CHAPTER VII.

THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (_continued_).

The War with France--The Earl of Surrey Invades that Country--More

elected Speaker--Henry and Parliament--Revolt of the Duke of

Bourbon--Pope Adrian VI. dies--Clement VII. elected--Francis

I. taken Prisoner at the Battle of Pavia--Wolsey grows

unpopular--Change of Feeling at the English Court--Treaty with

France--Francis I. regains his Liberty--Italian League, including

France and England, against the Emperor--Fall of the Duke of

Bourbon at the Siege of Rome--Sacking of Rome, and Capture of the

Pope--Appearance of Luther--Henry writes against him--Is styled

by the Pope "Defender of the Faith"--Anne Boleyn--Henry applies

to the Pope for a Divorce from the Queen--The Pope's Dilemma--War

declared against Spain--Cardinal Campeggio arrives in England to

decide the Legality of Henry's Marriage with Catherine--Trial of

the Queen--Henry's Discontent with Wolsey--Fall of Wolsey--His

Banishment from Court, and Death--Cranmer's Advice regarding the

Divorce--Cromwell cuts the Gordian Knot--Dismay of the Clergy--The

King declared Head of the Church of England--The King's Marriage

with Anne Boleyn--Cranmer made Archbishop--The Pope Reverses the

Divorce--Separation of England from Rome.

On the departure of the emperor, Henry commanded the Earl of Surrey to

scour the Channel before him; and Charles, out of compliment to Henry,

named Surrey, who was Lord Admiral of England, also admiral of his own

fleet of one hundred and eighty sail. Surrey, having seen Charles safely

landed in Spain, returned along the coast of France, ravaging it on all

accessible points. He landed at Cherbourg, in Normandy, burnt the town

of Morlaix, in Brittany, and many other maritime villages, houses of

the people, and castles of the aristocracy. This was preparatory to the

great invasion which Henry contemplated. For this purpose he had recalled

Surrey from Ireland, where he had conducted himself with much ability,

repressed the disorders of the natives, and won the esteem of the chief

population. Henry now gave him the command of the army destined to invade

France. That army, Henry boasted, should consist of forty thousand men;

but the question was, whence the money was to come for its assembly and

payment. The Field of the Cloth of Gold, and the entertainment of the

emperor, following on many other extravagances, had entirely dissipated

the treasures which his father had left him; and, as he was now

endeavouring to rule without a parliament, he was compelled to resort to

those unconstitutional measures of forced loans, which had always covered

with odium the monarchs who used them.

In this unpopular attempt Wolsey was his instrument, and the work he

had now to do ensured him a plentiful growth of dislike. In the first

place, he exacted a loan of £20,000 from the merchants of London, and

scarcely had he obtained possession of it, when he summoned the leading

citizens before him, and demanded fresh advances. On the 20th of August,

1522, the lord mayor, aldermen, and the most substantial merchants

of London appeared before him, to whom he announced that the king had

sent commissioners into the whole realm, to inquire into the actual

rents of the lands in each township, what were the names of the owners

and occupiers, and what was the value of each man's movable property.

According to his account, a new Domesday Book was in preparation; and

he, moreover, informed them that his Majesty had ordered a muster in the

maritime counties of all the men betwixt the ages of sixteen and sixty,

to enrol their names, and the names of the lords of whom they held their

lands.

The deputation returned to the city in deep dejection, and made out their

lists of such as were merchants and dealers and reputed men of substance.

These men, then, themselves waited on the cardinal, and besought him not

to put them to their oath as to their real amount of property, for that

it was difficult for themselves to make a correct estimate of it, and

that, in fact, many an honest man's credit was more than his substance.

Wolsey replied that he "dare swear that the substance of London was

no less than two millions of gold." From this it was obvious that the

cardinal expected from them at least £200,000. But the citizens replied,

"Would to God the city were so rich, but it is sore afflicted by the

occupying of strangers!" The cardinal promised to see that that should be

rectified, and that their loans should be repaid them out of the first

subsidy voted by Parliament, which it was intended to call. But the

victims did not appear much cheered by these assurances: they knew that

Henry was not fond of calling parliaments. If he meant it, why borrow

money when it could be voted? And they went away, saying that for the

last loan some lent a fifth, and now to ask a tenth again was too much.

By these means, however, money enough was raised to put an army in

motion. About the middle of August the Earl of Surrey landed at Calais

with 12,000 men, paid by the king, and 3,000 volunteers. There he was

joined by a body of German, Flemish, and Spanish horse, making a total

force of 16,000. At the head of these he advanced through Picardy and

Artois, desolating the country as he went, burning the defenceless towns,

the castles of the nobles, and the huts of the peasants, and destroying

whatever they could not carry off as spoil. They left the fortified

cities, making no attempt except against Hesdin, which they soon quitted,

finding their artillery not of weight enough. The French, under the

Duke de Vendôme, avoided a general engagement, but they harassed the

outskirts of the army, cut off the supplies, and occasionally a number

of stragglers. The weather was the great ally of the French, for it was

extremely rainy and cold, and occasioned dysentery to break out in the

camp. On the appearance of this fatal foe, the foreign troops hastily

retired into Béthune, and Surrey soon after led back his main body to

Calais, having done the French much mischief, but obtained no single

advantage except the seizure of a quantity of booty.

Francis, meantime, had not only kept his army hovering in front of the

invaders, but he had sent active emissaries to rouse the Irish and Scots,

and thus to distract the attention of the English. In Ireland he turned

his attention to the Earl of Desmond, who still maintained in a great

measure his independence of the English Crown. Francis offered him an

annual pension, on condition that he should take up arms in Ireland

against the English power, and the earl, moreover, seduced by the promise

that a French army would be sent over, engaged to join it, and never

to lay down his arms till he had won for himself a strong dominion in

the island, and the remainder for Richard de la Pole, the heir of the

house of York. But Francis, having obtained his object by the very alarm

created by this negotiation, never sent any troops, never paid the Earl

of Desmond any annuity, and the unfortunate chieftain was left to pay the

penalty of his rash credulity in the vengeance of the English Government.

In Scotland affairs assumed a more formidable aspect. After the return of

Margaret, the queen-mother, from England, she quarrelled with her weak

but headstrong husband, the Earl of Angus, and in 1521 sent and invited

her old antagonist, the Duke of Albany, to return to Scotland from

France, promising to support him at the head of the Government. Nothing

could suit the views of France better than this, for it was already

menaced by Henry of England. Albany landed at Gairloch on the 19th of

November, and thence hastened to the queen at Stirling. This strange,

bold, and dissimulating woman, who had all the imperiousness and the

sensuality of a Tudor, received him with open arms, and entered at once

on such terms of familiarity with him as scandalised all Scotland.

Her husband and his relatives, the Douglases, being summoned by the

regent before Parliament, fled towards the Borders, and took refuge in

the kirk of Steyle. By means of the celebrated Gawin Douglas, the Bishop

of Dunkeld, and one of Scotland's finest poets, who was the uncle of

Angus, the fugitives opened a communication with Henry of England. The

bishop represented the conduct of Margaret as of the most flagitious

kind, attributing to her the design of marrying Albany, and setting aside

her own son. It was even asserted, and Lord Dacre, warden of the Western

Marches, joined in the assertion, that the life of the young king was

in danger, and as much from his own mother as from Albany. There is no

question that the conduct of Margaret was most disgraceful; and though

Albany was anxious to establish quietness and order in Scotland, and to

obtain peace with England, the emissaries of Henry took care to foment

strife between the nobles and the Government. Lord Dacre was--according

to the system introduced by Henry VII., and continued so long as there

was a Tudor on the throne of England--plentifully supplied with money

to bribe the most powerful nobles, especially the Homes, to harass the

Government by their factions.

[Illustration: STIRLING FROM THE ABBEY CRAIG.

(_From a 'photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen._)]

It was in vain, therefore, that Queen Margaret wrote to her brother, the

King of England, protesting that the accusations against her were base

and abominable calumnies, that the Duke of Albany ruled by the choice

and advice of Parliament, and that without him there would be no peace

in Scotland, nor safety for the king or herself. Henry only replied by

upbraiding her with living in shameful adultery, and insisting that

Albany should quit Scotland, or that he would make war upon it. He did

not stop there--he made the same demand of Parliament, and hearing that

Margaret was applying to the Pope for a divorce from Angus, in order to

marry Albany, he exerted all his influence with the Church to prevent it.

The Scottish Parliament, notwithstanding it contained many traitors, made

such by Henry's gold, yet rejected his proposition for the dismissal of

Albany; whereupon Henry ordered all Scottish subjects found in England

to be driven with insult over the Borders, having a white cross marked

upon their backs. And at the same time that he sent Surrey to France,

in the spring of 1522, he also bade the Earl of Shrewsbury march across

the Tweed to punish the Scots. Shrewsbury obeyed the order with great

celerity, and speedily laid waste the fine pastoral country round Kelso,

but was met by a superior force and driven back, not however before he

had aroused great indignation among the people at the wantonness of his

attack and the outrages upon innocent folk and their property with which

it was accompanied.

[Illustration: CARDINAL WOLSEY. (_From the Portrait by Holbein_).]

Instead, therefore, of an invasion of Scotland by the English, Henry was

threatened with a descent of the Scots on his own kingdom, whilst the

gallant Surrey was absent in France. The Duke of Albany, incensed at the

reproaches of Henry regarding his connection with Queen Margaret, at the

demands for his extradition, and at the ferocious inroad of the Earl of

Shrewsbury, declared war against England, with the consent of Parliament.

He called for the muster of all the feudal force of the kingdom, and the

call was answered with such promptness that he beheld himself at the head

of 80,000 men. With such a force, nothing would have been easier to all

appearance than to have overrun the north of England, left almost wholly

destitute of defence. But though the Scottish people were in earnest,

there was treason not only in the camp, but in the very tent of Albany.

The money of Dacre was in the pockets of the most powerful nobles, who

silently but actively spread disunion through his host; and worst of

all, Margaret, who, like her brother, was continually roving in her

affections from one person to another, was already weary of Albany, and

was in covert communication with Lord Dacre, and betraying the secrets

and plans of Albany to him. It is said that Henry, through Lord Dacre,

had completely corrupted the queen, probably by assisting her with money,

but still more by offering to receive her again to his favour, and to

secure her interests by marrying Mary, the Princess of England, to her

son, the young King of Scots. Influenced by these hopes, the unprincipled

queen exerted herself to weaken the measures of Albany, and to diminish

the influence of France in the country as much as possible.

Albany, therefore, though he advanced to the banks of the Tweed, and even

reached within a few miles of Carlisle, found the spirit of his host

continually on the decline. On the other hand, Lord Dacre had expended

his money in extensive bribery, and was almost destitute of soldiers; yet

he pretended that a great army was on the march to him, which would show

the Scots another Flodden Field, and so imposed on Albany that he was

willing to treat instead of being ready to fight. He engaged to disband

his forces if Dacre would engage to keep back the imaginary advancing

troops of England. Wolsey, who was watching in the northern counties with

deep anxiety the result of this contest between military multitudes and

political cunning, could not sufficiently express his astonishment, as

he saw the stupendous armament of Scotland melt away before the empty

bugbears of Lord Dacre's creation. "By the great wisdom and policy of my

Lord Dacre, and by means of the safe-conduct lately sent at the desire

and contemplation of the Queen of Scots, the said Duke of Albany hath,

our Lord be praised, not only forborne his invasion, but also dissolved

his army; which, being dispersed, neither shall nor can, for this year,

be gathered or assembled again." And the cardinal proceeds to give us a

specimen of the easy nature of his political morality, in saying, "And

yet the said abstinence [armistice] concluded by my Lord Dacre, _he_ not

having your authority for the same, _nothing bindeth your grace_; but,

at your liberty, ye may pursue your wars against the said Scots, if it

shall be thought to your highness convenable." On the 11th of September,

1522, the treaty between Albany and Dacre was concluded, and Albany went

over to France for fresh supplies of men and money, leaving the Earls of

Huntly, Arran, and Argyle to administer affairs during his absence. Thus,

about the same time, Henry saw his French and his Scottish campaign for

that year terminated.

