Sexual relations between Henry and Katherine had ceased in 1524; since then, they had occasionally shared a bed for form's sake. Now, Henry's confessor advised him not to do even this until a decision had been given on his case. However, Henry chose to ignore this advice, and as late as 2 December 1528, the Spanish ambassador was reporting that the King and Queen were sleeping together at Greenwich, though on that very day Henry declared himself 'utterly resolved and determined never to use the Queen's body again', and thereafter left her to sleep alone.
Towards Anne Boleyn Katherine never betrayed any sign of jealousy, even though she believed - and continued to believe even after Henry's outright denial of the fact in November 1529 - that he and Anne were lovers. As for Anne, George Wyatt says she had been reluctant to accept the King's advances because of the great love she bore the Queen. This may have been so at the beginning of the affair, but her love for her mistress quickly turned into antipathy and then into hatred as she realised that Katherine meant to fight back.
The Queen sought guidance in prayer before making up her mind to ask her nephew, the Emperor, to intercede with the Pope for her. She realised this would not be easy, because of Wolsey's spies about her, but had thought of a plan to outwit the Cardinal. She announced that one of her servants, Francisco Felipez, was to visit his widowed mother in Spain, and obtained for him a safe conduct from the King. In fact Felipez was to carry a message from the Queen to Charles V, and knowing how suspicious Henry could be, Katherine pretended that she did not want him to go. Unfortunately, this did not deceive the King, and Felipez was arrested at Calais and sent back to England. The episode proved to Henry that his wife was not going to submit meekly to having her marriage annulled.
Later in 1527, Katherine did succeed in sending Felipez to the Emperor, and her physician Vittorio also slipped unnoticed out of England to acquaint Charles with further details of her plight. The Emperor had already heard from Mendoza of her situation; in May, the ambassador had told him that 'all her hope rests, after God, upon your Imperial Highness,' and advised him to put pressure on the Pope to tie the hands of the papal legate, Wolsey, and have the case referred to Rome for a decision. Charles V knew perfectly well that Clement VII, a weak and vacillating man, would not dare to give a decision in Henry's favour while he was the Emperor's prisoner, and was perfectly willing to let Henry apply for an annulment if he wished. The Queen, had she known it, was in a very strong position indeed. Nevertheless, in July 1527, Charles expressed to Mendoza his indignation at 'so strange a determination. We do not believe it possible. For the honour and service of God, put an end to this scandalous affair.' And in August, he wrote to Katherine:
You may well imagine the pain this intelligence caused me, and how much I felt for you ... I have immediately set about taking the necessary steps for a remedy, and you may be certain that nothing shall be omitted on my part to help you.
Mendoza, Charles's ambassador, was a true friend to Queen Katherine during this period, and did his best in a difficult situation. It was almost impossible to communicate directly with the Queen, but he too had his spies, and with their help he tirelessly gathered together every scrap of information he could discover, and kept his master extraordinarily well-informed. It was Mendoza who predicted, correctly, in May 1527, that 'there will be many more voices in her favour than against her, both because she is beloved here, as because the Cardinal, who is suspected to be at the bottom of all this, is universally hated.'
The King's 'great matter' first became public knowledge beyond the confines of the court in the early summer of 1527; by July, it was as notorious as if it had been proclaimed by the public crier. Rumour had it that the King was planning to marry the French King's sister, Margaret of Alenqon. Henry was irritated by the rumours, and commanded the Lord Mayor of London to ensure that the people ceased such communications upon pain of his high displeasure. This achieved absolutely nothing, and the rumours became, if anything, more widespread. In June 1527, Wolsey informed all the English ambassadors abroad of the situation, and by the spring of 1528 the 'great matter' was common knowledge throughout the courts of Europe, thanks to the diplomatic network. Outside the dominions of the Emperor, there was a good deal of support for Henry VIII, it being generally felt that his marriage was of doubtful validity.
