Chapter III (2)

How completely Wolsey had at this time surrendered himself to the Emperor, is evident from Katharine's new attitude towards him. During his period of French sympathy she had been, as we have seen, practically alienated from state affairs, but now in Henry's letters to Wolsey her name is frequently mentioned and her advice was evidently welcome.[31] During his absence in Flanders, for instance, Wolsey received a letter from Henry, in which the King says: "The Queen, my wife, hath desired me to make her most hearty recommendation unto you, as to him that she loveth very well; and both she and I would fain know when you would repair unto us." Great news came that the Emperor and his allies were brilliantly successful in the war, but in the midst of victory the great Medici, Pope Leo X., though still a man in his prime, died. There is no doubt that a secret promise had been made by Charles to Wolsey of his support in case a vacancy in the Papacy arose, but no one had dreamed of its occurring so quickly,[32] and Charles found his hand forced. He needed for his purpose a far more pliable instrument in the pontifical chair than the haughty Cardinal of York. So, whilst pretending to work strenuously to promote Wolsey's elevation, and thus to gain the goodwill of Henry and his minister, he took care secretly that some humbler candidate, such as the one ultimately chosen by the Conclave, his old schoolmaster, Cardinal Adrian, should be the new Pope. Wolsey was somewhat sulky at the result of the election, and thenceforward looked with more distrust on the imperial connection; but, withal, he put as good a face on the matter as possible; and when, at the end of May 1522, he again welcomed the Emperor in Henry's name as he set foot on English soil at Dover, the Cardinal, though watchful, was still favourable to the alliance. This visit of the young Emperor was the most splendid royal sojourn ever made in England; and Henry revelled in the ceremonies wherein he was the host of the greatest monarch upon earth.

Charles came with a train of a thousand horse and two thousand courtiers; and to feed and house such a multitude, the guilds of London, and even the principal citizens, were obliged to make return of all their spare beds and stocks of provisions in order to provide for the strangers. The journey of the monarchs was a triumphal progress from Dover through Canterbury, Sittingbourne, and Rochester to Gravesend. On the downs between Dover and Canterbury, Henry and a great train of nobles was to have met his nephew; but the more to do him honour the King rode into Dover itself, and with pride showed his visitor his new great ship the _Harry Grace a Dieu_, and the rest of the English fleet; whereupon, "the Emperor and his lords much praised the making of the ships, and especially the artillery: they said they had never seen ships so armed." From Gravesend the gallant company rowed in the royal barges amidst salvoes of guns to Greenwich. There at the hall door of the palace stood Katharine surrounded by her ladies, and holding her tiny daughter by the hand. Sinking upon one knee the Emperor craved his aunt's blessing, which was given, and thenceforward for five weeks the feasting and glorious shows went on without intermission.

On the second day after the arrival at Greenwich, whilst Henry was arming for a joust, a courier, all travel-stained and weary, demanded prompt audience, to hand the King a letter from his ambassador in France. The King read the despatch with knitted brows, and, turning to his friend Sir William Compton, said: "Go and tell the Emperor I have news for him." When Charles came the letter was handed to him, and it must have rejoiced his heart as he read it. Francis bade defiance to the King of England, and thenceforward Henry and the Emperor were allies in arms against a common enemy. Glittering pageants followed in London and Windsor, where Charles sat as Knight of the Garter under triumphant Henry's presidency; masques and dances, banquets and hunting, delighted the host and surprised the guests with the unrestrained lavishness of the welcome;[33] but we may be certain that what chiefly interested Katharine and her nephew was not this costly trifling, but the eternal friendship between England and Spain solemnly sworn upon the sacrament in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, by the Emperor and Henry, and the binding alliance between them in peace and war, cemented by the pledge that Charles should marry his cousin Mary Tudor and no one else in the world. It was Katharine's final and greatest triumph, and the shadows fell thick and fast thereafter.

Henry promptly took his usual showy and unprofitable part in the war. Only a few weeks after the Emperor bade his new ally farewell, an English force invaded Picardy, and the Earl of Surrey's fleet threatened all French shipping in the Channel. Coerced by the King of England too, Venice deserted France and joined forces with the allies; the new Pope and the Italian princes did the same, and the Emperor's arms carried all before them in Italy. Henry was kept faithful to his ally by the vain hope of a dismemberment of France, in which he should be the principal gainer; the Pope Clement VII., the ambitious Medici, who succeeded Adrian in September 1523, hungered for fresh territory which Charles alone could give him; the rebel De Bourbon, the greatest soldier of France, was fighting against his own king; and in February 1525 the crushing blow of Pavia fell, and Francis, "all lost except honour," was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy, who looking over Christendom saw none to say him nay but the bold monk at Wittemberg.

