The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

Irritated though he was at his last failure, Francis did not wholly abandon his efforts. A successful invasion of England by the Emperor would be dangerous or even fatal to France. He wrote to Anne. He sent his letter by the hands of her old friend, Du Bellay, and she was so pleased that she kissed him when he presented it. Du Bellay sought out Chapuys. “Could nothing be done,” he asked, “to prevent England from breaking with the Papacy? Better England, France, and the Empire had spent a hundred thousand crowns than allow a rupture. The Emperor had done his duty in supporting his aunt; might he not now yield a little to avoid worse?” Chapuys could give him no hope. The treatment of Catherine alone would force the Emperor to take further measures.

That Catherine, so far, had no personal ill-usage to complain of had been admitted by the Spanish Council, and alleged as an argument against interference by force in her favour. Chapuys conceived, and probably hoped, that this objection was being removed.

What to do with her was not the least of the perplexities in which Henry had involved himself. By the public law of Christendom, a marriage with a brother’s widow was illegal. By the law as it has stood ever since in England, the Pope of Rome neither has, nor ever had, a right to dispense in such cases. She was not, therefore, Henry’s queen. She deserved the most indulgent consideration; her anger and her resistance were legitimate and natural; but the fact remained. She had refused all compromise. She had insisted on a decision, and an English Court had given judgment against her. If she was queen, Elizabeth was a bastard, and her insistance upon her title was an invitation to civil war. She was not standing alone. The Princess Mary, on her father’s marriage with Anne, had written him a letter, which he had praised as greatly to her credit; but either Anne’s insolence or her mother’s persuasion had taken her back to Catherine’s side. Her conduct may and does deserve the highest moral admiration; but the fidelity of the child to her mother was the assertion of a right to be next in succession to the crown. There was no longer a doubt that a dangerous movement was on foot for an insurrection, supported from abroad. If Catherine escaped with Mary to the Continent, war would instantly follow. If there was a rebellion at home, their friends intended to release them, and to use their names in the field. It was found necessary again to part them. The danger would be diminished if they were separated; together they confirmed each other’s resolution. Catherine was sent to Kimbolton with a reduced household – her confessor, her doctor, her own personal servants and attendants – who had orders to call her Princess, but obeyed as little as they pleased. Mary was attached to the establishment of her baby sister Elizabeth under charge of Anne Boleyn’s aunt, Mrs. Shelton.

History with a universal voice condemns the King’s conduct as cruel and unnatural. It was not cruel in the sense of being wanton; it was not unnatural in the sense that he had no feeling. He was in a dilemma, through his own actions, from which he could not otherwise extricate himself. Catherine was not his wife, and he knew it; he had been misled by Wolsey into the expectation that the Pope would relieve him; he had been trifled with and played upon; he was now threatened with excommunication and deposition. Half his subjects, and those the boldest and most determined, had rallied to his side; his cause had become the occasion of a great and beneficent revolution, and incidental difficulties had to be dealt with as they rose. Catherine he had long ceased to love, if love had ever existed between them, but he respected her character and admired her indomitable courage. For his daughter he had a real affection, as appeared in a slight incident which occurred shortly after her removal. Elizabeth was at Hatfield, and Mary, whose pride Anne had threatened to humble, was with her. Mrs. Shelton’s orders were to box Mary’s ears if she presumed to call herself Princess. The King knew nothing of these instructions. He had found his daughter always dutiful except when under her mother’s influence, and one day he rode down to Hatfield to see her. The Lady Anne, finding that he had gone without her knowledge, “considering the King’s easiness and lightness, if anyone dared to call it so,” and afraid of the effect which a meeting with his daughter might have upon him, sent some one in pursuit to prevent him from seeing or speaking with her. The King submitted to his imperious mistress, saw Anne’s child, but did not see Mary. She had heard of his arrival, and as he was mounting his horse to ride back she showed herself on the leads, kneeling as if to ask his blessing. The King saw her, bowed, lifted his bonnet, and silently went his way.²⁶¹

