The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

Lord and Lady Exeter were not trustworthy authorities – on this occasion even Chapuys did not believe them – but stories of the kind were in the wind. It was notorious that everything was not well between the King and Lady Anne. A curious light is thrown on the state of Anne’s mind by a letter which she wrote to her aunt, Mrs. Shelton, after Mary’s rejection of her advances. Mrs. Shelton left it lying open on a table. Mary found it, copied it, and replaced it, and the transcript, in Mary’s handwriting, is now at Vienna.

“Mrs. Shelton, – My pleasure is that you seek to go no further to move the Lady Mary towards the King’s grace, other than as he himself directed in his own words to her. What I have done myself has been more for charity than because the King or I care what course she takes, or whether she will change or not change her purpose. When I shall have a son, as soon I look to have, I know what then will come to her. Remembering the word of God, that we should do good to our enemies, I have wished to give her notice before the time, because by my daily experience I know the wisdom of the King to be such that he will not value her repentance or the cessation of her madness and unnatural obstinacy when she has no longer power to choose. She would acknowledge her errors and evil conscience by the law of God and the King if blind affection had not so sealed her eyes that she will not see but what she pleases.

“Mrs. Shelton, I beseech you, trouble not yourself to turn her from any of her wilful ways, for to me she can do neither good nor ill. Do your own duty towards her, following the King’s commandment, as I am assured that you do and will do, and you shall find me your good lady, whatever comes.

“Your good Mistress,“Anne R.”

CHAPTER XXI

Funeral of Catherine – Miscarriage of Anne – The Princess Mary and the Act of Supremacy – Her continued desire to escape – Effect of Catherine’s death on Spanish policy – Desire of the Emperor to recover the English alliance – Chapuys and Cromwell – Conditions of the treaty – Efforts of the Emperor to recover Henry to the Church – Matrimonial schemes – Likelihood of a separation of the King from Anne – Jane Seymour – Anne’s conduct – The Imperial treaty – Easter at Greenwich – Debate in Council – The French alliance or the Imperial – The alternative advantages – Letter of the King to his Ambassador in Spain.

Catherine was buried with some state in Peterborough Cathedral, on the 29th of January. In the ceremonial she was described as the widow of Prince Arthur, not as the Queen of England, and the Spanish Ambassador, therefore, declined to be present. On the same day Anne Boleyn again miscarried, and this time of a male infant. She laid the blame of her misfortune on the Duke of Norfolk. The King had been thrown from his horse; Norfolk, she said, had alarmed her, by telling her of the accident too suddenly. This Chapuys maliciously said that the King knew to be untrue, having been informed she had heard the news with much composure. The disappointment worked upon his mind; he said he saw plainly God would give him no male children by that woman; he went once to her bedside, spoke a few cold words, and left her with an intimation that he would speak to her again when she was recovered. Some concluded that there was a defect in her constitution; others whispered that she had been irritated at attentions which the King had been paying to Jane Seymour, who in earlier days had been a lady-in-waiting to Catherine. Anne herself, according to a not very credible story of Chapuys’s, was little disturbed; her ladies were lamenting; she consoled them by saying that it was all for the best; the child that had been lost had been conceived in the Queen’s lifetime, and the legitimacy of it might have been doubtful; no uncertainty would attach to the next.378 It is not likely that Anne felt uncertain on such a point, or would have avowed it if she had. She might have reasons of her own for her hopes of another chance. Henry seemed to have no hope at all; he sent Chapuys a message through Cromwell that Mary’s situation was now changed; her train should be increased, and her treatment improved – subject, however, of course, to her submission.

