Gregory Cromwell was also now of a marriageable age, and Cromwell had his sights set on Bess Seymour, Jane’s younger sister. Historically, Bess wrote to Cromwell in March of 1537 to ask for financial assistance. Their relationship appears to have been quite close, and Mantel places them in conversation in 1537. In a humorous example of crossed wires, Bess believes Cromwell intends to marry her himself, which would certainly solve her financial difficulties.
Bess and Gregory were married sometime in the summer of 1537. The match was ambitious and placed Cromwell in an interesting position – his son was now brother-in-law to the king, and what did that make him? In The Mirror and the Light, it is the increasingly inscrutable Wriothesley who casually remarks that who would have thought Gregory would be so useful in uniting Cromwell with the king’s family. One wonders if Cromwell felt uneasy at how dangerous this might be.
A BIRTH AND A DEATH
Jane’s pregnancy had progressed well, and on 9 October she went into labour, a long and agonizing ordeal that lasted for two days. Finally, on the 11 October, the bells rang out that Henry and Jane had been delivered of a prince. Jane had triumphed.
The child, Edward, was robust and healthy, and on 15 October the infant was christened in an opulent ceremony in the chapel royal at Hampton Court. As was the custom, the king rewarded his favourites with titles and land – Edward Seymour was made Earl of Hertford and Thomas Seymour was elevated to the Privy Chamber. William FitzWilliam was also rewarded with the Earldom of Southampton, but Cromwell received nothing. Mantel’s Cromwell worries that his failure to capture Reginald Pole has displeased Henry enough to withhold an elevation, although in August he had been inducted into the prestigious Order of the Garter.
However, the celebrations were short-lived. The day after the christening Jane complained of nausea and fever; within a few days she began to weaken and on 24 October she died. Henry was inconsolable and the whole nation went into mourning. In The Mirror and the Light, Jane’s sister, Bess, tells Cromwell that Jane was lucky and unlucky: lucky to become queen of England, and unlucky to die of it. Jane was buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor, and she was given a moving epitaph:
Here lies Jane, a phoenix who died in giving another phoenix birth. Let her be mourned, for birds like these are rare indeed.
THE SEARCH FOR A NEW QUEEN
This was the first time Henry had been left without a wife, and for the first time he did not have a successor waiting in the wings. Cromwell and Henry’s councillors were divided as to whether they should look to France or the Holy Roman Empire for a suitable candidate. Henry was roused from his mourning stupor by the prospect of a pretty bride as the line-up began. In The Mirror and the Light Cromwell lists a number of royal and noble women who might be suitable, but Henry already has his own favourite, namely Mary de Guise, and is piqued when Cromwell informs him that it appears she is to marry James V of Scotland.
Undeterred, Henry proposed the match to the French ambassador Louis de Perreau, Sieur de Castillon. In the historical meeting, which began neutrally and quickly went downhill, Castillon suggested other options. Henry demanded that he must see the woman in person before making a decision, to which the real Castillon is said to have said curtly that it was not custom to send ladies to another court as if they were horses to be bought. Would Henry insist on mounting them too before making his choice? The real Castillon wrote that Henry was immediately embarrassed and tried to make light of the conversation, but Mantel’s Castillon goes further: ‘Has your Majesty considered that it might be difficult to find any lady to marry you at all?’ ‘Why?’ the king asks. ‘Because you kill your wives.’ While there is no evidence that Castillon went so far, he did leave England very soon after the meeting, to be replaced by Charles de Marillac.
Cromwell continued to press for an Imperial match, and historically Henry was interested in Christina of Milan, the niece of Charles V: 16 years old, pretty and the daughter of the former King of Denmark. Henry begged the Emperor, via Chapuys, to arrange a set of marriages: Mary to Charles’s nephew, Dom Luis of Portugal, and Henry himself to Christina. Hans Holbein was sent to paint Christina’s portrait, which Henry became entranced by. But then Henry requested that Christina come to Calais, accompanied by her aunt, Mary of Hungary, so that he could meet her, a ludicrous notion which made Chapuys cringe even as he wrote the dispatch.