As Mendoza had reported, Katherine was indeed very popular, both at court and in the kingdom at large, so much so that the King feared demonstrations within her household, once her staff learned what was afoot. Mendoza too had contemplated the possibility of 'some great popular disturbance', but observed that the English 'will probably content themselves with grumbling only'. Nevertheless, from the beginning, Henry believed that Katherine was quite capable of inciting a war with the Emperor or a rebellion of his subjects against him, and had her watched closely.
When Katherine appeared in public, crowds would gather and cry: 'Victory over your enemies!' Women, in particular, spoke out in her favour, believing that the King only sought to be rid of her for his own pleasure, and the French ambassador drily commented that 'if the matter were decided by women, the King would lose the battle'. Nevertheless, those at court and those who looked for preferment tended to support the King, though there were honourable exceptions. In the summer of 1527, Sir Thomas More told the King he believed his marriage to be good and valid. Though disappointed, Henry accepted this in good part, for he respected More. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, a man with a reputation for wisdom and sanctity, told Wolsey in June 1527 that it could by no means be proved to be prohibited by any divine law that a brother may marry his wife of his deceased brother, and said he had been powerfully moved to declare himself in favour of the validity of the royal marriage.
Another staunch supporter of the Queen was Reginald Pole, the son of the Princess Mary's governess, Lady Salisbury; he had been studying in Italy at the King's expense and planned to enter the Church. Pole later expressed the belief that Anne Boleyn was responsible for 'the whole lying affair', and became quite outspoken in his views. Later still, when his opposition to the King had made his position in England too uncomfortable and unsafe, Pole fled abroad, remaining a continual thorn in the King's side. Nor did the King enjoy the full support of Archbishop Warham. Warham had been one of those who had advised Henry VII against marrying Katherine to Prince Henry, though the Pope's dispensation had at the time set his mind at rest. He was King's man enough to support his master's pursuit of the truth concerning the validity of his marriage, and told Wolsey in 1527 that 'however displeasantly the Queen might take it, yet the truth and judgement of the law must be followed'. Yet when it came down to basics, Warham was a traditional churchman who would not countenance any attack on the authority of the Holy See. As for Vives, he was reconciled to the Queen in 1528, when she confided to him her profound distress, saying her grief was the greater because she loved Henry so much. Later, Vives wrote: 'Can anyone blame me for consoling her? Who will not praise her moderation?' Even the King's sister Mary supported the Queen, of whom she was very fond, and she hated Anne Boleyn so much that she refused to come to court while she was there.
Some of Katherine's supporters she could have done without. Symbolic of widespread public feeling was the appearance in Kent of a nun, Dame Elizabeth Barton, who suffered from epileptic fits but was reputed to have the gift of prophecy and to have had holy visions. In the summer of 1528, the Nun would prophesy that if the King put away his lawful wife, God would ensure that he should no longer be King in England, and he would die a villain's death. Although it was not yet treason to foretell the King's death, Elizabeth Barton would be fortunate in that for the time being the authorities were prepared to dismiss her as a harmless lunatic; nor did they molest her when she persisted in repeating her prophecies and threats. However, Queen Katherine wisely refused to have anything to do with her.
Wolsey left for France in July 1527. Apart from enlisting the support of King Francis, he hoped also to discuss the possibility of a French marr
iage for the King, being still unaware that Henry had already decided to marry Anne Boleyn as soon as he was free. However, by August 1527, rumours were circulating in England to the effect that, when Henry had set aside his lawful queen, he would marry his mistress. Such rumours gathered momentum with alarming speed, and provoked a highly undesirable reaction, for if the Londoners as a body had looked unfavourably upon the news that the King intended to put away Queen Katherine, they were scandalised at the reports that he intended to replace her with Anne Boleyn, who was considered an upstart who was no better than she should be. From the first Anne was openly called a whore and a sorceress; nor was there anything the King could do to stop this. Anne might pretend it did not bother her, but her flippancy concealed anger and disappointment. Before very long, the rumours spread across the Channel to France and beyond. Mendoza told the Emperor that Henry was 'so swayed by his passions, that if he can obtain a divorce, he will end by marrying a daughter of Master [ sic] Boleyn'. Some foreign governments recognised that Henry was acting in the interests of his kingdom, but most were scandalised. In France, Wolsey heard the rumours with mounting dismay, and a letter from the King forbidding him to mention to Francis I the question of remarriage only served to confirm his worst fears. He knew Anne to be his enemy now, and he realised that he would in future be working to bring about a marriage that would almost certainly be his own downfall. He had no choice: his loyalty to his master as well as his sense of self-preservation were such that he would continue to spare no efforts to have Henry's marriage annulled, whatever the consequences. He told the King that he was occupied with solving his problems as if it were his only means of obtaining Heaven, and Henry, in turn, made it clear that 'we trust, by your diligence, shortly to be eased out of that trouble'.
