Six Wives (37 page)
Authors: David Starkey
The 'Queen's lodgings' in London were situated in Baynard's Castle, where Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had stayed during the celebrations for Catherine's first marriage with Prince Arthur. This time, they witnessed a very different ceremony. Catherine remained with her advisers all that day and into the next. Then, on the 16th, in their presence and in 'a certain upper chamber', she made her formal appeal from the legates to Rome. She did so in the presence of two notaries, who recorded the fact in proper form in 'a public instrument'. The die was cast.
Catherine knew she had to act. But she was wife and woman enough to regret what she had to do. 'She is very sad and disconsolate', Mendoza reported on the basis of direct information, 'because, though when sick in her very heart, she swallowed the potion prescribed for her, she yet sees no relief at hand in her misfortune.' The reason for her sorrow, he explained, was that 'she apprehends that instead of calming her husband's irritation against her, she has rather increased it by her act'. She was right. But her conscience, and her sense of affronted right, drove her to yet more open defiance of Henry.
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The place chosen for the public trial of Catherine's marriage was the Parliament Chamber of the Dominican Friary of London. Invariably known as Blackfriars, because of the colour of the friars' robes, the Friary occupied an enormous site at the western corner of the City walls. To the north it was bounded by Ludgate Hill, to the west by the Fleet River and to the south by the Thames. Internally, the precinct was divided by Water Lane, which ran north-south from the Great Gate off Ludgate Hill to the Water Gate on the Thames. The western half of the precinct was largely empty, save for orchards and gardens. The eastern side of Water Lane, however, was thickly developed with the Friary buildings.
The buildings lay on a north-south axis. The Church was to the north, with two cloisters, the Great Cloister and the Inner Cloister, one after the other, to the south. On the first floor of the west side of the Great Cloister was the Friary Guest House, and, directly to the south, the Parliament Chamber, which, likewise, formed the first floor of the west side of the Inner Cloister. The two buildings were linked by a staircase tower. The Refectory occupied the whole of the range and was an enormous room, a hundred and ten feet long and fifty-two feet wide. The rooms of the Guest House were narrower, since the west side of this range was taken up with a gallery, ten feet wide and a hundred and ten feet long. At its northern end, the gallery was joined by another twostorey gallery, which crossed the Friary gardens and orchards diagonally, from south-east to north-west. At the north-western end, a covered bridge across the Fleet River connected this gallery directly to the private apartments of Bridewell Palace, which lay on the opposite bank of the Fleet River.
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The bridge and galleries were the final stage of the construction of Bridewell Palace. Henry had started building the palace in 1515, to replace the accommodation he had lost when the private lodgings at Westminster burned out in 1512. The works took seven years and cost the enormous sum of £20,000. But, when they were finished, Henry had a palace-monastery complex that more than substituted for Westminster. Bridewell itself offered residential accommodation which was modern, compact and fashionable, in contrast with the sprawling, half-ruinous medieval splendours of Westminster, while Blackfriars had facilities, sacred and secular, which rivalled those of Westminster Abbey. The site, on the boundaries of the City, rather than in a suburb (as was Westminster), was also well suited to a king who was popular and knew it. Now, with the hugely ambitious network of galleries linking the palace and monastery, Bridewell-Blackfriars was set to displace Westminster and become the royal capital of Tudor England.
The newly completed buildings were first used in 1522, for the visit of Catherine's nephew, Charles V. The following year, Parliament was summoned there. The King stayed in Bridewell, heard the customary mass of the Holy Ghost in the Friary Church, and opened the Parliament in the Parliament Chamber or Upper Refectory.
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The decision to use the Parliament Chamber for the Legatine Trial was thus a natural one. No one could have guessed that the outcome of the Trial would be a triumph for Catherine. Nor that it would alienate Henry from the palace and the City and destroy the prospects for Bridewell as a royal habitation forever.
* * *
In early May, Thomas Garton, Page of the Wardrobe of the Beds, was ordered to prepare the Chamber for the trial. A 'dormant' or fixed table and two chairs, covered in cloth of gold with cloth of gold cushions, were placed for the judges on the dais at the southern end of the room. The dais was railed and 'all covered in carpets and tapestry . . . like a solemn Court'. On the right-hand side of the Chamber was a throne, with a cloth of gold canopy, for the King, and on the left, another throne, also canopied but lower, for the Queen. In the body of the court were bars at either end for the advocates, benches for the assembled bishops, and more benches and tables for the clerks.
