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"Make More Ready For Me A Soft Bed Than A Hard Harlot"
As Henry’s campaign against the Papacy entered its final stage at the beginning of 1533, Bryan found himself actively employed in securing the king’s divorce. Clement VII still refused to abandon his support of the marriage. However Henry’s determination to free himself of his unwanted union with Catherine intensified with the discovery in January 1533 that he had begotten a child with Anne. By the end of the month he had secretly married her and in February empowered Thomas Cranmer, recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, to convoke an ecclesiastical court to settle the issue of his marriage. In order to make it legally impossible for Catherine to appeal the Archbishop’s decision to Rome, Parliament was induced to pass the Act in Restraint of Appeals in April. Bryan was chosen, with several other gentlemen, to deliver a citation to the queen, summoning her before the archbishop at the Priory of Dunstable on 10 May. But her refusal to appear either in person or by proxy allowed the court to declare her contumacious and proceed without her. On 23 May 1533, Archbishop Cranmer declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine null and void.
Although this judgement removed the last obstacle to legitimizing Anne’s issue, apprehension at court continued over the proposed meeting between the French king and the pope at Marseilles. Since the Battle of Landriano, Francis had been trying to work himself into a position from which he could again challenge Charles V. To accomplish this he needed papal as well as English support. Although he knew it would be no easy task, Francis believed that he could unite England and the Papacy against the emperor. Unaware of this scheme, Henry feared that his chief ally would abandon him now that he had broken so irreparable from the pope. The king therefore commissioned the Duke of Norfolk and Bryan to join Sir John Wallop, the English ambassador in France, to press Francis to call off the conference. If their request was denied, they were to obtain assurances that the French king would continue to support Henry’s case against the pope. Bryan left England with the duke’s contingent on 30 May, just prior to Anne Boleyn’s coronation, On his way through Calais, he had an opportunity to spend a day with an old family acquaintance, Arthur Plantagenet Lord Lisle, illegitimate son of Edward IV and Lord Deputy of Calais. Bryan then rejoined Norfolk’s train as it journeyed toward the French court at Moulins, a town eighty-five miles northwest of Lyons.
The pope’s response to Henry’s second marriage and Parliament’s denial of the papacy’s appellate jurisdiction was to frame a bull of excommunication against the king on 4 July 1533. However, due to Francis’s intervention, Clement suspended its publication until the end of September, although he stressed that the king must separate from Anne and restore Catherine to her lawful place as his wife and queen. Henry of course refused to submit to Clement’s censure and decided to boycott the conference at Marseilles, directing Norfolk to return to England immediately. However Bryan and Wallop were instructed to accompany Francis to the meeting and to act as observers. They were prohibited under any circumstances from addressing the pope.
The two envoys departed for Marseilles at the end of September. Since their last set of instructions, Henry had altered his tone somewhat. Although he could do nothing to prevent the interview between Francis and Clement, he now realized that it served no purpose for his ambassadors to avoid contact with the pope. Therefore Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Wincester, Peter Vannes, the king’s Latin secretary, and Edmund Bonner, future bishop of London, were also sent to Marseilles. In response to the sentence of excommunication, this embassy was to intimate to the pope that Henry had drawn up a formal appeal which he intended to present to a future General Council of the Catholic Church.
In the same day interval before the pope’s arrival, Bryan began a conversation with his friend Lord Lisle, in a rueful and humorous vein, he wrote on 5 October.
"..after our hearty commendations to your good lordship....you shall be
promised that, abiding here with evil wines, the pope is coming, as the
news awaits for her prey, it is supposed he will not yet be here less seven
days....The French King himself lies within four leagues of this town et
Le Baume. When we shall depart we can not tell, but we trust to be dispatched
about the end of this month, against which time, Sir Francis Bryan, desire you
to make more ready for me a soft bed than a hard harlot. We would that you
had part of the wines that we drink here, and then we doubt not you would
pity us."
To this letter: Lisle wrote an answer that has not survived but is which he evidently offered Bryan both a soft bed and any number of harlots to comfort him during his next visit to
Calais. Francis then sent a chaffing reply on this subject that also makes a comic reference to the pope:
Sir, whereas in your last letter I perceive that in Calais you have
sufficient courtesans to furnish and accomplish my desires, I do
thank you of for your good provision, but this shall be to advertise you
that since my coming here I have called to my remembrance the
misliving that you and such others have brought me to; for the which,
being repented, have had absolution of the pope. And because you
are my friend, I would advertise you in likewise to be sorry of
forgiveness obtained, to come in all diligence to be absolved of the
pope.
