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DIPLOMAT OF DIVORCE AND SERVANT OF EMPIRE:
IMPERIAL AMBASSADOR EUSTACE CHAPUYS AND HENRY VIII’S GREAT MATTER,
1529-1536
A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE KENDRICK K. KELLEY PROGRAM IN HISTORICAL
STUDIES (HIS 488-489)
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
DAVIDSON COLLEGE
THOMAS S. JAMES III
DAVIDSON, NORTH CAROLINA
SPRING 2015
James ii
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
The Diplomacy of Eustace Chapuys...........................................................................….................1
CHAPTER 1
The Diplomacy of an Arrival: Faction and the Fall of Wolsey …….…………...………………25
CHAPTER 2
The Diplomacy of a Queen: Defending Katherine of Aragon………….....……………….…….46
CHAPTER 3
The Diplomacy of an Anglo-French Alliance: Crossing the Channel….......................................65
CHAPTER 4
The Diplomacy of a Schism: Religion, Reformation, and Papal Relations……………………...94
CONCLUSION
The Diplomacy of the Aftermath.................................................................................................135
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources………………………………………………………………………………...146
Secondary Sources..………………………………………………………………………….....148
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Acknowledgements
In many ways I feel as if I began this project as an eleven year-old. My fifth grade math
teacher offhandedly recommended a young adult novel about Tudor England, and I was
instantly, completely, and permanently fascinated. The English Reformation and the execution of
Anne Boleyn were two plot twists I had decidedly not seen coming. While my interest in
sixteenth-century Europe has grown and developed more academic foundations, I have retained
the same youthful enthusiasm and curiosity that drew me to the period in fifth grade. As I take
the time to thank the various individuals who helped shape this project, I find I must start with
Mrs. Campbell. She might not have taught me to love long division but did introduce me to the
captivating world of Eustace Chapuys, and for that I am extremely grateful.
I am similarly appreciative of the warm support and consistent reassurance I have
received from my friends and family throughout this process. This is especially true of my fellow
Kelley scholars, all of whom brought humor, compassion, and a healthy love of frozen yogurt to
our meetings. Their feedback has been invaluable, and I would not have survived many long
nights in the library without their commiseration. I have learned far more about eugenics, parks
(both state and national), opium, the lyceum movement, Orientalist scholars, and the Sokoto
Caliphate than I could have anticipated, and I would not have it any other way.
I’ve been fortunate enough to encounter many wonderful professors during my time at
Davidson, with my mentors in the History and Theatre Departments providing precious gems of
wisdom and inspiration throughout my entire undergraduate career. I would especially like to
thank my academic advisor, Dr. Vivien Dietz, who taught my first history of college and first
recommended that I consider the Kelley program while leading the remarkable Davidson in
Cambridge program two years ago.
Of course, it is impossible to imagine this project without the guidance of my first and
second readers. With his enthusiasm and positivity, Dr. Robin Barnes frequently improved my
morale when I was discouraged and motivated me to think both critically and carefully about a
time period so frequently reduced to melodrama. Ultimately, he has made my writing crisper, my
analysis stronger, and my understanding of sixteenth-century Europe far richer. Were it not for
his vast knowledge, I would be helplessly lost in a sea of interconnecting dynastic wars I could
neither name nor understand.
Dr. Jane Mangan has been our fearless leader throughout these last two semesters, and it
is impossible to articulate my immense gratitude. Her encouragement has been consistently
inspiring, especially when she so frequently had more faith in me than I had confidence in
myself. By being incredibly generous with her time and extremely thoughtful in her feedback,
she prevented this process from ever feeling impossible. She has evidenced such remarkable
dedication to our class, resulting in an educational opportunity unlike anything I have previously
experienced or am likely to experience again.
Finally, the family of Kendrick K. Kelley has given the History Department a superb gift.
I am deeply humbled to have been a part of such a wonderful program that has inspired such
innovative undergraduate research.
James 1
Introduction:
The Diplomacy of Eustace Chapuys
17 July, 1534
Upon arrival, wrote the diplomat, they were greeted with as much enthusiasm “as if the
Messiah had actually come down.”1 After several days of travel from London, Imperial
Ambassador Eustace Chapuys and his party made their way toward the fortified palace at
Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire. Inside waited England’s incarcerated queen, Katherine of Aragon.
She was the aunt of Chapuys’ master, Emperor Charles V, the daughter of the late Isabella and
Ferdinand of Spain, and the unlucky first wife of King Henry VIII of England. Though she had
been married to her husband for over twenty-five years, disagreement over their divorce and his
remarriage to Anne Boleyn had left Katherine a virtual prisoner, long since exiled from court.
Chapuys had been trying to visit the queen since Pentecost. He reported in his official
dispatches to Charles V that he had received almost daily pleas from Katherine, urging him to
obtain permission from the king to visit her in person.2 Such a visit, maintained the queen, would
be the “greatest service [he] could render her.”3 Yet the ambassador’s petitions to the Privy
Council were consistently met with unconvincing excuses. His request had been dismissed on the
1
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 27 July, 1534. G.A. Bergenroth, Pascual de Gayangos, and
M.A.S. Hume, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Dispatches, and State Papers, Relating to the Negotiations between
England and Spain (hereafter, Cal. Span.) (London, 1862-1954), Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 75. This nineteen-volume collection
covers the period from 1485 until 1558 and includes works from the archives at Simancas, the General Archives of
the Crown of Aragon at Barcelona, the Archives de France in Paris, the Bibliothque Impriale in Paris, the Archives
Genrales du Departement du Nord in Lille, the Geheime Haus-Hof-und Staats-Archiv in Vienna, the Public Record
Office in London, and the British Museum. The volumes were originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery
Office and later digitized by British History Online through double-rekeying, a transcription process that involves
two typists inputting text from page scans independently of one another. The two transcriptions are then compared
and any differences are manually resolved. This process is believed to ensure an estimated accuracy rate of greater
than 99.995 percent, which is significantly higher than can currently be achieved through other computerized
techniques now available. Spelling has been anglicized throughout this thesis in order to match the published
documents.
2
Letter Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 7 June, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 61.
3
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 7 July, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 70.
James 2
grounds that women were simply “not to be believed implicitly.”4 On another occasion, a
planned meeting to discuss his journey with Chancellor Thomas Cromwell was cancelled with an
apology that the statesman had been summoned to meet with the king at court. “This, of course,
was only an invention of his,” remarked the ambassador, who learned that Cromwell was instead
seen travelling to his country house half a league from the city.5
If Chapuys could not garner permission to see Katherine, then he would visit her without
it. Indeed, he would make a show of it. On the seventeenth morning of July 1534, Chapuys
assembled a troop of nearly sixty men comprised of members of his household and several
Spanish merchants to travel to Katherine’s residence. This was to be a spectacle that could not be
ignored. It happened “very opportunely” that the ambassador found the occasion to lead his party
through the length of London, maximizing the number of people who would see him embark on
his journey.
Two days later and only five miles from Kimbolton, the group arrived at an inn, only to
find an officer waiting for them with news from the king that Chapuys was forbidden from
speaking to the queen or entering her residence. The ambassador dissembled. “It was not my
intention to displease the King in that or any other matter,” he claimed, but seeing as they had
already come so far, Chapuys insisted that he would need to see their orders in writing before he
would back down. Early the following morning, a higher-ranking servant arrived on the scene to
assure the diplomat that he should, in fact, refrain from even passing through the neighboring
village, let alone make his way to the queen’s castle. Furthermore, the messengers insisted that
Henry would “take it in bad part” if Chapuys publicized the king’s refusal lest it provoke “much
scandal.”
4
5
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 23 June, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 68.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 27 July, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 75
James 3
A scandal, however, was exactly what Chapuys had in mind. He agreed to the king’s
demands but sent a smaller contingent of his suite forward on what was supposedly a quick
pilgrimage to the nearby shrine at Walsingham. On the way, the men passed by Katherine’s
palace, to the great consolation of the queen and her ladies. Nearby villagers apparently flocked
to the scene with “astonishment and joy,” while the delighted women of Katherine’s household
called down to the travelers from the battlements and windows of the palace. Despite the
impressive show, Chapuys decided to stay behind. This simultaneously allowed him to maintain
that he had obeyed Henry’s commands while preventing anyone from claiming that his principal
object had been anything but visiting Katherine, he later wrote.
Making his way back to London, Chapuys explained in his dispatch that he planned to
take a longer route than was necessary so that even more people might notice his journey and
understand where he had been. He also noted that he was followed during his journey by the
same officer who had initially instructed him not to enter the queen’s residence. The royal agent
approached Chapuys before he could reenter London and asked if the diplomat had any message
for the king. The Imperial diplomat asked him to pass along his gratitude that the episode had
made plain to the world the “the roughness with which [Katherine] is treated,” which “could no
longer be disguised, and would consequently become more notorious and public.” The
ambassador added, “I myself felt grateful to the King for the opportunity thus offered to me of
showing to the world that it was not my fault if my duty as an ambassador was not fulfilled.”6
6
Chapuys’ prevented journey to Kimbolton is recorded in his dispatch to Charles dated 27 July, 1534. See
Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 75. It is worth noting that the ambassador himself does not include the oft-quoted story that
he brought a jester sporting a padlock on his hood who performed a humorous bit that mocked Katherine’s jailors.
The story is precisely the type of colorful and corrosively funny tidbit that Chapuys would have relished, but it, in
fact, originates from the notoriously inaccurate Spanish Chronicle, which was written at least ten years later by an
unknown author and mistakenly presumed to be an authentic contemporary account when translated by Martin
Hume in 1889. Still, it is frequently associated with Chapuys and this episode. For examples, see Garret Mattingly,
Catherine of Aragon (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1941), 392; Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII
James 4
Chapuys’ journey to Kimbolton might serve as a metaphor for much of his embassy in
England. Ostensibly, the attempted visit was a failure. After weeks of frustration and several
days of travel, the ambassador did not succeed in seeing Katherine. A similar pattern of sustained
effort met by ultimate disappointment characterized most of Chapuys’ experiences during the
divorce years. Still, Chapuys’ ride to Kimbolton was a moment of diplomatic theatre in which
the explicit goal of visiting Katherine became less important than the implicit goal of displaying
her mistreatment for all to see. Leading an unmistakably loud and large procession through all of
London was not the behavior of a man who wanted to sneak quietly to a secluded fortress for a
secret meeting but rather that of an image-conscious politician who understood that even the
most certain failure might present an opportunity for a qualified gain. The episode unequivocally
indicates the diplomat’s devotion to Katherine’s cause, but unlocking its implications requires a
closer look at both the ambassador himself and the significance of Henry VIII’s divorce for the
Habsburg Empire that Chapuys represented.
***
Eustace Chapuys was born at the foot of the Alps in Annecy, a small town in Savoy now
located in modern-day southern France, to Louis and Guigone Chapuys as early as 1486 but no
later than 1492.7 Through the steady acquisition of land, his father, a second-generation notary,
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 222; Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII
(New York: Walker & Company, 2010), 348.
7
Chapuys’ exact year of birth is unknown. The Roman numerals on his tomb indicate the year 1499, but
the date is too late for Chapuys to have then entered the University of Turin in November 1507, a date that can be
confirmed in the Chapuys family papers now located at the Archives de la Ville in Annecy. On the other hand,
Ursula Schwarzkopf’s consideration of a variety of sources points to either 1491 or 1492. Garret Mattingly suggests
the year 1489 under the assumption that the stonecutter included one ‘X’ too many on his tomb. See Garret
Mattingly, “A Humanist Ambassador,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Jun., 1932), 175; Ursula
Schwarzkopf, “Généalogie de la Famille d'Eustache Chappuis à Annecy,” Bibliotheque d'humanisme et renaissance.
Tome 28, (1966): 521.
James 5
secured the family’s financial and social position in the local elite.8 Regarding the specifics of
Eustace’s childhood, we know little. Following the deaths of both his father and elder brother, he
found himself both his family’s heir and the subject of a minor guardianship dispute between his
mother and uncle.9 Regardless, the teenaged Savoyard was approaching maturity and left for the
University of Turin two years later, in November 1507. Here too the details of his biography are
scarce. In 1512 he left the university to travel, spending an indefinite period in Rome, Pavia, and
Valence. Ultimately, he earned his doctorate in both civil and canon law by 1515, though
whether in Rome or back in Turin is disputed.10 Following the completion of what was an
inarguably impressive education, Chapuys worked as the secretary to the prince-bishop of
Geneva, Jean de Savoie. In the position he served as his master’s representative to the city
council and to foreign powers, experiencing a mixture of religion, politics, and diplomacy that
undoubtedly helped prepare him for his career in England.11
His involvement with the Hapsburg Empire of Charles V began not long after. By 1524,
Chapuys had graduated to working as the personal representative, messenger, and liaison for the
Duke of Bourbon, then commander of the Imperial army. It was on Bourbon’s behalf that
Chapuys first travelled to the Imperial court at Granada in August 1526. Chapuys carried with
him the good news of the Duke of Milan’s recent surrender to Bourbon that summer and hoped
to ensure that his master’s interests were protected during subsequent negotiations. The diplomat,
8
Garret Mattingly’s assessment of the family as being largely “hard-headed, tight-fisted mountain stock, a
clannish, unadventurous breed, sticking stubbornly to small gains, pushing their way by inches up the narrow social
ladder of their little native town” is now largely outdated. Schwarzkopf’s German-language discussion is easily the
most thorough discussion of the Chapuys family, though it is worth noting that this is the extent of her focus; she
does not explore Chapuys’ career as a diplomat. Richard Lundell’s dissertation and the first chapter of Lauren
Mackay’s popular history represent the clearest insights on Chapuys’ family available in English, though both lean
heavily on Schwarzkopf. Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 296. Richard Lundell, “The Mask of Dissimulation:
Eustace Chapuys and Early Modern Diplomatic Technique, 1536-1545” (PhD diss., University of Illinois, 2001), 21;
Lauren Mackay, Inside the Tudor Court (Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2014), 14-16.
9
Lundell, “Mask of Dissimulation,” 21.
10
Mackay, 17.
11
Lundell, “Mask of Dissimulation,” 28.
James 6
a title Chapuys had undoubtedly earned by this point, spent the following winter traveling with
the Imperial court and its army before a surprising blow the next spring. News of the sack of
Rome would have reached the ambassador by late May 1527, at which point Chapuys learned
that he was suddenly without a master; the Duke of Bourbon had died leading the attack.
Nevertheless, he was not unemployed for long. Charles V appointed Chapuys maître des
requites, essentially a councilman whose primary task was overseeing petitions, shortly
thereafter.12
Chapuys’ path had crossed with that of the Holy Roman Empire in an auspicious
historical moment. Thus, it is worth briefly pausing the narrative of our central figure’s life in
order to better understand the empire he was to join. From this point forward, Chapuys’ career
would be shaped in part by the renewed significance of empire both as an ideal and as a practical
reality in the early sixteenth century. The Christmas day coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo
III had announced the rebirth of the Western Roman Empire in the year 800.13 In the time since
its alleged revival, however, the import of the Holy Roman Empire had lessened, and by the
dawning of the sixteenth century, it constituted an increasingly localized German concern.
Though arguably obsolete in terms of its practical attainability, the concept of a universal
empire ruling over a unified Christendom did remain a time-honored ideal. In empire existed the
possibility for a union between Saint Augustine’s civitas Dei, the City of God, the church; and
the civitas terrena, the Earthly City, the temporal world of secular society. Having been
symbolically restored by a pope, the Empire existed, at least in theory, as a Christianized
dominion with its emperor as the defender of the civitas Dei. Its history and very existence
12
Mackay, 19-20.
Charlemagne was the first titular emperor in the West since Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 475
A.D, from which point Western Europe entered the Dark Ages and the Eastern Empire continued unrivaled.
13
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evoked Western Europe’s common descent from the Roman Empire and suggested Rome as a
natural site of universal leadership.14
By the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the ideal of empire – or at least the
possibility for unity that it represented – was reemphasized through humanist studies of ancient
political history and theory. For Christian idealist Desiderius Erasmus, a unified Europe was
necessary for the betterment of Christianity even when a cohesive empire under one monarch
appeared impossible. Though the Renaissance humanist and later friend of Eustace Chapuys
doubted the likelihood and even the capacity of one man to rule over Christendom, he saw in
Christ “the true and only monarch of the world,” noting that “if our princes would agree together
to obey His commands, we should truly have one prince, and everything would flourish under
Him.”15 Through his desire for ‘one prince,’ the value of a universal monarchy became both a
metaphor and perhaps even the means for achieving the universal rule of Christ and the religious
unity that Erasmus so wanted.16 Written less than three years before Charles V was elected
emperor, these words showcased how northern humanist circles conceived of empire on the eve
of its becoming a tentative reality.
In 1519, the universalist potential of empire came closer to actualization in the person of
Charles V. The nineteen year-old inherited the Netherlands and Austria from his father’s family
and both Spain and Sicily from his mother’s. His subsequent election by the princes of Germany
14
Yates offers a detailed discussion of the textual origins, symbolism, and poetic imagery behind what he
calls the “phantom” of empire during the Middle Ages. Frances A. Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the
Sixteenth Century (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), 2-12.
15
Erasmus to Dukes Frederick and George of Saxony on 5 June, 1517. See The Correspondence of
Erasmus: Vol. 4 Letters 446 to 593; 1516 to 1517, R.A.B. Mynors, and D. F. S. Thomason, trans. (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1977), 381-382. This letter was used as the preface Erasmus’ own Suetonius, edited
himself alongside Historiae Augustae Scriptores and printed by Froben in June 1518. Duke Frederick the Wise,
Elector of Saxony, was a patron of Luther but Duke George, his cousin, enforced the Edict of Worms (1521) and
remained a staunch supporter of Roman Catholicism and the Habsburg dynasty. See James K McConica’s
annotation in Erasmus, 373.
16
One senses from this letter why Yates equates Erasmus with the “vestigial survival of the imperial idea.”
Yates, 19-20. See also, Charles G. Nauert Jr., Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 146-155, 164-165.
James 8
as Holy Roman Emperor secured a kingdom that extended even beyond that of the Romans,
reviving the imperial title’s universal claim. “God,” the emperor’s grand chancellor told him,
“has set you on the path toward a world monarchy.”17 And so it certainly seemed, Charles did
not inherit his newly universal empire lightly.
For Charles, his empire was both the evidence of divine intentions for a unified
Christendom as well as the material means necessary for attaining that aspiration.18 In this, he
understood empire as many Renaissance humanists did. “From God himself alone is empire,”
Charles told the Spanish Cortes of Castile in 1520. As a result, he had a responsibility to reign
with “proper respect for religion.” Enemies of Christianity, he said, threatened “the repose of the
commonwealth,” “the dignity of Spain,” and “the welfare of [his] kingdoms,” demanding a
unified response and requiring him to “link Spain with Germany and add the name of Caesar to
Spanish king…”19 Here the emperor explained and justified his new title in terms of its potential
for unifying and protecting Christendom. In doing so, he also acknowledged the various forces
that challenged Habsburg universalism on multiple fronts.
Charles V’s universal aspirations would soon meet severe trials. Caught between German
heretics and Turkish Infidels, Charles was pulled in opposing directions that threatened religious
unity as it had been positioned as a central component of his hoped-for universal empire. To both
the south and the east, the threat of the Ottoman Empire rendered the Mediterranean a permanent
frontier between Christianity and Islam. By 1529 the Ottoman Turks had even pushed through
17
As quoted in H.G. Koenigsberger, The Habsburgs and Europe, 1516-1660 (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1971), 2. The chancellor sought to first motivate the government and the Castilian people toward the vocation
of empire. For Gattinarra’s perspective on the ambitions of a universal empire based on Dante and the PostGlossators, see John M. Headley, The Emperor and his Chancellor: A Study of the Imperial Chancellery under
Gatinarra (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 10-12.
18
For explorations of Charles’ imperial vision, see Koenigsberger, 2; James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V,
Impressario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance, and Domestic Politics (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 20-38.
19
“The Address of Charles, King of the Romans, to the Spanish Cortes, immediately before his Departure,”
translated in part in Headley, 10-11.
James 9
the Balkans and were at the gates of Vienna, meaning that Charles could not afford to alienate
the German princes whose military support he quite needed. 20 This too was a complicated task
as the increasing popularity of Martin Luther spread religious dissent to the north. Meanwhile,
the potential for any concerted effort against German heresies faced a lack of support in Spain,
where Castilians especially considered a military solution too expensive for a campaign they
deemed less pressing than matters in the Mediterranean.21 Informing these tensions was the
consistent menace of the French, who threatened Imperial holdings among the Italian states and
were not above supporting the Turks if it meant possible injury to Charles V. Habsburg hopes for
a universal empire appeared attainable yet frequently thwarted as the emperor found himself
attacked by interlocking threats that complicated the political and religious stage of Europe.
On one additional front were the universal aims of the Hapsburg Empire challenged, and
it is here that we may return to the actions of Eustace Chapuys. Having raised the houses of
Burgundy, Austria, and Spain to the divine vocation of unifying Christendom, Charles was
prepared to defend the legitimate rights of his dynasty. Doing so involved protecting the honor
and reputation of his family but also its universal breadth across Europe. For this reason, Charles
doggedly pressed the unfeasible claims of his niece Dorothea of Denmark to the Danish throne.22
20
The Turks aimed to consolidate power of the Maghreb in Northern Africa, while aiming also to secure
control of the canal of Sicily by conquering Spanish possessions and taking Christian captives when possible.
Meanwhile, Garrisons on the African coast did not have enough wheat or ammunition to defend key ports, resulting
in the loss of strategic bases. Andrew Hess remarks that “the separation of the Mediterranean world into different,
well-defined cultural spheres is the main theme of its sixteenth-century history.” See Andrew C. Hess, The
Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1978), 3.
21
The two most powerful Castilian clergymen, the archbishops of Santiago and Toledo, loudly urged
Charles to return to the Mediterranean rather than waste money in Germany. They were also likely aware that
Castile would foot the bill for Charles’ imperialism as Castile largely became the emperor’s treasury. See Tracy,
108. Financial concerns in Spain were also complicated by a series of natural disasters. Earthquakes in 1518, 1522,
1529, and 1531 seriously damaged coastal fortresses from Málaga to Mojácar and diverted funds that could have
otherwise been used to support Charles’ imperial aims. See Aurelio Espinosa, "The Grand Strategy of Charles V
(1500-1558): Castile, War, and Dynastic Priority in the Mediterranean," Journal of Early Modern History 9, no. 3
(August 2005): 254.
22
Koenigsberger, 4.
James 10
Also for this reason, Charles would spend nearly a decade refusing to compromise on the divorce
of his aunt, Katherine of Aragon. Henry VIII’s proposed divorce endangered Habsburg
universalism in so much as it tore at Charles’ dynastic grip on Western Europe and threatened to
provoke an irreparable break in the religious unity so important to Charles and likeminded
humanists. In England, Henry VIII’s Great Matter compounded already overwhelming threats to
Habsburg ambitions, constituting just one in a series of many pressures with ideological
connotations. Preventing it would demand skill, cunning, and an eye for both civil and canon
law. It would require someone with the background of Eustace Chapuys.
The Savoyard had joined an empire in crisis and would soon find himself dedicated to its
universal motivations. In April 1529, Chapuys stuck his toe into the matter of the divorce when
Nicholas Perrenot, sieur de Granvelle and one of Charles V’s leading foreign policy advisors,
sent him to question the English representatives in Spain on the affair.23 By this point news of
Henry VIII’s intended divorce from Katherine had already begun to rock Christendom.
Katherine of Aragon opposed Wolsey’s legatine court in London by appealing instead to the
authority of Rome, where she trusted Pope Clement VII to deliver a less biased verdict. At
roughly the same time, Charles’ ambassador at Henry VIII’s court asked to be recalled after a
brief stint of less than three years abroad. Chapuys was tapped to fill the position. He traveled to
England late that summer.
As resident Imperial ambassador, Chapuys remained at the English court from 1529 until
1545, witnessing sixteen of the most turbulent years in Henry VIII’s reign. While there, he was
close personally and politically with Katherine of Aragon and also in contact with Erasmus.24
23
Lundell, “Mask of Dissimulation,” 31.
In a March 1536 letter to Thomas Cromwell, Erasmus cites Chapuys as a principle contact at the English
court. Erasmus to Thomas Cromwell on 15 March, 1536. Erasmus to Thomas Cromwell on 15 March, 1536. See,
24
James 11
Consistently pro-Catholic and pro-Imperial Spain, Chapuys was equally anti-France, a sentiment
that extended far into his personal relationships. Frequently polarizing, occasionally arrogant,
and extremely alert to any and all rumors at court, Chapuys’ letters burst with life and color that
make his dispatches pivotal building blocks in the primary literature of sixteenth-century
England. The diplomat wrote between thirty and forty reports per year, sending detailed
descriptions of conversations and rumors to Charles V and supplementing these with less formal
personal discussions addressed to Granvelle.25 The size of the Hapsburg Empire required a
developed diplomatic service that made it easily the most advanced in northern Europe and
rivalled only by the Italian states to the south. English and French diplomacy, on the other hand,
were both in their infancy. The relative ease of crossing the Channel facilitated quick
correspondence regarding important matters and made sustained residencies redundant. In
comparison to Chapuys’ nearly two-decade stint in England, French and Venetian diplomats had
especially brief tours of duty, frequently limited to less than two years. 26 This likely complicated
their ability to penetrate social circles and establish loyal contacts, further underscoring the
importance of Chapuys’ consistent and contiguous stream of writings.
Through their precision and frequency, Chapuys’ letters craft a rich landscape of Tudor
England and offer a piercing perspective into its political scene. The ambassador was by
occupation the representative of a foreign empire and wrote with a keen eye for what he
considered Imperial interests. His dispatches constitute a collection of curated political
J.S. Brewer, James Gairdner, and R.H. Brodie, eds., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Of the Reign of
Henry VIII (hereafter Letters & Papers) (London: 1862-1932), Vol. 10, 478.
25
Following the death of Imperial Grand Chancellor Mercurino de Gattinara, the grand chancellery was
abolished and replaced by a pair of secretariats. Nicholas Perrenot, seigneur de Granvelle, oversaw all affairs north
of the Alps, while his counterpart, Francisco de los Cobos, was responsible for Spain, Italy, and the Mediterranean.
Granvelle was Chapuys’ primary contact at Charles’ court but should not be confused with his son, Antoine Perrenot
de Granvelle, another leading minister of the Habsburgs. See Headley, 140-143.
26
Eric Ives’ useful essay on sixteenth-century sources includes a relevant comparison between French,
Venetian, and Imperial embassies. See Eric Ives, “Sources,” The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 46-62.
James 12
observations from which Charles V was meant to direct Imperial policy. Chapuys was first and
foremost an Imperialist living in England, meaning one must not approach his work as the
contained diary of a man’s inner thoughts. For Chapuys, writing was a profession but also the
channel through which he hoped to effect change. Systematic consideration of his
correspondence reveals a body of work that frequently pulses with subtle – and occasionally less
subtle – solicitations for intervention. Thus, the historian must proceed with a degree of caution
when encountering some of the ambassador’s signature quirks. Chapuys was prone to broad
generalizations and frequent exaggerations, especially when it came to attributing pro-Imperialist
sentiments to large swaths of the court and broader public of London. As a general rule of
thumb, one might read with skepticism any observation that Chapuys tied to abstract or
indefinite groups, whether it is the entirety of Henry’s court or country. He frequently described
events he could not have witnessed and people he did not know. This is not to say that Chapuys
ought to be distrusted but that reading his dispatches demands constant consideration of the
various ulterior motives, allegiances, and Habsburg ambitions at play.
These more colorful and flamboyant qualities of Chapuys’ dispatches have left him open
to considerable criticism from historians. While one recent scholar professed her desire to
“rescue Chapuys from his relative obscurity among the footnotes,” this well-intentioned remark
and others like it are perhaps misleading.27 Chapuys has, in fact, had a particularly contentious
27
Famed historian Garret Mattingly said of Chapuys that though he “occupied a position of almost unique
importance among sixteenth-century diplomats [Chapuys] is known to students of Tudor history chiefly as a name at
the bottom of dispatches of amazing freshness and penetration.”27 Mattingly wrote in the 1930s, but now in the
second decade of the twenty-first century, historians still offer a similarly melancholy sigh at Chapuys’
historiographical obscurity. In what is the only other scholarly work published on the ambassador, Richard Lundell
remarks in 2012 that he “has managed to hide himself from historians in plain sight.” Finally, the quote above comes
from the 2014 preface to what is generally a flimsy popular history (albeit the only modern book focused on the
ambassador) by Lauren Mackay, a current PhD student at the University of Newcastle, Australia. See Mattingly, “A
Humanist Ambassador,” 175; Richard Lundell, “Renaissance Diplomacy and the Limits of Empire: Eustace
Chapuys, Habsburg Imperialisms, and Dissimulation as Method,” in The Limits of Empire Essays in Honor of
James 13
role in the study of the sixteenth century, but only so far as he sheds light on other figures in
England. For historians of Tudor monarchy, the high drama of Henry VIII’s personal life, for
example, has frequently provided a battlefield for debate regarding Chapuys’ role as a source but
not as a historical figure. These discussions, often equally as venomous as the events Chapuys
himself witnessed, reduce Eustace Chapuys to a passive spectator rather than an active and
dynamic politician dedicated to the universal imperial ideal.
The earliest frustrations with Chapuys as a historical source stem from nineteenth-century
historian James Froude. In his History of England, he pauses to remind his reader that Chapuys’
observations on the English court “cannot be trusted implicitly” because no one had a more
negative opinion of Henry VIII than did this Imperial ambassador. The root of Chapuys’
unreliability, Froude claims, was his personal religious fervor. In his hands, Chapuys becomes a
“bitter” Counter-Reformation Catholic who looked at the Anglican schism with “profound
abhorrence.”28 Froude’s discussion of Chapuys is impaired by the author’s often explicitly proProtestant framework, one whereby Henry VIII was “on the whole, right” because “the general
cause for which he was contending was a good cause.”29 Thus, Chapuys becomes little more than
a reactionary conservative defined by his religious loyalties.
Paul Friedmann, on the other hand, disagrees with Froude’s analysis of both the content
and the general dependability of Chapuys’ dispatches. In the preface to his 1884 biography of
Anne Boleyn, he directly criticizes Froude for failing to pinpoint specific errors in Chapuys’
Geoffrey Parker, ed. Tonio Andrade and William Reger (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2012), 208; Mackay,
10.
28
James Anthony Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890), 2: 506-7. To a lesser extent, Francis Hackett, an early biographer of Henry
VIII, describes Chapuys in a similar manner and depicts him as arguing Katherine’s case “as a Catholic.” Francis
Hackett, Henry the Eighth (Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing, 1929), 229.
29
James Anthony Froude, The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon: The Story as told by the Imperial
Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry VIII (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1891), 324.
James 14
writing and adds that he finds no “untrue accounts.” Unlike Froude, Friedmann is less concerned
with religious antagonisms than he is broadly skeptical of all English sources produced under a
tyrant. Expecting their private correspondence to be intercepted, Henry VIII’s ministers,
advisers, and subjects were so preoccupied with avoiding anything that could be misconstrued as
treason that Friedmann fundamentally distrusts their writings.30 Thus for Friedmann, Chapuys
emerges not merely as a valuable source but as the most accurate because he was in a position to
reveal the truth about sensitive topics. For this he gives credit to the professionalism of Imperial
diplomacy in general, which involved a large network of ambassadors who “never gave an
essentially false idea of the events they had to report.”31 Friedmann seems to have been
overawed by the efficiency and expertise of Imperial correspondence, and as a result he fails to
engage with Chapuys as an individual voice, instead depending on him as a frank and unbiased
fly on the wall.
Such anxieties about Chapuys were not universal. A.F. Pollard, who dominated the field
of Tudor history in the early decades of the twentieth century, concerns himself primarily with
Henry VIII’s personality, leaving other cursory figures to fade into the background. Thus,
Chapuys enters Pollard’s narrative with little introduction and is never positioned as a distinct
figure. Chapuys serves simply as a vein of anecdotal evidence showcasing Henry’s personality,
allowing Pollard to avoid any historiographical controversy over Chapuys’ dispatches. Though
Pollard does not issue a broad claim as to Chapuys’ reliability, he may have the ambassador in
mind when he refers directly to James Froude’s frustration with certain sixteenth-century
sources. In response, Pollard seems to retreat into skepticism, offering that “the facts of history
are like the letters of the alphabet; by selection and arrangement they can be made to spell
30
Paul Friedmann, Anne Boleyn: A Chapter of English History, 1527-1536 (London: MacMillan and Co.,
1884), vii.
31
Friedmann, ix.
James 15
anything.” 32 One might infer that Pollard is uncomfortable with Chapuys as a source, but his
attitude toward the ambassadors’ ‘letters of the alphabet’ is more indicative of his disinterest in
Chapuys himself rather than of dissatisfaction with his credibility.
Outright disinterest in Chapuys is not common among more recent Tudor historians,
many of whom draw from his dispatches despite recognizing their problematic nature. In his
discussion of factional tensions during the Reformation, Joseph Block eloquently summarizes the
common methodological approach to Chapuys, saying, “It is conventional for every scholar
working on the divorce to warn against using Chapuys as a reliable source of information. It is
also conventional, having issued the warning, to ignore it. I have not broken with these
conventions.”33 Though cheeky, his observation strikes at the bind between scholarship
surrounding the divorce and Chapuys, one of its loudest critics. Eric Ives, for example, couches
his use of Chapuys’ dispatches with the disclaimer that many of Chapuys’ informants shared a
similar point of view and likely spoke to the ambassador to serve their own agenda. When Ives
presents Thomas Cromwell as a savvy and influential manipulator of English politics, he (much
like Paul Friedmann) does so by leaning heavily on a series of especially controversial
observations made by Chapuys.34 Thus Ives stakes his claim on the testimony of the
controversial diplomat.
