Six Wives (49 page)

    There is no evidence that many of these men had close links with Anne. Indeed some, including Carew, were to be among her most dangerous enemies. But all were profiting from the weakening of Wolsey's power, which she had brought about. And one or two decided to capitalise on her position more fully.

    Most important was Sir Thomas Cheyney, who, as it happens, had much in common with Anne. Like her, he came from an important Kentish family and was 'well couched in the French tongue'. But he was not related to her, as some have supposed (it was the Cheyneys of Northamptonshire, a different family, who were connected with the Boleyns). Cheyney had no reason to love Wolsey, who had treated him outrageously while he was ambassador to France in 1522. But, with the political skill which enabled him to thrive as 'a favourite and Privy Councillor to four successive Kings and Queens, in the greatest turn of times England ever beheld', he had kept his feelings well hidden.

    But in March 1528 he seems to have fallen into Wolsey's deep displeasure. The occasion is unknown, though probably it was connected with his subsequent, long-running quarrel with Wolsey's client, Sir John Russell, over his determination to secure the wardship of Russell's wealthy step-daughter, Anne Broughton, whom he later married. Faced with Wolsey's wrath, Cheyney turned to the only person able to defend him against Wolsey and sought Anne's protection.

* * *

Anne's reaction is instructive. She did not approach Henry directly on Cheyney's behalf, which would only have exacerbated matters. Instead, she acted as a peace-maker and used Heneage to try to sort things out directly with Wolsey.

    'As your most bounden bead[prayer]-woman', Heneage reported, Anne had 'commanded me to write unto your Grace, humbly desiring the same to be good and gracious lord unto Sir Thomas Cheyney'. 'She is', he continued, 'marvellous sorry that [Cheyney] should be in your Grace's displeasure.' As for Cheyney himself, Anne claimed, perhaps implausibly, he was as repentant as could be: 'Also she sayeth that the same Sir Thomas Cheyney is very sorry in his heart that he hath so displeased your Grace, more sorry than if he had lost all the good he hath.'
⁶

    This was to lay it on with a trowel. Nevertheless, Anne's good intentions towards Wolsey were manifest. And they would remain so, as long – but only as long – as his approach to the Great Matter seemed to bear fruit.

* * *

In fact, Wolsey's strategy received an immediate set-back. With the declaration of war on Charles V, in which France joined, Wolsey was aiming to weaken Charles's grip on his Italian territories in the south by attacking him in the north of his vast empire. But the scheme quickly came adrift since English public opinion was resolutely opposed to the war. There were riots in several counties, including Kent, where Anne's father was one of those delegated to contain the disturbances. 'I believe', the French ambassador himself admitted, '[Wolsey] is the only Englishman who wishes a war with Flanders.' 'You may be sure', he added, 'he is playing a terrible game.'
⁷

    The terrible game was quickly up. On 16 March, Henry informed Wolsey privately that he was 'loath' to prosecute the war. By early April it was agreed that trade between England and the Low Countries should continue. And, with effect from 15 June, a formal truce was proclaimed with Flanders, though England remained in a state of hostilities with the Emperor's other territories. The failure of the war was a blow to Wolsey's prestige. But he quickly recovered since the Flemish campaign had only ever been a side-show to the real theatre of war in Italy.
⁸

* * *

Back in December 1527, Gregorio Casale, the permanent English representative at the Papal Court, had spelled out the geo-political realities of the Divorce campaign. 'If Lautrec [the French commander in Italy] advances,' he reported on the 22nd, 'the Pope will do all [Wolsey] wants. But, if not, he will do nothing.'
⁹

    Fortunately for Wolsey, Lautrec's successes continued. In the summer of 1527 he had conquered all Lombardy, apart from its capital, Milan. In the autumn, on Francis I's direct orders, he left behind the still undefeated Imperial garrison in Milan and marched south. In the New Year he overran the Romagna and on 9 February he invaded the Kingdom of Naples. His advance turned into a promenade and by the end of April he had reached the suburbs of Naples itself. In the Bay, a Genoese fleet, commanded by a nephew of Andrea Doria, France's principal Italian ally, blockaded the city and cut off supplies. On 28 April the Spanish fleet tried to break out but the admiral was killed and his ships destroyed. The fall of Naples was imminent.

