The New World (Complete Edition). Winston Churchill
had sailed down in his private barge, in disguise, bearing a fine sable fur among the presents. On New Year’s Day he hurried to visit her. But on seeing her he was astonished and abashed. Embraces, presents, compliments, all carefully arranged on the voyage, were forgotten. He mumbled a few words and returned to the barge, where he remained silent for many minutes. At last he said very sadly and pensively, “I see nothing in this woman as men report of her, and I marvel that wise men should have made such report as they have done.” “Say what they will,” he told Cromwell on his return, “she is nothing fair. The personage is well and comely, but nothing else.... If I had known before as much as I know now she would not have come within this realm.” Privately he dubbed her “the Flanders Mare”.
But the threat from abroad compelled the King to fulfil his contract. “You had me pushed into a tight corner,” he told the French Ambassador afterwards, “but, thank God, I am still alive, and not so little a King as I was thought.” Since he now knew as much about the Canon Law on marriage as anyone in Europe, he turned himself into the perfect legal example of a man whose marriage might be annulled. The marriage was never consummated. He told his intimate counsellors that he had gone through the form of it from political necessity, against his true desire, and without inward consent, for fear of making a ruffle in the world and driving Anne’s brother the Duke into the hands of the Emperor and the King of France. There was a pre-contract, not sufficiently cleared, in that she had been promised to the son of the Duke of Lorraine and not released. In fact Henry was merely waiting, watching the European situation, until it was safe to act.
Norfolk and Gardiner now saw their chance to break Cromwell, as Wolsey had been broken, with the help of a new lady. Yet another of Norfolk’s nieces, Catherine Howard, was presented to Henry at Gardiner’s house, and captured his affections at first sight. The Norfolk faction soon felt strong enough to challenge Cromwell’s power. In June 1540 the King was persuaded to get rid of Cromwell and Anne together. Cromwell was condemned under a Bill of Attainder charging him principally with heresy and “broadcasting” erroneous books and implicitly with treason. Anne agreed to have her marriage annulled, and Convocation pronounced it invalid. She lived on in England, pensioned and in retirement, for another seventeen years. A few days after Cromwell was executed on July 28 Henry was privately married to his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Catherine, about twenty-two, with auburn hair and hazel eyes, was the prettiest of Henry’s wives. His Majesty’s spirits revived, his health returned, and he went down to Windsor to reduce weight. “The King”, reported the French Ambassador in December, “has taken a new rule of living, to rise between five and six, hear Mass at seven, and then ride till dinner-time, which is at ten in the morning. He says that he feels much better in the country than when he lived all winter in his houses at the gates of London.”
But wild, tempestuous Catherine was not long content with a husband nearly thirty years older than herself. Her reckless love for her cousin, Thomas Culpeper, was discovered, and she was executed in the Tower in February 1542 on the same spot as Anne Boleyn. The night before the execution she asked for the block so that she could practise laying her head upon it, and as she mounted the scaffold said, “I die a Queen, but would rather die the wife of Culpeper. God have mercy on my soul. Good people, I beg you to pray for me.” Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, was a serious little widow from the Lake District, thirty one years of age, learned, and interested in theological questions, who had had two husbands before the King. She married Henry at Hampton Court on July 12, 1543, and until his death three years later made him an admirable wife, nursing his ulcerated leg, which grew steadily worse and in the end killed him. She contrived to reconcile Henry with the future Queen Elizabeth; both Mary and Elizabeth grew fond of her, and she had the fortune to outlive her husband.
