The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History. Martin A. S. Hume

was the betrothal of the jilted Princess Mary of ten to the middle-aged widower who sat upon the throne of France. An embassy came to London from the Queen Regent of France, whilst Francis was still a prisoner in Madrid in 1525, to smooth the way for a closer intimacy. Special instructions were given to the ambassador to dwell upon the complete recovery of Francis from his illness, and to make the most of the Emperor’s unfaithfulness to his English betrothed for the purpose of marrying the richly dowered Portuguese. Francis eventually regained his liberty on hard conditions that included his marriage with Charles’s widowed sister Leonora, Queen Dowager of Portugal; and his sons were to remain in Spain as hostages for his fulfilment of the terms. But from the first Francis intended to violate the treaty of Madrid, wherever possible; and early in 1527 a stately train of French nobles, headed by De Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes, came with a formal demand for the hand of young Mary Tudor for the already much-married Francis. Again the palace of Greenwich was a blaze of splendour for the third nuptials of the little princess; and the elaborate mummery that Henry loved was re-enacted.[39] On the journeys to and from their lodgings in Merchant Taylors’ Hall, the Bishop of Tarbes and Viscount de Turenne heard nothing but muttered curses, saw nothing but frowning faces of the London people; for Mary was in the eyes of Henry’s subjects the heiress of England, and they would have, said they, no Frenchman to reign over them when their own king should die.[40] Katharine took little part in the betrothal festivities, for she was a mere shadow now. Her little daughter was made to show off her accomplishments to the Frenchmen, speaking to them in French and Latin, playing on the harpsichord, and dancing with the Viscount de Turenne, whilst the poor Queen looked sadly on. Stiff with gems and cloth of gold, the girl, appearing, we are told, “like an angel,” gravely played her part to her proud father’s delight, and the Bishop of Tarbes took back with him to his master enthusiastic praises of this “pearl of the world,” the backward little girl of eleven, who was destined, as Francis said, to be the “cornerstone of the new covenant” between France and England, either by her marriage with himself, or, failing that, with his second son, the Duke of Orleans, which in every respect would have been a most suitable match.

      No sooner had the treaty of betrothal been signed than there came (2nd June 1527) the tremendous news that the Emperor’s troops under Bourbon had entered and sacked Rome with ruthless fury, and that Pope Clement was a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, clamouring for aid from all Christian princes against his impious assailants. All those kings who looked with distrust upon the rapidly growing power of Charles drew closer together. When the news came, Wolsey was in France on his embassy of surpassing magnificence, whilst public discontent in England at what was considered his warlike policy was already swelling into fierce denunciations against him, his pride, his greed, and his French proclivities. English people cared little for the troubles of the Italian Pope; or indeed for anything else, so long as they were allowed to live and trade in peace; and they knew full well that war with the Emperor would mean the closing of the rich Flemish and Spanish markets to them, as well as the seizure of their ships and goods. But to Wolsey’s ambition the imprisonment of Clement VII. seemed to open a prospect of unlimited power. If Francis and Henry were closely allied, with the support of the Papacy behind them, Wolsey might be commissioned to exercise the Papal authority until he relieved the Pontiff from duress, and in due course might succeed to the chair of St. Peter. So, deaf to the murmuring of the English people, he pressed on; his goal being to bind France and England closely together that he might use them both.

      The marriage treaty of Mary with the Duke of Orleans, instead of with his father, was agreed upon by Francis and the Cardinal at Amiens in August 1527. But Wolsey knew that the marriage of the children could not be completed for some years yet, and he was impatient to forge an immediately effective bond. Francis had a sister and a sister-in-law of full age, either of whom might marry Henry. But Katharine stood in the way, and she was the personification of the imperial connection. Wolsey had no scruples: he knew how earnestly his master wished for a son to inherit his realm, and how weak of will that master was if only he kept up the appearance of omnipotence. He knew that Katharine, disappointed, glum, and austere, had lost the charm by which women rule men, and the plan, that for many months he had been slowly and stealthily devising, was boldly brought out to light of day. Divorce was easy, and it would finally isolate the Emperor if Katharine were set aside. The Pope would do anything for his liberators: why not dissolve the unfruitful marriage, and give to England a new French consort in the person of either the widowed Margaret Duchess of Alençon, or of Princess Renée? It is true that the former indignantly refused the suggestion, and dynastic reasons prevented Francis from favouring that of a marriage of Renée of France and Brittany with the King of England; but women, and indeed men, were for Wolsey but puppets to be moved, not creatures to be consulted, and the Cardinal went back to England exultant, and hopeful that, at last, he would compass his aspiration, and make himself ruler of the princes of Christendom. Never was hope more fallacious or fortune’s irony more bitter. With a strong master Wolsey would have won; with a flabby sensualist as his stalking-horse he was bound to lose, unless he remained always at his side. The Cardinal’s absence in France was the turning-point of his fortunes; whilst he was glorying abroad, his enemies at home dealt him a death-blow through a woman.

      At exactly what period, or by whom, the idea of divorcing Katharine at this time had been broached to Henry, it is difficult to say; but it was no unpardonable or uncommon thing for monarchs, for reasons of dynastic expediency, to put aside their wedded wives. Popes, usually in a hurry to enrich their families, could be bribed or coerced; and the interests of the individual, even of a queen-consort, were as nothing in comparison of those of the State, as represented by the sovereign. If the question of religious reform had not complicated the situation and Henry had married a Catholic princess of one of the great royal houses, as Wolsey intended, instead of a mere upstart like Anne Boleyn, there would probably have been little difficulty about the divorce from Katharine: and the first hint of the repudiation of a wife who could give the King no heir, for the sake of his marrying another princess who might do so, and at the same time consolidate a new international combination, would doubtless be considered by those who made it as quite an ordinary political move.

      It is probable that the Bishop of Tarbes, when he was in England in the spring of 1527 for the betrothal of Mary, conferred with Wolsey as to the possibility of Henry’s marriage to a French princess, which of course would involve the repudiation of Katharine. In any case the King and Wolsey—whether truly or not—asserted that the Bishop had first started the question of the validity of Henry’s marriage with his wife, with special reference to the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, who was to be betrothed to Francis I. or his son. It may be accepted as certain, however, that the matter had been secretly fermenting ever since Wolsey began to shift the centre of gravity from the Emperor towards France. Katharine may have suspected it, though as yet no word reached her. But she was angry at the intimate hobnobbing with France, at her daughter’s betrothal to the enemy of her house, and at the elevation of Henry’s bastard son to a royal dukedom. She was deeply incensed, too, at her alienation from State affairs, and had formed around her a cabal of Wolsey’s enemies, for the most part members of the older nobility traditionally in favour of the Spanish alliance and against France, in order, if possible, to obstruct the Cardinal’s policy.[41]