Henry VIII And His Court

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This etext was produced by Charles Franks, Ralph Zimmermann and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Henry VIII And His Court
A Historical Novel

by Louise Muhlbach

TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN, BY
Rev. H. N. PIERCE, D. D.

CONTENTS.

I. Choosing a Confessor
II. The Queen and her Friend
III. King Henry the Eighth
IV. King by the Wrath of God
V. The Rivals
VI. The Intercession
VII. Henry the Eighth and his Wives
VIII. Father and Daughter
IX. Lendemain
X. The King's Fool
XI. The Ride
XII. The Declaration
XIII. "Le Roi s'ennuit"
XIV. The Queen's Friend
XV. John Heywood
XVI. The Confidant
XVII. Gammer Gurton's Needle
XVIII. Lady Jane
XIX. Loyola's General
XX. The Prisoner
XXI. Princess Elizabeth
XXII. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
XXIII. Brother and Sister
XIV. The Queen's Toilet

CHAPTER I.

CHOOSING A CONFESSOR.

It was in the year 1543. King Henry the Eighth of England that day
once more pronounced himself the happiest and most enviable man in
his kingdom, for to-day he was once more a bridegroom, and Catharine
Parr, the youthful widow of Baron Latimer, had the perilous
happiness of being selected as the king's sixth consort.

Merrily chimed the bells of all the steeples of London, announcing
to the people the commencement of that holy ceremony which sacredly
bound Catharine Parr to the king as his sixth wife. The people, ever
fond of novelty and show, crowded through the streets toward the
royal palace to catch a sight of Catharine, when she appeared at her
husband's side upon the balcony, to show herself to the English
people as their queen, and to receive their homage in return.

Surely it was a proud and lofty success for the widow of a petty
baron to become the lawful wife of the King of England, and to wear
upon her brow a royal crown! But yet Catharine Parr's heart was
moved with a strange fear, her cheeks were pale and cold, and before
the altar her closely compressed lips scarcely had the power to
part, and pronounce the binding "I will."

At last the sacred ceremony was completed. The two spiritual
dignitaries, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, and Cranmer, archbishop
of Canterbury, then, in accordance with court etiquette, led the
young bride into her apartments, in order to bless them, and once
more to pray with her, before the worldly festivities should begin.

Catharine, however, pale and agitated, had yet sustained her part in
the various ceremonies of the day with a true queenly bearing and
dignity; and, as now with head proudly erect and firm step, she
walked with a bishop at either side through the splendid apartments,
no one suspected how heavy a burden weighed upon her heart, and what
baleful voices were whispering in her breast.

Followed by her new court, she had traversed with her companions the
state apartments, and now reached the inner rooms. Here, according
to the etiquette of the time, she must dismiss her court, and only
the two bishops and her ladies of honor were permitted to accompany
the queen into the drawing-room. But farther than this chamber even
the bishops themselves might not follow her. The king himself had
written down the order for the day, and he who swerved from this
order in the most insignificant point would have been proclaimed
guilty of high treason, and perhaps have been led out to death.

Catharine, therefore, turned with a languid smile to the two high
ecclesiastics, and requested them to await here her summons. Then
beckoning to her ladies of honor, she withdrew into her boudoir.

The two bishops remained by themselves in the drawing-room. The
circumstance of their being alone seemed to impress them both alike
and unpleasantly; for a dark scowl gathered on the brows of both,
and they withdrew, as if at a concerted signal, to the opposite
sides of the spacious apartment.

A long pause ensued. Nothing was heard save the regular ticking of a
large clock of rare workmanship which stood over the fireplace, and
from the street afar off, the rejoicing of the people, who surged
toward the palace like a roaring sea.

Gardiner had stepped to the window, and was looking up with his
peculiar dark smile at the clouds which, driven by the tempest, were
sweeping across the heavens.

Cranmer stood by the wall on the opposite side, and sunk in sad
thoughts, was contemplating a large portrait of Henry the Eighth,
the masterly production of Holbein. As he gazed on that countenance,
indicative at once of so much dignity and so much ferocity; as he
contemplated those eyes which shone with such gloomy severity, those
lips on which was a smile at once voluptuous and fierce, there came
over him a feeling of deep sympathy with the young woman whom he had
that day devoted to such splendid misery. He reflected that he had,
in like manner, already conducted two wives of the king to the
marriage altar, and had blessed their union. But he reflected, too,
that he had also, afterward, attended both these queens when they
ascended the scaffold.

