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Mine was a goodly life, a happy life, and interesting life.
A merry life to be sure.
I would have been happy to sit at home with my children, my wife, my books, but,duty called, and I answered.
I was born during the reign of Richard III, short as it was. I was a child when Henry Tudor took his place on the throne as Henry VII. I was already married with four children when his son, Henry VIII began his reign. Ah Hal...the bright and shiny hope of us all.
Erasmus, Linacre, Colet and I, all placed our hopes in Bluff Hal. He was loud, outgoing, and adventurous to be sure, but he was a scholar as well. The 'New Learning', which was nothing more than old knowledge rediscovered, was taking hold of Europe and in England no less and Henry was there with the rest of us, drinking it all in.
We became friends, Henry and I and Katherine his wife.
I rose high in his government until I rose as high as a man can go when he is born common in our realm. Chancellor of England, second only to the King himself, primary law enforcer of the nation. High I rose and forgot that when a man rises as high as he can, there is no where left to go but to the fall. And fall I did.
The story is known well. Henry and Katherine, married for almost twenty years, could not, try, as they would, have a live son. Only Mary, poor, beleaguered Mary, survived thru birth and infancy.
Princess Mary, the only heir to a throne, which never held a regnant queen. The situation was bad enough and Henry was frustrated and worried. To Katherine, who was the daughter of Queen Isabella of Spain, the situation didn't seem so dire. Daughter of a reigning Queen, she thought Mary could take the throne. But Henry worried and fretted and saw himself as the last of the Tudor dynasty and feared his country thrown back into the wars that his father's ascendancy had ended. York, Lancaster, the War of the Roses, all would start again. Already he was seeking to put his wife away, but unsure if it was right. Then SHE returned from France and caught his eye.
Anne Boleyn. Nan Bullen. Anne the witch, Anne the harlot, Anne the concubine. Anne, the cleverest of us all. She saw a king who lusted after her; she saw a king who would do anything for a son; she saw a crown, hers for the taking. And take it she did. Say what you will about Nan, but give credit to the woman who outsmarted the greatest minds of her day.
Marriages between princes was more than a church matter then. It was a political matter and even the Church, badly in need of reform, played the political game. It should have been so simple a matter. A king needs a son, an heir, his wife is past childbearing, put her away and get him another wife. But it didn't happen that easy. I'm not saying it should have, you understand, but it was the way things were done at the time and right or wrong, it should have worked this time as well. But everything went wrong. And so began my fall.
The King split the English Church from Rome and made himself the Supreme head of the Church. The people were required to go along with this and to be sure they did and oath was required. Three oaths actually. One oath accepting the King as the new 'Pontiff' of the English Church; a second oath accepting his divorce from Katherine and Anne as his new queen; a final oath settling the succession on the children of Anne and declaring Mary illegitimate.
For most it was an easy enough matter. For the common people nothing really changed; nothing changed in their churches and Rome was far away and what did it really matter who ran things. For the religious, the ordained, for the nobles, for the educated, it was a different matter. In the end, for the Bishops, the priests, the nuns and monks, there really was no choice. Many were cast into the street, many died, many fled to the continent, most just did what they were told. For the rest of us, well, take the bloody oath they told me, just take the oath, what matter if you don't agree with it, what matter if what he's doing is wrong. And so they took the oath and kept their lands and titles, even gained some as the King dissolved the monasteries and convents and sold the lands, or bestowed them as gifts to his faithful. And here was I, his Chancellor, the one who was expected to force this all. But I couldn't, I wouldn't, and so I resigned.
A lawyer, a scholar, I knew the law. I knew, or thought I knew, that if I just stepped back, stepped away, and kept silent all would be well. Oh yes, I gave up my high position and we lost much, feeling the pinch of poverty, but I just couldn't go against my conscience and this was what rubbed them all. I thought I was silent, not knowing, not realizing that my silence was speaking volumes. In my silence lay their guilt and they hated me for it. Why couldn't I just go along, they asked; why couldn't I just say the words even if I didn't mean them. They couldn't understand, I couldn't see a way thru. If a man says one thing, but believes, thinks, something else, then he's a liar. If a man says he stands for one thing, but then will go along just to keep his house, his position, then what did he stand for.
A harlot stands on a corner and sells her body and we call her a sinner, a slut; a man stands in a room and sells his oath and we call him wise. Where is the difference? Any man doing so would be bad enough, but a statesman, a leader, that is the worse. I could not say one thing while I believed something else, and in the end, I couldn't live in a world where such men were praised and rewarded. To publicly live a lie was to die as myself, so I chose to die in truth. Oh, Cromwell, Cramner, Anne, and Henry, they all thought that they had killed me. But in truth, I chose to go to the block. Better to die as who I was, then to live a life that was empty of all truth, integrity, dignity.
So that's who I am. Praise, I didn't look for it, even though my Church later declared me a saint and model for others to look to. But derision I didn't look for either and it saddens me to know that so many would have chosen to sell out so to live. It's heartbreaking that so many fail to understand why I did what I did, and what's worse, think me wrong for it. But the worst of all I think is that so many are praised for doing what I refused to do and that so many know it's wrong, but accept it as the way things are.
