Six Wives (58 page)
Authors: David Starkey
The reality of course was more complex. According to Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador, More got the office of Chancellor only as a compromise, after Norfolk vetoed Suffolk's appointment to such a powerful position. Indeed, it has been claimed, it was Suffolk who was in the driving seat in these months, with a parliamentary programme that drew directly on Fish's anticlerical masterpiece.
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The evidence comes from a paper prepared by Thomas, Lord Darcy. Darcy, a leading councillor to Henry VII, had commanded the English army sent to assist Ferdinand, Catherine's father, in Guienne in 1512. Subsequently, he became an ardent partisan of Catherine's cause in the matter of the Divorce. And in 1537 he was executed for his treasonable complicity in the great Catholic rising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.
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His is not a biography that would seem to typecast its subject as a radical anticlerical. But that is how Darcy has been presented on the basis of an item in the 'Memorandum [on] Parliament Matters', which he drew up on 1 July 1529. 'Item', the eleventh of Darcy's eighteen points began, 'that it be tried whether the putting down of all the abbeys be lawful and good or no, for great things hang thereupon'. The words seem straightforward. In fact, they are ambiguous. What is their tense? Do they deal with the past or the future: with the abbeys that
have been
'put down' by Wolsey to fund his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich; or with those that
would be
put down by the King on parliamentary authority? And what is the intentionality of the writer? Is Darcy
against
such 'putting down of all the abbeys'? Or is he
for
it?
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have been
'put down' by Wolsey to fund his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich; or with those that
would be
put down by the King on parliamentary authority? And what is the intentionality of the writer? Is Darcy
against
such 'putting down of all the abbeys'? Or is he
for
it?
21
The current interpretation favoured by scholars plumps in both cases for the second of these alternatives: Darcy is assumed to be raising the legality of a future general dissolution. And he is presumed to be as heartily in favour of it as the notorious Simon Fish himself.
This double assertion, for it is no more, has been little debated. This is extraordinary. For, if it were correct, the whole history of the Divorce and Reformation would surely have been different. Instead of a long, slow process that dragged itself out over almost a decade, there would have been a Big Bang. For Darcy was an out and proud religious conservative who looked back to a golden age of universal pious observance, when 'the Lents, Embers, vigils and other days accustomed of Commandments and Councils of Holy Church, [were] justly observed and kept, and the offenders, if any, were duly punished'. If such a man was signed up to the dissolution, why did it not happen in the first session of the 'Reformation' Parliament of 1529? And why did not Parliament, as Catherine feared it would, move immediately to authorise Henry's divorce and remarriage?
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Why, in short, did Henry and Anne have to wait so long? And why did Anne have to fight so hard? And why did More, Tunstall, Fisher and the rest even bother to go through the motions of fighting a battle that was – it would seem – already lost?
The answer of course is that Darcy has been comprehensively misunderstood. He was not looking forward (in both sense of the words) to a parliamentary dissolution. Instead he was looking back to Wolsey's 'putting down' of several monasteries – and he was looking back in anger. What Wolsey had done, Darcy insisted, was an 'abomination'. Wolsey's actions, and the 'seditious and erroneous violations used at the pulling down of the abbeys by his commissioners . . . may be weighed to the worst act or article of Martin Luther's, as will be proved if good trials and examinations be had thereof '. He should be punished accordingly.
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That and no other was the meaning of Darcy's eleventh article.
It contained no comfort, of course, for Wolsey. But equally it contained little either for Henry or for Anne. For Darcy was as traditional in his politics as in his religion. He objected to Wolsey for trespassing in the temporal sphere (as well as trampling on the rights of his fellow clergy). But he would react with equal horror to any intrusion by the temporal power on the rightful authority and liberties of the Church. And such an intrusion was what was needed if the deadlock over the Divorce were to be broken. Darcy would never countenance it.
Nor, it turned out, would his fellow members of Parliament – at least for the time being. Following the clear lead of More's opening speech (as well as the detailed suggestions of Darcy's 'Memorandum'), the parliamentary session that began on 4 November 1529 clipped some of the more luxurious growths of clerical power that had flourished under Wolsey.
Probate, that is the authorisation of wills, was then a matter for the Church. Wolsey had introduced a steeply rising scale of fees for the granting of probate, so that large estates paid much more heavily than small. Nowadays this would be called social justice; then a Parliament of property-owners denounced it as an outrageous exaction and proposed a cap on the amount payable. There were also complaints in the Lower House that abbots were trading as tanners and wool-merchants, like laymen.
