Six Wives (81 page)

    Anne clearly took the lead and the first appointment was that of her Almoner, Nicholas Shaxton, to Salisbury. The decision to appoint him was known to Chapuys as early as January 1535. But it followed a long and tortuous course.

    The particular sticking-point, as always, was fees. Once, these had gone to the Pope, but with the Supremacy they were transferred to the King of England, and a new revenue department, the Office of First Fruits and Tenths, was set up to administer them. Its head, known as the Treasurer of First Fruits and Tenths, was John Gostwick. But, despite his new status, Gostwick's relationship with Cromwell was an ambiguous one. He was Cromwell's former servant and continued to act as a general treasurer for him. Moreover, he was also working in harness with Cromwell's personal financial agents, Henry Polsted and William Popley.
²³

    The resulting confusion of roles was a recipe for crossed-wires and delay. Gostwick and his colleagues in London were trying to play by the rules and maximise returns for the King; Cromwell at Court, on the other hand, was alive to the realities of politics and patronage but was often too busy with bigger matters to give his proper attention to the to-and-fro of negotiations. Finally, and caught in the middle, were the newly appointed bishops, with Shaxton at their head.
²⁴

    Shaxton was consecrated by Cranmer, again in St Stephen's Chapel, on 11 April 1535. By then all the formalities should have been over. But the issue of his 'temporalities', as the estates of the bishopric were known, was still in negotiation. By the end of May the outlines of a settlement were visible. Shaxton would give securities for the staged payments of his First Fruits, which amounted to one year's net revenue of his see. In return the King would tide him over with a grant of the previous half year's income of the bishopric, from September 1534 to March 1535. The agreement would be given effect in the formal instrument, known as the
Custodias Temporalium
or Restitution of Temporalities, which permitted the new Bishop of Salisbury to receive the income of his see. On 27 May, Shaxton wrote to Cromwell, asking him to order Popley to prepare the Restitution of Temporalities as agreed for the King's signature. He was still waiting for it a week later on 4 June. And it was only on 8 July – the last business day before the start of the Progress – that it was signed by the King.
²⁵

    It is impossible to penetrate fully the workings in this instance of the Tudor 'Circumlocution Office'. But it seems probable that it was Anne who finally cut the Gordian Knot with a direct approach to Henry. She also helped Shaxton out with a loan of £200 from her own purse.

* * *

    Foxe's experiences are unknown but Latimer and Hilsey acted as a team with the ebullient Latimer naturally taking the lead. They left Court for London on about 21 August, while the King and Queen were staying at Thornbury. Before leaving they had an interview with Cromwell, also at Thornbury, in which they requested that 'they may pay their First Fruits as the Bishop of Salisbury does'. Cromwell agreed and promised to write to Gostwick to this effect. But when Latimer and Hilsey met Gostwick on 29 August, the Treasurer informed them that he had received no such letter. They both continued to badger Gostwick and six days later, on 4 September, Latimer also tackled Polsted, but Polsted had heard nothing from Cromwell either.
²⁶

    Latimer was now losing patience and, immediately after his frustrating meeting with Polsted, wrote Cromwell a characteristically blunt letter. Things would have been sorted out more quickly if he had remained at Court, he said. He also reminded Cromwell that he had other, even more powerful, friends. His first intention, he recalled, had been 'to have gone to the King's Grace myself'. 'But', he continued, 'the Queen's Grace, calling to remembrance what end my lord of Salisbury [Shaxton] was at, said I should not need to move the King, but that it should be enough to inform your mastership thereof.' Anne, characteristically, had put her money where her mouth was and had given Latimer, as well, a loan: £200 for which he entered into a bond on 18 August.
²⁷

    Despite Latimer's near-ultimatum, another inconclusive meeting with Polsted followed on 11 September. It was now Hilsey's turn to write a despairing letter to Cromwell. 'Since I have come to London', he informed him, 'I have done nothing and can do nothing.' It was only on 15 September that the minister's instructions concerning Rochester finally reach Polsted.
²⁸

    But by then, having fought their bruising encounter with bureaucracy to a draw, the bishops-elect were on their way back to Court. 

