Six Wives (98 page)

    Was Catherine's partner perhaps her old flame, Thomas Culpepper?

* * *

The next day, the show of Happy Families continued 'with conversation, amusement and mirth'. Catherine gave a present of a ring and two lap dogs to Anne, who, after dinner on the 5th, left Court for her own house at Richmond.
²²

    The visit had been a triumphant success all round. Anne had established a place in the English royal family which she was to keep across three reigns, while Catherine had shown herself to be a model consort: gracious, forgiving and willing to let bygones be bygones.

    These were, of course, the traditional qualities of a Queen. But, under Henry, their display had been the exception rather than the rule. For all of Catherine's predecessors, one way or another, had been partisan, political Queens: each had had her own axe to grind, and each had ground her axe with a will. Catherine of Aragon represented the Spanish alliance. Anne Boleyn fought for Reform, and Jane Seymour against it. And even Anne of Cleves was intended to be Cromwell's stalking-horse in the final push for Reform.

    The natural thing was for Catherine to follow in their footsteps and become the figurehead for a revived anti-Reform policy. This, it seems certain, was the part which Gardiner and Catherine's Howard backers had assigned to her. But would she do as they wished? Or would she strike out on her own?

* * *

Here a fresh look is needed. Catherine's behaviour in her stepgrandmother's Household has often been seen to indicate that she was a crass, self-indulgent teenager, without a thought in her head, unless others had put it there. But a different reading is possible. Catherine, like many teenagers, certainly showed herself to be wilful and sensual. But she also displayed leadership, resourcefulness and independence, which are qualities less commonly found in headstrong young girls.

    At Horsham and Lambeth, of course, she was a rebel without a cause, other than her own pleasure. But at Court, and as Queen, her independence of mind could be put to better use.

    But would it be? As it happens, there
are
early indications that Catherine was prepared to think for herself. For example, she quickly established good relations with Cranmer, Gardiner's
bête noire
. Similarly, as we have just seen, she responded enthusiastically to Anne of Cleves's attempt to bury the hatchet. All this suggests at least a reluctance to toe the factional line, if not a positive commitment to reconciliation and healing.
²³

    Then there is the question of her sensuality. The long, withdrawing roar of Victorian morality inhibited generations of historians from treating this with anything other than disapproval and distaste. But we are past that now. We can confront sex as a fact, not as a sin. We can even, if pushed, see a sort of virtue in promiscuity.

    Catherine benefits enormously from this shift in moral values. True, she was a good-time girl. But, like many good-time girls, she was also warm, loving and good-natured. She wanted to have a good time. But she wanted other people to have a good time, too. And she was prepared to make some effort to see that they did.

    Nor, refreshingly in that God-infested century, does she seem to have had much truck with religion. If she thought of God at all, it was, perhaps, as a sort of superior Duchess of Norfolk: like her stepgrandmother, He was haphazardly tyrannical and a kill-joy. But, with a little ingenuity, His strictures, too, could be avoided.

    This was not the stuff of martyrs. But nor was it the stuff that made martyrs of others. And that, in the reign of Henry VIII, was something.

* * *

Catherine, in short, had begun rather well. She had a good heart, and a less bad head than most of her chroniclers have assumed. But would the pressure of politics and kin let her keep to her path of live and let live? And would she be able to carry Henry with her?

* * *

The first test came quickly. On 3 January, as Catherine was entertaining Anne of Cleves at the start of her visit to Court, the Council was interrogating Thomas Smith, the Clerk of Catherine's Council. His fellow-examinee was William Grey, 'sometime servant to the late Lord Cromwell', and the two were charged with writing and publishing invectives against each other. Also in trouble was the leading printerpublisher, Richard Grafton, who was accused of printing and distributing the offending material.

    At first sight it is difficult to see why the Council bothered to get itself involved in a private quarrel of literary men. Such quarrels were as frequent, intractable and insignificant then as now. Today, they take the form of 'debates' in learned journals, or leak and counter-leak in gossip columns. Then, a 'flytyng', or ritual public exchange of insults in verse, was the established device.

    Smith's and Grey's exchanges followed the traditional form. But they gave them a new and dangerous twist by using them to take opposite sides on the burning political issues of the day. Smith struck the first blow by attacking Grey's fallen master Cromwell:

Grey replied in kind and in equally bad verse. It was, he began, unChristian to rail on the dead. Then he went on to suggest that, though Cromwell was a traitor,

Finally, he went fully on the offensive, and accused Smith of being Popish. Smith upheld, he claimed:

    Smith responded hotly to the charge of Papistry and threatened to seek redress 'before the highest powers'. He did not name them. But since he described himself in print as 'servant to the King's Royal Majesty and Clerk of the Queen's Grace's Council', there was not much doubt who was intended.
²⁴

    It all threatened to get out of hand, and justified the Council's intervention. On the 3rd, Smith and Grey were subject to 'long examination'. The intention, clearly, was to discover whether they had written on their own initiative or whether they were acting as a front for other, more powerful figures. The results seem to have been inconclusive and they were ordered to reappear before the Council the following morning at 7 a.m.

    Bearing in mind Smith's status as a royal servant, Henry must have been consulted overnight about his treatment. As, surely, must Catherine. But neither lifted a finger to protect him and on the 4th he joined Grey and Grafton in being 'committed to the Fleet [Prison] during the King's pleasure'.
²⁵

    Catherine, Smith's imprisonment made clear, had no intention of following Anne Boleyn as the patroness of religious controversy.

