharine left L20 in her will. The other Spanish servants
+with Katharine at the time, besides Francisco Felipe, the Groom of the
+Chambers, and the Bishop of Llandaff (Fray Jorge de Ateca), were Dr.
+Miguel de la Sa, Juan Soto, Felipe de Granada, and Antonio Roca.
+
+[119] This narrative is taken from the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._,
+edited by the present writer. The author of the Chronicle was a Spanish
+merchant resident in London, and he was evidently indebted for this
+description of the scene to his friend and countryman, Francisco Felipe,
+Katharine's Groom of the Chambers. The account supplements but does not
+materially contradict the official report of Lee and Tunstall, and
+Chapuys' account to the Emperor gained from the Queen and her Spanish
+attendants.
+
+[120] Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th May 1534.
+
+[121] She had written more than one fiery letter to Charles during the
+previous few months, fervently urging him to strike for the authority of
+the Church. All considerations of her safety and that of her daughter, she
+said, were to be put aside. It was the duty of the Emperor to his faith
+that the march of heresy and iniquity in England should be stayed at any
+cost, and she exhorted him not to fail. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, February
+and May 1534.)
+
+[122] Bedingfield and Tyrell were instructed in May 1534 to inform
+Katharine that the appeal she had made that her Spanish servants should
+not be penalised for refusing to take the oath to the new Act of
+Succession had been rejected, but licenses for the Spaniards to stay with
+their mistress on the old footing were soon afterwards given. (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._, May 1534.)
+
+[123] The account here given, that of Chapuys himself, is quaintly and
+minutely confirmed by that of one of the Spanish merchants who accompanied
+him, Antonio de Guaras, the author of the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry
+VIII._
+
+[124] See Chapuys' many letters on the subject.
+
+[125] Letters of Stephen Vaughan, Henry's envoy to Germany. (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._, vol. 7, etc.)
+
+[126] Letters of Chapuys in the autumn of 1534. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[127] Chapuys to the Emperor, 2nd May 1536.
+
+[128] Lady Shelton.
+
+[129] The plans for Mary's flight from Eltham and her deportation to the
+Continent were nearly successful at this time.
+
+[130] Katharine had first met the saintly Friar Forest when she had gone
+on the famous pilgrimage to Walsingham after the victory of Flodden
+(October 1513), and on his first imprisonment she and her maid, Elizabeth
+Hammon, wrote heart-broken letters to him urging him to escape. (_Calendar
+Henry VIII._)
+
+[131] A vivid picture of the general discontent in England at this time,
+and the steadfast fidelity of the people to the cause of Katharine and
+Mary, is given by the French envoy, the Bishop of Tarbes. (_Calendar Henry
+VIII._, October 1535.)
+
+[132] The suggestion had been tentatively put forward by the English
+Minister in Flanders three months before.
+
+[133] This is according to Bedingfield's statement, although from Chapuys'
+letters, in which the chronology is a little confusing, it might possibly
+be inferred that he arrived at Kimbolton on the 1st January and that Lady
+Willoughby arrived soon after him. I am inclined to think that the day I
+have mentioned, however, is the correct one.
+
+[134] In the previous month of November she had written what she called
+her final appeal to the Emperor through Chapuys. In the most solemn and
+exalted manner she exhorted her nephew to strike and save her before she
+and her daughter were done to death by the forthcoming Parliament. This
+supreme heart-cry having been met as all similar appeals had been by
+smooth evasions on the part of Charles, Katharine thenceforward lost hope,
+and resigned herself to her fate.
+
+[135] Before Chapuys left Kimbolton he asked De la Sa if he had any
+suspicion that the Queen was being poisoned. The Spanish doctor replied
+that he feared that such was the case, though some slow and cunningly
+contrived poison must be that employed, as he could not see any signs or
+appearance of a simple poison. The Queen, he said, had never been well
+since she had partaken of some Welsh beer. The matter is still greatly in
+doubt, and there are many suspicious circumstances--the exclusion of De la
+Sa and the Bishop of Llandaff from the room when the body was opened, and
+the strenuous efforts to retain both of them in England after Katharine's
+death; and, above all, the urgent political reasons that Henry had for
+wishing Katharine to die, since he dared not carry out his threat of
+having her attainted and taken to the Tower. Such a proceeding would have
+provoked a rising which would almost certainly have swept him from the
+throne.
+
+[136] Even this small gold cross with a sacred relic enclosed in it--the
+jewel itself not being worth, as Chapuys says, more than ten crowns--was
+demanded of Mary by Cromwell soon afterwards.
+
+[137] This account of Katharine's death is compiled from Chapuys' letters,
+Bedingfield's letters, and others in the _Spanish_ and _Henry VIII.
+Calendars_, and from the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[138] The letter tells Henry that death draws near to her, and she must
+remind him for her love's sake to safeguard his soul before the desires of
+his body, "for which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into
+many cares. For my part I do pardon you all, yea I do wish and devoutly
+pray God that He will also pardon you." She commends her daughter and her
+maids to him, and concludes, "Lastly, I do vow that mine eyes desire you
+above all things." Katharine, Queen of England. (Cotton MSS., British
+Museum, Otho C. x.)
+
+[139] The death of Sir Thomas More greatly increased Anne's unpopularity.
+It is recorded (More's _Life of More_) that when the news came of the
+execution the King and Anne sat at play, and Henry ungenerously told her
+she was the cause of it, and abruptly left the table in anger.
+
+[140] Even the King's fool dared (July 1535) to call her a bawd and her
+child a bastard.
+
+[141] Chapuys to the Emperor, 24th February 1536.
+
+[142] Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th January 1536.
+
+[143] Probably the following letter, which has been frequently
+printed:--"My dear friend and mistress. The bearer of these few lines from
+thy entirely devoted servant will deliver into thy fair hands a token of
+my true affection for thee, hoping you will keep it for ever in your
+sincere love for me. Advertising you that there is a ballad made lately of
+great derision against us, which if it go much abroad and is seen by you I
+pray you pay no manner of regard to it. I am not at present informed who
+is the setter forth of this malignant writing, but if he is found he shall
+be straitly punished for it. For the things ye lacked I have minded my
+lord to supply them to you as soon as he can buy them. Thus hoping shortly
+to receive you in these arms I end for the present your own loving servant
+and Sovereign. H. R."
+
+[144] Chapuys to the Emperor, 1st April 1536.
+
+[145] See p. 264.
+
+[146] It will be recollected that this question of the return of the
+alienated ecclesiastical property was the principal difficulty when Mary
+brought England back again into the fold of the Church. Pole and the
+Churchmen at Rome were for unconditional restitution, which would have
+made Mary's task an impossible one; the political view which recommended
+conciliation and a recognition of facts being that urged by Charles and
+his son Philip, and subsequently adopted. Charles had never shown undue
+respect for ecclesiastical property in Spain, and had on more than one
+occasion spoliated the Church for his own purposes.
+
+[147] Chapuys to the Emperor, 6th June 1536. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[148] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, ed. Martin Hume. The author was
+Antonio de Guaras, a Spanish merchant in London, and afterwards Charge
+d'Affaires. His evidence is to a great extent hearsay, but it truly
+represented the belief current at the time.
+
+[149] British Museum, Cotton, Otho C. x., and Singer's addition to
+Cavendish's _Wolsey_.
+
+[150] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[151] It must not be forgotten that the dinner hour was before noon.
+
+[152] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[153] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[154] See letter from Sir W. Kingston, Governor of the Tower, to Cromwell,
+3rd May 1536, Cotton MSS., Otho C. x.
+
+[155] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._
+
+[156] Full account of her behaviour from day to day in the Tower will be
+found in Kingston's letters to Cromwell, Cotton MSS., Otho C. x., which
+have been printed in several places, and especially in the _Calendars
+Henry VIII._
+
+[157] The beautiful letter signed Ann Bullen and addressed to the King
+with the date of 6th May, in which the writer in dignified language
+protests innocence and begs for an impartial trial, is well known, having
+been printed many times. It is, however, of extremely doubtful
+authenticity; the writing and signature being certainly not that of Anne,
+and the composition unconvincing, though the letter is said to have been
+found amongst Cromwell's papers after his arrest. The genuineness of the
+document being so questionable, I have not thought well to reproduce it
+here.
+
+[158] Strype's _Cranmer_. Cranmer was at Croydon when Cromwell sent him
+news of Anne's arrest, with the King's command that he should go to
+Lambeth and stay there till further orders reached him. This letter was
+written as soon as he arrived there.
