When Anne returned to the Court at Windsor in late February, she found a new face in the King’s personal entourage: Thomas Heneage. Heneage had been the most important member of Wolsey’s Privy Chamber, and, as such, Cavendish’s boss. Now Wolsey, flushed with his success in regaining control of policy, had engineered Heneage’s appointment to a similar position in Henry’s Household. His task was to hold a watching brief on Henry–and on Anne.
Anne quickly found work for idle hands.
‘As the King was going to dinner’, Heneage noted in his first report to Wolsey on 3 March, ‘Mistress Anne spake to me, and said she was afeared your Grace had forgotten her.’ The reason for her anxiety was that Wolsey had sent a messenger to Henry and, in his haste, had omitted to instruct him to pay his compliments also to Anne. Heneage made excuses for his former master. But Anne was not satisfied. She would make sure that Wolsey never forgot her again. And she would use Heneage as the means.
That night at supper, Henry ordered Heneage to take a dish from his table ‘down’ to Anne, who was evidently lodged beneath the King’s private apartments at the foot of the Privy Stairs. Heneage did so and found himself invited to supper with Anne. She immediately turned on the charm. But she also made demands. ‘She wished’, Heneage reported to Wolsey, ‘that she had some of your good meat, as carps, shrimps and other.’ Meanwhile, her mother, Lady Rochford, had already pressed Heneage for ‘a morsel of [Wolsey’s] tunny [tuna-fish]’. Heneage, finding the business fishy in both senses of the word, excused himself for getting involved in it. ‘I beseech your Grace to pardon me’, he wrote, ‘that I am so bold to write unto your Grace hereof: it is the conceit and mind of a woman.’1
But Wolsey understood better. Anne required tribute, and he paid it, sending her a letter and, no doubt, her carps. Anne transmitted her elaborate gratitude, again via Heneage. ‘Mistress Anne’, he informed Wolsey on the 16th, ‘thanketh your Grace for your kind and favourable writing unto her, and sayeth she is much bounden unto your Grace.’2
This charade of mutual compliment, beautifully played and patently insincere, testified to the fact that, after the political ebbs and flows of the winter of 1527–8, Wolsey and Anne were now in need of each other. Wolsey had recovered power on the premise that he had found the key to Henry’s Divorce and remarriage. So he needed to keep Anne on his side by convincing her that he was serving her cause effectively and with enthusiasm. Anne, in turn, had been told by Henry that Wolsey was her best, perhaps her sole, hope of marrying the King. So it was in her interest to sweet-talk Wolsey and encourage him in his efforts (as she did all others who laboured on the Divorce).
A moment’s reflexion, however, shows that the need was not reciprocal. Wolsey needed Anne more than she needed him. Anne–and her marriage–was, after all, the end; Wolsey was only the means. If he failed, he would be discarded, as had nearly happened in late 1527.
But this time, it is clear, Wolsey intended to put up a fight.
Wolsey’s weakness in 1527 had been his lack of reliable intelligence about the King. Treasurer Fitzwilliam had been loyal but did not form part of Henry’s inner circle. And Secretary Knight, who did, had betrayed Wolsey.
Heneage’s appointment to Henry’s Privy Chamber went some way to remedying this deficiency. Even more important was Wolsey’s placement there of Sir John Russell, the ancestor of the Dukes of Bedford. Russell was one of Wolsey’s oldest and most loyal clients: ‘I have’, he later protested to Wolsey, ‘borne my heart and service unto your Grace above all men living, saving only the King.’ Russell’s appointment to the Privy Chamber took place in January 1526 at the latest. But he spent most of the subsequent two years as a sort of military attaché with the Imperial armies in Italy. It had been intended to send him to Italy again in late 1527, this time as Henry’s representative with the French armies of Marshal Lautrec. But the mission was aborted. Wolsey had a more important campaign for him at home: the minister’s own political survival.3
But Wolsey was not the only one who was manoeuvring for advantage around the King. Back in January 1526, with the major Household reforms known as the Eltham Ordinances, Wolsey had at last seemed to get full control of the Privy Chamber. He secured the expulsion of some persistent troublemakers, including the brothers-in-law Sir Nicholas Carew and Sir Francis Bryan. He bought out others. And he even managed to get rid (for a consideration) of Anne’s own brother, George Boleyn, who had been one of the King’s pages.4
In the winter of 1527–8, however, with the temporary eclipse of Wolsey’s power, those whom he had driven out came knocking on the door of the citadel once more. In December, Sir John Wallop, the intimate friend of Sir Thomas Cheyney, one of the few long-serving Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber to have survived all Wolsey’s purges, was appointed to the department. Wallop’s appointment was noted by the French ambassador, who added, with evident surprise, that ‘Bryan is not yet reappointed.’ Instead, Bryan’s brother-in-law Carew beat him to it when Carew was reinstated in the Privy Chamber in January 1528.5
There is no evidence that many of these men had close links with Anne. Indeed some, including Carew, were to be among her most dangerous enemies. But all were profiting from the weakening of Wolsey’s power, which she had brought about. And one or two decided to capitalise on her position more fully.
