Part 9 (1/2)

This was the doc.u.ment which Cranmer handed to the King, ”not having the heart to say it by word of mouth”: and it must be admitted that as it was only a bit of second-hand scandal, without corroboration, and could not refer to any period subsequent to Katharine's marriage, it did not amount to much. Henry is represented as having been inclined to make light of it, which was natural, but he nevertheless summoned Fitzwilliam (Southampton), Lord Russell (Lord Admiral), Sir Anthony Browne, and Wriothesley, and deputed to them the inquiry into the whole matter. Fitzwilliam hurried to London and then to Suss.e.x to examine Lascelles and his sister, whilst the others were sent to take the depositions of Derham, who was now in Katharine's service, and was ordered to be apprehended on a charge of piracy in Ireland sometime previously, and Mannock, who was a musician in the household of the d.u.c.h.ess.

On the 5th November the ministers came to Hampton Court with the shocking admissions which they had extracted from the persons examined. Up to that time Henry had been gay, and had thought little of the affair, but now, when he heard the statements presented to him, he was overcome with grief: ”his heart was pierced with pensiveness,” we are told, ”so that it was long before he could utter his sorrow, and finally with copious tears, which was strange in his courage, opened the same.” The next day, Sunday, he met Norfolk and the Lord Chancellor secretly in the fields, and then with the closest privacy took boat to London without bidding farewell to Katharine, leaving in the hands of his Council the unravelling of the disgraceful business.

The story, pieced together from the many different depositions,[216] and divested of its repet.i.tions and grossness of phraseology, may be summarised as follows. Katharine, whose mother had died early, had grown up uncared for in the house of her grandmother at Horsham in Norfolk, and later at Lambeth; apparently living her life in common with the women-servants. Whilst she was yet quite a child, certainly not more than thirteen, probably younger, Henry Mannock, one of the d.u.c.h.ess's musicians, had taught her to play the virginals; and, as he himself professed, had fallen in love with her. The age was a licentious one; and the maids, probably to disguise their own amours, appear to have taken a sport in promoting immoral liberties between the orphan girl and the musician, carrying backwards and forwards between the ill-matched pair tokens and messages, and facilitating secret meetings at untimely hours: and Mannock deposed unblus.h.i.+ngly to have corrupted the girl systematically and shamefully, though not criminally. On one occasion the old d.u.c.h.ess found this scamp hugging her granddaughter, and in great anger she beat the girl, upbraided the musician, and forbade such meetings for the future.

Mary Hall, who first gave the information, represents herself as having remonstrated indignantly with Mannock for his presumption in pledging his troth, as one of the other women told her he had, with Katharine. He replied impudently that all he wanted of the girl was to seduce her, and he had no doubt he should succeed in doing so, seeing the liberties she had already permitted him to take with her. Mary Hall said that she had warned him that the Howards would kill or ruin him if he did not take care. Katharine, according to Mary Hall's tale, when told of Mannock's impudent speech, had angrily said that she cared nothing for him; but he managed the next time he saw her, by her own contrivance, to persuade her that he was so much in love as not to know what he said.

Before long, however, a more dangerous lover, because one of better rank, appeared in the field, and spoilt Mannock's game. This was Francis Derham, a young gentleman of some means in the household of the Duke of Norfolk, of whom he seems to have been a distant connection. In his own confession he boldly admitted that he was in love with Katharine, and had promised her marriage. The old d.u.c.h.ess always had the keys of the maids' dormitory, where Katharine also slept, brought to her chamber after the doors were locked; but means were found by the women to laugh at locksmiths, and the most unbridled licence prevailed amongst them. Derham, with the lovers of two of the women, used to obtain access almost nightly to the dormitory, where they remained feasting and rioting until two or three in the morning: and there can remain little doubt that, on the promise of marriage, Derham practically lived with Katharine as his wife thus clandestinely, for a considerable period, whilst she was yet very young.

Mannock, who found himself supplanted, thereupon wrote an anonymous letter to the d.u.c.h.ess and left it in her pew at chapel, saying that if her Grace would rise again an hour after she had retired and visit the gentlewomen's chamber she would see something that would surprise her. The old lady, who was not free from reproach in the matter herself, railed and stormed at the women; and Katharine, who was deeply in love with Derham, stole the anonymous letter from her grandmother's room and showed it to him, charging Mannock with having written it. The result, of course, was a quarrel, and the further enlightenment of the d.u.c.h.ess with regard to her granddaughter's connection with Derham. The old lady herself was afterwards accused of having introduced Derham into her own household for the purpose of forwarding a match between him and Katharine; and finally got into great trouble and danger by seizing and destroying Derham's papers before the King's Council could impound them: but when she learnt the lengths to which the immoral connection had been carried, and the shameful licentiousness that had accompanied it, she made a clean sweep of the servants inculpated, and brought her granddaughter to live in Lambeth amongst a fresh set of people.

