The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History Part 5

Cromwell, in the meanwhile, grew in power and boldness with the success of his machinations. The Chancellors.h.i.+p, vacant by More's resignation, was filled by Cromwell's friend Audley, and every post that fell vacant or could be vacated was occupied by known opponents of the clergy. The country and Parliament were even yet not ready to go so far as Cromwell in his policy of emanc.i.p.ation from Rome in spiritual affairs; and only by the most illegal pressure both in the two Houses and in Convocation was the declaration condemning the validity of the King's marriage with Katharine at last obtained. Armed with these declarations and the Bulls from Rome confirming Cranmer's appointment, Henry was ready in April to cast away the mask, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were sent to tell Katharine at Ampthill "that she need not trouble any more about the King, for he had taken another wife, and that in future she must abandon the t.i.tle of Queen, and be called d.u.c.h.ess; though she should be left in possession of her property."[93] Chapuys was indignant, and urged the Emperor to make war upon England in revenge for the insult to his house. "The moment this accursed Anne gets her foot firmly in the stirrup she will do the Queen all the harm she can, and the Princess also, which is what the Queen fears most.... She (Anne) has lately boasted that she will make the Princess one of her maids, which will not give her too much to eat; or will marry her to some varlet." But the Emperor had cares and dangers that his amba.s.sador in England knew not of, and he dared not avenge his aunt by the invasion of England.

A long and fruitless war of words was waged between Henry and Chapuys when the news of the secret marriage became known; the talk turning upon the eternal question of the consummation of Katharine's first marriage.

Chapuys reminded the King that on several occasions he (Henry) had confessed that his wife had been intact by Arthur. "Ah!" replied Henry, "I only said that in fun. A man when he is frolicking and dining says a good many things that are not true. Now, I think I have satisfied you.... What else do you want to know?"[94] A day or two after this, on Easter Eve, Anne went to Ma.s.s in truly royal state, loaded with diamonds and other precious stones, and dressed in a gorgeous suit of tissue; the train being borne by her cousin, the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, betrothed to the King's illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. She was followed by a greater suite and treated with more ceremony than had formerly attended Katharine, and, to the astonishment of the people, was prayed for thenceforward in the Church services at Court as Queen.[95] In London the att.i.tude of the people grew threatening, and the Lord Mayor was taken to task by the King, who ordered that proclamation should be made forbidding any unfavourable reference to the King's second marriage. But the fire of indignation glowed fiercely beneath the surface, for everywhere the cause of Katharine was bound up, as it seemed, with the old faith in which all had been born, with the security of commerce with England's best customers, and with the rights of anointed royalty, as against low-born insolence.

No humiliation was spared to Katharine. Her daughter was forbidden to hold any communication with her, her household was reduced to the meagre proportions of a private establishment, her scutcheon was taken down from Westminster Hall, and her cognisance from her barge, and, as a crowning indignity, she was summoned to appear before the Primate's court at Dunstable, a summons which, at the prompting of Chapuys, she entirely disregarded. Up to this time she had stood firm in her determination to maintain an att.i.tude of loyalty to the King and to her adopted country; but, as she grew more bitter at her rival's triumph, and the flowing tide of religious change rose at her feet, she listened to plans for bringing a remedy for her ills by a subversion of Henry's regime. But she was a poor conspirator, and considerations of safety for her daughter, and her want of tact in uniting the English elements in her favour, always paralysed her.[96]

In the meanwhile the preparations for the public recognition and coronation of Anne went on. The new Queen tried her best to captivate the Londoners, but without success; and only with difficulty could the contributions be obtained for the coming festivities when the new Queen pa.s.sed through the city. On the 10th May Katharine was declared contumacious by the Primate's court, and on the 23rd May Cranmer p.r.o.nounced the King's first marriage to have been void from the first.[97]

This was followed by a p.r.o.nouncement to the effect that the second marriage, that with Anne, was legal, and nothing now stood in the way of the final fruition of so much labour and intrigue, pregnant with such tremendous results to England. On the 29th May 1533 the first scene of the pageant was enacted with the State progress by water from Greenwich to the Tower.[98] No effort had been spared by Henry to make the occasion a brilliant one. We are told that the whole river from the point of departure to that of arrival was covered with beautifully bedizened boats; guns roared forth their salutations at Greenwich, and from the crowd of s.h.i.+ps that lay in the stream. Flags and _feux de joie_ could be bought; courtiers', guilds', and n.o.bles' barges could be commanded, but the hearty cheers of the lieges could not be got for all King Harry's power, as the new Queen, in the old Queen's barge, was borne to the frowning fortress which so soon was to be her own place of martyrdom.[99]

On Sunday, 31st May 1533, the procession through the crowded city sallied from the Tower betimes in the morning. Englishmen and foreigners, except Spaniards only, had been forced to pay heavily for the splendour of the day; and the trade guilds and aldermen, brave in furred gowns and gold chains, stood from one device to another in the streets, as the glittering show went by. The French element did its best to add gaiety to the occasion, and the merchants of France established in London rode at the head of the procession in purple velvet embroidered with Anne's device.

Then came the n.o.bles and courtiers and all the squires and gentlemen whom the King had brought from their granges and manor-houses to do honour to their new Queen. Anne herself was seated in an open litter of white satin covered by a golden canopy. She was dressed in a surcoat and mantle of white tissue trimmed with ermine, and wore a robe of crimson brocade stiff with gems. Her hair, which was very fine, hung over her shoulders surmounted by a coif and a coronet of diamonds, whilst around her neck was hung a necklace of great pearls, and upon her breast reposed a splendid jewel of precious stones. "And as she pa.s.sed through the city she kept turning her face from one side to the other to greet the people, but, strange to see it was, that there were hardly ten persons who greeted her with 'G.o.d save your Grace,' as they used to do when the sainted Queen Katharine went by."[100]

Lowering brows, and whispered curses of "Nan Bullen" from the citizens'

wives followed the new Queen on her way; for to them she stood for war against the Emperor in the behoof of France, for hara.s.sed trade and lean larders, and, above all, for defiance of the religious principles that most of them held sacred; and they hated the long fair face with which, or with love philtres, she had bewitched the King. The very pageants ostensibly raised in her honour contrived in several cases to embody a subtle insult. At the Gracechurch corner of Fenchurch Street, where the Hanse merchants had erected a "merveilous connyng pageaunt," representing Mount Parna.s.sus, with the fountain of Helicon spouting racked Rhenish wine all day, the Queen's litter was stayed a s.p.a.ce to listen to the Muses playing "swete instrumentes," and to read the "epigrams" in her praise that were hung around the mount. But Anne looked aloft to where Apollo sat, and saw that the imperial eagle was blazoned in the place of honour, whilst the much-derided bogus arms of the Boleyns lurked in humble guise below;[101] and for many a day thenceforward she was claiming vengeance against the Easterlings for the slight put upon her. As each triumphal device was pa.s.sed, children dressed as angels, or muses, were made to sing or recite conceited phrases of dithyrambic flattery to the heroine of the hour. There was no grace or virtue of which she was not the true exemplar.

