The Queen's Ladies
[In the following essay, Martienssen discusses Parr's humanist intentions and activities, and provides details on the queen's relationship with the religious martyr Anne Askew.]
Katherine Parr had now been Queen for some fifteen months. During that period, her main concern had been to establish herself as a loving and obedient wife, and as an affectionate and industrious stepmother. Her few sorties into politics had all been connected with the King's children, and nothing she had done could be interpreted as having any motive other than the well-being of the Royal Family. Even the appointment of John Cheke was easily justified on the grounds of his outstanding scholarship, which Gardiner himself could not deny. Her one outside venture had been the offer of her patronage to Cambridge University, but here, too, Gardiner, as Chancellor of the University, could hardly object. Outwardly, her period as Regent had been marked by common sense and a brief display of ‘the stomach of a man’, and no fault could be found with the few decisions she had had to make. She was now sure of herself and her position, and she could welcome Henry home with a clear conscience.
It was never Katherine's intention, however, to be nothing more than a dutiful wife and model stepmother. These were the foundations on which to build her influence and authority—and the neglect of which had been one of the main causes of the downfall of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard—but, in her eyes, God had not called her to the high office of Queen of England simply to look after Henry and his children. Nor did Henry marry her solely for this purpose; his Queen was expected to play her part in public life, to bolster his image as a true Father of his People and, behind the scenes, to support his moves and plans for maintaining his power. It was primarily to give her the experience she needed in Council that he had appointed her Queen Regent and, as he had probably expected, it strengthened her will as well as her authority. It was now time for her to step into the political arena.
Katherine's appreciation of the change in her status was reflected in her clothes. At the entertainment of the Spanish Duke of Najera in February 1544, she had worn her favourite colours—crimson and gold. The Spanish account of the reception described her dress (quoted by Strickland):
An open robe of cloth of gold, the sleeves lined with crimson satin, and trimmed with three piled crimson velvet, the train more than two yards long. Suspended from the neck were two crosses, and a jewel of very rich diamonds, and in her headdress were many rich and beautiful ones. Her girdle was of gold, with very large pendants.
But for some months now, as shown by her household accounts, she had changed from crimson to purple, the traditional colour of ‘Imperial Majesty’. The crimson clothes were not discarded, and her footmen and pages continued to be dressed in crimson doublets and hose, but from now on, whenever the occasion called for it, she wore purple.
It was an assertion of authority rather than pride. Cranmer and her own inclination towards learning and religion had given her inborn ambition, already encouraged by Henry, a sense of direction. She had become a woman with a purpose in life, and with characteristic determination she concentrated her resources on achieving that purpose. She remained as serene and as tactful as ever, but there was a new firmness in her manner, a more positive approach to her rôle as Queen.
In her self-assigned task, Katherine was helped by the fact that Henry had made a major diplomatic blunder at Boulogne. In the heat of the battle, he had been informed by the Bishop of Arras, whom Charles V had sent as a special messenger, that, having obtained his main objectives, the Emperor was planning to make peace with the French, and that Henry was invited to send a delegate to the discussions to take care of English interests. Henry had declined the offer, saying merely that he reserved the right to make his own terms with the French later. The Emperor had then gone ahead with the negotiations, and on 18th September, at Crépy, his delegates agreed terms for a separate peace treaty with Francis I. The result of the treaty was to isolate Henry, and to leave the French free to turn all their forces against England.
It was, therefore, a furious and embittered Henry that returned to England. The siege of Boulogne had lasted twice as long and had cost more than twice as much as had been expected, and now he was not even to be allowed to enjoy his victory in peace. The Dauphin was already marching to the relief of Boulogne, and the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk had retired in disorder to Calais. Henry fumed. On 8th October, he wrote to both Dukes, telling them that he could not accept their ‘bolstering and unapparent reasons, especially when they enculke a feigned necessity to cloak and maintain their faults too much apparent to indifferent [impartial] eyes’. After itemising their failures, he continued:
We pray you to seek no more indirect excuses to cloak your ill-favoured retreat, but rather study and be as vigilant to see our honour, herein somewhat touched, redubbed, and if peace follow not, to preserve our pieces and withstand our enemy.
As it happened, the territory had been so wasted by the previous fighting that the Dauphin could find no supplies to sustain his army and, after burning a few houses and a village, he retreated. Francis then agreed to send an embassy to discuss peace terms. Henry sent the Earl of Hertford and Sir William Paget as his representatives, but after the first few meetings it was clear that the French would accept nothing less than the return of Boulogne to their hands. Hertford was then told to go to Brussels where, together with Gardiner, he was to see the Emperor and insist that the Emperor should renew the fighting with the French on the grounds that they were attacking English possessions, which fact was to be used to invoke the mutual-aid clause of Henry's earlier treaty with the Emperor. It was a hopeless mission. The Emperor was polite but firm. Henry, he pointed out, had been properly invited to take part in the negotiations at Crépy, but had refused; he must now take the consequences of his own actions.
The result of these diplomatic failures was feverish activity in England. War again with France was inevitable, but this time it would be England, not France, which would be on the defensive. Typically, not a single voice of blame or protest was heard. It was inconceivable that Henry had blundered, and from the innermost circles at Court down to the brawling taverns, everyone was utterly convinced that England had been the victim of a dastardly Continental trick. Offers of help from his equally infuriated subjects poured in to Henry. The repayment of the huge loan of 1542 was waived, and new taxes were voted with genuine enthusiasm.
Only Henry seems to have realised how serious a mistake he had made. Chapuys, reporting on a meeting with the King, Katherine, and Princess Mary, three days after Christmas at Greenwich, stated that Henry was short-tempered, muddled in his facts, and not at all his usual self. Katherine, on the other hand, was calm and gracious. Indeed she was Henry's salvation at this stage, cooling him down and persuading him to look at other diplomatic means for averting war. It was almost certainly at her suggestion that her secretary, Walter Bucler, was sent early in January to Germany to try to persuade the Protestant League to come to England's help. It was also most likely Katherine who, at the same time, talked Henry into sending a secret messenger to the Queen of Navarre and Madame d'Estampes, the French King's sister and mistress respectively, to get them to bring feminine pressure to bear. The Queen of Navarre and Madame d'Estampes were, like Katherine, very strong supporters of the Humanist cause and, although Katherine had never met them, they were all well known to each other. The use of women's power was fast becoming a key factor in Katherine's work in England, and its extension to the diplomatic field was a natural corollary. It did in fact eventually lead to peace, but not until another year of war had passed.
From Katherine's point of view, however, the main outcome of this feverish activity was to leave her free to pursue her objectives in learning and religion. These objectives were a straightforward development of the Humanist ideals: first, to improve the lot of the common people by the spread of education, and, secondly, to make religion a private matter between the individual and God, with the emphasis on charity to one's neighbours and faith in the power of God (specifically, Jesus Christ) to redeem the individual from sin. Following the examples of Erasmus and Vives, she did not wish, nor at first did she attempt, to upset the Church, but the doctrines of simplicity and direct communion with God, without the intercession of priests, struck at the root of the Church's power. In Katherine's view, the priests were needed as teachers, not intermediaries; they also had a rôle as missionaries to spread the Word of God, but they could not, and should not, claim to be the only sources of the knowledge and power of God.
The methods by which Katherine sought to achieve her objectives were propaganda and satire—the weapons of the doves rather than the hawks, and again following the example of Erasmus and Vives. Her forces were her circle of ladies at Court, supported by a number of scholars who received her patronage or who were employed through her at the Royal school. Patronage she bestowed on, among others, Thomas Sternhold, Nicholas Udall, and, at a later stage, Miles Coverdale; and at the Royal school she employed such household names of scholarship as Richard Cox, John Cheke, Roger Ascham, William Grindall, and Anthony Cooke. In addition to these, there were the preachers, such men as Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, Nicholas Shaxton, John Redman and, possibly, Edward Crome, who were regular visitors to her chambers, and who supplied the practical, professional touch.
Katherine's first few moves were innocuous. She persuaded Princess Mary to join the scholars in a general project for the translation of Erasmus' paraphrases of the Gospels, while she herself produced, in English, a mixture of biblical quotations and some original ideas of her own in the form of psalms and simple prayers. The eleven-year-old Princess Elizabeth was also inspired, and gave Katherine a translation from the French of the Queen of Navarre's Mirror of a Sinful Soul as a New Year's gift on 31st December 1544. In a fulsome accompanying letter, Elizabeth informed Katherine that as an iron instrument grows rusty if not used, ‘even so shall the wit of man or woman wax dull and unapt to do or understand anything perfectly unless it be always occupied upon some manner of study’. She accordingly offered Katherine the translation as proof of her industry and ability, asking her to correct it where necessary, and stating that until it had been corrected, no one but the Queen should see it.
It is probably just as well that no one else did see it, for it was an extraordinary exercise for a young girl. After a few paragraphs of verbal self-flagellation—‘Is there any hell so profound that is sufficient to punish the tenth part of my sins?’—and so on, Elizabeth continued her translation:
But thou which hast made separation of my bed and did put false lovers in my place and committed fornication with them; yet for all this thou mayest come unto me again … O poor soul! to be where thy sin hath put thee; even upon the highways, where thou didst wait and tarried for to beguile them that came by … Therefore, having fulfilled thy pleasure, thou hast infected with fornication all the earth which was about thee.1
In spite of the erotic mysticism, there was nothing in this nor in the work of the Queen or Mary to alarm anybody, but soon after the New Year, the Queen's circle received a visit from Katherine's one-time Lincolnshire protégée, Anne Askew. It will be recalled that Anne had been sent back home from Court in the days of Anne Boleyn to take the place of her sister, who had died, in the marriage contract which her father, Sir William Askew, had made with one Thomas Kyme. Anne was a sparkling, highly educated woman, and her marriage to a solid, country squire, against her will, had had small hope of success.