+
+[159] Much appears to have been made of a certain alleged death-bed
+deposition of Lady Wingfield recently dead, who had been one of Anne's
+attendants, and as it was asserted, the conniver of her amours. Exactly
+what Lady Wingfield had confessed is not now known, nor the amount of
+credence to be given to her declarations. They appear, however, to have
+principally incriminated Anne with Smeaton, and, on the whole, the balance
+of probability is that if Anne was guilty at all, which certainly was not
+proved, as she had no fair trial or defence, it was with Smeaton. The
+charge that she and Norreys had "imagined" the death of the King is
+fantastically improbable.
+
+[160] Godwin.
+
+[161] "Je ne veux pas omettre qu'entre autres choses luy fust objecte pour
+crime que sa soeur la putain avait dit a sa femme (_i.e._ Lady Rochford)
+que le Roy n'estait habile en cas de soy copuler avec femme, et qu'il
+navait ni vertu ni puissance." This accusation was handed to Rochford in
+writing to answer, but to the dismay of the Court he read it out before
+denying it. (Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May. _Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[162] Chapuys to Granvelle, 18th May 1536. See also Camden.
+
+[163] Froude says Smeaton was hanged; but the evidence that he was
+beheaded like the rest is the stronger.
+
+[164] The whole question is exhaustively discussed by Mr. Friedmann in his
+_Anne Boleyn_, to which I am indebted for several references on the
+subject.
+
+[165] Lady Kingston, who was present, hastened to send this news secretly
+to Chapuys, who, bitter enemy as he was to Anne, to do him justice seems
+to have been shocked at the disregard of legality in the procedure against
+her.
+
+[166] The curious gossip, Antonio de Guaras, a Spaniard, says that he got
+into the fortress overnight. Constantine gives also a good account of the
+execution, varying little from that of Guaras. The Portuguese account used
+by Lingard and Froude confirms them.
+
+[167] Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May 1536. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[168] This was Cromwell's version as sent to the English agents in foreign
+Courts. He speaks of a conspiracy to kill the King which "made them all
+quake at the danger he was in."
+
+[169] Chapuys to the Emperor, 19th May. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[170] Chapuys to Granvelle, 20th May. (_Spanish Calendar._)
+
+[171] The local story that the marriage took place at Wolf Hall, the seat
+of the Seymours in Wiltshire, and that a barn now standing on the estate
+was the scene of the wedding feast, may be dismissed. That festivities
+would take place there in celebration of the wedding is certain; and on
+more than one occasion Henry was entertained at Wolf Hall, and probably
+feasted in the barn itself; but the royal couple were not there on the
+occasion of their marriage. The romantic account given by Nott in his
+_Life of Surrey_, of Henry's waiting with straining ears, either in Epping
+Forest or elsewhere in hunting garb, to hear the signal gun announcing
+Anne's death before galloping off to be married at Tottenham Church, near
+Wolf Hall, is equally unsupported, and, indeed, impossible. Henry's
+private marriage undoubtedly took place, as related in the text, at
+Hampton Court, and the public ceremony on the 30th May at Whitehall.
+
+[172] Henry's apologists have found decent explanations for his hurry to
+marry Jane. Mr. Froude pointed to the urgent petition of the Privy Council
+and the peers that the King would marry at once, and opined that it could
+hardly be disregarded; and another writer reminds us that if Henry had not
+married Jane privately on the day he did, 20th May, the ceremony would
+have had to be postponed--as, in fact, the full ceremony was--until after
+the Rogation days preceding Whitsuntide. But nothing but callous
+concupiscence can really explain the unwillingness of Henry to wait even a
+week before his remarriage.
+
+[173] The Catholics were saying that before Anne's head fell the wax
+tapers on Katharine's shrine at Peterborough kindled themselves. (John de
+Ponte's letter to Cromwell, Cotton MSS., Titus B 1, printed by Ellis.)
+
+[174] _Spanish Calendar_, 6th June 1536.
+
+[175] The Parliament of 1536 enacted that all Bulls, Briefs, and
+Dispensations from Rome should be held void; that every officer, lay or
+clerical, should take an oath to renounce and resist all authority of the
+Pope on pain of high treason. In Convocation, Cromwell for the King at the
+same time introduced a new ecclesiastical constitution, establishing the
+Scriptures as the basis of faith, as interpreted by the four first
+Councils of the Church. Three sacraments only were acknowledged--Baptism,
+Penance, and the Eucharist. The use of images and invocation of the saints
+were regulated and modified, all idolatrous or material worship of them
+being forbidden. Cromwell at the same period was raised to the peerage
+under the title of Baron Cromwell, and made Vicar-General of the Church.
+(Lord Herbert's _Henry VIII._)
+
+[176] They are all in Cotton MSS., Otho x., and have been printed in
+Hearne's _Sylloge_.
+
+[177] She did her best for her backers during the Pilgrimage of Grace,
+throwing herself upon her knees before the King and beseeching him to
+restore the dissolved abbeys. Henry's reply was to bid her get up and not
+meddle in his affairs--she should bear in mind what happened to her
+predecessor through having done so. The hint was enough for Jane, who
+appears to have had no strength of character, and thenceforward, though
+interesting herself personally for the Princess Mary, she let politics
+alone. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 12.)
+
+[178] Chapuys to the Emperor. (_Calendar Henry VIII._)
+
+[179] _Hist. MSS. Commission_, Report XII., Appendix iv. vol. 1, Duke of
+Rutland's Papers.
+
+[180] _Ibid._
+
+[181] The assertion almost invariably made that Bishop Nicholas Sanders,
+the Jesuit writer, "invented" the story that the Cesarian operation was
+performed at birth is not true. The facts of this time are to a great
+extent copied textually by Sanders from the MS. _Cronica de Enrico Otavo_,
+by Guaras, and the statement is there made as an unsupported rumour only.
+
+[182] Henry's elaborate testamentary directions for the erection and
+adornment with precious stones of a sumptuous monument to himself and Jane
+were never carried out.
+
+[183] An account of these confiscations will be found in the _Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 13.
+
+[184] Chastillon Correspondence in _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 13.
+
+[185] The extraordinary attentions showered upon the elderly French lady,
+Mme de Montreuil, and her daughter, Mme de Brun, and their large train of
+attendant ladies, in the autumn of 1538, is an amusing instance of Henry's
+diplomacy. It has usually been concluded by historians that it was a
+question of amour or gallantry on Henry's part; but this was not the case.
+The lady had been the governess of the late Queen Madeleine of Scotland,
+and was passing through England on her way home. The most elaborate comedy
+was played by Henry and Cromwell on the occasion. The ladies were treated
+like princesses. The Lord Mayor and all the authorities on their way to
+the coast had to banquet them; they were taken sight-seeing and feasting
+everywhere, and loaded with gifts; and the most ostentatious appearance
+made of a close intimacy with them, in order to hoodwink the imperial
+agent into the idea that a French match was under discussion. Henry
+himself went to Dover to see them, and gave them all presents. But the
+French and imperial ambassadors were in close touch one with the other,
+and themselves dined with the ladies at Chelsea; having a good laugh with
+them at the farce that was being played, which they quite understood.
+(_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 13, part 2.)
+
+[186] The terms of the arrangement were the maintenance of the _status quo
+ante_, but were generally in favour of France, which retained Savoy and
+some of the Lombard fortresses threatening Milan, that State, the
+principal bone of contention, being still held by the Emperor's troops;
+but with a vague understanding that it might be given as a dowry to a
+princess of the Emperor's house, if she married a French prince. The
+latter clause was hollow, and never intended to be carried out, as Henry
+knew.
+
+[187] Her own well-known comment on Henry's proposal was, that if she had
+two heads one should be at the disposal of his Majesty of England.
+
+[188] Pole had been sent to Spain by the Pope for the purpose of urging
+the Emperor to execute the decree against England, at least to the extent
+of stopping commerce with his dominions. Charles saw Pole in Toledo early
+in March 1539. The Cardinal found the Emperor professedly sympathetic, but
+evidently not willing to adopt extreme measures of force against Henry.
+Pole, disappointed, thereupon returned to Papal Avignon instead of going
+on to France with a similar errand. Nothing is clearer in the
+correspondence on the subject (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 14) than
+Charles' determination--which was invariable throughout his life--not to
+allow Churchmen or ecclesiastical polity to guide his state action. Whilst
+Pole was thus seeking in vain to urge the Catholic powers to overthrow
+Henry, Wyatt the English ambassador in Spain, poet and gentle wit though
+he was, was busily plotting the murder of the Cardinal, together with some
+secret device to raise trouble in Italy and set Charles and Francis by the
+ears. This was probably the treacherous surrender of Parma and Piacenza to
+England for France, to the detriment of the Emperor and the Pope--who
+claimed them.