Cromwell was well aware that while Henry tarried, his two rivals, Charles and Francis, were on the brink of securing what looked like a lasting peace agreement, leaving the excommunicated Henry out in the cold. We know that Cromwell urged Wyatt to remain involved in the negotiations to ensure England played some small part, but when the news of the agreement broke in England, it was clear that the truce of Aigues-Mortes had no role for Henry. Crucially, it also emerged that Henry’s cousin, Reginald Pole, had been involved in the negotiations, which Henry believed was evidence that an invasion of England, with a potential new king at the helm, was imminent.
Amidst the marriage game, in May 1538, Henry fell dangerously ill. It is believed that a blood clot had lodged in his lung, and for almost two weeks it was unclear whether Henry would recover. Mantel’s Cromwell asks himself who he should ride to or from, should Henry die.
CROMWELL STRIKES
Cromwell was determined to stamp out any rival claims to the throne and the Poles were at the top of his list. In August of 1538 Cromwell made his move knowing that Geoffrey was in contact with his older brother, Reginald.
Geoffrey was kept in a damp cell in the Tower for two months in order to break him, and it worked. Geoffrey revealed the family’s secrets, implicating his older brothers as well as Henry Courtenay, one of Henry’s oldest friends. On 4 November Henry Courtenay and Hugh Pole were beheaded on Tower Hill alongside accused co-conspirator Sir Edward Neville. Geoffrey was eventually released, but there is evidence to suggest that he was never the same again.
In the New Year, another conspirator was sent to the Tower, but one which surprised those at court – Sir Nicholas Carew, Master of the Horse, and another of Henry’s close friends. The reasons for his imprisonment were not exactly clear – although he had always maintained links with the Pole family and corresponded with both, this was not a secret. He also sat on the jury which indicted Pole and Courtenay, and expressed scepticism of their guilt, which could have been a factor. Carew was executed in March 1539. Several months later, Cromwell brought a bill of attainder against Margaret Pole and Gertrude Courtenay, and both were sent to the Tower. Cromwell was clearing the chessboard.
NEW ALLIANCES AND ANNE OF CLEVES
Cromwell’s political vision for England in 1539 was unprecedented. He had tired of the same chessboard and the same pieces – Charles, Francis and Henry. When Anne Boleyn had been in power, he had entertained the notion of strengthening ties with reformers from German states and had been in secret communication with them through his agent, Thomas Tebold, the much doted on godson of Thomas Boleyn. He was particularly interested in the Schmalkaldic League, a military alliance founded by two of the most powerful protestant princes, Philip I and John Frederick of Saxony.
England began making overtures to the German states in 1531, but by 1539 Cromwell knew that an alliance with the German duchy of Cleves, a noble family whose lands in the north of Saxony bordered those of Charles V, could be of use. The Cleves family also enjoyed family ties to the Schmalkaldic League, which would also give Charles pause should he consider invading England. In The Mirror and the Light Cromwell and Wriothesley are already quietly discussing the possibility of Henry marrying one of the Duke of Cleves’ daughters – Amalia or her sister, Anne.
Cromwell first became aware of Anne and her sister Amalia in a letter from one of his agents, John Hutton, in December of 1537, but only in 1539 did Cromwell seriously entertain the idea of one of them as a candidate as Henry’s queen. Anne was born sometime in 1515, the second daughter of John III, Duke of Cleves and Maria, Duchess of Jülich-Berg. Henry had not been her
first suitor – in 1511 she had been betrothed to the son and heir of the Duke of Lorraine, but the match had fallen through in 1535. As soon as Henry agreed to consider the alliance, Cromwell dispatched Holbein to the paint both Anne and Amalia.