The French Ambassador met him afterwards in London. The King said he had not spoken to his daughter on account of her Spanish obstinacy. The Ambassador saying something in her favour, “tears rushed into the King’s eyes, and he praised her many virtues and accomplishments.” “The Lady,” said Chapuys, “is aware of the King’s affection for his daughter, and therefore never ceases to plot against her.” The Earl of Northumberland, once Anne’s lover, told him that she meant to poison the Princess. Chapuys had thought it might be better if she avoided irritating her father; he advised her to protect herself by a secret protest, and to let her title drop on condition that she might live with her mother. Lady Anne, however, it was thought, would only be more malicious, and a show of yielding would discourage her friends. Another plan was to carry her off abroad; but war would then be inevitable, and Chapuys could not venture to recommend such an attempt without the Emperor’s express consent.²⁶²

Catherine also was, or professed to be, in fear of foul play. Kimbolton was a small but not inconvenient residence. It was represented as a prison. The King was supposed to be eager for her death; and in the animosity of the time he, or at least his mistress, was thought capable of any atrocity. The Queen was out of health in reality, having shown signs of dropsy, and the physicians thought her life uncertain. She would eat nothing which her new servants provided; the little food she took was prepared by her chamberwoman, and her own room was used as a kitchen.²⁶³ Charles had intimated that, if she was ill-used, he might be driven to interfere; and every evil rumour that was current was treasured up to exasperate him into action. No words, Chapuys said in a letter to the Emperor, could describe the grief which the King’s conduct to the Queen and Princess was creating in the English people. They complained bitterly of the Emperor’s inaction. They waited only for the arrival of a single ship of war to rise en masse; and, if they had but a leader to take command, they said, they would do the work themselves. They reminded him of Warwick, who dethroned the King’s grandfather, and Henry VII., who dethroned Richard. Some even said the Emperor’s right to the throne was better than the present King’s; for Edward’s children were illegitimate, and the Emperor was descended from the House of Lancaster. If the Emperor would not move, at least he might stop the Flanders trade, and rebellion would then be certain. There was not the least hope that the King would submit. The accursed Anne had so bewitched him that he dared not oppose her. The longer the Emperor delayed, the worse things would grow from the rapid spread of Lutheranism.²⁶⁴

Wise sovereigns, under the strongest provocation, are slow to encourage mutiny in neighbouring kingdoms. Charles had to check the overzeal of his Ambassador, and to tell him that “the present was no time for vigorous action or movement of any kind.” Chapuys promised for the future “to persuade the Queen to patience, and to do nothing which might lead to the inconvenience” which the Emperor pointed out.²⁶⁵ His impatient English friends whom he called “the people” were still obliged to submit in patience, while the King went on upon his way in the great business of the realm, amidst the “impress of shipwrights,” the “daily cast of cannon,” and foreign mart of implements for war. An embassy was sent to Germany to treat for an alliance with the Smalcaldic League. A book was issued, with the authority of the Privy Council, on the authority of kings and priests, showing that bishops and priests were equal, and that princes must rule them both. The Scotch Ambassador told Chapuys that if such a book had been published in his country the author of it would have been burnt.²⁶⁶ Parliament met to pass the Bill, of which Henry had introduced a draft in the previous session, to restrict the Bishops’ powers of punishing heretics. Dr. Nixe, the old bishop of Norwich, had lately burnt Thomas Bilney on his own authority, without waiting for the King’s writ. Henry had the Bishop arrested, tried him before a lay judge, confiscated his property, and imprisoned him in the Tower. Parliament made such exploits as that of Dr. Nixe impossible for the future.

Act followed Act on the same lines. The Pope’s Bulls were dispensed with on appointments to vacant sees. The King’s nomination was to suffice. The tributes to Rome, which had been levied hitherto in infinite variety of form, were to be swept finally away, and with them an Act was introduced of final separation from the Papacy. Were it only in defiance of the Pope, Chapuys said, such measures impending would matter little, for the motive was understood; but the Preachers were teaching Lutheranism in the pulpits, drawing crowds to hear them, and, unless the root could be torn out, the realm would be lost.