His great and difficult business was now to raise the necessary funds for

prosecuting his further designs against France. For eight years he had

forborne to call a Parliament, but to postpone longer a summons of this

engine of supply was not possible. He had pushed to the extreme point

all the modes, legal and illegal, of extracting funds from his subjects;

and the reluctance with which his last forced loan had been conceded,

and the solemn promises which he had made to call a Parliament, left

him no alternative. No king who ever reigned had a higher notion of the

royal prerogative, and the hearty commendation he afterwards bestowed on

Charles V. for destroying the last vestiges of free institutions in Spain

showed plainly what he would fain have carried out in England. But sturdy

as was his Tudor soul, he found that the English people had an equally

stubborn will, and on the 15th of April, 1523, he summoned a Parliament

at Blackfriars, London, where Wolsey sat at his feet as Chancellor.

The Commons chose, as was supposed through the influence of the Court,

Sir Thomas More as Speaker. Sir Thomas was not only a man of profound

learning, but a felicitous genius, and extremely witty. His conversation

was greatly relished by the queen, who had introduced him to the private

suppers with the king, who became as much fascinated by his society. Sir

Thomas was evidently well aware of the difficult part which he would

have to sustain in such a post, for he hung back from it, declaring

how unfit he was for it. But Wolsey, who calculated greatly on his

genius, protested that he was qualified for it by his great abilities

and judgment more than almost any man. After a few days' session of

Parliament, Wolsey went down to the House, contrary to all custom and

privilege, and presented a royal message, to the effect that Francis,

by his conduct, had made a war absolutely necessary, that the honour of

the country was deeply concerned, and that it was a fine opportunity for

England to recover all that it had lost in that country. He concluded his

address by recommending them to vote immediately a property-tax of twenty

per cent., which would raise the sum of £800,000.

Such a sum had never before been asked by any English king in his wildest

dreams of foreign conquest. The House sat as if thunderstruck, and in

profound silence. Wolsey had imagined that his presence, surrounded by

all the symbols of his grandeur, would completely overawe the House; and

that with a Court favourite of such distinction as Sir Thomas More, he

should carry the monstrous demand by surprise. He had, therefore, come

environed by his pompous retinue of prelates and nobles, and with his

silver pillars and crosses, his maces, his poleaxes, his hat and Great

Seal borne before him. But not all his magnificence moved the Commons

where its privileges had been thus grossly invaded, and its money was

thus boldly demanded. The whole House sat as silent as the senate of

Rome when Brennus and his savage Gauls burst in upon it. Wolsey gazed

upon them in amazement, looking from one to another. The proud cardinal

then addressed a member by name. The member arose, bowed, and sat down

again without uttering a word. Still more surprised at this dumb show,

Wolsey called upon another member for an explanation, but obtained none.

Growing wrathful, for he was not accustomed to such treatment, he broke

out:--"Masters, as I am sent here by the king, it is not unreasonable to

expect an answer. Yet, unless it be the manner of your House, as very

likely it may, by your Speaker only in such cases to express your mind,

here is, without doubt, a most marvellous silence."

Whilst he said this, he looked fixedly and angrily at Sir Thomas More,

unquestionably expecting different conduct from him. But Sir Thomas,

dropping on his knee, said that the House felt abashed in the presence of

so great a personage--which, he added, was enough to amaze the wisest and

most learned men of the realm; that the House, according to its ancient

privileges, was not bound to return any answer; and as for himself,

unless all the members present could put their several thoughts into his

head, he was unable to give his grace an answer on so weighty a matter.

The cardinal then retired, much displeased with the House, and still more

with the Speaker.

After the great minister had retired, the House went into a warm debate.

Some of the members affirmed that there was not above £800,000 of cash

in the kingdom; and if the money were gathered into the king's hands,

no trade could be carried on except by barter. The courtiers urged all

the ingenious arguments that they could invent, or with which they were

supplied, to show the necessity of the grant; and the king was in such

a rage that he is said to have even threatened some of the members with

death. It was, in fact, a stout resistance to oppression of the people,

and one of the most determined stands for privilege of Parliament ever

made in this country.

The contest grew to such a pitch that the cardinal, fearful of the

result, determined to go to the House a second time, notwithstanding the

clear intimation given him that his presence was considered a breach of

privilege. He made them a speech, going over all the arguments which had

been advanced by the opposition, and then begged them to tell him what

they had to object; but they only returned him the answer, through the

Speaker, that they would hear his grace with humility, but could only

reason amongst themselves; and he was obliged to go away as he came.

When he had departed, they resumed the debate; and at length, at the

earnest entreaty of the Speaker, they voted two shillings in the pound

on all who enjoyed twenty pounds a year or upwards; one shilling on all

who possessed from two pounds to twenty; and on all subjects with incomes

below that scale, a groat a head. This was not a moiety of what the king

had demanded, and the payment was spread over four years, so that it did

not really amount to above sixpence in the pound. The lesson which Henry

here received did not incline him to call another Parliament speedily.

He had summoned none for eight years before; and there is no doubt that

he asked for this extravagant sum that he might dispense with Parliament

for another term as long. He did not, as it was, call another for seven

years.

The king, in his anger at the Commons, boasted to the mayor and aldermen

of London that he should find a very different spirit amongst the

clergy; but even these he tried beyond their patience. He demanded no

less than fifty per cent. of the incomes of their benefices, to make up

the deficiency from the laity. But the clergy were not disposed to be

mulcted of half their incomes at a blow; they made as stout a resistance

as the House of Commons. Wolsey, to make sure of them, summoned the

convocations of the two provinces, which had met in their usual manner,

by his legatine authority, to assemble in a national synod in Westminster

Abbey. But there the proctors declared that they had only power to grant

money in regular convocation, not in synod; and he was obliged to permit

them to depart, and vote in their ordinary way. The convocation of the

cardinal's own province of York waited to see what Canterbury would

first do, which was more independent of Wolsey's power. In the Lower

House the resistance was resolute, and was kept alive by the eloquence

of a preacher of the name of Philips, till he was won over to the Court

by substantial promotion. In the Upper House, the Bishops of Winchester

and Rochester animated the prelates to such opposition, that the grant

was not carried for four months, and then, being spread over five years,

amounted, not to fifty, but only to ten per cent.

[Illustration: SILVER GROAT OF HENRY VIII.]

The money obtained at all this cost of difficulty in Parliament, and

of unpopularity with the people, was lavishly expended in repelling

the attempts of the Scots, in furnishing aid to the allies in Italy,

and in preparing for another expedition into France. It was of the

first importance, before sending the army across the Channel, to obtain

security on the side of Scotland. To this end Henry made fresh overtures

to his sister, Queen Margaret, offering to place her at the head of

the Government, and to enable her to put down the party of Albany, who

was now absent in France collecting fresh means for maintaining the

war. He sent the Earl of Surrey, son of the victor of Flodden Field, to

co-operate with her, to win over as many as possible of the nobles with

money, and to lay waste the Borders, so that they should be incapable of

furnishing supplies to an invading army.

[Illustration: GOLD CROWN OF HENRY VIII.]

Margaret now had every opportunity which a woman of spirit and reputation

could wish. She was strongly supported by the power of England, and her

great opponent was for ever defeated. She proclaimed her son, and assumed

the regency; but her worst enemy was herself. She fell into her old

habits; and her scandalous attachment to Henry Stuart, the son of Lord

Evandale, soon ruined her prospects. Henry once more abandoned her, and

raised her husband, the Earl of Angus, to the chief power. It was in

vain that Margaret applied for assistance to Francis I., and humiliated

herself so far as to solicit the return of Albany. From this moment there

was more tranquillity in Scotland. The French faction, seeing support

from France hopeless, were compelled to remain quiet. Truce after truce

was established with England; and for eighteen years the Borders rested

from hostilities.

[Illustration: GEORGE NOBLE OF HENRY VIII.]

The position of the King of France was, at this crisis, becoming more

and more critical. His kingdom was environed with perils, and menaced

with ruin, which could only be averted by singular courage and address.

Against him was arrayed a most formidable confederacy of the Pope, the

emperor, the King of England, and the various states of Italy. He had

not a single ally, except the King of Scotland, a minor, and without

authority. The internal condition of France was extremely discouraging.

The wars of Francis in Italy and at home, his gay life and expensive

pleasures, with his extravagant grants to his favourites, had exhausted

his treasury, and involved him in grave embarrassment. The troops were

ill-paid, and, as is usual in such cases, became disorderly and infested

the highways, plundered the peasantry, and filled the whole kingdom with

alarm and discontent. The Court partook of the licence and distraction

of the nation; it was rent by faction, and the most dangerous secret

conspiracy was at work in it. This was the doing of the Duke of Bourbon,

Constable of France, who had been wronged in a lawsuit with the king.

Charles V. and Henry of England thereupon entered into a secret treaty

with the disaffected prince to betray his sovereign and his native

country. The transaction was a disgraceful one to all parties concerned.

In Bourbon, notwithstanding his grievous wrongs, it was a base as well as

an impolitic deed; in Henry and Charles, it was one destructive of the

security of the throne, and of every principle of honour which should

guide the counsels of kings. Henry felt the vileness of the proceeding,

but endeavoured to justify it as a fair retaliation, for that Francis had

tampered with his Irish subject, the Earl of Desmond.

[Illustration: DOUBLE SOVEREIGN OF HENRY VIII.]

The Lord of Beaurain had been employed as the secret agent of the

emperor; and Sir John Russell--this being one of the first public notices

of the Russells in history--as that of Henry. A private treaty was

concluded, of which the substance was as follows:--The emperor and the

King of England were to invade France simultaneously, the one in the

north, the other in the south, while Bourbon himself was to excite a

rebellion in the heart of the kingdom, supported by all the connections

of his family, whom he calculated at 200 knights and gentlemen, with

their retainers. The attempt was to be made the moment Francis had

crossed the Alps; and when the conquest of France was complete, Bourbon,

in addition to his appanage of the Bourbonnais and Auvergne, was to

receive Provence and Dauphiné, which together were to constitute a

kingdom for him. He was, moreover, to receive the hand of the emperor's

sister, Eleanor, Queen-Dowager of Portugal. The emperor was to have, as

his share of the spoil, Languedoc, Burgundy, Champagne, and Picardy, and

Henry VIII. the rest of France.

Such was the traitorous scheme which was now opened up to the astonished

gaze of Francis. Had he crossed the Alps before he received the

intelligence, it might have been fatal. He had received some dark hints

of mischief to be apprehended from Bourbon previously; and on his way

south, he had suddenly presented himself at the duke's castle, and called

upon him to accompany the expedition to Italy; but the duke made it

appear that the state of his health rendered that impossible. Francis,

not by any means satisfied, set a strict but secret guard upon his

castle, and proceeded to Lyons; but there the news reached him that the

pretended sick man had managed to escape in disguise, and was on his way,

through the intricacies of the mountains of Auvergne and Dauphiné, to

join the emperor's army in Italy.

