Henry VIII, along with almost every male in the sixteenth-century, regarded women a being “weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish” and “void of the spirit of council of regimen.” He was consequently pleased by his wife’s actual remarks, and announced that they were again perfect friends and his machinations to have Catherine Parr sent to the Tower under the charge of religious heresy.
Unfortunately, however, he failed to make this fact known to his Lord Chancellor, and next day, while the royal couple were walking happily in the garden, “suddenly and in the midst of mirth” Chancellor Wriothesley with forty of the King’s guards arrived to arrest Catherine and her ladies in waiting. It was on this occasion that Thomas Wriothesley earned his master’s anger and the description “knave, beast and fool.” Possibly, Henry actually forgot to rescind the order; more likely he enjoyed a scene in which his Chancellor was made to look ridiculous. The tale is doubtless embroidered and it is filled with contradictions, but John Foxe’s insistence that the King’s purpose was to test and probe his councilors fits the character of a sovereign who delighted in embarrassing his servants, terrifying his wife, and baffling his advisors because it gave him a sense that power and life were still his.