Through Leadenhall and Cornhill and so to Chepe, between lines of liveried citizens, Anne's show progressed. At the cross on Cheapside the Mayor and corporation awaited the Queen; and the Recorder, "Master Baker," with many courtly compliments, handed her the city's gift of a thousand marks in a purse of gold, "which she thankfully received." That she did so was noted with sneering contempt by Katharine's friends. "As soon as she received the purse of money she placed it by her side in the litter: and thus she showed that she was a person of low descent. For there stood by her at the time the captain of the King's guard, with his men and twelve lacqueys; and when the sainted Queen had pa.s.sed by for _her_ coronation, she handed the money to the captain of the guard to be divided amongst the halberdiers and lacqueys. Anne did not do so, but kept them for herself."[102] St. Paul's and Ludgate, Fleet Street and Temple Bar, all offered their official adulation, whilst the staring people stood by dumb.

Westminster Hall, into which Anne's litter was borne for the feast, was richly hung with arras and "newly glazed." A regal throne with a canopy was set on high for Anne, and a great sideboard of gold plate testified to the King's generosity to his new wife. But after she had changed her garments and was welcomed with open arms by Henry at his new palace of Westminster, her disappointment broke out. "How like you the look of the city, sweetheart?" asked the King. "Sir," she replied, "the city itself was well enow; but I saw many caps on heads and heard but few tongues."[103]

The next day, Sunday, Anne was crowned by Cranmer with full ceremony in Westminster Abbey, and for days thereafter banqueting, tilting, and the usual roystering went on; and the great-granddaughter of Alderman Boleyn felt that at last she was Queen indeed. Henry, too, had had his way, and again could hope that a son born in wedlock might perpetuate the name of Tudor on the throne of England. But he was in deadly fear, for the prospect was black all around him. Public indignation in England grew apace[104] at the religious changes and at the prospect of war; but what most aroused Henry's alarm was the sudden coldness of France, and the probability of a great Catholic coalition against him. Norfolk and Lord Rochford with a stately train had gone to join in the interview between Francis and the Pope, in the hope that the joint presence of France and England might force Clement to recognise accomplished facts in order to avoid the secession of England from the Church. Although it suited Francis to promote the antagonism between Henry and the Emperor by keeping the divorce proceedings dragging on in Rome, it did not suit him for England to defy the Papacy by means of Cranmer's sentence, and so to change the balance of power in Europe by driving Henry into permanent union with German Protestants whilst Francis was forced to side with the Emperor on religious grounds. So long as Henry remained undivorced and unmarried anything might happen. He might sate of his mistress and tire of the struggle against Rome, or be driven by fear of war to take a conciliatory course, and in any of these cases he must needs pay for France's aid; but now that his divorce and remarriage were as valid as a duly authorised Archbishop could make them, the utility of Anne as an aid to French foreign policy disappeared. The actual marriage therefore deprived her of the sympathies of the French party in the English Court, which had hitherto sided with her, and the effects were immediately seen in the att.i.tude of Francis.

Before Norfolk could reach the south of France news came to him that the Pope, coerced by the Emperor, had issued a brief declaring all of Henry's proceedings in England to be nullified and he and his abettors excommunicated, unless of his own accord he restored things to their former condition before September.[105] It was plain, therefore, that any attempt at the coming interview to reconcile Clement with Henry's action would be fruitless. Norfolk found Francis also much cooler than before, and sent back his nephew Rochford post haste to England to beg the King's instructions. He arrived at Court in early August, at a time when Henry's perplexity was at its height. He had learnt of the determination of Francis to greet the Pope and carry through the marriage between the Duke of Orleans and Katharine de Medici, whether the King of England's demands were satisfied by Clement or not. He now knew that the dreaded sentence of excommunication pended over him and his instruments. If he had been left to his own weakness he would probably have given way, or at least have sought compromise. If Norfolk had been at his elbow, the old aristocratic English party might also have stayed the King's hand. But Cromwell, bold and astute, and Anne, with the powerful lever of her unborn child, which might be a son, knew well that they had gone too far to return, and that defiance of the Papacy was the only road open to them. Already at the end of June Henry had gone as far as to threaten an appeal from the Pope to the General Council of the Church, the meeting of which was then being discussed; but now that he knew that Francis was failing him, and the Pope had finally cast down the gage, he took the next great step which led to England's separation from Rome. Norfolk was recalled, and Gardiner accredited to Francis only with a watching brief during the Papal interview at Nice, whilst Henry's amba.s.sadors in Rome were recalled, and English agents were sent to Germany to seek alliances with the German Protestant princes. When, therefore, Norfolk arrived in England, he found that in his two months' absence Cromwell had steered the s.h.i.+p of state further away than ever from the traditional policy of the English conservatives; namely, one of balance between the two great Catholic powers; and that England was isolated, but for the doubtful friends.h.i.+p of those va.s.sal princes of the Empire who professed the dreaded new heresy.

Thenceforward the ruin of Anne and Cromwell was one of the main objects of Norfolk and the n.o.ble party.

The treatment meted out to Katharine during the same time followed a similar impulse. Chapuys had been informed that, the King having now taken a legal wife, Katharine could no longer be called Queen, but Princess Dowager of Wales, and that her regal household could not be kept up; and on the 3rd July Katharine's princ.i.p.al officers were ordered to convey a similar message to her personally. The message was roughly worded. It could only be arrogance and vainglory, she was told, that made her retain or usurp the t.i.tle of Queen. She was much mistaken if she imagined that her husband would ever live with her again, and by her obstinate contumacy she would cause wars and bloodshed, as well as danger to herself and her daughter, as both would be made to feel the King's displeasure. The Queen's answer, as might have been expected, was as firm as usual. She was the King's legitimate wife, and no reward or fear in the world would ever make her abandon her right to the t.i.tle she bore. It was not vainglory that moved her, for to be the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabel was a greater honour than to be a Queen. Henry might punish her, she said, or even her daughter, "Yet neither for that, nor a thousand deaths, would she consent to d.a.m.n her soul or that of her husband the King."[106] The King, beside himself with rage, could do no more than warn Katharine's household that they must all treat their mistress as Princess of Wales, or suffer the penalty. As for Katharine, no punishment short of death could move her; and Cromwell himself, in admiration at her answer, said that "nature had injured her in not making her a man, for she would have surpa.s.sed in fame all the heroes of history."[107]

When a few days after this Katharine was removed to Buckden, crowds followed her with tears and blessings along the road, even as they had followed the Princess Mary shortly before, "as if she were G.o.d Almighty,"

as Anne said. In defiance of Henry's threats, "G.o.d save the Queen" rang high and clear wherever she went, and the people, "wis.h.i.+ng her joy, comfort, and all manner of prosperity, and mishap to her enemies, begged her with tears to let them serve her; for they were all ready to die for her sake."[108] Anne's spite at such demonstrations was characteristic.

