Six Wives (110 page)

    'It came with a lass', James is supposed to have said on his deathbed, 'it will pass with a lass.' And so it seemed six months later, with the signature of the Treaty of Greenwich on 1 July 1543. Mary Queen of Scots was betrothed to Prince Edward, and Scotland was delivered up to Edward's father, Henry VIII.
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    But, as had happened so often before, Scotland escaped. Henry's interests lay elsewhere, in France. And he tried to clinch his victory in Scotland, not by English arms but by Scottish proxies, who were happy to take English gold, but almost invariably betrayed English interests. Henry's first white hope was the Earl of Arran, the Regent and Heir Presumptive. But, despite the offer of Elizabeth's hand for his son, he threw Henry over and joined with the Franco-Catholic party in Scotland that was led by David Beaton, the Cardinal-Archbishop of St Andrew's. Hertford's sack of Edinburgh and Leith was Henry's revenge.
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    Then fate offered the English King another instrument: Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, and the next in line to the throne after Arran. Lennox had spent over a decade in France, in the service of Francis I, and had been naturalised along with his brother, James, Seigneur d'Aubigny and Captain of the French Scots Guard. Lennox returned to Scotland in 1543, but, denied the Regency, rejected the French, cast the dust of Scotland off his feet and entered the service of Henry VIII.
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    Lennox cut a striking figure when he arrived at the English Court in May 1544. Chapuys described him straightforwardly as 'young and good-looking'. But Sir James Melville, though writing over twenty years later, probably got nearer the mark when he painted him in more ambiguous colours: as 'liker a woman than a man, for he was very lusty, beardless and lady-faced'.
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    Catherine, whose feelings for Seymour show that she was susceptible to male beauty, was probably struck. But there was another, more important, point of contact between them. For Lennox, like many of the Scots nobility, flirted with the Reformation. And Reform was to be the touchstone of the Treaties that were signed between Henry and Lennox on 26 June 1544.
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    By these, the King gave the Earl of Lennox the hand of his niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, in marriage. Margaret was the daughter of Henry's elder sister, Margaret, by her second, scandalous marriage to Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. Margaret Douglas herself was no better than she should be and, when caught up in the moral panic which followed the Catherine Howard affair, had been warned by Henry (that rigorous censor of other people's behaviour) to 'beware the third time'. But, through her mother, she had a possible claim to the English throne and she was endowed by Henry with enough lands to compensate Lennox for the income he had forfeited by renouncing his French allegiance. And that was enough.
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    In return, Lennox promised to be ruled by Henry when he became Governor of the puppet-kingdom of Scotland. He would also, he agreed, 'cause the Word of God to be taught and preached in his country, as the only source of truth and means of judging who proceeds justly with him and who abuses him for their own private glory, lucre and purpose'. To help Lennox forward, Henry was to supply him with a small expeditionary force, with the hint of a greater army to follow once France had been dealt with.
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    The signature of the treaties was celebrated the same day with a formal dinner at Whitehall for Henry, Edward, Mary, Elizabeth and Lennox himself. There followed (almost certainly) a hunting expedition to Hyde Park, the great new park which Henry had acquired from the Abbot of Westminster. And the entertainment was rounded off by 'a supper at Hyde Park'.
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    Queen Catherine was a notable absentee from the celebrations. Perhaps, as I have suggested previously, it was felt inappropriate for the childless Catherine to be present at a feast which, in effect, introduced Henry's heirs to the nobility of his two kingdoms of England and Scotland. More probably, it was a question of bridal etiquette. Lady Margaret Douglas, despite the cloud over her reputation, had been one of the great ladies of the Court, figuring prominently, for instance, in the reception of the Duke of Najera. But Lennox could hardly dine with his prospective bride. Instead, she was entrusted to the care of the absent Queen, who kept her in temporary purdah.

    Her seclusion did not last long, however, and three days later, on 29 June, Chapuys reported that 'the marriage of the Earl of Lennox and Lady Margaret Douglas took place this morning at Mass, the King and Queen being present'.
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* * *

The treaties with Lennox and Lennox's marriage to Margaret Douglas gave Henry a half-plausible policy towards Scotland. With that in place, the last remaining obstacle to his own departure for France was removed and on Monday, 7 July, the Council met at Whitehall to hear and endorse the King's arrangements for the government of the realm in his absence. The arrangements centred on two figures: his wife and his son.

    'The King's Majesty hath resolved', the agenda-cum-minute began, 'that the Queen's Highness shall be Regent in his absence and that His Highness's process [that is, legal and governmental business] shall pass . . . in her name.' To assist her, she was given a five-man Council. It was formally headed by Cranmer. But Wriothesley, now Lord Chancellor and a baron, and the Earl of Hertford were to be its key members and (subject to business) to give their continuous attendance on the Queen Regent at Court. Hertford was also to be Lieutenant of the Realm 'in case' – that is to say, if a sudden deterioration of the Scottish situation required the raising of a large army, as in 1513. Finally, Catherine and her Council were empowered to issue warrants for the payment of money.
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    Catherine was yet to celebrate her first wedding anniversary. But already she had been given more public authority than any of her predecessors, apart from her namesake, Catherine of Aragon. And the earlier Catherine had been royal by birth and by upbringing as well as by marriage.

    It is a striking testimony to Henry's respect for his new wife, and to his judgement of her loyalty and capacity.

* * *

    For Edward, the change signalled that his infancy was over, and that the harsh business of training him to be a man and a King had begun. The world outside was intended to read a variant of this message. Henry could safely go abroad, it was implied, because his heir was no longer a mere child but a youth on the threshold of the age of discretion.

