The House of Tudor (22 page)

It was a good speech, moving, dignified and manly. It had the additional merit of being absolutely sincere: Henry had long since convinced himself of the purity of his motives. It did not, of course, contain any mention of Anne Boleyn but by the time It was delivered, November 1528, no one who had seen them together could any longer be in the slightest doubt about his feelings for her. The one thing which emerges with total clarity from the confusion surrounding the genesis of the King’s Great Matter is that the King, for the first and only time in his life, was deeply, genuinely in love. The Little bundle of letters (undated but ascribed to the summer of 1527) written to Anne while she was staying down at Hever, show that Henry had forgotten he was a mature, almost a middle-aged man with a faithful wife and an eleven-year-old daughter. In the words of George Cavendish, he had become ‘so amorously affectionate’ towards a girl sixteen years his junior, that ‘high discretion was banished for the time’. Honest Master Cavendish, watching the progress of events from his place in Wolsey’s shadow, was moved to moral reflection on the wilfulness of princes. ‘And above all things’, he lamented, ‘there is no one thing that causeth them to be more wilful than carnal desire and voluptuous affection of foolish love.’

Henry does not seem to have anticipated any very serious difficulty in getting his divorce. The ending of a marriage with a decree of nullity was by no means unprecedented or even particularly unusual (provided, of course, that the litigants commanded the necessary influence and resources) and in normal circumstances the Pope would be unlikely to disoblige so distinguished and dutiful a son of the Church as the King of England. Unfortunately, in the summer of 1527, circumstances in Rome were far from normal. France and Spain were once more at one another’s throats over their rival claims to Northern Italy and in consequence, the Holy Father was currently to all intents and purposes a prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor. And the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles von Hapsburg, happened to be the Queen of England’s nephew, the son of her sister Juana.

As soon as Catherine heard that the legality of her marriage and the legitimacy of her daughter were being called in question (and she had heard sooner than Henry meant her to), she had appealed to Charles, now the head of her house, begging him to prevent any hearing of the case in England and especially any hearing of it by Wolsey.

Charles V was, on paper at least, the most powerful monarch in Christendom. He also carried most of the problems of Christendom on his shoulders, but he had a strong sense of family honour. He assured his aunt that she could count on his devoted support and he despatched an experienced canon lawyer to Rome to watch her interests. Henry was also sending envoys to Rome to badger the Pope for a commission giving Wolsey full power to grant his divorce and the Holy Father, assailed on all sides, shed tears and tore his beard in anguish. But the tide of war was now turning in favour of France, the Imperial army retreated and the Pope finally agreed to send Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio to England with authority to hear the case jointly with Wolsey and declare the King’s marriage null, if the facts seemed to warrant it. Campeggio was also instructed to take no irrevocable action without reference to Rome, to delay taking any action for as long as possible and to do his best to effect a reconciliation between the parties.

The Cardinal reached London in October 1528. He found Henry growing restive and not in the least interested in reconciliation. He appeared so completely satisfied with the justice of his cause, that Campeggio reported ‘an angel descending from heaven would be unable to persuade him otherwise’. Catherine proved equally unpersuadable. Henry was taking the prohibition in the Book of Leviticus as a clear Statement of God’s law, and questioning the power of any Pope to dispense it. Catherine’s reply was devastatingly simple. Her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated. She had been
virgo intacta
when she married Henry. Therefore his arguments were irrelevant. She was, always had been and always would be the King’s true and lawful wife, their daughter was his legitimate heiress. And during the nine years of life which remained to her, Catherine never budged from this stand. She was uninterested in bribes, unimpressed by threats, unmoved by an increasingly mean and spiteful campaign of persecution. If she blasphemed against the sacrament of marriage, she would be damning her immortal soul and consenting to the damnation of her husband’s. Apart from this, if she agreed that she had been living in sin, ‘the King’s harlot’, for the past twenty years, then she would be admitting that her whole life had been a useless waste of time; she would be denying her daughter’s rights of inheritance; perhaps even more to the point, she would be opening the door for Anne Boleyn. Catherine has been accused by Henry’s partisans of being bigoted, pig-headed and perverse but all her deepest instincts as a woman, wife and mother had been outraged and she reacted accordingly. With all the iron courage and stubborn pride of her race, she fought her lonely battle to the end.