Katharine possessed a very rich and gorgeous length of stuff, which she had brought from Spain to serve as a christening robe if she should have a son and heir. Anne's time was drawing near, and she would not be content until the King had demanded of his wife the Spanish material to serve as a robe for the Prince of Wales, which he was confident would be born to Anne. "G.o.d forbid," replied Katharine, "that I should ever give help or countenance in a case so horrible and abominable as this!" and the indignity of forcible searching of her chests for the stuff at least was not insisted upon then.

Anne's own position was hardly a happy one; her one hope being that the coming child would be a son, as the King was a.s.sured by astrologers that it would be. For amorous Henry was already tiring somewhat of her, and even Cromwell's tone was less confident than before. Early in August, Henry left her at Greenwich to go to Windsor alone, for the first time since they had been together. Sometime in July she had insisted upon a very sumptuous bed, which had formed part of a French royal ransom, being taken out of the treasure-room for the birth of the expected heir. It is well, sneered Chapuys, in the first days of September, that she got it betimes, "otherwise she would not have it now, for she has been for some time past very jealous of the King; and, with good cause, spoke about it in words that he did not like. He told her that she must wink at such things, and put up with them, as her betters had done before her. He could at any time cast her down as easily as he had raised her." Frequent bickerings of this sort went on during the last weeks of Anne's pregnancy; but on Sunday, 7th September, the day that was to heal all differences came. Henry had defied the greatest power in the world, had acted basely and brutally to his legal wife, and had incurred the reprobation of his own people for the sake of having a son, and on the fateful day mentioned a fair girl baby was born to Anne at Greenwich.

The official rejoicings were held, but beneath the surface every one knew that a tragedy lurked,[109] for unless a son was born to Anne her doom was sealed. Henry had a.s.serted his masters.h.i.+p in his own realm and had defied Christendom. He had found that his subjects, however sulkily, had accepted his action without open revolt; and that Charles, notwithstanding the insult to his house, was still speaking softly through his amba.s.sadors. If a great princess like Katharine could thus be repudiated without disaster to his realm, it would indeed be easy for him to cast away "that noughty pake, Nan Bullen," if she failed to satisfy his desire for a son. But in the meanwhile it was necessary for him to secure, so far as he could, the succession of his new daughter, since Cranmer's decision had rendered Mary, Princess of Wales, of whom her father had been so proud, illegitimate. Accordingly, immediately after the child Elizabeth was christened, heralds proclaimed in the King's name that Princess Mary was thenceforward to lose her t.i.tle and pre-eminence, the badge upon her servants' coats being replaced by the arms of the King, and the baby Lady Elizabeth was to be recognised as the King's only legitimate heir and Princess of Wales. In vain the imperial amba.s.sador protested and talked to Cromwell of possible war, in which England might be ruined, which Cromwell admitted but reminded him that the Emperor would not benefit thereby; in vain Katharine from her retirement at Buckden urged Chapuys and the Emperor to patronise Reginald Pole as a possible threat to Henry; in vain Princess Mary herself, in diplomatic language, told her father that he might give her what t.i.tle he liked, but that she herself would never admit her illegitimacy or her mother's repudiation; in vain Bishop Fisher and Chapuys counselled the invasion of England and the overturn of Henry: Cromwell knew that there was no drawing back for him, and that the struggle must go on now to the bitter end.

Anne with the birth of her daughter became more insolent and exacting than ever. Nothing would satisfy her but the open degradation of Katharine and her daughter, and Henry in this respect seems to have had no spark of generous or gentlemanly feeling. Irritated by what he considered the disobedience of his wife and child, and doubtless also by their constant recourse for support and advice to the Emperor's amba.s.sador against him, he dismissed Mary's household and ordered her to go to Hatfield and serve as maid the Princess Elizabeth. Mary was ready with her written protest, which Chapuys had drafted for her, but, having made it, decided to submit; and was borne to Hatfield in scornful dudgeon, to serve "the b.a.s.t.a.r.d" of three months old. When she arrived the Duke of Suffolk asked her if she would go and pay her respects to "the Princess." "I know of no other princess but myself," replied Mary. "The daughter of Lady Pembroke has no right to such a t.i.tle. But," added she, "as the King acknowledges her I may call her sister, as I call the Duke of Richmond brother." Mary was the true daughter of her proud mother, and bluff Charles Brandon got many a tart answer from her before he gave her up in despair to perform a similar mission to her mother at Buckden.

