Six Wives (39 page)

    It is unclear whether Campeggio agreed to undertake the task assigned to him. If so, he failed. There was now nothing for it but to open direct negotiations with the Queen's counsel in which he, the King, would appear in the unaccustomed role of suitor. Henry finally agreed to this disagreeable expedient during his short visit to Wolsey at his house of Tyttenhanger near St Alban's on 14–15 August. A few days later Wolsey reported on the progress he had made. He had summoned Catherine's senior legal adviser, John Clerk, Bishop of Bath and Wells, to a meeting. Tracking him down had taken some time, since the bishop had left London for his summer retreat at Dogmersfield in Hampshire, where, twenty-eight years previously, Catherine had first met Henry VII and Prince Arthur.

    Wolsey put the case to Clerk with his accustomed forcefulness. Thus far, he began, Henry 'had never showed himself as a party' to the suit, since the procedure had been
ex officio
or inquisitorial. In the circumstances, it was highly undesirable for 'the Queen [now] to show or make herself a party against the King' or to have a citation, with all the offending clauses, served on him 'at her suit'. This, Clerk was bluntly warned, would 'irritate and exasperate [the King] against her' – with consequences that Wolsey laid on with a trowel. 'Great danger . . . may arise to the Queen . . . if the King is cited.' Likewise, Catherine would be personally blamed if the citation led to a breach of the peace between Henry VIII and Charles V, and 'she would incur the indignation of all the nobles and people of the realm'. But the greatest risk, Wolsey pointed out with relish, was run, not by the Queen, but by the Queen's counsellors: if Catherine pushed things, as was feared, it was they who would bear the brunt of Henry's wrath and face 'extreme undoing'.

    Since Clerk himself was Catherine's leading counsellor, the tactic was none too subtle. But it had its desired effect. Quickly, the bishop protested his agreement. Now that the legates' 'hands are closed by the . . . advocation of the cause', Clerk acknowledged, the Queen should go no further. Instead, he proposed a mutual suspension of legal hostilities: 'the Queen ought to be content to proceed no further in the process at Rome, like as the King will nothing attempt by way of law'. And he undertook to try to get the agreement of Catherine's other principal counsel and of the Queen herself.

    Clerk returned to London and met his colleagues, including Cuthbert Tunstall, the Bishop of London, and Catherine's Almoner, Dr Shorton. They came up with a scheme by which the letters of advocation and citation would not be served on Henry but only 'secretly notified' to the two legates. This seemed to square the circle. It would spare Henry's pride but, at the same time, it would still be effective in extinguishing finally the authority of the Legatine Court, which was Catherine's minimum requirement. Clerk wrote to this effect to Wolsey who forwarded his letters to Court.
⁸

    Henry replied by his new Secretary, Stephen Gardiner. He thanked Wolsey for his 'pains, letters and study'. But he was by no means satisfied. For Clerk's letters had revealed new details about the citation. It now required Henry's response, it appeared, 'under pain of 10,000 ducats [£2,500]'. Henry was 'not the best content and marvelleth much
de
adjectione poenae pecuniariae
[about the addition of a monetary penalty]'. This, Henry felt, was so 'prejudicial to his person and royal estate', that he could not consent to the citation being formally 'showed to his subject [Wolsey], within his own realm'. Instead, he suggested another device. Clement's Brief of 19 July, in which he informed Wolsey of the advocation of the case, had finally arrived. Would not the formal exhibition of the Brief to the legates suffice to extinguish the jurisdiction of their Court?
⁹

    Gardiner's letter reached Wolsey at 11 p.m. on 4 September. By this time, Wolsey's guests at The Moor included not only Clerk but Campeggio himself. The following morning, Campeggio eagerly endorsed Henry's suggestion 'that the execution of the brief to me (Wolsey) directed . . . shall be sufficient'. He also agreed to help persuade Clerk. Clerk finally conceded, 'albeit after good and long debating'. But the obstacle, he feared, would be Catherine herself. 'Considering her stiff heart, replenished with great mistrust . . . he doubted what she would do'. At any rate, it would take more than him to convince her.