By the summer of 1529 Campeggio had run out of delaying tactics and was obliged to convene the legatine court which was to investigate the King of England’s marriage. The Queen promptly lodged a formal protest against its jurisdiction and appealed to the Pope to decide the case himself But she did make one appearance before the Cardinal’s court. Kneeling at her husband’s feet in the great hall at Blackfriars, she begged him, for all the love that had been between them, to let her have justice and right and to take some pity on her. She reminded him that she had always been a true, humble and obedient wife, ever conformable to his will and pleasure. ‘And when ye had me at the first’, she went on, ‘I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid without touch of man; and whether it be true or no, I put it to your conscience.’ Henry looked straight ahead, stony-faced. Catherine finished her speech. Then she rose from her knees, curtsied and turned to go, leaning on the arm of her gentleman usher - the same Griffith ap Rhys who had ridden in to Ludlow with his father all those years ago to take service with the Princess of Wales. When Griffith ventured to point out that the court crier was summoning her to return, Catherine answered ‘it makes no matter, for it is no indifferent court for me. Therefore I will not tarry.’ ‘And thus’, says George Cavendish, an eyewitness of the scene, ‘she departed out of that court without any further answer...nor would never appear in any court after.’

Catherine had been quite right when she said that she would never get a fair hearing in any English court. At Blackfriars only one person, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, once the spiritual director and close friend of Margaret Beaufort, had the courage to contradict Margaret’s grandson. Much of the court’s time was taken up in a pointless and distasteful wrangle about the Queen’s virginity at the time of her second marriage, and with hearing witnesses who had been present at the public bedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales more than a quarter of a century before. These individuals obligingly dredged their memories for details which would convince Campeggio that there had been carnal copulation but, as Cavendish sensibly remarked, this was a matter on which no man could know the truth. Anyway, it all turned out to be a waste of time. There was another shift in the see-saw pattern of European politics and the Pope, yielding to Imperial pressure, transferred any further hearing of the case to the Roman courts.

This marked the beginning of the end for Thomas Wolsey - the first major casualty in the long, blood-stained battle for the divorce. Predictably he became the scapegoat for Henry’s rage and disappointment, and by October the Emperor’s new ambassador in London was reporting that the downfall of the Cardinal seemed complete. Messire Eustace Chapuys added that the King and his ‘Lady’ had come up from Greenwich to cast an appraising eye over the treasures of York House and had been surprised and pleased by what they found.

The King’s domestic arrangements at this time were, to put it mildly, unusual. Anne Boleyn now went with him everywhere and ‘kept an estate more like a Queen than a simple maid’. She had her own apartments at Greenwich, Henry’s favourite residence, and was receiving all the attention due to a royal bride-to-be. Meanwhile, in another part of the palace, Queen Catherine, ignoring the existence of her rival with well-bred indifference, continued to preside over the household, mending her husband’s shirts and seeing to his comfort just as she had always done. Such a situation, while not without its comic side, inevitably led to friction and on one occasion, after a lot of talking and raised voices, Henry was seen to leave his wife’s room in a hurry looking ‘very disconcerted and downcast’. He got no sympathy from Anne who told him that Catherine would always get the better of him in argument. ‘Some fine morning you will give in to her persuasions’, cried Anne, ‘and then you will cast me off.’ And she went on to reproach her harassed sweetheart, reminding him that she had been waiting a long time - nearly three years now - and was sacrificing her youth, her chances of making an honourable marriage and having children, all apparently to no purpose.

That December, Thomas Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, was created Earl of Wiltshire and at a splendid banquet held to mark the occasion, his daughter took precedence even over the Duchesses of Suffolk and Norfolk, occupying the place of honour at the King’s side - a place usually occupied by the Queen. ‘After dinner’, wrote Eustace Chapuys scornfully, ‘there was dancing and carousing, so that it seemed as if nothing were wanting but the priest to give away the nuptial ring and pronounce the blessing.’