Katharine had never changed her tone. Knowing Henry's weakness, she had always pressed for the final Papal decision in her favour, which she insisted would bring her husband to his knees, as it doubtless would have done if he had stood alone. For a time the Pope and the King of France endeavoured to find a _via media_ which should save appearances, for Charles would not bind himself to carry out by force the Papal deposition of Henry, which Clement wanted. But Katharine would have no compromise, nor did it suit Cromwell or Anne, though the former was apparently anxious to avoid offending the Emperor. Parliament, moreover, was summoned for the 15th January 1534, to give the sanction of the nation to Henry's final defiance of Rome; and persistence in the path to which the King's desire for a son and his love for Anne had dragged England, was now the only course open to him. Suffolk and a deputation of councillors were consequently sent once more with an ultimatum to Katharine. Accompanied by a large armed force to intimidate the Queen and the people who surrounded her, the deputation saw her on the 18th December; and Suffolk demanded that she should recognise Cranmer's decision and abandon her appeal to Rome; whilst her household and herself were to take the oath of allegiance to the King in the new form provided. The alternative was that she should be deprived of her servants and be removed to Fotheringay or Somersame, seated in the midst of pestilential marshes.[110] Suffolk was rough in his manner, and made short work of the English household, nearly all of whom were dismissed and replaced by others; but he found Katharine the same hard woman as ever. Considering all the King had done for her and hers, he said, it was disgraceful that she should worry him as she had done for years, putting him to vast expense in emba.s.sies to Rome and elsewhere, and keeping him in turmoil with his neighbours. Surely she had grown tired of her obstinacy by this time, and would abandon her appeal to Rome. If she did so the King would do anything for her; but if not he would clip her wings and effectually punish her. As a beginning, he said, they were going to remove her to Fotheringay. Katharine had heard such talk many times before, though less rudely worded; and she replied in the usual tone. She looked to the Pope alone, and cared nothing for the Archbishop of Canterbury. As for going to Fotheringay, that she would not do. The King might work his will; but unless she was dragged thither by main force she would not go, or she would be guilty of suicide, so unhealthy was the place. Some of the members of the household were recalcitrant, and the two priests, Abell and Barker, were sent to the Tower. The aged Spanish Bishop of Llandaff, Jorge de Ateca, the Queen's confessor, was also warned that he must go, and De la Sa, her apothecary, and a physician, both Spaniards; but at her earnest prayers they were allowed to remain pending an appeal.[111] The Queen's women attendants were also told they must depart, but upon Katharine saying that she would not undress or go to bed unless she had proper help, two of them were allowed to stay. For a whole week the struggle went on, every device and threat being employed to break down the Queen's resistance. She was as hard as adamant. All the servants who remained but the Spaniards, who spoke no English, had to swear not to treat her as Queen, and she said she would treat them as gaolers. On the sixth day of Suffolk's stay at Buckden, pack animals were got ready, and preparations made for removing the establishment to Fotheringay. But they still had to reckon with Katharine. Locking herself in her chamber, she carried on a colloquy with her oppressors through a c.h.i.n.k in the wall. "If you wish to take me," she declared, "you must break down my door;" but, though the country gentlemen around had been summoned to the aid of the King's commissioners, and the latter were well armed, such was the ferment and indignation in the neighbourhood--and indeed throughout the country--that violence was felt to be unwise, and Katharine was left in such peace as she might enjoy.[112] Well might Suffolk write, as he did, to Norfolk: "We find here the most obstinate woman that may be; inasmuch as we think surely there is no other remedy than to convey her by force to Somersame. Concerning this we have nothing in our instructions; we pray your good lords.h.i.+p that we may have knowledge of the King's pleasure." All this petty persecution was, of course, laid at the door of Anne by Katharine's friends and the Catholic majority; for Cromwell was clever in avoiding his share of the responsibility. "The lady," they said, "would never be satisfied until both the Queen and her daughter had been done to death, either by poison or otherwise; and Katharine was warned to take care to fasten securely the door of her chamber at night, and to have the room searched before she retired.[113]

In the meantime England and France were drifting further apart. If Henry finally decided to brave the Papal excommunication, Francis dared not make common cause with him. The Bishop of Paris (Du Bellay) once more came over, and endeavoured to find a way out of the maze. Anne, whom he had befriended before, received him effusively, kissing him on the cheek and exerting all her witchery upon him; but it was soon found that he brought an ultimatum from his King; and when Henry began to bully him and abuse Francis for deserting him, the bishop cowed him with a threat of immediate war. The compromise finally arrived at was that if the Pope before the following Easter (1534) would withdraw his sentence against Henry, England would remain within the pale of the Church. Otherwise the measure drafted for presentation to Parliament entirely throwing off the Papal supremacy would be proceeded with. This was the parting of the ways, and the decision was left to Clement VII.

Parliament opened on the 15th January, perhaps the most fateful a.s.sembly that ever met at Westminster. The country, as we have seen, was indignant at the treatment of Katharine and her daughter, but the instinct of loyalty to the King was strong, and there was no powerful centre around which revolt might crystallise. The clergy especially--even those who, like Stokesley, Fox, and Gardiner, were Henry's instruments--dreaded the great changes that portended; and an attempt to influence Parliament by a declaration of the clergy in Convocation against the King's first marriage, failed, notwithstanding the flagrant violence with which signatures were sought. With difficulty, even though the n.o.bles known to favour Katharine were not summoned, a bill granting a dowry to the Queen as Dowager Princess of Wales was pa.s.sed; but the House of Commons, trembling for the English property in the imperial dominions, threw it out. The prospect for a time looked black for the great ecclesiastical changes that were contemplated, and the hopes of Katharine's friends rose again.

The Bishop of Paris in the meanwhile had contrived to frighten Clement and his Cardinals, by his threatening talk of English schism and the universal spread of dissent, into an insincere and half-hearted acquiescence in a compromise that would submit the question of a divorce to a tribunal of two Cardinals sitting at Cambray to save appearances, and deciding in favour of Henry. When the French amba.s.sador Castillon came to Henry with this news (early in March 1534) the King had experienced the difficulty of bringing Parliament and Convocation to his views; and, again, if left to himself, he would probably have yielded. But Anne and Cromwell, and indeed Cranmer, were now in the same boat; and any wavering on the part of the King would have meant ruin to them all. They did their best to stiffen Henry, but he was nearly inclined to give way behind their backs; and after the French amba.s.sador had left the Council unsuccessful, Henry had a long secret talk with him in the garden, in which he a.s.sured him that he would not have anything done hastily against the Holy See.

But whilst the rash and turbulent Bishop of Paris was hectoring Clement at Rome and sending unjustifiably encouraging messages to England, circ.u.mstances on both sides were working against the compromise which the French desired so much. Cromwell and Anne were panic-stricken at the idea of reopening the question of the marriage before any Papal tribunal, and kept up Henry's resentment against the Pope. Henry's pride also was wounded by a suggestion of the French that, as a return for Clement's pliability, Alexander de Medici, Duke of Florence, might marry the Princess Mary. Cromwell's diplomatic management of the Parliamentary opposition and the consequent pa.s.sage of the bill abolis.h.i.+ng the remittance of Peter's pence to Rome, also encouraged Henry to think that he might have his own way after all; and the chances of his making further concessions to the Pope again diminished. A similar process was going on in Rome. Whilst Clement was smilingly listening to talk of reconciliation for the sake of keeping England under his authority, he well knew that Henry could only be moved by fear; and all the thunderbolts of the Church were being secretly forged to launch upon the King of England.

