by Linda Porter
Seldom can hopes have been so comprehensively crushed, or with such momentous results. Convinced of the legal and theological strength of his case, Henry proceeded on the basis that Wolsey would establish a court to try the validity of his marriage. The court finding that Henry had, indeed, been unlawfully wedded to his brother’s widow all these years, the door would be opened for an annulment from the pope.Thus Rome would rubber-stamp a decision already made in England and Katherine, sidelined and not even officially informed of what was going on, would become the victim of a classic fait accompli. By the autumn it might all be over.
This scenario, however, was far too good to be true. It may have had an elegant simplicity but it overlooked the personality of the queen and the international context in which she was still a player. More crucially, it supposed that the Medici pope, Clement VII, would share Henry’s interpretation of canonical law. Events were soon to prove that whether he did or did not was largely irrelevant. Henry had also failed to appreciate the impact of continued instability in continental Europe. On 6 May 1527, before Wolsey’s court was even assembled, a mutinous and unpaid imperial army attacked Rome, pillaging and murdering in a manner reminiscent of barbarian hordes.The pope became the prisoner of the emperor. Charles V was a good Catholic and rather embarrassed by the orgy of looting and rape carried out by troops in his employ, but he did not much care for Italian popes. Now he had one under his control. In England his aunt, though no doubt suitably shocked by what had happened to the Holy City, knew that she had been given a breathing space and an opportunity to challenge her husband. Wolsey, meanwhile, could turn the information coming from Europe to his own advantage, since it seems likely that, privately, he was never fully persuaded of the arguments that the king wanted him to make. On the last day of May he pronounced that he could not proceed to judgement and referred matters to a learned group of churchmen and lawyers. Henry’s straightforward annulment was stopped in its tracks.
Katherine would have fought, in any case, but her opposition would have been muffled and far less effective. Excluded from the first steps to have her marriage annulled, she was not officially informed of Henry’s intentions until 22 June. The confrontation was painful, apparently for both of them. Henry confirmed his wife’s worst fears when he told her ‘they had been in mortal sin all the years they had lived together’. His conscience could abide it no longer. They must separate. He asked her to give thought to where she might like to retire. He must have hoped that she would see the futility of opposition, presenting his case with a terse finality that signified that he would not change his mind. He was her sovereign, and she must obey him. He could hardly have expected her to obey him as his wife, since he had just informed her that she was no such thing. Did he seriously believe that she would meekly disappear from the scene or that she would not challenge his arguments? Despite the strength of his personal beliefs, Henry’s interpretation of what the book of Leviticus had to say about marrying his brother’s widow was selective. Childlessness was the biblical penalty for a sinful union and Mary was clearly proof that, while the marriage had not been blessed with sons, it had produced one healthy offspring.
Katherine burst into tears on hearing her husband’s intentions, though she had known for a while that he was contemplating putting her aside.The realisation that he had already chosen a replacement may have been more of a shock, though of course Henry was careful not to mention Anne Boleyn to Katherine, but it was hard to keep such things secret in court circles. The queen’s distress alarmed Henry and he attempted to console her, assuring her that it would all turn out for the best. Probably they both knew it would not. The queen denied vehemently, as she was to do at every future stage of proceedings, that her marriage to Arthur had been consummated. It was so long ago that there was only the evidence of a few men who had been Arthur’s companions in Wales, and their memories were inconclusive, though they remembered the young prince’s boasts about his prowess and what a pleasant thing it was to have a wife. Only Katherine herself knew the truth. Modern writers have tended to take the view that she could have been lying, that it was a convenient blank in her memory of a sad interlude in her life. Might she have overcome her powerful religious convictions and compromised with her conscience in this way? Perhaps. But surely equally significant in trying to judge her veracity is the fact that she never conceived by Arthur, whereas she became pregnant shortly after marrying Henry.
