When I went to Hatfield to see her, there was of course the unpleasantness of Mary's presence. She was insolent, that girl. When she was told that Queen Anne had come she said: “Queen Anne? I know of no Queen by that name. There is only one Queen of England and that is Queen Katharine.”
What could one do with such a girl? Beat her? Little good that would do. I loathed her. I did not see her when I was at Hatfield. I could have forced her to be present but I did not want to do that.
I told them that they must be sterner with her and not endure her tantrums.
Henry was going to Hatfield to see Elizabeth. That pleased me. I did not go with him because I was not riding now. I was taking every possible precaution. Nothing must go wrong with this child. Once I had a son, I was secure. It was a wonderful relief that I need no longer fear the Pope. He had lost his power over England.
Oh yes, I assured myself, once I had my son all would be well.
Of course there were the people. They seemed as if they would never like me whatever happened.
There was unrest throughout the country. For years the Pope had been almost like God to them. They had obeyed him without question. To those ignorant people he was not a man but a deity.
And the King had defied him—and all because of a black-eyed witch.
I was blamed for everything. The King had been led by me and I had the powers given to me by the Devil.
All through that year there was grumbling among the people. I was blamed for any misfortune. If it rained too much, it was God's displeasure because of the havoc brought to the Church by a witch.
At Hatfield, when Mary appeared, they cheered her as they did Katharine at the Moor. People were talking freely of the disasters which were coming to England; and Cranmer and Cromwell decided that something would have to be done about it.
There was one woman who was causing a great deal of trouble, and there could not have been anyone in the kingdom who had not heard of the Nun of Kent. Her name was Elizabeth Barton and she was a woman of some eloquence and persuasive powers. She had in fact been a servant in the house of a certain Thomas Cobb, who had been a steward of one of Archbishop Warham's estates—that was her connection with the Church. It turned out later that, at the age of about twenty, she had suffered from some obscure disease which had left her a religious maniac. She began to have visions and was obsessed by Sin. Thus she began to get a reputation for holiness, and people believed that she really was inspired by the Holy Ghost.
I had always known that Warham was an old fool. Fortunately he had died and so enabled Cranmer to come in with his cool common sense. Warham had subscribed to the belief that Elizabeth Barton was divinely inspired, and he had sent messages to her in which he had told her she must not hide goodness and the words of God which were imparted to her during her trances. About this time she had ceased to be a servant in the Cobb household and was living as a member of the family.
The woman went on prophesying, and the Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, took her into his charge. She was given instruction in the ways of the Church and the legends of the saints. It was believed that the Virgin Mary spoke through her. I suspected many of these priests of seeking ways of upholding the declining condition of the Church. When Martin Luther had nailed his theses to that church door, he had started something of great importance which must have given many a priest some uneasy moments.
Elizabeth Barton was supposed to have performed miracles. The Virgin Mary, according to Elizabeth Barton, commanded her to leave Aldington and make her home in Canterbury. No one cared to disobey the orders of the Virgin Mary, so the woman was given a cell in St. Sepulchre's Priory.
All knew of the Nun of Kent; Warham had supported her; he had collected her pronouncements and presented them to the King. Henry dismissed them as the wanderings of a simple-minded woman, guided by churchmen who led her where they wanted her to go. The King showed them to Sir Thomas More, who shared his opinion.
Sir Thomas More had written a book about a similar case. It concerned a twelve-year-old girl named Anne Wentworth, and, although later she withdrew her belief in her own prophecies, because Thomas More had written of her as though she were genuinely inspired and he was a man of high reputation throughout the country, it helped to enhance Elizabeth Barton's fame.
The King's divorce was naturally something which would be eminently suitable for prophecy, and Elizabeth Barton seized on it and in the name of God forbade it.
That a simple countrywoman should dare tell him what to do enraged Henry, but Elizabeth Barton appeared to be fearless. She went on to say that she had been told by Heaven—whether the Virgin Mary or God himself she did not indicate—that if the King wronged Queen Katharine he should no longer be King of the Realm and would die a villain's death.
She was making a great nuisance of herself. People listened to her and, as she had the support of the Church, they were ready to believe her. Great men interested themselves in her—Fisher for one, and Sir Thomas More visited her and made no attempt to treat her as the charlatan she was.
She began to be invited to the houses of the nobility that she might prophesy for them. The Holy Nun had become a fashionable fortune-teller. Her fame grew and grew, and she had a big following in all classes of society.
It was rather amusing that she had prophesied that if Henry married me he would die within a month. It was certainly awkward for her that he was still alive and in good health months later.
She was not completely witless. She said that the prophecy had been rather obscurely worded; she had meant he would no longer be King, and people had construed this as meaning that he would die. But what she had implied was that he would no longer be King in the sight of Heaven; and he was not.
Cromwell had talked very seriously to the King about this woman. She was no longer to be regarded as a simpleton; she was doing great harm to the King and the country; too many influential people were her friends. Therefore she must be arrested.
With his usual efficiency Cromwell soon had the Nun of Kent under lock and key.
He could be trusted to deal with the matter in a subtle way to cause as little trouble to the nation as possible. He did not immediately pass sentence, which he might have done. He kept her in prison and put her through examinations. Questions were fired at her. She was not tortured. He thought that was unnecessary and would bring the usual cry that she had confessed under torture. He could have said that surely, in her case, her friends God and the Virgin Mary might have come to her aid, but he was more crafty than that.
She was after all a simple woman. What education she had was of Church matters, and without her mentors beside her she broke down under Cromwell's expert questioning. He drew a confession from her that she had never had any visitations from Heaven and what she had said came from her own imagination to satisfy those who had looked after her and her own desire for worldly praise.
“That is what we need,” said Cromwell in delight. He had taken the precaution of arresting the two monks who had taught her, and before long he had confessions from them.
“By God's Holy Mother,” cried the King, “that fellow Cromwell has a way of getting to the heart of a matter. Clever fellow. I wish I could like him better. He deserves it for his brains. I wish the rest of him pleased me as well.”
There was a trial in the Star Chamber—where all confessed and were declared traitors. Lord Audley, the Lord Chancellor, proclaimed that Elizabeth Barton had plotted for the King's dethronement, and the punishment for that was death.
They were taken back to prison. Cromwell thought there should be inquiries about those who had supported the woman; and at the beginning of that momentous year she was still in prison awaiting her sentence.