Six Wives (82 page)

    But Chapuy was determined that Catherine should not be forgotten. He intrigued outrageously with her supporters and constantly badgered Henry and Cromwell about the conditions in which she was held. And, if they ignored him, he had his own ways of making his presence felt. Most dramatically, in July 1534, he decided to use a pilgrimage to Walsingham as a cover for a demonstration in Catherine's favour. He announced that he would visit her en route and, to gain maximum publicity, signalled his departure from London by riding through the City with a troop of sixty horse. Repeated messengers were sent to inform him that he would not be allowed access to the former Queen. Nevertheless, he persevered to within a few miles of Kimbolton. Then Catherine herself sent to say that she was well satisfied. Chapuys himself remained at a distance, but ordered a detachment of his followers to parade in front of the house, 'to the great satisfaction . . . of the ladies with the Queen, who spoke to them from the battlements and windows'.

    Mission more or less accomplished, the pilgrimage to Walsingham was abandoned as ostentatiously as it had been begun, and Chapuys returned to London. He was shadowed all the way by Stephen Vaughan, Cromwell's usual agent in a crisis.
³

* * *

In a sense, of course, Chapuys's efforts were redundant, as neither of the two people most affected could or would forget Catherine, or leave her in peace. Anne (at least according to Chapuys) continued to press, loudly, for her execution; while Henry never forgave her for not accepting his Divorce. Yet again, commissioners were instructed to upbraid her with her refusal to yield to his case. The world acknowledged that she had been 'known' by Arthur; why would not she? Once again, she reiterated her story, but with a fresh and strange twist. 'And furthermore', she said to the commissioners, 'whereas you do declare Prince Arthur to have sufficiency of age [for intercourse], I will briefly declare unto you his age. He was fifteen years, twenty-seven weeks and odd days when he died.'
⁴

    What was she trying to prove? That Arthur was too young for sex? That her memory was so good about his age that it could be trusted in all else? Her point remains unclear, as it seems to have done to her interlocutors.

    But, finally, the point-scoring stopped and she appealed directly to Henry. She invoked 'the great love that hath been betwixt him and me ere this . . . the which love in me is as faithful and true to him . . . as ever it was'. And she begged him, for the sake of that love, 'that his Grace will not use such extremities with me'.
⁵

    She begged in vain. Henry's love for her was dead, long dead, and it was turned – not to hate, as with Anne – but to a cold irritation. She was in the way. And he did not tolerate obstacles willingly.

* * *

    Chapuys received Dr de la Sa's letter on 29 December and immediately sent to Court for permission to visit Catherine. Cromwell agreed readily but said that Chapuys must first have an audience with the King.

    The next day, Thursday, 30 December, Chapuys presented himself at the appointed time at Greenwich, where he was met on the Privy 'Bridge' or landing stage by Sir Thomas Cheyney. Cheyney had weathered the storms of his disputes with Sir John Russell to become the virtual kinglet of the Isle of Sheppey in east Kent, and one of the most influential of Henry's personal attendants. He took Chapuys through the palace to the tilt-yard on the south, or landward, side. The King, who was preparing for the forthcoming New Year's jousts, greeted the ambassador warmly. With a great bear-hug 'he . . . embraced me still more cordially by the neck' and then got down to business.

    First, he talked at length of England's relations with those two perennial rivals: Charles V, Chapuys's master, and Charles's enemy, Francis I. Henry's tone about his supposed ally, Francis I, was less than cordial; on the other hand, he spoke with regret about the tensions in the Anglo-Imperial relationship. Then, at the end of the interview, he came suddenly and brutally to the point: '
Madame
[Catherine]', he told Chapuys, who reported the exchange back to his master, 'would not live long and that if she died you [Charles] would have no cause to trouble yourself about the affairs of this kingdom and might refrain from stirring in the matter.' Shocked, Chapuys replied 'that the death of the Queen could do no possible good' and the audience was at an end.