32
Pollard alludes to questions of Chapuys’ reliability, but does not issue his own broad claim on the
subject. First, he defends Chapuys against the criticism of historian John Brewer, who claimed that Chapuys was
incorrect in asserting that Richard Pace was arrested in 1529. Pollard argues that this was not an instance of
intentional misrepresentation by Chapuys as Brewer had claimed but was rather an example Brewer’s fondness for
Wolsey impeding his analysis. However, later he calls Chapuys “not an impartial witness” but only in reference to
the especially venomous comment that Anne was “England’s Messalina.” See A.F. Pollard, Henry VIII (London:
Longmans, 1968), viii, 345.
33
Joseph S. Block, Factional Politics and the English Reformation, 1520-1540 (St. Edmunds, Suffolk: The
Boydell Press, 1993), 1:19.
34
Eric Ives, Anne Boleyn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986): 73-75; See also Eric Ives, “The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Reconsidered,” The English Historical Review 107, no. 424 (July 1992): 651-664; Eric Ives, “Stress, Faction, and
Ideology,” The Historical Journal 34, no. 1 (March 1991): 194-200. Celebrated British historian David Starkey
backs Ives’ interpretation of Chapuys’ dispatches. He calls it a “mistake” to disqualify Chapuys’ observations
because there is little reason that a person’s enemies should be less likely to tell the truth about him than his friends;
James 16
Looking at the same letters on Thomas Cromwell from the particularly turbulent spring
of 1536, G.W. Bernard deemphasizes Chapuys’ account in favor of a work associated with the
French embassy. Though he does not broadly reject Chapuys’ correspondence, Bernard does
hesitate to use it as rigorously as either Eric Ives or David Starkey because, he says, Chancellor
Thomas Cromwell wanted to bolster his reputation after the execution of Anne Boleyn. Turning
from Chapuys, Bernard prefers an agent of the French ambassador, Lancelot de Carles, who
composed an epic poem chronicling Anne’s life shortly after her death.35 Like Ives, Bernard is
generally satisfied with ambassadorial evidence as a means for understanding the complexities of
the Henrician court; he simply turns to a different embassy. Bernard questions Cromwell as an
informant, not Chapuys’ abilities as an ambassador or his personal motives.
Neither the writings of the Imperial nor those of the French ambassador satisfy American
historian Retha Warnicke. In a study that would launch a multi-decade debate, she first
challenges Ives’ use of sources in a series of articles and later describes his work as the
“justification” for her own The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn, published in 1989. Warnicke
derides Ives for a “haphazard approach” that fails to analyze Chapuys’ dispatches within a
critical framework, a flaw that perpetuates both “minor and fundamental inaccuracies.”36
Warnicke proposes that Chapuys’ dispatches can be organized into four succinct categories: “(1)
repetition of ubiquitous rumors at court; (2) information deliberately leaked to him by royal
servants; (3) original, and sometimes unsubstantiated, speculations of his own; (4) actual, first-
both groups will exhibit their own set of prejudices. Starkey trusts Chapuys’ contacts at court and says he has “given
him the benefit of the doubt” and calls him “the very embodiment of the Renaissance revolution in diplomacy.”
David Starkey, Six Wives (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003), 358-360, 554-569.
35
G.W. Bernard, “The Fall of Anne Boleyn,” The English Historical Review 106, no. 420 (July 1991): 595599; G.W. Bernard, Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 135-150.
David Starkey flirts with similar concerns about Thomas Cromwell, who he describes as “adept flatterer” intent
upon winning an Imperial alliance. Starkey, Six Wives, 561.
36
Retha M. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII
(Cambridge University Press, 1989), 2.
James 17
hand information.”37 Her claims are not unmerited; Ives does cite Chapuys “eclectically,” as she
says, and the organizational apparatus she proposes has potential as a methodological tool.
Warnicke, however, presents no substantive criteria for organizing Chapuys’ dispatches into
their appropriate categories and makes no effort to sort them herself. More problematic is that in
rejecting Chapuys, Warnicke finds herself with a large void that she struggles to fill. While
Bernard turns to the French embassy, Warnicke looks to nontraditional sources, many of which
were either post-Henrician or continental.38 Writing specifically on the death of Anne Boleyn,
Warnicke aims to discredit Chapuys and the historians who rely on his accounts because “the
result of this interpretation is that the responsibility for [Anne’s] tragic death resides with her, the
victim, rather than with the king.”39 Her language here is well-intentioned, but it involves
moralizing uncomfortable when found in the historian. Dismissing Chapuys because his
evidence crafts an ‘unfair’ narrative serves as a means to Warnicke’s end whereby she can
attempt to redirect ‘responsibility’ rather than explore history.
Warnicke’s book placed the study of factional politics under siege and prompted a
passionate response from Eric Ives, who sought to defend his historical claim to fame. In his
March 1991 article “Stress, Faction, and Ideology in Early-Tudor England,” Ives dissects the
claims made in Warnicke’s “perverse” biography, which he sees as littered with an “evidently
37
Warnicke, 2.
A few examples demonstrate Warnicke’s creativity with sources. When discussing perceptions of
witchcraft and deformity, Warnicke leans heavily on John Ponet’s A Short Treatise of Political Power, which dates
to much later in the sixteenth century, and the Malleus Mallefecarum, a treatise written by German Dominicans in
the fifteenth century. Similarly, Warnicke uses an inscription inside of a music book to suggest a sexual relationship
between George Boleyn and Mark Smeaton that made them targets before they were accused of adultery with Anne
Boleyn. Such a gift cannot be seen as unprofessional given that Smeaton was a musician employed at court by the
Boleyns. The most ironic use of evidence occurs when Warnicke claims that Anne miscarried a deformed fetus,
relying on the 10 February report by Chapuys and a polemical work written by Elizabethan Catholic Nicholas
Sander, two sources Warnicke severely criticizes in her biography’s introduction. For Warnicke’s claims see
Warnicke, The Rise and Fall, 214-129; Retha M. Warnicke, “The Fall of Anne Boleyn Revisited,” The English
Historical Review 108, no. 428 (July 1993): 662-663. For refutations of these specific claims see Bernard, Fatal
Attractions, 128-129, 174-5; Ives, “Stress, Faction, and Ideology,” 200.
39
Warnicke, The Rise and Fall, 3.
38
James 18
confused” depiction of court factions and relying upon theories that are “wholly without
foundation.”40 His words are heated but reveal a clash of two different approaches to the
sixteenth century, both involving deeply divergent views on the roles of resident ambassadors. In
her December 1991 response to Ives’ scathing criticism, Warnicke insists that Ives had ignored
existing scholarship that presented resident ambassadors as “inexpert spies.” Chapuys, she
argues, was not privy to any information about the royal family that was not either deliberately
fed to him or purchased through bribery.41 Ives, however, does not fault Warnicke for her
skepticism but for her hastiness in discounting ambassadorial evidence “a priori.”42 With the
updated and expanded version of his biography, The Life and Times of Anne Boleyn (2014), Ives
makes a final effort to combat Warnicke’s stance. Chapuys, he claims, exemplified the ideal
resident ambassador. He established valuable networks of contact and remained welcome as an
individual even when relations between his home and host countries were tense. Ultimately, Ives
feels historians cannot not afford to disregard Chapuys’ dispatches because “denied them, much
early Tudor history becomes seriously, on occasion impossibly, opaque. . . Thus to dismiss them
as inherently unreliable is to accept that we shall never know.”43 It was the closing volley in the
debate by Ives, who died in 2012.
The Ives-Warnicke debate alludes to work by other historians of early modern
diplomacy, but neither historian engages with the full extent of available scholarship on the role
of Renaissance ambassadors. Ives cites Garret Mattingly but almost exclusively for biographical
40
Ives claims that “Cambridge University Press has done a singular disservice to scholarship by giving its
imprimatur” to Warnicke’s text. See Ives, “Stress, Faction, and Ideology,” 194-200. In a separate essay, he uses
“worthy of Professor Warnicke” as shorthand to criticize a fellow scholar’s extravagant speculation. Eric Ives,
“Anne Boleyn Reconsidered,” 659.
41
Retha Warnicke, “Anne Boleyn Revisited,” The Historical Journal 34, no. 4 (December 1991): 953-954.
42
Ives, “Stress, Ideology, and Faction,” 196.
43
Ives, The Life and Death, 55-57.
James 19
details of Chapuys’ life.44 In fact, Mattingly’s contribution to early modern history goes far
deeper than that. His Renaissance Diplomacy deals only sparingly with Chapuys, whom
Mattingly describes as having “merely contributed to the emperor’s normal defensive policy”
while in England, but is remembered as an extremely influential work that broke from the
concerns of other mid-twentieth century scholars of the Renaissance, many of whom focused
exclusively on the political content rather than practical methods of diplomatic business.45 He
traces the origins of diplomacy in the fifteenth-century Italian states and contends that diplomats
were respected, responsible, and well-educated men in a period that has otherwise been too
frequently defined by its exaggerated representation within “the embittered pamphlet of a
solitary man of genius,” meaning Machiavelli’s The Prince. Though they were expected to feel
or, at least, to demonstrate profound loyalty to their home nations, Renaissance ambassadors
usually pursued honorable courses of action and only truly came to rely on espionage, spying,
and intrigue mainly during the fraught years of the wars of religion between the Treaty of
Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559 and the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.46 In the process, he presents the
44
Ives, “Stress, Faction, and Ideology,” 196; Ives, The Life and Death, 55. Ives cites Mattingly’s 1932
article on Chapuys, which provide information on his family, education, and patronage of students in his hometown
of Annecy. Mattingly is primarily concerned with Chapuys’ interest in humanism and the schools he established
after retiring from his diplomatic career. As a result, he skips over Chapuys years in England, saying “there is no
space to speak here” about his years in England which “surely deserve further study.” For Mattingly’s seminal
discussion of Chapuys’ life before and after his time in England see Mattingly, “A Humanist Ambassador.”
45
Garret Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955), 188-190. It is
essentially impossible to find a work concerned with Renaissance diplomacy that does not explicitly acknowledge or
at least cite Mattingly’s work. Specifically, M.S. Anderson’s two recent works on diplomacy noticeably lean on
Mattingly’s discussions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Mattingly’s student at Columbia University, Charles
Carter, also emphasizes the role of ambassadors almost to the extent that the monarchs and ministers that received
diplomatic correspondence become secondary recipients rather than driving forces of international relations. For
these and other examples see, M.S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 1450-1919 (London: Longman,
1993); M.S. Anderson, The Origins of the Modern European State System, 1494-1618 (London: Longman, 1998);
Douglas Biow, Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Professions in Renaissance Italy (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2002); Jonathan Wright, The Ambassadors: From Ancient Greece to Renaissance
Europe, the Men who Introduced the World to Itself (Orlando: Harcourt, 2006). Charles Carter, The Secret
Diplomacy of the Habsburgs, 1598-1625 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 7-10.
46
Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, 116-118, 191-211.
James 20
staffs of foreign embassies as storehouses of valuable information and stresses their worth as
historical sources.
Other historians put forward a less favorable portrait of medieval and early-Renaissance
ambassadors with significantly earlier roots in European history. David Queller and George
Cuttino extend the chronological development of diplomacy further into the medieval period and
imbue it with concerns about espionage and deception that Mattingly reserves for the latesixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when the wars of religion brought chaos to European
diplomacy. Queller explains that the line between espionage and the legitimate gathering of
information was always obscure. As diplomatic contacts became increasingly frequent in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Queller suggests, leaders were haunted by suspicions that any
ambassador might work as little more than the “legalized spy” of an enemy nation. Home
governments sent their envoys exhaustive lists of questions to which they expected detailed
replies, while host nations attempted to isolate ambassadors and control their access to
information.47 Queller ends his study of diplomacy before both Charles V and Henry VIII were
born, thus never speaking directly to the political scene that shaped Chapuys’ career. Still,
Warnicke uses his work on medieval and early Renaissance diplomacy as the sole justification
for her suspicion about ambassadors in general and Chapuys in particular. Queller, however,
does not discredit ambassadorial evidence; he complicates it and clarifies how it should be
approached.
47
Donald E. Queller, The Office of the Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1967), 89-93. Historian G.P. Cuttino pushes the development of diplomacy even further back than
Queller, seeing diplomatic relations as born in the feudal, personal agreements between leaders in the twelfth
century. As a result, he couples the growth of diplomacy with the emergence of nationalism in the medieval period.
E.H. Harbison also argues that a consciousness of nationalism allowed latter French ambassadors in the sixteenth
century to outmaneuver Imperial envoys at the Court of Mary I. See G.P. Cuttino, English Medieval Diplomacy
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 1-24; E.H. Harbison, Rival Ambassadors at the Court of Queen
Mary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940).
James 21
Taken as a whole, existing scholarship remembers Chapuys as either a minor figure often
on the fringes of diplomatic history or as an observer of the high drama in Henry VIII’s personal
life. Historian Richard Lundell wrestles with this problem. Chapuys, he explains, was more than
just the sum of the “political portraits” he painted of legendary historical figures. In order to
combat this perception, he employs an intentionally anachronistic approach. Lundell turns to
modern political theories developed in reference to nineteenth and twentieth-century diplomacy
and transplants them into the early-mid sixteenth century. Doing so, he examines diplomacy as a
performance with many different and possibly conflicting audiences, pausing to separate the
subject, author, translator, and reader of Chapuys’ documents. Lundell’s case study illuminates
the diplomat’s role as both author and gatherer of intelligence, while highlighting Chapuys’
efforts at image construction and protection.48 This method is both inventive and effective, but it
occasionally prizes abstract theory over the distinct historical moment that shaped Chapuys’
motivations and perspective. In addition, Lundell begins his treatment of Chapuys in 1536,
ignoring his career in England before the Henrician Reformation because he feels it leaves “a
heavy and unavoidably distracting layer of arguments and interpretations to acknowledge before
ever getting on to the ambassador and his texts.”49 This restriction limits his analysis of Chapuys
because it is precisely that layer of ‘arguments and interpretations’ that makes Chapuys a
compounded and significant historical figure. Ignoring the complexities of the Reformation era
requires deliberately overlooking much of what has made Chapuys controversial within English
history. He properly situates Chapuys within the context of the Habsburg Empire but not within
the Henrician Reformation.
48
Lundell, “Renaissance Diplomacy,” 205-222. See also the dissertation from which his article is based,
Lundell, “The Mask of Dissimulation.”
49
Lundell, “The Mask of Dissimulation,” 2.
James 22
Despite methodological quirks, Lundell has identified the central problem with
scholarship on Chapuys. The ambassador’s dispatches contain evident biases that, to borrow a
phrase from Lundell, render them “problematic, yet, at the same time, underanalyzed [sic].”50
Ultimately, Chapuys has not been lost in the footnotes, but rather oversimplified and reduced.
Demanding strict objectivity but dismayed by his evident prejudices, historians have frequently
limited their study of Chapuys to fact-checking and subsequently either apologizing for or
entirely disregarding his reports. Even when scholars attempt to deconstruct Chapuys’ work in
order to engage in historiographical debates – with the alleged involvement of Thomas Cromwell
in Anne Boleyn’s fall being an especially popular one – they diminish his position to that of
subjective witness rather than complex historical actor. Such an approach situates Chapuys as a
passive, disembodied voice and distorts his role at the English court by casting him as an
ambiguously villainous figure rather than an Imperial agent with very firm ties abroad. That
being said, analyzing Chapuys need not require divorcing him from the political questions and
historiographical concerns that have frequently placed him within scholarly debates.
Rather than continue to criticize the ambassador’s subjectivity, it would be more useful to
explore the forces that shaped it. Ultimately, Chapuys was neither Warnicke’s sexist gossip nor
Froude’s reactionary Catholic. This is not, however, to say that the ambassador was not deeply at
odds with the divorce. From the moment of his arrival in 1529, Chapuys was quickly positioned
at the intersection of two clashing dynasties. A Tudor king of England sought a divorce that
might secure a male heir to his throne, but in doing so he mounted a threat to the dynastic claims
and religious unity at the backbone of Habsburg universalism. Therefore, in a moment when the
person of Charles V offered an opportunity for a unified Christendom, the personal life of Henry
VIII endangered it. With Charles V already combatting the Ottoman Turks, German Lutherans,
50
Lundell, “Mask of Dissimulation,” 11.
James 23
the French, and unrest in Spain, the divorce represented an additional threat to the ideals of
universal empire and Christian unity, already both growing increasingly improbable by the late
1520s. It fell to Chapuys to attempt to resolve this seemingly unresolvable crisis of empire.
With empire as our through line, this project will consider how Chapuys’ struggle as an
Imperialist shaped his standing at the English court and his diplomacy as a whole. Structurally, it
will begin with Chapuys’ intimate relationships at court and spiral outward, casting a wider net
to include his dealings with other foreign powers, including the relatively local French and then
the more distant papacy. Thus in the first chapter, we will initially consider Chapuys’ arrival at
court as an introduction to the factions at play during Henry’s divorce. Second, we will augment
this understanding of his court affiliations by looking at the long-term relationship that defined
the early years of his career in England: Chapuys’ friendship with Queen Katherine of Aragon.
The next two chapters will deal with two large obstacles that the ambassador faced: first, his near
shutout because of an Anglo-French alliance, and second, the increasingly daunting diplomatic
implications of Henry’s religious policy changes.
Taken in full, the aims of this piece are twofold. First, it responds to a problem in the
scholarship. Previous historians have too frequently turned to the correspondence of Eustace
Chapuys in order to augment their understandings of other sixteenth-century figures, extending
their analysis of the ambassador only so far as questions of his accuracy. Such reductive
treatments of the ambassador cast him as merely a witness and obscure the extent to which he
was deeply involved in the opposition to Henry VIII’s divorce. Herein rests the second goal of
this project. Though Chapuys is an invaluable source for approaching Tudor history, he is not
only a source; he is a distinct historical actor capable of shedding light on the nature of sixteenthcentury diplomacy and the Habsburg Empire. Though frequently out-maneuvered and rarely as
James 24
effective as he hoped to be, Chapuys met almost certain failure with ingenuity, resilience, and an
eye for obtaining qualified successes. Chapuys personified the day-to-day struggle of the
Imperial effort toward Christian unity while living in a country on the brink of reformation.
Thus, the diplomacy of Eustace Chapuys was defined by a defensive effort to achieve a universal
and united Christendom with Charles V at its head.
James 25
Chapter One
Diplomacy of an Arrival:
Faction and the fall of Wolsey
1 September, 1529
Writing from London, the newly arrived Eustace Chapuys found himself already invested
in the high drama of the Henrician court by the time he wrote his first dispatch to Charles V. “I
cannot pass over in silence certain information I have obtained since my landing,” wrote the
excited diplomat. All foreign ambassadors, he reported to his master, were forbidden from
seeking audiences with Cardinal Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor and onetime chief adviser of King
Henry VIII. Even the French ambassador, who had once “found refuge” in his friendship with
the Cardinal, had spent the last eight days attempting to arrange a meeting that ultimately never
took place. That court politics had spilt into and disrupted diplomatic business was clear, and the
results, wrote Chapuys, were “so strange that there must be some substantial cause for it.”1
The cause was, Chapuys would later report, the king’s “Great Matter.” Henry VIII’s
initial efforts to set aside his first wife Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn had been
unsuccessful. The king, Anne Boleyn, and her family were growing restless. Wolsey’s inability
to procure a hasty divorce had ruined his relationship with Henry VIII and, described Chapuys,
left his affairs getting “worse and worse every day.”2 While Wolsey languished in the monarch’s
displeasure, the ambassador wrote that the “affection for La Bolaing [Boleyn] increases daily. It
is so great just now that it can hardly be greater; such is the intimacy and familiarity in which
they live at present.”3 The contrast between the fortunes of the Cardinal and ‘La Bolaing’ were
hardly coincidental. From his earliest letters onward, Chapuys chronicles the fall of Wolsey in
terms of the personal and partisan goals of the Boleyn family and their friends, a group some
1
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 1, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 132.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 1, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 132.
3
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 4, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 135.
2
James 26
historians have deemed a political “faction” at the Tudor court.4 Chapuys’ dispatches are fodder
for such historians. With vibrant language and well-illustrated characters, Chapuys’ reports offer
a compelling portrait of factions at work during the divorce years, but upon further consideration
his early experiences in England also complicate conceptions of factions that are too convenient
to describe the ambassador and his efforts to promote Habsburg universalism while in England.
As an analytical lens for tracking political trends in early-modern England, factions
present a useful but controversial framework. The study of faction is itself a criticism of
bureaucratic conceptions of government, which assume that administrative institutions and
‘official’ structures of power are the sole venues for politics and take precedence over the largely
extrinsic and ‘unofficial’ conduits of royal authority, namely court life.5 Historians of faction
depict the sixteenth century as particularly prone to this phenomenon after multiple centuries of
developments within the structure of the royal household.
Originally a single room behind the dais of the Great Hall where the monarch lived, the
king’s Chamber evolved into a network of three chambers by the late fifteenth century. Under
the Tudors, The Great Chamber, Present Chamber, and Privy Chamber amounted to a large
private suite with a series of ancillary rooms, with the king spending an increasing amount of
time within the privacy of the third, access to which was limited. In contrast to Henry VII, who
4
Even among its subscribers, the term faction takes on conflicting definitions. For some historians,
factions pursue various objectives that they see in exclusively personal terms, while other interpretations insist upon
the role of ideological concerns as the cause of court allegiances rather than a convenient consequence. As a result,
the most comprehensive definition of faction describes “a personal following employed in opposition to another
personal following” due to linked political interests. Simon Adams, “Faction, Clientage, and Party: English Politics,
1550-1603,” History Today 32 (November 1982), 34; David Starkey, “From Feud to Faction: English Politics c.
1450-1550,” History Today 32 (November 1982), 16-22.
5
A.F. Pollard, John Neale, and other early-to-mid twentieth-century historians located the political
tensions between constitutionalist and royal forces exclusively in parliament, while Sir Geoffrey Elton justified
ignoring the court and royal household in favor of public institutions by characterizing courtiers and privy
councilors as entirely separate groups, despite overlap between the two groups. A.F. Pollard, The Evolution of
Parliament (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1920); J.E. Neal, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments (London: St.
Martin’s Press, 1969); G.R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1953). For criticism of this approach see John Guy, The Tudor Monarchy (New York: Arnold, 1997), 3-6; John
Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 80-81.
James 27
had kept menial servants in the Privy Chamber, Henry VIII filled his own with companions who
emerged as an influential group in their own right, the ‘gentlemen’ or ‘grooms’ of the king’s
inner sanctum.6 With the Privy Chamber symbolizing the increasingly exclusive access to and
influence over the king, the factional school of thought suggests that informal and private
conversations between the monarch and his favorite courtiers became equally if not more
politically significant than the official meetings of the Privy Council that the king rarely
attended.7 The preference for the Chamber over the Council prompts some scholars to depict
Tudor politics as essentially court conflicts that spiraled outward and influenced policy.8 As the
king’s divorce would demonstrate, however, competition for the ear of the king was not limited
to his male companions.
At best, a consciousness of faction allows for nuanced understandings of the public and
the private as simultaneous venues for the machinations of Tudor government. When not kept in
perspective, any shared opinion, familial connection, or proximity of landholding might suddenly
imply grand political allegiances.9 Rather than a window through which modern historians can
view dynamic elements of Tudor politics, “faction,” though admittedly a term used in the
sixteenth century, may be more akin to a mirror that reflects anachronistic preconceptions of
historians writing during an era when factional accounts of the Reagan administration and
6
David Loades, The Tudor Court (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1987), 44-59;
Guy, Tudor Monarchy, 6; Eric Ives, Factions in Tudor England (London: Hart-Talbot Printers Ltd.,
1979), 8-11.
8
Perez Zagorin calls the Henrician court “a perilously unstable world in which and honors were always at
risk” because “every shift of royal policy in these years was attended with factional intrigue and the possibility of
disgrace and death for those on the wrong side.” For Eric Ives, these shifts prompted the downfalls of Buckingham,
Wolsey, the Boleyns, the Howards, Cromwell, and Gardiner. Building on the works by Ives and others, Christopher
Haigh leans heavily on court factions to explain the changes in religious policy, thus inserting factions into the
historiography of the Reformaton. Perez Zagorin, “Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Court of Henry VIII: The Courtier’s
Ambivalence,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23, no. 1(1993): 120-121; Eric Ives, Factions in Tudor
England, 12-30; Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
9
This is the complaint that Greg Walker levels at Retha Warnicke, J.A. Guy, and Joseph S. Block. See
Greg Walker, Persuasive Fictions: Faction, Faith, and Political Culture (London: Scholar Press, 1996), 2.
7
James 28
Thatcher cabinet commanded popular attention.10 The complaint levelled at faction-driven
histories is that in analyzing a consequence of personal monarchy, they paradoxically reduce the
monarch to a highly credulous figure who neither rules nor reigns.11
Such criticism of factional histories often involves criticism of Eustace Chapuys,
frequently depicted as a sympathizer of disaffected noblemen who supported Katherine of
Aragon and disliked the Boleyns. This reasoning situates Chapuys as an unreliable narrator
actively “dreaming” up imaginary support for the Imperial cause in hopes of inspiring Charles V
to invade England.12 Thus, depictions of Chapuys still revert to discussions of his subjectivity at
the expense of recognizing his complicated and evolving relationships with members of Henry’s
court. Though he called them “parties” rather than factions, Chapuys certainly saw divisions at
court as motivating political change. His role as foreign ambassador, however, initially allowed
him to transcend factional tensions, which challenges easy conceptions of factions as allencompassing and rigidly defined. Though certain relationships became friendlier and others
soured, Chapuys never lost sight of his responsibilities to Charles V. Observing factions allowed
Chapuys to determine how best to operate amongst them in order to further the aims of the
Habsburg Empire.
In the fall of 1529, Chapuys was neither the minion of dissatisfied conservatives nor the
outright enemy of ambitious reformers. Still, he did immediately sense the deep divisions and
factional influences at play at Henry’s court. Chapuys believed that Wolsey’s failure to resolve
Henry’s intended divorce left him vulnerable to a vengeful group of courtiers, “who for a long
10
Walker, 13;
G.W. Bernard uses an attack on factional histories as the organizational concept that motivates his
anthology of essays. See, G.W. Bernard, Power and Politics in Tudor England (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2000), 118.
12
Greg Walker describes Chapuys as largely inventing “a strong and active conservative alliance in
England which could be called upon to rally the Catholic cause if an invasion was launched.” Similarly, Christopher
Haigh claims that Chapuys hoped to commend himself to the emperor by “inflating his own role as mentor to the
alienated aristocracy.” See Walker, 12, 23; Haigh, 139; Bernard, Power and Politics, 9.
11
James 29
time have been watching their opportunity to revenge old injuries, and take the power out of the
Cardinal’s hands.” Chapuys, however, hesitated before naming names, saying he would do so
“when I have obtained more credible information.”13 That task apparently did not take long.
Among the King’s “favorite courtiers, and the nearest to his person” were the Dukes of Suffolk
and Norfolk as well as Viscount Rochford, all of whom had in common friendly or familial ties
with Anne Boleyn. 14 These men “transact all state states business,” Chapuys explained, but on
the subject of Wolsey he believed that one voice was the loudest. “If the said Lady Anne
chooses, the Cardinal will be soon dismissed… for she happens to be the person in all this
kingdom who hates him most, and has spoken and acted the most actively against him.”15
Regardless of whether Anne’s personal feelings toward the cardinal were as intense as Chapuys
reported, her family appeared prepared to act as a group in order to promote the divorce. For this
reason alone Chapuys had cause to dislike the Boleyns and see them threats to Charles V’s
universal empire.
The Boleyns quickly set about dismantling the Cardinal’s influence. After multiple failed
attempts to gain an audience with the king, Henry finally granted Wolsey permission to come to
court in late September. The visit was to be brief and only on the condition that the cardinal
arrive without any pomp or ceremony. Wolsey’s reception, Chapuys said, was “meagre.” The
cardinal arrived without the typical display of crosses preceding him and with a reduced
household. The Savoyard reported that the Duke of Suffolk had dictated these insulting terms
and had so successfully choreographed affairs that it was impossible for Wolsey to even lodge at
court. “This has been done,” Chapuys continued, “with a view to countermine him if perchance
13
Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 132. The Duke of Norfolk was Anne’s uncle and the Viscount Rochford (later
Earl of Wiltshire) was her father.
14
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 4, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 135.
15
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 4, 1529. Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 135.
James 30
he should return to his old practices, and get into [the king’s] favor again.”16 Any fears that
Wolsey would regain his influence were likely assuaged on October 17, 1529, when he was
stripped of the Great Seal and officially dismissed from the office of Lord Chancellor, where he
was promptly replaced by Thomas More. Regarding this turnover, Chapuys was optimistic.
More, he said, was “the most learned man in the kingdom.” Perhaps more importantly to
Chapuys, More had “always shewn [sic] himself a good servant of the queen.”17 Chapuys was
quickly learning about and appraising the various contrasting interests at court.
As Chapuys learned more about the English courtiers, they likely learned more about
him. Considering that he was the official Habsburg representative in England, Chapuys’ distaste
for the divorce could not have been a secret. Given the animosity he had seen directed toward
Wolsey for allegedly mishandling the divorce, Chapuys, a diplomat directly concerned with
preventing the very same proceedings, expected a chilly reception from the Boleyns. Instead,
Anne’s father, the Viscount Rochford Thomas Boleyn, made a consistent effort to ingratiate
himself with the new Imperial ambassador.18 The two men were first introduced on September
21, just after Chapuys’ first meeting with Henry VIII. Chapuys reported that upon concluding
their first interview, Henry sent immediately for Boleyn, who then entertained Chapuys at
dinner. At the meal, Chapuys wrote, Boleyn made an effort to “attend to me and take care that I
had all I wanted, which he certainly did with great courtesy.”19 Their conversation was pleasant
though an exercise in Tudor flattery, with both parties insisting that their masters felt nothing but
16
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 21, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 160.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 27 October, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 194.
18
For the sake of clarity, it is worth noting that Thomas Boleyn was named Viscount Rochford in 1525,
and is thus frequently referred to as ‘Rochford’ in Chapuys’ dispatches when he arrived in England. However, as
Henry’s infatuation with Anne increased, so did the number of her father’s titles. Boleyn was created Earl of
Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond in 1529. It was at this point that his son, George Boleyn, was enobled as Viscount
Rochford. From 1530, onward Chapuys was referring to George Boleyn, not his father, when he mentioned
‘Rochford.’
19
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Low Countries and paternal aunt of
Charles V, on September 27, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 168.
17
James 31
love for the other. “I would give anything, nay, the whole of my fortune,” insisted Rochford, “for
the Emperor to be convinced of my master’s goodwill and affectionate regard.” 20 Regardless of
whether or not it was feigned, Boleyn’s warmth indicated the unique position of foreign
diplomats. Chapuys was akin to a courtier in the he frequently journeyed to court and interacted
with the king’s favorites, but he was not an English subject. This distinction meant that while he
navigated similar terrain as Boleyn or Wolsey, he was initially seen as outsider operating in a
different sphere, one who should be placated through niceties in order to guarantee that he wrote
favorable dispatches back to Charles V. Thus, in reading the ambassador’s correspondence it is
necessary to remember that his dealings with Englishmen were often performative. Chapuys did
not always see courtiers as they were but rather as they wanted to be represented to Charles V.
This was not lost on the ambassador, and Boleyn underestimated Chapuys if he expected
a malleable pushover who would prove susceptible to flattery. Chapuys was well aware of the
Boleyn family’s interests. When Rochford professed his happiness at the close relationship
between the emperor and the pope, Chapuys could not help but appreciate the almost laughable
irony. Noting that the friendship between the two was a stumbling block in Henry’s quest to
marry the viscount’s daughter, he replied that Rochford certainly “would have preferred on his
daughter’s account that [the] Pope and [the] Emperor had not been so united as they are on this
occasion.” Even if much of their conversation had been dominated by elevated flattery “such as
the courtiers of this country are in the habit of saying to any new ambassador,” the interview had
been cordial and more pleasant than Chapuys anticipated. “If truth be told,” he wrote of the day’s
events, “I was far from expecting such a reception.”21 Chapuys’ first private interaction with a
20
21
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 21, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 160.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 21, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 160.
James 32
major player at Henry’s court had been generally successful, and far from being a hostile leader
of a court faction, Thomas Boleyn seemed almost obsequious.
Thomas was not the only Boleyn courting the new ambassador. Chapuys’ initial
interactions with George Boleyn, Anne’s brother and Thomas’ son, were equally positive. Like
other members of his family, George had come to prominence because of the King’s Great
Matter, occasionally earning the scorn of those who believed he had been raised too high too
soon. Upon learning that George would be joining a diplomatic mission to Paris in October 1529,
the French ambassador Jean du Bellary wrote back to Paris, mocking the Boleyn diplomat’s
youthfulness and urging his contacts to “lionize [sic]… the petit prince.”22 Chapuys, on the other
hand, did not dismiss the youngest Boleyn sibling so readily. His remarks on George Boleyn
contained none of the French ambassador’s venom.23 Like his father, George was noticeably
attentive to the Imperial ambassador when they crossed paths after his return to England in
February 1530. Chapuys noted that George was “exceedingly courteous,” and he appreciated the
gentleman’s candor when he confessed that the French appeared unlikely to offer much support
in Henry’s divorce.24 George’s first foray into politics at the embassy in France may have proven
underwhelming, but he understood the basic tenets of diplomacy and court intrigue well enough
to realize that he (and the rest of his family) would be best served by flattering Charles V’s
envoy, giving Chapuys access to a faction that might otherwise have distanced themselves from
him. For the time being, however, it was unclear who would truly benefit from this courtly
politeness.
22
For this expedition and the French response to George Boleyn see, Henry VIII to Montmorency on 8
October, 1529 in Letter and Papers, Vol 4, 5996. Also, Ives, The Life and Death, 126.
23
For examples see, Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 132, 152, 160.
24
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 February, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 265.