On the 23rd March 1534 the consistory of Cardinals sat, the French Cardinals being absent; and the final judgment on the validity of Henry's marriage with Katharine was given by the head of the Church. The cause which had stirred Europe for five years was settled beyond appeal so far as the Roman Church could settle it. Katharine was Henry's lawful wife, and Anne Boleyn was proclaimed by the Church to be his concubine. Almost on the very day that the gage was thus thrown down by the Pope, Henry had taken similar action on his own account. In the previous sitting of Parliament the King had been practically acknowledged as head of the Church in his own dominions; and now all appeals and payments to the Pope were forbidden, and the bishops of England were entirely exempt from his spiritual jurisdiction and control. To complete the emanc.i.p.ation of the country from the Papacy, on the 23rd March 1534 a bill (the Act of Succession) was read for the third time, confirming the legality of the marriage of Henry and Anne, and settling the succession to the crown upon their issue to the exclusion of the Princess Mary. Cranmer's divorce decision was thus ratified by statute; and any person questioning in word or print the legitimacy of Elizabeth's birth was adjudged guilty of high treason. Every subject of the King, moreover, was to take oath to maintain this statute on pain of death. The consummation was reached: for good or for evil England was free from Rome, and the fair woman for whose sake the momentous change had been wrought, sat planning schemes of vengeance against the two proud princesses, mother and daughter, who still refused to bow the neck to her whom they proclaimed the usurper of their rights.

CHAPTER VI

1534-1536

A FLEETING TRIUMPH--POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE

In the previous pages we have witnessed the process by which a vain, arrogant man, naturally l.u.s.tful and held by no moral or material restraint, had been drawn into a position which, when he took the first step that led to it, he could not have contemplated. In ordinary circ.u.mstances there would have been no insuperable difficulty in his obtaining a divorce, and he probably expected little. The divorce, however, in this case involved the question of a change in the national alliance and a s.h.i.+fting of the weight of England to the side of France; and the Emperor by his power over the Pope had been able to frustrate the design, not entirely on account of his family connection with Katharine, but rather as a question of international policy. The dependent position of the Pope had effectually stood in the way of the compromise always sought by France, and the resistance to his will had made Henry the more determined to a.s.sert himself, with the natural result that the dispute had developed into religious schism. There is a school of historians which credits Henry personally with the far-reaching design of shaking off the ecclesiastical control of Rome in order to augment the national greatness; but there seems to me little evidence to support the view. When once the King had bearded the Papacy, rather than retrace the steps he had taken and confess himself wrong, it was natural that many of his subjects who conscientiously leant towards greater freedom in religion than Rome would allow, were prepared to carry the lesson further, as the German Lutherans had done, but I can find no reason to believe that Henry desired to initiate any change of system in the direction of freedom: his aim being, as he himself said, simply to make himself Pope as well as King within his own realm. Even that position, as we have seen in the aforegoing chapters, was only reached gradually under the incentive of opposition, and by the aid of stouter hearts and clearer brains than his own: and if Henry could have had his way about the marriage, as he conceivably might have done on many occasions during the struggle by a very slight change in the circ.u.mstances, there would have been, so far as he personally was concerned, no Reformation in England at the time.

One of the most curious phases in the process here described is the deterioration notable in Henry's character as the ecclesiastical and moral restraints that influenced him were gradually cast aside. We have seen him as a kind and courteous husband, not more immoral than other men of his age and station; a father whose love for his children was intense; and a cultured gentleman of a headstrong but not unlovable character. Resistance to his will had touched his pride and hardened his heart, until at the period which we have now reached (1534) we see him capable of brutal and insulting treatment of his wife and elder daughter, of which any gentleman would be ashamed. On the other hand, the att.i.tude of Katharine and Mary was exactly that best calculated to drive to fury a conceited, overbearing man, loving his supreme power as Henry did. It was, of course, heroic and n.o.ble of the two ladies to stand upon their undoubted rights as they did; but if Katharine by adopting a religious life had consented to a divorce, the decree of nullity would not have been p.r.o.nounced; her own position would have been recognised, her daughter's legitimacy saved, and the separation from Rome at least deferred, if not prevented. There was no such deterioration in Anne's character as in that of Henry; for it was bad from the first, and consistently remained so. Her ambition was the n.o.blest trait in her nature; and she served it with a petty personal malignity against those who seemed to stand in her way that goes far to deprive her of the pity that otherwise would go out to her in her own martyrdom at the hands of the fleshly tyrant whose evil nature she had been so greatly instrumental in developing.

It was undoubtedly to Anne's prompting that the ungenerous treatment of the Princess Mary was due, a treatment that aroused the indignation even of those to whom its execution was entrusted. Henry was deeply attached to his daughter, but it touched his pride for her to refuse to submit without protest to his behest. When Norfolk told him of the att.i.tude of the Princess on her being taken to Hatfield to attend upon Elizabeth, he decided to bring his parental authority to bear upon her personally, and decided to see her. But Anne, "considering the easiness or rather levity of the King, and that the great beauty and goodness of the Princess might overcome his displeasure with her, and, moved by her virtues and his fatherly pity for her, be induced to treat her better and restore her t.i.tle to her, sent Cromwell and other messengers posting after the King to prevent him, at any cost, from seeing or speaking to the Princess."[114]

When Henry arrived at Hatfield and saw his baby daughter Elizabeth, the elder Princess begged to be allowed to salute him. The request was not granted; but when the King mounted his horse in the courtyard Mary stood upon a terrace above to see him. The King was informed of her presence, or saw her by chance; and, as she caught his eye, she threw herself upon her knees in an att.i.tude of prayer, whereupon the father touched his bonnet, and bowed low and kindly to the daughter he was wronging so bitterly. He explained afterwards that he avoided speaking to her as she was so obstinate with him, "thanks to her Spanish blood." When the French amba.s.sador mentioned her kindly, during the conversation, he noted that Henry's eyes filled with tears, and that he could not refrain from praising her.[115] But for Anne's jealousy for her own offspring, it is probable that Mary's legitimacy would have been established by Act of Parliament; as Cromwell at this time was certainly in favour of it: but Anne was ever on the watch, especially to arouse Henry's anger by hinting that Mary was looking to foreigners for counsel, as indeed she was. It was this latter element in which danger princ.i.p.ally lurked. Katharine naturally appealed to her kin for support; and all through her trouble it was this fact, joined with her firm refusal to acknowledge Henry's supreme power, that steeled her husband's heart. But for the King's own daughter and undoubted born subject to act in the same way made her, what her mother never had been, a dangerous centre around which the disaffected elements might gather. The old n.o.bility, as we have seen, were against Anne: and Henry quite understood the peril of having in his own family a person who commanded the sympathies of the strongest foreign powers in Europe, as well as the most influential elements in England. He angrily told the Marquis of Exeter that it was only confidence in the Emperor that made Mary so obstinate; but that he was not afraid of the Emperor, and would bring the girl to her senses: and he then went on to threaten Exeter himself if he dared to communicate with her. The same course was soon afterwards taken with Norfolk, who as well as his wife was forbidden to see the Princess, although he certainly had shown no desire to extend much leniency to her.