+
+[189] The influence of this party led by Norfolk and Gardiner, though it
+sufficed to secure the passage of the Six Articles, did not last long
+enough to carry them into rigid execution. Cromwell, by arousing Henry's
+fears that the German confederation would abandon him to his enemies, soon
+gained the upper hand; and the Saxon envoy Burchardus, writing to
+Melancthon in the autumn, expressed hopes that the coming of Anne would
+coincide with the repeal of the Act. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14,
+part 2.) The English Protestants blamed Cranmer for what they considered
+his timid opposition, soon silenced, to the passage of the Bill, and
+approved of the action of Latimer, who fled rather than assent to it, as
+did the Bishop of Salisbury. Before the Bill had been passed three months,
+of its principal promoters Stokesley of London was dead, Gardiner sent
+away from Court, and Norfolk entirely in the background.
+
+[190] Wotton to the King, 11th August 1539. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol.
+14, p. 2.)
+
+[191] It has been suggested that the Duchess with whom this comparison was
+instituted was Anne's sister, the Duchess of Saxony, who was quite as
+beautiful as the Duchess of Milan.
+
+[192] Memorandum in _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 14, part 2, p. 96.
+
+[193] Marillac to Francis I., 3rd October 1539.
+
+[194] The last passage meant that a union with France or the empire might
+have led to the putting of the Princess Mary forward as heir after the
+King's death, as against Prince Edward. The letter with Hertford's truly
+dreadful spelling is printed by Ellis.
+
+[195] A list of the personages appointed to attend will be found in the
+_Calendar of Henry VIII._, vol. 14.
+
+[196] As usual, tedious lists of the finery worn on the occasion are given
+by Hall, and copied by Miss Strickland.
+
+[197] The Duke of Suffolk to Cromwell. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14).
+
+[198] Deposition of Sir A. Browne. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14, 2.)
+
+[199] Russell's deposition. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14, 2.)
+
+[200] Cromwell (after his disgrace) to the King. (Hatfield MSS.)
+
+[201] For descriptions of the pageant see Hall, also _Calendar Henry
+VIII._, vol. 15, and _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the present
+writer.
+
+[202] Hall.
+
+[203] Cromwell to Henry. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 14.)
+
+[204] Cromwell's statement. (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15, p. 391.)
+
+[205] Wriothesley's deposition. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 15.)
+
+[206] The King got a double grant of four fifteenths and tenths, payable
+by instalments in four years; a shilling in the pound on all lands, and
+sixpence in the pound on personal property; aliens paying double; besides
+the confiscation of the great revenues of the Order of St. John. Such
+taxation was almost without precedent in England, and certainly added to
+Cromwell's unpopularity, already very great, owing to the oppressiveness
+of his religious policy with regard to the religious houses and his
+personal harshness.
+
+[207] _The Spanish Chronicle Of Henry VIII._, edited by the present
+writer. In this record, Seymour, Earl of Hertford, is made to take a
+leading part in the fall of Cromwell in the interests of his nephew the
+Prince of Wales (Edward VI.), but I can find no official confirmation of
+this.
+
+[208] Memo. in Gardiner's handwriting, Record Office. (_Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 15.)
+
+[209] She does not appear to have done so, however, until the King had
+received a letter from the Duke of Cleves, dated 13th July, couched in
+somewhat indignant terms. She then wrote to her brother that she "had
+consented to the examination and determination, wherein I had more
+respect, as beseemed me, to truth than to any worldly affection that might
+move me to the contrary, and did the rather condescend thereto for that my
+body remaineth in the integrity which I brought into this realm." She
+continues that the King has adopted her as a sister and has treated her
+very liberally, more than she or her brother could well wish. She is well
+satisfied. The King's friendship for her brother, she says, will not be
+impaired for this matter unless the fault should be in himself (_i.e._
+Cleves). She thinks it necessary to write this, and to say that she
+intends to live in England, lest for want of true knowledge her brother
+should take the matter otherwise than he ought. The letter is signed "Anna
+Duchess, born, of Cleves, Gulik, Geldre and Berg; your loving sister." The
+English and German drafts are in the Record Office, the former abstracted
+in _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15. The King instructed Wotton and Clerk,
+his envoys at Cleves, to deal with the Duke in the same spirit, holding
+out hopes of reward if he took the matter quietly, and to assume a haughty
+tone if he seemed threatening.
+
+[210] Within a week of this--to show how rapid was the change of
+feeling--Pate wrote to the King and to the Duke of Norfolk saying how that
+"while Thomas Cromwell ruled, slanders and obloquies of England were
+common," but that now all was changed. The brother of the Duke of Ferrara
+had sent to him to say that he was going to visit the King of England, for
+"the Emperor these years and days past often praised the King's gifts of
+body and mind, which made him the very image of his Creator." This praise
+had "engendered such love in the stomach" of Don Francesco d'Este that he
+could no longer defer his wish to see such a paragon of excellence as
+Henry, and he rejoices "that so many gentlemen belonging to the Emperor"
+are doing likewise. This was even before the marriage with Anne was
+declared invalid. (12th July, _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15.) Chapuys,
+the Emperor's ambassador, was again sent to England immediately, and
+cordial relations were promptly resumed. (_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 6, part
+1.)
+
+[211] Richard Hilles, the Protestant merchant, writing to Bullinger in
+Latin (Zurich Letters, Parker Society), says that for some weeks before
+the divorce from Anne of Cleves, Henry was captivated by Katharine Howard,
+whom he calls "a very little girl"; and that he frequently used to cross
+the Thames from Westminster to Lambeth to visit, both by night and day,
+the Bishop of Winchester (Gardiner) providing feasts for them in his
+palace. But at that time Katharine was, Hilles tells us, looked upon
+simply as Henry's mistress--as indeed she probably was--rather than his
+future wife.
+
+[212] Hilles to Bullinger (Parker Society, Zurich Letters) gives voice to
+bitter complaints, and Melancthon wrote (17th August, etc.) praying that
+God might destroy "this British Nero." (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 15.)
+
+[213] There is in the British Museum (Stowe MS. 559) a list of the jewels
+and other things given by Henry to Katharine at the marriage and
+subsequently. The inventory was made at the time of her attainder, when
+she was deprived of everything. The jewels appear to have been very
+numerous and rich: one square or stomacher, given on New Year's Day 1540,
+containing 33 diamonds, 60 rubies, and a border of pearls. Another gift at
+Christmas the same year was "two laces containing 26 fair table diamonds
+and 158 fair pearls, with a rope of fair large pearls, 200 pearls."
+Magnificent jewels of all sorts are to be counted by the dozen in this
+list, comparing strangely with the meagre list of Katharine of Aragon's
+treasures. One curious item in Katharine's list is "a book of gold
+enamelled, wherein is a clock, upon every side of which book is three
+diamonds, a little man standing upon one of them, four turquoises and
+three rubies with a little chain of gold enamelled blue hanging to it."
+This book, together with "a purse of gold enamelled red containing eight
+diamonds set in goldsmith's work," was taken by the King himself when poor
+Katharine fell, and another splendid jewelled pomander containing a clock
+was taken by him for Princess Mary.
+
+[214] He had on the same morning taken the Sacrament, it being All Souls'
+Day, and had directed his confessor, the Bishop of Lincoln, to offer up a
+prayer of thanks with him "for the good life he (Henry) led, and hoped to
+lead with his wife." (_Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 16, p. 615.)
+
+[215] _Calendar Henry VIII._, vol. 16, p. 48, September 1540. This was a
+year before he made his statement to Cranmer. The hatred expressed to the
+King's new Catholic policy by Lascelles proves him to have been a fit
+instrument for the delation and ruin of Katharine.
+
+[216] They are all in the Record Office, and are summarised in the _Henry
+VIII. Calendar_, vol. 16.
+
+[217] Lady Rochford, who seems to have been a most abandoned woman, was
+the widow of Anne Boleyn's brother, who had been beheaded at the time of
+his sister's fall.
+
+[218] In the Record Office, abstracted (much condensed) in _Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 16. For the purposes of this book I have used the original
+manuscripts.
+
+[219] In the curious and detailed but in many respects unveracious account
+of the affair given in the _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by
+the present writer, it is distinctly stated that Culpeper made his
+confession on the threat of the rack in the Tower. He is made in this
+account to say that he was deeply in love with Katharine before her
+marriage, and had fallen ill with grief when she became Henry's wife. She
+had taken pity upon him, and had arranged a meeting at Richmond, which had
+been betrayed to Hertford by one of Katharine's servants. The writer of
+the _Chronicle_ (Guaras), who had good sources of information and was a
+close observer, did not believe that any guilty act had been committed by
+Katharine after her marriage.
+
+[220] Record Office, State Papers, 1, 721. The Duke had gone to demand of
+his stepmother Derham's box of papers. He found that she had already
+overhauled them and destroyed many of them. In his conversation with her,
+she admitted that she knew Katharine was immoral before marriage.
