And their (admittedly off-stage) heroine is Catherine.
The previous Session of Parliament, which had ended on 12 May 1543, a couple of months before Catherine's wedding, marked the high point of the conservative reaction in religion. Its chief target and intended victim was Archbishop Cranmer and its architect and presiding genius was Bishop Gardiner of Winchester.
It had been clear ever since Thomas Garrett's book-selling trip to Oxford in 1528 that printed books, especially in English, were the prime source for innovations in religion. But the conservative response, with book-burnings, like Wolsey's, or printed counter-propaganda, like More's, had been patchy. Gardiner, on the other hand, was that rarest of things, a reactionary with a clear sense of strategy, and the will and boldness to carry it out. Not for him, therefore, the piecemeal approach of his predecessors. Instead, under his guidance, the Lords launched a frontal attack on the whole new print culture.
The Act, 'concerning printing of books', was drawn in the widest of terms, banning not only erroneous printed books but also 'printed ballads, plays, rimes, songs and other fantasies'. Indeed, its terms were
so
wide that almost anything on sale could be caught by them and a series of hastily added provisos were necessary to define what was still acceptable in the vernacular. The resulting list was not long. The Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria and Creed in English were permissible, as were the
Chronicles
, Chaucer's books and Gower's writings. Songs and plays on purely secular themes were allowed as well, as were translations of the Bible other than Tyndale's or Coverdale's.
But these approved translations were hedged around with a series of fierce restrictions. Only the bare text of the Scriptures was permissible: all prefaces and glosses had to be blotted out. And, even with this bowdlerisation, only upper-class males – the 'highest and most honest sort of men' – were allowed to read them. In contrast, all 'artificers, prentices, journeymen, serving men . . . husbandmen [and] labourers' were forbidden to read the Bible in English, either publicly or privately, on the pain of a month's imprisonment.
And so were all women.
25
* * *
This blanket restriction on the whole female sex evidently caused some outrage. Religion, as we have seen, was a recognised sphere of activity for women and in the course of debate a further proviso was added to the Bill which allowed ladies of noble and gentle status to join their menfolk in reading the English Bible. But they were to do so 'to themselves alone, and not to others'.
They were not, in other words, to lead Bible readings with their children or female servants or to encourage public readings of the Scripture in their chambers. But such readings had become commonplace features of life in Godly households and Anne Boleyn, for instance, had encouraged them over a decade previously.
Would Catherine Parr quietly forego them now?
There were further defeats for Reform in Convocation (held as usual at the same time as Parliament), where Cranmer meekly submitted to a new and very conservative formulary of faith. Known as the
King's Book
, it reflected Henry's own traditionalist opinions on disputed points. The King made detailed corrections to the exposition of the Creed in his own hand and made sure also that Luther's doctrines on the key questions of faith – justification, free will and good works – were emphatically rejected.
26
Finally, and most important of all, religious persecution struck into the very heart of the royal Household.
* * *
The information had been gathered by Dr John London, Dean of Oxford and Canon of Windsor. He found several heterodox clergy and musicians among his colleagues in St George's Chapel; he also discovered that they had powerful supporters among the courtiers who frequented the Castle. Dr London, who had been active as a heresyhunter since his involvement in the prosecution of Garrett in 1528, began by acting on his own initiative. But, quite soon, he presented his findings to Gardiner, who took over the strategic management of the affair. The Bishop fitted the Windsor denunciations into his broader attack on Reform; he also made sure that his fellow councillors were primed and sympathetic to what they were about to hear.
By the week starting on Passion Sunday (11 March) 1543, all was ready and, over the next few days, London appeared before the Council at Whitehall to lay his accusations. Gardiner passed on a sensational summary of them to the King: '[heretics]', Gardiner explained to Henry, 'were not only crept into every corner of the Court but even into his Privy Chamber'. Thoroughly alarmed, Henry authorised a commission for a 'privy search' in the town, but not the Castle, of Windsor. Late at night on Thursday, 15 March, at about 11 o'clock, the commissioners struck. They sought out Anthony Pearson, a radical and charismatic priest, Henry Filmer, a tailor and churchwarden, and two 'singing men' in St George's Chapel choir, Robert Testwood and John Marbeck, the latter of whom was also a composer and organist of distinction. The men were arrested and their papers seized, including the Biblical concordance (or word index) – the first in English – on which Marbeck was working. With the possible exception of Marbeck, all the men seized at Windsor were flamboyantly unorthodox and, in the event, would almost embrace martyrdom.
