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"Let Him Kick....For I Do It Not of Malice, But According To My Duty"
Bryan’s dismissal from his post in the Privy Chamber did not prevent Henry from employing him in various capacities, especially those utilizing his proven ability as a diplomat. During Bryan’s absence Anne Boleyn, his cousin and later patroness, rose to prominence at court. The king began his pursuit of her sometime in April 1526, but she refused to become his mistress until assured of a more legitimate title. Her resistance turned Henry’s passing flirtation into a consuming passion and his desire to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon became even more urgent. Anne may have provided Bryan an opportunity to regain access to the king, and thereby recover his place in the Privy Chamber. He, in turn, undoubtedly became a member of the increasingly prominent Boleyn faction at court.
Following his banishment from court, Bryan remained at his manor of Faulkborne, where he was visited twice by the king. As Henry was anxious once more to secure an alliance with France, Bryan may have been asked his opinion of the likelihood of a closer and more active cooperation. At the beginning of 1526 Francis I had been released from captivity by Charles V, but only after he pledged to surrender the duchy of Burgundy, yield all his claims to Italy, and leave his two sons with the emperor as security. By September Henry and Wolsey were pressing the French king for an alliance in order to counteract the emperor’s growing power. They also sought to prevent the pope from coming under the power of Catherine’s nephew, the emperor, thus implying that Henry had determined to secure the dissolution of his marriage at this time. p. 113 But to obtain an annulment, the nervous and hesitant Pope Clement VII had to be kept free from the emperor’s influence and the Imperial army prevented from dominating Rome. Accordingly, on 30 April 1527 an Anglo-French offensive alliance was signed, by which Henry agreed to pay heavy subsidies to finance a future French expedition into Italy if war was declared.
The divorce proceedings began in May when Henry instructed Wolsey to summon a legatine court. The cardinal was to establish a case for declaring the marriage invalid, which would the be confirmed by the pope. But the court was adjourned when news arrived in late May that the unpaid and mutinous Imperial army in Italy had sacked Rome. Clement had taken refuse in his castle of San Angelo, but was a virtual prisoner. With the Imperial armies in control of Rome and the pope, a French offensive into Italy became an absolute necessity if Henry was to get papal confirmation for the annulment of his marriage.
Bryan was appointed by the king in late June to accompany Wolsey on his mission to France. No doubt the fact that he was well-known and liked at the French court made him a useful addition to the cardinal’s embassy. Its purpose was to discuss what action the English and French government should take in response to the sack of Rome.
At the beginning of July Bryan joined the cardinal’s train of 900 horsemen departing from London. By the end of the month they had arrived in Boulogne, and three days later entered the town of Amiens where they were greeted by Francis I. Wolsey realized that he could hardly hope to persuade the French to march on Rome unless he also committed England to war. Although there was no money to finance a campaign of any size, he believed there was no alternative but military intervention to pry the pope from this emperor’s grip. Therefore without consulting Henry or his council, he joined the French in formally declaring war on Charles in January 1528. Henry, "who still trusted the cardinal’s wizardry", allowed the declaration to stand despite the protests of his other councilors.
In the months that followed his return from France, Bryan began to appear regularly at court and to perform various duties for the king. In November of the previous year he had been summoned to the city of Lincoln and dispatched at Henry’s behest to the tow of Calais to await a message from Francis I confirming his continued alliance with England. On the outbreak of war with the emperor, Bryan was appointed as one of the royal officials to seize Imperial goods entering the eastern ports of England.
He was restored to the king’s Privy Chamber on 25 June 1528. Bryan may not have needed Anne Boleyn’s help to regain his position, since he had every credential for court office already, but this may have been Anne’s way of asserting herself against Wolsey; and Henry may have suspected that it would please Anne to appoint her cousin.
