Part 26 (1/2)

[Footnote 832: _Ibid._, vi., 296.]

[Footnote 833: _Ibid._, vi., 89.]

[Footnote 834: _Ibid._, vi., 142, 160. The nuncio sat on Henry's right and the French amba.s.sador on his left, this trinity ill.u.s.trating the league existing between Pope, Henry and Francis.]

[Footnote 835: _Ibid._, vi., 276, 311, 317, 491.]

[Footnote 836: The germ of this Act may be found in a despatch from Henry dated 7th October, 1530; that the system of appeals had been subject to gross abuse is obvious from the fact that the Council of Trent prohibited it (_Cambridge Modern Hist._, ii., 671).]

[Footnote 837: _L. and P._, vi., 1489.]

[Footnote 838: _Ibid._, vi., 296.]

[Footnote 839: _Ibid._, XII., ii., 952.]

Henry's path was now clear. Cranmer was archbishop and _legatus natus_ with a t.i.tle which none could dispute. By Act of Parliament his court was the final resort for all ecclesiastical cases. No appeals from his decision could be lawfully made. So, on 11th April, before he was yet consecrated, he besought the King's gracious permission to determine his ”great cause of matrimony, because much bruit exists among the common people on the subject”.[840] No doubt there did; but that (p. 300) was not the cause for the haste. Henry was pleased to accede to this request of the ”princ.i.p.al minister of our spiritual jurisdiction”; and, on the 10th of May, the Archbishop opened his Court at Dunstable.

Catherine, of course, could recognise no authority in Cranmer to try a cause that was before the papal curia. She was declared contumacious, and, on the 23rd, the Archbishop gave his sentence. Following the line of Convocation, he p.r.o.nounced that the Pope had no power to license marriages such as Henry's, and that the King and Catherine had never been husband and wife.[841] Five days later, after a secret investigation, he declared that Henry and Anne Boleyn were lawfully married, and on Whitsunday, the 1st of June, he crowned Anne as Queen in Westminster Abbey.[842] Three months later, on Sunday, the 7th of September, between three and four in the afternoon, Queen Anne gave birth to a daughter at Greenwich.[843] The child was christened on the following Wednesday by Stokesley, Bishop of London, and Cranmer stood G.o.dfather.

Chapuys scarcely considered the matter worth mention. The King's _amie_ had given birth to a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, a detail of little importance to any one, and least of all to a monarch like Charles V.[844] (p. 301) Yet the ”b.a.s.t.a.r.d” was Queen Elizabeth, and the child, thus ushered into a contemptuous world, lived to humble the pride of Spain, and to bear to a final triumph the banner which Henry had raised.

[Footnote 840: Cranmer, _Works_, ii., 237.]

[Footnote 841: _Ibid._, ii., 241, 244; _L. and P._, vi., 332, 469, 470, 525. This sentence did not b.a.s.t.a.r.dise the Princess Mary according to Chapuys, for ”even if the marriage were null, the Princess was legitimate owing to the lawful ignorance of her parents. The Archbishop of Canterbury had foreseen this and had not dared to be so shameless as to declare her a b.a.s.t.a.r.d” (_ibid._, vii., 94).]

[Footnote 842: See _Tudor Tracts_ edited by the present writer, 1903, pp. 10-28, and _L. and P._, vi., 561, 563, 584, 601.]

[Footnote 843: _L. and P._, vi., 1089, 1111.]

[Footnote 844: _L. and P._, vi., 1112.]

CHAPTER XII. (p. 302)

”THE PREVAILING OF THE GATES OF h.e.l.l.”

That victorious issue of the Tudor struggle with the power, against which Popes proclaimed that the gates of h.e.l.l should not prevail, was distant enough in 1533. Then the Tudor monarch seemed rus.h.i.+ng headlong to irretrievable ruin. Sure of himself and his people, and feeling no longer the need of Clement's favour, Henry threw off the mask of friends.h.i.+p, and, on the 9th of July, confirmed, by letters patent, the Act of Annates.[845] Cranmer's proceedings at Dunstable, Henry's marriage, and Anne's coronation, const.i.tuted a still more flagrant defiance of Catholic Europe. The Pope's authority was challenged with every parade of contempt. He could do no less than gather round him the relics of his dignity and prepare to launch against Henry the final ban of the Church.[846] So, on the 11th of July, the sentence of the greater excommunication was drawn up. Clement did not yet, (p. 303) nor did he ever, venture to a.s.sert his claims to temporal supremacy in Christendom, by depriving the English King of his kingdom; he thought it prudent to rely on his own undisputed prerogative. His spiritual powers seemed ample; and he applied to himself the words addressed to the Prophet Jeremiah, ”Behold, I have set thee above nations and kingdoms that thou mayest root up and destroy, build and plant, a lord over all kings of the whole earth and over all peoples bearing rule”.[847] In virtue of this prerogative Henry was cut off from the Church while he lived, removed from the pale of Christian society, and deprived of the solace of the rites of religion; when he died, he must lie without burial, and in h.e.l.l suffer torment for ever.[848]

[Footnote 845: _L. and P._, vi., 793.]

[Footnote 846: _Ibid._, vi., 807, App. 3; vii., 185. The declaration of it was at the same time suspended until September, and the delicate question of entrusting the _executoriales_ to princes who repudiated the honour caused further delays. The bull of excommunication was eventually dated 30th August, 1535 (ix., 207); and a bull depriving Henry of his kingdom was sanctioned, printed and prepared for publication (x., Introd., p. xv., Nos. 82, 107), but first Francis and then Charles put difficulties in the way. In December, 1538, Paul III., now that he, Charles and Francis were united in the bond of friends.h.i.+p, published with additions the bull of August, 1535 (XIII., ii., 1087, Introd., p. xli.). Even then no bull of deprivation was published. Apparently that was an honour reserved for Henry's daughter.]

[Footnote 847: Jeremiah i. 10. The Vulgate text adopted in Papal bulls differs materially from that in the English Authorised Version.]

[Footnote 848: See the text in Burnet, ed. Poc.o.c.k, iv., 318-31.]

What would be the effect of this terrific anathema? The omens looked ill for the English King. If he had flouted the Holy See, he had also offended the temporal head of Christendom. The Emperor's aunt had been divorced, his cousin's legitimacy had been impugned, and the despatches of his envoy, Chapuys, were filled with indignant lamentations over the treatment meted out to Catherine and to her daughter. Both proud and stubborn women, they resolutely refused to admit in any way the validity of Henry's acts and recent legislation.

Catherine would rather starve as Queen, than be sumptuously clothed and fed as Princess Dowager. Henry would give her anything she asked, if she would acknowledge that she was not the Queen, nor her daughter the Princess; but her bold resistance to his commands and wishes (p. 304) brought out all the worst features of his character.[849] His anger was not the worst the Queen and her daughter had to fear; he still preserved a feeling of respect for Catherine and of affection for Mary. ”The King himself,” writes Chapuys, ”is not ill-natured; it is this Anne who has put him in this perverse and wicked temper, and alienates him from his former humanity.”[850] The new Queen's jealous malignity pa.s.sed all bounds. She caused her aunt to be made governess to Mary, and urged her to box her charge's ears; and she used every effort to force the Princess to serve as a maid upon her little half-sister, Elizabeth.[851]

[Footnote 849: _L. and P._, vi., 805, 1186.]