Six Wives (62 page)

    The news reached the English Court only on the 11th. Henry rejoiced and Anne was triumphant. Who cares about the Emperor now, she crowed. 'She has been', Chapuys reported to Charles V, 'urging on the King and telling him that Your Majesty had it not in your power to do him any harm.' Why, she continued, 'her own family would provide for one year 10,000 men for his service at their own expense!'

    More important, she offered herself. 'It is foretold in ancient prophecies', she said to Henry when he was remonstrating with her on the number of enemies he was making on her behalf, 'that at this time a Queen shall be burned; but even if I were to suffer a thousand deaths, my love for you would not abate one jot'.
³⁷

    At last events were running her way.

A
nne's father, the Earl of Wiltshire, arrived back from the Continent at the beginning of August 1530 – probably on the 4th. It was the Progress time and the Court was at Easthampstead, a hunting lodge in the depths of Windsor forest. For weeks, the King had done nothing but devote himself to the chase – and to Anne.
¹

    Now, suddenly, he was galvanised into taking the most momentous step in the whole history of the Divorce: he decided that, as King of England, his marriage was not subject to the judgement of the Pope after all.

* * *

Chapuys was quick to notice the change in the pace of events. 'Immediately on the arrival of the Earl', he reported, 'the King despatched a messenger express to Rome.' Two or three days later Henry sent out summonses to leading members of the Council to meet in special session at Hampton Court.

    The day appointed for the meeting was the 11th. Catherine (though not, one suspects, Anne) was left behind at Windsor and Henry took up residence at Hampton Court. The French ambassador was in attendance as well. The meeting turned into a mini-Parliament and continued for five days until the 16th. Chapuys naturally suspected that it had been convoked to discuss the Divorce. Equally naturally, he, as Imperial ambassador, received bland assurances to the contrary. But his suspicions were roused by the fact that on the 17th 'another courier was despatched to Rome', which must, he concluded, 'be in consequence of some resolution passed at that very meeting'.

    Chapuys was right. The accounts of Sir Brian Tuke, the Treasurer of the Chamber and Master of the Posts, confirm that 'Francis Piedmont, courier, [was] sent to Rome', with letters dated the 16th. They also confirm that his 'letters [were] of great importance'.
²

    The letters have disappeared. But subsequent correspondence makes it possible to reconstruct their contents: Henry's ambassadors in Rome were instructed to inform the Pope that he had no jurisdiction in the case. On the contrary, 'the custom of England [is] that no one should be compelled to go to law out of the Kingdom.' 'This custom and privilege', they were also to assert, 'stand on firm and solid reasons and have true and just foundations.'
³

    This, the 'custom and privilege of England', was the germ, though no more, of the Royal Supremacy. The Supremacy asserted that the King, not the Pope, was rightful Head of the Church
in
England. It was key doctrine of the English Reformation, and provided the basis, not only for the Divorce, but also for the whole future constitution of the Church
of
England, as it became.

    And, it is now clear, the doctrine was first conceived, or at least first put into words, at Hampton Court on 11–16 August 1530.

    This answers one question but immediately raises another: where did the idea come from? One answer might be from Henry himself, who had said something similar during an earlier clash between 'Church' and 'State' in the Richard Hunne affair of 1514–5.

* * *

In December 1514, London was rocked by the discovery of the body of Richard Hunne, who was found hanged in the Bishop of London's gaol known as the Lollards' Tower. Hunne was a prosperous merchant-tailor of London, who had been charged with heresy on apparently flimsy grounds. Was his death suicide or murder? The ecclesiastical and secular authorities immediately took opposite sides in the affair. The Church courts gave a verdict of suicide and had his body burned as that of a heretic. The London coroner's jury, on the other hand, found a verdict of murder against both the bishop's gaoler and his chancellor. Finally, in a set-piece debate before the King himself, Henry intervened on the side of the lay authorities:

    The debate, curiously, took place at Blackfriars, almost certainly in the same Parliament Chamber where, in 1529, the Legatine Trial of Henry's marriage precipitated an even greater clash of jurisdictions.
⁴

    And the parallels go beyond location. For, at first sight, there does indeed seem to be a straight line from Henry's remarks in 1515 to the claim formulated at Hampton Court in 1530. But that cannot be. For if Henry was already convinced of his 'supremacy' in 1515, why, only six years later in 1521, did he argue so powerfully for the most far-reaching claims of the Papal monarchy in the
Assertio
? And why, eight years later still, did he sue so hard and so humiliatingly to the Pope for a Roman solution to the Great Matter?

    There is no convincing answer to these points. Instead, it makes better sense to see Henry's words in 1515 as high-sounding but vague rhetoric, of a type to which he was prone on great public occasions. They could mean anything – or nothing. And in 1515, it became clear, they meant precious little: Wolsey saw to that.

    The ideas of 1530 were therefore new, in substance if not in formulation. And a much more convincing source for them is the Boleyns. The coincidence between the Earl of Wiltshire's return and the convening of the Hampton Court meeting itself speaks volumes. So does the nature of the mission which had kept him abroad for seven full months. During that period he had taken overall charge of the canvass of the universities in both France and Italy. He had been in close touch with the labourers at the intellectual coalface, such as Cranmer who had been sent to Italy, and Stokesley and latterly Foxe who had been sent to France. And it seems clear that he had immersed himself fully in the debate. It would be hard to think of a better forcing-house for the idea of the Supremacy.

    For the key, I think, is to see the Supremacy, not as a radical departure in the strategy of the Great Matter, but rather as a logical outcome of the canvass of the universities.

