Of Virtue Rare

by Linda Simon

  With the greatest possible humility of soul [he wrote], I beg the indulgence of the Most Reverend Lord Legates if I now reveal in these written words what I tearfully lament in the depths of my heart. For it makes me tremble even to think of the great inconstancy with which the Apostolic See hereafter will be charged if the Sovereign Pontiff Clement, for a cause which involves no difficulty arising from divine law, should break up a marriage which, in all kindness and all affection, at the solicitation of those most illustrious kings through their ambassadors, he had once confirmed by his authority. O for the misfortune of our times! O for the pitiable ruin hanging over the head of the Church, if there should be such an outcome to this affair — which God forbid![166]

  The conclusion was long in coming. For eight years, Fisher wrote impassioned tracts against the divorce and delivered equally impassioned sermons from his pulpit. He was Catherine’s foremost defender, but he could not win against a man in love when that man was Henry VIII.

  Henry’s letters to his beloved Anne reveal his obsession. He sent her his picture in a bracelet; she returned with a “fair diamond.” The majestic ruler groveled before the woman he wanted to marry, “praying you also that if ever before I have in any way done you offence, that you will give me the same absolution that you ask, ensuring you that henceforth my heart shall be dedicate to you alone, greatly desirous that so my body could be as well, as God can bring to pass if it pleaseth Him, whom I entreat once each day for the accomplishment thereof, trusting that at length my prayer will be heard, wishing the time brief, and thinking it but long until we shall see each other again.”[167]

  If Anne’s letters seemed to lack the warmth Henry expected, he was “in great distress, not knowing how to interpret them, whether to my disadvantage, as in some places is shown, or to advantage … praying you with all my heart that you will expressly certify me of your whole mind concerning the love between us two.”[168]

  Henry’s hopes for a swift consummation of his divorce and an immediate consummation of his union with Anne were undermined by international politics. Pope Clement VII, who was vital to the unfolding of the drama, was thought to be sympathetic to England because he relied on the country’s support against foreign intervention in Italy. But in May 1527, Charles V, with the force of the Holy Roman Empire, sacked Rome and took Clement prisoner. Charles was Catherine’s nephew, and Clement’s actions, decisions, and policies were suddenly under his control.

  Whether or not Clement would side with Henry depended entirely on his choice of political allegiance. It had little to do with theological, moral, or judicial reasons for the divorce. In fact, Clement had recently granted a divorce to Henry’s sister Margaret, who had been living in open adultery at the time she asked that her marriage with the earl of Angus be annulled. Margaret, whose first marriage, with James IV, had made her queen of Scots, shocked her brother by her immorality. In a letter, Henry reminded her of “the divine ordinance of inseparable matrimony first institute in Paradise between man and woman.” He called the pope’s decision a “shameless sentence” and asked her to rethink her actions, not only for her sake but for the sake of her daughter, Margaret Douglas: “The natural love, the tender pity, and motherly kindness towards the fruit of your own body, your most dear child and natural daughter cannot but provoke your Grace unto reconciliation …”[169]

  The papal judgment, which would allege that James IV was not yet dead — though rumored killed — when Margaret had married Angus, would make her daughter illegitimate, a prospect that horrified the English king. But his own Mary was destined for the same fate if he married Anne Boleyn. He was seemingly unconcerned: Anne, he was sure, would bear a son.

  In December 1527, Clement escaped from Charles’s imprisonment and was immediately beseeched by Henry’s ambassadors for a decision. He was equivocal; then finally, in March 1528, he agreed that Wolsey and Lorenzo Campeggio, cardinal protector of England, could try the case in England. In June 1528 Henry and Catherine were summoned before the court. Henry did not appear for the first session, but Catherine was there, accompanied by John Fisher. At the second session, Henry felt secure enough to appear, and spoke movingly about his reasons for seeking to dissolve his marriage: he could not live any longer in sin; he wanted only justice. Catherine was not deceived. She threw herself on his mercy and that of the court, kneeling before him and begging him to remember their long years of marriage, the grievous deaths of their children, their daughter, Mary, who would be dishonored by the divorce — much the sentiments that Henry had written to his sister. She told the court that their judgment was meaningless. Only by the pope could justice be meted out, and she informed them that she had written to Rome for support. Having said this, she left, and though she was recalled three times, she refused ever again to stand before the court. She was declared contumacious, and Fisher was left to speak not in her name but in her defense.

