Decades later in Wolf Hall, when looking for a pretext on which to annul the king’s first marriage, Cromwell notes that the language used in the bull was carefully chosen to cover either eventuality, and that the answer to his problem was more likely to be found in the Spanish documents relating to the marriage, ‘not squabbling in a court of law over a shred of skin and a splash of blood on a linen sheet’.
Cromwell first hears of Henry’s marital doubts while sitting in Wolsey’s chambers; it is 1527. Wolsey ponders how he might find Henry a son to rule after him. Cromwell replies ‘If you cannot find him a son ... you must find him a piece of scripture. To ease his mind.’ They reject Deuteronomy, which advises that a man should marry the wife of a dead brother, on the basis that the king ‘doesn’t like Deuteronomy’. Instead, Henry thinks he might appeal to Pope Clement VII to release him from ‘sin’ by ending the marriage, as popes had done for other European royalty, and had selected the pertinent passage in Leviticus 20:21, which forbids a man to marry his brother’s widow or else they would be childless. Wolsey explains that the king interprets ‘childless’ as having no sons.
THE RIVALS AND HENRY’S ‘GREAT MATTER’
Despite almost 20 years of marriage, Henry was determined to be rid of Katherine. When she finally was apprised of the situation, of course she was outraged and suspected that Wolsey was behind the plot; historically Wolsey and Katherine had a slightly tense relationship. Queen Katherine had been brought up in a household where her parents were monarchs who governed jointly, her rightful place at least should be sole advisor to the king. She was mistrustful of Wolsey’s desire to be the king’s confidant; and his partiality towards the French, the traditional enemies of the Spanish Empire, made her deeply suspicious.
When Katherine was confronted by Henry and his advisers about the validity of their marriage, without hesitation she assured them that it was valid because she and the ‘sickly’ 15-year-old Arthur had never consummated their union. She was a virgin when she married Henry; there was no sex, no affinity, no impediment. What Katherine hadn’t grasped, perhaps blinded by her faith and love for her husband, was that her virginity wasn’t the point, it was merely a weapon. At first it seemed simple, one pope had allowed the marriage, so another pope could disallow it, or so Wolsey and Henry might have thought, but it soon became very clear that Katherine had a powerful ally, her nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, a monarch that not even the Pope was willing to offend. The Pope would never accede to this request, therefore, it was more prudent and propitious to ask for the case be heard in England where the outcome could be controlled. Pope Clement VII agreed to this and appointed a commission, consisting of Cardinal Wolsey and another legate, Cardinal Campeggio, to hear the case, while the decision of the commission was still to be referred to Rome for confirmation.
Mantel’s Cromwell was there to witness it all. The court is a secret one, and is likely to rule in Henry’s favour, but Wolsey is not confident this will be enough, ‘he does not know ... what the legatine court can do for him, beyond this preparatory step; since Katherine, surely, is bound to appeal to Rome.’ Which she would certainly do. However, before a formal trial could commence, word was received that the troops of Katherine’s nephew, Charles V, had sacked Rome and taken the Pope captive.
Charles may not have given the order, but it was done in his name, and now this young, ambitious ruler held half of Europe as well as the papacy in his hands. On 8 December 1528, Cardinal Campeggio arrived in London, sent by the Pope to stall proceedings. In the interim, Katherine managed to produce Pope Julius II’s original dispensation, which had allowed her to marry Henry, alarming Wolsey. Both Wolsey and Campeggio had hoped Katherine, whose destiny had been the throne of England since she had been betrothed to Arthur since the age of three, would simply flee to a convent, an offer which she refused. Katherine appealed to Rome, to her nephew, and to anyone else who would listen. Formal proceedings finally began on 31 May 1529 in the Legatine Court at Blackfriars, London. On 21 June, Katherine herself was called.
In Wolf Hall Mantel steps away from one of the most famous speeches of the period, in which Katherine knelt at her husband’s feet and pleaded her case:
I have been to you a true, humble and obedient wife, ever comfortable to your will and pleasure, that never said or did any thing to the contrary thereof, being always well pleased and contented with all things wherein you had any delight or dalliance, whether it were in little or much. I never grudged in word or countenance, or showed a visage or spark of discontent. I loved all those whom ye loved, only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, and whether they were my friends or enemies. This twenty years or more I have been your true wife and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them out of this world, which hath been no default in me. And when ye had me at first, I take God to my judge, I was a true maid, without touch of man. And whether it be true or no, I put it to your conscience.
Katherine is as formidable in fiction as she was historically, and there is a sense that the real Cromwell had