Before the closing stroke was dealt in England the last scene of the tragi-comedy had to be played out in Rome itself. On the Pope’s return from Marseilles the thunderbolt was expected to fall. The faithful Du Bellay rushed off to arrest the uplifted arm. He found Clement wrangling as before with Cifuentes, and Cifuentes, in despair, considering that, if justice would not move the Pope, other means would have to be found. The English Acts of Parliament were not frightening Clement. To them he had become used. But he knew by this time for certain that, if he deprived Henry, the Emperor would do nothing. Why, said he, in quiet irony, to the Emperor’s Minister, does not your master proceed on the Brief de Attentatis? It would be as useful to him as the sentence which he asks for. By that the King has forfeited his throne. Cifuentes had to tell him, what he himself was equally aware of, that it was not so held in England. Until the main cause had been decided it was uncertain whether the marriage with Anne Boleyn might not be lawful after all.²⁶⁷ In one of his varying moods the Pope had said at Marseilles that, if Henry had sent a proctor to plead for him at Rome, sentence would have been given in his favour.²⁶⁸ It was doubtful whether even the Emperor was really determined, so ambiguous had been his answers when he was asked if he would execute the Bull. Du Bellay arrived in the midst of the suspense. He had brought an earnest message from Francis, praying that judgment might be stayed. As this was the last effort to prevent the separation of England the particulars have a certain interest.

In an interview with the Pope Du Bellay said that when he left London he believed that the rupture was inevitable. His own sovereign, however, had sent him to represent to the Holy See that the King of England was on the eve of forming a treaty with the Lutheran Princes. The King of France did not pretend to an opinion on the right or wrong of his brother of England’s case; but he wished to warn his Holiness that means ought to be found to prevent such an injury to the Church.

The Pope answered that he had thought long and painfully on what he ought to do, and had delayed sentence as long as he was able. The Queen was angry and accused him of having been the cause of all that had happened. If the King of France had any further proposal to offer he was ready to hear it. If not, the sentence must be pronounced.

Cifuentes, finding Clement again hesitating, pointed out to him the violent acts which were being done in England, the encouragement of heresy, the cruel treatment of the Queen and Princess, and the risk to the Queen’s life if nothing was done to help her. Clement sent for Du Bellay again and inquired more particularly if he had brought no practical suggestion with him. Du Bellay could only say that he had himself brought none; but he trusted that the Pope might devise something, as, without it, not England only but other countries would be irretrievably lost to the Holy See. The Pope said he could think of nothing; and in his account of what had passed to Cifuentes he declared that he had told Du Bellay that he meant to proceed.

Cifuentes was not satisfied. He saw that the Pope was still reluctant. He knew that there were intrigues among the Cardinals. He said that Henry was only making use of France to intimidate him. He asserted, with the deluding confidence which blinded the whole Catholic party, that the revolt of England was the act of the King and not of the people. He was certain, he said, that, although the Bishop pretended that he had no expedient to propose, he had one which he dared not disclose. He could not bring the Pope to a resolution. A further delay of six weeks was granted. Messengers were despatched to England, and English Commissioners were sent in answer. They had no concessions to offer, nor were any concessions expected of them. They lingered on the way. The six weeks expired and they had not arrived. The Spanish party in the Consistory were peremptory. They satisfied the Pope’s last scruples by assuring him, vaguely, that he might rely upon the Emperor, and on March 23, with an outburst of general enthusiasm, the Bull was issued which declared valid the marriage of Henry and Catherine, the King to be excommunicated if he disobeyed, and to have forfeited the allegiance of his subjects.

The secular arm was not yet called in, and, before Charles could be required to move, one more step would still be needed. But essentially, and on the main cause of the trouble, the Pope had at last spoken, and spoken finally.²⁶⁹ The passionate and devout Ortiz poured out on the occasion the emotions of grateful Catholicity. “The Emperor,” he wrote, “had won the greatest of his victories – a victory over Hell. There had been difficulties even to the last. Campeggio had opposed, but at last had yielded to the truth. The Pope repented of his delay, but now feared he had committed a great sin in hesitating so long. The holy martyr, the Queen of England, had been saved. The Cardinals in past years had been bribed by the French King; by the influence of the Holy Spirit they had all decided in the Queen’s favour. Their conscience told them they could not vote against her.”²⁷⁰

In England the news of the decision had not been waited for. Two days after the issue of the Bull, the Act abolishing the Pope’s authority was read the last time in the House of Lords, to the regret, said Chapuys, of a minority of good men, who could not carry the House along with them.