In some respects, it is difficult to blame Thomas Kyme for what had happened. A wife was expected to conform with her husband's way of life, and in any case, it would have been far beyond his capability to become a Seymour or a Dudley, the type of man Anne probably preferred. Anne resented the marriage from the beginning, and although she bore Thomas Kyme two children (whose names and descendants are lost to posterity), she seems to have made no effort to make the best of things. Thomas Kyme, on the other hand, may well have tried to make her contented, but he lacked the light touch and intellectual sympathy which alone might have succeeded. To make matters worse, Anne mocked his efforts with not over-subtle irony—she despised all men who could not match her own wit and learning—and in the end, Thomas Kyme drove her from his house.
During the few years which the marriage lasted, Anne had turned to religion for comfort. Since she had been educated in the Humanist tradition, she decided to find out for herself directly from the Bible, rather than from priests, what God had to say to her. At first, she was confined to market-day visits to Lincoln, where she could study the great chained Bible in the cathedral, but later she managed to obtain and keep for her own use a copy of Tyndale's Bible, which was well annotated with comments pointing out passages which differed substantially from the traditional teaching of the Church. Studying apparently entirely on her own, she developed a profound religious belief which was similar, though not identical, to the concepts of Erasmus, and which was wholly opposed to the Old Faith, to which her husband and most of the surrounding district adhered.
Anne's father, having barely escaped Cromwell's clutches for harbouring a priest who was wanted for treason in 1540, had died a year later, and her eldest brother, Sir Francis Askew, who had been knighted at Boulogne, was now the head of the family. It seems likely that Anne appealed to him for help when she was turned out of her home, which was probably in December 1544, and that it was due to him that she was then able to go to London, where she hoped to obtain a divorce from her husband. Once in London, there were other members of her family to help her and, of course, there was the Queen.
Before Anne Askew went to London, however, she stayed nine days in Lincoln, where she spent the time arguing with the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral. It was probably the first time she had been able to indulge in deep, intellectual debate on religious matters, and she thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It proved a fatal mistake, for some of the priests then went to Thomas Kyme and told him that his wife was infringing the Six Articles and could be charged with heresy. It is not clear from the records whether it was Thomas Kyme on his own who laid the information against her, or whether it was done with the help of the priests, but the result was the same, and early in March 1545 Anne was arrested in London.
In the interval between leaving Lincoln and her arrest, Anne had got in touch with Katherine and her ladies. They were delighted by her lively account of her discussions with the priests in Lincoln, and by her as a person. She was then twenty-five years old and, according to Protestant accounts, exceptionally beautiful. She carried off the fervour of her beliefs with a gay, cheerful wit, which greatly endeared her to her audiences, and clearly Katherine and her ladies were convinced that she was in no way to blame for her husband's action in driving her away from her home and children. She was well connected in the City, and she was also one of Katherine's distant relatives from the North; the ladies at Court welcomed her with open arms. Anne's arrest, therefore, came as a considerable shock, and her trial was to be the spark which turned the Queen's circle of doves into a party of hawks.
Anne was examined first by one Christopher Dare, a professional inquisitor, at the Sadler's Hall. The majority of his questions were designed to trap her into a denial of one or more of the Six Articles, but she skilfully evaded the issue and confessed only that she once said she would rather read five lines in the Bible than hear five masses, ‘for the one edified her, and the other not at all’. Dare was followed by a priest who demanded to know her opinion about the sacrament of the altar, but she refused to answer, ‘perceiving him to be a Papist’.
She was then taken before the Lord Mayor—Sir William Laxton, not Sir Martin Bowes as stated by Strype and Foxe—and he decided to question her himself. Foxe takes up the tale, apparently quoting from a verbatim transcript.2
LORD Mayor:
Thou foolish woman, sayest thou that the priests cannot make the body of Christ?
ANNE Askew:
I say so, my Lord: for I have read that God made man; but that man can make God, I never yet read, nor, I suppose, ever shall read it.
LORD Mayor:
No, thou foolish woman? After the words of consecration, is it not the Lord's body?
ANNE Askew:
No. It is but consecrated bread, or sacramental bread.
LORD Mayor:
What if a mouse eat it after consecration? What shall become of the mouse? What sayest thou, thou foolish woman?
ANNE Askew:
What say you, my Lord? What shall become of her?
LORD Mayor:
I say, that mouse is damned!
ANNE Askew:
Alack, poor mouse!(3)
In her own account of the trial, Anne states that she only smiled when she was asked about the mouse, but the court could not restrain its laughter, and the Lord Mayor abandoned his questioning. Nevertheless, he committed her to the Compter prison to await further examination. No friend was allowed to speak to her for eleven days, but she told a priest that she was willing to go to confession and that she intended to receive the sacrament at Easter. This showed her willingness to comply, outwardly at least, with the Six Articles, and her family then applied for bail. The Lord Mayor refused to grant bail, however, without the agreement of Edmund Bonner, the Bishop of London, who then demanded the right to examine her himself.
The Bishop had her brought to his house on 20th March. She was accompanied by her cousin, Britain, and a lawyer from Gray's Inn, and she was told she might have learned divines to help her as well if she so wished, but she declined the offer. Meanwhile, influence had been brought to bear on the Bishop, and there is little doubt that the source was Katherine Parr, acting through Joan Denny, the wife of Sir Anthony Denny, the King's confidential aide. The Bishop began his examination, therefore, in conciliatory tones. He was very sorry for her trouble, he told her, and that no man should hurt her for whatever she said in his house. He hoped she would follow the advice of her well-wishers and tell him all the things that burdened her conscience, repeating that no advantage would be taken of her. Anne replied that she had nothing to say, for her conscience was not burdened.
Bonner was somewhat taken aback, and changed the subject to the question of the sacramental bread: was it, or was it not, the body of Christ? Anne simply replied, ‘I believe as the Scripture doth teach me.’ Bonner repeated the question in a number of different forms, but each time she gave the same answer. Eventually, he left her, saying that he thought he knew her mind and that he would write out a confession for her to sign. He returned a little while later with the document, which he read to her and asked her if she agreed. She said, ‘I believe so much thereof as the Holy Scripture doth agree unto; wherefore I desire you that ye will add that thereto.’ Bonner began to show signs of anger and told her that she should not teach him what he should write. He then went into the main hall and read the document to Anne's friends and a number of other people who were there. They all saw no harm in it and tried to persuade her to sign it. Anne takes up the tale herself:
Then, said the Bishop, I might thank others and not myself for the favour that I found at his hands; for he considered, he said, that I had good friends, and also that I came of a worshipful [well-born] stock. Then answered one Christopher, a servant unto Mr Denny, ‘rather ought you, my Lord, to have done it in such case for God's sake than for man's.’ Then my Lord sat down, and took me the writing to set thereto my hand, and I wrote after this manner: ‘I, Anne Askew, do believe all manner of things contained in the faith of the Catholic Church.’
Then, because I added ‘the Catholic Church’, he flung into his chamber in a great fury. My cousin, Britain, followed, desiring him for God's sake to be good Lord to me. He said that I was a woman and he was nothing deceived in me. Then my cousin Britain desired him to take me as a woman, and not to set my weak woman's wit to his Lordship's great wisdom. Then went into him Dr Weston and said the cause why I did write there the Catholic Church was that I understood not the church written before. So, with much ado, they persuaded my Lord to come out again and to take my name and those of my sureties.
Because of difficulties concerning the bonds of the sureties, it was another three days before Anne was released. These had been but preliminary examinations, and she was only released on bail; she still had to stand a formal trial before judge and jury. Her case came up on 13th June 1545, at the Guildhall, where she was arraigned with a man and another woman, all on the same indictment of having infringed the Act of Six Articles. There were no witnesses against her or the other woman (a Mrs Joan Sawtery), however, and the witness against the man was shown to have been acting from malice:
whereupon twelve honest and substantial men of the City of London were charged (to give their verdict), which found all the said persons not guilty of their indictment; wherefore they were discharged and quit paying their fees.4
The Queen's ladies knew the moment that Anne was released on bail that they had triumphed. Bonner would never have let her go if he had intended to prosecute her seriously in the courts, and her release was the signal for a great upsurge of activity. Anne was encouraged to write a full description of her examination by Bonner and the others, and this was printed and circulated as a pamphlet. The Queen's name was not mentioned, but her sympathy and help was apparent to all, and with Katherine behind them, the believers in the New Faith felt they could safely come out into the open once more. The Six Articles were openly flouted, priests were laughed to scorn, and new copies of the books which had been banned and burnt the year before were procured from Holland and Germany and circulated as freely as they had done in the days of Anne Boleyn.