James 33
Chapuys’ dealings with the Boleyns retained a similar self-conscious politeness
throughout the rest of 1529 and early 1530, the significance of which became increasingly clear
to the ambassador. The King told Chapuys that he should expect to communicate with him either
through Thomas Boleyn or through the king’s own secretary.25 Both Henry VIII and Thomas
Boleyn, of course, had an interest in keeping an eye on the Imperial envoy in hopes of
influencing his reports to Charles V. Shortly after the new year, Boleyn pulled Chapuys aside to
explain how particularly pleased both he and the King were with him, feeling confident that the
ambassador would never use “evil reports” to disturb the friendly relationship between their
masters. “Although,” Boleyn added, “there being still a few points of dispute between the
Emperor and the King, my master, your letters perhaps are not without their rough edges.”26 It
was likely those very ‘rough edges’ that Boleyn hoped to soften by drawing Chapuys into a
tentative friendship.
Despite efforts to draw Chapuys into his circle, the ambassador remained ever skeptical,
perceiving a clear ulterior motive. When Boleyn prodded Chapuys for information as to how he
forwarded his dispatches and how often, Chapuys equivocated, “feigning not to have understood
the nature of the inquiry.”27 If it was information that Boleyn wanted, he would need to employ
far more subtlety in order to pry it from the ambassador. Chapuys may have remained cordial
with Thomas Boleyn, but he never lost sight of Boleyn’s intentions. When Boleyn cancelled a
planned meeting at the ambassador’s lodgings in January 1530 and asked Chapuys to call on him
instead, the ambassador scoffed at the apology. Superficial cordiality did not mask the subterfuge
that Chapuys recognized around him. The diplomat suspected that Boleyn simply wanted it to be
said about court that an Imperial ambassador had visited his residence, implying their closeness
25
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 21, 1529. See, Cal Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 160.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on January 12, 1530. See, Cal Span, Vol. IV, Pt. 1, 249.
27
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on January 12, 1530. See, Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 249.
26
James 34
and a possible friendship with the emperor. It was pivotal that neither the Habsburgs nor their
representatives be seen as having endorsed the divorce that threatened their universal empire.
Thus Chapuys wrote of Boleyns’ invitation, “I would have gone thither had I been sure of
promoting the Imperial interest through my visit.” That, however, was not the case. Under such
circumstances, Chapuys told Charles, “I considered it derogatory to Your Majesty’s dignity to
visit him. . . Therefore, although I promised Mr de Vulchier [Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire]
that, if I had time, I would call at his house, I never did.”28 In the sixteenth-century, the
appearance and even performance of conducting diplomatic business was equally as important as
the actual content of the diplomatic endeavors. If he wanted to protect Imperial interests,
Chapuys not only needed to consider what his actions could achieve but also how they might
appear to others.
The only member of the Boleyn clan with whom Chapuys had a genuine working
friendship was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who was likely the group’s most powerful
member and the brother-in-law of Thomas Boleyn. With Wolsey’s downfall appearing a
foregone conclusion, Chapuys reported that “the whole government of this county will fast fall
into the hands” of the duke, Anne Boleyn’s uncle. Chapuys recognized in Norfolk the same selfinterest that motivated much of the Boleyn family, noting that “family considerations” and “his
relationship to the lady whom the king wished to marry” might prove to be insurmountable
obstacles.29 Unlike many of the other Boleyns, however, Norfolk did not owe his position at
court to the divorce. The Howards were one of England’s oldest and most respected noble
families, one into which Thomas Boleyn had been fortunate to marry.30 Norfolk boasted of his
28
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 20 January, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 252.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 25, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. IV, Pt. 194.
30
For the family history of the Boleyns see, Ives, The Life and Death, 3-17. For the Duke of Norfolk’s
family and career prior to the rise of the Boleyns see, David. M. Head, The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune: The Life of
29
James 35
family’s deep roots, promising Chapuys that he could not turn his back on Charles V without
“disavowing his own father and all his ancestors, every one of whom… had been particularly
attached to the House of Burgundy,” of which Chapuys’ master was a part.31 Like all courtiers,
Norfolk understood how to employ complimentary platitudes, but his remark alluded to a family
history that predated Henry VIII’s marital dramas. Therefore, reasoned Chapuys, Norfolk could
perhaps be coaxed into backing Imperial designs. In the past, or, at least, prior to the rise of the
Boleyns, Norfolk had “always acted loyally” toward Queen Katherine, Chapuys claimed. “I do
not doubt,” he continued in a report to Charles, “that he will do the same to Your Majesty, and I
undertake to keep him in this mood [while] making use of him when required.” 32 For the time
being, Norfolk was situated comfortably beside the Boleyn family, but Chapuys identified in him
the potential for an ally who might help further Imperial interests at the Henrician court.
A minor episode in late 1529 presented a fleeting opportunity for Chapuys to “make use”
of Norfolk as a possible ally to the Imperial cause. At multiple points throughout the proceeding
fall, Chapuys reported rumors that Norfolk was angling to marry his son to the Princess Mary,
Henry’s daughter by Katherine of Aragon and cousin to Charles V. Chapuys had reason to find
the rumor encouraging. With her parents’ marriage under fire, Mary Tudor’s place in the royal
succession was equally uncertain. This was a concern for Charles V and, in turn, Chapuys
because the princess offered a direct link between the Habsburg Empire and the English
succession. If Mary’s position could be reinforced, then so would the universal empire’s reach
into England be made firmer. Marrying the princess into the family of a leading nobleman might
provide stability even if it did not entirely clarify her standing. As of early November, Chapuys
Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995). For the relationship between
the two families see, Retha Wanricke, “Friendship and Kinship Relations at the Henrician Court: The Boleyns and
the Howards,” in Dale Hoak, Tudor Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 31-54.
31
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 25, 1529. Cal. Span., Vol. IV, Pt. 194.
32
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on February 22, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 265.
James 36
remained skeptical, saying that he had heard many alleged explanations but was not convinced
that such a marriage would happen.33 Over the course of the next month, he must have changed
his mind or at least grown hopeful. Writing with more confidence, he told Charles V that the
rumor had given him some faith in Henry VIII’s nature and his goodwill toward his daughter.34
In his following dispatch, Chapuys recognized an opportunity and attempted to take an active
step into the matter. “I likewise deem it advisable to try, in my own name of course, what can be
done with the duke [sic] of Norfolk,” he told Charles. The time had come to test “whether we
could not gain [Norfolk] over to our cause” by promising to help with the affair. Chapuys was
delighted over the mutual benefits that such a match might provide, as well as the “troubles and
anxieties it would remove.”35 Ultimately, nothing came of the idea, and Mary Tudor would
wallow in domestic uncertainty for several decades. But the plan highlights Chapuys’ growing
comfort at assessing the various agendas of Henry’s courtiers as they related to the universal
aims of the Habsburg Empire. It also signaled a shift in his relationship with members of the
Boleyn faction. Even if nothing came of the plans to marry Princess Mary, the event forecast
Chapuys’ role as participant in court maneuverings, and it foretold a growing willingness to
intervene in opposition to the divorce.
The following spring, Chapuys became further and more actively embroiled in affairs
that he understood and even hoped would threaten the Boleyns. In mid-March 1530, Cardinal
Wolsey’s physician, Alberto Agostini, contacted the ambassador in order to enquire about a
pension that the Cardinal still held from the bishopric of Palencia in Spain.36 Ever since his
arrival in England, Chapuys had reported the hostility that the Boleyns felt toward Wolsey, and
33
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 8, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 211.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 6, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 224.
35
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 13, 1529. See, Cal. Span, Vol 4, Pt. 1, 232.
36
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on March 16, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 270.
34
James 37
multiple sources had thus warned him to keep his distance from the Cardinal. As early as his first
meeting with Katherine of Aragon in September 1529, the queen had instructed Chapuys not to
deliver any letters to Wolsey because his affairs, she said, were “at a very low ebb indeed.”37
Initially Chapuys paid heed to such warnings, telling Charles in October that “by the Queen’s
advice, and that of many good servants and friends of Your Imperial Majesty” he had “avoided”
the fallen Cardinal because he believed “not many days will elapse before we have a new
government in this country, and then we shall have to sail with them before the wind.”38 Long
since stripped of the Great Seal and other signs of the office of Lord Chancellor, Wolsey was in
no less a precarious position in March 1530. Still, by this point Chapuys had grown more
confident in navigating the contested terrain of England’s factional politics. Wolsey, after all,
might even remedy some of the faction-heavy tension between Katherine and Henry. Surely,
Chapuys reasoned, if he were restored to power, then “the Cardinal would soon find means of
settling this business [of the divorce] in a manner which would… cost the opposite party their
lives.” For Chapuys, the possibility that Wolsey might help finish the Boleyns and perhaps the
divorce justified investigating the cardinal’s return. This theory was based in part on the
assumption that “the King bears the Cardinal no real ill-will” and that by dismissing Wolsey in
the first place Henry had merely intended “to gratify the Lady [Anne] in this particular.”39
Though perhaps overly optimistic, Chapuys saw in Wolsey a possible ally of the Imperial cause
or, at least, a man with a mutual foe.
In reality, Wolsey was more desperate and less powerful as an ally than Chapuys had
likely hoped. Much like the Boleyns had done in the fall of 1529, Wolsey attempted to ingratiate
37
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Margaret of Austria on September 18, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt.
38
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 8, 1529. See, Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 182.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 13, 1529. See, Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 232.
1, 152.
39
James 38
himself with the ambassador in an attempt to gain favor through a foreign alliance. Chapuys told
Charles that Wolsey sent Agostini, his physician, to speak with Chapuys three times over the
course of a April 1530 in order to “vindicate his past conduct and to offer his services to Your
Majesty.” Admitting that he now no longer possessed any tangible power, Wolsey still promised
the ambassador that “knowing so thoroughly as he does the nature of men and the condition of
things in this country,” his advice would still be of value to the emperor, to whom he begged
Chapuys to communicate his sincere affection.40 Shortly after, Wolsey was forced to admit via
his physician that, in fact, he could not offer any advice because he was not up to date on the
Queen’s affair or the King’s recent endeavors.41 Still, Wolsey desperately needed Chapuys’ help
and placed on the ambassador his hopes for reconciliation with the King and a return to
prominence. As late as mid-August 1530, Wolsey still sent daily inquiries to Chapuys and
maintained that his restoration was a possibility.42 As he had once been skeptical of the Boleyns’
attempts at flattery, Chapuys was skeptical of the ever desperate Wolsey’s usefulness. He needed
to proceed with caution. “It can do no harm,” he explained to Charles V, “to temporize with him
for a while and see how he behaves and what he will say or do, which can easily be done without
his enemies getting wind of it.”43 Even if Chapuys’ optimism waned, the fact that Wolsey sought
him as a resource implies that the fallen chancellor recognized the ambassador’s increasing
prominence; that Chapuys responded implies a willingness to interfere in factional politics.
Hatched out of Wolsey’s desperation, the tentative alliance between Wolsey and Chapuys
brought the ambassador into dangerous territory. By the summer of 1530, Wolsey insisted that
“now was the time to take stronger measures and call in the assistance of the secular arm, since
40
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on April 23, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 290.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on June15, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 354.
42
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on August 20, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 411.
43
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on April 23, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 290.
41
James 39
so little nerve was shewn [sic] on [the other side].”44 This carefully worded appeal was an
indictment of the Pope’s inaction, but more significantly, it was a direct call for the emperor to
raise arms against Wolsey’s former master Henry VIII. It was an effort to foment unrest in
England; it was treason on Wolsey’s part. Pleas to Charles for an Imperial invasion would later
become commonplace in Chapuys’ dispatches, but in 1530 he tactfully dissociated himself from
Wolsey’s dangerous appeals. The implication of Wolsey’s request for the “secular arm” seems
clear given the dire circumstances of the cardinal’s career, but Chapuys, usually prepared to read
ulterior motives between the lines, feigned ignorance. “The physician did not further explain the
cardinal’s meaning,” he insisted, “and, therefore, I am at a loss how to interpret his message and
wishes.”45
Chapuys was, however, willing to support a different plan more assertively. He and the
cardinal agreed that both of their problems could be resolved through removing the Boleyns from
court. “All things considered,” he wrote to Charles, “the removal of the said Lady [Anne] from
the Court” was the most advisable course of action and could possibly be obtained if Charles V
pressured the Vatican into writing a papal brief that demanded it. If such a plan could be
accomplished, Wolsey was sure that the “management of the affairs [of government] may be left
to those who know best how to act, by which he means himself,” Chapuys added.46 While
Wolsey’s demand for an invasion appeared unrealistic to Chapuys, both cardinal and ambassador
could, at least, agree on a mutual dissatisfaction with the Boleyn faction. For Wolsey, the family
threatened his position and title; for Chapuys, they threatened the aims of the Habsburgs.
44
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on June15, 1530. See, Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 354. In other
instances, Wolsey’s language (as represented by Chapuys) was less direct but always equally urgent. Wolsey
insisted that his “happiness, honor, and repose” depended on his dealings with the Emperor, who he complained had
not “energetically pushed” the Queen’s case and needed to take “strong and immediate action” immediately. For
examples in other letters see, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 354, 366, 411.
45
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on June15, 1530. Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 354.
46
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on June15, 1530. Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 354.
James 40
Desperate plans and frantic dispatches ultimately condemned Wolsey and nearly Chapuys
as well. On November 6, 1530 Cardinal Wolsey was accused of treason and arrested. Multiple
rumors swirled around London as to the cause of the Cardinal’s arrest, with Chapuys predictably
choosing to blame the Boleyns. Norfolk, Thomas Boleyn, and their family “had never ceased
plotting against the Cardinal,” he said, “especially the Lady [Anne Boleyn], who wept, and
wailed, regretting her lost time and honor, and threatening the King that she would go away and
leave him… and though he begged and entreated her most affectionately, and even with tears in
his eyes, not to forsake him, nothing would satisfy the Lady short of the Cardinal’s arrest.”47 The
ambassador’s description suggests the ability of faction to mold political endeavors in a
government dictated by personal monarchy. Here, his words, however, must also be read with
caution. Chapuys reports no source for this observation and had not even met Anne Boleyn,
though he confidently described her hysterics. More than likely, the ambassador was responding
to common court gossip and innuendo, hardly a firsthand source. Still, where there was smoke,
there may indeed have been fire.
Henry and Anne’s domestic melodrama aside, Chapuys found himself uncomfortably
close to the hotbed of factional conflict. The official line on Wolsey’s arrest featured an
improbable and fantastic conspiracy with the French.48 Allegedly, the Habsburg Empire was not
47
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 27, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 509.
The specifics and motivations for Wolsey’s arrest are contested. There are essentially three theories.
First, there is the possibility that Wolsey was genuinely embroiled in an international conspiracy whereby the French
would provoke a joint war with England against the Charles V before abandoning Henry altogether. Wolsey hoped,
theoretically, that Henry would be replaced by the Princess Mary and then both he and Katherine of Aragon would
be secure. Such a plan was extreme and can only rely on the confession of Wolsey’s physician as evidence, although
the Cardinal’s dealing with Chapuys indicate that he had the “secular arm” on his mind. The contrasting argument is
that no conspiracy ever existed but was fabricated either by Henry or some combination of the Boleyns, likely the
Duke of Norfolk and Francis Bryan, Anne’s cousin. The third and most likely theory, as explained by Wolsey’s
biographer, Peter Gwyn, is a combination of these two and dictates that though there was no conspiracy, Wolsey had
given Henry and his ministers enough grounds to worry that he had become a threat. Gwyn and historian David
Starkey have contrasting opinions of sixteenth century factions, but they arrive at a generally similar conclusion on
this front. For explorations of these theories see, Gwyn, Peter, The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas
Wolsey (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1990), 600-617; David Starkey, Six Wives, 426-432.
48
James 41
the only international power being courted by Wolsey. Still, there was every possibility that
Chapuys could be implicated by the affair. Alberto Agostini, the same physician through whom
Chapuys and Wolsey had communicated, was arrested alongside Wolsey and immediately
brought to London for questioning. By all accounts, Agostini was more than willing to talk. On
November 13 Chapuys noted that the physician had been sent to the Tower of London as a
traitor. In his following dispatch though, he reported that only a day after his arrival in London,
Agostini was brought to the residence of the Duke of Norfolk and “entertained like a prince,
which clearly shews [sic] that he (Agostini) has been singing to the right tune, as the Cardinal’s
enemies wished.”49 Agostini delivered damning evidence against his former master, but whether
his ‘tune’ would ultimately embarrass Chapuys would have initially been unclear. But with
Wolsey’s recent foreign communications under scrutiny and Agostini willing to talk, the
ambassador would have had reason to worry.
Ultimately, Chapuys’ brush with Wolsey’s alleged treason left him unscathed because he
was shielded by his position as diplomat. Chapuys attempted to assure Charles V that there was
no immediate danger, claiming, “Even if the physician should relate what passed between him
and myself he could say nothing which could lay me open to accusation or even calumny.”
Considering that he had spent the better half of 1530 discussing possible papal or Imperial
interventions with Agostini and Wolsey, Chapuys was likely writing with more confidence than
he must have felt. Though the Savoyard had been stretching the truth, his confidence wound up
being justified. Under interrogation, Agostini denied having “any understanding or
acquaintance” with Chapuys, surely a lie though one that was helpful to the Imperial
ambassador. Otherwise, he reasoned, he would likely have heard from the Duke of Norfolk,
49
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 27, 1530. Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 509.
James 42
whose word Chapuys was inclined to believe because he was “a bad dissembler.”50 But perhaps
Norfolk was a better liar than Chapuys assumed. Certain scholars have implied as much.
Agostini’s confession has disappeared, but at most it only represented the government’s official
representation of events. Under suspicion of high treason, there was little reason for Agostini to
deny his contacts with the Imperial ambassador but decide to reveal a ‘conspiracy’ with the
French. There was, however, reason for the government to ignore Chapuys’ involvement. As
David Starkey has compellingly argued, the last thing Henry VIII needed was further cause to
exacerbate diplomatic relations with the Habsburg Empire. Hurling accusations against Charles
V’s official representative would do nothing to accelerate Henry’s quest for a divorce and would
threaten an already feeble relationship with the emperor. Therefore, it is quite probable that
Agostini did, in fact, reveal Chapuys’ involvement but that the English government – whether it
was Norfolk or Henry himself – felt it best not to pursue the matter.51 Considering that England’s
relationship with France in 1530 was otherwise generally favorable, ignoring Chapuys’
involvement with Wolsey minimized the potential for diplomatic awkwardness.
Chapuys escaped any consequences of his first major court intrigue, but there was no
saving his onetime correspondent and confederate. Cardinal Wolsey died on November 29, 1530
while in transit to London in order to face interrogation and likely imprisonment. If Chapuys
mourned the man onto whom he had once pinned hopes of destroying the Boleyns, he did so
reservedly. His reaction to the Cardinal’s death, however, suggests Chapuys’ mounting
dissatisfaction with Henry VIII. The Cardinal, he wrote, “died like a good Christian, protesting,
at the time of receiving the Holy Sacrament, that he had never undertaken anything against his
master, the King.” As described by Chapuys, Wolsey, a faithful man of the cloth, had been
50
51
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 27, 1530. Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 509.
Starkey, Six Wives, 432.
James 43
murdered by the wrath of the Tudor king. In this, Wolsey joined the ranks of Richard III, who,
Chapuys reported, had been killed by Henry VII not far from where Wolsey himself died. The
two men, Chapuys claimed, were now buried in the same church, “which the people begin
already to call ‘the Tyrant’s grave.’”52 This last comment likely reflects more about what
Chapuys thought about the King of England than about the attitudes of Henry’s subjects.
According to the ambassador, the most pressing question facing the king following the
Cardinal’s death was what to do with his ecclesiastic benefices. Chapuys suspected that Henry
would retain them for some period and “pocket the revenues” himself.53 Henry and his court
were not likely to mourn Wolsey’s death.
Just over a year since his arrival, Chapuys could not now have been more distant from the
Boleyns. Far from mourning the Cardinal’s death, they in fact celebrated it. Chapuys reported
with disgust that Thomas Boleyn, now Earl of Wiltshire, and the Duke of Norfolk funded a farce
depicting Wolsey’s descent into Hell.54 Chapuys found the Boleyns unpleasant, and they were
growing equally dissatisfied with him. Originally willing to cozy up to the ambassador in hopes
of securing some advantage from him when he arrived in 1529, the Boleyns had become
disenchanted by the events of 1530. After an unsuccessful trip to meet with Charles V in
Bologna that spring, Thomas Boleyn wrote to Henry VIII that Chapuys, like the emperor, was
“stiffly… set against your cause” and probably partially to blame for the mission’s failure. 55
Boleyn’s concern that Chapuys was a troublemaker could only have been confirmed by the
ambassador’s involvement with Wolsey. By that fall, formal amenities could not conceal
Wiltshire’s distaste for Chapuys and the parties with whom he was associated. Shortly after
52
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 4, 1530. See, Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 522.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 4, 1530. See, Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 522.
54
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Empress Isabella on January 23, 1531. See, Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 615.
55
Letter from the Earl of Wiltshire to Henry VIII on April 24, 1530. See, Letters and Papers, Vol. 4, 6355.
53
James 44
returning from Bologna, Boleyn confronted Chapuys, slandering the pope and cardinal so
violently that “full of horror at what was being said [Chapuys] took leave and left the room
immediately.”56 Chapuys was no longer a fresh and unseasoned diplomat at a foreign court.
Having now spent over a year in England, Chapuys was deeply imbedded in English politics and
had established his own alliances. Of this Thomas Boleyn was well aware. The more actively
involved Chapuys became in navigating English factions for the sake of the Imperial cause, the
more the Boleyns must have begun to resent him, and the two almost certainly came to dislike
one another intensely.57 For the Boleyns, Chapuys had gone from potential tool to certain
opponent.
Chapuys’ first eighteen months in England had been a trial by fire. As an ambassador he
had been a target of and potential ally for rival political groups, a position that initially allowed
him to transcend the divisions between factions. Had Chapuys come to London in a time of easy
harmony, his relationships at court may have stayed that way and resulted in a peaceful residency
abroad. Chapuys, however, did not arrive in a time of harmony but rather conflict that threatened
the dynastic claims and universal ambitions of the Habsburg Empire. Protecting his master’s
interests in the divorce required that Chapuys evolve from observer and critic of England’s
factional politics to active participant in them. As a result, certain battle lines solidified and
would continue to define his diplomatic career. In the process, Chapuys proved himself a
competent and perceptive envoy, capable of holding his own in a court moving steadily closer to
a divorce that he aimed to prevent. Yet without either compromising his master or alienating his
host monarch, Chapuys had generally steered clear of outright enmities and quarrels. This task
56
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 31, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 481.
William H. Dean discusses the sour relationship between Chapuys and Thomas Boleyn in the fourth and
fifth chapters of his dissertation. See, William H. Dean, Sir Thomas Boleyn, The Courtier Diplomat, 1477-1539.
PhD dissertation, West Virginia University, 1987, 157-158.
57
James 45
would grow increasingly difficult as he entered one of the most trying periods of his career, one
in which maintaining friendships and alliances became ever more difficult. Chapuys would
become increasingly embroiled in the intrigue of Henry’s court as Katherine of Aragon would
become more and more of an outsider. Salvaging her cause became Chapuys’ primary goal while
protecting her person became a personal passion.
James 46
Chapter Two
The Diplomacy of a Queen:
Advocating for Katherine of Aragon
15 June, 1530
Even with his mistress living unabashedly under the same roof and his divorce well
underway, Henry VIII had not abandoned all trappings of married domesticity. Katherine, a
skilled and practiced needlewoman, still made all of Henry’s shirts with the help of her various
ladies. If the irony did not occur to Henry, it most certainly did to Anne Boleyn, and Eustace
Chapuys did not disappoint with his account of her fury. Hearing that Henry had sent Katherine
materials for making his shirts, Anne, or rather “the Lady,” as Chapuys continued to call her,
sent for the gentleman of the bedchamber who had delivered the cloth. Though Henry apparently
confessed that the materials had been delivered on his order, Anne “abused the bearer in the
King’s presence” and threatened that “she would have him punished severely.” Furthermore,
Chapuys continued, there was talk “of dismissing, to please the Lady, some of the officers of the
Royal Household” in addition to the handful of courtiers who had already been dismissed at her
behest, including two ladies-in-waiting “most devoted to the Queen and in whom she found more
comfort and consolation than in any others.”1
In Chapuys’ hands, the episode features Anne Boleyn as a clear antagonist whose
pettiness and jealousy first disrupt the royal family’s domestic life and the rest of England with
it. According to Chapuys, the report revealed that Henry, still willing to send his shirts to his
wife after all, “does not seem to bear any ill-will towards” the queen. Katherine’s case was not
entirely lost. If only Anne could be kept away from court, then surely “the Queen might still
regain her influence over the King.”2 If perhaps wishful thinking, the ambassador’s sentiment
1
2
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 15 June, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 346.
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 15 June, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 346.
James 47
was, at the very least, in step with Katherine’s, who maintained that her anger was “not against
the King, my lord, but against the inventors and abettors of this cause” as well as “this woman
with whom he lives.”3 For both queen and ambassador, Anne was the primary cause of
England’s recent misfortunes.
While dramatic, Chapuys’ story of Katherine, Anne, and an unfortunate gentleman is not
a first-hand account. At best, the ambassador learned about it from Katherine; at worst it was an
unverified rumor. Determining which is impossible. Leaving behind concerns of its accuracy, the
account is perhaps more valuable as evidence of Chapuys’ perspective and agenda. Casting Anne
as a jealous harpy, preying upon a dutiful wife whose husband bore her no real ill-will made
clear that Katherine’s case was not hopeless but in fact quite salvageable. It merely required that
Charles take action that could remove Anne from court. Thus, certain anecdotes in Chapuys’
dispatches emerge as implicit requests for intervention. This begs the question of whether
Chapuys’ loyalties truly lay with Katherine or Charles.
For some of Katherine’s biographers this question is a simple one. Garret Mattingly
argues that the ambassador subordinated every other Imperial interest in England for the sake of
the queen’s defense, going so far as to claim that Chapuys would have likely been replaced by a
different man altogether had Charles V “been no more scrupulous of his personal honor than
Ferdinand of Aragon” had been before him.4 More recently though, Giles Tremlet took a
contrasting stance whereby Chapuys was “first and foremost his master’s servant,” meaning that
“when Charles’ interests came into conflict with those of his aunt, as they increasingly did,
Chapuys looked after the former first.”5 Yet locating Chapuys in either Charles’ or Katherine’s
3
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Pope Clement VII on 17 December, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4 , Pt.
1, 548. Incidentally, this comment is believed to be Katherine’s earliest written acknowledgement of Anne Boleyn.
4
Garret Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 300-301.
5
Tremlett, 348.
James 48
separate camp obscures how the ambassador approached his career in England. If in his defense
of the queen’s case he occasionally privileged Katherine’s treatment above what was financially
or tactically feasible for Charles V, he did not see it as such. While abroad, Chapuys saw
Katherine’s needs as being completely synonymous with those of the greater Habsburg Empire.
The stage was already set long before Charles V ever appointed Chapuys ambassador to
England, with the most significant prop being a biblical passage with relevant implications. “If a
man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall
be childless.”6 So reads the passage from the Book of Leviticus that allegedly plagued Henry
VIII’s conscience and would remain the primary justification for his contentious divorce. In
reality, this biblical injunction against sexual morality actually stood in direct contrast to a
separate passage in the Book of Deuteronomy, which maintained that if a brother died leaving
his wife childless, then “the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a
stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty
of a husband’s brother to her.”7 Despite the conflicting biblical instructions, the mandate from
Leviticus would haunt the rest of Katherine of Aragon’s life as well as much of Chapuys’ early
diplomatic career.
Establishing a full-fledged chronology of Henry’s desire for divorce in the pre-Chapuys
years is difficult, though telling signs suggest important markers on a general timeline. Henry
first publicly explored the possibility of an annulment of his marriage to Katherine in May 1527,
when Cardinal Wolsey opened an enquiry into its validity. That August Henry drafted a petition
to Pope Clement VII. In it he asked that if his first marriage were, in fact, “pronounced
unlawful,” then Clement should also grant him permission to marry a woman related to him by
6
7
Lev. 20:21 ESV.
Deut. 25:5 ESV.
James 49
“the first degree of affinity, from any licit or illicit intercourse in order to prevent uncertainty in
the succession, which in past times has been the occasion of war.”8 The implication was that if
Henry VIII did remarry, he aimed to ensure that he could still take as his bride a woman whose
sister he had already slept with. Thus, the passage is widely understood as an unmistakable
reference to Anne Boleyn, the “illicit intercourse” in question being with Anne’s sister, Mary
Carey, believed to have been Henry’s mistress in the early 1520s.9 Like the contradiction
between the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the irony that Henry aimed to marry a woman
with whose sister he had already had sex even as he petitioned for an annulment on the grounds
of having married his brother’s wife further illustrates the flimsy canonical basis of his divorce.
At the outset of the official and public enquiry into a divorce then, Henry wanted to marry Anne
Boleyn but – perhaps more importantly – he also wanted to ensure that their children would be
legitimate heirs to the English throne. Henry did not only want a new wife; he wanted a son.
Beyond that, little is explicitly clear. Eric Ives maintains that Henry’s passion for Anne
could not have predated the 1527 petition by much.10 On the other hand, G.W. Bernard, pointing
to one in a series of undated letters from Henry to Anne, notes that the king, still unsure of his
beloved’s affection, claims to have been pursuing her for over a year before they committed to
one another, thus implying that Henry’s infatuation with Anne could have begun no later than
mid-1526, one year before Henry’s petition to Rome.11 David Starkey would place the onset of
their relationship even earlier, in late 1525.12 Dating the point at which Henry began feeling
dissatisfied with his first marriage is even more difficult. The king had, of course, had an
illegitimate child by Elizabeth Blount in 1519, but it is unlikely that he would have given up on
8
For the full text see Letter and Papers, Vol. 4, 3686; Bernard, Fatal Attractions, 25.
Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 84.
10
Ives, The Life and Death, 88.
11
Bernard, Fatal Attractions, 25.
12
Starkey, Six Wives, 277-82.
9
James 50
his first marriage a full eight years before perusing an alternative. Regardless, by the time that he
had begun concrete measures for annulling his first marriage, it is clear that his concerns were
not only canonical. Unfortunately for the king, the timing was less than opportune.
If divorcing Katherine of Aragon was problematic from a canonical standpoint, then it
was nearly impossible from a political one. At roughly the same time that Henry first publicly
pursued a divorce, Charles V’s troops sacked the city of Rome, beginning on 6 May, 1527. The
episode was part of a much larger campaign for the domination of Italy that included both
Charles and Francis I, King of France, as major players. Pope Clement VII took refuge in Castle
Sant’ Angelo, but by 5 June he had no alternative but to sign a humiliating treaty with the
viceroy of Naples, leaving himself essentially a prisoner in Imperial hands.13 As Charles
solidified his position in Italy, the French were increasingly destabilized, pushed back to Milan
by 1528 and defeated at the Battle of Landriano in June 1529. On 3 August, 1529, Francis and
Charles achieved a tentative peace through the Treaty of Cambrai. Though not necessarily
“wholly favorable to Charles” in every respect, the treaty essentially forced the French out of
Italy.14
The Habsburg Empire had expanded to the point of having the papacy in its grasp.
Deserted by the French, the Italian states and thus Rome and the pope, were now under the
control of Charles V. Aware that the writing was on the wall, Pope Clement VII reportedly
13
See Letters &Papers, Vol. 4, 3114.
Charles V’s biographer, Karl Brandi, describes the Treaty of Cambrai in these terms, focusing on the fact
that Francis agreed to recognize Charles as sovereign of Artois and Flanders while also renouncing any claims to
Milan, Genoa, and Naples. However, Francis I’s biographer, R.J. Kneckt, objects, explaining that though the peace
included some humiliating terms for the French king, the treaty was a “triumph for [French] diplomacy” in two
respects: Francis retained Burgundy and recovered his sons, who had been imprisoned in Spain since 1526.
Speaking more broadly on Renaissance Monarchy, Glenn Richardson charts are more even course, noting that “at
Cambrai there was a greater apparent mutuality in the negotiations,” which gave the settlement a “legitimacy” that
had been lacking at previous peace efforts between Francis I and Charles. Karl Brandi and C.V. Wedgwood, The
Emperor Charles V: The Growth and Destiny of a Man and of a World-Empire (London: J. Cape, 1939), 281; R.J.
Knecht, Francis I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 220; Glenn Richardson, Renaissance Monarchy:
The Reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I, and Charles V (London: Arnold, 2002), 82-84).
14
James 51
confessed to a confidante, “I have quite made up my mind to become an Imperialist, and to live
and die as such. If the Empire goes to ruin, the Church also will be ruined."15 This surrender of
the Church to Charles V did not bode well for Henry VIII’s divorce, but it did forecast Chapuys’
significance as an intermediary connecting the Queen of England, Pope Clement, and the Holy
Roman Emperor.
In sending Chapuys to England, Charles hoped that Henry’s divorce might still be
mediated through effective diplomacy. In Rome, Charles’ representatives at the papal court
understood that Charles and Katherine together had “no other wish than to put an end to this
affair, if possible, by fair means.”16 This was to be the emperor’s approach to England as well.
To Katherine, Charles wrote before Chapuys’ arrival that he would “in my name try to persuade
the King, my good brother, to ease his conscience and cast off any scruples and doubts he may
have about the legitimacy of his marriage with you.” 17 Charles was still optimistic and hoped
that such a task could be accomplished with relative ease.
Thus, the emperor’s instructions to Chapuys reflect the assumption that gentle measures
would be sufficient. Chapuys was to “influence” Henry VIII but to do so “without trying too
hard and debating too much over the subject of the divorce, the validity of it or not” and
ultimately to “convince him in a friendly way without involving the rigor of justice.”18 Henry
VIII could, after all, “easily” return to his rightful marriage “if he will but duly weigh the many
reasons and considerations” that Chapuys would soon present to him.19 In turn, Chapuys
understood full-well that that emperor had sent him to England with one primary goal. “The
15
Letter from Imperial Ambassador to Rome Miçer Mai to Charles V on 8 June, 1529. See, Cal. Span.,
Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 36.