[Illustration: POUND SOVEREIGN OF HENRY VIII.]

The Powers of England and the Netherlands appeared, in pursuance of the

secret treaty with Bourbon, on the soil of France about the same time.

The Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, the commander of the English army,

landed at Calais on the 24th of August, and, joining to his troops those

collected from the garrisons of Calais, Ham, and Guines, found himself

at the head of 13,000 men. He marched on the 19th of September, and the

next day fell in with the Imperial troops from the Netherlands, under

Van Buren. The allies now amounted to 20,000; but instead of marching

to join the Imperial forces coming from Germany, they remained under

the walls of St. Omer, debating whether they should do this or invest

Boulogne. After having wasted a precious month, they decided to leave

Boulogne, and endeavour to form a junction with the Germans. But they

had now allowed Francis ample time to thwart all their objects. He had

sent a strong detachment, under the Duke of Guise, to throw themselves

in the way of the Germans; whilst the Dukes of Vendôme and Tremouille

kept a sharp watch over the movements of the allied army. Suffolk and Van

Buren traversed Artois and Picardy, crossed the Somme and the Oise, and

alarmed Paris by pitching their tents near Laon, within twenty miles of

the capital. They had stopped by the way to invest Bray, Montdidier, and

some other small places, and now confidently expected the arrival of the

German army.

But the Germans by this time were in full flight before the Duke of

Guise, and Vendôme and Tremouille manoeuvred more menacingly on the

front and flank of the Allies. Tremouille, in particular, grew more and

more audacious, beat up their quarters with his cavalry, harassed them by

frequent skirmishes, and intercepted their convoys. The position of the

allied troops became every day more critical. They were threatened with

a growing force in their rear, drawn from the garrisons of Picardy, and

there was danger of their supplies, which were all derived from Calais,

being cut off. The troops were become sickly, and discontented with their

situation. It was high time to retrace their steps, and they commenced

their march by way of Valenciennes. But the weather was very rainy, the

roads were almost impassable, cold and frost succeeded, and the sickness

and murmurs of the troops augmented every day. Numbers perished on the

march; all were eager to reach their homes; and, as the Flemings drew

near their frontiers, they deserted in shoals. The armies then separated,

and Suffolk reached Calais in December, with his forces greatly reduced,

and all in miserable condition.

On the 14th of September, whilst the Duke of Suffolk was advancing on

Paris, an event occurred which arrested the attention of Cardinal Wolsey

even more than the engrossing moves on the great chess-board of war. This

was the death of the Pope Adrian. He had occupied the papal chair only

about twenty months; and so impatient were the Italians of the Flemish

pope and his strict economy, that they styled the doctor who attended him

in his last sickness the "saviour of his country." Wolsey lost no time in

putting in his claim; and wrote to Dr. Clark, the English ambassador at

Rome, telling him to spare neither money nor promises, for that it was

by command of the king, who would undoubtedly see all his engagements

performed. This time Wolsey was put in nomination, and obtained a

considerable number of votes; but there was no real chance for him, for

the Italians were clamorous to have no more ultramontane, or, as they

styled them, barbarian popes. Charles V., despite his promises to Wolsey,

not only did not move a finger in his favour, but threw all his influence

into the scale to carry the election of Julius de Medici; whilst the

French cardinals, to a man, were opposed to Wolsey as the most dangerous

enemy to their sovereign. The conclave met in October, and the discussion

was continued through six stormy weeks. The election at length was seen

to lie between Jacovaccio Romano and Julius de Medici. Cardinal Pompeo

Colonna, who held the most decisive influence in the conclave, threw his

weight into the scale for Romano, and the balance hung undecided; but all

at once it gave way. Colonna, although he hated the Medici, gave up his

opposition, and Julius was unanimously elected.

Wolsey, to all appearance, bore this second disappointment with the

equanimity of a philosopher; yet we may justly imagine that it produced

a deep change in his feelings towards the emperor, and led to a hostile

policy against his interests and those of Queen Catherine, his aunt,

in England. But Wolsey had prepared for either event, his election

or rejection; and the moment the latter became certain, the whole of

the influence of the English Government was employed in favour of the

election of Julius de Medici. On the strength of this, the English

ambassadors congratulated Julius on his elevation, and solicited the

continuance of the legatine commission to Wolsey. The Pope, who assumed

the name of Clement VII., not only renewed the commission, but granted

it for life, with augmented powers; and added to it a commission to

reform or suppress certain religious houses in England. This was a

dangerous power, and as Wolsey, in 1525--only two years afterwards--by

this authority suppressed a number of monasteries, it is by no means

improbable that it led Henry to think of those more sweeping changes of

the same kind which he afterwards effected. The money thus procured was

devoted, notwithstanding the necessities of the State, to the erection of

colleges, where both Wolsey and his master declared they were anxious to

educate able men in order to oppose effectually the fast-growing heresies

of Martin Luther.

The campaign in Italy opened in the spring of 1524, with wonderfully

increased difficulties for the French. Charles V. had appointed the

renegade Duke of Bourbon his generalissimo in that country against his

own sovereign and compatriots. Henry of England engaged to furnish

100,000 crowns for the first month's pay of the duke's army, and to make

a diversion by invading Picardy in July. The emperor promised to defray

the cost of the Italian army for the remainder of the campaign, and to

invade Languedoc at the same time. Thus supported, Bourbon took the field

early in the spring; and by the end of May the duke had completely freed

Italy of his countrymen, and driven them across the Alps. The losses

of the French in this retreat were dreadful, and perhaps the greatest

calamity was the death of the famous Chevalier Bayard, the knight "sans

peur et sans reproche," who was killed as he was protecting the rear of

the army, on the banks of the Sesia (April 30, 1524.)

Bourbon, ardent and impatient to secure the kingdom which had been

promised him in France, as well as thirsting with desire to take the

utmost vengeance on Francis I., entreated the emperor to allow him

to quit Italy and enter France with his victorious army. The emperor

consented, and the Imperial forces soon found themselves descending

from the Alps. Unfortunately, Charles had divided the command of this

expedition between Bourbon and the Marquis of Pescara, and the certain

result was divided councils. Bourbon urged to push forward to Lyons,

calculating on his friends and dependants in France flocking to him

there; but Pescara had probably different instructions, and accordingly

advised that they should descend on Provence, and lay siege to

Marseilles. This was palpably the suggestion of the emperor, for he was

ambitious of securing Marseilles, and holding it as a key to the south of

France, as Calais was to the north, in the hands of the English. Thither,

therefore, they marched, entered Provence on the 2nd of July, and on the

19th of August they sat down before Marseilles with an army of 16,000 men.

But the situation of the Imperial troops soon became extremely hazardous

there. The place was strongly fortified; it contained a garrison of 3,200

men, and these were zealously supported by 9,000 of the inhabitants,

who, detesting the Spaniards, took up arms and fought most gallantly.

Bourbon and Pescara spent forty days in mining and bombarding the place,

when they became aware of a tempest gathering which boded their utter

destruction. This was Francis marching from Avignon at the head of 40,000

men. Neither Henry nor the emperor had made those diversions in Languedoc

and Picardy which they had promised, and thus the whole weight of the

army of France was at liberty to descend upon them. Bourbon and Pescara

precipitately abandoned the siege, made for the Alps, and regained Italy.

At this moment Francis committed a military error, which probably

deprived him of the triumph of thoroughly routing his enemies. To

have continued the pursuit was almost certain to have destroyed the

Imperialist force, for it was worn down by its severe marches, and the

road to Lodi by which Pescara retreated was actually strewn with his

exhausted horses. The army of Pescara was the sole Imperial force now

in Italy, and its defeat would have been the immediate recovery of the

Milanese territory. But Francis was beguiled into the delay of besieging

Pavia, in which Pescara had left a strong garrison, under Antonio da

Leyva. Pavia was a well-fortified city, situated on the deep and rapid

Ticino, in a peculiarly strong position, and had repeatedly defied

armies for a long time together, particularly those of the Lombards

and of Charlemagne. The moment Pescara heard of Francis sitting down

before it, he exclaimed that he was saved! Every exertion was made by

the Imperialists to profit by the time thus given them. The Duke of

Bourbon hastened over the Alps to Germany to raise 12,000 men, for which

purpose he had pawned his jewels. Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, pledged

the regular revenues of that kingdom for ready cash for the hiring of

troops, and great activity was displayed in raising an army and posting

it betwixt the Adda and the Ticino.

For three months Francis continued lying before Pavia, and committed the

further error of weakening his forces, by detaching 6,000 of them, under

Albany, the late regent of Scotland, to menace the kingdom of Naples.

In the beginning of February, 1525, the Imperialist generals thought

themselves strong enough to attack the French in their entrenchments.

These entrenchments were very formidable. The rear-guard was posted in

the beautiful castle of Mirabello, in the midst of an extensive park,

enclosed by high and solid walls. But Leyva, who commanded the garrison,

found means to communicate with the Imperial generals outside, and

he sent them word that they must either relieve him or that he must

attempt to cut his way out, for famine was urgent amongst his troops.

The generals themselves were suffering from want of provisions and pay

for their troops. In the French camp the wisest commanders counselled

Francis to raise the siege and retire to Milan, confident that the enemy

must soon disband from want of pay. But Bonivet treated this counsel as

mean and dastardly; and, unfortunately, this was the tone most likely to

captivate the chivalrous mind of the French king. He resolved to stand

his ground.

On the 24th of February, Bourbon, Pescara, and Lannoy, having distracted

the attention of the French for several days previously by false

attacks, at midnight led out their troops silently to the park. A body

of pioneers commenced operations on the wall, and before daylight they

had effected a breach of a hundred paces in length, and at dawn they

carried the castle by surprise. Francis drew his troops out of their

entrenchments and made a push across the Ticino, but he found the bridge

demolished, and a strong body of the Spaniards closely drawn up on the

banks. Attacked fiercely by the garrison in the rear, and hemmed in by

the Imperial army in front, the battle became desperate. Francis had

his horse killed under him; the Swiss, contrary to their wont, turned

and fled at the first charge; and the Germans, who fought with singular

valour, were annihilated to a man. The Spanish musketeers then broke the

French ranks; and the king, being already wounded twice in the face, and

once in the hand, refused to surrender to the Spaniards who environed

him. Fortunately, Pomperant, a French gentleman in the service of the

Duke of Bourbon, recognised him, and called Lannoy, to whom the king

resigned his sword. Lannoy, kneeling, kissed the king's hand, took the

sword, and gave him his own in return, saying it did not become a monarch

to appear unarmed in the presence of a subject. The king was relieved of

his helmet by James D'Avila; and the Spanish soldiers, who admired his

valour, came crowding around him, and snatched the feathers from it, and,

when they were all gone, even cut pieces from his clothes, to keep as

memorials that they had fought hand to hand with him. Francis was soon

left standing in his jerkin and hose, and, despite his misfortune, could

not help laughing at his situation, and at the eagerness of the soldiers

for something belonging to him.

The amazement and consternation which fell on France at the news of this

terrible disaster are scarcely to be imagined. Nothing, indeed, could be

more melancholy than the situation of that kingdom. Her king was captive,

her most distinguished generals and the flower of the army were taken or

slain; powerful and triumphant enemies on all sides were ready to seize

her as a spoil, and she was equally destitute of allies, of money, of

troops, or wise counsel. Scarcely less was the terror of the princes and

the states of Italy, for their only safety--the balance of power--was

destroyed, and there appeared no defence against the predominant power of

the emperor.