At this stage, there is no record that Katherine mentioned Mary and her future.That might have been a step too far, since the queen was well aware that it was the lack of a male heir which preyed at the back of Henry’s mind. But she had invested so much of her youth in discomfort, uncertainty and penury, as she struggled to become queen of England, that she would not contemplate conceding her throne. Her pride and conscience would not let her and her intellect told her that she could make a strong case. She must defend herself because it was not just her crown which was at stake, but Mary’s too. She wanted legal advice and she desired to seek opinions from learned men outside England, rather than rely on those who would essentially do Henry’s bidding. In introducing this international dimension, she immediately raised the stakes. She was giving notice that her struggle with the king of England would be conducted at European level and was bound to involve her nephew, Charles V. Shortly after her interview with the king, she sent one of her Spanish servants with a message seeking the emperor’s help. It would be a protracted dispute but she could not now be easily outmanoeuvred by a husband who wanted to shut her up in a rural retreat. Winning the legal case did not ensure reconciliation with the king, though Katherine seems to have clung to the belief for at least four years that she was going to win Henry back, but it would save her pride and her soul. It would also safeguard Mary.
Only six weeks before Henry told Katherine that their marriage was built on a lie and his conscience could not permit him to live that lie any more, Mary had danced with the French ambassador and taken part in the lavish spectacle that so impressed Spinelli the Venetian. The queen’s presence at this event was the last time she and Henry appeared together before the king went public on his decision to obtain an annulment. There is no information as to when Mary herself first learned of what was happening between her parents, or when she realised that she could not avoid taking sides.The surviving evidence, fragmentary and indirect, suggests that she was shielded from the truth for some time. It seems likely that neither parent wished to involve her initially. Katherine, in spite of her decision to take a stand, would have considered it a needless raising of anxieties and perhaps also an embarrassment. How do you explain to an 11-year-old princess that her father considers you have been unlawfully wedded to him for seven years before she was even born, and that he wishes you to disappear off the scene so that he can marry properly for the first time? Nor would Henry, already dismayed by his wife’s tearful and defiant response to his announcement, have contemplated summoning Mary and explaining the position. The princess’s separate household made it easier to conceal from her the sordid nature of the dispute, while her daily routine, her lessons and pastimes, could continue undisturbed.
Yet those closest to her, the countess of Salisbury and Richard Fetherstone, undoubtedly knew what was happening, and the household servants, coming and going more often in the outside world, would also have picked up rumours and gossip, even if they were given no official information.Wolsey, Mary’s godfather, knew only too well, but he never enlightened her. To do so without his king’s permission risked Henry’s wrath and, besides,Wolsey was too caught up in the affair professionally to concern himself with a child’s questions.What probably happened is that Mary grasped the reality of the struggle between her parents gradually, over a considerable period. There was plenty of time for understanding to dawn, since the conclusion to Henry’s dilemma was not reached until 1533. Much had changed in England by then and Mary had left childhood well behind.Whether there came a point when someone, most likely Kathe
rine herself or Margaret Pole, sat down with the princess and explained to her the basics of a struggle that was the talk of Europe, we can only speculate. Eventually, she would have to take sides, but that inescapable burden was postponed by the protracted nature of the dispute.The arcane and tendentious arguments used by the ranks of academics, theologians and lawyers who wallowed in its detail but carefully avoided swift decisions spurred her father’s eventual determination that he would break permanently with Rome, never to be maddened by its double-dealing again. He also became increasingly convinced of the need to reform the English Church, not on the Lutheran model, but to rid it of corruption and the effects of superstition and idolatry.3 But for Mary, her decision was based on purely personal considerations. She came to see her mother as the wronged party, a great European princess and queen of England who had been despicably treated. But, tellingly, it was not until her own status was directly threatened that she publicly opposed her father. She knew that her mother had fought vigorously for what was right and was inspired by her example to do the same. The consequences of such an approach she did not adequately foresee because Mary, like Katherine, had failed to appreciate the extent of the changes in her father’s personality.