16
Letter from Loud de Praet and Micer Mai, the Emperor’s ambassadors to Rome, to Charles V on 28
August, 1529. See Cal. Spa., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 122.
17
Letter from Charles V to Katherine of Aragon in July 1529 (undated). See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 120.
18
The Emperor’s instruction’s to Eustace Chapuys, dated 25 June, 1529 at Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 52; See
also Lauren Macky’s translation, available in full in Macky, 22-24.
19
Letter from Charles V to Katherine of Aragon in July 1529. Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 120.
James 52
Queen’s business,” he told Margaret of Austria, “was the first and principal article in my
instructions.”20 The new ambassador was central to Charles’ tactical response to the King of
England, though he did not initially realize the lengthy, exhausting battle that stood before him
and his ambassador.
Chapuys’ arrival was complicated by factional tensions, as we have seen. His arrival
must also have included the realization that the state of the queen’s marriage was far grimmer
than Charles V had given him reason to believe. At the end of September, less than a month after
his arrival in London, the Savoyard wrote, “This King’s obstinacy and his passion for the Lady
[Anne] are such that there is no chance of recalling him by mildness or fair words to a sense of
his duty. Things having come to such a pitch, there can be no security or repose [for the queen]
unless the case be tried and decided [in Rome], and the sooner the better. ”21 This would be a
continual refrain of Chapuys’ letters, with the ambassador continually prompting more
aggressive, more tangible action. Any hope of fulfilling his charge through “fair means” was
dashed quickly and emphatically. Having been told that preventing the divorce was a matter of
great Imperial interest but to expect a climate in which subtle politicking would be sufficient,
Chapuys needed to convey the gravity of the situation. He urged for more forceful action not
because he prioritized Katherine’s cause above the emperor’s interests but because the emperor’s
original advice did not match the reality of the situation in England.
That the situation was tense did not mean that the ambassador could not still disrupt the
divorce proceedings through his dexterity as a diplomat. During his first audience with the king,
Chapuys demonstrated that his background in civil and canonical law would make him a strong
advocate for the Queen’s case. Henry forcefully demanded that Charles send him Julius II’s
1, 152.
20
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Margaret of Austria on 18 September, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt.
21
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 21 September, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4 , Pt. 1, 160.
James 53
original dispensation permitting Katherine to marry her late husband’s brother. Maintaining that
the emperor had no reason for deliberately “keeping the brief in his power, and not sending it to
me to whom by right it belongs,” Henry also insisted that a copy of the papal bull would not
suffice because he feared being duped by a forgery. On this count, Chapuys could not resist
showing off his legal knowledge. Noting that he would have “no objection to defend this right in
a court of law,” Chapuys explained to Henry that he could not claim possession of the article
given the fact that it was neither addressed to him nor paid for by his Royal Treasury. Besides,
the brief, he said, “was like a letter missive from the Pope; and it is an axiom of civil law that a
letter missive does not belong to the person to whom it is addressed, unless he actually receives
it.” Even supposing for argument’s sake that the brief did belong to the king, the emperor’s
“interest” in the affair justified his keeping it in his hands “as prescribed by common law, which
ordains that instruments concerning various parties should be preserved and kept by the highest
in authority amongst them who, of course, is obliged, when required, to furnish attested copies of
the same to the interested parties.”22 This early exchange with the king foreshadowed the sharp
repartee that characterized much of Chapuys’ dealings with Henry. More importantly, it
illustrated the ambassador’s impressive ability to advocate on behalf of the emperor and
Katherine of Aragon. His background in law provided him with the relevant vocabulary for
combating Henry’s divorce, while his loyalty to his master and close relationship with Katherine
of Aragon provided motivation.
Here again we might pause, however, to remember the nature of Chapuys’
correspondence. Chapuys appears to have impressively fielded Henry VIII’s arguments, but this
emerges from a text the Savoyard himself wrote himself and addressed to his own master. One
might expect a new ambassador to use an account of his first audience with a foreign king as an
22
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 21 September, 1529. Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 160.
James 54
opportunity for showcasing his skill as a diplomat. Still, the clearest component of the account is
Chapuys’ fluency with legal concept and vocabularies, things difficult to fake regardless of
whether the author hopes to impress his master. If Chapuys overstated his ability to go head to
head with a confident king on their first encounter, he did at least have the genuine legal training
to back it up. It was for this reason that Charles conferred on Chapuys the “power of attorney to
act in the Queen’s affairs” roughly a year later.23
In contrast with his first tense audience with the king, Chapuys’ relationship with
Katherine of Aragon was positive from the start. The Queen of England recognized a friend
when she spotted one and saw in Chapuys a valuable resource. “An ambassador from the
Emperor at such a time,” she told Chapuys, “was a great comfort in the midst of her
tribulations.”24 Chapuys in particular had more than lived up to her expectations. “No one,”
Katherine reportedly assured Chapuys, “could have executed [the emperor’s] commission better
or spoken more to her satisfaction.”25 Katherine was undoubtedly grateful for Chapuys’
assistance, and she saw him as far more than the representative of a friendly foreign state; instead
he was an ally and primary partner.
Before Chapuys could even report to Charles regarding his first audience with Henry
VIII, he received a message from Katherine: “On no account was I to write or send an express to
the Emperor until I had heard from her, as she would communicate with me as soon as
possible.”26 Thus Katherine presumed to insert herself into the diplomatic channel of
communication between a government and its ambassador. Chapuys would not operate
exclusively as the emperor’s eyes and ears; in addition, he would serve as Katherine’s
23
24
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 20 September, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 433.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Margaret of Austria on 18 September, 1529.Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1,
152.
25
26
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 21 September, 1529. Cal. Span., Vol. 4 , Pt. 1, 160.
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 21 September, 1529. Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 160.
James 55
mouthpiece for direct communication with the emperor. The two of them, she seemed to hope,
would operate as a united force, and therefore she did not hesitate to supervise even Chapuys’
ambassadorial duties. Katherine’s presence in Chapuys’ correspondence would only grow more
prominent.
As necessary as their relationship was for political reasons, Katherine and Chapuys also
enjoyed an exceedingly close friendship. Chapuys came to demonstrate more dedication than
Katherine had reason to expect even from a countryman, let alone from a foreign ambassador.
She wrote her letters to him not in the customary French or opening with the formal salutation
“Mons. L’ambassadeur,” as would have been expected, but rather in Spanish, the language of the
queen’s homeland, to her “especial amigo,” a greeting impossible to find in her correspondence
with any other contemporary.27 In exchange Chapuys referred to Katherine as the “angelical and
peerless Princess.”28 Personal respect and goodwill compounded with their mutual goals to
create a sincere bond.
If Chapuys was going to adopt the roles of Katherine’s confidante and collaborator, then
the two would need to be able to communicate privately. “There are, however” she told Chapuys
in one audience, “matters upon which I dare not, surrounded as I am, speak to you in detail.”29
As a result, Katherine, as Wolsey would also do, promised to send her physician to speak with
Chapuys confidentially.30 This highlights the necessity for covert channels of communication in
sixteenth-century diplomacy. Chapuys would later write on physicians in general, “I do my best
to get acquainted with people of that profession inasmuch as they have the means of frequenting
27
Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 361.
Letter from Chapuys to Chalres on 23 June, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 68.
29
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 21 September, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 160.
30
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Margaret of Austria on 18 September, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt.
28
1, 152.
James 56
the houses of the nobility, and coming to me without suspicion.”31 Chapuys was constantly
aware of how diplomatic dealings appeared and could be perceived by others. As a foreigner
representing the Habsburg emperor, he understood that his movements might reveal certain
Imperial interests and dealings better kept secret. Similarly, other Englishmen might not be eager
to be seen conversing with the minion of a foreign king. Thus physicians, whose movements
were consistent but presumably unremarkable, were ideal go-betweens.
Of course, relying on a physician or any other third-party individual in efforts at
subterfuge could only be as successful as the carefulness and consideration of the individual in
question. Surrounded by a group of officers from the king’s household while walking through
the streets of London, Chapuys was horrified when Katherine’s physician, Fernando de Victoria,
openly approached him in such mixed company and shared an update from the Queen. “It is a
mystery to me,” he exclaimed in his letter to Charles, “how the said physician dared make [in
their presence] a summary of what had occurred in the divorce case, the origin, and causes of it.”
Chapuys attempted to rectify the mistake by keeping Victoria at his house until “as late as
possible in the evening in order to avoid observation.”32 That the queen would understand the
need for secret communication but not the need for her representative’s subtlety seems unlikely.
Katherine, it must also be noted, was not new to diplomatic intrigue.33 The mistake was likely
Victoria’s alone. Still, such visible efforts to keep in touch with the Imperial ambassador would
increasingly mark Chapuys as a center for opposition to the divorce.
Indeed, Katherine’s growing relationship with the ambassador did not go unnoticed, and
the issue of how best to communicate with one another became ever more complicated. Perhaps
31
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 14 January, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 127.
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 21 September, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 160.
33
Katherine had, in fact, been briefly appointed the official Spanish ambassador to the court of Henry VII
in May 1507 while her father searched for a replacement, making her the first female diplomat in European history.
See Starkey, Six Wives, 100.
32
James 57
reports of Fernando de Victoria’s ill-timed visit in September had gotten back to Henry VIII. As
early as October 1529, Katherine told Chapuys that she was concerned about what the king
might make of their closeness. As a result, he reported to Charles, the Queen believed that “in
order to avoid raising suspicion in the mind of the king, I had better cease visiting her” entirely.34
The demands of fighting the impending divorce made Chapuys too important an ally to
compromise. It was necessary to proceed with caution, even when doing so was frustrating. As to
the idea of “going thither [to visit Katherine] openly and by daylight there is no chance just
now,” he told Charles. Doing so would “greatly displease the King” and consequentially “not
profit her or Your Majesty.” Therefore, Katherine was still “thinking and planning how I could
get to her apartments without being noticed.”35 The Byzantine dynamics of the English court
complicated Chapuys’ ambassadorial duties, bringing an increased need for secrecy and intrigue.
As the divorce heightened the significance of Chapuys’ relationship with the queen, it also
threatened the extent to which any relationship was even possible.
Frustrations in Chapuys’ communication with Katherine were, however, only
symptomatic of a larger challenge facing the ambassador at court. The association of Chapuys
with Katherine disrupted the ambassador’s ability to perform his fundamental duty of gathering
information. That envoys needed to bribe certain contacts at a foreign court was a given of
sixteenth-century diplomacy.36 As a result, it must have come as a shock to Chapuys when even
his paid informants became hesitant to associate with him. Brian Tuck, a member of the Privy
34
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 25 October, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 194.
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 9 December, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 224.
36
Even Etienne Dolet, a humanist whose writings deal largely in classical ideals that harken back to
antiquity, recommended bribery, though he dressed it in euphemisms. In his treatise on the role of the ambassador he
urges diplomats to employ “shrewd men not of one’s household, who have been inveigled by our liberality (for
liberality wins over even men of the greatest integrity), who through their intimate association with our enemy can
draw out his plans and pretenses, and afterwards disclose them to us.” Dolet studied at the University of Padua
before being recruited by a French ambassador to Venice to act as a secretary. Thus, he was exposed to
contemporary diplomacy even if writing harkens back to antiquity. See Etienne Dolet, “On the Function of the
Ambassador,” trans. James E. Dunlap, The American Journal of American Law, 27, no. 1 (January 1933):86.
35
James 58
Chamber and one of Chapuys’ paid contacts, told the ambassador in June 1530 that he had not
“ventured to hold any communication” with him because of his relationship with the queen.
Tuck’s reasoning reflected the king’s distrust of Chapuys.
Tuck explained that though Henry had once been “favorably disposed” toward the
ambassador, the king had since come to consider him “the chief leader in the Queen’s case,
which he said was not properly speaking the business of an ambassador, who ought rather to
look to measures likely to preserve peace than mix himself up with what might trouble it.” This
pointed jab emphasized the extent to which Chapuys’ unique position in England was defined by
his involvement in the divorce. Tuck’s next remark, however, confirmed the threat that
involvement posed to the overall effectiveness of Chapuys’ embassy. Tuck asked that Chapuys’
letters not be addressed to him for fear that he might “get into trouble” and complained that the
“pension” he was accustomed to receiving from the emperor had not been paid. Chapuys
understood the message. Tuck’s “fears or rather his unwillingness to see me,” wrote Chapuys to
Charles, arose because it would be “doubly, almost inexcusably foolish for him to put himself in
danger if he is to reap no benefit from it.”37 As the emperor’s primary informant in a crisisridden nation, Chapuys was only as valuable as the information he gleaned from his own
observations and those of his contacts. If those were threatened by the divorce, then so was
Chapuys’ very credibility as an envoy.
Suspicions regarding Chapuys’ relationship with Katherine were, of course, justified.
Though Katherine and Chapuys both voiced concerns about angering the king, they still
communicated actively and with pointed goals. Chapuys offered Katherine unhindered access to
Charles V, and she intended to exploit that connection. After all, she had little alternative. Noting
that the queen was growing increasingly pessimistic by the end of the year, Chapuys wrote that
37
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 29 June, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 366.
James 59
“unless Your Majesty continues, hitherto to help and assist her, she considers her case as
irretrievably lost” because the justice of her cause was “of no avail unless strengthened by the
countenance, favor, and authority” of the emperor.38 In her desperation, Katherine became
increasingly dependent upon her connection to Charles via Chapuys, which she perceived as her
only remaining hope. Though still Queen of England, Katherine identified and explicitly aligned
herself with the Habsburg Empire. She begged Chapuys that her divorce “be taken entirely out of
her hands and placed in those” of the emperor, whom, she trusted to “act and proceed as best
suite[d] the Imperial interests and her own.”39 For Katherine, the two were essentially one in the
same. She imagined herself as an Imperialist and cast her lot with Charles; the alternative likely
involved abandoning her claim to the throne. As the queen provided a firm link between his
expanding empire and the throne of England, this was not something that Charles V would have
wanted either. Katherine saw her own case as wedded to the ambitions and authority of the
Habsburg Empire.
Appealing to Imperial authority meant more to Katherine than the vague hope of
protection; she approached Chapuys with specific demands. Though Henry drenched the
annulment case in the rhetoric of religious conscientiousness, it seemed to Katherine and
Chapuys that her own case would either succeed or fail because of international intervention.
Following the Treaty of Cambrai (1529), Katherine hoped that the reconciliation between
Clement VII and Charles V might prompt the Pope to support her cause more actively. The
English certainly feared what actions Charles V might be capable of convincing Pope Clement to
pursue, with Norfolk exclaiming that he was confident Clement would do anything Charles
38
39
Letter from Chapuys to Charles on 31 December, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 241.
Letter from Chapuys to Charles on 8 October, 1529. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 182.
James 60
wanted “even if he were to be asked to dance in the public streets in a jester’s hat.”40 Chapuys
dutifully repeated her words. Considering “the state of tribulation and anguish” in which she
lived, Katherine frankly asked the emperor to exploit his newfound status in Italy. “Now that you
are with the Pope,” Chapuys asked on Katherine’s behalf, perhaps he could be prodded into
having her cause “determined judicially or otherwise.” If only the Pope would intervene, she
seemed to think, “the state of tribulation and anguish” in which she lived might “be put an end to
at once.”41 If the Pope himself could not save her, then perhaps the emperor could directly
intervene. The latter authority, she told Chapuys, could and should “give commission” to
Archbishop Fonseca of Toledo in order to prompt the Spanish universities to release findings in
favor of her marriage.42 The annulment, after all, straddled international fault lines; Henry aimed
to coax an academic blessing out of the Sorbonne by leaning on his relationship with Francis I.
So Katherine certainly hoped. She was not above manipulating her international contacts in order
to push back against Henry’s divorce campaign. Talk of piety and justice alone was not going to
save her position.
As written, Chapuys’ dispatches appear to privilege Katherine’s words and are positioned
so that her pleas would reach the emperor as directly possible. It is possible that Chapuys did this
as a tool in his writing, enabling him to address Charles through the voices of others. He only
rarely explicitly interjects his own opinions in order to either amend or disagree with the queen’s
wishes.43 Of course, this was hardly because he was ambivalent toward the matter but rather
40
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles on 11 July, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 373.
Letter from Chapuys to Charles on 6 December, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 224.
42
Letter from Chapuys to Charles on 6 December, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 224.
43
For example, shortly after his arrival, Chapuys dutifully reported Katherine’s concerns that an upcoming
Parliament was being convened because the king “has played his cards so well that he is likely to get a majority of
votes in his favor and may perhaps be tempted to obtain by this means what he has not yet been able to get in any
other way.” Chapuys adds that he is “inclined to believe that there is no fear of that.” Chapuys was correct and the
divorce would continue for the better part of the next three years. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 160.
41
James 61
because his views were indistinguishable from Katherine’s.44 He described certain events almost
exclusively in terms of how they would affect Katherine’ case and made no effort to cover his
disdain for persons that he perceived as threats to the queen’s status. The relatively minor
episode of the recall of two English ambassadors stationed abroad serves as a telling example.
For Chapuys, the only significance of the development was in the fact that “there will be no great
loss for the Queen in the change, for I am informed that the said English ambassadors have done
all the harm they could to the Queen’s cause, and I believe more even than was expected of
them.”45 Continually on the lookout for how matters shaped Katherine’s position, Chapuys saw
England through the lens of her cause.
The only significant discrepancy between the approaches of Chapuys and Katherine was
their stance on the possibility of war as a means of intervention. After Chapuys’ arrival and
quick realization that “any attempts made to bring the King to reason will prove unavailing, and
he will continue as pertinacious and obstinate as ever,” Charles’ initial optimism could only have
waned.46 By early 1530 he wrote to his brother that their aunt’s divorce “might become in time
the cause for new wars, unless things take a very different turn.”47 That different turn never
arrived, and the threat of war bubbled beneath the surface continually. In England, the Duke of
Norfolk worried that it might be the consequence of the king’s divorce, asking Chapuys quite
frankly, “What will the emperor do [if the king remarries]? Will he make war on us?”48 That the
answer might be yes horrified Katherine. In fact, she very explicitly rejected the possibility.
Saying that she merely asked for “true justice,” Katherine told Chapuys, “[war] is a thing I would
44
Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 300.
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 4 September, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 135.
46
Letter from Chapuys to Charles V on 25 October, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol 4, Pt. 1, 194.
47
Letter from Charles V to King Ferdinand on 11 January, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 245.
48
Letter from Chapuys to Charles on 23 April, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 290.
45
James 62
rather die than provoke.”49 Even as her case grew increasingly hopeless, the queen refused to
think less of her husband, let alone condone a war against him. As Chapuys wrote, the queen
would apparently “consider herself irretrievably doomed to everlasting perdition were she to
follow any other path that might provoke a war” between her husband and nephew.50 She would
not compromise, but she would not condone war either.
Chapuys had no such moral dilemma. Rather, he believed war to be not only the best
option but the only option. Frustrated by the lack of results he had seen, Chapuys questioned
“what service I can be in the midst of the boiling vortex likely to be opened up here.” If
diplomacy could not motivate the necessary change, Chapuys at first emphasized that war would
not be difficult. “You Majesty could easily make effectual war upon the English,” he explained
“for they would be by this measure judicially deprived of all commercial intercourse with
Flanders and Spain, by which the country would greatly suffer.”51 By 1533, his words were less
restrained. Being sure to beg for forgiveness in case he did “venture too far on matters which are
not my incumbence,” Chapuys told Charles that, “considering the very great injury done to
Madame, your aunt, you can hardly avoid making war upon this king and kingdom, for it is to be
feared that the moment this accursed Anne sets her foot firmly in the stirrup she will try to do the
Queen all the harm she possibly can, and the Princess also, which is the thing your aunt dreads
most.”52 Even when Chapuys disagreed with Katherine’s viewpoint, her cause and her best
interest motivated his remarks. By contrast, condemning Anne as a threat to both Katherine’s
position and her life strengthened his appeal for Imperial intervention. Charles, however, was
49
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Chapuys on 22 November, 1531; however, there is some concern that
this letter was misdated. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 833.
50
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles on 27 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1062.
51
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles on 21 December, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 547.
52
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles on 10 April, 1533. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1058.
James 63
already balancing multiple crises in Europe and did not have the means for an additional military
campaign.
Warfare was not the only extreme recourse that Chapuys explored. Upon hearing a rumor
that Katherine and Mary’s treatment might be brought before Parliament, Chapuys petitioned to
speak before the assembly himself. The ambassador recognized, he said, that the king “would
never permit me to appear” but maintained that it was his duty to investigate the possibility. If
nothing else, Henry’s refusal would “be equivalent to his declaring himself contumacious and
guilty of exercising unjust oppression on the two ladies.” The king designated Norfolk and
Cromwell to deal with the ambassador. They curtly explained that it was not customary in
England to permit foreigners to speak before Parliament. The legislature was closed to Chapuys.
Frustrated by Chapuys’ consistent badgering on the queen’s behalf, Norfolk offered the
ambassador what was both advice and a threat. Before the ambassador could continue pestering
Henry VIII for the queen any further, Norfolk begged him, “use all your discretion and prudence,
and so moderate your language that you may not fall into trouble of inconvenience. You are
about to enter on matters so odious and unpleasing that not all the sugar or sauces in the world
would render them palatable.”53
Chapuys’ single-minded championing of Katherine’s cause was not without its
consequences. It perhaps threatened his ability to obtain information from a wide range of
English contacts and incurred the frustration of the English king as well as certain courtiers. Yet
as a key component in the machinery of the Imperial effort against the divorce, he demonstrated
profound loyalty to the person of Katherine of Aragon, which involved its own loyalty to the
dynastic interests of Charles V. These two interests were eternally wedded and impossible to
separate. Unfortunately for Chapuys, Charles was not the only continental power involved in the
53
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 26 February, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 19.
James 64
divorce. In fighting against Henry’s intended remarriage, Chapuys was also pushing against the
involvement of the French, whose increased presence would further isolate the diplomat.
James 65
Chapter Three
The Diplomacy of an Anglo-French Alliance:
Crossing the Channel
27 October, 1532
After several days of festivities, Henry VIII dined with Francis I of France at a lavish
banquet in England’s only remaining territorial possession on the continent. It was the third time
in his life that the King of England had visited Calais, located in northwestern France, and the
last time the reigning monarchs of the England and France would meet in person until Victoria’s
visit with King Louis Phillippe I in 1843. After a dinner of 170 dishes that alternated English and
French styles, Henry entertained his French counterpart with a brief court masque. Eight masked
women entered the hall, dressed in “straunge fashion [sic],” made from cloth of gold and silver
with crimson and satin sashes.1 Each lady selected one Frenchman to join her for a dance, with
the leader of the group choosing Francis. After brief dancing, Henry enthusiastically removed the
masks so that “the ladies beauties were shewed,” revealing that the King of France had, of
course, been dancing with Henry’s bride-to-be, Anne Boleyn. Francis and Anne had met before,
years earlier when the latter had been a child in the household of Francis’ first wife. Reunited,
the pair left the dance to speak privately.2 Though not yet married to her, Henry was ready to
introduce Anne as his consort to the nobles of Europe.
In Chapuys’ dispatches, Henry’s journey to Calais was significant not because of what
the ambassador wrote about the event but because of what he did not. The Imperial ambassador
had not been permitted to attend. While Henry entertained his royal brother of France, Chapuys
1
Edward Hall, Hall’s Chronicle Containing the History of England (London, 1809), 793. The official
English account published in 1532 emphasized the equality of the two kings and their commitment to work together
for the good of Christendom. See, Edmund Goldsmid, ed., The Maner of the tryumphe of Caleys and Bulleyn : and
The noble tryumphaunt coronacyon of Quene Anne, wyfe unto the most noble kynge Henry VIII (Edinburgh:
Privately Printed, 1884), 1-16.
2
Hall, 794.
James 66
remained in London, bored and disappointed by his exclusion. Since the king’s departure, he
wrote, “nothing has happened here worthy of special notice.”3 Similarly, while Anne Boleyn
danced with the King of France, Katherine of Aragon wasted away at Bugden, concluding a
letter to her nephew with the complaint that, “I am in such anxiety and trouble at the present
moment that I have no power to write with my own hand many things that I would otherwise
say.”4 The meeting of two of monarchs at the exclusion of Charles V was a low point for
Chapuys’ career because of what it signified both for the state of the divorce proceedings and for
Anglo-Imperial relations.
The interview at Calais was but another episode in the idiosyncratic relationship between
the two kings of England and France, which frequently fluctuated between shades of fraternity,
distrust, and rivalry. The years 1514, 1518, 1527, and now 1532 all saw impressive shows of
peace and alliance between the two nations and despite three unsuccessful attempts to invade his
continental neighbor, Henry VIII spent most of his reign at peace with France.5 In 1518 both
monarchs agreed to send one of their gentlemen of the chamber as resident ambassador to the
other’s court.6 But the most impressive display of friendship occurred at the 1520 Field of the
Cloth of Gold, remembered as the “last gay and amicable incident in the history of Christendom
3
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 10, 1532. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1024.
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Charles V on November 6, 1532. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1016.
5
Henry attempted to secure an international reputation by invading France but failed largely because he
was unable to maintain dependable allies abroad. Unlike his predecessors, Henry could not rely only on dissatisfied
French vassals to support his campaigns due to the rise of the Hapsburgs and developments in the technology and
tactics of war. See S.J. Gunn, “The French Wars of Henry VIII,” in The Origins of War in Early-Modern Europe,
ed. J. Black (Edinburgh: John Donald Ltd, 1987), 28-51.
6
The gradual shift from Henry VIII’s practice of dispatching his friends as ambassadors to France toward
Elizabeth I’s preference for legally and linguistically trained representatives has been a recent focus of scholarship
on Anglo-French relations. See David Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation: the Rise of the Privy Chamber, 1485–
1547’, in The English Court: From the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War, ed. David Starkey (Harlow, 1987), 8486; Glenn Richardson, “Most High to be Regarded: The Privy Chamber of Henry VIII and Anglo-French
Relations,” The Court Historian 4.2 (August 1999): 119-140.
4
James 67
undivided,” although its diplomatic consequences were short lived.7 Henry’s reign saw the
strengthening of economic and cultural ties between England and France. There was an increase
in in the number of French merchants trading in London, and French elite culture was at its most
influential among the English nobility.8
Meanwhile, Anglo-French relations evolved within the shadow of Charles V. For Henry,
a relationship with Francis meant that his island kingdom, which was commercially dependent
upon the wool trade with Flanders and financially limited to an income one third the size of that
of either France or the Habsburg Empire, could avoid isolation.9 For Francis, a friendship with
England meant he would be less vulnerable to attack from Charles. Francis could not ignore the
dynastic ring forged by Charles’ territories in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire that surrounded
and threatened to strangle France. On the other hand, Charles must have recognized French
efforts to weasel further south into Savoy, Piedmont, and Nice. This was compounded by the
deep-seated Habsburg-Valois rivalry that intensified the struggle between the continent’s most
powerful monarchs and had frequently spilled into ongoing wars. Francis I even claimed to be
the true descendant of the Frankish Charlemagne and therefore the rightful ruler of Europe, an
assertion that directly challenged Charles V’s universal ambitions.10 Despite his sincere efforts,
Francis had lost the Imperial election to Charles, a defeat that must have especially stung in the
7
Meaning to affirm their peace under the 1518 Treaty of London, Henry VIII famously met Francis I in
June 1520 in the fields between the towns of Guines and Ardes in northern France. Both monarchs traveled with the
majority of their courts and outfitted the terrain in acres of tents of velvet and the cloth of gold that later gave the
event its name. However, the fact that Henry VIII met with Charles V both before and after the event has prompted
certain historians like J.G. Russell (quoted above) to label the event a politically useless example of thoughtless
spending. Glenn Richardson, however, instead argues that the two monarchs were able to “re-package” the ideal of
princely peace, which was still an important illusion, though an illusion nonetheless. See J.G. Russell, The Field of
Cloth of Gold: Men and Manners in 1520 (London: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1969), 190; Glenn Richardson,
Renaissance Monarchy: The Reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I, and Charles V (New York: Oxford University Press
Inc., 2002), 57-59.
8
Glenn Richardson, “England and France in the Sixteenth Century,” History Compass 6.2 (2008): 515.
9
Lacey Baldwin Smith, Henry VIII: The Mask of Royalty (Boston: Hough Mifflin Company, 1971), 145.
10
Yates, 21.
James 68
light of other dynastic territory disputes. Louis XI of France had defeated Charles the Bold of
Burgundy and incorporated his lands into a larger France. While the emperor still claimed the
lost duchy of Burgundy, he retained Navarre, seized by his grandfather Maximillian in 1512 but
still considered property of the French Crown by Francis. Worst of all was Milan, Francis’
obsession, conquered in 1515 and then lost ten years later in 1525 when Francis himself was
taken prisoner and ten thousand of his countrymen were killed at Pavia.11 Still, the Valois king
represented a consistent and concerted thorn in Habsburg ambitions for a universal empire.
Taken together, it appears as if there was hardly a single diplomatic dispute in the first
half of the sixteenth century that was not influenced by the Habsburg-Valois struggle for
European hegemony.12 That Charles needed to act as the paladin of a unified Christendom
against the French was made even clearer when, beginning in 1525, Francis I regularly made
alliances with the Ottoman Turks, a shocking move on the part of a Christian monarch.13 As one
scholar has handsomely stated, this long-term dynastic conflict meant that any vacancy in the
Polish throne, religious upheaval in Germany, papal election, rebellion in Ireland, discovery of
gold in the New World, or succession of minor dynasties in minor Italian states became a
conflict with the potential to “tip the balance in favor of the Emperor or the Most Christian King
and set the diplomatic couriers scurrying over the face of Europe.”14 Henry VIII’s divorce was
11
Baldwin excellently summarizes the tensions between the two monarchs saying “Wherever Francis
looked, the Habsburg complex obscured his Valois vision.” For its effect on western Europe see Baldwin, 143-145.
12
E. Harris Harbison calls the Habsburg-Valois rivalry “the dominating political fact of the first half of the
sixteenth century.” See Harbison, 3.
13
The most overt display of a Franco-Ottoman allegiance at the expense of the Habsburg Empire occurred
in 1543, when a French ambassador joined 110 Turkish galleys to raid the coasts of Sicily and Naples before a warm
reception in France and a joint conquest of pro-Imperial Nice. For a time, Toulon in southern France even became a
Muslim city and harbor for Ottoman ships preparing for raids along the Spanish coast. See, Tracy, 307.
14
This list is nearly directly lifted from Harbison, who uses a summary of Habsburg-Valois tensions as the
starting point for his duobiography of Simon Renard and Antoine de Noailles, the Imperial ambassador and French
ambassadors at the court of Mary I. See Harbison, vii-ix, 3-14.
James 69
no different. England presented an additional theater in which to play out the already established
Habsburg-Valois conflict.
Henry’s divorce offered Francis the opportunity to forge an alliance at the expense of the
emperor and on a subject that wounded Charles personally, politically, and dynastically. In turn,
French aid made Henry VIII more confident and emboldened him to push harder against the
pope and the emperor.15 Henry VIII’s divorce thus took on an international dimension that left
Chapuys extremely conscious of French involvement at the English court. In this microcosm of
Charles V’s larger frustrations in achieving a universal empire, the Habsburg-Valois conflict
played out among their diplomats. As the divorce continued to dominate Chapuys’ role as envoy,
his efforts to navigate Anglo-French relations and his treatment at court serve as a barometer of
the delicate balance between Francis I, Charles V, and Henry VIII.
Chapuys’ struggles with the French began immediately. Almost directly after his arrival
in England, Chapuys recognized an alarmingly prominent French influence. “There is actually no
one about the King who has not a pension from France,” reported the ambassador. As a result,
prominent courtiers like the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Suffolk professed their affection
and admiration for the emperor, but in reality “their love of money is the strongest feeling they
have, and therefore no great alliance can be placed in their professions.”16 On one such occasion
in 1529, Chapuys remained notably aloof despite the Duke of Suffolk’s “complimentary
effusion” about the necessity and significance of an Anglo-Imperial friendship. Though he
expressed gratitude on the emperor’s behalf, Chapuys excused himself. After all, he wrote later,
15
That French aid motivated Henry’s aggression toward Rome is the primary thesis of Glenn Richardson’s
recent article. See Glenn Richardson, “The French Connection: Francis I and England’s Break with Rome” in The
Contending Kingdoms: France and England, 1420-1700, ed. Glenn Richardson (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008),
95-115.
16
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 25, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 194.
James 70
it was widely known that “the Duke [of Suffolk] has vast possessions in France,” and, he added,
“I suspected that he was only trying to get information.”17
If the French enjoyed significant support at the English court, they had still lost one key
proponent: Wolsey, whose dismissal in 1529 and death in 1530 represented the loss of a valuable
conduit to the king’s ear. The Cardinal had, reported Chapuys, previously enjoyed a 25,000
crown pension from the French and his son, then a student in Paris, received a gratuity from
King Francis.18 In return Wolsey, long reviled by courtiers and mocked for his humble origins,
had advocated for a French alliance. Indeed, even Henry VIII attempted to tell Chapuys that it
was only at the Cardinal’s behest that he had been “dragged” into bed with the French.19 As a
result, wrote Chapuys, “the person who they say feels most for the Cardinal and regrets his
disgrace is the French ambassador, because all the hopes and expectations of his master [King
Francis I] rested upon his continuance in office and favor.”20 Chapuys did add the tongue-incheek observation that while the French had lost a prominent ally, they could still “console
themselves with the idea that they will have no more pensions to pay him, or promises to
fulfill…”21 Perhaps losing Wolsey would not spell disaster after all.
