Others were less lucky. A week later, Sir John Russell informed the King, as instructed, that Wolsey had 'examined Francisco Felipez and Vives in the gentlest manner he could without force, thinking that this was more to the King's honour'. Felipez, whom Henry had personally dismissed from his post in the Queen's Household after his return from Spain the previous autumn, can hardly have been surprised. But Vives took a tone of high moral indignation in the written statement which was wrung out of him. He had heard, he began, 'great complaints of the Emperor, that he had violated the law of nations [
jus gentium
] by taking the ambassadors of many nations'. But his own treatment at the hands of Wolsey was equally, Vives insisted, an offence against the laws of decency and friendship. 'This is not less an outrage to compel anyone to divulge what was secretly entrusted to him, especially a servant trusted by a mistress whose fidelity to her husband is undoubted.' Not that he or Catherine had done anything to be ashamed of. 'But the example is a bad one, for a great part of the intercourse of life rests on the faith of secrecy, which, if destroyed, everyone will be on guard against a companion as against an enemy.'
8
Vives, alas, was right, in both his analysis and his prophecy. The sanctity of private conversations, even the security of one's own thoughts, were also to be among the victims of the Great Matter. And the government soon became less nice about the means it used to extract information about them.
* * *
Meanwhile, Wolsey had at last made some headway in Rome on the Great Matter. Ever since he had aborted his own court at York Place, he and the King had been trying to get the Pope's agreement for the case to be heard again in England on a more regular footing. But on what terms? There were two methods by which a Pope could authorise such delegated jurisdiction. The first was known as a 'general commission'. This simply instructed named judges to investigate a case, deliver a verdict and carry out whatever consequential action was necessary – for example, to separate the spouses of a marriage which had been found to be invalid. The disadvantage of such a commission from Henry's point of view was that it left the outcome of the trial dangerously open; that the verdict was subject to appeal to Rome; and that the case could be 'revoked' or recalled even before a verdict had been reached. So a general commission would offer Henry neither the certainty he needed nor any guarantee of the 'right' verdict. This led his advisers to propose instead the use of the other form of Papal authorisation known as a 'decretal commission'. This was an altogether more restrictive document. It set out the law on the question, leaving the judges only to discover the facts and deliver their verdict accordingly. The advantages from Henry's point of view were obvious. Provided the statement of law was framed appropriately, the verdict could be guaranteed. It would be like ticking the boxes on a form.
* * *
The decision rested with Giulio de' Medici, who had reigned as Pope Clement VII since 1523. He was a wily Florentine, who turned prevarication into an art form. He would talk, at inordinate length, without ever reaching a conclusion. And he knew every word, in mellifluous Italian or fluent Latin, apart from 'yes' and 'no'. His other dominant characteristic was a certain timorousness. But then he had plenty to be afraid of. The Lutheran heresy, which abusively rejected his power as Pope, was making great strides in Germany and threatened to take most of the country into schism. The troops of the Emperor Charles V had not only sacked his capital but threatened his hold over the Papacy's territories in central Italy. His family, the Medici, had been driven out of their hereditary city-state of Florence, which they had ruled as dukes. Now Wolsey was threatening him as well and telling him that, if Henry were not enabled to get rid of Catherine, England would go the way of Germany.
Clement was aware of the risk and anxious to do what he could for Henry. Indeed, bearing in mind that England was far away and Charles V's troops near at hand, he was not ungenerous. He was also hoping that something would either turn up (like a French victory in Italy) or go away (like Henry's infatuation with his new woman) to let him off the hook. So Clement was playing for time. He would offer Henry
almost
everything he wanted in the pre-trial commissions, but not quite. And he would stretch out the negotiations as long as he could.
The result was a policy which led to Clement being vilified by both sides in turn: first by Catherine and her supporters, since he seemed to be offering Henry too much, and later by Henry, since he took back what he had given. Clement shrugged. He had to keep afloat both those leaky ships of state, the Papacy and the Medici dukedom. And if that meant he lost England, so be it. 'I do', he said to one of the English agents in a rare moment of frankness, 'consider the ruin that hangs over me; I repent what I have done. [But] if heresies arise, is it my fault? My conscience acquits me.'