* * *

On Friday, 11 July, Henry left Whitehall by water to begin his journey to France. From Gravesend he travelled overland to Dover and arrived at Calais at 9 p.m. on the 14th.
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    For the first time in thirty years the King was at the head of his troops. He was rejuvenated, almost indeed a boy again.

    We know nothing of Catherine's parting from Henry and nothing of their farewells, whether public or private. But we can guess at Catherine's feelings from the letter she wrote to Henry soon after. It is dated from Greenwich, which suggests that the Queen had accompanied him there on the first leg of his journey. 'Although the discourse of time and account of days neither is long nor many of your Majesty's absence', it begins, 'yet the want of your presence so much beloved and desired of me, maketh me that I cannot quietly pleasure in anything until I hear from your Majesty.' She longed for his presence. But she knew that his absence was necessary. She knew also that she should submit her will to his. 'And thus love', she continued, 'maketh me in all things to set apart mine own commodity and pleasure and to embrace most joyfully his will and pleasure whom I love.'

    Did she
really
love Henry? And are the words sincere? Or are they courtly posturing?

    Almost as though she could hear the query, Catherine then offers an impassioned reassurance – to Henry and to us. 'God, the knower of secrets', she writes, 'can judge these words not only to be written with ink, but most truly impressed in the heart.' Thus she wrote, and thus, I think, we should believe her.

    But this is not mere artlessness. On the contrary, Catherine's letter is a supreme example both of the epistolary art and of the art of managing a King who was difficult, imperious and unpredictable and yet, for all that, was a man, and a man, moreover, who was peculiarly susceptible to a woman's charms.

    Catherine, however, had not yet reached the limits of her quiet audacity. For in the last lines of her letter she ventures to compare her love for Henry with her love for God. 'I do make', she wrote, 'like account with your Majesty, as I do with God for his benefits and gifts heaped upon me daily.' She was hopelessly in debt to God and unable to repay his least benefit. And she was certain to die in this unregenerate condition. Nevertheless she hoped that God would accept her good will and save her in spite of her sinfulness and ingratitude. 'And even such confidence', she continued, 'I have in your Majesty's gentleness.' She could never repay his love, any more than she could her debt to God. Yet Henry, divine in his forgiveness, loved her, she knew, in spite of her inadequacies.
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    This was daring indeed. Not because of the extravagance of the comparison between Henry and the Almighty, which so grates on the modern sensibility. But rather because of the theology. For Catherine, the theologically literate Henry would have realised immediately, was explaining her relationship with him in terms of the doctrine of Justification by Faith.

    Man (and Woman too) the doctrine held, was wholly sinful. This meant that Humankind could never fulfil the commandments which God had laid down as necessary for salvation. By God's justice therefore all were condemned. The only hope was in God's charity: 'in his gracious acceptation of [human] good will', as Catherine put it. And this good will was shown, not by actions or 'works', but only by faith. The doctrine of Justification by Faith was the cornerstone of Lutheranism and ordinarily it was anathema to Henry. But when Catherine used it as an analogy to explain her own absolute, submissive love for him, even he found it acceptable.

    If this was a woman's preaching, he seems to have felt, long let it continue. At least, that was his reaction for the moment.

* * *

In fact, despite her heartfelt pleas, Catherine had to wait some time before she heard from her husband, who had thrown himself allabsorbingly into the business of war. Her own life, too, as Queen Regent was scarcely less busy. She managed the rump Council which Henry had left with her as a kind of Cabinet for domestic affairs. She oversaw the supplies – of men,
matériel
, and, above all, of money – for the war. She took immediate decisions on northern and Scottish affairs. These were invariably reported to Henry. But, by then, action – and actions decided by Catherine – had already taken place. Finally, in the absence of Henry as
paterfamilias
, she became acting head of the royal family.

    In the immediate aftermath of Henry's departure, this last task, which was probably the most congenial to Catherine, loomed largest. Continuing business had kept her at Whitehall until 20 July. But on the 21st she joined Edward and his reconstructed Household at Hampton Court. Mary, who, together with her entourage, now formed a subdepartment of the Queen's Household, accompanied her. The result was that two of the royal children and their step-mother were, once more, under one roof.
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    But Elizabeth was not. Clearly she felt somewhat left out and on 31 July she wrote to Catherine from her temporary residence at St James's. The letter is written in Italian, which was Elizabeth's latest linguistic acquisition. Was this a language which Catherine had learned as well in her own mother's Household? Or would she have needed a translator? In view of the highly personal tone of the letter, it seems likely that Elizabeth assumed that Catherine could read and understand it unaided.

    It was 'a whole year', Elizabeth began, since she had seen Catherine. We know that she had left Court soon after her step-mother's marriage. But this must also mean that their paths had failed to cross in the autumn, when the royal Court and the little Courts of the King's younger children were in such close proximity. And Elizabeth had no better luck after she returned to Court on the eve of her father's departure for the French war. Catherine herself, as we have seen, was absent from the reception for Lennox, at which the rest of the royal family were present; while Elizabeth, in turn, must have missed Lennox's wedding a few days later.

    Well, therefore, might Catherine's younger step-daughter exclaim against 'Unkind fortune, envious of all good and always turning human affairs upside down, [which] has deprived me for a whole year of your most illustrious presence, and not thus content, has again robbed me of the same good!' 'Which thing', she continued, 'would be intolerable to me, did I not hope to enjoy it very soon.' But she further consoled herself with the reflexion that, though she was out of Catherine's sight, she was not out of her thoughts: 'I well know', she wrote, 'that the clemency of your Highness has had as much care and solicitude for my health as the King's Majesty himself.' She was grateful to Catherine for mentioning her in her letters to Henry in France and she ended by looking forward to the day when her father and Catherine's husband came back a conqueror, 'so that your Highness and I may, as soon as possible, rejoice together with him on his happy return'.
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