+
+[221] The Commissioners included Michael Dormer, Lord Mayor, Lord
+Chancellor Audley, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the Lords of the
+Council and judges. Norfolk, in order to show his zeal and freedom from
+complicity, jeered and laughed as the examination of the prisoners
+proceeded. For a similar reason he brought his son, the Earl of Surrey, to
+the trial: and it was noted that both the Queen's brothers and those of
+Culpeper rode about the city unconcernedly, in order to prove that they
+had no sympathy with the accused. As soon as the trial was over, however,
+Norfolk retired to Kenninghall, some said by the King's orders, and
+rumours were rife that not only was he in disgrace, but that danger to him
+portended. We shall see that his fate was deferred for a time, as Henry
+needed his military aid in the coming wars with Scotland and France, and
+he was the only soldier of experience and authority in England.
+
+[222] One of Katharine's love letters to Culpeper, written during the
+progress in the North, is in the Record Office; and although it does not
+offer direct corroboration of guilt, it would have offered good
+presumptive evidence, and is, to say the least of it, an extremely
+indiscreet letter for a married woman and a queen to write to a man who
+had been her lover before her marriage. The letter is all in Katharine's
+writing except the first line. "Master Culpeper," it runs, "I heartily
+recommend me unto you, praying you to send me word how that you do. I did
+hear that ye were sick and I never longed so much for anything as to see
+you. It maketh my heart to die when I do think that I cannot always be in
+your company. Come to me when my Lady Rochford be here, for then I shall
+be best at leisure to be at your commandment. I do thank you that you have
+promised to be good to that poor fellow my man; for when he is gone there
+be none I dare trust to send to you. I pray you to give me a horse for my
+man, for I have much ado to get one, and therefore I pray you send me one
+by him, and in so doing I am as I said before: and thus I take my leave of
+you trusting to see you shortly again; and I would you were with me now
+that you might see what pain I take in writing to you. Yours as long as
+life endures, Katheryn. One thing I had forgotten, and that is to speak to
+my man. Entreat him to tarry here with me still, for he says whatsoever
+you order he will do it." The letter is extremely illiterate in style and
+spelling. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 16.)
+
+[223] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 6, part 1.
+
+[224] Marillac Correspondence, ed. Kaulec. There is a transcript in the
+Record Office and abstracts in the _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 16.
+
+[225] They were soon afterwards pardoned.
+
+[226] This difficulty seems to have been met by sending to the unhappy
+girl a committee of the Council to invite her to appear in person and
+defend herself if she pleased; but she threw herself entirely upon the
+King's mercy, and admitted that she deserved death. This facilitated her
+condemnation, and there was no more difficulty. The Duke of Suffolk in the
+House of Lords and Wriothesley stated that she had "confessed her great
+crime" to the deputation of the Council, but exactly what or how much she
+confessed is not known. She most solemnly assured the Bishop of Lincoln
+(White) in her last hours that she had not offended criminally after her
+marriage; and as has been pointed out in the text, she is not specifically
+charged with having done so in the indictment. This might be, of course,
+to save the King's honour as much as possible; but taking all things into
+consideration, the probability is that no guilty act had been committed
+since the marriage, though it is clear that Katharine was fluttering
+perilously close to the flame.
+
+[227] This was Anne Bassett. Lord Lisle, the illegitimate son of Edward
+IV., was at this time released from his unjust imprisonment in the Tower,
+but died immediately.
+
+[228] Chapuys to the Emperor, 29th January 1542.
+
+[229] The accounts of Chapuys, Hall, and Ottewell Johnson say simply that
+she confessed her faults and made a Christian end. The _Spanish Chronicle
+of Henry VIII._ gives an account of her speech of which the above is a
+summary.
+
+[230] The book which, although it was largely Gardiner's work, was called
+"The King's Book," or "The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any
+Christian Man," laid down afresh the doctrines to be accepted. It was
+authorised by Parliament in May 1543, and greatly straitened the creed
+prescribed in 1537. Just previously a large number of persecutions were
+begun against those who questioned Transubstantiation (see Foxe), and
+printers were newly harried for daring to print books not in accordance
+with the King's proclamation. Strict inquests were also held through
+London for any householders who ate meat in Lent, the young, turbulent
+Earl of Surrey being one of the offenders. (_Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol.
+17, part 1.) It is to be noted, however, that, side by side with these
+anti-Protestant measures, greater efforts than ever were made to emphasise
+the King's supremacy; the Mass Books being carefully revised in order to
+eliminate all reference even indirectly to the Pope, and to saints not
+mentioned in the Bible.
+
+[231] In his account of these and similar interviews Chapuys dwells much
+upon Gardiner's anxiety to adopt the best course to induce Henry to enter
+into the agreement. He begged the imperial ambassador not to rub the King
+the wrong way by dwelling upon the advantage to accrue to England from the
+alliance. (_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 6, part 2.)
+
+[232] The treaty is in the Record Office. Printed in full in Rymer.
+
+[233] At the time of Katharine's marriage, her brother, Lord Parr, was on
+the Scottish border as Warden of the Marches; and a few days after the
+wedding the new Queen-Consort wrote to him from Oatlands saying that "it
+having pleased God to incline the King to take her as his wife, which is
+the greatest joy and comfort that could happen to her, she desires to
+inform her brother of it, as the person who has most cause to rejoice
+thereat. She requires him to let her hear sometimes of his health as
+friendly as if she had not been called to this honour." (_Henry VIII.
+Calendar_, vol. 18, part 1.)
+
+[234] It depends upon a metrical family history written by Katharine's
+cousin, Sir Thomas Throckmorton.
+
+[235] The document is in the Record Office. About half way down the margin
+is written, "For your daughter." At the top is written, "Lady Latimer."
+
+[236] The author of the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ thus portrays
+Katharine's character: "She was quieter than any of the young wives the
+King had, and as she knew more of the world she always got on pleasantly
+with the King and had no caprices. She had much honour to Lady Mary and
+the wives of the nobles, but she kept her ladies very strictly.... The
+King was very well satisfied with her."
+
+[237] Many years afterwards when Parr, then Marquis of Northampton and a
+leading anti-Catholic, was with other nobles urging Queen Elizabeth to
+drop shilly-shally and get married in earnest, the Queen, who was of
+course playing a deep game which they did not understand, turned upon Parr
+in a rage and told him that he was a nice fellow to talk about marriage,
+considering how he had managed his own matrimonial affairs. (Hume,
+"Courtships of Queen Elizabeth.")
+
+[238] Record Office. _Henry VIII. Calendar_, vol. 18, part 1.
+
+[239] _Spanish State Papers, Calendar_, vol. 6, part 2. The author of the
+_Chronicle of Henry VIII._ (Guaras) says that the King ordered Anne to
+come to the wedding, but if that be the case there is no record of her
+presence; though all the other guests and witnesses are enumerated in the
+notarial deed attesting the marriage. The Spanish chronicler puts into
+Anne's mouth, as a sign of her indifference, a somewhat ill-natured gibe
+at the "burden that Madam Katharine hath taken upon herself," explaining
+that she referred to the King's immense bulk. "The King was so fat that
+such a man had never been seen. Three of the biggest men that could be
+found could get inside his doublet." Anne's trouble with regard to her
+brother was soon at an end. The Emperor's troops crushed him completely,
+and in September he begged for mercy on his knees, receiving the disputed
+duchies from Charles as an imperial fief. Anne's mother, who had stoutly
+resisted the Emperor's claims upon her duchies, died of grief during the
+campaign.
+
+[240] Strype's "Memorials of Cranmer."
+
+[241] Strype's "Memorials," Foxe's "Acts and Monuments," and Burnet; all
+of whom followed the account given by Cranmer's secretary Morice as to
+Cranmer's part.
+
+[242] Morice's anecdotes in "Narratives of the Reformation," Camden
+Society. See also Strype's "Memorials" and Foxe. The MS. record of the
+whole investigation is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. I am indebted
+for this fact to my friend Dr. James Gairdner, C.B.
+
+[243] How necessary this was is seen by the strenuous efforts, even thus
+late, of the Pope to effect a reconciliation between Charles and Francis
+rather than acquiesce in a combination between the former and the
+excommunicated King of England. Paul III. sent his grandson, Cardinal
+Farnese, in November 1543 to Flanders and to the Emperor with this object;
+but Charles was determined, and told the Cardinal in no gentle terms that
+the Pope's dallying with the infidel Turks, and Francis' intrigues with
+the Lutherans, were a hundred times worse than his own alliance with the
+schismatic King of England. (_Spanish Calendar_, vol. 7.)