Charles himself assumed an air of singular composure and moderation on

the receipt of this brilliant news. He had been daily expecting to hear

of the defeat of his army, when, on the 10th of March, came the tidings

of this great victory. We may imagine, therefore, his real joy. But

such was his command of his feelings that nothing of this appeared in

his manner. He perused the dispatches with the most perfect composure,

affected even to commiserate the fall of his rival, and moralised

sagely on the uncertainty of human greatness. A little time, however,

was sufficient to show that this was dissimulation, and his conduct to

Francis was ample proof that he had neither pity nor generosity.

Henry of England, on the contrary, gave freedom to his expressions of

joy. Though he was actually on his way to coalesce with Francis against

Charles, he saw at once the immense advantages this defeat and capture

offered for aggressions on his kingdom, and he therefore ordered the most

public rejoicings in London and other cities, and rode himself in state

to St. Paul's, where Wolsey performed mass, assisted by eleven bishops,

in presence of the Court and all the foreign ambassadors; and afterwards

_Te Deum_ was sung. Henry then posted off Tunstall, Bishop of London, and

Sir Richard Wingfield, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, into Spain

to congratulate the emperor on his splendid triumph, and modestly to

propose that they should divide France between them.

To induce Charles to consent to this improbable arrangement, Henry

proposed at once to put the Princess Mary, who was betrothed to Charles,

into his hands--in fact, to make the exchange of her person for that of

Francis. Henry was the more buoyed up in these wild notions by the fact

that the ambassador of Charles had just been applying for the delivery of

the princess.

[Illustration: SURRENDER OF FRANCIS ON THE BATTLE-FIELD OF PAVIA. (_See

p._ 140.)]

So confident was Henry of the cession of his claims by the emperor,

that he instantly took measures to raise the money necessary for the

invasion of France. As he had resolved to rule without the interference

of parliaments, he sent out commissioners to every part of the country to

levy the sixth part of the goods of the laity and a fourth of those of

the clergy. The scheme was entirely unconstitutional, the commissioners

performed their part in a harsh and overbearing manner, trusting thus to

intimidate the people into compliance, and the consequence was universal

resentment and resistance. Clergy and laity, rich and poor, all alike

denounced the arbitrary and illegal impost. "How the great men took it,"

says Hall, "was a marvel: the poor cursed, the rich repugned, the lighter

sort railed, and, in conclusion, all men execrated the cardinal as the

subverter of the laws and liberties of England. For, said they, if men

should give their goods by a commission, then were it worse than the

taxes of France, and so England would be bond, and not free." This was

the more just because the cardinal in person acted as commissioner in

London, and lent all the weight of his office and position to sanction

the oppression. He used all his arts to prevail on the citizens to

comply, but neither threats nor blandishments moved them. The resistance

was obstinate and universal.

In London the excitement became excessive; the people placarded the walls

with their complaints, and the clergy preached against the arbitrary

tax, and declared that for themselves they would pay no money which

was not voted in Convocation. From London the fire spread through the

other towns, the people began to take up arms, the clergy to encourage

them, and Henry, who was soon terrified, with all his bluster, took the

alarm, and declared that he wanted nothing from his loving subjects but

as a benevolence. But the very word benevolence awoke a host of hateful

recollections. The tumult was only increased by it; and a lawyer in

the city published the passage from the Act of Richard III., by which

benevolences were abolished for ever. This seemed to arouse the lion

spirit in Henry. The prospect of the crown of France was too fascinating

to be lightly surrendered; he therefore called together the judges,

and demanded their opinion on his power to tax his subjects without

Parliament. The venal judges reminded the king that Richard III. was a

usurper, and that his Parliament was a factious Parliament, the acts

of which were illegal and void, and could in no wise bind a legitimate

and _absolute_ king, who, like him, held the Crown by hereditary right.

This bold and base doctrine was loudly echoed by the Privy Council, but

vain were such authorities with the people. On hearing this decision,

they again flew to arms. In Kent they speedily drove the commissioners

and tax-gatherers out of the county; in Suffolk they marched in an armed

body of 4,000 or 5,000 men, and even threatened the duke of the county,

Brandon, the king's brother-in-law, who was the chief commissioner there,

with death. Surrey, who stood high in the estimation of the people,

interfered to calm them, and to prevent mischief; and Henry saw that the

contest was hopeless, and by proclamation retracted his demand. Wolsey,

who had been extremely prominent in endeavouring to enforce the detested

tax, now caused a report to be industriously circulated, that he had, in

truth, never been favourable to it, but the people only replied when they

heard it, "God save the king! we know the cardinal well enough."

But Henry might have spared himself this tumult and unpopularity. The

emperor was never less likely than now to concede such favours and

advantages to him. He was a deep and subtle prince; no man could see more

intuitively and instantly the wonderful change in his power and position

which the battle of Pavia created. Charles had calculated upon Henry

for large subsidies during the war, but instead of receiving these, he

had found Henry as much straitened for money as he was himself. It was

now discovered that the emperor had already made a truce of six months

with France, and he coolly advised the ambassadors to seek from their

sovereign power, not negotiations for the invasion of France, but the

terms on which the French king should be liberated. To crown all, and

leave no question of the feeling which Henry's late conduct had produced

in Charles's Court, he wrote to Henry, no longer styling himself his

loving uncle and penning the grossest flatteries with his own hand, but

he simply and curtly signed himself Charles to official communications

duly and officially prepared.

This was a rebuff not to be received complacently by a man of Henry's

vain and volcanic spirit. He read the astounding dispatches with an

amazement which burst into a tempest of rage. At once a tide of impetuous

revulsion flowed over his whole soul. He abandoned in a moment all ideas

of conquests, invasions, and the crown of France, and determined to do

everything in his power to procure the liberation of Francis, and to

unite with him against the perfidious and insulting Spaniard. He had

dismissed the French envoys, who were residing privately in London, on

the news of the capture of Francis, but he now let it be understood

that their presence would be heartily welcome. Louise, the mother of

Francis, accepted the hint, and John Brenon, president of the council

of Normandy, and her favourite envoy, Giovanni Joacchino, were again

despatched to London. A truce for four months was immediately concluded,

and Wolsey, who fanned the new flame in Henry's bosom for objects and

resentments of his own, soon arranged the terms of a treaty with them.

These terms were extremely acceptable to Henry, as they furnished him

with a prospect of a considerable addition to his income, without the

disagreeable necessity of having to go to Parliament for it. The treaty

consisted of six articles. By the first, the contracting parties engaged

to guarantee the integrity of each other's territories against all

the princes in the world. The object of this was to prevent Francis

from bartering any of his provinces with Charles for his liberty. By

the second, Francis and his heirs were made to guarantee to Henry the

payment of 2,000,000 crowns, by half-yearly instalments, and 100,000

crowns for life, after the payment of that amount. Nine of the chief

noblemen of France, and nine of the richest cities also, gave up their

bonds for the security of these payments. By the third article, the

King of France engaged to pay up all the arrears of the dowry of Mary,

the Queen-Dowager of France. The rest of the articles were for the

prevention of depredations at sea, for comprehending the King of Scots in

the treaty, and for the prevention of the return of the Duke of Albany

to Scotland during the minority of James V. This treaty was signed at

the king's house in Hertfordshire, on the 30th of August. The cardinal,

who never forgot himself on these occasions, was well rewarded for his

trouble in promoting and arranging this alliance. He received a grant of

100,000 crowns for his good offices in the affair, and the arrears of his

pension in lieu of his surrender of the bishopric of Tournay, the whole

to be paid in equal instalments in the course of seven years and a half.

But whilst the French regent, Louise, made these liberal concessions

for the friendship of Henry, and showed every apparent disposition to

guarantee the conditions, Louise swearing to them, and Francis ratifying

them, care was taken to leave a loophole of escape at any future period.

The attorney and solicitor-general entered a secret protest against the

whole treaty, so that Francis might, if occasion required, plead the

illegality of the whole transaction.

But it was not so easy to procure the liberation of the captive King

of France. Moderate as Charles had professed to be, and sympathetic

regarding the misfortunes of Francis, he soon showed that he was

determined to extort every possible advantage from having the royal

captive in his hands. He had been detained in the strong castle of

Pizzighettone, near Cremona; but, thinking that he should be able to

influence the emperor by his presence, he petitioned to be removed to the

Alcazar of Madrid. At length, however, on the 14th of January, 1526, was

signed the famous treaty called the Concord of Madrid, one of the most

grasping and impudent pieces of extortion which one prince ever forced

from another in his necessity. By this treaty Francis gave up all that he

had offered before--namely, all claims of superiority over Flanders and

Artois, and the possession of Naples, Milan, Genoa, and the other Italian

territories, for which France had spent so much blood and treasure. But

besides this, Francis was to deliver to the emperor his two sons, the

Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, as hostages, and also bind himself, if

he did not, or could not, fulfil his engagements within four months,

to return and yield himself once more prisoner. He was to marry Queen

Eleanora of Portugal, the sister of Charles, and the Dauphin was to marry

the Princess Maria, the daughter of Eleanora. But these were but a small

part of the demands. Francis was bound to persuade the King of Navarre

to surrender his rights in that kingdom to Charles, and the Duke of

Gueldres to appoint Charles the heir to his dominions; and if he failed

to persuade them, he was to give them no aid when the emperor invaded

their states. Next, Francis was to lend his whole navy, 500 men-at-arms,

and 6,000 foot-soldiers, to put down the princes of Italy, who were

uniting to effect his own freedom! Then, Francis was to pay to the King

of England all those sums which the emperor himself had engaged to pay.

Still more, he was to restore Bourbon and the rest of the rebels to their

estates and honours. The whole of the conditions were so monstrous,

that they cannot be read without astonishment at the rapacity of this

triumphant prince. But to gain his liberty Francis signed the Treaty.

Henry VIII. was one of the first amongst princes to send ambassadors to

congratulate Francis on his restoration to freedom, and to urge him to

break every article of the infamous terms which had been forced upon him.

Sir Thomas Cheney was sent from England to meet Dr. Taylor, the English

ambassador at Paris; and together they proceeded to Bayonne, and were

introduced to Francis, who told them he greatly felt the friendship of

Henry, who had, indeed, remonstrated with Charles on his behalf, though

Charles had not paid much respect to the intercession. There was no need

of any arguments from the two English casuists to induce Francis to break

the engagements he had entered into. He had never meant to keep them.

Before signing the document, he had protested, before two notaries and a

few confidential friends, that he had acted under restraint, and that he

should hold himself bound to observe none of the conditions which were

not just and reasonable.

Two ambassadors had attended him from Spain to take his signature of

the Treaty, when he was free and on his own soil, as a ratification of

it, which he had engaged to give; but when the ambassadors presented

themselves for this purpose, Francis declined, affirming that he could

not enter into any such engagements without the advice of his council and

the approbation of his subjects. He assured them, however, that he would

immediately summon an assembly of the notables at Cognac, and requested

them to attend him thither, to learn the decision of the assembly. This

body met at that place in June, and declared, with one voice, that the

king had no right or power to sever Burgundy from the kingdom without

their consent, and such consent they would never give. The Spanish

ambassadors were present when this decision was pronounced, and they said

that the king, not being able to fulfil his contract, was bound to return

to his captivity, and they called upon him to obey. Instead of a direct

answer to this demand, a treaty betwixt the King of France, the Pope,

the Venetians, and the Duke of Milan, which had been secretly concluded

a few days before, was produced, and published in their hearing. As this

was tantamount to a declaration of war, the ambassadors demanded their

passports, and returned to Spain. The Pope, on entering into this league,

absolved Francis from all the forced oaths that he had sworn.

