Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History — Katharine Parr - The Protestants Win the Last Trick - Part 3

_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."

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