Tudor Women: Queens and Commoners (10 page)

In March 1534 the Pope in full consistory at last proceeded to judgement in the matter of the King of England's divorce, pronouncing the marriage of Henry and Catherine to be good and valid in the eyes of God and the Church. He was four years too late, for Catherine, for her daughter and for the Catholic Church in England.

Perhaps no other episode in our history raises so many and such far-reaching 'ifs' as does the Divorce. It was an age when the domestic accidents of a handful of families could and did affect the fate of nations, and if any one of Catherine's boy babies had lived, it seems pretty safe to say that the world would never have heard of Anne Boleyn. If Catherine had been a different type of woman, content to take the easy way out, then it is equally safe to say that there would have been no breach with Rome in the early 1530s. To say that if Henry had not become infatuated with Anne, in her own way just as strong-willed and courageous a woman as her rival, there would have been no Reformation in England, is to over-simplify the issue and ignore many other contributing factors. But if she had not acted as catalyst, the Reformation would not have come as it did - a revolution imposed from above for personal as well as political reasons; or when it did - before the radical popular movement had gathered either the vigour or the organization greatly to affect the course of events. In a country with a strong monarchical tradition, it is at least possible that under a forceful and devout king (and as long as Henry himself lived, his Church retained most of the essentials of Catholic practice) the faith would have survived long enough to draw new strength from the revivifying forces of the Counter-Reformation, and that England might to this day be a predominantly Catholic country with a very different history behind it. For better or for worse, the driving ambition of one woman and the determination of another to defend what she believed to be right played a vital part in shaping events which affected the lives of every English man, woman and child and still affect them today.

Anne Boleyn's child was born at Greenwich Palace, between three and four o'clock on the afternoon of Sunday, 7 September, and it was a girl - a black disappointment, naturally, for both parents. Still, there was nothing to be done but put a good face on it and hope for better luck next time. A solemn Te Deum for the Queen's safe delivery was sung in St. Paul's Cathedral, and on the following Wednesday the baby was christened with all due ceremony at the Friars' Church in Greenwich and given the name Elizabeth, in honour of the King's long-dead mother. Henry's next step was to deprive his elder daughter of her royal title - in future she would be known merely as the Lady Mary, the King's daughter - while her little half-sister became the new Princess of England. At the end of March 1534, Parliament finally ratified the Boleyn marriage, settling the succession on Anne's children and making it a treasonable offence to question the validity of the royal divorce and re-marriage by deed, word or writing.

It was unfortunate that Anne should have miscarried just about the time the Act of Succession was passing into law and again probably early in June. In July she was announced to be pregnant once more, but this time her hopes proved false, and by September she had been obligated to confess her mistake. It was beginning to look as if the King's second wife was going to be as unfortunate as his first, and for Anne that summer brought the beginnings of fear. Already Henry's eye was starting to wander, and even before the birth of Elizabeth there had been a vicious little quarrel caused by his amorous advances to some unnamed lady. Anne, it seems, had reproached him, making use of ‘certain words' which caught Henry on the raw, and had been told in return 'that she must shut her eyes and endure as those who were better than herself had done, and that she ought to know that he could at any time lower her as much as he had raised her'. During the summer of 1534 there was more trouble over the King's marked attentions to 'a very handsome young lady of this Court'. When Anne, in a rage, attempted to get rid of the girl, Henry intervened, telling her that 'she ought to be satisfied with what he had done for her; for, were he to begin again, he would certainly not do as much; she ought to consider where she came from, and many other things of the same kind'.

These and other scraps of gossip, lovingly collected and relayed by Eustace Chapuys, might not amount to very much in themselves, but they made it clear that the King's white-hot physical passion had now largely burned itself out, and that without it there was precious little in the way of mutual respect or shared interests to hold the couple together. It was also becoming painfully clear that Anne's bitter tongue and habit of making scenes were doing nothing to improve matters.

