Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History — Katharine the Queen, Part 2

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.