Most important was Sir Thomas Cheyney, who, as it happens, had much in common with Anne. Like her, he came from an important Kentish family and was ‘well couched in the French tongue’. But he was not related to her, as some have supposed (it was the Cheyneys of Northamptonshire, a different family, who were connected with the Boleyns). Cheyney had no reason to love Wolsey, who had treated him outrageously while he was ambassador to France in 1522. But, with the political skill which enabled him to thrive as ‘a favourite and Privy Councillor to four successive Kings and Queens, in the greatest turn of times England ever beheld’, he had kept his feelings well hidden.
But in March 1528 he seems to have fallen into Wolsey’s deep displeasure. The occasion is unknown, though probably it was connected with his subsequent, long-running quarrel with Wolsey’s client, Sir John Russell, over his determination to secure the wardship of Russell’s wealthy step-daughter, Anne Broughton, whom he later married. Faced with Wolsey’s wrath, Cheyney turned to the only person able to defend him against Wolsey and sought Anne’s protection.
Anne’s reaction is instructive. She did not approach Henry directly on Cheyney’s behalf, which would only have exacerbated matters. Instead, she acted as a peace-maker and used Heneage to try to sort things out directly with Wolsey.
‘As your most bounden bead[prayer]-woman’, Heneage reported, Anne had ‘commanded me to write unto your Grace, humbly desiring the same to be good and gracious lord unto Sir Thomas Cheyney’. ‘She is’, he continued, ‘marvellous sorry that [Cheyney] should be in your Grace’s displeasure.’ As for Cheyney himself, Anne claimed, perhaps implausibly, he was as repentant as could be: ‘Also she sayeth that the same Sir Thomas Cheyney is very sorry in his heart that he hath so displeased your Grace, more sorry than if he had lost all the good he hath.’6
This was to lay it on with a trowel. Nevertheless, Anne’s good intentions towards Wolsey were manifest. And they would remain so, as long–but only as long–as his approach to the Great Matter seemed to bear fruit.
In fact, Wolsey’s strategy received an immediate setback. With the declaration of war on Charles V, in which France joined, Wolsey was aiming to weaken Charles’s grip on his Italian territories in the south by attacking him in the north of his vast empire. But the scheme quickly came adrift since English public opinion was resolutely opposed to the war. There were riots in several counties, including Kent, where Anne’s father was one of those delegated to contain the disturbances. ‘I believe’, the French ambassador himself admitted, ‘[Wolsey] is the only Englishman who wishes a war with Flanders.’ ‘You may be sure’, he added, ‘he is playing a terrible game.’7
The terrible game was quickly up. On 16 March, Henry informed Wolsey privately that he was ‘loath’ to prosecute the war. By early April it was agreed that trade between England and the Low Countries should continue. And, with effect from 15 June, a formal truce was proclaimed with Flanders, though England remained in a state of hostilities with the Emperor’s other territories. The failure of the war was a blow to Wolsey’s prestige. But he quickly recovered since the Flemish campaign had only ever been a side-show to the real theatre of war in Italy.8
Back in December 1527, Gregorio Casale, the permanent English representative at the Papal Court, had spelled out the geo-political realities of the Divorce campaign. ‘If Lautrec [the French commander in Italy] advances,’ he reported on the 22nd, ‘the Pope will do all [Wolsey] wants. But, if not, he will do nothing.’9
Fortunately for Wolsey, Lautrec’s successes continued. In the summer of 1527 he had conquered all Lombardy, apart from its capital, Milan. In the autumn, on Francis I’s direct orders, he left behind the still-undefeated Imperial garrison in Milan and marched south. In the New Year he overran the Romagna and on 9 February he invaded the Kingdom of Naples. His advance turned into a promenade and by the end of April he had reached the suburbs of Naples itself. In the Bay, a Genoese fleet, commanded by a nephew of Andrea Doria, France’s principal Italian ally, blockaded the city and cut off supplies. On 28 April the Spanish fleet tried to break out but the admiral was killed and his ships destroyed. The fall of Naples was imminent.
Lautrec had advanced, and Clement was prepared to do all, or almost all, that Wolsey wanted.10
It was the best possible background to the mission of Foxe and Gardiner. Contrary winds kept them at Dover for four days, and they spent another two in Calais, recovering from the crossing and waiting for the courier Thaddeus to catch up with them with the remainder of their instructions. Diplomatic business then consumed another three days in Paris and they allowed themselves a day off at Lyon to mark the half way stage of their journey. Thereafter, taking full advantage of their youth, they had ridden hard, ‘travelling evermore from before the day till it was within the night’ and, after Lyons, ‘never lying two nights in one place’. They were off the road for about ten days and on it for about thirty. Which gave an average of some thirty-three miles a day.11
It was fast. But was it fast enough for Henry and Anne? Foxe and Gardiner had their doubts. So, anxiously they begged the King to take account of the bad luck and unavoidable delays they had suffered. Then, they trusted, he would see that ‘we have made as diligent passage by post hither, as any courier could, not riding the night’.