+
+[244] Hertford had sacked Edinburgh and Leith and completely cowed the
+Scots before the letter was written. His presence in London at a crisis
+was therefore more necessary than on the Border.
+
+[245] _Hatfield Papers_, Hist. MSS. Commission, part 1.
+
+[246] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 7. This reparation to Mary had been urged
+very strongly by the Emperor, ever since the negotiations began. Mary,
+however, was not legitimated, and not only came after Edward, but also
+after any children Katharine might bear. The Queen undoubtedly urged
+Mary's cause.
+
+[247] It was constantly noted by foreign visitors that English ladies were
+kissed on the lips by men. It appears to have been quite an English
+custom, and greatly surprised Spaniards, who kept their women in almost
+oriental seclusion.
+
+[248] MSS. British Museum, Add. 8219, fol. 114.
+
+[249] A full account of his visit and service will be found in my
+_Chronicle of Henry VIII._ In the _Spanish Calendar_ and in the
+_Chronicle_ it is asserted that the Duke stayed with Henry very
+unwillingly and at the Emperor's request.
+
+[250] We are told that even the sails of his ship were of cloth of silver,
+and probably no King of England ever took the field under such splendid
+conditions before or since.
+
+[251] Hearne's _Sylloge_.
+
+[252] "Prayers and Meditations," London, 1545. The prayer is printed at
+length by Miss Strickland, as well as several extracts from Katharine's
+"Lamentations of a Sinner," which show that she had studied Vives and
+Guevara.
+
+[253] Although this letter is always assigned to the period when Henry was
+at Boulogne, I have very considerable doubt as to its having been written
+then. I should be inclined to ascribe it to the following year.
+
+[254] The following is his letter to Katharine informing her of this: "At
+the closing up of these our letters this day the castle aforesaid with the
+dyke is at our commandment, and not like to be recovered by the Frenchmen
+again, as we trust, not doubting with God's grace but that the castle and
+town shall shortly follow the same trade, for as this day, which is the
+8th September, we began three batteries and have three mines going,
+besides one which hath done its execution, shaking and tearing off one of
+their greatest bulwarks. No more to you at this time, sweetheart, but for
+lack of time and great occupations of business, saving we pray you to give
+in our name our hearty blessings to all our children, and recommendations
+to our cousin Margaret, and the rest of the ladies and gentlewomen, and to
+our Council also. Written with the hand of your loving husband--HENRY
+R."--"Royal Letters."
+
+[255] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[256] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[257] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[258] _Ibid._ The Duchess of Suffolk, a great friend of Katharine Parr's,
+and widow of Charles Brandon, who had recently died, was the daughter of a
+Spanish lady and of Lord Willoughby D'Eresby, which title she inherited.
+She soon after married one of her esquires, Francis Bertie, and became a
+strong Protestant.
+
+[259] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume. September 1546.
+
+[260] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume. September 1546.
+
+[261] Surrey prompted his sister on this occasion to appeal to the King
+for permission to marry Seymour, and to act in such a way that the King
+might fall in love with her, and make her his mistress, "so that she might
+have as much power as the Duchess d'Etampes in France." The suggestion was
+specially atrocious, as she was the widow of Henry's son.
+
+[262] _Spanish Calendar_, vol. 8. Hume.
+
+[263] _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ Hume.
+
+[264] The author of the _Chronicle of Henry VIII._ makes Paget and his
+wife the first promoters of the match between Seymour and Katharine,
+though I can find no confirmation of his story. He says that the Queen
+being in the great hall with her ladies and Princess Mary, Lord Seymour
+came in as had been arranged, looking very handsome. Lady Paget whispered
+to the Queen an inquiry as to what she thought of the Lord Admiral's
+looks, to which Katharine replied that she liked his looks very much. "All
+the ill I wish you, Madam," whispered Lady Paget, "is that he should
+become your husband." "I could wish that it had been my fate to have him
+for a husband," replied Katharine; "but God hath so placed me that any
+lowering of my condition would be a reproach to me." The arguments used to
+both lovers by Lady Paget are then detailed, and the final consent of
+Katharine to accept Seymour. There may have been a small germ of truth in
+this account, but it can hardly have happened as described, in view of the
+correspondence of the lovers now before us.
+
+[265] This use of the words brother and sister as referring to the
+Herberts, who were no relations of Seymour's, indicates that the latter
+and the Queen were already betrothed.
+
+[266] _State Papers, Domestic_, vol. 1.
+
+[267] Hearne's _Sylloge_, &c.
+
+[268] The deposition of Katharine Ashley. (_Hatfield Papers_, part 1.)
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  A
+
+  Abell, martyred, 358
+
+  Adrian, Pope, 105, 107
+
+  Alburquerque, Duke of, accompanies Henry to the war, 422
+
+  Alencon, Duchess of, proposed marriage of Henry VIII., 116
+
+  Alexander VI. (Pope), Borgia, 14
+
+  Amelia of Cleves, 322
+
+  Angouleme, Duke of, 245
+
+  Anne Boleyn, early life, 124-128;
+    the divorce, 129-162;
+    courtship of Henry, 137, 139-147;
+    her party, 168-170;
+    her life with Henry, 171, 180, 181, 182, 183, 190, 192;
+    in France, 193-197;
+    married, 199, 202;
+    her procession through London, 204-208;
+    her unpopularity, 209;
+    birth of her child, 214-216, 217, 222, 227, 233;
+    her influence declines, 240-243, 244, 257, 260-261;
+    her fall inevitable, 269-270, 271;
+    her betrayal, 271-274;
+    her arrest, 275;
+    in the Tower, 276-280;
+    her trial, 281;
+    condemnation and death, 282-288, 291
+
+  Anne of Cleves, 320, 322;
+    her voyage to England, 324-330;
+    her arrival and interview with Henry, 331-334;
+    her marriage, 334-339, 340, 341, 342, 349, 350-352;
+    her repudiation, 353-356, 360, 368;
+    talk of her rehabilitation, 386, 387, 397, 409
+
+  Aragon, ambition of, 3-5
+
+  Arras. _See_ Granvelle
+
+  Arthur, Prince of Wales, his first betrothal to Katharine, 6, 8-12, 15,
+        16, 17, 18;
+    his first meeting with Katharine, 27;
+    description of him, 28;
+    his marriage, 29-33, 34, 36, 37;
+    his death, 38
+
+  Arundel, Earl of, 305
+
+  Audrey, Sir Thomas, Lord Chancellor, 201, 270, 326, 369, 371, 376, 380
+
+  Ayala, Bishop, Spanish envoy, 36
+
+
+  B
+
+  Bar, Duke of, betrothal of Anne of Cleves to, 322, 323, 338, 348
+
+  Barnes, Dr., prosecution of, 341, 344, 358
+
+  Bassett, Anne, 393
+
+  Bastian, Katharine's Burgundian lackey, 231, 255
+
+  Bedingfield, 252, 256
+
+  Bennet, Dr., 184
+
+  Boleyn, Anne. _See_ Anne
+
+  Boleyn, Mary, 112, 124, 284
+
+  Boleyn, Thomas (Earl of Wiltshire), 124, 169, 170, 190, 200, 270
+
+  Bonner, Dr., 343, 365
+
+  Boulogne, siege of, &c., 423-427, 435
+
+  Brandon, Charles, Duke of Suffolk, 85, 87, 96, 162, 169, 175, 178, 181,
+  201, 216, 217, 219, 234, 243, 251, 263, 286, 300, 326, 328, 338, 392,
+  394, 409, 422
+
