Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History — Katharine Parr - The Protestants Win the Last Trick - Part 1

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The great Bibles were withdrawn from the churches, the dissemination of the Scriptures restricted, and the Six Articles were enforced more severely than ever;[230] but yet when, after some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.