Mary had made up her mind, under Chapuys’s advice, that if a prince was born, she would acknowledge the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Succession with a secret protest, as the Emperor had recommended her. She had no intention, however, of parting with her pretensions, and alienating her friends, as long as there was no brother whose claims she could not dispute. Chapuys had imagined, and Mary had believed, that the Emperor would have resented the alleged poisoning of Catherine; that, instead of her death removing the danger of war, as Henry supposed, war had now become more certain than ever. With this impression, the Princess still kept her mind fixed on escaping out of the country, and continued to press Chapuys to take her away. She had infinite courage; a Flemish ship was hovering about the mouth of the Thames ready to come up, on receiving notice, within two or three miles of Gravesend. The house to which she had been removed was forty miles from the place where she would have to embark; it was inconvenient for the intended enterprise, and was, perhaps, guarded, though she did not know it. She thought, however, that, if Chapuys would send her something to drug her women with, she could make her way into the garden, and the gate could be broken open. “She was so eager,” Chapuys said, “that, if he had told her to cross the Channel in a sieve, she would venture it;” the distance from Gravesend was the difficulty: the Flemish shipmaster was afraid to go higher up the river: a forty miles’ ride would require relays of horses, and the country through which she had to pass was thickly inhabited. Means, however, might be found to take her down in a boat, and if she was once out of England, and under the Emperor’s protection, Chapuys was convinced that the King would no longer kick against the pricks.

Mary herself was less satisfied on this point. Happy as she would be to find herself out of personal danger, she feared her father might still persist in his heresies, and bring more souls to perdition; “she would, therefore, prefer infinitely,” she said, “the general and total remedy so necessary for God’s service.” She wished Chapuys to send another messenger to the Emperor, to stir him up to activity. But Chapuys, desperate of rousing Charles by mere entreaties, encouraged her flight out of the country as the surest means of bringing Henry to a reckoning. The difficulty would not be very great; the King had shown an inclination to be more gentle with her; Mrs. Shelton had orders to admit her mother’s physician to her at any time that he pleased; and others of the household at Kimbolton were to be transferred to her service; these relaxations would make the enterprise much easier, and Chapuys was disposed to let it be tried. The Emperor’s consent, however, was of course a preliminary condition, and his latest instructions had been unfavourable. The Ambassador, therefore, referred the matter once more to Charles’s judgment, adding only, with a view to his own safety, that, should the escape be carried out, his own share in it would immediately be suspected; and the King, who had no fear of anyone in the world, would undoubtedly kill him. He could be of no use in the execution of the plot, and would, therefore, make an excuse to cross to Flanders before the attempt was made.379

Chapuys’s precipitancy had been disappointed before, and was to be disappointed again; he had worked hard to persuade Charles that Catherine had been murdered; Charles, by the manner in which he received the intelligence, showed that his Minister’s representations had not convinced him. In sending word to the Empress that the Queen was dead, the Emperor said that accounts differed as to her last illness: some saying that it was caused by an affection of the stomach, which had lasted for some days; others that she had drunk something suspected to have contained poison. He did not himself say that he believed her to have been poisoned, nor did he wish it to be repeated as coming from him. The Princess, he heard, was inconsolable; he hoped God would have pity on her. He had gone into mourning, and had ordered the Spanish Court to do the same.380

In Spain there was an obvious consciousness that nothing had been done of which notice could be taken. Had there been a belief that a Spanish princess had been made away with in England, as the consummation of a protracted persecution, so proud a people would indisputably have demanded satisfaction. The effect was exactly the opposite. Articles had been drawn by the Spanish Council for a treaty with France as a settlement of the dispute about Milan. One of the conditions was the stipulation to which Cromwell had referred in a conversation with Chapuys, that France was to undertake the execution of the Papal sentence and the reduction of England to the Church. The Queen being dead, the Emperor’s Council recommended that this article should now be withdrawn, and the recovery of the King be left to negotiation.381 Instead of seeing in Catherine’s death an occasion for violence, they found in it a fresh motive for a peaceful arrangement.