But appearances were deceptive and although the Pope was being pressed by both sides to come to a decision, he had still not even begun to hear the case. Henry was already threatening to break with Rome if judgement went against him. But as long as no judgement was given, the pious and conservative King might hesitate to take such a drastic step - or so at least the Holy Father seems to have reasoned. Then again, the problem might go away of its own accord. One of the disputants might die, or Henry might tire of Anne - most people, naturally enough, believed she was already his mistress. There was also just a faint hope that the disapproval of his subjects might force the King to go back to his wife.

Certainly popular disapproval of the divorce in general and of Anne in particular was strong among all classes of Englishmen and their wives, especially their wives -Anne was once nearly lynched by an angry mob of women. But no amount of disapproval, at home or abroad, could touch the King’s passionate attachment for his Lady. Her will was law, reported one ambassador and Henry sometimes gave the impression of being rather frightened of her.

It was during the year 1530 that the King first began to see a way through his matrimonial difficulties. Really it was very simple. If the Pope would not give him a divorce, then he must manage without the Pope. If he assumed supreme religious power in his own realm, the clergy would become dependent on the King and would soon learn to do as they were told; the appearances of law could be preserved and the very considerable wealth of the church in England would be at the disposal of the Crown. This radical solution may have been suggested by Henry’s new secretary, Thomas Cromwell - certainly his was the administrative genius which turned it into a practical possibility - but the idea itself somehow bears the stamp of Henry’s ruthless single-mindedness in the pursuit of his own way.

The general momentum of events now quickened perceptibly. In July 1531 Henry finally separated from his wife. He had been away on a hunting trip, accompanied as usual by Anne, and sent a message back to Windsor ordering the Queen to leave the Court before his return. He never saw her again. In May 1532 the English church finally surrendered its ancient, jealously guarded immunity from lay authority. In August death removed the last obstacle in the King’s path. William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, was old and sick and frightened, but he had always steadfastly refused to defy the Pope’s ban on any re-opening of the ‘Great Matter’ in an English court. Now he was gone, and the King and Thomas Cromwell knew just the man to replace him. Thomas Cranmer, an obscure don from Jesus College, Cambridge and one-time chaplain to the Boleyn family, was a gentle, mild-mannered individual who could be trusted to obey orders.

In October 1532 Anne Boleyn, decked out in Queen Catherine’s jewels, was to accompany the King on a state visit to France; but before the ambiguous couple crossed the Channel another event of considerable significance had taken place. With victory in sight, Anne had at last surrendered the citadel and had given Henry what he had been waiting for since 1526. In return, she was created Marquess of Pembroke in her own right, with an independent income of a thousand pounds a year. Further reward came the following January, when she and Henry were married under conditions of great secrecy in a turret room at Whitehall, very early before day’ in the presence of only three witnesses. This furtive ceremony was performed by Dr. Rowland, the King’s chaplain, ‘to whom the King told that now he had gotten of the Pope a license to marry another wife’.

If Henry really told his chaplain that he had a license from the Pope, it was a flat lie, but the reason for it soon became apparent. Towards the end of February 1533 Eustace Chapuys heard how Anne Boleyn had emerged from her private apartments into the gallery, where a crowd of people was milling about. Seeing a particular friend among the company - it may very likely have been Sir Thomas Wyatt - she cried out to him that for the past three days she had had an ‘incredible fierce desire to eat apples’. The King had told her it was a sign she was with child but she said no, no, it couldn’t be. And then, with one of her sudden, disconcerting shrieks of laughter, she turned and disappeared back into her rooms, leaving the onlookers staring at one another ‘abashed and uneasy’.

In fact, Anne must have been nearly three months pregnant by this time and Henry would have to move fast if her child was to be born in wedlock. In March, Thomas Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop. In April, the last shreds of reticence about the exact nature of Anne’s position were cast aside. On Easter Saturday she went to Mass in royal state for the first time, ‘loaded with diamonds and other precious stones and dressed in a gorgeous suit of gold tissue’. She was now being officially prayed for as Queen - this caused more than one congregation to walk out in protest - and the nobility, with the King’s watchful eye fixed on them, were required to pay their respects to her. Chapuys reported that the whole thing seemed like a dream and even her own supporters did not know whether to laugh or cry.