Soon after his reinstatement, the "sweating sickness" swept over the nation and infected much of London. This time its ravages extended to the court and the nobility. Jean du Bellay, the French ambassador in England, noted the perilous nature of the disease, "... one has a little pain in the head and heart, suddenly a sweat breaks out, and a doctor is useless". The ineffectiveness of any remedy and the terror it occasioned caused Henry, Bryan, and other associates, fearing contamination, to move from place to place to escape the infection. However, sometime near the end of June Bryan came down with the disease and was immediately ushered off to his manor of Faulkbourne. The panic-stricken king and his remaining company eventually took refuse at Tyttenhanger House in Hertforshire. Du Bellay later reported that three other courtiers became mortally ill: Sir Francis Poynts, Sir William Compton, and William Carey. He added that all but one of those of the chamber "have been or are attached" by the disease.
Fortunately Bryan’s illness only incapacitated him for six week, and one of his first duties after recuperating was to escort the papal emissary Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, who was traveling from Italy to England. Because the pope was then hopeful of French success in Italy,
he had willingly dispatched Campeggio to join Wolsey in passing judgement on Henry’s divorce suit. Clement, in fact, told the king that he had given his legate a secret decretal commission empowering the two cardinals to settle the suit in England and to pronounce a verdict in his favor. However Campeggio was confidentially instructed to show it to no one but the king and Wolsey, and never to let it out of his possession. The pope would make no decision in the case until the outcome of the French offensive in Italy was known.
On 20 August 1528 Bryan departed from London to meet the Papal emissary. As he sailed across the Channel his vessel was hit by a violent storm. In a letter written to Wolsey the next day, Bryan reported that he had "never experienced a worse passage", and he and the crew of the six ton vessel spent ten hours fighting strong winds and waves in an attempt to reach Calasis. But five miles southwest of their intended destination their boat ran aground. Forced to abandon it, Bryan and the crew swam the remaining distance to shore: "When we landed, at 10 at night", he continued, "we hired a wagon, and reached Calais at midnight". Upon his arrival Bryan was greeted by the mayor of the town and provided shelter.
The next day, furnished with a mule for the cardinal and fifteen horsemen, Bryan passed from Calais to Boulogne, traveling on to Montreuil, Abbeville, and finally Paris. Awaiting him was Campeggio, who had arrived two days earlier. Bryan was eager to hasten their journey, to England, reflecting Henry’s impatience to bring his suit to a conclusion. But since the pope wished to protract the king’s suit in order that some means might be found to satisfy Henry without pronouncing sentence, he had selected his legate an old man suffering from gout who was unable to travel rapidly. Campeggio was further urged to delay his progress to England as reports out of Italy noted a change in the military circumstances. The French blockade of Naples and southern Italy, had been broken and their army decimated by plague. Although the French still clung to their positions in northern Italy, the Imperial forces were now able to resupply and reinforce their army in southern Italy.
Both Bryan and the cardinal left Paris on 18 September, intending by easy stages to reach Calasis in the course of the week. But their speed was painfully slow, as Campeggio’s gout was so bad that to ride a mule was agony, and for most of the time he was carried in a horse litter. Bryan directed the progress of the entire company, providing fresh horses for the cardinal’s cart and ensuring that no one tarried a day longer than necessary. By 24 September the entire group had arrived at the town of Montreuil. After a brief respite, Bryan left the company and rode ahead to England to report the cardinal’s imminent arrival and make preparations for his transport to London. On landing at Dover five days later, Campeggio was greeted by Bryan and a group of dignitaries. After a number of speeches of welcome, the company departed for London, stopping over at Canterbury and Dartford on the way.
During his stay in London, Campeggio, on various pretests, managed to postpone the opening of the Legatine Court. Disgusted by his evident reluctance to proceed with the divorce suit, Henry and Wolsey dispatched Bryan and the king’s Italian born Latin secretary Peter Vannes on an embassy to Rome. They were instructed to discover, if possible, the reason behind the legate’s dilatory actions. Also, they were to endeavor to alienate the pope as much as possible from the emperor and to incline him towards Henry, "....so that he may be more ready to grant any petition of the king’s as in the great and weighty matter of the divorce".
The king’s representatives set out from London on 29 November 1528. Again bad weather plagued Bryan at the outset of his journey. Rain and fog delayed their departure from Dover, then after boarding a vessel to begin the short trip to Calais, a "severe tempest" so churned up the Channel that Vannes described how he and Bryan had been smitten by "dreadful nausea and vomiting of blood". They landed safely and rode on to Paris, but, as Vannes noted, they could not travel rapidly owing to the shortness of the days and the bad state of the roads.
