The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

Wolsey was in equal anxiety. He had set the stone rolling, but he could not stop it. If Clement failed the King now, after all that he had promised, he might not only bring ruin on Wolsey himself, but might bring on the overthrow of the temporal power of the Church of England. Catherine was personally popular; but in the middle classes of the laity, among the peers and gentlemen of England, the exactions of the Church courts, the Pope’s agents and collectors, the despotic tyranny of the Bishops, had created a resentment the extent of which none knew better than he. The entire gigantic system of clerical dominion, of which Wolsey was himself the pillar and representative, was tottering to its fall. If the King was driven to bay, the favour of a good-natured people for a suffering woman would be a poor shelter either for the Church or for him. Campeggio turned to Wolsey for advice on Catherine’s final refusal. The Pope, he said, had hoped that Wolsey would advise the King to yield. Wolsey had advised. He told Cavendish that he had gone on his knees to the King, but he could only say to Campeggio that “the King – fortified and justified by reasons, writings, and counsels of many learned men who feared God – would never yield.” If he was to find that the Pope had been playing with him, and the succession was to be left undetermined, “the Church would be ruined and the realm would be in infinite peril.”

How great, how real, was the dread of a disputed succession, appears from an extraordinary expedient which had suggested itself to Campeggio himself, and which he declares that some perplexed politicians had seriously contemplated. “They have thought,” he wrote on the 28th of October, “of marrying the Princess Mary to the King’s natural son [the Duke of Richmond] if it could be done by dispensation from His Holiness.” The Legate said that at first he had himself thought of this as a means of establishing the succession; but he did not believe it would satisfy the King’s desire.44 If anything could be more astonishing than a proposal for the marriage of a brother and sister, it was the reception which the suggestion met with at Rome. The Pope’s secretary replied that “with regard to the dispensation for marrying the son to the daughter of the King, if on the succession being so established the King would abandon the divorce, the Pope would be much more inclined to grant it.”45

Clement’s estimate of the extent of the dispensing power was large. But the situation was desperate. He had entangled himself in the meshes. He had promised what he had no intention of performing. He was finding that he had been trifling with a lion, and that the lion was beginning to rouse himself. Again and again Wolsey urged the dangers upon him. He wrote on the 1st of November to Casalis that “the King’s honour was touched, having been so great a benefactor to the Holy See. The Pope would alienate all faith and devotion to the Apostolic See. The sparks of opposition which had been extinguished with such care and vigilance would blaze out to the utmost anger of all, both in England and elsewhere.”46 Clement and his Cardinals heard, but imperfectly believed. “He tells us,” wrote Sanga, “that if the divorce is not granted the authority of the Apostolic See in England will be annihilated; he is eager to save it because his own greatness is bound up with ours.” The Curia was incredulous, and thought that Wolsey was only alarmed for himself. Wolsey, however, was right. Although opinions might have varied on the merits of the King’s request, people were beginning to ask what value as a supreme judge a pope could have, who could not decide on a point of canon law.

The excitement was growing. Certain knowledge of what was going on was confined to the few who had access to the secret correspondence, and they knew only what was meant for their own eyes. All parties, English and Imperial alike, distrusted the Pope. He had impartially lied to both, and could be depended on by neither, except so far as they could influence his fears. Catherine was still the favourite with the London citizens. She had been seen accidentally in a gallery of the Palace, and had been enthusiastically cheered. The King found it necessary to explain himself. On the 8th of November he summoned the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, the Privy Council, and a body of Peers, and laid the situation before them from his own point of view. He spoke of his long friendship with the Emperor, and of his hope that it would not be broken, and again of his alliance with France, and of his desire to be at peace with all the world. “He had wished,” he said, “to attach France more closely to him by marrying his daughter to a French prince, and the French Ambassador, in considering the proposal, had raised the question of her legitimacy. His own mind had long misgiven him on the lawfulness of his marriage. M. de Tarbes’ words had added to his uneasiness. The succession to the crown was uncertain; he had consulted his bishops and lawyers, and they had assured him that he had been living in mortal sin… He meant only to do what was right, and he warned his subjects to be careful of forming hasty judgments on their Prince’s actions.”