* * *

The tensions which led to the clash between Smith and Grey – between Reformer and anti-Reformer – of course operated at the highest political levels as well. The fact had been obscured by Catherine's marriage and the prolonged Progress of 1540, which imposed a kind of truce. But, with the New Year, politics began to return to their normal state of vicious in-fighting. On 17 January, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Anne Boleyn's former suitor and Cromwell's protégé, was led bound to the Tower. And Sir Ralph Sadler, another Cromwell client, who had succeeded him as joint Secretary, was also arrested. These, evidently, were victims of Cromwell's enemies. A few weeks later, on 5 February, Cromwell's friends struck back by getting Sir John Wallop, the highly conservative former ambassador to France, sent to the Tower as well.
²⁶

    It was tit for tat. And where and when would it stop?

    Marillac, the French ambassador who had correctly predicted the crisis of 1540, took the gloomiest view. 'There could be', he wrote home immediately after Wyatt's arrest, 'no worse war than the English carry on against each other.' 'For', he continued, 'after Cromwell had brought down the greatest of the realm, from the Marquess [of Exeter] to the Master of the Horse [Carew], now others have arisen who will never rest till they have done as much to all Cromwell's adherents.' 'And God knows,' he concluded, 'whether after them others will not recommence the feast.'
²⁷

    But this time Marillac's prediction was wrong. Wyatt, Sadler and Wallop were not executed. Indeed, they not only survived but were restored to favour and office as well.

Saturn, it seemed, had stopped eating his children.

* * *

What had happened? Were the rival groupings at Court and on the Council so evenly balanced that neither was able seriously to harm the other? Was Henry, freed from Cromwell's malign influence, now consciously pursuing a policy of moderation and balance? Or was he simply too happy in his new marriage to bother with treason and vengeance?

    All seem likely.

    But the official explanation was different again. According to the Council's letter to the new English ambassador in France, Henry had been predisposed to pardon Wyatt and Wallop because of their ready acknowledgement of their faults. But what had been decisive were 'the most humble suits and intercessions made unto [the King], both for [Wallop] and for Wyatt, by the Queen's Highness'.
²⁸

    For once, bearing in mind what we know about both Henry and Catherine, there seems no reason to disbelieve a government handout.

* * *

Chapuys's account adds an interesting twist to the story, since he links the pardon with Catherine's inauguration ceremonies as Queen. These, following the precedents of her immediate predecessors, took the form not of a coronation but of a river pageant.
²⁹

    The peculiarity lay in their delay. Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves had all made their river
entrée
into the City within a few weeks of their marriage to Henry. But the long, hot summer of 1540, the extended Progress, the plague and the pleasures of marriage combined to postpone Catherine's inaugural visit to the City, and it was not until 19 March 1541, more than seven months after her wedding, that she passed for the first time under London Bridge.

    But the City made up for the delay with the warmth of its welcome. The Mayor and Livery Companies in their gaily trimmed barges waited to receive the King and Queen between London Bridge and the Tower. At 3 o'clock, the royal barge, in which, most unusually, Henry and Catherine travelled together, shot the bridge. The City barges then formed an escort for the King and Queen as they were rowed downstream. The Tower 'shot a great shot of guns' and the ships lining the river fired salutes all the way to Greenwich.
³⁰

    Chapuys, who could be dismissive about English ceremonial, was impressed. 'The people of this City', he reported, 'honoured her with a most splendid reception.' As for Catherine, she struck while the iron was hot. 'From this triumphal march', the ambassador continued, 'the Queen took courage to beg and entreat the King for the release of Mr Wyatt, a prisoner in the Tower.'
³¹

    This showed a shrewd sense of priorities. To have sued first for Wallop, who was one of her own, would have savoured of
parti pris
. But to begin with Wyatt, whose affiliations were all with the enemies of her house, established that her gesture was disinterested. Only once Wyatt was restored to the King's good graces (though on the hard condition of taking back his hated estranged wife) did she kneel once more for Wallop. And, once more, she was successful.

* * *

There was scope also for Catherine's emollient talents nearer home, among Henry's strange, fractious brood of half-siblings.

    With Mary, the eldest and most difficult, she got off to an awkward start. Mary, who was at least four years older than her new step-mother, had failed (on Chapuys's own admission) 'to treat her with the same respect as her two predecessors'. Catherine, in revenge, moved to cut back her establishment of maids. But a chastened Mary, Chapuys reported, had 'found means to conciliate her and thinks her maids will remain'.
³²

    The storm in a tea-cup over, the two established cordial relations, though the serious Mary and the pleasure-loving Catherine were too different in character ever to become real friends. Nevertheless, they were able to co-operate in bringing about the most important gesture of family solidarity since the Divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

    Chapuys's account makes clear that he recognised its significance. 'A week ago', he reported on 17 May, 'the King and the Queen went . . . to visit the Prince [at Waltham Holy Cross in Essex] at the request of the [Lady Mary], but chiefly at the intercession of the Queen herself.' The visit went well and 'upon that occasion', Chapuys continued, 'the King granted [Mary] full permission to reside at Court, and the Queen has countenanced it with good grace'.
³³

    Naturally, the ambassador's narrative omits Elizabeth, who was still unforgiven by Imperialists on account of her position as Anne Boleyn's daughter. But Catherine made sure that she, too, had some sort of part in the family get-together. On 4 May, a day or two before the visit to Waltham, Catherine travelled by river from Chelsea to her town-house at Baynard's Castle. The next day, 'my Lady Elizabeth' was taken by water from Suffolk House in Southwark to Chelsea and on the 6th, the Queen made the return journey from Baynard's Castle to Chelsea as well.
³⁴

    Quite what these journeys signify is unclear. Catherine could have been supervising the preparation of Chelsea as Elizabeth's residence on the 4th and making sure that she was settled in with her second visit on the 6th. Or she could have been collecting her to take her to join the family party at Waltham.