On their travel, both emissaries were greeted by Francis I. Vannes informed the French king of their mission, and warned him against the emperor’s preparations to strengthen his army in Italy. Francis thanked Vannes and in turn assured him that he would instruct his agents in Rome to give them assistance.
Departing soon thereafter, the envoys traveled southeast through France, arriving in Chambery, a town in the duchy of Savoy fifty miles west of Lyon, on 28 December. Here they met Franceso Campano, the pope’s chamberlain, and Vincent Casale, the secretary of the English ambassador in Rome, traveling to England. Bryan and Vannes learned that because the French position in northern Italy was so precarious, the king’s suit received little support from the pope. So long as the emperor remained a threat to Rome, Clement would not consent to an annulment of Henry’s marriage. Bryan relayed this information back to Wolsey. He also discovered that Campeggio’s principal instructions were to prolong the divorce proceedings as long a possible, and to advise Catherine to enter a nunnery so the pope could avoid making a decision on the case that would offend either the emperor or the English king.
On 5 January 1529 Bryan and Vannes arrived at Bologna in northern Italy. In a letter written the same day to Henry, Sir Francis related that they were cordially received by the governor of the city and his staff and provided lodging. He ends with a kindly and graceful apology to his cousin Anne Boleyn: " I would have written to my mistress that shall be "when she became Henry’s lawful wife", but I will not write unto her till I may write that shall please her most in this world" (word of the pope’s consent to the annulment, although this was an unlikely prospect).
The two emissaries arrived in the city of Florence four days later and soon after departed on the final leg of their trip to Rome. Before they reached their destination, however, Clement became very ill. When the ambassadors reached the city, they discovered that the pope was so sick that no visitors were permitted to see him.
Receiving rumors of the pope’s imminent death, Henry and Wolsey instructed the two ambassadors to lay aside their previous instructions until a new pope had been elected and instead work toward procuring Wolsey’s election to the papacy. This task was undertaken with great diligence by Gregor, Casale, the English ambassador to Rome. Despite Clement’s illness, Bryan and Vannes made a number of concerted efforts to see him but were unsuccessful. However neither man was under any illusion that their mission would be easily accomplished. Writing to Henry at the end of January, Bryan candidly stated that "the pope is and will be a good Imperial", callously wondering "...whether it be best to have live or die, for a worse than this...cannot be found." Furthermore, he had heard rumors that Campeggio was also "....thoroughly Imperial, and for the king’s matter there could not have been a worse one sent". Condemnation of the pope and his agent was in sharp contrast to Bryan’s praise of the "diligence and sturdiness" of his two companions Casale and Vannes. In an amiable addendum to his report, he noted that both men had been "marvelous good servants to your Grace".
As they awaited an audience with the pope, numerous rumors began to circulate concerning the well-being of Clement and also the conduct of the English emissaries in Rome. One, mentioned in a letter written by Francis I to Bryan, apparently was propagated by Imperial agents. Bryan and his colleagues supposedly had offered, in Henry’s name, a large sum of money to the emperor for his consent to the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine. The Imperialists boasted that they would obtain a great profit on the pretext and that Henry would in the end be deceived by the pope. Rumors like this were likely to arise the longer the envoys remained in Rome, and evidence survives that corroborates them. In his letter to Bryan, Francis I suavely brushed aside these reports and expressed his confidence that Henry had forbidden him form making such an offer.. This correspondence is the first indication of a friendly, personal relationship between the two men, and may show Bryan’s growing consequence as a diplomat.
