Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History — The King's Good Sister and the King's Bad Wife - the Lutherans and English Catholics - Part 1

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.