During this period, Cromwell was plagued by ill health and suffered from an intermittent fever, which kept him away for court for days at a time. He also suffered from anxiety, believing his enemies whispered poison in the ear of the king, and perhaps he had cause, for Henry had a habit of believing the last person he spoke to. When Cromwell came back to court he found Stephen Gardiner had also returned after a three-year embassy to France, and was back in favour. Much as Wolsey once tried to have an audience with Henry in private, and found himself having to deliver his news in public, now the conservative Gardiner stood at Henry’s side. While Cromwell had been away, the Duke of Norfolk had argued convincingly against Cromwell’s proposed religious reforms. In 1539–40, Gardiner achieved a major victory over his reformist opponents: The act of the Six Articles was passed, confirming the supremacy of particular rights within the church of England, such as the role of the Eucharist and celibacy amongst the clergy. Cromwell had banked on royal support, but Henry, who had always been Catholic at heart, showed every intention of returning to the old ways.
But Cromwell was hopeful when Holbein’s portraits of the Cleves sisters arrived in England and Henry fell for Anne’s. Events still moved interminably slow for Cromwell, but Henry had accepted the match and the marriage treaty was agreed to in October 1539. Anne would not be like any of Henry’s other wives: she had not received a formal education, she did not play an instrument, she did not hunt, nor did she speak any English. But these were minor issues Cromwell hoped to remedy. Mantel’s Cromwell pitches the marriage to Henry: how grateful this young woman will be to be taken from such a life. Cromwell also hoped that the sweet, agreeable and meek young woman would remind him of Jane.
The court made ready for a new queen: members of the queen’s household which had been disbanded following Jane’s death now regrouped. Jane Rochford returned alongside the familiar names: Mary Fitzroy, Edward Seymour’s wife, Anne, and Elizabeth (Bess) Cromwell. But there were a few new faces: Catherine Carey, the daughter of Mary Boleyn; Mary Norris, daughter of the deceased Henry Norris; and another Howard niece, Catherine. This is our first glimpse of Henry’s fifth wife: ‘Her glance slips absently over the men, but rakes the women head to toe. Clearly she has never seen so many great ladies before; she is studying how they stand, how they move.’ Mantel’s Cromwell expresses disappointment that Catherine, Lady Latimer, has not joined the household. He has been teased in the past by the boys at Austin Friars of setting his cap at her when she visited on behalf of her husband; he admits that he finds her to be highly intelligent and alluring. Cromwell, of course, does not know that Lady Latimer will, in time, be Henry’s sixth wife.
Anne of Cleves’ journey across the continent to England took a gruelling two weeks, taking her through Imperial territory for which she required a passport, and then through to Calais and across the Channel. It was intended that Anne should meet Henry for the first time at Blackheath, but an impetuous Henry could not contain himself and against everyone’s advice, rode down to Rochester to surprise her, regardless of protocol or what her own entourage would make of it. In The Mirror and the Light it is Gregory Cromwell who barges into his father’s room asking how he could let Henry go, as he recounts the mortifying incident.
Anne was watching the bull-baiting from her window when a commonly dressed Henry approached her. She barely acknowledged him, naturally, though some reports tell us that he tried to kiss her and she pushed him away. His romantic gesture rejected, Henry is crushed, embarrassed and ultimately repulsed. In his eyes, this tall, slim and pleasant young woman immediately becomes ugly, foul-smelling and certainly not the virgin he was promised. She has shown Henry his own reflection, and he hates her for it.
Henry believed he had been deceived, and demanded that the ambassadors accompanying Anne produce papers proving that she was free to marry. In the meantime, Henry reluctantly allowed the wedding to take place on 6 January 1540 in the Royal Chapel at Greenwich, but the couple’s first night as husband and wife was far from rewarding. Henry was quick to tell Cromwell that he had not consummated the marriage, that he could not bring himself to do so. To make matters worse, word reached England that Charles V and Francis were withdrawing from their mutual alliance, and both now looked once more to England to renew their negotiations. But what really must have rankled with Henry was when he learned that Anne’s brother, Wilhelm, might marry the woman he had desired, Christina, Duchess of Milan, as part of an agreement with Charles V.
MISCALCULATIONS AND EXECUTION
It is difficult for the reader to get a sense of Cromwell’s downfall in The Mirror and the Light because he simply does not see it coming. The evidence, however, is manifestly clear as the conservative factions of the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, together with Stephen Gardiner, gathered against Cromwell, taking advantage of the king’s displeasure with his most recent marriage.
