Part 34 (1/2)

[Footnote 1088: _L. and P._, xv., 486.]

[Footnote 1089: _Ibid._, xv., 735.]

Cromwell's fall was not, however, effected without some violent oscillations, strikingly like the quick changes which preceded the ruin of Robespierre during the Reign of Terror in France. The Vicegerent had filled the Court and the Government with his own nominees; at least half a dozen bishops, with Cranmer at their head, inclined to his theological and political views; Lord Chancellor Audley and the Earl of Southamton were of the same persuasion; and a small but (p. 394) zealous band of reformers did their best, by ballads and sermons, to prove that the people were thirsting for further religious change. The Council, said Marillac, was divided, each party seeking to destroy the other. Henry let the factions fight till he thought the time was come for him to intervene. In February, 1540, there was a theological encounter between Gardiner and Barnes, the princ.i.p.al agent in Henry's dealings with the Lutherans, and Barnes was forced to recant;[1090] in April Gardiner and one or two conservatives, who had long been excluded from the Council, were believed to have been readmitted;[1091] and it was reported that Tunstall would succeed Cromwell as the King's Vicegerent.[1092] But a few days later two of Cromwell's satellites, Wriothesley and Sadleir, were made Secretaries of State; Cromwell himself was created Earl of Ess.e.x; and, in May, the Bishop of Chichester and two other opponents of reform were sent to the Tower.[1093] At last Henry struck. On the 10th of June Cromwell was arrested; he had, wrote the Council, ”not only been counterworking the King's aims for the settlement of religion, but had said that, if the King and the realm varied from his opinions, he would withstand them, and that he hoped in another year or two to bring things to that frame that the King could not resist it”.[1094] His cries for mercy evoked no response in that hardened age.[1095] Parliament condemned him unheard, and, on the 28th of July, he was beheaded.

[Footnote 1090: _L. and P._, xv., 306, 312, 334.]

[Footnote 1091: _Ibid._, xv., 486, 804.]

[Footnote 1092: _Ibid._, XIV., ii., 141.]

[Footnote 1093: _Ibid._, xv., 737.]

[Footnote 1094: Burnet, iv., 415-23; _L. and P._, xv., 765-67.]

[Footnote 1095: Merriman, _Cromwell_, ii., 268, 273.]

Henry had in reality come to the conclusion that it was safe to (p. 395) dispense with Anne of Cleves and her relatives; and with his will there was easily found a way. His case, as stated by himself, was, as usual, a most ingenious mixture of fact and fiction, reason and sophistry. His ”intention” had been defective, and therefore his administration of the sacrament of marriage had been invalid. He was not a free agent because fear of being left defenceless against Francis and Charles had driven him under the yoke. His marriage had only been a conditional form. Anne had never received a release from her contract with the son of the Duke of Lorraine; Henry had only gone through the ceremony on the a.s.sumption that that release would be forthcoming; and actuated by this conscientious scruple, he had refrained from consummating the match. To give verisimilitude to this last statement, he added the further detail that he found his bride personally repugnant. He therefore sought from ”our” Church a declaration of nullity. Anne was prudently ready to submit to its decision; and, through Convocation, Henry's Church, which in his view existed mainly to transact his ecclesiastical business, declared, on the 7th of July, that the marriage was null and void.[1096] Anne received a handsome endowment of four thousand pounds a year in lands, was given two country residences, and lived on amicable terms with Henry[1097] and his successors till 1558, when she died and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

[Footnote 1096: For the canonical reasons on which this decision was based, see the present writer's _Cranmer_, pp. 140, 141.]

[Footnote 1097: ”She is,” writes Marillac in August, ”as joyous as ever, and wears new dresses every day” (xv., 976; _cf._ Wriothesley _Chronicle_, i., 120).]

Henry's neck was freed from the matrimonial yoke and the German (p. 396) entanglement. The news was promptly sent to Charles, who remarked that Henry would always find him his loving brother and most cordial friend.[1098] At Antwerp it was said that the King had alienated the Germans, but gained the Emperor and France in their stead.[1099]

Luther declared that ”Junker Harry meant to be G.o.d and to do as pleased himself”;[1100] and Melancthon, previously so ready to find excuses, now denounced the English King as a Nero, and expressed a wish that G.o.d would put it into the mind of some bold man to a.s.sa.s.sinate him.[1101] Francis sighed when he heard the news, foreseeing a future alliance against him,[1102] but the Emperor's secretary believed that G.o.d was bringing good out of all these things.[1103]

[Footnote 1098: _L. and P._, xv., 863.]

[Footnote 1099: _Ibid._, xv., 932.]

[Footnote 1100: _Ibid._, xvi., 106.]

[Footnote 1101: _Ibid._, xvi., Introd., p. ii. n.]

[Footnote 1102: _Ibid._, xv., 870.]

[Footnote 1103: _Ibid._, xv., 951.]

CHAPTER XV. (p. 397)

THE FINAL STRUGGLE.

The first of the ”good things” brought out of the divorce of Anne of Cleves was a fifth wife for the much-married monarch. Parliament, which had pet.i.tioned Henry to solve the doubts troubling his subjects as to the validity (that is to say, political advantages) of his union with Anne, now besought him, ”for the good of his people,” to enter once more the holy state of matrimony, in the hope of more numerous issue. The lady had been already selected by the predominant party, and used as an instrument in procuring the divorce of her predecessor and the fall of Cromwell; for, if her morals were something lax, Catherine Howard's orthodoxy was beyond dispute. She was niece of Cromwell's great enemy, the Duke of Norfolk; and it was at the house of Bishop Gardiner that she was first given the opportunity of subduing the King to her charms.[1104] She was to play the part in the Catholic reaction that Anne Boleyn had done in the Protestant revolution. Both religious parties were unfortunate in the choice of their lady protagonists. Catherine Howard's father, in spite of his rank, was very penurious, and his daughter's education had been neglected, while her character had been left at the mercy of any (p. 398) chance tempter. She had already formed compromising relations with three successive suitors. Her music master, Mannock, boasted that she had promised to be his mistress; a kinsman, named Dereham, called her his wife; and she was reported to be engaged to her cousin, Culpepper.[1105] Marillac thought her beauty was commonplace;[1106]

but that, to judge by her portraits, seems a disparaging verdict. Her eyes were hazel, her hair was auburn, and Nature had been at least as kind to her as to any of Henry's wives. Even Marillac admitted that she had a very winning countenance. Her age is uncertain, but she had almost certainly seen more than the twenty-one years politely put down to her account. Her marriage, like that of Anne Boleyn, was private.

Marillac thought she was already wedded to Henry by the 21st of July, and the Venetian amba.s.sador at the Court of Charles V. said that the ceremony took place two days after the sentence of Convocation (7th July).[1107] That may be the date of the betrothal, but the marriage itself was privately celebrated at Oatlands on the 28th of July,[1108]

and Catherine was publicly recognised as Queen at Hampton Court (p. 399) on the 8th of August, and prayed for as such in the churches on the following Sunday.

[Footnote 1104: _Original Letters_, Parker Society, i., 202. _cf. L. and P._, xv., 613 [12].

Winchester, says Marillac, ”was one of the princ.i.p.al authors of this last marriage, which led to the ruin of Cromwell” (_ibid._, xvi., 269).]

[Footnote 1105: _L. and P._, xvi., 1334.]