9
It would be hard to think of a man more alien to Catherine, with her hard-edged Spanish certainties. The Papacy, Catherine proclaimed, should stand firmly on the Rock which is Christ'. It should be a fortress, proud and immovable. But Pope Clement, unlike Queen Catherine, had seen what happened to proud buildings in warfare. All over Rome and the Papal states were shattered palaces and castles and monasteries, roofless, windowless and gutted, their treasures pillaged and their inhabitants murdered or raped or held hostage. Better by far, Clement thought, to lie low, to show the wisdom of the serpent and the meekness of the dove and to survive.
10
But Catherine would never understand such supineness, as she saw it, and she would never understand why the Pope seemed so anxious to please her husband. For Clement willingly granted a general commission for the trial of Henry's marriage. He was also happy to follow Wolsey's suggestion and appoint Lorenzo Campeggio as the English Cardinal's fellow-judge and legate. Campeggio was Cardinal-Protector of England at Rome and absentee Bishop of Salisbury. His appointment led to an obvious charge of bias, in that both judges were English bishops and took the King of England's shilling. Catherine and her supporters pressed the charge vigorously. Clement ignored them, since he knew that Campeggio's true loyalties lay to the Papal service, in which most of his extended family had made their careers and fortunes.
But even Clement baulked at the decretal commission. Its blatant bias to Henry was certain to offend Charles V mortally. It also offended Clement's own sense of justice. But finally Clement was brought to grant this too, though only on strict conditions: the decretal commission was never to leave Campeggio's hands; it was to be shown only to Wolsey and Henry; and if possible, it was never to be used. Even so, he regretted his action immediately. He would have given one of his fingers not to have signed it, he said.
11
* * *
By now it was August 1528. After endless delays, real and diplomatic, Campeggio had begun his journey to England. The first leg, from the port of Tarquinia, fifty miles north-west of Rome, to Provence, was by sea. But thereafter he had to cross France by land. Here his progress was slow – and agonisingly so, because of his gout. Riding even his slowpaced mule was intolerable; instead he had to be carried in a horse litter. And he could stand this for no more than a few hours a day. By 14 September he had only reached Paris and he did not reach Calais till the end of the month. The journey had taken nine weeks. But he was about to arrive in England at last.
12
And at last the curious, eighteen-month-long armistice in the Great Matter would be broken. Since the abrupt ending of the York Place tribunal, direct hostilities had been suspended. Instead, each side had used the time to develop their own arguments and to probe the weaknesses of their opponents. Not surprisingly, since they were talking only to themselves, each had come to the conclusion that they had got the better of the other. Now their confidence would be put to the test.
We know the state of mind of the two parties on the eve of battle thanks to a conversation between Wolsey and Catherine's Almoner, Dr Robert Shorton. After beginning with other matters, Wolsey had quickly steered the talk to the Great Matter. 'What tidings had he heard of late in the Court?' Wolsey asked. 'None', Shorton replied, 'but that it was much bruited that a Legate should come hither into England.' And what, Wolsey continued, did 'the Queen [think] of his coming?' 'She was fully persuaded and believed that his coming was only for the decision of the cause of matrimony depending between her and the King's Highness,' Shorton answered.
This gave Wolsey his opening. Swearing Shorton to secrecy by everything he held sacred – 'his fidelity, his oath and
sub sigillo confessionis
[under the seal of confession]' – he pumped him on the Queen's intentions. Shorton made no bones about replying, probably because Catherine had spoken plainly enough herself and had not greatly cared who heard her. 'He heard the Queen oft say, that if in this cause she might attain and enjoy her natural defence and justice, she distrusted nothing but that [she should win].' She had four reasons. First, because 'it was in the eyes of God most plain and evident that she was never [carnally] known of Prince Arthur'. Second, because neither of the judges was competent to try the case, since both were the King's subjects and appointed at his instance. Third, because she had no access to 'indifferent counsel [impartial legal advice]' in England. And fourth, because 'she had in Spain two Bulls, the one be[ar]ing later date than the other, but both of such efficacy and strength, as should soon remove all objections and cavillations [nit-picking objections] to the infringing of this matrimony'.