Bishops Gardiner and Bonner, and the rest of the Papists on the Council, looked on in impotent fury. So long as the King was not prepared to act, there was nothing they could do. And they knew that whether he wished to act or not, Henry's hands were tied—not so much by Katherine, but by the diplomatic situation abroad. Even while Bonner was questioning Anne Askew, a messenger had returned from the Queen of Navarre bringing hopes of support from her and her Humanist colleagues to persuade Francis I to call off his campaign against England. The Queen's secretary, Walter Bucler, had also sent encouraging news from Germany, where the Protestant League had offered to help by a combination of threats against the French and offers of mediation between Henry and Francis. With so much Humanist and Protestant sympathy being rallied to his cause abroad, Henry could not, and would not, lift a finger against the Humanists and Protestants at home.
To cap it all, the husbands of the Queen's principal ladies, all now open believers in the New Faith, were the popular heroes of the day. They were everywhere and anywhere where the kingdom was being threatened. Early in February, the Earl of Hertford and Lord Lisle routed a French attack on Boulogne; then, after the defeat and slaughter of Sir Ralph Evers and his men by the Scots at Ancrum Moor at the end of February, Hertford sped to the North to take command, while Lisle returned to sea and swept the Channel clear of French ships. Hertford's brother, Thomas Seymour, took over as Warden of the Cinque Ports, and the Duke of Suffolk hastened south to organise defences round Portsmouth, where an intercepted letter from the Emperor's ambassador in Paris had shown that the main French attack was to be made. For the Hertford faction, therefore, it was action, action, all the way, while all that Norfolk and Gardiner could offer was a check of corn supplies, which threatened to become scarce, and a review of the defences of East Anglia, both of which were important, but neither of which was likely to catch popular imagination.
In these circumstances, Katherine and her ladies had everything their own way. The Duchess of Suffolk named her pet spaniel ‘Gardiner’, and won a cheap laugh every time she called the dog to heel. She also gave a big dinner at which, in a party game, she named the Bishop as the man she loved least. As she was later to say when Gardiner was imprisoned during the reign of Edward VI, ‘It was merry with the lambs when the wolf was shut up.’
On a more serious note, Katherine Parr extended her religious propaganda activities to include a full-length book, setting out a detailed statement of her own beliefs. The book, called by the forbidding, but in those days popular, title of The Lamentation of a Sinner, was not actually published until after Henry's death, but references in the book itself and its mention in Gardiner's correspondence, indicate that copies of the first draft were circulating at Court by November 1545. She must, therefore, have started writing it soon after the first trial of Anne Askew. During this period Katherine also gave further encouragement to preachers of the New Faith, and they were now frequent visitors at Court, while in May Henry gave permission for the publication of a book of ordinary prayers in English, known as The King's Primer.
Most of the prayers were probably written by Cranmer, but Henry wrote the preface himself. Considering the necessity of intelligent prayer, he wrote, we have given our subjects a form of praying in their own mother tongue. The book was to be used by schoolmasters, ‘next after their A.B.C. now by us also set forth’, to teach the young. (The A.B.C. set forth by the King's Majesty, which was also published at this time, was one of Henry's most notable achievements in the field of education, and is a model of its kind.) Still hugging the middle of the road, however, Henry concluded his preface with the statement that those who understood Latin and who thought they could pray more fervently in Latin, might continue to use the Latin tongue, provided they adhered to the form of Latin prayers which were also included in the Primer. It is not known whether Katherine had a hand in either the Primer or the A.B.C., but she would have seen drafts of both books, and the strong Humanist trend in them is an indication of her possible influence.
It is indeed remarkable that Henry had time for such matters during this stage of his kingdom's affairs. Defence preparations at home and diplomatic activity abroad had reached a new peak of intensity, and every possibility of improving England's position was rigorously examined.
At home, the intelligence report that the French intended to attempt a landing on or near the Isle of Wight was confirmed. Further information indicated that the attack would take place about the middle of July, and Henry decided he would join the Duke of Suffolk at Portsmouth. To avoid revealing how much was known about French plans, the King's journey was disguised as a summer Progress to start at Greenwich, with some uncertainty about the route the King intended to take. Meanwhile, Lisle was ordered to have the Fleet at readiness off the Isle of Wight by the end of June.
Abroad, further attempts were made to get the Emperor to honour his obligations under the mutual-aid clause of his treaty with Henry. Here, Katherine and Princess Mary had a part to play, for on 9th May, Chapuys reported that the Queen and Princess had had a long talk with him as he was passing through the gardens of St James's Palace. Katherine had told him, he said, how much she hoped that the Emperor would continue his friendship, and how affectionately she wished to be remembered to the Emperor's sister, the Queen Regent in Brussels. In a separate letter to the Queen Regent, Chapuys added that he refrained ‘from detailing the complimentary expressions used by the Queen of England towards her, knowing she [the Queen Regent] has no appetite for such things’, but nevertheless Katherine was playing her part with some skill, for her affectionate messages to the leading Catholic woman in Europe were clearly designed to appease the Emperor's fears that Henry might be binding himself too strongly to the Protestants.
Meanwhile, the political situation which the religious activities of Katherine and her ladies had created cried out for a Cromwell to seize the initiative in the Council, and Sir William Paget, one of the two Principal Secretaries, saw himself in the part. With most of the leading members of the Council away on military duties, it was an excellent opportunity for him to strengthen his hand and, remembering perhaps how Cromwell had used women to gain a hold over their husbands, he began by seeking the favour of the Countess of Hertford. Paget, however, lacked Cromwell's subtle ruthlessness, and his first efforts fell on stony ground. He wrote to the Earl of Hertford, who was then in Darlington building up his army, with some comment on the Earl's failure to write to his wife. Hertford's reply was acid:
P.S. I perceive ye find fault with me for that I have written two times and send never a letter to my wife, as though you would be noted a good husband and that no such fault could be found in you. I would advise you to leave off such quarrels, or else I will tell my Lady [Paget's wife] such tales of you as you will repent the beginning.
But Paget then adopted another of Cromwell's tactics, and arranged matters so that all communications with the King had to be channelled through him. This enabled him gradually to set himself up as an arbiter of what should or should not go through, and some weeks later, at the end of June, Hertford was obliged to ask his help in a suit to the King for a grant of a religious college which was being dissolved in Yorkshire. Paget held up the request but, again lacking Cromwell's ruthlessness, he did not dare offend Hertford, and a fortnight later he was humbly seeking Hertford's advice on the best way to raise more funds for the King.
Since Katherine saw Paget every day, there was no need for any correspondence between them during this period, and hence, unfortunately, no record of their relationship. All that is known is that Katherine trusted him sufficiently to let him read a draft copy of her The Lamentation of a Sinner, but otherwise there is nothing to show that he made any headway with her, or came anywhere near establishing the sort of relationship which existed between Cromwell and Anne Boleyn. In this respect, therefore, his bid to be a second Cromwell failed, but he did eventually succeed, towards the end of Henry's reign, in achieving a key position in the Council's power-game.
On 1st July 1545, Henry and Katherine, having sent Princess Elizabeth and Prince Edward to Ampthill for safety, set off from Greenwich on what they hoped would seem to spies to be a normal summer Progress. On 5th July, they stayed at Nonesuch; on the 9th, they were at Guildford, and then they switched suddenly south, arriving at Farnham on the 13th and eventually at Portsmouth on the 15th. Four days later, the French Fleet, consisting of some three hundred ships, was anchored off the Isle of Wight. The new Spanish Ambassador, van der Delft, who had replaced Chapuys, and who was present with the King and Queen on the Progress, gives an eye-witness account:
Next day, Sunday [19th July], while the King was at dinner on the flagship [the Great Harry], the French fleet appeared. The King hurriedly left the flagship and the English sailed to encounter the French, shooting at the galleys, of which five had entered the harbour while the English could not get out for want of wind. Towards evening, the ship Mary Rose of Vice-Admiral George Carew foundered, all the 500 men being drowned save about 25 or 30 servants, sailors and the like. Was told by a Fleming among the survivors that when she heeled over with the wind, the water entered by the lowest row of gun-ports which had been left open after firing. They expect to recover the ship and guns. On Monday, firing on both sides lasted all day and at nightfall one of the French galleys was damaged … On Tuesday, the French landed on the Isle of Wight and burnt 10 or 12 small houses; but they were ultimately driven to take refuge in a small earthwork fort, and a large force, 8,000, is now opposed to them. Yesterday, Wednesday, and the previous night, nothing could be heard but artillery firing, and it was rumoured that the French would land elsewhere …
On Saturday, 25th July, the French Fleet withdrew and sailed up the coast towards Dover. Lisle was becalmed and could do nothing but watch them sail away. Three days later, the French returned and landed a force of some fifteen hundred men near Dover, but they were driven back to their ships with the loss of about a hundred men by the local defence forces. The landing marked the end of the French invasion attempt, and they then retired to their own waters. There was one more short engagement in the middle of August which Lisle successfully repulsed, and on 20th August he reported that he had received intelligence that the French Fleet had retired fully to the Seine mouth and was unlikely to put to sea again ‘this year’. He added that French fishermen said ‘there never was a journey so costly to France as this had been, nor more shame spoken of amongst themselves’
Henry was now ready to talk peace to the French but he was determined to treat sword in hand, and Lisle was ordered to teach the French a lesson by carrying out two or three raids on the French coast. At the same time, Hertford was ordered to destroy the Scottish harvest in the Lowlands as a reprisal for their dealings with the French and in order to secure the Borders against any further invasions. Lisle carried out his orders early in September with conspicuous success, destroying the town of Tréport and a number of Normandy villages without loss to his own forces, and on 18th September Hertford reported that they had sacked Kelso, Jedburgh, and some fourteen other towns, estimating that they had done twice as much damage as they did during the sack of Edinburgh in 1544. Henry now felt secure, and both fleet and army were recalled and disbanded.
