The Rise, Reign and Fall of Anne Boleyn, Part III
© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler
Campeggio's court in England was a scene of great pomp and ceremonial, and of great drama as well. He and Wolsey, as Papal representatives, would decide the legitimacy or lack thereof of the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Initially Catherine refused to appear, declaring that the court was biased against her as a "foreigner", and that she would accept no ruling except one direct from Rome. At the last minute, however, she realized that she risked losing her case by default, and so appeared when called into court. Instead of addressing the two papal legates, she threw herself at Henry's feet and appealed to his sense of honor and his conscience. She begged for an explanation of her sudden disfavor with him after more than 20 years of devoted wifehood. "Alas, my lord," she grieved, "wherein have I offended you? I take God as my witness that when you first had me I was a maid, without touch of man." In the eyes of society and Church law in those days, her case rested in great part on proving whether or not her marriage to the dead Prince Arthur had ever been consummated; if not, it was "no true marriage", and therefore no bar to her current marriage to Henry. If the marriage to Arthur HAD been consummated, then Henry was in a stronger position to plead for a divorce. Catherine not only swore at the time of Arthur's death, and at the time of her marriage to Henry, that she and Arthur had never had sex; her parents Ferdinand and Isabella swore to the same thing as well. By opposing her, Henry was calling into question the honesty of his royal in-laws as well as that of his wife. Catherine reiterated to Henry on her knees that she had been a virgin at the time of their marriage (Arthur had been a weak and sickly boy with no experience of women, and their marriage had lasted but a few brief months). She appealed to his conscience as to whether this was true or no. Then, in a moment of rebellion, she appealed to Rome and declared that she would accept no verdict except that directly issuing from the Pope himself. Then she arose and, ignoring the angry cries of the king and the commands of the Clerk to "come into the court", she walked silently out, followed by her ladies-in-waiting, to the cheers of the crowd waiting outdoors. Henry insisted that the hearing continue in her absence. All sorts of hearsay evidence was introduced, including a witness who swore that he had heard Prince Arthur, the morning after his wedding night, call for wine to refresh himself because "I have been in Spain this night, and it is thirsty work!" The document Henry had been forced to sign at the time of his betrothal now came into its own. It protested the engagement on the grounds of the Bible's ban in the Book of Leviticus on marriage to the wife of one's brother. The question had been presented to various universities all over Europe for their opinions, on the advice of one Thomas Cranmer, who would later become Archbishop of Canterbury. In each case the opinions had been returned in Henry's favor, and these were now presented as evidence. Days of such testimony were introduced, with Catherine nowhere in sight to offer rebuttal. It looked as if Henry's case was a foregone conclusion. At the last minute, however, Campeggio declared that, since the Court in Rome traditionally went into a vacation period at this time of year, a similar hiatus of several months would now be called to the English hearing. Campeggio obviously had no intention of awarding a verdict in either direction, no matter how long the court sat.
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