CHAPTER XV

The Papal curse – Determined attitude of the Princess Mary – Chapuys desires to be heard in Parliament – Interview with the King – Permission refused – The Act of Succession – Catherine loses the title of Queen – More and Fisher refuse to swear to the statute – Prospects of rebellion in Ireland – The Emperor unwilling to interfere – Perplexity of the Catholic party – Chapuys before the Privy Council – Insists on Catherine’s rights – Singular defence of the Pope’s action – Chapuys’s intrigues – Defiant attitude of Catherine – Fears for her life – Condition of Europe – Prospect of war between France and the Empire – Unwillingness of the Emperor to interfere in England – Disappointment of Catherine – Visit of Chapuys to Kimbolton.

Pretenders to supernatural powers usually confine the display of their skill to the presence of friends and believers. The exercise of such powers to silence opponents or to convince incredulity may be alleged to have existed in the past, or may be foretold as to happen in the future; in the actual present prudent men are cautious of experiments which, if they fail, bring them only into ridicule. Excommunication had real terrors when a frightened world was willing to execute its penalties – when the object of the censure was cut off from the services of religion and was regarded as a pariah and an outlaw. The Princes of Europe had real cause to fear the curse of the Pope when their own subjects might withdraw their obedience and the Christian Powers were ready to take arms to coerce them. But Clement knew that his own thunders would find no such support, and he lacked the confidence of Dr. Ortiz that Heaven, if men failed, would avenge its own wrongs. He had not been permitted even to invite the Emperor formally to enforce the sentence which he had been compelled to pronounce. Protestant Germany had been left unpunished in its heresy. The curse had passed harmless over Luther and Luther’s supporters. In England he was assured that his authority was still believed in, and that the King would be brought to judgment by his subjects. But there were no outward signs of it. His Bulls could no longer be introduced there. His clergy might at heart be loyal to him; but they had submitted to the Crown and the Parliament. His name was struck out of the service-books, and the business of life went on as if he had never spoken; the business of life, and also the business of the Government: for, the Pope being disposed of, the vital question of the succession to the Crown had still to be formally arranged.

Since the Emperor would not act Chapuys had been feeling his way with the Scotch. If James chose to assert himself, the Ambassador had promised him the Emperor’s support. “He might marry the Princess Mary, and the Emperor would welcome the union of the crowns of Scotland and England.”²⁷¹ Had Mary submitted to her father, her claim to a place in the line of inheritance would not have been taken from her, for she had been born bonâ fide parentum and in no reasonable sense could be held illegitimate. But she had remained immoveable. In small things as well as great she had been unnecessarily irritating. Her wardrobe had required replenishing, and she had refused to receive anything which was not given to her as Princess. Anne Boleyn accused her aunt of being too lenient, Mrs. Shelton having refused to make herself the instrument of Anne’s violence. Chapuys feared the “accursed Lady” might be tempted into a more detestable course. But, any way, the nation had broken with the Pope, and Mary could not be left with the prospect of succeeding to the crown while she denied the competency of the English Parliament and the English courts of justice. A bill, therefore, was introduced to make the necessary provisions, establishing the succession in the child, and future children, of Anne.

Catherine could not yet believe that Parliament would assent. Parliament, she thought, had never yet heard the truth. She directed Chapuys to apply for permission to appear at the bar of the House of Lords and speak for her and the Princess.

After the failure of the Nuncio with Convocation Chapuys had little hope that he would be listened to; but Catherine insisted on his making the attempt, since a refusal, she thought, would be construed into an admission of her right.