How easily might this pitiable young wife of the king fall a victim
to the same dark fate! How easily might Catharine Parr, like Anne
Boleyn and Catharine Howard, purchase her short-lived glory with an
ignominious death! At any time an inconsiderate word, a look, a
smile, might be her ruin. For the king's choler and jealousy were
incalculable, and, to his cruelty, no punishment seemed too severe
for those by whom he fancied himself injured.

Such were the thoughts which occupied Bishop Cranmer. They softened
him, and caused the dark wrinkles to disappear from his brow.

He now smiled to himself at the ill-humor which he had felt shortly
before, and upbraided himself for having been so little mindful of
his holy calling, and for having exhibited so little readiness to
meet his enemy in a conciliating spirit.

For Gardiner was his enemy; that Cranmer very well knew. Gardiner
had often enough showed him this by his deeds, as he had also taken
pains by his words to assure him of his friendship.

But even if Gardiner hated him, it did not therefore follow that
Cranmer was obliged to return that hatred; that he should denominate
him his enemy, whom he, in virtue of their mutual high calling, was
bound to honor and love as his brother.

The noble Cranmer was, therefore, ashamed of his momentary ill-
humor. A gentle smile lighted up his peaceful countenance. With an
air at once dignified and friendly, he crossed the room and
approached the Bishop of Winchester.

Lord Gardiner turned toward him with morose looks, and, without
advancing from the embrasure of the window in which he was standing,
waited for Cranmer to advance to him. As he looked into that noble,
smiling countenance, he had a feeling as if he must raise his fist
and dash it into the face of this man, who had the boldness to wish
to be his equal, and to contend with him for fame and honor.

But he reflected in good time that Cranmer was still the king's
favorite, and therefore he must proceed to work against him with
great caution.

So he forced these fierce thoughts back into his heart, and let his
face again assume its wonted grave and impenetrable expression.

Cranmer now stood close before him, and his bright, beaming eye was
fixed upon Gardiner's sullen countenance.

"I come to your highness," said Cranmer, in his gentle, pleasant
voice, "to say to you that I wish with my whole heart the queen may
choose you for her confessor and spiritual director, and to assure
you that, should this be the case, there will not be in my soul, on
that account, the least rancor, or the slightest dissatisfaction. I
shall fully comprehend it, if her majesty chooses the distinguished
and eminent Bishop of Winchester as her confessor, and the esteem
and admiration which I entertain for you can only be enhanced
thereby. In confirmation of this, permit me to offer you my hand."
He presented his hand to Gardiner, who, however, took it reluctantly
and but for a moment.

"Your highness is very noble, and at the same time a very subtle
diplomatist, for you only wish in an adroit and ingenious way to
give me to understand how I am to act should the queen choose you
for her spiritual director. But that she will do so, you know as
well as I. It is, therefore, for me only a humiliation which
etiquette imposes when she compels me to stand here and wait to see
whether I shall be chosen, or contemptuously thrust aside."

"Why will you look at matters in so unfriendly a light?" said
Cranmer, gently. "Wherefore will you consider it a mark of contempt,
if you are not chosen to an office to which, indeed, neither merit
nor worthiness can call us, but only the personal confidence of a
young woman?"

"Oh! you admit that I shall not be chosen?" cried Gardiner, with a
malicious smile.

"I have already told you that I am wholly uninformed as to the
queen's wish, and I think it is known that the Bishop of Canterbury
is wont to speak the truth."

"Certainly that is known, but it is known also that Catharine Parr
was a warm admirer of the Bishop of Canterbury; and now that she has
gained her end and become queen, she will make it her duty to show
her gratitude to him."

"You would by that insinuate that I have made her queen. But I
assure your highness, that here also, as in so many other matters
which relate to myself, you are falsely informed."

"Possibly!" said Gardiner, coldly. "At any rate, it is certain that
the young queen is an ardent advocate of the abominable new doctrine
which, like the plague, has spread itself from Germany over all
Europe and scattered mischief and ruin through all Christendom. Yes,
Catharine Parr, the present queen, leans to that heretic against
whom the Holy Father at Rome has hurled his crushing anathema. She
is an adherent of the Reformation."