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This sort of thing was inconvenient to the Church. But it hardly merited Bishop Fisher's angry intervention in the Lords when he accused the Commons of acting 'for lack of Faith'. Norfolk replied sensibly that the greatest clerks were not always the wisest men. And Henry brokered an awkward compromise in which Fisher ungraciously explained away his words without retracting them.
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The compromise pleased neither the Commons nor the Lords Spiritual. But, when the session ended on 17 December, just in time for the Christmas festivities, the great edifice of the English Church still stood intact. Parliament had indeed limited a few clerical 'abuses'. But they all related to the Church's claims on lay property. And lay property, it was agreed by all but a few ultramontanist clerics such as Fisher, belonged absolutely to the temporal sphere. As such, it was subject to Common Law, which was properly made and unmade in Parliament. For all the skirmishes and alarms, both sides had finally respected these distinctions.
The result was a triumph for Darcy's programme (his real programme, that is) of restoring the proper relationship between the spirituality and temporality. This had been damaged by Wolsey's overweening and encroaching power. Now Parliament had restored the balance. But of course it had done nothing about Henry's marriage. For that belonged as firmly to the spiritual sphere as lay property did to the temporal.
Indeed, the Divorce had not even been mentioned – to Catherine's surprised relief and, no doubt, to Anne's corresponding irritation.
Other remedies, more or less injurious, would have to be tried.
54. Cranmer
A
nne was not the only person searching for new ideas. In the wake of the collapse of Wolsey's whole strategy in the Great Matter, every member of the King's party was on the look-out for the key idea that would unlock the Divorce. And the nearer they were to the centre of affairs, the greater was the pressure to come up with something new.
nne was not the only person searching for new ideas. In the wake of the collapse of Wolsey's whole strategy in the Great Matter, every member of the King's party was on the look-out for the key idea that would unlock the Divorce. And the nearer they were to the centre of affairs, the greater was the pressure to come up with something new.
Two of those who had benefited most from the Great Matter were the Cambridge friends, Stephen Gardiner and Edward Foxe. Gardiner was now royal Secretary, while Foxe – always more of a backroom figure than his ebullient friend – was the leading member of the King's Spiritual Council. On 2 August 1529, very shortly after the adjournment of the Blackfriars Court, Henry and Anne left Greenwich on the first stage of the summer Progress. Gardiner and Foxe formed part of the inner ring of courtiers and councillors who accompanied them. The first scheduled stop was Waltham Abbey or the Hertfordshire-Essex border.
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The Abbey was able to accommodate only the immediate royal party, and Gardiner and Foxe were lodged instead in the neighbouring township now known as Waltham Cross. The harbingers (the royal officials responsible for billeting courtiers) placed them in the house of a certain Mr Cressy. As they settled in, they recognised a familiar face from Cambridge. For Dr Thomas Cranmer of Jesus College was tutor to two of Cressy's sons and had taken refuge in his house, together with his pupils, when the plague had struck in the university.
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* * *
Cranmer belonged to a senior generation. He was born in 1489 and had gone up to Cambridge in 1503. But, in comparison with the brilliant Gardiner, he was a late developer. He only took his BA in 1511–2 and did not complete his doctorate of divinity until 1526, a full four years after the much younger Gardiner had secured his own double doctorate in canon and civil law.
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But what Cranmer lacked in brilliance, he made up for in steadiness: he was thorough, organised and a superb note-taker. In contrast with the instinctively partisan Gardiner, he was also blessed (and sometimes cursed) with an ability to see both sides of the question. This, combined with his essential fair-mindedness, meant that his opinions were in a state of slow but constant change. The individual steps were scarcely ever revolutionary. But his lifetime's journey – from orthodoxy to advanced reform – was. Finally, and unlike most of his contemporaries, he had acquired a style of written English which was clear, simple and, at its frequent best, of surpassing beauty.
Gardiner and Cranmer were, in short, the hare and the tortoise: radically different in temperament and abilities and destined to be rivals and eventually deadly opponents in Church and State. Even after five centuries, it is unclear who won.
But in 1529 they found themselves on the same side – that of Anne and the King.
