Young and Damned and Fair

by Gareth Russell

  It was on the Sunday that Catherine received the first official confirmation of what was wrong. Archbishop Cranmer asked to see her as part of a delegation that consisted of the lord chancellor, the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Bishop Gardiner, recently returned from his embassy to the Emperor. They told her that information had come to their attention that indicated she had been precontracted to Francis Dereham, a man who had since served in her household and who might very well have a legal claim to being her husband. The Queen, still dressed as the first lady of the realm and sitting beneath her canopy of estate, brazened it out, denied everything, and refused to discuss the matter further.29 The deputation left, but Cranmer, perhaps guessing that they were unlikely to get the truth from the Queen if she was expected to divulge it in front of a room full of people, came back to see her several times over the next twenty-four hours.30 Somehow, he got her to confess.

  He was two years older than her husband, although with his trim build and a clean-shaven face he looked far younger. His warm brown eyes, with lines and crow’s-feet only just beginning to show, watched her as she spoke, then with his long pale fingers, his signet ring on the first finger of his left hand, he wrote down what she divulged.31 The Archbishop was surrounded by a haze of ambiguity, perhaps appropriately so in a man christened with the name of a saint famous for his capacity to doubt. He seemed kinder than most of Henry’s councillors, but he had a reputation for spinelessness, which had not prevented him, on several occasions, from behaving with great bravery. Cranmer was one of the great survivors of the Henrician court, un homme de son temps in his evolving religious views, possessing a conscience capable of acrobatic flexibility when confronted with the King’s latest horror. He was one of the few courtiers courageous enough to try to defend Anne Boleyn when she was arrested. He had wept on the day of her execution and a few hours later signed the necessary paperwork permitting Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour. He had likewise befriended, defended, and reluctantly abandoned Thomas Cromwell. He had only become archbishop thanks to papal bulls authorizing his elevation, which he had accepted with the intention of destroying the Pope’s authority in England.

  A grammar school boy from Lincolnshire, Cranmer had been earmarked by his devout father for a life in the clergy, for which he gained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Jesus College, Cambridge, only to give it all up when he fell in love and married shortly after graduating. He returned to college and cloth when his wife and their baby died in childbed. Ordained a priest and with a doctorate in Divinity, Cranmer came to the attention first of Cardinal Wolsey, who sent him as part of a diplomatic delegation to Charles V in 1527, and then Anne Boleyn’s father, the Earl of Ormond, who showed favor to the reform-sympathizing doctor who argued so cogently for the King’s right to divorce Katherine of Aragon. Boleyn patronage launched Cranmer faster and higher than he seems to have wanted and coincided with his own spiritual development towards Protestantism. He visited the German city of Nuremberg, where Lutheran clerics had already abandoned vows of chastity in favor of matrimony, and what he saw there persuaded him to take the great risk of marrying a young Lutheran lady called Margaret, despite the fact that clerical marriages were still illegal in England. As with Catherine, a romantic indiscretion worthy of censure was magnified by a subsequent meteoric rise to prominence; in Cranmer’s case, when he received news that his court backers had successfully nominated him to succeed William Warham as Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest-ranking cleric in England. He left Margaret in Germany and returned to be invested, crown Anne Boleyn, and stand as godfather to her daughter Elizabeth.

  He had become Archbishop of Canterbury with a terrible secret hanging over him, but he did not abandon Margaret, and at great risk to himself and to her, he brought her to live with him in England, where they started a family, only for Margaret Cranmer and their children to be sent away to Germany for four years when the Six Articles, which Cranmer had spoken against in the House of Lords, dialed up the penalties for married priests. With his own complex and potentially ruinous romantic past, Cranmer might have been expected to, and did, sympathize with Catherine, yet that did not stop him from doing his duty. Cranmer was at heart the kind of Cambridge don who smiled warmly and offered encouragement in his tutorials, but left savagely honest critiques on a student’s written work. In his interactions with people, the Archbishop more often than not was courteous, considerate, and gentle, but when it came to the pursuit of what he had decided was right, he was doggedly pragmatic.

  His own account of his meetings with Queen Catherine describe how he began with the intention of stressing her misdemeanors to the point of exaggeration, in the hope that fear of the possible consequences might nudge Catherine into making a full and honest confession. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the Queen’s apartments, he realized that his preplanned strategy would be both counterproductive and cruel. The poor woman was in the grips of dramatic mood swings, and when the pendulum swung to the point of total hysteria, as it did frequently, Cranmer could not get any kind of coherent response from her. He tactfully left in the hope Catherine would calm down, but the Queen’s servants told him on his return that her paroxysms had continued unabated. “At my repair unto the Queen’s Grace, I found her in such lamentation and heaviness, as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man’s heart in the world, to have looked upon her,” he wrote in his report for the King, “and in that vehement rage she continued (as they informed me which be about her,) from my departure from her, unto my return again; and then I found her, as I do suppose, far interred towards a frenzy.”32 A total shattering, the culmination of her “dangerous ecstasy,” was only narrowly avoided, in Cranmer’s opinion, when a messenger arrived from the King, who had doubtless been informed of his wife’s initial refusal to greet the accusation with anything but defiant scorn, promising her that if she would confess and tell the truth, then Henry would be merciful.