The treatment of Katharine was even more atrocious, though in her case it was probably more the King's irritated pride than his fears that was the incentive. When the wretched Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, was prosecuted for her crazy prophecies against the King every possible effort was made to connect the unfortunate Queen with her, though unsuccessfully, and the attempt to force Katharine to take the oath prescribed by the new Act of Succession against herself and her daughter was obviously a piece of persecution and insult.[116] The Commission sent to Buckden to extort the new oath of allegiance to Henry, and to Anne as Queen, consisted of Dr. Lee, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Tunstall, Bishop of Durham; and the Bishop of Chester; and the scene as described by one of the Spanish servants is most curious. When the demand was made that she should take the oath of allegiance to Anne as Queen, Katharine with fine scorn replied, "Hold thy peace, bishop: speak to me no more. These are the wiles of the devil. I am Queen, and Queen will I die: by right the King can have no other wife, and let this be your answer."[117] a.s.sembling her household, she addressed them, and told them they could not without sin swear allegiance to the King and Anne in a form that would deny the supreme spiritual authority of the Pope: and taking counsel with her Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, they settled between them that the Spaniards should answer interrogatories in Spanish in such a way that by a slight misp.r.o.nunciation their answer could be interpreted, "I acknowledge that the King has made himself head of the Church" (_se ha hecho cabeza de la iglesia_), whereas the Commissioners would take it as meaning "that the King be created head of the Church" (_sea hecho cabeza de la iglesia_); and on the following morning the wily chamberlain and his countrymen saved appearances and their consciences at the same time by a pun. But when the formal oath of allegiance to Anne was demanded, Felipe, speaking for the rest, replied, "I have taken one oath of allegiance to my lady Queen Katharine. She still lives, and during her life I know no other Queen in this realm." Lee then threatened them with punishment for refusal, and a bold Burgundian lackey, Bastian,[118] burst out with, "Let the King banish us, but let him not order us to be perjurers." The bishop in a rage told him to begone at once; and, nothing loath, Bastian knelt at his mistress's feet and bade her farewell; taking horse at once to ride to the coast.

Katharine in tears remonstrated with Lee for dismissing her servant without reference to her; and the bishop, now that his anger was calmed, sent messengers to fetch Bastian back; which they did not do until he had reached London.[119]

This fresh indignity aroused Katharine's friends both in England and abroad. The Emperor had already remonstrated with the English amba.s.sador on the reported cruel treatment of the Queen and her daughter, and Henry now endeavoured to justify himself in a long letter (June 1534). As for the Queen, he said, she was being treated "in everything to the best that can be devised, whom we do order and entertain as we think most expedient, and as to us seemeth prudent. And the like also of our daughter the Lady Mary: for we think it not meet that any person should prescribe unto us how we should order our own daughter, we being her natural father." He expressed himself greatly hurt that the Emperor should think him capable of acting unkindly, notwithstanding that the Lady Katharine "hath very disobediently behaved herself towards us, as well in contemning and setting at naught our laws and statutes, as in many other ways." Just lately, he continues, he had sent three bishops to exhort her, "in most loving fas.h.i.+on," to obey the law; and "she hath in most unG.o.dly, obstinate, and in.o.bedient wise, wilfully resisted, set at naught and contemned our laws and ordinances: so if we would administer to her any rigour or extremity she were undoubtedly within the extreme danger of our laws."

The blast of persecution swept over the land. The oaths demanded by the new statutes were stubbornly resisted by many. Fisher and More, as learned and n.o.ble as any men in the land, were sent to the Tower (April 1534) to be entrapped and done to death a year later. Throughout the country the Commissioners with plenary powers were sent to administer the new oaths, and those citizens who cavilled at taking them were treated as traitors to the King. But all this did not satisfy Anne whilst Katharine and Mary remained recalcitrant and unpunished for the same offence. Henry was in dire fear, however, of some action of the Emperor in enforcement of the Papal excommunication against him and his kingdom, which according to the Catholic law he had forfeited by the Pope's ban. Francis, willing as he was to oppose the Emperor, dared not expose his own kingdom to excommunication by siding with Henry, and the latter was statesman enough to see, as indeed was Cromwell, that extreme measures against Mary would turn all Christendom against him, and probably prove the last unbearable infliction that would drive his own people to aid a foreign invasion. So, although Anne sneered at the King's weakness, as she called it, and eagerly antic.i.p.ated his projected visit to Francis, during which she would remain Regent in England, and be able to wreak her wicked will on the young Princess, the King, held by political fear, and probably, too, by some fatherly regard, refused to be nagged by his wife into the murder of his daughter, and even relinquished the meeting with Francis rather than leave England with Anne in power.

In the meanwhile Katharine's health grew worse. Henry told the French amba.s.sador in January, soon after Suffolk's attempt to administer the first oath to her, that "she was dropsical and could not live long": and his enemies were ready with the suggestion--which was probably unfounded--that she was being poisoned. She shut herself up in her own chamber, and refused to eat the food prepared by the new servants; what little food she took being cooked in her own room by her one maid. Early in the summer (May) she was removed from Buckden to Kimbolton Castle, within the miasmic influence of the fens, and there was no attempt to conceal the desire on the part of the King and those who had brought him to this pa.s.s that Katharine should die, for by that means alone, it seemed, could foreign intervention and civil war be averted. Katharine herself was, as we have seen, full of suspicion. In March Chapuys reported that she had sent a man to London to procure some old wine for her, as she refused to drink the wine provided for her use. "They were trying," he said, "to give her artificial dropsy." Two months later, just after the stormy scene when Lee and Tunstall had endeavoured to extort from the Queen the oath to the new Act of Succession, Chapuys in hot indignation suddenly appeared at Richmond, where the King was, to protest against such treatment. Henry was intensely annoyed and offended, and refused to see the amba.s.sador. He was master, he said, in his own realm; and it was no good coming to him with such remonstrances. No wonder that Chapuys concluded, "Everybody fears some ill turn will be done to the Queen, seeing the rudeness to which she is daily subjected, both in deeds and words; especially as the concubine has said that she will not cease till she has got rid of her; and as the prophecies say that one Queen of England is to be burnt, she hopes it will be Katharine."[120]

