The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

This letter is of extreme importance, as explaining the laws which it was found necessary to pass in the ensuing Parliament. A deeply rooted and most dangerous conspiracy was actively forming – how dangerous the Pilgrimage of Grace afterwards proved – in which Darcy and Hussey were the principal leaders. The Government was well served. The King and Cromwell knew more than it was prudent to publish. The rebellion meditated was the more formidable because it was sanctified by the name of religion, with the avowed purpose of executing the Papal Brief. Fitzgerald’s rising in Ireland was but the first dropping of a storm designed to be universal. Half the Peers who surrounded Henry’s person, and voted in Parliament for the reforming statutes, were at heart leagued with his enemies. He had a right to impose a test of loyalty on them, and force them to declare whether they were his subjects or the Pope’s.

For a moment it seemed as if the peril might pass over. It became known in England in October that Clement VII. had ended his pontificate, and that Cardinal Farnese reigned in his stead as Paul III. On Clement’s death the King, according to Chapuys, had counted on a schism in the Church, and was disappointed at the facility with which the election had been carried through; but Farnese had been on Henry’s side in the divorce case, and the impression in the English Council was that the quarrel with Rome would now be composed. The Duke of Norfolk, who had been the loudest in his denunciations of Clement, was of the opinion that the King, as a Catholic Prince, would submit to his successor. Even Cromwell laid the blame of the rupture on Clement personally, and when he heard that he was gone, exclaimed that “the Great Devil was dead.” Henry knew better than his Minister that “the Great Devil” was not this or that pontiff, but the Papacy itself. He had liberated his kingdom; he did not mean to lead it back into bondage. “Let no man,” he said to Norfolk, “try to persuade me to such a step. I shall account no more of the Pope than of any priest in my realm.”297 Farnese undoubtedly expected that Henry would make advances to him, and was prepared to meet them; he told Casalis that he had taken a legal opinion as to whether his predecessor’s judgment in the divorce case could be reopened, and a decision given in the King’s favour; the lawyers had assured him that there would be no difficulty, and the Pope evidently wished the King to believe that he might now have his way if he would place himself in the Pope’s hands. Henry, however, was too wary to be caught. He must have deeds, not words, he said. If the Pope was sincere he would revoke his predecessor’s sentence of his own accord. Francis, by whose influence Farnese had been elected, tried to bring Henry to submission, but to no purpose. The King was no longer to be moved by vague phrases like those to which he had once trusted to his cost. Surrounded by treachery though he knew himself to be, he looked no longer for palliatives and compromises, and went straight on upon his way. The House of Commons was with him, growing in heartiness at each succeeding session. The Peers and clergy might conspire in secret. In public, as estates of the realm, they were too cowardly to oppose.

Parliament met in November. The other Acts which were passed by it this year are relatively unimportant, and may be read elsewhere. The great business of the session, which has left its mark on history, was to pass the Act of Supremacy, detailing and explaining the meaning of the title which Convocation two years previously had conferred upon the King. Unentangled any longer with saving clauses, the sovereign authority under the law in all causes, ecclesiastical and civil, was declared to rest thenceforward in the Crown, and the last vestiges of Roman jurisdiction in England were swept off and disappeared. No laws, no injunctions, no fancied rights over the consciences of English subjects were to be pleaded further as a rule to their conduct which had not been sanctioned by Crown and Parliament. No clergy, English or foreign, were to exercise thenceforward any power not delegated to them and limited under the law of the land, except what could not be taken from them – their special privilege of administering the sacraments. Double loyalty to the Crown and to the Papacy was thenceforward impossible. The Pope had attempted to depose the King. The Act of Supremacy was England’s answer.

