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The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

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Ireland was a yet more promising field of operations. On the first rumour of the divorce the Earl of Desmond had offered his services to the Emperor. Chapuys discovered a more promising champion of the Church in Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, whom he described as “a youth of high promise.” If the Pope would send the censures to Dublin, he undertook that Lord Thomas would publish them, and would be found a useful friend.

Again, in spite of refusal, he urged the Emperor to take action himself. Harm, he said, would befall the Queen and Princess, if there was longer delay; Mrs. Shelton had told Mary that she would lose her head if she persisted in disobedience; the people loved them well, but were afraid to move without support. The Lutherans were increasing, and would soon be dangerously strong. The present was the time to act. The King thought he could hold the recusants down by obliging them to swear to his statute; but if the chance was allowed, they would show their real minds.279

One difficulty remained in the way of action. The Pope, though he had given judgment, had not yet called in the secular arm which was supposed to be necessary as a preliminary, and all parties, save Catherine and her passionate advisers, were unwilling that a step should be taken from which there would be no returning. The Emperor did not wish it. Francis, irritated at the refusal to listen to Du Bellay, told the Pope that he was throwing England away. “The Pope,” wrote the Cardinal of Jaen to Secretary Covos, “is restive. If we push him too hard he may go over to the enemy.”280 Charles ordered Cifuentes to keep strictly to his instructions. The evident hesitation amused and encouraged the English Cabinet. “Which Pope do you mean?” said the Duke of Norfolk to the Scotch Ambassador, who had spoken of Clement as an arbiter on some point in dispute, “the Pope of Rome or the Pope of Lambeth?” Henry, finding Francis had not wholly deserted him, “praised God” at a public dinner for having given him so good a brother in the King of France.

Under these circumstances, the Catholic party in England were alarmed and perplexed. Catherine had been undeceived at last in her expectation that the King would submit when the Pope had spoken. She informed Chapuys that she now saw it was necessary to use stronger remedies. What these remedies should be Chapuys said she dared not write, lest her letters should be intercepted. She was aware, too, that the Emperor knew best what should be done. Something must be tried, however, and speedily; for the King was acting vigorously, and to wait would be to be lost. A startling difference of opinion also was beginning to show itself even among the Queen’s friends. Some might turn round, Chapuys said, as they feared the Emperor, in helping her, would set up again the Pope’s authority, which they called tyrannical. It was the alarm at this which enabled the King to hold his subjects together.281

Though Mary had “shown her teeth” at her mother’s bidding, she had not provoked her father to further severities. He asked Mrs. Shelton if her pride was subdued. Mrs. Shelton saying there were no signs of it, he ordered that she should be more kindly treated; and he sent her a message that, if she was obedient, he would find some royal marriage for her. She answered that God had not so blinded her that she should confess that her father and mother had lived in adultery. The words, perhaps, lost nothing in the repeating; but the King said, and said rightly, that it was her mother’s influence. Catherine had persuaded her that his kindness was treachery, and that there was a purpose to poison her.282

A serious question, however, had risen about the Statute of Succession. The oath had been universally taken by everyone to whom it had been offered save More and Fisher. The reason for demanding it was the notorious intention of the Catholic party to take arms in Catherine’s and Mary’s interests. Were others to be sworn, and were the two ladies chiefly concerned to be exempted? Catherine, in ceasing to be queen, might be held to have recovered her rights as a foreigner. But she had remained in England by her own wish, and at the desire of the Emperor, to assist in fighting out the battle. Mary was undoubtedly a subject, and Catherine and she had both intimated that if the oath was demanded of them they would not take it. The Peers and Bishops were called together to consider the matter, and, as Catherine was a Spanish Princess, Chapuys was invited to attend.

The council-room was thronged. The Ambassador was introduced, and a copy of the statute was placed before him. He was informed that English subjects generally had voluntarily sworn to obey it. Two ladies only, Madam Catherine and Madam Mary, had declined, and the pains and penalties were pointed out to him which they might incur if they persisted.