  Catherine flung her hands in the air and “gave most humble thanks unto Your Majesty” for showing her more kindness than she claimed she had any right to ask for. After that, Cranmer said her mood settled “saving that she still sobbed and wept.” The respite gave way when the Queen collapsed again “into a new rage, much worse than she was before.” But as Cranmer soothed Catherine, he managed to tease out the truth that could ruin her. There is something gross about the Archbishop’s letter in which he described his cool and meticulous approach to breaking Catherine: “Now I do use her thus; when I do see her in any extreme braids, I do travail with her to know the cause, and then, as much as I can, I do labour to take away, or at least to mitigate the cause. . . . I told her, there was some new fantasy come into her head, which I desired her to open unto me; and after a certain time, when she had recovered her self, that she might speak, she cried and said, ‘Alas, my Lord, that I am alive, the fear of death grieved me not so much before, as doth know the remembrance of the King’s goodness, for when I remember how gracious and loving a Prince I had, I can not but sorrow; but this sudden mercy, and more than I could have looked for, showed unto me, so unworthy, at this time, maketh mine offences to appear before mine eyes much more heinous than they did before; and the more that I consider the greatness of his mercy, the more I do sorrow in my heart, that I should so misorder my self against His Majesty.’ ” Cranmer again worked on soothing her and, saving another upset at six o’clock when she remembered that this was the time when one of the King’s gentlemen usually came to call on her with a message from her husband if they had not seen each other that day, he was able to put to her the information divulged by the others.

  Catherine’s first confession does not survive, but the second one, apparently confirming more or less what she had said previously to Cranmer, perhaps during one of his initial visits, does. This confession is cited far less frequently than her final heart-rending one, which is in large part responsible for the popularity of the theory over the last decade that she was a survivor of chi
ldhood abuse. Cranmer retained a vital sense of skepticism about those claims, and this earlier document, full of precise detail and seemingly frank admittance of hazy memories, shows why. The letter below was transcribed by the Bishop of Salisbury in the seventeenth century. It appears in his The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, first published in 1679, fifty-two years before the original was lost in the Cottonian fire. It is worth quoting in full, not simply as an object of historical curiosity, but also because so much of it contradicts Catherine’s subsequent, less precise, and more frequently referenced version of events.

  Being examined by my lord of Canterbury of contracts and communications of marriage between Dereham and me: I shall here answer faithfully and truly, as I shall make answer at the last day of judgement; and by the promise that I made in baptism, and the sacrament that I received upon Allhallows-day last past. First, I do say, that Dereham hath many times moved unto me the question of matrimony; whereunto, as far as I remember, I never granted him more than before I have confessed: and as for these words, I promise you, I do love you with all my heart, I do not remember that I ever spake them. But as concerning the other words, that I should promise him by my faith and troth, that I would never have other husband but him, I am sure I never spake them.

  Examined what tokens and gifts I gave Dereham, and he to me: I gave him a band and sleeves for a shirt. And he gave me a heart’s-ease of silk for a new-years-gift and old shirt of fine Holland or Cambric, that was my lord Thomas[’s] shirt, and my lady did give it to him.I And more than this, to my remembrance, I never gave him, nor he to me, saving this summer ten pounds about the beginning of the progress.

  Examined whether I did give him a small ring of gold upon this condition, that he should never give it away. To my knowledge I never gave him no such ring, but I am assured upon no such condition.

  Examined whether the shirt, band, and sleeves were of my own work. They were not of my own work; but, as I remember, Clifton’s wife of Lambeth wrought them.

  And as for the bracelet of silkwork, I never gave him none; and if he have any of mine, he took it from me.

  As for any ruby, I never gave him none to set in a ring, nor for other purpose. As for the French fennel, Dereham did not give it me, but he said there was a little woman in London with a crooked back, who was very cunning in making all manner of flowers. And I desired him to cause her to make a French fennel for me, and I would pay him again when I had money. And when I first came to court, I paid him as well for that, as for diverse other things, to the value of five or six pound. And truth it is, that I durst not wear the said French fennel, until I had desired my lady Breerton to say that she gave it to me.33

  As for a small ring with a stone, I never lost none of his, nor he gave me none.

  As for the velvet and satin for billyments, a cap of velvet with a feather, a quilted cap of sarcenet and money, he did not give me, but at my desire he laid out money for them to be paid again. For all which things I paid him, when I came into the court. And yet he bought not for me the quilted cap, but only the sarcenet to make it of. And I delivered the same to a little fellow in my lady’s house, as I remember, his name was Rose, an embroiderer, to make it what work he thought best, and not appointing him to make it with Freer’s knots, as he can testify, if be a true man. Nevertheless, when it was made, Dereham said, “What wife here be Freer’s knots for France.”

  As for the indenture and obligation of an hundred pound, he left them in my custody, saying, that if he never came again, he gave them clearly unto me. And when I asked him whether he went, he said he would not tell me until his return.

