by Jean Plaidy
During my stays in the country I felt time weighing heavily, and in order to pass it pleasantly I was studying the new religion which was beginning to take a hold on people. Ever since Martin Luther had pinned his theses on that church door in Wittenberg, something had been stirring.
I found that very exciting. I was drawn to the new ideas. I liked what I read. Perhaps it was because I felt a certain antipathy to the Pope that I was fascinated by the idea of curbing his power. The sale of indulgences, which had been Martin Luther's first complaint, was definitely wrong. How could forgiveness be bought in Heaven by giving money to a priest?
Since the King had written his book and become Defender of the Faith, he had been fierce against heretics. He had no fondness for Martin Luther. He had been ready to adhere to the Church of Rome, but I was not sure what his feelings would be now that the Pope was hesitating so long about giving him what he wanted.
Heretics were imprisoned. One sometimes saw them on their way to penance, carrying a faggot—though there was not enough fierce feeling against them to burn them at the stake. On the whole, we English are not a fanatical people. When I dwell on the horrors of the Inquisition in Spain, I feel a sense of pride because we never had it in England—apart from that one occasion when we had been obliged to in the case of the Templars. In almost every other country it had flourished—except ours. I think that says something for our national character. We are inclined to use religion as a crutch to help us along when we need it, not, as particularly is the case in Spain, to be dominated by it. I often marvel how people who claim to have special piety and virtue could calmly look on at the torture of others because they did not share the same faith. I preferred to be a little less religious if this helped me to regard others with tolerance. Moreover, if they had ideas, I wanted to hear them. I would not close my mind and shout: Heretic. For these reasons it seemed to me that our country was a good breeding ground for the new religion.
A man called William Tyndale had written a book which he had entitled The Obedience of a Christian Man and How Christ's Rulers Ought to Govern. I was very interested in this man because he was one of Luther's followers. Most of his time was spent translating. He had lived in England for a while, where he was translating the Bible, and he had gathered together a group of friends who were interested in Luther's doctrines, but after a while he left the country to go to Wittenberg. He had also written Parable of the Wicked Mammon which I had read. It was not easy to get these books, for they were forbidden entry into the country, and the King, at Wolsey's suggestion, had had a strict watch kept at sea-ports to prevent their being smuggled in.
Of course copies did get through and that was how this one had come into my possession. I found it quite fascinating.
I was reading The Obedience of a Christian Man one day when I was called away and I carelessly left the book lying on the window seat.
I forgot about it for several days. Then I asked one of my attendants, Mistress Gaynsford, a young and very pretty girl who was being pursued by a certain George Zouch, one of the gentlemen of the household, if she had seen it.
She blushed hotly and said she had.
“Come,” I said, “where is the book? Bring it to me.”
She stammered that she had been glancing through it when someone had come up on her and, in fun, snatched it away.
“Well, where is it now?”
“He…hekept it…toteaseme.”
“Was it George Zouch?”
She admitted it was.
“Well then, go to George Zouch and tell him I want my book and he is to return it at once.”
It was not as simple as that. Mistress Gaynsford came back without the book, and when I asked where it was, she said that George Zouch wished to speak to me.
He was clearly very embarrassed. “I took the book to tease Mistress Gaynsford,” he said, “and I was just about to go on duty in the King's chapel, and during the service I glanced into it, and to tell the truth I became so absorbed that I was reading it when the service was over. The Dean saw me and wanted to know what I was reading.”
“Yes…yes… Where is the book?”
“He…he took it from me. He was displeased. He wanted to know how I had come by it. I had to tell him that I had it from Mistress Gaynsford and that it was your book.”
“Why did he not give it back to you then?”
“He… said…he was going to take it to a higher authority. He… he mentioned the Cardinal.”
I confess I was dismayed. The book was forbidden. It had been smuggled into the country. There was a penalty for possessing it. It had been written in direct defiance of the Church.
So Wolsey had my book! I knew what he would do. He would take it to the King. He was trying to brand me as a heretic. Did he want to see me in prison? Walking barefooted in humiliation, carrying a faggot?
So it had come to a conflict between us. I was furious. I said to Zouch, who, poor young man, was in a state of abject terror at what he had done: “This will be the dearest book that either the Dean or the Cardinal took away.”
I thought it best to go to Henry, if possible before Wolsey reached him.
The Cardinal had just left him when I arrived, and Henry had the book in his hands.
I went to him and knelt, taking his hand. There was puzzlement in his face, but he was very soft and tender seeing me thus.
“Is it the book?” he said.
“You must understand.”
“Come, darling,” he said, taking my hands and helping me to rise. He looked into my face and added: “Wolsey has brought me this.”
I said: “It behooves those who love you to know what is going on.”
The words were well chosen, Henry was enchanted to hear that I was one of those who loved him.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “this book is forbidden to the country.”
“I know it well. But I must know what is being written. How could I tell you of it if I did not know? It might be setting out some treachery against you.”
He laughed.