Throughout these events, Henry and Katherine had continued their Progress, hunting and banqueting in their customary manner in order to show the world their contempt for the French forces lined up against them. On 23rd August, however, the Duke of Suffolk, who was with Henry on the Progress, suddenly sickened and died. His death affected Henry greatly. The Progress was cut short, and the Court returned quickly to Windsor where Henry ordered a State Funeral for the immensely popular Duke. One other result of the Duke's death was that it brought the Duchess of Suffolk, now very much alone in the world, even closer to the Queen than she had been, and the friendship between the two women became an inseparable bond.
The peace moves which Henry now set in hand showed that he had fully recovered his old diplomatic skill. He accepted the offers of both the Emperor and of the German Protestants to act as mediators between him and Francis I, and two separate sets of negotiations were arranged, both to be carried out at the same time. The first, for which Henry selected Gardiner to be his chief delegate, was to take place in Brussels under the direct eye of the Emperor, and the second, for which Tunstall and Paget were selected as delegates, was to take place outside Calais under the chairmanship of the Germans. Francis willingly entered into Henry's game, appreciating that by these means they could keep the Emperor guessing as to their real intentions—whether they meant peace, or whether they meant to form a new military alliance against the Emperor—and thereby each would be able to squeeze concessions out of Charles V which both needed for the future welfare of their kingdoms. (Henry needed a guarantee of peaceful trade with Flanders; Francis needed a guarantee of his existing frontiers.)
The return to peace also meant a renewal of the struggle between the reformers and the Gardiner/Norfolk faction. Gardiner had become increasingly alarmed at the progress the reformers had made, and he felt bitter about the insults which the Queen's ladies and others had hurled at him, so much so that he refused to see Katherine before his departure to Brussels, telling Paget to make his excuses to her for him. Moreover, Gardiner had been led to believe that the negotiations he was to conduct were the principal ones, and that those under the Protestant mediation were intended merely as a smoke-screen. This meant that Henry would no longer be under any obligation to support the Humanists, and that he, Gardiner, could now safely renew his campaign against them.
Gardiner began with a scathing attack on Cranmer. Passing through Canterbury on his way to take ship at Dover, Gardiner had been present when Cranmer had held a trial of a band of demobilised soldiers who had gone on a rampage in the precincts of the Cathedral, menacing the people and reciting a bawdy parody of some biblical texts. Cranmer had tried and convicted them in the morning, but that same afternoon he had set them free. This, said Gardiner in a letter to Paget on 21st October, was proof that Cranmer was a coward, implying that he was unfit to be Archbishop.
Gardiner arrived in Brussels at the end of October. Paget then enclosed with a letter of further instructions a number of pamphlets which were circulating in London, and what appears to have been a draft copy of Katherine's Lamentation. One of the pamphlets, called The Complaint of Roderick Mors, was a Protestant plea for the redress of wrongs suffered by the common people. In a very long letter, written to Paget on 5th November, Gardiner offered his comments. The pamphlet, he said, would do nothing but promote trouble among the people. The author was well named, for his work would mean the death of his body and the damnation of his soul. The pamphlet contained personal attacks on Gardiner, and therefore Gardiner had decided that he would write a ‘book’ in reply. He continued:
How many books and scrolls have been cast abroad in London within this year and the offender never found out, so many priests searched and put from their goods for a time, so openly done and the offenders never found out. These be common open matters. As for private attacks, there have been a great many, and such particular tales blown abroad as cannot be sown but of the devil.
Paget had suggested that he should despise such things, but he could not disregard the ‘wealth of the realm’. He did not fear these malicious follies during the King's life, but if those who are now young despise religion and conceive another opinion of God than what is true, what would happen? The example of Germany had already shown that the result would be the breakdown of obedience to princes and the Emperor, ‘who, whatsoever he be, is their superior’.
After a few more pages in the same vein, Gardiner turned to Katherine's book:
That book [his reply to Roderick Mors] I write to the world, but to the book of Lamentation which you sent, I only answer lamentably to you, digesting in these letters the displeasure received in reading this most abominable book.
He concluded:
This is my best pastime here, and this letter may be read at leisure or not at all, for it is no pain for me to write and I never wrote so much in a month as I have done in this, and I look so lustily, thanks be to God, that I talk shamefastly of any sickness by the way. God make all that be sick, either in body or soul, whole.
But if Gardiner thought the country was disintegrating into Protestant anarchy, the Protestants thought otherwise. Writing a few weeks later, John Hooper, an ardent supporter of the New Faith, told Henry Bullinger in Germany:
The news from England is that idolatory is nowhere stronger. Our King has destroyed the Pope, but not popery; he has expelled all the monks and nuns, and pulled down the monasteries; he has caused all their possessions to be transferred into his Exchequer, and yet they are bound, even the frail female sex, by the King's command to perpetual chastity. England has at this time at least 10,000 nuns, not one of whom is allowed to marry. The impious mass, the most shameful celibacy of the clergy, the invocation of saints, auricular confession, superstitious abstinence from meats, and purgatory, were never before held by the people in greater esteem than at the present moment …
The chief supporters of the Gospel in England are dying every hour. Within these two years are dead Lord Chancellor Audeley, the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Edward Baynton [the Queen's First Lord of the Bedchamber], Poynings, the King's deputy at Boulogne, Sir Thomas Wyatt, known throughout the world for his noble qualities, a most zealous defender of yours and Christ's religion, Dr Butts, the King's physician: all these were of the Privy Council5 and all died of the plague and fever; so that the country is now left altogether to the bishops and those who despise God and all true religion …
The situation was in fact much more evenly balanced than John Hooper had reported, and it was ‘the frail female sex’, in the person of the Queen and her ladies who were holding the bishops at bay. Towards the end of the year Katherine published her book of prayers, with Henry's permission, and Cranmer with Katherine's help, obtained Henry's approval for a further injunction to priests to pull down saints' images, which, to give Hooper his due, were being newly erected in many churches. At the same time, a number of other ‘superstitious’ acts, such as creeping to the Cross, and prayers for help to the saints, were abolished. The Six Articles, however, remained very much in force, giving Gardiner and his fellow bishops the weapon they needed with which to suppress the Gospellers, and causing confusion and violent emotions among the people.
It was in these circumstances that, on 23rd November 1545, Parliament assembled at Westminster for what was to be its last session in Henry's reign. Among the Bills they were asked to approve was one for the further dissolution of religious institutions, such as colleges, chantries, and stipendiary priests (for the King's need for funds was now greater than it had ever been), and another for the banning of religious books of the New Faith. Without a Cromwell to control it, and with both Gardiner and Paget absent abroad on diplomatic missions, Parliament for once reflected the conflict among the people they represented. The debates were angry, bitter, and prolonged, and it was by no means certain that they would agree to the requests of the King's ministers. So great was the bitterness that on Christmas Eve, when Parliament was due to be prorogued, Henry came down and gave the prorogation speech in person. After exchanging compliments with his faithful subjects, Henry developed his main theme:
Yet, although I wish you, and you wish me, to be in this perfect love and concord, this friendly amity cannot continue, except both you, my Lords Temporal and my Lords Spiritual, and you, my loving subjects, study and take pains to amend one thing, which surely is amiss and far out of order; to the which I most heartily require you. Which is that Charity and Concord is not amongst you, but Discord and Dissension beareth rule in every place. Saint Paul saith to the Corinthians, the thirteenth chapter, ‘Charity is gentle, Charity is not envious, Charity is not proud,’ and so forth. Behold then, what love and charity is amongst you, when one calleth another heretic and anabaptist, and he calleth him back papist, hypocrite and Pharisee? Be these tokens of Charity amongst you? Are these signs of fraternal love amongst you?
After rebuking the proponents of both the Old and the New Faiths, he went on:
I am very sorry to know and to hear how unreverently that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house and tavern … And yet I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same [the Word of God] follow it in doing so faintly and coldly. For of this I am sure, that charity was never so faint among you, and virtuous and godly living was never less used, nor God Himself among Christians was never less reverenced, honoured, or served.
Then came his final exhortation to a House now humble and contrite as never before, and in an atmosphere so charged with emotion that many were openly weeping:
Therefore, as I said before, be in charity with one another like brother and brother; love, dread, and serve God; to which I, as your Supreme Head and Sovereign Lord, exhort and require you; and then I doubt not but that love and league, that I spake of in the beginning, shall never be dissolved or broke betwixt us.6
The youthful Sir William Petre, recently promoted to share with Paget the task of being one of the two Principal Secretaries to King and Council, reported the speech in full to Paget who was now in Calais. The King spoke, he wrote:
So sententiously, so Kingly, or rather fatherly, as peradventure to you that hath been used to his daily talks should have been no great wonder (and yet saw I some that hear him often enough largely water their plants), but to us, that have not heard him often, was such a joy and marvellous comfort as I reckon this day one of the happiest of my life.
On the actual work of Parliament, Petre told Paget:
The Bill of Books, albeit it was at the beginning set earnestly forward, is finally dashed in the Common House, as are divers others, whereat I hear not that His Majesty is much discontented. The book of colleges, etc., escaped narrowly and was driven over to the last hour, and yet then passed only by division of the House.
