Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/306

 Catherine though it had rained upon them. It was credibly thought that in the time of her prayer she removed the cushions that ordinarily lay in the same window, and that the said stones were imbrued with the tears of her devout eyes' (Pretended Divorce, 200). He adds: 'I have credibly also heard that at a time when one of her gentlewomen began to curse the lady Anne Boleyn she answered, "Hold your peace. Curse her not, but pray for her; for the time will come shortly when you shall have much need to pity and lament her case."'

On 17 Jan. 1534 Chapuys writes that Catherine had never left her own room since that visit of the Duke of Suffolk, just a month before, except to hear mass in a gallery. She was at this time careful not to eat or drink anything placed before her by some new servants who had been assigned to her by Suffolk in place of those dismissed, and the little food she ventured to take was cooked by her chamberwomen in what was now alike her bedroom, her sitting-room, and her kitchen. The king, on the other hand, was anxious that she should not eat or drink anything that was not supplied by him, and her custodians, as Chapuys remarked, seemed anxious to give her an artificial dropsy. Her situation was but little improved when at last judgment was pronounced. On 23 March 1534 sentence waa given by the pope in a secret consistory at Rome that her marriage with Henry was valid. But parliament had not only declared Anne Boleyn queen and Catherine princess dowager, but had passed two separate acts taking away the jointure of the latter and giving it to the former. Some opposition, indeed, was made to this in the commons, the representatives of London and some other cities fearing that as their constituencies had stood pledges for the fulfilment of the terms of the marriage treaty, English merchants might be illtreated in Spain; but they were assured that the obligation had been abolished by a modification of the treaties to which the emperor had given his consent. Moreover the king produced a roll of certain lands, which he intended to give Catherine in exchange for those of her jointure, to the value of three thousand crowns a year, and the commons resisted no longer.

It was probably to announce the passing of this act that we find, by one letter of the period, the Duke of Norfolk and Fitzwilliam left the court on 14 March and rode towards Catherine; and towards the end of the month Chapuys indicates that both she and her daughter Mary had thought it advisable 'to show the king their teeth a little.'

This Mary did by refusing to accompany her infant sister on her removal from one house to another. Two doctors were sent to Catherine to summon her to swear to the new Act of Succession. She replied by intimating to the doctors the sentence given in her favour at Rome. She was forbidden to hold her maundy on Maundy Thursday, and about the end of April or beginning of May she was removed to Kimbolton, a house which had belonged to Sir Richard Wingfield, an English ambassador who had died in Spain some years before, and was still in possession of his heirs. It was a small mansion, but she was better lodged here than she had been at Buckden, for the king, we find, was anxious to contradict the rumours that had got abroad as to her ill-treatment. Here, on 21 May, she was visited by Lee, archbishop of York, and Tunstall, bishop of Durham, sent to her by the king with a message. They were to explain and justify to her what had been done in parliament lest she should plead ignorance of the effect of the Act of Succession. Tunstall was frequently interrupted in his speech by Catherine, who with great anger and bitterness contradicted him on several points, and reminded him that he himself had given her opinions directly at variance with those he then attempted to justify. He replied that the decisions of universities and the proceedings of the legislature had since altered his judgment, and he counselled her to alter hers as well.

These sophistries, however, were but to smooth the way for the dreadful warning that disobedience to the statute involved the penalty of death. When this was intimated to her by the bishops, she became still more firm, and said if any one was ready to carry out the sentence upon her, let him come forward at once. It was clearly hopeless to intimidate her, and the king had to alter his policy. Only certain maids who had refused the oath were removed from her, and shut up in a chamber, while her confessor, physician, and apothecary were forbidden to leave the house. These three were Spaniards who had been long in her service; and Catherine, apparently by Chapuys's advice, sent her steward and gentleman usher to the king requesting that she might have their services again on their simply swearing allegiance to the king and to her as their mistress. She, however, sent another and evidently more important message as well, the exact terms of which we do not know. Her servants returned to her on 4 June bearing an answer from the privy council, which they had been ordered to put into writing and read to her.