Six Wives (29 page)

O
n 5 October 1518, Catherine had stood next to her husband in her Great Chamber at Greenwich. This was the first and largest room of her suite and it had been 'very sumptuous[ly]' decorated for the occasion. In front of Catherine was her daughter Mary, 'dressed in cloth of gold, with a cap of black velvet on her head, adorned with many jewels'. Mary was two and a half years old and it was her wedding day.

    First, Cuthbert Tunstall, the most brilliant English scholar of his day and Master of the Rolls, gave an oration
de laudibus matrimonii
(in praise of marriage). The address lasted some time and Mary (probably tired and bored by all the talk) was 'taken in arms' by her Lady Mistress. Then the representative of the bridegroom, who was a year younger than Mary, stepped forward. Hands were held and oaths exchanged. Finally, Cardinal Wolsey, Mary's godfather, put the ring on the fourth finger of her right hand, and the proxy-groom passed it over the second joint. Mary was now a married woman. She was, however, probably more interested in the ring, which, though made small to fit her tiny finger, was set with a large diamond 'supposed to have been a present from the Cardinal'. Wolsey always had an eye for the perfect gift.

    The ages of the bride and groom, which seem so outlandish to us, presented no difficulty to Catherine. She was a dynast herself and had been pledged at the age of three to Arthur when he was aged two. Instead, her sticking-point was the nationality of the bridegroom. For he was the Dauphin Francis, the heir to the French throne. Mary's marriage was the seal on a new Anglo-French alliance. This revolted Catherine's deepest instincts. She was Spanish herself and consistent in her desire for England to stick to the old certainties and remain the friend of Spain and the enemy of France. Now she was required to welcome a French prince as her son-in-law. Unfortunately, neither her husband's minister, Wolsey, nor, increasingly, her husband himself, any longer shared her commitment to old certainties.
¹

* * *

For times had changed yet again. In particular, the coming of age of Catherine's nephew, Charles, the son of her sister, Juana, who is known to history as the Emperor Charles V, re-ignited the struggle for dominance in Europe between France and Spain.

    At first Charles seemed the underdog. Only eighteen and inexperienced, he was lantern-jawed, slow of speech and, so many thought, slow of wit as well. He was of course heir to vast territories: Burgundy and the Netherlands from his father, the Archduke Philip, Spain from his grandfather, Ferdinand, and, from his other grandfather, Maximilian, who was to die in 1519, huge swathes of Germany. But he had yet to make good his claim to many of these lands. Characteristically oppor tunist, his rival, the brilliant and mercurial Francis I of France, decided to strike first, before Charles had consolidated his hold on his inheritance. Francis scored some easy victories. But Charles quickly gave the lie to those who had underestimated him.

    Henry and Wolsey also saw their opportunity. In terms of size, population and wealth, England came a poor third after France and the territories of Charles V. But, not for the last time, England was able to punch above its weight. For Francis and Charles were evenly balanced opponents. The support of England, Wolsey and Henry reckoned, could make all the difference to the outcome of their struggle.
Cui adhereo praeest
(Whom I back wins) became their motto and they resolved to sell England's support to the highest bidder. The visible prize in the auction would be the hand of Catherine's daughter, Mary.

    Francis, eager for England's support against Charles, or at least its neutrality, made the first bid. Henry and Wolsey were receptive and agreement was quickly reached. It consisted of three elements: the marriage of Mary and the Dauphin; a settlement of outstanding AngloFrench differences, which was wrapped up in a grandiose Treaty of Universal Peace (a sort of pan-European security pact); and a still-more grandiose summit conference, to be held as soon as possible, to 'nurture love' between Henry and Francis.

* * *

It was another woman, Louise of Savoy, the mother of Francis I, who best understood Catherine's feelings about the settlement and her consequent conflict of loyalties. Not that she sympathised. Instead, Louise's awareness was a product of anxiety. She knew that the Anglo-French alliance was a recent plant of sickly growth and she feared that Catherine would use her influence to uproot it entirely.