The brilliant young Renaissance prince had grown old and wrathful. The pain from his leg made Henry ill-tempered; he suffered fools and those who crossed him with equal lack of patience. Suspicion dominated his mind and ruthlessness marked his actions. At the time of his marriage with Catherine Parr he was engaged in preparing the last of his wars. The roots of the conflict lay in Scotland. Hostility between the two peoples still smouldered, ever and again flickering into flame along the wild Border. Reviving the obsolete claim to suzerainty, Henry denounced the Scots as rebels, and pressed them to relinquish their alliance with France. The Scots successfully defeated an English raid at Halidon Rig. Then in the autumn of 1542 an expedition under Norfolk had to turn back at Kelso, principally through the failure of the commissariat, which, besides its other shortcomings, left the English army without its beer, and the Scots proceeded to carry the war into the enemy’s country. Their decision proved disastrous. Badly led and imperfectly organised, they lost more than half their army of ten thousand men in Solway Moss and were utterly routed. The news of this second Flodden killed James V, who died leaving the kingdom to an infant of one week, Mary, the famous Queen of Scots.
At once the child became the focus of the struggle for Scotland. Henry claimed her for the bride of his own son and heir. But the Scots Queen-Mother was a French princess, Mary of Guise. The pro-French Catholic party, led by Cardinal Beaton, resisted, repudiated Henry’s terms, and began negotiations for marrying Mary to a French prince. Such a marriage could never be accepted by England. The Imperial Ambassador, who sought Henry’s aid in the Emperor’s struggle with France, found himself eagerly welcomed at Court. Once again England and the Empire made common cause against the French, and in May 1543 a secret treaty was ratified between Charles V and Henry. Throughout the year, and well into the spring of 1544, the preparations continued. While Scotland was left to Edward Seymour, brother of Queen Jane, and now Earl of Hertford, the King himself was to cross the Channel and lead an army against Francis in co-operation with an Imperial force from the north-east. The plan was excellent, but the execution failed. Henry and Charles distrusted each other; each suspected the other of seeking a separate peace. Wary of being drawn too deep into the Emperor’s plans, Henry sat down to besiege Boulogne. The town fell on September 14, and Henry was able to congratulate himself on at least one tangible result from his campaign. Five days later the Emperor made his peace with Francis, and refused to listen to Henry’s complaints and exhortations. Meanwhile the English in Scotland, after burning Edinburgh and laying waste much country, ceased to make headway, and in February 1545 were defeated at Ancrum Moor. Henry’s position was extremely grave. Without a single ally, the nation faced the possibility of invasion from both France and Scotland. The crisis called for unexampled sacrifices from the English people; never had they been called upon to pay so many loans, subsidies, and benevolences. To set an example Henry melted down his own plate and mortgaged his estates. At Portsmouth he prepared for the threatened invasion in person. A French fleet penetrated the Solent and landed troops in the Isle of Wight; but they were soon driven off, and the crisis gradually passed. Next year a peace treaty was signed, which left Boulogne in English hands for eight years, at the end of which time France was to buy it back at a heavy price. Scotland was not included in the settlement. The war in the North smouldered on, bursting into flame for a time at the assassination of Cardinal Beaton, but yielding no definite results. Henry completely failed in Scotland. He would make no generous settlement with his neighbours, yet he lacked the force to coerce them. For the next fifty years they were to tease and trouble the minds of his successors.
In 1546 Henry was as yet only fifty-five. In the autumn he made his usual progress through Surrey and Berkshire to Windsor, and early in November he came up to London. He was never to leave his capital alive again. In these last few months one question dominated all minds: the heir to the kingdom was known, a child of nine, but who would be the power behind the throne? Norfolk or Hertford? The party of reaction or the party of reform? A sudden and unexpected answer was given. On December 12, 1546, Norfolk and his son Surrey, the poet, were arrested for treason and sent to the Tower. Surrey’s foolish conduct had made trouble inevitable. He talked wildly of the time when the King should be dead, and, inconveniently remembering his descent from Edward I, he had quartered the royal arms with his own, despite the heralds’ prohibitions. The King remembered that years before Norfolk had been put forward as a possible heir to the throne, and Surrey had been suggested as a husband for Princess Mary. His suspicions aroused, he acted swiftly; in mid January Surrey was executed.
Parliament assembled to pass a Bill of Attainder against Norfolk. On Thursday the 27th the royal assent was given and Norfolk was condemned to death. But that same evening the King himself