Apart from the present question the King was extremely popular, and reports arriving from Spain touched the national pride. There was a talk of calling Parliament. Mendoza and Catherine again urged Charles to speak plainly. The Pope must inhibit Parliament from interfering. The Nuncio in London would present the order, and Parliament, they thought, would submit.47 They were mistaking the national temper. Mendoza’s letters had persuaded the Spanish Council that the whole of England was in opposition to the King. The Spanish Chancellor had said publicly that if the cause was proceeded with there would be war, and “the King would be dethroned by his own subjects.” The words were reported to Wolsey, and were confirmed by an English agent, Sylvester Darius, who had been sent to Valladolid on business connected with the truce.48 Darius had spoken to the Chancellor on the probability of England taking active part with France. “Why do you talk of the King of England?” the Chancellor had answered; “if we wished, we could expel him from his kingdom in three months. What force had the King? his own subjects would expel him. He knew how matters were.”49 It was one thing for a free people to hold independent opinions on the arrangements of their own royal family. It was another to be threatened with civil war at the instigation of a foreign sovereign. Wolsey quoted the dangerous language at a public meeting in London; and a voice answered, “The Emperor has lost the hearts of a hundred thousand Englishmen.”50 A fresh firebrand was thrown into the flames immediately after. The national pride was touched on a side where it was already sensitive from interest. There were 15,000 Flemish artisans in London. English workmen had been jealous of their skill, and had long looked askance at them. The cry rose that they had an army of traitors in their midst who must be instantly expelled. The Flemings’ houses were searched for arms, and watched by a guard, and the working city population, traders, shopkeepers, mechanics, apprentices, came over to the King’s side, and remained there.

Meantime the cause itself hung fire. A new feature had been introduced to enable Campeggio to decline to proceed and the Pope to withdraw decently from his promises. The original Bull of Pope Julius permitting the marriage had been found to contain irregularities of form which were supposed fatal to it. The validity of the objection was not denied, but was met by the production of a brief alleged to have been found in Spain, and bearing the same date with the Bull, which exactly met that objection. No trace of such a brief could be found in the Vatican Register. It had informalities of its own, and its genuineness was justly suspected, but it answered the purpose of a new circumstance. A copy only was sent to England, which was shown by Catherine in triumph to Henry, but the original was detained. It would be sent to Rome, but not to London; without it Campeggio could pretend inability to move, and meanwhile he could refuse to proceed on his commission. Subterfuges which answer for the moment revenge themselves in the end. Having been once raised, it was absolutely necessary that a question immediately affecting the succession should be settled in some way, and many of the peers who had been hitherto cool began to back the King’s demands. An address was drawn up, having among others the Duke of Norfolk’s signature, telling the Pope that the divorce must be conceded, and complaints were sent through Casalis against Campeggio’s dilatoriness. The King, he was to say, would not submit to be deluded.

Casalis delivered his message, and describes the effect which it produced. “The Pope,” he wrote, “very angry, laid his hand on my arm and forbade me to proceed, saying there was but too good ground for complaint, and he was deluded by his own councillors. He had granted the decretal only to be shown to the King, and then burnt. Wolsey now wished to divulge it. He saw what would follow, and would gladly recall what had been done, even with the loss of one of his fingers.”

Casalis replied that Wolsey wished only to show it to a few persons whose secrecy might be depended on. Was it not demanded for that purpose? Why had the Pope changed his mind? The Pope, only the more excited, said he saw the Bull would be the ruin of him, and he would make no more concessions. Casalis prayed him to consider. Waving his arms violently, Clement said, “I do consider. I consider the ruin which is hanging over me. I repent what I have done. If heresies arise, is it my fault? I will not violate my conscience. Let them, if they like, send the Legate back, because he will not proceed. They can do as they please, provided they do not make me responsible.”