These actions of the Commons showed that the supporters of Humanism and the New Faith were once more finding their strength. There were also social as well as religious grievances to be redressed, and it was to the new men—the Seymours, Dudleys, Parrs, Dennys, and Herberts—that the people now looked for help. But the King's power was absolute, more so now than ever before, and no one either wished or dared to challenge it. Unless the new men could win the King's support, there was nothing they could do. And it was now obvious to all that the key to winning that support lay in the hands of Katherine and her ladies. ‘If the King favours these stirrers of heresy,’ Chapuys wrote in an analysis some time later, ‘… it is because the Queen, instigated by the Duchess of Suffolk, Countess of Hertford, and the Admiral's wife [Joan Dudley, Lady Lisle], shows herself infected …’ In spite of her discretion and careful avoidance of publicity, it was now on Katherine that both factions began to focus their attention.
During the year, Katherine had moved more and more towards the radical Humanists, and by January 1546 it was clear that her support was now wholeheartedly on the side of the Hertford faction, though she was still far from being the Protestant to which the extremists sought to convert her. In the power-game, therefore, it was a question for the Gardiner/Norfolk faction more of how to eliminate her influence with the King than of trying to win her support. On the other hand, her ladies, not content with her political and moderate religious support, and going further perhaps than their husbands thought wise, wanted her to appreciate the iniquity of the Act of Six Articles and to fight for its abolition. Without the Act, Gardiner and the Papists would be deprived of the greater part of their legal power, and the ladies, with the help of their husbands, could then proceed freely with the social and religious reforms so dear to their hearts.
Katherine thus now became subject to two sets of activities: the Papists began to plot her downfall, and her ladies began to step up their religious activities. Katherine's initial attitude to the situation is shown, indirectly, in the famous letter which she wrote to the University of Cambridge in answer to their appeal to her to save them from the consequences of the new law which would enable the King and his ministers to seize much of the University's property. The appeal had been written to her in Latin to show the respect of the Fellows for her learning. Katherine replied:
Your letters I have received, presented on all your behalfs by Mr. Dr. Smith, your discrete and learned advocate. And as they be Latinly written (which is so signified unto me by those that be learned in the Latin tongue), so I know you could have uttered your desires and opinions familiarly in our vulgar tongue, aptest for my intelligence, albeit you seem to have conceived, rather partially than truly, a favourable estimation both of my going forward and dedication to learning.
After further modest disclaimers, Katherine states that she thankfully accepts their document, and continues:
And for as much as I do well understand all kind of learning doth flourish amongst you in this age, as it did amongst the Greeks at Athens long ago, I require and desire you all not so to hunger for the exquisite knowledge of profane learning that it may be thought the Greek's university was but transposed, or now in England again revived, forgetting our Christianity; since their excellence only did attain to moral and natural things: but rather I gently exhort you to study and apply those doctrines as means and apt degrees to the attaining and setting forth the better Christ's reverend and most sacred doctrine, that it may not be laid in evidence against you at the tribunal seat of God how ye were ashamed of Christ's doctrine. For this Latin lesson I am taught to say by Saint Paul, ‘Non me pudet evangelii.’ The sincere setting forth whereof I trust universally in all your vocations and ministeries you will apply and conform your sundry gifts, arts, and studies, to such end and sort, that Cambridge may be accounted rather an university of divine philosophy than of natural or moral, as Athens was.
Upon the confidence of your accomplishment of which to my expectation, zeal, and request, I, according to your desires, attempted [approached] my Lord the King's Majesty for the stay of your possessions. In which, notwithstanding His Majesty's property and interest through the consent of the High Court of Parliament, His Highness, being such a patron of good learning, he will rather advance and erect new occasion therefor, than confound those your colleges: so that learning may hereafter ascribe her very original, whole conservation and sure stay to our Sovereign Lord, his only defence and worthy ornament; the prosperous estate and princely government of whom long to preserve, I doubt not but everyone of you will with daily invocation call upon Him, whom alone and only can dispose all to every creature.7
The subtlety of this involved letter lies in the sop thrown to Gardiner, the Chancellor of the University, in the request to play down the Humanist studies of the ancient philosophers and modern science, of which Gardiner disapproved, while at the same time directing their attention to the application of their learning to the New rather than the Old Faith, a sentiment which will have mollified the apparent denial of Humanism.
But the hardest course to follow in politics and religion is the middle of the road. Henry managed it by a combination of force and consummate Machiavellian skill in manipulating the opposing parties, but Katherine either could not, or would not, use the same tactics. In any case, she had already moved too close to the Hertford faction for there to be any longer any hope of deceiving Gardiner. The letter to Cambridge was written on 26th February 1546, and within a week the first signs of the plot against Katherine began to appear.
The initial moves were directed at an attempt to set Katherine and her ladies against each other. This was done by circulating rumours that Henry was beginning to tire of Katherine in favour of the widowed Duchess of Suffolk. Van der Delft, the Emperor's ambassador, reporting the rumours, stated:
Some attribute it to the sterility of the present Queen, while others say that there will be no change during the present war. Madame Suffolk is much talked about and in great favour, but the King shows no alteration in his demeanour to the Queen, although she is said to be annoyed at the rumour.
Then came word from Stephen Vaughan, the King's factor in Antwerp, who, writing to Wriothesley and Paget, reported:
This day came to my lodging a High Dutch, a merchant of this town, saying that he had dined with certain friends, one of whom offered to lay a wager with him that the King's Majesty would have another wife; and he prayed me to show him the truth. He would not tell me who offered the wager, and I said that I never heard of any such thing, and that I was sure that there was no such thing. Many folks talk of this matter, and from whence it comes I cannot learn.
This letter was written from Antwerp on 7th March, and it is significant that Gardiner was in Antwerp on that day, on his way back from the negotiations with the Emperor which had been moved from Brussels to Utrecht. This story was followed by another, also from Flanders, that Anne of Cleves, who had stayed at Court much longer than usual after the New Year festivities, was to be Katherine's successor and that she had already borne the King two sons, a story which was wholly untrue.
These tactics irritated rather than frightened Katherine and her ladies, and strengthened rather than weakened the bond between them. Their reaction was to increase their reforming activities. Anne Askew once more became a frequent visitor at Court, and Katherine arranged that throughout Lent Hugh Latimer and other preachers of the New Faith should come to her chambers every afternoon and expound the Gospels to her and her ladies. At the same time, she began to engage the King more and more in religious discussions, playing on his fondness for intellectual debate gradually to persuade him to drop the Act of Six Articles.
Katherine may also have been further encouraged by the new follies of the Earl of Surrey, the weak link of the Gardiner/Norfolk faction. Early in February, a senseless act of bravado outside Boulogne8 had led to the loss of some five hundred men in a skirmish with Oudart du Bies. This was followed in the middle of March by a report from another of the King's agents, John Dymock, who stated that he had been told by Flemish merchants that supplies destined for the garrison at Boulogne were falling into wrong hands. The report continued:
I asked whether they [the embezzlers] were English, Dutch, or Italians; and he answered, ‘It may chance both of yours and ours, and more you get not of me, but let your governors look substantially upon the affairs of Boulogne, whom that they do put in trust there, for the King's Majesty, your master, is deceived in every way.’
Surrey was recalled for questioning. His accounts were found to be in such disorder that they could not be deciphered, and that, coupled with his military foolhardiness, led to his dismissal from his post at Boulogne and from Court. Hertford, who had already been alerted to take a force of three thousand men to Calais to redeem Surrey's blunder, then crossed the Channel and took overall command of the area.
Instead of being encouraged by these events, however, Katherine should have paid more attention to the diplomatic situation abroad which, as always, played a major part in Henry's decisions concerning religion. Both sets of negotiations with the French, that at Calais and that under the Emperor's aegis, had failed. On the other hand, both Gardiner and the French delegate had succeeded in winning the concessions they wanted from the Emperor. The result was that Henry was once more in close alliance with the Catholics, and this in turn meant that Gardiner would again be allowed to direct his whole attention to the persecution of ‘heretics’, foremost among whom were the Queen and her ladies. The Hertford faction were trying to counter Gardiner's diplomatic success with one of their own, and Lisle, probably as a result of the efforts of the Queen of Navarre, had established secret contact through a Venetian merchant with his opposite member of the French Council, Admiral d'Annebault, in a renewed attempt to make a treaty with the French. But these negotiations were bound to take time, and meanwhile Gardiner and Norfolk had the field to themselves.
Following the same pattern as that of their attempt to bring down Cromwell and Anne of Cleves, Gardiner and Norfolk developed their attack on two fronts. On the one hand, the King's fancy was to be caught by a suitable replacement from the Howard family who could step into Katherine's shoes, and on the other, proof was to be found that Katherine had infringed the Act of Six Articles.
The person nominated to take Katherine's place was the Duke of Norfolk's daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, the widow of the King's illegitimate son. To avoid rousing suspicion, a complex plot was worked out by which Norfolk would pretend to be trying to heal the breach between the Howards and Seymours by offering his daughter in marriage to the Earl of Hertford's brother, Sir Thomas Seymour. To add verisimilitude to the plot, other cross-marriages between Surrey's sons and Hertford's daughters were also to be proposed. The Duchess of Richmond was then to set out to win Henry's favour and either marry the King instead of Seymour, or, if Katherine survived the plot, to marry Seymour and become the King's mistress. ‘Which,’ her brother, the Earl of Surrey told her, ‘should not only be a means to help herself, but all her friends should receive a commodity by the same.’