It was assumed that if the Princess escaped, and if Henry did not then submit, war would be the immediate consequence. The Emperor, always disinclined towards the “remedy” which his Ambassador had so long urged upon him, acted as Cromwell expected. The adventurous flight to Gravesend had to be abandoned, and he decided that Mary must remain quiet. In protecting Catherine while alive he had so far behaved like a gentleman and a man of honour. He was her nearest relation, and it was impossible for him to allow her to be pushed aside without an effort to prevent it. But as a statesman he had felt throughout that a wrong to his relation, or even a wrong to the Holy See, in the degraded condition of the Papacy, was no sufficient cause for adding to the confusions of Christendom. He had rather approved than condemned the internal reforms in the Church of England: and, after taking time to reflect and perhaps inquire more particularly into the circumstances of Catherine’s end, he behaved precisely as he would have done if he was satisfied that her death was natural: he gave Chapuys to understand, in a letter from Naples,382 that, if a fresh opening presented itself, he must take up again the abandoned treaty; and the secret interviews recommenced between the Ambassador and the English Chief Secretary.

These instructions must have arrived a week after the plans had been completed for Mary’s escape, and Chapuys had to swallow his disappointment and obey with such heart as he could command. The first approaches were wary on both sides. Cromwell said that he had no commission to treat directly; and that, as the previous negotiations had been allowed to drop, the first overtures must now come from the Emperor; the Queen being gone, however, the ground of difference was removed, and the restoration of the old alliance was of high importance to Christendom; the King and the Emperor united could dictate peace to the world; France was on the eve of invading Italy, and had invited the King to make a simultaneous attack upon Flanders; a party in the Council wished him to consent; the King, however, preferred the friendship of the Emperor, and, Catherine being no longer alive, there was nothing to keep them asunder.

Chapuys, who never liked the proposal of a treaty at all, listened coldly; he said he had heard language of that kind before, and wished for something more precise; Cromwell replied that he had been speaking merely his own opinion; he had no authority and, therefore, could not enter into details; if there was to be a reconciliation, he repeated that the Emperor must make the advances.

The Emperor, Chapuys rejoined, would probably make four conditions: the King must be reconciled to the Church as well as to himself; the Princess must be restored to her rank and be declared legitimate; the King must assist in the war with the Turks, and the league must be offensive as well as defensive.

Cromwell’s answer was more encouraging than Chapuys perhaps desired. The fourth article, he said, would be accepted at once, and on the third the King would do what he could; no great objection would be made to the second; the door was open. Reconciliation with Rome would be difficult, but even that was not impossible. If the Emperor would write under his own hand to the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and to the Duke of Richmond, who in mind and body singularly resembled his father, much might be done.

A confidential Minister would not have ventured so far without knowing Henry’s private views, and such large concessions were a measure of the decline of Anne Boleyn’s influence. As regarded the Princess Mary, Chapuys had found that there was a real disposition to be more kind to her, for the King had sent her a crucifix which had belonged to her mother, containing a piece of the true cross, which Catherine had desired that she should have,383 and had otherwise showed signs of a father’s affection.

The Emperor himself now appears upon the scene, and the eagerness which he displayed for a reconciliation showed how little he had really seen to blame in Henry’s conduct. So long as Catherine lived he was bound in honour to insist on her acknowledgment as queen; but she was gone, and he was willing to say no more about her. He saw that the intellect and energy of England were running upon the German lines. Chapuys, and perhaps other correspondents more trustworthy, had assured him that, if things went on as they were going, the hold of the Catholic Church on the English people would soon be lost. The King himself, if he wished it, might not be able to check the torrent, and the opinion of his vassals and his own imperious disposition might carry him to the extreme lengths of Luther. The Emperor was eager to rescue Henry before it was too late from the influences under which his quarrel with the Pope had plunged him. He praised Chapuys’s dexterity; he was pleased with what Cromwell had said, and proceeded himself to take up the points of the proposals.