“Come, sit down, sweetheart. Tell me more of this book.”
So I sat beside him exultantly. What had I to fear? It mattered not what I did, what rules I broke, as long as I was his darling. Rules didn't apply to me.
I said: “Henry, it is a most interesting book. I want to talk to you of it.”
So I told him and he showed interest—whether it was feigned to please me or whether he felt it, I was not sure; but he was a man to whom new ideas had always appealed, and he was a great lover of literature.
“Promise me one thing.”
“Anything you ask of me.”
“You will read this book and judge it for yourself. Then we can talk of it together. That is what I like…interesting discussion.”
He looked happier than he had for some time.
“I promise to read the book,” he said. “And then we will sit thus… close, and talk of it.”
I was very pleased by the way in which the matter had evolved.
But, Master Wolsey, I thought, I have no doubts now that you are my enemy. And you will find a good adversary in me.
The King came to me in a state of great excitement.
“News, sweetheart,” he cried. “I think this may well be the beginning of the end of our little matter. Clement is ill… nigh unto death, they say.”
“And you think his successor will be kinder to us?”
“If the right man succeeds him, without doubt, yes. Anne, it could be the Papacy for Wolsey.”
I caught his excitement. What an answer to our problem! Wolsey… Pope. And why not? It had been his lifelong ambition. He would grasp at the chance, not only because he longed to wear the Papal Crown but because he would escape from a situation which was becoming very dangerous to him.
“Do you think he has a chance?”
“The best chances. I shall support him. François will support him, I believe.”
“And the Emperor?”
/> “The Cardinals will vote. Will they regard the Emperor's candidate with any favor, think you? They had some rough handling not so long ago. It will take them a long time to forget the Sack of Rome. Yes, Wolsey could be the man, and I will remind him that his first task is to grant my wish.”
“He will no longer be your man, Henry. He will be head of the Church.”
“He will obey me. Nay, sweetheart, this is our chance. It will not be long now.”
Our hopes were raised. It seemed Wolsey had a fair chance. He was like a man reprieved from a death sentence. I did not see clearly then what great danger he was in. He had set the divorce proceedings in motion, and now he could not stop them; if Clement did not give what Henry wanted, it could mean the fall of Wolsey. He had made promises to the King; he had assured him that the Pope could be persuaded to comply; and so far he had been wrong. Wolsey would see more clearly than anyone that, if he failed to give the King what he wanted, it would be the end of his power; and because he had risen so high, the greater would be his fall.
It was small wonder that he clutched at this hope. From a fearful apprehension he would leap to the very heights of his lifelong ambition; from the servant of a despotic king he would rise to a position as powerful as—perhaps more so than—that of the King himself.
Wolsey was going to put every effort into achieving that ambition.
We waited. Everyone believed Wolsey's chances were high, and the result seemed almost inevitable. He was very rich, and money was important to the Sacred College. His three bishoprics and his abbey would bring untold wealth to the Holy See. He was Archbishop of York, Bishop of Winchester and Abbot of St. Albans—and he had just been given Durham.
A glorious prospect for him. The King would lose Wolsey—but not entirely so. He was certain that he would have him working for him in the Vatican. A good English Pope—and there had not been one since Nicholas Breakspear.
It might have worked, for throughout Europe Wolsey was considered to be the favorite.
Alas for Wolsey, Clement, who had wavered between the Emperor and Henry, now wavered between life and death—and finally life won. Clement lived on; there was no papal election; and the matter of the divorce dragged on.
Soon after that, Mendoza was recalled. I think he was glad to go. Everyone involved in this affair wished to be free of it.
Henry told me that before Mendoza had left he had had an interview with him in which the ambassador had said that the Emperor was obliged to defend his aunt because he regarded her plight as a private affair which touched his family's honor.
“I replied,” said Henry, “that he had no right to interfere. This was a matter of state affecting the succession. ‘I do not meddle in the state affairs of other princes,’ I told him. So we must needs press on.”
That was the state of affairs when in June the court was opened in the Dominican priory at Blackfriars.
Both Henry and Katharine were cited to appear. Henry's case was that he feared for the validity of his marriage, and he wanted the matter to be resolved. Katharine made a very dignified impression as the wife who had been set aside after twenty years. She had not believed that the case would be tried in England and had wished it to be in Rome. She pointed out that Wolsey was an English subject and Campeggio held an English bish-opric. Therefore they could not be impartial.
She demanded that the court be held in Rome. The King declared that he would certainly not plead in any court over which the Emperor had control.
After this the court adjourned for three days. Then both Henry and the Queen were summoned to appear.
Henry stated his case, reiterating that for some time he had feared that, since his marriage to his brother's widow, he had been living in mortal sin; and he wanted judgment on this.