Anne Boleyn and her supporters took advantage of Wolsey's absence by doing their best to poison the King's mind against him. Word soon reached him of what was going on, and he was dismayed to learn that Anne, Rochford, Norfolk and Suffolk had all spent the greater part of August at Beaulieu with the King, doubtless undermining his influence and criticising him to his master. He was right to be concerned. The Boleyn faction repeatedly warned Henry that, far from working to secure an annulment, Wolsey was actually doing his best to prevent the Pope from ever granting one. And once this doubt was planted in Henry's mind, the first breach in his friendship with the Cardinal had been successfully made.
To make matters worse, Wolsey had failed to elicit King Francis's support. His mission a failure, he returned home on 17 September; Anne and her supporters were waiting for him. If he thought he was going to be joyfully received by the King, he was very much mistaken.
It was customary for the Cardinal to send a messenger to Henry upon his return from trips overseas; this was the signal for the King to join him in his closet for a briefing. This time, the King was relaxing after dinner with Anne and his courtiers when the messenger arrived and informed him that the Cardinal waited outside and wished to know where he should speak with him. Before Henry could answer, Anne exclaimed, 'Where else should the Cardinal come? Tell him he may come here, where the King is!' Henry, somewhat taken aback, merely nodded at the messenger. Thus the Cardinal was received like any other courtier, with Mistress Anne looking on triumphantly.
It now occurred belatedly to the King that his former relationship with Mary Boleyn placed him in exactly the same degree of affinity to Anne as he insisted that Katherine was to him. Yet while he saw this as an impediment to his union with Katherine, when it came to the prospect of marrying Anne, he still believed a papal dispensation - like the one he was doing his best to have declared invalid - would put matters to rights as far as Mary was concerned. In September 1527, Henry sent his secretary, Dr William Knight, on a secret mission to Rome with instructions to obtain such a dispensation and apply to the Pope for a general commission which would give Wolsey, as papal legate, the authority to examine the King's marriage. His findings could then be submitted to Clement, who would hopefully act upon them, and Katherine would have no right of appeal. What Henry did not know was that, soon after Knight left England, Charles V told the Pope that he was 'determined to preserve the Queen's rights', and commanded Clement not to take any steps preparatory to annulling her marriage, and not to allow the case to be tried in England.
Knight was joined in Italy by Gregory Casale, an English diplomat who had been sent by Wolsey formally to request Clement for a dispensation annulling Henry VIII's marriage to Katherine of Aragon on the grounds that the dispensation of Pope Julius was founded on 'certain false suggestions'. Wolsey was hoping that, out of consideration for the King's services to the Church, the Pope would find a way to ease his conscience and, to this end, Casale was to stress 'the vehement desire of the whole nation and nobility that the King should have an heir'. He was also to assure Clement that, if he granted what the King was asking for, Henry was ready to declare war on the Emperor to procure the freedom of the Holy Father.
Knight and Casale saw Pope Clement in December 1527, and implored his 'prompt kindness', but were told it was not at present possible for him to grant a dispensation annulling the King's marriage. However, he was willing to grant one enabling Henry to remarry within certain prohibited degrees should his first marriage ever be declared unlawful - this was issued on 1 January 1528 - and he also granted Cardinal Wolsey a general commission to try the King's case, though not to pass judgement.