Shorton's testimony is important. Often, Catherine is presented as taking a simple, untutored stand on right and conscience alone. She
would
make such a stand, and very effective it was too. But, as we can see from Shorton's report, there was nothing spontaneous or untutored about it. Instead, it was part of a carefully considered legal strategy. Catherine, like Henry, had been doing her homework. She was as intimately involved in the niceties of argument about the case as he, and just as much in command of the details. And she had rather better ammunition.
This was clear from Wolsey's response. First, he blustered about Catherine herself. Her statement, he protested, was so full of 'undiscreet, ungodly purposes and sayings' that Wolsey doubted whether she was of 'such perfection [or] virtue' as he had once thought. Then he began a point-by-point refutation of her arguments – on her virginity, on the partiality of the judges and on her lack of access to 'indifferent', that is, in effect, overseas counsel. He went on at inordinate length, especially on the issue of the consummation of her first marriage with Arthur. The
Spanish ambassadors, he claimed, 'did send the sheets they lay in, spotted with blood, into Spain, in full testimony and proof thereof '. But on the fourth head of Catherine's case, the two Spanish Bulls, this matador of debate said nothing. Was it because he had nothing to say?
13
* * *
Campeggio arrived in London on 9 October and, more dead than alive, was lodged at Bath House. Bath House, then the town house of the bishops of Bath and later the residence of the earls of Arundel, lay just beyond the Temple, with pleasant gardens reaching down to the Thames. Thence, it was a short journey downstream by boat to Henry's city palace of Bridewell. On the 21st, Henry and Catherine took up residence in Bridewell. On the 22nd, Campeggio, accompanied by Wolsey, was formally received at Court, and the King 'came out to the very foot of the staircase to meet them'. First there was a grand public ceremony, in which Charles V was denounced as a tyrant and the common enemy of the Pope and Christendom. Then the King and the two Cardinals, Campeggio and Wolsey, retired to the King's Privy Chamber, where they were closeted 'a long time together'. The pre-trial negotiations had begun.
14
Catherine was about to experience the politics of the Papal Court at first hand. And, it turned out, they rested not on a rock but in quicksand.
35. The legate
F
or Campeggio, the priesthood was only a second career. Until he was in his mid-thirties, he had been a teacher of law at Bologna university and a married man. Then in 1509 the death of his wife opened the way to a new life in the Papal service. His rise was rapid: priest in 1510, cardinal in 1517, Protector of England in 1524. But none of this made much difference to the man. He became neither a
dévôt
nor a Renaissance Prince of the Church. Instead, he remained the north-Italian bourgeois he had always been. He was devoted to the advancement of his numerous family of three sons and four brothers and countless remoter relations. He had a sincere love of money. And he was an excellent diplomat and deal-maker, with a negotiator's characteristic indifference to principle. As far as he was concerned, differences were for splitting, chasms for bridging, while walls were always to be probed for their weakest spot. And the weakest spot in England, Campeggio decided, was likely to be Catherine herself.
1
* * *
Despite his state of health, Campeggio got to work quickly, with a series of private, face-to-face meetings with the principals to assess the situation for himself. He began with Henry, who came to Bath House the day after the formal reception at Court on 22 October. The two were closeted together for four hours and had a frank exchange of views. By the end, Campeggio was in no doubt that Henry was immovable. The King had decided, Campeggio wrote to a friend in the Papal Court, that his marriage was invalid 'and I believe that an Angel descending from heaven would be unable to persuade him otherwise'.
Campeggio then pulled his white rabbit from the hat: why not persuade Catherine to enter a nunnery? This would square the circle. It would leave her status and that of her daughter intact. And it would also, by a little stretching of the law, free Henry to remarry. Henry was delighted with the idea. Moreover, Campeggio reflected to his correspondent, there was much to recommend it from Catherine's point of view. She would gain much and lose nothing – not even her marital rights, since Henry had already given up sleeping with his wife two years previously, 'and will not return however things turn out'. Henry agreed that Campeggio should put the proposal to the Queen the following day, the 24th.