When it was Katharine's turn, she made a deep impression on all who saw her. I had feared this. The people were already on her side. They said it was a case of a man wishing to be rid of his lawful wife because she was getting old and his fancy had turned to a younger woman. It was something which aroused indignation, particularly in the women. If this became a precedent, many of them could be set aside after twenty years of marriage. As for the men, they understood the King's desires, but they thought the matter should have been handled with discretion; I should have been Henry's mistress and put an end to the controversy.
But since I would not accept such a position and Henry was so determined not to lose me, the whole country—no, the whole of Europe— must be disturbed because I refused to become the King's mistress.
Katharine had great dignity. It was as though she was reminding all that she was the daughter of the great monarchs of Spain. Slowly she walked across the floor to the chair on which Henry sat. She knelt before him and raised her eyes to his face. I could imagine how she would unnerve him, he who liked his own actions to be seen always as right and honorable.
She said in a loud clear voice that she wanted justice. He must let her have justice for the sake of the love which had once been between them.
I could picture his embarrassment when I was told of this scene. I could see him, wretched, turning his eyes away from her supplicating figure. She was a stranger in this land, she said; and for that reason the court was against her.
Her words were remembered and repeated to me. I could never forget them. It was as though they had been engraved on my mind.
“I take all the world to witness that I have been a true, humble and obedient wife, ever comformable to your will and pleasure.”
It was true, of course. She had always tried to please him. She had made no protest when he had left her bed to share those of his mistresses; Elizabeth Blount, for instance, whose son he had honored; my sister Mary, who had been his mistress over several years. She had accepted Mary at Court and had been a kind mistress to her. And myself…True, she had shown a little rancor where I was concerned. But I understood that—and so must Henry.
“I loved those whom you loved, only for your sake, whether they were my friends or enemies…”
Tolerated, would have been a better word in the cases of Mary and Elizabeth Blount; but he could not complain of her behavior even to them.
“These twenty years I have been your true wife and by me you have had children, although it has pleased God to call them out of this world.”
He would be growing angry and steeling himself not to show it. If these children had lived—and there had been boys among them—he would not have been trying to rid himself of her. He could not have done so…even forme.
Then came the crux of the matter.
“And when you met me at first, I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid, without the touch of man.”
The court was silent. A woman so deeply religious would not swear before God unless she was telling the truth.
“Whether this be true or not, I put it to your conscience.”
A masterly touch. His conscience was a source of great embarrassment to him. She, who knew him well, would be aware of this. She was telling him that he knew as well as she did that when they had married she had been a virgin. She was calling on him to search his conscience.
But it was his conscience which was his great ally in this matter. Had he not schooled that conscience to plague him to such an extent that he had no alternative but to bring this case?
“If you will not favor me,” she went on, “I commit my cause to God.”
With that she walked out of the room.
Although they called her back, she took no heed of them; and when she left the hall, the crowd which had gathered outside—consisting mainly of women—cheered her wildly. Their shouts of “Long live our Queen Katharine” were heard in the hall.
During those hot June days I could not believe that the court would go against the King's wishes. Henry was optimistic, he was glad Katharine had walked out of the court and refused to return. It was much easier without her mournful, resolute figure to inspire admiration and pity.
Th
ere was only one who dared raise his voice against the King's wishes and that was John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, who stood up in court and said that his only intention was to have justice done and relieve himself of a scruple of conscience.
These consciences, how they bedeviled us! The King's conscience was well known to me; now here was Fisher's. He could not risk the damnation of his soul by failing to declare his opinion. He believed that the marriage of the King could not be dissolved by any power, human or divine; and he was prepared to encounter any peril for the truth.
Henry was furious. If he could, he would have had Fisher transported to the Tower on the spot. Wolsey came to see Henry, who berated him for allowing the bishop to stand up and make such a statement. Wolsey— torn as he was between Pope and King, disappointed of the Papacy—was showing signs of breaking up. His supreme confidence had left him. Being so much more shrewd and clever than most of us, he could see farther ahead and the danger toward which he was being hurried. He implored the King to believe him when he said that Fisher had given him no indication of his intentions.
“He'll be sorry for this,” growled Henry. “I'll not be plagued by these traitorous bishops.”
News of what was happening in the court always seeped out, and now the Bishop of Rochester was receiving acclaim from the people, which was a further source of irritation to the King.
“But fear not,” he said to me. “This matter must end soon and it can only go one way. I shall make those who act against me feel my wrath.”
But there were some who embrace martyrdom as joyfully as a bridegroom does his bride. I had a notion that Fisher was one of those.
The news from the Continent was not very encouraging. Charles had had a decisive victory over François in Italy; and worse than ever, the Emperor was making peace terms with the French and Clement at Cambrai. This was a greater blow than Fisher's outburst. Henry might deal with his own subject's waywardness; the great obstacle had always been the mighty Emperor.
And so the days passed.
My father, Norfolk and Suffolk were all working hard to have the matter settled. I felt I had powerful friends. It mattered not to me that both the Duchesses of Norfolk and Suffolk were haughtily cool to me. It was their husbands who could do me most good; and they were too firmly behind the King to be influenced by their wives.