“The withdrawal of the King from the Church of Rome,” he said, “was a matter of great importance. His pride might stand in the way of his turning back: he might be ashamed of showing a want of resolution before the world and before his subjects, and he was obstinate in his own opinions.” Charles, therefore, directed Chapuys to lay before him such considerations as were likely to affect his judgment, the peril to his soul, the division and confusion sure to arise in his realm, and the evident danger should the Pope go on to the execution of the sentence and call in the assistance of the Princes of Christendom. Under the most favourable aspect, both he and his supporters would be held in continual anxiety; and, though he might be able to maintain what he had begun as long as he himself lived, he could not do it without great difficulty, and would inevitably leave an inheritance of calamity to those who came after him. Chapuys was to advise him, therefore, to take timely measures for the security of the realm, and either refer his differences with the Pope to a General Council, or trust to Charles himself to negotiate for him with the Holy See, which he might assure himself that Charles would do on honourable and favourable terms. The chief objections likely to be raised by Henry would be the Pope’s sentence in the divorce case, the interests of his country in the annates question, and other claims upon the realm which the Pope pretended. The first could be disposed of in the arrangement to be made for the Princess; the annates could be moderated, and a limit fixed for the Pope’s other demands; as to the supreme authority over the Church of England, Chapuys might persuade the King that the relative positions of the Crown and the Holy See might be determined to his own honour, and the profit and welfare of the realm.384 The Emperor, indeed, was obliged to add he could give no pledge to the prejudice of the Church without the Pope’s consent, but Chapuys might promise that he would use his utmost exertions to bring about a reasonable composition. Charles evidently did not intend to allow the pretensions of the Papacy to stand in the way of the settlement of Europe. If the Ambassador saw that a reconciliation with Rome was hopeless, sooner than lose the treaty the Emperor was ready to consent to leave that point out in order to carry the others, provided the King did not require him directly to countenance what he had done. As to the Princess, care would have to be taken not to compromise the honour of the late Queen, or the legitimacy and rights of her daughter. If her father would not consent to recognise formally her claim on the succession, that too might be left in suspense till the King’s death; and Charles was willing to undertake that, as long as Henry lived, no action was to be taken against him, and none permitted to be taken on the part of any one, not even of the Pope, to punish him for his treatment of Catherine – not though her end had been hastened, as some suspected, by sinister means. A marriage could be arranged for Mary between the King and the Emperor; and, should the King himself decide to abandon the Concubine and marry again in a fit and convenient manner, Chapuys was to offer no opposition, and the Emperor said that he would not object to help him in conformity with the treaty.385

It was obvious to everyone that, if Henry separated from Anne, an immediate marriage with some other person would follow. Charles was already weighing the possibility, and when the event occurred it will be seen that he lost not a moment in endeavouring to secure Henry’s hand for another of his own relations. Princes and statesmen are not scrupulous in arranging their political alliances, but, considering all that had happened and all that was about to happen, the readiness of Charles V. to bestow a second kinswoman on the husband of Queen Catherine may be taken to prove that his opinion of Henry’s character was less unfavourable than that which is generally given by historians.

Cromwell had been premature in allowing a prospect of the restoration of the Papal authority in England. Charles, in his eagerness to smooth matters, had suggested that a way might be found to leave the King the reality of the supremacy, while the form was left to the Pope. But no such arrangement was really possible, and Henry had gone on with his legislative measures against the Church as if no treaty was under consideration. Parliament had met again, and had passed an Act for the suppression of the smaller monasteries. That the Emperor should be suing to him for an alliance while he was excommunicated by the Pope, and was deliberately pursuing a policy which was exasperating his own clergy, was peculiarly agreeable to Henry, and he enjoyed the triumph which it gave him; a still greater triumph would be another marriage into the Imperial family; and a wish that he should form some connection, the legality of which could not be disputed, was widely entertained and freely uttered among his own subjects. Chapuys, before Charles’s letter could have reached him, had been active in encouraging the idea. He had spoken to Mary about it, and Mary had been so delighted at the prospect of her father’s separation from Anne, that she said she would rejoice at it, though it cost her the succession.386 That the King was likely to part with Anne was the general talk of London. Chapuys called on Cromwell, alluded to the rumour which had reached him, and intimated how much mischief would be avoided if the King could make up his mind to take another wife, against whom no objection could be brought. Cromwell said that he had never himself been in favour of the marriage with Anne, but, seeing the King bent on it, he had assisted him to the best of his power; he believed, however, that, the thing having been done, the King would abide by it; he might pay attentions to other ladies, but they meant nothing.