The loss of Wolsey was not a permanent catastrophe for the French, and roughly one year
later Chapuys’ appraisal of French interests at court had noticeably shifted. In fact, upon learning
of the cardinal’s arrest in the winter of 1530, French ambassador Jehan Jocquin loudly mocked
the fallen prelate. His vitriol surprised Chapuys, who first wondered if perhaps the Frenchman
was merely disguising his own personal disappointment at the cardinal’s fall. Yet Jocquin’s
remarks, Chapuys realized, may have been genuine. Perhaps Jocquin spoke “out of real spite
17
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on January 11, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 584.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 31, 1529. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 241.
19
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on January 13, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 250.
20
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 25, 1529. See Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 194.
21
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 31, 1529. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 241.
18
James 71
against [Wolsey] for his real opposition to this second marriage.” In the absence of Wolsey’s
interference, Chapuys was now equally sure that it was the king’s divorce that spawned a
friendship with France. His language was characteristically unrestrained. By 1530, Chapuys
confidently asserted that it was the divorce “on which alone depend the credit and favor the
French now enjoy at this court.”22 The French, it seemed, had looked toward a different favorite
of the king’s.
As was the case with many phenomena that he disliked, Chapuys quickly zeroed in on
Anne Boleyn as the source of pro-French sentiments. The ambassador could now “confidently”
assert that King Francis had lost nothing by the fall of the cardinal because he had gained a new
ally in the king’s mistress. “Besides her being more maliciously inclined, and her enjoying even
greater favor” than Wolsey in his own time, explained Chapuys, “King Francis is not obliged to
expend on her an annual pension of 25,000 crowns as he did on the Cardinal but pays her only in
flattery and in promises of forwarding the divorce at Rome.”23 The practical specifics of Anne’s
favoritism toward the French are noticeably absent from the ambassadors’ reports, suggesting
that he may have exaggerated her poltical significance, but in the day-to-day commotion of court
life, Chapuys saw a mutually beneficial friendship grow throughout 1530. Tracking the
whereabouts of his rival (and he did see them as rivals) ambassadors, Chapuys reported that
several French diplomats had spent hours at court in an afternoon in early January dancing with
and being “entertained splendidly” by Anne. Before his return home to France, Monsignor de
Bayonne spent an unusually long time bidding the king’s mistress farewell. At this Chapuys
wrote that surely “nothing could have given the King greater satisfaction than to see the French
22
23
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 27, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 509.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 15, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 995.
James 72
ambassador thus take leave of the Lady, and pay [his] respects to her.”24 Chapuys’ concern was
that the French offered Anne a degree of legitimacy and she, in return, improved their standing at
court. That fall he wrote that Anne’s “chief reliance and trust is on France.”25 The feeling,
Chapuys believed, was mutual.
The Imperial ambassador, who refused even to refer to Anne by name let alone speak to
her in person, realized that the French were profiting both personally and politically from their
ability to exploit her friendship. French ambassador Guillaume du Bellay presented Anne with
several rings, rosaries, and other trinkets in early 1530. Chapuys wrote that he had not learned
whether the gifts were meant in the ambassador’s own name or in that of the King of France, but
he added that the Frenchman had gone to court expressly to obtain Anne’s favor and then sell
additional fine jewelry to the king. If this was his goal, Chapuys wrote, “he could not have made
use of a better broker.”26 The more pertinent advantage of friendship with Anne was the ability
of the French diplomats to retain the ear of the king. He begrudgingly reported later that year that
the French had “carried on all their intrigue” through the Boleyns, “whom, as they wish to keep
on friendly terms with this king, they would not dare to affront.”27 Worse still, Chapuys believed
there to be no foreseeable end to this arrangement, for the French knew that “the love of the King
for the Lady is so great that he would not give her up for the eldest daughter of France [as
Wolsey had once tried to arrange], or anyone else in the world.”28 Chapuys was not privy to the
24
See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 584.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 14, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 426.
26
Though Chapuys himself admitted that certain details of this story were unclear, he also wrote that he
saw for himself a diamond tablet that the Frenchman had brought to England. He also reported that the said
ambassador went on to refuse an offer of 10,000 crowns for a diamond encrusted cross. Though there were reports
that the jewels belonged to a merchant from Lyons, Chapuys maintained that the general opinion among Londoners
was that they belonged to either Guillaume du Bellay, seigneur de Langey himself or the King of France. The event
is described in the letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on January 20, 1530. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 252.
27
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 20, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 433.
28
See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 433
25
James 73
machinations between the king, the French, and the Boleyns, but he saw the external signs of an
alliance that gave him no cause for celebration.
The visible increase in the prominence and popularity of French ambassadors provided a
palpable shift in the workings of diplomacy at the English court, leaving Chapuys with
noticeably strained relationships with most French diplomats. During his time in England,
Chapuys had the opportunity to meet several French ambassadors. The relative ease of
communication across the channel and the general infancy of French diplomacy in the early
sixteenth century meant that resident French ambassadors spent short tours in England and
usually traveled with specific missions.29 Of particular significance were Chapuys’ relationships
with three men, Jehan Jocquin, Giles de la Pommeraye, and Gabriel de la Guiche, who all
returned to England on multiple tours and with whom Chapuys crossed paths frequently during
the proceedings of Henry VIII’s divorce.
Already suspicious of the French, Chapuys took an instant dislike to Jehan Jocquin, who
arrived in the spring of 1530. On Easter Tuesday Chapuys met the new ambassador, writing
later, “I cannot help thinking Jehan Jocquin will make all the mischief he can.”30 The new
ambassador loudly and shamelessly criticized the emperor’s movement into Italy, pushed
Genoese merchants into thinking that their country could prosper only under French protection,
29
For example, in 1533 Chapuys notes that French resident ambassador Dr. de Montpesat arrives in midFebruary and left by mid-November. Though an extreme example (and Chapuys does speculate on the
circumstances and brevity of Montpesat’s stay), it is indicative of the relatively rapid turnaround of French
diplomats at Henry’s court, none of whom stay for a period even remotely comparable to Chapuys’ sixteen year stay
in England. See letters from Chapuys on February 23, 1533 and November 24, 1533 at Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1053
and 1154.
Garret Mattingly discusses the weakness of the French diplomatic service in comparison to that of the
Imperial Empire, blaming it for the failure of the Fields of Cloth of Gold. Eric Ives also explores the unilluminating
nature of French diplomatic correspondence, noting the brevity of tours abroad as a key factor. See Garret
Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, 172; Eric Ives, The Life and Death, 53-55.
30
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on April 23, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 290.
James 74
and attacked the oath of allegiance sworn by Milanese governors to the emperor.31 On one
occasion Jocquin mocked Chapuys’ suggestion that either Henry or Francis might contribute to
one of the emperor’s campaigns against the Turks, scoffing that neither monarch had any wish to
aid the emperor’s “further aggrandizement.” The French were far more interested in curbing the
emperor’s universal ambitions than in supporting the ideal of a unified Christendom. Still, that
Jocquin would say such a thing “without even an attempt at palliation” shocked the Imperial
ambassador.32 Had he known the extent of French dealings with the Ottoman Empire, the
Savoyard would surely have been even more stunned. Chapuys was disgusted by the evident “illwill he bears us” and predicted that the new Frenchman would “find it difficult to acquire in this
country any reputation for steadiness and discretion” except among those already receiving
pensions from France.33 Yet ill-will toward the emperor and his universal ambitions was
demanded – even rewarded by the climate of Henry’s intended divorce. In December of that
year, when a new ambassador arrived and Jocquin was meant to return to France, Chapuys
surmised that Henry and his councilors “would be sorry to lose Jocquin here, he is just the man
for them at this present time.”34 Unfortunately for Chapuys, his assessment was all too correct.
Henry wrote to King Francis and petitioned to extend Jocquin’s stay in England.35
Chapuys was no fonder of a second ambassador who joined Jocquin, Giles de la
Pommeraye. With Jocquin still in residence in England, Henry offered Pommeraye
31
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on April 23, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 290.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 21, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 549. Jocquin was still singing
the same tune roughly a year later, when Chapuys wrote to Charles that the French ambassador was “saying to all
those who will listen to him that Your Majesty’s power is becoming by far too great and too alarming, and that
Germany, and even Turkey if necessary, out to be called in aid to prevent your further aggrandizement.” See the
letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 9, 1531.
33
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on April 23, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 290.
34
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 29, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 555.
35
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 29, 1530See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 555.
32
James 75
accommodations at his palace at Bridewell.36 Like Jocquin, Pommeraye supported Henry’s
divorce, even working with the English king to compose the official explanation for the antipapal statue that conditionally stopped the payment of annates to Rome in 1532. Worse still, he
was close to Anne Boleyn.37 Chapuys denounced him to Charles as a liar. Chapuys called
Pommeraye a “most mischievous newsmonger” prone to “forging news at pleasure.” At one
point he caught Pommeraye promulgating a rumor that two dukes of Bavaria had been insulted
by and were now on bad terms with the emperor, prompting them to sack a country town and
wound a Spanish officer. Furious, Chapuys wrote that this was the type of inarguably false report
that the French ambassador “sedulously propagates in England” either because he wanted them
to be true or because he wished the English to “believe any disparaging story” about the
emperor.38 Like Jocquin before him, Pommeraye illustrated that the Anglo-French friendship
was frequently manifested in anti-Imperial sentiments at the English court.
A third ambassador emerges in Chapuys’ discussions as petty and entitled. Gabriel de la
Guiche was a frequent and prominent guest of Henry’s in early 1531. In February, Chapuys
reported that Henry had attended mass at Westminster flanked by various noblemen and La
Guiche, the only foreign ambassador the king had brought with him to the service. The same
ambassador was invited to the opening of Parliament that year and was seen dining with the king
three days per week. “Yet, notwithstanding all this feasting and entertaining,” Chapuys
recounted, La Guiche was hugely offended when an unspecified order of business forced Henry
36
The palace was later leased to the French and is the setting of the famous Holbein painting The
Ambassadors, which now stands in the National Portrait Gallery and features French ambassadors Jean Dinteville
and George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur.
37
None of this is clear from the text of Pommeraye’s own dispatches, which suggests how valuable and
notable Chapuys’ own correspondence is to historians for its meticulousness and consistency. See, Ives, “Sources,”
in Life and Death, 54.
38
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 1, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1003. See
also, See also the letter calendared at October 1, 1530 at Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 802. It is likely that the 1531
discussion of this event was miscalendared.
James 76
to cancel a single invitation to dine together at court. Highly displeased and seeming to forget the
lavish treatment that had greeted him on most other occasions, La Guiche complained that Henry
had no regard for the good treatment of his ambassadors and that certainly in France “no
business, however important, ever prevents [an English ambassador] from entering the King’s
chamber at any hour he pleases.”39 The French, or at the very least La Guiche, had grown
comfortable enough at the king’s side to mount a petty protest over even the smallest of slights,
which contrasted notably with Chapuys’ position.
Chapuys could not have helped but notice that he was being neglected and even ignored
while the French were being wined and dined. Never before, he claimed, had he seen the French
working as closely with the English as in these early months of 1531. Scarcely a day or two
could go by without their presence at court and always “transacting business of some kind, so
much so that whenever some members of the King’s Privy Council is requested to attend to
business of mine, and of other ambassadors, he invariably answers that his time is taken up by
the French ambassadors, and that until they are dispatched he cannot possibly promise his
attention.”40 From an unnamed source in Katherine’s household he pieced together that the
frequent conferences had partly to do with Henry’s decision to confer on Jocquin one of the
bishoprics that had formerly belonged to Wolsey.41
Not only was he struggling to obtain audiences at court, Chapuys was also struggling to
find credible sources who would meet with him in London. By the following fall, matters were
worse enough that he claimed “few people, if any, dare visit me nowadays – those with whom I
used once to communicate wishing to have pensions, and others who formerly had them begging
39
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on February 14, 1531. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 635.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on January 10, 1531. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 590.
41
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on January 10, 1531. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 590.
40
James 77
for their renewal – I am deprived of the means of obtaining credible information.”42 Struggling to
obtain audiences with the king and similarly struggling to maintain his contacts at court,
Chapuys could not rely on his own observations and those given freely by others; he needed
money to pay and even bribe informants so that he might perform even the basic tasks of his
profession. According to Chapuys, his salary was already “inferior to that of most other Imperial
ambassadors,” and he struggled as a result to maintain “the reputation and honor” of his post.43
Without any additional funds, it was difficult to compete with the French, who lacked neither
money nor status.
In order to avoid oversimplifying Chapuys’ experience and perception of his dealings
with the French, it must be noted that the opposing ambassadors were able to work together on
occasion. Even while the French worked to propel Henry VIII’s divorce forward and Chapuys
aimed to bring it to a halt, as foreign emissaries, they were united by an interest in a few
common causes, one of the most important being import taxes that affected both parties. In May
1531 Imperial and French interests briefly overlapped, prompting Chapuys and Jocquin to
present a united front. Chapuys reported that he and the Frenchman had gone before the Privy
Council on three different occasions that month to protest taxes on foreign merchants that
Chapuys felt would be especially detrimental to both the subjects of Charles V and Francis I.
“Had it not been for my intervention and that of the French ambassador,” he reported proudly,
“in this case the matter would already have been decided in favor of the said Londoners… Yet,
owing to our joint remonstrations, I have no doubt that the tax, if levied, will be at least
reduced.” 44 For a brief moment, a shared concern for their respective merchants stalled the
diplomatic squabbling that Chapuys had described for much of that year. Chapuys, however, did
42
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 4, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 818.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 November, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 492.
44
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on May 14, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 721.
43
James 78
note that when he attempted to steer the conversation toward Charles V’s supposed affection for
the English, Jocquin quickly put an end to it and returned the conversation back to taxes. 45 After
all, the French and the Imperialists were still far from bedfellows.
Such happenings were exceptions to the rule; for the most part Chapuys remained very
much at odds with the French. The Imperialist’s frustrations were not unwarranted; Francis and
his diplomats were, at least initially, pushing hard for the king’s divorce. When Henry turned to
the famed universities of Europe for “advice” on his marriage question, the University of Paris
was an obvious choice. The faculty of theology at the Sorbonne was one of Christendom’s most
prestigious, and Henry was encouraged by a promise of the university’s support from the French
envoy, Guillame du Bellay, seigneur de Langey.46 Chapuys even claimed that “the French are
pressing on this business much more. . . than the parties immediately concerned in it.”47 At the
very least, de Bellay was extremely determined to make good on his promise even in the face of
opposition. On June 7, 1530 Langey presented Henry’s case at the Sorbonne, only to find a
group led by Noël Béda, a theologian at the university, would not submit to the wills of the two
kings or the ambassador. He and fifteen others, in fact, signed a statement in favor of Katherine’s
marriage, claiming that doctrine should not be sacrificed for the sake of an Anglo-French
alliance, and succeeded in rejecting the case.48 Upon learning the news, Henry was
unsurprisingly angry and cloistered himself with Jocquin for two days at Windsor before sending
a courier with instructions to France.49
45
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on May 14, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 721.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on February 22, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 265.
47
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on February 22, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 265.
48
For a more detailed account of what transpired at the Sorbonne, see J.R. Knecht, Francis I (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), 239-240.
49
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles on June 29, 1530. See, Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 366.
46
James 79
Du Bellay did not give up so easily though, and his tactics at the Sorbonne revealed the
strength of French commitment to Henry’s cause. A doctor at the university, Pedro de Garay,
reported to Charles that de Bellay had been hosting large groups of university doctors in order to
explain that the Pope had no right to grant a dispensation on Katherine’s remarriage. Du Bellay
told them that “whoever opposed this conclusion was no friend to his king” and even proceeded
to bribe certain voters of the faculty. 50 Writing about the affair months later, de Garay again
wrote that there were not three men who had not been corrupted by the “violence, compulsion,
and threats that have been practiced.”51 In the face of such deception, Chapuys hoped that
Charles might intervene, writing to his master that perhaps he could communicate with Francis
and explain that any tampering with the voters would nullify their final decision.52 Charles did
share Garay’s and Chapuys’ concerns, listing the “intrigues which the king of England has been
and is carrying on” in France as well as the “favor he has or might have at [Francis’] court” as
reasons why he did not trust the Parisians to make a just ruling.53 Though Charles wrote to the
King of France, it was to no avail. Instead of backing down, Francis instructed the first president
of the Parliament to warn Béda that enforcing a deferral to the pope was a breach of the
kingdom’s rights and privileges.54 The doctors of the Sorbonne understood what was expected of
them. Whether out of fear, shame, or wavering conviction, the university decided in favor of
Henry on July 2.
50
Letter from Dr. Pedro de Garay to Charles Von April 9, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 285. Garay
was a master of theology at the Sorbonne and wrote to the emperor, who then forwarded copies of his letters to the
Imperial ambassador in Rome. The news of corruption certainly made it to Chapuys too, who wrote that he was
frustrated that “the Queen’s case, it must be said, has been most maliciously conducted in France, certainly not
without the King’s desire and command.” See his letter on June 14, 1530 at Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 345.
51
Letter from Dr. Pedro de Garay to Charles V on October 7, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 450.
52
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on March 16, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 270.
53
Letter from Charles V to Imperial Ambassador to Rome Micer Mai on May 7, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol.
4, Pt. 1, 298.
54
Knecht, 240.
James 80
French efforts at the Sorbonne solicited even greater pro-French sentiments from Henry
and were a cause for celebration. Chapuys worried for Katherine, noting that the university’s
approval was surely “bad news for the Queen, as the King will become more arrogant than ever,
and have their names [of the Frenchmen who voted in his favor] promulgated throughout his
kingdom.” 55 The ambassador, who usually wrote endlessly about how unpopular the king’s
divorce was, appeared uncharacteristically pessimistic when he added that he was concerned the
ruling from Paris might win English civilians over to Henry’s cause. Anne, Chapuys continued,
was “nothing loth” and claimed that this indicated that Charles V did not have the power to
defeat their case. So confident was “the Lady” that she told Henry that even if Charles were to
attack, her family alone could provide for an army of 10,000 for a year at their own expense.56
Though unrealistic, her comment revealed the confidence she and the king felt in the wake of a
valuable success gained through French aid. It was likely a similar degree of excitement and trust
in the French that prompted Henry to exclaim later that if he could “be sure forever of the
friendship and alliance of the French he should not be afraid of all the rest.”57 The French efforts
to support the divorce were in part responsible for this burst of enthusiasm and bravado.
While Chapuys contended with the consequences of the French alliance and the Parisian
decision in England, his counterparts in Rome were equally frustrated by the efforts of the
French ambassadors. After the Pope issued a brief of inhibition forbidding Henry from
proceeding “de facto” into a new marriage, Francis responded angrily. In early 1531, Imperial
ambassador Giovan Antonio Muxtela reported that the King of France had not only interfered on
Henry VIII’s behalf but was personally affronted by the order in his own right. Francis, it seemed
to Muxtela, having already requested that the Pope refrain from making any judgments in Rome,
55
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on July 11, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 373.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on July 11, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 373.
57
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on March 1, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 646.
56
James 81
felt that Pope Clement should not have executed the brief without first consulting him.58 Efforts
to stall activity in Rome were tied to Francis and Henry’s hope to have the matrimonial cause
decided outside of Rome in either of their countries, where the desired verdict was a guarantee.59
Katherine was likewise aware of French machinations and was especially concerned by this
development, writing to Charles that she believed her case would be ruined if the pope did not
announce a ruling before the opening of the next session of Parliament the following October.60
Chapuys, on the other hand, was less worried. The French might attempt to sway the pope, but
Chapuys doubted they would succeed in anything as extreme as convincing Clement to allow the
case to be tried outside of Rome. After all, he wrote to Charles, “what the Pope did not do for the
sake of the King of England himself he would certainly not do for any other prince in the World,
not even for the sake of the Most Christian King of France, in whose favor he would do many
other things.”61 For now at least, Francis’ ability to influence the divorce proceedings in Henry’s
favor and against the interests of Charles V reached a stumbling block in Rome.
The pope did not appear close to conceding, though he understood that the conflict
threatened the unity of Christendom. While Henry’s divorce endangered the universal claims of
Charles’ empire, Clement realized that it had the potential to damage his own authority as well.
He told Imperial representative Pedro Ortiz, “The kings of France and England are so closely
united that I can see very well that if I lose one both will be lost to me; that, however, will be no
reason for my failing to do justice.”62 These last words were, of course, exactly what the
Imperialists wanted to hear. As a result, the pope’s words should be read less as a promise to
58
Letter from Giovan Antonio Muxtela to Charles V on February 10, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2,
627.
59
Letter from Giovan Antonio Muxtela to Charles V on May 20, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 726.
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Charles V on April 5, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 681.
61
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on June 6, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 739.
62
The conversation was recorded not by Ortiz but by a different envoy, Micer Mai in a letter to Charles V
on January 25, 1532.
60
James 82
exact justice than as an indication of how seriously the Anglo-French alliance had altered the
political landscape. This was not the impermanent show of friendship that Francis and Henry had
performed at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. Despite Clement’s assertion that the AngloFrench alliance would not prevent him from acting impartially, his record seemed to reflect
otherwise. Dr. Garay had already criticized Clement’s inability to stand up to the French and
English kings during the Sorbonne affair. “The truth is,” he wrote, “if he has the will, he also has
the power to do it and should fear no one in this business except God. I am rather inclined to
believe after all that the Pope is really afraid of offending the kings of England and France.”63
The Anglo-French partnership seemed to have sufficiently intimidated Clement at least
once so far and might in the future embolden Henry enough to pursue something truly rash.
When, in early 1532, a rumor circulated around Rome that Henry had already married Anne
Boleyn, Imperial ambassador Micer Mai interpreted it as a sign of Henry’s closeness with
France. In the ambassador’s opinion, such a thing was only possible “if he was in perfect
understanding with France, and… the two kings quite sure of each other.”64 The rumor was
premature. Henry would not marry Anne for an additional year. However, it was telling that the
ambassador understood Henry’s relationship with Francis I as necessary support for securing his
divorce and remarriage.
As had been the case for Chapuys in England, the Imperial ambassadors in Rome, with
whom he communicated regularly, were irritated by the underhandedness of their rival French
ambassadors. As Chapuys had been while working with Pommeraye in England, Muxtela was
frustrated by the constant dissembling of French ambassadors in Rome. “As he is in the habit of
doing,” the French ambassador had recently lied about the state of his communication with
63
64
Letter from Pedro de Garay to Charles V on October 17, 1530. See Cal. Span. Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 463.
Letter from Micer Mai to Charles V on January 15, See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 887.
James 83
informants in England and was caught spreading a false story about Charles V, two lies that
seemed specifically aimed at muddying discussions of Henry’s divorce in Rome.65 In the same
manner in which Chapuys had faulted la Guiche for the rudeness and entitlement that
accompanied the French ambassador’s special treatment by Henry VIII, Micer Mai criticized an
unnamed French diplomat in Rome. When the pope dispatched letters to England without first
informing him, the Frenchman “complained bitterly” to the pope that if he “wanted anything
from the king of England he ought first to acquaint his master [Francis] with it; in that manner
and through his means he might obtain what he wanted, otherwise he would never get anything
from the English.”66 Of course this pompousness was recorded by an Imperial ambassador with
little reason to appreciate a French diplomat, but even if exaggerated, Mai’s remarks highlight
the consistent tension between opposing diplomats during the divorce years. Micer Mai would
only grow increasingly annoyed with the French ambassadors in Rome. The following year he
wrote of the French that “their intrigues and devices are so well known in Italy nowadays that
there is no honest man who does not hate their king, and wishes that God and Your Majesty may
give him the punishment he deserves.”67 Assuming even that his remarks reveal more about the
ambassador’s own attitude than popular opinions in Rome, they suggest that working at odds
with the French had left the Imperialist exasperated. Conflict between Habsburg and Valois
efforts was consistent throughout Europe.
The value of the French alliance became even clearer when rumors in England spread
that it might be vulnerable. In late 1531, Chapuys heard an unsubstantiated claim that the French
might, in fact, be aiming to meet with Charles V behind Henry’s back. When asked to clarify by
830.
65
Letter from Giovan Antonio Muxtela to Charles V on November 14, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2,
66
Letter from Micer Ma to Charles V on November 30, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 841.
Letter from Micer Mai to Charles V on September 4, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 991.
67
James 84
the Duke of Norfolk, Chapuys’ secretary, Juan de Montoya, toyed with the English, telling them
that the rumor was true and that Chapuys was only waiting for the official announcement.
Norfolk “seemed very astonished” and left the room immediately. He had a different courtier
keep Montoya occupied, while he spent an hour in the king’s apartments deciding how Henry
and his councilors would respond to the development. The Duke quickly summoned Chancellor
Thomas More and Thomas Boleyn to meet with the secretary. Despite their evident concern, the
English put on a brave face. Though they would do nothing to prevent the meeting, Norfolk
explained that he believed such a meeting was unlikely ever to occur and would surely be
useless, which he said “with a sarcastic smile on his lips, as if he were glad of it.”68 Sarcasm or
no, the rumor apparently brought Henry to a near paroxysm of anxiety.69 While the Imperial
embassy spun the rumor to their advantage, spreading cause to doubt the solidity of the AngloFrench partnership, the French diplomats attempted to downplay it. Jocquin, Chapuys believed,
was actively spreading word that Francis had not been the one to solicit the meeting. The French
ambassador told Chapuys directly that “such an idea could never have entered his master’s head”
because the King of France shared even his most intimate thoughts with Henry.70 Regardless,
only a week later it became clear that nothing was to come of the rumored meeting. Yet the
episode revealed the consistent anxiety regarding the dynamic amongst the three kings.
Ultimately though, the Duke of Norfolk had been proven correct, and he took the opportunity to
gloat. Running into one of Chapuys’ servants, the Duke instructed him, “Tell your master… that
I knew very well [that] what I said to him the other day about an interview between the Emperor
and the king of France would turn out true.” In fact, continued the Duke, the relationship
68
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 1, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 801.
J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 306.
70
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 9, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 805.
69
James 85
between England and France was not diminishing but on the rise.71 Norfolk appeared to know
something that Chapuys did not. The Anglo-French friendship was nowhere near done
influencing the Habsburg-Valois conflict in England.
Proof of Norfolk’s claim that England and France were only growing closer arrived the
following year. With rumors surrounding a proposed meeting between Charles and Francis
having long since dissipated, Henry VIII took the opportunity to instigate his own meeting with
the King of France. The designated location was Henry’s possession across the Channel in
Calais. Thus, throughout the spring and summer of 1532, the initial preparations for shipping the
necessary supplies, including food and royal furnishings like the king’s bed, were underway.72
Chapuys first learned of the planned journey to Calais in late July 1532. He wrote that the affair
had until now been kept a secret at court but that negotiations were well underway.73 The
question of who had instigated the meeting provided more opportunity for the constant
dissimulating that was consistent throughout the Anglo-French partnership. In England, Chapuys
wrote that the English firmly took credit for the venture. When he said so to the French
ambassador, Pommeraye, eager to boast about the strength of the friendship between his master
and the King of England, told Chapuys that he was mistaken and that the idea originated with
Francis, “though he owned that the Lady [Anne] had forwarded it and was much pleased at it.”74
On the other hand, Francis, wary of pushing the emperor too far, told the Imperial ambassador
with him in Amboise that Henry had been demanding a meeting for upwards of one year. “Now
lately he has solicited me again,” Francis explained, “and laid so much stress upon it that I have
71
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 24, 1531. See Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 814.
Scarisbrick, 306.
73
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles on July 29, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 980.
74
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 14, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1008.
72
James 86
not been able to refuse.”75 In all likelihood, neither account was accurate. Henry had probably
initiated plans for the meeting, but Francis was not being strong-armed against his will. Both
monarchs stood to gain from the interview.
More significant than the question of who had conceived of the meeting was the question
of what it would entail. Certainly for an Imperial diplomat, the immediate and primary concern
was what topics would be discussed and how they would impact Europe. In Rome, Muxtella
worried that the two kings would openly challenge the authority of the pope.76 Try as he might
to learn the truth in England, Chapuys was frustrated by the efforts of Henry and his councilors
to keep their cards close to their chests. The Duke of Norfolk maintained that the two kings
would talk of absolutely nothing other than how Christendom should respond to the threat of the
Turks in the east.77 French ambassador Pommeraye stuck to a relatively similar story, ensuring
Chapuys that the conference would in no way damage Charles V. Chapuys, however, was not
convinced.78 Ever suspicious of the French, Chapuys worried that the meeting in Calais would
undoubtedly provoke conversations that might damage either Charles’s standing or Katherine’s
divorce. Thus the agenda for Calais remained largely a mystery to Chapuys. In fact, he wrote to
Charles that there were only three people in all of England who knew what would transpire in
Calais: the French ambassador, Henry VIII, and Anne Boleyn.79 The journey’s itinerary was
surely not as closely guarded as Chapuys implied, but the diplomat was certainly no political
insider at this moment of friendship with France. It seems probably that Chapuys hoped to
deflect blame from himself by explaining away his lack of information.
75
76
1016.
77
Letter from Jean Hannart to Charles V on September 22, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 998.
Letter from Giovan Antonio Muxtela to Charles V on October 31, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2,
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles on September 5, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 993.
Chapuys describes two similar conversation with Pommeraye, yielding similar promises from the French
ambassador in his letters to Charles V on September 15 and October 14, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 995,
1008.
79
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 5, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 993.
78
James 87
Henry’s meeting with Francis offered a tangible symbol of an Anglo-French alliance, and
it afforded an opportunity to showcase Henry’s intended second marriage. “Knowing very well
how to make hay while the sun shines,” Anne Boleyn prepared to make her European debut as an
intended queen.80 In fact, there were even consistent rumors that Henry planned to marry Anne
while in Calais.81 Though such reports were false, Francis appeared willing to endorse England’s
queen-to-be, thus directly snubbing Katherine and her Habsburg ties. Chapuys was, of course,
disgusted. In September, he reported that Guillame du Bellay had come to London on the king’s
behalf specifically to request that Anne come to Calais. Though he wondered if Francis simply
made the gesture because he knew Anne’s presence was unavoidable, the Imperial ambassador
concluded that Francis was likely “anxious to see the Lady, and personally thank her for her for
the many good services she has rendered and is daily rendering him, which, in the French
ambassador’s words, are more than his master, the King, could ever acknowledge or repay.”82
Anne’s years of favoring the French ambassadors appeared to be paying off.
A triumph in Anglo-French relations enabled a personal triumph for Anne, but if she was
going to present herself as a queen-in-waiting, then she needed to be outfitted accordingly. In
order to dress Anne for the European stage, Henry gave her status. On 1 September, at a
ceremony at Windsor and with French ambassador Pommeraye as a guest of honor, Anne was
named Marquess of Pembroke, significant because it was the first hereditary peerage granted to a
woman in her own right. Annoyed, Chapuys wrote that he would not trouble Charles with the
details of the event.83 In addition to a title, Anne also needed jewels, and the king offered her
Katherine’s. Chapuys applauded Katherine’s courage and noted that she initially refused to
80
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 1, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1003.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on August 26, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 986.
82
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 15, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 995.
83
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on September 5, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 993.
81
James 88
permit her jewels to ornament “a person who is the scandal of Christendom… [and brings]
vituperation and infamy upon the King, through his taking her with him to such a meeting across
the Channel.” Despite the queen’s protest, Henry obtained the coveted jewels and, said Chapuys,
was “very much pleased and glad at it.”84 A symbolic rather than practical loss, stripping
Katherine of her jewels foretold the imminent elevation of Anne to queen. The planned meeting
with Francis I had thus wrought an ominous step forward in Henry’s divorce.
The summit in Calais simultaneously represented significant developments in the two
principle causes that Chapuys had been fighting against throughout his career in England: the
divorce of his mistress, Katherine of Aragon, and an alliance at the expense of his master,
Charles V. He had even more cause to worry when he was told that no foreign ambassadors save
the French were going to accompany the court to Calais. Chapuys was undoubtedly angry and
wrote to Charles, “I am sorry not to be present that I might better do Your Majesty’s service.”85
Meanwhile, Charles’ ambassador to France, Jean Hannart, met the same policy but was assured
by Francis that that he would be fully informed after the conference was complete.86 Though
Imperial representatives were entirely shut out, Chapuys still wanted to remain informed. He
arranged for his clerk to travel to France, and gave him express permission to speak on the
ambassador’s behalf to members of the Privy Council.87 He might be excluded from actually
attending, but at the very least Chapuys could ensure that he was not ill-informed.
Not being able to attend the conference did not prevent Chapuys from designing to
influence it. The ambassador was so disposed against the meeting that he frantically wrote to
84
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 1, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1003.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 1, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1003.
86
Hannart claims that this was done in response to Henry’s own proclamation to ambassadors in England.
Letter from Jean Hannart to Charles V on September 22, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt, 2, 998; see also letter from
Jean Hannart to the Empress on November 6, 1532 at Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1023.
87
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 14, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1008.
85
James 89
Charles with a rather farfetched plan to prevent it. “I have no doubt,” he wrote, “that should a
few ships be armed in Flanders under some pretense or other the interview would not take
place.” He believed the English would surely be intimidated into trying to procure additional
ships, by which time the season for navigating the Channel might have already passed. Perhaps
even aware himself that such a plan was unlikely to say the least, he excused himself if he
offered too bold a proposition on a matter about which he had not been consulted, but added that
his “ardent wish to serve Your Majesty compels me to it.”88 Needless to say, nothing came of the
imagined plot. Of more value was his effort to ensure that nothing irreparably bad happened at
the meeting, even if he could not prevent it entirely. Chapuys worried that the interview might
entail some sort of conference on the divorce whereby the French cardinals would make a
decision on the matter, giving Henry the confidence to “carry out his mad purpose” and marry
Anne. 89 As a precaution he sent Hannart, the Imperial diplomat in France, multiple copies of the
papal briefs under which Pope Clement had explicitly forbidden anyone else from ruling on the
affair so that his colleague might be able to present them as a reminder if need be.90 Even if the
meeting was set to occur and even if he could not be there, Chapuys would not abandon his
efforts to protect Habsburg interests by fighting against Henry’s divorce.
