Wolsey turned to Campeggio and his expression said: You see that we have a hysterical woman with whom to deal.

“Your Grace,” interposed Campeggio, “I would tell you that, if you allow this case to be tried in the light of day, it may well go against you, in which event your good name would suffer grievous damage.”

“I should rejoice if this case were brought into the light of day,” replied Katharine, “for I have no fear of the truth.”

Campeggio’s hope of an easy settlement of this matter was fast evaporating. The King was determined to separate from the Queen; and the Queen, in her way, was as stubborn as the King.

He still did not abandon hope of forcing her into a convent. If he could get her to admit that her marriage with Arthur had been consummated, he believed he could persuade her to go into a convent. He had summed up her character. She was a pious woman and would never lie in the confessional even though, for her daughter’s sake, she might do so outside it.

He said: “Would Your Grace consider confessing to me?”

She did not hesitate for a moment. “I should be happy to do so.”

Campeggio turned to Wolsey who said immediately: “I will take my leave.”

He went back with all haste to the King to tell him what had taken place at the interview; and Campeggio and Katharine went into the Queen’s private chamber that she might confess to him.

When she knelt the Legate from Rome asked the fatal question: “Your Grace was married to Prince Arthur for some six months, from November until April; did you never during that time share a bed with the Prince?”

“Yes,” answered Katharine, “I did.”

“On how many occasions?”

“We slept together only seven nights during those six months.”

“Ah,” said Campeggio, “and would you tell me that not once during those seven nights…”

Katharine interrupted: “Always he left me as he found me—a virgin.”

“And this you swear in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost?”

“This I swear,” said Katharine emphatically.

He sighed, knowing that she spoke the truth; the gout was beginning to nag and he longed for the peace of a dark room. He could see that this case was not going to be settled without a great deal of trouble; nothing, he decided, must be settled quickly. The situation in Europe was fluid. It would go ill with him and the Holy Father if they granted Henry his wish and then found that the whole of Christendom was in the hands of the Emperor.


* * *

HENRY WAS FURIOUS when he learned of Katharine’s determination not to go into a convent.

He summoned Wolsey, and the Chancellor came apprehensively, wondering in what mood he would find the King. He was not kept long in doubt.Henry was striding up and down his apartment, his little eyes seeming almost to disappear in the folds of puffy flesh; an unhealthy tinge of purple showed in his cheeks.

“So the Queen will not go into a convent!” he roared. “She does this out of perversity. What difference could it make to her? As for your gouty companion, I like him not. I think the pair of you put your heads together and plot how best you can cheat me of my rights.”

“Your Grace!”

“Ay!” said the King. “Cardinals! They fancy they serve the Pope.” His eyes narrowed still further. “They shall discover that the Pope has no power to protect them from the wrath of a King!”

“Your Grace, I admit to sharing your disappointment in Campeggio. He seems to delight in delay. I have reasoned with him. I have told him of your Grace’s wishes. I have reminded him that when the Holy Father was in distress he came to you, and how out of your benevolence…”

“’Tis so,” interrupted the King. “I sent him money. And what good did it do? You advised it, Master Wolsey. You said: ‘We will help him now and later he will help us.’ Whom do you serve—your King or your Pope?”

“With all my heart and soul, with all the powers that God has given me, I serve my King.”

The King softened slightly. “Then what are we to do, Thomas? What are we to do? How much longer must I go on in this sorry state?”

“When the case is heard, Your Grace, we shall have the decision of the court…”

“Presided over by that man…he has his orders from Clement, and I may not like those orders.”

“Your Grace, you have your own Chancellor to fight for you.”

“Ah, Thomas, if they had but let you try this case as I so wished!”

“Your Grace would have been free of his encumbrances ere now.”

“I know it. I know it. But this waiting galls me. There are times when I think I am surrounded by enemies who plot against me.”

“Clement is uncertain at this time, Your Grace. I hear that he is not enjoying good health. The Sack of Rome and his imprisonment have shocked him deeply. It may be that he will not be long for this world.”