Cromwell’s manner seemed peculiar, and Chapuys observed him more closely. The Secretary was leaning against a window, turning away his face as if to conceal a smile. There had been a report that some French princess was being thought of, and perhaps Chapuys made some allusion to it; for Cromwell said that Chapuys might assure himself that, if the King did take another wife, he would not look for her in France.

The smile might have had a meaning which Chapuys could not suspect. The Secretary was by this time acquainted with circumstances in Anne’s conduct which might throw another aspect on the situation, but the moment had not come to reveal them. It is likely enough that the King had been harassed and uncertain. The air was thick with stories claiming to be authentic. Lady Exeter had told Chapuys that the King had sent a purse and a letter to Jane Seymour, of whom Anne had been jealous. Jane Seymour had returned the letter unopened and the money along with it, and had prayed the bearer to say to the King that he must keep his presents till she made some honourable marriage.

Lady Exeter and her friends made their own comments. Anne’s enemies, it was said, were encouraging the intimacy with Jane, and had told the lady to impress upon the King that the nation detested his connection with Anne and that no one believed it lawful; as if it was likely that a woman in the position in which Jane Seymour was supposed to stand could have spoken to him on such a subject, or would have recommended herself to Henry, if she did. At the same time it is possible and even probable that Henry, observing her quiet, modest and upright character, may have contrasted her with the lady to whom he had bound himself, may have wished that he could change one for the other, and may even have thought of doing it; but that, as Cromwell said, he had felt that he must make no more changes, and must abide by the destiny which he had imposed on himself.387

For, in fact, it was not open to Henry to raise the question of the lawfulness of his marriage with Anne, or to avail himself of it if raised by others. He had committed himself far too deeply, and the Parliament had been committed along with him, to the measures by which the marriage was legalised. Yet Anne’s ascendancy was visibly drawing to an end, and clouds of a darker character were gathering over her head. In the early days of her married life outrageous libels had been freely circulated, both against her and against the King. Henry had been called a devil. The Duke of Norfolk had spoken of his niece as a grande putaine. To check these effusive utterances the severest penalties had been threatened by proclamation against all who dared to defame the Queen’s character, and no one had ventured to whisper a word against her. But her conduct had been watched; light words, light actions had been observed and carefully noted. Her overbearing manner had left her without a friend save her own immediate connections and personal allies. “Men’s mouths had been shut when they knew what ought not to have been concealed.”388 A long catalogue of misdeeds had been registered, with dates and particulars, treasured up for use by the ladies of the household, as soon as it should become safe to speak; and if her conduct had been really as abandoned as it was afterwards alleged to have been, the growing alienation of the King may be easily understood. It was impossible for any woman to have worn a mask so long and never to have given her husband occasion for dissatisfaction. Incidents must have occurred in the details of daily life, if not to rouse his suspicions, yet to have let him see that the woman for whom he had fought so fierce a battle had never been worth what she had cost him.

Anne Boleyn’s fortunes, however, like Catherine’s, were but an episode in the affairs of England and of Christendom, and the treaty with the Emperor was earnestly proceeded with as if nothing was the matter. The great concerns of nations are of more consequence to contemporary statesmen than the tragedies or comedies of royal households. Events rush on; the public interests which are all-absorbing while they last are superseded or forgotten; the personal interests remain, and the modern reader thinks that incidents which most affect himself must have been equally absorbing to every one at the time when they occurred. The mistake is natural, but it is a mistake notwithstanding. The great question of the hour was the alternative alliance with the Empire or with France, and the result to be expected from the separation of England from Rome.