The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

The Emperor wrote, as Cromwell had suggested, to the three Dukes. Chapuys paid Cromwell a visit at his country-house in the middle of April, to discuss again the four conditions. Cromwell had laid them before the King, and had to report his answer. The reconciliation with Rome was declared impossible. Henry said that the injuries to England by the Pope’s sentence had been too great, and the statutes too recent to be repealed. The Pope himself was now making overtures, and was disposed to gratify the King as much as possible. Something, therefore, might be done in the future, but for the present the question could not be entertained. Cromwell offered to show the Ambassador the Pope’s letters, if he wished to see them. Chapuys observed sarcastically that, after all that had passed, the King ought to be highly gratified at finding his friendship solicited by the Pope and the Emperor, the two parties whom he had most offended. It might be hoped that, having enjoyed his triumph, the King would now recollect that something was due to the peace of Christendom. Cromwell did not attempt a repartee, and let the observation pass. He said, however, that he hoped much from time. On the other points, all consideration would be shown for the Princess, but the King could not consent to make her the subject of an article in the treaty; no difficulty would be made about assistance in the Turkish war; as to France, the Council were now unanimous in recommending the Imperial alliance, and had represented their views to the King. The King was pausing over his resolution, severely blaming the course which Francis was pursuing, but less willing to break with France than Cromwell had himself expected. Francis, Cromwell said, had stood by the King as a friend in the worst of his difficulties, and the King did not like to quarrel with him; he, however, intended to speak to Chapuys himself.

The Court was keeping Easter at Greenwich, and thither the Ambassador repaired. Easter Sunday falling on the 16th of April, the Chapter of the Garter was to be held there, and the assembly was large and splendid. Anne Boleyn was present in state as Queen, with her brother Lord Rochford, the demeanour of both of them undisturbed by signs of approaching storm. When Chapuys presented himself, Rochford paid him particular attention. The Ambassador had been long absent from the Court circle. Cromwell told him that the King would be pleased if he would now pay his respects to Anne, which he had never hitherto done, adding that, if he objected, it would not be insisted on. Chapuys excused himself. For various reasons, he said, he thought it not desirable. Cromwell said that his answer would be taken in good part, and hoped that the rest of their business would run smoothly.

Henry himself passed by as Cromwell was speaking to Chapuys. He bowed, took off his cap, and motioned to the Ambassador to replace his own. He then inquired after his health, asked how the Emperor was, how things were going in Italy – in short, was particularly courteous.

Service followed in the chapel. Rochford conducted Chapuys thither, and, as his sister was to be present and an encounter could not be avoided, people were curious to see how she and the Ambassador would behave to each other. Anne was “affable” enough, and curtseyed low as she swept past.

After mass the King and several members of the Council dined in Anne’s apartments. As it was presumed that Chapuys would not desire to form one of the party, he was entertained by the household. Anne asked why he had not been invited. The King said there was reason for it.

Dinner over, Henry led Chapuys into his private cabinet, Cromwell following with the Chancellor Audeley. No one else was present at the beginning of the conference. The King drew the Ambassador apart into a window, when Chapuys again produced at length his four points. The King listened patiently as Chapuys expatiated on the action of the French, remarking only that Milan and Burgundy belonged to France and not to the Emperor. The observation showed Chapuys that things were not yet as he could have wished. He inquired whether, if the treaty was made, England would be prepared to assist the Emperor should France attack the Duke of Gueldres. Henry answered that he would do his part better than others had done their parts with him; he then called up Cromwell and Audeley, and made Chapuys repeat what he had said. This done, Chapuys withdrew to another part of the room, and fell into conversation with Sir Edward Seymour, who had since entered. He left Henry talking earnestly with the two Ministers, and between him and them Chapuys observed that there was a strong difference of opinion. The King’s voice rose high. Cromwell, after a time, left him, and, saying that he was thirsty, seated himself on a chest out of the King’s sight and asked for water. The King then rejoined the Ambassador, and told him that his communications were of such importance that he must have them in writing. Chapuys objected that this was unusual. He had no order to write anything, and dared not go beyond his instructions. Henry was civil, but persisted, saying that he could give no definite answer till he had the Emperor’s offer in black and white before him. Generally, however, he said that his quarrel with Rome did not concern the Emperor. If he wished to treat with the Pope, he could do it without the Emperor’s interposition; the Princess was his daughter, and would be used according to her deserts; a subvention for the Turkish war might be thought of when the alliance with Charles was renewed. Finally he said that he would not refuse his friendship to those who sought it in becoming terms, but he was not a child, to be whipped first and then caressed and invited back again and called sweet names. He drummed with his finger on his knees as he spoke. He insisted that he had been injured and expected an acknowledgment that he had been injured. The overtures, he repeated, must come from the Emperor. The Emperor must write him a letter requesting him to forget and forgive the past, and no more should then be said about it; but such a letter he must and would have. Chapuys restrained his temper. He said it was unreasonable to expect the Emperor to humiliate himself. Henry only grew more excited, called Charles ungrateful, declared that but for himself he would never have been on the Imperial throne, or even have recovered his authority in Spain when the commons had revolted; and, in return, the Emperor had stirred up Pope Clement to deprive him of his kingdom.

