Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [37]
Katherine had been taken ill “about five weeks ago,” according to the imperial ambassador. “The attack was renewed on the morrow of Christmas Day. It was a pain in the stomach, so violent that she could retain no food.” He continued, “I asked the physician several times if there was any suspicion of poison. He was afraid it was so, for after she had drunk some Welsh beer she had been worse, and that it must have been a slow and subtle poison.”9 Katherine’s supporters needed little persuading.
ACCORDING TO CHAPUYS, Henry greeted the news of Katherine’s death with great jubilation. “You could not conceive,” read his dispatch, “the joy that the King and those who favour the concubinage have shown at the death of the good Queen.” That Sunday, Henry attended Mass in the Chapel Royal dressed entirely in yellow, signifying joy, except for a white feather in his cap. After dining, he went to Anne’s apartments, “where the ladies danced and there did several things like one transported with joy.” The ambassador continued, “From all I hear the grief of the people at this news is incredible, and the indignation they feel against the King, on whom they lay the blame of her death, part of them believing it was by poison and others by grief; and they are the more indignant at the joy the King has exhibited.”10
Yet Henry was celebrating more than the demise of a former wife; Katherine’s death had a far greater significance. On hearing the news he shouted, “God be praised that we are free from all suspicion of war!”11 With the principal source of enmity between them removed, Henry believed the threat of war with the emperor had ended. He added a postscript to Cromwell’s dispatch to the ambassadors in France to that effect: now that “the Emperor has no occasion to quarrel,” they were to keep themselves “more aloof” and less ready to accede to the French king’s requests.12 Chapuys told the emperor:
Cromwell was not ashamed in talking with one of my men, to tell him you had no reason to profess so great grief for the death of the Queen, which he considered very convenient and advantageous for the preservation of friendship between you and his Majesty, his master; that henceforth we should communicate more freely together, and that nothing remained but to get the Princess to obey the will of the King, her father.13
Katherine’s death had altered Charles’s position in relation to England. He was not bound to Mary as he had been to her mother, and now, as he resumed hostilities with France, he looked once again to court English favor. He wrote to Chapuys at the end of February that “a renewal of amity might be more easily effected now … with some suitable provision for the princess than during the Queen’s life.” It would be a means to “abate the insolence of Francis” and win time for Mary.14
Mary’s status and welfare were, as they would always be, secondary to Habsburg strategic interests. Charles was not prepared to remain estranged from England over her disinheritance or ill-treatment, and he was soon in more pressing need of Henry’s goodwill. In the spring of 1536, Francis invaded Savoy, triggering an imperial invasion of Provence. Both sides now sought an English alliance. Henry, who had risked war to be rid of Katherine, had apparently been absolved.
FOUR DAYS AFTER Katherine’s death, Lady Shelton went to Mary and “most unceremoniously without the least preparation” told her that her mother was dead. That evening Mary requested that Katherine’s physician and apothecary be allowed to visit her so she might hear of her mother’s final hours and of the manner of her death.15 As Charles told Isabella, his wife, Mary was “inconsolable at the loss she has sustained, especially