But to enact a law was not enough. With Ireland in insurrection, with half the nobles and more than half the clergy, regular and secular, in England inviting a Spanish invasion, the King and Commons, who were in earnest in carrying through the reforms which they had begun, were obliged to take larger measures to distinguish their friends from their enemies. If the Catholics had the immense majority to which they pretended, the Constitution gave them the power of legitimate opposition. If they were professing with their lips and sustaining with their votes a course of policy which they were plotting secretly to overthrow, it was fair and right to compel them to show their true colours. Therefore the Parliament further enacted that to deny the royal supremacy – in other words, to maintain the right of the Pope to declare the King deprived – should be high treason, and the Act was so interpreted that persons who were open to suspicion might be interrogated, and that a refusal to answer should be accepted as an acknowledgment of guilt. In quiet times such a measure would be unnecessary, and therefore tyrannical. Facta arguantur dicta impune sint. In the face of Chapuys’s correspondence it will hardly be maintained that the reforming Government of Henry VIII. was in no danger. The Statute of Supremacy must be judged by the reality of the peril which it was designed to meet. If the Reformation was a crime, the laws by which it defended itself were criminal along with it. If the Reformation was the dawning of a new and brilliant era for Imperial England, if it was the opening of a fountain from which the English genius has flowed out over the wide surface of the entire globe, the men who watched over its early trials and enabled the movement to advance, undishonoured and undisfigured by civil war, deserve rather to be respected for their resolution than reviled as arbitrary despots. To try the actions of statesmen in a time of high national peril by the canons of an age of tranquillity is the highest form of historical injustice.

The naked truth – and nakedness is not always indecent – was something of this kind. A marriage with a brother’s wife was forbidden by the universal law of Christendom. Kings, dukes, and other great men who disposed as they pleased of the hands of their sons and daughters, found it often desirable, for political or domestic reasons, to form connections which the law prohibited, and therefore they maintained an Italian conjuror who professed to be able for a consideration to turn wrong into right. To marriages so arranged it was absurd to attach the same obligations as belonged to unions legitimately contracted. If, as often happened, such marriages turned out ill, the same conjuror who could make could unmake. This function, also, he was repeatedly called on to exercise, and, for a consideration also, he was usually compliant. The King of England had been married as a boy to Catherine of Aragon, carrying out an arrangement between their respective fathers. The marriage had failed in the most important object for which royal marriages are formed: there was no male heir to the crown, nor any prospect of one. Henry, therefore, as any other prince in Europe would have done, applied to the Italian for assistance. The conjuror was willing, confessing that the case was one where his abilities might properly be employed. But another of his supporters interfered, and forced him to refuse. The King of England had always paid his share for the conjuror’s maintenance. He was violently deprived of a concession which it was admitted that he had a right to claim. But for the conjuror’s pretensions to make the unlawful lawful he would not have been in the situation in which he found himself. What could be more natural than that, finding himself thus treated, he should begin to doubt whether the conjuror, after all, had the power of making wrong into right? whether the marriage had not been wrong from the beginning? And, when the magical artist began to curse, as his habit was when doubts were thrown on his being the Vicar of the Almighty, what could be more natural also than to throw him and his tackle out of window?

The passing of the Act increased the anxiety about the position of the Princess Mary. In the opinion of most reasonable persons her claim to the succession was superior to that of Elizabeth, and, if she had submitted to her father, it would probably have been allowed and established. In the eyes of the disaffected, however, she was already, by Clement’s sentence, the legitimate possessor of the throne. Reginald Pole, Lady Salisbury’s son and grandson of the Duke of Clarence, was still abroad. Henry had endeavoured to gain him over, but had not succeeded. He was of the blood of the White Rose, and, with his brother, had gone by instinct into opposition. His birth, in those days of loyalty to race, gave him influence in England, and Catherine, as has been seen, had fixed upon him as Mary’s husband. He had been brought already under Charles’s notice as likely to be of use in the intended rebellion. The Queen, wrote Chapuys to the Emperor, knew no one to whom she would better like her daughter to be married; many right-minded people held that the light to the crown lay in the family of the Duke of Clarence, Edward’s children having been illegitimate; if the Emperor would send an army across with Lord Reginald attached to it everyone would declare for him; his younger brother Geoffrey was a constant visitor to himself; once more he insisted that nothing could be more easy than the conquest of the whole kingdom.298