Chapuys said it was not the Emperor’s doing. The Pope had done it himself, at the solicitation of other parties.

So the conference ended, and not satisfactorily. Henry was not a child to be whipped and caressed. Charles wanted him now, because he was threatened by France; and he, of his own judgment, preferred the Imperial alliance, like the rest of his countrymen; but Charles had coerced the Pope into refusing a concession which the Pope had admitted to be just, and the King knew better than his Council that the way to secure the Emperor’s friendship was not to appear too eager for it.

The sharpness with which the King had spoken disappointed and even surprised Cromwell, who, when the audience was over, could hardly speak for vexation. His impression apparently was that the French faction had still too much influence with the King, and the French faction was the faction of Anne. He recovered his spirits when Chapuys informed him of the concessions which the Emperor was prepared to make, and said that he still hoped for “a good result.”

The next morning, Wednesday, 19th of April, the Privy Council met again in full number. They sate for three hours. The future of England, the future of Europe, appeared to them at that moment to be hanging on the King’s resolution. They went in a body to him and represented on their knees that they believed the Imperial alliance essential to the safety of the country, and they implored him not to reject a hand so unexpectedly held out to him on a mere point of honour. Henry, doubtless, felt as they did. Since his quarrel with Charles he had hardly known a quiet hour; he had been threatened with war, ruin of trade, interdict, and internal rebellion. On a return to the old friendship the sullen clergy, the angry Peers, would be compelled into submission, for the friend on whom they most depended would have deserted them; the traders would no longer be in alarm for their ventures; the Pope and his menaces would become a laughingstock, and in the divorce controversy the right would be tacitly allowed to have been with the King, since it was to be passed over without being mentioned. Immense advantages. But the imperious pride of Henry insisted on the form as well as the substance – on extorting a definite confession in words as well as a practical acknowledgment. All the troubles which had fallen on him – the quarrel with the Papacy, the obstinate resistance of Catherine and Mary, the threats of invasion, and insurrection – he looked upon as Charles’s work. It was true that the offered friendship was important to England, but England’s friendship was important to the Emperor, and the Emperor must ask for it. He told the kneeling Councillors that he would sooner lose his crown than admit, even by implication, that he had given Charles cause to complain of him. He was willing to take the Emperor’s hand, but he would not seek or sue for it. The Emperor himself must write to him.

Cromwell, in describing what had passed to Chapuys, said that he was sorry that things had gone no better, but that he was not discouraged. The King had directed him to thank Chapuys for his exertions, and, for himself, he trusted that the Ambassador would persevere. If the Emperor would send even a letter of credit the King would be satisfied. In all his private conversations, although he had taken the responsibility on himself, he had acted under the King’s instructions. The Ambassador asked him, if this was so, what could have caused the change. He answered that kings had humours and peculiarities of their own, unknown to ordinary mortals. In spite of what had passed, the King was writing at that moment to Francis, to require him to desist from his enterprise against Italy.