There is no doubt that Katharine and Derham were secretly engaged to be married, and, apart from the immoral features of the engagement, no very great objection could have been taken to it. She was a member of a very large family, an orphan with no dower or prospects, and her marriage with Derham, who was a sort of relative, would have been not a glaringly unequal one. With lover-like alacrity he provided her with the feminine treasures which she coveted, but which her lack of means prevented her from buying. Artificial flowers, articles of dress, or materials for them, trinkets and adornments, not to speak of the delicacies which he brought to furnish forth the tables during the nightly orgy. He had made no great secret of his engagement to, and intention of marrying Katharine, and had shown various little tokens of her troth that she had given him. On one of his piratical raids, moreover, he had handed to her the whole of his money, as to his affianced wife, and told her she might keep it if he came not back, whilst on other occasions he had exercised his authority, as her betrothed, to chide her for her attentions to others. When at last the old d.u.c.h.ess learnt fully of the immoral proceedings that had been going on, Katharine got another severe beating, and Derham fled from the vengeance of the Howards. After the matter had blown over, and Katharine was living usually at Lambeth, Derham found his way back, and attempted clandestinely to renew the connection. But Katharine by this time was older and more experienced, as beseemed a lady at Court. It was said that she was affianced to her cousin, Thomas Culpeper; but in any case she indignantly refused to have anything to do with Derham, and hotly resented his claim to interfere in her affairs.

So far the disclosures referred solely to misconduct previous to Katharine's marriage with the King, and, however reprehensible this may have been, it only constructively became treason _post facto_, by reason of the concealment from the King of his wife's previous immoral life; whereby the royal blood was ”tainted,” and he himself injured. Cranmer was therefore sent to visit Katharine with orders to set before her the iniquity of her conduct and the penalty prescribed by the law; and then to promise her the King's mercy on certain conditions. The poor girl was frantic with grief and fear when the Primate entered; and he in compa.s.sion spared her the first parts of his mission, and began by telling her of her husband's pity and clemency. The reaction from her deadly fear sent her into greater paroxysms than ever of remorse and regret. ”This sudden mercy made her offences seem the more heinous.” ”This was about the hour”

(6 o'clock), she sobbed, ”that Master Heneage was wont to bring me knowledge of his Grace.” The promise of mercy may or may not have been sincere; but it is evident that the real object of Cranmer's visit was to learn from Katharine whether the betrothal with Derham was a binding contract. If that were alleged in her defence the marriage with the King was voidable, as that of Anne of Cleves was for a similar cause; and if, by reason of such prior contract, Katharine had never legally been Henry's wife, her guilt was much attenuated, and she and her accomplices could only be punished for concealment of fact to the King's detriment, a sufficiently grave crime, it is true, in those days, but much less grave if Katharine was never legally Henry's wife. It may therefore have seemed good policy to offer her clemency on such conditions as would have relieved him of her presence for ever, with as little obloquy as possible, but other counsels eventually prevailed. Orders were given that she was to be sent to Sion House, with a small suite and no canopy of state, pending further inquiry; whilst the Lord Chancellor, Councillors, peers, bishops, and judges were convened on the 12th November, and the evidence touching the Queen laid before them. It was decided, however, that Derham should not be called, and that all reference to a previous contract of marriage should be suppressed. On the following Sunday the whole of the Queen's household was to be similarly informed of the offences and their gravity, and to them also no reference to a prior engagement that might serve to lighten the accusations or their own responsibility was to be made.

Katharine Howard's fate if the matter had ended here would probably have been divorce on the ground of her previous immorality ”tainting the royal blood,” and lifelong seclusion; but in their confessions the men and women involved had mentioned other names; and on the 13th November, the day before Katharine was to be taken to Sion, the scope of the inquiry widened. Mannock in his first examination on the 5th November had said that Mistress Katharine Tylney, the Queen's chamberwoman, a relative of the old d.u.c.h.ess, could speak as to Katharine's early immoral life; and when this lady found herself in the hands of Wriothesley she told some startling tales. ”Did the Queen leave her chamber any night at Lincoln or elsewhere during her recent progress with the King?” ”Yes, her Majesty had gone on two occasions to Lady Rochford's[217] room, which could be reached by a little pair of back stairs near the Queen's apartment.” Mrs. Tylney and the Queen's other attendant, Margery Morton, had attempted to accompany their mistress, but had been sent back. Mrs. Tylney had obeyed, and had gone to bed; but Margery had crept back up the stairs again to Lady Rochford's room. About two o'clock in the morning Margery came to bed in the same dormitory as the other maids. ”Jesu! is not the Queen abed yet?” asked the surprised Tylney, as she awoke. ”Yes,” in effect, replied Margery, ”she has just retired.” On the second occasion Katharine sent the rest of her attendants to bed and took Tylney with her to Lady Rochford's room, but the maid, with Lady Rochford's servant, were shut up in a small closet, and not allowed to see who came into the princ.i.p.al apartments.

