The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

We can hardly imagine the atrocious Henry VIII. ever to have been worthy of such commendation. After being married for seventeen years to his devoted Catharine, this prince of hypocrites is all at once troubled with most grievous qualms of conscience. For seven years he had been flirting with the pretty Anne Boleyn; even from the momentous time when he had noticed her dancing at the festivals attending the celebrated occasion of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. But not until 1527 did this conscience-troubled king declare publicly his very serious doubts as to the validity of his marriage with Catharine, who had been previously married to his elder brother Arthur. His pretended scruples were now confided to Cardinal Wolsey, who advised the king to sue for a divorce. This welcome advice the royal hypocrite most sanctimoniously declared to be most bitter for him to follow, but nevertheless, for his conscience’ sake, he was ready to make this enormous sacrifice.

The famous divorce court at Blackfriars was not held until June 18, 1529. But the conscience-stricken, atrocious dissembler meanwhile used his utmost influence in church and state to force priests and people to confirm his royal pretended scruples; and earls, bishops, cardinals, and popes, were called upon to confirm and applaud his most holy zeal, in thus sacrificing his supposed heart’s ease for the ease of his terribly burdened conscience. Meanwhile, the poor, neglected, faithful wife was openly and shamelessly discarded for the smiles of the new beauty, who had ensnared the fancy of this most atrocious of religious humbugs.

To allay somewhat the fretful anxieties consequent upon the long delay required to bring right-minded men to second his infamous designs, the royal author found solace in his literary occupations, hurling anathemas against the undaunted Luther, ostensibly in defence of that Church whose Pope he wished to influence in favor of his own guilty schemes; but soon this apparently zealous defender of the Romish Church was uncloaked, and he defied even the Pope himself, who dared to denounce his infamous divorce.

We cannot give in detail these stirring but disgraceful scenes. Poor Catharine, a stranger in a strange land, having lost both father and mother, had none to defend her against the calumnies which her inhuman husband sought to fasten upon her, but which her blameless life rendered utterly harmless.

King Henry VIII. had taken very good care to make very specious excuses for the divorce. As six children had been born and none had lived beyond infancy, except the Princess Mary, he declared that he found proof of the wrath of God in these bereavements, because he had married his brother’s widow. And this prince of dissemblers declared in a great meeting of his nobles, councillors, and judges, whom he had assembled in the great chamber of his palace at Bridewell, that, “As touching the queen, if it be adjudged by the law of God that she is my lawful wife, there was never anything more acceptable to me in my life, both for the discharge of my conscience and also for her sake; for I assure you all that, apart from her noble parentage, she is a woman of great virtue, gentleness, and humility. Of all good qualities appertaining to nobility, she is without comparison; and if I were to marry again, presuming the marriage to be good, I would choose her before all other women.” And yet this same ostentatious pattern of perfection and hypocritical religious cant afterwards beheaded the illustrious Sir Thomas More, because he would not sanction the infamous repudiation of the faithful Catharine. And this same pretended Defender of the Church, even though the Pope was hurling from the Vatican his spiritual thunders of excommunication for the sin of renouncing the devoted and blameless Queen Catharine, defiantly married Anne Boleyn, even before the divorce had been fully consummated.

In 1529 Queen Catharine was summoned into court to meet her public sentence. When the crier called, “Henry, king of England, come into court,” he answered from his royal seat of state, in loud tones, “Here,” and thereupon proceeded to make known his many troubles regarding his tender conscience and religious scruples, which so sore distressed his royal mind; ending in a panegyric upon the many virtues of his beloved wife, Catharine, from whom none other cause than his afflicted conscience would ever have forced him to consent to part.

After this arch-traitor to all domestic faithfulness had thus relieved his burdened heart, the crier summoned, “Catharine, queen of England.” Taking no notice of the surrounding legates, the sorrowful queen rose with graceful dignity, and, followed by her ladies, she went round about the court, even to where the king sat, and kneeling at his feet she thus pathetically addressed him, with quaint foreign accent and persuasive voice: “Sir, I beseech you, for the love of God, let me have some justice. Take some pity on me, a poor stranger in your dominions; I have no counsellor in this land, and, as you are the head of justice in your realm, I flee to you. Alas! I take God to witness that for these twenty years I have been to you a true, humble, and obedient wife. And if our children have died, it has not been for the want of a mother’s love or care. The king, your father, was accounted a second Solomon for wisdom, and my father, Ferdinand, was deemed one of the wisest kings of Spain; and they had counsellors as wise as those of these days, and they all, verily, thought our marriage good and lawful. Therefore I marvel greatly at the inventions now brought against me. If you have found any dishonor in my conduct, then am I content to depart; but if none there be, then I beseech you thus humbly to let me remain in my proper state.”