Chapuys replied that he would endeavour to obtain the letter from the Emperor which the King demanded. He wrote to Charles, giving a full and perhaps accurate account of all that had passed; but he ended with advice of his own which showed how well Henry had understood Chapuys’s own character, and the slippery ground on which he was standing. Chapuys had disliked the treaty with England from the beginning. He told his master that Henry’s real purpose was to make him force out of the Pope a revocation of the sentence on the divorce. He recommended the Emperor once more to leave Henry to reap the fruit of his obstinacy, to come to terms with France, and allow the Pope to issue the Bull of Deposition – with a proviso that neither he nor Francis would regard any child as legitimate whom the King might have, either by the Concubine or by any other woman whom he might marry during the Concubine’s life, unless by a dispensation from the Pope, which was not likely to be asked for. He did not venture to hope that the Emperor would agree, but such a course, he said, would bring the King to his senses, and force would be unnecessary.389

To Granvelle the Ambassador wrote more briefly to the same purpose. “God knew,” he said, “how he had worked to bring the King to a right road; but he had found him unspeakably obstinate. The King seemed determined to compel the Emperor to acknowledge that Clement’s sentence had been given under pressure from himself. Cromwell had behaved like an honest man, and had taken to his bed for sorrow. Cromwell knew how necessary the Emperor’s friendship was to the King, but God or the Devil was preventing it.”390

Henry gave his own version of the story to the English Ministers at Charles’s court.

“The Emperor’s Ambassador,” he said, “has been with us at Greenwich with offers to renew the alliance, the conditions being that he would allow the Emperor to reconcile us with the Pope, that we will declare our daughter Mary legitimate and give her a place in the succession, that we will help him against the Turks, and declare war against France should France invade Milan.

“Our answer was that the breach of amity came first from the Emperor himself. We gave him the Imperial crown when it lay with us to dispose of. We lent him money in his difficulties, etc. In return he has shown us nothing but ingratitude, stirring the Bishop of Rome to do us injury. If he will by express writing desire us to forget his unkind doings, or will declare that what we consider unkindness has been wrongly imputed to him, we will gladly embrace his overtures; but as we have sustained the wrong we will not be suitors for reconciliation. As to the Bishop of Rome, we have not proceeded on such slight grounds as we would revoke or alter any part of our doings, having laid our foundation on the Law of God, nature, and honesty, and established our work thereupon with the consent of the Estates of the Realm in open and high court of Parliament. A proposal has been made to us by the Bishop himself which we have not yet embraced, nor would it be expedient that a reconciliation should be compassed by any other means. We should not think the Emperor earnestly desired a reconciliation with us, if he desired us to alter anything for the satisfaction of the Bishop of Rome, our enemy.

“As to our daughter Mary, if she will submit to the laws we will acknowledge and use her as our daughter; but we will not be directed or pressed therein. It is as meet for us to order things here without search for foreign advice as for the Emperor to determine his affairs without our counsel. About the Turks, we can come to no certain resolution; but if a reconciliation of the affairs of Christendom ensue, we will not fail to do our duty. Before we can treat of aid against the French King the amity with the Emperor must first be renewed.“391

CHAPTER XXII

Easter at Greenwich – French and Imperial factions at the English court – Influence of Anne Boleyn – Reports of Anne’s conduct submitted to the King – Flying rumours – Secret Commission of Inquiry – Arrests of various persons – Sir Henry Norris and the King – Anne before the Privy Council – Sent to the Tower – Her behaviour and admissions – Evidence taken before the Commission – Trials of Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton – Letter of Weston – Trial of Anne and her brother – Executions – Speech of Rochford on the scaffold – Anne sentenced to die – Makes a confession to Cranmer – Declared to have not been the King’s lawful wife – Nature of the confession not known – Execution.