He concludes his letter by comparing the gift of two barrels of "good wine" from the Duke of Albany, with Lisle’s three barrels of "half penny beer" that he probably helped consume during his recent visit with Lisle at Calais. From these two letters we can observe the long standing and easy familiarity between the two men, both of whom had shared the pleasures of a courtier’s life in the past. It also shows Bryan as a gregarious, enjoyable companion particularity around extroverts like Lisle, Francis I, or Henry VIII.
On 11 October 1533 the papal fleet of sixty ships arrived at Marseilles. Two days later Francis I entered the city and prostrated himself at the feet of the Holy Father. After the marriage of the pope’s niece, Catherine de Medici? to the king’s son Henry, three topics of discussion dominated the conference: the spread of heresy in France, the calling of a General Council of the Catholic Church, and Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine. This last issue proved the most troublesome. Francis requested a further delay of six months before Henry’s excommunication was published, but Clement would concede only one. In a separate interview Gardiner also asked the pope not to issue the bull and instead give his approval to his master’s divorce. Both demands were rejected, although Clement did offer to submit Henry’s suit to a Franco-Papal commission. On 7 November Bonner delivered Henry’s reply. Forcing his way into the pope’s chamber, this caustic and overbearing cleric threatened to place the king’s appeal before a future General Council should the pope proceed to publish the bull. News of Bonner’s insolent behavior angered Francis I: "As fast as I study to win the pope", he told Gardiner, " you study to lose him".
On 10 November the meeting at Marseilles came to an end and Bryan, who had remained in the background during the proceedings, departed for England, possibly conveying the ambassadors’ reports to the king and his council, and no doubt providing his own interpretation of the conference. Francis had also given him a message that urged Henry to defer making a complete break from Rome until he had received his ambassador Jean du Bellay. The French king needed the support of both England and the Papacy if he was to challenge successfully Imperial domination of Italy, thus his eagerness to avert an irreparable breach between the two. But Henry objected to the close bond apparently forged in Marseilles between Francis and Clement, and Bryan’s report seems to have confirmed the king’s worst fears. This caused Henry to charge that he had been "betrayed, spurned and humiliated" by the "traitorous prince". By the end of November the pope had placarded his bull of excommunication against Henry on the church doors of Catholic Europe.
During his passage through Calais back to England, Bryan had taken a fancy to Lady Lisle’s little dog, Purquoy, and apparently suggested it to Lisle and his wife as a gift to Anne Boleyn. The queen was well-pleased with the present, and in a thank-you letter on Anne’s behalf on 5 December, Bryan noted that the dog ".....remained not above an hour in my hands but the her Grace took it from me".
At court, Bryan acted as a valuable agent in advancing Lisle’s interests. When disputes arose over the granting of offices or property in Calais, he actively worked on his friend’s behalf.
He also sent him excellent practical advice on several occasions. An affable and loquacious man, Lisle apparently was talking too much for his own good, because Bryan felt obliged to warn him to "......keep all things secreter than you have been used to before, (since) there is nothing done nor spoken (at Calais) that is not known with speed in the court". Recently appointed as Deputy of Calais, Lisle’s grip upon administration was slack, and it was also likely that he was insufficiently forceful in the performance of his duties. Realizing this, Bryan pointedly advised his friend to take more responsibility upon himself: "be known for the king’s deputy there!"
As an experienced diplomat, Bryan understood the importance of both frankness and discretion in acting as a successful representative of the king. His letters stress this a few months later when reports reached Henry that Lisle was failing to carry out his judicial duties as Deputy of Calais. On 1 October 1534, Bryan told him that as the king’s officer, he should refute the charges leveled against him, ".....as such accusations have led to the undoing of many men". Since he was working on Lisle’s behalf at court, Bryan may also have been under pressure to disassociate himself from the Lord deputy, as he warns him that "...in taking good heed (of this letter) you may do yourself pleasure and your friends also".