Chapuys had been refused an opportunity of speaking his opinion in Parliament. It was now spontaneously offered him. He might, if he had pleased, have denounced the hardship of compelling the Queen and her daughter to assent personally to a statute which took their rights from them. The preamble declared the King’s marriage with Catherine to have been invalid, and in swearing to the Act of Succession she would be abandoning her entire plea. There was no intention, however, of forcing the oath upon the mother. Mary was the person aimed at; and Mary might have been spared also, if she had not “shewn her teeth” so plainly. Chapuys, however, spoke out boldly on the whole question. The King, he said, could not deprive the Princess of her place as heir to the crown, nor was the English Parliament competent to decide as to the validity of a marriage. The preamble of the statute was a lie. He would have proved it had he been permitted to speak there. People had sworn because they were afraid, and did not wish to be martyrs; and the oath being imposed by force, they knew that it could be no more binding than the oaths which he had lately taken to the Pope had bound the Archbishop of Canterbury. For a general answer, he produced the Pope’s sentence. The obstinacy which they complained of, he said, was in them, and not in the ladies. He could not persuade the ladies to swear; if he could, he would not, unless under orders from the Emperor; and he warned the Council that if they tried further violence they must be prepared to find the Emperor and Ferdinand their open enemies; the Emperor regarded the Queen as his mother, and the Princess as his sister; and, though he allowed that he was speaking without instructions, he intimated distinctly that the Emperor would not fail to protect them, and protect the cause of the Church, which had been intertwined with theirs.

Chapuys was bold, bolder perhaps than the Council had expected. The Bishop of Durham rose after a short pause. He had been Catherine’s advocate, and, as Chapuys said, was one of the most learned and honest prelates in the realm. But he, too, had come to see that the cause now at issue was the independence of England. He said that the statute had been well considered. It had been passed for the quiet of the realm, and must be obeyed. On Chapuys rejoining that the quiet of the realm required the King’s return to his wife, Tunstall mentioned the promises which had been made at the beginning of the suit, and produced the decretal which the Pope had given at Orvieto, declaring the marriage with Catherine invalid. Chapuys, in his answer, admitted, unconsciously, the justice of the English plea. He said the decretal had been issued when the Pope had just escaped from St. Angelo, and was angry and exasperated against the Emperor. As to other promises, he might or might not have made them. If he said he would give judgment in the King’s favour, he might have meant merely such a judgment as would be good for the King; or perhaps he was doing as criminal judges often did – holding out hopes to prisoners to tempt confessions from them. Such practices were legitimate and laudable.

The English argument was that a judge such as Chapuys described was not to be trusted with English suits. Henry himself could not have put the case more effectively. The Bishop of London spoke, and the Archbishop of York, and then Sampson (the Dean of the Chapel Royal), who affirmed bluntly that the Pope had no inherent rights over England. Man had given him his authority, and man might take it from him. Chapuys replied that the King had found it established when he came to the throne, and had himself recognised it in referring his cause to the Pope. Cranmer was present, but took no direct part. He brought out, however, the true issue, by suggesting, through Tunstall, that the Pope had incapacitated himself by submitting to be controlled by the Emperor. This was the point of the matter. To allow an English suit to be decided by Charles V. was to make England a vassal state of the Empire. To this Chapuys had no valid answer, for none could be given; and he discreetly turned the argument by reflecting on the unfitness of Cranmer also.

 

So far the laymen on the Council had left the discussion to the Bishops, and the Ambassador thought that he had the best of it. The Duke of Norfolk, he imagined, thought so too; for the Duke rose after the taunts at the Archbishop. The King’s second marriage, he said, was a fait accompli, and to argue further over it was loss of time. They had passed their statute, and he, for one, would maintain it to the last drop of his blood. To refuse obedience was high treason; and, the fact being so, the ladies must submit to the law. The King himself could not disobey an Act which concerned the tranquillity of the realm.

Chapuys would not yield. He said their laws were like the laws of Mahomet – laws of the sword – being so far worse, that Mahomet did not make his subjects swear to them. Not with entire honesty – for he knew now that Catherine had consented to the use of force – he added, that they could have small confidence in their own strength if they were afraid of two poor weak women, who had neither means nor will to trouble them.

The Council said that they would report to the King, and so the conversation ended. Chapuys spoke afterwards privately to Cromwell. He renewed his warning that, if violence was used, there would be real danger. Cromwell said he would do his best. But there was a general fear that something harsh would be tried at the instigation of the “accursed Concubine.” Probably the question would be submitted to Parliament, or as some thought the Queen and Princess would be sent to the Tower.283 Conceiving extremities to be close, Chapuys asked the Scotch Ambassador whether, if a mandate came from the Pope against England, the Scots would obey it. Certainly they would obey it, was the answer, though they might pretend to regret the necessity.

