Requiem Mass and Burial of Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, died on July 16, 1557 during the reign of Mary I. On August 4 she was buried in Westminster Abbey, according to Catholic ritual. As Tracy Borman argues in this History Today article, she may have been the most successful of Henry's wives: she survived him and lived happily ever after. Anne accepted the annulment settlement Henry granted her, acceded to his wishes, and ended up with land and comfort. After Henry's marriage to Catherine Howard ended with her beheading, Anne might have married Henry again:

Speculation began at once about who would be the king’s next wife. Among the potential candidates was Anne of Cleves. She had been careful to remain on good terms with Henry after their annulment, and had shown no signs of resentment at being so humiliatingly rejected. She had been a regular visitor to court and had also received several visits from her former husband, which by all accounts had been very convivial. The pair had exchanged New Year’s gifts in 1542. But the king made no indication of wishing to revive their union, and although Anne was rumoured to be bitterly disappointed when he married his sixth and final wife, Katherine Parr, this may have been just for show.

By that time, Anne was comfortably ensconced at Hever with all the riches and honours of being a queen, but none of the disadvantages of being married to the ageing, bloated and increasingly tyrannical king. She remained there for the rest of her days, outliving her estranged husband, who died in 1547 and was succeeded by Edward, his nine-year-old son.

She avoided Court during Edward VI's reign but soon returned when Mary succeeded:

The archetypal ‘merry widow’ (or divorcee), Anne also outlived Henry’s son, Edward, who died after just six years on the throne. He was succeeded by his elder half-sister Mary, with whom Anne was still on good terms. She and Elizabeth were accorded the place of honour at Mary’s lavish coronation. The two women shared an open chariot which was richly arrayed with crimson velvet and “cloth of silver”. Anne and her younger stepdaughter were also given new dresses made from a similarly rich silver material, and in the procession to Westminster Abbey they walked together directly behind the new queen.

But neither Anne nor Elizabeth would long enjoy Mary’s favour. Their reformist religious views set them at odds with the new conservative Catholic regime, and there were soon rumours that the two women were conspiring against the queen. These were almost certainly untrue: Anne was far too sensible to take such a risk and had no grudge against Mary. Fortunately, Mary retained enough of her former affection for Anne not to act against her.

With characteristic discretion, Anne left court soon after Mary’s accession, resolved to live out her days quietly at Hever and Chelsea – another manor left to her by Henry. It was while staying at the latter that Anne died on 16 July 1557, after a short illness. Although she was only 41 years of age, she had outlived each of Henry VIII’s five other wives – and had had a happier ending than any of them.

Borman's comments about Anne's "reformist religious views" are confusing, since she was buried, according to Westminster Abbey, with Catholic Rites as "Anne had wanted". If she was a Protestant, she would not have wanted a Catholic Requiem Funeral Mass, which was sung by the Abbot of Westminster, John Feckenham. Such a Mass would be replete with prayers for the dead, which a Protestant reformist would probably not have wanted, having rejected the doctrine of Purgatorial perfecting before Heaven. Nancy Bilyeau notes that Anne indeed wanted to be buried with “the suffrages of the holy church according to the Catholic faith.” And the Tudor Times notes, Anne had been born and raised a Catholic (she conformed to Henry's wishes to become an Anglican and returned to the Catholic Church at Mary's request):

During Anne’s early childhood, a large part of the empire, roughly correspondingly to Germany, was convulsed by the religious upheaval instigated by the Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, followed by the hugely destructive Peasants’ War. This tumult led to many of the northern Imperial states seeking to reduce, or even throw off altogether, the control of the Empire in secular matters, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy in religious matters.

In Cleves, Anne’s father did not join the Lutheran party overtly, and Anne was brought up as a Catholic (contrary to what is often supposed). Duke John sought reform of the Church within his territories, but he looked to Erasmus rather than Luther for guidance. Duchess Maria was far less interested in ecclesiastical reform than her husband.

Therefore, the term "reformist religious views" would have to be carefully defined. Many Catholics wanted the Church to be reformed and made more faithful and holy--that doesn't mean they rejected certain Catholic doctrine, worship and devotion or that they became Lutherans. Whether or not Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched, Erasmus remained a Catholic.

One more note about her Catholic funeral: the Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I, was the chief mourner, remaining with Anne's body in state in the Choir of Westminster Abbey, listening to Abbot Feckenham's Catholic sermon on the Psalms, and attending the Requiem, hearing the prayers for Anne and the chant of Dies Irae:

Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulcra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me fons pietatis.

Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuae viae:
ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sunt dignae:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.

Inter oves locum praesta,
et ab haedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.

The monks of the Benedictine Abbey would have prayed for Anne as she and Mary wished through the ages. But when Mary died and Elizabeth came to the throne, Elizabeth would reject Abbot Feckenham's ceremonial greeting, suppress Westminster Abbey, and place the Abbot under arrest. Her religious settlement, in the Thirty-Nine Articles, would again reject prayers for the dead and the doctrine of Purgatory.

Image credit: Doom Painting, St Mary's Church, North Leigh, Oxfordshire, 15th century

William Oddie on Next Year's Interment of the Catholic Richard III as an Anglican Protestant

William Oddie at The Catholic Herald outlines the reasons for regretting that Richard III isn't to be buried in a Catholic church with a Catholic Mass and prayers for the dead:

The point is that he was the last of the Plantagenets and therefore a Catholic King, almost the last (only his usurper remained nominally faithful before the great apostasy): so he ought to be being reinterred in a Catholic cathedral. What is there about that proposition which is even slightly controversial? It may not have been politically doable for our bishops to insist on it: but it is quite clear that the way in which the whole thing is to unfold, with the tacit agreement of the Bishops’ conference, has to be seen as a defeat for the English Catholic Church: it is, in microcosm, a narrative demonstration of our current position within English culture. And I am writing this because someone needs to say that the gruesome ecumenical subservience this indicates ought now to be challenged and repudiated by all English Catholics.

