Six Wives (112 page)
Authors: David Starkey
The change among her women was even more striking. Once more, the decline and death of the Earl of Rutland was crucial, as his wife, Eleanor, had exercised a parallel sway over the ladies of the Queen's Household for almost a decade. Born a Paston, and daughter of the great Norfolk family, she was a grande dame of the old school, being kindly, level-headed and generous. She was also catholic in her friendships and mainstream in her religion. But she took advantage of her husband's death to retire from the Court and she was replaced as the dominant force in the Queen's Household by Catherine's sister, Anne Herbert, who became Chief Lady of the Queen's Privy Chamber. Anne, as we have seen, was well established in the Household of Henry's Queens, with a record of service going back to Jane Seymour. But Catherine's other leading attendants were the new-comers, Lady Lane and Lady Tyrwhit. Both were related to Catherine: Lady Lane was born Maud Parr and, as Parr of Horton's eldest daughter, was Catherine's first cousin, while Elizabeth Tyrwhit
née
Oxenbridge, was, as wife of Sir Robert, a member of Catherine's more remote cousinage.
née
Oxenbridge, was, as wife of Sir Robert, a member of Catherine's more remote cousinage.
Most importantly of all, however, all three women shared Catherine's religious inclinations. Elizabeth Tyrwhit, indeed, went too far even for her puritanically inclined husband, who remarked a little later to Sir Thomas Seymour that she was 'not sane [sound] in divinity, but she was half a Scripture woman'.
38
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The result was that the change of personnel in Catherine's Household went hand in hand with an even more radical change of tone. This was well described by Francis Goldsmith, who was recruited into Catherine's Household from Peterhouse, Cambridge, at some time after 1543 and was agreeably surprised with what he found there. 'Every day [is] like a Sunday', he wrote in his letter of thanks to Catherine, '[which is] a thing hitherto unheard of, especially in a royal palace.' For though '[Reformed] religion [was] long since introduced, not without great labour, to the palace' – not least, though Goldsmith is too tactful to say so, by Catherine's predecessor, Anne Boleyn – it had been left to Catherine to cherish and perfect it.
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The fact was obvious to everybody – apart from Henry. Wrapped up in his boy-games of war, he was oblivious and, as we have seen, referred soothingly in his letter to Catherine's recruiting her women 'to pass the time with you at play or otherwise accompany you for your recreation'. This was the old role of royal ladies in waiting. Their new one was to be agents of radical religious change.
When would Henry wake up to the transformation brought about by his new wife? And what would he do when he noticed?
* * *
For the moment, the war-games were all-absorbing and when Henry snatched the pen from his secretary to add a final paragraph to his letter, it was to give Catherine the latest blow-by-blow account of the bombardment. 'As this day', he wrote, 'which is the eighth day of September, we begin three batteries and have three mines going, besides one which hath done his execution in shaking and tearing off one of their greatest bulwarks.'
No more to you at this time, sweetheart [he concluded] both for lack of time and great occupation of business, saving that we pray you to give in our name our hearty blessing to all our children, and recommendations to our cousin Margaret [Countess of Lennox] and the rest of the ladies and gentlewomen, and to our Council also. Written with the hand of your loving husband
HENRY R
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The mining, which Henry described so enthusiastically, was almost immediately effective. On 11 September, three days after the date of Henry's letter, a mine was exploded under the castle and on the 14th the town surrendered. One of Henry's first actions after receiving the surrender was to despatch the newly knighted Sir William Herbert 'to declare at length his Majesty's good success and conquest of Boulogne to the Queen's most noble Grace'. The messenger was carefully chosen, being both Henry's favourite Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Catherine's brother-in-law. Partly, presumably, because of adverse weather conditions in the Channel, and partly because of the remoteness of Woking, where the Court then was, Herbert took some five days before he was able to give the tidings to Catherine 'this night' on the 19th.
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* * *
This was her great opportunity to put
her
spin on events and the Council's letter announcing the fall of Boulogne to their colleagues in the Council of the North is heavy with the providential language the Queen had made her own. The Queen, the letter informed them, had just heard of the conquest, which had taken place 'without effusion of blood'. She was sure that the news would be joyful to them and that they would order appropriate thanks-givings 'in all the towns and villages of those Northern parts' for 'this great benefit of God'.
her
spin on events and the Council's letter announcing the fall of Boulogne to their colleagues in the Council of the North is heavy with the providential language the Queen had made her own. The Queen, the letter informed them, had just heard of the conquest, which had taken place 'without effusion of blood'. She was sure that the news would be joyful to them and that they would order appropriate thanks-givings 'in all the towns and villages of those Northern parts' for 'this great benefit of God'.