"You forget," said Cranmer, with an arch smile, "that this anathema
was hurled against the head of our king also, and that it has shown
itself equally ineffectual against Henry the Eighth as against
Luther. Besides, I might remind you that we no longer call the Pope
of Rome, 'Holy Father,' and that you yourself have recognized the
king as the head of our church."

Gardiner turned away his face in order to conceal the vexation and
rage which distorted his features. He felt that he had gone too far,
that he had betrayed too much of the secret thoughts of his soul.
But he could not always control his violent and passionate nature;
and however much a man of the world and diplomatist he might be,
still there were moments when the fanatical priest got the better of
the man of the world, and the diplomat was forced to give way to the
minister of the church.

Cranmer pitied Gardiner's confusion, and, following the native
goodness of his heart, he said pleasantly: "Let us not strive here
about dogmas, nor attempt to determine whether Luther or the pope is
most in the wrong. We stand here in the chamber of the young queen.
Let us, therefore, occupy ourselves a little with the destiny of
this young woman whom God has chosen for so brilliant a lot."

"Brilliant?" said Gardiner, shrugging his shoulders. "Let us first
wait for the termination of her career, and then decide whether it
has been brilliant. Many a queen before this has fancied that she
was resting on a couch of myrtles and roses, and has suddenly become
conscious that she was lying on a red-hot gridiron, which consumed
her."

"It is true," murmured Cranmer, with a slight shudder, "it is a
dangerous lot to be the king's consort. But just on that account let
us not make the perils of her position still greater, by adding to
them our own enmity and hate. Just on that account I beg you (and on
my part I pledge you my word for it) that, let the choice of the
queen be as it may, there may be no feeling of anger, and no desire
for revenge in consequence. My God, the poor women are such odd
beings, so unaccountable in their wishes and in their inclinations!"

"Ah! it seems you know the women very intimately," cried Gardiner,
with a malicious laugh. "Verily, were you not Archbishop of
Canterbury, and had not the king prohibited the marriage of
ecclesiastics as a very grave crime, one might suppose that you had
a wife yourself, and had gained from her a thorough knowledge of
female character."

Cranmer, somewhat embarrassed, turned away, and seemed to evade
Gardiner's piercing look. "We are not speaking of myself," said he
at length, "but of the young queen, and I entreat for her your good
wishes. I have seen her to-day almost for the first time, and have
never spoken with her, but her countenance has touchingly impressed
me, and it appeared to me, her looks besought us to remain at her
side, ready to help her on this difficult pathway, which five wives
have already trod before her, and in which they found only misery
and tears, disgrace, and blood."

"Let Catharine beware then that she does not forsake the right way,
as her five predecessors have done!" exclaimed Gardiner. "May she be
prudent and cautious, and may she be enlightened by God, that she
may hold the true faith, and have true wisdom, and not allow herself
to be seduced into the crooked path of the godless and heretical,
but remain faithful and steadfast with those of the true faith!"

"Who can say who are of the true faith?" murmured Cranmer, sadly.
"There are so many paths leading to heaven, who knows which is the
right one?"

"That which we tread!" cried Gardiner, with all the overweening
pride of a minister of the church. "Woe to the queen should she take
any other road! Woe to her if she lends her ear to the false
doctrines which come ringing over here from Germany and Switzerland,
and in the worldly prudence of her heart imagines that she can rest
secure! I will he her most faithful and zealous servant, if she is
with me; I will be her most implacable enemy if she is against me."

"And will you call it being against you, if the queen does not
choose you for her confessor?"

"Will you ask me to call it, being for me?"

"Now God grant that she may choose you!" exclaimed Cranmer,
fervently, as he clasped his hands and raised his eyes to heaven.
"Poor, unfortunate queen! The first proof of thy husband's love may
be thy first misfortune! Why gave he thee the liberty of choosing
thine own spiritual director? Why did he not choose for thee?"

And Cranmer dropped his head upon his breast, and sighed deeply.

At this instant the door of the royal chamber opened, and Lady Jane,
daughter of Earl Douglas, and first maid of honor to the queen, made
her appearance on the threshold. Both bishops regarded her in
breathless silence. It was a serious, a solemn moment, the deep
importance of which was very well comprehended by all three.

"Her majesty the queen," said Lady Jane, in an agitated voice, "her
majesty requests the presence of Lord Cranmer, archbishop of
Canterbury, in her cabinet, in order that she may perform her
devotions with him."

