The cir A.D. 1531. ings which he was bound to have spared to the CH. 4. utmost which his duty permitted. cumstances of the case, if they were known to us, though they could never excuse such a proceeding, might perhaps partially palliate it. Catherine was harsh and offensive, and it was by her own determination, and not by Henry's desire, that she was unprovided with an establishment elsewhere. There lay, moreover, as I have said, behind the scenes a whole drama of contention and bitterness, which now is happily concealed from us; but which being concealed, leaves us without the clue to these painful doings. Indelicate, however, the position given to Anne Boleyn could not but be; and, if it was indelicate in Henry to grant such a position, what shall we say of the lady who consented, in the presence of her sovereign and mistress, to wear such ignominious splendour? A deputa But in these most offensive relations there was henceforth to be a change. In June, 1531, June. two months after the prorogation of parliament, tion from a deputation of the privy council went to the the privy apartments of Catherine at Greenwich, and lay- wait on ing before her the papers which had been read by Catherine. Sir Thomas More to the two Houses, demanded council Queen Toutefois il sien. Et luy est la cour faicte | trouve si estrange. A.D. 1531. They request her to with draw her appeal, which she refuses. CH. 4. formally, whether, for the sake of the country, and for the quiet of the king's conscience, she would withdraw her appeal to Rome, and submit to an arbitration in the kingdom. It was, probably, but an official request, proposed without expectation that she would yield. After rejecting a similar entreaty from the pope himself, she was not likely, inflexible as she had ever been, to yield when the pope had admitted her appeal, and the emperor, victorious through Europe, had promised her support. She refused, of course, like herself, proudly, resolutely, gallantly, and not without the scorn which she was entitled to feel. The nation had no claims upon her, and 'for the king's conscience,' she answered, 'I pray God send his Grace good quiet therein, and tell him I say I am his lawful wife, and to him lawfully married; and in that point I will abide till the court of Rome, which was privy to the beginning, hath made thereof a determination and a final ending.'* The learned councillors retired with their answer. A more passive resistance would have been more dignified; but Catherine was a queen, and a queen she chose to be; and in defence of her own high honour, and of her daughter's, by no act of hers would she abate one tittle of her dignity, or cease to assert her claim to it. Her reply, however, appears to have been anticipated, and the request was only preparatory to ulterior measures. For the sake of public decency, and certainly in no unkind spirit towards *HALL, p. 781. A.D. 1531. She leaves the last herself, a retirement from the court was now to Cн. 4. be forced upon her. At Midsummer she accompanied the king to Windsor; in the middle of June. July he left her there, and never saw her again. the king for She was removed to the More, a house in Hertford- time. shire, which had been originally built by George Neville, Archbishop of York, and had belonged to Wolsey, who had maintained it with his usual splendour.* Once more an attempt was made to persuade her to submit; but with no better result, and a formal establishment was then provided for her at Ampthill, a large place belonging to Henry not far from Dunstable. There at least she was her own mistress, surrounded by her own friends, who were true to her as queen, and she attracted to her side from all parts of England those whom sympathy or policy attached comes the lic party, to her cause. The court, though keeping a par- She betial surveillance over her, did not dare to restrict nucleus of her liberty; and as the measures against the the Cathochurch became more stringent, and a separation from the papacy more nearly imminent, she became the nucleus of a powerful political party. Her injuries had deprived the king and the nation of a right to complain of her conduct. She owed nothing to England. Her allegiance, politically, was to Spain; spiritually she was the subject of the pope; and this dubious position gave her an advantage which she was not slow to perceive. Rapidly every one rallied to her who *It seems to have been his favourite place of retirement. The gardens and fishponds were peculiarly elaborate and beautiful. A. D. 1531. the party of tion. CH. 4. adhered to the old faith, and to whom the measures of the government appeared a sacrilege. Through herself, or through her secretaries and mately of confessors, a correspondence was conducted which insurrec brought the courts of the continent into connexion with the various disaffected parties in England, with the Nun of Kent and her friars, with the Poles, the Nevilles, the Courtenays, and all the remaining faction of the White Rose. And so first the great party of sedition began to shape itself, which for sixty years, except in the shortlived interlude of its triumph under Catherine's daughter, held the nation on the edge of civil war. We shall see this faction slowly and steadily organizing itself, starting from scattered and small beginnings, till at length it overspread all England and Ireland and Scotland, exploding from time to time in abortive insurrections, yet ever held in check by the tact and firmness of the government, and by the inherent loyalty of the English to the land of their birth. There was England. a proverb then current that 'the treasons of England should never cease." It was perhaps fortunate that the papal cause was the cause of a foreign power, and could only be defended by a betrayal of the independence of the country. In Scotland and Ireland the insurrectionists were more successful, being supported in either instance by the national feeling. But the strength of Scotland had been broken at Flodden; and Ire Perilous position of Also it is a proverb of old date- The pride of France, the treason of England, and the war of Ireland, shall never have end.' -State Papers, vol. ii. p. II. A.D.1531. of Henry's land, though hating' the Saxons' with her whole CH. 4heart, was far off and divided. The true danger was at home; and when the extent and nature The Tudor difficulty. of it is fairly known and weighed, we shall understand better what is called the tyranny' of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth; and rather admire the judgment than condemn the resolution which steered the country safe among those dangerous shoals. Elizabeth's position is more familiar to us, and is more reasonably appreciated because the The success +danger was more palpable. Henry has been hardly administrajudged because he trampled down the smoulder- tion, by its ing fire, and never allowed it to assume the form ness, has which would have justified him with the foolish condemn and the unthinking. Once and once only the flame blazed out; but it was checked on the instant, and therefore it has been slighted and forgotten. But with despatches before his eyes, in which Charles V. was offering James of Scotland the hand of the Princess Mary, with the title for himself of Prince of England and Duke of York*-with Ireland, as we shall speedily see it, in flame from end to end, and Dublin castle complete led us to him. * There was a secret ambas- | long he hath set about for our sador with the Scots king from honour, that shall be by him the emperour, who had long com- discussed on Easter day, and municated with the king alone that we may lawfully write ourin his privy chamber. And after self Prince of England and Duke the ambassador's departure the of York.' To which the chanking, coming out into his outer cellor said, 'I God the pope pray chamber, said to his chancellor confirm the same.' The Scots and the Earl Bothwell, My lords, king answered, 'Let the empehow much are we bounden unto rour alone.'-Earl of Northumthe emperour that in the matter berland to Henry VIII.: State concerning our style, which so Papers, vol. iv. p. 599. |