Violence such as Chapuys anticipated was not in contemplation. The opinion of Europe would have been outraged, if there had been no more genuine reason for moderation. An appeal was tried on Catherine herself. The Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham, both of whom had been her friends, went down to her to explain the nature of the statute and persuade her to obedience. Two accounts remain of the interview – that of the Bishops, and another supplied to Chapuys by the Queen’s friends. The Bishops said that she was in great choler and agony, interrupted them with violent speeches, declared that she was the King’s lawful wife, that between her and Prince Arthur there had been never more than a formal connection. The Pope had declared for her. The Archbishop of Canterbury was a shadow. The Acts of Parliament did not concern her.284 Chapuys’s story is not very different, though two elderly prelates, once her staunch supporters, could hardly have been as brutal as he describes. After various rough speeches, he said that the Bishops not only referred to the penalties of the statute (they themselves admitted this) but told her that if she persisted she might be put to death. She had answered that if any of them had a warrant to execute her they might do it at once. She begged only that the ceremony should be public, in the face of the people, and that she might not be murdered in her room.285

The mission had been rather to advise than to exact, and special demands were rather made on Catherine’s side than the King’s. Not only she would not swear herself to the statute, but she insisted that her household should be exempted also. She required a confessor, chaplains, physician, men-servants, as many women as the King would allow, and they were to take no oath save to the King and to her. Henry made less difficulty than might have been looked for – less than he would have been entitled to make had he known to what purpose these attendants would be used. The oath was for his native subjects; it was not exacted from herself, or by implication from her confessor, who was a Spaniard, or from her foreign servants.286 If she would be reasonable he said that some of her requests might be granted. She might order her household as she pleased, if they would swear fidelity to him, and to herself as Princess Dowager. But he could not allow them to be sworn to her as Queen.

Chapuys’s business was to make the worst of the story to the Emperor. The Court was at Richmond. Chapuys went thither, presented a complaint to the Council, and demanded an interview with the King. Henry would not see him, but sent him a message that he would inquire into what had passed, and would send him an answer. Chapuys, who had been for two years urging war in vain, exaggerated the new injuries. Others, and perhaps he himself, really believed the Queen’s life to be in danger. “Every one,” he wrote, after describing what had taken place, “fears that mischief will now befall her; the concubine has said she will never rest till she is put out of the way. It is monstrous and almost incredible, yet such is the King’s obstinacy, and the wickedness of this accursed woman, that everything may be apprehended.”287 Anne, it is likely, was really dangerous. The King, so far as can be outwardly traced, was making the best of an unpleasant situation. The Council promised Chapuys that his remonstrances should be attended to. The Queen was left to herself, with no more petty persecutions, to manage her household in her own way. They might swear or not swear as pleased themselves and her; and with passionate loyalty they remained devoted to her service, assisting her in the conduct of a correspondence which every day became more dangerous.

The European sky meanwhile was blackening with coming storms. Francis had not forgotten Pavia, and as little could allow England to be conquered by Charles as Charles could allow France to be bribed by the promise of Calais. His Agents continued busy at Rome keeping a hand on the Pope; a fresh interview was proposed between the French King and Henry, who was to meet him at Calais again in the summer; and an aggressive Anglo-French alliance was a possibility which the Emperor had still to fear. He had small confidence in the representations of Chapuys, and had brought himself to hope that by smooth measures Henry might still be recovered. A joint embassy might be sent to England from himself and the Pope to remonstrate on the schism. If nothing else came of it, their own position would be set right before the world and in the eyes of English opinion. Clement, however, now made difficulties, and had no desire to help Charles out of his embarrassments. Charles had forced a judgment out of him without promising to execute it. Charles might now realise the inconvenience of having driven him on against his own inclination. Cifuentes had again received instructions to delay the issue of the Brief of Execution, or the calling in the secular arm. The Pope felt that he had been made use of and had been cheated, and was naturally resentful. Cifuentes made his proposal. Clement, “with the placid manner which he generally showed when a subject was disagreeable to him… said that the embassy might go if the Emperor wished… It would not be of the slightest use … but it might do no harm. He must, of course, however, first consult the King of France.” Cifuentes not liking the mention of France, the Pope went on maliciously to say that, if he had not gone to Marseilles, France would certainly have broken with the Church, as England had done, and would have set up a Patriarchate of its own. Indeed he was afraid it might yet come to that. The King of France had told him how he had been pressed to consent, and had made a merit of refusing. Cifuentes could but remark on the singular character of the King of France’s religious convictions.288

The embassy was not sent to England, and the Pope kept back his invocation of the secular arm till a Prince could be found who would act. No one would be the first to move, and the meeting of the two Kings at Calais was indefinitely postponed. Francis complained of Henry’s arbitrary manner, “speaking to me at times as if I were his subject.” The explanation given to the world of the abandonment of the interview was that Henry found it inconvenient to leave the realm. A letter of Chapuys explains where the special inconvenience lay. The Lady Anne would be Regent in his absence, and could not be trusted in her present humour. “I have received word from a trustworthy source,” he wrote on the 23d of June to the Emperor, “that the concubine has said more than once, and with great assurance, that the moment the King crosses the Channel to the interview, and she is left Regent, she will put the Princess to death by sword or otherwise. Her brother, Lord Rochford, telling her she would offend the King, she answered she cared not if she did. She would do it if she was burnt or flayed alive afterwards. The Princess knows her danger, but it gives her no concern. She puts her trust in God.”