This confederacy of Francis and the Italian princes and states against

the emperor, bound the Allies to raise and pay an army of 30,000 foot

and 3,000 horse, with a certain number of ships and galleys. The King of

France was to be put in possession of the county of Asti and the lordship

of Genoa; and Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, engaged to pay him 50,000

crowns annually. Naples was to be wrested from Charles, and its crown

placed at the disposal of the Pope; but the king whom he appointed was to

pay an annuity of 75,000 crowns to the King of France. Henry of England,

though he declined to take any active part in the league, but consented

merely to be nominated its protector, was to have a principality in

Naples, with 36,000 ducats a year; and the cardinal, who always came in

for his share of spoil, was to have a lordship worth 10,000 ducats.

So closed the year 1526; and the new year opened with preparations

for still more terrors for devoted Italy. The Emperor Charles had no

money to maintain the troops necessary for the extensive domination

that he aimed at, and he therefore allowed the mercenary troops in his

employment, rather than in his pay, to indemnify themselves by the

plunder of the wretched inhabitants of the countries where they were

collected. These troops consisted of a mob of vagabonds, outlaws, and

marauders, from every country in Europe, who, by their long course of

licentious freedom, were become utterly callous to the sufferings which

they inflicted. Freundsberg, a German soldier of fortune, was at the head

of 15,000 of these adventurers, consisting of Germans, Spaniards, and

Swiss; and Bourbon, at the head of 10,000 more half-starved and half-clad

mercenaries, was in possession of the whole duchy of Milan, but with

no means of supporting his position. These two ferocious hordes having

formed a junction under his banner, clamoured for their pay; Bourbon told

them he had no money, and that Milan had been so repeatedly overrun and

ravaged, that it was destitute of all means of supporting them; but that

he would lead them into the enemy's country--into the richest cities

of Italy--where they might amply indemnify themselves for all their

past sufferings. Animated by these assurances, they swore to follow him

whithersoever he might lead them. They marched on Rome, and sacked it,

losing, however, their leader, who fell in the attack.

The news of the sacking of Rome, and the imprisonment of the Pope,

excited the most lively sensations of horror and indignation throughout

the Christian, and especially the Catholic, world. None appeared more

affected than the emperor, by whose troops the sacrilegious deed had been

perpetrated. He put himself and his Court into the deepest mourning,

forbade rejoicing for the birth of his son, and commanded prayers to

be offered in the churches throughout Spain for the liberation of His

Holiness. No one could play off a piece of solemn hypocrisy more solemnly

than Charles V. Francis and Henry, who were making a fresh treaty of

alliance, were at once affected with real or pretended horror. They

agreed immediately to invade Italy with 30,000 foot, and 1,000 horse, to

join the confederate army there, and drive out the troops of Spain, and

liberate the Pope from the Castle of St. Angelo.

[Illustration: MARTIN LUTHER.

(_After the Portrait by Lucas Cranach, at Florence._)]

But the time was now approaching which was to interrupt the friendship

of Henry with the head of the Church of Rome. The Reformation in Germany

had made an immense progress, and produced the most astonishing events.

The whole mind and intellect of that country had been convulsed by the

preaching of the doctrines of Luther. State had been set against state,

prince against prince; and the bold monk of Wittenberg had only escaped

the vengeance of the Church of Rome by the undaunted championship of the

Elector of Saxony. Henry, fond of school divinity from his youth, and a

great reader and admirer of Thomas Aquinas, had looked across to Germany

with a grim and truculent glance, which seemed to rest on the blunt and

unconventional Reformer with an expression of one who longed to strike

down the daring heretic, and rid the world of him. As this was out of

his power, he determined to annihilate him by his pen; and for this

purpose he had written a book against him, with the title of "A Treatise

on the Seven Sacraments, against Martin Luther, the Heresiarch, by the

Illustrious Prince Henry VIII." This he had caused to be presented to the

Pope by the English ambassador, beautifully written and magnificently

bound, and Leo X. received it with the most extravagant laudations, and

conferred on Henry in 1521 the title of "Defender of the Faith," in a

bull signed by himself and twenty-seven cardinals. Henry really believed

that he had crushed Luther and all his sect; but the free-mouthed

Reformer, who paid no flatteries to king or Pope, soon convinced the

literary monarch that he was as much alive as ever. He wrote a reply to

Henry, in which, giving him commendation for writing in elegant language,

he abused him and his work as broadly as he would have done that of the

obscurest mortal. Henry, in his estimation, was "fool," "liar," "ass,"

"blasphemer." The correspondence which ensued was acrimonious.

The great defender of the faith, at the time at which we are now arrived,

was growing dissatisfied with his wife, and was about to seek a divorce

from her, which must necessarily involve the Pope in difficulties with

the queen's nephew, the Emperor. Henry was married to Catherine when she

was in her twenty-fifth year. So long as the disparity of their ages did

not appear, for he was six years younger, and so long as she was pleasing

in her person, he seemed not only satisfied with, but really attached to

her. But she was now forty-two years of age, had undergone much anxiety

in her earlier years in England, had borne the king five children, three

sons and two daughters, all of whom died in their infancy, except the

Princess Mary, who lived to mount the throne. Catherine, of late years,

had suffered much in her health, and we may judge from the best-known

portrait of her that she had now lost her good looks, and had a

bowed-down and sorrow-stricken air.

Anne Boleyn had been living in France, at first as attendant on Mary,

King Henry's sister, the queen of Louis XII., and afterwards in the

family of the Duke of Alençon. She returned to England on the breaking

out of the war with Francis I., in 1522; and seems, by her beauty, wit,

and accomplishments, to have created a great sensation in the English

Court, where she was soon attached to the service of Queen Catherine.

Henry is said to have first met her by accident, in her father's garden,

at Hever Castle, in Kent; and was so charmed with her that he told Wolsey

that he had been "discoursing with a young lady who had the wit of an

angel, and was worthy of a crown." She is supposed at that time to have

been about one-and-twenty, a brunette of tall and most graceful figure,

and extremely accomplished.

The understanding between Henry and Anne Boleyn soon became obvious

to the whole Court. The queen saw it as clearly as any one else, and

upbraided Henry with it, but does not seem to have used any harshness

to Anne on that account, though she occasionally gave her some sharp

rubs. For instance, once when the queen was playing at cards with Anne

Boleyn she thus addressed her, "My Lady Anne, you have the good hap ever

to stop at a king; but you are like others, you will have all or none."

Cavendish, Wolsey's secretary, says the queen at this trying crisis

"behaved like a very patient Grissel."

Henry now having resolved to marry Anne Boleyn, as he found he could

obtain her on no other terms, felt himself suddenly afflicted with

lamentable scruples of conscience for being married to his brother's

widow, and entertaining equally afflicting doubts of the power of the

Pope to grant a dispensation for such a marriage. For eighteen years

these scruples had rested in his bosom without disturbing a moment of his

repose. It is true that these doubts had been started before the marriage

by Archbishop Warham, but they had no weight with Henry or his father.

Henry had gone into the marriage at the age of eighteen with his eyes

open, having some time before, by his father's order, made a protest

against it for State purposes, and had been ever since, till he saw Anne

Boleyn, not only contented but jovial. Now, however, he soon ceased to

be merely scrupulous--he became positive that his marriage was unlawful,

and set to work to write a book to prove it. The king communicated to

Wolsey fully his views regarding the divorce, and Wolsey, who had now

his decided quarrel with Charles for deceiving him in the matter of the

Papacy, and who was equally the enemy of Catherine, she having openly

expressed her resentment of his procuring the destruction of the Duke

of Buckingham, readily fell into the scheme. Wolsey was undoubtedly as

well aware as any one of the love affair going on between Henry and

Anne Boleyn; nothing that was moving at Court could escape him; but he

supposed this affair was only of the same kind as the rest of Henry's

gallantries, and his notion was that some foreign princess would be

selected for Henry's second queen.

But during the discussions on the marriage between the English princess

and the French prince, a circumstance had taken place which showed that

Henry was resolved to let slip no opportunity of carrying his divorce

at all costs. The Bishop of Tarbes suddenly asked the question whether

the legitimacy of the Princess Mary was beyond every legal and canonical

doubt, considering the nature of the king's marriage with her mother, the

queen. Henry and Wolsey affected to be much astonished and agitated at

the question; and the King afterwards made it an argument that the idea

of the illegality of his marriage, though it had originated with himself,

had been greatly strengthened by the question of the bishop, as it showed

how apparent the fact was to strangers and even foreigners. Yet the

suggestion had undoubtedly been made to the bishop by Wolsey on Henry's

behalf. The meaning of the question was quite obvious--it was to serve

the cause of the divorce, which was an object highly pleasing to Francis

I., in his resentment of the treatment of himself by the Emperor; but it

was not believed for a moment to indicate real doubt even on the part of

the French king, or he would not have proceeded to confirm the choice of

an illegitimate maiden for the Queen of France, or the wife of his son.

At the close of this treaty, Wolsey was sent over to France, rather to

show to Europe, and particularly to the King of Spain, the intimate

footing between France and England, than for any real use. It was

believed that Anne Boleyn and her friends were at the bottom of Wolsey's

being sent abroad for a time, that the affairs regarding "the king's

secret" might proceed without his cognisance; and, indeed, before his

return, it had ceased to be a secret to any one. Anne had become openly

acknowledged as the king's favourite, and had assumed an air and style

of magnificence and consequence on account of it. Meantime, Wolsey,

misled by his idea that the king meant to marry a foreign princess, had

committed himself deeply, and supplied fresh and serious materials for

his own destruction. He had given hints of the divorce of Henry, and of

his probable marriage with a princess of the Court of France. He told

Louise, the French king's mother, that "if she lived another year, she

should see as great union on one side, and disunion on the other, as she

would ask or wish for. These," he added, "were not idle words. Let her

treasure them up in her memory; time would explain them."

The cardinal had, in fact, been looking round him at the French Court for

a wife for Henry, and had selected the Princess Renée, sister of the late

Queen Claude, while Henry himself had settled his choice nearer home. On

the return of Wolsey, all being now prepared, Henry communicated to the

astonished man the secret of his intended marriage with Anne. Confounded

at the disclosure, the proud cardinal dropped on his knees, and, it is

said, remained there for some hours pleading with the king against this

infatuation, as he deemed it, and which he saw compromised himself with

the Court of France, and menaced him darkly in the future, from the

deep enmity of her who would thus become his queen. His pleadings and

arguments were vain. His fair enemy had made her ground wholly secure in

his absence, and Wolsey withdrew with gloomy forebodings.

The communication of the king's secret to Wolsey was immediately followed

by more active measures, in which Wolsey, however averse, was obliged to

co-operate. The king's treatise was now submitted to Sir Thomas More,

who at once saw the peril of acting as a judge in so delicate a matter,

declared that he was no theologian, and therefore unqualified to decide.

It was next laid before the Bishop of Rochester, who decided against it.