But, nevertheless, her suspicions were aroused by the strange messages with which she was sent by Katharine to Lady Rochford: ”so strange that she knew not how to utter them.” Even at Hampton Court lately, as well as at Grimsthorpe during the progress, she had been bidden by the Queen to ask Lady Rochford ”when she should have the thing she promised her,” the answer being that she (Lady Rochford) was sitting up for it, and would bring the Queen word herself.

Then Margery Morton was tackled by Sir Anthony Browne. She had never mistrusted the Queen until the other day, at Hatfield, ”when she saw her Majesty look out of the window to Mr. Culpeper in such sort that she thought there was love between them.” Whilst at Hatfield the Queen had given orders that none of her attendants were to enter her bedroom unless they were summoned. Margery, too, had been sent on mysterious secret errands to Lady Rochford, which she could not understand, and, with others of the maids, had considered herself slighted by the Queen's preference for Katharine Tylney and for those who owed their position to Lady Rochford; which lady, she said, she considered the princ.i.p.al cause of the Queen's folly. Thus far there was nothing beyond the suspicions of jealous women, but Lady Rochford was frightened into telling a much more d.a.m.ning story, though she tried to make her own share in it as light as possible.

The Queen, she confessed, had had many interviews in her rooms with Culpeper--at Greenwich, Lincoln, Pontefract, York, and elsewhere--for many months past; but as Culpeper stood at the farther end of the room with his foot upon the top of the back stairs, so as to be ready to slip down in case of alarm, and the Queen talked to him at the door, Lady Rochford professed to be ignorant of what pa.s.sed between them. One night, she recalled, the Queen and herself were standing at the back door at eleven at night, when a watchman came with a lantern and locked the door. Shortly afterwards, however, Culpeper entered the room, saying that he and his servant had picked the lock. Since the first suspicion had been cast upon the Queen by Lascelles, Katharine, according to Lady Rochford, had continually asked after Culpeper. ”If that matter came not out she feared nothing,” and finally, Lady Rochford, although professing to have been asleep during some of Culpeper's compromising visits, declared her belief that criminal relations had existed between him and the Queen:

Culpeper, according to the depositions,[218] made quite a clean breast of it, though what means were adopted for making him so frank is not clear.

Probably torture, or the threat of it, was resorted to, since Hertford, Riche, and Audley had much to do with the examinations;[219] whilst even the Duke of Norfolk and Wriothesley, not to appear backward in the King's service, were as anxious as their rivals to make the case complete.

Culpeper was a gentleman of great estate in Kent and elsewhere, holding many houses and offices; a gentleman of the chamber, clerk of the armoury, steward and keeper of several royal manors; and he had received many favours from the King, with whom he ordinarily slept. He deposed to and described many stolen interviews with Katharine, all apparently after the previous Pa.s.sion Week (1541), when the Queen, he said, had sent for him and given him a velvet cap. Lady Rochford, according to his statement, was the go-between, and arranged all the a.s.signations in her apartments, whilst the Queen, whenever she reached a house during the progress, would make herself acquainted with the back doors and back stairs, in order to facilitate the meetings. At Pontefract she thought the back door was being watched by the King's orders, and Lady Rochford caused her servant to keep a counter watch. On one occasion, he said, the Queen had hinted that she could favour him as a certain lady of the Court had favoured Lord Parr; and when Culpeper said he did not think that the Queen was such a lady as the one mentioned, she had replied, ”Well, if I had tarried still in the maidens' chamber I would have tried you;” and on another occasion she had warned him that if he confessed, even when he was shriven, what had pa.s.sed between them, the King would be sure to know, as he was the head of the Church. Culpeper's animus against Lady Rochford is evident.