* * *

The Progress had reached Winchester in Hampshire. Winchester was the old capital, with a noble cathedral to match. And the cathedral was now the setting for one of the most extraordinary scenes of the Reformation.

    In mid-September, Jean de Dinteville, who had been painted by Holbein in
The Ambassadors
on an earlier mission to England, arrived at Winchester as a special envoy. At his first audience, either he or a member of his suite presented Marguerite of Navarre's compliments to Anne and Henry. 'The Queen', the report of the interview continued, 'said that her greatest wish, next to having a son, is to see you [Marguerite] again.'
²⁹

    But Dinteville bore disturbing news. Clement VII had died in 1534 and had been succeeded as Pope by Alessandro Farnese who had taken the title Paul III. Despite Paul's luxurious Court, his artistic patronage and the 'unlimited nepotism' he used to advance his already-powerful family to still greater things, he took his religion more seriously than his predecessor. He was outraged by Henry's conduct, and the beheading of Fisher, whom he had made a Cardinal just before his execution, was the last straw. In late July, 'at the unanimous solicitation' of the College of Cardinals, Pope Paul III 'deprived [Henry] of his kingdom and royal dignity' and wrote a 'Brief ' or letter to Francis to ask him to give effect to the sentence.
³⁰

    Francis, of course, had no intention of doing any such thing. Instead he hoped to use the Brief as diplomatic blackmail to secure English support for renewed French intervention in Italy. But the plan backfired. Henry was far too concerned at the possible impact of the Brief on English domestic politics to have the inclination for foreign adventures and Dinteville left England empty-handed after only two weeks.

    But how to respond to the Brief ? Henry, according to Chapuys's informants, 'appeared sad and melancholy when he had read the letters [Dinteville] presented' and he summoned the leading bishops to Winchester for an emergency meeting. Those attending included Foxe, Cranmer and of course the Bishop of Winchester himself, Stephen Gardiner.
³¹

    But, before the consultations got underway, Henry and Anne decided on a gesture of defiance. They would take advantage of the gathering of prelates in the city to stage a major ceremony. Since the break with Rome, the consecrations of English bishops had been hole-incorner affairs – performed, like Cranmer's and Shaxton's, in the decent obscurity of St Stephen's Chapel. Now, to face down doubters at home and abroad, they would go public. Thus, on 19 September, in Winchester Cathedral, the three most recently appointed bishops, Foxe of Hereford, Latimer of Worcester and Hilsey of Rochester, were consecrated together. The consecration was performed by Cranmer himself; the cream of the English episcopate was present as, almost certainly, were Henry and Anne. Henry was there to defy the Pope; Anne to give her support to 'her' bishops. She had solicited their appointments and had worked vigorously to remove the bureaucratic obstacles thrown in their way by Gostwick and his colleagues.
³²

    Now she had her reward as she started to shape an episcopate in the image of her own Reforming piety.

* * *

The bishops then got down to the task of countering the Papal Brief and, over the next ten days, they laboured furiously. The lead was taken by Gardiner. The last three years had not been kind to him. He had fallen badly foul of both Henry and Anne with his resistance to the Supremacy in the Convocation of 1532, and neither fully trusted him ever again. In April 1534 he had been rusticated to his diocese and told not to return to Court until summoned. He had also been stripped of the Secretaryship which – inevitably – was given to Cromwell. A year later he had come within a whisker of treason and Henry had ordered Cromwell to investigate him on suspicion of 'coloured doubleness' over the Supremacy.