Did the Pope mean, then, Casalis asked, that the commission should not proceed? The Pope could not say as much as that; he had told Campeggio, he said, to dissuade the King and persuade the Queen. “What harm could there be,” Casalis inquired, “in showing the decretal, under oath, to a few of the Privy Council?”

The Pope said the decretal ought to have been burnt, and refused to discuss the matter further.51

CHAPTER V

Demands of the Imperial Agent at Rome – The alleged Brief – Illness of the Pope – Aspirations of Wolsey – The Pope recovers – Imperial menaces – Clement between the anvil and the hammer – Appeal of Henry to Francis – The trial of the cause to proceed – Instructions to Campeggio – Opinion at Rome – Recall of Mendoza – Final interview between Mendoza and the King.

Human pity is due to the unfortunate Pope – Vicar of Christ, supreme judge in Europe, whose decrees were the inspirations of the Holy Ghost – spinning like a whipped top under the alternate lashes of the King of England and the Emperor. He had hoped that his decretal would not be known. It could not be concealed from Mendoza, who discovered, putting the worst interpretation upon it, “that the Pope and King had been endeavouring to intimidate the Queen into retiring into a convent.” Finding that he, too, could put no faith in Clement, the Emperor’s representative at Rome now forced a new promise from him. The proceedings in England were not to be opened without a fresh direct order from the Pope, and this the Pope was to be forbidden to give. If the King was obstinate and the Queen demanded it, Campeggio was to leave England, and, notwithstanding his engagements to the contrary, Clement was to advocate the cause to Rome. The new brief was sufficient plea. Without it the Legates could come to no conclusion, “the whole right of the Queen being based upon its contents.” The Emperor had it in his hands, and by refusing to allow it to be examined, except at Rome, might prevent them from moving.

There was little doubt that the brief had been forged for the occasion. The Pope having sent a commission to England, the King considered that he had a right to the production of documents essential to the case. He required Catherine to write to Charles to ask for it. Catherine did as he desired, and the messenger who carried her letter to the Spanish Court was sworn to carry no private or separate missive from her. Mendoza dared not write by the same hand himself, lest his despatches should be examined. He made the messenger, therefore, learn a few words by heart, telling the Emperor that the Queen’s letter was not to be attended to. “We thought,” he said, “that the man’s oath was thus saved.”52 Thus time drifted on. The new year came, and no progress had been made, though Campeggio had been three months in England. The Pope, more helpless than dishonest, continued to assure the King that he would do all that by law could be required of him, and as much as he could do ex plenitudine potestatis. No peril should prevent him. “If the King thought his resigning the Papacy would conduce to his purpose, he could be content, for the love he bore his Highness, rather than fail to do the same.”

If the Pope was so well disposed, the King could not see where the difficulty lay. The Queen had refused his entreaty that she should enter religion. Why should not the Pope, then, allow the decretal to be put in execution? But Cardinal Salviati informed Casalis that a sentence given in virtue of the decretal would have no effect, but would only cause the Pope’s deposition.53 Visibly and unpleasantly it became now apparent to Henry to what issues the struggle was tending. He had not expected it. Wolsey had told him that the Pope would yield; and the Pope had promised what was asked; but his promises were turning to vapour. Wolsey had said that the Emperor could not afford to quarrel with him. The King found that war with the Emperor in earnest was likely enough unless he himself drew back, and draw back he would not. The poor Pope was as anxious as Henry. He had spoken of resigning. He was near being spared the trouble. Harassed beyond his strength, he fell ill, and was expected to die; and before Wolsey there was now apparently the strange alternative either of utter disgrace or of himself ascending the chair of St. Peter as Clement’s successor. His election, perhaps, was really among the chances of the situation. The Cardinals had not forgiven the sack of Rome. A French or English candidate had a fair prospect of success, and Wolsey could command the French interest. He had boundless money, and money in the Sacred College was only not omnipotent. He undertook, if he was chosen, to resign his enormous English preferments and reside at Rome, and the vacancy of his three bishoprics and his abbey would pour a cataract of gold into the Cardinals’ purses. The Bulls for English bishoprics had to be paid for on a scale which startled Wolsey himself. Already archbishop of York, bishop of Winchester, and abbot of St. Albans, he had just been presented to Durham. He had paid 8,000 ducats to “expedite” his Bulls for Winchester. The Cardinals demanded 13,000 ducats for Durham. The ducat was worth five shillings, and five shillings in 1528 were worth fifty shillings of modern money. At such a rate were English preferments bled to support the College of Cardinals; and if all these great benefices were again vacated there would be a fine harvest to be gathered. For a week or two the splendid vision suspended even the agitation over the divorce; but the Pope revived, and the Legates and he had to resume their ungrateful burden.