Some of the weightier items, including the benches, bars and dais, may have been still in situ from the last Parliament. The rest – the chairs, carpets, cushions and precious textiles – would have come from the storehouse of the Great Wardrobe. This lay directly to the east of Blackfriars, at the junction of Carter Lane and St Andrew's Hill, and was connected to the monastery by another gallery. The proximity of the Wardrobe and the re-use of existing materials kept Garton's costs for 'making ready the Parliament Chamber' to a modest six shillings.
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The second session of the court took place, as arranged, on Friday, 18 June. This again was intended to be a formal occasion, in which the two parties would answer their citation or summons by proxy.
Henry duly sent his proxies. But Catherine created a sensation by appearing in person. This took everyone by surprise: according to Campeggio, her arrival was 'unexpected and unknown till the last moment'. She entered in solemn state, accompanied by four bishops, the rest of her counsel, and 'a great company' of ladies and gentlewomen. Then, 'sadly and with great gravity', she read the written protestation against the jurisdiction of the Cardinals which she had made on the 16th, and required it to be registered and returned to her. The judges agreed and informed Catherine that they would answer her protestation on the following Monday, 21 June.
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* * *
Between 9 and 10 o'clock on the Monday morning, the full court duly assembled. Catherine entered first, then the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeggio, and finally Henry VIII himself, who was the first to be seated. 'It was', according to George Cavendish (who, as Wolsey's Gentleman Usher, was an eye-witness), 'the strangest and newest sight' that a King and Queen should 'appear in . . . court [as common persons] . . . to abide the judgement of their own subjects'. The court crier cried: 'Silence!' Then the judges' commission was read and the parties summoned into court. 'King Harry of England, come into court!' called the crier. 'Here, my lords!' answered the King, as he rose from his throne.
Then, standing but still under the canopy, the King addressed the court. He 'said a few words in English', asking for a swift decision 'to determine the validity or nullity of his marriage, about which he had from the beginning felt a perpetual scruple'. Wolsey spoke next and also set out his
bona fide
. He acknowledged the infinite benefits he had received from the King; nevertheless, he protested, both he and Campeggio would judge the case only according to the facts and their conscience. Wolsey's speech was designed to answer the substance of Catherine's objections. It remained only for Campeggio formally to reject her protestation and to reassert the competence of the judges.
bona fide
. He acknowledged the infinite benefits he had received from the King; nevertheless, he protested, both he and Campeggio would judge the case only according to the facts and their conscience. Wolsey's speech was designed to answer the substance of Catherine's objections. It remained only for Campeggio formally to reject her protestation and to reassert the competence of the judges.
That done, Catherine was cited to appear. 'Catherine, Queen of England, come into the court!' called the crier. Catherine was now on a stage, and the eyes of all the world were on her. She did not falter. First, she addressed the judges. Once more she rejected their competence and appealed directly to Rome. Then she turned to her husband. He had spoken of his scruples. But now, she bitterly replied, 'it was not the time to say this after so long silence'.
Stung, Henry defended himself. He had remained silent, he insisted, only because of 'the great love he had and has for her [and] he desired, more than anything else, that the marriage should be declared valid'. Then he, too, went on to the attack and denounced her appeal to Rome. It was unreasonable, he argued, 'considering the Emperor's power there'. And was not England, the country of which she was Queen, 'perfectly secure for her'? Did she not have 'the choice of prelates and lawyers' as her counsel?
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For the King publicly to bandy words with his Queen was undignified. It was also a blunder. As Anne Boleyn later pointed out, whenever Henry got into an argument with Catherine, he lost. He did so spectacularly this time.
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Suddenly the Queen left her dais, which was placed opposite her husband's. But it was separated from it by the body of the court with its bars and throng of lawyers, clerk and bishops. These obstacles made it impossible for the Queen to cross the room directly; instead 'she took pain to go about unto the King [and knelt] down at his feet'. Twice Henry tried to raise her up, according to Campeggio, but still she knelt. Then, 'in the sight of all the court and assembly', she spoke 'in broken English':
[She begged] him to consider her honour, her daughter's and his; that he should not be displeased at her defending it, and should consider the reputation of her nation and relatives, who will be seriously offended; in accordance with what he had said about his good will, she had throughout appealed to Rome, where it was reasonable that the affair should be determined, as the present place was open to suspicion and because the cause is already [begun] at Rome.