On 23 March 1534 the papal court declared Catherine’s marriage to be valid. This could not have come as a surprise, least of all to Bryan, who had warned Henry of this possibility five years before as ambassador to Rome. The effect of the sentence on the king himself was to increase his determination to break any remaining ties with the Papacy, and to prepare for a possible invasion by Charles V to enforce the court’s decision. On the same day Parliament passed the Act of Succession ratifying Henry’s marriage with Anne and settling the succession of the crown on her children, while imposing upon every citizen an oath to acknowledge the statute.
Clement VII died on 25 September and was succeeded by Cardinal Farnese, now Paul III. He declared himself anxious to satisfy Henry and recover England’s allegiance. But the king would make no concessions.
As Henry severed the last link between England and the Papacy with the passage of the Act of Supremacy in November 1534, Bryan’s relations with Anne Boleyn appear to have faltered. Although he was her cousin and looked to her for favor, he had a dispute with her brother, George Viscount Rochford, in December. As Bryan was such a close companion of the king, he may have noticed friction developing between the royal couple. Anne’s position had already become insecure as early as mid-1534 when Henry started "flirting seriously" with his wife’s maid of honor, Jane Seymour. Her newly acquired position had been won for her by Bryan, who was apparently a distant relative of the family. Although he could not be sure whether she would become the new royal favorite, he may have been astute enough to realize that his personal advantage and future might not be served by continual association with the Boleyn family, and it is possible that his quarrel with Rochford was staged to break any further ties with them.
The oaths contained in the acts of Succession and Supremacy required the people to recognize Henry as head of the English Church, acknowledge the validity of his marriage to Anne, and the annulment of his union with Catherine. Those refusing to swear to the statute or who transgressed their oaths were to be brought before the Justices of the Peace. In February 1535, while serving in this capacity for the county of Buckinghamshire, Bryan heard the case of George Taylor, a resident of the town of Langwich, Buckinghamshire, who was charged with slandering the king. Questioning the bailiff who had detained Taylor, Bryan discovered that the accused had allegedly said "....the king is but a knave..and is a heretic who does not live after the laws of God, "adding the astounding comment that he "set not by the king’s crown, and, if he had it here, would play football with it" Taylor queried over saying such a thing, and that if he did, "it was in drunkenness". Bryan reported to Cromwell that the man had been jailed as a traitor, but could be sent to him for questioning if he wished; otherwise, he said, the prisoner would be tried and hanged, adding sternly that ".....the due execution of justice in this case will be a very great example and the safeguard of many". No record, however, exists of Taylor’s fate.
At the beginning of the year Cromwell was commissioned as the king’s vicar-general to undertake a general visitation of the churches and monasteries of England. He was to conduct a series of formal inquiries concerning the state of religious houses, and implement royal injunctions for the reform. By August his agents were reporting on widespread corruption and decay in many of the houses, which could eventually lead to the dissolution of the smaller monasteries the following year. But these examinations were causing discord and demoralization among many of the monks, as is evident in the two please sent to Bryan in October 1535. Bryan was not one of Cromwell’s agents, but he received appeals from churchmen desperate to refute the charges of mismanagement leveled against them. Robert Neckham, prior of Worcester Abbey, petitioned him to intercede on his behalf. Neckham had been given the rule of the house, but against the will of many of the monks, who had requested Cromwell to appoint another man. They had accused Neckham of mismanaging the affairs of the abbey. He now begged Bryan to solicit his case to Cromwell. Based upon letters written by Neckham the following year, Bryan was successful in maintaining his rule of the priory of Worchester.
One of the many religious houses brought under the supervision of Cromwell was the impoverished monastery of St. Albans in Hertfordshire. His agents warned the monks that unless they reformed the finances of their house, it would be dissolved. In reply the abbot Robert Catton wrote to Cromwell on 22 January 1536 that his position was "So intricate with extreme poverty", citing old debts, the need for reparations, and "an uncourteous flock of brethren", that he requested a relaxation of some of the reforms imposed to achieve financial solvency. Shortly after this letter the prior and seventeen monks contacted Bryan, reporting that they had begged the abbot to devise a remedy for the decay of the abbey, but that he had taken it ill, and they therefore requested Bryan to ask Cromwell to impose the reforms himself. He apparently took no action on this appeal, as another letter three months later again petitioned his aid. There is no record of Bryan’s reaction to it.