  Examined whether I called him husband, and he me wife. I do answer, that there was communication in the house that we two should marry together; and some of his enemies had envy there at, wherefore, he desired me to give him leave to call me wife, and that I would call him husband. And I said I was content. And so after that, commonly he called me wife, and many times I called him husband. And he used many times to kiss me, and so he did to many other commonly in the house. And, I suppose, that this be true, that at one time when he kissed me very often, some said that were present, they trowed that he would never have kissed me enough. Whereto he answered, “Who should let him kiss his own wife?” Then said one of them, “I trowe this matter will come to pass as the common saying is. What is that?” quoth he. “Marry,” said the other, “That Mr. Dereham shall have Mrs. Katherine Howard.” “By St. John,” said Dereham, “you may guess twice, and guess worse.” But that I should wink upon, and say secretly, “What and this should come to my lady’s ear?” I suppose verily there was no such thing.

  As for carnal knowledge, I confess as I did before, that diverse times he hath lain with me, sometime in his doublet and hose, and two or three times naked: but not so naked that he had nothing upon him, for he had always at least his doublet, and as I do think, his hose also, but I mean naked were his hose were put down. And diverse times he would bring wine, strawberries, apples, and other things to make good cheer, after my lady was gone to bed. But that he made any special banquet, that by appointment between him and me, he would tarry after the keys were delivered to my lady, that is utterly untrue. Nor I never did steal the keys my self, nor desired any person to steal them, to that intent and purpose to let in Dereham, but for many other causes the doors have been opened, sometime over night, and sometime early in the morning, as well at the request of me, as of other. And sometime Dereham hath come in early in the morning, and ordered him very lewdly, but never at my request, nor consent.

  And that Wilkes and Baskerville should say, what shifts should we make, if my lady should come in suddenly. And I should answer, that he should go into the little gallery. I never said that if my lady came he should go into the gallery, but he hath said so himself, and so he hath done indeed.

  As for the communication of my going to the court, I remember that he said to me, that if I were gone, he would not tarry long in the house. And I said again, that he might do as he list. And further communication of that matter, I remember not. But that I should say, it grieved me as much as it did him, or that he should never live to say thou hast swerved, or that the tears should trickle down by my cheeks, none of them be true. For all that knew me, and kept my company, knew how glad and desirous I was to come to the court.

  As for the communication after his coming out of Ireland, is untrue. But as far as I remember, he then asked me, if I should be married to Mr. Culpepper, for so he said he heard reported. Then I made answer, “What should you trouble me therewith, for you know I will not have you; and if you heard such report, you heard more than I do know.”34

  When he left her apartments after sunset, Cranmer asked Sir John Dudley to deliver a message to the King. On his return to the Queen’s rooms, Sir Edward Baynton told Cranmer that “after my departure from her, she began to excuse, and to temper those things, which she had spoke unto me, and set her hand thereto.”35 Catherine’s new and thoroughly unbelievable version of events was that Francis Dereham had repeatedly raped her and that at no point in her time in the Dowager’s household had Catherine been a willing partner to either of her alleged lovers. Cranmer’s incredulity seeps through the sign-off in his letter “To the King’s Majesty,” where he promises “at my coming unto Your Majesty, I shall more fully declare by mouth; for she saith, that all that Dereham did unto her, was of his importune forcement, and, in a manner, violence, rather than of her free consent and will.”36

  There had been honest mistakes in Catherine’s previous letter—for instance, she seemed to forget when Francis had gone to Ireland—but the confession quoted below was nothing more than a tissue of lies told in trying and fearful circumstances. Catherine tried to downplay how long they had been a couple, in the process unknowingly or uncaringly contradicting eight or nine affidavits from other witnesses, all of whom had deliberately been kept separate from one another by the councillors sent to the question them. And either with callous
pragmatism or, more likely, morbid terror, she threw Francis Dereham to the wolves while trying to save herself. Cranmer possibly helped her draft this letter too, as he had been tasked with assisting her, and it was dated Monday, November 7.

  I, your Grace’s most sorrowful subject and most vile wretch in the world, not worthy to make any recommendation unto your most excellent Majesty, do only make my most humble submission and confession of my faults. And where no cause of mercy is given on my part, yet of your most accustomed mercy extended unto all other men undeserved, most humbly on my hands and knees do desire one particle thereof to be extended unto me, although of all other creatures I am most unworthy either to be called your wife or subject.

  My sorrow I can by no writing express, nevertheless I trust your most benign nature will have some respect unto my youth, my ignorance, my frailness, my humble confession of my faults, and plain declaration of the same, referring me wholly unto Your Grace’s pity and mercy. First, at the flattering and fair persuasions of Manox, being but a young girl, I suffered him a sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body which neither became me with honesty to permit, nor him to require. Also, Francis Dereham by many persuasions procured me to his vicious purpose, and obtained first to lie upon my bed with his doublet and hose, and after within the bed, and finally he lay with me naked, and used me in such sort as a man doth his wife, many and sundry times, and our company ended almost a year before the King’s Majesty was married to my Lady Anne of Cleves and continued not past one quarter of a year, or a little above.