A Tactful Queen Who Defeated a Scheming Bishop

By Awake! correspondent in South Africa

IN THE company of her loyal ladies, Queen Catherine Parr of England feels secure. King Henry VIII’s illness, coupled with the intrigues of court life, is taking its toll on him. While the queen is conversing with a friend, one of her ladies rushes in, clutching a sheet of paper. Out of breath, she hands the sheet to Catherine. Disturbed by the lady-in-waiting’s anxious frown, the queen hesitantly accepts the paper. Apparently, it was accidentally dropped by an official outside the queen’s apartments.a

As she reads, Catherine turns pale. Her disbelief turns to horror. It is a list of heretical charges against her, signed by the king. She cries out and almost sinks to the ground, but friends support her. She tries to calm herself, to think clearly, but she is too disturbed. Mercifully, her ladies help her to bed.

She lies down, but she cannot rest. Fitfully, she reviews the events of her marriage to King Henry VIII. She was 31, twice married and widowed, and was considering marriage to the dashing Thomas Seymour. But the king had other plans. He proposed. How could she refuse? It was certainly an honor, but one fraught with problems. She became his sixth wife on July 12, 1543.

Henry was no longer the dashing, jousting, athletic figure of his youth. At the age of 52, he was greatly overweight, subject to sudden changes of mood, and plagued with ulcers in his legs to the extent that at times he could hardly walk and had to be conveyed in a chair.

Yet, Catherine had drawn on her considerable intelligence and talents to make the marriage work. She made herself a companion to his three children from previous marriages. She worked hard at being an entertaining wife. When his legs ached, she distracted him with lively discussion, often on religious matters. She brought the king a measure of tranquillity in his later years.

She now tries to review her life with the king. What had she done wrong? She reflects on a recent meeting with him. That evening some of his courtiers were present, and he seemed to be in a good mood. As was her custom, she raised a religious question they had discussed before. He was peevish and cut her short. She was surprised but dismissed it as moodiness on his part. Usually he enjoyed such discussions and did not object to her interest in religious matters.

She makes a mental note of who was present on that occasion. Her thoughts persistently return to one man—Stephen Gardiner, a known enemy.

A Scheming Bishop

Gardiner, bishop of Winchester and a royal councillor, is an influential man and an opposer of religious reform. He resents Catherine, both for her interest in religious change and for her influence with the king.

When Henry’s chief adviser, Thomas Cromwell, maneuvered Gardiner out of his position as principal secretary to the king, Gardiner sought an opportunity to retaliate. He was involved in the plot that caused Cromwell’s downfall and execution. Gardiner was also frustrated because Henry had overlooked him and appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury the comparatively obscure Thomas Cranmer, who had Protestant sympathies. Fortunately for Cranmer, Henry thwarted a plot hatched against him by Gardiner and others.

The danger to Catherine and her ladies at court is accentuated by another recent scheme of Bishop Gardiner. A young woman, Anne Askew, was an outspoken advocate of religious reform. She was in prison, awaiting execution for heresy. But Gardiner was interested in her for another reason. He wanted evidence that she had contact with influential ladies at court, which could also incriminate the queen. An associate of Gardiner, Thomas Wriothesley, one of the king’s leading councillors, went to question Anne Askew.

Tortured on the Rack

Wriothesley interrogated Anne for some time, but he did not get the incriminating evidence he needed. Finally, he ordered her to be strapped on the rack,b although it was illegal to use this instrument of torture on a woman. When this failed to make her talk, Wriothesley and another councillor turned the rack themselves and stretched her to the limit, but they still did not get the desired information.

The thought of Anne Askew’s suffering reduces Catherine to tears. She is aware that someone has entered the room. One of her ladies approaches and tells her that the king’s physician, Dr. Wendy, has been sent by the king to examine her. The kindly doctor asks how she is and conveys the king’s concern for her health.