    Back in the immediate aftermath of his roasting by Charles V at Bologna, Wiltshire had given the French ambassador a remarkably cool analysis of England's immediate strategy. 'He said', the Bishop of Tarbes reported, 'the English would act for three or four months like those who look at dancers, and take courage according as they see them dancing ill or well. And as they should see Francis do, so would the King his master do.' 'You will understand what these words imply', the ambassador added portentously.
⁵

    During the next three or four months, Wiltshire, whether in Paris or at the French Court, had a front-row seat at the ballet of European politics. It was time enough for him to decide that Francis I could be trusted and that a joint plan of action should be agreed. The plan emerges most clearly from the correspondence of Du Bellay. By April, Du Bellay was reporting his conviction that, 'if the King of England sees the Princes in France and that he has [the verdict of] the University of Paris . . . I think that he'll marry immediately'. He repeated the conviction at the beginning of May. By the end of June, his conversations with Wiltshire had crystallised into the outlines of an agreement. Henry, it was taken for granted, would act unilaterally; meanwhile Francis I
would
protect his back.
⁶

    The detailed negotiations, it was also agreed, would be undertaken by Du Bellay himself as special ambassador to England. As soon as the Sorbonne had delivered its verdict (which was to be extorted, of course, by his brother De Langes), Du Bellay would go post-haste to England to conclude a treaty for mutual defence. Francis, Du Bellay's subsequent instructions made clear, preferred the treaty to be in general terms. But, if Henry pressed, Du Bellay was authorised to include a 'special engagement about the matter of his marriage'. The engagement was formulated very broadly: if, in consequence of Henry's suit for the nullity of his marriage, England were attacked 'by any prince or potentate of what estate, quality or condition he be', Francis would come to his aid.
⁷

    It is hard to overestimate the importance of such a guarantee. The Emperor might threaten armies, or the Pope spiritual sanctions, but, shielded by his good brother of France, who was also the Most Christian King, Henry could regard them with something like indifference. Anne, it now seemed, would be married in weeks rather than months.

* * *

Unfortunately, the plan unravelled almost immediately. Béda and his allies in the Sorbonne mounted a furious rear-guard action, in which they threatened to rescind the verdict, favourable for Henry, which the faculty had reached in July. De Langes, by invoking Francis's direct authority, managed to quell the revolt. But Du Bellay lost precious days in Paris, helping his brother to regain control of the Sorbonne and he did not arrive at Dover till 19 August. But by then it was too late. The Hampton Court meeting had already come and gone, with France represented only by the resident ambassador and no new treaty agreed. Moreover, at the meeting Henry had found some of his own councillors almost as recalcitrant as the die-hards of the Sorbonne. Warned by Chapuys, Archbishop Warham of Canterbury, who was the only possible English judge in the Great Matter, refused to act in defiance of Rome. Henry was blocked – both at home, and, temporarily, abroad. He had the verdict of the Sorbonne. But he could do nothing with it.
⁸

    Out of this frustration, I would guess, 'the custom and privilege of England' was born. The determination of the Sorbonne and the other universities provided Henry, it was now clear, with only
moral
authority. But what use was that if neither Warham at home nor Clement in Rome would recognise it? 'The custom and privilege of England', when it developed into the Supremacy, would bridge the gap. For it would provide a
jurisdictional
authority that would compel recognition of the verdict of the determinations.

    At least it would where Henry's writ ran.

    For the moment, however, Henry contented himself with sending his vague but threatening letter to Rome. For there was still the summer – and Anne – to enjoy.

* * *

    Henry's prodigal generosity saw to that.

    Perhaps the clearest testimony to Anne's altered status had come on 27 May 1530 when Henry issued orders for her to be supplied with an astonishing range of luxurious velvet-covered and gilt horse-furniture, including saddles and harnesses for her own horses and trappings for the mules that carried her litter. Inevitably, bearing in mind her francophile tastes, most of the saddles were 'of the French fashion', while some of their trimmings were decorated in the latest Renaissance style and 'graven with antique works'. Also included in the warrant was 'a pillion of fine down, covered with black velvet, fringed with silk and gold, [and] lined with buckram'.
⁹

    It can only have been for her to ride behind Henry.

    Indeed, she already had. The incident took place a few weeks previously, on 27 April, as the Court was removing from Windsor to its eventual destination at York Place. Normally the journey would have been done by water; instead, it was decided to travel by land in a sort of mini-Progress. The route lay via The More, Hunsdon and Enfield, all of which had fine, deer-filled parks which promised excellent sport. Henry was in holiday mood, and, to show it, on the first leg of the journey from Windsor to The More, he made Anne ride pillion behind him.

    Kingship was forgotten. Anne had made him a young lover again.

    But others noticed and, according to Chapuys, were shocked at the gross familiarity. 'The King shows greater favour to the Lady every day', Chapuys reported. 'Very recently', he continued, 'coming from Windsor, he made her ride behind him on a pillion, a most unusual proceeding, and one that has greatly called forth peoples' attention here.' Two men, he added, had been imprisoned for daring to gossip about it.
¹⁰

    Also in late May, Anne had been fitted out with hunting gear, consisting of bows, arrows, shafts, broad heads, a bracer or wrist-guard and a shooting glove. These supplies were quickly exhausted and in June another four bows were supplied for her use.

    For weeks she and Henry rode and hunted and did little else. 'For nearly a month', Chapuys reported in mid-August, 'the King has transacted no business . . . [Instead] he has given himself up entirely to hunting privately and moving from one place to another.' After the interruption of the Hampton Court meeting, the holiday resumed. In September it was marred by a disagreeable incident in which two packs of greyhounds, one belonging to Anne and the other to a Groom of the Privy Chamber, mauled a cow to death. But a royal tip of ten shillings smoothed matters over.
¹¹