Six Wives (47 page)
Authors: David Starkey
This second Bull, Henry swore, was '[that] which I above all things do desire'. To secure it, Knight was to use 'the best counsel, so they be secret' and to employ the most persuasive arguments. In particular, he was to reassure Pope Clement that 'this bull is not desired except I be
legittime absolutus ab hoc matrimonio Katherinae
[legitimately absolved from this marriage with Catherine]'. Above all, the King enjoined, Knight was to do everything possible 'to get access to the Pope's person'. '[For] I fear me sore that if you find not some by ways beside them that my lord Cardinal did devise with you to have access to the proper persons, it will be long or [before] you attain the same.'
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legittime absolutus ab hoc matrimonio Katherinae
[legitimately absolved from this marriage with Catherine]'. Above all, the King enjoined, Knight was to do everything possible 'to get access to the Pope's person'. '[For] I fear me sore that if you find not some by ways beside them that my lord Cardinal did devise with you to have access to the proper persons, it will be long or [before] you attain the same.'
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Clearly, the breach which Anne had opened up between Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey in the summer had not healed. Indeed, if anything, Wolsey's subsequent attempts to rehabilitate himself had been counterproductive. In the summer, the King had distrusted the Cardinal enough to deceive him. Now, in this letter to Knight, there is a new note of resentment, almost of fear, of Wolsey's cleverness ('craft') as something quasi-diabolic. For the moment Wolsey's craft held Henry in thrall: he could evade it but he did not dare to confront it directly.
Only Anne, the original source of the disagreement, could steel Henry to a decisive break. But, evidently, she did not. Was she, too, despite her bravado, still a little in awe of Wolsey?
* * *
Barlow, riding fast, caught up with Knight at Foligno, an agreeable city in Umbria, eleven miles to the south-east of Assisi. Knight had chosen Foligno as his base for two reasons. It was partly (as he told Henry) because 'I have acquaintance [there]' – no doubt from the days, back in 1501, when he had been a law student at Ferrara. And Foligno was also convenient for the Papal stronghold of Orvieto, where the Pope was expected to take refuge when he regained his freedom.
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Knight's original intention had been to await Pope Clement's release before doing anything. But Barlow's arrival galvanised him into action. With astonishing courage, even foolhardiness, Knight ventured into a Rome that was still under Spanish occupation: there were even Spaniards staying in the house where he lodged. Nevertheless, under their noses and no doubt using his excellent Italian, he contrived to smuggle a message to Clement in the Castel Sant'Angelo. The Pope, more fearful than Knight, begged him to flee from Rome, where his presence had become known to the Spanish command. But he assured him that, as soon as he was at liberty, 'he would send unto me your Grace's requests in as ample a form as they be desired'. Knight withdrew once more to Foligno, whence he wrote to Henry on 4 December to inform him that the Pope's release was expected any day.
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It took place early in the morning of 6 December when the Holy Father, disguised as a gardener, according to some accounts, or as a merchant with armour under his clothes, or as one of his own servants, according to others, fled from the Castel Sant'Angelo and took refuge, as expected, at Orvieto.
Knight, with his usual vigour and efficiency, which belied his fiftyone years, was one of the earliest to make his way to Orvieto and offer Henry's congratulations to Clement on his escape. These, he reported, the Pope received most gratefully since 'I was the first that made like salutation in any great prince's name'. His success received a backhanded acknowledgement from the Spanish envoys in Rome, who worried about the effect of such a hostile presence at the Papal court-in-exile. Knight himself pressed home his advantage by immediately requiring Clement to honour the pledge he had made during his imprisonment and grant Henry his dispensation, as well as a commission to Wolsey to try the marriage.
But the liberated Pope at Orvieto proved less generous than the prisoner of the Castel Sant'Angelo. Excusing himself on the grounds that he was 'not expert in the making of commissions', he referred the documents to one who was, Lorenzo Pucci, Cardinal of the Church of the Four Crowned Saints and Papal Datary, for advice.