The doctor explains how the king confided to him the plot against her and swore him to secrecy. Nevertheless, Dr. Wendy tells her the whole story—that after she left the king that night, he sarcastically commented that it was very comforting to him in his old age “to be taught by [his] wife.”

Gardiner saw his opportunity and seized it. He said that the queen harbored heretics and that her activities were treasonable, posing a threat to the king’s authority. He said that if allowed the time, he and others could put before the king evidence of this. The angry king agreed to sign a bill of articles against her.

After recounting these events, Dr. Wendy urges her to go to the king at the earliest opportunity and humbly ask his forgiveness. This is the only way to outwit her enemies, who will not rest until she is a prisoner in the Tower of London and until they have enough evidence to condemn her to death.

Catherine sees the wisdom of this advice, and late one night, upon hearing that the king is in his chambers, she dresses carefully and rehearses what she will say. Her sister and a friend, Lady Lane, accompany her.

A Wise, Prudent Queen

The king is sitting and joking with some of his gentlemen. With a smile he welcomes his wife. Then he changes the conversation to religious matters. He asks Catherine to resolve doubts he has on some points. Catherine sees the trap immediately. She tries her best to respond with sincerity and honesty.

She says that God created woman after the man—inferior to him. She continues: ‘Since then God has appointed such a natural difference between man and woman, and your majesty being so excellent in wisdom and I so much inferior in all respects to you, how then does your majesty, in such complex religious matters, seem to require my judgment?’ She then acknowledges that he is head over her in all things, second only to God.

‘Not so,’ responds the king. ‘You have become a doctor to instruct us and not to be instructed or directed by us.’

She replies: ‘If your majesty take it so, then your majesty has very much mistaken me, who have ever thought it very unseemly, and preposterous, for the woman to take upon her the office of an instructor or teacher to her lord and husband; but rather to learn from her husband and to be taught by him.’ She further explains that when she spoke with him on religious matters and at times expressed an opinion, it was not to promote her ideas. Rather, by engaging in conversation, she hoped to distract him from the pain he felt because of his infirmity.

‘And is it even so, Sweetheart?’ says the king. ‘And tended your arguments to no worse end? Then perfect friends we are now again, as ever at any time before.’ Still seated, he summons her to him, embraces her warmly, and kisses her. He says that hearing this news is better than receiving a sudden gift of a hundred thousand pounds. They continue in pleasant conversation until he gives her permission to leave about midnight.

The next day the king takes his customary walk in the royal garden, accompanied by two gentlemen of his bedchamber. He has summoned the queen to join him, and she duly appears with three of her ladies. Henry has neglected to tell Catherine that this was the time formerly agreed upon for her arrest. He has also failed to inform Wriothesley, who was to carry out the arrest, of his reconciliation with the queen. While they are enjoying themselves, Wriothesley appears with 40 of the king’s guards to arrest the queen along with her ladies.

Henry separates from the party and summons Wriothesley, who drops to his knees. The rest of the party cannot hear what the king says, but they do hear him utter in rage the words, ‘Knave! Beast! Fool!’ He orders Wriothesley to get out of his sight.

When the king returns to her, Catherine tries to pacify him with mild words. She even speaks in Wriothesley’s behalf, saying that whatever he has done may have been done in error.

To this the king responds: ‘On my word, Sweetheart, he has been toward you an arrant knave, and so let him go.’

Thus Catherine was saved from her enemies, and Bishop Gardiner lost the king’s favor. The queen had defeated the scheming bishop. The game was over.c

[Footnotes]

[Pictures on page 21]

Queen Catherine Parr

Bishop Stephen Gardiner

[Credit Line]

Detail of Catherine Parr: By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London; Stephen Gardiner: National Trust Photographic Library/J. Whitaker

[Picture on page 22]

Henry VIII denounced Thoman Wriothesley before the queen

[Credit Line]

Portrait by Holbein, from the book The History of Protestantism (Vol. III)

[Picture Credit Line on page 20]

Background on pages 20-2: From the book The Library of Historic Characters and Famous Events, Vol. VII, 1895