The queen then rose up in tears, and making a low obeisance to the king, she walked out of court; nor would she return, even though the crier again called her name. Nor would she ever more attend these evil councils, but waited in patient silence the coming of her dread doom. Nor did she display any enmity to the boastful Anne Boleyn, who did most indecently declare her growing power over the fickle fancies of the cruel king. Save only on one occasion, did Queen Catharine give to her intimation that she was aware of her ambitious views. The queen was once playing cards with Anne Boleyn, when she thus addressed her: “My lady Anne, you have the good hap ever to stop at a king; but you are like others, you will have all or none.”

At length, as Queen Catharine would not again appear in court, although several times summoned by the loud voice of the crier, King Henry, in his rage, sent Cardinal Wolsey and others to the queen, to have a private interview with her. Catharine was engaged with her ladies in needlework at the time, to while away her tedious hours, for the cruel king had removed the Princess Mary from her mother, nor would any tears avail the lonely, neglected wife, though she wrote most tender letters to the king begging him to let her behold her child. As the prelates entered the apartment where Queen Catharine and her ladies were occupied with their embroidery, the queen rose to meet them, having a skein of white silk around her neck, and apologizing for the manner of their unceremonious reception. “You see,” said Catharine, pointing to the skein of silk, “our humble employment with my maids; and yet, save these, I have no other counsellors in England, and those in Spain on whom I could rely are far away.”

“If it please your Grace,” replied Wolsey, “we would speak with you alone.”

“My lord,” answered the queen, with a proud innocence, “if you have anything to say, speak it openly before these folk; I would all the world should see and hear it.”

Whereupon Wolsey began to address her in Latin, in which language she was well skilled; but she said humbly: “Pray, my good lord, speak to me in English, for I can, thank God, understand English, though I do know some Latin.”

The queen then led the cardinals into her withdrawing-room, and it is recorded of this conference, that she did so set forth her cause that they would not henceforth decide against her.

But chafing at the long pontifical delays, King Henry determined to take the matter into his own hands. He had used every device to induce the queen to consent to the divorce; and had by bribes and threats obtained from most of the universities of Europe opinions that the marriage was illegal.

King Henry then sent a message to Queen Catharine, who was at that time residing at Greenwich Palace, entreating her, for the quieting of his conscience, that she would refer the matter to arbitration. Catharine replied: “God grant my husband a quiet conscience; but I mean to abide by no decision excepting that of Rome.”

This answer so enraged the king that he took the queen to Windsor Castle, and then himself departing on some excuse, he sent authoritative commands to her that she should leave forever the royal palace.

“He is my husband, and it is my duty to obey him,” said the injured and faithful wife; “but though I go hence at his bidding, I am his wife, and for him will I pray.”

King Henry had previously endeavored to have Catharine persuaded to enter a convent; and in view of such an event, his sensitive conscience had required him to apply to the ablest canonists in Rome to give him their opinions on the three following questions: 1. Whether, if a wife were to enter a convent, the Pope could not, in the plenitude of his power, authorize the husband to marry again. 2. Whether, if the husband were to enter a religious order that he might induce his wife to do the same, he might not be afterwards released from his vow and at liberty to marry. 3. Whether, for reasons of state, the Pope could not license a king to have, like the ancient patriarchs, two wives, of whom one only should be acknowledged and enjoy the honors of royalty. Rather convincing proofs, truly, that the compunctions of conscience of this royal hypocrite were a hollow sham!

After her expulsion from her husband’s court, Catharine first went to her manor of the More, in Hertfordshire; and then settled at Ampthill, from whence she wrote to Pope Clement, informing him of her banishment from the royal court. As the Pope would not sanction the divorce, but instead issued a bull of excommunication against the royal rebel, the king, in 1533, dissolved his own wedlock by a decision pronounced in a court held by Archbishop Cranmer. Some historians state that he had married Anne Boleyn previously to the time when the divorce was pronounced.