No doubt Catherine had offered such a prayer herself and I think we can hear its actual words embedded in the Council's letter. Henry's triumph was, the letter continued, a benefit 'heaped upon us in such sort as we all are most bounden to render most humble thanks to Him, and pray for the long continuance of our most puissant [powerful] master, whom Almighty God long preserve'.
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* * *
But Catherine's thanks for victory came too soon. For that same day, unbeknown to the English, Charles V signed a separate peace with the French at Crépy. Fighting now on one front rather than two, the French armies were free to turn on the English and the Dauphin immediately marched against the second English force under the Duke of Norfolk which was besieging Montreuil. It was panic stations and on the 23rd the Council with the King wrote home to order the despatch of the 4,000 reinforcements, 'which so often hath been demanded and countermanded', and 50,000 marks (that is £33,333). The letters reached Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, who was holding the fort in London, at 9 o'clock on the 25th. He opened them and, in view of the emergency, ordered the immediate despatch of letters – in the Queen's name – to summon the troops and raise the cash without losing more valuable time by consulting the Queen herself.
But this is the exception that proves the rule about the reality of Catherine's regency powers. For Wriothesley was profuse in his apologies and pleas of urgent necessity. 'Thus, my Lords', he concluded his report to his colleagues in the Council at Court, 'I have passed a piece of the storm, wherein, if I have not taken the best ways, I shall beseech the Queen's Highness most humbly to pardon me.' 'And for that in our letters', he continued, 'we use her Grace's name and authority, before the letters came to her hands, surely, me thought, it was not mete to lose so much time, as to send to Woking and tarry the answer back again, before the doing of anything.'
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The reasoning was unanswerable – which, no doubt, was well for Wriothesley, for Catherine's, it is clear, was not a name to be taken lightly in vain.
* * *
The emergency proved shortlived. Henry ordered a protective retreat from Montreuil and on 30 September, convinced that Boulogne itself was safe, he set sail for England and landed at midnight at Dover. Meanwhile Catherine, who had moved to Eltham, set out to meet him. She travelled in slow stages, dining at Mereworth, the Master of the Rolls' house, Allington Castle, the seat of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and Foot's Cray. Finally, she met Henry at Otford, the former great palace of the archbishops of Canterbury near Sevenoaks, which Henry had seized for himself in 1537.
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Her regency was over; she was a Queen Consort again – with a Queen Consort's vulnerability.
78. The test
T
he aftermath of war was demanding and it was not till Christmas Eve that Henry and Catherine were able to get away from Whitehall to Greenwich for the 1544 –5 holidays. And it was there that Catherine received (rather late I would guess) her New Year's Gift from her step-daughter Elizabeth. It survives and it is eloquent testimony to the change which Catherine had brought over the royal family – and hoped to bring over England.
he aftermath of war was demanding and it was not till Christmas Eve that Henry and Catherine were able to get away from Whitehall to Greenwich for the 1544 –5 holidays. And it was there that Catherine received (rather late I would guess) her New Year's Gift from her step-daughter Elizabeth. It survives and it is eloquent testimony to the change which Catherine had brought over the royal family – and hoped to bring over England.
* * *
Elizabeth had left Court in September 1544, just before her parents' reunion, and had returned to the schoolroom with her brother Edward. But the memory of that summer spent with Catherine was strong and she resolved to mark it with a new kind of present. Instead of the expensive trinkets, to which royalty then as now was prone, she would give something of and by herself: a book. It was not an original composition, of course. Instead it was a translation of the French religious poem,
Miroir de l'âme pécheresse
(Mirror or Glass of the Sinful Soul
)
by Marguerite of Angoulême.
Miroir de l'âme pécheresse
(Mirror or Glass of the Sinful Soul
)
by Marguerite of Angoulême.
The choice was predictable. Marguerite was, as we have seen, the archetypical royal female author and her work was a favourite of Catherine's. Probably she had introduced Elizabeth to it over the summer; perhaps she had even read parts of it with her. But, otherwise, she seems to have intervened little and the translation was all Elizabeth's own work, being made, written and perhaps bound by her.