The root of the trouble, of course, lay in her terrifying failure to produce a son. If only she had been able to justify herself by presenting Henry with the longed-for male heir, she would probably have felt secure enough to ignore his various fancy ladies with the fortitude expected of wives in her position. Husbandly infidelity was something which most women had to put up with at some time or other; for although married men were regularly enjoined by moralists to be faithful, in practice public opinion took a tolerant view of lapses - especially in the upper reaches of society - and wives who complained too loudly got little sympathy.

A contributory cause of Anne's disquiet lay in the intransigent attitude of the rival heiress. Mary, now eighteen, was refusing as stubbornly as her mother to accept relegation. Although she had been separated from her friends and was currently being forced to live as a virtual prisoner in the nursery establishment set up for Elizabeth and ruled by Anne's relations, there was so far no sign that loneliness, insult and neglect were doing anything to break her spirit. Anne knew very well that the great majority of the English people still regarded Mary as the rightful heir and would go on doing so in spite of fifty Acts of Parliament. She also knew that as long as Mary maintained her resistance, declaring herself to be the King's 'lawful daughter born in true matrimony', she would represent a serious threat to Elizabeth's prospects.

The battle of the mothers and daughters continued with undiminished bitterness throughout 1534 and 1535, but in the face of the old Queen's terrible, implacable patience and Mary's gallant young defence of her birthright, it often seemed as though Anne could only rage in furious impotence. She might cry shrilly that both Catherine and Mary deserved death for their disobedience but, despite Eustace Chapuys's fluently expressed fears on the subject, there was no real indication that the King intended to take up the suggestion.

The summer of 1535 saw the executions of John Fisher, once Margaret Beaufort's friend and confidant, and Thomas More, once the close friend of both Henry and Catherine, for their obstinate refusal to accept Henry Tudor's competence to act as their supreme earthly authority on matters spiritual. Since Catherine and Mary also refused to accept the royal supremacy, this should logically have led to their deaths as well. But it was one thing to kill subjects - even subjects of the calibre and international reputation of More and Fisher - it was something else again to kill your own ex-wife and daughter. In any case, Catherine was ageing now; her next birthday would be her fiftieth and her health, not surprisingly, was poor - her long fight must surely soon be ended, and if she died in her bed, there would be no risk of unpleasant repercussions from abroad. As for Mary, she could sooner or later be brought to heel, and she would probably be more amenable to pressure once her mother's example was gone. So, at least, Henry seems to have reasoned, but Anne was not appeased, and her hatred of Catherine and Catherine's daughter was becoming an obsession. It might be beyond her power to hurt Catherine more than she had already done, but Mary was still within reach, and it was on Mary that she vented the hysterical spite - product of her own desperate sense of insecurity - which had already made her so many unnecessary enemies. For her part Mary loathed her stepmother and all she stood for with a deadly corrosive bitterness that was to poison her whole life.

In the autumn of 1535 the pattern of the King's domestic affairs began to change. In October Anne accompanied him on a tour of Hampshire, where, it was reported, they were merry together and out hawking every day. In November Anne was definitely pregnant again, but Henry's brief resurgence of passion soon passed, and he was now paying open court to one of his wife's maids of honour. Mistress Jane Seymour was a quiet little blonde in her mid-twenties, undistinguished by beauty or noble birth. She was, however, a well-mannered girl, docile and undemanding - a shining contrast to Anne's shrewish, overbearing ways. Anne, as usual, reacted violently, and according to one account, there was often 'much scratching and by-blows between the Queen and her maid'.

Then, early in January 1536, Catherine of Aragon died at last. For the past two years she had been living in almost total seclusion at Kimbolton, a gloomy, fortified manor house on the edge of the fen country. Ever since her arrival at Kimbolton Catherine had kept entirely to her own rooms, refusing to recognize the existence of those officers of the household who had been sworn to her as Princess Dowager. She still retained a handful of Spanish attendants, and her maids cooked her food before her eyes as a precaution against poison. She had been ill on and off for more than a year when, at the end of December, Eustace Chapuys received a message from Catherine's doctor telling him that, if he wanted to see her alive, he must come quickly. She was asking for him and also asking to see her daughter. Chapuys got permission to go to Kimbolton, but his request that Mary should be allowed to say goodbye to her mother was refused. Henry had no intention of risking any stiffening of her resistance which might result from some death-bed promise. Against this, considerations of compassion and ordinary humanity had no chance.