The Ambassador wrote to the Council. They desired to know what he proposed to say, and he was allowed a private interview with the Duke of Norfolk. He told the Duke that he wished merely to give a history of the divorce case and would say nothing to irritate. The Duke said he would speak to the King; but the Emperor, considering all that the King had done for him, had not treated him well; they would sooner he had gone to war at once than crossed and thwarted them at so many turns. Chapuys protested that war had never been thought of, and it was arranged that he should see the King and himself present his request. Before he entered the presence Norfolk warned him to be careful of his words, as he was to speak on matters so odious and unpleasing that all the sugars and sauces in the world could not make them palatable. The King, however, was gracious. Chapuys boldly entered on the treatment of the Queen and Princess. He had heard, he said, that the subject was to be laid before Parliament, and he desired to present his remonstrances to the Lords and Commons themselves.

The King replied civilly that, as Chapuys must be aware, his first marriage had been judicially declared null; the Lady Catherine, therefore, could not any longer be called queen, nor the Lady Mary his legitimate daughter. As to Chapuys’s request, it was not the custom in England for strangers to speak in Parliament.

Chapuys urged that the Archbishop’s sentence was worth no more than the Bishop of Bath’s sentence illegitimatising the children of Edward IV. Parliament would, no doubt, vote as the King pleased; but, as to custom, no such occasion had ever arisen before, and Parliament was not competent to decide questions which belonged only to spiritual judges. The Princess was indisputably legitimate, as at the time of her birth no doubt existed on the lawfulness of her mother’s marriage.

This was a sound argument, and Henry seemed to admit the force of it. But he said that neither pope nor princes had a right to interfere with the laws and institutions of England. Secular judges were perfectly well able to deal with matrimonial causes. The Princess Elizabeth was next in succession till a son was born to him. That son he soon hoped to have. In short, he declined to allow Chapuys to make a speech in the House of Lords; so Chapuys dropped the subject, and interceded for permission to the Princess Mary to reside with her mother. He said frankly that, if harm came to her while in the charge of her present governess, the world would not be satisfied. Of course he knew that for all the gold in the world the King would not injure his daughter; but, even if she died of an ordinary illness, suspicions would be entertained of foul play. With real courage Chapuys reminded Henry that the knights who killed Becket had been encouraged by the knowledge that the king was displeased with him. The enemies of the Princess, perceiving that she was out of favour, and aware of the hatred²⁷² felt for her by the Lady Anne, might be similarly tempted to make away with her while she was in Mrs. Shelton’s charge.

If Chapuys really used this language (and the account of it is his own), Henry VIII. was more forbearing than history has represented him. He turned the subject, and complained, as Norfolk had done, of the Emperor’s ingratitude. Chapuys said he had nothing to fear from the Emperor, unless he gave occasion for it. He smiled sardonically, and replied that, if he had been vindictive, there had been occasions when he could have revenged himself. It was enough, however, if the world knew how injured he had been. He then closed the conversation, dismissed his visitor, and told him he must be satisfied with the patience with which he had been heard.²⁷³

The Bill for the settlement of the crown was thus discussed without Chapuys’s assistance. The terms of it and the reasons for it are familiar to all readers of English history. The King’s efforts to obtain an heir male had, so far, only complicated an already dangerous problem. Though the marriage with Catherine had been set aside in an English court, the right of such a Court to pronounce upon it was not yet familiar to the nation generally. The Pope had given an opposite sentence: many of the peers and commons, the Duke of Norfolk among them, though reconciled to the divorce, had not yet made up their minds to schism;²⁷⁴ and Mary had still many friends who were otherwise loyal to her father. But, after the experience of the last century, Englishmen of all persuasions were frightened at the prospect of a disputed succession, which only a peremptory Act of Parliament could effectively dispose of. The Bill, therefore, passed at last with little opposition. Cranmer’s judgment was confirmed as against the Pope’s. The marriage with Catherine was declared null, the marriage with Anne valid, and Anne’s children the lawful heirs of the crown. The Act alone was not enough. The disclosures brought to light in the affair of the Nun of Kent, the disaffection then revealed, and the rank of the persons implicated in it, necessitated further precautions. Any doubt which might have existed on the extent and character of the conspiracy is removed for ever by the Spanish Ambassador’s letters. The Pope was threatening to absolve English subjects from their allegiance; how far he might be able to influence their minds had as yet to be seen; a Commission, therefore, was appointed to require and receive the oaths of all persons whom there was reason to suspect, that they would maintain the succession as determined in the Act.