They finally arrived at Clement VII’s refuge of Orvieto on 21 March. They were filthy, soaked to the skin and without a change of clothes since, for speed, they had left their baggage behind in Paris. This led to another two days’ delay while clothes were made for them. The alternative, they explained, was to appear in borrowed garments. But that would have been doubly difficult. Most people in this refugee Court seemed to have only one set of clothes and they were cut, moreover, in the Spanish fashion. It would have been curious indeed if the English envoys had appeared before the Pope in the black ‘Spanish cloaks’ that were worn by their bitterest opponents.12
Foxe and Gardiner had their first audience with Clement on the 23rd. They were not impressed. Orvieto, in ancient times an Etruscan stronghold, was known in Latin as Urbs Vetus (the Old City). And the name, they joked bitterly, was only too appropriate, for the city was indeed old ‘in all languages’. So too was everything in it. The Papal palace was old and ruinous, with bare rooms and fallen ceilings. The furnishings were threadbare and worth only a few pounds. The attendants consisted of ‘thirty person, riffraff and other, standing in the chambers for a garnishment’. The Pope was ineffectual and worn-out. And–above all–the Papacy itself was at its nadir. ‘It is a fall from the top of the hill to the lowliest part of the mountain’, they wrote with a sort of poetry of contempt, and the power which had once ruled the world was now plundered and exploited by every petty Italian principality.13
Clearly, they–and especially the forceful Gardiner–expected Clement to be a pushover. They were quickly undeceived.
For all the fallen state of the Papacy and for all the apparent weakness of the man, there was something plastic, even resilient about Giulio de’ Medici, now Pope Clement VII. He seemed to yield quickly, but he just as quickly bounced back. To seek to force a decision from him was thus, as Foxe and Gardiner eventually realised, to try to squeeze rubber into shape or to write in water.
Nevertheless, despite the impossibility of their task, they went to it with a will. Their mission was to get Clement’s agreement to two documents: a new dispensation for Henry to marry Anne, and a new commission to Wolsey to settle the Great Matter once and for all. The former Clement agreed to without difficulty. But the latter he absolutely refused, at least in the form of the decretal commission which Wolsey so desperately wanted.
In session after session, Gardiner tried to get him to change his mind. They met in the Pope’s little Privy Chamber or in his study, which also doubled as his bedroom. Clement placed himself with his back to the wall, while the English envoys and two or three cardinal-councillors sat on stools in a semi-circle around him. Law books were brought in and experts were consulted. Occasionally Clement, who was well-informed about England as its former Cardinal-Protector, diverted to discuss entertaining tit-bits of English news and gossip. Otherwise, they ground on remorselessly, traversing and retraversing the same territory until far into the night and then resuming, bleary-eyed, the following morning.
On 31 March, Foxe and Gardiner reported the stalemate in letters sent home by the trusty Barlow, who was standing by. Then they returned to the attack. This time Gardiner’s language became more violent and his threats more open. To no avail. Sometimes Clement parried with tears; sometimes with a flash of humour. God, he wryly observed, had put all the laws in his bosom but had, unaccountably, forgotten to give him the key!
Easter was approaching and the English were desperate to get something. Finally, a compromise was brokered. The Pope would grant only a general commission. But the English would add some key clauses taken from the decretal commission. There would be provision, in case of necessity, for one judge to act without his fellow. Appeals would be excluded after a fashion. And Rome would give its imprimatur to the proceedings by sending Cardinal Campeggio to England as Papal legate and Wolsey’s fellow judge. Earlier drafts were produced and fought over line by line. Agreement was reached just before Easter. On Easter Monday, 13 April, both the dispensation and the commission were sealed by the Papal Chancery and, the same day, bearing these precious trophies, Foxe set out on the return journey.
He also carried a letter from Gardiner to Wolsey, in which Gardiner frankly admitted that, ‘by reason of crying, speaking, chafing and writing, [he was] ill distempered’. Clement had worn even Gardiner down.14
Foxe’s speed home disgraced their earlier efforts. He was in Paris by the 26th and at Calais by the 28th. There he had to wait four days for a favourable wind, before setting sail on 2 May. The crossing was uneventful and he arrived at Sandwich that night. He had taken only fifteen days on the road from Rome and had ridden on average over sixty miles a day. It was twice as fast as on the outward journey.
The following day was Sunday, when Wolsey paid his regular weekly visit to Court in term time. Once again, Foxe rode flat out for Greenwich, hoping to arrive before Wolsey left. But an excess of hospitality from town dignitaries en route held him up and he did not arrive till 5 p.m. It was too late: Wolsey’s barge had left two hours previously to take him back to town.
Instead, the King ordered Foxe to go to Anne’s chamber and debrief himself directly to her.15