Despite fears of plague and concerns about weather, Henry, Anne, and an entourage of
roughly 2,000 other Englishmen embarked for France as planned, while Chapuys stayed behind
in England. On October 11, Henry boarded The Swallow at Dover and landed on the continent
four hours later, greeted by a royal salute, a parade of the garrison, and both the mayor and lord
deputy of Calais. On the 21st Henry met Francis in the French territory of Boulogne before the
two monarchs traveled together to Calais on the 25th. Henry spent an outrageous amount of
88
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on July 29, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 980.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 14, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1008.
90
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 14, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1008.
89
James 90
money on the affair: £284 on fish, losing £157 betting on tennis in a single day, and showering
gifts of horses and jewels on the French king.91 The last full day of the Calais visit saw a
wrestling match wherein Henry recruited Cornish wrestlers to avenge England’s loss from
twelve years prior at the Field of Cloth of Gold, when Henry challenged Francis in person and
lost.92 If there was a disappointment in any of the festivities it was that Anne’s planned French
counterpart, Marguerite of Angouleme, Francis’s sister, claimed ill health and did not attend. The
French suggested that Francis bring his own mistress of several years, the duchesse de Vandôme,
to act as Anne’s companion at the meeting. The Frenchwoman, however, was deemed unsuitable
for a future queen. Noting this irony, Chapuys could not help but remark upon the “blindness and
poor judgment of these people, who cannot see the beam in their own eyes and yet wish to pick
out the mote in those of their neighbors,” by which he meant that the pot had called the kettle
black.93
Despite frivolous aspects, the French meeting had tangible political aims as well. The
monarchs agreed that they would send two cardinals to Rome in order to press the divorce there,
while Henry agreed to support the marriage between Francis’ son and the pope’s niece,
Catherine de Medici. The two monarchs also solidified plans for Francis to meet with the pope in
order to offset the expected meeting between Clement and Charles V in December. After a
relative success that likely gave Henry cause for hope, the English party lingered in Calais
because of bad weather before crossing the Channel and spending ten days journeying through
Kent. Historians generally believe that at some point during this journey or during the stay in
91
Scarisbrick, 307.
Ives, The Life and Death, 160.
93
Francis’ wife, Queen Eleanor, who was a relative of Katherine of Aragon and thus out of the question
from the start, had recently miscarried. If Marguerite of Angouleme’s claim of sickness was insincere, Chapuys, at
least, took it at face value. Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on October 1, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt.
2, 1003.
92
James 91
Calais, Henry and Anne first consummated their relationship.94 Henry and his court arrived
safely back at Greenwich on November 27.
Chapuys was anxious to do damage control but was irritated that he was no more in the
loop than before Henry had departed. Though the king made a show of agreeing to meet with the
ambassador, Henry shared little information. Before the king had even arrived in London,
Chapuys journeyed to speak to Henry at Eltham in Kent, where he quickly realized that Henry
was “unwilling” to broach the subject of Calais. Their conversation thus quickly turned to the
most innocuous topic possible: weather. Still attempting to get information, Chapuys implied that
perhaps the climate was so fair because God had been pleased by the meeting. Henry barely took
the bait and did not go into specifics, telling Chapuys only that “no finer weather could have
been wished for” and that of course God smiled on the event because it had been for the welfare
of Christendom.95 He had reached a dead end.
If he could not learn anything from Henry, Chapuys would look elsewhere. Surprisingly
enough, he turned to the newest French ambassador, Montpesat, whom Chapuys believed more
averse to the divorce than Pommeryae and Jocquin had been before him.96 That may in fact have
been the case. The Frenchman not only offered to tell Chapuys what he knew, but offered to
show Chapuys a draft of the treaty drawn up for the interview at Calais if Chapuys would only
do him the honor of dining with him. Chapuys wrote that he “hastened to call at his lodging for
fear [that] he should withdraw his offer” but was dismayed to find his fellow ambassador already
94
Though he did not name them, Chapuys had contacts in Anne’s household that informed him of the
lady’s plan to accomplish “that which she has been so long wishing for” while in France. Though Chapuys worried
that Anne intended to wed Henry during the journey, it is possible that Anne simply intended to solidify their
relationship through more physical means. Either way, Anne would be noticeably pregnant by her coronation in
June 1533 and give birth to her first child in September that same year, roughly nine months after her journey to
Calais. Most historians agree that the couple had likely consummated their relationship during this period. See Cal.
Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 986; Ives, The Life and Death, 161; David Starkey, Six Wives, 461; Scarisbrick, 307-309.
95
Letter for Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 26, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 26.
96
Letter for Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 26, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 26.
James 92
with company when he arrived on the arranged day. Montpesat put off the engagement, giving
Chapuys cause to “understand most clearly that if he had ever intended showing me the draft, he
had now changed his mind.”97 With his high hopes for Montpesat dashed, Chapuys found
himself struggling as ever to penetrate the Anglo-French friendship.
The year concluded with Chapuys feeling “exceedingly disappointed” and “annoyed”
with both the king’s trip to Calais and its implications.98 Though the possibility of a French
betrayal was never far off, Henry and Francis seemed solidly aligned, while the Imperial
ambassador was caught in their dissembling. The conflict had situated Francis I against Charles
V, albeit indirectly through Henry VIII’s divorce proceedings, with the French king actively
pushing a case that threatened the dynastic claims and universal breadth of the Habsburg Empire.
The sixteenth century had seen multiple diplomatic incidents morph into covert competitions –
and in certain cases overt wars – between the houses of Valois and Habsburg. In England, where
that competition was manifested amongst a group of rivaling ambassadors, Chapuys’ lived
experienced attested to the fallout of an Anglo-French alliance at the expense of the Habsburg
Empire. For the time being, Henry appeared committed to a combined effort with France against
their mutual enemies. Their alliance and the diplomatic landscape seemed settled.
But it was not to remain so. The following year would provide major changes that would
permanently alter Henry’s standing in Europe. Francis I would go on to have the meeting with
Pope Clement VII that he and Henry had discussed at Calais, but by that point reconciliation
with the pope was largely impossible. In Calais, Henry had lived openly with Anne Boleyn as his
consort, and the agreement with Francis had given Henry the confidence to begin quietly
97
98
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on December 16, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1033.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on November 26, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1030.
James 93
cohabitating with her.99 By just after the start of the new year, sometime in mid-January 1533,
Anne was pregnant.100 After years of campaigning for a legal divorce, Henry was not going to
have another illegitimate son. On January 25, 1533, he and Anne Boleyn were quietly married,
and her coronation was not far off. But before St. Edward’s crown could be placed atop the head
of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII would make an irrevocable break with the past.
99
Starkey describes this moment as “psychologically right.” Ives, Life and Death, 162; Starkey, Six Wives.
Scarisbrick, 309.
100
James 94
Chapter Four
The Diplomacy of a Schism:
Religion, Papal Relations, and the Beginnings of Reformation
23 February, 1533
In late winter 1533 Chapuys wrote to Charles with bad news. He and Katherine of
Aragon had noticed what the ambassador called “the disorderly symptoms of a second
marriage.” Henry’s obstinacy, he said, was increasing daily, and an unnamed “worthy man” had
told Chapuys that “a great danger was imminent.” Apparently, he continued, the newly appointed
Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, had “pledged his most solemn word” to adhere
entirely to the king’s opinion on the divorce. Ever since his election, Cranmer had not hesitated
to proclaim “that he is ready to maintain with his life that the King can take the Lady for his
wife.” The archbishop was, in fact, so confident that he had already married Henry VIII and
Anne Boleyn in the company of her father, mother, brother, two of her female friends, and a
priest from the diocese of Canterbury, wrote the ambassador.1 Not long after, Chapuys began to
speculate that Henry’s new wife was “in the family way.”2
The deed was done. Frustrated by years of delays and fruitless machinations, Henry had
married his mistress on his own terms without the approval of any pope or emperor. If all went
well, he would even have a male heir to the throne by the following fall. Though Henry had been
named “Defender of the Faith” by Pope Leo X as recently as 1521, his remarriage necessitated
an unprecedented break from the past and from the powers of continental Europe. Still, it was not
Henry’s first attack on the church; he had been encroaching on the prerogatives of the clergy
since 1529. His gradual turn against Rome required the help of Parliament and a series of statutes
that reflected the various stages of Henry’s religious ambitions. Initially aiming to pressure the
1
2
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 23 February, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1053.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1061.
James 95
papacy into granting his divorce, Henry first attacked the legal privileges and annual taxes paid
to Rome. When this failed, a second wave of statutes sought the legal separation of the English
Church from the papacy before a third more clearly defined the ecclesiastical and financial
dimensions of the new religious settlement. The process resulted in a tangled series of
interlocking revolutions that continued well into the reigns of Henry’s three children.3
Though Chapuys watched and recorded these legislative heresies with horror and
disbelief, Parliament was a world that was closed to him as a foreigner. He could appreciate
rumors surrounding the alleged agendas of various sessions, but there was little that Chapuys
could do to engage with the assembly itself, much to his chagrin as we saw in this work’s second
chapter. Rather than concentrate on legislative developments, Chapuys navigated and then
negotiated the religious implications of Henry’s divorce as it impacted diplomacy, thus molding
3
Any sort sweeping portrayal of the English Reformation is difficult because of its complicated and
contested historiography. Its richness and density make only the most meagre of generalizations possible in a single
footnote. There are essentially three distinct schools of thought, each placing different degrees of emphasis on the
extent to which reformation arrived ‘from above’ or ‘from below.’ The first offers a narrative in line with traditional
Protestant tellings akin to John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, describing the inexorable rise of Protestantism in a
reformation that was both necessary and wanted by the masses. This perspective is characterized by A.G. Dickens,
who pointed to the survival of Lollardy in certain areas and a general dissatisfaction with the moral decay of the
Church in order to conclude that the English Reformation would have been unavoidable “even had [Henry VIII] not
quarreled over his divorce with the Habsburg-controlled Papacy.” This model, however, fails to explain any
resistance to reformed religion. The second perspective describes a reformation that was systematically enforced by
the leaders of the nation onto a passive populace. Political historians P.R. Clark and G.R. Elton characterize this
argument and see the process as rapid enough so that by the accession of Mary I in 1553, England was “almost
certainly nearer to being a Protestant country than to anything else.” The third wave, popularized by revisionists
Eamon Duffy and J.J. Scarisbrick, agrees that reformation came from above but sees it as a much more arduous
process because traditional, orthodox religion was in fact alive and well in the early sixteenth century. By this
model, a Protestant state was not truly achieved until decades into the reign of Elizabeth I because “the Reformation
was a violent disruption, not the natural fulfilment, of most of what was vigorous in late medieval piety and religious
practice.” This perhaps masks that some Catholic loyalty was born from indifferent traditionalism. Of the efforts to
reconcile these three illustrations, is a newer wave of scholarship represented by Christopher Haigh, who saw
Dickens as presenting a “Reformation without Catholics,” while Duffy and Scarisbrick offer a “Reformation without
Protestants.” Haigh’s is a deconstructed image of multiple reformations, some of which ran “parallel” while others
were “discontinuous.” See, A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1964), 382; G.R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509-1558 (London: Arnold, 1977),
371; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England C.1400-c.1580 (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1992), 4; Christopher Haigh, The English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under
the Tudors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 14.
James 96
his position as ambassador to defend the ideal of a unified Christendom as prescribed by Charles
V’s imperial vision. This came with an important disclaimer; though Chapuys was a devoted
Catholic, his primary allegiance was not to Rome but to the Habsburg Empire. He was thus
frequently frustrated by the gulf that separated his goals as an Imperialist from those of the
papacy as an institution struggling to respond to potential schism.
Much like the Anglo-French alliance, the possibility of religious reform was a point of
acute concern for Chapuys from his arrival in London onward. Chapuys’ first impressions were
made on the basis of reports of anticlericalism and threatened Reformation. In his earliest
dispatch from London, Chapuys reported the motivations behind the first sitting of Parliament
that he witnessed in England. Despite hearing that the government aimed to discuss complaints
against certain administers of justice and the general finances of the kingdom, the ambassador
received word that other matters were being seriously discussed. He learned of one motion aimed
to abolish the Legatine Office in England and surmised that the rumor might have some merit
given the conduct of various courtiers. The ambassador recollected having heard the Duke of
Suffolk proclaim that no legate had ever done a thing for the benefit of England and that they all
amounted to a “calamity and a sore to this country.” Though still unsure as to the extent to which
these sentiments had gained ground with Henry VIII, he recognized the danger in such blatantly
anti-papal remarks. Only a small leap separated criticism of the pope’s appointed representative
from criticism of the pope himself. Should such thoughts spread throughout the country, wrote
Chapuys, “there will be a door wide open for the Lutheran heresy to creep into England.”4 Less
than a month later, Chapuys’ concerns went further. “Respecting the clergy of this kingdom,” he
4
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 September, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 160. See
also his letter from 4 September for his earlier discussion of Parliament at Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 135.
James 97
explained, “I may say without having recourse to the said art of divination, that they will be for
certain punished and reformed, fined and mulcted.”5 The writing was on the wall.
Chapuys located the source of the perceived reform-mindedness in Henry’s intended
divorce. Recalling the Duke of Suffolk’s harsh words, he reported his fear that there were also
“innumerable” men of the nobility who would prefer “to make of the King and ordinary prelates
as many Popes” in England. Their motives, of course, were not entirely ecclesiastical. “All this,”
continued the ambassador, “for the sole purpose of having the divorce case tried in England”
rather than in Rome.6 By the start of the new year, roughly four months into his residency
abroad, Chapuys wrote to Charles with a further assessment. Intended clerical reforms stemmed
from two goals, he wrote. The first was to amass a large amount of money through the
reallocation of church property, and the second was to push English priests into declaring that the
pope, in fact, had no authority at all let alone the ability to grant dispensations. “Having begun
the said reform,” Chapuys worried, “they will go on with it as quickly as they can.”7 In reality,
the revolutionary years were still roughly two years away, but Chapuys quickly understood that
the divorce would have severe consequences.
With the divorce looming large as an obvious threat to papal authority, Chapuys blamed
inclinations toward reform on its associated factions. In 1530 Chapuys reported that both he and
the Papal Nuncio Baron de Borgho were in complete agreement that as long “the Earl [of
Wiltshire] and his daughter [Anne Boleyn] remain in power, they will entirely alienate this
kingdom from its allegiance to the Pope.”8 These two, he reported, would “only have been too
glad” to see any number of reformist books printed and distributed in England in order to spite
5
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 8 November, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 211.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 8 November, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 211.
7
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 December, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 232.
8
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 31 October, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 481.
6
James 98
the pope.9 On this point, Chapuys was undoubtedly correct. While particulars are disputed, the
Boleyn family was importing reform-minded literature from the continent and would have
enjoyed anti-papal sentiments on the basis of personal gain regardless of their religious
convictions.10 On this basis, Chapuys famously asserted that Anne and her father were “more
Lutheran than Luther himself.”11 As a result, Chapuys told Charles that even the boldest
proposition from the Boleyn faction would not surprise him anymore because Wiltshire and his
daughter were widely “considered to be true apostles of the new sect.”12 This enabled Chapuys to
see the cause of reform as a rationalization for the divorce and dismiss it as such. Had the pope
only listened when Chapuys urged him to make provisions for the removal of Anne from court,
as discussed in the first chapter, “there would have been no occasion or necessity” for Henry’s
subsequent attacks on the church because “as far as I can learn, she and her father too have been
the principal promoters of” reform.13 According to Chapuys, the problems of reform would solve
itself if only the Boleyns could be removed from court.
It is worth reflecting on this observation because, as we have seen, Chapuys has been so
frequently criticized for the apparent religious bias that shaped his representation of Anne
Boleyn. Yet Chapuys described Anne with a vehemence he reserved only for her. Notice, for
example, that he developed a relatively close working relationship with Thomas Cromwell
despite knowing full well that he supported religious reform and owned his own “dishonest and
9
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on17 December, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 539.
Like so much else in the English Reformation, the sincerity and involvement of the Boleyn family is
contested. Maria Dowling and Eric Ives position Anne as a driving force of the Reformation, acting as both a sincere
evangelical herself and patron of other evangelicals. G.W. Bernard challenged this accepted position , seeing Anne
as certainly “no ‘evangelical,’ no Lutheran, no proto-protestant” but as a deeply traditional figure who supported a
break from Rome for her own gain. In turn, Thomas S. Freeman defends John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments and
William Latymer’s biographical sketch as valid sources of evidence attesting to Anne’s genuine religious
conviction. See Maria Dowling, “Anne Boleyn and Reform,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 35 (1984): 3046; Ives, Life and Death, 260-288; Bernard, Fatal Attractions, 92-125.
11
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 March, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 232.
12
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 6 March, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 915.
13
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 February, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 641.
10
James 99
heretical articles.”14 Similarly, Chapuys was quick to denounce future Archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas Cranmer as “a Lutheran,” yet did not mount a comparable attack on his character and
morals.15 Finally, when a monk who had “for a long time lived with Luther” arrived at the
English court in 1530, the ambassador described his dress and conduct in straightforward terms
that lacked the color and venom of his descriptions of Anne. Chapuys certainly hated ‘the Lady,’
but religion alone does not explain why. Chapuys’ animosity toward Anne Boleyn does not
consequentially render him a bitter, reactionary Catholic because his opinion of her resulted from
multiple compounding factors. Religion, of course, was one of them, but the divorce
proceedings, the French alliance, and the mistreatment of Katherine and Mary were equally
frustrating variables that Chapuys associated with Anne. Understanding this reality is important
because it sheds light on where Chapuys’ loyalties lay: with Katherine and Charles V not
necessarily with the pope.
Despite his evident disapproval for how Henry abused religion in order to further the
divorce proceedings, Chapuys was, in fact, willing to negotiate on the subject of general reform
itself. In each of his three years in England before the Reformation Parliament’s key session in
1532, Chapuys alluded to the possibility of clerical reform – assuming that the English would be
reasonable. In one of his early interviews with Henry VIII in the winter of 1529, Chapuys did not
miss a beat when the king noted certain ecclesiastic hypocrisies. “Reformation was undoubtedly
much wanted, and would be the best thing in the world,” conceded the ambassador, but only if
accomplished through careful conversation with the emperor and pope. Surely then Henry, with
14
On this one occasion, in fact, Chapuys reported that when the Scottish ambassador saw Cromwell’s
“articles” he “got into such a passion, and so inveighed against the said articles, that no one of those present knew
what to replay.” In contrast, Chapuys, who certainly would have personally disagreed with the content of said
literature did not let them interfere with his relationship with Cromwell and never caused a comparable scene. Letter
from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 April, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 45.
15
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 29 January, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1043.
James 100
all his considerable knowledge of the church, he offered, might avoid any suspicion of ulterior
motives.16
A similar conversation nearly one year later in November 1530 yielded similar results.
Henry argued that taking various “temporalities” from the clergy would benefit the church as a
whole, an “opinion I did not oppose in the least,” wrote Chapuys. Once again, the ambassador
reminded Henry that such reforms would be better implemented under the emperor’s guidance.
Such policies should not be perused casually though and were instead fit for a General Council
of the church, which, he said, was “the only authority to which the Pope… was amenable.”17
Charles V had himself advocated for such a council, and Chapuys likely understood that it was
unlikely to seriously challenge papal authority. For the Imperial envoy, reform might be possible
but only if grounded in approval from the emperor and pope. That was why in 1531, he promised
Norfolk that nothing could be more beneficial to the king than the meeting of a General Council,
where he might “propose the reformation of the English clergy” before the emperor and the
pope, who was both supreme judge in such matters and a caring “shepherd of the Christian
flock.” Chapuys added that duty compelled him to defend the pope, but in an aside to Charles
that revealed how personally disappointed he was in Clements’ tardiness to weigh in on
Katherine’s case. He confessed that had he not felt “compelled to do so” by the duke’s anti-papal
sentiments, he would not otherwise have taken his defense of Clement “so far.”18
Taken together these three anecdotes reveal a nuance of Chapuys’ personality not
frequently appreciated by those who would label him a conservative and reactionary Catholic.19
The ambassador was indeed a devoted Catholic; anything less from an Imperial representative
16
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 6 December, 1529. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 224.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 November, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 483.
18
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 January, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 598.
19
Of these there are several historians, but Retha Warnicke and James Anthony Froude are the most
virulent accusers.
17
James 101
would have been unthinkable. But it is telling that Chapuys was willing to flirt with discussions
of reformation. Though such discussions allowed him to pivot toward certain Imperial interests
like the General Council that Charles desired, this was more ground than he was willing to cede
on other issues. Chapuys was quick to anger at even the proposal of compromise on matters
related to the divorce or Katherine’s title and accommodations. Even if his discussions of reform
were simply examples of diplomatic equivocation, one might infer that Chapuys’ frustration with
the English Reformation stemmed more from Henry’s use of religion as a tool to hasten the
divorce proceedings than from blanket disgust for any and all efforts to reexamine the church.20
At the very least, it showcases the ambassador’s ability to navigate English politics while
diverting discussions back to Imperial interests such as the General Council.
The push toward a General Council fell in line with a much larger Imperial plan. Looking
to his authority in the German lands, Charles V hoped that religious schism might still be
avoided. He maintained that the Protestant cities and principalities might yet be reconciled with
the fundamental dogmas of the church as prescribed by the Apostle’s Creed. A broad-minded
approach on behalf of the church combined with the backing of his own Imperial authority, he
hoped, might resolve concerns over theological opinions and ecclesiastical traditions. 21 The
meeting of a General Council might then offer the opportunity for moderate reform that could
pacify his empire and cement his authority. Of course, should the German Protestants ignore
their decisions, Charles would then be justified in applying force.22 Meanwhile, the Council
might similarly resolve the question of Henry VIII’s divorce and keep its religious implications
20
Lauren Mackay reaches a relatively similar conclusion in her popular history about Chapuys, albeit after
considering different evidence pertaining to Chapuys’ acquaintances during his time living in Geneva. She does so
without providing any specific evidence or analysis and does not ground this conclusion in Chapuys’ behavior in
England. See Mackay, 18.
21
Hubert Jedin,. A History of the Council of Trent. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1957), 250.
22
Jedin notes that Charles was neither “benign arbitrator” nor “tyrant speeding to Germany in order to
make the rebels feel the weight of his authority.” This tension is reflected in his consistent advocacy for a General
Council. Jedin, 252.
James 102
in check without warfare, while still also satisfying the king’s demand that the issue not be
placed in the biased hands of Pope Clement VII.
In England, Chapuys’ job was to convince Henry that such a Council was to his benefit
as well, or at least that it would not prove to his disadvantage. On a telling afternoon in 1530, he
assured Henry that Charles’s desire for the Council involved the implicit promise of neutrality
and friendship. Naturally, he told Henry, both he and Francis I would be among the “chief
personages” of the Council, meaning that it would serve the dual purpose of suppressing heresy
in Germany and fostering brotherhood among the Christian princes of Europe so as to create a
united front against the Ottoman Empire. Thus Henry would come to see, insisted the
ambassador, “that no personal motive would influence” Charles V or the Council as a whole.23 If
Chapuys could manipulate him properly, Henry might even advocate for the General Council
and thus make Henry VIII a vehicle for furthering Charles’ imperial vision.
Henry was not amenable to discussions of a Council, and the logic of his rebuff betrayed
the extent to which he had already moved away from Rome. There was no need for a Council to
reform church policies in Germany, Henry told the ambassador, because it concerned Charles
alone. “Other princes,” he continued, “had no power in Germany.” Such rhetoric did not bode
well for Roman authority in England. Extending such thinking, Henry said of England’s
religious policy that “he could redress the evils in his own country without the intervention of
any council whatever, for that his kingdom lay in a corner of the world separated by its natural
position from contact with other countries, in whose affairs he did not much care to meddle.”24
Chapuys pressed the issue further but was frustrated that “at every possible opportunity [the
king] introduced the subject of the divorce, on which he spoke with much eagerness.” The king’s
23
24
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 November, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 492.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 November, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 492.
James 103
resolve was not without cause, noted Chapuys, because “at a small window in the King’s
chamber, commanding the gallery where the King and I were speaking, was the Lady
overlooking and overhearing all that passed.” Chapuys understood that such an audience made it
unlikely that Henry would even consider a plan favorable to Charles V.25 With the divorce – in
this case literally – hanging over diplomatic negotiations, convincing Henry to support the
Council was impossible for the ambassador.
As Henry severed ideological ties with Rome, an appeal to his broader sense of duty
toward the whole of Christendom was a complicated endeavor. By 1530, the invasion of
Hungary by the Turks required that Charles and his brother King Ferdinand turn to the rest of
Europe for support. Chapuys himself delivered news of the attack to Henry and exhorted the king
to contribute. Chapuys leaned heavily on the rhetoric of Christian unity, stressing the need for a
combined Christian front against the infidel invader. It could hardly have been a coincidence that
Charles V had used similar rhetoric in justifying his imperial title.26 Chapuys told Henry that
defeating the Turks would not be easy and “would require the united help of all Christian princes
to put down so great a power.” Appealing to the king’s vanity, he added that Henry was in a
position to offer great help and was influential enough to convince his allies to do the same.
“After some talking,” noted Chapuys, Henry agreed with Chapuys and was willing to make a
tentative promise to investigate possibilities.27 Perhaps there could be cooperation among the
Christian princes after all. Chapuys must have been thrilled by his apparent victory.
Given this earlier success, the Savoyard was understandably dismayed when Henry
seemed less concerned about the Turks at a subsequent interview five weeks later. After the
ambassador initiated a discussion of the enterprise against the Turks, “a short pause ensued.”
25
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 November, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 492.
See page 8.
27
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 January, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 250.
26
James 104
Henry, it seemed, now considered the undertaking “inopportune.” Confused, Chapuys asked
what had caused the king to alter his tone so severely. Henry dissembled. Disorder and rebellion
were already too prominent in Germany, and true peace had yet to be established in Italy, by
which he implied that Charles already had enough on his hands and ought to table considerations
of the Turks.28 This was not the last time the English would attempt to dissemble on this
question. Officially, of course, England was “and will always be ready to take up arms for the
defense of threatened Christendom.” However, the English people “would never support the
fatigues of so long a journey to so distant lands.” Furthermore, enough preparations were being
made elsewhere that should the Turks press further west, they were sure to meet “confusion and
defeat.” This rendered English support “unnecessary – nay superfluous.”29 With their
exaggerated excuses, Henry turned his back on a unified Christian effort.
Following Chapuys’ unsuccessful meeting with the king, it became immediately clear
what had precipitated Henry’s change of heart. During a brief exchange with the ambassador, the
Duke of Norfolk lamented the state of affairs in Hungary. Chapuys reminded the duke of his
king’s “cold and curt” answer when approached for help in defending against the Turks. Norfolk
responded that “the vexation experienced by the King at seeing his project of a new marriage
opposed in every quarter was the real cause” of the Henry’s refusal to provide aid against the
infidel. According to Norfolk, Charles V’s opposition to the divorce made it impossible to
establish a unified Christian effort and was to blame for the noticeable fissure in Christendom.
The duke then added the ominous prediction that “perhaps greater evils and inconveniences
might spring up from the same source” in the near future, meaning that Charles’ continued
28
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 February, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 265.
Memorandum of Thomas Cranmer, Ambassador of England, dated 28 August, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol.
4, Pt. 2, 987.
29
James 105
disapproval of the divorce would only continue to cause problems.30 Part threat and part
conjecture, Norfolk’s words to Chapuys forecast the tension to come. These “evils and
inconveniences” would come to include an irrevocable split from Rome.
In the immediate future, however, Chapuys was left to contend with the fallout among
Christian princes. Henry’s increasingly loud and vocal disdain for the campaign against the
Turks evidenced his anger with Charles and discontent with Rome. In February 1531, Chapuys
journeyed to court in order to discuss the concerns of local Spanish merchants, but he found
Henry dwelling in irritation on the Hungarian campaign. When the conversation turned to news
from the eastern frontier, Henry snapped that Charles was mounting his campaign out of
ambition and was unwise for having stirred so “dangerous and ferocious [a] beast as the Turk,”
especially considering that “the Christian princes [were] not so closely united as they ought to be
for such an enterprise.”31 In his account to Charles, Chapuys attested that he “failed not to make
a fit reply.” The ambassador had first reverted to his rhetoric of religious duty, explaining that as
“true Christians,” the emperor and his brother could not simply abandon the recovery of
Hungary. They were fighting “for the protection of Christianity… and for the defense of a
kingdom that has for the last eighty years valiantly withstood all the attacks” of aggressive
infidels. The ambassador’s aim was to minimize the significance of the divorce in the face of a
larger threat that might tie Henry to the ideal of a unified Christendom. In response to Henry’s
allegation of disunity among princes, Chapuys maintained that even if “some slight scruple still
existed” between Henry and Charles, the ambassador was sure that “such scruples would be
waived and forgotten” in the face of a common enemy to the Church.32 Chapuys clung to a
vision of a unified Christendom as prescribed by Charles’ universal vision in the exact moment
30
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 10 May, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 302.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 February, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 641.
32
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 February, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 264
31
James 106
that Henry VIII could not have been less inclined toward joining hands with the Habsburg. As a
result, such ‘scruples’ were to be neither waived nor forgotten. Henry explicitly dismissed the
notion that a religious opponent should compel him to support the emperor, telling Chapuys it
would take something far greater threat than the Turks to cement such a friendship. Chapuys
declined asking what that might be, “knowing very well what he meant thereby, and that he only
wanted to introduce his own private affairs,” meaning the divorce.33 Henry was a “Defender of
the Faith” no longer.
From the perspective of the Henry VIII, Charles’ campaign in Hungary was only relevant
in so much as it affected his marital drama. When Chapuys met with the Duke of Norfolk in
order to discuss the recent plundering of a Flemish ship, the duke taunted the ambassador with
reports of the Turks’ military prowess. “Things look very bad,” he sighed repeatedly, insisting to
Chapuys that had Charles really wanted it, “the union and defensive alliance of the princes might
already have been accomplished.” Charles needed only to pressure the pope into dissolving
Henry’s marriage to Katherine. The following day, the duke sent a gentleman of his chamber to
share with Chapuys additional news of the Turks’ progress. He was so eager for Chapuys to
learn of this alleged “calamity for Christendom” that he repeated the intelligence to two more
members of the ambassador’s staff in London. “I cannot guess what the duke’s motives may
have been,” wrote a clearly irritated Chapuys, “…other than to annoy me, or because he takes a
real pleasure in the said news, perceiving that the burden will fall principally on Your Majesty,
who he would like to see in such straits as to be obliged to put up with the King’s folly,” by
which he meant the divorce.34 Similarly, Chapuys reported that the papal nuncio had met with
similar treatment from the Duke of Norfolk, who promised that if Clement returned the
33
34
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 February, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 264
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 30 January 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 897.
James 107
matrimonial case to England, “the king and his allies would perform wonders [against the
Turks].”35 Norfolk thus suggested the king’s divorce superseded any concerns about the state of
affairs on the continent or any humanist aspirations for a unified Christendom.
Though Henry’s hostility toward Charles’s campaign had grown perfectly clear to
Chapuys, he reserved some of his bitterest remarks for others. The king told Katherine that not
only did he refuse to support her nephew’s campaign, he also believed he would be justified in
joining forces with the Turks for the sake of “opposing a tyrannical prince,” her nephew Charles
V.36 Likewise, Henry told the papal nuncio that it was a “mere joke” to approach him about the
campaign.37 Chapuys had no reservations about sharing his opinion on Henry’s refusal to support
such a holy campaign. “God,” he told Norfolk three times, “would punish them for it.” In return
the duke retorted that it was Chapuys who would meet divine punishment alongside “all those
who upheld the Queen’s cause against God and the law of nature.”38 Chapuys’ apparently
interpreted the exchange as a joke, but it was still one with clear implications. The English would
not compromise on the divorce. Henry’s marital problems had infected diplomatic relationships
from the start, and such comments reveal the extent to which the English privileged the divorce
above all other foreign affairs.
In his efforts to mediate the messy intersection of Henry’s divorce and Charles’ hope for
a unified Christendom, Chapuys was not alone. Though Imperial and papal agendas conflicted
on many scores, they were aligned in opposing Henry’s divorce. Thus Chapuys had the
consistent support of the aforementioned Papal Nuncio Baron de Borgho, with whom he worked
closely. In fact, Chapuys devoted lengthy passages in his dispatches to the nuncio’s daily
35
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 30 January, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 897.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 February, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 641.
37
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 4 December, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 853.
38
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 March, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 664.
36
James 108
activities, describing them with the same detail-oriented precision with which he discussed his
own. They confronted similar frustrations and frequently shared their respective strategies.
Borgho seemed an effective partner for Chapuys and was well-regarded among the broader
network of Imperial diplomats. Imperial ambassador to Rome, Micer Mai, called him “an honest
man and good servant and vassal of His Imperial Majesty,” even recommending that word be
sent via Chapuys that the emperor “was much pleased” with his work on Katherine’s behalf and
begged him to “persevere in so meritorious a work.”39 Surely anyone who opposed the divorce
would have found a friend in Chapuys.
In 1531, when Pope Clement urged the nuncio to help convince Henry to support the
campaign in Hungary, Chapuys understood that they needed to maneuver carefully around the
king. He knew Henry’s temperament well and was not optimistic. Recent news of a consistorial
conference in Rome had not brought any favorable news regarding Henry’s divorce, and
Chapuys worried that the king would be in a bad mood. Chapuys told the nuncio that it was “by
no means a fit opportunity to speak to the King about his joining in resistance to the Turk.” He
thus advised the nuncio to offer advice in his own name rather than that of Pope Clement, in an
effort to defuse tension. Borgho accepted Chapuys’ advice but still found Henry disagreeable. He
told the nuncio that he had recently dispatched a courier to Rome and would base his response on
the reply he received. Since neither the pope nor the emperor had furthered his case, he was “not
disposed” to further theirs. “The Pope may do what he likes with me,” he told the nuncio, “I care
but little about his excommunications.”40 These were the loaded words Chapuys had come to
expect from Henry, whose increasingly vocal anger at the pope only further complicated the
diplomat’s attempts at promoting Imperial goals.