Henry looked at his Chancellor and suddenly he burst out laughing.

“Ha!” he cried. “If we had an English Pope there would not be all this trouble for the King of England; that’s what you’re thinking, eh Thomas?”

“An English Pope would never forget that he owed his good fortune to an English King.”

Henry clapped his hand on Wolsey’s shoulder.

“Well,” he said, “we’ll pray that Clement may see the light or…fail to see aught else. He’s shaking in his shoes, that Holy Father of ours. He fears to offend Charles and he fears to offend me, so he sends his gouty old advocate and says: ‘Do nothing…promise nothing…wait!’ By God and all His saints, I cannot think how I endure him and his master’s policy.”

“We shall win our case, Your Grace. Have no fear of it. Remember that your Chancellor will sit with Campeggio, and while he is there Your Grace has the best advocate he could possibly procure.”

“We shall find means of winning our case,” said Henry darkly. “But it grieves me that the Queen should have so little regard for the fitness of this matter as to refuse our request. Why should she refuse to go into a convent! What difference could it make to her?” His eyes narrowed. “There are times when I wonder if she does this to spite me; and if she is so determined to do me harm, how can we know where such plans would stop? I have my enemies. It might be that they work against me in secret. If the Queen were involved with them in some plot against me…”

Henry fell silent. He could not continue even before his Chancellor; and to Wolsey his words and the secretive manner in which he said them were like a cold breeze on a hot summer’s day. The climate of the King’s favor was growing very uncertain.

Wolsey could not have much hope for the Queen’s future peace if she did not comply with the King’s desires. Perhaps she was unwise. Perhaps life in a convent, however abhorrent it seemed to her, would be preferable to what her life would be were she to arouse the full fury of the King’s displeasure.


* * *

SINCE THE QUEEN REFUSED to enter a convent, Campeggio realized that there would have to be a court case; and as this was so it was impossible to deny Katharine the advisers who would be granted to any defendant in such circumstances.

Accordingly William Warham and John Fisher, Archbishops of Canterbury and Rochester respectively, were appointed her leading counsel; the Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall and Henry Standish, Bishop of St. Asaph’s, joined them with John Clerk, the Bishop of Bath and Wells. It was arranged that as the Queen was a foreigner she should not rely entirely on Englishmen for her defense, and Luis Vives and one of her confessors, Jorge de Athequa, were appointed with two Flemings. The Flemings and Vives were abroad, and it seemed unlikely that they would be of much use to her; and she was shrewd enough to know that, with the exception of John Fisher, those who had been chosen to support her cause would be in great fear of offending the King.

Preparations for the hearing were going forward and Campeggio looked on with some misgivings. His great plan was to postpone the hearing on any pretext whatsoever, as he dreaded being forced to give a judgment while the affairs of Europe were so unsettled. His gout provided him with a good excuse, and there were whole days when he shut himself in a darkened room while the servants assured all callers that he was too ill to see them.

One day when Katharine was with her chaplain, Thomas Abell, the priest said to her: “Your Grace, the Imperial ambassador desires urgent speech with you, and he wishes to come before you disguised as a priest as he is fearful that, if he comes undisguised, that which he has to say to you will be overheard.”

Katharine was torn between her anger that she could not receive her nephew’s ambassador without fear of being overheard, and apprehension as to what new schemes were afoot.

She looked at Thomas Abell, and wondered how far she could trust him. He had not been long in her service but she could say that during that time he had served her well. She decided that she had such need of friends that she must accept friendship when it was offered, without looking too suspiciously at it.

“He has asked my assistance in this matter,” went on Thomas Abell, “and being eager to serve Your Grace I told him I would do what I could.”

“Then bring him to me in my chapel,” she said. “I will speak to him there.”

So it was that Iñigo de Mendoza came to her robed as a priest, a hood concealing his features, and as, there in the chapel, he knelt beside her, she realized at once that he was deeply excited.

“Your Grace,” he said, “the best of news! Do you remember a de Puebla who once served your father here in England?”