Pucci found fault with both documents (what else, after all, are experts for?). But, in the event, they were treated in different ways. The changes made to the dispensation were comparatively slight, even after Clement himself had put in his twopenny-worth. But the commission, drafted under Wolsey's direction, was another matter. As it stood, Pucci said warmly, it could not be sealed 'without perpetual dishonour unto the Pope, the King and your Grace [Wolsey]'. Pucci first put his criticisms into writing; then, at Knight's suggestion, he prepared an alternative text. Both parties eventually agreed to this and Bulls in the revised form were issued: for the dispensation on 17 December and for the commission a few days later.
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But had the changes vitiated the documents? It seems to be the consensus of historians that they had. However, Knight, who was himself an Italian-trained canonist, was confident that they retained their efficacy. They were not, he conceded to Henry 'in the form that was conceived in England'. But they were, he insisted nevertheless, couched 'after such manner as is sufficient for the cause and as I trust shall content your Highness'.
More to the point perhaps, Clement himself was also convinced that he was granting things that were usable – and things, moreover, that he very much feared Henry would leap to use, to his own deep detriment. The dispensation, by itself, the Pope speculated to Knight, 'might encourage your Grace [Henry] to cause my lord Legate [Wolsey]
auctoritate legationis
[by virtue of his office of Legate] to hear and discern [determine] in the cause' of the Aragon marriage. While the commission would, of course, explicitly authorise Wolsey to hear the case.
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auctoritate legationis
[by virtue of his office of Legate] to hear and discern [determine] in the cause' of the Aragon marriage. While the commission would, of course, explicitly authorise Wolsey to hear the case.
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The trouble was, as Clement explained to Knight, that he had already solemnly promised the Emperor 'not to grant unto any act that might be preparative, or otherwise, to divorce to be made between the King and Queen'. The promise had been made under the duress of his imprisonment and he felt no moral obligation to honour it. On the other hand, he very much feared what the Spanish might do to him if he were discovered to have broken his word – as, of course, his grants to Henry had just done.
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Knight, familiar with Italy in a way that few other of Henry's advisers were, sympathised with Clement's fears and endorsed them in his report to Henry:
I cannot see, but in case [the dispensation and the commission] be put into execution at this time, the Pope is utterly undone, and so he saith himself. The Imperial [troops] doth daily spoil castles and towns about Rome; monsieur de Lautrec [the French commander] is yet at Bononye (Bologna) and small hope is of any great act he intendeth.
The solution to the dilemma, Clement and Knight agreed, was for Henry to keep the Bulls secret and, for the present, to refrain from acting on them. Subsequently, the King and the Pope were to co-ordinate their moves. Henry would give Clement good notice of the time to be fixed for the trial: 'that ye do certify the Pope that ye intend within 15, 20 or 30 days to move your cause before my lord Legate'. And Clement, thus alerted, would try to turn the ever-changeable Italian political climate to his and Henry's advantage by reissuing the commission 'with a date convenient'.
The most 'convenient' circumstances for such a manoeuvre, Clement explained, would be the arrival of the French army at Rome. If that happened, Knight reported:
the Pope thinketh that he might by good colour say that he was required by your [Henry's] Ambassador here and by M. de Lautrec [to issue the commission], to whom, being here with great power . . . he could not say nay.
'This might be', Clement concluded hopefully, 'a sufficient excuse towards the Emperor.'
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It was, of course, a long shot. Under sixteenth-century conditions of transport and communication, it was difficult to orchestrate events in London and Rome in the way the scheme demanded. And a major victory for French arms in southern Italy was – and remained – elusive. But politicians have to deal with the world as it is, with all its uncertainties, not as they would like it to be. Knight and Clement acknowledged that hard necessity and the way forward they suggested was probably Henry's best hope.
Knight wrote all this to the King on 'New Year's Day in the morning at Orvieto'. One year ago to the day, Anne had used a New Year's gift to convey her acceptance of Henry's vow to give her his hand. Now, it seemed, Henry and Anne had received an even better New Year's gift in the form of the Pope's agreement to their marriage.
Properly pleased with himself and the successful conclusion of his mission, Knight ended his letter by announcing his return home and sending Henry his wishes 'for a prosperous New Year, and many'. By 28 January 1528 his report of his success had reached England, and Wolsey, then sitting as judge in Star Chamber, broke off from the case to forward the package to Henry. 'There seems to be a good towardness in affairs there [in Italy]', his short note concluded.
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But, within a few days, the minister was singing a very different tune.