    Lautrec
had
advanced, and Clement was prepared to do all, or almost all, that Wolsey wanted.
¹⁰

    It was the best possible background to the mission of Foxe and Gardiner. Contrary winds kept them at Dover for four days, and they spent another two in Calais, recovering from the crossing and waiting for the courier Thaddeus to catch up with them with the remainder of their instructions. Diplomatic business then consumed another three days in Paris and they allowed themselves a day off at Lyon to mark the half way stage of their journey. Thereafter, taking full advantage of their youth, they had ridden hard, 'travelling evermore from before the day till it was within the night' and, after Lyons, 'never lying two nights in one place'. They were off the road for about ten days and on it for about thirty. Which gave an average of some thirty-three miles a day.
¹¹

    It was fast. But was it fast enough for Henry and Anne? Foxe and Gardiner had their doubts. So, anxiously they begged the King to take account of the bad luck and unavoidable delays they had suffered. Then, they trusted, he would see that 'we have made as diligent passage by post hither, as any courier could, not riding the night'.

    They finally arrived at Clement VII's refuge of Orvieto on 21 March. They were filthy, soaked to the skin and without a change of clothes since, for speed, they had left their baggage behind in Paris. This led to another two days' delay while clothes were made for them. The alternative, they explained, was to appear in borrowed garments. But that would have been doubly difficult. Most people in this refugee Court seemed to have only one set of clothes and they were cut, moreover, in the Spanish fashion. It would have been curious indeed if the English envoys had appeared before the Pope in the black 'Spanish cloaks' that were worn by their bitterest opponents.
¹²

    Foxe and Gardiner had their first audience with Clement on the 23rd. They were not impressed. Orvieto, in ancient times an Etruscan stronghold, was known in Latin as
Urbs Vetus
(the Old City). And the name, they joked bitterly, was only too appropriate, for the city was indeed old 'in all languages'. So too was everything in it. The Papal palace was old and ruinous, with bare rooms and fallen ceilings. The furnishings were threadbare and worth only a few pounds. The attendants consisted of 'thirty person, riff-raff and other, standing in the chambers for a garnishment'. The Pope was ineffectual and worn-out. And – above all – the Papacy itself was at its nadir. 'It is a fall from the top of the hill to the lowliest part of the mountain', they wrote with a sort of poetry of contempt, and the power which had once ruled the world was now plundered and exploited by every petty Italian principality.
¹³

    Clearly, they – and especially the forceful Gardiner – expected Clement to be a push-over. They were quickly undeceived.

    For all the fallen state of the Papacy and for all the apparent weakness of the man, there was something plastic, even resilient about Giulio de' Medici, now Pope Clement VII. He seemed to yield quickly, but he just as quickly bounced back. To seek to force a decision from him was thus, as Foxe and Gardiner eventually realised, to try to squeeze rubber into shape or to write in water.

    Nevertheless, despite the impossibility of their task, they went to it with a will. Their mission was to get Clement's agreement to two documents: a new dispensation for Henry to marry Anne, and a new commission to Wolsey to settle the Great Matter once and for all. The former Clement agreed to without difficulty. But the latter he absolutely refused, at least in the form of the decretal commission which Wolsey so desperately wanted.

    In session after session, Gardiner tried to get him to change his mind. They met in the Pope's little Privy Chamber or in his study, which also doubled as his bedroom. Clement placed himself with his back to the wall, while the English envoys and two or three cardinal councillors sat on stools in a semi-circle around him. Law books were brought in and experts were consulted. Occasionally Clement, who was well-informed about England as its former Cardinal-Protector, diverted to discuss entertaining tit-bits of English news and gossip. Otherwise, they ground on remorselessly, traversing and retraversing the same territory until far into the night and then resuming, bleary-eyed, the following morning.

    On 31 March, Foxe and Gardiner reported the stalemate in letters sent home by the trusty Barlow, who was standing by. Then they returned to the attack. This time Gardiner's language became more violent and his threats more open. To no avail. Sometimes Clement parried with tears; sometimes with a flash of humour. God, he wryly observed, had put all the laws in his bosom but had, unaccountably, forgotten to give him the key!