Three years of costly war for interests not primarily their own had already disillusioned the English people. By methods more violent and tyrannical than ever had been adopted by any previous king, Henry had wrung from parliament supplies so oppressive and extortionate for the purposes of the war as to disgust and incense the whole country. Wolsey, too, had been for the second time beguiled about the Papacy he coveted, and knew now that he could not trust the Emperor to serve any interests but his own. The French collapse at Pavia, moreover, and pity for the captive Francis languishing at Madrid, had caused in England and elsewhere a reaction in his favour. Henry himself was, as was his wont, violently angry at the cynical way in which his own hopes in France were shelved by Charles; and the Pope, alarmed now at the Emperor's unchecked dominion in Italy, and the insufficient share of the spoil offered to him, also began to look askance at his ally. So, notwithstanding the official rejoicings in England when the news of Pavia came, and the revived plan of Henry and Wolsey to join Bourbon in his intention to dismember France, with or without the aid of Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warham, correctly interpreted the prevailing opinion in England in his letter to Wolsey (quoted by Hallam), saying that the people had "more cause to weep than to rejoice" at the French defeat. The renewed extortionate demands for money aroused in England discontent so dangerous as to reach rebellion against the King's officers.[34] Risings in Kent and the eastern counties, and the outspoken remonstrances of the leaders of the middle and working classes at length convinced Wolsey, and through him the King, that a change of policy was inevitable. England once more had been made the cat's-paw of Spain; and now, with an empty exchequer and a profoundly discontented people, was obliged again to shift its balance to the side which promised the best hopes for peace, and to redress the equilibrium in Europe upon which the English power depended. France was still rich in resources, and was made to pay or rather promise the vast sum of two million crowns in instalments, and an annuity of a hundred thousand a year to the King for England's friendship, whilst Francis was forced to abandon all his claims on Italy and Burgundy (January 1526), and marry the Emperor's sister Leonora, before he was permitted to return to France, at peace once more. It is true that every party to the treaties endeavoured to evade the fulfilment of his pledges; but that was the custom of the times. The point that interests us here is that the new policy now actively pursued by Wolsey of close friendship with France, necessarily meant the ruin of Katharine, unless she was dexterous and adaptable enough either to reverse the policy or openly espouse it. Unfortunately she did neither. She was now forty-one years of age, and had ceased for nearly two years to cohabit with her husband. Her health was bad; she had grown stout, and her comeliness had departed; all hopes of her giving to the King the son and heir for whom he so ardently craved had quite vanished, and with them much of her personal hold upon her husband. To her alarm and chagrin, Henry, as if in despair of being succeeded by a legitimate heir, in 1525, before signing the new alliance with France, had created his dearly loved natural son, Henry Fitzroy, a duke under the royal title of Duke of Richmond, which had been borne by his father; and Katharine, not without reason, feared the King's intention to depose her daughter, the betrothed of the Emperor, in favour of an English bastard. We have in previous pages noticed the peculiar absence of tact and flexibility in Katharine's character; and Wolsey's ostentatious French leanings after 1525 were met by the Queen with open opposition and acrimonious reproach, instead of by temporising wiliness. The Emperor's off-hand treatment of his betrothed bride, Mary Tudor, further embittered Katharine, who was thus surrounded on every side by disillusionment and disappointment. Charles sent commissioners to England just before the battle of Pavia to demand, amongst other unamiable requirements, the prompt sending of Mary, who was only nine years old, to Flanders with an increased dowry. This was no part of the agreement, and was, as no doubt Charles foresaw and desired, certain to be refused. The envoys received from Henry and Katharine, and more emphatically from Wolsey, a negative answer to the request,[35] Mary being, as they said, the greatest treasure they had, for whom no hostages would be sufficient.[36] Katharine would not let her nephew slip out of his engagement without a struggle. Mary herself was made soon after to send a fine emerald to her betrothed with a grand message to the effect that when they came together she would be able to know (_i.e._ by the clearness or otherwise of the gem) "whether his Majesty do keep himself as continent and chaste as, with God's grace, she will." As at this time the Emperor was a man of twenty-five, whilst his bride had not reached ten years, the cases were hardly parallel; and within three months (in July 1525) Charles had betrothed himself to his cousin of Portugal. The treaty that had been so solemnly sworn to on the high altar at Windsor only three years before, had thus become so much waste-paper, and Katharine's best hopes for her child and herself were finally defeated. A still greater trial for her followed; for whilst Wolsey was drawing nearer and nearer to France, and the King himself was becoming more distant from his wife every day, the little Princess was taken from the loving care of her mother, and sent to reside in her principality of Wales.[37] Thenceforward the life of Katharine was a painful martyrdom without one break in the monotony of misfortune.