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1
Naturally, historians have concentrated on what the work tells us about its remarkable eleven-year-old author. But its insights into Catherine are just as striking. For Elizabeth's dedicatory letter to Catherine makes it clear that her step-mother would be no passive recipient. Instead, Elizabeth expected she would edit and correct her text. 'I do trust', she wrote, 'that the file of your most excellent wit and godly learning . . . shall rub out, polish and mend . . . the words or rather the order of my writing.' She also rather took for granted that Catherine would circulate the work and begged her not to – or, at least, that she would refrain until she had corrected it, 'lest my faults be known of many'.
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* * *
Here, then, is a glimpse of another Catherine: the queen bee of a literary circle, who inspired, edited and circulated improving religious works among a coterie of women and like-minded men. It remained only for the Queen herself to emerge as an author. There was not long to wait, and in June 1545, Thomas Berthelet, the royal printer, published her
Prayers Stirring the Mind unto Heavenly Meditations
. The work was an immediate success. There was a second, augmented edition as early as November and it went through at least another five editions by 1548.
Prayers Stirring the Mind unto Heavenly Meditations
. The work was an immediate success. There was a second, augmented edition as early as November and it went through at least another five editions by 1548.
Obviously, its tone caught the moment. But its authorship undoubtedly helped: then, as now, royals sell books. This was realised by the publisher, who plugged Catherine's position heavily on the title page. 'Prayers or Meditations', this read in the November 1545 edition, 'wherein the mind is stirred patiently to suffer all afflictions here, to set at naught the vain prosperity of this world, and always to long for the everlasting felicity. Collected out of holy works by the most virtuous and gracious Princess CATHERINE, Queen of England, France and Ireland'.
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And Catherine evidently was an easy author to sell. She commissioned multiple copies of her book, in luxury bindings, to use in her Household devotions. She also seems to have given other such copies away as presents to friends. This was royal product-endorsement at the highest level and would certainly have helped sales outside the élite.
But it was not mere vanity publishing. On the contrary, in her writing as in her marriage, she was using her royal status as a means to an end: the promotion of the Gospel.
Nor was Catherine under any illusions about the extent of her talents. Affecting prayers, she knew, she could do very well. But serious scholarship was best left to others who were better qualified. This meant that for her next project, the translation into English of Erasmus's
Paraphrases
of the Gospels, her role reverted from authorship to commissioning and financing. The
Paraphrases
were one of the key texts of Reformed scholarship, but, like all Erasmus's works, they were written in a sophisticated and idiomatic Latin. Catherine picked an excellent managing-editor for the project in Nicholas Udall. He organised a team of translators, one for each Gospel, and produced a finished manuscript of his own share, the
Paraphrase
of St Luke, by October 1545. The Preface, naturally, was dedicated to Catherine and it incorporated her own view of the importance of publication. The King, Udall ventured to hope,
will not suffer it to lie buried in silence, but will one day . . . cause the same to be published and set abroad in print, to the same use that your Highness [Catherine] had meant it, that is to say, to the public commodity and benefits of good English people now a long time sore thirsting and hungering the sincere and plain knowledge of God's word.
4
But here, too, Catherine was aware of the benefits of royal participation and she managed to persuade Mary, with her superior Latinity, to undertake the translation of the
Paraphrase
of St John. Mary began the work and made good progress. But her chronic ill health prevented her from finishing it, and it was eventually completed by her chaplain, Francis Mallet. Mary, however, was less forthcoming as an author than Catherine, and the Queen wrote her a robust letter to remonstrate. It will serve as a model for any publisher who is faced with similar circumstances.
5
Paraphrase
of St John. Mary began the work and made good progress. But her chronic ill health prevented her from finishing it, and it was eventually completed by her chaplain, Francis Mallet. Mary, however, was less forthcoming as an author than Catherine, and the Queen wrote her a robust letter to remonstrate. It will serve as a model for any publisher who is faced with similar circumstances.
5
Catherine's first aim, naturally, was to get hold of the manuscript, 'that it may be committed to the press in due time'. Her second was to discover Mary's line on authorship. Did she 'wish it to go forth to the world (most auspiciously) under your name'? Or did she prefer anonymity?
The latter, Catherine insisted, was thoroughly undesirable. 'To which work', she wrote, 'you will, in my opinion, do a real injury if you refuse to let it go down to posterity under the auspices of your own name.' Mary, after all, had done most of the work (and had
intended
to do it all ) and she deserved the credit. 'And . . . I do not see why you should repudiate that praise which all men justly confer on you'.
intended
to do it all ) and she deserved the credit. 'And . . . I do not see why you should repudiate that praise which all men justly confer on you'.
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