Henry then directed Sir Thomas to apply to some other of the bishops;

but as he was hostile to the treatise himself, he was not likely to be

a very persuasive pleader for it with others. None of the bishops would

commit themselves, and Sir Thomas advised Henry to see what St. Jerome,

St. Augustine, and the other fathers of the Church said upon it. Henry

then employed the more unscrupulous agency of Wolsey with the prelates,

who plied them with all his eloquence; but the most that he could

obtain from them was that the arguments of the king's book furnished a

reasonable ground for a scruple, and that he had better apply to the Holy

See, and abide by its decision.

With the nation at large, the proposal of the amorous king was still

less popular than with the bishops. They had a great veneration for the

insulted Catherine, who had maintained for so many years the most fair

and estimable character on the throne, and against whose virtue not a

word had ever been breathed. They attributed this scheme to the acts

of the cardinal, who was the enemy of the Emperor and the warm ally of

France; and they dreaded that the divorce might lead to war and the

suppression of the profitable trade with the Netherlands.

Unable to obtain much sanction at home, Henry at length referred the

cause to the Pope; and Stephen Gardiner--then known by the humble name

of Mr. Stephen--and Bishop Fox went in 1528 to Italy with the Royal

instructions. The grand difficulty was to effect the divorce in so

legal and complete a manner that no plea might be able to be brought

against the legitimacy of the proposed marriage. For three months fresh

instructions were issued and revoked, and issued in amended form again,

which were laid before Dr. Knight, the king's agent at the Papal Court,

and the three brothers Casali, Wolsey's agents, and before Staphilaeo,

Dean of the Rota, who had been gained over whilst lately in London.

But the Emperor had not been idle. The Pope, as we have seen, had been

shut up by the Imperial troops in the Castle of St. Angelo; and, in

negotiation for his liberation, Charles had made it one of the principal

stipulations of his release that he should not consent to act preparatory

to a divorce without the previous knowledge of Charles himself. Scarcely

had the Pope made his escape to Orvieto, when the English emissaries

appeared before him. Poor Clement was thrown into a terrible dilemma.

The Imperialists were still in possession of Rome, and if he consented

to the request of Henry, he had nothing to expect but vengeance from the

Emperor. To make the matter worse, a French army, under the command

of Lautrec, and accompanied by Sir Robert Jerningham as the English

commissary, which had been sent over the Alps to his assistance, and to

enable him to recover his capital, loitered at Piacenza, and delayed the

chance of the restoration and defence of Rome.

The English envoys presented to him two instruments, which had been

prepared by the learned agents above named, by the first of which he

was to empower Wolsey, or in case of any objection to him, Staphilaeo,

to hear and decide the case of the divorce; and by the second he was to

grant Henry a dispensation to marry, in the place of Catherine, any other

woman soever, even if she were already promised to another, or related

to him in the first degree of affinity. This was a most extraordinary

proceeding, an acknowledgment by Henry of the very power in the Pope

which he affected to doubt and deny. The objection to the marriage of

Henry with Catherine was that she was within the proscribed degree of

affinity, having been his brother's wife. Moreover, as Henry was accused,

and this instrument appeared to admit the charge, of having established

the same degree of relationship, though illicitly, with Mary Boleyn, the

_sister_ of Anne, as had existed between Catherine and his _brother_

legally, this document was to prevent any objections to the marriage with

Anne.

The Pope signed both instruments, but recommended that Henry should keep

them secret till the French army, under Lautrec, should arrive, and free

him from fears, even for his life, of the vengeance of the Emperor. When

this should have taken place, he promised to issue a second commission of

the same import, which might at once be publicly proceeded with.

Scarcely, however, had Dr. Knight left Orvieto, when Gregorio da Casali

brought a request from the English Court that a legate from Rome might be

joined in the commission with Wolsey. To this Clement observed that the

King of England was pursuing a very circuitous course. If the king was

really convinced in his conscience that his present marriage was null, he

had better marry again, and then he himself or a legate could decide the

question at once. But if a legate were to sit in jurisdiction, there must

be appeals to himself in Rome, exceptions, and adjournments, which would

make it an affair of years. But, after saying this, the Pope signed the

requisition.

At the instigation of Wolsey, who was anxious that the treaty which

he had signed with France should be carried into effect, war was now

declared formally against the Emperor. The news of the war was received

in England with the utmost disgust and discontent. The people denounced

the cardinal as the troubler of the kingdom and the interrupter of its

commerce. The merchants refused to frequent the new marts in France,

which were appointed instead of their accustomed ones in the Netherlands.

The wool-combers, spinners, and clothiers were stopped in their sales

by this resolve on the part of the merchants; their people were all

thrown out of work; and the spirit of commotion grew so strong that there

were serious fears of open outbreaks. In the council, the cardinal had

as little support in his policy as he did elsewhere. There was not a

member, except himself, who was an advocate of the French alliance; but

all his colleagues at the council-table were eagerly watching for some

chance which should hasten his downfall. Even the king himself was averse

from the war with his nephew; and especially as he was aware that the

fear of Charles's resentment deterred Clement from cordially proceeding

with the divorce; and Henry hinted that if peace were restored, Charles

might be induced to withdraw his opposition. Fortunately, the Flemings

were as much incommoded by the breach of commercial relations as the

English; and the Archduchess Margaret, the Governess of the Netherlands,

had the prudence to make a proposition that peace should be restored.

Negotiations commenced, and were carried on for some time for a general

pacification; but this being proved unattainable, a peace was concluded

with the Netherlands, and the state of war was allowed to remain between

England and Spain.

But the fact was, the war, so far as regarded these two countries,

was merely nominal; it raged only in Italy, between the French and

the Imperialists. Henry had no money for war, and, besides, his whole

thoughts and energies were occupied in carrying through the divorce,

which he now found a most formidable affair, fresh difficulties starting

up at every step. Had Catherine been only an English subject, instead

of the aunt of the great monarch of Germany, Flanders, and Spain, Henry

would have made short work of his conscience and of the poor woman who

was in the way. He would have charged her with some heinous and revolting

crime, and severed her head from her shoulders at a blow, and all his

difficulties with it. But he had not only royal blood to deal with, but

all the ancient prejudices that surrounded it, and which would have

made him execrated over the whole world had he spilled it. He knew that

Charles was watching intently to catch him at a disadvantage, and he

never felt himself safe in his proceedings.

[Illustration: THE TRIAL OF QUEEN CATHERINE. (_See p._ 151.)

(_After the Picture by Laslett J. Pott._)]

It now occurred to him that, though the Pope had granted permission for

Wolsey and the legate to decide this momentous question, yet he might be

induced, by the influence of Charles, to revise and reverse the sentence

pronounced by his delegates: and this might involve him in inextricable

dilemmas, especially should he have acted on the sentence of divorce, and

married again.

Clement was placed in a very trying situation. He was anxious to oblige

Henry, but to grant the bull confirming the sentence to be pronounced

by Wolsey and the Legate, was to annihilate the dogma of Papal

infallibility, for Julius II. had granted the Church's dispensation,

notwithstanding the fact of Catherine's union with Henry's brother.

Clement had been also informed that Henry's object was only to gratify

the wish of a woman who was already living in adultery with him. But

this was rebutted by a letter already received from Wolsey, assuring

the Pope that Anne Boleyn was a lady of unimpeachable character. Driven

from this point, Clement still demurred as to the formidable bull; and

only consented, after consultation with a convocation of cardinals and

theologians, to issue an order for a commission to inquire into the

validity of the dispensation granted by Pope Julius, and to revoke it, if

it was found to have been by any means surreptitiously obtained.

Campeggio, who had most reluctantly undertaken the appointment of

commissioner in this case, was all this time slowly, very slowly,

progressing towards England. He was an eminent professor of the canon

law, and an experienced statesman. He had been a married man, and had a

family; but, on the death of his wife, in 1509, he had taken orders, was

made cardinal in 1517, and had been employed by Leo and his successors in

various arduous cases to their highest satisfaction. Campeggio arrived in

London at last, on the 7th of October, 1528, but in such exhaustion, from

violent and long attacks of the gout, that he was carried in a litter to

his lodgings, and remained for some time confined to his bed. Henry, with

his characteristic hypocrisy, on the approach of the legate, again sent

away his mistress, and recalled his obliging wife, with whom he appeared

to be living on the most affectionate terms. They had the same bed and

board, and went regularly through the same devotions. The arrival of

the legate raised the courage of the people, who were unanimous in the

favour of the queen, and, though Wolsey made every exertion to silence

and restrain them, they loudly declared that, let the king marry whom he

pleased, they would acknowledge no successor in prejudice to Mary.

It was a fortnight before the legate was ready to see the king. On the

22nd of October he made his visit, and was, of course, most graciously

received by Henry and the cardinal, but they could extract from him no

opinion as to the probable result of the inquiry which was at hand.

Henry and Wolsey exerted all their arts to win over the great man. The

king paid him constant visits; and to mollify and draw him out heaped

all sorts of flatteries upon him, and made him the most brilliant

promises. He had already made him Bishop of Salisbury, and presented

him with a splendid palace in Rome; and he now offered to confer on him

the rich bishopric of Durham, and knighted his son Ridolfo, by whom

he was accompanied. But nothing moved the impenetrable ecclesiastic;

for if favours were heaped on him here, terrors awaited him at Rome

if he betrayed the trust of his master, the Pope. He replied to all

solicitations that he had every disposition to serve the king, so far

as his conscience would permit him. To produce a favourable bias in the

opinions of the inexorable man, the judgments of eminent divines and

doctors of the canon law on the king's case were laid before him. These

he read, but still kept his own ideas locked in his breast.

Henry next endeavoured to obtain from Campeggio the publication of

the decretal bull, or, at least, that it should be shown to the Privy

Council, but the legate remained firm to his instructions. The king's

agents at the same time plied Clement with persuasives to the same end,

but with the same result. So far from giving way, the agents informed

Henry that the Emperor had given back to the Pope Civita Vecchia and

all the fortresses which he had taken from the Holy See, and that it

was to be feared that there was a secret understanding between the Pope

and Charles. At this news Henry despatched Sir Francis Bryan, Master of

the Henchmen, and Peter Vannes, his secretary of the Latin tongue, to

Francis I., upbraiding him with his neglect in permitting this to go

on; and they then proceeded to Italy, and requested the Pope to cite all

Christian princes to meet in Avignon and settle their differences. In

the meantime these agents were to consult the most celebrated canonists

at Rome on the following extraordinary points:--"1. Whether, if a wife

were to make a vow of chastity, and enter a convent, the Pope could not,

in the plenitude of his power, authorise the husband to marry again. 2.

Whether, if the husband were to enter into a religious order, that he

might induce the wife to do the same, he might not afterwards be released

from his vow, and have liberty to marry. 3. Whether, for reasons of

State, the Pope could not license a prince to have, like the ancient

patriarchs, two wives, of whom one only should be publicly acknowledged,

and enjoy the honours of royalty."

On the 6th of February, 1529, the intelligence arrived that Clement

was dying, and by that time was probably dead. Now was the time to

place Wolsey in the Papal chair, and thus end all difficulties. Francis

promised cordially to aid in the attempt; but, to their dismay, Clement

revived, and dashed their hopes to the ground. Made desperate by these

chances, Henry now gave the invalid Pope no rest from his solicitations.