In November 1535 the king again sent Bryan to the French court. Francis I was then just beginning to recover from a severe illness, and perhaps Bryan’s mission, ostensibly, was to congratulate him on the restoration of his health. However Henry was more concerned with the second bull of excommunication drawn up by the Papacy following the execution of Thomas More and Cardinal John Fisher the previous summer. Having already rejected Francis’s efforts to reconcile him with the pope in Marseilles, Henry feared that sooner or later the French king and emperor would combine to enforce the bull by arms. He was also disturbed to hear that certain officials within the French court, including Montmorency, were in favor of an alliance with the emperor. Bryan was instructed, by conferences with Francis and his queen to counteract these influences and encourage the king to ally himself with Henry, against the pope and the emperor. Upon his arrival in Calais on 23 November, Bryan heard of the death of childless Francis Sforza, duke of Milan. This event precipitated a new war between France and the emperor over their respective rights to the city and relieved fears in England of a Franco-Imperial alliance.
Bryan was still a the French court when news arrived on 23 January 1536 of Catherine’s death. He shared the joy of Henry and Anne Boleyn, which was evident enough for the papal ambassador to note in a report to the pope, "that Bryan is glad of news at the death of the poor queen". After her demise, the major cause of Henry’s quarrel with the emperor was removed. No longer in dread of an Imperial invasion and still less fearful of the pope, Henry was also not so dependent upon Francis and thus had no reason to commit himself on the side of France in hostilities arising over Milan. With Catherine out of the way, fewer obstacles remained to block Anglo-Imperial amity. Naturally displeased that Henry would not help him seize Milan, Francis coolly informed Bryan that he would no longer defend Henry’s conduct in matters relating to the Church. Shortly thereafter, Bryan was recalled to England.
He returned to court at the beginning of February to find Cromwell’s officers dissolving the smaller monasteries. His agents had framed a picture of ecclesiastical corruption sufficiently black to justify the most drastic measure. These charges were presented to Parliament, which passed a bill dissolving all monasteries whose annual income was less than £200 and turning their property over to the crown. This was only the first step toward the complete dissolution of the religious houses and brought Henry a large yield from their sales and rents, over £65,000 or almost double his annual nonparliamentary revenue. Bryan made requests for and received some monastic property.
It was in January 1536 that the king first hinted that he might possibly take another wife. Anne’s miscarriage on 27 January, when Henry was hopeful that she was about to produce a son, reawakened old fears concerning a male succession and divine judgement. Also she was now exposed to attack from the partisans of Princess Mary, resentful of the Boleyns’ dominance at court. The death of Catherine of Aragon permitted the Marian faction to select a royal favorite who would challenge Anne and restore the Princess Mary to her place at court and in the succession. This was Jane Seymour who had once served in the household of the old queen. Jane now posed a grave threat to the Boleyn faction and by April Anne’s position at court had become very precarious.
On the 24 April 1536, a commission, whose members included Cromwell, Anne’s father, Thomas earl of Wiltshire and her uncle, Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk, was appointed to investigate Anne Boleyn’s moral conduct. Rumors circulating the court gave Cromwell the opportunity to investigate the queen’s alleged sexual misconduct and release Henry from his already irksome marriage. Sometime prior to 28 April, Bryan had left for Buckinghamshire, so that letters to him from Lord Lisle had to await his return to court. This departure was not unusual since privy chamber members were regularly scheduled to attend the king for six weeks, a period that alternated with an interval of the same length at home. Between 30 April and 6 May Mark Smeaton, William Brereten, Henry Norris, Sir Francis Westen, George Viscount Rochford, and the queen herself entered the Tower of royal prisoners. These five were accused of adultery with Anne and several were tortured to elicit confessions that were probably false.