Imperfect credit must be given to stories set current by malicious credulity. But the existence of such stories shows the reputation which Anne had earned for herself, and which in part she deserves. Chapuys reiterated his warnings.

“Pardon my importunity,” he continued, “but, unless your Majesty looks promptly to it, things will be past remedy. Lutheranism spreads fast, and the King calculates that it will make the people stand by him and will gain the Germans. So long as danger is not feared from without, Parliament will agree to all that he wishes. Were your Majesty even to overlook all that he has done, he would persist in the same way. Good Catholics are of opinion that the readiest way to bridle France and Germany is to begin in England. It can be done with ease. The people only wait for your Majesty to give the signal.”289

 

The inaction of the Emperor was incomprehensible to Catherine’s friends. To herself it was distracting. She had fed upon the hope that when the Pope had given judgment her trial would be at an end; that the voice of Catholic Europe would compel the King to submit. The Roman lightning had flashed, but the thunderbolt had not fallen. The English laity, long waiting in suspense, had begun to think, as Chapuys feared they would, that the Pope was the shadow, and Cranmer the substance. Cut off from the world, she thought she was forsaken, or that the Emperor’s care for her would not carry him to the point of interference. If no voice was raised in her favour in her own Spain, the Spanish Ambassador might at least show that her countrymen had not forgotten her. She sent pressing messages to Chapuys, begging him to visit her; and Chapuys, impatient himself of his master’s hesitating policy, resolved to go. He applied for permission to the Council. It was refused. But the Council could not forbid his making a summer pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham, and the road lay near Kimbolton. He wrote to Cromwell that, leave or no leave, he was going into Norfolk, and meant to call there. The porters might refuse him entrance if they pleased. He gave him fair notice. It should not be said that he had acted underhand.

It was the middle of July. Making as much display as possible, with a retinue of sixty horse, and accompanied by a party of Spaniards resident in London, the Ambassador rode ostentatiously through the City, and started on the great North Road. Spending a night on the way, he arrived on the second evening within a few miles of Catherine’s residence. At this point he was overtaken by two gentlemen of the household, with an intimation that he would not be admitted. He demanded to see their orders, and, the orders not being produced, he said that, being so near the end of his journey, he did not mean to turn back. He would have persisted, but a message came to him from the Queen herself, or from one of her people, to say that she could not receive him; he could proceed to Walsingham if he pleased, but he must not approach within bowshot of the Castle. Some peremptory command must have reached her. A second secret message followed, that, although she had not dared to say so, she was grateful for his visit; and, though he must not come on himself, a party of his suite might show themselves before the gates.

Thus the next morning, under the bright July sky, a picturesque Spanish cavalcade was seen parading under the windows of Kimbolton, “to the great consolation of the ladies of the household, who spoke to them from the battlements; and with astonishment and joy among the peasantry, as if the Messiah had actually come.” The Walsingham pilgrimage was abandoned, lest it should be thought to have been the real object of the journey; and Chapuys, with polite irony, sent the King word that he had relinquished it in deference to his Majesty’s wishes. He returned to London by another road, to make a wider impression upon the people.

“The Emperor,” he said, in relating his expedition, “would now see how matters stood. The Queen might be almost called the King’s prisoner. The house,” he said, “was well kept and well found, though there were complaints of shortness of provisions. She had five or six servants, and as many ladies-in-waiting, besides the men whom she looked on as her guards.”290

279Chapuys to Charles V., April 14, 1534. —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. pp. 125-31.
280Ibid. May 21, 1534, p. 167.
281Chapuys to Charles V., May 14, 1534. —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. pp. 153, 154.
282Chapuys to Charles V., May 14, 1534. —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. pp. 153, 154.
283Chapuys to Charles V., May 19, 1534. —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. pp. 155-66.
284Lee and Tunstall to Henry VIII., May 21, 1534. —Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. vii. p. 270.
285Chapuys to Charles V., May 29, 1534, —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. p. 169.
286Thus much was certainly meant by the King’s words: “He could not allow any of his native subjects to refuse to take the oath.” —Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. vii. p. 272.
287Spanish Calendar, vol. v. p. 172.
288Cifuentes to Charles V., June 6, 1534. —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. pp. 174 et seq.
289Chapuys to Charles V., June 23, 1534. Abridged. —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. pp. 198-99.
290Chapuys to Charles V., July 27, 1534. —Spanish Calendar, vol. v. pp. 219-20.