27
The scene then shifted to London, where, in a wave of arrests, the socially more distinguished supporters of the Windsor radicals were picked up: Dr Simon Haynes, Dean of Exeter and Canon of Windsor, was imprisoned on 16 March; Thomas Weldon, a Master (that is, a high administrative official) of the Household, on 17 March; Thomas Sternold, Groom of the Wardrobe of the Robes and versifier of the
Psalms
, and Philip Hoby, diplomatist, scholar and Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber, on Palm Sunday, 18 March. On Monday the 19th, the Windsor men were sent up to London where they too were imprisoned.
28
Over the Palm Sunday weekend, John London, delighted with the success of the Windsor operation (which, with characteristic boastfulness, he called a 'spectacle'), launched the second stage of the plot. This consisted of a further series of revelations of heresy, equally sensational and this time concerning the spiritual centre of the English Church at Canterbury. Senior members of the Cathedral clergy were among those accused and the finger was pointed at Cranmer himself.
29
* * *
Reform was now thoroughly on the defensive and remained so till late June, when a series of events began to swing the balance in the other direction. On 19 June, as we have seen, Henry returned from his flying visit to inspect the naval facilities at Harwich; on about the 20th he was joined at Greenwich by Catherine Parr, who had just accepted his proffered hand; and on 12 July they were married at Hampton Court by the apparently triumphant Gardiner.
Meantime, however, Henry, together presumably with Catherine, spent a few days at Whitehall to catch up on business. He did so to striking effect. On 5 July, Dean Haynes, the first of the Windsor ringleaders to be arrested, was set at liberty, 'after a good lesson and exhortation, with a declaration of the King's mercy and goodness towards him'. And Henry was even more merciful to Cranmer. Or perhaps, in a famously ambiguous encounter, he merely played with his timorous Archbishop, like a big cat with a mouse.
30
The incident cannot be dated precisely. But, since it took place on the Thames between Lambeth and Westminster, it must have occurred during the six days from 2 to 8 July, which, because of the plague, were to be the King's last visit to Whitehall for six months. Henry, 'on an evening', was 'rowing in the Thames in his barge' and paused at the 'bridge' or landing stage at Lambeth. There he summoned Cranmer to join him in his recreation. 'Ah, my chaplain!' the King said 'merily', 'I have news for you: I know now who is the greatest heretic in Kent.' Thereupon he took out Dr London's list of charges against the Canterbury clergy and their Archbishop, and appointed Cranmer, despite his protests, head of the commission to investigate them.
31
It was a deliberately poisoned chalice. But it would have been even worse, from Cranmer's point of view, if Henry had given the job to Gardiner, who was eagerly angling for it.
* * *
Was Cranmer to wriggle free yet again? The sense that the tide was turning against him probably led Gardiner, who was usually so aware of the importance of timing in politics, to overreach himself in his effort to make sure that his Windsor victims did not escape.
The result was justice that was summary even by Tudor standards. On Thursday, 26 July, Pearson, Filmer, Testwood and Marbeck were tried before a commission at Windsor headed by Bishop Capon of Salisbury. They were all found guilty under the Act of Six Articles and sentenced to be burned. On the 27th, Capon, probably by prearrangement, wrote to Gardiner at the Court, which was conveniently to hand at Woking, to recommend that he petition the King for Marbeck's pardon. Gardiner did so and the pardon was granted immediately. The following day, Saturday the 28th, Marbeck's less fortunate co-accused were paraded through Windsor to the place of execution. They were in a state of exaltation that seemed like a kind of spiritual inebriation. More earthly intoxicants were involved as well as they pledged each other in ale before the fires were lit. Pearson even put straw on his head so that he would die with a burning crown of martyrdom.