When the news of this double insult reached poor Catharine, she was lying upon a sick-bed, worn out with sorrow. In vain had she pleaded to be allowed to see her only child, the Princess Mary, for one last farewell. And now her agonized mother’s heart is wrung with added woe. Lord Montjoy, her former page, was deputed to bear to her the minutes of the infamous conference, by whose decision she was degraded from the rank of queen of England to that of dowager-princess of Wales.

Rising from her couch and seizing her pen, she drew it through the words “princess-dowager,” and exclaimed to those who had brought to her this insulting document: “So I return the minutes; and I desire ye to say to his Grace, my husband, Catharine, his faithful consort, is his lawful queen; and for no earthly consideration will she consent to be called out of her name.”

Catharine afterwards removed to the Bishop of Lincoln’s palace of Bungen. By the king’s orders, she was deprived of most of her servants, because she would be waited on by no one who did not address her as queen. She was next removed to Kimbolton Castle, though Henry’s first orders had been to take her to Fotheringay Castle, a place notorious for its bad air. But Catharine had declared that she would not go there “unless drawn with ropes,” and so she had been sent to Kimbolton.

King Henry also withheld her income, due from her jointure as Arthur’s widow; and notwithstanding the noble portion which she had brought as her dower, she was allowed to suffer for the very necessaries of life, and even a new gown was obtained on trust, as her will shows. When one of her servants, in a rage at her inhuman treatment, execrated the perfidious Anne, Catharine gently chided her, saying: “Hold, hold! curse her not, for in a short time you will have good reason to pity her!”

As death rapidly approached the heart-broken Catharine, she welcomed the summons as a joyful release from her earthly unutterable woe. A few days before she expired, she dictated the following touching words to the base husband who had so atrociously wronged her.

“My Lord and Dear Husband: I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth fast on, and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me with a few words, to put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and tendering of your own body, for which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into many cares. For my part I do pardon you all, yea, I do wish and devoutly pray God that He will also pardon you. For the rest I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I heretofore desired. I entreat you also on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit a year’s pay more than their due, lest they should be unprovided for. Lastly do I vow that mine eyes desire you above all things.”

Catharine of Aragon breathed her last Jan. 7, 1536. Although it was said that King Henry shed tears over her last pathetic letter, which he received a short time before her death, yet it is also stated that he sent his lawyer to endeavor to seize upon her little property and try to escape paying her trifling legacies and debts.

On the day of her burial, King Henry wore mourning, but Anne Boleyn clothed herself and all her ladies in yellow, exclaiming, “Now am I queen! I am grieved, not that she is dead, but for the vaunting of the good end she made.”

Neither King Henry’s arrogant power nor Anne Boleyn’s pernicious influence could prevent the widespread and lasting effect of the Christian death-bed of Catharine. At length some dared to suggest to King Henry, “that it would become his greatness to rear a stately monument to her memory,” whereupon the beautiful abbey-church of Peterborough, where her remains were placed, was spared from destruction at the period of the suppression of the monasteries, and was endowed and established as the see of Peterborough.

The life of the woman who had supplanted her was short and full of sorrow. Three years only elapsed after Henry had married Anne Boleyn, and only four months after Catharine had sent him her dying forgiveness, when her exulting rival met her awful doom.

Already had King Henry cast his eyes upon Jane Seymour, and on the 15th of May, 1536, the sentence upon the queen was pronounced. Wolsey, who had suggested and aided the divorce of Catharine, had fallen under the disfavor of Anne, and through her influence he was overthrown and died in disgrace. And now Anne herself was to suffer the penalty of her wicked ambition. On the 19th of May, 1536, Anne Boleyn was led out upon Tower Green, and a blow from the executioner ended her eventful, but brief life.

“It is done!” cried the inhuman Henry, as he heard the cannon which was the signal that the tragedy was over; “that is an end of the matter. Unleash the dogs, and let us follow the stag.”

Thus ended the life of Anne Boleyn, and on the next day King Henry VIII. was married to his third wife, Jane Seymour.

