History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume III Part 30

[Sidenote: Charles enters France.]

Spreading round him such panics and such expectations, the Emperor entered France almost simultaneously with the departure of Anne of Cleves from her mother's side to the sh.o.r.es of England. Pity that, in the game of diplomacy, statesmen are not compelled to use their own persons for their counters! are not forbidden to cast on others the burden of their own failures!

[Sidenote: He is received with splendid courtesy,]

[Sidenote: And brings in his train an English traitor named Brancetor.]

Francis, in order to show Charles the highest courtesy, despatched the constable Montmorency, with the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, to Bayonne, and offered, if the Emperor distrusted him, that his sons should be detained as pledges for his good faith. Charles would not be outdone in generosity; when he gave his confidence he gave it without reserve; and, without accepting the security, he crossed the frontier, attended only by his personal train, and made his way to the capital, with the two princes at his side, through a succession of magnificent entertainments. On the 1st of January he entered Paris, where he was to remain for a week; and Henry, at once taking the initiative, made an opportunity to force him, if possible, to a declaration of his intentions. Attached to the Imperial household was a Welshman named Brancetor, uncle of "young Rice," who had been executed for a conspiracy against Henry's life in 1531. This man, having been originally obliged to leave England for debt, had contrived, while on the Continent, by a.s.siduity of treason, to a.s.sume the more interesting character of a political refugee. He had attached himself to Pole and to Pole's fortunes; he had exerted himself industriously in Spain in persuading English subjects to violate their allegiance; and in the parliament of the previous spring he had been rewarded by the distinction of a place in the list of attainted traitors.

[Sidenote: Brancetor is taken by the French police, in compliance with a demand of Sir Thomas Wyatt.]

a.n.a.logous occupations had brought him to Paris; and, in conformity with treaties, Henry instructed Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was then in England, to repair to the French court, and require his extradition. Wyatt imprudently affected to consider that the affair belonged rather to the police than to the government, and applied to the constable for Brancetor's arrest. Montmorency was unaware of the man's connexion with the Emperor. Wyatt informed him merely that an English subject who had robbed his master, and had afterwards conspired against the king, was in Paris, and requested his apprehension. He had been watched to his lodgings by a spy; and the provost-marshal was placed without difficulty at Wyatt's disposal, and was directed to attend him.

[Sidenote: Brancetor appeals to the Emperor.]

The police surrounded the house where Brancetor was to be found. It was night. The English minister entered, and found his man writing at a table. "I told him," Wyatt reported in his account of the story, "that, since he would not come to visit me, I was come to seek him. His colour changed as soon as he heard my voice; and with that came in the provost, and set hand on him. I reached to the letters that he was writing, but he caught them afore me, and flung them backwards into the fire. I overthrew him, and cracked them out; but the provost got them."

Brancetor upon this declared himself the Emperor's servant. He made no attempt to escape, but charged the officer, "that his writings and himself should be delivered into the Emperor's hands." He took a number of papers from his pocket, which he placed in the provost's charge; and the latter not daring to act further in such a matter without further instructions, left a guard in the room with Wyatt and the prisoner, and went to make a report to the chancellor. "In the mean time," says Wyatt, "I used all the soberness I could with Brancetor, advising him to submit himself to your Majesty; but he made the Emperor his master, and seemed to regard nothing else. Once he told me he had heard me oft times say that kings have long hands; but G.o.d, quoth he, hath longer. I asked him what length he thought that would make when G.o.d's and kings' hands were joined together; but he a.s.sured himself of the Emperor." Presently the provost returned, and said that Brancetor was to remain in his charge till the morning, when Wyatt would hear further. Nothing more could be done with the provost; and after breakfast Wyatt had an interview with Cardinal Granvelle and the chancellor. The treaties were plain; a clause stated in the clearest language that neither France, nor Spain, nor England should give shelter to each other's traitors; but such a case as Brancetor's had as clearly not been antic.i.p.ated when they were drawn; and the matter was referred to the Emperor.

[Sidenote: Charles grants an audience to Wyatt.]

[Sidenote: He will defend his followers, English or Spanish, treaty or no treaty.]

Charles made no difficulty in granting an audience, which he seemed rather to court. He was extremely angry. The man had been in his service, he said, for years; and it was ill done to arrest a member of his household without paying him even the courtesy of a first application on the subject. The English government could scarcely be serious in expecting that he would sacrifice an old attendant in any such manner. Wyatt answered st.u.r.dily that Brancetor was his master's subject. There was clear proof, he could vouch for it on his own knowledge, that the man committed treason in Spain; and he again insisted on the treaties. The Emperor cared nothing for treaties. Treaty or no treaty, a servant of his own should pa.s.s free; "and if he was in the Tower of London," he said, "he would never consent so to charge his honour and conscience." Brancetor had come to Paris under his protection; and the French government would never do him the dishonour of permitting the seizure of one of his personal train.