The object with Chapuys was now to carry Mary abroad, partly that she might be married to Pole, partly for her own security. Notwithstanding the King’s evident care for her health and good treatment he could not look into the details of her daily life, and Anne was growing daily more dangerous. Both Catherine and the Princess had still many friends among the ladies of the Court. To one of these, young and beautiful – and, therefore, certainly not the plain Jane Seymour – the King was supposed to have paid attentions. Like another lady who had been mentioned previously, she was devoted to Catherine’s interests, and obviously not, therefore, a pretender to Henry’s personal affections. Anne had affected to be jealous, and under other aspects had reason for uneasiness. She had demanded this lady’s dismissal from the court, and had been so violent that “the King had left her in displeasure, complaining of her importunacy and vexatiousness.” The restoration of Mary to favour was a constant alarm to Anne, and she had a party of her own which had been raised by her patronage, depended on her influence, and was ready to execute her pleasure. Thus the petty annoyances of which both Catherine and her daughter complained were not discontinued. The household at Kimbolton was reduced; a confidential maid who had been useful in the Queen’s correspondence was discovered and dismissed. Mary was left under the control of Mrs. Shelton, who dared not openly displease Anne. It was Anne that Chapuys blamed.

Anne hated the Princess. The King had a real love for her. In her illness he had been studiously kind. When told it had been caused by mental trouble he said, with a sigh, “that it was pity her obstinacy should prevent him from treating her as he wished and as she deserved. The case was the harder, as he knew that her conduct had been dictated by her mother, and he was therefore obliged to keep them separate.”299

The Privy Councillors appear to have remonstrated with Anne on her behaviour to Mary. Passionate scenes, at any rate, had occurred between her and Henry’s principal Ministers. She spoke to her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, in terms “which would not be used to a dog.” Norfolk left the room in indignation, muttering that she was a “grande putaine.” The malcontents increased daily and became bolder in word and action. Lord Northumberland, Anne’s early lover, of whom Darcy had been doubtful, professed now to be so disgusted with the malice and arrogance of the Lady that he, too, looked to the Emperor’s coming as the only remedy. Lord Sandys, Henry’s chamberlain, withdrew to his house, pretending sickness, and sent Chapuys a message that the Emperor had the hearts of the English people, and, at the least motion which the Emperor might make, the realm would be in confusion.300 The news from Fitzgerald was less satisfactory. His resources were failing, and he wanted help, but he was still standing out. England, however, was more and more sure; the northern counties were unanimous, in the south and west the Marquis of Exeter and the Poles were superior to any force which could be brought against them; the spread of Lutheranism was creating more exasperation than even the divorce. Moderate men had hoped for an arrangement with the new Pope. Instead of it, the heretical preachers were more violent than ever, and the King was believed to have encouraged them. Dr. Brown, an Augustinian friar, and General of the Mendicant Order, who, as some believed, had married the King and Anne, had dared to maintain in a sermon “that the Bishops and all others who did not burn the Bulls which they had received from the Pope, and obtain others from the King, deserved to be punished. Their authority was derived from the King alone. Their sacred chrism would avail them nothing while they obeyed the Idol of Rome, who was a limb of the Devil.”

“Language so abominable,” said Chapuys, in reporting it, “must have been prompted by the King, or else by Cromwell, who made the said monk his right hand in all things unlawful;” Cromwell and Cranmer being of Luther’s opinion that there was no difference between priests and bishops, save what the letters patent of the Crown might constitute. “Cromwell,” Chapuys said, “had been feeling his way with some of the Bench on the subject.” At a meeting of Council he had asked Gardiner and others whether the King could not make and unmake bishops at his pleasure. They were obliged to answer that he could, to save their benefices.301

Outrages so flagrant had shocked beyond longer endurance the Conservative mind of England. Darcy, at the beginning of the new year (a year which, as he hoped, was to witness an end to them), sent Chapuys a present of a sword, as an indication that the time was come for sword-play.302 Let the Emperor send but a little money; let a proclamation be drawn in his name that the nation was in arms for the cause of God and the Queen, the comfort of the people, and the restoration of order and justice, and a hundred thousand men would rush to the field. The present was the propitious moment. If action was longer delayed it might be too late.303