It is pleasing to report that Sir Gawen Carew, giving this evidence which he said was told him by the Duchess of Richmond herself, went on to say:
Whereupon she defied her brother, and said that all they [the Howards] should perish, and she would cut her own throat rather than that she would consent to such villainy.
This part of the plot, however, was of minor importance. Someone else could easily be found to take the Duchess of Richmond's place, and the main attack was on the religious front. Again, the approach was elaborate. Gardiner, with the help of his main supporters on the Council, Wriothesley, Riche, and Norfolk, obtained the King's agreement for a renewal of inquisitions into heresy in Essex and Suffolk, to be conducted by Bishop Bonner. This was then followed, on 7th May, by an examination of Norfolk's younger son, Lord Thomas Howard, by the Privy Council. A summary of the interrogation states:
Lord Thomas Howard appeared and was assured of the King's clemency if he would frankly confess what he said in disproof of the sermons preached in Court last Lent and his other talk in the Queen's chamber and elsewhere in the Court concerning scripture; but as, although acknowledging his fault, he did not confess the particulars which the Council would have him confess, he was remanded.
Hugh Latimer was then sent for, and the bishops were instructed to ‘fish out the bottom of his stomach’, but this also revealed nothing other than that he had preached before the Queen. The Council now turned into the Court itself, and there they unearthed one John Lassels (possibly the same man who had given evidence against Catherine Howard). He was accused of being an associate of a Dr Crome who had at first maintained, but then later recanted, his heresy concerning the sacrament. But Lassels refused to answer their questions on the grounds that he might incriminate himself. This was more promising material, and Lassels was arrested pending further inquiries.
At this point, it seems that Gardiner, prompted possibly by Bonner, remembered Anne Askew. Although she had been set free after her trial a year before, her evidence had clearly shown that she denied the first and principal article of the Six Articles, that which affirmed that the sacramental bread was the true body of Christ. It was known that she had been a frequent visitor at Court, and her character was such that it was most unlikely that she would have changed her opinions about the sacrament. Accordingly, on 24th May, the Council sent for her and her husband, Thomas Kyme, to appear before them within fourteen days.
Meanwhile, Lisle, having finally completed and signed an agreement for ‘an honourable peace forever’ with the French Admiral, returned to London and found the Court in a state of tension. Another courtier, George Blagge, whom Henry called affectionately ‘My Pig’, had been arrested, Nicholas Shaxton, the former Bishop of Salisbury, had been pulled in, together with a man called White from the City of London, and no one knew whose turn would be next. No move had yet been made, however, against the Queen or her ladies, and, according to Foxe, Katherine continued her regular discussions on religion with the King. She may have hoped, through him, to stop Gardiner's activities, or she may have been simply unaware of the fact that she was the main target, but it was clear to Lisle and to Katherine's brother, the Earl of Essex, that Gardiner, for the moment, held the whip hand, and that they must at least appear to acquiesce in his proceedings if they were to save their own necks.
It was in these circumstances that, on 19th June, Anne Askew and her husband, whom Anne had not seen for nearly two years, came before the Privy Council at Greenwich. Anne began by objecting to the presence of Thomas Kyme, who, she declared, was no longer her husband. The Council thereupon sent him away and began questioning Anne on her own. The Lord Chancellor, Wriothesley, opened the inquiry by saying that it was the King's wish that she should give the Council her honest opinions and tell them all that she knew. Anne refused. She said that if the King wished to hear what she had to say, she would prefer to tell him herself. Wriothesley retorted that ‘it was not meet the King should be troubled with her’, to which she replied that Solomon, who was the wisest King that ever lived, had not objected to listening to two common women. Wriothesley quickly changed the subject, and for the next five hours, he and Gardiner cross-examined Anne on her beliefs. As she had done at her examination a year before, Anne evaded the main issue of the sacrament, and exasperated Gardiner with her dialectics. Eventually, they sent her away in the custody of a gentlewoman of the Court.
Next day, she was brought before the Council again, but she insisted that she had already said all she had to say. In a letter which she is believed to have smuggled out to a friend, Anne continues the story:
Then after divers words they bade me go by. Then came my Lord Lisle, my Lord of Essex, and the Bishop of Winchester [Gardiner], requiring me earnestly that I should confess the sacrament to be flesh, blood, and bone. Then said I to my Lord Parr and my Lord Lisle that it was great shame for them to counsel contrary to their knowledge. Whereunto, in few words, they did say that they would gladly all things were well.
Gardiner then asked to speak to her alone, but she refused, and Wriothesley took up the questioning once more. However he, too, had to admit defeat.
Then came Master Paget to me with many glorious words, and desired me to speak my mind unto him. I might, he said, deny it again if need were. I said that I would not deny the truth.
Paget was foolish enough to try to cap her quotations from the Bible, but by now Anne must have known both the Old and New Testaments by heart and easily out-classed him. Realising that he was out-matched, Paget persuaded her to debate the matter with a wiser man than he, and he called in Dr Cox, Prince Edward's senior tutor. It was a clever move, for Cox was a supporter of the New Faith, and if anyone could persuade her to resolve her conscience about the Six Articles, as he himself had done, he was the man. But he, too, was confounded by her knowledge of the scriptures. Anne's letter continues:
Then on the Sunday I was sore sick, thinking no less than to die. Therefore I desired to speak with Latimer. It would not be. Then was I sent to Newgate in my extremity of sickness, for in all my life afore was I never in such pain. Thus the Lord strengthen you in the truth. Pray, pray, pray.
So far, on the surface at least, Gardiner and Wriothesley had seemed to be making a genuine effort to persuade her to admit that the sacrament was the real body and blood of Christ. If she were to do so, they implied, everyone would be happy, and she would be released. Within in little more than a week, however, they changed their tactics drastically, and at her next examination, on 29th June, the questioning took a very different turn.
The events which caused this change are described by Foxe in his Acts and Monuments, which was written some fifteen or twenty years later. Foxe does not date these events as precisely as they are here, but their occurrence during this last week in June would account fully for what followed later.
According to Foxe, Henry's leg worsened, and in his pain, he began to be irritated by Katherine's religious discussions. By chance, Gardiner happened to be present at the end of one of her talks with the King, and after she had left the room, Henry commented in Gardiner's presence: ‘A good hearing it is, when women become such clerks [i.e., scholars], and a thing much to my comfort to come in mine old days to be taught by my wife!’ Gardiner seized the opportunity, and agreed whole-heartedly with Henry that the Queen was wrong to argue with him, especially since one of the King's rare virtues ‘was his learned judgment in religion, above not only princes of that and other ages, but also above doctors professed in divinity’. With further flattering remarks, Gardiner went on to insinuate that the Queen was not at all what she seemed to be, and that she encouraged others to oppose the King's efforts to establish religious uniformity in the kingdom. Henry was all attention, and he finally agreed that, provided they could find sufficient evidence of their allegations, Gardiner and his fellow Councillors might go ahead and draw up articles condemning Katherine.
Gardiner then consulted with Wriothesley, Norfolk, and Riche and they decided to proceed first against the Queen's ladies, beginning with her sister (Lady Herbert), Elizabeth, Lady Tyrwhitt, one of the ‘professional’ Ladies-in-Waiting who had been at Court since the days of Catharine of Aragon, and the Queen's cousin, Matilda, Lady Lane. After indicting them, they would then proceed against the Duchess of Suffolk, Countess of Hertford, Lady Lisle, and their friends, and then finally against the Queen herself. And the best witness to prove their case was undoubtedly Anne Askew, whose association with the Queen and her ladies was well established, and who was herself now on trial.
In papers which were again smuggled out of prison, Anne relates what then took place:
Then Master Riche sent me to the Tower, where I remained until 3 o'clock, when Riche and one of the Council came, charging me upon my obedience to show them if I knew any man or woman of my sent. Answered that I knew none. Then they asked me of my Lady of Suffolk, my Lady of Sussex, my Lady of Hertford, my Lady Denny and my Lady Fitzwilliam. Answered that if I could pronounce anything against them, I could not prove it. Then they said the King was informed that I could name, if I would, a great number of my sect. Answered that the King was as well deceived in that behalf as dissembled with in other matters. Then they bade me show how I was maintained in the Compter, and who willed me to stick to my opinion. I said that there was no creature that therein did strengthen me, and as for the help that I had in the Compter, it was by means of my maid, who as she went abroad in the street, made moan to the prentices, and they by her did send the money; but who they were I never knew. Then they said that there were divers ladies that had sent me money. I answered that there was a man in a blue coat who delivered me 10s and said that my Lady of Hertford sent it me; and another in a violet coat gave me 8s, and said my Lady Denny sent it me; whether it were true or no, I cannot tell, for I am not sure who sent it me, but as the maid did say. Then they said there were of the Council that did maintain me, and I said no.
There seemed no hope to Wriothesley, who had now joined Riche in the Tower, of getting anything more out of her by this means of interrogation. The few admissions she had so far made were evidence only of the sympathy of the Queen's ladies, not complicity. Wriothesley and Riche thereupon decided to resort to torture, and they ordered the Lieutenant of the Tower to place her on the rack, telling her that she would remain there until she had made a full confession of the names of all the ladies and gentlewomen who shared her views.