His agents forced themselves into his very sick chamber, and demanded

that the fatal mandate of dispensation granted by Julius II.--a copy

of which Catherine had obtained from Spain--should be revoked, or that

Charles should be compelled to exhibit the original. But the Pope

remained firm. He declared that he could not depart from the course

already prescribed, that Catherine had even entered a protest in his

Court against the persons of her judges, and he recommended Henry to lose

no time, but to try to determine the matter in his own realm.

The Court which was to try the cause met in the Parliament chamber in

the Blackfriars, and summoned the king and queen to appear before it on

the 18th of June. Henry appeared by proxy; Catherine obeyed the summons

in person, but only to protest against the judges as the subjects of

Henry, her accuser, and to appeal to the Pope. This appeal was overruled,

and the Court adjourned to the 21st of June. On this day both Henry and

Catherine appeared, the king sitting in state on the right hand of the

cardinal and legate, and Catherine sat on their left, attended by four

friendly bishops. On their names being called, Henry answered "Here!" but

Catherine was unable to reply. On being again cited, however, she rose

and repeated her protest on three grounds,--first, as being a stranger;

secondly, because the judges were subjects, and held benefices, the

gift of her adversary; and last, because from such a Court she could

not expect impartiality. This protest being held inadmissible, she rose

again, crossed herself, and, leaning on her maids, approached the king,

threw herself at his feet, and addressed him in a pathetic speech.

On the 25th of June Catherine was summoned before the Court again, but

she refused to appear, sending in, however, and causing to be read,

her appeal to the Pope. On this she was declared contumacious; and the

king's counsellors asserted that the following points had been clearly

proved:--That her marriage with Prince Arthur had been consummated, and,

therefore, her marriage with Henry was unlawful; that the dispensation

of Julius II. had been obtained under false pretences and a concealment

of facts; and that the Papal brief which had been sent from Spain was

a forgery. They therefore called on the judges to pronounce for the

divorce. But even had all this been proved, which it had not, Campeggio

was not intending to do anything of the kind. The peace which had been

rumoured between the Pope and the Emperor had been signed on the 29th

of June, and Clement was now much at his ease. On the 23rd of July, no

progress being made, Henry summoned the Court, and demanded judgment in

imperious terms. But Campeggio replied with unmoved dignity:--"I have

not come so far to please any man for fear, meed, or favour, be he king

or any other potentate. I am an old man, sick, decayed, looking daily

for death; what should it then avail me to put my soul in the danger of

God's displeasure, to my utter damnation, for the favour of any prince

or high estate in this world? Forasmuch, then, that I perceive that the

truth in this case is very difficult to be known; that the defendant

will make no answer thereunto, but hath appealed from our judgment;

therefore, to avoid all injustice and obscure doubts, I intend to proceed

no further in this matter until I have the opinion of the Pope and such

others of his council as have more experience and learning. I, for this

purpose, adjourn this Court till the commencement of the next term, in

the beginning of October."

It would be difficult to conceive the state of agitation into which the

Court of Henry was now thrown. Instead of receiving a decision, it was

put off till October; and this was not the worst, for in a few days

news arrived that the commission of the cardinals had been revoked by

the Pope on the 15th of July, or eight days previous to the adjournment,

and that the Papal Court had entertained the appeal of Queen Catherine,

and recalled Campeggio. Thus, not even in October was there any chance

of a decision, and had such been arrived at now it would have been null,

the commission having previously expired. Still worse, while Henry was

in the highest state of irritation, there came an instrument from Rome,

forbidding him to pursue his cause by the legates, but citing him to

appear by attorney in the Papal Court, under a penalty of 10,000 ducats.

Campeggio departed from England at the commencement of Michaelmas term.

At the interview in which he took his leave of the king, Henry behaved

with much politeness to the Italian legate, but treated Wolsey with

marked coldness. Showing a disposition to relent later on in the same

day, Henry was at once so worked upon by the Boleyn faction that he

undertook never more to see the cardinal, whose fall was now certain.

Indeed, on account of his failure to obtain the divorce, Wolsey was

doomed to destruction. On the 9th of October, the same month as he opened

the Court of Chancery, he perceived a deadly coldness as of winter frost

around him. No one did him honour--the sun of Royal favour had set to

him for ever. On the same day Hales, the attorney-general, filed two

bills against him in the King's Bench, charging him with having incurred

the penalty of Præmunire by acting in the kingdom as the Pope's legate.

This was a most barefaced accusation, for he had accepted the legatine

authority by Henry's express permission; had exercised it for many years

with his full knowledge and approbation, and, in the affairs of the

divorce, at the earnest request of the king. But Henry VIII. had no law

but his own will, and never wanted reasons for punishing those who had

offended him.

Of Wolsey, as he appeared at this moment, scathed and stunned by the

thunderbolt of the royal wrath, we have a striking picture. The Bishop

of Bayonne, the French ambassador, says in a letter:--"I have been

to visit the cardinal in his distress, and I have witnessed the most

striking change of fortune. He explained to me his hard case in the worst

rhetoric that was ever heard. Both his tongue and his heart failed him.

He recommended himself to the pity of the king and madame [Francis I. and

his mother] with sighs and tears; and at last left me, without having

said anything near so moving as his appearance. His face is dwindled to

one-half its natural size. In truth, his misery is such that his enemies,

Englishmen as they are, cannot help pitying him. Still, they will carry

things to extremities. As for his legation, the seals, his authority,

etc., he thinks no more of them. He is willing to give up everything,

even the shirt from his back, and live in a hermitage, if the king would

but desist from his displeasure."

On the 17th of October Henry sent the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to

demand the Great Seal; and they are said to have done that duty with

some ungenerous triumph. But Wolsey delivered up his authority without

complaint, and only sent in an offer surrendering all his personal estate

to his gracious master, on condition that he might retire to his diocese

on his church property. But the property of Wolsey had long been riveting

the greedy eye of Henry, and, next to Anne Boleyn, that was, probably,

the "weight which pulled him down." A message was soon brought him by

the same noblemen that the king expected an entire and unconditional

submission, whereupon he granted to the king the yearly profits of his

benefices, and threw himself on his mercy. It was then intimated that His

Majesty meant to reside at York Place (Whitehall) during the Parliament,

and that Wolsey might retire to Esher Place, in Surrey, a house belonging

to his bishopric of Winchester.

On the 3rd of November, after the long intermission of seven years,

a Parliament was called together. The main object of this unusual

occurrence was to complete the ruin of Wolsey, and place it beyond the

power of the king to restore him to favour--a circumstance of which the

courtiers were in constant dread. The committee of the House of Lords

presented to the king a string of no less than forty-four articles

against the fallen minister, enumerating and exaggerating all his

offences, and calling upon the monarch to take such order with him "that

he should never have any power, jurisdiction, or authority hereafter,

to trouble, vex, and impoverish the commonwealth of this your realm, as

he hath done heretofore, to the great hurt and damage of almost every

man, high or low." This address was carried to the Commons for their

concurrence; but there Thomas Cromwell, who by the favour of Wolsey had

risen from the very lowest condition to be his friend and steward, and

was now advanced to the king's service by the particular recommendation

of the cardinal, attacked the articles manfully, and caused the Commons

to reject them, as the members were persuaded that Cromwell was acting

by suggestion of the king; which is very probable, for so far from Henry

showing Cromwell any dislike for this proceeding, he continued to promote

him, till he became his prime minister, and was created Earl of Essex.

[Illustration: THE DISMISSAL OF WOLSEY. (_See p._ 152.)]

Henry, having now seized upon all the cardinal's property, the incomes

of his bishoprics, abbeys, and other benefices, his colleges at Ipswich

and Oxford, with all their furniture and revenues, his pensions, clothes,

and even his very tomb, seemed contented to leave him his life. He,

therefore, on the 12th of February, 1530, granted him a full pardon for

all his real and pretended crimes. He allowed him, moreover, to retain

the revenues of York. He gave him also a pension of 1,000 marks a year

out of the bishopric of Winchester, and soon after sent him a present of

£3,000 in money; and in plate, furniture, &c., the value of £3,374 3s.

7d., and gave him leave to reside at Richmond.

This new flow of royal favour wonderfully revived the cardinal's hopes,

and as vividly excited the fears of the Boleyn party. To have this

formidable man residing so near them as Richmond was too perilous to be

thought of. Some fine morning the king might suddenly ride over there,

and all be undone. Henry was, therefore, besieged with entreaties to

remove him farther from the Court, and to such a distance as should

prevent the possibility of an interview. They prevailed, and Wolsey

received an order through his friend Cromwell to go and reside in his

archbishopric of York. To the cardinal, who felt a strong persuasion

that if he could but obtain an interview with the king all would be set

right, this was next to a death-warrant. He entreated Cromwell to obtain

leave for him to reside at Winchester, but this was refused, and the Duke

of Norfolk, Anne's uncle, sent Wolsey word that if he did not get away

immediately into the North he would come and tear him in pieces with his

teeth. "Then," said Wolsey, "it is time for me to be gone."

Delighted with their metropolitan, the clergy of York waited upon him in

a body, and begged that he would allow himself to be installed in his

cathedral, according to the custom of his predecessors. Wolsey, after

taking time to consider of it, consented, on condition that it should be

done with as little splendour as possible. No sooner, however, was this

news divulged than the noblemen, gentlemen, and clergy of the county

sent into York great quantities of provisions, and made preparations

for a most magnificent feast. But this was suddenly prevented by a

very unexpected event. On the 4th of November, only three days before

the grand installation was to come off, the Earl of Northumberland,

accompanied by Sir William Walsh and a number of horsemen, arrived at

Cawood. Wolsey, believing in good news, went out to receive the Earl with

a cheerful countenance; and, observing his numerous retinue, he said,

"Ah! my lord, I perceive that you observe the precepts and instructions

which I gave you, when you were abiding with me in your youth, to cherish

your father's old servants." He then took the earl affectionately by the

hand, and led him into a bed-chamber. There he no doubt expected to hear

good tidings; but the earl, though greatly affected and embarrassed, laid

his hand on the old man's shoulder, and said, "My lord, I arrest you of

high treason." Wolsey was struck dumb, and stood motionless as a statue.

He then bowed to the order, and prepared for his journey. On his way to

London he was seized with dysentery at Sheffield Park, the mansion of

the Earl of Shrewsbury. The attack left him so weak that he was glad to

accept the hospitality of Leicester Abbey, where the abbot, at the head

of a procession of the monks, with lighted torches, received him. He was

completely worn out, and being lifted from his mule, said, "I am come,

my brethren, to lay my bones amongst you." The monks carried him to his

bed, where he swooned repeatedly; and the second morning his servants,

who had watched him with anxious affection, saw that he was dying. He

called to his bedside Sir William Kingston, and amongst others, addressed

to him these remarkable words:--"Had I but served God as diligently as I

have served the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.

But this is the just reward that I must receive for my diligent pains

and study, not regarding my service to God, but only to my prince. Let

me advise you to take care what you put in the king's head, for you can

never put it out again. I have often kneeled before him, sometimes three

hours together, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but could not

prevail. He is a prince of most royal courage, and hath a princely heart;

for, rather than miss or want any part of his will, he will endanger one

half of his kingdom." On the 29th of November, 1530, thus died Thomas,

Lord Cardinal Wolsey, one of the most extraordinary characters that was

ever raised up and again overthrown by the mere will of a king, and who

unconsciously contributed to one of the most extensive revolutions of

human mind and government which the world has known.