    As he went back to his boat through the palace, Chapuys was recalled to the King. News had just come, Henry told him with barely concealed delight, that Catherine was '
in extremis
' and that 'I should hardly find her alive'. Then the King returned to his essential point: 'moreover that this would take away all the difficulties between your Majesty [Charles] and him'.

    Chapuys, on the basis of his own reports, thought that Henry exaggerated. Nevertheless, he took horse straight away for Kimbolton.
⁷

* * *

Meanwhile, also on the Thursday, Maria de Salinas, Catherine's former lady-in-waiting and now the Dowager Lady Willoughby and mother-in-law of the Duke of Suffolk, sent urgently to Cromwell from her house at the Barbican. 'I heard that my mistress is very sore sick again,' she wrote. Cromwell had promised her a formal 'licence' or permission to visit Catherine 'before God did send for her, as there is no other likelihood'. Despite the holidays and his own business, the licence must, she implored, be obtained immediately. Otherwise it would be too late.
⁸

    Between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening of the same day, a post arrived at Kimbolton with letters from the Court at Greenwich. In them, Cromwell passed on Chapuys's news that Catherine 'was in danger of life'. Sir Edmund Bedingfield, understandably, was chagrined that 'the ambassador should have knowledge before us that do daily continue in the house' but reported back the latest bulletin as he had it. He had spoken to Dr de la Sa, who resorted to the phrase which doctors have been using since the days of Hippocrates. She was 'not much worse than she was, nor much better' (
non multum peius quam erat, neque longe melius
). De la Sa also advised a second opinion. But Catherine had been adamant: 'she would in no wise have any other physician, but only commit herself to the pleasure of God'.
⁹

    The New Year feast, which was ordinarily a time of festivity in the Court and its associated Households, would have been a quiet one at Kimbolton. At about 6 p.m. on New Year's day, Lady Willoughby burst into the house. She was visibly agitated. She had, she claimed, 'a fall from her horse within a mile'. And she was desperate for the sight of Catherine, 'saying', Bedingfield reported, 'she thought never to have seen [Catherine] again by reason of such tidings as she had heard of her'.

    Bedingfield and his colleague, Sir Edward Chamberlain, were moved. She was a great lady. And she was in distress. But, still, they had a job to do. Where was her licence? they demanded. 'It was ready to be showed next morning,' she replied. Meanwhile, in view of her shaken state following her fall, could she sit by the fire? They agreed.

    They found out what happened later. Immediately, and evidently by prior arrangement, she had been smuggled in to see Catherine. Then, miraculously recovered from her fall, she had disappeared. 'Since that time', Bedingfield reported in proper policeman tones, 'we never saw her, neither any letters of her licence to repair hither.'
¹⁰

    The next day, Sunday, 2 January, Chapuys arrived at the house 'before dinner' and was admitted to see Catherine immediately. Both Catherine and Chapuys were anxious to demonstrate that her illness was real and 'not feigned'. So the interview took place in front of a substantial company. Stephen Vaughan, who had been sent once more, as Chapuys reported, 'to accompany me or rather to spy' was there, as were the Steward, Bedingfield, and the Chamberlain, Sir Edward Chamberlain, both of whom 'had not seen her for more than a year'.

    The interview was short and was conducted in Spanish. Catherine thanked Chapuys for his services, and for his trouble in coming to see her. It would do her good, she thought. If not, 'it would be a consolation to her to die in my arms, and not unprepared, like a beast'. In reply, Chapuys tried to keep her spirits up, speaking of the better houses and more generous funding which Henry had promised. Above all, he assured her, 'the King was very sorry for her illness'.
¹¹

    This was a blatant lie. But, in the circumstances, it was a justifiable one.