[Sidenote: Wyatt complains of the treatment of English subjects by the Inquisition.]

He was so displeased, and there was so much truth in what he said, that Wyatt durst not press him further; but opened ground again with a complaint which he had been instructed also to make, of the ill usage of Englishmen in Spain by the Inquisition. Charles again flashed up with imperious vehemence. "In a loud voice," he replied, "that the authority of the Inquisition depended not upon him. It had been established in his realm and countries for good consideration, and such as he would not break--no, not for his grandame."

It was unreasonable, Wyatt replied, to punish men merely for their want of allegiance to Rome. They were no heretics, sacramentaries, Anabaptists. They held the Catholic faith as truly as any man.

[Sidenote: Charles refuses t o interfere.]

"The king is of one opinion," Charles replied, "and I am of another. If your merchants come with novelties, I can not let the Inquisition. This is a thing that toucheth our faith."

"What," Wyatt said, "the primacy of the Bishop of Rome!"

"Yea, marry," the Emperor answered, "shall we now come to dispute of _tibi dabo claves_. I would not alter my Inquisition. No; if I thought they would be negligent in their office, I would put them out, and put others in their rooms."

All this was uttered with extraordinary pa.s.sion and violence. Charles had wholly lost his self-command. Wyatt went on to say that the Spanish preached slanders against England, and against the king especially, in their pulpits.

"As to that," said the Emperor, "preachers will speak against myself whenever there is cause. That cannot be let. Kings be not kings of tongues; and if men give cause to be spoken of, they will be spoken of."

[Sidenote: The French court betrays confidence.]

He promised at last, with rather more calmness, to inquire into the treatment of the merchants, if proper particulars were supplied to him.[538] If alarm was really felt in the English court at the Emperor's presence in Paris, Wyatt's report of this interview was not rea.s.suring.

Still less satisfactory was an intimation, which was not long in reaching England, that Francis, or one of his ministers, had betrayed to Charles a private article in the treaty of Calais, in 1532. Antic.i.p.ating at this time a war with Spain, Henry had suggested, and Francis had acquiesced in a proposal, should Charles attack them, for a part.i.tion of the Flemish provinces. The opportunity of this visit was chosen by the French to give an evidence of unmistakeable goodwill in revealing an exasperating secret.

Keeping these transactions so ominous of evil before our minds, let us now return to the events which were simultaneously taking place in England.

[Sidenote: December 11. Anne of Cleves arrives at Calais,]

[Sidenote: Where she remains weather-bound for a fortnight,]

[Sidenote: And learns to play at cards.]

On the 11th of December the Lady Anne of Cleves was conducted, under a German escort, to Calais, where Lord Southampton and four hundred English n.o.blemen and gentlemen were waiting to receive her, and conduct her to her future country. The "Lion" and the "Sweepstake" were in the harbour--the s.h.i.+ps which two years before had fought the Flemings in the Downs. As she rode into the town the vessels' yards were manned, the rigging was decorated with flags, and a salute of a hundred and fifty guns was fired in her honour. By her expectant subjects she was splendidly welcomed; but the weather was wild; fifteen days elapsed before she could cross with ease and expedition; and meanwhile she was left to the entertainment of the lords. Southampton, in despair at her absence of accomplishments, taught her, as a last resource, to play at cards. Meantime, he wrote to advertise the king of her arrival, and thinking, as he afterwards said, that he must make the best of a matter which it had become too late to remedy, he repeated the praises which had been uttered so loudly by others of the lady's appearance. He trusted that, "after all the debating, the success would be to the consolation of his Majesty, and the weal of his subjects and realm."[539]

[Sidenote: Dec. 27. She lands in England.]

[Sidenote: Dec 29. Monday. She is received by Cranmer at Canterbury.]

[Sidenote: Wednesday Dec. 31. The king comes to meet her at Rochester.]

At length, on Sat.u.r.day, December the 27th, as the winter twilight was closing into night, the intended Queen of England set her foot upon the sh.o.r.e, under the walls of Deal Castle. The cannon freshly mounted, flashed their welcome through the darkness; the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk had waited in the fortress for her landing, and the same night conducted her to Dover. Here she rested during Sunday. The next morning she went on, in a storm, to Canterbury; and on Barham Down stood Cranmer, with five other bishops, in the wind and the rain, to welcome, as they fondly hoped, the enchantress who would break the spell of the Six Articles. She was entertained for the evening at Saint Augustine's.