1 February 1529 Bryan, Vannes, and Casale were joined by Stephen Gardiner, Wolsey’s secretary. A man of great ability but domineering in personality. Gardiner had been dispatched to Rome by the impatient king to hasten a decision on his suit. He was to tell the pope that if Campeggio did not proceed with the divorce and conclude the matter, the "king would throw off his allegiance" to the papacy. A month later Clement, having recovered from his illness, granted a formal audience to the four English emissaries, and Gardiner seized the opportunity to plunge into the question of Henry’s annulment and demand that it be granted. However he made no progress as the pope refused to accede to Henry’s demands. Their reports following this meeting warned Henry against entertaining any expectations from Rome. The pope, Bryan said wryly, would do nothing for the king, for "....though it might well be in his paternoster, it was noting in his creed". He also sent a letter to the gentlemen of Privy Chamber, whom he called "my masters and fellows of his Grace’s chamber", and although he was no doubt discreet, his failure to give them any favorable news could be interpreted in only one way.
The emissaries made a further visit to the pope on 1 April 1529. They again backed up their demands with threats, telling him that if the king were disappointed, there was danger that England would join Luther and his sect. Although distressed at this possibility, Clement was in no position to grant Henry’s demands because Charles retained control of much of Italy. Sanga, the papal secretary, reported to Campeggio that the ambassadors where "vehement" in pressing their demands, adding that they threatened that if the annulment was not granted, great damage would occur to the Apostolic See.
Despite this pressure, Bryan could only inform Henry on 21 April that the pope would make no concessions, insinuating that "....whoever has told you that he will, has not done you, I think, the best service". The implication was probably that Wolsey, the principal enemy of Anne, Bryan, and the Boleyn faction, had been deceiving the king with false hopes. Bryan comment may have been an attempt to turn Henry against his chief minister. Sending Bryan, a man committed to Anne and well known for his frankness with the king, had placed in Rome a source of information quite independent of Wolsey. It is possible that Bryan was acting as a spy on the chief minister, selected to perform his duty by Henry, perhaps at the suggestion of Bryan’s patroness, Anne Boleyn. Nevertheless Henry was still anxious to cling to his "right-hand man" and throughout the spring of 1529 both made common cause in an effort to force concessions from the pope. Asserting that "... there is not one of us (here) but that has assayed (the pope) both by fair means and foul", Bryan concluded cynically "....but as for deeds, I never believe to see, and especially at this time".
At the end of April Bryan and Gardiner were granted a final audience with the pope. But they reported that although they had done their best to obtain the king’s desires, they had not succeeded. Clement had even threatened to remove Henry’s case from England, to which the two ambassadors retorted that if England was not a safe place for the trial of the case, they did not consider Rome any safer, on account of the presence of the Imperial army.
Expressing a natural anger and irritation at his failure to achieve Henry’s wishes, Bryan followed this account with an attack on Campeggio. He reported to the king that the legate’s only objective was to obtain the Bishopric of Durham. Campeggio, he claimed, had no intention of granting Henry’s wish, and commented sarcastically that "...whatever (Campeggio) tells you the pope will do for you is the gloss and not the text", adding with righteous indignation that if the cardinal felt aggrieved at these accusations ".....let him kick....for I do it not of malice, but according to my duty". Aware that nothing further could be accomplished by his presence in Rome, Bryan intimated that he "....could tell (the king) more of my mind in an hour’s talking than I could write in a week, and shall be glad to come home, as I can do you here no (further) service". He concluded: "I dare not write unto my cousin Anne the truth of this matter, because I do not know your Grace’s pleasure whether I should or not".
Early in May, Wolsey instructed Gardiner and Bryan to return home after informing Clement of the grief he had caused the king. As Bryan departed from Rome at the end of May, the two cardinals opened the Legatine Court at Blackfriars, London, to judge the validity of the king’s marriage to Queen Catherine. Although news from his ambassadors in Italy indicated a lack of papal support for these proceedings, Henry still believed that by sending Campeggio, Clement had demonstrated his willingness to settle the case in England. Wolsey was anxious that it begin, as the Boleyn faction was openly suggesting that he had not done everything he could to further the king’s suit. His only hope of saving himself was a favorable ruling from the Legatine Court as soon as possible. Campeggio, however, had been secretly instructed to prolong the proceedings as long as possible until the time was propitious for recalling the case to Rome. Bryan left Italy without Gardiner stopping for a short time at Venice and Bologna before proceeding on to France, where he delivered a number of letters to Francis I. A few days later he departed to Calais, arriving in Dover on 19 June 1529.