    But he survived. Now the crisis provoked by the Papal Brief gave him the opportunity to rehabilitate himself. According to Chapuys, the King's Council was in complete disarray: they were 'quite astonished without knowing where to begin'. And only Gardiner's intervention rescued the situation. He, among all the bishops, had the readiest pen and the most incisive mind. He also knew how to work fast.
³³

    Within a few days he had completed drafts of two works. One was a direct answer to Paul's Brief. The Pope laments the death of bad men, like Fisher, and rejoices in those of the good, Gardiner wrote. Moreover he does so in extravagant words put in his mouth by a petty little orator (
rhetorculus
), his secretary Bloxius, who bemoans Fisher's death as monstrously cruel when in fact it was the gentlest that could be devised and he was 'killed with a sudden stroke of the sword'. And so on. Gardiner's answer is bitter and mocking and was obviously written in the heat of the moment. His other work, however, was longer and more reflective. It could, such was his facility, have been knocked out in the week or so following Dinteville's arrival. Or it might have been prepared earlier, during his months of exile at Winchester, and pulled out of the hat only now.

    It was entitled
De Vera Obedientia
(Of True Obedience), and, like Tyndale's similarly entitled
Obedience of a Christian Man
, it defended the Royal Supremacy on the grounds of Scripture and attacked the Papal Monarchy on the same basis. Gardiner concluded by acknowledging frankly that he had once sworn an oath to the Pope. He had done so in good faith. But, as he had subsequently discovered, he had been wrong. And the oath was wrong, too. Therefore, because it is a recognised principle of both civil and canon law 'that no man is bounden to perform an unlawful oath', he was released with no stain on his integrity. As were all other Englishmen who had done the same.

    Both Gardiner's works were circulated for comment among a select group, including Cranmer, Foxe and Cromwell. Foxe was seriously worried by the passage in which Gardiner defended the breach of his oath and wrote in strict confidence to Cromwell about it. 'If this were taken for an example', he pointed out, 'the malice of men might elude such oaths [to the Boleyn succession] as we have now lately made.' 'I have turned down the leaf ', he continued, 'and marked the place with a hand.'
³⁴

    Foxe's point was a shrewd one. Nevertheless, the passage was left untouched. Cranmer, on the other hand, proposed a lengthy addition to the answer. At this point, Cromwell called for the text of the answer to read it himself. Gardiner was frustrated. He had intended, he wrote to
Cromwell, to sit up all night and polish it, as he had already done with his
De Vera Obedientia
. But this was now impossible as he was sending the only copy to Cromwell. If Cromwell would bring it up to London, where he was about to deliver
De Vera Obedientia
to the royal printer, Thomas Berthelet, he would finish it off too. 'I will in a day and a night put it
in
mundum
[into the world],' he boasted.
³⁵

    This was the old Gardiner. Power and favour were a tonic, and he was in his element again.

* * *

But, within a few weeks, he was sent away from Court once more as ambassador to France. Did Henry guess that his Council was not big enough for both Cromwell and Gardiner? Was Anne working to remove another enemy?

    As it happened, Gardiner's Embassy lasted for three years. When he returned to England in 1538 it was to a new world. For three Queens had died in the interim.

I
n May 1534, Catherine had been moved at last to a new house, Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire. It was only four miles from Buckden, but, despite its proximity, its situation was better as it lay to the west, on slightly higher ground and away from the hated Fen.
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    There, her life settled into a kind of rhythm. In place of the extravagant scenes and direct confrontations of Buckden, she maintained a cold war with the men whom Henry had placed about her, treating the head officers of her Household – Sir Edmund Bedingfield, her Steward, and Sir Edward Chamberlain, her Chamberlain – as her gaolers and banishing them from her presence for months at a time. Instead, she spent her days with her women, her confessor, her doctor and her apothecaries. She continued with her needlework, and, when her health permitted, with her devotions. According to Catholic hagiography, these lasted for several hours a day, and were performed on the bare stones which she left so wet with her tears that it was 'as though it had rained upon them'.
²

    It was, in short, an existence little different from the nunnery which she had so indignantly refused. And, like the quiet life of the cloister, it had its own satisfactions. But there was a corresponding danger. In the fastnesses of Huntingdonshire and deliberately cut off from the outside world, it was a case of out of sight, out of mind. At best, the former Queen Catherine would be a fading memory, while Queen Anne rode from Reforming triumph to Reforming triumph, as Anne seemed to be doing in 1535. At worst, so Catherine and Chapuys both feared, she would be secretly done away with, with no one a jot the wiser.