Katharine appears never to have been unduly jealous of Henry's various mistresses. She, one of the proudest princesses in Christendom, probably considered them quite beneath her notice, and as usual adjuncts to a sovereign's establishment. Henry, moreover, was far from being a generous or complaisant lover; and allowed his lady favourites no great social and political power, such as that wielded by the mistresses of Francis I. Lady Tailebois (Eleanor Blount) made no figure at Court, and Mary Boleyn, the wife of William Carey, a quite undistinguished courtier, who had been Henry's mistress from about 1521,[38] was always impecunious and sometimes disreputable, though her greedy father reaped a rich harvest from his daughter's attractions. Katharine evidently troubled herself very little about such infidelity on the part of her husband, and certainly Wolsey had no objection. The real anxiety of the Queen arose from Henry's ardent desire for a legitimate son, which she could not hope to give him; and Wolsey, with his eyes constantly fixed on the Papacy, decided to make political capital and influence for himself by binding France and England so close together both dynastically and politically as to have both kings at his bidding before the next Pope was elected. The first idea was the betrothal of the jilted Princess Mary of ten to the middle-aged widower who sat upon the throne of France. An embassy came to London from the Queen Regent of France, whilst Francis was still a prisoner in Madrid in 1525, to smooth the way for a closer intimacy. Special instructions were given to the ambassador to dwell upon the complete recovery of Francis from his illness, and to make the most of the Emperor's unfaithfulness to his English betrothed for the purpose of marrying the richly dowered Portuguese. Francis eventually regained his liberty on hard conditions that included his marriage with Charles's widowed sister Leonora, Queen Dowager of Portugal; and his sons were to remain in Spain as hostages for his fulfilment of the terms. But from the first Francis intended to violate the treaty of Madrid, wherever possible; and early in 1527 a stately train of French nobles, headed by De Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes, came with a formal demand for the hand of young Mary Tudor for the already much-married Francis. Again the palace of Greenwich was a blaze of splendour for the third nuptials of the little princess; and the elaborate mummery that Henry loved was re-enacted.[39] On the journeys to and from their lodgings in Merchant Taylors' Hall, the Bishop of Tarbes and Viscount de Turenne heard nothing but muttered curses, saw nothing but frowning faces of the London people; for Mary was in the eyes of Henry's subjects the heiress of England, and they would have, said they, no Frenchman to reign over them when their own king should die.[40] Katharine took little part in the betrothal festivities, for she was a mere shadow now. Her little daughter was made to show off her accomplishments to the Frenchmen, speaking to them in French and Latin, playing on the harpsichord, and dancing with the Viscount de Turenne, whilst the poor Queen looked sadly on. Stiff with gems and cloth of gold, the girl, appearing, we are told, "like an angel," gravely played her part to her proud father's delight, and the Bishop of Tarbes took back with him to his master enthusiastic praises of this "pearl of the world," the backward little girl of eleven, who was destined, as Francis said, to be the "cornerstone of the new covenant" between France and England, either by her marriage with himself, or, failing that, with his second son, the Duke of Orleans, which in every respect would have been a most suitable match.

No sooner had the treaty of betrothal been signed than there came (2nd June 1527) the tremendous news that the Emperor's troops under Bourbon had entered and sacked Rome with ruthless fury, and that Pope Clement was a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, clamouring for aid from all Christian princes against his impious assailants. All those kings who looked with distrust upon the rapidly growing power of Charles drew closer together. When the news came, Wolsey was in France on his embassy of surpassing magnificence, whilst public discontent in England at what was considered his warlike policy was already swelling into fierce denunciations against him, his pride, his greed, and his French proclivities. English people cared little for the troubles of the Italian Pope; or indeed for anything else, so long as they were allowed to live and trade in peace; and they knew full well that war with the Emperor would mean the closing of the rich Flemish and Spanish markets to them, as well as the seizure of their ships and goods. But to Wolsey's ambition the imprisonment of Clement VII. seemed to open a prospect of unlimited power. If Francis and Henry were closely allied, with the support of the Papacy behind them, Wolsey might be commissioned to exercise the Papal authority until he relieved the Pontiff from duress, and in due course might succeed to the chair of St. Peter. So, deaf to the murmuring of the English people, he pressed on; his goal being to bind France and England closely together that he might use them both.