To the enthusiastic and the eager the cause which touches themselves the nearest seems always the most important in the world. Charles V. had struggled long to escape the duty which the Pope and destiny appeared to be combining to thrust upon him. With Germany unsettled, with the Turks in Hungary, with Barbarossa’s corsair-fleet commanding the Mediterranean and harassing the Spanish coast, with another French war visibly ahead, and a renewed invasion of Italy, Charles was in no condition to add Henry to the number of his enemies. Chapuys and Darcy, Fisher and Reginald Pole allowed passion to persuade them that the English King was Antichrist in person, the centre of all the disorder which disturbed the world. All else could wait, but the Emperor must first strike down Antichrist and then the rest would be easy. Charles was wiser than they, and could better estimate the danger of what he was called on to undertake; but he could not shut his ears entirely to entreaties so reiterated. Before anything could be done, however, means would have to be taken to secure the persons of the Queen and Princess – of the Princess especially, as she would be in most danger. So far he had discouraged her escape when it had been proposed to him, since, were she once in his hands, he had thought that war could no longer be avoided. He now allowed Chapuys to try what he could do to get her out of the country, and meanwhile to report more particularly on the landing of an invading force.

The escape itself presented no great difficulty. The Princess was generally at the Palace at Greenwich. Her friends would let her out at night; an armed barge could be waiting off the walls, and a Flemish man-of-war might be ready at the Nore, of size sufficient to beat off boats that might be sent in pursuit. Should she be removed elsewhere the enterprise would not be so easy. In the event of an insurrection while she was still in the realm, Chapuys said the first step of the Lords would be to get possession of her mother and Mary. If they failed, the King would send them to the Tower: but in the Tower they would be out of danger, as the Constable, Sir William Kingston, was their friend. In any case he did not believe that hurt would be done them, the King feeling that, if war did break out, they would be useful as mediators, like the wife and mother of Coriolanus.

CHAPTER XVII

Prospects of civil war – England and Spain – Illness of the Princess Mary – Plans for her escape – Spirit of Queen Catherine – The Emperor unwilling to interfere – Negotiations for a new treaty between Henry and Charles – Debate in the Spanish Council of State – The rival alliances – Disappointment of the confederate Peers – Advance of Lutheranism in England – Cromwell and Chapuys – Catherine and Mary the obstacles to peace – Supposed designs on Mary’s life.

England, to all appearance, was now on the eve of a bloody and desperate war. The conspirators were confident of success; but conspirators associate exclusively with persons of their own opinions, and therefore seldom judge accurately of the strength of their opponents. Chapuys and his friends had been equally confident about Ireland. Fitzgerald was now a fugitive, and the insurrection was burning down; yet the struggle before Henry would have been at least as severe as had been encountered by his grandfather Edward, and the country itself would have been torn to pieces; one notable difference only there was in the situation – that the factions of the Roses had begun the battle of themselves, without waiting for help from abroad; the reactionaries under Henry VIII., confessedly, were afraid to stir without the avowed support of the Emperor; and Charles, when the question came seriously before him, could not have failed to ask himself why, if they were as strong as they pretended, and the King’s party as weak as they said it was, they endured what they could easily prevent.