39
40
Letter from Micer Mai to Charles V on 10 January, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 588.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 March, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 664.
James 109
In their efforts to protect the clergy against Henry’s statutes, Chapuys and Borgho were
again thwarted, albeit indirectly, by Henry VIII. Also in 1531, amid reports that Henry aimed to
tax the clergy and even arrest priests who had “tacitly or expressly recognized” Cardinal
Wolsey’s legatine authority, the ambassador and the nuncio agreed that they needed to exhort
the English clergy to “uphold the honor, immunity, and authority” of the church. Together they
planned that the nuncio would speak before a congregation of ecclesiastics to inform them of
developments in Katherine’s case, show them letters of encouragement from Pope Clement, and
offer Rome’s support in reducing the planned tax. Upon the nuncio’s arrival, the group was
“astonished and thunderstruck.” They had no permission from the king to meet with him, they
said, and “entreated him for God’s sake to leave them in peace.”41 Henry’s government had
succeeded in frightening the congregation of churchmen away from any possible intervention
from the pair of diplomats. Reflecting on his recent frustrations, Chapuys closed the same
dispatch lamenting, “It is really incredible how much intrigue and deceit these people are
carrying on for the sole purpose of suborning all manner of people.”42 Try as they might,
Chapuys and Borgho were thwarted on multiple fronts in their efforts to combat the broader
ramifications of Henry’s divorce.
Chapuys’ frustrations in England forced him to look to Rome with increased urgency.
The ambassador had long maintained that firmer treatment from the pope was necessary if
Clement wanted to prevent the divorce and save England from heresy. “Mild treatment,”
Chapuys warned Charles, “only hardens these people, but severity softens them.”43 Since 1530,
Chapuys had advocated that the pope issue a brief temporarily exiling Anne from the English
41
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 23 January, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 615.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 23 January, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 615.
43
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 4 December, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 522.
42
James 110
court if he would not rule on the divorce itself.44 By 1531, the constant procrastination in Rome
was growing suspect. “Had His Holiness wished to decide this case, he might long have done it
judicially,” Chapuys believed.45 The times had changed and more severe action was necessary.
Henry no longer even bothered to pretend for the sake of appearance that he lived with
Katherine, having left her for the final time that June. Meanwhile, Anne boasted at court that her
marriage to the king would undoubtedly occur within three or four months.46 If the pope would
not issue a definite sentence, Chapuys feared “some disorderly act” was not far off.47
Chapuys’ requests were not falling on deaf ears, and he was not the only voice pressing
Clement for a sentence. There was a network of Imperial diplomats working to prevent the
divorce. In October 1531, a Spanish lawyer sent to argue Katherine’s case in Rome, Pedro Ortiz,
assured Chapuys that he had gone to Clement immediately upon receiving the ambassador’s
recent letter, representing to him that he was bound to forbid the king under pain of
excommunication from “any sort of intercourse” with his mistress. Though Clement seemed
conciliatory, Ortiz confessed to Chapuys that he was not optimistic. “Though such a brief after
all may never be issued,” he said, “people may see that nothing on our part has been omitted out
of neglect.”48 Their frenzy of letter-writing and admonitions could not prompt significant action
in Rome. Still, Chapuys’ words did move other diplomats to action.
Perhaps the only individual more frustrated that Chapuys in the fall of 1531 was
Katherine, who further demonstrates the widespread dissatisfaction with the Rome felt by
individuals on both sides of the divorce case. Through letters to Chapuys, Charles, and Ortiz, she
voiced her grievances against the pope, whose inactivity hurt her both politically and personally.
44
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 June, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 1, 354.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 February, 1530. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 641.
46
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 17 July, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 765.
47
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 16 October, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 808.
48
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Eustace Chapuys on 24 October, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 812.
45
James 111
She was confident, she told her nephew, that “the Pope’s tardiness in giving sentence makes
many on my side waver,” so much so that “those who would otherwise speak the truth dare not
utter a word in my favor.”49 Clement’s conduct and apparent lack of concern, she said, “pains me
to the soul,” and left her doubting his Christian charity.50 In addition to her individual pains,
Katherine understood that the pope’s stalling threatened the broader peace among Christian
princes at a time when the threat of reformation in Germany and the Turks in the east made
“conformity of ideas and mutual help… so desirable.”51 Like Charles, Katherine likely aspired
for a simpler time of Christian unity that was now complicated by the divorce. In an effort to
placate multiple parties, Clement had wound up satisfying none. Katherine grew increasingly
depressed, and Henry grew increasingly agitated.
Though Clement was not willing to provide the sentence that Katherine and the Imperial
diplomats requested, he offered a conciliatory gesture in early 1532 that he hoped might pacify
Henry for the time being. After receiving word that the pope intended to grant the English yet
another delay, Imperial ambassador to Rome, Micer Mai, called on Clement “quite determined to
tell him [his] mind.” When the pope offered that a brief would be prepared by the end of the
month, Mai dismissed his words as being no better than similar promises offered in the past.
Still, Clement appeared sincere and uncharacteristically determined. “I do promise most
solemnly, and upon my faith,” explained the pope, “that after this delay I myself will be your
advocate and proctor,” at which words the ambassador threw himself at Clement’s feet.52 The
brief was prepared on January 25 but was not dispatched immediately to Henry. Mai forwarded
49
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Charles V on 6 November, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 819.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 December, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 860.
51
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Charles V on 15 December, 1531. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 860.
52
Letter from Micer Mai to Charles V on 25 January, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol, 4, Pt. 2, 892.
50
James 112
the document to Charles who, upon gave his approval, and forwarded it to England. The pope, it
seemed, had provided Chapuys with a valuable tool.
The utility of the brief was undermined by two factors. The first was timing. The brief did
not arrive in England until mid-April 1532, when Parliament had just passed precisely the type of
“disorderly act” Chapuys feared. The “Supplication Against the Ordinaries,” declared that the
clergy’s oaths to the pope contradicted their oaths to the monarch. The subsequent Submission of
the Clergy affirmed that all clerical legislation would require royal assent; it represented the
complete surrender of episcopal authority to the King.53 Dismayed, Chapuys feared that the
developments in Parliament spelled disaster. That Henry had annulled the ordinances of past
synods and forbidden them to meet in the future reduced the clergy “to a lower condition than
the shoemakers.” Writing to Charles, the ambassador could only pray, “May God be pleased to
send down such a remedy as the intensity of the evil requires!”54 The day after the bishops’
submission, Thomas More resigned from his office as chancellor. Katherine and Chapuys agreed
that the papal brief ought not to be presented to Henry until after the current session of
Parliament lest Henry decide to retaliate any further.55
The second problem with the brief was that it was outdated. After years of hoping for
papal action, the text of the 1532 brief was likely a disappointment to Chapuys. In it the pope
53
There is significant historiographical disagreement surrounding the origin and implication of this bill.
Geoffrey Elton sees the hand of Thomas Cromwell as “manifest in these proceedings as the hand of Henry VIII is
absent,” arguing through a sequence of different drafts that Cromwell revived certain grievances that originated in
the House of Commons in 1529. John Guy builds on this theory, claiming that Cromwell simultaneously capitalized
on parliamentary anticlericalism to push the king toward more radical reform. Meanwhile, J.P. Cooper sees the
grievances as specific to the Commons of 1532 and rejected the idea that they originated with Cromwell. G.W.
Bernard insists that Henry’s royal purpose was more settled than any of these models allow and insists that he was in
command of policymaking. However, each model fosters the climate in which Katherine and Chapuys felt it was
unwise deliver an additional blow from Rome. See, G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation--England, 1509-1558
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1977), 155; J.P. Cooper, “The Supplication Against the Ordinaries
Reconsidered,” English Historical Review, lxxii (1957): 641; G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2005), 62.
54
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 13 May, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol, 4, Pt. 2, 951.
55
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 29 April, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 943.
James 113
responded to the news that Henry now openly lived separately from his wife and in the company
of “a certain Anne.” Clement insisted that “Catholics will grieve and heretics rejoice” to hear of
the development, demanding that Henry “restore to her honor as a queen, and the affection as a
wife, which she ought to have from you, and to send away Anne, till our sentence between you
has been given”56 The pope had finally complied and provided a document aiming to end
Henry’s affair with his concubine. It was exactly the document Chapuys had asked for. Chapuys,
however, had wanted it two years earlier.
Thus despite its strong wording the brief was too little too late. Noticeably lacking were
any concrete consequences that might compel Henry to actually obey, assuming that his
obedience was even a possibility at all. Even Mai, the ambassador who was largely responsible
for the brief, could not conceal his disappointment, writing to Charles that “these people have
refused to give me the brief with censures that I applied for.” Instead the brief could serve only
as a type of warning shot. If Henry did not comply, Mai wrote, then the pope would provide
another with censures.57 Ortiz was also unenthused, telling Charles that he thought it “would be
of no use whatever, except as justifying His Holiness’ proceedings in the case.”58 Chapuys was
less restrained in his response. Although he was prepared to facilitate the execution of the brief,
he was thoroughly unimpressed by Clement’s efforts. “It is as meagre and insignificant as it
could possibly be even if it had been issued before the suit began,” he wrote to his master, who
had already read and presumably approved the brief, “whereas now, after so much delay and
56
Papal brief from Clement VII to Henry VIII on 25 January, 1532. For English summary see Letters &
Papers., Vol. 5, 750. For original full text in Latin see Nicholas Pocock, Records of the reformation; the divorce
1527-1533. Mostly now for the first time printed from mss. in the British Museum, the Public Record Office, the
Venetian Archives and other libraries. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1870), ii, 166. For English translation in part see
Geoffrey de C. Parmiter, The King's Great Matter: A Study of Anglo-Papal Relations 1527-1534 (London:
Longmans, 1967), 178.
57
Letter from Micer Mai to Charles V on 25 January, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol, 4, Pt. 2, 892.
58
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V from May, 1532, though the specific date is unknown. See Cal.
Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 947.
James 114
such tedious procurings, it will be found that His Holiness has issued a most inefficacious
document.”59 Chapuys was working with his hands tied.
Chapuys was correct in assuming the brief would not inspire meaningful results. The
ambassador passed it to the papal nuncio for presentation to the king on 13 May, 1532. Greeted
by the Duke of Norfolk, the nuncio announced that he had orders to speak to the king himself, a
telltale sign that he bore unpalatable news. The duke attempted to stall, asking the nuncio to wait
while he and Henry strategized for nearly an hour, after which the nuncio was conducted to the
royal chamber to share his news. Henry responded with “trouble and amazement,” the nuncio
later told Chapuys. Henry turned the brief’s implication in on itself. If Katherine were, in fact,
his lawful wife as the pope maintained, then it was his prerogative to punish her for her evident
rudeness however he saw fit. Such was his right as both husband and king.60 He would not
comply.
Rather than improve the situation, the dated and ineffective brief worked against
Chapuys’ aims and provoked Henry to treat Katherine with more resentment. The ambassador
wrote to Charles, “[I] have not the least doubt that far from obeying the papal injunctions the
king will only make his case much worse, for already, since the presentation of the said brief, he
has given orders for the queen to be removed after the present festivals to a house [in Buckden]
much farther away than the one in which she is now living, where… [she] will be more annoyed
than before.”61 In all likelihood a similar brief might have meant a poor reaction in 1530, but two
years later it betrayed a gross disconnect between Chapuys’ needs in England and what Pope
Clement VII felt comfortable dispensing from Rome.
59
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 May, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 952.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 May, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 952.
61
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 May, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 952.
60
James 115
Against this backdrop, Henry went on his annual progress in the summer of 1532, during
which time he began planning his journey to Calais with French ambassador Pommeraye. The
planned 1532 meeting prompted a similar pattern of panic in England met by timidity in Rome as
the Imperial diplomats hoped for action from Clement. Rumors about London were conflicting
but still confirmed Chapuys’ feeling that further action from Rome was necessary. An unnamed
attendant from the royal household told Chapuys that Anne expected to wed Henry during the
trip, while those among London’s French merchants placed heavy bets that Henry would, in fact,
marry the eldest daughter of Francis I.62 Chapuys doubted that Henry would have tired of his
mistress so readily, but stressed that from the pope’s perspective it hardly mattered. He
emphasized to the nuncio “how injurious it would be for the authority and reputation of the Holy
Apostolic See, and how humiliating for the Pope himself” should either of the rumored
marriages occur, thus permanently condemning Katherine’s case. He was, however, sure to add
that “the dangerous dilemma arose solely from the pope’s delay in having the case tried and
determined, and that the only remedy consisted in a prompt and definitive sentence.”63 Chapuys
was frustrated on both sides: by the English, who moved further from Rome, and by the pope,
whose inaction he blamed for pushing them further away.
The summer and fall of 1532 saw an important shift in the Imperial diplomats’ approach
to the divorce: they began to angle for excommunication. The warning shot that was the previous
brief had inarguably failed; Henry was not going to restore Katherine to the throne and the threat
of ecclesiastical division loomed large. The time had come for a brief of excommunication.
Chapuys was a key kick-starter of this plan, a fact that has not always been clear in scholarship
on Anglo-papal relations. Following the course of the brief’s composition in Rome reveals the
62
63
Magdalen, the French princess in question, would later marry James V of Scotland.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on August 26, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 986.
James 116
levels of papal bureaucracy and timidity that made it difficult to execute Chapuys’ dire requests
from England.
In late July, Chapuys appealed to Ortiz. Growing increasingly concerned, he instructed
the proctor that if a sentence could not be obtained, Ortiz instead needed to devote his efforts
toward procuring the declaratory brief of excommunication immediately.64 Ortiz evidently
agreed wholeheartedly and adopted the cause as his own. After all, Ortiz wrote to the emperor,
excommunication would likely prove more effective than even the pope’s official sentence on
the divorce in bringing about “the King’s confusion” and causing his kingdom to “rise against
his contumacious disobedience, so likely to produce a schism in the Church.”65 The Imperial
plan to excommunicate the King of England had commenced.
Efforts to press for action in Rome were slow and highlight the difficulties in
implementing Chapuys’ advice from England. Immediately upon receiving Chapuys’
instructions, Ortiz aimed to carry them out, but encountered obstacles in Pope Clement and his
fellow Imperial agent. So determined was Ortiz that he told Pope Clement he would stand up on
the judgment day and “accuse him before God” if he did not excommunicate the King of
England. Ever attempting to minimize conflict, Clement explained that he would rather wait and
respond to further news from England.66 He told Ortiz to speak instead to a certain cardinal, no
doubt hoping to divert his energy elsewhere. The ambassador was suspicious when both the
cardinal in question and later the pope on a subsequent visit both later pled illness and refused to
greet him.67 Ortiz worried that this was meant only to cause further delays as he believed the
pope would not proceed before he knew what Francis I and Henry VIII were to discuss at
64
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V on 28 July, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 979.
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V on September 18, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 997.
66
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V on 28 July, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 979.
67
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V on 28 July, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 979.
65
James 117
Calais.68 The pope was deeply apprehensive about the interview, which, Ortiz believed,
prevented him “from doing many things he would otherwise have done.”69 Still, Chapuys would
surely have appreciated Ortiz’s determination. Charles’ representative in Rome would not be
discouraged. Despite the delays, he assured the empress that he would continue to advocate for
the English king’s excommunication as long as Henry persisted in his “contumacious and
schismatic disobedience.”70 Ortiz, if no one else, would continue to try to implement Chapuys’
advice.
Ortiz’s struggle to follow Chapuys’ instruction was further compounded by infighting
amongst the imperial ambassadors in Rome. Ortiz, who was not technically an ambassador but
rather a Spanish lawyer sent to Rome by Charles to advocate Katherine’s case, was not on good
terms with the official resident ambassador, Micer Miguel Mai.71 Yet Ortiz attempted to defer to
him nonetheless. Before taking Chapuys’ requests to the pope, he went first to Mai. Though
Ortiz read Chapuys’ letter aloud and argued his case energetically, Mai was ambivalent. “If you
wish to ask the Pope, you may,” Mai told Ortiz, “as for me, I consider the step useless, for his
Holiness will never grant our demand.” 72 Mai was not entirely wrong, and he was by this point
very jaded, even writing to Charles in early September that he doubted the second brief would
ever come.73 However, these were not merely the words of a man cynical after many delays; Mai
was deliberately indisposed toward helping Ortiz in particular. Ortiz asked that Mai at the very
least help him gain the support of an influential cardinal, but reported to Charles that he believed
68
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V on 18 September, 1532; Letter from Pedro Ortiz to the Empress
Isabella on 30 September, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 997 and 1002.
69
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Empress Isabella on 10 November, 1532. See Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1025.
70
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Empress Isabella on 30 September, 1532. See Cal. Span, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1002.
71
Parmiter notes that the relationship between the two was strained as early as the spring of 1531. Parmiter,
168.
72
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V on 28 July, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 979.
73
Letter from Micer Mai to Charles V on 4 September, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 991.
James 118
Mai had entirely disregarded the request. 74 Mai, it became clear, felt that Ortiz was stepping on
his territory and was punishing the lawyer for it. When Ortiz again solicited his colleague’s help
in gaining another interview with the pope, Mai scolded Ortiz for trying to usurp his function and
told him to refrain from speaking to the pope on the matter again. Dealings between the two
representatives were heated enough that Charles himself needed to intervene, telling Ortiz that he
must not proceed without consulting the ambassador first. With a bruised ego and wounded
pride, Ortiz still took care to emphasize in his communications with the empress that he himself
had been the “primary instigator and brought [the issue of the papal briefs] to the point at which
it now is.” 75 Undoubtedly unprofessional, such squabbles and personality clashes complicated
efforts to implement Chapuys’ designs.
Despite his frustrations, Ortiz did reap an important reward. Predictably, the pope did not
excommunicate Henry VIII but did issue another brief on 15 November, 1532, two weeks after
the conclusion of the Calais meeting. Even if the brief was not the bull of excommunication that
Chapuys had asked for, it did represent a represent a noticeably more aggressive stance against
Henry. Clement established an exact time frame with precise consequences. Henry had one
month from the presentation of the brief to reject Anne Boleyn and restore Katherine to her
status of queen. “If the King does not do this,” continued the brief, “the Pope declares both him
and Anne to be excommunicated at the expiry of the said term, and forbids him to divorce
himself from Katharine by his own authority, and marry Anne or any other, such marriage being
invalid.”76 There can be no doubt that the brief was a credit to Pedro Ortiz’s dedication. Some
historians forget, however, that the lawyer’s efforts were directly prompted by Chapuys’ appeal
74
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Charles V on 28 July, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 979.
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Empress Isabella on 10 November, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1025.
76
Clement VII to Henry VIII on 15 November, 1532. See Letters & Papers, Vol. 5, 1545.
75
James 119
from London. Ortiz had even been using Chapuys’ letter to procure the pope’s cooperation.
Without Chapuys the threat of excommunication might not have reached Henry. 77
Despite Ortiz’s noble efforts, Chapuys was again disappointed by a papal brief. Unlike a
sentence on the divorce or an excommunication, which would both be final, the mere threat of an
excommunication might be easily relaxed or even revoked in the future. The brief, he felt, was
only meant to placate Charles V.78 If the pope would not excommunicate the king, Chapuys
offered that he might consider excommunicating his mistress instead. This plan might give
Henry less cause to complain and came with the possibility that “the people of England might
wreak their vengeance upon her, remonstrate with the King, and make the interdict follow her
wherever she went.” He also dropped the loaded hint that should excommunication provoke an
uprising, he was not sure Anne would survive “unscathed.”79 Still, Chapuys’ primary goal in his
dealing with Rome was from this point forward the excommunication of Henry VIII. After this
was secured, he insisted, Charles would be entirely justified in forbidding all trade with the
lonely island kingdom, which was surely “the true and most efficient means for bringing the
King to reason and getting to the end of this affair.”80 In this view Chapuys would not
compromise.
Chapuys’ natural doggedness and profound dedication to Katherine’s cause meant that he
held the papal nuncio to a high standard. In early 1533, Chapuys felt that standard was not being
met. It fell to the nuncio, Antonio de Puello, baron de Borgho, to deliver the November 15 brief
77
Parmiter discusses the process by which Ortiz campaigned for the brief, saying that “it seems likely that
it would never have been sent had it not been for the persistence of Dr. Pedro Ortiz.” This is true. However, Parmiter
only traces the origins of the brief back to September 1532 rather than Chapuys’ request from late July and the
tension that erupted between Ortiz and Micer Mai during that summer. See Parmiter, 204-206.
78
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 27 January, 1533.
79
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 9 February, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1047.
80
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 9 February, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1047
James 120
to Henry VIII in late January.81 The king’s response was predictable. He had already declared his
intentions not to return to Katherine, Henry told the nuncio. In the aftermath of the meeting,
Chapuys was suspicious of Borgho’s continued dealings at court. First, the nuncio denied having
spent all of January 30 in consultation with the king and his Privy Councilors, though Chapuys
learned of the meeting from a friend of Katherine. Then in the second week of February, Henry
summoned the nuncio to accompany him on his own barge to the opening of Parliament.
Chapuys speculated that this was a ploy to create the appearance that Henry was on good terms
with Rome. Perhaps most concerning, however, was one offhanded remark. Upon advising
Borgho not to risk injuring his master’s cause by acting too quickly, the nuncio responded that he
was just a “poor gentleman” and “could not do otherwise.” Chapuys admitted finding the words
odd. “Did he mean,” Chapuys wondered, “that by acting in this way he could… get some reward
from these people, who, as he himself informs me, did make him about a year ago [a] most
wonderful offer if he would anywise favor the divorce!”82 At the very least, Chapuys was
alarmed that the nuncio seemed too comfortable with the English.
The implication of Chapuys’ fears was that perhaps the nuncio was more concerned with
placating the English than in arguing Katherine’s case. Chapuys believed the nuncio wanted to
see the divorce tried outside of Rome and was severely unimpressed by his frequent declarations
to Henry that Clement was even more anxious than the king “to get rid of the business.” Such
sentiments made on behalf of the pope, wrote Chapuys, were responsible for leading Henry to
believe that “sooner or later he would gain his end and make the Pope accede to his wishes.”83
81
This had been one of the conditions upon which Clement issued the brief, hoping that the nuncio might
first be able to speak to the king without resorting to the brief. Ortiz supposed that “[Mai] could not obtain it without
that condition.” There is no record of the nuncio’s interview with Henry. As with so many other events of this
period, we must rely exclusively on Chapuys’ report. See Letters & Papers, 1567; Partimer, 209.
82
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 9 February, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1047.
83
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 9 February, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1047.
James 121
Chapuys’ opinion of the nuncio never recovered. The ambassador considered him “entirely in
[the king’s] hands, having done very little real service to the Queen .”84 Chapuys’ anger
highlights a key difference between the Imperial ambassador and the papal nuncio. The pope was
thus willing to placate Henry, while the Imperialists were not. As the representative of Clement,
Borgho aimed to prevent a crisis whereby Henry might further dismantle papal authority; as a
representative of Charles (and Katherine by extension), Chapuys aimed to resolve the divorce at
all costs. The nuncio privileged papal authority where the ambassador privileged the dynastic
reach of his master’s empire. In this, a discrepancy emerges between the demands of the papacy
and the Habsburg Empire.
The pope’s effort to placate Henry when possible finalized Henry’s divorce. The recent
death of the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, meant the loss of a
significant adversary who had consistently opposed both the divorce and clerical reforms.
Henry’s hoped to fill the archbishopric with someone friendly to his cause. His proposed
replacement was Archdeacon Thomas Cranmer, the dependent of the Boleyns who had
impressed the king with his creative support for the divorce.85 Still, Cranmer needed to be
approved and appointed by Rome. Confident that Cranmer belonged “heart and soul to the
Lutheran sect,” Chapuys cautioned Charles that this was something that Clement must not do.
84
Chapuys would also report that he suspected the nuncio of “secretly having done or said something
against our cause” during Chapuys’ attempt to oppose Thomas Cranmer’s appointment as Archbishop of
Canterbury. Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 10 May, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1072; Letter
from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 18 May, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1073.
85
Cranmer was a fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and a professor of divinity when he learned of
Henry’s marital predicament. He suggested that Henry disengage with canon law in favor of approaching the
theologians of Europe’s universities, and the king asked him to write a thesis on the matter. Cranmer was
subsequently sponsored by the Boleyn family and joined Thomas Boleyn’s embassy to Bologona in 1530. He
continued his work as a diplomat to the Imperial court until his nomination for the archbishopric, even acting as
ambassador to the Imperial court. Though Parmiter notes that he was “at heart, a heretic” and greatly influenced by
humanist approaches to theology before the king’s divorce, G.W. Bernard contends that there is little evidence that
he showed any affinity toward Protestantism before the early 1530s. However, despite his holy orders, Cranmer had
not hesitated to marry the niece of reformer Andreas Osiander during his time in Germany, evidencing his
unorthodox ways when it came to canonical marriage policies. See Ives, The Life and Death, 131-132; Parmiter,
211-212; Bernard, The King’s Reformation, 506.
James 122
The pope, he said, must either delay until after a sentence on the divorce had been pronounced,
or else include a clause forbidding Cranmer from interfering with the divorce case.86 Despite this
explicit warning, Cranmer’s appointment was promptly accepted and the requisite papal bulls
were sent to London. With this, Clement’s eagerness to placate Henry whenever possible had
essentially doomed Rome’s cause in England.87 The pope’s desire to prevent matters in England
from reaching a crisis point clashed with Chapuys’ desire to protect the universal dynastic claims
of the Habsburgs at all cost.
The consequences of ignoring Chapuys’ warning about Cranmer became clear. The papal
bulls confirming Cranmer’s appointment arrived on 26 March. He was consecrated as archbishop
on the 30th and had already petitioned the king to investigate the divorce question twelve days
later.88 Chapuys believed Henry had only been waiting for the arrival of the bulls in order to
celebrate his marriage, and Anne’s royal household had already been appointed.89 In early April,
the ambassador learned that Anne had changed her title from marchioness to queen, having
married Henry in private on January 25. It was perhaps the moment Chapuys had feared the most
throughout his career abroad. “The whole thing seems a dream,” Chapuys confessed, “and even
those who support her party do not know whether to laugh or cry at it.”90
According to Chapuys, Henry’s decision to marry Anne in spite of the threat of Rome
and the emperor altered the landscape of England. It was an “irreparable evil” that proved the
86
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 February, 1533. Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1048.
Scarisbrick calls this episode indicative of a general “carelessness and an extraordinary readiness to
placate Henry,” which was one of Clement’s most “conspicuous traits.” See Scarisbrick, 310.
88
This process needed to be handled delicately. If Henry were answerable to none save God, then he could
not be cited by the archbishops or any earthly tribunal. In permitting Cranmer to decide upon his case, Henry made
clear that he “recognizes no superior on earth” and permitted Cranmer to investigate the case not as a power to
which he must submit but rather the “principal minister” of Henry’s own “spiritual jurisdiction." For Scarisbrick,
this demonstrated how the king’s “mind had completed the evolution begun in 1529 or thereabouts” leading him
toward reform and supremacy. For the original document see, Henry VIII to Cranmer on 12 April, 1533. Letter &
Papers, Vol. 6, 332. For its significance, see Scarisbrick’s 311.
89
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 31 March, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1057.
90
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 April, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1061.
87
James 123
country would inevitably surrender to Lutheranism “in as much as the king himself is showing
them the way and helping them on, and the archbishop of Canterbury is doing still worse.” For
Katherine, of course, this was a disaster. Chapuys worried that Anne’s elevation was not only an
affront to the honor of the Habsburg dynasty but also to Katherine’s physical safety. Anne, he
was sure, would “not relent in her persecution until she actually finishes with Queen Katherine,
as she once did with Cardinal Wolsey.”91 If Rome had abandoned Katherine, then war was the
only solution and, Chapuys added, could hardly be avoided.92 Even some Englishmen thought
so. A deputation of English merchants petitioned the king to learn whether they were still even
permitted to trade with Flanders, assuming that war was imminent.93 Meanwhile, Chapuys’
merchant contacts withdrew their merchandise from London, and the ambassador’s creditors
began circling him in fear that the diplomat might soon leave the country. 94
Frustrated by what could only be considered a devastating failure, Chapuys had had
enough of England. His continued presence in London, he said, lent credence to the false
assumption that Charles would tolerate Henry’s invalid second marriage. “For this cause,” he
wrote, “I think I ought to be immediately recalled, and most humbly beseech Your Majesty to
send the order.” It was not a lack of will or dedication to the cause that pushed Chapuys toward
resignation. The fiery and intensely argumentative ambassador had no lack of drive. He
explained that it was not “to avoid the dangers and troubles that may supervene,” for he was even
happy to die in the Imperial service.”95 Rather, frustrated by inactivity in Rome and horrified by
developments in England, Chapuys was dejected and demoralized.
The ambassador’s stated willingness to lose his life in service of the emperor might read
91
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1061.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 10 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1058.
93
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1058.
94
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 10 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1058.
95
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on l5 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1058.
92
James 124
as an exaggerated rhetorical flourish but was not unfounded given the tumultuous circumstances.
He was receiving harsh criticism and even veiled threats. Before Chapuys could learn whether or
not the emperor would have him recalled, he needed to contend with the newly appointed
Archbishop of Canterbury’s efforts to pronounce a sentence on the divorce. Cranmer summoned
Katherine to appear personally before his tribunal, which he planned to convene in the priory of
the Augustinian Canons at Dunstable. Chapuys was quick to point out that the location was
roughly thirty miles from London, which he felt betrayed an awareness that there could be public
protests if the proceedings occurred in London.96 The proceedings were little more than a
formality in garnering a final verdict against the queen.
Chapuys responded with a vengeance. He flipped Henry’s logic upon itself, telling the
king in person that if Katherine were not his lawful wife, then she was also not an English citizen
and not subject to Cranmer’s trial in England. Common Law, continued the legally trained
ambassador, dictated that the claimant bring his action before a tribunal in the defendant’s native
country, so Henry had better write to Spain if he would not agree to Rome.97 Explaining the
matter to Katherine, Chapuys offered the queen his legal opinion that she ought to ignore the
summons so as not to abandon her appeal to Rome. Furthermore, he composed “a sort of protest”
for her to sign in order to better evade the “nets of calumny and wickedness that are being
prepared for her.”98
Chapuys understood that this interference might provoke a strong reaction, including
allegations that he extended his role beyond that of a foreign ambassador. He therefore wrote to
the King of England directly, emphasizing that he had Charles’s “express, patent, and authentic
powers to act in this matrimonial cause,” meaning he was free to present apostolic briefs or “do
96
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 27 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1062.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 15 April, 1532. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1061.
98
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 27 April, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1062.
97
James 125
any other acts requisite and necessary” should the English disregard papal inhibitions against
ruling on the divorce.99 Chapuys was prepared to push the parameters of these royal orders, but
his letter betrays some consciousness that perhaps he had grown too personally embroiled in
Charles’ interests in England and gone beyond his duty as ambassador.
Chapuys’ letter earned an immediate response form the king’s Privy Council. Henry
initially decided not to reply in writing but sent the Chancellor of the Exchequer Thomas
Cromwell to offer the chilling warning that the ambassador’s privilege of diplomatic immunity
could be impeached if he violated the privileges of the king’s crown and kingdom by opposing
Cranmer’s court.100 This threat was put into more concrete terms when Chapuys spoke before the
Council the following day. Thomas Boleyn, the Earl of Wilshire, told Chapuys in no uncertain
terms that the letter would have been considered treasonous had it been written by an
Englishman. Dr. Edward Fox elaborated. Considering that the pope had no remaining authority
in the land, he said, Chapuys could not claim immunity or other privileges of an ambassador
while presenting materials from Rome that might oppose the archbishop and thus the laws and
statues of the kingdom. This, he said, was the job of the papal nuncio not an Imperial
ambassador.101 At issue was the question of whether Chapuys, as Imperial ambassador, was free
to push an agenda that challenged English policy in favor of a third party separate from his
master. Such an agenda made Chapuys a Catholic challenger to a decidedly anti-papal Privy
Council. As a gesture of his good faith, Chapuys promised to desist.
According to Chapuys, this surrender was an intentional performance whereby he
99
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Henry VIII on 5 May, 1533. He attached a complete copy of the letter
with his dispatch to Charles V on 10 May, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1072.
100
In declining to send a written message, Henry and his ministers outmaneuvered the ambassador, who
had intentionally sent his assertions as a written letter in hopes of receiving one in return that he might either show
to Katherine’s supporters or have it published as evidence of the seriousness of the situation. Letter from Eustace
Chapuys to Charles 10 May, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1072.
101
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles 10 May, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1072.
James 126
intended to improve his position among Henry’s councilors. In his dispatch to Charles, he
admitted to having no intention of actually executing a campaign against the tribunal. This was a
generous representation of the situation. In reality, Chapuys did not have the power to mount any
truly effective campaign. Cranmer’s trial had a foregone conclusion that Chapuys could do
nothing to prevent. In reality, he was nearly helpless, but the ambassador still hoped to capitalize
on an opportunity for gaining credit with Henry’s councilors. He assured Charles that his
promise not to oppose Cranmer’s court was a planned and performative maneuver. Diplomacy
was, after all, just as much about perception and showmanship as it was political content. By
backing down and apparently heading the Council’s advice, Chapuys hoped to make himself
appear amenable. Katherine, he explained, had entirely approved of this plan and had already
experienced minor benefits from it.102 Though these undisclosed benefits were undoubtedly
short-lived if they occurred at all, the incident is telling of Chapuys’ thought process and goals.
The ambassador no longer aimed to derail the divorce and understood that he could not sway the
Dunstable verdict. Still, his performance – and it was a performance – before the Privy Council
allowed Chapuys to act out a degree of influence he did not actually have. In the process, he
faced threats to his diplomatic immunity, believing he had Katherine’s best interests at heart.
For the immediate time being, the chips had fallen. Katherine’s defense had collapsed.
