Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History — Plot and Counterplot - Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves - Part 3

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.