+  Brereton, William, 272, 276, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Brian, Sir Francis, 93, 290, 312, 314
+
+  Bridewell, the divorce tribunal there, 157, 163-166
+
+  Bridgewater, Lady, 382
+
+  Brittany, Duchess of, 12, 13
+
+  Brown, Friar George, 199
+
+  Browne, Sir Anthony, 331, 332, 370, 382, 393
+
+  Buckingham, Duke of, 28
+
+  Buckler, Katharine Parr's secretary, 435
+
+  Bulmer, Mrs. Joan, 359
+
+  Burgo, Baron di, the Papal envoy, 199
+
+
+  C
+
+  Campeggio, Cardinal, 140, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153,
+  154, 157-159, 162, 163-166, 167, 168
+
+  Canazares, Protonotary, 26
+
+  Carew, Sir Nicholas, 262, 287, 290, 317
+
+  Carey, William, 112, 124
+
+  Carne, Dr., 320
+
+  Carroz, Spanish ambassador, 78
+
+  Carthusians, martyrdom of, 246
+
+  Castillon, French ambassador, 221
+
+  Chabot de Brion, Admiral of France, in England, 243, 244
+
+  Chantonnay (Perennot), 402
+
+  Chapuys, imperial ambassador, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 211, 214, 215,
+        228, 234;
+    his journey to Kimbolton, 235-239, 240, 242, 245;
+    last interviews with Katharine, 250-256, 259, 265, 266;
+    his coldness towards Anne, 267, 282, 285;
+    his reception by Jane Seymour, 293, 385, 388-399, 393, 398, 401, 409,
+        432, 433, 434
+
+  Charles V., Emperor, 60, 65, 69, 70, 85, 90, 97, 98;
+    visits to England, 99-106;
+    his attitude towards the divorce, 129-130, 154, 155, 160, 170, 173,
+        174, 177, 181, 188, 192, 209, 232, 238, 243, 248, 263;
+    his attitude after Katharine's death, 263-4, 288, 300-302, 312, 313,
+        319, 322, 326, 343, 357;
+    renewed friendship with Henry, 357-366, 388-390, 398;
+    his alliance with Henry, 402, 416, 417, 418, 427-431;
+    makes peace, 428-431;
+    attacks the Lutherans, 435, 438
+
+  Charles VIII. of France, 7, 12, 13-15, 40
+
+  Christian III. of Denmark, 316, 319, 324
+
+  Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, 314-15, 324, 343
+
+  Clare, Lady, 228
+
+  Clement VII., Pope, 107, 115, 129, 141, 153, 160, 170, 173, 174-177,
+        183, 198, 199, 210, 216, 220, 221, 222;
+    gives sentence in the divorce case, 223;
+    death of, 243
+
+  Clergy, English, and the divorce, 176, 177, 221, 247
+
+  Cleves, Anne, Princess of. _See_ Anne
+
+  Cleves, Duke of, 319, 320, 323, 342, 346, 386, 387, 409
+
+  Cleves, Duchess of, 323
+
+  Compton, Sir William, 78, 106
+
+  Cook martyred, 358
+
+  Cranmer, Archbishop, 185-187, 190, 194, 196, 197;
+    appointed to Canterbury, 198, 199, 201;
+    pronounces the divorce from Katharine of Aragon, 203-204, 208, 209,
+        215, 217, 222, 223, 264, 283, 288, 317, 321, 326, 328, 338, 339,
+        341, 344, 354, 369, 370, 375, 386, 410, 411;
+    plots of Gardiner against him, 411-415, 436-437, 438, 444, 446, 448
+
+  Cromwell, Richard, 274
+
+  Cromwell, Thomas, 186, 187, 190, 192, 200, 212, 215, 217, 222, 233, 235,
+        237, 238, 239, 245, 246, 248, 263, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271-281,
+        288, 295, 296, 301, 311, 315, 319, 322, 324, 326, 333, 338, 339;
+    decline of his influence, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345;
+    created Earl of Essex, 345, 346;
+    his arrest, 347;
+    execution, 348, 349, 351, 352, 357, 358, 359
+
+  Culpeper, Thomas, the lover of Katharine Howard, accused, 375, 378
+        _et seq._;
+    trial and execution, 383-385, 395
+
+  Cuero, Juan de, chamberlain of Katharine of Aragon, 35
+
+
+  D
+
+  Dacre, Lord, 365
+
+  Darrel, Mistress, 255
+
+  Daubeney, Giles, 10
+
+  Dauphin of France, betrothed to Princess Mary, 94, 95, 97, 99
+
+  De la Sa, Katharine's apothecary, 218, 231, 250, 253, 256
+
+  Denny, Sir Anthony, 340, 444
+
+  Derham, Francis, accused of immorality with Katharine Howard, 373
+        _et seq._;
+    trial and execution, 383-385
+
+  Divorce proceedings between Henry and Katharine of Aragon, 117-123,
+  129-162, 170, 184-192, 198-204
+
+  Dogmersfield, Hants, Katharine meets Arthur there, 27
+
+  Dorset, Marquis of, commands English contingent in Navarre, 81
+
+  Douglas, Lady Margaret, 328, 421, 427
+
+  Dowry of Katharine of Aragon, 9, 11, 15, 34-37, 39, 40, 55, 57, 58, 61, 70
+
+  Du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, 220, 221, 222
+
+  Dudley, John (Lord Lisle, afterwards Earl of Warwick, and Duke of
+  Northumberland), 434, 438, 440, 441, 443, 450
+
+
+  E
+
+  Edward, Prince of Wales, 304;
+    his baptism, 305-6, 326, 367, 425, 442, 455
+
+  Elizabeth of York, Queen, 10, 30, 38;
+    death of, 42
+
+  Elizabeth, Princess, 214, 215, 216, 223, 228, 238, 243, 245, 257, 284,
+  295, 305, 425, 456
+
+  Empson and Dudley, 33, 69
+
+  Erasmus, 44, 410
+
+  Estrada, Duke of, 39
+
+  Etampes, Duchess of, 344, 428
+
+  Europe, condition of, at the end of the fifteenth century, 4
+
+  Evil May Day, 91, 92
+
+  Exeter, Bishop of, 10
+
+  Exeter, Marquis of, 229, 305, 317
+
+  Exeter, the Marchioness of, 264, 265, 305, 317
+
+
+  F
+
+  Felipe, Francisco, Katharine's groom of the chambers, 121, 122, 129,
+  231, 255
+
+  Ferdinand, King of Aragon, 1-24, 34, 39, 43, 44, 45, 51, 52, 55-60, 70,
+  71, 78, 80, 87, 90
+
+  Fernandez, Diego, Katharine's confessor, 63-68, 78
+
+  Fetherston martyred, 358
+
+  Field of the Cloth of Gold, 101
+
+  Fisher, Dr., Bishop of Rochester, 122, 150, 159, 164, 177, 179, 215, 233
+
+  Fitzwilliam, Sir William, 275, 325, 326, 328, 329, 330, 338, 370, 382,
+  394
+
+  Flodden, battle of, 82, 83
+
+  Fox, Bishop of Winchester, 83, 138, 139, 188, 221
+
+  Francis I., 97, 98, 99;
+    on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 101;
+    at war with England, 103, 108, 109, 113, 117;
+    receives Wolsey, 129, 154, 155;
+    his attitude towards the divorce, 190-192;
+    meets Henry, 193-197;
+    renewed coolness, 209-211, 220, 233, 310, 312, 313, 319, 322, 326,
+        343, 362, 389, 390;
+    at war with Charles, 400, 423, 427
+
+
+  G
+
+  Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester, 119, 138, 139, 166, 179, 184,
+        190, 211, 221, 320, 321, 333, 341, 344, 352, 354, 359, 361, 364,
+        366, 368, 369, 386, 387, 391, 398, 400, 410, 411;
+    his plots against Cranmer and Katharine Parr, 411-415, 422;
+    with Henry in France, 424, 434, 436, 438, 439, 441
+
+  Garrard, Dr., 344, 358
+
+  German Protestants and England, 209, 211, 241, 248, 310, 311, 315,
+  316-320, 322-325, 338, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 358, 364, 387, 390,
+  397, 431, 435, 436, 440
+
+  Germaine de Foix, second wife of Ferdinand, 52
+
+  Ghinucci, Henry's envoy to Spain and Rome, 129, 130
+
+  Gomez de Fuensalida, Spanish envoy, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70, 74
+
+  Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, 429, 430
+
+  Grey, Lord Leonard, 365
+
+  Guildford, Sir J., Controller, 179, 180, 181
+
+  Guildford, Lady, 28
+
+
+  H
+
+  Haines, Dr., 412
+
+  Hall, Mary, 370 _et seq._
+
+  Heneage, Sir Thomas, 340, 376
+
+  Henry VII., his political aims, 6;
+    his relations with Puebla, 7-8;
+    his negotiations for the Spanish marriage, 9-20;
+    his first meeting with Katharine, 26, 27;
+    at Arthur's marriage, 30, 33, 34;
+    his treatment of Katharine, 35-42;
+    proposes to marry Katharine, 43;
+    his negotiations with Ferdinand after Henry's betrothal, 45;
+    his treatment of Katharine, 48;
+    receives Philip and Juana, 49-54;