Cranmer pronounced her marriage to Henry invalid on 23 May, and Anne was crowned Queen of
England on 1 June, 1533. Such a flagrant dismissal of papal authority could not go ignored.103
Clement VII finally ruled on the divorce on 11 July, 1533, finding Henry’s divorce and
102
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles 10 May, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1072.
Francis I’s words suggest the significance of the sentence, which he felt gave the pope increased cause
for anger and retaliation. Francis told an English agent, “Assure my brother that till that sentence is annulled he will
never obtain the Pope; but for defense of his jurisdiction, the Pope will call the help of the Emperor and all
Christendom.” Stephen Gardiner to Henry VIII in undated letter from November 1533 to Henry VIII. See Letters &
Papers, Vol. 6, 1427.
103
James 127
remarriage null and void, while also declaring the King of England excommunicated.104 After
years of urging for a sentence, its arrival must have felt anticlimactic to Chapuys. If the king’s
immediate policies were any indication, the papal sentence was too little too late, much like the
tame briefs that had preceded it. When Henry sequestered revenues from the bishopric of
Winchester and the auditor of the Apostolic Chamber, Chapuys understood it as a sign that the
king was unfazed by the sentence.105 In Rome, the same was immediately clear to Clement.
Upon hearing the pope’s decision, Henry ordered his ambassadors to leave Rome, prompting
Clement to fear that he had “entirely lost the obedience of England.”106 The birth of Henry and
Anne’s child, Elizabeth, seemed to further solidify their union.
The birth of another princess presented a complicating factor into the question of the
divorce. Whether Elizabeth, the infant child of Anne Boleyn, or Mary, the eighteen year-old
daughter of Katherine of Aragon, was the king’s heir spoke to the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of
the king’s two respective marriages. Before Elizabeth was a year old, Parliament passed the Act
of Succession in March 1534, naming her Henry’s successor, while declaring Mary the bastard
progeny of a false and adulterous union. In addition, the act forbade Katherine from using the
title of queen and required she be known as the Princess Dowager instead.107 Thus, Charles V’s
aunt was declared to have spent nearly three decades of her life living in sin while his first cousin
was named a bastard without any claim to the throne. Thus through a single act of legislature,
Parliament had erased two ties between the Habsburg dynasty and the crown of England.
Chapuys himself did not begrudge the members of Parliament who felt pressured to support the
104
The Pope’s Sentence on 11 July, 1533. See Letters & Papers, Vol. 6, 806. Clement’s death prevented
him from promulgating the bull of excommunication that summer, and his successor, Paul III, would wait until 1538
to issue the bull. When he did so, however, he did not draft a new one but rather issues the longstanding sentence
that Clement had drafted in 1533.
105
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 3 September, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1123.
106
Letter from Cardinal of Jaen to Charles V on 18 August, 1533. See Cal. Span., Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1116.
107
See the proclamation published following the Act of Parliament in Letters & Papers, Vol. 7, 390.
James 128
act, explaining that “to oppose the Bill would have been equivalent to opposing the King’s
[second] marriage, which at the present would be considered a worse crime than that of
heresy.”108 The Act of Succession, however, would present a final crisis in the divorce saga.
Enforcing the terms of the act would be difficult as long as Katherine and Mary clung to
their previous titles and insisted upon being called queen and princess respectively. On this
score, Henry turned to Chapuys. The ambassador was summoned before the Privy Council and
asked to convince the two women to relent. Chapuys refused. He began by attacking the act
itself, which he rejected as “of no value whatever” because it usurped the rights of the Apostolic
See and amounted to an “explosion of lies… [that] contained no truth.” Even if papal authority
was grounded solely in human constitutions as the king pretended, Chapuys insisted that even
the English could not dismiss his jurisdiction given the specific nature of the case and
Katherine’s appeal to Rome. Regarding the suggestion that he direct either Katherine or her
daughter toward surrendering their titles, Chapuys feigned powerlessness. Though he was in
reality one of Katherine’s most trusted advisors, Chapuys insisted that he “had neither the
authority nor the means of dissuading them from their opinions.” Even if he did, he continued, “I
would not use it in such an undertaking; I would rather die a thousand deaths than try to dissuade
them” without explicit orders to do so from Charles V.109 The ambassador would have no part in
furthering the king’s aims at Katherine’s expense. His passionate response speaks to the
ambassador’s commitment to Katherine’s cause, which he had long adopted as synonymous with
Habsburg interests and still defended on principle.
The stakes of the Act of Succession increased as the year continued. Principal men of the
kingdom were to swear an oath upholding the tenets of the act throughout the summer of 1534, a
108
109
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 7 March, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 22.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 19 May, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 58.
James 129
policy that was affirmed by the November 1534 Act Respecting the Oath to the Succession. The
text of the oath asked Englishmen to swear allegiance to their king “and not to any other within
this realm, nor foreign authority, prince or potentate, and in case any oath be made, or hath been
made, by you, to any other person or persons, that then you [are] to repute the same as vain and
annihilate.”110 These words, intended as broad enough as to indict papal authority and any
spiritual allegiance to the pope, went beyond the original act and were enough to prevent any
dedicated Catholic from taking the oath.111 On the oath’s validity, Chapuys was predictably
unimpressed. He sided with those who criticized the king for presuming that “oaths violently
obtained from his people can make his quarrel good, and ensure his obedience; whereas, on the
contrary, it only proves that laws and ordinances that require being sworn to are no good at all.”
He also worried for the lives of former Chancellor Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester
John Fisher, who were arrested and sent to the Tower of London for opposing the Act of
Succession.112 For Chapuys, it was clear that a crisis point was not far off.
A concern for the persons of Katherine of Aragon and her daughter had been one of the
driving motivations of Chapuys’ embassy, and his response to the various acts regarding the
royal succession was no exception. The ambassador was confident that neither Katherine nor
Mary would relent even if faced with imprisonment or the threat of execution.113 As Chapuys
grew increasingly worried about the physical safety of the former queen and her daughter, he
understood that immediate action was necessary.
110
The exact text of the oath is reproduced in Parmiter, The King’s Great Matter, 288.
Parmiter also notes that the oath’s intentional attack on the pope were not authorized by the text of the
original act from the previous March, making it “plainly illegal to require any man to take the oath while it
contained such words.” It was for this discrepancy that Thomas More, upon being arrested for refusing to swear the
oath, told his daughter that the oath “was not agreeable with the statute” and therefore the government was not “by
their own lay able to justify [his] imprisonment.” See, Parmiter, The King’s Great Matter, 291.
112
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 22 April, 1534. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 45.
113
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 1 January, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 122.
111
James 130
He set about to help them as best he could. Chapuys was dismayed by reports that the
newly elected Pope Paul III, who had ascended to the papacy shortly after the death of Clement
VII in the fall of 1534, would prove no more decisive than his predecessor. Responding to a
rumor that the new pope hoped to rectify the situation with a papal brief, Chapuys explained that
the time for such means had long since passed.114 Instead of relying on the pope, Chapuys urged
for an unprecedented step that had heretofore not been discussed. Katherine, he believed, could
not flee the country without giving the appearance that she had abandoned her own cause;
however, the time had come to get the Princess Mary out of England. While in London, Mary
could perhaps board a small vessel outfitted with oars and minimal defensive tools that would
then lead her to a larger chain of ships at the mouth of the Thames. From there, the well-armed
fleet would have the ability to fight anyone following in pursuit of the princess. 115 Though
Chapuys, never one to shy away from extravagant plans, understood that the escape would be
“rather hazardous,” he emphasized that it was extremely “desirable” and “meritous work” that
was necessary for the princess’ safety.116 The tentative plan was fanciful and perhaps too farfetched to implement, but it showcased both Chapuys’ craftiness and his growing desperation to
help the Princess in the wake of a dangerous policy change in England.
That a princess of England would flee her country in a river chase along the Thames was
implausible. Still, on the topic of Mary’s escape, Charles V gave Chapuys his tentative support.
The plot, after all, marked a definite effort to secure the safety of a young princess and Habsburg
relative who might yet further the claims of the dynasty and empire. Knowing as well as the
ambassador certainly did that such an operation would be difficult, Charles asked that Chapuys
114
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 14 January, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 127.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 4 March, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 138.
116
Two letters from Eustace Chapuys to Grand Chancellor Nicholas Perrenot de Granvelle both dated 23
March, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 144; 145.
115
James 131
report the specific means for accomplishing the princess’ departure once they had been
established.117 He went as far as telling Chapuys that he entirely approved of the ambassador’s
actions and urged him to do all he could to favor the planned escape but added that it could only
be done “with the utmost secrecy, and great discretion.”118 Charles was by now accustomed to
Chapuys’ unsubtle requests for firm military action and had frequently brushed them aside.119
Removing Mary from England was less expensive and would have fewer broad diplomatic
consequences than a full-fledged war against Henry VIII. This plan was also vastly preferable to
seeing either Katherine or Mary take the oath against the pope and in favor of the divorce, which
Charles considered “tantamount to admitting [that] their resistance had been unjustifiable.”120
For the time being, Mary’s escape was worth investigating.
Princess Mary herself supported the plan and relied heavily on the ambassador for
personal and political support. Communicating with the princess was difficult though. Mary
feared that her movements were too closely watched for her to even correspond with Charles V
directly.121 On occasion Chapuys managed to send her a letter or even send a member of his
household to speak with her in person. He impressed upon Chancellor Granvelle that he had
communicated with the princess via letter about a possible escape from England, saying she
“ardently wishes for it.”122 Though she was in relatively poor health, Chapuys told Charles that
the princess thought about her proposed escape day and night. On the matter, she asked
“affectionately” for Chapuys’ advice and expressed gratitude that without him “she considered
117
Letter from Charles V to Eustace Chapuys on 5 January, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 126.
Undated letter from Charles V to Eustace Chapuys presumed to be from March 1535. See Cal. Span.,
Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 146.
119
Even in the midst of Chapuys’ tentative planning to remove Mary from England, Charles felt the need to
again tell Chapuys that it was still impossible to “interfere with the force of arms.” Letter from Charles V to Eustace
Chapuys on 26 February, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 135.
120
Letter from Charles V to Eustace Chapuys on 29 December, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 245.
121
Undated letter from Mary Tudor to Eustace Chapuys. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 155.
122
Letters from Eustace Chapuys to Nicholas Perrenot de Granvelle on 23 March, 1535. See Cal. Span.,
Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 145.
118
James 132
herself as good as lost, knowing, as she did, that those by whom she was surrounded thought of
nothing short of causing her death.” Faced with Mary’s fears, Chapuys did his best to prevent the
princess from growing discouraged. He tried to keep her sprits enlivened and was, he wrote,
“trying, as much as I can, to remove suspicion that harm is really intended” to her by the king.123
In this regard, Chapuys’ duties extended beyond those of an ambassador and became those of a
friend or mentor. Keeping the princess encouraged however, was not a simple task. In early May
1535, three prominent Carthusian monks were put to death for failing to recognize Henry VIII as
Supreme Head of the Church.124 Chapuys noted that news of the Carthusian martyrs increased
Mary’s resolve to escape but left her understandably concerned for her own safety because she
too refused to acknowledge her father’s divorce and the religious policies it prompted. Still, the
ambassador remained cautious, feeling that he did not have enough information to form a
specific plan.125 Mary was not courting martyrdom, and the Imperial ambassador was her
greatest resource.
Katherine, on the other hand, appeared to have embraced her fate as a potential martyr.
Unlike her daughter, she had no desire for Chapuys to arrange her removal from the country.
Instead, Katherine described finding “consolation” in the notion that she might follow “so many
blessed martyrs” to the scaffold in light of Henry’s increasingly aggressive attitude toward those
who would not swear the oath in support of the Act of Succession.126 All the while, she remained
determined to persevere in her “firm purpose of resisting any temptation and danger of offending
123
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 17 April, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 150.
The men were John Houghton, Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster, priors of the London
Charterhouse, Beauvale and Axholme respectively. They were hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on 4 May for
refusing to accept the King as the Supreme Head of the Church and “for writing and giving counsel against the
King.” Chapuys reported that several prominent courtiers attended the execution and even heard a rumor that Henry
VIII wanted to. See Letters & Papers, Vol. 8, Pt. 1, 661; Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 8 May, 1535.
See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 156.
125
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 8 May, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 157.
126
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Charles V on 10 October, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 208.
124
James 133
God” by relenting.127 Her doggedness was encouraged by Pedro Ortiz, the lawyer in Rome with
whom Katherine communicated relatively frequently. Pushing Katherine to employ “the very
same weapons once given to… the martyrs of old,” Ortiz told her, “with the standard of the
Cross in your hands, fight your battles not only against the carnal sanguinary, and iniquitous
ministers of the king of England, but also against the legions of infernal sprits daily assailing
God and Your Highness.”128 Katherine had spent the previous seven years standing her ground
and would not now turn back. Her ultimate goal was a divine reward rather than the possibility of
Chapuys orchestrating her escape.
Neither Katherine’s discussion of martyrdom nor Chapuys’ concern that Mary would be
in danger if she remained in England were unwarranted. Following the aforementioned
executions of the Carthusian monks, Chapuys reported that Bishop John Fisher, Thomas More,
Katherine’s priest, and Mary’s previous Latin teacher were all given six weeks to swear the oath
in support of the Act of Succession or face charges of treason.129 In an effort to bolster the
bishop’s position, Pope Paul III made Fisher, who had by that point languished in the Tower of
London for over a year, a cardinal. According to Chapuys, Henry was so “angry and indignant”
that he promised to counter the pope by sending Fisher’s head to Rome.130 Meanwhile, Thomas
More famously refused to take the oath, comparing it to a sword “with two edges” because if he
“said the same law were not good then [it] was dangerous to the soul. And if he said contrary…
127
237.
128
Letter from Katherine of Aragon to Pedro Ortiz on 13 December, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1,
Letter from Pedro Ortiz to Katherine of Aragon in an undated later presumed to be from early January
1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt 2, 2.
129
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 8 May, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 156.
130
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 16 June, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 174.
James 134
it was death to the body.”131 Both men were executed as traitors during the summer of 1535 and
later canonized as Catholic martyrs.
The executions of Fisher and More provided the most visceral evidence of how the
divorce had shaped the practice and politics of religious life in England. Chapuys mourned both
of their deaths and remarked that news of their executions was met with “great sorrow and regret
of all classes of society.”132 The ambassador had spent much of his embassy navigating the ways
that Henry’s religious policy changes shifted the diplomatic needs of his embassy in England.
When possible, he attempted to privilege Charles’ imperial vision of universal authority,
especially as it pertained to the promise of reform via the General Council and the threat of the
Ottoman Turks. He was, however, frequently frustrated and stalled by a disconnect between his
needs as an Imperialist in England and the papacy’s desire to stall in Rome. The subsequent
chaos frequently forced him to react with measures that were equal parts creative and desperate.
The summer of 1535 was a culmination of the intense religious politics that had shaped so much
of Chapuys’ time in England, and with the deaths of the martyrs, Henry’s second marriage was
consecrated in blood. The King of England had split from Rome, faced excommunication, and
now executed former friends for the sake of ending one marriage and starting a second. Yet less
than a year after the deaths of More and Fisher, both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn
would also be dead, leaving behind a permanent tear in Christendom.
131
Thomas More’s answer to questions put to him by Thomas Audeley, Lord Chancellor, and others on 3
June, 1535. See Letters & Papers, Vol. 8, 814.
132
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 25 July, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 183.
James 135
Epilogue
The Diplomacy of the Aftermath:
Christendom Divided
3 January, 1536
We conclude our discussion of Chapuys with a scene not entirely dissimilar to how it
began: with the ambassador in route to visit Katherine of Aragon in her modest confines at
Kimbolton. Unlike his aborted attempt in 1534, however, Chapuys travelled with royal
permission to visit the ‘Princess Dowager,’ who was by now quite ill. The ambassador was
concerned by alarming comments insinuating that the death of either Katherine or her daughter
would improve Anglo-Imperial relations. Charles V remained firm that Katherine’s mistreatment
would not be overlooked and meant that he could not “honorably enter into an alliance with
[Henry VIII].”1 If Charles refused to abandon the legitimate rights of his dynasty and its
members, then perhaps his aunt’s death might solve the problem. Chancellor Thomas Cromwell
said as much to Chapuys, pointing out that “a great many advantages” had been “suspended” for
the sake of two women who were conspicuously prone to bouts of “delicate health.” Should they
die, “there would be no further cause for quarrel and dissension” between England and the
Habsburg Empire.2 At the intersection of two monarchs that did not appear likely to compromise,
Chapuys struggled to reiterate that nothing at all could be gained from Katherine’s death or
mistreatment.3
Therefore it was with an understanable degree of concern that Chapuys journeyed to
Kimbolton in early 1536, worried that Henry’s wish for Katherine’s death might be granted.
Cromwell had asked a guide to accompany him, as Chapuys believed, “to act as a spy on my
1
Letter from Charles V to Eustace Chapuys on 22 October, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 216.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 8 May, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 157.
3
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V 7 March, 1535. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 1, 139.
2
James 136
movements and report what I might say or do during my visit.” For the most part, his stay was a
largely sentimental one. Katherine thanked the ambassador for his visit and for his past services,
telling him that if she were soon to be called to God, then “it would at least be a consolation to
die as it were in [his] arms, and not alone like a beast.” The ambassador asked her to maintain
her courage. In a voice loud enough that Cromwell’s agent might hear and report his words,
Chapuys “made use of several arguments” to prove to Katherine and everyone else present that
her life and recovery were paramount to the “union, peace, and welfare of Christendom.” He
hoped his words, if they reached Cromwell, might “be the cause of greater care being taken to
preserve [Katherine’s] life.”
Chapuys spent the following four days with Katherine, consoling her fears and assuaging
her guilt that she was to blame for the “evils and heresies” that had so consumed England.
Chapuys insisted that she was not to worry and that “those who had momentarily swerved from
the Faith would, no doubt, become after a time its most strenuous defenders, as did Saint Paul
after his fall.” After four days at Katherine’s side, the ambassador believed his friend was getting
better and decided to return to London in order to request that she be moved to more appropriate
residence. Just after arriving back in London, Chapuys received terrible news. Just days after his
departure, Katherine of Aragon had experienced a relapse of her illness and died at two in the
afternoon on 7 January, 1536.4
***
The divorce of Katherine of Aragon had always been more than a personal concern for
the emperor and his ambassador to England. Like the Turks to the east and German heresies to
the north, it represented a direct assault on Charles V’s imperial vision of universal authority.
4
Chapuys’ journey to Kimboltton, visit with Katherine, and later realization that she had died are all
reported in his dispatch to Charles V on 9 January, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 3.
James 137
With its potential for undermining the dynastic claims of the Habsburgs, the divorce also came to
represent an increasingly serious blow to the ideal of a unified Christendom. For these reasons,
Chapuys had protested the divorce valiantly and attempted to steer the proceedings toward
Charles’ interests when possible. Still, the ambassador has spent nearly seven years working
closely with the queen. Her death devastated him.
Following Katherine’s death, the ambassador’s official correspondence with Charles V
remained professional, as he concerned himself with describing the practicalities of the queen’s
funeral. A private letter to Pedro Ortiz was more emotional. The Spanish lawyer in Rome had
always been an important ally for Chapuys. Together they had once represented pieces of a
larger network of Imperialists attempting to prevent the divorce, and the pair had worked closely
in attempt to pressure Pope Clement VII toward concrete action. Ortiz had faced multiple
setbacks in Rome, illustrating the diplomatic difficulties of acting on Chapuys’ recommendations
from London, but the two had always remained loyal to Katherine’s cause. Following the death
of the woman they had worked so hard to defend, Chapuys confessed to Ortiz that he had retired
to his bed for a time and that “to describe the state in which so fatal an event” had left him would
be in vain; he “could not find words strong enough” to express “such agony.”5
It must also have been difficult then for the ambassador to miss her funeral. Chapuys’
stubbornness had been one of his most conspicuous attributes. He had refused to compromise
Katherine’s position in her lifetime, risking threats to his diplomatic immunity and making
himself an outsider at a court that preferred the company of French diplomats who supported the
divorce. Following her death, Chapuys remained equally obstinate. He refused to attend any
funeral for Katherine that was not “befitting a queen of England.”6 When the former queen was
5
6
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Pedro Ortiz on 9 January, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 4.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 January, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 9.
James 138
laid to rest in an abbey in Peterborough, it was at a good distance from the high altar and in a less
honorable position than the handful of bishops also buried there. Had Katherine not been a queen
or even a dowager princess but simply a baroness, Chapuys wrote, “they could not have chosen a
less distinguished place of rest for her.”7 For Chapuys, it was a final insult to the noble queen.
More insulting were Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, who greeted the news with
cheerful opportunism. The day after hearing the news, the king dressed entirely in yellow and
paraded his younger daughter around the court telling his courtiers, “Thank God, we are now
free from any fear of war.” Similarly, Thomas Cromwell told a member of Chapuys’ household
that “there was no reason to mourn so much at the death of the Queen, which after all must be
considered as most advantageous for the preservation of the friendship” between Henry and
Charles.8 Following the queen’s death, Cromwell systematically set about trying to arrange an
Imperial alliance with the ambassador. Careful to assert that he was speaking for himself and
would need to converse with Charles, Chapuys told Cromwell that he believed there to be four
conditions required before such an alliance could occur. Each one was a pillar of Charles’
universal vision and had been an important concern throughout Chapuys’ first seven years in
London.
The first Imperial demand was that Princess Mary, Katherine’s daughter, be “declared
legitimate and reinstated in her rank.”9 As Charles V’s first cousin and thus a Habsburg heir to a
Tudor throne, Mary had always been a central concern of Chapuys’ diplomacy. He had tried to
secure a marriage for the princess in 1529 and later aimed to remove her from the country when
she appeared in danger because of the Act of Succession in 1535. Affirming her position and
securing her safety meant extending the Habsburg Empire’s reach into England. In addition, the
7
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 February, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 17.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 February, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 17.
9
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 24 February, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 29.
8
James 139
ambassador happened to care for Mary deeply, telling Charles, “The pity and affection I feel for
[Mary] has perhaps carried me beyond the just limits of my charge. If so, I beg your Majesty
to… excuse me the expression of sentiments entirely caused by commiseration”10 Chapuys
believed that the time had passed for removing the princess from the country but maintained that
she should not swear to the oath acknowledging the Act of Succession.11 Prioritizing the princess
as a concern in Chapuys’ negotiations with Cromwell was a continuation of his long-term efforts
to secure the Habsburg dynasty’s position in the English succession.
The second Imperial demand was that Henry “return before all things in Apostolic
obedience and reconcile himself with the Church.”12 Empire was a powerful ideal to certain
sixteenth-century Christian humanists because it represented a means for achieving a unified
Christendom. This had always been a key goal and justification for Charles V’s expanding
Habsburg Empire, and one that had been threatened by Henry’s religious policy changes. In
addition to spreading anti-papal sentiments, Henry’s divorce had complicated Chapuys’ efforts to
convince the king to support the General Council, which the emperor hoped might resolve the
growing disunity of his territories and Christendom as a whole. Though hardly an aggressively
reactionary Catholic, as he has been imagined by certain scholars, Chapuys had remained loyal
to Roman doctrine even when frustrated by the indecisiveness of individual popes. To the two
Imperialists, religious orthodoxy would remain the pivotal unifier among princes and thus a
requirement in any discussions of an Anglo-Imperial alliance.
The third Imperial demand involved religious unity as it applied to military campaigns
rather than ideology. Henry was to offer his assistance against the Turks.13 Chapuys had once
10
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 January, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 9
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 January, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 9
12
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 24 February, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 29.
13
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 24 February, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 29.
11
James 140
aimed to pique the English king’s interest in a glorious campaign for the betterment of
Christendom, hoping that perhaps a common enemy might smooth over disagreements
surrounding his marital predicament. With his divorce now in the past and Katherine buried in
Peterborough, a possible Imperial alliance offered an opportunity to underscore once again the
danger of Ottoman forces that not only threatened traditional Roman doctrine but rather
Christendom as a whole.
The fourth Imperial demand was an extension of the third. Henry was to join an
“offensive and defensive league against whomsoever might act wrongly towards one of the
parties.”14 This condition was an intended blow against Francis I. It was widely known that the
French showed “no scruple” in declaring his support for the Turks,” which constituted “a more
than sufficient reason for excluding them from all treaties” in the eyes of the Imperialists.15 For
Chapuys, there must have been an element of personal satisfaction in excluding France from the
proposed alliance. The pride, lies, and blatantly anti-Imperial sentiments of French ambassadors
like Jehan Jocquin, Giles de la Pommeraye, and Gabriel de la Guiche had likely left Chapuys
with little goodwill for the nation and its diplomats. A new Anglo-Imperial alliance that
explicitly excluded the French constituted a fitting role reversal.
With these four conditions, Chapuys had accurately predicted his master’s outlook,
demonstrating his comprehensive understanding of Charles V’s imperial vision. The emperor
was thus enthusiastic and optimistic upon learning of the proposed alliance. With regard to
reconciliation with Rome, Charles offered that he and his diplomats might “efficiently mediate
14
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 24 February, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 29.
In response to the demands that Chapuys suggested to Cromwell, Charles V added that the alliance
should be abandoned if Henry would not agree to a pact against the French because it would suggest that the English
sought a bid for time rather than a sincere alliance. Letter from Charles V to Eustace Chapuys on 28 March, 1536.
See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 40.
15
James 141
between His Holiness and the King without scruple or jealousy of any sort.” Ever protective of
his dynasty, he also added that policies that “directly or indirectly” diminished “the honor in
which the memory of the late Queen, our aunt, is held or tend to prejudice her daughter’s
legitimacy” were to be strictly avoided.16 Katherine’s death meant that Charles no longer had
cause to require that Henry leave his second marriage to reinstate her as queen, but it did not
mean he would abandon his vision of the Habsburg dynasty at the head of a universal
Christendom. The Imperial demands, however, left little room for compromise. They called for a
severe retreat on Henry’s part and an admission that he had been in the wrong for the last decade.
Still, Cromwell was optimistic and urged Chapuys to consider what other “wonderful things he
had achieved” since gaining authority in Henry’s government. Chapuys understood this as a
veiled promise that he might be able to “undo part of what he had already done.”17 From the
secretary who had been instrumental in the break with Rome and was planning the dissolution of
the monasteries, this was not an insignificant offer.
Likely feeling optimistic that he might be able to facilitate a settlement between the two
nations whose barely concealed enmity had dominated his daily life for the last seven years,
Chapuys journeyed to court in mid-April. He was met by promising signs of success. Several of
the king’s privy councilors congratulated him on the impending peace. Similarly, members of the
Boleyn faction gave him one of the warmest welcomes that Chapuys had seen since his initial
arrival in 1529. The ambassador was even invited to “visit the concubine [Anne] in her rooms,
and kiss her hand.” Seven years of animosity, however, did not disappear with the promise of a
treaty. After years of attempting to undermine the faction that he blamed for a rise in anti-papal
sentiments, the mistreatment of Katherine, the fall of Wolsey, and the French alliance, Chapuys
16
17
Letter from Charles V to Eustace Chapuys on 28 March, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 40.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 24 February, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 29.
James 142
decided it best not to greet Anne Boleyn. He made his excuses, insisting that “it could only be
detrimental to the negotiation [at] hand.” 18 The ebb and flow of Anglo-Imperial relations did not
unseat his distaste for the family that Chapuys had so closely associated with a threat to
Katherine’s person and Charles’s imperial vision.
Before his audience with the king, Chapuys and other courtiers journeyed to the chapel
for mass, where the diplomat found himself a leading actor in an example of diplomatic theater.
Henry and Anne also attended. When the offering came, the king and his consort approached the
altar, passing directly by Chapuys, who had heretofore still never met, interacted with, or
acknowledged Anne Boleyn. The ambassador himself had always understood the value of
appearances and perceptions in diplomacy. Always conscious of whose house he could be seen
calling on or which contact he should not be seen conversing with, the ambassador had
manipulated such appearances to best serve his master’s interests on multiple occasions. He had
done so when he declined visiting Thomas Boleyn’s residence for fear that it would reflect on
Anglo-Imperial relations in 1530, when the Privy Council threatened his diplomatic immunity at
a tense meeting in 1533, and when he cut short his ride to visit Katherine in Kimbolton in 1534.
Thus Chapuys was not fooled by efforts at choreographing a diplomatic encounter.
“Wishing no doubt to know what sort of a mien the concubine and I should put on,”
many onlookers watched the diplomat as the queen consort passed. “I must say,” Chapuys
confessed, “she was affable, and courteous enough on the occasion.” Anne “turned round to
return the reverence which I made her when she passed.”19 In his dispatch, Chapuys does not
dwell on the incident. Though perhaps he wished to downplay the interaction to Charles, he did
not record feeling exploited or manipulated into an uncomfortable situation. He had escaped
18
19
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 April, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 43.
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 April, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 43.
James 143
needing to meet Henry’s queen individually; perhaps a minor public courtesy seemed like a
small price to pay considering the possible gain he imagined might result from the expected
alliance.
Immediately following the service and dinner, Chapuys proceeded to speak with the king
in private. Henry listened “calmly and without giving the least sign of impatience” as the
ambassador explained the four Imperial demands that he, Charles V, and Cromwell had agreed
upon. Something, however, was clearly wrong. After the ambassador had finished, Henry broke
away from Chapuys in order to have a brief word with his secretary. “There was no doubt much
altercation,” Chapuys realized, and “angry words” seemed to pass between the pair.
When Henry returned, he dismissed each of the ambassador’s terms. His relationships
with both the pope and his own daughter were not the emperor’s concern. Furthermore, he would
not consider participating in the venture against the Turks until a formal friendship had been
firmly established, and he was not at all inclined to break promises or refuse certain friendships
as Charles’ league against France required. Henry was, he said, “no longer a child to be whipped
in the first instance, and then caressed, and petted, and urged to come back and called all manner
of sweet names.” Henry would not be dragged into capitulation. Talk of the treaty was suddenly
and unequivocally over. Dismissed, Chapuys spoke to Thomas Cromwell, who had appeared
“sad and dejected” throughout the king’s harsh rejection of the tentative alliance the pair had
planned. The two “mutually condoled” and “communicated [their] sorrow.” Cromwell told
Chapuys, “never in his life had he been so much taken aback as on hearing the said answer.”20
The presumed alliance, forged out of already tattered Anglo-Imperial relations, was shattered.
The dashed alliance provides a final snapshot of diplomacy as stripped and broken
because of Henry’s divorce, the aftermath of which would extend far beyond the lifetimes of any
20
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles V on 21 April, 1536. See Cal. Span., Vol. 5, Pt. 2, 43.
James 144
of its participants. The immediate struggle of the divorce had passed, but with it ended the dream
of England as a part of a unified Christendom. The clash of the Tudor and Habsburg kings
finished with neither monarch satisfied. Henry remained without a male heir while the dynastic
rights of Charles’ English relatives were desecrated.
Standing in the crossfire of two monarchs, neither of whom was capable of forgiving the
egregious disasters of the past decade, was Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys. The failed
treaty was not his last explosive diplomatic conflict; he had nine additional years in England to
fill lengthy, descriptive dispatches with the intrigue of Henry’s court. He followed the rise fall of
the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 and the dissolution of the monasteries, which commenced that
same year. He saw the birth of Henry’s long-awaited male heir in 1537 and authorization of an
English language Bible in 1538. He witnessed a parade of additional wives for the English king,
but he was out of the country during the execution of his friend Thomas Cromwell in 1540. His
stream of reliable dispatches stopped from April 1539, when he was briefly recalled to the
Netherlands before returning to England in June 1540. In 1545 a gout-ridden Chapuys left
England for the final time. His last dispatch from London was lengthy and impersonal. Limited
to discussions of his polite farewells, the ambassador offered no clue as to how he felt leaving
the country that had been a tumultuous home for him for nearly sixteen years.21
With England behind him, Chapuys retired not to his hometown in Annecy, where he had
no living family, but to Louvain, a hub of humanist scholarship and home to one of the most
prestigious universities in Europe. He remained in contact with Charles V but dedicated himself
primarily to education. He received an annual Imperial pension of 500 livres, a sum that likely
erased his years of fraught begging for a higher salary in England. With his fortune, he first
established in 1549 a grammar school for underprivileged boys in Annecy that focused on Latin
21
Letter from Eustace Chapuys to Charles v on 9 June, 1545. See Cal. Span., Vol. 8, 51.
James 145
and Greek instruction. Soon after, Chapuys founded the Collège de Savoie at Louvain, which
was again for underprivileged boys and provided free lodging for its students.22 Finally, the
ambassador, Catholic, philanthropist, mentor, and prolific writer died in January 1556.
Eustace Chapuys was buried in a chapel in his beloved college in Louvain. It was
destroyed in the nineteenth century, but his two schools still house students today.23 That there is
no remaining marker of his grave seems oddly fitting and indicative of his historical legacy. His
dispatches live on as the sources through which scholars and students dissect the lives and
policies of other figures; yet the ambassador’s life and diplomatic career both go largely
unconsidered. As a historical entity, he has faded into the background in favor of the colorful
personalities he described, allowing historians to privilege his voice over his actions.
If nothing else, we have seen that Chapuys was more than just a source – more than just a
controversy surrounding his subjectivity. He had lived the ideological, personal, and political
standoff between two powerful princes, his career subsequently defined by an intense defensive
effort to protect his master’s imperial vision. In a continent on the brink of permanent disunity,
he pushed for a universal and unified Christendom under a Habsburg leader. While his master’s
imperial plan was challenged on multiple fronts, his life offers a sketch of the day-to-day
struggles faced by a servant to that plan. Faced with innumerable setbacks, frustrations, and
insults, he responded with cunning, creativity, and a dosage of pride. The ambassador who
schemed with Wolsey, fought doggedly for Katherine of Aragon, struggled to navigate
competitive alliances, and adapted to an explosive moment of religious change deserves more
than to be remembered for the stories he committed to paper; he had his own.
22
Mattingly follows the care with which Chapuys planned both schools in Mattingly, Humanist
Ambassador, 183-185.
23
Macky, 246.
James 146
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