    Clerk's anxieties about Catherine's reaction were evidently shared by Wolsey. Aware that he would have one chance only, he decided to get Henry's direct endorsement first. He sent two distinguished canon lawyers to Court to explain in detail what was proposed 'without that any overture shall be made to the Queen thereof till I may be advertised how the King's Highness and ye of his counsel do like of the same'. Henry was happy to give his seal of approval. But he too feared the worst: 'In case
omnibus tentatis, hoc non successerit
[having tried everything, this should not succeed]', he was prepared to make a choice of evils (
de duobus malis
). 'Rather the [advocation and citation] should be privily execute upon [Wolsey] and the Cardinal Campeggio, than the same with rumour to be divulged in Flanders'.
¹⁰

    Armed now with Henry's agreement, Wolsey got to work on Catherine's full counsel. They were no pushover. 'They make much sticking as yet,' he reported, 'alleging that in the . . . brief there be none effectual and express words whereby the Queen might be sured of the effectual closing of the judges' hands; and that she, being full of mistrust, shall be with great difficulty induced thereto.'
¹¹

    Somehow, Wolsey pulled off the trick. And on 11 September the two Cardinals came to London for the formal renunciation of their powers. This too had been the subject of much debate 'both on the King's part and on the Queen's'. 'At length the form of intimation was agreed on,' Campeggio reported, 'and it was made to us by a proctor of the Queen's, who announced that we had no powers, and that neither of us could proceed any further.' Wolsey and Campeggio then signed a declaration to this effect, which was embodied in 'a public deed'.

    The English trials of Catherine's marriage were over.
¹²

* * *

Henry was delighted, and hoped to extract the maximum advantage from Catherine's reluctance to press home her advantage. Even if Catherine wanted to 'resile [withdraw] and go back', he trusted that Wolsey had so arranged matters that 'it should not be in her power so to do'. He also hoped that 'this act, done before [Wolsey] and the Cardinal Campeggio' would prejudice her future chances of legal action, 'by the letting and impeaching of further prosecution, and of any citation or process' whether 'here, at Rome or elsewhere'. It was a characteristically grasping and mean-spirited response.

    But why had Catherine given in? Was it gratuitous generosity? Her early mood hardly points to that. Had her counsel been panicked by Wolsey's threats into pressurising her? If so, it is difficult to understand why the negotiations were so long and so tough. Catherine herself offered a more straightforward explanation.

Which indeed seems to be what happened.
¹³

    Once again, therefore, Catherine was one step ahead of Henry.
Before
she agreed to the form of Wolsey and Campeggio's renunciation, she had made sure that she would do no damage to her legal position. But even
after
the renunciation, Henry was still nursing the hope (which his wife already knew to be delusory) that her action would be 'prejudicial' to her. As so often, Henry had been too clever by half – and too devious. But it was Catherine who scored the solid points.

    Why? Was it that Catherine's legal advice, for which indeed she paid dearly (£514 in 1527–8 and £704 in 1528–9), was better than Henry's? Rather the difference lay in the King and Queen themselves. Catherine was a good client, who was prepared to take advice. Henry was an impossible one, who always thought he knew better than his lawyers. He paid the price – until he could change the law to fit his notions.
¹⁴

* * *

The agreement of the 'alteration' with Catherine and her counsel was Wolsey's last service for Henry. In the immediate aftermath of the Blackfriars Tribunal, Catherine herself had prophesied that its failure would mean Wolsey's ruin:

The Queen spoke true. On 19 September, with the 'alteration' safely concluded, Henry relented and allowed Wolsey to come to Grafton where the King was enjoying the hunting. But the circumstances were designed to humiliate: the man who had ruled the roost so long was not even given a room of his own where he could change his riding clothes.
¹⁵

    A fortnight later the blow fell. On 9 October, as Wolsey presided in the Court of Chancery, he was himself indicted in the Common Law Court of King's Bench. The charge was one of
Praemunire
: that is, the illegal exercise of Papal authority in England in his capacity as legate. The penalty was the confiscation of all property and imprisonment at the King's pleasure. On the 22nd, Wolsey anticipated the inevitable verdict by acknowledging his offences and surrendering himself and his vast possessions into the King's hands. On the 30th, his person was placed outside the King's protection and his property declared forfeit. Meanwhile, on the 17th, he had been forced to surrender the Chancellorship.