+    proposes marriage to Juana, 55-60, 62, 66, 68;
+    his death, 68, 69, 70
+
+  Henry VIII., at Arthur's wedding, 31;
+    first betrothal to Katharine of Aragon, 39-43, 44, 46;
+    secret denunciation of his betrothal, 49;
+    his accession, 69;
+    marriage, 71-77;
+    his character, 72, 73;
+    his first tiff with Katharine, 78;
+    birth of his first child, rejoicings, 79-80;
+    war with France, 80-83;
+    French alliance, 84, 85;
+    his relations with Katharine, 83-89;
+    his pretensions to the imperial crown, 97-99;
+    meets Charles and Francis, 101-106;
+    war with France, 107, 108;
+    proposed alliance with France, 116;
+    proposals for divorcing Katharine and marrying a French princess, 117;
+    the divorce, 119-123;
+    in love with Anne Boleyn, 127, 128;
+    his attempts to obtain a divorce, 129-173;
+    his courtship of Anne Boleyn, 141-147;
+    appears at Bridewell, 157, 163-166;
+    defies the Pope, 174-177, 180-183;
+    second meeting with Francis, 192-197;
+    the divorce, 199;
+    marries Anne, 200-208;
+    change of policy, 210-211, 220-223;
+    further emancipation, 223-226, 238-241, 243;
+    estrangement from Anne, 245;
+    approaches the Emperor, 251;
+    his behaviour on Katharine's death, 257;
+    he tires of Anne, 260, 261;
+    in love with Jane Seymour, 265;
+    approaches the Emperor, 266-269;
+    his sacrifice of Anne, 271-287;
+    marries Jane Seymour, 291;
+    his religious measures, 294;
+    his treatment of Mary, 295, 296, 302-303;
+    religious persecutions, 308-310;
+    proposes a matrimonial alliance with France, 312-313, 315;
+    approaches the German Protestants, 315-320;
+    religious measures, 320-322;
+    betrothed to Anne of Cleves, 323-330;
+    his reception of his bride, 331;
+    his discontent, 332-334;
+    his marriage, 334-340;
+    his attempts to get rid of Anne, 340-352, 353-356;
+    his approaches to the Emperor, 357-359;
+    marries Katharine Howard, 360;
+    change of policy, 361-367;
+    Katharine Howard accused, 369-372;
+    plans for her repudiation, 375;
+    great grief at Katharine Howard's conduct, 385, 386;
+    preparations for an alliance with the Emperor, 388, 398, 401;
+    the alliance signed, 402;
+    at war with France, 402;
+    enamoured of Katharine Parr, 405;
+    marries her, 409;
+    his invasion of France, 417, 418, 419, 420;
+    at the siege of Boulogne, 424, 427;
+    left in the lurch by Charles, 428-431;
+    approaches of the German Protestants, 435, 436;
+    his last illness, 441;
+    death, 444;
+    his character and career, 445-449
+
+  Herbert, Lady, 451
+
+  Hertford, Countess of, 418, 453, 455
+
+  Hesse, Philip of, 310, 311, 319, 343, 435
+
+  Hoby, Sir Philip, 412
+
+  Howard, Lord William, 382, 392
+
+
+  I
+
+  Isabel, Princess of (Castile), 7
+
+  Isabel, the Catholic, of Castile, 1-5, 13-16, 17, 20, 21, 34, 39, 41,
+        42, 43;
+    death of, 47, 48
+
+
+  J
+
+  James IV. of Scotland, 15, 25, 41, 81;
+    death at Flodden, 82
+
+  James V. of Scotland, 312, 366, 389;
+    death of, 401
+
+  Jerome, Dr., 358
+
+  John, Prince of Asturias, 5, 17, 21
+
+  John II. of Aragon, 3
+
+  Juana, Queen of Castile, 5, 18, 21, 47, 48;
+    visit to England, 49-54;
+    widowed, 55;
+    negotiations for her marriage with Henry VII., 55-60, 69
+
+
+  K
+
+  Katharine of Aragon, first betrothal to Arthur, Prince of Wales, 6,
+        8-12, 15, 16, 17;
+    her coming to England, 18, 19, 20, 21;
+    her voyage, 21-24;
+    her arrival, 25-26;
+    her character, 28;
+    her reception in London and marriage, 29-33;
+    her journey to Wales, 36, 37;
+    widowed, 38, 39;
+    betrothed to Henry, 39-43, 44-49;
+    her betrothal denounced, 49;
+    her position in England, 49, 50, 54-60;
+    her relations with her confessor, 63-68;
+    marriage with Henry, 70, 71-77;
+    birth of her first child, 79;
+    Regent of England, 81-85;
+    her life with Henry, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 102-106,
+        109, 110, 111, 112;
+    her separation from Henry, 112, 116;
+    the divorce, 117-123, 129-173;
+    her statement to Campeggio, 151;
+    her firmness, 155, 156, 159;
+    appears at Bridewell, 164, 165;
+    her appeals to the Pope, 177-179;
+    sent away from court, 181, 191, 195;
+    renewed hopes, 198, 199;
+    again undeceived, 200;
+    persecution, 201, 211-213, 216-224, 227, 229-232;
+    illness of, 234-238, 247, 248;
+    death of, 249-256
+
+  Katharine Howard, her origin, 351-359;
+    married to Henry, 360, 365, 367, 368;
+    denunciation of her by Cranmer and his friends, 369-372;
+    the story of her accusers, 372-384;
+    her attainder, 392, 393;
+    her execution, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398
+
+  Katharine Parr, 403-408;
+    married to Henry, 409, 410;
+    her religious leanings, 411;
+    Gardiner's plots to ruin her, 412-415, 419;
+    described, 421;
+    Regent in Henry's absence, 424, 425, 426, 427;
+    Chapuys' interviews with her, 432, 433;
+    sides with the Protestants, 435;
+    her danger, 438, 439, 443;
+    her widowhood, 450;
+    marries Thomas Seymour, 450-456;
+    her death, 457-458
+
+  Kingston, Sir W., Governor of the Tower, 275, 276, 285
+
+  Knight, Dr., sent to the Pope, 133, 138
+
+
+  L
+
+  Lascelles, John, denounces Katharine Howard, 369 _et seq._
+
+  Latimer, Bishop, 411
+
+  Latimer, Lord, 404
+
+  Lee, Dr., Henry's ambassador to the Emperor, 130;
+    interview with Katharine, 179, 186, 199, 230
+
+  Lennox, Earl of, 427
+
+  Leo X., Pope, 102, 104
+
+  Lisle, Lord, 365, 393
+
+  Llandaff, Bishop of, Jorge de Ateca, Katharine's confessor, 218, 231,
+  254, 256
+
+  London, reception in, of Katharine of Aragon, 29-32, 75
+
+  London, Anne Boleyn's reception in, 205-208
+
+  London, Dr., 411, 412, 414
+
+  Longueville, Duke of, 83, 84, 85
+
+  Lorraine, Duke of, 428
+
+  Lorraine, Duke of. _See also_ Bar
+
+  Louis XII. of France, 84, 85, 86
+
+  Ludlow, Arthur at, 18, 20, 38
+
+  Luiz, Dom, of Portugal, 314
+
+  Luther, 102, 103, 154, 173, 362
+
+
+  M
+
+  Mannoch accused of immorality with Katharine Howard, 370 _et seq._
+
+  Manuel, Dona Elvira, 35, 41, 44, 48, 49, 50, 60
+
+  Manuel, Don Juan, 18, 50
+
+  Margaret of Austria, 17, 48, 49, 52, 53, 58, 60
+
+  Margaret Plantagenet, Duchess of Burgundy, 6, 25
+
+  Marillac, French ambassador, 344, 351, 361
+
+  Mary of Hungary, governess of Flanders, 315, 400, 423, 427
+
+  Mary of Lorraine, 312
+
+  Mary Queen of Scots, 401
+
+  Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VII.), 46, 60, 65, 66, 69, 70, 84, 85, 86,
+  87, 88, 90, 101, 125, 195
+
+  Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VIII.), 88, 94, 95, 97, 99, 101;
+    betrothed to Charles, 103-107, 110;
+    betrothed to the Duke of Orleans, 113-115, 117, 130, 174, 181, 202,
+        213, 215, 216, 222, 227, 228, 233, 238, 239, 242, 243-245,
+        246-247, 249, 258-260, 264, 266-267, 269, 289;
+    her submission, 296, 299, 301-303, 305, 307, 315, 319, 326, 337, 381,
+        389, 399, 404, 409, 410, 421, 425, 432
+
+  Mason, Dr., 365
+
+  Maximilian, Emperor, 5, 13, 15, 17, 18, 48, 90
+
+  Medici, Alexander de, Duke of Florence, 222
+
+  Medici, Katharine de, 192, 210
+
+  Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, Spanish ambassador, 315
+
+  Mendoza, Inigo Lopez de, Spanish ambassador, 118, 129, 130, 132
+
+  Mont, Christopher, 319, 320, 324
+
+  Montague, Lord, 317