At the moment when the King was bearing himself so proudly at the most important crisis of his reign, orthodox historians require us to believe that he was secretly contriving to rid himself of Anne Boleyn by a foul and false accusation, that he might proceed immediately to a new marriage with another lady. Men who are meditating enormous crimes have usually neither leisure nor attention for public business. It is as certain as anything in history can be certain that to startle Europe with a domestic scandal while mighty issues were at stake on which the fate of England depended was the last subject with which England’s King was likely to have been occupied. He was assuming an attitude of haughty independence, where he would need all his strength and all the confidence of his subjects. To conspire at such a moment against the honour and life of a miserable and innocent woman would have occurred to no one who was not a maniac. Rumour had been busy spreading stories that he was weary of Anne and meant to part with her; but a few days previously he had dissolved the Parliament which for seven years had been described as the complacent instrument of his will. He could not be equally assured of the temper of another, hastily elected, in the uneasy condition of the public mind; and, without a Parliament, he could take no action which would affect the succession. However discontented he might be with his present Queen, the dissolution of Parliament is a conclusive proof that at the time of Chapuys’s visit to Greenwich he was not contemplating a matrimonial convulsion. Probably, in spite of all the stories set flowing into Chapuys’s long ears by the ladies of the household, he had resolved to bear his fortune, bad as it was, and was absolutely ignorant of the revelation which was about to break upon him. Husbands are proverbially the last to know of their wives’ infidelities; and the danger of bringing charges which could not be substantiated against a woman in Anne’s position would necessarily keep every lip shut till the evidence could be safely brought forward. Cromwell appears to have been in possession of important information for many weeks. The exposure, however, might still have been delayed, but for the unfavourable answer of the King to the Emperor’s advances, which had so much distressed the advocates of a renewal of the amity. France was now going to war, and making large offers for the English alliance. Henry, though his affection for Anne had cooled, still resented the treatment which he had received from Charles, and had a fair opportunity of revenging himself. The wisest of his Ministers were against Continental adventures, and wished him earnestly to accept the return of a friendship the loss of which had cost the country so dear. But the French faction at the court, Anne and her relations, and the hot-tempered young men who surrounded him, were still able to work upon his wounded pride. Could they plunge the country into war at the side of Francis, they would recover their ascendancy. Any day might see some fatal step taken which could not be recovered. Both Anne and Rochford were bold, able, and unscrupulous, and Cromwell, with a secret in his hand which would destroy them, saw that the time was come to use it.

That it was not accident which connected the outburst of the storm on Anne’s head with the political negotiations is certain from Cromwell’s own words. He told Chapuys that it was the disappointment which he had felt at the King’s reply to him on the Wednesday after Easter that had led him to apply the match to the train.392

A casual incident came to his assistance. A Privy Councillor, whose name is not mentioned, having remarked sharply on the light behaviour of a sister who was attached to the court, the young lady admitted her offence, but said it was nothing in comparison with the conduct of the Queen. She bade her brother examine Mark Smeton, a groom of the chamber and a favourite musician.393 The Privy Councillor related what he had heard to two friends of the King, of whom Cromwell must have been one. The case was so serious that they agreed that the King must be informed. They told him. He started, changed colour, thanked them, and directed an inquiry to be held in strict secrecy. The ladies of the bedchamber were cross-questioned. Lady Worcester394 was “the first accuser.” “Nan Cobham” and a maid gave other evidence; but “Lady Worcester was the first ground.”395

Nothing was allowed to transpire to disturb the festivities at Greenwich. On St. George’s Day, April 23, the Queen and her brother received an intimation that they were in less favour than usual. The Chapter of the Garter was held. An order was vacant; Anne asked that it should be given to Lord Rochford, and the request was refused; it was conferred on her cousin, Sir Nicholas Carew, to her great vexation. In this, however, there was nothing to alarm her. The next day, the 24th, a secret committee was appointed to receive depositions, consisting of the Chancellor, the Judges, Cromwell, and other members of Council; and by this time whispers were abroad that something was wrong, for Chapuys, writing on the 29th of April, said that “it would not be Carew’s fault if Anne was not out of the saddle before long, as he had heard that he was daily conspiring against her and trying to persuade Mistress Seymour and her friends to work her ruin. Four days ago [i. e. on April 25] Carew and other gentlemen sent word to the Princess to take courage, as the King was tired of the Concubine and would not endure her long.”396 Geoffrey Pole, Reginald’s brother, a loose-tongued gentleman, told Chapuys that the Bishop of London (Stokesley) had been lately asked whether the King could dismiss the Concubine; the Bishop had declined to give an opinion till the King asked for it, and even then would not speak till he knew the King’s intention. The Bishop, Chapuys said, was one of the promoters of the first divorce, and was now penitent, the Concubine and all her family being accursed Lutherans.397

