(Cover image – © Unknown Artist – Pinterest)
Eustace Chapuys was a man destined to play somewhat of a big role at the Tudor court. He was born in 1490 in the city of Annecy to his parents, Louis Chapuys and Guigone Dupuys. Louis worked as a Savoyard diplomat to the emperor Charles V from 1529 to 1545 so it was a no-brainer that his second child, Eustace, would study canon law at three different colleges and start working under the Bishop of Geneva as his representative at 27 years old. During these formative years he established some connections with people like Claude Blancherose, Claude Dieudonné, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Thomas More and John Fisher, all humanists like himself.
The movement called Renaissance humanism was centered around the study of classical works and the power of education. It came as a cyclical cultural turn against medieval scholasticism. As we’ve seen over and over again, generations tend to refuse tradition and rebel against old ways, and this was one of those times.
In July 1517, Eustace was named a canon of the cathedral at Geneva and dean of Viry, and started his work under Duke of Savoy and Charles de Bourbon, which eventually granted him the deanery of Vuillonnex.
A decade later, the duke passed away and Eustace entered the court of Emperor Charles V, serving Nicholas Perrenot, seigneur de Granvelle. This led to him eventually being appointed Charles V's ambassador to England on 25 of June 1529. By that time, English King Henry VIII was already in love with Anne Boleyn and trying to get rid of his wife, Katherine of Aragon. The procurement of that divorce was known as The King’s Great Matter all the way across the continent. Henry had grown tired of his queen after her failure to produce an heir to a throne that hadn’t been really secure after the infamous Wars of the Roses. He was convinced that it was God punishing him for marrying his brother’s widow after reading a Bible verse on the Leviticus that said: "If a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing...they shall be childless." Obviously, he was totally disregarding little Mary, the healthy daughter that Queen Katherine had given him. Henry only saw the miscarriages and the birth of a healthy son by one of his mistresses ten years earlier. Thus, he turned to Anne Boleyn in hopes of getting that royal heir but that wasn’t going to be an easy affair.
Katherine was and had been lots of things over the years. She was daughter of the Catholic Queen and King in Spain, sister to Juana the mad and aunt to Juana’s son Emperor Charles V, who had the Pope eating from the palm of his hand. Tossing Katherine away wouldn’t be easy unless she decided to go to a convent on her own free will, which didn’t happen. Katherine wanted to protect her daughter’s claim to the throne and that didn’t bode well with an invalidation of her marriage to Henry.
That’s how Eustace Chapuys found England and why he was chosen to be an ambassador. Due to all his knowledge in canon law, he was very useful in Katherine’s battle against the English jury that was set by the King who no one dared to act against. She wanted her divorce to be settled by the Pope, but Henry broke up with Rome and created a whole new faith in which he put himself as the head of the church just so he could do as he pleased.
In only a few years, Henry VIII had gone from being declared 'Defender of the Faith' by Pope Leo X for his defense of the Catholic Church against the Lutheran threat to being excommunicated.
In 1533 Henry wedded Anne Boleyn in an intimate ceremony and months later she was crowned Queen of England while visibly pregnant with what he hoped was going to be his prince. Katherine had been downgraded to Dowager Princess of Wales in honor of her previous marriage to Arthur Tudor and was withering away from court. Mary was declared a bastard and she couldn’t visit or even write to her desperate mother. This was ordered so that Katherine and Mary had difficulty to get people to their cause and provoque a rebellion against King Henry who, by 1535 had no heir besides Anne’s daughter Elizabeth. The pain and unwavering faith that Katherine had in her can be read all over the following letter to Eustace Chapuys, dated 1535:
“Mine especial friend,
You have greatly bound me with the pains that you have taken in speaking with the king my lord concerning the coming of my daughter unto me. The reward you shall trust to have of God; for (as you know) in me there is no power to gratify what you have done, but only with my goodwill. As touching the answer which has been made you, that his highness is contented to send her to some place nigh me, so as I do not see her, I pray you vouchsafe to give unto his highness mine effectual thanks for the goodness which he shows to his daughter and mine, and for the comfort that I have thereby received; as as to my seeing of her, you shall certify that, if she were within one mile of me, I would not see her. For the time permitteth not that I should go about sights, and be it that I would I could not, because I lack provision therefore.
Howbeit, you shall always say unto his highness that the thing which I desired was to send her where I am; being assured that a little comfort and mirth, which she should take with me, should undoubtedly be half a health to her. I have proved the like by experience, being diseased of the same infirmity, and know how much good it may do that I say. And, since I desired a thing so just and reasonable, and that so much touched the honor and conscience of the king my lord, I thought not it should have been denied me.
Let not, for my love, to do what you may that this may yet be done. Here have I, among others, heard that he had some suspicion of the surety of her. I cannot believe that a thing so far from reason should pass from the royal heart of his highness; neither can I think that he hath so little confidence in me. If any such matter chance to be communed of, I pray you say unto his highness that I am determined to die (without doubt) in this realm; and that I, from henceforth, offer mine own person for surety, to the intent that, if any such thing should be attempted, that then he do justice of me, as of the most evil woman that ever was born.
The residue I remit to your good wisdom and judgment as unto a trusty friend, to whom I pray God give health.
Katharine the Queen.”
Mary had suffered from headaches and stomachaches ever since she hit puberty and those used to get worse during moments of stress. When Katherine wrote to Eustace it was another one of those bouts, after four years of not seeing each other. Katherine tries to reassure her husband (through Eustace) that he needn’t worry about them causing any trouble and to please let them meet. But alas, they would never meet.
(Catherine of Aragon's death © Unknown Artist – Pinterest)
Eustace visited his queen and brought a fool to distract her, after receiving concerning news about her health. When he left, he did so in high spirits saying that Katherine looked well enough. Sadly, she passed on 7 of January, 1536, only a few months shy of Anne’s own death.
Eustace remained in England until 1545, after introducing his successor, François van der Delft, to the job. He worked tirelessly for Mary’s interests, and fought for her as Katherine herself would’ve, but ever since 1539 he had been suffering from gout and was getting old.
After his well deserved retirement, Chapuys resided in the Low Countries and was a man of considerable wealth, having increased his wealth over the years through smart investments in Antwerp and receiving his ambassadorial pensions.
He created a university in Savoy that has not survived til our days. He had one son who died before him and this was the reason why all his riches went to said school after his death, on 21 January 1556, two decades after Katherine’s demise and two years before Mary’s.
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