Shortly after the formation of the commission, Bryan received a message from Cromwell summoning him to court. Because of the nature of the charges against Anne, Cromwell may have questioned Bryan as to possible rumors that he too had sexual relations with her at some time. On his return to Amphill manor, Bedfordshire, he was visited by a long-time friend, Robert Hobbes abbot of Woburn, who exclaimed upon seeing him, "now welcome and never so
welcome!" Feigning astonishment, as if nothing had happened, Bryan answered cooly "Why so?" Sitting down on a bench, the abbot noted the fate of the five young men who had "consented unto (Anne’s) lust", and commended Bryan for not being implicated with them. Hobbes confessed himself to be astounded at the "marvelous and peremptory commandment" Bryan had received from Cromwell, and asked what had occurred after he had gone to London. Bryan replied "it was true that when I was suddenly sent for I marveled". In fact upon receipt of the commandment he must have had a tremendous fright, probably the worst in his life, since he was unsure what vicious story or new rumor may have been discovered to implicate him with Anne. Casually brushing the incident aside, however, he continued: "....but knowing (my allegiance) to (the king)I never hesitated but went straight to my lord privy seal (Cromwell)", who allowed him to see the king only after he had been questioned.
Bryan was silent about the interrogation itself but evidently Cromwell found no evidence that could be used to make a convincing case against him, and therefore he was released. To the further inquiry by the abbot, Bryan added, "What then: (Cromwell) must needs to his master’s commandment, and I assure you there was never a wiser man to order the king’s causes than he is, I pray God save his life". Other individuals were also examined, but the five people who had originally entered the Tower were convicted of treasonable adultery and executed. Undoubtedly Anne and those convicted with her were innocent victims of Cromwell’s need to find Henry a legitimate means to end the marriage other than by divorce.
In a rearrangement of offices a few days before the executions, Bryan took over Henry Norris’s position as Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. In a letter written to Gardiner on 14 May, Cromwell noted that Bryan had been granted an annuity of £100 from Norris’s attainted property. In the same communication Cromwell also used the expression the "Vicar of Hell" with reference to Bryan. This is the first evidence of the use of this appellation. We do not know whether Cromwell invented the term, but it may have been intended as criticism of the apparent indifference Bryan showed to the fate of his cousin Anne, his involvement in conspiracies to replace her with Jane Seymour, and/or to his reputation as a debauchee. suggests that although the evidence is slender, Bryan may have been a key figure in the liaison between the Seymour faction and Mary’s allies; (R. Warnicke, "The Fall of Anne Boleyn:A Reassessment", History, LXX, pp. 4-5) In any case, Cromwell was now stronger than ever at court and well-placed to take advantage of the new queen’s accession.
On 19 May, the day of Anne’s execution, Bryan bore the king’s personal announcement of the event to Jane Seymour, who kept a discreet distance of one mile from the king’s lodging during the proceedings. At the same time Henry was willing to grant the Princess Mary’s reinstatement at court, but only after she accepted him as the Supreme Head of the Church in England, recognized that her mother’s marriage had been invalid, and acknowledged Jane Seymour as his legal wife. When she refused to submit, the king suspected a plot to secure her recognition as his heir apparent, to the detriment of the issue of his marriage to Jane Seymour. Some of Mary’s closest friends were imprisoned, and Henry Courtenay, marquis of Exeter, and Sir William Fitzwilliams were excluded from court.
Then on 14 June Bryan was interrogated again, this time concerning Mary’s claim to the throne. The Reign of Henry VIII, p. 118 He revealed that the rest of his "fellows of the privy chamber" were rejoicing at the fall of Anne, but added, perhaps for their protection, that they had only been willing to support Mary’s presumptive claim if there was no issue from the new marriage and if it were the king’s pleasure". Some of the people he had spoken to included his old friend Sir Nicholas Carew, who fell out of favor with the king when he supported Mary’s reinstatement, Henry Courtenay and Edward Neville. "Reassessment", History, LXX, p. 5 Bryan said nothing during his interrogation that could be used against them, though all these men would be executed two years later for treason. Other allies of Mary with whom Bryan had conversed included Anthony Brown, Sir Thomas Cheyney, and Lord Morley, one of Mary’s long-time Catholic friends whose home Bryan visited that spring.
Bryan may have been questioned because of his known close ties with these men, but his testimony only reveals that Anne Boleyn’s execution had caused a flurry of gossip and speculation among the king’s immediate entourage. Mary’s supporters counseled her to submit to the king’s demands. On 15 June she at last gave in and signed a document which acknowledged Henry as Supreme Head, renounced the pope, and declared the marriage between Henry and her mother to have been "incestuous and unlawful".