Such stories were but surmise and legend. I insert them to omit nothing which may be construed into an indication of conspiracy. The Commission meanwhile was collecting facts which grew more serious every day. On Thursday, the 27th, Sir William Brereton, a gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber, was privately sent to the Tower, and on the 30th was followed thither by the musician Smeton. The next morning, the 1st of May, High Festival was held at Greenwich. A tournament formed a part of the ceremony, with the Court in attendance. Anne sate in a gallery as Queen of the day, while her knights broke lances for her, caring nothing for flying scandal, and unsuspecting the abyss which was opening under her feet. Sir Henry Norris and Lord Rochford were in the lists as defender and challenger, when, suddenly, the King rose; the pageant was broken up in confusion; Henry mounted his horse and, followed by a small train, rode off for London, taking Norris with him. Sir Henry Norris was one of Henry’s most intimate personal friends. He was his equerry, and often slept in his room or in an adjoining closet. The inquiries of the Commission had not yet implicated him as a principal, but it had appeared that circumstances were known to him which he ought to have revealed. The King promised to forgive him if he would tell the truth, but the truth was more than he could dare to reveal. On the following day he, too, was sent to the Tower, having been first examined before the Commissioners, to whom – perhaps misled by some similar hope of pardon held out to him by Sir William Fitzwilliam – he confessed more than it was possible to pardon, and then withdrew what he had acknowledged.398 So far, Smeton only had confessed to “any actual thing,” and it was thought the King’s honour would be touched if the guilt of the rest was not proved more clearly.

Anne had been left at Greenwich. On the next morning she was brought before the Council there, her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, presiding. She was informed that she was charged with adultery with various persons. Her answers, such as they were, the Duke set aside as irrelevant. She complained afterwards that she had been “cruelly handled” by the Council. It was difficult not to be what she would consider cruel. She, too, was conducted up the river to the Tower, where she found that to Smeton and Brereton and Norris another gentleman of the household, Sir Francis Weston, had now been added. A small incident is mentioned which preserves a lost practice of the age. “On the evening of the day on which the Concubine was sent to the Tower, the Duke of Richmond went to his father to ask his blessing, according to the English custom. The King said, in tears, that he, and his sister the Princess, ought to thank God for having escaped the hands of that woman, who had planned to poison them.”399

Chapuys made haste to inform the Emperor of the welcome catastrophe. The Emperor, he said, would recollect the expressions which he had reported as used by Cromwell regarding the possible separation of the King and the Concubine. Both he and the Princess had been ever since anxious that such a separation should be brought about. What they had desired had come to pass better than any one could have hoped, to the great disgrace of the Concubine, who, by the judgment of God, had been brought in full daylight from Greenwich to the Tower, in charge of the Duke of Norfolk and two chamberlains. Report said it was for continued adultery with a spinet-player belonging to her household. The player had been committed to the Tower also, and, after him, Sir H. Norris, the most familiar and private companion of the King, for not having revealed the matter.400

Fresh news poured in as Chapuys was writing. Before closing his despatch he was able to add that Sir Francis Weston and Lord Rochford were arrested also. The startling story flew from lip to lip, gathering volume as it went. Swift couriers carried it to Paris. Viscount Hannaert, the Imperial Ambassador there,401 wrote to Granvelle that Anne had been surprised in bed with the King’s organist.402 In the course of the investigation, witnesses had come forward to say that nine years previously a marriage had been made and consummated between Anne and Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Percy, however, swore, and received the sacrament upon it, before the Duke of Norfolk and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, that no contract or promise of marriage of any kind had passed between them.403 Anne’s attendants in the Tower had been ordered to note what she might say. She denied that she was guilty, sometimes with hysterical passion, sometimes with a flighty levity; but not, so far as her words are recorded, with the clearness of conscious innocence. She admitted that with Norris, Weston, and Smeton she had spoken foolishly of their love for herself, and of what might happen were the King to die. Smeton, on his second examination, confessed that he had on three several occasions committed adultery with the Queen. Norris repudiated his admissions to Sir William Fitzwilliam – what they were is unknown – and offered to maintain his own innocence and the Queen’s with sword and lance. Weston and Brereton persisted in absolute denial.