lovesick preoccupation to the hilt. From the summer of 1527 he shut Katherine out of his consciousness, gave little thought to Mary, and put Wolsey in charge of arranging his divorce. He composed inarticulate love letters to his sweetheart and showered her with gifts, and in the evenings he put on his diamonds and brocades, drank as much wine as he could hold, and danced until daybreak.
Katherine found out about her husband’s plan to divorce her several weeks before he had the courage to tell her himself. She heard aboutWolsey’s secret court of inquiry, and informed the imperial ambassador Mendoza. Before long the entire matter was an open secret.
Toward the end of June Henry came to the queen’s apartments and said simply that he now found they had never been legally married, and that he was taking steps to have the situation rectified by the pope. Katherine wept, and Henry, unnerved, left the room. Even though she had known it was coming, hearing of the divorce from his own lips shattered Katherine’s composure, and left her agonized. The sheer heart-lessness of the blow was what alarmed her most; in her eighteen years as Henry’s wife she had not known him to be so openly, deliberately cruel. He had exposed her to a thousand humiliations, and had lashed out at her in anger, but this blunt, pitiless malevolence was new.
As soon as her panic passed she sent for help. Her courier reached the court of Charles V late in July, carrying a letter which confirmed the startling news of Henry’s plans. The emperor’s response was unambiguous yet cautious. He sat down and wrote a letter to Henry in his own hand, urging him to abandon the divorce as injurious to England’s security and likely to lead to “everlasting feuds and partialities” over the question of the succession. At the same time he sent a message to Katherine emphasizing the enormity of the king’s action, “calculated to astonish the whole world,” and assuring her that he would “do everything in his power on her behalf.” Privately he wrote to Mendoza that the entire issue must be treated as a family matter for the time being; if possible, he must prevent it from becoming an affair of state. Above all, Charles feared that through Henry’s ill-advised whim both Katherine and Mary would be irrevocably dishonored, “a thing in itself so unreasonable that there is no example of it in ancient or modern history.” 4
As the months passed Henry’s sudden, scandalous decision was transformed into an interminable, highly technical legal debate. Embassy after embassy was sent to Rome—first Henry’s chosen negotiator William Knight, then Wolsey’s representatives, bishops Gardiner and Fox, and still later Francis Bryan and the diplomat Peter Vannes. None of these legations moved Pope Clement, who was still attempting to recover from the destruction of his city and the indignities of captivity. Charles released him seven months after his troops seized Rome, and the pope was trying to rebuild his court in exile at Orvieto, but he was no longer capable of acting independently even if he had been a man of strong character, which he was not. He would not offend the emperor by granting the divorce; he feared to alienate Henry by an outright refusal to grant it. In short, he did nothing, and he did it with every semblance of purposeful activity the papal bureaucracy could devise.
After a year the papal legate Cardinal Campeggio came to England, bringing with him authorization to convene a court to examine the case,but Clement had told him to delay a conclusive decision for as long as possible, meanwhile urging Henry to take Katherine back. Soon after Campeggio arrived Katherine threw all Henry’s previous efforts into confusion by producing a second papal bull pronouncing her marriage to Henry valid. The need to discredit this second bull led to further diplomatic convolutions, and ultimately, by the spring of 1529, to a complete stalemate in the
Katherine found out about her husband’s plan to divorce her several weeks before he had the courage to tell her himself. She heard aboutWolsey’s secret court of inquiry, and informed the imperial ambassador Mendoza. Before long the entire matter was an open secret.
Toward the end of June Henry came to the queen’s apartments and said simply that he now found they had never been legally married, and that he was taking steps to have the situation rectified by the pope. Katherine wept, and Henry, unnerved, left the room. Even though she had known it was coming, hearing of the divorce from his own lips shattered Katherine’s composure, and left her agonized. The sheer heart-lessness of the blow was what alarmed her most; in her eighteen years as Henry’s wife she had not known him to be so openly, deliberately cruel. He had exposed her to a thousand humiliations, and had lashed out at her in anger, but this blunt, pitiless malevolence was new.
As soon as her panic passed she sent for help. Her courier reached the court of Charles V late in July, carrying a letter which confirmed the startling news of Henry’s plans. The emperor’s response was unambiguous yet cautious. He sat down and wrote a letter to Henry in his own hand, urging him to abandon the divorce as injurious to England’s security and likely to lead to “everlasting feuds and partialities” over the question of the succession. At the same time he sent a message to Katherine emphasizing the enormity of the king’s action, “calculated to astonish the whole world,” and assuring her that he would “do everything in his power on her behalf.” Privately he wrote to Mendoza that the entire issue must be treated as a family matter for the time being; if possible, he must prevent it from becoming an affair of state. Above all, Charles feared that through Henry’s ill-advised whim both Katherine and Mary would be irrevocably dishonored, “a thing in itself so unreasonable that there is no example of it in ancient or modern history.” 4
As the months passed Henry’s sudden, scandalous decision was transformed into an interminable, highly technical legal debate. Embassy after embassy was sent to Rome—first Henry’s chosen negotiator William Knight, then Wolsey’s representatives, bishops Gardiner and Fox, and still later Francis Bryan and the diplomat Peter Vannes. None of these legations moved Pope Clement, who was still attempting to recover from the destruction of his city and the indignities of captivity. Charles released him seven months after his troops seized Rome, and the pope was trying to rebuild his court in exile at Orvieto, but he was no longer capable of acting independently even if he had been a man of strong character, which he was not. He would not offend the emperor by granting the divorce; he feared to alienate Henry by an outright refusal to grant it. In short, he did nothing, and he did it with every semblance of purposeful activity the papal bureaucracy could devise.
After a year the papal legate Cardinal Campeggio came to England, bringing with him authorization to convene a court to examine the case,but Clement had told him to delay a conclusive decision for as long as possible, meanwhile urging Henry to take Katherine back. Soon after Campeggio arrived Katherine threw all Henry’s previous efforts into confusion by producing a second papal bull pronouncing her marriage to Henry valid. The need to discredit this second bull led to further diplomatic convolutions, and ultimately, by the spring of 1529, to a complete stalemate in the
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