Anne did not know how long she was on the rack, only that it was ‘a long time’, but she lay still and did not cry out or say anything. Wriothesley and Riche then seemed to have lost control of themselves. Accusing the Lieutenant of being too lenient with her, they pushed him aside and, taking off their coats, proceeded to turn the screws themselves with a sadistic violence that almost killed her. The horrified Lieutenant could not stand it, and he insisted that she should be released. Anne continues her account:
Incontinently, I swooned, and then they recovered me again. After that I sat two long hours reasoning with my Lord Chancellor upon the bare floor; where he with many flattering words persuaded me to leave my opinion. But my Lord God (I thank His everlasting goodness) gave me grace to persevere, and will do, I hope, to the very end. Then was I brought to a house and laid in a bed, with as weary and painful hones as ever had patient Job. I thank my Lord God therefor. Then my Lord Chancellor sent me word, if I would leave my opinion, I should want nothing: if I would not, I should forthwith to Newgate, and so be burned. I sent him again word that I would rather die than break my faith.
Wriothesley and Riche had got little out of her, but with that little and, possibly playing on the fears of those who will not have known what Anne might have said under torture, with other evidence they claimed to have, they drew up a list of charges against Katherine and her ladies.
The work of drawing up the charges was probably completed by 4th July, for on that day the Privy Council ordered the Queen's auditors to produce the account books for her estates, ostensibly to check whether they were up to date, but more probably to sort out who was going to get what as soon as she was attained. According to Foxe, the King was shown the charges and signed them, indicating his approval that they should start proceedings as soon as everything was ready. This is supported by a report from the Emperor's ambassador, written on 6th July, in which he stated that he had heard from a secret source that ‘the King continued melancholy’. He had not gone to Mass, nor into his gardens as he usually did in summer.
On 8th July, the proclamation banning heretical books was repeated, presumably to ensure that charges of possessing such books could be sustained in law.
Then, two things happened: first, Henry, either from remorse, or, as Foxe maintains, as part of a deliberate scheme, told his physician, Dr Wendy, what was in store for Katherine; secondly, a copy of the charges against the Queen was dropped by one of the Councillors ‘accidentally’ in the passage outside the Queen's chambers, where it was found and brought to Katherine.
The events of the previous week, the torture of Anne Askew, the examination of Lassels, Latimer, and Shaxton, the search for heretical books, had already brought Katherine's nerves to breaking point, and when she read the document of the charges against her, she collapsed and took to her bed. Dr Wendy came to attend her, and told her what the King had told him. He added his opinion that the King still loved her very much, and that if she begged his forgiveness and submitted as humbly as possible to his wishes, Henry would save her from her enemies.
Dr Wendy must then have told the King that Katherine had collapsed, for later that day, Henry came to see her. ‘She uttered her grief, fearing lest His Majesty had taken displeasure with her, and had utterly forsaken her. He, like a loving husband with sweet and comfortable words, so refreshed and appeased her careful mind that she began to recover’ (Foxe).
This was a hopeful sign, but Katherine was by no means out of danger, and she spent the whole of the following day working out the best tactics for regaining the King's confidence in her. In spite of what Dr Wendy had suggested, it would not be enough simply to throw herself on Henry's mercy and hope that he would pardon her. These had been the tactics of both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard and had not helped either of them at all. Instead, she must somehow convince the King that she had done nothing wrong, that there was in fact nothing to forgive. And this must be done as soon as possible, before she was arrested, for, as she well knew, as soon as she should be imprisoned in the Tower, she would be powerless to help herself.
That night, probably 13th July, after supper, she acted. Accompanied only by her sister and her cousin, Lady Lane, who carried the candle before her, she visited the King in his bedchamber. She found him with a small company of gentlemen among whom, fortunately, were none of the Gardiner faction. The King interrupted the discussion which was going on and gave her a friendly welcome, enquiring courteously after her health. Then, assuming the air of a student seeking knowledge, he turned the talk to religion and asked Katherine if she could resolve some doubts he had on an obscure point which he had raised.
Previously, Katherine would have jumped into such a discussion with lively pleasure, but she had anticipated the situation, and now she modestly declined the offer to take part. She was but a silly, poor woman, she said, so much inferior to the King, that she could not understand why he should now, ‘in such diffuse causes of religion’, require her judgment. If she did say anything, she continued, yet she must and would still refer her judgment ‘in this, and in all other cases, to Your Majesty's wisdom, as my only anchor, supreme head, and governor here on earth, next under God, to lean unto’.
‘Not so, by St Mary!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘You are become a doctor, Kate, to instruct us (as we take it), and not to be instructed or directed by us.’
‘If your Majesty take it so,’ Katherine replied, ‘then hath your Majesty very much mistaken me.’ She had always thought, she went on, that it was unseemly and preposterous for a woman to attempt to teach her husband; rather she must be taught by him. ‘And whereas I have, with your Majesty's leave, heretofore been bold to hold talk with your Majesty, wherein sometimes in opinions there hath seemed some difference, I have not done it so much to maintain opinion, but rather to minister talk.’ She had hoped by these means, she said, to distract and entertain him, to ease his suffering and to take his mind off the pain in his leg. But she had also encouraged the discussions, ‘that I, hearing your Majesty's learned discourse, might myself receive profit thereby; wherein, I assure your Majesty, I have not missed any desire in that behalf, always referring myself in all such matters to your Majesty, as by ordinance of nature it is convenient [right] for me to do.’
This was Katherine at her best: humble, flattering, but speaking with such conviction that no one could disbelieve her. Most important of all, it was an explanation, not an excuse. She did not ask forgiveness, for clearly there was nothing to be forgiven. Henry was delighted with her. He could not have made a better reply himself. ‘And is it even so, sweetheart?’ he cooed with pleasure. ‘And tended your arguments to no worse end? Then perfect friends we are now again, as ever at any time heretofore.’
The relief among the company in the King's bedchamber was immense. Henry gathered Katherine into his arms, embracing and kissing her, and telling her that her words had done him more good than if someone had given him £100,000. Never again would he mistake her intentions, he told her, and ‘with great signs and tokens of marvellous joy and liking’, he kept the party going far into the night before he gave her leave to return to her chambers.
No one told Gardiner, Wriothesley, or any of their faction, what had happened, and the next afternoon the King went into his garden and summoned Katherine and her ladies to come and join him: ‘He was as pleasant as ever he was in all his life before,’ Foxe relates, ‘when suddenly, in the midst of their mirth, in cometh the Lord Chancellor [Wriothesley] with 40 of the King's guards at his heels, on purpose to take the Queen and her ladies.’ Henry stopped him and, taking him aside, demanded an explanation. Wriothesley whispered something which the ladies could not hear, and then Henry shouted at him, ‘Knave! Arrant knave! Beast! Fool!’ and ordered him to ‘avaunt out of his presence’.
As soon as he had gone, Henry returned to the Queen, still muttering with anger. Katherine tried to calm him down, saying that she did not know what Wriothesley had done to offend him, but perhaps it was through ignorance rather than ill-will. ‘Ah, poor soul,’ Henry replied, ‘thou little knowest how evil he deserveth this grace at thy hands. O, my word, sweetheart! He hath been towards thee an arrant knave, and so let him go.’
The date of this incident was almost certainly 14th July, for on that day, the French Ambassador reported that the King had quite recovered from his indisposition and was his old self again. It was two days before Anne Askew was due to be burnt as a heretic. Katherine had saved herself and the rest of her ladies; it now remained to be seen what could be done to save Anne.
The situation was difficult, delicate, and complex: difficult, because Henry had been told, and now firmly believed that Anne Askew was the main cause of the religious ‘revolt’ at Court, and he never looked kindly upon anyone, sacramentary or Papist, who sought to upset his policy of religious uniformity; delicate, because a wrong move at this stage would once more put Katherine and her ladies in jeopardy; complex, because, although there was enormous public sympathy for Anne as a result of her torture in the Tower, and hence no one on the Council, not even Gardiner, wished to proceed with her execution, Anne herself was now determined to be a martyr.
Anne does not give the appearance of a woman with a well developed political sense, but she may have realised that until someone in whom the People (in the widest meaning of the word) wholly believed made a dramatic stand against the superstition and corruption of the Old Faith, religion would never be reformed. Be that as it may, she had now assumed a state of beatitude, utterly convinced of God's grace, impervious to pain, and looking forward with unfeigned cheerfulness to her death. Praying and smiling, ‘with an angel's countenance’, she exhorted her fellow prisoners—John Lassels, Nicholas Belenian (a priest), and John Adams (a tailor)—who were condemned to die with her, to remain firm in their faith.
In the face of such determination, Katherine's task was hopeless. Without some gesture from Anne, some wish to compromise with the King's uniformity, however slight, a pardon was impossible. On the day of her execution, 16th July 1546, Anne, unable to stand because of the torture she had suffered on the rack, was carried in a chair to Smithfield, where she was bound, still in her chair, to a stake between the stakes of her fellow prisoners. She listened attentively to the sermon, preached by Shaxton who had recanted, nodding her head when she agreed with him and, when she disagreed, saying, ‘He misseth, and speaketh without the Book,’ smiling cheerfully at the vast crowd which had gathered to witness the burning. Then, just as the sermon ended, a messenger came from the King, offering her his pardon if she would recant. She turned her eyes away from him, and said that she had not come thither to deny her Lord and Master. Helplessly the Lord Mayor, Sir Martin Bowes, gave the order for the fires to be lit. John Loud, an eyewitness, is quoted by Strype:
And afore God, at the first putting to of fire, there fell a little dew, or a few pleasant drops, upon us that stood by, and a pleasant cracking from heaven, God knows whether I may truly term it a thunder crack, as the people did in the Gospel, or an angel, or rather God's own voice. But to leave every man to his own judgment, methought it seemed rather that the angels in heaven rejoiced to receive their souls into bliss, whose bodies their Popish tormentors had cast into the fire.