In following the story of Wolsey to its close, we have a little

overstepped the progress of affairs. As soon as the great man was

out of the way, a ministry was formed of the leading persons of the

Boleyn party. The Duke of Norfolk, Anne's uncle, was made President of

the Council, Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Lord Marshal, and the Earl of

Wiltshire, the father of Anne Boleyn, had a principal place. Sir Thomas

More, unfortunately for him as it proved, was made Lord Chancellor

instead of Wolsey, a promotion which he reluctantly accepted. Amongst

the king's servants, Stephen Gardiner, who had been introduced and

much employed by Wolsey, still remained high in the king's favour, and

occupied the post of his secretary. Gardiner, a bigoted Catholic, and

afterwards one of the most bloody persecutors of the Reformers, now,

however, in trying to promote the wishes of the king for the divorce,

unconsciously promoted the Reformation.

[Illustration: CARDINAL WOLSEY AT LEICESTER ABBEY.

FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR JOHN GILBERT, R.A., P.R.W.S. AT THE VICTORIA AND

ALBERT MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.]

The king, returning from the progress which he had made to Moore Park,

and to Grafton, remained one night at Waltham. Gardiner and Fox were

lodged in the house of a Mr. Cressy, a gentleman of good family. After

supper the conversation turned on the grand topic of the day--the king's

divorce, and Gardiner and Fox detailed the difficulties that surrounded

it, and the apparent impossibility of getting the Pope to move in it. A

grave clergyman, the tutor of the family, of the name of Thomas Cranmer,

after listening to the discourse, was asked by Fox and Gardiner what

he thought of the matter. At first he declined to give his opinion on

so high a matter, but being pressed, he said, he thought they were

wrong altogether in the way they were seeking the divorce. As the Pope

evidently would not commit himself upon the subject, his opinion was

that they should not waste any more time in fruitless solicitations at

Rome, but submit this plain question to the most learned men and chief

universities of Europe: "Do the laws of God permit a man to marry his

brother's widow?" If, as he imagined, the answers were in the negative,

the Pope would not dare to pronounce a sentence in opposition to the

opinions of all these learned men and learned bodies.

On the return of the Court to Greenwich, Fox and Gardiner related this

conversation to the king, who instantly swore that "the man had got

the right sow by the ear," and ordered him instantly to be sent for to

Court. Cranmer, on his arrival, maintained his opinion in a manner which

wonderfully delighted Henry, and raised his hope of having at length hit

on the true mode of solving the difficulty.

Agents were despatched to obtain the required opinion from the different

universities, both in England and on the Continent, well provided with

that most persuasive of rhetoricians--money. At his own universities,

however, Henry found no little opposition. On the Continent, where

Henry's menaces had no weight, his purse was freely opened; and the

universities of Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara, as well as many learned

men, were prevailed on to take the view that Henry wished. In Germany

his agents were far less successful. Both Protestants and Catholics

in general condemned his proposed divorce; and Luther and Melanchthon

said he had much better follow the example of the patriarchs, and take

a second wife, than put away the first without any crime on her part.

From France and its fourteen universities Henry expected much more

compliance, but he was disappointed. From Orleans, Toulouse, and Bourges,

and from the civilians of Angers, doubtful decisions were procured, but

the theologians of the last city maintained the validity of the existing

marriage. The answers from other universities were either not received or

were suppressed.

The scheme of Cranmer had not worked particularly well; the opinions of

the universities were for the most part either adverse, or were forced,

and those of learned men more opposed than coinciding. There needed a

more determined spirit than that of Cranmer to break the way through the

wood of embarrassments in which they were involved, and the right man

now stepped forward in Thomas Cromwell, the former secretary of Wolsey.

He sought an interview with Henry, and determined, according to his own

phrase, "to make or mar," thus addressed him:--"It was not," he observed,

"for him to affect to give advice where so many wise and abler men had

failed, but when he saw the anxiety of his sovereign, he could no longer

be silent, whatever might be the result. There was a clear and obvious

course to pursue. Let the king do just what the princes of Germany

had done, throw off the yoke of Rome; and let him, by the authority,

declare himself, as he should be, the head of the Church within his own

dominions. At present England was a monster with two heads. But let the

king assume the authority now usurped by a foreign pontiff, an authority

from which so many evils and confusions to this realm had flowed, and

the monstrosity would be at an end; all would be simple, harmonious, and

devoid of difficulty. The clergy, sensible that their lives and fortunes

were in the hands of their own monarch--hands which could be no longer

paralysed by alien interference--from haughty antagonists would instantly

become the obsequious ministers of his will."

Henry listened to this new doctrine with equal wonder and delight, and

he thanked Cromwell heartily, and had him instantly sworn of his privy

council.

No time was lost in trying the efficacy of Cromwell's daring scheme.

To sever that ancient union, which had existed so many ages, and was

hallowed in the eyes of the world by so many proud recollections was a

task at which the stoutest heart and most iron resolution might have

trembled; but Cromwell had taken a profound survey of the region he was

about to invade, and had learned its weakest places. He relied on the

unscrupulous impetuosity of the king's passion to bear him through;

he relied far more on the finesse of his own genius. With the calmest

resolution, he laid his finger on one single page of the statute-book,

and knew that he was master of the Church. The law which rendered any

one who received favours direct from the Pope guilty of a breach of the

Statute of Præmunire, permitted the monarch to suspend the action of

this Statute at his discretion. This he had done in the case of Wolsey.

When he accepted the legatine authority, the cardinal took care to obtain

a patent under the Great Seal, authorising the exercise of this foreign

power. But Wolsey, when he was called in question for the administration

of an office thus especially sanctioned by the Crown, neglected to

produce this deed of indemnity, hoping still to be restored to the royal

favour, and unwilling to irritate the king by any show of self-defence.

There lay the concealed weapon which the shrewd eye of Cromwell had

detected, and by which he could overturn the ecclesiastical fabric of

ages. He declared, to the consternation of the whole hierarchy, that not

only had Wolsey involved himself in all the penalties of Præmunire, but

the whole of the clergy with him. They had admitted his exercise of the

Papal authority, and thereby were become, in the language of the Statute,

his "fautors and abettors."

Dire was the dismay which at this charge seized on the whole body of the

clergy. The council ordered the Attorney-General to file an information

against the entire ecclesiastical body. Convocation assembled in haste,

and offered, as the price of a full pardon, £100,000. But still greater

were the amazement and dismay of the clergy, when they found that this

magnificent sum was rejected unless Convocation consented to declare,

in the preamble to the grant, that the king was "the protector and

only supreme head of the Church of England." By the king's permission,

however, the venerable Archbishop Warham introduced and carried an

amendment in Convocation, by which the grant was voted with this clause

in the preamble:--"Of which church and clergy we acknowledge His Majesty

to be the chief protector, the only and supreme lord, and, _as far as

the law of God will allow_, the supreme head." The wedge was introduced;

the severance was certain: the perfect accomplishment of it only awaited

another opportunity for an easier issue. The northern convocation adopted

the same language, and voted a grant of £18,840.

Henry, under the guidance of Cromwell, now procured an act to be passed

by Parliament, abolishing the annates, or first-fruits, which furnished

a considerable annual income to the Pope, and another abrogating the

authority of the clergy in Convocation, and attaching that authority to

the Crown. Feeling that in this struggle he should need the friendship

of Francis, he proposed a new treaty with France, which was signed in

London on the 23rd of June, 1532; and the more to strengthen the alliance

the two monarchs met between Calais and Boulogne. Great preparations

were made on both sides, and Henry begged Francis to bring his favourite

mistress with him. This was as an excuse for Henry to bring Anne Boleyn,

who was now created the Marchioness of Pembroke, and without whom he

could go nowhere. It is said that Francis, during the interview, had

urged Henry to wait no longer for the permission of the Pope, but to

marry the Marchioness of Pembroke without further delay; but it is quite

certain that another counsellor was more urgent, and that was--Time.

It was high time, indeed, that the marriage should take place if they

meant to legitimatise her offspring, for Anne Boleyn was with child.

Accordingly, the marriage took place on the 25th of January, 1533. The

ceremony, however, was strictly private. In fact the marriage was kept

so secret that it was not even communicated to Cranmer, who had just

returned from Germany, and taken up his abode in the family of Anne

Boleyn. Cranmer, whilst in Germany, had married, Catholic priest as he

was, the niece of Osiander, the Protestant minister of Nuremberg. This

lady he had brought secretly to England, and was now living a married

priest, in direct violation of the Church that he belonged to.

Archbishop Warham was now dead, and Henry nominated Cranmer to the vacant

primacy. He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on the 30th of

March, 1533, and he was immediately ordered to proceed with the divorces.

The new primate, therefore, wrote on the 11th of April, a formal letter

to the king, soliciting the issue of a commission to try that cause, and

pronounce a definite sentence. This was immediately done; and Cranmer,

as the head of this commission, accompanied by Gardiner, now Bishop of

Winchester, the Bishops of London, Lincoln, Bath, and Wells, with many

other divines and canonists, opened their court at Dunstable, in the

monastery of St. Peter, six miles from Ampthill, where the queen resided.

On the 12th of May Cranmer pronounced Catherine contumacious, and on the

23rd, he declared her marriage was null and invalid from the beginning.

On the 28th, in a court held at Lambeth, the archbishop pronounced the

king's marriage with Anne Boleyn to be good and valid. On the 1st of

June, being Whit Sunday, Anne was crowned with every possible degree of

pomp and display.

Henry, notwithstanding his separation from Rome, was anxious to obtain

the sanction of his marriage by the Pope; but, instead of that, Clement

fulminated his denunciations against him over Europe. He annulled

Cranmer's sentence on Henry's first marriage, and published a bull

excommunicating Henry and Anne, unless they separated before the next

September, when the new queen expected her confinement. Henry despatched

ambassadors to the different foreign courts to announce his marriage, and

the reasons which had led him to it; but from no quarter did he receive

much congratulation.

[Illustration: THE TOWER OF LONDON: SKETCH IN THE GARDENS.]

However sincere and earnest the two principals in this contest, the Pope

and Henry, might be, there were at work in the Court of England and the

Court of Rome parties really more powerful than their principals, who

were resolved that the two desiderata to this pacification never should

be yielded. Cromwell and his party commenced an active campaign in

Parliament for breaking beyond remedy the tie with Rome, and establishing

an independent church in this country. This able man, who for his past

services was now made Chancellor of the Exchequer for life, framed a

series of bills, and introduced them to Parliament, soon after the

Christmas holidays. These included an act establishing the title of the

king as supreme head of the English Church, and vesting in him the right

to appoint to all bishoprics, and to decide all ecclesiastical causes.

Payments or appeals to Rome were strictly forbidden by the confirmation

of the Annates Act, the Act against "Peter Pence," and that "in

Restraint of appeals" whereby the whole Roman jurisdiction in England was

decisively repudiated.

By a further bill, the marriage of Catherine--strangely enough at the

very moment that Henry had conceded its final decision at Rome--was

declared unlawful, and that of Anne Boleyn confirmed. The issue by

the first marriage was declared illegitimate, and excluded from the

succession, and the issue of the marriage of Anne was made inheritable

of the crown, and that only, and any one casting any slander on this

marriage, or endeavouring to prejudice the succession of its issue, was

declared guilty of high treason, if by writing, printing, or deed, and

misprision of treason if by word. Thus was a new power established by

the Crown; every person of full age, or on hereafter coming to full age,

was to be sworn to obey this act. Not only new powers were thus created,

but a new crime was invented; and though this statute was swept away in

the course of a few years, yet it is a remarkable one, for it became the

precedent for many a succeeding and despotic government.