Early in June Katharine urged strongly that Chapuys should travel to Kimbolton to see her, alleging the bad condition of her health as a reason. The King and Cromwell believed that her true object in desiring an interview was to devise plans with her nephew's amba.s.sador for obtaining the enforcement of the papal censure,[121] which would have meant the subversion of Henry's power; and for weeks Chapuys begged for permission to see her in vain. "Ladies were not to be trusted," Cromwell told him; whilst fresh Commissioners were sent, one after the other, to extort, by force if necessary, the oath of Katharine's lady attendants to the Act of Succession, much to the Queen's distress.[122] At length, tired of waiting, the amba.s.sador told Cromwell that he was determined to start at once; which he did two days later, on the 16th July. With a train of sixty hors.e.m.e.n, his own household and Spaniards resident in England, he rode through London towards the eastern counties, ostensibly on a religious pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham. Riding through the leafy lanes of Hertfords.h.i.+re in the full summer tide, solaced by music, minstrelsy, and the quaint antics of Chapuys' fool, the party were surprised on the second day of their journey to see gallop past them on the road Stephen Vaughan, one of the King's officers who spoke Spanish; and later, when they had arrived within a few miles of Kimbolton, they were met by the same man, accompanied this time by a humble servitor of Katharine, bringing to the pilgrims wine and provisions in abundance, but also the ill news that the King had ordered that Chapuys was to be forbidden access to the Queen. The amba.s.sador was exceedingly indignant. He did not wish to offend the King, he said, but, having come so far and being now in the immediate neighbourhood, he would not return unsuccessful without an effort to obtain a more authoritative decision. Early the next morning one of Katharine's old officers came to Chapuys and repeated the prohibition, begging him not even to pa.s.s through the village, lest the King should take it ill. Other messages pa.s.sed, but all to the same effect. Poor Katharine herself sent secret word that she was as thankful for Chapuys'

journey as if it had been successful, and hinted that it would be a consolation to her if some of her countrymen could at least approach the castle. Needless to say that the Spaniards gathered beneath the walls of the castle and chatted gallantly across the moat to the ladies upon the terraces, and some indeed, including the jester, are a.s.serted to have found their way inside the castle, where they were regaled heartily, and the fool played some of the usual tricks of his motley.[123] Chapuys, in high dudgeon, returned by another road to London without attempting to complete his pilgrimage to Walsingham, secretly spied upon as he was, the whole way, by the King's envoy, Vaughan. "Tell Cromwell," he said to the latter, as he discovered himself on the outskirts of London, "that I should have judged it more honourable if the King and he had informed me of his intention before I left London, so that all the world should not have been acquainted with a proceeding which I refrain from characterising. But the Queen," he continued, "nevertheless had cause to thank him (Cromwell) since the rudeness shown to her would now be so patent that it could not well be denied."

Henry and Cromwell had good reason to fear foreign machinations to their detriment. The Emperor and Francis were in ominous negotiations; for the King of France could not afford to break with the Papacy, the rising of Kildare in Ireland was known to have the sympathy, if not the aid, of Spain, and it was felt throughout Christendom that the Emperor must, sooner or later, give force to the Papal sentence against England to avoid the utter loss of prestige which would follow if the ban of Rome was after all seen to be utterly innocuous. A sympathetic English lord told Chapuys secretly that Cromwell had ridiculed the idea of the Emperor's attacking England; for his subjects would not put up with the consequent loss of trade. But if he did, continued Cromwell, "the death of Katharine and Mary would put an end to all the trouble." Chapuys told his informant, for Cromwell's behoof, that if any harm was done to either of the ladies the Emperor would have the greater cause for quarrel.

In the autumn Mary fell seriously ill. She had been obliged to follow "the b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Elizabeth, against her will, for ever intriguing cleverly to avoid humiliation to herself. But the long struggle against such odds broke down her health, and Henry, who, in his heart of hearts, could hardly condemn his daughter's stubbornness, so like his own, softened to the extent of his sending his favourite physician, Dr. b.u.t.ts, to visit her. A greater concession was to allow Katharine's two medical men to attend the Princess; and permission was given to Katharine herself to see her, but under conditions which rendered the concession nugatory. The Queen wrote a pathetic letter in Spanish to Cromwell, praying that Mary might be permitted to come and stay with her. "It will half cure her," she urged. As a small boon, Henry had consented that the sick girl should be sent to a house at no great distance from Kimbolton. "Alas!" urged Katharine, "if it be only a mile away, I cannot visit her. I beseech that she be allowed to come to where I am. I will answer for her security with my life." But Cromwell or his master was full of suspicion of imperial plots for the escape of Mary to foreign soil, and Katharine's maternal prayer remained unheard.

The unhappy mother tried again soon afterwards to obtain access to her sick daughter by means of Chapuys. She besought for charity's sake that the King would allow her to tend Mary with her own hands. "You shall also tell his Highness that there is no need for any other person but myself to nurse her: I will put her in my own bed where I sleep, and will watch her when needful." When Chapuys saw the King with this pathetic message Henry was less arrogant than usual. "He wished to do his best for his daughter's health; but he must be careful of his own honour and interests, which would be jeopardised if Mary were conveyed abroad, or if she escaped, as she easily might do if she were with her mother; for he had some suspicion that the Emperor had a design to get her away." Henry threw all the blame for Mary's obstinacy upon Katharine, who he knew was in close and constant touch with his opponents: and the fear he expressed that the Emperor and his friends in England would try to spirit Mary across the sea to Flanders, where, indeed, she might have been made a thorn in her father's side, were perfectly well founded, and these plans were at the time the gravest peril that threatened Henry and England.[124]

Cruel, therefore, as his action towards his daughter may seem, it was really prompted by pressing considerations of his own safety. Apart from this desire to keep Mary away from foreign influence working against him through her mother, Henry exhibited frequent signs of tenderness towards his elder daughter, much to Anne's dismay. In May 1534, for instance, he sent her a gentle message to the effect that he hoped she would obey him, and that in such case her position would be preserved. But the girl was proud and, not unnaturally, resentful, and sent back a haughty answer to what she thought was an attempt to entrap her. To her foreign friends she said that she believed her father meant to poison her, but that she cared little. She was sure of going to heaven, and was only sorry for her mother.

In the meanwhile Anne's influence over the King was weakening. She saw the gathering clouds from all parts of Christendom ready to launch their lightning upon her head, and ruin upon England for her sake; and her temper, never good, became intolerable. Henry, having had his way, was now face to face with the threatening consequences, and could ill brook snappish petulance from the woman for whom he had brought himself to brave the world. As usual with weak men, he pitied himself sincerely, and looked around for comfort, finding none from Anne. Francis, eldest son of the Church and most Christian King, was far from being the genial ally he once had been, now that Henry was excommunicate; the German Protestant princes even stood apart and rejected Henry's approaches for an alliance to the detriment of their own suzerain;[125] and, worst of all, the English lords of the North, Hussey, Dacre, and the rest of them, were in close conspiracy with the imperialists for an armed rising aided from abroad; which, if successful, would make short work of Henry and his anti-Papal policy.[126] In return for all this danger, the King could only look at the cross, discontented woman by his side, who apparently was as incapable of bearing him a son as Katharine had been. For some months in the spring of 1534 Anne had endeavoured to retain her hold upon him by saying that she was again with child, and during the royal progress in the midland counties in the summer Henry was more attentive than he had been to the woman he still hoped might bear him a son, although her shrewish temper sorely tried him and all around her. At length, however, the truth had to be told, and Henry's hopes fled, and his eyes again turned elsewhere for solace.