It was still really uncertain what Clement would do. Weak, impulsive men often leave their course to fate or chance to decide for them. Casalis, when he was able to attend to business again, told him in Wolsey’s name that he must take warning from his late danger. “By the wilfully suffering a thing of such high importance to be unreformed to the doing whereof Almighty God worked so openly he would incur God’s displeasure and peril his soul.” The Imperialists were as anxious as Wolsey, and equally distrustful. In the Sacred College English gold was an influence not to be despised, and Henry had more to give than Charles. Micer Mai, the Imperial agent at Rome, found, as the spring came on, that the Italian Cardinals were growing cold. Salviati insisted to him that Catherine must go into a convent. Casalis denounced the new brief as a forgery, and the Sacred College seemed to be of the same opinion. The fiery Mai complained in the Pope’s presence of the scant courtesy which the Ministers of the Emperor were meeting with, while the insolent and overbearing were regaled like the Prodigal Son.54 The Pope assured him that, come what might, he would never authorise the divorce; but Mai only partially believed him. At trying moments Mai was even inclining to take the same view of the Papacy as Lope de Soria. “At other times,” he said, “many things could be got out of the Pope by sheer intimidation; but now that could not be tried, for he would fall into despair, and the Imperialists would lose him altogether. They owed him something for what he had done for them before, otherwise he would be of opinion that it would be for God’s service to reduce them to their spiritual powers.”55

Occasionally Mai’s temper broke through, and he used language worth observing. One of the Cardinals had spoken slightingly of the Emperor.

“I did not call on his Holiness,” he wrote to Charles, “but sent him a message, adding that, if ever it came to my notice that the same Cardinal, or any member of the College, had dared to speak in such an indecent manner of the Emperor, I took my most solemn oath that I would have him beheaded or burnt alive within his own apartment. I had this time refrained out of respect for his Holiness; but should the insult be repeated I would not hesitate. They might do as they would with their Bulls and other rogueries – grant or refuse them as they liked; but they were not to speak evil of princes, or make themselves judges in the affairs of kingdoms.”56

This remarkable message was conveyed to the Pope, who seemed rather pleased than otherwise. Mai, however, observed that the revolt of the Lutherans was not to be wondered at, and in what they said of Rome he considered that they were entirely right, except on points of faith.57

Cardinals had been roughly handled in the sack of the Holy City at but a year’s distance. The possibility was extremely real. The Imperial Minister, it appeared, could still command the services of the Spanish garrisons in the Papal territories if severity was needed, and the members of the Sacred College had good reason to be uneasy; but King Henry might reasonably object to the trial of his cause in a country where the assessors of the supreme judge were liable to summary execution if they were insubordinate. That Charles could allow his representative to write in such terms to him proves that he and Mai, and Henry himself, were in tolerable agreement on Church questions. The Pope knew it; one of his chief fears was that the Emperor, France, England, and the German Princes, might come to an understanding to his own disadvantage. Perhaps it might have been so had not the divorce kept Henry and Charles apart. Campeggio wrote to Sanga on the 3rd of April that certain advances had been made by the Lutherans to Henry, in which they promised to relinquish all heresies on articles of faith, and to believe according to Divine law if he and the King of France would reduce the ecclesiastical state to the condition of the Primitive Church, taking from it all its temporalities. He had told the King this was the Devil dressed in angel’s clothing, a mere design against the property of the Church; and that it had been ruled by councils and theologians that it was right for the Church to hold temporal property. The King said those rules had been made by Churchmen themselves, and now the laity must interfere. He said also that Churchmen were said to be leading wicked lives, especially about the Court of Rome.58

Growled at on both sides, in terror for himself, in terror for the Church, the Pope drifted on, hoping for some accident to save him which never came, and wishing perhaps that his illness had made an end of him.