  On June 28, Fisher’s mightiest speech against the divorce was delivered to the court. He repeated his contentions that the marriage was valid, and warned the group of the scandals that would result if the divorce was granted. He urged them never to attempt to dissolve the marriage, and promised that, if necessary, he would lay down his life in defense of the holy bond of matrimony that existed between Catherine and Henry. The court was stunned.

  The proceedings of the court, Catherine’s appeal, and international political pressure all worked on Clement, who by July was ill and spent, wishing for death to end his dilemmas. At last he decided to disband the legatine court in England. He even moved to an alliance with Charles V. He was known to be sympathetic to Catherine and would not yield a decision in Henry’s favor. In mid July of 1528, Henry was a despondent man.

  He blamed Wolsey. The aide who had supported him, traveled to Rome in his name, taken the burdens of the kingship upon his own shoulders, was repudiated and cast aside. He would be replaced as chancellor by Thomas More, who first refused, and then, under the king’s orders, accepted the lofty post.

  John Fisher was not deluded into believing that the elevation of his friend to the chancellorship was evidence of some softening of Henry’s character. More, thought Fisher, was a man “most brilliant in his character and his intellect and not less outstanding because of his erudition.”[170] They agreed on many issues, both political and theological, including the sensitive subject of the divorce. But More could be taciturn. He would be reluctant to assume the authority in which Wolsey had glorified. In fact, Henry wanted just such a man; no longer did he want the chancellor to interfere in his delicate problem.

  In 1531 Clement finally issued bulls declaring Henry’s marriage to Catherine valid and preventing him from remarrying, on pain of ex-communication. Henry could no longer hope to realize his goal diplomatically, and he moved to break, entirely, with the Church in his own land. He returned Anne Boleyn to court, from which she had been discreetly removed for several years, and by late 1532 she was pregnant.

  With only months in which to marry her and make his heir legitimate, Henry vested in his own archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, the ecclesiastical authority that had been the pope’s alone. Cranmer now could make the final decision about the validity of the marriage to Catherine and the impending marriage to Anne. On January 1, 1533, Henry and Anne were secretly wed. In April, Catherine was informed. By the end of that month, Anne was crowned queen of England. In July, Henry issued a decree depriving Catherine of the right to call herself queen.

  It is therefore evident and manifest that the said Lady Catherine should not from henceforth have or use the name, style, title, or dignity of Queen of this realm, nor be in any wise reputed, taken, accepted, or written by the name of Queen of this realm, but by the name, style, title, and dignity of Princess Dowager, which name she ought to have because she was lawfully and perfectly married and accoupled with the said Prince Arthur …

  And yet nevertheless the King’s most gracious pleasure is that the said Lady Catherine shall be well used, obeyed
, and entreated according to her honour and noble parentage, by the name, title, state, and style of Princess Dowager, as well as by all her officers, servants, and ministers as also by others his humble and loving subjects, in all her lawful businesses and affairs, so it extend not in any wise contrary to this proclamation.[171]

  With an arrogance that shocked his countrymen, Henry had achieved all he set out to win. But in September, to the amazement of the court astrologer and to the intense disappointment of the king himself, the long-awaited child proved to be a girl. She was named Elizabeth.

  Popular opinion had long been against Henry and his machinations, with rumors and gossip seeding a favorable atmosphere for the rise of a mysterious mystic, Elizabeth-Barton, known throughout the country as the Nun of Kent. From the time she was about twenty, in 1525, Barton had been given to visions and trances, which were said to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost. She was taken up by a monk, Edward Bocking, who saw in Elizabeth the same force that had inspired Joan of Arc and might, he thought, be used to similar ends. Under his guidance, she began to speak not only about religious salvation, but about political matters, including the much-talked-about divorce. For four years, between 1528 and 1532, she was an outspoken defender of Catherine and claimed that if Henry married Anne Boleyn, he would cease to be king within one month. Barton was not dismissed as a madwoman, even by such orthodox theologians as John Fisher and Thomas More.

  Henry had no choice but to arrest her, and left her to Thomas Cranmer for judgment. Cranmer conducted repeated examinations, and eventually Elizabeth confessed that she had never had visions, “but all that she ever said was feigned of her own imagination, only to satisfy the minds of those which resorted to her and to obtain worldly praise.” In the spring of 1534 she was executed.

