Note 34 — Chapter III · THE LADY LATIMER

There were some very curious rumours circulating in London concerning the divorce of Anne of Cleves. Cranmer granted the divorce on the plea that the Queen was still virgo intacta; but “two honest citizens” (letter from Chapuys to Charles V) “were arrested on 9th December 1541 on a plea that they published particulars of Queen Katherine Howard’s inchastity, and said ‘the whole thing was a judgment of God,’ and that the lady of Cleves was the King’s real wife; and that she was in the family way by the King, notwithstanding rumours to the contrary. That it was not true the King had not behaved to her like a husband; and that she was gone away from London and had had a son in the country last summer.”