Tuesday she was at Sittingbourne. On New-Year's Eve she reached Rochester, to which the king was already hastening for the first sight of the lady, the fame of whose charms had been sounded in his ears so loudly. He came down in private, attended only by Sir Anthony Brown, the master of the horse. The interview, agitating under all circ.u.mstances, would be made additionally awkward from the fact that neither the king nor his bride could understand each other's language. He had brought with him, therefore, "a little present," a graceful gift of some value, to soften the embarra.s.sment and conciliate at first sight the lovely being into whose presence he was to be introduced. The visit was meant for a surprise; the king's appearance at her lodgings was the first intimation of his intention; and the master of the horse was sent in to announce his arrival and request permission for his Highness to present himself.

[Sidenote: Sensations of the master of the horse on his first interview.]

[Sidenote: The king is "quite discouraged and amazed."]

[Sidenote: He retreats hastily to Greenwich,]

[Sidenote: And laments the fate of princes.]

Sir Anthony, aware of the nature of Henry's expectations, entered the room where Anne was sitting. He described his sensations on the unlooked-for spectacle which awaited him in moderate language, when he said, "that he was never more dismayed in his life, lamenting in his heart to see the lady so unlike that she was reported."[540] The graces of Anne of Cleves were moral only, not intellectual, and not personal.

She was simple, quiet, modest, sensible, and conscientious; but her beauty existed only in the imagination of the painter. Her presence was ladylike; but her complexion was thick and dark: her features were coa.r.s.e; her figure large, loose, and corpulent. The required permission was given. The king entered. His heart sank; his presence of mind forsook him; he was "suddenly quite discouraged and amazed" at the prospect which was opened before him. He forgot his present; he almost forgot his courtesy. He did not stay in the room "to speak twenty words." He would not even stay in Rochester. "Very sad and pensive,"

says Brown, he entered his barge and hurried back to Greenwich, anxious only to escape, while escape was possible, from the unwelcome neighbourhood. Unwilling to marry at all, he had yielded only to the pressure of a general desire. He had been deceived by untrue representations, and had permitted a foreign princess to be brought into the realm; and now, as fastidious in his tastes as he was often little scrupulous in his expression of them, he found himself on the edge of a connexion the very thought of which was revolting.[541] It was a cruel fortune which imposed on Henry VIII., in addition to his other burdens, the labour of finding heirs to strengthen the succession. He "lamented the fate of princes to be in matters of marriage of far worse sort than the condition of poor men.'

"Princes take," he said, "as is brought them by others, and poor men be commonly at their own choice."[542]

[Sidenote: He complains of his disappointment to Cromwell.]

Cromwell, who knew better than others knew the true nature of the king's adventure, was waiting nervously at Greenwich for the result of the experiment. He presented himself on the king's appearance, and asked him "how he liked the Lady Anne." The abrupt answer confirmed his fears.

"Nothing so well as she was spoken of," the king said. "If I had known as much before as I know now, she should never have come into the realm." "But what remedy?" he added, in despondency.[543] The German alliance was already shaking at its base: the court was agitated and alarmed; the king was miserable. Cromwell, to whom the blame was mainly due, endeavoured for a moment to shrink from his responsibility, and accused Southampton of having encouraged false hopes in his letters from Calais. Southampton answered fairly that the fault did not rest with him. He had been sent to bring the queen into England, and it was not his place to "dispraise her appearance." "The matter being so far gone,"

he had supposed his duty was to make the best of it.[544]

[Sidenote: January 2. Friday.]

[Sidenote: Sat.u.r.day, January 3. Arrival of the Lady Anne at the palace.]

[Sidenote: Henry endeavours to extricate himself,]

[Sidenote: Sunday. January 4.]

[Sidenote: And requires an explanation of the pre-contract]

Among these recriminations pa.s.sed the night of Friday, while Charles V.

was just commencing his triumphal progress through France. The day following, the innocent occasion of the confusion came on to Greenwich.

The marriage had been arranged for the Sunday after. The prospects were altogether dark, and closer inspection confirmed the worst apprehensions. The ladies of the court were no less shocked than their husbands. The unfortunate princess was not only unsightly, but she had "displeasant airs" about her; and Lady Brown imparted to Sir Anthony "how she saw in the queen such fas.h.i.+ons, and manner of bringing up so gross, that she thought the king would never love her." Henry met her on the stairs when her barge arrived. He conducted her to her apartments, and on the way Cromwell saw her with his own eyes. The sovereign and the minister then retired together, and the just displeasure became visible.