QUEEN ELIZABETH, AND MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

A.D. 1533-1603

“A crown
Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns,
Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights
To him who wears the regal diadem.” – Milton.

“One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.” – Pope.

THE lives of Queen Elizabeth, and Mary, Queen of Scots, are so intimately associated, that a sketch of one includes that of the other; and in order to give the history of that epoch with greater conciseness and clearness without unnecessary repetition, a brief outline of each of their lives is here sketched.

For the sake of perspicuity, a few lines will be given to intervening events.

As we stated in the account of Catharine of Aragon, Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour upon the day following the execution of Anne Boleyn. Fortunately for Jane Seymour, death removed her during the succeeding year, rather than the fatal axe of her royal husband. She left an infant prince, who afterwards reigned a few short years as Edward VI.

In 1540 Henry VIII. married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. She had been represented as a great beauty by Cromwell, whom the king had raised to power. This Cromwell was a former servant of Cardinal Wolsey. But so great was Henry’s disgust upon beholding the awkward, ill-dressed, ill-featured, German princess, whom he had been inveigled into making his fourth bride, that though the marriage was perforce celebrated according to agreement, the unfortunate Cromwell was soon after disgraced and executed, and the sensitive conscience of the royal hypocrite was once again called into requisition to annul this ill-starred union. The beautiful face of Lady Catharine Howard no doubt quickened the stings of the conveniently tender conscience of this dissembling King of Knaves, who declared with pious cant that, having ascertained that Anne of Cleves had previously been betrothed to the Duke of Lorraine, his punctilious scruples would not allow him to retain her as his wife; whereupon King Henry, who waited not now for pope or bishop to annul his marriage vows and break his conjugal fetters, bestowed upon his divorced wife the title of “Adopted Sister,” which honor poor Anne of Cleves consented to receive, doubtless thanking heaven for having preserved her from the more terrible fate of some of the wives of this fickle consort.

By way of celebrating his fifth nuptials, King Henry sent to the stake Dr. Barnes and other heretics, while certain Catholics were quartered for having refused to take the oath of supremacy. This persecution of both parties occasioned the indignation of both Catholics and Protestants. “How do folks manage to live here?” exclaimed a Frenchman, in surprise at such fickle punishments. “The Papists are hanged, and the anti-Papists are burned,” was the answer.

But Catharine Howard had not been queen of England one year before her terrible doom overshadowed her. The king discovered certain condemnatory circumstances regarding the conduct of the queen previous to her marriage with him, and in a few short months Catharine also expiated her ambition and her supposed guilt upon the scaffold.

King Henry again resorted to his literary pursuits for solace, being for the time disgusted with his experiments in the matrimonial line, as before his hapless wives had also been, and forsooth with graver cause and better reason. “The king had better marry a widow,” said the people; and that idea seeming to have occurred also to the mind of his august majesty, in the year 1543, this “royal Bluebeard of English history” took for his sixth wife, the Lady Catherine Parr, the three months’ widow of Lord Latimer. She was an ardent partisan of the Protestant party, as well as learned and beautiful, but her skill in argument had well-nigh cost her dear.

To amuse her gouty, quarrelsome, would-be-literary and spasmodically-religious royal spouse, Queen Catherine ventured to argue with him upon certain points in theology. Finding himself worsted in the mental contest, the irate king exclaimed: “A good hearing this, when women become such clerks; and a thing much to my comfort to come in my old age to be taught by my wife.” And thereupon the new chancellor received the order to prepare the impeachment of the queen. But Catherine was warned in time of her coming doom and was possessed of self-control and tact sufficient for this emergency. When again the conversation turned upon religious subjects and the king questioned her upon some knotty point, she answered laughing: “I am not so foolish as not to know what I can understand when I possess the favor of having for a master and spouse a prince so learned in holy matters.”

“By St. Mary!” exclaimed the king; “it is not so, Kate; thou hast become a doctor.”

“And surely,” quoth the queen with mirthful looks, “I thought I noticed that such conversation diverted your Grace’s attention from your sufferings, and I ventured to discuss with you in the hope of making you forget your present infirmity.”

“Is it so, sweetheart?” replied the king; “then we are friends again, and it doth me more good than if I had received a hundred thousand pounds.”