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As instructed, Knight had scrupulously kept Wolsey in the dark about his real mission. 'I could do no less at this time than write unto my lord Legate that the commission and a dispensation for your Highness be sped,' he informed Henry. But he had not told him
which
dispensation. Nevertheless, the text was in Wolsey's hands by the beginning of February. Had Henry triumphantly shown him the results of his handiwork himself? Or had the Papal messenger, Nuncio Gambara, who first brought a copy to England, handed it to Wolsey, whether inadvertently or on purpose? We do not know. But Wolsey, once he had the documents in his hands, went to work with a will: he would show Henry what happened when the King tried to act without his advice and behind his back.
The result takes the form of a closely annotated copy of the dispensation. It is written in two columns: the dispensation to the right and the notes to the left. The latter are excoriating.
The dispensation began by reciting Henry's case against his present marriage. He had married Catherine, his brother's widow, without a valid dispensation, thus both falling into sin and incurring the penalties of excommunication. He did not wish to remain in this state a moment longer and so begged the Pope to lift the ban of excommunication and declare his marriage null. After his marriage had been annulled, he sought a dispensation to marry another woman, even within the first degree of affinity, and whether or not that affinity had arisen from licit or illicit intercourse. He further requested a declaration that the issue of this second marriage would be legitimate, to avoid in future the sorts of disputes about the succession which, as 'ancient chronicles' assert, had dogged England in the past. Providing once more his marriage with Catherine had been annulled, he also sought licence to marry a woman even though she had previously contracted, but not consummated, a marriage. All this, the enacting clause stated, the Pope was graciously pleased to grant, 'by our apostolic authority, of our certain knowledge, and out of the plenitude of our apostolic power'.
The annotator's greatest scorn was reserved for the initial 'narration,' which recited Henry's doubts about his present marriage. Its statements were, it was to be hoped, 'most false'. And, even if they were true, they were dishonourable, unworthy of such a King and indecent to be stated in public.
Expungatur itaque hoc totum
(therefore all this is to be struck out), it concluded.
Expungatur itaque hoc totum
(therefore all this is to be struck out), it concluded.
The annotator likewise declared the principle of a conditional dispensation to be fundamentally flawed. It made uncertain and questionable what should be 'most certain and most valid', namely a change in the royal line of succession. The dispensation should therefore be made an absolute permission, that did not depend in any way on the validity or otherwise of the first marriage.
As well as these large questions of approach and principle, the annotator found important technical omissions. The type of marriage contract, from which Henry's future bride was dispensed, had not been specified. To clarify matters, the words
de presenti
should be added. Even the enacting clause was defective, as the words
de mero motu summi
pontificis
(by the mere motion of the Supreme Pontiff) had been left out. They should be restored.
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de presenti
should be added. Even the enacting clause was defective, as the words
de mero motu summi
pontificis
(by the mere motion of the Supreme Pontiff) had been left out. They should be restored.
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We do not know the identity of the annotator, though there are clues in his unusually fine italic hand, his pungent Latin style and his absolute command of canon law. The great nineteenth-century scholar James Gairdner guessed that, whoever he was, he wrote at the dictation of Cardinal Wolsey. He certainly wrote for Wolsey's benefit. For by the time that he had finished, Henry's confidence in the document, which was his work and Anne's, had shrivelled like a pricked balloon. King Henry VIII's rebellion was over. Cardinal Wolsey was back in charge of the Divorce.
Whether that was a good thing in the long run, either for the Divorce suit or for Wolsey, remains to be seen.
* * *
The first victim of the change was, of course, Secretary Knight. He had been the chosen instrument of Henry's rebellion and Wolsey made sure that he paid the price. The achievements of his Embassy were comprehensively trashed – 'in their present form', Wolsey now asserted, the dispensation and the commission 'are as good as none at all' – and Knight himself was left marooned in France, denied permission even to return home. On 21 April he wrote pathetically to Henry. 'It pierceth my stomach deeply', Knight began, 'that any charge committed unto me by your commandment should not be likewise by me performed accordingly unto your pleasure.' However, he insisted that he had throughout acted 'as it became your true servant' – as 'if my good fortune had been to come unto your presence I should evidently have shown unto your Highness'.
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