The marriage treaty of Mary with the Duke of Orleans, instead of with his father, was agreed upon by Francis and the Cardinal at Amiens in August 1527. But Wolsey knew that the marriage of the children could not be completed for some years yet, and he was impatient to forge an immediately effective bond. Francis had a sister and a sister-in-law of full age, either of whom might marry Henry. But Katharine stood in the way, and she was the personification of the imperial connection. Wolsey had no scruples: he knew how earnestly his master wished for a son to inherit his realm, and how weak of will that master was if only he kept up the appearance of omnipotence. He knew that Katharine, disappointed, glum, and austere, had lost the charm by which women rule men, and the plan, that for many months he had been slowly and stealthily devising, was boldly brought out to light of day. Divorce was easy, and it would finally isolate the Emperor if Katharine were set aside. The Pope would do anything for his liberators: why not dissolve the unfruitful marriage, and give to England a new French consort in the person of either the widowed Margaret Duchess of Alencon, or of Princess Renee? It is true that the former indignantly refused the suggestion, and dynastic reasons prevented Francis from favouring that of a marriage of Renee of France and Brittany with the King of England; but women, and indeed men, were for Wolsey but puppets to be moved, not creatures to be consulted, and the Cardinal went back to England exultant, and hopeful that, at last, he would compass his aspiration, and make himself ruler of the princes of Christendom. Never was hope more fallacious or fortune's irony more bitter. With a strong master Wolsey would have won; with a flabby sensualist as his stalking-horse he was bound to lose, unless he remained always at his side. The Cardinal's absence in France was the turning-point of his fortunes; whilst he was glorying abroad, his enemies at home dealt him a death-blow through a woman.

At exactly what period, or by whom, the idea of divorcing Katharine at this time had been broached to Henry, it is difficult to say; but it was no unpardonable or uncommon thing for monarchs, for reasons of dynastic expediency, to put aside their wedded wives. Popes, usually in a hurry to enrich their families, could be bribed or coerced; and the interests of the individual, even of a queen-consort, were as nothing in comparison of those of the State, as represented by the sovereign. If the question of religious reform had not complicated the situation and Henry had married a Catholic princess of one of the great royal houses, as Wolsey intended, instead of a mere upstart like Anne Boleyn, there would probably have been little difficulty about the divorce from Katharine: and the first hint of the repudiation of a wife who could give the King no heir, for the sake of his marrying another princess who might do so, and at the same time consolidate a new international combination, would doubtless be considered by those who made it as quite an ordinary political move.

It is probable that the Bishop of Tarbes, when he was in England in the spring of 1527 for the betrothal of Mary, conferred with Wolsey as to the possibility of Henry's marriage to a French princess, which of course would involve the repudiation of Katharine. In any case the King and Wolsey--whether truly or not--asserted that the Bishop had first started the question of the validity of Henry's marriage with his wife, with special reference to the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, who was to be betrothed to Francis I. or his son. It may be accepted as certain, however, that the matter had been secretly fermenting ever since Wolsey began to shift the centre of gravity from the Emperor towards France. Katharine may have suspected it, though as yet no word reached her. But she was angry at the intimate hobnobbing with France, at her daughter's betrothal to the enemy of her house, and at the elevation of Henry's bastard son to a royal dukedom. She was deeply incensed, too, at her alienation from State affairs, and had formed around her a cabal of Wolsey's enemies, for the most part members of the older nobility traditionally in favour of the Spanish alliance and against France, in order, if possible, to obstruct the Cardinal's policy.[41]

The King, no doubt fully aware of Wolsey's plan, was as usual willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike; not caring how much wrong he did if he could only gloze it over to appear right and save his own responsibility before the world. The first formal step, which was taken in April 1527, was carefully devised with this end. Henry, representing that his conscience was assailed by doubts, secretly consulted certain of his councillors as to the legality of his union with his deceased brother's widow. It is true that he had lived with her for eighteen years, and that any impediment to the marriage on the ground of affinity had been dispensed with to the satisfaction of all parties at the time by the Pope's bull. But trifles such as these could never stand in the way of so tender a conscience as that of Henry Tudor, or so overpowering an ambition as that of his minister. The councillors--most of those chosen were of course French partisans--thought the case was very doubtful, and were favourable to an inquiry.