* * *
At supper in Cressy's house, probably on the night of Gardiner's and Foxe's arrival, the three fell into conversation. All of them being Cambridge men, they talked about the university. Then the topic shifted to the burning issue of the day: the King's Great Matter. Cranmer's contribution was a characteristic mixture of diffidence and boldness. First, he excused himself by saying that, unlike his two acquaintances, he had made no particular study of the question. Nevertheless, he continued, he was sure that both they and, by implication, the King were pursuing the wrong strategy. 'I do think', he said, 'you go not the next way to work, as to bring the matter to a perfect conclusion and end, specially for the satisfaction of the troubled conscience of the King's Highness.'
This was because they were treating the case
legally
, by 'observing the common process and frustratory delays of these your courts'. At best, this approach would be slow; at worst, it would resolve nothing. But, Cranmer insisted, there was an alternative and superior strategy. For the issue, properly considered, was not legal but
moral
. And the moral laws, unlike canon law, were certain. 'There is', he asserted flatly, 'but one truth in it'. And this unique truth was visible, not to lawyers like Gardiner, but to theologians like himself. 'No man ought or better can discuss it than the divines', he claimed. It would be easy to canvass their opinion, 'with little industry and charge'. And, once done, Henry would have what he most craved: certainty. He would also be conscientiously entitled to settle matters on the basis of the theological ruling, whatever the state of the legal process and whatever the Pope might say or do.
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legally
, by 'observing the common process and frustratory delays of these your courts'. At best, this approach would be slow; at worst, it would resolve nothing. But, Cranmer insisted, there was an alternative and superior strategy. For the issue, properly considered, was not legal but
moral
. And the moral laws, unlike canon law, were certain. 'There is', he asserted flatly, 'but one truth in it'. And this unique truth was visible, not to lawyers like Gardiner, but to theologians like himself. 'No man ought or better can discuss it than the divines', he claimed. It would be easy to canvass their opinion, 'with little industry and charge'. And, once done, Henry would have what he most craved: certainty. He would also be conscientiously entitled to settle matters on the basis of the theological ruling, whatever the state of the legal process and whatever the Pope might say or do.
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The view that truth, especially on moral questions, is one and indivisible, and that it is perceived as such by all men of goodwill, is a common one. It seems to be impervious to experience and invincible to argument and is still widely held even today. But it is especially characteristic of ages of faith and revolution – like the early sixteenth century. It also appeals particularly to academics with little experience of the outside world – like Cranmer.
Cranmer was on the threshold of this larger experience. When he stepped over it, the consequences would be huge – for himself, for Catherine, for Henry and, above all, for Anne.
* * *
Cranmer's recommended course of action was also a professional slight on Gardiner and his discipline of law. Was this the result of innocence? Or was it a deliberate dig at a showy and, so far, much more successful colleague? As often with Cranmer, it is impossible to be sure.
But Gardiner's hurt feelings or envy, if there were such, had to be set aside. Cranmer, his naïve and donnish acquaintance, might have stumbled on the way forward for the Great Matter. At any rate, his idea was worth floating before the King. Gardiner and Foxe made haste to do so.
Choosing their moment, they recounted their conversation at Waltham to Henry and Henry, intrigued, decided to summon Cranmer to an interview.
* * *
Here an element of doubt enters. According to both versions of the story, Cranmer had his audience at Greenwich. But the Court did not return there for fully twelve weeks, until 24 October. By that time much water had flowed under the bridge. Wolsey had fallen and on the 25th, also at Greenwich, Henry gave his successor, Sir Thomas More, the Great Seal.
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Some historians feel that this gap before the interview is too long. In fact, it seems to me to make sense, since, in the interim, Henry's mind had been on other things. First there was the winding up of the Legatine Court. Then there was the engineering of Wolsey's fall. Finally there was the debate over his successor and the preparations for the forthcoming Parliament. Only in late October did the King have the leisure either to meet Cranmer or to respond to his audacious suggestion.
But, whenever the encounter took place, the meeting of minds was instantaneous. Cranmer was telling Henry what he wanted to hear. He was also repeating what, if we believe Reginald Pole, Anne had been telling Henry since 1527. 'That man hath the sow by the right ear', Henry is supposed to have said appreciatively about Cranmer.
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Cranmer's Cambridge days were over. On the spot, Henry 'retained him to write his mind in that his cause of divorcement'. Then, according to John Foxe's more coloured version of the story, the King summoned Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father. 'I pray you, my lord', he said, 'let Dr Cranmer have entertainment in your house at Durham Place for a time, to the intent he may be there quiet to accomplish my request, and let him lack neither books nor anything requisite for his study.'
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