Anne knew that her position was unstable, and her husband's open flirtation with a lady of the Court drove her to fury. Presuming upon her former influence, she imperiously attempted to have her new rival removed from the proximity of the King. Henry flared up at this, and let Anne know, as brutally as language could put it, that the days of his complaisance with her were over, and that he regretted having done so much for her sake. Who the King's new lady-love was is not certain. Chapuys calls her "a very beautiful and adroit young lady, for whom his love is daily increasing, whilst the credit and insolence of the concubine (_i.e._ Anne) decreases." That the new favourite was supported by the aristocratic party that opposed Anne and the religious changes is evident from Chapuys'

remark that "there is some good hope that if this love of the King's continues the affairs of the Queen (Katharine) and the Princess will prosper, for the young lady is greatly attached to them." Anne and her family struggled to keep their footing, but when Henry had once plucked up courage to shake off the trammels, he had all a weak man's violence and obstinacy in following his new course. One of Princess Mary's household came to tell Chapuys in October that "the King had turned Lady Rochford (Anne's sister-in-law) out of the Court because she had conspired with the concubine by hook or by crook to get rid of the young lady." The rise of the new favourite immediately changed the att.i.tude of the courtiers towards Mary. "On Wednesday before leaving the More she (Mary) was visited by all the ladies and gentlemen, regardless of the annoyance of Anne. The day before yesterday (October 22nd) the Princess was at Richmond with the brat (_ga.r.s.e, i.e._ Elizabeth), and the lady (Anne) came to see her daughter accompanied by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and others, all of whom went and saluted the Princess (Mary) with some of the ladies; which was quite a new thing."

The death of Pope Clement and the advent of Cardinal Farnese as Paul III., known to be not too well affected towards the Emperor, seemed at this time to offer a chance of the reconciliation of England with the Papacy: and the aristocratic party in Henry's counsels hoped, now that the King had grown tired of his second wife, that they might influence him by a fresh appeal to his sensuality. France also took a hand in the game in its new aspect, the aim being to obtain the hand of Mary for the Dauphin, to whom, it will be recollected, she had been betrothed as a child, with the legitimisation of the Princess and the return of Henry to the fold of the Church with a French alliance. This would, of course, have involved the repudiation of Anne, with the probable final result of a French domination of England after the King's death. The Admiral of France, Chabot de Brion, came to England late in the autumn to forward some such arrangement as that described, and incidentally to keep alive Henry's distrust of the Emperor, whilst threatening him that the Dauphin would marry a Spanish princess if the King of England held aloof. But, though Anne's influence over her husband was gone, Cromwell, the strong spirit, was still by his side; and reconciliation with the Papacy in any form would have meant ruin to him and the growing interests that he represented.

Even if Henry had now been inclined to yield to the Papacy, of which there is no evidence, Cromwell had gone too far to recede; and when Parliament met in November the Act of Supremacy was pa.s.sed, giving the force of statute law to the independence of the Church of England. Chabot de Brion's mission was therefore doomed to failure from the first, and the envoy took no pains to conceal his resentment towards Anne, the origin of all the trouble that dislocated the European balance of power. There was much hollow feasting and insincere professions of friends.h.i.+p between the two kings, but it was clear now to the Frenchmen that, with Anne or without her, Henry would bow his neck no more to the Papacy; and it was to the Princess Mary that the Catholic elements looked for a future restoration of the old state of things. A grand ball was given at Court in Chabot's honour the day before he left London, and the dignified French envoy sat in a seat of state by the side of Anne, looking at the dancing.

Suddenly, without apparent reason, she burst into a violent fit of laughter. The Admiral of France, already in no very amiable mood, frowned angrily, and, turning to her, said, "Are you laughing at me, madam, or what?" After she had laughed to her heart's content, she excused herself to him by saying that she was laughing because the King had told her that he was going to fetch the Admiral's secretary to be introduced to her, and on the way the King had met a lady who had made him forget everything else.

Though Henry would not submit to the Papacy at the charming of Francis, he was loath to forego the French alliance, and proposed a marriage between the younger French prince, the Duke of Angouleme, and Elizabeth; and this was under discussion during the early months of 1535. But it is clear that, although the daughter of the second marriage was to be held legitimate, Anne was to gain no accession of strength by the new alliance, for the French flouted her almost openly, and Henry was already contemplating a divorce from her. We are told by Chapuys that he only desisted from the idea when a councillor told him that "if he separated from 'the concubine' he would have to recognise the validity of his first marriage, and, worst of all, submit to the Pope."[127] Who the councillor was that gave this advice is not stated; but we may fairly a.s.sume that it was Cromwell, who soon found a shorter, and, for him, a safer way of ridding his master of a wife who had tired him and could bear him no son.

A French alliance, with a possible reconciliation with Rome in some form, would not have suited Cromwell; for it would have meant a triumph for the aristocratic party at Henry's Court, and the overthrow of the men who had led Henry to defy the Papacy.

If the aristocratic party could influence Henry by means of the nameless "new young lady," the Boleyns and reformers could fight with the same weapons, and early in February 1535 we find Chapuys writing, "The young lady formerly in this King's good graces is so no longer, and has been succeeded by a cousin-german of the concubine, the daughter of the present governess of the Princess."[128] This new mistress, whilst her little reign lasted, worked well for Anne and Cromwell, but in the meantime the conspiracy amongst the n.o.bles grew and strengthened. Throughout the upper cla.s.ses in the country a feeling of deep resentment was felt at the treatment of Mary, and there was hardly a n.o.bleman, except Anne's father and brother, who was not pledged to take up arms in her cause and against the religious changes.[129] Cromwell's answer to the disaffection, of which he was quite cognisant, was the closer keeping than ever of the royal ladies, with threats of their death if they were the cause of a revolt, and the stern enforcement of the oath prescribed by the Act of Supremacy. The martyrdom of the London Carthusians for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and shortly afterwards the sacrifice of the venerable Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More and Katharine