She had provoked him much, he said, to love the Queen, and he intended to do ill with her. Evidence began to grow, too, that not only was Derham admittedly guilty with the Queen before marriage, but that suspicious familiarity had been resumed afterwards. He himself confessed that he had been more than once in the Queen's private apartment, and she had given him various sums of money, warning him to heed what he said; which, truth to tell, he had not done, according to other deponents.

Everybody implicated in the scandals was imprisoned, mostly in the Tower, several members of the house of Howard being put under guard; and Norfolk, trembling for his own position, showed as much zeal as any one to condemn his unfortunate niece. He knew, indeed, at this time that he had been used simply as a catspaw in the advances towards France, and complained bitterly that the match he had secretly suggested between the Princess Mary and the Duke of Orleans was now common talk, which gave ground for his enemies who were jealous of him to denounce him to the King as wis.h.i.+ng to embrace all great affairs of State. It is clear that at this period it was not only the Protestants who were against Norfolk, but his own colleagues who were planning the alliance with the Emperor; which to some extent explains why such men as Wriothesley, Fitzwilliam, and Browne were so anxious to make the case of Katharine and her family look as black as possible, and why Norfolk aided them so as not to be left behind. When, on the 15th December, the old Dowager-d.u.c.h.ess of Norfolk, his stepmother, his half-brother, Lord William Howard and his wife, and his sister, Lady Bridgewater, were imprisoned on the charge of having been privy to Katharine's doings before marriage, the Duke wrote as follows to the King: ”I learnt yesterday that mine ungracious mother-in-law, mine unhappy brother and his wife, and my lewd sister of Bridgewater were committed to the Tower; and am sure it was not done but for some false proceeding against your Majesty. Weighing this with the abominable deeds done by my two nieces (_i.e._ Katharine Howard and Anne Boleyn), and the repeated treasons of many of my kin, I fear your Majesty will abhor to hear speak of me or my kin again. Prostrate at your Majesty's feet, I remind your Majesty that much of this has come to light through my own report of my mother-in-law's words to me, when I was sent to Lambeth to search Derham's coffers. My own truth, and the small love my mother-in-law and nieces bear me, make me hope; and I pray your Majesty for some comfortable a.s.surance of your royal favour, without which I will never desire to live.

Kenninghall Lodge, 15th December 1541.”[220]

On the 1st December, Culpeper and Derham had been arraigned before a special Commission in Guildhall, accused of treason.[221] The indictment set forth that before her marriage Katharine had ”led an abominable, base, carnal, voluptuous, and vicious life, like a common harlot ... whilst, at other times, maintaining an appearance of chast.i.ty and honesty. That she led the King to love her, believing her to be pure, and arrogantly coupled with him in marriage.” That upon her and Derham being charged with their former vicious life, they had excused themselves by saying that they were betrothed before the marriage with the King; which betrothal they falsely and traitorously concealed from the King when he married her. After the marriage they attempted to renew their former vicious courses at Pontefract and elsewhere, the Queen having procured Derham's admission into her service, and entrusted secret affairs to him. Against Culpeper it was alleged that he had held secret and illicit meetings with the Queen, who had ”incited him to have intercourse with her, and insinuated to him that she loved him better than the King and all others. Similarly Culpeper incited the Queen, and they had retained Lady Rochford as their go-between, she having traitorously aided and abetted them.”

It will be noticed that actual adultery is not alleged, and the indictment follows very closely the deposition of the witnesses. The _liaison_ with Derham before the marriage was not denied; nor were the meetings with Culpeper after the marriage. This and the concealment were sufficient for the King's purpose, without adding to his ignominy by labouring to prove the charge of adultery.[222] After pleading not guilty, the two men, in face of the evidence and their own admissions, changed their plea to guilty, and were promptly condemned to be drawn through London to Tyburn, ”and there hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled, and, they still living, their bowels burnt, the bodies then to be beheaded and quartered:” a brutal sentence that was carried out to the letter in Derham's case only, on the 10th December, Culpeper being beheaded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _KATHARINE HOWARD_

_From a portrait by an unknown artist in the National Portrait Gallery_]

Although the procedure had saved the King as much humiliation as possible, the affair was a terrible blow to his self-esteem as well as to his affections; for he seems to have been really fond of his young wife.