The sentence from Rome had not arrived when the Bill became law, and no action was taken upon it till the terms in which Clement had spoken were specifically known. Catherine, however, seemed to think that the further she could provoke Henry to harsh measures, the nearer would be her own deliverance. She had always persuaded herself that judgment once given at Rome for her, the King would yield. The Act of Succession was thus specially galling, and with the same violent unwisdom which she had shown from the first, and against the direct advice of Chapuys, she had decided that the time was come for Mary “to show her teeth to the King.”²⁷⁵

It was not for her to expose her daughter to perils which she professed to believe were threatening the lives of both of them. But Mary obeyed her but too well. While the Succession Bill was before the two Houses, Anne, probably at Henry’s instance, went to Hatfield to invite her to receive her as Queen, promising, if she complied, that she should be treated better than she had ever been. Mary’s answer was that she knew no Queen but her mother; if the King’s mistress, so she designated Anne, would intercede with her father for her she would be grateful. The Lady, Chapuys heard, had said in a rage that she would put down that proud Spanish blood and do her worst with her. Nor was this all. The determined girl refused to be included in Elizabeth’s household, or pay her the respect attaching to her birth. Elizabeth soon after being removed from Hatfield to the More, Mary declined to go with her, and obliged the gentlemen in attendance to place her by force in Mrs. Shelton’s litter. The Ambassador felt the folly of such ineffectual resistance. Never, he said, would he have advised her to run such a risk of exasperating the King, while the Lady Anne was never ceasing day or night to injure her. His own advice had been that when violence was threatened she should yield; but he had been overruled by Catherine.²⁷⁶

Chapuys’s intercourse with the Court was now restricted. He was received when he applied for a formal interview; but for his information on what was passing there, he was left to secret friends or to his diplomatic colleagues. He asked the French Ambassador how the King took the Pope’s sentence. The ambassador said the King did not care in the least, which Chapuys was unable to believe. The action of the Parliament alarmed and shocked him. Among the hardest blows was the taking from the Bishops the powers of punishing heretics – a violation, as it appeared to him, of common right and the constitution of the realm. The sharp treatment of Bishop Nixe he regarded as an outrage and a crime. The Easter preachers were ordered to denounce the Pope in their sermons. Chapuys shuddered at their language. “They surpassed themselves in the abominations which they uttered.” Worse than sermons followed. On the arrival of the “sentence,” the Commission began its work in requiring the oath to the Succession Act. Those whose names had been compromised in the revelation of the Nun were naturally the first to be put to the test. Fisher, who had been found guilty of misprision of treason, had so far been left unpunished. It is uncertain whether the Government was aware of his communications with Chapuys, but enough was known to justify suspicion. The oath was offered him. He refused to take it, and he was committed to the Tower in earnest. He had been sentenced to imprisonment before, but had been so far left at liberty. Sir Thomas More might have been let alone, for there was no fear that he would lend himself to active treason. He, too, however, was required to swear, and declined, and followed Fisher to the same place. The Pope had declared war against the King, and his adherents had become the King’s enemies. Chapuys himself was suspected. His encouragement of disaffection could not have been wholly concealed. He believed that his despatches had been opened in Calais, and that Cromwell had read them. There had been a Scotch war. As the Emperor was disinclined to stir, Chapuys had looked on James as a possibly useful instrument in disturbing Henry’s peace. A Scottish Commission was in London to arrange a treaty, “as they had found England too strong for them alone.” The Ambassador, more eager than ever, tried his best to dissuade the Chief Commissioner from agreeing to terms, pointing out the condition of the kingdom and the advantage to Scotland in joining in an attack on the King. The Scotchman listened, and promised to be secret. Chapuys assured him of the Emperor’s gratitude,²⁷⁷ and, though the treaty was concluded, he consoled the Ambassador by saying “that the peace would not prevent his master from waging war on the English. Pleas in plenty could easily be found.”²⁷⁸