Catherine died on the afternoon of Friday, 7 January, and almost her last act had been to dictate a letter to her 'most dear lord, king and husband'. She reminded him of 'the health and safeguard' of his soul which he ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and especially before the care and pampering of his body. 'For the which', she wrote, 'you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles.' But she forgave him everything and prayed that God would do the same. 'Lastly,' she ended, 'I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things' and, unconquered to the very end, she signed herself 'Catherine, the Queen'.

Henry's reaction, when he heard of the death of the woman who had loved him faithfully for more than twenty years, was one of uncomplicated relief. 'God be praised,' he exclaimed, 'now there is no fear of war.' As for Anne, she, too, rejoiced in public, but in private it was different. 'I am her death, as she is mine,' she is reputed to have said of Catherine, and as a prophecy it was to prove remarkably accurate. Anne had known for more than a year that the King would be only too glad of an excuse to be rid of her, but as long as Catherine lived, he had shrunk from the social and political complications which would have resulted from discarding yet another wife. The country had, with difficulty, contained two Queens - not even Henry could have expected it to contain three.

Anne had one hope left. She was still pregnant, and if only she could carry this child to term, if only it were a boy and healthy, she might yet come safely into harbour. Catherine of Aragon was buried in Peterborough Cathedral on 29 January and, by a particularly cruel irony of fate, on the very day of the funeral, 'Queen Anne was brought abed and delivered of a man child before her time, for she said that she had reckoned herself but fifteen weeks gone with child.' It was the final disaster. She had failed and failed again, and the King was tired of her - tired of the scenes she made, tired of her mocking laughter and her nagging tongue. Nothing, it was generally accepted, became a woman like silence, and a man tied to a shrewish, scolding wife was always an object of amused, slightly contemptuous pity. A man tied to a barren shrew could only be pitied. Most husbands so unfortunately situated had to put up with it as best they could, but the King was privileged, and his impatience to make a fresh start was becoming increasingly obvious to all interested observers. Eustace Chapuys reported that Henry scarcely spoke to his concubine these days and was telling certain close friends, in the strictest confidence of course, that he had been tricked into his second marriage by witchcraft and therefore considered it to be null and void. God clearly shared this view and was once more manifesting divine disapproval by denying him male children.

But there was to be no second royal divorce. Henry wanted no reminder of his 'great folly', and no more contumacious ex-wives to disturb his peace. Even divorced, Anne would still be Marquess of Pembroke, a personality in her own right with an independent income. Unpopular though she had always been, she was not entirely without friends and influence in certain circles, and, with her child having once been recognized as heir presumptive, she might easily become a dangerous embarrassment - especially since she was not likely to be inhibited by any of Queen Catherine's scruples when it came to stirring up political strife. A more final solution to the problem would have to be found, and at the beginning of May 1536 Anne was arrested, together with five men (including her brother George) who were accused of being her lovers, and taken to the Tower. Apart from adultery and incest, the Queen was charged with despising her marriage, entertaining malice against the King and affirming that she would never love him in her heart. She and her lovers were also accused of having conspired the King's death.

Adultery might be a moral rather than a criminal offence, but an adulterous wife could expect no mercy from a society organized on strictly patriarchal lines. Her husband would be perfectly entitled to turn her out of his house, and, if her own relations refused to take her back, her future would be nobody else's concern. Hence the constant harping by preachers and moralists of every shade of opinion on the importance of wifely chastity and the avoidance of idleness, vanity, bad company and unnecessary jaunting about the streets, where temptation might be expected to lie in wait for an inexperienced or foolish young woman. Husbands, too, were urged to be watchful and guard their wives who, as the weaker vessels, would be less able to withstand the lures of Satan.