Fletcher - The divorce of henry viii: the untold story from inside the vatican

Contents

About the Book

Its 1527 and Henry, desperate to marry Anne Boleyn and ensure the Tudor line, does the unthinkable and asks Pope Clement VII to grant him a divorce. Enter a wily Italian diplomat named Gregorio Casali, hired to represent Henrys interests in the Vatican. Through six years of cajoling, threats and bribery, Casali lives by his wits, playing off one powerful patron against another, negotiating with ambassadors from Spain, France and beyond, each crowding the Vatican to press their interests in the Tudor break up. Before it is done, Henry will decide to divorce not just Catherine, but the Church itself. Set against the backdrop of war-torn Renaissance Italy, The Divorce of Henry VIII combines a gripping family saga with a highly charged political battle between the Tudors and the Vatican to reveal the extraordinary true story behind historys most infamous divorce.

(Originally published with the title Our Man in Rome)

About the Author

Catherine Fletcher was born in Birkenhead and spent her teenage years in Scotland. She graduated with a First in Politics and Communication Studies from the University of Liverpool in 1996. After a stint in student politics she worked for the BBC Political Unit and BBC Parliament as a researcher and TV producer. A holiday in Florence sparked an interest in Renaissance history and in 2004 she changed career and went back to university to study for a PhD in History at Royal Holloway, University of London. She subsequently held research fellowships at the British School at Rome and the European University Institute in Florence and is now a Lecturer in Public History at the University of Sheffield. This is her first book.

List of Illustrations

Map and family tree

Map of Europe in 1527 2011 John Bloxam for Upstream Ltd.

The Casali family tree.

Picture section

The Sack of Rome, unknown Netherlandish artist (c. 1527) Wellcome Library, London.

Henry VIII, Lucas Horenbout (c. 152627). The Royal Collection 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Catherine of Aragon, attr. Lucas Horenbout (c. 1525) National Portrait Gallery, London.

Pope Clement VII, workshop of Sebastiano del Piombo (c. 1531/32) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Portrait of Ferry Carondelet with his Secretaries, Sebastiano del Piombo (c. 1510-12) Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Anne Boleyn, unknown artist (late sixteenth century) National Portrait Gallery, London.

The Rocca Pallavicino-Casali, Monticelli dOngina. Photo author.

Charles V with his English Water-hound, Jakob Seisenegger (1532) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The Mystical Marriage of St Catherine, Filippino Lippi (1501), Chiesa di San Domenico, Bologna 2011: Photo Scala Florence/Luciano Romano/Fondo Edifici di Culto Min. dellInterno.

The Procession of Pope Clement VII and the Emperor Charles V after the Coronation at Bologna, Nicolaus Hogenberg (c. 1532) The British Library Board; shelfmark 144.g.3 (1.).

For Mark

CATHERINE FLETCHER

The Divorce of
Henry VIII

The Untold Story

Preface

The divorce of Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon is one of those great events of history. You probably know the story. Henry and Catherine have no sons, and Henry comes to believe that this is Gods punishment for marrying his brothers widow. Henry falls in love with Anne Boleyn. He decides to have his marriage annulled, but the Pope refuses. Henry declares himself head of the Church of England, breaks with Rome and marries Anne. In fifty words or so, that is the famous tale.

On the other hand, you have probably never heard of Gregorio Casali. Which is strange, because for the six years it took Henry to divorce Catherine, he was our man in Rome, the resident diplomat looking after the kings great matter at the papal court. He was one of the few, in fact, who saw the affair through from start to finish, although before the end of his short life Casali would have reason to curse the ingratitude of princes. For his loyalty to Henry, he said, he had paid a high price.

Casali enjoys a brief mention in Shakespeare and Fletchers Henry VIII, misspelt as Gregory de Cassado, though it is surely him. And the fleeting notoriety of a reference in Shakespeare, albeit in a minor work, is not something many Italian noblemen of the period merit. Beyond that, he rarely escapes the footnotes. How is it that someone so close to something so great can be so nearly lost to history?

When I first came across Casali and his role in English diplomacy, I was working for the BBC in Westminster. When I had time on my hands, I used to watch people doing politics. Not, usually, in the House of Commons, but in coffee bars, on the street or waiting to go into the TV studios. My colleagues and I got to know who drank in which bar, and we speculated why. After Id been around a few years, people occasionally told me stories that they hoped Id pass on. Everyone knew that the important business rarely happened in official meetings. For some, it happened in the mythical corridors of power, for others in the mystical smoke-filled rooms.

And so, when I read those occasional references to Casali in the standard works of Tudor history, I wondered what he had done from day to day. How did he, and the people around him, do their politics, their diplomacy? Where did they do it, and when? What were the rules of the game? One particular thing intrigued me. Casali was an Italian. How could an Italian be ambassador to the King of England? If, for much of what happened in the world of diplomacy five hundred years ago, I could find at least a superficial parallel in the present, I could not find one for that.

Not quite ten years ago, I decided to try and track down Gregorio Casali, his life and work. Internet searches turned up an attorney-at-law in Massachusetts. I tried libraries: surely, the man who had spent six years of his life handling Henry VIIIs divorce from Catherine of Aragon would be the subject, if not of a book, then at least of an article or two. But no. As I said, it is strange that someone apparently so pivotal could be so lost from history.

The obvious explanation for that loss would be that Casalis story isnt worth the telling. But a little bit of investigation convinced me that wasnt true. Gregorio Casali was a man who navigated what the great Renaissance thinker Erasmus called the turbulent waves of diplomacy, amid tumultuous times for Europe. His story brings great events of history to life. It is, however, as much an Italian story as an English one. Through Casalis eyes we see England from the outside: from Rome, from Italy, from Europe. There, Henry VIII is not the caricature fat tyrant, nor yet the virtuous Renaissance prince, but a mid-ranking northern monarch, a player on the European stage but far from the star of the show. Reading Casalis letters, we learn much about how the diplomacy of Henrys divorce worked from day to day, and about how to make a fortune (or try to) by throwing your lot in with a foreign power. His tale tells us about family values, and all sorts of things about living in sixteenth-century Europe: how to get from A to B, how to make a present, how to bribe a cardinal, when to go out in disguise, and why it was a good idea to have a secretary who knew the local courtesans. We learn about kidnapping, spying, deciphering coded letters, and other dirty tricks. And about the importance of being magnificent. Our man in Rome was good at that.