Chapuys, writing on the 3rd December, says that he shows greater sorrow at her loss than at any of his previous matrimonial misfortunes. ”It is like the case of the woman who cried more bitterly at the loss of her tenth husband than for all the rest put together, though they had all been good men; but it was because she had never buried one before without being sure of the next. As yet, it does not seem that he has any one else in view.”[223] The French amba.s.sador, a few days later, wrote that ”the grief of the King was so great that it was believed that it had sent him mad; for he had called suddenly for a sword with which to kill the Queen whom he had loved so much. Sometimes sitting in Council he suddenly calls for horses, without saying whither he would go. Sometimes he will say irrelevantly that that wicked woman had never had such delight in her incontinency as she should have torture in her death; and then, finally, he bursts into tears, bewailing his misfortune in meeting such ill-conditioned wives, and blaming his Council for this last mischief.”[224]

In the meanwhile Henry sought such distraction as he might at Oatlands and other country places, solaced by music and mummers, whilst Norfolk, in grief and apprehension, lurked on his own lands, and Gardiner kept a firm hand upon affairs. The discomfiture of the Howards, who had brought about the Catholic reaction, gave new hope to the Protestants that the wheel of fate was turning in their favour. Anne of Cleves, they began to whisper, had been confined of a ”fair boy”; ”and whose should it be but the King's Majesty's, begotten when she was at Hampton Court?” This rumour, which the King, apparently, was inclined to believe, gave great offence and annoyance to him and his Council, as did the severely repressed but frequent statements that he intended to take back his repudiated wife. It was not irresponsible gossip alone that took this turn, for on the 12th December the amba.s.sador from the Duke of Cleves brought letters to Cranmer at Lambeth from Chancellor Olsiliger, who had negotiated the marriage, commending to him the reconciliation of Henry with Anne. Cranmer, who understood perfectly well that with Gardiner as the King's factotum such a thing was impossible, was frightened out of his wits by such a suggestion, and promptly a.s.sured Henry that he had declined to discuss it without the Sovereign's orders.

But the envoy of Cleves was not lightly shaken off, and at once sought audience of Henry himself to press the cause of ”Madam Anne.” He was a.s.sured that the King's grief at his present troubles would prevent his giving audience; and the Protestant envoy then tackled the Council on the subject. As may be supposed, he met with a rebuff. The lady would be better treated than ever, he was told, but the separation was just and final, and the Duke of Cleves must never again request that his sister should be restored to the position of the King's wife. The envoy begged that the answer might be repeated formally to him, whereupon Gardiner flew into a rage, and said that the King would never take Anne back, whatever happened. The envoy was afraid to retort for fear of evil consequences to Anne, but the Duke of Cleves, who was now in close league with the French, endeavoured to obtain the aid of his new allies to forward his sister's cause in England. Francis, however, saw, like every one else, that war between him and the Emperor was now inevitable, and was anxious not to drive Henry into alliance with Charles against him. Cleves by himself was powerless, and the trend of politics in England under Gardiner, and with Henry in his present mood, was entirely unfavourable to a union with the Lutherans on the Continent; so Anne of Cleves continued her placid and jovial existence as ”the King's good sister,” rather than his wife, whilst the Protestants of England soon found that they had misjudged the situation produced by Katharine Howard's fall. All that the latter really had done was to place Norfolk and the French sympathisers under a cloud, and make Gardiner entirely master of the situation whilst he carried out the King's own policy.

Henry returned to Greenwich for Christmas 1541, and at once began his bargaining to sell his alliance with the Emperor at as high a price as possible. He had already in hand the stoppage of trade with Flanders, which his ministers were still laboriously and stiffly discussing with the Emperor's representatives. Any concession in that respect would have to be paid for. The French, too, were very anxious, according to his showing, for his friends.h.i.+p, and were offering him all manner of tempting matrimonial alliances, and when Henry, on the day after Christmas Day, received Chapuys at Greenwich, he was all smiles, but determined to make the best of his opportunities. The Emperor had just met with a terrible disaster at sea during his operations against Algiers, and had returned to Spain depressed at his losses, and the more ready to make terms with Henry if possible. Chapuys was a hard bargainer, and it was a fair game of brag that ensued between him and Henry. Chapuys began by flattering the King: ”and got him into very high spirits by such words, which the Lord Privy Seal (_i.e._ Fitzwilliam) says are never thrown away upon him,” and then told him that he would give him in strict confidence some important information about French intrigues.

After dinner the ball opened in earnest, Chapuys and Henry being alone and seated, with Fitzwilliam, Russell, and Browne at some distance away. The imperial amba.s.sador began by saying that the King of France had made a determined bid to marry his second son, Orleans, with the Infanta of Portugal. This was a shock to Henry, and he changed colour; for one of his own trump cards was the sham negotiation in which Norfolk had been the tool, to marry the Princess Mary to Orleans. For a time he could only sputter and exclaim; but when he had collected his senses he countered by saying that Francis only wished to get the Infanta into his power, not for marriage, ”but for objects of greater consequence than people imagined.”