    Easter was approaching and the English were desperate to get something. Finally, a compromise was brokered. The Pope would grant only a general commission. But the English would add some key clauses taken from the decretal commission. There would be provision, in case of necessity, for one judge to act without his fellow. Appeals would be excluded after a fashion. And Rome would give its
imprimatur
to the proceedings by sending Cardinal Campeggio to England as Papal legate and Wolsey's fellow judge. Earlier drafts were produced and fought over line by line. Agreement was reached just before Easter. On Easter Monday, 13 April, both the dispensation and the commission were sealed by the Papal Chancery and, the same day, bearing these precious trophies, Foxe set out on the return journey.

    He also carried a letter from Gardiner to Wolsey, in which Gardiner frankly admitted that, 'by reason of crying, speaking, chafing and writing, [he was] ill distempered'. Clement had worn even Gardiner down.
¹⁴

* * *

    The following day was Sunday, when Wolsey paid his regular weekly visit to Court in term time. Once again, Foxe rode flat out for Greenwich, hoping to arrive before Wolsey left. But an excess of hospitality from town dignitaries en route held him up and he did not arrive till 5 p.m. It was too late: Wolsey's barge had left two hours previously to take him back to town.

    Instead, the King ordered Foxe to go to Anne's chamber and debrief himself directly to her.
¹⁵

N
ormally, it seems, Anne was still lodged with the Queen's women on Catherine's side of the palace. But disease had struck and 'my lady Princess [Mary] and divers other the Queen's maidens were sick of the small-pox'. So Anne had moved to a lodging in Tilt-yard Gallery, to the south of the main palace complex. This was remote enough to offer her some protection from infection. It also enabled her to maintain an independent, semi-royal state that would have been quite impossible in the Queen's lodgings.

    And it was in the lodgings in the Tilt-yard Gallery that Foxe found Anne. First, he was 'admitted unto her presence'; then he gave her a quick summary of the achievements of the Embassy. He told her that the Pope had granted the key documents and agreed to the despatch of a legate. And he gave the credit to Gardiner's 'singular fidelity, diligence, and dexterity'. Anne was ecstatic. The only problem was that she found it difficult to distinguish one young, eager, travel-stained cleric from another – 'oftentimes in communication', Foxe reported to Gardiner, 'calling me Mr Stephens' (the name, as we have seen, by which Gardiner was usually known). Finally, she made Gardiner 'promise of large recompense'.

    At this moment, Henry entered unannounced (evidently, ease of access for the King was another advantage of Anne's present lodgings). Anne withdrew and Henry ordered Foxe to tell him,
quam posse brevissime
('just as briefly as I could'), 'what was done in his cause'.

    Foxe began with the dispensation. As we have seen, this was the document over which Wolsey had launched his bid to regain control of the Great Matter. He had shredded the first version obtained by the nowdisgraced Knight. And he had drawn up a new version, incorporating all his criticisms. Gardiner, Foxe reported to Henry, had presented this new dispensation to Clement with a characteristic, hyperbolical flourish – claiming it to be such that, for the peace of Europe, the Pope should 'grant unto all princes christened the like thereof '. But Clement's response to a document over which the mountains had laboured had been deflationary. For he had treated it, if not quite as the ridiculous mouse of the proverb, then certainly as something utterly uncontentious, which he could accept on the nod, 'very promptly and facilely'.

    Foxe, in his report to the King, put as good a gloss on this as possible. It was, he said, a mark of Clement's special favour to Henry that he 'had passed the same without alteration of any sentence or word and sent the same by me'.

    Here Foxe, for all his rhetoric, spoke the literal truth. For Wolsey's draft of the second dispensation survives in the Vatican archives. This shows that it was used by the Papal Chancery as warrant for the Bull of dispensation, which was copied from it pretty much word for word (Foxe apologised for the bad writing of this transcript, since there were no calligraphically qualified scribes in the skeleton Curia-in-exile). The draft is endorsed:
Minuta dispensationis missae per Thadeum cursorem
('Draft of a Dispensation sent by the courier Thaddeus'), showing that it formed part of the supplementary packet of instructions which, as we have seen, was sent on to Foxe and Gardiner after their departure from London. And the draft is docketed by the Papal secretary, Motta, as having been registered in the Apostolic Chamber.