This was not just naivety on Mary’s part, the hopeless strategy of a spirited but pampered girl who loved her mother but could not grasp reality. For the first four years of the struggle, she had seldom been far from her parents and she had seen their civilised behaviour towards each other in public, almost exaggerated courtesies that utterly amazed foreign observers. The Venetians could not hide their perplexity. Why, if Henry and Katherine were involved in a dispute that was rocking Christendom, did they still continue to attend functions together, to dine together in public and to behave, with their daughter present, as if nothing was going on at all? In June 1530, the Signory in Venice were told that Henry and Katherine were together at Hampton Court, wherethey pay each other … the greatest possible attention … as if there had never been any dispute whatever between them; yet has the affair not slackened in the least, although at this present but little is being done here, as both parties are collecting votes in France, Italy and several other places, but it is not yet known with what success. At any rate, this most virtuous Queen maintains strenuously that all her king and lord does, is done by him for true and pure conscience’ sake and not for any wanton appetite.4
Maybe this is the line that Katherine took with Mary, absolving her husband of blame, emphasising that conscience was the key to the difficulties that Henry faced. It would certainly explain Mary’s otherwise misguided confidence in her father, whose conscience was actually one of the most self-serving and self-pitying in history. At an impressionable age, Mary learned that conscience was the most important justification for behaviour that anyone could make. It became her guiding principle - a clear conscience was what you owed to yourself and God - and the cause of much of her unhappiness.
The Venetian ambassador had remarked on the air of unreality that hung over the English royal family in the year 1530, but he also noted that there were strong currents flowing underneath. Katherine may have wanted to believe the king’s protestations that if the pope found that his marriage was lawful, no one would be more delighted than he, but the sensible side of her knew otherwise. Nevertheless, she began her own process of seeking learned counsel as soon as she was officially informed by her husband of his intent; she was committed to the intellectual side of the fight every bit as much as Henry. Katherine was not going to let tears get in the way of producing a robust case to bolster her position, and she would give her daughter the example of how educated women could defend themselves, using the same weapons that men employed against them.This had serious consequences for both the queen and her daughter, because although it was brave and intellectually sound, it relied too much on theory and ignored politics. Katherine was isolated in England and her friends in the nobility, as well as the small number of English humanist thinkers who stood up for her, found themselves imperilled. In fact, the conservative reformers among English humanists, who shared some of the king’s concerns about the state of the English Church, never recovered from their involvement in the divorce. Katherine began her campaign by commissioning Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had lost Anne Boleyn to Henry, to translate for her Petrarch’s treatise on the remedy of ill fortune. An apt choice for both queen and Wyatt, but in the end it did not make any difference.
The queen then began to consult more widely in Europe. Both she and Henry tried to involve Erasmus, but the ageing scholar, bruised by his involvement in the Lutheran controversy, wisely preferred to stay aloof. Katherine did send again for Vives, but his presence in England was not welcomed by Henry, who put him under house arrest and had him interrogated by Wolsey. The Spaniard left the country but was courageous enough to return with two Flemish jurists sent by Katherine’s sister-in-law, Margaret of Austria. Unfortunately, his pragmatic advice did not please the queen, who was not ready to be told that she might better defend her position if she allowed the English courts to condemn her unheard.They parted on bad terms, though she eventually followed his advice, at least in part.
Katherine did have friends in England, but, as the years went by, fewer in high places.The families of the old nobility, the Staffords, the Nevilles and the Courtenays, never deserted her, though their effectiveness was diminished by the rise of the supporters of Anne Boleyn. The queen’s English chaplain, Thomas Abell, defied Henry by declaring that those who advised the king were iniquitous. The religious orders such as the Observant Franciscans and the Carthusians, who were sympathetic to the new learning, dared to declare for the queen and were heavily punished, the Observants by dissolution in 1534 and two groups of the Carthusians by death in 1535. Oxford University found for Henry only after great pressure was exerted, and the Cambridge humanists also put up opposition. But among the leading clergy, only Bishop John Fisher of Rochester openly defended the queen. He also refused to acknowledge Henry’s supremacy over the Church in 1534 or to take the oath to the act of succession. So did Thomas More, but his attitude towards Katherine and the divorce was more equivocal.