Clement was aware of the constraints placed upon him and terrified of the Emperor. Secretly, he urged Casale to advise Henry to take matters into his own hands and remarry without involving the Holy See, something that would not appeal to the King, who had the future stability of the succession to consider.
Wolsey, meanwhile, had written to Rome to request the appointment of a fellow legate with power to pronounce judgement on the King's case. He suggested Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, who had begun his career as a lawyer and, after the death of his wife, had entered the Church and quickly risen to the rank of cardinal. He had visited England and been ordained Bishop of Salisbury on the King's recommendation. Clement said he could not spare Campeggio, and hinted that Wolsey should 'pronounce the divorce' himself and afterwards seek the confirmation of the papal consistory, another course too fraught with uncertainty to meet with Henry's approval.
By December 1527, Wolsey was aware that Anne Boleyn and her faction had undermined his influence with the King to such an extent that Henry was now growing resentful of his power and wealth. He had already handed Hampton Court over to the King in 1526, but now Anne was constantly urging Henry to assert his own authority. Yet he still needed Wolsey, whom he knew to be the most able of his ministers and the only man capable of securing an annulment. Wolsey was bombarding the envoys in Rome with instructions, promises, threats and inducements. Of his own anxiety, he made no secret: 'If the Pope is not compliant,' he wrote, 'my own life will be shortened, and I dread to anticipate the consequences.' At the same time, he was spending large sums on banquets for the entertainment of the King and Anne Boleyn, and doing his best to counteract the slanders heard by the Pope about Anne by praising her for her excellent virtues, the purity of her life, her constant virginity, her maidenly and womanly pudacity, her soberness, chasteness, meekness, humility, wisdom, descent of right noble regal blood, education in all good and laudable manners, and apparent aptness to procreation of children.
On 22 January 1528, England and France together declared war on the Emperor, an unpopular move in England, since it threatened trade links with the Low Countries. A month after this, a committee of canon lawyers assembled by Wolsey at Hampton Court reached the conclusion that the King should press the Pope to grant a decretal commission, which would empower Wolsey to pronounce a definitive sentence on Henry's case. In February, the King sent to Rome Edward Fox, a doctor of divinity who was well versed in canon law, and Stephen Gardiner, a doctor of both civil and canon law and a religious conservative with a ruthless streak whose loyalty to the King wa
s unswerving. Both he and Fox were advocates of an annulment, and could be relied upon to present Henry's case with conviction.
Gardiner and Fox saw the Pope in March 1528, when Clement told them that he had heard that the King wanted an annulment for private reasons only, being driven by 'vain affection and undue love' for a lady far from worthy of him. Gardiner sprang to Henry's defence, pointing out his dire need of a male heir and declaring that Anne Boleyn was 'animated by the noblest sentiments; the Cardinal of York and all England do homage to her virtues'. He also pointed out that the Queen suffered from 'certain diseases' which meant that Henry would never again live with her as his wife. Then he presented the Pope with a treatise that Henry had written on the case, which Clement later pronounced to be 'excellent'. Gardiner and Fox wheedled, begged and bullied over a period of several weeks, but Clement only dithered and procrastinated. In the end, he agreed to send Campeggio to England to try the case with Wolsey, but refused to grant either of them a decretal commission. This was not quite what the King wanted, but it was a start, and the envoys felt reasonably optimistic when they left Rome in April 1528. Fox wrote to Gardiner that Henry heard the news with 'marvellous demonstrations of joy', and Anne Boleyn was so elated that she confused Fox with Gardiner and kept calling him 'Master Stephen'! Yet Wolsey was sceptical about the Pope's intentions. 'I would obtain the decretal bull with my own blood if I could,' he told Casale privately. However, on 4 May, he told the King he was satisfied with the general commission granted to him and Campeggio. It was as well to let Henry believe there was cause for optimism.