  Fisher, because of his association with her, was given a small penalty and allowed to go free. But Henry, determined to rid his court of any opposition, saw Fisher as a threat, even with the divorce controversy ended. Henry required all clergymen to support his Act of Succession and Act of Supremacy, giving hereditary rights to his offspring by Anne Boleyn rather than to his daughter Mary, and repudiating the pope as the head of the English Church. Fisher refused. “The Kyng owre soveraign lord is not supreme hed yn erthe of the Cherche of England,” he said simply.[172]

  Fisher became more than a nuisance; he was a traitor. To the half-dozen bishops who were sent to persuade him to take the required oaths, he replied that they would do better to come over to his side. “Me thinketh it had rather bene all our parts to sticke together in repressinge these violent and unlawfull intrusions and injuries, daily offred to our common mother the holy Church of Christ, then by any manner or perswasions to helpe or sett forward the same … The fort is betraid even of them that shoulde have defended yt.”[173]

  Fisher was deprived of his see of Rochester and, in 1535, imprisoned. In an effort to find incriminating evidence against him, Henry sent a group of commissioners to Fisher’s home for a thorough search. The men entered by force, dismissed the servants, and rifled the bishop’s goods. They scattered the books from his treasured library, destroying what would have eventually gone to St. John’s College. They found some £300 locked in a chest and divided the bounty among them. They discovered Fisher’s oratory and greedily broke into a coffer they imagined contained even more gold. Instead, they found a hair shirt and three whips.

  Imprisoned in the Tower, Fisher wrote a “Spiritual Consolation” to benefit his half sister, a nun; it was a meditative, somber treatise on the good life. He exchanged letters with his fellow prisoner Thomas More, who, like Fisher, had refused to swear to Henry’s oaths and quickly plummeted into disfavor.

  Fisher, for his treason, was condemned to a traitor’s death:

  You shall be ledd to the place from whence you came [i.e. the Tower] and from thence shall be drawne through the cittie to the place of execution at Tybome, where your body shall be hanged by the necke: and being half alive, you shall be cutt downe and throwne to the ground, your bowells to be taken out of your body and burnt before you, beinge alive; your head to be smitten of, and your bodie to be devided into four quarters; and after, your head and quarters to be set up where the kinge shall appoint, and god have mercy upon your soule.[174]

  But four days after the first sentence was passed, a more lenient writ was handed down, condemning Fisher to death by beheading. He was brought to the scaffold on June 22, 1535. He was said to have met his death calmly and with the same dignity that he had lived his life.

  Fisher’s head was parboiled, according to custom, and exposed on London Bridge for two weeks. Instead of gradually decaying, it seemed to become more lifelike, healthy, and ruddy with each passing day.

  Travelers crossing the bridge were awed by what all took to be a miracle and an ominous portent for the haughty king.

  With Fisher dead, the spirit of Margaret Beaufort’s life, which he had so faithfully embodied, died too, never to be resurrected by her grandson. But her strength, her passionate determination, her clearsightedness, and her impeccable standards would one day be revived in her great-granddaughter. When Elizabeth I took the throne as England’s Tudor queen, she had learned enough from her family’s history to understand the perils to a monarch of both marriage and motherhood. Solitary, on the splendid throne that Margaret Beaufort had secured for her, Elizabeth realized, at last, Margaret’s dream and treasured her precious legacy.

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  Acknowledgments

  FOR THEIR assistance in the research for this book, my thanks go to Mrs. P. Basing and the excellent staff of the British Library; the staff of the Houghton Library, Harvard University; Miss H. A. Sherrington of the National Monuments Record, Wales; Sarah Wimbush of the National Portrait Gallery, London; and Mr. Howard M. Nixon, Librarian, Muniment Room and Library, Westminster Abbey.

  Special appreciation goes to Frances Apt for her sensitive reading of the manuscript and her unfailing aspiration toward perfection.

  Someday, Aaron will know why he was taken to so many libraries and why, when he was very small, he had to share his mother with a typewriter; and I thank him, not least of all, for his sweetness and inspiration.

  Bibliography

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  Rules for dress of court ladies during mourning, 1502-1503. Additional, 45233, f. 141 b; see also, Stowe, 562, f. 16.

  Descents of (handwritten pedigrees), Harley, 1393, 21, 25.

  Notice of birth, obituary, etc., fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, Royal, 2A, 18, ff. 30, 30b.

  Biographical Notice, Additional, 4244, f. 21.

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