These reflections naturally presented themselves both to the Emperor and to the Spanish Council when they had to decide on the part which they would take. If what Chapuys represented as a mere demonstration should turn into serious war, England and France would then unite in earnest; they would combine with Germany; and Europe would be shaken with a convulsion of which it was impossible to foresee the end. The decision was momentous, and Charles paused before coming to a resolution. Weeks passed, and Chapuys could have no positive answer, save that he was to give general encouragement to the Queen’s friends, and let them know that the Emperor valued their fidelity. Weary of his hesitation, and hoping to quicken his resolution, Catherine sent Chapuys word that the Princess was to be forced to swear to the Act of Supremacy, and that, on her refusal, she was to be executed or imprisoned for life. Catherine wrote what she, perhaps, believed, but could not know. But the suspense was trying, and the worst was naturally looked for. News came that English sailors had been burnt by the Inquisition at Seville as heretics. Cromwell observed to Chapuys that “he had heard the Emperor was going to make a conquest of the realm.” The Ambassador had the coolness to assure him that he was dreaming; and that such an enterprise had never been thought of. Cromwell knew better. He had learnt, for one thing, of the plans for Mary’s escape. He knew what that would mean, and he had, perhaps, prevented it. The project had been abandoned for the moment. Instead of escaping, she had shown symptoms of the same dangerous illness by which she had been attacked before. There was the utmost alarm, and, as a pregnant evidence of the condition of men’s minds, the physicians refused to prescribe for her, lest, if she died, they should be suspected of having poisoned her. The King’s physician declined. Queen Catherine’s physician declined – unless others were called in to assist – and the unfortunate girl was left without medical help, in imminent likelihood of death, because every one felt that her dying at such a time would be set down to foul play. The King sent for Chapuys and begged that he would select a doctor, or two doctors, of eminence to act with his own. Chapuys, with polite irony, replied that it was not for him to make a selection; the King must be better acquainted than he could be with the reputation of the London physicians; and the Emperor would be displeased if he showed distrust of his Majesty’s care for his child. Cromwell, who was present, desired that if the Princess grew worse Chapuys would allow one of his own people to be with her. Henry continued to express his grief at her sufferings. Some members of the Council “had not been ashamed to say” that as men could find no means of reconciling the King with the Emperor, God might open a door by taking the Princess to himself. It was a very natural thought. Clement had said the same about Catherine. But the aspiration would have been better left unexpressed.304 Chapuys’s suspicions were not removed. He perceived the King’s anxiety to be unfeigned; but he detested him too sincerely to believe that in anything he could mean well. The Princess recovered. Catherine took advantage of the attack to entreat again that her daughter might be under her own charge. It was cruel to be obliged to refuse.

Chapuys presented the Queen’s request. The King, he said, heard him patiently and graciously, and, instead of the usual answer that he knew best how to provide for his daughter, replied, gently, that he would do his utmost for the health of the Princess, and, since her mother’s physician would not assist, he would find others. But to let Chapuys understand that he was not ignorant of his secret dealings, he said he could not forget what was due to his own honour. The Princess might be carried out of the kingdom, or might herself escape. She could easily do it if she was left in her mother’s charge. He had perceived some indications, he added significantly, that the Emperor wished to have her in his hands.

Ambassadors have a privilege of lying. Chapuys boldly declared that there was no probability of the Emperor attempting to carry off the Princess. The controversy had lasted five years, and there had been no indication of any such purpose. The King said that it was Catherine who had made the Princess so obstinate. Daughters owed some obedience to their mothers, but their first duty was to the father. This Chapuys did not dispute, but proposed as an alternative that she should reside with her old governess, Lady Salisbury. The King said the Countess was a foolish woman, and of no experience.305

The difficulty was very great. To refuse so natural a request was to appear hard and unfeeling; yet to allow Catherine and Mary to be together was to furnish a head to the disaffection, of the extent of which the King was perfectly aware. He knew Catherine, and his words about her are a key to much of their relations to one another. “She was of such high courage,” he said, “that, with her daughter at her side, she might raise an army and take the field against him with as much spirit as her mother Isabella.”306

Catherine of Aragon had qualities with which history has not credited her. She was no patient, suffering saint, but a bold and daring woman, capable, if the opportunity was offered her, of making Henry repent of what he had done. But would the opportunity ever come? Charles was still silent. Chapuys continued to feed the fire with promises. Granvelle, Charles’s Minister, might be more persuasive than himself. To Granvelle the Ambassador wrote “that the Concubine had bribed some one to pretend a revelation from God that she was not to conceive children while the Queen and the Princess were alive. The Concubine had sent the man with the message to the King, and never ceased [Wolsey had called Anne ‘the night crow’] to exclaim that the ladies were rebels and traitresses, and deserved to die.”307