* * *

Wolsey was the man Catherine blamed for putting the idea of the Divorce in the King's head. For fifteen years, he had come between Catherine and her husband. Now he was gone.

    On 3 November, Henry opened the fifth Parliament of his reign, later known as the 'Reformation' Parliament. It was immediately 'prorogued' or adjourned to Westminster. For Henry now had a new palace to replace Bridewell of baleful memory.
¹⁶

    A few days previously, on 24 October, Henry had gone by boat from Greenwich to Wolsey's former town-palace of York Place in Westminster. The King was accompanied only by his mistress, her mother and Henry Norris, the Groom of the Stool and, as head of the Privy Chamber, the King's principal body servant. This select party inspected both the building and Wolsey's treasures, which had been laid out for them like the goods in a Harrods' sale. They were mightily impressed: 'it is added', the Imperial ambassador reported, 'that the King was much gratified and found [them] more valuable even than he expected'. On the evening of 2 November, Henry left Greenwich to take up residence in the splendidly equipped palace.
¹⁷

He and Anne Boleyn were setting up house together.

    It was a new world. It was unclear what place, if any, there was in it for Catherine. Certainly there was none at York Place, which had no apartment for the Queen.

A
nne Boleyn had the gift of arousing strong feelings. People were never neutral: they either loved her or loathed her. Even her family origins divided opinion. Her supporters lauded her ancestry while her opponents sneered at her as an upstart. In reality, she was the product of a characteristically English social mix.

    On her father's side, Anne descended from a line of merchants made good. Her great-grandfather, Geoffrey Boleyn, was the founder of the family's fortunes. He was a London mercer, who served as Mayor in 1457–8 and received the customary knighthood. Since it was fashionable, then as now, to invest new City money in land and country living, he bought two family seats, Blickling in Norfolk and Hever in Kent. He died in 1463. Sir William, Anne's grandfather, was Geoffrey's second son and eventual heir. In contrast to his aspirant father, he was content with the life of a prosperous country gentleman. But William's eldest son, Thomas, Anne's father, acquired a taste for politics and joined the royal service, where he rose rapidly. He was helped by his family's wealth, by his education (he was fluent in French and, what was more unusual for a layman, in Latin) and, above all, by his family connexions.

    For all the Boleyn menfolk had married well, into established noble families. And, with each succeeding generation, the rank of their wives rose: Geoffrey married a baron's daughter; William married the daughter and eventual co-heiress of Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormonde and Catherine of Aragon's Lord Chamberlain; and Thomas did best of all, since his wife Elizabeth was the daughter of the second Duke of Norfolk and sister of the third.

    This galaxy of aristocratic female ancestors meant that, in the fullness of time, Anne was able to display a most impressive shield. It quartered the arms of Butler, Rochford, Warenne and Thomas of Brotherton, with augmentations for the English and French princedoms of Lancaster, Angoulême and Guyenne. That Anne descended from these families was incontestable; that she had the right, as a remote descendant in the female line, to display their arms was much more debatable.

    Even in her heraldry, it seems, Anne tried too hard and asserted too much.
¹

    Thomas and Elizabeth were married in about 1500 and had their three surviving children in quick succession. The eldest, Mary, was a placid and unremarkable girl. But she was very attractive to men, and found them irresistible too – or, at least, her resistance never seems to have lasted long. But the two younger children, Anne and her brother George, the baby of the family, were different. They were intelligent, ambitious and bound by a fierce mutual affection. Their father recognised their talent and did his best to nurture it.