+
+  Montreuil, Mme. de, 313
+
+  More, Sir Thomas, 169, 187, 190, 201, 233, 258
+
+  Morton, Margery, 377, 378
+
+  Mountjoy, Katharine of Aragon's chamberlain at Ampthill, 201
+
+
+  N
+
+  Najera, Duke of, his visit to the English court, 420, 421, 422
+
+  Naples, Queen of, 43
+
+  Neville, Sir Edward, 317
+
+  Nevinson, Cranmer's nephew, 413
+
+  Norfolk, Duke of, 26, 81, 83, 131, 162, 169, 171, 173, 174, 175, 178,
+        179, 190, 192, 201, 202, 205;
+    mission to France, 205, 209-210, 219, 227, 243, 258, 263, 268, 270,
+        275, 276, 280, 281, 296, 297, 298, 300, 321, 338, 341, 346, 347,
+        348, 351, 359, 361, 366, 369, 371, 380, 381, 382, 383, 386, 389,
+        395, 398, 422, 441, 442, 443
+
+  Norfolk, Duchess of, 26, 370-377, 382, 392
+
+  Norreys, Sir Henry, 167, 272, 273-275, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+
+  O
+
+  Ockham, 412, 413
+
+  Olsiliger, Chancellor, 329, 386
+
+  Orleans, Henry, Duke of, second son of Francis I., and afterwards
+  Dauphin, 114, 192, 210, 381, 389, 428
+
+
+  P
+
+  Pace, Richard, 93
+
+  Paget, Secretary, 434, 438, 450
+
+  Palmer, Sir Thomas, 365
+
+  Parr, Lord, 381, 403, 404, 405, 407, 408
+
+  Pate, Henry's envoy to the Emperor, 357, 365
+
+  Paul III. (Farnese), Pope, 242, 249, 294, 416
+
+  Paulet (Lord St. John), 438, 441, 443
+
+  Pavia, battle of, 107, 108
+
+  Peachy, 95
+
+  Pembroke, Marchioness. _See_ Boleyn, Anne
+
+  Percy, Henry (Earl of Northumberland), 126, 127
+
+  Percy, Thomas, 272
+
+  Perkin Warbeck, 15, 18
+
+  Peto, Friar, 209
+
+  Petre, Dr., 424
+
+  Philip, Duke of Bavaria, 337, 440
+
+  Philip the Handsome, 5, 18, 19, 21, 23, 47, 48;
+    visit to England, 49-54;
+    death of, 55
+
+  Pilgrimage of Grace, 298, 308
+
+  Plymouth, arrival of Katharine of Aragon at, 23
+
+  Pole, Cardinal Reginald, 186, 215, 316, 317, 322, 364
+
+  Pole, Geoffrey, 316
+
+  Pole, Richard, 45
+
+  Poles, the, 45, 299
+
+  Powell martyred, 358
+
+  Poynings commands English contingent in Flanders, 80
+
+  Puebla, Dr., Spanish ambassador, 7-8, 10, 16, 17, 19, 31, 34, 36, 37,
+  39, 42, 49, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62
+
+
+  R
+
+  Renee of France, Princess, proposed marriage with Henry VIII., 116
+
+  Richards, Griffin, 165
+
+  Richmond, Duchess of, 202, 295, 296, 328, 442
+
+  Richmond, Duke of, Henry's son, 96, 110, 202, 284, 286, 289, 295, 296
+
+  Rochford, Lord, 169, 209, 273, 280;
+    his trial, 281;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Rochford, Lady, 242, 280, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 384;
+    her execution, 395
+
+  Rome sacked by the Imperial forces under Bourbon, 114
+
+  Russell, Sir John, 291, 331, 332, 370
+
+  Rutland, Earl of, 200, 353
+
+
+  S
+
+  Sadler, Sir Ralph, 365
+
+  Salisbury, Countess of, 316, 317;
+    beheaded, 365
+
+  Saxony, Hans Frederick of, 319, 322, 323, 324, 343, 435
+
+  Saxony, George, Duke of, 310
+
+  Sampson, Dr., 121, 164, 179, 184
+
+  Sepulveda, Juan de, Spanish ambassador, 8, 10
+
+  Seymour, Sir Edward (Lord Beauchamp, Earl of Hertford, and afterwards
+  Duke of Somerset), 262, 265, 266, 293, 300, 304, 305, 306, 326, 346,
+  369, 380, 419, 424, 434, 435, 438, 440, 441, 443, 450, 454, 455, 456
+
+  Seymour, Jane, her first appearance, 261;
+    her family, 262, 265, 269, 282, 284, 286, 290;
+    married to Henry, 291;
+    her small political influence, 293, 296-299;
+    gives birth to a son, 304;
+    her death, 307, 308, 309
+
+  Seymour, Sir Thomas (Lord Seymour of Sudeley), 262, 402, 405, 441;
+    marries Katharine Parr, 450-458
+
+  Shelton, Lady, 259
+
+  Six Articles, the Act so called, 320, 321, 362, 399, 411, 413, 437, 445
+
+  Smeaton, Mark, 271, 272;
+    arrested, by Cromwell, 273;
+    his admissions, 273-274, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Solway Moss, 401
+
+  Spurs, Battle of, 81
+
+  Stokesley, Bishop of London, 179, 184, 186, 221
+
+  Succession, Act of, 223, 230-232, 233
+
+  Suffolk, Duke of. _See_ Brandon
+
+  Suffolk, Duchess of (Katharine, Lady Willoughby), 438, 443
+
+  Suffolk, Earl of (Pole), 45, 53
+
+  Supremacy, Act of, 246, 445
+
+  Surrey, Earl of, 395, 441, 443
+
+  Sybilla of Cleves, Duchess of Saxony, 319, 324
+
+
+  T
+
+  Tarbes, Bishop of (Grammont), 113, 114, 117
+
+  Tailebois, Lady (Eleanor Blunt), 85, 88, 96, 112, 128
+
+  Talbot, Lord, 179, 180
+
+  Therouenne, Henry at the siege of, 82, 83
+
+  Thirlby, Dr., 424
+
+  Throckmorton, Sir George, 404
+
+  Trenchard, Sir John, 53
+
+  Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, 179, 230, 326, 338, 344
+
+  Turenne, Vicomte de, 113, 114
+
+  Tylney, Katharine, 377, 378
+
+  Tyrwhitt, Lady, 457
+
+
+  V
+
+  Van der Delft, Imperial ambassador in England, 432, 435, 441
+
+  Vargas, Blanche de, 255
+
+  Vaughan, Stephen, 236, 237, 253
+
+  Vives, J. Luis, 410
+
+
+  W
+
+  Wallop, Sir J., commands the English contingent in Flanders, 416
+
+  Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, 74, 75, 108, 119, 150, 174, 189;
+    death of, 193
+
+  Weston, Sir Thomas, 276, 280;
+    executed, 282
+
+  Wingfield, 95
+
+  Wingfield, Lady, 280
+
+  Willoughby, Lady, 252
+
+  Wolf Hall, the home of the Seymours, 261, 262, 291
+
+  Wolsey, Cardinal, 82, 83, 87, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95;
+    his French leanings, 96, 97, 99;
+    won to the side of the Emperor, 101-106;
+    renewed approaches to France, 107-109, 110, 111, 114;
+    proposes Katharine's divorce, 116-123, 126;
+    his attitude towards Anne Boleyn, 127;
+    embassy in France, 129-134;
+    decline of influence, 134-135;
+    acts as Legate, 140, 149-154, 160-167;
+    his disgrace, 167-169;
+    his death, 173
+
+  Wotton, Dr., 320, 322, 405
+
+  Wriothesley, Thomas, 341, 342, 370, 377, 380, 392, 408, 424, 434, 438,
+  439, 441, 443
+
+  Wuertemburg, Duke of, 435
+
+  Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 137, 276, 315, 343, 365, 393
+
+  Wyatt, Lady (daughter of Lord Cobham), 393, 408
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+
+Edinburgh & London
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
+
+Superscripted letters are shown in {brackets}.
+
+The following misprints have been corrected:
+  "FitzWilliam" corrected to "Fitzwilliam" (page 180)
+  "been been" corrected to "been" (page 204)
+  "Francisans" corrected to "Franciscans" (page 255)
+  "Cramner" corrected to "Cranmer" (page 369)
+  "wth" corrected to "with" (page 389)
+  "appproaching" corrected to "approaching" (page 424)
+  "wore" corrected to "were" (footnote 118)
+  "ininstructed" corrected to "instructed" (footnote 209)
+  "Dona" standardized to "Dona" (index)
+  "Inigo" standardized to "Inigo" (index)
+  "Nagera" corrected to "Najera" (Index)
+
+Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in
+spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained.
+
+Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors
+have been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have
+been left open. Other punctuation has been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the
+Parts They Played in History, by Martin Hume
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIVES OF HENRY THE EIGHTH ***
+
+***** This file should be named 32813.txt or 32813.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/1/32813/
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
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