    Exhausted by the effort, Catherine asked to be left alone to sleep, which she did for a few hours. At 5 o'clock, Dr de la Sa summoned Chapuys, who spent more than an hour with her, alone apart from the doctor and Catherine's 'old trusty women'. The latter were a safe audience, since they did not speak Spanish – or at least had convinced Bedingfield that they did not. And the interview was repeated, at the same time and with the same company, on the 3rd and the 4th.

    In these conversations, Chapuys was worried about tiring Catherine. But she insisted on prolonging them, and their exchanges became more and more frank. Chapuys tried to justify Charles's failure to act decisively on her behalf. More importantly, he also addressed Catherine's mounting doubts about the effect of her actions. She was worried about More and Fisher – the 'good men [who] had suffered in persons and goods' – and about the mounting tide of heresy which threatened to engulf England. Such things were anathema to her. But they had arisen because of her steadfastness. Had she, she now asked herself, been right? Or was her behaviour a mere selfish intransigence, which God was punishing by visiting these horrors on her adoptive country?

    Once again, though probably with more conviction this time, Chapuys said what she wanted to hear. God sent heresies, he explained, not because of her or any other human agency, but for His own purposes in the 'exaltation of the good and the confusion of the wicked'. Nor were the heresies deep-rooted, and there was hope that those who had lapsed would, like St Peter, return to the Faith with redoubled strength.

    'At these words', he reported, 'she showed herself very glad, for she had previously had some scruple of conscience because the heresies had arisen from her affair'.
¹²

    Catherine's original doubts, however, were right. She had acted her part from the best of motives. And, bearing in mind her character, she could scarcely have behaved otherwise. Nevertheless, the awful truth remains that the Reformation, and all it entailed, was her work as much as Henry's and Anne's.

* * *

While Chapuys was at Kimbolton, Catherine's physical as well as her mental state seemed to improve. She began to sleep better. 'Her stomach also retain her food.' In view of these hopeful signs, Chapuys decided he should return to London. He took his leave on the Tuesday evening. Despite his forthcoming departure, Catherine was 'very cheerful' and actually laughed two or three times. She also had another good night, and Chapuys began his journey as planned the following morning in reasonable spirits. Nevertheless, he travelled at leisure, lest he needed to be recalled.
¹³

But this time it was Cromwell who received the intelligence first.

* * *

    But she wakened in the small hours, and it was immediately clear that the hand of death was on her. Canonical rules, which Catherine insisted on obeying, discouraged the saying of mass before dawn. But, as first light broke, her Confessor, de Athequa the Bishop of Llandaff, sang the office and Catherine took the sacrament. Then she prayed and begged the bystanders to pray with her for her own soul and for Henry's: 'that God would pardon the King her husband for the wrong that he had done her, and that the divine goodness would lead him to the true road and give him good counsel'.
¹⁴

    One thing was omitted, however. It had been arranged between Chapuys and Dr de la Sa that 'whenever her life should be in danger, she should be reminded to affirm
in extremis
that she had never been [carnally] known by Prince Arthur'. But, 'in his grief and trouble', the doctor forgot to prompt. Nor did Catherine herself remember. Did she simply forget as well? Or, confronting her eternal judge, did she decide that the words which had baffled lesser, human tribunals were best left unsaid?
¹⁵

    At 10 o'clock, she received Extreme Unction which Bedingfield and Chamberlain were summoned to witness. Four hours later, at a little before 2 p.m., she died.
¹⁶

    Within the hour, Chamberlain and Bedingfield were writing to Cromwell for their instructions about the burial and the dissolution of the Household.

* * *

Meanwhile, the rituals of preparing a body that, whatever its exact earthly status, was certainly royal, were already underway. 'Sir', Chamberlain and Bedingfield informed Cromwell, 'the groom of the Chandlery [the department where candles were kept] here can cere her' – that is, disembowel and embalm the body. A plumber would be sent for, 'to close the body in lead'. 'The which', they added, 'must needs shortly be done, for that may not tarry.'
¹⁷