Lamentation (The Shardlake Series Book 6) (93 page)

T
HE FACT THAT
all these people knew each other is indicative of just how tiny the Tudor elite was – essentially a group of titled country landowners, though increasingly open to men from the gentry and merchant classes, who sought positions at court to amass wealth and, like Rich and Paget, went on to create their own great estates. Paget and Rich were both lawyers of undistinguished lineage but great ability, who were first chosen for service by Thomas Cromwell – as Shardlake observes, six years after his death much of the political elite still consisted of men whom Cromwell had advanced. ‘Gentleman’ status, meanwhile, was everything for young men like Nicholas Overton, who guarded it jealously; allowed to wear swords and colourful clothes of rich material forbidden to the common populace, they were brought up to see themselves as quite different from the common run.

F
OR THE VISIT
of Admiral d’Annebault in August 1546 I have followed closely the short account in Charles Wriothesley’s
Chronicle
. As one traces the ceremonies, one realizes their huge scale. Henry played a prominent role, but this was to be his last hurrah. Five months later he was dead. Greeting the admiral near Hampton Court was also Prince Edward’s first public appearance.

Catherine Parr and the Politics of Henry VIII’s Last Months – An Interpretative Essay

Historians have long puzzled over the huge upheavals in English politics during the last months of Henry VIII’s life. The source material is fragmentary, mainly scattered correspondence and ambassadors’ reports, and the reliability of one major source regarding Catherine Parr, John Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs
, has been called into question. Historians are divided over Foxe; he was a radical Protestant who wrote, highly polemically, about the sufferings of Protestant martyrs in the years before Elizabeth I ascended the throne. Some have said that Foxe is too biased to be credible, adding that where Catherine Parr is concerned he was writing seventeen years after the event he described. Others respond that Foxe was meticulous about trying to get his facts right, whatever gloss he put on them. I tend to agree with those who say that Foxe was an honest and assiduous gatherer of witness testimony, while also agreeing with pretty much everyone that his chronology was notoriously unreliable – of which more below.

If one looks at a timeline of political events in 1546, two things stand out. The first is that during the spring a major heresy hunt was ordered from within the court, targeting people who had denied the truth of transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is the doctrine which claims that during the ceremony of the Mass, the bread and wine are physically transformed into the actual blood and body of Christ; many Protestants, however, disagreed. It was over this point that, in 1539, Henry VIII drew a firm line. Under the ‘Act of Six Articles’ of that year, denial of transubstantiation, or ‘sacramentarianism’, was defined as heresy. One recantation was allowed; a refusal to recant, or a second offence, was punishable by burning alive.

In the 1546 heresy hunt the net spread widely, and those questioned by the council included the younger son of the Duke of Norfolk – who was interrogated about his presence at potentially subversive ‘preachings in the Queen’s chamber’ in Lent – and Henry’s courtier and friend George Blagge. The Queen was clearly under threat herself, as we shall see. The heresy hunt climaxed with the burning of Anne Askew and three others at Smithfield on the 16th of July. (The description of this in this book is based on the account by Foxe.) Meanwhile, though few even in Henry’s circle knew this, plans were being made for a papal emissary, Gurone Bertano, to be received by the King in London in August, to explore whether a rapprochement with Rome, after thirteen years of separation, was a possibility.

One gets the impression from this timeline that the ship of state which, steered by Henry, had for years veered wildly between support of traditional Catholic practice – but without the Pope – and a more thoroughgoing reform, set a firm course during the early months of 1546. With increasing speed it sailed towards the extirpation of Protestant heresy and the victory of those who favoured a traditionalist position – and possibly some agreement with the Pope.

Then suddenly, around the end of July, the ship of state turns round and steers, even faster, in exactly the opposite direction. The heresy hunt stopped dead in July, and some who had been convicted were quietly released, George Blagge being pardoned personally by the King.

In early August, Bertano arrived. He had his first and only meeting with the King on the 3rd. We do not know what was said, but the meeting was clearly unsuccessful. Afterwards, Henry wrote a letter to the Pope to which the Pontiff never replied. Bertano remained in a ‘safe house’ until late September, not seeing the King again, until word of his presence began to get out and he was ordered to go home.

D
URING THE AUTUMN
months Henry steered the metaphorical ship of state ever faster in a Protestant direction. He went on a Progress to Guildford, which was intended to be brief was but lengthened, probably because he fell seriously ill, and for over a month he stayed at Windsor on the way back. During this period, as was normal during Progresses, the Privy Council was split into two: those attending the King and those left in charge of business in London. Access to the King, as ever, was all-important, and the councillors Henry chose to be with him until he returned to London at the end of October were all either radical sympathizers or those who would bend to the wind, whichever way it blew.

I
N
N
OVEMBER
, B
ISHOP
G
ARDINER
, the leading conservative, found himself marginalized and denied access to the King. Then, in December, the other leading traditionalist, the Duke of Norfolk, and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were suddenly arrested and charged with treason. By now Henry’s health was deteriorating fast. He shut himself up at Whitehall Palace with his closest advisers, and in late December wrote a last Will, which appointed a council of sixteen to govern England until his nine-year-old son reached his majority. All the council members were either Protestants or centrists.

S
PRING
1546
SAW
, as well as the start of the heresy hunt, a complete about-turn in foreign policy. The two-year war against France had been a disastrous and costly failure. The English occupied Boulogne, but were besieged there, supplied by boat across the Channel, strongly opposed by French ships, at enormous cost. Despite his advisers’ entreaties during the winter of 1545–6, Henry refused to end the war.

Meantime, relations were uncertain with the Holy Roman Empire, which was at odds with its own Protestant subjects. England remained formally at war with Scotland, and the Pope continued to be an implacable foe. In March 1546 the ever warlike Henry finally accepted that this dreadful mess would have to be sorted out. Peace negotiations began with France, and a settlement was reached in June. Admiral d’Annebault, who had led the French fleet against England the year before, was invited to come to England as ambassador in August, and enormous celebrations were planned. This was surely a signal of Henry’s intent to make a lasting peace.

At the same time Henry negotiated a new treaty of peace with the other major Catholic power in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire. Peace with Scotland, too, was encompassed in the French treaty.