The Emperor complained of Campeggio as partial to the King because he held an English bishopric. “If the Pope leaves the succession undetermined,” insisted Wolsey, on the other side, “no Prince would tolerate such an injury.” “Nothing was done,” wrote the Pope’s secretary to Campeggio, “and nothing would be done. The Pope was in great trouble between the English and Imperial Ambassadors. He wished to please the King, but the King and Cardinal must not expect him to move till they had forced the Venetians to restore the Papal territories.” Stephen Gardiner, who knew Clement well and watched him from day to day, said: “He was a man who never resolved anything unless compelled by some violent affection. He was in great perplexity, and seemed willing to gratify the King if he could, but when it came to the point did nothing. He would be glad if the King’s cause could be determined in England by the Legates; and if the Emperor made any suit against what should be done there, they would serve him as they now served the King, and put off the time.” So matters would go on, “unless Campeggio would frankly promise to give sentence in the King’s favour; otherwise such delays would be found as the counterfeit Brief had caused.”59 Sir Francis Bryan, who was also at the Papal court, wrote to the King that the Pope would do nothing for him, and whoever had told the King that he would, had not done him the best service. “He was very sorry to write thus, but the King must not be fed with their flattering words.”60

To wait longer on the Pope’s action was now seen in England to be useless. The Pope dared not offend the Emperor further, and the Emperor had interposed to prohibit future action. Clement had himself several times suggested that the best way was to decide the case first in England in the Legate’s court, and leave Catherine to appeal; he had promised Charles that no judgment should be given in England by the Legates; but he had worn so double a face that no one could say which truly belonged to him. Gardiner and Bryan were recalled. The King, finding the Pope’s ingratitude, “resolved to dissemble with him, and proceed on the commission granted to Wolsey and Campeggio.”61 The Cardinal of York encouraged his brother Legate by assuring him that if the marriage was now dissolved means would be found to satisfy the Emperor. Catherine would be left with her state undiminished, would have anything that she desired “except the person of the King.” The Emperor’s natural daughter might be married to the Duke of Richmond, and all would be well.62

So Wolsey wrote, but his mind was less easy than he pretended. Unless Henry was supported actively by the French, he knew that the Pope would fail him in the end; and Francis had been disappointed in the hope that Henry would stand actively by him in the war. Without effectual help from that quarter, Wolsey saw that he was himself undone. The French Ambassador represented to his Court that Wolsey was sincerely attached to the French alliance, that the King had only been induced to enterprise the affair by the assurance which the Cardinal had always given that he had nothing to fear from the Emperor; Wolsey had advanced the divorce as a “means to break off for ever the alliance with the Emperor”; and Francis, by now declaring himself, would confer a very great favour on the King, and would oblige Wolsey as much as if he had made him pope.63 His master was not only now concerned for the discharge of his conscience and his desire to have issue, but the very safety and independence of England was at stake. He could not have it said that he left the succession to the throne uncleared for the threats of his enemy.64

The Duke of Suffolk was despatched to Paris to bring Francis to the point. Francis professed the warmest good-will to his brother of England. He undertook to advise the Pope. He assured Suffolk that if the Emperor attempted force Henry would find him at his side; but further he would not pledge himself. The time was past for a Wolsey patriarchate, and Francis, curiously enough, expressed doubts whether Wolsey was not after all betraying Henry. “There are some,” he said, “which the King my brother doth trust in that matter that would it should never take effect. Campeggio told me he did not think the divorce would be brought about, but should be dissembled well enough. When the Cardinal of England was with me, as far as I could perceive, he desired the divorce might take place, for he loved not the Queen; but I advise my brother not to trust any man too much, and to look to his own matters. The Cardinal has great intelligence with the Pope, and Campeggio and they are not inclined to it.”65