In reality, the ‘thunder crack’ was probably the exploison of a charge of gunpowder which it was customary to conceal among the faggots in order to bring the suffering of the victims to a quick end, but the people who were there, were intensely moved by the event. The sight of a young woman, so obviously holy, so obviously innocent of any real crime, steadfastly praying and smiling while the flames leaped up around her, shocked the London crowd as it had seldom been shocked before. There was no immediate revolt, but the strength and bitterness of the emotions of the people were dangerously similar to those which had been aroused by the execution of Sir Thomas More and the Carthusian monks. But then it had been Anne Boleyn and Cromwell whose blood the people had sought; now it was on Gardiner, Bonner, and their fellow bishops that their hatred was turned.
The failure to rescue Anne Askew filled the Queen and her ladies with remorse, but her death had given them the power and the right political circumstances they had been seeking. They went into action at once. Humanists to the core, their first objective was that there should be an immediate end to all religious persecutions, of Papists as well as sacramentaries. Henry, moved perhaps as much by the angry mood of his subjects as by Katherine's persuasions, agreed and, on the day after Anne's execution, George Blagge and Christopher White, who were waiting their turn in the Tower, were pardoned and released. (In his letter of thanks to the King, Blagge drily remarked that it was as well he was free, for otherwise ‘your pig would have been well roasted’.) In the following few weeks, all others, in various parts of the country, who were awaiting trial or execution under the Act of Six Articles, were released, and for the rest of Henry's reign there were no more executions on the grounds of religion. Anne Askew, indeed, was the last person to be executed under the infamous Act. The Queen and her ladies had ensured that she had not died in vain.
Next, the women sought to establish the New Faith as the principal faith of the kingdom. It needs to be repeated, perhaps, that this faith was not the Lutheran Protestant doctrine or the Calvinist creed of predetermination, but the Humanist and Erasmian doctrine of simplicity, charity and gentleness. Until Cranmer had completed his own cherished project of a Book of Common Prayer, only the Bible (in English) and the translations of Erasmus' paraphrases of the Gospels, for which Princess Mary and also, perhaps, Katherine were partly responsible, were to be used in the churches. On the question of the sacrament of the altar, they agreed with Anne Askew's interpretation: it should not be abolished, but it should be taken as a Holy Communion of worshippers, gathered together in reverent memory of the Last Supper and Christ's Passion, and not as some mystical, pagan rite. Both the bread and the wine should be served to those who wished to receive it, but there should be no more superstitious nonsense about the bread and the wine being the flesh and blood of Christ.
In this objective, the Queen and her ladies were also largely successful. Cranmer, who for years had been in two minds on the subject of the sacrament, now came wholly over to their point of view. He later claimed that it was Ridley who converted him, but as his modern biographer, Professor J. Ridley, has pointed out, he had heard Ridley's arguments many times before this date, and his conversion must have been due to other causes—the most likely of which are the martyrdom of Anne Askew, in which he played no part, and the arguments of the Queen.
But the greatest triumph, for which Katherine must take the credit, was the conversion of Henry himself. His swing away from the middle of the road towards the New Faith became apparent at a banquet which was given for the French Admiral d'Annebault on 24th August. The Admiral had come to England earlier in the month to receive Henry's ratification of the treaty which Lisle and the Admiral had thrashed out in June. Earlier Lisle had gone to Paris to receive Francis' ratification and had been given a Royal welcome. Not to be outdone by his old rival, Henry had decided to give the French Admiral an even more magnificent reception. Wriothesley (the chronicler, not the Chancellor) described the event:
The 24th day of August, he [d'Annebault] was brought to the King's presence, and dined that day at the King's board, and so remained in the Court, with banquetting and hunting, and rich masques every night with the Queen and ladies, with dancing in two new banquetting houses, which were richly hanged, and had rich cupboards of gold plate, and set with rich stones and pearls, which shone richly; and the 28th day, he took his leave of the King and Queen, and so came to London again.
At the first banquet, Henry, supported by Cranmer, rose from his seat and took the Admiral on one side. Leaning heavily on the shoulders of the two men, for he could now barely stand without help, Henry asked the Admiral to suggest to the French King that the Mass should be abolished in both their countries and be replaced by a communion service. Francis should then repudiate the Pope, and then both Henry and Francis would be in a position to force the Emperor to follow suit. Francis did not accept the proposal, but Cranmer was astonished at the evidence that Henry's offer gave of his decision to establish what Cranmer called ‘a sincere religion’ in England. That this was in truth Henry's intention was later confirmed in a letter from Hertford to Princess Mary shortly after Henry's death. It was the summit of Katherine's achievement during her reign as Queen.
In their final objective, however, Katherine and her friends could not, and did not, succeed. This was to eliminate the use of religion as a means for obtaining political power. The concept that religion was a private matter, a direct communication, as it were, between the individual and God, and that priests should be teachers rather than intermediaries, was a fine ideal, but it was one that would only be possible among a people whose intelligence and learning were equal to Katherine's own. Much could be done, and was done, to eliminate the elements of superstition and fear of the priest's power from the New Faith, but religion always means power—and often wealth—to those who control and exploit it, and all that was achieved was to transfer that power from one set of hands to another. This other set of hands was that of the Hertford faction, who, initially at least, used that power carefully and to the benefit of the people, but they too, eventually succumbed to intolerance and malice, and it was not until the reign of Elizabeth that a degree of religious peace and tolerance was achieved.
Had Henry survived another few years, it might have been a different story. With his experience and Machiavellian statecraft to guide them, the Queen and her ladies might have been able to retain control long enough to fan the little spark of Humanism into a national ideal which would have swamped the seekers after religious power. As it was, however, the King was now a very sick man. It was obvious to all that he had not long to live, and the Hertford faction concentrated its efforts on ensuring that they would have the government of the country in their hands when the King died.
The account of their success is too well known to need repeating in detail here. As Chapuys wrote in an analysis the day after Henry's death, but before he, Chapuys, knew he was dead, Hertford and Lisle were the only two men of real ability in the country, and there was no one who could withstand them. At the end of November, the Bishop of Winchester [Gardiner] was dismissed from the Council. In the second week of December, the Duke of Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were arrested for treason. At the end of December, the King was persuaded to make his Will, to which Hertford, Paget, Denny, and Herbert were the principal witnesses, and in which Denny, Herbert, and Hertford's brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, were added to the Council which Henry nominated for Edward's minority. On 19th January 1547 Surrey was executed, and on the evening of 27th January, the King, warned by Denny that his hour had come, sent for Cranmer. By the time Cranmer arrived, an hour or so after midnight, the King had lost the power of speech, but he was able to grasp Cranmer's hand, and for the next hour Cranmer sat by him, praying for him and comforting him. Finally, at about two in the morning, pressing Cranmer's hand to show that he had made his peace with God, Henry died. His death saved the Duke of Norfolk who was due to be executed later that day, but meanwhile Hertford and Paget, pacing the gallery while they waited for their King to die, had completed their arrangements for securing control of the government. When it was at last sure that the King was dead, Hertford galloped off in the darkness to bring the nine-year-old boy, who was now King Edward VI, to London.
The last time that Katherine saw Henry alive would seem to have been 24th December, when Henry sent her and Princess Mary to Greenwich while he went to Westminster to deal with the Duke of Norfolk and his son. Katherine was back at Westminster on 10th January, when she wrote a letter, in Latin, to Prince Edward, praising him for his studies. According to a report from the French Ambassador, however, she was not allowed to see the King, whose illness by then had probably reached the stage at which he would have been loath to let any woman see him.
There is no report of Katherine's reactions when she was told he was dead, but it seems likely that the formal display of sorrow was genuine. She had depended on him for protection and friendship ever since her early childhood, and he had taken good care of her, as well as of her brother and sister. Katherine had given, perhaps, as much as she had received, but her relief at being released from her burdens was coloured by a deep regret at losing a source of strength and comfort the equal of which she was never likely to find again.
Notes
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J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth.
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Written up by John Loud, a noted reformer who may well have been present.
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Quoted by Strype from Foxe's MSS.
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Wriothesley's Chronicle: Foxe, Strype, and other early historians omit this first trial of Anne Askew and run the evidence of these examinations together with those which took place a year later in May/June 1546. From the documents in Letters & Papers (Foreign & Domestic) of the Reign of Henry VIII, however, and from Wriothesley's Chronicle, which, during this period, is faultlessly accurate concerning the dates and names which it records, there is no doubt at all that this trial took place at this time and quite separately from the other more famous trial of Anne Askew in the following year. The second trial (see p. 211) is also recorded by Wriothesley and documented in Letters & Papers.
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Only the first two named were in fact Privy Councillors.
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Quoted by Foxe, Pollard and others.
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Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials.
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Surrey had relieved Poynings as Governor of Boulogne towards the end of the previous summer.
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