"Poor queen!" murmured Cranmer, as he crossed the room to go to
Catharine--"poor queen! she has just made an implacable enemy."

Lady Jane waited till Cranmer had disappeared through the door, then
hastened with eager steps to the bishop of Winchester, and dropping
on her knee, humbly said, "Grace, your highness, grace! My words
were in vain, and were not able to shake her resolution."

Gardiner raised up the kneeling maiden, and forced a smile. "It is
well," said he, "I doubt not of your zeal. You are a true handmaid
of the church, and she will love and reward you for it as a mother!
It is then decided. The queen is--"

"Is a heretic," whispered Lady Jane. "Woe to her!"

"And will you be true, and will you faithfully adhere to us?"

"True, in every thought of my being, and every drop of my heart's
blood."

"So shall we overcome Catharine Parr, as we overcame Catharine
Howard. To the block with the heretic! We found means of bringing
Catharine Howard to the scaffold; you, Lady Jane, must find the
means of leading Catharine Parr the same way."

"I will find them," said Lady Jane, quietly. "She loves and trusts
me. I will betray her friendship in order to remain true to my
religion."

"Catharine Parr then is lost," said Gardiner, aloud.

"Yes, she is lost," responded Earl Douglas, who had just entered,
and caught the last words of the bishop. "Yes, she is lost, for we
are her inexorable and ever-vigilant enemies. But I deem it not
altogether prudent to utter words like these in the queen's drawing-
room. Let us therefore choose a more favorable hour. Besides, your
highness, you must betake yourself to the grand reception-hall,
where the whole court is already assembled, and now only awaits the
king to go in formal procession for the young queen, and conduct her
to the balcony. Let us go, then."

Gardiner nodded in silence, and betook himself to the reception-
hall.

Earl Douglas with his daughter followed him. "Catharine Parr is
lost," whispered he in Lady Jane's ear. "Catharine Parr is lost, and
you shall be the king's seventh wife."

Whilst this was passing in the drawing-room, the young queen was on
her knees before Cranmer, and with him sending up to God fervent
prayers for prosperity and peace. Tears filled her eyes, and her
heart trembled as if before some approaching calamity.

CHAPTER II

THE QUEEN AND HER FRIEND

At last this long day of ceremonies and festivities drew near its
close, and Catharine might soon hope to be, for the time, relieved
from this endless presenting and smiling, from this ever-renewed
homage.

At her husband's side she had shown herself on the balcony to
receive the greetings of the people, and to bow her thanks. Then in
the spacious audience-chamber her newly appointed court had passed
before her in formal procession, and she had exchanged a few
meaningless, friendly words with each of these lords and ladies.
Afterward she had, at her husband's side, given audience to the
deputations from the city and from Parliament. But it was only with
a secret shudder that she had received from their lips the same
congratulations and praises with which the authorities had already
greeted five other wives of the king.

Still she had been able to smile and seem happy, for she well knew
that the king's eye was never off of her, and that all these lords
and ladies who now met her with such deference, and with homage
apparently so sincere, were yet, in truth, all her bitter enemies.
For by her marriage she had destroyed so many hopes, she had pushed
aside so many who believed themselves better fitted to assume the
lofty position of queen! She knew that these victims of
disappointment would never forgive her this; that she, who was but
yesterday their equal, had to-day soared above them as queen and
mistress; she knew that all these were watching with spying eyes her
every word and action, in order, it might be, to forge therefrom an
accusation or a death-warrant.

But nevertheless she smiled! She smiled, though she felt that the
choler of the king, so easily kindled and so cruelly vindictive,
ever swung over her head like the sword of Damocles.

She smiled, so that this sword might not fall upon her.

At length all these presentations, this homage and rejoicing were
well over, and they came to the more agreeable and satisfactory part
of the feast.

They went to dinner. That was Catharine's first moment of respite,
of rest. For when Henry the Eighth seated himself at table, he was
no longer the haughty monarch and the jealous husband, but merely
the proficient artiste and the impassioned gourmand; and whether the
pastry was well seasoned, and the pheasant of good flavor, was for
him then a far more important question than any concerning the weal
of his people, and the prosperity of his kingdom.