    Catherine was not short of opportunities. The first hitch arose over the proposed summit conference between Henry and Francis. This was postponed several times – so often, in fact, that the French started to doubt whether it would happen at all. To try to clear the air, the two kings swore an oath, promising, as was then fashionable, not to shave until they met.

    On 9 November 1519, the French ambassador to England arrived in France with terrible news: King Henry of England had cut off his beard!

    Louise summoned the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Boleyn. Boleyn immediately pointed the finger at Catherine, saying, 'as I supposed, it hath been by the Queen's desire'. But Catherine's motives, Boleyn insisted, were entirely innocent: she simply hated beards. 'I have here aforetime,' he told Louise, 'known when the King's Grace hath worn long his beard, that the Queen hath daily made great instance, and desired him to put it off for her sake.' Louise remained suspicious, asking 'if [the] Queen's Grace was not aunt to the King of Spain (Charles V)'. Boleyn replied that Charles was indeed her sister Juana's son. But, he assured Louise, it was Henry's feelings that mattered, and he 'had greater affection for [Francis] than any King living'. Mollified, Louise ended the exchange by exclaiming that 'Their love is not in the beards but in the hearts!'
²

    But the delays continued and Louise's doubts revived. She put them point-blank to Boleyn's successor as ambassador, Sir Richard Wingfield. 'She demanded me of the Queen's Grace, and whether I thought her to have any great devotion to this assembly.' Wingfield prefaced his reply by describing Catherine's attitude to the proper submission of women in marriage:

* * *

However, the Imperial ambassadors in London, writing only three days later than Wingfield, picked up a different story: Catherine 'had made such representations, and shown such reasons against the voyage [to meet Francis], as one would not have supposed she would have dared to, or even to imagine', they reported. Henry rarely responded well to confrontation. But on this occasion he took it in good part. 'She is held', the ambassadors concluded, 'in greater esteem by the King and his Council than ever she was.'
⁴

    Actually, the various reports are not as contradictory as they seem. For Henry and Wolsey had already decided to hedge their bets by reopening negotiations with Charles V.

    Suddenly, Catherine's family connexions ceased to be unmentionable and became an asset once more. And suddenly, Catherine stepped back into the inner circle of power from which she had been excluded since Wolsey's rise. Or, at least, she appeared to. When, on Sunday, 18 March, the Imperial ambassadors arrived at the Court at Greenwich they found Henry, Catherine and Wolsey deep in conversation. Henry broke off to inform them that he had decided to meet Charles V before his encounter with Francis I. He was therefore writing to the French King to ask him to postpone their meeting for a few days – though of course without telling him the real reason. Catherine uttered a heartfelt plea. 'Raising her eyes to heaven, with clasped hands [she] gave praise to God for the grace she hoped he would do her that she might see Charles.' To see her nephew 'was her greatest desire in the world'. Then she thanked Henry, and curtsied to him deeply. Henry, ever the gentleman, doffed his hat to his wife. It was just like old times.
⁵

    Catherine had her wish and met her nephew, when she and Henry were en route to France. Charles landed at Dover where Wolsey and Henry met him. They overnighted and then, early on the morning of Whitsunday, 27 May, rode to Canterbury. There, on the landing of the grand staircase in the archbishop's palace, was Catherine, magnificent in cloth of gold and pearls. 'She embraced her nephew tenderly, not without tears,' and Henry, Catherine and Charles proceeded to a family breakfast. On Whitmonday, there was a splendid banquet. In compliment to Charles as King of Spain, all the entertainment was in the Spanish fashion – in dress, music and dancing. Catherine was in her element. The following day, Henry and Charles first slept off their hang-overs and then devoted themselves to business. Charles took his leave late that night and, with long wax torches to light the way, was escorted to Sandwich. Thence, on Wednesday the 30th, he sailed to Flanders.
⁶