Most of those at court who dared to support Katherine, and later Mary, were women. The influence of this on the princess has been underestimated. She saw that her mother had friends who were not self-serving, like their menfolk, but brave enough to stand up and be counted. Initially, the most significant support for Katherine came from her sister-in-law, the duchess of Suffolk, a close companion in happier days. The elder Mary Tudor was not afraid to show her contempt for Anne Boleyn or her disapproval of her brother’s course of action.5 Unfortunately, the practical assistance she could give was minimal. Court life had begun to weary her and her presence was much less frequent than in the early years of the reign. She preferred to stay on her country estates with her two daughters, and by the early 1530s was not in good health. In 1533, a bitter year for the queen’s cause, Mary died, depriving Katherine of one of her staunchest allies.
There were others, not of such high rank, but equally determined to stay true to their queen and their princess. Margaret Pole herself would not be swayed. Her friendship with Katherine was too deep and her responsibility for Mary’s day-to-day welfare the main focus of her life. Also in the queen’s camp was the redoubtable duchess of Norfolk, wife of the premier nobleman of England. Born Elizabeth Stafford, she was the daughter of the executed duke of Buckingham and sister-in-law to Margaret Pole’s daughter. As the wife of Thomas Howard she survived, but only at huge personal cost, one of the most spectacularly unhappy marriages in early Tudor England. In many respects, it mirrored what had happened between Henry and Katherine, though Elizabeth Howard was younger than the queen at the time her husband began to flaunt his infidelity. Up until 1527, their union had apparently been a success, but when in 1527 her husband took as mistress Bess Holland, the daughter of his secretary, the duchess’s Plantagenet blood was repelled. She was no more going to take this insult to he
r birth and her marriage than was the queen, openly betrayed in the same year. Elizabeth Howard’s refusal to play the submissive wife gave her common cause with Katherine, one of whose ladies she had been for many years. It may well have actively encouraged her commitment to the queen, deep-seated though this already was. Anne Boleyn was her husband’s niece, but the duchess was angered by the idea, vigorously supported by Anne, that her daughter Mary Howard should be married off to the king’s illegitimate son. Her relationship with her husband deteriorated still further and she began to accuse him openly of consistent physical abuse. In May 1531 she was dismissed from court ‘because she spoke too freely and declared herself more than they liked for the queen’.6
Even when Elizabeth Howard was sent away, there were others willing to risk a great deal for the queen. Gertrude Courtenay, marchioness of Exeter, acted in the Chateau Vert masque with Anne Boleyn on Anne’s debut at the English court and had known her for some time. But they were not friends and Gertrude, who attended Katherine of Aragon at the Field of Cloth of Gold, was loyal to the queen. She acted as a useful go-between from the court to Katherine, via the imperial ambassador. Her family’s position was a difficult and rather inconsistent one (Gertrude’s husband had signed the petition of the English nobility to the pope to have the king’s marriage to Katherine annulled), but the marchioness herself was clearly sympathetic on a personal level to Katherine and Mary. The Exeters were religious conservatives who found the progression towards separation of the English Church from Rome, as the divorce questioned dragged on, disturbing.This may explain Gertrude’s interest in another woman, from a very different background, whose opposition to the divorce disturbed Henry far more than the independent outlook of a few court ladies, irritating though they undoubtedly were in his eyes.Yet none of them had spoken openly of a threat to the king’s life if he did not abandon his plans to repudiate the queen. That chilling message was contained in the prophecies of a young nun at Canterbury, Elizabeth Barton.