In April 1540, Ambassador Marillac wrote to Francis I that Cromwell was finished, his downfall imminent. But Cromwell rallied, and met with his detractors in Parliament on 12 April and successfully passed a series of bills he had drafted in the hope that this would consolidate his position. He was particularly pleased with a new taxation bill which would increase crown revenue, which always pleased Henry. But then Cromwell miscalculated:
Before Norfolk arrives home from France, he has invaded the duke’s own country. He has closed Thetford Priory, where the duke’s forebears lie.
Closing Thetford Priory was an unforgivable insult to Norfolk. The duke asked that it at least be made into a college for the benefit of many. But an overly antagonistic Cromwell simply dissolved it, forcing the disinterment of the Howard tombs, which were moved to Framlingham.
Cromwell was feeling confident, believing that he had fought off a political attack. But within days he was surprised to hear that Wriothesley, whom he had considered his man for some years, was back in Gardiner’s sphere. To borrow a phrase from the real Gardiner, ‘the cat had been turned in the pan’ meaning things were not as they should be. Cromwell, both historically and in the series, failed to understand Henry. He had tried to force his own religious ideas on the king, choosing to ignore the fact that Henry’s break with Rome had been a political move to secure the annulment of his marriage, and while he relished his authority over the Church of England, he had no intention of ever committing to reformist doctrine. And Cromwell had, like Wolsey, made too many enemies.
However, if Cromwell had harboured any apprehension about his standing, his surprise elevation as Earl of Essex, on 18th April, one of the most ancient and distinguished titles in the country, as well as his appointment as Lord Great Chamberlain, was more than enough to help him feel secure. The timing of such prestigious titles still puzzles historians, with some speculating that Henry intended to lull Cromwell into a false sense of security. Cromwell was unaware of various accusations that were being voiced to the king: that he had intended to marry the Lady Mary; that he had negotiated with the princes of the Schmalkaldic League beyond his remit; that he had called into question Henry’s virility over the non-consummation of his marriage to Anne of Cleves; and that Cromwell had been overheard saying he would fight for reform even if he had to take a sword in his hand. For an already paranoid, agitated and vengeful king, this was all the evidence he needed.
The meeting on 1 June 1540 should have been an ordinary gathering of the Privy Council. Cromwell arrived slightly late, surprised that his colleagues were about to start without him. As he sat, he was told the council did not sit with traitors. Mantel imagines the scene:
The councillors fall on him. They tug, kick, haul. He is barged and buffeted, his gold chain is off.
Marillac gleefully reports to Francis I how Cromwell was humiliated.
It was a blur
. Cromwell was subject to a bill of attainder that denied him a trial. The charges cited grounds of treason and heresy – that he had been elevated from a base and low degree to a position of trust and power which he had abused, and was a heretic, but Henry needed Cromwell to attend to the arrangements that would extricate him from the Cleves marriage. Men who Cromwell previously trusted, like Wriothesley, Audley and Rich, proved to be, as Marillac wrote, men who bent to all winds. In The Mirror and the Light, he learns that Rich is pawing through Austin Friars to uncover further damning evidence.
The annulment of the Cleves marriage took only a few weeks, and when Anne was informed on 9 July, she was shocked but respectful of Henry’s wishes, and took his rejection more gracefully than any other wife. Cromwell’s imprisonment lasted seven weeks, during which Cromwell desperately wrote to Henry:
Sir, upon [my kne]es I most humbly beseech your most gracious Majesty [to be a goo]d and gracious lord to my poor son, the good and virtu[ous lady his] wife, and their poor children.
Mantel’s Cromwell remembers the words of Erasmus: ‘No man is to be despaired of, so long as the breath is in him.’
Cromwell signed his letter to the king: ‘Written with the quaking hand and most sorrowful heart of your most sorrowful subject and most humble servant and prisoner.’
Wolf Hall Companion Page 17