Catherine, for all her 'broken English', made the speech of her life. But its effect was not so much rhetorical as forensic. By appearing to take her husband's protestations of continuing love at face value, she had twisted his words to devastating effect. If Henry was so keen for the marriage to be found valid, she had said, how could he possibly object to her appeal to Rome? Surely it was the most natural thing in the world?
Still worse from Henry's point of view was his own response. The heat of the moment, his instinctive gallantry, the overwhelming sympathy of the audience for his wife – all drove him to give some sort of agreement to Catherine's request.
It is unclear just how far he went. Campeggio understood the exchange to mean that Henry had
actually
'granted [Catherine] full liberty to write and send messengers to Rome and to his Holiness [with her appeal]'. Catherine understood the same. But Henry, appalled at what he had done under pressure, later tried to introduce qualifications. It proved impossible. He had given his wife the word of a King, spoken in public, that she could appeal to Rome.
He
could never retract.
She
could act with a clear conscience.
actually
'granted [Catherine] full liberty to write and send messengers to Rome and to his Holiness [with her appeal]'. Catherine understood the same. But Henry, appalled at what he had done under pressure, later tried to introduce qualifications. It proved impossible. He had given his wife the word of a King, spoken in public, that she could appeal to Rome.
He
could never retract.
She
could act with a clear conscience.
It was Catherine's final and most effective coup against the Great Matter. She had knelt. But she had fought and won.
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There was nothing more for her to do in the court. 'She rose up, making a low courtesy to the King, and departed from thence.' It was supposed that she would have returned to her former seat; instead 'she took her direct way out of the house, leaning, as she was wont always to do, upon the arm of her General Receiver called Mr Griffith [Richards]'. Seeing his prey escape, Henry ordered the crier to call her back. 'Catherine, Queen of England, come into the court!' he cried. Richards said to her: 'Madam, ye be called again.' 'On, on,' she replied. 'It makes no matter, for this is no indifferent court for me; therefore I will not tarry. Go on your ways.' Twice more the crier repeated his summons. But Catherine ignored him. She never returned.
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* * *
In this extraordinary exchange, both Henry and Catherine were playing to the gallery. The court was open, and the common folk, male and female, of London packed the lower end of the Parliament Chamber, overflowed into the anteroom and stood on the stairs. And there was no doubt who got the applause. 'If the matter was to be decided by the women', the French ambassador, the shrewd, worldly Bishop Jean du Bellay, noted, '[the King] would lose the battle; for they did not fail to encourage the Queen at her entrance and departure by their cries, telling her to care for nothing, and other such words; while she recommended herself to their good prayers, and used other Spanish tricks (
castellanneries
).'
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There had been earlier demonstrations too. When Henry and Catherine 'were passing from their royal residence [Bridewell] to the Dominicans through a gallery communicating with that convent, the Queen was . . . warmly greeted by immense crowds of people, who publicly wished her victory over her enemies'. Enraged, Henry ordered his guards that 'nobody should be again admitted to the place'.
It was easier said than done: the banks of the Fleet were a public highway and not even Henry VIII could divert a road at his pleasure. Some of his councillors, according to the Spanish ambassador, drew the obvious conclusion: if the King could not remove the Londoners, it might be better if he removed himself. 'It is far better for him', they advised, 'not to live in London, because he will be less open to slander.'
Henry took their advice, but his absence lasted only a few days. For if he wished to drive through his Divorce, he had to be on the spot. And Bridewell was his only central residence. Until he had another, he had to inure himself to the people's cheers for Catherine and their muttered jeers and curses for himself.
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* * *
After Catherine's walk-out from the Court at Blackfriars, the Great Matter became a double race. In London, the King and his lawyers were moving heaven and earth to rush the trial to its conclusion and obtain (they took for granted) a favourable verdict. In Rome, on the other hand, Catherine's family and friends were exerting themselves just as manfully to persuade Pope Clement to accept Catherine's appeal, 'advoke' the case to Rome and abort the Legatine Trial in England. It was anybody's guess who would win.
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