But after dinner came another respite, a new enjoyment, and this
time a more real one, which indeed for a while banished all gloomy
forebodings and melancholy fears from Catharine's heart, and
suffused her countenance with the rosy radiance of cheerfulness and
happy smiles. For King Henry had prepared for his young wife a
peculiar and altogether novel surprise. He had caused to be erected
in the palace of Whitehall a stage, whereon was represented, by the
nobles of the court, a comedy from Plautus. Heretofore there had
been no other theatrical exhibitions than those which the people
performed on the high festivals of the church, the morality and the
mystery plays. King Henry the Eighth was the first who had a stage
erected for worldly amusement likewise, and caused to be represented
on it subjects other than mere dramatized church history. As he
freed the church from its spiritual head, the pope, so he wished to
free the stage from the church, and to behold upon it other more
lively spectacles than the roasting of saints and the massacre of
inspired nuns.

And why, too, represent such mock tragedies on the stage, when the
king was daily performing them in reality? The burning of Christian
martyrs and inspired virgins was, under the reign of the Christian
king Henry, such a usual and every-day occurrence, that it could
afford a piquant entertainment neither to the court nor to himself.

But the representation of a Roman comedy, that, however, was a new
and piquant pleasure, a surprise for the young queen. He had the
"Curculio" played before his wife, and if Catharine indeed could
listen to the licentious and shameless jests of the popular Roman
poet only with bashful blushes, Henry was so much the more delighted
by it, and accompanied the obscenest allusions and the most indecent
jests with his uproarious laughter and loud shouts of applause.

At length this festivity was also over with, and Catharine was now
permitted to retire with her attendants to her private apartments.

With a pleasant smile, she dismissed her cavaliers, and bade her
women and her second maid of honor, Anna Askew, go into her boudoir
and await her call. Then she gave her arm to her friend Lady Jane
Douglas, and with her entered her cabinet.

At last she was alone, at last unwatched. The smile disappeared from
her face, and an expression of deep sadness was stamped upon her
features.

"Jane," said she, "pray thee shut the doors and draw the window
curtains, so that nobody can see me, nobody hear me, no one except
yourself, my friend, the companion of my happy childhood. Oh, my
God, my God, why was I so foolish as to leave my father's quiet,
lonely castle and go out into the world, which is so full of terror
and horror?"

She sighed and groaned deeply; and burying her face in her hands,
she sank upon the ottoman, weeping and trembling.

Lady Jane observed her with a peculiar smile of malicious
satisfaction.

"She is queen and she weeps," said she to herself. "My God, how can
a woman possibly feel unhappy, and she a queen?"

She approached Catharine, and, seating herself on the tabouret at
her feet, she impressed a fervent kiss on the queen's drooping hand.

"Your majesty weeping!" said she, in her most insinuating tone. "My
God, you are then unhappy; and I received with a loud cry of joy the
news of my friend's unexpected good fortune. I thought to meet a
queen, proud, happy, and radiant with joy; and I was anxious and
fearful lest the queen might have ceased to be my friend. Wherefore
I urged my father, as soon as your command reached us, to leave
Dublin and hasten with me hither. Oh, my God! I wished to see you in
your happiness and in your greatness."

Catharine removed her hands from her face, and looked down at her
friend with a sorrowful smile. "Well," said she, "are you not
satisfied with what you have seen? Have I not the whole day
displayed to you the smiling queen, worn a dress embroidered with
gold? did not my neck glitter with diamonds? did not the royal
diadem shine in my hair? and sat not the king by my side? Let that,
then, be sufficient for the present. You have seen the queen all day
long. Allow me now for one brief, happy moment to be again the
feeling, sensitive woman, who can pour into the bosom of her friend
all her complaint and her wretchedness. Ah, Jane, if you knew how I
have longed for this hour, how I have sighed after you as the only
balm for my poor smitten heart, smitten even to death, how I have
implored Heaven for this day, for this one thing--'Give me back my
Jane, so that she can weep with me, so that I may have one being at
my side who understands me, and does not allow herself to be imposed
upon by the wretched splendor of this outward display!'"

"Poor Catharine!" whispered Lady Jane, "poor queen!"

Catharine started and laid her hand, sparkling with brilliants, on
Jane's lips. "Call me not thus!" said she. "Queen! My God, is not
all the fearful past heard again in that word? Queen! Is it not as
much as to say, condemned to the scaffold and a public criminal
trial? Ah, Jane! a deadly tremor runs through my members. I am Henry
the Eighth's sixth queen; I shall also be executed, or, loaded with
disgrace, be repudiated."

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