Catherine tells of how her own love of the world’s pleasures blinded her for a long time to God’s grace, before she succumbed to Him. She writes with the fiercely self-critical religiosity of similar contemporary ‘confessions’ and ‘lamentations’. There is enough in the Lamentation to ground suspicion of her among traditionalists, because of her belief in salvation coming through a personal relationship with Christ, and study of the Bible, rather than through the practices of the official church. However – and this is vital – the Lamentation says nothing at all about, or against, the Mass.
Writing it at all was risky, although in the winter of 1545–6 Henry had taken a new and radical step against the old religion in appropriating the chantries, where Masses were said for the dead, although this move was probably motivated primarily by his desire to get hold of some much-needed money – their endowments were large. But in the early months of 1546 Catherine’s caution seems to have quite deserted her in her public association with reformers and, according to Foxe, in openly arguing religion with the King.
ACCORDING TO FOXE, ‘In the time of his sickness, he (Henry) had left his accustomed manner of coming, and visiting his Queen: and therefore she would come to visit him, either after dinner or after supper.’ This surely dates this part of the story to March–April 1546 (though most authorities put it months later); as this was the only period before the autumn when Henry was so seriously indisposed. Foxe tells us that Catherine took to lecturing the King on religion, and one night was careless enough to do so in the presence of Bishop Stephen Gardiner, the leading conservative, who, again in that crucial month of March, had returned from a long foreign embassy and quickly gained the King’s ear. Gardiner, according to Foxe, subsequently told the King:
. . . how dangerous and perilous a matter it is, and ever hath been, for a Prince to suffer such insolent words at his subjects’ hands: the religion by the Queen, so stiffly maintained, did not only disallow and dissolve the policy and politic government of Princes, but also taught the people that all things ought to be in common; so that what colour soever they pretended, their opinions were indeed so odious, and to the Princes estates so perilous . . . (that they) by law deserved death.
Then, according to Foxe, Gardiner persuaded the King to begin an investigation into radical religion, in the Queen’s household as well as elsewhere – having frightened Henry, among other things, with the mention of people who wished to hold all goods in common, in other words the Anabaptist creed, although Catherine’s (and indeed Foxe’s) beliefs were very far from Anabaptism.
If I am right and this happened in March–April when the King was convalescing, that fits with the records of arrests and enquiries which began in April and went on till July. But why, some have asked, should the religious conservatives focus on Queen Catherine Parr? It seems to me that she was the obvious target – she was the centre of a group of highborn ladies who, certainly during Lent in 1546, met together to hear sermons and discuss religion. They included her sister Anne (wife of Sir William Herbert), Lady Denny (wife of the chief gentleman of Henry’s household, Sir Anthony Denny) and potentially most important of all, Anne Stanhope, wife of Lord Hertford. If heresy was proved against Catherine, not only would Henry’s sense of betrayal by a woman he still loved be terrible (there is no evidence at all that he wanted rid of Catherine Parr in 1546, rather the reverse), but likely all the women in her circle would fall too, and with them, crucially, their husbands. Catherine Parr, therefore, was the keystone in the arch; knock her out and the whole reformist edifice faced total collapse.
The heresy hunt went on for three months. The spring and early summer of 1546 must have been a desperate time for Catherine, but she seems to have maintained her composure and behaved calmly throughout. Everyone in her circle seems to have stuck loyally together; though this is hardly surprising – if one fell, all fell. It is possible that searches took place within the Queen’s household, and certainly she gave some books (which may have included Lamentation of a Sinner) to her uncle Lord Parr for safekeeping in April.
By July nothing had been found against her. By then the questioning of suspects seems to have been largely over. No evidence had been discovered against anyone within the circle of the court except for Henry’s courtier and friend George Blagge, and nobody from within the Queen’s circle. If Thomas Wriothesley and Richard Rich were actively seeking out heretics on behalf of Bishop Gardiner (and possibly, behind the scenes, the Duke of Norfolk), by July they must have been getting desperate.