On the 17th May 1527, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, it will be recollected, had always been against the marriage; with Wolsey, Stephen Gardiner, and certain doctors-of-law, held a private sitting at the York House, Westminster, at which the King had been cited to appear and answer the charge of having lived in incest with his sister-in-law. The Court was adjourned twice, to the 20th and 31st May, during which time the sham pleadings for and against the King were carefully directed to the desired end. But before the first sitting was well over the plot got wind and reached Katharine. The Queen and the imperial connection were popular, Wolsey and the French were feared and detested. The old nobility and the populace were on the Queen's side; the mere rumour of what was intended by the prelates at York House set people growling ominously, and the friends of the Spanish-Flemish alliance became threateningly active. The King and Wolsey saw that for a decree of nullity to be pronounced by Warham and Wolsey alone, after a secret inquiry at which the Queen was not represented, would be too scandalous and dangerous in the state of public feeling, and an attempt was made to get the bishops generally to decide, in answer to a leading question, that such a marriage as that of the King and Katharine was incestuous. But the bishops were faithful sons of the Papacy, and most of them shied at the idea of ignoring the Pope's bull allowing the marriage. Henry had also learnt during the proceedings of the sacking of Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, which was another obstacle to his desires, for though the Pope would doubtless have been quite ready to oblige his English and French friends to the detriment of the Emperor when he was free, it was out of the question that he should do so now that he and his dominions were at the mercy of the imperial troops.

The King seems to have had an idea that he might by his personal persuasion bring his unaccommodating wife to a more reasonable frame of mind. He and Wolsey had been intensely annoyed that she had learnt so promptly of the plot against her, but since some spy had told her, it was as well, thought Henry, that she should see things in their proper light. With a sanctimonious face he saw her on the 22nd June 1527, and told her how deeply his conscience was touched at the idea that they had been living in mortal sin for so many years. In future, he said, he must abstain from her company, and requested that she would remove far away from Court. She was a haughty princess--no angel in temper, notwithstanding her devout piety; and she gave Henry the vigorous answer that might have been expected. They were man and wife, as they had always been, she said, with the full sanction of the Church and the world, and she would stay where she was, strong in her rights as an honest woman and a queen. It was not Henry's way to face a strong opponent, unless he had some one else to support him and bear the brunt of the fight, and, in accordance with his character, he whined that he never meant any harm: he only wished to discover the truth, to set at rest the scruples raised by the Bishop of Tarbes. All would be for the best, he assured his angry wife; but pray keep the matter secret.[42]

Henry did not love to be thwarted, and Wolsey, busy making ready for his ostentatious voyage to France, had to bear as best he might his master's ill-humour. The famous ecclesiastical lawyer, Sampson, had told the Cardinal that the marriage with Arthur had never been consummated; and consequently that, even apart from the Pope's dispensation, the present union was unimpeachable. The Queen would fight the matter to the end, he said; and though Wolsey did his best to answer Sampson's arguments, he was obliged to transmit them to the King, and recommend him to handle his wife gently; "until it was shown what the Pope and Francis would do." Henry acted on the advice, as we have seen, but Wolsey was scolded by the King as if he himself had advanced Sampson's arguments instead of answering them. Katharine did not content herself with sitting down and weeping. She despatched her faithful Spanish chamberlain, Francisco Felipe, on a pretended voyage to a sick mother in Spain, in order that he might beg the aid of the Emperor to prevent the injustice intended against the Queen; and Wolsey's spies made every effort to catch the man, and lay him by the heels.[43] She sent to her confessor, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, begging for his counsel, he being one of the bishops who held that her marriage was valid; she "desired," said Wolsey to the King, "counsel, as well of strangers as of English," and generally showed a spirit the very opposite of that of the patient Griselda in similar circumstances. How entirely upset were the King and Wolsey by the unexpected force of the opposition is seen in the Cardinal's letter to his master a day or two after he had left London at the beginning of July to proceed on his French embassy. Writing from Faversham, he relates how he had met Archbishop Warham, and had told him in dismay that the Queen had discovered their plan, and how irritated she was; and how the King, as arranged with Wolsey, had tried to pacify and reassure her. To Wolsey's delight, Warham persisted that, whether the Queen liked it or not, "truth and law must prevail." On his way through Rochester, Wolsey tackled Fisher, who was known to favour the Queen. He admitted under Wolsey's pressure that she had sent to him, though he pretended not to know why, and "greatly blamed the Queen, and thought that if he might speak to her he might bring her to submission." But Wolsey considered this would be dangerous, and bade the bishop stay where he was. And so, with the iniquitous plot temporarily shelved by the unforeseen opposition, personal and political, Wolsey and his great train, more splendid than that of any king, went on his way to Dover, and to Amiens, whilst in his absence that happened in England which in due time brought all his dignity and pride to dust and ashes.