32
* * *
That marked the end of the public business at Windsor. But there was also a secret process, as advantage was taken of the sessions to get courtier-supporters of Reform 'privily indicted' before the commissioners. Fortunately for them, one of Catherine's servants had been an observer of the trial. He 'had lain at Windsor all the time of the business and had got knowledge what number were privily indicted'. Immediately the trial was over, he made haste to Court to inform one of the accused, Thomas Cawarden, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, of the danger. We do not know the full name of this servant as Foxe refers to him only as 'Fulke', which was probably his Christian name (but its popularity among the Greville family suggests that he belonged to it, or else was of its kin). Nor do we know whether he acted on his own initiative or on the Queen's orders.
33
But his actions cannot have been displeasing to her. And they were decisive. For, alerted by Fulke, Cawarden had the Clerk of the Peace, the official messenger from the commissioners at Windsor, waylaid at Guildford before he could deliver the trial reports to Gardiner. His papers were seized by Cawarden and William Paget, the newly appointed King's Secretary, and examined by the Council. Among them they found the 'privy indictments'.
34
These were fatal to Gardiner's scheme as the men listed in them were all intimate personal attendants of the King: Cawarden himself, Hoby, Weldon, Sternold, Edmund Harman, another Groom of the Privy Chamber, and William Snowball, one of the King's cooks. Also indicted were the men's wives: Mrs Cawarden, Mrs Hoby (known, in right of her previous husband as Lady Compton), Mrs Harman and Mrs Snowball. This may well explain Fulke's presence at Windsor since the wives of the Gentlemen of the King's Privy Chamber also served as part of the Queen's establishment at Court. By intervening through her servant, Catherine was protecting her own.
As, of course, would Henry. The King reacted with outrage to the fact that someone had dared to launch legal process against his own servants without express permission, and on 31 August at Ampthill he issued them with a comprehensive pardon.
35
Who, however, was to blame for this act of
lèse-majesté
? Gardiner was obviously under suspicion. But he had covered his tracks well enough to escape – for the moment at least.
* * *
The collapse of the Windsor scheme also jeopardised the Canterbury end of the plot. This had previously been going badly for Cranmer. As ordered by Henry, the Archbishop had launched an on-ground investigation into the charge and counter-charge of popery as well as heresy among his Cathedral clergy. But the conservative party, suppliers of the original information to Dr London and Bishop Gardiner, remained insubordinate while Cranmer himself felt obliged to proceed with kid gloves. The reason, as he told his secretary Ralph Morice, was 'that it is put into the King's head that he [Cranmer] is the supporter and maintainer of all the heretics within the realm'.
36
This was even more frightening: in July, Henry had 'merily' told him only that he was the biggest heretic in Kent; now, Cranmer feared, the King thought that he was the heresiarch of all England.
But help was already on the way. It was on 2 November that Ralph Morice reported Cranmer's fears and inhibitions to his friends at Court. Two days previously, as it happened, on Hallow E'en, 31 October, the leading canon lawyer, Dr Thomas Leigh, had arrived at Canterbury. He came armed with the King's ring, as a symbol of authority, and with orders to act as Cranmer's lieutenant in the investigations. As a former visitor of the monasteries, and trained in the school of Thomas Cromwell, Leigh brooked no nonsense. Lay commissioners were sworn in and were directed to seize the papers of Cranmer's accusers.
37
It was now the conservatives' turn to panic. On 1 November, the day after Leigh's arrival, a messenger was sent post-haste to Gardiner at Court. The distance and the difficulty of locating Ampthill meant that he did not arrive till the 3rd. But he got small comfort from Gardiner, who was now desperately trying to backtrack. 'Get you home again', the Bishop said, 'what need you come so far for such a matter?'
38
Gardiner could not escape so easily, however. The searches ordered by Leigh in Canterbury turned up letters between the conservative clergy there and John London and Bishop Gardiner himself. John London was condemned for perjury and false witness; paraded with his face to the tail of a horse through Windsor, Reading and Newbury, and exhibited in the pillory in each town wearing a paper declaring his offences on his forehead. For one who had always been so proud and highly strung the humiliation was bitter. Almost certainly, too, John London was injured in more than his dignity. The pillory was not a pleasant place and, especially if you were unpopular, people threw worse things than insults at you. The result was that London died, still in prison, in December. And Gardiner himself only avoided a worse fate at Henry's hands by a timely and prostrate submission.
39