* * *

Meanwhile, Henry and Catherine continued to Dover and then Calais for the much postponed meeting with Francis I. It took place in a sort of noman's-land between Calais and the French town of Ardres. This is a flat and dusty part of France. But in 1520 an army of English and French craftsmen, working in competition with each other and against the clock, transformed it into fairyland. Even the tents were made of cloth of gold. But it was an outdoor summer event in northern Europe and no one could control the weather. There were violent winds, which blew down the tents and whipped up blinding storms of dust, and torrential rains, which turned the dust into a sea of mud. Bishop Fisher, who was there in Catherine's train, saw the bad weather as a sign of God's anger at the pointless pomp and circumstance. But the event survived the setbacks and caught the imagination. It still does. It was The Field of Cloth of Gold.

    Thanks to the earlier meeting with Charles V at Canterbury, Catherine had gone to The Field of Cloth of Gold in better spirits than she had dared hope. She played her part, wore magnificent clothes and hung a fortune in jewels on her person. She was even agreeable to Francis I, though he had called her old and deformed. She could afford to be polite because she knew that it was all a sham – from the bloodbrotherhood of the two Kings in the tournament to the concluding ceremony on 23 June when they took communion together at Wolsey's hands and renewed their oaths of eternal friendship.
⁷

    A fortnight later, Catherine and Henry met Charles once more, first as his guests at Gravelines, and then as his hosts at Calais. For Catherine at least it was a much more agreeable four days.
⁸

* * *

What had happened, of course, was that Charles had made a counter-bid for English support. And it was a much higher one, since Charles V needed England in a way that Francis I did not.

    For the succession to Charles's vast inheritance had reached a moment of crisis. All had gone smoothly in the Netherlands, where he had been born and brought up. He had also, having outbribed his rival, Francis I, been elected King of the Romans (Holy Roman Emperor–elect) in succession to his paternal grandfather Maximilian. But Spain, Catherine's native land and the jewel in the crown of her nephew's inheritance, looked as though it might slip through his fingers.

    On 20 May 1520 he had set sail from Corunna for his meeting with Catherine and Henry in England. Even as his Court was embarking, widespread disorders had already broken out. They turned into a great revolt, known as the
Comuneros
. The rebels were protesting Charles, his foreign advisers and his demands for heavy taxation to pay off the debts he had incurred in winning the Imperial election. The
Comuneros
won sweeping victories and set up a
junta
(a revolutionary government). The unpopular foreign Regent, Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, who was Charles's former tutor, was driven out of Valladolid and royal authority, painstakingly established by Catherine's parents, looked as though it might collapse entirely.

    For the moment there was nothing Charles could do about Spain since he was needed elsewhere in his dominions. He had to be crowned King of the Romans at Aachen and to settle accounts with Francis I. But then he would have to return to Spain – or lose it. The expedition would need money and ships. He had neither. But England had both ships and money. And Charles knew he would have to pay – or promise – dearly for them.

    But Henry and Wolsey were in no hurry to close the deal. After all, Francis I, smarting from his defeat in the Imperial election, might yet bid higher still. The result was an extraordinary diplomatic dance between England, France and the Empire. England, in the person of Cardinal Wolsey, played the part of a coy maiden, turning now to Francis as her partner and now to Charles. The farce reached its conclusion at the conference at Calais in 1521. In theory, Wolsey sat as mediator, to adjudicate the differences of Francis and Charles. In reality, Henry had already decided to throw over France and ally with Charles.

    To secure the English alliance Charles was prepared to promise anything. He promised to marry Mary with a dowry heavily discounted by the repayment of his and his grandfather Maximilian's debts to England. He half promised to procure Wolsey's election as Pope. He promised to help make Henry king of the rump of France, after he had settled his own claims against French territories. He even promised to make good the pensions that Henry and Wolsey would forgo by declaring war on France. If the English had asked for the moon, Charles would have promised that as well. And he would have found it scarcely more difficult to deliver than the rest.
⁹