It may of course be that relations are not as calm as they appear on the surface. Is it my imagination, or has there, in fact, been some behind the scenes discord over all this? The reinterment will take place in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as though Richard had been rendered posthumously protestant. Cardinal Nichols, so far as I can see, will not be present. Was he asked? This is what the Cardinal had to say about the whole thing: “The death of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 was a decisive moment in English history. Following his death, Richard III was buried in the Franciscan Friary in Leicester, and his body lay in its grave until it was discovered in 2012. It is now fitting that his remains should be reinterred with dignity and accompanied by the prayers of the Church in Leicester Cathedral, the mediaeval parish church of Leicester. We commend all who have died to the love and mercy of Almighty God, and continue to pray for them, as we shall for Richard III and all who have lost their lives in battle.”

Now, this is strangely worded, considering who wrote it. “The death of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485”, says the Cardinal “was a decisive moment in English history”. Well obviously: but why was it so decisive? Because it placed on the throne the dynasty which renounced papal authority and made it illegal to pray for the departed; which invented the Church of England with all its doctrinal baggage; and which inaugurated a persecution of English Cathoiics which lasted at least four hundred years and which in some ways (though much milder) still persists. The Battle of Bosworth wasn’t just “decisive”: from a Catholic perspective, it was catastrophic. The reinterment of Richard III by a protestant archbishop may be considered to be a triumphal demonstration of how firmly in place still is the anti-Catholic ascendancy that Bosworth made possible.

Perhaps we should view this as a re-set from Father Tomlinson's more hopeful view yesterday--Catholics and the English Catholic past are still so very foreign in England--and the Ordinariate has a lot of work to do!

A Requiem for Today?

When Colin Davis died earlier this year, I posted several movements from Mozart's Requiem on facebook, because I have enjoyed listening to his recording of Mozart's Requiem for years. Last month's BBC Music Magazine featured a free disc of Brahms' A German Requiem, which is not based upon the Catholic Mass at all, but upon texts Brahms selected from Luther's Bible. The booklet with the CD notes that Brahms wrote the Requiem after his mother's death, but that he did not believe in an afterlife at all. The Catholic Requiem Mass is offered for the repose of the soul of the deceased, but Brahms wrote for the consolation of the living, the surviving, mourning, relatives and friends of the deceased--there's no Judgment, and no resurrection of the dead, either; no Heaven or Hell.

Listening to Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem for the first time, I did not really hear the words, but the music is beautiful, so often serene. This site notes that the work did not succeed very well when performed in Catholic countries, but was accepted in England and the USA immediately:

Following the paradigm of reception that we have set up for Germany -- the fact that Catholic towns were far more resistant to the Requiem than their Protestant counterparts -- it comes as no surprise to learn that the Requiem was considerably better received in England and the United States than in Catholic countries such as France and Italy. Indeed, we have little documentation of any reception whatsoever in these countries; in England, on the other hand, reviews, commentary, and performances were abundant from 1871 onwards. There is some statistical disagreement about the number of performances of the Requiem in Europe during Brahms' lifetime: while Musgrave cites the figure of 79 performances outside Germany between 1869 and 1876, Kalbeck reports 85 performances between 1867 and 1876 [22]; in any event, the work was most certainly performed in most major European cities, and subject to repeats on demand on several occasions. In Britain, which had by far the strongest and most positive reception (as was typical for choral and religious music, Musgrave notes), the Requiem premiered in a private performance in London in July 1871, conducted by Julius Stockhausen himself, on one of his frequent visits to Sir Henry Thompson. The public premiere, also in London, was in April of 1873, and was the subject of great critical attention -- most of it quite positive. The work was immediately recognized as difficult, but esteemed at the same time as a work of a great composer, already seen as the successor in the German tradition of Bach and Beethoven. The only major criticism came from those who felt, like Hanslick's original commentary, that the concert hall was the wrong place for such a religious funeral service; others also echoed their Continental counterparts and claimed, alternately, that the work was either too "contemplative" or that it was "unemotional." The second public performance in Britain, in 1876, was similarly received: critics remarked in glowing terms of the great masterpiece, and the only major flaw, they felt, was that English singers were not well-trained to sing the contrapuntal German passages. Not surprisingly, when the London Bach Choir began performing the Requiem on a semi-regular basis, the reviewers raved: vocalists trained for Bach, they agreed, were by far the best-equipped to handle Brahms' difficult demands.

Because it does not pray for the dead or cover those issues of judgment and eternity, Brahms' work is very suited to a more secular age--note this story about the MIT community gathering to perform it after the Boston Marathon bombings:

Unlike other requiems, Brahms wrote his as a comfort for the living. That’s another reason why Buckley wanted to perform it. She said traditional requiems are based on the Latin Mass for the dead.

“One of those texts is about the day of judgment, the day of wrath. So they’re beautiful pieces of music — I mean who doesn’t love the Mozart Requiem? But I think that the Brahms is extra special,” Buckley said. “The connection to his mother is important, and the fact that he chose the text from Luther’s translation of the bible. He believed no text is in judgment of the dead.”

So plans for this massive singing event were set midweek.

Reading the texts Brahms selected does emphasize the comfort, peace and assurance Ein Deutsches Requiem offers--but I did see that he does mention the Resurrection of the Dead:

Behold, I show you a mystery:
We shall not all sleep,
but we all shall be changed
and suddenly, in a moment,
at the sound of the last trombone.
For the trombone shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed.
Then shall be fulfilled
The word that is written:
Death is swallowed up in victory.
O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Fascinating. I'll have to listen to it again.